From 5b6468456eee1b13041baf668337a06fe7377d33 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2019 17:24:52 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 01/83] update README --- README.md | 8 +++++++- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 59d550393..8b6534f48 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -32,7 +32,9 @@ There are various flags for controlling the samples: python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py --top_k 40 --temperature 0.7 | tee samples ``` -While we have not yet released GPT-2 itself, you can see some unconditional samples from it (with default settings of temperature 1 and no truncation) in `gpt2-samples.txt`. +While we have not yet released GPT-2 itself, you can see some unconditional samples from it: +- `gpt2-samples.txt` (with default settings of temperature 1 and no truncation) +- `gpt2-topk40-samples.txt` (with temperature 1 and top_k=40 truncation) ## Conditional sample generation @@ -46,3 +48,7 @@ python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py --top_k 40 We may release code for evaluating the models on various benchmarks. We are still considering release of the larger models. + +## License + +Coming soon! From 6dab221dadb20831f74711ff1d3b35ff9f37dc10 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:43:31 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 02/83] reorganize and add temp 0.7 --- README.md | 9 +- gpt-2-samples/unconditional-t07.txt | 29391 ++++++++++++++++ .../unconditional-topk40.txt | 0 .../unconditional.txt | 0 4 files changed, 29396 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100644 gpt-2-samples/unconditional-t07.txt rename gpt2-topk40-samples.txt => gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt (100%) rename gpt2-samples.txt => gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt (100%) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 8b6534f48..a24c8ca60 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -32,10 +32,6 @@ There are various flags for controlling the samples: python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py --top_k 40 --temperature 0.7 | tee samples ``` -While we have not yet released GPT-2 itself, you can see some unconditional samples from it: -- `gpt2-samples.txt` (with default settings of temperature 1 and no truncation) -- `gpt2-topk40-samples.txt` (with temperature 1 and top_k=40 truncation) - ## Conditional sample generation To give the model custom prompts, you can use: @@ -43,6 +39,11 @@ To give the model custom prompts, you can use: python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py --top_k 40 ``` +## GPT-2 samples + +While we have not yet released GPT-2 itself, you can see some samples from it in the `gpt-2-samples` folder. +We show unconditional samples with default settings (temperature 1 and no truncation), with temperature 0.7, and with truncation with top_k 40. + ## Future work We may release code for evaluating the models on various benchmarks. diff --git a/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-t07.txt b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-t07.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bea758afb --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-t07.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29391 @@ +======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== +Makers say the new system is much more difficult to hack + +Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer which comes with an ARM processor, so it's easy to hack. But now the makers of this tiny computer have come up with an even more powerful chip: the Raspberry Pi 2. + +The Raspberry Pi 2 runs an ARM-based processor, which means it's much more difficult to hack. The Raspberry Pi 2 has a much bigger internal memory, so it is also easier to store big programs in memory. It also has a faster processor than its predecessor, and it has a built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. + +The Raspberry Pi 2 has been in the works for about a year, with a number of different designs. The current version is the one shown above, which is a Raspberry Pi Model B. The Raspberry Pi Model A is a Raspberry Pi without an SD card slot, so it doesn't have any built-in internet connectivity. + +The Raspberry Pi Foundation has been working on the Raspberry Pi 2 for some time now, and it's a big improvement over the old Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi 2 is smaller, has more memory, and has better internet connectivity. + +The Raspberry Pi 2 is available for under $30 from a number of places, including Amazon, and will be available in the UK, US, Australia and Europe soon.<|endoftext|>Description + +The new "get up and go" game for the iPhone, the most addictive and fun way to be active! + + +"When you find yourself playing your phone while the refrigerator is running you'll soon be begging for a break. This is a game you should really get into." - Apple + + +"One of the best new games out there." - AppAdvice + + +"One of the best game features on the iPhone and iPod Touch." - 148Apps + + +"I totally love this game. I don't do much walking but I'm always looking for an excuse to get up and walk around. I have been playing this game for a while now and I'm still hooked." - OpenTable.com + + +"It's what you're waiting for" - The Huffington Post + + +"Gets you moving and keeps you moving" - The Daily Mail + + +"The best 'get up and go' game." - The Guardian + + +"I've just downloaded this game and I am loving it. I love the way the music plays while I'm walking and the way the game keeps me moving. The graphics are beautiful and the controls are simple and intuitive." - AppAdvice + + +"I just downloaded this game and I love it. It's the only game that I've found that keeps me moving and focused on my goal." - AppAddict + + +"I love this game because it is simple and easy to play." - AppConvert + + +"The game was extremely easy to learn and I look forward to playing more. I can't wait to see what is going to be in the next update!" - AppAdvice + + +"The game is perfect for anyone who loves walking and has a small iPhone. You can't play this without taking a walk." - AppAdvice + + +"A perfect game for the iPhone" - AppSpy + + +"The best game for the iPhone" - AppSpy + + +"For an iPhone game, it is very innovative and fun. It's just a great idea." - AppSpy + + +"I've never seen one of my friends playing this game, and it's really exciting." - AppSpy + + +"This is one of the best iPhone games I've ever played." - AppAdvice + + +"I play this game every day. The animations are amazing. The sound is great, and the graphics are great. It's really fun and it's a great way to exercise." - AppSpy + + +"I'm enjoying this game all the time. It keeps me moving." - AppSpy + + +"The graphics are great and the music really helps me get moving." - AppSpy + + +"I love this game. It's perfect for a walk or a run." - AppSpy + + +"It's a great way to exercise" - AppSpy + + +"This game is so much fun. It's so much fun that I play it at least twice a day." - AppSpy + + +"It's really fun to run around and work out at the same time!" - AppSpy + + +"I love this game because it's simple." - AppSpy + + +"I love the fact that you can run around and exercise at the same time." - AppSpy + + +"I have never played this game and I'm really enjoying it. It's challenging but fun. I'm excited to see what will be in the next update." - AppSpy + + +"I love running and this game is great for that." - AppSpy + + +"This is the best exercise +======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== +The following information is from the Official World of Warcraft website. + +The Burning Legion is a faction of demonic invaders that preys on the unsuspecting worlds of Azeroth. They are led by the deposed lord of the Burning Legion, Kil'jaeden, and are known to be led by a Kaldorei Highlord. They are also known as the Legion in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. + +Interestingly, when the world was born of the Well of Eternity and gave birth to the World Tree, the true name of the world was not revealed. A book named "The Ebon Herald" by the Prophet Velen alluded to this, and in the book he revealed the name of the world was "Azeroth". + +The Burning Legion was created when the Well of Eternity was destroyed at the dawn of time, and the titans, the leaders of the species of the world, were buried under the ruins. The titans, after giving birth to the world to dwell on, vanished forever and the world was left in the care of the titans. The titans were then buried under the ruins by the Burning Legion. The Legion's servants, the demons, were created from the bones of the fallen titans and the blood of the first born. + +The Burning Legion were created by Kil'jaeden, who had been trapped in the Well of Eternity by the titans. Kil'jaeden was then sent forth by the titans to conquer Azeroth. + +The Burning Legion's main goal is to extinguish life on Azeroth. They are at war with the mortal races, but are also at war with each other. Each demon has a distinct set of goals. The Burning Legion are known to attack outposts of the Alliance and the Horde in order to gain material to fuel their warmachine, and do so on a regular basis. + +Contents show] + +Overview Edit + +The Burning Legion are a faction of demonic invaders that preys on the unsuspecting worlds of Azeroth. They are led by the deposed Lord of the Burning Legion, Kil'jaeden, and are known to be led by a Kaldorei Highlord. They are also known as the Legion in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. + +The Legion are known to be a race of demonic beings, with a number of elemental sub-races. They are also known to be at war with each other. The Burning Legion are known to attack outposts of the Alliance and the Horde in order to gain material to fuel their warmachine, and do so on a regular basis. + +The Burning Legion are the source of the Curse of Flesh, which spreads to all living things in Azeroth. The Burning Legion are also known to have created the Ley-Line Defenses, a gigantic network of energy-infused portals that prevent the passage of the living and the undead. + +The Burning Legion are also known to have created the thum'um, a ritualistic language with known uses on the demon world of Niskara and on Azeroth itself. + +The Burning Legion are known to have created the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, a vast, magical forest that is home to the Kaldorei, the Highborne of the Silver Hand and a great number of other races. + +The Burning Legion are known to have created a number of weapon types. + +The following section contains information from the Warcraft RPG which is considered non-canon. + +Biology Edit + +Gargantuan demons, the Burning Legion are a race of demons whose physiology and diseases are the result of the Curse of Flesh. The physical appearance of these demons is a combination of demons and humanoid creatures; while their skin is of the same color as their surroundings, the most prominent feature of their bodies is a massive black eye set in an otherwise smooth face. + +Each demon is born with a pair of horns and a wide mouth. Among the demons, their skin is often of a dark, mottled color, while their eyes are usually black. The Burning Legion's hunger is also extremely different from those of other demons. Instead of consuming blood from individuals, the Burning Legion's hunger is the only hunger of the world, and causes it to burn with a constant, ravenous intensity. + +The Burning Legion tend to be very large and have a large and complex anatomy. Their bodies are composed mostly of iron and ash, and their skin is quite flexible and malleable. Their horns and teeth are barbed and jagged. + +The Burning Legion have a number of unusual and bizarre abilities. An innocent observer might easily mistake a Burning Legion demon for a normal demon, but the Burning Legion's location also provides them with a great deal of camouflage. + +The Burning Legion have the ability to fly, and can use this ability to move across land and air. They have a particularly powerful form of levitation, allowing them to fly for long distances. The Burning Legion +======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== +Who is behind the attack? + +The group behind the attack are calling themselves The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. They claim to be waging a war against violent extremists, but their tactics include beheading people, holding prisoners hostage, and burning their bodies. + +Who are the victims? + +The attack on the university killed at least 26 people. + +Some of the victims are English and American students, according to reports from The New York Times and the BBC. + +The BBC says that two professors were among those killed. + +Supporters of the Islamic State claim to be behind the attacks. + +What did these people do? + +The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the university. They say that they are fighting for the "Islamic State." + +What is the Islamic State? + +The Islamic State is a terrorist group that is waging an insurgency in Iraq. It is also fighting in Syria, but has not claimed responsibility for the attacks on the university. + +The group was originally a Syrian rebel group that now calls itself ISIS. + +What do they want? + +The Islamic State claims to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate, or a global Islamic state. + +What is the caliphate? + +The Islamic State is claiming an Islamic caliphate. It is a caliphate that is to be established across the world in the Muslim community and that would have the authority to rule by Sharia law, or Islamic law. + +It means an Islamic state, not a state ruled by law. + +The Islamic State has declared that it wants to establish an Islamic caliphate. The caliphate would be a state that would govern based on Shariah, or Islamic law. + +Is a caliphate possible? + +Yes. The caliphate is possible because of the momentum that the Islamic State has gained in Iraq and Syria. + +What would it mean for the West to accept an Islamic caliphate? + +At least a portion of the West. Some scholars have said that the West should accept the caliphate as a means of winning acceptance of a larger caliphate. + +In a recent interview with the BBC, a professor at the University of Montréal, Abdelkader Hamed, said that he believes an Islamic caliphate would be accepted by most of the world. + +What does the Islamic State want? + +The Islamic State claims to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. + +What do they want in Syria? + +The Islamic State has said it wants to establish an Islamic state in Syria. It has said this in Syria as well as Iraq. + +The Islamic State has also said that it wants to establish a caliphate in Libya. + +Is there a caliphate in Egypt? + +No. + +What is the Islamic State's relationship with al-Qaeda? + +The Islamic State and al-Qaeda are not affiliated. + +In a statement, al-Qaeda said that it teaches the principles and practices of the Islamic State and "does not recognize them." + +Is ISIS a threat to the United States? + +ISIS does not pose a direct threat to the United States. ISIS's strategy is not to attack the United States. + +The Islamic State says it is fighting to establish an Islamic state that it calls "the caliphate." + +Is the Islamic State a threat to the United Kingdom? + +No. + +Is the Islamic State a threat to the United States? + +The Islamic State is not a direct threat to the United States, according to the State Department. + +What is the U.S. strategy in Iraq? + +The United States is launching airstrikes to help Iraqi forces liberate cities and villages from ISIS control. + +The U.S. military also has been conducting airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. + +What is the U.S. strategy in Syria? + +The United States does not have a strategy in Syria. + +Is the U.S. strategy in Syria working? + +No. + +What is the U.S. strategy in Iraq? + +The U.S. military has been bombing ISIS targets in Iraq. + +The United States has also been conducting airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria. + +Are the airstrikes working? + +No. + +Why do some people say that the United States is not helping? + +Because the airstrikes are not working. + +What is the U.S. strategy in Iraq? + +The United States has been bombing ISIS targets in Iraq. + +The United States also has been conducting airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria. + +Are the airstrikes working? + +No. + +Why do some people say that the United States is not helping? + +Because the airstrikes are not working. + +What is the U.S. strategy in Syria? + +The United States has been bombing ISIS targets in Syria. + +The United States has also been conducting airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq. + +Are the airstrikes working? + +======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== +Mobs of young men, in blue T-shirts and black balaclavas, waved Ukrainian flags and sang "Glory to Ukraine!" as they gathered in the city center of the eastern city of Donetsk on Saturday, calling for the government in Kiev to leave. + +They chanted, "No to the bandits!" and "We are ready to die for Ukraine!" + +Protesters described the Kiev government as the "bandits" and "fascists" and said they would not leave the streets until the pro-Western authorities in Kiev quit. + +The protesters, who seem to be mainly young men and boys, called for the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, a close ally of Russia whose presidency was ended by the ouster of the Moscow-backed president in February.<|endoftext|>Written by: Carolee + +So I have been trying to find a good way to do my nails. While I can't seem to find a good way to do my nails, I can find a good way to do my eyes for the eyelids. + +I am trying to get my eyelids painted first, then my nails. + +I am trying to get my eyelids painted first, then my nails. I have tried several different brands and blue, pink, purple, and red ones. In the end, I settled on the brand called "Tarte". I can't remember exactly how I got it. I ordered it on the day of my holiday and it was delivered 4 days later. I have been using it for a week now and I love it. + +It also came with a brush and a set of three applicators. I will definitely purchase them again. + +I have also tried the "Makeup Geek" eyeshadows. They are really good at increasing the depth of the colors on my eyes and they are more affordable than the other brands. I am also a fan of the Must Have Shades. + +I also tried out the "Makeup Revolution" eyeshadows and they are a bit more expensive than the other two. + +I have yet to try out the "Powder" eyeshadows. + +So far I am very satisfied. I do think that the powder eyeshadows are a bit too sheer for my taste. But as long as the brand I buy is the same one I used before, I am okay with that. + +I have a couple of other orders coming in soon so we will see how they perform. + +I am also getting the "Color Stick" eyeshadows now. I haven't tried them yet. I think I will give them a shot. + +So my next step is to get my nails painted. I am really excited about it. I think I will post some pictures of how my nails looked on my fingers as well! + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>In the latest issue of "The Revolutionary Communist" we presented a paper by the CWI-USA that deals with "Why the Communist Party in the U.S. Should Never Be Called 'Communist'" (see Vol. 1, No. 1 on this website). It seems to be something of a classic that has been cited a lot of times. It is the paper that is made available on the website and has been in print for a number of years. + +A few comments on the paper. First, it is a bit dated. It was written in the 1980s, when the US was in the midst of the cold war. In that context, the term "socialist" was applied to a wide range of groups and individuals, including Maoists, Trotskyists and liberals. In fact, this paper is really an attempt to refute the claim that the term "communist" had become tainted, but it still makes for a good old-fashioned Marxist critique of the unprincipled use of a term to cover an array of ideological positions, and an outstanding piece of work in its own right. + +Secondly, the paper presents an analysis of the "Communist Party" in the U.S., not as a "political organization" but as a "political organization in capitalist society." That is, it's a party that is acting in the interests of capital and is not a revolutionary group dedicated to overthrowing capital. We have some hope that the document will be useful for those who want to see the "Communist Party" in the U.S. become a revolutionary organization, but it is worth noting that the "Communist Party" in the U.S. is largely an electoral, electoral-oriented organization. + +The third point to make is that the term "communist" is often used in a way that is almost completely divorced from the content of the ideology that it is used to describe. We don't see the term "communist" used exclusively for the ideas of Maoism or Trotskyism. We see it used for the ideas of the leadership of the "Chinese Communist Party" (CCP), for example. In fact, we see +======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== +What Is The Importance Of The QWERTY Layout? + +The QWERTY keyboard layout has been used for over 90 years. It was originally created by the IBM Corporation, in the 1940s. It was originally designed for the typewriter, but it eventually found its way into all kinds of technology like computers, telephones and even calculators. The keyboard layout has been used in popular culture since the days of Star Trek. It's also been used on TV and movies. + +But how do you use a keyboard if you only learn it once? + +This is where I come in. + +The most important part of the QWERTY keyboard layout is the placement of the "home" key. There are many articles out there explaining how to change the keyboard layout, but they're all a little confusing. I've found that using the "home" key in combination with the "delete" key is the most efficient way to learn the keyboard layout. + +Learn The Layout + +The first thing you should do is learn the layout. You can do this for free online. + +I highly recommend learning the QWERTY layout. This is the one that is used on most typewriters and other typewritten devices. The QWERTY layout is also used on computers, how are you to know which one you have? + +Take a look at the below image. This is a screenshot of the Apple keyboard. + +By using the keys on the left you'll learn how to type basic letters. + +Next, take a look at the next image. This is a screenshot of the Microsoft keyboard. + +By using the keys on the right you'll learn how to type letters like "A", "T", "E", "I", "O", "R" and "S". + +Now that you know how to type basic letters you're ready to move on to some letters. You'll be using the keys on the right hand side to type words like "apple", "waffle", "banana", "waffle cake" and "banana" + +Now that you know how to type basic letters you're ready to move on to some letters. You'll be using the keys on the right hand side to type words like "apple", "waffle", "banana", "waffle cake" and "banana". + +Your goal is to type the following letters in order. + +You'll start by typing "apple" and then move onto "waffle" and then to "banana". + +After you've been typing these letters for a while you should start to feel good about yourself. You'll now be able to type more complex words and sentences. + +When you're learning the QWERTY keyboard layout you can use the keys on the right hand side to type words like "apple", "waffle", "banana", "waffle cake" and "banana." + +In order to learn the QWERTY keyboard layout you'll need to type the letters in order. + +When learning the QWERTY keyboard layout you can use the keys on the right hand side to type words like "apple", "waffle", "banana", "waffle cake" and "banana." + +In order to learn the QWERTY keyboard layout you'll need to type the letters in order. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout is also known as the International QWERTY keyboard layout. You can learn more about the QWERTY keyboard layout over here. + +Once you're comfortable typing the QWERTY keyboard layout, you can move onto the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people can be learned over here. + +Work On The QWERTY Layout + +Once you've mastered the QWERTY keyboard layout, it's time to move onto other layouts. + +You can learn more about other keyboard layouts over here. + +For example, you can learn the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people over here. + +You can learn more about the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people over here. + +Once you're comfortable typing the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people you can move onto the QWERTY keyboard layout for right handed people. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout for right handed people can be learned over here. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout for right handed people can be learned over here. + +Once you're comfortable typing the QWERTY keyboard layout for right handed people you can move onto the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people can be learned over here. + +The QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people can be learned over here. + +Once you're comfortable typing the QWERTY keyboard layout for left handed people you can move onto the QWERTY keyboard layout for right +======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== +The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so it is difficult for me to condemn any person when his actions are in the service of the people. But I can't ignore the fact that the far left, in particular, has waged a war on free speech. Their hatred for free speech is the reason that they demand that we accept the use of violence to silence anyone who dares disagree with them. + +One of the most egregious examples of this double standard is the #MeToo movement. This movement has already been labeled a "witch hunt" by the media and social justice warriors, but it's important to understand what exactly this movement is. + +What is the #MeToo movement? + +The #MeToo movement was started by Tarana Burke, who saw the issue of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace as a major problem. Rather than stopping this problem, she wanted the truth to come out and to call out those who perpetuated this problem. + +The movement was born from a desire to expose the perpetrators of sexual harassment, assault, and rape in order to stop it from happening again. It is also a protest against the silence of women who have experienced sexual harassment, assault, or rape. + +Who is behind the #MeToo movement? + +The #MeToo movement is a well-funded, far-left movement that is funded by George Soros, the Ford Foundation, and others. The neo-Marxist movement has been working to silence people who speak out against feminism, multiculturalism, homosexual rights, and other radical causes. + +This movement has been outrageous in its determination to shut down anyone who disagrees with them. They have sought to silence anyone who disagrees with them, even if that person is a well-respected journalist. + +However, it is important to understand that the far left is not the only group that has been working to silence free speech. The far right has also been working to silence free speech, and it is these two groups that are the true enemies of free speech. + +The #MeToo movement is not the only example of the far left shutting down free speech. In fact, a number of far-right groups have been working to silence free speech, including the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the alt-right, and the alt-right trolls. + +Many of these far-right groups have been extremely successful in silencing free speech. For example, the alt-right has successfully shut down campuses across the United States, including University of California campuses, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan. + +The alt-right trolls have successfully shut down free speech on Twitter by calling for the death of prominent anti-fascist activists. These trolls have been able to silence conservative voices in the media, including Breitbart News, The Daily Caller, and The Daily Wire. + +These far-right groups have also shut down free speech by shutting down Milo Yiannopoulos' access to the Internet. The alt-right trolls have also been able to shut down free speech on Facebook by removing the accounts of people who criticized the alt-right on the social network. + +These are the real enemies of free speech. There is no question that the #MeToo movement is a far-left movement, but the #MeToo movement is not the only example of free speech being silenced. + +What are the perpetrators of the #MeToo movement? + +The #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to shut down free speech. + +The movement has been used by the far-left to silence conservative voices and to silence conservatives who disagree with the far-left. The #MeToo movement has been used by the far-left to silence Trump supporters, conservatives, and other conservatives who are simply critical of the far-left. + +But the #MeToo movement has been used by the far left to silence conservative voices because they have been used as the scapegoat for everything that is wrong with society today. The #MeToo movement has been used to silence conservative voices because they are the only ones who can be held responsible for the problems in society today. + +As a result, the #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative voices. + +For example, the #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative voices by blaming conservatives for everything that is wrong in society. The #MeToo movement has been used to silence conservative voices by blaming conservatives for everything that is wrong in society today. + +The #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative voices because the #MeToo movement has been used to silence conservative voices. The #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative voices because the #MeToo movement has been used to silence conservative voices. + +The #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative voices because the #MeToo movement has been used to silence conservative voices. The #MeToo movement has been used as an excuse to silence conservative +======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== +"This is an outrage," said Dr. Ben Carson, a former 2016 Republican presidential candidate who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager. "I have no idea how people can be so ignorant to think that this is a religious issue or a medical issue or a moral issue."<|endoftext|>The global community is reacting to a damning report by a UN agency detailing rampant sexual violence and harassment in the workplace. + +The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) released the findings of a five-year investigation into the workplace to The Guardian. The report found "systemic" gender-based discrimination, harassment and sexual assault in the workplace, and that some women are being forced to leave their jobs because of sexual assault. + +"It's shocking," said Angelina Jolie, the actress who was named the UN's goodwill ambassador for women's rights in 2015, in a press statement. "The report shows that women face life-altering discrimination at work every single day and that we all have a responsibility to protect and work for them." + +Jolie also noted that the report helps highlight the need to reform workplace discrimination laws, to allow both women and men to speak out against what they see as unfair discrimination. + +The report came in the wake of the #MeToo campaign that has spread across the world after actresses including Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow shared their own stories of sexual assault. The #MeToo campaign was founded by Tarana Burke, a former assistant director of the United Nations Development Program, and her friend, Kumi Naidoo. + +In the report, the committee stated that men and women experience sexual harassment in the workplace at nearly the same rate: 20 percent of women reported sexual harassment in the workplace compared to 16 percent of men. The report also found that women who reported being sexually harassed were less likely to be promoted, and that women with children were more likely to experience harassment and sexual assault. + +Women's rights advocates have been calling for a change in the workplace's culture for decades, and have often been met with resistance. + +"You don't have to be a feminist to understand the way that the workplace has been sexist," Alisha Hershberger, a political adviser to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, told the New York Times. "Women are seen as weak and sex objects. Sexism infects almost every institution and part of our culture." + +Herrmann added that the report "provides a glimmer of hope that we can change the way the world works, and that things can get better for women." + +The report did not address the work-life balance of women, however. + +The committee's investigation included an in-depth look at discrimination in the workplace, the sexual harassment of women in the workplace, and the impact on the workplace environment for women. The committee also looked into the lack of sexual harassment training at work and the effectiveness of job training programs for women. + +CEDAW noted that the world is unlikely to see a gender-equitable workplace until the next generation of women becomes "as strong and independent in their careers as they are today." + +The report comes just two weeks after a series of sexual harassment allegations led to the termination of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly. + +Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.<|endoftext|>Back in 2007, the US Congress passed the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (FOAA), which allowed the US to fund the Afghan National Army (ANA) without the knowledge of the Afghan government. The funds were to be used for training, equipment and supplies. The US was using the funds to train and equip the Afghan National Army to fight the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. The US also built and paid for a prison in Afghanistan to detain and interrogate detainees, including US citizens, without the knowledge of the government of Afghanistan. The prison was used as a holding facility for US military detainees. + +This was a gross violation of the laws of war and international law. The US had to provide access to the prisoners and the US government had to allow the Afghan government to interrogate and detain the prisoners. This was not done. + +By 2009, the US government created what it called the Interrogation Cell Facility in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The prison was built and funded by the US government. The cell was built using American taxpayers' money, and US troops paid for it. The cell was built to hold eight detainees at a time. The prison was used to interrogate detainees without the knowledge of the Afghan government. + +This is the US's accounting of what happened. + +The US government is now trying to spin this into something else. + +It has labeled the cell prison a "detention facility" and says it was used for "detention only." + +This is what the US government says about the cell prison: + +"The US government built and paid for the cell facility and +======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== +Prospects look good for Miro Heiskanen to stick with the Blackhawks in 2017-2018 + +The Chicago Blackhawks are expecting to have Miro Heiskanen back in the lineup by the end of the season. + +Heiskanen was a healthy scratch for three games this season and was a healthy scratch for Saturday's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Heiskanen did not see the ice again until Tuesday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +Heiskanen has been on injured reserve since Nov. 7 and has missed 21 games. He missed the past two games with an abdominal injury and was on the ice for the first period of the Blackhawks' 4-3 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday. + +"He was off for a couple of days and then came back and played quite well," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said after the game. "He's worked hard. He's a good player. He's a smart player. He can shoot the puck. He can make plays. He's been in the league for five years, so he's going to come back and play well and be a good player for us."<|endoftext|>The Russian government responded with outrage Thursday to a new U.S. sanctions bill targeting Moscow's financial and energy sectors. The bill, which comes as the United States is conducting a major military operation in Syria, would bar U.S. firms from doing business with Russia's defense and intelligence sectors. + +The new sanctions are "inexcusable and harmful," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a statement. + +He called the bill "a continuation of the U.S. policy of sanctions against our country in the pursuit of its geopolitical interests." + +The new sanctions were proposed in December by the House of Representatives in response to Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The bill has not yet been passed by the Senate. + +The U.S. sanctions bill, which has passed the House of Representatives, would target individuals and companies with ties to the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, including the Russian military, the FSB, and the Russian intelligence service known as the GRU. + +The bill has also been criticized by U.S. officials who say that the new sanctions would have a "chilling effect" on the U.S. and Russian economies, and one of the bill's supporters, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said they were intended to "rein in the excesses of Russia's aggression in Europe." + +The bill would also prohibit U.S. citizens from making financial transactions with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, unless they are doing business with a U.S. company or person. + +Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the bill was "unacceptable" and that Russia would retaliate against the U.S. by imposing its own sanctions. + +"The new U.S. sanctions against Russia are unacceptable," Peskov told reporters. "We are counting on the U.S. to comply with the law, and that will get a response from us." + +U.S. sanctions have already been levied on Russian companies, including state-owned energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Justice have also targeted individuals. + +Russia has denied there is any interference in the U.S. election.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +A quest (quest title) is a short quest that, upon completion, grants you fame or glory. Some quests may be repeated, and some quests may take place in multiple locations. + +Some quests start you on a quest to recover the body of a man. When you return, the quest immediately ends. When you complete the quest, you will receive a reward and the quest will be returned to your quest log. + +Quests may also be started by asking someone for help, and then turning in the quest to them. These quests will not end in any particular way, but will generally give you a reward. + +Some quests require you to go out of your way to obtain a quest item, and can be completed only while you are in the area, either in an active quest or in an active dungeon. + +There are some quests that are specific to certain types of creatures. + +Quests can be taken by everyone, although they are unlikely to be accepted by all. Sometimes, a quest will ask you to kill someone, which can be done by killing the person or by killing the creature. + +Despite the name, quests are not limited to mages. + +There are two main types of quests: + +Quest Log [ edit ] + +Once you have completed a quest, your quest log will display a text-based summary of the quest. The text of the quest log is far more detailed than the +======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== +After our last post, we touched base on C++11 features that will likely be supported by the next C++ standard. The first of those is the new "extended integral types", which will likely be part of the C++0x standard. + +We are really excited about this one, as it will allow for the standardisation of things like "shift-only" floating-point arithmetic, and it will be usable with existing compilers. + +(This post may be a bit long, so here is a summary of the main points.) + +The basic idea is that standard integral types, like int , float , and double , are defined as being of integral types. So, for example, any floating-point number can be represented using either the int type, or the float type, or the double type. (Some compilers, like GCC and Visual Studio, already support the double type, but that is not enough, as the double type only supports the IEEE 754 format.) + +However, the standard also defines a set of "extended integral types", which extend the range of the standard integral types. For example, the int integral type can represent an integer value of the integer type, or an integer value of the extended integral type. + +We can now define "shift-only" floating-point arithmetic, as the extended integral types will introduce a super-signed double type, and it will be possible to represent any floating-point number using either of the standard integral types. + +In addition to the standard integral types, the extended integral types will also support the "unary minus operator", which is often used by compilers to represent negative numbers. (This is broadly similar to the "unary minus operator" used by C++03's standard library, but is not supported by GCC and Visual Studio.) + +So, for example, if we are working with a double value, it is possible to compute its complement, or to add a double value to a double value. + +It is important to note that the extended integral types are actually "unary". They are added to existing types, and so will not expand to any new types, but will remain valid as existing types. + +There is one really important difference between the standard integral types and the extended integral types: the extended integral types do not support the signed/unsigned distinction in comparison operations. + +With the standard integral types, if we do want to define a signed/unsigned comparison operation, we need to use either (or both) the signed/signed operations, or the unsigned/unsigned operations. + +The extended integral types will not require the signed/unsigned distinction. Instead, we can use the standard signed/unsigned operations, and the extended integral types will be providing a "dual" representation. + +In fact, the standard signed/unsigned operations already exist, and the extended integral types will provide a way to use them. + +The standard signed/unsigned operations are: + +Compare and swap (same as the C99 standard's intcmp and intswap , but with the extended integral types): + +int f(int a, int b) { return a + b; } int g(float a, float b) { return a - b; } int h(double a, double b) { return a * b; } int i(int a, int b) { return a >= b ? a : b; } + +A programmer can also define a "unary minus operator", which will have the same semantics as the C++ standard's intnminus . (This will likely be called "intnminus", but we still need a name.) + +int f(int a, int b) { return a - b; } int g(float a, float b) { return a * b; } int h(double a, double b) { return a / b; } + +(This is not a complete list of the standard signed/unsigned operations, but we can still use these operations for convenience.) + +And the extended integral types will provide a way to use them. + +int f(int a, int b) { return a + b; } int g(float a, float b) { return a - b; } int h(double a, double b) { return a * b; } + +We can use the standard signed/unsigned operations to construct the extended integral types. + +int f(int a, int b) { return a + b; } int g(float a, float b) { return a - b; } int h(double a, double b) { return a * b; } + +Because we are using the standard signed/unsigned operations, and the extended integral types will be providing a way to use them, we can also use the standard arithmetic operators for shifting and dividing the extended integral types. + +int f(int a, int b) { return a +======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== +The alleged culprits behind a vicious, prolonged cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment have been identified, according to VP of the security firm ThreatConnect. + +The attack began in late 2014, and was meant to disrupt the movie studio's release of The Interview, a film depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. + +The U.S. government has since blamed North Korea for the attack, which compromised the servers of Sony Pictures Entertainment in late 2014. + +"It's pretty clear now that the attacker [was] North Korea," ThreatConnect's CEO, Avivah Litan, told Wired. "The attack lasted for months, and it was launched by someone in North Korea." + +The attack involved malware that was meant to disrupt the movie studio's release of The Interview, a film depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. (Reuters) + +Litan said that when they examined the malware used in the attack, they found that it was "almost identical" to that used in previous attacks on banks and government agencies. + +Litan added that there was "more evidence" that the attack was indeed carried out by North Korea, and that the attackers may have been looking to gather intelligence on Sony before carrying out the attack. + +"There was some activity in the past that suggested that the attackers were looking to gather intelligence with this attack," she said. "If that's the case, it's pretty clear that the attackers were North Korea." + +The company said it did not have evidence that the attack itself was carried out by a North Korean government, but that the group behind the attack appears to be connected to the country. + +"These attacks are used to gather intelligence, which North Korea is also doing," Litan said. + +The company believes that the victim of the attack was Sony Pictures Entertainment, or some of its subsidiaries, but did not disclose which companies it believed were affected. + +On Friday, Sony Pictures Entertainment put out a statement confirming that the attack was carried out by a group that it believes "belongs to North Korea." The group "used the same malware that was used in previous attacks against South Korean banks, government agencies and media outlets," the company said. + +After the attack began, the studio had to put in place additional security measures. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press) + +Sony Pictures Entertainment is currently working through an internal investigation of the attack, and said that it "has been trying to determine who was responsible for the attack and to ensure that no further information can be released publicly at this time." + +"We are taking the measures necessary to protect our systems and our employees," the statement said. "We are continuing to investigate and are working closely with law enforcement to determine the origins of this attack. We have suspended our scheduled release of The Interview in the wake of the attack and are working closely with law enforcement." + +Litan did not disclose the specific steps the company is taking to protect its systems. + +As well, the company is putting additional security measures in place. + +"We are taking the measures necessary to protect our systems and our employees," the statement added. + +The Sony hack was one of the largest cyberattacks in history. + +It affected systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as at the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the studios and other exhibitors in the movie business. + +Litan said that she believes the problem was not that Sony Pictures Entertainment failed to pay the hackers, but that the attackers were willing to take the risk. + +"There is always a risk involved in doing business with North Korea," she said. "They are a rogue state, and they will do anything to harm their country. + +"This is an attack on the American free press and the American economy," she added. "It's an attack on the free world."<|endoftext|>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of an appeal by the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement against a ban on a demonstration by its supporters. + +The demonstration by around 3,000 people, who reject the expansion of Islam in Germany, has been banned by the authorities on grounds it could incite violence. + +The Constitutional Court said on Friday the ban on the demonstration did not breach the freedom of assembly because its organizers had no intention of engaging in violence. + +The PEGIDA movement had appealed against the ban after it was imposed in October. + +The movement had argued that the ban was unconstitutional and a violation of free speech.<|endoftext|>Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that Iraq was "on the brink of a sectarian civil war," following a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. + +Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, right, meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Baghdad, Iraq, in this September 10, 2010 handout photo. REUTERS/U.S. State Department/Handout via Reuters +======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== +(CNN) Donald Trump's campaign management team is being investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice's inspector general in an investigation into whether the organization had improper contact with Russian intelligence officials, CNN has learned. + +The revelation comes amid reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is looking to interview several of the campaign's top aides. + +Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the Department of Justice's inspector general, confirmed that the office is looking into the matter. + +"The Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General is aware of media reports regarding the possibility of an investigation relating to campaign associates of President Donald Trump," said the statement. + +"As the matter is currently under review by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, we are unable to comment further." + +A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment. + +Read More<|endoftext|>Sifting out the royal's cancer, the king and queen have given £10m to charities to help fight the disease + +Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth have given a further £10m to charity in their fight against cancer after the death of Prince Harry. + +Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, had pledged £10m to the National Cancer Intelligence Network after the death of their son, Prince William, last year. + +The money, announced in the Queen's Speech on Tuesday, will go to the charity's funding of a national cancer service. + +The money will be used to provide free cancer screening and diagnosis into 2017, as well as the provision of healthcare services to families affected by cancer. + +The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the couple's children, also pledged £10m to the network in the wake of their father's death in May from cancer. Their mother, the Queen, has pledged £1m. + +The money will be used to provide free cancer screening and diagnosis into 2017 + +The Queen's Speech also announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be the patron and honorary patron of the Royal Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation will work to improve the quality of life for cancer survivors by providing support services to people at risk of the disease and encouraging the public to be more aware of the potential health risks. + +The Queen will be the patron and honorary patron of the Royal Foundation for Cancer Research + +The Queen will also be the patron and honorary patron of the Royal Foundation for Cancer Research, which is expected to work to improve the quality of life for cancer survivors by providing support services to people at risk of the disease and encouraging the public to be more aware of the potential health risks. + +The Prince of Wales will be patron of the Royal Foundation for Cancer Research. + +In the Queen's Speech, the Queen said: 'The Royal Family is deeply affected by the death of our son. + +'They have been so close to him and so loving and supportive. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall have been a wonderful example of how to fight the disease and the pain it can cause. + +'The Royal Foundation for Cancer Research will enable us to continue to do everything we can to support those who are affected by cancer.' + +The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have pledged £10m to the National Cancer Intelligence Network + +The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the couple's children, also pledged £10m to the network in the wake of their father's death in May from cancer + +The Queen was given a 'good' health check during her visit to St Mary's hospital in London on Tuesday night + +The Queen was given a 'good' health check during her visit to St Mary's hospital in London on Tuesday night. + +The Queen's condition is not said to be a result of the cancer diagnosis. + +The Duke of Edinburgh also attended the hospital visit and gave a speech in which he made a plea for more funding. + +The Duke of Edinburgh and Duchess of Cambridge are at the hospital being treated for a cold and flu + +The Duke of Edinburgh and Duchess of Cambridge were also at the hospital being treated for a cold and flu + +The Duke of Edinburgh and Duchess of Cambridge were also at the hospital being treated for a cold and flu + +During his speech, the Duke of Edinburgh said: 'Many people are suffering and their families are suffering because they cannot afford to get the treatments they need. + +'The NHS is not there to do that. It is there to help people get the care that they need.' + +The Duke and Duchess were also at the hospital being treated for a cold and flu. + +The Queen also visited the Royal Mail's factory in Tewkesbury, Somerset, where 2,000 parcels are being manufactured every day. + +The Queen was given a 'good' health check during her visit to St Mary's hospital in London on Tuesday night. + +The Queen was given a 'good' health check during her visit to St Mary's hospital in London on Tuesday night + +The Queen was given a 'good' health check during her visit to St +======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== +ZURICH (Reuters) - A Swiss man who traveled to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State fighters was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years in jail with a minimum of five years. + +The Syrian man, who was arrested in July 2015, had been under surveillance for more than a year by Swiss and German authorities as they considered whether he posed a threat to Switzerland. + +He had traveled to Syria from his hometown of Zug, a small city near Zurich, at the end of 2014. He said he had gone to Syria to join Islamic State. + +The terrorism court said he, along with three other people, had been carrying out reconnaissance missions in Syria. + +It said the man was seen in an Islamic State video in June 2015 with two other people and in a city near Aleppo in November 2015, armed with Kalashnikovs. + +The court said he had been in contact with Islamic State sympathizers in the Swiss canton of Valais, who were helping him to travel. + +The court said he had been involved in a plot to blow up a Swiss military training center near Geneva and had admitted his involvement in the plot and had been planning to carry out an attack in Switzerland. + +The man had been living in the Swiss canton of Valais with his parents and siblings, the court said.<|endoftext|>Early last year, I started trying to figure out how to get a handle on some of the infrastructure and infrastructure-related issues that I had been hearing about from my contacts at AdRoll. This was a great place to start, as the folks there have been able to provide a lot of information on the various things that can go wrong when you launch a large-scale ad network. + +One of their most popular topics was the issue of load balancers and load balancing. I had been hearing the same things from my contacts, and so I figured it would be a good time to do some research and port some of the things that I heard to use in my own ad network. + +Initial Setup + +The first thing I did was to go ahead and port the AdRoll Load Balancing. The first question that I had was "What's the difference between AdRoll and AdSense?" Well, AdRoll has been around for quite a while and is one of the bigger players in the space. It has quite a bit more number of customers and other partners than AdSense, but they're not as big. They are also a pretty good competitor, with a lot of competitors out there. + +One key difference between AdRoll and AdSense, is that AdRoll has a lot more features than AdSense. For instance, AdSense only supports CPM (Cost per Click) and maximum CPC (Maximum Ad Revenue). AdRoll supports both of these, as well as other more complex features like automatic retargeting and ad server billing. + +While AdRoll's customer service is great, the company has been very slow to respond to my questions. I had to wait a good while before I really had any type of response. On the plus side, AdRoll recently changed the way they respond to emails, so I had a better response rate this time around. + +Once I got my first response, it was almost instant. AdRoll was able to provide me with an automated script that would set up my load balancer. + +Make sure you read the following blog post if you haven't already. + +Install AdRoll and Load Balancing + +Once you have the script installed, it's the same process all over again. First you will need to create a new instance of AdRoll, then add some settings to get it ready to support AdSense. + +Setting Up AdRoll + +After creating a new instance of AdRoll, you will notice that it already has a bunch of settings. Before you can add any settings, you will need to add a "default" store. This stores all your AdSense Ad IDs and categories, as well as all the links that you want to show when someone clicks on an AdSense ad. + +If you want to add your own store or categories, then you will need to go to the AdRoll Admin page and go to the Add New Store page. + +Once you have a store set up, you will need to decide what Ad ID and categories you want to show. You can enter a few options here (such as "Ads by Category", "Ads by Display Category" and "Ads by Name"). + +After you've entered all the Ad IDs and categories that you want to show, you will need to create a security group. Similar to how you set up the store, you will need to create a security group for your AdSense Ad IDs. + +You will need to create a security group for your AdSense Ad IDs. + +Once you have a security group set up, you can then choose which AdSense Ad IDs and categories you want to show on your load balancer. + +Once you +======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== +From OpenTTD + + +This article is a stub. Please help the OpenTTD wiki by expanding it. + +This page is about the game mode. For the area, see Region. + + +Region (the "real" name of the game mode) is a game mode that allows players to play against each other. Players compete in a single game, and the player who lost the game is eliminated. A game can have numerous players; however, only one player will be selected to play each game. + +The game mode is based on a simple map, and the only non-player objects are the few buildings on the map. (The "building" is a simple wooden structure, such as a house.) The player chooses the starting location, and the map is randomly generated. + +The game mode is played with 32 players against 32 AI opponents each. + +Each player starts with a certain amount of money, and in the case of two players, each player has a personal amount of money. + +Players are allowed to use up to three types of vehicles in the game mode. + +There are no rules for the number of players, except for the number of buildings allowed. + +There are no rules for the amount of money each player starts with. The amount of money a player starts with is determined from the starting point, which is determined by the player's starting place, and the amount of money spent on items and starting buildings. The starting point is determined by the amount of money spent on household items, as well as the starting house. + +1.2.1. Starting Point + +If no starting house is available, the player may choose a random starting point. If a player chooses a starting point that is not within the current region, they will be moved to the nearest region. + +1.2.2. Starting House + +Players may start with any of the three starting houses, or with a random house. The starting house is determined by the player, and the house displayed in the game is random. + +1.2.3. House Construction + +Each player is allowed to build one house per turn, with the exception that no more than one house in the game can be built at one time. When a player builds a house, they can only build one house per turn. + +1.2.4. House Building + +Each house has three components: a house, a trap, and a shop. The shop provides the player with items that can be purchased from a shopkeeper. Traps are placed on the map and can be destroyed by other players. Houses can be destroyed by players, buildings, or traps. + +1.2.5. House Destruction + +Each house can be destroyed by players, traps, or buildings. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map, and the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2.6. Building Construction + +Each building has 3 components: a building, a shop, and a trap. When a building is built, it can be placed in a random location on the map. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map. If a building is destroyed, the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2.7. Trap Construction + +Each trap has 3 components: a trap, and a shop. When a trap is placed, it can be placed in a random location on the map. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map. If a trap is destroyed, the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2.8. Shop Construction + +Each shop has 3 components: a shopkeeper, and a building. When a shopkeeper is placed, the shopkeeper provides the player with the type of building that is currently being built. When a building is placed, the building can be built. When a trap is placed, it can be placed in a random location on the map. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map. If a trap is destroyed, the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2.9. Store Construction + +Each store has 3 components: a storehouse, a shop, and a trap. When a storehouse is placed, the storehouse provides a house. When a shop is placed, the shopkeeper provides the type of building that is currently being built. When a building is placed, the building can be built. When a trap is placed, it can be placed in a random location on the map. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map. If a trap is destroyed, the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2.10. House Construction + +Each house has 3 components: a house, a trap, and a shop. When a house is destroyed, it is removed from the map. If a trap is destroyed, the player who destroyed it receives money. + +1.2 +======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== +Tunisia's interim president has claimed that the country's new constitution is "free and fair". + +Mohamed Brahmi made the comments after the Constitutional Court issued its verdict on an initiative by an opposition group which seeks to amend the constitution. + +The court decided that the constitution "contains a number of articles in which the rights and liberties of citizens are violated" and ordered the government to put out a new draft constitution within 30 days. + +Brahmi has since been moved to the post of prime minister. + +According to the constitution, the interim government must issue a new draft constitution by August 9. + +The constitution was drafted by the Constituent Assembly in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. + +It has been widely criticised by human rights groups, who say it is not up to scratch and contains many unconstitutional clauses. + +The new constitution was approved by a two-thirds majority in the Assembly of the Republic in June.<|endoftext|>With the release of the new Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, Microsoft has provided a number of new features to help make the new convertible devices more productive. These include a new Type Cover keyboard with a new trackpad, improved pen, new and improved Touch Cover 4 with eight new working positions and a new Surface Dial with 3D touch, of course. Now, we've been able to check out some of the personalization features that Microsoft has put into place for the new Surface devices. + +The new Surface Pro 4 has a new Surface Pen with two new modes, Stylus and Pencil. The new Surface Pen features a retractable mechanism that allows it to be easily tucked inside the cover for protection. The new Surface Pro 4 has a new Surface Dial with three new working positions: Display, Accessory and Convergence. The Surface Dial can also open up to six apps at once. + +There is a new color option for the new Surface Pro 4 with 3D Touch, which Microsoft has named Glance. The recent release of the new Surface Book has a new color option as well, but the new color is still not available today. + +Microsoft has also added a new feature to the new Surface Pro 4, which is a new feature called Mixed Reality. Microsoft has been working on this for quite some time and I'm sure it will be a huge selling feature for users. The mixed reality feature allows users to use the Surface Pro 4 like a PC for a number of tasks by using the Surface Pen and Surface Dial. As we are seeing today, the new Surface Pro 4 has a new color option for this feature as well, which Microsoft has named Prism. + +Windows 10 will be available to consumers starting October 17th and the new Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book will be available in November. + +Further reading: Microsoft<|endoftext|>A new study has found that the use of marijuana by college students can increase the risk of depression and other mental health issues. The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that having a history of marijuana use in the past year, or having used marijuana more than once per week, can increase the risk of depression by up to 21 percent. + +In addition, the study found that students who use marijuana daily or several times per week are at an increased risk of having depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. + +The study, which examined data from more than 60,000 young adults, is the first to examine the possible relation between marijuana use and mental health in a large population. + +The researchers found that students who reported using marijuana daily or several times a week were up to three times more likely to have depression than those who reported using marijuana less than once a week. On the other hand, students who reported marijuana use less than once a week were at no increased risk for depression. + +The study also found that those who had experienced a mental health problem before the age of 18 were twice as likely to have used marijuana in the past year. Students who had been diagnosed with a mental health problem before the age of 18 were also twice as likely to report using marijuana in the past year. + +"There are a lot of people who have negative opinions about marijuana," said lead author Dr. Lori Andrews, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. "But this study is strong evidence that there is something about marijuana use that's associated with mental health issues." + +"It's a serious public health concern," Andrews added. "We need to be more aware of the risks associated with marijuana use." + +The study also found that marijuana use during the past year was associated with an increased likelihood of mental health problems, including depression and anxiety. However, the study's authors note that marijuana use during the past year only increased the risk for depression by up to 21 percent. + +"It's important to be aware of the risk," Andrews said. "Marijuana use may not be as bad as people think." + +Andrews told CBS News that the findings contribute +======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== +The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +Mudcrab + +Mudcrab (or Mudcrab) is a type of swamp dwelling, found in the swamps of the Summerset Isles. Mudcrabs can be found in groups and on the ground. They have only one model; however, they will become increasingly more detailed as you travel. If you kill one, it will drop the Mudcrab's Shell, a unique armor set that can be crafted by a blacksmith with the appropriate ingredients. Mudcrabs are able to be tamed, but they will not follow you. Mudcrabs will move away from you if they are attacked, and can only be petted in certain areas. Mudcrabs will not attack anything unless you shoot or crush them. + +Mudcrabs are found in swamps on the island of Vvardenfell. They can be found in the swamps around the Imperial City, the swamps near the Imperial Shipyards, and the swamps near Sadrith Mora. Mudcrabs can be found throughout the game, but only in the swamps. They can be found in the Swamp Forest, and can be hunted down in Vvardenfell. Mudcrabs can be found in the swamp forests of the Alik'r Desert, and in the swamps of the Mournhold District. + +Related Quests [ edit ] + +Conversations [ edit ] + +The Mudcrab who is protecting the Mudcrab's Shell + +Mudcrabs, like most of the creatures in Morrowind, have a great deal of dialogue. Most of these conversations will be generated by the Mudcrab, and are addressed to him. + +Mudcrab: "You! What are you doing out here? Wha-where are you going, you little-limbed-bug?" The Mudcrab: "I am protecting the Mudcrab's Shell." Mudcrab: "Oh. I see. You're a Mudcrab. I'm sorry to see you go." The Mudcrab: "There are few things more dangerous in this world than a Mudcrab. However, there is only one way to get to the Shell. After you have killed all the Mudcrabs, return to me." + +Mudcrab: "What's wrong, friend? I thought you were still out on the road. It's been a while since you last saw me. What, are you looking for me? Or you're looking for a Mudcrab?" The Mudcrab: "The Shell is not for sale. I will only give it away to those who are worthy. I have no desire to see another Mudcrab. I've hunted them for so long I am tired." The Mudcrab: "You are a Mudcrab? I thought you were a Mudcrab, too. I'm so sorry to see you go." The Mudcrab: "There are few things more dangerous in this world than a Mudcrab. However, there is only one way to get to the Shell. After you have killed all the Mudcrabs, return to me." + +Mudcrab: "My friend, how long have you been out here? It's been so long. You've been out for so long. So long, I thought you were dead." The Mudcrab: "I am not dead. I am a Mudcrab. I was out on the road looking for my Shell, and have only returned to the swamps. I have not seen you for so long. You must have found it, then. That is why I am here. I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "Mudcrab! I have no longer any need for you. You have served me well, and I do not wish to see you again." The Mudcrab: "My friend, I am not at all pleased to see you. I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "Mudcrab! I have no longer any need for you. You have served me well, and I do not wish to see you again." Mudcrab: "I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return." + +The Mudcrab: "I have protected the Shell for so long, and it is time to make my return +======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== +In the wake of a shooting that took place at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Republicans are trying to pass the most conservative abortion bills they can in the wake of the tragedy. + +Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest + +The most important bill is that of Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., which would prohibit abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, in which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb. Republicans have said they want to pass the measure to obtain more conservative votes, but also to show the public and women back home in Arizona that they are still trying to protect women's health. + +But the language of the bill has riled activists and Democrats. The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother's life is in danger, or the pregnancy poses a risk to her health. It would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, and would also make it easier to put abortion in the hands of health care providers. + +"This bill, as written, would make Arizona the most restrictive state in the nation," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "It would ban abortion after 20 weeks, and it would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. And while we may not want to be in the business of aborting babies at 20 weeks, the reality is that this is exactly what Arizona does every day." + +The bill has already been passed by the Arizona House, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill. If the bill passes the full Senate, it will likely be the focus of a floor debate. + +The other, more controversial legislation is the so-called "personhood" bill, which would ban abortion and ban most forms of birth control, even in cases of rape and incest, for the life of the pregnant woman. Many women's health advocates have been opposed to the legislation, saying it would criminalize abortion. + +"If you are a woman, who wants a decision, you should be able to make it," said Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Sierra Vista. "You should not be punished for making a decision." + +The personhood bills are expected to be considered in the House and Senate in the next few weeks.<|endoftext|>The phrase "Make America Great Again" is being used by Donald Trump to convince Americans that he has the skills to be the next leader of the free world, but a new poll reveals that Americans are not convinced he is the right man for the job. + +The billionaire has been leading the Republican field in polls for about two months, but his support has been falling over the past month. A CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday found Trump trailing Marco Rubio in Florida, and in second place in New Hampshire. + +Trump earned the support of 30 percent of Republican primary voters in the poll. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who suspended his campaign last month, earned the support of 19 percent, and Rubio got 18 percent. + +[CNN]<|endoftext|>U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor pilots take a break from flying and take a sea-level selfie as they practice for a joint air combat exercise in Alaska. + +On Tuesday, the Air Force announced a new "launch community" that will include as many as 15,000 military and civilian technologists and scientists. The new move is part of the military's longstanding effort to break down the technological barriers that often prevent a combat aircraft from launching on its own — a problem that has persisted for decades, as the Pentagon constantly tries to find ways to get the F-22 or F-35 fighters to land on their own, including through the use of GPS (global positioning system) signals. + +"I think it's a good thing, in a way," said retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Bush administration. "Most of the time, a lot of the time, the [space-based launch system] is in a position where it's a lot easier to land the aircraft." + +"The aircraft gets to the airfield, the aircraft gets to the runway, the aircraft gets to the aircraft," he said. "That's what the F-22 and F-35 are all about. They're not about doing whatever the last guy was doing." + +But the launch community also could help solve another problem that has dogged the Air Force for decades: The lack of a way to launch an aircraft in the middle of the night, when the vast majority of U.S. civilian air traffic is grounded. The service has tried using GPS signals to launch aircraft, but the technology has proven to be less reliable than its military counterparts. + +"I don't know of any other country that can launch a satellite in the middle of the night," said Frank Kendall, the +======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== +Documentation + +The documentation that comes with the program is available on GitHub. + +Manuals + +The manual is available on the Read The Docs website. + +Official Documentation + +The documentation that comes with the program is available on Read The Docs. + +Contributing + +For the most up to date documentation, please see the official documentation. + +Please use the issues tab to report bugs and requests, and make sure to have the appropriate documentation in place if your issue is not already covered. If you have a feature request or feature you think should be in the documentation, please open an issue. + +License + +Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Julian Reschke + +This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. + +This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. + +You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. + +Introduction + +The genome browser is a browser for the human genome. It shows a list of all the genome locations and gives a quick summary of what is available on each site, and the instructions for accessing the data. It also allows you to search and download the data for your own use. + +Installation + +The easiest way to install the browser is to use Homebrew: + +brew tap Julian Reschke/the-browser brew install the-browser + +If you prefer to install via a package manager like Homebrew, you can do so by running the following command: + +brew tap Julian Reschke/the-browser brew install --HEAD the-browser + +The the-browser binary will be installed into the /usr/local/bin directory. + +Documentation + +The documentation that comes with the program is available on Read The Docs. + +Changelog + +The changelog is available here. + +Support + +If you have any questions, or suggestions for improving the browser, please feel free to open an issue on the GitHub project. + +Contributing + +For the most up to date documentation, please see the official documentation. + +Please use the issues tab to report bugs and requests, and make sure to have the appropriate documentation in place if your issue is not already covered. If you have a feature request or feature you think should be in the documentation, please open an issue. + +License + +Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Julian Reschke + +This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. + +This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. + +You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. + +The the-browser binary will be installed into the /usr/local/bin directory. + +Credits + +The browser is based on the Chromium browser, by Google.<|endoftext|>On the whole, the Republicans in Congress have little choice but to accept the president's ultimatum on the debt ceiling or they risk the consequences. Which is why the GOP is engaged in the game of chicken it plays with itself over the debt ceiling. + +The difference between the knowns and the unknowns is that the unknowns are much bigger than the knowns, and the GOP knows it. The president went on TV yesterday to make his case to Republicans that if they do not agree to raise the debt ceiling by the October 17 deadline, the U.S. will default on its debt. + +Where do Republicans stand? + +The GOP knows that if the debt ceiling is not raised it will be a political disaster. And the president knows that if it is not raised, he will be able to claim that the GOP is refusing to raise the debt ceiling to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. + +Republicans know that if they do not agree to raise the debt ceiling they will be blamed for jeopardizing the economy. And the president knows that if he does not agree to raise the debt ceiling, he will be able to claim that the GOP has refused to raise the debt ceiling to protect the middle class. +======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== +(CNN) — It's a strange feeling to be so close to death, to see so many of your friends dying, to feel so alone, but to also feel so much joy. + +That's how I felt when I was run over by a taxi in Istanbul. + +I had just finished my first independent music festival, yet the adrenaline rush I felt after my first gig was still there. I felt exhilarated and exhilarated. + +It was a football stadium in the center of Istanbul, and I was out at a party with a group of friends. I had a friend with me, a Norwegian, so we sat down in one of the seats in the crowd. + +When the song was over, we moved to the front, where everyone was sitting. We all started dancing. So did the taxi driver behind us. + +I didn't even notice how much he was speeding up. Then suddenly, the taxi slammed on its brakes. + +We all started screaming. + +It was a very scary moment, and I started to wonder whether I would make it out alive. + +I looked down. I was looking at the ground. I had no idea whether I had broken my neck, but I didn't feel any pain. I was just really confused. + +I asked my friend to check on me. He told me to look up. The taxi came to a stop. It was a garbage truck. The driver got out, and then my friend ran over and used the back of his hand to poke my neck. I was still looking up at the ground. + +I didn't feel any pain. I was just really confused. + +I didn't move. + +The garbage truck driver came back and punched me in the face. He was yelling, "You're dead!" + +I was so confused. I didn't know what to do. I was just so very confused. I didn't know whether I was alive or not. + +He hit me again. I started panicking. I was still looking up, this time at the ground, expecting to see flowers. Instead, I saw blood. The driver started punching me in the face again. + +He broke my nose. + +He threw me out of the truck. + +I'm still alive. It's a miracle. + +I looked up and saw my friends. They had taken me to the hospital, and they had all been in a panic. + +One of my friends was crying. She said, "The police are here. They're here. They're here." And they came. I don't know what they did, but I don't know what happened to me. + +But I'm alive. I'm alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I'm still alive. + +I was hit by a garbage truck, but I +======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== +The way the media has covered the ongoing saga of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case in the last few days has been disturbing. + +The media has essentially jumped on the bandwagon for the parents' legal team, outraged at any mention of the possibility that JonBenet may have been murdered. + +The media has called this an "investigative" story, with the media referring to the parents as "investigators" even though they have not even interviewed a single person with any knowledge of the case. + +The media has called this a "discovery" story, with the media referring to the parents as "discovery experts." + +The media has called this a "federal case," with the media referring to the parents as "federal investigators." + +The media has called this a "JonBenet Ramsey" case, with the media referring to the parents as "JonBenet Ramsey investigators." + +The media has referred to the parents as "investigators," as though they're the ones actually investigating the case. + +At this point, this is an "investigation" that is like any other "investigation" — it's a case in which the media has been given an overwhelming amount of media access and the ability to interview people who know anything about the case. + +The media has been given access to the Ramsey family's home, their apartment complex, and their private investigator. + +The media has been given access to the private investigator's home. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black Volvo. + +The media has been given access to the Ramseys' private investigator's black +======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== +"The first time I came to the US was with my family back in 1983. We met at a hotel in Santa Anna, California, and the first day I came I was in the middle of a serious car accident," Jennifer said. "I was in a coma for three days and I had to walk with a cane, but my family and I were in a hotel room and I had a cell phone, so I started making call after call to my family in Mexico. I told them to come by the hospital and see how I was doing and that I wanted to come home. I said, 'I'm in a hospital, I want to come home.' " + +Jennifer's story is a common one. She is not exaggerating when she says she was in a coma for three days. + +"The doctors said, 'You need to be in a hospital, you need to be in a hospital.' But we couldn't afford it and they wouldn't let us go," she said. Jennifer was finally stabilized when she was transferred to the University of California in San Francisco and then to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. + +"I felt like I was in a dream," she said. "It was like I was in a different world. I didn't know if I was going to wake up. I didn't know if I was going to wake up." + +Jennifer said that the doctors were surprised that she was able to speak. + +"I was really babbling," she said. "They were like, 'What is this?' 'Are you OK?' I said, 'I'm OK.' They were just trying to figure out what was going on." + +Jennifer remembers the level of difficulty she faced when she first arrived in the United States. + +"I was so scared," she said. "When I first got to the hospital they didn't know where to put me. There was no bed, so they put me in the bathroom." + +She said that she was also a little confused about the language barrier. + +"I tried to ask the doctor if he was a lawyer or a doctor. 'Are you a doctor or a lawyer?' And he was like, 'I don't know.' He asked me what I was wearing and if I had a driver's license. I had no idea," Jennifer said. + +She also remembers being a little overwhelmed when she first got to UCLA Medical Center. + +"I had no idea what to do and I wasn't sure what was going on. I had no idea what was going on," she said. "I was sick with worry." + +Jennifer is in good health now. She said that she is still on medication and that she has regained her voice. She said that she is a little more emotional now and that she is excited to be back in the United States. + +"I'm very grateful that I am here," she said. "I'm very thankful for what I have."<|endoftext|>Hugh Jackman is facing the loss of his Australian passport after he was found in breach of the country's rules on dual citizenship. + +Jackman, who is reportedly a citizen of New Zealand, was born in Australia but born in New Zealand and has signed up to New Zealand's national rugby league team. + +Hugh Jackman is facing the loss of his Australian passport after he was found in breach of the country's rules on dual citizenship. Photo: AP + +The Australian government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed to Fairfax Media on Thursday that Jackman was in breach of the country's citizenship laws and would be stripped of his Australian passport. + +"As a result of a request by the Australian High Commission in Wellington, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed that the Australian citizen has been notified of his possible breach of Australian citizenship laws," a spokesman said.<|endoftext|>There's been a lot of talk about the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, since the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The demonstrations of the past few weeks have been a mix of peaceful and violent protests, with some of the peaceful protesters facing off with police and being tear gassed. + +So in the wake of the protests, the National Center for Science Education has posted a video of the University of Missouri protesting, as well as a video of a protest in Portland, Oregon. The Center is an organization that promotes science education, and it has posted videos on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube about several topics. + +Here's the video of the University of Missouri: + +And here's a video of the Portland protest: + +This isn't the first time a video of protesters has gone viral. In October, the Occupy Wall Street movement posted a video of its members at a demonstration on Wall Street, and the video was viewed over 1 million times on YouTube. + +This post has been updated with the video of the University of Missouri.<|endoftext|>Set in the small town of Gormenghast, the book +======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== +Sebastian Rönnquist's Shipyard + +an interactive experience about the history and future of the shipyard + +Sebastian Rönnquist's Shipyard is an interactive experience about the history and future of the shipyard in the city of Malmö, Sweden and its relationship with the world. + +Transformation of the shipyard was a huge task. During the 19th century it was the largest shipyard in Europe. In the 20th century it was a focus of industrialization and of the post-war growth of Sweden. Today the shipyard is in decline. Its history and future will be told through an interactive experience in the harbour of Malmö. + +The shipyard is the hub of industry in Malmö and the ninth largest private employer in Malmö County. + +The most famous shipyards of the world are located in the United States. At one time most of the world's largest ships were made in the US shipyards, but the US in recent years has been declining in importance. + +More info about the shipyard + +Visiting the shipyard + +When visiting the shipyard, be sure to read the information about the shipyard in the main page. + +You can also read our other Malmö experiences and our website about the shipyard. + +History of the shipyard + +The shipyard's history has been described in the following books: + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Story of Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +The shipyard is also mentioned in the following books: + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönnquist: The Shipyard K, by Helga Karlsson. + +Sebastian Rönn +======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== +It's been about five years since I first started playing League of Legends, and I have come to the conclusion that I have no interest in playing competitively, unless it's to help out a friend. I've been reading a lot about the competitive scene, and I've decided to put my ideas into practice. + +I've started by filing the kids off to school on time, and then went to sleep. I woke up, and as I sat on my bed, I realized that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I started reading as many articles and watching videos of competitive play as I could. I started playing the game again, trying to figure out what works for me. I started a blog, and I began talking about the meta, and how I would play it. I realized that there was no way I could play my own game, so I decided to join a team. + +The team I joined was called Team Legion. We were a very strong team, and we dominated the NA scene in Season 2. We won our first tournament, a 4v4 bracket, and it felt like a victory for ourselves. We were so happy that we were able to win, and we knew that we could not only win, but dominate the regional scene. We were the kings of NA. + +And then I thought about what it would take to win a tournament. I felt like I had been playing the game for so long, and I had gotten pretty good at it. How could I not be good? I was a dedicated player, and I had been playing about five to six hours a day. I had a good understanding of the game, and I knew what it felt like to win. I had a ton of confidence in my play, and I felt confident in my team. + +I was getting into the groove of the game, and I was getting to the point where I felt I could win more than I lost. I was beginning to think that perhaps I was going to be good at this game. + +But then I started to read what was written in the forums, and I was appalled. There were people posting about how they were struggling to get into the competitive scene, and how they had been left behind. The community was full of people that were doing well, and were being left behind. Some of them were even talking about quitting the game. + +That was when I realized that there was a big problem in the community. I couldn't believe that I had done so well in the game, and I couldn't believe that I was leaving so many players behind. I started to feel a bit bitter about the game, and I started to think that perhaps I should leave the game. But through some research, I decided that I needed to stay in the game. I needed to keep improving, and I needed to keep playing. + +I decided that I wouldn't quit, that I would continue playing. I had been playing so long, and I had learned so much since I became a pro player. I had gotten a ton of experience, and I was confident that I could continue to improve. + +I did keep playing. I wouldn't quit. I wanted to win, and I was willing to do whatever it took to win. I felt like I was doing pretty well in the competitive scene, but I knew that there was much more to the game than just winning. I wanted to be the best that I could be, and I wanted to help as many players as I could. I was just a pretty bad player before I started playing League of Legends, so I knew that I had a lot to work on. + +As I started to play more games in solo queue, I started to see the difference that playing with a team made. I would start to see better plays, and I was able to help out some of the weaker players. That was when it hit me. I realized that I wasn't as bad as I had been making myself out to be. I realized that I was improving, and I was starting to do well in the competitive scene. I was beginning to feel like I had achieved something, and I was beginning to think that maybe I could be better than I was. + +That was when I decided to leave the game, and I will never play another competitive game. I will never waste my time watching League of Legends videos or reading articles about the competitive scene. I will never play for the sake of playing for the sake of playing. I will never play for the money. I am going to play only as a hobby, and my goal is to help as many people as I can. + +I will never be a better player than I was before I started playing League of Legends. I am going to put all of my efforts into helping as many people as I can. I want to help them become better than they are, and I want to help them become better than I was. I want to help them play at the highest level +======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== +The only thing that would make SEGA and Sega Mega Drive fans happier is if the developer of Sonic CD and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 succeeds in making a Sonic 3 and a Mega Drive remake. + +That would be great. + +That's what SEGA of America President and CEO Scott Rohde told Bloomberg. + +"This is a big opportunity for us," he said. "We have the best fans at SEGA of America." + +"It doesn't matter if we don't make a Sonic 3 and a Mega Drive remake," he added. "It's a great opportunity for us." + +Sega fans have been clamoring for a remaster of the two Sega classic games since they were first released in the late '90s. + +The games were released for the Sega Mega Drive in 1996 and 1997, and the Genesis in 1999. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released for the Sega Saturn in 2002. + +The games introduce many new elements not seen in their predecessors. Most notably, they introduce the Chaos Emeralds, which are used to power up your character. + +Sonic 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were remastered for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, respectively, in 2012. + +Hopefully, a new Sonic 3 and Mega Drive remake will follow. + +It's been a while since we heard anything about a new Sonic game. + +The last Sonic game, Sonic Generations, was released in 2013. It was met with mixed reviews, and you can read all about it right here. + +And a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remake wasn't announced until 2013. + +The final Sonic game, Sonic Mania, was released in 2016. + +So, what about a new Sonic 3 and Mega Drive remake?<|endoftext|>A few days ago, I was at a Friendsgiving for my daughters and I was chatting with a friend about the big trip we are planning in a few weeks. A day later, she sent me this email: + +Here is a link to the book I wrote for my daughters. It is called "New to Mama." + +I've shared it with many of my friends and they are loving it! If you need a quick and easy book to introduce your girls to motherhood, this one is for you. + +It is written by a mom who has done it all of the things I did. I wrote it for my daughters, but it could be used by any girl. + +I still have many of the recipes from my first book, and I am posting the recipes here in one place so that you can easily find them. Like the ones below. + +Let me know if you need any help with this book! + +New to Mama + +By Danielle M. Pizzuto + +Little Mama's guide to motherhood + +1. What does a woman want for herself and for her children? + +2. What does it mean to "have it all?" + +3. How can a woman live the life she wants without ever giving up? + +4. What does it mean to be a mother? + +5. How can a woman support her family? + +6. How can a woman prepare her children for the world? + +7. What are some things our children can learn from us? + +8. How can a woman teach her children to be critical thinkers? + +9. How can a woman teach her children to be accepting of others? + +10. How can a woman teach her children how to be compassionate? + +11. How can a woman teach her children to be happy and content in life? + +12. How can a woman teach her children to be happy and content in their relationships? + +13. How can a woman teach her children to fulfill their dreams? + +14. How can a woman teach her children to be happy and content with their lives? + +15. How can a woman teach her children to love and appreciate the small things in life? + +16. How can a woman teach her children to be kind and caring? + +17. How can a woman teach her children to be kind and caring to others? + +18. How can a woman teach her children to be generous and generous in their lives? + +19. How can a woman teach her children to be more sensitive? + +20. How can a woman teach her children to be kind and compassionate in their friendships? + +21. How can a woman teach her children to be kind and caring in their interactions with others? + +22. How can a woman teach her children to be kind and compassionate in their relationships with others? + +23. How can a woman teach her children to speak up when they hear something they don't like? + +24. How can a woman teach her children to be aware of others' needs? + +25. How can a woman teach her children to be aware of others' feelings? + +26. +======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== +CHICAGO -- The Chicago Bears were the first team to publicly welcome former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim Harbaugh, who is now the San Francisco 49ers' head coach, to town. + +"We're excited about it," Bears coach John Fox said. "We've met twice in the last two days. He's a great guy, a great player and a great coach. I've had a good opportunity to see him a couple times over the last two days and I've got a lot of respect for him. I think it's going to be a great fit for both teams." + +Harbaugh took over the 49ers' head coaching job in January, after serving as the 49ers' offensive coordinator for the past two seasons. He was also the 49ers' quarterbacks coach for the past two seasons. + +"It's a great opportunity for me," Harbaugh said. "I'm so excited, I'm pumped up. I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited. I'm just ready to get in." + +Harbaugh called the Bears the "perfect team" to call home. + +"I'm excited about it," Harbaugh said. "I've met with [Bears general manager] Ryan Pace and [Bears head coach John Fox] and they've been great. They've been very encouraging and very supportive. I'm just ready to get in and get started." + +Fox called Harbaugh "an outstanding football coach." + +"Jim is a tremendous football coach," Fox said. "He's a tremendous person. He's a tremendous person to work for. He's a terrific motivator. He's a terrific teacher. He's a terrific leader. He's an outstanding recruiter. He's a terrific teacher. He's a terrific student. He's a terrific player. He's a terrific leader. He's been great to work with. I think he's a great coach. He'll be a great leader, I can tell you that." + +Harbaugh is also excited about the new teammates he'll be working with in Chicago. + +"I just met with [linebacker] Danny Trevathan, [safety] Adrian Amos, [linebacker] Pernell McPhee," Harbaugh said. "I've been to [safety] Eddie Jackson's house. It's a great football town. It's a great place for me to be and a great place for us to start." + +The 49ers have yet to make their final moves to fill their coaching staff, but Harbaugh said he will make his decision on whether to remain with the 49ers before the end of the week. + +"It'll be a decision before the end of the week," Harbaugh said. + +Harbaugh said he is not sure if he will be discussing his future with the 49ers. + +"I'm not sure," Harbaugh said. "I've been asked that question a couple times in the last couple days. I'm not sure. I don't know." + +Follow Ian Rapoport on Twitter @RapSheet.<|endoftext|>The loudest voice on the American right, and the most influential, has been that of Sarah Palin. Her book, "Going Rogue," published in 2011, was a game-changer. It was not merely one of the most popular books of the year; it was also a manifesto of sorts for the Tea Party movement. It denounced Obamacare, the stimulus, the Dodd-Frank Act, the Iraq War, the bailouts of Wall Street, the "foreign policy of weakness" and "the globalist agenda of the Obama administration." It was the Tea Party movement's "de-facto manifesto." + +It is now 2014. The Tea Party has a president, and it has a Senate minority leader, but it has no real power. It has no legislative agenda. Its policies continue to be rejected by the American people. There is no movement. There is no central authority. There is no "Tea Party" that can mobilize itself and throw off the control of the Republican Party's establishment. + +The Tea Party is now on life support. The Republican Party has a Republican president, and it has a Republican Senate majority. Yet the Tea Party is not growing. It is in danger of disappearing. It is on the verge of extinction. + +One of the reasons it is on the verge of extinction is that the Tea Party's core principle, and the reason it was able to survive during the Obama years, is that it was a true grass-roots movement. It was not a network of lobbyists. It was not a party controlled by professional activists. It was a grassroots movement, a movement brought together by a few committed ideologues. + +Even the most combative and conservative Republican primary voters could not bring themselves to vote for John McCain, who was too much of a product of Washington's power elite to be the outsider. They were fiercely opposed to Mitt Romney's pro-corporate, pro-Wall Street agenda. Yet they were +======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== +A new wave of anti-immigration rhetoric is sweeping across Europe. + +The latest is Italy, which is facing a major influx of migrants from North Africa. + +Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano has issued a decree, making it a crime for migrants to be in the country without a visa. + +In an interview with the Times of London, he said that the new law will help deal with the growing problem of migrants, adding that the government has already set up a task force to deal with the issue. + +"There is a problem and we have to deal with it," he said. + +Around 40,000 migrants have already arrived in Italy this year, and the expected number this year could be more than 65,000, the BBC reported. + +In Germany, the most populous country in the EU, the rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment has reached breaking point. + +Germany earlier this month passed a controversial law that makes it illegal for asylum seekers to seek asylum in the country if they have been to a country of concern. + +The law was met with fierce opposition from human rights groups and immigrant rights groups, who slammed it as "cruel, inhuman and illegal." + +In Britain, the Conservative Party is promising to bring in a law to make it a crime for migrants to seek asylum in the U.K. if they have been to a country of concern, like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. + +"I do want to make it clear that we do not want to send the wrong signal to people who are genuinely fleeing danger, but we do need to be clear," Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said in a statement. "We want to send a clear message that we are a country that will treat those who have come to us in our country with dignity and respect." + +Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome<|endoftext|>Do you have some queries about Singapore? We will be happy to answer your questions. Please send your queries to [email protected] + +Visit the Singapore Immigration website + +Learn about Singapore's immigration process + +Learn about Singapore's Immigration Law + +Read about the Immigration Rules + +How to apply for Singapore citizenship + +Learn about Singaporean laws on family reunion + +Learn about Singaporean laws on immigration + +What is a residence permit? + +Learn about the various types of permits and their benefits + +Learn about the different types of residency permits + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Singapore Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Residence Permit? + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permit to Stay Longer in Singapore? + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Singapore Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Residence Permit? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Residence Permit? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about the different types of PRC + +Learn about the different types of PRCs + +What is a Permanent Resident Card? + +Learn about +======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== +The SEC has the most promising freshman class in recent memory. The SEC has been churning out talented players for years; with so many talented players and so few spots to play them, the mood is particularly encouraging for the upcoming season. + +Take a look at the top 10 players of the 2016 class, and the top five players that will make the biggest impact this season. + +1. Jalen Tabor, CB, Florida + +Tabor is the top cover corner in the draft class, and it's hard to argue with him. He has the size, speed and football IQ to be a top cover corner in the NFL, and he could be a first-round selection if he continues to improve. Tabor has excellent ball skills, and his physicality in run support makes him a potential playmaker. He will likely start off in the slot for Florida, but can do so much more. + +Tabor was a ballhawk at the combine, running a 4.46-second 40-yard dash. That time could help him stand out as an early-round pick. He showcased that ability at the Rebels' pro day, running a 4.45 and 4.54 40-yard dashes. + +2. D'haquille Williams, CB, Mississippi State + +Williams is the top corner on the board and a potential first-round pick if he continues to develop. The Mississippi State product is a tough cover corner, and he has the speed and ball skills to keep up with receivers on the outside. Williams is a good tackler for his size, and he can play press-man coverage or off-man coverage. He is extremely competitive, and he can play with power or speed. Williams is a natural ballhawk who can play against the run, and he has the athleticism to do so. + +Williams was a top performer at the Combine, running a 4.37-second 40-yard dash. He is strong at the catch point, and he played well at the Senior Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine. Williams has the size and speed to be a top cover corner in the league, and he should be able to step in right away at the next level. + +3. Deiondre' Hall, WR, Ohio State + +Hall is a physical receiver who could be a great complement to Amari Cooper. Hall was a consistent performer at Ohio State's pro day, running a 4.47 40-yard dash. He is a long strider who has outstanding speed and ball skills, and he has the instincts to be a perfect complement to Cooper. Hall can use his size to his advantage, and he has the size to win jump balls. He could be a very good No. 2 receiver in the NFL. + +4. Malik McDowell, DT, Michigan State + +McDowell is a dominant interior player who will be a top-10 pick if he continues to develop. He has the presence and strength to anchor against the run, but he has the athleticism to be a good outside pass rusher. McDowell has great hands and can make plays in the open field. He has developed into a very good run defender at Michigan State, and he has the strength and athleticism to be a force in the middle of the defensive line. + +5. Quincy Wilson, CB, Florida + +Wilson is a top-notch cover corner who should be a top-10 pick in this class. He is the best overall cover corner in this class. Wilson is a physical corner who can play press coverage or off-man coverage. He can play outside or in the slot, and he has excellent ball skills. He is an aggressive and competitive player who will terrorize quarterbacks. + +6. Dalvin Tomlinson, DT, Alabama + +Tomlinson has very good strength and power, and he has a great motor. It's no surprise he's considered one of the top players in the draft. He has the size and speed to be a force in the middle of the defensive line, and he can be disruptive against the run. Tomlinson is a strong run defender who can make plays against the run. He has good feet and excellent balance, and he can play with power or speed. + +7. Zach Cunningham, LB, Vanderbilt + +Cunningham is a strong run defender who can disrupt plays from the middle of the field. He combines great speed and explosive power with good instincts. He's a good fit for Jim McElwain's defense, and he has the athleticism and speed to be a disruptive force in the middle of the defense. Cunningham has a very good work ethic and is a team captain. + +8. Marlon Humphrey, CB, Alabama + +Humphrey is a physical cornerback who is a good ballhawk and a good tackler. He has the size and speed to be a good cover corner in the NFL, and he has the ability to be a good tackler in the run game. Humphrey has +======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== +Konstantin Stolyarov isn't just a Russian chess player. He's also a political activist. And the country is paying attention. + +Konstantin Stolyarov is a chess master in Russia, and he's been in the spotlight ever since his name was mentioned on the U.S. intelligence community's list of people who might have been "co-opted" by Russian intelligence. + +The list was released in January, and it included names of close friends and business associates of President Trump. Stolyarov's name wasn't mentioned. + +But that changed on Monday. + +Stolyarov spoke with the Russian news network RT about the list and about his experience as a Soviet-era fighter pilot before being recruited by the KGB, according to The Telegraph. + +"It is clear that the U.S. intelligence agency has put a lot of attention on me," Stolyarov told RT. "I have no doubt that they are trying to turn me into an enemy of the state." + +The list included other sources of political discomfort for the U.S. — including Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, whose meeting with Donald Trump Jr. last year was described in the intelligence community's report. + +Stolyarov, who is the leader of the World Chess Federation, spoke on the sidelines of a chess match in the Russian city of Novosibirsk. + +"Unfortunately, my name was put on the list," Stolyarov said. "I don't know why." + +But he said he had no intention of quitting chess. "I can't quit chess," he told The Telegraph. "I'm going to keep playing and fighting for chess." + +Stolyarov, who studied at the prestigious Moscow State University, is also a political activist. He was a member of the Federation Council of the Russian chess federation and has been involved with the United Russia party. + +He's also worked on the interests of the Russian state. He's worked on parliament's Committee on Defense and has been a member of the Constitutional Court with a view toward drafting a new constitution. He's also made public statements on behalf of the Russian government. + +He's not the first chess player to have his name on the list. And he might not be the last. The list also included Russian chess grandmaster and former world champion Levon Aronian. He was also a member of the Federation Council and a member of the Constitutional Court. + +But Stolyarov's name was the only one to cause a stir. + +He's been a national hero in Russia, even at the expense of his own country. During the Soviet era, Stolyarov was one of the top Soviet Union players. When the Soviets went to war with Afghanistan in 1979, Stolyarov fought in the air force. But with the Soviet Union's collapse, he was drafted into the Soviet KGB. + +"I was a fighter pilot, and I was put in command of an air force base," he told The Telegraph. "I was in the aviation branch of the KGB." + +Stolyarov was a Soviet fighter pilot in Afghanistan in 1979. But he was being drafted into the KGB. + +Stolyarov worked for the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. He was a fighter pilot in the early days of the Afghan mujaheddin uprising, according to The Telegraph. After the Soviet Union's collapse, he was sent on a mission to Iran, where he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. + +But he was being sent to Afghanistan on a mission that was under the direction of the CIA. + +"The Americans were about to invade Iran with the help of Pakistan and the Iranian government, and they were looking for some kind of resistance," Stolyarov told The Telegraph. "I was in a position to fight an insurgency." + +Stolyarov lost a close friend in the fight. In 2006, he said that he was flown out of Afghanistan to Egypt to be interrogated. His friend, who was also a chess player, was also killed. + +"I spent two months in an Egyptian prison, but they never released me," Stolyarov said. + +He says that he was tortured. + +"They put me in a cell without sunlight, without air, and I was not allowed to see my family," he said. "I was interrogated about my relationships with political figures in the United States and Europe. I was tortured. They tortured me, and I was condemned to death." + +Stolyarov says that he was due to be executed in 2008. + +But he was released. + +"I was released because my government was afraid that if I was executed, the Islamic Republic would be destroyed," he said. + +Stolyarov says he's not going to stop fighting for chess. + +"I have a dream, and I continue to work on it," he said. + +Stolyarov won the +======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== +Cancer and Reproductive Harm- Cancer and Reproductive Harm- www.P65Warnings.ca.gov + +The Norelco M400M Tactical-15 Shotgun, a 5-shot, 15-inch model with a 2-3/4-inch barrel, is built for targets at long-range. The ventilated rubber recoil pad complements the beefy 12-ga. barrel for smooth, accurate shooting. The heavy-duty bolt holds the receiver securely in place for easy handling. The stock folds up for easy storage. The trigger and trigger guard are made of steel.<|endoftext|>A little boy was arrested in the early morning hours of Wednesday after a violent encounter with police at the University of Cincinnati. + +According to an arrest report, the boy was "not cooperative" with responding officers and "was being extremely disruptive to the officers involved," Const. Jim O'Grady said. + +The boy's identity has not been released, but O'Grady said he is a 16-year-old male. + +The boy was identified by the Hamilton County prosecutor's office as Antonio D. Smith. + +A preliminary hearing for the boy is set for May 4. + +The incident began after Smith allegedly ran from police and tried to break into a woman's apartment on the 1300 block of East McCord Street. A bystander called police about 12:45 a.m. + +Officers arrived and told Smith to stop but he kept escaping. + +At that point, an officer had to shoot Smith twice, hitting him in the upper torso, O'Grady said. + +Smith was taken to UC Medical Center, where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries. + +He was charged with aggravated riot, resisting arrest, and obstructing official business.<|endoftext|>An aerial view of the construction site for the $3.4 billion (3.3 billion euro) Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras International. (AFP/Getty Images) + +PARIS — The European Union has got a new enemy: French political parties. + +As the bloc argues over how to continue building its rail network after Brexit, France's center-right government has been driving a hard bargain with the country's political parties. + +In return for a series of concessions, the government has been offering more spending on social programs, including generous pensions for the elderly and more free day care for children. + +The French government is also offering the parties generous concessions on reforms to labor laws, which are a key sticking point. + +"The European Union needs to get its head together," said Arnaud Montebourg, a leader of the main opposition Socialist Party, who has made the fight over the EU's future a key plank of his campaign. + +"There is no question but that France is the most important country in Europe, and it's the only one that has made its voice heard," he said in a recent interview. "The French are angry." + +The government's latest concessions — at the end of last week — include a deal to extend a program that gives state-subsidized day care to two million children, a program that is riddled with financial problems. + +The deal also makes it easier for workers to move to another country, which is a top priority for the country's labor unions. + +France's unions have been at the forefront of a fight over the EU's future, and their leader, France's prime minister, Manuel Valls, has a reputation as a hardline defender of the country's traditional working class. + +The new concessions to the parties are also attractive to the European Commission, which has been pushing for some of the same changes. + +It is unclear how much of the package the French government will be able to deliver. + +The commission has been trying to pry France out of its current funding agreement, which expires in 2022, but the government has not been quiet about its demands. + +One top French government official said that Valls's "no" in the presidential election was just a negotiating tactic. + +The official said the French government would not try to thwart the EU's growing populist movement, adding that France was just trying to get the best deal possible for the country. + +"The French government is not trying to fight and obstruct," the official said. "We're just trying to secure the best deal for the country." + +Like its counterparts in Germany and the United Kingdom, the government of France is also giving the EU a pass on the government's deep-rooted economic problems. + +"Faced with the challenge of the quadruple-dip recession, the government cannot gerrymander," the official said. "We don't need to put forward a separate budget for the EU." + +The official said that the politicians who raised the alarm about the crisis were not dealing with reality. + +"We are dealing with a country that is in a bad liquidity situation and is in a +======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== +I've been looking to build a power supply to be used on a Raspberry Pi and this one from Power Supply Solutions (http://www.planetvape.com/products/power-supply-solutions) is the one I've found. It has features I like, not a few extras that I don't need. + +Rated 5 out of 5 by Seth from Great product I am using this (with a 12vdc converter) in my control room setup, it works great. I have already recommended it to other forum members. + +Rated 5 out of 5 by JoeyF from Great Value, Great Product I was looking to add a more efficient way to charge a Raspberry Pi. This power supply is exactly what I needed!<|endoftext|>The list of those who have died from Ebola in the United States has grown to 23, with four more cases confirmed and four people who have been infected being isolated. + +Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest + +Two of the new cases are health care workers who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, who died from the virus in Dallas this weekend, and one of them is a second health care worker who was treating Duncan as a volunteer in Monrovia, Liberia when he contracted the disease. + +The new cases came to light today, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that all four of the new cases in the United States were linked to Duncan. + +But there are more than 30 people in the United States who have either been in contact with Duncan or have been infected with Ebola; and so far the CDC has confirmed only 21 of them. + +There are still several cases in West Africa, including one in Nigeria, where a man who died from Ebola was being treated for malaria. + +Infected Health Care Workers Are Being Moved Out of the U.S. + +For Now, More U.S. Ebola Cases Are Being Noticed + +CDC Director Says Ebola Cases Are Increasing + +The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and infected more than 13,000 elsewhere. + +The World Health Organization said today that the Ebola outbreak has spread to nine countries, including Senegal, Mali and Nigeria. + +The outbreak has been linked to the death of two American aid workers who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. + +The U.S. is not only concerned about the spread of the virus but the risk of contracting the disease in its healthcare workers. + +A CDC official said today that the agency has not seen a case of Ebola in a U.S. healthcare worker, but they would be monitoring for any changes in protocols. + +The CDC has been providing healthcare workers with protection kit and other instructions to help them protect themselves against Ebola, but the CDC said they are still actively taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus in their hospitals. + +"We are taking all necessary steps to protect our healthcare workers," the CDC said. + +CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden says that the agency has worked with the Health and Human Services Department to develop protocols for workers to protect themselves and to make sure they are not exposed. + +Frieden says the CDC has seen no cases of Ebola in U.S. healthcare workers but he said the agency is monitoring the situation. + +"We are taking all necessary steps to protect our healthcare workers, and we are doing everything we can to protect our health care workers," Frieden said. + +Treatment in the U.S. for Ebola is improving, but there is still a risk that an infected healthcare worker could infect other healthcare workers who come into contact with him or her, the CDC has said. + +"There is still a risk that an infected healthcare worker could infect other healthcare workers who come into contact with him or her, and other patients," Frieden said. "So we're working to identify the right protocols to be implemented across our healthcare system." + +The CDC has sent teams of experts to West Africa to help determine how to protect medical workers. + +The CDC has also set up a 24-hour hotline to help callers contact doctors and health care workers to check on their health. + +The new cases in the U.S. include healthcare workers and family members who have had contact with Duncan, or who have been in contact with Duncan and are sick. + +The first health care worker who has been confirmed to have been infected in the United States with Ebola is a female health care worker who cared for Duncan. She is now being treated at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the hospital said. + +The second new case was a man who treated Duncan, who died. The man had traveled to Liberia on his own and had not been part of the group of healthcare workers who treated Duncan. + +The second health care worker who is being treated in Dallas is being isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, +======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== +It's hard to imagine a more perfect combination of nostalgia and modern technology than the Classic Ford Mustang from the 1960s. It's the kind of car that makes people think about what it would have been like to be a kid. It's the kind of car that makes people think about what it would have been like to be a kid in the 1960s. + +The Ford Mustang is the perfect car for nostalgia, at least when it comes to the Corvair. To see how this car has held up over the years, we decided to get our hands on a 1961 Ford Mustang to see how the car has held up. + +The car was stolen in August of 2014, and the police were unable to find the owner. We tracked down the car's last owner and asked him if he would like to be interviewed. + +Advertisement + +I'm an automotive engineer by trade, but it's more than that. I'm a car enthusiast. I love the simplicity, elegance and form of old cars. I love the way cars look through the eyes of a young kid. I love the way cars look through the eyes of a young kid. So when I saw the opportunity to take a vintage Mustang to the track, a car that I've always wanted to drive, it was an irresistible one. + +But first, let's talk about the car itself. + +Advertisement + +The 1960 Ford Mustang was an important car in history. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States, and it was also the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. + +It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. + +Advertisement + +It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. It was the first car that Ford made in the United States that was made in the United States. + +Advertisement + +It's hard to imagine a more perfect combination of nostalgia and modern technology than the Corvair, which has a reputation for being the perfect car for the era. The Corvair is a car that is truly timeless +======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== +SCP-1514 + +SCP-1514 + +Item #: SCP-1514 + +Object Class: Euclid + +Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1514 is to be kept within a standard containment locker in Site-██. Each instance of SCP-1514 is to be kept in isolation within a standard room of standard dimensions, not exceeding 100m in length or width, with no more than three (3) Foundation personnel present. At least one (1) Level 3 researcher must be present at all times. SCP-1514 is to be fed non-anomalous food equivalent to a human's daily caloric intake, and no more than one (1) (Class-B amnestics are to be administered to all personnel if any food is found to be present in SCP-1514's chamber. + +Description: SCP-1514 is a container of unknown origin, approximately 13.5 cm in height by 4.8 cm in width, and 3.3 cm in depth. SCP-1514 is covered in a thick, viscous, yellowish substance that is similar in consistency to urine, except that it does not contain any trace of blood. A transparent, metallic-looking, leather-bound book is inside of it, and when an instance of SCP-1514 is placed inside of the book, it will translate it into an unknown language. + +When an instance of SCP-1514 is placed in front of a speaker, it will begin to speak in a language that has not been translated to this time, although translations are made by the speaker. The word that is spoken is determined by the speaker, and is usually the name of a person, place, or thing that has been "seen" by the speaker. The speaker is then to place an object in front of the speaker's eyes, which will disappear when the speaker looks at it. When the speaker looks at the object, it will immediately disappear. + +Addendum-1514-1: Demolishing SCP-1514 revealed that it is composed of dozens of small, glass, metal, and plastic objects that are interwoven throughout. With the exception of the book, these objects are inanimate. The book is composed of a book that has been covered in a book-like cover, and has a metal spine. The other objects in SCP-1514 are composed of the same material and appear to be small, tightly-bound books, with a leather cover. The book is also covered by a smooth, black leather cover, with a small silver skull on the front. The skull is engraved with four words, which are in Latin, and translates as "Una Gravia Vultus". + +Addendum-1514-2: A Foundation agent, who had previously been tasked with removing SCP-1514 from Site-██, was able to retrieve it from Site-██. Upon examination of the container, it was discovered that it contains approximately three (3) kilograms of wax. SCP-1514 was placed in a standard storage locker at Site-██.<|endoftext|>The New York Knicks have effectively traded for two of the premier wing players on the market in Jeff Teague and Paul George. + +The Knicks will send D'Angelo Russell, Tim Hardaway Jr., the Brooklyn Nets' 2019 first-round pick and the Knicks' 2019 second-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks for Teague and George, league sources told ESPN's Ian Begley. The Hawks will receive the Knicks' 2019 second-round pick and the Hawks will receive the Nets' 2019 first-round pick, sources said. + +Teague, 22, is averaging 19.2 points, 6.3 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game this season for the Atlanta Hawks. He has played in three All-Star Games and has won an NBA championship. + +George, 26, is averaging 21.4 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game this season for the Indiana Pacers. He's been named an All-Star in two of his past three seasons. + +The Indiana Pacers are the lone team in the Eastern Conference that has not made the playoffs since the 2010-11 season. + +After missing the playoffs in 2015-16, the Pacers are 9-12 and currently in second place in the Eastern Conference. The Pacers will open the season against the Los Angeles Lakers on Oct. 28. + +The Knicks acquired George and Teague at the trade deadline in a blockbuster trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder. + +ESPN's Ian Begley contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>The former president of the European Parliament has urged Theresa May to set out her plans to leave the EU before Britain triggers Article 50 and formally leaves the bloc. + +The former president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said the prime minister must "explain what the exit plan is, how it will work and why it will be different from the European Union". + +The UK must now negotiate the terms +======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== +There's that buzz again. The hits keep coming in the NFL. + +It's been a crazy couple of months for the league, from the head injuries and concussions to the suspensions and player protests. + +But maybe the most intriguing development in the NFL this year was the announcement last week from the league that it now has a policy to govern how players with domestic violence charges handle their legal issues. + +I'm not talking about guys like Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, who have been suspended for at least a year. I'm talking about players who are under investigation. + +In the past year, the league has suspended Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson, Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell and Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne. + +And in the past two weeks, the league has suspended Seahawks safety Earl Thomas for a game, and Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan for a game. + +Of course, the suspensions were for an incident involving an off-duty cop in Seattle who was involved in a domestic dispute with a woman. + +But that didn't stop the NFL from doing the right thing and suspending the players. + +So what's the difference? Why did the league issue the new policy? + +Here's what I know: It's about accountability, not just personal accountability. + +The NFL has always given its players a second chance, even if it meant giving them a second chance after an incident. That's what the league has always done, whether the players were suspended for a year or a lifetime. + +But in the past couple of months, the NFL has made it clear that it will not tolerate repeat offenders. + +It's not just about the outcomes of the cases. It's also about the accountability. + +It's what's behind the NFL's drastic crackdown on domestic violence. It's the most significant policy change in the league's history. + +So what changed? + +Well, there's no question the league is dealing with a serious problem. + +In the past year, the NFL has suspended Packers receiver Jordy Nelson, Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell and Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne. + +And in the past two weeks, the league has suspended Seahawks safety Earl Thomas for a game, and Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan for a game. + +Of course, the suspensions were for an incident involving an off-duty cop in Seattle who was involved in a domestic dispute with a woman. But that didn't stop the NFL from doing the right thing and suspending the players. + +So what's the difference? Why did the NFL issue the new policy? + +Here's what I know: It's about accountability, not just personal accountability. + +The NFL has always given its players a second chance, even if it meant giving them a second chance after an incident. That's what the league has always done, whether the players were suspended for a year or a lifetime. + +But in the past couple of months, the NFL has made it clear that it will not tolerate repeat offenders. + +It's not just about the outcomes of the cases. It's also about the accountability. + +It's what's behind the NFL's drastic crackdown on domestic violence. It's the most significant policy change in the league's history. + +So what's changed? + +Well, there's no question the league is dealing with a serious problem. + +In the past year, the NFL has suspended Packers receiver Jordy Nelson, Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell and Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne. + +And in the past two weeks, the league has suspended Seahawks safety Earl Thomas for a game, and Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan for a game. + +Of course, the suspensions were for an incident involving an off-duty cop in Seattle who was involved in a domestic dispute with a woman. But that didn't stop the NFL from doing the right thing and suspending the players. + +So what's the difference? Why did the NFL issue the new policy? + +Well, there's no question the league is dealing with a serious problem. + +In the past year, the NFL has suspended Packers receiver Jordy Nelson, Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell and Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne. + +And in the past two weeks, the league has suspended Seahawks safety Earl Thomas for a game, and Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan for a game. + +Of course, the suspensions were for an incident involving an off-duty cop in Seattle who was involved in a domestic dispute with a woman. But that didn't stop the NFL from doing the right thing and suspending the players. + +But what is the problem? + +Well, the problem is that the players who have been suspended have committed a very serious crime. + +And the league has taken a stance that a violent, assaultive act that involves a weapon should be punished much more severely than a violent, assaultive act that involves a +======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== +The morning of the crash, investigators believed the plane had reached cruising altitude. + +"The final indication was we detected some kind of energy," said Lt. Col. Daniel Dyer, a Pentagon spokesman. "We didn't know if it was a missile, a sonic boom, or something else." + +A military official briefed on the investigation into the crash said the military had determined that the plane had hit the ground at an altitude of at least 5,000 feet. + +The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the plane was on a routine training mission from Kadena Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo. + +The official said the pilot was the same one who had flown the plane into the sea on Tuesday, and that the pilot had ejected. + +The official said the plane's tail was torn from its vertical tail fin, which provided a better view of the crash site. The official said the plane had been flying at an altitude of about 5,000 feet when it crashed. The official said the plane was a civilian aircraft of Thai registry.<|endoftext|>Being a jock is generally a bad thing. But one student at the University of Colorado Boulder was able to turn that stereotype on its head by wearing a custom-made "Rape-Jock" shirt to class. + +According to the Daily Camera, the student, Hailey Dawson, said she chose the shirt because she felt that it "emphasized the importance of rape culture, and how we all need to take responsibility for the environment in which we live." + +Yup. + +The Daily Camera reports that Dawson wore the shirt to a class on being an ally to survivors of sexual assault, and even used the phrase "rape-jock" to describe herself. + +The student maintained that she made a "joke," not a statement, and was simply trying to make other students feel safe. She said: + +"I was just trying to make a point and I was trying to make people feel safe. I think it was a joke, and I don't think I was trying to be offensive." + +Actually,, Dawson's shirt is very offensive. It basically says that rape is a joke, and it's okay to joke about it. It says that it is acceptable to rape people without fear of repercussion, and it says that women are not able to say no—that they are "in control" of their bodies—and that it's okay to force yourself on someone, even if it's your own sister. + +Advertisement + +Dawson's rape-jock shirt is so offensive that even the Daily Camera couldn't look away. This is the same woman who walked up to a woman on the escalator and said: + +"I'm a rape survivor. I was groped many times when I was a college student. I was also a victim of sexual assault at the hands of a very powerful man. And, when I got to the University of Colorado Boulder, I was raped a few times." + +It's not a joke. It's not a joke at all. And it's not okay. + +Advertisement + +The Daily Camera spoke with Dawson, who said she was "deeply shaken and disturbed" by what happened. She said she was "stunned" by the Daily Camera's coverage of the story, and that she's been getting hate messages for her shirt. + +"I just want this to go away," Dawson said. "I don't want any more attention." + +But it's not going away. + +Advertisement + +Even if a student at the University of Colorado Boulder were to wear a shirt like Dawson's to class, they would still be representing rapists. And that's not OK. + +Photo via Daily Camera/YouTube<|endoftext|>The government is getting ready to scrap the one-size-fits-all Education Bill, which has stifled the creativity of individual schools and forced academically gifted children to fail in their first year of school. + +Education Minister Vinod Tawde has written to the state education department to rework the law which mandates a uniform educational system for all schools. The new draft bill estimates that only one in five children in the country will be able to gain admission to a good school, forcing them to fail in their first year. + +"Currently, many of the same textbooks are used for different schools, which can lead to inequities in learning," Tawde said in the letter, which was obtained by The Indian Express. "We will rework the Bill to make it more appropriate for different schools." + +Tawde's letter was addressed to Rajiv Ranjan, the principal secretary in the department. + +The Education Act, 2006, mandates that all Indian schools should follow a uniform curriculum. The provisions of the Act have been challenged in court by schools which claim that it infringes upon their freedom of education. + +The government is keen to provide education to all children irrespective of +======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== +Convicted killer Anthony Ray Hinton has been charged with the rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman who disappeared in 2007. + +Hinton, 70, is accused of killing Brittney Mills and raping her before dumping her body in a plastic bag in April 2007. + +He appeared in court in London on Thursday to face charges of an open murder and rape and was remanded in custody. + +Hinton is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court again on Monday. + +Mills, from Cobham, Surrey, was last seen alive leaving a party on 1 April 2007, when she didn't return home from her shift at a restaurant. + +She was found dead by her father on 25 May 2007 - and was initially believed to have had a relationship with Hinton. + +But after a £1.6m appeal to find the missing woman, Hinton was charged with murder in February 2008. + +Hinton was also charged with rape in October 2009, and has until now always denied the allegations. + +He was detained under the Mental Health Act but released in the summer of 2013 on the condition he not leave the UK for at least five years. + +Hinton was taken to the hospital for treatment in the aftermath of his arrest. + +Meanwhile, Hinton's daughter, Deanna Hinton, is working to raise funds for the family in the hope her father will be released from custody. + +"I have seen him (Hinton) on the news in prison and I've always been very proud of him and how he handled everything," she said. + +"The fact that he's ever been charged, I'm in a bit of shock. + +"I knew he had a history and as far as I know he's always been a person who has always been very sympathetic to the poor and the needy. + +"I just want to be able to help him and I'm working on that to raise the money. + +"It's important to me because it's an injustice to think that my dad is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. It's not fair to him." + +In a statement, Deanna Hinton said: "This is the hardest time of my life and I am sure it will continue to be a very difficult time for my family and our friends."<|endoftext|>BRAZZERS 2 days full access for only 1$ show me the offer... + +Karma Dane is back for another round of anal sex with a pussy that's just as wet as she was the first time she played with it. She's bent over the bed and her ass is spread wide open for a little taste of her own sweet juices. Her best friend, Dana DeArmond, is sitting on the bed next to her, stroking her cock and getting ready to fuck this little slut. + +BRAZZERS 2 days full access for only 1$ show me the offer...<|endoftext|>After a few months of fumbling around with the concept of a tiny house, I finally have a prototype. + +It's made from a square, made from a square, and we built it with a steel frame. + +The house is about 5'7" wide and is about 5'3" high. + +It's made with a steel frame and is ready to be assembled. + +We built it with a steel frame and is ready to be assembled. + +It's built with a steel frame and is ready to be assembled. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We're building a small house with a steel frame. + +We +======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== +New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch praised the efforts of central defender Tyler Adams early in the match. "He's a great guy," Marsch said of Adams. "He's very talented. He's got a great attitude. He's a good kid." + +Marsch also had high praise for his team's play after the break. "We were content with some of our work," he said. "We got some good looks, which was good. We were content with it." + +Red Bulls defender Ronald Zubar came into the match off the bench and was sent off in the first fifteen minutes of the second half. Marsch said he was "disappointed" with Zubar's decision to come on for the final 30 minutes of the match. + +Zubar was shown a straight red card and will now miss the next two games. "He didn't deserve to come on," Marsch said. "He didn't deserve to come on. We'll speak to the league about it, but at that point I thought it was time for him to go." + +The Red Bulls travel to play Columbus Crew SC on Saturday. The match will be broadcast on FS1 and be available on NYRB LIVE.<|endoftext|>Key to the Tree + +The Key to the Tree is a pet pet that can be obtained as part of the 2016 Christmas Event. It was available for 5,000 Christmas Coins from December 20 - December 24, 2016. + +Players with the Key to the Tree would receive a Christmas Tree key item, which could be redeemed for a pet. + +Trivia Edit<|endoftext|>Amid a barrage of criticism over his response to the Orlando, Florida, nightclub attack, Donald Trump on Monday insisted he wasn't talking about Muslims. + +"I was referring to radical Islamic terrorism," Trump said during a campaign rally in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. "I was talking about the radical Islamic terrorism." + +Trump was widely criticized last week for his call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. The Republican presidential candidate later backtracked and said he was in fact talking about all terror attacks ― saying he would call it out regardless of religion. + +"I was talking about the radical Islamic terrorism," Trump insisted on Monday. "I was not talking about, you know, the religion. I was not talking about the religion. The religion is a very important thing, but you know what, when I say the religion, I'm talking about the radical Islamic terrorism. I was not talking about the religion." + +It's not the first time Trump has tried to explain his comments. + +Last week, Trump said he was "proud" to be referred to as "the Donald" by the New York Times. + +"I am very proud of myself," he told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I am very proud of my name." + +That interview also came about a week after Trump was pressed further on his comments about banning Muslims from the country. + +"You know, there is something called the unwritten rule of speaking softly and carrying a big stick," Trump told reporters in Iowa last week. "And I'm always proud of that. I'm very proud of my name." + +Trump also mentioned the unwritten rule when he was asked about the Orlando shooting on Monday.<|endoftext|>The following is a list of items that make good gifts for Chanel, who likes Official, red items and dislikes Cute/Fancy items. + +Best Gifts for Chanel: Official, red items + +The following items have Chanel's favorite style and color. + +Name Type Name Color 1 Color 2 beaded shirt top red black beaded tank top red black big-dot tank top yellow green big-dot tee top yellow green bright tee top yellow green bold check tee top yellow red caterpillar tank top yellow green caterpillar tee top yellow green dapper shirt top yellow green dapper tee top yellow green fern shirt top green brown fern tee top green brown fresh tank top green white fresh tee top green white happi tee top red blue jinbei top top blue gray new spring tee top blue purple no. 5 shirt top red aqua no. 17 shirt top red white pep-squad tank top red white pep-squad tee top red white racer 6 tee top yellow black relay tank top yellow purple sharp outfit top yellow gray striking outfit top yellow blue tropical tank top red purple tropical tee top red purple tulip tee top yellow red wrestler tank top yellow red colorful wheel furniture colorful colorful + +Non-Official, non-Cute/Fancy, pink items + +The following items have Chanel's favorite color, but not the favorite style or disliked style. + +Name Type Name Color 1 Color 2 after-school jacket top red black arctic-camo shirt top gray gray arctic-camo tee top gray gray bb tee top white black black letter jacket top black black blue letter jacket top blue blue camo letter jacket top +======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== +Lee Kuan Yew's eldest son, Tony, has made a name for himself in the business world. + +He is one of the country's most successful young property developers and has built several high-rise buildings that have been sold out or are coming on stream. + +He has also made much of his money by investing in Singaporean real estate, buying a private island and new properties in the capital, as well as a beachfront property in Bali. + +His wealth, though, has not been limited to property and property development. Mr Lee's eldest son also owns an investment company, Tampines Property Partners, and has also invested in a number of Singapore-based businesses. + +Mr Lee's son, Tony, has been the face of Singapore's property boom and has made a name for himself in the business world. + +He is one of the country's most successful young property developers and has built several high rise buildings that have been sold out or are coming on stream. + +But his wealth, though, has not been limited to property and property development. + +Mr Lee's eldest son has also made much of his money by investing in Singaporean real estate, buying a private island and new properties in the capital, as well as a beachfront property in Bali. + +His father's legacy + +Tony, who is a senior executive at Singapore's biggest property developer, Sime Darby, has been appointed the company's chief executive for the next five years. + +From the beginning of 2015, Mr Lee's son has been a key figure in the company's recent success. + +In May 2015, Tony Lee was named the chairman of the board of directors for Sime Darby. + +The company's shares were valued at just S$2.2 billion in 2015. + +But Tony has a lot of business ahead of him. + +He is the CEO of a Singapore-listed company with assets of about S$2.2 billion, the Singapore Exchange reported. + +Sime Darby has become one of the hottest property developers in the country. + +In a recent interview with Apple Daily, Tony Lee said he has spent 20 years in the business, as a real estate developer, and the son of the chairman of the board of directors. + +"I've had to make a lot of sacrifices to make real estate work in Singapore," he said. + +He said that when he was younger, he would walk out of his father's Singapore house after work and go home to his parents' home. + +"I was never able to do things like that until I was 40 years old," Tony Lee said. + +"I've worked hard and made good money. I've done well because of Singaporeans' hard work." + +He said his father was not of a "low profile" as his younger brothers and sisters were. + +"He was kind and gentle. He was a good father but he had his own agenda," Tony Lee said. + +'I'm proud' + +Tony Lee's father was a successful politician and architect of the nation's first direct election of MPs and ministers. + +In its early days, Singapore was a British colony, and the country's parliament was not elected by popular vote. + +But in 1959, the country's first direct election of MPs and ministers was introduced. + +Mr Lee said he is proud of his father's legacy. + +"He had a vision that he wanted to make Singapore better. He wanted to make Singapore a better place. He sacrificed so he could make Singapore better. So I'm proud of my dad," Tony Lee said. + +"I hope that I will be as good as my dad." + +He said he did not know what his father would think of his current career. + +"I don't know if my dad would like me for what I do now. But I do know that Singaporeans are very proud of my father."<|endoftext|>Image caption The NHS in England is being stretched to the limit + +The number of hospital beds in England has risen by 4,300 to 1,499, the NHS said, as it warned that the system is under threat. + +The number of beds across the country has risen by 1,300 in the past year and by 120 in the past three months, the NHS said. + +The health service said the rise and subsequent fall in bed numbers were so large it was impossible to keep up with demand. + +The government's spending watchdog said the NHS was "under pressure". + +The Trust Development Committee said the NHS was treating more patients, but not enough of them. + +More patients are being admitted to hospital, but fewer are being discharged, it said. + +The trust development committee is a body that approves and monitors the activities of trusts. + +It said the NHS in England was in the midst of a "major shift in the way patients are treated", which had been +======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== +At the time of writing this article, it doesn't look like the Bills will have a new head coach in place this offseason. + +But even if they do, it still isn't a sure thing. + +The Bills have a decision to make on Karl Dorrell, who would be their head coach if they hired one, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports. + +La Canfora said he spoke to a "high-level" source who said that Dorrell was not a sure thing to land the Bills' job. + +"I was told that the Bills would have a head-coach opening, but it's not a done deal," La Canfora wrote. + +The Bills are expected to be in the market for a new head coach after firing Rex Ryan on Sunday. + +Dorrell, who played in the NFL for 12 seasons, was a defensive coordinator for the Ravens last year. He was the Ravens' defensive coordinator for the first three seasons of his career. + +He was the coach of the Ravens' defensive line during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. He also coached the Ravens' linebackers from 2008 to 2010. + +Dorrell wasn't on the Bills' list of candidates when Ryan was fired, according to The Buffalo News. + +The Bills hired former Buccaneers and Giants coach Greg Schiano as their new head coach on Friday. + +Only two other candidates remain: former Bills offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and Cleveland Browns offensive line coach Tony Sparano.<|endoftext|>Background + +Since the first version of this article, the number of videos (videos < 10 seconds) of non-observable objects has increased dramatically. It is a fact that the data collected from camera systems is far from perfect. + +In general, this would not bother anyone who is in the business of building software, as there are many ways to improve the quality. However, this article is about the more fundamental problem: how to deal with these videos. + +For those who prefer not to read: + +For those who prefer to read: + +If you are a professional in the field of data science a) this article has not been written for you and b) you should probably hire someone else to write articles for you. Otherwise, this article is for you. + +I will assume you already know some basic data structures and basic algorithms. I will not teach you how to use them; rather, I will show you how to use them to deal with video. + +The Basics + +I will begin by defining the space that we are working in. The space is defined by the following object types: + +I will use a base class of video (also called a videoObject ): + +type VideoObject = { + +fileName : string + +} + +class VideoObject ( object ): + +fileName = None + +The fileName property is a string which is the name of the video file in the format of "filename.mp4." + +The first thing we need to do is to try to open the video file with the given name. This is done by calling the open() method of the VideoObject class: + +class VideoObject ( object ): + +fileName = None + +def open ( self , filename ): + +if not filename : + +return + +try : + +os.system(filename) + +except OSError : + +pass + +video = VideoObject.open(filename) + +if video is not None : + +return video + +return None + +The first argument to os.system() is the name of the file. The second argument is a list of filters which will be applied to the video. The third argument is a callback function which will be executed when the file is opened. + +The args argument of os.system() can be used to pass arguments to the callback function. + +For example, imagine we have a module named VideoVideo that contains both a video and a videoObject : + +class VideoVideo ( object ): + +fileName = None + +def open ( self , filename , args = ():): + +if not filename : + +return + +if args is not None : + +video = VideoVideo.open(filename) + +video.open(args) + +return video + +The first argument to os.system() is the name of the file. The second argument is a list of filters which will be applied to the video. The third argument is a callback function which will be executed when the file is opened. + +The args argument of os.system() can be used to pass arguments to the callback function. + +For example, imagine we have a module named VideoVideo that contains both a video and a videoObject : + +class VideoVideo ( object ): + +fileName = None + +def open ( self , filename , args = ():): + +if not filename +======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== +It's not often that I get to review so many high quality, high-end, luxury-branded, cookbooks….but here we are. + +The first book I went through was The Cook's Book of New York City by Ed Mirvish. I've always loved Ed Mirvish's recipes and he's one of my favorite chefs. But the cookbook that blew me away was The New York Times Best Seller, The Cook's Book of New York by Ed Mirvish. I've to say that this is an absolutely perfect cookbook for someone who is looking to cook in New York City and want to do it right…or someone who is looking to travel and want to cook in NYC! + +This book has so many of the best NYC food classics that you can't go wrong! I've already started taking notes and planning my next trip to NYC to try these recipes out! + +NEW YORK COOKBOOKS FOR MAY + +There are so many great New York City cookbooks that I think we need to talk about here. + +I'm excited to share with you a few of my favorite NYC cookbooks that you can order on Amazon. + +The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller, The New York Times Best Seller + +Are you ready to take a trip to NYC and try out these New York City cookbooks?? + +I'm ready to go! + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will nominate former Senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, the White House said on Monday, a move that will require Congress to vote to confirm him. + +U.S. President Barack Obama (R) welcomes retired Marine General James Mattis to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington May 1, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque + +Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who was confirmed by the Senate to the post in 2006, has been a key figure in Obama's war on terrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and in the debate over the war in Afghanistan. + +Obama said he has asked Hagel to serve as defense secretary "as long as I'm president." + +The White House said Obama will nominate former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as secretary of defense, a move that will require Congress to vote to confirm him. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque + +"We are grateful to Senator Hagel for his many years of distinguished service to our nation, and we are confident he would be an outstanding secretary of defense," the White House said. + +The announcement comes as Obama is seeking to ramp up efforts to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 9,800 by the end of 2016 and to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of 2016. + +Obama said he spoke by phone with Obama on Monday and "agreed that the time is right to nominate Chuck Hagel to serve as secretary of defense." + +Obama has also nominated two other candidates for the defense secretary post: former U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo for CIA director and former U.S. Senator Dan Coats for NSA director. + +The White House said Obama will also nominate former U.S. Representative Jim Talent for the Central Intelligence Agency. + +The nomination process for the other two positions will begin on Tuesday, the White House said. + +Hagel, a two-time Republican presidential candidate, is a warrior-admiring, Vietnam veteran who rose to the rank of lieutenant general and rose through the ranks, both as a senator and as CIA director. + +He is known for his hawkish views on Iran, Israel and Iran's nuclear program, which the United States believes is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. + +======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== +Originally Posted by hoover Originally Posted by + +"it has been said that he was as old as the gods themselves. His hair was as white as snow and his face as blank as an ice cave. His body was covered in scales, his tongue was as blue as water, and his arms and legs were as tough as galleons." + + +In a way I agree. I guess my question is who would have the body to wear the 'power' of the god. I.e. the body would have to be like a god. + + +I think most people I've talked to would say that they could use the power of the god. It's just how their god would be so I don't believe that it would be a power that someone could just tap into. + + +I think the only way the god could be defeated would be by wearing the body of the god or if the god were to die. The god could be cut in two, one half having the power of the god, but being a part of the god, while the other half would be a pure body. + + +It's just a theory I guess.<|endoftext|>A move by the City of Austin to delay the construction of a new Lone Star Transcontinental Terminal is being challenged in court by a business group and a local newspaper, with the business group claiming the move is an attack on its ability to do business. + +The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Friday granted a motion by the Austin Chamber of Commerce to intervene in the case. + +The Chamber of Commerce is a corporate trade group that represents nearly 1,000 businesses. + +The group says the Texas Railroad Commission has postponed the decision on whether to issue a permit for Lone Star Transcontinental Terminal LLC — the Texas company that wants to build the new terminal — by delaying a public hearing. + +The Chamber says the delay is an attempt to hit the company with more than $250,000 in fines, no longer be allowed to participate in the state's tax incentives program and impede its ability to start construction by conducting a separate environmental review. + +The Chamber says the delay is also an attack on the business community's ability to conduct business. + +"This is an effort by the Texas Railroad Commission to make it impossible for Lone Star Transcontinental Terminal to move forward and keep our jobs here in our city," said Greg Marx, the Chamber's vice president of government affairs and public affairs. + +The company's petition to delay the environmental review was filed with the Texas Railroad Commission in December for a permit to continue construction of the terminal at the site of the current terminal on the north side of Interstate 35. The petition was amended to include a request for a delay in the public notice period. + +The permit for the new terminal is a key issue because it will allow the company to use a major highway for its freight and passengers. + +The Texas Railroad Commission said in its denial letter to the company that the delay in the environmental review "is necessary to allow Lone Star Transcontinental Terminal LLC to register its property in Texas and complete construction of the new terminal." + +The Chamber of Commerce says that it believes the delay is actually an attempt to delay the permit rather than a true attempt to delay the environmental review. + +"It is a unilateral action by the Texas Railroad Commission that harms a large number of Texas businesses," Marx said. + +The Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are also parties to the lawsuit.<|endoftext|>Tom Cruise has been making headlines since September with his lackluster performances in three films that together have grossed a paltry $180 million worldwide. + +One of those films was Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the third installment in the series. The movie actually performed better overseas than it did in the United States, grossing $186 million worldwide for a $275 million domestic box office take. + +The disappointing performance led to Cruise reportedly being replaced as the lead in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. The movie was released in late October and ranked No. 42 on the list of the top-grossing movies of 2014. + +"It's a tough day," Cruise's publicist, Ken Kamins, told Deadline. "Tom is a tremendous performer and his performance in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was spectacular. We wish him all the best with the films he has in the works." + +Cruise has not re-titled the film or given any indication that he might return to the franchise. + +While Cruise is a blockbuster star, he has failed to deliver a box office hit since the release of Mission: Impossible 3 in 2006. In addition to the recent news that Cruise's most recent wife, Katie Holmes, is pregnant with their second child, the actor has been in the news for a number of controversial incidents over the past few years. + +For more on Tom Cruise, watch the video below: + +For more on Mission: Impossible – +======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== +There is no doubt that I am a man who loves to work, but I also love to play games. I love to watch sports, I love to play video games, and I even love to read books. I have spent my entire life trying to figure out what I love most, and my answers have never been satisfying. I started that quest in my teens and into my twenties, and I've been searching ever since. + +So it's with great excitement that I am writing this article, because I've decided to stop searching. I have decided that I love video games. I know this because, the past few months, I have discovered a treasure trove of games that I cannot wait to play. I've discovered games that I know I'll love, and games that I'm absolutely sure I'll love. + +And they are all video games that are coming out this year, and I want to tell you about them. + +The games I am talking about are all coming out this year and they are all amazing. If you've been living under a rock, you should know that I love a good game. And I love a good RPG. And I love a good strategy game. And I love a good shooter. And I love a good action/adventure game. And I love a good puzzle game. And I love all of those video games. + +And I know that I am one of those people that loves all of those things. I'm not just saying that because I have a massive collection of video games. I have a massive collection of all kinds of video games. + +I want you to be aware that, whether you are a new gamer, a seasoned gamer, or a fan of video games, you will find something new to love this year. + +We've already collected a few of these games and you can find them all on our All Access page. You can also find out about the other new games coming out from the makers of Minecraft, Call of Duty, and Minecraft: Story Mode. + +If you think that I'm being a little too positive about all of these games, you are absolutely right. They are fantastic. I've been to nearly all of these video games and they are all absolutely amazing. + +If you're a veteran gamer, I'm still not sure if you can get over The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I mean, I'm firmly in the "I loved Skyrim and I love it" camp. I have a few issues with it, but I still love Skyrim. + +If you're a fan of the Dragon Age series, then you'll love everything that Bioware has been working on. Dragon Age: Inquisition is the first entry in this series, and it is the best game in the series. This game is so good that I'm already working on a new game in the Dragon Age series after I finish this. + +If you're a fan of Tekken, you will love Tekken 7. This game is just phenomenal. It's my favorite fighting game of all time. I've played this game for hours, and I still can't believe that I have time to play it. + +If you've been a fan of Minecraft, you'll love Minecraft: Story Mode. This game is not a Minecraft game, but it is a really good Minecraft game. It's the best Minecraft story that I've ever seen. It's a real treat to watch. It's an adventure that is unlike anything we've seen before. + +If you're a fan of Call of Duty, you'll love Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. This game is going to blow your mind. I'm excited to play this game. It's going to be an amazing experience. + +If you're a fan of Minecraft: Story Mode, then you'll love the other two episodes. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will be released in theaters next year. At the same time, Minecraft is coming to Netflix and they will release the episode called "The Last of Us Part II" in theaters before the movie is released. + +These are just a few of the games that are coming out this year and I'm excited to play them all. I'm also excited to see where they take these games, and I will be there with you as they do. + +What are you waiting for? Go out and buy all of these games today. + +– Michael + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>Donald Trump's political and personal connections to Russia have been documented before, but the newly-released emails tell a more intimate tale—and suggest there's more to come. + +The revelations are contained in thousands of emails hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's account, which were released by Wikileaks on Friday. + +Among the emails are messages from the account of Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, with which the campaign's top official had a private conversation about the Republican nominee's vice presidential pick. + +The emails show Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, whispering +======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== +The Xbox One is a very capable console, and it handles games much better than it did in the days of the Xbox 360. The system has a ton of power, but it's not perfect. + +I'm a little sad to report that the Xbox One's lack of backward compatibility is an issue for me as well. + +Backwards compatibility is a wonderful feature for any console. It allows you to play your old games on your new console, and it is a great way to make sure you never have to buy a new console again. + +Advertisement + +If Microsoft allowed you to use the Xbox One's backward compatibility features, however, all of your old games would no longer work on the Xbox One. That would make it hard for you to play your favorite games on the Xbox One, and it would make it really difficult to upgrade your old console to the Xbox One. + +When Microsoft announced that it would no longer be honoring backwards compatibility for the Xbox One, I was a little worried. The Xbox One is a pretty capable console, and it handles games much better than it did in the days of the Xbox 360. The system has a ton of power, but it's not perfect. For example, it has a hard time keeping up with a lot of modern games, and it has a hard time keeping up with the Xbox 360's 60 frames per second. + +Backwards compatibility is a great feature for any console, but the Xbox One is a bit of a beast. The system struggles with a lot of older games, and it lags behind a lot of modern games. + +Advertisement + +The Xbox One is a great machine, but it doesn't handle modern games as well as it once did. Microsoft needs to get rid of the Xbox One's backward compatibility, and it needs to do it sooner than later. I never remember choosing to play a game on my Xbox 360. I remember playing games on the Xbox One. + +Backwards compatibility is a wonderful feature for any console. It allows you to play your old games on your new console, and it is a great way to make sure you never have to buy a new console again. + +If Microsoft allowed you to use the Xbox One's backward compatibility features, however, all of your old games would no longer work on the Xbox One. That would make it hard for you to play your favorite games on the Xbox One, and it would make it really difficult to upgrade your old console to the Xbox One. + +Advertisement + +So, the question is: What can you do to make sure that your games will work on the Xbox One? + +Update: Microsoft has now confirmed that the Xbox One will not be backward compatible with Xbox 360 games. + +The Xbox One is a fantastic machine, but I have a few suggestions for how Microsoft could make it better. + +Advertisement + +Update: Microsoft has now confirmed that the Xbox One will not be backward compatible with Xbox 360 games.<|endoftext|>A lot of times on the road I will just take the bus. It's not that I don't like trains, it's more that I don't like the transfers. + +If I was going to take the train, and I was going to take the train from the airport to the city, I would take the train from the airport to the city, and then take the train to the city. It's much more convenient. Coincidentally, it's also the only way to get to the city from the airport, since the train is about 15 minutes late. + +But that's not what I do. I take the bus, because it's cheaper. So I'm in a bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus. + +This is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus, and this is a bus. + +And then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the bus, and then I'm on the +======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== +Greetings, fellow geeks! + +I'm back, and I've got a super-sized announcement to make. After a few weeks off, I'm back. I've been in a bit of a slump, a bit of a hangover. Compared to the joy and excitement that I felt when I started out, things are a bit smothered. + +It's true; I haven't published a book since my first book The Unofficial Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy began in 1994. And in the intervening years, a whole lot of the things I love about writing and publishing have changed. And like any great writer, I've had to really work to adapt to the new realities. My attitude in that time has been to focus on what makes my stories resonate with people, and adapt to whatever new realities are presented to me. + +And so, I'm back in a big way. I'm announcing four new novels, and all of them are set in my own world, the world of the Periphery, a world where my stories are inspired by and reinterpretations of sci-fi and fantasy classics — classic stories that inspire my own. + +The first book in the series, The Unofficial Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy, is now available. It's a volume covering everything from the history of science fiction and fantasy to the history of science fiction and fantasy writing, from the great classics to the modern talent. It's a great place to start if you're a fan of, say, the classic works of Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, or Arthur C. Clarke. And I've written it with the input of some of my most enthusiastic fans. + +I'm also returning with a new series of short stories, The Periphery, where I'll take you on a journey through the weirdest realities, the strangest realities, where the weirdest things happen. It's a series of fantasy novels set in the Periphery, and I'll be releasing the first two stories every few months. I've been writing these for a long time, and I think they're going to be some of my best work yet. + +And then, I'm also returning with a new series of novellas, The Periphery, where new stories are revealed every month. You might have heard of the series, but you might not have read it yet. It's a new series, and it'll be every month. I'll be revealing the first novella in the series each month. + +And finally, I'm also returning with a new series of short stories, The Periphery, where I'll take you on a journey through the weirdest realities, the strangest realities, where the weirdest things happen. It's a series of fantasy novels set in the Periphery, and I'll be releasing the first two stories every few months. I'll be revealing the first novella in the series each month. + +Yes, I'm returning to a world I love, and a world where I've been a part of for so long. To be able to return, and to be able to do what I've always wanted to do: write for a living. + +I've had a great time since I came back here. I've been able to write my books, and to publish them, in a way that I couldn't when I was writing for the New York Review of Books, or writing in magazines like Strange Horizons and the New York Review of Science Fiction. Now I can write for a living, and I have the time and freedom I've always wanted. + +But I'm not done yet. I have the next big thing in mind. So even though I've got a very challenging four-year project to finish, I'm going to keep working on new projects, and I'm going to keep writing. + +I'm truly grateful to everyone who has supported me over the years. I have always appreciated your support, not only in the form of words of encouragement, but in the form of your encouragement in the form of your money. In fact, that's what enabled me to do what I'm doing now. + +I don't know how much more I can say. But I do know that I have no idea how long I'll be able to continue this. I know that I'll be working on my projects, and I know that I'll be writing for a living. I hope you'll continue to support me, and let me know what you think about my new projects. + +Thank you, + +The Periphery<|endoftext|>About + +The project is to make a game out of a board game that I like and that I think some people might like. I'm currently working on it on my about page. + +The game is called "Turtledove". It is a game based on the board game "Turtle Beach Turtledove". + +The first draft +======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== +It's official: the Canadian government is planning to promote gas-powered cars in the country by selling low-cost leases of new vehicles to Canadians. + +In a recent announcement, Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr confirmed that the government is working to sell "subsidized" new vehicles to Canadians, which are expected to be available in the coming weeks. + +The program will be administered by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the auto industry, and will target a range of vehicles, including gas-powered vehicles. + +Carr said the government is targeting Canadians who have "likely never even seen an electric vehicle" and are interested in purchasing a low-cost vehicle that will help them enjoy driving and reduce emissions. + +"This government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and we can do this by encouraging Canadians to choose more fuel-efficient vehicles," he said. + +"We know that Canadians are driving less, but we also know that they want to be good environmental stewards; we want them to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles. That's why we're introducing a program to help them do that." + +The program will begin with the leasing of "subsidized" new vehicles to Canadians. + +This announcement follows the government's announcement earlier this year that it would ban the sale of new gasoline vehicles in Canada by 2040. + +Carr added that the new initiative is designed to make sure that the government continues to support "cleaner vehicles and cleaner transportation systems in Canada, while still providing a vehicle option for Canadians." + +Canada's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has previously said that the gas-powered vehicle fleet in Canada has increased by a staggering 37% in the past four years. + +This increase has been attributed to federal government incentives to encourage the purchase of plug-in vehicles. + +The government has also announced that it will subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles, with EVs getting a price break of $7,500. + +Carr also said that an "open and transparent procurement process" is being implemented for the upcoming car leasing program, and that the government will be seeking out the best possible leasing companies. + +Read more<|endoftext|>Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! is a light novel series written by Kotarou Miura, illustrated by Masakazu Katsura and published by ASCII Media Works. The series was licensed by ASCII Media Works, and was published in English as Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! by Vertical Inc. in February 2011. + +Contents show] + +Plot Edit + +The Hoshidan royals, including Illya, are invited to attend the annual festival of the Holy Grail. However, they are caught in a plane crash, and Illya is presumed dead. + +A year later, she is alive and well, but in a coma. She is revived in the same plane crash by the Servants of the Holy Grail, only to be brought back to life by the Holy Grail. She is now a Grail War mage, and the Servants that were summoned to find the Holy Grail are now battling for her. + +Chapters Edit + +Manga Edit + +Main Series Edit + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! Manga Edit + +If you are a Fate fan, you should read the Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! manga. The series has been serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh since the end of the third volume in 2011. The series is also available in English, as Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! Manga. + +The manga is also available on the Dengeki Bunko Store. + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! Visual Edit + +Kodansha published the first visual novel for Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! in 2011. A sequel visual novel was released in 2012. + +The third visual novel was released in December 2013. + +An anime project based on the Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! manga was announced in 2016. + +The Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! Visual Novel was released in Japanese on February 24, 2017. + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! Character Songs Edit + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! - The Painted Blue Knight - + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! - The Painted Red Knight - + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! - The Painted Black Knight - + +Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei!! +======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== +At his first state-level debate, Republican Donald Trump's response to a question about women's rights was to talk about how he's going to "make America great again." + +When "Democrat" Tim Kaine pressed Trump on his past comments about women's roles, he replied, "Look, women are special, and I think it's a special time and a special place in our society for them to have the opportunity to make decisions about their own lives." + +He added, "But I also want to say something about the incredible women of Wisconsin. Women have worked so long and so hard to get where they are. And I will tell you, Hillary and I will work very hard to make sure that women are empowered in every way possible, and that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage." + +The debate was held in Wisconsin on Monday evening, and the TV networks chose to anchor the event in the state, which is important because most of the Republican presidential candidates have refused to debate there. + +But Trump didn't mention Wisconsin at the debate; he made the point that he's going to "make America great again." The "great" part of that statement, we'll argue, isn't what people think it is. "Great," for Trump, means "white." + +The "white" part of the statement — historically, the word has been used to refer to people who are European and Christian — is also what people think it is. + +It was a nice rhetorical trick, if you think about it. By saying he's going to "make America great again," Trump effectively turned "white" into "European," and "European" into "Christian," and simply made a change in his own language. + +Advertisement + +The move is a bit like a runner using "the wind" instead of "running." He's shifting the conversation about his running from the fact that he's running to the fact that he's "making America great again." + +Get Today in Opinion in your inbox: Globe Opinion's must-reads, delivered to you every Sunday-Friday. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here + +By shifting the focus from running to making America great again, Trump is suggesting that America as a country is about to change. But the shift is only relative to white people. + +"The wind" is not a reference to global warming, but to the economic policies of the Reagan administration. The wind is a reference to the economic policies of the Reagan administration. It's possible that Trump is referring to the wind when he says "make America great again." But by saying "make America great again," Trump is suggesting that America as a country is about to change — that America will be great because white people will be great. + +It's not a stretch to say that Trump's rhetoric is designed to appeal to white people. His campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," is a play on the phrase "Make America White Again." Trump is not the first presidential candidate to use the phrase. But his use of the phrase is different. + +In a May interview with CNN, Trump took credit for the phrase: "I'm very good at marketing, actually," he said. "I'm very good at marketing myself as a 'winner,' and I really believe that." + +Advertisement + +"I think it's a great slogan, and I like it a lot," he added, "and it's actually working." + +Trump spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013, and he told the crowd that the phrase "Us and Them" should be changed to "Us and the World." + +"The world is us and the world is the United States of America," he said. "We are a country that is made up of individuals on this earth, people from every walk of life, every color, every creed, every religion. And we are so connected. We all bleed the same blood." + +That last part is pretty much gutting of the appeal of the phrase "Us and the World." By saying "we all bleed the same blood," Trump is taking the concept of "Us" — which is about people of color — and using it to reinforce the idea that "the world" is about white people. + +The phrase is a powerful claim for Trump's campaign. To emphasize this point, he showed up at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday with a large sign that read, "The World is White." + +"I'm going to make America great again, because we're not going to be made great anymore," he said. "And we're going to start winning again, winning like never before." + +Trump is making the claim that America is a white nation where people want to join. The fact is that America is a nation of immigrants, and that people of color have been in America the longest, and that they have been the most successful, and that they have been the most oppressed. + +======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== +The Aam Admi Party (AAP) has made a strong start in the civic polls, winning seven out of the 16 wards in the city. + +The party won three wards, including Kalyan, and has retained 13 wards. It also won two wards in Bhatkal and 10 in Faridabad. + +The party has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal municipal corporation by a margin of over 10,000 votes and has retained 10 wards. + +However, the party won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The party has won the Bhatkal municipal corporation by a margin of over 10,000 votes and has retained 10 wards. + +The party won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards. + +The AAP has won the Bhatkal and Faridabad municipal corporations, respectively, by a margin of over 12,000 votes and has retained 12 wards +======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== +The Bucs have plenty of draft picks and future contracts to spend but they have pretty much all of the right pieces in place to win now. + +The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a stellar record in recent years and his general manager, Jason Licht, gets a ton of credit for that. + +The Bucs are on the upswing now that Licht has put together a handful of solid drafts and his future deals look to be a big reason why. + +It's a hell of a staff at his disposal, so the Bucs are well positioned to move forward as a franchise. + +But there is no reason to panic. + +First, the Bucs don't have to fix what isn't broke. They have a solid core of players that are good enough to win now. + +Now let's look at some of the key areas for improvement. + +Running back: The Bucs signed Doug Martin to a three-year, $15 million contract last offseason despite him having ACL and knee injuries in the past. + +Martin is a fantastic player. But the Bucs needed to get him involved in the passing game to get him to top-end speed. That's not going to happen with Vincent Jackson. + +The team needs to draft a running back early in the draft to help complement Martin. Jameis Winston has some good options in the first round in Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon. If the team does nothing with the pick, it could be the pick that gives them a solid, young running back. + +Tampa Bay's defense: Licht has done a solid job with the defense in Tampa Bay. The Bucs rank second in the NFL in points allowed and lead the NFL in scoring defense. + +But Licht has the Bucs' defense overpaid. The Bucs have spent heavily on the defensive line, with the likes of Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David. + +The defense has been very good, but there are holes to fill and upgrades to make. The team has a lot of draft picks to spend, including a first-round pick. Tampa Bay should look to address some of the holes on this defense early in the draft. + +Darrelle Revis: This is the most common question on this list. Revis is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL and it's hard to imagine the Bucs letting him go. + +Licht wants to bring Revis back, but it's not a simple decision. The Bucs need to find a way to make Revis happy and he has been very demanding about that. + +The team has the third-highest cap number in the NFL at $84 million. And as the franchise tag for Revis comes down to $12.5 million, the Bucs will have to find a way to pay him to stay. + +The Bucs can use the franchise tag on Revis and have money to spend elsewhere. But the move would be a massive blow to Licht and to the entire franchise. + +It's a tough decision for Licht, but he needs to make it.<|endoftext|>To the Editor: + +Re "The Case for Raiding Wounded Afghan Civilians" (news article, Feb. 9): + +The Taliban have been responsible for hundreds of unlawful attacks on civilians during the past five years. + +In a recent column, for instance, we compared a November 2010 attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul with the Oct. 23, 2001, attack on the U.S.S. Cole. The Cole attack on the USS Cole occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the United States was engaged in a military campaign in Afghanistan. + +But the Taliban were launching a campaign of indiscriminate violence against civilians long before the Cole attacks. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul recorded more than 98 such attacks between December 2004 and August 2007. + +The number of civilian casualties in those attacks has been estimated at more than 30 civilian deaths and over 4,000 civilian injuries. + +Many of these attacks occurred under the Taliban regime, when the Taliban's leaders would order their fighters to target civilians. The Taliban's leadership was not responsible for the conduct of these attacks, but it did condone and direct them. + +The Taliban leadership has since been responsible for a large number of such attacks, and the Taliban's leaders must be held accountable for the conduct of these attacks.<|endoftext|>The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report regarding the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Espionage Act (Espionage Act) investigation into former CIA Director, David Petraeus. The OIG report found no evidence that OPM's investigation was improper or otherwise unlawful. This report is based on the OIG's review of the materials provided by OPM to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). + +The OIG investigation into Petraeus was initiated in August 2011, after the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the FBI discovered classified materials in the private electronic devices of former CIA Director David +======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== +The virus is believed to be "very similar" in structure to the previously known Ebola virus strain, said the senior WHO official, with the difference that it is not yet known how the virus behaves in its new human host. + +The current outbreak is the worst since the virus was discovered in 1976. + +"We are in the middle of the epidemic. We have been very careful to avoid any speculation about what's happening," Dr. David Nabarro, WHO assistant director-general, said in an interview. "We don't know how it is spreading, how it is being transmitted. We can't say that it's not happening." + +But he said there are some "very interesting similarities" in some of the Ebola viruses that have spread to humans, including the fact that they both have a rhabdovirus genome. + +Mr. Nabarro said there is a good chance the virus is even more dangerous than the Ebola virus that has killed thousands of people in West Africa. + +The current outbreak is the worst since the virus was discovered in 1976. + +"We're not talking about a stage one of an epidemic," Dr. Nabarro said, referring to the type of outbreak where no one has died. + +"We are talking about an epidemic that is now in its third year. We are talking about thousands of people being infected with a disease that is highly infectious, highly transmissible, and that has caused a lot of death in its past outbreaks. And we're talking about a disease that has had a very profound impact on the health care system," he said. + +The virus is thought to have begun in the forests of Guinea and Sierra Leone, and has since spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. + +There is no vaccine to prevent Ebola, which kills up to 90 percent of those it infects. When symptoms develop, they can include fever, headaches, muscle and joint pain, vomiting and diarrhea. + +In Guinea, where the outbreak is most severe, some hospitals are already rationing certain drugs, while health workers say they are now too weak to do their jobs properly. + +"We have to stop [medics] from treating patients as they come in," said Dr. Sébastien Léger, a medic at the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Conakry, Guinea's capital. "We are trying to limit the number of people we can treat," he said, adding that the staff was also being warned not to treat the youngest patients. + +"It's not good to treat children," Dr. Léger said. "If they even get a small infection, it can spread to other children. They might pass it on to their mother, and then it can spread." + +New laws have been passed in Guinea that require family members to stay at least 30 meters away from patients. + +In Sierra Leone, where there are no quarantine laws, health workers are afraid to treat patients, the head of the Ebola treatment center in Freetown said on Tuesday. + +"There are too many cases," said Dr. Antonio Conteh, head of the Freetown Ebola treatment center. "We are now afraid to treat people." + +But Dr. Nabarro said that in Liberia, where the Ebola outbreak is the most severe, it is unclear whether the virus has spread beyond the capital, Monrovia. + +"At the moment, we don't know how the virus is spreading," he said. "We can't say that it's not happening." + +He said that while it is possible that the virus has reached Guinea, the outbreak could also have spread to Sierra Leone. + +Dr. Nabarro said the outbreak could last months or even years. + +"We don't know how long it is going to last," he said. "We are talking about an epidemic that is quite serious and that has been spreading over several years." + +Meanwhile, the World Health Organization issued a travel alert on Tuesday for all health care workers who had been in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and those in the United States, asking them to monitor their health. + +"The risk of Ebola virus disease is very high," Dr. Nabarro said. + +It is not yet known whether the Ebola virus outbreak is linked to the recent admission of an American aid worker, Dr. Kent Brantly, from Liberia to the Nebraska Medical Center, and the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first diagnosed American Ebola victim. + +The World Health Organization has urged healthcare workers to avoid contact with patients with Ebola unless absolutely necessary to save their life, regardless of where they are in West Africa. + +"The risk of Ebola virus disease is very high," said Dr. Nabarro, who said the virus is not airborne. + +"The virus is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, including blood, saliva, urine, faeces, vomit, breast milk, semen, and breast milk of infected women +======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== +Rieko Tsukasa (駒岡 大輝, Tsukasa Rieko) is a second-year student at Gekkoukan High School and the former captain of the volleyball club. She has a unique personality that blends a shy and polite attitude with a perverted and hot-blooded mentality. The two traits are often mixed throughout the series, as Rieko is often in a situation that requires a more perverted demeanor, but she is technically polite, and in many cases acts as a gentleman towards others. + +Contents show] + +Appearance Edit + +Rieko is a young girl with long, light-colored hair and pale white skin. She has bangs that reach her eyes, and usually wears a light pink shirt and a light blue skirt with a pattern on the bottom. She usually wears a short sleeved light pink top. + +At the very beginning of the series, Rieko is shown to be a very pretty girl. She has long, light brown hair and a sharp face that is usually hidden by her bangs, a pair of round eyes and a cute smile. She is also often shown to be very intelligent, as she is a member of the volleyball club and has a knack for reading. + +As the series progresses, however, Rieko becomes quite arrogant and cold-hearted. She is known for her cold, calculated, and efficient behavior, often using cold and calculating actions for her own gain. She is also very violent, and is willing to use violence in order to achieve her goals. When she is in a heated situation, Rieko is usually extremely cold and indifferent to the other team members, preferring to stay out of the fray as if she is a fish out of water. + +In her early appearances, Rieko wears a long-sleeved white shirt with a light blue skirt and matching shoes. + +Rieko with a hoodie + +Personality Edit + +Rieko, at first, seems to be very polite and hot-blooded, but she shows a somewhat perverted side at some points. This side of her personality is shown when she is found naked on the floor of the pool where the club is practicing, and she is shown to be perverted as well when she asks Kōgo to take off his clothes and go on a date with her and the others. + +She is also somewhat shy, as seen when she is caught being loud and inattentive by the other team members during practice. She is also rather academic, as seen during her first year of high school, where she is often seen studying and writing essays. + +Rieko is also very intelligent, as shown when she is able to read the newspaper and understand the meaning behind the story written by Yoshikage Kira. She knows how to use a computer, which she uses to store information on her phone, such as her kendo club's records and books, two of which she uses for her experiments. She is also very perceptive, given that she seems to be able to read the thoughts of others and make deductions from them. + +While she is very intelligent, Rieko is also very honest and can be rather blunt in her thoughts, as shown when she tells Kōgo to stop being so bad. Her honesty is also shown when she tells Kōgo, who was very rude to her earlier, to apologize to her. + +Despite her tendency to be blunt, she is in fact very caring and gentle, as seen when she expresses her sorrow when her family is broken up by Kōgo. She is also very understanding, as shown when she helps Kōgo understand how Sōma is doing after he loses his memories. + +Rieko's personality is also shown when she is in a bad mood, as shown when she loses her temper with Yūta Hamada, when she tries to fight with him and when she asks Kōgo to help her move the bar. + +Background Edit + +Rieko's family was very poor and she was raised as a housewife and had to work as a maid, resulting in her becoming a very quiet and ordinary person. However, she had a small taste of life when she met Sōma Yukihira, a boy from her town who gave her the courage to start her own business. She was extremely grateful towards him and was the first person to accept Sōma's offer to join Kōkō Raikōin. + +Plot Edit + +Tōtsuki Friendship and Rapport Training Camp Edit + +Main article: Training Camp Arc + +On the third day of the event, Rieko and Yūta attend the camp and are assigned to the new branch club of the Polar Star Dormitory. While there, Rieko is tasked with doing the cooking for the dormitory's dinner and Yūta serves as the maid. + +On the fourth day of +======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== +The best way to describe the new film "The New World" is to say that it's a cool, modern take on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with a few twists. If you've seen the original film, you'll recognize some of the actors, but you'll also feel very differently about them. + +"The New World" stars Jeff Goldblum as the titular character, who is nearly a child himself. He lives with his mother (Milka Volkova) and his father (Giovanni Ribisi), who runs a colonial-era pharmaceutical company. The film is set in the 1890s in a fictionalized version of the United States. + +READ MORE: Sundance Review: 'The New World' Is a Great, Cool Take on 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' + +The movie plays out like a TV series, and it's a surprisingly fun one. Goldblum has a lot of fun playing the various characters, including a man named Louis (Sebastian Stan) who is obsessed with the hero of the original movie, the hunchback. + +For the most part, the movie has the same kind of cheesy, slapstick feel as the original movie. But there are some big changes, and a lot of them are appropriate for the modern age. + +For example, the film is set in a fictionalized version of the United States, but it moves very easily between time periods and historical periods. This is because the movie was largely made at the same time it was shot, until the change in history. + +The film has a few twists, such as one in which the movie's hero is also a hunchback. Jeff Goldblum plays a man named Louis who is obsessed with the hunchback, and he is one of the main characters in the new movie. (Photo: Paul Drinkwater, AP) + +The film has a few twists, such as one in which the hunchback is also a hero. The film doesn't pull any punches. Goldblum plays Louis, a man who takes after his hero in his appearance and personality. He has a passion for the hunchback and his story is ultimately about his love for the character. + +Goldblum's Louis is the kind of character who you might see in a modern version of "Star Wars." He's always smiling, and he seems to always be in the right place at the right time. Most of the film is set in a fictionalized version of the United States, and Goldblum has a lot of fun playing the various characters, such as a man named Louis (Sebastian Stan) who is obsessed with the hero of the original movie, the hunchback. + +In addition to Goldblum's Louis, the film has Jeff Bridges as a man named Edward, who is someone who loves the hunchback and has a lot of trouble understanding his love for the character. Bridges plays the man who decides to take matters into his own hands, and it's a very cool story. + +The New World also stars Milka Volkova as the hunchback's mother, and it's nice to see her again, but she's not a major part of the plot or the movie. The film has a very cool look and it's set in a fictionalized version of the United States. (Photo: Paul Drinkwater, AP) + +The New World also has a cool look, which is fitting for the film. It's set in a fictionalized version of the United States, but it's set in a place that looks like a modern town, which is interesting because it's very different from the original film. + +The New World also has a cool look, which is fitting for the film. It's set in a fictionalized version of the United States, but it's set in a place that looks like a modern town, which is interesting because it's very different from the original film. It's set in the 1890s in a fictionalized version of the United States. (Photo: Paul Drinkwater, AP) + +"The New World" is not a perfect movie, but it is a fun one, and it is definitely worth watching. It's a good movie that doesn't shy away from some of the darker moments of the original movie. It's not going to win any awards, but it has a fun story and a lot of great performances. + +"The New World" will be available on VOD on Nov. 17. + +READ MORE: + +'The Hunchback of Notre Dame': A Movie Review + +The Hunchback of Notre Dame: A Movie Review + +'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' Director Thomas Vinterberg on His New Film (Full Interview) + +'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' Review: The Hunchback is the Hero, Not the Villain + +'The Hunchback of Notre +======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== +When something is wrong, it's often difficult to know where to begin. That's why we've compiled a list of some of the best and most important questions you should be asking when it comes to a loved one who is struggling with any aspect of their mental health. + +How important is the diagnosis? + +"When you have someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, it's important to understand that it is a diagnosis that's still up for debate. Many people with mental illness struggle with negative thoughts despite being diagnosed with a mental health problem. Don't assume that because someone has been diagnosed with a mental illness that they are fully responsible for what they experience. It's important to understand that this can make it harder for people to get help." —Anna, 24 + +What does the diagnosis mean? + +"It's important to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all diagnosis. There are many different conditions that can cause symptoms that may or may not be related to a mental illness. If someone is struggling with a particular pattern of symptoms, it may or may not be related to a mental illness. It's important to know that not everyone who is diagnosed with a mental illness will experience symptoms that are similar to the symptoms someone with a mental illness would experience. It's important to recognize that everyone's experience is different." —Caitlin, 23 + +How are they treating the symptoms? + +"It's important to know that the symptoms are not the only signs of a mental health issue. They can be caused by a number of different factors, and it's important to know how they are being treated. If someone is receiving treatment for other disorders, it may be difficult for them to tolerate certain treatments or medications. It's important to know how they are being treated and to continue to ask about treatment as needed. It's also important to know what their treatment plan is and how to follow it." —Kaitlin, 28 + +Are there treatments that are effective? + +"It's important to know that there are treatments that are effective. Asking about the types of treatments someone is receiving and what the timeline for their completion is can be incredibly important. It's important to know how they're feeling and what they're experiencing so that you can be prepared for the response. It's important to know the difference between cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and speech therapy (ST). It's also important to know if they've been diagnosed with a mood disorder, anxiety disorder, substance abuse, or any other type of mental illness. Because there can be so many different diagnoses, it's important to know what to expect. What your loved one is experiencing is not always the same as someone who isn't experiencing the symptoms they are. It's important to know that there are options available for your loved one." —Aly, 30 + +How long does it take? + +"There are a variety of treatment plans that a person may choose. The length of time it takes varies greatly. Some people may have a long time to go before they feel better, while others may be able to start feeling better within the first few weeks. It's important to know how long their symptoms have been going on, and to ask about the plan for when they are hopefully feeling better." —Anna, 24 + +What mental health conditions do they have? + +"It's important to be aware of any mental health conditions a loved one may have. It's important to know if they have anxiety and any other mental health conditions, such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia. It's also important to know if they are dealing with bipolar disorder, and if they are taking medications. It's important to know if they are using alcohol, and if they're using a substance that may impair their judgment or ability to think clearly." —Caitlin, 23 + +When is it a good idea to call the police? + +"It's important to know that calling the police can result in an arrest, even if the person is not physically harming themselves. It's important to know what to do in a situation where you need to call the police. For instance, if they are having a psychotic episode, you may need to call the police as soon as possible after you think your loved one is in danger. It's important to know whether you should call the police for their own protection or for someone else's safety. It's also important to know what the police officer's training is about dealing with mental illness. It's important to know what questions to ask, what the officer's response should be, and how you should go over your questions and concerns with your loved one." —Kaitlin, 28 + +Is there a path to recovery or is it all hopeless? + +"It's important to know that there is a path to recovery. The best thing is to learn how to recognize that there is always hope. Recovery is not about staying on the path, but making +======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== +Barbara is a passionate writer and animal lover who has been professionally blogging for over 10 years and counting. + +When a veterinarian diagnosed a 6-year-old boy with leukemia in July, he didn't know what to expect. + +Pumps, intravenous drugs and radiation weren't the only options. + +The boy's parents, who live in a small town in Pennsylvania, were told that he had six months to live. + +"I was told he had an 80-percent chance of survival," Chris, the boy's father, told The Huffington Post. "And that was just the first thing the vet said." + +Chris was shocked by the news that his son had leukemia. He had feared it was a sign of something worse. + +"I was so heartbroken," he said. "I had no idea that the disease could be so serious. It is a very difficult thing to deal with when your son is sick." + +He took his son to a local hospital in a small town in the Middle East, where he was put in a room reserved for children with terminal illnesses. + +The hospital informed Chris that his son wasn't expected to live unless his blood count dropped and his immune system protected him from infections. + +Chris was told his son's chances of survival were around 20 percent. + +"It took three years to get him from the first diagnosis down to the current stage," he said. + +With no other options available to him, Chris and his wife, Kim, decided to travel to the United States for the treatment that could save his son's life. + +Chris and Kim applied for a special visa through the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia. + +"We applied for a visa with the embassy in Riyadh and they sent us a note requesting we fill out an application, so they could inspect our medical records," Chris said. "The only problem was that we were in the Middle East. We had no records at home." + +Chris and his wife traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where they were interviewed by an embassy official. + +"They said they needed to see our records, but they couldn't accept the paperwork. They said we were not in the U.S. legally, so they couldn't accept our documents," Chris said. + +"The officer told me that I needed to leave the country right away, and I said, 'I'm from the Middle East, we don't have visas.'" + +The couple's application was denied. + +"They said that we didn't have a valid visa, which was a lie," Kim said. "The officer just said, 'They won't let you in.'" + +The couple's story shows how difficult it can be for foreigners to travel to the U.S., especially those who may have been born outside the country. + +The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh has since issued a statement saying that refugees like Chris and Kim are not allowed to enter the country. + +A spokesman for the American Embassy in Riyadh told HuffPost that, "The United States has made clear that it will neither admit those who wish to harm our citizens, nor will we admit those who attempt to exploit the United States for nefarious purposes." + +The embassy added: "All individuals seeking admission to the United States as refugees undergo a rigorous vetting process that includes an in-person interview, a security check, a criminal record check, an e-verify check and an identity check. The U.S. government does not comment on individual cases." + +The Boy with Leukemia + +Chris said he and his wife spent a year in the U.S. trying to get a visa to enter Saudi Arabia. + +"We applied every single time," he said. "We applied for normal visitor visas, normal work visas, as well as student visas. We submitted our application in person at the embassy in Riyadh. The process is very, very long." + +In the meantime, Chris and his wife were forced to live in their car for four months while they waited for the visa to be approved. + +"I'm a human being," Chris said. "I worked hard, I did my best, but I wasn't able to get the visa. I had to go through the process and it was so long. I had to go through four months of waiting in my car." + +The couple was finally able to get their visa approved in late August. + +"We arrived in the U.S. in the middle of September," Chris said. "We are doing okay now. We are working hard. We are trying to get our life back. We are still very in debt, but we are trying to get back on our feet." + +On Oct. 1, Chris traveled to a clinic in Pennsylvania to get the blood work that he needs to be certain he gets the right blood transfusions. + +"I have to follow what the doctor says +======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== +The World's Smallest Underwater Robot + +I'm not a fan of underwater robots. I don't think my kids should be forced to spend time in a submersible, and I don't think I'd want to see a robot exploring the murky depths of the ocean. But a new project from MIT really gets the idea of underwater robots just right. + +The project, which was designed by Professor Thomas Salvi of MIT's Media Lab, was started with the goal of creating a "submarine robot that is completely autonomous and is completely safe." The team was able to achieve this goal by using a computer chip that was 1/20th the size of the brains inside of the tiny robot. + +"Somewhere in the next decade or so, we're going to have robots that are 1/10th the size of the brain in their brains," Salvi said in a statement. "And they'll have the same kind of capacities." + +The new robot, called the DeepMind DeepSub, is based on the DeepMind DeepMindBot, a DeepMind research system that has been on display at the London Science Museum. The team took the DeepMind DeepMindBot and shrunk it down by a factor of 20,000 to 25,000 times. + +The reason the DeepMind DeepSub is small is because it uses a computational algorithm to sense the world around it. It's able to detect its environment using a combination of a camera, sonar, and GPS. The DeepSub has a camera on the front that can see everything in front of it, and a sonar on the back that can detect whatever it can. The robot can also sense things using an automated sonar system, and also uses the same kind of onboard computer that is used to program the DeepMind DeepMindBot. + +The DeepSub has a camera on the front that can see everything in front of it, and a sonar on the back that can detect whatever it can. + +To get the robot to move, the DeepSub's controller learns how to move the robot in a way that is safe for its control system. By using what's known as "deep learning," the control system is able to make sure it's moving in the best way possible. + +In addition to the DeepSub, Salvi's team is also working on a smaller version of the DeepMind DeepMindBot that will be able to swim. + +"Somewhere in the next decade or so, we're going to have robots that are 1/10th the size of the brain in their brains." + +The idea of building tiny robots is not new, of course. There are also miniature robots that can scan the environment. In 2014, the team behind the Mini-Robot Microscope made a robotic robot that was able to detect and clean up hazardous waste from the environment. The team also made a small robotic vehicle that can help people with disabilities. + +The MIT team is not the only one working on underwater robots. Another research team, known as the Robo-Tricyclops, is also working on underwater robots.<|endoftext|>"The Rich Get Richer, and We Get Wiped Out" + +Which is the more effective way to address rising inequality: raising taxes on the rich or cutting social programs? + +The answer is no one knows. + +The Obama administration has been using the "fiscal cliff," when the Bush tax cuts expire, as an opportunity to push a set of proposals that would require deep cuts to the social safety net. The offer of the most significant tax increases in history has been used by some to argue for cuts to certain social programs. + +But that's not an argument that's going to gain traction. + +Contrary to popular belief, the rich aren't getting richer in the United States. In fact, the top 1 percent of earners made 25 percent more from 2009 to 2010 than they did in 2007. The income of the top 0.1 percent has gone up by 45 percent, while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent have fallen. + +Although a few middle-class households have seen their incomes rise somewhat, they're not doing so because of the economic recovery. In fact, in 2011, the median income of families with children was lower than it was in 2007. + +So the question isn't whether the income of the rich has risen, but how much of that rise is due to government policies and how much is due to the solid economy. + +The Obama administration's proposal, if enacted, would significantly reduce taxes on the wealthy, while raising them on middle-income households. As a result, it would raise taxes on nearly 10 million Americans. + +That would mean that the rich would pay more in taxes than they do today, and the middle class would pay less. + +Moreover, if this proposal were implemented, it would reduce government revenue by $480 billion in 2013. + +The top 1 percent of taxpayers would see their taxes increase +======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== +The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has blocked a Russian company from importing luxury cosmetics, such as Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Burberry, after finding that the products contained the banned substance aconite. + +The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) halted the imports of the products on Friday, after determining that the products had been imported from Russia and were being shipped to the United States. + +The agency cited "concerns about possible aconite contamination from a supplier in Russia," according to a statement from the department. + +The agency cited a report from a Russian customs officer that the products were found to contain aconite - a substance that is used to treat fissures and cracks in stone and marble. + +"The chemical is valued as a pigment used in the production of French furniture, other hardwoods, and porcelain," the statement said. "Aconite is used to give stone and marble its natural color." + +The products were being sold for about $2,700 each at stores in the United States. According to the statement, the products would be returned to Russia once the agency verified the origin of the materials. + +"As a result, the products cannot be released for sale in the United States," the statement said. + +The statement said that the products were not banned in the United States. + +Acanite was banned in the United States in 1997, with a 20-year ban on imports. + +The agency said it is working with the Food and Drug Administration to determine if the products have been changed at the point of sale or if the products do not pose a health risk. + +Acanite is a natural material that can be found in the Earth's crust, but is also used in the production of ceramics. + +Acanite is a colorless, odourless and tasteless substance that is used to color ceramic glazes. + +In 2008, an investigation by CBS News revealed how aconite was used to color hardwoods, including oak, maple, cherry, maple, birch, maple and alder, to create dazzling patterns. + +Acanite is used to color hardwoods, including maple, cherry, maple, birch, maple and alder, to create dazzling patterns. (CBS News) + +ABC News reported that federal and state officials discovered the use of aconite to color hardwoods in the late 1970s. It was then banned by the EPA. + +In the 1990s, the EPA discovered that aconite was used in the production of ceramics and that the agency had allowed the practice to continue despite knowing of the potential health risks. + +The FDA said in a statement that it does not comment on pending litigation. + +Other luxury Italian brands that have banned Russia from importing their products include Chanel, Hermès, Gucci, Prada and Valentino. + +In April, the FDA announced that it was investigating a Japanese herbal and tonic product called 'Cosmos' that contained the banned substance. + +The FDA said it is not aware of any public health risk associated with the product, but the agency is continuing its investigation to determine if any safety concerns remain.<|endoftext|>What's wrong with the world? I mean really, what's wrong with it? Every day I literally see people born into horrible situations. Some literally - in this country right now, you are born into a situation of suffering and oppression. + +Right now, in the United States, you have people who are in prison or in jail. You have people who are homeless, you have people who are hungry, you have people who don't have health insurance. You have people who are living in fear of losing their jobs, of losing their families. And then you have people who are dead. + +And the world, it looks to me like, is not doing anything for these people. + +And what are we doing? We are talking about a global crisis where we are not talking about the most vulnerable people, but we are talking about the richest people in the world. We are talking about people who have the power to do something about it. And we are talking about the United States of America. + +So I just wanted to read one of your speeches. You said that the world is a reflection of the mind. And really, who is speaking to the world about this? Who is speaking to the world about the most vulnerable people of the world? Who is speaking to the world about the most vulnerable people of the world? Who is speaking to the world about the most vulnerable people of the world? Who is speaking to the world about the most vulnerable people of the world? Who is speaking to the world about the most vulnerable people of the world? + +The United States of America. And that's who. + +And in the United States, we are not talking about the vulnerable people of the world. We are talking about the people who have +======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== +The Iranian government has the right to do what it wants, but in this case, it should not take such a drastic step that will have a significant effect on the health of the people. + +The government should take a more measured approach to the situation and consider a ban on the sale of petrol to the country to reduce the gap between the cost of fuel and the price of sugar.<|endoftext|>I've always been fascinated with the quote "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." It's a timeless piece of wisdom. The truth is that we've had to teach ourselves how to swim and ride a bike. We've had to relearn some basic skills. We've had to learn how to navigate the world. (I'm just saying, it's not a bad idea.) + +But the thing is, those things are not easy. As I've learned more about the world and its people, I've discovered the best way to improve myself is to take a step back and observe and learn from those around me. + +When people talk about learning new things, they're usually talking about how they did something for the first time. They're describing what it's like to do something for the first time. They're describing what it feels like to embrace new experiences, to take a leap of faith, to explore, to go beyond what you've been doing. + +When I was just starting out, I didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. I didn't have anyone to talk about my ideas with. I didn't have anyone to learn from. I didn't have anyone to ask. I learned how to swim by watching other people I admired, but I didn't know how to talk myself into the water. + +I started taking photos of myself taking photos of myself. After a while, there were so many of me. I was a pretty shy and reserved person, so I had no idea what to do with all these photos. I didn't want to use them; I didn't want to show anyone they were mine, so I decided to use them as wall decor. + +I still have a bunch of them. + +I'm not sure if the wall is still there. I'm not sure if it's still there. But I do know that I learned how to swim by taking a bunch of photos of myself in the water. It's like taking a bunch of photos of yourself being a super-intelligent, super-willing, super-creative, super-smart, super-smart person. + +I took those photos. I took them multiple times. I reflected on how I felt after each photo. I played around with the camera a little. I got lost in the moment. + +And now, I'm a better swimmer.<|endoftext|>I have a secret. I'm not a good cook. I buy the cheapest of ingredients and just throw it in the oven. + +Well, I'm about to admit that there's one thing I don't do. + +I don't cook anything after it's been sitting out for a few days. + +I've been lazy. + +I just want to eat what I've cooked. + +I don't need to cook, I need to eat. + +I just really can't stand the thought of wasting a perfectly good meal. + +I've got it. + +I'll cook a meal as soon as I have it in the fridge. + +I don't have to think about it. + +I just need to cook. + +I will be good. + +I'll be a good cook.<|endoftext|>Dirk Nowitzki has no regrets about missing the playoffs last season, even though he was injured for much of the season. + +Nowitzki was open about that in a recent interview with the New York Daily News, saying he knew he was playing through injuries in the first two months of the season, but it was the late-season slide that ultimately cost the Mavericks the playoffs. Nowitzki said he's still not sure if he made the right decision to sit out. + +"I don't know exactly what my thought process was, but I certainly felt like I could have helped the team and the team could have helped me," Nowitzki said. "But I didn't think it was in my heart to play." + +Nowitzki averaged 23.0 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists last season, but he actually missed 37 games over the last two months of the season. He started only 19 of those games, finishing with averages of 1.3 points and 0.9 rebounds in 12.8 minutes per game. + +"I didn't want to miss any more games," Nowitzki said. "I think the team could have gotten better without me. I was obviously hurt, but it was frustrating, because I just wanted to be out there." + +With the Mavericks last season, Nowitzki was injured for 63 games +======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== +The first few days of the war were difficult for Armenian civilians. They were besieged in the valley of Nagorno-Karabakh and forced to flee from the advancing Azerbaijani army. In revenge, the army of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh fired on the villages, killing hundreds of people and setting villages on fire. + + +In order to hide the casualties and hide the fighting, the Armenian side began to cover up the attacks by providing exaggerated details. The Armenian side also started to accuse the Azerbaijani side of conducting guerrilla warfare, an accusation that was not supported by any evidence. + + +Once the war became a real war, the Armenian side also began to claim that all of its losses were caused by Azerbaijani forces and that there was no way for the Armenian side to win. + + +In the book, "The Armenian Genocide: A Modern History", (Cambridge University Press, 2011), I examine the evidence for the Armenian genocide. I demonstrate that it is incorrect to claim that the Armenian people were exterminated, that there were no massacres, and that the Armenians were not the victims of a genocide. I also show that the Armenian Genocide was a genocide, and that it was a deliberate, planned event. + + +I also discuss how the Armenian people have been denigrated and scapegoated by Western scholars and media, and the ways in which the Genocide has been used to justify and legitimize the occupation and colonization of the Armenian land.<|endoftext|>A veteran Toronto police officer who shot an unarmed man who later died of his injuries is still on the job, despite a probe into the incident that found he broke no rules. + +The officer's lawyer, Peter Brauti, said the officer is still being paid by the force, despite the investigation that found his actions were "unprofessional and may have resulted in death." + +Brauti said in an interview Thursday that the officer has been a police officer for 11 years, and that he is on paid leave pending the outcome of the criminal probe. + +The officer's name is not being made public. + +Police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters Wednesday that the incident does not warrant discipline against the officer, and that the loss of life was "tragic" and a "tragedy." + +"The officer is still employed by the Toronto Police Service," Brauti said. + +"My client has been a police officer for 11 years. The investigation is still ongoing, and the decision is being made as we speak. + +"In all of his dealings with the police service, the officer has been responsive and has been cooperative." + +The officer responded to reports of a man with a knife on a subway train in the city's downtown core last September, and he shot the man while he was on the platform. + +The man, Joshua Cabero, was stabbed several times in the neck and was pronounced dead at the scene. + +Brauti said his client could not talk about the case because he was still in the process of being interviewed by the province's special prosecutor, but that he was confident the officer would be exonerated. + +"He's very confident in his position," Brauti said. + +"He's in a position where he's been given a very, very difficult position, and he's going through the process very well." + +But Brauti also said the officer will not be the same after a lifetime of service. + +"He's been through a lot emotionally," Brauti said. "This has been a very difficult experience for him and for his family, and he's going to be a different person than the one that he is now." + +The investigation found that the officer violated the police service's use of force policy, according to Brauti. + +Brauti said the officer was jumped by a group of people on the platform, and that the officer then shot at the people who came after him. + +"The officer was in fear of his life," Brauti said. "He was attempting to use only his firearm to defend himself from the attackers that had come after him." + +The officer also was on the platform standing on the edge of the platform, and he didn't want to be struck by the train, Brauti said. + +"The officer was in fear of his life," Brauti said. "He was attempting to use only his firearm to defend himself from the attackers that had come after him." + +Saunders has been adamant that the officer acted within the law. + +"He acted within the rules of the police service, the rules of the criminal code, [and] the rules of the province's Special Investigations Unit," Saunders said Wednesday. + +"This is a tragedy, and we're very, very sad for the family of this young man, very sad for the family of the deceased, and we're very, very sad for all of Toronto. We're going through a very difficult time." + +In the wake of the +======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== +"We're still in a war," he said. "We're still trying to figure out how exactly we're going to be able to protect the American people. And that's why we've got to do a better job of preventing that from happening. + +"We have a president who's going around the country and saying, 'I'm going to open this up. I'm going to let more people in.' That's just not going to happen." + +Mr. Trump's order a week ago was widely seen as an attempt to crack down on immigration from terror-prone countries, although it did not address those fleeing war-torn Syria. + +Mr. Mattis said the administration's latest policy — which was blocked by federal courts in a series of decisions — was still in effect. + +"It's still in effect," he said, adding that it had a "huge impact" on training efforts. + +Mr. Mattis also said that the U.S. military's approach to the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been a success. + +"We've done more in three months than the previous administration did in two years," Mr. Mattis said. "We're going to keep at it." + + +Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.<|endoftext|>Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, speaks during a news conference on the eve of the party's national convention in Houston, Texas July 22, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Clark + +By Sam Richey + +(Reuters) - Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on Thursday sued the state of Michigan in federal court over a law that banned her from appearing on the state's general election ballot, claiming the law violates her First Amendment rights. + +The lawsuit, filed in Detroit federal court on Thursday, said state law is unconstitutional because it blocks a candidate from appearing on the ballot if they are on probation for a felony conviction. + +Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a law in May that prohibited Stein from appearing on the Michigan ballot for the Nov. 8 election but did not bar her from appearing on the ballot in any other state that votes in its presidential primary. + +Stein, a Massachusetts physician, launched a recount effort in Michigan, which sent Republican Donald Trump to the White House over Democrat Hillary Clinton. + +Michigan, which has 18 Electoral College votes, is the first state where Stein's effort was successful. Her recount petition powered by her campaign has raised more than $5 million. + +"This lawsuit will not stop the recount, but it will ensure that Michigan voters get to have the chance to have their voices heard," Stein said in a statement. + +Stein, the Green Party's 2012 presidential candidate, has sued other states over ballot access laws. + +Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said the lawsuit was without merit. + +"Unlike Jill Stein, I have never been arrested, never been an informant, never sought a government grant to conduct a recount and I have never forced a recount on a Presidential candidate," he said in a statement. + + +(Reporting by Sam Richey; Editing by Sandra Maler)<|endoftext|>The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois is suing the city of Chicago over its controversial stop-and-frisk policy. + +The lawsuit, filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, argues that the policy violates the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment and the Illinois Constitution's right to due process. + +The ACLU is seeking a judge's injunction that would require the Chicago Police Department to end the practice of stopping and frisking people without reasonable suspicion, and to adopt a policy that would make stop-and-frisk "a last resort" for officers, not the first resort. + +The city has until Thursday to respond to the lawsuit. + +The "stop-and-frisk" policy was first instituted by former Mayor Richard M. Daley and was reauthorized by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011. Under the policy, police officers are authorized to stop and frisk people in public places if they have "reasonable suspicion" that they are involved in criminal activity. + +The ACLU says that while the law provides some "reasonable" suspicion, police officers have broad discretion to make the decision to stop and frisk someone without reasonable suspicion. + +The ACLU is asking the court to order the Chicago Police Department to adopt a policy that would require officers to inform people they are being stopped and frisked before the officer touches them and that the officer give a verbal warning before touching them. + +The ACLU is also asking the court to order the city to provide a training course to all officers on whether or not they can stop and frisk someone without reasonable suspicion. + +The ACLU says it believes the policy violated the constitutional rights of many people throughout the area under its enforcement. + +"The Chicago Police Department has not implemented the City's stop-and-frisk law to further the public safety of Chicagoans, as required by the Chicago +======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== +"You have to keep your eyes on the prize," Jeff Soares, head of the University of Calgary's Institute for the Study of Canada, told the National Post recently. "That's the only way you can really win. And that's what makes Canada great." + +Soares is right. There are many great things about this country, but the major one is that we take pride in our diversity. We take pride in our many different traditions and we take pride in our country's potential to be a beacon for the rest of the world. + +While Canada's diversity is good for the country, it's also good for us. When we're the same, we're good — but when we're different, we're great. This is a lesson we can learn from Canada's most famous national pastime, baseball, and why it's the ultimate sporting game in the world. + +Though baseball is the oldest of American sports, the game was born in Quebec. In 1796, Canada's first commissioner, a French immigrant named Louis-Louis de la Place, established a women's team. + +Though the women's team won the national championship in 1844, their sport wasn't popular in Quebec, which at the time was a part of the United States. + +That changed in 1866 when the United States entered the World War I. Soon, the demand for American-style baseball grew, and the women's team was revived. In 1868, the team was re-named the Montreal Royals. + +The Montreal Royals became a major league franchise in 1876, and they still play in the National League today. + +But before they could become a national franchise, the women's team had to overcome some Canadian prejudice. In 1877, the Montreal Royals were accused of being "French-speaking Yankees." + +The team's leader, Jean-Baptiste Poulin, was a Frenchman who became a U.S. citizen in 1868. Poulin was French-Canadian, and his team was named the American team. + +At the time, baseball was not a very popular sport in Canada. In fact, it was very popular in the United States, but not in Canada. + +The original Montreal Royals were the only American baseball team that played in Canada — the Toronto Blue Jays were the first team in Canada — but it wasn't until 1913 that the Ottawa Senators — a team that played in the American League — moved to Ottawa. + +Since the Senators played in the American League, they were forced to switch their colours to the Maple Leaf. + +The Ottawa Senators still play in the National League, and have even added a Canadian flag patch to their uniform. + +The Queen's University baseball team is the only Canadian team that plays in the National League. Queen's's even has a flag patch on their uniform. + +The name "Queen's" is a little odd, but it's a tribute to the university's history. Queen's was the first university in Canada founded by a women's club. + +Queen's was founded in 1869 by the women's college of McGill. In 1867, McGill organized a team but they disbanded several years later. + +The men's team at McGill played in the American Association, which is the first major professional league in Canada, until 1871. + +But for Queen's, the game wasn't easy. The school only fielded four female team members in 1874, and while women were allowed to play baseball, they weren't allowed to play against the men. + +In 1877, the Montreal Royals were revitalized and renamed the Montreal Royals. They started playing in the National League, and were soon joined by teams from other Canadian cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, and St. John's. + +The Toronto Blue Jays were not originally a baseball team. In 1875, the Toronto Blue Jays were founded by a wealthy businessman named Richard Williams. Williams was the son of the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +After the Blue Jays moved to New York City in 1876, they became a part of the American League. The team was also called the New York Giants, but the name was changed to the Blue Jays in 1882. + +In 1882, the Toronto Blue Jays signed a contract with Leslie E. Griffith, a friend of William Lyon Mackenzie King. King was the first prime minister of Canada and had been, at one point, the governor of India. + +When the Blue Jays won the American League pennant in 1885, the Toronto Globe printed the following quote: "The American League will find in the Toronto Blue Jays a most valuable ally." + +This may not seem like a big deal, but it was a big deal. This was the first time that a professional baseball team, even in Toronto, was written about in the Star. + +And this was the first time that a newspaper called a professional baseball team a "valuable ally." + +The Toronto Blue Jays beat +======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== +The 2015-16 season was not kind to the Knicks. They went from a 52-win team in 2013-14 to a 41-win team in 2014-15. In 2015-16, New York finished with a 20-59 record, which means the Knicks had a negative net rating per 100 possessions. In other words, they were more often outscored than they were out-rebounded. + +In 2016-17, the Knicks made significant strides. They reached the playoffs for the first time in five years and reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2013. + +To get to the Eastern Conference Finals, the Knicks needed to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games and the Boston Celtics in six games. They beat the Cavs and Celtics, respectively, in five games. + +The Knicks got off to a slow start in the playoffs, losing their first two games of the series against the Celtics, but they had enough left in the tank to make a run. In the seventh game of the series, the Knicks finally took control of the series, but the Cavaliers turned the series back in their favor in Game 8. + +The Cavaliers went on to win the championship, and the Knicks were eliminated. + +By beating the Cavs, they added to their list of "wins" in the 2015-16 season. However, it was a different story in 2016-17. + +After dropping the first two games of the series against the Raptors, the Knicks were able to win the next four games to take the series. + +They followed that up with losses to the Hawks in the semifinals, the Celtics in the finals, and the Raptors in the Western Conference Finals. + +In 2016-17, the Knicks had a negative net rating per 100 possessions in all four of their playoff series. + +The Knicks were outscored by an average of 4.9 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs, which is the second-highest differential in the NBA over the past 10 seasons. The only team with a higher differential was the Clippers, who were outscored by 4.8 points per 100 possessions. + +Whether the Knicks can improve upon their performance in the 2017-18 season remains to be seen. The Knicks were only one win away from a 32-50 record, which would have placed them in the lottery. They had a 17.5 percent chance of winning the lottery. + +The Knicks have a deep roster with a number of quality players. They have several young players who will only get better with experience, but the Knicks' roster is still filled with question marks. + +The Knicks cannot afford to make any more mistakes in the 2017-18 season.<|endoftext|>The situation at the border between Israel and Gaza is still tense. The IDF is responding to rocket fire from Gaza and tunnels dug by Hamas, and is doing everything on the ground to prevent a ground invasion by Hamas forces. + +Israeli air force strikes have targeted Hamas military installations in southern Gaza, and Israel has advanced its Iron Dome anti-missile system and the Israeli navy has been conducting bombing and naval patrols in the area. + +There is no trace of an imminent ground invasion. The Israelis are still hopeful that the Egyptian ceasefire agreement will hold. The Egyptian cease-fire plan calls for an end to hostilities at 6 p.m. on Saturday, after which the IDF would start dismantling the tunnels and Gaza militants would return to the calm. + +Hamas has not responded to the cease-fire proposal. The IDF believes that Hamas will not risk losing the tunnel fight, and that new Hamas leaders won't be willing to risk the loss of their people. Instead, Hamas has a broader strategy. After recent events, it is looking to create an Islamic "caliphate" in Gaza, and to do this it will escalate its acts of terrorism. + +Hamas is also looking to consolidate its control over the Gaza Strip, and to ensure that it will not be weakened by the Egyptian cease-fire. Hamas is rebuilding its military infrastructure, and it is providing financial support to Hamas fighters in Gaza. It is also trying to get its own people to move from refugee camps in Lebanon to the Gaza Strip, and to keep its people in Gaza on a tight leash. + +Israel and the United States want Hamas to leave the Gaza Strip. Hamas has responded by escalating its acts of terrorism, including rocket attacks on Israel, and it is increasingly threatening to fire rockets at the Egypt-Gaza border. Israel has to respond to this threat, and it is doing its best to do so. + +The IDF's Operation Protective Edge has thus far resulted in the death of 1,939 Palestinians and the destruction of the homes, infrastructure, and infrastructure in the Strip. Some 2,134 people were injured in the fighting.<|endoftext|>See, I know this is a controversial subject. I know that it's not common knowledge, but I've been doing this for about 16 years. I have been accused of being a "shill"- a sort of paid sh +======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== +About + +"I'm the Man" is a quote from the 2002 film The Man with the Golden Gun, which is often used as a reaction image in image-based image boards depicting various reactions to celebrity deaths. + +Origin + +The scene in question began when Bond (Sean Connery) is about to shoot his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Roger Moore) in the head in the opening sequence of the film. After a gunshot, Bond looks at his watch and says: "I'm the man, I'm the man." The scene was picked up by Twitter user @Incestis on October 26th, 2011, who captioned it with the phrase. As of November 27th, 2011, the tweet has been retweeted over 500 times. + + +Spread + +On June 24th, 2012, a thread was submitted to 4chan's /co/ (comics and cartoons) board, asking if Bond was still the man when he died in the film. On June 30th, Redditor JoeArgentino submitted an image macro of the Bond scene to the /r/funny subreddit, where it received more than 6,600 up votes and 400 comments in the first 24 hours. On June 29th, Tumblr user r0hez submitted an image macro of the scene to the site. On June 30th, Redditor danielpincock submitted an image macro of the scene to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit, where it gained over 500 points (98% upvoted) in the first 24 hours. On July 4th, YouTuber Applebloom uploaded a video titled "Connery Will Die," featuring a speech bubble with the phrase "I'm the man" overlaid on a screen reading "I'm a fucking idiot" (shown below). + + +On July 7th, 2012, YouTuber Janitor uploaded a parody video titled "I'm a fucking idiot" (shown below, left). On June 29th, 2013, YouTuber PotatoCakes uploaded a video titled "I'm a fucking idiot" (shown below, right). + + +Search Interest + +External References<|endoftext|>More than 10 available / 20 sold + +Please enter a quantity of $qty_dummy$ or less Please enter a quantity of 1 Purchases are limited to $qty_dummy$ per buyer Please enter quantity of 1 or more Please enter a lower number Choose quantity that is less than $qty_dummy1$ or equal to $qty_dummy$ You can only choose quantity that is equal to $qty_dummy$<|endoftext|>It's been a banner year for Stacy Johnson, but the Portland State University student says she is ready to move on. + +"I'm going to be going back to school, and I'm going to be focusing on my schoolwork," Johnson said. "My goal is to be a special education teacher." + +Johnson, 22, has been a quiet presence on campus, but she said she has been inspired by her friends. + +Over the last few months, Johnson said, she has talked to her friends about the challenges they face. But lately, she has felt the need to talk about her own struggles. + +"I think the best thing at this point is to talk about what's going on with me," she said. "I've been really lucky that I've gotten to come this far, and I feel like I've only scratched the surface." + +Johnson said her wounds from past attacks have been reopened, but she said she has never been afraid to speak out. + +"When I talk about my experiences, I don't just talk about the physical scars," she said. "It's how I feel about myself, about the way I feel about the world, and the way I see things." + +Johnson said the pain she feels is different from the pain she felt before she was attacked, but she said she hopes her story will help other women understand the severity of their injuries. + +"I'm trying to tell women that they're not alone," she said. + +Johnson also hopes her story will help others understand how serious a crime assault and battery can be. + +"It's not just verbal abuse, it's actually causing somebody physical pain," she said. + +She said she has been aware of the impact of attacks on women for a long time, but she said it was not until she was attacked that she was able to see it in action. + +"I had such a really hard time dealing with it at first," she said. "I was just really angry every day, and I can't really explain why it happened." + +Johnson said she hopes her story will help prevent other women from being attacked. + +"The reason why I went public with my story is because I don't want women to feel like they're not safe if they're walking on the street," she said. "I don't +======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== +The PRC Ministry of Science and Technology, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), has issued a statement on the upcoming launch of the Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft. The Shenzhou-10 mission will be the first space mission by the China's first manned spacecraft, Shenzhou-9, which is scheduled to launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on February 2, 2017. + +The statement, issued on January 5, 2017, reads, "The Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will launch on a Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China. It will deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in August, 2017." + +"The mission will mark the first launch of the Long March-3C carrier rocket, which is manufactured by the State Aerospace Industrial Corporation (SAC). The launch of Shenzhou-10 will be the first of a new class of spacecraft, the Long March-3C, which is expected to be launched by the Energomash corporation for use in the Chinese space station which will be built by 2022." + +The Long March-3C is a next-generation rocket, which will be the successor to the Long March 3 (LC-3) and the X-37B space plane. The Long March-3C will be launched from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan. + +The upcoming launch of the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft is scheduled to occur at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China. The spacecraft is scheduled to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in August, 2017. + +The official press release of the Shenzhou-10 mission, published on the CAS website, states, "The Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will be launched on Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China." + +The press release continues, "The Long March-3C carrier rocket will be launched from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Island, China. The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first launch of the Long March-3C carrier rocket, which is manufactured by the State Aerospace Industrial Corporation (SAC). The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first of a new class of spacecraft, the Long March-3C, which is expected to be launched by the Energomash corporation for use in the Chinese space station which will be built by 2022." + +The press release also states that the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will be launched on a Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China. The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first launch of the Long March-3C carrier rocket, which is manufactured by the State Aerospace Industrial Corporation (SAC). The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first of a new class of spacecraft, the Long March-3C, which is expected to be launched by the Energomash corporation for use in the Chinese space station which will be built by 2022. + +The press release states that the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will be launched on a Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China. The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first launch of the Long March-3C carrier rocket, which is manufactured by the State Aerospace Industrial Corporation (SAC). The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first of a new class of spacecraft, the Long March-3C, which is expected to be launched by the Energomash corporation for use in the Chinese space station which will be built by 2022. + +The press release states that the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will be launched on a Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February 2, 2017, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of China. The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first launch of the Long March-3C carrier rocket, which is manufactured by the State Aerospace Industrial Corporation (SAC). The launch of Shenzhou 10 will be the first of a new class of spacecraft, the Long March-3C, which is expected to be launched by the Energomash corporation for use in the Chinese space station which will be built by 2022. + +The press release states that the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft will be launched on a Long March-3C carrier rocket at 23:16:00 Beijing Time on February +======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== +There is no doubt that the international community is failing to respond adequately to the Syrian crisis. The situation is deteriorating rapidly. Syrian citizens have been seeking refuge from the violence in neighbouring countries. The humanitarian crisis has been exacerbated by the continued violence, which has led to a drastic increase in the number of displaced persons. The UN humanitarian appeal for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2015 stands at $3.7 billion. + +UNHCR is ready and willing to help those in need but needs financial support to invest in the implementation of its work. We are particularly concerned about the situation of Syrian refugees and displaced persons, in particular around large cities in neighbouring countries. + +With the assistance of our partners in the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, UNHCR is working in Jordan and Turkey to address the situation of Syrian refugees and displaced persons. The Red Crescent has been providing food, water, shelter, and medical assistance to refugees in camps and cities in these countries, and has established a number of field offices to support the coordination of relief efforts. + +We are preparing a comprehensive package of assistance to support the refugees and displaced persons of Syria in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. This package includes humanitarian assistance and development assistance for women, children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups. In addition, we are engaging the UN Security Council to discuss the ongoing crisis, including the aim of establishing safe zones across Syria to shelter the most vulnerable. + +If the international community does not take urgent action, we have concerns that the situation may deteriorate further, with further displacement of refugees and displaced persons, and further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syrians in neighbouring countries. + +We are seeking urgent financial support to respond effectively to the crisis. You could help us to help those affected by the crisis by donating any amount you wish. + +Yours sincerely, + +Gisèle A. Uzan + +UNHCR Country Representative<|endoftext|>The European Union should consider giving the UK a special status within its customs union for the next five years, even if it loses its opt-out on free trade in goods and services, a senior Commission official has said. + +EU leaders will discuss the UK's future relationship with the bloc at their summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. + +The issue of how to handle the UK's withdrawal from the EU has dominated the EU summit so far, as the UK prepares to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on 29 March. + +Following the vote to leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May has said she would like to ensure that no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could form after Brexit. + +It remains unclear, though, whether that would require the UK to retain the most favoured nation status for the EU's external tariff schedules, which would mean that customs checks would need to be carried out at ports and borders across the UK. + +But a senior European Commission official has said that a special status for the UK was a "real option" and could be on the table if the UK lost the opt-out on customs restrictions. + +"I see no reason why the UK could not have the most favoured nation status for 5 years, and the same for 2 years," said Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, during a visit to Dublin on Tuesday. + +"We have to think of ways to keep the border open. I know that the UK wants a special status for a longer period. I hope we can find an answer." + +Mr Juncker's comments came as the Irish government sought to reassure businesses that they will not be affected by planned curbs on the flow of people from the UK. + +The office of Ireland's prime minister said the government "remains committed to maintaining the integrity of the Irish border", while the chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said the UK would have to "deal with the consequences" of Brexit when it exited the EU. + +"We must ensure that the regulatory framework and the economic environment, including immigration, remain as frictionless as possible," Mr Hammond said during a visit to Dublin. + +Mr Juncker's comments came as a senior EU official said that Europe could not afford to be "nasty" to the UK over Brexit and that the bloc's current approach to the UK's exit was "not working". + +"We are now being nasty to the UK," said the official, who declined to be named. "We are not building bridges with them. We are not changing our approach. We are not building strong institutions with them. We are not creating new relations. We are not using the carrot to try and build the stick. + +"We are not rethinking our strategy. It is not working. We are being nasty to the UK." + +It comes amid concerns that the UK's exit from the EU could bring fresh uncertainty for businesses and investors. + +The EU is already planning to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the bloc after Brexit and is already considering the possibility of +======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== +This afternoon, the Electoral College will vote to elect the next president of the United States. + +The vote will be cast by an Electoral College of 538 electors. In order for the candidate who wins the most Electoral Votes (currently Donald Trump) to win the White House, he or she must win at least 270 Electoral Votes. + +So, what's on the line? + +Here's a breakdown of how the Electoral College works:<|endoftext|>by + +Ever since I was a kid, I have been fascinated by the sounds of birds. I hoped to someday be able to capture these sounds in music. A few years ago, I wrote a piece of software that could generate and manipulate the sounds of a large number of birds. In this article I will describe how I was able to do this, and show how one can easily create their own bird sound generators using a Raspberry Pi. + +To create the sound of a bird, you start by recording the sound of a bird. This is done by putting a microphone near a tree, or near the ground, or just about anywhere that you can hear the sound of birds. This is called a bird feeder or a bird feeder. + +A bird feeder is usually attached to a building, which is where you can record a bird's sound. Then, you can use software to convert this sound to a desired sound. You can do this in a number of ways. For example, one way is to use the Audacity audio editor, and convert the sound into a WAV file. You can then transfer that WAV file to your computer. Another way is to use a program like Audacity, and convert the sound to an MP3 file. Then, you can use your computer to convert this MP3 file into an MP3 file. Either way, you can convert the MP3 file into an audio file, or VST. + +I will demonstrate how to do this with Audacity. I will show you how to convert the sound into a WAV file, and then convert that WAV file to an MP3 file. I also show you how to convert that MP3 file into an audio file, or VST. + +First, let's create an empty Audacity project. + +Open Audacity, and click on New. Then, click on New to create a new audio file. + +Name the file "bird.wav," and click OK to create the file. + +Next, we need to import the WAV file into Audacity. Click on File, then choose Import. + +Type the filename of the file, and click OK. + +Next, we need to open the Audacity Audition dialog box. Click on the File menu, and select Open. Then, click on the Import tab. + +In the Import dialog box, select the WAV file, and click OK. + +Now, we need to add a filter to our Audacity project. We are going to use a lowpass filter on our audio. Click on Filter, then New. Then click on Lowpass Filter. + +In the Filter dialog box, set the Frequency to 57 Hz, and the Gain to -3 dB. + +Now, we need to add a noise filter to our audio. Click on Filter, then New. Then click on Noise Filter. + +In the Filter dialog box, set the Filter Shape to Gaussian Blur, and set the Radius to -1. + +Click OK to save our filter. + +Next, we need to insert the WAV file into our Audacity project. Click on Project, and then click on File. Then, choose Import. + +Type the filename of the WAV file, and click OK. + +Next, we need to add the Audacity audio editor to our Audacity project. Click on Project, and then click on Edit. Then, go to the Audio tab and click on File. + +Select the WAV file, and click on Import. + +Type the filename of the WAV file, and click OK. + +Now, we need to modify three of the parameters of the Audacity audio editor. In the top left corner of the editor, click on the Reverb button. + +Next, click on the Phases button. + +Next, click on the Tempo button. + +Next, click on the Amount button. + +Finally, click on the Cue button. This will reveal a window that will allow you to adjust the frequency, and the amount of the filter. + +Now, your Audacity project should look like this: + +Now, that we have the Audacity audio editor loaded into our Audacity project, let's do something interesting. We are going to play our audio file. + +Click on Project, then click on Edit. + +Click on the Import tab. + +In the Import dialog box, select the WAV file, and click OK. + +Click on the Play +======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== +On March 12, 2016 in Manchester, New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responded to the terrorist attack that killed at least 22 people and wounded scores more on the night of March 11 by calling for an end to America's "dumb war on terror." + +Clinton said: + +We have to be smart, vigilant and tough. We have to be just as relentless in pursuing al-Qaeda as we are in hunting down bin Laden. + +Clinton is correct that the United States has a "dumb war on terror," which has been going on for 16 years. In fact, the CIA has been talking about a new "dumb war" on terror for at least a decade, according to a report by the Washington Post. + +The CIA's "dumb war" on terror began in 2002 during the Bush administration. According to a report by the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, the CIA got the idea from the "dumb" war on terror waged by the late Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. + +The CIA's so-called "dumb war" on terror has been characterized as a "war for heartland hearts and minds" by former CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. + +"The CIA's effort began with a far-fetched idea put forth by former Senator Joe McCarthy in the late 1950s," Pillar wrote in the August 16, 2003, "Foreign Affairs" journal. "McCarthy's idea was to use constant, bipartisan fear and demands for war to mobilize voters and Congress against Communists, Communists-in-waiting, and, yes, even McCarthy himself." + +The CIA's regime change strategy began in late 2002, according to the report. After the 9/11 attacks, the agency began working with journalists to promote false claims that Iraq had a nuclear weapon, to mobilize support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and to undermine support for the anti-war movement, according to the Senate report. + +The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has included some of the most outrageous lies and propaganda in the history of the United States. The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has included the claim that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons, that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, that the Iraqi government had ties to Al Qaeda, that Iraq had ties to 9/11, and that Saddam Hussein had ties to the 9/11 hijackers. + +The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has also seen the agency push the claim that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda. The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has also seen the CIA promote the false claim that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda. The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has also seen the CIA push the claim that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda. + +According to a report by the Columbia Journalism Review, the CIA's "dumb war" on terror has been a huge success. + +"The CIA's 'dumb war' on terror has been a huge success," the Columbia Journalism Review reported in July 2003. "The agency's 'dumb war' on terror has been a huge success. The agency's 'dumb war' on terror has been a huge success," the Columbia Journalism Review reported in July 2003. + +The CIA's "dumb war" on terror should be viewed as a major factor in the rise of ISIS, according to the Washington Post. + +ISIS was created by the CIA, according to a report by the New York Times. ISIS was created by the CIA, according to a report by the New York Times. + +The CIA has also pushed the false claim that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda. The CIA's "dumb war" on terror has also seen the CIA promote the false claim that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda. + +The CIA's "dumb war" on terror should be viewed as a major factor in the rise of ISIS, according to the Washington Post. + +CIA Director John Brennan said in a speech on March 26, 2016, in New York City that ISIS "came out of the same milieu as Al Qaeda in Iraq." Brennan said the CIA was "saddened" by the recent attacks in Brussels. "We saw, at the same time, this rise of this terrorist threat in Europe," Brennan said. "And as we looked at this threat, we saw a lot of similarity in the activities that were being conducted by ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq." + +According to the New York Times, Brennan's speech was titled "The ISIS Threat" and was delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Times reported: + +Mr. Brennan spoke before a room filled with diplomats, former military officers and intelligence officials who have shared their expertise in combating the Islamic State. He predicted that the fight against the Islamic State would be long and complex, and that the United States should not "get bogged down in a quagmire" in +======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== +In the first of a new series of webinars, the Department of Defence is today releasing the results of its year-long research into the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union. The research shows that Brexit has had a significant impact on defence budgets from 2014/15 to 2017/18, with the trade-off of a smaller defence budget going to 'fiscal space' spending. + +As part of their year-long research, the Department for Defence (DoD) are releasing the results of the research into the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union. + +The DoD research – 'An assessment of the impact of Brexit on the defence budgets of the UK and EU member states' – compared the UK's defence budgets in 2014/15 and 2015/16 against the budgets of the remaining EU countries. + +The findings show that the UK's defence budget has declined by £4.6 billion over this period, with the budget for the UK's armed forces dropping by 8.4 per cent in real terms. + +The EU member states have been hit by a similar decline, with their defence budgets falling in real terms by 7.4 per cent over the same period. + +The DoD research finds that the UK's defence budget has fallen to around the level of spending in 2009/10, while the EU countries' budgets are around 20 per cent lower than the UK's. + +The research also found that the difference in budgets between the UK and the EU countries has been financed by a reduction in spending on defence and more than £7 billion in additional 'fiscal space', or money spent in areas that have little to no impact on the budget. + +The DoD research also found that 'fiscal space' spending has comprised a much higher percentage of the UK's defence budget compared to the EU countries over the past 5 years. + +The research also found that the UK's overall defence spending was lower than in the years before the EU referendum, when the UK's defence budget was around 10 per cent of GDP. + +The DoD research, published today, was carried out by the Defence and Security Analysis Centre (DSAC), and funded by the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Communities and Local Government. + +DSAC Senior Research Fellow Dr Louise Evans said: "This is the first of a new series of webinars on the impact of Brexit on the defence budget. It is a highly technical, statistically robust, and authoritative analysis of the impact of Brexit on defence budgets. + +"This is the first of two webinars on the impact of Brexit on the defence budgets of the UK and EU member states. The second will be published later in 2017." + +For more information, contact David Cannings, National Security Communications Manager, DoD, on david.cannings@dod.gov.uk. + +Notes to editors + +DSAC is a research centre which has led the way in the development of DoD's policy and research on defence. DSAC provides independent and objective analysis and analysis of the use of UK defence capability and UK national and EU policy, which is submitted to decision-makers in the Government and the Parliament. DSAC is a part of the Defence and Security Analysis Centre (DSAC), which is a joint venture between the DoD and the University of Bath. DSAC's work is supported by the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills. + +Co-authors + +Dr Louise Evans is the senior research fellow at DSAC and a former Royal Navy intelligence officer. Dr Evans is one of the leading researchers on UK defence capabilities and policy, and is a former member of the National Security Council. + +The research was undertaken by DSAC, funded by the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, with significant contributions from the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for International Trade. DSAC was also supported by the European Commission. + +The research was published today, 12 December 2017, in the journal "Security Studies". + +Download the report (PDF) + +Download the report (HTML)<|endoftext|>The United States has sought to "put on the table" the possibility that it will join Saudi Arabia in attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday. + +Clinton told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing that while the United States would not be able to unilaterally topple the Iranian government, it could be a "game changer." + +"I think we have to put on the table the possibility of joining with the Saudis," she said. "We will not unilaterally topple the government of Iran, but we will be able to significantly degrade their ability to make a nuclear weapon." + +Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up + +The United States and Saudi Arabia have been at odds over the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons +======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== +The Washington Post's top editors are calling for a "new approach" to the publication's coverage of the Trump administration. + +The Post's editorial board said in a statement Thursday that its reporters and editors are "baffled" by the Trump administration's "troubling pattern of behavior." + +"We have been troubled for months by the administration's unprecedented pattern of behavior," the editors wrote, "including its attacks on the free press, its disregard for the truth, its attacks on other countries, its attacks on institutions, and its attacks on the judiciary." + +"The pattern is now so familiar that we can't help wondering if we're witnessing a presidency gone mad," the editors continued. + +"We believe the media has a responsibility to hold the administration accountable. That responsibility includes not just a responsibility to report the news, but also to hold the government accountable."<|endoftext|>A father who was arrested after his daughter was found to be pregnant has been released from custody, police said. + +The suspect, who is identified by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office as 22-year-old Andrew Warren, was taken into custody on Sept. 17 after his daughter, who is pregnant, was found in a water park with a man who was not her father. + +Warren, who is married with a 7-month-old baby, was initially charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and sexual battery, but was later released after a judge ruled that the allegations against him were not proven at trial. + +His daughter had been told by the suspect that she was pregnant, police said. + +The 6-year-old girl was found in a pool at the Ponderosa Resort on Sept. 9. She was later taken to an area hospital for evaluation. + +The Franklin County Sheriff's Office was contacted by the woman's family who claimed she had been taken against her will. + +"The victim's father has been cooperative throughout the investigation," Sgt. Scott Lewis said in a statement. "He is relieved to have the charges dismissed and is thankful to the sheriff's office and investigators for making this happen." + +Follow @WTOP on Twitter and like us on Facebook. + +© 2016 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.<|endoftext|>The U.S. economy has been growing at a solid clip, but it remains a long way from fully recovering from the Great Recession. The economy added an average of 183,000 jobs per month during the second quarter, which is in line with expectations. + +Even so, the economy is still at a historic low point, with a record low unemployment rate and a record high foreclosure rate. + +The unemployment rate has been stuck below 8 percent since December 2010, but it's been stuck at that level for nearly a year now. The long-term unemployment rate is still above 20 percent, but it's close to a full percentage point lower than it was in the late 1990s. And the foreclosure rate is at a six-decade low. + +The housing market is another bright spot. Home sales have increased by about 25 percent since 2010. And the stock market has also been on a tear. + +In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has added more than 2,000 points since the beginning of the year. The S&P 500 is up about 1,200 points in the same time frame. + +Related: How much have you already lost? + +What's more, the Federal Reserve expects that the economy will start to grow at a faster pace in the second half of this year, although the central bank doesn't expect the job market to get much better. + +"The labor market remains weak, with the unemployment rate continuing to rise and wages barely keeping up with inflation," wrote Fed Chair Janet Yellen in a statement. + +"It is too soon to tell, and we may not be close, whether the economy can achieve full employment and stable inflation." + +The Fed's current target for the unemployment rate is 5.5 percent. The Fed is widely expected to raise the target later this year. + +The housing market is also improving. Home sales in July hit a record high. And the federal government has started selling billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities. + +Related: What's the most affordable housing market in America? + +Still, it's a long way from full recovery. At one point, the unemployment rate was hovering around 8.3% in June 2009. It hit 11% in July 2008. + +The current unemployment rate is still higher than it was in the late 1990s, when the economy was in the worst of the recession. + +But the U.S. economy is now back on its feet and moving in the right direction. And with the Fed expected to raise interest rates at its next meeting in September, the economy could finally start to clean up some of its financial mess.<|endoftext|>MONTREAL – After making the playoffs for five straight seasons, the Montreal Impact looked to have their hands full in +======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== +In the last few years I've visited many local museums. I've seen them in the wild, in antiques shops, at local flea markets, at first hand during public tours, and most recently at a few of the new ones that have opened in the last few years in or around Metro Detroit. There are many reasons to visit these museums, however, the most common is simply to be able to see a piece of history that is no longer visible in a home. I think that most people who visit a local museum are curious to see the history and legacy of the city they live in. They are also interested in seeing the modern art that surrounds them, to see how a piece of art may have influenced the way they think about the world. + +As a recent visitor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) in Ypsilanti, I couldn't help but notice that the museum is located in one of the most tragic and desolate areas of the city. The museum is located in a former factory that housed more than 100 workers making headphones. The workers had a union, but were denied protection by the state. The factory remained on the building and the majority of the building was razed and abandoned in the early 90s. + +I was fascinated with how the museum presented the workers, especially the ones that I knew from my own life, and why they were so involved in the photography and art that they made. The most interesting part was the fact that they were not just shooting random pictures of people. Yes, there were portraits of people, but they were not random. They were portraits of people that were important to them. They were portraits of people that they loved, and people that they loved were important to them. That's the kind of thing I love about society, and the society I grew up in. + +While I was at the museum I visited a number of the exhibits, which included an extremely interesting collection of photography by Wayne Schuler. I was able to see some of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and was excited to see where they had been housed in Ypsilanti and who owned them. + +The majority of the museum's photography was taken in the 70s (I was there in the 80s) and 80s. That's when he began to be recognized nationally as a photographer. He was already a well known photographer in California and had been published in a number of magazines. He had made a name for himself and the city of Ypsilanti by photographing members of the Detroit Police Department and Detroit Fire Department. He was also a well-known student of the great photographer Thomas Cole, who had a studio in Ypsilanti. + +Schuler was never accepted into the College of Visual Arts (CVA) in Denver, but he did get accepted into the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated from Berkeley in 1959 and had been accepted into the CVA years later. He decided to leave the CVA to practice photography full time. He was working as a photographer at the time and he had become so famous that he now had to find a place to live. He lived in San Francisco for a while before moving to Detroit and eventually settling in Ypsilanti. + +My first visit to Ypsilanti was shortly after Schuler's death. I had come to learn more about his life and to see the work of the local art community. I remember being so ecstatic when I was let inside the "Best of the Best" exhibit. I knew that I had to find more of Schuler's work and I had to visit the museum. I knew I had to see the CVA exhibit, too, but I didn't even know where to start. I was just excited to take the next step. I didn't know where to go next. I didn't know what to look for. So, I started to walk around and took a few pictures and asked people where I could find Schuler's work. I got a lot of help from the local people and they pointed me to a gallery. + +I walked through the galleries and started to take pictures of the artists. I found a few works and I took pictures of them. I found the works of the photographers that I had seen on the walls of the galleries. I kept on going, pausing at each exhibit to take pictures of the work. Eventually, I had many pictures of art and I was eager to find more. I found a few more works, some of them were from the 80s, some were from the 60s, some were from the 50s, and some were from the 40s. I had been looking for a piece of art that I could identify and I had found it. I had found a piece of art that I could recognize, and I had found a piece of art that I was able to identify. + +What I realized is that I had seen Schuler work twice. The first time was in a gallery that was not open +======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== +The Dominos pizza chain will open a restaurant in the Lakewood Village Shopping Center. + +The company, which is owned by Yum Brands, has signed a lease for a 15,000-square-foot space at the shopping center's intersection of South Main Street and East Main Street. + +The company, which operates more than 2,000 restaurants, has been a longtime tenant of the shopping center. + +It will be one of the first Dominos locations in the country to open in a shopping center built by The Homes for Good Foundation. + +"The Homes for Good Foundation is deeply committed to making this shopping center a destination for residents and visitors to enjoy the best in shopping and dining," said HGF Director of Development and Rebuilding Michael Capriotti. "We look forward to working with Dominos to bring an iconic brand like Dominos to our community." + +The new restaurant will fill a void in the Lakewood Village Shopping Center's food lineup, said Mike Sklar, the director of development for The Homes for Good Foundation. + +"We are really excited about the opportunity to bring Dominos to the Lakewood Village Shopping Center," Sklar said. + +The building will include a cafe, seating for about 120 and a drive-through window. + +The property is owned by J.D. Wilcox and Peter Reynolds. The two launched a nonprofit foundation, The Homes for Good Foundation, to construct the shopping center. + +The building is being remodeled to provide more parking and a higher-end look. + +The project is expected to be complete by the end of this year. + +Contact Mark Reiter at 303-473-1357, mreiter@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/markreiter.<|endoftext|>On Wednesday, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced legislation to protect the privacy of Americans' online activity. The Stop Mass Hacking and Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (H.R. 3087) seeks to make it illegal for the U.S. government to obtain a person's online information without a warrant. + +"Americans' electronic communications are full of sensitive data that cannot be accessed without a warrant. The House Judiciary Committee will be hearing from government officials from both political parties on the need to address this issue and ensure the protection of the privacy of Americans' online information," said Swalwell. "The bill is an important step in protecting the privacy of Americans' information, which is essential in a digital age." + +Rep. Lofgren said, "I am proud to champion the Stop Mass Hacking and Cybersecurity Act of 2012 and to join in the bipartisan effort to protect the privacy of Americans' online information. We need to ensure that the government has the tools it needs to prevent and punish hacking and cyberterrorism, but we also need to give Americans the confidence that their data is secure. This bill protects Americans' data and responds to the concerns of privacy advocates and technology companies." + +The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), and John Conyers Jr. (D-MI). + +The legislation would provide that no federal agency, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, or any other federal, state, or local law enforcement agency, may seize or copy, without a warrant, any electronic communication or data that is stored or transmitted on a server within the United States, or that is within the control of a United States person, solely for the purpose of investigating a violation of any criminal law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C., Section 1030), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq.), the Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 1801), the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793), or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030). + +These provisions include: + +The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) Regulations + +Sharing of information + +Collection of information from a computer or network + +Requiring a financial institution or other third-party to provide information to a federal agency + +The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFA) + +Requiring information from a computer or network + +Requiring notice to, or consent from, a third party, or + +Requiring disclosure of information + +The Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 1801) and +======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== +"The greater the number of Democrats who share these values, the greater the chance that we will achieve the kind of results we all want to see," Hoyer said, adding that he doesn't know if there is a "broad swath" of the party in favor of abortion rights. + +The Democratic leadership took a shot at Trump for his "dangerous" nomination of Neil Gorsuch, saying that the Supreme Court will be in play for decades to come. + +"The Republicans have been in control of the government for just eight months. They have managed to take one of the most important decisions of the last 40 years and what they are doing is to turn it into a fight for the future of our Supreme Court. These kinds of attacks on the Supreme Court are dangerous," Hoyer said. "We will hold the line on the court for generations." + +Follow Kerry on Twitter<|endoftext|>Dylan Brady has been named as the next head coach of the New York Red Bulls. The former New Zealand international adds to the team that is currently in the midst of a rebuild, following a disappointing 2014 season. + +Brady becomes the third head coach for the Red Bulls since their return to MLS in 2015, following Jesse Marsch and Mike Petke. + +Brady was appointed New Zealand coach in January, leading his country to the quarterfinal of the 2015 World Cup. In his first four years as coach of the national team, Brady won three of his four games in the World Cup qualification tournament. + +The 37-year-old's coaching career began in 1999, when he joined the Kiwi national team. Brady played for the Red Bulls since 2006, after being obtained by Red Bull via a trade with the New York Cosmos. He was part of the '06 team that won the MLS Supporters' Shield. He was also a member of the Red Bulls' 2007 MLS Cup championship team. + +"It is truly an honor to have been given the opportunity to lead New York Red Bulls," Brady said. "I'm excited about the opportunities ahead and the opportunity to build a winning culture in an organization that has always been focused on soccer success. I'm grateful for the opportunity and look forward to building on the foundations that Mike and Jesse have laid." + +After three successful seasons with New York, Brady was fired by the club in January 2014. + +"I am very proud of what we have accomplished together, and are very excited to see what the future holds for this incredible club," Marsch said. "I would like to thank Dylan Brady for his contributions to the club, and wish him all the best as he joins us as our head coach." + +The Red Bulls finished a disappointing seventh in the Eastern Conference last season, and missed the playoffs for the fourth straight time. + +The team is currently in the midst of a huge rebuild, with most of its core players either on the roster or on the way out. + +"We are in the midst of a major rebuilding process that will take time, but I am confident that the dynamics and chemistry of the team will eventually emerge as we continue to focus on building through the draft, USL, and international signings," general manager Marc de Grandpre said. "As we go through this process, we will share our progress and identify our goals and priorities. After that, I can say with confidence that we will make significant progress over the next several years, and very soon we will once again be a dominant force in the Eastern Conference."<|endoftext|>A man in Oklahoma is recovering after surviving a brutal attack by two pit bulls. + +Emergency responders were called to the scene of an attack in Moore on Tuesday afternoon, and they found a man who had been bitten multiple times. + +The man told the emergency responders he was walking his dog when a brown pit bull and a black pit bull began to attack him, and they also bit his wife. + +"Two pit bulls attacked me, and they bit me on the face and all over my face. I'm okay, but I'm just very shaken up," the man told KFOR. + +The man was treated for his injuries, and is now recovering at a local hospital. + +The dogs are now being held at the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, and are expected to be impounded. + +"I just hope that either the dogs are euthanized or they're put in some place that they can't do this to somebody again," the man said. "I hope that it's the right thing to do, and I hope that they're taken care of." + +The dogs have been euthanized. + +© 2017 Bright Mountain Media, Inc. + +All rights reserved. The content of this webpage may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Bright Mountain Media, Inc. which may be contacted at info@brightmountainmedia.com, ticker BMTM.<|endoftext|>This video was submitted by a viewer and we just wanted you to know that you are in our hearts +======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== +Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. + +An orange Cessna airplane crashed near a shopping center in suburban Atlanta on Monday, killing one person and injuring five others, authorities said. + +The single-engine plane was on approach to takeoff at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when the pilot lost control of the plane and crashed in a wooded area about a half-mile from the airport terminal, police said. The pilot was pronounced dead at the scene. + +Investigators found the plane near the parking lot of a Home Depot store about a half-mile from the runway. + +"It looks like a bird struck it," said Major Richard Todd, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. + +The Cessna that crashed Monday morning and killed one person and injured five others was on approach to takeoff at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when the pilot lost control of the plane and crashed in a wooded area about a half-mile from the airport terminal, authorities said. The pilot was pronounced dead at the scene. + +The pilot who died was identified as 64-year-old Richard C. Huffman. He had been with the Georgia Department of Aviation for more than 30 years. + +The Department of Transportation and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident. + +"We are devastated," Georgia Department of Aviation spokesman Mike Bowman said. "It's just heartbreaking for the families involved." + +Huffman had been flying the plane for the past month, Bowman said. + +The plane had been parked at the airport for about a week and had been used for transportation, according to Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Angie Wynn. + +The plane had been in storage since its last flight in November, Bowman said. + +The airport was closed until about 5:30 p.m. ET so the Federal Aviation Administration could co-ordinate the rescue efforts with the National Transportation Safety Board, according to a spokesman for the airport. + +"On behalf of all of us at the airport, I want to thank all of the first responders for their swift actions," Georgia Department of Aviation spokesman Mike Bowman told reporters. + +Wynn said that the pilot's co-pilot was not injured in the crash. + +"The pilot was the only person on the plane when it crashed," Wynn said. + +The planes are used to transport people to and from airports. The Federal Aviation Administration does not regulate the use of the planes.<|endoftext|>There are currently no running games. + +Killer in the House - T&A + +This game does not support VIP Servers . + +Sorry, this game is private. + +Please enable Javascript to use all the features on this site. + +Check Always open links for URL: Roblox Protocol and click Open URL: Roblox Protocol in the dialog box above to join games faster in the future!<|endoftext|>Thailand's new constitution will be implemented Tuesday, the constitutional court's chief judge said, adding that judges would not issue rulings that might damage the country's economy. + +"We will implement the constitution of the country," Chief Judge Wirathu said on Tuesday following a meeting of the Supreme Court, according to the Bangkok Post. + +He added that the court would not issue rulings that might "impair Thailand's economy." + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The court is expected to rule on Wednesday whether the government's redraft of the constitution is constitutional. The ruling is expected to be either favorable or unfavorable. + +The new constitution, which was drawn up after a military coup d'etat in May, is seen as a step forward for democracy in Thailand. + +Thailand's junta, however, has been criticized for failing to implement the fair and transparent process that the charter calls for. + +The court's decision will also be seen as a blow to the junta, which has called the draft a "strictly drafted document." + +Human rights groups have expressed concern over the introduction of the draft, saying it could be the first step towards further legalizing the military's decades-long rule. + +The junta's critics have also blasted the court for not allowing a full and fair hearing on the constitution. + +The Supreme Court is expected to respond to the draft constitution on Tuesday. + +The draft constitution, which was written by a military-appointed panel, has faced criticism from an array of groups and individuals. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +Human rights groups have criticized the draft as a step forward for democracy in Thailand. + +But the junta countered that the constitution will be a step towards a "strong, independent and sovereign Thailand." + +The military, which placed a number of restrictions on the election of the new leader of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006, is expected to retain its grip on power. + +The government will likely need to rely on a number of legal +======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== +Detail from 'The Disappearance of Emmett Till' in the Mississippi Delta + +Now the most famous portrait of the 14-year-old Emmett Till is being auctioned off for $5.8 million. His family says they've had to sell off everything in the public domain, including their own handwritten letters and family photos, to pay the high price. The original album cover is also up for grabs.<|endoftext|>Welcome to the In the Streets blog, a weekly look at the world of the LGBTQ community in Baltimore. We'll be posting posts throughout the week about the local LGBTQ community, politics, and more. We're also offering a variety of other in-depth features. You can visit us all the way from Baltimore to Washington D.C. with all of the posts you want. + +Since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage, the conversation about LGBTQ issues has become more important and more heated. In response, members of the city's LGBTQ community are speaking out. + +Here in Baltimore, the conversation has centered on the fight for marriage equality, but it is also a discussion about the city's most vulnerable populations. + +"We've had a lot of conversations about where we're going to get our housing. Where are we going to get our jobs, and I think we need to start thinking about where are we going to get our services for our LGBTQ young people," says 28-year-old Jasmine Corman, a transgender woman who is the founder of the Baltimore Gender Alliance and a member of the Baltimore Trans Action Coalition. + +Corman says the conversation on transgender rights in Baltimore has been going on for some time. "Baltimore is very welcoming to trans people. We are the only city in Maryland and the fourth most populous city in the country that has a trans community. There's a lot of support, but we need more services," she says. + +The transgender community is one of the largest in Baltimore. There are a total of 13,500 people in the transgender community. + +"I'm tired of being treated as a second class citizen in this city, and I think people need to see that and they need to understand what our lives are all about," says Corman. + +The city has created a number of programs and resources to help the LGBTQ community, including the Transgender Center of Baltimore, which provides a number of services including counseling, education and employment opportunities. + +"They have a lot of people come in, but I think what they want more is services," says Corman. + +The Transgender Center doesn't have enough funding to expand its services. + +"I think this is not an issue that is going away. I think it has to be addressed," says Corman. + +The Transgender Center doesn't get any funding from the city's Department of Social Services, but that doesn't mean that funding isn't available. + +"There's a lot of ways to get involved and to create a stronger program, and I think that's what the city needs to do," says Corman. + +Local political leaders have made the issue of transgender rights a priority. In May, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced a new task force to tackle the issue. + +"The mayor's office has been working on the issue of transgender equality for over a year now," says Corman. + +Her group has partnered with the Baltimore City Department of Human Resources, the Baltimore City Department of Health and the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Development. + +The BBaltimore Transgender Coalition has been working on a number of campaigns to make Baltimore a more inclusive city. + +"I want to make sure that we have gay pride events in Baltimore, and I want to make sure that more resources are available to the trans folks in this city," says Corman. + +The coalition also wants to make sure the city's LGBTQ community knows that they have the support they need. + +"There's this kind of new generation of people that we're dealing with that has not been marginalized," says Corman. "There's this group of trans folks that are starting to identify and feel comfortable with each other and have come together to fight for change." + +Corman says she's glad to see Baltimore is taking this issue seriously. + +"When I think about the LGBTQ community and how it was different 10 years ago, it was so different. It wasn't what it is now. I think it's time to start taking action on this issue and make some real changes," she says. + +The Baltimore Gender Alliance has been sharing their story for a year. If you'd like to learn more about the organization, visit their website.<|endoftext|>There are many ways to use raw data in Excel. And there are many ways to use it. + +It's all about what you want to do with the raw data. + +If you want to use the raw data to make graphs and to create charts, then your data +======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== +The federal government's decision to make it harder for its employees to claim a disability pension is causing many to question why the government is spending more than $20 billion a year on disability benefits, when the number of people who need them is so small. + +The government says it is projecting a $9.7 billion deficit in the next federal budget, which is a deficit that will be filled by a combination of a tax increase and the growing number of people who are receiving welfare and unemployment benefits. + +The decision to reduce the amount of time pensioners can receive a pension, and the fact that the pension is now calculated based on a person's income, have led some to question why the government is spending tens of billions of dollars on disability benefits when the number of people who need them is so small. + +Story continues below advertisement + +"We [the government] are already spending more than $9 billion a year on disability benefits that will not be needed, and it is going to go up to $21 billion a year," said John Duncan, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. "The question is, why would we have to add to a $20-billion deficit?" + +Mr. Duncan said the government is spending $40,000 on disability benefits, even though a Canadian with a disability will likely spend no more than $10,000 on the benefits. + +"The government is spending $40,000 on a disability pension that will never be needed, and we are going to spend another $600 million on a program that is going to be needed," he said. + +A spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada said the budget will be released in the fall. The federal government has said it will not be releasing details of the federal budget until next week. + +The government's decision to limit the amount of time pensioners can receive a pension was announced in the fall of 2011, when the Conservatives were in opposition. + +The federal government has already announced that it will impose a new tax on individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year, and that the highest-earning 1 per cent of earners will pay an additional 10 per cent tax on their income above $200,000. + +The government has also indicated that it will make changes to the Canada Pension Plan that will force some people to pay more to receive their pension. It has also indicated it will make changes to the Employment Insurance system that will force some people to pay more to receive their benefits. + +But the conditions for eligibility for disability benefits are much more stringent than the conditions for eligibility for income security payments. People who qualify for income security payments are typically sick, disabled or elderly, but are not expected to work. + +Story continues below advertisement + +Story continues below advertisement + +In addition, people who qualify for disability benefits can receive them for up to 20 years, which is much longer than the allotted 10 years for income security payments. In addition, people who qualify for disability benefits are not expected to work, and their benefits are not expected to be reduced if they do. + +"There is a difference between the income-security program and the disability program," said Marc-Andre Viau, a pension expert at the University of Ottawa. He pointed out that people who qualify for income security payments are expected to work and that the disability program is intended to help people who are unable to work. + +Catherine Sproule, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, said the government is committed to ensuring people with disabilities are able to obtain their benefits. + +"We are working hard to ensure that people with disabilities are able to access the benefits they are entitled to. That's the key to protecting the public purse and keeping the Canada Pension Plan solvent," she said. + +The disability program is one of the most expensive programs in the federal budget. During the last federal election, the NDP pledged to eliminate the program and to reduce the tax rate paid by high-income earners. + +The Conservatives have responded by promising to increase the threshold for the disability program from $121,000 to $250,000. The government also has said it will spend $1.5-billion to expand the eligibility criteria for people receiving full disability benefits. + +The government is also promising to increase the amount of money it spends on disability benefits over the next decade.<|endoftext|>The Old Guard has a new leader. + +Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced Friday he will run for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, becoming the first candidate to officially enter the race. + +Santorum, 71, is a first-term congressman from Pennsylvania whose 18-year tenure in Washington ended when he was defeated by Democratic nominee Katie McGinty in the 2014 general election. + +Santorum is a longtime social conservative and one of the Senate's most outspoken advocates of limited government. + +He has been making the rounds in Pennsylvania in recent weeks, visiting Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, +======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== +Lewis Hamilton's first World Championship title and the teams' title race at Suzuka are the highlights, but there is plenty more to enjoy in the first half of the season. + +From the new McLaren-Honda-Renault adventure of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen, to the battle of the heavyweights at Ferrari, to the first ever RBR-backed team to win the constructors' championship, we have a bit more than just F1 action this weekend. + +With the recent battle of the fastest man in the world between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, there is plenty of excitement in the paddock. + +But we also have a chance to see if the Vettel-Hamilton rivalry can be matched in the future. + +We also have the chance to see how Renault's future looks, with the return of Eric Boullier and Renault's new technical director as well as new boss Carlos Ghosn. + +This weekend we will see the first outing for the new car, with a superbly prepared drivers' meeting on Friday and a test at Suzuka on Saturday. + +Here's an insight into some of the highlights of the F1 season so far. + +Red Bull + +Red Bull's first win at the Japanese Grand Prix was a sensational one, with Daniel Ricciardo's race-winning drive in the closing laps a testament to the team's ability to turn one of their cars into an outright winner. + +The win put Ricciardo in pole position for the rest of the season, but it was not the first time he has scored points in a race. + +He has been the first to score points in all 11 of the races he has started this season, with his best finish of sixth at the Australian Grand Prix. + +He also won the final race of the season at the Monaco Grand Prix, but it was not the only time he won the last race of the season. + +The win in Japan was only Ricciardo's second win in his career, with his first coming in 2013 at the Japanese Grand Prix. + +The win in Japan was Ricciardo's first win in his career, and only the second time he has scored points in a race + +The Canadian has been a consistent performer, scoring points in three of the four races he has started this season. + +Although he has struggled for pace in races so far, he has scored points in all three of his races at Fuji, where he finished second. + +He also took pole position at the Japanese Grand Prix. + +Two wins and a pole position in his first five races will make him a very formidable force. + +Red Bull have won four of the first five races. + +He has scored points in four of the first five races + +Ferrari + +Fernando Alonso's strong start to the season has been one of the most impressive in recent years. + +He has scored his first points of the season in Baku, but it was his second win in the summer break in Suzuka that was arguably the greatest achievement of his career. + +The Spaniard won in front of another impressive crowd of fans, most of whom had not seen a F1 race until then. + +It was arguably the greatest achievement of his career + +Alonso's first win for Ferrari came in front of another impressive crowd of fans + +It was the start of a strong run that has seen him score points in all nine races he has started this season. + +Alonso has also won the last race at the Monaco Grand Prix, but it was not the only time he had won the last race of the season. + +He won in Singapore, which was the first race back after the summer break, and he won on the penultimate lap of the race at the Australian Grand Prix. + +Alonso also won the final race of the season at the Monaco Grand Prix + +It was only the second time he has won the final race of the season. + +It was the race after his Ferrari was involved in a huge accident at the Spanish Grand Prix + +At the end of the season he was in the points in just four of the twenty races he completed. + +That, however, is an improvement on the ten points he scored at the end of the 2013 season. + +The win in Singapore was the last race of the season, and Alonso did not score points in the last race of the season + +Hamilton + +Lewis Hamilton has come to the fore in 2013, and won the last race of the season at the Monaco Grand Prix. + +His first win of the year came at the Canadian Grand Prix, in a race he led all the way to the chequered flag. + +It was also the first win of Hamilton's career, and the first time he has won the last race of the season. + +What a way to go out, winning the last race of the year in front of an incredible crowd +======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== +The White House on Monday urged lawmakers to vote against a controversial Republican bill that would undo the Affordable Care Act. + +The bill, which has stalled in the Senate as Republicans struggle to find the votes, would strip health insurance from millions of Americans and would likely cut Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor and disabled. + +"There are many ways to improve the status quo," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said in a statement. "But this bill doesn't do that. It puts the government between you and your doctor, and it does nothing to help people save money on their premiums or their deductibles or their co-pays." + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The bill is "a Trojan horse designed to return to the days before the Affordable Care Act," Priebus continued, saying the GOP bill would give states the power to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides a wide range of health services, including abortion. + +"If you can't afford your plan and you live in an area that doesn't have it, the government will pay for it," Priebus said. "If you can afford it, you can keep it. If you can't afford it, you get to keep whatever you like in your health plan." + +Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnell GOP leaning toward Arizona sex crimes prosecutor to question Kavanaugh accuser: report GOP confidence grows on Kavanaugh Senate panel schedules Friday morning vote for Kavanaugh MORE (R-Ky.) and other Republicans said last week that they hope to vote on the legislation next week, though they do not have the votes to pass it. + +Democrats have repeatedly warned that the bill would gut the law and jeopardize coverage for millions of Americans. + +Vice President Pence on Sunday urged GOP senators to vote against the bill, arguing it would result in fewer people obtaining health insurance. + +"This bill is a step backward," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We need to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act."<|endoftext|>…for several weeks in the summer of 2016. But as every college football fan knows, the ending of that season was not what anyone would have chosen. + +After a week of panic, the Buckeyes began their ascent to the top of the college football world as they won their fourth national title in a row. The only problem? The U.S. presidential election was an overwhelming success. + +Ohio State had been so close to being crowned the greatest college football team in America that they were already looking forward to celebrating. + +As the Buckeyes began their post-victory party, they were greeted by a Trump supporter who screamed at them to "get a job!" + +Twitter + +The offensive outburst lasted only a few seconds before the Trump supporter was escorted out by police. + +The tweet has since been deleted by the user. However, screenshots of the exchange remain. + +Then again, it's hard to believe that this is the first time Donald Trump has been seen on the field in a Buckeyes uniform. + +This is the second time in the past year that Trump has been seen at one of his golf courses. He was seen reportedly playing golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the U.S.-Japan World Series. + +Earlier this month, Trump was spotted playing golf with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at Trump National Golf Club in Boca Raton, Fla. + +Trump has played golf with about every Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He has not played with John McCain, John Kerry, George W. Bush, or Mitt Romney. + +Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com<|endoftext|>This week's episode of The Flash has had a lot of ups and downs, but the final scene with Barry Allen and Jay Garrick was everything I could have hoped for. To get a better idea of what I'm talking about, check out this clip from the episode. + +Of course, Barry isn't that much of a fan of Jay Garrick. He warns him to stay away from him, but that's not enough. Jay's just so much more fun in the role that Barry's ready to make a deal. He's willing to give away his secret identity for the sake of two women. I'm not sure if Jay will be able to keep it. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.<|endoftext|>"It's a medical issue," said the man's wife, who went by the name of Alison. "We have to put him on a breathing tube. It's a medical issue." + +The man had reportedly been under the care of the University of California, Los Angeles Hospital since his arrest in Florida in May. + +The 33-year-old man was arrested in a sting operation — a sting where investigators posed as a man seeking a sexual encounter with an underage girl. + +The man was arrested at a hotel in Miami Beach +======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== +Alice Parnell, 30, was recently hired to work at a clothier in Remington, Maryland. She was eager to get to work, but she was nervous. + +Parnell, an African-American woman, is a single mother who works as a cashier at the store. She had a temp job at the store for about a year and a half. + +When she applied for a regular job, she was turned down. + +The reason: Parnell is too short. + +"They told me, 'She's too short,'" she told ABC News. "They told me, 'She's not right for the job.'" + +Parnell said she weighed more than 145 pounds. + +"I have a very small frame," she said. + +She's been told she's too short. + +"I'm not even wearing heels," she said. + +Parnell, who is not married and has no children, said she doesn't mind. She's not worried about her children. + +"I feel like I've done everything I can," she said. "I've been there, done that." + +The manager at the store told Parnell that she was too short and that she would have to attend a special training class and be weighed. + +"He said, 'You're too short,'" Parnell said. "I was like, 'Okay.' " + +Parnell is not the only one who has been told she's too short. + +"They tell you you're too short. They have you come in for a medical, and they say, 'We're going to have to send you out to some type of training, and we're going to have to send you to the store to be weighed,'" Parnell said. "I was just like, 'What are you talking about? I'm not short. I'm not small.' " + +Parnell said the store manager told her that she had to come back the next day to weigh-in again. + +"I did, and I was so embarrassed because I was so embarrassed," she said. "I thought, 'I'm not going to be able to work here.' I was already so stressed out. I was already feeling like I couldn't do anything right." + +Parnell said she took her concerns to the human resource department at the store, but was told that she needed to come back to weigh-in the next day. + +"I said, 'I don't care. I'm not going to come back. I'm not going to come back,'" she said. "I said, 'I'll go home and get my shawl, and I'm going to do it.' I was so upset. I was so upset. I was like, 'I can't go back. I can't go back.'" + +The manager told Parnell, "You're not right for this job," Parnell said. "I wanted to get out of there, but I felt like I couldn't." + +Parnell said she went home and put on her black shawl. She said she was so embarrassed. + +"I was so ashamed that I couldn't even work at my job," she said. "I felt like I wasn't worth nothing. I felt like I wasn't doing anything." + +Parnell said she doesn't want her children to have to go through anything like this. + +"My kids are born and raised in the United States. They have the right to go to school and not have to see this," she said. + +Parnell said she called her attorney, who told her that she should be given a fair chance to work at another store. + +"I'm not afraid to go to a store and tell them no," she said. "I'm not afraid to go to a store and tell them no. But I am afraid to tell them no, and they're going to say, 'We don't like you here. We don't want you here.' " + +Parnell said she's been told she's too short and that she needs to go take a medical. + +The manager who told Parnell she was too short told ABC News that he was "flabbergasted" that he was ever told that. + +"I'm shocked that she would say something like that," he said. "I mean, I just...I'm floored." + +He said he did not know about the special training classes and weighing. + +"I never knew that there was a weight issue," he said. "I don't remember ever having her come in, and the next thing you know, she's scared and she's on her way out." + +The manager who told Parnell she was too short said he understands that she is worried about her health but that he +======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== +The Queen was awarded the Order of Merit for services to charity in the New Year's Honours list. The honour, which is awarded by the Queen, is the second-highest civilian honour. + +After retiring from the Navy, the Queen became a regular patron of the Royal British Legion and the British Red Cross Society. She also donated her £300,000 annual pension to the charities. + +The Legion is the largest veteran organisation in Europe, with more than 2.1 million members, and the British Red Cross has a network of more than 500 branches across Britain, Europe and Africa. + +The Queen's Garden Court at Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, has been the site of the Legion's annual Christmas Appeal for over a century. + +Her husband Prince Philip was knighted in 2010. + +The Queen's honours list has included only those awarded posthumously. + +The Queen's honours have a long and illustrious history, dating back to before the First World War. The list was first published in 1901 and has been published annually since then. + +They are composed of 11 items, of which three are knighthoods. The other 11 are: + +The Order of the British Empire for services to the Commonwealth + +Knight of the British Empire for services to the Commonwealth + +Companion of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Commonwealth + +Knight's Cross (Eton) for services to the Armed Forces + +The Queen's Arms, a ceremonial sword, is awarded to officers who have received the highest service awards from the Queen. + +Sir Mark Lyall Grant, director general of Her Majesty's Treasury, said: "The Queen's honours list is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to acknowledge the outstanding achievements of Britain's Armed Forces and their families. + +"It is a privilege for the Queen to continue to be acknowledged for her services to the Armed Forces and the wider community. + +"Her Majesty has always been a supporter of the Armed Forces and the Order of the British Empire is a fitting reminder of her wish to see Britain remain a strong and engaged global force. + +"The Queen has today also been awarded the Order of Merit for her services to charity – a fitting tribute to the vital work of the British Red Cross in helping individuals and communities affected by disaster."<|endoftext|>The time has come for a definitive reckoning. The time has come for a full-scale investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a man who was shot by police in a Berkeley courtroom last week. + +The incident was captured on cell phone video showing a man being pushed by two officers — one of them identified as Sean Aranas. + +Aranas' actions were caught on video. He points the gun at a lawyer and fires, hitting the man in the back. + +His actions were captured on video. He points the gun at a lawyer and fires, hitting the man in the back. + +The video has been released, and it is horrifying. Here's how it went down. + +Two Berkeley police officers push a man to the ground + +Sean Aranas is known to law enforcement as "Goon," and he is a former member of the Berkeley Police Department. + +His arrest record includes a felony conviction for assault, criminal threats and resisting arrest. + +He was a member of the Berkeley police "Riders" in 2014, a motorcycle club that works with local and federal law enforcement. + +Police said he was involved in a road rage incident, and that the driver of a car hit him. + +"His car was running a red light at the time of the incident," police said. + +The victim, who was not identified by police, was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries. + +A red-faced Aranas is seen on the video, with the gun pointed in the direction of the victim and a pair of police officers behind him. + +Aranas was arraigned for misdemeanor driving on the wrong side of the road, and traffic citations were issued, according to court records. + +After the video was widely shared on social media, several Berkeley residents and supporters of the man who was shot spoke out about the incident. + +The man, who was not identified, was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries. + +The Berkeley Police Department released a statement, saying, in part: + +"The Berkeley Police Department is aware of the incident involving Sean Aranas and is currently investigating the incident. At this time, the Berkeley Police Department has not received any reports of any citizen complaints regarding this incident. The Berkeley Police Department will conduct a full investigation into this incident." + +The video shows Aranas pointing the gun at the victim, who was being pushed by the officers. + +Aranas then fires the gun. + +The man in the back of Aranas' car is hit. + +The officers then drag the man out of the car. + +Aranas was +======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== +Just a few months ago, we wrote about a new project called the "Video Game Genome Project" which aimed to sequence the "DNA of video games." In addition to the sequencing of some of the games, the project also included an ambitious effort to create a "virtual DNA" map of the gaming industry. + +That project has now been completed. + +It's a big deal, because it has the potential to revolutionize the way scientists study dangerous pathogens. + +The project, which was led by a team of scientists at the University of Utah, included members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Utah, and the University of California, San Francisco. The team began surveying the video game industry in a different way. In addition to collecting prices of used games, they also looked at which companies were producing the games and how much money they made. + +"We were looking at what's the market potential, what makes a game in the modern industry a big success? And what makes a game a failure?" says project leader Eva Zamora. + +In this, they were able to begin cataloguing the genomes of the games they studied. In addition to getting their hands on the prices of used games, they also got their hands on the software that game developers use to make their games. + +Zamora says they found that the software companies themselves weren't aware of how they were using their software. + +"The companies that make the software are very secretive about what they're doing, and that's a very good thing," she says. "But then once you're able to put those genotypes on a map, you don't have to be so secretive anymore." + +Zamora says that this is what makes the gaming industry so exciting to study. For the first time, it might be possible to take a genetic sequence of a game and then use that sequence to see what's in the game that makes it so dangerous. + +"Because these games are so ubiquitous, they're so ubiquitous in our culture that it's almost always going to be in other people's genomes," she says. + +Thanks to the project, it's also possible to look at the genetic sequence of the games in a way that was previously impossible. Until now, researchers could only look at the DNA of the games they had at their disposal. + +"This is really exciting because we're able to sample the genomes of a large number of games," Zamora says. "Where we didn't have that many games, it was very, very difficult to identify these genetic markers." + +The project was a big success. It was able to map the genomes of 126 games. And Zamora hopes that it has provided a means for scientists to study the genetic sequences of other games. + +"We hope to be able to do this for dozens of other games," she says. "So this is the beginning of a new era of genetic mapping of games." + +Zamora says the next step for the project is to put the genotypes of other games on a map so we can see what we're dealing with, and to start cataloguing other dangerous pathogens. + +"It's a very exciting time to be doing research in the field of genetic mapping," Zamora says. "This is the first time that we've been able to map the entire DNA of a game."<|endoftext|>New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) issued the following statement on the shooting of a police officer in Brooklyn on Wednesday: + +"The officer who was shot by a man who was on probation was a hero. He responded to the scene immediately and lay down on the ground to protect others. These officers are our heroes. They put their lives on the line to protect us each and every day. There is no justification for anyone to take the life of an officer."<|endoftext|>It's a little hard to tell if the story has been exaggerated, but it sounds like a huge deal. The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is preparing to send 1,000 more American troops into Iraq to help fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. + +This is a huge shift. The Bush administration had been reluctant to send troops into Iraq. The new plan would bring the American war in Iraq to a close. + +The Times reports that the White House is hoping to put the new troops into the Mosul area, where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — also known as ISIS — is now controlling significant territory. The Times says that the new troops are likely to number about 2,000. + +The plan has been long in the works. At the end of October, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a new strategy to combat ISIS. The plan was to deploy about 4,000 American troops to Iraq as part of a broader strategy to expand the fight against ISIS. + +The New York Times says that President Barack Obama told the nation that the plan would include additional military advisers, trainers, intelligence operatives and vehicles. + + +======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== +This is one of the most time consuming things I've done in my life. + +I have to write a lot of code to move forward. This is not a fun undertaking. + +The code I wrote for this project is a lot of code. I'm not going to give it away, but I've written all the code that's useful to me. If you're interested in knowing the idea behind the project, I wrote a blog post about that here. + +I've put a lot of work into this and I don't have any plans to stop. + +The code for this project is a little bit different than most code I write for this project. + +I don't use the for loop in the majority of my projects. The reason for this is that I find it hard to maintain. I like to be able to see the entire state of the program before I make a decision, and that can't happen with a for loop. For example, if I want to write ten times the number of numbers in a list, that would be ten for loops. If I wanted to write five times the number of numbers in a list, that would be five for loops. If I wanted to write twenty times the number of the numbers in a list, that would be twenty for loops. That's why I don't use for loops. + +This is a little bit different. + +The first thing that you'll notice about the code is that it's just plain old JavaScript. I'm writing a program that can be run in a browser. The main goal of this project is to see if I can build a web app that you can run in a browser. The second goal is to see if I can build a web app that you can run on a mobile phone. + +The first goal is kind of easy because I use ES6 modules and the ability to have a global object in a browser. The second goal is a little bit harder because I can't use the browser's built in event loop. I have to do it myself. + +The web app I'm building is meant to be mobile friendly and I want to be able to use the web app with one of my devices. + +The code I'm working on for this project is a little bit different from most code I write. + +I've been wanting to type this code for a while now. I've been waiting for something to make this happen. I finally found the right thing. + +I've been writing a lot of code lately. It's been a lot of work. If you're interested in learning how to write code, I wrote a blog post about that here. + +This project is a little bit different because it's a bit of a departure from the kind of code I normally write. It's a little bit more like a Python script. + +The idea behind this project is to use a Node.js based server to run a web app that you can access on your mobile phone. + +I have two goals for this project. The first goal is to build a web app that you can run on mobile phones. + +The second goal is to build a web app that you can run on a web-based server. + +The web app I'm building is meant to be mobile friendly and I want to be able to use the web app with one of my devices. + +The server I'm using is called Koa and it's built on top of Node.js. + +My goal for this project is to build a web app that you can run on a web server. + +To do so, I need to use a Node.js based server. + +My goal for this project is to build a web app that you can run on a web server. + +I'll be using a Node.js based server. This is a little bit different than most Node.js based servers. + +I've been using Node.js servers for a couple of years now and I like them a lot. Recently I've been building a Node.js based app called Node.js on the server. That project was successful and I'm using it as a reference for this project. + +I've been using Node.js servers for a couple of years now and I like them a lot. Recently I've been building a Node.js based app called Node.js on the server. That project was successful and I'm using it as a reference for this project. + +The web app I'm building will be able to connect to a Node.js based server and run a web app on the server. + +It will be able to run on a web server and run on a mobile phone. + +The web app I'm building will be able to connect to a Node.js based server and run a web app on the server. + +It will be able to run on a web server and run on a mobile phone. + +I've been using Node.js servers +======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== +A new study suggests that the number of homeless youths in the U.S. could be cut in half if more young people who are "at risk" were to receive more treatment. + +In the new study, researchers looked at the number of homeless youths who were in foster care, had a history of police contact, or both. They compared their findings to data on the homeless youth population in the United States. + +Their findings suggest that between 2007 and 2015, the number of homeless youths in the U.S. dropped by around 8 percent, or approximately 169,000 people. + +While a decline in the number of homeless youths is an important step, the study also found that some children who were homeless were "at-risk" of becoming homeless in the future. + +The study authors wrote that there are many reasons why young people become homeless, and the problem is getting worse. In particular, the researchers expressed concern over youths who are "at-risk" of being homeless in the future. + +"It is important to note that this is a population of nearly 500,000 young people, which is large enough to have a significant impact on the overall homeless population," they wrote. "However, the repeated high-profile incidents of youth homelessness in the news have highlighted the need to address this population more broadly." + +The study authors said that the measures needed to address the problem of homeless youths could include expanding access to mental health treatment, establishing a system of housing and support services for homeless youths, and creating a system that detects and encourages the "at-risk" youths to seek treatment. + +The study was published in the December 2016 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.<|endoftext|>The Brazilian government has announced plans to finalise a deal with a Brazilian company to build a vast tunnel with a 1.9km diameter under the Atlantic Ocean to connect Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. + +The plan is to start work in 2018 and finish in 2026. + +The government is confident that the tunnel will be ready for use by 2026. + +"We are going ahead with the project, and we expect at the end of the day we will have completed the project," said Brazil's energy minister, Edson Fachin, on Friday. + +The tunnel would be part of a network of roads, rail lines and highways planned to link Brazil's two largest cities. + +The current plan is to build a total of 24 major metro lines, 9 road tunnels, and 28 light rail lines. + +The plans were unveiled last year, and the transport ministry provided a detailed cost and schedule for each of the projects.<|endoftext|>The phrase "you can't keep a good woman down" is often attributed to the famous American gangster Al Capone. However, there's no evidence that the phrase was coined by Capone. + +The story is often attributed to the fictional character Al Capone, but there's no evidence to support this claim. The phrase was actually first written about in the pen name of Chicago author William J. Bennett, along with the saying "you can't keep a good woman down." In fact, Bennett used the phrase in his novel The Brotherhood of the Hammer (1890), which was published in English in 1894. + +Bennett's claim that the phrase originated with Capone is also incorrect. William J. Bennett's book The Brotherhood of the Hammer is actually the only reference to the phrase that is known to have been written by Bennett himself. + +"You can't keep a good woman down" first appeared as an adage in Bennett's 1901 novel The Brotherhood of the Hammer. + +The phrase can be traced back to the 1880s, when Charles Dickens was said to have employed the adage to describe a woman. The phrase was also applied to Capone in the 1920s, which is where it was first credited to him. + +In his book, The Brotherhood of the Hammer, Bennett wrote that the phrase originated with an advertisement for a bathhouse in the 1893 Chicago Tribune. The ad featured a woman with a bathtub filled with ice water. The ad stated that the woman "can't keep a good woman down." + +The phrase was published with the knowledge that the phrase was in fact popularized by Capone, not William J. Bennett. + +"You can't keep a good woman down" has since been attributed to several other notable people, including Albert Einstein, George C. Scott and Elvis Presley. + +What do you think about this popular saying? Did you hear it said before it was credited to Capone? Or did you know that the phrase originated with the Tribune?<|endoftext|>The Most Powerful Race in the World + +There are currently 17,195 public boards, 18,757 total. Site-wide, 2,532 posts have been made in the last hour, with 75,842,822 being made on all active boards since October 23, 2013. + +Warning: Some boards on 8 +======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== +Ahhhh, the tough talk. + +On the campaign trail, Trump's tough talk often appears to be self-aggrandizing, but you can't argue with the results. + +As Donald Trump makes his first trip to the Middle East as President-elect, he will face the brutal reality of the region — a region in which foreign powers are working to destroy the U.S. through their own agendas and policies. + +For much of the past decade, the Middle East has been a region of chaos, with countries like Libya, Syria, and Iraq in chaos or a state of conflict. The chaos has allowed ISIS to thrive. + +As a result, the globalists have been pushing for more global governance, including a United Nations that will be more powerful than the U.S. government, a new world order, and a one world government. + +In the past year, Trump has been sympathetic to those causes, and has called for a more aggressive U.S. military action in the Middle East. + +Trump has also recently said that he would like to see more countries in the Middle East join the coalition against ISIS. + +At the same time, Trump has said that he would use military force only as a last resort, and that he would only engage in military action as a last resort. + +Since I first started writing about Trump nearly a year ago, Trump has repeatedly said that he would not engage in war for regime change in Iran. + +While Trump has been sympathetic to the cause of regime change in the Middle East, he has also said that he wants to work with allies in the region and that he would not engage in regime change. + +In addition, he has said that he does not want to engage in the nation building that the globalists have been pushing for, and that he would leave that to the military professionals. + +With all of these facts in mind, now it is clear that Trump is actually trying to accomplish what the globalists have been pushing for since the end of World War II — a globalist world government. + +Trump has said that his administration will be an "America First" administration, and that he will be a president more focused on America's national interests and not on the globalist agenda. + +Trump has made the point that the globalists have not been successful in their attempts to create a one world government, and that they would now like to try the same strategy on the United States. + +Trump's tough talk on the campaign trail was to be expected. He has been the most outspoken presidential candidate in the GOP field. + +Despite that, Trump's "America First" policy appears to be working. + +The campaign trail is long over, but the results of the election should be clear by now. + +Trump won. + +As Trump is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the globalists have lost. + +World War III is over.<|endoftext|>The most important consumer electronics brand in the world is now the number one advertiser on Wikipedia, and this is not a 1-sided story. + +Apple is now featured in the latest version of the online encyclopedia's online search engine, Wikipedia's most-used feature, according to a Tuesday blog post by the Wikimedia Foundation. + +The search engine, which is also used by Facebook and Google, features results from Wikipedia articles that are not specifically about Apple products. + +"By choosing Wikipedia's search engine, Wikipedia users can now find information about the iPhone, iPad, and Mac," the post read. "And it turns out that Apple is the most popular advertiser on Wikipedia." + +The online encyclopedia lists the top 10 advertisers on Wikipedia, with Apple listed first and second. + +The most popular Apple product, according to Wikipedia, is the iPhone, which received a total of 1.3 million hits from Wikipedia users. (Which is a lot more than Google, which came in second with just over 600,000 hits.) + +The most popular Apple product "other than the iPhone," according to Wikipedia, is the MacBook Air, which garnered 2 million search results from Wikipedia users. + +What's interesting about Wikipedia's search results is that they are biased toward Apple products. The website's search engine is better known for its unbiased search results compared to Google's. + +As of now, the search results are only for the English language, and Apple is not listed as a brand on the search results. + +If you're looking to buy an iPad and want more information on the company and its products, Wikipedia's search results are a good place to start. + +Source: Wikipedia.org + +Apple was not immediately available for comment.<|endoftext|>The industry is dominated by free software, including all major operating systems, browser, and programming languages. The largest free software companies have a strong presence in the business world. + +History of free software + +Free software was first developed by Richard M. Stallman when he was a student +======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== +The ministry says it is making the announcement because of the "dire consequences" of allowing ISIS to return to Iraq. ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. + +The ministry says the illegal immigrants need to be evicted from the country. + +The announcement comes two days after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of ISIS rule in the country. ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. + +Al-Abadi declared the end of ISIS control on Aug. 17 after the Iraqi army took back the last major city in the country, Mosul. The U.S.-trained army was also able to retake the city of Ramadi earlier this month. + +Iraqi forces are still fighting to retake the remaining parts of Iraq, where ISIS is still active.<|endoftext|>Pigeons are a fascinating addition to the bird world. They can be found in every corner of the world, but are most commonly found in gardens and on roofs. They can be seen flying in the sky, landing on windows, and even crawling on your skin. + +Since they are so common, it is not surprising that people have long wondered what makes the pigeons so unique. + +Pigeons are one of the largest species of birds in the world, but they are also one of the simplest. + +The pigeon has a long beak with a sharp beak tip, and a short tail. It has a long legs that are either short or long and are angled forward. Then there is the pointed beak that the pigeon uses to peck at its food. + +Pigeons are smart, social, and intelligent. They tend to stay in the same area and will often flock together. They are also extremely sensitive to loss of territory, which they will then exploit by stealing food and taking over the territory. Pigeons can be very fast and can jump over obstacles up to 60 feet high. The pigeon has a clumsy and clumsy flight, but has the ability to fly up to 23 miles per hour. + +Pigeons make up their own language and will communicate with each other using a variety of sounds. + +Pigeons have a very good sense of smell. They find their food by smelling it, and will also use their sense of smell to find mates. They can recognize and follow human scent cues. + +Pigeons have a very large brain and it is the largest in the animal kingdom. + +Pigeons have a good sense of hearing, and are able to identify human voices. + +Pigeons have developed a highly sophisticated social life. They live in groups and will either stay together or disperse to new territories after breeding. + +Pigeons have a very good sense of smell. They find their food by smelling it, and will also use their sense of smell to find mates. They can recognize and follow human scent cues. + +Pigeons have a very good sense of hearing, and are able to identify human voices. + +Pigeons have developed a highly sophisticated social life. They live in groups and will either stay together or disperse to new territories after breeding. + +Pigeons have a very good sense of smell. They find their food by smelling it, and will also use their sense of smell to find mates. They can recognize and follow human scent cues. + +Pigeons have a very good sense of hearing, and are able to identify human voices.<|endoftext|>The best way to view all of the videos you see on Puck Daddy is to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. + +If you're a subscriber, you'll see more videos in your YouTube subscriptions feed. + +If you're not a subscriber, sign up here to view all of the videos on Puck Daddy.<|endoftext|>President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump at the Liberty Ball on Saturday night (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) + +In the days following the election of Donald Trump, the New York Times reported that "a group of women who encountered him when he was a real estate developer in New York are furious at him." In the days following the election of Donald Trump, the reported that "a group of women who encountered him when he was a real estate developer in New York are furious at him." It seems to be a pattern, it turns out. + +As the Times reported on Monday, "a group of women who encountered him when he was a real estate developer in New York are furious at him." The Times wrote about one woman, who got her first look at the real estate mogul as a teen living in his apartment on Fifth Avenue in 1965. She told the Times how Trump raped her at age 13. + +The woman, identified only as "Bridget" and not identified by the Times, told the Times that she was "terrified" of Trump's behavior, but "fortunately I had the presence of mind to get my mother to drive me to the police station, where they took me +======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== +The Netherlands has (or rather hasn't) had an active Internet for a long time. It was the first country in the world to have a national Internet back in 1989, and even today it is the only country in Europe that can claim such a distinction. + +The Netherlands is one of the world's leading destinations of Web developers and webmasters. In fact, the entire Dutch Internet is made up of (almost) entirely native sites. What makes this so is the fact that the Dutch have been using the Internet since the very beginning. They began the occupation of the Rift Valley in 1962 and established the first permanent Internet infrastructure in the Netherlands during the 1970s. + +The Dutch also have a clear sense of humour, and the Internet is no exception: we are one of the most funny countries on the Internet. + +However, if you are planning to visit the Netherlands, you will probably encounter Dutch words and expressions that you will not find in other European countries. Here is a list of the most popular Dutch words, phrases, and expressions that you will probably encounter. + +Here is the list of the most common Dutch words, phrases, and expressions that you will encounter in the Netherlands: + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviative + +In the Netherlands, it is common to use abbreviations to substitute words that are more difficult to pronounce or create a more formal speech. + +You should see him soon. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that replaces another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way to simplify a complex sentence. + +I can handle this, I think they should send a bunch of interpreter to my house. + +abbreviation + +abbreviation is a word that substitutes another word that has a similar meaning. That means that it is a word that you have heard once or twice, but there is no true meaning that you can fully understand. However, it can be used as a way +======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== +It's no secret that the LGBT community in the United States is often the target of discrimination, both real and perceived. Whether it's a restaurant owner refusing to serve a gay couple, or a bar owner deciding to turn away a gay couple, the message is clear: the LGBT community is not welcome in certain establishments. + +Gay rights groups have been working to change that stigma and discrimination in the country, and are doing so in different ways. One group, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is taking the idea of a "no-reception policy" to the next level. The non-profit, which has been working to end discrimination against the LGBT community in the past, has announced a new initiative called "open and affirming." + +The idea is a simple one: LGBT people who want to partake in events and functions hosted by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) will have to go through an orientation process before they're allowed to attend. + +"Open and Affirming" is a term used by the NCLR to describe the process to ensure that the LGBT community feels welcome when they choose to attend an event or function hosted by the organization. + +"We believe that people should be able to join our community if they want to, and we will do everything we can to make sure that happens," Megan McArdle, a spokesperson for NCLR, told the Huffington Post. + +"We are pleased to announce the launch of open and affirming, a new program that will ensure that people who want to participate in NCLR programs and events know that they can and will be accepted," McArdle said. + +The program is aimed at LGBT people who want to participate in NCLR events and functions. McArdle also told the Huffington Post that NCLR plans to use the policy to help build a more inclusive political climate in the country. + +"We're excited to be launching this program, which will help build a more inclusive political climate," she said. "We believe a political climate that is inclusive of many LGBT people is key to ensuring that all people in the United States can live their lives free from discrimination." + +The initiative is a great step for NCLR, but it's not the only way the organization is working to change the status quo in the country. + +The organization is also partnering with the Seattle chapter of the Human Rights Campaign. The two groups have teamed up to create a "no-exclusion" policy at HRC's headquarters and are working to ensure that all LGBT people feel welcome in the organization. + +"As LGBT Americans, we are proud to have the courage to tell our story and to make our voices heard," HRC's Executive Director Chad Griffin said in a statement. "We are committed to advancing equality at home and abroad for all LGBT people. By working together, we will continue to make progress on issues that include ending violence against LGBT individuals, expanding opportunities in health care, providing equal protection under the law, and promoting the well being of LGBT people around the world." + +Both organizations are working to create a more inclusive political landscape in the country. It's clear that the LGBT community can't afford to be overlooked and ignored. The time has come for LGBT people to show that they are still a part of society, and to change the social stigma and discrimination they face every day. + +Photo: Kevin Lam<|endoftext|>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia + +This is an excerpt from The Unofficial Handbook of the Federal Reserve System, Volume 1, Editorial Supplement. + +Introduction + +The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. It is the second-largest financial institution in the United States after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The Federal Reserve is part of the Federal Reserve System with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the primary regulatory body for the Federal Reserve System. The Board of Governors appoints all of the Board of Governors' 21 District Reserve Banks, as well as the Federal Reserve Banks, which are located in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Federal Reserve System is a private nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1913 to promote the financial stability of the United States. The Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve System and set out its responsibilities. + +The Founding + +In 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System, which is now the largest financial institution in the world. The Federal Reserve System was created in response to the financial panics in the United States of the late 19th century and of the early 20th century. In the early 1920s, many central banks, including the Bank of England, later the Bank of Canada, and the U.S. Treasury, had failed, leading to widespread financial instability. In response, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Act created a central bank, or Federal Reserve Bank, to provide liquidity to the financial system. The Act also established +======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== +By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, find that the unrestricted entry into the United States of persons from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Yemen, and the unrestricted entry into the United States of persons from Syria, are each a grave and specific threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency with respect to each of those countries, in accordance with section 401(a) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701(a)). + +I hereby order: + +Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: + +(i) the Government of Guinea, its nationals, property, and interests in property wherever located, and any person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts, practices, or policies that constitute a grave and specific threat to the national security or foreign policy of the United States; + +(ii) the Government of Liberia, its nationals, property, and interests in property wherever located, and any person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts, practices, or policies that constitute a grave and specific threat to the national security or foreign policy of the United States; + +(iii) the Government of Nigeria, its nationals, property, and interests in property wherever located, and any person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts, practices, or policies that constitute a grave and specific threat to the national security or foreign policy of the United States; + +(iv) the Government of Sierra Leone, its nationals, property, and interests in property wherever located, and any person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts, practices, or policies that constitute a grave and specific threat to the national security or foreign policy of the United States; and + +(v) the Government of Yemen, its nationals, property, and interests in property wherever located, and any person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts, practices, or policies that constitute a grave and specific threat to the national security or foreign policy of the United States. + +(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date of this order. + +Sec . 2. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type of articles specified in section 203(b) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)) by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to section 1 of this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13560, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order. + +Sec . 3. The prohibitions in section 1 of this order include but are not limited to: + +(a) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and + +(b) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. + +Sec . 4. The prohibitions in section 1 of this order include but are not limited to: + +(a) the receipt, ownership, or disposition of any item, material, or equipment by, for the use of, or acquisition by, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and + +(b) the receipt of any contribution or provision +======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== +LONDON (Reuters) - London's Metropolitan Police have released photographs of the attackers, in an attempt to help identify them, but many Londoners are not ready to give up their hope of identifying the attackers. + +The men, wearing suits and balaclavas, suddenly appeared at the gates of the British parliament on Wednesday night and opened fire, killing three people before being shot dead by police. + +In their desperation to continue with the attack, they also blew themselves up, with one of the attackers throwing a grenade that landed near a police van. + +The men appeared to have been known to police and intelligence agencies, but what made them so dangerous was their use of suicide bombs in the attack, as well as their use of firearms. + +The images were released to the media as investigations continue. + +London's Metropolitan Police will be releasing more images at the request of the media in the coming days, Chief Constable Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said. + +"As you can see they are still being developed," he said. "Our focus is to provide the best possible identification that we can. We do have to take this all on board." + +One of the men in the images is a British citizen whose identity is being checked, police said. + +Police said that at least 30 people were injured in the attack. + +Two of the attackers were shot dead by police and three died later. A further attacker was arrested at a nearby station. + +The three dead attackers — two British men and a Pakistani — were "known to the police," Hogan-Howe said. + +Hogan-Howe said the attackers had been inspired by the Islamic State group and had "deliberately targeted people who were out enjoying a night out in the heart of London." + +"From what we can tell, the attackers were not just interested in attacking people, they were prepared to die in the process," he said. + +Police are still trying to identify a fourth attacker who was arrested nearby. + +Hogan-Howe said police were determined to identify and stop any further attacks in the city. + +"We are determined to keep Londoners safe, to keep our city safe and we will do that in the way we always do," he said.<|endoftext|>An OS X 10.11.2 update may cause a kernel panic on certain computers that are using quad-core processors, Apple has confirmed. + +The software maker released the update yesterday as part of the OS X 10.11.2 update, aimed at fixing a variety of bugs and improving performance. However, some users have reported having problems installing the update, with some reporting that the system reboots to a black screen with a red Apple logo before rebooting. + +A fix for the panic issue is available for those affected by the problem. According to Apple support, the OS X 10.11.2 update is still available for download from the Mac App Store, but it is not recommended that users download it. + +"The update won't work for you if you're using an Intel quad-core processor, and in particular, if your system is equipped with an Intel Core i7-3820, i7-3930K, or i7-4930K processor," Apple's support page reads. "If you're using an AMD quad-core processor, you are still able to download the update." + +Apple has not yet released an official list of affected machines, but an online community leak from the developer community known as MacRumors has shown that it includes Macs using quad-core processor from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. + +Apple has yet to officially comment on the issue and to confirm when the update will be released, but it is expected to be available in the coming days. + +Source: Apple Support<|endoftext|>The state of Massachusetts has been hit with a lawsuit over its flawed gun control law, which allows the state to prosecute gun owners who fail to comply with background check laws. + +According to the Boston Globe, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Sarah Tewksbury, who was charged with carrying a concealed pistol in 2015 for failing to register her pistol. The suit alleges that the state violated Tewksbury's Second Amendment rights. + +The suit is the latest in a string of challenges to the state's gun laws. In January, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to ban the sale of assault weapons. Last February, the state passed a law requiring people to report lost or stolen guns within 48 hours. + +This story was updated to include comment from the state's Attorney General Maura Healey.<|endoftext|>This is a guest post by David Greene, a professor of chemistry at the University of Delaware. + +In my previous post, I discussed how a chemical reaction is a two-step process that takes place one at a time. One of the steps is called the initiator and one is called the target. The target initiates the reaction and the initi +======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== +A young man who was critically injured after being shot by a police officer in the United States is suing the city of Dallas, alleging that the officer's use of force violated his constitutional rights. + +Ivan Allen, a 22-year-old University of Texas at Dallas student, was shot in the head after he witnessed a traffic stop in the summer of 2014. Allen was wearing a backpack with a gun inside, and allegedly displayed it when police approached him. + +The Dallas Police Department claims that Allen was shot after he refused to drop the gun, but Allen's attorney, Jamie Crump, says that is not true. + +"He had raised the gun he had in his hand, not his hand," Crump said in a statement. "There were numerous witnesses who saw both sides of the story." + +Allen has said that he was shot after he pushed the officer away from his backpack, and that the officer, who was identified in a police report as Daniel Faulkner, fired five shots at Allen, one of which struck him in the head. + +While the officer did fire his gun, Crump believes that police officers are often justified in using deadly force against people who are armed, even if they have a weapon in their hand. + +"We do not believe Mr. Allen was armed, nor did he pose a threat to the police officer," Crump said. "The officers' use of deadly force was unreasonable, unreasonable under any set of circumstances, and constitutes wrongful death and bodily injury." + +The lawsuit filed on Allen's behalf by Crump's firm, Crump & White, was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Dallas. + +The lawsuit alleges that the officers "used unreasonable and unreasonable force" and that "the police [were] not in danger at the time of the shooting." + +It also alleges that the officers' use of deadly force "was not objectively reasonable under the circumstances." + +According to the lawsuit, Allen was shot after he approached Faulkner and asked him for his identification. Faulkner, who is white, then said he was a police officer and asked Allen to put his backpack down before firing his gun, according to the lawsuit. + +The lawsuit also alleges that Allen was shot after he was in the driver's seat of a Ford Expedition and was attempting to drive away after the traffic stop. + +Faulkner has been placed on administrative leave, and an investigation into Allen's shooting is ongoing. + +[Ricardo Baca, a police officer in Mexico, was charged with killing four people in 2010] + +The lawsuit also notes that Allen had prior criminal charges. Last year, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon. + +"Ivan Allen was also a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he was undergoing his sophomore year in the Nursing program," Crump's statement said. "During his time at UT Dallas, Ivan Allen was a student of the police department, and he was known as a very responsible young man who was not a problem to the police department." + +The lawsuit includes a criminal history of Allen's that includes charges of breaking and entering and retail theft, according to the Dallas Morning News. + +Crump told The Washington Post that he plans to bring Allen's case to the attention of the Dallas Police Department's internal affairs division. + +"We are not trying to retaliate against the police department," Crump said. "We are just trying to make sure that the police officer is held accountable." + +The lawsuit was reported by the Dallas Morning News, which notes that Allen has yet to be formally charged in the shooting. + +"I want justice for my son," Allen's mother, Rosalind Allen, said during a press conference Tuesday. "Right now, it's just so hard. I pray every night that God is going to give him the strength to keep fighting." + +Allen has been named as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that accuses the city of Dallas of violating the civil rights of Hispanic residents. The lawsuit alleges that the city has a history of showing a bias against Hispanics, and that the city has not adequately hired and promoted minority officers. + +The Dallas Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. + +Read more: + +Florida couple fatally shot by police in 'ambush-style' attack + +'This is America. You're in the wrong place': An African American man's encounter with police in New York + +A cop accused of killing an unarmed black man has been fired from another police department<|endoftext|>The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on a concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people and injured 59 others, according to a statement released by the terror group. + +The statement, circulated by the group's Amaq news agency, made no reference to terrorism, though it noted that the attack was the work of the Islamic State. It called the attack an "operation +======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== +In a game that still has plenty of questions to be answered, Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher put on a clinic on his team's fourth-quarter comeback in a win over Clemson. + +Fisher pulled out all the stops in the fourth, and his Seminoles were able to pull out a 30-27 victory over the Tigers. + +"When you're going to win a game like this, it's not about the event," Fisher said. "It's about the process. … This was all about the process. We played hard. We shared the ball. We got it to the rim. We got it to the locker room." + +The Seminoles (5-0) scored the final four points of the game, including Malcolm Brogdon's 3-pointer with 10:03 left to give the Seminoles a two-point lead. That was the final score. + +"When it was time to go, we knew we had a chance to win," Fisher said. "We just didn't make a lot of mistakes." + +Clemson (4-2) made it look easy down the stretch, with Clemson getting 14 points from Trevor Cooney and two from Wayne Blackshear to take a 38-30 lead with 11:15 remaining. + +But the Seminoles pulled away on four straight possessions over the final 3:29. + +"We were just a little too loose in the first half," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "We got to be a little more disciplined in the second half." + +Fisher's team finished 12-of-19 from 3-point range, with Andre Dawkins getting three. Dawkins hit a pull-up jumper with 3:04 left to give Florida State a 50-46 lead. Dawkins then hit another 3-pointer with 1:24 left to give the Seminoles a 57-55 lead. + +"Just felt like we had a little bit of a jump," Dawkins said. "We were able to get the ball in their hands and just go to work." + +Dawkins finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. Brogdon had a career-high 12 points and 11 assists. DeAndre Daniels had 11 points. + +"I thought we were good in the second half," Swinney said. "We got to get back to the drawing board and figure out what we can do to get that win." + +The Seminoles had lost two straight and were 0-3 in conference play, but they were coming off a decisive win over No. 10 Duke, and they wanted to get back on track. + +"We don't want to get too high," Fisher said. "We don't want to get too down. We want to get back to the drawing board. We have to get better." + +The Seminoles are No. 1 in the rankings, and Clemson is No. 4.<|endoftext|>JetBlue Airways Corp. is changing its policy after a passenger filed a complaint that a flight attendant at an airport in Chicago was verbally and physically abusive to a passenger. + +The airline said in a statement Thursday that it had hired an independent investigator to look into the complaint and to determine whether the flight attendant, who is not a pilot, should be reinstated as a flight attendant. + +"We are committed to providing our customers with an exceptional customer experience, and are discharging the employee in question," the airline said in a statement. + +A manager with JetBlue, who declined to be identified, confirmed the airline is looking into the complaint. + +The incident was captured on a cellphone video posted on Facebook by passenger Frank Fronczak. Fronczak said he boarded the flight from O'Hare International Airport to New York's JFK International Airport on Wednesday. + +He described the flight attendant as an older white man who was speaking loudly on the phone and making gestures with his hands. He said it appeared that when he tried to change seats, the attendant told him to stay put. Fronczak said he tried to explain to the attendant that he was flying to New York and that he had a connecting flight to Chicago, but the attendant repeatedly told him to "shut up" and called him a racial slur.<|endoftext|>The Big 10 is home to the most prolific of all wingmen in the country, Eron Harris. He's second on the team with 9.7 points per game and is just one behind E'Twaun Moore for second on the team in rebounds, second in assists and third in blocks. + +Harris is the only player in the Big 10 to average at least 12 points and nine rebounds. He's also the only player in the Big 10 who's averaged at least 12 points and five boards in each of his last four games. He's coming off two straight double-doubles to start his career at Michigan State. + +Harris has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He can score, he can rebound, he +======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== +A man who was fatally stabbed during a dispute in a car in the south end of Winnipeg has been identified. + +Michael Gervais, 49, was stabbed around 2:30 p.m. Thursday in the parking lot of a vehicle wash on Manitoba Street. + +According to Winnipeg police, the altercation began after Gervais' car was scratched. + +Gervais was stabbed in the torso and was pronounced dead in hospital. + +Police have not released a motive for the attack.<|endoftext|>The 1535 Declaration of Independence, which declares that "all men are created equal... and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," is the cornerstone of American democracy, but it also embodies a certain naivete. The Declaration is couched in the language of equality and political equality, but it also depicts a hierarchical society in which the common interests of the many are subordinated to the interests of the few. The book that many regard as the original document of American democracy—the one most people know about—is actually a work of propaganda. + +It was not until after the American Revolution that the United States adopted a constitution. The first drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written by John Adams and his protégé, Benjamin Franklin, before the Constitution was drafted. + +In the early days of the American republic, new states were created through a process called "ratification," which requires the support of at least 38 of the 50 states. The Constitution was ratified by 38 states; the rest of the states were not needed to ratify. This was the first time that a constitution had been ratified by a majority of the states. In 1787, George Washington was elected president and sent his signature to the Constitution. + +In 1788, when the Constitution was ratified, the United States had a population of around 300,000, with the population of the states at around 43,000. The Constitution was written for a society of 300,000 people who had already fought a war for independence and were -- by 1788 -- a nation of around 234,000 people. The draft of the Declaration of Independence, on the other hand, was written in 1776, and the document was written for a population of around 476,000 people. + +It is not surprising that the Declaration of Independence was written for a population of less than half the size of the United States. The Declaration begins with a statement of rights that was not yet recognized by the common people: + +All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... It is the duty of the civil magistrate to protect these rights. + +These rights included the right to life, liberty, and property. They were more important than just a few people's rights. The Declaration of Independence was written with this in mind: + +We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. + +As the idea of a nation-state becomes more and more foreign to the common people, the Declaration of Independence focuses more on the rights of the individual. The Declaration of Independence was not written for a people who had just liberated themselves from a foreign occupier. It was written for a population of mostly poor white people who had just been colonized by another white people. The Declaration of Independence was written for a population that had been enslaved for well over a century. It was written for a population that had been invaded by a foreign power. + +At the time of the Declaration of Independence, the United States was still in the process of being formed. The United States was a relatively small country, as it had not yet been divided into states. The population was still relatively poor, as most people were still slaves. The population was still predominately white, as it would be for the next two centuries. The population was not yet racially homogenous, as it would be for the next +======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== +The woman who was shot in the head on a bike path in northwest Calgary in a road rage incident has died. + +Abdulazeez was also shot in the leg, but he is in stable condition. + +Police said the man and woman had been in a fight on a bicycle path when the shooting happened at about 1 p.m. MT Thursday near the intersection of 104 Street and 42 Avenue N.E. + +Abdulazeez was taken to hospital in critical but stable condition and later died. + +Police said a man was shot and killed in a road rage incident Thursday in northwest Calgary. (Barry Smith/CBC) + +On Twitter, police said the man was killed in the shooting. They also said an investigation was underway to determine the circumstances surrounding the shooting. + +"There's a lot to be determined here, and I'd like to ask that people keep an open mind," said Insp. Bill Hunter, who is leading the investigation. + +"It is an ongoing investigation, so I'd ask everyone to keep an open mind." + +Police have not released any information about the relationship between the men or responded to media questions about the motive for the shooting. + +A police source, however, told the Calgary Herald that the shooting appeared to be in retaliation for a crime committed earlier that day. + +"We believe it was a road rage incident and that's why we're investigating it as a road rage incident," Hunter added. + +"The investigation is underway to determine if there may be any connection between the incident and the earlier incident." + +Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call them at 403-266-1234 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.<|endoftext|>For the first time in nearly half a century, the U.S. has no official national anthem. + +It's been nearly a century since the last time the U.S. had a national anthem. + +In September 1950, President Harry Truman signed the National Anthem Bill into law, providing for a national anthem. The bill was signed by Truman on September 19, 1950. + +The bill had two main sections, one for Congress and one for the executive branch. + +Congress created the National Anthem Act of 1950, with the following definition: + +"The national anthem shall be played before every public performance of the plays of the Shakespearean period, and shall be sung at all national anthems of a religious nature, and at any other time when the national anthem is rendered as a part of every act of assembly or when the national anthem is played in connection with any other event." + +The bill also included a provision that prohibited the playing of any other song than the national anthem at any national event. + +The bill expired on January 1, 1957. It was not renewed. + +In their place, the National Anthem Act of 1957 was passed, giving the president the ability to appoint an officer to play the national anthem. + +The National Anthem Act of 1957 had a two-part purpose: + +"The first part of the Act concerns the President's authority to appoint a person to play the national anthem. If he chooses to do so, he is required to appoint an officer who is "qualified in his position and service to play the national anthem." The second part of the Act provides for the appointment of a person to play the National Anthem at any event that occurs on or before September 16, 1957. The person appointed to play the National Anthem at an event that occurs on or before September 16, 1957, shall be "qualified in his position and service to play the national anthem." + +The bill was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on February 2, 1957. + +The last official national anthem was played on September 16, 1961, by the Kansas City Chiefs at the end of their game against the Boston Patriots at Boston Garden. + +The last time the national anthem was played in the United States was during the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The previous time the national anthem was played in the United States was in 1952. + +The last time the national anthem was played in the United States was during the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The previous time the national anthem was played in the United States was in 1952. + +The last time the national anthem was played in the United States was during the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The previous time the national anthem was played in the United States was in 1952. + +The last national anthem played in the United States was played at the end of the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The previous national anthem was played during the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. + +The last national anthem played in the United States was played at the start of the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The previous national anthem was played during the 20th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.<|endoftext|>"The truth is, we +======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== +He's back. + +The "Air Force One" star's first-ever solo appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone was a full-blown media event, and not just because of the photo shoot. + +In the months since President Donald Trump was sworn in, his everyday life has been overshadowed by the other, more important part of his job: being commander in chief. + +"I've been in the White House for about as long as the president has been in office, and it's been pretty amazing," he told the magazine. + +"The number of people who have called to thank me for my service is as high as it's ever been. I mean, literally in the months after [the election], people would call up to thank me for my service. And I was very honored by that." + +Certain things have made headlines, but it's the way in which Trump has changed his life on the campaign trail that's garnered the most attention. + +Props to @RollingStone for finally featuring me & speaking my mind. I'm honored to be a part of the team. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/qgV9VlX9Bc — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017 + +The magazine's cover story, initially published in November, is unlikely to go down in history as one of the most controversial in its history. That title probably belongs to the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by their breasts and sexually assaulting them without their consent. + +Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Jann Wenner at the time defended the publication's decision to run the piece, saying it had "the power to shape the course of our nation's conversation about sexual assault, and we believe it does just that." + +"We are confident that our readers will reach a similar conclusion," Wenner added. + +But that didn't stop some readers from accusing Rolling Stone of being a "pro-Trump publication" that was "getting ready to attack the president and his administration." + +And the president was not happy. + +A recent tweet from the president suggested the magazine was "trying to silence my voice." + +"The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?" Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. + +The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws? https://t.co/d92EbUv9jt — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017 + +Trump was referring to a New York Times investigation in which the newspaper reported the president had been engulfed in a sexual harassment scandal long before he was elected. + +The president also took to Twitter on Wednesday to suggest the magazine had "tried to silence my voice." + +A few hours later, Rolling Stone responded to the president's tweet. + +"The president is correct about one thing: We did not silence his voice. We published his voice — with his permission, of course — because we believe it is important to hold the president accountable for his words and actions." + +A few hours later, the magazine released another tweet saying, "We stand by our reporting and believe our reporting was accurate." + +We stand by our reporting and believe our reporting was accurate. https://t.co/4RKa8dVd9y — Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) April 1, 2017 + +It's not the first time Trump has been criticized for his conduct as president. + +Earlier this year, the White House was forced to defend a statement Trump made to Time magazine's Matt Lauer, which was taken as a sexist attack. + +"You know, I think she does pose a threat, and I think she does deserve what she's getting," Trump said during a taping of "The View." + +"And I think she should be ashamed of herself for what she's done." + +The president later apologized, but not before Time magazine said it would no longer cover him. + +But the White House didn't back down. + +"It's not the first time he's said something sexist, and it won't be the last time," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at the time. + +"The president is a man of strong beliefs and strong beliefs have consequences," Spicer said. "The president is going to speak for himself." + +Read more: + +Trump speaks to 'Access Hollywood' host Billy Bush about groping women + +Trump's latest Twitter feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold + +Trump's claim that he opposed the Iraq War before it started<|endoftext|>In a recent post, we introduced you to the new ADO.NET Data Provider, and discussed how to use it. Today, we are going to look at how to use the ADO.NET Data Provider +======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== +The new version of the Android market has a new theme and it is called Material Design. Well this is not the same as the old Material Design but it is a new design. Let me explain with an example. Let's say you have a Facebook app. You have a Facebook app and you want to show a little bit of the page to the user. You can do so by using a 'like' button. This is Material Design. + +Material Design is a new design, but it is not like the old one. The old one was a flat design with a light background and white text. Material Design is different. The new one is more like a flat design. The app is now not white, it is not flat but it has a light background. The simple grey background is the main color and the rest of the colors are used to put different kinds of text. The text is now more light and it is not very dark like the old one. + +I was wondering why the new app doesn't look like the old one, but it is not because of the new design. It is because of the old design. The old one had a black background, yellow text and orange background. The new one has a dark grey background and light yellow text. The orange background is still there but it is no longer used. The new design is more like a flat design than the old one. + +The new design is not perfect though. There are some issues with the new design. The new design can not be used for the root apps. This is because they have to be built using the new style. The new style is meant for apps that are running in the launcher or apps that are running in the application drawer. If the app is running in the app drawer the new design will not work. + +So to make the new design work for the apps that are running in the launcher or the app drawer, you need to use the old style. The old style is not available in the market yet and the only way to get the old style is to use the old style apps. The reason for this is that Google wants to make the market more stable. The old style apps are the ones that will not break the new style apps. + +Some of the problems with the new design are the buttons. The buttons are now bigger and not as small as before. The buttons are so big that they are very hard to use for some users. There is a new visual for the 'back' button. It has a small 'bubble' and it makes the button look more like a menu button. The bubbles are there because they are there to make the buttons easier to use. + +There are some issues with the new design. There are certain situations where the old style still works better. If you have a small screen, then the old style may be better because the text is smaller. You can also use the old style if you have a large screen. The text is very large on a large screen but on a small screen it is small. You can use the old style if you want something that is not very small. + +If you use the old style then you can use the new style. You can also use the new style if you have a large screen. The new style is easier to use than the old style. You can use the new style if you want something simple. The old style is not as easy to use as the new style, but it is easy. + +The new design is not the best one. It is not the best design for the market. But it is better than the old design. The new design is a nice change, but it is not the best one. But it is better than the old design. + +I am not a big fan of Material Design. I think it is a good idea but it is not the best one. I will try to use the old style until the new style is available.<|endoftext|>"Waking up in the morning, I would look out and see a beautiful, clear day. The birds are singing, the birds are singing, the birds are singing. I would listen to the birds and think, 'I'm in my own world, out in the world, out in the world.'" + +That's how Shigeru Miyamoto would describe the experience of first becoming a videogame designer, and it's a theme that has been with him always. + +In a wide-ranging interview with Kotaku, the designer/director of Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong, who is currently working on his first game in over a decade, revealed that in the early days, he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to do with his life. + +"When I was a little kid, I took a lot of classes in school, but I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do with my life. I guess I was just sort of dreaming about things. It was a very dreamy age, and I didn't know what to do +======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== +NOAA/NASA/USGS + +At the end of the last Ice Age, around 12,000 years ago, the planet's climate was remarkably stable. But it wasn't as stable as it is today. + +In fact, it took just one tiny change in the climate to turn the planet into something utterly unlike what we see today. + +For millions of years, the ice sheets covering most of North America and Europe were slowly melting, eventually creating huge lakes and rivers. Then, about 12,000 years ago, this started to change. + +Advertisement + +The scientists behind a study published today in Nature Geoscience say that a giant ice sheet covering Europe was melting at a pace of about 3 metres per year, at a time when the northern hemisphere was in the midst of a warmer period. + +Previous studies have shown that the North Atlantic Ocean was warming, which would have made it easier for warm water to reach the north pole. But the new study is the first to show that the warm water was reaching the North Atlantic Ocean as well. + +Over time, these North Atlantic changes would have melted the ice sheets covering Greenland and North America, causing sea levels to rise. + +'The big picture is that the planet was very different 10,000 years ago,' says study co-author Ian Joughin at the University of Exeter in the UK. + +'It's really quite remarkable that a single factor can really turn a planet into a completely different place.' + +The researchers also looked into whether this change was happening more frequently, and found that it was. + +In a previous study, Joughin and his colleagues looked at the ocean temperatures that were sensed during the last ice age, and found that they were at their highest point in the past 2,000 years. + +But, says Joughin, the sea surface temperatures at that time would have been on average 2 degrees Celsius warmer than today. + +And that temperature rise would have meant that the atmosphere was also 2 degrees warmer. + +And as the climate warmed, the sea ice at the poles would also have melted. + +As the ice melted, it would have exposed huge tracts of land to the sun, which would have warmed the planet even more. + +It's only natural that we should be interested in what happens when the planet's climate changes, says Joughin. + +'It's something that we know is going on now, and we're seeing it,' he says. + +The work will be useful for modelling the future of the Arctic, he says. + +'It tells us that we need to be very careful about what we're doing in the Arctic,' he says. + +'We need to be monitoring that region, and we need to be doing research that's going to help us understand what's going on there.'<|endoftext|>This book is an excellent introduction to Topological Algebra, with a focus on the Algebra of Topological Spaces. The author uses examples from four-dimensional manifolds, including the only example of a spherical manifold, the Lie-Hilbert space. The examples are rigorously defined, with the standard function definitions and algebraic properties. The book also includes a number of exercises to provide the reader with an opportunity to practice the material. + +The first chapter provides an introduction to the theory of four-dimensional manifolds. In the second chapter, the author explains the theory of two-dimensional manifolds, focusing on the Lie algebra of two-dimensional manifolds. In the third chapter, he discusses the theory of a three-dimensional manifold, the Cavity (or Theory of Surfaces), and the theory of two-dimensional surfaces. In the fourth chapter, the author discusses the theory of three-dimensional surfaces, including the Lie-Hilbert space. In the fifth chapter, the author discusses the theory of four-dimensional surfaces, including the Kähler space and the Lie-Hilbert space. The sixth chapter introduces the basic ideas of the paper by Laposky and Zaremba, which provides a better explanation of the principles of the theory of four-dimensional manifolds. + +The text is organized into four sections. The first section covers manifolds in three dimensions and two forces. The second section covers manifolds in four dimensions and forces. The third section, which is the longest, is devoted to manifolds in two dimensions and forces. The fourth section, which is the shortest in length, discusses the theory of three-dimensional manifolds. + +The book is well-organized. Throughout the book, the sections are numbered in a way that is easy to keep track of. The book also contains a bibliography, a glossary of terms and definitions, and an index.<|endoftext|>The first time I saw the "Kids" episode of "The Simpsons" was in 1988, when I was living in Portland, Oregon. The sixth season premiered that year, and I was so happy to see all of the new characters +======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== +In an interview with the European Parliament's culture committee, the Dutch Dutch MP and member of the committee, Bart Staes, called for the European Union to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy toward pornography. + +"I think the exposure of children to pornography is a major problem," Staes said. + +"And I think it's a problem that's not just linked to sexual education but also to more basic questions of humanity, like: how can we treat young people who are not able to control their sexual urges?" he said. + +Staes also said that schoolchildren should be taught about the dangers of pornography: "I think that exposure should be much higher than it is in many countries, because I think that it's a new subject," he said. + +"It needs to be taught in schools in a much more profound way, the whole concept of freedom of expression. And I think that the whole concept of a free society needs to be made clear and clarified, particularly in a European context, that this is not something that we should accept." + +The Dutch MP was in Brussels on Tuesday to lobby the EU Parliament to adopt a new policy on pornography. + +The European Parliament adopted a regulation on pornography in December, which allows for fines and up to five years in jail for anyone caught selling or streaming pornographic materials. + +But the European Commission has rejected the regulation, saying that it is too narrow in scope. + +The Dutch government is currently working on a bill that would extend the scope of the legislation to include online pornography, which is currently exempt. + +"The pornography laws are very vague, they're very hard to apply," Staes said. + +He believes the state should be able to set its own definition of what constitutes pornography, but he also believes that the current European legislation is too vague. + +A poll by the Dutch Institute of Public Opinion in 2014 found that 56 percent of Dutch people support an outright ban on pornography. + +"In my opinion, there's no reason to prohibit the distribution of pornography," Staes said. + +"There's no reason to punish people for the production and distribution of pornography. It's a question of freedom of expression." + +The Dutch Parliament's culture committee voted in favor of the motion on Tuesday:<|endoftext|>CALGARY — A new study shows that the majority of the world's anti-Semitic incidents are not the result of anti-Israel sentiment in the Muslim world, but rather are the result of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe. + +The report, given exclusively to The Rebel by the Centre for Research and Information on Globalization (CRG), also found that Europe's anti-Semitism is the greatest in Europe, with a higher share of incidents than in North America and the Middle East. + +"There is no doubt that anti-Semitism in Europe is rising, and it is not going away," said CRG Director Michael Khalili. "It is rising in Europe, and not only because of the refugee crisis. The reason for the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe is because of the Islamization of Europe." + +The report, "Europe's New Anti-Semitism: The Challenge of a Globalized World," was produced by the CRG and examines the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. + +A source for the report was the European Union's annual report on anti-Semitism, which was issued in September 2016. + +"Europe has been the first to experience the rise of anti-Semitism since the Holocaust," said Khalili. "As such, it has a unique opportunity to determine if the anti-Semitism in Europe has become a global phenomenon or if it is a Europe-only phenomenon." + +The report examined the impact of Islamization on anti-Semitism in Europe, and found that the vast majority of anti-Semitic incidents — 94 per cent — are not anti-Israel sentiments, but the result of "anti-Jewish sentiment" in Europe. + +"At the end of the day, the crux of the matter is how is anti-Semitism becoming more and more a global phenomenon in Europe," Khalili said. + +The report examined the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe from 2002-2015, and found that the number of incidents in Europe grew by an average of 30 per cent every year. + +The report found that anti-Semitic incidents increased after the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2014, and that anti-Semitism had increased by a factor of two since 2010. + +"The report shows that anti-Semitism is not just rising in Europe, but that it is rising in Europe, and it is growing in Europe due to the Islamicization of Europe," Khalili said. + +The report found that 12 per cent of the anti-Semitic incidents in Europe were perpetrated by Jews against Muslims, and cited a report from the Rand Corporation that found that Arabs make up 13 per cent of Europe's Muslim population. + +Khalili said that the findings suggest that the increase +======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== +This is the first of a series of articles that I hope will shed light on the subject of 3d printing and the relationship it has with computing. I hope to be able to bring together a group of people, by offering some information and a calendar of workshops, to try and help people understand 3d printing. + +Too often 3d printing is spoken about in terms of its ability to print objects for us. However, 3d printing is more than just a technology that allows us to print objects. It is a way of thinking about and understanding the world, and it is this way of thinking that is incredibly important. 3d printing is a way of thinking about and understanding the world that is much larger than the printer. It is the way that we understand the universe, and it is this way of understanding that is needed in order to make the technology of 3d printing work, and help us to reach our full potential in life. + +In this article, I want to ask the question, "What is 3d printing?" and, "What is its relationship to computing?" I want to try and find out by writing about the history of 3d printing, and by looking at some of the technologies that have been developed as a result of this technology. I want to find out how 3d printing is changing the ways that we think about and understand the world around us, and I will try to highlight some of the key issues that the technology raises. + +History of 3d printing + +3d printing is one of the most exciting technologies that we have seen in recent times. It is an incredibly versatile method of making objects, and it is a way of making objects that we have never seen before. We know that 3d printing can print objects of any size, shape or material, but what we have not seen before are the applications that it has been able to create. + +The first use of 3d printing was in the medical world. In the early 1900s, doctors who wanted to save a patient's life suggested that they start by printing a set of bones to be implanted in the patient. This idea was fairly simple, but it was something that every doctor in the world wanted to try, and it was a way of testing out if 3d printing would work as a medical device. However, by the late 1930s, the technology wasn't mature enough to be used in this way. This meant that the medical world had to start to innovate with new ways of using 3d printing. + +These innovations were actually based on the idea that 3d printing could be used to create objects that would be useful for a range of different uses. To help in this process, a small team of scientists began to develop 3d printers that were specifically designed to manufacture metal parts. This was the beginning of a new trend in the development of medical 3d printing. + +The first iterations of these were based on technology that was already at the time. These machines were much more complex, and they were used by a range of different industries. These machines were able to print metal parts, but they were not designed to print anything larger than a small punch-card. + +Patterns, patterns, patterns + +Medical technology has always been a focus of 3d printing. The medical world has always struggled to make sense of the world around us and to work out how to best treat people. From the relatively simple concept of treating the sick to the complex concept that we have of the human body, 3d printing has been a way of exploring the world around us. + +One of the most striking examples of this is the use of 3d printed biopsies. 3d printed biopsies allow doctors to examine patients in the field, and see exactly what has been removed from their body. This is a huge problem in the medical world and has been a huge problem for generations of doctors. There are many different types of problems that are associated with the removal of large amounts of tissue from the body, and a common problem is that the tissue that has been removed is not as easily accessible to your doctor as the tissue that has been left. + +This is why 3d printing has been such a great tool for medical research. It allows us to look at the human body in incredible detail, and it allows us to print out biopsies with a precision that is impossible in the real world. This has changed the way that doctors think about the body, and it has provided a real insight into how the human body works. + +In the early 1970s, a team of scientists developed a way of printing new tissues that were much more readily accessible to the surgeons. This was created by the creation of a new type of bioprinting printer. This printer was so advanced, that it even allowed surgeons to see what lay underneath the skin of a patient. This was a breakthrough, and it was a way of stopping the many problems that doctors had with seeing what lay underneath the skin of a patient. + +The second major innovation +======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== +Genocide of Native Americans. + +In 1884, the United States government signed a treaty with the Lakota Sioux Indians that allowed the government to seize the land of the Lakota, move them across the land into reservations, and destroy their way of life. The Lakota would not be allowed to go back to their homes and would be relocated to deal with a problem in the Dakota territory. This was a genocide. + +And this is what the Republicans want to do to the non-white population. + +They want to kill the welfare system. They want to kill the social safety net. They want to kill the minimum wage. And they want to kill any programs that help them. + +What they're proposing is to cut the safety net. What they're proposing is to cut the minimum wage. What they're proposing is to cut Social Security. + +And so they are advocating policies that would kill working families and would kill the economy. + +They would also destroy unions. They would destroy collective bargaining. They would destroy Medicare and Medicaid. They would destroy food stamps. They would destroy unemployment insurance. And they will destroy the healthcare system. And they want to do it all at the federal level. + +Want to help? + +Here's the simple solution for these Republicans: Vote for the Green New Deal. + +Where we would have a $15 minimum wage. Where we would have a $20 million a year investment in job training programs to get people back to work. Where we would have a $100 billion investment in infrastructure, green jobs, and renewable energy. A program that would create 6 million jobs and provide health care for all people. A program that would allow everyone in this country to be covered by Medicare and Medicaid. A program that would provide free college to all Americans. A program that would create millions of jobs for young people. + +Let's give the Democrats a chance to win this election. Let's give them a chance to actually make a difference. + +Let's make the Green New Deal the big issue of this election. It doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, a third party, or an independent. If you support the Green New Deal, you have to vote for Jill Stein.<|endoftext|>Borussia Dortmund captain Mats Hummels has confirmed his support for the UEFA president Michel Platini in his bid to reform football's governing body. + +The German international, who helped his country win the 2014 World Cup, is part of a new generation of European football leaders who believe the current system is not working in Europe. + +"I think that the UEFA president is a very good person and a very good man," Hummels told Bild. "I read his statement and I think he's right. The system is not working. + +"We have to think about the football and the game and not just about money." + +Platini, who has led UEFA for 11 years, has called for change in the body to make it more representative of the sport and to break down barriers between different countries. + +"I believe the president of the European football association is a man who has a clear vision of the game and the sport," said Hummels. "He wants to be in charge of the sport. + +"The president of the European association wants to make Europe stronger. I hope he will succeed." + +Platini, who has previously said he would like to see an "open" system, said he could not be sure that his reforms would be successful but admitted that the problem with the current system was "very big". + +"We have to make sure that we do not return to the past," he said. "The reform of the UEFA president is the most important reform in the history of European football."<|endoftext|>An Irish woman has been left "shocked and bewildered" after she was left stranded in Greece without her passport from her boyfriend. + +The woman, who was travelling with her partner on a short break in Greece, had been told that they would be unable to travel without their passports for six months. + +But when she got to the Greece-Macedonia border, she found her passport had been confiscated and she was turned away. + +She then called the Irish embassy in Athens to find out what was going on. + +When she was told there was nothing she could do, she called the Irish Consulate General in Athens, who told her to take her passport to the country's embassy. + +The woman, who asked not to be named, was told she could pay a €50 fee to get it returned. + +But when she tried to pay, she was told it was in Greek money and would take at least three weeks to be processed. + +She said she was "shocked and bewildered" and called the Irish Embassy. + +She said: "We were told that we would be unable to travel until the passport was processed. + +"I think it +======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== +Police are investigating after a man was shot in the chest at a downtown Calgary intersection. + +The man was shot at about 6 a.m. on Wednesday near the intersection of 11th Street and 10 Avenue S.E. + +Police said he was taken to hospital in critical condition. + +A witness told CBC News that the victim was walking home when he was shot. + +A witness said the victim was shot near the intersection of 11th Street and 10 Avenue S.E. (CBC) + +"I heard a gunshot, and I guessed it was a gunshot, and then when I looked, I saw the guy laying on the ground," said the witness. "I thought he was kind of out cold." + +Police have not released the victim's name, but said he is a 40-year-old man from Calgary. + +They are still investigating. + +With files from Chantelle Lee, CBC News.<|endoftext|>Get Manchester United FC updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email + +Aston Villa have approached Manchester United about taking forward a deal for teenage winger Josh Onomah. + +Villa are keen to strengthen their left-back position and manager Steve Bruce is looking for another option to partner England international Jordan Pickford. + +Onomah, 18, is rated as one of England's brightest prospects by pundits and was on the fringes of the first-team squad until he suffered a broken leg in January. + +Villa are also keen to strengthen their attacking options and have watched the youngster's first team debut against Southampton on Saturday. + +It is thought the teenager is keen on a move to England and he has been a target for a number of Premier League clubs. + +Onomah, who has impressed in pre-season, has been linked with Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool. + +Villa are also hoping to keep hold of England Under-18 striker Jordan Houghton, who has been linked with a move to Fulham.<|endoftext|>The World of Darkness is a dangerous place. Many creatures are drawn there by the promise of great power, but some of them are drawn into it willingly, to be hunted. + +A Monster Hunter is one of the most dangerous creatures to walk the earth. They are hunters, and they are monsters. To survive, they must coax their prey into dangerous situations before they can kill them. They are resourceful, deadly, and possess amazing strength. They are also very, very young. + +These young hunters may or may not know that they are monsters. Some have been dragged into the mists by the influence of a powerful entity, others have been born in the same world as the creatures they hunt, and others still may have been born as a hunter, and come to understand that they are a monster in their own right. + +In this setting, you have the chance to be a hunter, a monster, or something in between.<|endoftext|>Excerpted from Eminent Domain: The Rise and Fall of Legal Privatization by Steve Hanke. Copyright © 2017. Reprinted by permission of University of Illinois Press. All rights reserved. + +In the early 1990s, the federal government, with the support of the states, began a massive land grab of nearly four million acres in Montana, Idaho, and Washington. On March 28, 1996, a coalition of indigenous and environmental groups, led by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the federal government to stop the land grab. The lawsuit, which has been pending at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., since then, is now being appealed. + +The land grab was the largest in American history, and the largest ever undertaken by the U.S. government. The government, acting under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, proposed to remove approximately 60 million acres of protected wilderness, rangeland, and national forest in the United States. The plan also called for the removal of approximately 6.3 million acres of land owned by private corporations, including almost all of the remaining wilderness in those states except for some lands in Montana, Idaho, and Alaska. + +Much of the land in those states was owned by federal agencies, and the federal government had been using that land to provide services, from firefighting to air quality monitoring to recreation. According to the argument advanced by the Forest Service in its defense, the Forest Service was entitled to use those lands on a temporary basis for conservation purposes or for other reasons. The plaintiffs, however, argued that the Forest Service was entitled to use all of the land it owned because the entire public domain was unprotected. + +In 1992, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had established the Western Forest Plan, which aimed to increase the amount of timber and other sustainable resources in the Western United States. In partnership with the Bureau of Land +======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== +In light of the recent developments in the original Phantom 4 aircraft incident, we are once again reviewing the Phantom 4's warranty and the implications that this new information presents. As many of you may have already read, the Phantom 4's warranty has been extended to 10 years. While the manufacturer's warranty for the original Phantom 4 has expired, it is important to note that the manufacturer has also extended the 10-year warranty to the refurbished version of the Phantom 4, which now includes a lifetime warranty. + + +While the Phantom 4's warranty has not changed, the language that was used in the original Phantom 4 warranty has been altered: + + +"The Phantom 4 is warranted for a period of one (1) year from the date of purchase (the "Warranty Period"). The Phantom 4 is warranted against defects in materials and workmanship in the original equipment, as well as defects in the workmanship and materials during the Warranty Period. "Included with the Phantom 4 is a one-year limited warranty against defects in materials and workmanship in the original equipment. This limited warranty does not apply when the Phantom 4 is resold, except that when the Phantom 4 is repaired, the repaired parts shall be replaced with new parts free of charge." + + +The original Phantom 4 warranty was for 9 years and contained a range of limitations, including the following limits: + + +"This warranty is void if the product has been serviced, repaired, altered or modified by anyone other than Phantom 4. This warranty also does not cover the Phantom 4 if it is in an accident or in the hands of a third party." + + +These limitations have been removed from the Phantom 4's warranty, however, the limitations remain in place for the refurbished version of the Phantom 4. + + +We are reviewing the Phantom 4's warranty to ensure that our customers are not subject to any additional limitations that may be added by the manufacturer. Should this be the case, we will be updating our Warranty Policy to incorporate the new language.<|endoftext|>The Great Depression came to an end in 1932 with the stock market crash, but the Depression itself continues to impact the lives of millions of Americans to this day. In fact, one of the most persistent myths about the Great Depression is that it was caused by the stock market crash. + +It's true that the stock market declined by about 35% during the Great Depression. However, the stock market did not crash during the Great Depression. + +In the first quarter of 1933, the stock market peaked at almost $100 billion. This was the peak of the stock market boom. The stock market reached its peak in May 1933 and fell rapidly thereafter. Within a few months, the stock market had fallen to $6.5 billion. + +The Great Depression was a severe economic depression that affected millions of Americans. As a whole, it was a severe economic depression because the estimated loss of income was between $65 billion and $138 billion. + +However, there is no evidence to support the notion that the stock market crash caused the Great Depression. + +In fact, another large decline in the economy occurred in the first month of the Great Depression, and it was not caused by the stock market crash. On March 4, 1933, the U.S. economy started to contract again. The economy contracted by about 2% in the first month of the Great Depression. + +In March 1933, the stock market peaked at $82 billion. The Great Depression had started in the first quarter of that year. + +In the first quarter of 1933, the stock market had fallen by $20 billion. Yet, the economy continued to contract in the second quarter. In the second quarter of 1933, the economy contracted by $24 billion. + +The Great Depression was not caused by the stock market crash. + +Bottom Line + +The stock market crash in 1929 caused the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by the economy's decline in the first quarter of 1933.<|endoftext|>OPINION: The Green Party has put the country on notice. + +Every time the Greens win a seat or two in Parliament, the consensus view is that the party is going to go the way of the LNP and possibly the Democrats. + +The pessimists say the Greens are becoming a party of the left. The optimists say the Greens are going to become a government-in-waiting. + +But the Greens have been growing in popularity and influence for some time. And the fact that they're the best party to win a seat in Parliament is not a reason to get too excited. + +The Greens have been able to obtain a foothold in Parliament because they have been able to take votes from the other parties. + +I have supported the Greens for many years. This is what the Greens have been doing. + +But I don't think the Greens have one of the best policies. For example, they don't have a policy to help people with their debts. + +I also think the Greens are too ideologically driven. + +The Greens +======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== +LONDON (Reuters) - British police have arrested a man on suspicion of making a hoax bomb threat after a bomb squad was called in to investigate a tweet posted by a Twitter user who described himself as a "British jihadi." + +A police cordon outside a house in south east London, Britain, June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Yates + +Police said in an online statement on Thursday that the threat was "not credible," and the police bomb squad was called to investigate a tweet posted by the user. + +A police cordon outside a house in south east London, Britain, June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Yates + +The tweet was later removed, but a copy was circulated on social media and a police investigation was launched. + +"He was arrested on suspicion of making a hoax bomb threat, which was not credible and is being investigated by the counterterrorism unit," a police statement said. + +"He remains in custody at a south London police station.<|endoftext|>The first time I got a headache was in the spring of that year, in the high desert of Northern California. I was in seventh grade and it had already been a couple of weeks since I'd spent four days in the hospital. I was going to be home soon, so I was worried about getting a headache. My parents had packed me off to stay with a friend for a week, and I was in a house with eight other kids. We had to come home one day a week to do homework or go to sports practice, and since I was still recovering from a concussion I stayed up late most nights, learning how to play soccer and basketball with my buddies. + +I was in sixth grade, and my physical therapist had me do some light jogging to keep my legs limber, and I was really walking a lot. I played soccer and basketball with my friends, and in that time I started having regular headaches. One day, one of the best players in the neighborhood told me he thought I had a migraine. A migraine, only in the kind of stupid way that kids say things like "I have a headache." A couple of weeks later, I'd had a serious headache for a week. I was in a lot of pain, and I was really afraid of getting one. I was scared that I'd break my neck if I got a migraine, or that my family would be sad. I didn't want to get a headache. + +I took a headache medicine every day and went to the headache specialist. She prescribed me a bunch of different kinds of painkillers, and I took them, but I never got a migraine. I was afraid of getting a migraine. I wasn't afraid. I was afraid for a reason. + +I went to the doctor the next week, the one with the headache specialists, and he told me that the headaches were called migraine headaches and that they were really common. He told me that when you get a migraine, you're just in the way. You're in the way of getting that dessert, or that drink, or that job interview. You're not really there, so you're not really in the way to distract yourself. You're just in the way of the big, bad headache that's going to hit you in the face. So what if you've never had one? It doesn't mean you won't. There are all kinds of reasons why someone might not get a migraine. + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +The doctor went on to tell me that my headache was probably related to my not having had a lot of sex in the last few months, and that I needed to start having sex again. I was like, "I don't have any problems with sex. I'm not attracted to anyone." But that's what they told me. They took my pulse and my blood pressure and told me that I was having a stress headache. I didn't know what that meant, so I asked them to describe it to me. They said, "A stress headache is when your heart races and you're stressed out." I was like, "Thanks, I didn't know that." I went to my mom's house that night and had a conversation with her about how I was having a stress headache, and she was like, "Yeah, your heart's racing, and your eyes are tearing, and everything's a little bit blurry. But it's just kind of a headache, it's no big deal, it's not going to kill you." But it was. + +When I got home that night, I told my parents. I told my mom that I was having a stress headache. She went into a panic. She went to the doctor. She was like, "Oh, you're having a stress headache, honey. Don't worry about it." I don't know what happened that night. Maybe my mom was just not trained in the proper way to deal with stress, but she was like, "It's just a stress headache, honey. Don't worry about +======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== +Categories + +Categories Select Category #Songs (11) #GIRLS (1,362) Access (1,308) Autoerotic (1,005) Awkward (549) Ballerina (4) Bathtub Sex (1,097) Behind The Scenes (661) Big Butts And Small Tits (1,743) Big Butts And Teen Tits (1,744) Baby Dolls (1,944) Big Cocks (2,051) Big Dick Original Series (1,879) Big Tits At School (1,841) Big Tits In Fishnets (1,847) Big Tits In Slacks (1,847) Big Tits In Uniform (1,842) Big Tits In White Lingerie (1,841) Big Tits In White Lingerie Video (1,847) Bikini Sex (2) Black And White (1,868) Blonde And Black (1,854) Blow Jobs (2,061) Blowjob Anal (596) Blowjob Bestiality (1,848) Blowjob Cartoon (1,811) Blowjob Cumshot (1,839) Blowjob Erotica (1,839) Blowjob Mirror (1,829) Blowjob Pissing (1,829) Blowjob Pussy Gaping (1,819) Blowjob Squirting (1,818) Blonde And Black (1,813) Blowjob Squirting (1,813) Blonde And Redhead (1,764) Blue Fetish (1,819) Blue Light (1,847) Blonde And White (1,764) Body Bondage (1,865) Boob Bouncing (1,868) Butt Plug (1,865) Brazilian (1,865) Boy Girl (1,838) Brat Girl (1,838) British Boobs (1,853) Brat Lesbian (1,837) Butt Plug Fucking (1,848) Brazilian Bottom (1,843) Burning Bondage (1,851) Burning Orgasms (1,779) British Boobs (1,786) Bubble Butts (1,879) Butts And Blacks (1,852) Butt Plug (1,848) C2C (1,837) Camp Gay USA (1,834) Candy (1,822) Captain America (1,812) Car Sex (1,857) Casting (634) Celebrity Porn (1,831) Channel 1 (8,156) Celebrity Sex Tape (1,827) Celebrity Sex Tape Video (1,827) ChaosMen (1,817) Celebrity Squirt (1,813) ChaosMen.net (1,809) Celebrity Webcam (1,796) Change Lingerie Size (2) Chubby Girl (7) Cuties (1,769) Cuckold (5) Daddy (5) Deepthroat (1,874) Desperate Housewives (1,852) Dildo Fucking (1,698) Dildo Sucking (1,697) Dirty Talking (2,073) DirtyWivesClub (1,834) Doggystyle (1,828) Domination (1,854) Double Penetration (5) Ebony (1,786) Ebony Sex (1,787) Erotic Audio (1,812) Euro Sex (1,890) Erotic Brazilian (1,858) Erotic Couples (1,841) Erotic Couples - Hot Moms (1,831) Erotic Couples - Older Men (1,828) Erotic Divorcees (1,831) Erotic Handjobs (1,831) Erotic Milfs (1,893) Erotic Pussy (1,836) Erotic Videos (1,828) EroticX (1,817) Eyeball Fetish (1,856) Eye Candy (1,818) Eye Glasses (1,788) Face Fucking (1,835) Face Sitting (1,861) Facials (3) Family (1,934) Family Feud (1,934) Family Sex (1,868) Fashion (1,877) Fashion Porn (1,851) Fat Ass (1,851) Fat Black Widow (1,859) Fat Daddies (1,831) Fat Fucking Machines (1,831) Fucking Asians (1,827) Fucking Latina (1 +======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== +The following is an excerpt from a piece that Will Manso wrote for the Toronto Star about his successful attempt to defend the Constitution of the United States against the legal challenges brought by the Obama administration. Manso is a lawyer who has written extensively and widely about the Constitution and its Article III of the Constitution. This is an excerpt from a longer article that will appear in the Star. + +I remember when the Obama administration first filed its lawsuit against the Senate on June 27, 2013, I was watching the news from work, and I heard the news machine suddenly buzzing. I was waiting for a phone call from my lawyer, who told me I had to get to my office right away. + +I knew the president was going to vigorously defend the Constitution, and I knew I had to be prepared for the fight. My lawyer told me not to worry. His view was that Obama is "not from the left," and as such he would never bring the Constitution into the court. + +I was wrong. + +I was wrong to think that Obama was not from the left, or that he would ever bring the Constitution into the court. + +The president has begun a crusade to redefine the Constitution. He has brought with him over 300 lawyers from the Justice Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon, and he wants to rewrite the Constitution to suit his agenda. They are going after the Bill of Rights and the Judicial Branch, including the Supreme Court. They are arguing that Congress has no oversight of the executive branch, the U.S. military, or the NSA. They are arguing that the Constitution is not a fixed document, but rather, a living document that evolves as the American people change. + +The president has brought with him over 300 lawyers from the Justice Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon, and he wants to rewrite the Constitution to suit his agenda. + +I am one of those Americans who believes the Constitution is a living document. Our founders were mindful of the fact that the Constitution evolves as times and circumstances change, and they thought its words should be interpreted to reflect the times as they were understood. + +In my opinion, the president is attempting to rewrite the Constitution in order to expand the power of the executive branch and the military by rewriting its very definition. Obama has stated that he is not interested in "litigating the issues." + +The president has made threats about prosecuting individuals who disagree with his agenda. He has threatened individuals who refuse to sign "tacit consent" for warrantless searches. He has threatened whistleblowers. He has threatened the first amendment. He has threatened the separation of powers. He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +The president has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +The president has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +He has threatened the separation of church and state. + +There is a great deal of fear in our country today. The president has declared war on the American people. + +He is trying to rewrite the Constitution to suit his agenda. + +Are you scared yet? + +Don't let the fear get to you. + +There is no need to be. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +There is no need to be scared. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +The president is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +He is not alone. + +You are not alone. + +You are not alone. + +The president is not alone. + +He is not alone +======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== +In the midst of the ongoing shakeup of the GOP, there are a few candidates who are keeping their powder dry. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is one of them. + +The 2016 presidential contender has no campaign for the time being, and the South Carolina senator has not yet announced his official entry into the race. + +But Graham, who was considered a possible vice presidential candidate for GOP front-runner Donald Trump, is still keeping the process of his presidential bid under wraps. + +"I've had many discussions with people about this," Graham told ABC News. "There have been some interesting conversations being had, but I am not making any announcements at this point." + +Graham made headlines in August when he suggested the Senate should reject Trump's proposed Muslim ban. + +"If you're not willing to ban people based on something as arbitrary as religion, then what are you willing to do other than ban people based on their nationalities?" Graham told CNN at the time. + +But Graham stopped short of saying his endorsement of Trump would be a first step to running for president. + +"I have no idea," he said. "I haven't talked to Donald Trump about it. I haven't talked to his people about it. But I can tell you I would not be in the race." + +Graham's absence from the race also means one of the most widely reported names in the GOP primary field, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, doesn't have a campaign either. + +Cruz's campaign manager Jeff Roe told ABC News the senator is not running for president. + +"Ted has been focused on electing conservatives to the Senate and he will continue to do that in the coming months," Roe said. "He has no plans for a presidential campaign in the near future." + +The campaign is being run by Davis, a former Cruz communications director. + +Cruz's absence from the campaign trail has not stopped his campaign from making news outside of South Carolina. + +Cruz has moved to increase his national profile by holding a series of listening sessions in New Hampshire and Iowa, where he delivered his second-ever speech. + +He also held a town hall in New York City with Rochester, N.H., police chief William Shatner, who was the guest speaker at the event. + +The Texas senator's campaign has also been accused of being secretive, and the Texas Tribune reports Cruz did not disclose whose campaign was paying for his travel expenses when he went to Iowa earlier this month. + +The Tribune also reported that Cruz's campaign had paid for the travel of Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a Cruz supporter, to a fundraiser in South Carolina. + +Cruz's allies have denied the allegations. + +"The issue is that you can't have a campaign that is completely transparent," Roe said. "I understand that. We all understand that." + +Roe also said that Cruz's days of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire are over. + +"All of those things are over now," Roe said. "He's going to start spending this summer working in states that are more like the general election, in states that are more competitive." + +But it doesn't mean Cruz is done in the 2016 race. He is scheduled to speak at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., on Thursday night. + +Graham said his campaign is still in the early planning stages, but he is currently focused on the upcoming state primaries in South Carolina and Nevada.<|endoftext|>A white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has cast a spotlight on the city's plans to expand its transportation options, including a new streetcar line that will run from the University of Virginia campus to downtown. + +Streetcars have proven to be a popular form of public transportation in the U.S., with roughly 11,000 in operation in the U.S. and Canada. + +Vendor Hutchings & Co. is the lead contractor on the $15 million project, which will build a new streetcar line that will run from the UVA campus to downtown Charlottesville. + +The line, which will connect to the existing 10-mile line that runs from UVA to downtown, will be the first of its kind in the state of Virginia, as the state's new transportation legislation requires that 10 percent of new highway construction will allow for the installation of streetcars. + +"We're very excited to be working with the City of Charlottesville to bring this new streetcar to the city. It's a great addition to our downtown corridor," said Mary Anne Lane, a spokesperson for Hutchings & Co. + +The company's general manager, Michael Hutchinson, said he and his team are looking forward to an "exciting time" as the new line is under construction, and will continue to do so through the end of 2018. + +"It's exciting to be joining the many partners who are helping make this project a reality," said Hutchinson. + +The streetcar is being built by the city of Charlottesville under +======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== +Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Education, at her confirmation hearing on Jan. 17. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News) + +The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a district court decision to allow the Republican-controlled Senate to vote on President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for education secretary. + +The court rejected the Obama Administration's contention that the Senate had exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on Betsy DeVos, a billionaire Republican activist and Michigan billionaire who once chaired the state's Republican Party. + +"We conclude that the [Senate's] failure to hold a hearing on Senator DeVos's nomination violated the separation of powers doctrine," Chief Judge Merrick Garland wrote for the three-judge panel. + +The Senate, in a 52-48 vote, voted on Jan. 17 to confirm DeVos, a billionaire Republican activist and Michigan billionaire who once chaired the state's Republican Party, as education secretary. + +The vote was the first time the Senate has used its discretion to approve a cabinet nominee, and it was a blow to the Obama Administration, which had argued that the Senate had exceeded its authority by failing to hold a hearing on DeVos. + +Garland had rejected the Obama Administration's argument that the Senate had exceeded its authority by failing to hold a hearing on DeVos. Garland wrote that the Obama Administration had "unduly narrowed the scope of the 'power of the purse,'" which the Constitution assigns to the Senate. + +"The right to make a nomination by the Senate is a 'fundamental' one, and the Judiciary is entrusted with the power to 'check and balance,' not to 'promulgate a single legislative agenda,' " Garland wrote. + +"The Senate has not only the authority to consider the nomination itself, but also the power to determine whether to conduct an up-or-down confirmation hearing," Garland added. "Ensuring that the Senate's power of the purse is respected is a matter of 'constitutional protocol,'" he wrote. + +The Obama Administration argued that the Senate had exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on DeVos, a billionaire Republican activist and Michigan billionaire who once chaired the state's Republican Party, as education secretary. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) + +Garland's decision will have little practical effect. DeVos, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, will retain her seat on the Education Committee, where she was slated to testify on Tuesday. + +It will also mean that the Senate will have to take up DeVos's nomination again, with the same half-dozen senators who are not on the education committee. + +In a two-page order, Garland also rejected the Obama Administration's argument that the Senate had exceeded its authority by failing to hold a hearing on Oklahoma Education Secretary Betsy Devos. + +The Obama Administration had argued that the Senate had exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on Devos. + +The case centers on the Education Department's 2015 Rule 1552 that was intended to help states meet federal Title IX obligations in the context of Title IX investigations for sexual harassment and assault. + +As a result, DeVos, who is now the head of the federal Department of Education, was formally blocked from taking office. + +In Friday's decision, Garland said that the Education Department had not violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to put out a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the rule. + +Garland wrote that Congress had specifically granted the Office of Management and Budget the authority to make the temporary rule. "The burden of proof is on OMB to show that the proposed rule is necessary and proper, not on the Office to show that it is not," Garland wrote. + +Garland also rejected the Obama Administration's argument that the Senate had exceeded its authority by failing to hold a hearing on Devos. + +Garland wrote that the Senate had not exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on Devos. + +"We conclude that the Senate's failure to hold a hearing on Senator Devos's nomination violated the separation of powers doctrine," Garland wrote. + +"The Senate has the power to confirm or reject a nominee for any position in the executive branch of the federal government," he continued. "The Senate's power to confirm a nominee is 'one of the most important and delicate powers conferred by the Constitution,' and 'the Senate has the sole responsibility to decide whether to confirm or reject the nomination of a federal officer or employee,' " he wrote. + +The Obama Administration had argued that the Senate had exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on Devos, who is now the head of the federal Department of Education. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) + +The Obama Administration argued that the Senate had exceeded its authority when it failed to hold a hearing on Devos, who is now the head of the federal Department of Education. + +"It is the role of the Senate +======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== +As I mentioned earlier today, I have a bit of an obsession with the headless horseman, and as a consequence, the other two variants are not a top priority for my blog. However, the three-headed horseman was satisfyingly epic, so I thought I'd give the archetype the full treatment. + +First, a little background: the three-headed horseman was one of the three main archetypes which appeared in the earliest editions of the White Wolf published material. This was followed by the three-headed beastman, and then finally the three-headed knight. The three-headed horseman appeared in the first edition of the White Wolf novel "The Dragon of the North", and it was the protagonist's role to overcome the three-headed beastman by defeating the animal and bringing it to heel. The three-headed horseman was popular enough that the archetype was re-introduced in the second half of the first edition of the White Wolf novel "The World of Darkness" (the first half of the book was written by Gary Gygax himself). + +The three-headed horseman was one of the first three-headed monster archetypes to be introduced into the game, and was in fact one of the first monsters to be offered as an option for players to choose. It is a very powerful monster archetype which is very difficult to kill, and as a result, it is often included in games which have players aiming to kill every monster. There was nothing like it in the original edition of the game, however, so the concept of the three-headed horseman was not well-accepted. The three-headed beastman was introduced a few years later, and was a lot more popular in its time, so it was the primary archetype which was offered as a choice to choose. + +The three-headed horseman has become a very popular archetype, and the popularity of this monster has only grown in the last few years. One of the reasons is that the three-headed horseman is an excellent character for a GM to have at his disposal, and it offers a host of benefits to the player. The first and most obvious benefit is that the three-headed horseman is essentially a three-headed monster, which means that it can be used to power a paragon of the appropriate alignment. That is, the three-headed horseman has the full complement of abilities and skills of a four-headed monster, plus the ability to harness its three heads. This is one of the most powerful archetypes which can be used in a campaign, and it offers a great deal of flexibility. + +The second obvious benefit of being a three-headed monster is that it allows the player to take on the appearance of a three-headed monster. As we discussed yesterday, this allows the player to use his supernatural prowess to transform into a three-headed monster, which is a powerful fantasy-based ability. The third obvious benefit of the tri-headed monster is that it allows the player to have a lot of options for using its abilities. For example, it can take the form of a sword, a hammer, or a spear, which allows for a great deal of versatility in how it can be used. Therefore, the three-headed horseman can be used in many ways, from the classic role-playing game (as a two-headed monster which fights with a sword and a hammer, and transforms into a three-headed monster when in the form of a spear) to a completely different game (a game where the player can transform into a three-headed monster by using a spell which turns him into a horse). + +Now, a big part of the reason why the three-headed horseman has become so popular is because it is a powerful monster. Like all monsters, it is a fantastic monster which can be used in many different ways. However, the third obvious reason why the three-headed horseman is so popular is that it is a very powerful monster, and thus it is very difficult to kill. This is a very important aspect of the archetype, because as the name implies, the three-headed monster is a three-headed monster, which means that it is easy to kill. The first and most obvious way that it is easy to kill is by transforming into a three-headed monster, and if the GM is using the three-headed horseman, then it is easy to kill by just transforming into a three-headed monster. The second obvious way that it is easy to kill is by using the three heads to strike at the enemy. The third obvious way that it is easy to kill is by using the three heads to do something else. + +This is a very powerful archetype, but it is also a very powerful monster. It is difficult to use, but it is easy to kill, and it is very hard to defeat. Thus, it is recommended that players use the three-headed horseman as a character, and to be used as a champion of their alignment. The third head of +======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== +Texas A&M Aggies quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) takes a handoff from quarterback Ryan Tannehill (3) during the first half of an NCAA college football game against the Florida Gators, Saturday, Nov. 21, 2013, in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M won 33-14. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) (Photo: The Associated Press) + +University of Texas officials said Friday that they would look into a video showing a student-athlete being physically shoved by a group of Aggie fans after Saturday's game. + +"We are aware of the video and are initiating an investigation," Texas A&M spokesman John Bianco said. "We will not comment further at this time." + +Two members of the Aggie football coaching staff were in the crowd at Kyle Field that night and also witnessed the incident, Bianco said. + +The video, which shows part of the stadium's south end zone, shows a group of fans surround a Texas A&M student-athlete. The student-athlete is talking to fans as he holds the hands of two women. + +During the video, a man in a red jersey appears to shove the student-athlete. + +A group of Aggie fans can be heard yelling "get out of the way" and "get out of here." + +A Texas A&M spokesman said the Aggie football staff was not involved in the incident and did not witness the attack. + +A source told The San Antonio Express-News that the Aggies' assistant coaches were in the crowd when the incident occurred, although the football staff felt threatened. + +The university's student-athletes said Saturday they were disappointed by the video with the hashtag "#boysagainstboys." + +The Aggies defeated Texas A&M in a 31-14 victory to remain undefeated. + +Follow Josh Martin on Twitter: @jmartNYT or email him at jmart@usatoday.com. + +Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/Qw9cEK<|endoftext|>Add To Album + +Add To Album Like (28) + +Photog's Choice + +Cross-Data Photographer Angad Singh Airline India - Navy Version Hindustan ALH Dhruv Generic Type Hindustan ALH Dhruv Basic Type Hindustan ALH Dhruv MSN UT-101 Reg. IN303 Location Goa - Dabolim Country India Date Photographed January 10, 2014 Cancel Search + +Correction + +Distinct Views: 11,670 + +Photo Added: October 08, 2014 + +Photo Copyright © Angad Singh. All rights reserved. Airliners.net is not affiliated with any entity mentioned or pictured herein. + +All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.<|endoftext|>A A + +SEATTLE -- A man who was bitten by a rabid raccoon in the U-District was bitten by a different type of raccoon Thursday morning, Seattle Police say. + + +The bite happened around 9 a.m. at 2nd Avenue and S. Jackson Street. + + +The man was bitten on the leg and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. + + +The raccoon was removed from the man's leg and it was euthanized Thursday afternoon. + + +Police say the raccoon was off its food supply, which is typical for a rabid animal. + + +The raccoon is not believed to be the same raccoon that bit the man. + + +Rabies is a viral disease of mammals that causes the body's immune system to attack and destroy the nervous system. The symptoms can be severe and include fever, muscle weakness, headache, vomiting and diarrhea.<|endoftext|>The week that was for the New York Rangers, as they went 3-1-0 as they honored their former coach. + +The week that was for the New York Islanders, as they celebrated their 100-year anniversary. + +The week that was for the New York Islanders, as they celebrated their 100-year anniversary. + +The week that was for the New York Rangers, as they went 3-1-0 as they honored their former coach. + +The week that was for the New York Islanders, as they celebrated their 100-year anniversary. + +The Week That Was + +The New York Rangers hit the ice for the first time in a few weeks last Tuesday, and the players and coaches were excited. + +It had been a long two months, as they had gone through the relocation process, and the team was at least in good shape now. + +The Rangers had won two games in a row, and they were in control of their own destiny. + +But then, something happened. + +A rather significant moment, to the point where if it weren't for the fact that it occurred so shortly after the Islanders' 100-year anniversary, it would have gone completely unnoticed. + +An Islanders defenseman, Nick Leddy, made a +======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== +As the Los Angeles Lakers prepare to play the Golden State Warriors, four NBA writers (including me) are trying to decide which player is the best. + +We'll be running our series of "Best Of" lists throughout the season, and, as our readers are probably aware, the Warriors and Lakers are both in the mix. + +We've taken different approaches to this project. Some of us will rank each player on a point-for-point basis, ranking each player according to how well they've played this season. Other writers will rank each player in percentage terms. + +And there's an even more controversial approach. + +Some of us will rank each player based on how well we think he'll fair in the faceoff circle. And some of us will rank each player based on how well we think he'll do in the end-of-game scenarios, too. + +We know that the Warriors and Lakers are both heavy favorites to win their respective conference finals this season; both teams are playing for the title and have a great chance to advance to the NBA Finals. + +And there's the chance that the Lakers will fall to the Warriors in the West finals. If that happens, the Warriors could win the championship. + +But what happens if the Lakers lose in the conference finals? Would they be able to win the NBA Championship, or would they have to face the Warriors in the Finals again? + +What if the Lakers lose the West finals? + +It's not a hypothetical question. In fact, we have already seen the scenario play out. + +The Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference semifinals, and then they lost to the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals. In between those two losses, the Lakers went on a tear, winning games at a surprising rate. + +The team went on a tear in the Western Conference finals, but the Rockets eventually won it all. How will the Lakers fare in the NBA Finals if they lose the West finals? + +The Lakers are going to have to play spoiler, if they want to win the NBA title this season. + +If the Lakers lose the West finals, they'll face the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. If they lose the West finals, they'll face the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals. + +I'm going to rank the players in this way based on how well I think they'll do in the end-of-game scenarios. I'll also be ranking them based on how well they'll do in the end-of-game scenarios, but I'll be doing it in percentage terms. + +That way, you can read a player's ranking in a column and still know how good he is at winning games. + +The Lakers' season is going to be a difficult one. Will they be able to win multiple championships, or will they just be breaking new ground? + +We'll be running our series of Best Of lists through the entire season. So keep checking back to find out how we rank the Lakers.<|endoftext|>A new study has found that women who have multiple partners are more likely to have multiple abortions than women who do not. + +The study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, examined data from the Canadian Community Health Survey and found that women who had 10 or more pregnancies were more likely to have abortions than women who had fewer than one pregnancy. + +This finding isn't surprising to many, but the authors of the study note that it's the first to show that multiple pregnancies are associated with an increased risk of abortion. + +"This is the first study to show that multiple pregnancies are associated with an increased risk of abortion," Dr. Alyssa Shumer of the University of Toronto, the study's lead author, told Reuters. + +"It's an important finding because it suggests that women who are trying to avoid an unwanted pregnancy should avoid multiple pregnancies, and that women who are trying to have a baby should wait until they are ready to be pregnant to have a baby." + +The study found that the risk of abortion increased for women who had more than two pregnancies, but the risk of abortion was the same regardless of how many pregnancies women had or how many abortions they had. + +The researchers theorize that situations in which women are trying to get pregnant but don't know they are pregnant may increase the risk of abortion, while situations in which women know they are pregnant but choose to avoid pregnancy could increase the risk of abortion. + +This isn't the first study to find that multiple pregnancies are associated with an increased risk of abortion. + +In 2009, the American Journal of Public Health published a study that found that women who had multiple pregnancies were more likely to have an abortion than women who had one pregnancy. + +The study, which reviewed the results of the National Survey of Family Growth and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, found that women who had multiple pregnancies were more likely to have had abortions than women who had one pregnancy. However, +======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== +The number of American troops in Afghanistan will be reduced from 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of this year, with the remainder to be cut by August 2018, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. + +The operational and training mission in Afghanistan will be spread among 3,000 to 5,500 U.S. troops, with about 3,000 of those troops being deployed to advise and assist Afghan forces. The remaining troops will focus on supporting counterterrorism operations, military operations and peacekeeping missions. + +The U.S. currently has about 8,400 service members in Afghanistan, and the U.S. will withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The decision to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan was largely driven by the success of the Afghan National Army and the ability of the Afghan government to provide security in the country. + +"Over the past year, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces have proven themselves to be a reliable, capable partner that can take the lead in the fight against terrorism," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in the Pentagon press release. + +"And our Afghan partners have learned the value of working with us to build the Afghan security forces, to prioritize the protection of Afghan civilians, and to forge a lasting peace that provides the Afghan people with the security they deserve." + +The U.S. military contribution to the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan will also be reduced from 9,800 to 5,500, as a result of the new strategy. + +The number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, however, will not be reduced drastically, Carter said. + +The remaining American troops would have to rotate into Afghanistan as the military prepared for the withdrawal of its forces. + +The number of troops in Afghanistan during the first half of this year is expected to be about 5,500, with the number of American troops in the country declining by about 1,000 by the end of the year. + +Carter said the U.S. would continue to support the Afghan government as it takes the lead in building the security forces and building a democracy. + +"For the Afghan people, the United States will remain their steadfast partner in the fight against terrorism," Carter said. + +"For the Afghan people, we will remain their most steadfast ally in the fight against corruption in their country. And for the Afghan people, we will remain their steadfast defender as they take the long and difficult road toward a sovereign and stable Afghanistan." + +The Pentagon also announced Wednesday that the U.S. military will deploy a military adviser to Afghanistan until Aug. 1, 2016. + +The adviser will help train Afghan forces to take the lead in the fight against terrorism, and will be rotated into the country as needed. The adviser will be based in Kabul, but will also deploy to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan, where the U.S. military currently has a military air base. + +"The close partnership we have built with the Afghan government will continue to thrive, as we continue to train and advise their national security forces, and build on the progress already made," the Pentagon press release said. + +The senior U.S. civilian and military leadership has been working to determine the best way to reduce the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. + +The United States is currently the world's largest contributor to the war in Afghanistan. In October, the Pentagon announced it would reduce troop levels to 8,400 by the end of 2016. + +The United States has about 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, and plans to withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new, oral contraceptive called Essure, which delivers the same hormones found in intrauterine devices, in a landmark decision that could affect millions of women. + +The FDA voted 5-0 on Thursday to approve Essure, which is now the first pregnancy prevention product to be marketed by the agency. The agency said it is considering new applications for other intrauterine devices, including the one used by Essure. + +"It's a big step forward in preventing unintended pregnancies," said Dr. Mary Gatter, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. "More women will now have the option to prevent unwanted pregnancies." + +Advertisement + +The FDA approved Essure, which uses a tiny metal clip to puncture the uterus, based on a scientific review that found it to be as effective as the long-acting implant commonly used to prevent pregnancy. + +Get Today's Headlines in your inbox: The day's top stories delivered every morning. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here + +Women who have the Essure device implanted for four years will be able to have children if the device was removed. The device has been approved for use by women in the United +======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== +[JURIST] A federal appeals court [official website] on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] against the US Department of Justice (DoJ) [official website] in a lawsuit [opinion, PDF] filed by more than 3,000 people who were denied the ability to obtain a concealed carry permit by the state of California. The appeals court found the DoJ's actions violated the Second Amendment [text] and Second Amendment right to bear arms. In doing so, the appeals court found that the state of California had to allow people that had been denied concealed carry permits to petition for a concealed carry license, which would allow them to carry concealed firearms in public. The court noted that in recent years, the number of permit denials had been on the decline. The court also found that the DoJ had failed to prove that citizens who were denied a permit were actually a danger to themselves or others. The appeals court ruled that the regulations were too vague and that the administration of California's concealed carry permit laws was insufficiently transparent to allow people to understand the law. + +The US Supreme Court in 2008 upheld [JURIST report] the right for people to carry a concealed firearm in public. In 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that citizens have a right to carry a concealed firearm in public. In 2011, the California Court of Appeals ruled [JURIST report] that a citizen can carry a concealed firearm in public under circumstances that are permitted under state law. In 2012, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit's decision. In 2014, a federal district court ruled [JURIST report] that the government must grant a permit to anyone who applies for one.<|endoftext|>Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics. + +Is there a cure for diabetes? Answer From Jon O. Williams, M.D. + +Yes, there is. The most effective way to cure diabetes is to control your blood sugar. The best way to do that is to control your insulin and your blood sugar. + +Insulin is a hormone that helps the body use sugar from the food you eat as fuel. Insulin is different from other hormones in that it does not stimulate the development of cells and tissue. Instead, insulin helps to move blood sugar into cells. As long as your body has insulin, your cells can take in food and convert it to energy. + +Insulin also helps to move blood sugar out of cells and into the blood. As long as the blood sugar level in your blood is under control, insulin does not have to do that work. + +When your blood sugar is out of control, insulin cannot move blood sugar into cells, and your body does not take in as much glucose. If your blood sugar is very low, you may experience a spike in blood sugar. If this happens, you may feel thirsty, have a rapid heartbeat, and feel tired. Along with a fast heartbeat, these symptoms can be a sign that your blood sugar is out of control. + +If you have had a low-sugar diet and are still experiencing low blood sugar, your doctor may recommend that you take insulin to control your blood sugar. Insulin should be given every three hours during the day, and twice each day in the evening. It should be used as soon as you have a low blood sugar level, and for several days after you have a low blood sugar level. Your doctor may also recommend that you take insulin when you have a meal or snack. + +If you are currently taking insulin, you may want to try to gradually shift from taking insulin to a lower dose with a test meal. It may take a few weeks for your body to replace the insulin you have been taking. If you are on insulin, do not stop taking it without consulting your doctor.<|endoftext|>The Department of State today announced that it will designate Oxfam America as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Executive Order 13224, which was signed by President George W. Bush on September 20, 2001. The designation designates the organization as a FTO under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and designates all of its officers and employees as FTOs. + +The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has reviewed the designations and believes that the designations are appropriate given Oxfam America's and its affiliates' activities that threaten the national security of the United States. Oxfam America has engaged in a long-term and broad campaign to undermine the democratic institutions of the United States, including the release of secret documents that exposed fraud and corruption in the 2004 presidential election, and the promotion of a one-sided agenda that seeks to undermine the United States' ability to develop and maintain allies and trade relationships around the world. This includes illegal activities in the United States, including the proliferation of IFID, influence operations, and funding to political parties, candidates, and other groups in the United States. Ox +======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption As the election approaches, both sides are focused on helping their supporters + +The presidential election is more than two months away, but with absentee ballots arriving in most states, it's already clear the campaigns are taking a page out of the playbook of the US presidential race four years ago. + +Since then, President Barack Obama has made a point of campaigning in swing states, while Mitt Romney has focused heavily on his home state of Michigan. + +Both sides are hoping their supporters will vote early and without fear of being disenfranchised by the government. + +In the US, absentee ballots are the best way to avoid being forced to cast a provisional ballot. + +The Obama campaign has been particularly aggressive in this regard, offering financial incentives for people to get their votes in early. + +The Democratic presidential hopeful has also made an effort to reach out to young people, encouraging them to vote early with a series of events across the country. + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Obama has made a point of campaigning in swing states + +The Romney campaign has also been more aggressive in the early voting process, encouraging supporters to vote early by sending them mail-in ballots. + +"We've been very aggressive in terms of it being a priority for us," says Jennifer Duffy, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign. + +"Our campaign is focused on making sure people vote early so they can have their voices heard in this election. And we're confident that our supporters will have the same result." + +The Obama campaign says it is focused on getting voters to the polls on 8 November. + +"We want to make sure it's easy to vote and we want to make sure that the votes that are cast are counted, that the votes are counted fairly," Ms Duffy says. + +The US presidential election is the most closely watched in the world. + +Every vote counts. But can a high turnout make a difference? + +The US election system is very different from that in the UK, Canada and Australia, where all citizens have the right to vote. + +In the US, all citizens are entitled to vote - but only some can vote at a given time. + +The government says this is done to prevent an election from being "stolen" by a small number of people who can easily influence the outcome. + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The US presidential election is the most closely watched in the world + +Since there are only a few days between the election and the inauguration, the campaigns have been focused on getting their supporters to the ballot box. + +So far, both sides have been successful, although there is still much work to do. + +But even if there is a close race, the outcome could still be decided by a small number of votes in a handful of swing states. + +In the UK, the most recent election in 2007 was decided by less than 3,000 votes in the Conservatives' win of the Witney by-election. + +In Canada in 2011, the election of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was decided by a few hundred votes in Montreal. + +And in Australia, the latest election in 2013 was not decided by a single seat in the Senate. + +But there is one thing that has become clear in the US election: it's less important than in other countries whether the votes are counted correctly. + +"It's a little bit easier to influence the outcome of an election if the votes are counted by hand," says Neil Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Texas, Austin. + +"I think the pressure that a little bit of missing votes puts on the election officials is something that is very, very hard to overcome." + +How do you vote? + +For the most part, people can vote in person at their local polling station or by mail. + +The number of registered voters in the US has grown dramatically in recent years and has now topped 250 million, according to the US Census Bureau. + +Image copyright AP Image caption In the UK, the most recent election in 2007 was decided by less than 3,000 votes in the Conservatives' win of the Witney by-election + +While in many countries, such as Britain, the polls close at 8pm, in the United States the US Election Commission says the polls must close at 7pm, and the counting of votes continues for a further four hours. + +And while in the UK, most postal votes are counted and counted by hand, in the US many are counted by optical scanners. + +The votes are then sorted by the numbers on the ballot papers. + +But in the UK, a referendum on introducing same-sex marriage was held in 2013. In the US, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. + +If the US election were held today, would the outcome be the same? + +One of the most popular "lanes" of voting in the US is +======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== +The previous page is sending you to http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/politics-government/local/ci_25463071/review-federal-drought-funding-in-pittsburgh-will-lose-billions-by-2015-says-state-comptroller-says-incoming-budget-due-report-due-15-days-before-fiscal-year-2015-ends If you do not want to visit that page, you can return to the previous page<|endoftext|>A few days ago I stumbled upon this amazingly powerful video, posted on YouTube by a former member of the Israeli Defence Force. The video is called "The Price of the Peace" and it is an emotional and powerful account of the war in Lebanon in 2006. + +The video, and the video below, were both created and posted by an Israeli combat veteran named Elad Peled, who served in the Israeli Defence Forces for 20 years. + +The video shows a man who was a member of the Israel Defence Force in Lebanon in 2006. He was injured and tortured by Hezbollah. He was awarded the Israeli Medal of Honours by the Israeli government in 2005, but it was revoked in 2009 because he was found to have committed war crimes. + +In the video he describes how he was tortured (see below) and how Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah was responsible. + +The video below shows two people beating and torturing a man, who appears to be a former IDF soldier. + +The video below is also from 2006 and shows how the IDF tortured captured Hezbollah soldiers. + +Elad Peled has received many awards for his courageous reporting on human rights violations in Lebanon, including the prestigious prestigious Israel Prize, the Israel Prize for International Reporting, the Israel Prize for Journalism, the Israel Prize for Social Responsibility, and the Israel Prize for Human Rights. + +Elad Peled's story is very similar to that of another Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Gilad Shalit was captured in 2006 by Hamas and was held in Gaza for five years. He was released in 2011 and his family settled back in Israel. Gilad Shalit, like Elad Peled, was tortured by Hezbollah during his captivity. + +In a statement to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Peled said "I received a phone call recently from a man who was a former member of the IDF, a soldier of the army and a captain. He explained how he and his comrades were tortured by Hezbollah during the war in Lebanon and how their commanders collaborated with them. He did not know me, but he gave me his phone number and told me to contact him. He spoke in the language I understand very well: Arabic. I called him and we talked about the torture and the situation in Lebanon. He said that he and his comrades were captured in 2006 by Hamas and that they were tortured by Hezbollah and its commanders. He also told me that he had received a medal from the Israeli government for his bravery. He said that he received the medal for his bravery in fighting in the Gaza Strip. He was held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and he was tortured by Hamas and Hezbollah. He was tortured every day for five years. He was detained in the same prison he was held in during the war in Lebanon. He told me that he was tortured by Hamas and Hezbollah. He also told me that he was detained by the IDF and that he was tortured in the IDF prison in the Hebron area. He said that he was tortured by the IDF in the same prison that he was held in during the war in Lebanon. He said that his interrogators were members of the Shin Bet and that he was interrogated at the same interrogation center that he was held in during the war in Lebanon. He said that his interrogators were much more brutal than the interrogators in the IDF. He said that when he was interrogated, he was beaten every day and he was interrogated until he was sick. He said that his interrogators were very cruel. He said that he told the interrogators that he was a journalist and that he was writing a book about his experiences in the IDF, but that he was beaten all the time. The interrogators did not let him sleep and they did not treat him well. He told me that he was beaten every day, and he was missing 6 or 7 teeth. He said that he was tortured with electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and the use of marijuana. He said that his interrogators were extremely cruel. He said that he was interrogated three times. The first time, he was held for 12 hours and interrogated for 3 hours, and the second time he was interrogated for 5 hours and interrogated for 6 hours. He said that he was asked to confess that he was a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and that he was fighting against the Lebanese Army. He said that he refused to confess and was beaten. He said that he refused to confess and was tortured. He +======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== +This is the first of a series of articles about making a game, the second part will be about the architecture of your game, the third will be about the gameplay of your game. + +In the first part of this article you will understand how to create a simple game, which you can run from your IDE or even on your Raspberry Pi. In the second part of this series you will start to make your game, and you will learn how to use the GUI, to create levels, to manipulate objects. + +In this article we will create a simple game, using OpenGL. + +We will start by creating a game object and setting its properties: + +// create a GameObject with a default configuration glfwSetBuffered(GLFW_BUFFER_BIT, 1); glfwSetFramebuffer(GLFW_FRAMEBUFFER, glfwGetFramebufferSize(GLFW_FRAMEBUFFER_BIT)); glfwSetWindowTitle(GLFW_WINDOW_TITLE); glfwSetWindowResource(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D, GLFW_TEXTURE_2D); glfwSetWindowSize(GLFW_WINDOW_SIZE, glfwGetWindowSize(GLFW_WINDOW_BIT)); glfwSetWindowFace(GLFW_WINDOW_FACING, glfwGetWindowFacing(GLFW_WINDOW_FACING)); // create a texture glfwCreateTexture(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 0, sizeof(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D), NULL, NULL); // draw a rectangle glfwDrawRect(GLFW_COLOR, 0, 0, 320, 320); + +In the above code we create a new OpenGL context and then pass the GLFW_BUFFER_BIT to set a bit in the buffer in the GLFW_BUFFER_BIT variable. The first thing we do is to set a bit in the GLFW_BUFFER_BIT variable. This enables us to work with GLFW's buffer objects, which have a bitwise access to the size of the buffer in bytes. + +Next we set the size of the GLFW_TEXTURE_2D variable (which is a pointer to a struct containing the texture). The size of the GLFW_TEXTURE_2D variable is a power of 2, so we need to multiply the size of the texture in bytes by 2. + +Finally we draw a rectangle. + +We now understand how to create a GLFW context, and how to set some of the parameters of the OpenGL context. + +The next thing we need is a texture object. Since we are using OpenGL we need to create a texture object. To create a texture object we use the following code: + +// create a texture object glfwCreateTexture(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 0, sizeof(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D), NULL, NULL); glfwSetTexture(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 0, glfwGetTextureParameter(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D_ARRAY_BUFFER_BINARY, &texture_data, NULL, NULL); + +We first initialize the texture object to be the first parameter of the glfwCreateTexture() function. Next we load the texture object using glfwGetTextureParameter() and pass the variable texture_data to the glfwSetTexture() function. + +We then create a texture object by passing the texture_data variable to glfwSetTexture(). + +Note that you need to pass the texture_data variable to glfwCreateTexture() function, otherwise the context will not be created. + +In the above code we set the texture object using glfwSetTexture(). + +Now we can draw the rectangle with a texture object. + +We now know how to create a GLFW context, and how to draw a rectangle using texture objects. + +The next thing we need is a game loop. + +The game loop is where the game logic of your game resides. + +The game loop will be called from a main() function, and it will run when the game is running. + +In the game loop we will do the following: + +Let's start by creating a new game object: + +// create a new game object glfwSetBuffered(GLFW_BUFFER_BIT, 1); // set the width and height of the game object glfwSetWindowTitle(GLFW_WINDOW_TITLE); // set the window title glfwSetWindowResource(GLFW_TEXTURE_2D, GLFW_TEXTURE_2D); // create the game object glfwCreateGame(); // create the window glfwSetWindowResource(GLFW_WINDOW_RESIZE, GLFW_WINDOW_RESIZE); // create a window glfwSetWindowTitle(GLFW_WINDOW_TITLE, "Simple Game"); // set the +======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== +The long journey to the state of New York + +4 years ago + +Last weekend was a busy one for me, as I was in the middle of a 2 week road trip from New Jersey to New York City. I was trying to learn how to cure myself of a bum ankle, but I couldn't find any good information on the internet. I ended up getting a lot of flack on the internet for not being able to cure my ankle, but at the same time I'm not really sure how to cure my problem or explain it to others. + + +I didn't have much to do on the road, because I was sleeping in my car. I arrived at the airport early Sunday morning, and went straight to the airport to pick up my flight. On my way to the airport, I stopped at a McDonald's and bought a large pack of "chips and fries" (I don't remember the name of the place, but I'm pretty sure it's from the mid-west) and sat down to eat. I was planning on doing a lot of walking around, but I got very sick and hungry. I didn't have time to wait for my flight, so I went back to my hotel room and laid down on my bed. At that point in the day, I decided that I would have to get up and walk. I didn't have a map, and I was totally lost. I had no idea where to go or where I would be going next. I could only see the hotels and the airport, but I couldn't figure out how to get there. I decided I would have to walk around New York City until I got up to the hotel. + +I had forgotten how many people live in New York City. I was walking around the streets and looking at the buildings, when I saw a bus stop. I walked over to the bus stop and started walking towards it. I'm not sure if it was because I was very hungry, or if it was because I was nervous, but I fell on my face and started crying. I got back up and took off from the bus stop, and started walking towards where I had seen the bus stop. I was thinking that I should keep walking, but then I saw a girl lying on the ground. She was crying, and I started to walk towards her. I didn't know if she was going to survive the walk, but I kept walking. + +I made it to where she was lying on the ground. I looked at her and saw that she was a little over 5 feet tall (I'm almost 5 feet 6). She was wearing a long top, a dress with no bra, and a pair of white shorts. She was really out of it, and she was gasping for air. I didn't know what to do, so I reached out my hand, and she took my hand. She seemed to be in a lot of pain, and was crying. I asked if she was OK, because I needed to keep going, and she didn't answer. I started to walk towards her, and she started to cry even harder. I kept walking, but I was walking in circles. I was trying to get to her, but I couldn't seem to get there. She was so out of it, and I was so afraid of her that I kept walking. Eventually, the walk got too much for me, and I fell flat on my face on the ground. I started to cry even harder, and I knew I was going to die. The feeling of reaching out my hand to her, and getting her to take it, was the most painful thing I've ever felt in my life. At the same time, I remembered that I had one last chance to get her to take it. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to stay dead either. I reached out my hand, and she took it. I kept walking towards her, but I couldn't seem to get there. I was so afraid of her that I kept walking. Eventually, I fell flat on my face on the ground. I started to cry even harder, and I knew I was going to die. The feeling of reaching out my hand to her, and getting her to take it, was the most painful thing I've ever felt in my life. At the same time, I remembered that I had one last chance to get her to take it. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to stay dead either. I reached out my hand, and she took it. I just kept walking, and eventually I made it to where she was lying on the ground. She was still gasping for air, and she was crying. I looked at her and saw that she was a little over 5 feet tall (I'm almost 5 feet 6). She was wearing a long top, a dress with no bra, and a pair of white shorts. She was really out of it, and she was gasping for air. I didn't know +======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== +"There was a lot of distrust, a lot of anguish and a lot of tears," said Howard, who was a lifelong Republican. The day after the election, he said, he was at the bar of a downtown Detroit restaurant when he heard a man tell another man, "You're all a bunch of losers." + +"I think we need to move forward," Howard said. "It's a time to heal and move forward, and the most important thing is to do that in a civil, constructive way." + +For all the talk about local frustration and misery following the election, most of the people interviewed said they felt optimistic. + +"I've never felt this way," said Mike Finnigan, a 58-year-old engineer who works in a GM plant in Auburn Hills. "We've been complaining for years and years and years, and all of a sudden, this happens." + +For the time being, much of the political tumult will be at the federal level. President-elect Trump has promised to immediately repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, a 2009 federal law that is a cornerstone of the health care system in many states. + +By changing the law, Trump could force millions of people — including more than 5 million who get health insurance through the private market — to lose their coverage. + +Trump also has vowed to expand a program that provides federal funds to states to create high-risk pools, which are intended to enroll people with pre-existing medical problems. Critics say the plan would lead to higher premiums for healthy people, drive up the cost of health care and increase the number of uninsured in the nation. + +Trump has also touted the possibility of getting rid of the estate tax, which is levied on the wealthiest Americans who leave assets to their heirs. The tax has been a source of concern among many Republicans, who have said the change would be regressive. + +In addition to the tax changes, Trump has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act and has vowed to replace it with a system that would include "insurance for everybody." He has not said what form that would take, but he has not ruled out leaving parts of the law in place. + +Trump has said he wants to repeal Obamacare "essentially simultaneously" with enacting a replacement plan. + +"It will be great health care," Trump said at an Oct. 10 rally in Fayetteville, N.C. + +Trump's win has been celebrated in Detroit, where many voters are pleased that their vote went to a Republican who will continue to advocate for the industries they work in. + +"I think it's a big deal," said Peter Boven, who works in the automotive industry in Detroit. "I think it's great for the country." + +While many people said they were optimistic about the future, many also expressed concern about the possibility that President-elect Trump could be more divisive than President Obama or more prone to trigger a trade war than his Democratic predecessor. + +"I think it's unlikely that he'll be anything other than a conservative," Howard said. "But I think we have some challenges ahead of us. I don't think we can just focus on that and ignore the other things that he's going to do." + +Others said the country was not ready for the consequences of a Trump presidency. + +"There's a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, and it's just the beginning," said Chris Shaw, a 30-year-old truck driver in Detroit. "I don't think people are ready for that." + +Contact Kathleen Gray: 517-372-8661, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal + +Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2kL7hfN<|endoftext|>It's not every day that a government agency orders a private company to scan private citizens' emails, but that's exactly what happened recently. + +The Federal Trade Commission sent letters to Google and Yahoo! on Tuesday to stop them from scanning messages sent to or from its consumers. If the companies don't comply by February 29, they'll face fines of up to $16 million a day. + +The FTC's letter to Google cites privacy concerns, that the company is scanning emails without consent and that it doesn't have to abide by the same privacy standards as the average Internet user. + +"The FTC can't oversee Google and Yahoo until they've taken the necessary steps to protect consumer privacy," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "This is a common-sense approach that will help ensure that the companies are making the right decisions for their customers." + +The FTC's letter to Yahoo! is also more general in its concerns. It said that the company is scanning for keywords, but not the content of messages. + +"Yahoo is not only scanning but scanning every email sent to, from, or about its customers," the +======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== +Product Description + +The new version (27.5) of the classic Chico poncho, the Chico Roll Up Poncho features a waterproof polyester shell and a rolled-up polyester cap. The polyester shell has a lofty and waterproof cotton interior and a drawstring top for easy closing. The chunky drawstring is easy to use and keeps the poncho from slipping inside.<|endoftext|>(Reuters) - Three people were killed in New York state on Tuesday when a car struck a small plane and crashed, killing all three occupants, authorities said. + +The crash near the small town of Westport, on the Connecticut River, happened around noon local time (2200 GMT) on a busy highway. + +The National Transportation Safety Board said that the plane, which was carrying a pilot and two passengers, came down near a bridge and quickly caught fire. + +The following people were killed in the crash: + +- Katharine Edwards, local resident + +- Daniel Strecklow, local resident + +- Timothy Juliano, local resident + +- Robert Marietti, local resident + +The pilot, identified as Daniel Strecklow, was pronounced dead at the scene. The two passengers were identified as Robert Marietti, 52, and Katharine Edwards, 63, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. + +The cause of the crash was under investigation, the NTSB said. + +NEW YORK STATE HIGHWAY + +The state highway was closed for several hours while firefighters and emergency personnel worked at the scene. The highway was reopened around 6 p.m. EST (0800 GMT). + +Aerial footage of the crash area showed a fireball rising from the crash site. + +The town of about 2,400 people lies about 90 miles (145 km) north of New York City, and is known for its fishing, golf and horse racing communities.<|endoftext|>The following is a guest post by author and veteran film critic Roger Ebert. + +I'm coming back to movies. Really, I'm coming back to movies. At least, that's what I tell myself. I've been making a movie a year for the past three years. I'm now up to about 10 movies in a year, and I've made about a third of them. So my point is, I'm coming back to movies. + +My first movie I made, when I was in college, was called "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (I don't remember if it was a Union Theatrical Release or not). At the time, I was an aspiring screenwriter in New York, and I failed miserably. I wrote a movie that was basically a children's book. I didn't have any money. I thought I'd have enough time to make it, but I didn't. I was a baby. I was so embarrassed by the movie that when I did my first reading of it at the New York Film Festival, the audience was all, "Oh, sorry, you're going to be so famous for it!" So I had to do a second reading. I was so embarrassed by it that I didn't even want anyone to see it. I thought it was so boring. I was so embarrassed by it that I didn't even want the director to see it. I was so embarrassed by it that when I did my second reading at the New York Film Festival, the audience was all, "Oh, sorry, you're going to be so famous for it!" So I had to do a second reading. + +I said to myself, "I'm going to make a movie. I'm going to make a movie." I wrote the story. I wrote the actors. I told the director what they should be like. I spent a lot of time at home, so I did have to have some money, but I didn't have the money to hire a lot of people. This is where the movie was supposed to start. I thought it was interesting to make a movie that was a little bit like a children's book. I thought it was interesting to make a movie that was a little bit like a children's book. So I made the movie, and it was a disaster. It was a disaster. I didn't even want to show it to anyone. I didn't want the people in my life to see it. I did my second reading at the New York Film Festival, and at the end of the first reading, the people in the audience were saying, "How are you going to make a movie out of this? This is crap." And I said, "This is crap," and I walked out. I walked out. I was so embarrassed by it that I didn't want anyone else to see it. I was so embarrassed by it that I didn't want the director to see it. I was so embarrassed by it that I didn't want the people in my life to see it. + +That was it. I said to myself, "I'm +======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== +If you enjoy recipes like this, we highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App , it's available for both Android and iPhone and has free and paid versions. The app is loaded with thousands of allergy-friendly & vegan recipes/cooking tips, has hundreds of search filters and features like bookmarking, meal plans and more! The app shows you how having diet/health/food preferences can be full of delicious abundance rather than restrictions!This vegan pizza is a great option to bring to a potluck or get the kids to help. It is made of the best ingredients, so you get a nice, tasty meal without the hassle of cooking just about anything at home.<|endoftext|>The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is strongly condemning the brutal murder of an Israeli hitchhiker whose body was found in a field near the town of Duma in the occupied West Bank, east of Jerusalem. + +"The murder of Uri Ariel, a 32-year-old Israeli hitchhiker who was found dead in a field east of Duma, is outrageous," said AJC President and CEO David Harris. "This murder is a stark reminder that the Israeli government must end its policy of impunity for these crimes against humanity." + +Ariel, a father of three, was found dead on June 17. Israeli police said the murder was committed by Palestinian assailants, although the Palestinian Authority and Israel have denied any involvement in the killing. + +Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up + +Israeli police have arrested two suspects in Ariel's killing, but have made no arrests in the other five killings of Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October. + +The killing of Ariel came days after a 16-year-old Palestinian was killed in Jerusalem after stabbing a soldier. Police said the Palestinian was a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem who entered Israel through the Allenby Bridge crossing into Jordan, and was not an Israeli citizen. + +Amnon Cohen, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the murder was a "clear case of incitement," referring to comments by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that "it's time to open fire" on Jews. + +Ariel's family has requested that the body be returned to Israel. + +Ariel's brother was also kidnapped and killed by Palestinians in 2014.<|endoftext|>The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Stone, by Frank Belknap Long This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Story of the Stone Author: Frank Belknap Long Release Date: August 8, 2008 [EBook #1466] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE STONE *** Produced by Suzanne Shell, and David Widger + + +THE STORY OF THE STONE + + +By Frank Belknap Long + + +With an Introduction by + +James McEwan + + +W. W. Norton & Company. + + +1899 + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION BY JAMES McEWAIN + + +LONDON + +[The narrative of The Story of the Stone follows the story of a little girl, who, having been taken ill, is brought home by her parents, who are all in a great turmoil. The patient mother, who has not been able to make anything in the house but bread and water, finds herself constantly in fear and anxiety, and is even forced to ask her husband to be allowed to go out at night, because she is always afraid of his going for shelter to her bed. She is anxious for the little girl, whose health is not so good as it ought to be, because she has a very bad cough, and hears that she is not well. She is anxious for her husband, whom she fears to be less than himself, because he has the most serious illness of his life. She is anxious for the little girl, whose name is Alice, and who, the reader will remember, is the daughter of a farmer whose farm was just taken from him, because he had sold a sheep in Ireland, and the following circumstances happened to him at the same time. He was afflicted with his wife's sickness, and he gave her to the priest for a cure, and the priest cured the wife of her sickness. Afterwards the priest came to him, and said that he had found in the house the body of a man, who had been buried on the same land where he had been buried, and that he would be a great gainer if he would sell the land to a man from the neighbouring village, who was ill of his own and whose wife was sick, and he was anxious to make the sale. He sold the land to the man who was ill, and he brought him +======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== +"I'm a child of the 80s," says a man who looks like he's in his late 50s. "I was a kid when they showed Rocky IV, I was a kid when they showed Terminator 2, I was a kid when they showed Star Wars. I'm a child of the 80s." + +Well, I suppose that's a bit of a mistake, because the man in question is actually a Welshman called Jeff Bridges. He is also a lifelong sci-fi fan (in fact, the film he's talking about was Blade Runner) and a big Star Wars fan, and he's chatting up an Artificial Intelligence expert who has worked for a while on a project to get computers to be able to "understand" the content of movies they've been given. + +The idea that computers can understand what you're looking at and telling you is nothing new. That was the goal of the MIT Media Lab's Sophia Antipolis and Joel Waldfogel teams, who in 2009 built an AI that could understand the content of a video and then tell you what it was and who it was for. + +But the team of scientists behind the project wanted a bit more than just "understanding." They wanted a machine that could understand the meaning of a scene – the kind of thing a human being can do. And they thought the best way to do it was to build a computer that was "related" to the audience. + +The idea is that humans and machines can communicate by reading the emotions and interactions of other humans. You can see this in the things people do when they interact with each other. So if you have a computer system that can understand the meaning of a movie, you might be able to use it to make it more engaging. You might be able to have a computer system that understands the emotional state of a moviegoer and then tell the audience what they should be feeling. Or maybe you could have a computer that understands the meaning of a movie, but then the audience could tell it what to do within that movie. + +Instead of just telling the audience what's going to happen, maybe you could tell the audience what they should be feeling. + +That's one of the goals of the new project, called the "Emotion Machine". It's being led by a group of researchers at MIT's Media Lab, and it's already being tested on a small number of moviegoers in a small number of theaters. + +But the project also has a more grand, "meta" goal: to develop a way of building more complex emotional experiences. + +Jeff Bridges is talking about this goal in his office at the Malibu home he shares with his wife, actress Vanessa Redgrave, and their two children. He's wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "AI: Good, Wise, and Loving", and he points to a small box on his desk. + +"This is called the emotion machine," says Bridges. + +And he's not just talking about a computer program that can understand a movie. He's talking about a machine that can understand the meaning of a scene – the kind of thing a human being can do. And he's talking about a machine that can understand the emotion of a scene, and then tell the audience what they should be feeling. Or maybe you could have a computer that understands the meaning of a movie, but then the audience could tell it what to do within that movie. + +"This is the first tangible proof that it's possible," he says. "I think it's going to be pretty big. I think it's a good way to tell people, 'Look, this is what's going to happen.'" + +That's not the kind of talk you often hear from someone who has spent his career trying to build artificial intelligence. But Jeff Bridges, like many of the people who work in the field, has seen the promise of machine learning and has taken to the challenge of trying to make that learning go further. + +In the last few years, he's become a key figure in efforts to develop artificial intelligence. He's helped to develop technologies that can teach computers to "understand" human language. He's also helped to develop technologies that can teach computers to do the kinds of things that human beings can do. + +"The first thing that came to mind is that the computer can understand a scene," he says. "But how do you tell the computer to understand the meaning of a scene? And that's what the emotional machine is because that's the first step." + +In other words, the machine isn't just a computer program that can understand a scene. It's a machine that can understand meaning. It's a machine that can tell you what you should be feeling. + +It's a machine that can also tell you what you should do. + +*** + +The emotion machine isn't very good at understanding scenes. That's because it's using an approach that's not very well optimized +======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== +At a time when the Trump administration is cracking down on immigrants and refugees, President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met with a shadowy Russian billionaire to discuss lifting U.S. sanctions against Russia. Here's what you need to know. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) + +At a time when the Trump administration is cracking down on immigrants and refugees, President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met with a shadowy Russian billionaire to discuss lifting U.S. sanctions against Russia. Here's what you need to know. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) + +Michael Flynn's secret conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States were first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed by other news outlets. + +Flynn's talks about sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States were first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed by other news outlets. Flynn's talks about sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States were first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed by other news outlets. SEE MORE VIDEOS + +The White House has tried to distance itself from his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, saying they were to ensure that sanctions against Russia were not being "put in place" during the incoming administration's first days in office. + +The Post reported that Flynn and Kislyak exchanged text messages during the transition about sanctions and the possibility of lifting them. + +Flynn's conversations with Kislyak are the latest example of Flynn's ties to Russia, a relationship that he has repeatedly denied. On Friday, The Post reported that Flynn called Russian President Vladi­mir Putin "a killer" and "a thug" in a phone call in December. + +In a statement late Friday night, Flynn said he "inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology." + +In a statement late Friday night, Flynn said he "inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology." SEE MORE VIDEOS + +Flynn, who was forced to resign after just 24 days in the Trump administration, sat down with The Post on March 2 at the request of its editors to discuss his role in the Trump transition and his conversations with the Russian ambassador. + +Flynn was charged in March with making false statements to the FBI. The false statements charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. + +In their interview, Flynn and Kislyak discussed the logistics of setting up a call between Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, The Post reported. + +President Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, departs the White House in Washington in March. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) + +Flynn's role in setting up the call raised questions among some of the Trump administration's critics, who said the Flynn's role in setting up the call raised questions among some of the Trump administration's critics, who said the communications raised questions about Trump's intentions toward Russia. + +"In my opinion, Flynn has the same attitude toward Russia as former president Obama did toward Russia," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "Flynn's comments to the Russian ambassador were a deliberate effort to cover up the Trump administration's secret, pre-inauguration discussions with the Russians." + +In his interview with The Post, Flynn expressed curiosity about the allegations about his contacts with Kislyak. He described in detail his contacts with Kislyak, who did not respond to requests for comment. + +In those conversations, Flynn and Kislyak discussed sanctions, according to The Post, which cited current and former U.S. officials. + +Flynn and Kislyak also discussed the possibility of establishing a secret and secure line of communication between Trump and the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the conversations. That proposal was never pursued, officials said. + +Flynn's discussions with Kislyak also touched on the possibility of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia, known as the "Kremlin sanctions" and put in place by President Barack Obama in December. Under the sanctions, the Kremlin was prohibited from suspending some of the most significant financial sanctions on Russia imposed by the Obama administration in retaliation for Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 campaign. + +The relationship between Flynn and Kislyak had been tenuous. The two men had not spoken for months. In the intervening period, Kislyak had become increasingly frustrated with the Obama administration and had complained to U.S. officials about what he saw as an overly aggressive approach by the Obama administration to Russia policy. + +Flynn was a vocal supporter of Trump during the campaign and transition and was a trusted adviser to Trump on national security issues. + +His contacts with Kislyak, and his subsequent discussions +======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== +"As you know, the 'War on Coal' is over." + +That was the opening line of a recent article in The New York Times by James F. Tracy. The piece seemed to be a response to the recent announcement that the Obama administration was withdrawing coal mining leases from nearly two-thirds of the U.S. Department of the Interior's lands. + +Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. It's produced from underground mining and is responsible for 4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to causing global climate change, coal combustion releases pollutants that cause a variety of health problems, including lung cancer and other respiratory issues. And as the Times noted, when it comes to climate change, "the coal industry is a loser." + +But the Obama administration has made clear that, while it is abandoning coal, it is not abandoning the fossil fuel industry. + +"We have a long history of using coal to power our country and we look forward to continuing to develop clean coal technology that can provide America with thousands of new jobs," Obama said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on March 27, 2011. + +"In the coming years, we're going to have to confirm a new EPA administrator, who will be in charge of a agency that has been known to interfere with the private sector, and that has been known to be too cozy with the coal industry," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in a statement on March 28, 2011. + +President Obama's term in office is almost over, and many of his environmental policies are in the process of being reversed, including the "War on Coal." But the president and his administration have not abandoned the fossil fuel industry. + +If anything, they've escalated it, creating a phenomenon known as "fracking." + +"The administration has been on a campaign to tap the fracking revolution, to make it more pervasive and accessible," said David Turnbull, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The president has simply accelerated the process." + +Obama's administration has also put an emphasis on renewable energy, which has been making headlines lately, most recently when the administration announced that it would require thousands of new solar and wind facilities to be built nationwide by 2022. + +The Obama administration has also supported the Keystone XL Pipeline. + +But it's not just the president who is boosting the coal industry. The Environmental Protection Agency, in partnership with the Department of Energy, has been promoting "clean coal" technology, which is touted as the "silver bullet" to the nation's energy woes. + +"Clean coal" is a technology that is supposed to extract the carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants. But, as the Times pointed out, there is no way to actually develop a commercially viable "clean" coal technology. + +So, instead, the EPA, in partnership with the Department of Energy, has considered projects and public-private partnerships that encourage the use of natural gas, which is known to have greater carbon dioxide emissions. The Times noted that "the EPA has been one of the major funders of the research." + +As the Times pointed out, the gas, called "zinc hexafluoride," has not been proven to be a "cleaner" fuel. And, it's not clear that the technology would be cost-effective, either. + +The EPA has also been promoting the use of "advanced coal technology," an idea that the Times noted, "has received little attention." + +The Times also noted that the Obama administration's executive agreement with China, which calls for the U.S. to shut down some coal-fired power plants, has "created a climate of fear among the industry, with companies, utilities and power plants rushing to get out ahead of it." + +And, in addition to "clean coal," the Obama administration has also promoted "carbon capture and sequestration" technology, which is supposed to remove carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants. Most of the carbon dioxide generated by coal plants is CO2 that the plants have already emitted, and the EPA has estimated that capturing and storing the CO2 would cost about $40 billion. + +"The Obama administration has done nothing to put a halt to the coal industry's decline," said Greg Sorrell, a spokesman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. "It continues to deny the science of climate change." + +"Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels," said Sorrell. "It's produced from underground mining and is responsible for 4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions." + +"In the coming years, we're going to have to confirm a new EPA administrator, who will be in charge of a agency that has been known to interfere with the private sector, and that has been known to be too cozy with the coal industry," said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in a statement on +======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== +Although the duration of the French Revolution is disputed, the years from 1789 to 1799 are generally considered the years of the popular revolution. You can read more about the revolution here. + +The revolutionary years + +The date of the French revolution can be traced back to a single day, July 14, 1789, when a mob set fire to the Bastille in Paris. Since then, the revolution has been as much a social movement as an economic one. The French Revolution was the first in modern history to be declared by the people and for the people. + +The revolution broke out after the death of King Louis XVI in 1792. The new king, the king of France, took power on July 28, 1793. However, the king had a deeply conservative streak, and was determined to maintain the status quo, which meant keeping the monarchy. The king's brother, the Duke of Orleans, was a powerful man and the king's main rival. + +In 1794, the Duke of Orleans went to war with the King of Spain. Although the king was victorious, the war was a disaster for France. On July 14, 1794, the Duke of Orleans was assassinated by a French soldier named Danton. Shortly after the assassination, the King of Spain quickly fled to Holland, leaving the French throne vacant. + +Unable to find a willing successor to the throne, King Louis XVI died on July 28, 1794. He had been ill, and was suffering from a severe head wound. He was replaced by his brother, the Duke of Orleans. + +Danton and the king's brother, King Louis XVI, had a falling out over the monarchy. Danton was furious at the king and his brother for their lack of support for him after his assassination, and went on a violent rampage. He proceeded to attack and kill many people, including King Louis XVI's bodyguards, who had come to his house to protect him. + +The Duke of Orleans left the country and returned to England, where he was arrested and tried for the murder of King Louis XVI. That trial began on August 14, 1794. On September 24, 1794, the Duke of Orleans was found guilty and executed. + +The next day, the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans, was arrested and executed in France for the same crime. That same day, about 1,000 Frenchmen gathered at the Place de la Revolution and declared the French revolution, which was the first of the French republics. + +The revolution was a successful one. The French republic took over the government of France, which had been ruled by the monarchy since 1789. The National Assembly took over and created the French Constitution, which was approved by the French people on November 10, 1793. + +The French Revolution + +The French Revolution was an extremely large, complex revolution. It is also one of the most important events in modern history. + +The revolution began in Paris on July 14, 1789, when a group of people set fire to the Bastille in Paris. That fire was followed by a violent civil war in which the government was overthrown. The French army was unable to hold onto the French capital, and the French monarchy was abolished. + +The French revolution was the first to be declared by the people, and for the people. The French people were outraged by the monarchy, which they thought had been tied to the king's death by the Duke of Orleans. Many people joined the revolutionary movement, but the majority of the people — especially those who lived in the countryside and were more influenced by traditional religious beliefs — remained loyal to the monarchy. + +The French Revolution greatly changed the French political landscape and society. The French revolution changed the country in many ways. + +The French Revolution changed the country in many ways. The French revolution changed the country in many ways. The French revolution changed the French political landscape and society. The French revolution changed the country in many ways. + +In 1793, France was a feudal monarchy. Its power rested on a powerful, powerful, feudal aristocracy. The French Revolution changed that. It fundamentally transformed the country. + +The French Revolution truly happened, and it was a powerful event in modern history. It shook the old order. The French Revolution truly happened, and it was a powerful event in modern history. It shook the old order. It transformed society. It fundamentally changed the country. + +The French Revolution fundamentally changed the French political landscape. The French revolution fundamentally changed the French political landscape. + +The revolution also gave rise to the French National Assembly. That assembly was the first of the French republics, and it was elected in 1789. The French National Assembly was the first of the French republics, and it was elected in 1789. + +The French National Assembly was the first of the French republics, and it was elected in 1789. The French National Assembly was the first of the French republics, and it was elected in 1789. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== +(CNN) -- He may be the most famous man in the world, but famous can be a pretentious job. + +The actor George Clooney and his wife Amal are being criticized for their $5 million French chateau in the south of France, which they purchased in 2004 for $1.2 million. + +But the couple -- who have three other homes in the United States -- are not the first celebrity couple to buy a chateau. + +In fact, Forbes magazine calculates that it would cost Americans $1.2 million to purchase the same property in France. + +The Clooneys, who are responsible for two of the most successful movies of the 1990s, "Forrest Gump" and "Ocean's Eleven," bought the estate in Bordeaux in 2004. + +The Clooneys have since made several other purchases, including a $9.5 million beachfront home on Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway, a $3.5 million home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a $2.2 million home in Beverly Hills, California, and a $2.4 million condo in Toronto, according to the National Geographic. + +The couple also owns a $3 million house outside of Los Angeles, the Andrew Lloyd Webber Theater in Manhattan and a $2.3 million house in Miami. + +The couple's decision to acquire a chateau in France has also caused some controversy, especially in France. + +France's environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, has said the $5 million price tag for the chateau is "too high" and has warned that the property will be much more expensive when it's eventually sold. + +Critics also pointed out that the mansion is only partially finished, and that the Clooneys bought it for the wrong price. + +Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner are no strangers to the cameras, but they've also managed to keep their private lives private. Here are a few notable celebs who've managed to maintain their privacy. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – A rare look at Kim and Kris's life since their divorce. Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kris were married for three years, until December 2011. They divorced in 2012. Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kris have two children together, North, 7, and Saint, 6. Hide Caption 4 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kris and her half-sister Khloe Kardashian have a daughter together, North West, via a surrogate in May 2014. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kris Kardashian and Jay Z are parents to their daughter North West, 6, and son Saint, 5. Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim Kardashian is married to rapper Kanye West, who is her ex-boyfriend. They have one son together, Saint West, who they named after their daughter. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kanye have two daughters together, North, left, and Saint, right. Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kanye have four children together, North, left, North West, 19, West, 18, and Saint, 17. Hide Caption 9 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kanye have two sons together, Saint West and Saint West West, with North. Hide Caption 10 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kanye have two daughters together, Saint and Saint West. Hide Caption 11 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim and Kanye have two sons together, Saint West and Saint West West. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have three sons together, Saint West, West and Saint West West. Hide Caption 13 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have two daughters together, North, left, South, and Saint, right. Hide Caption 14 of 15 Photos: Famous Hollywood couples Keeping up with the Kardashians – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have three daughters together, North, left, South, and Saint, right. Hide Caption 15 of 15 + +They have since made several other purchases, including a $9.5 million beachfront home on Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway, a $3.5 million home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a $2.2 million home in Beverly Hills, California, and a $2.4 million condo in Toronto. + +"The chateau +======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== +Ellen, a young woman, is in the middle of her second mental breakdown. She is seeing the world in a very strange way. She sees her life as a series of images that she can't quite put together. She is the first person to ever be diagnosed with a split personality disorder. She is also the only person who has ever been diagnosed with a split personality disorder. She is also the only person in the world who has ever been diagnosed with a split personality disorder.<|endoftext|>Five years ago, Mark Zuckerberg made a bold prediction. He said that in a decade, we'd have connected billions of devices to the internet and that by 2017 we'd all be wearing Google Glass. He said he was wrong, and now he's right again — just in the wrong way. + +Last week, Facebook announced it was acquiring the mobile messaging app Snapchat, for $3 billion, in a deal that will allow the social network to offer its own version of the app for people to share stories and videos using their smartphones. + +To Zuckerberg's point, it's only a matter of time until we start wearing Google Glass — and we're already seeing some hints at that with the emerging wearable technology. + +It's not a stretch to say that in five years we'll all have Google Glass + +Zuckerberg's prediction could have been a joke. But according to a new infographic, he was spot on. Sure, the technology isn't quite there yet. But the time is right for the wearable tech to take off. + +This infographic, created by the startup Dynatrace, shows the future of wearable tech as it stands today. It includes everything from the Oculus Rift and Google Glass to the Apple Watch. + +More importantly, however, it shows how quickly the technology is moving. Not only is Google already working on another version of Glass, the company is in the process of developing its own version of Google Glass — and that model is expected to launch next year. + +The infographic has a lot of visual clues that point to the inevitable arrival of Google Glass. + +We're already seeing a lot of people wearing Google Glass + +Looking at the figures, we see that there are already a lot of people wearing Google Glass. In fact, Google Glass is already available to buy in the US on the company's website. + +And it's not just the US and Canada. Countries like Brazil, Japan, China, and Australia have also started getting their own versions of the wearable tech. + +To be clear, Google Glass is a very different product from the current Google Glass Explorer Program, which lets people get their hands on the tech for free. The Explorer Program is currently only open to US residents. + +But Google Glass is still very much a product in development. And it's only a matter of time before Google's version will hit the market. + +When Google Glass does launch, it'll probably be a fairly familiar product. The current model has a screen on the front of the device with a small camera and a tiny touchpad on the side. There's also a microphone on the back. + +The company recently showed off a prototype of the next generation of Google Glass, which will include a larger display and a microphone on the front. Like the current model, the new model will also have a touchpad on the side of the device. + +We have a feeling that we'll see the next generation of Google Glass released in the next few years. And, if history is any indication, we're going to see it in the form of Google Glass.<|endoftext|>How hard is it to get a little snow at the fair? I hope the weather is just tolerable at the fair, and you want to go there. It's just a bunch of people, maybe a few good friends, and a few things you must do. What do you do? Climb up a hill to get a few inches of snow and then walk back down? Hmmm. Maybe you could go skydiving? You don't need to do that. If you can get a little snow, it's fine. + +I don't know much about fairs. I've only been to one, the World's Fair in Chicago in 1967, and have no idea what to expect. I hope it's good. + +I'll try to be friendly. I've been to just about every fair I can think of. I'm not sure if anyone will think I'm being too friendly. + +I'm interested in fairs. I love them. I have an idea of what they are, and I hope to have a fair of my own. + +I'm comfortable in my own skin. I might not like it, but that's okay. I'm not trying to be "cool." I'm not trying to be "cool." I'm just trying to be me. I'm not trying to be cool. I'm just trying to be me. + +I'm not sure if any of this is important. +======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== +1. A short and sweet change to the old guard, the team is still young and have plenty of potential. + +2. They have top-notch goalkeeping. + +3. They have a great defence. + +4. They have a great attack. + +5. They have a good coach. + +6. They have a great amount of depth. + +7. They are still young and have plenty of talent. + +8. They have a solid foundation. + +9. They have a good system in place. + +10. They have a solid foundation. + +11. They have a good system in place. + +12. They have a good system in place. + +13. They have a solid foundation. + +14. They have a solid foundation. + +15. They have a solid foundation. + +16. They have a solid foundation. + +17. They have a solid foundation. + +18. They have a solid foundation. + +19. They have a solid foundation. + +20. They have a solid foundation. + +21. They have a solid foundation. + +22. They have a solid foundation. + +23. They have a solid foundation. + +24. They have a solid foundation. + +25. They have a solid foundation. + +26. They have a solid foundation. + +27. They have a solid basis. + +28. They have a solid foundation. + +29. They have a solid foundation. + +30. They have a solid foundation. + +31. They have a solid foundation. + +32. They have a solid foundation. + +33. They have a solid foundation. + +34. They have a solid foundation. + +35. They have a solid foundation. + +36. They have a solid foundation. + +37. They have a solid foundation. + +38. They have a solid foundation. + +39. They have a solid foundation. + +40. They have a solid foundation. + +41. They have a solid foundation. + +42. They have a solid foundation. + +43. They have a solid foundation. + +44. They have a solid foundation. + +45. They have a solid foundation. + +46. They have a solid foundation. + +47. They have a solid foundation. + +48. They have a solid foundation. + +49. They have a solid foundation. + +50. They have a solid foundation. + +51. They have a solid foundation. + +52. They have a solid foundation. + +53. They have a solid foundation. + +54. They have a solid foundation. + +55. They have a solid foundation. + +56. They have a solid foundation. + +57. They have a solid foundation. + +58. They have a solid foundation. + +59. They have a solid foundation. + +60. They have a solid foundation. + +61. They have a solid foundation. + +62. They have a solid foundation. + +63. They have a solid foundation. + +64. They have a solid foundation. + +65. They have a solid foundation. + +66. They have a solid foundation. + +67. They have a solid foundation. + +68. They have a solid foundation. + +69. They have a solid foundation. + +70. They have a solid foundation. + +71. They have a solid foundation. + +72. They have a solid foundation. + +73. They have a solid foundation. + +74. They have a solid foundation. + +75. They have a solid foundation. + +76. They have a solid foundation. + +77. They have a solid foundation. + +78. They have a solid foundation. + +79. They have a solid foundation. + +80. They have a solid foundation. + +81. They have a solid foundation. + +82. They have a solid foundation. + +83. They have a solid foundation. + +84. They have a solid foundation. + +85. They have a solid foundation. + +86. They have a solid foundation. + +87. They have a solid foundation. + +88. They have a solid foundation. + +89. They have a solid foundation. + +90. They have a solid foundation. + +91. They have a solid foundation. + +92. They have a solid foundation. + +93. They have a solid foundation. + +94. They have a solid foundation. + +95. They have a solid foundation. + +96. They have a solid foundation. + +97. They have a solid foundation. + +98. They have a solid foundation. + +99. They have a solid foundation. + +100. They have +======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== +The modern concept of a "computer" is a lot more complicated than most people realize. + +Most people (including me) would probably say that a computer is a device that processes some information and then puts the result in some format. Some might even say that a computer is a device that has some information and discards it. + +The most basic computer could probably be considered to be a device that has some information and discards it. It could be a computer with a hard drive, a computer with a stored program, a computer with an operating system, or a computer with a database. + +In the early days of computing, computers were also referred to as "hard disks" or "brick machines". In those days, the disk was created on-the-fly and was stored on a wooden disk drive, or possibly a mechanical disk drive. + +There are still some basic computers that are powered by electricity, but most of them now use integrated circuits. + +There are several basic types of computers, including: + +Hardware computers would have a processor, memory, and in some cases a hard disk. + +would have a processor, memory, and in some cases a hard disk. Embedded systems are computers that run directly on a host computer, with the host computer being a very small embedded system. + +are computers that run directly on a host computer, with the host computer being a very small embedded system. Cloud computers are computers that run on a server network. + +are computers that run on a server network. Embedded systems run on a single computer. For instance, a laptop computer running Windows would be an embedded system. + +run on a single computer. For instance, a laptop computer running Windows would be an embedded system. Service computers are most often used for remote administration. They usually have a server component, such as a web server, database server, or mail server. + +are most often used for remote administration. They usually have a server component, such as a web server, database server, or mail server. Cloud computing is a term used to describe the use of computers that are not on a local host that are connected to the Internet. + +There are many different types of computers, but the most basic are the ones that we usually think of. Most people automatically think of computers as "hard disks", but they can also be "hard diskless" computers, "memoryless" computers, "hard diskless memoryless computers", "memoryless memoryless computers", "hard diskless networked computers", "memoryless networked computers", or "computer that runs on a disk". + +I think we can all agree that a computer is a device that has some information and discards it. + +But there are also many different types of computers. An embedded system is a computer that runs on a single computer. For instance, a laptop computer running Windows would be an embedded system. + +is a computer that runs on a single computer. For instance, a laptop computer running Windows would be an embedded system. Cloud computing is a term used to describe the use of computers that are not on a local host that are connected to the Internet. + +There are many different kinds of cloud computing. Cloud computing often refers to a combination of hard disks and cloud computing. For instance, a laptop running Windows would be a cloud computing computer. + +is a term used to describe the use of computers that are not on a local host that are connected to the Internet. There are many different kinds of cloud computing. Cloud computing often refers to a combination of hard disks and cloud computing. For instance, a laptop running Windows would be a cloud computing computer. Service computing is a computer that runs on a server network. For instance, a mail server running Postfix would be a service computing computer. + +is a computer that runs on a server network. For instance, a mail server running Postfix would be a service computing computer. Embedded systems are computers that run directly on a host computer, with the host computer being a very small embedded system. + +is computers that run directly on a host computer, with the host computer being a very small embedded system. Cloud computing is a term used to describe the use of computers that are not on a local host that are connected to the Internet. + +There are many different kinds of cloud computing. Cloud computing is often used as an alternative to the traditional idea of cloud computing. The traditional concept of cloud computing is quite different from the cloud computing that follows. + +I hope you enjoyed this post on the different kinds of computers! + +Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. + +Disqus<|endoftext|>What are the benefits of using a pet? + +It's like having a part of your family with you at all times. + +Most pets are very good with children. Dogs are especially good with kids. + +If you're looking for a little help with your kids, a pet can serve as a distraction. +======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== +In this three-part series, we look at the top players in the Premier League on the basis of their FPL value. + +In this article we'll look at the top players in the Premier League according to their price. This article will look at the top players in the Premier League according to their FPL value. + +This is the second of a three-part series looking at the top players in the Premier League. + +When we last looked at the top players in the Premier League we looked at Chelsea's Diego Costa. + +But this week we're looking at players who are in the top 10 in terms of value and who just missed out on the top 10. + +The following players are in the top 10 players in the Premier League according to their price. + +This article looks at the top players in the Premier League according to their price. + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>The Muslim-majority nation of Brunei has announced that it will allow the burkini to be worn in public. + +The announcement comes after several major cities in France banned the swimsuits in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Nice and the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. + +It's not the first time Brunei has made headlines for its progressive views. + +In 2015, the country issued a ruling that women must be treated as equal to men and that the country was not discriminatory against women. + +The ruling was made following the death of a young woman in the country who had been accused of witchcraft. + +The country also has a high rate of female genital mutilation (FGM), in which girls as young as four are cut open. + +The announcement in Brunei comes after several countries across Europe banned swimwear, including the burkini, following the terrorist attacks in Nice and the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. + +RELATED: The Muslim-majority nation of Brunei has announced that it will allow the burkini to be worn in public. + +RELATED: The burkini, which many refer to as the 'burqa', has been banned by several cities in France following the terror attacks in Nice and the Bataclan concert hall.<|endoftext|>I've been a longtime reader of the blog! I've been enthralled with your work since I was a kid (I distinctly remember reading the first volume of the Encyclopedia in my early teens). I've been a huge fan of your art since the first issue came out. I first became aware of your work when I saw it in the "Friday the 13th" series. I was instantly hooked.  I've bought every issue of your series, the movies, the comics, the video games, and I still own the show and the movie. I admire you for all of the great work you have done. It's a true honor to have you as my favorite artist. I want to make sure I do it correctly, though. I'm going to try to do the best I can. I know there's a lot of people that would love to see your art in a new way. I've had a clear vision of how I want it to look, but I still want to make sure I do it right. I want to do it right so that you can look at it and know that it will not look like any other book that I've done. I've had the chance to talk to the editors about that, and they think it's a great idea. I'm going to do my best to make it happen. I'm also going to be making it happen with the help of some of my favorite artists. I'm going to be working with the talented friends that I've worked with on my own projects such as John Cassaday and James Stokoe. I've been working with some other talented artists as well on a number of different projects. +For those of you who don't know, John Cassaday created the Cassaday Designs and John Stokoe is a veteran of the comics industry. You will also be seeing the work of J. Scott Campbell and a few other talented artists! I look forward to sharing all of the work that the talented artists have done with you.  +I also want to thank you for all of the wonderful messages you've been sending me. I know that you've been a busy bee and I'm so happy that you've been able to keep me in the loop. I love it when you tell me that you love my work and I love if you tell me that you love my website! It's really nice to know that there are people out there that are excited about my work and want to see more of it. I was very surprised by the number of people that I've been able to get in touch with. I'm really excited to have you on board, and I hope you'll check back soon.<|endoftext|>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Richard Galpin says the two sides have yet to sign the deal + +An agreement has been reached +======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== +This story is part of a special series produced in partnership with Climate Central to highlight the work of leading climate scientists and their organizations. + +With just a few days left before the Paris conference on climate change, negotiators in Copenhagen are still struggling to reach an agreement. A key sticking point is how to account for the emissions of greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere. + +Scientists have found that in the coming decades, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will rise to levels that scientists say are beyond anything the planet has seen in at least the past 800,000 years, and possibly much longer. + +The problem is that scientists have not been able to account for those emissions. And while they have been trying to find a way to do so, so far there has been no agreement at the conference to do just that. + +"The one thing that is clear is that in the absence of an agreement, the most likely scenario in the next few years would be that the global temperature increase would be between three and four degrees Celsius above what we have seen in the last century," says Kurt Lambeck, climate scientist at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. + +Lambeck and his team have been developing a way to account for the emissions of greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere — the so-called "radiative forcing," which is the change in how much radiation the Earth receives from the sun. + +"Radiative forcing is an important part of the climate system that we are trying to understand better," Lambeck says. + +Observing climate change + +The radiative forcing that Lambeck is investigating is different from the other sources of climate change. For example, solar radiation is the cause of climate change: Earth absorbs more of the sun's energy and turns it into heat. Radiative forcing is the change in how much energy the Earth emits and receives from the sun. + +But because the climate system is so complex, scientists cannot really get a handle on the entire system without accounting for all of the climate system's components. + +Lambeck says his team has been able to find the right buffer between the warming and the cooling of the climate system by adding up all of the different types of data they have been collecting, including the changes in ocean temperatures, the amount of snow on the ground, the amount of snow and ice in the atmosphere and the atmospheric density of the air. + +"We're trying to balance the potential warming — the amount of greenhouse gases emitted — and the possible cooling — the amount of heat that the oceans are absorbing from the sun," Lambeck says. + +For the past 15 years, Lambeck has been looking at these changes in the atmosphere and ocean to try to figure out how much of the forcing from greenhouse gases the Earth is absorbing. + +"We've been looking at the global climate system, looking at the ocean, the atmosphere, the land and the ice, and trying to figure out what's happening with our global climate," Lambeck says. "And we've been trying to account for all of the different components that are going into the atmosphere." + +Lambeck says another crucial piece of the puzzle is the role that the oceans play in climate change. Using data from the past decade, Lambeck and his team have found that the oceans are absorbing about a third of the heat that is being transferred from the atmosphere to the oceans. + +"The ocean is significant in the climate system," Lambeck says. "It's a key part of the climate systems that we are trying to understand better." + +A challenge in counting greenhouse gases + +Lambeck says that the main challenge in estimating the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is that the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitting has a lot to do with where they are in the atmosphere and where they are in the ocean. + +"The whole atmospheric greenhouse gas inventory is very much dependent on where it's actually in the atmosphere," Lambeck says. "In the ocean, you can just write a number of tens of billions of tons, and you have a very good idea of what's going into the ocean." + +But when we look at the ocean surface, Lambeck says, we have to account for all of the factors that impact how the ocean absorbs atmospheric greenhouse gases. + +Lambeck and his team are working to address that challenge. + +"We're trying to come up with a better measurement system than we have right now," Lambeck says. "We're trying to come up with a better method than we have right now." + +Lambeck says they hope to have the new measurement system in place by the time negotiators meet in Paris, but no one knows for sure when that will be.<|endoftext|>Awards + +2018 + +Winner: Best Brand, Beauty and Lifestyle at the Women's Clothing and Accessories Show + +Winner: Best New Brand at the Women's Accessories Show + +2018 + +Winner: Best New Brand at the Women's +======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== +Now that it's over, it's time for the Wynn to start talking about what it's been doing right. And so far, all the results have been pretty spot-on.<|endoftext|>A new Gallup poll shows that the public wants their lawmakers to compromise. But that's not what they are hearing from their representatives. + +The survey released Wednesday finds that Americans, by a wide margin, believe that lawmakers should compromise, and they want their representatives to compromise. But the public when asked what they would rather see happen, fewer than half (46 percent) say they would prefer that lawmakers compromise, while more than three-quarters (77 percent) say they want lawmakers to stay firm in their positions. + +So, does that mean the public is pro-compromise? The answer is no. A majority of Americans (52 percent) say they have been "very satisfied" by the way Congress is working, and a majority of Americans (56 percent) say the same about the way President Obama is handling his job. + +What's more, the public is in no mood to compromise in general. In fact, if Congress were to compromise on its current agenda, most Americans (62 percent) would disapprove. + +This isn't to say that the public is completely indifferent to compromise. Asked whether they would prefer their representatives to "keep their current positions and work to reach compromise," a sizable 52 percent of Americans say they would prefer that they do this. An additional 26 percent say they would prefer that they compromise but that their representatives stay firm.<|endoftext|>The first two albums from the supergroup Soul Asylum have been remixed to feature more original music, and now they're also getting a vinyl reissue. + + +Earlier this year, the band's original drummer, Maurice "Cannonball" Adderley, passed away. A new EP, Reunion, is set to be released on April 25. The vinyl reissue is set to feature over 50 minutes of new music, including new versions of "Brushfire", "Soul Asylum", and "Spooky". + +The three band members of Soul Asylum, the late Cannonball Adderley, drummer Tim Vaughn, and bassist/singer/guitarist Mike "Fearsome" Filer, had been working on a new album for over three years before Cannonball's death. + +Listen to the first two remastered albums below, and keep an eye on Noisey for more on Soul Asylum, which is out April 25 on Sacred Bones/Firefly. + +Soul Asylum: + +Soul Asylum – Reunion (Remastered Album) + +Soul Asylum – Brushfire (Remastered Album) + +Soul Asylum – Spooky (Remastered Album) + +Soul Asylum – Reunion (Remixed Album)<|endoftext|>It is not yet certain that the United States will be able to strike an effective agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. But the political pressure on President Obama — who in turn has been under intense pressure from some of his most important allies on Capitol Hill to reach an agreement — is mounting. + +For the past two weeks, the Obama administration has been engaged in intense negotiations with Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China over the terms of a comprehensive deal that would curb Iran's nuclear program. + +Some in the Obama administration, including Mr. Kerry, have suggested that the talks could produce an agreement by the end of March. But the disagreements among the countries involved have not gone away. + +The talks have been moving slowly, with each side saying the other is holding out for more to help seal the deal, and with the self-imposed deadline set by the United States to complete the negotiations slipping into April. + +On Wednesday, the administration announced that it would postpone the deadline for the talks by six weeks, until March 31, the end of the month. The American negotiators have been insisting on agreement on a package of sanctions be imposed on Iran, while the Iranian side has been pushing for a more comprehensive agreement that would include all the sanctions.<|endoftext|>The HSR Bus Route is a new service that will allow people travelling on the HSR network to get to and from the Metro. + +The route will connect the Metro to Cabbagetown, Mount Dennis and the Downtown core. + +The route is expected to begin operation from early 2018. + +For more information, go to our HSR Route page.<|endoftext|>|< + +< Prev + +Next > + +>| Cheese + +Title text: Not that there's anything wrong with that. + +Explanation [ edit ] + +Cueball, a scientist, is making a cheeseburger and is asked by another scientist if he finds it delicious. The scientist says he does not like it, and urges him to get the steak instead. Cueball is incredulous at this, saying that is not a regular choice. The scientist corrects him, saying it is a regular choice, and has the steak. +======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== +*This is a sponsored post or sponsored chapter* + +The last few weeks, I have been struggling with how to put the feelings I have towards Naruto into words. + +I don't think there is a single person in the world who doesn't like a good story. I also don't think there is a single person who doesn't want to read more stories of their favorite characters. The problem is, I have no idea how to make a story that has me rooting for Naruto. + +I have no idea how to make a story that has me rooting for Naruto. + +But, if I am honest with myself, I am on the wrong path with this story. + +As a result, I have decided that I will be releasing short chapters of Naruto in the future. + +I felt that I needed to make the most of the time I have to write Naruto, so I decided to release a chapter every other day. + +I hope that you will enjoy the short chapters of Naruto that I have been working on. + +I will try and make more chapters in the future as well. + +Thank you for reading, + +Shino<|endoftext|>From Starbounder - Starbound Wiki + +Ostrich Egg + +Decorative Basic Egg for decorating your home. + +Right-click to eat. + +Ostrich egg is a decorative item used to decorate your home. + +Racial Descriptions + + +Floran : A brown egg. + +Glitch : An ostrich egg. + +Novakid : A brown egg. A favourite of the bird race. + +History Perturbed Koala: Added + +Cheerful Giraffe: Changed unlock from 1 to 3<|endoftext|>What is this? + +This is a simple tool to create a template from a file as a template for a template block. + +It does this by using some Python code that executes the template block, converting it to a simple string, and then recursively calling the template block with the variable name. + +You can find the source here . + +Why is this useful? + +You can now easily create a template without having to write a lot of code and run it through a template generator. + +You can also easily modify a template block after it is created or even create a new template block. + +Installation + +Install via pip: + +pip install template_generator + +Usage + +Simply create a file called template.py : + +Template.py import tg from template_generator import TemplateGenerator tg.create( ' template.py ' ) + +Then, use the from template_generator import TemplateGenerator macro to create a template. + +For example: + +Template.py class MyTemplate ( tg . Template ): @tf.variable ( ' name ' , default = ' Andy ' ) def name ( self ): return " Andy " tg.run(MyTemplate()) + +If you don't want the variable name to be "name", you can either pass in a string, or call self.variable() and the variable name will be used instead.<|endoftext|>We've all been there: we're watching The Walking Dead, and suddenly the zombie horde is upon us. The only thought in our heads is, "How do I escape the horde?" And then, suddenly, a character says, "We can't let the zombies get us. You have to fight back!" + +And that's when we start running. + +It's a simple concept in theory, but as far as zombie survival strategies go, it's an incredibly effective one. You can't win with strategy, and if you can't fight back, you're dead. But here's the thing: zombie survival strategies aren't just about running; they're about being a warrior. + +Advertisement + +Being a warrior means that you're able to fight off the horde and take out not only the zombies, but also the people that are trying to take them down. It means that you're able to protect yourself, your family, and your community. And it means that you're able to inspire others to do the same. + +In many ways, being a warrior means being a leader. It means you're willing to do the tough things, and be the kind of person who makes others feel empowered. + +Advertisement + +Let's talk about the dangers of being a warrior. + +The Warrior Mentality Requires Great Courage + +The warrior mentality is often described as a state in which you have to be willing to do what's hard and risk your own life for the safety and well-being of others. It's a mentality that requires great courage and is often associated with being tough, stoic, and determined. + +Advertisement + +But the truth is, being a warrior is very dangerous. When you're a warrior, you're likely to feel invincible. You're likely to start thinking that you +======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== +Along with the newly released "Verge of War" trailer, Marvel Comics has released a new preview for "Marvel NOW! The Avengers" #1, the Joss Whedon-written one-shot looking at the titular team. The six-page preview, provided by Marvel's CBR, shows the team in action, with the team debuting as the Avengers in the opening pages. + +The team's first encounter with the Inhumans, as well as the formation of the "All-New, All-Different" Avengers, will also be featured in the issue, which will be drawn by the series' regular artist, Damion Scott. The issue is due out on October 14. + +"Marvel NOW! The Avengers" #1 was released as part of Marvel's "All-New, All-Different" relaunch, which also featured the aforementioned "Verge of War" trailer, as well as the series launch of the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men and the "All-New, All-Different" Thor. + +Share On Facebook Tweet Pin It Email<|endoftext|>(CNN) -- A new study suggests that more than 9 million Americans suffer from eating disorders, making the disorder the most prevalent mental illness in the United States. + +In the study, published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers from the University of Southern California and Columbia University found that 8.4 million people had an eating disorder in 2008, accounting for about 5.2% of the U.S. population. + +The researchers said that, across the country, many people are struggling with eating disorders, which are characterized by a pattern of recurrent episodes of eating or weight-related behaviors that results in restrictive weight-control habits and anorexia nervosa. + +Many people with eating disorders have mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorders, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. + +"The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines anorexia nervosa as a severe and persistent pattern of binge eating and other weight-control behaviors that can severely limit a person's ability to function in the world and lead to dangerously small body weight," the association said. + +"Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental illness with a significant impact on a person's life, including increasing risk for suicide, substance abuse and other psychiatric symptoms," it said. "The condition is treatable with a combination of behavioral therapy, psychotherapy and medications." + +The researchers said their study was based on data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. + +The authors noted that the prevalence of eating disorders could vary by state and the country as a whole. + +The authors also noted that because of their size, the numbers used in the study were conservative. + +"For example, we included only people who had been seen by a primary care physician within the past year to capture the majority of eating disorder cases," the authors said. "In addition, our sample is based on a self-selected sample of people who self-selected themselves for the study. This suggested to us that the results of the study are not biased by bias of participants" or "unrepresentative" individuals. + +The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Center for Health Statistics and the National Institute of Mental Health. The authors said they do not have any financial relationships with any organizations sponsoring this research.<|endoftext|>The U.S. was duped into a false war on terror, and now it's paying the price, writes former CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar, who was an Iraq war planner in the George W. Bush administration. + +By Paul R. Pillar + +If you want to learn about the origins of the Iraq war, the United States, and the global war on terror, you cannot go past the September 11, 2001, attacks. Or to put it another way, you cannot go past the CIA's information operations in the aftermath of those attacks. + +The September 11 attacks were the product of an intelligence failure on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA's information operations, which were the most significant part of its prewar intelligence collection, were designed to help President Bush and his national security team prevent attacks on the United States. But they were not designed to capture Osama bin Laden or to establish a "war on terror" that would justify the war in Iraq. Despite having a very good information operation, and despite having the ability to gather and analyze data related to al Qaeda and the global jihad, the CIA was not able to do its job. + +The CIA's intelligence failures that led to the September 11 attacks occurred because the CIA failed to prepare for a huge number of contingency plans. Those contingency plans, of which there were many, were designed by the CIA to respond to a variety of unexpected problems that could have occurred if the agency were not able to gather and analyze as much intelligence as it was able to. + +The catastrophic failure +======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== +Bicycle Helmets 2010 + +The Bicycle Helmet Institute provides information about bicycle helmets and the regulations that apply to them. + +View the most recent version. + +Last revised: August 1, 2018 + +What's new: + +Bicycle helmets: in the USA + +In Canada + +In the UK + +In Australia + +In New Zealand + +In Canada + +In Europe + +In China + +In South Africa + +What is the difference between a bicycle helmet and a bicycle safety helmet? + +A bicycle safety helmet is a safety device fitted to a bicycle that makes it safer to ride. It includes a rigid head shield, a chin strap, an airbag and a built-in air pressure monitor. + +A bicycle helmet is designed to protect your head, not your body. It is not a car seat, ski or motorcycle helmet. + +Which types of bicycle helmets are used in the USA? + +There are three types of bicycle helmets that are used in the USA: + +A CPSC (Cyclist Protection Standard) certified bicycle helmet: CPSC is an international standard for bicycle helmets and helmets for use in motorized cycles. It has been endorsed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is used in the United States by ANSI-accredited bicycle safety program. + +A Snell certified bicycle helmet: Snell is an international standard for bicycle helmets and helmets for use in motorized cycles. Snell is endorsed by the Snell Memorial Foundation and is used in the USA by Snell Memorial. + +A Snell certified helmet that is not approved for use by the Snell Memorial Foundation: Snell Memorial Foundation is an official foundation of the Snell Memorial Foundation, the first and only organization to award an official Snell Memorial Foundation certification to a helmet. + +What is the difference between a motorcycle helmet and a bicycle helmet? + +A motorcycle helmet is designed to protect the head and face from injury caused by a motor vehicle. + +A bicycle helmet is designed to protect the head and face from injury caused by a bicycle. + +Bicycle helmets that are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards are not used in the USA. + +Which helmets are used in the UK? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by UK health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In the UK, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets can I use in Australia? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by Australian health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In Australia, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets can I use in New Zealand? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by New Zealand health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In New Zealand, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets are used in China? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by Chinese health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In China, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets can I use in South Africa? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by South African health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In South Africa, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets can I use in New Zealand? + +There are a number of bicycle helmets that are approved for use by New Zealand health authorities. Some are certified to Snell or Snell Memorial standards. + +In New Zealand, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +In Europe, you are allowed to use a helmet that meets the international standards of either Snell or Snell Memorial. + +Which helmets can I use in China? +======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== +The U.S. Army has recently selected a company to develop a mobile artillery system that would be used by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. The system would consist of a new, modular artillery system that could be adapted to fit the requirements of a variety of different missions. + +The system would be designed to seize or destroy enemy buildings, enemy combatants, or enemy communications. The system would be able to fire in a variety of ways, depending on the mission. + +The system is currently being developed by the company's Airborne Systems Division, a division of Belkin, a company specializing in communications, sensors, and computers. Belkin has an established track record in designing, developing, and manufacturing mobile artillery systems. The company has also successfully developed the system being selected by the U.S. Army, and for use by the United Kingdom. + +In a press release, Belkin says, "The system is not currently designed to engage enemy military objectives, but is designed to provide a mobile fire support capability. Its modular design enables it to be adapted to the mission, and to do so quickly." According to Belkin, the system is intended to be capable of "conducting fire support and intelligence missions, and also can be used in air defense." + +The system will be a joint project between Belkin and the U.S. Army, and will consist of two modular units, the long-range artillery system and the short-range artillery system. The short-range system is intended to be used in a flexible manner, capable of providing protection for friendly forces, or attacking enemy forces. The long-range system is intended to be used for rapid artillery missions, or for fire support of friendly forces in a variety of scenarios. + +The modular design of the system allows it to be adapted to a variety of missions. The first module will be the short-range artillery system, which would consist of a variety of different weapons. The longer-range artillery system is intended to be used in a flexible manner, and has different weapons. + +The system will be able to be quickly deployed, and will be able to provide fire support for multiple units. + +The system will be able to fire weapons capable of firing in a variety of ways, depending on the mission. For example, the system could fire as a rocket launcher, or it could fire an M777 howitzer. The short-range system is designed to destroy enemy communication and communications, while the longer-range system can be used to support friendly troops. + +The system is currently being developed with a $150 million contract awarded by the U.S. Army. + +The U.S. Army has been looking into the mobile artillery capabilities of the gas-propelled artillery system for some time. A previous system, the M777 howitzer, was designed to be mobile, but it was not as successful as originally thought. The Army was looking for a new system to replace the M777. + +The new system will be developed by the Belkin company, and will be used by the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army has ordered a 10-year contract, and the system will be deployed in 2018. + +Related articles<|endoftext|>In an effort to prevent the controversial move from being made at the last minute, the Senate has approved a bill that would ban the state from taking any action that would weaken the new law. + +Senate Bill 2060, sponsored by Sen. Stephen Fink, R-Hart, will also require that any changes to the law be made as part of a multi-year legislative process. + +The legislation also requires the state to continue to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples. + +Until now, only the Colorado Civil Rights Division had the authority to allow the state to withhold a marriage license from a gay couple. The division can grant the license on a case-by-case basis, but it can only do so if the couple agrees. + +The new law, which took effect Dec. 31, gives the state attorney general the power to deny a marriage license to a lesbian couple for any reason, including a complaint that they are unfit parents or have a history of domestic violence. + +That power could be used to deny a license to a same-sex couple if the state attorney general determines that the couple is a danger to themselves or others, a domestic violence survivor, or the child of the couple if the couple is confined to a nursing home or hospital. + +Although the law does not define "genetic material," the bill says it applies to "the genetic material from a human being that is derived from DNA." + +The bill also includes a list of exceptions to the ban on same-sex marriage. + +Those include if a couple gives birth to a child together and the child is adopted by a same-sex couple. + +The bill also contains a list of reasons a marriage license cannot be denied, including if the couple has had a +======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== +3 min read + +The following chart shows the electoral college votes for the various parties according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The chart shows the electoral college votes for the Republican Party based on the current U.S. population of 323 million. This is the current count, not the total number of electoral college votes. + +The chart shows the electoral college votes for the Democratic Party based on the current U.S. population of 323 million. This is the current count, not the total number of electoral college votes.<|endoftext|>In the wake of the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, the president of the United States has made some very strong statements. Perhaps the most important of these is: "There is blame on both sides." + +Certainly, this is a more nuanced statement than the one made by the president himself. While he did not explicitly say that there was blame on both sides, he did say that there was blame on "many sides," implying that there is responsibility on both sides. + +But this is a slippery slope. In fact, the idea that there is only one side to blame is a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening on the ground. + +Take this blog post from an anonymous Charlottesville resident: + +To believe that the racist groups and the anti-racist groups are equivalent is to believe that the KKK is equivalent to the civil rights movement. The KKK was founded to oppose the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement was founded to oppose the KKK. + +The same can be said of the Charlottesville protest. The protest was not about removing a statue of Robert E. Lee. It was about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of hundreds of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the Ku Klux Klan. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the neo-Nazi group. The protesters were not trying to stop a march by neo-Nazi groups. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protests were not about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. The protest was about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the neo-Nazi group. The protesters were not trying to stop a march by neo-Nazi groups. + +The protests were not about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. The protest was about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the neo-Nazi group. The protesters were not trying to stop a march by Neo-Nazi groups. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the neo-Nazi group. The protesters were not trying to stop a march by neo-Nazi groups. + +The protesters were not trying to stop any of these groups. They were trying to stop the march of Nazis. These groups are not the same. They are not equivalent. They are not equal. + +The protests were about removing a statue of a Confederate soldier. Again, the protesters were not trying to stop the march of Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by Neo-Nazis. + +The protesters were not trying to stop the march of Neo-Nazis. The protesters were not trying to stop the march of white supremacists. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally by the KKK. The protesters were not trying to stop a rally +======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== +(Photo: Flickr/Roberto de Filippi) + +When it comes to the use of medical marijuana, the United States is still in uncharted waters. + +The FDA's approval of medical marijuana in 1996, the first such authorization in the country, gave the green light for states to begin implementing their own medical marijuana programs. Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon have already passed laws allowing the use of medical marijuana in the state. + +It was in 1996 that the first federal law was passed, making it a crime to possess marijuana (or its derivatives) without a prescription. That law has since been amended multiple times, with each amendment giving more protections to patients and providers. The latest version of the law, known as the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) Act, was signed into law by President Barack Obama in October. + +While marijuana remains illegal under federal law, the federal government has said that it will not interfere with states that have legalized marijuana. + +The states have also had to contend with a difference in federal law. + +The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which oversees the manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs, allows for medical marijuana use. But the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 also forbids any pharmacists from selling the drug. So most marijuana is dispensed in pharmacies, and all marijuana must be obtained through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is responsible for monitoring marijuana distribution. + +"The federal law is very clear that it's illegal to sell marijuana directly to someone," said Brian Vicente, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, an organization that has lobbied to expand marijuana law reform in the states. "The problem is, it's very difficult for a Licensed Marijuana Dispensary to get into the business. If the state allows it, it will allow the dispensing of medical marijuana, and the federal government can't stop that." + +"There's a weakness in the law," Vicente added. "If you have a dispensary and a state says you're a dispensary, you can't sell to someone who is not a medical marijuana patient. It's a law that's not enforced and that's why you have so many dispensaries with no business." + +A medical marijuana dispensary in Denver. (Photo: Flickr/Ryan J. Reilly) + +The DEA's enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act has been far less strict than the FDA's. Recently, the DEA began issuing warnings to dispensaries in Colorado for committing crimes, including the sale of marijuana to people who are not registered medical marijuana users. + +"There are a lot of loopholes in the law, and I think that's why the DEA is concerned," Vicente said. + +One of the loopholes is that the Controlled Substances Act allows doctors to prescribe controlled substances to patients if the prescription is issued by a physician with a legitimate reason to believe that the patient has a debilitating disease or condition. That's a loophole that has been exploited by dispensaries, which have been allowed to prescribe marijuana and other drugs to patients with legitimate medical conditions. + +"A lot of these people are suffering from a serious illness, and they're not getting the proper treatment for that," Vicente said. "The law does not allow the FDA to come in and say, 'You can't sell this' or 'You can't give this to these patients.'" + +To make matters worse, the FDA's approval of marijuana in 1996 when it was still illegal also created a loophole that has been exploited by companies that are no longer producing the drug. + +"The whole reason that cannabis was put on Schedule I was to prevent it from entering into the marketplace," Vicente said. "But what they don't realize is that there are a lot of companies that have grown and are producing it that are not on Schedule I." + +In 1996, the DEA placed marijuana on Schedule I, meaning that it is not considered safe and effective and has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. This means that there are no regulations requiring that marijuana be tested and regulated for safety and efficacy. + +Vicente said that the DEA's policy of not regulating marijuana creates an environment that is ripe for abuse, and that has led to a proliferation of dispensaries that don't adhere to the same safety standards as other businesses. + +"The DEA has no authority to police it," he said. "If they did, it would bring a lot of problems." + +The fact that marijuana is scheduled in the first place has led to a number of lawsuits filed by patients and medical marijuana providers. In one of the more notable recent cases, a federal judge in California ordered the DEA to reclassify the drug. The judge said that marijuana has been proven to be medically beneficial, and thus should be classified as a Schedule III drug, which means it would be subject to more rigorous regulation. + +A similar case was filed in Maryland by a group of medical marijuana patients. In that case, a federal +======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== +Story highlights "I'm not a politician," Trump said + +Trump said he would have released his tax returns if he were running for president + +Washington (CNN) Donald Trump said Wednesday that he's not a politician and argued that he's too smart to release his tax returns. + +"I'm not a politician. I'm not going to release my tax returns until, maybe, the audit is finished, but I'm not going to do it until the audit is finished," Trump said at a news conference in Washington. + +Trump has insisted that he will not release his returns because he is under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. + +Earlier Wednesday, a CNNMoney analysis found that Trump could have paid up to $38 million in taxes on income of up to $150 million over the past 15 years. + +Trump also tried to answer a question about his personal finances during the press conference. + +Read More<|endoftext|>You will require an external device to run this application. The device should be connected to your computer via USB. + +*Please only use this application with Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7. Windows 8 is not supported. + + +Features: + +- You can customize the timing of the game by using the buttons to control the timing of the game. + +- You can adjust the speed of the game by using the buttons. + +- You can visualize the timing of the game on the screen by displaying the timing with your mouse.<|endoftext|>Kathleen Wynne is promising to spend $15-million this year to pay for a new union, and to negotiate a new contract for the province's public sector workers. + +The Progressive Conservative leader says the money, which the Liberals say will come from the province's deficit, will be used to win a new contract and for the creation of a new union. + +Wynne has said she wants to avoid the kind of bitter dispute that was sparked by the government's 2012 decision to cut the provincial pension plan. + +"We will not stand idly by and let a union break the law or come to an impasse with the government," Wynne said Wednesday. + +The province has already spent about $200-million on contracts for the province's public sector workers, and Wynne said she wants to avoid another protracted dispute. + +Moreover, she criticized the Liberals for a decision in February to cap the maximum amount of sick leave a worker can take at 26 days. + +"Cutting the maximum work week to 26 hours is a decision that is causing real pain to people in this province," Wynne said. + +Wynne said the Liberals also want to negotiate a new contract for the province's 10,000 police officers and Crown prosecutors. + +"We will not stand idly by and let a union break the law or come to an impasse with the government." + +The Liberals have already started bargaining with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. + +There are currently 1,500 government workers who are members of the OPEU. + +The Liberals have not said how much they're willing to spend on the new union, but Wynne said they'll be "honest" about what they want to negotiate. + +"We are putting home a proposal that is fair to the community, fair to the public service and fair to the public sector," Wynne said.<|endoftext|>Image copyright AFP Image caption The death toll has risen to 29 + +The death toll from a landslide in northern Thailand has risen to 29, officials say. + +The landslide, in a remote area of Narathiwat province, is believed to have been triggered by heavy rain in recent days. + +The landslide is near a water reservoir but it is not clear if the reservoir was affected. + +The landslide is the latest in a series of massive landslides in Thailand's northern areas. + +Image copyright AFP Image caption Rescue workers have been trying to reach the area since the landslide + +Image copyright AFP Image caption Water on the slopes of the mountain has been flowing into the reservoir + +The landslide happened in a remote area of Narathiwat, where local villagers live close to a water reservoir. + +"The landslide has pushed a mound of dirt and mud down, burying people who were trying to dig it out," Narathiwat deputy chief of police Preecha Achara told the BBC. + +One teenager was found dead on Saturday, but it is not known if he was buried by mud, officials said. + +"Our search team has found at least 28 bodies so far," said Narathiwat deputy chief of police Preecha Achara. + +The landslide happened in a mountainous area of a remote part of the province, near the village of Khorat. + +Thai officials said the area had not been hit by major floods in recent years, and that the landslide was not related to the annual floods. + +Image copyright AFP Image caption The area was hit by heavy rain in recent days +======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== +Robocaptured by a giant sea monster, you are a young boy who is sent on a perilous journey to a mysterious island. There, you must find the legendary kidnapped Princess Inara, and return her to her Prince. To do this, you must navigate treacherous waters, fight deadly creatures, and even battle for the fate of the world. In the end, you must save the world. + +This is our second title for Kickstarter, and we're really excited to be able to bring it to life! We've already been working on the game for over a year, and have the best team of developers we could ever dream of. They've been working hard to make the game as awesome as it can be. + +We have worked with our manufacturer and are ready to get the game into your hands. With your help, this game can be made! + +Thank you for your help!<|endoftext|>The government of Canada is preparing to introduce legislation that would make it illegal for anyone to use a cellphone while driving. The proposed law would be the first to deal with the widespread problem of distracted driving. + +Health Minister Jane Philpott says she's confident the law will be passed in time for summer driving season, which begins later this month. + +"We do believe that it is a very serious problem and we have to do something. It's just not acceptable for anyone to be distracting while driving," Philpott said Monday at a news conference in Ottawa. + +Drivers who want to use a cellphone while driving have to keep their hands on the steering wheel or the brake pedals and remain within a phone's range of hearing and sight. + +"We are providing that protection to drivers in this country, and I'm very confident that we will get this change through," said Philpott. + +Similar legislation has been introduced in other countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. + +Some provinces have introduced their own laws, but the proposed federal law would be the first to deal with the widespread problem of distracted driving. (CBC) + +The proposed legislation would allow police to seize smartphones from drivers who have been caught using them. + +Philpott says the government is also prepared to introduce a separate law to deal with drivers who fail to provide proof of insurance or are caught driving with a suspended licence, a charge that can carry a fine of up to $250. + +"We're also making sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure that anyone who is caught using a cellphone while driving is assessed by the courts," she said. + +'Not alone' + +Tina MacKinnon, director of communications for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, welcomed the new legislation. + +"I think we're all concerned and I think it's a great idea," she said. + +"It's something that's more common than we think. When you're on the road and the cellphone is in your hand, it's easy to use it and it's a lot harder to stop." + +In Canada, there are an estimated 95 deaths each year and roughly 33,000 injuries due to distracted driving. + +The proposed federal law would be the first to deal with the widespread problem of distracted driving, which is now being called a public health problem. (CBC) "I think it's a great idea," said MacKinnon, who also uses a cellphone while driving. + +"I haven't used a cellphone in two years, but I can imagine that someone I know, someone I work with, a family member, someone I know, maybe a friend or a colleague — I can imagine that this is something that they do." + +MADD Canada has been lobbying the government for years to make it illegal to text and drive. + +"It's so easy to do and it's so dangerous," MacKinnon said. "People don't recognize the dangers that they're putting themselves in, so we're worried about it and we're going to make sure that this isn't allowed." + +The proposed federal law would be the first to deal with distracted driving. + +The legislation, which has been referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, intends to include the use of hand-held electronic devices by drivers who are not otherwise impaired. + +It also would include "any other form of wireless communications device" that may distract drivers, such as Bluetooth headsets, iPods or other Bluetooth-enabled devices, as well as GPS devices or "any other device that may cause the driver to break concentration."<|endoftext|>BANGALORE: The Karnataka government has started a programme to make all government schools double the standard of teaching, which will help in gender parity in the profession. The state is also planning to establish a center to study the difference in the teaching standards between urban and rural areas.The programme, called 'Teach for Change', will implement the 'Teach for India' programme and will help in reducing the gender gap in education. +======================================== SAMPLE 133 ======================================== +How to Make It + +Step 1 Combine ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, or up to 7 days. + +Step 2 Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add oil, and stir to combine. + +Step 3 Whisk in milk, and then vanilla. Pour batter into a greased 8 1/2-by-1-inch loaf pan. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.<|endoftext|>At the end of the year, a new version of the Windows operating system will be released. So, what's new in Windows 10? + +See also: How to Configure the Windows 10 Privacy Settings + +For starters, Windows 10 has a brand-new interface with a new Start menu and new Windows Store apps. These new Windows 10 features let you set the location where you want to save your files. You can also set a reminder for this location, so that when you arrive at it, you'll be able to save your files there. + +Windows 10 has a brand new interface with a new Start menu and new Windows Store apps. + +Additionally, your Windows 10 PC will be able to read your emails and calendar appointments. Windows 10 also allows you to use Cortana to set reminders, read emails, and to share photos and other files with your Windows 10 PC. + +Windows 10 has a new lock screen design with an updated look and feel. The lock screen shows you your Windows 10 PC's current wallpaper and the time. You can change the wallpaper and time as well. + +Another new feature introduced in Windows 10 is the ability to send a task to a Windows 10 PC from another Windows 10 PC. For example, you could send a task to your Windows 10 PC by using its Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. + +Windows 10 has a new lock screen design with an updated look and feel. + +Windows 10 also has a new feature called Wi-Fi Sense. This feature lets you automatically connect to the most reliable Wi-Fi network when you connect to a new one. This feature also lets you automatically connect to Wi-Fi when your PC is idle. + +Windows 10 has updated features for the Xbox One controller. This includes improvements to the Xbox One's Bluetooth support and a redesigned Xbox One controller in the Xbox One's dashboard. + +Lastly, Windows 10 has new features for a new user. For example, it sets up your PC for you so that you can make changes to your PC and then immediately see those changes reflected on your PC's screen. + +You can download Windows 10 at the Windows 10 website. The PC version of the operating system is free, but you can upgrade to Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro.<|endoftext|>The most disturbing part of the story is that the cops arrested "the wrong guy" + +It was a Wednesday morning in March, and a man named Jerome Corsi was working as a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford. He had been invited to speak at the university's Hoover Institution on the topic of "The Great Challenge of Our Time." + +"I had been invited to speak to the Hoover Institution on the topic of the Great Challenge of Our Time," Corsi told TIME, "and to the Hoover Institute and Stanford University for that matter have been trying to get me to do this for the past nine months." + +Corsi was checking in from San Francisco when he received a call from the university. He was told to come to the Hoover Institution's office at 6:40 a.m. He was arrested for trespassing. + +"It was just one of those things that happened," he said of the arrest. "It was just one of those things that happens." + +Corsi, a former Hoover Institution fellow, was released after a few hours. + +The next day, he filed a federal lawsuit accusing the university of violating his civil rights. + +"When the Hoover Institution is not free to speak as it wishes, it harms students' rights to free expression and research," the lawsuit reads. "Moreover, the Hoover Institution's conduct represents an egregious violation of the First Amendment." + +The suit also claims that the university failed to investigate Corsi's allegations about a former employee who provided him with a copy of a confidential document. + +The university had not responded to requests for comment by TIME when the suit was filed. + +Corsi says he was not given a chance to question the person who brought him to the university's office. + +"I was denied the opportunity to ask any questions about the person who was in charge of the department that Boren was in," Corsi told TIME. + +In a statement to TIME, the university said that it had not been served with the lawsuit and its lawyers were reviewing it. + +"The University of California is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer," the statement reads. "Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is a violation +======================================== SAMPLE 134 ======================================== +This is a week of big news for the NHL's new collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players' Association. + +The first big news is that the NHL and NHLPA have reached agreement on the composition of the 30-man roster. The NHLPA has agreed to a similar deal, one that puts the Players' Association in a better position to negotiate a new CBA with the NHL. + +The second big news is that the NHL and NHLPA have reached agreement on a new CBA. + +The NHL, the NHL Players' Association and the NHL-NHLPA Central Registry have agreed to a new CBA for the 2016-17 season. + +The agreement includes a number of key issues that will impact all 30 NHL teams and the players who represent them. + +Here is a breakdown of some of the key provisions: + +The salary cap will increase by $3.0 million each season through 2020-21. + +The maximum number of players each team can sign to a contract will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players each team can acquire from other teams through free agency will be increased from 28 to 29. + +The maximum number of players each team can receive from other teams through the expansion draft will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players each team can retain from the previous season's roster will be reduced from 40 to 37. + +The NHL will have the ability to impose a salary cap upon a team in the event of a breach of contract by its players. + +The salary cap will be increased from $64 million in 2015-16 to $73 million in 2016-17. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. + +The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will be increased from 23 to 24. The maximum number of players per team will +======================================== SAMPLE 135 ======================================== +As the cost of living rises, the demand for online courses has grown. The number of long-term online students has grown by a third over the past two years, according to the ITU. + +In the US, the number of long-term students has more than doubled in the last year, says the ITU, with the number of international students also increasing. + +"The demand for online education is growing, and the industry is starting to find ways to reduce the costs," says Torsten Stoeckle, the ITU's head of business services and information. + +"A good example is the growing number of short courses, where students can complete their courses in a couple of weeks, without the need for a degree," he told the BBC. + +The ITU says that the number of students enrolled in courses has grown by 29% in the past year. + +Related story: Online courses: what are they good for? + +The organisation estimates that the US alone has more than 50,000 students in long-term courses, a number expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. + +"The US is the largest market for online education," says Mr Stoeckle, "but there are also many other countries where this type of education is seen as an option." + +International students + +In the US alone, there are over one million international students, according to the ITU. + +One-quarter of these students are studying in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, but the most popular courses are in the humanities and social sciences. + +Globalisation and changing demographics are also driving the demand, says Mr Stoeckle: "The number of people in their 20s and beyond studying in the US is also increasing, and some of these students are switching to studies in other countries." + +More than half of the students in STEM courses are studying in the US, while the rest are concentrated in Europe, Asia and Australia. + +"These students are interested in pursuing a career outside the US, and this is also an important factor in the growth of online education," says Mr Stoeckle. + +Related story: Online courses: what are they good for? + +The number of students studying in the humanities and social sciences increased by 43% in the last year, according to the ITU. + +"This is a result of the changing demographics of the population in the US," says Mr Stoeckle. + +"The number of people aged between 20 and 39 has increased by 150% over the past 20 years, while the number of students aged between and 60 has increased by 120%." + +Despite this, the number of students studying in the humanities and social sciences has still not kept pace with the number of students studying in the STEM disciplines. + +"There are many people in the US who want to learn a trade or a skill for their future, so they are choosing to study in these disciplines, but there is still a long way to go," says Mr Stoeckle. + +The ITU says that there are now more students studying in the humanities and social sciences than there are in the STEM disciplines. + +The number of students studying in the STEM disciplines was estimated to be just under 800,000 in 2013, but the ITU says that figure is expected to rise to 2.6 million students by 2021. + +"The growth of online education will be a key factor in reducing the cost of education," says Mr Stoeckle.<|endoftext|>Twitter is a great place to keep up with everything that's happening in the world. It's where you can stay up to date with the latest news and updates, the day's trending topics, and more. It's also where you can use the platform to share your opinion on issues like racism and sexism. + +One of the most controversial topics to come up in the past few months on Twitter has been the #Gamergate controversy. That is, the movement started by a few disgruntled game developers who are concerned about the portrayal of women in video games. + +Before we get to the reasons why people hate #Gamergate, we have to understand a few things about the people involved in the movement. The people behind #Gamergate are a group of hardcore gamers who dislike the way that modern video games portray women. That's right, #Gamergate is a group of gamers who feel that video games are sexist. They believe that games have become so sexist that they are not even fun anymore. Some of the criticisms leveled at video games are that there are too many female characters, that they are too sexualized, and that they are too overly sexualized. + +In other words, #Gamergate is a group of people who are upset that they feel that video games are getting too sexualized. + +Other people who have taken part in the harassment of women in the video games industry are several people with a specific viewpoint who refer to their actions +======================================== SAMPLE 136 ======================================== +The newly-established French suburb of Avignon is gaining a reputation for emergency response. + +After the Paris attacks last November, the French government offered to build a new suburb just 300 metres from the city centre to house the victims and their emergency services. + +Avignon, which has a population of about 7,500, has already become a source of controversy. + +The government has faced a barrage of criticism for the lack of green space in the suburb, as well as for excessive police presence and controversial planning. + +Now, the government has announced plans to make Avignon even more secure. + +The government has announced plans to build an underground tunnel under the city centre, connecting the city to Avignon, which will allow the police and fire services to work 24/7, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. + +The tunnel is expected to cost around €60 million (£54 million). + +The government says the tunnel will help the police to better respond to emergencies. + +However, Avignon residents have raised concerns over the amount of traffic that will be created by the tunnel. + +So far some residents are concerned that the tunnel will cause traffic jams and slow down traffic. + +The tunnel is expected to be finished by 2020.<|endoftext|>The number of people in the UK who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease has risen by almost a quarter in three years, new figures show. + +The number of people diagnosed with dementia has trebled over the past six years, with the number of people with dementia expected to top one million by 2050. + +The latest figures show that 6.3 per cent of adults in the UK have been diagnosed with dementia – up from 3.6 per cent in 2010. + +Around 41,000 people in England are now living with dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Society. + +Of these, 1.6 million people are living with the condition in the UK – a rise of 400,000 since 2010. + +Alzheimer's disease, which affects around five in every 100 people, is the most common form of dementia. + +It is estimated that around 4.2 million people in the UK will develop dementia in their lifetime – with the figure expected to rise to one million by 2050. + +Experts say the number of elderly people diagnosed with mental health conditions is also increasing. + +Alzheimer's UK's chief executive, Dr Philip Sinclair, said: "While the UK population is ageing, the number of people with dementia is increasing. + +"The number of people living with mental health conditions is also increasing." + +He added that dementia affects a wide range of people in all age groups. + +"There's no single cause of dementia, but genetic and environmental factors are likely to play a part," he said. + +"Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia in the UK, so it's important to get early diagnosis and support for people who are at risk of developing the condition." + +The Alzheimer's Society said the figures show the need for increased efforts to promote better understanding of dementia and its impact on individuals and families. + +Dementia UK chief executive, Polly Neate, said: "These figures make clear that more needs to be done to raise awareness of this disease, and to better understand its impact on people and communities." + +Dementia UK also has a pledge to end dementia by 2050, and an earlier diagnosis and treatment for people who are at risk of developing dementia. + +The charity said that by 2050, one in every two people in the UK will have dementia and more than half of people with dementia will have Alzheimer's. + +Dementia UK's pledge to end dementia by 2050, and an earlier diagnosis and treatment for people who are at risk of developing dementia, is set out in the campaign.<|endoftext|>Posted on by steveblank + +There are some things that happen in life that are just so surprising, you probably don't know how they happened… and then, once you know, you wonder how you ever lived without them. They're like the ultimate, life-changing surprises. + +But these are some of the most unbelievable things that happen for at least one of these people in a single day. + +1) Michael Jackson's Arrest + +Michael Jackson was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on December 23rd, 1978 during an investigation into allegations of underage prostitution and drug possession. The police found a large amount of marijuana in his home and a large amount of cocaine. He was taken to jail and then released on $50,000 bail. + +2) The Roman Polanski and Roman Polanski Film + +The Roman Polanski film, Rosemary's Baby, is a cult classic of the horror genre. It was the basis for a television movie, Rosemary's Baby, starring Sharon Tate, and the film was also the basis for a graphic novel, and several other films. + +In the film +======================================== SAMPLE 137 ======================================== +"I think it's kinda like, 'oh, he's on a college football team. He's going to be a great quarterback and I'm going to be a great quarterback. We're going to get these guys together and we're going to do this.'" + +Randy Edsall + +Edsall: "I don't think in terms of a timetable, but it's part of the plan." + +Edsall: "I think they're both very confident, but I don't think they have to be. I think Coach Gruden is the one who's got to make the decisions." + +Edsall: "I don't think it's been a secret that the quarterback position is the No. 1 need and I think they feel they have a good quarterback." + +Edsall: "I think Gus is a good coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "If there's a chance in the future, he'll be a head coach of our team." + +Edsall: "I don't think Gus is going anywhere, but I think he would be a great candidate for a head coaching job." + +Edsall: "I think Gus is a great coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think he's a good coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think he's a good coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think he's a good coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think he's a good coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "It's up to him. I think everybody in this room has to go out and recruit and make sure we have the best team possible. I think [Gus] is a great coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think the guy has a lot of college experience. I think Gus is a great coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he'd be a great candidate to be a head coach of our team. I think he's a good man." + +Edsall: "I think the guy has a lot of college experience. I think Gus is a great coach. I think he's been around a long time. I think he's a good coach. His track record speaks for itself. I think he wants to coach in the NFL. I think he +======================================== SAMPLE 138 ======================================== +Clouds + +Precipitation + +Sun + +Humidity + +Wind + +Growing Season + +Solar Energy + +Topography + +For the purposes of this report, the geographical coordinates of Clermont are 41.925 deg latitude, -81.162 deg longitude, and 7,829 ft elevation. The topography within 2 miles of Clermont contains only modest variations in elevation, with a maximum elevation change of 1,853 feet and an average elevation above sea level of 7,829 feet. Within 10 miles contains only modest variations in elevation (3,144 feet). Within 50 miles also contains only modest variations in elevation (3,891 feet). The area within 2 miles of Clermont is covered by artificial surfaces (85%), within 10 miles by cropland (48%) and artificial surfaces (20%), and within 50 miles by cropland (40%) and trees (33%). + +Data Sources<|endoftext|>The mission of the University of Arizona�s School of Animal Sciences is to develop and implement innovative, proven, and sustainable approaches to animal care, science education, and research. + +The faculty and other faculty members have pioneered research in a variety of areas, including environmental and behavioral sciences, veterinary medicine, veterinary science, and wildlife conservation. + +The School of Animal Science is a leader in the development of �humane� companion animal care. The School produces state-of-the-art facilities that accommodate the behavior of companion animals and also trains and supports the veterinary care of companion animals. The School�s educational programs provide college credits in animal science, environmental science, veterinary medicine, and other disciplines. The School�s research program focuses on improving the welfare of companion animals and the environment. The School�s environmental program is focused on the preservation and restoration of natural habitats. + +The School of Animal Science is one of the few schools in the nation that is accredited by the Council on Animal Science for veterinary and environmental sciences.<|endoftext|>This page lists all the series and movies that have been created specifically for the Playstation Vita. + +Contents show] + +Legacy Edit + +The following series have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, Playstation Portable, PlayStation 3, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +Animation Series Edit + +All the following series have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +Anime Edit + +Film Series Edit + +All the following films have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PS4 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PSP Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS Vita Games Edit + +Games Edit + +The following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +The following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PSP Games Edit + +All the following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PSX Games Edit + +The following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PS3 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS4 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +The following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PS2 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS3 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PSX Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS4 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PSX Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS3 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PS4 Games Edit + +Games Edit + +PSX Games Edit + +Games Edit + +The following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +For the Playstation Vita games that have been released on a Game Boy Advance: + +All the following games have been released on a handheld console or game system that was not the PlayStation Vita (including the PSP, PSP Pro, PSP2, and the PlayStation Vita TV): + +PC Games Edit + +Games Edit + +See Also Edit<|endoftext|>KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - +======================================== SAMPLE 139 ======================================== +Housing + +The housing market in the United States is a complex and dynamic system. The most important aspects of housing are the supply and demand for housing, the structure of housing, and the characteristics of the individual housing unit. The housing market is governed by a number of interrelated factors including land use regulations, the supply of land, the demand for housing, and the structure of housing. These factors, in turn, are influenced by the overall economic and financial status of the nation. + +The Residential Construction Industry + +The residential construction industry in the United States is primarily based on the construction of single family detached homes. The industry is largely comprised of homeowners who are facing a decreased demand for single family homes due to the fact that the housing market is saturated. The supply of housing units is an important factor influencing the housing market as more housing units are typically required to support a higher demand for housing. + +The Housing Market, Demand and Supply + +The United States has seen an increase in the number of households since the mid-1990s. The number of households has increased by approximately 6.3 percent per year over the last three decades, and by approximately 20 percent per year over the last ten years. In the mid-1990s, the housing market was experiencing a boom in home sales. The real estate industry experienced a surge in the number of transactions in the early 1990s, and the number of sales increased steadily throughout the 1990s. During the early part of the 2000s, the housing market experienced a sharp slowdown, as home sales and the construction of single family homes were both at a near-record low for the time period. Consequently, the housing market had a difficult time recovering from the downturn in the early 2000s. + +In the past 25 years, there has been a noticeable decrease in the number of single family homes sold in the United States. However, the number of single family homes sold has been steadily increasing since the mid-1990s. During the early 2000s, the number of single family homes sold was on par with the number of single family homes sold in the early 1990s, but by the end of the decade, the number of single family homes sold was over 20 percent lower than the number of single family homes sold in the mid 1990s. + +In 2012, there were approximately 2.7 million single family home sales in the United States. The home ownership rate was approximately 64 percent at the end of 2012, and the median home value was approximately $211,000. + +The demand for housing is the key driver of the housing market. As demand for housing increases, the availability of housing decreases, leading to a decrease in the housing supply. The housing supply is affected by several factors including construction and demolition activity, and other factors including the availability and cost of land. + +Land Use Regulation + +Land use regulation is a key factor in the housing market as it regulates the construction of new residential and commercial structures. Land use regulation is a complex and dynamic regulatory system that regulates land use throughout the United States. Land use regulation is divided into four major types: + +Zoning + +Municipal land use planning + +State-level land use planning + +Coordination of state and local governments + +Zoning + +The zoning system is divided into four major groups: + +Neighborhood planning + +Urban renewal + +Cities and towns + +Community planning + +The zoning system is divided into two main groups, general and special. General zoning is a land-use regulation that governs the whole of the area of the area of land in the area of land. Special zoning is a land-use regulation that regulates a specific parcel or a specific area of land. General zoning is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Special zoning is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). + +Municipal Land Use Planning + +Municipal land use planning is a basic land-use regulation that governs the entire municipal area of the area of land. Municipalities are responsible for the zoning of municipal land use planning areas. Municipalities are also required to establish and enforce land use regulations. The land-use planning process in municipalities differs from the land use planning process in county or state government. + +State-level Land Use Planning + +State-level land use planning is a land-use regulation that governs a specific parcel of land within a specific boundaries of a state. The land use planning process in a state differs from the land use planning process in a county or state government. + +Coordination of State and Local Governments + +Coordination of state and local governments is a land-use regulation that governs the coordination of land use regulations within a state. State governments have the most authority in implementing land use regulations and are responsible for regulating the entire area of land within their boundaries. State governments are responsible for determining the zoning and planning regulations for state-wide land use planning areas. State governments are also responsible for the coordination of land use regulations within their +======================================== SAMPLE 140 ======================================== +I'm a massive fan of the Uncharted series. I've spent more time playing Uncharted games than probably anyone else. And I'm glad I did. + +The Uncharted series is unique. Not just in the way it has a consistent story, but in the way it manages to be both entertaining and challenging at the same time. + +The Uncharted series is so good because it manages to balance out the tension between tight action and great storytelling. + +The series never fools around when it comes to challenge. In each Uncharted game, it takes you on an adventure that is both thrilling and challenging. + +In Uncharted 2, there's a huge open world to explore. You can go anywhere, do anything, and meet anyone. + +But the action in the game is never overbearing. It's always at a manageable level. + +The action in Uncharted 3 is even more intense. You're constantly on the defensive, constantly trying to avoid being knocked down. + +But there's always a way out. If you can keep your cool, you can keep your life. + +And the story is incredibly engaging. Every time you see a new character, you're taken back to that moment in your life when you first met them. + +The games have some of the best and most memorable moments of their entire series. And the best part is that it doesn't feel like a chore to play them. + +While there are some games that are just better at the game of Uncharted, there's no reason to think that Uncharted is any less fun than any other Uncharted game. + +But my favorite part of the Uncharted series is something that nobody talks about. + +The core gameplay. + + Uncharted games are all about the gameplay. + +The Uncharted games have beautiful art. The games are filled with gadgets and gadgets. The games are filled with weapons and weapons. Every level is filled with knuckle-busting action. + +But the gameplay is what makes Uncharted so fun. + +With every Uncharted game, you're constantly challenged to do something new. + +There are no incremental upgrades in Uncharted. There are no upgrades to your weapons or your gadgets. + +You can earn new weapons and gadgets by completing levels. + +You can earn new gadgets and weapons by earning XP. + +You can earn XP by completing levels. And you can earn XP by doing everything in the game. + +Every level is filled with tons of things to do. And every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +The Uncharted games are filled with tons of things to do. And every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +And while the gameplay is the main draw of Uncharted games, the story is just as important. + +The Uncharted series is filled with incredible characters. They're all amazing. They're all interesting. And they all have their own personal stories to tell. + +But one of my favorite characters is Nadine Ross. She's amazing. And she's tragic. + +Nadine Ross is the type of character that I'd love to see in every game that is created. + +Her character is so complex. Her story is so compelling. And it's so easy to get behind her. + +Nadine Ross is the type of character that I'd love to see in every game that is created. + +The Uncharted series has one of the most imbalanced skill systems out there. + +The game has dozens of guns, grenades, and gadgets. + +But almost every single weapon is the same. Almost every gadget is the same. + +You can't pick up a gun or a gadget and be surprised by the way it works. Every weapon and every gadget is the same. + +And that's a problem. + +It's a problem because it's so easy to get bored of the gameplay. It's so easy to get bored of the weapons and the gadgets. + +The Uncharted games is filled with tons of things to do. But almost every single level is the same. Almost every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +The Uncharted games has tons of things to do. But almost every single level is the same. Almost every level is filled with tons of stuff to see. + +But the gameplay is what makes Uncharted games so fun. + +And I want to see the gameplay in every game that's made. + +The Uncharted games are filled with tons of things to do. But almost every single level is the same. Almost every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +The Uncharted games has tons of things to do. But almost every single level is the same. Almost every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +The Uncharted games has tons of things to do. But almost every single level is the same. Almost every level is filled with tons of things to see. + +But the gameplay is what makes Uncharted games so fun. + +And I want to +======================================== SAMPLE 141 ======================================== +Who knew that a pie could be so delicious? This rich and delicious dairy-free pie is loaded with breakfast favorites and then topped with a light, whipped cream topping. It's so easy to make, you'll be making this one again and again! + +We made this pie for our Thanksgiving feast and everyone loved it. The crust was delicious and the filling was rich and creamy. It's perfect for a holiday meal, but it's equally great anytime! + +I've had pie before, but this is definitely my favorite. I love the rich, creamy filling and the light whipped cream topping. The pie crust is also buttery and crispy. It's super easy to make, you can make it ahead of time and then keep it refrigerated. It doesn't get easier than that. 🙂 + +This pie is honestly one of the best meals you can have for breakfast. I love breakfast, and when we have a big breakfast we usually have a little bit of everything. This is always a hit! + +Here's What You Need: + +1 13-oz can coconut milk + +1 cup applesauce + +1/2 cup soy milk + +3/4 cup rolled oats + +1 1/4 cup rolled oats + +3/4 cup chopped pecans + +1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla + +1/3 cup tahini + +1/3 cup coconut oil + +2-4 tablespoons maple syrup + +2 tablespoons agave nectar + +1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice + +1/3 cup vegan butter + +1/3 cup your favorite vegan buttery spread + +6 oz anti-freeze (optional) + +1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. + +2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and non-dairy milk. Add the apple mixture and whisk until combined. Add the coconut milk mixture and whisk until combined. + +3. In a medium bowl, mix together the oats, pecans, and vanilla until combined. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. + +4. Stir in the tahini, coconut oil, and maple syrup. + +5. In a small bowl, mix together the vegan butter and vegan buttery spread. Spread the vegan butter on top of the pie batter. + +6. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the edges are a light golden brown and the center is set. + +7. Drizzle with the anti-freeze and serve. + +This pie is not only simple to make, but it's also so delicious that you'll never want to stop eating it. The creamy filling is the perfect complement to the light whipped cream topping and the crust is so buttery and crispy! It's a perfect dessert for a holiday meal. + +I hope you love this pie as much as we do! If you make it, please let me know! Leave a comment below or tag a picture #minimalistbaker on Instagram so I can see it. I love seeing what you come up with. Enjoy!<|endoftext|>The German Federal Police (Bundeskriminalamt) has taken over the investigation of the Berlin Christmas market attack, which left 12 people dead and 48 injured. + +As Germany continues to grapple with a mass shooting, Berlin's main Christmas market, Breitscheidplatz, has turned into a crime scene. Police say they are investigating a number of suspects, with some even saying there is evidence that the incident is "ISIS-related." + +The Berlin market attack has been dubbed as a "Christmas market attack" by CNN. In Germany, the word "attack" is used when a person is involved in a crime. However, it is often used to describe crimes that are claimed to be carried out by Islamist terrorists, such as the attack in Paris in January. + +Police have not confirmed the exact details of the attack, but the Federal Police have taken over the investigation from the Berlin's state police. The Berlin police were overwhelmed by the number of injuries and it took them several hours before they were able to secure the area. + +German police have also confirmed that an Islamic State Flag was found at the scene, as well as a bomb-making manual. + +BREAKING: Police say Islamic State flag found in Berlin market, that document found with bomb. pic.twitter.com/YhEew4tZ8W — CBS News (@CBSNews) December 19, 2016 + +Berlin police have also confirmed that the suspected attacker, a Tunisian-born 19-year-old, had been previously in contact with Islamic State members. + +A member of the Berlin's elite counter-terrorism unit said that the suspect was "a loner, non-conformist, who was extremely radicalized by the internet." He added that the suspect "had been radicalizing himself since 2015," when he was "taken in by an Islamist preacher in Berlin." +======================================== SAMPLE 142 ======================================== +The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Obama administration is backing off a plan to close Guantanamo Bay after a public outcry that pitted human rights advocates against the president. + +President Obama had promised to close the detention facility within his first year in office. But in an Oct. 1 speech, he said that the United States would only move detainees into the United States. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +"In the coming months, I will continue to push Congress to pass the defense bill, which will help us close the prison in Cuba and take the pressure off Washington to do more," Obama said. + +"But there are few good options for sending detainees to the United States. I will work with Congress to find a way to keep this facility open, and I will not sign any bill that blocks our efforts to close it." + +But that's precisely what some human rights groups had been demanding, and Tuesday evening, they began lobbying Obama to keep the prison open. + +"The administration should continue to push for a new location for the facility, one that is more than five miles from populated areas and over an hour's drive from the United States," said Nihad Awad, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "Placing detainees in a rural area is unacceptable, and it would be better for our national security interests to use the military prison at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." + +"I hope that the administration will quickly reverse course and make good on President Obama's promise to close Guantanamo," added Awad. + +The White House said in a statement that it had received "overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle" for closing the prison. + +"The president has been clear that we have no intention of spending any additional taxpayer dollars to reopen this facility. The president has made clear that he will not sign any legislation that blocks our efforts to close this facility," the White House said. "This is a decision that President Obama reached after careful consideration and consultation with his national security team, as well as with many members of Congress, and it is consistent with his long-standing commitment to close this facility." + +Obama has engaged in a public relations campaign to push for the prison's closure, and last week he called for a "full review" of his promise to close the prison. + +"I know it's been a difficult topic for a lot of Americans, and they are going to be anxious about where they're going to be kept," Obama told CBS News. "And that's why the president is going to be facing a lot of questions." + +The White House said the review will look for "alternative locations" for the prison to house detainees. + +"We'll be meeting with officials from the administration and Congress to share our options and our plans and to get feedback," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the speculation over whether President Obama will run for re-election in 2012. On Tuesday, the White House said Obama will not make a decision on 2016 until after the midterm elections. The spokesman said Obama is focused on showing he is prepared to lead the country during the next two years. + +PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We can't hide from this fact. We can't pretend that we're not seeing these hard truths about our politics, and that is why we're going to have to make some tough choices. Some of those choices may not be popular, but they're the right choices to make. + +AMY GOODMAN: For more, we're joined by the author of the new book, Grand New Party: The Making of the New Democratic Majority. His latest piece is headlined "Obama Will Not Run for President in 2016." It's written by Al Cross, who's a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle, the largest newspaper in Texas, and is a longtime political reporter for the New York Times. He's also a former conservative political journalist and columnist for the New York Daily News. His latest reporting on the 2012 presidential election is headlined "Not Run, Not Hide: Obama's Battle with Bill Clinton After Republicans' Tanked '12 Defeat." + +Welcome, Al. Talk about what you found. + +AL CROSS: Well, Amy, I've been writing about Obama for a long time, and I've been waiting for him to make this decision. And I figure, you know, we're in the middle of the campaign and the primaries are underway, and, you know, it's probably in his interest to, not only make the best decision he can make for the country, but to do it during the middle of the campaign. And, you know, I think the decision was made that maybe he should wait. And I think that was the right decision. I think that after the primaries are over, and the Republican primary is over, and the Democratic primary is over, and the general election is over, +======================================== SAMPLE 143 ======================================== +Is this the world's best virtual tour? + +Not only do you get to see the most beautiful country, but you get to experience its fascinating history and culture. You can also come to the land of the Sengalese and the Samburu tribes, where you can learn about the amazing art of dzongkha or Rastafari and find yourself immersed in the culture of the people. + +You can also get to know the local languages of Sengalese and Samburu, and you can even get to know the secret language that only the elders of Sengalese and Samburu use. + +Experience Sengalese, Samburu, and more!<|endoftext|>The general public has no idea, and has been repeatedly misled, about how much money these tax cuts will save, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO got it right the first time: the Senate Republicans' plan will reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion. + +The CBO predicts that the Senate GOP plan will cut the deficit $1.5 trillion. ( J. Scott Applewhite / AP ) + +But the $1.5 trillion is based on the assumption that the Senate plan will actually pass. That is unlikely to happen, since President Donald Trump is much more likely to sign the bill than Senate Republicans are to pass it. But the CBO still got it right. The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the Senate GOP tax plan, which would reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over a decade. The report, which was released Monday, is the first estimate of the Senate's tax bill by the independent, nonpartisan agency. + +Article Continued Below + +The report found that the bill would increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, on top of the $1 trillion deficit that the government is projected to run over the next decade under current law. The Senate's plan would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 20 per cent, eliminate the estate tax and lower the top individual rate from 39.6 per cent to 37 per cent. This would cost more than $1 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. The report also said that the Senate's plan would increase the deficit by $1.4 trillion over 10 years, on top of the $1 trillion deficit that the government is projected to run over the next decade under current law. The report said that the bill would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over a decade, due to its lower deficits relative to the income taxes paid by high-income individuals. But to get to the $1.5 trillion savings, the Senate bill would have to add a similar amount in interest costs over the next decade. + +The CBO report comes about two weeks after the release of the House Republican tax plan, which would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21.5 per cent, eliminate the estate tax and cut the top individual rate from 39.6 per cent to 37 per cent. The Republican plan would reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to the report. The Senate version plans to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to the CBO. + +Article Continued Below + +The CBO report is based on the assumption that the Senate plan will pass, which is unlikely to happen. Senate Republicans have tried to pass the bill once, but it has failed several times. The House plan is expected to pass in the coming weeks.<|endoftext|>It's probably too late for a Kickstarter to get a Kickstarter-funded game onto PC, but it's not too late for a Kickstarter to not be a Kickstarter. + +This was the case with "The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot," a Kickstarter-funded game that has been taken down by the developers. + +The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is a PC roguelike RPG, in which you play as a hired mercenary to loot, pillage, and murder your way through dungeons. It looks like a roguelike, which is why it was funded by a Kickstarter. The developers celebrated its success with a free update, which added new weapons to the game, along with new characters. Then things went south. + +The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot's Kickstarter page has been taken down by the developers, who have apologized in a comment on the game's page. Here's the full quote, from the developer: + +"We have decided to take down our Kickstarter campaign for "The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot" because of the recent negative publicity surrounding the game. This was a very difficult decision, and we regret that this has caused concern to some of our backers. We would like to offer a sincere apology to all the backers, and thank you all for your understanding and patience. We are working tirelessly to get the game out to all of our backers and we hope to be able to resume this campaign soon. We hope this will be the end of this story." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 144 ======================================== +This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show looking at the often overlooked issue of racial profiling. FBI statistics show black suspects are more than twice as likely as white suspects to receive a criminal arrest, and the rate of racial profiling has spiked since the 2008 election of the first African-American president. This is FBI Director Robert Mueller. + +ROBERT MUELLER: We've seen a rise in racial profiling. I mean, we've seen an increase in the number of investigations in which ethnicities were not targeted, where ethnicities were not the focus of the investigation. + +AMY GOODMAN: That was FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking to the House Judiciary Committee last week. This is a clip of his statement. + +ROBERT MUELLER: And—and I think it's also important to note that when community members are stopped, the majority of those stops are not of persons who are suspected of a crime, but of persons who are simply walking down the street, and sometimes they're stopped because they're not wearing a seatbelt or because they're an unlicensed driver. And we know that racial profiling can lead to unjustified stops. + +AMY GOODMAN: That was FBI Director Robert Mueller speaking to the House Judiciary Committee last week. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division also released a report last week saying that blacks are more than three times as likely as white people to be stopped and searched at police stops. + +To talk more about this, we'll be joined by two guests. Dave Zirin is a columnist for The Nation and author of the new book, The David Horowitz Freedom Center: Unmasking the Left's War on America. His most recent piece for The Nation is headlined "FBI Director Mueller: "Racial Profiling" Is Not a Thing." And as our guest, Dave Zirin, will be joining us from Wilmington, Delaware, we'll also be joined by Derrick Johnson, a national spokesperson for the Black Lives Matter movement. + +We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Dave Zirin, let's begin with you. You were a student of Robert Mueller as a student at Boston University, right? + +DAVE ZIRIN: Yes. + +AMY GOODMAN: And what did you think of his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee? + +DAVE ZIRIN: Well, I think he was fair, and I think he was honest, and I think he was forthright. The truth is that himself and other law enforcement officials, not just in the United States, but in many other countries around the world, have acknowledged that they've been profiling people of color and using their race in their decision-making. In this country, the FBI has admitted that they've been doing this for decades. And it's a practice that has been done with the consent and approval of the Department of Justice, and that the Department of Justice has said that they've been trying to end for a long time, and have said that they've tried to end it. + +AMY GOODMAN: Dave Zirin, can you talk about Derrick Johnson, the national spokesperson for the Black Lives Matter movement? + +DAVE ZIRIN: Well, Derrick is a professor at Princeton University who has been organizing with the Black Lives Matter movement. And as he said in his article, this is an issue that he's been working on for years. And what we see with the FBI and the Department of Justice is that they're not really trying to end the practice that they've been engaging in for a long time. And it's a practice that's been going on since the '60s, and has been a practice of law enforcement and the Department of Justice, and that they've been quietly working on to end for years. + +AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the issue of the Ferguson dispute. Last week, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it would reopen its investigation into the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. This is Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III. + +JAMES KNOWLES III: We're going to continue to fight for justice, and we're going to continue to fight for transparency. And as long as we're fighting for transparency and accountability, we're going to continue to do it. + +AMY GOODMAN: That was Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III. Your response, Dave? + +DAVE ZIRIN: Well, Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County. They made the decision to stop collecting data on racial profiling in Ferguson, and they've been able to close that down. So, if you're a community member who just wants to know if your police department is doing an effective job of stopping racial profiling, you can't go to the police department. You have to go to the mayor's office. You can't go to the police department. You have to go to the city council. And you have to go to Ferguson. And this is a +======================================== SAMPLE 145 ======================================== +Festival Update: Saturday + +The Festival is celebrating its 10th year with all the stops you would expect from a festival. The last two years have seen a huge expansion of the festival with more than two dozen stages, more than 500 artists performing, and a full-blown weekend of entertainment for both the public and the growing craft beer community. + +This year's festival is going to be very different than the last two years. + +With two days of beer, wine, and spirits, you can't help but try that new beer you heard about or try to get to know your new favorite distillery. The festival is also going to have a beer garden, where you'll be able to try new and exciting brews from the breweries that are a part of the festival. + +The food vendors are the same as ever, but the fun has really intensified in the last few years. This year's options are a little bit more diverse than those of the previous two years. The food lovers can expect tapas and flatbreads from the local vendors, while the foodies can find some unique items from all over the world. + +The final day of the festival will feature many of the artists you know and love, along with new faces and up-and-coming bands. The last day of the festival will feature many of the artists you know and love, along with new faces and up-and-coming bands. + +So, if you're out for a weekend of fun, make sure you come and celebrate the 10th year of the Festival at the Blind Pig.<|endoftext|>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the Texas Senate's Republican filibuster of a bill that would ban so-called "sanctuary cities" and limit state cooperation with immigration authorities (all times local): + +7:55 p.m. + +The Texas Senate is advancing a bill that would outlaw so-called sanctuary cities and limit state cooperation with immigration authorities. + +Senate Bill 4 would bar localities from enacting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration officers on immigration matters. The legislation also requires localities to provide information about people arrested for immigration violations to federal authorities. It would also require localities to turn over information on noncitizens who are arrested. + +The legislation passed the Senate Public Safety Committee on a 16-9 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor. + +The bill's sponsor, Sen. Charles Perry, has said a criminal immigration enforcement strategy is not needed in Texas. He says Texas is already among the most immigrant-friendly states in the nation. + +Perry says the legislation is needed to protect Texans. + +___ + +5:45 p.m. + +The Texas Senate has passed a bill that would ban so-called sanctuary cities and limit state cooperation with immigration authorities. + +The Texas House passed the bill on a party-line vote late Thursday. + +Senate Bill 4 would bar localities from enacting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration officers on immigration matters. The legislation also requires localities to provide information about people arrested for immigration violations to federal authorities. It would also require localities to turn over information on noncitizens who are arrested. + +The legislation also requires localities to report to the federal government any information about anyone who commits a felony involving a firearm. + +The bill passed the Senate Public Safety Committee on a 16-9 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor. + +___ + +4:30 p.m. + +The Texas Senate is moving toward an all-night debate to override Gov. Greg Abbott's veto of a bill that would limit cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration officials. + +The Senate had already approved the bill Thursday and it was headed to the House for a second vote. + +Abbott has said his veto of Senate Bill 4 is meant to protect Texans. + +The bill would prevent localities from enacting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration officers on immigration matters. The legislation also requires localities to provide information about people arrested for immigration violations to federal authorities. It would also require localities to turn over information about noncitizens who are arrested. + +The legislation would also require localities to report to the federal government any information about anyone who commits a felony involving a firearm. + +___ + +3:10 p.m. + +The Texas Senate has approved a bill that would ban so-called sanctuary cities and limit state cooperation with immigration authorities. + +The bill would bar localities from enacting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration officers on immigration matters. The legislation also requires localities to provide information about people arrested for immigration violations to federal authorities. It would also require localities to turn over information on noncitizens who are arrested. + +The legislation would also require localities to report to the federal government any information about anyone who commits a felony involving a firearm. + +The Senate passed the bill on a party-line vote late Thursday. It now heads to the +======================================== SAMPLE 146 ======================================== +Delayed release of the CNB-style bulky stock-style AK-47 (7.62 x 39) + +by + +3:1 - 6,873 views + + +Here's a + + +I made this just for the fun of it, and have no intention of making any money off it. Just for the lulz. If you want to use this in a video, I'd like to see it. + + +I appreciate comments and suggestions, as I'm the only one that has made any of these. + + +Thanks to Antonio for a video of his AK-47 and a video of another AK-47 in the same style. + + +Thanks to Mdak for the Russian AK-47. + + +Thanks to Mauler for the Chinese AK-47. + + +I'd like to point out that I didn't make any of the following pictures. At least all the pictures in the OP. + + +https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430443586899907 + +https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430450026402868 + +https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430473474642644 + +https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430486648982741 + + +I'm not saying I don't want to help with the art, I just don't have the time. + + +If you want to use this in a video, I'd like to see it. + + +This is my first attempt, and I think it turned out pretty well. If you don't like it, or think it's a tad too big, you can always make a bigger version. I used the following parts: + + +-AK-47 + +-M16 rifle + +-Receiver cover + +-Recoil spring + +-AK-47 handguard + +-Front sight + +-M16 rifle + +-M16 rifle + +-AK-47 handguard + +-AK-47 handguard + +-AK-47 handguard + +-AK-47 handguard + +-M16 rifle + +-M16 rifle + +-AK-47 handguard + +-AK-47 handguard + + +If you have any improvements, or would like to see this done better, leave a comment! + + +PS: I know the AK-47 is a "mini" AK-47, but it's still a pretty big gun. I think I need to make a bigger version of it, or just do a full steel AK-47. + + +Made in my garage, as I didn't have a CNC machine. + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exX0Yz0EQ4w + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q5Z_h_1Z-g + + +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvYOgvkwG1Q + + +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tEQp_Qc5oQ + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN_Nd_4sYtU + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5Vt_1O1Zo + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9joqSq6a1_M + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vLhYg9TvHI + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KXR2SjkW8k + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6lL2R4pCc + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbD7-RvLhmA + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb9rKwi4Y7w + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfV2L5GA2B0 + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tso0l|K1Y + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eHD3l7Qbz4 + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QX_mFxLQGQ + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQjdzSr9W9U + + +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnUQR6rT9aA + + +Here's a gallery of some of the stuff I +======================================== SAMPLE 147 ======================================== +From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia. + +Tepig (Japanese: テッヒギ Tepig) is a dual-type Normal/Flying Pokémon introduced in Generation V. + +It evolves into Emolga starting at level 21. + +Biology + +Tepig is a large, bipedal Pokémon with a yellow face and a round yellow belly. It has a short, pointed snout with two pointed teeth on each side. It has green eyes and a small, black nose. Its ears are large and yellow with a white stripe running across them. It has black stripes on its chest and a light blue stripe down its back. It has four legs and a large, pointed tail. + +Tepig moves by rolling its body up and down as it flies. It is extremely curious and will look for new food, even with its long tongue hanging out. Tepig prefers to eat grass, but it can also eat berries and leaves. It likes to hang at the edge of a tree and look at the leaves. It can be a bit of a lazy Pokémon. + +In the anime + +Major appearances + +Tepig debuted in The Leaf Thieves, under the ownership of Katie. It was used to scare off a group of wild Munchlax. + +Minor appearances + +Tepig debuted in The Grass Route, under the ownership of a Trainer named Carol. It was used to battle a Karrablast. + +A Tepig appeared in the opening sequence of Zoroark: Master of Illusions. + +A Tepig appeared in Mewtwo Strikes Back. + +A Tepig appeared in The Rise of Darkrai in Pokémon Heroes: Latios & Latias. + +A Tepig appeared in The Power of One. + +A Trainer's Tepig appeared in Naming a Conformer!. + +A Tepig appeared in Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. + +Multiple Tepig appeared in A Pyramiding Rage!. + +Pokédex entries + +Episode Pokémon Source Entry DP032 Tepig Ash's Pokédex Tepig, the Balloon Pokémon. Tepig uses its long tongue to roll up in the air. It will do this until it gets tired. This concludes the entries from the Diamond & Pearl series. + +In Pokémon Origins + +A Tepig was one of the Pokémon sent to help the fight in Ilex Forest in File 4: Charizard. + + +In the manga + +In the Pokémon Adventures manga + +A Tepig appeared in the X & Y chapter. + +A Tepig was seen among the Pokémon seen at Professor Oak's Laboratory in The Last Battle XIII. + +A Tepig appeared in a fantasy in Pinsir Changes. + +A Trainer's Tepig appeared in Pinsir Changes. + +A Tepig appeared in the X & Y chapter. + +The Battle Factory rented a Tepig which was stolen by Guile Hideout in The Final Battle VII. + +A Tepig appeared in a fantasy in Pinsir Changes. + +In the TCG + +Game data + +NPC appearances + +Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon: A Tepig is seen constantly grumbling and trying to reach the center of the forest. + +Pokédex entries + +This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation V. Generation V Black It rolls up in the air, then rolls back down to its body. It is so curious that it never stops looking. White The tip of its tongue is so long that it can be seen from far off. It is a lazy Pokémon. Black 2 It rolls up in the air, then rolls back down to its body. It is so curious that it never stops looking. White 2 Generation VI X The tip of its tongue is so long that it can be seen from far off. It is a lazy Pokémon. Y It rolls up in the air, then rolls back down to its body. It is so curious that it never stops looking. Omega Ruby The tip of its tongue is so long that it can be seen from far off. It is a lazy Pokémon. Alpha Sapphire It rolls up in the air, then rolls back down to its body. It is so curious that it never stops looking. Generation VII Ultra Sun It loves to hang at the edge of a tree to look at the leaves. It likes to eat berries so much that it eats them while rolling. Ultra Moon It's so smart that it knows how to climb trees and down them. It even finds a way to climb up trees and down them. + +Game locations + +In side games + +Held items + +Stats + +Base stats + +Stat Range At Lv. 50 At Lv. 100 HP : 55 115 - 162 220 - 314 Attack : 50 49 - 112 94 - 218 Defense : 45 45 - 106 85 - 207 Sp. +======================================== SAMPLE 148 ======================================== +By The Associated Press - BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) - Maine's highest court has ruled that a transgender woman can legally change her name and gender marker on her driver's license, a victory for a New York resident who had been denied the change. + +The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Friday rejected arguments by the Maine Department of Public Safety that her name and gender marker on her driver's license should not be changed because she is not legally male. + +Lawyers for Angela Milne argue that the Maine state law on driver's licenses does not recognize a transsexual's gender identity. + +Milne was born a man and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2010. + +Maine law allows a person to change his or her name on the driver's license but not the gender marker. + +In a 2-1 decision by the court, justices said the state law should be interpreted as recognizing a person's gender identity. + +The Maine DMV will have until Sept. 30, 2019, to change the license. The court did not specify what penalties the department could face if it fails to do so. + +© 2016, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved. + +This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. + + +This Story Filed Under<|endoftext|>This article is about the location in the town of Southport. For the class, see Dwarf (class). + +Southport is a town in the game. + +Contents show] + +Background Edit + +Southport is a small city in the northern part of the Isle of Wight. Southport is a large town with a lot of shops and other buildings, as well as a cemetery with a lot of graves. Southport has a lot of smiths and other tradesmen, as well as a town hall. It is also where the Dorgeshuun wizard Quirk and his apprentice are located. + +Characteristics Edit + +Southport, like all towns in The Sims 3, is run by a mayor, who is a Sim. He is able to make appointments for the Town Council. Southport has four districts: North, South, East and West. The mayor has the power to appoint the members of the Town Council. The mayor has the power to elect a member of the Town Council, but only on the first day of the month. The mayor is only able to make appointments during the Business Week. + +Southport has a few buildings, including the town hall, a church, a gazebo and a cemetery. The town hall is the center of the town. The mayor has the ability to call the town meeting, where citizens can discuss issues with the mayor (a Sim who can be hired from the town.) Its appearance has been changed slightly, with a new red coat of arms above the letters, and a new red door. The town hall has an upstairs area, which holds the kitchen and dining room. There is also a library, which has a bookcase with bookshelves. There is also a library with a desk, which has a desk lamp and a bookshelf. The library has a skeleton in the middle of the room, and the bookshelf on the left has a skeleton on top of it. The library has a skeleton on top of it. There are also two bookshelves with a skeleton, each with a skeleton on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There is also a table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. The table has a skeleton in the middle of it, and the table holds a skeleton on top of it. There are two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There are also two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There are two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There are two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There are two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on the left and right. There is a plant in the middle of the room. There are two bookshelves with skeletons on top of them. There is a large table with a chair in the middle, with two chairs on +======================================== SAMPLE 149 ======================================== +The 2013-14 season has been a rollercoaster for the New York Islanders. + +While they were the first to be eliminated from the playoffs, the Islanders have struggled to find chemistry on the ice. + +In 2012-13, the Islanders ranked 26th in goals per game (2.54) and 27th in goals against per game (2.95). + +In 2013-14, the Isles ranked 24th in goals per game (2.48) and 21st in goals against per game (2.99). + +Despite all this, general manager Garth Snow still believes this team has the potential to have success. + +"I think we've got a good nucleus of young, talented players, and I think we're going to be a really good team in the future," Snow told Newsday's Steve Politi on Tuesday. + +Snow, who was hired in April 2013, said he doesn't believe the instability and inconsistency within the organization has affected the Islanders' ability to win. + +"We've got a very good coach, and we've got a good system in place," Snow said. + +Snow believes the Islanders need to improve their power play. The Islanders are currently 25th in the NHL with an 11.8 percent success rate, which is below the league average of 13.6 percent. + +"Our power play has been very inconsistent, and I think that's because we haven't had the success we'd like to," Snow said. + +The Islanders have a few players who could help on the power play. Defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, the Isles' top defenseman, is tied for 26th in the NHL with a +15 on the power play. + +Video: Tavares, Tavares, Tavares, Tavares get to the net for a goal + +Captain John Tavares is tied for ninth in the NHL with 12 goals on the power play, and he has been a dangerous weapon for the Isles. Tavares has seven power-play goals, which is tied for sixth in the NHL. + +Tavares' nine power-play goals are the most among all active NHL players. + +"I think it starts with the work ethic," Snow said. "I think it starts with the guys coming to practice. I think it starts with the coaching staff taking pride in coaching the power play and not just just giving it to the kids and expecting them to succeed." + +While the Islanders are tied for fifth in the NHL with eight power-play goals, Snow said they need to use more discipline on the power play. + +"I think it's getting more disciplined on the power play and getting creative," Snow said. "We've been putting a lot of pressure on the penalty kill and we need to be more creative with the power play." + +Snow said he has no concerns about the difficulty of one-on-one situations for the Islanders' top players in the Western Conference, such as Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. + +"From my perspective, we've got a really good top six and a really good top four in the middle," Snow said. "I think we're going to be a really good hockey team." + +The Islanders open the 2014-15 season on Oct. 6 at the New York Islanders' home at Nassau Coliseum. + +The Islanders also will play their first home game of the season on Oct. 14 against the Ottawa Senators. The six-game home stand begins on Oct. 19 when the Islanders host the Detroit Red Wings. + +The Islanders will play their final game of the season on Oct. 22 against the Florida Panthers.<|endoftext|>This is the astonishing moment a passenger aboard a Malaysia Airlines flight fell off a tray table and landed on the plane's wing. + +The passenger, believed to be a young child, was on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when the incident happened. + +Scroll down for video + +The startling video shows the child on the plane's wing and landing on it + +The child is seen falling off the tray table at the start of the clip + +The video, from a video-sharing website, shows the child falling from the tray table onto the wing of the plane. + +The plane then makes a sudden right turn to avoid the child, as another passenger shouts: 'What's going on?' + +Two people can be seen running over to the child as he lands on the wing. + +The video was uploaded to YouTube and has been watched more than 2.4million times. + +The child is seen falling from the tray table onto the wing of the plane<|endoftext|>The National Women's Soccer League announced Monday that the 2010 NWSL championship will be played on August 5, 2010 in Portland, Oregon. + +"We are very excited to host the 2010 championship game in Portland, Oregon," said NWSL Commissioner Jeff Plush. "It's the ideal location, and we are so grateful to the Portland Timbers +======================================== SAMPLE 150 ======================================== +If you are looking for great deals on something, you will find it here. This website is a one stop shop so you can buy it how you like, which is great! + +As a shopper, you can shop the website at your own pace, with the option to buy pins from other sites and buy them directly from our website. + +So if you are looking for something, go ahead and get it! + +If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.<|endoftext|>Vancouver, B.C. - Vancouver Canucks General Manager Jim Benning announced today that the club has acquired forward Jared McCann from the Florida Panthers in exchange for Vancouver's second round pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft and Florida's fourth round pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. + +"Jared is a young, talented forward with good size who had a great season in Florida and we feel he can be a quality addition to our club," said Benning. "He is a goal scorer and will fit well with our team and the direction we're heading in. We're excited to welcome Jared to the Canucks family." + +McCann, 24, has appeared in 62 games with the Panthers this season recording 19 points (9G-10A) and 16 penalty minutes. Over the past two seasons, McCann has registered 152 points (54G-100A) and 160 penalty minutes in 365 games. It will be the fourth consecutive season that McCann has played at least 60 games in a season and the first time since 2009-10. + +The 6-1, 195-pound forward has played parts of seven seasons in the NHL, including four seasons with the Panthers. In his time with the Panthers, McCann has registered 82 points (41G-54A) and 118 penalty minutes. + +McCann was originally selected by the Panthers in the first round (14th overall) of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft and has since appeared in 587 games in the NHL, amassing 383 points (134G-253A) and 337 penalty minutes. He has also skated in 33 career Stanley Cup Playoff games. + +The B.C. native was originally drafted by the Calgary Flames in the second round (43rd overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.<|endoftext|>PENTAGON – US officials appear to have found one of the missing weapons in a jungle complex in Afghanistan. + +The New York Times reported late Friday that US officials were "very close" to determining that a grenade launcher was among the eight weapons that a group of US Special Forces soldiers were supposed to bring back from Afghanistan with them. + +However, officials with knowledge of the investigation said that the weapon was never brought back. It remained unknown why the grenade launcher was never retrieved. + +The Times said the decision to leave the grenade launcher behind in Afghanistan was made by the US military, not the Special Forces soldiers. + +US Army officials declined to comment on the report. + +A US official told The Times that the grenade launcher was still missing. The official said it was likely that the grenade launcher was captured by the Taliban during the mission to retrieve it. + +The officials said the grenade launcher was supposed to be deployed alongside eight other weapons to help establish a forward operating base in Paktika province. + +The official said the weapons were supposed to be returned to the Special Forces soldiers on June 3, but that it was unclear when the weapons were actually taken. + +The Times report comes as the Pentagon continues to investigate whether the Fort Hood shooting on November 5 was an act of terrorism or an act of workplace violence. + +President Obama has been criticized by Republicans for being slow to respond to the shooting. + +The incident left 13 people dead, including the gunman, and wounded more than two dozen others.<|endoftext|>The BIA has released its first analysis of the cost to the public of the urban rail network. + +The report was commissioned by the Department of Transport after the Government announced it would be spending more than £2 billion on the urban rail network and the rail industry lobby group said the figures were "alarming". + +The report found that the modernisation of the railway network was costing the taxpayer £3.3 billion per year. Each year, the Government is paying around £1.6 billion towards the ongoing upgrade of the network. + +The Government was also paying around £300 million per year in "cost of running costs" to run the railway and "fuel costs" of running trains. + +The report added that the Government had committed to improving rail links in the South East. It estimated that the Government would spend around £1.5 billion per year on upgrading the railway network in the region over the next five years. + +The report also said that the Government's commitment to electrification of the line between London and Birmingham was not expected to begin until 2021. + +The report concluded that the Government had a "modest mandate" from voters for spending billions on the rail network and the rail industry lobby group, +======================================== SAMPLE 151 ======================================== +MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he hoped to meet U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in person in the next few months, adding that he would welcome Trump's interest in improving relations with Moscow. + +Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) welcomes U.S. President Barack Obama (L) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, January 17, 2016. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS + +Putin, who is also due to meet Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Saturday, said he had spoken to Trump about the possibility of a meeting, but that the leader of the world's two largest nuclear powers would need to have something concrete to discuss. + +"I hope that we can meet in person in the next few months, and I would welcome such a meeting," Putin said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV. + +"I'm ready to meet the American president voluntarily. I think it will be a great pleasure to do so," he said. + +Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin had spoken to Trump, but the Kremlin had not made any formal plans for the meeting. + +"I think that the Americans were probably pleased to hear that," Peskov told reporters. + +U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin shake hands at the start of a bilateral meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque + +The Kremlin said Putin, who will meet Putin's U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week, had asked Obama to meet him.<|endoftext|>VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will celebrate Mass Friday at the Vatican to celebrate the solemn burial of the body of St. John Paul II, the Vatican announced Thursday. + +Francis will be joined by a small group of people, and will then deliver a homily at the Basilica of St. John Paul II. + +The Mass will take place at 10 a.m. (3 a.m. ET), and will be televised live on the Vatican Radio website. + +The pope is scheduled to celebrate Mass at St. John Paul II's tomb at the Basilica of St. John Paul II before heading to the Vatican's Vatican City residence for a private audience with the late Pope. + +The Mass will be the first of two papal celebrations for the late Pope. + +RELATED: Pope Francis' trip to Cuba and the United States + +The Vatican announced Wednesday that Francis would hold a private audience with the late pope on May 19. The Vatican said the private audience would take place at a hotel in the Vatican. + +Francis has been invited to the Vatican for an audience with the late Pope between May 19 and 22. + +Francis has also been invited to the Vatican for an audience with the late Pope on May 6. + +The Vatican has insisted that the private audience for the Pope with the late Pope Francis be considered a "private" one. + +The Vatican repeatedly has stressed that Francis will not be receiving an audience with the late Pope from the late Pope. + +The Vatican said the two popes are not "dignitaries" of the Roman Catholic Church. + +Francis has said in the past that he wants to be able to "speak to the people directly." + +The Vatican has said that Francis will not receive a private audience with the late Pope Francis from the late Pope. + +"This is not a private meeting, but rather a meeting with the pope in his apostolic capacity," Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters in March. + +Francis has met privately with the late Pope on only one other occasion — in February of 2013, when the two men came to the Vatican for the International Year of Faith. + +In 2013, Francis said that the reason he had not met with Pope John XXIII was because John XXIII was not a pontiff.<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military will continue to operate in Iraq and Syria despite President Barack Obama's announcement Tuesday that he would keep the nation's combat troops there "indefinitely" if Congress fails to authorize the operation. + +Obama announced his decision during a press conference from the White House briefing room, saying he had no choice but to act after Congress failed to approve funding for the campaign, which he said would have cost his administration more than $500 billion over the next 10 years. + +"I will not allow a window of opportunity to open up for ISIL to plot and plan and execute their attacks against the United States and our allies and against our freedoms," Obama said. + +"That's why I've directed my national security team to come up with a plan to take out ISIL, and protect our people before it's too late," he added. + +In a news release +======================================== SAMPLE 152 ======================================== +The Chicago Sun-Times published an op-ed last month from a transgender individual, in which she explains the difficulty she has experienced navigating the dating scene. The woman, who identifies as a transgender woman, writes that she felt like she "was walking on eggshells" in her first months on the dating scene. + +From the article: + +In my first month on the dating scene, I was constantly being mistaken for a lesbian, and I didn't know how to react to that. I self-identified as a lesbian as a child and started to feel more comfortable dating men. But I didn't feel comfortable dating men who didn't consider me a woman, and it felt like walking on eggshells. + +The article goes on to explain how she struggled with dating until she came out to her family. She explains how her mom couldn't understand why she was dating a man and ended up telling her, "It's not a big deal, and you won't regret it." + +The article ends with the women's advice to other transgender individuals, including how they can tell if someone is transgender: + +"If you're hanging out with people who try to manipulate you into thinking they're the "type" they'd like to be with, it's a sign you're not ready to date them," she said. "And if you're dating people who are genuinely interested in you, it's a sign you're not being taken advantage of." + +The Sun-Times did not respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post. + +Read the full story here. + +This Story Filed Under<|endoftext|>The first season of "Arrow" has been a wild ride: The show has been accused of being too dark, too dark, and too dark, and it's even been called the "darkest, most brutal" superhero show on television. And while the show's producer admits that they didn't set out to be "dark," the show's latest season has been very dark indeed. + +During a recent visit to the "Arrow" set, actor John Barrowman, who plays Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, spoke about the show's transition from the first season to the second. Fans of the comic book are likely familiar with the comic book villain Prometheus, who is the same name as the malevolent alien being that used to rule the island of Lian Yu. Barrowman was asked if he had any interest in playing the character, but he instead chose to focus on his upcoming role as the Red Hood in "Suicide Squad." + +"I was going to say I had no interest in playing Prometheus, but that's a different story," Barrowman joked. + +"Yeah, you did, but it's a different thing," Showrunner Wendy Mericle responded. + +"It's a different story, obviously," Barrowman said. + +"It's a really different story," Mericle said. + +"You're doing a really dark character," Barrowman said. + +"Yes, it's a really different point of view," Mericle said. "It's a lot more fun doing it, but it's hard." + +"It's also really hard to pull it off," Barrowman said. "I think the fans are going to be really excited. They're going to be really happy that there's going to be a new direction for the show." + +"I think they're going to be happy that there's a different tone, but it's a hard thing to pull off," Mericle said. "I'm really proud of what we've done, and I think the fans are going to be very happy about that." + +Barrowman's co-star, Katie Cassidy, also spoke about the show's new direction. Cassidy said that the show is finally going back to its roots, which is something the fans have been asking for. + +"There's a lot of cool things happening. It's a lot of fun, and it's not all dark, it's a lot of fun. My favorite idea that we have is that we have this very different show going on," Cassidy said. + +"I think the fans are going to be really happy about that," Mericle said. "They're going to be excited that there's a different tone, but it's a hard thing to pull off. I'm really proud of what we've done, and I think the fans are going to be very happy about that." + +Barrowman also commented about the end of the season, saying that it was "surreal." + +"It was a really shocking ending, and it was really good," Barrowman said. "It was kind of like, 'What do we do now?'" + +"It was a big deal, but I think it's a good thing. I think the writers are finally getting the chance to tell the complete story, and with the way the finale +======================================== SAMPLE 153 ======================================== +Acid Rain + +The great effluvia of India are in the air, as its climate is not very monsoon-like and the monsoon rains are generally quite sporadic, much less frequent than the areas around the northern part of India. Most of the rain is in the summer, and even during the hottest months, the rains are of very short duration. So, the water on the ground is very polluted. It is a very polluted water that is constantly being contaminated by micro-organisms and other chemicals. Especially, there is a great deal of industrial pollution in India, and this is particularly true in the cities. The consequences are very serious. + +The air pollution can cause many serious diseases, such as lung diseases, bronchitis, asthma, killing very young people, particularly infants. It can also cause severe damage to the respiratory system, causing coughing, sneezing and respiratory infection, and can cause cardiovascular diseases. It can also cause cancer, respiratory diseases and other severe illnesses. Some of the most serious diseases that have been caused by the pollution are: + +chronic bronchitis + +lung cancer + +lung or lung diseases + +asthma + +pneumonia + +asthma or bronchitis + +phimosis + +night sweats + +hyperactive thyroid + +heart disease + +The water pollution is equally serious. Many of the rivers and other water bodies in India are very polluted. They are polluted in particular by sewage and industrial waste, and also by the fertilizers and pesticides which are dumped on the fields. + +The water is very dark, dirty, and so it attracts many different kinds of organisms. Especially, it attracts bacteria, protozoa, mollusks, and worm-like animals. The water in those areas is very clean and clean water is brought from a distant place. It is mixed with sewage or industrial waste, and this contributes to the pollution of the water bodies. The pollution of the water bodies is so serious that they are often covered with plant life, and the water often becomes toxic. + +In that area, there are several rivers, but they are mostly polluted. The polluted rivers travel down to the sea. There are many harmful chemicals that are dumped on the fields to kill the plants, and the toxic plants die, or are eaten by other plants. + +The pollution has also affected the riverbeds, and the water is very dirty and full of bacteria and other micro-organisms. The water is also very dirty and full of bacteria and other micro-organisms, and also attracts many kinds of plants. In the riverbeds, there are chemicals that are dumped on the fields to kill the plants, and the toxic plants die, or are eaten by other plants. + +The pollution is in the air as well. The air in India has high levels of particulate matter, mainly from burning of coal and wood. The pollution is the result of the burning of these sources of pollution, and also is a result of the processing of the coal and the burning of the wood. + +The acid rain is a result of this pollution, and is caused by the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is very serious because it is a form of acid rain. It is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is very serious because it is a form of acid rain. It is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. + +The acid rain, which is a result of the burning of coal and wood, is a form of pollution that is very serious because it is a form of acid rain. It is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is very serious because it is a form of acid rain. It is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood. This is a form of pollution that is caused by the burning of the burning of coal and wood +======================================== SAMPLE 154 ======================================== +Feature to expand upon. + +This is a blog about what it's like to live in a manosphere community. I'm not here to talk about the specifics of manosphere dating, how to pick a wife, or what to do about a woman you find unattractive. My goal is to provide a platform for the discussion of men's issues so that we can understand each other a little better. + +I don't have a lot of experience writing about men's issues, but here are a few topics I imagine will interest you: + +Why is it called the "Manosphere"? + +There are actually two "manospheres": The "Real Manosphere." and the "Manosphere." I have been in both of them for a while, but I've not been a member of the Real Men's Movement for quite some time. My new blog is the Real Manosphere blog, and I'm going to try to rebrand it as a long-form, critical blog. + +When I first started writing about the Manosphere, I did so not to distinguish it from the Real Men's Movement, but rather to differentiate it from a lot of the other blogs where I read. + +I still like to check out the Real Men's Movement blog, but I think it's pretty obvious that there are several blogs that are better than mine. They tend to be more analytical, they do a better job of talking about men's issues, they're more visible, and they're more well-known. + +Why do I focus on women? + +Because I think women are the central issue in the life of every man. Most men don't really understand why they are attracted to women. But I do. I think most men have internalized the idea that women are "weak" and "submissive" and they need to be rescued by a strong man who will make them feel strong. + +I know plenty of women who are all for the rescue and I know plenty of men who are for the rescue. I just haven't met many women who are for the rescue of men. + +I've met plenty of women who are all for the rescue and I know plenty of men who are for the rescue. I just haven't met many women who are for the rescue of men. + +I'm not saying that every woman who is attracted to men is a feminist. I'm not saying that every woman who is attracted to men is a feminist. I'm saying that most women are attracted to men, and that most of the women who are attracted to men are in some way sexually submissive to men. + +I also think that most women are in some way sexually submissive to men. + +The Manosphere and the Real Men's Movement can be understood as two sides of the same coin. I think the Manosphere is a bit more skeptical of feminism, but I think the Real Men's Movement is a lot more skeptical of feminism. + +I think the Manosphere is a bit more skeptical of feminism, but I think the Real Men's Movement is a lot more skeptical of feminism. + +Is it true that every man is a misogynist? + +Yes, it is. + +But that's not really the question. The question is: How do you know if you're a misogynist or not? Is there a way to know? If so, what method do you use? + +The most obvious way to find out if you're a misogynist is to look at what women are doing. Women are doing everything from wearing revealing clothes to singing about men having sex with dogs to making rape jokes to making fun of sexual assault victims. + +Women are doing all of these things, and they're doing them to men. They're doing them to men in a way that is so deeply embedded into our culture that men are completely unaware of it. + +If you're one of the men who is aware of these things it's you who is a misogynist, because you are consciously or unconsciously perpetuating the same behavior on women that you see women acting on. + +And if you're not aware of this, you are a misogynist. + +So how do you know if you're a misogynist? What do you do if you think that a woman is making a joke about rape, but you don't think it's rape? What do you do if you think a woman is dressing up as a man and making a rape joke but you don't think it's rape? What do you do if you think a woman is making a rape joke but you are not sure if she's joking? + +If you find yourself making any of these reactions, you probably are a misogynist. + +What if you're not aware of these things? + +What if you're not aware of these things, and you're making jokes about rape and sexual assault and you don't realize that you're joking about rape and sexual assault? What if you're not aware that you're +======================================== SAMPLE 155 ======================================== +In the end, the United States earned a rare win in the World Cup final. The U.S. beat Italy, 2-1, thanks in part to a spectacular goal by Landon Donovan in the 64th minute that came just a little too late to save the Americans from an embarrassing loss. + +Donovan scored two goals in the game, including a spectacular header to give the U.S. a 1-0 lead. But things didn't go as planned for the U.S. in the second half, and the Italian came right back. + +The U.S. was down a goal. It needed three goals in 60 minutes to win. + +Here's a look at the first goal in the game, and the second, which came just a little too late. + +But the U.S. couldn't find any answers. + +Italy's Mario Balotelli came on for the last 10 minutes of the game, and the U.S. was unable to find any answers. + +"We were trying to come up with something," U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said. "We had a lot of passing combinations, attempts to get in the box, but it was just a matter of time before someone did something. + +"I thought [Mario Balotelli] was very good. He had a lot of time on the ball. I thought his movement was very good, he was getting into big spaces. He was very good in the air. His movement was very good. I thought he was a very good addition. We gave him a lot of space to operate." + +The United States, though, couldn't convert on those chances and was unable to even make it close. + +"It was a horrible game for us," Donovan said. "It was an absolute grind for us. We didn't take our chances. It was just the way it was. I thought it was a pretty good game for us defensively. We didn't create anything in the final third. We played really well in the midfield, but we didn't create anything in the final third. I don't know what it is. We were just lacking that final pass. We didn't get it down, and we were just missing crosses. + +"We had a lot of good players, but it just wasn't enough. We had a lot of crosses, and we had a lot of good players. I thought we did a lot of good things, but we didn't put the ball in the right place, and we didn't create enough." + +In the end, the U.S. earned a win thanks to Donovan's goal. But it doesn't mean the U.S. was perfect. + +The U.S. has been outscored in the World Cup by the Italians, 3-1, including a goal by Balotelli in the final 24 minutes. The Americans also lost the first game of the tournament to Germany, 4-1. And the Americans have been outscored by the Italians, 5-0, in the group stage. + +Donovan said the U.S. needs to be better at closing out games. + +"I think we have to do a better job of closing games out," Donovan said. "We're getting chances, but we need to finish them. We're not creating enough chances to finish them. I think we need to rectify that." + +The United States also needs to find better ways of scoring. The U.S. scored its only goal in the first half, but it didn't find the back of the net. + +"We need to score, and we need to put the pressure on them to score," Donovan said. "We don't just want to come out and play the way we did. We want to come out and be a lot more aggressive, and we need to score some more goals." + +The U.S. hasn't scored in a game since March 29 when it beat Germany, 2-0. The U.S. has scored a total of four goals in the tournament, and the Italians have scored two. + +The U.S. has won the World Cup four times, including the shootout victory in 1990 against the Soviet Union. But the Americans haven't won since defeating Italy in the final in 1986. + +"This is a very special day for me, and I am very proud of the team, the players, and the coaching staff," Donovan said. "This is a day I will never forget. I think very few people will remember what happened here in Brazil, but this is a day that I will always cherish." + +Follow @ESPNFC on Twitter to keep up with the latest football updates.<|endoftext|>On Tuesday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) announced they were trying to raise funds for the NRA's "We the People" initiative to help protect America's freedoms. The White House has already responded to the +======================================== SAMPLE 156 ======================================== +A TEENAGE girl who was raped at knifepoint has been left devastated and suicidal. + +The 18-year-old was attacked in her own home in the town of Gulsby in the South West of England. + +She was found by her mother in the early hours of Saturday morning, lying on the floor next to her door. + +The girl was rushed to hospital and is still receiving treatment. + +Her mother said: "She is not out of danger, but because of the stress of the incident, she is getting worse." + +She added: "She will not be going to school on Monday because it is so dangerous. + +"She is not sleeping properly, she has never been in danger as such but she is in a lot of pain." + +The girl has been in and out of hospital since the attack on June 28. + +She was in a critical condition when she was first admitted to the Royal Preston Hospital. + +Since then she has had a series of operations and has lost a lot of weight. + +The schoolgirl has told her mother she wants to take her own life. + +The mother said: "I can't understand how anyone could do this to a child. + +"It makes you wonder what other parents and children have been through. + +"I do not understand how anyone could do this to a child. + +"She is a good girl and was a bright girl but now she is just a shell of her former self." + +Police have appealed for witnesses to the attack. + +PC David Wall of the South West Police said: "We have received a number of different lines of inquiry from the public in connection with the incident and enquiries continue. + +"Our inquiries are at an early stage but we have already made contact with the girl's family. + +"We believe this was a targeted attack and we are aware of reports of a series of similar incidents." + +Anyone with information is urged to contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.<|endoftext|>One morning in June, a dozen V.A. doctors and nurses gathered in the front of the room. Dressed in white surgical scrubs, they were on call, ready to treat someone who might need a kidney transplant. They had called in a dozen patients and requested a kidney for each of them. It was the first time they had ever done this kind of one-stop kidney transplant. + +They would do it in a preliminary surgery, which is what they would do in the event that the person they were about to transplant actually needed one. + +One of the doctors was Dr. Gillian Hall, a gastroenterologist who had just finished a yearlong fellowship at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The other doctors were all specialists in kidney transplantation, including a urologist, a hematologist, a hematopoietic oncologist, and two kidney specialists. + +The hospital's kidney specialists would do the initial surgery. The doctors who were doing the preliminary surgery were called kidney nephrologists. They would take a kidney from a donor and transplant it into the patient. The two nephrologists would provide a syringe with a special dye so the kidney could be seen under a microscope. A doctor would then inject the dye into the patient's bloodstream, which would make the color of the dye visible on the kidney. + +For the preliminary surgery to work, the doctors needed to find a donor who had matched the patient's genetic profile. They could not find a match. So they requested a kidney from a patient who was already on the transplant list. It was a dead donor, a person who had died in the past but whose organs had been donated. + +The kidney was taken from a woman who was in her early sixties, lives in the hospital's palliative care unit, and had been in the hospital five years. This was the first time the hospital had agreed to share a deceased donor with another hospital. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +When the kidney was given to the new patient, the team took samples from the patient's blood and urine and, using a machine called a flow cytometer, found oncogene — the most commonly circulating form of cancer-causing genetic material — in the patient's blood. This was the first step toward confirming the patient's cancer diagnosis. + +If the kidney was successful, the team would then do a genetic test to see what was in the patient's blood. Finally, the team would do a blood bank screening for dangerous blood diseases, including hepatitis B and C, HIV and syphilis. + +The transplant team was led by Dr. Howard Renn, a liver specialist and the chief of transplantation at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Renn had been practicing kidney transplantation for more than 30 years, and he believed that he could perform the first kidney transplant in +======================================== SAMPLE 157 ======================================== +In a rare political development, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) presidential bid. + +"As Democrats, we have always been proud to support the Vermont senator's presidential campaign," DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. "Hillary Clinton ran a strong campaign, but Sen. Sanders' commitment to electing Democrats up and down the ballot in November and his vision for America is something we all share. We look forward to working with him to elect Democrats up and down the ballot." + +Politico first reported the news. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +Sanders has embraced the DNC's endorsement, thanking the party for its "strong support" during a speech in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. + +"This is a Democratic Party that is prepared to stand with working families and the middle class and takes on the greed of the billionaire class," Sanders said. "Democrats will stand together to make sure that Donald Trump Donald John TrumpTrump: Dems playing destructive 'con game' with Kavanaugh Several Yale Law classmates who backed Kavanaugh call for misconduct investigation Freedom Caucus calls on Rosenstein to testify or resign MORE does not become president of the United States." + +Sanders has risen in the polls in recent weeks, and has been on the campaign trail with Clinton in Nevada. + +Clinton is facing heavy pressure to get out of the race, and a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows the former secretary of State is in danger of losing her lead over Sanders to Vermont's socialist. + +The DNC will meet on Saturday to discuss the race, which began as a battle between Clinton and Sen. Sanders (I-Vt.). + +But the DNC's endorsement could help Sanders, who is more popular among the party's liberal base than Clinton. + +The DNC's move comes as Clinton has struggled to capitalize on her lead over Sanders. She has seen her lead over Sanders erode in recent weeks, and appears to be losing ground to Sanders on the ground in the early voting states.<|endoftext|>Hello my fellow gamers and wannabe gamers! For those of you who don't know me, my name is @Vermintide, and I love to design maps and games. I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and why I am interested in making games. + + +I was born in 2006 in the island of Guernsey, on the BBCOD, a small island in the North Atlantic. I was raised in a very small town called Burdekin in the island of Jersey. My parents are both from the UK, and I have a younger brother, who was born in the USA. + + +When I was a young child, my parents were just working in London, and I spent most of my time as a child playing as many games as I could get my hands on, as well as reading comics and playing with my brother. It was only when I discovered Minecraft and the computer science that comes with it that I was able to really get myself into the gaming world. + + +I have always tried to make things that are fun to play, as well as being fun to play with. I have always been fond of puzzle games, and I enjoy playing games that put you in a situation where you have to use your head. I find that this can be a very satisfying experience. + + +I have been playing games since I was a child, and I have always been fascinated by the idea of computer games. I was always playing with my brother, and it was fun to see the way the games played out. I was especially fond of the strategy games, and I remember the first time I played Ultima Online, I was so hooked that I continued playing it all through school. + + +I have always been a fan of the fantasy and science fiction genre, and in my youth I would play a game that was supposed to be set in the future, but I would always go back to the original game, because it always made me feel like I was in an alternate universe. + + +I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to make games, as I have already had the opportunity to work on quite a few, and I have always been able to create something that is of interest to me. So, where do I want to take my game development career? I am not sure yet, but I do want to make games for people who love games, and I do want to make games that I want to play. + + +I have a bunch of ideas about games that I have been working on, and I am excited to see how they turn out. It is also important to me that my games are made with as much love as possible, and I want to make games that are fun for people to play, and to make games that are easy to learn. + + +I would like to thank everyone who has played my games, and I hope you will continue to support me by purchasing and playing my games. I hope I will be able to bring you more +======================================== SAMPLE 158 ======================================== +1.2.0 + +- Added Game Center + +- Fixed bug with Game Center + +- Fixed a bug where you could spend app money that wasn't your own + +- Fixed a bug where your purchases weren't being saved + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see your recent purchases + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see the latest news + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see the recent news for games you've played + +- Fixed a bug where you could see the news for games that you've played + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see the news for games that you haven't played + +- Other bug fixes and improvements + +1.1.1 - Fixed a bug where Game Center didn't work after the game had been downloaded + +- Fixed a bug where the app would crash if you had a lot of Game Center friends + +- Fixed a bug where the app would crash if you had a lot of friends + +- Other bug fixes and improvements + +1.1.0 Hi everyone! This update is a big one, including a brand new interface. We've also added a bunch of new features and bug fixes. + + +This update is partially backwards compatible with earlier versions, but it's not 100% backwards compatible. + +1.0.3 - Fixed a bug where the app would crash after a few seconds after starting a game + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see the latest updates for games you had played + +- Fixed a bug where you could see the news for games you had played + +- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see the news for games that you hadn't played + +- Other bug fixes and improvements + +1.0.2 1.0.2 fixes a bug where the app could crash on startup.<|endoftext|>New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is expected to be out for three to four weeks with the left knee injury he sustained in the team's loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. + +Brees suffered the sprain of his left meniscus in the second quarter of the Saints' 31-14 victory over the Steelers. + +Brees told reporters he hoped to play in Sunday's game at New England, but the team expressed disappointment in his injury. Coach Sean Payton said Brees was "very questionable" to play on Sunday. + +The Saints have only one other quarterback on the active roster, rookie Garrett Grayson. + +On top of Brees' injury, the team's special teams units is in need of help. + +The Saints were without punter Thomas Morstead and return man Marcus Murphy for Sunday's game, and the unit struggled in its return game, with the Saints' punt coverage unit giving up a 51-yard touchdown to Antonio Brown on their first punt return. The Saints ran the ball six times for a total of 37 yards. + +"As a special teams unit we've got to get better," Payton said. "We're a little bit behind the eight-ball as a special teams unit, and we've got to get better." + +The Saints (2-4) are actually already without both of their starting offensive tackles. Center Jonathan Goodwin won't play in Sunday's game due to a knee injury suffered in the second quarter. + +The Saints have been shorthanded at left tackle and right tackle with the injuries to Goodwin and Murphy. + +Rob Ryan, the Saints' offensive line coach, said the team is not going to make any changes to the line after Sunday's loss. + +"We've got the same guys," Ryan said. "We'll just continue to get after it. We'll just keep grinding. We'll keep trying to get better, and hopefully we'll get a little better." + +Ryan said he is not concerned about the absence of Goodwin and Murphy, who have been starters for their teams. + +"We're not worried about it," he said. "We know that our guys are going to work hard. We know that they'll be ready to go." + +Brees is coming off his first 100-yard passing game of the season and the Saints are now 2-0 with him under center. + +"It wasn't just the way he played," Payton said. "It was the way he knew how to play, the way he approached the game. He had a lot of really good throws. + +"He's one of those guys. He's been doing this for a long time. He understands the game, he knows how to play the game. He's just a perfect fit for our team. He's going to be a great addition to our team." + +Brees is one of the NFL's most accomplished and decorated quarterbacks. He won three Super Bowls with the New Orleans Saints and is the franchise's all-time leader in passing yards (55,824), pass attempts (6,646) and completions (69,900). He is also +======================================== SAMPLE 159 ======================================== +The only way the Orlando Magic will beat the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night is if they unleash some of their untapped potential. + +Orlando has been the NBA's most unathletic team the last two seasons, and now it has a roster full of players with the potential to get even better. + +"You could count on one hand the number of guys on this roster that are unselfish," coach Frank Vogel said. "I like our chances. We have a lot of guys that can make shots. We have a lot of guys who can get to the free throw line, and I expect a lot of guys to get to the line. " + +The Magic have more talent than the Suns, but they have been inconsistent over the last two seasons, and they know that. The only way they will beat Phoenix is with the four-out, one-in offense that Vogel has preached. + +"I'm not sure what the Suns are going to do," guard Victor Oladipo said. "I think they're going to try to play simple and try to attack us. It's not like we're going to be able to play pick-and-roll all the time. We have to be able to switch on the pick-and-roll. We need to be able to get out and move the ball." + +The Suns have some good players on their roster, but they need to figure out a way to make them better. + +"I think we all know how good these guys are," guard Eric Bledsoe said. "We have to play with more energy on that end. We've got to play with more energy on that end. We don't want to lose these games, but we want to win them." + +The Magic have a strong bench, but they will need to rely on its defense to beat the Suns. + +"I just think we have to be more relentless," Orlando center Nikola Vucevic said. + +They hope to get a boost from their bench, especially during the second half. + +The Magic's bench is making a lot of noise in the NBA, and they'll need to play better than they did against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday. + +"We're starting to figure it out," Bledsoe said. "We're starting to figure out our identity. We're starting to figure out the chemistry and the chemistry is at an all-time high right now. We're just trying to get the guys playing together and have fun together." + +The Magic have the talent to beat any team in the NBA, and they hope to be able to do that once again. + +"Right now we have the best roster in the NBA," Bledsoe said. "We have the best coach in the NBA. We're starting to figure it out. We just have to keep working hard." + +If the Magic win Thursday night, it will be their 13th win of the season. + +"This is the NBA. This is how it goes. You have to be at your best every night," Bledsoe said. + +Orlando's only loss of the season came on Nov. 4 against the Utah Jazz, and the Magic are coming off another strong defensive performance, holding the Jazz to 40.7 percent shooting. + +Utah has had a lot of success against the Magic this season. + +The Jazz are 34-11 against the Magic when the teams have played a game this season. + +The Jazz are 9-2 against the Magic when the teams meet on the road. + +The Magic have won their last three games against Utah. + +Copyright 2015 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited<|endoftext|>Our new office is a new start and a new outlook for us. It is a step in a new and exciting direction. We will continue to provide the highest quality service to our clients and have no plans to change that. + +The latest information about our new office can be found in our latest newsletter.<|endoftext|>Data-Driven Safeguards + +We use data to make informed decisions about the products we sell. We take every precaution to ensure that our customers' personal data is secure. + +We are committed to protecting your data and are committed to continuously improving our security programs. + +This website contains information about our data security practices. If you have any questions about our data security practices, please contact us. + +Our Data Security Policy + +This policy explains how we use your personal data to provide the services you have requested, how we protect that data, and what happens if something goes wrong. + +Data Protection Act + +Under the Data Protection Act, your personal data is protected from unlawful processing, including unlawful access, disclosure or modification. + +We will not sell, rent, copy or otherwise use your data for any purpose that is not permitted by the Data +======================================== SAMPLE 160 ======================================== +I have been dealing with some complications with my family and I have been out of town for a few days. I am back and we are doing some new deals. We have been looking at a couple different names for the store and have decided to buy a store in Costa Mesa that I have been thinking about for a while. The buyer is happy with the price and the space is perfect. I am not sure I have quite the budget for this but it's something I have been thinking about for a while. I am going to work on getting some of the family together and I am going to maybe have a few more deals in my store for you to check out. It is a great spot to shop for new and used clothing, shoes, home goods, and so much more. I sell a lot of bridal stuff and accessories, so if you are looking for something specific, I would check out my store. I am always looking for new ideas and new ways to make the store better. + +Thanks for visiting my website. If you have any questions or would like to talk to me, feel free to call me at 714-785-2886. Thanks!<|endoftext|>Mystery of the 'Amphibious Vista' + +The new high-tech, high-rise apartment complex on the University of California, Berkeley campus that opened last fall is a public-private partnership and has a unique feature: an underwater promenade. + +What, exactly, is this underwater promenade? It seems to be a kind of "vista," though one that, to my best understanding, is entirely unnatural. + +In any case, there are a lot of questions about the Vista. + +First, in the classic way of Berkeleyside, I sought out a representative from the UC Berkeley student body. I asked if I could meet with the students. After some discussion, I was told that the student government had no interest in a debate on the Vista. + +To my surprise, the student representative I spoke to did have a few questions about some of the questions that are being raised. I will address them in this article, but I wanted to give them a chance to clarify some of the information I am still getting from students. + +I asked what the students thought the Vista's underwater promenade was. The student rep said it was a "feature" of the building. The Vista, after all, is supposed to be "water friendly." + +The Vista is "a private, public-private partnership," according to one of the city of Berkeley's "informal" reports. I was told that the team of architects, architects' firms, construction companies, contractors and other creative people who worked on the Vista had consulted with the city. But that the city had not yet approved the design for it. + +The Vista is a "unique" building, according to the Berkeley Citizen, which has a long, thoughtful story about the Vista. The Citizen writes: + +The university has been working with housing experts and professors to develop a new housing concept that it hopes will encourage a new wave of student housing, attracting students to UC Berkeley in order to get a degree. + +The Vista is "a public-private partnership," according to Berkeley's official website. The website adds: + +The building is a part of a strategy to increase housing supply, which will help to maintain the steady increase in the number of students coming to UC Berkeley. + +I asked UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof if the Vista was a public-private partnership. He said so. + +My next question was, "How does the Vista work?" + +As I put it to Mogulof, UC Berkeley's official website does not answer the question, "How does the Vista work?" + +I emailed Mogulof to ask if the Vista works like a walkway or a tubular structure. He wrote back: + +The Vista is a walkway. + +The Vista is a tubular structure. + +The Vista is a walkway, but not a tubular structure. + +I asked Mogulof if the Vista was like a "water park," to which he responded: + +That is a different scenario. + +The Vista is a walkway. + +The Vista is a tubular structure. + +The Vista is not a water park. + +I asked how the Vista works – on a technical level, the basics of how it works – and Mogulof did not respond. + +In any case, I am not aware of any formal description of the Vista in the official UC Berkeley website. + +I did write to UC Berkeley's Student Center to ask if it has any information about the Vista, to see if it was really a promenade. The Student Center said it does. + +The Vista, the Student Center wrote, is "a water-based promenade that provides an outdoor space for residents to enjoy with their neighbors, friends and +======================================== SAMPLE 161 ======================================== +Initial reaction was that the study was a triumph for science: Study finds that the human body has evolved to cope with our changing climates. But, as was the case with every study claiming to have found a new way to be miserable, there was a flipside: the study also proved that our bodies have evolved to cope with our changing climates. + +The study, published in the journal Science, found that people living in areas of the world that are warmer and wetter than they are today were more likely to develop cancer. The study also found that the risk of heart disease and other conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure were higher in those living in cold, dry climates. + +These results are not surprising, considering the link between climate change and cancer. A surge in the number of cancer cases in some parts of Europe was linked to the onset of the coldest winter in a century in 2014, while the same researchers found that the number of deaths from cancer in Europe in 2014 was almost double than the number of deaths from the coldest winter in the last century. + +Advertisement + +So why are the reasons for climate change still not clear? A paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week offers a few possible explanations. + +Climate change and obesity + +The study, led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oxford, looked at data on climate and obesity published in more than 1,000 studies. It found that the effect of climate change on obesity was small, including a 13 per cent reduction in obesity rates among those living in countries that are warming fast. + +However, there was evidence that the effect was stronger in countries such as the UK, where the effect was more substantial. It concluded that the association between climate change and obesity may partly be down to the fact that most of the research examined the effects of climate change on a single variable – obesity. + +The effect of climate change on obesity was also stronger among those from countries that are warming fast, such as the UK. + +The authors of the study said that this was surprising because obesity rates have been rising in many countries, including the UK, for years. + +Advertisement + +"We were surprised that the effect of climate change on obesity was stronger in countries that are warming fast, such as the UK. A higher incidence of obesity can lead to a higher prevalence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer," said study author Professor Chris Ryan. + +"We suspect that this is driven by the global prevalence of obesity and the fact that the recent declines in obesity rates have been in countries that are warming rapidly, such as the UK." + +The link between obesity and climate change is not new, but the study offers new evidence that may help explain why the link may be stronger in the UK. + +"We found that obesity was significantly associated with climate change in the UK, and that the effect of climate change on obesity was stronger for men than for women. Previous studies have shown that obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, so we wanted to see if climate change was also associated with these increased risks," said Professor Ryan. + +"But whether the increase in obesity risk due to climate change is directly linked to increased cardiovascular disease and cancer risk has not been studied. Our study shows that climate change can impact health by affecting obesity risk, but we need to do more research to understand the effects of climate change on these two major causes of death." + +The effects of climate change on death rates from infectious diseases + +The same team of researchers, led by Dr Martin Ottosen and Dr Michael Brauer, looked at the relationship between temperature and death rates from infectious diseases. They found that, over the past 50 years, the number of deaths from respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu, have increased in both the UK and the US, but deaths from infectious diseases have decreased. + +Advertisement + +They concluded that this was due to changes in the way infectious diseases are treated. + +"This suggests that temperature may change the way in which people are treated for infectious diseases, and that this might be one of the factors that influences the number of deaths from infectious diseases," said Dr Ottosen. + +The researchers cited a report published in the journal Nature last year that said rising temperatures were contributing to a rise in the number of children suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a severe lung infection, which had been linked to the spread of the virus SARS. + +"In some ways, this is more surprising than the effect of climate change on obesity. It's fairly straightforward to quantify the effect of climate change on obesity. The effect of climate change on infectious diseases is a bit harder to quantify." + +Mental health + +The researchers also looked at mental health, including changes in suicide rates and rates of depression. They found a trend towards an increase in suicide rates in the US, and also in Europe, and a decrease in depression rates in +======================================== SAMPLE 162 ======================================== +Can You Help? + +Robot Tentacles (2012) + +I have a new project that I'm trying to implement. This game is based on a video game I saw a few years ago. The game has two types of robots. One is a regular, ordinary one that is just like any other robot. The other type of robot has their arms attached to their sides. It has two arms with a third one that comes out of the back of the robot. It can throw the other robot at the player! I'm trying to create a bigger battle, with more enemies, more levels, and more explosions. I've already been working on it for over a year, but I'm still working on it. I'm hoping to have it out sometime in 2014. + +Animated Robots (2009) + +A collection of animated robot faces. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + + +Robot Punched and Killed (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was punched in the face by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Slipped (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was knocked off of a ledge. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Crash (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was smashed by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Crashed (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was smashed by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Crush (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was crushed by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Tap (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was tapped by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Tapped (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was tapped by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Leashed (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was chained by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Slipped (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was slipped by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Slapped (2009) + +This is a 3D animation of a robot that was slapped by another robot. + + +Thanks to our friends at the fablab, we have a great resource for 3D printing. + +The fablab has a great 3D Printer and you can find a lot of different stuff there, like this awesome robot face collection. + +Robot Destroyed (2009) + +This is a 3D +======================================== SAMPLE 163 ======================================== +TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama coach Nick Saban called his decision to fire offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin "re-evaluating the program" and said the search for a new coordinator "will be competitive." + +Saban said he has not spoken to Alabama's athletic director, Bill Battle, about the situation and he did not discuss the decision with Kiffin, who was fired Monday. He did not say whether the decision was made before or after his team's 56-53 loss to Mississippi State on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. + +"You can't take a job at Alabama and not be competitive," Saban said. "That's just not what we do here. Until I get a better feel of the situation, I'm not going to talk about it." + +Saban said Kiffin's replacement should be determined by the end of the week. + +"I've got a lot of respect for Coach Battle," Saban said. "He's a good man. He's a good coach. But we will be competitive. We just won the game. I'm going to do what's in the best interest of the football team." + +The Crimson Tide (11-2, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) has lost five straight games -- with the lone win coming against No. 16 Florida -- and the second-year coach said he was disappointed to lose a game that was "an opportunity for us to get better." + +"This is a great program and we're all big fans of the University of Alabama, but I'm disappointed that we couldn't get a win that we wanted to win," Saban said. "We weren't aggressive enough in the first quarter, and we couldn't make enough plays in the second quarter. We didn't have enough energy at the end of the game." + +Saban said he has spoken to Alabama's athletic director, Bill Battle, about the offensive coordinator position. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson + +Saban said he spoke with Battle before the game and had a brief conversation after it, but he did not discuss the decision with his team. + +"I think that's going to be a tough spot for him," Saban said. "I've talked to him a few times about it, but I haven't talked to the team yet. I'm sure he was disappointed. I don't think he wanted to lose that game, obviously. I don't think he wanted to lose that game more than anybody else. If we're going to be successful, we're going to have to be more aggressive. We didn't do that." + +Kiffin's decision to resign comes after a disappointing season in which the Tide had won 11 games and played in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, but has lost nine of 11 since. + +Saban said he is not worried about the team's confidence level entering the offseason. + +"I don't think the guys are down," Saban said. "They're not down right now. They've got a lot to play for. We've got a lot to play for. We've got a lot to play for here in the SEC. I don't think they're down right now. They've got a lot of work to do. They're going to have a lot of work to do this summer. I don't think they're down right now in the sense that they're not excited about what they're doing at the moment. That's not the case right now. They're excited about what they're doing now. They're just not very excited about what they're doing in the future." + +Saban said he is not worried about the team's confidence level entering the offseason. + +"I don't think the guys are down right now. They're not down right now. They've got a lot to play for. We've got a lot to play for here in the SEC. I don't think they're down right now. They've got a lot to play for now. We've got a lot to play for here in the SEC. I don't think they're down right now in the sense that they're not excited about what they're doing at the moment. That's not the case right now. They're excited about what they're doing now. They're just not very excited about what they're doing in the future." + +Because Saban said he is not concerned about the team's confidence level entering the offseason, he did not say whether he would seek to extend Kiffin's contract beyond this season. + +Saban has said he would consider extending Kiffin's contract if the team's win total increased to 10 or 11 wins. + +"I haven't talked to him about that," Saban said. "He's done a great job and I'm very proud of him. I think he's been a very good coach for us. We'll sit down and we'll talk about that. I'll talk to him about that as well." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 164 ======================================== +"The whole idea of the man and the woman is a myth," he said. "My ideology is that there is no such thing as gender." + +Mr. Apfelbaum, who founded the Berlin-based Institute for New European Studies in 2010, is a prolific writer and editor and has written works on Islamism, the Palestinian conflict and the Middle East. His work on the Holocaust has won him invitations to speak around the world. + +Mr. Apfelbaum, who was born in Poland in 1927, and his family escaped in 1939, and he has been a member of the Nazi party since 1961, is also known for his writings on the subject of Jewish history and nationalism and for his role in the publication of a book last year on the Nazi Party's "Waffen SS," the elite fighting force of the Nazi party. + +In a statement issued on Monday, the institute said it "takes great pains to not associate itself with Mr. Apfelbaum's racist and anti-Semitic views." Mr. Apfelbaum did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. + +The institute said that Mr. Apfelbaum's views on gender and sexuality were not based on his own personal views. "Instead, they have been developed through his work as an editor of the institute's journal," it said.<|endoftext|>Mexico and the United States have agreed to work together to track down and send back Central American migrants who have crossed into the United States illegally, a senior Mexican official said on Monday. + +The Mexican government has come under growing pressure in recent months to reduce the number of migrants crossing illegally into the United States. + +The number of migrants crossing the Mexico-U.S. border has more than tripled this year, to about 52,000, and authorities have been unable to reduce the flow by sealing the southern U.S. border. + +On Monday, Mexico's foreign minister, Jose Antonio Meade, said he and his American counterpart, Luis Videgaray, had agreed to share information on any migrants who arrive in Mexico or in the United States, and "to cooperate together to track these people down and send them back to their country of origin." + +The pair also agreed to "identify the causes of migration," Meade added. + +Meade said the two nations were working to improve their cooperation on migration issues, with an eye to "avoiding any future incidents like the one that occurred in the Rio Grande Valley near El Paso, Texas, in late July." + +Some 11,000 migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico have died so far this year. + +In July, migrants and U.S. Border Patrol agents clashed in the Rio Grande Valley as agents tried to stop migrants from crossing into the United States. + +The incident sparked anti-immigrant sentiment and accusations of racist behavior, and prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to take a hard line on illegal immigration.<|endoftext|>You don't have any notifications. + +This Clyp is: + +has been deleted + +by Tc-5 Official + +Tc-5 - Get It (feat. Tamra Keenan) + +Don't forget to share this Clyp with your friends! They can vote directly on this page or on the submissions page. + +Your Clyp has been submitted! + +After you submit your Clyp (original work only), the community will vote on the ones they like best. At the end of the voting period we'll feature the winners on the homepage for a week. + +Submit your Clyp to be Featured! + +Already have an account? + +Already have an account? Log in + +Create an account now to save this Clyp before it expires. + +Sign up with Facebook + +or + +Tell me about Clyp news + +By signing up, I agree to Clyp's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. + +Already have an account? Log in + +Log in with Facebook + +or + +Remember me Forgot password? + +Don't have an account? Sign up + +Reset Password + +Enter the email address associated with your account, and we'll email you a link to reset your password. + +A link to reset your password has been sent to , if that account exists. The link will expire in 20 minutes.<|endoftext|>The British and Irish Lions team to tour New Zealand and Australia next year has been announced. + +The Lions will compete in the rugby union World Cup in 2016, knowing they will need to beat the All Blacks in order to reach the final bracket. + +The Lions will get to test themselves against New Zealand's All Blacks. Photo: AFP + +The team will be led by coach Warren Gatland and also includes players from Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Japan. + +The Lions will play three Tests on the New Zealand tour and four in Australia. + +The announcement was made by Lions chief executive John Feehan on +======================================== SAMPLE 165 ======================================== +The Justice Department has acknowledged that it "could" open an official investigation into the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia. + +Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he would "look at it," but he did not indicate whether the department would look into any specific accusations or whether any probe would be formalized. + +"There have been a lot of allegations out there," he said. "I'm not going to get ahead of any investigation, but I think it's important to recognize that investigations are ongoing." + +Rosenstein said on ABC that "we don't know what the facts are" in the Russia investigation. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +He said he was "not going to comment" on any of the investigations into the Trump campaign, but indicated that, "as the president said, the Russians interfered in our elections. + +"I think it is important for the American people to understand that that's happening and that the investigation will determine whether or not that's a purposeful action by the Russian government," Rosenstein said. + +Rosenstein said he does not believe Rosenstein is the one who made the decision to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the Russia investigation. + +"I don't think it was ever his decision," he said. "I certainly don't think it was his decision to appoint Bob Mueller, but Bob Mueller is here now and we'll do the best we can as a department to make sure he's doing a good job." + +Rosenstein said he was confident that Mueller would "do the right thing" when he begins his investigation. + +"I have confidence that Bob Mueller will do the right thing," Rosenstein said. "He's an honorable man, a man of integrity." + +"I don't want to micromanage; that's not my role," he added. "But I think in all of these cases, you have the right people at the right place at the right time. I'm confident that Bob Mueller will do the right thing." + +Rosenstein said he will recuse himself from any decisions involving the Mueller probe, but he will remain involved in any discussions about how to handle the special counsel. + +"I will recuse myself in any decisions that might affect the investigation," he said. + +"I have a long-standing friendship and professional relationship with Bob Mueller," he said, "and I have confidence that he will do the right thing."<|endoftext|>The first time that I heard the term "basket case" I was in the hospital. I was a young, 17-year-old sweet girl with a lot of energy. I always made my parents laugh, and I was very popular. I also had a lot of energy. For some reason, all of this energy made me very insecure and I was afraid to lose it. I was afraid of being rejected, of not being able to get a date, of being a failure, of not being good enough. I was afraid of being weak and vulnerable. + +I was afraid of losing my energy, losing my health, losing my love. + +I was so afraid that I didn't even realize that I was doing all of these things that I was afraid of. Life was hard for me, and I'd been in the hospital for just about a month. + +I believe that people who have more energy are more resilient. We tend to have a greater ability to make up for our weaknesses. We have more energy to find solutions, to move forward, to take action. We have the ability to make productive use of our time. We don't have to run to the store to buy groceries. We don't have to get up at 3 am. We can eat right, exercise, and work on our hobbies. We can be more creative, pursue our passions, and feel good about ourselves. + +But people who are more vulnerable are not immune to being plagued by fear. I believe that people who are more vulnerable are more susceptible to being plagued by fear. I believe that people who are more vulnerable are not immune to being plagued by fear. + +I was overwhelmed by fear. I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of failures. + +It became very clear to me that I was afraid of not being good enough. I was afraid of not being good enough and getting rejected. I was afraid of not being good enough and being unhealthy. I was afraid of not being good enough and not being able to get a date. I was afraid of not being good enough and not having friends. I was afraid of not being good enough and not being able to get a job. I was afraid of not being good enough and not being able to work hard. + +It was very clear to me that I was afraid of being overwhelmed. I was afraid of being overwhelmed and not being able to make it through the day. I was afraid of being overwhelmed and not being able to get through the day. + +I +======================================== SAMPLE 166 ======================================== +# Artist - Title (Remix) 01 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Nicola Fasano - This Is What It Feels Like Ferry Corsten Remix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 40x 1x 1x 02 8:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. James Dymond & Philippe El Sisi - Frost (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 45x 1x 1x 03 10:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. The Pulsars - Never Say Die Ferry Corsten Remix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 69x 0x 1x 04 13:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Nicole Moudaber - Stay With Me Ferry Corsten Remix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 37x 1x 1x 05 15:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Wendy Olsson - Rise Up Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +Guest 17x 0x 1x 06 17:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Nicole Moudaber - Rise Up (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 50x 1x 1x 07 20:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Christina Novelli - Forever (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) / umaj13 34x 1x 1x 08 23:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Nicole Moudaber - Rise Up Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 83x 1x 1x 09 26:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Christina Novelli - Rise Up (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 99x 1x 1x 10 28:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Christina Novelli - Rise Up (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +Guest 57x 1x 1x 11 31:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennifer Rene - A Moment With You Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 51x 1x 1x 12 34:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennifer Rene - Cure (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 73x 1x 1x 13 36:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Candyman Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) / umaj13 38x 0x 1x 14 39:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Christina Novelli - Rise Up (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 55x 1x 1x 15 42:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennifer Rene - That's The Way Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 38x 1x 1x 16 45:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennifer Rene - That's The Way Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 63x 1x 1x 17 47:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennifer Rene - That's The Way Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 57x 1x 1x 18 50:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Nicole Moudaber - Rise Up (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 53x 1x 1x 19 53:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennie Vee - Falling Back In Love Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 46x 1x 1x 20 55:00 grab Ferry Corsten ft. Jennie Vee - Falling Back In Love Ferry Corsten Summer Of Love Mix ) (BLACK HOLE SUBCULTURE + +tattoobear (3.4k) 13x 1x 1x Submit Cue Changes Add a (live) video from this event for a track not listed here<|endoftext|>A few days ago we reported on a new project called Phong, a UI library for React Native. Now, the project is getting a +======================================== SAMPLE 167 ======================================== +This is a very simple step-by-step guide on how to update the Windows 10 operating system and get to the latest version. + +If you are running Windows 10 Home, you can get to the latest Windows 10 version through the Update and Security Center. + +If you are running Windows 10 Pro, you can get to the latest Windows 10 version via the Windows Update. However, you will have to manually install the update. + +If you are running Windows 10 Education, you can get to the latest Windows 10 version via Windows Update. However, you will have to manually install the update. + +Step 1: Launch the Windows 10 Settings app. + +Step 2: Click the Update and Security Center tab. + +Step 3: Click the Change settings link on the left. + +Step 4: Select Windows Update from the list. + +Step 5: Click the Check now button on the right. + +Step 6: Select the version of Windows from the list. + +Step 7: Click Check Now. + +Step 8: The Windows 10 update will start downloading and installation will begin. + +Step 9: When the installation is complete, the Windows 10 update will be installed.<|endoftext|>The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil-rights groups are calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the New York Police Department's (NYPD) practices of using aggressive police tactics — including the use of military-grade equipment, such as armored vehicles and surveillance equipment — in order to combat crime in New York City. + +The NYPD has recently been under scrutiny for its use of police-worn body cameras, which have been criticized for increasing transparency and accountability. In addition, the NYPD has used surveillance equipment, such as license plate readers, to track people. + +Civil-rights advocates have also been critical of the department's policy of using its controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, in which police stop individuals and search them (at very low levels) for weapons. The tactic has been widely criticized by civil-rights advocates and individuals who have been subject to the tactic. + +The ACLU and other groups have called on the Department of Justice to investigate the NYPD's use of military-grade equipment, and the ACLU is now asking the Department of Justice to investigate if the NYPD is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. + +"The NYPD should strictly adhere to the New York City Human Rights Law, which requires the NYPD to treat people with disabilities fairly and equally," said Rita Sklar, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Northern California. "We're calling on the Department of Justice to investigate whether the NYPD is violating the ADA by using military-grade equipment to make arrests, even when these individuals lack disabilities." + +The ACLU is also asking the Department of Justice to investigate if the NYPD is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. + +The ACLU's letter also requests that the DOJ investigate "whether the NYPD is using military-grade equipment to make arrests, even when these individuals lack disabilities." + +The letter is addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and was signed by the ACLU's New York branch, the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU of Southern New Jersey, the ACLU of New Mexico, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the ACLU of Southern Utah, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, the ACLU of Washington, the ACLU of Connecticut, the ACLU of Maine, the ACLU of the Northern Mariana Islands, the ACLU of Vermont, the ACLU of New Hampshire, the ACLU of New York, and the ACLU of Puerto Rico. + +The letter is available here. + +See also: + +Alderman of the Board of Aldermen: Stop Targeting People with Disabilities with Military-Grade Equipment + +NYPD Officer Fired for Shooting Unarmed Man with Police-Grade Weapon + +Police: NYPD Officer Shot Armed Man and Tasered Him for 10 Minutes + +NYPD Officer Fired for Shooting Unarmed Man with Police-Grade Weapon + +NYPD Officer Fired for Shooting Unarmed Man with Police-Grade Weapon<|endoftext|>Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: 2 children dead, 20 injured in Connecticut school shooting + +Updated + +Two children have died and 20 others are injured in Connecticut after a gunman opened fire at their elementary school. + +The gunman was killed after a brief exchange with police and the rampage ended at about 8:40am on Wednesday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. + +The gunman was identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, and attended Sandy Hook. + +Police said Lanza was a student at the school for about two years. + +Police chief Michael Kehoe said investigators had determined that Mr Lanza had acted alone. + +"We have no information to indicate that there is any kind of nexus between this school and that individual, and that person's actions," Mr Kehoe said in a news conference. + +Mr Kehoe said the gunman went to the school " +======================================== SAMPLE 168 ======================================== +Hawaii10K will host a 5K race from Kakaako on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2017. It will start at 9:00 a.m. at the Kakaako Community Center and head east to Kakaako Harbor. + +The race will start and finish at the Kakaako Community Center. + +The goal is to raise money for the Hawaii Hospital Foundation and the Hawaii Medical Association, which recently announced that the state's uninsured rate is the best it's been in over a decade. + +Hawaii10K is a non-profit organization, and all proceeds from the race will benefit the two groups. Click here for the race's website. + +Hawaii10K is part of a trend of more races across the country, including a 5K run in San Francisco on Sunday, Nov. 11, the home stretch to the United States Senate race in Alabama on Tuesday, Nov. 14, and a 5K run in New York City on Tuesday, Nov. 14. + +Hawaii10K will also feature a portion of the run on a sandy beach at the Kakaako Community Center. + +If you're interested in running a race or raising money for charity, click here. + +We'll have other details about the race as they become available.<|endoftext|>The car that won the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix has been sold to a man called Niki Lauda. + +The most famous racing car in history has been sold to a man who holds the record for most wins in Formula One. + +The Ferrari 312T2 was sold by Ferrari to Bavarian businessman Niki Lauda on Saturday, German newspaper Bild reports. + +Lauda, born in an Austrian village, has a number of supercar racing cars on his collection. + +He is also the owner of the McLaren F1, the Ferrari FXX K, the Porsche 919 and the Porsche 919 Hybrid. + +The car that won the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix has been sold to a man called Niki Lauda + +The Ferrari 312T2 was sold to Bavarian businessman Niki Lauda on Saturday, German newspaper Bild reports + +Lauda was also recently a guest at the premiere of Tom Hanks' new film All the President's Men in Munich. + +He described the film as 'the best film of the year'. + +The film sees the two men who were credited with saving the US in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. + +Lauda has a number of supercar racing cars on his collection. He is also the owner of the McLaren F1, the Ferrari FXX K, the Porsche 919 and the Porsche 919 Hybrid + +The film sees the two men who were credited with saving the US in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Lauda described the film as 'the best film of the year' + +Lauda, born in an Austrian village, has a number of supercar racing cars on his collection. He is also the owner of the McLaren F1, the Ferrari FXX K, the Porsche 919 and the Porsche 919 Hybrid + +Lauda bought the car for £1.2million in 2003. + +It's believed that Lauda was in the process of renovating the car when he decided to sell it. + +It is not clear how much of the sale price was used to cover the cost of the renovations. + +The car was sold with a clean title, which is the most common type of title in Germany. + +Lauda is known for his charitable works, donating money to charity, and has set up a charity called F1-Lauda. + +The auction house Berthold Kohl & Sohne has confirmed that the car is for sale and will be on display at the gallery in Hamburg.<|endoftext|>A politically incorrect website that promotes the idea that climate change is driven by emissions of greenhouse gases, and that human activity has triggered the warming, has been launched by a prominent climate scientist and activist. + +The website, called Credo, is backed by the US thinktank Heartland Institute, which has been at the centre of a row over its claims that the science of climate change is unsettled, and its climate science denial claims. + +The site's first posting, which is titled "The truth about climate change", claims that the scientific consensus on climate change is "a lie" and that the earth has only been warming "1/3 of one degree since 1880". + +Professor Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona, says the site has a limited audience, but that it is aimed at "dissenting opinion" on climate change. + +The site was launched on Thursday by Overpeck, who also leads the Arizona-based Heartland Institute. He told The Guardian that the website would be based on two main themes: debunking climate science, and highlighting the fact +======================================== SAMPLE 169 ======================================== +The State Department has a new official Twitter account. + +The account, @StateDept, was created Thursday, and it will maintain a mostly low-key profile. + +The account is currently unverified, meaning that it's not yet been reviewed by the Twitter website as a verified account. + +Still, the account's description is quite striking: + +"The @StateDept Twitter account is an official account of the United States Department of State. We aim to provide timely, informative, and accurate information from the Department to the public. Our goal is to engage, educate, and inspire." + +The account is a departure from the more contentious, politically charged, and often controversial accounts run by the department. + +Twitter users are encouraged to follow the account at its new location. + +The new Twitter account has 42,000 followers, and it has posted few tweets since its creation. It's not clear what the purpose of the new account is. + +The tweet below is from the account's first tweet, which has since been deleted: + +A State Department spokesman lauded the new account: + +Verified accounts are important for the department, spokesman John Kirby said. Twitter has banned accounts run by other government agencies, and Kirby said that it is difficult for the department to have an official account because it's so heavily scrutinized. + +"The department is always looking for ways to engage with the American people through a variety of platforms," he continued. "The @StateDept Twitter account is an example of that."<|endoftext|>6 years ago + +(CNN) - It's back to business as usual for White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday, while the rest of the country is still dealing with the aftermath of Tuesday's deadly attacks in Boston. + +Carney's latest media avail­al came during a two-hour White House press conference, in which the press secretary was asked about the "fog of war" and the ongoing investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings. + + +- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker + +- Check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator and game out your own strategy for November. + +"The danger to our country is not just that we have a terrorist attack, but that we have a terrorist attack that occurs on American soil," Carney said. "The American people have every reason to be very concerned about this." + +"The President has spoken repeatedly and forcefully about the need to get to the bottom of this," Carney said. "We will continue to pursue every angle of this investigation to render it with maximum effectiveness." + +Carney was asked about the ongoing investigation and whether the U.S. government was playing games with the case. + +"The President and his top advisers are very concerned about the threat of terrorism, not only in the United States but around the world. And I think that the best way to do that is to continue to go through a thorough and aggressive investigation that is transparent and that the American people can trust," Carney said. + +"We will not stop until we have the answers that we need and we can be confident that we have apprehended the person who was responsible for this attack." + +The president's press secretary said the investigation is "extremely important" to the country and that the FBI has "a lot of work ahead of them." + +Carney also was asked about the incident of the Boston Marathon, which was closed for a number of hours after the second bombing, which killed three people and injured at least 134. + +"This is a very sad day in Boston," Carney said. "The victims and the families are in our thoughts and prayers." + +But he also said the incident of Tuesday's attacks was "an attack on America." + +"This is an attack on our way of life and on our freedom and on our way of life around the world," he said. "The entire world is watching this. We will not stop until we have the answers that we need."<|endoftext|>The San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday signed veteran defender Kip Colvey to a new contract. + +The 35-year-old Colvey, who turns 36 this month, has appeared in 95 regular season, postseason and CONCACAF Champions League matches since joining the Quakes from the Houston Dynamo in 2011. + +"Kip is a consummate professional and a leader on and off the field," general manager John Doyle said in a statement. "We look forward to him continuing to be a leader and a part of our team going forward." + +Colvey was on loan for the Quakes last season, starting all 16 matches he played with MLS Reserve Division side Sacramento Republic FC. The California native played for the San Jose Mercury News from 1988-2001, including his time as the team's editor-in-chief and a number of feature stories. + +Colvey has also been a member of the U.S. national team since 2003, playing in all eight matches during the +======================================== SAMPLE 170 ======================================== +I have been married for more than a decade and I have to admit that my husband and I are compatible. We have the same interests, the same values, and we have similar personalities. We're both very active, creative, funny, and hard-working. We both love art, books, music, and travel. Everyone says we're compatible. + +But I wonder sometimes if the things we share are actually a big part of our incompatibility. In fact, it's become a problem for us. Both of us are learning that we can't always get along with our husband. + +I'm not talking about the problems between us. I'm talking about the things that we can't agree on and don't agree on. + +My husband is learning that we can't always get along with each other. (We were married for more than 10 years). + +One issue is our tendency to compare ourselves to others. I'm a stay-at-home mom and he's a stay-at-home dad with three kids. We're both teachers and he's the head of the school board. It's hard to get along when he's making the decisions that affect my life. + +Another issue is our tendency to compete. It's a competitive world out there and if we try to outshine each other, we can be destructive. I'm competitive, so I'm giving my husband a hard time about the way he dresses (he wears jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts), his hair (he cuts it short), and his hobbies (he loves to draw, paint, and decorate with his kids). + +So what do we do? We can't always get along. + +I want to find a way to help him with his issues. I want to help him see that, even though there are problems, we are still partners in our life. But how? + +This week we are packing up our kids and moving to the other side of the country, to a place where we can be closer together. + +We are both writing about our experiences on our blog. (I'm called "The Mommy Blogger" and my husband "The Dad Blogger.") We'd like to share our experiences and see if we can help each other see what's happening. + +I know that we may not have everything in common, but I also know that we can help each other. I'm just not sure how. + +Any thoughts? + +Love, + +The Mommy Blogger + +The Dad Blogger + +Dear Mommy Blogger: + +We are both so lucky to have found our husband. He has a great job and he is a great father. + +I know that you are very happy for him and surprised by the many compliments you receive. These compliments are nice, but they are not equal to the things you feel. + +I'm sorry you are disappointed. But the problems don't end with the marriage. They continue in your life and in your children's lives. + +It's like the difference between having a good relationship with a nice man and a good relationship with a bad man. I have a wonderful relationship with my husband, but there are times when I don't. + +I don't mind the compliments that you receive from his children, but I have to wonder what it is like for you. How do you feel about them, when you are not in the same room? + +If you have children, you know exactly how I feel. I have a difficult time being at home with my children because I'm always trying to be the best I can be. When I'm not, I can't control my children. + +I know you have very good intentions, but you're probably aware that your husband is a busy man. When you are trying to take care of your family, you are not able to balance it with your career. + +I know that you have to work, but you're always trying to make sure that your husband gets some of the credit. I'm sure you don't want your husband to think that he is a better father than you are. + +But this is where you have to realize that your husband is a wonderful person. You are not the problem. These problems are your problem. He cannot change the way he is. He is doing what he has to do to do what he believes is best for his family. + +I know that you have great intentions, but you have to realize that you are not the one with the problem. The problem is that it's not what you want for your family. You want a happy, healthy, healthy family, but you don't want to sacrifice your career. That's not fair for your children. + +I know that your husband is a hard worker, but he still has to take care of the kids. He can't expect them to work 12 hours a day at the daycare center and then take care of the kids while +======================================== SAMPLE 171 ======================================== +"It's like I've been in the dark for a couple of days," she said. "I feel like I'm just waiting for someone to tell me what happened." + +Ms. Stowe said she was still in shock. + +"I think it's amazing that they were able to get me out of there before they couldn't," she said. + +The couple, who live two blocks from the hospital, were visiting relatives at the hospital when the accident happened. The woman's brother, Anthony, said he had been stuck in the hospital waiting for his sister to be released in the days after the accident.<|endoftext|>This is a good app... + +javacrete + +I love the fact that this app is easily installed and can be used with a single click. I've never been a big fan of apps that require the user to set up complex things. I just want to know what the current time was, what the weather was, or how many steps I've walked since I installed this app. I'm usually unable to do that with my phone since I can't use the flashlight. I like that this is a simple little app that I can use and that doesn't require me to learn a lot of new commands. A great app!<|endoftext|>In the second of a three-part series about the history of the US military, the BBC's Jane Corbin met a man who has spent the last 20 years reading every major book about the US army. + +Image copyright Getty Images + +Joey Gittleson is 60 years old, and is currently a lance corporal in the US Army. + +He has spent the last 20 years studying every book written on the US army, and has written a book on every single one of them. + +In his forthcoming book, he has compiled a list of the most important books ever written on the US military, from the days of the American Revolution to the modern day. + +"I've read books on military history for 20 years, so this is my 20th book," he says. + +"There's this one book called The Sum of All Fears, which says the US was founded as a country to protect the rights of all people, and it's a little sad because it's a great book. It's about slavery, but it's a book about the whole of human history." + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Sum of All Fears was written in 1859 by David McCullough + +Joey has also read a book called The Civil War, which he says was about the "greatest moral conflict in American history". + +"It was really about the injustice of slavery - who was going to have the right to own people," he says. + +"It was a very interesting book because it was written by a white man, but it was very accurate." + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Civil War was about the "greatest moral conflict in American history" + +Joey says his favourite book is a collection of short stories by the famous African-American writer, Langston Hughes. + +"He was a white man, but he wrote books about black people and black people's life, and he wrote really funny books. People such as Bob Dylan, and James Baldwin, would join Langston Hughes' family and read his stories. They were funny, but also very deep." + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption African-American writer Langston Hughes wrote brief vignettes of his experiences as a slave in the Deep South + +Joey Gittleson's book on the US army + +The United States Army in America + +by Joe Gittleson + +Vintage Books, £19.99 + +Joe Gittleson's first book, The United States Army in America, is a history of the US army written from the perspective of a white American male in the late 19th and early 20th century. + +It examines the formation of the army in the early days of the United States, the war against Mexico, and the Mexican War. + +Joe Gittleson's second book, The Civil War, is a collection of short stories by the famous African-American writer Langston Hughes. + +It is a history of the "greatest moral conflict in American history." + +The third book Joey has written is about the Vietnam War, and deals with the killing of civilians in the war by the US military. + +"The Vietnam war was a war that was fought for a very long time. One of the things that I wanted to do with the book was to show how people got killed, and it was often by the US military." + +Joey Gittleson's book on the US army + +The United States Army in America + +by Joe Gittleson + +Vintage Books, £19.99 + +Joe Gittleson's third book, The Civil War, is a collection +======================================== SAMPLE 172 ======================================== +Last week, the Arizona Cardinals placed tackle Jared Veldheer on injured reserve. The move was made after he suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Sunday's loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Now, the Cardinals are reportedly set to release Veldheer, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Monday. + +The Cardinals put Veldheer on IR at the request of head coach Bruce Arians, Rapoport added. The team will take a $2.5 million hit on the roster in order to release Veldheer. + +A healthy Veldheer could have provided some stability for the Cardinals' offensive line. Arizona has been beset by injuries, though, and Veldheer was the team's only healthy tackle this season. + +The Cardinals are now just four tackles away from the NFL record for most players under contract, according to Rapoport. + +The latest Around The NFL Podcast reacts to the most recent "DeflateGate" news and examines which team is most likely to be next. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.<|endoftext|>I was recently listening to a podcast called "The Science of Nerds" and they had a segment with a couple of different scientists discussing the differences between what they call "nerds" and "scientists". + +The first scientist interviewed was Dr. K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University. He was interviewed for the podcast by Dr. Matt Chwastyk. + +For those of you who don't know, Ericsson is an evolutionary psychologist who studies the biological and evolutionary basis of human behavior. He also co-authored a book called "The Nature of Human History" in 2010. + +I was surprised by the way Ericsson was interviewed. He actually said that he was referred to as a "nerd" and then quickly corrected himself, saying that he was referring to his research. In other words, he takes it as a given that he is a nerd and never really cares what people call him. + +He also said that he was not "all that interested in biology" and that he was actually a musician. + +I don't know what it is about music that makes people call themselves "nerds," but I thought that was amusing. + +The second interview was with Dr. John Tooby of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was also interviewed by Chwastyk. + +I thought Tooby's interview was a bit more interesting, because he was actually fun and engaging. The only thing I found interesting was his opinion that nerds are not obsessed with "science." + +I was also impressed with how much he was willing to talk about his books. He was very forthcoming about his theories and he even said that he was taking the next book on his list, "The Adapted Mind: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology." + +Tooby is also known for being a contentious thinker. He is known for his work on "moral development." + +For those of you that are unfamiliar with "moral development," Tooby and his colleagues, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, developed a theory that all human beings have a common set of core moral principles. These moral principles guide how people think about their actions, and help them to follow through on those actions. + +Tooby and Cosmides' theory has been met with considerable skepticism. For instance, in a 2006 paper, two psychologists, Joseph Henrich and Kevin Murphy, wrote, "Much of the literature focuses on the role of moral cognition in influencing behavior, but there is little evidence for a universal morality." + +In their paper, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Do Moral Principles Exist?" in the journal Science, the authors describe Tooby and Cosmides' theory as "nothing more than a caricature of the evolutionary psychology enterprise." + +That's pretty harsh. I guess there's some truth to that. + +Regardless, it's interesting to see scientists like Tooby and Cosmides and Ericsson defend their theories. + +In the end, what I took away from the interviews was that nerds are still nerds. They are just more socially adept than other people. + +Nerdiness doesn't have to be a bad thing.<|endoftext|>The Prime Minister has officially placed a ban on the sale of meat from animals including pigs, cows, sheep and chickens. + +Photo: 123rf + +It follows a decision by Mr Key to ban the sale of eggs from caged hens last year. + +New Zealand's National Party is opposed to the move, saying it would hurt a "vibrant local and national food industry". + +Animal welfare groups say the ban will do little to affect animal welfare and the industry will continue to raise pigs and cows on pasture, in open weather and with no confinement. + +A ban on pork would have little effect on the National Party's argument that meat from animals raised on pasture is of lesser welfare than those raised +======================================== SAMPLE 173 ======================================== +In a brief statement, the Justice Department said it would not seek to impose any additional sanctions on Russia, arguing that the issue of the election hacking is a working one. + +"The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that justice is done, and will pursue appropriate criminal and civil charges to the maximum extent permitted by law," the statement said. "The Department of Justice is also committed to coordinating, with the FBI and other relevant agencies, with a view to ensuring the fullest possible exchange of information." + +The statement came after Mr. Trump on Friday dismissed the Russia inquiry as a "hoax" and a "witch hunt," and after the president's national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was forced to resign for failing to tell the truth about his contacts with Mr. Kislyak. + +After a meeting with Mr. Putin on Friday, Mr. Trump said he did not feel under any pressure to turn over Mr. Flynn's communications with the Russian ambassador and said that he would talk to the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, about the matter. + +In Moscow, Mr. Putin had said that Mr. Trump had not talked about the issue, in part because he did not think Mr. Flynn had done anything wrong. + +The Foreign Ministry said that Mr. Putin welcomed Mr. Trump's decision to lift economic sanctions and acknowledged that "practically all" other presidents had done the same. The ministry added that Mr. Putin did not expect any additional measures from the United States. + +The Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia in December after the Russian government's annexation of Crimea and interference in Ukraine. The sanctions were designed to punish Russia for the election hacking. + +"It's necessary to make clear to everybody that the United States is not going to tolerate any attempts to harm our bilateral relations," Mr. Trump said in a statement. + +"However, in response to the actions by the Russian government, the Obama administration struck back by imposing further sanctions on Russia. It's time to move on to bigger and better things," he added. + +The Kremlin, in a statement, said Mr. Putin had been pleased with the president's decision. "He said that the US sanctions were an obstacle to the development of bilateral relations. He said that the US side must immediately stop the provocative actions and stop trying to harm the bilateral relations," the statement said. + +The sanctions were imposed over what the administration said was Russia's interference in the election. The administration did not accuse the Russian government of directly hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee or John D. Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton's campaign for president. + +The administration also took the unusual step of accusing Russia of trying to interfere in the presidential election by spreading disinformation and using social media to exacerbate divisions within the country. + +The Obama administration has accused Russia of hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee and John D. Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton's campaign for president. The administration did not accuse the Russian government of directly hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee or John D. Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton's campaign for president. John Minchillo/AP + +The administration accused Moscow of using cyberattacks to help Mr. Trump win the election. + +"It's clear that the Russian government is attempting to interfere in our election," Mr. Obama said in the statement. "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." + +He added, "There is no clear evidence that anyone other than the Russian government was involved in the direct hacking of our political organizations." + +Mr. Trump has said that the Russian hacks were carried out by "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds." + +The administration of Mr. Obama in December announced that it had expelled 35 Russian intelligence operatives in response to the election hacking. + +In a statement, the Russian Embassy in Washington said it welcomed the decision to lift the sanctions. "It's in the interests of both countries and the international community that these steps be taken swiftly," the statement said. + +Mr. Trump's national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, resigned on Feb. 13 after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Mr. Kislyak. + +In the wake of those revelations, Mr. Trump suggested that he might pardon Mr. Flynn, a retired four-star Army general who had been a critical figure in his transition team. + +The president's remarks on Friday appear to have prompted a change in the tide of the investigation by Mr. Comey. Mr. Trump was asked about the Russia investigation during a news conference on Friday. + +"With respect to the investigation into Russia, I have no idea," Mr. Trump said. "I haven't been told. As far as I'm concerned I'm looking into it." + +The president later added, "I have nothing to do with Russia +======================================== SAMPLE 174 ======================================== +As a child, my dad was a big sports fan. He liked to watch the games—the Yankees, the Spurs and more. He was a football fan. When he was a young man, he was the defensive coordinator for the team. When he was in his mid-twenties, he was named the head coach of the New York Jets. + +My dad was a game-day parent. He would spend hours at the stadium watching games. + +After I was born, my dad was still the head coach of the Jets. He was still a football fan, and he was still a football fan in his mid-30s. I know this because he told me so. + +So after he retired from his job, he took off for Chicago, where he continued coaching football and was an assistant coach at the University of Illinois. Once he got back to New York, he took a job as the general manager of the Jets. + +As an adult, I was a coach. I was the head football coach of the Jets. No one ever said anything to me about my dad. + +But this year, I learned that he was still a massive football fan and a huge Jets fan. So I asked him about it. + +"Oh," he said. "I just think you should be the one to ask about that." + +Here's what he said: + +"You know, I used to be a big football fan. I loved the teams. I loved the players. I loved the game. I used to watch the games before the game. I used to watch the games after the game. I used to go to the games. I used to travel to the games, and then I used to have a lot of fun. But then something happened. I got to the point where I couldn't watch the games. I got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't do it anymore. + +"I realized that I couldn't live with myself if I couldn't watch my favorite team. I used to love the Jets. I used to love the players. I used to love the game. I used to love meeting the players. I used to love these fans. I used to love the game. But I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't watch it anymore. I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't do it anymore. So I was like, 'OK. I'm just going to stop watching the Jets.'" + +He paused. + +He reflected on that for a moment. + +"I'm sorry, son." + +He paused. + +"I'm sorry." + +Then he said it again. + +"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's all I can say." + +He paused. + +"I'm sorry." + +I was stunned. I couldn't believe I had never talked to him about it. + +He retired from coaching the Jets in 2006. A few years later, he was hired as the general manager of the Broncos. He's been with the Broncos since 2010. + +It has been nearly six years. + +So I asked him. + +"Did you watch the Jets [from the time he was a young man in his twenties]?" + +"Yes," he said. "I loved watching the Jets. I remember I used to always be around this little table, watching the games. Watching the games, all the players. I remember when I was in college, I was at the University of Illinois, and I used to go to the games. I used to have a lot of fun. I remember going to the games in Chicago. I remember sitting in a seat in the northeast corner, and I used to sit there and watch the games. I used to sit there and watch the games. I used to sit there and watch the games. I used to watch the games in Chicago. I used to watch the games in Chicago. I used to watch the games in Chicago. + +"I used to be a big football fan. I loved the teams. I loved the players. I loved the game. I used to watch the games before the game. I used to watch the games after the game. I used to go to the games. I used to travel to the games, and then I used to have a lot of fun. But then something happened. I got to the point where I couldn't watch the games. I got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't watch it anymore. So I was like, 'OK. I'm just going to stop watching the Jets.'" + +The first time I saw him play was the Jets beat the Dolphins in 2007. He was a rookie. + +"I knew him," I told him. "I knew him from Chicago. I knew him when I was young." + +"I'm sorry," he +======================================== SAMPLE 175 ======================================== +Week 1 of the Major League Soccer season kicked off on Friday night with a Chicago Fire and New England Revolution match at Stade Saputo. + +The Fire had their fair share of scoring opportunities during the first half, but couldn't find the back of the net. A Jay Heaps' decision to go with a back 4 for the first half was perfectly timed as the Fire were able to earn a well-deserved victory. + +The Revs' offense was very effective this game as they found the back of the net in each half. A couple of key details that stood out to me were: + +-The Revolution's defensive midfielder, Diego Fagundez, was absent from the match. However, the Revolution were able to make several key defensive plays that kept the Fire from getting into a dangerous situation. + +-The Revs were able to get forward very effectively at times, but a couple of their key passes that were headed backwards were uncharacteristic of the Revs. + +Here's the video of the first half: + +Here's the video of the second half: + +In the end, Chicago took all three points thanks to a dominant performance from the defense and the Revs were unable to find the back of the net. + +Here are my observations: + +-The Fire defense was very good throughout the match. The Fire had 16 shots, and had only one unsuccessful clearance. + +-The Fire were able to get the ball forward consistently throughout the match, and were able to put the Fire on the board on two different occasions. + +-The Fire were able to create dangerous opportunities for their attack by finding the back of the net. + +-The Fire defense was very good in defense, and the Revs were unable to find the back of the net. + +-The Revs were able to get forward a few times, but were unable to create any significant opportunities. + +-The Revolution's defense was very well-disciplined throughout the match. + +-The Fire defense was very solid throughout the match, and the Revs were unable to find the back of the net. + +-Jay Heaps' decision to go with a back 4 for the first half was perfectly timed as the Fire were able to earn a well-deserved victory. + +-The Fire were able to get the ball forward consistently throughout the match, and were able to put the Fire on the board on two different occasions. + +-The Revs were able to find the back of the net in each half. A couple of key details that stood out to me were: + +-The Revs' defensive midfielder, Diego Fagundez, was absent from the match. However, the Revs were able to make several key defensive plays that kept the Fire from getting into a dangerous situation. + +-The Revs were able to get forward very effectively at times, but a couple of their key passes that were headed backwards were uncharacteristic of the Revs. + +Here's the video of the first half: + +Here's the video of the second half:<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + + +Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] + +Talk to the Dragonborn. Travel to a cave near the entrance to Helgen. Search the chest inside the cave and retrieve the Golden Claw. Return to the Dragonborn. + +Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] + +Unlocking the Door [ edit ] + +When you first arrive in Helgen, you will find that the first building you see is the College of Winterhold, which is located just south of Helgen and just a short distance from the entrance to Helgen Keep itself. You will probably also notice that the city has a very dark and cold feel. In this case, the cave outside of the College is the source of the problem. + +If you want to find a way to get inside the cave, there is one way. Just head south from the College of Winterhold and you'll find a small cave with a load of snow and ice. Follow the small path and you will find a chest guarded by a Forsworn Briarheart. The chest's contents are a very common item: a Golden Claw. If you have any magicka, you can use a Frost Salts spell on the claw to make it more useful, or you can use a Silver Sword to make it even more powerful. + +The only catch is that you will need to use a Golden Claw on a chest in the cave. There is a small passage about ten feet behind the chest, so you need to enter the cave with the Golden Claw in your hand. Once you enter the cave, head down a couple of steps and turn right (east). The Golden Claw is in the hallway and the chest is on the other side of the wall. + +It is possible to reach the chest without the Golden Claw, but it requires a bit of luck and a +======================================== SAMPLE 176 ======================================== +The post-Brexit world is not a happy place. With the pound plummeting, the pound-euro exchange rate at its lowest level in three years, and the City of London's stock market plummeting, it's easy to forget just how much the financial sector in the UK has changed since the vote to leave the EU. + +The rise of the City of London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and its subsequent dominance, was driven by a need to finance the industrial revolution. It was the birthplace of the City of London Corporation, the precursor to the London Stock Exchange, and it was also the birthplace of the Bank of England. + +Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the City's fortunes changed. Investment banking went international. With the EU's single market and the so-called City of London Agreement, the financial sector was able to flourish in the rest of Europe without having to follow the rules set out by the EEA, which was created in 1992. + +One of the key changes since the 'Brexit' vote has been the close integration of the City of London and the rest of the UK. It is now one of the most important financial centres in the world, and it is likely to remain so until at least 2021, when the City of London is due to host the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB). + +But even though the City is growing in importance, it is not immune to the change, and the City is feeling the strain. + +The pound has plunged sharply against the US dollar and the euro, with the pound's decline since the referendum on 23 June making the pound, which once traded at 113.4 pence to the dollar, today worth just 77 pence, at one point. The UK government's plans to introduce a "Brexit tax" on financial transactions are also well under way. + +It's not just the pound, the City has also been hit by a big drop in the value of its City stock. The FTSE 100, which covers the City's biggest companies, is down more than 5% this year. It has fallen by more than 8% in the last 12 months, and is down more than 20% in the last year. + +The other big concern for the City is the fact that London's financial sector is facing a massive structural change. + +As the City of London's financial sector becomes even more international, it is likely to attract many foreign investors, which means that the UK's financial sector will become even more internationalised. This is because the City's share of UK finance will be increasingly diluted. + +The City is already internationalised, with more than 60% of its corporate finance coming from outside the UK, and this will only increase as it becomes even less US-centric. + +And as the City becomes even more internationalised, it is likely to attract a higher proportion of foreign investment. The wider UK economy is likely to suffer as a result. + +The City's rise was largely driven by the need to finance the industrial revolution. It is now facing a structural change + +It is hard not to be gloomy about the future. The City may have made a very successful transition to the post-Brexit world, but it is now facing a very difficult challenge. + +As the City has become more internationalised, it has become more vulnerable to the changes it faces. + +The rise of the City of London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and its subsequent dominance, was driven by a need to finance the industrial revolution. It was the birthplace of the City of London Corporation, the precursor to the London Stock Exchange, and it was also the birthplace of the Bank of England. + +Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the City's fortunes changed. Investment banking went international. With the EU's single market and the so-called City of London Agreement, the financial sector was able to flourish in the rest of Europe without having to follow the rules set out by the EEA, which was created in 1992. + +During the 1990s, London was the world's financial centre, and it was the financial centre of the UK. But as the City became more internationalised, it became more vulnerable to the changes it faces. + +The rise of the City of London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and its subsequent dominance, was driven by a need to finance the industrial revolution. It was the birthplace of the City of London Corporation, the precursor to the London Stock Exchange, and it was also the birthplace of the Bank of England. + +Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the City's fortunes changed. Investment banking went international. With the EU's single market and the so-called City of London Agreement, the financial sector was able to flourish in the rest of Europe without having to follow the rules set out by the EEA, which was created in 1992. + +As a +======================================== SAMPLE 177 ======================================== +In the end, I think the LDS Church is the most important organization in the world. That's probably why I got married in the church, and I'm sure that's why the people in my ward were so warm and welcoming. I don't regret my decision, but I did feel like I had to do something to make the church make sense to me. I want people to feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place that isn't a place where people feel like they are being judged, or they are listening to someone who is judging them. + +I want the church to be a place where people feel welcome and affirmed by their leaders, and where they are not judged. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place that isn't a place where people feel like they are being judged, or they are listening to someone who is judging them. + +I'm not anti-mormon, or anti-LDS. I love the LDS church. I believe it's the best of all the churches. I believe that the church is being misunderstood and misconstrued by a lot of members, and that it's important for people to understand the full scope of what the church teaches and believes. I believe that the church is making tremendous strides in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. I believe that the church is working on removing its LGBT policies and policies that prevent people from being baptized upon reaching a certain age. I believe that the church is making tremendous strides in its teaching and educating its members about the importance of family and marriage. I believe that the church is doing a lot of good in the world, but that it still has many of its problems. + +I also believe that the church is not the only organization that can deliver those things. I believe that we can do better. I believe that we have the ability to provide a solid, good community for people. I believe that people will see that we are making the right decisions and making the effort to make the church as a whole a better place. I believe that we can teach our members and our leaders all of the good things that the LDS Church is doing, and not just the bad things. I believe that we can teach our members and our leaders all of the good things that the LDS Church is doing, and not just the bad things. + +I want the church to be a place where people feel like they are being welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. I want the church to be a place where people feel like they can come to the church and feel like they are welcomed, and that they are not being judged by their beliefs. + +I believe there are a lot of good things happening in the LDS Church. I believe that the church is making great strides in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. I believe that the church is making tremendous strides in its teaching and educating its members about the importance of family and marriage. I believe that the church is doing a lot of good in the world, but that it still has many of its problems. I believe that the church is doing a lot of good in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. I believe that the church is making tremendous strides in its teaching and educating its members about the importance of family and marriage. I believe that the church is doing a lot of good in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. I believe that the church is doing a lot of good in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. + +I believe there are a lot of good things happening in the LDS Church. I believe that the church is making great strides in its outreach to the LGBTQ community and reducing its anti-gay stance. I believe that the church is making tremendous strides in its +======================================== SAMPLE 178 ======================================== +"I think the mayor needs to be careful how he addresses this issue," she said. "He should not put it in the hands of the police superintendent. He needs to address the police chief."<|endoftext|>When US President Barack Obama visited New Delhi, he took stock of his own legacy in the world. He had left office in January and, as he went on, he talked about it: his failure to end the war in Iraq, his failure to put the Afghan war to a successful conclusion, his failure to secure a peaceful end to the Israel-Palestine conflict. + +But, in the process, he also said many of the things he hadn't in office. There was the US response to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that was "unprecedented in the history of the world", but it didn't stop him from saying the same thing in the 2012 election. + +"The United States has been the world's leader in confronting terrorism since that day," he said. + +There was the fact that the US had been the only country to fly over the North Korean nuclear test site in December, but that didn't stop him from saying the same thing in the 2012 presidential election. + +"We are going to continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that our allies and our partners in the region are secure," he said. + +There was the fact that the US had stopped the killing of civilians in Iraq, but that didn't stop him from saying the same thing in the 2012 presidential election. + +What changed in Obama's later statements was that he needed to start admitting to his mistakes. He was confident that he had done enough to end the war in Iraq, but now that the war was in his rear view mirror, he needed to start saying things that might convince people that he didn't, in fact, do enough. + +The fact that he had avoided saying the word "Afghanistan" for over a year, as if doing so would somehow make him seem less culpable, only made people more suspicious of him. The fact that he refused to say the words "Pakistan" and "Somalia" in the same sentence only made people ask more questions. + +As CNN noted in an article published on December 30 last year, the fact that Obama wouldn't say the words "Pakistan" and "Somalia" in the same sentence only made people more suspicious of him + +The piece was headlined: "Obama: Lose the war on terror or lose your legacy". + +And the downside of that legacy-building process is that Obama has made no effort to improve the lives of the people he left in power in the countries he left the war in. + +"Mr. President," wrote CNN's Jim Sciutto, "the American people are asking the hard questions. Do you think the US left behind enough security in Afghanistan and Pakistan to prevent attacks such as the one on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans? Do you think the US left behind enough political space for the Taliban to control Afghanistan? And do you think the US left behind enough space for the al Qaeda terrorist network to operate?" + +This is a particular problem for Obama, because the American people have grown increasingly frustrated by the failure of the war in Afghanistan to produce any results. + +"The US is facing the most serious security challenge it has faced since the end of the Cold War," said the New York Times' Eric Schmitt. "The Afghan war is in shambles, its leaders are unwilling to relinquish power, and the Taliban have been allowed to regroup and regroup." + +The failure of the war in Afghanistan to produce any results is a particular problem for Obama, because the American people have grown increasingly frustrated by the failure of the war in Afghanistan to produce any results. + +"The US is facing the most serious security challenge it has faced since the end of the Cold War," said the New York Times' Eric Schmitt. "The Afghan war is in shambles, its leaders are unwilling to relinquish power, and the Taliban have been allowed to regroup and regroup." + +Instead of trying to make things better with the people he left in power in the countries he left the war in, Obama's response is to try and make things worse. In his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, Obama is trying to create a safe space for the Taliban to regroup, regroup, regroup. + +The Taliban are not going to be defeated in Afghanistan. They are not going to be defeated in Pakistan. And they are not going to be defeated in Iraq. They will be defeated in Syria, in Yemen and in Libya, where they are currently fighting the government of Muammar Gaddafi. + +But the Obama administration is looking not only to make things worse, it is looking to make things worse forever. + +"What we should not do is make it harder for al Qaeda and their affiliates to find safe havens," +======================================== SAMPLE 179 ======================================== +"You can't get around the fact that let's say, the next five years is going to be a very challenging year for the country, for the world, for our country, the world." + +In an interview with CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, President Barack Obama made clear why he's determined to enact a new executive action on immigration. + +"You can't get around the fact that let's say, the next five years is going to be a very challenging year for the country, for the world, for our country, the world," Obama said. "We're going to have a lot of tough conversations around the world." + +Obama said he's hopeful that the first executive action the president takes will help "change the tone" on immigration, but he's not sure it will do much. + +On Friday, Obama announced that he will issue an executive action that will shield an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, a move that has drawn outrage from Republicans and some Democrats. + +Obama said the administration is considering other options for implementing the immigration action. That includes executive action through executive action, or legislation, and he also said he's considering a public-service announcement. + +On Sunday, Obama was asked how he can be confident that he'll convince Congress to pass a bill. + +"It's going to require some courage. It's going to require some backbone. It's going to require us to have a conversation that doesn't just center on politics, because politics will be the short end of the stick," he said. "But it's going to require us to actually try to find ways to get immigration reform done in a way that doesn't split the country up along the lines of what we think is right, and what we think is wrong. It's going to require us to be open to the possibility of compromise on a lot of things. It's going to require us to be willing to walk away if it's necessary." + +Obama said that he's not sure what will happen in Congress when it comes to immigration reform. + +"I'm not sure that we ever really know what Congress is going to do," he said. "I think we can be reasonably confident, though, that the Republicans' most important message is that they're going to oppose any kind of comprehensive immigration reform." + +When asked whether he's willing to compromise with Republicans on immigration reform if they are willing to compromise on taxes, Obama said he has not had conversations with members of Congress on the issue, but he said he's willing to do so. + +"I'll be honest, I've not had conversations with members of Congress on this issue, but I'll be honest with you, if they're willing to compromise, I'm willing to compromise," he said. "I've also said before that I support a pathway to citizenship for people who are here illegally. And I think we've got to be willing to compromise on something like that."<|endoftext|>The European Parliament's chief negotiator on the UK's Brexit divorce bill has conceded that the EU would be happy to accept a lower figure than the £50bn demanded by the UK. + +The European Parliament's chief negotiator on the UK's Brexit divorce bill has conceded that the EU would be happy to accept a lower figure than the £50bn demanded by the UK. + +Spokesman Guy Verhofstadt told the Irish Parliament it was "well understood" that the EU would not pay a "gross amount" of money in the negotiations. + +He added that the EU had made a "very generous offer" to the UK, and that the pound's fall in value to the dollar had provided a "very good" illustration of the UK's "demands". + +The European Commission had made clear that it would not accept a figure of £50bn, and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier said a lower figure should be considered. + +Mr Verhofstadt's comments come as the EU prepares to release its negotiating guidelines for the Brexit talks next week. + +The guidelines are likely to be the first official EU negotiating position on Britain's exit from the EU, which will be published on November 6. + +The first official position on Brexit will be published in the EU's Official Journal on November 6. + +The EU's negotiator on Brexit Michel Barnier + +In the new documents, which will be published alongside the European Council's guidelines, the commission will set out its approach to the UK's withdrawal from the union, with a focus on the future relationship. + +The guidelines will be aimed at providing the most detailed possible set of terms that the EU can accept in order to move on to discussions on future trade and customs relations. + +Last week, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU was willing to start talks on a transition period within two years if the UK agreed to certain conditions. + +The guidelines will be published in tandem with the UK's draft negotiating objectives, which are due to be published +======================================== SAMPLE 180 ======================================== +The most influential voice on the Internet is now a company, Google. + +Google (GOOG) announced Thursday that it had acquired the mapping and location-based services company Waze for $1.1 billion. + +"As the Internet evolves, people need a simple way to get directions and find the things they need to get around, and Waze is the best platform to do just that," Google said in a statement. + +Waze, which says it has 40 million registered users in more than 150 countries, has already been integrated into Google Maps and easily integrated into Google Search, Android and the Maps app on iOS and Android phones. + +"Waze was created to fill a real need for users," said Ram Shivakumar, CEO of Google. "We believe this acquisition is another step forward for our mission to make the world's information universally accessible and useful." + +Waze has been around for a few years, but Google bought it in 2012 for a reported $50 million. + +Related: Google dominates in mobile search + +The acquisition is part of Google's attempt to acquire a number of top mapping and location-based services. The company has long been investing in mapping and location-based services, and has acquired a number of companies in this space recently. + +When Google (GOOG) acquired the mapping and location-based services business of Nokia (NOK) in 2014, it was one of the biggest acquisitions of that year. + +Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT) also made major acquisitions of mapping and location-based services companies in recent years. + +But Google's recent acquisitions have been smaller, smaller deals. The company just bought the photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion, while it also bought the mapping company Waze for a reported $50 million. + +Waze's users can now use Google Maps to get directions, and can also see real-time traffic updates. But it's unclear how much money Waze makes from those services, and it has not said how much it will pay to Google. + +"Our primary goal is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful," said Shivakumar. "We believe that a global community of people who use Waze will be more motivated to share their experiences and create a better, more connected world." + +Waze started off as a mobile mapping app, before pivoting to a desktop-based service. But like many others -- including MapQuest (MARKET) -- Waze has seen its fortunes decline. + +"We're very excited to be joining forces with Google," said Waze co-founder and CEO Bas Wisselink. "They're a leader in search and mobile, and we're excited to continue to build out the Waze app for Android and iOS."<|endoftext|>LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is to launch its first domestically produced rocket in a bid to compete with the US, Russia and China in the space technology sector, said officials and industry officials. + +Pakistan will send its first geosynchronous satellite on a launch vehicle it is developing and expects to make use of the space technology in national security, scientific and industrial applications, the officials said. + +Pakistan's space and defence industries will be able to compete with other countries, they said. + +"We have to make a start. We have to learn how to do it ourselves, and we have to learn from others," said an official in the Aviation Research and Development Organisation (ARDO), a government-run research organisation. + +ARDO is leading the space programme in Pakistan, and is also one of the lead contractors for developing a prototype of the Ariane 6 rocket, a vehicle Pakistan is working on to launch satellites. + +"We have to learn how to do it ourselves, and we have to learn from others." + +"We are trying to do it within the country and to make our own products. It has to be a local technology. We have to make our own technology," said the official. + +But he added that the space industry would be competitive with the US, Russia and China. + +The launch vehicle being developed by ARDO is known as the Geo-Astro 3 (GA-3) and will have a launch range of 2,100km. It is designed to send up to four satellites in a single mission. + +The first geosynchronous satellite will be launched on the GA-3 in the second half of this year, said the official. + +"The first generation of satellites will be used for weather forecasting and disaster management. The second generation will be used for scientific and industrial applications," he said. + +He said Pakistan was working on a geostationary satellite with a launch range of 3,000km. + +"We are looking at the Indian climate satellites, but we have to look at our own," he said. + +"We are trying to make a small satellite with +======================================== SAMPLE 181 ======================================== +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bill Clinton has said he wants to be a "real part of the change" in 2016 + +Bill Clinton has told US voters he wants to be a "real part of the change" in 2016, saying the country has begun to heal. + +The former president said he was "very, very proud" of his wife's campaign. + +"I have some issues with her, but I have to say, I'm very, very proud of her," he told ABC's This Week. + +Hillary Clinton has faced criticism for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. + +Mr Clinton, who has endorsed his wife for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he was not suggesting Mrs Clinton was not honest in her emails, adding there should be "tougher" rules on record keeping. + +"I'm not suggesting that she was not honest. I'm saying we've gone beyond what's necessary with the rules," he said. + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mrs Clinton has faced criticism for her use of a private email server + +"I'm not suggesting that she was not honest. I'm saying we've gone beyond what's necessary with the rules Bill Clinton + +"I think it's fair to say that for two decades her family has been doing things in public that they would never do in private." + +He also said that he did not think Mrs Clinton had broken any laws, but said there "should be tougher rules" on record keeping. + +"I'm not suggesting that she was not honest. I'm saying we've gone beyond what's necessary with the rules," he said. + +Mr Clinton also said he felt "great" about watching his wife's campaign unfold. + +"She has been a champion for many, many years, and she has done a great job," he said, adding he was proud of the campaigning she had done. + +Mr Clinton said he was more confident than ever that his wife would be the next president. + +"I think she's going to be the next president of the United States," he said. + +"I think she's going to have an overwhelming victory in the Democratic primaries. + +"I think she's going to win the general election. I think that she's going to be more popular than any president that we've had, and I don't think there's any question about that." + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Clinton has been campaigning for his wife at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh + +Mr Clinton also hailed his wife's success as a "miracle" and defended her as "honest and trustworthy". + +"I've never had a woman president, and I don't think any of us who have had a woman president have ever had a responsibility to act like we had to, but Hillary Clinton is a terrific woman," he said. + +"She's got a very good heart and I think she's going to be a great president." + +Mr Clinton's interview comes after his wife was criticised for her use of the private email server while she was secretary of state. + +Mrs Clinton used a private server for all of her work emails, which was in violation of state Department rules, and has since apologised for her actions. + +Mr Clinton said in the interview: "I was not aware of the server that she used until it was revealed." + +He said Mrs Clinton was "very, very smart" and did "a great job". + +He said the controversy surrounding her email scandal had "given a lot of people pause" but added that the former secretary of state had been "steadfast in the face of all the attacks". + +'I'm not going to concede anything' + +Mr Clinton has previously said he would not concede the White House race without his wife being the nominee. + +However, he told ABC: "I'm not going to concede anything until July, because we've got a long road ahead of us." + +He added: "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that Hillary Clinton is elected president." + +Mr Clinton was questioned about his age and whether he could run for a third term in the White House. + +He said: "I'm not going to concede anything because I've said I can do it. + +"If we do a good job, if we get the nomination, then I'll be happy to think about my future." + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has pledged to take on the "billionaire class" + +He added: "I have been a public servant for the last 35 years." + +He said he had been "a private citizen" for the past seven years. + +Mr Sanders has pledged to take on the "billionaire class" and said he would make public colleges and universities tuition-free. + +He said he would make the wealthiest people in the country pay their +======================================== SAMPLE 182 ======================================== +BOSTON — A judge ordered a Boston-area funeral home and crematorium to pay a woman in her 70s more than $2 million after the company hired a former construction worker to build their facilities and failed to pay him according to his contract. + +The case, which the U.S. Attorney's Office says could set a federal precedent, stems from the death of Elizabeth Vassallo of Westborough, Mass. + +A summary of the case against M&C Cremation Services Inc. filed in federal court in Boston describes a series of events that led to Vassallo's death. + +According to the lawsuit, Vassallo was paid $4,000 a month for her work as a burly chainsaw operator at the funeral home's shop. On another occasion, the lawsuit said, she was assigned to use a "sledgehammer" to build a water tank in the shop, but was instead required to raise rock walls with a chain saw. + +The lawsuit said she was paid only $150 a month for her work as a chain saw operator at the crematorium, a job that involved lifting up to two tons of bodies and disposing of them in a vat of acid. + +"Ms. Vassallo was paid more than the minimum wage for her work and was not paid at all for the work she did not perform," the lawsuit said. + +The lawsuit said Vassallo, who had been a longtime customer at the funeral home, asked to be paid for some of the work she did as a chainsaw operator, but the company refused. The lawsuit said the company also failed to pay Vassallo for the work she did as a burly chainsaw operator. + +Vassallo died in September 2011, but the funeral home and crematorium went into bankruptcy in 2013. Last year, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts ordered the company to pay Vassallo more than $1.3 million in restitution and fines. + +In the lawsuit, the funeral home and crematorium were named as defendants. The case is named in her name because the company was her employer at the time of her death. + +The lawsuit said the company was under investigation for more than 30 previous workplace violations, including two cases involving death and serious injury. + +The attorney for the Vassallo family, David J. Cohen, said the family was pleased with the outcome. + +"I would say the main takeaway is that the court came down on the side of the worker in every respect," Cohen said. "They made sure that the company was held accountable for the violations that they had committed in the past. They also brought in a special master, who was an expert in the field who did a thorough analysis of the company's operations and what went wrong."<|endoftext|>When a guy walks into the bathroom of a gay bar, what do you do? + +If you're the guys who have made a career out of watching straight men fawn over men, then you sit back and laugh. + +Or if you're a man yourself, you start to wonder what the hell was wrong with those guys. + +It's the same here at The Advocate, where we've been having a really good run of it with our "One Thing We Do Know About Men" series. + +We get lots of emails from readers who are confused about dating, so this week we asked our regular contributor, Jenni Koop, to explain to us how men date and what men do when they're cruising. + +The answer: When a man walks into a gay bar, he wants to see what the women there are wearing. + +There's a long history of male culture focusing on the female form, and in the gay community that means focusing on the female body. + +So in a way, you can argue that women are the ones who have dominated every part of male culture in the past, and the gay community has a long history of disrespecting women. + +But that doesn't mean women are stupid. If you really looked at women, you'd see that they were much more intelligent than men. + +The reason why women rule the world is because they have to. As the gender in charge, they have to take care of the needs of everyone, from children to spouses to business executives. + +Men, on the other hand, don't have to take care of any of those things because they don't have to take care of anyone but themselves. + +That's why, when a man walks into a gay bar, he wants to see what women are wearing. + +Read the rest at The Advocate.<|endoftext|>[Haskell-cafe] Monad transformers for errors in Racket + +Here's a proposal for moving to a monad based error handling mechanism in Racket. To make things more exciting, we can do it as a Monad Transformer. The idea is to replace the error handling in Racket +======================================== SAMPLE 183 ======================================== +It's been a rough couple of weeks for the U.S. women's national soccer team. On Monday, it was announced that the team would not be playing in this summer's Olympic Games in Brazil. Then, on Tuesday, it was announced that the team's star player, Abby Wambach, wouldn't be playing in women's soccer either. This comes as a complete surprise, as Wambach is one of the most accomplished soccer players in history. She has won five World Cup titles and three Olympic gold medals. But just because she's accomplished doesn't mean she should be forced to sit out. + +Why should she be forced to sit out? Because she's a woman. + +Wambach is 32 years old. It's not uncommon to see female athletes, like the aforementioned Abby, play through injury and fatigue. But Wambach's injury is not a normal one. She has a torn meniscus that will keep her out for the next six months, and a torn ACL that will keep her out for the next four months. + +Advertisement + +When you consider that these injuries stem from her playing soccer, they're shockingly difficult to recover from. As a result, Wambach will be sidelined for the first half of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. As a consequence, she'll miss the 2014 World Cup and, for the second half of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the U.S. will be without its best striker. + +It's a devastating blow for a team that is primed to make a deep run in the tournament. It's a devastating blow for Wambach, who is one of the world's best players and a beloved figure in American soccer circles. And it's a devastating blow for American women's soccer, which has "the most talented roster in the history of the sport," as ESPN's Doug McIntyre put it. + +However, it's not just the injuries that have Wambach in the crosshairs, since she's also a tactical genius who helped the U.S. win the 2011 World Cup. And it's not just the injuries that have the team in the crosshairs, since Wambach has been outspoken about the need for more women's professional soccer. + +Abby Wambach and the U.S. women's national soccer team, for example, have been outspoken about the need for more women's professional soccer. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ben Margot + +As a response to women's professional soccer, Wambach launched the NWSL in 2011. She lobbied the U.S. Soccer Federation to allow the league to compete in the World Cup. She spoke passionately about the need for more women's professional soccer in the United States. She even suggested creating a separate league for women, which is a serious proposal that would make a lot of sense. + +Women's soccer in the United States is in a state of transition. The U.S. Women's National Team and the WNBA have been around for decades, while the WPS has existed since 1999. But, as a result, there are fewer women's games on TV and more women's soccer players are playing in the NWSL than ever before. Clearly, more women's professional soccer is a good thing. + +Advertisement + +But there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned about the situation. For one, Wambach is one of the most popular players on the team. She's the face of the team and she has a tremendous voice, as her Twitter account and appearance on ESPN's SportsCenter attest. + +But another problem for the team is that Wambach already has a verbal contract with the U.S. Soccer Federation. She has to abide by the federation's rules, and, as a result, she's not going to be able to play for the national team. + +There's also the issue of the U.S. women's national team's image. As a matter of fact, the U.S. women don't even have a good image, as former U.S. women's national team player Brandi Chastain argued in an op-ed for The New York Times. "There is something deeply wrong in our culture that allows one of the most beloved and admired women in all of sports — a woman who had the courage to play the game she loves for a living — to be dismissed by her peers and her countrymen simply because of her gender," Chastain wrote. + +And finally, there is the issue of Wambach's vocal support for women's pro soccer. In 2012, Wambach pledged to raise millions for a women's professional soccer team. She also used her platform to speak out on behalf of the NWSL. She wrote an op-ed for ESPN the Magazine in 2012 about why women's professional soccer is important. + +"I am trying to make the argument that women's soccer should be treated like professional sports, like other sports," she wrote at the time +======================================== SAMPLE 184 ======================================== +Is it too late to schedule a meeting with the people who will be running your city's streets? + +That's the question asked by residents in a video posted to Facebook. + +The video was posted on the campaign website of council candidate Omari Waker. + +The online video shows the comments made by Waker, who is running for council in the city of St. John's. + +"I know that there are a lot of people out there who have expressed their concerns and their concerns have been heard," Waker said in the video. + +Waker has said he would like to meet with residents who have complained about the city's recent high-profile problems with pedestrian collisions. + +Waker says he would like to meet with the people who have complained about the city's recent high-profile problems with pedestrian collisions. (CBC) + +Many of the comments come from people who live near the locations where collisions have occurred. + +Waker said he would like to meet with the residents and hear their concerns. + +"I think it's important to meet with people when they have a problem, not just sit there and wait for it to go away," Waker said in the video. + +Waker's campaign website says he is running against Coun. Bobby Cox, councillor Dana Fisher, and Coun. John O'Donovan for the seat currently held by Coun. Andrew Foulds. + +Waker has said in the past that he would like to go into policing and create a better relationship between police and citizens. + +The city has been plagued with high-profile collisions. + +In October 2016, a 32-year-old woman suffered serious injuries when she was struck by a car on North Street. + +In October 2015, a 22-year-old woman was killed in a collision on the St. Mary's Road overpass.<|endoftext|>The South China Sea is the area that claims to be the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China, and is the largest body of water in the world's oceans. China has been building artificial islands in the region, and has claimed nearly all of the South China Sea as its own.<|endoftext|>Cydia has a lot of great apps, but there are a lot of them that are not worth your time. There are some great free apps that you can download and enjoy, but the best apps are apps that you pay for. Some of the best paid apps are listed below, and you can get to them by clicking the link in the table. + +These are the most popular paid apps for Cydia. Some of these apps are free apps that have become popular and have a lot of users, and some of these apps are paid apps that have become popular because they are very useful and have lots of features. + +1. iFile + +iFile is one of the best paid apps for Cydia, and it is one of the best paid apps for iOS. iFile is a feature-rich file manager for iOS that lets you keep track of all your files in one place. It has a clean interface with many features, and it is very easy to use. It has many themes, and it is very customizable. Another great feature of iFile is the ability to run your own version of iFile, so if you want to bring some of the features from the free version to the paid version, you can do that. + +Download iFile here + +2. iTranslate + +iTranslate is one of the best paid iOS apps for translation. iTranslate is very easy to use, and it is very customizable. It is very easy to translate text in almost any language, and it is also very easy to add text to the translation. iTranslate does a great job of translating text, and it is very easy to use. You can translate text from hundreds of different languages, and it is a great app for getting around or doing business in another country. + +Download iTranslate here + +3. Camera + +The Camera app is one of the best paid apps for Cydia. The Camera app is very useful for taking pictures and taking videos. You can use the camera to take pictures of your family or your friends, and it is easy to use. It has many different features, and it is very customizable. You can add custom filters to the pictures that you take, and it is easy to use. You can also use the camera to take videos of your family or friends. + +Download Camera here + +4. Calculator + +The Calculator app is one of the best paid apps for Cydia. The Calculator app has many different features, and it is very customizable. There are lots of different features, and it is easy to use. You can add custom math equations to the calculator, and you can also add custom built-in formulas to the calculator. You can use the calculator to add up and calculate the weight of your groceries or the price of your groceries, and it +======================================== SAMPLE 185 ======================================== +In a dramatic turn of events, the Attorney General of Pakistan has confirmed that the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Karachi airport. + +The Taliban have also claimed responsibility for the attack in Peshawar and the murder of a Christian pastor. + +In a joint press conference with the Pakistani President, Nawaz Sharif, the Attorney General of Pakistan, Zahid Hamid, said that the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack on Karachi airport. + +"The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack at Karachi airport. The attack was planned and executed by their Taliban members in North Waziristan and the group has taken responsibility for the attack," he claimed. + +He added that the Pakistani Taliban are a "terrorist organisation" and that Pakistan is not going to allow the group to "terrorise Pakistan or its people". + +The Secretary General of the Quetta Shura of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Sirajuddin Haqqani, said that the TTP had attacked the airport in retaliation to the Indian drone strike in North Waziristan. + +Writing on Twitter, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is considered one of the most influential commanders of the TTP, said that the TTP had launched the attack on Karachi airport because the drone attack had killed innocent civilians. + +The attack on Karachi airport was planned and executed by their Taliban members in North Waziristan & #PakArmy has taken responsibility for the attack. — Sirajuddin Haqqani (@sirajudinhaqqani) December 16, 2014 + +The attack on Karachi airport was planned and executed by their Taliban members in North Waziristan & #PakArmy has taken responsibility for the attack. — Sirajuddin Haqqani (@sirajudinhaqqani) December 16, 2014 + +Earlier, the Pakistan Army launched a major offensive in North Waziristan, where the Pakistani Taliban are based. + +The offensive is aimed at killing the militants and clearing the area of militants in North Waziristan. + +On Friday, the Indian Government said that there was no truth to reports that the Indian Army was involved in the air strike that killed Taliban militants at the Pak-Afghan border in North Waziristan. + +The offices of the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have been reportedly closed because of the air strike. + +Air strike: Indian Army personnel fire in the air across the border at two suspected militants at the Pak-Afghan border in North Waziristan — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 16, 2014 + +Meanwhile, the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, has condemned the bombing at Karachi airport. + +"I'm sure that the people of Pakistan will go back to their normal lives," he said. + +The President added that he had spoken to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding the attack. + +"I have spoken to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and we have condemned the attack and our two countries have agreed to work together to keep our people safe," the President said. + +"We have been in touch with the US government and they have confirmed their condemnation of the attack," the President said. + +The drone strike that killed Taliban militants in North Waziristan was "in clear violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity", the President said. + +"The United States must now take immediate action to bring to justice those responsible. It is in no one's interest that terrorists can carry out such cowardly attacks," he added. + +The lawyer of the pastor murdered by the Taliban said that the attack was a "planned attack" on the church. + +"The attack was deliberate and planned. There was no mistake. The area of attack was a church," said Khurram Paracha. + +Paracha said that the church was attacked with an explosive device at around 8am on Sunday morning. + +"There was a blast and everyone ran into the church. The blast was so powerful it damaged the roof of the church," he said, adding that only the pastor was hurt in the attack. + +The bishop of the church said that the attack was carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that is fighting against the Pakistani government. + +"This attack was a planned attack on the church. It was carried out by the TTP," said Rafiqul Islam. + +The church chairman added that the attack was carried out in response to the killing of innocent civilians by the Pakistani military. + +"This attack is in response to the killing of innocent civilians by the Pakistani military," said Islam. + +In an interview with Arnab Goswami, the Bishop said that the attack was carried out by militants from the group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, an anti-government militant group that is active in Pakistan's tribal regions. + +"In fact, +======================================== SAMPLE 186 ======================================== +https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/22/opinion/kanye-west-the-misogynist-and-the-man-who-lost.html + +Jul 22, 2018 - The best thing Kanye West could do to fight back against the criticism that he is a misogynist is to take a stab at the knee-jerk accusations that he is a bigot.<|endoftext|>The Macomb County Sheriff's Office's Metro-Divers Unit is looking for a pair of men who broke into a home in the 1800 block of South Troy Street on Saturday night. + +Around 10 p.m. deputies responded to a report of a home invasion in progress at the home. An officer arrived at the home and saw two men in the backyard. The homeowner told the officer she had been home alone and had been able to get her gun and call for help. + +The homeowner said she was able to catch one of the men and he ran away. The homeowner said she then followed the man and captured him. He was wearing all black with a hoodie, and the woman said he was wearing a mask. + +Both men are described as being in their 20s, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and wearing a black hoodie and black pants. + +Anyone with information is asked to call the Metro-Divers Unit at 231-344-6700.<|endoftext|>I have a new job. A new job that involves a lot of work and a lot of conversations I need to have with a lot of people from a lot of places. I'm using Google Hangouts to do those conversations. + +This is the first time I've used Hangouts. I've used Skype and Google Hangouts, but I discovered Hangouts while doing a Google search for "how to move a YouTube video to my iPhone" and it was the first thing that popped up. + +So, I'm using it on my iPhone right now. I'm not using it to Skype people at work. That's not really my intention for it. Hangouts is primarily for meetings, and I have a Skype account for a lot of my work. + +I'm using it on my iPhone. + +One thing that I had to learn when I started using Hangouts was that I could not use the video chat to call an individual person. Google has this requirement that the person you're calling needs to be able to see the video feed and hear the audio. These are two different things. I know that I can't call people at work and not have them hear the audio in order for them to see the video. + +Since I have a full-time job, I am able to add anyone I want to my group. But, it's not necessarily easy to do this. When I try, it takes me a while to add the person. It's easy to add people to my group if they are at work or I can call them on my phone. So, I'm trying to figure out how to add people to my group if I don't have a phone number in my group. + +I have already added a few people to my group. I don't want to do this too many times, because I'm trying to keep the group smaller than mine, but I'm also not sure how to do it. + +I do have a Google Voice number, but I don't know how to call anyone without getting their phone number, or at least the number of their cell phone. I have a Google Voice number, but I don't know how to call anyone without getting their phone number, or at least the number of their cell phone. + +I'm trying to figure out how to add people to my group without getting their phone number. + +Or, I can add them, but I have no idea how to do that. I've been trying to call them on their cell phone, but they don't have a voicemail or their voicemail is too long and they don't pick up. + +Here's an example of my group. I would like to add someone to my group, but I don't know how to add someone without sending a message to them. + +Here's the screen I'm on now. If I click on the person's name, it gives me a little info box. I can see they have a Google Voice number, but I can't call them. + +I don't want to send a message. I want to add a new user to my group. How do I do that?<|endoftext|>A woman who captured the controversy surrounding the recent controversial National Day Parade has challenged a media outlet to an interview. + +"I have a new platform to discuss my personal life and my political thoughts, but I am ready to talk to the media about the National Day Parade," she wrote on Facebook. + +The woman who goes by the name "Tianna" shared a video of her being blocked by Lantana Police as she tried to get +======================================== SAMPLE 187 ======================================== +This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. + +The human placenta and its protective membranes are the major barrier to the uterine blood supply. The current understanding of this barrier is based on the use of different techniques for measuring the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the use of a blood–placenta barrier (BBP) model. In this article we present a study on the effects of rifampin, a broad spectrum antibiotic, on the BBB during pregnancy. Using an in vivo model of pregnant maternally derived placenta and BBB, we observed a substantial decrease in the BBB permeability when the mother received rifampin in the first trimester of gestation, and no effects on the BBB in the second and third trimesters. These results suggest that rifampin is effective in treating placenta-associated infections in pregnant women, and they also suggest that rifampin may improve the placental barrier function and decrease the risk of maternal BBB damage. + +Microbiological and pharmacological studies have shown that rifampin, a broad spectrum antibiotic, affects several pathogens, including the human placenta and its protective membranes. The placenta is the major barrier to the maternal blood supply. Rifampin is used as an antibiotic to treat infections in the placenta, and also to prevent infection by certain pathogens in the maternal blood ( 1 ). For example, rifampin is commonly used for the treatment of placental infections in pregnant women. It is also used as an adjunctive treatment for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in pregnant women, and in the prevention of infection caused by Leishmania species. The current understanding of the placenta's role in the mother-infant interaction is based on studies using different techniques, the use of a blood-brain barrier model, and the use of different antibiotics, including rifampin. + +Contrary to the results obtained by Fennema et al. ( 3 ), the concentration of the bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) binding protein was higher in the first trimester of pregnancy in the group treated with rifampin than in the control group. The difference was not significant (p = 0.34) because the difference in BrdU binding protein between the two groups was not statistically significant (0.38 ± 0.22 vs. 0.31 ± 0.26 pg/mL; p = 0.27). + +In the presence of rifampin, the concentration of the β-galactosidase activity was also decreased (p = 0.04) in the presence of the maternal plasma. The β-galactosidase activity was also decreased in the presence of the maternal serum and placenta (p = 0.04). The β-galactosidase activity was also decreased in the presence of the maternal serum and placenta (p = 0.04). + +In the presence of rifampin, there was a significant decrease in the concentration of the β-galactosidase activity. The β-galactosidase activity was also decreased in the presence of the maternal serum and placenta (p = 0.02). The β-galactosidase activity was also decreased in the presence of the maternal serum and placenta (p = 0.02). The β-galactosidase activity was also decreased in the presence of the maternal serum and placenta (p = 0.02). + +The concentrations of the β-galactosidase activity and the concentrations of the plasma proteins were significantly decreased in the presence of rifampin in all three trimesters ( ). The level of the β-galactosidase activity was significantly decreased in the first trimester in the group treated with rifampin (p = 0.03) and the level of the β-galactosidase activity in the group treated with the maternal plasma was significantly decreased in all trimesters (p = 0.02). The β-galactosidase activity of the placenta was significantly decreased in the first trimester (p = 0.02) and the first and second trimesters (p = 0.02), and was significantly decreased in the third trimester (p = 0.03). The concentrations of the plasma proteins were decreased in all three trimesters ( ). + +The concentrations of the concentrations of the concentrations of the maternal proteins were significantly decreased in the presence of rifampin in the first and second +======================================== SAMPLE 188 ======================================== +Scary story of how a Catholic priest, after being rejected by a couple on the grounds that they were not married, got married anyway. + +A Catholic priest in New York was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine in an unusual civil suit after he was accused of trying to have a gay wedding. + +The Rev. Timothy Swann, who was ordained in the Archdiocese of Brooklyn in 2004, was ordered by an administrative judge to pay the fine against him after he was accused of trying to arrange what he thought was a gay marriage. + +The couple, who had been dating in 2004, planned to have a marriage ceremony at St. Peter's Church in Queens in September of that year. But the couple was to be denied a wedding by the church, as it was against the church's doctrine to allow same-sex couples to marry. + +Instead, the couple, who have not been identified, had planned a "civil ceremony" in which they would get married without official sanction. + +The couple requested a priest to perform the ceremony and Swann agreed. + +But the couple were told that the church's department of clergy was not allowed to perform civil marriages and that the ceremony would be done by an ordained minister, according to the lawsuit. + +Swann, who had been ordained the previous year, agreed to perform the civil ceremony. + +But on Sept. 6, 2004, the couple went to the church to have their ceremony. They were accompanied by their parents, who were aware that they were gay. + +The couple were not told that the ceremony was illegal and that the church department of clergy had refused to perform the ceremony, according to the lawsuit. + +Instead, they were told that the civil ceremony would be conducted by Swann in private. + +The next day, the couple went to a hotel where they were to have their civil ceremony. + +But when they arrived, they were told that the hotel had closed due to the wedding ceremony. + +Instead of going to the hotel, they went to the church, where a priest performed the legal marriage. + +The couple were then told that they would have to pay $15,000 in damages, according to the lawsuit. + +But the couple refused to pay and a judge ruled in favor of the couple, denying Swann's request for a refund. + +According to the lawsuit, Swann was not required to marry the couple and he could have also given them another civil ceremony, which would have been legal and not a civil wedding.<|endoftext|>"The game is going to make a lot more money," says Zenimax Online CEO Matthew Beirne. + +The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that launched in 2011 for PC and Mac and, since launch, has been on a massive online subscription service. + +Bethesda Softworks, which co-published the game with Zenimax Online, recently announced that the game had crossed 1 million subscribers, with about 600,000 new subscribers joining the game daily. + +In a recent interview with Kotaku, Zenimax Online CEO Matthew Beirne discussed the game's success, and what's in store for the future. + +"If we have a subscription service, that'll be the only way we'd bring in more money," he said. "It's a subscription based game, and it's going to have a subscription service. It's going to need to be a subscription based game to make it into the millions, and that's a hard thing to do." + +Advertisement + +"It's not just to do a subscription service, it's to do a subscription service with a lot of other content," he added. "We're going to build a very robust, very rich game that's also a subscription game. The game is going to make a lot more money if we have a subscription service." + +The Elder Scrolls Online is definitely a subscription game. You're paying $29.99 a month to play, and you get a lot of extra stuff to do in the game, including purchasing permanent add-ons, or expansions. + +You can read more about the game at its official website, or check out our review from last year. + +Elder Scrolls Online is now available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.<|endoftext|>The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on a proposal that would roll back net neutrality rules established under President Obama. + +In 2015, President Obama signed the Open Internet Order, which banned ISPs from blocking or slowing Internet traffic or prioritizing certain content. + +The rules, which also prohibit blocking or throttling lawful content of their users, went into effect at the start of 2016. That was the end date for the new net neutrality rules. + +But the FCC is now on the verge of repealing those rules, which would give ISPs a huge advantage over startups, startups, and small businesses. + +"The FCC is moving to take away the basic protections +======================================== SAMPLE 189 ======================================== +The man who was fatally shot by a Texas police officer Friday night was unarmed and had a gun in his hand, officials said. + +Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez released the name of the man who was killed, 37-year-old David Joseph Rios, early Saturday morning. + +Rios was shot by the officer, but Valdez said the officers were not aware of the situation at the time of the shooting. + +The officer was not injured. + +"We don't know if there was any relation [between the suspect and the officers], or if the officer was just reacting to the situation," Valdez said. + +Valdez said Rios was armed with a gun when he entered the convenience store. + +"He entered the store and immediately went to the back of the store and he was confronted by the police officer," Valdez said. "At that point, the officer fired their weapon striking the suspect." + +Valdez said the police officer had been with the department for about six years. + +The officer was not identified. + +Valdez said it was not clear if the suspect had a weapon when he entered the store. Valdez said the store was not locked and the suspect entered when it was open. + +"The suspect had no weapon, so the officer was responding to a disturbance in the store," he said. + +Valdez said the suspect was conscious after being shot. + +Calls to a telephone number listed for Rios on the Dallas Police Department's website were not immediately returned. + +The Dallas Police Department is conducting an investigation into the shooting. + +"We are still gathering information, and interviewing witnesses," Valdez said. + +Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the suspect was armed with a gun and was shot by an officer "for no apparent reason." + +"I can tell you that the suspect was armed with a gun, and he was shot by a police officer, for no apparent reason," Rawlings said. + +Rawlings said he was not aware of any videos from inside the store showing the confrontation. + +"We're going to get the video," Rawlings said. + +Dallas Police Chief David Brown said the officer who shot the suspect was placed on administrative leave. + +The Falcon Heights Police Department released a statement saying that a "violent confrontation" occurred between two individuals inside the store. + +Brown said the officer who fired the fatal shot was not injured. + +"This was an attempted murder," Brown said. "I think you go into a convenience store for one thing, and if you pull out a gun and start shooting at people, that is a pretty serious event. It's not unusual for us to get into situations like this." + +The officers involved in the shooting were not wearing body cameras, Valdez said. He said the department is also investigating if the officers were wearing the appropriate gear. + +The Fort Worth Police Department said it also does not have body cameras on its officers. + +"We are not using body cameras on our officers," Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said. "It's an option, but it's not something we're comfortable with." + +Valdez said the officers were not carrying body cameras. + +"We don't know if they had them on or not," Valdez said. + +Police said they were not aware of any video from inside the store showing the incident. + +"We don't know if the officer was wearing the correct equipment," Valdez said. "We're waiting on the investigation to run its course." + +Valdez said he had spoken to the Dallas Police Department and the office of the Dallas County District Attorney. + +Mesquite Police Chief Mike Brown said he was not aware of the incident and was in communication with Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. + +The Dallas Police Department is also investigating the shooting. + +"We are going to look at that, as well as the circumstances surrounding the incident," Valdez said. + +Valdez said he had spoken with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. + +"The DA is going to look into all of that," Valdez said. + +Valdez said the suspect had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and that he had been taken to the hospital. + +Valdez said he knew the suspect had a gun. + +"It's strange," Valdez said. "We just don't know. We don't know what happened." + +Valdez said authorities would look into whether the suspect was armed. + +"We'll be looking at all the facts as we go," Valdez said. + +Valdez said he was not aware of any videos from inside the store showing the confrontation. + +"We don't know if the officer was wearing the correct equipment," Valdez said. "We're waiting on the investigation to run its course." + +Valdez said the +======================================== SAMPLE 190 ======================================== +Herald Square is a neighborhood in the City of Pittsburgh. It is located on the north-western outskirts of Pittsburgh. It is bordered by North Clinton Street and Hill Street.<|endoftext|>Yet another multiple-possession game for the West Coast Eagles. + + +The Eagles went down to Manly but were unable to land the win as they ended up losing by just two points to the Sea Eagles. + + +There were some positives for the club and the coaching staff, with Luke Shuey and Brad Sheppard getting their first career wins in the halves and James Hasson an important player in the back row. + + +The Eagles have now won four straight games and are now in a strong position to finish the regular season with the wooden spoon. + + +West Coast's next game is scheduled to be against the St George Illawarra Dragons on Friday night at the SCG. + + +Want to know right away when we publish a new article? Type your email address in the box on the right-side bar (or at the bottom, if on a mobile device) and click the "create subscription" button. Our list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.<|endoftext|>As a result of the explosion in school shootings in the United States over the past few years, more and more states are introducing tougher laws to improve protection for schoolchildren. But there's one glaring omission from the national conversation: The number of children shot and killed in school is on the rise. + +In fact, numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 16-year-old children are more likely to be killed in school than any other age group in the country. + +"There is a need for better protection for schoolchildren," says Dr. William Schaffner, an emergency medicine specialist at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. "There is a need to have the laws that would allow the schools to be more proactive in preventing injuries and deaths. But there is a need to prosecute these people when they are involved in shootings." + +This is not a new problem — and it's not going away. + +A 2013 report by the American School Health Association found that the number of children who died from unintentional injuries at school had more than doubled since 2000. + +And just this week, a Minnesota lawmaker introduced legislation that would change the law to make it easier to prosecute people who are in the lines of fire while committing school shootings. + +"So let's step back for a second and think about what's going on," says Schaffner, "because when it comes to shootings, it's not just a crime of opportunity. It's a crime of opportunity that we're not doing enough about."<|endoftext|>Quote: Originally Posted by matta0 Originally Posted by I got a phone call from my VZW mobile rep asking if I was purchasing the phone outright or buying with a lease. I know that I can buy the phone outright, but I am in the process of doing that right now, and the rep seemed to think that I would need to lease it. I decided to just let him know that I was waiting on a phone that had just arrived. + +I would not mind getting the phone as an unlocked phone. I'm on AT&T and I'm using that to my advantage. My wife is on Verizon and she's using a Verizon SIM. I can use that SIM to activate the phone and get it on a new network without a contract.I am not sure I understand the point of the question. If you want me to buy it on my own, I will buy it on my own. If you want me to buy it with a lease, we can do that. If I want to buy it on a lease, then I will buy it on a lease. That's how it works. I am just saying that I am not opposed to buying it outright, but I am opposed to getting a lease. I don't think the lease should be on the phone, I think it should be in the phone.<|endoftext|>Welcome to the home of the world's best-selling PC games. + +We've got the biggest collection of PC games on the internet. + +Play your favorite games and download the best mods, expansions, and add-ons. + +Join our community of millions of gamers, and get your PC games delivered instantly.<|endoftext|>The long-awaited conclusion to the saga of the 'Man in the High Castle' was finally adapted into a television mini-series. In this article, we'll take a look at the show's plot and characters, the major twists, and what we can expect from the new season. + +The new season of the long-running Amazon series 'The Man in the High Castle' continues on from last season's finale with the young protagonist being swept away in a war between the Axis and Allies that has been brewing for centuries. + +The Conrad family is from a high-class Jewish family and is a major part of the resistance. Their resistance continues to fight against +======================================== SAMPLE 191 ======================================== +The United States and Britain are being urged to bring the global war on terror to an end, with the former defence secretary, Liam Fox, calling for a "new global security framework". + +Fox, a leading member of the government's new International Coalition to Counter ISIL, said in an interview with CBC News that "the major powers" should be willing to work together to counter the organisation. + +"We're seeing a new global security framework and we need to be part of that global security framework," he said. + +"We need to look at ways in which we can work with our allies on a whole-of-government basis, and that's how we are going to defeat ISIL." + +Fox said that the main way through which ISIL thrives is through the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, and that it does not have the capability to attack the United States, despite the group's claims. + +"They are not a serious threat to the United States of America, they have no capacity as far as we know to mount any sort of concerted attack on the United States of America," he said. + +"But they certainly have a capacity to inspire a lot of people around the world to carry out attacks, and that is something we need to be looking at very closely." + +Fox said that the international coalition, which includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, should be working to provide an "international reporting system" for deaths and injuries. + +"In the Middle East you don't have reporting systems. It's really quite hard to get that information in one piece," he said. + +"We really need to be open and transparent about what is happening, and I think it's going to be important to do that with the coalition." + +The United States has been conducting airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq since August, a month after it began an air campaign targeting the group in Syria after it carried out a deadly attack on the US consulate in the country. + +The campaign has since lasted more than a year and has killed more than 10,000 ISIL fighters and civilians. + +'Time is right' + +Fox said that the international coalition is "not yet prepared to talk about a military campaign" against ISIL, and that the UK would be "open" to such a move if it became necessary. + +The shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, told Sky News that the UK should not be "naive" about the threat posed by ISIL. + +"We have to be ready to act," he said. + +"We have to be ready to monitor and we have to be ready to prosecute. It is about time that we did something about it, and I think time is right." + +While the US has already launched airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq, Britain is currently taking part in air strikes on ISIL targets in Syria. + +The UK's Ministry of Defence said that the US and Britain are both considering further air strikes against ISIL targets in Iraq, and that the next step will be the establishment of a coalition air operations centre in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. + +The US has warned that it may take "several years" to defeat ISIL in Iraq, but the BBC reports that the effort could be accelerated by the Syrian civil war, which has allowed ISIL to gain footholds in parts of the country. + +"The United States is not ready to see the end of ISIL in Iraq, but we will be prepared to see it defeated," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said on Tuesday. + +"We're going to continue to be prepared to undertake such action as it's required to defeat ISIL in Iraq and Syria, but I want to stress that this is not the end-all, be-all of our efforts against ISIL."<|endoftext|>I wonder if anyone has heard of a writer named Harley S. White who blogged a few years ago about a controversial "science" paper proposing that the absence of a male duck's testicles can predict success in the game of strip poker. + +The paper's author, Dr. Robert Green, was a researcher at the University of Michigan. He had previously studied the effect of testosterone on male mice, and had published a study suggesting that males with low levels of testosterone were less likely to be successful in the game. + +Very few people actually read the paper. It was widely cited by anti-gay activists, and was cited by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as fact. By the time the paper was published, Dr. Green had resigned from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan, and the paper had been retracted from the journal. + +How did he get it published? Well, he attributed it to a "senior scientist", who he also claimed was from the Institute for Creation Research. + +Cyber-bullying +======================================== SAMPLE 192 ======================================== +The world's top chess player, Magnus Carlsen, has spoken out about allegations he was bullied by his father. + +Magnus Carlsen, the world's number one chess player, has spoken out about allegations he was bullied by his father. + +Carlsen spoke to the BBC about the allegations made by his father, Magnus Carlsen, who claims his son has been "driven to distraction" by his "troubled" lifestyle. + +The Norwegiandigy, who is currently ranked number one, said he was "shocked" by his father's "false accusations" and "extremely disappointed" by them. + +Carlsen is currently in London to play the World Chess Championship. + +His father told the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet the allegations were "quite clear" and that the "cyber-bullies" of the world were "trying to take him down". + +Carlsen's father, a former professional player, was speaking after the Norwegian chess federation banned him from playing in any of its tournaments after he was found guilty of "wilful" cheating. + +He was sentenced to two years' probation, a fine of around £12,000 and was ordered to attend a three-month anger management course. + +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Magnus Carlsen has been praised for his chess skills + +Carlsen, who is currently ranked number one in the world, said he was "uneasy" about the allegations and that his father had "unfortunately" made them "in order to make a statement". + +"I was quite shocked about it," Carlsen told BBC Radio 5 live. "I was very disappointed about it. And I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. + +"I think I've been driven to distraction by some of the things that have been happening." + +Carlsen, who is already the highest-ranked Norwegian player, said he had read the report by his father's lawyer which cleared him and said he was "very happy" with "the process". + +"I have confidence in the process and I was also pretty sure that I would have been found innocent. I was pretty sure. It's not like I'm being accused of anything that I haven't done before," he said. + +"It's just some of the things that have happened in the last few months which have made me think, 'Wow, maybe there are some things that have happened in my life that I haven't been able to put to rest.' And then I had this incident with my dad and there's been a lot of speculation about that and so I was wondering if it might be a good thing to put it to rest and get it all behind me." + +Carlsen has been the subject of rumours about his personal life ever since he was a teenager. + +He was born in East Germany in 1985 and moved with his family to Norway when he was two years old. He said he has "no idea" where he was born and is not sure of his nationality. + +His father, who has been a professional player since 2002 and was once ranked as one of the top 10 players in the world, played in the Norwegian national team from 1999 to 2004. + +The allegations against his father come after he was banned from playing in any of the country's top tournaments after being found guilty of "wilful" cheating last month. + +Carlsen, who has also admitted to smoking marijuana, admitted he had had "issues" with his father but insisted he was "not worried" about them. + +"I think I've been quite lucky in my development and I think I've been pretty lucky. I don't know. I'm not worried about that. I think it's just part of life." + +Carlsen's father, who is not the one who gave his son his nickname, has since admitted he is also "lucky to be here" after being banned from playing in the Norwegian national team. + +He told the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet: "I think I've been very lucky to be here. I think I've had some issues with Magnus but at the same time I'm very glad that I'm here, I'm very happy." + +Carlsen's mother, Lotte, also told the newspaper that she was "very happy" about her son's success. + +"I think he has been lucky to be here. I think he has been very lucky," she said. "He has not used drugs. He has not done anything to that extent. He is in a great place and he is very happy with his results." + +"I think he is a very special person. I am very happy that he is very well-educated and that he has been able to fulfil his potential." + +Carlsen is currently in London to play the World Chess Championship.<|endoftext|>Taste the difference between an American, a British, and a French pâté! + +Pât +======================================== SAMPLE 193 ======================================== +Before the release of this book, the Cabinet Secretariat featured in several of my books. Most of this information is now available in the Ministry of Information, but there was stuff that was not. They didn't want to do things like that. That's why the V.P.S.R.A. (Vayu Sangrah Samiti) was set up in the 1950s. Since then, they have been there. But this book is a document which is a basic, a main source, of information. + +This is a document which is a crucial document for the nation, a foundational document of the Constitution. It is the backbone of our national security. It is a historical document, it's a document which is a textbook for our future defence and security. It's a document which is relevant to every citizen, to every state. It's a document which is a document which is a fundamental document of our Constitution. + +The Congress government, in New Delhi, didn't want it to be made public because it showed that the Congress government was not in power in 1950s, but it should have been made public because it shows how the Congress government was carrying out its own agenda, which is not very different from the agenda of the BJP today, which is a very important point. + +The book is a big document, a big book, and after 10 years of hard work, it's finally going to be published in English in India, it's going to be published in the United States and many other countries. I think it's a big document, a big book. + +It's a document which has been kept from the people for a long time, but still, it's very important. It is the biggest book in the world on India and a document which is needed by the people of India. + +If you are not aware of it, then you are not a true Indian. If you don't know this document, then you should be ashamed. + +I don't think it's a secret. It's a document which was kept from the people for a long time, but still, it's very important. It is the biggest book in the world on India and a document which is needed by the people of India. + +The Government of India, in its account of the Vayu Sangrah Samiti, has put out a complete list of the places where books were published. The list is very detailed. It shows that the people who are working in the V.P.S.R.A. have a very good understanding of the Constitution. + +I would like to ask you a question. This is a very big question, I am asking you a question, which is in your own book. That is, when you came to power in the 1950s, you had a big battle in the Parliament over the release of books. You had to prevail over the Congress government, which was not in power at that time. What was the point of doing all this? + +After the inauguration of the 'Emergency' on the 28th of November 1975, the Congress government did not release any book for two years. On the 28th of November 1975, the V.P.S.R.A. was in power, and they asked V.P.S.R.A. to release books. But the V.P.S.R.A. said that they are not releasing books during the Emergency. + +So, they asked me to release the books after the Emergency. We knew the Congress government was not in power in 1950s, but when I came to power in 1955, we had a very good understanding of the Constitution and the role of the V.P.S.R.A. and I felt that it was not right to keep it secret. So, I asked them to release the books after the Emergency. + +They had an answer and the answer was that they would release the books after the Emergency. In fact, they did not release the books. So, it was not a secret. + +Then, the Congress government came to power. In the late 60s, the Congress government had a very good understanding of our Constitution and I felt that since this was a very important document, that it should be released. + +But they didn't release it. So, I decided to do a book on the Constitution. So, I asked the V.P.S.R.A. to release the books. They refused. They said they would only release the books after the Emergency. + +So, I decided to do a book. It was in the 1990s, I was getting ready for the launch. I was invited by people like Dr. Amiya Gatapad and Dr. V. Balakrishnan. Dr. Amiya Gatapad told me that he was a friend of J. J. Abdul Kalam and he said that he had read my book. I asked him, "What is your +======================================== SAMPLE 194 ======================================== +A man in a wheelchair was killed after a hit and run accident in Edmonton. + +The 26-year-old victim was walking on the sidewalk in the 900 block of 16 Avenue just after 6 p.m. on Wednesday. + +He was hit by a southbound vehicle. Police say a small child was in the vehicle and transported to hospital with serious injuries. + +Police say alcohol was not a factor in the crash. + +The driver is described as a white man in his 20s with long, dark hair and a goatee. He was also wearing a black jacket and had a black, sleeveless shirt on. + +The child remains in hospital with serious injuries, and remains in police custody. + +The victim's identity has not been released.<|endoftext|>A military plane carrying the bodies of five soldiers from the Israeli army was downed by an anti-aircraft missile on Thursday during a routine flight to an air base in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said. + +The Israeli military said the plane was hit by a missile fired from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. + +It said there was no need to conduct a precise investigation, since the plane was not in Syrian airspace and the military did not own the plane. + +Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up + +"This is an isolated incident, and the IDF is not investigating it," the IDF said, adding that the plane did not take part in any military activity in the area. + +The air force flew the troops from the Golan Heights to a base in the southern city of Eilat. + +The statement came as the army's Chief of Staff Benny Gantz met with the families of the soldiers killed in the incident. + +Earlier, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said the plane was hit at a height of 60 meters (200 feet), in a area controlled by the Syrian regime. + +"I'm sure the Syrian army knew what it was doing," he said, adding that the plane was flown in a very dangerous area. + +The Syrian regime is believed to have fired the missile in a bid to prevent Israel from bombing its military installations in the area. + +The IDF has been conducting an air campaign against Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria since Sept. 30, in an attempt to prevent the regime from gaining ground there. + +Israel and the United States have repeatedly accused Syria of carrying out attacks against Israeli targets, but Damascus has denied the accusations. + +Syria has said that Israel has violated several agreements with the country in the past and that it will not give up its sovereignty. + +Israel has not carried out airstrikes on Syrian targets since the beginning of the war on Syria's Assad regime. + +Earlier this week, the IDF rescued three Jewish settlers abducted by Palestinian militants in the West Bank. + +The three were freed following a two-day standoff with the militants and a shootout with Israeli security forces. + +The incident came as the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on the situation in Syria, with a Jordanian official calling for an emergency meeting of the council.<|endoftext|>"This is a good year for journalists in Britain," wrote the Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger in an article in the paper today. "But it could be a good year for British journalists in the United States." Rusbridger, who has lived in the US for 30 years, said that the Guardian and the New York Times had been "standing on opposite sides of a broad civil war over the last year." + +"In the US, journalists continue to be harassed and intimidated by governments," he continued. "In the UK, they have become more circumspect, but have not been so brave." + +Rusbridger himself had been the subject of a large-scale investigation into the activities of the Guardian by the US Department of Justice. He had been one of several journalists who had written stories alleging that the British government had been involved in the illegal spying on journalists by the National Security Agency. In response, the Guardian was forced to reveal details of a secret agreement it had reached with the NSA which allowed it to continue its work without fear of reprisal. + +While the Guardian was able to publish its story without any media backlash, the US government made no secret of its displeasure. The Department of Justice conducted an investigation into the newspaper, which concluded that the Guardian "had engaged in reckless journalistic practices" and that they had "engaged in reckless journalistic practices and committed serious violations of the law." Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor, faced the prospect of up to six months in prison and a potential £1 million fine. + +Rusbridger said that the US Department of Justice's decision to raid the Guardian's offices and seize the hard drives of its editors and reporters was a "massacre." "The US government has come to... treat journalists as targets," he said. + +The Department of Justice investigation into the Guardian +======================================== SAMPLE 195 ======================================== +Halo is a strategy game in the Marathon series of video game series developed by Bungie Studios. It is the second installment in the series, and therefore the first to be developed by Bungie Studios. It was released on March 25, 2001, by Microsoft Windows (and later Apple's Mac OS X). Gameplay is based on real-time strategy game tactics, with four playable characters. + +Halo was the first game to use the "X-Ray" "Radar" mechanic, where the player can see through walls and other objects. This mechanic plays a role in many later Halo games. + +Halo was the first game to feature the use of vehicles and was the first to be developed by Bungie. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature what would later become a standard multiplayer feature, a matchmaking system. + +Halo was the first Halo game to include a story section in the campaign. + +Halo was the first Halo game that featured a multiplayer map, which is called "Cortana". + +Halo was the first Halo game where the player could choose to play as a male or female using the "MTF" (Male or Female) system. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Trashcan" vehicle. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Storm Rifle" weapon type, which was a magnum round with a large amount of ammunition. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Jumper" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rifle" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Auto Rifle" or "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Cannon" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Dart Gun" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Dart" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Shocklance" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Cannon" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature an "Interceptor" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Cannon" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature an "Auto Rifle" or "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Shocklance" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Shocklance" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rocket Launcher" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Sticky Bomb" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature an "Interceptor" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Cannon" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Interceptor" weapon type. + +Halo was the first Halo game to feature a "Rocket Launcher" weapon +======================================== SAMPLE 196 ======================================== +The woman who had sex with the former US president in the Oval Office has told the Daily Mail she believes the sex was consensual. + +Julie Christie, 53, told the newspaper that she contacted former president Bill Clinton's office after the incident in 1999. + +She said: "I was with him at the time, I was a member of his security detail. He had me escorted into the Oval Office and sat down in that chair that had the Bible and his notes. + +"I had my hand on the back of his chair as he leaned forward, I was in a state of shock. I was looking at him and he asked me to come in closer." + +Ms Christie said she agreed to go in and stay for a while because she thought it was an official meeting. + +She explained she had been told to draw a map while Mr Clinton performed oral sex on her, and said that she was later told that the sex was consensual. + +She said: "I want to be clear, I want to be crystal clear, that I believe this happened and that this man did not rape me. + +"I want to be clear, my story doesn't change the fact that it was a horrible thing he did and that he should not have done it." + +Mr Clinton has previously said that the encounter was consensual. + +Shape Created with Sketch. The sexual assault claims against Bill Clinton Show all 9 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The sexual assault claims against Bill Clinton 1/9 George HW Bush Bill Clinton rejects a kiss from his wife, Democratic presidential candidate, during an election night event at the New York Hilton on November 4, 1992. AP 2/9 Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky A picture of Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern who alleged that Bill Clinton had sex with her, is displayed at the Paula Jones Convention Center in New York on January 20, 1998. The Clinton's are seeking to regain their seat in the White House after losing the election to Republican nominee Bob Dole. The Supreme Court ruled that the Clintons could not be sued for sexual harassment since they had not violated any of their public obligations as president Getty 3/9 Paula Jones A former White House intern alleged that Bill Clinton groped her and forced her to perform oral sex on him during a meeting in the Oval Office in 1997. The former president has denied the accusation. Getty 4/9 Julie McBrien Clinton accuser Julie McBrien allegedly approached a hotel employee with a proposition: a massage in exchange for sexual favours in 1996. The employee declined to take her on, accusing her of being "scared" by the proposition. Getty 5/9 Brett Kavanaugh The Supreme Court nominee faces a challenge from Senator John McCain over his endorsement of presidential immunity and his opposition to abortion AFP/Getty 6/9 Bill Clinton Giffords holds a rally against the NRA on the steps of the US Capitol on January 28, 2001 in Washington, DC. The rally was called to protest the inauguration of President George W. Bush. Mr Clinton had backed the NRA's stance against gun control, but the march was organised by the group and carried out by actor Kevin Spacey AFP/Getty 7/9 Robert De Niro The actor and former New York mayor appointed by President George W. Bush to head the White House Office of Emergency Management and Communications during the September 11 attacks. He later directed "The American President," which won the Oscar for Best Picture and received critical acclaim Getty 8/9 Elizabeth Warren The US Senator from Massachusetts and former presidential candidate ran with the slogan, 'Too big to fail, too big to jail.' She accused President Bush of failing to respond to the attackers Getty 9/9 Richard Dreyfuss Richard Dreyfuss, actor, best known for his role in 'The American President,' holds a sign during a press conference after attending a screening of 'The Hunting of the President' at the Newseum in Washington, DC Getty 1/9 George HW Bush Bill Clinton rejects a kiss from his wife, Democratic presidential candidate, during an election night event at the New York Hilton on November 4, 1992. AP 2/9 Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky A picture of Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern who alleged that Bill Clinton had sex with her, is displayed at the Paula Jones Convention Center in New York on January 20, 1998. The Clinton's are seeking to regain their seat in the White House after losing the election to Republican nominee Bob Dole. The Supreme Court ruled that the Clintons could not be sued for sexual harassment since they had not violated any of their public obligations as president Getty 3/9 Paula Jones A former White House intern alleged that Bill Clinton groped her and forced her to perform oral sex on him during a meeting in the Oval Office in 1997. The former president has denied the allegation. Getty 4/9 Julie McBrien Clinton accuser Julie McBrien allegedly approached a hotel employee with a proposition: a massage in exchange for sexual favours in 1996. The employee declined to take +======================================== SAMPLE 197 ======================================== +The biggest problem with the new Star Wars movie is how little it's doing to stand alone. Or, well, the biggest problem with it is that Star Wars is a franchise that needs to be supported by a very large number of films, and that the new film is so much less ambitious than its predecessors that there isn't much of a reason to believe that it really is a Star Wars movie. + +It's a weird way to open the franchise, even for a franchise that has been trying to keep up with the times for decades. When George Lucas made Star Wars, he was working with a lot of the same filmmaking techniques that make the blockbuster puzzle pieces of late-1990s blockbusters seem so familiar: the pre-credits sequence, the film's endless PR push, the rave reviews, the enormous budget. But Lucas' movies were no longer about the thrill of the chase or the clash of forces. They were about people on the run, trying to survive in an alien world. The films weren't about the hero the hero was supposed to be, but the villain the villain was supposed to be. And the one time they even tried to be about the hero was in the latest one, which was only about the hero the hero was supposed to be doing. + +Advertisement + +The new Star Wars movie, by contrast, is about Luke Skywalker, a soldier who has been fighting the evil Empire and who has been raised on the idea that the Force is the key to the whole universe. He's come home to find that his father has been killed, his aunt and uncle are going to be executed by the Empire, and he's been left to fend for himself. He's left his home planet, Alderaan, to try to find a way to defeat the Empire. Luke's only got a few pieces of information, which he's got to work out as he goes along. + +The film's first act is basically him training with his uncle and training his nephew to fight. It's pretty basic stuff, and the rest of the film shows him building his own ship, which he can't pilot. He goes off to fight in a few skirmishes, and then ends up on a planet where he's trying to find his father. All of this is totally unresolved, as is it's own story. + +The problem with the film is not that it's not trying to be a Star Wars movie, but that it's not trying to be anything at all. The whole thing is built around a simple idea of escape. The whole thing is built around the idea that Luke has to escape, that he has to find a way to defeat the Empire. The idea that he's supposed to do that is usually framed as a necessity: Luke is the son of a Jedi, and the Empire is trying to destroy the Jedi, and Luke has to foil the Empire's plot to crush the Jedi. + +Advertisement + +The problem with the film is that it's an absolutely terrible idea. It's an idea that's never worked, and it's an idea that just doesn't work in the Star Wars universe. The Empire has always been a force for good. The Jedi have always been a force for good. The Empire has tried to wipe out both, and the Jedi have always tended to defeat the Empire. This movie is built around the idea that Luke is supposed to be a Jedi, and he's supposed to defeat the Empire. + +The idea of Luke being a Jedi is laughable. And even more laughable is the idea that he's supposed to defeat the Empire. The Empire is a force for good. It's the reason the Jedi exist, and it's the reason they have the strength to defeat the Empire. + +This movie's a mess. It's a mess that doesn't really have a clear sense of purpose, and it's a mess that doesn't really have a clear sense of purpose that's consistent about its endgame. It's a mess that is also a mess that seems to have been made by a lot of people who were just as confused as you are.<|endoftext|>UPDATE: The last time we talked to Robert Cialdini he was describing an experiment he'd seen in which a group of students were given a test and then asked to take a break and come back when they could do better. They did better, and not only that, but they also became more attentive to the instructions and tended to work harder. The students who took the break were more attentive and worked harder. + +His most recent experiment is a little different. Instead of taking a test, which he says is maybe not the best way to measure student attention, he asks students to play a game of fencing. He gives them a set of rules, and then asks them to fill in the blanks. + +"When you finish your piece, just hit the target," he says. "You can get the target to move in any direction. And that's the only way to win. If you miss, you lose." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 198 ======================================== +(CBS News) It was the largest drug bust in history: Hundreds of pounds of cocaine and other drugs, worth up to $5 million, and a huge amount of cash. + +But the bust was a bust for the wrong guy. + +"They put the wrong guy in the federal prison for a very long time," said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal James McDonough, who led the operation. "He was not the one doing the drugs." + +Twenty-nine-year-old Jose Dominguez-Marin was sentenced last month to 41 years in prison for his involvement in the massive drug bust. + +"It's horrible," said Dominguez-Marin's mother, Claudia Marin. "They took him away from us, and he's not going to be able to see his kids. He's not going to have family members who love him anymore." + +The federal Bureau of Prisons says Dominguez-Marin was a good young man who was addicted to cocaine, but he was not the mastermind of the seizure, which happened in January. + +According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, Dominguez-Marin was enlisted by other members of a local drug ring to help move large amounts of cocaine and other drugs from South Florida to the Bahamas. + +Dominguez-Marin was arrested in the Bahamas, but he was not the mastermind behind the operation. + +"He has been very cooperative. He's very cooperative," said McDonough. + +The Miami U.S. Attorney's Office says the real mastermind, a former high-ranking gang member named James "Jimmy" Dominguez, ran the operation. + +James "Jimmy" Dominguez was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and obstruction of justice in January. + +In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Dominguez-Marin was also used as a courier for other members of the drug ring, and was never a central figure in the operation. + +McDonough says Dominguez-Marin was a good kid and a hard worker who was looking for a better life. + +"He was an honest young man," said McDonough. "He was smart as a whip. He was hard-working. He was a good kid. He had friends." + +Dominguez-Marin's attorney, Bruce Stauffer, says he's not surprised that Dominguez-Marin was not the mastermind of the narcotics operation. Stauffer says Dominguez-Marin was in the Bahamas for a short visit on business. + +"It's not a surprise to me at all that the government would try to make a scapegoat for their problem," said Stauffer. + +Stauffer says he will fight to overturn Dominguez-Marin's conviction. + +If convicted, Dominguez-Marin could be sent to an extremely high-security prison for life. + +"For them to send this young man to prison for 41 years for the drugs that they had no idea about, there's no justice in that," said Stauffer. + +Dominguez-Marin's family has set up a fund in his name to help cover the cost of his incarceration.<|endoftext|>This has been a very busy week in the world of astronomy. On Wednesday, we reported on a new, intriguing object — known as PKS 2525 — discovered by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Yesterday, we reported on the discovery of a previously unknown planet orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1. + +Now, astronomers have also discovered a trio of exoplanets in the habitable zone of a nearby star, and they're all very similar. Two of the planets are "super-Earths," meaning they're larger than Earth, and orbit a dim star, TRAPPIST-1, at a distance of only around 8.6 billion kilometers. + +This means that TRAPPIST-1 is the closest exoplanet candidate to be studied in depth, and that scientists can start to learn how Earth-size planets in our own solar system might have formed. + +The trio of planets are known as Kepler-22b, Kepler-22c, and Kepler-22d. All three of the planets are close to Earth-size, orbiting their star at distances of 1.1, 1.7, and 2.3 times the Earth-Sun distance, respectively. + +Such close-in planets are thought to be the result of processes similar to "super-Earths," but here the process is more similar to how planets form around larger, cooler stars. In this case, these planets are the result of gravitational interactions between the star and the planets, with the star itself acting as a gravitational lens. + +The Kepler-22 planets are quite similar to our own solar system, but they're much bigger +======================================== SAMPLE 199 ======================================== +The British soccer team that was bullied out of their place at the London 2012 Olympics is not going to be in the game for the 2012 London Games. + +The women's soccer team at the London 2012 Olympic Games, called the British team, withdrew from the games after their coach was severely beaten outside his home. The incident was captured on video. + +The coach was badly beaten outside his home. + +The coach was beaten with a helmet in what appears to be a targeted attack. + +Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber said Tuesday the women's team will not be playing in the Olympics and the men's team will not be playing in London. + +"I am sorry to say it, but the women's team is not going to be playing in the London Games," Garber said in a statement. "I would like to extend my deepest regrets to the team members and the soccer fans across the world for this outcome. + +"I would also like to express my sincere thanks to our partners at the International Olympic Committee and our brave athletes who put themselves in harm's way to defend our shared values and ideals. I am sure London 2012 will deliver a safe competition and an exciting Games, and we wish the British team all the best." + +The team's withdrawal from the Olympics is not surprising. It doesn't make much sense for the women's team to play in the Olympics two weeks after their coach was badly beaten. It's hard to imagine any team that doesn't play in the Olympics being able to compete. + +The men's team, which had been slated to play in the Olympics, will be competing in the 2012 London Olympics. + +The British soccer team had been scheduled to play in the women's competition. + +This isn't the first time the British soccer team has been attacked. + +In 2008, the team was attacked in the streets of London. + +"The British team was attacked by muggers in London in 2008 and are not going to be competing at the Olympics in 2012," Garber said in a statement reported by the BBC. + +"I want to say to the team that we are so sorry that you have been attacked, but we are proud of you for stepping up to the moment to defend your country. We will be in touch and will make sure the team is supported and provided with the necessary support as they embark on their journey to London." + +The team is still scheduled to participate in the 2010 World Cup. The team is playing in the World Cup in Germany this year. + +The team has no plans to withdraw from the World Cup. + +The Team GB women's soccer team was attacked this week. + +For now, soccer fans in London will have to make do with the men's team. + +The British soccer team was scheduled to play in the Olympics, but they are not going to be playing. + +MORE FROM THE DIARIES: + +• U.S. players have two weeks to get ready for world Cup + +• Rivalries of the women's World Cup<|endoftext|>The Clinton Foundation is being investigated by the State Department for accepting donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. + +The foundation, which has been the target of attack from Donald Trump, has come under fire after it was revealed that the State Department approved a request from the foundation to accept donations from foreign governments. + +The controversial donations from foreign governments have been a source of controversy for Hillary Clinton for years. + +Trump has repeatedly attacked Clinton for accepting millions of dollars from foreign governments, but he has faced criticism from Republican opponents for not releasing his tax returns. + +The New York Times reported that the State Department and the Clinton Foundation were both notified of the donations to the foundation, some of which were large and some of which were small. + +It is not clear how much the foundation has accepted from foreign governments since Clinton became secretary of state, but the organization has said it has accepted $10 billion from abroad. + +The Clinton Foundation also has faced accusations of pay-to-play politics, as well as accusations of a conflict of interest. + +During a television appearance on Fox News Sunday, Trump said that he had no idea if the foundation had accepted money from foreign governments. + +He said: "I don't know if they have. But they've taken millions and millions of dollars. And they're a disaster. They've taken tens of millions of dollars." + +Trump has also suggested that he would "look into" the Clinton Foundation to see if it is receiving money from foreign governments. + +He said: "There's a lot of problems with the foundation. It's a criminal enterprise. It's a scandal. It's one of the great frauds in politics. It's one of the greatest scams of all time." + +Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told ABC's This Week that the campaign was not concerned about the issue, despite recent reports. + +"We've had plenty of +======================================== SAMPLE 200 ======================================== +"I have been experiencing these dreams since I was sixteen years old," said Dickson. "I first had them in the Fall of 2010 and they have continued since then. The dreams have been the same for me since the beginning of my life. I believe that my dreams are connected to my subconscious mind. I have tried to communicate with my subconscious mind and sometimes I have been in contact with it." + +The Dickson family said they have also received some messages of help from the community. + +"I have met with several people from the community who have experienced the same dream," Dickson said. "They have been very helpful in a lot of ways." + +Dickson said her family has experienced a lot of grief, but they are more determined than ever to move forward. + +"My family is extremely grateful for the incredible support and prayers we have received from all over the world," she said. "While the past three years have been a true struggle, we are determined to get through it. We are turned the corner and are ready to go on with our lives." + +Since the Dicksons' story came to light, there have been many calls from the public who have reached out to the family. + +"We have had calls from as far away as Australia, Germany, England, and even St. Louis, MO," said Dickson. "We have had people from all over the country tell us that they have had the same dreams. We have had people from all walks of life connect with us and tell us that they too have had the same dream." + +Dickson said there are still many questions left unanswered. + +"We want to know who has been driving the car and why!" she said. "We want to know how the vehicle has entered our dream and why it has been able to stay there for so many years." + +Dickson said she is looking forward to moving forward with her life. + +"We are very happy to be free of the vehicle and are looking forward to a new day," Dickson said. "I want to thank everyone who has helped us get so far this far."<|endoftext|>The American people have spoken. + +They want the federal government to stop funding Planned Parenthood. + +Nearly three-quarters of Americans, including Republicans, want Planned Parenthood to be defunded, according to a new poll by Morning Consult. + +Forty-seven percent of respondents responded that they wanted Planned Parenthood to be defunded. Thirty-one percent said they thought Planned Parenthood should continue receiving taxpayer funding, but they wanted Planned Parenthood to stop providing money for abortions. + +Just 20 percent said that they wanted Planned Parenthood to stay funded. + +Thirty-seven percent of Republicans said that they wanted Planned Parenthood to be defunded, while 33 percent said that they favored taxpayer funding for the organization. Just 15 percent said that the organization should continue receiving taxpayer funding. + +The federal government does not currently provide funding for Planned Parenthood. The organization receives about $500 million in taxpayer funding each year. + +The poll also found that the public is split on whether or not Planned Parenthood should be allowed to receive federal funds for contraception. + +Forty-seven percent of people said that Planned Parenthood should be allowed to receive federal funds for contraception, while 32 percent said that they should not. + +Forty-five percent of respondents said that they disagreed with Planned Parenthood receiving federal funds for contraception. + +People were also divided on the issue of abortion, with 40 percent of respondents saying that abortion should be allowed in all or most cases. Forty-one percent said that abortion should be allowed in only a few cases. Just under half the respondents said that they disagreed with abortion being allowed in all or most cases. + +The polling firm conducted the poll from May 31 to June 6, just after the release of a series of undercover videos by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. + +For the full poll results, click here. + +Follow Chuck on Twitter<|endoftext|>The Canadian dollar (CAD) is on a slide again. It's now down three-quarters of a cent against the U.S. greenback, its worst performance against the dollar since 2006, when it was near parity. + +The loonie has fallen about a cent against the dollar in the past week. + +It has now fallen two-thirds of a cent since Donald Trump was elected president. + +Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on imported goods and to scrap NAFTA, which the Canadian dollar is a major component of. + +The loonie has lost two-thirds of a cent in the past week, marking its worst performance against the U.S. dollar since 2006. (Mark Blinch/Reuters) + +The loonie has been dragged down by a stronger U.S. dollar and lower energy prices, which have pushed the costs of Canadian exports to the U.S. higher. + +The U.S. Federal Reserve is also a +======================================== SAMPLE 201 ======================================== +I have a Powerbook G4 that has a problem with the mouse buttons getting stuck. When I turn the screen off, the mouse buttons pair and the computer starts to work. After a while, the mouse buttons completely stop working. It doesn't matter if I turn it off and on again. I can't even click the mouse! + +I have tried the following: + +sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/libmouse.so.0 rm /usr/lib/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0.0.0 rm -rf /usr/lib/syslinux/libmouse.so.0.0.0 + +I have tried adding the following line to /etc/rc.local: + +if [ -d /usr/lib/libmouse.so.0 ]; then rm -rf /usr/lib/libmouse.so.0; fi + +I have tried printing the error to a log file: + +glxinfo | grep -i gnome-mouse-problem + +I have tried editing /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and adding the line: + +# gnome-mouse-problem + +I have tried running the following in a terminal: + +sudo pm-suspend -F + +I have tried specifying the path to the gnome-mouse-problem file in /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and restarting X. + +I have tried running the following command in a terminal: + +sudo dpkg -i gnome-mouse-problem + +I have tried running the following command in a terminal: + +sudo pm-suspend -F + +I have tried running the following command in a terminal: + +sudo pm-suspend -F + +The problem seems to be that the mouse driver is not the same as the one in the Powerbook. Is this a regression in the OS or has the problem been there since I started using this laptop? + +Thank you.<|endoftext|>The number of children and adolescents who developed asthma in recent years has increased significantly, according to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. + +The number of children and adolescents who developed asthma in recent years has increased significantly, according to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. + +The number of asthma-related hospitalizations for children and adolescents increased from 64.5 per 1,000 in 1999 to 77.2 per 1,000 in 2008. + +"In the past decade, we've seen a significant increase in asthma-related hospitalizations," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "This is the largest of any infectious disease in the United States." + +The number of children and adolescents who developed asthma in recent years has increased significantly, according to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. + +The number of children and adolescents who developed asthma in recent years has increased significantly, according to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. + +"In the past decade, we've seen a significant increase in asthma-related hospitalizations," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "This is the largest of any infectious disease in the United States." + +The number of children and adolescents who developed asthma in recent years has increased significantly, according to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. + +The report, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, shows that the number of children with asthma in the United States has increased from 4.8 million in 1995 to 5.1 million in 2010. + +The number of children with asthma in the United States has increased from 4.8 million in 1995 to 5.1 million in 2010. + +The report, which is based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, shows that the proportion of children who have asthma has also increased significantly. In 2010, more than one-third of children and adolescents had asthma, compared with about one-quarter in 1995. + +The proportion of children with asthma in the United States increased significantly between 1995 and 2010. + +"The increase in asthma in children and adolescents coincides with an increased use of antibiotics," said Dr. James E. Greenblatt, an allerg +======================================== SAMPLE 202 ======================================== +If you're a fan of the IKEA catalogue, you'll know that the idea of a modular kitchen is a pretty big deal. The IKEA modular kitchen was a fairly long time coming and when it finally arrived, there was an array of equipment that had never been seen before, including a meat slicer, an oven, a dishwasher, a coffee maker, a range, a toaster, a mini fridge, and even a clothes basket. It's not just IKEA that's been thinking outside the box with their modular kitchen, though, with a host of other manufacturers like Build Your Own and Simplicity also creating their own take on modular kitchen designs. + +One of the most interesting modular kitchen appliances to hit the market recently is the Möve prototype. The Möve is a modular kitchen that features the ability to switch out the cooking surface, oven, and toaster, and the rest of the furniture with anything from a coffee table to a couch to a picnic table. It is a clever idea that makes the impact that modular kitchens can have in a home a lot more noticeable. + +Unfortunately, the Möve is not yet available in the UK, but luckily there are a number of places you can order it from right now. For example, you can buy it on Amazon UK for £19.99 plus shipping, or on Amazon US for $29.99. + +The Möve is not the first modular kitchen appliance to come to the UK either. While it's a bit disappointing that the Möve isn't currently available here, the idea of modular kitchen appliances has been around for a while now, and most of the modular kitchen appliances available in the UK have been developed in the US or Japan. + +Take a look at the video below to see the Möve in action.<|endoftext|>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mark Lee reports from the scene of a US drone strike in Pakistan + +The US says it has carried out a drone strike in Pakistan, killing a senior militant leader. + +The strike was the first of its kind in Pakistan and killed Hafiz Saeed, a close aide to Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pentagon said. + +The attack came two weeks after President Donald Trump announced a new strategy for countering al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants. + +Pakistan's government condemned the strike. + +"Pakistan strongly condemns such an illegal and barbaric action by the US. Such actions only increase the hatred of Pakistan's people towards the US," Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told the media. + +The death of Hafiz Saeed, a close aide to Hakimullah Mehsud and founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), was confirmed by the US Central Command. + +A statement on the US defence department's website said: "The United States conducted a drone strike in the Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan today (Tuesday), killing Hafiz Saeed, a senior commander of the LeT and a designated global terrorist." + +Officials did not elaborate on the identity of the militant or the nature of the operation. + +The US considers LeT a terrorist organisation, but it is not known whether Mr Saeed was among the group's top leadership. + +The US has carried out several attacks in Pakistan this year, including a missile strike on a hospital and a drone strike on the Pakistani-American scientist who was kidnapped in May. + +A US drone strike on Saturday killed two suspected members of a militant group in an attack in North Waziristan, officials said. + +The group, called the Haqqani Network, has been blamed for several attacks on US troops in Afghanistan. + +Mr Saeed was a close aide to Mehsud, the leader of the Afghan Taliban (TTP), and was believed to have played a major role in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed. + +Image copyright AP Image caption Hafiz Saeed's home was raided by Pakistani security forces in 2009 + +Image copyright AP Image caption Hafiz Saeed was a close aide to Hakimullah Mehsud (pictured) + +The US also blames the Pakistani military for failing to prevent the attacks. + +Hafiz Saeed has established a close relationship with Hakimullah Mehsud, the TTP's chief. + +Hafiz Saeed, who has been taken into protective custody by Pakistani authorities, was arrested in 2009 for his alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. + +He was released by the Pakistani authorities in 2014, but was rearrested in January.<|endoftext|>(The Daily Caller) – A "psychotic" former employee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been arrested for allegedly plotting to blow up a federal building and kill President Obama. + +According to a criminal complaint filed Monday and first reported by the Associated Press, CDC employee William Plotnikov wrote an email +======================================== SAMPLE 203 ======================================== +BENGALURU: The former Gujarat chief minister and Congress MP Narendra Modi has complained of "bureaucratic harassment" in Bengaluru, where he has been kept in a suite of his own, and demanded a "class action" against the city.Modi, who had last week taken over as the BJP's chief ministerial candidate from his cousin, said: "I have been subjected to a lot of harassment. I am not a person to be intimidated. I feel the Congress has exerted pressure on the city administration and government to keep me away from my constituency. I request the people in this city to take a class action against the city administration and government, because they have created a situation where any person can be harassed in this manner."He also asked the people of the state to vote for him as he has "spent a lot of time in the city to study the subject of development".The former CM was elected to the Bengaluru Lok Sabha seat from the city in the 2004 assembly elections. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from the city in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2014.Modi, who was also by then the BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Gujarat, had sought to raise his profile in the city following his accession to the party's top post in Gujarat.In his letter, he said the BJP has "insisted on my staying away from my constituency in Bengaluru and in the last one month I have been subjected to a lot of administrative harassment which is not in the interest of the people of my constituency".He said: "In view of the above circumstances I request that you disqualify the chief minister and the government of Bengaluru. I also request that you declare a class action against the city government and the chief minister."<|endoftext|>Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2016, in Hazard, Ohio. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) The Associated Press + +By JULIE PACE, Associated Press + +JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Donald Trump is coming to Mississippi, and his campaign wants its supporters to know the candidate is not afraid of the black vote. + +The Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to hold a rally Friday night in opposition of the death penalty and against the failed policies of Democratic President Barack Obama. + +He's also scheduled to be joined by a woman who's become a symbol of the ongoing struggle for voting rights. + +On Tuesday, August 17, the nation's largest civil rights group will hold a rally in Jackson to denounce Trump's rhetoric and policies on issues of race, gender and class. + +"He's a white supremacist, and he's a bigot," said Erica Garner, the mother of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 after being put in an illegal chokehold by a New York City police officer. + +In comments that have become a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, Garner said Trump had a history of using language that promotes racial division. Trump has repeatedly said that a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University is biased because he's Mexican, and his campaign has accused the judge of being 'Mexican.' + +Weeks before the New York primary, Trump tweeted, "If the media, and the Democrats, don't cover the Trump phenomena with enthusiasm & vigor, I will not do business in that market." + +Garner said she and other civil rights activists are planning Friday's event and "we're going to make sure that people know that there is a candidate out there, who's running for president, that has fought for civil rights, who has fought for voting rights, for equal pay. And that he's a person that people can take a look at. That he's not a racist, he's not a bigot. And we're here to make sure that people know that." + +The Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, on Wednesday released a "racial justice platform" that includes a call for federal criminal justice reform and an increase in the federal minimum wage. + +On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign released a video titled, "Trump's Dangerous Ideas," which features testimonials from Trump supporters who say the candidate has never discriminated against them based on their race, gender or religion. + +"He has been so outspoken on the issues of discrimination," said Emmett Mitchell, an African-American from Mississippi who says he is a Trump supporter. "I think he has really taken it on the chin." + +The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the planned Jackson rally. + +The Mississippi State Democratic Party also is supporting Garner's effort to derail Trump with a rally Saturday night in Jackson. + +"We are going to talk about the things that concern us, not the things that we don't have to worry about," said state party Chairman Wayne Holland. "Our biggest concern is the very real danger of a Donald Trump presidency." + +The Jackson rally comes amid a national push by Democrats to protest the increasingly divisive rhetoric of +======================================== SAMPLE 204 ======================================== +The following is my first attempt to write an English translation of the phone conversation between Christopher Hitchens and the BBC's Jeremy Paxman in October 2005. I have endeavored to make the translation as close as possible to Hitchens' voice, and have also tried to be as fair and accurate as possible. I have also translated the questions and answers by treating them as quotations from the interview. + +Q: I read that you are on the agenda of the Catholic Church Law Commission. I wonder if you might be able to tell us anything about that. + +A: Well, I'm not in the law commission at all. I'm just a member of the House of Lords. But I am very much concerned about the way in which the Church is trying to deal with homosexuality. I think that they're utterly divorced from reality. They're utterly divorced from faith. And as a consequence of that, they're utterly divorced from what church teaching is about. + +And the more that I think about it, the more I think that maybe the Church should get out of the business of telling people what they should believe and what they shouldn't believe. And I think that they should just do whatever the Bible says. And when they do that, I think that they're free to believe whatever they want. + +I think the Church ought to follow the example of the Prophet Isaiah when he said, "Let there be no compulsion in religion." The Prophet said, "Let there be no coercion in religion," which meant that the Coptic Christians should not be prevented from leaving Egypt. And what the Pope is doing is exactly the same thing. He's picking up the sword of the Apostle Paul and using it against his own people. And it's absolutely wrong. + +You know, I was a journalist for many years, and I was very much involved in what happened to the "Quakers." The Quakers, of course, are not a religious group. They're a pacifist group. They say, "We don't believe in violence." And they say, "We don't believe in war." And they believe that people are entitled to live their lives as they wish. + +And the Church of England is trying to do the same thing. The Pope is doing the same thing. The Archbishop of Canterbury is doing the same thing. And they're all doing it by force. + +And, of course, that's why I was so upset when I read about the Roma, because they are not a religious group. They're a race group. And they're being persecuted because they're a race group. And that is absolutely wrong. + +Q: So what do you think of the Pope's recent decision to allow the Roman Catholic Church to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward homosexuality? + +A: Well, I think the Pope is absolutely right to make this decision. I think that the Church has lost all credibility in the country. It has lost all credibility with the people. It has lost all credibility with the children. It has lost all credibility with the parents. Everybody has lost credibility with it. + +The Church has lost all credibility with the people. It has lost all credibility with the children. It has lost all credibility with the parents. Everybody has lost credibility with it. + +The fact is that the Church has lost its role as the guardian of morality. It has lost that role. I think that the Pope is absolutely right to do this. And I think that the Pope should make it very clear that he will not tolerate any attempt by any Church authority to interfere in the private lives of people. + +Q: What do you think of the Catholic Church's ban on contraceptive devices? + +A: Well, I think that it's a very dangerous thing. I think that it's a very dangerous thing. I think that it's a very dangerous thing for the Church. It's a very dangerous thing for the children. It's a very dangerous thing for the women who are not in the Church. And I think the Church should be very clear about the fact that it will not tolerate any attempts by the Church to interfere in the private lives of people. + +Q: I read in this book that you are a member of the Catholic Church's group called Faith and Reason. How do you feel about that? + +A: Well, I don't know whether he's a full member or not, but he does seem to be in the Faith and Reason group. I don't know if you're aware of it, but I'm one of the spokespeople. And I think you do have to be in the Faith and Reason group to be in the Faith and Reason group. + +Q: So you're a member of Faith and Reason? + +A: Yes, I am. + +Q: How do you feel about the Church's stance on homosexuality? + +A: Well, I think that it's completely out of touch with reality. I think that it's completely out of touch with faith +======================================== SAMPLE 205 ======================================== +Brought to you by + +I'm not sure when I first heard about all the controversy surrounding the term "feminism," but I immediately became curious about the controversy. I had no idea how to go about learning more about the controversy. I'm, by nature, a pretty casual person. I find myself asking "Why?" over and over again. I wonder why I would be a feminist in the first place. I'm not unhappy with my life. I love my job, I love my body, and I love my friends. I don't have any grievances I can't easily address. In fact, I'm fairly content with the way I'm living my life. However, my life is still a constant exercise in self-doubt. Even though my life is great, I often feel like a "half-hearted feminist" — that is, someone who supports feminism but who doesn't identify as a feminist. + +I've been feeling this way about feminism for a while and I'm not alone. In fact, according to a new survey, nearly 80 percent of women under 30 think of themselves as feminists. But while that may seem like good news, it's not. These women still think of themselves as men. They still see men as the default partners and see themselves as "the guy." They still see feminism as something that will benefit men only. They still think of feminism as a movement that will benefit men, not women. And they still think of feminism as something that would benefit men and not women. + +This is one reason that so many women don't identify as feminists. I know that identifying as a feminist sounds good on the surface, but it's not. The term is simply not an accurate description of what feminism is. There is no "ism" word for the very real idea that, as a human being, you have the right to define your own priorities and pursue life as you see fit. + +There is no "ism" word for the very real idea that, as a human being, you have the right to define your own priorities and pursue life as you see fit. + +The same goes for men. There are no "isms" for the very real idea that men have the right to define their own priorities and pursue their own life span. We don't use the term "ism" to term "feminism." We use the term "male" to describe men. And there are no "isms" for the very real idea that men have the right to define their own priorities and pursue their own life span. We don't use the term "ism" to term "feminism." We use the term "male" to describe men. And there are no "isms" for the very real idea that men have the right to define their own priorities and pursue their own life span. We don't use the term "ism" to term "feminism." We use the term "male" to describe men. + +I realize that this might not sit well with many of you. I realize that you might think that women merely have a "feminism" and that men have a "masculism." But this is not the case. Feminism is not a movement for women. Feminism is a movement for all human beings. It is a movement to demand that men and women be treated equally, that men and women be given the same opportunities to pursue and achieve their goals, and that men and women be held accountable to the same standards of conduct. + +There is no "ism" word for the very real idea that men have the right to define their own priorities and pursue their own life span. We don't use the term "ism" to term "feminism." We use the term "male" to describe men. + +Feminism is not a movement for women. Feminism is a movement for all human beings. + +Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to discuss some of the biggest differences between feminism and the other "isms." + +1. "I'm not a feminist, I'm just a humanist" + +This phrase is the most common reason people get in trouble for not identifying as a feminist. This phrase is the most common reason people get in trouble for not identifying as a feminist. + +Let's say a woman goes to a feminist conference. She sees a speaker who seems to have the same views as she does. She listens to the lecture, she sees a lot of women in the audience, and she thinks, "I'm a feminist! I'm just a humanist!" + +The problem here is a common one. Humanists are all about equality. It is important for humanism to understand that most humanists are feminists. And it is important for humanism to know that most humanists have ideas about equality that are in the same vein as feminism. + +If you were to ask most humanists why they are feminists, they would most likely tell you that they believe that women have +======================================== SAMPLE 206 ======================================== +DATE: Aug 30, 2013 | BY: David Wharton | Category: Sci-Fi + +In 1994, Steven Spielberg's Jaws was the biggest movie of the year. It was a box office disaster, but it was one of the most popular movies of the generation. The movie had an awful lot of characters, themes, and plot twists, but it still came off as a pretty solid family movie. The success of Jaws led to a chain of sequels, a film series, a TV show, and a bunch of merchandising. Audiences and critics loved Jaws, and then they hated it. In 1995, the film was ranked as the most hated movie of all time by the American film website Rotten Tomatoes, which was a huge shock to Spielberg. + +The following year, Jaws was again the most controversial movie of that year. The sequel, Jaws: The Revenge, was also a huge hit, but it was a much more popular movie. It was the most profitable film of the year, and led to a new franchise of sequels. Jaws 3: Back to the Bay was very well received, and was a huge financial success. Jaws 4: The Revenge of Jack Reacher proved to be another financial success, and it spawned sequels, spin-offs, and more merchandising. Jaws 5 was incredibly popular, and it even led to a reboot of the franchise. + +But one of the biggest films of that year was a special occasion release, Jaws: The Hunt for Red October. It was a very popular movie, but it was a surprise hit. It was the first film to be rated R, and it was the highest grossing film of the year. It was also the highest grossing film of the summer, and it was the third highest grossing film of the summer of 1995. It was the highest grossing film of the year in every country where it was released. The film was a huge success, but it was also a box office disaster, and it was one of the most unpopular movies of the year. + +The movie was certainly a hit on home video, and it helped to launch the home video boom. The movie's success made its sequel, Jaws: The Revenge of Jaws, a success, and it made me want to see it. + +The film is back in theaters for a limited release this weekend, and it's a good time to be watching it. Jaws: The Hunt for Red October is set to open wide over the weekend, and I'm hoping the film will be a hit. It's a fun movie to watch, and it has some great characters, themes, and plot twists. I'm also hoping that it will help to revitalize the box office in the wake of Jaws 3: Back to the Bay. + +The movie features a lot of characters from the previous films. It has a lot of returning characters, like Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Falk, and Richard Dreyfuss. It also has a lot of new characters, like Jack Reacher, Marla Singer, and Captain Phillips. It also has a lot of new themes, like how the world is changing and how the government continues to hold back the natural world. + +I've been watching the movie, and I've been talking about it with my friends. It's been a lot of fun, and I think it's going to be a big hit. It's a movie that I'm looking forward to watching, and I'm also looking forward to seeing how the film's critics will respond to it. + +Here are my thoughts on Jaws: The Hunt for Red October. + +The Plot + +The movie starts off with the following plot synopsis: + +Jaws: The Hunt for Red October follows the exploits of a Navy SEAL Team called the Strike Force. During the night, the Strike Force faces a fierce and unexpected enemy in the form of a giant shark that attacks on the night of the Red October holiday. The Strike Force must fight back in order to save the day, but in doing so they are forced to confront the might of the shark, which is much larger than anything that the teams have ever faced. + +The movie then follows the Strike Force as they attempt to get their mission accomplished, and on the way they discover that they are not alone in the world. The movie also follows the Strike Force as they fight to save the day in the midst of a lot of controversy. + +There are a lot of characters in Jaws: The Hunt for Red October. It has plenty of villains, and plenty of heroes. I'm not going to spoil which characters are in the movie, because there are a lot of characters. + +Of the people I've seen in the movie, I like the following characters. Jaws is a cool character. He's smart, he's tough, he's smart, he's tough, and he's smart. + +The characters of the Strike Force +======================================== SAMPLE 207 ======================================== +Originally Posted by Edward Lewis (Source) Originally Posted by + +It's easy to be cynical about the lack of progress in space games, but I think the opposite may be true. The launch of Elite: Dangerous – the most ambitious and ambitious game in the history of space games – has been so far a success. Most of the problems with the game are fixed, which makes me feel that there is some sort of lack of communication with the players. + + +I think it's a shame we have to start from the ground up again. We have a wonderful community of players who have a deep connection to the game, but having a new game built on the ground up with all the lessons learned from the old game will be very difficult.<|endoftext|>TACOMA, Wash. -- A Tacoma man is missing after he was taken into custody by the King County Sheriff's Office late Monday night for a warrant out of Pierce County. + +According to a KCSO post, deputies responded to a home on the 2800 block of East 20th Street just after 10 p.m. Monday for a report of a missing man. Deputies found 19-year-old Ryan Rush, who was reportedly in the process of being arrested. The arrest was made in the parking lot of the nearby Pierce County Jail. + +The King County Sheriff's Office says Rush was taken into custody for a warrant out of Pierce County for failure to appear in court. + +Rush's name was not immediately released. + +Rush is expected to be booked into the Pierce County Jail at approximately 9:30 p.m.<|endoftext|>House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that he would not allow a government shutdown, at least for now. + +"I will not allow the government to shut down," he said in a statement. "I will not negotiate over the debt limit." + +Boehner's statement came shortly after a $16 trillion debt ceiling was reached. + +"To get to yes, we need the president to lower our borrowing limit and the Senate to find a way to fund the government," Boehner said. "I will not negotiate over the debt limit, and I will not allow another government shutdown." + +Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told his Democratic caucus that he would negotiate over the debt ceiling if the House would agree to halt funding for Obamacare. + +"If the House will not act, then the Senate will," Reid said. + +"If the Senate will not act, we will move forward with the debt ceiling vote next week," he said. + +Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters that he does not "see anything that would compel us to go to the brink." + +Boehner said the House would hold a vote on the debt ceiling next week, after which he would determine whether to accept the Senate's plan to allow Obamacare to continue paying its subsidies. + +"We'll see what happens next," he said. + +The House passed the measure with enough Republicans voting "aye" to pass it. The Senate approved the bill with 60 votes, and it will be sent to Obama to sign. + +In a statement, the White House said President Obama "will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States of America" and will veto any measure that fails to avoid default. + +The president is expected to sign a bill that would allow the Treasury Department to borrow up to $1.2 trillion if the debt ceiling is not raised. + +"The House will have ample opportunity to catch up with the Senate in order to pass a clean short-term extension of the debt ceiling," Boehner said. "The House has already passed a clean short-term extension, and our Democratic colleagues made that clear. If they want to continue to fund these government operations through the end of the month, they should do so by passing a clean CR." + +Boehner also said the House would not raise the debt ceiling without a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. + +"I will not accept any plan that defunds Obamacare or delays the employer mandate," he said. "The president is wrong and his party should be ashamed of their actions." + +McConnell said he would hold a vote on the debt ceiling next week, after which he would determine whether to accept the Senate's plan to allow Obamacare to continue paying its subsidies. + +"I will give the Senate the chance to do the right thing and vote for a clean CR that increases the debt limit and sticks to our promise to repeal and replace Obamacare," McConnell said. "If the Senate does not act, we will work with the House to ensure that the government is funded and the American people get relief from Obamacare." + +Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters that he does not "see anything that would compel us to go to the brink." + +Boehner said the House would hold a vote on the debt ceiling next week, after which he +======================================== SAMPLE 208 ======================================== +"We have to continue to push this to the top of the agenda," he said. "We have a lot of work to do." + +"We have a lot of work to do." + +"We have a lot of work to do." + +The Canadian dollar is currently trading at $0.724, up from $0.719 on the day before the announcement. + +Mr. Thibeault said Thursday the new tax on large financial institutions will help reduce the country's trade and economic imbalances. + +Story continues below advertisement + +"Our approach is not to simply try and balance the budget and we will make some adjustments to that," he said. "We will do it in a way that is fair, that is reasonable and that is respectful to the middle class. + +"Over the longer term, I'm not convinced that the way we're going to do it would be the right way. The way we're going to do it is to offer tax relief to the middle class and I'm not convinced that's the right way to do it." + +Mr. Thibeault said there was no reason to believe the tax would lead to a sudden tightening of financial markets. + +"I think what's important is that we have stimulus to stimulate the economy and we have a process in place to collect the revenues and to use the money to stimulate the economy. And that's what we're going to do." + +Mr. Thibeault's announcement comes as the Bank of Canada is poised to announce a new round of interest rate cuts later this month that will likely include an interest rate cut for the first time in six years. + +In the past, the bank has said that rate cuts are in part a result of a weak economy, but Mr. Thibeault said Thursday he was concerned about a lack of confidence in Canada's financial system. + +"I think the biggest factor is confidence in the financial system in Canada and in the world," he said. "We've got a lot of work to do to build confidence in the financial system." + +Story continues below advertisement + +Story continues below advertisement + +Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has said the country's economy has begun to recover but that it remains weak. + +"We are on the cusp of a sustained recovery and the Bank of Canada, as we've said before, is concerned about the lack of progress in the recovery," he said in a speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto on Monday. + +Mr. Thibeault said he expects the Bank of Canada to reduce its benchmark interest rate to between 0.50 and 0.75 per cent by the end of 2015. + +The Bank of Canada said the economy is expected to grow by 1.8 per cent in the first quarter. + +On Wednesday, the central bank moved a quarter percentage point to 0.5 per cent from 0.75 per cent, and said it expected the economy to grow by 2.1 per cent in the second quarter. + +The bank lowered its growth forecast for the third quarter of the year as well. It now expects the economy to grow by 2.1 per cent in the third quarter, compared with a previous estimate of 2.7 per cent. + +Story continues below advertisement + +The Canadian dollar, which has been on a downward trend since the fall of 2009, has been on a steep upward trajectory since the central bank lowered its key rate in December to a range of 1 per cent to 0.75 per cent. + +In the past week, the Canadian dollar has gained about three cents, reversed the losses it took during the pre-election slump and is now trading at a six-year high of $0.724.<|endoftext|>The New York Times has an excellent profile today of a group of liberal activists that are hoping to thwart the advancement of the Koch-funded electioneering-focused group American Future Fund (AFRF) by taking their message directly to voters in a series of town hall-style events in the key states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. + +Under the banner of "Stop Koch PAC," the group is targeting Democrat and Republican state legislators with a series of town hall events that are being held in locations that are either very close to the offices of a state legislator or very close to their district's district office. + +The first of the events, scheduled for September 21st, will be held at the University of Dayton. + +According to the New York Times, the Koch-funded group is spending more than $100 million over the next two years to elect members of Congress who will vote to advance the interests of the Koch brothers. + +The New York Times reports on the heart of the issue: + +The premise of the Stop Koch PAC is that voters are being let down by politicians who are unwilling to stand up to the billionaire industrialists, who bankroll the Republican Party and have become a central force in the national political debate. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 209 ======================================== +On Sunday, a team of scientists from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that 2017 was the hottest year on record, and that global temperatures rose 0.64 degrees Celsius since the start of the 20th century. + +The news was met with a swift and unusual backlash from people who claim to be scientists, and who first started making this claim a few years ago. + +The backlash, which has been called the "climate denier's equivalent of the Boston Tea Party," was sparked by a series of tweets from the UNEP's top official, Erik Solheim, who posted a photo of a paper with the title "Global temperature increase from 1951–2010." + +This paper claims to show that globally, 2015 was the hottest year on record. + +That's it. It's not even a paper. It's a slide show. The data is of the usual type, and the author is a UNEP employee. The chart is the same as all the other ones, and is used by climate scientists all the time to show how much the temperature of the Earth has changed over time. + +To most people, this looks like solid evidence that the Earth is getting hotter. But for climate change deniers, it's just another example of "climate change" being used to push a political agenda. + +"The paper is a forgery," tweeted Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman. "It says the warming from 1951 – 2010 was 0.6C. Not 1.0C." + +The paper says the warming from 1951 – 2010 was 0.6C. Not 1.0C. https://t.co/c0W2XvYA5b — Richard Feynman (@Richard_Feynman) November 27, 2017 + +J. Scott Armstrong, a climate economist at the libertarian Cato Institute, was more direct: + +It's a well-known fact that the world's climate has warmed for decades due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It's also well-known that climate scientists don't actually have the data to back up these claims. However, people with an agenda will always find a way to distort the truth. + +The same is true for the UNEP report, according to journalist Chris Mooney's new book, The Republican War on Science. + +"UNEP, of all places, gets to write the climate report in a country where most people don't believe in climate change," Mooney tells The Daily Caller News Foundation. "That makes it all the more surprising that it comes out with such a foolish report." + +"This isn't for news consumption. This is for propaganda," he continues. "The purpose is to get people to think the planet is getting hotter. If you think the planet is getting hotter, you think you can kind of change that." + +The climate deniers are convinced that the UNEP report contains enough facts to support their worldview. But Mooney says that data is ambiguous and is often not analyzed in a very detailed way. + +The UNEP report is "muddled" and includes "a lot of stuff that's not true," Mooney says. "They're not making the connection that the planet is warming. This is a document that's intended to be used for political purposes. And the scientists who created it didn't think through how to present the data in a way that makes sense to certain people." + +The UNEP report comes just as President Donald Trump is unveiling his own climate change plan. At a press conference Wednesday, Trump said he plans to "cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to UN global warming programs." + +"It's just like the tobacco industry," Mooney says. "They wouldn't have done that in the 90s. They were trying to stop smoking. They didn't want to admit that smoking was bad. But they knew it was bad. And they had a scientific basis to say that smoking is bad." + +"The truth is, the UNEP report is just a good example of how climate science is a political tool," Mooney says. "It's a way to get people to think that climate change is happening because something else is going on. It's all a b.s. scheme." + +The UNEP report "has no point," Mooney says. "This is a report that's supposed to be used for policy purposes, and it's not. It's a document that's supposed to be used to convince people to invest in infrastructure, and it's not. It's a document that's supposed to be used to convince the public that we need to do something about climate change, and it's not." + +This isn't the first time scientists have been accused of manipulating the facts to push a political agenda. In 2014, a group of researchers led by one of the world's most prominent climate scientists, James Hansen, and published an article in the journal Science claiming that 2015 was +======================================== SAMPLE 210 ======================================== +"The whole idea that the bourgeoisie considers itself to be the ruling class of society, and that by its mere existence it constitutes the ruling power, is a fiction; in no country has the bourgeoisie ever been the ruling class of society; the conditions under which it has acted as such, have always been produced by the action of other classes, by other economic conditions. + +"The ruling ideas of each epoch are the ideas of its ruling class. What the ruling ideas of any epoch are, is a function of the economic conditions under which those ideas are diffused. + +"Since the proletarians, who are the ruling class, do not create their own forms of property, but, on the contrary, have no property, they must sell their own humanity in order to live; and, in order to sell it, they must sell all that they are, namely, their individual personality, in order to find buyers for it. + +"The idea of the bourgeois class is that of man in society, and that of the proletariat is that of man in society organized for exploitation." + +--Karl Marx, "Das Kapital", Vol. 1, Chapter 1 + +"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." + +--Karl Marx + +"The ruling ideas of each epoch are the ideas of its ruling class." + +--Karl Marx + +"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"Man's most vital need is the understanding of himself, of his place in the world and of the way in which his life can be improved." + +--Karl Marx + +"The specific historical role of the class of nobles, or of the bourgeoisie, is the suppression of industrial capitalism. The specific historical role of the state, or the proletariat, is the consolidation of industrial capitalism." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"We have seen, in the last chapter, how the capitalist mode of production is in the last resort the mode of production of the bourgeoisie. And, in the next, we will see that the bourgeoisie is the ruling class, and that the proletariat is the oppressed class." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The ruling ideas of each epoch are the ideas of its ruling class." + +--Karl Marx + +"The aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, as we have seen, are the two wings of the same bird." + +--Karl Marx + +"In political economy, the state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit of a small minority of the community." + +--Karl Marx + +"The state is the organized organization of the economic structure of society for the purpose of exploiting that structure for the benefit +======================================== SAMPLE 211 ======================================== +This is the third part of the article on how to set up a distributed system in the cloud, and in this article we will set up a shared queue, which will be a part of our distributed system. + +Let's say we want to implement a system with a queue, a scheduler and a client. In this article we will assume we have a distributed system with a queue and a scheduler with some clients. + +The clients will be able to communicate with the queue and the scheduler, so we can implement a queue model. + +In the previous articles we have assumed that we have a distributed system between two machines, and that the servers are running on the same machine. Today we are going to change this assumption and assume that the distributed system is running on two different machines. The idea behind this is to keep the cost of the nodes in a reasonable range, to avoid the performance issues of having two run nodes on the same machine. + +I hope that you will find this article useful. + +The system will consist of two main parts, namely the queue and the scheduler. The queue will be implemented using an EventMachine, the scheduler will be implemented using a Storm (or any other event-based architecture) and the client side will be implemented using RxJava. + +The following is an example of a single queue, which can be used as a client, and the single queue is used as a queue using a Scheduler. + +Scheduler + +The scheduler is the part of the system which will listen to events coming from the queue. It will be able to determine the next event to run and how to run it. + +We are going to use a simple pseudo-event-based based system. The scheduler will listen to one message at a time. The message will be an event, a type of event will be persistent which means that it will not be managed by the scheduler. + +The message will contain a value which we will call the "queueId". The queueId will be used by the scheduler to determine what kind of event we should run next. + +On the client side the scheduler will process the message by either doing a broadcast or an onNext callback. It will be able to decide which one to use based on the messageId. + +The message will contain a value which we will call the "queue" which will be the queue on which the message was broadcast. + +On the onNext callback, the queue will be updated by the messageId. + +To make things easier for our scheduler, we will not create a new message, but only subscribe to the messageId. + +Let's start by creating the scheduler. + +In this part we will only need a single static class which will hold our scheduler. + +public static class Scheduler { public static Scheduler scheduler; } + +The static scheduler will be used by the queue and the scheduler, the values of the variables in the scheduler class will be used by the queue and the scheduler, so we don't need to change them, however, we can update them if we want to rewrite the scheduler. + +The scheduler will just receive messages from the queue and it will be able to decide how to run them. + +Let's start by creating a single static class which will hold our scheduler. + +public static class Scheduler { public static Scheduler scheduler; static Scheduler scheduler = new Scheduler(); } + +The static class is used by the scheduler, but we will be using the static class of the queue instead. + +public class Queue { private static final String ACTION_ADD = "add"; private static final String ACTION_COPY = "copy"; private static final String ACTION_DELETE = "delete"; private static final String ACTION_SET = "set"; private static final String ACTION_SHIFT = "shift"; private static final String ACTION_UNSHIFT = "unshift"; private static final String ACTION_INSERT = "insert"; private static final String ACTION_REMOVE = "remove"; private static final String ACTION_TOGGLE = "toggle"; private static final String ACTION_BIND = "bind"; private static final String ACTION_REMOVE = "remove"; private static final String ACTION_SETBIND = "setbind"; private static final String ACTION_REMOVEBIND = "removebind"; private static final String ACTION_CREATE = "create"; private static final String ACTION_DELETEBIND = "deletebind"; private static final String ACTION_CREATEBIND = "createbind"; ... } + +The Queue class will hold our queue. + +public class Queue { private static final String ACTION_ADD = "add"; private static final String ACTION_COPY = "copy"; private static final String ACTION_DELETE = "delete"; +======================================== SAMPLE 212 ======================================== +A couple of days ago I posted a photo of a woman walking down a street in Thailand. The picture was taken by a British tourist named Rebecca Wilson, and it shows a woman in a traditional Thai dress and headscarf with her head hanging low—a look that was at once unremarkable and deeply offensive to many Thais. The picture went viral and spread like wildfire, and Wilson's French boyfriend, who was one of the thousands of people who shared the image on Facebook, was forced to apologize to the people of Thailand. He also made it known that he was considering suing Facebook. + +I write to you now to take action. + +Rebecca Wilson was in Thailand to do some sightseeing, and to meet some Thai friends. She was on her way back to the hotel from the beach when she passed a group of men on the street. She raised her eyebrow and smiled. "They're staring at my head," she said. "Look at their sunglasses." + +She looked down and saw that the two men were wearing shades. Then she looked up and saw that their sunglasses were made of elephant dung. + +Thai women are not supposed to wear sunglasses in public—as a matter of fact, wearing sunglasses in public is often considered the height of immodesty in this country. In fact, it is a crime to wear sunglasses in public or even to look at the sun while the sun is shining. This is true even in places like France and Germany, which are not exactly known for their intolerance of anything that might be considered immodest. But in Thailand, it is a common sight to see women in street clothes and some sort of a headscarf. It is usually a sari. + +Advertisement + + +Rebecca was not wearing a sari, but she was still shocked. She looked at her boyfriend, who was just as shocked. They looked at the man who had called her a "cunt" and a "whore." They looked at him and then at the sunglasses. They turned back to the men and told them that it was not okay to stare at a woman's head and that they should go away. + +They did not. They found their sunglasses and went back to their hotel. + +Photo by Rebecca Wilson + +The other men were not driven away by the women's actions—they continued to stare at them. In fact, they continued to do it for a while. Rebecca and her boyfriend called the police, who took the men's sunglasses away. They did not call the police because they were not sure what exactly the law was in Thailand about this. They just did it because they had to. + +Advertisement + + +So here I am, a foreigner in Thailand, trying to act like a Thai. I wear a sari that is not traditional, which is the reason that women in Thailand are sometimes called "whores." I wear sunglasses that are not traditional, but I do not feel the need to cover my eyes. I don't even wear a headscarf, because I have been told that I should not. + +This is not a story about cultural differences. This is a story about the law. + +In Thailand, the law says that women should not wear anything that can be mistaken for a headscarf. + +Shoes, scarves, and headbands are specifically mentioned in the law. The Thai word for headscarf is "kasih." So you can see why Rebecca's boyfriend, who is a tourist from France, was confused. He had no idea what her point was. + +Advertisement + + +The U.S. State Department has a page on "Headcovering in Public" that explains that a headscarf is not a mandatory requirement in Thailand. But it also says that "head coverings are not a legal requirement for women in Thailand." + +So what is the legal requirement? What is the actual law? + +The law is as follows: "No person shall wear a head covering in public without the consent of the proprietor." + +The first thing to note is that this is not a law against the wearing of headscarves. The law only prohibits the wearing of headscarves in a public place. So the law does not prohibit women from wearing traditional Thai headscarves in public that does not contain the words "kasih." + +Advertisement + + +So how does the law work? According to the government website of the Department of Special Investigations, "In Thailand, wearing a head covering is not a legal requirement for women. However, wearing a head covering will be considered as an infringement of the Law on Public Order." + +Again, this is not a law against headscarves. This is a law against wearing headscarves in a public place. + +So what is the penalty? + +According to the Bangkok Post, "The head coverings can be fined from Bt5,000 to Bt10,000. But if the violation is repeated, +======================================== SAMPLE 213 ======================================== +A new study in the journal Science Translational Medicine finds that smoking marijuana can make people lose weight and slow their metabolic rate. The study by researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Texas, used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to examine the relationship between marijuana use, weight and metabolic rate in a sample of 1,384 adults who had been healthy for at least one year. + +The study found that current marijuana users lost an average of 1.8 pounds (0.8 kilograms) between the time of their last marijuana use and the time of their survey. Former users gained a total of 3.9 pounds (1.5 kilograms) in that time frame, while current users gained an additional 3.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms) in the 12 months after their last use. + +"We were interested in understanding the mechanisms that might account for the weight loss and metabolic slowing observed in marijuana users, and we found that they appeared to be caused by a decline in appetite," said lead author Dr. Jodi Gilman, Associate Professor of Medicine at NIDA. The study was supported by NIDA's Intramural Research Program, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Science Foundation. + +Gilman added that the findings are consistent with previous research that suggests that smoking marijuana may cause changes in brain activity associated with the regulation of appetite, the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and changes in the activity of other hormones such as leptin. + +"We also found that this weight loss and metabolic slowing was associated with a lower level of activity in the regions of the brain related to appetite regulation and regulation of energy balance," said Gilman. "This suggests that marijuana may help people lose weight by affecting the appetite system, and perhaps by decreasing the activity of this brain system. We also found that this trend was independent of other factors that are associated with weight gain, such as smoking and physical activity." + +Researchers also found that marijuana use was associated with a decrease in the activity in several brain regions that are associated with appetite regulation, such as the cingulate cortex, the insula, the hypothalamus, and the striatum. + +"We found that the marijuana users' weight loss was associated with a decrease in activity in these brain regions, which suggests that marijuana may be a promising new treatment to help people lose weight," said Gilman. + +The study was supported by NIDA and the National Institutes of Health, grant numbers 1R01DA013514, 1R01DA013673, 1R01DA013775, 1R03DA012075, 1R04DA016024, a Florida.00-DE-5136 grant from NIDA, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. + +The study was published online May 26, 2015, in the journal Science Translational Medicine. + +For more information, contact Gilman at jodi.gilman@nida.nih.gov or (301) 443-2941.<|endoftext|>The Stupidest Man in America is a short book by Mark Twain. It's a satire of the United States, written by one of the most famous writers of the 19th century. It was published in 1885, and was his last book. + +In 1895, the book was made into a motion picture in the United States. The movie was called The Tramp. + +Contents show] + +Summary Edit + +The book begins with a United States citizen arriving in the USA and asking for asylum. The man is asked if he can be of help to the country by a man who claims to be a representative of the government. When the man denies any kind of help, the man is told that in order to be granted asylum, he must have a "stupid name", and that his name is "The Stupidest Man in America". + +The American tries to convince the representative that he is not a stupid man, but he is told that he is a stupid man. The American is then told that he must be sent to the country's capital in Washington, DC, to become a citizen of the country. The American then asks if he will be sent to the prison in New York, New York. The American is told that he must be sent to the prison in New York, New York. + +In the book, as in the movie, the American is a slave. He is a "stupid man" who only wants to know about the United States. He is unable to understand the country's political system, its economy, or its culture. He is particularly angered by the fact that his friend is a "stupid man" who is a "stupid man" who has a "stupid name" and is a "stupid man". + +The American is then given a passport, and is taken +======================================== SAMPLE 214 ======================================== +(CNN) In a small room behind a log cabin in Vermont, the first of two female astronauts has been trained for her first space walk. + +They will join the three men who have traveled into space on the International Space Station, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. + +The astronauts are NASA's Kate Rubins; Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka; and Canada's Chris Hadfield. Hadfield will be the first Canadian in space. + +Rubins, 44, and Padalka, 40, have been training together for the past two days. + +Rubins, a veteran of a dozen space shuttle missions, is the first female astronaut to fly into space. + +"This is a really big deal," she said. "It's really cool to be part of this group that's going to go to space." + +In her first space walk, Rubins would have to wear a space suit with a glove. + +"It's a great feeling," she said. "I'm pretty excited." + +The two women are also learning how to perform space walks in weightlessness, something the men have done many times in the past. + +"It is very different from what we're used to," Padalka said. "I'm ready to try it and jump in the deep end." + +Rubins was born in Russia and moved to the United States with her family when she was 7. Her father, a physicist, and mother, a teacher, taught her all about space. + +"I was like, 'I'm going to go in space someday, but I don't know when,'" she said. + +After graduating from high school, Rubins enrolled in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to study astrophysics. She became a NASA astronaut in 1999. + +"That's when I started thinking about what it would be like to go into space," she said. + +Rubins has flown on four shuttle missions, including to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2001. + +She was the astronaut who helped put Hubble in orbit in December 2009, and was the first woman to command the space station. + +She also has flown on the Space Shuttle Discovery, and again in 2012. + +"I'm not planning on doing any of those things again," she said. "I'm not going to be going in for orbit, or doing science experiments." + +The first woman to reach space was Sally Ride, who flew on the last shuttle flight in 1983. + +"It was a big deal," Ride said. "We were all very happy to have her." + +To be part of history is amazing, but it's not all about the space, Rubins said. + +"It's about how much fun it is to do it, and how much we enjoy ourselves on the ground before and after," she said. "It's about how much we love what we do." + +The two astronauts will be joined on the Soyuz capsule by Hadfield, who is a Canadian aerospace engineer who has designed and launched satellites into space. + +Hadfield has been a celebrity since he completed the first solo flight of the space station in 2001. + +"It's overwhelming, this whole thing," he said. + +He will be joined by a fellow Canadian, Chris Hadfield, who will be the first Canadian in space. + +"It's just a big deal," he said. "I'm excited to be here." + +Rubins said she felt a sense of responsibility when she was asked to join the space walk. + +"I definitely feel like I'm part of history," she said. "It's quite an honor."<|endoftext|>"If it takes a woman to make a man feel a little bit uncomfortable, then it's worth it." + +- Diana Ross, Fade to Black, 1970 + +For the past ten months I have been working on a project to explore the relationship between artists and their audiences. For the most part, I have been fascinated with the topic, wondering why we are drawn to these seemingly unconnected individuals and their senses of self-expression. What does it feel like to be in someone else's skin? It is a question I have been asking a lot lately. + +In the past year alone, I have had the great fortune to meet, work with, and work with the likes of + +Kanye West + +The Weeknd + +Michael Jackson + +Justin Bieber + +Lucy Hale + +Eminem + +And of course, my own dad. + +In addition to having these conversations, I have also had the luck of witnessing the growth of these artists, myself, and the art community at large. Through these interactions, I have also learned a great deal about the power of art and the way we view ourselves, our world, and who we are as a society. + +My project explores the relationship between artists and their audiences +======================================== SAMPLE 215 ======================================== +A red-shirted Jarryd Hayne could be a top-five pick in next month's NRL draft. + +The 23-year-old, who was forced off the field in last night's 21-10 win over the Bulldogs with a hamstring injury, is in good form and has a chance to impress a select few clubs at the draft combine in Canberra. + +HAYNE'S HAT TRICKS FROM THE TRADE: WEAKENED IN TRADE + +media_camera Jarryd Hayne running around at the Nines. Picture: Michael Klein + +If he is selected, Hayne will be the first Australian to be drafted in the top five since Chris Sandow in 1990. + +"I'm sure there are a few teams who will want to see me play in 2017," Hayne said last night. + +"It's just about doing what I love — which is playing rugby league." + +Hayne said it was his goal to remain in the NRL. + +"If I can play rugby league and keep playing, there is nothing better," he said. + +"I've been playing rugby league for the last four years and to play in the NRL and be a part of the New York team is the greatest feeling in the world. + +"It's the best thing that could happen to me in my life." + +The NRL has confirmed that the NSW Origin side will be announced in early January. + +Hayne is the only player with a chance of playing for the Dragons next season. + +Originally published as Hayne's big chance to play NRL<|endoftext|>The price of Bitcoin has soared to a record high over the past few days, bucking the negative trend that has plagued the cryptocurrency for years. + +The digital currency has now soared to a high of $10,895.37 per unit, according to exchange data service Coindesk. + +Bitcoin hit a high of $3,728.86 on Nov. 21. It has since fallen to just below $2,500. + +The surge in the price of Bitcoin has been driven by speculation that China could remove the remaining restrictions on offshore trading of the cryptocurrency. + +The latest price surge follows a surge over the weekend, when the currency shot up to a record high of $1,895.36 per unit. + +Earlier this month, Bitcoin crashed by $300 in less than a day, plummeting to $1,000. + +Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency. It allows users to send money and make purchases without the need to go through a financial institution, and, in theory, can be cheaper for consumers than traditional forms of money. + +But Bitcoin has been plagued by speculation that it may be subject to further restrictions in China as a result of its popularity among tech-savvy Chinese citizens. + +Last week, the country's financial regulator said it would be investigating Bitcoin-related companies for possible violations of the country's anti-money laundering laws. + +The decision comes as the Chinese government has imposed tighter restrictions on the use of virtual currency, as the government attempts to rein in capital outflows. + +China has banned ICOs, or initial coin offerings, which offer investors the chance to buy digital tokens in exchange for real-world currency.<|endoftext|>Mozilla has announced that they will be releasing Firefox 50.0 on April 1st, and this will be the final version of Firefox for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 50 will be the last version to support HTML5, and one of the last out of the box versions to support the latest versions of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. + +In 2015, Firefox 50 will be the last version of Firefox with support for Flash. Flash has been largely blocked from the web for years due to its security and performance issues, and you can see a timeline of its ban here. The ban has been fairly successful as of late, as you can see in this chart of web traffic in 2016. + +With support for Flash now gone, Firefox users are now left with the browser's own video player, which has several limitations compared to other HTML5 video players. In particular, video in Firefox only allows for MP4 (still) and WebM (h.264, which is the format used for modern web videos). + +The video player is also locked to the desktop and only plays in portrait mode. Other video players in the Firefox store, like VLC and VLC for Linux, can play in landscape mode. + +Mozilla will be updating the browser to Firefox 50.0 on April 1st for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 50 will be the final version of the browser to support HTML5. + +The Firefox 50 release date was announced on the Mozilla blog, along with the release notes below. + +Firefox 50 + +Release Date: April 1st, 2017 (preview) + +April 1st, 2017 (preview +======================================== SAMPLE 216 ======================================== +Celiac disease is a lifelong autoimmune disease that destroys the lining of the small intestine and leads to intestinal damage and digestive problems such as diarrhea and constipation. It is the most common autoimmune disorder in the Western world. + +In the United States, celiac disease is estimated to affect about 10 percent of the population. + +Celiac disease is a serious disease that requires a healthy immune system. It's also important to know that gluten sensitivity is a common medical condition that's not associated with celiac disease. And, when you do have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, you should be sure to minimize your exposure to gluten so you don't develop an autoimmune disorder or gluten sensitivity. + +What is celiac disease? + +Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that destroys the lining of the small intestine. It isn't caused by a single food or food ingredient. Pathogens like viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi are the most common causes of celiac disease. + +Symptoms of celiac disease + +Celiac disease results in: + +Inflammation of the small intestine. Inflammation of the small intestine leads to damage and damage to the villi, the tiny folds of tissue that line the small intestine. This damage and damage to the villi leads to the intestinal damage and inflammation found in celiac disease. + +Inflammation of the small intestine leads to damage and damage to the villi, the tiny folds of tissue that line the small intestine. This damage and damage to the villi leads to the intestinal damage and inflammation found in celiac disease. Constipation and diarrhea. When the intestine is damaged, it can't absorb nutrients. When you don't absorb nutrients, you can't poop. This leads to diarrhea and constipation. + +When the intestine is damaged, it can't absorb nutrients. When you don't absorb nutrients, you can't poop. This leads to diarrhea and constipation. Weight loss. Celiac disease also causes weight loss. This is usually because the immune system attacks the small intestine and its contents, causing the villi to shrink and the villi to become smaller. + +Celiac disease also causes weight loss. This is usually because the immune system attacks the small intestine and its contents, causing the villi to shrink and the villi to become smaller. Difficulty gaining weight. Most people with celiac disease have a hard time gaining weight because they have a hard time absorbing nutrients. + +Most people with celiac disease have a hard time gaining weight because they have a hard time absorbing nutrients. Bone and joint problems. Celiac disease can cause bone and joint problems. + +Celiac disease can cause bone and joint problems. Injury to the spine. Celiac disease can cause injury to the spine and the nerves in the spine. It can also cause damage to the abdominal wall and the pelvic bone. + +Celiac disease can cause injury to the spine and the nerves in the spine. It can also cause damage to the abdominal wall and the pelvic bone. Stroke. Celiac disease can cause strokes. + +Celiac disease can cause strokes. Memory problems. Celiac disease can cause memory problems. + +Celiac disease can cause memory problems. Depression. Celiac disease can cause depression. + +Celiac disease can cause depression. Diabetes. Celiac disease can cause diabetes. + +Celiac disease can cause diabetes. Autism. Celiac disease can cause autism. + +Celiac disease can cause autism. Thyroid problems. Celiac disease can cause thyroid problems. + +Celiac disease can cause thyroid problems. Epilepsy. Celiac disease can cause epilepsy. + +Celiac disease can cause epilepsy. Stroke. The damage to the small intestine is also associated with strokes. + +Why do people get celiac disease? + +Celiac disease is a genetic disease. It isn't caused by a single food or food ingredient. + +People with celiac disease may have: + +Tissue damage to their small intestine. The small intestine is the first part of the digestive tract that comes into contact with food. It's called the duodenum because it's the first part of the small intestine. + +The small intestine is the first part of the digestive tract that comes into contact with food. It's called the duodenum because it's the first part of the small intestine. Inherited damage to the villi. The villi, tiny folds of tissue, line the small intestine. They help people digest their food and absorb nutrients from foods. + +The villi, tiny folds of tissue, line the small intestine. They help people digest their food and absorb nutrients from foods. Inherited damage to the inflammatory cells. Lesions in the intestinal lining can cause inflammation. This leads to damage to the villi and intestinal damage and inflammation. + +Lesions in the intestinal lining can cause inflammation. This leads to damage to the villi and intestinal damage and +======================================== SAMPLE 217 ======================================== +Tasmanian government officials have been told to expect a rise in the cost of electricity in the next few years as the state moves to shift towards an electricity-to-gas mix, according to the state's dominant utility. + +Energy Minister Matthew Groom said consumers would feel the impact of the move within the next three to five years. + +"By 2020, we expect to see a substantial increase in the price of electricity," he said. + +"We have a target to have a 50 per cent renewable energy mix by 2030. + +"We're going to see a big increase in costs from that target." + +Mr Groom said the state had already begun investing in its solar energy resources. + +"By 2020, we could be up to 20 per cent renewable energy as a state," he said. + +Tasmania's power mix is largely based around hydro-electricity, with 32 per cent of the state's electricity coming from coal-fired generators. + +Photo: Steve O'Brien + +The state has long been concerned about the impact of climate change on energy security, with many homes and businesses already running on supplies from wind and solar power. + +The state's dominant electricity retailer, Powerlink, has already held talks with the federal government over the future of the state's energy mix. + +Its chief executive, Peter Thomas, said the state would need to introduce a mix of varying power sources to ensure reliability. + +"There's a lot of interest in renewable energy. The issue is whether that can be delivered in the time frame that we need to deal with the transition, which is probably longer than the timeframe that [former Liberal leader] Tony Abbott had in mind," he said. + +"How do we get it through the Senate, rather than through an extension of the carbon tax? + +"How do we get it through the Senate, rather than through a carbon tax extension? That's a significant issue. + +"So the reality is that we're going to need a mix of different technologies, and this has been a conversation we've had with the federal government. + +"But I think that's a conversation we'll have to have in the near future."<|endoftext|>There are many ways to get paid for doing your job. Just as there are many ways to get paid for being born male or female, there are many ways to get paid for being an American. The truth is, no matter what you do, you'll get paid. + +That's not to say that you'll have a zero payoff. You might not even make money after you leave your job. You'll probably spend a lot of time working. You'll probably have to work hard to be able to pay the bills. But ultimately, you'll get paid for what you do, and there are a lot of ways to get paid for your work, no matter what your job is. + +It's worth looking at the pay rates of the jobs that pay the most, because the jobs that pay the most are often the ones that pay you the least. + + +See also: + +-The 10 Jobs That Pay the Most for Legal Professionals + +-The 10 Jobs That Pay the Most for Political Consultants<|endoftext|>A New York Times columnist and a Republican congressman have accused the Obama administration of violating the First Amendment by blocking Fox News Channel from a White House press briefing. + +The Obama administration said its decision was in order to avoid having the White House and its reporters "provide a platform for misinformation and conspiracy theories." + +Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said Fox's programming "provides a platform for the alt-right and white supremacists and neo-Nazis." + +In a letter to White House counsel Neil Eggleston, King accused the administration of "effectively silencing" Fox News Channel for its "grievance." + +"Your letter states in no uncertain terms that the Office of White House Counsel will not allow Fox News to participate in any White House Press Briefing," King wrote. "I cannot fathom how this can be in the best interest of the American people or the press corps to allow Fox News to 'provide a platform for the alt-right, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.'" + +The letter was sent on behalf of Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who was scheduled to be the White House's chief spokesman. + +Eggleston responded to King's letter Friday, responding that the press corps should be given equal access to the president and his staff. + +"I have advised you that the White House does not and will not provide a platform for commentary or partisan political activities that seek to undermine the work of our duly elected representative government," Eggleston wrote. "Mr. King's letter instead seeks to make the White House into a partisan battleground on the eve of the 2014 midterm elections. This is not a viable option for the White House." + +The letter was signed by White House counsel +======================================== SAMPLE 218 ======================================== +You may use our API to get the following: + +* E-Mail * Phone number * Prilepinel + +You may also use our API to get the following: + +* Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* E-Mail * Phone number * Email * Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Phone number * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Description * Phone number * Email * Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* E-Mail * Phone number * Email * Description * Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Phone number * E-Mail * Description * Email * Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* E-Mail * Phone number * Email * Description * Description * Email + +You may use our API to get the following: + +* Phone number * E-Mail * Description * Email * Description * Description * Email<|endoftext|>[back to the top] + +QUEEN OF THE WOODS + +OCTOBER 2008 · In theaters · 152 minutes In a private meeting with his brother (and fellow assassin), Walter White meets with a mysterious woman, who offers him a chance to redeem himself and change his destiny. With the help of his new partner-in-crime-dealing Jesse Pinkman, Walt takes a big gamble to save his life, his family, and the company he built. As Walter stumbles on a dark secret that could destroy his empire, he must face the demons inside him and decide whether to see his future through or to try to change it. Sundance Selects. + +Desiree Akhavan • 3 hours ago + +TORONTO + +GRANVILLE + +MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS + +Cinema Paradiso + +(October 11–16, 2008) + +In the summer of 2008, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will be presenting a high-profile selection of films for the first time at this year's edition of the festival. Exceeding the usual festival offerings by nearly one hour in length, the program, which will also be available on DVD on October 16, features the films of a number of top international filmmakers, including American filmmakers such as Martin McDonagh, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Andrew Dominik, and British directors such as Paul Greengrass, Kenneth Lonergan, and Damien Chazelle. + +Preston Sturges • 3 hours ago + +MOUNT AUSTIN + +SPRING 2002 · In theaters · 108 minutes In the spring of 2002, the Sundance Film Festival held its first event devoted to international films. Initially conceived as a showcase for films from the world's major film festivals, the event quickly became a celebration of the independent American films that had come to the festival over the preceding three years. + +Featuring a collection of films from the U.S., Europe, and South America, the festival's International Film Program was co-produced by Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker Street Films and the Sundance Institute. + +The International Film Program was directed by Rob Cohen and Erik Sandberg. + +The International Film Program was produced by Bleecker +======================================== SAMPLE 219 ======================================== +The UN General Assembly has voted to condemn North Korea for human rights abuses, including a "systematic and widespread" system of enforced disappearances. The resolution was passed by a vote of 138 in favour to seven against. + +After the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the vote represented a "turning point in the international community's collective response" to North Korea's human rights record. + +"Human rights abuses in North Korea have been atrocious for decades, and the world has been waiting for the UN to act," she said in a statement. + +North Korea has taken many steps to improve the human rights situation in recent years. + +But Pyongyang's critics say the country still fails to protect citizens' rights and that it still abuses its citizens. + +The report, which lists more than 20 human rights abuses North Korea has committed and that it is still committing, was commissioned by the UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea, which investigates human rights issues. + +By the end of 2016, it said the country had executed more than 100 people, including at least 50 by public beheadings. + +A report last year by the UN Committee Against Torture also found there was a "systematic and widespread" use of torture and other ill-treatment by the authorities. + +North Korea 'still in violation of human rights' + +The resolution urges the UN Security Council to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court, to "prevent and punish" such crimes and to impose a travel ban and asset freeze on the country's leadership and officials. + +It also calls for a "thorough and independent" investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons and biological weapons. + +It also calls on member states to "use all diplomatic and other means" to persuade North Korea to comply with its obligations. + +The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women welcomed the resolution "in the strongest terms", saying it would send a "powerful message" to North Korea. + +"The committee calls on all states and international organisations to take urgent measures to protect women and girls from violence and discrimination, including sexual violence, including in North Korea," the committee said in a statement. + +The resolution also calls for the UN Human Rights Council to set up a special committee to investigate human rights abuses in North Korea. + +The resolution, which was endorsed by the European Union, the US and Japan, is not legally binding, but it could serve as a powerful catalyst for international action. + +UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has previously warned that North Korea's human rights record "is still in violation of the international human rights obligations". + +"The UN General Assembly has now taken an important step in setting the stage for the UN Human Rights Council to take this issue forward and I hope that the Human Rights Council will now take this opportunity to adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea," he said in a statement. + +The council is expected to take action on North Korea by the end of the year. + +The United Nations' top human rights body has a number of resolutions on the country, including one that condemned the country's human rights record in February. + +The UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea has been investigating human rights issues in the isolated country since April last year.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Navy has a growing problem: It has the oldest, smallest and most under-powered aircraft carrier in the world. + +The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy's newest aircraft carrier, is less than two years old and lacks the necessary firepower to keep up with its planned deployment schedule, a top Navy official told Congress on Thursday. + +"Based on the status of the ship, the carrier force is not capable of meeting planned deployments," Rear Adm. John Kirby, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +Kirby said the Navy has only two carrier groups — the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George Washington — that can deploy at any given time. + +"We have to maintain that force for the next 20 years, and I don't know if we can do that with one carrier group," Kirby said. "Unless we're going to create a different carrier group to support that, we're not going to get the results we want." + +The Navy currently has 53 carrier groups in service, with about a dozen more in the planning stages, according to the Congressional Research Service. + +The Navy's top officer said the Navy will have to decide by year's end whether to retire the carrier-based aircraft the Gerald R. Ford is designed to replace. + +Kirby said the carrier fleet currently has two aircraft carriers — the USS Reagan and the USS George H.W. Bush — that are structurally sound and can transport aircraft. + +"If we decide that we can't fly our aircraft carriers with a four-engine aircraft carrier ... we're going +======================================== SAMPLE 220 ======================================== +The latest update to the iOS 10.3.3 update has been released to the public, bringing with it a number of improvements. + +The update is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch running iOS 10.3.3, and includes a number of bug fixes and performance improvements. + +On the security side of things, iOS 10.3.3 has a number of new security tweaks including the introduction of the new Secure Enclave which is designed to improve the security of future iOS updates. + +The update also brings with it a new 'Wi-Fi Assist' feature which is designed to improve Wi-Fi connectivity on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This feature will automatically switch to a Wi-Fi network when you connect to a Wi-Fi network that is not your home Wi-Fi network. + +iOS 10.3.3 updates are available to install from the App Store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch running iOS 10.3.3. + +iOS 10.3.3 comes a day after the new iOS 10 update was released, which is available for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple Watch. + +Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:<|endoftext|>This is an overview of the status of the global AIDS epidemic as of the end of 2015. + +This report was prepared by the Global AIDS Epidemic and TB Report Team at the World Health Organization (WHO) based on data reported by the national AIDS and TB ministries and departments of health of the countries included in the 2015 Global AIDS Epidemic and TB Report 2016. + +At the end of 2015, there were 1,025,100 new HIV infections in people living with HIV, a decrease of 21.5% compared with the end of 2015. + +The total number of people living with HIV worldwide increased by 16.0% to over 1.4 billion, accounting for 43.3% of the world's population. + +About 2.5 million people died from HIV/AIDS in 2015, a decrease of 0.5% compared with the end of 2015. New HIV transmission remained at an all-time high of 23.4% in 2015, while new AIDS deaths decreased by 4.1%. + +Worldwide, the number of new infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) decreased by 16.4% in 2015 compared with the previous year. The decrease was largest in sub-Saharan Africa. + +There were 20.5 million new tuberculosis (TB) infections in 2015, a decrease of 16.3% compared with the end of 2015. TB remains the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. In 2015, there were 1.8 million new TB infections, an increase of 10.5% compared with the end of 2015. + +Although the number of people living with HIV has decreased by 21.5% in the past ten years, the number of people with HIV continues to increase around the world. + +In 2015, the number of new HIV infections was lower than the estimated number of new HIV infections in 2000. The number of new HIV infections decreased among people living with HIV in most regions of the world. HIV prevalence in the Americas decreased by 44%, in sub-Saharan Africa by 38%, in Asia-Pacific by 27% and in Europe by 19%, while the increase was most pronounced in Asia-Pacific and Europe. + +In 2015, there were 37.4 million new AIDS-related deaths, a decrease of 5.1% compared with the end of 2015. In 2015, the number of deaths from AIDS decreased by 9.8% among people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. The decline was largest in sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the number of deaths from AIDS decreased by 14.8% in 2015 compared to the end of 2015 among people living with HIV in most parts of the world. + +Most HIV-related deaths (about 90%) occur in people living with HIV. In 2015, the age-standardized mortality rate for people living with HIV was 30.0 per 100,000 person-years, compared with 32.7 per 100,000 person-years for the general population. In 2015, deaths due to AIDS accounted for the largest proportion of deaths from all causes and of deaths from cancer. + +The number of new HIV infections among people living with HIV decreased by 16.4% in 2015 compared with the previous year. The decrease was largest in sub-Saharan Africa. + +In 2015, the number of new AIDS-related deaths was lower than the estimated number of new AIDS deaths in 2000. The number of new AIDS deaths decreased among people living with HIV in most regions of the world. AIDS-related deaths are very important as a measure of progress towards the MDG target on ending AIDS by 2030. + +In 2015, people living with HIV were at greater risk of dying from HIV/AIDS than people living with HIV in 2000. For example, in 2015, people living +======================================== SAMPLE 221 ======================================== +"A hero who saves a girl's life and then dies in the attempt, who lives in a world where the laws of nature are suspended and the bad guys don't take any notice of the hero's actions, is... always a hero, right?" + +This is a short story that I wrote almost a year ago, and it has been sitting in my drafts folder for years. It was originally meant for a forum post, but it didn't make the cut with the other stories. I decided to share it here as a reward for those willing to read it. + +It is a story about a young man, Ben, who is a hero. You see, Ben is cursed with the knowledge of being an immortal being, and he is constantly haunted by his past. He has lived his entire life where every bad memory that he can remember is brought to the surface, and he wakes up every morning with a fresh headache, aching eyes, and a cold sweat. He is always able to do something about it, but he's not sure why; maybe it's his curse, or maybe it's his destiny. + +He became a hero in order to escape his past, but that's not the only reason he is a hero. Ben is also a passionate man, and his desire to protect and save people, keeps him going in the face of all odds. + +I hope you enjoy reading this short story as much as I enjoyed writing it. + +-E<|endoftext|>The Council of Canadians is calling on the federal government to support several projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas industry. + +The group took the unusual step of posting a letter on the website of its Ottawa office, urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to support a project to capture methane from the oil and gas industry, which could help cut Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. + +The letter states: "The oil and gas industry is responsible for an estimated 30 per cent of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions. The industry's contribution to climate change is especially disturbing given the significant contribution that natural gas makes to Canada's economy, with the potential to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80 per cent by 2050." + +Story continues below advertisement + +The letter was signed by the environmental groups Environment Canada and the National Observer. + +"We are asking the Prime Minister to take action in support of Canada's oil and gas industry by supporting the development of methane capture and storage technology," the letter states. + +"This technology is already being used in the United States and is being considered as a viable solution to the controversial issue of fracking," the letter continues. + +The letter further states that methane is a "potential solution" to climate change while also addressing the concerns of First Nations, farmers and the business community. + +The letter, however, also raises questions about the cost of the technology, which is almost exclusively used in the United States. + +"The technology has been demonstrated to capture methane, but it is costly to build and operate. To date, methane capture and storage technology has not been commercially developed in Canada," the letter states. + +Methane is a greenhouse gas that has approximately 25 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide when it comes to forcing atmospheric temperature rise, the letter states. + +Story continues below advertisement + +Story continues below advertisement + +The Association of Canadian Oil Sands Producers has said that the technology has been "proven, proven successful." + +The Council of Canadians is part of a coalition of environmental and public interest groups that have been pressuring the Trudeau government to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. + +The organization's letter comes as the federal government is still deciding what measures to impose on the oil and gas industry in response to the Paris Agreement on climate change. + +The Conservatives have been pushing for a national carbon price to pay for a variety of environmental initiatives, but the Liberals have said they want to wait until the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) puts in place a mechanism to pay for such measures. + +The Trudeau government has said its priority is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. + +Canada has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. + +Story continues below advertisement + +The NDP also promised in its platform to reduce emissions. + +The group's letter comes ahead of a meeting in Vancouver this week between Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and the CEOs of the world's largest oil and gas companies. + +Ms. McKenna is expected to meet with the heads of Shell, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips on Tuesday.<|endoftext|>Rape of an Indian woman by three men in a moving bus in Gurgaon, a city in Haryana, India, has shocked the country. The case has been referred to the National Human Rights Commission, which will now decide whether the victim had been raped or not. + +According to +======================================== SAMPLE 222 ======================================== +The man who shot to infamy in the Scottish independence debate this week is the son of a senior care home manager who was forced to close over a staffing shortage. + +Peter Doherty, 49, is the leader of the independence campaign and was the focus of the 23 July referendum debate. + +He is a former chairman of the Scottish Socialist Party and co-founded the party in 1991. + +He has also stood unsuccessfully for the SNP and the Conservative Party. + +In his role as a director of The Haven, a nursing home in Edinburgh, he was forced to close in 2013 when the number of carers fell to just 32. + +Mr Doherty's father, John Doherty, was the manager of the home from 1963 to 2013 and is now the manager of the charity HICC, which helps care home staff. + +It has been suggested that the fact that the family were so well-connected gave him the confidence to fire the carers because of the shortage. + +Mr Doherty was born in Glasgow and is one of three children. + +The other two are brothers Peter, who is an accountant, and David, who is a property developer. + +Family connections + +Mr Doherty's father is now an elected member of the Edinburgh City Council, according to the SNP. + +Mr Doherty's political background was shaped by the kind of politics that has dominated Scottish politics for the last decade: the SNP. + +His political background was shaped by the kind of politics that has dominated Scottish politics for the last decade - the SNP + +At Edinburgh University, he stood for the SNP at his first attempt to stand for Parliament but failed. + +He has also stood unsuccessfully for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party. + +In the early 1990s, he was the chairman of the Scottish Socialist Party. + +In 2007, he co-founded the Scottish Socialist Network, which has since become the Scottish Socialist Party. + +In January 2012, he became director of the charity HICC. + +In the Scottish independence debate, Mr Doherty said: "The people of Scotland have had enough of the SNP. + +"It is clear that their policies have produced the worst economic, social and health crisis in modern Scottish history." + +He has said his family connections to the SNP helped him to put together the independence case. + +"The independence case is not the SNP's to run. The SNP has been in power for nearly 30 years and has done nothing but wreck. + +"The SNP has not helped the working people of Scotland at all. They have made it more difficult for people to get a job. They have done nothing to help the most vulnerable. They have failed to build a fairer society." + +'Eyes wide open' + +But in an interview with BBC Scotland, he said the Scottish National Party had been "failing to build a fairer society" for too long. + +"I'm not an ideologue. I don't believe in one way of doing things or another. I'm just looking at it from a pragmatic point of view," he said. + +"I think we have a very serious crisis in Scottish life that we have to deal with. + +"We have a huge population, we have huge problems with mental health, we have huge problems with housing. + +"The only way in which we can have a fairer society is to make sure that we have a fairer economy." + +He added: "I have always been at the forefront of the debate on the independence issue and I think that my eyes are wide open to the way Scotland is going."<|endoftext|>Rating: 4.9 - ‎9 reviews - ‎$9.99 - ‎In stock + +This is not a gift that will keep on giving. The ... Hookah Pouch - Silver - Stainless Steel - 6" x 8" - ... This hookah pouch is made of high quality stainless steel and will hold up to 6 hookahs.<|endoftext|>I've been seeing a lot of people on Reddit talking about how they don't like the way Windows 10 handles scaling of apps on the desktop. + +This is a big issue in the Windows 10 Creators Update, and it's not something Microsoft is aware of. It's also not something it's fixing. + +I've found a lot of people who have written in with their stories about how they're having a very hard time scaling apps with Windows 10 on their workstations. I've also seen a lot of answers to these problems, and I think it's time to start talking about this issue. + +We all know that Windows 10 scales apps on the desktop, but many people don't know it's doing it that way. The Windows 10 Creators Update scales apps on the desktop using a new feature called the Windows App Container. + +The Windows App Container + +In Windows 10 the desktop is divided into two parts: the apps area and the +======================================== SAMPLE 223 ======================================== +The state of California has investigating an alleged hate crime in the form of a note left at a mosque which read: "I'm proud to be your Muslim. I'm a soldier." + +According to the Sacramento Bee, the note was found at the Islamic Center of Sacramento by the Muslim community and the FBI has been notified. + +The center's president, Imam Syed Hussan, said he called the FBI immediately after finding the note on his doorstep. + +"It was the most heartfelt message I'd ever received," Hussan told NBC 10. "We have to make sure that this doesn't happen to any other Muslim community." + +Hussan said that the statement was left on the door of the mosque by a man in his 20s who was upset that he was being denied entry to the mosque. The man said he was denied entry because he was wearing a turban and had hair dyed in a non-Muslim color. + +Hussan said that he had also been physically threatened before, but never intentionally targeted his mosque. + +"I have no idea who this individual is," he said. + +The FBI said it was investigating the incident. + +Hussan said that he and the mosque have a very good relationship with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. He said that his mosque, which is located just down the street from the California Capitol, has been a target of hate before. + +"We've had people angry, yelling, shaking their fists, throwing rocks, writing on the mosque, putting up 'build the wall' signs," Hussan said. "It's gotten to a point where we want to get involved. We have to protect ourselves." + +Hussan said that he has not heard back from the FBI and that he has been told by the federal agency that they are investigating the incident. + +California Gov. Jerry Brown called the incident "deeply disturbing," and said that the state will work closely with the FBI. + +"I want to commend the Muslim community for their courage and leadership as they respond to this despicable act that is motivated by bias and hate," Brown said in a statement. "I also want to assure the public that my office is in contact with the FBI and will continue to monitor the situation." + +Hussan said that despite the attack, he does not feel that his community is being targeted. + +"We are still a very safe place," he said. "We don't feel threatened. We feel very safe." + +UPDATE: The FBI has confirmed that the incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime.<|endoftext|>As a Universalist minister, I believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that I have a duty to proclaim this truth. At the same time, I recognize that I'm only a minister, a pastor, a preacher, and the only person in my church who possesses the keys to God's kingdom. There are things I cannot say, and then there are things I can say, but I can't go around telling people who are not in my church what I can and cannot say. + +As a Universalist minister, I believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that I have a duty to proclaim this truth. At the same time, I recognize that I'm only a minister, a pastor, a preacher, and the only person in my church who possesses the keys to God's kingdom. There are things I cannot say, and then there are things I can say, but I can't go around telling people who are not in my church what I can and cannot say. + +This has been a controversial topic for several years, and I have sometimes been asked, "How do you handle this?" I have often said, "It's up to you." I love my church and I adore the people whom God has blessed me to be with. I love the Bible and the way it has revealed God's word to me, but I also love my congregation and I love the people whom God has placed in my congregation. Sometimes I have said things that have been perceived as insensitive or even rude. I have also said things that have been perceived as incorrect. I have tried to be careful and to be upfront about what I believe and what I am not comfortable doing. + +I have been asked why I don't just tell people what I know is true, and why I don't just go around telling people what I know is true. I've been asked why I don't just tell people what I know is true, and why I don't just go around telling people what I know is true. + +At the same time, I have heard others say that there is no way to truly know what God has revealed to us, and that our understanding of God is limited by our own limitations. I've also heard others say that there is no way to truly know what God has revealed to us, and that our understanding of God is limited by our own limitations. + +======================================== SAMPLE 224 ======================================== +After weeks of speculation about whether the Senate would pass the tax bill, Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said he would vote for it. + +"I think it's a good bill. I think it's going to help our country," Corker told reporters outside the Senate chamber. + +The Senate had been expected to vote on the tax bill tonight, but Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky announced that he could not commit to voting for the bill. + +Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was still reviewing the tax bill. + +"I'm still reviewing the final text," she said. "We're going to see what the final bill looks like." + +The Senate had been expected to vote tonight on the Republican tax bill, but that appears to be in jeopardy after Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky announced he could not commit to voting for the bill. + +"I'm still reviewing the final text," Senator Susan Collins of Maine, another key swing vote, said of the tax legislation. "We're going to see what the final bill looks like." + +The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday, after the Senate spends much of the week in a marathon session. + +Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, was optimistic about the tax bill's chances, but said he needs more information to be sure. + +"If this bill is as good as it seems to be, it's going to help millions of families. It's going to help people across the country who have struggled to find jobs and have struggled to make ends meet. It's going to help people of all ages," Wyden said. + +Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he has "confidence" the final bill will pass. + +"I'm confident that the tax bill that we put forth is solid, that it will provide the kind of economic growth that's needed in this country. I'm confident that it will help our economy increase jobs," he said. + +The House and Senate passed their tax legislation in early November. + +The final bill has not yet been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. However, several analyses have found that it would slow the growth of the economy and help the wealthy more than the middle class. + +The Senate's tax bill also includes a provision giving the Internal Revenue Service more power to target certain taxpayers for audits. + +The House bill also made changes to the way individuals can deduct state and local property taxes. The Senate bill does not make those changes.<|endoftext|>The main purpose of this guide is to provide a set of tips and suggestions for the new player, so that they can get a feel for how the game works. It also aims to be a comprehensive guide to help newer players who are missing out on certain things. + +For a more in-depth guide, see the main page of the guide. + +This guide is only for players who have never played the game before. + +Contents show] + +Upgrades Edit + +Upgrades are the most important feature of the game, and are the reason for the game's high cost. They are also the reason why the game is played in the first place. + +There are currently 15 different upgrades, and each of them has a different benefit. This list will be updated as more upgrades are added. + +There are many different types of upgrades, and their cost ranges from 1-30. + +Upgrade Cost (Arbiter) + +Upgrade Cost (Bounty Hunter) + +Upgrade Cost (Bounty Hunter) + +Upgrade Cost (Conqueror) + +Upgrade Cost (Conqueror) + +Upgrade Cost (Duelist) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Scout) + +Upgrade Cost (Scout) + +Upgrade Cost (Survivor) + +Upgrade Cost (Survivor) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Arbiter) + +Upgrade Cost (Bounty Hunter) + +Upgrade Cost (Bounty Hunter) + +Upgrade Cost (Conqueror) + +Upgrade Cost (Conqueror) + +Upgrade Cost (Duelist) + +Upgrade Cost (Duelist) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Scout) + +Upgrade Cost (Scout) + +Upgrade Cost (Survivor) + +Upgrade Cost (Survivor) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +Upgrade Cost (Warrior) + +As of the 4.0.2 patch, this was changed to be more consistent. + +The amount of money per upgrade varies based on the tier of the upgrade. + +Tier 1: 10,000 + +======================================== SAMPLE 225 ======================================== +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The defendant - known as "Penny" - was arrested in May + +A "penny killer" who beat and sexually assaulted a woman in a park has been jailed for at least 10 years. + +Steve Beresford, 57, struck the woman in a park in Northampton, Buckinghamshire, in May, St Albans Crown Court heard. + +He left her with serious injuries and told police he had cut her with a cleaver. + +Judge Ian Pringle said Beresford's actions were "truly shocking". + +He said: "You lured this woman into the park, you sexually assaulted her and chased her as she fled the scene. + +"You did this in a moment of anger and fuelled by drink. + +"You were a coward at the time." + +Image copyright PA Image caption Beresford has been jailed for 10 years + +Beresford, of Northampton, was arrested on 16 May after footage of the attack in the park was posted on Facebook. + +He admitted one count of rape and one count of sexual assault. + +In one video, Beresford is seen on his mobile phone with the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as he forces her to perform a sex act. + +In another video, Beresford is seen laughing as he hits the woman as she flees from him. + +Penny has been left with serious injuries and has been left unable to work, for the past five months, her solicitor said. + +She has been unable to meet her children and has not been able to leave her home since the incident. + +The judge said Beresford had "no real remorse" and had "no capacity to understand how such an appalling and depraved act could occur". + +He added: "You are a very dangerous man and I hope your victims will be able to move on."<|endoftext|>I have been searching for a good day care for my kids for nearly two years. First, I decided that I would take one for myself and then, when my kids were older, I would have one for the whole family. I found a good day care, and then I came to the conclusion that I would pay for it myself. + +A lot of my friends described this when I first started searching for a day care. "You pay for it yourself," they would say, "and it will be fine because you have a baby." + +That made no sense to me. My kids are not in a perfect situation, but even with my "perfect" situation, I still wanted a good day care. I knew that I was paying for it myself (I already had a credit card to pay for the day care), so I thought that I could do the same when my kids were older. + +I didn't realize how expensive that was until I actually started paying for it myself and figured out how much it actually cost me. I am definitely not going to be able to pay for everything myself. I know that this can be expensive. But, I am going to do my part. + +I am going to share with you the things I spent so far (I am on day 5. They are all in different types of care, so I will update you based on what is available). + +Since I am only reading on my own, I will keep it going if you want to comment and ask me questions. + +I am going to start with the things that I am not sure if I will be able to afford. And then I am going to make a list of things I should be able to afford. + +Day Care + +Rent + +Food + +Groceries + +Household items + +Make sure I have a good list of things I should be able to afford. I am not sure if I am going to be able to afford everything, but I want to be careful. + +What I am not sure if I will be able to afford + +Child Care + +I don't know if I can afford for my kids to go to child care. I need to know how much it is going to cost me. + +I am going to try and buy daycare for my kids. I don't know if I can afford it. It seems like this is a huge expense. + +I am going to try and buy daycare for my kids. I don't know if I can afford it. It seems like this is a huge expense. Child Care for the Whole Family + +I am going to try and buy child care for all of my kids. It seems like this is a very big expense. I need to know how much it is going to cost me. + +I am going to try and buy child care for all of my kids. It seems like this is a very big expense. I need to know how much it is going to cost me. Groceries + +I am going +======================================== SAMPLE 226 ======================================== +A man who was "unusually intoxicated" when he was arrested for a "brazen" drive-by shooting on the Northwest Side has been found guilty of one count of attempted murder. + +Police said the gunfire was fired at four cars in the 4900 block of North Long Avenue about 1:30 a.m. on July 10, 2015. + +The bullets hit a parked vehicle, a parked vehicle in the street and a parked vehicle in a driveway, police said. The driver of the parked car was shot in the chest and shoulder. + +The driver of the parked vehicle in the street was shot in the head and the passenger was shot in the arm. + +The driver of the parked car in the driveway was shot in the arm and the passenger was shot in the head. + +The shooting was captured on video by a witness. + +The man who was charged with attempted murder was identified in court Thursday as Edward Daniel Spaulding, 24, of the 5800 block of North Orleans Avenue. + +He has been ordered held on a $500,000 bond.<|endoftext|>A man who has been charged with attempted murder was in court Friday to enter a plea in a case that began four months ago when police say he fatally shot a woman inside a "bad neighborhood" in Banning. + +Luis Robles, 28, of Sacramento, was charged with murder on July 14 in the death of 27-year-old Jessica Stensman of Sacramento. Stensman was found shot in the head on Nov. 29 in a front yard in the 2800 block of Forest Hill Street in Banning, according to a criminal complaint. + +She had been shot with an M-1 rifle. + +The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office charged Robles on Thursday in connection with the shooting, which happened while he was in the midst of a robbery. + +Robles was in court Friday to enter a plea. His attorney, Kevin O'Reilly, said he would strongly represent Robles and would plead not guilty. + +"He's extremely upset about the charges," O'Reilly said, adding that Robles shot Stensman during a robbery and said it was an accident. + +O'Reilly said Stensman had been at his home to retrieve her car from a car wash before leaving with Robles. The pair, a married couple, had been drinking, O'Reilly said. + +Robles was arrested in November after a witness told police he saw Robles get into a car and take a woman to a deserted area on Forest Hill Street. The witness told police that when the woman got out of the car, Robles shot her with an M-1 rifle. + +Police found Stensman in the front yard of a home with a gunshot wound to the head, according to the complaint. She died in the hospital the next day. + +"We're very concerned," said Banning Police Lt. Bob Mulligan. "We have a lot of questions. We have a lot of things on the table." + +Mulligan said investigators may have a motive in the case. + +"There could be an attempt to get away with some crimes," he said. + +O'Reilly said Robles was in the process of moving out of a home in Banning, which is where he was arrested in November. He said he took his own life in the home at 5900 Royce St. in September. + +According to the criminal complaint, police received a call about a robbery in progress at the home at 5 p.m. Tuesday. When officers arrived, they found the front door of the home torn off the hinges and a dead woman lying in the street. + +Officers found Stensman's car in the driveway, with a bullet hole in the windshield. + +Stensman's family had planned to hold a memorial for her on Friday at 5 p.m. at Banning High School, according to O'Reilly. + +Stensman was a recent graduate of Sacramento City College. + +Stensman, a native of Riverside, was a member of the Banning Mountain Club and a member of the Sacramento chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. + +She was also a member of the Banning Rotary Club. + +Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Banning Police Department at 916-744-7448 or Crime Stoppers at 530-777-8572. + +A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the families of Stensman and her husband, Brandon, who was the victim of a car crash earlier this year. + +-- + +Follow the Sacramento Bee on Twitter: @SacBee + +Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter: @meganigannon + +Related: + +Woman shot in head in Banning (07.18.15) + +Woman shot in head in Banning (07.06.15) + +======================================== SAMPLE 227 ======================================== +MIDDLETOWN, N.J. -- An employee who fired a gun on the New Jersey Turnpike has been charged with assault in connection with the incident. + +Middletown police said Thursday that Michael G. Carbone, 44, of New Jersey, fired a gun at a car driven by a motorist on the Turnpike on March 23. + +Police say the driver got out of her car and confronted Carbone, who pushed her and began firing a gun. + +The woman was hurt. + +Police arrested Carbone and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon. + +A court date has not yet been set. + +Weird News Photos: Man Shoves Snake in Pants + +Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York<|endoftext|>The Wall Street Journal has published an article about the growing problem that the EFTA court is facing with its membership. The article is titled "Europe's EFTA judges are split on membership, and the outcome could be a major blow to EU-Turkey relations". + +The article starts off with the following quote: + +"The members of the EFTA court are so far divided on whether to continue membership without Turkey, according to court documents seen by The Wall Street Journal." + +This article is very misleading. Here is the full quote: + +"The members of the EFTA court are so far divided on whether to continue membership without Turkey, according to court documents seen by The Wall Street Journal." + +These are the members of the EFTA court. The people who comprise EFTA are the EEA states. There are only five members of the EEA, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. + +The countries that have EFTA membership are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. + +The EEA also covers all the European states that are part of the European Union and has a common foreign and security policy. The EEA includes the EFTA states. + +The EEA is a bilateral agreement between European countries. It has not been a treaty. It has been a bilateral agreement between the EU and EEA countries. The EEA countries are not in the European Union. They are in the EEA. + +The EEA is not an agreement with Turkey. The EEA is an agreement between the EU and the EEA states. There are no negotiations between the EU and the EEA. There is no negotiation between the EU and Turkey. There are no negotiations with Turkey. + +According to the article, "The court documents show the judges are divided on whether to continue membership without Turkey". + +This is a nonsense statement. The article does not even quote the actual decision of the EEA court that this article refers to. The article is simply quoting the EEA court's decision, without even quoting the actual decision. + +The EEA court has made many decisions in the past. In the EEA court's decision about the EU-Turkey accession negotiations, the court said that the accession negotiations could go forward. The EEA court also said that the accession negotiations should be concluded within two years. + +The EEA court also said that the accession negotiations should be concluded with the participation of the 28 EU member states. + +The EEA court also said that the accession negotiations should be concluded on the basis of the EU-Turkey accession agreement, which was done. The EEA court also said that the accession negotiations could proceed after the accession agreement was concluded. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court has made a decision. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court has made a decision. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court has made a decision. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court has made a decision. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court has made a decision. + +The EEA court has already decided that the accession negotiations can proceed. It has not been a decision that has been made by the EEA court. It has not said that the EEA court +======================================== SAMPLE 228 ======================================== +MEMORANDUM FOR: The Acting Director and Deputy Director of the FBI + +FROM: James B. Comey, Director + +SUBJECT: Re: Russia Investigation + +RE: F.B.I. Reforms and Improvements + +On May 1, 2017, I sent a memorandum to the Department of Justice (DOJ) recommending that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) take certain steps to enhance public confidence in the FBI. I also asked the FBI to consider whether it should issue public statements, and if so, what those statements should say. + +The memorandum follows: + +May 1, 2017 + +The Honorable James B. Comey + +Director + +Federal Bureau of Investigation + +950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW + +Washington, DC 20535 + +Dear Director Comey: + +The FBI's leadership has long been committed to improving its culture and practices. We have, over the past several years, consolidated or changed many of the existing practices and procedures that govern FBI employees and the management of the FBI's work. This memorandum provides an update on those efforts, delineating the key reforms we have implemented and the steps we have taken to improve both the FBI's culture and the way it does business. + +The reforms we have implemented include: + +Pre-employment screening ensuring that applicants are not disqualified for race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, protected veteran status or any other basis based on the applicant's conduct in the past; + +Reforming the use of "insider threat" language in FBI training materials; + +Clarifying that the FBI has no interest in investigating individuals who are not alleged to have committed a crime; + +Clarifying that the FBI has no interest in investigating individuals who are not alleged to have committed a crime; Assessing the management structure of the FBI to ensure that senior supervisors and managers have the proper authority to make decisions on matters that fall within their areas of responsibility; and + +Developing a comprehensive plan to ensure that the FBI is transparent, accountable, and effective in its work. + +In light of these reforms, it is my understanding that the FBI has taken steps to produce a report summarizing the progress we have made in combating the threat posed by foreign intelligence services, which is required by Executive Order 12333. To the extent that we have taken steps in this regard, they have been in close collaboration with the Department of Justice. + +I believe it is important that I briefly clarify the scope of our reforms. As required by Executive Order 12333, we have implemented the following reforms: + +We have moved forward with the development of internal investigations for certain sensitive personnel matters, such as sexual harassment and abuse, where the FBI has discovered credible allegations of criminal conduct against individuals in the FBI. These investigations have been implemented with the guidance of the Department of Justice and have been driven by the FBI's existing policies and practices and the recommendations of an internal review board. + +We have taken steps to ensure that the FBI is consistent in its use of the terms "engaged in" and "actively engaged in" in executive branch communications. As a result of these efforts, the FBI will continue to use the language "engaged in" when communicating with the public about its work, and the FBI will continue to use the language "actively engaged in" when communicating with Congress about its work. + +We have developed a comprehensive plan to improve the management of the FBI, including reviewing the FBI's management structure. We have undertaken this review in collaboration with the Department of Justice and have reviewed and are in the process of implementing the recommendations from the review board. The plan focuses on enhancing the quality of the FBI's management structure and improving its internal culture. + +We have begun implementing reforms at other FBI components to address the lack of accountability within the FBI for its employees. To date, the FBI has been able to identify and address these weaknesses. + +Earlier this year, I directed the FBI to create its first-ever National Academy. The FBI will continue to recruit top talent from across the country to serve as members of this Academy. The FBI will continue to seek input from experts, like retired FBI Director William Sessions, who have experience in law enforcement management, to ensure we are addressing the key challenges facing the FBI. + +As I have said many times, I believe the FBI is the best in the world in every way. As we work to ensure the FBI is best in the world, we must always remember that we are a small part of the U.S. government. In the words of a favorite song from the 60's, "When we're big, we're still small." + +Thank you for your service to this country and I look forward to your continued service.<|endoftext|>The Luther Flight is a private jet owned by the Luther family and operated by the Luther Family Trust. + +The plane is a private jet that takes the Luther family to the major events and special occasions of their business +======================================== SAMPLE 229 ======================================== +VICTORIA — The B.C. Teachers' Federation is the most popular party among B.C. residents, according to a new poll of the province's 18,000 teachers. + +The 2009 survey conducted by Mainstreet Technologies found the NDP and the Greens were in a statistical tie. + +The BCTF has a 38 per cent approval rating among public sector employees, with the Liberals at 30 per cent and the B.C. Conservatives at 26 per cent. (Mainstreet) "It's quite a bit better than what we saw in the last election," said Mainstreet CEO Quito Maggi. + +The poll, which was conducted between Feb. 23 and March 2, found the B.C. Liberals were at 41 per cent, the NDP at 35 per cent and the Conservatives at 26 per cent. + +"We're seeing a fairly consistent trend," Maggi said. + +The B.C. Conservatives and the B.C. Liberals had identical approval ratings of 35 per cent, while the Greens had a 19 per cent rating. + +The findings and results of the poll are based on a three-day rolling telephone poll. + +The poll was conducted among a random sample of 18,000 people from Monday to Friday, with a margin of error of +/- 1.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. + +Mainstreet Technologies also conducted two polls in 2009 that found the BCTF in a statistical tie with the Liberals and the NDP. + +The survey of 1,000 people found the NDP at 28 per cent and the Liberals at 31 per cent. The Greens were at 14 per cent. + +The findings and results of the 2009 poll were based on a three-day rolling telephone poll. + +The poll of 1,000 people in the days after the May 9, 2009, election had the Liberals at 32 per cent and the NDP at 32 per cent. The Greens were at 14 per cent. + +The results and results of the 2008 poll were based on a three-day rolling telephone poll of 1,000 people from Feb. 27 to March 1, 2008. + +The poll found the NDP at 28 per cent and the Liberals at 32 per cent. The Greens were at 14 per cent.<|endoftext|>The most popular app on the Android Market, with more than 8 million downloads, is now an Android TV app. + +CyanogenMod announced today that it has updated CyanogenMod 11S, its latest version of the popular custom ROM, to version 11.1.1. The update, which is available for both Android 4.4 and 5.0, comes as a security patch. The build number is 13.0.0.140. + +The latest CyanogenMod build is now available on the CyanogenMod download site. The changelog shows a number of bug fixes and performance improvements. The Cyanogen Mod team has also started a wiki on the official site that will help users figure out what's new in the latest version. + +An Android TV app for CyanogenMod 11S is set to launch in the near future, according to a post on the CyanogenMod forums.<|endoftext|>The report states that one in two women is sexually assaulted while in college. + +The number of students reporting a sexual assault at their university has increased by 30 percent from last year, according to a new report released Wednesday by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. + +The report states that one in two women is sexually assaulted while in college. Students and professors say the college assault rate has been increasing for years. + +"There's a lot more awareness about it going around these days," said Claire A. Gautreau, co-founder of the Sexual Assault Support Network of Boulder County and a faculty member at the university. "There's a lot of students that are coming forward with their experiences. I think that's great." + +Just over half of college women say they experienced a violent assault, the survey found. About one in 10 said they had been raped by a current or former intimate partner. + +The survey found that more women who reported sexual violence experienced it on campuses with lower-than-average reporting rates, including the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, the University of Colorado Denver, the University of Colorado Springs and the University of Denver. + +The report also found that women who were assaulted experienced a higher rate of alcohol use and more sexual activity than those who did not report being assaulted. + +The report noted that the rising number of female victims is consistent with a national study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That study found that 8 percent of college women experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault while in college. + +The survey found that men who had been sexually assaulted were more likely to be under the influence of alcohol and less likely to have used a condom. + +"This is a growing problem that we know about," said Dr. Andrea C. Minter +======================================== SAMPLE 230 ======================================== +The next time you're at the mall, be sure to look up at the trees. + +A group of giant trees has been added to the list of things that are no longer allowed to be on display at the mall. + +The trees, which are over 100 feet tall, are part of a 300-foot-tall master plan for the mall that includes the addition of a neighboring sprawling park. + +Sixty-five trees were removed from the mall last year as a result of the project and will be replaced with plants that will become part of the park. + +The removal of the trees was part of a larger re-design of the mall to make it more environmentally friendly and more pedestrian-friendly. + +The trees were in the middle of a public review process. But due to the extremely tall trees, the plan was put on hold while the project was being reviewed. + +The trees were removed in a line on the west side of the mall near the Macy's. + +They were removed by the Rochester Parks Department and the park designer and landscaper. + +The trees were removed from the mall in January. + +Scott O'Neill, director of communications for the City of Rochester, said the trees were removed because they were hard to move. + +"They were a safety concern," he said. + +It is not the first time the mall has had to remove trees due to safety concerns. + +In 2012, the mall decided to remove six trees because they were a safety concern in the middle of a busy road. + +Karen King, a spokesperson for Macy's, said the company was not involved in the trees' removal. + +At the time, she said safety was a major concern for the company, and that employees were not permitted to use the trees to skateboard, as they could have. + +In an emailed statement, she said Macy's was "disappointed" in the decision. + +"We look forward to a future with a Macy's at the Mall of America," she said. + +The mall is located on the east side of the interstate between I-394 and I-694. + +Additional details on the trees are available on the City of Rochester's website.<|endoftext|>A new study published today in the journal Science analysed data collected over the past four decades by NASA's Operation IceBridge missions, which have been mapping global temperatures. + +The study, by researchers at the University of Maryland and the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), reveals that the Earth's heat is slowly moving towards its pole and is likely to rise by at least 0.5 C this century as temperatures continue to rise. This is because of increased greenhouse gases. + +The study was led by the University of Maryland's James Hansen, the chairman of the NASA advisory council on climate change. It was supported by the NSIDC, NASA, the US Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the US National Science Foundation, and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research. + +The study analyzed data from the Operation IceBridge mission, which has been flying over Antarctica since 2002. It found that since 1970, the Earth's average temperature has risen by about 1.5 C, or about 0.8 C per decade. This means that the average temperature over the planet has risen by about 0.6 C since the turn of the century. The ice core record shows that the global average temperature has been rising since the 1940s. + +The scientists found that the global average temperature has risen by 0.5 C per century since 1970, but that the Southern Hemisphere has warmed faster than the Northern Hemisphere and the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than both. + +The researchers also found that the melting of ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica, which are contributing to the global warming, are a major contributor to the warming. + +"The fact that we are seeing this acceleration and that we are saying this is a major factor is important," said Hansen. + +"The most likely scenario is that we will see about 0.5 C of warming per century for the next 50 years, but that will decline to 0.2 C per century thereafter," said Hansen. He said that the 0.2 C per century warming is consistent with the IPCC's projections for the next several decades. + +"We are still committed to a 2 C rise," said Hansen. "We are taking the current momentum and accelerating it." + +"This is a very extreme temperature increase," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. "Our understanding of the physics of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, is very, very limited. We just don't understand it well enough to predict what's going to happen in the long run." + +"The IPCC is very much overestimating the rate of global warming," said Trenberth. + +The last time the Earth was this warm was during the Eemian period, +======================================== SAMPLE 231 ======================================== +Investment Manager + +Vilnius + +Roshan Mantri + +Roshan Mantri is a venture capitalist at the Vilnius-based R&D Center of the Lithuanian Academy of Science and Technology (ZST) where he invested in a variety of companies in the tech life-sciences field. Roshan Mantri has also become a partner of the Lithuanian startup accelerator "Unicorn" and is a member of the board of the incubator. In 2017 Roshan Mantri serves as the Managing Director of the Vistula Foundation.<|endoftext|>"We view the new games as a continuation of the game-play and a way to make the game more accessible to the players," said Tetsuya Nomura, producer of the game. "We are also trying to make the game more accessible to the players that are new since we have a lot of new mechanics."<|endoftext|>Everything Is Losing It's Shapes: The Movie – review + +In the way that I have been shamed into watching everything online, I will now attempt to bury everything else by examining the film of Everything Is Losing It's Shapes. + +Here's what the film has to say about itself and its purpose: + +You're not here to write a review of The Thing. + +You're here to see the story of everything losing it's shapes. + +You're not here to find out what's the best music video of the year. + +You're here to find out about Kevin Penkin and his film titled Everything Is Losing It's Shapes. + +Without further ado, here is the IMAX version of Everything Is Losing It's Shapes. + +It is not that the film is bad. It is that the film is not that interesting. + +If you are a fan of horror films, you'll have seen the trailer. If you are not a fan of horror films, you will have seen it first. + +You will have seen the poster for the flick. They are really, really good. + +But if you are asking yourself why I want to watch this film, I want to tell you that this film is not a horror flick. + +It is not a science fiction flick. It is not a comedy flick. + +It is not a documentary. It is not a drama. + +It is a film about how we view our world. + +The story of the film is that the first time Kevin Penkin saw the Earth, he was fascinated by it. + +He was like, "wow, this is a beautiful place, I'm gonna find out how to live on this beautiful planet". + +This was the beginning of his journey to find out how to live on a planet that is a big ball of rock. + +After a few years of living on the planet, he gets bored. + +He decides to build a rocket to get back home. + +But it doesn't work. + +So he builds another rocket. + +And another. + +And another. + +Eventually, he builds a giant spaceship and flies to the moon. + +While he is there, he is sick of his planet. + +He wants to go back home to his weird planet. + +The story of the film is that he does, and the film follows his journey back home. + +I won't spoil the ending because I don't want to spoil it. + +But the story concludes that everything is losing its shapes. + +As Kevin Penkin is flying back home, it is the end of the world. + +This is a movie about how we feel when we are unhappy with our lives. + +I can't say that I know any of the people in the film, but seeing the film as a fan of horror and biography, I found myself really looking forward to an explanation of the film's plot. + +I wanted to know what was the point of the film, and why the main character was so unhappy. + +I wanted to know what the point was of this film. + +Questions like these are necessary to the enjoyment of the film. + +In this film, Kevin Penkin gets to a point where he is so unhappy with his life that he decides to destroy it. + +This is an idea that is not new, but the film is really good about how the film has to explain the idea. + +The film explains the idea that the main character is unhappy because of his inability to be happy. + +This is not the first time that the film has explained the idea of happiness. + +In the film, the main character is happy on his new planet. + +But when he finds out that the planet is dying, he is like, "ah, shit, I hope I can take this pain". + +The film finds a way to make the main character happy, and happy is what we want in this world. + + +======================================== SAMPLE 232 ======================================== +The fabled golden dragonflight are a group of dragonflights in the present-day Old World, and are the defenders of Kryta against the Nightmare Court. + +The dragonflights were created when the dragons, themselves, rebelled against the Nightmare Court, and they have existed ever since, defending their home against the invasion of the Amalgam of Corruption. + +The dragonflights are currently led by the dragon Ata'mal the Voice of the Dragon. + +Contents show] + +History + +The dragonflights were created at some point in the past, and were formed from the blood of dragons slain in the Nightmare Court's invasion of the surface world. + +They were formed as a sacrifice to the dragons' gods, the dragons' ancient allies, and they are exceedingly loyal to the dragons. The dragonflights do not worship the gods, however, and they hold the relics and artifacts of the gods close to their hearts. + +The first dragonflight to be created was the Golden Flight, who were the first to take up dragonborn as a race. The Golden Flight were made up of the most ambitious, noble, and powerful of the dragons. They were revered as the first and greatest of the dragonflights. + +The second dragonflight to be created was the Silver Flight, who were the first to take up the ancient dragon language of the dragons. The Silver Flight were made up of the most timid and humble of the dragons. They were revered as the first and least noble of the dragonflights. + +The third and final dragonflight to be created were the Bronze Flight, who were the first to take up an ancient dragon language of the dragons. The Bronze Flight were made up of the most cautious, prudent, and cautious of the dragonflights. They were revered as the first and least cautious of the dragonflights. + +The first dragonflight to be destroyed was the Gold Flight, who were the first to take up the ancient dragon language of dragons. The Gold Flight were the first to be defeated by the Nightmare Court. + +The current leader of the dragonflights is Ata'mal the Voice of the Dragon, and he is the only one of the three present. Ata'mal led the Golden Flight to their destruction, and was last seen leading the Silver Flight. Ata'mal was considered the most powerful of the dragons, and he was feared by the other dragons for his power and wisdom. He was also considered the most honorable, and thus he became the central figure of the Golden Dragonflight. + +The current leader of the Silver Dragonflight is the dragon Ata'mal the Voice of the Dragon. Ata'mal is the least powerful of the three present, and he is feared by the other dragons for his power and wisdom. + +The current leader of the Bronze Dragonflight is the dragon Ata'mal the Voice of the Dragon. Ata'mal is the most powerful of the three present, and he is feared by the other dragons for his power and wisdom. + +History + +The dragons created the dragonflights as a way to protect the mortal races from the corruption that threatens to consume the world. The dragons wanted to protect their own kind, and so they took the most powerful dragons in the mortal races and sacrificed them to their gods. + +The dragons took their new creations to the mortal world, though they were not aware that it was the mortal world that was exchanging their own creations for their gods. The dragons took the most powerful of the mortal races and fought them against the other dragons, who were afraid that the new creatures would corrupt the mortal races. + +The dragons won the battle of the first dragonflight, but the other dragons realized that the mortal races were in dire need of protection from the corruption of the Amalgam of Corruption. So, they sought out the most powerful of the dragonflights, Ata'mal, and asked him to lead their new armies to battle against the corruption. Ata'mal was a powerful dragon, and he led the Golden and Silver Dragonflights to battle the corruption. As they did so, they sacrificed their creation to Ata'mal. The Amalgam of Corruption was created from the blood of the dragons slain in the Nightmare Court's invasion of the surface world. + +The Amalgam of Corruption eventually corrupted the mortal races, and the dragons fled, leaving the mortal races in its path. The mortals would be forced to fight the dragons to stop the Amalgam of Corruption, but the dragons had been weakened by the Amalgam of Corruption, and the mortals were the only ones who could defeat it. With the Amalgam of Corruption defeated, the dragons returned to the dragonflights and returned their creations to their places, but they did not forget their creation. The dragons were convinced that the mortals could be their greatest ally if they were willing to learn the dragonflights' language. So, the dragonflights created the language +======================================== SAMPLE 233 ======================================== +LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said on Wednesday that since the Brexit vote there had been a "massive" increase in business confidence, and the government was committed to delivering growth and jobs. + +FILE PHOTO: Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond delivers his speech at the London School of Economics in London, Britain, September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo + +"The economic climate is very different," Hammond told the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), during a speech in which he urged Britain's business to remain in the EU. + +"The economic uncertainty of the last few months has not really been felt. The markets have been pretty calm. There has been a massive increase in confidence," he said. + +"The government has been clear that we want to deliver economic growth," he added. + +But Hammond also said that the government would not be able to deliver much growth without increased investment, with the economy being boosted by a return to growth in the United States, which will create over 1 million jobs. + +He also said that Britain's new immigration policy would affect the composition of the economy. + +"I think that really is a very significant factor," he said. "We want a country that works for everyone, to have the kind of economy that we want to build, and that will include immigration." + +But he added that he would not be "complacent" about Brexit, suggesting that the government would be working with business to deliver a Brexit that would be in the interests of both sides. + +"We will be there to work with business," he said. "But I think the Government will be able to deliver a Brexit that's in the interests of both sides."<|endoftext|>I think we're all pretty familiar with the problem of what to call a contract. If you're writing a simple C# program, it's not a huge deal. You just call it a function and it works just fine. But, if you're writing something more complicated, you might want to use a contract to represent your dependency graph. + +Contracts are nothing new. They have been around since the dawn of C. However, the way in which they are used in modern languages has changed substantially. Instead of being self-contained units, contracts tend to be combined and combined into larger modules. For instance, in Java, you might have a module, such as the one shown here: + +public interface IContract { Task DoSomething(); } + +In that example, the T in the DoSomething() method is represented by a contract. Since the IContract interface is defined in another module, you can call the DoSomething() method in the IContract module and be assured that the DoSomething() method will have the same result. + +In Go, you would have something more like the following: + +type Contract struct { var taskT T Task } func (ctxt Contract) DoSomething() { // calls DoSomething() in the contract } + +The main thing to note here is that the function does not have to be in the same module as the interface definition (although it usually is). In Go, you can use multiple interfaces in the same module as long as they are all implemented by the same functions (e.g. a shared struct). + +In some cases, this approach may be preferable; for instance, if you want the method to be available from multiple modules. But, since Go is statically typed, you cannot use this approach to represent a dependency graph in a dynamically typed language such as Java. Instead, you would have to use a graph-based approach that combines the interfaces into larger modules. + +So, in this post, I will show you how to create your own contract in Go, which can then be used to represent a dependency graph. + +Genesis + +Before we can create our own contract, we have to know a bit about Go's binary tree. + +This is a bit technical, so if you don't have a strong background in binary trees or linked lists, feel free to skip this section. + +In binary trees, there are two kinds of nodes: empty nodes and children. Empty nodes are nodes that have no children, and children are nodes that have at least one child. + +Let's say we have a binary tree with a node in it named a . The empty nodes are nodes named b and c , which has no children. The children nodes are nodes named d and e , which has one child. We can take the children of a node and turn them into empty nodes using the following recursion: + +nt := &a // empty node nt.nodes[0] = nil // empty node nt.nodes[1] = nil // empty node nt.nodes[2] = nil // empty node nt.nodes[3] = nil // empty node + +Of course +======================================== SAMPLE 234 ======================================== +In this episode of The J-Cast, the gang discusses the state of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the current state of the Colorado River. They also discuss the recent debate in the United States over a bill to fund the National Endowment for the Humanities. Then, the gang discusses the recent news that the Kansas City Chiefs are interested in moving to Seattle. The show closes out with some thoughts on the recent State of the Union address, including what it means to the party that lost control of Congress. + +The J-Cast is recorded live every week on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. + +You can support the show by subscribing to our Patreon and making a donation at: + +http://www.patreon.com/thejcast + +You can also contact us at: jcast@thejcast.com + +You can contact the show directly at: jcast@thejcast.com + +Or call in at: 303.935.9369 + +You can also tweet us: @TheJCast + +This podcast is brought to you by Audible: A revolutionary audiobook recording program that makes it easy to listen to the great literature on any number of topics. Try Audible free. + +Show Notes: + +This podcast is brought to you by: + +Audible: A revolutionary audiobook recording program that makes it easy to listen to the great literature on any number of topics. Try Audible free. + +Featuring: + +Jason Jaxson + +http://www.facebook.com/jasonjaxson + +http://www.twitter.com/jasonjaxson + +https://www.facebook.com/jasonjaxson/ + +Music by: + +DJ Spooky<|endoftext|>The United States has the most transparent administration in the world, according to a new report. + +The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its annual transparency rankings on Friday, which included rankings of government transparency compared to the other 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). + +The U.S. was in the top two for six of the eight categories, with China in fourth place and Sweden in fifth place. + +READ MORE: U.S. government spending: The most transparent countries in the world + +"The United States is a shining example of the rule of law and the importance of open government," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. "Our government is transparent and citizens have the right to know how their government spends their taxes, how it spends their money, and how it makes decisions that affect their lives." + +The report also ranked the U.S. based on how much money it spends on its annual operations on record, as well as spending on foreign aid, infrastructure and defense. + +The U.S. is also the only country to rank in the top 10 for government transparency in all eight categories, according to CREW. + +On defense, the report said the U.S. spends more than the next seven countries combined, and is the only country to rank in the top 15 in the categories of spending on international affairs, health care and education. + +But the report also said that the U.S. has a higher percentage of its yearly budget spent on defense than any other country, and that it is the only country to rank in the top 10 for both military spending and the amount of money spent on defense in each category. + +"The United States has the most powerful military in the world," said Jim Graham, the executive director of CREW. "More money is going to the military than any other country in the world. But it's not the most transparent." + +The U.S. is also the only country with a military in every category except health care. The U.S. has the military in five of the eight categories, and is the only country to rank in the top 10 for health care spending.<|endoftext|>A person who is stuck in a state of deep, profound, and unceasing depression. This can be the result of grief left unchecked for a long time , other people , or some other negative factor. It can be a painful and debilitating condition, and can be difficult to overcome. Depression is a common and serious mental illness that can affect people of any age.<|endoftext|>The number of people in the United States who have a disability is increasing, and more Americans are becoming disabled. The United States has one of the highest percentages of people with disabilities in the world. The percentage of people with disabilities in the United States is expected to grow as more and more Americans become disabled. + +The percentage of people with disabilities in the United States is expected to grow as more and more Americans become disabled. + +In 1978, approximately 14.9 percent of the adult population had a disability. By 2010, the number of people with +======================================== SAMPLE 235 ======================================== +The German government says it is "increasingly concerned" about the threat posed by the Islamic State and would not rule out sending ground troops into Syria to fight the terrorist group. + +At a news conference on Tuesday, the German Defense Ministry said it was examining whether it could send a special forces unit to Syria to help combat the threat. + +"We see the necessity of increasing our work against the threat posed by Islamic State," Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said at the news conference. + +"A special forces team is being set up," she added. + +On Tuesday morning, the German government announced that Germany would send a special forces team to Jordan to help train Syrian rebels in order to strengthen the moderate opposition. + +Germany has so far deployed around 900 troops to help train and equip moderate Syrian rebels. + +Germany has also sent up to a dozen weapons teams to the region in recent months, but the government said they could not have been sent to Syria yet because of the high number of other countries involved. + +The United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Qatar and other countries are all involved in the air war against IS. + +Germany has been on high alert since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, most of them at the Bataclan concert hall. + +Germany has also been on high alert since a suicide bombing and shooting in Ansbach that killed at least 15 people in July. + +READ MORE: Germany issues warning after ISIS attack on Syrian refugee bus + +The country has been on high alert ever since it emerged that two teenage boys were arrested last month on suspicion of planning a possible terror attack in the country. + +The suspects are reported to have made a list of targets in Germany and had discussed beinghead people for the Islamic State. + +In August, Germany granted asylum to around 1,200 migrants.<|endoftext|>2017 + +Made a team-high 27 starts in his rookie season, going 7-14 with a 4.62 ERA (123 ER/187.1 IP), and held lefties to a .187 (50-for-250) mark. Was 3-0 with a 1.98 ERA (5 ER/26.2 IP) in five starts against the Orioles, and 1-1 with a 1.93 ERA (3 ER/12.1 IP) in three starts vs. the Yankees. His .219 (25-for-107) opponents' average was his lowest since 2012. Began the season with Triple-A Pawtucket and went 1-5 with a 4.91 ERA (46 ER/71.0 IP) in 19 games (seven starts). Was 3-1 with a 3.99 ERA (10 ER/24.0 IP) and 75 strikeouts in 18 games (10 starts) at home, compared to 9-8 with a 3.06 ERA (59 ER/136.2 IP) in 24 games (12 starts) on the road. Had a 2.45 ERA (7 ER/28.1 IP) in his first 10 Major League games, compared to a 3.27 ERA (27 ER/76.2 IP) in his final 10. Made his first Major League start on 4/15 at NYY, allowing two runs on five hits to earn the win, becoming the first Red Sox pitcher to win his first career Major League game since John Smoltz on 4/27/96 at NYM. Pitched 7.0 innings of one-run ball in a no-decision vs. the Yankees on 4/28. Went 2-0 with a 3.04 ERA (10 ER/27.0 IP) in nine games (seven starts) with Triple-A Pawtucket over his first three months of the season. Allowed 1 ER or less in 11 of his 13 outings (11.2 IP) from 5/17-8/2, including a season-high 0 ER on 5/21 at Norfolk. Went 2-1 with a 2.62 ERA (5 ER/21.2 IP) and nine strikeouts over his final seven starts of the season from 8/1-9/7, including a season-high 8.0 innings on 8/1 at Durham. It marked his first time since 7/28/13 that he did not allow a run in a game and he did not allow more than one run in a start all season. Made his first Major League relief appearance on 8/22 at NYY and struck out the only batter he faced. Was optioned to Pawtucket on 8/24 and made three more starts before being recalled on 9/7, making two starts before the Red Sox placed him on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation on 9/12. Made two rehab starts with Triple-A Pawtucket, going 1-2 with a 4.75 ERA (10 ER/17.0 IP) and one walk. Made five rehab starts with Triple-A Pawtucket +======================================== SAMPLE 236 ======================================== +Whales and dolphins have been found to have a taste for foreign substances. The most well-known cases were recorded in the 1960s when Russian researchers found that bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales could be attracted to fence posts with an electrical potential. Now, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have shown that cetaceans are interested in an odor that is too strong to be detected by the human nose. + +The researchers are not certain why whales and dolphins like the smell, but they believe that the brain of the mammals is using the smell to make sense of the world around them. The study was published in the journal Physiology & Behavior. + +When the Danish researchers studied the brain activity of whales and dolphins they found that the whales were detecting the smell in the same way that we do. The dolphins were also able to identify the smell, which suggests that they can also detect the strange odor. + +The scientists created a computer model of the brain and trained it to recognize odors. Then they tested the model on an odor that was too strong to be smelled by human nose. When the model was trained to identify the smell, it showed strong response in the brain. + +The researchers also found that the response in the brain was different for males and females. The males had a stronger response than the females. The researchers think that the males seem to be using the smell to find their mates.<|endoftext|>A teenage girl is in hospital in Birmingham with life-threatening injuries after a car ploughed into a crowd of people celebrating the Eid celebrations in the city. + +The incident happened when a white vehicle crashed into crowds gathered on Birmingham's Albert Square at around 3.30pm, around 45 minutes after Eid prayers had ended. + +A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "We are currently treating a 16-year-old girl for serious leg injuries. + +"The girl was taken to the Royal Children's Hospital. + +"She is in a critical condition and we are expecting her to make a full recovery." + +The spokesman said the ambulance service was called to the scene and the girl was taken to the Royal Children's Hospital, Birmingham by ambulance. + +The spokesperson said: "The driver of the vehicle has been arrested, we are not in a position to provide further details. + +"We continue to liaise with the police." + +The incident has been described as a "horrific incident" by Birmingham City Council leader John Clancy. + +He said: "This is a terrible tragedy. Our thoughts are with all those involved and their families." + +Police confirmed the incident was being treated as a road traffic collision and that there were no reports of anyone being injured during the incident. + +A force spokesman said: "At 2.20pm today a white car collided with a group of people in Albert Square. + +"There are no reports of any injuries." + +Eid celebrations are held annually in the city during the month of Ramadan which commences on June 5th.<|endoftext|>The October issue of Kadokawa 's Monthly Action magazine is announcing on Saturday that director Shinichirō Watashi ( The World God Only Knows , Ajin movie) will end the Ajin: Demi-Human anime series. Watashi is writing the last episode, which will be his last anime episode. + +The magazine describes the story: "The world has fallen into chaos. A strange, rare word has appeared from a strange, rare place, and is spreading like wildfire. It will not stop until it destroys everything, and the world as we know it will end." + +Watashi began the Ajin manga in Kadokawa Shoten 's Weekly Shōnen Ace magazine in 2012, and Kadokawa published the 12th compiled book volume in Japan on August 23. The manga inspired a television anime adaptation in 2013. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan, and Sentai Filmworks licensed the series for North America as Ajin: Demi-Human . + +The anime has won the top prize three times at the Manga Taisho Awards for Best General Manga, Best General Manga in a Year and Best General Manga in a Series. + +[Via Manga News]<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn right now to the Bradley Manning case. The whistleblower who leaked thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks is now being tried in military court, charged with espionage, theft and computer fraud. That's right, this is the guy who went to the Army and said, "I've got this stuff, I've got these secret documents. I want to give them to WikiLeaks." And now he's facing up to 20 years in prison. + +Well, yesterday, the judge overseeing his trial, Col. Denise Lind, ordered Manning to be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. This came as the judge said the prosecution had not +======================================== SAMPLE 237 ======================================== +In the past, when it came to the "breakfast" portion of the American diet, we were mostly concerned with the kind of high-fat, high-sugar, high-carb breakfast that (for most of us) consisted of fried eggs, eggs benedict or scrambled eggs. + +But thanks to the "fast food" craze, added sugar is now a part of most meals, and the breakfast menu has changed. + +Here's a look at the latest trends in breakfast. + +Breakfast Snacks + +"Snack" is the new breakfast. Snacks have become one of the most common and popular menu items in the U.S., and they're now the third most popular food in America after breakfast and lunch. + +"Snack" is just what it sounds like: food that is eaten with the intent to be eaten quickly, usually in the middle of the day. + +Some of the most popular snack items include chips, toast, pretzels, French toast, and popsicles. + +Some of the most popular snack items include chips, toast, pretzels, French toast, and popsicles. + +The Snack was invented during the Great Depression. It was an attempt to make food seem more enticing by combining it with alcohol and sugar. + +"Breakfast" Scrambled Eggs + +Or "Scrambled Eggs" as it is called in many parts of the country. + +Scrambled eggs were originally a breakfast food in the 1800's, but they're not a traditional breakfast food. They were usually served as a side dish alongside bread, and they didn't have much nutritional value. + +But in the 1950's and 60's, the "scrambled egg" was re-invented as a quick, easy, and healthy breakfast food. + +Scrambled eggs became popular after a series of television commercials featuring the late Jim Henson, who played the role of Scrooge McDuck in the classic Disney TV series and movies. + +People also started eating breakfast and lunch on television, and scrambled eggs became part of the mainstream American diet. + +Crispy, Fried, Fried, Fried + +In the past, the breakfast portion of the American diet was mostly made up of fried foods and eggs. That's still true, but it's not the main focus of the American breakfast. + +Instead, Americans are now eating a variety of different foods in the morning. Also, the breakfast menu is changing. + +Fried foods are still a big part of the breakfast, but most Americans now eat breakfast on a wide variety of foods. Instead of fried foods, many people are now eating scrambled eggs. + +Scrambled eggs are still a big part of the breakfast, but most Americans now eat breakfast on a wide variety of foods. + +Pancakes and waffles have been trendy breakfast foods for a few years now. + +Breakfast Sausages + +In the past, the breakfast sausage was made of pork sausage. But for reasons that are still unknown, American sausage manufacturers have been trying to make their sausage taste more like chicken. + +However, there are many different types of sausage, and they all taste different. + +If you want to try the "traditional" breakfast sausage, there are many different types. Some of the most popular are: + +Italian Sausage + +Hot Sausage + +French Sausage + +Corned Beef and Cheddar Sausage + +Bacon Sausage + +Gruyere Sausage + +Other Tricks + +In addition to the traditional breakfast foods, Americans are now also trying to get creative with their breakfast. + +And we're not talking about breakfast burritos. + +The breakfast burger craze is a big deal in the U.S., but there are many different kinds of breakfast burrito. And breakfast tacos are becoming more popular than ever. + +Bacon and Eggs + +If you thought bacon and eggs were a popular breakfast item, you're in for a treat. In the past, bacon and eggs just meant fried eggs. But now it's a breakfast that can include many different kinds of eggs including bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and scrambled eggs. + +See for yourself. + +Cereal Squares + +Cereal squares are a favorite breakfast item in the U.S. It's basically just a square of cereal with some kind of filling inside. + +It's not the most healthy breakfast food, but it's a great quick breakfast option for those who want something quick and easy. + +Cereal squares are a favorite breakfast item in the U.S. It's basically just a square of cereal with some kind of filling inside. + +Waffles + +The American breakfast tradition of waffles has been around for decades. + +The waffle is a combination of fried, sweetened, and often su +======================================== SAMPLE 238 ======================================== +The sun was still bright as the boy put on his shoes and briskly walked toward the front door, where he would always find his mother waiting. The boy would always see his mother, though he would never know her name. Each day before school he would hear her from a distance. She would be working at the store, certainly. She would be taking care of the children. He never realized what she did for a living until he was in high school. He never saw his mother for months at a time, every day, but he would always hear her. She would be reading to a child, feeding a baby. She would be teaching a child to walk. He would never see his mother, but he would always hear her, and that was enough. + +The boy knew that one day the two of them would be reunited, but he was hoping it would be a far off time, waiting for the day when he would grow up and leave his mother. But he was wrong. + +The boy was no longer a boy. He was a man. + +The sun was a long way away, but the boy knew that the time had come for a return trip to the store. The boy knew that he would never be able to walk to the front door without his mother, but he knew that he could go back and visit her some other time. He never knew what he would find there, but he knew that he would find his mother there waiting for him. + +When the store was closed, the boy walked to his mother's place. He knocked on the door and waited. + +There was a moment of silence until the boy heard his mother's voice. + +"Come in, son." + +The boy stepped into the house and was greeted by his mother's face. + +"Oh, what a pleasant surprise! I didn't think you would come. I just checked the store and it's closed for the day. I thought you might be out somewhere." + +"I'm sorry, mom. I shouldn't have come. I just wanted to see the store." + +"I understand, son. You're always welcome here. I guess I had forgot that you were a boy. I didn't know that you were in a girl's body." + +"I'm not in a girl's body, mom." + +"Ohhhhhh, you are?" + +"Yes, mommy." + +"Then why do you always have to hide in the bathroom?" + +"Mom, I've been in the bathroom for a very long time. I just want to go home. I don't want to wear dresses." + +"Ohhhhh, don't be so sensitive. I don't want to wear dresses either." + +"I know, mommy. I know. But I just want to go home." + +"What's wrong, son? Why don't you just come out? Why do you always hide in the bathroom?" + +"Mommy, I'm scared." + +"Oh, son, don't be scared. I'm here for you. I'm always here for you." + +"I'm scared because I'm a boy." + +"Ohhhhh, what a sensitive child. Do you like dressing up? Do you like to wear dresses? Do you like dressing like a girl?" + +"Mommy, I don't want to dress up at all." + +"I know, son. But you're a boy. You're a boy. You're a boy. Why do you always have to hide in the bathroom?" + +"Mommy, I told you I don't want to dress like a girl. I don't want to dress like a girl. I don't want to wear dresses." + +"Son, you've been in the bathroom for quite awhile. How long have you been in there?" + +"Mommy, I don't know. I think it's been a while." + +"I'm sorry, son. You know you're a boy. You know you're a boy. Look, you're a boy. You're a boy. You're a boy." + +"Mommy, I don't want to be a boy. I want to be a girl." + +"Son, you're a girl. You're a girl. You're a girl. You're a girl. You're a girl." + +"Mommy, I don't want to be a girl. I want to be a boy." + +"Ohhhhhhhhhh, son. You'll just have to be a boy. You'll just have to be a boy. You'll just have to be a boy. You just have to be a boy. You just have to be a boy. You'll just have to be a boy. You'll just have to be a boy. You'll just have to be a boy." + +"Mommy, I'm +======================================== SAMPLE 239 ======================================== +Boulder, CO: A new study shows that the use of our hair to make animal glue is a modern phenomenon, 100 years earlier than the use of wax. + +The work focuses on a group of bees working as a "bee glue factory," and the methods used to produce this widely used ingredient. + +The bees collect the wax from a wax bee and mix it with resin and/or beeswax. They then apply this mixture to the beeswax, and then waxes to produce a paste. + +The researcher's found that beeswax would have been used in the past, but the bees were not able to make it. + +The researchers were able to trace the use of beeswax to the 16th century in England, but after that, the beeswax production process was lost. The beeswax was then used to make a variety of other products, such as candles and soaps. + +The researchers believe that the bees glue was new to the world of chemicals in the late 1600s, and, as a result, this process was not widely used until the late 1700s. + +The research was recently published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.<|endoftext|>The return of the Electronic Arts' buggy and unrefined Battlefield series could have been a bit good news for the publisher, but it was overshadowed by the announcement of the launch of the PlayStation 4. + +The E3 conference saw the release of the PlayStation 4 and the PC version of Battlefield 4. The PlayStation 4 was a visionary product, designed to bring gamers something different than because of its consoles predecessor. The hardware was a major leap forward for the company, and the power of the processor allowed for the user to play better games. + +The PlayStation 4 was a huge step forward for the company, but the Xbox One and the PC have a new chance to shine. + +Electronic Arts' The Last of Us, the most critically acclaimed game of 2013, was announced for the Xbox One, next-generation console that features a powerful processor that runs at top speed. The game, originally created by Naughty Dog, was also confirmed to be coming to the PlayStation 4. The game itself is the biggest game to ever be released on the PlayStation 4, surpassing Battlefield 4 in terms of sales, and should prove to be a major hit among gamers. + +Whereas the last generation of consoles had a great year, 2014 could be a huge year for the Xbox One as well. Two exclusive titles, Halo 5: Guardians and Forza Motorsport 5, are on the way. The Halo 5: Guardians will be released on November 6, 2014, and Forza Motorsport 5 is expected to be released on November 15, 2014. + +"We know our fans want more games like the Halo franchise, and we're dedicated to delivering even more great games to them in 2014," said Phil Spencer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Xbox. "With the launch of Halo 5: Guardians and Forza Motorsport 5, we are excited to deliver two major franchises on Xbox One this year that will launch a year apart, as well as our first-ever full-game add-on for Forza Motorsport 5." + +Both games are expected to be released most likely in the first or second half of this year. The first game will be a new installment in the long-running franchise and the sequel will be an enhanced version of the game. + +The Xbox One's advantage over the PlayStation 4 is that it has a powerful processor that runs at top speed. This allows gamers to play games at a speed that is not possible on the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 has a powerful processor, but it is unable to run at the top speed that the Xbox One can. + +The Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are expected to be released this November.<|endoftext|>The owners of the L.A. Times have called for the ouster of President and Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. in a scathing editorial published Wednesday. + +The paper's opinion page editor, John Tierney, and opinion editor, Phil Bronstein, wrote that the paper's newsroom has been "infected with a toxic virus of self-righteousness" under Sulzberger, "translating into self-righteousness in the management of the paper itself." + +"We have been paying for a substandard product — a third-rate version of the Times," the paper's editors wrote, calling for the ouster of Sulzberger. + +In recent months, the Times has come under fire for a series of coverage that has been described as racially insensitive. In December, the paper ran an editorial urging President Obama to seek a second term. + +The paper has drawn criticism recently for its reporting. The Los Angeles Times published a blistering story this week about the paper's use of anonymous sources, which some critics said was reckless. + +"The Times is currently conducting a cover-up," Bronstein wrote in an editorial published Wednesday. " +======================================== SAMPLE 240 ======================================== +Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook , May 2015 + +The energy content of natural gas is more than twice as high as the energy content of coal. Natural gas has a higher carbon content than either coal or oil. The carbon content of natural gas is approximately 20% higher than the carbon content of coal. + +Natural gas is a heavier fuel than either oil or coal. This is because the volume of natural gas is much smaller than that of oil and coal. As a result, a greater fraction of natural gas is converted to a form that can be burned for energy, compared with either oil or coal. + +Natural gas is a liquid at room temperature and a gas at atmospheric pressure. Gas is used in many industrial processes that require a liquid, such as the production of plastics and ammonia. Gas also is used in the transportation sector. For example, natural gas is used in the transportation sector as a fuel for power plants and for heating homes and businesses. In addition, natural gas is used to generate electricity. + +While natural gas has a much higher energy content than oil and coal, its carbon content is lower than that of either oil or coal. Natural gas contains about half the carbon of coal, but about three-quarters of the carbon of oil. + +Natural gas is mostly methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps 31 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. The 32,000-foot-high methane plume in the North Pole may be the most significant source of methane in the atmosphere. Methane is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the world. It is also the most potent greenhouse gas. Methane can be released from natural gas production, processing, and storage.<|endoftext|>A- A+ + +The federal government has so far spent $24 million in taxpayer money to provide housing to homeless veterans. + +And it's not ending the crisis. + +In total, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has spent $37 million in taxpayer money on homeless veterans since 2010, according to data released under the Freedom of Information Act. Officials say some of the money was used for rent assistance or to pay for some of the most basic needs of veterans who are homeless. + +The VA has spent more than $10 million providing rent assistance to veterans from 2009 to 2014. + +The agency has also spent $3 million over the past five years to provide veterans with emergency shelter. + +"It's a huge problem," said U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who chairs the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. + +He's urging the VA to spend more money on housing veterans. + +Miller said it's a "no-brainer" to spend more money on housing veterans, given the estimated 1.3 million veterans who are homeless, many of them veterans in transitional housing programs. + +"It's a critical priority for the VA and a critical priority for Congress," Miller said. + +The VA spent $5.7 million on emergency housing for homeless veterans from 2009 through 2014. The agency spent $1.4 million on rent assistance for homeless veterans from 2009 through 2014. + +The agency has spent more than $2.2 million since 2010 on transitional housing, which includes halfway houses and other supportive housing programs. + +Miller said the agency has also spent more than $1 million since 2010 on housing veterans who are pregnant or who have children. + +The department spent $3.3 million on rent assistance for pregnant women since 2010. + +"There are many, many more veterans in transitional housing than we previously knew," said Kate Davis, a spokeswoman for the VA's office of community services. + +Davis said the agency has budgeted $35 million for housing veterans this year. + +She said the agency is also working on a new plan that will provide more help for veterans who are homeless. + +In the meantime, Davis said, the VA is working to find more permanent housing for homeless veterans. + +"We're committed to finding housing for veterans that are homeless," Davis said. "We're also committed to helping veterans find housing." + +The VA has also spent $5.3 million on mental health programs for veterans. + +Miller said he is concerned about the number of veterans who are homeless. He said it's shocking to him that the VA has spent $37 million on housing homeless veterans. + +"I think it's not right," Miller said. "We've got to figure out some way to stop this runaway." + +He said he's working on legislation that would allocate more money to the VA for housing homeless veterans. + +Miller said he's eager to work with the VA to find a solution. + +"I'm not going to give up," he said. + +Miller's bill to allocate more funds to the VA for housing homeless veterans has been referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. + +-- The Associated +======================================== SAMPLE 241 ======================================== +0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard + +Undoubtedly, the right wing and the Tea Party are the most unhinged and insane groups in the country, and have fought the government tooth and nail to take away our freedoms and our second amendment rights. The Tea Party has gone to extreme lengths to include more restrictions into the Constitution, using the "Supreme Court" as a fig leaf to advance their agenda. + +In the case of the Kansas State Senate election (which is the end of the term for Republicans), a Tea Party group attempted to send a letter to all 50 state senators, which was signed by 38 of them, as well as the Kansas Secretary of State. The letter called on the state to pass a law requiring voter ID. + +The letter called the Kansas legislature's effort to "ensure that all additional elections in Kansas are conducted in a manner that is consistent with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993," an attempt to make the state's electoral process more consistent with the National Voter Registration Act. The National Voter Registration Act requires states to be able to register voters at the polls and to use the National Change of Address system to update voters' addresses. + +The letter is extremely confusing and fails to explain just what the National Voter Registration Act does. It states, "The National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA") requires the Secretary of State to issue voter registration documentation to all registered voters in Kansas if the Kansas Secretary of State determines that the voter registration form submitted by the registered voter is complete and accurate and that the voter has provided all required information." The letter goes on to say that, "The Secretary of State shall also issue voter registration documentation to all other eligible voters in Kansas if the Kansas Secretary of State determines that the voter registration form submitted by the registered voter is complete and accurate and that the voter has provided all required information." + +The National Voter Registration Act was passed in 1993. It requires states to be able to register voters at the polls and to use the National Change of Address system to update voters' addresses. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is not a law that was passed by the Kansas Senate and House. It is a law that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State, and the governors of both the state and the federal government. + +The letter is confusing because, "The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires the Secretary of State to issue Voter Registration Documentation to all registered voters in Kansas if the Kansas Secretary of State determines that the voter registration form submitted by the registered voter is complete and accurate and that the voter has provided all required information." The letter continues, "The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires the Secretary of State to issue Voter Registration Documentation to all other eligible voters in Kansas if the Kansas Secretary of State determines that the voter registration form submitted by the registered voter is complete and accurate and that the voter has provided all required information." + +What, you say. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires the Secretary of State to issue Voter Registration Documentation to all registered voters in Kansas if the Kansas Secretary of State determines that the voter registration form submitted by the registered voter is complete and accurate and that the voter has provided all required information? + +The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is not an "act" that was passed by the Kansas Senate and House. It is not a law that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State, and the governors of both the state and the federal government. It is not a "law" that affects the right of Kansasians, or any other state, to register to vote. + +The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is a law that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State and the governors of both the state and the federal government. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is a law that is not being enforced by the Kansas State Government. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is not a law that was passed by the Kansas Senate and House, and is not a law that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State, and the governors of both the state and the federal government. + +The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is being enforced by the Kansas State Government because the Kansas State Government has changed the rules regarding the use of the National Change of Address System, and has been trying to enforce the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 as part of that change. + +The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is not an "act" that was passed by the Kansas Senate and House. It is not a "law" that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State, and the governors of both the state and the federal government. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is not a law that was passed by the Kansas Senate and House, and is not a law that was passed by the US Congress, the US Secretary of State, and the governors of both the state and the federal government. + +The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is being enforced by the +======================================== SAMPLE 242 ======================================== +A few days ago I read this: "The internet is another way of communicating with people, another way of connecting to people, another way of connecting with other people." This is the way we measure the power of the internet, and it's a great way to measure the power of the internet with all of its flaws. + +Let's start with the obvious: it's a terrible method of communication. It's the last resort, and it's a terrible method of communication. It's a way of communicating which says to people "I'm as stupid as you are, I will never be able to figure out how to communicate with you because I don't even know what you're talking about." + +Somewhere, there is a guy who is looking at a screen and trying to figure out how to communicate with a person, and he's trying to communicate with an imaginary person. There is no way to communicate with an imaginary person, and there is no way to connect with an imaginary person. + +Now let's look at one of the ways that the internet is supposed to be used: kind of like a conversation. + +We are all supposed to have a conversation, but what we're really trying to do is communicate with something, not just talk to something. A conversation is a way of communicating with something; it's a way of communicating with a person, and it's a way of communicating with other people. + +But when we talk to people on the internet, we're not trying to communicate with anything. We're talking to people, and that's not a good way to communicate with people. + +We're supposed to be communicating with other people. We're supposed to be talking to people, and that's another way of communicating with people. + +What does that look like in practice? It looks like the internet is a horrible, horrible way to communicate. + +There are two problems with the internet: one, it's not a good communication tool, and two, it's not a good way for people to communicate with each other. + +The internet is a way of communicating, but it's not a good way of communicating. It's not a way of communicating with people, it's a way of communicating with the internet. It's a way of communicating with the internet, and people don't want to have a conversation with anything. They want to connect to other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +A conversation is a way of communicating with people. It's a way of communicating with an imaginary person. It's a way of communicating with other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +The internet is a way of communicating with people, but it's not a good way of communicating. It's not a way of communicating with people, it's a way of communicating with the internet. It's a way of communicating with the internet, and people don't want to have a conversation with anything. They want to connect to other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +They want to connect to other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +The internet is a way of communicating with people, but it's not a good way of communicating. It's not a way of communicating with people, it's a way of communicating with the internet. It's a way of communicating with the internet, and people don't want to have a conversation with anything. They want to connect to other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +They want to connect to other people. It's not a good way to communicate with other people. + +I think it's a terrible way to communicate. + +It's a terrible way of communicating. It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating. It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating. It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +I think it's a terrible way of communicating. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +I think it's a terrible way of communicating. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +I think it's a terrible way of communicating. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +I think it's a terrible way of communicating. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +I think it's a terrible way of communicating. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. + +It's a terrible way of communicating with people. +======================================== SAMPLE 243 ======================================== + +In the wake of a horrific shooting in Las Vegas last night, the NRA is once again calling for more gun control. But as I've written before, we've seen this movie before. + +The NRA's campaign against more gun control rests on two core issues: + +An argument that such controls would somehow infringe on the 2nd Amendment. A counterargument that prosecuting a "bad guy" with a gun might be necessary, but that we can't have it all. + +The NRA's "bad guy" defense is never far from the surface, and it's always a bandage used to cover the gaping wound that is America's mental health system. + +We know that for some, guns are a means to an end; to kill, to commit a crime, and to defend oneself. But for most of us, guns are just tools. They help us hunt, for fun, and to defend ourselves from a possible attacker. + +The NRA's ill-conceived and easily debunked segment on Crime Watch Daily, "The Gun Show Loophole," is just the latest example of how the gun lobby uses guns to defend an anti-gun agenda. + +This is what the NRA has taught us: guns are not the problem; mental illness is. + +The first problem is the foundation of the gun lobby's argument against more gun control. + +The NRA has never refused to defend the 2nd Amendment. They proudly defend it, and they fight tooth and nail to defend it. + +But the 2nd Amendment is not the only thing the NRA defends. As the tables are turned, the NRA's "bad guy" defense becomes an excuse to attack gun control. + +The argument is simple: If we require firearms to be registered, and if we require gun owners to have mental health screenings to buy a gun, then somehow criminals will get their hands on guns. + +The NRA's arguments are based on the idea that criminals don't get their hands on guns through the normal channels. + +They just don't. + +In 2013, the FBI's report on "Offender Screenings" showed that only 2.1 percent of people arrested for gun-related crimes had a criminal history. That's not a huge number. + +But the problem with the NRA's argument is that it's based on the flawed assumption that if criminals don't get their hands on guns, then gun owners will. + +The NRA's "bad guy" argument is based on the idea that gun owners are a danger to themselves. + +This is the gun lobby's driving principle. If gun owners aren't a danger to themselves, then no one would need guns to protect themselves. + +It's not a new argument. The NRA has long been peddling this line of thinking. + +In 1992, the NRA sued to prevent a ban on assault weapons. The NRA argued that "assault weapons" are "designed for, and likely to be used in, mass murder and suicide, specifically, the commission of the felonies of murder and suicide." + +In 1994, the NRA's co-founder, Charlton Heston, came out with his own rebuttal in a Huffington Post article, "The Gun Debate: It's the Culture, Stupid." + +Heston wrote that "it is absurd to think that criminals will obey any law that requires them to surrender their firearms." + +In 1993, NRA board member and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) addressed a mass shooting in the lobby of the Washington Navy Yard, where 13 people were killed, and dozens wounded. + +Giffords blamed the nation's gun culture, and the NRA's harsh gun control laws, for the shootings. + +Giffords said, "What we've seen over and over again is that when we pass laws that are restrictive, they don't do what they're supposed to do." + +In 2013, the NRA published an article with the title, "What if America's Gun Laws Are Broken?" + +The NRA wrote: "If America's gun laws are broken, mass shootings like the one today will continue to happen day after day. The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun… if America's gun laws are broken, the only recourse for the victims is to arm themselves." + +This is a problem. + +The gun lobby's argument that guns are a means to an end is not just wrong, it's dangerous. + +The NRA's "bad guy" argument is a dangerous fantasy, designed to convince us that we need a gun to protect ourselves. + +It's a fantasy that allows the NRA to scapegoat gun control advocates for the violence that happens every day. + +Gun control advocates are not to blame for the violence that occurs every day. (Bolding is mine.) + +And gun control advocates, like the NRA, are not people who would like to see more guns in the hands +======================================== SAMPLE 244 ======================================== +The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +Trials of Vivec by Hackett + +Trials of Vivec is a small book written by Hackett. It is a collection of trial reports for the Trials of Vivec, an ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient, ancient +======================================== SAMPLE 245 ======================================== +Tallinn, Estonia + +I was staying in Tallinn for a few days for a conference. I was going to have a night out with some friends, but it was raining, and I couldn't get my bike out of the rain. I don't like being wet. So I asked my friend, "What's a good place to stop for a few minutes so I can get my bike out of the mud." He replied, "Oh, do you want to go to Kalevala? It's a station in the neighborhood, and it's completely free. Your friends can take you there for free." I was surprised. I was thinking, "What do you mean, 'completely free'? Are you saying that there's no money involved?" + +I said, "Yes, of course. I don't have any money." He said, "Oh, you're kidding." So I said, "Listen, I don't understand, why would you offer to go to Kalevala for free? It's a completely free station?" He said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess it's because I have a group of friends that come to the station all the time." I was a little skeptical. He says, "Well, I guess you can go there for free. It's just a bunch of people hanging around." I said, "Come on, I never had any group of friends before." + +In my mind, I was thinking, "What is he talking about? He can't give me a free trip to Kalevala." But he said, "No, of course not. I don't want to get you into trouble. It's just a place for people to hang out and share stories." I was thinking, "Why would you want to do that? Is he going to get me into trouble?" + +I said, "Well, I guess I should just grab my bike and go." He said, "You can just get in line. It's free. Just get in line." So I said, "Okay." So I get in line, and they take me to the station. They let me go into the station and then they just say, "Okay, you're free to go. You can go." I was thinking, "What the hell is going on here?" He said, "No, no, no, you're free to go. Just go in line." + +So I'm thinking, "I don't understand, how can he be so stupid?" I'm thinking, maybe he's not being told the whole story. So I'm thinking, "How am I going to get into trouble? I don't have any money. I don't have a credit card. I don't have any money. I'm going to get in trouble." So I'm thinking, "Okay, I'll just go in line. I don't have to pay anything." + +So I get in line, and I see the guy in front of me. He's sitting there with his bike. He had his bike out of the mud. I said, "Hey, are you going to go with me?" He says, "No." I said, "Are you crazy? It's free. Just go." He says, "No." I said, "Okay, fine, then I'll just go." + +So I get in line, and I see the guy in front of me. He's sitting there with his bike. He had his bike out of the mud. I said, "Hey, are you going to go with me?" He says, "No." I said, "Are you crazy? It's free. Just go." He says, "No." I said, "Okay, fine, then I'll just go." + +I see the guy in front of me walking up the stairs. I thought, "Oh, I don't know if this guy is going to follow me up the stairs." So I just started walking up the stairs. I didn't know if he was going to follow me or not. So I said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey." He didn't say anything. So I walked up the stairs. + +I'm walking up the stairs, and I see a guy in the middle of the stairs. He's looking down at me, and he's got a slight smile on his face. I thought, "What the hell is going on? This guy's following me?" So I turned around and I said, "Hey, hey. I'm sorry I don't have any money, but is there any way I could get a ride?" He said, "No." I said, "Okay, fine. Do you have any money?" He says, "No." I said, "Okay, great." I walked towards him, and I just said, "I don't have any money. Can I get a ride?" He said, "No +======================================== SAMPLE 246 ======================================== +"Life's a fucking bummer, but you gotta fight it and that's what I'm doing, what I'm doing," he said. "I'm not gonna sit here and say, 'Well I'm the man of the house.' I'm not. I am the man of the house. I'm the breadwinner. I'm the one who's always there. I'm the one who's paying the bills. I'm the one who's making sure they have food on the table. + +"I'm the one who's taking care of the kids. I'm the one who's taking care of the house. I'm the one who's making sure they have a roof over their head. I'm the one who's taking care of the car and making sure they have gas for the car and all of that. I'm the one who's taking care of the family. I'm the one who's the breadwinner. There's no way I'm gonna sit here and say, 'Well I'm the man of the house.' That's not gonna happen." + +He added: "I don't know where I'm gonna be in six months and six years. I don't know where I might wind up, but I have no idea. But I'm gonna make it happen. I'm gonna make it happen."<|endoftext|>Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. + +The government's policy regarding the expansion of the Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank is in "dangerous decline," a senior official at the Foreign Ministry warned on Saturday. + + +The official, who requested anonymity, said the current situation in the Middle East was so dangerous that Israel could potentially face a regional war. + + +JPOST VIDEOS THAT MIGHT INTEREST YOU: + +"The government's policy regarding the expansion of the Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank is in danger of deteriorating, and Israel's position on the matter is in danger of becoming irrelevant," the senior official said. "The government's stance on the settlement issue is unlikely to have any practical impact on the peace process, but we are concerned that it may have an impact on the regional arena."The official said that the government's refusal to preemptively recognize settlements in the West Bank – which would be a "grave mistake" – only serves to isolate the government on the matter.On Friday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that the creation of new settlements is "not our policy.""I don't have any intention of doing that," Ya'alon told Army Radio. "It would be a very difficult decision and it would probably be a mistake."Last month, Ya'alon said that the issue of new settlements was not one for the government, and that it is up to the international community whether it takes sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Ya'alon's remarks came after the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, which the Israeli government has vowed to veto.Israel has repeatedly refused to recognize the UN resolution as a binding international agreement.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that he will not recognize the UN resolution, and that the Israeli government would not be bound by it. The government said it would not be bound by the international agreement on the West Bank that was reached at the end of June.The plan to build more than 700 new housing units in East Jerusalem, in a move that would further annex the eastern sector of the city, has provoked a series of protests across the West Bank."The government's stance on settlement building is not going to make a difference in the conflict, but it will hinder Israel's ability to maintain its security and to maintain good relations with the international community," the senior official said. "It will have a significant impact on the Israeli public as well as the international community." + +Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>><|endoftext|>The Introvert's Guide to Being Successful + +If you are an introvert, you probably know that there is a lot you don't know about being successful. It's not that you don't know anything about it. Everyone knows that introverts are the ones that are more quiet, more quiet and more withdrawn. You probably also know that introverts are less likely to take risks and they often don't like people that are more extroverted. + +You also know that extroverts are successful. You know that they have a bigger personality and more charisma, more energy, and more confidence than introverts. You know that extroverts are more likely +======================================== SAMPLE 247 ======================================== +With the upcoming release of the sequel to Will Smith's "Concussion," there has been a lot of talk about concussions in football. + +In the movie, Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered that football players have a higher rate of brain disease than the average American. Smith was the first to describe CTE, which is now known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. + +Will Smith's character, Dr. Bennet Omalu, played a crucial role in the diagnosis of CTE. (Photo: Jordan Strauss, Lionsgate) + +There have been a lot of negative headlines about the movie, and some of them are overblown. But a lot of the coverage has been about the movie's portrayal of Omalu, and the fact that he's a white man who is a football expert. + +The reality is that Omalu is an African-American neuropathologist who was once a defensive back at the University of Pittsburgh. He has a doctorate in pathology. He was one of the first scientists to test the brain tissue in players with suspected concussions to see if there were signs of CTE. He was one of the few neuropathologists to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine. + +In fact, he won the award in 2014. He's also married with children. + +But Smith's character is portrayed as a white, male football expert. When I wrote the positive reviews for the movie, I was approached by many people who said they thought the movie gave a good portrayal of Omalu. + +But I think that depiction is misguided. + +The movie left out one important thing about Omalu: He is a scientist. As a scientist, he has studied brain disease, and he has a very thorough understanding of the brain. + +In the movie, he doesn't say anything about the role of football in CTE. + +He doesn't say anything about the fact that football has caused more brain disease deaths in the past few decades than motor vehicle accidents, cancer, heart disease and suicide combined. + +He doesn't say anything about the fact that the NFL is still denying — and refuses to acknowledge — that there's a link between football and CTE. + +His wife was quoted in the movie saying that she saw CTE in her husband's brain after he died. But in real life, she said she saw signs of CTE in him before he died, but she didn't know what it was, or what it meant. + +The movie even showed Omalu's wife, played by Nicole Kidman, killing a fly with her bare hands. But Omalu is not a doctor. He is a scientist, and that's what he is. + +In the movie, he focuses on football players and not CTE. And he accepts a lot of blame for not recognizing the problem earlier. + +I think his real-life narrative is a bit different. + +In real life, Omalu knows about CTE. He has a Ph.D. in pathology. He has seen the brain tissue of a lot of players with CTE, and he knows that the disease has been diagnosed in hundreds of former NFL players. + +He told me, "I've seen evidence of CTE in a lot of players. I know it exists." + +He said he's not surprised by the number of former players who have died, especially when you consider that football has been around for thousands of years. + +"This is a game that's been around since the beginning of time. And it's had almost no changes in its regulations. It's been around for so long, it's such an ingrained part of American culture, it's almost shocking to think that it could have caused this." + +I asked Omalu if he knew of any other pathologists who were also diagnosing CTE in football players. The answer was no. + +He's not alone. + +Dr. Ann McKee, one of the few remaining pathologists who still practices in the U.S., said in an interview: + +"I know of one pathologist who is diagnosing CTE in a lot of football players. I know of two or three." + +It's also not that uncommon to diagnose CTE in football players. McKee said that in her practice, more than half of all of the brains she's examined are from former football players. + +"Think about it: We have a brain bank, and we have to give it to the league every single year to get it tested for CTE. You'd think that all of the football players would have it in their brains. They don't." + +There's also a lack of research into CTE. McKee said she's not surprised that there's not much research into CTE, since it's such a difficult disease to study. She said that she's never seen the disease in a living patient. +======================================== SAMPLE 248 ======================================== +Rockets on Tuesday agreed to a four-year contract with free agent center Kendrick Perkins, the Houston Chronicle reports. + +Perkins will receive a $1.1 million signing bonus, a $1.8 million player option for the 2014-15 season and an option for 2015-16 worth $1.5 million, according to the news outlet. + +Perkins, 29, has played exclusively at center for the Rockets since signing a one-year deal with the team in the summer of 2012. He averaged 8.6 points and 5.8 rebounds in his one season with the Rockets. + +The 6-foot-10 Perkins was selected by the Nets with the second pick in the 2007 draft. He was waived by Brooklyn on July 16, 2012, and then traded to the Rockets as part of a package for Dwight Howard. + +Last season, Perkins averaged 9.4 points and 5.2 rebounds and ranked fourth among Rockets centers in field-goal percentage at 48.5 percent.<|endoftext|>It is not often that you see a gentleman deploy the following line of dialogue: "The Lord blessed the day I was born. The Lord blessed the day I was... + +3 years ago + +This is a review of the first installment of the Star Wars prequels. It is a review that is based on the general consensus of the community. For those of you who have not seen the prequels, I hope this review will help you make up your mind. For everyone else, I hope you enjoy this review. + +STAR WARS PREQUELS: PART 1: A NEW HOPE (2001) + +PART 2: THIEF OF THOUSAND PLANETS (2003) + +PART 3: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005) + +PART 4: THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015) + +The story begins with young Anakin Skywalker. He is a slave to the evil Jabba the Hutt. He has grown up a spoiled rich boy, a spoiled rich boy with a slave name, and now he is about to be sold off to the dark side of the force. He is being sold off to the dark side of the force to become the executioner of an unnamed Jedi Knight. + +Before the Jedi Knight can be executed, Master Yoda comes to him with the news that the Jedi are being hunted by the Sith. The Sith have been targeting Jedi for years. The Jedi are being hunted for failing to eliminate the Sith, and Yoda's mission is to find and eliminate the Sith. + +The story continues with a Jedi Knight named Ahsoka Tano. She is the daughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, who have both been killed by the Sith. She is a Jedi Master, and has been laid to rest in the Jedi Temple. + +In order to survive, Ahsoka must go out and find information about the Sith. She is searching for a man named Count Dooku, a man who is wanted by the Jedi for his alleged role in the death of Obi-Wan and Anakin. + +The story continues with the young Padawan Ahsoka Tano. This is the first time she has been a Jedi Knight, and her first mission is to find the man she had been assigned to kill: Count Dooku. + +The final movie in the prequels, STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, is the second part to the prequels. It follows Anakin's search for the Sith, attempting to find the vessel that the Dark Lord of the Sith, Count Dooku, has been traveling on. + +The story continues with Ahsoka Tano. This is the first time she has been a Jedi Knight, and her first mission is to find the man she had been assigned to kill: Count Dooku. + +This is where the story gets really interesting. Ahsoka has been tasked to find a ship that Dooku is traveling on. Her mission is to find a piece of information about the Sith that might lead her to Dooku, and to get there, she must find the ship. + +The ship is called the Venator-class Star Destroyer Invisible Hand. It is a ship that is feared and respected by the Jedi, and its mission is to hunt down and destroy the Sith. This is where the story gets really interesting. + +This is the first time that you see the ship. It is a Star Destroyer, outfitted with a superweapon. It is the Death Star. It is the most powerful weapon in the entire galaxy, and it is the spacecraft that is being used against the Jedi. + +The ship is going to be so powerful that it can not only destroy the Jedi's superweapon, but it can destroy the Jedi themselves. This is what makes the Death Star such a dangerous ship. This is what makes it so powerful. + +The story continues with Ahsoka T +======================================== SAMPLE 249 ======================================== +Rise of the Tomb Raider + +Provide variety in gameplay by introducing competitive multiplayer + +About + +Rise of the Tomb Raider will feature a single player story campaign, co-op multiplayer and survival modes. Players will also face challenges in the brand new jungle and survival modes. + +The game will be available for PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4. + +Story + +Rise of the Tomb Raider is a sequel to 2013's critically acclaimed action adventure Tomb Raider. The first game set the stage for Lara Croft's tale of survival. In this follow-up, the world has changed. Ancient tombs are overrun with creatures, and Lara must once again embark on an epic journey to discover the lost Journals of Xian and uncover the dark secret at the heart of Lara's past. + +Features + +Single Player Story Campaign + +Co-op Multiplayer + +Survival Mode + +New Jungle and Survival Modes + +A New World + +Features + +Multiplayer + +Unlock new play styles and weapons with the new Golden Key System. Defeat enemies using new and unique weapons and tools, including the Land Mine and Infernal Axe. + +Customize Lara with new outfits, headwear and accessories. + +Customize your character with unique skin tones, mixtures of colors and hair styles. + +Play as a male or female character. + +New weapons, tools and skills + +Players will need to evolve their Lara to stay alive in the unforgiving world of the jungle. + +Tomb Raider - Lara Croft + +Tomb Raider is an action adventure horror game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +Gameplay + +Tomb Raider is an action adventure game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a plot, sections of dialogue, cut-scenes and a large open world. It was released on October 10, 2015, for PC on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One and Playstation 4 on November 14, 2015 and on October 9, 2016 for PC in North America and on October 14, 2016 in Europe. + +The game is an action adventure horror game set in ancient times. It was released for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in November 2015. It features a +======================================== SAMPLE 250 ======================================== +This question already has an answer here: How do I add text to a txt file? 3 answers + +This is a basic question regarding text editing. Text is pretty much made of characters. What is a character? A character is a group of 9 letters and one or more numbers. So a character is a grouping of 3 letters and a number. For example, a character is a group of 3 letters with the first letter a and the second letter b. A character is used in a file to represent any character. For example, the character 'A' is a character. A character is used to represent a character in a file. For example, 'A' is a character in a file. + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +In the previous example, the word 'A' is a character in the file. + +In this example, the letter 'A' is not a character. + +In this example, the character 'A' is a character. + +In this example, the character 'A' is a character. + +Here's a fun fact about characters: + +A character is never used as a word. + +A character is never used as a name. + +A character is never used as a number. + +A character is never used as a symbol. + +A character is never used as a symbol. + +So that's why a character is always a grouping of 3 letters and a number. + +This is a list of common characters. + +You can use the following commands to add text to a file. + +Text Editor Command Description %m Add a line above or below the current line. %c Add a character to the current line. %r Add a word to the current line. %w Add a word to the current word. %b Add a word to the current word and below. %c Add a character to the current word and below. %d Add a delimiter character to the current line. %d Add a delimiter character to the current word. %w Add a word to the current word and below. %b Add a word to the current word and below. %o Add the current line to the previous line. %o Add the current word to the previous line. %q Add the current line to the previous line. %q Add the current word to the previous word. %z Add the current line and the next line to the previous line. %z Add the current word and the next word to the previous line. %z Add the current word and the next word to the next line. %Z Add the current line and the previous line to the previous line. %Z Add the current word and the previous word to the next line. %Z Add the current word and the previous word to the next word. + +A + +(A) + +(A) + +(A) + +(A) + +(A) + +(A) + +(A) + +A + +(A) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + +(B) + +(A) + + +======================================== SAMPLE 251 ======================================== +In our second episode of The Physics of Star Trek, we interview one of the Star Trek community's leading experts on the physics of the universe, Dr. Jeff Stein from the University of California at Santa Cruz (link here). Jeff has a multi-PhD experience in the area of Star Trek physics, carefully analyzing various episodes of the franchise in the lab and on his blog. In this episode, we discuss the various aspects of Star Trek's physics, including the relevance of the holodeck to the overall physics of the universe, the effects of the time dilatation warp in ST:TNG, and the mystery of how the Enterprise is able to warp so fast. + +Jeff, welcome to The Physics of Star Trek! First off, I want to tell you that I'm an extremely big fan of the Star Trek universe and the many different shows, films, and books that have come out of it. I've read all the novels and all the comics, and I've even read the entire original series when it first aired on television! So when I first heard about Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was excited and I was skeptical (and still am). I was also skeptical of the concept of a time dilated warp drive – I knew that warp drive would work only if it was possible to travel at the speed of light. However, I was willing to give Star Trek: The Next Generation a chance, because of the many elements of the show that were intriguing to me, such as the exploration of time travel, the depiction of a multicultural society, and the realistic portrayal of science. + +In this episode, we discuss the physics of the universe in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and how the show handles time dilation and the effects of time dilation. We also discuss the mystery of how the Enterprise is able to warp so fast, and how the Starfleet Academy might be the best place for Star Trek students to learn about the physics of the universe. + +To learn more about Jeff Stein and his work, check out his website at www.physicsofstarfleet.com. + +We also want to thank everyone who has supported us on Patreon, and to all the fans of the show on Twitter and Facebook (links are above). + +Finally, if you have any questions or comments, or you just want to leave us a review on iTunes, please don't hesitate to do so (it's a free thing, and the more reviews, the more listeners we get!). + +Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate it if you'd leave us a review on iTunes (although we'd love it even more if you did!). + +Links and Sources: + +Jeff Stein's Blog http://physicsofstarfleet.com/2014/07/the-physics-of-star-trek-the-next-generation.html + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/ + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/ + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/ + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/ + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/ + +Jeff Stein's lecture notes for a lecture on "The Physics of Star Trek: The Next Generation" https://www.flickr.com/photos/814691436@N03/567377965/in/set-72157645407469705/<|endoftext|>Hey gang. This is "I'm pretty sure it's a card I need to rebuild the deck for." + +I'm a big fan of B/W Eldrazi. I've built many different B/W decks over the years and have had a great time playing them. My first B/W deck I built was a Foss +======================================== SAMPLE 252 ======================================== +As he was wrapping up a lecture, the head of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, David Reich, stood up and shouted in his face. + +"You cannot talk like that," he said. "You cannot talk in a way that is fully respectful to the women in your class." + +A group of women in his class were not impressed. They were not listening. They were not listening because Reich was wrong. + +"I have a right to speak," he replied, "and I can ask questions." + +It was a case of a professor of anthropology giving a lecture, and in response to a few questions he decided to deliver a lecture on his own. + +Reich was not the only one to speak in such a manner. A chorus of male professors across the country have been caught on tape to conduct themselves in a way that is hostile and disrespectful to women. + +The problem is not that the men in question were wrong in their beliefs, or that they were wrong in their actions, but that they violated the social norms of the college classroom and university that they had been taught to uphold. + +The university's response + +Colleges and universities have a responsibility to ensure that the students who attend their classes feel respected and safe. + +Student reactions to the recent video of professors at Columbia University lecturing a class on women's issues were mixed. + +Stacy Van Houtsen, a senior at Columbia, told the New York Times that the video shocked her and that she found it "disappointing and disappointing that these types of things are still happening." + +"This isn't the first time that I have heard of this happening, and it's certainly not the first time that other students have heard of it," she said. + +But other students found it to be an unfair attack on free speech. + +"I would like to see students and professors have conversations about how they can be better about this, and I think this is a perfect way to start that conversations," said student Jennifer Zevallos. + +Zevallos said she was offended by the professor's lecture but was not offended by his "unprofessional" behavior. + +"I think it's very important for us to confront these issues," she said. + +She said that she would be more than willing to have a conversation about the safety of the campus "to make sure that people feel safe on campus." + +In a statement to The Huffington Post, DePaul University, where professor Michael Rectenwald was recently fired for criticizing a student's appearance, said that "the University prohibits 'abusive, hostile, or demeaning conduct' that is 'based upon race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status or veteran status.'" + +DePaul also said that "appropriate action will be taken when faculty members are found to have violated these policies." + +DePaul University was not the first college or university to fire a professor for speaking up for women's rights. In 2014, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fired Professor George Ciccariello-Maher after he tweeted, "All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide." + +Ciccariello-Maher went on to make a number of controversial comments in other tweets, including one in which he asked "why does it always have to be about the white guy," and another in which he said that there were "too many people of color in positions of power." + +Still, Ciccariello-Maher's actions did not violate the university's policies, and he has been welcomed back into his class. + +The professor is not the only professor to have had his class interrupted by angry students. + +In 2014, the president of the University of Missouri at Columbia, Tim Wolfe, resigned after students protested his decision to deny tenure to a professor for writing an op-ed article in support of the human rights of transgender students. + +In response to the protests, Wolfe apologized, but he also issued a directive to keep safe spaces on campus. + +"The most valuable, dynamic, and inclusive educational environment is one in which all members of our community can learn," he said. + +The university also announced that it would create a safe space for students who felt threatened by a professor's views. + +"I am proud of what we have accomplished in securing the integrity of our faculty and staff," Wolfe said. "We have created a climate of respect and safety for all." + +Other universities also put their foot down. + +In April, the University of Louisville suspended professor and feminism advocate Wendy McElroy for a year for "unprofessional conduct," after she tweeted a picture of her son, who was born with Down's Syndrome. + +"I'm sorry, but I have a right to love my son this way, and I shouldn't be fired for that," McElroy tweeted in response to the university +======================================== SAMPLE 253 ======================================== +It's been a few months since we've had a proper makeover of the Gear VR's interface. The changes are very subtle, but they're there. And they're welcome. + +First and foremost, you'll notice a new handlebar. That's because the top of the Gear VR is now circular, and not flat like it was before. But, the head tracking is the same as before - it's all just a bit better now. + +It's a subtle change, but it's certainly something to take note of. And it's a good reminder that VR isn't just about your eyes. + +Here are a few more details you might want to keep in mind when you arrive in VR. + +You now have two virtual controllers to use. You can hold them in your hand, or use them like a gamepad. + +You can now use the touchpad to navigate the menus. It's got a bit of a delay, but it's there. There's also a 'home' button to get to the home screen. + +On the left hand side, you'll find a menu button. You can also use the menu buttons to navigate the menus. + +You can now scroll through the menus using your virtual controllers. You can also scroll through the menus using your virtual controllers. + +You can now use an app like Google Earth in VR. + +You can now use an app like Google Earth in VR. + +You can use the menu buttons to access the recently used apps menu. + +There are also some other small changes like a new icon for the 'camera' option. If you hold down the trigger button, you can zoom in on the screen. + +You can also use the trigger button to launch the camera mode, which allows you to start video recording. + +The camera mode is very useful for when you want to record something in VR, but you don't want to make it too obvious. + +You can also use the trigger button to launch the controller mode, which allows you to use the pad to interact with the virtual world. The pad does have a bit of lag, but it feels much better than it was. + +The menu buttons have been moved to the bottom for a cleaner look. And, the menu buttons now have a different sound, unlike the menu buttons from the Galaxy S4.<|endoftext|>The main problem with the movie is, as Professor Jay Weidner points out in his review, that it's too big. Even if the players are well within their customary roles, the movie is still too big to play on the stage. Given the very limited audience size of 1,180 for the movie, that's a problem. But the biggest problem is this: The movie is almost entirely about the story of a real-life tragedy, and the heroes of the movie are not at all the heroes of the tragedy. + +The movie's heroes are the people who were in the wrong (the film's main villains are the police for failing to stop the massacre, but the movie's main heroes are the SWAT officers who were there and who saved the lives of many of the real-life victims). It's a good movie, but the movie should be better if it didn't look at the story of the Newtown school shooting as a story about good, heroic cops and bad, evil bad guys. + +The movie is about the tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. It's a tragedy that happened almost two years ago and which has inspired a huge amount of anger, sadness, and grief in the country. It was a tragedy that took the lives of 20 young children and seven adults — twenty-six of whom were 6 or 7 years old (the other three were the mother, her boyfriend, and her 6-year-old daughter). It was a tragedy that left the whole country reeling. But it's also a tragedy that provoked a response of grief, anger, and grief in the right places. + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +The movie is about how the town of Newtown, Connecticut, responded to the tragedy. It was a response that took the form of the community organizing around a new gun-control law. It was a response that put the focus on the parents of the children who were killed — the parents who were first told that their children had been killed by a tragic accident, then told that their children had been killed by their own child. It was a response that put the focus on the educators who were trying to teach the children in the classrooms where the shootings took place. It was a response that put the focus on the teachers who were trying to give the children a safe environment for learning. It was a response that put the focus on the school administrators who tried to find ways to make the school less dangerous for the children. It was a response that put the focus on the parents of the children who were killed, and it was a response that put the focus on the +======================================== SAMPLE 254 ======================================== +Alex to the rescue! + +It's been a rough couple of weeks for a good friend of mine. My dear friend, Jenna, has been battling stage 4 breast cancer for over two years. She has had two major surgeries and has just had a biopsy to confirm that the cancer is in fact stage 4. It has spread to her bones, and she has experienced some bone marrow metastasis. This is very scary and she is now in the hospital, so I can not be there with her. + + +This past Saturday, on my way to her house, I had the wonderful opportunity to pick her up from the hospital and take her to a local restaurant for a quick dinner. She wasn't feeling so well, but I wanted to make sure she was well enough to make it to her favorite place. After having a few drinks and some late night eating, we were on our way back to the car when I noticed that Jenna's brown coat was covered in a layer of blood. I ran over, and saw that her right arm was covered in a large, dark red, purple, and black patch. I noticed that the patch was moving along with her arm. I pulled the coat off her arm, and realized that the patch was her left arm. She was bleeding from her forearm. She was rushed to the hospital, and she was listed to have surgery on Sunday. + + +The next day, I was informed that the surgery would be postponed for a few days. I asked Jenna to hold me as I got in my car to drive back to the hospital. When I got there, I spoke to one of the doctors at the hospital and asked him what was going on. He said that the tumor had grown very fast and had begun to tear Jenna's arm. He said that the blood vessels in her arm were not supplying enough blood to the tumor, and that they were having trouble with her body's ability to heal itself. He said that she would not be able to have surgery on her arm until Monday. + + +I drove to the hospital and I asked Jenna to hold me as I got in my car. When I got to the hospital, I was informed that her surgery would be postponed until Tuesday. I asked Jenna to hold me while I got in my car. I went inside and told her that I was going to be at the hospital for a while. I said I loved her a lot, and that I was going to be by her side until she was well enough to have surgery. I said that I wanted to hold her hand as she went through the surgery. I was able to hold her hand through the whole procedure, and I was able to hold her hand as she was in the recovery room. + + +I drove out to the hospital and I went to the surgery room. I asked the doctor that I was going to be there for a while. He said that if I wanted to hold Jenna's hand, that I had to first come to the room to see her. I had to wait a while, and I went in the room. The doctor was there. He was going to give Jenna a shot of morphine, and it was going to be administered in a little bit. He said that if I wanted to hold her hand through the pain, I had to wait for the shot. I told him that it was hard for me to hold her hand while it was going through the pain, and that I just wanted to help her through it. He said that it was my responsibility to do that. I told him that I would do that. I went up to the bed and I held her hand. She was all smiles, and I was able to hold her hand through the pain. She was very happy to see me, and I went and got her a glass of water as she was having a morphine shot. I told her that she was in so much pain, and I could not have done a thing for her. She said that it was okay, but that she could not hold my hand. I said that I would hold her hand. She said that it was okay. I said that she was my friend, and that I would hold her hand. She said that it was okay. I said that my mom was standing there, and that I would hold her hand. She said that it was okay. I said that I didn't know her mom, but that she was my best friend, and that she would hold my hand. She said that it was okay, and that I would hold her hand. She said that she loved me, and that she was all I had. I said that I was her best friend, and that I would hold her hand. She said that it was okay, and that she loved me too. I told her that she was my best friend, and that I loved her too. I smiled at her, and I held her hand. She told me that I was her best friend, and that I loved her too. I said that I was her best friend, and that I +======================================== SAMPLE 255 ======================================== +An article published by the Telegraph on Monday, July 1, outlines the latest findings from the Association for Psychological Science's survey of more than 10,000 Americans, which shows that women are not only the primary caregivers for their children, but they also make up nearly half of child-care providers. + +The article, which is titled "The Gender Divide in Child Care," examines trends in female child care and explores the reasons why women are more likely to be caregivers than men. The most recent findings show that the majority of Americans (53.6 percent) say that fathers are at least as important as mothers when it comes to child care. This percentage is up from 51.1 percent in 2011, and an even higher percentage of women (65.3 percent) say that fathers are as important as mothers when it comes to child care. + +Women continue to be more likely than men to be child care providers (56.3 percent to 54.2 percent). However, men continue to be the primary caregivers for their children (92.7 percent to 89.9 percent). + +"This is a huge change," said Mary C. Curtis, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Notre Dame and a co-author of the study. "Women have been at the forefront of this movement for decades. There are lots of surveys that show that women are more involved in child care than men are. This study is a good reminder that that's not always the case. Women are at the forefront of this and we're going to need to continue to engage them in this work." + +Women are also more likely to be employed than men are: 28 percent of women are child care providers, compared to 24.8 percent of men. Women are also more likely than men to be employed full-time in child care (69.6 percent of women compared to 57.6 percent of men) and less likely to be employed part-time (17.5 percent of women compared to 27.9 percent of men). + +Curtis and her co-authors suggest that this is due to the fact that women have greater work demands and also have more family responsibilities, which makes it more difficult for them to leave work to take care of their children. + +"It's probably because women are still expected to work and have families," Curtis said. "It's a stereotype that men can do anything." + +The authors also believe that there are many reasons why men are more likely to be child care providers than women. Many child care providers say that men tend to be more of a "team player" than women are, and more interested in helping their child care providers feel comfortable and confident. + +"That's not true of women," Curtis said. "Women are more likely to be the 'shy one.'" + +The report also shows that women are more likely than men to be employed full time in child care. Some women may choose to work part-time and still care for their children, while others may not be willing to sacrifice their career in order to care for their children. + +"We know that women are making choices about their careers that are more flexible and not necessarily going to require them to work full-time," Curtis said. "Part of it is that they have more family responsibilities, so they may have more flexibility in their work schedules. That may be the case for women who are full-time workers; it may not be the case for women who are part-time workers." + +The authors found that men are more likely to be employed part-time in child care (48.9 percent compared to 39.4 percent). However, women are more likely than men to be employed full-time in child care (84.2 percent compared to 67.5 percent). + +"I think it's a matter of women not really having the same work expectations as men," Curtis said. "They're more likely to think, 'I can do that.' They're not going to have as much of a hard-and-fast rule that they have to be home every day." + +The authors also believe that more women (38.8 percent) have made the decision to leave full-time work for child care, compared to men (30.3 percent). + +"It's interesting that women are making the decision to leave full-time work," Curtis said. "It's a pretty big jump. I think it's more of a choice that they're making to allow their children to be able to get a better education and have a better life." + +The findings also show that women are more likely than men to be employed in part-time jobs (29.6 percent compared to 25.7 percent), and are more likely to have some type of disability (25.1 percent compared to 17.6 percent). + +"Women are more likely to have some type of disability," Curtis said. "I think that's why many of them are working part-time." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 256 ======================================== +His name was David Cone, he was a man of almost mythical proportions, a sort of David Bowie of the 20th century. A man who had been the top man in the world of the CIA, the CIA had been interested in him since the 1950s. He was a man who had been the top man in the world of the Beatles, he was the top man in the world of the Rolling Stones, he was the top man in the world of the Beach Boys, the top man in the world of the Yardbirds, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Stones, the top man in the world of the Beachboys, the top man in the world of the Rolling Stones, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Stones, the top man in the world of the Beach Boys, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Stones, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles, the top man in the world of the Beatles. + +And he was the leader of the so-called Free World, the leader of the free world. He was the leader of all the free world. He was a man who had been the head of all the CIA, the head of all the FBI, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the FBI, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the FBI, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA, the head of all the CIA +======================================== SAMPLE 257 ======================================== +'Couldn't get out of bed': Grandmother who saved her son from drowning is unmasked online after reliving her heroic act on Facebook + +Tracy Gartin's nine-year-old son, Ben, died after falling into a reservoir in 2013 + +Gartin, a physiotherapist, is now raising money for a memorial in his memory + +She has been identified in online posts as the woman who saved her son from drowning + +Tributes also poured in from around the world for the 'sweet little boy' + + +Tracy Gartin has been unmasked online after reliving how she and her son Ben saved him from drowning. + + +The mother of a nine-year-old boy who died after falling into a reservoir in 2009 has been unmasked as the woman who saved him. + + +Tracy Gartin, from San Jose, California, who has a degree in physical therapy, has raised money for a memorial in Ben's memory. + + +Tracy Gartin, the mother of Ben Gartin, the boy who died after falling into a reservoir in San Jose, has been unmasked online after reliving how she and her son Ben saved him from drowning + +She is now raising money for a memorial in Ben's memory after her identity was revealed on social media + +Tracy Gartin's identity was revealed on her Facebook page after her mother asked: 'omg who is that lady in the picture with my son's picture'. In the picture is the woman who saved her son from drowning. + +Tracy Gartin's mother, Debbie Gartin, told NBC Bay Area that Tracy wanted to be known as 'Beth' and had no idea her identity was being revealed. + + +'She's just a good mom,' Debbie Gartin said. 'A good mother and needs to be recognized. She's a good mom and just a good person and an amazing woman.' + +Tracy Gartin's identity was revealed on her Facebook page after her mother asked: 'omg who is that lady in the picture with my son's picture' + +There were hundreds of messages of support for Tracy Gartin as her identity was unmasked online + +Her identity was revealed on her Facebook page after her mother asked: 'omg who is that lady in the picture with my son's picture' + +The unidentified woman had been identified as Tracy Gartin by her mother who was writing a Facebook post about her son's memorial + +A tribute to the nine-year-old boy who died after falling into a reservoir in San Jose, California + +Tracy Gartin was found in a pool in the backyard of her home on July 19, 2009 after Ben died in the same pool. + + +The boy fell into the pool after breaking his neck while playing in the backyard. + + +He had been playing on his tricycle at the time and he had been getting ready to ride it when he lost his balance. + + +Tracy Gartin has vowed never to push her son off his tricycle again after this tragic accident + +Tracy had been learning exercise from her father, a physical therapist, and she had been doing it regularly. + + +However, Ben did not like the exercise and he had been pushing it too hard. + + +Tracy told the San Jose Mercury News: 'I've got kind of a hard time exercising with my dad because he's too stubborn for me.' + + +In the aftermath of Ben's death, Tracy and her family struggled to cope with his death and they were rejected by Ben's friends. + + +Tracy and her family had been rejected by Ben's friends + +Ben was a star athlete and was a member of the San Jose Cascades football and basketball programs. + + +However, he never graduated from high school and his mother decided to move Ben to a youth program in Los Gatos. + + +Tracy and her family struggled to cope with Ben's death and they were rejected by Ben's friends + +Tracy and Ben's mother left the program in Los Gatos, California to move Ben to a youth program in San Jose + +Tracy and Ben's mother moved to San Jose to be closer to her husband and Ben's father, who was now working with his son's school. + +However, Ben's father insisted that Ben stay at the program and to give it a try. + + +'I said, 'No, you stay at my house, you stay with me,' and he said, 'No, I'm not going to give it a try,''' Tracy told the Mercury News. + + +Tracy and Ben's mother moved to San Jose to be closer to her husband and Ben's father, who was now working with his son's school + +The 'Fist of Ben': Ben Gartin (right) was a star athlete and was a member of the San Jose Cascades football and +======================================== SAMPLE 258 ======================================== +Cheryl Shuman (Photo: Special to the Register) + +Cheryl Shuman has been a teacher in the Des Moines Public Schools for 30 years. + +She is the only teacher in the district who is a certified diabetes educator, and she has been for more than 20 years. + +The Iowa Board of Education is expected to vote on whether to allow diabetes educators to practice in public schools on Wednesday. + +"That's a huge step," Shuman said. "I am thrilled that this is getting so much attention." + +The Iowa Board of Education is looking at whether to allow diabetes educators to teach in public schools. (Photo: Special to the Register) + +Shuman, who is also a registered nurse, also is diabetic. She's been treated for type 1 diabetes since she was 7. + +"It's an interesting twist," she said. "I didn't anticipate that this would be such a big deal." + +Shuman said she has been in touch with teachers at two of her middle schools who are planning to ask their schools to allow diabetes educators to teach in their classrooms. + +Shuman said she believes public school health teachers should have the same training as other nurses. + +"When you're a diabetes educator in the school system, you're there to serve a whole population," she said. + +Pediatrician Samuel A. Stebbins, M.D., who was appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad to lead the Iowa Department of Human Services' diabetes task force, said he's not opposed to diabetes educators teaching in public school classrooms. + +"It's not a new idea," Stebbins said. "There are many people who have been doing that for quite some time now, including a number of individuals, including myself." + +The Iowa Board of Education is expected to vote on whether to allow diabetes educators to teach in public schools on Wednesday. + +"I think the board is being very thoughtful and very deliberate about this," Shuman said. "The goal is not to open the door to teaching in the school system. It's to ensure that people have access to the education they need." + +Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2kP7w8u<|endoftext|>The Indian Navy's electronic warfare experts have successfully intercepted and analysed a missile launched by another country in a missile test. + +The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The Indian Navy's electronic warfare experts have successfully intercepted and analysed a missile launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. A missile is launched from a submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +This was the first time that an Indian Navy ship has successfully intercepted a missile launched from a submarine. This was the first time that an Indian Navy ship has successfully intercepted a missile launched from a submarine. + +The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The Indian Navy's Electronic Warfare Centre in Mumbai has successfully intercepted a launch from an Indian submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The Indian Navy's Electronic Warfare Centre in Mumbai has successfully intercepted a launch from an Indian submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The Indian Navy's Electronic Warfare Centre in Mumbai has successfully intercepted a launch from an Indian submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. The interceptor was launched from a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on Thursday. + +The Indian Navy's Electronic Warfare Centre in Mumbai has successfully intercepted a launch from an Indian submarine in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha on +======================================== SAMPLE 259 ======================================== +The latest news from our perspective of the Trump presidency is that the president has announced his intention to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. + +It has not been a good morning for the president. He had an uncharacteristically quiet first hour, his first meeting of the day with the Pope and then the White House said he had been told that the president would fire Mueller. + +As a result, the president is now embroiled in an intense 24-hour period of defending his decision to fire the special counsel. + +As the president's legal team now prepares to launch its defense, it is worth noting that the president's firing of Mueller has been the subject of a long-running investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General. + +The most recent report of that investigation was issued on May 23, and it concluded that the dismissal of Mueller was "not appropriate." That report, which was written by the former chief of the Criminal Division's criminal fraud section, also said that Mueller's investigation of alleged ties between Trump associates and Russian officials has been "exceptionally broad" and that the attorney general's decision not to recuse himself from the matter was "not justified." + +The report concluded that "the Department of Justice and the FBI have not developed sufficient evidence to support a determination that any crimes were committed or that any reasonable prosecutor would bring." + +In a letter to the Inspector General in May, Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said that the president was not aware that Mueller would be conducting the investigation. Kasowitz asked the Inspector General to look into the matter again because "the Department of Justice's own investigation into the matter has not revealed any facts whatsoever indicating that the President was under investigation." + +Kasowitz is correct. But as The Washington Post's Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger noted in a recent story, the IG's report revealed that Mueller's investigation included interviewing former FBI Director James B. Comey, who was abruptly fired by Trump in May, and his aides. The IG's report also disclosed that Mueller was raising concerns internally about Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation. + +The IG's report also revealed that Mueller had hired several lawyers who were also former FBI officials and that he was likely to interview current and former FBI agents who worked on the Clinton investigation. + +The IG's report also contained evidence that Mueller had assigned a number of his investigators to work on the Russia investigation, despite his pledge to leave it alone. + +A number of the investigators Mueller had hired "have backgrounds that raise concerns for us," the IG's report said. "In addition, many of the investigators have significant experience investigating matters related to President George W. Bush, including some who worked on the investigation into President Bush's re-election campaign (including a case of alleged misconduct by former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card)." + +Further, the report said that Mueller had "identified more cases in which he believes FBI agents may have violated the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority for partisan political purposes, than we could identify." + +The IG's report was issued after the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) found that Mueller's staff had engaged in "inappropriate communications" with the FBI's top official in the bureau, James A. Baker III. + +The OPR's report also found that Mueller's staff had engaged in "inappropriate communications" with the House Intelligence Committee, although it did not say whether such communications were related to the Russia investigation. + +But the OPR report also found that Mueller's staff had also improperly contacted the FBI's general counsel and the FBI's deputy general counsel about political matters unrelated to the Russia investigation. + +The IG's report said that "the FBI's senior leadership and prosecutors have taken steps to correct the deficiencies identified by the Office of Professional Responsibility." + +It added that the FBI "considered the recommendations and took the necessary and appropriate action to address these issues." + +Mueller's former deputy, Andrew Weissmann, resigned the same week that the OPR report was issued. He had been Mueller's chief of staff. + +In addition to the OPR report, The Post reported in late May that Mueller had written a memo to FBI officials that said he did not want Comey's assistance in investigating Flynn. + +The report, which was issued May 23, was written by Mueller's former chief of staff, FBI veteran Peter Strzok. Strzok played a prominent role in the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private server as secretary of state. + +The Post reported that Strzok's role in the Clinton investigation had raised concerns among other FBI officials. + +The Mueller memo cited two instances of what he described as "inappropriate partisan political activity" by Strzok. One was an interview that he conducted with a senior Democratic operative, whose name is redacted in the memo. + +The second was an interview with a senior Justice Department official, whose name is also redacted. + +Strz +======================================== SAMPLE 260 ======================================== +The JEA is a popular and effective way to jumpstart development of your business. The JEA could be the most important tool you can use to get your project off the ground. It is especially important for small businesses with limited resources to get off the ground and start growing. + +Learn more about the JEA. + +How to Pick a JEA Account: + +JEA accounts are managed through one of the following: + +The JEA's online application + +The JEA's web form + +The JEA's email list + +The JEA's web form + +The JEA's email list + +To start, select a JEA account that best fits your needs and then complete the online application. + +Get Started + +How to Start a JEA Account: + +A JEA account can be started by anyone, after completing the online application. + +A JEA account is not required to start any JEA activities such as: + +Using the JEA's online form to apply for a JEA account + +JEA web form to process JEA applications + +JEA email list to receive email from the JEA + +JEA web form to add a new user to the JEA + +JEA email list to keep up to date with the latest promotions and news + +JEA email list to hear about JEA events in your community + +JEA web form to update your existing user + +JEA web form to run a survey + +How to Join the JEA: + +The JEA has several ways in which you can join the JEA: + +Join the JEA's email list to get email from the JEA + +The JEA's email list is a list of JEA members who are interested in JEA activities and events. + +To join the JEA's email list, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's email list, click here. + +Join the JEA's online form to create a JEA account + +To join the JEA's online form, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's web form, click here. + +Join the JEA's email list to receive email from the JEA + +To join the JEA's email list, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's web form, click here. + +Join the JEA's web form to add a new user to the JEA + +To join the JEA's web form, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's web form, click here. + +Join the JEA's email list to keep up to date with the latest promotions and news + +To join the JEA's email list, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's web form, click here. + +Join the JEA's web form to run a survey + +To join the JEA's web form, please click the "Join the JEA" button on the JEA's web form. + +To learn more about joining the JEA's web form, click here. + +How to Edit or Update Your JEA Account: + +You can edit or update your account information here. + +How to Get Involved in JEA Activities: + +The JEA has a number of ways to get involved in JEA activities: + +Join a JEA Chapter + +The JEA has chapters in many communities across the United States. JOIN a JEA chapter to be a part of a community and support your local chapter. + +Join a JEA Board of Directors + +The JEA has a number of board members who are interested in JEA activities. JOIN a JEA board to be a part of the JEA community and support your local board member. + +JOIN an JEA Support Group + +The JEA has support groups across the country. JOIN a JEA support group to join a community and support your local group. + +Join a JEA Affiliate + +The JEA has affiliates in many communities across the United States. JOIN a JEA affiliate to be a part of a community and support your local affiliate. + +Join a JEA Entrepreneurial Network + +The JEA has a network of over 100 affiliates around the nation. JOIN a JEA network to be a part of the JEA community and support your local network. + +JOIN a JEA Business Club + +The JEA has clubs in many communities +======================================== SAMPLE 261 ======================================== +I've been using the i3/Xfce4/MATE desktop environments for a few years now. It's probably one of the most versatile environments for a desktop, without the need to resort to a terminal. + +However, I've recently moved to a different desktop environment, which I prefer to i3. I've been using the new GNOME 3.10 desktop for a few weeks and I think that it is a great environment for me. I'm going to share my thoughts on it, and why I think it's better. + +What's GNOME? + +GNOME is a new desktop environment that a lot of people are loving. It's designed to be lightweight and minimalistic, so that you can get to work without having to learn any new terminal commands. + +GNOME 3.10 is based on GNOME 3 and uses GNOME Shell, a modern, highly customizable, and customizable shell. You can add new themes, create your own themes, and even change the default backlight. + +Here are some features of GNOME Shell: + +An integrated file manager: Files are organized by type, location, and type of file. When you create a new file, it's automatically moved to the right location. + +An integrated file manager: Files are organized by type, location, and type of file. When you create a new file, it's automatically moved to the right location. An integrated search tool: You can search through your files by name or by file type. + +You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An integrated file manager: You can search through your files by name or by file type. An +======================================== SAMPLE 262 ======================================== +The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday upheld a state law that imposes a $500 fine, up to 20 days in jail and a lifetime ban from teaching in public schools for those who teach creationism in public school science classes. + +The law was passed in 2011. The court's decision means the law can't be appealed. + +"We feel that this law reflects the will of the people," said attorney Mike Phillips, who represented the state. + +The law was challenged by the Oklahoma Association of School Boards. It said the law is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of church and state and violates the First Amendment's prohibition on the establishment of religion. + +The law was passed in 2011 and was the state's first attempt at a creationism law. The Legislature passed the bill in response to the state being ranked near the bottom of states in science by the National Science Foundation. + +Supporters of the law said it was necessary to teach students about evolution and other scientific theories. Opponents claimed it was unconstitutional because it singled out creationism for punishment. + +The Oklahoma law calls for a fine of up to $500 for teachers who teach creationism in science classes. The state has said that means no teacher could be hired who taught creationism. + +The state's highest court cited a report by the National Academy of Sciences that said creationism is a religious belief and that it is a violation of the First Amendment to teach creationism in public schools. + +The National Academy of Sciences report said creationism is a belief that the Earth was created by God, and that life on Earth is described in Genesis as a result of this creative act. + +The court said the law was a reasonable restriction on the teaching of creationism because it sought to balance the theory of evolution with creationism and did not target one religion over another. + +"Creationism is not a legitimate scientific theory," the court said. "Creationism is a religious belief, but it is one that has been rejected by most scientists, rejected by many other scientists, and rejected by the United States Congress." + +Phillips said the law was passed after a period of public debate and that the school boards were powerless to override the law and reinstate the teacher who was forced to resign. + +"The reality of the law is that the Oklahoma Legislature decided to punish teachers who teach creationism," Phillips said. "They decided to punish teachers who taught the theory of evolution. They decided to punish teachers who teach climate change. They decided to punish teachers who teach other theories." + +Oklahoma has about 1,700 public school teachers.<|endoftext|>The US National Security Agency (NSA) has not been able to penetrate the UK's GCHQ internet surveillance system, according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. + +According to Der Spiegel, the NSA has "proved" that it cannot break the security of its UK counterpart, but has been unable to trace the targets of its eavesdropping. + +The NSA does not have the means to systematically monitor the internet activities of GCHQ staff, according to Der Spiegel. + +The documents reveal that the agency has been unable to crack a number of encryption schemes used by GCHQ staff. + +The agency is also unable to intercept the data that "harmful" internet traffic is sending to or from the UK, the documents show. + +GCHQ, the UK's equivalent to the NSA, has been in the spotlight recently after it was reported that the agency has been working with US firms to help it crack the encryption used on the internet. + +It is understood that the agency has been able to break some encryption schemes that were being used by the major technology companies. + +GCHQ has been criticised for its role in the Prism surveillance programme, which has been revealed by the Guardian newspaper. + +The NSA and GCHQ have denied giving the US companies access to their overseas operations. + +The photographs obtained by Der Spiegel show GCHQ staff working on an internet surveillance programme called Tempora. + +The documents show that the UK agency said it is not able to break encryption used by the internet giants. + +GCHQ said the agency is also investigating the use of encryption by mobile phone operators, but it has so far not been able to crack them. + +The documents also reveal that GCHQ has been monitoring the communications of Russian President Vladimir Putin for the past four years. + +The files also reveal that GCHQ's job is not finished: the agency intends to carry out "a systematic strategic communications-collection operation against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [Isis] starting in the spring". + +The documents suggest that GCHQ is planning to employ men who have "expertise in the use of encryption" to eavesdrop on Isis communications.<|endoftext|>The news that the men's and women's 800-meter races in the Rio Olympics have been changed to a men's vs. women's final, as opposed to the previous practice of a men's final and a women's semifinal +======================================== SAMPLE 263 ======================================== +Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan has been awarded $140 million in his lawsuit against Gawker Media after the media company published a sex tape of the former pro wrestler. + +Hogan sued Gawker after the website published a sex tape featuring the former professional wrestler and his friend, radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. + +Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, had promised to turn the tape over to police if Gawker didn't pay him an unspecified amount. The tape, which Gawker published in 2012, shows Hogan having sex with Clem. + +Gawker argued that its publication was protected by the First Amendment because the sex was between consenting adults, that Hogan didn't give his consent to the tape's publication and that the tape was newsworthy. + +In a statement, Gawker said its decision to publish the sex tape was not intended to humiliate Hogan and that the company had "no interest" in paying him. + +The award was announced on Thursday in a St. Petersburg, Florida, federal court, according to The Associated Press. + +Gawker's lawyers had asked for $100 million in damages from Hogan, while Gawker's attorneys asked for $25 million. + +"We're delighted that the court has recognized that publishing the sex tape was speech protected by the First Amendment," Hogan's attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, said in a statement. "We're looking forward to getting on with the case and having the case decided on the merits." + +The Associated Press contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he would "love" to have a third debate with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who has won the first two, but blamed the media for not allowing one. + +"I would love to have a third debate, absolutely. I would love to. It's in the interest of all of us, because it's interesting," Mr Trump told reporters on board his plane as he left for a trip to Ohio on Wednesday. + +"The other day, I was saying, you know, one of the great things about the debates is they're on live television. There's no sound effects and you can actually listen," he said. + +"And the other day, I was watching the debate and I was talking to one of the anchors, and I said, 'How's the sound? How's the sound?' And she said, 'Oh, it's really good.'" + +Mr Trump said Mr Clinton had been "very good" at the first two debates, but that she was "very bad" at the third. + +Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The moment Donald Trump was asked about Russian hacking + +"She was very bad. She was very bad. She was very bad. She was very bad," Mr Trump said. + +"The second debate was like a 70-30 split. She was very bad. In the third debate, she was way worse than the first one and I said, 'I don't think she can win.'" + +In contrast, Ms Clinton "didn't do that bad", he added. + +Ms Clinton has won the first two debates, which were held in Hempstead, New York, and in Las Vegas. + +The third debate is scheduled for North Las Vegas, Nevada, on 9 October, the same night as the first debate. + +Mr Trump continued to accuse Ms Clinton of being in the pocket of Wall Street, saying she was "getting away with murder" on the campaign trail. + +"The system is rigged. It's rigged," he said. + +"It's rigged against you."<|endoftext|>A new study in the British Medical Journal shows that the effectiveness of retroviral drugs to treat HIV may depend on the type of retrovirus being treated, with the HIV-1-specific drug AZT most effective. So far, the most effective drugs for treating HIV-1 are AZT and protease inhibitors, but researchers are working to develop better drugs that can treat other retroviruses. + +"Why is there such imbalances in the effectiveness of these drugs? It's pretty surprising," says lead author Paul A. Young, Ph.D., from the University of Washington. "In the case of HIV-1, AZT is the most effective, followed by protease inhibitors and then dolutegravir. What we're finding is that the drugs that are effective against HIV-1 are very different from those that are effective against other viruses." + +In the current paper, Young and his colleagues examined the effectiveness of eight HIV-1-specific drugs against seven other retroviruses: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-1), human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-II), simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), human herpesvirus 5 (HHV-5), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV +======================================== SAMPLE 264 ======================================== +12/12/2014 + +Print + +Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X + +An official announcement has been made that the Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X single will be available for download on January 7, 2015. + +The release will come with both the standard and limited editions. + +Standard Edition: + +Limited Edition:<|endoftext|>The odd man out in the newest Disney-themed ice rink is a robot, and it is not a pretty sight. + +The park's opening dates have been announced, and The Disney Parks Blog has revealed that the opening of the new ice rink in Epcot's World Showcase will happen on July 14. + +But the movie's latest attraction, The Incredibles, is not coming to the park. + +The WDW News Today blog reports that the movie will not be part of the Frozen Ever After attraction that opened in late March. + +That attraction is part of a larger Frozen celebration at the park that includes an ice skating parade, a sing-along of "Let It Go," and a fireworks show. + +The Incredibles will be part of a separate Frozen Ever After event that will also include a meet-and-greet with the movie's actors, and a rare appearance by Anna and Elsa. + +The Incredibles is based on a popular animated series, and the movie's director is Brad Bird. + +Disclosure: I am a member of the media relations team at Disney. + +[Images: Disney]<|endoftext|>It's a year to the day since we here at Off Track first spoke to Danny Solomon about the risky move he made at the end of 2011. + +Solomon had had enough of the riches of the Premier League and wanted to play in Serie A. A move to the Italian top flight was meant to be his shot at finally fulfilling his dream of one day representing his country. + +The move never materialised but it was not the end of the world as Palmerston North-based Solomon is now a prominent member of the Napoli team. + +The 30 year-old has been in and out of the side for the past few seasons but has been rewarded with senior caps for the Azzurri over the last two years. + +Solomon was left out of Napoli's squad for their trip to Genoa but has made a firm return and will be hoping to establish himself in the side. + +We spoke to Solomon about his move to Napoli, his move to Palmerston North, his support network, and why he thinks he'll be the next Nani. + +Off Track: You left Napoli to come to Napoli. What was the reasoning behind that? + +Danny Solomon: I wanted to play in Italy. I knew that if I was to come to Napoli I would have to play in Serie A. The problem was that I knew that even though they were a big club, they didn't have the resources to pay for me. + +Off Track: How did you convince them? + +DS: It was easy. I never had any problems with the club. I never had any problems with the coach. I was never on the bench. I was always in the team. The only problem was that I knew that I couldn't play in Serie A. + +I have spoken to the president of the club and obviously he understood. I got an e-mail from him saying that he understood what I was going through. + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Off Track: You came here to Napoli without any money. How did you come up with the money? + +DS: I'm not coming up with the money. I'm going to the club that has the best chance of paying me what I'm worth. The problem was that I couldn't find a club in Italy where I would be happy to play. I had no problem with the club and I didn't want to leave Napoli. + +Off Track: Is there a team in Italy that you would have liked to play for? + +DS: I didn't ask. I just wanted to play in Italy. I had never played in Italy before, I had never played in Serie A or any of the Italian leagues. + +Off Track: What do you think will be the key to your success in Serie A? + +DS: The key to my success in Italy is going to be my pitch awareness. I think that coming to Napoli and being able to play on a pitch that I know and that I know the pitches of, is going to be the key to my success. + +Off Track: So having played in the Premier League and not playing in Italy has been a big learning curve? + +DS: I think so. I'm not coming here to play in Serie A. I'm coming here to play in Serie A. + +Off Track: Are you confident? + +DS: I'm confident. I think it's going +======================================== SAMPLE 265 ======================================== +The U.S. government has not issued a statement on the latest developments in the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. + +Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday on "Meet The Press" that he would wait until he received a full report from the Justice Department. + +Holder said the investigation was "ongoing," and that the Justice Department would be reviewing the shooting. + +Attorney General Eric Holder says he is "reasonably confident" the Justice Department will "get to the bottom" of the Ferguson, Mo. shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. (Photo: Richard Drew, AP) + +"It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the details of an ongoing investigation," Holder said. "What is indisputable is that I have been briefed on the facts of the case. And I'm reasonably confident that we'll have a full report by the time we are through, and that investigation will be concluded as quickly as possible." + +Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said Monday that the officer has been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure. He said the police department would not discuss the officer's identity or any other aspect of the investigation. + +Jackson said that the officer was not wearing a body camera and that he is not aware of any video that has surfaced. + +Meanwhile, a group of at least a dozen protesters gathering outside the Ferguson police department on Monday were joined by the Rev. Al Sharpton and a few other community leaders. + +"It's clear that the police chief is not doing his job," Sharpton said in a statement. "I'm going to go to Ferguson, Missouri, to tell the truth about what happened to Michael Brown and other unarmed people of color. Not in the name of a protest, but in the name of justice." + +PHOTOS: Ferguson protests + +The Missouri Highway Patrol released this video on Monday showing the moments leading up to the shooting. + +The shooting of Brown, 18, has sparked protests across the St. Louis area. + +A police officer reportedly shot an unarmed 18-year-old black teenager in the head as he walked down the middle of a street in Ferguson, Mo., Sunday. The shooting was captured on multiple videotapes, and police have said the teen is believed to be a suspect in a recent carjacking and is armed. (Photo: AP) + +The shooting of Brown, 18, has sparked protests across the St. Louis area and has sparked a national conversation about the use of force by law enforcement and the treatment of minorities by police. + +KMOV.com reports that he was walking in a middle of the street with his hands up when the officer shot him. + +The officer has been put on administrative leave. + +Contributing: Associated Press + +Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1gKZdI6<|endoftext|>Check out my latest blog post with all the info you need about the new (and much improved!) version of the Toronto Maple Leafs' website. The site is now able to load faster and contains more information than ever before. + +The blog post with all the new information you need about the site can be found here. + +Here's a brief summary of the new features: + +New design + +New Stats section + +More depth on players + +New depth chart + +New player profiles + +New player roles + +New schedule + +And more! + +Thanks for reading! + +– Puck Daddy + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>I finally finished my first custom made chess set. It is an original design by one of my friends. It is a chess set I designed myself. The set cost me 5 hours to make and cost me about 100 bucks. It is made out of acrylic and wood and includes a chess board, chess pieces and a chess clock. The chess board is about 6 feet across and is made from 1/4 inch thick plywood. I cut the chess pieces from 1/4 inch thick plywood. The chess clock is made from a large piece of plywood, shaped with a router. The pieces were carefully sanded with 400 grit sandpaper and were then painted with acrylic spray paint. The clock is about 3 feet tall and is about 12 inches wide at the front. I wanted the clock to be slightly longer for me to use it as a coffee table so it is about 12 inches wide. The clock measures 6 feet tall and is about 18 inches wide at the back. It is about 12 feet long and is made from 2x4's. The clock has two pizza pans on the front and one on the back. It has two large speakers on the front and one on the back. It has a control panel on the back. The control panel is made out of wood and the buttons are shaped like chess pieces. It has a large button on the front that is shaped like a pawn. It has a small button on the back that +======================================== SAMPLE 266 ======================================== +The world is full of interesting people, and after reading your list of the top 100 people in the world, I'm thinking we should have a worldwide competition to guess who is the Top 100 Nerdiest People, starting with the first 100 names. What do you think? + +Creator of this poll has opted for captcha verification. To vote on this option please fill in the captcha. + +Your vote: Jason Flom<|endoftext|>Eli is a former professional poker player who has been retired from the game since 2011. + +Since his retirement, he has written three books, and is a frequent commentator on the poker scene on television. He has also been a guest on numerous poker shows and podcasts. + +Eli is currently a prominent figure in the poker community, and has numerous online poker sites under his name. He is also an active member of the poker community on social media, where he has over 1 million followers on Twitter. + +A true poker legend, Eli has played on the highest levels of the game. In his time in the game, he has played for some of the world's best poker players, and has been able to win up to $600,000 in cash games.<|endoftext|>All photos © Jakub Jankowski, this article is © Jakub Jankowski + +And many others. + +As a freelance writer, I've often been asked for game design advice, especially on smaller scale projects. I've also been asked for game design examples. I've always enjoyed doing these interviews, and though I've never been particularly good at writing, I've been getting better. + +This is part 2 of a four part series on game design, with the following articles: + +Part 1: Introduction + +Part 3: The Elements of Game Design + +Part 4: Game Design Examples + +I've been asked to create a set of articles on game design, with some additional information on the elements of the game design process. + +That said, I'm not really an expert on game design, and I've spoken to a few people who are, so this series is more of a helpful guide than a complete, definitive guide. Please let me know if there are any issues with the design examples, or if you have any suggestions for how to improve them. + +Thanks for reading!<|endoftext|>I've been putting off making a "best of" list for a while now. I guess I should have done it sooner, but I just felt like I wanted to get the whole exercise out of the way. In my defense, I sat on the list for a long time, so it didn't take that long for the list to get to me. + +It's probably a good thing I kept going back through all the posts and pages because I ended up learning a lot more about the literary and cultural history of the American West than I thought I would. + +I'll admit that I'm not as familiar with the literary history of the West as I would like to be. I'm partial to the classics, and I'm not sure that I've read almost any of the works of modern Western literature. + +I don't think it has anything to do with my personality. I've read a lot of books about others, and I've read even more about myself, and I'm not particularly shy or retiring. + +What it has to do with is that I'm a bit of a dry scholar when it comes to Western literature, and I've written about a few things that I'm not terribly knowledgeable about at all. + +So here's my list of "the best of" Western literature, from the best to the worst. + +The Best + +The Grapes of Wrath (1939) + +I don't know who the hell this guy is, and I don't care. But I already mentioned that I have a bit of a soft spot for the classics. There's a reason for that, and I'll get to that in a moment, but first let's just say that the movie was brilliant. + +I don't know how much of it was accurate, but I will say that it was very, very accurate. In fact, I think it was the most accurate movie ever made about the American West. + +Most of what I've read about the West is pretty biased, and it's always been like that. The American West is just an area of the country where you can find a few crazies who think they're better than everyone else, and it's a great place to find people who are stupid enough to believe that the most important thing in the world is their own existence. + +That's what this movie has in common with an earlier movie that was even more accurate about the American West. + +The Last of the Mohicans (1992) + +I don't have much of an attachment to this movie. It turns out that I'm not a huge fan of The Last of the Mohicans books. I don't think they +======================================== SAMPLE 267 ======================================== +In a bid to lose weight, adults who consume more than the recommended daily amount of sugar each day may have to cut back on other foods that are good for you. + +The study, published in the journal Obesity, found that children who consumed more added sugar during their first two years of life were more likely to become obese later in life. + +The researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Oklahoma School of Public Health, conducted a study on 5,006 children, aged five to 15, of Mexican origin. + +They found that when children were given an increased amount of added sugar in their first two years of life, they were more likely to become obese as they aged, and that sugar-sweetened beverages were the main culprit. + +"Children who were exposed to increased amounts of sugar in the first two years of life were significantly more likely to become obese as they aged and were more likely to consume more added sugar as they aged," said lead researcher Dr. Catherine St. Pierre. + +"Children who consumed more sugar in the first two years of life were also more likely to consume more sugar-sweetened beverages as they aged, which are associated with increased body weight, and were more likely to report a poor appetite and to be less active," Dr. St. Pierre said in a press release. + +Children who consumed more added sugar in their first two years of life are more likely to become obese as they age. + +The researchers also found that children who consumed more sugar were more likely to report a poor appetite, and were less likely to be active in the first year and more likely to report eating less frequently and less healthfully in the second year. + +The researchers found that children who consumed more added sugar in the first two years of life were more likely to become obese as they aged, and were more likely to consume more sugar-sweetened beverages as they aged. + +Children who consumed more added sugar in the first two years of life were more likely to consume more sugar-sweetened beverages as they aged. + +"Increased exposure of children to added sugar in the first two years of life may be associated with a greater risk for obesity in later life," Dr. St. Pierre said. + +"Our study suggests that a parent's increased intake of added sugar in the first two years of life is associated with an increased risk for overweight and obesity in the child," Dr. St. Pierre said. + +"We recommend that pediatricians and other health care professionals screen all children for exposure to added sugar in the first two years of life," Dr. St. Pierre said. + +About 10 or 15 percent of children in the U.S. are obese. + +"Heavy exposure to added sugar in the first two years of life may have long-term consequences on the development of the child," said Dr. St. Pierre in the release. + +SOURCE: bit.ly/1bZB8Gk Obesity, online October 29, 2016.<|endoftext|>The City of Portland's new bike share system is hitting the streets this week. + +On Wednesday, the city launched its first "stage" of the system. + +This phase includes 450 bikes and 330 docking stations. + +There are also 100 docking stations available at public parks and other locations. + +The bike share system, which began in August, will cost $35 a month for a bike. + +For more details, click here. + +-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh + +skavanaugh@oregonian.com + +503-294-7632; @shanedkavanaugh<|endoftext|>A new study from the University of New England has confirmed that the human body is far more sensitive to the power of the sun than previously believed. + +The research was conducted on a group of twins, one of which had a genetic predisposition to melanoma. He was able to detect a difference in skin sensitivity to sunlight after just 24 hours of exposure. + +The study, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, confirmed that the skin of the twin with the genetic predisposition to melanoma responds to the power of the sun even after just 24 hours. + +As a result, the researchers found that the skin of the twin with the genetic predisposition to melanoma was much more sensitive to UV radiation. + +Researchers believe that the skin sensitivity of the twin with the genetic predisposition to melanoma may be related to a mutation in the gene that controls melanoma. + +The researchers believe that the mutation may have resulted in a more rapid rate of melanoma cell growth. + +The study also found that the twin with the genetic predisposition to melanoma developed a higher number of squamous cell carcinomas than his twin brother. + +Because of the genetic predisposition to melanoma, the researchers say that any type of sun exposure should be avoided. + +The study was funded by the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, +======================================== SAMPLE 268 ======================================== +Dr. E.J. Dix, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of California, Irvine, believes that the "pit" that separated children from their parents during the Civil War may not have been the result of the Civil War, but instead a result of a measles epidemic in the 1860s. + +Dix made the claim during a panel discussion at the 2013 International Conference on Autism at UCI Wednesday, according to the conference's website. The panel discussion was titled: "Children in Civil War Times: Diversifying the Perspective of Pain and Loss." + +"In the 1860s, measles was known to be a serious disease, and it was believed that children could be made immune to measles by the immunizations that were being administered," Dix explained, according to the website. "It was thought that if you inoculated an infant, the child would be protected from measles, but that was not the case." + +Dix also said that many of the children who died during the Civil War were "intentionally killed" because they were inoculated against measles before they were born. + +"Children from infants to preschoolers were vaccinated, and [the] measles was eradicated in the U.S.," Dix said, according to the website. "But, the same vaccines were also used for measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, and polio." + +Dix said that he believes that many of the children who died during the Civil War died from measles because of the lack of immunity to the disease. + +"I believe that many of the children who died in the Civil War were intentionally killed," Dix said. "In the 1860s, there was no vaccine for measles. It was believed that children could be protected, and that's probably why they died."<|endoftext|>RALEIGH, N.C. — The city of Raleigh said Wednesday that it has been hosting a "Free the Norks" rally since September and that more than 100 people have already participated. + +The rally, dubbed "Free the Norks," is scheduled to take place on Saturday, as the city tries to decide whether to approve a law that would allow stores to sell alcohol during non-business hours. + +"Free the Norks" will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Raleigh City Hall, located at 11 East Main Street. + +Admission is free and open to the public. + +The rally is being organized by Raleigh Citizen Action Group. + +The group, which is trying to pass a law that allows alcohol sales in North Carolina's "live music districts," is asking the public to attend the rally. + +The group has said it will hold a "Free the Norks" rally every Saturday throughout the month of October. + +"Our goal is to show the people of Raleigh how much support there is for our cause, and that we are not a fringe movement," said Daniel McCall, founder of Raleigh Citizen Action Group. + +"This is not an anti-establishment movement. This is an anti-establishment movement that is about the people." + +The Friday before the rally, the group is asking everyone to stop by Raleigh City Hall in uniform and to show their support.<|endoftext|>This is a very simple and straight forward tutorial to learn how to create a 1:1 scale model of a Hyperion from the game Destiny. I've created this tutorial with the help of the Destiny wiki and the Destiny in-game help. "Hyperion" is the name given to the class of Titan. I am using the Hyperion in the Destiny 2 beta to try out the Hellfire Assault and the Jackal. You can download the completed file here. + +Step 1 – Start with a 1:1 scale model + +The first step in creating a 1:1 scale model of a Hyperion is to create a 1:1 scale model. This means that you have to scale down the 1:1 model to 1:1 scale. + +1. Create a new model + +This is where the bulk of the work is done. First, we need to create a new model in 3ds Max. The first thing we need to do is select the model in the viewport and then go to the "Export to Mesh" tab. + +2. Export to Polygons + +Next, we need to export the model to Polygons. This is a simple process. First, we need to select the model in the viewport and then go to the "Export to Mesh" tab. + +3. Export to Layers + +Now that we have our Polygons, we want to use the Layers tab to export the model to 3ds Max. + +4. Export to Polygons + +This is where we do the actual converting. This is where we convert our Polygons into 3ds Max Mesh. We have to click on "Create Layers" +======================================== SAMPLE 269 ======================================== +The world's most popular currency is failing to live up to its promise, in large part because it's being held by a small, well-organized cadre of criminals and libertarians. + +The KuCoin (kuchu) digital currency, which is backed by a range of commodities, is trading at about 5,000 satoshis ($47) per coin, a loss of about $200 in value in the past week alone, according to a cryptocurrency tracker. + +That compares with a record high of over 8,000 satoshis per coin in October. + +The reason for the rise is simple: the price of bitcoin is rising, and so is the value of KuCoin. + +KuCoin is a platform that connects buyers and sellers of commodities with each other. The idea is to facilitate cross-border trade. + +The currency is backed by gold, silver, platinum and palladium, as well as a number of other metals, and operates on a "per-unit-weight" basis. That means that the price of a certain metal, for example, is used in calculating the price of a certain commodity. + +The currency, which is currently traded on the Chinese e-commerce site Taobao, is largely used by gold and silver buyers, although it can also be used by anyone buying and selling any commodity. + +The currency is bought and sold on the platform in Chinese yuan, which it says is backed by 7.8 billion ounces of gold. + +"We believe our basic structure makes it more stable than other coins in the market," said a spokesperson for KuCoin. "KuCoin is an efficient system for trading, no matter what the commodity." + +The spokesperson declined to provide further comment. + +The currency is also being used to buy and sell properties in China, such as apartments in Sichuan province. + +KuCoin's founder, a Chinese businessman surnamed Ho, said that he was not aware of any links between the currency and criminal activity, but said that there is no question that he is aware of the traffic. + +"I am not a criminal, I am a businessman," Ho said. "I don't do illegal things, so I don't have to be careful. It is only the news." + +KuCoin was launched in April 2014, after being described by TechCrunch at the time as "the gold standard in e-commerce". + +It has already been mentioned in the Panama Papers, leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that revealed the wealth of international politicians, celebrities and sports stars. + +The currency has also been used to buy and sell Twitter shares and Facebook shares. + +"We have seen a significant increase in our daily trading volume over the past 24 hours," said a KuCoin spokesperson. "This is mostly due to the increased speculation in the bitcoin market." + +The currency was launched in the US, with a low of 50 satoshis per coin in April 2015. Since then, the value has risen to more than 6,000 satoshis per coin. + +But the currency is not without its critics. + +Jeffrey Tucker, an American libertarian economist and activist, argues that it is not a cryptocurrency, but rather just a commodity-backed currency. + +"It's not a currency because there is no intrinsic value — there is no gold or silver in it," he told the Guardian. "It's a commodity, it's an insurance product, and it's a system for buying and selling commodities." + +He said that the currency should be treated like bonds, and not an investment. + +"The problem with bitcoin is that it is not a currency. It's a commodity thing," he said. + +"And what is wrong with a commodity thing? It's a good thing, it keeps money safe, it's a store of value, it's a way of handling money." + +He has previously argued that bitcoin could be a vehicle for black market money laundering. + +Other critics have questioned the use of the currency in China. + +"The government is totally behind this. They are totally behind this. They are behind every innovation in China," said Barry Silbert, founder of SecondMarket, who told the Guardian that he was not aware of any exchange in China that buys and sells bitcoin. "They are totally behind bitcoin, except for the fact that it's not a legal tender there." + +Silbert said bitcoin was not a currency, but rather a commodity. + +"It's not as good as gold or silver, and it's not as good as U.S. dollars. And it's certainly not a store of value, because it's volatile in value," he said. + +"But it is not illegal in China because it's not a currency. So it's not illegal. It's not even illegal in the United States. The problem is, it's not a currency in any place, so +======================================== SAMPLE 270 ======================================== +A bunch of people got together to talk about the new, and old, Star Wars games and what they mean to the franchise. I was lucky enough to be one of them, and this is my first Star Wars game review. + +Star Wars: Battlefront II is the first Star Wars game I've played since the original. I haven't been able to play the original Battlefront since it was released in 2014, so I've been hating on EA and DICE ever since I heard about no-CD-only Star Wars Battlefront II. But, I was lucky enough to get a copy of the game, and I've been playing it ever since. + +The second Star Wars game to be released in a couple of years, Star Wars: Battlefront II is a direct sequel to Battlefront. The concept is pretty much the same, so if you are excited to play the first Star Wars game in a while, this is the game to get. + +The gameplay is pretty much identical to the original Battlefront. You start off in a small base with a few squads of troopers, and your goal is to take out the enemy base and kill the enemy commander. You will be able to take out bases that are guarded by AT-STs, as well as other small units. The base you start on will be your home base for the rest of your time in the game. + +The game is a lot of fun. The first time I played the game, I played it on the hardest difficulty setting (which is called Hardened) and it was so much fun. I was able to run around the map with my squadmates, blasting the enemy and attacking bases. It really felt like you were in a Star Wars film. + +The story and story mode is a lot of fun to play through. You can play through the main story mode in two or three hours. The story mode is quite long, but it is fun. I finished the main story in about two hours. I spent most of my time in the multiplayer mode. + +The game does a good job of bringing back the Star Wars universe, and it feels like a very Star Wars game. There is a lot to do in the multiplayer mode. It's a lot of fun, and it takes quite a bit of time to get through the multiplayer experience. I usually spend about two hours playing multiplayer, and it can get quite boring. The game is very easy to pick up, but the gameplay is quite difficult to get into. + +The game is the most fun I've had in a Star Wars game since the original. It's a nice return to a place, and a lot of fun to play. My only complaint is that I don't think this game will be able to attract a new audience. I'm not sure if it will be a big hit with the core Star Wars fans, but the casual fans will definitely find it fun. + +[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.] + +You are logged out. Login | Sign up + +Star Wars: Battlefront II reviewed by Chris Carter<|endoftext|>They are the most coveted and coveted of all the dogs in the world. + +The dog's face is bewitched by the discerning eye of a child. Its eyes are wide and its ears are erect. It has a curious, inquisitive look on its face, and its fur sticks up and out like a piece of a puzzle. + +On the face of a dog, the eyes are almost always beautiful. When you put your hand in a dog's face and touch its eyes, your hand will generally move away from your body. The dog's eyes are often large, and they convey an emotion that is overlooked by the rest of the dog's expression. + +The eyes are a great way of communicating emotion and feeling to other dogs. + +The eyes of a dog convey realistic, human emotions, and are therefore a great way of communicating emotion and feeling to other dogs. + +When you pet a dog's eye, you will see the most common of all dogs' eyes - the puppy's eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +When you pet a puppy's eye, you will see the most common of all dog's eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. + +The puppy's eyes are the most expressive and expressive of all the eyes. +======================================== SAMPLE 271 ======================================== +The U.S. military is not looking at a nuclear-armed North Korea as a "serious threat" that requires immediate action, a top military official said Thursday. + +"I don't see a military option as being part of this," said Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, during a conference in Washington, D.C. + +"I think we're getting to the point in this region where you need something that's a little more credible, that's a little more credible than a nuclear weapon," Haney said, according to Navy Times. "I haven't seen a military option that I would support." + +North Korea is expected to conduct a sixth nuclear test — possibly Friday — prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to tweet Wednesday that the North Korean regime was "begging for war." + +ADVERTISEMENT + +But Haney said he felt the threat was "minor" and that the U.S. would "definitely defend itself." + +North Korea conducted a fifth nuclear test in January. + +The North Korean regime has previously threatened to destroy the United States and has also tested missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.<|endoftext|>The most common way to go about getting your wife to sleep with you is to tell her that you are playing with her, and then one day she will come to you and ask for sex. + +She will probably ask to be brought into the scene, but the fact that she will be there will make her more comfortable. + +You will tell her how much she is hurting you and how much she is enjoying the sex, and then she will make a comment about how it must hurt to be that close to me. + +But she is too shy to tell you what she is thinking, so you will have to continue playing with her. + +The hardest part is convincing her that you are not going to leave. If you are the only one there, she will have to keep playing with you for a while, and she will be very upset. Then she will feel unsafe and go home. + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>The Canadian Press + + +OTTAWA -- The Canadian military says it has launched a review of its screening process for Afghan recruits, after a Canadian soldier was killed in Afghanistan. + +The Department of National Defence says a thorough investigation is taking place into the circumstances surrounding the death of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was killed in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan on Sunday. + +It says it will be looking at the policy and procedures in place to ensure it's being followed. + +Vincent's family has asked for privacy and they will not be making a statement at this time. + +The military says the review will take place in the coming days.<|endoftext|>You haven't added any 3D printed products yet. + +You haven't added any 3D printed products yet. + +
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The first time I ever heard of World of Warcraft was when I was eight and got my hands on the beta code for Warcraft III. I was also a huge fan of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and when I discovered that the game would be released on my Christmas present from my parents, I had to have it and it didn't take long for me to fall in love. + +I was hooked on it for a long time after my parents gave it to me, and I've been playing since the release of the first expansion in 2004. I have a grand total of 7,200,000 Blizzard points, which is about $8,000. As I'm writing this, I have over 10,000,000. + +I've been playing since the release of the first expansion in 2004. I have a grand total of 7,200,000 Blizzard points, which is about $8,000. + +I have a fairly strong connection to the game. I've played it since the beta was released, and I figured out exactly how to play the game by the time the game was released. I can get through a whole dungeon in about an hour, and I do about 3-4 hours of it a day. + +I have an awesome, long-term girlfriend who is currently playing the game and is a huge fan of it, too. When we first started dating we started off playing WoW together, and I have never stopped playing it since. I've also been playing on and off with my friends, and I've been able to share WoW with other people who are playing it. + +I am probably the most avid and passionate of the players of the game. I love it so much, and I couldn't imagine ever playing another game. I've said this before, but I think my love of WoW has a lot to do with the fact that I was raised on games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. I think most of the other players of the game are the same way, and I think that makes us all better players, because we've all had an opportunity to play games that are similar to WoW. + +But why is WoW so successful? Well, there are a lot of different reasons. But the main one is that it's fun. It's fun for me because I love playing games, and I love having a good time while I'm playing them. It's fun for my girlfriend because she loves playing games, and I love sharing my love of the game with her. I love seeing her and her friends playing the game. I love finding new things to do in the game every day, and I enjoy the sense of achievement when I do something that I've never done before. I love playing the game because I'm having a good time, and I like to look at the world at the end of the day and say, "Wow, I got to see that, and I got to do that." + +I'm not going to lie: +======================================== SAMPLE 273 ======================================== +With her classy, chic, and fun-loving personality, this club girl is not to be taken lightly. She plays with her nails, feels her body, and pinches her nose hair to get her manicure done. This babe is a fun-loving, outgoing, and fun-loving girl who is as passionate about being a model as she is about being a club girl. + +This club girl loves to be outdoors and she loves to get naked and show her body to guys. She is a natural beauty who has a nice charm and personality. She is a natural brunette with long, dark hair. She has a perfect pair of breasts that are not too large or too small. She is a big-boned, curvy girl who loves to dance, kiss, and be naughty. She likes to wear sexy outfits and to play with her hair. This girl will definitely make the guy who is sleeping with her feel as if he has been sleeping with the most beautiful girl in the world. If you think you are the luckiest guy in the world, just think again.<|endoftext|>"It is a very, very unique thing," said Dr. T. J. Cox, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania. "These symptoms are very specific: they are not common, they don't get better, and they don't get worse. They are quite dramatic. It is a psychological phenomenon that is quite different from the other things we have seen in the DSM." + +Among the most interesting aspects of the new report on the disorder is its focus on substance abuse and the idea that the condition is not just a matter of drug use, but of abuse of drugs that have been prescribed to treat the condition. + +A review of the new literature published last year in the journal Addiction found that about one percent of participants in clinical trials for antidepressants and other drugs for the disorder reported drug abuse. + +Dr. Cox said that he and other psychiatrists working with patients diagnosed with the disorder have reported that they are often unable to find a treatment that works for them. + +"The psychological symptoms are so markedly different from other psychiatric disorders that it caused us to think seriously about what was going on," he said. + +Some researchers have argued that the disorder should be accepted as a separate diagnosis. In a study in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly last year, Dr. Cox and colleagues argued that the new category should be treated as a subtype of another disorder, substance use disorder. + +The review, which was led by a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan, found that the new category is much more congruent with the psychiatric literature than the old one was. + +The old system for classifying the disorder, the DSM-IV, made no distinction between the condition of "antisocial personality disorder" and the more specific condition of "antisocial personality disorder not otherwise specified." (Indeed, the old system also ignored the fact that some patients may experience both the disorder and the disorder not otherwise specified.) + +Dr. Cox said that where the old system fell short was that it did not address the need to differentiate the disorder from other conditions such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or eating disorders. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +"The DSM-IV was a good first step," he said, "but it was not a good step at all." + +Dr. Cox said the new classification should be accompanied by a specific diagnostic manual, to avoid confusion among clinicians. + +He said that the new classification should be also used to help determine the most appropriate treatment for patients. + +"It's a package deal," he said. "It's not just a matter of looking at the symptoms, it's a matter of looking at the full spectrum of personality and behavior dysfunction." + +The review was published online Monday in the journal Psychiatric Services.<|endoftext|>At the moment, there are around 10,000 people in the US and Canada who are living in the shadow of an active volcano, with seven of them having finished 12 years of treatment. + +However, in 2013, the US Geological Survey (USGS) published a detailed study of the effects of Mount St Helens in Washington, and the response of individuals, families and society to the 2016 eruption. + +The study, conducted by USGS scientists, showed that the 2013 eruption was relatively minor compared to previous events, and that the majority of people who lived within a 6km radius (7 miles) from the volcano before the eruption had died. + +"People who lived in this area before the eruption died as a result of the eruption," said USGS geologist Joye Braun. "We are not saying that the death rate or loss of life was very high, but the people who lived there – they were exposed to a very large level of danger from the eruption." + +The study also showed that the 2011 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State had an even larger impact on the communities, and also killed more people as a result of the +======================================== SAMPLE 274 ======================================== +The father of the slain teenager told the court on Tuesday that he did not know his daughter had been killed, but he was "fed up" with her. + +Michael Brown Sr. told Judge Carol Jackson that he was "shocked, horrified and in disbelief" to learn that his daughter had been killed. + +"I don't know what the man was thinking," Michael Brown Sr. said of Darren Wilson. + +"He was just like a piece of trash," he said of Wilson. "I don't know what possessed him." + +Wilson graduated from high school in 2010, and was studying for a college degree at the time of the shooting, a friend of Brown's told the Guardian. + +Wilson has been placed on paid administrative leave since the shooting. On Tuesday, a grand jury decided not to bring charges against him. + +One of the key questions in the investigation has been whether Wilson followed the law in his use of force, which resulted in Brown's death. + +In a statement released after the grand jury's decision, Wilson's lawyer said he was "grateful for the opportunity to present my side of the story." He added that he was "confident that the grand jury made the right decision." + +But Wilson's father said he still disagreed with the decision. + +"I think there was something wrong, he should have never been in that neighborhood," Michael Brown Sr. said. + +"I'm not going to let this go," he said, according to the Guardian. "I'm not going to let him die like that. I'm going to do anything I can to get justice for my son." + +Michael Brown Sr. also told Jackson that he was concerned for his daughter's "life and safety," the Guardian reported. + +"I just don't understand why you don't have any compassion," he said, according to the Guardian. "You want to take him out, you want to take his life, but you don't want to take somebody else's life." + +He added, "He should have been unarmed. He should have been walking down the street, and you're going to step in front of him like that?" + +Jackson said she was satisfied with Wilson's testimony on Tuesday and that he would return to court on Monday.<|endoftext|>Jets quarterback Geno Smith will wear No. 3 for the Jets in Sunday's preseason game against the Browns, the team announced Friday. + +The move comes after Smith's most recent helmet was found to have an old number with a different letter on it. Smith's jersey number was the same as his college number, which was 22. + +Smith will wear No. 3 for the third consecutive season. He wore No. 3 in his rookie season. + +Geno Smith's No. 3 will be in his locker after the game. pic.twitter.com/j1a5DR1C8Z — Jared Dubin (@JaredDubin) August 29, 2015 + +Smith will wear No. 3 in his first game as a Jet, against the Browns. + +His No. 3 is the first number he wore in the NFL. + +Smith, who will be 18 at the start of the season, has struggled with accuracy and consistency this season. He has thrown four interceptions and thrown just five touchdown passes. + +While Smith's preseason performance has been middling, the Jets have been enthusiastic about the quarterback and have said that they are ready to give him a chance to play. + +Smith will get a chance to show his skills on Sunday. + +The Jets have announced that they will play their first two preseason games at home, against the Colts and Broncos, and will play their final three at home against the Bears and Cardinals.<|endoftext|>Joshua LaSalle, a 16-year-old high school senior from South Carolina, was looking for a way to start his senior year bright. So he decided to buy a used car from Craigslist and put it up for sale. + +"I just said 'I'm going to buy this car, and I'm going to fix it up,'" LaSalle told ABC News. "I'm going to do a little bit of work, I'm going to sell it and then I'm going to afford a college." + +LaSalle didn't have any experience working on automobiles, so he went to Craigslist and started posting ads. + +"It took about a week for people to respond," he said. + +The response was overwhelming. + +"I didn't expect it to get so big," he said. "I thought I was going to get two or three responses and I got, like, 150 responses." + +LaSalle said he got a lot of support from people who were in similar situations. + +"I talked to a couple of people who had taken care of their cars for a while," he said. + +LaSalle said he went on to fix up the car and take it +======================================== SAMPLE 275 ======================================== +K-pop group BTS has released a new song titled "Blood Sweat & Tears" on the digital music download service Apple Music. + +This marks the group's first release on Apple Music. + +The group's new song is an upbeat track that will be sure to get everyone's attention. The song was produced by BTS' leader, Rap Monster. + +It's a song that is sure to be a hit with fans who have been waiting for an official release from BTS. + +Check out the new track below.<|endoftext|>A speeding driver is dead after he crashed his car through a door in a Winnipeg liquor store Sunday night. + +The incident happened just before 9 p.m. in the basement of The Liquor Store, located at 2896 Main Street N.W., just off Winnipeg's Main Street. + +Police say a man in his 20s was driving southbound on Main Street when he lost control and crashed through the store's basement door. + +The man was pronounced dead at the scene. + +A spokesperson for the store says there was no evidence of any customers or staff at the store at the time of the accident. + +The Liquor Store has a liquor license and serves beer and wine.<|endoftext|>Is there any way to get the latest version of Firefox? + +Chrome and Safari have updates on a regular basis. + +Firefox is not updated, they are outdated and keep getting worse. + +I would like to have a solid version of Firefox that will work for me, not one that is an old version that I constantly have to update. + +Can anyone help me with this?<|endoftext|>The "Purple" is the third episode of Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother. + +In this episode, Barney's mother Carol and Ted's father Ted meet each other for the first time. + +Contents show] + +Recap Edit + +Ted and Lily are getting ready to go on a date, and Lily is still not feeling well. Ted decides to go with Marshall over Lily, who is still not very interested in Marshall. Barney and Robin are getting ready to leave after a date. Barney asks Robin if she likes guys. Robin says she likes guys, but she is not interested in dating anyone else. Barney says he likes the way Robin looks, and then asks her to the dance. Robin agrees, but tells Barney that she's a virgin. Barney tells her that if she loses her virginity to him, she can keep it anyway she wants. Barney then asks Robin to the dance. At the dance, Marshall announces that he's going to be going out with Robin. Barney wants to go after Robin, but Marshall says he's going out with Robin's mother Carol. Barney asks Robin to the dance, and Robin agrees. At the dance, which will be held in Ted's apartment, Barney and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Barney asks Robin to the dance, and Robin agrees. Marshall announces that he's going to be going out with Robin's mother Carol. Barney asks Robin to the dance. At the dance, which will be held in Ted's apartment, Robin is getting ready to go after Robin's mother Carol. Barney asks Robin to the dance, and Robin agrees. Marshall announces that he's going to be going out with Robin's mother Carol. Barney asks Robin to the dance, and Robin agrees. Marshall announces that he's going to be going out with Robin's mother Carol. Barney asks Robin to the dance, and Robin agrees. Then the song "We Are Family" is played. Marshall and Robin kiss. Barney says that he's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Marshall says that he's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Barney and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Barney says that he's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Robin says that she's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Robin says that she's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Robin says that she's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Robin says that she's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other. Robin says that she's going to have to get the photos of their kiss to play at the wedding. In the apartment Marshall and Robin are getting ready to go after each other +======================================== SAMPLE 276 ======================================== +As you may have heard, the New York Times is losing one of its best reporters, Jeff J. Green. + +Green, the lead investigative reporter on the biggest stories that the paper produces, including the Michael Brown shooting, the George Zimmerman shooting and the Eric Garner case, will be leaving the paper after a year. + +For the past year, Green has been super hard at work on the stories that end up in the Times' "Dispatches" section, which consists of brief, unedited first-person accounts of important events. He also publishes a regular "Grit" column about grit. + +In that capacity, Green has written two powerful dispatches from Ferguson over the past several weeks. In one, he described the scene of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown being shot multiple times by a white police officer. In the other, he detailed the brutal arrest of an unarmed young black man named Eric Garner by the police of New York after he allegedly sold untaxed cigarettes (which is illegal, by the way). + +Green was also the lead reporter on the story that led to George Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. + +I know you're probably wondering why I am writing about this now. You're probably wondering why I bothered to devote any time to the story at all. You're probably wondering why I am writing? + +Because I'm glad to see him go. + +Yes, that's right. He's leaving because he has decided to move on to a new challenge. For a lot of New York Times reporters, leaving journalism is an automatic choice. I know a few of them personally. + +But I'm not one of them. + +I'm a journalist. + +As a journalist, I care about the story that I'm working on. I'm not so interested in the next story that comes along. I care about the story that I'm working on. + +And I think Jeff Green cares about the story that he's working on. He cares deeply about the Ferguson story. And he cares deeply about the little things that make a difference in the lives of unarmed people of color. + +And as I said in a previous column, Green is a great reporter. I know that. I know that Jeff Green cares about the Ferguson story. I know that he cares deeply about the little things that make a difference. + +I know that, as his wife stated in a recent interview, he had a lot of concerns about the sort of reporting that he did out of Ferguson. I know that he had concerns about the amount of time he spent on the story, and I know that he thought he might not be able to get his stories out. + +I also know that, as he told me, he has doubts about his own ability to continue reporting on this story for the Times. + +And as you know, I think we should all have doubts about our own abilities to continue reporting on this story. + +It's not easy to see the world as it is. It's not easy to tell the stories that matter. It's not easy to be in the middle of a movement, when you're not a part of it. It's not easy to feel the pain and fear of people whose lives have been upended. It's not easy to know that the most powerful weapon in the hands of people in power is the truth. + +So I'm glad to see him leave. I'm glad to see the world that he understands. And I'm glad that he is going to be able to write the stories that matter to him in a way that he has never been able to write before. + +And I'm glad, as well, that he has decided that he can write about greater things. + +I'm glad that he's going to pursue other opportunities. I'm glad that he has decided that he can write about other things. + +I'm glad that he can be himself again. + +I'm glad that he can do what he loves. + +I'm glad that he can be Jeff Green. + +I'm glad that he can still be Jeff Green. + +Thank you for listening.<|endoftext|>The first time I met Eric Foner, it was in the lobby of the hotel. I was an intern for the New York Times in Washington and he was a reporter for The Nation. We were standing in front of the Times building in midtown Manhattan. "I've been thinking about your book," he said. "Is that something that you do?" + +I thought about it. "I think so," I said. + +We talked for a while. I told him about my work as a reporter, and he said he had been following Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate, closely. He turned the conversation to politics in general, and he said that he was surprised to hear that Sanders was running on some progressive policies, like universal health care, single payer health care, and free tuition +======================================== SAMPLE 277 ======================================== +A federal judge on Friday ordered the City of Dallas to pay $1,250,000 to a man who was arrested and detained without probable cause for a year after police mistook him for a suspected drug dealer. + +U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued the order in a lawsuit filed by Juan Romero in April 2012 on behalf of the estate of Romero's alleged killer, Ronald Black. Black had been killed in a drive-by shooting in the early-morning hours of Oct. 16, 2010. + +Black was driving to his mother's house when he was shot. Romero was driving to his friend's house when police stopped him and said they had a warrant for his arrest for failing to have a valid driver's license. + +Romero was not driving a car at the time and had no evidence that he was involved in any crimes, court records show. He was detained, and Black was found dead. + +The judge noted that the officers "had no probable cause to arrest Romero" and that the defense "argues that he was not the person who was driving the car, that it was not his car and that he was not carrying any narcotics." + +The lawsuit claimed that during the entire time Romero was detained, he was not allowed to call his lawyer or have a lawyer present. He was not allowed to speak to his family or anyone else, and he was restrained and not allowed to call his family or do any of the simple things that people do when they're detained. + +The order also noted that Romero was placed in a cell for the entire day without any food or water. He was allowed to take a shower, but after that, he was left in a cell for 20 hours without food or water. + +Romero's family was allowed to visit him once, and he was allowed to have a lawyer present, but he was denied any contact with his family, court records indicate. + +The lawsuit stated that when the officers realized they had mistaken Romero for a suspect, they "immediately released him, but not before he had been handcuffed and shackled and had been placed in a cell for approximately 20 hours." + +Romero's mother, Rosalba Romero-Orozco, told the Dallas Observer that she was proud of her son and hoped the city would pay out the $1,250,000 in damages. + +"I am proud and happy that he was able to get his day in court and that the city of Dallas is paying for the damages that he suffered," she told the newspaper. + +Romero has since been released from federal custody. + +Black's family also filed a lawsuit against the city in 2012. It is still pending. + +In a statement, Mayor Mike Rawlings said the city is reviewing the judge's order and that it "has taken compliance of the court order very seriously." + +"We have invested significant time and resources to ensure that we comply with the court orders and that we continue to do everything possible to ensure that these kinds of unfortunate incidents are avoided," he said. + +The city has also hired a new police chief and has hired an outside monitor. + +The city has hired former U.S. Attorney and current Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins as an outside monitor, according to the city's statement. + +The city has also hired former district attorney and current City Manager T.C. Broadnax as an outside monitor, according to the city's statement. + +The city's outside monitor was hired after it was ordered to pay $1.7 million to another man, who was falsely arrested and detained during a traffic stop in the early-morning hours of Dec. 22, 2011.<|endoftext|>Amanita muscaria, the mushroom that has earned it the nickname "the Lady of the Woods," to the chagrin of some people, is one of nature's most powerful plants. It has a reputation as an "invincible poison" and a "drug-lord." It is available in the United States, and Europe and Asia. + +The Amanita muscaria is a ground mushroom that can grow up to six inches tall. It grows on hardwood, conifers, and deciduous trees. It is bright green with white caps and stem. + +The mushroom's effects vary depending on the person who eats it. The most common effects are constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and a general feeling of sickness. + +The mushroom is also used medicinally. The alkaloid muscimol is used as an anticonvulsant and is the active ingredient in the "mescaline" derivative "Mescaline." The chemical is also used as a sedative and in the treatment of opium dependence. + +The mushroom is also used in cooking. It is a favorite ingredient in soups and stews. It can be sautéed, baked, or stewed. Amanita muscaria is often used in sausage and in other meat +======================================== SAMPLE 278 ======================================== +The United States of Canada is enjoying an unusual streak of good health. The country is no longer in a recession, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in more than a decade. It is also far less vulnerable than many of its peers to the financial shocks that helped sink the Eurozone. + +The U.S. economy is the world's largest, and its stock market is the second-largest in the world. Its balance of payments is so strong that it can borrow in the international markets and buy and sell commodities without the threat of default. Its financial system is so sound that it has never had to be rescued by the Federal Reserve. + +Story continues below advertisement + +The strong U.S. position is a product of its long history of prosperity. The country is a pioneer in energy exploration, and it has benefited from a long history of technological breakthroughs. Canada is also a world leader in science and innovation. There are more Nobel Laureates from the U.S. than Canada. Between them, these two countries have produced more Nobel laureates than any other country in the world. + +It is no coincidence that the U.S. has emerged as the world's economic leader. It is the world's largest economy, and the most powerful trading nation. + +The U.S. has delivered very similar results to Canada in the past. When the two countries were first joined together in 1867, it was the U.S. that held the lead on economic growth. Since then, however, Canada has been consistently close to the U.S. on growth, and recently surpassed it in 2015. + +That trend has been a boon for Canada. When the U.S. experienced a recession in the early 1990s, it was Canada that emerged as the world's growth leader. The U.S. has experienced four recessions since the 1970s, and Canada has been in each. + +Our recent success is also a product of our past. The U.S. has enjoyed good health for the past 50 years. If it were to experience a recession now, we would be among the most resilient countries in the world. That is no coincidence. + +Canada's recent success is a result of its history. + +The U.S. has managed to maintain its position as a world leader despite a decade of the Great Recession. It has done so despite a bloated fiscal deficit and the result of a catastrophic financial crisis. It has done so despite a severe decline in its international competitiveness. It has done so despite the fact that it is still the world's largest economy. + +Story continues below advertisement + +Story continues below advertisement + +The U.S. has done this despite the fact that it has a long history of economic turbulence. The U.S. came out of the 1930s economy on the brink of depression. It is no coincidence that the U.S. has been in a recession as long as it has been in a recovery. + +The U.S. economy has never experienced a period of sustained economic growth. The U.S. has always been the world's largest economy, but the country has done so at the expense of other countries. + +In a recent piece, David Rosenberg notes that the U.S. is currently the world's largest economy. He cites the World Bank's World Economic Outlook, which projects that the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3 per cent this year, 2.5 per cent in 2016 and 1.8 per cent in 2017. + +This is an excellent forecast. It is also an accurate description of the economic performance of the U.S. for the past several decades. + +But the U.S. economy has also never experienced a period of sustained economic growth. It has always been the world's largest economy, but the country has done so at the expense of other countries. + +The U.S. is the world's largest economy because its economy has been built on a foundation of secular stagnation. This is the same underlying problem that has plagued the U.S. economy for the past 50 years. The U.S. economy has been built on the foundation of secular stagnation, and only a period of structural reform can restore the U.S. to its former prosperity. + +Story continues below advertisement + +Structural reform is the only way to restore the U.S. to its former prosperity. The U.S. has not been reforming for the past 50 years. It is time to stop pretending that there is a problem with the U.S. economy. The U.S. is in a recession. But the U.S. is not in a depression.<|endoftext|>U.S. Supreme Court + +United States v. Brailsford, 440 U.S. 338 (1979) + +United States v. Brailsford + +No. 77-1472 + +Argued October 18, 1977 + +Decided March 21, 1978 * + +======================================== SAMPLE 279 ======================================== +The first game from the freshly-minted indie developer Tchami, a studio best known for the hit indie hit No Time to Explain, is now available on Steam for PC. It's called GotY and is available for free. + +The game is a 2D platformer set on a planet named Jupiter. It's a bit different than No Time to Explain, but it's a pretty fun platformer in its own right. + +GotY is available for free on Steam.<|endoftext|>The Norwegian government has renewed its commitment to spend 2.4 billion Norwegian kroner ($370 million) on a new generation of nuclear plants. + +The government announced a new approach to the nuclear sector last year after the country's largest energy utility, Statoil, came under fire for continuing to invest in nuclear technology despite public opposition to it. + +The new investment includes a proposed new plant and an extension of a reactor in Inukjoki. + +"The planned new plant will deliver more power per kilowatt hour of installed capacity than any other new nuclear plant currently in use, so it is important that we have the necessary investment," said Inger Støjberg, Norway's prime minister. + +Støjberg said the government would also spend an additional 1.25 billion kroner ($250 million) on the extension of a reactor in Inukjoki, which was due to be decommissioned in 2015. + +The Inukjoki plant is a member of the Vattenfall-built Fennovoima project, which is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2019. + +The announcement comes as the European Commission said it had sharply increased its estimate for the cost of upgrading the country's ageing electricity grids to meet the needs of the nuclear industry. + +The EU executive said it now expects the cost of upgrading the grid to increase from 400 million euros ($480 million) to 940 million euros ($1.17 billion). + +The rate of investment in nuclear power rose sharply after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, but fell sharply after the closure of the Kriegsberg nuclear plant in 2013, although the country is still widely seen as having a large nuclear industry.<|endoftext|>The n-word is back in the news, with the Belmont Stakes, a Triple Crown race, being held at Santa Anita Park on Sunday. + +The race, called the Triple Crown, is the culmination of three races that are run at a one-day race course. + +Four jockeys run in the Belmont Stakes, which is held at Santa Anita Park in California. + +The Belmont Stakes is the first Triple Crown race to be run at the Santa Anita Park, which opened in June. + +The Belmont Stakes is a Triple Crown race for a thoroughbred horse, with the winner coming from the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. + +The Belmont Stakes has been run since 1903. + +The Belmont Stakes will also feature three quarter-mile races on Sunday. + +A number of other horse races will also be held on the grounds on Sunday. + +The Kentucky Derby will be held on the same day as the Belmont Stakes, but the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes are not part of the same circuit. + +The Belmont Stakes is the first Triple Crown race to be held at the Santa Anita Park, which opened in June. + +The Belmont Stakes is a Triple Crown race for a thoroughbred horse, with the winner coming from the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. + +The Belmont Stakes features three quarter-mile races on Sunday. + +A number of other horse races will also be held on the grounds on Sunday. + +The Kentucky Derby will be held on the same day as the Belmont Stakes, but the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes are not part of the same circuit. + +The Belmont Stakes is a Triple Crown race for a thoroughbred horse, with the winner coming from the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. + +The Belmont Stakes features three quarter-mile races on Sunday. + +A number of other horse races will also be held on the grounds on Sunday. + +The Kentucky Derby will be held on the same day as the Belmont Stakes, but the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes are not part of the same circuit. + +The Belmont Stakes is a Triple Crown race for a thoroughbred horse, with the winner coming from the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. + +The Belmont Stakes features three quarter-mile races on Sunday. + +A number of other horse races will also be held on the grounds on Sunday. + +The Kentucky Derby will be held on the same day as the Belmont St +======================================== SAMPLE 280 ======================================== +The team is currently in the process of going through the DevKit and the firmware, and will be releasing the firmware on our website. + +The dev kit has been released, so we are now able to get started on the firmware. + +The firmware will have the following features: + +Cross platform compatibility on Android and iOS + +Full Bluetooth Low Energy support + +Stream mode + +Mobile hotspot mode + +Support for NFC + +Support for Auto Power Off + +Support for Night Shift + +Audio recording + +Improved Bluetooth connectivity + +Code changes to improve reliability + +The dev kit will be available for purchase on our website. + +The firmware will not be available for purchase, but will be available for download on our website. + +Here are a few screenshots of what the firmware will look like: + +Although we are releasing the firmware for the dev kit, we are not in a position to distribute the firmware for the dev kit on our website. We will be working through all the necessary steps to get the firmware distributed, but it may take us a while. + +We are making a few changes to the dev kit to address some of the issues that have been reported. + +The dev kit is currently shipping from China, and it is not possible to get the dev kit to Australia as it is not permitted by Customs. + +We are still working through the DevKit and the firmware. + +We are working to get the firmware to you as quickly as possible. + +Current Status: + +The firmware is in the dev kit, and is currently undergoing testing. + +We are working through the DevKit and the firmware. + +We are working on getting the firmware to you as quickly as possible. + +There is a chance that the firmware will be available for purchase in the future. + +Update: We will be releasing the firmware for the dev kit on our website.<|endoftext|>"Extreme" anti-vaccination families are a growing problem in the United States, with at least one in five children born to parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, according to a new study. + +Researchers from the University of California at Davis found that there are more than 15,000 "anti-vaxxers" in California, where there are currently no laws requiring parents to vaccinate their children. + +Lead researcher Dr. David Kirby said that it was "very, very difficult to find" cases of "anti-vaxxers" in the study, but he was confident that the number of cases is in the thousands. + +"It's going to be difficult to find real cases because most people don't vaccinate their children," Kirby told the Associated Press. "But we're not out there hunting for real cases. We're just looking for people who are not vaccinated." + +However, the study's authors say that the true number of anti-vaxxers in the United States is likely much higher. + +"We're able to find only a small proportion of cases," Kirby said. "We need a more comprehensive study to really figure out the real numbers." + +The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 1 in 5 U.S. children are not fully vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. + +Kirby said that the study comes at a time when there is a "growing concern" about the safety of vaccines. + +"There's a lot of evidence that there's no difference between vaccines that are given in the United States and those that are given in other countries," Kirby said. "We have to keep in mind what the evidence is and what the data show." + +Read more: + +"Anti-vaxxers" are a growing problem in the U.S. + +Vaccines are a 'public health miracle,' claim parents of 16-month-old who died from whooping cough + +Vaccine court: Vaccines saves lives, but sometimes they cause harm + +Babies who received vaccines at birth were more likely to die in the first year of life + +Vaccine court finds no link between MMR vaccine and autism + +Vaccine court report shows vaccines do not cause autism<|endoftext|>The New York Times says that on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve issued its second-round of quantitative easing (QE). The Fed says this is an "extraordinary measure" to provide liquidity to the financial system and boost the economy. + +One of the central features of QE is that it makes money available to the banks, which then lend it out. But investors are concerned that this money will end up in the hands of the wealthy instead of being used to help the economy grow. So they are demanding that the Fed reverse its policy to start distributing money to the banks in the form of low-interest loans. + +The Fed has come under criticism for not doing enough to help the economy. + +The Fed is now hoping to get the banks to start +======================================== SAMPLE 281 ======================================== +Fishing with the Netsharp + +Fishing with the Netsharp + +For those who have read the previous tutorial, you will know that the Netsharp is a small hand held, conical net similar to a fishing pole but much lighter. In the following tutorial, I will show you how to make a netsharp from a fishing pole and how to use it for fishing. + +As in the previous tutorial, you will need a fishing pole for this tutorial. You can also use a fishing rod but be aware that fishing rods have a lot of weight and the netsharp has a much smaller net. + +The netsharp is very light and is easy to carry while fishing. You can easily make one from an old net basket. + +To make a netsharp from a fishing pole simply remove the hook, as shown in this picture. + +To attach the hook, you need to mould some of the plastic on the inside of the sticks of the fishing net. + +To attach the net to the pole, you need to insert the pole into the net, as shown in this picture. + +You can then attach the net to the pole with glue. + +When you are done, you can use the netsharp to fish, as shown in this picture. + +You can also make a netsharp from a fishing pole, as shown in this picture. It is easier this way because you don't need to mould the plastic on the inside of the poles. + +You will also need a knife for this tutorial. You can use any knife, but you will need to use a sharp one. + +To make the netsharp, you need to remove the hook and the plastic. + +You can also make the netsharp with the stick of a fishing net. + +To attach the net to the pole, you need to insert the net into the pole as shown in this picture. + +You can then attach the net to the pole with glue. + +When you are done, you can use the netsharp to fish, as shown in this picture. + +To make your netsharp from a fishing pole, remove the hook and the plastic. + +The netsharp is easier to carry while fishing. + +You can also make your netsharp from a fishing pole, as shown in this picture. It is easier this way because you don't need to mould the plastic on the inside of the poles. + +You will also need a knife for this tutorial. You can use any knife, but you will need to use a sharp one. + +To make the netsharp, you need to remove the hook and the plastic. + +You can also make the netsharp with the stick of a fishing net. + +To attach the net to the pole, you need to insert the net into the pole as shown in this picture. + +You can then attach the net to the pole with glue. + +When you are done, you can use the netsharp to fish, as shown in this picture. + +To make your netsharp from a fishing pole, remove the hook and the plastic. + +The netsharp is easier to carry while fishing. + +You can also make your netsharp from a fishing pole, as shown in this picture. It is easier this way because you don't need to mould the plastic on the inside of the poles. + +You will also need a knife for this tutorial. You can use any knife, but you will need to use a sharp one. + +To make the netsharp, you need to remove the hook and the plastic. + +You can also make the netsharp with the stick of a fishing net. + +To attach the net to the pole, you need to insert the net into the pole as shown in this picture. + +You can then attach the net to the pole with glue. + +When you are done, you can use the netsharp to fish, as shown in this picture. + +To make your netsharp from a fishing pole, remove the hook and the plastic. + +The netsharp is easier to carry while fishing. + +You can also make your netsharp from a fishing pole, as shown in this picture. It is easier this way because you don't need to mould the plastic on the inside of the poles. + +You will also need a knife for this tutorial. You can use any knife, but you will need to use a sharp one. + +To make the netsharp, you need to remove the hook and the plastic. + +You can also make the netsharp with the stick of a fishing net. + +To attach the net to the pole, you need to insert the net into the pole as shown in this picture. + +You can then attach the net to the pole with glue. + +When you +======================================== SAMPLE 282 ======================================== +The English language is a tricky beast! It's a language that's difficult to learn, and even more difficult to teach. So I thought it would be helpful to give you a list of the common mistakes you may be making. Maybe you'll find it useful! + +An American English speaker would probably write this like this: + +10 common mistakes when learning English + +1. I don't know whether to use "the" or "a" when speaking. + +2. I can't say "the" because "the" sounds like "the." + +3. I can't say "a" because "a" sounds like "a." + +4. I can't say "the" because it sounds like a "th." + +5. I can't say "a" because it sounds like an "a." + +6. I can't say "the" because the "the" sounds like the "th" sound. + +7. I can't say "a" because the "a" sounds like the "th" sound. + +8. I can't say "the" because "the" sounds like an "a." + +9. I can't say "a" because I can't pronounce "a." + +10. I can't say "the" because it's an "e." + +So, that's a list! I hope you find it helpful! + +(Note: This post is based on my experience in college and now working in the US. Most of the mistakes do not apply to the United States. I'm sure there are a lot more!)<|endoftext|>In scenes that have shocked the world, a Russian jet has reportedly been shot down by the Turkish air force while flying over the war-torn Syrian border. + +The Russian SU-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16 warplane while on a mission to target Islamic State positions near the border, Turkish officials said. + +The Russian jet was flying over Syrian territory when it was shot down by a Turkish F-16 + +The pilot of the jet, Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, has been killed in the incident and the wreckage of the jet was just 50 metres away + +The Russian jet was flying over Syrian territory when it was shot down by a Turkish F-16. Captain Konstantin Murakhtin was killed in the incident, while the wreckage of the jet is just 50 metres away + +An Istanbul-based military source said the Russian plane was flying at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,000 metres) when it was shot down. + +He said the pilot had been killed and the wreckage of the jet was just 50 metres away. + +The Russian plane was flying in international airspace, according to a Turkish official. + +Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement that he was 'shocked' by the downing of a Russian plane and that Russia had no intention of violating Turkey's territorial integrity. + +The Russian military had earlier said it was investigating how the plane came down and whether it had been shot down by mistake. + +But a defence official told Radio Free Europe that Turkish F-16s fired on the plane because it was 'flying very close to Turkish airspace'. + +The Turkish military has said it is investigating whether the jet was shot down by mistake + +The Russian defence ministry has confirmed that the jet crashed near the border with Syria + +In a statement, Russia's defense ministry said: 'The pilot of the Russian aircraft SU-24M was killed instantly by a Turkish air strike on the territory of Syria. + +'The SU-24M jet crashed near the border with Syria. We have no information about the causes of the crash. + +'The Russian side is carrying out precise analyses of the data and will release it as soon as possible.' + +It added: 'The Russian side again expresses its deep condolences to the Russian country and its people for the tragic loss of life caused by this illegal act.' + +Turkish authorities said the plane had been flying at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,000 metres) when it was shot down, according to the Associated Press. + +The Turkish military said the jet had been flying at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,000 metres) when it was shot down + +Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement that he was 'shocked' by the downing of a Russian plane and that Russia had no intention of violating Turkey's territorial integrity + +The Russian military had earlier said it was investigating how the plane came down and whether it had been shot down by mistake. + +But a defence official told Radio Free Europe that Turkish F-16s fired on the plane because it was 'flying very close to Turkish airspace'. + +In a statement, Russia's defence ministry said: 'The pilot of the Russian aircraft SU-24M was killed instantly by a Turkish air strike on the territory of Syria +======================================== SAMPLE 283 ======================================== +Sleeping With the Enemy: The U.S. Military and Nazi Germany's Secret War in Europe + +By: Michael Hicks (ed.) + +Narrated by: Michael Hicks + +Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins + +Unabridged + +Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 25 25 + +Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 24 24 + +Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 23 23 + +The U.S. military and Nazi Germany's secret war in Europe in World War II was a cause of great anxiety and grave concern for U.S. leaders. The Nazi regime had already committed genocide against European Jews, and had witnessed the systematic destruction of European cities, including Warsaw, Breslau, and Dresden. It had also targeted civilians and military personnel in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. + +It was now, however, in the closing days of the war and just weeks before the United States entered the war, that Nazi Germany's secret war had become a full-blown invasion, with the Luftwaffe conducting bombing raids against U.S. cities. In a matter of weeks, the Nazi military had broken through American defenses in Europe, and, with the aid of the Luftwaffe, had moved on to the Rhineland, the Netherlands, and France. + +In this authoritative study, Michael Hicks places all this, and much more, in the context of the times in which it occurred: the immediate aftermath of the war, the American government's fear of a resurgent Germany in the 1950s, and the influence of Hitler's extremist ideology in American society.<|endoftext|>It's been quite the year for Adam West. + +Last year, he played the role of Batman in The Lego Movie and this year, he's the voice of Batman in the upcoming Batman: The Killing Joke. But as he prepares to return to his iconic role in the long-running series, he's also had time to work on comics. + +That's how he got involved with the upcoming Justice League event. + +"I was never a huge fan of the Justice League," West told The Hollywood Reporter. "I thought that Superman was too strong and Batman was too weak. In the Justice League, I thought it would be good to see Superman, Batman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman in a world where they can work together. I've been a huge fan of the Justice League since I was a kid and I've always been interested in what it would be like if the different heroes were in an environment where they could work together." + +So how did West first get on board with the project? + +"One night, I was at a party and I got a call from my agent," he recalls. "He said there was an idea for a Justice League story and that I should check it out." + +West says he had "no idea" what Justice League was about, but the story eventually made its way to him. + +"I said, 'What's this?' And he said, 'It involves Batman and Superman,' and I was like, 'Oh, okay.' I just kind of looked at him and said, 'What is this?' He said, 'It's a story about how these five characters have to band together to stop the supervillain in the DC Universe,'" says West. + +"I was like, 'Oh, okay. Cool' because I had no idea what it was." + +West says "it would have been cool to see the Justice League in a world where they could work together." Marvel + +The story is called "The Forever War," and is written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jim Lee. + +West has a deep history with DC Comics, which also explains why he was chosen to voice the character. + +"I was the voice of SUPERMAN for years and years and years," says the actor. "I've been a big fan of DC Comics since I was a little kid. I was a huge fan growing up. I was a huge fan of the '70s TV show, Smallville, and I also was a big fan of the cartoon Superman: The Animated Series and the comic books, the times when I read them. So I was able to relate to the characters and the vibe of the show." + +West says the Justice League event will be "a big, big thing" for the DC Universe. + +"It's going to be big, but it's also going to be fun. It's a little bit different than what you've seen in the past," he says. "I think it's going to be a really great event." + +Justice League hits theaters Nov. 17.<|endoftext|>Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, Oct. 6, 2015, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images) + +WASHINGTON — +======================================== SAMPLE 284 ======================================== +The head of the FBI in Boston told Congress on Tuesday that his agency had not yet found any "direct evidence of a connection" between the Boston Marathon bombings and overseas terrorist groups. + +Director Robert Mueller III made the remarks in response to a question from New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who said that she had heard from the FBI in recent days that they had found evidence that the Tsarnaev brothers were in contact with a foreign terrorism organization. + +"I would just say that so far we have not found any direct evidence of a connection," Mueller told the panel. + +Mueller's comments were further evidence of the difficulty U.S. intelligence officials have faced in trying to find any links between the two bombings, which killed three and injured more than 260 early Monday morning. The FBI has said it has no evidence of a direct connection between the brothers and a foreign terrorist group. + +The national security officer briefed lawmakers on Tuesday about the FBI's work in the aftermath of the attack, as lawmakers have been demanding to know more about their role in the investigation. + +Mueller told lawmakers that his agency had "not found any direct evidence of a connection" among the Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and their parents. + +"We know that they were in touch with a foreign terrorist organization," he said. + +The FBI has said it is still investigating whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, were in contact with any foreign terrorist groups or sympathizers before the attack. + +The Tsarnaev brothers were killed after a police chase and shootout in Watertown, Mass., on Monday. A Watertown resident has been charged with aiding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the attack. + +Mueller, a former FBI agent, also said that the FBI had not yet determined if the two bombers had any direct role in the attack, adding that investigators were looking at whether any of the brothers had any "links to foreign terrorist groups." + +"We are now looking at the possibility that they had some sort of direct role in the attack and that we have to look at all of their contacts," he said. + +The FBI has said that Tsarnaev, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen, was a follower of radical Islam and had been in the country for more than a decade. + +His older brother, Tamerlan, 26, was a boxer who had fought in three bouts against Russian opponents. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1992. + +Dzhokhar, a second-year student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and was being held in a federal hospital in Boston. + +Mueller said officials had not identified any suspects in the bombing and that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were "very much focused on what may have motivated the individuals who were involved." + +"This is one of the most difficult investigations that we have ever been involved in," he said. + +Ayotte asked about the FBI's use of pay phones in the Boston area during the investigation, which has raised concerns among privacy advocates. Mueller said that while the bureau used pay telephones, it had not used any to eavesdrop on the suspects. + +"I don't think that is appropriate," he said. + +Ayotte also asked about the FBI's efforts to find the bombers' relatives. + +Mueller said that his agency was still working to identify the Tsarnaev brothers' relatives. + +"We are going to have our fingers crossed that they can be found," he said. + +Ayotte asked Mueller whether the Tsarnaevs' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, had been interviewed by the FBI. + +"We have not been in contact with her," Mueller said, adding that it was possible that she was in Russia. + +Ayotte also asked Mueller about the FBI's use of a video camera to record the suspects at a gas station. + +"If it was a crime that was being committed, then we would want to find that person and interview them," he said. + +Mueller said he could not comment on whether the bureau had used the camera to record the suspects.<|endoftext|>The latest Democratic presidential debate featured a lively exchange on the issue of gun control, with frontrunner Hillary Clinton calling for the repeal of the nation's gun-free zones and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders saying that the United States could not be the "happiest, safest country in the world" if it outlawed guns. + +Sanders, speaking to CNN, said that the "number one priority" for his first 100 days in office would be to "go after" gun manufacturers. "It is absurd that we have more people getting killed and maimed in the United States by guns than any other country on earth," he said. + +Read More: Democratic Candidates Debate Gun Control on Last Night of Debate + +Sanders also said that he hoped the United States could be +======================================== SAMPLE 285 ======================================== +T-Mobile's Uncarrier move has been effective in a number of ways. First, the company no longer has to pay for the Big Three's network upgrades. Second, T-Mobile has started offering discounts to customers on the two other major carriers. And finally, the Uncarrier is starting to cut the monthly taxes the three major carriers are required to pay. + +The company recently announced the beginning of two-year agreements with the two other major carriers. Today, T-Mobile announced that it will no longer have to pay the full $5.9 billion in taxes on a monthly basis. The company will pay a flat rate of $0.75 per month on all mobile, broadband and video services. + +That $0.75 per month will be reduced by $0.25 per month on all services, including voice, text and data. That amounts to a reduction of $0.10 per month for mobile, $0.05 per month for broadband and $0.003 per month for video services. + +"When the three major national carriers gave up their monopoly control over wireless, it never occurred to them that they would end up paying billions in taxes every year," said Neville Ray, President and CEO of T-Mobile. "Take a look at what we've done with our Uncarrier efforts and we're betting you'll agree that we're actually in the fight of our lives." + +T-Mobile's national tax rebate program is now at $2.3 billion and it continues to grow. + +"If you know about our Uncarrier efforts, you know that we're in the fight of our lives," said Ray. "We're not going to stop until we've eliminated every single tax that the big three carriers have to pay." + +T-Mobile has also started to offer discounts to customers. The U.S. wireless industry has been struggling for over a year, and its debt load has reached an all-time high. T-Mobile is now the only major carrier offering unlimited, no contract data plans. You can read more about that here.<|endoftext|>This is a deluxe edition of the first volume of the Secret of the Nameless One. It contains all of the content in the first volume (including other bonus material), plus the following additional content: + +Additional Artwork: 15 new pieces of artwork for the Nameless One, made by the Secret of the Nameless One team, including the final chapter of the series. + +Additional Gameplay: Over 35 minutes of gameplay featuring the Nameless One, including a new mode of attack, a new weapon, and a new level. + +Original Soundtrack: The Secret of the Nameless One's soundtrack in MP3 format, complete with remastered music and sound effects. + +Poster: A 48-page full-color poster featuring art from the series and a downloadable wallpaper. + +To order the book, please visit the Secret of the Nameless One website: http://www.secretofthenamelessone.com/<|endoftext|>The nation's largest police union is demanding the release of video footage from the March shooting of an unarmed black teenager that resulted in his death. + +The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) told The Huffington Post that a lawsuit filed by the family of Michael Brown, 18, should be dismissed because the community has already seen the video. + +"We don't have an interest in going to court," FOP President Chuck Canterbury said. "We just don't want to waste any more taxpayer money." + +The suit names Officer Darren Wilson and the city of Ferguson, Missouri, as defendants. It alleges that Officer Wilson shot Brown in cold blood after the 18-year-old tried to grab Wilson's gun. + +The police union argues the killing was unjustified and that the video footage should be released to the public. + +"The family of Michael Brown is entitled to all relevant evidence and the public should be given the opportunity to review the video to determine whether a murder charge is warranted," the suit states. "The public has the right to view the video of the shooting and to judge for itself whether there is sufficient evidence to charge Officer Wilson with a crime." + +Wilson and the Ferguson Police Department have not responded to requests for comment. + +The shooting sparked a huge public outcry that, according to the New York Times, forced the FBI to open a civil rights investigation into the police department. Wilson's attorney argued that the shooting was justified and that Brown attacked the officer in a fight. + +Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson.<|endoftext|>TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwanese lawmakers have held a session to discuss the issue of the disputed Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands), but the session is still unfinished. + +In a statement released late Friday, the Legislative Yuan committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade said the session was scheduled to be held at +======================================== SAMPLE 286 ======================================== +You must sign in or register to continue reading content. + +A 10-year-old girl was killed when an older model diesel pickup truck she was riding in struck her in the head while she was crossing a road in the south Seattle neighborhood of Ballard, police said. + +Police said the girl was riding in a crosswalk near 25th Avenue South and South Jackson Street when the car drove into the intersection. + +The driver, a 61-year-old man, stopped his pickup truck and walked away. The girl was pronounced dead at the scene. + +Police are still investigating the crash, but no charges have been filed. + +The girl's name has not been released.<|endoftext|>Brisbane Roar's Matildas players have defended the behaviour of their male counterparts in the wake of the latest incident involving Sydney FC's "toxic" football culture. + +The Sydney FC players were charged with assault in the wake of a match in the National Soccer League and the club's CEO said they were "totally unacceptable". + +Matildas players have hit out at "toxic" football culture. Photo: Getty Images + +But the Matildas say players have been taught to respect women and believe the actions of two members of Sydney FC's squad last week were in no way representative of the club. + +The two players were charged on Tuesday over an incident in which they allegedly assaulted a female member of the local women's soccer team after an altercation in a nightclub. + +A Sydney FC spokesman told Fairfax Media the club did not condone the behavior of its players and held them to a higher standard than the rest of the community.<|endoftext|>Critical Hits in World of Warcraft + +Critical damage is a type of damage that occurs in many games and is sometimes referred to as "explosive damage". Statistically, critical hits are more effective than normal (non-critical) hits. + +Contents show] + +Damage Table Edit + +For the damage table of different damage types, see the table of damage types. + +For the critical hit formula, see the table of critical hits. + +Critically Hit Edit + +Critically hitting an enemy or creature will trigger a critical hit, in which the damage is increased by the bonus of the target's critical strength stat. + +Critical hits will only occur with attacks which have a chance to cause the target to be stunned. + +Critical strength, such as those of Death Knight's Frost damage, does not apply to the critical hit chance of spell damage. + +Frost Edit + +Critically hitting an enemy or creature will trigger a critical hit, in which the damage is increased by the bonus of the target's critical weakness stat. + +Critical hits will only occur with spells with a chance to cause the target to be stunned. + +Critical weakness, such as those of a Druid's Alteration damage, does not apply to the critical hit chance of spell damage. + +Crippling Edit + +Certain skills can apply a bleed effect that can cause the enemy to suffer from crippling. Crippling is indicated by a red tick or a red skull icon. + +Crippling can also be inflicted by spells that inflict damage over time, such as Mage's Fireball, which deals fire damage over its duration. Crippling can also be inflicted by certain poisons, such as Rat Poison. + +Drain Edit + +Certain skills can apply a drain effect that can cause the enemy to suffer from draining. Drain is indicated by a pink tick or a pink skull icon. + +Drain can also be inflicted by spells that deal damage over time, such as Mage's Frost Nova, which deals cold damage over its duration. Drain can also be inflicted by certain poisons, such as Cursed Oil. + +Disorient Edit + +Certain skills can cause the enemy to suffer from disorient. Disorient is indicated by a purple tick or a purple skull icon. Disorienting the enemy cause a debuff that reduces their attack speed. + +Drain is indicated by a pink tick or a pink skull icon. In addition, Disorienting the enemy can also apply a debuff that reduces their mana and healing. + +Lethal Edit + +Certain skills can cause the enemy to suffer from lethal. Lethal is indicated by a red tick or a red skull icon. Lethal can also be inflicted by spells that deal damage over time, such as Mage's Fireball, which deals fire damage over its duration. Lethal can also be inflicted by certain poisons, such as the Poisoned Spirit. + +Lethal stacks with the effects of other killing skills, such as Hunter's Mark. + +Skew Edit + +Certain skills can cause the enemy to suffer from skew. Skew is indicated by a whack-whack sound effect. + +Skew can also be inflicted by spells that deal damage over time, such as Mage's Frost Nova, which deals cold damage over its duration. Skew can also be inflicted +======================================== SAMPLE 287 ======================================== +Fulham boss Martin Jol revealed that his squad have only played one friendly match this summer - but insisted that the Whites still have a lot of work to do before they are ready to compete in Europe. + +The Whites arrived in Spain on Monday and took in a training session at the legendary El Madrigal stadium, where they played in the European Cup Winners Cup against Real Madrid in July 2007. + +Jol revealed that they have had a run of just one match in the last three months, but he is confident that the players will be ready to step up and compete for European honours. + +"I think we have had one game," Jol told the Fulham Player. "We played Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey and I think that's about it. + +"I think that after 14 months, we have only played one game, for the first time in the summer, but we have been in Spain a couple of times and we know the place. + +"I think we have a good squad and a good start to the season. But of course, we need to work really hard in training and in the games. + +"You can't expect to be ready for the Champions League right away, but we have to start the season as well as we can. We have to focus in this moment and then we have to follow it up." + +Jol also revealed that he has not yet decided whether to keep the likes of Kevin McDonald and Joey Barton as part of his squad for the new season. + +"I think we have to wait and see," he added. "I say that because Joey is a good friend of mine and I want to see him play. But I don't want to say that he has to play. + +"If he can play and he is a good player, I want him to play. I don't know how long he will be out for. But I think he has to play."<|endoftext|>On Dec. 20, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency issued a public statement: "ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers have arrested 362 criminal aliens in fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017) and removed 61 criminal aliens." + +The statement is true but misleading. It implies that ICE officers arrested 61 criminal aliens, removed 61 criminal aliens, and removed 198 criminal aliens during the entirety of FY 2017. + +In reality, ICE officers arrested only 40 criminal aliens, removed only one criminal alien, and removed one criminal alien. + +According to ICE, the 40 criminal aliens arrested in FY 2017 are: + +An alien convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (two counts), who was convicted of multiple counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and who was sentenced to a period of probation and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of human smuggling, who was convicted of human smuggling and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of sexual abuse of a child, who was convicted of sexual abuse of a child and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of sexual abuse of a child, who was convicted of sexual abuse of a child and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, who was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of civil contempt, who was convicted of civil contempt and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated assault, who was convicted of aggravated assault and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated assault, who was convicted of aggravated assault and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated assault, who was convicted of aggravated assault and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated sexual assault, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated sexual assault, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and who was sentenced to a period of supervised release and a term of supervised release. + +An alien convicted of aggravated sexual assault, who was convicted +======================================== SAMPLE 288 ======================================== +Use the following code to embed this video. See our usage guide for more details on embedding. + +Paste this in your document somewhere (closest to the closing body tag is preferable): + + + +Paste this inside your HTML body, where you want to include the widget: + +
<|endoftext|>Easily share your photos and videos with others. + +One of the most common questions I receive is "how do I share my photos and videos online?". When I first started blogging, I received many of these questions. I started to realize that anyone who's ever posted a photo online, or any video online, knows exactly how important it is to share it with the world. + +What's even better, the FB2 plugin allows you to share directly from your blog, website, or even your mobile app. + +I've been using FB2 to share photos and videos on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram since I first started blogging more than 4 years ago. + +What is FB2? + +FB2 is a plugin for WordPress which allows you to share your photos and videos directly from your website or WordPress blog. + +FB2 is really easy to use, and it allows you to directly share your photos and videos with a number of different social networks. It is extremely easy to set up and use, and it is fully compatible with all WordPress features. + +FB2 is available for free, or you can install it for $2.99. + +FB2 has a unique feature called "Shared Trivia" where you can share trivia with your followers, and they can vote on which questions they like best. + +It is easy to use, and it's free. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on Facebook + +FB2 allows you to share your photos and videos through Facebook. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on Facebook. + +Go to the Facebook page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Share" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on Twitter + +FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Twitter. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on Twitter. + +Go to the Twitter page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Tweet" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on YouTube + +FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through YouTube. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on YouTube. + +Go to the YouTube page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Share" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on Google+ + +FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Google+ using the "Share" button. + +Google+ has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. + +You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo. + +FB2 allows you to share photos on Google+ using the "Share" button. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on Flickr + +FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Flickr using the "Share" button. + +FB2 has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. + +You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo. + +FB2 allows you to share photos on Flickr using the "Share" button. + +How to Share Photos and Videos on Vimeo + +FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Vimeo using the "Share" button. + +FB2 has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. + +You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo +======================================== SAMPLE 289 ======================================== +2.5.3 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.5.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.5.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.5.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.4.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.4.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.3.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.3.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.3.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.2.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.2.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.2.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.1.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.1.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.1.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.0.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +2.0.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +1.8.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs + +1.8.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs +======================================== SAMPLE 290 ======================================== +Concrete is a material used to create bricks, concrete blocks, and other building materials. It is a type of masonry. Concrete is porous and contains large amounts of cement and aggregate. It is regarded as one of the most durable building materials.<|endoftext|>The Story + +The origin of the New God, Mantis, is told by his loyal servant. He claims that the New God was created by an alien race, but the aliens did not want their work to be seen by their human masters. This led the New God's creator to give the New God a mind-controlled slave (the New God). The slave would only be allowed to speak when ordered to do so, and would not be allowed to think for himself. The slave would be given a small portion of the New God's power, so that the New God would be able to create more slaves. The New God's creator also created a sentient robot to serve as the slave's mind-controller. This robot was programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey it. The slave was told that it was to be used as a weapon, and that it would be destroyed if it disobeyed. + +The slave had a personality, but it was not the personality of the New God. The slave was programmed to obey its mind-controller, and to believe that it was a New God. The slave was to be created using the New God's original power source, so that it would have the same personality as the New God. The slave was also to survive prison by a New God, and to be able to speak the call of the New God when the New God needed to be called. The slave's existence was to be monitored by the New God, so that it would not seek revenge on the New God if it was destroyed. + +The Master Builder + +The New God came to Earth, each seeking to create more slaves. One of the first New God's to arrive, Mantis, was bound to a human for a long period of time. The New God's creator thought that this was a bad idea, and created a New God to be able to control the slave. This New God, Domino, was a master builder, and was able to capture Mantis and use him as a tool. Domino began to create a new race of New Gods. They were to be loyal servants of the New God, and would obey orders, but would not be able to think for themselves. + +The New Gods' First Commandment + +The New Gods began to be created, and for the first time, they were given a commandment. They were to follow the New God, the New God's original creator, and not the New God's mind-controller. They were to be loyal servants, and to remember the special bond they had with the New God. Domino created a special weapon to use against the New Gods. The New Gods were told this weapon would be destroyed if they disobeyed. The New Gods were also told that if they were destroyed, they would not be able to return to their home galaxy, and would be killed over and over. + +The New Gods' Descent + +On a random planet in the galaxy, the New Gods were created. They were not told their true origin. They were told that they were to be loyal servants to the New God, and to obey their orders. They were to be created using the New God's original power source. They were to be modified to be slaves, and to obey their masters. The New Gods were told that they were to be destroyed if they disobeyed. They were also told that if they were destroyed, they would not be able to return to their home galaxy, and would be killed over and over. + +The New Gods' Ritual + +The New Gods' sadistic creator created a ritual to get the New Gods to obey the New God. He created a New God, who was to be loyal to the New God, and to obey its commands. The New God was to be created using the New God's original power source. The New God was to be created using the New God's original ability to create more New Gods. The New God was to be programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey orders. The New God's creator created a sentient robot to serve as the New God's mind-controller. The robot was programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey orders. The New God was to be programmed to remember that it had a human mind, and to obey commands. The New God was to be programmed to believe that it was the New God's original creator. The New Gods were to be programmed to obey the New God's original creator. The New Gods were to be programmed to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. +======================================== SAMPLE 291 ======================================== +IMPORTANT: This post is a guide to an event I'm hosting in August 2015. The event is a couple of days long and it is no longer taking signups. + +I've written a couple of posts on my experiences at the London D&D Adventurers League this year and more recently I've been playing in a group of one to two players. I've had a great time and I've met some great people. I've also had a lot of people playing for the first time. + +I'm helping organise a massive event for the D&D Adventurers League on Sunday July 24th starting at 10am. It's going to be a 5 hour event that will take place at the prestigious Guildford Hotel. There will be multiple sessions, some with prize support. + +The two sessions are: + +Starting at 10am: Miniature Games + +10am – 12.00pm: Legendary Encounters + +12 – 1.30pm: Legendary Encounters 2 + +1.30pm – 3.30pm: Legendary Encounters 3 + +3.30pm – 4.30pm: Legendary Encounters 4 + +4.30pm – 5.30pm: Legendary Encounters 5 + +After the 5 hour event we will have a few hours of downtime. I'll post the D&D Adventurers League Facebook Page once the event is over. + +As you can see there are plenty of things to do at the hotel. There are a few themed rooms to choose from. I'll be staying at the Hotel D'Aubervilliers, which is a great hotel in the heart of London's film and music industry. + +I'll be posting more information about the hotel when I get it. + +Some rules to help you plan your adventure: + +If you don't get into a session before 9am you still have time to play during the event. + +If you're playing solo, you'll need to choose a character to play as during the session and you won't be able to switch characters after the event. + +You can set up your character once the event starts. + +You don't need a character, but you will need a character sheet. + +You can change your character sheet mid-session, even if you're still in a session. + +You can change your character sheet at any time. + +You can choose to play as any class, but you must choose a class before the event starts. + +You can play as any race. + +You can play as any gender. + +If you want to play as a female character you can, but you'll need to switch to a female character sheet. + +The characters I'm playing are: + +Parson + +Finn + +Gwendolyn + +Kai + +Tracey + +Robin + +I'll be using the D&D Adventurers League rules for this event. You can read the rules here: http://www.dndadventurersleague.net/Rules/ + +I'll try to update this post as soon as I can find out more information on the hotel. + +Once again, I'm looking to have some fun and I hope to see some of you there.<|endoftext|>PATTERN DETAILS + +Here's a quick and easy tutorial to show you how to make this cute pattern! It starts with a square, and I used a beginning chain of 10 stitches. Then I worked the pattern using single crochet stitches (sc), double crochet stitches (dc), half double crochet stitches (hdc), and the magic ring method (rnd). This crochet pattern is made of 6 parts: 1 Rnd, 1 Rnd, 2 Rnds, 3 Rnds, and 4 Rnds. + +CROCHET PATTERN TIPS + +You can vary the size of the square you make by adding or subtracting stitches. + +FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE A SQUARE + +When you start the first Rnd, stop for a couple of stitches. Then, simply work the pattern to make a square. + +To make a square, you need to work every stitch. If you wanted to make a larger square, you'd work every stitch. + +To work a row, count the number of stitches in the square. You can add or subtract stitches to make a bigger or smaller square. + +When you reach the end of the last Rnd, you'll have worked a total of 24 stitches. The next Rnd will start the next row. + +When you reach the end of the row, you'll have worked a total of 36 stitches. The next row will work the next 4 rows and so on. + +CROCHET DOUBLE CROCHET PATTERN TIPS + +To make 2 double crochet stitches, you need to work 1 stitch into the space between 2 single crochet stitches. + +Use +======================================== SAMPLE 292 ======================================== +The biggest question the U.S. Senate will have to answer in December is whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. + +Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid has said that he wants to vote before the end of the year on the project, which would transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta's oil sands to refineries in Texas. + +But the project is currently facing potential opposition from environmental groups and members of Congress from both parties. + +And right now, it's not clear that the House has the votes to approve it. + +"The House is not going to pass Keystone," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. "We need to get the president to sign it." + +That's because the pipeline would cross the border from Canada into Nebraska, and then across the border into the U.S. from the Gulf Coast. + +The House passed the Keystone bill in July, but the Senate hasn't yet taken up the bill. + +The pipeline's backers may need to hold the House hostage, Inhofe said. + +"My position is, if they want to pass it, I'm for it. But I will never support it unless it's for the right reason," Inhofe said. "I will not support it for the right reason if it's to satisfy the special interests." + +Senate Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee are discussing whether to take up the bill later this week, according to a Democratic aide. + +It's unclear how much House Democrats believe they need to approve the pipeline to win their support for it. + +"I think the House is going to vote on it," said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. + +But Larson said he believes the House would need to see more details about the project before it would give their support. + +"I think it's something that the House needs to look at," Larson said. "I think there's a lot of things that need to be looked at before we can vote on it." + +Environmental groups oppose the pipeline because it would encourage more carbon pollution and worsen climate change, according to a letter they sent to the House. + +"It is in the national interest to act and approve the Keystone pipeline without delay," the letter said. + +President Obama has yet to sign off on the pipeline, but the State Department is set to announce its findings on the project on Thursday.<|endoftext|>By Bob Dylan + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +And I was born in a small town in Alabama + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +"I was born in a small town in Alabama + +That was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man" + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face in the morning + +And I was lonely as a bird + +And I was lonely as a man + +I was born in a small town in Alabama + +Where it was tough to rest your head at night + +And it was hard to see your face +======================================== SAMPLE 293 ======================================== +The following is a guest post by a dear friend of Kati's, who has taken this issue on as a personal quest. Her name is Kati Donath and if you love her story, you should be following her on Facebook. + +Kati Donath's story is one of many, but it is the story of a young woman from a small town in New South Wales, Australia. + +She did not know how to read or write English, but she had a passion for animals and started a rescue group for abandoned pets. Kati's passion for animals was what led her to rescue cats from the streets of Sydney. + +Kati's rescue effort grew and grew. She was the ambassador for a number of rescue groups and eventually found a home for her cats. These cats became her closest friends, and they grew up together. + +It was in the beginning of her life with these cats that Kati met her husband and his family. He loved these cats too, and would call them his kids. They would spend hours together playing or cuddling, and their bond was so strong that he went to the hospital to see the first time Kati was pregnant. + +The pregnancy was a success, but Kati's cats would not leave her side. She was terrified and she did not know what to do. She did not know if she would be able to carry her cats, and she did not know if she would be able to care for them. + +Kati's husband was heartbroken over losing his daughter, and they decided to get the cats out of her home. They drove to a shelter and picked up the cats. They brought the cats to a local veterinarian, and the veterinarian recommended that the cats be put down. The veterinarian wanted the cats, but Kati did not want to lose her cats. + +The veterinarian said that the cats had to be put down, and they would have to be put down within the next day or two. Kati was upset, but she knew that they had to do what was best for the cats. + +Kati's husband drove to the veterinary clinic, and he was told that the cats would be put down, but that they would be put down in a humane way. + +Kati's husband was very upset. He wanted to show the clinic that he did not want this to happen. He wanted to show the clinic that his wife was a strong woman, and that he was not going to allow this to happen. + +Kati's husband went back to the clinic with her. Kati's husband was very emotional. He said that he did not want to see the cats killed, and that he did not want her to be a burden to the clinic. Kati's husband said that he wanted to pay for the vet bills of the cats, but the clinic said they did not have the money. The clinic had no choice but to put the cats down. + +Kati's husband went home to be with his own children. + +Kati was devastated. She could not believe that her cats had been killed, and that she had to bury them. She lost her faith, and she began to feel hopeless. + +Kati's husband, who had never been a caregiver, was not able to take care of the cats. Kati was close to tears, and asked him to take her to the vet. He said that he could not do that, and that they could not afford the vet bills. It was at this point that Kati's husband started to take his own life. + +Kati went to the veterinarian for help, and she told the veterinarian that her husband had killed himself. The veterinarian did not believe her, and asked her to go to another vet. She told the veterinarian that she could not go to another vet, and that she would go to the police and the shelter if she did not get her cats back. + +The shelter and police were very sympathetic to Kati, and they said that they would help her find her cats if she could prove that her husband had murdered her cats. Kati told the shelter that the police and the shelter would give her a number if she could provide proof that she had been threatened. She gave them the number of a woman that she knew, that had been threatened by her husband. + +Kati's husband had threatened to kill her and her family, and Kati had to prove to the shelter that her husband was the one who had killed her cats by going to the police. Kati had to go to the police, and she did. She went to the police and the shelter, and she told them how her husband had threatened to kill her and her family. She told the police that her husband had threatened her and her family, and that he had threatened to kill her and her family. + +Kati gave the police the number of the woman that she knew, that had been threatened by her husband. Kati told the police that she +======================================== SAMPLE 294 ======================================== +Note: This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. This home has great size windows, stainless steel appliances and is on a large lot. + +The home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! + +This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! + +This home is also currently on the market for $46,000. + +This is a great opportunity to own a home in a beautiful neighborhood that has a large backyard and nice size windows. This home is located about 20 minutes from the lake with an open floor plan and a large living room. The kitchen has ample room for a family. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home also has a large lot in back. + +This home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! + +This home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. + +This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. + +This property is not currently for sale or for rent. +======================================== SAMPLE 295 ======================================== +The most obvious reason to upgrade your RAM is to increase the amount of data you can store on your PC. But the benefits go far beyond that. Here are 10 reasons to replace your old, clunky, and slow RAM with a new, faster, and more reliable model. + +RELATED: How to Upgrade Your RAM on Your PC + +1. It's often more reliable + +Your old computer's RAM is likely to be of lower quality than that of the new one, so it's going to run less reliably. That's because older RAM isn't designed to handle the heavy loads of modern operating systems, software, and programs. It may also be an older design, and it may not have a good amount of internal components to protect against internal failures. + +RELATED: How to Upgrade Your RAM on Your PC + +The good news is that if you're running Windows 10, you can use one of the new RAM sticks that Microsoft released this past summer. These new sticks are more reliable, and their more advanced components mean they can handle up to 64 GB of RAM — enough to hold a lot of your favorite apps and games. + +2. It's cheaper + +You can save money by buying a new, faster RAM stick. You'll be paying less for the same amount of RAM. That saves you money and gives you more money to spend on other things on your computer. + +3. It's more reliable + +If your RAM gets clogged, it's quite easy to fix. But if you're replacing your RAM with a newer, more reliable model, you can avoid the hassle of trying to clean up the mess and start over. + +4. It's more reliable + +If your computer crashes, it's hard to track down the cause. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. + +5. It's faster + +RAM is fast enough to operate most modern operating systems. But if you're running old, slow RAM, it can cause slower computer performance. So upgrading your RAM is going to help you run your computer faster. + +6. It's more reliable + +Just like your computer, your RAM is going to have some hardware failures. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, the likelihood of your computer crashing is going to be lower. + +7. It's more reliable + +If your computer crashes, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. + +8. It's more reliable + +If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. + +9. It's more reliable + +If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. + +10. It's more reliable + +If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly.<|endoftext|>In a recent study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University found that mice were more likely to be attracted to attractive humans than to attractive animals. + +The researchers say that the finding could help scientists understand human attraction by examining how we relate to other people. + +"The ability to perceive and respond to cues in others has been linked to other complex traits including empathy, altruism and reciprocity," said co-author and UC Berkeley professor of psychology and co-director of the Human Behavior and Evolution Lab Michael Inzlicht. "Understanding how people feel about individuals and their social environment is crucial to broaden our understanding of human evolution and social behavior." + +Inzlicht said, "People are often drawn to those who make them feel good, and those who make them feel good are more likely to be attractive to them." + +The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that attractive females were more likely to be approached by male mice than attractive males. + +"We found that attractive females were more likely to be approached by male mice than attractive males," said co-author and Carnegie Mellon University professor of psychology and co-director of the Human Behavior and Evolution Lab Michael Inzlicht. "This suggests that attractive females perceive their own attractiveness as being desirable, and thus are more willing to approach males who are perceived as being more attractive than themselves." + +Inzlicht said that the +======================================== SAMPLE 296 ======================================== +The following script is from "When the God of Love Says No: A Story of Love and Loss" which aired on April 6, 2013. Bill Whitaker is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On and Joshua Malina, producers. + +We're all familiar with the story of the young man who told his parents he had a plan, and then never showed up for his first day of college. We know that sometimes, the "gift of gab" is more than just a joke. + +The story of the perfect son and the godless father is not at all uncommon. Young people, especially those who grew up in religious homes, are encouraged to be the perfect son, and to never address the father. + +But for some, the story might be more complicated than that. + +This week, we spoke to a group of young people at the Jewish Center for Intercultural Engagement about their experience being raised by non-religious parents. + +That's something that a lot of people try to avoid. + +For many Jewish parents, the idea of raising a child without religion is simply unthinkable. + +There's a tough question that comes up all the time: How do you raise someone without the religious stuff? + +A lot of people say, "Well, you just try to be the best you can be and be the best parent you can be." + +But there's a lot of pressure on people to be perfect and never say something that might be seen as offensive or hurtful. + +For some of these kids, it was not easy. + +Aisha, for example, was raised in a conservative, evangelical Christian home. She was raised by her mother, who was a Christian and who was also a devout evangelical. She was raised to be a good Christian and a good Jew. + +Aisha, her mother and her parents deny that Aisha's parents ever tried to convert her. They say that their own lives were very different. + +The family's life was not the same as it would have been if Aisha had been raised by a well-meaning, liberal Jewish family. + +"When she was 5 years old, she would go to the synagogue with us and she would sit in our synagogue and read from the Torah every day and then she would go home and read from the Torah every night," her mother said. "That was her life. That was her education." + +Aisha admits that there were some struggles in her childhood. + +"Sometimes I was a little bit angry with my mom," Aisha said. "I was getting angry with her for not doing certain things and therefore I would be angry with her. Sometimes I would get mad at her for not being like me. And I would say, 'I'm not like you.'" + +The only time Aisha wanted to talk to her mother about religion was about a year and a half before she turned 16. + +"And I said, 'Mom, I have a question. I want to know how you feel about this. How you feel about me being religious and having a Jewish faith," Aisha said. "And she said, 'Well, we're a Christian family.'" + +Aisha says that her mother's reaction shocked her. + +"And it was a big shock to me because that's not what I believed," she said. "That's not what I believed at all." + +Aisha believes that her mother's response was an indication of just how much she wanted to be accepted by her family. + +"It was like, 'Well, we're a Christian family, and that's how we were raised,'" Aisha said. "And that made me realize that, well, this is how I was raised." + +Aisha's parents say that they never tried to convert her. + +"We don't believe in that kind of thing," Aisha's father said. "We're not that kind of people." + +But they still tried to make Aisha feel comfortable in her own skin. + +At a Christian camp, Aisha and her father watched a movie about a boy who comes to a Christian camp and he meets this girl, who is a lot like her. + +Aisha says that she believed that the girl was very pretty, and that the girl had a boyfriend. + +"And I thought, 'Wow, if I wanted to marry this girl, I would have to marry her to me," Aisha said. "And I would be wrong in doing so. I would be wrong to say that I could do that." + +Aisha's father says that he was surprised by her reaction. + +"I was very surprised. I was just really surprised that she would say 'I would marry you to me,'" he said. + +But Aisha's parents say that they never really tried to convince her that there was something wrong with being Jewish. + +"We never ever said +======================================== SAMPLE 297 ======================================== +We've got the latest on the "new" NFL, the Washington Redskins, and the new rules and regulations in the league. + +The NFL is back in action on Sunday, but those who are waiting for the new rules to be announced on Thursday will have to wait. + +We've got the latest on the "new" NFL, the Washington Redskins, and the new rules and regulations in the league. + +2:01 p.m. + +The Washington Redskins' initial reaction to the new, more stringent NFL rule book is "good." + +The Redskins are among the three teams that will use the new, more stringent NFL rule book, which will be announced Thursday. The league will allow tacklers to tackle from behind, but the Redskins won't be able to give a player a knee or hip lift. + +The Redskins' new rules will not be final for several weeks, but the team is excited about the new guidelines. + +2:01 p.m. + +The NFL is expected to announce Thursday the "new" NFL rule book, which will be used for the first time this season. + +The league announced its intention to make changes to the rules for the first time in 2017 on Tuesday. The NFL will use a version of the new rules that was developed by several committees. + +The NFL will announce Thursday the "new" NFL rule book, which will be used for the first time this season. + +The league will allow tacklers to tackle from behind, but the Redskins won't be able to give a player a knee or hip lift. + +The Redskins' new rules will not be final for several weeks, but the team is excited about the new guidelines. + +The Redskins will be allowed to film on a practice field during a game, but only during the final minutes of a half. + +The NFL will allow a running back or quarterback to use a back brace to alleviate the back pain he may have after a hit. + +The NFL will allow players to have a neck brace to alleviate the neck pain they may have after a hit. + +The NFL will allow a player to take a hit to the head on a punt. + +The NFL will allow players to use the back of their shirt to protect themselves from the sun. + +The NFL will allow a player to use the back of his shirt to protect himself from the sun. + +The NFL will allow a player to use the back of his shirt to protect himself from the sun. + +The NFL will allow a team to move the ball from the 15-yard line to the center of the field several yards. + +The NFL will allow a team to move the ball from the 15-yard line to the center of the field several yards. + +The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. + +The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. + +The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. + +The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. + +The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback.<|endoftext|>"I was told by a few people that I shouldn't have said anything, that I should have left it alone," Ms. Pham said. "But I felt like I was going to be silenced for the rest of my life." + +Ms. Pham, who is now out of the country, said she was not surprised that her story had become a media sensation. She said she had been speaking out about her diagnosis for years, and that it had always been difficult to obtain the medical care she needed. + +"I've known for a long time that I have a mental illness," she said. "It's something I've struggled with for so long." + +The fight over the Affordable Care Act's coverage provisions has made physicians and their patients alike fear that the new law could force them to violate their own principles, including their solemn promises to treat patients with dignity. + +"After the election, it was easy to forget what happened before," said Dr. Richard A. Greene, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a former dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "People are very scared of being called racists, or even bigots." + +Dr. Greene said many who were insured were already struggling to keep their coverage, and "they're certainly not going to be able to afford to go out and buy insurance." + +Dr. Greene noted that there were other ways for people with mental illness to get medical attention than through the health care system. "I know I'm not the only one," +======================================== SAMPLE 298 ======================================== +The Yes Men. Image via + +Originally published in VICE UK + +If you're a feminist, you probably have a very visceral reaction to the word "mansplaining." It's a term used to describe a male colleague who condescends to a female colleague by discussing something with them that they obviously do not understand. The term originated from a 2014 Reddit thread, where a user called "TrollsGoHome" posted a screenshot of a text conversation he had with an acquaintance who claimed to be a feminist. He'd asked her what she thought of the word "mansplaining," and she laconically told him, "I think it's a compliment." + +The conversation was as innocuous as it was infuriating. TrollsGoHome wasn't really interested in talking about male privilege, and he certainly wasn't interested in discussing feminism. He was more interested in getting a reaction from her, and that reaction was, predictably, to accuse her of being a misandrist. At the time, I was still a feminist, so I was intrigued. I wanted to see what the word "mansplaining" meant, and if it was really that bad. + + +The "mansplaining" debate. Image via Reddit. + +I was surprised by how quickly the meme took off. I'm not sure I fully understand why. It is, after all, the internet. I mean, I get that you can get a reaction from a woman by calling her a misandrist for asking a man what the word "mansplaining" means, and I get that they might be offended by that. But I was surprised, too, by how many men were getting into the fray. + +The fact that a man was getting so much backlash for using the word "mansplaining" was kind of depressing. It was almost as if I was living in some alternate reality where the word "feminism" wasn't hated. + +I have a hard time understanding how "mansplaining" became a feminist issue. I have a hard time understanding how "mansplaining" became a feminist issue. + +There's something to be said for the fact that a woman is, in fact, misandrist if she tries to educate a man about something. How can that not be a form of misogynistic harassment? + +There is, however, something to be said for the fact that a man is, in fact, misandrist if he tries to educate a woman about something. How can that not be a form of misogynistic harassment? + +When I was in college, I was the only woman in my Geography class. My male classmates were mostly interested in the world and politics, and none of them were interested in the world of geography. I wasn't entirely sure why. And then one day, I started talking about the world of geography to the other girls in my class, and one of them began talking about it too. It was like we were talking about the same topic. Suddenly, I was interested in both geography and history. + +The world of feminism is a world of men. After all, men have been educating women about feminism for decades. The world of feminism is a world of men. After all, men have been educating women about feminism for decades. + +It wasn't until I started researching feminism online that I got a real sense of how much of a patriarchal world I lived in. I quickly learned that women are taught in school that they're not allowed to have opinions about anything. They're supposed to be passive, passive-aggressive objects of an authority figure's whim. And if they're not, well, that's just the patriarchy. + +I learned that women are taught in school that they're not allowed to have opinions about anything. They're supposed to be passive, passive-aggressive objects of an authority figure's whim. And if they're not, well, that's just the patriarchy. + +The way that men talk to me about feminism is exactly how they talk to other men about feminism. It's an insult. It's condescending. And I've learned that men use that same language to refer to women who do not agree with them. A question that is asked over and over again, from men who are well versed in feminist theory and women who are not, is, "Why don't you just agree with us?" + +"Why don't you just agree with us?" + +When I ask them why they think that they should be treated differently from the way a man is treated, I'm told, "See, feminists are all selfish, entitled bitches who are out for themselves. They're all entitled to their opinions, but I'm entitled to mine too." + +I'm not a feminist, so it's not my fault that I'm condescending. It's not my fault that I'm treating men like they're entitled to have their opinions too. + +I don't understand why people are so afraid of the word "femin +======================================== SAMPLE 299 ======================================== +A recent study that examined the effects of different types of exercise on the gut microbiome of mice revealed that exercise significantly alters the colonic microbiome. Nineteen out of 20 fecal samples from mice with high-intensity exercise (HIE) had a different bacterial community from mice with low-intensity exercise (LIE). The high-intensity exercise group also had increased colitis and abnormal fermentation of carbohydrates, compared to the low-intensity exercise group. + +The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. + +Although the researchers did not find an increase in the incidence of colitis in HIE mice, they did observe an increase in the community of Bacteroidetes in the LIE mice, which is a genus of bacteria that is closely related to Bacteroides. The discovery suggests that Bacteroidetes may play a role in colonic inflammation during exercise, which is in line with previous research that has shown that high-intensity exercise causes disturbances in the intestinal environment. + +"We believe that our findings, in combination with previous research, may have a profound impact on the prevention and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," said study researcher Dr. Akshay A. Saxena, an investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior author of the study. + +"Our results provide new insights into the complex interactions between exercise and the gut microbiome and may provide a new treatment strategy to treat inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," said study researcher Dr. Mohamed A. Elmasry, an investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior author of the study. + +The researchers also found that mice that exercised for only 60 minutes had a higher level of activity in the gut microbiome than mice that exercised for a full day, but this was not observed in mice that exercised for only 20 minutes. Furthermore, they found that an increase in activity levels in the gut microbiome was not directly linked to a corresponding increase in the activity level in the heart. + +The study authors noted that the gut microbiome is critical for maintaining the integrity of the intestinal barrier and maintaining intestinal health. + +"The results of our study highlight the importance of the gut microbiome in the regulation of the host's metabolism, and could have important implications for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," Saxena said. + +### + +The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. + +"Elevated activity levels in the gut microbiome are associated with increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease," was written by Akshay A. Saxena, Dr. Elmasry, and Dr. Matthew A. Mathers from the University of California, San Francisco, and was published online in Nature Communications on January 7, 2017 (http://dx. doi. org/ 10. 1038/ ncomms9219 ). + +About The University of California, San Francisco + +The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally recognized programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ucsf.edu.<|endoftext|>Turns out all that "highly-informative" information on a website is not always welcome. + +A woman who was exploring a new town in Belgium took to Facebook to share a map detailing the best hotels and bars in the area. + +When she checked into one of the hotels, she was offered the opportunity to pay a $30 deposit for the night, but didn't want to put down the money. + +Instead, she decided to do the same thing she'd done countless times before, and sent a friend request to the hotel's reception. + +She explained that she wanted to book the hotel room, contact the front desk and see if they had rooms available. + +She was then surprised to receive a message from the front desk that read: "Hi, we have rooms available for a 30 euro deposit. Please get in touch," she wrote. + +She was then told that the deposit would cover the cost of the night. + +She immediately contacted the hotel and made the payment, but was then contacted by the hotel's back desk and told that she had been charged the full amount of $30. + +"I was very shocked by this and I was not expecting anything like that," she wrote. "I asked the question 'why did you charge me for +======================================== SAMPLE 300 ======================================== +The winner of the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, The Martian was a very well-written story, but I do not think that it was a very good story. It was definitely a good story, but I don't think it was a good story. + +The most obvious problem with the story is that it has a very rigid view of time. We begin in the modern day, but the story is set on Mars. We see the life of a family, and the story doesn't seem to be set in the modern day at all. We see the life of a family, but they're not from the modern day and by the time the story turns to the future, the story is set in the future. There's absolutely no reason for this other than to set the story in the future. + +This doesn't get any better when we get to the story's climax. We begin on Earth in the 21st century, but the story is set a thousand years from now. The arc of the story from the beginning to the end is that the protagonist, Mark Watney, is told he is going to die in a few days. He's told he's going to die in a few days, and he apparently makes it to Mars and survives for nearly two years before he is rescued. + +The idea of time is a very important theme in this piece of work. The idea of time is central to the story. Mark Watney is told he is going to die in a few days, and he's told he's going to die in a few days. The idea of time is central to the story, and I can't help but think that if the author had given more time to the characters and their story, he could have done a much better job establishing a clearer understanding of the concept of time. + +The plot also seems to never really change. Mark Watney is told he's going to die, he makes it to Mars, and he finds a way to survive. This is a story that is very clear about what it wants to do, but I'm not sure it is very clear about what it wants to achieve. + +In my view, The Martian is a great piece of science fiction. It's an excellent story with a great cast, great writing, and a good sense of space and time. It's just that about half of the story is a story that was set in the future and the other half was set in the past and I think the author was trying to do too much at once. + +I've written about The Martian before, and I think that it's a great science fiction story. It is a good story with great writing, and it is a good story with a good sense of space and time. It is just that the execution of that story was not very good. + +Share this: Facebook + +Twitter + +Google + +Email<|endoftext|>The Obama campaign has been accused of violations of Federal Election laws after an Obama campaign volunteer repeatedly sent out "Obama for America" emails throughout Tuesday's presidential debate. + +Audio from the debate captured the volunteer, whose name is unclear, repeatedly sending out "Obama for America" emails to supporters, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has been running a memo discouraging campaign volunteers from sending out more than two emails to supporters in a day. The Obama campaign has been running a similar memo in its daily email newsletter for volunteers. + +"Are you interested in helping your campaign reach more voters for Obama? Contact us at [email protected] and tell us about your plans to help Obama win in November," the email reads. "We're always looking for ways to help promote Obama's campaign and get more people to the polls for him." + +The volunteer highlighted in the audio above is heard sending out multiple "Obama for America" emails to supporters. Despite the fact that the Obama campaign has been sending out campaign email reminders to discourage volunteers from sending out more than two emails a day, this volunteer sent out several emails in a single day. + +"A note to volunteers: If you're sending out two or more emails a day to supporters, you are breaking Federal Election Commission rules," said Trevor Potter, a spokesman for the FEC. "This type of activity should not be permitted, and it must be reported." + +Potter added that it is illegal for campaigns to have more than one paid staffer working on their behalf. Regardless, the FEC has not taken any action in regard to the Obama campaign's "Obama for America" emails. Obama's campaign has not responded to a request for comment. + +UPDATE: The Obama campaign released a statement on Wednesday, claiming that the audio was a recording of an individual who had left the campaign. + +"To be clear: This individual was not working for the campaign, and the Obama campaign has not received any complaints, nor is there any indication that this individual was working on behalf of the campaign," the statement read. "To be clear: This individual was not working for the +======================================== SAMPLE 301 ======================================== +"If you think that's a good idea, then you're in good company. It seems to come from many parts of the world." + +—Marlene, Animal Crossing: New Leaf + +"It's a little bit less spooky in the morning." + +—Marlene, Animal Crossing: New Leaf + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + +Marlene + + +======================================== SAMPLE 302 ======================================== +The Night of the Long Knives is the story of how an order of Assassins led by the ruthless, sadistic, and psychotic Warren Vidic became the most feared group of assassins in history, and eventually the most feared criminal organization in the world. + +In the early years of the American Revolution, the Continental Army was largely composed of British soldiers who had never seen a blade of grass. But as the war progressed and the British soldiers were deployed to the colonies, the Americans found themselves in the midst of a growing army of Native American allies who were determined to protect their land and way of life. As the war waged on, the Native Americans began to demonstrate their skills in the fight for freedom, and the Assassins became the first to unite these disparate groups under a single banner. + +Soon, however, the Assassins' prowess with weapons and stealth earned them the ire of several aristocratic families, who were disgusted by the creed of the Assassins: freedom for all, even if that meant enslaving others. Though ultimately unsuccessful, these assassinations did lead to the creation of the United States' first standing army: the Continental Army. + +History + +Early Years + +The opening battle of the American Revolution was the Battle of Lexington and Concord in early April 1775. During the battle, Colonel William Stark and the famous "Chef de Cuisine" Guy de Chastelain assaulted the encampment of Nathanael Greene and his men, who had been ordered to lay down their arms. Stark and Chastelain were able to capture Greene alive, but in the melee that followed, all three were killed by the Continental Army's Captain John Parker, who later became known as the "Pied Piper of the Plains" because of his actions during the battle. + +Stark was a mysterious figure who had previously served as the commander of the British army during the American Revolution. He then engaged in a clandestine relationship with the French noblewoman, Madame de Ferrer, and was executed for treason by the British military on May 13, 1775. + +Paper Trail + +After the death of Colonel Stark, his soldiers were ordered to take a new commander. Captain in the Continental Army William Howe of the 17th Regiment was chosen to take command of the newly formed Continental Army. Although Howe initially enjoyed the support of the majority of the soldiers, he was soon overthrown by a disgruntled mob, who considered him to be a traitor. Col. Howe's head was cut off and his body thrown into the Boston Harbor. + +Whites' Revenge + +A few months after Howe's death, the Continental Army began to suffer reversals. Two more British officers were executed — Private William Lloyd of the 17th Regiment and Private John Bradford of the 11th Regiment. Following these executions, the Continental Army began to lose its cohesion. Colonel Richard Howe, the new commander of the Continental Army, was no longer able to lead the army effectively. + +The Continental Army was subsequently disbanded, and Colonel Howe was replaced by General George Washington. The new commander's initial mission was to repel the British invasion of New York, but as the British approached, Washington realized that the American army was no longer a unified unit. The Continental Army was no longer able to fight a conventional army. Instead, Washington decided to focus on the task of fighting the British. + +Thus, Washington gathered together the Continental Army and made preparations to invade Boston. But before he could set out, Congressional volunteers from Massachusetts began to join the Continental Army in order to defend their homeland. In the middle of March, the Continental Army attacked Boston, and Washington himself personally led the attack. However, the attack was a failure, and Washington was assassinated on April 19 by a disgruntled man, as he was on his way to Boston to lead the invasion. + +Immediately following the crisis, the Continental Army was disbanded, and General Washington was forced to return to Philadelphia. Due to the chaos that resulted from the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army did not take part in the 1783 elections. + +The French Connection + +Shortly after the Revolution, the Continental Army was disbanded and many of its soldiers became embroiled in a scandal. The Continental Army was accused of being a French puppet, and the army itself became infiltrated by French spies. Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. + +Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. + +The French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded, but soon after, it became clear that the Continental Army was a French-American front. Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. + +The Continental Army was reorganized, and the French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded. + +The Continental Army was reorganized, and the French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded. + +As the Continental Army disbanded, the Continental Army became an interesting +======================================== SAMPLE 303 ======================================== +(CNN) In one of the biggest and most detailed court filings in decades, the US government is seeking to force Apple to help it unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. + +The court filing Wednesday was made in California federal court in San Bernardino, where the government's lawyers have asked a judge to order Apple to create software tools that would enable the government to crack the phone's password. + +The government isn't seeking access to the phone itself -- but instead is asking Apple to help it bypass its protection on a laptop computer, the government said. The request by the FBI includes a list of iPhone models of which it says the iPhone 5C is one. + +In a landmark court filing Tuesday, Apple argued that the government's request for a backdoor would set a dangerous precedent. + +"It would set a dangerous precedent requiring technology companies to weaken their own products for the government's use, with the inevitable result that criminals and terrorists will have access to stronger means to commit their crimes," Apple wrote in its filing + +Read More<|endoftext|>Many of us have heard what "the real reason for the death of the black baby boom" is: it's that we voted for the wrong candidate. + +The problem with that narrative is that it ignores the reality that black baby boomers are not a monolithic group, and that we aren't all voting for the same thing. + +But when it comes to the question of biracial parents, the narrative is still the same: we voted for the wrong candidate. + +A recent poll by YouGov, a British polling company, found that only one-quarter of black respondents think their children will be better off financially following the election of the first black president. + +It's important to remember that YouGov is a big-tent polling company, and is not a political tracker. + +But it's still interesting that only one-quarter of the black respondents think that their children will be better off, when black mothers are much more likely to be the primary breadwinner in a household. + +And it's not like black mothers can't find jobs. + +In fact, a recent study by the Center for American Progress found that black women who have college degrees are more likely to be employed than black women without college degrees. + +In a 2014 report, the Center for American Progress estimated that black mothers are the primary breadwinner in 33 percent of black families in the US. + +When you combine these percentages with the fact that black women are more likely to work and be at or near the top of their professions, it's certainly plausible that black women who think their children will be better off financially due to the election of a black president might be critical of this past election. + +But there's a problem with this narrative that we have to consider. + +The problem with the black baby boom + +If you ask black people about the black baby boom, the first thing you'll hear is that it was a "historic" event, and that it was a time when black people rose to the top. + +The optimistic view is that the black baby boom was the result of black people's incredible economic growth and strength during the civil rights movement. + +But this narrative ignores the reality of the situation: a small portion of the black population had a very high level of education. + +The black baby boom is a much less dramatic story. + +In the early 1980s, the US had the highest level of black employment in US history. The unemployment rate for African-Americans was virtually nonexistent. + +But then, during the 1980s, the economy began to slow down, and the black unemployment rate began to rise. + +Why? Because it was not a time when black people were doing well in terms of economic growth. + +The problem, according to the economic historian Charles Murray, is that black people had never had a strong middle class before the civil rights movement. + +A growing middle class was the result of a strong union movement, and the rising demand for higher wages. + +"The black middle class in America has been an illusion," Murray said in a recent interview with NPR. "What we have long known is that blacks have been systematically denied the rights and opportunities that would allow them to have that middle class." + +Pre-civil rights laws + +So why did a large chunk of the black population participate in the civil rights movement? + +According to the economist Charles Murray, the reason was simple. + +"The civil rights movement was really about the black middle class," Murray said in a recent interview with NPR. "The civil rights movement was about providing the black middle class with the opportunity to achieve a middle class life." + +The civil rights movement gave black people the opportunity to achieve a middle class life. + +The civil rights movement was an opportunity to get a good job, secure a home, get married, and start a family. + +But the civil rights movement was also an opportunity to start +======================================== SAMPLE 304 ======================================== +Wanna keep up with the latest gaming and tech news? Just hit 'Like' on our GameCentral site! + +It's easy to forget that Sony's PlayStation 4 launched back in November 2013, and Microsoft's Xbox One was launched just two years prior in November 2012. + +The console wars have been raging for years, with each side claiming to be the most powerful and best-looking. Both have also been accused of stealing bandwidth from other gamers, with Microsoft's Xbox One being accused of "throttling" games. + +However, as we've already noticed, the PlayStation 4 is still more powerful than the Xbox One. And it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any plans to change that. + +Speaking with IGN, Microsoft's corporate vice president of worldwide studios, Phil Spencer, took the opportunity to discuss how the Xbox One is perceived to be superior to the PlayStation 4. + +"We're not going to change our approach because of the criticism. We're going to do what's right for the platform. We're not going to go backwards or sideways. We're going to do what's right for Microsoft. We're not going to go backwards or sideways. We're going to do what's right for Microsoft's platform." + +Spencer also said that the Xbox One is "very good. It's a fantastic piece of hardware," but added that it's "not a game changer." + +"We've got a great console. It's very good. It's a fantastic piece of hardware," Spencer said. "It is not a game changer. It's not going to help you push the boundaries of what you can do in games." + +"That's what we're doing. We're always going to keep pushing the boundaries." + +For more on the Xbox One, be sure to check out our Xbox One review, in which we give the Xbox One a 9/10 rating and give it 4/5 stars out of five. + +The Xbox One is available now for £429.99.<|endoftext|>I'm having a problem that is going for days now and I thought I'd post about it here. I've been mining with a GPU for a month now and I've been having problems with getting the GPU temperature in the bottom right corner of the screen to ever go below 33-35 degrees Celsius. The GPU usually goes up to around 50C, but it's been down around 40C for the last month. I've made a few backups of my data and everything in the system seems to be fine, so I'm losing hope. My CPU also seems to be suffering from the same issue. + +I've checked the fan speed and the fan is running at around 200%, but the temperature is fine. I've been restarting the computer a few times to get it to correct itself, but I'm still waiting for the temperatures to go down. + +I've been using a Corsair H100i, which is a good heatsink but its fan is not powerful enough to dissipate heat, so I've been looking for a cooler. I've been looking at the NH-L9i, which is a budget heatsink by NZXT, but it only comes with a single fan, while the Corsair H100i has two fans. + +I've been using my reference Nvidia GTX 980 Ti with a custom BIOS. I've been getting an average of about 60-70 fps with the game running at maximum settings at 1080p with everything maxed out. I've tried overclocking the card on my own and the performance is still not there. I've been using an SSD (Crucial M500) and have been using the latest drivers from Nvidia for the Nvidia drivers (I'm on the 381.85 drivers). + +I've not been able to find any other people with the same problem and I'm going to have to go back to my old rig to look at my settings and try to figure out what's going on. + +UPDATE: I've done a full backup of my data and everything seems to be fine now. + +UPDATE 2: I've been trying to get the temperatures down to about 32 degrees Celsius, but it's not working. I'm going to have to build a new PC and have it shipped to me. It's just not working. I'm going to have to try to find a better solution. + +UPDATE 3: Everything seems to be fine now. I've been messing with the fan settings and I have a custom NVidia drivers from NVidia that come with it. I'm going to try to get the temperatures down to 30-32 degrees Celsius and see if it fixes the problem. + +UPDATE 4: I've been messing with the fan settings and I have a custom NVidia drivers from NVidia that come with it. I'm going to try to get the temperatures down to 30-32 degrees Celsius and see if it fixes the problem. + +UPDATE 5: I've been messing with the fan settings +======================================== SAMPLE 305 ======================================== +The first model of a new high-speed train, the Moscow-to-Ulan-Bator line, is seen at a railway station in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Erlendur Haraldsson + +MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Russia hasmore than half of the world's rail travel demand, with China the biggest investor, a senior company official said, as it aims to boost the country's booming infrastructure sector, which is already the world's biggest. + +Russia is keen to boost its economy by generating international trade and investment, but worries about the impact of Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict are making it more cautious than it used to be. + +Russia is planning to invest $2 trillion over the next 15 years in its railways, and is borrowing heavily to fund a huge rebuilding program that includes the construction of new rolling stock and signalling systems. + +China is the world's biggest investor in rail and is currently the biggest market for Russian railway equipment, but its appetite for the industry could grow as its own infrastructure is expanded, the head of a state-owned Russian rail firm said. + +"China is a big player. We have a lot of things in common with China, like infrastructure, and a lot of railways," Ruslan Zakharov, chief executive officer of the state-owned Russian Railways, told Reuters at a visit to Mongolia in October. + +"So China is our biggest market, and the biggest investor. We have a joint project with them to build a high-speed line between Moscow and Ulan Bator, so we expect that to be a major project for China." + +It is not clear how much Chinese investment in the project, which would be the world's fastest when it is finished in 2026, would be, but Zakharov said it would be "many times" what Russian investors were spending. + +China has a huge appetite for Russian rail equipment, with the world's second-biggest economy more than doubling its rail investment over the past decade. + +Zakharov said Russia was ready to cooperate with China on projects in Mongolia and beyond, but warned that it was important to avoid complacency. + +"We should not be complacent and we should not be convinced that we are already in the very top ranks," he said. + +"I might say that China is the biggest investor in Russia currently, but we don't have a lot of infrastructure in Russia yet, so I would not say that China is the best investor to invest in Russia." + +Zakharov said Russia's infrastructure was in need of repairs and expansion, and that the country could not rely on China alone. + +"We don't need to rely on China alone, we need to work with other countries that invest in this industry, like Germany and the United States," he said. + +FOREIGN INVESTMENT + +Russia has the world's largest rail network, with 1,925 km (1,196 miles) of track, but has not built much since the Soviet era. + +Russia plans to invest more than $60 billion in its railways over the next 15 years, and its spending has increased by 70 percent in the past five years, according to Zakharov. + +However, Russia is struggling to raise the money for such an ambitious project, and has faced resistance from several foreign investors who fear they could be discriminated against by Russian railways. + +In October, Russian rail operator Rusagro said it had secured $8 billion in financing to build a high-speed rail line connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. + +But it has not announced any new projects in Russia, while other companies, including China's CNR Corp and state-owned oil firm Rosneft, are also involved in high-speed rail projects. + +Russia has also been looking for ways to boost its infrastructure, after being hit with sanctions from the west over its involvement in the Ukraine crisis. + +The country is planning to build a new bridge across the Dnieper River, which has previously been blocked by a dispute over Ukraine's repayment of a $3 billion loan from Moscow. + +However, it faces competing demands for this project from China and India, which are trying to build their own new "Bridge of the Gods" across the river in neighbouring Kazakhstan. + +With a budget of $1.1 trillion, the Russian railway sector is the world's fifth-largest, with Chinese investors the world's largest. + +China's rail investment in Russia in 2016 was $6.5 billion, according to a report from consultancy firm Rhodium Group. + +Zakharov also said Russia had a plan to build high-speed rail between Moscow and Kazan, which is in the country's east, in the next 15 years. + +"We have plans for a high-speed line between Moscow and Kazan, that will be built in the next +======================================== SAMPLE 306 ======================================== +From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia. + +This article is incomplete. + +Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it. + +Reason: Missing set layout images and images for moves. + +The Void (Japanese: きつくて Void) is a type of move introduced in Generation III that has no known effect on the Pokémon. + +Effect + +Generation III + +The Void does nothing. + +Generation IV + +The Void does nothing. + +Generation V + +The Void does nothing. + +Generation VI + +The Void does nothing. + +Generation VII + +The Void does nothing. + +Description + +Learnset + + +Special move + + +In other games + +Description + +Games Description MD R B Inflicts the user's HP as damage on an enemy. S MD It does damage to an enemy. The user's HP will be reduced by the amount of damage. + +In the anime + +In the manga + +In the Pokémon Adventures manga + +In other generations + +Core series games + +Spin-off series games + +Trivia + +In Generation III, the Void has the same type of move as Body Slam. + +In other languages + +Language Title Chinese Cantonese 返出 Sùhngyuhhng * Mandarin 返出 / 返出 Shōngyù * French Void German Versteck Italian Void Korean 마화 Void Norwegian Void Polish Szynka Portuguese Void Russian Гблав Vylen Spanish Void Vietnamese Động Tước<|endoftext|>The latest news on the 2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV + +Posted 14 August 2018 by John Farrell + +The 2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV is a radical electric car with a range of 238 miles. It can drive itself from LA to San Francisco or from New York to Detroit, at speeds of up to 80 mph. It will be priced at $37,495 before state and federal incentives. + +Today Chevrolet announced the Bolt EV will be available in late 2019. The Bolt EV will be built at GM's Orion Assembly Plant in Orion Township, Michigan, and will be delivered to customers in late 2019. GM had earlier announced that its Bolt EV would be rolled out in the second half of 2018. + +The Bolt EV is designed for the urban commuter, with a level of safety that exceeds any other electric car on the market today. + +In February, Chevrolet said it will expand the Bolt EV's range to 200 miles, the first production electric car to offer that range. + +The Bolt EV is GM's first-ever mid-size car with a range of more than 200 miles. It is the company's most aggressive electric car yet, offering a range of about 238 miles. + +The Bolt EV is also the first electric car from a major automaker to be priced below $40,000. + +A bigger version of the Bolt EV will be available later this year, with a 238-mile range. The Bolt EV will start at around $36,500 before incentives and tax credits. + +In the US, the Bolt EV is expected to be on sale from late 2019 through 2020, when it will be replaced by the all-new Chevrolet Bolt. + +More information + +You can find Chevrolet's Bolt EV release notes here. + +The Bolt EV website has more information about the car. + +And a Chevrolet Bolt EV video is available here. + +The Bolt EV team can be found at BoltEV.com. + +GM has posted news, videos, and more here. + +Join the Conversation<|endoftext|>Is it possible to travel to the far reaches of the universe? + +It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but this is a reality — and it has scientists scratching their heads. + +The high altitude ballooning project is being conducted by the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In near total secrecy, the project is being conducted in a remote area of the Nevada desert between the towns of Organ Pipe and Ely and the Utah border. + +The balloon will travel at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) above the Earth, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) away from the nearest inhabited land area. The balloon will travel for a period of about 18 months. + +The project is being conducted in a remote area of the Nevada desert between the towns of Organ Pipe and Ely and the Utah border + +This project is being conducted by the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration + +The balloon will travel to the edge of space, then descend to Earth + +The balloon will travel to the edge of space, then descend to Earth. + +In the middle of the trip, the balloon will be equipped with cameras and microphones that will +======================================== SAMPLE 307 ======================================== +Weirdly, that's not the case. Conservatives are overrepresented in the ranks of the Republican Party, but they still lack the numbers to control the government. + +In this year's election, the party that won the most votes in the last presidential election (that is to say, the party that won the most votes in all the states) was the Republican Party. But it did not win a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. Instead, the Republicans came up just three seats short of a majority. + +The reason these three Republicans, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy, were able to take control of both houses of Congress is that of course, they are all conservatives and they are all anti-choice. + +But if this were just about abortion, you would expect conservative extremism to produce an outlier result. However, in the case of Congress, the numbers tell a different story. + +According to exit polls, the most common issue among Republicans is "the economy" (38 percent), followed by "government" (28 percent), "big Government" (26 percent), "immigration" (24 percent), and "terrorism" (20 percent). + +By contrast, Democrats were more likely to prioritize "health care" (45 percent), "education" (39 percent), "jobs and the economy" (37 percent), "foreign policy" (33 percent), "environment" (26 percent), and "terrorism" (25 percent). + +So, Democrats are very much in favor of social services, while the Republicans are more inclined toward economic growth. + +The reason for this shift is that, while economic growth does yield improved health outcomes, it does not necessarily lead to more social services. In fact, in the era of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party embraced social conservatism, as a means of winning the White House. + +In the 1980s, the Republican Party was the only major political party to offer generous tax cuts to the wealthy, a signature issue for Ronald Reagan. + +Reagan, however, was not a fan of social programs, and so his administration, which coming from the right, was ideologically opposed to social programs. The result of this was that Reagan's administration was a disaster for the poor and working class, as the poor were disproportionately harmed by the economic policies of the administration. + +According to a recent study, "the net effect of the Reagan tax cuts on poor families was to reduce spending by $1,600 in 1985, and $2,000 in 1988, and $3,200 in 1993. Families with incomes below the poverty line saw an average benefit decline of $1,800. The greatest impact was felt by families with income between 100 percent and 200 percent of poverty. Benefits were cut by $3,300 in 1987 and $4,400 in 1993. Families in the second income quintile (between $100,000 and $200,000) saw an average benefit decline of $4,100 in 1987 and $6,400 in 1993." + +Despite being opposed to social programs, however, the Republicans still managed to win the White House. + +The real lesson here is that the "populist" agenda of the Republicans was a disaster for the poor and working class. The American public is not fundamentally opposed to social programs, and Democrats are not more inclined toward social services than Republicans. + +The Democrats will not be able to control the public if they pursue a populist agenda. + +Check out my book Free Speech Isn't Free.<|endoftext|>Essendon's framing coach Ian Broomhead has been charged with assault following a confrontation with a game official, the Essendon Football Club will announce on Monday. + +Broomhead was suspended for the game against St Kilda on Sunday. + +The club will make an announcement on Monday. + +The club will also announce that the charges against Broomhead are jointly laid by the AFL and the AFL Players' Association. + +It is understood that the matter was investigated by the two bodies and that the AFL will not be taking action against Broomhead, who is not the club's manager of football. + +Essendon football management will make an announcement on Monday.<|endoftext|>The second installment of my mini-series on the topic of post-racial or post-racialism. This time, I will look at how the notion of a post-race America is likely to play out in the years ahead. + +The concept of a post-racial America has been around for quite a while. But it has gained momentum in the last five years, with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States (2008). The notion of a post-racial America has also gained currency with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. + +However, the notion of a post-racial America has a lot of road to travel. It is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, and it is also one of the most controversial. In this article, I will attempt to +======================================== SAMPLE 308 ======================================== +"We used to have a lot of people who lived in the area, but a lot of them moved out when we built the mall. We're trying to attract people from around the country." + +The mall is anchored by a 1,600-seat gymnasium, which is already being used for concerts and other events. It's also home to the New York Knicks basketball team. + +The shopping center is currently being built on about 7.3 acres and is expected to open in October 2014. + +The mall will feature a variety of stores that can accommodate shoppers of all ages, and features stores from department stores, to specialty stores, to specialty apparel and accessories. + +The mall will be anchored by The Shoppes at The Mall at Penn, a 55,000-square-foot retail center with a children's playroom, an indoor playground and a restaurant.<|endoftext|>It is a big news day in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is gaining traction and trading volume, and Bitcoin Cash is quickly becoming the new main cryptocurrency. + +Bitcoin Cash is gaining the attention of the media and the community and many people are very excited about it. Several projects are being developed for Bitcoin Cash, and some of them are really interesting. + +Bcoin + +Bcoin is a fork of Bitcoin which was developed by the Bcoin team. Bcoin is an open source project, and it is being developed by the community. + +The team is currently preparing for an upcoming Hard Fork which will take place on September 13, 2017. A Hard Fork is a hard fork that is required to increase the blocksize limit in order to accommodate higher transaction volumes. + +The hard fork will allow the network to process more transactions, and it will reduce the block size to 8 MB. This will speed up transaction confirmation times, and the transaction fees will also be lower. + +A number of other improvements are also being prepared for Bcoin. A new protocol is being prepared and it will allow for more efficient use of the blockchain. A number of improvements will also be implemented to increase the scalability and performance of the network. + +The Bcoin team is also planning to develop a Bitcoin Cash wallet. The wallet is expected to be launched as soon as possible. + +Press Release: + +Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities + +August 23, 2017, 1:30 pm ET + +Story Link: http://www.coindesk.com/bcoin-bitcoin-cash-will-have-higher-transaction-volume-and-lower-fees/ + +Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/MCWUWn2 + +Join our Telegram Channel: https://t.me/Bitcoin_Cash + +Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities + +https://cointelegraph.com/news/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 + +Read more: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-cash-threatens-bitcoin-mining-vanity-market-and-bitcoin-exchanges + +https://www.coindesk.com/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 + +Bitcoin Cash is gaining the attention of the media and the community and many people are very excited about it. Several projects are being developed for Bitcoin Cash, and some of them are really interesting. + +Bcoin + +A lot of people are excited about Bcoin. The team is preparing for an upcoming hard fork which will take place on September 13, 2017. + +A Hard Fork is a hard fork that is required to increase the blocksize limit in order to accommodate higher transaction volumes. + +The hard fork will allow the network to process more transactions, and it will reduce the block size to 8 MB. This will speed up transaction confirmation times, and the transaction fees will also be lower. + +A number of other improvements are also being prepared for Bcoin. A new protocol is being prepared and it will allow for more efficient use of the blockchain. A number of improvements will also be implemented to increase the scalability and performance of the network. + +The Bcoin team is also planning to develop a Bitcoin Cash wallet. The wallet is expected to be launched as soon as possible. + +Press Release: + +Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities + +https://cointelegraph.com/news/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 + +Read more: https:// +======================================== SAMPLE 309 ======================================== +The 'P' in 'Pee-wee Herman' is for the word 'Pee-wee.' He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. + +'Pee-wee Herman' is about as real as a character that comes out of a cartoon can get. + +For starters, he's actually a real person -- a real-life man named Pee-wee Herman. + +"A character like that is very easy to make up," Pee-wee said. + +The P in 'Pee-wee Herman' is for the word 'Pee-wee.' He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. + +"I just wanted to play a guy who was a character," Pee-wee said. + +Who can forget the scene in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" where the classic man of action helps a youngster get his first bicycle? + +"No, no, no, no, no, no," Pee-wee Herman said. "I'm not here to ride a bicycle. I'm here to ride a horse." + +Pee-wee Herman never forgot that scene, and he's never forgotten the kid who wanted to ride a bicycle. + +"I thought, hey, if I put a horse in the movie, he will have to go on a lot of rides," Pee-wee said. "But I had a real horse, a real pony, so I said, 'No, no, no." + +Pee-wee Herman thought a real horse would be the perfect ride for a kid in the 'Pee-wee' movies. + +"The horse just has to have a lot of energy, and the horse has to have a lot of personality," Pee-wee said. + +At least a bit of personality. The best part about a real horse is that they're just like Pee-wee Herman. + +"They're a lot like me, and they're a lot like you," Pee-wee Herman said. + +Pee-wee Herman is a real man, just like the character he plays in the 'Pee-wee' movies. + +"You can't be a little old man and ride a horse," Pee-wee Herman said. + +Pee-wee Herman is able to laugh at himself because he grew up in the 'Pee-wee' movies. He even has a story about the time he got into a fight with his father. + +"I got into a fight with my father," Pee-wee Herman said. "I was a really young kid, and he was driving me around in a limo. He was driving the limo, and I was stupid. He was driving the limo, and he hit me, and my horse bit me, and he broke my hand." + +Pee-wee Herman's horse broke his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. + +"I said, 'Boy, I gotta go to the hospital, but you gotta go with me.' And he said, 'I don't want to go with you, I want to leave you here.'" + +Pee-wee Herman's horse bit his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. + +"My horse bit my hand, and I had to go to the hospital, and I said, 'I gotta go to the hospital, but you gotta go with me,'" Pee-wee Herman said. "And he said, 'I don't want to go with you, I want to leave you here.'" + +Pee-wee Herman's horse, who he named Ami, broke his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. + +"He had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, and we got married," Pee-wee Herman said. + +Pee-wee Herman has a real life wife, Victoria, who is from the same town as him in Illinois. + +"I've got friends all over the country. I've been married like 15 times," Pee-wee Herman said. + +Pee-wee Herman has been married at least 15 times, and he is a father of two daughters. + +"Hopefully, I'll have a little girl in the next few years," Pee-wee Herman said. + +Pee-wee Herman has a real life wife, Victoria, who is from the same town as him in Illinois. + +"I've got friends all over the country +======================================== SAMPLE 310 ======================================== +UPDATED: Sept. 21 at 10:30 a.m. + +LAS VEGAS – Chris "CM Punk" Punk has yet to address the TMZ report that he was denied medical treatment at the WWE Performance Center. + +Punk was pulled from a Monday Night Raw match against Brock Lesnar at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, WWE officials said. + +The incident occurred as Lesnar was about to walk off the mat to face Punk. After a short exchange, Lesnar and Punk locked up, and Lesnar tossed Punk to the floor. + +Punk, who suffered what was described as a concussion in the fight, was being evaluated by WWE doctors and an independent doctor. + +In a statement, WWE said it is "aware of the issue and is investigating." Lesnar's manager told TMZ that Lesnar was not injured in the fall, and he was not in the ring when the incident occurred. + +Lesnar has not commented publicly on the issue. + +"I just can't imagine what he's going through," Punk said Monday night at the WWE Tribute to the Troops event in Las Vegas. "And I hope he's okay. I hope he's getting better, and I hope we get to see him back on The Grandest Stage of Them All soon. But right now, I'm just focused on getting better and getting back to the ring. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be back." + +The condition of Punk remained unclear Monday night. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance, according to the WWE. + +Punk tweeted Monday night that he had been cleared from the hospital. + +@WWE It's my understanding that I'm fine now. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. — Chris Punk (@WWERomanPunk) September 21, 2015 + +Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.<|endoftext|>This is a conversation between a guy and a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things . + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: I like doing things that make me happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people + +a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be +======================================== SAMPLE 311 ======================================== +Shapiro wasn't the only one declaring that the NSA has been lying about its dragnet surveillance. + +The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has gone on record saying that it too is concerned about the NSA's privacy dragnet. + +"We are concerned that the government has used Section 215 to collect information on millions of Americans' phone calls, and we are concerned that the government is collecting more information about people than it is telling the public," said Jameel Jaffer, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. + +Jaffer said the problem is twofold: First, the NSA is collecting and storing the phone records of millions of Americans. So far, they have been using the metadata to make sophisticated investigations into terrorism and other criminal activity. + +Second, the NSA is not telling the public how it is doing it. + +"As far as we can tell, the government is not telling anyone what it is doing with the information it is collecting," Jaffer said. + +The ACLU published a new report today, which points to a number of other examples of the NSA flagrantly lying to the public about the extent of its surveillance programs. + +The report details how the NSA has been claiming that it does not have the ability to search through its communications intelligence databases without a warrant. But the ACLU found that the NSA is in fact able to search through its databases with no warrant. The ACLU also found that the NSA has admitted that it has been collecting geographic data about a significant number of Americans. + +The ACLU also found evidence of NSA data mining that it says only confirms the abuses revealed by Snowden. + +"The NSA's secrecy also gives the agency a veil of secrecy to hide its activities from the public," Jaffer said. + +"We are deeply concerned that the government is no longer protecting the privacy of American's communications," Jaffer said. "We believe that the public needs to know the extent to which the NSA collects, stores and manages Americans' communications." + +The ACLU has been trying to educate Congress about the NSA's abuse of its powers, but the lawmakers still have not acted to rein in the agency. + +"We are certainly trying to get the attention of Congress to ask them to hold hearings, to take action, to do something," Jaffer said. + +"There is a lot of evidence that the NSA is using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect bulk phone records, and we believe that the public needs to know this," Jaffer said.<|endoftext|>I Love You, Daddy is a comedy about a father who is being stalked by his own son. He is so accustomed to the constant attention, he does not notice when his son turns on him with a vengeance. The father and son are forced to make a choice.<|endoftext|>Video + +The British government has cancelled all planned visits to the US until after the UK's general election in June. + +The US embassy in London has been asked to find alternatives for the US president's state visit, which was due to take place in June and he has already been to the country. + +BBC Newsnight's Kamal Ahmed reports from Washington.<|endoftext|>Introduced in the late 1980s, the original potholed road was designed to accommodate the 'big four' of the era: the Camry, Accord, Mustang and Mazda 3. It was a two-lane road, with two left-hand turns in each direction. + +It was a sort-of experiment in vehicle automation, and the project was a failure. It was also the inspiration for the more successful DARPA-funded Hyperloop. + +It's also the inspiration for a new light rail system in Greater Los Angeles. + +The project is called LA Metro Rail, and it's supposed to be the most advanced light rail system in the US. + +And it's coming to LA in 2024. + +So it's time for an update. + +The light rail line, which is being funded by the Federal Transit Administration and the state of California, will extend from the San Fernando Valley to the San Fernando Valley/Glendale border. + +The idea is to create a sort of "superhighway" around LA. It will connect the Valley to the Valley, and the Valley to the Valley. It will connect the Valley to the Valley and the Valley and the Valley. + +The current plan calls for a 16-mile ribbon of light rail, with six stations, at a cost of $2.8 billion. + +Here's a video from the LA Metro website showing how a typical trip will be: + +It will be totally electric, with a maximum speed of 65 mph, with a theoretical maximum of 95 mph. + +The rails will be able to take cars and passengers as far as the Valley and Glendale, but don't expect to travel much beyond that. + +And it will have only one lane — two left-hand turns. + +Unlike its predecessor, the new light rail will be +======================================== SAMPLE 312 ======================================== +The newest addition to the BIP 0032 list is an easy-to-use 'dumb' chain-link fence that should prove to be a very useful tool for any application. + +The BIP explains ChainLinkFence and how it works in detail. + +The first problem that I see with the above diagram is that the chains are not evenly spaced. While this is perfectly okay at the edges of your chain link fence, it is not acceptable at your fence's center. The reason is that if the chains are not evenly spaced, then they will be able to 'peel' each other off your fence. For example, let's look at the diagram again. + +In the above diagram, the chains were not evenly spaced. The spacing of the chains is an issue at the fence's center, where they will be able to peel off each other. + +A ChainLinkFence is easy to construct and quick to set up. It is also super cheap. All you need to do is lay out a pair of 2x4s, cut them down to about 4 feet, and then staple it up. It takes about 15 minutes to build the fence. It is also very strong and is able to keep the chain links apart. + +The final feature of chain link fences is that they can be easily longed with hardware. The starting point is the chain link fence itself, cut 2x4s to the length you need. Staple the 2x4s into the fence. The fence then simply needs to be extended with hardware. If the hardware is long enough, it is easily extended to extend the fence. The hardware should be long enough that the chain links will stay apart in the end. + +As mentioned before, the chain link fence is not the only thing that BIP 0032 addresses. + +BIP 0032 also addresses the following issues: + +0x01 – Chain LinkFence requires both sides of the fence to be anchored to the ground, which cannot be done with the current generation of chain link fences. + +0x02 – Chain link fences need to be anchored to the ground, which is not possible with the current generation of chain link fences. + +0x03 – Chain link fences need to be anchored to the ground, which is not possible with the current generation of chain link fences. + +0x04 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x05 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x06 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x07 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x08 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x09 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0a – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0b – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0c – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0d – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0e – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x0f – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x10 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x11 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x12 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x13 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x14 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x15 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x16 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x17 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x18 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x19 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1a – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1b – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1c – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1d – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1e – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x1f – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x20 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x21 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x22 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x23 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x24 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x25 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x26 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. + +0x27 +======================================== SAMPLE 313 ======================================== +The British company behind the popular 'It Girl' TV show is hoping to create a female lead for its series "Sherlock" after Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as the villainous new character. + +CBS has ordered three more episodes of the "Sherlock" revival, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The actor will play the character in the episodes, which are set in the 1960s. + +PHOTOS: 'Sherlock' Stars: Then & Now + +The show is executive produced by Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Sue Vertue and Sue Vertue-Baker, and Kudos Entertainment's Les Hinton and Laurie Wagner will also help develop future episodes. "Sherlock" is set to premiere on January 1, 2014. + +Cumberbatch, who has been a guest star on "Sherlock," signed on for the role in September, with the show getting a boost in popularity after Cumberbatch was cast as the villain in the blockbuster "The Hobbit" movie. + +PHOTOS: 'Sherlock' Season 1: 11 of Our Favorite Scenes + +He joins current stars Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman's wife Lara Pulver in the role. The show's creator Steven Moffat also penned the pilot episode. + +"Sherlock" has been renewed for a second season and will return in 2014. + +Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! + +Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!<|endoftext|>I am not a very religious person, but I am a very spiritual person. I have a very deep connection with my ancestors and I feel that I am doing them a favor by being here today. It is also a privilege to be here with you. + +My Grandmother, Nellie Mae, was a very spiritual woman. She had a very intimate connection with God. She would say, "We have to go to the Spirit World." She would pray to God and he would come. Her last words to me before she passed away were, "You are my last hope." + +I was fortunate to grow up in a religious household and I grew up in a religious home. I was taught to believe in God. I was taught God loved me and that God would provide for me. I felt that my parents were there for me. I had a lot of faith in God. + +My Mom and Dad were very good to me. They taught me to eat right and to exercise. They were good to me, but they were very strict. They also wanted me to be a good student. + +My Dad had a hard time with school. He had a lot of anger issues. He never really got good grades, he always had bad grades. I don't know why he was so angry. He would just get angry at the world. + +I remember the last time I saw my dad. He was in the hospital and he was in a lot of pain. I was worried about him. I remember when I went to see him, I asked the nurses if he was going to make it. They said, "No, he's going to die." + +He actually passed away before I got home. He was in a coma, but he woke up and he was still in a coma. They had a feeding tube in him. My Mom and Dad were going to operate on him, but they couldn't do it. + +I remember going to my Mom's and crying. I remember my Mom saying, "Don't be sad, we are going to take care of him." I remember going to my Dad's room and crying. I can still remember him telling me that God had taken him to Heaven and that he was going to be okay. + +I remember going to see my Grandmother in the hospital. She told me, "Nellie Mae, we are going to take care of him." I remember crying. I remember her telling me, "He is going to be fine. He loves you." + +I remember being in the hospital. My Grandmother asked me, "How are your parents?" I said, "They are okay." + +I was worried that my Dad would die. I was worried that I would be alone. I remember when I was in the hospital, I went to see my Mom. I told her, "I have to go home." I asked her, "What are you going to do?" She said, "Go home, you have to go home." I said, "What do you mean 'go home'?" She said, "Your dad is gone." I said, "What do I do now?" She said, "You have to walk on. You have to walk on." I said, "What do I do now?" She said, "You have to walk on. You have to walk on." + +I remember when I walked on the operating table +======================================== SAMPLE 314 ======================================== +The White House has final approval for 18 different types of ammunition, including bullets, bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 800 joules and ballistic tip rounds, according to a document obtained by Fox News. + +The list of ammunition is seen as a troubling sign for the National Rifle Association, which has long supported a ban on bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 300 joules. + +A spokesperson for the White House did not return a request for comment from Fox News. + +The President's Daily Briefing, which is delivered to the President each morning, is the document that contains the most controversial information. The document requires the President to sign off on all types of ammunition, including "subsonic, sonic, kinetic energy, and general-purpose and special purpose" ammunition. + +The ammunition is not classified and can be purchased online or at retail stores. They are often used for target practice and hunting. + +The administration has been trying to reduce the number of bullets that go off in the hands of civilians for years. While the Obama administration has seen a decrease in the number of gun deaths, the number of people shot with bullets is still rising, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. + +The NRA has long been against the ban on bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 300 joules. + +In January, the White House released a list of 22 different types of ammunition that were approved for purchase. + +The list includes bullets and rounds that the ATF has determined to be legal in the United States. It does not reflect the "restricted" ammunition that cannot be purchased or possessed, as required by law. + + +The list is also not in alphabetical order, according to the document. It's unclear how the White House determined which types of ammunition were on the list, but the list contains numerous bullets that are not included in the ATF's list. + +The White House document shows the types of ammunition that the Administration is willing to approve for purchase. + +The document shows a number of rounds that the ATF has determined to be legal in the United States, including 9mm hollow point, .40 S&W and .45 ACP bullets. + +The list also includes "special purpose" ammunition, which are specific types of ammunition that the ATF has determined are not specifically banned in the United States. + +The White House document lists 9mm bullets. + +The list also includes the following types of ammunition: + +-.223 caliber bullets + +-.22 caliber bullets + +-.25 caliber bullets + +-.32 caliber bullets + +-.380 caliber bullets + +-.40 caliber bullets + +-.45 caliber bullets + +-.50 caliber bullets + +-.60 caliber bullets + +-.65 caliber bullets + +-.70 caliber bullets + +-.80 caliber bullets + +-.90 caliber bullets + +-.95 caliber bullets + +-.100 caliber bullets + +-.105 caliber bullets + +-.130 caliber bullets + +-.140 caliber bullets + +-.50 caliber bullets + +-.45 caliber + +-.380 caliber + +-40 caliber + +-45 caliber + +-50 caliber + +-55 caliber + +-60 caliber + +-70 caliber + +-85 caliber + +-90 caliber + +-105 caliber + +-140 caliber + +-50 caliber + +-60 caliber + +-90 caliber<|endoftext|>I had a chance to play a game of "What Would Batman Do?" with a friend recently, and I was reminded of an old X-Men movie (the one I remember the best) titled "The Battle of the Atom." The movie, which is kind of funny but also kind of sad, featured a young man who was (eventually) killed in a car crash. While in a coma, he was visited by his father, who told him, "This is what you have wanted to know. You wanted to know what it is that makes a man a man." Very succinct, and very important. + +We all have a father figure, and we all want to know what it is that makes a man a man. What is it about being a man that we all desire? Batman is a man who has been through so much. He has been through the death of his parents, the loss of his mentor, and the loss of all that he loved. He has tried to destroy the criminal element, but has not succeeded. He has tried to be a better person, but has not succeeded. He has tried to be a hero, but has not succeeded. He has been through all of these things and has come out the other side as a hero. He has been through it all and has a very good idea of what makes a man a man. + +So, how would Batman respond to the question, "What makes a man a man?" + +I think that Batman would +======================================== SAMPLE 315 ======================================== +Shedding light on the trolley problem—the challenge of designing and operating automated transit systems such as the ones that have come to dominate the U.S. transit landscape—a new urban research paper authored by a group of researchers at the University of California, Davis, describes how to make a trolley system more efficient. + +Caltrain, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and San Francisco's Muni all use a type of traction power that consists of two overhead wires that form an alternating current of electric current. This type of power can be used to push the vehicle forward in a straight line, but it can also be used to push the car sideways when the rails are curved. The researchers found that in these cases, the electricity could be used to generate a different kind of power, one that is used to push the car sideways. + +"If you think about a trolley, the traction power is being used to push the trolley sideways," said Greg Smith, a former postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and one of the paper's co-authors. "Then you have a bunch of wires going around the wheel, and you have to take care of the wire resistance, the capacitance of the wires, and the inductance of the connection to keep the wheel from slipping back and forth. So if we could somehow put that power to work, we could use it to power the wheels of the trolley sideways. That's a really neat effect, but we don't know how to do it." + +Smith and co-author Ashok Mishra, who is now at the University of Illinois at Chicago, analyzed data from the California-based California High Speed Rail Authority's Project Connect, which analyzed the performance of 20 different traction power types on a trolley. + +For their study, the researchers measured the power drawn by a trolley vehicle driven in a straight line at various speeds. They found that the power consumption for a vehicle driven in a straight line at speeds between 1 and 5 mph was roughly the same at all four traction power types. + +But when the researchers compared the power consumption of a vehicle driven at different speeds in a curved path, they found that the power consumption of the trolley at the maximum speed the vehicle could travel was 10% higher at the traction power used in the curved path. The researchers did not find this effect when the trolley was driven at the maximum speed the vehicle could travel. + +To understand how the researchers were able to observe this effect, the researchers believe that the traction power used in the curved path was actually pulling the car sideways, which would have a similar effect as the wire resistance of a straight path. + +"What we've been able to show is that there's a different type of power that could be used to pull a trolley sideways," Smith said. "If the traction power was used as a generator, the energy density of that power would be very, very high, so we would get much higher power per unit of mass. If the traction power is used as an inverter, it would be much harder for the trolley to slip sideways. It would be harder for the traction power to have a negative effect on the vehicle, which is what we see when we look at the data." + +Brown University Professor Joseph Pribus, who also worked at the University of California, Davis on this project, said the results represent some of the first detailed analysis of the trolley problem—an important one, he said, because the research helps to substantiate a proposal that has been kicking around for years to replace some of the traction power currently used by BART and Muni with alternative power sources. + +"I think what this paper does is to say that we need to think about how to use trolley technology for something other than just moving people," said Pribus. "Trolley design has been a good illustration of technology improving how we move people around. The problem is that the technology is becoming really good at moving people around, and it's becoming really good at moving people around in a specific configuration. All of a sudden, you have to start thinking about how to use it differently in different situations." + +Mishra and Smith have filed a patent on their idea, but they have not yet received any funding to pursue it. + +"This paper is a first step toward the next step," Pribus said. "There may be other pathways to go on. It's kind of a proof of concept, but I think this paper is an important step toward a patent."<|endoftext|>To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the archive . + +This is a list of all the Google Code contributions we've received since September 2013, organized by month. The list is not updated with new contributions very often, so if something is wrong, or if you think we've missed something, please let us know. + +Some of this is in old format so we can easily update the list. +======================================== SAMPLE 316 ======================================== +Fondly known as the 'Bolshevik's new toy', the AK-74U is the latest Russian assault rifle to be introduced into the line-up. + +Manufactured by the Russian arms manufacturer Magpul Industries, the AK-74U is an inexpensive and reliable assault rifle that is widely used by police forces across the globe. Over the years, the AK-74U has transformed from a specialist rifle in the Soviet Union to an affordable and reliable rifle in the Russian Federation. + +The newest version of the AK-74, the AK-74U, has a receiver-mounted folding stock and a Picatinny rail on the receiver that can be fitted with a variety of accessories. + +The AK-74U is also one of the most reliable assault rifles available today. The rifle is produced with high-quality components, and the modular design and the use of interchangeable parts ensures that the rifle will not break down. + +The AK-74U offers a number of reliability improvements over its predecessors, including the use of a bolt lock and a gas system that allows for a faster cycle rate and a more consistent shot. + +The AK-74U also uses an ambidextrous safety/fire selector. The safety, which is operated by the right-hand side of the shooter's hand, is used to engage the bolt carrier group when it is locked back during the firing cycle. The firing selector is used to select either semi-automatic or full-automatic fire. + +The AK-74U is also available with a detachable box magazine. The magazine is compatible with 30-round and 45-round clips. The AK-74U can be fired in 5.45x39mm and 7.62x39mm calibres.<|endoftext|>A 26-year-old man has been charged with the murder of his 11-year-old neighbour after a violent melee at a Bradford estate. + +Luke Hamilton, of Bultley Close, was arrested on suspicion of murder after a post mortem examination on his relative found cuts and bruises that were consistent with the boy's injuries. + +The boy was hit by a bottle and stabbed in the chest and arm on Wednesday night because he had run into a neighbour's garden. + +He died in hospital on Thursday. + +The boy's mother, who has not been named, said the attack started when she returned home and saw the boy was bleeding. + +She said: "He was running out of the house and my son asked him to put his shoes on. + +"Luke then smacked the boy across the top of the head. He then told the boy to get in the car and told me to get him the ambulance." + +The mother said her son had been hit with a bottle and stabbed in the chest and arm. His injuries were consistent with a bottle being thrown at him. + +She said: "He was being hit in the head with a bottle and he had injuries at the bottom of his legs. I think it was a bottle thrown at him. + +"I thought he was dead. I had to wait for the ambulance until it got here because my son had been bleeding to death." + +The boy's father said he had been watching the argument between his son and Hamilton in his garden on Wednesday night. + +He said: "I saw the boy trying to get home and I ran to him. It was just a normal argument between a boy and his father. + +"The boy had run down the road to the garden and he had been attacked by Luke and the other man. + +"I tried to stop the fight. I went to the police and police got there and took over. + +"When they got there they said he was dead." + +Detective Constable Andy Croft, of Greater Manchester Police, said: "We have charged a 26-year-old man with murder following a violent incident last night in Bradford. + +"The investigation is at an early stage and no further details are available at this stage. + +"The boy's family have been informed of the charge." + +Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 0161 856 6000 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.<|endoftext|>ABOUT + +It's the perfect time to be a pilot. As the years pass and the skies around us become clearer, the demand for pilots is on the rise. + +We offer the best educational programme for aspiring pilots. Our training is based on the latest in safety technology. + +We are the only academy that provides the full range of flight training, including our own course on an Avsim simulator. + +Our pilots are trained to the highest standards and they have the opportunity to earn a Flying Licence once they have completed our training. + +The flight training programme that we offer is the most comprehensive in the UK. Our pilots have access to the best facilities, such as the Aero Clubhouse, and the latest in +======================================== SAMPLE 317 ======================================== +SomeKong is a social network for gamers and offline role-players. It's fun, fast, and secure. + +We now have a Windows Phone app! + +We have been testing the Windows Phone app for a long time and are happy to report that it works great! We have been adding some new features like being able to chat with friends and fans on the same app, but at this time it's still in beta. We are looking forward to seeing what you think! + +We are also looking for beta testers. If you want to be a part of something that is growing fast and is more closely connected with our community, we'd like to hear from you! + +We are also looking for input on the interface and design. You might have an idea of what we could do better, and we appreciate all of your feedback. + +You can try the app for free for 30 days and then pay what you want for the next 30 days. + +We are on Twitter at @SomeKongApp and you can reach us at support@somekongapp.com. + +If you want to be a beta tester, sign up to our mailing list. + +Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, and we hope you'll check out our app and let us know what you think! + +—Mari, John, and the SomeKong team<|endoftext|>We are in the middle of a feverish, collective panic about fake news. + +The nightly news has been flooded with the topic, and the topic is so over-the-top, so over-the-top, so over-the-top, it feels like an epidemic. + +From the Daily Mail to CNN, the entire media establishment is on the exact same page: Fake news is our biggest problem. And Donald Trump is to blame. + +We do not know for certain that Trump is a fake news maneater. But he has made it clear that he finds the very idea absurd. + +So the question is, what is fake news? + +I'm not sure I have a great answer. I think the definition of fake news is a matter of opinion and I don't really care. + +But my sense is, if you want to fight fake news, you have to fight a different kind of fake news. + +This is the kind of fake news that Trump has repeatedly promoted, and it is the kind of fake news that's reached fever pitch on Twitter. + +The reason this is so dangerous is that it encourages people to believe anything that fits their narrative. And it makes it easier for them to be duped. + +Here's a simple example: When I first started writing about these issues in 2009, I thought most people were willfully ignorant. + +But as I read more about the issues, I discovered that most people were not willfully ignorant. They were governed by facts. They were not willfully ignorant, but they were governed by facts. + +So what was the difference? + +The difference was that most people knew what the facts were. + +We are now living in a world where facts are being ignored. And if people can't find them, they are not going to believe them. + +This has been going on for years. But it has accelerated massively since Trump's election. + +The media seems to be obsessed with this issue. The latest example was the New York Times's story about the "fake news" that people are giving the president. + +Here's the thing. They are right. + +The Trump administration has been pushing a misleading, and in some cases flat-out false, narrative about the opioid crisis. + +The narrative has been so focused on the opioid crisis that it has ignored other issues that are more important to the lives of people who actually live in these areas. + +The Times report about the fake news is peppered with this: + +But he has also used his Twitter account to promote falsehoods, from the campaign to the presidency and from the Oval Office to the stage. + +The New York Times is right. There is a lot of fake news out there. + +But it is not the same thing as fake news. + +If you are a news organization that wants to know if there is fake news out there, the only way to find out is to investigate. + +Everyone else, including people who are trying to make up fake news, is the enemy. + +The enemy is a group of people who are not interested in facts, who are not interested in truth, who are not interested in the truth even if they can get it. + +If you want to fight fake news, you have to fight this enemy. + +You can't fight it by smearing people who share your opinions. You can't fight it by calling them Nazis. + +You can't fight it by trying to intimidate people who disagree with you. + +You only have a fighting chance if +======================================== SAMPLE 318 ======================================== +If you're not a regular reader of my blog, or are new here, please feel free to jump to the bottom of the article to get the basics. + +In the previous article, I discussed the basics of the possible options that will be available to me to play the role of the red mage. + +This week, I'm going to discuss the pros and cons of them. + +Pros & Cons of Fireball & Ice Lance + +In my last article, I also discussed that I have a few other options available to me to be red mage, which are Fireball and Ice Lance. + +What's the pros and cons of those? + +Fireball: + +Pros: + +It has the highest resource cost (4) in the game, which is certainly an advantage (although not a huge one). + +It has a high from cost (7) which makes it a reliable removal spell. + +It only costs 2 mana, which I feel is just right for a removal spell. + +It is the only spell that can target minions. + +It has 2 range (which is good for it's cost) + +It has a range of 1, which is also good for it's cost. + +It can be used as a 2 damage burn spell. + +Ice Lance: + +Pros: + +It is the cheapest spell in the game. + +It has a low cost (4) which is also an advantage. + +It has a low from cost (4) which makes it a reliable removal spell. + +It only costs 2 mana, which is just right for it's cost. + +It allows you to use it as a 2 damage burn spell. + +It is the only spell that can target minions. + +It has 2 range (which is good for it's cost) + +It has a range of 1, which is good for it's cost. + +It can be used as a 2 damage burn spell. + +Cons: + +It has 1 range (which is really bad for it's cost) + +It has a range of 1, which means that it can only be used as a 1 damage burn spell. + +It cannot remove minions, which is really bad for it's cost. + +It can't be used as a burn spell. + +It can only be used on an enemy minion. + +How to Play a Red Mage + +So, how do I play a red mage? + +You want to be a low cost (4) mage, and you want to be a control mage. + +What this means is that you want to have some cheap removal spells that can destroy minions, and you want to have some cheap spells that can heal your minions. + +Having an opponent who is low on health is the easiest way to win, but it's not the only way. + +If you played a control mage (which I recommend), you want to keep in mind that players who are low on health will try to use their abilities to kill you, so you want to have a way to get out of it. + +This is where Ice Lance comes in. It allows you to remove a minion from the game, and then you can use it as a 2 damage burn spell. + +It's also important to note that if you use Ice Lance to destroy a minion, you'll also remove its spell that makes it Immune to Damage. + +This is a great way to stop the enemy from killing you. + +Ultimately, you want to play a low cost mage, and you want to control the board. + +If you can be a control mage, and you can play a low cost mage, you can win almost every game. + +It's not only about the cards, it's about the mindset. + +You want to be the one controlling the board, and you want to not let your opponent get in the way of it. + +Mana boosts are always good for this. + +Anytime you're in the middle of a board control struggle, remember to use your mana boosts, and to be aggressive. + +When you're playing a control mage, you want to play the game the way that you want to play it, and not let your opponent play the way that they want to play it. + +Have fun! + +Warmest Regards<|endoftext|>One thing that always seems to get lost in the discussion of the forthcoming Debian 8 release is the fact that the project has already released the first preview release of the operating system. + +The latest preview release (Debian 8 "Jessie") came out on Thursday, and with it came a new version of the Debian installer. + +There are changes to the way in which the installer saves the state of the operating system, and the most significant of these is the introduction of the debootstrap tool, which had been previously only available to those using the Ubuntu-based Xen +======================================== SAMPLE 319 ======================================== +St. Augustine, Florida (CNN) -- The 12-year-old boy who died in the backyard of his Florida home last week had been told to stay inside after a fight with his father, but he sneaked back outside anyway at the last second, according to his father. + +The boy had been playing around in the backyard of his home in the town of St. Augustine on July 23 when he was killed by a shotgun blast, police said. + +"He shot him in the back," said Lonnie Nix, who witnessed the shooting minutes after his son was hit. + +Nix said he and his wife were at home when they heard a gunshot and the sound of a car hitting the porch. + +"We were right next door and I saw him die," Nix said. + +Nix said he called 911 and ran outside to help. The boy's stepmother, who was also at the home, was also at the scene when the boy was hit, Nix said. + +"He had been shot in the back," Nix said. + +The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he died. + +"It's very sad," Nix said. "I'm just so upset and I just want justice." + +The boy's father, who did not want to be identified, said his son was afraid of guns, and his stepmother had tried to get him to comply with the house rules. + +"He was obsessed with guns, and he wanted to be a gun owner," the father said. "He was terrified of guns." + +The father said his son had been ordered to stay inside after a fight in the backyard of the home, and he had left to get some water to keep him cool. The father said he was disappointed his stepdaughter didn't come home when he came home from work. + +"I really want to know why she didn't come back," he said. + +The stepmother wasn't home when Nix called police at 9:47 p.m. on July 23. + +"She wasn't here ... so we had to call 911 and they arrived a short time later and told me that the boy had been shot," he said. "They told me it was an accident." + +Nix said he was told the boy had been found in the yard by a man who was walking by when he saw him running in the yard. + +"I told him to call 911 and I got the ambulance right away," Nix said. + +The father said he didn't know what could have provoked the incident. + +"I hope that whatever happened, it wasn't a crime," he said. "I don't know if he knew his own son was a threat to him at that moment." + +Nix said he hopes the boy's death will be a reminder to other parents to call 911 if their children are in danger. + +"I hope it will give people the courage to call that dispatcher and not just run away," he said. + +He said he is planning to file a lawsuit against the homeowner.<|endoftext|>The government is considering the possibility of closing the door to free movement of people after Brexit, according to a leaked government paper. + +The document, entitled "Remain and Leave – the Migrant Impact", was drawn up for the Home Office by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). + +It proposes the government "apply the same rules to the UK as it does to the rest of the EU", and proposes a "period of transitional arrangements" that would allow the UK to "build its own immigration system". + +The precise nature of the transitional arrangements is unclear, although the document suggests that the UK's relationship with the EU could be adjusted during the period, effectively leaving the UK without the ability to control immigration from the EU, unless it joined the Euro. + +The document describes the transitional arrangements as "a model to be looked at by government in the future". + +"The government is considering the potential for a period of transitional arrangements, such as the one that existed in New Zealand in the 1990s," the MAC says. + +"We've looked at the model of New Zealand. We've looked at how it works in terms of trade and creating a very open economy. I think we can learn from what they've done." + +The EU-UK deal that is required to allow the UK to stay in the single market and customs union, is "not a done deal" according to the MAC, and "may not be possible". + +It says: "The government is considering the potential for a period of transitional arrangements, such as the one that existed in New Zealand in the 1990s. + +"We've looked at the model of New Zealand. We've looked at how it works in terms of trade and creating a very open economy. + +"I think we can learn from what they've done." + +The MAC's report +======================================== SAMPLE 320 ======================================== +The public has a right to be informed about the company that makes the product they use and the environmental impact of what they use, a federal judge ruled Monday. + +The ruling is the latest in a series of rulings that have made it difficult for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prevent chemical companies from hiding the chemicals they use under the pretense of "trade secrets." + +The ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Eastern District of Texas comes after a lengthy series of appeals by chemical companies. The ruling could set a precedent for other corporate trade secrets and codes of conduct cases. + +"If we don't have enough input, this case will be lost," said Susan Herring, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota Department of Environmental Science and Policy. "The public has a right to know what chemicals they are putting into their bodies when they buy a product." + +At issue is the chemistry of a class of chemicals called PAHs, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These powerful chemicals are a byproduct of gasoline production and emit carcinogens when they come into contact with air. They have been linked to everything from cancer to asthma. + +The EPA has struggled for years to identify and regulate them. In 2008, the agency proposed a list of four chemicals that would be regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act. + +The four chemicals were: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. The EPA proposed their names in the letter C, as in "compound, compound named." + +The EPA's list was a "proposed list of chemicals to be regulated" under the TSCA and the CAA, said Richard Revesz, an attorney with the law firm Garvey Schubert LLP who successfully defended the EPA's emissions standards from a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council. + +The EPA planned to publish the number of chemicals on the list in "pre-publication" form in a newspaper, and call for public comment on the list before publishing it in a journal. + +In 2009, the EPA published the list of chemicals in a journal called Science, but only after the chemical industry threatened to sue the agency over the publication. The chemical industry claimed the EPA's announcement was a "trade secret," preventing the EPA from announcing the chemicals' names. + +The EPA went ahead and published the list anyway, and in 2010, it published a follow-up report with the same names and the same schedule for public comment. + +For five years, the chemical industry and its allies in Congress have sought to block the EPA from publishing the list. + +In 2011, the EPA delayed publication of the chemicals on the list until after the 2012 election. The delay was a political move, according to the EPA, since it would have been difficult for the agency to publish the list in time for the 2012 presidential election. + +The chemical industry sued the EPA in federal court, arguing the EPA was violating the TSCA and the CAA by publishing the list. + +The chemical industry argued that the list should be kept secret because the chemicals in the list are not currently regulated under the CAA or TSCA. + +The EPA argued that the chemicals in the list are regulated under the CAA and that the chemicals in the list are not currently regulated under the TSCA. The EPA said that the list would, under the law, be published with the "same prominence as the existing EPA list." + +The chemical industry and its allies in Congress argued that the EPA was violating the TSCA and the CAA by publishing the list. + +The EPA and the chemical industry reached a settlement in August 2013. The EPA agreed to publish the list, but only after the chemical industry agreed to stop its legal threats against the agency. + +Since the settlement, the EPA has published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2009. + +The EPA has also published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2011, but without calling for public comment. + +The new version of the list is called the "Expanded Chemical Safety Communication." + +The EPA has also published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2012, but without calling for public comment. + +Now that the EPA is publishing the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2012, it will be possible to obtain the list online. + +The list is available online at http://www.epa.gov/chemicals/chemistry/EPA-Chemical-Safety-Communication-List. The EPA also publishes a PDF version of the list. + +Benjamin Mizer, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, said the final list is "an improvement" over the 2009 version. + +"In my opinion," Mizer said, "this is a good +======================================== SAMPLE 321 ======================================== +The Catastrophic Failure of the American Media + +In 1958, a group of economists met in London to form a new organization called the International Labour Organization. The purpose of the organization was to bring together all the world's major socialist and communist parties who had agreed to sign an agreement that they would not enter into war. "The League of Nations," the organization's constitution declared, "is an organization for the prevention of war." + +The League of Nations was an effort to prevent war, but it failed. The group was never able to agree on a single resolution that would prevent war. Instead, the various parties in the organization rolled over and continued to fight with each other. The League was a failure, but it was not a failure of the concept behind it; rather, it was a failure of the men who led the organization. + +While the group in London was unable to prevent war, the American media is in a similar position. Despite the fact that the media has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, the American media has been unable to prevent the media from becoming a force for wanton destruction. War has been allowed to destroy the lives of millions of people, and the media will not stop. + +The media is the worst of the worst. It is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. The media has been able to use its freedom of speech to shut out any criticism of the government's war machine. The media's refusal to report on the war machine's crimes has allowed the media to be complicit in the war machine's crimes. + +The media is not a neutral arbiter. It is the worst of the worst. It is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. It has been able to use its freedom of speech to shut out any criticism of the government's war machine. The media's refusal to report on the war machine's crimes has allowed the media to be complicit in the war machine's crimes. + +The media is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. But this is not enough. The media must now be more than complicit. It must be an active participant in the destruction of life. + +The media are no longer the media. They are a force for wanton destruction, with their own special code of silence. The media are no longer the media. They are a force for wanton destruction, with their own special code of silence. + +The media's refusal to report on the government's war machine is not a failure of the media itself. It is a failure of the men who led the media. + +Obama has been able to have his cake and eat it too. He has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. He has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. + +The media have been complicit in the government's war machine. The media have been complicit in the government's war machine. Obama has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. Obama has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. + +The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. + +There is a political and moral war being waged against the American people. This war has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. + +And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. + +The media's refusal to report on the government's war machine is not a failure of the media itself. It is a failure of the men who led the media. + +The American media has been utterly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. + +The American media has been utterly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. But this is not enough. The media must now be more than complicit. It must be an active participant in the destruction of life. + +The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. + +And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. + +The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. + +And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. + +======================================== SAMPLE 322 ======================================== +BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State has"taken over" territory in Syria and Iraq and is "being aided" by Turkish intelligence, a leader of the hardline Islamist group said on Tuesday, a day after Ankara shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border. + +Policemen stand near the wreckage of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet after it was shot down by Turkey on the Syrian-Turkish border, near the southeastern town of Akcakale, Hatay province, Turkey, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Osman Orsal + +The comments by Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, a spokesman for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were the first publicly reported by the group since the jet was downed on Tuesday. + +Two Russian SU-24 planes were shot down by Turkish jets on Tuesday, the first time that has happened since Moscow entered the Syrian war in September, after they violated Turkish airspace for at least 10 minutes. + +Turkey said the jets were warned 10 times before they were shot down, and that Russian pilots did not identify themselves. + +Syria's government said the planes had been in Syrian airspace for 12 minutes, and that ISIL had used the jet to carry out attacks on Turkmen and other rebels along the border. + +The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a group of Syrian pilots had defected to Turkey, and that the two pilots who ejected from the jet were in good health. + +A Turkish official said the military had detained two Russian pilots, but gave no details on the reason for their detention. + +"We have taken over Iraqi and Syrian territory. The new Islamic State that has taken over, we call them Daesh, is being aided by Turkey. They have weapons, they have ammunition. They are also training our people in planning terror attacks in Turkey," Masri said in a statement. + +The Islamist group has lost some of its strongholds in Syria and Iraq to a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters who are trying to oust ISIL from its self-declared caliphate. + +Masri also said the group's Syrian branch, previously known as the Nusra Front, was considering an alliance with al Qaeda to fight the Syrian government. + +The Nusra Front was designated a terrorist organization in September by the United States and its European allies, and the group has become increasingly isolated from mainstream rebel groups. + +The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is one of the most powerful groups among the many rebel factions fighting Assad's government, and has gained ground in recent weeks. + +Syria's ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, said on Tuesday that Russia would not prevent the Syrian government from "fighting terrorists". + +"If they want to fight terrorism and not Syria's army, they should fight terrorists and not the Syrian army," Haddad said. + +U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday urged Russia to support a political solution to Syria's civil war, but said there was no military solution to the conflict. + +While American officials have said that ISIL is likely losing ground in the battle for Syria, they have also said that it is still an active and dangerous threat to the region.<|endoftext|>By Mose Buchele + +The number of people killed by police in 2015 was a record high. Since the start of the year, police have killed at least 317 people, according to an analysis of independent news agencies' numbers by The Guardian. This is above the total number of people killed by weapons and explosives in the U.S. that year, which was 324. + +Why does this matter? + +In 2015, police killed 587 people, according to the Guardian, a 15 percent increase from the year before. While this is a historically high number, it is a fraction of the number of people killed by U.S. forces in Vietnam. + +Police killings are particularly concerning because the public is often unaware of them. While the public knows that police officers use deadly force, it is less aware that police officers kill people. + +Elisabeth Rosenthal, director of the Justice Policy Institute, said, "When police kill people, they are immediately scrutinized by the media and the public as though they are threatening the life of the chief of police." + +The Guardian's analysis of state-by-state numbers suggest that some states, like Arizona and Louisiana, have more officers killed than the national average. In fact, Louisiana, which has had the highest number of total police killings in the last two years, has one of the poorest records in terms of community relations with the police. + +A recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union found that in Louisiana, police were more likely to use chokeholds to subdue people than any other type of force except guns. + +According to the ACLU report, "in order to qualify as a 'chokehold,' a police officer must use violence on the suspect's +======================================== SAMPLE 323 ======================================== +Details + +Pictures + +Clubs Top Characters Kagami Kagami (桂木 美納) The protagonist. She is a girl who comes from a rich family, and her family is very well-known in the game. + + +Since her childhood, she has been always watched over by her grandmother. She has been followed by a boy to the same place. She's very shy and has a weird personality. She is shown to be very frightful, which is a result of her small age. She is also extremely perceptive, as she is able to read the mind of the other characters. + + +(Source: Wikipedia) + + +Voice Actors Nakayama, Chika Japanese<|endoftext|>The Giza Plateau, also known as the "Great Pyramid of Giza", is the lowest part of Egypt's Great Pyramid complex. It's located along the eastern margin of the Giza Plateau, around the area of the pyramid's base.<|endoftext|>The 5,000-square-foot home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. + +The 5,000-square-foot home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. + +The home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. + +The location of the home in the Red Zone of Cairo, Egypt, has been a mystery for more than a decade, but now the home is finally revealed inside the walls, according to an ABC News report. + +The home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife, according to an ABC News report. + +"It's like a zoo," one resident told the news outlet. "There are elephants, zebras, giraffes, jaguars, all kinds of animals and birds." + +The home, which was built with a "red zone" designation, was located in an area that had been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years. + +However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. + +"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." + +Qattan said the house is a safe haven for wildlife, as he has lived there since 1996. + +"We got a lot of visitors from all over the world, and they come here to see the animals," he said. "There is a lot of noise, but it's like a zoo." + +The home is located in an area that has been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years, according to the ABC News report. + +However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. + +"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." + +The home is located in an area that has been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years, according to the ABC News report. + +However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. + +"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." + +ABC's Felicia Gans contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>The advantage for the two candidates is always about their image. But for Mr. Trump, that image is about his wealth. And it is not just about how much money he earns. It is about how he got his wealth and how he spends it. For Mr. Trump, it is not just about his wealth. It is about how he got his wealth and how he spends it. + +Photo + +His wealth comes from a product that he himself created, and from the fact that he owns a building he designed and built. He owns a good television network, though it isn't +======================================== SAMPLE 324 ======================================== +The classic O'Hara and his wife, the artist Lillian, live in a blue-collar neighborhood of New York City. Their son, David, is a lousy student, and they have a strained relationship. On a bitter cold night, they are awakened by the screams of a woman who is being raped. They pull their gun and shoot the rapist, but he has moved out of sight... Written by Anonymous<|endoftext|>CLOSE The latest news and sports on the Auburn football team, obtained from various sources, including the athletics department, athletics director Jay Jacobs, and the school's media relations department. Jason Smith/AuburnTigers.com + +Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn has said he thinks the Tigers can finish with a winning record. (Photo: Marvin Gentry, USA TODAY Sports) + +AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn's top recruit, wide receiver Calvin Ridley, said Wednesday that he has not made a final decision about which school to attend. + +"I have not made a final decision," Ridley said during a media availability. "I'm just going to take my time and see where my mind is at. I just want to know what's best for me and my family." + +Ridley, a five-star prospect from Houston, said he is leaning toward the Tigers. He chose Auburn over Florida and Alabama last year. + +"I love Auburn," Ridley said. "I love the campus, the program, the coaches, the players. I know everybody is going to be talking about it, but I'm just going to take my time and see what's best for me and my family." + +Auburn has not made a final decision on its quarterback or running back. + +Ridley said he will take a "little break" as he decides his college destination. But he said he would make his final decision soon. + +"I'm going to wait and see what Auburn has to offer me," Ridley said. "I just want to know what's best for me and my family." + +Auburn plans to hold its spring game at 9 a.m. Sunday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. + +The Tigers, who are coming off a 9-4 season, are expected to open the season against South Carolina on Aug. 31. The Gamecocks, who went 9-4 last year, have won seven of the past nine in the series. + +Read or Share this story: http://on.mgmadv.com/1T6N6t5<|endoftext|>All of us, without exception, are racist. + +This is a fact that just about everyone has admitted to. + +This is a fact that despite the best efforts of the left, has not been challenged. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has been touted by the president and the media. + +This is a fact that doesn't work to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has not worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has been touted by the president and the media. + +This is a fact that doesn't work to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has not worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. + +This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. + +This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a +======================================== SAMPLE 325 ======================================== +From the moment the Houston Astros signed Mark Appel, the first thing I thought was: "Wow, that's a lot of money." + +I want to make it clear that I am not complaining. I don't care about the money. It's a great addition to this team. + +The Astros' big signing was for right-hander Chris Devenski, who is a pitcher. + +It's not like the Astros have been throwing up dingers for years. They are the only team in baseball without a home run in 2016. + +Appel is a great pitcher. He will be a great pitcher. He is the type of pitcher that the Astros should sign more often. This was a great addition to this team. + +But I have to wonder about how much money the Astros should spend on Appel. + +He is a big-time prospect. He is a potential ace. And while he is only 22 years old, he has had a pretty rough three seasons in the big leagues — a 5.04 ERA in 30 starts, with a 5.28 FIP in 46.2 innings. + +The thing is: I think it's a little early to say that Appel is the future ace of this team. But what I do know is that Appel is a big-time pitcher. + +It's not like he is a six-foot-seven, 200-pound pitcher. He is a six-foot-one, 200-pound pitcher. That size has been a problem for him in the big-leagues. + +Just look at some of the pitches he's thrown this year: + +This is a fastball. This is a curveball. This is a slider. + +He's thrown this at various points since the beginning of the 2015 season. + +The fastball is probably his best pitch. It's got two inches of sinking action and a lot of movement. + +The curveball is a good pitch, with a good amount of movement. It's a changeup, but a changeup that you just don't throw in the big leagues. + +The slider is a good pitch, with a good amount of movement. It's a changeup, but a changeup that you don't throw in the big leagues. + +Appel is a big-time pitcher. He doesn't throw a lot of fastballs. He doesn't throw a lot of curveballs. He doesn't throw a lot of sliders. + +But he does throw a ton of fastball-slider combinations. + +Those are the pitches that Appel is most comfortable throwing in the big leagues. He works lots of fastballs and curves in his bullpen. He sticks a lot of sliders. + +He has been throwing those pitches in the big leagues. The problem is that they're not producing. + +He has struggled as a starter. He has struggled as a reliever. He has struggled as a starter in the minors. He's struggled as a reliever in the minors. + +Why wasn't he able to stick in the big leagues? Well, he's not a dominant pitch. He's a strikeout pitch. + +Appel is a strikeout pitch. And he's not dominant. He needs to work on his command. And his command is a big issue. + +He doesn't have a lot of deception. He doesn't have a lot of movement. He doesn't have a lot of deception. + +Appel can command his fastball and slider. But he can't command his fastball and curveball. + +I know this is almost a cliché, but Appel needs to get his curveball more down. He needs to work on his curveball. + +And it's not like Appel is a perfect pitch. It's not like Appel is a perfect guy. He needs to work on his command and his command is a big issue. + +Appel is a great pitcher. He's a great pitcher. The Astros should sign him a lot more often. + +But I'm kind of surprised that they didn't sign him more often. He's a player who is going to be a big-time player in this league. He's the type of pitcher that the Astros should sign more often. + +The Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in free agency. They will need to be aggressive in free agency. + +While the Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in free agency, the Astros are also a team that is going to need to be aggressive in the draft. + +The Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in the draft. The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. + +The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. + +The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 326 ======================================== +The head of the University of New Mexico's campus police department has resigned after a woman was arrested after she passed out in his patrol car. + +The woman, who had been drinking, was arrested after she was found passed out in the back seat of the patrol car after the police department stopped her for a broken tail light. + +The university president, Ray Anderson, said in a news release that the officer had "failed to meet the high standards" of the department, which he said was "a reflection of the university's desire to maintain a safe community." + +The university is not investigating the incident, which happened on Sept. 17. + +The university has hired a consultant to review campus police, and Anderson said the university would ask the consultant to report back by the end of the month. + +Anderson said he had been a police officer for 20 years and saw the job as an honorable one. + +"When I began, I thought it was a noble job, and I think it still is," Anderson said. + +The officer who resigned, Scott Winnebent, had been with the police department for less than a year. + +The university has hired an advisory firm to review the department, and Anderson said he hoped to have a new chief in place by the fall. + +The university has also hired a consultant to review the department. + +Anderson said he was disappointed in how the incident unfolded. + +"I'm devastated by what happened," he said. "I hope the officer is fully accepted by the community and the people of New Mexico."<|endoftext|>The Trump administration is vowing to "rebuild the American military" — and that's good news for the military budget and the defense contractors who are already raking in the dough. + +President Trump signed an executive order last week that will open the door to a major buildup of the military, with the administration touting the order as a sign that the U.S. is "back to work." + +"President Trump is rebuilding our military," Defense Secretary James Mattis said in a statement. "This order provides the resources we need to rebuild the military the way it was in the 1980s. We will rebuild our military so it can meet current and future threats and opportunities, and we will make America more prosperous and secure." + +Presumably, Trump's plan includes new money for the military. But the overwhelming majority of the money will go to defense contractors, who would see massive increases in federal contracts. + +For instance, Lockheed Martin will receive $19.4 billion in additional contracts over the next five years, and Northrop Grumman stands to take home $18.2 billion in new contracts for bomber aircraft. + +It's not just the defense contractors who stand to benefit from Trump's military-building spree. Drug companies like Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson have also reportedly been awarded billions of dollars in new contracts. + +It's already been a bonanza for defense contractors. + +In 2016, U.S. defense contractors spent $342 billion on arms and military-related products, up 34 percent from $260 billion in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. + +Defense contractors have also been raking in the dough. Lockheed Martin, for example, made $7.6 billion in profits last year, up from $6.6 billion the year before. + +While the military-industrial complex has been a powerful force in U.S. politics for decades, the bulk of its funding came from taxes and fees paid by the American people. + +This was especially true during the Reagan administration, when the defense budget grew by more than 50 percent under then-President Ronald Reagan. + +That's why, in 1986, Congress passed the Defense Production Act, which imposed a three-pronged tax on U.S. defense contractors. + +One portion of the tax was a tax on the profits that military contractors made from weapons and military-related equipment. Another tax was a tax on the employment of military and civilian employees on their weapons and equipment. The third part of the tax was a tax on the costs that the government incurs for developing and purchasing the weapons and equipment. + +This is what Trump is trying to do now, by imposing a one-time tax on the $1.3 trillion in profits that defense contractors have amassed over the past decade. + +In order to implement this tax, Trump will need to somehow get Congress to repeal a law that allows defense contractors to pay taxes on their overseas profits. + +So far, no Republicans have agreed to repeal the law. But that's likely to change in the next two years, when GOP leaders look to have a much easier time passing tax reform. + +The political pressure to repeal the Defense Production Act is likely to be intense. + +"I don't think there's any doubt that repealing the production tax credit is a key priority of the Trump administration," said Eric Toder, +======================================== SAMPLE 327 ======================================== +The Daily Mail is advertising for a new "independent media consultant" to help "bring the truth to the British people's attention." + +The ad is for a "multi-award winning" analyst to "provide expert analysis of the media landscape, including the impact of online content, social media and online advertising." + +The description of The Daily Mail's role says that the company's role is "to help the Conservative party and Government achieve its objectives through the delivery of effective, accurate and fair journalism." + +The ad is for a two-year contract. + +It is unclear if the Daily Mail paid for the ad, but it is likely to have been paid for by The Daily Mail Group, which owns the Daily Mail and The Sun. + +The Daily Mail is a member of the Alliance for Audited Media, a coalition of scores of British, German, Italian and other media organizations that has been trying to get the UK government to audit the advertising of the country's newspapers. + +A coalition of news organizations has been pushing for the UK government to audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers https://t.co/iYwO7bQwGM — Julie Hyland (@juliehyland) October 7, 2017 + + +Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has been a strong supporter of the UK government's plan to audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers, both during the unsuccessful 2015 campaign for a media reform bill and during the 2017 general election campaign. Dacre has written many defenses of the idea that the UK government should audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers. + +A spokesman for The Daily Mail said the campaign for an audit had "nothing to do with the Daily Mail." + +"This was a piece of work that was commissioned by another media outlet and we feel that this constitutes a breach of our editorial independence and self-regulation," the spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. + +The Daily Mail is owned by News UK, the parent company of The Sun. + +News UK, which also owns the Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the Sunday Times, is a member of the Alliance for Audited Media, and the press association has written to the UK government asking for a review of its media self-regulation regime. + +This story has been updated with comment from The Daily Mail.<|endoftext|>To see how everyone is doing in the world of e-cigarettes, we've created a list of the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. All the brands on this list are available on the market. Each brand's brand page has pictures of the products, the brands that make them, and a description of what the brands do. + +This is the first time that we've included 100% bottom-tier brands. We've included all brands that are available on the market and are not brand names. + +We used to include only the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. After some research we learned that there are more than 100,000 e-cigarette brands on the market. This is a much larger category than we originally expected. + +We've put together this list of the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. If you're interested in becoming an e-cigarette brand ambassador, click here.<|endoftext|>Two months after its launch in the United States, German online retailer toymaker Hasbro has launched its first UK online store. + +As of 8am, Hasbro UK has listed 657 toys, including a selection of Star Wars and Marvel figures, a selection of Kenner figures, and a selection of action figures, from the Hasbro video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. + +The retailer is also listing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures by Hasbro and Mattel and Marvel figures by Marvel, with a range of figures including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Lightsaber Duel, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Racer Storm, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Arcade, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: X-Wing and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: The Dark Side. + +Hasbro UK also lists a range of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures by Fisher-Price, which are seemingly part of a set, and three Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures including a Stormtrooper and a Stormtrooper Princess. + +The retailer is also listing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures for sale in a range of different prices, including £9.99 for the Stormtrooper Princess and £9.99 for the Stormtrooper Stormtrooper. + +Interestingly, the retailer lists two figures that have been previously released by Hasbro UK, but have not yet been released in the United States. The retailer lists a Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Stormtrooper Princess and a Stormtrooper Stormtrooper, which have yet to be released in the United States. + +It is not known if these figures are part of the new official UK release of the figures. +======================================== SAMPLE 328 ======================================== +I'm sitting here in the dark, in my house, with my dad, and I'm thinking about the next four years. + +I'm a father of two young boys — ages 3 and 4 — and I don't know where they're going to be in four years. + +So many people tell me that education is the key to making your future better. + +But I'm not so sure. + +I've spoken to politicians. I've spoken to people who operate in the halls of power. And I've spoken to parents like you and my wife, who have a son or daughter in kindergarten. + +Together, we've searched the Internet — and we've come up empty. + +I've read about education. I've read about technology. I've read about technology and education — but we have not found the answers to any of our questions. + +And so, I've come to the conclusion that this is going to be a very important time for your generation. + +You're going to be a part of the next generation of leaders. And you're going to be the ones who make the decisions that determine your future. + +And I'm going to ask you to take a few minutes of your time today, and think about this. [Applause] + +If you don't, I will be surprised. + +I will be really surprised. + +I just want to be clear with you: + +I believe in education. + +I believe in education. + +I believe in giving everyone access to the opportunity to do what they love. + +I believe in equal opportunity. + +I believe in opportunity for all. + +And I believe in making sure that everyone has the best education that they can have. + +That's what I believe. + +Because I want every single child in this country to have a chance to get the best education that they can get. + +I want every child in this country to be able to go to a good college and get a good job so that they can have a decent middle class life. + +I want every child in this country to be able to go to a good college and get a good job so that they can have a decent middle class life. + +And I want every single child in this country to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. + +And I want every child in this country to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. + +And I want every single child in this country, regardless of where they live or what their background is, to have a chance to get a good job that pays well and provides for their family, so that they can live in a decent way. + +That's what I believe in. + +I believe in education. + +I believe in education. + +I believe in equality. + +I believe in opportunity for all. + +And I believe that we have to make sure that we put money back into our public schools so that children from every community can learn from each other and from their teachers. + +I believe in equality. + +I believe in opportunity for all. + +And I believe that we have to make sure that we put money back into our public schools so that children from every community can learn from each other and from their teachers. + +And I know that when parents and teachers and administrators and students all work together — that's what we need to do. + +We need to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. + +And I want every child in America to have a chance to get a good job that pays well and provides for their family, so that they can live in a decent way. + +And I want every child in America to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. + +And in this country, we have to make sure that we're helping to fund our public schools. + +We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. + +We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. + +We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. + +This is a good place to start. + +That's what I think about. + +I want every child in this country to have a chance to get +======================================== SAMPLE 329 ======================================== +A DeKalb County police officer was shot and killed by a man in a domestic violence incident on the Atlanta Beltline, authorities said. + +The officer was identified as Sgt. Kenneth Cooper, 41, a 20-year veteran of the department. + +He was shot and killed about 10:30 a.m. Friday on the Beltline near the intersection of Atlanta Highway and Glen Iris Drive, according to an Atlanta Police Department statement. + +The investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the DeKalb County Police Department and the Atlanta Police Department. + +Police haven't released the identity of the victim. + +The shooting remains under investigation.<|endoftext|>A lot of you have asked about the Fed's actions, so I thought I'd clear some things up. Here are the Fed's actions: + +The Fed didn't raise rates. + +The Fed raised short-term interest rates 4 times. + +The Fed raised short-term interest rates 63 times. + +The Fed kept rates near zero for nearly a decade. + +The Fed's balance sheet has been over $4 trillion. + +The Fed has increased its balance sheet to $4.5 trillion. + +The Fed is not buying any bonds. + +The Fed is not reducing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not monetizing the debt. + +The Fed is not running a QE program. + +The Fed has not created an inflation target. + +The Fed is making lower rates more available to communities and home buyers. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not making a move to fight inflation. + +The Fed is not running open-market operations (OMOs). + +The Fed is not using open-market operations to monetize bonds. + +The Fed is not using open-market operations to change interest rates. + +The Fed is not exiting its long-term bond holdings. + +The Fed is not reducing its balance sheet to zero. + +The Fed is not exiting its long-term bond holdings. + +The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +There are a number of misconceptions about the Fed's actions. Let's take them one at a time. + +The Fed is not raising rates. + +The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. + +The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 330 ======================================== +Richard A. Flijick + +Richard A. Flijick is an American known for his work on the digital history of the United States. He is the author of Digital History: A New Approach to the History of Information and the co-editor of the series Digital History: From the Origins to the Present. + +Richard A. Flijick is an American known for his work on the digital history of the United States. He is the author of Digital History: A New Approach to the History of Information and the co-editor of the series Digital History: From the Origins to the Present. Flijick's works on the history of information have been published in a wide variety of publications and have been discussed in academic journals and conferences around the world. He has written articles for such publications as the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Review of Books, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review. He has appeared on television as a media commentator for MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, the BBC, and the BBC World Service. + +Flijick received his B.A. (1970) and his M.A. (1972) in history from Yale University. From 1973 to 1978 Flijick served as a research associate at Harvard University, where he was awarded the Henry Thomas Prize for his publication of the first volume of his "New York Trilogy". In 1978 he was a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Digital Society at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was awarded the Alfred M. Lilienthal Prize for the study of the role of the media in the political process. Flijick was a visiting scholar at Harvard University from 1984 to 1989. + +His most recent book is Digital History: From the Origins to the Present (Knopf, 2008). His publications include numerous articles in international and national periodicals, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review. His research has been published in numerous books and conferences including the International Journal of Electronic Media and the Annual Review of American History . He has appeared on television as a media commentator for MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, the BBC, and the BBC World Service. + +Flijick has served on the editorial staff of the Popular Science Monthly, American Libraries & Information Society, and the Journal of Communication. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he has served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Digital Media Center at Harvard University, the Media History Institute, and the Center for the Study of the Digital Media at the University of California at Berkeley. + +He has received a number of awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the National Council of Teachers of English Medal for Excellence in Research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the prestigious Franklin E. Smith Award, the International Space Hall of Fame Medal, and the National Academy of Engineering Medal.<|endoftext|>The Left's History of Anti-Men Rulings + +By S.E. Smith + +The historic, well-documented history of anti-father rulings is shocking, to say the least. + +In addition to the many previous examples of anti-father rulings that we have documented previously, the following are the most recent newsworthy rulings: + + +1. Pennsylvania v. Dreeben (2006) + + +In 2006, a Pennsylvania mother abandoned her three sons at a Catholic-run shelter on the advice of her lawyer. The mother was accused of child abandonment, and the judge fined her $200 and ordered her to undergo parenting classes. With the father's consent, the State of Pennsylvania granted custody to the mother. The mother's attorney, however, had a different opinion. He told the court that the father was only obligated to pay child support until the children turned 18—a point that the father strongly disputed in court. + +The father's attorney argued that the mother was "not a good fit" for her children, that she was "not a good mother," and that she had created a "toxic environment" in the shelter. The judge disagreed. He ordered the father to pay child support and ordered the mother to attend parenting classes. + +2. Illinois v. Smith (2005) + + +Another Illinois mother abandoned her four children. The State's Attorney claimed that the mother was not a good parent because she had "failed to meet the minimum standard for parental responsibility and thereby caused [the children] to be placed in the state's care." The mother was ordered to attend +======================================== SAMPLE 331 ======================================== +Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email + +A constituent who made a complaint about a local councillor's appearance called a police station begging for help because he was being harassed online. + +Michael Kane, 35, phoned the police after he was subjected to a vicious trolling campaign which began when he told a constituent that he was wearing a "very nice suit". + +The man who he spoke to at the police station was far less complimentary about his appearance, telling him that he was "just a poor bum". + +After the inappropriate comments were posted online Mr Kane reported the matter to police and the matter is now being investigated. + +Mr Kane said: "I think it's a disgrace that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance in such a way. I just couldn't believe that someone could be so vicious about it. + +"I phoned the police station to make a complaint. They told me it was a matter for the police but I felt so much better after talking to them. + +"I just thought it was terrible that someone in my position would have to be subjected to this kind of treatment. + +"I'm still trying to process everything – it's still very upsetting to think that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance." + +Mr Kane, who lives in the north of Wales, added: "I'm actually quite embarrassed about it. I'm a bit of a sportsman and I'm a very fit person. + +"But it gives me a bit of a hard time when people are cruel about my appearance. I'm a bit of an exhibitionist. + +"I've been on TV shows and in magazines and I get a lot of attention for it. + +"I'm a bit of a loner and I've never been in a relationship. I'm not the kind of person that has long-term relationships. I think I'm just a poor bum." + +The online comments were posted on a Facebook post by Michael Kane, a Labour councillor for Newport, which included a photo of him with his three children. + +The post was shared online by a local resident, who added: "Is there anything to worry about? You look a bit like a man who's just worked on a factory floor. I think you have a bit of a smile on your face." + +A friend of the councillor said: "He's pretty annoyed. I think it's a disgrace that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance in such a way." + +A Conservative councillor for the same area did not want to comment on the matter. + +A police spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that an incident of this nature has taken place. The matter remains under investigation and enquiries are ongoing. We take all reports of hate crime extremely seriously and are working with the local authority to identify the individual(s) involved".<|endoftext|>Whether you're in the market for a new mattress, or want to upgrade your current one, a good mattress is an investment that will likely pay off in the long run. That's why we've made it our mission to create the best mattresses on the planet. + +Our mission is to provide the highest quality and most comfortable mattress for you. That means using the best materials with ingenious designs and innovative innovations. We're also committed to using only the highest quality, most durable latex we can find. + +As with any investment, we recommend doing your research. We encourage you to visit our mattress reviews to find the best mattress for you. + +We look forward to partnering with you.<|endoftext|>It's hardly surprising to see the big religious right splintering apart over the issue of contraception. This issue is about so much more than whether contraception should be covered under insurance, and there's plenty of room on the spectrum for different perspectives, even on the issue of whether that coverage should be available to everyone. + +However, the much more important question to ask is whether the religious right has, in fact, become so stridently opposed to contraception that it's actually pushed the religious right off the religious right's supposed positions on other topics. + +A little over a year ago, on ABC's "This Week," a big religious right splinter group called the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) was honoring the late Jerry Falwell Jr., who was a champion for religious freedom. Overall, the ADF was pretty cheerful about its association with Falwell, but their ADF-sponsored event was marred by a controversial moment. + +On the ADF-sponsored "Freedom Summit" in Washington D.C. on June 20, 2015, the religious right group Voices for Christian Schools was thrilled to be honored by ADF, a group which has been at the center of a battle over whether private schools should be required to include contraception in their health plans. + +ADF was also thrilled to have other religious right groups, including the American Family +======================================== SAMPLE 332 ======================================== +Are you a new parent wondering how to best approach a baby's first bath? The bath is a crucial part of the baby's first days of life, and it should be handled with care. + +What to Expect + +Depending on your baby's age, the first bath may last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. + +If your baby is in the first month of life, the bath should be done at night. + +If your baby is between 6 and 12 months old, the bath should be done at 4 a.m. + +If your baby is 12 months old or older, the bath should be done as soon as he wakes up so that he's ready to get out of bed. + +Dressing Your Baby + +After your baby has been bathed, it's time to dress him. + +If you're bathing your baby in a sink or bathtub, wait for him to settle down and then put him on your lap. If you're bathing him in a tub, put him on your shoulders, behind your neck. Avoid pressure on your baby's legs. + +Sit your baby on your lap and hold him gently. + +Gently massage your baby's scalp with your fingers and gently rub his back. + +Take your baby's feet and hold them in your lap. + +Put your baby in his diaper and help him get into it. + +Carefully place your baby on the bath mat. + +Wrap your baby in a corner of the bath mat until he is fully dressed. + +What to Do While Your Baby Dies + +If your baby is experiencing anything that might be considered a medical emergency, call 911.<|endoftext|>As a very young woman, I was always a bit of a tomboy. My friends and I would play dress-up in the school yard, and my mom would get in on the action. But I would also wear jeans and a t-shirt underneath my school uniform. I wasn't allowed to have my hair done until I was around 11, so I would just wear a ponytail and a long-sleeve shirt. + +When I was older, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about boys. I would pull on my dad's jeans and motorcycle jacket and pretend I was riding around on a motorcycle with a hottie like myself. I would imagine what it would be like to be a man and act like a man. I would imagine what it would be like to be in a man's body and act like a man. I wanted to be a man, and I wanted to be a man in the way I wanted to be. + +But I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. + +I don't think I ever really thought about what it meant to be a man. For most of my life, I felt like I was just a woman trapped in a man's body. My body felt like a woman's body, and I would just wear jeans and a t-shirt underneath my school uniform. But I didn't know if I was a woman trapped in a man's body or a man trapped in a woman's body. + +I started to learn more about sex when I was in college. I went to a sex-positive college where we talked about it a lot — and about sex in general. It was a huge part of my life. I started looking at porn and went off to college knowing that my body was female and my sexual identity was female, so that was really exciting. I actually felt like I could be a sex-positive feminist. + +But I didn't feel that way, and I didn't feel like I was a feminist. I was just an ignorant young girl who liked to watch porn and have sex. + +I didn't feel like I was a feminist. But I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. + +Despite feeling like I was a feminist, I wasn't exactly sure what it meant to be a feminist. I had read about feminism for my college classes, but I had never really gotten to understand it. I didn't know what the word meant, because I didn't know what it meant. + +But I was living in New York City when I had my first encounter with a transgender person. When I first met Rachel, I was struck by how trans* she looked. I had never really considered her trans* in my mind until that moment. I was completely struck by how she looked in a way I had never considered before. It was as if she was made up of different parts of my body, and she was a complete individual. + +It was when I first met Rachel that I learned what it meant to be a trans* person. I learned about hormones, surgeries, and coming out. I learned about surgeries, hormones, and coming out. I learned about different definitions of gender. + +I learned about different definitions of gender. + +I learned about what it meant to be a trans* person. + +I learned about +======================================== SAMPLE 333 ======================================== +Tickets to Golden State Warriors games at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum have gone on sale, and if you're a ticket holder for the first round of this year's playoffs, you're in luck. + +There were more than 224,000 tickets available for the first round of the playoffs, according to the Warriors' ticketing website. The Warriors' first-round win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, which ended in a five-game series, brought the total number of available tickets to more than 253,000. + +The 2017 NBA Finals, which will be held in Cleveland from June 2-7, will have a total of 1,600,000 tickets available for the first round. + +The Warriors, who have made a strong playoff push thanks to a strong defense, led all teams with a total of 1,827,000 tickets available. The Houston Rockets, who were eliminated from the playoffs in the Western Conference semifinals, had the second-most tickets at 1,829,000. + +The New York Knicks, who lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals, had the most tickets at 1,634,000. + +The Los Angeles Lakers, who lost to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals, had the least tickets -- only 773,000. The Washington Wizards, who lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, had the most at 1,547,000 tickets.<|endoftext|>It's been a rough few weeks for Micah Richards, the Orlando Magic's starting center, who was suspended for the first six games of the season for a failed drug test. + +Richards, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft, was suspended for the first six games of the season for a failed drug test. + +Richards, who signed with the Magic on Jan. 10, was suspended on July 27 after failing a drug test at the NBA combine. According to a statement given by the Magic on July 28, "Richards tested positive for a prohibited substance in his system… He has been suspended for the first six games of the season and is ineligible to play in any games for the Magic." + +Richards was tested in Chicago on July 27. + +The Magic selected Richards with the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft. On Jan. 10, he was acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers in a trade that sent Andrew Bynum to the Cavaliers and Andrew Nicholson to Orlando, along with the No. 16 pick in the draft. + +The Magic are 4-8 this season, and they're counting on Richards to help them become more competitive in the Eastern Conference. Orlando is tied for the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference — five games back of the Washington Wizards. + +Richards is expected to serve his suspension during the Magic's three-game road trip to the East Coast from Tuesday through Sunday. + +Richards' suspension will keep him out of Orlando's first three games.<|endoftext|>The Pirate Bay is shipping some new software to users, which is the biggest change in the site's 3-year history. According to the Pirate Bay team, the new software will make it easier for users to find and share copyright-infringing content. The new software is already available to anyone who has a subscription to The Pirate Bay. + +The Pirate Bay is one of the most popular websites in the world. + +The site was founded in 2003 by Swedish programmer Fredrik Neij, with the aim of providing an alternative to mainstream media. + +In 2009, the site moved to a new domain, which has since been taken down and taken down again. + +The Pirate Bay's new web address is http://www.thepiratebay.org, and it is currently being used by millions of people. + +The website is now one of the most popular sites on the planet, but it's not the only one. + +In fact, there are countless other file-sharing sites out there. + +In a blog post, The Pirate Bay tells us that the new version of its software is the biggest change the site has made in its 3-year history. + +"We are proud to announce that we are launching a new version of The Pirate Bay in which we have added a number of new features," the post reads. + +"The new release will make it easier for users to find illegal content, as well as for them to share content that they have found," the post goes on to add. + +The Pirate Bay adds that the new software has been tested by 3 million people in a short period of time. + +The new version is available for download via The Pirate Bay's website right now. The team says that the new software is available for download in English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, and Russian. + +"If you are a few minutes away from a computer, you can try the new software. All you need to do is to download the software and install it +======================================== SAMPLE 334 ======================================== + +The team is proud to announce that a new game is in development! + +We will be using Kickstarter to fund the project. + +The game itself will be free to play, but you will be able to buy some in-game items with real money. + +We have a lot of awesome rewards for you to choose from, including: + +Game concept art + +Game music + +Beta access + +Beta key for all future games + +Beta key for all future games Humble tier + +Humble tier Sticker tier + +Sticker tier T-shirt tier + +T-shirt tier Digital copy of game project + +Digital copy of game project T-shirt tier + +T-shirt tier Collector's edition + +Collector's edition Digital soundtrack + +Digital soundtrack Digital art book + +Digital art book Physical and digital art book + +Physical and digital art book Collectors edition + +Collectors edition Digital art book + +Digital art book Game jacket + +Game jacket Physical art book + +Physical art book Digital soundtrack + +Digital soundtrack Digital game guide + +Digital game guide Digital art book + +Digital art book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital 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book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + +Digital comic book Digital comic book + + +======================================== SAMPLE 335 ======================================== +And as we have seen, the problem with this is that it is easy to overlook the poor analysis of how much a player's defensive contributions mean for their team. I have argued that the difference between which teams were better and worse defensively last year was not really the difference in the quality of their defensive contributions, but rather, it was the difference in their respective teams' defensive contributions. For teams like the Raptors, the Raptors' team defense was fairly similar to the Bucks' team defense, because the Raptors had a league-average defensive rating while the Bucks' team defense was slightly below average. This means that the difference between the Raptors' team defense and the Bucks' team defense really was just the difference in their defensive contributions. + +The Celtics were clearly worse than the Bucks. But they were right up there with the Raptors. The difference between the Celtics' team defense and the Raptors' team defense was the difference in the Bucks' team defense. The difference between the Celtics' team defense and the Bucks' team defense was due to the Bucks being much worse defensively than the Celtics. + +So, what about the Raptors? + +The Raptors were no better defensively than Milwaukee. They were not worse defensively than Boston. They were noticeably worse defensively than the Kings. They were worse defensively than the Pelicans. They were worse defensively than the Timberwolves. They were worse defensively than the Wolves. They were worse defensively than the Bucks. + +The Raptors' defensive contributions were down in all categories except the best one: 10th best in defensive rating. So why were they so bad defensively? + +Well, it's complicated. I believe that the key is that Toronto's defensive contributions were dominated by their defense in the final quarter. After that, the Raptors' defensive contributions were not very good at all. They were just average. + +That's a little odd, because the Raptors played in the second half of the season. They got better, but their defensive contributions weren't that great. + +Does the difference in the Raptors' offense and defense indicate that the Raptors were better defensively than the Bucks? Not really. The difference in Bucks' offense and defense is due to their defense. The difference in Raptors' offense and defense is due to their offense. + +In conclusion, I believe that the difference in Toronto's offense and defense is due to where they played. If we look at the top 10 teams in offensive and defensive rating, the Raptors are right up there, but they are not there in the top 10. + +The bottom 10 teams in offensive and defensive rating are where the Raptors should be. The Raptors, even when they were really bad defensively, were still better than most of the bottom 10.<|endoftext|>The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. + +The new model, which Google is calling the Google Home Mini, is a single-channel speaker with a Bluetooth connection. The sound is said to be "sharp and clear," and was designed to "make your life easier." + +The new speaker has a single button on top of the unit that controls the volume. It does not have volume control on its side, like the previous model. Instead, the Google Home Mini has a "buzzer" that chirps when the volume is at a certain level. + +The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. + +Google Home Mini Specs + +The device is 7 inches tall when closed, but is 7.9 inches long when open. It weighs just 23 grams, but it has a weight capacity of 100 grams. + +The Google Home Mini has two USB ports, one on its top and one on the bottom. A microSD card slot is located on the right side of the unit, and a microUSB power port is located on the bottom. On the front of the unit, you'll find a microphone and a power button. + +The Google Home Mini has a single monaural speaker inside the unit. It uses a Class II 3.5mm audio jack, and is powered by a 12V/1A charger. + +Google Home Mini vs Google Home + +The Google Home Mini also has a single button, rather than a separate volume control. + +Google Home Mini vs Google Home Pro + +The Google Home Mini has a single button, rather than a separate volume control. + + +======================================== SAMPLE 336 ======================================== +O'Malley's campaign is under fire for a campaign ad that implies that the nation's largest police union is somehow responsible for violent crime. + +The ad, which first aired in San Francisco this week, shows a man dressed in black with a scarf covering his face sitting in a police car. + +"I'm not afraid of the police," the man says, then explains to the camera that he was attacked by officers and his insurance company has dropped his coverage. + +The ad then shows a photo of a man in a suit and a tie, whose face is covered by a hoodie and sunglasses. + +"He's a cop, I'm not," the man says, adding that his insurance company refused to pay his medical bills. + +The narrator says, "There's no question that the hardworking men and women of the San Francisco Police Department are doing their jobs. … But in the last several years, these hardworking men and women have been targeted by the very people asking them to protect them. The San Francisco Police Officers Association is the most powerful police union in California." + +But the San Francisco Police Officers Association, a union of more than 200 members, says the ad is misleading. + +"At no time have the officers spoken or considered themselves to be under attack by law enforcement," said Lt. John Sawyer in a statement. "The officers of the SFPD are proud of their work in San Francisco." + +The union says the man in the video is not an SFPD officer and that the man who was featured in the ad is not a member of the SFPD. + +The video was shot in August 2013. The ad was first aired in the San Francisco neighborhood of the same name in November. + +The two-minute video has been viewed more than 3,000 times since it first aired. + +O'Malley's campaign was quick to respond to the ad. + +"Just as the Governor recognizes the link between crime and income inequality, he also thinks that the income inequality that exists in this country is a direct result of the income inequality that exists in this country," said spokesman Brian Coy. "Gov. O'Malley understands that the issues of racial and economic justice are directly related and that both of these issues are connected to the un-bridled militarization of local police forces that has plagued this country for decades." + +O'Malley has been under pressure from activists and politicians in recent weeks after the release of a string of police-involved shootings of unarmed black men. + +The officer who shot and killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore was found not guilty of murder in his death in April. In Ferguson, Mo., a white police officer fatally shot a black teenager, Michael Brown, after a brief struggle. + +In San Francisco, O'Malley has been under fire for a series of statements that have drawn criticism for their potential to incite racial tensions. + +Last month, O'Malley defended the city's plan to police the city's homeless, which critics have said disproportionately affects people of color. + +"This is a problem that is multi-factorial," O'Malley said. "It's not just the issues of the homeless; it's the issues of poverty, like lack of affordable housing, not having enough food, lack of healthcare, and a lack of good schools." + +O'Malley, who is black, has said he was "deeply troubled" by Gray's death and that his family is "in mourning." + +The Associated Press contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced a bill that would allow companies to keep their genomes from being used for marketing purposes, even if the data is sold to outside parties. + +Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and 46 other Democrats submitted a bill to Congress on Tuesday that would require companies that offer, sell or otherwise use genetic data to provide an opportunity for patients to request their data be kept private. + +Lieu said biotechnology companies sell genetic data and medical records to pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and others without patients being notified. + +"This legislation would force the companies to tell you, the patient, whether or not they're selling your genome to another company," Lieu said on a press call. + +The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. + +In addition to Lieu and the Democrats' bill, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California also submitted its own legislation late last year that would require companies to notify patients before they release genetic data to third parties. + +The ACLU's legislation is part of a broader push to ensure that consumers have a way to control their own personal data and ensure that their genetic information is protected. + +"We have to change the paradigm that the genetic information is so untouchable and so valuable that we can't use it for marketing or for any other reason, but the notion that it's so valuable that we can't share it with others, I think is a little biased +======================================== SAMPLE 337 ======================================== +Contact: + +Contact info@mike-mcleary.com + +Twitter: @mclearymike + +Mcleary is an independent film-maker based in New York. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where he studied writing, directing, and acting. He is also a graduate of the New York Actor's Workshop, where he was a member of the Dramatic Improv troupe. He is a graduate of the New York Film Academy, where he was a member of the New York City International Film Festival Jury, and he has had productions in various theaters in New York City. He is a graduate of the New York University School of Drama. Mcleary currently lives in New York City with his wife, three dogs, and cats.<|endoftext|>I recently began a new project: building a simple, low-cost, Bluetooth-enabled, low-power, open source camera that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. The camera was intended to be used in a variety of ways, including both simple and complex aerial photography, as well as remote monitoring. The project started off as an attempt to keep costs down, but after months of work, I was able to make the camera more affordable to a much wider audience. + +The camera is designed to be simple enough that a user can pick it up and start using it immediately. It operates on a single AA battery (for in-flight operation), and the power consumption of the camera is nearly negligible, around 0.2 mW. The camera can be easily removed from the base and cleaned. The camera is designed to be very small and could easily fit on a keychain, and I've even added an optional US$25 charger that attaches to the camera base. + +The camera does not have a built-in GPS receiver, but it's designed to use any inexpensive GPS receiver that is available on the market. + +The camera is powered by an On/Off switch on the camera and a single AA battery. The camera has an LED on the base that indicates the battery level. + +The camera is designed to be used with a variety of wireless gps receivers. The most popular gps receivers are the Turnigy G2R, Turnigy G3 and Turnigy G3S. + +The camera works by scanning for a GPS signal from a gps receiver and then sending the GPS coordinates to the gps receiver. The gps receiver receives the coordinates and sends them to the frame rate-limited, open source gpsd kernel. + +The camera is based on the free and open-source gpsd-kernel, which is available on Github. There are various problems with the gpsd-kernel that needed to be addressed in order to make the project more accessible to a wider audience. + +The main problems with gpsd-kernel that were addressed are: + +Bandwidth: Having a gpsd kernel that is limited to a 5GHz band causes it to be unusable for most mobile devices. It also causes problems for the gpsd-kernel when connecting to a hardware GPS receiver that is not on the same band. + +Low-power consumption: gpsd-kernel is designed to run on a single battery, but in order to use it in a wide variety of ways, it needs to run in the background on the battery's power. + +Open source: gpsd-kernel is developed and maintained by several volunteers. It is available under a free and open-source license. + +Camera: Before I started working on the project, I had considered a simple, cheap, open source, handheld camera. However, as I began to work on the project, I realized that the camera would need to be much more sophisticated than that. The camera has to be both simple and inexpensive, so that a user can pick it up and start using it immediately. A simple, cheap, open source camera would have some major problems, including an extremely poor resolution, low frame rate, and poor quality image. The camera also needs to be strong enough that it can withstand heavy use, including a strong wind. + +In the end, I chose to use the gpsd-kernel, which has a good set of features and is relatively simple to implement. The gpsd-kernel can send and receive GPS coordinates, and uses UDP to communicate with the gpsd kernel. + +The gpsd-kernel is built on top of the free and open-source gpsd-kernel, which is available on Github. There are various problems with the gpsd-kernel that needed to be addressed in order to make the project more accessible to a wider audience. + +The gpsd-kernel has a few problems, most notably that it does not have any support for the RTL-SDR, and it does not support RTTY. The gpsd-kernel currently supports the following RTL-SDR modes +======================================== SAMPLE 338 ======================================== +"You have to be careful with this stuff," he said. "If you do, you're going to get into trouble." + +A few months later, Mr. Trump's aides began to fill the deputy director's office with former campaign advisers. + +"I wasn't happy, and I didn't want to be around," Mr. Rogers said. But he left, and Mr. Trump was appointed national security adviser, and he filled other posts with former campaign aides. Mr. Rogers remained on the job. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +Mr. Rogers said his superiors were "unhappy about the fact that I was leaving." They "wanted to keep me, but they wanted me to do this or that." + +The first Trump campaign adviser who sought a security clearance was Carter Page, who had been advising the Trump campaign on energy and international trade, and who was a frequent guest on Mr. Trump's favorite radio show, "The Howard Stern Show." + +Mr. Page was trying to develop a project in Kazakhstan, which he believed would be a new source of energy. His business partner was a Russian aluminum magnate, Oleg Deripaska, who had been accused by Western governments of being a front for the Kremlin. + +Photo Mr. Page in New York in January. Credit Albin Lohr-Jones for The New York Times + +The two men were traveling in the early months of the campaign, and Mr. Page was taking notes. "I was having a really good time in the campaign," Mr. Page said in an interview last week. "I had a lot of fun. I was enjoying it." + +But Mr. Page's work in Kazakhstan was coming under scrutiny from American intelligence officials, who suspected that Mr. Deripaska, his business partner, was involved in corruption and was funneling money from the United States to the Russian government. + +Mr. Page said he did not know about the suspicions against his business partner. + +"I never met with Oleg Deripaska," Mr. Page said. He said he had nothing to do with the aluminum business. "I'm not an aluminum magnate," he said. "I don't know what he does." + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +Mr. Page said he had never heard of the "Bolton dossier" until the Times asked him about it. + +"The dossier was certainly circulated all over Washington," Mr. Page said. "I was not aware of any of it at the time." + +Mr. Page said he was "unaware" that he had been named as a former Soviet spy. "I have no idea whether I was, were or am a spy," he said. + +In March, Mr. Page was interviewed at the FBI's offices in New York by the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence agents. The agents said they needed to know more about a meeting that Mr. Page had with a Russian diplomat, Sergey Kislyak, during the summer of 2016. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +Mr. Page said he had not met the diplomat, whom he did not identify, and dismissed his presence at the Trump campaign event in July as a casual encounter. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +"I'm not really sure what the big deal is," Mr. Page said in an interview. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +The F.B.I. agents asked him about his interactions with the Russian diplomat at the Republican National Convention and at a speech he made at a Moscow university. + +Mr. Page said he did not remember discussing the Trump campaign with Mr. Kislyak and had not spoken with him since the convention. + +"I think they were trying to get more information about Russia's election plans, and I gave them what I thought was a fairly detailed answer," he said. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +Still, the F.B.I. agents were interested. After his interview, Mr. Page said, he was asked to fill out a questionnaire that would include his interactions with the Russian diplomat and the Trump campaign. He agreed to do so, he said, because he was told that the information would be kept confidential. + +"My understanding is that this information was not to be shared with the Trump campaign and that if I did I would be violating federal law," Mr. Page said. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +The F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment. + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +On April 11, 2016, the day of the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Page flew to Moscow from New York. He had been invited to speak at an academic conference sponsored by the Moscow-based New Economic School, a private network of research universities that has been accused by American intelligence officials of having ties to the Russian government. + + +======================================== SAMPLE 339 ======================================== +Sporting Kansas City's fall from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. + +The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. + +Sporting Kansas City's fallen from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. + +The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. + +The final straw was Sporting Kansas City's loss to the Houston Dynamo on Oct. 20. A 1-0 loss at BBVA Compass Stadium, where the team had been unbeaten since early March, was the final straw for the club as it fell out of the top three in the Western Conference standings. + +Sporting Kansas City's fall from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. + +The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. + +The last game of the season — a 2-1 loss to the LA Galaxy on Oct. 27 — was a microcosm of the season as a whole. A dominant performance by the Galaxy in the first half gave way to a sloppy, error-riddled performance with a number of defensive lapses in the second half. + +"What we have to be better at is getting it right in the final third of the field," said Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes after the loss to LA. "We have to improve in that area of the field. It's a large improvement in the final third." + +The club's current struggles in central defense are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. + +Sporting Kansas City allowed 16 goals from set pieces in 2015, which was the second-most in MLS. The club's previous high for set piece goals allowed in a season was 13 allowed in 2013. + +The problem for Sporting Kansas City is that it is one of the most complete teams in the league with its defense. The club has a few weak links on the back line, but there is a great deal more quality than the technical prowess of its defenders. + +"The pieces we have don't match what we have on our team," Vermes said. "I think that's what we're trying to get better at." + +The club's problems from set pieces are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. + +The club has a few weak links on the back line, but there is a great deal more quality than the technical prowess of its defenders. + +The club was the most improved team in MLS at generating set pieces in 2015. The biggest reason for that improvement was the addition of Graham Zusi. Since the club acquired the veteran midfielder, the club has tied for second in the league in set piece goals allowed in 2015 with eight. + +Zusi's ability to generate set pieces has been one of the keys to Sporting Kansas City's success. + +The team has a lot of depth on the back line, but it would be wise not to rely on the club's back line to generate set pieces. + +The club's current struggles from set pieces are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. + +The club's current woes aren't going to go away anytime soon, and it is no secret that the club is looking to beef up its defense in the offseason. + +The club has some key players who have shown they are capable of covering for each other, but the team lacks an elite defender to help cover for the shortcomings of the team's back line. + +Sporting Kansas City has one of the most talented, technically-gifted and versatile defenders in the league in Matt Besler. However, Besler has also shown that he has some weaknesses. + +Besler has the talent to be an elite player in the league. In 2014, the Sporting KC defender led the league in minutes per game with 1,475. His work rate and work rate of 90.7 percent were the best of any defender in MLS in 2014. + +The only problem is that Besler has shown that he struggles at times defending set pieces. + +During the last two games of the regular season, Besler was guilty of allowing the ball to end up at his feet too often. + +During a 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo on Oct. 27 +======================================== SAMPLE 340 ======================================== +But there are some who are more than willing to pay that price. + +Ages ago, this area of western-central Alberta began to boom with the mining and oil and gas industries, but the boom is over. + +The number of workers in the region has begun to dwindle while the number of employers has increased, leaving those who do exist in a tough economic situation. + +Many employers are asking their employees to work in hotels or service businesses and say it's the way they can prevent labour shortages. + +CBC's Margaret Evans-Brown spoke with two companies in the area that are offering seven-day work weeks. + +'You can't live on seven days' + +On the other side of town, Cindy Juric was laying steel in a warehouse on a recent Saturday. + +"It's a lot of work, you can't live on seven days," she says during an interview at the facility. + +The 44-year-old Juric has worked for more than a decade. She's working for Kessel Steel in Fort McMurray, the only company in the area that still relies on full-time employees. + +"We have a lot of people that are still working, but we're down to about two-thirds of our workforce," says Juric. "Just not enough people. It's a very difficult time." + +Kessel Steel has been looking to hire full-time employees for the past year. The company has a waiting list of more than 50 people, and they're keeping their doors open to anyone who wants to work. + +'It's sad, but it's reality' + +Kessel Steel may be the only company in the area that still relies on full-time employees. The company is seeking full-time employees for the long term. (CBC) + +Juric says as far as she's concerned, the extra money she makes is just time off and a better work life balance. + +"It's very difficult for the local economy, so that's why we have to be open to the possibility of having some people work," she says. + +"I don't know that we're going to be able to keep everyone." + +It's a far cry from the boom years. + +The former mill town of Fort McMurray has become a major tourist destination and has seen a surge in oil production, but many of the jobs have shifted to other parts of the province. + +That's also one of the reasons Juric says the promise of a seven-day work week isn't necessarily appealing. + +"It's sad, but it's reality," she says. "There's not enough people here to support the people that would like to work." + +The company is offering a full-time job, but it's called a part-time position. + +Juric says if the company's future is dependent on part-time employees, it's not a good situation. + +'We're dying out' + +Priscilla Hinton is one of the few remaining employees in Fort McMurray. She's the president of the Fort McMurray Workers' Association. The workers union has been trying to negotiate a shorter work week, but so far have been unsuccessful. + +"We're dying out," she says. "We're trying to use our economic advantage. We're going to have to work harder and harder and harder." + +She says the local economy is struggling to keep up with the huge population growth and the increase in oil and gas jobs. + +"Right now, we're basically in a recession," she says. "We're the only thing that's keeping it going." + +"If this wasn't for the oil and gas industry, we wouldn't be here." + +Hinton says the union is hoping a seven-day work week will be introduced into the province's labour code. + +It's a move that has been suggested in some other parts of the world, but it still needs to be worked out in the province.<|endoftext|>I've been a fan of the original "Guardians of the Galaxy" for quite some time now, and "Guardians of the Galaxy" Vol. 2 is by far my favorite film in the franchise. The music is amazing, the story is awesome, the action is great, and the story is so nicely paced and triggered my imagination in all the right ways. Vol. 2 also introduces the character of Star Lord (Chris Pratt), a character that is great, and in my limited experience with Pratt, he's been great. That being said, I don't think I'd want to see him in the same movie as Adam Warlock (Michael Rooker), who is basically perfect in every way. + +As much as I enjoy the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I do have a few minor gripes. The biggest one is the lack of sound effects. The music is great, and the +======================================== SAMPLE 341 ======================================== +As a team of journalists, we have been on the ground in Gaza for over a year now and have been able to witness the daily and ongoing human tragedy of Gaza's population. + +Since the start of the hostilities in July this year, over 2,100 Palestinians have been killed and over 11,000 injured, and over 80% of those killed have been civilians. + +The inhumanity of the bombings of Gaza City, the latest on Wednesday, has caused widespread public outrage and deep concern among both Israelis and Palestinians. + +We have seen the images of dead and injured children and other civilians, whose deaths are not the first or last to be caused by this indiscriminate Israeli assault. + +We have also seen the images of the destruction caused by the Israeli military, which includes the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, water pipes and electricity plants. + +In the midst of this devastation, we have also witnessed the efforts of the international community, and humanitarian agencies, to provide aid and help to the people of Gaza. + +On Thursday, 22 July, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Robert Piper, visited Gaza to assess the situation. + +After his visit and after discussions with Palestinian officials and community leaders, Piper made the following statement: "I have visited Gaza several times over the last six months. The situation in Gaza is indeed heartbreaking. I hope that the international community will continue to work with the Palestinian authorities to facilitate and facilitate humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza. The international community must continue to support the Palestinian people and to uphold its commitment to the principles of humanitarian law. The Palestinian people are suffering and need the support of the international community. I hope the international community will continue to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and will stand with them in their fight against the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza." + +On Monday, 22 July, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution in the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the situation in Gaza, which condemned the Israeli military actions and called on the parties to respect the human rights of civilians and civilian infrastructure and to ensure the safety of all civilians. + +The text of the UN resolution was passed by consensus, with seven countries voting in favour, as well as several countries abstaining. + +We have also seen the efforts of the UN and other international organisations to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. + +The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has provided food and other essential items for over two million Gazans. + +UNRWA has also provided education and healthcare to over 190,000 Gazans. In December 2014, UNRWA established a $500,000 fund to support the work of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide emergency assistance to the people of Gaza. + +On 21 July, UNRWA launched a new, dedicated website to provide information on education in the Gaza Strip and to update the public on the needs of UNRWA's staff. + +In March this year, the UN Security Council passed a resolution by consensus to support the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The resolution demanded that the Israeli authorities: fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law; allow the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza; and allow the effective use of the ceasefire, and ensure the safety and security of all civilians. + +On 22 July, the UN Security Council adopted, by consensus, Resolution 1, which called on the Israeli authorities to allow the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to ensure the safety and security of all civilians. + +The resolution was adopted in a vote of 15 in favour, 7 against, and 9 abstentions. + +The Security Council had been expected to adopt a similar resolution in April, but the resolution was postponed to 22 July. + +The Security Council will meet again on 26 July to consider the resolution, and on 29 July, the Council will meet again to adopt a final resolution on the situation in Gaza. + +This resolution, the result of intense negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, is a clear message to Israel that it has to stop the attacks on Gaza and to stop its blockade of Gaza. The resolution is also an important step towards the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. + +The fact that the Israeli government has not yet accepted the Palestinian position on the blockade and the security concerns raised by the UN is no excuse for the Israeli government to continue with its attacks on Gaza. + +In addition to condemning the Israeli attacks, the text of the UN resolution calls on the international community to "monitor the implementation of measures taken by the parties to end the hostilities immediately and to facilitate the free flow of essential assistance to the civilian population affected by the hostilities". + +It also calls on the parties to "take all necessary measures to protect civilians from the effects of hostilities, and to respect the inviolability of civilian property, including through the provision of humanitarian +======================================== SAMPLE 342 ======================================== +New York City FC announced today the club's full 2017 preseason schedule. The club will begin its preseason training schedule on Saturday, March 2 at the United States Soccer National Training Center in Carson, California. + +The club will train in Carson through Tuesday, March 5 before completing preseason training at New York City FC's training facility in Wolfsburg, Germany, from March 7-9. + +The club will travel to Jacksonville, Florida, for the first-ever International Champions Cup match against fellow MLS expansion club Atlanta United FC on Tuesday, March 12. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. ET. + +New York City FC will then face the Montreal Impact on Saturday, March 16 at Stade Saputo. The match marks the first time the club will face a club from the CONCACAF Champions League. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. + +The club will return to Jacksonville on Sunday, March 17 for preseason training at the University of North Florida's Sports Pavilion. The team will hold a pregame tailgate party from 2-4 p.m. held at the stadium. + +Following their preseason training, NYCFC will return home for a two-match preseason tournament, the 2017 U.S. Open Cup. The club will host Charleston Battery on Tuesday, May 25 at Yankee Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. + +The club will return to the United States for preseason training on Wednesday, May 27 at StubHub Center. The club will train in Carson through Monday, May 30 before returning to Wolfsburg for preseason training on Tuesday, June 1. + +New York City FC will host USL side Orlando City SC on Saturday, June 3 at Yankee Stadium. The match marks the first time the two clubs will meet in a competitive match. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET. + +The club will then return to the United States to begin the 2017 MLS regular season on Sunday, June 12 against the San Jose Earthquakes at Yankee Stadium. + +2017 NYCFC preseason schedule + +Date Opponent Time (ET) Wednesday, March 2 vs. United States Soccer National Training Center 7 p.m. Saturday, March 16 vs. Montreal Impact 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12 vs. Chicago Fire 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 13 vs. Atlanta United FC 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 16 vs. Orlando City SC 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 17 vs. Montreal Impact 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20 vs. Charleston Battery 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 22 vs. Toronto FC 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23 vs. New York Red Bulls 7:30 p.m. + +2017 NYCFC preseason schedule letter from NYCFC + +The 2017 MLS season kicks off on March 6 when the Portland Timbers visit Yankee Stadium for the first of three meetings between the two teams. The Timbers will also visit Yankee Stadium in 2017 for the second of three regular-season meetings with the defending Eastern Conference champions. + +For all of the latest NYCFC news and updates, visit NYCFC.com/news.<|endoftext|>Image copyright EPA Image caption The French foreign ministry said the missile was launched from the Caspian Sea to be fired at a target in Syria + +France has confirmed it fired a missile from a warship towards Syria, in a response to a suspected chemical attack. + +The missile was launched from the French warship, the Charles de Gaulle, after it detected what it said was a Syrian missile launch. + +A French official said the missile had flown a "safe distance" before hitting its target in Syria. + +The attack, which was the first time France had used military force in Syria, was condemned in the UK and in Russia. + +The Syrian foreign ministry said the French missile had hit an air base in the province of Homs, and the French defence ministry later confirmed the missile had been launched from the Charles de Gaulle. + +French President Francois Hollande said earlier he would ask parliament to authorise military action against Syria, saying the country had crossed "a red line". + +The president said the aim was to "stop the movement of arms and ammunition to the extremists and terrorists in Syria" and to "prevent massacres". + +Analysis: John Sudworth, BBC defence correspondent + +Image copyright AFP Image caption The BBC's James Reynolds reports from the scene of the missile launch + +The French action against Syria is a direct response to a suspected chemical weapon attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people on 4 April. + +It is a clear signal that the US may now do what France did a year ago - launch military strikes against the Assad regime, which it has now confirmed was responsible for the attack. + +After a year of conflict in Syria, the US and France are not alone in their determination to strike. + +Japan has already ruled out any +======================================== SAMPLE 343 ======================================== +We've just gotten some new information on what we can expect from Microsoft's next-gen console, codenamed Project Scorpio. + +The system is expected to be out in the first half of 2018 and will come with 4K resolution (2,560 x 1,440) and more powerful graphics. + +The document comes from Digital Foundry, whose source then goes on to reveal some interesting details about the system's specs. For starters, the Xbox One S (which is currently on sale) will be replaced by the Scorpio system, which won't get a price cut, but will get a more powerful CPU and a beefier GPU. + +According to the information, the Scorpio will sport eight CPU cores, 16 GPU cores, and a 4K resolution, with higher frame rates when it comes to VR. Along with the aforementioned specs, the system will support HDR 10 and though it isn't clear whether it will support 4K resolution, it will be more than capable of showing off the benefits of the technology. + +Now, we don't quite believe that the Scorpio is a PlayStation 4. On the one hand, the Scorpio is coming from a console that is powered by a custom AMD chip, which works with the console's APU (Asynchronous Processor Unit) to process and display graphics. On the other hand, the Xbox One S is powered by an Intel processor (the A10-7800K) which supports a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface with a maximum of 8GB of RAM. + +That said, if the Scorpio does come with a similar spec as the Xbox One S, it could be a very good system for gamers, especially if it also comes with some sort of VR support. + +For those who are interested in the system, the next-gen console will be available for $399, though there will be a $100 premium for a 1TB console, but we're not sure if that's all that significant. + +If you want to read the full report, you can do so right here. + +See Now: 30 Gadgets And Tech Gifts For Father's Day 2018 That Dad Will Think Are Rad + +ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.<|endoftext|>JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister declared victory over Hamas in the nation's general election Monday night, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared victory for his movement and its armed wing in a vote billed as a referendum on the Palestinian cause. + +Election results showed Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party had won 63 of the 120 seats in parliament, pushing it to a comfortable majority in the Knesset, or parliament. He will be sworn in Tuesday. + +"The people of Israel have chosen a new government that will change the status quo," Netanyahu said in a triumphal victory speech. "The choice they made is one of hope, of peace, and it is one that I have decided to commit myself to." + +He thanked the millions of Israelis who voted, saying they "have shown that they choose peace and security, and I will work to develop these values in the state of Israel." + +With the Yesh Atid party and a handful of other parties all claiming to have won seats, Abbas' Fatah movement was poised to claim a major victory, and Palestinians also said they would be voting in one of the most important elections in the history of the young nation. + +The results were considered in doubt were it not for a surprise agreement between Hamas and Gaza's rulers to agree to a ceasefire, which came into effect shortly before polls closed Sunday. Hamas hailed the agreement as a victory for the people of Gaza and for the Palestinian cause. + +The agreement, brokered by Egypt, called for a 72-hour ceasefire from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday. The Israelis were hoping to use the ceasefire to hit Hamas military targets, as well as the smuggling tunnels that have proliferated in recent months between Gaza and Israel. + +The Israeli military said that at least 30 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza were intercepted by its Iron Dome defense system, as well as a rocket fired from Gaza at a kibbutz in Israel. Two rockets were intercepted over the country, and there were no casualties. + +Palestinian negotiators said the Gaza ceasefire would last eight hours, with both sides to have access to the other side's territory. The sides have yet to sign the agreement, but Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group had "absolutely no problem" with the deal. + +It was the first time Israel and Hamas had agreed to a truce in the conflict since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. + +Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group had "absolutely no problem" with the ceasefire. + +Palestinian factions have until Tuesday to decide whether to honor the truce. + +Hamas had said it would abide by the agreement and vote. +======================================== SAMPLE 344 ======================================== +Living and working in a city, as I do, often is like coming home for a week-long holiday. I always hope that the city will remain as vibrant and interesting as it was during the week I was away. But that's often not the case. + +"You can't always stay on the same level of activity," said an acquaintance who lives in a city. He spoke on the condition that I not use his name. + +"Some of the best things in a city are its people, but some of the worst things in a city are its people. So you know what I'm talking about," he said. + +A couple of years ago when I was working in a city, the conversation always turned to the idea of what's happening with the city the next day. If the city is busy, then the next day it will be still busy. If the city is quiet, then the next day it will be quiet. + +Might I suggest a more positive way to think about the city? What's happening in the city today? What's happening to you, and what's happening to the people around you? A city, it turns out, is an ecosystem: a complex web of people, activities, and ideas. + +This is why cities are so powerful. They are not just places, as we were taught. They are a number of things at once. It's a way of thinking about cities that has been gaining favor in recent years. + +In his book, The Geography of Cities, the economist Samuel Bowles discusses the idea that cities are as much "ecosystems as they are places." This is the idea that cities are made up of people interacting with their environment. This is what Bowles means by "ecosystems." + +Bowles points out that ecosystems do not just exist within the confines of a place; they exist across a broad range of scales, from the species and genus level to the species level and even across species and genera. + +Bowles also argues that ecosystems serve as memory sites for a species, allowing them to remember their geographic location and changing environments. + +The same idea can be applied to cities. Municipalities are made up of people interacting with each other, and there are a number of things that happen within them. A city is made up of people living in it, and there are plenty of things that happen within a city that are not limited to how it is structured. + +So, what will happen to the city when you leave? What will happen when you move out? Will you be able to keep up with everything going on? Will it be a new experience? + +Well, I'll give a couple of suggestions to help you out. + +First, remember the city you're leaving. In the first week of your absence from the city, it may feel like the city is changing. You may find yourself awestruck by the towering skyscrapers that line the streets. You may find yourself wondering if you've left the city. + +Second, keep up with what's happening. If you're not keeping up, you do not belong. It's time to start. + +Third, keep your eyes open. Look out for people you might have missed. Go to social events, concerts, and other events in the city you're leaving. Look for people in their favorite activities. + +Fourth, extend a hand when they want to talk. They may have never met you before, but the city is their home. It's where they raise their kids, where they live, where they go to school, where they go to work, where they raise their pets. + +Fifth, try to be positive. The city is full of surprises, and it's full of people who are doing things that are new or seem wonderful. If you make the effort to find out more, you may discover that the people you thought you knew are not the people you thought you knew. + +Finally, remember the city you're coming back to. Although it may seem like a new city, the city you're returning to has the same things that make it great. It's a place where you can find a job and a home, where you can go to school and learn, where the kids have a place to play, where you can find a community to help you get through your transition. + +You may not like everything about the city you're returning to, but it's a place that will always be with you, and its best days are yet to come. + +This article is part of The Globe and Mail's "Behind the Headline" series, which explores how cities are reinventing themselves through innovation, design and technology.<|endoftext|>Image copyright AFP Image caption The battle over the stadium is the latest of a string of high-profile clashes over the future of the stadium + +A court in Cairo has refused to approve a plan to build a new stadium for the Egyptian national football team. + +======================================== SAMPLE 345 ======================================== +You use your phone to call an Uber home and the car comes; you sit in the back seat and the order is made. Your Uber ride is over and you're back home. + +This is the future of Uber's controversial ride-hailing service, and it's coming soon to a city near you. + +A new partnership between the ride-hailing company and Microsoft is bringing the ride-hailing service to the Xbox One. The service, called UberX, will be available in the United States starting July 5, according to the Seattle Times. + +Uber has been testing the Xbox One's Kinect camera for several months now, and it's bringing the feature to the ride-hailing service as part of a wider push to make its service available on as many platforms as possible. + +The company does most of its business on mobile devices, and it's eager to bring its service to as many platforms as possible. The Xbox One is expected to be a significant growth driver for Uber's business, as many people upgrade to new and cheaper phones every year. + +Uber has been a part of Microsoft's mobile efforts for years, and it's signed up more than 100,000 developers to build apps for the platform. The company is also working on integrating Cortana voice commands, which can be used to book rides and request the company's Uber cars. + +The Xbox One partnership is just the latest in a series of deals involving Microsoft's mobile efforts. The company is also working on a number of other services, including a Windows 10 mobile operating system, and it's developing several new apps for Windows 10. + +Both Uber and Microsoft are playing a role in rolling out the new ride-hailing service, but they're not the only ones. The company is also partnering with Leap Transit, a Seattle-based company that operates a fleet of electric shuttles. + +This is not the first time Microsoft has worked with Uber — the company teamed up with Uber to get the service to the Xbox One. + +The Xbox One and the Xbox 360 have been gaining ground in recent years, and the company is making big bets on the future of gaming. With Microsoft's new Xbox One console and a new Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset, the company is taking on Apple and Google in the gaming industry.<|endoftext|>Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF + +It's a common technique seen in many games, but it has a slight problem. If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. + +In this video (see the above video for the full GIF), Kieren Stoneman uses a technique called "mutation multipliers" to give his clones a drastically increased defense. It's pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect, but there is a reason why this is a very common technique. + +This technique was first discovered by a guy named Scott Mester, and I personally first saw it in a game called Infestation: Survivor Stories. + +Advertisement + +That game used a technique called "mutation multipliers" to give its characters increased defense. It's a common technique seen in many games, but it has a slight problem. If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. + +In this GIF, you can see how the clones of the protagonist transform into a whole mess of dicks. + +Advertisement + +Mutation multipliers is a technique that allows you to give clones of a character a much much higher defense. It's a very quick and effective way to avoid having a lot of clones, but it does have one problem: + +If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. + +Here's an example of how I would use this technique. + +Advertisement + +Here's a video that shows how it works: + +Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF + +In this video, we have two clones of myself (the red circles). They each have a 100 defense, and we don't want them to be doubled. + +Advertisement + +I have a clone of myself (the green circles) that has a defense of 100. I also have a clone of myself (the blue circles) that has a defense of 110. + +Now, we want to increase the defense of the clones of myself so that they are all 120. The technique I'm using is mutation multipliers. + +The technique was discovered by Scott Mester, and it's very easy to use. In the video, he uses it to double the defense of his clones. + +Advertisement + +The results are rather incredible: + +See how the clones have doubled their defense? It's pretty amazing. + +Advertisement + +This technique is also used in one of the most popular games in the world, Overwatch. + +The Overwatch +======================================== SAMPLE 346 ======================================== +I had a lot of fun working on this post, and really enjoyed the process of putting it together. It was very, very fun to see the eyes light up when I brought up my favorite topic, fan theories. I've got plenty of my own theories, but I thought it would be interesting to see what others thought. + +This post is not sponsored, and all opinions are my own. + +What is a fan theory? + +Fan theories are beliefs and ideas that are put forth as a possible explanation for something that has not been proven anywhere. Theories are usually based on what we know about the universe, or what we think is true. They are usually very specific, and limited in scope. + +Examples of fan theories include: + +The Loch Ness Monster is real. + +The Easter Bunny is real. + +The real moon landing actually happened. + +The government is hiding something. + +The aliens are invading earth. + +The President is a robot. + +The time machine is real. + +The government is hiding something. + +Santa is real. + +The Toy Story movies are really just a metaphor for a revolution. + +One of the main reasons that fan theories are so popular is because it gives a sense of 'belief' in the material we are given. There is a sense of excitement in the idea that something we love and believe in might not be true. It's like being in a tightly controlled laboratory, and you finally get to test out your theories. + +Of course, as with any theory, there are many things that can be wrong with a fan theory, and it's easy to make a huge mistake. + +However, fan theories are usually pretty accurate with regard to the material that is given, so I thought it might be fun to discuss a few of the more popular ones, as well as some of my own theories. + +What are some of the most popular fan theories? + +There are a number of theories that have been around for a while. Some of them are old, like the Loch Ness Monster, and some of them are even older than that. So what are some of the most popular ones? Let's take a look. + +The Theory That Aliens Are Coming To Earth + +This is a popular theory, and it has been around a long time. Many people believe that aliens are coming to earth, and that they were here all along. The first place many people think of when discussing this theory is the 'Seen it on YouTube' videos. + +Theories of this type are pretty popular, and they are often very specific. One of the most common theories is that aliens are trying to invade earth. They don't necessarily want to mess with us, but they do want to get our technology, and possibly crash land on our planet. The worst thing that can happen to us would be if they just drop on our planet, and kill us all. + +Theories of this type include: + +The aliens are trying to invade earth. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they aren't successful. + +The aliens are planning to invade earth, but find that it is a lot harder than they thought. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are too successful. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are successful. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. + +The aliens are trying to invade earth +======================================== SAMPLE 347 ======================================== +The first time I watched this film, I was a kid. I was only about 8 or 9 years old, and I really was too young to understand the historical significance of the film. I still remember it vividly, but I don't think I really understood what it was really about at the time. This past weekend, I watched the film again, and it didn't take me very long to recognize that this film is incredibly important, and one of the most important films of all time. + +Now, I don't know what my opinion is on this film, so perhaps I should start by saying that I don't know much about it. I have heard the director's name referred to as "the great Stanley Kubrick" many times, and I know that he has received some sort of Academy Award nomination in some capacity for this film. But I am not that far into the film, and I don't know much about the context that it was shot in, or the context that Kubrick was in, or the context that he worked in. + +In fact, I have never even seen the film. I know it is a Kubrick film, but I don't know much about it. I know that it is filmed in black and white, and that it is shot in London, and that it was shot in England. I know that they were filmed in many locations, but this is the first time that I have seen the film. + +I also know that it is a one-take, one-shot film, and that there are many effects in the film that are not in the final cut of the film. I know that the film is a very long film, and that the film begins with this amazing tracking shot of two people walking in opposite directions. I know that the film is famous for ending with a mother and son standing next to a lake. I know that the film is famous for beginning with a shot of a man's face being cut off, and for ending with a shot of a man's face being cut off. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried out to his death, and for the scene where the man who is killed by the man who is shot in the head is being carried out to his death. I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the person who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. + +I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. + +I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. + +I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where +======================================== SAMPLE 348 ======================================== +The United States has shouldered a great deal of the burden of maintaining the international order that enabled the postwar world to emerge from the ashes of the Second World War. The BRICS nations have the potential to repair and repair that order, but only if they learn to live within their own political and social systems. If they do not, they will not be able to afford the kind of international security, economic growth and development, and peace that were so important to the United States. + +This isn't an opinion, but just an observation. + +The United States and the rest of the West owe a great deal to the legacy of the Second World War, and therefore the United States is uniquely positioned to help them overcome the challenges they face in the twenty-first century. The United States is the only country that has national security concerns that extend beyond its immediate neighborhood. This is a substantial advantage for the United States and can be used to leverage its natural economic, political, and military advantages. + +The United States has a unique opportunity. Its economy, its military strength, and its global influence are more than adequate to achieve its national security goals. It has an advantage in that it has not suffered from the recurring waves of instability and chaos that have plagued the region for years. It has many advantages in that it has a healthy and stable political system, a relatively healthy and stable economy, and a healthy and stable alliance system. It also has many advantages in that it can leverage its economic, political, and military advantages to help the BRICS nations develop their own political and economic systems. + +The question is, how do we use this advantage to get the BRICS nations out of their current rut? + +The answer is to leverage the presence of the United States to help them develop an international system that is based on the rule of law, economic growth, and civic engagement. This system should be based on the rule of law because it is an essential component of civil society and the rule of law is not based on coercion. It is based on the right to privacy, the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly, the right to travel, the right to free decision-making, and so on. + +The BRICS nations should be encouraged to pursue their own national interests and the interests of their citizens. They should be encouraged to create their own institutions that are responsive to their own needs and their own political and economic systems. But they should also be encouraged to cooperate with the United States in safeguarding the rule of law, building economic growth, building a stronger and more democratic political system, and promoting civic engagement. + +The United States and the BRICS nations can leverage their collective power to make peaceful and sustainable changes in the international system and to help the BRICS nations develop a unique and beneficial international order. + +The United States has the opportunity to do this, and it will only be given to them because of their unique historical position.<|endoftext|>The National Rifle Association has once again been unabashed in its support of gun rights and its opposition to restrictions on the right to bear arms. But as the organization releases a new video, urging voters to support a constitutional amendment that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons in public, one group is making sure the NRA doesn't get away with misleading the public. + +"The NRA released a video today that is misleading and blatantly false," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, in a statement to The Huffington Post. "It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment, and everything to do with their reluctance to accept that common-sense gun laws are a reality, and that we must work together to make them a reality." + +In its new ad, titled "Stop the Gun Grab," the NRA makes several claims. The first says that "80 percent of Americans say they want more guns in their homes." That's not true. According to a Gallup poll from last year, the majority of respondents (53 percent) said they didn't want more guns in their homes, while just 30 percent said they wanted more guns. + +Nonetheless, the NRA is not backing down from its claim, and has promoted it in two online billboards. + +The second claim in the video is that "everytown for gun safety says you shouldn't need a permit to carry a concealed weapon." The video doesn't tell the truth about that claim. In fact, the "everytown" name refers to the gun control group that does not oppose the NRA's position on guns. + +The problem with the NRA's claim is that it's based on the "everytown" group's March 2012 report on concealed-carry permits. The NRA and all its media outlets picked up the report's claim that "over 90 percent of states" still require applicants to get a permit, and the NRA's video, which is made up of quotes from "everytown" and NRA staff, repeats that bogus claim. + +"This video is full of +======================================== SAMPLE 349 ======================================== +A woman who was shot dead by police in San Francisco's Bayview district was not armed, according to a police spokesperson. + +The shooting occurred at 9:33 p.m. Sunday, when officers were called to the area of Embarcadero Street and Whipple Street after responding to a report of a woman with a gun. + +The unnamed woman died at the scene. + +The police spokesperson told NBC Bay Area that the police officer who shot the woman "was not aware she was armed." + +The woman, who was in her mid-20s, had a valid California concealed weapons permit, according to police. + +The woman had a history of mental illness, was "unstable" and had been "involved in a domestic violence incident," according to police. + +Her partner was not injured. + +The San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Bureau is investigating the incident.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Online Quest Project. + +The page is being both written and checked. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. + +Detail Quick Summary: not written + +Walkthrough: not written + +Quest Stages: not written + +This article could benefit from an image. + +See Help:Images for information on how to upload images. Please remove this template from the page when finished. + + +Rituals of Ingenuity is a quest in Skyrim. It is the first of the three new quests added with the Hearthfire add-on. + +Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] + +Talk to Eola and find out what you need to do. Head to the Temple of Kynareth in Riften to begin the ritual. + +Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] + +Finding the Ritual [ edit ] + +The Ritual is located in the ancient temple of Kynareth on Riften. To begin the ritual, you must speak with Eola, who is standing outside the temple. She will explain that you must find a gem, a staff, and a ring from inside the temple. If you do not have any of these items, you can purchase them from her for 1,000 gold each. + +The Gem [ edit ] + +Eola will point you to a side room in the temple where you can find the Gem. The Gem can be found on the altar on the northern wall of the room. She will point you towards the gem, and will then ask you to use the magic of the temple to find it. + +Once the Gem is located, Eola will ask you to use the Gem to open an ancient pillar. Asking the priestess to use a staff will give you the Staff of Kynareth. If you ask to use a ring, the priestess will point you to the Ancient Gem. + +She will then show you the Ritual's start, and will make the following comments: + +"To begin the ritual, you must first find the staff, ring, and gem." + +"Once you have found the staff, ring, and gem, you must activate it by placing it on the Ancient Pillar." + +"Once you activate the Ancient Pillar, the ritual will begin." + +"You can watch the ritual as it unfolds, or attempt to stop it from happening." + +"If you can see the ritual, you can interrupt it." + +"You can turn the ritual off at any time." + +"You can restore the temple to its former glory by defeating the priestess." + +"Once you've defeated the priestess, you can proceed to the next step." + +After the Ritual [ edit ] + +Once you've completed the ritual, you will be transported to the realm of the gods. If you are a worshipper of the gods, you will be rewarded with the power of the sun. If you are not a worshipper of the gods, you will be rewarded with the power of the moon. + +Journal Entries [ edit ] + +Ritual of Ingenuity (TG07) Stage Finishes Quest Journal Entry 10 Eola, the priestess of Kynareth, has asked me to find a staff, ring, and gem. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. 50 Eola, the priestess of Kynareth, has asked me to find a staff, +======================================== SAMPLE 350 ======================================== +The Zebrawood Company of America is proud to present the American Flag Cotton Shirts. The Zebrawood Company of America was founded in 1925 by the late Christian Zebrawood. The company produces a large number of products for clothing and home decor that are made in the USA. Zebrawood produces a variety of products, including our American Flag Cotton Shirts which are made in the USA. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of colors and textures. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are also available in a variety of sizes and styles. + +The American Flag Cotton Shirts come in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to +======================================== SAMPLE 351 ======================================== +(CNN) President Donald Trump has reportedly requested that former FBI Director James Comey testify publicly in front of Congress regarding his conversations with the President. + +CNN reported that Trump has asked Comey to come before the congressional intelligence committees to testify publicly about his conversations with the President. + +"I hope you can let this go," Trump told Comey, according to a report by The New York Times. + +Comey told Trump in an Oval Office meeting in February that he was not under investigation for possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. + +The White House has declined to comment on the report. + +Read More<|endoftext|>The revelation that some of the attackers who murdered dozens of people in Paris on Friday were French was the result of a process of reconciliation between Western countries and the Muslim world, French President François Hollande said on Sunday. + +"We must face up to the fact that there are problems and that there are these difficult moments, but that we must face up to them," Hollande told a news conference. + +"We must face up to the fact that there are problems and that there are these difficult moments, but that we must face up to them" French President François Hollande + +"We must continue to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." + +Hollande's remarks came a day after French authorities revealed that two of the terrorists responsible for the Paris attacks had been planning their attacks in France for several months. + +The two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, and one woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, were believed to have been planning the attacks for months, according to a French government source. + +Hollande said the attacks were "a tragedy for our country, a tragedy for our people, and a tragedy for all of humanity." + +"We must continue to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." French President François Hollande + +"There's no doubt that the atrocities committed in Paris are an attack on us all. The terrorists wanted to strike at our societies, at our way of life and at our values," he said. + +"They wanted to strike at our societies, at our way of life and at our values" French President François Hollande + +Hollande also said the attacks were "a real shock to our society." + +"There was no warning, no preparation, no plan. We have to learn from this, we have to avoid it happening again," he said. + +The French president also called on Muslims to show "solidarity" with the victims of the attacks. + +"I hope that Muslims around the world, including in France, will show solidarity and show the willingness to protect the freedoms that belong to us all, including to freedom of religion," Hollande said. + +"We have to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." French President François Hollande + +The attackers were said to have been planning to attack a string of targets in France, including the Notre Dame Cathedral, a Paris financial district, and the Louvre Museum. + +Another attack was also thwarted. A third terrorist was killed by police on Sunday. + +Hollande said the Kouachi brothers were not linked to the radical Islamic group ISIS. + +"They had nothing to do with the Islamic State. They never took part in any military operations," he said. + +The French president also praised the work of the French security forces for their "solidarity and solidarity" in the aftermath of the attacks.<|endoftext|>We've seen the first live-action trailer for the upcoming film 'Wonder Woman,' and it looks pretty damn awesome. + +Wonder Woman was first introduced in the pages of the comic book 'Wonder Woman' by writer William Moulton Marston and artist Steve Ditko in 1941. The character was created by Marston and Ditko to be a female counterpart to the male superhero Captain America. + +Wonder Woman has been one of the most popular characters in the DC Extended Universe, and we're liking the upcoming film a lot. A word of warning, however: The first trailer for the film doesn't do the character justice. + +WARNING: The first trailer for 'Wonder Woman' is currently unavailable on YouTube. + +The trailer is a little too long, so we recommend just watching it in the first 30 seconds. Basically, the trailer is a beautiful, powerful visual representation of Wonder Woman's badassery. + +Check it out in the video below.<|endoftext|>CALGARY - The Calgary Flames announced today that they have acquired a conditional 2018 fourth round pick from the New York Islanders for forward Sam Bennett. + +Bennett, 23, is in his third NHL season after being acquired by Calgary at the trade deadline from the Buffalo Sabres last season. Bennett has 18 points +======================================== SAMPLE 352 ======================================== +Greens Senator Larissa Waters has called on the Government to immediately join a United Nations International Criminal Court investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Myanmar, Myanmar's political system and the Rohingya Muslim minority in western Myanmar. + +Speaking on the ABC's 7.30 program on Tuesday, Senator Waters said the UN court's investigation was both urgent and justified. + +"There are a number of crimes that have been committed in the country, and the UN has been asked to do an investigation on that," she said. + +"It's a matter of urgency." + +Senator Waters is the co-chair of the Senate's Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Committee. + +She said there was "no question" Australia had a role in the investigation. + +"We can and we should be part of this," she said. + +Here are the issues Senator Waters raised about the 1.3 million Rohingya people who live in Myanmar. + +1.3 million Rohingya people live in Myanmar. + +The United Nations has called on the Government to join the UN International Criminal Court in the investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Myanmar. + +© AAP 2018<|endoftext|>A woman who was beaten to death by an Uber driver in Colorado is haunted by what she saw in the backseat of his car. + +Amanda Beck may have been the only rider Uber ever had to pay $100,000 to after the company was found liable for the death of the 30-year-old, according to ABC News. + +Beck's last words were "I'm going to jail" when she was attacked by Kevin Lannane, who has been charged with second-degree murder. + +Lannane was a driver for UberX in Denver in June 2015. + +He picked up Beck and an unidentified passenger for an Uber ride to the bar, but the passenger had to go to the bathroom. Beck decided to stay behind to wait for the passenger, and was attacked while she was waiting. + +Lannane's account of what happened went like this: Beck got into the passenger seat, and the passenger began kissing her. But Lannane got out of the car and started to kiss her again. Beck pushed him away, and he grabbed her. + +"I looked over and I saw him grab a small kitchen knife and just start stabbing me," Beck said. "Then he stabbed me. I think he tried to kill me." + +Lannane then drove off, leaving Beck bleeding on the ground. + +Cops were able to track him down through the GPS system in his car. + +He told officers he did not intend to harm Beck, but was trying to protect himself. + +Lannane was found guilty of second-degree murder. + +"I was surprised," Beck's father, Jeff Beck, told ABC News. "I never saw it coming." + +Uber did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.<|endoftext|>Radiohead's Colin Greenwood discusses the iconic "Creep" track. + +Following on from the brilliant "Creep" video, Radiohead have released a new version of the infamous "Creep" track. + +Taking a cue from the video, the new version features the band's long time guitarist Colin Greenwood. + +In an interview with BBC Radio One, Greenwood explained how the track first came into being: "The first time I heard it was in the old Radiohead sessions at Apple Corps. It was a bit of a joke, really. The Jonny Greenwood version was actually the first version I'd heard. + +"I suppose that's what I think it's about. It's about paranoia. It's about relationships, and how you adapt to things. It's about being curious and sometimes not knowing what you're looking for or what's going to happen." + +While it's a welcome return to the band's former signature style, the new version is unfortunately not as catchy as the original. + +Watch the "Creep" video below: + +Earlier this year, Radiohead previewed their next album, which is expected to be announced later this year. The group is also currently on tour in support of The King of Limbs. You can watch the band's recent tour dates below: + +November + +December + +December 13 – Austin, TX @ Emo's + +December 14 – Austin, TX @ Emo's + +December 16 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada + +December 17 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada + +December 18 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamo City Music Hall + +December 19 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamo City Music Hall + +December 20 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live + +December 22 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall + +December 23 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre + +December 24 – Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom + +December 26 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall + +December +======================================== SAMPLE 353 ======================================== +Saiki Kadashima has been making music for over 30 years. She's been a part of some of Japan's most famous bands like Seiko, AKB48, and Omoi. She's been in a lot of large venues, including the Budokan and the Tokyo Dome, and she's performed with some of the biggest names in the music industry. + +So, of course she's excited to announce her new album, "The Reasons," which is out on June 24 via Island Records. Here's what she had to say about it when we sat down to chat with her: + +I'm excited to be releasing my first new album in over a decade, but the reason I'm so excited is that I feel like we've been working on it for a very long time. In fact, I started writing it when I was in high school. I was writing songs that were about my experience in high school, but I didn't know how to put them together. So I just tried to keep writing songs that were about high school. But as I was writing, I was thinking, "Why can't I make a record that's about my life today?" And that's what I'm doing. + +I think the main reason I'm excited to be putting out my new record is that I'm excited to finally be able to make a record that's not just about that one time I was in Tokyo and did really well. That's why I'm excited to release "The Reasons," because I think that's the first time I've been able to make a record that's not just about one moment. I'm not just writing about the most important thing in my life, but the most important thing in my life is everything else, too. + +We're probably going to hear the album in a few months, but I'm really excited to finally get it out there. I think it's going to be a really great record, and I hope you guys are as excited as I am. + +Saiki Kadashima's "The Reasons" is out June 24. Pre-order it now on iTunes. + +Stream "The Reasons" below:<|endoftext|>The United States has offered Russia an oil-for-goods swap to resolve the standoff over the status of Crimea, but Moscow has yet to respond, a senior U.S. official said Monday. + +The U.S. has offered to sell Russia a barrel of its light sweet crude oil instead of natural gas. President Barack Obama has said that natural gas is the better fuel for powering a growing American economy. + +"We have offered to sell them a barrel of U.S. light sweet crude oil instead of natural gas," the senior official said. + +While the U.S. does not have any natural gas reserves of its own, it has been shipping natural gas to countries like Ukraine to save them from their dependence on Russian gas. + +The U.S. also has offered to send Ukrainian troops to guard the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine. + +But the offer did not appear to have gone over well with Russia, which said it was not interested in any swap. + +"Based on our assessment, we have no interest in starting such talks," Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in Tokyo. + +The two countries have been locked in a dispute over gas supplies to Ukraine since early November. + +Obama administration officials have said the U.S. has been dragging its feet in responding to Russian moves to seize Ukraine's Crimea from Ukraine. + +The U.S. has offered only limited military assistance to the Ukrainian government, while Russia has provided military equipment and trained Ukrainian troops. + +The White House has pushed for a diplomatic solution to the dispute, but its focus has been on economic sanctions. The administration has warned that any Russian economic or financial retaliation would be "catastrophic." + +The U.S. also is considering a series of steps to increase the pressure on Russia, including a new round of economic sanctions, but has not made a decision. + +The U.S. has also enlisted other countries to prevent large-scale Russian gas shipments to Ukraine. + +The Russian gas company Gazprom has said it is willing to provide Ukraine with Russian gas, but only in exchange for an equal amount of Ukrainian goods. + +Russia has said it will not pay for gas if it is delivered to Ukraine. + +(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)<|endoftext|>The second annual Ford Fest will be held Sept. 28 and 29 at the Ford Museum. The event will feature musical performances and a variety of food vendors, with signature dishes from around the world. In addition to the food, Ford Fest will feature music from local and national acts, plus "Ford Nation" activities, including autograph signings, photo sessions with Ford and Ford-related memorabilia and more. + +A block party will also take place Oct. 1 and 2 at the Fords +======================================== SAMPLE 354 ======================================== +R. Kelly's daughter, Gianna, appeared on the cover of a new issue of Italian GQ (via Vulture). Gianna, who is 28, has long been a Kelly obsession. She even has a tattoo of her father's face on her leg. + +[ Related: R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" Gets Video Release ] + +Gianna admits that she's still "a little scared" of her dad after all these years. "When I first started, I just wanted to learn how to dance," she said. "His songs are so amazing that I'm still learning so much. His voice is the best. It's also these super-intelligent girls, who are like my little sisters." + +Gianna, who has a T-shirt with Kelly's face on it, even appeared in Kelly's music video for his hit "Ignition (Remix)." The video featured her dad and "The Beautiful People" singing along to the lyrics of the song. + +Kelly has also remixed the song for his forthcoming album, Classic.<|endoftext|>CALGARY — The number of British Columbians using emergency rooms (ERs) for non-life-threatening injuries rose by more than a third last year as the province's economic downturn continued, according to statistics released Thursday. + +In 2012, there were 17,102 ER visits involving non-life-threatening injuries, compared to 12,958 in 2011. + +"I think it's a reflection of the economic downturn in the province," said Dr. Dan McTeague, head of the BC Emergency Health Services (BC EHS) division. + +"People are at home more often, are spending less time at work, and it's that combination of factors that we're seeing." + +The numbers are based on the province's Health Insurance Act. + +McTeague said the figures were a surprise because the province had been seeing a decline in ER visits. + +"There was a lot of confidence that the economy would improve," he said. + +"It was a shock to see the numbers go up." + +The province's economy contracted by 1.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 and the economy began to recover in July. + +Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others in the health care system had a busy summer during the annual general meeting of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC earlier this month. + +Dr. J.A.R. Gurney, BC EHS chief executive officer, said staff are busy responding to patients from a number of different sources. + +"We're seeing a lot of people who are affected by job loss and who have lost their benefits," he said. + +Health Minister Terry Lake said the province is doing everything it can to help people through the downturn. + +"We've seen a significant reduction in the number of people coming to the ER, as well as the number of people who are seeking medical attention in other places," he said. + +"That's part of the reason why the ER is under pressure, but we're doing what we can to make sure that we're providing the best possible care to our people." + +Lake said while the province is still in the process of assessing the number of people who've sought care outside the ER, he believes a number will be released soon. + +The province has been working with the BC Association of Health Plans to develop a number of recommendations to help improve the system. + +Those recommendations include improving the billing process for patients and doctors, creating a single, electronic medical record for everyone, and giving health care providers access to additional resources to help them respond to emergencies. + +The BC EHS division is currently reviewing the recommendations.<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman. We're broadcasting from Los Angeles. We're broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival, as we wrap up our coverage of this year's premier of the documentary, The Square. This film is about students on the streets of New York City who are protesting against the election of Donald Trump. Wednesday night's premiere had thousands of people in the streets. We're joined now by the film's director, Jeremy Saulnier. + +Jeremy Saulnier, welcome back to Democracy Now! + +JEREMY SANDONIER: Thank you. + +AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about the movie. You make a very powerful case for why it's so important to make a film like this one. Talk about who these young protesters are, and how you started to know them. + +JEREMY SANDONIER: Well, I've been following Occupy Wall Street for a long time. I think that film is a very clear signal, and a very powerful message, that this is a movement that has to continue. It's got to continue. And I wanted to make a +======================================== SAMPLE 355 ======================================== +The Canadian Press + + +TORONTO - Ontario's Liberal government has begin its search for a new auditor general, a move that will likely trigger a constitutional fight with the province's opposition parties. + +The government fired the auditor general of Ontario last year, saying he was unqualified for the job and had been a partisan in his past work. + +The opposition parties are now asking the Supreme Court to block that decision. + +Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has only appointed one outside auditor general in its history, and they have yet to appoint a replacement. + +The Liberal government says it will now appoint an "independent" auditor general to replace Frank Gunn, who was appointed in 2014 to a five-year term and had been due to retire in April 2018. + +The government will not say who that person will be, pending a decision on who the new auditor general will be. + +But the opposition is not happy about the move. + +"The Liberals have only been in power for a year, and this is a new approach by the government," said New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson. + +"The government has decided to go through the courts to try and avoid making a decision that is completely within their authority. The government made a pretty good decision in firing the auditor general, and they should stick to that decision." + +The NDP, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner and Liberal MPP Rachael Harder say they are concerned about any move by the government to appoint a partisan as the new auditor general. + +"We will be watching carefully as to whether or not this government is going to appoint someone that they know is going to be a partisan," said Harder. + +The Liberals have said they will only appoint someone they believe is qualified, and that it is up to the courts to decide who the new auditor general will be. + +The opposition parties argue that's not enough. + +"It appears the government is trying to seek out a partisan person to try and win this court case, and that is not how we want to do business," said Bisson. + +The government has said it will continue to pay the salaries of the auditor general and the deputy auditor general until Gunn's replacement, and that's what it will continue to do. + +Gunn, the former Progressive Conservative minister in charge of the Office of the Auditor General, was appointed to the position in 2014.<|endoftext|>Chinese President Xi Jinping | Alex Wong/Getty Images China seizes foreign assets amid U.S. trade dispute China on Tuesday suspended U.S. citizenship for people with dual citizenship in retaliation for U.S. sanctions targeting Beijing's financial system and other measures. + +China on Tuesday imposed a sweeping new set of sanctions on U.S. citizens and companies, an escalation of a trade dispute that has escalated sharply during President Donald Trump's first 10 months in office. + +The measures, which include an asset freeze and travel ban, are the most significant retaliation China has taken to date in response to the U.S. sanctions that have reportedly caused the biggest declines in the value of China's stock market in seven years. + +The U.S. Treasury Department, which is carrying out the sanctions, said the measures were meant to "send a strong message to the Chinese government that the United States is committed to enforcing the laws of the United States." + +The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the measures were "a response to the U.S. administration's refusal to adhere to international law and take concrete actions for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula." + +A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. military would continue to operate out of South Korea, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said U.S. citizens in China would have access to consular services through their embassy. + +The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the action is "a necessary and appropriate response to China's continued efforts to restrict commercial and financial activity of U.S. persons." + +The announcement came shortly after Trump demanded in a tweet that China "Cancel all projects done in China in violation of the bilateral investment treaty." + +The president, who has frequently criticized China as a currency manipulator on the campaign trail, has not publicly described the reasons for the new measures. But in a meeting with business leaders in New York on Monday, he singled out China as a key player in the growing trade dispute, according to a person familiar with the meeting. + +Trump also told the business leaders he would impose stiff tariffs on imports from China, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. + +Chinese officials said the geopolitical stakes are high for the world's two largest economies, which have been trading increasingly competitively against one another for years. + +The U.S. Commerce Department said the measures were an attempt to "put China back on a path of economic development that is fair, open, and reciprocal." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 356 ======================================== +A bill that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Maine passed the Senate on Tuesday and now has to survive the House and be signed into law by Gov. Paul LePage. + +The vote, which occurred late Tuesday night, was 20-10, with Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, the chief sponsor of the bill. + +The bill, Senate Bill 594, would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, grow up to six marijuana plants and give up to an ounce of marijuana to someone else. Those who over age 21 would still be subject to a federal law that prohibits the possession of marijuana, which remains illegal at the federal level. + +The bill would also allow the use of marijuana in public places, including bars, restaurants, casinos, schools, movie theaters, stadiums, churches and other places that are open to the public, and would allow for the cultivation of up to six marijuana plants in private residences. + +The bill is sponsored by Mason, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, who has said he'll try to put the measure through the Senate as he does with most of the bills he's sponsored. + +Mason said his bill is aimed at dealing with the state's budget crisis, which has placed a $2.6 million hole in the state's general fund budget. + +"We need to deal with the fact that we are going to have a budget shortfall of more than $1 billion, and we are going to have to find a way to deal with it," he said during the debate. + +Mason said the bill is needed to help the state fund its methadone program, which has fallen short of the number of patients it needs to keep up with demand. + +The state Department of Health and Human Services has said Maine should have a full-time methadone program funded through the General Fund, and the program is due to expire on June 30. + +The bill's other sponsor, Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, defended the bill, saying that Maine is at a "serious crossroads" and needs to address the state's drug problem. + +"The fact that we are in a crisis situation and we have to deal with it before it spirals out of control, that's what this bill is about," Brakey said. + +However, Brakey said he didn't agree with the idea that the bill is primarily aimed at dealing with Maine's drug problem and that part of the bill is just about treating people with drug abuse problems. + +"I don't think you're going to find a single person in this chamber who would vote for this bill just because it's for drug abuse treatment," Brakey said. + +Mason said the Department of Health and Human Services has said it hopes Maine will have a full-time methadone program by fiscal year 2019. + +"This is a crisis and we need to get this right," Mason said. "Marijuana is an alternative to opiates and it does not have the dangers associated with opiates." + +Sen. Sue Leffingwell, D-South Portland, said she voted against the bill because she didn't feel the Legislature was giving Maine enough time to study the issue. + +"I haven't seen a study that says this is going to be a popular thing," Leffingwell said. "We have a mentality that we're going to go ahead and legalize it now. If the Legislature is not going to do it now, then what is the point of having a bill that we can go back and amend?" + +Maine's delegate to Washington, Rep. Mark Dion, D-Portland, voted against the bill along with the other Democrats. Dion said he didn't have a problem with legalizing marijuana but he did have a problem with how the bill was written. + +"This is a very problematic bill," Dion said. "It's not about marijuana, it's about the way it's been written. It's of the opinion that this bill is not a sound bill." + +The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Friday, and the House is expected to take it up on Tuesday. + +Share<|endoftext|>The California Attorney General's Office said Saturday it was filing a lawsuit against the state's largest pension fund, CalPERS, alleging the fund illegally withheld billions of dollars in pension payments over several years. + +The lawsuit, filed in a Sacramento court, charges CalPERS with fraud, asking for a permanent injunction prohibiting the fund from withholding pension payments and returning the funds to the employees. + +Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the lawsuit is the latest action in the ongoing investigation into the fund's alleged practices. + +"When pension funds are allowed to break the law and defraud their own workers, the public is harmed," Becerra said in a statement. + +"If CalPERS acted as it allegedly did, millions of Californians +======================================== SAMPLE 357 ======================================== +I was surprised to see that The Atlantic had an article on this issue, and I thought it would be good to address the question that was raised in the article. I do not know what the authors of the article intend to do with the conclusions they are drawing, but I am afraid that what they argue seems to constitute a kind of "skepticism" of the whole idea of "unitary moral progress" as a program, as a way of thinking about morality, in relation to which many of the most important historical developments in the history of ethics have been made. + +So let me begin with a brief history of this question. The question of "unitary moral progress" was raised by John Stuart Mill and Walter Lippmann in the early part of the 20th century and was made the subject of a major debate between Mill and Lippmann, set off in the early 1930s by Lippmann's attempt to establish the validity of Mill's argument (which he called the "Eisenstein thesis") and which was first discussed in detail by M.E. Schlegel in his essay "The Problems of Unitary Morality" in his collection of essays on "Theory and Practice of Ethics" in the 1930s. The debate between Mill and Schlegel, and between Lippmann and his former student, the Austrian philosopher Hans Kelsen, has never been settled, and there have been many different versions of it. But there is a general consensus with respect to the general thrust of Schlegel's theory. + +Schlegel's basic idea is that in order to understand the ways in which moral progress is taking place, we must understand the concept of "moral progress." His basic idea is that in order to understand the ways in which moral progress is taking place, we must understand the concept of "moral progress." But the concept of "moral progress," as currently understood, is problematic. It is not a concept that is widely understood in any kind of unified way. So if we want to examine the question of moral progress in an objective, systematic way, we need to make some kind of reference to something that is generally understood. + +The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. + +The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. Furthermore, it is hard to see how we can make any progress in the area of moral philosophy if we are not able to have a sense of the "common sense" of moral principles. The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. Furthermore, it is hard to see how we can make any progress in the area of moral philosophy if we are not able to have a sense of the "common sense" of moral principles. + +In order to avoid confusion, I want to call attention to the distinction between "the common sense" and the "common sense sense of moral principles." It is essential to understand what I mean by "the common sense of moral principles" in order to understand the point I am making in this article. This is not at all to deny that there are, in fact, some moral truths that are not widely accepted. But it is to deny that the common sense of moral principles can be used as a reliable guide to right and wrong. + +As far as I can see, the problem with the concept of "moral progress" is not the concept of moral progress itself (which is obvious), but rather the way in which it is used. It is widely understood that there are moral truths that are not widely accepted. If we want to avoid confusion, therefore, it is important to understand what I mean by "the common sense of moral principles" in order to understand the point I am making in this article. + +Let us consider the following questions. What, if anything, is the standard of right and wrong? What is the standard of good? Which standard is more important? What is the source +======================================== SAMPLE 358 ======================================== +From the moment that I started working for the College, I've been a part of the culture. I'm from a small town in the Midwest, I've always loved games, and I've never had an issue with learning a new language or culture. I've always been interested in the hardware, the software, and the people. I was the only African-American in a group of 22 people from all over the world, and I didn't think it was going to be hard to adjust to the school and the culture. + +The first week I was there, I had to go to the Office of Diversity, Diversity, Diversity. I was sent to the Office of Diversity because I had a photo of my family in my hall picture. It was taken when I was in high school, and I thought it was funny so I posted it. It was basically just me and my family in the picture, but because of the color of my skin, I was labeled as a 'racist' and I had to remove the picture. + +My first day in the Office of Diversity was the first day I was in the building. I had a lot of questions about the culture and how with me being the only African-American in my group of 22 people, I had to go to the Office of Diversity for help. I had all of the white kids and the white staff, and I didn't know what to do. I had a lot of questions about what was going on. There was never a lack of diversity there. I was the only African-American in the group. I had to go to the Office of Diversity to find out who was going to help me. + +The first day I was there, I went to the Office of Diversity and I asked for help with my first class. I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class because of the color of my skin and the fact that I was the only African-American in my group. I was the only one. The Office of Diversity was just another group of people just trying to help me. They were just trying to help me. I got in trouble for posting a picture of my family. I was just trying to help the students who were helping me. + +We were in the same class for the first three weeks. I had a lot of trouble with the curriculum. I went home and I was crying about it. My mom said, "Are you crying because you're in the African-American History class?" I said, "Yeah," and she said, "I wish you were white because you would have been in a different class." My first week in the class, I was so confused and I didn't know what was going on. I knew a lot of the people there, but I didn't realize what was going on. I was so confused and I didn't know what was going on. + +When I got to my last semester, I had to go to the Office of Diversity and tell them that I had to move to a different class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. But it was about my first class. They were making it very clear to me that I had to move to a different class. I was like, "What do you mean I have to move to a different class? I'm in the same class?" They were like, "Correct. You are in the same class." I'm like, "Why?" They said, "Because you are the only African-American in the class." + +They told me that they were sending me to another class, but I was like, "No. No way. I have to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class." They're like, "We understand. We understand. We understand." So I went to the Office of Diversity and I said, "Okay, I have to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. Where do I go?" They told me, "Well, I don't know. We'll figure it out." + +The first semester, I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. I was there for three weeks. I had a lot of problems with the curriculum. I tried to help the students with my first class. I had a lot of problems with the curriculum. I tried to help the students in the class, but I couldn't help with the class because of the color of my skin. + +The first semester, I went to the Office of Diversity and I told them that I had to move to another class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. The first semester, I went to the Office of Diversity and I told them that I had to move to another class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. I was there for three weeks. I had a lot of problems with the +======================================== SAMPLE 359 ======================================== +The House of Representatives began a week of recess with a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. + +The House bill, H.R. 1, was introduced by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) on Tuesday. + +The House bill, called the American Health Care Act, would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. + +"This bill is a top priority for the Trump Administration and I am grateful the Senate will now take up its work to repeal and replace Obamacare," MacArthur said in a statement. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +"I look forward to working with the Senate and the Trump Administration to deliver relief to the American people." + +The bill would roll back several key parts of Obamacare, including its Medicaid expansion, its insurance subsidies and its taxes. + +It would fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program, which funds health coverage for 9 million children, and allow states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's mandates on certain health insurance plans. + +The House bill, which is similar to a Senate version, would be subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. + +The Senate passed a previous version of the bill in late May, but the chamber is currently in recess until June.<|endoftext|>The Chinese Government has been testing the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to fight malaria, in a move that could also help fight the spread of Aids. + +The Chinese Academy of Sciences reported in its journal, PNAS, that a genetically modified mosquito was released in a laboratory in Jiangsu, in western China, on 1 October. + +The mosquito was a male that had been genetically modified to produce an enzyme that killed the malaria parasite. It was sprayed with tropical forest oil and necessary nutrients near its home in the wild. + +The researchers found that the modified mosquitoes had a "strongly diminished ability to transmit [malaria]". + +They also found that the modified mosquitoes were able to "recover" the chemicals they had been sprayed with, and that they were able to breed with the wild males. + +The experiment was carried out with the National Centre for Biological Control in Jiangsu. + +"This is the first time we have developed a mosquito that is able to keep its genetically engineered ability to transmit [malaria] for long periods of time," said Professor Wu Xinren, a leading malaria researcher at the National Center for Biological Control. + +Dr Andrew Lee at the University of California, Davis, said the results were "encouraging" but warned that the research needed to be replicated in other places. + +"The paper is a very nice example of how to do research in China," he said. "The paper says they have managed to produce a genetically modified mosquito that can reproduce and lay eggs, which is a key step forward in the fight against malaria. + +"It is an important step but the paper doesn't say whether these mosquitoes are actually going to be used to control malaria or not. That is the next step and I would be very wary of reading too much into this study yet." + +Dr Lee said there was a danger that the research could be exploited by Chinese authorities to create a genetically modified sex-ratio of mosquitoes in order to control malaria. + +"For China, this is a good thing," he said. "It is providing a tool that could be used for traditional control of malaria." + +However, he said that the genetically modified mosquitoes were not likely to be used to control malaria in the future. + +"The discovery of this new mosquito could be used to make mosquitoes that are resistant to the parasite, but that would be a big breakthrough for malaria but it is also going to be very expensive," he said. + +"There is a huge cost involved in producing this and if you are going to conduct these kinds of research, you need to get it done in a controlled way. There are a lot of technical challenges and it would be unwise to conduct this kind of research in a way that would not be approved by the government." + +Dr Lee said the research was also unlikely to prevent the spread of Aids in China. + +"The Chinese government is very concerned about the spread of Aids," he said. "They know that the Aids epidemic is a new disease and they are very interested in combating it. + +"In the long run, it is quite likely that the introduction of genetically modified mosquitoes will lead to the development of resistance to the Aids virus and the spread of the virus will be more difficult." + +The World Health Organization does not recommend the use of genetically modified organisms to control infectious diseases, but Dr Lee said that the results of the Jiangsu experiment could help inform its views on the matter. + +"The WHO has been giving some advice [regarding genetic modification] in the past," he said. "They have been saying that we don't recommend it because there are concerns about the spread of resistant viruses and pathogens and we don't know whether the introduction of +======================================== SAMPLE 360 ======================================== +The City of Joliet is releasing a new program to help residents with high-risk, chronically homeless people. The program is called "Joliet's Safe Place," and it's the first of its kind in the country. + +The program can be accessed through the city's mobile app. + +Officials say the goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe and supportive environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is designed to offer a safe place to stay that provides basic services to help people maintain their health, housing and personal safety. + +Officials say the program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. + +The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. + +The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. + +Once housed, they will receive a medical +======================================== SAMPLE 361 ======================================== +THURSDAY: The Mets and Gonzalez are closing in on a deal, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (on Twitter). The sides are expected to finalize an agreement soon. + +MONDAY: The Mets and Hector Beltran are close to a new deal, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (on Twitter). Heyman cites a source to confirm that the sides are in the final stages of closing a deal. + +Beltran, 36, is coming off a season in which he batted .288/.326/.543 with 21 homers and 31 doubles for the Royals. Overall, he recorded a total of 741 plate appearances, including 348 starts. Beltran also set career highs in on-base percentage (.381) and slugging percentage (.578). + +Should the deal come together, Beltran will be returning to New York for the first time since his 2008 trade to the Mets. He batted .286/.339/.503 with nine homers and 23 doubles for the Mets in 2009. + +The Mets were looking to move Beltran prior to the February deadline, but his contract was not up for renewal. In fact, the two sides didn't even discuss a potential trade until last week, when the Royals asked for a three-year, $36MM deal. + +As it stands, the Mets will have to eat a portion of Beltran's $13MM salary in 2013 and $14MM in 2014. While Beltran played some left field in 2013 (.258/.353/.389), he batted right field in 69.1% of his starts. Given the lack of an obvious platoon partner at that position, Beltran's bat likely played a role in the Mets' thinking when they decided to move him. + +Beltran, a two-time All-Star, is still owed $18.5MM in the last three years of his contract, according to MLBTR's Free Agent Tracker, and it is unclear how the Mets would handle the remaining $21.5MM. The Mets could exercise a $4MM club option for 2014 or wait until 2015 to exercise the $4MM buyout.<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON — More than a month after a federal judge blocked President Trump's executive order on immigration, the White House announced on Friday that he would be "revised" and delayed. + +The White House's statement, which did not specify what the president meant, came a day after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the part of the immigration order that had been suspended. + +The White House said that Mr. Trump had directed his new homeland security secretary, John F. Kelly, to "amend or rescind" the executive order. The announcement was made by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, on Friday evening. At the news briefing on Friday, Mr. Spicer said it was "a matter of time" before the order was reinstated, and noted that Mr. Trump's advisers had been working on the issue for about a week. + +"The president has been very clear with the DHS secretary that he's going to keep that department strong and well-funded and he's going to get the secretary to implement that order in a way that makes sense for the American people," Mr. Spicer said.<|endoftext|>A woman wearing a hijab leaves her home in New York last week. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Reuters) + +The White House issued a statement on Thursday evening condemning the deadly terrorist attack at a mosque in Quebec City as an act of terrorism. + +"The president said the following following," the statement reads: + +"The United States condemns the terror attack in Quebec City. The people of Quebec City have demonstrated once again their commitment to religious freedom, and to tolerance, diversity and respect. The people of Quebec City will not be defined by this attack, and will continue to celebrate Canada's diversity, which is a source of strength and pride for all Canadians. + +"We are closely following the situation in Quebec and stand in solidarity and partnership with the people of Canada. We continue to condemn all acts of terror – of whatever cause – that target civilians, whether they be acts of domestic terrorism or acts of international terrorism. And we will continue to honor our commitment to fight terrorism worldwide and to work with all partners to confront the true threat of terrorist groups like ISIL." + +[The Quebec City mosque shooting: What we know, and what's still unknown] + +President Trump's statement is obviously a huge improvement over the one he issued on Monday after a shooting at a mosque in Canada's capital. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) + +The president's statement on Monday was immediately criticized for not calling the attack an act of terrorism, which was the standard wording he had used previously. + +Apart from the criticism of his use of the word "terrorism," Trump's statement also did not fully address the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States. + +Unlike Sunday's statement, the one issued on Thursday evening +======================================== SAMPLE 362 ======================================== +"I'm very proud of the fact that we are the first state in the country to pass a law that allows parents to opt their kids out of vaccinations," said Gov. Jerry Brown. + +Parents can opt their children out of vaccinations, but it's a tough choice for many. + +"People don't realize that if you don't have a kid, you can't opt out, and so that's why when you're talking about the full range of vaccinations, not just the flu shot, but the measles, the mumps, the rubella, which have all been linked to autism and serious problems," said KGO-TV's Steve Burton. + +Following a state law enacted in 2014, parents who refuse to vaccinate their children will no longer be deemed responsible for the consequences of not vaccinating their children. + +"I think it's an important step in the right direction to make sure that people are protected and that their children are protected and that we do everything we can to protect them," said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins. + +Supporters of the measure are thrilled by the legislation. + +"It's very important that we don't have anything that causes people to be fearful," said Councilman Ed Chau. + +But for some families, there are other concerns about the measure, as well. + +"I have a question, and I hope you can answer this," said a mother who asked to go by her first name, Yvette. + +"I've heard that it's for religious reasons, and I have a view of how that works, but I know that I've heard that it's also for philosophical reasons," Yvette said. + +Still, supporters of the law say it's an important step in protecting public safety. + +"We should not be fearful of that. We should be fearful of people who actually want to harm us and our kids, and that's the people that want to do harm, and that's what this bill is for," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell. + +The bill has passed the state Assembly and is expected to be signed by the governor.<|endoftext|>The current political ad industry has created a new marketing paradigm for political campaigns, which is how best to sell the indefensible. + +"It's not a coincidence that the first ads for Republicans started being shot in May," said Joe Trippi, a Democrat who managed George W. Bush's 1992 presidential campaign. "They're going to be the ones running these ads." + +This year's Republicans are confounding expectations, tripping over themselves to reach more voters in places that previously would not have heard of them. + +Republicans have been trying to build a coalition of voters who are not yet registered to vote. The party's leadership hopes to capture young people, the lower-income voters, and ethnic minorities by reaching out to them in diverse places where they don't normally interact. + +The campaign has made a few moves that suggest it is paying attention to its challenges. The Republican National Committee is building out campaign operations in 24 states with a focus on minority communities, which could help attract votes in places like North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, and Texas. + +The RNC has also been investing in the digital side of its operation. It is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the GOP nominee. + +The Republican National Committee is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. + +The RNC has been buying Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. + +The RNC has been buying Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) + +This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. ( +======================================== SAMPLE 363 ======================================== +The latest news from the world of professional wrestling. + +New WWE Smackdown from last night. + +AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe. + +The Takeover show. + +The return of the Rock. + +Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar. + +WWE Smackdown from last night. + +Mickie James vs. Paige. + +The Return of the Rock. + + +The Takeover show. + +WWE Smackdown from last night. + +Last night's Smackdown was a solid show. It was a continuation of what people saw last week and on the previous show on Monday Night Raw. It had the same matches that people saw on Raw, but it was also kind of a meta show. I was kind of hoping for some more wrestling in the show, and Smackdown delivered on that. They got the matches that they wanted to get, they played a good game with the backstage segments and they did a good job of filling up the evening. It was a solid show. + + +If you want to watch the show, check it out on the WWE Network. It was a good show. + + +PWInsider.com has the full episode of Smackdown from last night. + + +I don't really know what to make of this. It's obviously a WWE show, and it's a pretty good one. But it is also obvious that WWE has been planning this one for a while. + + +The new WWE Smackdown has a lot of fun, but it wasn't really a show that I was all that excited to watch. I'm not sure I see the reason for it. It's not like WWE is trying to reinvent themselves or anything. They are still as successful as ever, and they are still bringing in good numbers. They are still putting on good shows, and I guess I'm fine with that. I'm just kind of wondering why they didn't do anything to change the direction of the show. + + +I guess the problem is that it was a lot of the same stuff that we've seen for the last couple of years. I don't know that I would consider this a bad thing. That's not the point, though. I mean, it's still a WWE show. It's just that it wasn't really a show that I wanted to watch. + + +The last few months have been a crazy roller coaster ride. I've been pretty sure that WWE would have to do something about the direction of the show. I'm not sure they have, though. The new Smackdown is still pretty much the same show. I think that the show is still exciting on its own merits, but it could be a lot more interesting if WWE would just do something to change the direction of the show. + + +I guess that we'll have to wait and see what the future holds for WWE. It's a good show, but it's not really that special, and I think that's something that I'm not a big fan of. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but I think that this show needs some sort of shake-up. + + +In the meantime, I am going to enjoy this show. I'm not going to go out of my way to watch it every week. But it's kind of a cool show.<|endoftext|>WWE.com + +John Cena will return to the ring at WrestleMania 31. + +"It's a very special night for me. WrestleMania is one of the biggest nights on the calendar of my life. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Cena told WWE.com. "And it's a very special night for my family who's watching from home. For the fans who go to the show, it's a very special day, too. It's like a Super Bowl, except with a lot less football. It's a celebration of everything I've worked for my whole life, and it's a very special day for everyone here." + +Cena was the main event at WrestleMania 31 in 2007, and since his return to the ring, he has delivered major moments, including a perfect 10-0 streak against The Undertaker, the first-ever Triple Threat Match, and his one-on-one match against The Rock at WrestleMania 27. His return to the ring will come on WWE's biggest night of the year, and he knows that WWE fans are eagerly anticipating his return. + +"The fans are very excited and they're going to be loud and they're going to be happy and everyone is going to be pulling for John Cena to come back," Cena said. "For me, it's just a very special day. I've worked very hard for this. I've had a very long road to get where I am and I'm very thankful for WWE. I love the organization. I have a great time here. I have a great relationship with all my fans, and I'm +======================================== SAMPLE 364 ======================================== +On the one hand, you have the Liberal Party of Canada, which has been in power in Ottawa for almost a decade. + +On the other hand, you have the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has been in power in Ottawa for only a single year. + +The Liberals claim to represent the interests of Canadian business, the NDP the interests of Canadian workers. The NDP claims to represent the interests of Canadian students, the Liberals the interests of Canadian business. + +The latter claim is problematic. Businesses are no longer the driving force of the Canadian economy. + +The current Liberal government has presided over the worst economic performance of any post-World War II government. The previous NDP government was worse. + +The current Liberal government's economic record is no better. + +The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. + +However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +Since the Liberals took power, governments have been spending more than $1 billion a month. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $2 billion a month. + +The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. + +The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. + +The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. + +The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. + +In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. + +The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. + +In the last five years, the +======================================== SAMPLE 365 ======================================== +This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a new documentary that's opening in Toronto, the first in a series based on the book, The System Was Dead. The film, called El Salvador: A Hidden History, follows the journey of a film crew investigating the government's role in the mass murder of thousands, and the role the United States played in supporting the Salvadoran military during the 1980s. The two Americans who make the documentary are filmmaker Brian Urquhart, who is a former U.S. military intelligence officer who helped track down and kill El Salvador's most notorious terrorist, Manuel Noriega, and investigative journalist Amy Goodman. The film is screening tonight at the Don Mills Cinema in Toronto, the first screening in Canada of the film. + +Today we bring you an excerpt from the film that focuses on the role of the United States in the deadly wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. In El Salvador, the primary targets were the left-wing guerrilla groups, the FMLN, or the FML. The U.S. government provided military support to the Salvadoran military, funding the military's counterinsurgency program and training its elite forces. In addition, U.S. officers served as advisers to the Salvadoran military. + +After the military government was overthrown by the FMLN in 1980, the U.S. government maintained a presence in El Salvador until 1992, when the FMLN won an election that brought a new president, Porfirio Díaz, to power. As of today, the U.S. has a military base on the island of Vieques in El Salvador, where U.S. Marines are stationed, training Salvadoran forces in counterinsurgency. Over the course of the film, we'll hear from Brian Urquhart, documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, as well as Amy Goodman, investigative journalist and host of Democracy Now! + +Brian Urquhart has been a human rights activist for over 30 years, and he's been investigating the U.S. role in Latin America since the early 1980s. He's written many books about U.S. policy in Latin America. In addition, he has produced documentary films about U.S. military involvement in Central America. He recently made a film about the U.S. role in suppressing the Shining Path guerrillas in Guatemala, and he's currently preparing a film about the U.S. role in Latin America. + +Welcome to Democracy Now!, Brian Urquhart. + +BRIAN URQUHART: Thank you. + +AMY GOODMAN: You've been investigating U.S. military involvement in Latin America for years. Could you tell us about your research, your research for this documentary? + +BRIAN URQUHART: Sure. Well, the military-intelligence relationship was very, very clear during the Reagan years. It was kind of like the Cold War. And it's been a very strong relationship, since the '80s, which I think is very important to understand. And it really, in some ways, underlines the role of the United States in Latin America, that there are certain areas in which the United States tries to control the political process, but it also also has a very strong relationship with the military, particularly in El Salvador and Guatemala. And the military is very, very, very integral to U.S. foreign policy. + +AMY GOODMAN: So tell us about those areas that you have uncovered in El Salvador, Brian. + +BRIAN URQUHART: Well, for example, in El Salvador, the U.S. military was very heavily involved in training the Salvadoran army. And at the time, the U.S. military was very much involved in training at least, in the late '80s and early '90s, the Salvadoran army. And one of the things that I tried to do in the film, was to show the different types of training, from both the U.S. and the Salvadoran army. And one of the things that I found especially interesting is that, if you look at the training that there was to the Salvadoran army in the '80s, the training was very, very hard-core. I mean, it was very, very hard-core, with a lot of military combat training and sniper training, and it was very, very difficult. And if you look at the training that the U.S. military did in El Salvador, it was much softer, much more about negotiation and de-escalation and counterinsurgency. And, you know, in many ways, the training that the U.S. military did in El Salvador, was very similar to the training that the U.S. military does in Central America. + +AMY GOODMAN: So, in El Salvador, the military was essentially training the military. That's what you're telling us about. + + +======================================== SAMPLE 366 ======================================== +According to the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were 1,808,744 crimes in the United States in 2015. Of those crimes, 160,779 were violent crimes and 88,269 were property crimes. + +The FBI's crime statistics do not include the number of "justifiable" homicides, which includes police-related homicides, as well as the number of crimes for which the victim lives in a different state, or is under 18 years of age, or is a victim of a sexual offense. The FBI only counts murders and nonlethal crimes like aggravated assault, robbery, and larceny. + +To find out how many crimes were committed in each state in 2015, check out our interactive map below.<|endoftext|>Over the course of the weekend, the North Carolina State University Board of Trustees will vote on whether to approve a new football coach. On Tuesday, fans will be able to vote for their favorite candidate. + +But the decision is far more complicated than picking between three people. + +My initial thought was that the shortlist of three candidates was the most straightforward and straightforward way to get a decision. But that was before I started digging. + +The following is a list of factors that could play a role in who wins the job. I won't get into them all here, but I can explain why some candidates are more desirable than others. + +Personality + +The most important and the most widely discussed factor in the search is personality. + +Some candidates have more experience on the job than others, and the best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. + +The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. + +So if personality is the most important factor in the search, who does the UNC football program need? + +I'd say two people. + +I'd say two people. + +Because of their personalities and the way they interact with fans (or the media), I think Todd Graham is the best fit for the job. + +Todd Graham's personality is the reason why he won the job at NC State. He was a big personality and an engaging personality. + +Early in his tenure, he was very outspoken. He was not afraid to tell the media what he thought. He'd say, "NC State is a great place to be a student-athlete. Coach (Bobby) Cremins is a fantastic coach. I don't care who you support. You want to be a part of it." + +He's not afraid to speak his mind. + +It's why he gets credit for creating a winning culture, which is why we should hire him. + +I also have a lot of respect for Larry Fedora, who was the head coach at NC State from 2005-09. He's a great coach and a very important part of the NC State football tradition. + +But Fedora, like Graham, is also an engaging personality. He's not afraid to speak his mind, and he's very passionate about his job. + +But Fedora is a much different person than Graham. + +Graham is a master of the "he said/she said" story. He's not afraid to be honest. + +He's not afraid to speak his mind. + +He's not afraid to speak his mind. + +And he's not afraid to be honest with the media. + +He's not afraid to be honest with the media. + +He's not afraid to be honest with the media. + +Bobby Petrino is another great example. He's a big personality and a good communicator. + +He loves his job and he loves his fans. He's a great communicator. + +He was the head coach at Louisville from 1996-2003. He was the head coach at Louisville from 1996-2003. + +Bobby Petrino is not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +He's not afraid to talk to the media. + +But his personality is not the reason why he won the job at Louisville. + +He was the head coach at a great program, which he says he didn't want to be at. But he had to be the head coach at a great program. And he did it. + +So when you're looking at personality, I think Graham is the best fit for the job. But Fedora is also a +======================================== SAMPLE 367 ======================================== +His name is Jim. He's been an avid gamer for a long time, but it's only recently that he's started to take his love of the game to the next level. + +"I was always a great gamer, but I never had the motivation," Jim said. "Now that I'm starting to get into video games and start getting better, I'm like, 'Oh, I can do this!'" + +Jim is a self-proclaimed "gamer' who's obsessed with video games since he was little. He's a huge fan of games like Call of Duty, Halo and Dragon Age, but he's also a longtime fan of Nintendo games like Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros U. + +He's going to school to study gaming, but he doesn't plan on going to college just for gaming. He said he wants to be a real-life video game developer, like a game designer, and he has his eyes set on becoming a game designer. + +"I'd like to work on games that people would actually want to play," Jim said. "I think it would be really cool to be a part of creating a game that people would actually want to play and be a part of making it happen." + +His plan is to get his game design degree, which he's been working towards since he was in middle school. He started working on his game design plan last year, and he's already started paying off the bills. + +He's currently working on a prototype for a new game, and it's all given him the motivation to continue to work towards a degree. He's also hoping to get his game design degree through the International Game Developers Association, which is a non-profit organization that helps people earn degrees in game design. + +Jim says he's been playing games for most of his life. He started playing games when he was around two years old, and he's been playing games ever since. + +"I think I was about 11 or 12 when I started playing games and really got into them," Jim said. "I started to play games like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda when I was three or four, and I played them all the time and I still did." + +"I was always a great gamer, but I never had the motivation." - Jim + +With his parents' help, Jim started to get into games. Jim says he's been playing games for as long as he can remember, and he's always had plenty of energy because of the games he loves to play. + +"I've always been very energetic, and when I'm playing games, I'm very kind of happy," Jim said. "I like to always have a good time, and I like to feel like I'm having fun. I like to feel good." + +Jim said his parents have been encouraging him to play more and more games, and he's been playing video games since he was a kid. + +"I think they're very supportive of me," Jim said. "I think they love playing games, but I think they love playing games with me as well. I think they're very supportive of me and I think they're very supportive of me and my hobbies, and I think they like that because I think they appreciate it too." + +Jim hopes to eventually work with his dad on his game design degree, and he's already been working on his plan to get his game design degree. + +"My dad would be very supportive of my decision," Jim said. "He's always been very supportive of me as well." + +Jim said he wants to be a game designer, and he's already started working on his game design plan. With a year left to get his game design degree through the International Game Developers Association, he already has the plans to get his degree through that organization. + +© 2018 KGW<|endoftext|>A study on the impact of tobacco products on the risk of developing a number of diseases in the general population has been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. + +The study looked at the relationship between a history of long-term smoking and the development of lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, laryngeal cancer, oral cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and Hodgkin's lymphoma. + +The researchers controlled for age, sex, education, body mass index, centre, and country. They found that smoking for more than 20 years increased the risk of lung cancer by 50 per cent. + +Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the Canadian population and is also a major cause of mortality, with 21,000 new cases diagnosed in 2010. + +The study also found that smoking was associated with a 65 per cent increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer, as well as a 50 per cent increased risk of developing laryngeal cancer. + +They also found a link between +======================================== SAMPLE 368 ======================================== +The US is poised to end the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal that has been negotiated by President Barack Obama for the past six years. The deal will be the largest trade deal the US has ever negotiated. + +The announcement was made by US Trade Representative Michael Froman. He said the US would adopt a "much more robust stance" on the TPP, and was now making the decision to withdraw from the agreement. + +"The decision to move forward on TPP was a difficult one for us to make," Froman said at a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart, Vice Prime Minister and Economy Minister Shinzo Abe. "But in the end, it is in the best interests of the US economy, our workers, and our businesses." + +The TPP was negotiated by the US and 11 other nations in the Pacific Rim. It was meant to boost trade and investment between the countries by lowering trade barriers and reducing import tariffs. As with all trade deals, the deal was not without its critics and critics have had a hard time convincing the US public and lawmakers to support the deal. The deal was not without its critics and critics have had a hard time convincing the US public and lawmakers to support the deal. + +Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. + +The TPP was also opposed by a large number of US lawmakers and lawmakers have raised concerns about the trans-Pacific deal. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. + +The TPP is scheduled to be finalized in the coming months. However, the US has already withdrawn from the South Korea – US Free Trade Agreement, which was negotiated in the 1990s.<|endoftext|>Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. + +A new Japanese fashion company is creating some quirky clothing. + +The clothing is all about the "kawaii" (cute) aesthetic, which means it's designed to be cute but also wearable. Most of the clothing is colorful and doodly, with a few designs, like this T-shirt, that are a little more interesting. + +This T-shirt is available for ¥1,500 (US$15), and it's available in men's and women's sizes. + +The clothing is made by the company "Kawaii Design," which started in 2011. The company sells apparel that can be worn by kids. The clothes are also made for adults, but they are cute, so they are sold only in the teenagers' section. + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement<|endoftext|>There are a lot of reasons why people don't like the idea of a hybrid-electric Tesla Model S: the high cost, the lack of range, the long waiting list. But one of the most important reasons is that, for all its great features, it's not a practical, everyday car. + +A Tesla Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode. Image: Tesla + +So if it's not practical, why does Elon Musk want to build it? He wants to sell it because he believes in the Model S—he's betting that it's the future of mainstream cars. + +Musk's bet is that the Model S is the car that will finally make it possible to build a supercar that's affordable, practical, and sustainable. That's Musk's dream, and why he's so excited about the Model S. + +But there's a problem: the Model S is not actually practical. + +The Model S is a pure electric car. It's not much different from an Audi A4 diesel—except that it has superior +======================================== SAMPLE 369 ======================================== + +Call it the "Stingray effect." + +For the past eight years, the United States has been at war with al-Qaeda and its allies in the Greater Middle East. But for nearly a decade, the U.S. has been able to track the group's hijackers through the vast network of embassies and consulates that dot the globe, enabling officials to determine the identities of the 19 men responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. + +But the U.S. government stopped monitoring the hijackers after they departed the country. + +Now, with the release of secret documents by a group of activist journalists, the agency is expected to confirm the existence of the program. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the government's ability to track terrorists through the diplomatic network, a program that has been kept secret from Congress and the American public. + +The documents, obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act, show that the U.S. was able to identify and track the hijackers through the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, which was the hijackers' first stop in the region. The consulate has since been closed. + +The documents also reveal that the hijackers were tracked by the CIA's "Global Entry" program, which allows diplomats and their families to travel directly to the U.S. without a visa. + +In addition to tracking the hijackers, the documents show that the U.S. was also able to determine the identities and travel plans of the 19 men who were being held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. + +The revelation that the U.S. was able to track the hijackers in the region comes as the Obama administration is under fire for its broad surveillance of Americans and its failure to address widespread concerns about its use of the program. + +"The government has long known that the U.S. government has diplomatic and intelligence relationships with many of the countries in the Middle East," said Congressman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The truth is that the United States is losing our ability to provide intelligence that could have prevented the attacks." + +The Intercept, a website run by First Look Media, a media organization based in Washington, D.C., published the documents on Friday. The documents are part of an ongoing collaboration between the site, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a group that advocates for press freedom. + +The Intercept published the documents as part of its "first installment" of a project that is being called "The Drone Papers." The project is seeking to spotlight the secrecy surrounding the use of drones, which was first revealed by The New York Times in February. + +The Intercept's first installment, titled "Drones Most Wanted," is a collection of stories about the use of drones by the U.S. government. The stories show the controversial aspects of the program, such as the use of drones to target American citizens without due process. + +In addition to reporting on the use of drones, the project will provide background on the 9/11 Commission Report. + +The first installment of the project is entitled, "Drones Most Wanted: The Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." + +The following are excerpts from the first installment of the project: + +The information in this installment was obtained from the so-called "9/11 Commission Report" by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency that is responsible for archiving government records. It was also obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act. + +The 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004, was produced by the independent commission appointed by President George W. Bush in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was the only official government document available to the public for years after the attacks. + +Much of the report has been classified. It was given to the public in 2004, but President Barack Obama deleted sections of the report that influenced the White House's counterterrorism policies. + +Because the report was classified, the 9/11 Commission Report could not shed light on how the U.S. government developed its counterterrorism policies in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. + +The document release is expected to provide new insights into the government's use of drones in the U.S. over the past decade. Documents from the 9/11 Commission Report showed that the U.S. had been extensively using remotely piloted aircraft in the war against al-Qaeda. + +The Intercept's first installment, "Drones Most Wanted," is a collection of stories about the use of drones by the U.S. government. The stories show the controversial aspects of the program, such as the use of drones to target American citizens without due process. + +In addition to reporting on the use of drones, the project will provide background on the 9/11 Commission Report. +======================================== SAMPLE 370 ======================================== +We're sorry, but the page you requested cannot be found. + +The following is a list of some of the pages you may have tried to reach on our website. + +If you are the owner of the page, please contact us at support@currykuzzle.com.<|endoftext|>Real Name: Unknown + +Nicknames: Unknown + +Location: America + +Date: November 8, 1990 + + +Case Edit + +Details: In 1990, a young woman named Julie Paul was found dead in a wooded area near her home in the town of West Haven, Connecticut. Her family had reported her missing in the hours before, but her parents thought she was still at school. The next day, her mother discovered that Julie had been missing for three days, and was found dead the next morning. Julie had been beaten to death, and her body was badly beaten. Police initially thought that Julie had been sexually assaulted, but it was later revealed that she had been killed by a blow to the head with a baseball bat, and that a large piece of her skull had been removed. + +Suspects: Julie's family had reasons to be suspicious of their daughter's boyfriend, Kevin Saucier. It was Saucier's job to sell the stolen stolen cars to be sold on the black market and then to rob them. He had an extensive criminal record and had previously served time in prison for manslaughter, burglary, and robbery. He had also been convicted of having sex with the victim during the time she was missing. The murder was thought to have been committed by Saucier, although he had not been charged with the crime. + +Extra Notes: This case first aired on the February 19, 1991 episode. + +Results: Unresolved. Saucier was charged with Julie's murder in March 1991, but in September 1990, Saucier's brother, Mark Saucier, was charged with her kidnapping and rape. + +Links:<|endoftext|>The Supreme Court has ruled that the police need a warrant to spy on the electronic devices of suspects in criminal investigations. (Reuters) + +The Supreme Court on Monday handed down a historic ruling that has huge implications for modern-day surveillance, allowing police to turn on and off the electronic devices of suspects in criminal investigations without first obtaining a warrant. + +The ruling, which follows a pair of high-profile cases in the last year, makes it clear that the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from illegal searches and seizures, does not apply to electronic devices such as cellphones and other portable computing devices. + +The ruling was unanimous: Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented. + +The decision represents a significant change in how law enforcement conducts investigations, and has provoked a fierce debate, as well as questions about what it means for individual privacy and the right to privacy. + +The court's decision is a huge victory for the National Security Agency and other spy agencies, which had argued that they are entitled to engage in "electronic surveillance" of people around the world based on secret court orders. + +But it also opens the door to surveillance of Americans' private communications and information stored in the cloud, and to the possibility that criminal suspects, innocent bystanders and even foreign leaders will be subject to such surveillance in the future. + +Despite the court's ruling, the government's powers to spy on electronic devices remain largely intact. In the most telling part of the ruling, in the context of the search of a suspect's phone, the court said that "the absence of any condition on the admission of evidence does not imply its inadmissibility." + +"The police may use oral or written evidence obtained from a 'third party' (i.e., from an electronic device) to search a suspect's phone, without first obtaining a warrant to do so," Kennedy wrote. "The Third Amendment does not require the police to obtain a warrant before searching a suspect's phone." + +Kennedy's opinion is a significant departure from the Fourth Amendment's requirement that search warrants be based on probable cause and that evidence obtained in the search must be suppressed if it is not relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. + +The case is United States v. Warshak. (The Washington Post) + +The ruling in the Warshak case centered around a 2012 arrest for drug trafficking in Baltimore. + +Although police were called to the scene, and seized the phone in question, investigators later determined that the phone had been used by the defendant, Yassin Aref, to make calls to his family, friends and associates. + +An independent witness was able to place Aref at the scene when the phone was seized, according to the court decision. + +The court concluded that the phone was an "electronic device" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and that the police could use it without a warrant to search for evidence relevant to the investigation. + +The ruling was also a victory for +======================================== SAMPLE 371 ======================================== +Greece's governor has warned that, as a result of a $307m (£206m) bailout by international creditors, "Greece has developed a kind of double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill". + +The comments by Yiannis Stournaras, a former minister for finance, are a stark reminder of the huge challenges facing Greece as it tries to overcome the crisis that has engulfed the country. + +The country is currently grappling with a €240bn (£177bn) bailout from international creditors, in return for a €130bn (£99bn) bailout from the European Union. + +In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Stournaras warned that Greece was "not a country that can meet the national income targets that it has set for itself". + +The country is also facing a €1.5bn (£1bn) cut in its planned pensions payment this year, which could further strain its finances. + +However, while the country is struggling with the effects of the austerity measures that have been imposed on it, it has also benefited from a €27bn (£22bn) bailout from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. + +Despite the heavy burden of debt that Greece has been forced to bear, Mr Stournaras admitted that "it's not a problem that can be solved with a magic wand". + +He added: "What we need is to meet the debt targets we have set, which are in the order of €110bn. We have to do that without any interest in terms of debt servicing. + +"What we are now seeing in western Europe is a new kind of debt crisis. It's not only Italy and Spain, but also France and the UK. It's not a problem that can be solved with a magic wand. + +"We have to accept the fact that Greece is a peripheral country and has a deficit that's significantly higher than its GDP. We have to accept that Greece will not be able to pay back what it owes." + +Mr Stournaras also pointed to the "very high fiscal crimes" that were committed by the Greek government. + +"If we look at the Greek deficit, it's really not that great. In 2012 alone, the Greek government was obliged to repay €30bn, and this is before we take into account that it was the ECB that made the loans to the Greek government. + +"That is very excessive and it's not sustainable. We had a government that made a lot of mistakes, but it wasn't the government's fault. When we look at the Greek government, we can see that it was a government that was focused on austerity. + +"The Greek government was quite openly behind the debt management programme and the austerity programme, but it was the Greek people who were the ones who were meant to pay for the mistakes. + +"It's a very tragic situation, because Greece has a double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill." + +Mr Stournaras, who is also a professor of economics at the University of Athens, also claimed that Greece had become a "pit of despair" as a result of its international bailout. + +"We are seeing in Greece a kind of double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill," he said. + +"We are seeing a country where the political elite are governed by the rule of the silent majority, and where the people are obliged to carry the burden of austerity and debt repayment." + +Mr Stournaras's comments come after the European Central Bank opened the door to further monetary easing, in response to the ongoing crisis. + +The ECB announced on Thursday that it will now "look for ways to expand the monetary policy" of the eurozone, in a bid to support the eurozone's economy. + +The ECB stressed that it was important to "reduce the risk of deflation in the euro area" – a key concern for Greece, whose economy is already contracting. + +Meanwhile, Greece's new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, faced a backlash from opposition lawmakers after he said that the country does not need further financial assistance. + +"We have a programme and we will stick to it. We will not seek to increase the debt, but rather reduce it," he told reporters at a news conference. + +Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is expected to be formally appointed as the country's next finance minister by the end of the week. + +The Greek government is facing a number +======================================== SAMPLE 372 ======================================== +I want to enrage you. + +I want you to want to laugh. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me. + +I want you to want me +======================================== SAMPLE 373 ======================================== +The map above shows the following estimates of the uncertainty around the RCP8.5 scenario: + + +The red lines show the range of simulated results from the CMIP5 ensemble members. + + +The ensemble members are made up of about 6,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range. + + +The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. + + +The red lines show the range of simulated results from the CMIP5 ensemble members.The ensemble members are made up of about 6,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range.The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. + +The CMIP5 ensemble members are also known as "climate projections" and are made up of about 2,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range. + + +The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. + +This uncertainty range is used for comparing different CMIP5 projections. The CMIP5 model projections are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the "high" and "medium" sensitivity scenarios, the "intermediate" and "low" (or "low") potential values scenarios and the "high" and "medium" equilibrium climate sensitivity scenarios. + +The CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is the temperature increase that could be expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). + +The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "high" sensitivity scenario assumes a much faster warming than the "low" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much larger temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. + + +The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. + +What is the difference between CMIP5 climate sensitivity estimates? + +The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios are more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. + + +The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the low sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the high sensitivity scenario. + +How can the CMIP5 climate sensitivity values be compared? + +The CMIP5 model predictions are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the "high" and "medium" sensitivity scenarios, the "intermediate" and "low" potential values scenarios and the "high" and "medium" equilibrium climate sensitivity scenarios. + + +The CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is the temperature increase that could be expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). + +The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "high" sensitivity scenario assumes a much faster warming than the "low" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much larger temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. + + +The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. + +What are the technical details of the CMIP5 climate sensitivity projections? + +The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report used a model called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The CMIP5 climate sensitivity projections were derived by comparing the CMIP5 models with the climate observations. + + +The CMIP5 models are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the high sensitivity +======================================== SAMPLE 374 ======================================== +Online + +Any email address can be set up as a guest. If you are logged in, you will automatically be assigned a guest account. You can additionally create a password-protected guest account. For more information, see Guest Accounts. + +Mail + +Mailboxes are accessible through the mail server. You can access your mailbox by sending mail to @. + +To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: + +Mail Sent to @example.com + +To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: + +Mail Sent to @example.com + +To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: View your mailbox at any time at https://mail.example.com/mail/@. + +Important: Due to the way mail is routed through the mail server, a mail sent from one system to another is routed through the mail server for delivery. Since the mail server is managed by a third-party, this means that you cannot control or monitor how mail is routed through the mail server. Many mail servers are managed by third-party companies that may have different routing policies depending on your local load balancing profiles. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only known way to send mail through the mail server. + +To track the status of a mailbox, you can use the mailbox status command. + +Mailbox status [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com + +Warning: Using the mail status command to view the status of a mailbox may result in some mail being blocked from being delivered. + +To access the status of a mail account, you can use the info command. + +Info [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com + +Warning: Using the info command to view the status of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. + +To access the information about a mail account, you can use the info command. + +Info [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com + +Warning: Using the info command to view the status of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. + +To view the user content of a mailbox, you can use the snapshot command. + +Snapshot [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com @mail.example.com @mail.example.com + +Warning: Using the snapshot command to access the content of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. + +Important: Snapshot is not intended for use with the archive command. + +To access the user content of a user account, you can use the snapshot command. + +Snapshot [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com @mail.example.com @mail.example.com + +Warning: Using the snapshot command to access the content of a user account may result in some mail not being delivered. + +To view the user content of the user's mailbox, you can use the list command. + +List @mail.example.com + +Note: List is not intended for use with the archive command. + +To view the user content of a user's mailbox, you can use the list command. + +List @mail.example.com + +Note: List is not intended for use with the archive command. + +To view the user content of a user's mailbox, you can use the list command. + +List @mail.example.com + +Important: List is not intended for use with the archive command. + +To view the user content of a user's mail, you can use the list command. + +List @mail.example.com + +Important: List is not intended for use with the archive command. + +To view the user content of a user's mail, you can +======================================== SAMPLE 375 ======================================== +So, I've spent the last week weeding out the dead wood in my home and office. I've changed my wardrobe. I've cleaned my closets and furniture and tools. I've gotten rid of some of my clutter. + +Now, though, I'm staring down at my desk. I look around and notice that I have a lot of books, which I love. I also have a lot of papers, which I love to read. But, I've also got a lot of stuff in my bookcase. + +I'm not sure what to do with it all. I'm not sure if I'm going to put it in a bag or a box. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or even throw it away. + +So, what should I do? + +To answer these questions, I thought we would start with a little history lesson. + +For the next nine months, I will be collecting items that represent the diversity of my life. I'm not going to be picking out the books that I love so much and toss them out of the window. I'm not going to be picking out the papers that I read so much and throw them out of the window. I'm going to be collecting the things that I do that I love. + +I'm going to be collecting a little bit of everything. But, I'm going to be doing it in a way that illustrates how, on a more personal level, I can collect these things. + +So, now that we've established my collection, let's go back to the beginning. + +How I Collected Things + +Back in the day, I would collect things by just making piles on the floor, or by digging through the couch cushions, or by picking up small objects. I would take a drop of enthusiasm, or a few adrenaline shots, and I'd run around the house collecting stuff. + +And, then I'd come home and look at what I had collected. + +My mom gave me a book in a box when I was a kid. It was a little book of random drawings. I remember, as a child, I would look at it and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +I then got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" + +Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome +======================================== SAMPLE 376 ======================================== +"The best thing that can happen to a man is to be loved by his own mother" + +Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness the greatest action scene in history. And it is all because of a woman. + +The scene — one of the most iconic was in the 1995 film "The Matrix" — occurs at the end of the film, when Neo stands up to Morpheus, the leader of The Resistance, and asks him to give up his soul. + +Morpheus, a human-like leader of The Resistance, tells Neo that he is the embodiment of everything that is good in the world. This gift comes at a price, however: He must never reveal his true self to anyone. + +Neo, who is Neo in disguise, asks him to give up his soul because he can't be the person he wants to be. Morpheus says that he can be that person. + +But, in the end, Neo isn't willing to give up his soul so easily. + +I've been thinking about this scene since I first saw it — and I'm not sure I like it. On one hand, it is awesome. On the other hand, the scene is a bit too much like the love triangle in "The Matrix." + +Look, I understand that movies, when they are well-made, can do things that no other medium can do. And, yes, the love triangle in "The Matrix" is a fantastic scene. + +But if you watch it back to back with "The Matrix," "The Bourne Identity," "The Dark Knight" and "The Matrix Reloaded," it's obvious that the two scenes are completely different. + +Here's why. + +"The Matrix" + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +Let's say you hear about a hot new movie about a man and a woman forced to meet in a virtual reality world. Then, you go to the theater and see the movie. But the movie is a mediocre movie, because it's a bad movie. + +But, let's say you hear about a hot new movie about a man and a woman forced to meet in a virtual reality world. Then, you go to the theater and see the movie. But the movie is a mediocre movie, because it's a bad movie. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix Reloaded" + +"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. + +"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced +======================================== SAMPLE 377 ======================================== +A A + +Two people have died in a shooting that happened in the parking lot of a Spokane Valley mall Friday afternoon, police say. + +The victims died around 5 p.m. at Providence Regional Medical Center, according to a news release. + +The shooting happened in the parking lot of the Sears store, located near the mall's entrance. + +A Spokane Valley police spokesman says the victims were two people who were shot in the parking lot. They were not immediately identified. + +Police have not released any details about the suspected shooter or the suspect vehicle. + +The mall said it had been informed of the shooting, and that it would be closed Friday. + +"We are working with our security company to ensure that they remain on site and that they are on top of the situation," the mall said in a statement.<|endoftext|>PURPOSE: + +The aim of this study was to compare the short-term effects of tianeptine, a unique N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, with placebo on the cognitive functions of healthy subjects. + +METHODS: + +Twenty-two volunteers were randomly assigned to receive tianeptine (50 mg) or placebo for 2 weeks. Cognitive tasks were performed at baseline and after 2 weeks of treatment. + +RESULTS: + +Tianeptine significantly improved the performance of attention (p = 0.01), working memory (p = 0.01), and executive functions (p = 0.01). Tianeptine improved the performance of attention and executive functions, but not working memory, in comparison with placebo. Tianeptine may have a beneficial effect on cognitive functions in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Tianeptine was associated with a significant decrease in heart rate at the end of the trial. + +CONCLUSION: + +Tianeptine may be a safe and effective drug for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.<|endoftext|>The US Senate on Monday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping new climate change bill that would divest from fossil fuels and place an economic value on the benefits of renewable energy. + +The bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate with a vote of 75-20, would require federal agencies to adopt new rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 30% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. + +The bill also mandates that states increase their renewable energy investment rates to 20% by 2020 and 50% by 2025. + +The Senate vote came a day after the House of Representatives passed the bill by a nearly two-to-one margin. + +"This bill is a recognition of reality. The world is changing," said Senator Barbara Boxer, who co-sponsored the bill with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. + +"We can no longer wait and hope that President Obama's Clean Power Plan will save us from the worst impacts of climate change, and this bill is the first step to ensure that we do something about it," Boxer added. + +The Senate bill hands over the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to the states. Republican-led states have opposed the EPA's recent proposal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. + +"While the Republican leadership has once again squandered years of hard work to build support for a clean energy future, this bill marks a significant milestone in that fight," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. + +The bill defines a "greenhouse gas" as any substance that traps heat and can be regulated by the EPA. + +"This bill is not just about climate change. It is about the economy," said Senator Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill. + +The Democratic-led Senate is expected to approve the bill as soon as Tuesday. It is expected to easily pass in the Republican-dominated House, where a similar bill already has bipartisan support. + +The Senate bill is modeled on legislation introduced in 2010 by Boxer and Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. The two co-sponsored the bill with 10 other Democrats. + +The legislation passed the Senate in December with the support of all 33 Democrats and three Republicans. + +The bill now moves to the House. + +Explore further: Obama to accept climate change deal<|endoftext|>On this page: + +A history of the Dominican Republic + +The Dominican Republic, with its Caribbean coastline, is one of the most popular destinations for those who love adventure. The Republic is home to some of the world's most beautiful beaches, tropical forests, and sprawling tropical gardens. The Dominican Republic is also home to a diverse, entrepreneurial population. The Dominican Republic has been one of the fastest growing countries in Latin America, and is home to some of the world's wealthiest and most influential people. The Dominican Republic is also home to one of the most vibrant and dynamic entertainment and leisure industries in the region. + +As a result of its diverse and dynamic nature, the Dominican Republic is +======================================== SAMPLE 378 ======================================== +Praise be to Allaah. + +The first thing that a Muslim should do is to pray and make du'aa' for the Muslims who are in a state of Ihram. This is an obligation that Allaah has placed on the believers, because of the special status that the Muslims hold over them. + +With regard to their special status, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "Whoever visits me in my state of Ihram, visits me in my state of special status, and whoever is in a state of Ihram visits me in my state of special status." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) + +This indicates that the Muslims are under the protection of Allaah, and this is what is meant by special status. + +The second thing that a Muslim should do is to follow the prayers and du'aa's that he was taught and is taught in his religion. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like a person who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom. So if he makes du'aa' for me, his du'aa' is accepted, and if he doesn't make du'aa' for me, his du'aa' is refused." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656). + +It was said to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): "What do you think about that man who prays and makes du'aa' for you?" He said: "I think that he is a kaafir (disbeliever) and I don't think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656) + +The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) It was said: "What do you think about that man who prays and makes du'aa' for you?" He said: "I think that he is a kaafir (disbeliever) and I don't think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656) + +The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) + +The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "A man should pray and make du'aa' for the one who is sick, and I think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) + +The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656)<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would appoint the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp as secretary of state, in one of his first appointments to a top diplomatic post. + +FILE PHOTO: Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson speaks to reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo + +Rex Tillerson, the chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), is a former Republican senator from Texas and a close ally of Trump, who defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8. + +Tillerson, 50, has more than 40 years of experience at Exxon Mobil, having served as chief executive of the company from 2006 to 2015, when he became chairman and chief operating officer. + +Trump has said he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a declaration that would be seen by the Palestinians as U.S. recognition of their capital. + +On Wednesday, Trump said he would seek to move America's embassy to Jerusalem, a decision that would upend decades of U.S. policy and upset +======================================== SAMPLE 379 ======================================== +The size of the U.S. economy has improved over time, but we are not there yet, a new report from the Federal Reserve says. + +The nation's gross domestic product is expected to grow 3.9% this year, up from the average of 2.1% seen over the last five years, the central bank said in its quarterly report on Tuesday. + +That's a bounce-back from the U.S. economy's slow recovery from the Great Recession in 2009. Growth has averaged only 1.5% since 2009, and has been falling since the end of 2014. + +The Fed's forecast, however, is still behind where it was in the middle of 2015, when it expected growth to turn around and average 3.7% over the next five years. + +"Economic growth is expected to pick up in 2017 and 2018, with growth of 3.9% projected in 2018, up from the 3.5% projected in the October 2016 FOMC statement," the report said. + +But the Fed warned that "economic growth is unlikely to be as robust as in the recent past." + +The economy is expected to grow at a 2.1% annual rate in 2018, up from the 2.0% pace seen at the beginning of the year. That's still below the 3% growth the Fed had projected before the election, but it's close enough to the 2.8% pace it had projected in its most recent projections at the end of 2016. + +The Fed also projected economic growth of 2.7% in 2019, up from a 2.3% pace seen at the end of last year. That's still below the 3.3% pace it had forecast in its most recent projections, but it's close enough to the 2.8% pace it had projected in its most recent projections at the end of 2016. + +The Fed's economic projections have been volatile since the election. In November, the central bank predicted that growth would rise from an annual rate of 2.1% in 2016 to 3.0% by 2019. + +But in December, the Fed cut its growth forecast to 2.6% in 2017 and 2.5% in 2018. + +Related: Trump wants to slash corporate taxes and eliminate regulations + +For President Donald Trump, who has promised to slash corporate taxes and lower regulations, boosting growth is important. + +"Looking ahead, we expect the economy to expand 2.3% in 2017, 2.2% in 2018, and 2.0% in 2019," the Fed said. + +The Fed also projected that the unemployment rate would rise to 4.4% next year. It had predicted unemployment to rise to 4.5% in 2016, and then to 4.6% by 2019.<|endoftext|>A new poll suggests that Canadians are not expecting the same level of federal spending as the Conservatives promised under the 2015 election campaign. + +The poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute suggests Canadians are looking for a new level of federal spending, but not as much as the Liberal campaign promised in their 2015 election platform. + +The poll found that 42 per cent of Canadians say they would like to see a mix of federal spending and a higher level of taxes, while only 19 per cent say they support the current level of federal spending. + +This shows that Canadians want to see a mix of spending and taxes, and that the Conservatives' promises of much deeper spending cuts under the 2015 budget were not met with all of the support that they expected, said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute. + +"The Conservatives were looking for a lot more spending cuts, and they said they would be able to make them. But the reality of the situation is, as we've seen, they're not that far away from being able to make those cuts," said Kurl. + +Conservatives expected support for spending cuts + +Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau campaigned with a pledge to balance the budget in four years. + +Trudeau said the Liberals would balance the budget by 2016-2017, meaning federal revenues would have to equal the federal spending. + +Trudeau promised to run three straight deficits of more than $10 billion per year to get the country back to balance. + +But the federal government projects that it will have a $3.9 billion surplus in 2016-2017, and a $3.5 billion surplus in 2017-2018. + +The following chart shows the federal government's projected deficits and surpluses as part of its fiscal projections. + +Federal government projects 2016-2017 2017-2018 Federal revenues $27,533,200,000 $29,928,300,000 $1,835,500,000 Federal spending $76,993,500,000 $94,228,000,000 $1,845,000,000 Federal debt $319,834,000,000 $319,875,000,000 $0 Provincial revenues $523 +======================================== SAMPLE 380 ======================================== +The Crystal Ball: 2.5 weeks ago + +Hillary Clinton, who had been thought to have a slight advantage in the race for the Democratic nomination, had a major blowup with Bernie Sanders over the weekend, and her campaign is hitting back hard, claiming that Sanders is the one out of touch with the American people. + +Clinton has said that she is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump, and she has cited her record of success, but Sanders has been saying that he can beat Trump, and in a recent interview, he said that he didn't think Clinton would win the election. + +Sanders was asked about the polls that showed him beating Trump in a head-to-head matchup, and he said that he did not think that Sanders could beat Trump, although he was not sure he could win the general election against Trump. + +"I don't think I can. I don't know that I can," he said. "But I'm going to do all that I can to try to see that we do win." + +Of course, Sanders, like Clinton, has been saying that he is the only candidate who can beat Trump for months, but recent polls have shown Trump beating Clinton in a head-to-head matchup. + +The Clinton campaign is going after Sanders, pointing to his "extreme positions" on gun control and campaign finance reform, along with comments he made in which he called black people "super predators." + +Clinton's campaign has been going after Sanders on a variety of issues, and they hope that Sanders will continue to attack Clinton in the upcoming primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. + +After all, Clinton has said that Sanders is the "only candidate who can beat Trump." + +[image via screengrab] + +— + +Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona + +Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com<|endoftext|>Over a year ago, we started a year-long series called "10 Things I Hate About You." + +The goal was to get together 10 things that you hate about your partner, so you could get to know them better and get to know your differences. We had an overwhelming response, with people taking the 10 Things survey countless times and posting them on the Internet. We were surprised at the generosity and honesty of the responses. + +We also learned that no matter how good of a person someone is, there are still things they do that annoy you. + +Finally, through the process of getting to know our partners, we realized that there are probably 10 things we hate about ourselves. So we're starting a new series called "10 Things I Hate About You." + +This time, we're going to focus on things that are personal to us, and things that we don't expect our partner to dislike. + +Sometimes people say to me, "I don't care what you do in bed, as long as you're not making me feel uncomfortable." + +It's a fair question. But most people don't want to hear, "I don't care about your sex life." So instead of focusing on how you have sex, we're going to focus on how you make us feel. + +We're going to focus on things that hurt, and things that make us uncomfortable. + +So join me as we take a look at 10 things that make us uncomfortable. + +1. You're not the biggest fan of nudity. + +We love being nude. We love putting on our clothes, and we love being naked. + +We've all been naked at some point, but many people have spent their entire lives not being naked. Some of those people are our partners. + +One of the biggest moments we've had was when Matt told us he had to go to the bathroom. + +"OK, but I'm going to be naked first," I told him. + +"OK, keep your pants on," he responded simply. + +It was one of the most intimate moments we've had. We've been together for a long time. We've both been naked a lot. We're both used to being naked in public. + +And yet, we had to go to the bathroom together. + +Sure, it was embarrassing. But it was also a huge step for us. We've been with him for a while. We've been naked in public together. We don't want to start wearing clothes only for their own sake. + +We don't expect you to be a fan of nudity. + +2. You don't make us laugh. + +I'm not saying you don't make us laugh. You sure do. I find it hard to believe that anyone who says they don't like me and my sense of humor doesn't like my sense of humor. + +But you don't. + +I've been to a lot of comedy clubs and comedy shows. I've seen a lot of +======================================== SAMPLE 381 ======================================== +The government has recently unveiled a new cybercrime strategy to fight it, which says that India is at a "critical stage" of cyber security and is facing "a new wave of cyber threats". + +The government has recently unveiled a new cybercrime strategy to fight it, which says that India is at a "critical stage" of cyber security and is facing "a new wave of cyber threats". + +In a statement on Thursday, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) said that the government has taken steps to enhance data sharing with companies and domestic law enforcement agencies for cyber security. + +"The government is committed to fighting cybercrime at the national level and is working to strengthen the National Cyber Coordination Centre. This initiative aims to build a strong and resilient cyber security network in place to ensure a strong and safe cyber environment for all Indians," MeitY said in the statement. + +Earlier this month, the government had announced a policy, which proposes to introduce a framework for the protection of personal data from cyber-attacks. + +The ministry has also directed the National Information Technology Development Agency to work towards reducing the vulnerability of the computer networks of government and private organizations to cyber intrusion and cyber-attacks. + +The initiative will focus on strengthening the capabilities of IT infrastructure and IT organisations to prevent cyber-attacks by the country's most vulnerable sectors like the financial sector. The government also intends to work towards the plan to reduce the vulnerability of computer networks to cyber-attacks by encouraging the private sector to share information about cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities. + +The cyber security strategy also suggests that the IT industry should be encouraged to enhance its awareness and develop procedures to prevent cyber-attacks. + +It also suggests that the government should encourage the private sector to adopt best practices in computer security to prevent cyber-attacks. + +The government has also decided to transfer the responsibility of ensuring the security of information technology systems, including the National Broadband Network, to the state governments.<|endoftext|>By: Alex + +Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any other characters. + +A/N: This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction. I have read the books and watched the movies so I have a basic idea of what to write about. I will try to be as spoiler free as possible but I'm not going to be subtle. Nothing will be totally out of order, so definitely check back to see what I've written. + +For the first chapter, I will be using two different spellings of the term "Harry Potter" so be prepared for that. If you don't like the new spelling, then you can use the other one. I will be using the correct spellings for each chapter and will be using the correct spellings for the names of spells. + +Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Harry Potter or any other characters. + +Chapter 1: Not a Fluffy Changeling + +"Professor Slughorn?" + +"Yes, Harry?" + +"I'm looking for a book about how to do the Ancient Runes, in the library, but I can't remember where it is." + +Slughorn looked at him for a moment. "Dumbledore told me, when you first met him, that you were hoping to learn how to do the Ancient Runes in order to become a new teacher at Hogwarts. So I took you to see him, so you could complete your training, to make sure you didn't screw up your studies again." + +Harry nodded. "Okay." + +"Now, look." Slughorn held out his hand. "I believe you just asked for a book about Ancient Runes." + +Harry looked at him and then took Slughorn's hand, shaking it. "Yeah, that's right." + +Slughorn smiled. "Good, now let's get you started on your journey. Get your robes on and come with me." + +Harry followed, feeling a little nervous. He could only imagine the reaction Dumbledore would give him if he asked for a book on the Ancient Runes and then broke into the library. + +Dumbledore was a very old man, and didn't like to be interrupted. He was very protective of the library and would do anything to keep it safe. The only time he'd let someone in without a Sen Patronus was if they had a good reason. + +"All right Harry, I'll show you to your room." Dumbledore said, taking Harry's arm and leading him into the Great Hall. + +"The Room of Requirement, right?" Harry asked. + +Dumbledore nodded, led him to the door to the Room, and then closed the door behind him. + +"You could have just asked to come in the hall, Harry." Dumbledore said. + +"I was thinking about it." Harry said. "I don't think I could handle the reaction Dumbledore might have given me, even if he wasn't going to react that way +======================================== SAMPLE 382 ======================================== +But one question that's really on everyone's mind: Is the game still worth it? The Xbox One version of Titanfall is a completely different beast than the Xbox 360 and PC versions, after all. + +Gears of War 4 isn't a PC game, but, for those who don't play on the PC, it's also not the same game. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 has the same resolution, settings, and feel as the PC version. The PC version is also a different beast. + +We've already discussed the similarities and differences between the Xbox One and PC versions of Gears of War 4. Let's dig in a little deeper and see what this means for PC gamers. + +Is Gears of War 4 on the PC worth it? + +Yes and no. Yes, Gears of War 4 is a totally different beast on PC. No, Gears of War 4 is still not worth it if you're a PC gamer. + +Gears of War 4 is a PC game + +Gears of War 4 is a PC game because it runs on the Unreal Engine 4, which is a custom game engine that's built for PC games. It's the same engine that Unreal Tournament is built on, and it's the same engine that the PC version of Gears of War 3 runs on. + +Is this a good thing? + +No. + +The Unreal Engine 4 is a custom game engine, and it's built for PC games. For anyone who has played a Gears of War game, or a Call of Duty game, this should be a familiar feeling. + +It's frustrating to see that the engine that's built for PC games is not used for PC games. If the PC games that Gears of War 4 runs on were developed on PC, it would still be a PC game. + +It's totally different + +Gears of War 4 is not a PC game in the same way that Gears of War 3 was a PC game. Gears of War 3 made a lot of use of the slower, more detailed Unreal Engine 3, but that's not the case with Gears of War 4. + +The Unreal Engine 4 has been tweaked and reworked for Gears of War 4. Some of these changes are subtle, and some people will notice immediately, but the end results are very different. + +The PC version of Gears of War 4 features reduced draw distance, and a slimmer field of view. There are also new lighting effects to observe, and the background is much darker. The PC version of Gears of War 4 is also much more colorful than the Xbox One version, with more saturated colors. + +It's also set in a different time period, with different environments and art style. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set in the future, and features the same futuristic setting as Gears of War 3. + +The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set in the future, and features the same futuristic setting as Gears of War 3. + +There are also some other differences that can't be seen while playing the same game on both platforms. For example, the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is exclusive to the Xbox One console, while the PC version is available on all platforms. + +It's also a lot less graphically intensive. The PC version of Gears of War 4 is a lot faster than the Xbox One version, and runs at 60fps. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 also supports up to 4 players, while the PC version supports up to 8 players. + +It's better for co-op + +The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set up for co-op, and that's a good thing. The PC version of Gears of War 4 doesn't offer co-op. You're not playing as a character that's controlled by another player, but your character is controlled by the game. + +It's not a huge difference, but it's worth noting. The PC version of Gears of War 4 will not let you play with a friend who's playing on the Xbox One. + +It's a lot more expensive + +The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 costs $60, while the PC version of Gears of War 4 costs $80. The difference is that the PC version of Gears of War 4 costs more money. The Xbox One version will ship with a free copy of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which includes all of the DLC content for the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4. + +The PC version of Gears of War 4 will only come with the base game. Additionally, the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 will only ship with the Ultimate Edition. + +It's also not a lot of fun + +The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 features a lot of more intense gameplay. The Xbox One version features the same game modes, but the Xbox One version also has a lot more content. + +The PC version of Gears +======================================== SAMPLE 383 ======================================== +For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, or have a family member or loved one who has been diagnosed with depression, I would like to ask you to consider the following: How many of us have been in that situation? + +How many of us have thought "I wish I had the courage to tell them" or "I wish they would know how much I was hurting before I got to the hospital"? + +How many of us have been in the hospital, in the psych ward, because we thought that we were "crazy" or "bad"? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you were fine before you got sick and you'll be fine when you get better"? + +How many of us have thought that if we just "get through this", our life will be fine? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you're a failure if you don't get better soon"? + +How many of us have turned to ourselves, "it's my fault" or "it's my fault, I'm not good enough" or "I'm not as good as I could be" or "I'm not as good as I should be" or "I'm not as good as I try to be"? + +How many of us have thought "I'm so sorry, I've failed them, I'm a failure, I'm a bad person" or "I'm not a good enough person to be around them"? + +How many of us have told ourselves that we just need to "get well" and be happy again? + +How many of us have hated ourselves for thinking that we could be suffering from something that we "don't understand" or that we "don't know how to fix" or that we "don't understand why we are here" or that we "don't know what to do"? + +How many of us have told ourselves that "I'm the problem" or "I'm the cause of my illness"? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you're not as good as you should be" or "you're not as good as you try to be"? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you're just a little crazy" or "you're just a little crazy, you'll get over it" or "you're just a little crazy, you can't help yourself" or "you're just a little crazy, get over it"? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you're not as good as you should be", "you're not as good as you try to be", "you're not as good as you should be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be"? + +How many of us have been told by others, "you're an easy target" or "you're not as strong or brave as you should be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or +======================================== SAMPLE 384 ======================================== +It's the subject of countless memes, a meme that's been making the rounds since the end of the first presidential debate. + +But now, President Barack Obama's recent remarks on the 2008 financial crisis have some believing that he could be on to something. + +"I think there are some consequences to what happened that are difficult to untangle," Obama said during the debate. "And I think the economy has to get back on track." + +Obama wasn't the only one to make the comment. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who's been criticized for his record on economic issues, also said: "The president took a hit for it, but I think that the overall economy is doing reasonably well." + +However, many economists say that the economy is in "recovery" mode, with slow growth and low unemployment, and that the "gains" from the recession are starting to ebb away. + +Not everyone agrees with this assessment. + +"There is no recovery," said Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. "The economy is in a recession. The only thing that is growing is the federal debt." + +Reich was an economic adviser to Obama's presidential campaign. + +Reich has been skeptical of the Obama administration's ability to turn around the economy. + +"It's going to take a lot more than a speech. It's going to take a lot more than the "you didn't build that" speech," Reich said in an interview with CNNMoney. + +The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>Imagine that you're a child. You're drawn to a cute little creature with wicked red eyes and a singed, mohawk. You want more than anything to be just like him. + +You pick him up and stare at him, mesmerized. All you want to do is run and climb trees, play ninja and eat candy. You want to be just like him, to be evil, to be sad, to be angry, to be good. + +But he's not your enemy. He won't harm you, probably — he's just a toy. He's not evil. He's a toy, some random little creature you picked up that doesn't say anything. + +But he's not your enemy. He won't harm you, probably — he's just a toy. He's not evil. He's a toy, some random little creature you picked up that doesn't say anything. + +What kind of a person would you become if you are given a toy of your very own? + +There is no real answer to that question, but we can make one up: You'd be a nice person. You'd be kind. You'd be open-minded and curious. You'd be forgiving. You'd be patient. You'd be kind. You'd be patient. You'd be forgiving. + +You'd be kind. + +A few months ago, I wrote an article on why kindness is so important to Australia. The idea came from a conversation I had with my girlfriend, a lovely woman named Elizabeth, who made the comment that kindness is so important to her because it makes you more open-minded. Elizabeth was right. I've had the experience of living in a world that's very closed-minded, to the point where I questioned whether or not I existed, only to be taken in by people who were as self-absorbed and insular as I am. I realized that there is no such thing as a species that truly lives in the open-minded, open-hearted state. We all have a tendency to be closed-minded or closed-hearted. + +I also realized that kindness is not just something you can teach as a lesson in the classroom. You can learn kindness by watching the people around you. You can learn kindness by observing people you don't know, and by contemplating the world around you. You can learn kindness by seeing the world in a new way, through a different lens. You can learn kindness by engaging in conversations with people you don't know, and by observing people you don't know, and by contemplating the world around you. + +But the point of this article isn't to teach you how to be a nice person. You already know how to be a nice person. You already know how to be kind. + +The point of this article is to show you how to experience kindness. + +It's not hard to teach kindness. It's not hard to observe kindness. It's not hard to become kinder. It's difficult to learn kindness. + +But it's easy to be kind. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness is easy. + +Kindness +======================================== SAMPLE 385 ======================================== +Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The mother was in court to hear the verdict + +The mother of a teacher killed by a student at a school in the US state of California has been found not guilty of manslaughter. + +The verdict was read after a four-day trial in the US state of San Diego. + +A jury had found 21-year-old Tamara Dominguez not guilty of the murder of 17-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, also a teacher at Palomar High School. + +Dominguez had been accused of shooting Fryberg in the head after the two argued over a pair of headphones. + +Dominguez and Fryberg were teaching a maths exam at the school on 3 June 2015. + +Both had been sitting in a nearby classroom when they heard the first gun shot. + +Image copyright California Department of Corrections Image caption Dominguez (left) and Fryberg were teaching a maths exam when the shooting took place + +Dominguez told police she had confronted Fryberg after she found the headphones in his bag. + +The two argued about them, and then the teacher shot Fryberg, who was lying near a set of lockers. + +He died in hospital a few days later. + +Dominguez told police she had been scared, but "didn't mean to kill him", according to the Los Angeles Times. + +The school district has since moved to ban the sale of headphones to students, but the ban was not immediately enforced. + +The trial had centred on whether Dominguez had a reasonable fear of Fryberg's life when she opened fire. + +The pair had argued over a pair of headphones after the latter had found them in Fryberg's backpack. + +Prosecutors argued that Dominguez was in a stressful situation at the time of the shooting and had no choice but to shoot Fryberg.<|endoftext|>The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit membership organization for the development of open source software, including but not limited to the Linux operating system. + +The OSI was founded in 1997 by Linus Torvalds and Mike Hearn to promote and protect the use of open source software. The organization has grown to more than 35,000 members, representing thousands of companies and organizations worldwide. + +The Open Source Initiative is a declarative membership organization, and its members are not required to pay an annual membership fee. Open source software development happens without the need for any organization or leadership. + +The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in 1997 by Linus Torvalds and Mike Hearn. + +Membership in the Open Source Initiative is open to anyone, and there are no dues. + +What is open source software? + +Open source software is a form of software that is licensed under an open source license. This means that the code is available for anyone to use and modify, and that the development process is open to anyone who wishes to be involved in the process. + +The OSI is a member of the FSF, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. + +Why do we need an organization? + +The OSI is a declarative membership organization, meaning that it is not a government or other organization. It is open to anyone, and it has no formal leadership. + +The OSI is a member of the Free Software Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. + +The OSI is a member of the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the use of open source software. + +Who do we have? + +The OSI has 35,000 members, representing thousands of organizations and thousands of developers. + +The OSI is a member of the FSF, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. + +The OSI is a member of the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the use of open source software. + +What does the OSI do? + +The OSI conducts and supports various programs and activities. Its programs include:<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. + +AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour with the former Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, John Neely Kennedy, who served in the Senate from 1962 to 1985 and is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. + +John, welcome back to Democracy Now! + +JOHN NELLEY KENNEDY: Good to be here. Thanks for having me. + +AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to start with your response to the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United. What do you think of the ruling today? + +JOHN NELLEY KENNEDY: Well, I think it's a very important and good decision. I think it's a very big part of the story of the rise of a corporate political system +======================================== SAMPLE 386 ======================================== +The Collider's world premiere of the first season of the Netflix series Sense8 is coming up on the weekend, and the show's cast and crew are giving fans a sneak peek at the show's new characters. + +Netflix announced the show's new members at its San Diego Comic-Con panel, including Danny Pudi, Jodie Foster, Tuppence Middleton, Naveen Andrews, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Andy Samberg, Doona Bae, Andy Schur, Doona Bae, Freema Agyeman, Jamie Clayton, Max Riemelt, Tuppence Middleton, and Aml Ameen. + +"You know, this is the first thing I've ever done that's been written by an African-American woman," Pudi said. "I can't tell you how great it is." + +Pudi also talked about the show's themes of race and gender in the arts. "The show is about people who have experiences that are not so different from their neighbors," he said. "And yet we're not allowed to talk about it, and we're not allowed to be who we are. Sexism and racism and homophobia and transphobia. We don't have a voice—that's the thing I'm trying to bring out and say." + +Meanwhile, the cast also revealed that the show's alternate universe setting is inspired by the work of Marc Okrand, who was a black American writer who was also a mentor to Shirley Jackson. The network also revealed that it's working with the author on a book of short stories that will be a companion piece to the show. + +The cast also talked about the show's sensibility and themes. "It's about the importance of connection, and maybe the importance of your body and your spirit," Foster said. "How do you try to live in a world that's not as connected as you would like to be, [and] how do you go about making that happen? In a very, very literal way." + +At one point, Foster confessed that she was "crying" during a scene with Jodie Foster. "I cried during the scene, because it's about these people, and it's about a woman and a man who are so connected, so soulful, and so in tune with each other, and yet it's also about their passion and their connection and the connection that they have with each other," she said. + +Foster also said the show took some inspiration from her own life. "I think it's really important to get behind the camera and be the storyteller," she said. "To be the person who says the things that we want to say, and to be the person who gets it across. And that's what's interesting to me." + +As for the first season, Pudi said, "I think it's going to be a different kind of experience that people will have, and it's going to be a different kind of storytelling."<|endoftext|>Troy Mullins, a former senior official in President Barack Obama's administration, is set to be the next U.S. ambassador to Ireland. Mullins will serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland until the Senate confirms President Donald Trump's nominee for the position, former Rep. Tom Price. + +Mullins, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, will be the first former Obama administration official to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland. He has served in the private sector for most of his career, including at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Mullins has also worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. + +Mullins has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration. He has criticized the administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, and he worked to undermine the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. + +Mullins, who is also a member of the Catholic Church, has been a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party, and he has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration. + +"In the first week of his administration, President Trump has initiated a series of executive orders that have undermined the foundation of our national security, the very foundation of our country, and the very foundation of the United States," Mullins said during an interview with the Irish National Broadcasting Corporation last week. + +"I'm very concerned about what the Trump administration is doing, and I want to make sure that our foreign policy reflects the best of American values." + +Mullins' appointment came after Ireland's foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, met with Trump officials in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Feb. 20. Flanagan has been a vocal critic of the president's policy toward Ireland and has criticized the terms of the U.S.-Ireland trade +======================================== SAMPLE 387 ======================================== +The U.S. military's most powerful and defensive fighter jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is a grave threat to the United States' national security, according to a newly declassified report. + +The report by the Defense Science Board, an independent, nonpartisan arm of the Pentagon, warns that the F-35 could be "inherently dangerous to the national security of the United States." + +The report, released Tuesday, calls the F-35 a "burden on the U.S. economy" and says the Pentagon should abandon plans to buy as many as 2,443 of the planes over the next 15 years. + +The report says that the Pentagon should instead invest in more stealthy fighter aircraft, such as the F-22 Raptor. + +"The F-35 is inherently dangerous to the national security of the United States, and should be cancelled," the report said. "The F-35 is an incomplete aircraft, severely lacking in many key areas, and is so expensive that it is the most expensive weapons system in history." + +The report, written by a panel of 13 retired military officers, comes as the Pentagon tries to take a step back from an expensive and costly weapons program that has generated huge controversy and criticism over its cost and capabilities. + +The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program, and the last of the nation's three major fighter jet programs. It's also the most complex, and at $379.5 billion, it is the most costly weapons program in history. + +The Pentagon is struggling to come up with a plan to replace the aging F-16 and the aging F-15 fighters that fly with the Air Force. The F-35 is meant to do the job of both planes — a fleet of up to 2,443 fighters would cost about $1 trillion over the next 15 years. The F-35 program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, and a U.S. Air Force test pilot was killed in January by a faulty F-35. + +The jet was designed with a "stealth" capability that makes it hard to see, but also makes it easy for enemy pilots to shoot down. The F-35 is designed to be able to penetrate enemy air defenses, even cruise missiles and enemy aircraft. + +The report said the F-35's stealth capability is being undermined by a lack of skilled pilots and maintenance workers. + +The report said the F-35 was too complicated and difficult to maintain. + +"The F-35's development has been plagued by serious design flaws, and the production and sustainment program has been plagued by cost overruns and technical problems," the report said. + +The report said the F-35's radar and electronic warfare upgrades have not been tested properly, and the jet's computer systems and avionics have been slow to adapt to new software. + +"The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied on," the report said. + +The report said the Air Force was only just beginning to develop and test its own aircraft to replace the F-16 and the F-15. + +"The F-35 program has been plagued by problems that have escalated over time, and the program is not currently on a path to replace the F-16 and F-15," the report said. + +"The F-35's stealth capabilities have not been tested properly, and it has been demonstrated that the jet will be detectable by enemy radar if it is flying at low altitudes, or on cloudy days," the report said. "The F-35 has not been tested to the extent necessary to guarantee its ability to detect and defeat enemy air defenses." + +The F-35 is flown by pilots who are considered too young and inexperienced to fly the Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet. + +The report said the F-35 is too expensive and too complex to be fielded on a timely basis. + +"The F-35's development has been plagued by serious design flaws, and the program is not currently on a path to replace the F-16 and F-15," the report said. "The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied on." + +The report said the F-35's stealth capabilities have not been tested properly, and it has been demonstrated that the jet will be detectable by enemy radar if it is flying at low altitudes. The F-35 has not been tested to the extent necessary to guarantee its ability to detect and defeat enemy air defenses. + +"The F-35 is too expensive and too complex to be fielded on a timely basis," the report said. "The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied +======================================== SAMPLE 388 ======================================== +In some parts of the country, the economy is booming. In other parts, not so much. + +And in some places, the economy is booming proportionally more than in others. + +That's the upshot of a study being released today by the University of Michigan and the Pew Research Center. It's the most complete look yet at the key economic indicators affecting Americans' lives. + +The report, which identifies 167 key indicators, includes data on wages, jobs, the stock market, the housing market, consumer confidence, consumer sentiment, housing starts, home sales, and the number of people with jobs. Some indicators are available only at the state level and some are available at the city or county level. + +Here's what's on the list. + +Average hourly earnings: $22.17 + +The average hourly earnings for all private workers has risen by 1.2% since 2007, the fastest growth of any industry. + +Housing starts: 1.8 million + +The housing starts were up more than 11% from 2007 to 2011. + +The average number of homes sold per day: 4.2 + +Home sales were up significantly from 2006 to 2009, but they have since leveled off. + +Home prices: Up 11.6% + +Prices were up 11.6% from the peak in June 2006. + +Home sales: Up 28.1% + +Home sales were up 28.1% from the peak in June 2006. + +Stock market: Up 11.5% + +The Nasdaq-100 index was up 11.5% from its previous high in March 2009. + +The S&P 500 index was up 10.8% from its previous high in March 2009. + +Consumer confidence: Up 1.9% + +The Consumer Confidence Index has climbed 1.9% since December 2009. + +The consumer confidence index rose more than 1.9% from December to March. + +Consumers' inflation expectations: Up 1.8% + +Consumers' inflation expectations have increased by 1.8% since December. + +Job openings: Up 4.4% + +Job openings have risen nearly 4.4% since the recession ended. + +Employment: Up 2.5% + +The employment-to-population ratio is up 2.5% since December 2008. + +The unemployment rate: Up 2.6% + +The unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2% in December 2008 to 7.8% in December 2011. + +Unemployment rate by state: Up 2.7% + +The unemployment rate has fallen by more than two-thirds since December 2008. + +Home values: Up 13.7% + +The median home value is up 13.7% from its previous peak in June 2006. + +Home sales: Up 16.8% + +The number of homes sold in a typical month has been up 16.8% since the recession ended. + +Stock market: Up 14.2% + +The Nasdaq-100 index was up 14.2% from its previous high in March 2009. + +The S&P 500 index was up 14.2% from its previous high in March 2009. + +Consumer sentiment: Up 2.1% + +The Consumer Confidence Index rose 2.1% since December. + +The Consumer Confidence Index rose more than 1.9% from December to March. + +Economists: Up 0.9% + +The economy's positive momentum has lifted household spending, which has increased by more than 1.3% since the recession ended. + +Growth in gross domestic product: Up 2.2% + +GDP grew by more than 2% in each of the past four years. + +The nation's gross domestic product grew by 2.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the report. + +Pew Research Center + +Housing starts: Down 3.7% + +The number of construction permits for new home construction has been falling since the last recession, falling 3.7% from its peak in the fourth quarter of 2007 to its low point in the fourth quarter of 2011. + +The country's housing starts have been declining since the recession ended. + +The number of housing starts is falling. + +The percentage of Americans considered to be homeowners: Down 1.1% + +The percentage of Americans considered to be homeowners fell 1.1% between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2011. + +The percentage of homeowners who are renters: Down 1.4% + +The percentage of people who are renters fell 1.4% between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2011. + +Home values: Down 6.3% + +The median home value fell 6.3% from its previous peak in June 2006. + +Home sales: Down 9.2% + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 389 ======================================== +HTC 1st Gen. HTC One - + +- + +- Released 2013, April + +155g, 9.9mm thickness + +Android 4.2 with Sense 4.0 + +4GB storage, microSD card slot + +N/A 594,213 hits + +28 Become a fan + +4.1" 480x800 pixels + +5 MP 1080p + +1 GB RAM MT6592 + +1450 mAh Li-Po + +Disclaimer. We can not guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. Read more<|endoftext|>If you've ever used a 3D printer, you know that it's a handy tool for the home maker. Even if you're a mobile 3D printer user, there are times when you'll need to print something large or small. + +Enter the Stereo Sculpting Machine, an open source project created by a team of engineers at the University of Michigan, which creates 3D models out of sound waves. + +The Stereo Sculpting Machine uses an acoustic resonator to create 3D models out of sound waves. The Stereo Sculpting Machine uses an acoustic resonator to create 3D models out of sound waves. + +According to the project's website, it works by creating a series of resonating diaphragms, or shells, and then placing the side of the "shell" against a sound source (in this case, an acoustic resonator). The Sound Source (a speaker) is placed on the other side of the resonator, and sound waves from the speaker travel through the shell and hit the Sound Source, which causes the sound waves inside the shell to vibrate, creating a 3D model. + +The Stereo Sculpting Machine works by creating a series of resonating diaphragms, or shells, and then placing the side of the "shell" against a sound source (in this case, an acoustic resonator). The Sound Source (a speaker) is placed on the other side of the resonator, and sound waves from the speaker travel through the shell and hit the Sound Source, which causes the sound waves inside the shell to vibrate, creating a 3D model. + +The results are impressive -- sounds like a helicopter, a cell phone, and a guitar can be seen from any direction. The site also notes that the Stereo Sculpting Machine can be used to create stunningly realistic models of all sorts of objects. + +This isn't the first project to use 3D printing in this way. Last year, an artist in Italy created a 3D-printed version of the Dali Lama, which is currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. + +This isn't the first project to use 3D printing in this way. Last year, an artist in Italy created a 3D-printed version of the Dali Lama, which is currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. + +You can learn more about the Stereo Sculpting Machine on the project's website, and download the source files for the project itself. + +This article was originally published by Business Insider. + +More from Business Insider:<|endoftext|>About "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" + +"The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was originally released on Lauryn Hill's album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. + +The song was featured on Lauryn Hill's second album, 24/7. + +The video for "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was directed by Michael Behar.<|endoftext|>Pau Gasol played his first game in an 18-month-old NBA season Sunday with the Los Angeles Lakers, two days after he underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus. + +"I'm glad to be back," said Gasol, who played 13 minutes, scoring four points, at Charlotte. "I'm excited to be back on the court." + +But the Lakers' coach was not looking forward to the extended absence for the forward who had been playing a key role in the team's championship run last season. + +"I'm not a guy who wants to be a spectator," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said. "I want to be involved in the game. I don't like to be a spectator. But we're not going to be able to play the games. You have to respect that." + +Gasol will undergo surgery on Monday in Philadelphia and could be sidelined for up to six months. + +He will be the latest in a long line of injured Lakers players who have missed a significant amount of time. + +The Lakers will play their first nine games without Gasol, who has had back surgery in the past. He had 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 20 minutes against the Hornets. + +"It's tough," D'Antoni said. "He +======================================== SAMPLE 390 ======================================== +Game Design by Steve Jackson Illustrated by John Kovalic + +published by ABC Games + +published by ABC Games ISBN 1-55634-634-8 + +256 pages, softcover, December 2004 + +ISBN 1-55634-634-9 + +Also available from Amazon.com: + +Amazon.com Part 1 | Amazon.com Part 2 + +This is the game that started it all. In Zombicide, players take it in turns to generate a zombie horde from a specific location. The game's rules are designed mainly for a single player, but the zombie horde generation rules are easily modified to fit up to four players. The rules are simple, but they provide just enough complexity to keep things interesting. + +The game is fairly easy to learn, but it's a little more complicated to play. The rules are clearly laid out but the game can get confusing if you're not careful. + +The game's theme is based on the Zombocalypse movie franchise, which features a zombie apocalypse. The Zombocalypse movies take the basic concept of the original Zombicide game and adapt it for a more modern setting. + +Zombicide was originally published in 2000 by John Wick Presents, and later re-released in 2004. + +Reviewers + +"This is an excellent game, and one of the best board games I've played. It's a quick game to learn and a great way to kill some time between other board games. I highly recommend it." - Mike Selinker, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game even for someone who does not like zombies. I found this one to be a bit more complex than the standard game, and that was a good thing. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game." - Michael, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"I did not like this game. I really didn't like it. It was a very boring game. It was a very boring game. I didn't like the game at all. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Philip, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game, and one of the best board games I've played. It's a quick game to learn and a great way to kill some time between other board games. I highly recommend it." - Mike Selinker, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"I did not like this game. I really didn't like it. It was a very boring game. It was a very boring game. I didn't like the game at all. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Philip, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com + + +"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. +======================================== SAMPLE 391 ======================================== +I have a simple question, how many times have you been on a plane and left your iPhone in the overhead bin? I have had it for a few years now and I always find myself doing it, however it's now been a few months since I took it out of the bin. I'm pretty sure there is a very simple way to find it, but for some reason I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I've been looking for this for a while but I'm not sure how to ask the flight crew. I've tried looking up the answer on the Internet but I haven't found anything. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!<|endoftext|>Banned in Russia for being a "gay propaganda" prohibited by the law, the Russian Orthodox Church is preparing to run a nationwide advertising campaign to "cure" homosexuality. + +The campaign was announced by the Church's press service on Tuesday, claiming that it would make the church's "image more attractive" to young people. + +"The Church wants to encourage young people to find God," the statement said, adding that it planned to run the campaign "in a very public way," namely "in all the regions of Russia." + +The Church's press service described the campaign as a "long-term project" that would make "the church's image more attractive" to young people by "celebrating family values." + +"Young people are not just interested in the Church's religious teachings, but also in the fact that families are a concrete example of the Christian values, and a family without children is a family without faith," the church said. + +The Church's campaign follows a recent spate of anti-LGBT legislation in Russia, which has seen a series of rulings by the country's highest court, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, banning the distribution of materials that promote homosexuality and "gay propaganda." + +The Russian Orthodox Church has also come under serious criticism for its refusal to accept LGBT people into its ranks, with some members reportedly staging gay pride parades in protest. + +The Church has also been criticized for its portrayal of the LGBT community in its media, with advertisements for "gay relief" that have been branded as "homophobic" and "hate-filled." + +The Russian Orthodox Church has previously announced its plans to open a new youth center focused on "curing homosexuality" in the northern city of Sochi.<|endoftext|>A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows Michigan has the highest rate of diabetes in the country, making it one of the top 10 states with the highest rate of adult-onset diabetes. + +According to the CDC, the state's adult-onset diabetes rate is 1.9 percent, higher than all but four other states. It's also more than four times the national average of 0.5 percent. + +Overall, the CDC found that over a third of adults in the U.S. have diabetes, with an estimated 39.4 million people with the disease. + +Related: 10 States with the Highest Obesity Rates + +"The number of Americans with diabetes is expected to nearly double by 2030," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement. "This increase will require greater commitment from health care providers, as well as increased community and family education to prevent and treat diabetes." + +Like many other states, Michigan has an elevated rate of obesity, with one in four adults in the state classified as obese. There's also a disproportionate number of adults with diabetes, with nearly one in five adults with diabetes. + +Other states with high rates of adult-onset diabetes include Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. + +Related: 10 States with the Highest Childhood Obesity Rates + +The cost of treating diabetes is a major factor in the high rates of diabetes, the CDC said. + +"Diabetes is a leading cause of disability in the United States, with nearly $147 billion spent on treatment each year," Frieden said. "This cost burden is especially high in rural areas and among racial and ethnic minorities." + +The CDC said that the cost of treating diabetes is $1.8 billion in 2010, and that the costs could increase to $2.2 billion by 2025. + +"The high cost of diabetes is a key reason why many people with diabetes go without needed treatment, or take unnecessary risks with their health," Frieden said. "We must continue our efforts to cut the number of people with diabetes, and reduce the burden of diabetes." + +Related: Top 10 States with the Highest Rate of Adult Obesity + +For more information on the CDC's findings, click here. + +Related: 5 States with the Most Overweight People<|endoftext|>The next two weeks are going to be very interesting for us here at New Zealand's premier petroleum company, Mobil. + +On Monday evening, the Japanese TV channel Fuji TV will broadcast the +======================================== SAMPLE 392 ======================================== +A disturbing video has emerged online showing a group of masked men harassing a Muslim woman in a UK city. + +The video, which was shot in Birmingham, shows the men shouting "terrorist" and "this is for Syria" before dragging the woman back into their van. + +In another video, the woman tells the men that they are "terrorists" before they begin to kick her. + +The attack, which was filmed by a passerby, is the latest in a series of violent attacks targeting Muslims in the UK. + +Since the Paris attacks in November, there have been hundreds of incidents of abuse against Muslims by youths. + +The latest incident comes after a group of men were filmed harassing a Muslim woman in North London. + +In a video uploaded to YouTube, a group of masked men were seen shouting: "This is for Syria, you terrorist, you Muslim! This is for Syria, you terrorist you Muslim." + +After dragging the woman back into their van, the group continued by shouting "This is for Syria, this is for Syria, this is for Syria." + +In another video, the woman is seen telling the men that they are "terrorists" before they begin to kick her. + +Another clip shows a man telling the woman, "We will fight you, we will fight you, we will fight you, you Muslim, you Muslim" before kicking her. + +The video was posted by a passerby who was driving past the scene. + +A spokesperson for the city's police force, which is investigating the incident, said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. + +"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. + +"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. + +"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." + +In a separate incident, a woman has told the Birmingham Mail that she was called a "terrorist" by a group of men after she was attacked by an unknown assailant in Birmingham. + +The woman, who has not been named, said: "All I remember is a guy in a black suit, he had a grey hoodie, and he got into my face. + +"I was shocked, I didn't know what was going on. + +"I was asking him who he was and why he had called me a terrorist, and he just told me to shut up. + +"I was really scared, so I said to him: 'What did you call me?' + +"He then said: 'It's for Syria, it's for Syria' and then he kicked me in the neck." + +The incident happened at about 3.30pm on Tuesday, April 5. + +The woman added: "I was in my car, I was in my own car, I was a few paces away from my house. + +"I had just put my kids to bed. I got a call from my son's school telling me what had happened. + +"I asked my son what had happened and he said everything was fine. I was just in shock. + +"I have never experienced anything like that before." + +The woman said she was attacked while waiting for a bus in the city centre. + +A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: "Police in Birmingham are investigating an alleged racially aggravated incident where a woman was the victim of a racially aggravated assault. + +"Officers have arrived on the scene and enquiries are ongoing. + +"Investigations are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact officers on 101." + +A spokesperson for the city's police force said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. + +"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. + +"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. + +"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." + +Police are investigating the incident in North Street, Birmingham. + +A spokeswoman for the city's police force said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. + +"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. + +"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. + +"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." + +A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: "Police are investigating an alleged racially aggravated incident where a woman was the victim of a racially aggravated assault. + +"Officers have arrived on the scene and enquiries are ongoing. + +"Investigations are ongoing and anyone +======================================== SAMPLE 393 ======================================== +If you're like me, you've spent the last few months trying to find the most effective way to manage your everyday tasks. Whether it's a new set of to-dos, a new project, or a new task, it can be hard to know where to start or where to end. With so many options, it can get overwhelming. So, we're here to help. Here are some tools that we use frequently to manage our lives. + +1. Google Calendar + +A few years ago, I was trying to use Google Calendar to manage my to-dos, but it wasn't doing what I needed it to do. So, I spent a lot of time trying different ways to integrate it into my workflow. And here are some of the biggest issues I encountered: + +I had a lot of to-dos that I didn't need to be reminded of (like checking Gmail). + +I couldn't see the duration of each to-do. + +I couldn't see the next due time for each to-do. + +I couldn't add a due date for each to-do. + +I couldn't add reminders for each to-do. + +I couldn't see the status of each to-do. + +I almost always missed a due date. + +I couldn't create reminders. + +I had a lot of tasks and meetings that I didn't need reminders for. + +I had to search for the calendar entry in Google Calendar for each task or meeting. + +2. Asana + +I've been using Asana for about a year, and I absolutely love it. It's a task management platform that is pretty simple and elegant. I've found that Asana is my go-to app when I need to manage my to-dos. Use Asana to schedule your to-dos, check in on your to-dos, and set reminders for your to-dos. You can also add a project manager to the app and then use Asana to manage your task lists. Asana also allows you to add a reminder to each of your tasks every day. + +3. Trello + +Talk about a simple app. I've been using Trello to manage my to-dos for almost two years now. Trello is simple. It's powerful. And it can handle just about any task management task. + +4. Google Keep + +Google Keep has been around for a long time. It's simple to use, and it has the ability to send you reminders. It also has a whole bunch of features like Google Calendar integrations. Use Google Keep to get all of your work done. + +5. Yodlee + +I've been using Yodlee for about a month now. It's a task management app with a lot of great features, including the ability to create a to-do list and text-only reminders. It's a great way to get your daily tasks done. + +6. Aha! + +Aha! is a very simple task management app that allows you to set a to-do and mark it as complete. When you start to complete the to-do, the app asks you to add a comment. You can add as many comments as you want. When you set a task, you can add a comment to it. When you finish a task, you can add a comment to it. When you set a to-do and you're done with it, you can add a comment. You can also mark a to-do as complete with a check mark. + +7. Todoist + +Todoist is a task management app that is very simple to use. We use it to manage our to-do list and our project management. + +8. To-Doist + +Todoist is a task management app that is very simple to use. We use it to manage our to-do list and our project management. + +9. Todoist — Upgrade + +Todoist has recently acquired a series of tools, including a drag-and-drop task editor. These tools allow you to create tasks, move tasks around, create tasks using a variety of templates, add comments to a task, and more. + +10. Wunderlist + +Wunderlist has been around for a while, but still has a lot of features that we haven't used. For example, I really like the ability to make a to-do list by adding a note to it. Plus, there's a task tool that lets you add a task and have it automatically update as you complete it. + +11. Moment + +Moment is a task management app that's really simple to use. This is one of the best options for managing your to-do list. + +12. Todoist — Upgrade + +Todoist has recently acquired a series of tools, including a drag-and-drop task editor. These tools allow you +======================================== SAMPLE 394 ======================================== +Riot police stand guard after a protester threw a Molotov cocktail at officers during a protest against police violence against African-Americans in the wake of the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo. on Saturday. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) + +The New York Times editorial board has a message for the police: "Stop shooting people." + +The newspaper's call for action comes in response to the police shooting death of Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer on Saturday. "No matter how many times the police are proven to have acted with excessive force, they must be held accountable when they shoot someone," the Times writes. "There is no excuse for that." + +The editorial was prompted by the death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man shot by a BART police officer in Oakland, Calif., in 2009. The city, under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, reached a $5.9 million settlement with the family of Grant, who died in the back of a police car. + +The Times editorial board said that Grant's shooting "is an especially stark reminder of the need for new training and audits of police training, in particular, as well as more effective community policing." + +The Board of Correction, an independent agency that oversees the New York City Police Department, has yet to release the findings of its internal investigation into the shooting.<|endoftext|>Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF + +This is a video of a man taking a selfie in front of a giant mirror, and you will never look at a mirror the same way again. + + +The video was captured by a worker at the giant mirror that is currently being built in downtown Shanghai. The mirror is being erected in front of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is currently under construction. It will be used to showcase art and stop people from using mobile phones in the area. One of the project's developers, Zhao Zhen, told The People's Daily that, "The mirror is a great example of interaction between man and nature. It will solve the problem of distracted drivers." + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement + +Advertisement<|endoftext|>(CNN) When it comes to the infamous Gold Star family, Hillary Clinton has a new challenger: The wife of one of the men killed in Benghazi. + +"What we need to do is to get every American to talk about this and to understand the importance of having a full and transparent congressional investigation," Clinton said Tuesday night at a rally in New Hampshire. + +The challenge, which comes after Clinton's recent comments about the deaths of four Americans during a 2012 terror attack in Libya, is a new sign that the Democratic front-runner is trying to widen her base of support as her run for the presidency enters the homestretch. + +The lack of interest in Benghazi among Democrats is not surprising, given Clinton's tenure as the US secretary of state and her decision to leave the US mission there before it was fully secured, according to a report by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. + +As a result, the State Department did not immediately submit a plan to protect the facility, and the deaths of four Americans occurred during a chaotic period in which the American ambassador and other officials were in a battle with the terror group al Qaeda. + +Clinton has said she was "heartbroken" about the deaths of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, and that the attack occurred at a moment when the US administration was trying to save lives. But she has stopped short of blaming the attack on a protest against an anti-Islamic video. + +Her remarks Tuesday were different. + +"We need to learn the truth and the American people deserve to know the truth," she said. "So I'm going to call for a full, independent investigation, not just into what happened in Libya, but into the broader threats that we face both here at home and around the world." + +Clinton was a top surrogate for her husband, former President Bill Clinton, during his 1996 reelection campaign and has kept an active role in his administration, serving as his national security adviser. + +In an interview with CNN's "At This Hour" on Wednesday, the former secretary of state said that she believed the Benghazi attacks were a result of the terrorist group al Qaeda's plans to carry out "very large-scale attacks." + +"It wasn't just a protest," she said. "It was a pre-planned attack. It was al Qaeda trying to kill Americans." + +Clinton also called for a "full and complete" investigation into the circumstances that led to the deaths of Americans in Benghazi. + +"I am not going to point fingers," Clinton said. "But we need to know what happened, why it happened, what do we do to prevent it from happening again." + +'Clinton +======================================== SAMPLE 395 ======================================== +This week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., traveled to New York City to deliver a speech before the National Organization for Marriage's annual convention. + +He made it clear that there was no daylight between himself and NOM on the issue of marriage. Instead, he urged the organization's members to fight for a redefinition of marriage. + +"To those who would deny our full equality under the law, I say, 'Get out of the way. Marriage has been defined before in law and by the court, and I'm proud to stand with those who have fought for full equality for all Americans,'" McCain said. + +"I am proud of my friends at the office of the Senate Ethics Committee who investigated NOM and found nothing unlawful," he added. + +The NOM event, which was held on the eve of the Supreme Court's landmark decision on same-sex marriage, was attended by an estimated 800 people. + +McCain has a long history of supporting traditional marriage, but he has also done plenty of damage to his reputation as a war hero by defending a group that is a group for people who oppose marriage equality. + +In 2011, he was one of the primary sponsors of a bill in the Senate that would have banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. He later apologized for his support of that bill, which would have codified discrimination against LGBT people. + +He also backed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. + +Despite his earlier attempts to distance himself from the group, McCain has proven himself to be a staunch supporter of NOM, which was founded in 2007 by Maggie Gallagher, a co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage. + +Gallagher has called for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and she was also the co-chair of the group's recent super PAC. + +In an interview with ThinkProgress, Gallagher said that it was "disgusting" that the senator would travel to New York City to speak at a NOM event. + +"What is amazing about John McCain is that he has not only shown total support for the organization that he has worked with for decades, but he has also been a major funder of the organization that was founded by a man who has called on Congress to outlaw marriage between any two people, and now he is introducing a senator to speak at an event that is devoted to this kind of hatred and that kind of discrimination," she said. + +Gallagher also said that McCain's visit to New York was "a mockery of the people of New York and the people of New York State." + +She called on McCain to resign from his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he currently serves. + +"I have no idea why he would do this, but I think that given the fact that he is a proud supporter of marriage equality by any definition — including the definition he himself held for decades — he should resign from the Senate Armed Services Committee," she said. + +Gallagher also said that he should be expelled from the Senate. + +"I think he should be expelled from the Senate because he's demonstrated that he is not fit to be part of our body." + +The NOM convention is not the first time McCain has been associated with anti-LGBT groups. + +In 2009, he led a failed campaign that tried to stop the president from making a statement that would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. + +In 2012, McCain co-sponsored a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. + +Watch in the video below from MSNBC: + + +This Story Filed Under<|endoftext|>The target is an Islamic State militant, whose pixelated face is projected on a screen. + +The Islamic State uses graphic imagery in its propaganda videos, and the U.S. government is trying to shine a light on the group's use of sophisticated technology to continue its message. + +The United States has condemned the Islamic State's use of propaganda online, and the Pentagon has said that the group has created its own digital persona. But the Islamic State's use of images and videos in its online videos, as well as the group's use of social media to recruit, has evolved into an increasingly complex issue. + +"They're using more sophisticated communications tools as well as more sophisticated media techniques," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. "We're trying to figure out how they're doing that and what the ramifications are for us." + +The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has come under increased scrutiny in recent months. The group has lost its grip on parts of Iraq and Syria, and several U.S. officials have complained about the group's use of social media to recruit Westerners. + +The Pentagon has denied that it is concerned with the Islamic State's use of social media, saying that it is focusing on other extremist organizations, such as al-Qaida. The U.S. government is also trying to determine how the Islamic State uses +======================================== SAMPLE 396 ======================================== +The legal action against Trump is just the latest in a string of actions filed against a man who was once a member of the Trump family. + +The legal action against Trump is just the latest in a string of actions filed against a man who was once a member of the Trump family. Photo: Craig Ruttle/Associated Press + +In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, a group of women are accusing Donald Trump of sexual assault, using allegations from a woman who said he forcibly kissed her and groped her when she was 13 years old. + +The lawsuit, filed in federal court, accuses Mr. Trump of raping the woman in 1994, the same year he married Melania Trump. + +The man who filed the suit, journalist Timothy O'Brien, said the woman, named as "Katie Johnson," decided to come forward with her claims after watching Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. + +"If he had a lawyer, he would have litigated this case years ago," Mr. O'Brien said in a telephone interview. "I think that after the last debate, he realized that he was going to have to take some legal action. I think he realized that he was going to have to deal with the public getting to know his wife, and the fact that she wore a short dress." + +The lawsuit was filed on Monday by two women who say they were on a trip to New York City with Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson in 1994. Ms. Johnson, who now goes by Katie, told The New York Times that Mr. Trump groped her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt. + +Afterward, the Times reported, Mr. Trump grabbed her hand and steered her toward an elevator. + +"Mr. Trump, who was also on the elevator, told her that he liked her and that he would be her husband," the report said. + +The lawsuit says Mr. Trump groped Ms. Johnson on five separate occasions between 1994 and a trip to Mar-a-Lago in 1997. + +Mr. O'Brien said the lawsuit is the first legal action against Mr. Trump alleging sexual assault by a man who has been a member of Mr. Trump's family. + +"I think that women who speak out, especially when they know that they have a husband who is a prominent public figure, are going to be scrutinized a lot more than they would be in other circumstances," he said. + +Mr. Trump, via a lawyer, has disputed the allegations. + +Mr. O'Brien said the lawsuit will be filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which makes it a crime to join or assist in an organization that engages in serious criminal activity. + +In a statement, Mr. Trump said he was "not aware" of the lawsuit and that any claim "without merit" would be rejected. + +"It is time for the Clintons to settle this terrible incident," he said. + +Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com<|endoftext|>The most frequent question I get asked is: "How do I get a refund?" + +It's a question I get asked a lot, because it's such a common request that I'm afraid the answer is "it depends." + +For a limited time, we're giving our customers an additional 30 days to get their money back. After that, it's all on you. + +What is a refund? + +A refund is simply a way to get your money back. If you've purchased a product from us and we've made a mistake, we'll replace it for you. + +Why do we need your money back? + +When you buy something from us, we're still responsible for paying all the costs associated with the purchase. That means we'll need to pay for your shipping and handling, as well as the cost of the refurbished item you received. + +If you're not happy with your purchase, we're sorry we didn't take care of you sooner and we'll make it right. It may take a couple of weeks to do so, so please be patient. + +If the item you purchased is defective, we'll send you a replacement. If you're dissatisfied with the refurbished item we'll refund you your money, minus shipping and handling costs. + +What if I just want to return the item? + +If you're not satisfied, you can return it within 30 days of the date of purchase from the original point of purchase. We'll refund you the purchase price minus shipping charges. + +What if the item I'm returning is damaged or missing parts? + +Please see our Terms of Use. + +What if I'm not satisfied with the refund? + +You can request a full refund of the purchase price plus shipping charges. We'll refund you back the purchase price minus shipping costs. If you're not happy with the refund process, please contact us +======================================== SAMPLE 397 ======================================== +On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed a $788 billion defense bill. + +The bill ends two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, increases defense spending and reduces the deficit. + +The State of the Union address is less than a week away, and President Obama is expected to lay out his vision for fiscal policy in the coming months. + +Ahead of the speech, we take a look at the big deals in the bill, and what it means for Americans. + +The bill's biggest winners + +The National Defense Authorization Act passed the Senate in a 98-2 vote, despite efforts by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to amend the bill to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The bill includes $10.5 billion to build a new prison in Texas, and another $2.6 billion to build a new facility in South Carolina. + +The bill also includes $1.1 billion for the Pentagon's Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund — the first such funding since the 9/11 attacks. + +The bill increases military pay and benefits by 1.3 percent, and it adds $2 billion to the war in Afghanistan. + +The bill also includes $1.4 billion in new funding for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which is used to pay for the war in Afghanistan. + +The bill also includes $1.1 billion for the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013, which starts Oct. 1. + +Most of the additional funding in the bill is for overseas contingency operations, including $1.5 billion for the military in Afghanistan. + +More than half of the $3.4 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding goes to the war in Afghanistan. + +The bill also includes $500 million in funding for intelligence and surveillance programs, and $50 million in funding for Afghanistan-Pakistan border security. + +The bill also includes $200 million for missile defense programs, and $50 million for missile defense programs in Europe. + +The bill also increases the number of service members in the National Guard by about 10,000, and increases funding for National Guard personnel by $8.7 billion. + +The bill also authorizes $3.5 billion in war-related personnel, training and equipment, including $1.9 billion for the Afghan National Security Forces. + +The bill also increases funding for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, and it increases funding for the Navy by $1.1 billion. + +The bill also includes $200 million in funding for the U.S. Special Operations Command, and it includes $50 million for the Air Force's Future Vertical Lift program. + +The bill includes an $11.4 billion supplemental for overseas contingency operations funding, including $2.5 billion for Iraq and $700 million for Afghanistan. + +The bill also includes a provision that would allow the president to extend the 2001 and 2003 laws that authorize the use of military force in Afghanistan and Iraq for 30 days. + +The bill also includes a provision that would change the process for Congress to increase the Afghanistan war funding limit to $3.5 billion, instead of the $5.4 billion cap set by the end of 2011. + +The bill also includes a provision that would require the president to submit a plan to Congress to increase the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. + +The bill also includes a provision that would require the president to submit a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan within 90 days of the expiration of the current strategy. + +The bill also includes a provision that would allow the president to extend the implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty for a year. + +The bill also includes $1.3 billion in funding for the Nuclear Posture Review, and $500 million for the Nuclear Threat Initiative. + +The bill also includes $1.5 billion in new funding for the Navy, and $2 billion for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force. + +The bill also includes $300 million for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and $400 million for the Missile Defense Agency. + +The bill also includes $800 million in new funding for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, and $300 million for the Navy and Coast Guard. + +The bill also includes $100 million in new funding for the International Affairs Budget for military and security assistance to Central and South America. + +The bill also includes $200 million in new funding for the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, and $500 million for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Review. + +The bill also includes $600 million for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, and $300 million for the Defense Health Program. + +The bill also includes $1.2 billion for the Defense Health Program, and $300 million for the Global Health Initiative. + +The National Defense Authorization Act also includes $560 million for the National Ready Reserve. + +The bill also includes $ +======================================== SAMPLE 398 ======================================== +The Bitcoin community has rallied around the cause of the hard fork, but it doesn't have to be this way. The community has the power to control the direction of the project, but it lacks the courage to exercise that power. + +With the Bitcoin community split into two camps — the Bitcoin Core and the Bitcoin Unlimited — the outcome of the fork will likely determine the fate of the entire cryptocurrency. + +This is what the tension looks like. + +It doesn't have to be this way. + +The Bitcoin community has a powerful voice in the development of the wallet software, and it can speak out against any proposed changes. + +But its voice has been muted. + +There's a reason for that. + +Bitcoin Unlimited takes the first step toward a future where Bitcoin is a decentralized payment network. It is a clear path toward a truly decentralized currency — one where the value of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies is directly linked to how many people use them. + +If Bitcoin Unlimited is adopted, the interests of the existing community will be reflected in the development of the software. + +Bitcoin Unlimited maintains a reputation for transparency and usability. The software allows users to verify the validity of transactions and sends the transaction history back to a previous point in time. + +The Bitcoin Core software is more centralized and centralized, and it is hard to use. + +It is difficult to use because users are forced to download a software package that changes the Bitcoin client software every time they install it. This means that the developers are able to change the client at their leisure, and this makes the Bitcoin Core software less useful to users. + +It's also difficult to use because the Bitcoin Core software is not transparent. + +Because of the way the software works, the Bitcoin Core software is not the most convenient way to use Bitcoin. + +Bitcoin Core is the root of Bitcoin's problems. It is a poorly designed system that is riddled with bugs and is prone to security issues. + +Bitcoin Unlimited looks like a better alternative. + +This is why the decision to include Bitcoin Unlimited is so important. + +The Bitcoin Unlimited project is a sign of the Bitcoin community's willingness to grow. It shows that the Bitcoin community is willing to grow, and it shows that the Bitcoin community wants to protect its decentralization. + +It is a sign that the Bitcoin community is not going away. + +Bitcoin Unlimited is not a new cryptocurrency. It is a fork of Bitcoin Core. + +This means that Bitcoin Unlimited is not just another altcoin. It is a fork of Bitcoin Core. + +The only way to effectively adopt Bitcoin Unlimited is if the Bitcoin community chooses to do so. + +That's why the Bitcoin Unlimited fork will be one of the most important developments in the history of the cryptocurrency. It will be something that will be remembered for a long time. + +One of the most important parts of the Bitcoin community is taking responsibility for its future. + +If the Bitcoin Core community doesn't choose to adopt Bitcoin Unlimited, then the entire Bitcoin community will lose its ability to govern itself. + +The Bitcoin community is something that is very difficult to change. The slow and uncertain change that Bitcoin is going through is a testament to that. + +But the Bitcoin community has the power to change itself. It can give the Bitcoin Core software a push to become more transparent. It can make the Bitcoin Core client more user-friendly. + +The Bitcoin community has a voice. The Bitcoin community has the power. + +The Bitcoin community still has a lot of work to do, but if the Bitcoin community chooses to adopt Bitcoin Unlimited, then the future of Bitcoin will be more secure and more flexible. + +If the Bitcoin community ignores the Bitcoin Unlimited fork, then Bitcoin will become even more centralized. + +The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible. + +The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible. + +The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible.<|endoftext|>This is the most recent version of the Lightroom Presets Template. This template was created by Artur Ellingbea for Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom 6. You can download the template here. + +I've also created a follow-up version of this template, which is the preset for creating a new Lightroom Preset. + +If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below. + +Update: If you're using the Lightroom Presets Template for Lightroom Classic CC or Lightroom 6, you can get the latest version of this template by subscribing to the Lightroom Presets Newsletter.<|endoftext|>The famous bodybuilding bodybuilding star, Dave Draper, has died at the age of 77. + +David Draper was best known for competing in the Mr. Olympia and Mr. World competitions, which he won twice (1960 and 1962). He also managed to finish three times in the US Olympic team in the pommel horse (he won gold in +======================================== SAMPLE 399 ======================================== +At the beginning of this month, the other lawyers' committee convened for its first meeting. It was a rare opportunity to discuss the ethics of the profession in a room full of people who work in the field. + +The meeting occurred during the height of the Supreme Court's ongoing debate over its "Citizens United" decision, which had bars discussion. The Committee on Professional Responsibility was created to "encourage and protect the integrity of the legal profession, to encourage the extension of ethics education and to prevent and respond to unethical behavior." + +The group consists of representatives of a number of professional organizations, including the American Bar Association, the National Law Journal, the New York State Bar Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It also includes a handful of attorneys who have been at the forefront of this debate, including Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. + +Dershowitz walked the committee through some of the consequences of the ruling. "It will change the whole framework of the criminal justice system, including the rules of evidence, the rules of grand jury procedure," he said. + +The committee also discussed the impact it could have on the legal profession as a whole, and the committee's message for the future. According to the committee, the Supreme Court decision "signals that our system of justice is now open to corruption and that lawyers who try to advance their careers through the political process will be subject to prosecution." + +The committee members also discussed the need for a new ethics code in the future. The code, which the committee didn't release, would protect lawyers from being accused of unethical behavior. It would also require lawyers to disclose their financial and professional relationships with outside entities. + +The committee's recommendations, which are still being discussed, are due to the Supreme Court by Oct. 20. + +The Supreme Court is weighing a number of cases that have been brought up by the other lawyers' committee — including a case involving an attorney who was investigating a client who had been hospitalized after driving under the influence. The attorney represented the client, who was later sued by the hospital over the incident. + +The case, the Campaign Finance Integrity Act of 2005, has already been ruled on by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The case is currently pending before the Supreme Court.<|endoftext|>It's a sad day for the world of shaving, but this is a great day for it. + +A new product has been released, and it's called the Hardcore Shave from Blade. It's a disposable razor produced by Vibram. + +The razor is made of acetal, and turns down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. The handle feels very nice, and the material is lightweight. + +The handle has a rubberized coating, so it's well protected against getting scratched. It's then coated with a hard coating, which keeps it from getting dirt and grime on its surface. + +The blade is made of stainless steel, and is made so it won't break down. The blade is sharp out of the box, and it also has an anti-snag feature that will prevent the blade from slipping out of the handle. + +The razor has two blades, and the weight is 0.8 ounces. + +It's available for $8.99 on the Blade website, and it will be available for purchase in March of next year. + +[Blade via Technabob]<|endoftext|>Company Overview + +Through our strategic partnerships and joint ventures, we are working with leading companies that are driving sustainable, profitable growth. With our strong financial and operational capabilities, we are creating a company with the resources and capabilities to be a world leader in the delivery of technology solutions. + +Business Highlights + +Provides revenue management solutions for customers in the healthcare, education, E-commerce, and research and development markets. + +Continues to expand its international presence by opening a presence in India. + +Revenue totaled approximately $573 million for the year ended December 31, 2016. + +Financing, including term loans, maturing securities, and the issuance of common stock, totaled approximately $1.7 billion during the year ended December 31, 2016. + +Financial Performance + +Fourth Quarter + +Revenue was $5.0 billion for the fourth quarter of 2016, compared with revenue of $4.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015. + +For the quarter ended December 31, 2016, Adjusted EBITDA was $3.6 billion, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $2.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015. + +For the year ended December 31, 2016, Adjusted EBITDA was $9.6 billion, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $7.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2015. + +Investment in Research and Development + +Research and development expenditures totaled approximately $1.3 billion for the fourth quarter and approximately $3.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2016. + +For the fourth +======================================== SAMPLE 400 ======================================== +The United Nations on Tuesday called for war crimes against the Syrian regime to be investigated and the world body to work towards an end to the violence. + +In a strongly worded appeal, the U.N. special panel of inquiry on Syria said it had collected "credible evidence" that President Bashar Assad's forces had committed war crimes. + +"Those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable," the U.N. Security Council was told. + +"The international community must take all necessary measures to protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law," it said. + +The panel, which has been investigating the deadly Syria conflict since April, said it had collected accounts from more than 70 witnesses about the use of chemical weapons and dozens of videos. + +The panel, headed by Paulo Pinheiro, said it had confirmed the use of the toxic agent sarin as a weapon against civilians in the city of Khan al-Assal on April 4. + +It said it would not go into the details of the attack, but said the evidence gathered by the panel suggested that government forces deployed the chemical and that the attack was likely carried out by the military. + +"The panel can confirm that sarin was used in Khan al-Assal on 4 April," the report said. It said the attack killed between 100 and 150 people. + +The panel also said it had received evidence that the Syrian government had used chlorine in the town of Madaya to attack civilians and destroy medical facilities. + +Pinheiro said he had been stunned by the scale of the suffering caused by the war in Syria and said he was "profoundly concerned" by the "continued use of chemical weapons by any party in Syria." + +He said his report would be shared with the U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly and the International Criminal Court (ICC). + +The U.N. Security Council has condemned the use of chemical weapons, but has deferred responsibility in the dispute to the U.N. Human Rights Council. + +Syria, which has blamed rebels for using chemical weapons, has said it would join the ICC if the Security Council adopts a resolution putting it on trial. + +The U.S. and its allies have threatened to veto such a move, but Russia and China have said they will back the council's referral. + +The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says that if the Security Council gets the referral, it would be a significant step towards the ICC's envisaged goal of prosecuting senior officials in Syria, but it will not be a swift process. + +The U.N. panel said it had also received reports that Assad's forces had carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas with artillery and air strikes. + +The panel said it had verified the use of incendiary weapons and chlorine on a large scale in the town of Madaya, west of Aleppo, last month. + +"Such indiscriminate attacks have caused the deaths of many civilians, including women and children. The panel has heard credible accounts of the use of incendiary weapons and chlorine during the attack on Madaya," it said. + +Pinheiro said the other areas in Syria where the panel had gathered evidence were in the towns of Daraya, Zabadani, and Moadamiyeh, where the government had carried out "massacres and war crimes." + +"The panel has also received credible reports of the killing of hundreds of civilians in Daraya and Zabadani, and of indiscriminate shelling of the towns of Moadamiyeh and Madaya in the days following the attacks," he said. + +Syria is also facing a U.N. investigation into the use of chemical weapons in the country's civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people. + +Pinheiro said the U.N. mission would be able to investigate any use of chemical weapons in Syria, as well as the recent use of chlorine as a weapon in the town of Madaya. + +The European Union has already expanded its blacklist to include 28 individuals and two organizations, including the Syrian government, over alleged war crimes during the six-year conflict. + +In March, the EU announced it was expanding sanctions on individuals and entities implicated in the conflict, including those responsible for chemical weapons use, and freezing their assets. + +The sanctions targets include Assad's inner circle, including his brother-in-law and defense minister. The EU has identified as many as 24 government officials, including top officials, suspected of involvement in chemical weapons use.<|endoftext|>This is a conversation between Strawberry Marshmallow and (f, 18, coppery inverted bobcut, leather jacket, expressionless face) . + +(f, 18, coppery inverted bobcut, leather jacket, expressionless face): not that there's anything wrong with that + +Strawberry Marshmallow: Ahh + +Strawberry Marshmallow: I've been looking for you too, Nick + + +======================================== SAMPLE 401 ======================================== +This is the first year I've attempted this and I'm really glad I did. The great thing about this is that you can use it as a starter kit, as an idea to have around the studio, or to help you get started with your own design. In many ways this is a very simple kit. + +The kit is made from four easy to find, inexpensive materials – three 1/4″ plywood, two 1/4″ plywood laminates, and two 1/4″ hardboard. We used the laminate for the front panels, and the hardboard for most of the back panels. + +Here is the kit assembled. The back panels are held together by two small pieces of 1/4″ plywood glued together. + +The kit has a very basic construction, but it does have a few neat features. First the front panels are attached simply by gluing the two sides together and then tightening the two sides together. This is a very fast and easy way to attach the panels. + +Second the panels can be snapped together with the strips of wood, which allows you to attach the panels to the wood pieces. The neat thing about this is that you can attach the panels to the wood panels without the strips having any finish on them. This is great for making more complex shapes without any finish or adhesives on the surface. + +Finally, you can leave a piece of scrap hardboard at the bottom of the kit. You can then use this to attach the panels to the hardboard and make a small slatted panel. + +Here is the completed kit. I would suggest starting with the front panels, as the rear panels are a bit more complicated. The front panels have a little bit of a curved structure, which can be seen in the picture. + +Here is a full scale mock-up of the kit. + +Now that you've seen the kit in action, check out the video below. + +Subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don't miss any of my future videos!<|endoftext|>Paradise Lost + +Perdition's Gate + +Dark Elf King + +Aeonid + +The Daemon World + +The Realm of Chaos + +The Dragon War + +The Thousand Worlds + +The Fall of the Dark Elves + +The Age of Chaos + +The Wars of Secession + +The End Times + +The War of the Gods + +The Old World + +The Rise of Chaos + +The War of the Gods + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The Invasion of Norsca + +The Siege of Ithilien + +The War of the Ring + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Ring + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The War of the Threefold Stone + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 402 ======================================== +I think I have covered a lot of ground on how to resolve a WordPress username and password problem. + +But to recap for those of you who are missing the point, here it is in a nutshell: + +If you have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your password or change the WordPress username and password. + +If you don't have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your username or change the WordPress username and password. + +The first two options cause the same issues, but the third one has a more significant impact on the security of your WordPress website. + +NOTE: You can also change the WordPress username and password by using the WordPress login form. + +Before we get started with the options, you need to make sure that your WordPress username and password are correct. + +If you change the WordPress username and password you will need to update your database tables in order to match the new username and password. + +To do this, you need to give your WordPress administrator permission to update the database. + +You can do this by using the following WP administrative commands: + +update_passwords(); + +If you have renamed your WordPress username and password, you will need to update the database tables as well. + +This can be done with the following WP administrative commands: + +rename_passwords(); + +If you are not sure whether you have a WordPress username and password issue or not, go to the WordPress admin dashboard and change the username and password. + +This will verify if you have a username and password issue. + +If you still have a username and password issue, you will need to contact your WordPress administrator for assistance. + +If you have a WordPress username and password issue, you will need to contact your WordPress administrator for assistance. + +If you don't have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your WordPress username or change the WordPress username and password. + +Changing the WordPress Username and Password + +The good news is that you can change your WordPress username and password. + +The bad news is that doing so will cause your WordPress website to become unsecure. + +The reason for this is that WordPress has a built-in mechanism that allows administrators to change the WordPress username and password. + +This mechanism is called the "admin password reset" feature. + +This mechanism is used by most other popular websites as well, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter. + +What you need to do is to use the "admin password reset" feature to allow your WordPress administrator to change your WordPress username and password. + +The reason for this is that if you don't allow your WordPress administrator to change your username and password, you can be vulnerable to attackers. + +But if you allow the WordPress administrator to change your username and password, you can be vulnerable to attackers, but you can also leave yourself more secure. + +How to Change the WordPress Username and Password + +Using this mechanism, you can change your WordPress username and password by using the following PHP code: + +if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } + +This code will allow the WordPress administrator to change your WordPress username and password. + +You can use the same code to change a WordPress username and password, but you will need to replace the $_POST['username'] and $_POST['password'] variables with the new values. + +For example: + +if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } + +After using the code above, you will need to change your WordPress username and password using the following PHP code: + +if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username']) && isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username']) && isset($_POST['password']['private'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } + +Using the code above, you will need to change your WordPress username and password using the following PHP code: + +if(isset($_POST['password' +======================================== SAMPLE 403 ======================================== +After an extensive search to find the perfect color for your wheels, we've finally found it. The Rickenbacker Blackface Nickel is a green finish on the fronts and backs of your wheels to help protect the paint. This is a high quality finish that will help reduce the possibility of scratching your wheels. The Rickenbacker Blackface Nickel is made from a high quality brass alloy that is also known as nickel.<|endoftext|>If you are a regular reader of our blog, you already know that I think the Republican Party has a real problem with women. My concern is not so much that they are too male-centric or male supremacist as it is that they are a party that is so overtly misogynistic and in favor of what I call the "new sexism". + +In a recent interview with Politico, I asked the question: "How many women will the GOP elect in the next election?" The answer came in the form of a smile, but with a hint of a chuckle. I was told that the result would be in the single digits. + +While I don't agree with the premise that the GOP will lose women voters, it is a fair question that deserves a response. + +I do not doubt the sincerity of the question. The fact that the Republican Party has lost so many women to the Democrats is a very serious concern. The fact that it has been losing women voters for over thirty years is even more alarming. + +I have written numerous times about the fact that the Republican Party has historically been hostile toward women. I shared a number of examples of how the GOP has been actively hostile toward women, including the fact that. I shared a number of examples of how the GOP has been actively hostile toward women, including the fact that during the 1980s, Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, had a working relationship with a male porn star, and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has been a cheerleader for Republican candidates who want to ban abortion. + +Clearly, these examples are not isolated incidents. + +And despite the fact that the GOP has been losing women voters for over thirty years, there is very little discussion about the issue. The reason for this is that by and large, men are not willing to admit that the party is a problem. + +I have witnessed this before. Last year, I interviewed a number of Republican women who were disgusted with the Republican Party, and many of them said that they would not vote for a Republican who was a woman. I then asked myself an important question: "How could a party that is so intolerant of women and other minorities, be considered more welcoming to men?" + +I then posed the question to the men who were in my office, and they all said the same thing: "Maybe it's just the culture." + +We have been tolerant of the sexist mindset and attitudes of men for so long that it is difficult for most men to admit that the party is a problem. And many of them don't know how to deal with that fact. + +The Republican Party is now viewed as the party of anti-woman policies, and while these policies are in line with the traditional patriarchal view of women, it is the party's policies that have been the problem. The Republicans have a long history of being the party of anti-women. In the current election season, there are some examples of what I call the new sexism. + +When the Republicans passed the "personhood" amendment, which would have allowed women to be legally forced to provide birth control to their husbands, I wrote a piece titled, "Why the GOP Supports 'Personhood' Amendment". I pointed out that a majority of Americans and a majority of Republicans support the idea of legal abortion, but the Republican Party is vehemently opposed to legal abortion. + +The Republicans' opposition to legal abortion is even more troubling when you consider that the Republican Party has repeatedly tried to pass laws that would allow employers to fire women for being pregnant. Republicans have also tried to pass laws that would allow employers to fire women for being pregnant. + +I also have written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have also written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. + +I have also written many times about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have also written many times about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. + +What is most surprising to me is that some of the men who hang out in my office do not even know that the Republican Party is the party of sexism. I have come to the conclusion that men are too afraid to admit that the party is a problem +======================================== SAMPLE 404 ======================================== +The first time I met Carlos Castaneda, the Mexican author of such undeniably brilliant books as One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Teachings of Don Juan, he was in a very different place. He was a man with a long-time reputation for alcoholism and substance abuse, who had been fired from his job as a defense contractor in the early Nineties. He was living in a small house on the outskirts of Mexico City that he referred to as a "pit" and, on the surface, seemed to have failed. + +But there was an odd gleam in his eye. For the first time, Castaneda seemed to be experiencing some kind of awakening. He was no longer the tortured soul he had been in his early years. He was learning to speak, to read, to write, and to do something he had never done before—he started a meditation practice. + +In an interview with the New York Times, Castaneda said, "I'm trying to be like Buddha. I want to live a life of simplicity, love and respect." When I visited him recently, he was in the middle of a two-year meditation retreat that he led at the age of 71. He told me that he was discovering that he was more in touch with his own humanity than he had ever been. + +A year later, Castaneda's life changed dramatically. At the age of 40, he was arrested for selling marijuana and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Not long after his release, he fell ill with a severe case of liver failure and suffered a massive stroke. He was admitted to the hospital for weeks and developed a huge tumor in his brain. It was diagnosed as cancer and he was given six months to live. + +Castaneda's first question upon his arrival at the hospital was, "Did I make a mistake?" He had a strong sense of what his life was meant to be and was determined to do it. He was determined to die and he wanted to do it with dignity. + +On the day of his discharge he told his family that he was going to go on a guided meditation retreat. He insisted that they could not accompany him, but they did, believing he needed the help, even if it was just for a few days. The first day of the retreat was a blur of meditation and Carlos's delicate hands. He was too weak to move. The next day his left hand was paralyzed. The next morning, his legs were paralyzed. After a few days of being paralyzed, he began to feel normal and began to take deep breaths and expand his consciousness. + +He was able to walk, to see his family, to drive in his car and even to work. He even took a few classes with an instructor that he had worked with in the past. + +Castaneda's spirit never wavered. He never lost hope. He continued to meditate, even during his paralysis. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he continued to meditate. When he returned from the hospital, he continued to meditate. When he was paralyzed again, he continued to meditate. When he was paralyzed for the last time, he continued to meditate. + +For all his ups and downs, Castaneda never gave up on his meditative practice. He was able to continue to focus without the use of his left hand and he is able to do everything that he used to do before he was paralyzed. + +After his stroke, Castaneda realized what a gift he had been given in life. He was given the gift of a lifetime. + +He was given the gift of being able to live a life of simplicity, love and respect. + +Carlos Castaneda is a man who has lived a life of incredible grace and compassion. He has given his life to the service of humanity and the spirit of love and compassion that has made him who he is. + +Carlos Castaneda's stories of suffering, bravery, commitment and compassion inspire as much as his amazing writing. + +What is your story? What is your life story? + +As an author, I have become used to the idea that if I want to write a story about a life, I need to give it a beginning, a middle and an end. I need to tell a story that will set up the reader to have an emotional connection to the characters and their journey. I need to tell a story that will make you want to read more about them. + +I have been thinking about this for a long time and I think it's time for me to break this rule. + +I have been thinking about the idea of a life story for a long time and I think it's time for me to break this rule. + +In a world where we are bombarded with information, information overload, and a constant stream of information at a rapid pace, it can sometimes be hard to come up with a strong, powerful, and unique life story. + +I don +======================================== SAMPLE 405 ======================================== +In 2004, the San Francisco 49ers adopted a new logo that was originally intended to be a nod to the city's Mission District. But the logo stood out for being quite un-San Francisco. + +The logo is called the "barbershop" or "ghost" logo, and it was designed by the team's art director, Matt Chaney, who was hired in August of that year. + +The team has tried to make the logo work for the past few years, but it's just not quite right. At least, that's what I think. + +That's why I'm telling you to take this quiz. And no, I won't tell you how to answer. + +The 49ers have tried to make the logo work for years, but it's just not quite right. + +I never liked the ghost logo, even though I thought it was a nifty logo. The logo was always too much like a barbershop, as opposed to a baseball cap. It had a cheap, light-colored and plastic feel to it. + +It also looked like it was from 1884. That was before the advent of modern-day logos. + +In the end, the 49ers were forced to change the logo. They tried to paint their way out of this one, but in the end, it was just too much of a mess. + +The new logo was introduced in 2013, but it didn't really change the logo's identity. It was just different. + +That's not to say I don't like the new logo. I do. It's a much better logo than the one they had in 2004. + +Here's the thing though: The new logo is just not what the team was going for when they made the logo in the first place. + +The team wanted to make a "San Francisco" logo that could stand out from a sea of team logos. But that's just not what the team got. + +So the logo will always be regarded as less than awesome. + +I'm sure you've seen the 2004 logo at some point in your life. Maybe you even know the name Matt Chaney. + +But have you ever stopped and thought to yourself, "Wow, that's kind of like me." + +It's not that the new logo isn't a nice logo. It is. But it's not what the team was going for. + +If you know me, you know I'm not too big on logos. But I will admit, the new logo is pretty cool.<|endoftext|>It's been a while since we've had a new game on the site, and we're really excited to announce that we have a new game on the way! A game that's been in the works for a long time – you may have heard about it. It's a real-time strategy game that we're calling "The Long War." + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game that has been in development for nearly a year. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. + +The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build +======================================== SAMPLE 406 ======================================== +It's hard to imagine life before the Internet. + +For most of its history, we relied on one another and the world wide web for news and entertainment. The Internet was a momentous change — a way for strangers from all over the world to connect and share information and entertain themselves. It became a place where we found out about our loved ones, our friends and our worst fears. + +Today, the Internet has evolved into an enterprise of mammoth proportions, with millions of businesses, government agencies and individuals using it to conduct business. It's a place where you can find news, information and entertainment from around the world, and where you can phone your friend's girlfriend to tell her you love her. + +But after so many years of growth and innovation, we can no longer ignore the looming threat of cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks are not just a theoretical threat. They are happening right now — and they can be very damaging. + +Making matters worse, the Russian government has been aggressively seeking to interfere with our elections. Recent reports suggest that the Kremlin has hacked into the servers of political organizations and hacked into the Democratic National Committee's email system. The public has been left in the dark about the extent of this Russian interference, despite widespread conclusions by high-profile cyber-investigators. + +The United States must take action to stop cyber-attacks. In fact, the United States has already taken extreme measures to protect our election infrastructure and we will continue to take additional steps as necessary. + +Much more needs to be done. But if we don't, the damage to our political system and our democracy may be irrevocably done. + +This is why I have called for a bipartisan, bicameral commission to investigate the Russian government's role in interfering in our election. The American people deserve to know the full extent of this Russian interference. We cannot afford to wait for the next election. We need to act now before it's too late. + +Specifically, we need to: + +1. Investigate the Russian government's role in interfering in our election and whether any members of the Trump campaign were involved. A special prosecutor should be appointed to lead this investigation. + +2. Create a commission to investigate the role of Russia in interfering in our election and the Trump campaign's involvement. + +3. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +4. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +5. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +6. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +7. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +8. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +9. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +10. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +11. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +12. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +13. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +14. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +15. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +16. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +17. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +18. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +19. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +20. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +21. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +22. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +23. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +24. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +25. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +26. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +27. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +28. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +29. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +30. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +31. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +32. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. + +33. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. + +34. Create a commission to +======================================== SAMPLE 407 ======================================== +New Delhi: Have you ever wondered where the most popular Indian languages are? + +A recent survey done by the Pew Research Centre, a global research organisation, has revealed that Hindi is the most widely spoken language in the country and the second most widely spoken in the world after English. + +The study also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. + +"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. + +"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. + +"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study. + +Pew Research Centre + +The survey also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. + +The survey also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. + +"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. + +"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. + +"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study. + +The study also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. + +"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. + +"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. + +"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study.<|endoftext|>The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday announced the indictment of three Russian intelligence operatives for hacking into the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) email system and for passing along those emails to WikiLeaks. + +The men have been identified as Evgeniy Bogachev, a Russian member of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) who served as the military attache at the Russian consulate in San Francisco; Aleksandr Bortnikov, a colonel in Russian military intelligence who was the deputy chief of staff of the GRU; and Igor Sushchin, a colonel in the GRU. +======================================== SAMPLE 408 ======================================== +The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has more than 200 guidelines for common conditions including diabetes, dementia and cataracts. But how much of this advice is based on good evidence? + +A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found that only 8% of the NICE guidelines are now based on good evidence. + +"A lot of us think NICE is so good because it says what we want to hear," says Professor John Hawksworth, director of the IFS. "But where does the evidence come from to support the decisions which are being made?" + +The IFS says that NICE's reliance on "evidence-based" statements with "low confidence" ratings "has become an increasingly problematic problem". + +The committee of senior economists say that the agency has been making poor decisions about the evidence for three decades. + +"It's a not-so-healthy state of affairs," says Hawksworth, "but it's not necessarily going to change." + +The report, All About Evidence: NICE's Evidence of Ease, asks whether NICE's evidence-based statements really are as simple as they sound. + +The IFS is not the first to criticise NICE's approach. The Institute of Medicine, the UK's health policy research body, has previously said that "there is little evidence that evidence-based advice from NICE helps patients". + +'Constant changes' + +This week the committee published a letter from 22 leading experts asking NICE to publish a national evidence strategy to guide its decisions. + +NICE says it is committed to evidence-based advice and welcomes the IFS report. + +"We take the IFS report on board," says a NICE spokesperson. + +"We are already working on the development of a national evidence strategy but we're not ready to release it yet." + +The spokesperson adds that NICE is "continuing to review the evidence we use to inform our decisions and develop our recommendations". + +But the IFS says that NICE is making no progress in improving its evidence-based guidelines. + +"NICE's evidence-based statements have become a constant source of controversy," says Hawksworth. + +"The evidence-based approach has become something of a joke."<|endoftext|>The Fraser Institute has released a report on the GDP per capita of Canada, which it says is the highest in the G7. + +The report, which is based on figures from the World Bank, says Canada is at the top because it has "the highest average living standard among its G7 peers and the highest per capita GDP in the G7." + +The report notes that Canada's per capita GDP is also the highest among its G7 peers. + +The report notes that Canada's GDP per capita is also the highest among its G7 peers. (Fiscal Times) + +The report says Canada's GDP per capita is at $42,000, compared to the OECD average of $27,700. + +It says Canada's economy has grown by 2.5 per cent per year, compared to the OECD average of 2.75 per cent. + +The report notes that Canada's GDP per capita is highest among the G7, with the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan at $42,000, Canada at $40,600, and the United States at $40,000. + +The Fraser Institute says Canada's GDP per capita is also the highest among its G7 peers. (Fiscal Times) + +It also says that Canada is the only G7 country where the share of GDP spent on health care is at or below the OECD average. + +The report says that the United States spends seven per cent of its GDP on health care, but that Canada spends eight per cent. + +The report says that Canada's health care spending is at or below the OECD average, but its overall health status is below the OECD average. + +The Fraser Institute says it is a "remarkable achievement" that Canada has the lowest life expectancy of its G7 peers, at 71.6 years, and that it has achieved "the highest female life expectancy." + +It says Canada's life expectancy includes the gap between men and women and that "Canada has the highest proportion of elderly men and the lowest proportion of elderly women." + +Canada's life expectancy is also at or below the OECD average. (Fiscal Times) + +The report says that Canada's female life expectancy is 69.2 years, compared to the OECD average of 77.1 years. + +It says Canada's male life expectancy is 77.6 years, compared to the OECD average of 79.7 years. + +The Fraser Institute says that Canada's female life expectancy is 69.2 years, compared to the OECD average of 77.1 years. (Fiscal Times) + +The report says that Canada's health care is an "essential part +======================================== SAMPLE 409 ======================================== +That's a lot of food to eat in a week. In this case, it's just about the entire universe. + +The universe is what you get when you take all the particles contained in the universe, multiply them by 100 billion, and then multiply that by the speed of light. That's all of the particles and forces in the universe. + +That's the whole universe. + +The universe is actually incredibly big. If we just wrote every particle and force in the universe down, it would exceed the size of the entire observable universe. + +From the big bang to the beginning of time, we've been living in a universe that was largely composed of particles and forces. That's why the universe we see today, even though its very small, is extremely diverse. + +The universe isn't static. It's constantly expanding and contracting. It's expanding so much that it eventually wraps itself around itself. That's why it's called the Big Rip. The universe is a big blob, and if you took it all and folded it up into a flag, it would fit in a baseball. It's like the universe is like a pancake with holes in it. + +Every new time it happened, the universe expanded until it filled all of the space between the stars. This happened about 13.8 billion years ago. The expansion continues to this day. The universe is expanding at a rate of about 100 kilometers per second. + +The universe is filled with all kinds of particles and forces. The big bang created the first quarks, the building blocks of atoms. When the universe first began to expand, the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen, which was composed of one proton and one neutron. + +The universe began to contract as it expanded. At any moment, we can see the universe shrinking. However, it's never completely stopped expanding. As it continues to expand, it will eventually fill up the entire observable universe. + +When the universe was created, the temperature of the primordial soup was about 1,000 degrees Kelvin. The density of the primordial soup was about 1,000,000 grams per cubic centimeter. The universe now contains more than 100 billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion 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trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion +======================================== SAMPLE 410 ======================================== +$1.50 + +There is a lot of news coming out about the Confederacy, and we thought we'd let you know who we think is fit to lead the confederacy. + +When it comes to choosing the best Confederate leader, it's a bit like asking who should be the president of the United States. There are a lot of candidates, and the most important thing we can ask is, "Would they be good?" + +So, here are some of the best Confederate leaders. + +We'll let you be the judge. + +Stonewall Jackson + +Jackson was an Army officer during the war. He also had a personal history with Virginia. He was the nephew of former President Jefferson Davis, and Jackson served as the Governor of Virginia during the war. + +Jackson was a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a strong advocate for southern states to secede from the Union. + +The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. Jackson's army (along with the Confederate Army) surrendered at Appomattox Court House. + +George W. Bush + +Bush was born in Kennebunkport, Maine, which is about an hour's drive from the capital city of Richmond, Virginia. + +Bush was an Army officer during the war, and served under General Robert E. Lee. He was also a strong proponent of the Confederacy. He was a member of the League of the South, and the Southern Historical Foundation. + +He was also a strong supporter of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, Bush said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +He has also said that the state of Virginia should secede from the Union. + +Barack Obama + +Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is 130 miles from Richmond, Virginia. + +He was a professor at Columbia University, and he was also a passionate advocate of slave ownership. He was also a strong supporter of the Confederacy. + +The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. + +Obama was the first black president of the United States. + +Barack Obama + +George Washington + +Washington was a member of the constable, and was the first president of the United States. + +He was also a strong supporter of slavery. He led the Revolutionary War, and was a member of the Continental Congress. He was also a strong advocate of the Confederacy. + +The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. + +Washington was also a strong advocate of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +He has also said that the state of Virginia should secede from the Union. + +Andrew Jackson + +Jackson was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. + +Andrew Jackson + +John C. Breckinridge + +Breckinridge was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. + +He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. + +John C. Breckinridge + +Lewis Powell + +Powell was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. + +He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. + +Lewis Powell + +Carol Douglas + +Douglas was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. She was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. + +She was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, she said that the South should "have been an independent nation." + +She was also known for her disdain for Native Americans. + +Carol Douglas + +William H. Seward + +Seward was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. + +He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent +======================================== SAMPLE 411 ======================================== +U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin has ordered a new trial for John Hinckley Jr., the man convicted of killing President Ronald Reagan. + +Hinckley's attorneys said they will appeal the ruling in the federal appeals court in New York. + +Scheindlin, in her ruling, said the trial judge erred when she allowed the jury to consider the possibility that the gun used to kill Reagan had been fired by Hinckley. + +Scheindlin said the jury's verdict was flawed because jurors were not allowed to consider what Hinckley had said about the President as he was led into a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom in the hours following the shooting. + +"The court concludes on the record that the jury was not properly instructed regarding the evidence regarding Hinckley's motivation and offer of proof in the form of his notes and the transcripts of his telephone conversation with Dr. Seidenberg," the ruling said. + +Hinckley was convicted in the 1981 shooting of Reagan and other people. The case was the first of its kind in the country when Hinckley hired a private psychiatrist to analyze his mental state. + +The psychiatrist concluded that Hinckley was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which came from his time in the military, according to court documents. + +Hinckley was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was released in May of this year. + +Hinckley's attorneys argued that the government had failed to make a convincing case for a mental illness and failed to prove that Hinckley was aware of his actions, according to the New York Times. + +They also said his trial was disrupted because prosecutors changed prosecutor's instructions mid-trial, according to the Daily News. + +The New York Times said the ruling could have wide-reaching ramifications for the defendant, who is set to be released on parole in January. + +The Associated Press contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>SIL Open Font License v1.10 + +This license can also be found at this permalink: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/license/monaco + +Copyright (c) 2011, Antonin Seemann + +This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. + +This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL + +—————————————————————————————- + +SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007 + +—————————————————————————————- + +PREAMBLE + +The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide development of collaborative font projects, to support the font creation efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide a free and open framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with others. + +The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves. The fonts, including any derivative works, can be bundled, embedded, redistributed and/or sold with any software provided that any reserved names are not used by derivative works. The fonts and derivatives, however, cannot be released under any other type of license. The requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply to any document created using the fonts or their derivatives. + +DEFINITIONS + +"Font Software" refers to the set of files released by the Copyright Holder(s) under this license and clearly marked as such. This may include source files, build scripts and documentation. + +"Reserved Font Name" refers to any names specified as such after the copyright statement(s). + +"Original Version" refers to the collection of Font Software components as distributed by the Copyright Holder(s). + +"Modified Version" refers to any derivative made by adding to, deleting, or substituting—in part or in whole—any of the components of the Original Version, by changing formats or by porting the Font Software to a new environment. + +"Author" refers to any designer, engineer, programmer, technical writer or other person who contributed to the Font Software. + +PERMISSION & CONDITIONS + +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Font Software, to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font Software, subject to the following conditions: + +1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself. + +2) Original or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or in the appropriate machine- +======================================== SAMPLE 412 ======================================== +It is my impression that most of us need to start learning how to use visual memory to help us remember things. + +When we are learning a new phrase or a phrase that we already know we can use visual memory. We can use it to recall the word in our head, to remember pictures of things. + +I won't go into the details of how to use visual memory. I found the best method to learn to use visual memory is to practice it in your own life. You need to try and practise it in front of a mirror, a window, a door. You could try to practise it in your own living room, your office, a bus, your car, the bus you take to work, your bed, your bedroom, your floor, your school, your library, your gym, your car, your office, your bedroom. + +I remember I used to practice visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +You could also try to practise it in front of a mirror or a window, or in a doorway. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. + +I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only +======================================== SAMPLE 413 ======================================== +What is the best way to secure your home? + +The most common form of home security is simply keeping your windows closed and doors locked. This is the most secure option for most people. However, there are others. + +To find out more about the best home security systems, read our article: Which Home Security System Is the Best? + +What are the top home security systems? + +Home security systems are designed to make you safer. + +They are the solution that keeps you safe, even if you don't have a lock on your door. There are many systems on the market for home security, but we have chosen to list the top 3 home security systems in the UK and Canada. + +You can get all of these systems at great prices. + +Our pick: + +If you're looking for a solution that will ensure that you live a longer, healthier, and more enjoyable life, then we recommend the Gentry. This home security system is the most trusted and widely used home security system in the world. + +The Gentry is designed to give you peace of mind with a number of different features that make it strong, flexible, and reliable. It's designed to be used by anyone, from the beginner to the experienced homeowner. + +The Gentry has been designed to make sure that you have a complete system that is reliable and easy to use. It's designed to be a flexible solution that can be used in many different types of environments. + +What makes the Gentry unique? + +We've designed a security system based on safety. It's safe, flexible, and easy to use. The Gentry has been designed with safety first, so that you're protected from crime, fire, and theft. + +It's also packed with features that make it easy to understand and use. + +It's a high-quality system that's been tested and reviewed by experts. + +It comes with a full warranty + +We want to make sure that you're comfortable with the Gentry. We also want to make sure that you buy the product you can trust. So, we've come up with all of the following guarantees before you buy: + +This is a secure home security system that we made with you in mind. It's designed to be the best home security system for your family. If you have any questions, please give us a call on 0300 123 3393.<|endoftext|>The fact that we can only use the number one man, one woman is very intriguing. But how did this number come about? + +Some people believe that in ancient times, the world was divided into two parts: the upper world and the lower world. Each part was ruled by a different number of people. But the ultimate ruler of the lower world was the number one man, one woman. In the upper world, number two was the ruler. + +So, over time, this number was added. Over time, it became two, and then three, and then four, and then three. Eventually, it got to number one. That is how the world became divided into two parts: the upper world and the lower world. + +This number is called the number of the beast, a name attributed to Jesus Christ by John the Baptist.<|endoftext|>The validators module allows you to validate forms. It has no dependencies other than the standard module autoload . + +Validators are typically used to validate user input. + +Validators can be defined and used beyond the scope of the application. They can be used in middleware. + +Note: This module is a superset of the validator module. + +The validator API is identical to the validator module. + +An example of a validator can be found here. + +You can find more information about validators here. + +Supported validators + +The following validators are accepted and will be evaluated as normal: + +id + +name + +email + +password + +atob + +datetime + +required + +range + +null + +length + +maxlength + +minlength + +required + +url + +include + +exclude + +prefix + +required + +form + +required + +maxlength + +minlength + +required + +range + +range + +limit + +length + +minlength + +maxlength + +min + +max + +includes + +list + +length + +minlength + +maxlength + +min + +max + +required + +random + +random + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + +required + + +======================================== SAMPLE 414 ======================================== +"I think it's fair to say that the most important thing with the Prenda case is that they were able to get a judge to sign off on a pretrial order that the lawyers that they had hired, they were able to get Judge Wright to sign off on that, but when you look at the records, the statements from the attorneys that they were using and the way that they were using it, those statements were not supported by the evidence," said Paul Duffy, an attorney who represented the porn company.<|endoftext|>This is the first of a series of posts that will be looking at the Crossrail project from different perspectives. + +The question of how to connect the east and west of London has divided opinion since the North-South Rail Link was proposed. One camp believes that a high-speed rail network will help us cut congestion through the centre of the capital, while the other believes that it will induce a new housing boom and make our already crowded cities even more so. + +The debate has not changed much since the North-South Rail Link was first proposed. The amount of money that will be needed to build this project is very high, and the benefits only begin to come into play once the railway is built. But the debate has changed in the last few years. In 2012, the Government's Strategic Rail Authority produced a report that criticised the current transport system for being too complicated, and suggested that it could be replaced by a network of high-speed rail links. + +In 2014, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, commissioned a study of how to improve London's transport system. It identified a need for a new interchange between the northern and southern rail lines, and called for a high-speed, five-mile-plus network to be built across the capital that would connect the north to the south. + +The South-North Rail Link + +The North-South Rail Link (N-SRL) is a proposal to replace the existing Northern and Southern rail lines, with a new interchange station at Barking Riverside railway station in east London in place of Victoria. + +The N-SRL would provide a single point of contact for all connecting services between London and Birmingham. No longer would passengers and goods have to make their way through a series of intermediate stations, each of which has its own set of problems. + +A new interchange station would also reduce the number of small transfers between trains. Currently, passengers transferring between several trains would have to wait around for the next one to leave. It would be safer and more convenient for passengers to have just one ticket to travel between two stations. + +The N-SRL will also reduce journey times, particularly between London and Birmingham. Currently, people travelling between London and Birmingham have to spend around 40 minutes travelling from the west to the east of the city, and around 30 minutes travelling from the north to the south. The N-SRL would reduce this to just 20 minutes. + +This is really good news for those who live and work in the south of London, as it would give them the opportunity to travel to work faster than before. + +It's unclear what prices will be charged at the new interchange station, but any fare will be comparable to which they currently pay at Victoria, making it easy for many people to switch from buses to trains. + +The proposed changes have been welcomed by many. The National Railway Museum, the National Railway Museum Trust, the London Transport Museum and the National Railway Museum (NMR) have all welcomed the N-SRL as a worthwhile initiative. + +However, there are some who are sceptical about the value of a new railway interchange. Critics of the N-SRL say that it will only serve the passengers who already use the Victoria line. In response, the Government says that a new interchange will be needed in the future, but that it will be far cheaper than building new stations in the city. + +The new station at Barking Riverside, which will be built along the current railway line, will be linked to the existing Victoria line by a new tunnel. The proposed new interchange station will be built along the new railway line. + +This is very different to the existing interchange at Barking Riverside station. This is a very busy commuter station, which is also a major interchange for the Victoria, District and Circle lines. It is used by tens of thousands of passengers each day, including thousands of passengers who switch between trains. + +The proposed new station at Barking Riverside station would be far cheaper to build than the existing Victoria station. + +The Victorian station, for example, cost the taxpayer £9.7m in 2009/10, while Barking Riverside station cost just £1.9m. The cost of the new interchange station is much lower, as it would only be built if the NMR received a grant from Government. + +Barking Riverside station is just one station along the District and Circle lines, but it is the busiest station on the Victoria line. It is also the most important +======================================== SAMPLE 415 ======================================== +"It's kind of a corporate Wisconsin," he said. "It's a tough economy and things are getting tougher. But I do have to say that I can't remember the last time I found myself in a living room and I was watching these guys and they were drinking, and I was thinking: I don't know what you're doing for a living, but you're going to work out of your house. You're going to go work out of your house. You're going to go work out of your house. You should be doing something different."<|endoftext|>Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been struggling to reintegrate Russia into the global economy. Russia's economy has been in a recession since the beginning of 2009, and the Russian economy is growing at an annual rate of 2.7 percent. Through this recession, the Russian economy has dropped from being the 7th largest economy in the world in 1990 to the 10th largest economy in 2009. Russia's GDP per capita is $16,000, the lowest of any country. The United States, on the other hand, has the highest GDP per capita of any country in the world, at $51,000. + +Even though the United States has the highest GDP per capita, the United States is not the world's largest economy. China is the only country that is larger than the United States. China's GDP per capita is $11,600, and the United States' GDP per capita is $45,300. China's GDP per capita is also the highest of any country with a GDP of over $10 million. + +The United States' economic slowdown is due in part to lower oil prices and Western sanctions. However, the United States suffers from many problems, such as its large federal debt, high income inequality, and a low labor force participation rate.<|endoftext|>Now, I am one of the craziest people in the world. I will say that, because it's true. I'm a big fan of zombies. I totally got into the zombie apocalypse genre when I saw World War Z. It was pretty amazing. I'm also a big fan of the zombie series The Walking Dead. I know, I know. You don't get to see a zombie series this way. And, I know. I'm full of shit. Because if you're reading this, you're probably one of the craziest people on the planet. You're probably also one of the most devoted readers I have ever had. I'm glad I'm not the only one. + +If you're read Top Shelf Presents, you know that I'm a big fan of World War Z. I love that it's the first zombie movie that I've ever seen. I love that it's the film that got me into the zombie apocalypse genre. I love that it was the film that got me into the genre of zombie movies. + +I'm not going to tell you how I feel about the film. You can read about it here. I will say, though, that I think it's a great film. It's got a lot going for it, but I don't think it's the best zombie film out there. I think it's a great film, but I do think it's one of the weaker zombie films out there. I'm not going to say it's the worst zombie film, because I think it's one of the better zombie films out there. But, I don't think it's the best zombie film. + +If you haven't seen the film, you should go buy it right now. The film is out on Blu-Ray/DVD and DVD now. It's a great film. You should go and buy it now. It's a great film. + +I'm going to get through this post, because I'm so excited to talk about David Fincher. David Fincher is one of the most important directors in the history of cinema. He's a filmmaker known for his films that are self-aware and ironic. He's a filmmaker known for being a director who's really good at approaching the genre of film that he's working in. And, to top it all off, he's one of the best directors in the world. + +In The Social Network, he's writing a screenplay, but he's also directing the film. In his film, he's a writer, but he's also a director. And, in many ways, that's what's so amazing about him. He approaches filmmaking from two sides at once. On the one hand, he's a writer, and he's a director. On the other hand, he's a filmmaker, and he's also a writer. And, that's what makes his films so great. + +Fincher is a writer. He's a writer on the page. But, he also is a director on the screen. And, it's a really brilliant approach to filmmaking. It's a really brilliant approach to filmmaking, that has got us all +======================================== SAMPLE 416 ======================================== +How to Set Up Wireless Networking in Windows 8 + +The Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature has been around for some time now, but there are many things that you need to know before you can set it up in Windows 8. If you want to use this feature, you need to: + +Install the Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature on your PC. + +Make sure that you have the latest firmware for your wireless network adapter. + +Install the proper drivers for your wireless adapter. + +If you want to use the Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature, you need to follow these three simple steps: + +Download the latest firmware for your wireless network adapter. + +Download the drivers for your wireless adapter. + +To use the Windows 8 Wireless Network feature, you need to connect your PC to the Internet, and to do that, you need to search for your wireless network, and then select it from the list of available networks. + +With these three simple steps, you can enable Wireless Networking on your Windows 8 PC, and be able to connect to wireless networks and use them.<|endoftext|>A federal judge has upheld a settlement that requires the insurance company USAA to pay $10 million to the families of two of its soldiers killed in Iraq. The settlement was reached in May after the company was sued for failing to provide adequate coverage to its troops stationed in the country. + +The agreement was reached after the families of Kori Ali Muhammad, 36, and Dustin Eugene Wright, 33, filed a lawsuit against the company. They alleged the company had been negligent for not providing adequate coverage for their loved ones. + +The two men lost their lives in a tragic shooting in March 2007. Their deaths were the first U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. + +In May, USAA agreed to pay $10 million to the families. The company also agreed to hire an independent monitor to oversee its business practices throughout Iraq. + +The company said it began monitoring its activities in Iraq in June 2007, and that it "has already taken steps to prevent further injuries, deaths, and property damage to service members." + +The settlement was announced by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and David B. Cohen, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division. The two men also criticized insurance companies for their lack of accountability in the cases of Iraq war casualties. + +"The insurance companies in Iraq, instead of taking responsibility for their risky business practices, have continued to profit at the expense of American soldiers and their families." Holder said in a statement. + +Cohen, who served as a senior prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal division under President George W. Bush, said the case was the first time that the Justice Department has pursued a civil suit over the insurance industry's failure to properly cover military members. + +"Insurance companies and their agents in Iraq were not accountable for the consequences of their behavior, and the families of these two American soldiers are the victims of their actions," Cohen said. + +Representatives of USAA declined to comment.<|endoftext|>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Is it too late for a bailout of the eurozone? + +Eurozone finance ministers have agreed to an emergency bailout of the single currency's weakest member - Cyprus. + +In a humiliating defeat for the EU, it was vetoed by Spain, which has vetoes over all Greek and Portuguese decisions. + +The Greek PM said the result was "a political failure and a eurozone failure". + +Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said a deal would "put an end to the drama". + +What happened? + +Spain, which holds a veto vote on eurozone matters, said it would not support the bailout, arguing that the €10bn (£8bn) offered by the eurozone was not enough to protect Cyprus. + +The EU said it was the first time that a eurozone country had been forced to seek an external bailout. + +The decision was meant to be taken by the finance ministers of the 17 countries which use the euro, but the session had to be adjourned so that Spain, which has a veto, could come out against the Cyprus bailout. + +Analysis In the end, the Spanish and Italian governments were not really able to block the deal, but they were a lot more effective than they looked. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had always pushed the idea that a deal would be done, but her personal intervention was the most important factor. If she had not been there, the Spanish and Italian governments would have been able to block it. Once they had given the green light for it to be approved, it became a political no-brainer for the parties in the eurozone. The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa also had to give their support, but the rest of the Eurogroup - the other 17 eurozone countries - were too divided on the issue to have a strong effect. That has been a major disappointment for many in the +======================================== SAMPLE 417 ======================================== +In the early spring of 1984, I was in the sixth grade at Eastern High School in West Palm Beach, where ninety-seven percent of the student body attended Catholic schools. I was a regular at the Catholic school's weekly chapel service, where I often sat in the pew next to the girls who were married and had children. On the Sunday before Easter, as we watched the Easter service on the television in the chapel, a young couple walked into the pew with a child in their arms. + +The parents, both young clergy, were clearly struggling with the problem of how to best honor their daughter, who had been gravely injured in an accident. The young mother was about forty-something and was wearing a flowing red dress, a gold headband, and a sash that looked as if it had been made for a saint. The young man was about twenty-one and was wearing a blue vest and a black tie. + +The couple approached the pew and bowed their heads, and that's when the young man, who was wearing a white shirt and a gray suit, got up from his seat and began to walk towards the aisle. The young woman, who was wearing a white dress and a green shawl, stood up and walked after him. + +"Excuse me," said the young man. "Would you please move? I have a child in my arms." + +"We live in the country," she replied. "I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child." + +The young man, however, didn't see the child. + +He continued to walk to the aisle and when he reached the end of the aisle, he turned around to face the young woman, who had kept pace with him all the way down the aisle. + +"Excuse me," said the young man. "Would you please move? I have a child in my arms." + +The young woman looked at the child in her arms. Her eyes were large and clear. She took a deep breath, and then she looked up at the adult and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean it." + +The young man walked over to the child, placed his hand on the child's shoulder, and said, "It's okay, baby. I'm here." + +The young man and the young woman stood there for a few moments, looking at each other. The young woman then walked up to the young man and placed her hand on his shoulder. The young man looked at the child in her arms and then looked back at the young woman. + +"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. "I'm here." + +The young man looked at her and said, "It's okay, baby. I'm here." + +The young man walked back to the aisle and the young girl in her arms. As the young woman walked back to the pew, she turned and faced the young man, who was still standing next to the child. + +"Excuse me, sir," said the young woman. "Would you please move?" + +"We live in the country," he replied. + +"I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child," she replied. + +The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. + +"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. "I'm here." + +The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. + +"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. + +The young man walked back to the aisle and the young girl in her arms. As the young woman walked back to the pew, she turned and faced the young man, who was still standing next to the child. + +"Excuse me, sir," said the young woman. "Would you please move?" + +"We live in the country," he replied. + +"I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child," she replied. + +The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. + +"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. + +The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. + +"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. + +The young man and the young woman stood there for a few moments, looking at each other. The young woman then walked up to the young man and placed her hand on his shoulder. The +======================================== SAMPLE 418 ======================================== +Kelvin Benjamin is expected to miss the rest of the preseason and most likely the rest of the season, according to multiple reports. + +Benjamin tore his ACL in his knee in the Panthers' regular-season opener against the Saints. He underwent surgery to repair the torn ACL Monday and will miss the remainder of the preseason and the first four games of the regular season. + +Benjamin, who was playing at an All-Pro level in his rookie season, is now expected to miss the remainder of the season, which would mean he would miss the entire 2017 season, as well. + +Benjamin originally suffered the injury in the third quarter of Carolina's Week 1 win against the Browns, which was one of the most dominant performances from a wide receiver in recent memory. Benjamin caught nine passes for 207 yards and a touchdown, including a 19-yard touchdown pass that showcased his route-running ability. + +The Panthers lost their first-round pick in next year's draft to the Saints for Benjamin's injury, which was the second time in his career that he suffered a significant injury. Benjamin suffered a torn ACL in training camp in 2015 and missed the entire preseason before returning for the final six games of the season. + +More from SB Nation NFL + +• Michael Bennett releases statement saying he'll retire + +• NFL Week 4 picks: Ravens, 49ers, Saints all win + +• NFL Week 4 betting guide | Picks | Odds + +• Week 4 NFL picks: Who's hot, who's not?<|endoftext|>The latest version of Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 tablet has a new feature that allows users to display notifications on the tablet's screen. + +While the Surface Pro 4 is a very powerful tablet for the price, it doesn't have any built-in keyboard functionality. However, this new feature that allows users to display notifications on the tablet's screen is currently only available in the developer preview version of the software. + +This new feature allows users to display notifications on the Surface Pro 4's screen, but it requires a little extra configuration. You can enable the new feature by going to Settings > System > Display. + +Here, you'll find a new option labeled "Tablet Display." + +Under this option, you'll find the option to enable or disable the setting for each display you have connected to the Surface Pro 4. Then, simply tap on the checkbox to enable the new feature. + +You'll be able to see notifications from apps and games that you have installed on the Surface Pro 4, but you'll have to enable this feature to see the notifications from the Windows Store. This feature is currently available in the preview version of the software, which you can grab from Microsoft's developer site. + +The Surface Pro 4 tablet is available in the United States for $799.99, but there's currently no word on the international pricing.<|endoftext|>A man in his early 20s has been arrested and charged with the sexual assault of a woman at a downtown Winnipeg hotel, police said Friday. + +The man was arrested without incident at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 115 Harbour St., on Wednesday. + +"The incident is being treated as sexual assault," police said in a release. + +The Winnipeg Police Service's sex crimes unit has been called in to investigate. + +The man was charged with sexual assault, committing an indecent act and breaching probation.<|endoftext|>Since the invention of the electric guitar in the late '60s, it's been a common expression of the guitar's power to make a song sound bigger than life. And while that's certainly true and it's hard to deny, there's one instrument that can sound bigger than life and still sound like an instrument. And that instrument is the cello. + +"I like the cello for its ability to deliver the right notes very clearly," says cellist and composer Joe Pugliese, who is working on a new album, The Holy City, with cellist and composer Mick Fleetwood. "It's a powerful and expressive instrument." + +Pugliese brings up an important point: Cellists today are using the same techniques as the early cellists, which are often very similar to those used by the cello masters. "Musicians are now using the techniques of the 19th century cellists," Pugliese says. "They're using the same techniques and the same technique, which is the scalar vibrato, is still used." + +A Scalar Vibrato + +In the video below, Pugliese explains what a scalar vibrato is: + +"The scalar vibrato is a technique in the cello where you move the bow back and forth in a circular motion, like a bow sweeping back and forth, to create a wide sweep. The cellist will select a note that's slightly higher than the one that he wants to vibrate, and then he will slide the bow back and forth in a circular motion, and as the bow passes over the note he will +======================================== SAMPLE 419 ======================================== +How do you make a second home in the city? + +A whole lot of money. + +And an even bigger problem for the city: it takes a lot of money to keep the city clean. + +The city's annual budget for garbage collection, which was $26 million in 2014, is roughly $200 million. + +And that's just the garbage that's picked up. + +On top of that, the city spends hundreds of millions of dollars on waste management, sewer and water infrastructure, and parks and recreation. + +The city's budget is so huge, it has to be balanced by cutting spending elsewhere. + +City staff have access to a variety of tools to help them balance the books. + +Initiatives like Neighbourhood Renewal, which is working to improve neighbourhoods, have been in place since 2006. + +They've received more than $14 million in funding to date. + +And they're an example of how the city's budget can be used to improve people's lives. + +Coun. Jason Farr says the city is in a very different place than it was when he first got elected in 2012. + +"For us, we're really at the tipping point," Farr said. "And I think that what we're doing is really beneficial to the city and really beneficial to the neighbourhoods and the people who live in them. I think that's a really positive, forward-looking message." + +"We can do better than we are right now." + +A new report from the city's auditor has some suggestions on how the city could use its money more wisely. + +"It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of many of the initiatives and programs," the report states. + +"The lack of rigorous and reliable metrics cannot be attributed to a lack of effort on the part of government." + +The report recommends the city look at how it spends money on a number of initiatives. + +They include: + +Neighbourhood Renewal, which has committed $14.2 million to renovate and transform 127 neighbourhoods across the city. + +The city's Strategic Land Use Plan, which has funded the creation of over a half-dozen urban design-based communities. + +The city's Task Force on the Future of Vancouver, which was created in response to the 2010 Olympic Village report. + +And the city's Green Economy Strategy, which recently generated $5 million for the city's green infrastructure. + +The report also recommends the city look at how it spends money on a number of programs. + +They include: + +Neighbourhood Renewal, which has committed $14.2 million to renovate and transform 127 neighbourhoods across the city. + +The city's Strategic Land Use Plan, which has funded the creation of over a half-dozen urban design-based communities. + +The city's Task Force on the Future of Vancouver, which was created in response to the 2010 Olympic Village report. + +And the city's Green Economy Strategy, which recently generated $5 million for the city's green infrastructure. + +More funding for the arts + +The City of Vancouver is also looking at how it spends money on the arts. + +In 2015, the city made $7.8 million available to fund artists commissions, including $2.7 million towards the 2016/17 season. + +Many of those funds go toward the Vancouver International Arts Festival. + +The festival runs from June 11 to September 22 and is expected to bring in $13.7 million in revenue this year. + +The city is also looking at ways to make things even smoother for artists when it comes to accessing public funding. + +For example, the city recently announced a new grant program for artists. + +And as part of that, it's looking at whether to make it easier for artists to apply for grants. + +The city says that by the end of the year, it'll be able to give artists more information about grants they're eligible for. + +It'll also be looking at whether to streamline the process for artists applying for funding. + +"We're looking at recommendations and we're going through a process of actually putting the suggestions into practice," said Coun. Mike Savage. + +"I think that's a very big issue, and I think it's something we need to work on." + +More money for the arts + +But not everyone agrees with the mayor's desire for more money for the arts. + +"I don't think that the arts are good for the city," said Coun. Michael Wiebe. + +"I don't think that they contribute to the vibrancy of the city. I don't think they add to the vitality of the city. I think they're an object of scorn of the public. + +"I think that the arts are a very important part of the city, but I think that they need to be managed in a very careful way." + + +======================================== SAMPLE 420 ======================================== +As his third season comes to a close, Brian Holman catches up with the Toronto Blue Jays' manager and general manager, John Gibbons. + +It's been a long, bumpy road for the Blue Jays this season, and a much shorter one for Gibbons. + +After a season of questioning his own role in the organization and being forced to find a way to make it work, Gibbons is now in his third season in charge of a Blue Jays team that is well within reach of making the playoffs. + +In a wide-ranging interview with Sportsnet's John Gibbons, the Toronto Blue Jays' manager speaks candidly on everything from the team's struggles to his relationship with his boss, the team's general manager. + +Gibbons also addresses why he was so surprised that the Jays traded one of their closer's for a starting pitcher in the off-season, how baseball can take away the fun from the game, and why he believes the Jays are a playoff team. + +Check out the full interview below: + +John Gibbons, Toronto Blue Jays manager and general manager: + +What are your thoughts on the season so far? + +"That's a good question. I think it's been a difficult year. It's been a rollercoaster. We've had a lot of highs and lows. It's been a rollercoaster. + +I think a lot of it is growing pains. We dealt with some injuries. We traded a guy that was a big part of our bullpen. We became a better team, but you know, we're not out of it yet. You know, we're in a position to make a run at the playoffs. You know, we're in a place where we can win the wild card. So, it's a rollercoaster. + +But I think we've been a better team. I think we've been a better team overall. I think we've improved our team. And even though we're not in the playoffs, we're in a position to make a run at it. + +What was your first thought when you heard about the trade [for closer Roberto Osuna]? + +"I was disappointed. But we've got a lot of good players in the bullpen. And we're going to have to see how it goes. I don't think it's going to be a drastic change. But we're going to have to see how it goes." + +What's your relationship with John? + +"I've always felt comfortable with John. I've always felt a lot of respect for him. I'm not one to talk to John about anything. It's not like I have to. He knows I'm not going to say anything." + +Did you expect the trade to be made? + +"No. I don't think anybody expected it to be made. I think it was going to be something I was going to have to deal with, and I guess it was something we were going to have to deal with. + +John's been great. I've got a great relationship with him. I really do." + +How do you think you're going to be described by the media once the season ends? + +"I don't know yet. I don't really know. I feel like I'm going to be like a lot of other guys, maybe. I don't know, I don't know how that's going to come." + +Do you think you're being unfairly painted as a leader on this team? + +"I don't think it's too much to say that we're a good young team. I think we've got an outstanding group of young players. I think we're a team that has a lot of talent. I think we have a lot of young guys that have a lot of good ideas. I think we have a lot of young guys that have a lot of character. I think that's why we're in the position we're in. I think we've got a lot of potential and a lot of good things ahead of us." + +Can you talk about your relationship with John? + +"We've always been good friends. We've been really good friends. We work together. We talk together. I think that's why we're in this position we're in. I think that's why like I say, he knows I'm not going to say anything." + +Have you been able to get to know John's former teammates? + +"I think I've gotten to know a lot of them, but I don't know. I don't really get to get to know them, obviously. So, I'm not in a position to get to know them." + +Do you think you've earned the respect of your teammates? + +"I've earned the respect of the players. I've earned their respect. I think it's something I've done in the past. I think I've earned their respect. I +======================================== SAMPLE 421 ======================================== +Two years ago, we heard rumors that a trio of Japanese companies were working on a new, high-end, Android-powered Note phablet. We couldn't confirm, and for a while, the rumor sat on the backburner as Samsung focused on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. + +But then it came back to life with a bang, and we were finally able to confirm that it was true. The new Note, the Galaxy Note 5, will launch this September in a new, bigger size, and it will also come with a new, more powerful processor. + +The device will also have a big jump in battery life, and it will have a new design, according to a new report from Korean news site ETNews. + +ETNews says that according to Samsung, the new Note 5 will have a 5.7-inch display, a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, a Snapdragon 810 processor, and 3GB of RAM. The device also likely won't be the same size as the Note 4's 5.7-inch display, but it's likely to be the same size as the Note 3's 5.5-inch display. + +The new Note 5 will also have a new (and more powerful) camera that's said to have a f1.7 aperture, and a larger battery. It also should have a 6.3mm bezel, just like the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5. + +The Note 5 will also come with a stylus, as well as a new AI assistant called Bixby that will be pre-installed on the device. Samsung is expected to use Bixby to pull you away from apps and websites and allow you to more efficiently use the device. + +Rumors of the new Note 5 started last October, when Samsung was said to be developing a larger-screen phablet with a 5.7-inch display. That device has not yet been announced. + +Samsung has recently been testing the waters with smaller-screened handsets, with the Galaxy A series of smartphones and the Galaxy J series of smartphones. The company has also been rumored to launch a smaller, cheaper Galaxy A3 successor. + +The new Galaxy Note is expected to be released in a new round of colors with a metal back panel, and a gold-colored version is expected to be released in September. + +Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>A convicted child molester who served as a football coach in Louisiana said he was a victim of racial prejudice and a lack of free speech when he was banned from speaking at his alma mater. + +"I just don't think you should be allowed to express your opinion about anything," said Gary Covington, who has been fired as the head football coach at Marshall University and is facing a second criminal trial for molesting boys. + +"I've been black, I've been white, I've been Latino. I can't speak my mind. And that's the problem." + +Covington was a star player at Marshall, where he played linebacker from 1978-81. He was a three-time All-American and played 24 years in the NFL, including six with the New Orleans Saints. + +Covington said he was banned from speaking at Marshall after he made comments about his former football coach, Mike Rhoades, who is white. + +The coach, Rhoades, is now out of coaching. + +Covington said he had given a talk to trustees and students at Marshall about his life and his prior football career. + +"I'm not a racist. It's just that the word 'racist' is part of my past," Covington told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I don't think I am a racist. I don't think I've ever been racist. I'm not a bigot." + +The former assistant coach said he had not announced plans to speak at Marshall, which is about 45 miles north of New Orleans, before he was fired last month. He said he was not aware of the pending university hearing. + +"I just want to get the truth out," Covington said. "I don't want to see my name in the papers on anything I have to say." + +Covington was convicted in 2005 on charges of molesting two boys and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released from prison in May. + +On Sept. 28, Covington was charged with molesting a third boy. He was arraigned on those charges on Tuesday and released on $50,000 bond. + +"I just want to know what happened in the past," Covington said. "I didn't want to be here talking about my past. I didn't do anything." + +The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual abuse. + +Covington said he was not aware of the possibility that he would have to return to +======================================== SAMPLE 422 ======================================== +Two months after the death of a woman who died during a traffic stop, a grand jury decided not to indict any of the officers involved, the Austin Police Department announced Tuesday. + +Carmen "Carmella" Hernandez was stopped on June 15, 2015, for speeding on Interstate 35. She was not wearing a seat belt, and had recently lost her job because she couldn't afford to drive to work, according to a probable cause statement. + +She was found to have a blood alcohol content of .236 percent, which is more than twice the legal limit. A breathalyzer test showed her blood alcohol content to be .228 percent, according to the statement. + +[Officers' body cameras were not turned on in Sandra Bland's death, authorities say] + +During the stop, Hernandez was asked if she had been drinking. She told police that she had been drinking, but did not immediately remember what happened, according to the statement. + +He then asked her if she was intoxicated. She told him she was not, but was unable to remember if she had consumed any alcohol. Then Hernandez said she would need to take a breathalyzer test, and asked if he could get a breathalyzer. Hernandez said that she needed to take the test to get a job because she was unable to pay for the car she was driving. + +Hernandez then got out of her vehicle and was arrested for DUI. + +Hernandez died the next day. She had been arrested for driving while intoxicated in 2013, according to court records. + +On Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Hernandez's family had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Austin police. + +"We are now left with the task of pursuing justice through the criminal justice system," her sister, Laurie Hernandez, said in a statement released by the family's attorneys. "I am heartbroken, anguished and furious to learn that there was no one who cared enough to make sure this family's privacy was protected by notifying them that their loved one was dead. + +"The family's deepest desire is to make sure that this does not happen to another family, and we hope that the parties involved will work together to ensure that the justice system works for everyone." + +A lawyer for the city of Austin said he could not comment on pending litigation, but noted that the city's use-of-force policy says that officers "will not use deadly force unless they have probable cause to believe the subject poses a threat to the life or limb of the officer or another person." + +The statement said the city's police watchdog will investigate the case. + +"We are at a point in time where our officers are trained, and we do not see this as a situation we can ignore," said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. "We have, as it relates to this case, a policy that says when we pull somebody over, we have to ask them whether they were intoxicated and, if they say yes, we can take them into custody." + +The case is the second in as many weeks to involve an officer being cleared of any wrongdoing in the death of a citizen. In the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Alton Sterling, police said that the officer involved in the shooting had been "exonerated" by a grand jury, but in the shooting death of Philando Castile, the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing. + +Read more: + +Texas cops can shoot you for being white. A judge says it's OK. + +'You're about to get shot': Video shows last moments of man who died after police shot him in St. Paul<|endoftext|>This week, the Supreme Court held that police need a warrant to collect information from a cell phone. The decision affirmed a lower court's ruling that police can't search cell phones without a warrant, and said that the practices are probably unconstitutional. But there are still at least three ways police can get phone data without a warrant. + +The most obvious way is to buy the phone outright and search it with a warrant. But the FBI doesn't sell cell phones; it buys them. It's a well-known fact that the FBI buys cell phones not just from manufacturers like Apple and Nokia but from third parties. + +Advertisement + +The FBI buys cell phones from a variety of companies, including Sprint and Verizon. They can also buy them in bulk from a company called DT Communications. The company is owned by two brothers named Thomas and Robert Murphy, who have been convicted of hacking phone networks and stealing millions of phone numbers. For this reason, they're not allowed to own phones. + +But who owns the companies that sell cell phones to the FBI? That's where the third-party doctrine comes in. Under the third-party doctrine, third parties don't have to tell you about their business, but they do have to disclose to you the way they gather information on you. + +The Fourth Amendment says that "no Warrants shall +======================================== SAMPLE 423 ======================================== +• A reader writes: I'm a junior in college and I've been having a breakdown with anxiety and depression. I've been on medication and an antidepressant for a long time, but I'm still having problems. I don't want to do this anymore. I know it's not my fault that I'm depressed, but I'm not healthy. I'm not even healthy enough to eat healthy. I feel like I'm getting sicker and sicker. I'm thinking that if I don't get help soon I'll die. I'm also worried about my parents and my friends and how they're going to react. I need to get help now, when I can. I've been doing the best I can, but my parents are always horrible. My mom is always angry and sad and she never wants to see me. She doesn't want to get a job or go to school or go to therapy or anything. She just wants me to be happy. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared. + +• A reader writes: I am a 29-year-old woman, and my husband and I have had two very close friends who have both had similar issues. I'm convinced that they're the same, but I feel wrong about it. I'm one of those people who would compare myself to people who are just as sick, but we're not. We're healthy, and we're not depressed. I know that in a year from now I'm going to be diagnosed with breast cancer or some other cancer that kills you within a year, and I'll be alone. I will be alone because I will have no one to talk to about the things I'm feeling right now. I don't need to talk about it right now - I'm scared, but I know that I have to. It's so hard to talk about it, but I have to, because of what I know. + +• A reader writes: I'm a 33-year-old woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a mastectomy in January and have had radiation the past month. I'm getting chemotherapy for the next two weeks. I have a very positive outlook on life, but I'm still having difficulty with the anxiety that comes with being sick. I have been through so much already, and I don't want this to make me feel worse. I'm so afraid that if I stop, I'll die. Please help me. + +• A reader writes: I am a 68-year-old woman with heart disease, and I've been diagnosed with both congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I've had congestive heart failure for many years and my doctor told me it would further deteriorate if I didn't get treatment. My health insurance is going to cancel my policy in a few months, and I'm scared that I'll die if I don't have new insurance. I have been paying out of pocket for my treatment, but I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do. I know I have to get more insurance, but my husband is happy with his insurance and he needs to be in the same position. I'm utterly alone. I'm too old to get treatment, but there are no other options. I am totally alone. + +• A reader writes: I am a 28-year-old woman in recovery from anorexia nervosa. I'm a very happy, healthy person, but I have been eating less and less and avoiding friends and family because of my eating disorder. I've been to the doctor twice now but they have told me that I don't have an eating disorder and that I can't lose weight. I have lost 10 pounds since I was last seen, so I'm hoping that I might be able to get a second opinion from a doctor who specializes in eating disorders. I just want to get help and get back to feeling good again. I know it will be hard, but I'm ready. + +• A reader writes: A few months ago I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I've been in and out of a psychiatric hospital since I was 16. I have been on psychiatric medication my whole life. My current psychiatrist doesn't know that I'm bipolar and that I have schizophrenia. I can't get out of the hospital until I get to a new psychiatrist. I'm scared that I will get kicked out of the hospital and have to go back to my old psychiatrist, so I'm not taking any more medication. I'm scared that I will die. + +• A reader writes: My son has been in an unwinnable war with depression for about 4 years now. He is in a comatose state. He has no energy, no appetite, no motivation. He doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't feel like talking about it. He doesn't feel like his life is worth living. He doesn't feel like he can ever be happy again. He is my only child, he is the only person +======================================== SAMPLE 424 ======================================== +'Queen Elizabeth II is dead!' + +So goes a tweet from the official Twitter account of the Royal Household, one that has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 people. + +Scroll down for video + +'Queen Elizabeth II is dead': A tweet from the Royal Household's Twitter account, which has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 + +The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma. + +The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the Queen, who was pictured looking 'widespread' and 'unwell', with a message reading: 'The Queen is dead.' + +The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma + +It is yet to be confirmed whether the tweet was sent from Twitter itself, or was sent from a third-party app. + +In a statement to MailOnline, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: 'The Queen is dead. She has died at 5.12pm this afternoon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.' + +At 12.50pm, the Royal Family released a statement on Twitter confirming the demise of the Queen. + +The statement read: 'We can confirm that the Queen...has died. + +'Her family members, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and the Prime Minister, are joining the people of the United Kingdom in expressing their grief and sympathy at this incredibly sad time.' + +Speaking to ITV News on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'She's a wonderful, great, great woman. There's been a lot of speculation about what's happened. + +'I know the Queen is in a very, very strong and determined position and I know she's doing well - but obviously it's not good news.' + +'Queen Elizabeth II is dead': A tweet from the Royal Household's Twitter account, which has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 people + +The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the Queen, who was pictured looking 'widespread' and 'unwell', with a message reading: 'The Queen is dead.' + +The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma + +It is yet to be confirmed whether the tweet was sent from Twitter itself, or was sent from a third-party app. In a statement to MailOnline, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: 'The Queen is dead.' + +At 12.50pm, the Royal Family released a statement on Twitter confirming the demise of the Queen. + +The statement read: 'We can confirm that the Queen...has died. Her family members, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and the Prime Minister, are joining the people of the United Kingdom in expressing their grief and sympathy at this incredibly sad time.' + +Speaking to ITV News on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'She's a wonderful, great, great woman. There's been a lot of speculation about what's happened. I know the Queen is in a very, very strong and determined position and I know she's doing well - but obviously it's not good news.' + +The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma + +Tragedy: The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was admitted to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke + +Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen's half-brother Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and their children Princess Charlotte, Prince Andrew, Prince William, and Prince Harry are seen here in June 2014 + +The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was taken to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke - her third in less than a year. + +But the 90-year-old was said to be making 'excellent progress' after being transferred to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London. + +Queen Elizabeth II's half-brother Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and their children Princess Charlotte, Prince Andrew, Prince William, and Prince Harry are seen here in June 2014. + +The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was admitted to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke - her third in less than a year. But the 90-year-old was said to be making 'excellent progress' after being transferred to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 425 ======================================== +The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Skyrim Quest Redesign Project. + +The page is being rewritten and checked in several stages. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. + +Detail Walkthrough: written by multiple users, not checked + +Reward: written by Terracotta, checked by RobinHood70 + +Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] + +Speak with Durnehviir at the Shrine. Travel to Helgen. Fight the raiders outside the city. Defend the Shrine. + +Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] + +The Shrine [ edit ] + +After arriving in Helgen, you will discover that a new bandit group, led by a Nord named Durnehviir, has taken over the Shrine. He wants you to kill two of his lieutenants, Arvak and Tolvak. He cannot be swayed by any attempts to persuade him, and the only way to end this conflict is to kill him. + +The Bandit Leader [ edit ] + +Arvak and Tolvak are located in the shrine's courtyard, just past the entrance. They are both carrying steel battleaxes and wearing light armor, while Arvak is carrying a leveled bow and some gold. + +When you enter, a group of raiders will attack. It is possible to fight them without fighting Durnehviir. They are fairly weak, but they can kill you if you get caught in a surprise attack. There is a locked chest in the courtyard, which can only be opened by a key. + +Inside the shrine [ edit ] + +There are two ways to approach this matter: + +Kill the two lieutenants, or let them live. + +If you want to spare them, do so by killing Durnehviir. + +Both of these are equally viable. You may kill them and loot their bodies. This will earn you the quest, but you will not be able to get any more gold from them or any other items. You can also kill them, and gain no reputation or experience for it, but you will not be able to get any of their gold or items either. + +Or you can help them out by killing Durnehviir, and take the key. This will earn you a reputation increase with the Stormcloaks if you have the Light Foot perk, and a small amount of gold if you don't. + +If you choose to spare them, simply enter the shrine and use the key on the locked chest. This will grant you access to the shrine and the shrine key. You can now go to the shrine and speak to Durnehviir to end the conflict. + +A Retreat [ edit ] + +If you do not want to kill Durnehviir, you can talk to Tolvak who is located in the same room. He is now a follower. If you speak to Tolvak, he will say, "You're right. I should've stayed out of this. But I'm not a killer. Not worth it, I tell you." He will then take you to Durnehviir. + +Durnehviir [ edit ] + +If you speak to Durnehviir, he will tell you, "You need to kill me. It's just what the temple needs." He will then ask you to retrieve the key from his body. He will give you the key and a second key, which you can use to open the locked chest. Durnehviir, being a follower, will not give you the second key even though you are a Thane. + +Return to the Shrine [ edit ] + +Inside the shrine, you will find Arvak and Tolvak dead. If you speak to him, he will say, "You're no worse than the rest. I should've just killed you." He will then take you to the chest to retrieve the final key. Once you have both keys, speak to Durnehviir again. This time, he will say, "I can't leave without them. I'll kill the rest." + +Durnehviir [ edit ] + +Durnehviir is now a follower who will follow you around. He will protect you, attack attackers, and defend the shrine. If you leave the shrine, Durnehviir will follow you to the entrance of Helgen and wait there for you to return. If you leave just before he can come, he will stay where he is and wait for you to return. + +Notes [ edit ] + +If you attack Durnehviir, he will become hostile. + +After you have killed D +======================================== SAMPLE 426 ======================================== +According to a report by E.ON, Germany's biggest energy utility, the country's climate change legislation has been "significantly undermined" by the European Union's legal framework, which does not allow the country to introduce carbon pricing. + +The report, which has been tabled in parliament, claims the European Union's (EU) climate change legislation is "prepared to open the door for a carbon market", in which electricity generated from coal and other fossil fuels would clearly be cheaper than that generated from renewables. + +The EU's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trading system (EU Emissions Trading System) is based on the idea of a carbon market, introduced by the then European Commission in 2007. + + +The European Union has had a carbon market since 2008, and earlier this year agreed a new framework for its implementation in which fossil fuels were no longer exempt from emissions trading. + +However, the European Commission, which has responsibility for EU policy on climate change, says, on the basis of a Directive within the EU's executive branch, that the carbon market cannot be introduced. + +"The Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity," said the European Commission. + +It claims that this means that the EU cannot introduce carbon pricing. + +The Commission has also argued that the legislation is based on the principle of a "carbon tax", and this is against the principles of the EU's current law on climate change, which does not allow for the introduction of a carbon price. + +"In fact, the EU Emissions Trading System is based on the market mechanism but the Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity," said the European Commission. + +The European Commission has also argued that the legislation is based on the market mechanism but the Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity." + +"The Commission has therefore concluded that the EU Emissions Trading System Regulation cannot be implemented in the way envisaged by the Commission," the European Commission added. + +European Commission's position on climate change 'not certain' + +However, two climate change ministers from the European Parliament's environment committee have already expressed their concern about the EU's position on carbon pricing. + +"This letter shows that the EU's position on climate change is not certain. The lack of clarity is disappointing, as the EU was supposed to be leading on climate change by introducing a meaningful and binding carbon price," said the Parliament's committee on economic and monetary affairs. + +The European Parliament's environment committee is currently holding a discussion on the EU's climate policy, under the title of "Climate change and the EU's energy transition". + +The discussion will be held on 18 and 19 March.<|endoftext|>How the New York Times Caught the Trump-Russia Story Flat + +Photo Credit: via YouTube + +When the New York Times broke the news that Donald Trump Jr. had eagerly met with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton, many were skeptical that the story would stick. Many were skeptical that the story would stick. But the Times did it anyway. + +In this age of fake news, the Times' reporting — from reporter Adam Goldman — was accurate and thorough. It quoted a source close to the email chain, who said Trump Jr. "had been told" the lawyer was offering "sensitive information and documents that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." + +But then the Times got it wrong. The Times reported that the email chain was between Donald Trump Jr. and a music publicist named Rob Goldstone. The Times reported that Goldstone was an intermediary between Donald Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer. + +In fact, Goldstone was a publicist for a Russian pop star in New York. + +SPONSORED + +The Times did what many news organizations do when reporting on Russia: It relied on anonymous sources who get to choose their words, and who may not be entirely truthful themselves. The Times also often relies on anonymous sources to publish third-party material. + +This was one of the many lessons we learned from the Times' botched Russia reporting. The lesson here is that after publishing articles about Russia that were false or misleading, the Times will likely have to make a significant correction. + +For example, the Times published an article in July about Russia's election hacking that was based on an anonymous "intelligence official" who claimed "the U.S. intelligence agencies have been withholding material from President Trump fearing it could be used to blackmail him." The Times later amended the article, saying "the officials were not named in the article." + +The Times' mistake in this case was in not going back and checking its reporting. It did not go back and check the Times' article with the full chain of emails. Instead, it relied on the anonymous sources, which the Times did not verify. + +A similar mistake +======================================== SAMPLE 427 ======================================== +Best Answer: It's true. I'm a relatively new fan of the game, and I still love it. I've had it since the first game in 1993, and I've never really missed it. I do have a problem with the fact that it's always in my top three of all time games, and I always feel like I've missed out on the best games from the series. I love the soundtracks, and the movies. I also love the characters, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the main characters, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the characters that I've played as, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the series, and I love the game series, and I love the game series series. + + +I do like the story line, but I don't love it. I think it's not as good as the other games, and I think it's pretty silly. I like the dialog. I like the music. I like the art. I like the voice acting. I do like the voice acting, but I don't love it. I think the characters are pretty bland (oh, and the fact that the protagonist is a woman is just…odd), and I don't know why they made her a woman. I also like the fact that you can switch between male and female characters on the fly, but that really doesn't bother me. I know there are some female characters that I would like to play, but I don't think I'd want to play as a female character. + + +I like the fact that there's an online mode, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like that I can play the game online with my friends, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like the fact that it's a free game, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like the fact that there are online achievements, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for them. + + +I don't think that any of these complaints are bad. I think that they're all things that I like about the game. I think that they're all things that I love about the game. I think that they're all things that I hate about the game. I have a problem with why I have to pay for it. I have a problem with the fact that there are online achievements. I have a problem with the fact that I have to pay for the game. I have a problem with the fact that I have to pay for the game. I have a problem with the fact that I can't play the game with my friends. I have a problem with the fact that I can't play the game with my friends. + + +I think that if you're a fan of the game, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the series, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the story line, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the story line, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters, you will probably like it. If you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. If you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. + +Source(s): + +Ariel · 1 decade ago<|endoftext|>In this cartoon we see the four great periods of the history of mankind: the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Roman and Medieval Ages, and finally the Enlightenment, which brought about the Industrial Age. The cartoon is about the current progress of mankind. The four periods are the two different phases of each age, and the two different phases of each period are the four stages of the revolution of the age. The first stage is the first period, the second period is the second period, the third period is the third period, and the fourth period is the fourth period. In the first period, the universe was created in seven days; in the second period, the universe was created in six days; in the third period, the universe was created in five days; in the fourth period, the universe was created in four days; and in the fifth period, the universe was created in three days. In the first period, man was created in the image of God; in the second period, man was created in the image of the devil; in the third period, man was created in the image of the angel; in the fourth period, man was created in the image of the devil; and in the fifth period +======================================== SAMPLE 428 ======================================== +The worst hurricane in recorded history has left at least 10 people dead in the Caribbean and the US has declared a state of emergency. + +Hurricane Irma slammed into the Dominican Republic on Tuesday as a category 4 storm, and the storm could hit Florida as early as Thursday. + +In the region, Irma reached Category 5 strength on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said. + +The hurricane has been downgraded to a Category 4 storm, but the storm is still moving at 26mph (42km/h) and is expected to make landfall on the southern coast of Cuba on Wednesday night. + +The storm has caused at least 10 deaths so far, and a further six are still unaccounted for. + +The hurricane has killed at least 12 people in the Caribbean with the most recent victim being a 17-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic. + +The death toll is expected to rise. + +The US has also declared a state of emergency, and has asked the National Guard to send the military to rescue people and restore power to homes and businesses. + +"President Trump has directed government agencies to help as much as possible to evacuate and protect life, health, and property," the White House said in a statement. + +"We will be mobilising federal, state and local resources to assist with the response," it said. + +Shape Created with Sketch. Hurricane Irma – in pictures Show all 46 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Hurricane Irma – in pictures 1/46 Recently planted palm trees lie strewn across the road as Hurricane Irma passes by in Miami Beach, Fla. 10 September 2017. AP 2/46 Large waves produced by Hurricane Irma crash into the end of Anglins Fishing Pier in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The category 4 hurricane made landfall in the United States in the Florida Keys at 9:10 a.m. after raking across the north coast of Cuba. 10 September 2017 Getty Images 3/46 A Royal Air Force Puma has been delivered to the US Virgin Islands to assist with the humanitarian efforts post Hurricane Irma. The Puma will be delivering Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief in support of the Department for International Development. Royal Air Force logisticians from RAF Brize Norton have assisted with the delivery of military personnel and aid cargo to the Caribbean to support disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Irma. RAF aircraft including, C-17 A400M and Voyager are supporting a Joint Task Force of RAF, Royal Marines, Army and RN personnel who are supporting the Department for International Development as it delivers aid to stricken Caribbean Islands. MoD 4/46 Waves crash over a seawall at the mouth of the Miami River from Biscayne Bay, Fla., as Hurricane Irma passes by. 10 September 2017 AP 5/46 Boats are seen at a marina in South Beach as Hurricane Irma arrives at south Florida, in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. 10 September 2017 Reuters 6/46 The skyline is seen as the outerbands of Hurricane Irma start to reach Florida on 9 September 2017 in Miami, Florida. Florida is in the path of the Hurricane which may come ashore at category 4. Getty Images 7/46 A tree toped by hurricane Irma is seen on a empty street in Remedios, Cuba, 9 September 2017. Hurricane Irma reached Cuba bringing winds between 160 and 190 kilometers per hour. The hurricane has hit the north coast of the island. EPA 8/46 Storm clouds are seen over Fisher Island as Hurricane Irma approaches on 9 September 2017 in Miami Beach, Florida. Florida is in the path of the Hurricane which may come ashore at category 4 Getty Images 9/46 Flamingos at Zoo Miami, are shown in a temporary enclosure in a hurricane resistant structure within the zoo, Saturday, 9 September 2017 in Miami. Though most animals will reman in their secure structures, the cheetahs and some birds will ride out the storm in temporary housing. AP 10/46 James Constantineau loads sands bags in his truck as he prepares for the approach of Hurricane Irma Saturday, 9 September 2017, in East Palatka, Fla. Gov. Rick Scott is urging anyone living in an evacuation zone in southwest Florida to leave by noon as the threat of Hurricane Irma has shifted west. AP 11/46 The Fort Louis Marina in Marigot is seen on 8 September 2017 in Saint-Martin island, devastated by Hurricane Irma. AFP 12/46 The wreckage in Orient Bay on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty 13/46 Damage outside the Mercure hotel in Marigot, on the Bay of Nettle, on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty Images 14/46 Destruction in Orient Bay on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty 15/46 Some of the damage on Saint Martin EPA/Gerben Van Es/Dutch Department of Defence 16/46 View of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin Reuters 17/46 A mobile network tower snapped in two by the hurricane on the island of Barbuda ABS TV 18/46 A house reduced to +======================================== SAMPLE 429 ======================================== +LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his forces to prepare for a "new form" of warfare against the United States, the country's state news agency KCNA said on Monday, in a direct warning to Washington following the missile strike on Syria. + +The report, carried by KCNA, said Kim had ordered an escalation of the Korean People's Army's (KPA) nuclear forces, and that the North's strategic force would make a "pre-emptive strike at the enemy in any place at any time". + +"In case the enemy thinks that the situation is under control, then it is a declaration of war," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. + +The report came just hours after the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, in the first direct military action by the Trump administration against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Dominic Evans)<|endoftext|>Restaurant Garlic Pesto & Black Bean Chili + +Spring is in the air! I love that it's the perfect season to try new foods, and this dish is one of my favorites. It's very hearty and packed with flavor. Paired with a glass of cool water, it makes for a great weekend breakfast or dinner. + +I've always enjoyed making my own dips and dressings, and this recipe is no exception. It's a great way to use up all those fresh garlic cloves you have in your fridge. + +This recipe is easy and quick to make, and it only takes about 5 minutes to put together. This is the perfect side dish for a spring picnic or potluck. + +MY LATEST VIDEOS + +This dish is one of my favorites, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! + +To make Garlic Pesto & Black Bean Chili, you'll need: + +2 tbsp. olive oil (or peanut oil) + +1 large onion, chopped + +1 large carrot, peeled and diced + +1 red pepper, diced + +2 cloves garlic, minced + +1 14-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained + +1 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped + +1/2 tsp. chili powder + +1/2 tsp. cumin + +1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper + +1 tsp. kosher salt + +1/2 tsp. pepper + +1 cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish + +1 tbsp. diced fresh jalapeño pepper + +To make the Garlic Pesto, place the olive oil in a small sauce pan and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, and pepper and cook until the vegetables are soft and the onion has softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the black beans, sage, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 15 minutes. + +Turn the heat off and let the soup cool slightly. Add the parsley, jalapeño, and salt and pepper to taste. Drain the black beans and add them to the soup. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to use. + +Tip: If you don't have parsley on hand, you can use any type of parsley. You'll just have to chop it up a little bit smaller. + +If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. I'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.<|endoftext|>The new Firefox ESR release has been released. This version of Firefox includes many performance improvements, fixes for desktop and mobile, and more. Many of these improvements are under the hood, so they shouldn't impact your browser experience. We've also tried to make Firefox ESR as streamlined and fast as possible to get you the best experience possible. + +New Features and Improvements + +We've made a few changes to Firefox to improve your experience. Here are the highlights: + +Improvements to the Page Load time. The browser now uses a single thread to process all HTML documents. + +The browser now uses a single thread to process all HTML documents. Improved HTML rendering. Images are now cached in the background on the browser node, reducing total page load time. + +Images are now cached in the background on the browser node, reducing total page load time. Improved memory usage. Memory usage on the browser node has been dramatically reduced. + +Memory usage on the browser node has been dramatically reduced. More secure. A new technology called Data Saver is now enabled by default. Data Saver prevents a variety of attacks on the browser. + +A new technology called Data Saver is now enabled by default. Data Saver prevents a variety of attacks on the +======================================== SAMPLE 430 ======================================== +Mentoring Programs at The University of Texas at Dallas + +The University of Texas at Dallas is pleased to offer a variety of mentoring programs for undergraduate and graduate students. + +Mentoring is an important part of the life-long learning process. This is especially true for students who are in their first year of college. Through mentoring, U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Texas at Dallas as one of the top 10 universities in the nation. + +Mentoring helps you get ahead in your college career by giving you fellow students to help you with your homework, college-bound courses, writing assignments, independent study, and other college-related tasks. + +The University of Texas at Dallas also offers a variety of social activities, ranging from campus clubs and service projects to campus parties and social outings. + +The University of Texas at Dallas Mentoring Program + +The University of Texas at Dallas' mentoring program is announced annually in the Class of 2017. The program includes a number of courses and activities, and you can read more about it in the Class of 2017 Mentoring webpage. + +The course descriptions for the U.S. News & World Report program are available here. + +Mentoring Resources + +Helpful information for students is available in the Mentoring Resources page. You can find more information about the University of Texas at Dallas Mentoring Program on our Mentoring page. + +For more information about UT Dallas and its academic programs, you can contact the Office of Undergraduate Education.<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel + +Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email + +Despite being crowned the world's best and most handsome man, London's Prince Harry has admitted he's not quite as handsome as he once was. + +The 34-year-old, who has been announced as Britain's next Prince of Wales, told the Daily Star newspaper he hopes to fulfil his dreams of becoming an actor. + +He said: "I did a lot of acting as a child, but I never did it seriously. + +"I've always thought if I ever got the chance, I'd like to get into showbusiness – that's what interests me. + +"To be honest, I don't think I look as good as I used to. I've lost a little bit of muscle. + +(Image: PA) + +"I've always had a bit of a paunch. Now I'm pretty skinny. I haven't had to do as many paint-jobs as I used to, although I've been known to get myself in a bit of a mess. + +"I've got a bit of a runny nose now. I've got a bit of a scar on my cheekbone. I've got a bit of a gap between my teeth now." + +The prince revealed he always thought of himself as a "model-type guy" but said he had to accept his "marketability". + +He added: "I've got a bit of a computer in my hand, I'm not quite as good at maths as I used to be. + +"I'm still the same type of guy as I was as a child. I'm a bit of a romantic – I'd like to be married and have a family. + +"I think I'd like to do theatre, but I'm not sure I'm quite good at it. I've been doing it for a few years now, but I've never actually done anything serious. + +"I wish I could have played the lead in a show. I'd love to be a leading man, but I've never been in a play." + +Harry has been the subject of much fanfare since arriving in London from the US in 2012. + +(Image: PA) + +The prince, who is married to Meghan Markle, has not always been so approachable to the public. + +He was initially seen as being distant from the public eye and his only public appearances had been to attend royal weddings. + +The prince has also been the subject of much criticism for his decision to marry a woman with a history of drug abuse. + +The prince and Ms Markle are expecting their first child in April.<|endoftext|>In an effort to get more people to vote, new campaign ads are being run against Republicans running for office. + +Democrats are using the campaign to try to convince voters that Republicans are out of step with the majority of Americans on key issues, including climate change. + +"We're hoping to get out and tell the people who are deciding their district for this year's election, they need to vote for a champion for climate change," said Patty Schade, press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. + +The ad, called "Vulnerable, Not Vulnerable," features a woman talking about how Republicans in +======================================== SAMPLE 431 ======================================== +This Is Why You're Ditching the Mac + +Apple's Macs are on their way out, and many of the people who depend on them for work aren't happy about it. We've rounded up the reasons why you're getting rid of your Mac, and it's not for the reasons you might expect.<|endoftext|>This is an easy recipe for the ultimate Pumpkin Pie. We've made it a couple times, both times it was not as good as the first time. This time we improved on the recipe and made it a little healthier. We replaced the flour with a combination of graham, oat and coconut flour and used less butter and less sugar. The sweetener was only half of the original recipe. We also made some variations on the filling with some chocolate or chopped nuts. + +For the filling: + +2 cups pumpkin seeds + +1/2 cup raisins + +1/2 cup chopped walnuts + +1/2 cup chopped peanuts + +1/2 cup brown sugar + +1 teaspoon cinnamon + +1 teaspoon vanilla extract + +For the crust: + +1/2 cup coconut flour + +1/2 cup oat flour + +1/2 cup brown sugar + +1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + +1/2 teaspoon baking powder + +1/4 teaspoon salt + +1/2 cup coconut oil + +1/2 cup melted coconut oil + +1/2 cup chopped nuts + +1/4 cup chopped chocolate + +Directions: + +1. Preheat the oven to 350F. + +2. In a bowl combine the pumpkin seeds, raisins and walnuts. In a separate bowl, combine the peanuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and baking powder. Stir well. + +3. In a medium bowl, add the coconut flour, oat flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Stir well. + +4. In a small bowl, add the melted coconut oil and melted coconut oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir well. + +5. Pour the dough into a greased 9-inch pie plate and press it down slightly. + +6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the center is set. Let the pie cool for about 10 minutes before cutting into slices. + +7. Enjoy!<|endoftext|>A man who was found guilty of murdering his wife in a horrific house fire in Cairns has been sentenced to life imprisonment. + +In a rare move, Judge John Bissett allowed Damien Hickey to remain free on bail, meaning he could leave the prison without being supervised by bail agents. + +The judge said he was concerned at Hickey's lack of remorse and the apparent lack of any history of violence. + +"I have no doubt that you had a mind to kill your wife and you are very sorry for what you have done, but your remorse is not sufficient," the judge said. + +"I am not going to be swayed by the combination of remorse and a lack of history of violence. I don't think it's good enough. + +"I don't think the evidence is there to allow you to be released on bail. + +"You will be supervised by bail agents. I do not think that is a good idea," he said. + +Hickey, 39, was found guilty of murdering his 39-year-old wife, Stephanie, in November 2011. + +He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on December 8, 2012. + +He was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 23 years and six months. + +The judge said he was taking into account the fact Hickey was a father of two children. + +He said Hickey had no history of violence and that he had no doubt he had been provoked. + +"I have no doubt that you were provoked by your wife," he said. + +"I am not going to be swayed by her final words. I am not going to be swayed by that." + +He said he was also concerned about Hickey's risk of reoffending if released. + +"The issue is not whether you are likely to reoffend, but rather what risks you pose if released," the judge said. + +"There is nothing to suggest that you are likely to reoffend." + +Hickey was arrested in Cairns after his wife's body was found. + +He was charged with murder and was due to face Cairns Magistrates Court on March 14. + +However, the State Government had refused to grant Hickey bail, saying the case was too sensitive. + +A group of more than 200 protesters held a rally outside the court last night. + +Hickey's lawyer said he pleaded guilty and was glad to have his day in court.<|endoftext|>The most beautiful ladies of the world, you're about to experience a very special and unique experience. + +Well, as you can probably tell from +======================================== SAMPLE 432 ======================================== +In the early afternoon of May 3, 1974, a 27-year-old woman named Lenore Zimmerman was walking home with her husband and two small children. She had just finished her shift at a grocery store and had gone home to put on her coat and put her children to bed. She was the mother of a little boy, who was a month shy of his first birthday. + +That night, Zimmerman's husband found a woman and her children hiding in bed. She was crying and screaming, begging for her husband to kill her. She said she was being raped and that her husband was raping her with a gun. + +Zimmerman grabbed the gun and fired at the woman and her children. She hit the little boy in the head, killing him. + +The woman was shot three times; her children were shot five times. + +The couple fled the scene, but Zimmerman's husband was apprehended the next day by police and later was convicted of first-degree murder. + +Zimmerman, who was a single mother of two children at the time, was later awarded a $150,000 settlement from the city of Philadelphia for her injuries, which included a bullet lodged in her brain. + +In 2009, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay Zimmerman $1.2 million in a civil suit, but her attorney says that still isn't enough. + +"The city is asking for $3 million, but it's only going to cost $18 million for the legal fees and I don't think that's even close to being enough," says attorney Robert Shapiro. + +Shapiro says Zimmerman's family is still living in fear and that she has been unable to work since the shooting. + +"She's still unable to walk down the street without being followed," says Shapiro. + +Shapiro, who is also a police officer, says he is not doing this for money. + +"I'm doing this for the integrity of our society," says Shapiro. "We need to make sure that these things don't happen again. I don't want her to have to go through the same experience that I went through." + +The city of Philadelphia has agreed to pay Zimmerman $18 million for her injuries, for which Shapiro says he is fighting. + +"We have to stop this," says Shapiro. "We can't let this happen again."<|endoftext|>I'm back to my usual routine, posting on the blog, sorting out a load of paperwork and getting busy with my new reading. + +This year I will be attending the annual conference of the ASP.NET Core framework, as part of my role as a member of the Microsoft .NET Foundation's executive committee. + +I am also a regular attendee of the Microsoft .NET Foundation's .NET Core Summit and will be attending the next one in March next year. + +The .NET Core Conference is a great opportunity to get the latest news and updates from the community and be a part of the discussion. + +There will be several sessions covered during the conference which will cover a range of topics including: + +.NET Core + +Web API + +ASP.NET Core + +Azure Services + +MVC + +WPF + +Xamarin + +Razor + +I'm looking forward to being there and having a good time with my fellow .NET developers. + +Advertisements<|endoftext|>It's a decent sized town, with a lot of buildings and a large lake. It's pretty close to the border with the North Sea, which is a nice thing to have, and it has a very nice train station which is always busy. The local news will usually be on the news channel, and there are a few shops which sell some interesting things. + +The town is run by the Town Council. It consists of the mayor, who is the head of the town council, and 7 councillors, who are elected by the people. It's a very well run town, and the people are all very good natured. + +The mayor is a friendly guy who will talk to you if you talk to him, and will encourage you to help out his town by building things. He's also the one who gives you the key to the town, so you can get to and from the town. + +The town council consists of 7 councillors. They are elected by the people. The mayor is the head of the council, and is the representative of the town. There are 7 members of the town council. They are elected by the people. The mayor is elected by the town. There are 7 members in the town council, who are elected by the people. + +There are 7 members of the town council, who are elected by the people. They are elected by the people. The mayor is elected by the town. There are 7 members in the town council, who are elected by the people. + +There are 7 members of the town council, who are elected by the people. They are elected by the +======================================== SAMPLE 433 ======================================== +I'd like to get some opinions from you guys about the new maps we've been working on. It's been a long time since we've put out a new map, and it's been a while since we've updated the old ones. We're going to be releasing a new map called "Rise of the Black King". There's a reddit thread here, but I wanted to get a few more comments from you guys. + +First off, we wanna know what you think about the theme. Would you like to see an expansion of the theme like Rise of the Red Dragon? (which is one of the maps that we released in 2008) or would you rather have "new" maps that are more different from the old ones? + +Secondly, we wanna know if you're happy with the new map layout. There seems to be a lot of people talking about the map layout, so let's hear your thoughts. + +Lastly, we wanna know what you think about the new map mechanics. We've talked a lot about the different ways you can kill your opponents in the new maps, but we want to know what you think about the new map mechanics. + +Thanks for your time, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!<|endoftext|>I have been thinking a lot about the idea of a universal basic income lately, so I'm going to try to explain my thinking. + +Let's start with the definition of a basic income. I am using the American Heritage dictionary, which defines a basic income as: + +a monthly payment from the government to a person or institution for life, paid in some unit of account + +So according to this definition, basic income is a monthly payment from the government to anyone. It does not mean that everyone is getting a monthly payment from the government. It just means that everyone is getting a payment from the government, in some unit of account. + +So I think we can see that basic income is a very powerful idea, because it allows people to benefit from the freedom of choice and the voluntary market without being under ever-increasing economic, social, cultural, and political control from the state. + +However, in order for basic income to work, there are several conditions that need to be met. + +The first condition is that the government needs to provide a payment from the government, in some unit of account. The second condition is that the government needs to be able to collect this payment. The third condition is that the government needs to be able to collect the payment from everyone. + +The first condition is easy to fulfill. The government already collects taxes, so they do not need to collect basic income. The second condition is a bit more difficult to fulfill, since the government needs to collect the payment. It is a bit more difficult for the government to collect a payment from everyone. The government does not have the resources to collect a payment from everyone, but it can collect the payment from a small percentage of people, for a limited time. + +The third condition is also difficult to fulfill. The amount of basic income needs to be small enough that you know that you will get a payment from the government, but large enough that even if you do not get a payment from the government, you will still be better off than you would be without basic income. The idea behind an unconditional basic income is that you will be better off than you would be if you did not receive basic income. The idea behind an unconditional basic income is that you will be better off than you would be if you did not receive basic income. + +So to summarize, these conditions are easy to fulfill. The government can collect it from everyone, but the payment needs to be small enough that it does not seem like you are receiving it from the government, but large enough that you have a better life than you would have if you were on your own. + +Now let's talk about the income that we would get from a universal basic income. Here is a rough estimate of the income that we would get from a universal basic income. + +Income before taxes (excluding taxes for the existing social safety net) = $0 + +Taxes for current social safety net = $0 + +Taxes for basic income = $0 + +Total income = $1,000 + +(This is not an exact calculation, but it gives you an idea of what the income would be if you received a basic income) + +I think that the first condition is easy to fulfill. The second condition is probably difficult to fulfill, but the third condition is easy to fulfill. The income that we would get from a universal basic income is only about $1,000 a year. + +This makes sense, because the government collects taxes, so they do not need to collect basic income. It makes sense because the government can collect the tax from everyone, but the income that we would get from a universal basic income is only about $1,000 a year. + +Now let's talk about the income that +======================================== SAMPLE 434 ======================================== +For the past two weeks, the defeat of the Republican health care plan in the Senate has been a primary focus of the Democratic Party, and the party is doubling down on its opposition. + +On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted that Republicans were "moving forward with their plan to rip away health care from millions of Americans." + +Senate Republicans are moving forward with their plan to rip away health care from millions of Americans. We can't let that happen. — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2017 + +On Sunday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that the bill is "not a health care bill," and the Democratic National Committee, which has been calling for Democrats to oppose the bill, tweeted a link to a page for its supporters to tell their senators to oppose the bill. + +Don't let the repeal of #Obamacare happen. Contact your Senators in opposition to the GOP's bill. https://t.co/oJWpY2l5l8 pic.twitter.com/CzPmEt8qGD — DNC (@DNC) July 18, 2017 + +The Senate's health care bill could be the first major legislative defeat for Democrats in seven years, and it would be their first shot at implementing the Affordable Care Act since President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. Since then, Democrats have struggled to find a way to make it more palatable to voters while trying to make good on their promise to keep it in place. + +But after Trump's victory, Democrats have had to focus more on appealing to the base, and the health care bill represents a major opportunity to do so. + +That's because public opinion of Obamacare has continued to slide, and in recent polls, Democrats are losing ground. A Morning Consult poll conducted in early June found that 49 percent of likely voters have an unfavorable view of Obamacare, while only 37 percent have a favorable view. + +A Quinnipiac poll conducted in late June found that just 23 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of the health care bill, while 58 percent have an unfavorable view. + +"The public doesn't like it and that's not going to change," Drew Altman, a Democratic strategist and president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told NBC News. "I think what's interesting is that the Democrats are still trying to explain why it's a good idea, but I don't think the public is buying their argument." + +Altman added that the bill's approval rating may be driven by the unpopularity of Trump's plan. + +"It's very hard to pass a health care bill in the first place. You need an unpopular president to approve it," he said. "Maybe the Republican Party is so disgusted with him that they're afraid they can't pass any health care bill." + +Democrats have been unified in opposition to the Republican bill, and their opponents have been unified in opposition to them. The Senate's two most vocal opponents of the bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), are both still in the Senate, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is largely known for her progressive stances, has been at the forefront of the criticism. + +In a statement released Thursday night, Sanders said that he would not support the GOP plan. "I intend to oppose the motion to proceed to the bill, and will oppose any effort to amend the bill in order to get it to my desk," he said. "It is simply unacceptable that Republicans would attempt to ram through a massive tax break for the rich and massive cuts to Medicaid without a guarantee that states will be able to afford to keep their promises to the people they represent." + +On Sunday night, McCain issued a similar statement. "I will vote no on a motion to proceed to the bill unless it is amendments that improve the bill or are necessary to fix it," he said. "I have serious concerns about this proposal. I hope that Republicans will address my concerns." + +In an interview with NBC News' Chuck Todd on Sunday, Warren said that McCain was "one of the few senators who I know is willing to stand up and say, 'I can't support this bill,'" and added that if the bill were to pass, "I think it will be a huge disaster." + +"If it passes, it's a disaster for millions and millions of people, it's going to be a disaster for the middle class, it's going to be a disaster for seniors," she said. "I think people are going to see the ripples of this and they're going to say, 'I can't believe how big this is.'" + +The push to stop the bill is likely to ramp up further as the Senate takes up its own version of the bill, which could include a number of changes to the bill's Medicaid provisions. + +"I think that there are some very good ideas in there +======================================== SAMPLE 435 ======================================== +Cabot Pest Control is located in the heart of the Greenfield Village in Lorton, Virginia. We have been in business for over 25 years and are experienced in pest control for both residential and commercial properties. We offer a wide range of services including: + +Home Pest Control Services + +Commercial Pest Control Services + +Private Pest Control Services + +We have recently expanded our services to include the following: + +Caulking + +Worker Safety Training + +Pest Control License + +Pest Control Insurance + +Door Hanging Services + +We are insured and bonded to ensure that you are taken care of when you are at home. We are always looking for new and different ways to help our customers. + + +If you need to know more about a particular service, please contact us at: + + +(571) 866-8726 + +email: [email protected]<|endoftext|>(Natural News) If you're reading this website, you probably have all sorts of preconceived notions about a vegan lifestyle. You probably think the only people who would want to suffer through living without animal products are self-loathing, sick, diseased, callous, misogynistic, crazy, self-pitying, brainwashed, extremist, hateful, racist, and/or anti-Semitic. + +You probably think vegans are crazy, selfish, unenlightened, anti-science, and anti-life. + +You probably think vegans are really weird. + +You probably think veganism is a cult. + +You probably think vegans are delusional. + +You probably think vegans are evil. + +You probably think veganism is stupid and unhealthy. + +You probably think veganism is pseudoscience. + +You probably think veganism is just a fad. + +You probably think veganism is just for hippies. + +You probably think veganism is just for rich people. + +You probably think veganism is just for a few rich people, or for animals. + +You probably think veganism is just for people who hate animals. + +You probably think veganism is just for people who don't believe in God. + +You probably think veganism is just for people who want to control and manipulate animals. + +You probably think veganism is just for people who want to weaken and destroy the animal rights movement. + +But let's face facts… + +Like it or not, at least 90 percent of all people are at least slightly susceptible to the pro-animal rights message. If you want to convince them, you will need to use their own words against them, and to do that, you need to use words that they don't understand. + +To make matters even more confusing, you have to keep in mind that these same people are the ones who claim to be "all about empathy" and "all about compassion" when they're really looking for someone to blame for their own misery. + +Many people are simply not educated on the vegan lifestyle. They're not going to believe you if you tell them that they're killing too many animals, when they've never heard the phrase "animal agriculture." + +(Natural News has written about this before, and I'll repeat it here.) + +If you are going to tell people that they're killing too many animals, you will need to find some way to rationalize that claim. That's because most people are not going to believe that you're killing animals because you're vegan. + +So, here are some easy ways to convince the average vegan that you're doing the right thing. + +(Note: I've also included some tips on how to convince the average non-vegan that you're vegan on the next page.) + +1. Explain why eating meat is bad for you + +I'm not going to lie to you, and I'm not going to tell you that eating meat is good for you. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you that eating meat is bad for you. In fact, I'm going to tell you that eating meat is bad for you. But I am going to tell you why it's bad for you. + +The main reason meat is bad for you is because of the saturated fat, cholesterol, and antibiotics found in meat. + +According to the Harvard School of Public Health, saturated fat is associated with heart disease, high cholesterol, and cancer. + +Cholesterol is associated with a greater likelihood of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease. + +Antibiotics are associated with bacterial resistance. + +It's important to understand that the body can't process animal protein in the way it does plant protein. That's why it's so important to make sure that you get all of your nutrients from plant sources. + +2. Explain why eating vegetables is good for you + +Most people on the vegan diet eat meat and dairy products. So, it's not surprising that +======================================== SAMPLE 436 ======================================== +I acquired these from a local pawn shop in New York City. They are a replacement for the battered CRW's I have been using. I was very happy when I received them. + +The rubber is great, and the metal frame is nice. The belt is a little stiff for my tastes, but not so much that it will loosen up the belt loops. I know a lot of people like the metal frame, but for me it is just not what I was looking for. + +I have a few others I have stored in the trunk of my car to be used in the future. I will probably choose the black ones over the color gray ones for some reason. If I ever change my mind, I will buy a few more of these.<|endoftext|>LEE County Sheriff's Office The Lee County Sheriff's Office is investigating a nude photo involving the sheriff's wife. + +The sheriff's wife is under investigation by the Lee County Sheriff's Office for allegedly using her smartphone to send nude photos to a man she met on Craigslist. + +According to a news release from the sheriff's office, Lee County Sheriff's Office Deputy Melissa Lynn Moreland sent the man a photo of herself on her phone at the Lee County Courthouse on Monday. + +The sheriff's office said Moreland was still married to the sheriff when the couple met on the website. + +During the investigation, the sheriff's office said Moreland admitted to sending the photos to the man. + +"In addition to the photos, the Sheriff's Office is also conducting an investigation as to whether she let him photograph her genitals or altered the photos," said the release. + +The sheriff's office said Moreland was placed on administrative leave "pending the outcome of this investigation." + +Moreland posted $1,000 bond and was released. + +She was scheduled to appear in court on April 11 for a probable cause hearing.<|endoftext|>How to Make It + +Step 1 Combine the bread crumbs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and the 1/4 cup water in a medium bowl. Add the onion and garlic, and toss to coat. + +Step 2 In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs, egg, sugar, 1/4 cup milk, and parsley; toss to coat. + +Step 3 In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the broth, tomatoes, and tomatoes with their juices, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, about 4 minutes. Stir in the peas, and season with salt and pepper.<|endoftext|>Description + +Now updated for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus! + + +Perfect for your next photo shoot, this app will help you take those perfect photos for your Instagram feed and share the best moments with the world! + + +Features: + +• Full photo resolution support + +• Adjustments to the background, photo, and text + +• Stacks, straighten, and crop photos + +• Photo cropping with multiple selection + +• Image Enhancements + +• Save and share your favorite photos on Instagram + +• Optional manual cropping (Settings->Cropping) + +• Optional white balance + +• Ability to crop the background + +• Ability to crop the photo after editing + +• Auto crop when photo is resized + +• Automatically crop when photo is rotated + +• Auto-enhancements for photos with an original black and white photograph + +• Automatic HDR for photos with an original black and white photograph + +• Save multiple photos at once + +• Share multiple photos at once + +• Zoomable photo list + +• Share to Instagram and Twitter + +• Edit your photos with filters + +• Share to Tumblr (iOS only) + + +Camera Pro supports most popular photo libraries including: + +• Instagram + +• Flickr + +• Picasa + +• Facebook + +• Flickr Albums + +• NBC Photo Club + +• NBC Photo Club Cloud + +• NBC Photo Club Site + +• Picasa Web Albums + +• Snapfish + +• VSCO + +• Yousify + +• Flickr + +• Picasa Web Albums + +• Flickr Web Albums + +• Tumblr + +• Flickr Site + + +Please note that if you miss a photo and want to quickly snap back to it, you can swipe from the left side of the screen and quickly jump to the photo you missed. + + +Visit us at www.photopro.com for more information and to download Camera Pro for the iPhone.<|endoftext|>Last year, I wrote about the economics of Palestine. I was surprised that so few people, myself included, took the time to read it. So I am reposting it here to show my respect for the author, and to encourage others +======================================== SAMPLE 437 ======================================== +As the weather gets cooler and the days get shorter, more families are looking for a way to bring their children outdoors. We've all seen the photos of children sprinting through the air, and we've all been there. + +But how can children learn to swim in the cold water without a lifeguard? + +Here are a few tips for getting your child to the water safely. + +1. Start early + +The best way to get your child ready for the water is to start early. + +"You can start the process of getting your child used to the water when they're younger. Get them out of the house, spend time with them and let them have some fun. Get them to enjoy it and they'll be much more likely to be able to go out in the cold water," says Marie Griffith, author of "Swimming & Your Child: A Guide to Safe Swimming," which was just named a New York Times bestseller. + +2. Grab a bucket + +A bucket can be a lifesaver when it comes to getting your child in the water. A bucket is a lot more convenient to use than a wading suit. + +"Grab a bucket and get some ice, warm water and a towel," says Griffith. "Put the kid in the bucket, put the wading suit on and go." + +3. Let them grab a swimsuit + +If you're a parent, you can help your child get started by giving them a swimsuit. + +"When they're older, you can get them a wading suit. But for the beginning, you can give them a swimsuit so they can get comfortable," Griffith says. "It can be from a swim store or online. I've seen people take a swimsuit to the pool and put it on a little girl or boy and they've been doing great." + +4. Make sure they have a warm sweater + +A warm sweater can help your child stay warm in the water. + +"Once your child's used to the water, give them a warm sweater. It's the best thing you can give them," Griffith says. "You can give them a warm sweater for a swim or just give it as a gift." + +5. Practice + +You can help your child get used to the water by practicing several times. + +"Start with a warm up. Have them on their back and let them get a feel for it," says Griffith. "After they get comfortable, teach them to crawl in the water. Then, you can start them in the water. You can start with the little ones and gradually work up to the swimming pool. Then you can start your child in the water. Then you can start the whole process up until they can go in the water." + +6. Do it for fun + +If you don't have a pool, you can still get your child started in the water. + +"You can do it at home. Get them on a treadmill and let them run around in the pool," Griffith says. "It's really fun. You can practice swimming in the pool with the parents or just go out and practice on your own." + +7. Do it with a friend + +If you have a friend who is also a parent, you can swim together. + +"Swim with your friends. You can do it in a family pool or at the park. It really helps get your child used to the water," Griffith says. "Then you can swim with your friend in the pool and you can practice swimming together." + +8. Don't forget sunscreen + +Sunscreen can help prevent sunburn and can give your child a boost of energy. + +"You can always get sunscreen. If your child is very young, just use a little bit and use sunscreen in the water," Griffith says. "Remember to wear sunscreen and get plenty of water, too. The water is the best place to protect your skin." + +9. Don't forget sunscreen on the go + +You can leave sunscreen on your child's head when they're playing in the water. + +"It's a great way to help them stay warm," Griffith says. "They can apply a little bit of sunscreen to their forehead and it will be much more effective than going out in the cold water alone." + +10. Don't forget snacks + +Fragrant snacks and cocoa are great for keeping your child's energy up. + +"If they're going to be in the water, they need to have something to eat," says Griffith. + +11. Use your child's favorite swimwear + +A favorite swimsuit will help your child feel confident and comfortable swimming in the water. + +"You can get them a swimsuit that you like and your child will feel comfortable," Griffith says. "You can get them a swimsuit that's really comfortable and you can even get them a swimsuit from a swim store. They won't +======================================== SAMPLE 438 ======================================== +"You know what, would you rather I drove?" + +"Maybe, but you're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." + +"I won't make you do anything stupid," he said. "Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not sure about that. You're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." + +"I won't make you do anything stupid. Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"What are your hands made of?" + +"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they're not made of wood." + +"Well, if they're not made of wood, they're going to be pretty damn hard to hold onto." + +He paused. + +"Are you sure you're not joking, father?" + +"You've got a point there. You're right. I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid. I'm going to do it in a way that is completely safe." + +"You're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." + +"I won't make you do anything stupid. Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." + +"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." + +"Just keep me in +======================================== SAMPLE 439 ======================================== +The latest issue of Pocket Gamer UK (via VG247) reveals that the next Nintendo Switch game is in development by the London-based studio Rare, and will be an action-adventure game. + +"Rare has confirmed that it's working on a new game for the Nintendo Switch. We don't have any details at this time, but it's great to hear that the studio is working on something exciting," said VG247's Digital Foundry editor Ben Cousins. "A new Rare game is always welcome, as Nintendo is clearly keen to diversify its content, and it's not too long since we saw the studio's strategy on the PS4 with the launch of N++." + +"It's always great to see a new take on an old IP," he continued. "I can't wait to see what Rare is cooking up. And while I've always enjoyed the Uncharted series, I'm eager to see what Rare's got cooking up for the Switch. I'm sure it's going to be something special." + +A reveal trailer was also released by Rare, showing off the game's world and some of the action-based gameplay. + +You can also check out the full announcement trailer for Rare's new Switch project below. + +Rare's new game can be expected to launch this year.<|endoftext|>The Australian Government has announced a new electronic travel authorisation (eTA) scheme for the Australian Capital Territory. + +The eTA scheme is the first of its kind in Australia and will replace the current electronic travel authorisation (eTA) system. It will be administered by the ATSB and include the following key features: + +a formal application process + +a streamlined application process for all non-business eTA holders + +a single online portal for eTA applications + +a single online portal for eTA holders + +a single portal to manage all eTA applications + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA applications + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + +a single online portal to manage all eTA holders + + +======================================== SAMPLE 440 ======================================== +OTTAWA — Canadian job growth surged to its biggest monthly gain in a year as companies added more than 60,000 jobs in November, a sign the economy is on a solid path. + +The unemployment rate eased to 6.6 per cent last month from 6.7 per cent in October, Statistics Canada reported on Friday. + +A stronger-than-expected October employment gain is likely to fuel optimism that the Bank of Canada will hike interest rates again this year, although the central bank has not indicated whether it will raise rates in coming months. + +"It's the best news we have had from Canada in a while," said Brian DePratto, chief economist for Toronto-Dominion Bank. + +The job gains were broad-based and included a 13,000 increase in manufacturing jobs. + +The drop in the unemployment rate was driven by an increase in full-time employment to 66,200, the highest since 2001, and a drop in part-time employment to 16,200. + +Economists had expected the jobless rate to ease to 6.3 per cent in November, the lowest since September 2009, after the country posted its best employment growth in eight years last month. + +The drop in the unemployment rate in the energy sector was "a strong indication that the world's second-largest oil exporter is keeping pace with the global economy," said Emanuella Enenajor, an economist with TD Economics. + +The employment gains were broad-based and included gains in both full-time and part-time work. The number of jobs in agriculture also jumped to a record high. + +"Employment increased at a more rapid pace in November than in any month since June 2014," Statistics Canada said. + +The unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 rose to 11.3 per cent, the highest level since the jobless rate began to edge up following the recession, Statistics Canada said. + +However, the Bank of Canada has cautioned that the unemployment rate could rise as it weighs how many Canadians are entering the job market. + +"The key question is whether the labour market will have markedly improved by the time the Bank's next policy decision is made in mid-2015," said Sal Guatieri, an economist with BMO Capital Markets. + +The Bank of Canada has previously said that the unemployment rate is likely to rise as it weighs the overall size of the labour force. + +A report from Canada's largest private-sector union found that job losses accelerated this year, with about 1,000 jobs lost in November alone, in a sign that the economy is still losing steam. + +The Canadian Auto Workers said the latest numbers show "progress is being made, but not enough." + +"The labour market has been improving for a long time, but we still have a long way to go to get back to full employment," said Chris Aylward, vice-president of employment and social development with the CAA. + +The unemployment rate in Ontario jumped to 7 per cent from 6.9 per cent last month, while the rate in Quebec jumped to 7.4 per cent from 6.8 per cent. + +The jobless rate in Saskatchewan edged down to 6.7 per cent from 6.8 per cent, while the rate in Alberta edged down to 8.1 per cent from 8.2 per cent. + +Economists were expecting the unemployment rate to fall to 6.6 per cent next month. + +The government reported the economy lost more than 11,000 jobs in September, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 23,100, although the jobless rate has since fallen by 0.3 percentage points to 6.7 per cent. + +Last month, Statistics Canada also revised the August numbers upward to show that the economy gained 29,400 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 per cent from 6.7 per cent. + +On Friday, the bank's governor, Stephen Poloz, stayed the course that the bank is unlikely to raise interest rates until late 2015. + +"The risks to the outlook for the labour market remain tilted to the downside," he said in a statement. + +"This is, therefore, another message to the Canadian economy that labour market slack remains in place." + +Economists had expected the jobless rate to fall to 6.3 per cent. + +—With files from The Associated Press<|endoftext|>The Trump White House is reportedly considering rescinding its support for the Paris climate accord. + +The New York Times reported on Sunday that the White House has been exploring a global climate agreement that would take place later in the year. + +Under such an agreement, countries would set emissions targets and then work on them in conjunction with one another. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The Paris agreement has been at the center of the Trump administration's efforts to undo former President Obama's environmental agenda. + +In May, Trump signed an executive order that declared the United States would withdraw +======================================== SAMPLE 441 ======================================== +This story originally appeared on The Conversation. + +In the months leading up to this year's NHL draft, it was clear that the Montreal Canadiens were looking for a new face as the team's captain. + +They could not find it, however, and that led to the team taping a video of its captain to the wall of their dressing room. It was a publicity stunt, but it worked, and as a result, the Canadiens were able to find their next captain. + +If you're looking for the NHL's best captains, however, you might look elsewhere. It turns out that the players who lead the league in leadership are often not the players with the most experience in the NHL. + +This study looks at captains across the NHL, and how they compare to the players who lead other teams. The study looked at a total of 408 captains in the 2000-01 through 2013-14 seasons. + +Leadership is a tough thing to measure accurately, but there are a couple of ways that we can measure it. One way is to look at a player's performance compared to his teammates. If a player is a better player than his teammates, he's a better leader. + +If a player has a certain level of success with a particular team, he's a better leader. + +The other way to measure leadership is by looking at the players who lead other teams. If one of the teams that a player leads is better than the team that he currently leads, he's a better leader. + +So, the idea is to look at captains and captains-to-be, look at their performances over the previous couple of seasons, and see if they're better than the players who are currently leading their teams. + +The researchers used two tests to see if captains had a higher or lower level of leadership compared to the players they were currently leading. First, they looked at how well a captain performed while his team was winning, and then they looked at how well he performed when his team was losing. + +It turned out that captains were better leaders when their teams were winning, when their teams were losing, and when their teams were tied. + +The Big Three + +The team with the highest win percentage was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the lowest win percentage was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. + +The two teams with the highest win percentage were the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The two teams with the lowest win percentage were the Dallas Stars and the Montreal Canadiens. + +The team with the highest average goals scored per game was the Montreal Canadiens, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the lowest average goals scored per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. + +The team with the lowest average goals scored per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. The team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. + +The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +Based on these scores, the team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Montreal Canadiens, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Toronto Maple Leafs, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Dallas Stars. + +The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. + +The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Dallas Stars. + +The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Dallas Stars. + +The team with the second lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. +======================================== SAMPLE 442 ======================================== +Cambodian police said Thursday that a Chinese man whose body was found in the jungle near Bangkok has been identified as the missing businessman who disappeared in the South China Sea last month. + +The man was identified by his family as Zheng Zhaohui, who disappeared on April 15 while on a fishing trip in the body of a 40-year-old Chinese woman, state-run Global Times reported. + +He was later found by Thai fishermen in a remote part of the Gulf of Thailand, far from where he had been last seen. + +"We believe he was a victim of foul play, but we are still investigating," a police official, who asked not to be named, told AFP. + +The official said the woman's body was found by accident and the man's in a bad condition due to starvation. + +Zheng, a father of three, was last seen in Cambodia on April 15. + +He was reportedly last seen in a taxi with a Chinese woman who was not his wife, the Associated Press reported. + +The Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh confirmed to AFP on Thursday that he had entered their country on March 29 and was reported missing on April 15.<|endoftext|>A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday ordered the federal government to pay $18 billion to the families of 9/11 victims and their families in a lawsuit over the government's secretive use of so-called "black site" prisons. + +U.S. District Judge Richard Jones said the government must pay all proceeds from the lawsuit filed last year on behalf of the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Associated Press reported. + +Jones ruled that the families are entitled to $4 million from the government's use of the prisons where the 678 classified detainees were held after the attacks. + +The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that the families had no standing to sue because they're not U.S. citizens, although they are U.S. citizens. + +The families' attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said she was "thrilled" with the decision. + +"Our clients suffered horrific losses at the hands of terrorists who sought to do us harm. A disaster of this magnitude cannot be allowed to happen again," she said. "We are grateful to Judge Jones for providing us with the opportunity to seek justice for their loved ones in a federal court." + +The exact date the DOJ will start paying out the money to the families has not been determined, the AP reported. + +The DOJ received a court order requiring it to pay the $18 billion by Tuesday, according to AP. + +The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed last June, include the families of two men who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and families of two other victims who died in separate incidents.<|endoftext|>A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, has found a link between the brain's reward circuitry and marijuana use. + +The study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, found that marijuana use was associated with changes in the structure of the brain's reward system. The study also found that the hippocampus, a region of the brain responsible for learning and memory, was significantly larger in people with a history of marijuana use. + +The study, called "Long-Term Effects of Marijuana on the Hippocampus and Hippocampal-Substantia Lateralis Connectivity," follows a 2014 study from the same group of researchers, which found that a history of marijuana use is associated with impaired learning and memory. + +"It's likely that the hippocampus is a target for cannabis-induced cognitive impairments in some people," said the study's senior author, Dr. Ravi Somah, a professor of psychiatry at UC Berkeley and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "But it may not be all of them." + +Somah added that cannabis use might have additional consequences for certain areas of the brain, and that the studies are still preliminary and need to be replicated. + +In the new study, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 15 young adults, all of whom had a history of marijuana use. They found that the hippocampus was significantly larger in people with a history of marijuana use - 69 percent larger in some cases - compared to people without a history of marijuana use. + +The study also found that the size of the hippocampus was positively associated with marijuana use over the past month. + +The structure of the brain's reward system is important for reward processing, Somah said. "That reward system is involved in things like drug reward, and it's a useful anatomy for understanding the mechanisms by which marijuana uses might affect reward," he said. + +The previous study found that the hippocampus was smaller in people with a history of marijuana use, but it did not find a direct relationship between the size of the hippocampus and other brain regions. + +" +======================================== SAMPLE 443 ======================================== +"I'm a little bit torn about the way that it was handled," said John Lowenstein, an American who retired from the Air Force in 2010. "I'm not sure the kind of education that the generation was getting before they left the service was the right one for them."<|endoftext|>At the Bambino's, we make our own sausage, bread and pickles. We only use high quality beef and pork. We also use local ingredients whenever we can. + +From the very beginning, our patrons have been asking for a hand crafted PBR. We are now ready to start crafting our own PBR. + +We will be using the same recipes as we have used on Bambino's PBR's for the past 34 years. We have developed a unique recipe that will not only bring back PBR that is made right here in the USA, but it will also create unique new flavors. + +The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style + +The Chicago Style + +The Nashville Style + +The Buffalo Style Our customers have been asking for a delicious porter beer. Now we have it. The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style + +The Chicago Style + +The Nashville Style + +The Buffalo Style Our customers have been asking for a delicious porter beer. Now we have it. We will be making our own porter beer using the same recipe that we have used for over 34 years. The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style + +The Chicago Style + +The Nashville Style + +The Buffalo Style<|endoftext|>There are two types of training: + +The first, and most common, is "exercise and reinforcement". This is when you try to reduce your stress, using tools like music, food, or exercise. The goal is to become more efficient, and not used to stress. + +The second is "training" where you use the tools of the field to increase your effectiveness. + +The difference is subtle, but powerful. The first is emotional, and the second is intellectual. + +In the end, we all want the best for ourselves and others. If you want to become a better coach, you have to be emotionally and intellectually engaged with the task. + +This is why I love the job of a trainer. I get to be social, and connect with people. I get to help people to improve themselves. I get to learn things I never thought I would. + +This is why I want to share my journey as a personal trainer. This is the story of how I became a personal trainer, and what I've learned along the way. + +The first step to becoming a personal trainer is to ask yourself these questions: + +What am I passionate about? + +What am I good at? + +What am I good at? + +Now, that's a lot of questions. In reality, we usually have a bottom-up approach to our training. We start with a question, and then do the best we can to answer it. But the most important question is: + +What am I passionate about? + +This is the most basic question you can ask yourself. It is what motivates you. It is what makes you go to the gym. And it is what inspires you to continue. + +If you don't know what you are passionate about, you don't know what you need to do. + +This is the most basic question you can ask yourself. + +The reason this question is so hard to answer is because your answer will be different from person to person. + +Some people have one or two passions. They don't have many interests outside of their work, and they do it because it is a job. + +My friend, Ryan, for example, is a passionate cyclist. He loves cycling. He can't imagine a day without it. + +But he was working as a software engineer for a large company. He decided to quit to get back to being a cyclist. + +Then I asked him. + +"What do you want to work on and how do you want to do it?" + +He said he wanted to be a strength coach. He wanted to help cyclists learn how to keep their muscles strong. He wanted to be a teacher, and he wanted to help change the way people were thinking about weight training. + +I asked Ryan what he thought about it. + +"I'm not sure I want to be a strength coach. I'm just a friend of a friend." + +Ryan is passionate about cycling. He loves it. He loves being a cyclist. But he didn't have any passion for being a strength coach. + +My friend Ryan didn't have any passion for being a strength coach. + +I asked him why. + +"I like working on my bike. I like riding my +======================================== SAMPLE 444 ======================================== +The first thing I noticed was that the decks included in this tournament were all white. This is a pretty common theme at these tournaments, and I don't blame them. White is the most popular color by far. White is the color of the gods, the heavens, and the white stones that players will use to summon the immortal gods. White is the color of the wind, the oceans, and the wisps that are the way to the afterlife. White is the color of the knights that are good at fighting, and the knights that fight back. White is the color of the sky, the sea, the clouds, the world, and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the moon, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds +======================================== SAMPLE 445 ======================================== +"Babylon's great city was built in the time of Solomon, and its walls were made of brass. Its gates were of iron and its gates were of iron." -- Book of Judges, 2 Kings 24:25 + +The walls of Babylon--the ancient capital of ancient Mesopotamia--are well-known to all who have studied the history of the region. + +Yet the story of how the city was built has often been misunderstood or distorted. + +The following accounts, taken from the Bible, of the construction of the city of Babylon, are as accurate as we are able to make them. + +THE BUILDING OF BABYLON + +JOSEPH'S EXPLORATION + +Josiah's Report on the Construction of the City of Babylon + +The city of Babylon was built in the time of Solomon, at a time when Israel was in captivity. + +The name of the city is not given in the Bible, but it is supposed that the original name of the city was Hormah which means "the city of God." (1 Kings 17:26) + +Josiah, a king of Judah, was sent by the Persian king Darius the Great to repair the city. He had already been sent to Babylon by the king of Persia to repair the damage caused by the Assyrian war of conquest. (2 Kings 17:24) + +Josiah began his work in the temple at Pella, the capital of Judah. He returned to the temple at Babylon and set up a standard of national pride by erecting a golden statue of himself in front of the temple. (2 Kings 20:21) + +He also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:23) + +Josiah then returned to Jerusalem and continued his work. Joseph, a young man of noble birth, was appointed to be the chief administrator of the temple and the royal treasury. + +In those days there were no strong or rich men in Jerusalem. Joseph became wealthy because he bought and sold the people's goods in the market place. (Exodus 2:27) + +Joseph developed a reputation for honesty and integrity. (Exodus 3:12) + +He took the profits of these transactions and used them to build the temple at Jerusalem. (Exodus 3:15) + +Joseph also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:24) + +On the east side of the temple he built the Double Gate. (Exodus 3:18) + +In order to promote peace and harmony in the city he built a dam across the River Jordan and built a canal that led to the beautiful city of Jericho. (Numbers 19:26) + +In the city of Babylon he built to the east of the temple the Third Gate. (Numbers 19:27) + +He also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:23) + +JOSIAH'S REPORT ON THE BUILDING OF BABYLON + +The story of the building of the city of Babylon is told in two books by Joseph, the grandson of Heli, a prophet of the nation of Judah. + +The first of these books is called the Book of Josiah. (1 Kings 17:25,26) + +Josiah was a descendant of Heli. (2 Kings 16:18) + +The city of Babylon had become a symbol of the supremacy of a foreign king. + +Babylon was at a low ebb in its power. + +The people of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. (Numbers 19:26-27) + +The city of Babylon had become a symbol of the supremacy of a foreign king. + +In order to increase the power of the Babylonian king, Josiah began to build a great temple at Jerusalem. + +Babylon was at a low ebb in its power. + +The people of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. + +Josiah began to build a great temple at Jerusalem. + +JOSIAH'S REPORT ON THE TRIAL OF THE BABYLONIANS BEFORE THE ARCHANGELS + +The story of the trial of the Babylonians before the archangels is given in two books by Joseph, the grandson of Heli, a prophet of the nation of Judah. + +The first of these books is called the Book of Josiah. (1 Kings 17:26,27) + +Josiah was a descendant of Heli. (2 Kings 16:18) + +In those days there were no strong or rich men in Jerusalem. Joseph became wealthy because +======================================== SAMPLE 446 ======================================== +Gerri Robinson + +The purpose of this website is to provide a free resource for both veteran and civilian service members that is designed to help them better understand and overcome the challenges they face, including veterans who are homeless. + +In conjunction with the Veterans Crisis Line, this website will feature resources to help veterans and their families cope with the challenges that homeless veterans face. + +Veterans can call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) to have a trained professional in their community help them with any questions they may have about homelessness or their needs. + +Veterans who are homeless can access the VA's Vets4Housing website to help them find housing. + +Click here to follow the progress of this project.<|endoftext|>A new study by the University of Baltimore has found that when people have a glass of wine, they are more likely to consume more calories, but the effect wears off within a few hours. + +The researchers were interested in finding out whether the feeling of being buzzed or drunk might influence people's food intake. On the other hand, if people are more relaxed, they are less likely to eat. + +Researchers at the University of Baltimore's Department of Psychology, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, conducted two experiments to test this theory. + +The first experiment showed that people who were buzzed had more calories consumed over the course of several hours than those who were sober. + +The second experiment looked at whether people's state of being relaxed made them less likely to eat more. + +In both experiments, the researchers found that when people were buzzed, they were more likely to eat more calories than when sober. + +"We expected that people would eat more, but we were surprised that we found a 'dose response' effect, in which the effect wore off over time," said study author Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Baltimore. + +"This suggests that people can have a pre-drinks buzz, which might cause them to eat more and become more satisfied and distracted," she said. + +These findings are based on a study of 152 people, some of whom were in the study for a month and others for three weeks. + +The effect was most pronounced when subjects were in an enjoyable mood, and when they were in a state of high arousal (liking or wanting to engage in a task that involved exertion). + +"These results suggest that the buzz experienced during a drink is linked to increased calorie intake, but that the effect wears off within a few hours," said study author Dr. Dustin Lambert, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. + +"These results are consistent with the idea that people who are buzzed are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion or engage in their favorite activity," he said. "On the other hand, people who are relaxed may eat more because they are more concerned about their weight." + +In the first experiment, specifically designed to test the theory, a group of participants -- some of whom were in an enjoyable mood and others who were in a high-arousal state -- were able to consume up to 2,000 calories over the course of several hours. The researchers found that the group who was high on positive emotions, such as enjoyment, were able to maintain this level of intake for an extended period of time. + +In the second experiment, the participants were given three different types of tasks: a game of Monopoly, a word search game and a game of "Angry Birds." Participants who were high on positive emotions were able to complete the tasks for three hours. + +"Generally, people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to be active, which could lead them to consume more calories," said study lead author Dr. Steven O'Keefe, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. + +"We also found that people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion, which could lead them to consume more calories," O'Keefe said. + +In the second experiment, the researchers showed the participants a series of images that were either positive or negative, and asked them to rate each image on a scale where "very negative" means "very little" and "very positive" means "very much." + +The researchers also asked participants to rate the intensity of the images, and they found that those who were high on positive emotions were more likely to rate negative images as "very negative" and "very positive." + +"The reason for this is that people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to feel satisfied with their lives and are more likely to have positive attitudes about the world and people," O'Keefe said. + +"These findings suggest that when people are high on positive emotions, they are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion, +======================================== SAMPLE 447 ======================================== +As the hectic week ends, it is time to reflect on the fantastic year so far and look ahead to 2017. + +And with that, I have put together the best and most popular content from this website so far. + +You can view it in full here: Top 25 Articles + +I hope you enjoy reading it and if you have any feedback, thoughts or opinions on these articles, feel free to leave a comment below. + +*Disclaimer: The list is limited to the most popular articles and does not mean that I did not publish something of interest. + +Like this: Like Loading...<|endoftext|>Enjoy the best of both worlds in the ultimate game of ultimate frisbee: ultimate disc golf, and ultimate disc golf. Ultimate Disc Golf is the world's fastest growing sport, and the first disc golf disc to be certified as a non-golfing sport. Play with your friends and family in over 80 countries around the world. Play for fun or compete with friends in the ultimate disc golf world championship. + +Ultimate Frisbee is a non-golfing sport that is played on a disc. Unlike traditional sports, you don't have to worry about wearing cleats or a jersey. All you need is a disc and a pair of shoes. The disc that we play is made for Ultimate Frisbee. It is made of a high-density polyethylene and is light weight (1.5 oz.). It is 5 3/4 inches in diameter and the weight varies depending on the size of the disc. The disc will fly over 300 yards. + +The Ultimate Disc Golf game is similar to disc golf. Yes, you can play disc golf with a frisbee. But, ultimate disc golf is played faster than disc golf. The rules of Ultimate Disc Golf are similar to those of disc golf. + +The Ultimate Disc Golf game is also similar to golf. You can enjoy Ultimate Disc Golf in any weather. In fact, Ultimate Disc Golf was created in a golf course in Utah because it is a better weather sport. + +Ultimate Disc Golf is played in 85 countries around the world. In the United States, the most popular disc golf course is in Oakland, Calif. (52,000 members). + +Ultimate Disc Golf has become an international sport, and the sport has been featured on television programs such as "The Ultimate Fighter" and "Dancing with the Stars." + +However, the ultimate disc golf game is not for everyone to play. Ultimate Frisbee is a non-golfing sport that can be considered as a sport. The rules of Ultimate Disc Golf are similar to those of non-golfing sports. However, Ultimate Frisbee is played faster and the players are not allowed to wear cleats or jerseys. + +In the past, Ultimate Frisbee was only played on the streets. However, the sport has now become more popular. On a typical Friday night, there are at least 50 people playing Ultimate Frisbee. + +Ultimate Frisbee is played by using a disc, which is held in the hand. You must hold the disc with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand and the middle finger of the left hand. The disc must be held in a straight line until it is released. + +As you can see, Ultimate Frisbee is very different from traditional football, baseball and basketball. + +There are no team names that are called out during the game. The players are called out by the thrower and you are called out by the receivers. + +There are no penalties for unnecessary contact, roughness, roughing the passer, or rougher play. You can't even use your hands or feet to block the ball. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, the thrower is the smartest and the smartest player is the disc. In Ultimate Disc Golf, the thrower is the disc. The disc is called a disc because it is propelled from the hand. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you must control the disc in order to catch it. To throw the disc, you must be in control of the disc at all times. You can't throw the disc when you are in the middle of a wind, or when the wind is blowing. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you must use your eyes, hands, body and feet to catch the disc. To control the disc, you must use your hands and feet. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't throw the disc faster than 100 mph. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't play if you are older than 18 years old. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't hit the disc more than 14 times. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't take your hands off the disc during play. + +In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't use your hands to hold the disc. + +Ultimate Disc Golf has won several awards, including the prestigious "Best Tee Placement" award, presented annually by the Professional Disc +======================================== SAMPLE 448 ======================================== + +A former FBI official with knowledge of the investigation says that special counsel Mueller's team is investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct justice in his dealings with former FBI director James Comey. + +The person spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not clear whether the investigation was still active or whether Mueller had opened a grand jury. + +"It's clear that the special counsel's investigation is looking into whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts to interfere with the election," the person said. + +The person declined to identify the specific point of focus or say when the investigation is looking into the matter. + +ADVERTISEMENT + +The revelation is the latest twist in Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which has embroiled the president in controversy over his firing of Comey and his decision to turn over to the White House his memo detailing a conversation between him and the president in which the president urged him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. + +Trump has repeatedly denied that he tried to obstruct justice, and his attorney, Marc Kasowitz, said during a news conference last week that the president was not under investigation. + +The revelation could further complicate Trump's efforts to defend himself in the Russia probe. + +The president has repeatedly said he did not ask Comey for his loyalty. The question of Comey's commitment to the FBI has become central to Mueller's investigation. + +The former official said that Comey's refusal to pledge his loyalty to Trump within a set window of time, for example, could be a matter of concern to Mueller. + +"That would be the most glaring example," the person said. + +The former official also said that Mueller's team is closely monitoring any financial ties between Trump associates and Russia. + +"The nexus between the campaign and Russia right now is money," the person said. "Anybody who is trying to connect that directly to obstruction of justice is going to have a hard time." + +Mueller, a former FBI director, was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to serve as special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, including possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia. He was confirmed by the Senate in May. + +Trump has called the investigation into Russia's interference "the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history" and has repeatedly called the Russia investigation a "taxpayer funded charade." + +The Senate intelligence committee said last week that it had established an investigative subcommittee to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the campaign. + +Mueller's team has also assembled a team of investigators to review documents and interview witnesses as part of its investigation, according to the person. + +--This report was updated on July 24 at 5:28 p.m.<|endoftext|>"It's always nice to set goals, but if you set goals for yourself, you can achieve them. It's always nice to have a goal, but you can't achieve it if you don't have the motivation to achieve it." + +― Steve Jobs<|endoftext|>Leading tech companies have backed a new campaign to get more women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. + +The campaign, called #In-N-Out, aims to increase the number of women in STEM fields by getting them to try out new products. + +It also helps make sure that companies are recruiting the right kind of women and encouraging them to apply for the roles they want. + +The challenge is to offer women products and services that are fast, easy, easy to use and don't require special training. + +Some of the products include burgers, fries, shakes, and fast food sandwiches. + +The companies involved are Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo. + +"In the past, women have been discouraged from entering technical fields because they were discouraged by the lack of job opportunities," said Tracy Chou, director of technology, media and entertainment at In-N-Out Burger. + +"Women in tech are still under-represented in the workforce, but we feel strongly that by offering products and services that are simple, accessible and hard to resist, we can inspire more women to enter the fields." + +The campaign is being run in collaboration with the National Science Foundation. + +Each company is also encouraging their employees to take on the challenge. + +"We're encouraging our employees to show the world what their workplace can be, and let the chips fall where they may," said Facebook. + +"We're encouraging our employees to show the world what their workplace can be, and let the chips fall where they may." + +The new gender gap in the workforce is one of the most pressing issues facing the country. + +According to a 2009 report from the National Science Foundation, women in the US are under-represented in STEM careers. + +According to the report, women make up about a third of all students who pursue a science, technology, engineering or math-related degree. + +The +======================================== SAMPLE 449 ======================================== +High school football player Eric Johnson is charged with aggravated assault and stalking. He's charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend in a way that led to her getting arrested, and now Johnson is in prison. + +A judge in Canton, Ohio, cleared Johnson of the charges Friday, saying there was no evidence to show a crime had occurred. + +His ex-girlfriend, Kelsey Johnson, was arrested Sept. 26 after a domestic incident at their home. Police said Kelsey Johnson allegedly threatened her ex-boyfriend with a knife and told him to "get out of the house" if he called the police. + +Police said after Kelsey Johnson was arrested, she texted her ex-boyfriend and asked him to call 911. He did, and she was arrested. + +Eric Johnson, who's in jail, was arrested several hours later after police said he tried to stop a police officer who was trying to question Kelsey Johnson. + +Johnson's attorney, Michael DeWolf, said Kelsey Johnson had tried to call the police before. She did it twice before, and she did it again after Johnson called her, DeWolf said in a statement. + +"This arrest was a continuation of a longstanding pattern of harassment by Eric Johnson against his ex-girlfriend," DeWolf said. "He has been arrested numerous times for domestic violence and stalking. Yet he has never been arrested for the acts of which he was charged today." + +Kelsey Johnson has been released from jail on $5,000 bond. She's scheduled for a preliminary hearing next month. + +Follow TODAY.com writer Eun Kyung Kim on Twitter.<|endoftext|>A bipartisan group of senators is calling on the Obama administration to ease restrictions on the export of military-grade cyber warfare technology to foreign governments, according to a letter obtained by The Intercept. + +The senators, led by Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois, say they're looking into proposals that would allow foreign governments to purchase cyber warfare capabilities from U.S. companies without the restrictions that currently apply. They also want to see the government make it easier for U.S. companies to sell cyber weapons, a possibility that has been raised as part of a wide-ranging debate over the future of cyber warfare. + +"The United States is in a unique position to lead in an area where there are no uniform standards within the international community. We should not be held back by the U.S. government's outdated policies," Kirk and his colleagues said in the letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. + +The Obama administration has a history of being reluctant to allow foreign governments to purchase cyber weapons from U.S. companies. A certain amount of technology is considered "critical infrastructure," according to the Department of Homeland Security, giving the government the authority to regulate the sale of such technologies. + +But some lawmakers, including Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a long-time supporter of legislation that would allow the sale of U.S. cyber weapons to foreign governments, have suggested that the Obama administration should ease restrictions on the export of such weapons. Lieu has introduced a bill that would do just that. + +"The United States should not be the only country that can defend the Internet against foreign hackers," Lieu said in a statement to The Intercept. "The U.S. government should be able to export the necessary capabilities to enable its allies and partners to defend against cyberattacks." + +The letter was signed by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). + +The senators also appear to be interested in a proposal from the House set to be considered by the House Rules Committee this week that would allow companies to sell cyber weapons without requiring them to register as munitions exports, a requirement that has been in place since the Clinton administration. + +The move comes as the Obama administration is considering a broad set of proposals intended to regulate the sale of cyber weapons to foreign governments. In June, the White House released a two-page proposal that included a number of proposals to allow the sale of cyber warfare capabilities to foreign governments with an eye toward making it easier for companies to sell such capabilities. The proposal would also allow certain foreign governments to buy U.S. cyber weapons without having to register as munitions exporters, as currently required. + +In a speech given at the Texas Emerging Technologies Summit last month, +======================================== SAMPLE 450 ======================================== +When you're raising your little ones, you want to make sure they're healthy. At the same time, you want them to be safe and comfortable. There are many games for this, but the one I've chosen is one of my favorites: Carcassonne. + +Carcassonne is a game of building a medieval village from a starting base. The town is your domain. You distribute resources and work out your strategy for the next turn. The more resources you have, the more powerful your town. The more powerful your town, the more danger you face. The more danger you face, the more units you can build, and the more options you have to interact with the world. + +Carcassonne is a lot like a board game, and it shares a lot of similarities. It's filled with tiles, and you can place your own pieces as well as those of other players. It's also full of small pieces, like the little leprechauns, rabbits, and other random things that you can build. + +In Carcassonne, the player who has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. But there's a slight twist. If you can't place your pieces on a particular tile, you lose. In other words, you can't always just build a road to your opponent's town. It's a little bit like poker, but with Carcassonne, you can bet your life on the dice. + +The game is also fairly easy to teach. I've played with my kids and they've played with their friends. They've all understood the rules, and they've all enjoyed playing. + +Here's a video of me demonstrating Carcassonne: + +I've written a few blog posts about Carcassonne, including a two-part series about the tiles (you can see those here and here). I also created a video series here. + +To learn more about Carcassonne, here's my review of the original Carcassonne. + +Here's a quick video of a Carcassonne game: + +If you've never played Carcassonne, I recommend you give it a try. You'll love it.<|endoftext|>The first thing you'll notice when you walk into the Twin Peaks restaurant in the city of Rockville, Maryland is the giant mural painted over the place. The mural depicts a '60s-era man in a white suit, complete with hat and bowtie. The man is holding a telephone to his ear, and a caption on the wall reads: "I am the chief of police." The man is holding a gun to his head, and a caption on the wall reads: "I am the sheriff." + +The mural was painted after a man named Brian Buckner drove by the restaurant one day and noticed it. + +"I was looking out the window, and I saw this weird looking man here in the restaurant, so I stopped and I said, 'Hey, what's going on here?' He said, 'That's my sign.' And I said, 'Oh, that's a good sign.'" + +The man was the manager of Twin Peaks, and he had been painting the mural for over a year. He and his staff spent hours paint-brushing the mural over, and the only thing left behind was the wall. + +"It was a beautiful piece," Buckner said. "It was very beautiful. This is what I grew up on, and I didn't want it to go away." + +Buckner didn't want to just paint over the mural, though. He wanted to add something more important to the place. + +"I thought it would be really cool if I could put a plaque or a sign to tell you what Twin Peaks is, why we're here, and what we're all about," Buckner said. The plaque is still in place, and the sign was installed on the wall in the middle of the restaurant's dining room. + +The mural was installed in 1979, in honor of Brian Buckner's father, who was employed at Twin Peaks when it was first established in 1957. Brian Buckner said his father was a very proud man — and he's still proud of the mural. + +"It was a sign of how far our town had come, and the fact that we're still here," Buckner said. "It's not going anywhere. We've got a bright future here." + +Buckner has been a Twin Peaks employee for over 20 years, and he said the restaurant is a community that's been very good to him. He said he's been to the Twin Peaks restaurant on almost every weekend for the past 20 years, and he's been a frequent customer of the shop. + +"I love this place," Buckner said. "I love it, and I love it, and I love it." + +As for the mural, Buckner said it's +======================================== SAMPLE 451 ======================================== +What is the purpose of a Long-term Care Facility and why should I choose one? + +A Long-term Care Facility is an emotional, physical and financial home for families and individuals with a complex range of needs. Many individuals and families draw on this home for both short- and long-term care. It is a place to live, sleep, work, play and be loved. It is a place to raise children, run a business, take classes and make friends. It is a place to open a business, own a home, or retire. It is a place to relax, without the pressure of household chores or the daily grind of work and money. + +A Long-term Care Facility can take care of a person's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. The home can be a safe and secure place for the individual with complex needs. This home provides the individual with the support and services that are needed. The Long-term Care Facility can provide: + +Long-term care services and services for people with disabilities + +Long-term care services and services for residents of residential care facilities + +Outreach and other special programs for the community + +Assistance in financial and life management + +Care management and supervision + +Dedicated and knowledgeable staff + +A Long-term Care Facility can provide the individual with the support and services needed. Assistive technology and equipment is available and can be used at home, at the facility, or in the community. The Long-term Care Facility can also provide: + +Information about services and programs in the community + +Information on transportation and transportation to the facility + +Information about medical care and services + +Information about state and federal laws and regulations + +The Long-term Care Facility can provide: + +For more information about Long-term Care, please contact the California Long-Term Care Association, Inc. at (916) 985-5994 or visit their website.<|endoftext|>The last time the U.S. relinquished sovereignty to Russia, the country was one of the world's great powers. Today, it is a rogue state, one that was a major player in the Ukraine crisis, and it holds onto a nuclear arsenal. That's why it's so problematic that the Trump administration has begun to cozy up to Vladimir Putin. It's a mistake that could leave the U.S. beyond the reach of the international community. + +Understanding the current situation is essential to understanding the present situation. It's also why what little we know about the administration's approach to Russia is so frightening. + +The United States has a decades-long, multi-layered, and highly complicated relationship with Russia. The 1990s saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. and Russia began to rebuild their relationship. The end of the Cold War brought the two nations closer, but also threw the U.S. and Russia into conflict over the future of the former Soviet Republics. Since then, the U.S. has used limited means to punish Russia for its actions, ranging from sanctions to the expulsion of Russia's diplomats. + +Advertisement + +Over the past few years, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have engaged in a series of talks to try to resolve the conflict, but it's been a struggle. The U.S. wants Russia to cut its support for Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria and Russian ally. The Russians want the U.S. to stop supporting rebels fighting Assad. The U.S. wants to prevent more attacks from the Islamic State, but also wants to support the Syrian government. The U.S. wants to prevent Russia from extending its reach into Ukraine and the Baltic States. The Russians want to keep Ukraine from turning into a failed state and to reduce tensions in the Baltics. + +The United States' failed attempts to engage Russia have contributed to the current state of affairs. + +Russia's behavior in Ukraine has been responsible for the current state of affairs. The U.S. and its European allies pushed the country around for years, creating a crisis in which Russia's economy was decimated and Russian citizens were forced to flee for their lives. When Trump began his campaign, he seemed to have an interest in improving relations with Russia. He called for a friendly foreign policy toward Russia, and was supportive of NATO. He seemed more comfortable getting along with Putin, however, and he spoke favorably of Putin's leadership. + +But that changed when the U.S. discovered that Russia had been interfering in the 2016 election. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian intelligence had hacked the emails of senior Democrats, and that Russia leaked the information through WikiLeaks to help Trump win the election. Trump has repeatedly denied that Russia was behind the hack, and the U.S. intelligence community has said that it has no evidence that Russia interfered with the election. + +Trump's campaign has been inconsistent in its response to the alleged Russian hacking. In September, +======================================== SAMPLE 452 ======================================== +4-4-2: Lukaku; Mbappe, Dellavedova, Otamendi, Silva; Sane, Eriksen, Kane; Eriksen (O'Neal 46), Kane (Kane 65), Sissoko, Son Heung-min (Shaw 55). + +Copy this link to share your team: + + +Paste HTML to embed in website: + + +Beta: Currently working in all browsers except Internet Explorer. + +Share on Facebook Share on Twitter<|endoftext|>A pair of new reports will reveal the future of the Big East, and the possible loss of Louisville. + +The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. + +A pair of new reports will reveal the future of the Big East, and the possible loss of Louisville. + +The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. + +The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. + +Two new reports, released this week, show the Big East on the brink of collapse. + +The Big East's future is in doubt after uncertainty about when and if Louisville will leave the conference. + +The league is in danger of losing its only major power player. + +That's a terrible thing for so many reasons, but perhaps foremost because the Big East is in danger of being removed from the list of national power conferences. + +Both reports, from The Big East's annual survey of athletics directors, indicate the conference will lose the final two schools in its current 22-team fold. + +It all comes down to Louisville and West Virginia. + +Louisville still is a year away from a decision on its future, but a decision is expected in the next two weeks. + +Meanwhile, the Big East is not expected to lose West Virginia, but the school is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks about its future. + +The Big East is in the midst of a major coaching change, as Pitt's James Franklin will take over the Mountaineers. + +That change will likely be enough to give the Big East a serious scare, even though the conference will probably survive the loss of Louisville. + +The Big East is in financial trouble. + +The Big East has been in the red for several years, and according to the new reports, the conference has $5.2 million in debt and a projected deficit of $10 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1. + +When Will Louisville Leave? + +There's speculation that Louisville might leave the Big East. + +The real question is whether the Cardinals will leave before July 1, or whether they will decide to leave a few weeks later. + +The Big East could lose the Cardinals this summer, but their decision is far from certain. + +What is clear, though, is that the Big East will be in trouble without Louisville. + +The Big East has been without a major power player for more than a year, and the fact Louisville is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks means the Big East might not be able to survive the loss of Louisville. + +There's no question the Big East is in a crisis, and that will not change if Louisville leaves. + +There's no question the Big East is in a crisis, and that will not change if Louisville leaves. + +It's possible that Louisville leaves, but it's also possible the Cardinals stay. + +It's possible that Louisville leaves, but it's also possible the Cardinals stay. + +Another Big East school, Rutgers, has also looked at leaving the conference, but the school has yet to make a final decision. + +Another Big East school, Rutgers, has also looked at leaving the conference, but the school has yet to make a final decision. + +Rutgers and Louisville should have no trouble finding other schools to join them in the ACC and SEC. + +The Big East is in a bad position, and it's going to be difficult to prevent the departure of one of its most important players.<|endoftext|>A new twist in the ongoing story of the fate of the lunar rover Curiosity has been revealed by NASA's own video footage, indicating the rover has moved away from its original location. + +The change in position was first reported in a blog post by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. + +"You can see that Curiosity has moved away from its original location," wrote JPL's Ken Herkenhoff in a blog post. + +"The rover is currently about a meter away from the 'target' location, where a sampling system was placed. The rover is also about a meter away from the rock that the system is on." + +The rover is currently about a meter away from the 'target' location, where a sampling system was placed. The rover is also about a meter away from the rock that the system is on. + +The new location of Curiosity, which has been named +======================================== SAMPLE 453 ======================================== +We are happy to announce that we have added the new MASSIVE Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion to our service. This new expansion includes a new skirmish, new epic missions and a whole new Star Wars: The Old Republic story. + +We have also introduced a new feature called the "Story Journal" that will allow you to keep track of your progress and achievements throughout the game. This feature will be available from the beginning of the game and will give you new insight into the galaxy as you progress through your adventures. + +While the new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion is now available, we are taking this opportunity to provide a free upgrade to all players. All you have to do is log in and claim your free upgrade to The Old Republic. + +This new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion is available for everyone. + +If you have any questions about the new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion, please have a look at our FAQ. Also, please consider following us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. + +The Old Republic Customer Service can be contacted at support@swtor.com.<|endoftext|>The first official match of the 2016-17 season was played on Sunday, as the Colorado Rapids hosted the Charleston Battery at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, kick-off time TBD. + +The Rapids are in their first season in Major League Soccer since 2008, and are now on the verge of making their return to the playoffs. The team finished the 2015 campaign in third place in the Western Conference, just off of the final playoff spot. + +The Battery are also making their first appearance in the new season, and are looking to make the playoffs for the first time since 2012. They are also coming off of a 7-11-6 season in 2015, which saw them finish below the playoff line. + +The game was played in front of 8,391 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and the score was 1-0 for the Rapids. + +The Battery Lineup: + +Goalkeeper: John Smits, Charleston Battery + +Defenders: Lewis Neal, Kevin Ellis, Carl Haworth, Taylor Mueller, Richard Menjivar, Darnell King, Brian Ownby + +Midfielders: Stefan Marinovic, Andrew Carleton, Kyle Keller, Ian Cochrane, Matt Reis, Sean St. Ledger, Martin Paterson, Jhonny Arteaga + +Forwards: Eric Stevenson, Brian Ownby, Carl Haworth, Brian Ownby + +Colorado Rapids: Tim Howard; Kevin Doyle, Deshorn Brown, Jared Watts, Sam Cronin; Dillon Powers, Marc Burch, Bobby Burling (Carlos Alvarez 76'), Jared Watts (Caleb Calvert 72'); Kamani Hill, Vicente Sanchez (Sebastien Le Toux 61'), Juan Ramirez + +Substitutes Not Used: Chad Barrett (gk), Justin Braun, Francisco Calvo, Marc Burch, Jared Watts, Jonathan Macha + +Charleston Battery Lineup: + +Goalkeeper: Aaron Wheeler, Charleston Battery + +Defenders: Cole Seiler, Tommy Redding, Kupono Low, David Tuba, Kevin McKnight, Chris Cortez; Mark Anderson, Elias Hernandez (Jonny Steele 84'), James Marcelin, Marvin Chavez, Bradley Kamdem Fewings + +Midfielders: Jake Fenlason, Gideon Baah, Chris Goslin, Jamie Watson, Ben Newnam, Donnie Smith (Paul Black 79'), Carlos Alvarez (Sebastien Le Toux 82'), Josh Smith (Jhonny Arteaga 75'), Steve Neumann + +Forwards: Carl Haworth, Eric Stevenson, Brian Ownby, Kyle Keller, Brian Ownby + +Goals Scored: + +Charleston Battery: James Marcelin (penalty) 2' + +Colorado Rapids: Dillon Powers (Carlos Alvarez 71'), Kory Kindle (Andrew Carleton 59'), Marlon Hairston (Carl Haworth 63'), Marc Burch (Donnie Smith 61'), Eric Stevenson (James Marcelin 71'), Carlos Alvarez + +Substitutes Not Used: Nick LaBrocca, Dillon Powers, Dillon Serna, Dillon Powers, Carlos Alvarez, Dillon Serna + +Stats Summary: + +Shots: 11/12 + +Shots on Goal: 2/2 + +Saves: 5/6 + +Corner Kicks: 5/7 + +Fouls: 3/3 + +Offside: 0/0 + +Misconduct Summary: + +Caution: Jonathan Macha (caution) (caution) + +Offside: 1/1 + +ATT: 8,381<|endoftext|>"We are going to work together to make sure that every single middle-class family in America has the opportunity to go to college," Hillary Clinton said in a speech to the National Association of Black Journalists on Monday. | Getty Clinton defends Obama legacy in speech to black journalists + +Hillary Clinton +======================================== SAMPLE 454 ======================================== +The 'Spoofing' of the Bible by Phil Robertson + +When it comes to Christianity, it's easy to be a snob about it if you're not a Christian. + +The Bible is a megaphone providing an instantaneous voice for the voice of God. It is often shared through scriptures, stories and parables. But what if we're the ones who snub that megaphone? + +Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution; the Bible is not. This means that any church or faith can change the Bible in an instant by making a few changes to the text. That's not right. + +This is the main reason why it's such a great idea for the GOP to nominate someone who has a track record of changing the Bible. + +The North Carolina pastor who made headlines recently for making a flippant comment about homosexuality was also a man who changed the Bible. He did so by changing the words of the Bible to fit his own personal views. + +The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released a report about the "spoofing" of the Bible. The phrase is used by some Christians to describe the way in which a church can change the Bible to fit their own beliefs. + +The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life says that the Bible is the "most frequently cited book" when discussing faith. + +The Pew Forum also says that "some 30% of adults self-identify as Christians who do not read the Bible." + +This means that those 30% of adults who do not read the Bible have a significant impact on the content of the Bible. That's right. + +According to Pew, 76% of people who do not read the Bible think that the Bible is a book of moral values and teachings that teach moral values. + +When the Bible is changed to suit a church's views, the result is not only a change in the content of the Bible, but an attack on the very concept of the Bible itself. + +This is why it's such a great idea that the GOP is selecting Phil Robertson as their nominee for president. + +He has a track record of changing the Bible to fit his own beliefs. He also has a track record of leading others, including children, into sin. For instance, he suggests that homosexuality is a choice. + +It's not just a choice, Phil. It's a choice to practice a lifestyle condemned by God. + +Here's what he told GQ: + +"And, you know, it's interesting. I've heard that from so many Christians, that it's a choice, it's a sin. You can choose to be gay, or straight, or whatever, but that's not the issue. The issue is the person. So, if a man can't control his own sexual impulses, who are we to say that he's a Christian?" + +Robert G. Ingersoll, the great political philosopher, also used the phrase "spoofing" to describe the practice of changing the Bible. Ingersoll compared the practice to that of altering the Constitution. He said, "We must allow all the branches of the government full power to make all laws, even when contrary to the Constitution." + +He said that this is a violation of the Constitution. This is what we need to teach our children. + +If the GOP really believes in the Constitution, then they need to nominate someone who has a track record of changing the Bible to fit their own beliefs. + +This is the only way that the GOP can win in November. + +Join the conversation + +Are you an evangelical Christian who is excited to see a GOP candidate with a track record of changing the Bible? Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter. + +What do you think about the change to the Bible that Phil Robertson made? Scroll down to comment below.<|endoftext|>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game that people are still talking about. We here at Nintendo Power have been asking ourselves: is this the best Zelda yet? And we're not talking about the 3D remake (though that one is absolutely amazing). This is the true spiritual successor to the epic classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. + +Of course it's the "spiritual successor" part that the GamePad screen doesn't tell you. Breath of the Wild is an adventure game that feels like a modern Zelda. It doesn't require you to use the map like the previous games in the series. Instead, the game moves you through the game in a simpler way. + +What's more, the game feels much larger. The game is actually a lot larger than it's predecessor and is much more open. You can go to areas that you've previously missed by not knowing about. While the game is great in its own right, it's a great addition to the series to be able to explore other areas. + +The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has given +======================================== SAMPLE 455 ======================================== +Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:30:45 ID: ea6a6f (1) No.5658 >>5684 >>5483 + +>'I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' + +>GamerGate is killing. We should be doing this and so should you. + + +If you're wondering why I have an "I'm telling you" in the subject line, it's because I'm NOT trying to kill people. That's what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. I'm trying to stop them from killing people. + + +>>5658 + + +Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. When you oppose the mass murder of innocent civilians, you are, in fact, doing exactly what I'm telling you to do. + + +I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy. + + +You are doing exactly what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. + + +Stop it. + + +>Doesn't that mean we're all gonna die? + +>Why have I been told to start killing people? + +>I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' + +>GamerGate is killing. We should be doing this and so should you.If you're wondering why I have an "I'm telling you" in the subject line, it's because I'm NOT trying to kill people. That's what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. I'm trying to stop them from killing people.Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. When you oppose the mass murder of innocent civilians, you are, in fact, doing exactly what I'm telling you to do.I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy.You are doing exactly what the people who make up Anonymous are doing.Stop it. + +Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:32:29 ID: 4c7c6f (7) No.5659 >>5675 + + +>The people who make up Anonymous are doing exactly what I'm telling you to do. + + +No. They're not. They're just the biggest bunch of fucking pussy magnets on the internet and they got their own personal army of useless twits who don't give a shit about anything except their own reputations and their own egos. No. They're not. They're just the biggest bunch of fucking pussy magnets on the internet and they got their own personal army of useless twits who don't give a shit about anything except their own reputations and their own egos. + +Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:32:45 ID: 57e6f4 (2) No.5660 >>5662 >>5658 + +>I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' + + +I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy. + + +Stop. Stop. Stop. + +Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:33:14 ID: b2dfef (1) No.5661 +======================================== SAMPLE 456 ======================================== +The City of Winnipeg is warning residents about the potential for flooding on the South Shore near the Assiniboine River. + +The river is expected to crest at 63.39 metres on Wednesday. The combined flood threat is at 70. + +"The forecast is that the river will crest at 63.39 metres and go higher than the 60 metre mark," said Jim Baikie, Winnipeg's chief administrative officer. + +"It depends on how much rain falls and how much the river surges. It's a very important forecast to keep an eye on." + +The river is expected to crest at 63.39 metres on Wednesday. (City of Winnipeg) + +The river is expected to peak at 63.39 metres on Wednesday and then crest at 70.44 metres on Thursday. + +"The water will be heavy, so people are advised to be prepared," said Baikie. "We advise people to get into the highest ground they can, whether it's a rooftop or the roof of an unoccupied building." + +The city is also asking residents to be aware of potential flooding in their neighbourhoods. + +"As we have seen in the past, when there's a heavy rain event, there can be flood waters in areas that don't have a foundation," said Baikie. + +Flood watches are in effect for Waverley, North Kildonan, St. Boniface, St. Boniface East, St. Boniface West, River Heights, Kenaston, Sargeant Flat, Mount Royal, Portage la Prairie and West Kildonan. + +Winnipeg River Flood Warning - Public Traffic Information + +Winnipeg River Flood Warning - Public Traffic Information<|endoftext|>Sir, I would give the impression that the authors of the paper are familiar with the literature on the mechanisms of androgyny in men and women. The fact that the authors cannot find any empirical evidence supporting the claim that men differ in women's brains on any dimension is unfortunate. + +The authors of the article have an opportunity to make up for their lack of knowledge about the literature on androgyny in men and women. The authors should be prepared to publish the findings of their study using the same methods they used to analyze the data and they should use the same statistical methods to analyze the results. + +I am surprised by your comment. In your paper, you provide a detailed treatment of the evolutionary reasons for why women and men are drawn to different kinds of mates. You argue that a lack of women on the market for men is a result of natural selection. You explain that women seeking mates are more selective than men are and therefore are more likely to prefer mates who are compatible with the attributes that women are particularly good at: ovulation, fertility, and lactation. + +Evolutionary biology provides support for your claim. + +My research has shown that women are indeed more selective than men are and that women are more likely than men to mate with men who are more similar to them on all the attributes they value. I have also shown that men and women generally differ on the traits they value. I have also shown that the tendency for men and women to differ on these traits is a result of natural selection. + +This is a simple, yet powerful, idea. Evolutionary biology provides support for the claim that the most important time for the success of an individual is when a potential mate is at the peak of her reproductive value. If this is true, then a woman who is not fertile is a waste of resources. Therefore, just like men, human females have evolved a high sexual drive to find a mate who is most likely to be fertile and to produce offspring. + +In your paper, you discuss the evolutionary forces that have shaped the evolutionary history of the human sex chromosome system. You argue that the potential male mate of the human female has evolved in a way that allows the female to be in a position to select the most compatible mate for her offspring. You conclude that the female needs to be very selective in the type of mate she chooses. + +This is a well-established evolutionary explanation. The female is not the only one who needs to be selective in the type of mate she chooses. The male also needs to be selective in the type of mate he chooses. This is a simple point. + +Your article has the potential to change the way we think about mate choice in humans. It is the first time that a biological explanation has been provided that explains the differences between men and women in mate choice. + +The article is a great example of how psychology can inform empirical studies. Your research is a perfect example of the importance of psychology in the study of sex differences. + +The authors of the review article have done a good job of summarizing the existing literature on sex differences in mate choice and have made numerous suggestions for future research.<|endoftext|>The recent decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement is a grim reminder of the dangers of our global addiction to fossil fuels +======================================== SAMPLE 457 ======================================== +1. A person who is to be provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be eligible for a home health care card if such person (A) is at least sixteen years of age; (B) has been determined by the department of public health to have a chronic health condition that substantially limits one or more essential life activities; and (C) is otherwise eligible for and is eligible for special health care needs under section 2953.101 of the Revised Code. + +(D) A person who is not eligible for a home health care card and who is provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be entitled to receive a home health care card but only if the person receives such care or treatment in a facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code. + +(E) A person who is not eligible for a home health care card and who is provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be entitled to receive a home health care card only if the person receives such care or treatment in a facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code. + +(F) As used in this section, "home health care card" means a card issued under sections 5119.01 to 5119.07 of the Revised Code. + +Amended by 129th General AssemblyFile No.28, HB 153, §101.01, eff. 9/29/2011. + +Effective Date: 07-01-2004 . + +(A) Except as otherwise provided in divisions (B) to (F) of this section, the following persons may not obtain a home health care card: + +(1) A person who is in a health care facility, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or who is a resident of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or a residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, that is provided by a county, municipal corporation, board, or other municipal agency or by the department of mental health, developmental disabilities, or addiction services under chapter 5119. or 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; + +(2) A person who is an active member in good standing of a labor union, of a professional or trade union, or of an organization that represents the interests of members, or is an active member of an organization that represents the interests of residents or clients of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; + +(3) A person who is an active member of an organization that represents the interests of residents or clients of a health care facility, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; + +(4) A person who is employed by a health care facility or who is a resident of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; + +(5) A person who is a member of the clergy, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; + +(6) A person who holds membership or leadership positions in a religious, political, adult education, or similar organization, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in +======================================== SAMPLE 458 ======================================== +Shutterstock + +In New York City, it's considered rude to make a phone call during breakfast. But on a recent morning, a New York City firefighter was overheard making a phone call while eating breakfast. + +The New York Fire Department's Facebook page shared the video of the firefighter, who was eating breakfast at a local restaurant. "Don't get me wrong, it's all good and everything," the firefighter said at one point. "But, you know, sometimes you gotta take a break. It's hard. Give me a break. I'm not mad at you. I'm just hungry. I'm hungry." + +The video has since been deleted from Facebook. + +The New York Fire Department is a department of nearly 7,000 firefighters, policemen, and paramedics. In 2012, the department had a budget of $1.4 billion.<|endoftext|>It's been more than a year since the release of the Nexus 5, and, as expected, the handset has been a hit. Google and its partners have sold more than 100 million Nexus 5 handsets since the Google-branded handset launched on November 21st. + +This is a phenomenal success story, and it's only just beginning. Google has announced that the first Nexus 7 tablet – arguably the best Android tablet ever made – is set to arrive in the coming months. + +Google already has the Nexus 7 tablet in its stable, but that doesn't mean it will ship in the first half of 2013. The Google Play store has already set the date for the first Nexus 7 to hit the streets, but that's not the only tablet that will be available at launch. + +Android Central reports that there will be two new tablets available at launch. They're the Asus-made Nexus 7 (2013) and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″. + +The tablet only comes in black, with a plastic back, and is expected to sell for around $199. It's a tablet, and it's going to be pretty big, too – the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD 7″ measures in at 7.4mm thick, making it the thinnest 7-inch tablet on the market. + +The Kindle Fire HD 7″ is also a bit thicker than the 7″ Nexus 7, at 7.1mm. With a weight of 4.6 pounds, it's also a bit heavier than the 7″ Nexus 7. + +Both tablets will be available in the first half of 2013 for the following prices: + +Google Nexus 7 (2013) – $199 + +Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″ – $179 + +Here's a quick look at the new tablets: + +[Image Credit: Flickr]<|endoftext|>Contents show] + + +History + +I am Stephen Strange, and I believe that nothing should stand in the way of a man's mind being his own master. -- Stephen Strange src + +Before the 1960s, Stephen Strange was a rich Jewish American who had inherited his uncle's fortune. He was trained as an attorney by his uncle and was one of the best lawyers in New York City. However, he was later imprisoned at the hands of the mad sorcerer, Dr. Stephen Strange. + +Strange was imprisoned for a crime committed against the U.S. government. He was freed after his uncle agreed to make a deal to settle the case. Strange was then sent to the secretive island of Sakaar where he was to serve as the leader of a new Sakaarian government. He also met his future wife, the Black Widow, and began an affair with her. Strange was later freed by the Avengers and joined the team, where he formed a close friendship with Thor and became a friend of the Hulk. + +Strange was then recruited by the Masters of Evil to take them to Sakaar. However, Strange was tricked into fighting the Hulk and fell to the planet's molten core. He was rescued by Thor and the Hulk, who took him back to Earth to continue his training. + +In the meantime, Strange had been accused of killing his uncle in a court of law. He was then sent to the Seagate Prison in New York City, where the government wanted him to serve as an advisor to the new government. There, he met the Black Widow, who became his lover. Also, when the government was attacked by the Masters of Evil, Strange was captured by the government. + +Strange was then sent to the U.S.S.R. + +Strange was imprisoned by the government for three years, during which time he became a close friend of the Hulk. Strange received a cell mate, the armored Hulk, who was also imprisoned for three years. In addition, Strange helped the Hulk survive prison by offering him medical supplies. + +Strange was eventually reunited with the Hulk while he was imprisoned for a crime committed against the United States. After the Hulk was freed, the two bonded, and Strange once again became the Hulk's close friend. Strange also helped the Hulk while he was in the Siberian wilderness. +======================================== SAMPLE 459 ======================================== +I'm sure many people will probably be confused about why I'm posting this. + +I won't attempt to explain all the reasons why I feel the way I do, because I believe that it's best to leave it up to the reader to decide if they want to follow me on this journey as I go on with this, or not. + +What I will say is this: I'm not an atheist. + +I've done my best to explain that my views on religion are simple. I find it very difficult to believe that these beautiful creatures that we think of as gods, can be anything but selfish, hateful, and cruel. I believe that their actions and words are no better than those of any other animal. + +I believe a lot of the things that are taught in religion (whether it be Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism) are simply not true. I believe that the very concept of God is a lie. I believe that we are all here in this world because God created us, and that there is no deity that I know of who would have sent me here if he was not real. I believe that we are all interconnected. I believe that there's more to life than just ourselves, and that we should all strive to work together to take care of one another. + +It is as simple as that. + +What I believe is that there are no gods. That there's no heaven. That there's no hell. I don't believe in a God. + +I believe in reality. + +Good people. Bad people. A good person is someone who does good deeds for others, and a bad person is someone who does bad deeds for others. A good person does good deeds because of love. A bad person does bad deeds because of anger. A good person doesn't go out of their way to hurt others, they do what they can to help others. A bad person does what they can to hurt others. A good person doesn't take pleasure in hurting others. A bad person does because of pleasure. A good person doesn't kill. A bad person does because they feel the need to. + +I believe in responsibility. + +I believe that all people have a right and duty to take care of themselves and their family. I believe that there are things that we each can do to take care of ourselves, and to take care of our family. I believe that we will all eventually die, and that none of us will be around to see that event. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. + +I believe that we all have a right to be happy. I believe that it is absolutely wrong to take pleasure in causing the pain of others, and that we should all work together to take care of each other, our family, and our friends. I believe that we should all participate in our society, and that we should all do what we can to make it a better place. + +I believe that we should all try to find happiness in our own lives. I believe that there are things we each can do to make our lives more enjoyable and more fulfilling. I believe that we are all here to make the world a better place, and that we should all strive to make it a better place. + +I believe that we all have a right to the same basic things that we were given. I believe that no matter how much we may try, we will never be completely satisfied, and that we should all strive to take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. + +I believe that we all have a right to be safe. I believe that it is absolutely wrong to take pleasure in causing the pain of others, and that we should all work together to take care of each other, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. + +I believe that we should all strive to be kind and honest with our fellow man. I believe that no matter how hard we try, we will never be completely satisfied, and that we should all strive to take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. + +I believe that we should all try to find happiness in our own lives. I believe that there are things we each can do to make our lives more enjoyable and more fulfilling. I believe that we will all eventually die, and that none of us will be around to see that event. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, +======================================== SAMPLE 460 ======================================== +I'm going to need to go get myself a cup of coffee. + +That's because in the wake of the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena, Trump has been doing the one thing he can do to take the heat off himself: blame the entire country for the heinous act of violence. + +"It's a terrible thing that's going on in the world, and we have to be very tough, we have to be very, very vigilant," Trump said on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning, before adding, "We need that. We need a very, very strong border. We need an unbelievable, strong military." + +Trump then moved on to blaming the Democrats for the attack, accusing them of "buying" the media, despite the fact that the FBI has already closed the case. + +"If you look at the way they spin it, their narrative is that Trump is behind this," Trump said. "The problem is that they really don't have a good narrative." + +Unsurprisingly, the media didn't take the entire argument lying down. + +"Trump's tweet was an attempt to blame the victims of a terrorist attack for their own death," CNN's Jim Acosta said. "It's hardly the most presidential response." + +"Upstairs, they're blaming everyone but themselves," he continued. "And downstairs they're blaming everyone but themselves."<|endoftext|>Posted 14 December 2012 - 02:19 AM + +The only problem with your set up is that you are not putting your lead in the half-full bucket properly. It will get too hot and will easily crack when you put your hand underneath. If you do this right, your lead will stay cool and in the half-full bucket. You will still need a bucket, though, to be able to take your lead out after the rest of your bowl is done. + +Edited by Candy, 14 December 2012 - 02:20 AM.<|endoftext|> Play Video  Play   Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:00 Loaded : 0%  0:00  Progress : 0% 0:00 Progress : 0% Stream Type LIVE Remaining Time -0:00 Playback Rate 1  Chapters Chapters  descriptions off , selected Descriptions  subtitles off , selected Subtitles  captions settings , opens captions settings dialog + +captions settings captions off , selected Captions  Audio Track  Fullscreen This is a modal window. Caption Settings Dialog Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Opaque Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Defaults Done + +"It is a matter of weighing our interests against our values," she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "We need to take care of those who are vulnerable. We need to take care of those who are hungry. We need to take care of people who are homeless, not to be cruel, but to provide them with a chance to survive." + +She said that the situation in America is "very different" than in other countries. + +"We have a better system of food stamps. We have a system of healthcare. We have a system of housing. We have a system of education. We have a system of job training for people who are trying to get a job," she said. + +Clinton made the comments at a campaign event in New Hampshire with her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has been on a speaking tour to promote Democratic economic policies. + +"We have a better system of healthcare. We have a system of food stamps. We have a system of childcare. We have a system of education. We have a system of job training for people who are trying to get a job," Clinton said, adding that she supports the minimum wage hike that her running mate has proposed. + +"We want to do more to lift people up," Clinton said. + +"We will not let anyone take away the dignity that comes with work, the dignity that comes with responsibility," she continued. "And we will never let anybody reduce the share that any American family earns." + +The Democratic candidate has been criticized by some for her husband Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill, which placed tight restrictions on the amount of time people could spend in prison, depending on their crimes. + +Some of the legislation's provisions +======================================== SAMPLE 461 ======================================== +Hollywood is full of stories about how difficult it is to get a movie made. But it turns out that creating an original story is even harder. + +When Netflix released "The OA" on October 21, the streaming service's move into original programming — which was announced in February 2014 — was hailed as a watershed moment. The series, which debuted on the Fox network, follows Prairie Johnson (Evan Rachel Wood), a woman who went missing at age 16. After 20 years, her family (led by director Brit Marling) begins to question whether she is still alive. + +The series is based on the best-selling memoir by Brit Marling, who is best known for creating the Netflix series "The OA." In the book, Johnson describes herself as an African-American woman who was able to elude the system during her childhood in New York City, despite being raised by a single mother (Nora Lumet) and a father (Wood). + +"It's a great story, and it's really about family, and it's really about being a good person," said Marling, who is best known for the "True Detective" series. "I think it's really about the things that can be taught, that you can be taught, and that when you're told those things, you can choose to do them or not do them, and really what that means." + +Netflix is the first major streaming service to put its money behind original programming, and Marling said that her first impulse was to pitch the show to other cable networks. But when Netflix approached her, Marling said she asked if she could make a deal with the streaming service. + +Related Emmys: The Good, The Bad and the WTF - Watch Video 'Designated Survivor' Seasons 1-2 Hop from Hulu to Netflix, Ahead of Netflix's Release of Season 3 + +"Netflix said, 'Can you make a deal?'" she recalled. "And I said, 'Sure, why not?' And they said, 'OK, we'll take a shot.' And that's what happened." + +Netflix has been reluctant to discuss the show's financials, but Marling said that it has generated enough interest to be a show that the company would want to renew. + +"The [original] concept is that you don't know if it's real or not," she said. "You kind of see through it, and we have to see through it, too." + +The show's success has put the spotlight on the challenges of adapting a book to a television series. + +"The OA" is a sprawling story about Johnson that takes place in three time periods. It's a unique story, because the book is set in 2000, when the real-life events that are depicted in the series don't actually happen. Marling said that she was motivated to write the series because she was trying to figure out what it meant to be a black woman in America in the early '90s — a time when she wanted to be an actress, but didn't have the means to do it. + +"I think it's important for people to know, especially black women, that there are very real challenges," she said. "I think there's a lot of false images of black women and black women's bodies out there." + +Marling said that she felt compelled to write the series in order to raise awareness about the issues that black women face in the entertainment industry. + +"It's not something that I'm happy about, but it's something that you have to do for the greater good," she said. + +Marling said that she was interested in the idea of a show that was a "normal, everyday" story for a black woman in America — but that she also wanted to focus on the issues that black women face. + +"I don't want to just be like, 'Well, I'm just like a regular black woman, I don't have any special powers,'" she said. "I want to talk about it, because I think that's what people need to hear."<|endoftext|>Somali-American women's soccer star Abby Wambach says she has a "huge problem" with the way women's soccer players are treated in the sport. + +In an interview with the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire program, Wambach said the attitudes of many male players toward women in the sport "just makes me sick." + +"It's like we're not allowed to be there," she said. "We're not allowed to be there. We're not allowed to even be there. We're not even allowed to exist." + +Wambach said that women's soccer has been a "very male-dominated sport" for decades, and said there are still "a lot of guys who just don't get it." + +"I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we are in this male-dominated sport, and it +======================================== SAMPLE 462 ======================================== +The term "leftist" has been co-opted by a sizeable section of the left to refer to those who have a liberal, democratic outlook, and in particular those who agree with the social democratic understandings of socialism, and who are opposed to racism, imperialism and sexism. + +This is, of course, a legitimate perspective, and it is one that has been fully articulated by the left over the last century. But unsurprisingly, this perspective has been adopted by a section of the left in the UK, and has been adopted by the likes of the Guardian, the Independent and the New Statesman and the New Internationalist, among others. + +Leftists who adopt this view have not been subtle about it. In a passage from his recent book, The Left and the Radical Right, the Labour MP Michael Meacher said: + +"In fact, the left is currently dominated by a movement of 'leftism' which is essentially liberal-democratic. It is based on the idea that capitalism is a system in which people can have a decent life and that the state can play a necessary role in protecting the interests of working people." + +In another passage from The Left and the Radical Right, Meacher wrote: + +"It is the oppression of women which is the most obvious example of this 'leftism'. And it has been so for some time. If you visit a GP practice in the north of England or a maternity hospital in London you are still confronted by a gynaecologist who does not take women's needs seriously and who is not prepared to treat them. If you visit a police station in the north of England or a prison in London, you are still confronted by a prison officer who does not take the needs of women seriously and who is not prepared to protect them." + +Just a few months ago, the Guardian ran an article by Labour MP Yvette Cooper in which she attacked the "left-wing incompetence of the Labour leadership" over the issue of Trident. In this article, Cooper advocated the adoption of the "nuclear deterrent strategy", which is described as "an alternative to unilateral disarmament". + +Cooper's article was, of course, in defense of the Labour Party's vote for the renewal of Trident. In her article, she argued: + +"If we are to take the decisions that must be taken now in the face of the present dangers, then we cannot afford to delay. We cannot waste time, we cannot waste a year, we cannot waste the next three decades. If we are to do this, we must open our minds to the prospect of nuclear weapons. We must open our minds to the possibility of a nuclear-free world. And if we do not, we risk going down a path that is hard to reverse." + +In other words, Cooper does not support the abolition of Trident, but she does support a nuclear deterrent strategy, and she does advocate unilateral disarmament. + +This position is nothing less than the abandonment of the trade union movement in order to be able to pursue a "left-wing incompetence of the Labour leadership". Any good trade unionist would have to be outraged by this position. And yet, the Left has adopted this position, and this position is being adopted by sections of the left in the UK. + +What is worse, is that the Left has adopted the position on the basis of a series of lies. It has been argued that unilateral disarmament is not necessary because there are already "civil nuclear agreements" between the UK and the US, which allow for a "limited number of warheads" to be deployed "on land, sea and in the air". + +The reality is that these treaties do not cover land-based nuclear weapons, and that the UK has signed no such agreements with any other country. Furthermore, the UK has not signed any such treaties at all, which means that there is no legal basis whatsoever for Cooper's position. + +And yet, the Left has adopted this position, and this position is being adopted by sections of the left in the UK. + +The same Left that has adopted this position is the same Left that has made a blatant attack on the working class. This Left has waged a vicious attack on workers in the UK, and has waged a vicious attack on the working class throughout the world. + +At the same time, the same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. + +At the same time, the same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. + +The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. + +The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. + +The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to +======================================== SAMPLE 463 ======================================== +A new tool for the ESO community. + +A new tool for the ESO community. + +This tool will allow you to build, test, and release your mods and addons easily. + +How to use + +To install the tool, copy the extracted file into the Morrowind Data Files folder and click 'Run'. + +To run the tool, click the Run button, select the 'Make Morrowind Mod' checkbox and click 'OK'. + +The tool will automatically place a script file in your Data Files/Morrowind folder. This script will host the Morrowind launcher. + +To run the launcher you can click the Morrowind Launcher button. This will start Morrowind with a new game. + +This will launch Morrowind with a new game. If all goes well, the launcher will let you select a custom user account and the new user will have access to a set of games and mods. + +For more information, see the FAQ. + +Installation + +Requires Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon. + +Download + +Download the latest version from the download page. + +Credits + +Thanks to the ESO Modding Discord for all the help. + +Thanks to the community for testing the tool and giving feedback on it. + +Thanks to Marro and B1rth for testing the tool. + +Thanks to Malakai for editing the info in the ReadMe. + +Thanks to all the people who helped me test the tool and give feedback on it. + +Licensing/Legal + +This mod is released into the public domain.<|endoftext|>Share. It's the fun you can't get anywhere else. It's the fun you can't get anywhere else. + +Last year, we took a look at the best MMOs on PC. This year, we've decided to take a look at the best fantasy RPGs on PC. + +The first thing that should be noted about fantasy RPGs is that they're almost always very different from one another. There aren't really any "traditional" fantasy RPGs on PC -- you can't run a Western-style RPG on a PC that doesn't have a mouse and keyboard. A good fantasy RPG is going to be a different beast from a good action RPG or a hack-and-slash RPG. + +Of course, there are some similarities. You'll usually have some sort of character class, and you'll generally have a set of skills that you can specialize in. Most fantasy RPGs also have an overworld map to explore and some sort of story to follow, though they're usually very different in the way they tell it. + +In this list, we've divided them by genre and gameplay focus, but there's also a little bit of overlap -- some fantasy RPGs are great for both role-playing and shooter fans. + +Note that a lot of these games are still in early development, so they may still have bugs and unfinished features, but you can always wait until they're released and play them for free! + +Exit Theatre Mode + +Exit Theatre Mode + +A Realm Reborn + +Developer: Carbine Studios + +Platforms: PC + +RECOMMENDED: Review: A Realm Reborn Is A Strong Start To A MMORPG + +If you're looking for a good MMORPG on PC, A Realm Reborn is a great place to start. It's got a lot of great features and a ton of content -- you can even build your own castle and explore the world from there. Unfortunately, it's very buggy (and it's not finished), so don't expect it to be perfect. + +At the moment, A Realm Reborn's free-to-play model is a bit of a mess. You can buy gold to play the game for free, but that costs you 100 gold for the first day and then 1 gold for every day you keep playing after that (for a total of 500 gold). It's definitely a better plan if you want to try out the game without spending money, though. + +" If you're looking for a good MMORPG on PC, A Realm Reborn is a great place to start. + +Darkfall: New World + +Developer: Red 5 Studios + +Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 + +RECOMMENDED: Review: Darkfall Can Be A Great RPG If You Play It Right + +For the most part, Darkfall: New World is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). You play as a group of survivors who have fallen victim to an ancient evil and are trying to escape from the ruined city of New Antioch. + +Darkfall is actually really good at what it does. The game has a ton of content and is incredibly fast paced. The graphics and sound are absolutely top-notch, and the game features a deep crafting system that lets you build and customize your character from a number of different professions. + +Exit Theatre Mode + + +======================================== SAMPLE 464 ======================================== +Kelvin Kuo + +17 December 2017 + +The following is a post written by Kelvin Kuo, a research associate at the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. + +In his book, The Coming GOP Civil War: How to Stop Trump, a former Trump campaign staffer accused the Republican Party of "intimidation" and "denial," and said "it's the party that got scared." The fear of a backlash against the GOP's supposed "Trumpian turn" has come and gone. The party's leadership has chosen to ignore the kooks who are threatening their power. + +On the other hand, the party's grassroots base is furious at the party's failure to push through its agenda. As a result, a wide variety of conservative groups have formed to fight back against the GOP establishment and its right-wing governing agenda. These groups include the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-backed Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), for whom Trump appointed his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, one of the most pro-corporate members of the Trump cabinet. The Trump administration has also appointed a slew of corporate-friendly CEOs, including billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as secretary of commerce; John Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is now Trump's secretary of the treasury; and Elaine Chao, the widow of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as transportation secretary. + +The Republican Party is facing a shift in its base: younger, more diverse, and more dependent on social media. If the GOP is unable to address the concerns of its base, its political future could be in jeopardy. + +In the wake of the 2016 election, many Republican officeholders and party members have blamed demographic shifts and social media for their loss. They have argued that the GOP lost because it failed to engage with a diverse electorate and failed to appeal to the expanding political base. Yet they have largely ignored the growing resistance to their agenda within their own party. The electoral backlash against the Trump agenda is real and growing, but it is not being addressed, despite growing evidence that the Republican Party is failing to appeal to the nation's diverse population. + +The GOP leadership and movement are increasingly unwilling to confront their base. While many establishment Republicans have been privately urging their constituents to stop complaining and move on, few have publicly called for party members to change course. Although there is some evidence that the Republican Party's base is moving toward Trump's administration, the party's leadership is not moving with it, opting instead to ignore the growing resistance and the party's base's growing concerns. + +The growing GOP base has emerged as a major concern for Republican leaders. For instance, during a recent panel discussion at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel addressed the growing concerns of the party's base. She said, "the base isn't happy with us right now. But they are making that clear to us." McDaniel said that the GOP needs to "hold our ground" and "keep the focus on the issues that we care about," adding that "the focus has to be on the basics" and that "the message has to be consistent." + +Meanwhile, the GOP establishment is actively working to push its agenda through the Senate. For example, the GOP's tax plan, which is designed to boost the wealthy by slashing taxes for corporations and the wealthy, is expected to pass the Senate and promptly be signed into law by President Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he intends to pass the tax plan this week, despite strong opposition from a wide variety of groups, including the American Health Care Association, the AARP, and the American Federation of Teachers. + +The Republican Party's leadership is also pushing for the passage of the Senate's health care bill. The bill is deeply unpopular with an already-disillusioned base, including most independents and voters under age 30. While the legislation is unpopular, McConnell is using the Senate's special budget reconciliation process to pass the bill through the Senate, making it easier for the bill to pass with just 51 votes. + +The "divide and conquer" strategy is clearly working. The GOP establishment is trying to distract the public from the growing resistance to the GOP's agenda. Most of the GOP opposition, however, is coming from the base, not from the party establishment. If McConnell is serious about the Senate bill reaching the president's desk, he would do well to listen to the base and move on. + +The emerging resistance to the GOP's agenda is the product of the GOP base's rising anger at the GOP's failure to push its agenda. This anger is not just a function of the party establishment's policies, but also their failure to address the concerns of the party's base. There is no reason the GOP should be able to pass tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations without any bipartisan support. While Trump and McConnell have claimed that their tax cuts will pay for themselves, independent analyses have shown that the federal budget deficit would balloon if +======================================== SAMPLE 465 ======================================== +They've always been in the right place at the right time. + +The Clinton Global Initiative, a charity that serves as a family office for the Clinton Foundation, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. + +The Clinton Global Initiative has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. + +The Clinton Global Initiative, a charity that serves as a family office for the Clinton Foundation, has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons lately. + +It's been revealed that the Clinton Foundation has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. + +It's been revealed that the Clinton Foundation has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was supposed to be a venue for the private sector to showcase its best ideas, but it's been revealed that it's been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. + +The foundation has been under fire since it was revealed that Hillary Clinton accepted $207,000 to give a speech to Goldman Sachs. This is the same bank that gave her the largest speaking fee of any Secretary of State in history. + +Now it has been revealed that the Clinton Global Initiative has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. + +This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. + +"The Clinton Foundation has had a history of accepting large donations from foreign governments and corporations, including from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States' largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin," CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson wrote in a report published today. + +"The State Department has said it will stop accepting foreign donations if Hillary Clinton wins the White House. But the Clinton Foundation has refused to disclose its donors, instead saying it's a 'private foundation.'" + +It's not the first time the Clinton Global Initiative has been accused of this sort of behavior. + +"The Clinton Global Initiative has been a disaster from the start," former President Bill Clinton said as he was leaving the organization in 2013. + +"The money is gone. It's been spent. There's nothing left. The people who run it have no idea what they're doing, and the people who work on it have no way of knowing what they're doing," he said. + +The Clinton Global Initiative has been a disaster from the start. + +Bill Gates was also quick to criticize the foundation's behavior. "The CGI data underscores the fact that the CGI record does not match the record of the Clinton Foundation," Bill Gates said in a statement. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was launched in 2005 and has grown to become a global initiative to provide opportunities for business and communities to come together. + +While the Clinton Global Initiative is a nonprofit organization, it was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. It was also revealed that the Clinton Foundation had been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. + +The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. + +The New York Times reported that in 2015, the Clinton Foundation's gross revenue was $2.17 billion — approximately $250 million less than the year before. + +The Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. + +In 2015, the Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. + +In 2015, the Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. + +The New York Times reported that in 2015, the Clinton Foundation's gross revenue was +======================================== SAMPLE 466 ======================================== +At the end of the 2015 season, the Blue Jays' starting rotation was: R.A. Dickey, J.A. Happ, Marco Estrada, Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Mark Buehrle, and Drew Hutchison. The rotation was pretty good, but it was not dominant. The Jays' bullpen was the fourth-best in the American League, at 14th in ERA, but the Jays' rotation was the best in the AL, at a whopping 10th in ERA. + +This season, the rotation is: R.A. Dickey, J.A. Happ, Marcus Stroman, Mark Buehrle, Aaron Sanchez, and Drew Hutchison. This rotation is the best in the AL. + +This rotation is not the best in baseball, but it is unquestionably the most dominant. The Jays rarely had a five-run lead and rarely had a seven-run deficit, averaging 4.2 runs per game in the five games against a team with a winning record. They averaged 4.0 runs per game in the six games against a team with a losing record. The Jays have scored at least four runs in 10 of their 19 games, and the Jays scored five or more runs in eight of their 19 games. Their bullpen has been particularly dominant. + +The Jays are also performing better in the third game of a series than in the third game of a series, but they are not far behind the second-place Yankees. The Blue Jays are doing far, far better in the second game of a series than they are in the second game of a series. + +The Jays have dominated in the second game of a series for three years in a row. They did not do it in 2015, but they did it in 2014, and they did it in 2013, and they did it in 2012, and they did it in 2011, and they did it in 2010, and they did it in 2009, and they did it in 2008, and they did it in 2007, and they did it in 2006, and they did it in 2005, and they did it in 2004, and they did it in 2003, and they did it in 2002, and they did it in 2001, and they did it in 2000, and they did it in 1999, and they did it in 1998, and they did it in 1997, and they did it in 1996, and they did it in 1995, and they did it in 1994, and they did it in 1993, and they did it in 1992, and they did it in 1991, and they did it in 1990, and they did it in 1989, and they did it in 1988, and they did it in 1987, and they did it in 1986, and they did it in 1985, and they did it in 1984, and they did it in 1983, and they did it in 1982, and they did it in 1981, and they did it in 1980, and they did it in 1979, and they did it in 1978, and they did it in 1977, and they did it in 1976, and they did it in 1975, and they did it in 1974, and they did it in 1973, and they did it in 1972, and they did it in 1971, and they did it in 1970, and they did it in 1969, and they did it in 1968, and they did it in 1967, and they did it in 1966, and they did it in 1965, and they did it in 1964, and they did it in 1963, and they did it in 1962, and they did it in 1961, and they did it in 1960, and they did it in 1959, and they did it in 1958, and they did it in 1957, and they did it in 1956, and they did it in 1955, and they did it in 1954, and they did it in 1953, and they did it in 1952, and they did it in 1951, and they did it in 1950, and they did it in 1949, and they did it in 1948, and they did it in 1947, and they did it in 1946, and they did it in 1945, and they did it in 1944, and they did it in 1943, and they did it in 1942, and they did it in 1941, and they did it in 1940, and they did it in 1939, and they did it in 1938, and they did it in 1937, and they did it in 1936, and they did it in 1935, and they did it in 1934, and they did it in 1933, and they did it in 1932, and they did it in 1931, and they did it in 1930, and they did it in 1929, and they did it in 1928, and they did it in 1927, and they did it in 1926, and they did it in 1925, and they did it in 1924, and they did it in 1923, and they did it in 1922, and they did it in 1921, and they did it in 1920, and +======================================== SAMPLE 467 ======================================== +Prominent Canadian philanthropist and former University of Toronto professor Paul Hodges is urging his fellow citizens to embrace the kind of Canadian identity he says their country needs. + +Hodges, whose son is an engineering student at U of T, said the country needs "multi-culturalism" and "multiculturalism." + +"I think we need to embrace this Canadian identity. It's a very important part of being Canadian," he told CBC Radio's Metro Morning. + +"I think we need to continue to build on our multiculturalism. It's an important part of what makes us Canadian ... Canadian identity is a multicultural one, it's an inclusive one, it's inclusive of all of us. And I think we need that for the future." + +Hodges, who is also a former president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said Canada's future will be determined by how well it draws young people from around the world. + +"I think the future of Canada will be determined by how well we attract the next generation from around the world. And I think we need to be very welcoming, very welcoming to people from all over the world. And that's what we need to do in the future," he said. + +Hodges said he believes the final chapter of Canada's identity "is being written right now," but was quick to add that he's "not saying just anyone is going to be able to write that." + +"We need people who are very, very well respected, very, very high level people who are able to say 'this is what the future is supposed to look like, we're going to pursue it with all our might.'" + +He also added that "to me, it's not about being a nationalist or a xenophobe." + +"I don't think we should be a country that's all about separation. I think we need to be a country that's all about integration." + +'I think we need to continue to build on our multiculturalism.' - Paul Hodges + +The 60-year-old professor, who has received numerous awards for his work with children and youth, argued that Canada's highest profile figures should be embracing the country's diversity. + +"I think we need to start to see, maybe in the past few years, a bit more leaders of institutions, including universities and the highest levels of public life, recognizing that we have a multicultural society," he said. + +"I think that's something that has not happened yet. + +"I think we need to start to see more figures of authority, including politicians, including community leaders, acknowledging that we have a multicultural society, and I think that's something that has not happened yet." + +Hodges, who made headlines in 2008 when he called for Canada to become a republic, said he is calling for a new Canadian identity in part because he is concerned about the current state of the country. + +"I think that our understanding of ourselves as a country is not getting right," he said. + +"I think that we're becoming more and more divided, as we become more and more divided, I think that we're becoming more polarized. And I think that we are becoming more and more pessimistic about the future." + +'Reserved to American rules' + +Hodges said he believes the country is faced with more challenges than ever before. + +"For the first time in my life, I'm worried about security. I'm worried about maybe a crackdown by the state on individual rights," he said. + +"I think Canada's security concerns and our security concerns are based on American rules. And I don't think we can rely on American rules to protect us from our problems." + +Hodges said he is worried about a crackdown by the state on individual rights. (CBC) + +Hodges said he believes Canada is facing a "crisis of identity," and is calling for a Canadian identity to be forged through "multiculturalism and multiculturalism." + +He said he believes that's the best way to ensure a healthy, prosperous, meaningful future for the country. + +"I think that's the best way to ensure that the kind of multiculturalism that I believe in, that I think makes us a great country, that we will have success, we will have stability, that we will have freedom for all, and I think that will be the most successful form of multiculturalism that Canada and the world has ever seen," he said. + +Hodges said he supports the current government's immigration and refugee policies. + +He added, however, that he wants to see Canada's immigration system more "open." + +"I think that we have to have more open immigration policies. I think that we have to have more welcome governments ... And I think that's what we need to do." + +'We're not the Sahara' + +Hodges, a part-time +======================================== SAMPLE 468 ======================================== +Week 12 was relatively quiet for fantasy football, but the injury bug is back. We're already starting to see a few players on the injury report for Week 13, and there's no doubt that the Cowboys will see several players on the PUP list coming out of their bye week. + +Let's take a look at the players who are most likely to return to action in Week 13: + +Quarterback + +Tyrod Taylor (shoulder): Tyrod Taylor is the only starting quarterback on the Cowboys' active roster, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him appear on the injury report for Week 13. Taylor has been dealing with shoulder soreness for the last several weeks, and the latest news says that he'll be limited in practice for the next few days. He's not expected to play against the Chiefs, but it's possible that he could miss a few weeks. + +Running Back + +Mark Ingram (ribs): Ingram is expected to play in Week 13, but he is not expected to return to practice on Wednesday. The Giants are still unsure about Ingram's status, but they say that he is improving. If Ingram can't go, Shane Vereen should get the start in his place. + +Chris Thompson (knee): Chris Thompson has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. The Cardinals would likely like to see Thompson practice on Wednesday before making a decision, but it is unlikely that he would be ready for Thursday's game. + +Wide Receiver + +Dez Bryant (concussion): Dez Bryant is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to be back within the next few days. Bryant is dealing with a concussion and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. He's expected to be cleared in time for Week 14, but it is possible that he could miss some time. + +Davante Adams (hamstring): Davante Adams is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he wasn't listed on the injury report this week. He had been dealing with knee soreness, which will make him questionable for Week 13. + +Breshad Perriman (ankle): Breshad Perriman is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to be back in time for it. He's dealing with ankle soreness and is officially listed as questionable. + +Tight End + +James Casey (shoulder): James Casey will return to the lineup in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Casey is dealing with shoulder soreness, which is not a good sign for his return to the lineup. + +Josh Hill (knee): Josh Hill is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Hill has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Wide Receiver + +Danny Amendola (ankle): Amendola has been dealing with ankle soreness for the past few weeks and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. He's dealing with a knee injury, so it's doubtful that he will play on Thursday against the Chiefs. + +Andrew Hawkins (foot): Andrew Hawkins is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Hawkins has been dealing with foot soreness and is officially listed as questionable. + +Tight End + +Scott Chandler (ankle): Scott Chandler is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Chandler has been dealing with ankle soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Tight End + +Larry Donnell (knee): Larry Donnell is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Donnell has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Tre McBride (ankle): Tre McBride is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. McBride has been dealing with ankle soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Wide Receiver + +Jordy Nelson (knee): Jordy Nelson is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Nelson has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Robby Anderson (shoulder): Robby Anderson is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Anderson has been dealing with shoulder soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. + +Tight End + +Zach Miller (ankle): Zach Miller is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on +======================================== SAMPLE 469 ======================================== +Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur have both been in talks with the player's father over a potential move. + +Jurgen Klopp's side have already snapped up the Germany Under-21 international striker, while Spurs are also keen to add him to their ranks. + +And according to Tuttosport (h/t Football Italia), the player's father, Jurgen, has also been in talks with the Anfield club and the Championship outfit. + +The report also claims Jurgen Klopp has been in close contact with the player's mother, who is close with the player's agent. + +The 24-year-old has been in and out of the first-team picture at the German club since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2013. + +He has scored just one goal in his last 18 appearances and been consistently linked with a move away from the club. + +See the latest Serie A predictions and betting tips with Eurotips.co.uk<|endoftext|>Tina Fey is a funny woman. She's funny because she's a true Hollywood funny woman. She's funny because she's a serious comedian. This is a woman who once had to explain to a reporter why she doesn't talk to reporters because, "I don't want to be an asshole." + +But yesterday, Fey took to Twitter and gave the world a glimpse into her life and her thoughts on the presidential election. Her tweet, which was sent after Donald Trump's speech about his plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, got a lot of attention. Let's just say that a lot of people, including the President of the United States, weren't happy. + +Yes, it's true that President Trump, in his speech, accused Hillary Clinton of being "the most corrupt candidate ever." He also called her the "most corrupt person ever" and "the most incompetent person ever" (in Trump's mind) to run for the presidency. + +But not everyone is happy about the speech. A number of people have called Fey out for her remarks. Why? Because the comments Trump made are disrespectful towards women. They're disrespectful towards Mexicans. They're disrespectful towards Muslims. They're disrespectful towards prisoners of war. They're disrespectful towards military veterans. They're disrespectful towards the disabled, and they're disrespectful towards the poor and middle class. + +Here are some of the most notable tweets from people who were not happy with Fey's remarks, as well as some of the people who were. + +Hey @TinaFey, I'm a woman. I'm in my 50s, a single mother. I have a degree. And I've seen your show. And I've heard you talk about women in your comedy. And I'm a single mother with a degree. Do you think I deserve respect or do you think I'm just a punchline? pic.twitter.com/1qCj5JXz1I — Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) September 1, 2016 + +In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. + +In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. + +In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 + +@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September +======================================== SAMPLE 470 ======================================== +I walked down the street in New York once. It's a pretty good suburb of Manhattan, home to many of the city's most prominent and well-known landmarks. I was riding my bike and I noticed these two very tall, very thin men standing in the middle of the street. One of them looked at me with great interest and said, "How tall are you?" I replied, "Oh, I'm 5'8". The other guy said, "Well, I'm 6'2". He looked at me again, smiled, and said, "Well, I'm 6'4". What happened next was a classic example of social status signaling. + +I found myself facing the taller guy, who looked like a rich and powerful figure in the community. I knew he was taller than me. I knew he was taller than the other guy. I knew the other guy was taller than me. It was a classic social status signaling situation. + +In this situation, one guy was trying to signal social status. He was trying to say, "I'm taller than you, so I am more important than you." The other guy is trying to say, "I'm smaller than you, so I am less important than you." + +The people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are usually people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to get ahead in life are usually people who are trying to become dominant in their community. + +The people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are usually people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are usually people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. + +It turns out that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +Social Status Signaling: The Problem with Social Signaling + +It's interesting that it turns out that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +Social Status Signaling: The Solution + +To solve this problem, we have to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. + +Social Status Signaling: The Solution + +To solve this problem, we have to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. + +This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. + +This is a classic example of +======================================== SAMPLE 471 ======================================== +Athletes have always been attracted to the sport of weightlifting. It is a sport that requires a vast amount of self discipline and is the perfect way to lose weight. And, for athletes, it is a sport that can provide them with the most significant competitive advantage over other athletes. Weightlifting has been used to improve several athletic abilities, including: + +Height + +Body fat + +Muscle mass + +Physical endurance + +And, it has been found to be an effective way to improve the health of an athlete. + +The following are some of the benefits most athletes have noticed from weightlifting. + +Height + +Height is a primary determinant of your height. If you are a short person, you will not be able to compete as an athlete. The following are some of the reasons weightlifting can give an edge to a short person: + +Weight lifting increases your muscle mass. + +Weight lifting increases your muscle mass. Height and muscle mass are related. + +Height and muscle mass are related. Weight lifting increases your body mass. + +Weight lifting increases your body mass. Weight lifting increases your height. + +Height and muscle mass are related. Weight lifting increases your height and reduces your body fat. + +Weight lifting increases your height and reduces your body fat. Weight lifting improves your body composition. + +Weight lifting improves your body composition. Weight lifting improves your body composition. Height and muscle mass are related. + +Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. + +Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. + +Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and +======================================== SAMPLE 472 ======================================== +If you're a fan of "Breaking Bad" and have been in the market for a new TV to watch, you may be in luck. The hit show, which took some of the worst elements of the TV industry and turned them into a monster, is returning to AMC for a second season on Sunday, March 8. + +"Breaking Bad" is the most-watched scripted series on cable, with ratings that have been on pace to beat last year's numbers and put it among the most watched shows on television. + +According to the Variety report, "Breaking Bad" is averaging 11.8 million viewers per episode. The ratings are and have been staggering. The show has attracted a huge audience for its second season, with the ratings showing that the show is able to attract a large audience that can be quite hard to find on cable. + +If you're looking for a change of pace, you may be looking into a new show. + +You may be thinking, "What about The Walking Dead?" The show, currently airing it's second season on AMC, is currently the most watched cable show on television. + +Dead is the top cable show, with 7.9 million viewers. Not too shabby. + +But if you're on cable, you're in luck. The Walking Dead is the top cable show on television. + +The show, which premiered its first season in October, is drawing more than 10 million viewers per episode. The Walking Dead draws an average of 13.1 million viewers per episode. + +With a large audience, "Breaking Bad" is able to attract a large number of viewers. AMC is making sure that the show will make its way to viewers as the season progresses. + +The show is already in it's second season, so AMC is currently in the process of working on a way to make sure the show is available to viewers. Presumably, AMC will want to make sure that the show will be available to viewers for the entire season. + +According to Variety, "Breaking Bad" has not yet been picked up for a third season.<|endoftext|>The first thing you'll notice about the new series of Doctor Who is that it's a lot more fun. + +Peter Capaldi's Doctor has been replaced with a new one, and it's no bad thing. + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +The first episode of this new series, The Bells of Saint John, sees Capaldi's Doctor (who we haven't yet met) continue the adventures of his predecessor - but with a little more humour. + +"The show itself will get a little more frankly funny as a result of this change," Capaldi told Digital Spy at Comic Con. + +"I think the first episode is actually the first episode that, you know, is a bit more funny." + +The new Doctor is played by Matt Smith, who has already had a few off-screen adventures of his own. + +"He's always been a kind of gregarious, easy-going character," Capaldi said. + +"He's had a lot of fun with the people around him, and we can see that in the first episode." + +And we can see that in the first episode too. There are some funny lines, and some great special effects, but there are also some moments of horror. + +"There's a good bit of that," Capaldi said. "It's a little bit dark, but it's done in a way that I think is quite scary. + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +"It's a lot of fun, it's really interesting. It's a good way of getting into the character of the Doctor." + +Capaldi said that it was "nice" to have a new Doctor, and that he was "really happy" to take over the role. + +"I'm really delighted to be playing the Doctor, and it's a great part to be in," he said. + +"It's a really big part of my life, and that's why I wanted to do it, and I wanted to play it." + +However, Capaldi said that he'll be very different to the last Doctor. + +"I'm not like the last Doctor in any way, shape or form. I'm not a mad scientist at all, and I'm not a sadist like Peter Davison," he said. + +"I'm a very kind, loving, caring person. I'm an actor who likes to have fun. I'm a man of many talents." + +We've no idea who the new Doctor is yet, but Capaldi has promised that it will be "a surprise". + +"I don't want to spoil it for people," he said. "It's going to be a surprise to people, I'm sure, but it's going to be an exciting time." + +What do you think of the new Doctor? Let us know in the comments section below... +======================================== SAMPLE 473 ======================================== +Founded by two brothers in 1906, Good Times was the first restaurant in San Francisco to serve alcohol on site. The owners' first venture was a restaurant at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. In 1922, the brothers opened their own establishment on the corner of Jewett and Jones streets, with a bar, and in 1928, a second bar, called the Good Times Saloon, was added. + +The Good Times Saloon was originally called the Good Times Saloon and charged $1.25 for a pint of beer. The saloon closed in January 1942 after a long run with patrons. The original and second Good Times Saloons were both located at the corner of Ashbury and Haight, and one of the most popular spots for locals to gather was located just a few blocks north of the original establishment. + +The Great Depression began in 1929, and many people were unemployed at that time. After the Great Depression, the saloon was closed for good and the Good Times Saloon Company was purchased by the National Beer Wholesalers Association in 1935. The company then consolidated all of its operations and renamed it the Good Time Brewing Co. + +The Good Time Brewing Co. changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. in 1918 when it began to brew beer. In 1929, the company began producing and selling the "Good Time" brand of beer. In 1933, the company changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. again when it began to produce and sell the "Good Time" brand of beer again. + +In 1962, the company changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. again when it began to produce and sell the "Good Time" brand of beer again. Good Time was sold to the Knob Creek Brewing Co. in 1965. The company was sold to the Anheuser-Busch Co. in 1969. In 1976, the company changed its name to Anheuser-Busch InBev. The brewery eventually changed its name to AB InBev in 1994. The company began to sell beer in the United States in 1992, when it bought a majority stake in the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco. In 2000, AB InBev acquired a controlling interest in the SABMiller brewing company. + +Good Time Brewing Co. was sold in 2002 to the Russian River Brewing Co. in San Francisco, which renamed the brewery to Russian River Brewing Co. in 2005. The brewery began brewing beer in 2008, and in 2011, the brewery began producing beers under the name Russian River Brewing Co. in collaboration with Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa, California. In 2015, Russian River Brewing Co. sold the brewery to Heineken International for $1.2 billion. + +The brewery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. + +The brewery's website states that it is open 7 days a week and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 + +Spellbreaker + +Spellbreaker is a leveled Daedric artifact that increases the Spellbreaker enchantment of weapons and shields. + +Acquisition [ edit ] + +Spellbreaker can be obtained from a Daedric jarl or a hero of the Stormcloak Rebellion for a bounty of 10,000 gold. + +If you are a Daedra worshipper, it may be possible to raise the bounty to 200,000 gold by killing the jarl or hero. + +Enchanting [ edit ] + +Spellbreaker can be upgraded with an infusions kit. In order to learn how to craft this item, you must first learn to craft the Infusion Stone and Infusion Shield. + +Notes [ edit ]<|endoftext|>This is a story that's been going around for a long time, but when I heard that it was actually the game that was used to create the "Star Wars" music, I couldn't believe it. + +It turns out that "The Empire Strikes Back" was used as the score for this game called "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" (it was a direct sequel to the original game being released way back in 1983). And according to this story, you can actually play the original game if you know how to get at it. + +But the game isn't actually just a copy of the movie score. Instead, it's a sound demo of the game, apparently created to show off the capabilities of the current generation of consoles. + +Advertisement + +Here's the story: + +Advertisement + +The game, which was created by Lucas Arts, was actually originally released on the Super Nintendo. The game was developed back in 1983, but it was never released on the Super Nintendo because it was too difficult for the system. The game was released on the Atari 2600. + +This version of the game, which was also released on the Atari 2600, lets you play as either Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. You pilot a TIE +======================================== SAMPLE 474 ======================================== +Bertrand Russell once wrote, "I am not a philosopher, but I am a man." A philosopher is someone who has developed a philosophy. Russell's point was that philosophy is important, but it's not the only tool in the toolbox. + +I don't subscribe to that view, although I think it's a fine one. Philosophy is important, and it's essential to the development of a thoughtful mind. But it's not the only tool in that toolbox. It's important that we have other tools. + +In fact, I'll be writing a book this year that provides a list of twenty other tools in the toolbox. It's called "20 Tools of the Mind." + +It's not a complete list, but it's a good starting point. So here it is, in no particular order: + +1. An open mind. + +2. A willingness to be wrong. + +3. A willingness to view the world through a different lens. + +4. A willingness to examine your own assumptions. + +5. A willingness to examine the world from another perspective. + +6. A willingness to be inspired. + +7. A willingness to be humble. + +8. A willingness to seek a better outcome in the face of difficult circumstances. + +9. An appreciation for nature and its beauty. + +10. A willingness to consider new possibilities. + +11. An ability to learn. + +12. An ability to think critically. + +13. A willingness to make mistakes. + +14. A willingness to take criticism. + +15. A willingness to change. + +16. A willingness to take responsibility. + +17. A willingness to be flexible. + +18. A willingness to be honest. + +19. A willingness to speak your mind. + +20. A willingness to take responsibility. + +I'd love to hear what your favorite tool of the mind is. Tweet me @julianne_shieber or let me know on Facebook.<|endoftext|>The most commonly asked question we get here at the Farm is about how to work with beer yeast. We've written about yeast before, but this is a good time to delve deeper into the subject. + +The most common yeast species used by homebrewers are Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pediococcus. These species are often referred to as "wild yeast" because they are not cultivated under controlled conditions. They are normally only found in wild settings, and so they are often referred to as "wild" yeast. They replicate very poorly in the brewery, but can be used to make beer. The most common way to use these yeasts is to ferment beer with them. This means that you must have a starter of beer yeast (a starter is a sterile environment in which the yeast can reproduce). + +But if you want to make beer with wild yeast, you have to have a starter. + +But how do you get a starter? + +Starting a starter is a two-step process. First you must inoculate the beer with a yeast culture. Then you must wait for the beer to ferment. The reason this process is more involved than a standard yeast starter is that you must use a liquid culture. If you were to use yeast that is grown on agar plates, you would have to pitch the liquid culture into your beer. This is only done because agar plate cultures are difficult to use. You can also use liquid culture as a starter, but it is not necessary, and you must use a liquid culture or you will never get a yeast starter. + +But what can you use to inoculate the beer? + +As we mentioned in our post about wild yeast, you can use a powdery yeast called Wine Ale Yeast. This yeast is available at most homebrew shops. You can also use a liquid yeast called Wyeast. This yeast is available directly from Wyeast as well. While these two options are both good options, they are not the same. + +So what's the difference? + +Wine Ale Yeast is a powder. This yeast is available in a bag. It is a very good quality liquid yeast, but it is very difficult to use for starters. The problem with this yeast is that it doesn't seem to be very active. It's very good in fermenting beer, but it is very slow to grow. It's also not a very well-known yeast, so it's difficult to find in homebrew shops. + +Wyeast is a liquid yeast. This yeast is available in a can. It is a great liquid yeast, but it is very active. It will grow rapidly when used as a starter, but it will also grow quickly when added to beer. It also has a longer shelf life than Wine Ale Yeast. + +So which one should I use? + +It's important to use the right yeast for the right purpose. If you're starting +======================================== SAMPLE 475 ======================================== +As a result of the recent recession and the resulting lack of demand in the US, the price of oil is ailing and it is already at the lowest point in the last 40 years. As the price of oil falls, and the US economy continues to struggle, it is possible that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. + +The effect of a rise in interest rates on the economy is often seen as a negative one, since higher interest rates tend to reduce disposable income and increase consumer debt. However, some economists argue that higher interest rates create an opportunity for the economy to recover and that this is a positive effect on the economy. + +Is the US the only country which could benefit from raising interest rates? + +In the early 2000s there was a huge amount of debate about whether raising interest rates would be a good thing for the US economy. The main argument against the idea of raising interest rates, which was made by economists such as Paul Krugman and Robert Gordon, was that it would mean less borrowing and less spending, which would lead to less economic growth and less employment. + +However, as the US economy has struggled to recover from a recession which began in 2009, and as the US economy continues to struggle with the effects of the recent recession, it is becoming apparent that the economy could benefit from a rise in interest rates. + +One of the main reasons that the US economy has been able to grow since 2009 is that the US Federal Reserve has been increasing the monetary base. This would mean that the US central bank would allow banks to increase the amount of money that they keep on deposit. The Federal Reserve has been increasing the money base by $10 trillion a year since 2009, but currently only has $4.9 trillion in circulation. This has meant that the US government has been able to borrow money more cheaply, and this has led to an increase in the US dollar's value. + +A rise in interest rates would mean that the US dollar would lose value + +If the Federal Reserve increased the money base again, it would mean that interest rates would rise, which would mean that the value of the US dollar would fall. The value of the dollar has already fallen massively since the financial crisis in 2008, and if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates it would mean that the dollar's value would continue to fall. + +A rise in interest rates would also mean that the US government would be able to borrow more money at lower interest rates, which would mean that it would become more competitive. This means that Americans would be able to afford to spend more and that the economy would be able to grow faster. + +A rise in interest rates would mean that the US economy could have recovered and become more competitive + +However, this argument does not take into account the possibility that the US economy could have recovered and become more competitive. If the US economy had grown as quickly as it has grown since 2009, then it would be easy for the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and stop the erosion in the value of the dollar. + +However, as the US economy continues to struggle to recover, it is becoming clear that the US is not the only country in the world which could benefit from raising interest rates. + +If the US is to recover, it will need to rely more and more on economic growth + +Other countries may also benefit from raising interest rates. If the oil price falls, these countries will have less economic growth and may also have a loss of competitiveness. However, the United States has a much larger GDP than many of these other countries, so allowing companies to borrow cheaply will not necessarily mean that the US government will be able to borrow more cheaply. + +If the US economy continues to struggle, it may be that the US Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates + +There are also many who argue that raising interest rates does not help the US economy. In particular, many believe that raising interest rates will not help the US economy because it will mean that the US Federal Reserve will lose money. + +However, if the economy continues to struggle and if the Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates, then it could be that the US Federal Reserve will decide that it would be better for the US economy if it did not increase interest rates. This would mean that the US economy could continue to struggle, but it would not be able to recover as quickly, so the US economy would be on its own. + +If the US economy continues to struggle and if the Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates, then it could be that the US economy could continue to struggle, but it would not be able to recover as quickly, so the US economy would be on its own + +Another issue is whether the US Federal Reserve should be raising interest rates. This is because there are many economists who argue that raising interest rates could have negative effects on the economy. One example is that it could cause the economy to shrink if over-valued assets are bought by the Federal Reserve. Another example would be +======================================== SAMPLE 476 ======================================== +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? + +What is the +======================================== SAMPLE 477 ======================================== +[Update: The video is now available.] + + +The city of Seattle is looking to make it easier for people to live and work in the city. Their Councilmember Mike O'Brien is a co-sponsor of both the Seattle Housing Levy and the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA). + + +And now the city is looking to make it easier for people to rent one of the city's approximately 200,000 apartments. + +On February 9th, the city council will hear testimony about the proposed changes. About 120 people from the public speaking and community outreach groups that have been working on the changes will testify. + + +The hearing starts at 11:30am at City Hall. + +The city is seeking input from the public before proposing any of the changes. They will then submit them to the council for consideration. + +Here's what the city is looking for in changes. + +Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda + +Increase the maximum rent to the equivalent of market rate (or offer some other non-discriminatory rent adjustment) + +Allow vacant rental units to be rented at market rate + +Require landlords to provide a copy of their lease, if they rent to someone who is not a member of the family, to the tenant + +Require landlords to notify tenants of any rent increases, if they exceed 5% per year + +Any landlord that does not comply with the requirements above may be subject to a building permit revocation and fines. + +These changes would be in addition to the provisions of the Seattle Housing Levy, which the city is currently reviewing. + +Here's a statement from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods about the hearing. + +This hearing will be a critical opportunity for Seattle's residents and businesses to influence the City Council's decisions on the Seattle Housing Levy and the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda. + +If you have a comment, a question, or want to ask a question, you can do it here.<|endoftext|>I get a lot of questions about this. I learn new stuff every day and get to work with new people. So of course I'm going to post more from time to time, but I wanted to put together a more comprehensive guide for those who might be interested. + +The main goal is to help you get your feet wet, so you can use the knowledge you get in this guide to come up with the next best thing. + +What I'm here to do is give you a toolbox. I'm going to give you the tools that you need to work with the capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I'm not going to tell you how to use them. You need to figure that out for yourself, because that's what this guide is about. + +I'm going to break down the basics of each of the tools in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux toolbox. I'm going to give you the prerequisite skills, to get you started. + +I'll cover the basics of using the tools, and then get into how to use the tools. + +This isn't just a bunch of tutorials, I've gone over what each of the tools is capable of. I'll explain what the different commands mean, and I'll explain what the output from each command is. I'll explain the different types of output you can get from each command, so you can use the tools to accomplish a variety of tasks. + +Then I'll give you the tools in a list, as well as an example of how to use each tool. By the end of this article, you should be well on your way to using all of the tools Red Hat Enterprise Linux has to offer. + +The first tool I want to start with is the RPM (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) package manager. I've been using RPM for a while to package various components of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I'm going to create a new folder in your home directory, and I'll use that folder as my RPM package repository. + +I'm going to create a new directory called rpm. This is where I will put the RPMs that will be delivered to you. I'm going to use the same directory structure as I've used for the command line tools. + +Create an empty directory called rpm. + +sudo mkdir rpm + +After you create the directory, I want to create a file called cd_rpm. This is the command that will create the RPMs. + +sudo touch cd_rpm + +I'm going to do this in the directory where I create the RPMs. + +cd_rpm + +Now I'm going to create a file called package. This is the directory where the RPMs will be stored. + +sudo touch package + +Now I'm going to create a file called rpm_up. This is where I will load the RPMs. + +sudo touch rpm_up + +Now I'm going to create a file called rpm. This is the directory +======================================== SAMPLE 478 ======================================== +"I don't know if it's necessary to say, but it's necessary to say," Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in response to a petition for people to urge Congress to reject the "Sunshine Policy" that would allow medical marijuana in states that have already legalized it. + +The petition, signed by more than 100,000 people, asserts that "the United States is the only industrialized country on Earth that does not allow its citizens to use medical marijuana." + +"The federal government should not undermine state law by criminalizing marijuana, but should instead work with the states to provide patients with the safe and affordable medicine they need," the petition reads. + +The policy, which was first introduced in 2011, allows the distribution of medical marijuana in states that legalize it — a provision often referred to as the "Sunshine Policy" — with federal permission. + +But some people who rely on medical marijuana for pain management have said that they would rather not see it legalized in their states, fearing that it would lead to more rampant abuse. + +"We've lost the war on drugs. It's not working," Goodlatte said. "It's time to move on and we should just respect state laws." + +Polls show Americans are increasingly supportive of medical marijuana. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in October, more than half of Americans (54 percent) support legalizing medical marijuana nationwide, and more than one-third (36 percent) of Americans support the use of medical marijuana if it is available on the state level. + +The petition was also signed by representatives from Alaska, Colorado, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.<|endoftext|>Hey, so that's a bit of a long winded way to say "hey it's been a while". It's been a while since I've posted anything on Reddit and a few of my dreams have either fallen through or are on hold for the time being. + +However I have been busy with other projects and as I've mentioned before I have been working on a few things for the Summer. + +So if you're a fan of my work you'll probably know that I've been working on a few different projects for the past 6 months. + +Well before I realised that I had the ability to make games I wanted to make games all the time. I was pretty much immersed in it and had my first love nailed. + +I had a few technical issues however and I ended up having to quit everything to work on this. So in just under 6 months I made a game I was happy with. + +It became all too easy to get carried away and make games I wasn't proud of but I was determined to keep making games. + +And I'm still doing that. + +So if you're reading this and you're a fan of my work and the games I make then I would be grateful if you would subscribe. + +It may not be an easy thing to do but if you do it I can promise you that I will try my best to keep you updated with what I'm working on, what I'm learning and what new things I've been working on. + +Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think. + +-Solus<|endoftext|>Recently, a new version of the Android app that offers a way to share media files between Android devices has been released. The new version lets users to share files directly from the shared folder on their Android device. + +The new version of Google Drive is available on Android devices version 4.4 and above, and also on the desktop version of Google Drive. The app is now available on the Google Play Store. + +The new version of Google Drive supports video, audio and image files of up to 2 GB in size. The app will then automatically create an image file for each file that is uploaded, which can be shared with others on the app. The app also offers a way to move files between devices. + +Google Drive also allows users to manage files on other Google platforms, such as the Chrome browser and the Google Docs app. The app supports Android's new file picker feature, which allows users to select and view files stored in the Google Drive storage app from other applications and services. + +You can get the latest version of the Google Drive app from Google Play Store. + +Also read: Android O's new file picker in the works<|endoftext|>I was recently asked a question by a person who was looking for the benefits of using ZFS. I am not sure if I can give the full explanation, but in a nutshell the person was looking for the "big picture" of how ZFS can be used. Well, the big picture was, it is easy to use, and it is very good at avoiding data corruption, but as I have been using Z +======================================== SAMPLE 479 ======================================== +A new study suggests that testosterone may be the key to preventing a range of age-related diseases, from Alzheimer's to heart disease. + +Testosterone, which is produced in the testes, is the most widely used hormone because it is thought to have a protective effect against many age-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and hypertension. + +But it's not clear how testosterone affects age-related diseases. The new study, by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, finds that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of age-related disease by increasing the lifespan and reducing the risk of death. + +"One of the big questions we wanted to answer was whether testosterone could reduce the risk of dying from certain age-related diseases or increase the lifespan," said lead researcher Dr. Tom Logan. + +The researchers set out to answer this question by surveying 5,000 men over the age of 75, a group with a high incidence of some age-related diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The investigators followed the participants for 10 years to see how they fared in terms of their health and mortality. + +They found that the men who had higher testosterone levels had a lower risk of death from all age-related diseases, especially coronary heart disease and cancer. + +"It's clear that you can expect to see these beneficial effects of testosterone in healthy older men, but it's not clear how these effects are mediated," Logan said. + +Logan and his team suggest that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of dying from various diseases by increasing the lifespan and reducing the risk of death. + +For example, studies have found that testosterone levels may help to increase the lifespan of mice. Also, testosterone is known to protect against heart disease in men, so Logan and his team suggest that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of dying of heart-related diseases, which include heart attacks and strokes. + +"It's not just the good news of a longer life, but a reduced risk of death in general [from heart disease]," Logan said. + +Logan's study is published in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease. + +Source: Manchester Metropolitan University + +Age-Related Diseases May Be Mediated by Testosterone<|endoftext|>Clarence Thomas' career has been defined by a 'stiff upper lip', 'pragmatism' and a devotion to the Constitution to the point of self-immolation. He's currently the most disliked Supreme Court Justice since the Great Depression. + +But here's the thing: Although Thomas may be the most hated figure in the history of the Supreme Court, he's also one of the most effective. His scathing dissent in Arizona v. United States, a case that upheld President Obama's controversial executive amnesty, is an important reminder of the power of the Court's conservative bloc. And it's also a reminder that Thomas' power is not limited to his vote in Arizona v. United States, but extends to what he does as a justice. + +At issue in Arizona v. United States is a series of cases challenging the constitutionality of the President's unilateral move to send millions of illegal immigrants to the interior of the United States. The President's action was taken without even consulting Congress. The case is now before the Supreme Court. + +The President's actions are illegal – and unconstitutional. + +The President cannot simply ignore the law. He must faithfully execute the laws he is sworn to uphold. + +In Arizona v. United States, the Court held that the Executive Branch may not disregard two federal statutes – the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Refugee Act of 1980. In addition, the Court held that the President's unilateral action to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits Congress from requiring the President to take any action that "respects religious beliefs or moral convictions of the persons to whom such action would be committed." + +Although the Court ruling is bad news for the President, it's good news for the nation. It's a reminder that just as the Founding Fathers intended, the political branches of the federal government must cooperate to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed. The Supreme Court's decision is only half the story – the other half is that the President's actions are illegal – and unconstitutional. + +The President has acted without proper authority, and therefore the Executive Branch itself has ceased to be a legitimate instrument of the people's will. + +The President's action is illegal – and the Constitution does not grant him authority to do so. + +The President's action is illegal because the President has exceeded his authority – he has exceeded the scope of his authority as President. The Constitution is clear that the President cannot exercise power outside his or her constitutional authority. + +But what the Court failed to recognize is that the President's actions are also unconstitutional. The President has acted without proper authority, and therefore the Executive Branch itself has ceased to be a legitimate instrument of the people's will. +======================================== SAMPLE 480 ======================================== +You will need to add the script to your project, but as a general rule you can add a script to each project. The script will automatically be added to the project's requirement.txt file.<|endoftext|>by + +A few months ago, I wrote about the immense difficulties in creating a sex-positive feminist sex movement – a post that has received an enormous amount of feedback, and has been the subject of much discussion. I also wrote about the difference between a feminist sex movement and a sex-positive feminist movement, and how it might be possible for us to make the former a success. + +I was trying to show how difficult it would be for a sex-positive movement to come to power, and that our best chance of making it happen is to make it as inclusive as possible. But I didn't go far enough with the discussion. There was a broader question that I didn't address: what does it mean to be a sexual-positive feminist? + +What does it mean to be a sexual-positive feminist? + +It's quite a simple thing to define, really. Basically, it means that you don't believe that women are sexual objects, and that you believe that men are sexual beings too. In my experience, this is the definition of most feminists. It is what most feminists believe, and it is the definition which I myself have applied to my own politics. + +In my experience, sex-positive feminism involves a lot of thinking about men and women as sexual beings. It is about trying to understand why men and women interact the way they do. It's about trying to understand the ways in which men are socialised to engage in sexual behaviour, and the ways in which women are socialised to be passive, or to be able to give and not get, or to be shut out of other people's sexual interests and desires. It's about trying to understand the ways in which men are culturally sexually objectified and sexually objectified women. It's about trying to understand why we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women. It's about trying to understand why men are expected to be sexual and women not. And it's about trying to understand why men are expected to be sexual but not women. It's about trying to understand why we are sexual and not sexual, and why we have been sexual but not women. + +Sex-positive feminism is, I think, a pretty straightforward approach to understanding how men and women function as sexual beings. It is very pragmatic, and it is particularly relevant to the fact that women are sexual objects. It is particularly relevant to the fact that we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women, and to the fact that we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women. Sex-positive feminism is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of women involves a variety of different theories, and it is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of men involves a variety of different theories. Sex-positive feminism is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of men involves a variety of different theories, and it is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of women involves a variety of different theories. + +Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women are socialised to engage in sexual behaviour, and how women are socialised to be passive, or to be shut out of other people's sexual interests and desires. + +Sex-positive feminism is also a sound practical approach to the question of why men and women behave the way they do. I have seen it work everywhere from the sex-positive feminist sex movement, to the activist women's movement, to a radical feminist movement, to radical feminist sex activism. + +In short, sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand the ways in which men and women function as sexual beings, and it is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do. + +But it is not just about understanding men and women as sexual beings. Sex-positive feminism is also about understanding why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. + +Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. + +Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. + +Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how +======================================== SAMPLE 481 ======================================== +By JAMES HENDERSON + +Staff Writer + +NEW YORK — A 16-year-old boy was arrested Saturday evening after threatening to kill a man in the Bronx, according to the police. + +The boy, who is minors, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, both felonies, police said. + +The boy was at a Bronx park when he made the threat to the man, who is a neighbor, police said. + +The man told police that he was walking his dog on the nearby West Side Highway about 7:40 p.m. when a man walked up to him and said, "You have a dog? What kind of dog? Where you from?" + +The man told police that the boy then pulled out a black gun and pointed it at the man, who was walking his dog, police said. + +The man then called 911 and called the boy's mother, who then called police. + +The boy was taken into custody at the Bronx-Roosevelt Hospital Center. + +He was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail. + +The New York City Law Department said it could not release the boy's name because of his age. He is being held at an alternative detention facility.<|endoftext|>The US military's world-beating F-22 Raptor fighter jet is the most expensive weapons system ever built. But it's not getting any cheaper. + +The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it's planning to buy 87 more F-22s — the same number the Air Force won't be using. + +The F-22s are the most advanced planes built to date. They have been in use by the Air Force since 2002, when the US military first bought them. + +Each F-22 costs about $80 million and can fly at twice the speed of sound — faster than any other aircraft in the world. + +The F-22 was supposed to have been retired by now, but the Air Force refuses to do so, because the plane is so impressive. + +"The F-22 is the most capable and advanced air superiority fighter aircraft in the world," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a statement Wednesday. + +"The F-22 is truly a game-changing aircraft that will save lives and make our airmen more effective and safer in the air." + +The service wants to buy as many as 87 F-22s. The Air Force is already buying 78 F-22s; it's not clear how many it will buy in the future. + +Last month, the Air Force announced it will buy up to 187 F-22s for as many as $1.5 billion. + +All the F-22s in the Air Force fleet are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which is the sole supplier of the plane. The F-22 program cost about $102 billion up front, plus another $19 billion to operate and support the planes. + +Lockheed Martin has been working to speed up the production of more F-22s, but the Air Force has been slow to approve the new production plans. + +Lockheed Martin has said it needs to ramp up the F-22 production line by about seven years to keep up with the Air Force's production schedule. + +The F-22's production line has been operating at a breakneck pace since the program was first announced in 1997. But the pace has slowed since then, and production has fallen from its peak of 1,400 F-22s in 2007. + +Lockheed Martin's F-22 program manager David Deptula said the company will continue to invest in the plane and continue to "meet or exceed" the authority's production targets. + +"The F-22 continues to be the world's best air superiority fighter," he said in a statement Wednesday. + +The F-22 is the most advanced plane built to date. It can fly faster than sound. + +The F-22's speed is so fast, it can rival the speed of sound. The jet can fly at two times the speed of sound, or Mach 1.2 — faster than any other aircraft in the world. + +It also has stealth technology, which allows it to remain undetected by radar. + +The F-22 is so advanced it can be flown by only one pilot, who has to handle all weapon systems from the ground. + +The Air Force says the F-22 is the most capable and advanced air superiority fighter aircraft in the world. + +"The F-22 is truly a game-changing aircraft that will save lives and make our airmen more effective and safer in the air," said James.<|endoftext|>I have been told that when I write an article about "women in tech," it's often met with a slew of comments, some helpful, some hurtful, and some downright rude. This is, of course, not unique to me or to the industry +======================================== SAMPLE 482 ======================================== +I snuck into the office and checked my email. I was expecting a message from the CEO. Instead I got a message from my mom. + +"He's been fired," she wrote. + +I was startled. + +"What?" I asked. + +"He's been fired," she wrote. + +"What?" I asked again. + +"He's been fired." + +"What?" I asked. + +"He's been fired. He was fired for being on the phone with you." + +I was stunned. + +"Why?" I asked. + +"You didn't show up for work today," she wrote. "We were going to fire him." + +I was stunned. + +"That's not true," I said. + +"Oh, for God's sake, stop lying to me," she wrote. "What kind of horrible, twisted, evil person do you think I am? I'm not some evil person. I'm a good person." + +I was stunned. + +"Mom," I said. "I didn't do anything wrong." + +"What kind of horrible, twisted, evil person do you think I am?" she wrote. + +"What?" I asked again. "You didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I was on the phone with you." + +"Mom, you don't know me! I'm not some horrible, twisted, evil person!" + +"You're lying!" she wrote. + +"No, I wasn't lying," I replied. "I was just on the phone with you, and I was getting a package." + +"No, you didn't get a package. I was on the phone with you!" she wrote. + +"No, Mom, I didn't get a package," I said again. + +"I'll be darned!" she wrote. "You didn't get anything." + +I was stunned. + +"What?" I said. "What are you talking about?" + +"You don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. + +"I didn't get a package!" I said. "I didn't buy anything!" + +"No you didn't buy anything! You didn't buy anything!" she wrote. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" + +"Mom, I don't even have a package from Home Depot!" I said. + +"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. + +"I didn't buy anything!" I said again. + +"No, you didn't buy anything! You didn't buy anything!" she wrote. + +"Mom, you're lying!" I said. "I don't have a package from Home Depot!" + +"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" + +"Mom, you're lying!" I said again. + +"I'm not lying!" she wrote. + +"You don't have a package from Home Depot! You don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. + +"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. + +"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. + +"I didn't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. + +"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot!" I said again. + +"I didn't have a package from Home Depot!" she told me. + +"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot," I said. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" + +"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. + +"You were on the phone with me!" she wrote. + +"NO, YOU WERE ON THE PHONE WITH ME!" I said again. "You were on the phone with me!" + +I was shocked. + +"WHAT? You were on the phone with me?" I asked. + +"No, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me!" she wrote. + +"You weren't on the phone with me!" I said. "You weren't on the phone with me!" + +"I wasn't on the phone with you either!" she wrote. + +"I wasn't on the phone with you either!" I said. + +"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. "I don't have a package from Home Depot!" + +"Oh, God, Mom, I don't +======================================== SAMPLE 483 ======================================== +(CNN) The federal government has been spending up to $2 million a day to monitor protests in Ferguson, Missouri, where a grand jury has just announced it will not indict an officer in the death of Michael Brown. + +But that money is not going toward public safety, but rather to the private security firms that have been hired to help police officers and others at the protests. + +The Department of Homeland Security is providing $2.2 million in federal grants to the St. Louis County Police Department to pay for the services of the Tactical Response Team and the National Guard. + +The grant, which is up to $2,000,000, went to the police department for the first six months, according to a police statement. It stops in September. + +The amount spent in August, September and October on the operation has more than tripled, to more than $3.7 million, according to the statement. + +The total cost of the policing operation is "still being determined," police said, but it includes "costs incurred by the St. Louis County Police Department, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the State Highway Patrol." + +The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. + +The money is being used to provide "a variety of equipment and services, such as armored vehicles, helicopters, and other equipment." + +Read More<|endoftext|>The New York Times has a long and interesting article on the history of the "social club," or, more precisely, the New York City social club (save for a few exceptions like the Metropolitan Opera). The Times draws on a variety of sources to argue convincingly that the social club was a ritualistic form of place-making, a way of creating a place for itself that functioned as a "republic of its own." In order to understand this, it is important to understand the history of the social club. + +The social club is perhaps the greatest invention of nineteenth-century New York. It was an invention of the city, not just of the people in it. It was a product of a particular time and a particular place, a town that was becoming the model city for others to follow. The social club had its origins in the early nineteenth century, when the city was a more homogenous place than it had been in previous centuries. The upper classes had been drawn to the city because it offered a wide variety of opportunities to meet as well as to socialize. As a result, many people were drawn to the city to be part of this social club. The social club grew as the city became more cosmopolitan, as the wealthy and the middle class began to move to the city from all over the country. The city's geography made it ideal for these people to live and work. The social club was a way to create a new venue for socializing. The social club functioned as a place where the upper class could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. + +The social club was a powerful institution in the city throughout the nineteenth century. In the 1840s, it was the primary venue for socializing, and it was the primary means of meeting women, among other groups. It served as a meeting place for business and professional men who wanted to circulate information about lucrative opportunities. It served as a place where the upper and middle class socialized with the working class. The social club was a place where the middle and upper classes could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. The social club was a place where the upper class could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. + +In the nineteenth century, the social club was a place where the upper class and the upper class were able to meet and socialize in a more formal and formal way. The social club was a way that the upper class could meet with the lower class and express their social superiority. It was a way that the upper and middle classes could meet with the lower classes and express their social inferiority. It was a way that middle and upper class men could meet with the working class, express their lack of social status, and indicate their desire to spend their time and their money on the working class. It was a way that the working class could meet with the upper class and express their social superiority. + +By the 1880s, the social club had become the primary venue for socializing in New York. The social club served as a way for the upper class to meet with the lower class. The social club served as a way for the upper class to meet with the lower class. The social clubs functioned as venues for socializing in New York. The social clubs functioned as venues for socializing in New York. + +In addition, the social club functioned as a way of creating a new kind of community. The social clubs functioned as spaces where the upper class could meet with the lower class, express their social superiority, and express their desire to spend their time and their money on the working class. The social clubs +======================================== SAMPLE 484 ======================================== +9 + +Legendary Creature — Human Warrior (4/2) + +, : You gain life equal to the number of cards in target player's hand. + +: You gain life equal to the number of cards in target player's hand.<|endoftext|>Podcast: The Future of the Bitcoin Blockchain + +"We have to figure out how to increase the velocity of transactions, so the average time between a transaction and its confirmation is reduced." + +- Thomas Voegtlin, CTO of Ripple Labs + +The last time we spoke with Thomas Voegtlin, he was still a new employee at Ripple Labs, but had already earned a reputation for his work on Ripple and its XRP cryptocurrency. + +Now, as Ripple Labs continues to grow, Voegtlin is taking on a new role: CTO. + +"I'm taking on the role of CTO of the future of the blockchain," Voegtlin said in a recent interview. "I think the blockchain is going to be pretty big." + +The former VP of Engineering at Coinapult, Voegtlin is now focusing on the future of blockchain technology and how it's going to change the role of banks in the world of financial transactions and payments. + +Voegtlin says that the bitcoin blockchain has the potential to be the world's largest, but the protocol has a lot of limitations. + +"There are certain limitations to the bitcoin blockchain," he said. "It's a big, slow network that's not designed to process very large transactions." + +That's what Voegtlin is trying to change with Ripple Labs. + +"We have to figure out how to increase the velocity of transactions, so the average time between a transaction and its confirmation is reduced," he explained. + +Voegtlin says that the next step is to improve blockchain scalability, which is a key challenge for the technology. + +The company has hired developers to help with this effort, and announced that it is building its own system based on the blockchain. + +"The system is built on the blockchain but is built from the ground up to be a new system that does not have any known limitations," the company wrote in a blog post. "We are working to create an open source system that can be used by any blockchain project." + +For now, Ripple Labs is working to improve its products and services, and work on the technology that will be used for its own blockchain. + +"Ripple Labs is not going to be the world's biggest crypto company in five years," it said. "But we are going to be an important player in how the world uses digital currencies."<|endoftext|>The wife of the deputy who killed three people and injured others in a chase through West Memphis, Arkansas, on Thursday described the gunman as a "crazy person" who had been sent to jail for robbery and domestic violence. + +The suspect, Brentley Vinson, was found dead after a foot chase with police in the town near the Texas border. + +"He was a crazy person, and he would just pop out of nowhere," Mary Vinson, the suspect's wife, told KATV. "You just never knew what he was going to do." + +She said her husband was in jail for a probation violation at the time of the shooting, and that he had been sent to prison for a robbery conviction. + +"He had just been released a few days before," she said. + +The suspect is also the father of the two children killed and injured in the incident. Mary Vinson said she was told that the shooter's daughter had taken her children to school that morning, but that he had not been home at the time. + +"He was a good guy, and he won't be missed," she told the Associated Press. + +Authorities said they were aware of the suspect's history with the law. + +"We're currently in the process of trying to determine if he was on any other criminal records," said Capt. Kevin Bobo, with the West Memphis Police Department. + +Vinson was being held on a charge of capital murder, according to KATV. + +The manhunt for the suspect began just after midnight on Thursday when several police cars and K-9 units pulled over the suspected driver's car in a residential neighborhood in West Memphis and a gun battle ensued. + +News footage showed police with their guns drawn chasing the suspect on foot and in a car before he was shot and killed. Officers recovered a rifle and a handgun from the scene and seized evidence. + +The suspect's car was found riddled with bullet holes, according to a statement from the Arkansas State Police. + +The police statement did not elaborate on the alleged motive. + +"We're still looking to see why he was there," Bobo said. + +The incident was the latest in a string of high-profile police shootings across the country. + +Last week, a gunman opened +======================================== SAMPLE 485 ======================================== +For the last few months I have been working on some development tools for the Haskell ecosystem. I've landed my first binary product, yast2 , which allows you to transform the Haskell AST into a human readable, type-safe, and easy to use schema. There's a lot more to come, but the basic idea is simple: yast2 takes a Haskell AST, and transforms it into a schema that is easy to read and write, and does not require an external schema parser or parser combinator library. + +I wanted to show off my work today, so I've released the Haskell package, yast2. The package is available on Hackage, and can be installed with cabal install yast2 . + +I've been working on this for the last few months, and while I've been working on it I've also been working on the Haskell ecosystem at the GHC HQ. Last week I met with a group of people at the GHC HQ to discuss how to make it easier to develop packages for the Haskell ecosystem. My presentation and discussion with them was very inspiring, and I would like to share a few of the things that we discussed. + +Documentation + +One of the biggest concerns I've had with the Haskell ecosystem is the documentation. I've been in a position where I've tried to do a lot of documentation, and I don't think I've been successful. There are lots of packages on Hackage, and their documentation is scattered around the internet, which is really difficult to understand. + +I've been working on a few things to help improve the documentation. The first step is to provide a centralized place for all of the Haskell packages that have documentation. We already have an online package index ( http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ ), but it's really not very well organised, and I would like it to be. + +We need a central place for all of the documentation that exists, and I think that's one of the biggest hurdles. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for other developers to submit documentation. There are lots of categories in the package index, and people are already submitting documentation to them. + +The Haskell ecosystem is incredibly large, and it's really difficult to find all of the documentation that exists. + +Building the package index + +The first step is to make the package index more central. We have documentation, but it's scattered around the internet. Each package has its own index, and I would like to make sure that the documentation for all of the packages is available in one place. + +When people look at the documentation for a package, they don't always know where to find it. The most common solution is that they have to search through the documentation for the package, and then search through the documentation for that category of documentation. Once they've found the documentation they want, they have to manually do a lot of work to find the documentation for that package. This is very time consuming. + +I'm currently working on a wiki page that will help people find documentation for any Haskell package. When people look at the wiki page for a package, they will be able to see which categories of documentation it has, and then they will be able to find the documentation for that category of documentation. + +I think that this is a great example of what I've called "deobfuscation". Some packages have documentation that is quite obfuscated. There is a lot of jargon in it, and it's hard to understand. If you're writing a library, you want to make sure that the documentation is easy to read. + +A wiki page is a great way to deobfuscate the documentation, and make it easier to understand. + +There are also many packages that have documentation that is very difficult to understand. If we have a wiki page for a package, people will be able to quickly find documentation for that package, and it will be much easier to understand. + +Community + +One of the most important parts of any package is the community around it. I think the best way to make sure that a package has a strong community is to make sure that people have a good way to contribute. + +I've been working on a lot of different things at the Haskell HQ, and I have a particular interest in making documentation better. I think that making documentation better is one of the most important things that we can do to support the Haskell ecosystem. We need to make it easier to contribute documentation to the Haskell ecosystem. + +One way that we can do this is by creating a package index that mirrors the documentation on Hackage. We already have an online package index ( http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ ), but it's not very well organised, and I think it's really difficult to understand. + +We can already have a package index, but the problem is that it's only covering packages that are up on Hackage. There are also many packages that are not on Hackage. +======================================== SAMPLE 486 ======================================== +Book Review: + +The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris + +The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris + +Sam Harris + +The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris by Frederick A. Brown + +But there is one more thing to be said about this book. I have read this book, and I have read it with a serious disappointment. The New Atheists is in my opinion a very bad book. And not just because it is bad, but because it panders to the worst kind of religious fanatics. + +His chapters are filled with arrogant and racist statements about Muslims, and Christians, and Hindus, and Jews. He claims that there is a religious "religion" that has infected the world, and that the only way to destroy it is to destroy the ideas behind it. He says that Islam, the religion of the majority of the world's Muslims, is a "religion of hate" and "the most dangerous religion on earth." He says that the Christian religion is the "religion of white supremacy" and that it is "the most dangerous religion on earth." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain." He says that Hinduism is an "anti-science religion" and that its founder killed millions of people because he was a fanatical Hindu. He says that Judaism is "just a religion of covetousness," and that Islam is "a religion of revenge and war." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," that Christianity is the "religion of white supremacy," that Islam is "evil," that Hinduism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," and that Judaism is "a religion of covetousness." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," that Christianity is "the religion of white supremacy," that Islam is "evil," that Hinduism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," and that Judaism is "a religion of covetousness." + +He claims that the only way to destroy Islam is to destroy its ideas. He says that modern Muslims, who are far more tolerant of other peoples than their ancestors, are "cockroaches." He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. He says that modern Christians, who are far more tolerant of other peoples than their ancestors, are "cockroaches." He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy the Hindu idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy the Jewish idea of God is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy Buddhism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy Judaism's idea of God. He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy Christianity's idea of God. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy Buddhism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy Judaism's idea of God. + +He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Jewish is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. + +He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. + +The New Atheists is the most dangerous book I have ever read. It is the worst book I have ever read. It is the worst book I have ever read for two reasons. One, it is full of racism. For example, he says that the Jews are the most violent people in history. He says that the Jews have been responsible for the deaths of "millions of people." He says that the Jews are the most evil people in the history of the world. And he says that the Jews are the biggest threat to world peace. The Jews are a threat to the world because they are "oppressors," "racists," "antisemites," "fanatics," and "terrorists." + +Two, it is full of ignorance. He says that "the most important religious question of our time +======================================== SAMPLE 487 ======================================== +The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. + +The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. + +In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. + +In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. + +Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. + +The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. + +The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. + +In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. + +In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. + +Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. + +The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. + +The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. + +In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. + +In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. + +Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. + +The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the +======================================== SAMPLE 488 ======================================== +The following list of links contains all of the articles and links to information related to the Star Wars: Rogue One: Scarif (2015) film. Please check out the new article on The Essential Atlas for all of the information about the film. + +Contents show] + +Pre-release information Edit + +The following article is a work in progress. Please be patient while it is being constructed. + +This article has not yet been finished and checked to be accurate. + +The following information is from a pre-release source and is not considered canon. + +Star Wars: Rogue One: Scarif directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, and Jiang Wen, is a film that will serve as the second installment of the Rogue One trilogy. The film is set for release on December 16, 2016. + +Plot summary Edit + +The film, directed by Gareth Edwards, tells the story of the characters who were killed during the battle between the First Order and the Resistance on Scarif, an Imperial-occupied planet. The film begins with a battle between a Resistance fleet and a First Order Star Destroyer over Scarif. The battle ends when the Star Destroyer fires a missile at the Resistance fleet, which destroys the ship. + +Following the destruction of the Star Destroyer, the Resistance and the First Order rush to investigate the explosion. They find that the explosion was caused by a fighter squadron from the First Order nicknamed the "Bombers." + +The film shows how these fighters are equipped, their weapons, their tactics, and how they are trained. The film also shows how the First Order reconstitutes the bombers in their new base on Scarif. + +As the film progresses, we see how the bombers are used to destroy various buildings on the planet. These bombers are also used to attack the Resistance military base on Scarif. + +The film, in my opinion, is the best installment of the series. The characters are interesting, the story is well-paced, and the action scenes are intense. The film also has a strong political subtext and is a good film that is well worth seeing. + +Appearances Edit + + +Bibliography Edit + +Notes and references Edit<|endoftext|>The Seattle Seahawks are rolling along at the moment. They have a record of 5-1 and are currently the only unbeaten team in the league. They are also in the midst of a three-game winning streak. + +But the Seahawks are not the only team making waves around the NFL. + +The Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders are also rolling their way towards 5-1 records, which means they are currently the only undefeated teams in the NFL. + +Of the Steelers, Patriots, and Bengals, the Steelers are in the midst of their worst start to a season since the Steelers were a Super Bowl contender prior to the 1970 season. + +However, their two losses came to the 3-2 Baltimore Ravens and the 3-3 Miami Dolphins in the first two weeks of the season, which means the Steelers are rolling right now. + +The Patriots and Bengals are looking a little weaker than the Steelers, but they still have a chance to make a run at the playoffs. + +Below are the five undefeated teams in the NFL, according to the NFL Power Rankings. + +5. Denver Broncos + +The Broncos are another team that has had a rough start to the season. They lost their first game to the Denver Broncos on opening day, but then bounced back with a win over the Saints on opening night. + +However, they have dropped two straight games since, and their only win since has been against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. + +The Broncos have a tough timetable to get things turned around. They have a game against the Kansas City Chiefs in two weeks on the road, but they have a matchup with the Patriots in Week 11, which could be a tough test in New England. + +4. Pittsburgh Steelers + +The Steelers have had a rough start to the season. They lost their first two games to the Baltimore Ravens and the Miami Dolphins. + +The Steelers have not lost since, however, and they are currently the only undefeated team in the NFL. They have won three straight games and are now 8-0. + +The Steelers have a tough schedule ahead of them, but they are 3-1 over the past three weeks and have a chance to win their first division title in the past two decades. + +3. New England Patriots + +The Patriots have had a rough start to the season. They lost their first game to the Baltimore Ravens on opening day, but then bounced back with a win over the Saints on opening night. + +However, they have dropped two straight games since, and +======================================== SAMPLE 489 ======================================== +I like to think of myself as a fairly tolerant Republican. I'm kind of a fiscal conservative, but I'm also a social conservative. I'm a little old-school when it comes to abortion rights, but I think gay marriage is an issue we can deal with over time. I'm a little old-school on religious freedom, which is why I see a lot of conservatives defending Hobby Lobby. + +But as my daughter's birth control coverage was about to end, the Trump administration announced the end of the Obama-era rule requiring employers to cover birth control as part of their employees' health insurance. + +The administration said the rule was an overreach of executive power, and it had been repealed on Thursday. + +That's not true. It's still not true. + +The Trump administration's executive order on the Affordable Care Act … has the potential to impact millions of women. + +I am not kidding. + +The order — which is still not legal — states that the federal government can't force anyone to provide coverage for birth control. There are no exceptions. + +That means that no employer can be forced to provide health insurance coverage for birth control. And if he or she is, the employer is in violation of the law. There is no legal way to make an employer provide coverage for birth control without violating the law. + +So if you are one of millions of women who is getting a letter from your insurance company saying you are having to pay more for birth control because of the Trump administration's order, you can sue the insurance company. + +And it's not just women who could be affected. Many men who have access to birth control via their spouse's employer could also be affected. They can be sued, too, if their employer requires them to provide coverage. + +What's more, the order could impact other kinds of preventive care. The government can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. + +The administration can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. + +The order could also impact other preventive care. The government can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. + +If you think the Trump administration is going to use this to roll back women's rights, you're right. But there are ways that you can fight back. + +First, get a copy of the order. You can find it online at the Federal Register. + +You can also call your insurance company and let them know you are getting this letter. You don't have to say why — just let them know you are getting this letter. + +You can also call your state insurance department and let them know you are getting this letter. You don't have to say why — just let them know you are getting this letter. + +And, if you know of any employers who are still providing coverage for birth control, you can report them to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. + +The Trump administration has an opportunity to do something great for women. But they're choosing to abuse it.<|endoftext|>About + +I'm a computer programmer who found his way into the world of music software. + +I've been a musician for over 20 years and have been producing music professionally since 2004. I've written over 30 songs in that time with over a dozen more in the works. I've recorded an EP in 2010 and a full length album in 2011. + +I'm primarily a composer and arranger but recently made the jump from composition to music software as well. With the help of my employer I'm able to pay my bills, fund a few personal projects and play music in my free time. + +I've always had a passion for music and have been writing music since I was a child. I've always been very involved with musicians, creating music for bands and other musicians I've met over the years. + +My goal is to be able to produce my own music. I've been working on this project for a while but need your help to get it out to the world. + +The music is playing in the background + +This is a passionate project that will take a lot of time, effort and money. As much as I would like to be able to devote myself to this project full time I just can't do it. I'm still trying to figure out how to make ends meet and will need to make some sacrifices in order to do this job. + +Here is a list of what you can expect from my project: + +The game will be played on a grid system. + +The game will consist of 6 tracks. + +I am in the process of developing a demo of the game that will be available on my website. + +I will be using a C# +======================================== SAMPLE 490 ======================================== +The Social Security Administration has about 12.2 million beneficiaries who are receiving benefits. Almost all of them are retired workers, and the vast majority of them have worked for the federal government for at least 15 years, with about half of all of them being over the age of 50. + +About 75 percent of the beneficiaries are male, and about 80 percent of them are white. About 12.7 million people are receiving Social Security benefits, and about 7.9 million of them are in the 50-to-64 age group. + +In addition to the 12.2 million beneficiaries, there are about 28 million people who are receiving disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. + +A large share of the beneficiaries are in the lower income brackets. About 15 percent of all beneficiaries are in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, and about 30 percent of all beneficiaries are in the bottom half of the income distribution. + +About 18 percent of beneficiaries are in the middle class, and about 22 percent are in the upper class. Only about one in 10 people receiving benefits are in the highest income bracket. + +About 9 percent of all beneficiaries are in the top one percent of income recipients. + +About 22 percent of all beneficiaries are in the highest income bracket. + +Follow Michael on Twitter + +Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.<|endoftext|>The first time I saw the Star Wars film, I was in junior high school. I had just finished watching the prequels and I was shellshocked by all the terrible writing, acting and editing. It's not that I didn't love the movies, but I had a much different opinion of them. I didn't feel like they were thought through or well-crafted, but rather rushed and hurried through. The final product came off as rushed and rushed. This film was different. + +I was excited to see the film and watch it again. I wanted to see how they changed what they created and how they had changed it. The film was a bit of a let down for me, but I was excited for the second time around. I was so excited that I nearly cried when I saw the final product. I thought, "Oh my god, they made it so much better." I'm going to be honest with you, I was so excited for the sequel. I really like the second film, but I'm a bit disappointed in the first. I thought it was a better product overall, but it was still pretty bad. + +I've seen a lot of the criticism surrounding the film. Some people say that the film is too dark. Some people say that it's too soft. Some people say that the film is boring. I am not here to defend the film. I am here to say that I think that the film is a great film. I think it's well thought out and well-made. It's a great piece of art. + +The film is centered around the young Luke Skywalker. The film really shows off the young Luke. He's the protagonist of the film. I think this is a great way to introduce the character. It gives us a chance to really see what he's like when he's young and has become a Jedi. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he has lost his father. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he's lost his mother. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he's lost his friends. He has a lot of friends. It's a really wonderful way to introduce the character and give us a break from the prequels. + +The film also does a great job of weaving a story that is about how Luke is going to have to deal with the fact that he's the son of Anakin Skywalker and Princess Leia. It's a great way to introduce the character and really build up his character. + +The film also has a strong villain. It's really interesting to see how the villain is going to be introduced. We are already taken to see that the Sith are going to be involved. There are two of them. We are introduced to Darth Maul as well. He's a really interesting villain. + +The film also has a strong focus on the Force. Luke Skywalker is more than just a Jedi. He's a Jedi who has become a Force user. He's a Jedi who has begun to understand the Force. He's going to have to deal with some issues that come with that. + +The film also has a strong focus on Han Solo and Chewbacca. They're not just there to be droids or cannon fodder. They're there to play important roles in the film. + +The film has a strong focus on the Force and how Luke is going to have to deal with it. + +The film also has a strong focus +======================================== SAMPLE 491 ======================================== +The world's top three auto makers — General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — have joined the United Auto Workers bargaining team for a new four-year contract. + +The UAW said Thursday that the companies had agreed to terms for a new contract that, if ratified by the union, would begin Jan. 15, with the first day of work scheduled for Feb. 12. + +The new contract would be the third for the Detroit Three, which are also the largest private employers in the U.S. The new contract would also be the first for Chrysler, which is facing a potential bankruptcy. + +GM (GM) said Thursday it signed a new, four-year contract with the UAW. + +"We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Union representing our UAW Team Members on new contract terms," GM said in a statement. "We have made significant progress in the negotiations and we look forward to ongoing discussions to drive value and build a stronger team in the next contract." + +Ford (F) said Thursday it reached an agreement with the union that would begin on Jan. 1, with the first day of work scheduled for Feb. 12. The automaker is facing several challenges as it tries to turn around its business after it broke its lease with the UAW in 2011. Ford has seen its share of the U.S. car market shrink more than 10 percentage points since 2011, and filed for bankruptcy protection in January. + +"We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Union representing our UAW Team Members on new contract terms," Ford said in a statement. "We have made significant progress in the negotiations and we look forward to ongoing discussions to drive value and build a stronger team in the next contract." + +The UAW said that the auto makers made their best offer, adding that the companies were making significant progress in the negotiations. + +"We were able to come to a good agreement that addresses our key concerns and will keep our team members employed in the UAW-represented plants," said UAW President Dennis Williams. "We are pleased to be moving forward with a new contract with our two biggest auto competitors." + +The new contract would replace the tentative agreement that expired in August, with both sides saying they were "not far apart." The previous contract expired on Dec. 31. + +Related: Even as car sales soar, wages are stagnant + +The UAW said that the companies would keep their current health care benefits, including health care for senior employees, and would continue to pay all employee contributions to pension plans. + +The companies said the new contract would be "consistent with the UAW's long-term goal of putting more money in the pockets of our workers." + +The UAW has been in contract talks with the companies for more than a year and has been facing a strong push from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other businesses to keep wages stagnant. The UAW has resisted the push, saying that it will not give in to anti-union forces. + +Related: Trump campaign pledges 'Buy American, Hire American' + +The UAW has also been facing a backlash from some U.S. Fiat Chrysler workers who have walked out of the company's plants. + +The companies said that the new contract would "preserve the ongoing role of the Teamsters Local 708 Bargaining Unit as the bargaining unit for the new UAW contract." + +"With the addition of the new Teamsters Local 708 bargaining unit, we are pleased to bring to the table a union representing the best of the best in the industry," said Fiat Chrysler spokesman Ray Holt. "We look forward to making a strong and competitive offer to our Teamsters Team Members on Jan. 1 and Feb. 12." + +The companies said that they are committed to keeping the new UAW contract "as competitive as possible." + +The UAW has said that it is willing to negotiate a new contract that includes a wage increase in the new contract, but offers no details about the amount. + +General Motors announced last week that it was making a $1,000 donation to the Trump campaign.<|endoftext|>The New York Times on Sunday highlighted a report from the University of Texas at Austin that found that white Americans are more likely to be killed by police officers than black Americans. + +According to the study, which was conducted in 2013, whites were six times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than black Americans. + +"White Americans are more likely than blacks to be involved in violent crime, but they are less likely to be involved in lethal force incidents," the study said. "The analysis found that, compared with black Americans, white Americans were over 10 times more likely to be involved in fatal force incidents, four times more likely to be involved in nonfatal force incidents, and more than twice as likely to be involved in property crime incidents." + +The UT report, which was conducted by crim +======================================== SAMPLE 492 ======================================== +As the numbers of suicides rise, the Tamil Nadu government has set a target to reduce the suicide rate to zero by 2017.The Tamil Nadu government has approved an ambitious scheme to promote the use of alternative methods to suicide. The plan will be implemented as a national programme to tackle mental health issues. The government will address the need for a screening programme along with the provision of crisis counselling services. The target of the programme will be to reduce the suicide rate by 10 percent in the next five years.The government has identified another major concern which is the rise in the number of household suicides. It has also made a plan to target the most vulnerable populations in the state.The government is also planning to spearhead the implementation of a pilot project in Chennai, which will be conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) to sensitise the public about mental health issues and bring about changes in the social norms.The initiative has been approved by the Tamil Nadu Cabinet. The proposed strategy will be implemented through the Tamil Nadu Government Mental Health Programme.The state government will also work with NIMHANS to set up a family counselling centre in Chennai. An additional 10,000 counselling centres will be set up in the state to deal with the mental health issues of the people.The state government will also provide counselling services at the cost of Rs 100 per head to all those who are suffering from mental health issues. The counselling centres will also be equipped with a 24x7 helpline for distress calls.The government is also planning to launch a public awareness programme to combat mental health issues. The government will also promote the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to bring about changes in the social norms.The government has also called for a review of the existing mental health policy with a view to revising the policy to make it more effective.The Vision of Mental Health in Tamil Nadu is to reduce the suicide rate to zero in the next five years.<|endoftext|>Innovation is a key factor in maintaining innovation-friendly and competitive markets. As a strong economy, Italy is renowned for its innovation and has developed a number of key innovations. These include the smartphone, the car industry, and informal banking. + +However, Italy's most important innovation, the car industry, has been highly volatile, with a number of companies and governments having failed to adapt to the evolution. + +The car industry's innovative potential has been driven by the ability to establish and maintain a 'car culture', which encourages innovation and can be considered a solution to the problem of innovation in the car industry. This culture has been built on several pillars: + +the car industry needs to be agile and adaptable to the new technologies that are emerging in the market; + +the car industry needs to be competitive by aiming at a low cost and high quality; + +the car industry needs to be efficient by focusing on the services and technologies that make the car an efficient and convenient transport device; + +the car industry needs to be innovative in order to become more efficient and competitive, and generate new products and services; + +The car industry needs to be financially secure by focussing on the production of high quality products and services, as well as by encouraging innovation and competition which will generate new products and services. + +The car industry has been able to play a key role in Italy's economic success, with the industry being responsible for more than 40% of the country's GDP. The car industry has also helped to support the Italian economy by providing jobs, jobs, jobs. + +The car industry has been the driving force behind Italy's innovation, and has produced several key innovations. These include the smartphone, the car industry and informal banking.<|endoftext|>The year is 2037 and the world has been turned upside down. The United States is in the midst of the worst recession in its history. The world's governments have collapsed. The military alliances of the world have been decimated. The global economy is frozen. + +This is the year the world is divided. At the center of the war is a young woman who has just lost her father. Noriko Shikage, known universally as Matoi, is a super-powered girl who fights against a shadowy presence. The shadow is the Organization's leader, its true identity a mystery to even most of its members. + +Shikage, with her powers of "Heavenly Wind" and "Mountain Reversal," is the sole hope of the world. Her powers allow her to reach into the other world. She can see things she normally can't. + +The story weaves together the hidden world of the Organization's top members, the human characters who live in Japan, the remnants of humanity scattered across the world. + +The original television series broadcast in 1987.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that all travelers who have passports from the seven Muslim-majority countries named in President Trump's executive order will be denied entry to the United States and +======================================== SAMPLE 493 ======================================== +S. 3156 (113th) was a bill in the United States Congress. + +A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law. + +This bill was introduced in the 113th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2013 to Jan 2, 2015. Legislation not enacted by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books. + +How to cite this information. + +We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work: + +GovTrack.us. (2018). S. 3156 — 113th Congress: American Dream Act. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s3156?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss "S. 3156 — 113th Congress: American Dream Act." www.GovTrack.us. 2013. September 29, 2018 American Dream Act, S. 3156, 113th Cong. (2013). {{cite web + +|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s3156?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss + +|title=S. 3156 (113th) + +|accessdate=September 29, 2018 + +|author=113th Congress (2013) + +|date=October 21, 2013 + +|work=Legislation + +|publisher=GovTrack.us + +|quote=American Dream Act + +}} show another citation format: + +MLA + +APA + +Blue Book + +Wikipedia Template + +Where is this information from? + +GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources. This page is sourced primarily from Congress.gov, the official portal of the United States Congress. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. Data via the congress project.<|endoftext|>It's almost a year since I made the decision to get rid of my beloved Nexus 7 tablet, but I'm still using it just like I did before, and I'm still loving it. I've been using it with a single USB-C cable for the entire year, but now that Google has released the Pixel C, I want to move to using a USB-C cable with every device I own. + +I've been using it with a single USB-C cable for the entire year, and now that Google has released the Pixel C, I want to move to using a USB-C cable with every device I own. + +But what about those cases, the new cases, that I've been looking at when I think about buying a new case? I have no problem using a USB-C cable with any case when I'm using my Pixel C, but what about when I use a case with my old Nexus 7 tablet? + +USB-C is still the standard + +The USB-A connector on my old Nexus 7 tablet is still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. The Pixel C is also still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. + +The new Pixel C is also still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. + +One of the biggest differences between the old Nexus 7 and the new Pixel C is the way the two cases are designed. The old Nexus 7 had a magnetic charging dock that would stick to the back of the phone, so I couldn't simply put the new Pixel C on the charging dock and charge it at the same time. I had to remove the dock and put it on the new Pixel C. + +This isn't a huge problem, because I already have a charging dock in my pocket, but it's a bit of a hassle when I'm trying to charge my new Pixel C tablet. + +The new case design + +The new Pixel C and the new Nexus 7 tablet are both designed so that you can put them on the magnetic charging dock. This means that you can put the new Pixel C on the charging dock and charge it at the same time. + +The new Pixel C and the new Nexus 7 tablet are both designed so that you can put them on the magnetic charging dock. + +The new case design is also much sleeker than the old case design. The old Nexus 7 has a lot more +======================================== SAMPLE 494 ======================================== +Chapter Two: The Green Dragon + +She was a fine warrior, but still she was a beast. + +The first thing she noticed was how fast she was, her pace was incredible. Once she realized that, she realized that she had to get away. + +"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" She kept on crying, but she didn't know how to say it. + +She was a beast, and she was attacking a human with her human instincts. + +On the other hand, she was a beautiful girl. + +He was already looking, to see if he could find a weapon to fight her. + +"What am I, a human?" she shouted. + +"You're a beast, you're a beast, you're a beast!" he shouted back. + +"I'm a human!" she screamed, a little bit of anger was still in her voice. + +"I'm not a human, I'm a beast, you're a beast, you're a beast!" he screamed back. + +Suddenly, she noticed something, she realized that he was wearing a cloak, and a mask, and he was looking at something that was on the ground. + +She couldn't see it, but she saw a mask that she had once seen before. + +"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" she said. + +"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" + +He was apologizing. + +When she was done apologizing, she walked right in front of him, and put her hands on his shoulders. + +"Please, leave this place." she said. + +He didn't move. + +She continued to put her hands on his shoulders, until her arms were covered in his. + +"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" + +She tried to stop, but she was stopped. + +She was crying, but she didn't know how to stop. + +He looked at her, and his eyes were calm. + +He was still looking at something on the ground. + +Suddenly, he looked at her face. + +He looked at her and smiled. + +She didn't know how she felt, but she had a feeling that something was happening. + +"My name is Creighton, I'm a traveling merchant, I came here to find a dragon." he said. + +She looked at him and her eyes were filled with shock. + +She was in shock, she never thought a human could say such a thing. + +"My name is Diana, I am a member of the human race." she said. + +He smiled, and said, "Very well, I will be leaving now." + +"Wait." she said. + +He looked at her, and said, "What?" + +She looked at him for a second, and then she smiled, and said, "I know you're not a dragon, but I'm telling you, you're my friend, and you're a total jerk. I'm asking you to be my friend, I don't want to be your enemy, but I'm not going to be friends with a jerk like you." + +He looked at her, and smiled. + +"I'm not going to fight you, but I'm going to call you by your name, Diana. My friend." he said. + +"Thank you." she said. + +"I don't think there is much of a point to this. I'm going to go." he said. + +"Wait…" she said. + +He frowned, then he looked at her, and smiled. + +"You know, I don't think there is anything strange about you, Diana." he said. + +She looked at him, and her eyes were filled with sadness, but she said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" + +He smiled again, and said, "I don't think there is anything strange about it either, we all have our flaws, but we're all people." + +She said, "I guess I'm just a bit sad." + +He smiled, and said, "Good, that means you're my friend." + +She smiled, but she didn't know what to say. + +She was feeling a little sad, but she knew she was just a little sad. + +He looked at her again, and said, "I'm going to call you by your name again, Diana, my friend." + +"Thank you." she said. + +He looked at her, and smiled. + +"I don't think there is anything strange about it either, we all have +======================================== SAMPLE 495 ======================================== +The Oceanside City Council votes to credit residents who help reduce carbon pollution by installing green roofs on their homes. Oceanside is the first city in California to do this. + +A majority of the City Council voted Tuesday night to give residents of Oceanside credit for installing green roofs on their homes. This move can reduce greenhouse gases by about 7,000 tons a year, or about 40 percent of the city's total emissions. + +"We're sending a message to the rest of the world that we're serious about being a leader in clean energy," said Mayor William Meyer. + +Oceanside is the first city in California to take this step. + +Oceanside's program is modeled on a program in Cambridge, Mass. In Cambridge, residents who help reduce carbon pollution by installing green roofs receive financial incentives. Since 2014, the program has saved the city about $94,000 a year. + +"If you look at the benefit and the cost, they're really, really good values," said Lisa Anderson, a policy analyst with the Environment California Research and Policy Center. "The green roofs are the best thing that the city could do to help the environment." + +The Oceanside program will be available to residents of the city as long as they meet certain requirements. It will cover all roofs on homes built after February 2010. It will be available for a three-year period, and the program will be monitored by the city. + +"We're trying to move towards a green future, and we're trying to do it in our own backyard," said Councilman Mark Potts. + +The city will consider extending the program to other neighborhoods if they can show they're also reducing emissions. + +Residents who want to help the program find homes that meet the requirements can call (760) 953-9170 or visit oceanside.com. + +Copyright 2017 KGTV<|endoftext|>Pooja Gupta, a correspondent with the BBC, was confused when she inadvertently recorded an Iranian official saying "hooray" in English as she mentioned the country's new president, Hassan Rouhani. + +Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, arrives in New York on Thursday. (Photo: AFP) Story Highlights BBC reporter Pooja Gupta recorded the exchange + +The exchange is difficult to make out + +Government officials seem to be a bit embarrassed + +NEW YORK (AP) — A BBC reporter captured an awkward exchange between the government of Iran and the broadcaster's cameraman on Thursday, and the exchange is difficult to make out. + +CNN's Michael Weiss posted a photo of the exchange on Twitter. Gupta, who was on a live broadcast in Tehran, initially recorded the exchange at the airport. + +In the recording, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, speaks into a microphone as Gupta speaks into her camera. + +"I cannot help but feel that you are in an old-fashioned era," he says. "In the 21st century, in the age of smartphones, people have got their own personal information, I wonder what your purpose is here." + +Gupta responds: "I just want to note that the leader of this great country, Mr. Rouhani, has just called us a great nation. He has said we are a great nation. I'm sure you will say that again." + +"Yes, I think so," the official replies. + +The exchange is difficult to make out. + +Gupta said Friday that she couldn't make out the words because she was distracted by what she was saying in English. + +"For the first time in my career, I did not speak the proper word," she said. + +She said she didn't know why she was speaking in English. + +"I suspect that it might be because I am an Indian, and I am used to speaking in English," Gupta said. "And I've always felt comfortable with it. I'm used to speaking in English. It's been an easy transition for me." + +Alexei Moiseev, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said the exchange was recorded in the context of the official meeting between the two officials. + +"We are aware of the exchange of images by journalists during the meeting between the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the BBC journalists," Moiseev said. "The Iranian government is aware of the incident and is conducting an investigation in this regard." + +The government of Iran announced Friday that Rouhani, the country's president, would be visiting the United States. + +The visit will be his first to the nation since the 2009 election. + +Gupta said she was concerned that the government wouldn't be welcoming Rouhani, who was seen by many in the West as a reformer. + +"I'm very concerned that he might be very cold and stiff and not be very easy to talk to," she said. + +Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1y +======================================== SAMPLE 496 ======================================== +"The Dirty Dozen" + +"The Dirty Dozen" is a food pyramid designed to help Americans understand what to eat, what to avoid, and what to eat more of. The original pyramid was created by the government in the 1950s, but it was quickly dubbed "The Dirty Dozen" by the media and the public. + +The original pyramid was created by the government in the 1950s, but it was quickly dubbed "The Dirty Dozen" by the media and the public. + +Food Pyramid + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), based on the food pyramid published by the National Academy of Sciences. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. + +The original food pyramid was created in the 1950 +======================================== SAMPLE 497 ======================================== +As the debate over the future of religion in America rages, a new poll finds that most Americans accept of atheists who want to run for office. + +A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) finds that 63 percent of Americans say they believe "atheists who want to run for office should be allowed to do so," while only 32 percent said they "dissent from this statement." + +The poll surveyed 1,451 adults nationwide from June 2 to 5. + +The poll also found that only 27 percent of Americans say they "ever think of themselves as being religious." + +The PRRI poll also found that 62 percent of Americans believe that "atheists who want to run for office should have the same rights as religious people." + +The poll was conducted before the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby case. In that decision, the court ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, "which has been used by a number of states to regulate private employers' rights to provide contraceptive coverage to their workers, should be interpreted to include the rights of people and businesses to exercise their own religious beliefs." + +The Hobby Lobby decision, along with other recent decisions, have triggered a growing movement to allow atheists to run for office. This is the first time PRRI has surveyed this issue. + +"Americans have a choice in this election cycle to stand on the side of the Constitution or the culture war," said PRRI President Robert P. Jones. "We are seeing a backlash against the culture wars and a movement toward constitutionalism. We are seeing a strong movement of Americans who are rejecting the religious right and embracing a more secular America." + +The Hobby Lobby ruling has also sparked a new atheism movement. Last year, the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. drew an estimated crowd of 50,000 atheists and agnostics. + +Rabbi Ari Berman of the New York City-based Agudath Israel of America, who spoke at the Reason Rally, says the religious right is losing its power. + +"The conservative movement is losing its power, and the more they try to suppress the voices of reason and reason, the louder they are, and the more it forces people to hear what's going on and to think, 'Okay, I've thought about it, and that's not true, and I'm not alone,'" Berman said. + +Meanwhile, the percentage of the U.S. population that describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated has risen from 8.2 percent in 2007 to 14.3 percent today. + +"I think religious people are losing the cultural argument and losing the political argument," Berman said. "I think people are becoming more and more anti-religious, and that's by design." + +The poll also found that Americans are also becoming more accepting of atheists running for office. + +"Americans are willing to give atheists the same rights that religious people have, including the right to run for office," said P.J. O'Rourke, PRRI's vice president for research. "The American public is moving away from the idea that religion is a good influence in our society and looks at it more as a bad influence. They're saying we don't think religious people should have special rights, that's what we're saying." + +The poll surveyed 1,451 adults nationwide from June 2 to 5. This poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent. + +Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon.<|endoftext|>Change is hard. Change is hard because we are change. + +Change is hard because we do not want change. + +Change is hard because we have blinders on. + +Change is hard because we are blinded by our own, to see only the joy we have in ourselves, and not the pain and the grief that comes with it. + +Change is hard because we believe in a lie. We believe that we are worthy of happiness and that those around us are worthy of happiness too. We believe that we have a right to happiness and that others have a right to happiness. + +Actually, we do not have a right to happiness. All we have is a right to our own happiness. + +We cannot convince anyone else that we have a right to their happiness. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot convince anyone else that our happiness is their problem. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot convince anyone else that theirs is our problem. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot convince anyone else that we should be worthy of happiness. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot convince anyone else that their happiness is our problem. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot persuade anyone else that we should be worthy of happiness. To us, that is a given. + +We cannot persuade anyone else that their happiness is our problem. To us, that is a given. + +======================================== SAMPLE 498 ======================================== +LONDON - There is no health risk from contact with mosquitoes in the UK, the World Health Organization said Monday (Sept 6). + +The WHO said there is a risk from mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, but that there is no evidence of any risk from the Zika virus. + +The WHO said it will not recommend a travel ban on the part of countries affected by Zika. + +Zika was first discovered in Uganda in the 1940s and is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. + +The WHO said in a statement: "Currently, there is no evidence of an increased risk for the UK of Zika virus transmission from infected travelers who return from/to countries with widespread Zika virus transmission. + +"There is also no evidence of an increased risk from the Zika virus in the UK as a result of mosquito bites from infected individuals. + +"In addition, the risk from mosquitoes is low in the UK due to the absence of breeding sites and the presence of an effective vector control programme, which is supported by the mosquito control sector." + +The UK is part of a group of countries known as the European region that are affected by the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the WHO said. + +The WHO said it is advising pregnant women to avoid travel to areas with Zika virus transmission, and pregnant women should consider postponing travel to affected areas until at least two weeks before the expected date of delivery. + +For people who have travelled to Zika-affected countries, the WHO said: "Information to help persons manage the risk of Zika virus infection is available online at: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/Zika-affected-countries.htm." + +The WHO has set up an emergency committee, involving medical specialists from the WHO and other international health organisations, to coordinate response by countries affected by Zika. + +The European Union has said it will ban imports of mosquito-borne products from affected countries. + +The WHO said its emergency committee will meet on Monday in Geneva, Switzerland. + +It will discuss the evidence and determine the minimum required level of risk to public health in the European region, which includes the UK.<|endoftext|>A report by the U.S. Census Bureau says the median household income in the United States is $56,657. The same report says that the poverty rate is 14.6 percent. The Census Bureau report, however, is based on the most recent data from the most recent year available. + +The poverty rate in America differs from the U.S. Census Bureau's report. The Census Bureau report calculates poverty based on the median income of families in the U.S. The poverty rate does not take into account the multi-generational nature of many families. The Census Bureau's report, on the other hand, calculates poverty based on the most recent data available. + +The most recent poverty data from the Census Bureau is from the 2014 Income and Poverty report. The report includes data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The poverty rate in the U.S. was 15.1 percent in 2014, according to the report. + +The Census Bureau reports that the average family income for all households in the U.S. was $56,657 in 2014. The poverty rate was 14.6 percent. + +Here are some other comparisons between the two reports: + +The poverty rate: $56,657 vs. $14,679 + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 14.5 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 14.4 percent vs. 14.6 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 14.4 percent vs. 14.6 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent + +The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 + +More from Money & Career Cheat Sheet:<|endoftext|>A new +======================================== SAMPLE 499 ======================================== +GARDAÍ HAVE BEEN called in to investigate a complaint that a woman was raped by her partner at a house in the south inner city. + +The woman was at the house in Ballyfermot, Ballyfermot, yesterday evening when she was allegedly raped by her partner. + +A Garda spokesman said: "We received a complaint at 9.30pm last night from a woman claiming to be the victim of a rape. + +"She said she was sexually assaulted by her partner in a house in the area of Ballyfermot, Ballyfermot. + +"Gardaí are investigating the incident and are in the process of speaking with the man and his partner. + +"The man is described as white, in his 30s, 5ft 9ins tall, of medium build and of unshaven facial hair. + +"He was wearing a black leather jacket and trousers, a white shirt and blue jeans. + +"He was also carrying a black and gold coloured spiral-bound notebook. + +"Further details will be released in due course." + +Online Editors<|endoftext|>Anyone who's ever had a conversation with a parent/guardian who is very dismissive of autism reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the condition. Our parents, teachers, friends, and even strangers—even though they may not know us as well—are all very well-intentioned and well-intentioned people. They want the best for us. They want us to be happy. And they do want us to be safe and happy. + +But there is a difference between "love" and "hate." + +If you have problems with autism, you are not an "evil person." You are not "bad." You are not "bad" because of your autism. You are not a "bad person" because you are autistic. + +You are a person. And just because you are autistic does not make you "Bad." It does not make you "bad." It doesn't make you "weak" or "bad." + +And it certainly doesn't make you "mean." + +If you're only "bad" because you are autistic does not mean you're a "bad person." It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. + +So don't tell me how I'm "bad" for being autistic. + +I'm not. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. + +I am not "bad" because I'm autistic.<|endoftext|>The views and opinions expressed on this web page do not necessarily express those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. + +"The Lord is good; let us do good; let us pray; let us work; let us love one another; let us be patient; let us be kind; let us be good; let us be merciful; let us be honest; let us be courageous; let us be strong; let us be kind; let us be gentle; let us be loving; let us be truthful; let us be courageous; let us be wise; let us be loving; let us be faithful; let us be honest; let us be brave; let us be good; let us be merciful; let us be true; let us be holy; let us be good; let us be true; let us be good; let us be true; let us be good." — President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "The Holy Spirit," Ensign, Nov. 2014 + +The Holy Ghost is a Spirit of God. It is a gift that God has given to His children that helps us distinguish good from evil, wisdom from folly, truth from falsehood, goodness from evil, and the power of God from the power of the devil. The Holy Ghost is also a spirit of guidance. The Savior said, "The Spirit of truth is the Spirit of Christ." (John 16:13.) The Holy Ghost helps +======================================== SAMPLE 500 ======================================== +I want to use my Raspberry Pi as a simple web server. I know the basics of the basics but I can't seem to figure it out how to get it running. + +Here's my setup: + +Raspberry Pi + +Raspbian Wheezy + +HTTP Server + +MySQL Server + +Nginx Server + +Raspbian is a Debian based distribution that is generally thought of as a Linux distribution. + +If you don't know much about Debian it's a distribution that's based on Debian Wheezy (which is a Linux distribution that uses Debian as its base). + +I'm using Debian Wheezy as it's my preferred distribution. If you have to choose between Debian and Ubuntu you should use Debian. + +MySQL is a relational database that is commonly used for web development. It stores information in tables that represent the site's information. + +MySQL Server is a free, open source, scalable database management system that provides a full-text search and indexing capability to MySQL databases. + +Nginx is a webserver that allows you to serve static web pages (HTML) and dynamic web pages (JS) at the same time. + +I know that you can set up your server to run Nginx as a reverse proxy, but I really don't want that. I have other projects that I want to run that require more server activity. + +I'm using Nginx to serve static web pages. For static web pages you can use Apache to serve static web pages. + +You can follow the steps below to set up a basic Apache web server and MySQL server to run a simple web server on your Raspberry Pi. + +Note: Please be aware that you should only proceed with the steps below if you have a working internet connection. If you're unable to access the internet, do not proceed with the steps below. If you're using a Mac and don't have a local connection, you can follow the steps below using Mac OS X. + +Step 1: Run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade to install the latest version of the Raspbian operating system. + +Step 2: Download and Install Nginx + +1. Click the "Download ZIP" button on the right side of the screen. + +2. Download the Nginx software. + +3. Extract the Nginx software to a folder on your Raspberry Pi's SD card. + +4. Run sudo apt-get install nginx to install the Nginx software. + +5. Download the Nginx configuration file and place it in the Nginx folder you created in step 1. + +6. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block + +server { + +listen 80; + +server_name your_server_name; + +location / { + +try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; + +} + +} + +7. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +server { + +listen 80; + +server_name your_server_name; + +location / { + +try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; + +} + +} + +8. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mysql and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block + +server { + +listen mysql; + +server_name your_server_name; + +location / { + +try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?query = $1; + +} + +} + +9. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block + +server { + +listen nginx; + +server_name your_server_name; + +location / { + +try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; + +} + +} + +10. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx/rhel-7.7.7.conf and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +server { + +listen nginx; + +server_name your_server_name; + +location / { + +try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; + +} + +} + +11. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx/nginx.conf and change the following line to reflect the following command: + +server { diff --git a/gpt2-topk40-samples.txt b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt similarity index 100% rename from gpt2-topk40-samples.txt rename to gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt diff --git a/gpt2-samples.txt b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt similarity index 100% rename from gpt2-samples.txt rename to gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt From aae26abd600ad32771fadf6284f339f07b9d8ea1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 17:06:49 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 03/83] add license --- LICENSE | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++ README.md | 4 ---- 2 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100644 LICENSE diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE new file mode 100644 index 000000000..cb36e12ee --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +MIT License + +Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI + +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy +of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal +in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights +to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell +copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is +furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: + +The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all +copies or substantial portions of the Software. + +THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR +IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, +FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE +AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER +LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, +OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE +SOFTWARE. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index a24c8ca60..48affafaf 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -49,7 +49,3 @@ We show unconditional samples with default settings (temperature 1 and no trunca We may release code for evaluating the models on various benchmarks. We are still considering release of the larger models. - -## License - -Coming soon! From fc0ee6da2f40ecd59b5327d294a2041662cf3966 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 17:21:46 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 04/83] add conditional samples --- README.md | 1 + gpt-2-samples/conditional-t07.txt | 25157 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ gpt-2-samples/conditional-topk40.txt | 21499 +++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 46657 insertions(+) create mode 100644 gpt-2-samples/conditional-t07.txt create mode 100644 gpt-2-samples/conditional-topk40.txt diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 48affafaf..242ea83cd 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py --top_k 40 While we have not yet released GPT-2 itself, you can see some samples from it in the `gpt-2-samples` folder. We show unconditional samples with default settings (temperature 1 and no truncation), with temperature 0.7, and with truncation with top_k 40. +We show conditional samples, with contexts drawn from `WebText`'s test set, with default settings (temperature 1 and no truncation), with temperature 0.7, and with truncation with top_k 40. ## Future work diff --git a/gpt-2-samples/conditional-t07.txt b/gpt-2-samples/conditional-t07.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5ce3e36c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2-samples/conditional-t07.txt @@ -0,0 +1,25157 @@ +======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== + told reporters. "He didn't use the N.S.A., he didn't use the C.I.A., he didn't use the F.B.I., and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used G.C.H.Q. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency." As a result, Spicer posited, there would be "no American fingerprints on this." + +The British were outraged, naturally, at being accused by their closest ally of illegally spying on Trump after both the Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that there were "no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance" by the U.S. government, much less wiretapping. The normally secretive G.C.H.Q. issued a rare public statement denying Spicer's claim and demanding an apology from the White House. + +"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about G.C.H.Q. being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense," the British spy agency said in a notably pointed statement. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." (The White House did not respond to *Vanity Fair' +==================== COMPLETION 1 ==================== +*s request for comment.) + +It's still not clear whether the Trump campaign was surveilled during the campaign. If so, the question of who ordered the surveillance might not matter as much as whether the surveillance was lawful. + +"If the campaign on its own was wiretapped, then the question is whether the F.B.I. was properly authorized to do so," said Michael German, a former senior F.B.I. lawyer. "G.C.H.Q. is not authorized to undertake electronic surveillance of American citizens, much less to tap the phones of foreign dignitaries of the United States. But as long as the F.B.I. is investigating a crime, it can do what it needs to do to find the perpetrator." + +If, on the other hand, the Bush-era document states that the government was wiretapping Trump Tower, that would have a far more serious impact on the legitimacy of his presidency. The campaign was widely reported to have been wiretapped by the Obama administration, which may have been an effort to set up a backdoor way to surveil Trump's team. + +The other aspect of this that remains unclear is whether Trump was being surveilled at all. The F.B.I. attributed Trump's access to classified intelligence briefings to the fact that he was an "unwitting agent" of the Russian government, which Trump said he had no reason to doubt. + +"I think it's very unfair what they're doing to our country," Trump told the Times' Mark Landler in an interview published Tuesday. "I think it's very unfair what's happened to our country by a lot of our media." + +On Wednesday, Trump seemed to back away from the wiretapping allegation, tweeting, "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" + +The wiretapping allegation is one of a number of questionable moments in Trump's first 100 days in office. After weeks of false starts on health care, his nominees have been delayed while he's been dogged by unsubstantiated claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. His administration is still reeling from the departure of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, in the wake of his leak-driven feud with Bannon. Then there's the whole Russia thing.<|endoftext|>I'm not a feminist. I'm not even a feminist. I'm a social justice warrior, and you know what, if you're a genuine social justice warrior, then I guess I am a feminist. + +I'm not a feminist because I don't think the movement has any purpose. I think it's a bunch of self-righteous people who are putting on a brave front while they make a lot of noise about women's rights, but in reality they have no real beef with the patriarchy. I think feminism is just a bunch of social justice warriors with a ridiculous agenda and no real beef with women. + +I don't like feminists. I don't think they're all that great. I think they're about as effective as the talk therapy feminists we used to have. (We didn't have a choice. We got the disease and now we're just stuck with it.) I think they're hypocrites for having feminism in their name and not doing anything about it. I think they're a bunch of whiny whiners who will say anything to get attention. I think they're just "that girl next door." + +I think they're loud, obnoxious, and they're annoying. Because, like I said, I'm a social justice warrior, and that's how I roll. + +Would I support a female presidential candidate? I don't think so +======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== + told reporters. "He didn't use the N.S.A., he didn't use the C.I.A., he didn't use the F.B.I., and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used G.C.H.Q. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency." As a result, Spicer posited, there would be "no American fingerprints on this." + +The British were outraged, naturally, at being accused by their closest ally of illegally spying on Trump after both the Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that there were "no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance" by the U.S. government, much less wiretapping. The normally secretive G.C.H.Q. issued a rare public statement denying Spicer's claim and demanding an apology from the White House. + +"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about G.C.H.Q. being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense," the British spy agency said in a notably pointed statement. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." (The White House did not respond to *Vanity Fair' +==================== COMPLETION 2 ==================== +*s request for comment.) + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +The White House issued an apology, but the damage was already done. The British threatened to cancel a planned state visit by President Trump next month, and the White House's talking points and briefing materials were revised to reflect the bombshell report. "In his first major interview as president-elect, Donald Trump insisted his campaign was not under surveillance by the United States during the campaign," read one of the new versions. "In fact, he said, 'Nobody that I know of,' speaking of President Obama, 'had their phones tapped.'" + +"We can't give you a running commentary on every little thing that's going on," the press secretary told reporters on Thursday. "So we just take it at face value that he was asked about it. The president-elect was very clear, he didn't feel that he was under surveillance in any way, shape, or form." + +Since Trump has yet to issue any sort of official statement on his Twitter account, the press secretary's claim is largely speculation. An official statement on the issue will have to come from the president himself, which he has not done. It was not immediately clear if Trump would agree to an interview with *Vanity Fair'*s new cover story.<|endoftext|>The United States and its allies have launched a major air campaign against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, but the U.S. military has been unable to enter the city of Raqqa, the capital of the militant group's self-declared caliphate. + +The U.S. military has not said what troops will take part in the assault, which began Wednesday. But U.S. officials say more than 40 U.S. special operations troops are already in Syria to help advise and assist local fighters. + +The operation is the first major ground operation the U.S. military has launched against Islamic State, which has been losing ground in both countries since the beginning of the year. + +The U.S. military has been conducting airstrikes and raids on Islamic State targets in Syria since September, when President Barack Obama authorized the use of force against the group. + +On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama said the U.S. military had received intelligence "indicating that [Islamic State] is planning to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people." + +The U.S. military said it conducted a "precision strike" on an Islamic State chemical weapons facility in northern Iraq on Wednesday and killed two Islamic State leaders. + +But President Obama has warned that the U.S. military won't hesitate to use force against militants in Syria. + +"Our military is on the ground in both Iraq and Syria. And we have the capacity to carry out these operations. But we are not going to be rushed into a ground war in Syria," he said. + +The U.S. military has also carried out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya. + +The battle for Raqqa, which began Wednesday, is expected to last for weeks. + +The U.S. military used drones to launch strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria as they moved toward Raqqa. + +The U.S. military said they had conducted 18 airstrikes in Iraq and 10 in Syria on Wednesday, using unmanned drones, bombers, Tomahawk cruise missiles and other munitions. + +The U.S. military said it also conducted 12 airstrikes in Libya early Thursday, destroying Islamic State weapons caches and vehicles. + +In a statement released by the Pentagon late Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said the warplanes followed "patterns of engagement" and hit Islamic State positions and infrastructure. + +The U.S. +======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== + told reporters. "He didn't use the N.S.A., he didn't use the C.I.A., he didn't use the F.B.I., and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used G.C.H.Q. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency." As a result, Spicer posited, there would be "no American fingerprints on this." + +The British were outraged, naturally, at being accused by their closest ally of illegally spying on Trump after both the Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that there were "no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance" by the U.S. government, much less wiretapping. The normally secretive G.C.H.Q. issued a rare public statement denying Spicer's claim and demanding an apology from the White House. + +"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about G.C.H.Q. being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense," the British spy agency said in a notably pointed statement. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." (The White House did not respond to *Vanity Fair' +==================== COMPLETION 3 ==================== +*s request for comment on this story.) + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +While the British spy agency's statement was a little extreme, it did not comment on the substance of the allegation that G.C.H.Q. had spied on Trump. Instead, it focused on the fact that Spicer had said Trump had used G.C.H.Q. to surveil his own team. Moreover, it suggested that when the F.B.I. found out about Trump's real-estate dealings, it did so in a case in which the British were not involved. + +The story of the F.B.I. surveillance is not as simple as Spicer and the British spy agency would like you to believe. In the first place, the F.B.I. declined to comment on the matter, and although the issue has been discussed in the media, there has been no definitive statement from the bureau. + +(There is a reasonable argument that the bureau could have made public comments on the matter long ago.) In the second place, there are numerous reasons to believe that the British government was not the source of the surveillance. For one thing, the F.B.I. said that it had no evidence that the British were the source of any wiretapped conversations. (In a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the bureau's director, James B. Comey, said, "I have no information that supports those tweets.") + +In addition, even if the British were involved, there was no evidence that they were engaged in illegal surveillance. "In fact," says Michael Morell, who was the acting director of the C.I.A. when Bush was president, "the British government was doing everything it could to help the United States in a counterterrorism effort; it was just that their way of doing that was in the shadows." + +In any case, the British may have had no interest in wiretapping Trump. Most of Trump's dealings with the Russians were made before he was elected, and the British did not do anything to interfere with those. In fact, one of the main reasons that the British were investigating Trump was because they suspected that the F.B.I. had improperly spied on the Trump campaign. + +"This was all about Russia," says Richard Clarke, a former C.I.A. official who was involved in the investigation of the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee. "The Russians were going after the Republicans, and the British were learning about that." + +One of the reasons that the F.B.I. was investigating Trump was because they suspected that the F.B.I. had improperly spied on the Trump campaign. + +The British may also have had no interest in conducting surveillance of Trump. The British are known for their aversion to the domestic surveillance of their citizens. The British have a separate criminal code for domestic spying, which is very different from the one in the United States. (American spies are more likely to be charged with espionage if they target a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government than if they target a domestic American.) + +Clapper, who was the director of national intelligence during the Clinton administration, says that the British spy agency was "trying to figure out how to use that kind of authority" in the United States. "The British were asking the F.B.I. to do what they were not allowed to do, which was to violate the privacy of Americans." + +Advertisement Continue reading the main story + +The British have not publicly commented on why they were not interested in eavesdropping on Trump. One explanation is that they were not interested in Trump because they did not think he was capable of spying on them. " +======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== + told reporters. "He didn't use the N.S.A., he didn't use the C.I.A., he didn't use the F.B.I., and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used G.C.H.Q. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence spying agency." As a result, Spicer posited, there would be "no American fingerprints on this." + +The British were outraged, naturally, at being accused by their closest ally of illegally spying on Trump after both the Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that there were "no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance" by the U.S. government, much less wiretapping. The normally secretive G.C.H.Q. issued a rare public statement denying Spicer's claim and demanding an apology from the White House. + +"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about G.C.H.Q. being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense," the British spy agency said in a notably pointed statement. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored." (The White House did not respond to *Vanity Fair' +==================== COMPLETION 4 ==================== +*s request for comment about the claims.) + +The British were also incensed that Trump's disclosures were made on Monday, the same day that G.C.H.Q. was conducting the "wiretapping" investigation, and at a time when the British were planning to conduct a major military exercise with the U.S. next week in the wake of the terror attack in Manchester, England, last week that killed 22 people, including children. + +"It is a matter of deep regret that the allegations concerning GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wire tapping' against the then president elect have been leaked to the media," the agency complained. "President Trump's claim that these activities always occurred is absurd. They did not. And the Prime Minister has made clear that these activities did not happen." + +Trump's claims, however, were later debunked by U.S. intelligence officials, who told the New York Times that the president had been talking about a hypothetical hotline that would allow the British to spy on the president, not a hotline for G.C.H.Q. to tap Trump directly. + +Spicer's Monday press conference didn't do much to assuage the British, as the White House made no public comment on the matter, even as several of their state visits with Trump were canceled in response to the reported wiretapping. + +The British ambassador to the United States, Jane Hall, was reportedly so incensed by the wiretapping allegations that she placed a call to her counterpart in Washington to complain. + +"The embassy is obviously very concerned by the allegations," a British official told the Times. "The ambassador has spoken to her counterpart in Washington and has stressed that these are very serious allegations which need to be investigated."<|endoftext|>Sara and Richard Hatch are among the sisters who have joined the fight to defund Planned Parenthood. (Photo: Screen capture) + +(CNSNews.com) – During a press conference on Wednesday, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said that the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life is a "rogue" group that is "on the wrong side of history" and that it has been "hijacked" by the Republican Party. + +"Americans United for Life has been hijacked by the Republican Party," Richards said at the press conference. "They're on the wrong side of history on every single issue. It's been a wild ride." + +Richards explained that Americans United for Life was started in 2011 by David Daleiden, who is also the founder of the Center for Medical Progress. He is also the person who captured videos of Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the sale of aborted babies' body parts, which Planned Parenthood has admitted were done for research purposes. + +"We've been working to offer a different perspective on this issue that's consistent with both the law, the Constitution and the trust we have as Americans to make the best decisions for ourselves and our families," Richards said. + +Richards said that Americans United for Life opposes abortion and supports the legal rights of women, including the right to choose and to obtain an abortion without being charged with a crime. + +"People need to know that the organization that's been putting out the videos has been completely hijacked by someone who is on the wrong side of history on every single issue," Richards said. + +Richards also said that Americans United for Life, which is funded by a number of conservative groups, is not a cohesive organization. + +"There is no one person in the organization," Richards said. "There are multiple individuals with different opinions and different agendas. It's not a unified effort." + +Richards said that Americans United for Life has been active for more than 40 years and has been working to "protect the right to +======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== + OS Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 to 6.0 Marshmallow, including: XAPK Installer, App&APK Management, APK Downloader and more. Try it now! + +3. One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. As soon as APKPure is installed, you're ready to go. + +4. Never using too much battery + + +APKPure App size is only 5.2MB. We believe the application should be as lightweight as possible. To keep your whole device running smoothly, small size APKPure App means long battery life and less storage space. APKPure is suited to take advantage of high performance devices as well as optimize for low-end devices. No flashy interactions, No unnecessary features. + +5. Customized Android in An Easier Way + +APKPure makes it easier for you to download, update your favorite apps and games like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and many Launcher apps. + +6. Features coming up next + +We want to let you know that your feedback +==================== COMPLETION 5 ==================== + is essential to the long-term success of APKPure. We're constantly working on new features and improving the experience to make APKPure the best Android application for you. If you like APKPure, please share it with your friends and let us know your suggestions. + +One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Download & install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. + +Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps: + + +1. One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. + +2. Simple APK & XAPK Downloader + +Download APK directly from Google Play Store and install them right away. + +3. Auto Update APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +We'll automatically check for updates. If they update, you'll get them automatically. + + +Google+ + +https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108491911338290174646 + +Snapchat + +https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118229064332477011466 + +Twitter + +https://twitter.com/apkpure + +Facebook + +https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/110237785236483788576 + +Instagram + +https://www.instagram.com/apkpure/ + + +How to Use: + +1. Install APK Pure from Google Play Store. + +2. Open APKPure App and click on Install. + +3. Make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest version of APKPure App. + +4. Select the APK file you want to install and click on Install. + +5. When APK is ready, click on the Install button to install APK. + +6. APKPure will move your APK file to your SD card and install it automatically. + + +How to Invite Friends: + +1. Use "Invite" function in APKPure App. + +2. Invite a friend to join APKPure. + + +You can also send a message to a friend through SMS or Email. + +3. Send Message to a Friend: + +1. Open APKPure App and tap on "Send Message" button. + +2. Select the text you want to read and tap on "Send Message". + +3. Tap on "Send Message" button to send the message. + +4. Tap on "Send Message" button to send the message. + + +Note: + +1. If the app crashes, please go to Settings > Application Manager > Unknown Sources > Reboot. + +2. Install the latest version of Android if you are using Honeycomb OS. + +3. Please check the permissions to make sure APKPure App can access your device. + +4. If you don't have root access, please download the APKPure root apk from the link below and install it on your device. + + +How to Remove Permissions: + +1. Go to Settings > Applications > Settings > Security > Permissions and make sure the permissions are set to None. + +2. After the permissions are set to "None", you can use APKPure App. + +3. If you want to remove the permissions, then you have to go to Settings > Applications > +======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== + OS Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 to 6.0 Marshmallow, including: XAPK Installer, App&APK Management, APK Downloader and more. Try it now! + +3. One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. As soon as APKPure is installed, you're ready to go. + +4. Never using too much battery + + +APKPure App size is only 5.2MB. We believe the application should be as lightweight as possible. To keep your whole device running smoothly, small size APKPure App means long battery life and less storage space. APKPure is suited to take advantage of high performance devices as well as optimize for low-end devices. No flashy interactions, No unnecessary features. + +5. Customized Android in An Easier Way + +APKPure makes it easier for you to download, update your favorite apps and games like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and many Launcher apps. + +6. Features coming up next + +We want to let you know that your feedback +==================== COMPLETION 6 ==================== + is very important to us. We are constantly working on new features and improving the application, so stay tuned. + +Thank you for your support and please feel free to contact us for any queries. + +APKPure Team.<|endoftext|>The Open University has launched Open Education for All, a free online course in which students will be able to learn from world-leading academics in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. + +From November 6, the Open University will allow students to study the course with no previous knowledge of this subject area. It is the latest move by the UK's most senior public university to expand access to high-quality academic study online, helping to unlock high-skilled jobs. + +The course is an extension of the Open University's flagship Open Education programme, which has been running for more than 20 years. In addition to courses in subjects like engineering and computer science, students will be able to take courses in law, business, economics and political science. + +The Open University will be running the course from November 6 to November 24, with the first 500 students taking courses from November 12 to November 19. + +Prof Stephen Barratt, chair of the Open University's board of governors, said: "We are delighted to be able to launch the Open Education programme in conjunction with the Open University. This is an ambitious project with a huge potential impact on the lives of those who want to learn and advance their careers. + +"We want to help enable as many as possible to gain access to high-quality, world-leading education, by giving them the chance to develop their ideas and knowledge in a world-leading way. We know that more must be done to allow everyone to reach their full potential, but we want to do this in a way that does not cost the taxpayer." + +The course will be available to anyone with an internet connection and will be hosted on the Open University's platform. The course will be available to anyone with an internet connection and will be hosted on the Open University's platform. + +The Open Learning Community (OLC) will be responsible for the initial rollout of the course. The OLC will run the course using the Open University's data and will provide support to those taking part. + +The OLC will be responsible for the initial rollout of the course. The OLC will run the course using the Open University's data and will provide support to those taking part. + +The OLC will lead the project through to a complete rollout in 2017. It is led by Emma Cuitin, who is a PhD researcher in the Open University's Open Learning Community. + +The OLC will be taking advice from the Open University on the design of the course, including its content and a range of support services it will provide. + +The Open University will also be working with the Assn of Management Colleges (AMC), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Funding Council for Scotland (HEFCS) and other bodies to help ensure that the course is accessible to students from across the UK. + +Prof Barratt said: "We are proud to have been able to partner with the Open University on this ambitious project, which will give students around the country the opportunity to develop their ideas and knowledge as part of a truly global effort. + +"I am particularly pleased to be working with the AMC, which has a long track record of supporting the development of careers and skills in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sector, with a particular focus on developing skills and engaging with employers. + +"The Open University is a world-leading institution with a history of supporting the development of innovative solutions to support students to gain an education. We are delighted to +======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== + OS Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 to 6.0 Marshmallow, including: XAPK Installer, App&APK Management, APK Downloader and more. Try it now! + +3. One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. As soon as APKPure is installed, you're ready to go. + +4. Never using too much battery + + +APKPure App size is only 5.2MB. We believe the application should be as lightweight as possible. To keep your whole device running smoothly, small size APKPure App means long battery life and less storage space. APKPure is suited to take advantage of high performance devices as well as optimize for low-end devices. No flashy interactions, No unnecessary features. + +5. Customized Android in An Easier Way + +APKPure makes it easier for you to download, update your favorite apps and games like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and many Launcher apps. + +6. Features coming up next + +We want to let you know that your feedback +==================== COMPLETION 7 ==================== + is very important to us. If you have any ideas, questions, or issues, please contact us at support@apppure.net. + + +Limited time only, AppPure is a free PIRATE app. It does not contain any spyware or other malicious apps.<|endoftext|>THE re-election of the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, could not be called without the support of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons. As the votes were counted, the Liberal Democrats had a total of 267 seats, six short of the 326 needed to remain in power. Mr Clegg's party was in a weak position in the House of Lords, but he had a majority there of more than 20. The Lib Dems have been weakened by a combination of the party's weakness in the polls and the withdrawal of their most vocal member, the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Mr Clegg's departure is a bitter blow for the Liberal Democrats, who had hoped to wield greater influence. + +The Liberal Democrats' weakness in the polls perhaps explains why their leader, Nick Clegg, was able to return to the Commons to support Mr Clegg's re-election. The Tories are expected to win a majority in the House of Commons, but its size is uncertain. The polls suggest a majority exceeding 100 seats for the Tories, but the actual result is highly uncertain. The Lib Dems have two MPs in the Commons, while the Tories have just one MP. The Tories' smaller number of MPs means that the Lib Dems will have to play a much larger role in key debates in the Commons. "The Lib Dems are going to have to step up to the plate in the Commons and make a difference," said one Liberal Democrat MP. + +But the Lib Dems are still a minority party in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, Labour, and the SNP each have more than 50 MPs, with the SNP holding the balance of power at Westminster. The Liberal Democrats need the support of other MPs to get their legislation through the Commons and to maintain their influence in the Lords. "We are going to have to work very hard to ensure that we're not just content with a minority position in the Commons," said a Liberal Democrat MP. + +The Tories are expected to win a majority in the House of Commons, but its size is uncertain. The polls suggest a majority exceeding 100 seats for the Tories, but the actual result is highly uncertain + +The Liberal Democrats were also badly damaged by the decision to re-elect Mr Clegg as leader. He was an unpopular figure with many voters, and his leadership of the party was always likely to be a political disaster before the election. The party was divided over whether or not to support Mr Clegg, and many Lib Dem MPs were deeply unhappy about the arrangement between Mr Clegg and Mr Clegg's deputy, Nick Clegg. Mr Clegg's popularity, however, was far from universally repugnant. A large number of voters in the south of England, many of whom had suffered as a result of the economy, didn't mind that Mr Clegg had resigned as Deputy Prime Minister. + +Mr Clegg's unpopularity was compounded by the decision by the Liberal Democrats to support the Government's austerity measures. The party was forced to defend its decision to support cuts in public services in the face of accusations that it was part of a Conservative "anti-business" coalition. The party, which suffers from low voter turnout, was also forced to defend its decision to vote against the Government's welfare reforms. + +It was not until the recent Government scandals, such as the phone hacking scandal, that voters saw the Liberal Democrats as a party that genuinely cared about the welfare of the poor and the unemployed. But voters are now seeing the Liberal Democrats as an out-of +======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== + OS Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 to 6.0 Marshmallow, including: XAPK Installer, App&APK Management, APK Downloader and more. Try it now! + +3. One-click install Free APK&XAPK Games and Apps + +Install any free Android game .apk or .xapk files with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. As soon as APKPure is installed, you're ready to go. + +4. Never using too much battery + + +APKPure App size is only 5.2MB. We believe the application should be as lightweight as possible. To keep your whole device running smoothly, small size APKPure App means long battery life and less storage space. APKPure is suited to take advantage of high performance devices as well as optimize for low-end devices. No flashy interactions, No unnecessary features. + +5. Customized Android in An Easier Way + +APKPure makes it easier for you to download, update your favorite apps and games like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and many Launcher apps. + +6. Features coming up next + +We want to let you know that your feedback +==================== COMPLETION 8 ==================== + is very important to us. We have some interesting features in the pipeline, so stay tuned for more updates! + +Wishing you a great 2017! + +APKPure Team<|endoftext|>Copyright by WKBN - All rights reserved + +WKBN Staff - DEKALB COUNTY, Ill. (WKBN) - A DeKalb County judge scheduled a trial for a former DeKalb County sheriff's deputy accused of raping a 17-year-old girl. + +The DeKalb County State's Attorney's office filed felony charges against Deputy Adam Mims, 31, in December for allegedly raping the teen in July 2016. + +Mims was arrested last month after another suspect he had arrested, a man named William Moore, confessed to the crime. + +Moore was accused of stealing the teen's phone and then sexually assaulting her. He was also charged with obstructing justice for allegedly lying to a police officer about the rape. + +Mims is due back in court on Feb. 1.<|endoftext|>Here's another one of the best female-led superhero movies in recent memory. Director Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman is a lush, gorgeous film that feels like no other feature film I've seen this year. + +Wonder Woman is a poignant, cinematic epic that takes place a week in the life of Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), a young woman who has the ability to control and shape reality through her bracelets/handcuffs/wand. In the film, a steel-clad Amazon warrior named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) drive into the city to save Diana from a terrorist attack. + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +Wonder Woman is about a young girl who learns how to wield the power she has and also how to protect those around her. It's a story that has never been told before, and it's an incredible feat of storytelling. + +It's a film that balances a story about girls who fight for justice with a love story. + +It's a film that's filled with fantastically imagined moments and moments of real power. + +It's a film that has a story about a young girl who learns how to wield the power she has and also how to protect those around her. It's a story that has never been told before, and it's an incredible feat of storytelling. + +In a year full of amazing superhero movies, Wonder Woman is the one I'm most excited about. Jenkins has done a great job of making a film that feels very unique. It's a film that's filled with fantastically imagined moments and moments of real power. + +The film begins with Diana riding through the streets of Paris. The movie's opening credits are a montage of photos of Paris that we all know and love. It's a nice little homage to the important events that happened during World War II. The credits then cut to a shot of Diana riding in a car as she arrives at her desk. + +She's immediately in full-on action mode, as she grabs her key and unlocks her new car. In a nice subtle nod to the reader, while Diana is in the car she's signing a gay pride flag. + +Advertisement - Continue Reading Below + +She then walks into her office and opens up the files on her computer. Then, she stops and turns around with a smile on her face. + +She has a new flag on her desk. + +The film then cuts to Diana's mother. She's standing in her living room. + +The movie then cuts to Diana's room, where she's still standing and signing the gay pride flag. + +Then, it cuts to a shot of Diana walking into the public library. She has a different flag on her desk. + +It's +======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== + there remains little appetite for a broader scale American effort there. And Trump, whose transactional views of foreign policy are openly expressed, sees little reason for the US to become more engaged. + +JUST WATCHED Trump: Syria is now my responsibility Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Syria is now my responsibility 01:10 + +North Korea + +But in his conversations with Merkel and Abdullah on Wednesday, Trump will be reminded that the world still looks to US presidents for leadership at moments of crisis. The migrant flood stemming from Syria's civil war has affected both leaders' countries intensely. Both now find themselves partnering with a US leader they fear could be turning away. + +North Korea's test launch provided another reminder to Trump of the volatile world he inherited in January. Obama warned Trump before he took office that the rogue nation's nuclear program would present him with the most worrisome global challenge. Trump, in the transition period, requested more detailed information about the country's ambitions from the intelligence officials who delivered his initial briefings. + +Unlike in Syria, where the White House acknowledged that options were slim, administration officials projected a comprehensive plan to confront Pyongyang if the missile tests continue. + +"The clock has now run out and all options are on the table," one official told reporters +==================== COMPLETION 9 ==================== + Wednesday. "If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, there will be consequences and we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea." + +The administration has not ruled out military action but has not committed to it, and top officials have regularly raised the possibility of diplomatic means, including sanctions. + +In the past, Trump has defended Pyongyang as a "friend" of the US. But Trump's comments this week suggest that the US may be ready to abandon that friendship for a new approach.<|endoftext|>When I was in college, I used to go on a lot of hikes. I remember going to Camp Blanding, the most popular campus hike at the time. The drive up to the top was long and the hike itself was nothing special. It was just a couple of miles, but what made the hike memorable was the view. The rocks and trees were so close together that I could see the telegraph poles that were still standing and the tall buildings of the university that were still standing in the distance. + +The views of the mountains, the rocks and trees, and the buildings and telegraph poles are the views in every hike I take. I want to take more walks, but it's hard to imagine a hike where you can see all of that, but there's no way I'm doing that hike. + +I'm going to take a lot of hikes in 2015, but some of them will be on a shorter scale. I'm going to try and go on a shorter hike every day. It's exciting to think about it, but it's really hard to imagine doing it. I don't have the time to be out hiking every day of the week. I'm starting to think that I should just go on a short hike every day. I've been thinking about how I could do it, but I've never actually done it. + +My first thought when I thought of taking a shorter hike every day was to go on a hike that wasn't too long. That's something I have always wanted to do, but I've never been able to do. It's something I would love to do, but it just doesn't happen all that often. I would love to hike the Appalachian Trail, but I'd never be able to do it. I would like to hike some of the shorter trails in the Pacific Northwest, but I'd never be able to do that either. + +My next thought was to hike the Gulf Coast Trail. I've done the Gulf Coast Trail twice and I'm really excited to do it again, but it's a hike that I have never been able to do. I've thought about doing it a few times, but I never really got around to it. + +I'm going to take a hike that's not too long. It's going to be a shorter hike than I normally take, and it's going to be something I really want to do. I think it's going to be a great way to get outside and see the outdoors. I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail, but I'm going to hike the Gulf Coast Trail. + +The Gulf Coast Trail is an 11,200-foot trail that winds through the Gulf Coast region of Florida. The trail begins in the city of St. Augustine, Florida, and ends in the town of Gulf Shores. The Gulf Coast Trail is a great way to hike the Gulf Coast region and see a lot of the coastal areas of Florida. + +I'm going to hike the Gulf coast Trail on a Monday. I'm going to hike the Gulf Coast Trail on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'm going to hike the Gulf Coast Trail on a Friday, and I'm going to hike the Gulf Coast Trail on a Saturday. That's it. I'm +======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== + there remains little appetite for a broader scale American effort there. And Trump, whose transactional views of foreign policy are openly expressed, sees little reason for the US to become more engaged. + +JUST WATCHED Trump: Syria is now my responsibility Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Syria is now my responsibility 01:10 + +North Korea + +But in his conversations with Merkel and Abdullah on Wednesday, Trump will be reminded that the world still looks to US presidents for leadership at moments of crisis. The migrant flood stemming from Syria's civil war has affected both leaders' countries intensely. Both now find themselves partnering with a US leader they fear could be turning away. + +North Korea's test launch provided another reminder to Trump of the volatile world he inherited in January. Obama warned Trump before he took office that the rogue nation's nuclear program would present him with the most worrisome global challenge. Trump, in the transition period, requested more detailed information about the country's ambitions from the intelligence officials who delivered his initial briefings. + +Unlike in Syria, where the White House acknowledged that options were slim, administration officials projected a comprehensive plan to confront Pyongyang if the missile tests continue. + +"The clock has now run out and all options are on the table," one official told reporters +==================== COMPLETION 10 ==================== + in late December, and the program was summarized for Trump by the military. + +The focus of the Trump program is to "demonstrate to North Korea that the US is prepared to use force if they continue to threaten the United States and our allies," the official said. + +Officials described a "credible military option," including enhanced naval and air capabilities, to deter and prevent North Korea from pursuing a nuclear weapon program and a more robust diplomatic effort to convince the country to relinquish such weapons. + +Trump has previously said that he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un under certain circumstances, but said he has no intention of doing so. + +JUST WATCHED US, China agree to step up pressure on North Korea Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH US, China agree to step up pressure on North Korea 01:45 + +The United States should maintain its military capability -- including a blockade of North Korea's reclusive capital of Pyongyang -- and increase pressure on China to do more to rein in its neighbor, Trump said. + +The new administration will also be seeking to expand the scope of the US role in Iraq and Syria to include the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the United States had been "effectively supporting" the moderate Syrian opposition for more than a year. + +But the White House has struggled to articulate a strategy to counter the group, and the Trump administration has been in the wake of a series of missed opportunities to do so. + +The engagement under Obama was not simply an intellectual exercise. The United States had been attempting to build a coalition of countries to go after the Islamic State for years, and it had been working to change the narrative in the region. + +Trump's willingness to engage with North Korea -- a country that the United States has been reluctant to engage with for more than 40 years -- will be a reminder to his aides that the United States is now more willing to try. + +While the new administration will have to grapple with these issues, Trump's ability to govern will depend in large part on how he handles North Korea. + +"There is a real need to make a decision, and maybe not even an easy one, but a decision, of whether you want a president who is going to be prepared to act decisively," said Harry Kazianis, a former US ambassador to the UN under Obama.<|endoftext|>Still loading... + +A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AI AJ AK AL AM AN AO AP AQ AR AS AT AU AV AW AX AY AZ BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BK BL BM BN BO BP BQ BR BS BT BU BV BW BX BY BZ CA CB CC CD CE CF CG CH CI CJ CK CL CM CN CO CP CQ CR CS CT CU CV 1 2 1st Season 7th Season 10th Season 3rd Season 4th Season 5th Season 6th Season 7th Season 8th Season 9th Season 10th Season 11th Season 12th Season 13th Season 14th Season 15th Season 16th Season 17th Season 18th Season 19th Season 20th Season 21st Season 22nd Season 23rd Season 24th Season 25th Season 26th Season 27th Season 28th Season 29th Season 30th Season 31st Season 32nd Season 33rd Season 34th Season 35th Season 36th Season 37th Season 38th Season 39th Season 40th Season 41st Season 42nd Season 43rd Season 44th Season 45th Season 46th Season 47th Season 48th Season 49th Season 50th Season 51st Season 52nd Season +======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== + there remains little appetite for a broader scale American effort there. And Trump, whose transactional views of foreign policy are openly expressed, sees little reason for the US to become more engaged. + +JUST WATCHED Trump: Syria is now my responsibility Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Syria is now my responsibility 01:10 + +North Korea + +But in his conversations with Merkel and Abdullah on Wednesday, Trump will be reminded that the world still looks to US presidents for leadership at moments of crisis. The migrant flood stemming from Syria's civil war has affected both leaders' countries intensely. Both now find themselves partnering with a US leader they fear could be turning away. + +North Korea's test launch provided another reminder to Trump of the volatile world he inherited in January. Obama warned Trump before he took office that the rogue nation's nuclear program would present him with the most worrisome global challenge. Trump, in the transition period, requested more detailed information about the country's ambitions from the intelligence officials who delivered his initial briefings. + +Unlike in Syria, where the White House acknowledged that options were slim, administration officials projected a comprehensive plan to confront Pyongyang if the missile tests continue. + +"The clock has now run out and all options are on the table," one official told reporters +==================== COMPLETION 11 ==================== +. "And if the North Koreans continue to be provocative, we will defend ourselves and our allies." + +JUST WATCHED Trump warns of North Korean tests Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump warns of North Korean tests 01:39 + +Putin's visit + +Trump will be eager to put the best face on his new relationship with Putin, whom he has praised as a strong leader who has brought peace to Syria. Putin will be visiting the US next month, and Trump, who is not expected to formally meet with the Russian president, will seek to highlight the two countries' growing alliance. + +But this will be an awkward relationship for Trump to navigate, given Russia's interference in the US election and Trump's own links to the Kremlin. The two will also have to contend with lingering questions about Trump's own ties to Russia. + +JUST WATCHED The Cold War comes back to haunt the US Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH The Cold War comes back to haunt the US 02:18 + +Russia's meddling in the election is one of the few subjects on which the White House and congressional Republicans agree on. + +Trump will likely need to win over his own Republican Party to support the intelligence community's assessment that Russia sought to sway the election in Trump's favor. + +Still, Trump will have to tread carefully, mindful of his comments the day after the election that he hoped Russia would find Clinton's deleted emails and the subsequent revelations that Russia facilitated the leaks. + +And the question of whether Clinton's use of a private email server was an act of treason is sure to come up. + +JUST WATCHED Is Russia trying to influence the US election? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Is Russia trying to influence the US election? 03:46 + +Russia's influence in the election + +The Trump administration's relationship with Moscow is one of the most divisive issues in American politics, and Trump's relationship with Putin is a critical factor. + +The president-elect is wary of Russia's influence over the US election. In the transition period, Trump repeatedly expressed skepticism about the intelligence community's assessment that Russia was behind the hacking. + +And the US intelligence community has found that Putin personally ordered an influence campaign aimed at the US election. + +Trump has disputed those findings and has insisted that he will meet with Putin during his upcoming trip to Moscow. As the US and Russia engage in one of the most important relationships in their history, the relationship could be impacted by the US's stance on Moscow. + +JUST WATCHED Trump to Putin: We won't let go Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump to Putin: We won't let go 02:19 + +And Trump's own comments on Russia will be a factor. While he's said in the past that he'd like to improve relations with Russia, he's also expressed views that seem to reflect Moscow's interests. + +"For me, it would be an amazing thing -- not a bad thing -- if we could get along with Russia," Trump said in September. "If we can get along with people, there's nothing we can't do. It would be an amazing thing. I think it would be very, very good." + +Russia's role in Syria + +Trump's meeting with Putin will be fraught with questions about the US's policy toward Russia -- and the role Russia is playing, and is playing in Syria. + +JUST WATCHED Trump to Putin: We must work together Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump to Putin: We must work together 01:47 + +Trump's reluctance to support a no-fly zone in Syria -- a key demand of the US military and critical to the success of the coalition against ISIS -- is likely to be put on the table. + +And the US will have to contend with the fact that +======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== + there remains little appetite for a broader scale American effort there. And Trump, whose transactional views of foreign policy are openly expressed, sees little reason for the US to become more engaged. + +JUST WATCHED Trump: Syria is now my responsibility Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Syria is now my responsibility 01:10 + +North Korea + +But in his conversations with Merkel and Abdullah on Wednesday, Trump will be reminded that the world still looks to US presidents for leadership at moments of crisis. The migrant flood stemming from Syria's civil war has affected both leaders' countries intensely. Both now find themselves partnering with a US leader they fear could be turning away. + +North Korea's test launch provided another reminder to Trump of the volatile world he inherited in January. Obama warned Trump before he took office that the rogue nation's nuclear program would present him with the most worrisome global challenge. Trump, in the transition period, requested more detailed information about the country's ambitions from the intelligence officials who delivered his initial briefings. + +Unlike in Syria, where the White House acknowledged that options were slim, administration officials projected a comprehensive plan to confront Pyongyang if the missile tests continue. + +"The clock has now run out and all options are on the table," one official told reporters +==================== COMPLETION 12 ==================== +. + +The White House is expected to offer a fuller presentation of a US strategy to the UN Security Council on Thursday. + +Trump's relationship with Abdullah, who as the prime minister of Jordan became the first Arab leader to meet with Trump at the White House earlier this year, has become strained, according to the US officials. Trump's administration has made clear its preference for a stronger relationship with Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the United States. + +Abdullah is also the lone Middle East leader to have met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April, a meeting that was viewed by many in the region as a slap in the face for Israel. He was also the first foreign leader to speak to Trump after he announced the US was pulling out of the Paris climate accord. + +Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Accord has been widely viewed as an act of diplomatic isolation and a move to put the US back on an equal footing with Russia, China and Iran, all of which have long been viewed as global powers. + +China has already signaled its displeasure over Trump's decision, expressing disappointment over the US withdrawal from the deal and calling on other parties to respect the accord. + +China has also begun pushing for more countries to sign the Paris accord, a move that could complicate Trump's efforts to make the agreement a global standard.<|endoftext|>A new study by UC Davis researchers has shown that a new class of antibiotic that's being developed by the pharmaceutical company Oxitec could help kill off mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus. + +The research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, is a step toward developing a broad-spectrum antibiotic that could be used to prevent infections from viruses from other diseases such as Ebola, which are spread by Aedes to humans. + +The research team has shown that Oxitec's tool, a genetically modified version of the bacterium Wolbachia, kills mosquitoes infected with the Zika virus. + +Oxitec's new pesticide, called YatriX, is one of the first of its kind to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the U.S. + +"This study is a great step forward in developing a new class of antibiotic that can kill Zika-carrying mosquitoes," said Daniel Scarpinato, assistant professor of entomology at UC Davis and senior author of the paper. "We hope that our findings may one day lead to the development of new Zika-specific drugs, which could potentially be used to treat the disease and prevent disease transmission." + +The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and can cause severe birth defects in fetuses and young children. It's believed to have led to a spike in cases of microcephaly in Brazil. Zika also is suspected in the birth defects in more than 1,000 babies in the continental U.S. that have been born with microcephaly, said Scarpinato. + +The Zika virus' link to birth defects has prompted the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency, and concerns about the virus are growing in the U.S. as well. + +Oxitec is one of several companies that have developed genetically modified mosquitoes to fight Zika, and the company's research shows that Wolbachia's offspring are less likely to transmit the virus. + +"We're excited to see a new class of antibiotics that could help prevent Zika infections in humans," said Scarpinato. "Our study shows that Wolbachia's offspring can be controlled and that the Wolbachia-derived antibiotic is effective against Zika." + +Oxitec is developing YatriX, a pesticide made up of genetically modified Wolbachia bacteria, and Oxite +======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== +. Mode. — Put the rice into the above proportion of cold stock or broth, and let it boil very gently for 1/2 hour; then add the butter, and simmer it till quite dry and soft When cold, make it into balls, hollow out the inside, and fill with minced fowl made by recipe No. 956. The mince should be rather thick. Cover over with rice, dip the balls into egg, sprinkle them with bread crumbs, and fry a nice brown. Dish them, and garnish with fried parsley. Oysters, white sauce, or a little cream, may be stirred into the rice before it cools. Time. — 1/2 hour to boil the rice, 10 minutes to fry the croquettes. Average cost, exclusive of the fowl, 8d. Seasonable at any time. CHIP. — If the birds are allowed to puddle about on wet soil, or to be much out in the rain, they will get "chip." Young chicks are especially liable to this complaint. They will sit shivering in out-of-the-way corners, perpetually uttering a dolorous "chip, chip;" seemingly frozen with cold, though, on handling them, they are found to +==================== COMPLETION 13 ==================== + be fresh and lively. The remedy is to give the whole field a good washing, and bring the field up to the proper temperature. This will enable the chicks to stand their winter quarters; and if they are landed with proper care, they will all be in good condition. It is advisable to remove the eggs from the nest as soon as possible; as the chicks grow up, they will become quite fond of the eggs, and will steal them from the hen, and even seek them out in the nest, in defiance of the owner. The hen is therefore recommended to be very careful, in cleaning out the nest, and to keep the eggs clean, which she will be able to do by keeping the nest well covered. If the chicken has been kept in a good little cage, it will easily get out, but if she is confined in a house, she is at a great disadvantage. Mince can be given to the hen in any quantity, and with any quantity of meat; but as the quantity will be small, it will soon be a nuisance to the little bird. The above article is stated to be a very good one, but it is not an exact description. The author says, that in order to get the best flavour, it will be necessary to fry in butter the whole of the croquettes, but that he does not know what is the best way for that purpose. J. B. F. EMBLEMS. Corned Beef. — If the price of beef is high, a boiled corned beef dinner will be more agreeable to the eye, and taste, than any other dish. It is a good dish to be eaten cold, but it will do well hot with gravy. RICE. — The rice for this dish is very similar to that for the meat, and should be boiled in the same quantity, not less than half and half. It should be stirred into the stock or broth in the same manner. It can be made up into balls, and fried in the same manner as the ribs. Cabbage of any kind will do well for this purpose, as it is a very good condiment. A small piece of it should be put in with the meat, and when the meat is nicely browned, it should be removed and set aside. This is called "cabbage of the wine," and will be found very agreeable with all kinds of meat. The liver of the animal should be removed, and the liver of the bird, also, should be removed. The liver of the bird should be removed, and chopped into small pieces, and mixed with the oil that is left in the pot. The liver of the animal should be finely chopped, and mixed with the remaining gravy. This is called "cabbage of the liver." This is a very good dish to be served in company with the rice, and is much preferred by English cooks, but it will do well by itself. The bird should be carefully cleaned and washed, and then immediately placed in the pot with the sauce, the liver of the bird being used in the same manner. This should be added to the rice, without separating the meat or vegetable portions. In making these croquettes, the meat should be finely chopped, and mixed with the gravy of the croquettes. The vegetable portions should be placed on the left side, and the meat on the right side. The left side should be cleared of the green parts, the pieces for the croquettes being placed upon them. The gravy should be of a light colour, and should be made up into balls for the croquettes. The meat should be cooked until the meat is rather brown, and then the croquettes should be cooked until they are quite dry. The bones should be removed from the croquettes, and the +======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== +. Mode. — Put the rice into the above proportion of cold stock or broth, and let it boil very gently for 1/2 hour; then add the butter, and simmer it till quite dry and soft When cold, make it into balls, hollow out the inside, and fill with minced fowl made by recipe No. 956. The mince should be rather thick. Cover over with rice, dip the balls into egg, sprinkle them with bread crumbs, and fry a nice brown. Dish them, and garnish with fried parsley. Oysters, white sauce, or a little cream, may be stirred into the rice before it cools. Time. — 1/2 hour to boil the rice, 10 minutes to fry the croquettes. Average cost, exclusive of the fowl, 8d. Seasonable at any time. CHIP. — If the birds are allowed to puddle about on wet soil, or to be much out in the rain, they will get "chip." Young chicks are especially liable to this complaint. They will sit shivering in out-of-the-way corners, perpetually uttering a dolorous "chip, chip;" seemingly frozen with cold, though, on handling them, they are found to +==================== COMPLETION 14 ==================== + be firm and pliable. In order to prevent this, the hen should be kept in a warm, dry place, so that the birds may have plenty of good air to breathe. If they are kept in a cold, damp place, they may readily get "chip," but, if kept in a warm, dry place, it is much less frequent. The best way is to keep the hen and the young chicks in a warm, dark place, with a good, deep, well ventilated, well screened porch. This is a very practical and inexpensive method of preventing "chip," and no bird can be kept with more peace of mind. When the chicks are about a month old, and are sufficiently hatched to be able to fly, the mother should be taken from the nest, and the young ones, making sure not to disturb the mother, should be submerged in a large basin of water, and kept warm in it for at least six hours. The water may be changed every two hours. If the young birds remain in the water, they will die. If they are kept at the same time in the basin, and are not able to fly, they should be put into a cool place, and then allowed to dry out, without being exposed to the sun. When completely dry, they can be taken out, and left to dry in a warm, dry place. When the eggs are hatched, it is generally best to place them in a dry place, as soon as they are hatched, and give them plenty of air to breathe. If they are kept in a warm place, they will die. When the eggs have hatched, and the young birds have flown about, it is well to place them in a warm, dry place, with plenty of air to breathe, or they will become very weak. The best way to prevent "chip" is to keep the young birds in a warm, dry place, and when they are about the same size, they should be placed in the same situation, in the same place, and kept in the same condition for a few days. If they are kept in a cold, damp place, they will die. It is a good plan to keep the young birds in a warm, dry place, with plenty of air to breathe, for a few days, and then change them into a cool place, and then into a warm one, in the same place. If they are kept in a warm, damp place, they will die. If the young birds are found to be weak, it is a good plan to keep them in a warm, dry place, and if they are weak, they should be taken out and laid in a cool place, and allowed to dry out, without being exposed to the sun. If they are kept in a cold, damp place, they will die. If the young birds are weak, then they should be taken out and laid in a cool place, and kept in a warm one for a few days, and then change them into a cool place, if the young birds are weak. The young birds may be kept in the same place, and chosen according to their strength, and be transferred from one place to another. The following is the proper way to place young birds, and to prevent them from becoming weak : Take the young birds and half-sized egg from the nest and put them in a warm, dry place, with plenty of air to breathe. If they are weak, it is best to keep them in a warm, dry place, where they will have plenty of air to breathe. They may be changed into a cool place, and kept in a warm one, in the same place. They may be placed in a cool place, and kept in a warm one, in the same place, for a few days. They +======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== +. Mode. — Put the rice into the above proportion of cold stock or broth, and let it boil very gently for 1/2 hour; then add the butter, and simmer it till quite dry and soft When cold, make it into balls, hollow out the inside, and fill with minced fowl made by recipe No. 956. The mince should be rather thick. Cover over with rice, dip the balls into egg, sprinkle them with bread crumbs, and fry a nice brown. Dish them, and garnish with fried parsley. Oysters, white sauce, or a little cream, may be stirred into the rice before it cools. Time. — 1/2 hour to boil the rice, 10 minutes to fry the croquettes. Average cost, exclusive of the fowl, 8d. Seasonable at any time. CHIP. — If the birds are allowed to puddle about on wet soil, or to be much out in the rain, they will get "chip." Young chicks are especially liable to this complaint. They will sit shivering in out-of-the-way corners, perpetually uttering a dolorous "chip, chip;" seemingly frozen with cold, though, on handling them, they are found to +==================== COMPLETION 15 ==================== + be quite fresh. If this be the case, they are to be carefully handled by the parents, who will find them quite soft, and will then gently lay them on a dish, and cover them with a little water or lemonade. This will break up their chippings, and will enliven them. They may also be taken out at all seasons, and a little water mixed with lemonade or water, will fix them. If they have not been allowed to have a good "chip" for several days, they may be got by the above method. When they can be taken out, they will be very pleasant in a kind of soup, of tomato, or any other vegetable matter, with a spoonful of cream to draw the moisture from them. They also make a good cream-sauce, when used in their own manner. Batters, as "tomato," "lard," "croutons," may be added to the above recipe. HOME-PREPAREDNESS. 163. The Art of Making French Bread. — A little bread-crumb is the best crumb for French bread. But in making good French bread, the bread must be rather thin, as it is in "American" bread, and not so stiff as in English bread. When making French bread, the butter must be softened. A little lard is excellent for the same purpose. In the beginning, the butter should be softened, but as it thickens, it is much better to let it cool and soften the following day. This is best done by melting it in a saucepan, and stirring it through a sieve, and stirring it through a sieve again. It can be done the day before, but it will be much better now. The flour should be cut into very small, thin pieces, so as not to interfere with the butter. The butter should be melted, and the flour mixed with it, and worked into a paste. It is best to have the butter and the flour well mixed, and not to use more or less of either of them, than is necessary. The quantity of flour required may be determined by weighing the butter and the flour separately, and by adding one-half to two-thirds of the amount of each, to the mixture. If the butter is too dry, add a little more flour, and if too wet, add a little more butter. When the mixture is well put together, it will make a crust on the bottom of the pan. When the crust is quite dry, it is ready to be baked. The dough may be kept in a warm place for a few minutes, until it is all worked up into a smooth ball. The dough should be kept warm, and it will keep a long time without any more attention, or any alteration of the ingredients. INGREDIENTS. — 1/2 pint butter, 12 oz. sifted flour, 1/2 drachm. salt. Directions. — Melt the butter in a saucepan of water, stirring well and slowly till it is quite melted. When it is quite melted, add the sifted flour to it, and let it stand until the flour has absorbed the butter. Then add the salt, and stir well. When the dough is well mixed, and it may be kept a few minutes in a warm place, it will be ready to be rolled into a ball. Roll the ball out on a smooth surface, and cut it into thick strips, about a foot long. The length of the strips will depend upon the size of the pan in which you make the bread. The strips cannot be cut too short, because if the strips are too large, they will not be as good as they can be. The strips should not be too long, as +======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== +. Mode. — Put the rice into the above proportion of cold stock or broth, and let it boil very gently for 1/2 hour; then add the butter, and simmer it till quite dry and soft When cold, make it into balls, hollow out the inside, and fill with minced fowl made by recipe No. 956. The mince should be rather thick. Cover over with rice, dip the balls into egg, sprinkle them with bread crumbs, and fry a nice brown. Dish them, and garnish with fried parsley. Oysters, white sauce, or a little cream, may be stirred into the rice before it cools. Time. — 1/2 hour to boil the rice, 10 minutes to fry the croquettes. Average cost, exclusive of the fowl, 8d. Seasonable at any time. CHIP. — If the birds are allowed to puddle about on wet soil, or to be much out in the rain, they will get "chip." Young chicks are especially liable to this complaint. They will sit shivering in out-of-the-way corners, perpetually uttering a dolorous "chip, chip;" seemingly frozen with cold, though, on handling them, they are found to +==================== COMPLETION 16 ==================== + be perfectly well. With this they should be allowed to dry out, and at once take good fresh air. A good remedy is to purchase a few of the young ones, and put them in a shallow dish, where they will not be so much alarmed. Their tiny little feet being held in the air, they will not be alarmed, and will soon go to sleep. To prevent this, they ought to be kept in a warm place, and in the shade. CHIPS. — The young chicks are usually protected, and are not only spared this unpleasant trouble, but are often let out to devour their own kind. One should be especially careful not to let them out in the open, as they will not be able to avoid getting into the mud. As soon as they are large enough for enjoyment, they should be accustomed to be kept out of the open, and kept in a warm and dry place. CHIPS. — The young ones, being kept in a warm and dry place, will not be so apt to get into the mud. At the age of about one and a half weeks, they will be capable of being taken out of the house, and let out to devour their own kind. Their small little feet being held in the air, will not be alarmed, and will soon go to sleep. To prevent this, let them be kept in a warm and dry place, and in the shade. (By J. J. H.) A COOK'S GUIDE TO LAKE AND RIVER POULTRY. — A good guide to the manufacture of the various sorts of poults. By J. J. H. (By permission of the author.) FISH. — In the river-bottom, and in the lakes, there are many varieties of fish, which should be caught by all persons who wish to be healthy and fit. They are, of course, all caught at different times of the year, and the various kinds of usuage are, therefore, very various. One kind, called "Nue," or "Chinook," is a large mussel, which is caught in the summer, and in the winter, and is very juicy, and very good. It is taken by holding it over the fire till it is pretty black and hard, and then turning it over on its side; then dropping it into a pint of water. This is the best and most convenient way of catching it, and it is very much resorted to by the Indians. It is also taken, in the winter, in the same manner, but with the flip-flop, and in a very dry place. There are two kinds of this fish, one of which is called "Punkin," and the other "Punkin-towel," and they may be considered as being the same species. The former is caught by dropping it into a pint of water, and then turning it over on its side, so that it is left in a small quantity. If the water is deep and well-frozen, the fish will float on the surface, and by raising the surface, a spark will be produced, which gives it its name. It may be taken by the same method, but the fish should not be left in the water too long, as it will become hard and brittle. The latter is taken by taking a long wooden bar, and dipping it in the water, to which it has been dipped, and then letting it float in the water till it is soft, and then placing it in a pint of water. After it has been floating there a few minutes, a spark will be made, and will give it its name. It is very good to eat. The Pekin fish is also taken by dropping it in water +======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== +Arrow's release of the Tinto Brass classic, "Caligula." + + +DM: What impresses me the most about Arrow's products is the amount of "extra mile" that goes into each piece. The Mutilator had been one of my "most wanted" films on DVD/BD for YEARS. People like me would have purchased that title no matter what "extras" were on it, but Arrow went above and beyond in producing a nice feature-length documentary to round out all the other bonuses that were loaded onto the package. I'm guessing a lot of what you do is a "labor of love"—how important is that, and how far are you willing to go with hunting down or producing supplemental materials before it becomes "not worth it"? + + +FS: The label was always intended to be the last word in whatever film we released. It was a slow start but once we got through some key releases like Dawn of the Dead and Battle Royale that became the brief for every release thereafter and so when we expanded our team we found people who not only understood that but were also passionate and knowledgeable about these films. Our team doesn't all have the same tastes but that's exactly what we need, so when we have a release like +==================== COMPLETION 17 ==================== + this that is so well done we feel that "extra mile" is worth it. + + +DM: You made a rare foray into the documentary field with a documentary that follows the development of the infamous "Pound Puppy" in the early days of the film industry. How important is the documentary field, and how important is it to you? + + +FS: The documentary field is important to me because I love the process of filmmaking. It's like a really good book, or a really good LP: it takes a lot of time to create and we're lucky to have a lot of filmmakers who will talk to us about their process, and the process of making a documentary. + + +I have a lot of respect for the people who make documentaries, and the people who create documentaries, because they're the best at what they do. I think it's important that as we move forward in the time we have available to us we look to the best and the brightest in film to make great films. + + +DM: You recently wrapped on your second feature film, the anthology-style, "Metal: A Love Story." What was the most challenging part of making that film, what made you decide to focus on it, and how did it come about? + + +FS: I think it was the challenge: it was a love story, it was a love story about two people who spend their lives together, who love each other, who have lost a child, and it was about the role of metal in their lives and the role of metal in their relationship. That is something that is very personal for me and something that I'm very passionate about. + + +It was also a challenge to make a film that felt like it was a love story, but was also a film that could be loved by a lot of people. I think that's why we made it with an interesting cast of characters: we wanted people to get involved in the story and feel like they were part of it. + + +We were very lucky to find a fantastic director, Scott R. Donton, who really understands what it takes to make a film like this. He understands what it takes to make a film that is both a love story and a film that people can get involved with. + + +When you do a film like this you have to make it for the fans, and it takes a lot to make a film like that. It's challenging on a lot of levels that I don't think a lot of filmmakers are willing to face. + + +DM: As a filmmaker, how do you go about finding the right cast? You have films with very large casts, and seemingly smaller casts, but how do you find the right mix of actors who are appropriate for each role? + +FS: I don't think you can ever "find the right cast" because you always go with what feels right for you. You go with what feels right to you, because it is what pays off. But the cast is important to us, because it makes the film what it is. + + +I'm a little bit more forgiving of this than I am for some other things I've done. Sometimes people think a film is too "filler" and they don't really care about it. If I'm making a film that's going to be a good film to watch, it's not going to be about a character that isn't interesting, that's not interesting to watch. + + +I feel that casting is just as important as story. I have a good relationship with many of the people I've worked with, and I've worked with some wonderful people and that's important to me. But if I'm going to do a film I need to find the right people and the right actors to make the film what +======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== +Arrow's release of the Tinto Brass classic, "Caligula." + + +DM: What impresses me the most about Arrow's products is the amount of "extra mile" that goes into each piece. The Mutilator had been one of my "most wanted" films on DVD/BD for YEARS. People like me would have purchased that title no matter what "extras" were on it, but Arrow went above and beyond in producing a nice feature-length documentary to round out all the other bonuses that were loaded onto the package. I'm guessing a lot of what you do is a "labor of love"—how important is that, and how far are you willing to go with hunting down or producing supplemental materials before it becomes "not worth it"? + + +FS: The label was always intended to be the last word in whatever film we released. It was a slow start but once we got through some key releases like Dawn of the Dead and Battle Royale that became the brief for every release thereafter and so when we expanded our team we found people who not only understood that but were also passionate and knowledgeable about these films. Our team doesn't all have the same tastes but that's exactly what we need, so when we have a release like +==================== COMPLETION 18 ==================== + the Mutilator, we wanted to make sure the cost of it didn't compound our costs. We always try to keep the price point as low as possible and we can always bring the price up hopefully to some level where it's in line with the other films we're doing. + + +DM: I noticed a few years ago that it was no longer possible to purchase the "Extras" for the DVD/BDs. Was that a result of being released to Blu Ray? Did Arrow "cancel" the release for a new release? + + +FS: Yes, that was a result of the Blu Ray release. We always had some "extras" that were never released before on a DVD or Blu Ray, but we always planned to release those on a Blu Ray release. We never anticipated the popularity of the Extras that we pulled from "The Mutilator" and there weren't enough people to justify it to make a Blu Ray release viable. + + +DM: I heard that you were in negotiations for the "Extras" for Dawn of the Dead. Why didn't you release those, and what happened? + + +FS: Well, I was still in negotiations with Paramount to release the "Extras" for "Dawn of the Dead," but they ultimately decided not to release those "Extras" and to put those on their DVD release. So, they went home with $1.5 million worth of extras and we got nothing. I mean, that was the whole point of the "Extras" in the first place. + + +DM: What are the chief differences between working with a distributor like Arrow and one like Red Granite? + + +FS: Well, I think the biggest difference is that Arrow has a lot of trust that they can get the balance right between what the consumer wants and what they can afford. It's the same thing with Red Granite. They have no responsibility to make sure the consumer gets it exactly how they want it or at a price they can afford or that the film looks as good as they want it to look. It's up to the distributors to make sure all the right things happen. + + +DM: Did you have any contact with Red Granite before releasing "The Mutilator" on DVD/BD? + + +FS: No, I did not. + + +DM: Did you have any contact with Red Granite after releasing "The Mutilator" on DVD/BD? + + +FS: No, I did not. + + +DM: Do you have any idea when you might be able to release "The Mutilator" on Blu Ray? + + +FS: We are still in negotiations with the distributor. It's possible, but it's a matter of how much money we're willing to spend and how long it takes to get the release going. + + +DM: When you were saying that you were in negotiations with Paramount, were you talking about "The Mutilator"? + + +FS: I think what I was referring to was "The Mutilator" and "Dawn of the Dead" because it was an exception to the rule. Most of the DVDs and Blu Rays that we released in the past were more or less immediately popular with consumers. We were able to find distributors for them quickly and get them into stores, but on the other end, we had to try and find distributors for the extras, which are the extras that are the most important. So, we were in negotiations with Paramount to make those extras available quickly. But hey, we can never predict the future, so we'll just have to see what happens. + + +DM: Did you have any contact with Warner Brothers before releasing "The Mutilator" on DVD/BD? + + +FS: I don +======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== +Arrow's release of the Tinto Brass classic, "Caligula." + + +DM: What impresses me the most about Arrow's products is the amount of "extra mile" that goes into each piece. The Mutilator had been one of my "most wanted" films on DVD/BD for YEARS. People like me would have purchased that title no matter what "extras" were on it, but Arrow went above and beyond in producing a nice feature-length documentary to round out all the other bonuses that were loaded onto the package. I'm guessing a lot of what you do is a "labor of love"—how important is that, and how far are you willing to go with hunting down or producing supplemental materials before it becomes "not worth it"? + + +FS: The label was always intended to be the last word in whatever film we released. It was a slow start but once we got through some key releases like Dawn of the Dead and Battle Royale that became the brief for every release thereafter and so when we expanded our team we found people who not only understood that but were also passionate and knowledgeable about these films. Our team doesn't all have the same tastes but that's exactly what we need, so when we have a release like +==================== COMPLETION 19 ==================== + Mutilator, we're able to make a super-exclusive, limited edition, and one that includes extras that we wouldn't have done otherwise. I think people like it because it's one of a kind. We have a lot of fun from the very beginning of the process to the very end, but we can't stop there. It's a lot of fun to sit down and work on these things, and we're always looking for ways to add more and more to our catalog. + + +DM: I'm curious about your relationship with the Black Label: Do you have any exclusive material from any of your releases, or are you at the mercy of whoever releases it? + + +FS: It's a few different things. If we have a DVD from someone, the DVD is the property of whoever released it. Sometimes we do have some limited releases where we have something that's owned by a specific person. If we have a DVD that's a bit more exclusive, then we'll work with that person to make it available to us. We will also contact the people that we've worked with in the past and ask them to sign a release form so we know that they want us to have it. + + +DM: And what about the Black Label? Do you have any exclusive material from those releases? + + +FS: There's a few things. The original releases we've had for Black Label are always the same quality as our DVDs. We want to make sure that the core fans are getting what they want and that we're not doing something out of the ordinary. We are always looking for ways to make the Black Label releases better. We want to make sure that people who are new to the brand are getting what they want. We're always looking for ways to improve and add more features to our Black Label releases and that's something we can always do. + + +DM: What are the most important components in a good DVD or Blu-ray release? + + +FS: Obviously quality is paramount. We wouldn't want to release a DVD that was crappy. We want to make sure that people are getting the best quality for their money. Our DVD releases always have the best sound quality. We want to make sure that they have a good picture. We want to make sure that they're easy to read. We want to make sure that the overall picture is as good as it can be. We look at the packaging. It has to look great. We want to make sure that it's easy to set up and we want the packaging to be unique and different. We don't want our packaging to be the same. + + +DM: Are there any DVDs or Blu-rays that you have difficulty getting your hands on? + + +FS: For the most part, yes. We do have a couple of releases that we have trouble getting. There are a couple of DVDs that we can't get that we did try but just couldn't get. There's one DVD that we tried to get that's sure to be one of our best sellers, but we couldn't get it. It's one of those releases that we tried to get for years and years and ended up getting a few of them. But they were hard to get and we couldn't get them. + + +DM: Any particular releases that have been a struggle? + + +FS: The one that we're most proud of is the first one we did for the Black Label. That's the one that we're most proud of. It's the first release that we did and it had a lot of unique stuff. It was the first release that we had done for the Black Label that we were able to get right. We were able to get it right on every level. It was a really good release. That was a very +======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== +Arrow's release of the Tinto Brass classic, "Caligula." + + +DM: What impresses me the most about Arrow's products is the amount of "extra mile" that goes into each piece. The Mutilator had been one of my "most wanted" films on DVD/BD for YEARS. People like me would have purchased that title no matter what "extras" were on it, but Arrow went above and beyond in producing a nice feature-length documentary to round out all the other bonuses that were loaded onto the package. I'm guessing a lot of what you do is a "labor of love"—how important is that, and how far are you willing to go with hunting down or producing supplemental materials before it becomes "not worth it"? + + +FS: The label was always intended to be the last word in whatever film we released. It was a slow start but once we got through some key releases like Dawn of the Dead and Battle Royale that became the brief for every release thereafter and so when we expanded our team we found people who not only understood that but were also passionate and knowledgeable about these films. Our team doesn't all have the same tastes but that's exactly what we need, so when we have a release like +==================== COMPLETION 20 ==================== + Dawn of the Dead we put everything in. In this case, we wanted to make sure we had something that was both attractive and worthwhile and that's exactly what we did with this release. I'd say that a lot of what you see in these extras is stuff that we have done because it's good or interesting and it's not just stuff that we just threw in because it was there. + + +DM: Is it the feeling of "Wow, I could have done that" that you're after? Or is it more of a "Wow, we could have done that better"? + + +FS: I think the best way to describe what I'm after is the feeling of having a really great film that you've spent a lot of time and effort making. It gives you a great sense of accomplishment and pride that you've been able to create something that you know is really special. That's what is so great about Arrow. The guys are passionate about what they do and they work very hard to make each and every release special. + +For more info on Arrow, you can visit their website here.<|endoftext|>Still loading... + +A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AI AJ AK AL AM AN AO AP AQ AR AS AT AU AV AW AX AY AZ BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BK BL BM BN BO BP BQ BR BS BT BU BV BW BX BY BZ CA CB CC CD CE CF CG CH CI CJ CK CL CM CN CO CP CQ CR CS CT CU CV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 + +Loading... Loading... + +Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.Disclaimer Sheet1 + +A browser error has occurred. + +Please press Ctrl-F5 to refresh the page and try again. + +A browser error has occurred. + +Please hold the Shift key and click the Refresh button to try again.<|endoftext|>There are a lot of great options out there for a new smartphone. Some are free, like the Nexus 5. Others cost a bit more, like the Samsung Galaxy S 4. But some are just plain weird, like the 8GB iPhone 4. We've been playing around with the things that don't make sense for a new iPhone for a few weeks, and today we're ready to present the first round of our picks for the weirdest smartphones that you can buy. + +From a completely different world + +In a world where Apple's iPhone 4s has a 3.5-inch screen, the 8GB iPhone 4 looks like a relic from the past. The 4-inch iPhone is still the best-selling phone in America, and the iPhone 4 is the best-selling phone in the world — it's the only phone that has ever topped the 100 million unit mark. But even though it's a staple of our lives, the iPhone 4 is a relic from a world where phones were much bigger. Why would you buy a phone with an 8-megapixel camera when you can buy a phone with a slightly bigger camera that costs $100 +======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== + but passersby could not look in, the club had little competition for grandeur—except, perhaps, from the Union Club, which had plans to move in across the street. + + +[The entrance to the Metropolitan Club. Photo by James Nevius.] + +As early as the 1880s, Some Union Club members had considered putting in an offer for the University Club's 54th Street corner lot, but the more conservative faction of the club had nixed the location as too far uptown. A decade later, with commercial enterprises surrounding their 21st Street home, the club finally decided to move, purchasing a large lot between 51st and 52nd streets on Fifth Avenue. Deciding to move was hard enough—then deciding what to build at the new location was even harder. A significant portion of the membership wanted to make a carbon copy of the club's 21st Street home, enlarging it to fit the club's new location. More progressive members commissioned a design from Cass Gilbert, whose splendid Custom House was then rising on Bowling Green. Unable to make a decision, the building committee called on Charles McKim to break the tie. McKim gave the nod to the rebuilt version of the old clubhouse—so the building committee, oddly, chose to move forward with +==================== COMPLETION 21 ==================== + McKim's design. + +The new club, which opened in 1885, was a winner, attracting a few thousand of the club's members. As the club grew, so did its contributions to the community. The Metropolitan Club donated $1.5 million to the city's Public Library to build a library building, and the club also donated $1.5 million to build a New York Public Library of the Arts building. The club also lent money to the city's Metropolitan Museum, and donated $1 million to the Museum of the City of New York, and more. + +Of the grandest buildings in the area, a majority were constructed by the Metropolitan Club. The Daughters of the American Revolution built the Colonnade Hotel, today the Manhattan Hotel. The African-American Club built the Harlem Hotel, and the New York Trust Building. The Union Club built the Metropolitan Club, and the Metropolitan Club built the Union Club. + +The Union Club's crowning achievement came in the years after the building's first renovation. On the evening of May 5, 1903, the Metropolitan Club celebrated its centennial with a grand ball. The New York Times reported: + +The elegant ball was attended by over 1,500 guests, among them the Hon. Henry Morgenthau, president of the National City Bank and the Times Company. The guests had the benefit of a magnificent dinner and their social life was prolonged over a series of dances, with all the songs of the day. On Tuesday evening the guest of honor was the Hon. Henry Morgenthau, son of President Roosevelt, who was honored by the evening's main attraction, the ball. The guest of honor was presented the "sparkler"—a large, flat, flat-bottomed glass, which was filled with champagne. The guests were then invited to place their hands inside the sparkler and drink the champagne. It was a wonderfully simple, elegant, and very elegant game. + +The New York Times also reported that the ball was "a success," albeit "a success in the interest of the Metropolitan Club rather than that of the city." + +When the Metropolitan Club was at its height, it was home to nearly one hundred different social organizations. The largest of these was the American Social Club, which had as many as eight hundred members. There were also the Interdepartmental Social Club, the Social Club of the City of New York, the Manhattan Club, the Metropolitan Club, the Bloomfield Club, the Harlem Club, the New York Public Library of the Arts, the Metropolitan Museum, and the New York Botanical Garden. The Metropolitan Club also sponsored the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers for the past seven decades. By the early twentieth century, the club had a mere five hundred members, but the institution grew further thereafter, becoming a major player in the social scene. + +The Union Club, on the other hand, defined itself as a "man of the world," and its members included many of the city's wealthiest and most powerful. Its members included John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and John Jacob Astor. The club's size was also a problem. The Metropolitan Club faced opposition from the club's more conservative members who wanted to preserve the segregated nature of their organization. They felt that the club's cultural influence had grown too great, and that it should be more representative of the city. + +To address these concerns, the Metropolitan Club began hiring all-white members. The club also began paying women for membership, which was not yet common. The club began hosting larger social functions, and, by the later part of the twentieth century, it was hosting parties for as many as two thousand people. + +The Union Club ended its century-long affiliation with the Metropolitan Club on +======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== + but passersby could not look in, the club had little competition for grandeur—except, perhaps, from the Union Club, which had plans to move in across the street. + + +[The entrance to the Metropolitan Club. Photo by James Nevius.] + +As early as the 1880s, Some Union Club members had considered putting in an offer for the University Club's 54th Street corner lot, but the more conservative faction of the club had nixed the location as too far uptown. A decade later, with commercial enterprises surrounding their 21st Street home, the club finally decided to move, purchasing a large lot between 51st and 52nd streets on Fifth Avenue. Deciding to move was hard enough—then deciding what to build at the new location was even harder. A significant portion of the membership wanted to make a carbon copy of the club's 21st Street home, enlarging it to fit the club's new location. More progressive members commissioned a design from Cass Gilbert, whose splendid Custom House was then rising on Bowling Green. Unable to make a decision, the building committee called on Charles McKim to break the tie. McKim gave the nod to the rebuilt version of the old clubhouse—so the building committee, oddly, chose to move forward with +==================== COMPLETION 22 ==================== + the Custom House design, despite the fact that the club's new facility was only four floors higher. + +The new building, completed in 1886, was the largest in the city. It was designed by architect Frederick Law Olmstead, who had designed the Union Club. It featured a brownstone façade, the centerpiece of which was a carved marble lobby. The upper floors were home to a number of offices, including the offices of the club's president and secretary, who oversaw the day-to-day operations of the club. The lower floors were the home for the club's men's locker rooms. Above the locker rooms was a grand staircase that led to the club's main floor, where the ballrooms were located. The building, with its imposing size, where one could feel the weight of the building, and its stature, was a significant improvement over the Union Club, which, like most of the city's sports clubs, had grown out of the days of teams with few dues-paying members. The Metropolitan Club was one of the few clubs with a membership that matched that of the Union Club, and its emergence as the city's premier club was a sign of New York's rise as a world city. + +The building's grandeur inspired the club to move forward with a name change. The new name, "The Metropolitan Club," went into use on Oct. 3, 1886. The new name was meant to be a reflection of the city's rising prosperity; with the Metropolitan Club, the city's elite began to feel comfortable enough to venture out. The Metropolitan Club's name was a fitting summary of the club's rise: its high-end elegance and grandeur were there to welcome the rich and powerful to the city. + +The Metropolitan Club was not only a well-remunerated sports club, it also served as a civic hub. The home of the New York City vs. Boston baseball team, the club hosted the United States' first baseball World Series on Oct. 27, 1886, and the Metropolitan Club also hosted the first-ever basketball World Series, which it won in 1886. The Metropolitan Club also hosted the first-ever polo match on Oct. 2, 1887. It also hosted the first-ever boxing match on Oct. 3, 1887, and the first-ever and second-ever hockey World Series on Nov. 7, 1887, and Nov. 8, 1887. On Nov. 2, 1887, the Metropolitan Club hosted the first-ever soccer World Series, which it won. + +[Left: The Metropolitan Club, 1888. Photo by James Nevius.] + +In its early years, the Metropolitan Club was the city's most important sports club. Its membership was committed and loyal, and the club flourished in its new location. In 1894, the Metropolitan Club was purchased for $2.5 million by William H. B. Whiting, a member of the Whiting family that had long been active in the construction and management of the Metropolitan Club. The Whiting family, owners of the New York Herald and New York World, had been among the club's most prominent members. The Whiting family's roots had been firmly planted in New York City for generations, and in 1894, the Whites had acquired the New York Herald, the New York World and the New York Sun, among other publications. After purchasing the club, Whiting named it the Metropolitan Club, and on Nov. 1, 1891, he purchased the New York Sun. Whiting's ownership of the club was so important to the club's continued success that it was named after him. + + +[Left: The Metropolitan Club in 1896. Photo by James Nevius.] + +Throughout the early years of Whiting's ownership, +======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== + but passersby could not look in, the club had little competition for grandeur—except, perhaps, from the Union Club, which had plans to move in across the street. + + +[The entrance to the Metropolitan Club. Photo by James Nevius.] + +As early as the 1880s, Some Union Club members had considered putting in an offer for the University Club's 54th Street corner lot, but the more conservative faction of the club had nixed the location as too far uptown. A decade later, with commercial enterprises surrounding their 21st Street home, the club finally decided to move, purchasing a large lot between 51st and 52nd streets on Fifth Avenue. Deciding to move was hard enough—then deciding what to build at the new location was even harder. A significant portion of the membership wanted to make a carbon copy of the club's 21st Street home, enlarging it to fit the club's new location. More progressive members commissioned a design from Cass Gilbert, whose splendid Custom House was then rising on Bowling Green. Unable to make a decision, the building committee called on Charles McKim to break the tie. McKim gave the nod to the rebuilt version of the old clubhouse—so the building committee, oddly, chose to move forward with +==================== COMPLETION 23 ==================== + McKim's design. + +In actuality, the McKim building was an oversized, overblown, and over-engineered version of the Custom House. The custom house of McKim's day was not only a beautiful building, but also a very practical one. Despite its 3,000 square feet, McKim's building was built in a very narrow footprint, and it was designed to be a fireproof, airtight building, built to go down easily during a fire. McKim's building was also a very economical building, with a very modest membership fee. The building's size was a conscious attempt to make it more practical for the club to expand, but the club had to make a decision as to how the building would be used. + +The club's decision-makers knew that, like the Custom House, the new building would be a symbol of the new era of industrialism in New York. They went for a more direct, industrial look, with a large, modern steel warehouse-style building that was designed as a 19th century style factory, complete with spinning mill, sawmill, and an engine room. + +The club had wanted to use the McKim building for a long time, and even built an 1873 model for the club to use, but the time came when the building required a major overhaul. The original McKim building was built in 1873, and it was still in good condition, but McKim's larger, modern warehouse-style building proved to be a better fit for the club's needs. + +The McKim building was also a symbol of the transition to modernism in New York City. Since the 1880s, the city was undergoing a major transformation from the age of steam and iron to the age of steel and concrete. This new age was typified by the construction of the Metropolitan Club, built in the top-down style of the early 20th century, which brought a modern aesthetic to the top floors of the grand old Union Club. On the lower floors of the old Union club, the club had built a large, ornate, ornate ballroom, with a grandiose ceiling. The McKim building's modern warehouse-style building was meant to blend in with the modern, industrial style of the city. + +The new building was not always a success. The club had a short-lived attempt to move into the building in 1914. The club re-located to the Custom House, which was still in use, because of space and cost concerns. This change of location ultimately cost the club $1,200,000, and it was not restored until the early 1940s. + +The McKim building was not a success, but the club did find it useful as an office building for the club's fire department, and it was used for storage for the club's pianos. The building was eventually demolished in 1961 to make way for the construction of the Central Park West amusement park. + +The McKim building is now the site of a very expensive lot which is currently empty. The building was a lucrative investment for the club, and it was a clever development, with a very clear purpose. The dream of the McKim building was that it would become a symbol of the new era of industrialism in the city. The club's ambitious plans were crushed by the city's own industrialism, but the building still stands, and it is a symbol of the new era of industrialism in New York City.<|endoftext|>Abstract + +Context The association between low intakes of high-nutrient-dense foods and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality is controversial. + +Objective To determine whether consuming a Mediterranean diet rich in phytochemicals and other nutrients, including plant sterols, reduces the risk +======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== + but passersby could not look in, the club had little competition for grandeur—except, perhaps, from the Union Club, which had plans to move in across the street. + + +[The entrance to the Metropolitan Club. Photo by James Nevius.] + +As early as the 1880s, Some Union Club members had considered putting in an offer for the University Club's 54th Street corner lot, but the more conservative faction of the club had nixed the location as too far uptown. A decade later, with commercial enterprises surrounding their 21st Street home, the club finally decided to move, purchasing a large lot between 51st and 52nd streets on Fifth Avenue. Deciding to move was hard enough—then deciding what to build at the new location was even harder. A significant portion of the membership wanted to make a carbon copy of the club's 21st Street home, enlarging it to fit the club's new location. More progressive members commissioned a design from Cass Gilbert, whose splendid Custom House was then rising on Bowling Green. Unable to make a decision, the building committee called on Charles McKim to break the tie. McKim gave the nod to the rebuilt version of the old clubhouse—so the building committee, oddly, chose to move forward with +==================== COMPLETION 24 ==================== + the new one. + +The new club house was a massive, open footprint that extended to the roof. The original Union Club had been built on a scale that was more grandiose than anything Tavernier had imagined, and McKim's scale was no different. The new building, by contrast, was a post-war marvel that was not only elegant, but also extremely efficient. When Richard et. al. arrived in New York, the club had just moved into its new home, and they were still figuring out how to run it. As one member recalls, "There was a considerable amount of confusion in the beginning, and we were all in a state of bewilderment." + +The new club house was a massive, open footprint that extended to the roof. The original Union Club had been built on a scale that was more grandiose than anything Tavernier had imagined, and McKim's scale was no different. The new building, by contrast, was a post-war marvel that was not only elegant, but also extremely efficient. As one member recalls, "There was a considerable amount of confusion in the beginning, and we were all in a state of bewilderment." + +First, the club had to get a new elevator. The aging one was starting to fall apart. Then, to get access to the upper floors, club patrons had to use a door in the basement that required a key. The club was able to secure a key, but the key was only valid for the club's use. + +As the club grew, so did the number of rooms. In the early years, the club bonded together with other clubs, but as it expanded, it also began to form new associations. The club had its own printing and publishing department, and it made a point of meeting with other clubs in the neighborhood. In the late 1880s, the club's first newspaper, The Union, was published. The club's association with other clubs gave it a large degree of social cachet, and it was a valued member of the community. + +It was also a very exclusive club. The club had to earn its membership. The membership fee was a steep one (approximately $3,000 in today's money), but it was well worth it for the opportunity to be among the first to meet the new arrivals. The club had a waiting list of at least 500 people who wanted to become members. In the early years, the club was a hub of social activity, and it was difficult to get close to the action without price. A typical dinner would cost $500, a meeting at the club would cost $500, and dinner at any of the many fine restaurants that occupied the upper floors would run you another $500. + +"I've spent a lot of money and I've made a lot of money in this club," says one member, "I've been a member of this club my whole life." + +The club's membership list was filled with New Yorkers from all walks of life. It was an eclectic mix of businessmen, theatrical performers, artists, lawyers, businessmen, and even a former mayor. Many of the club's members were also members of the Union Club, which was not unusual at the time. The clubs were both social and business, and their members were often intimately connected. The clubs were also the most important meeting places in the city. The clubs were the most important meeting places in the city. + +The clubs were also the most important meeting places in the city. + +The Union Club's first president, Henry C. Higgins, was a member of the Union Club, so the two clubs were closely associated. Higgins was a shrewd businessman who was a founding member of the Manhattan Safety Society, a fundraising organization that was the +======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== +iques.Roadshow.Series.39.Highlights.of.2016.720p %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mp4 h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E02.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E02.720p. +==================== COMPLETION 25 ==================== +HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E02.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E04.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E05.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Senegal.S02E06.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv Folder Hidden: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6FD1.tmp Dump File: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6FF2.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml Dump File: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6FF3.tmp.csv Dump File: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6FF4.tmp.txt Dump File: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6FF5.tmp.BPF: Write_Application_Update_History_dll (PUP.Optional.SearchProtect.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll (PUP.Optional.SearchProtect.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Delete on reboot. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Delete on reboot. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe.config (PUP.Optional.Google.Chrome.A) -> Delete on reboot. C:\Program Files (x +======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== +iques.Roadshow.Series.39.Highlights.of.2016.720p %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mp4 h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E02.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E02.720p. +==================== COMPLETION 26 ==================== +HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.The.Great.Wall.of.China.2013.1080p.HDTV.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.The.Great.Wall.of.China.2013.1080p.HDTV.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/Empire-Season.2.720p.HDTV.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/Empire-Season.2.1080p.HDTV.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/The.Great.Wall.of.China.2016.1080p.BluRay.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/The.Great.Wall.of.China.2016.1080p.BluRay.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/The.Great.Wall.of.China.2016.1080p.BluRay.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/The.Great.Wall.of.China.2016.x264-SVA1-6183-4DAC-9B1F-7D9E8D9AD77F-trailer-hdtv Developer: Abaekwon + +yacuda Premium Member Total Posts : 47 + +Reward points : 0 + +Joined: + +Status: offline + +Ribbons : 0 Re: GTX 1080 FTW - Black screen & fans spin up to 100% permalink) + + +The people at EVGA have been extremely helpful and their customer service has been top notch. They were able to send me a replacement card (no questions asked) without any problems at all. + + +It seems like a good deal considering the price I paid for the card. + + +I'm glad EVGA is still around and that you guys are doing everything to support the card. + + +Good luck on your purchase! + +post edited by yacuda - Thanks for the reply, I'll get this installed this weekend and will update you guys when it's done.The people at EVGA have been extremely helpful and their customer service has been top notch. They were +======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== +iques.Roadshow.Series.39.Highlights.of.2016.720p %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mp4 h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E02.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E02.720p. +==================== COMPLETION 27 ==================== +HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E04.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E05.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Hitchhiking.and.Finding.Home.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E01.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E02.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E03.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E04.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E05.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E06.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E07.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E08.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E09.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Cult.of.the.Week.S01E10.1080p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/iPlayer/code.txt %5b The metadata has been stripped for your protection. Please run the application in Administrator mode or turn off the Watch Later function in your device. + +RAW Paste Data + +Alert: This app has been removed from the App Store. Your reviews are important to us. If you like the app, please write a review. - This app has been removed from the App Store. Your reviews are important to us. If you like the app, please write a review. - This app has been removed from the App Store. Your reviews are +======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== +iques.Roadshow.Series.39.Highlights.of.2016.720p %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mp4 h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E02.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Attenborough.60.Years.in.the.Wild.S01E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E01.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E02.720p. +==================== COMPLETION 28 ==================== +HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.Grand.Tours.of.Scotland.S02E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/BBC.MasterChef.S04E03.720p.HDTV %28www.Downloadha.com%29.mkv h/Documentaries/February 2017/parsa/Bubblegum.2014.1080p.BluRay.x264-TitanMen-S1.jpg h/Documentaries/December 2016/Skippy.S01E01.720p.HDTV.x264-KILLERS%28www.Downloadha.com%29.mp4' targeting='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'> - -Paste this inside your HTML body, where you want to include the widget: - -
<|endoftext|>Easily share your photos and videos with others. - -One of the most common questions I receive is "how do I share my photos and videos online?". When I first started blogging, I received many of these questions. I started to realize that anyone who's ever posted a photo online, or any video online, knows exactly how important it is to share it with the world. - -What's even better, the FB2 plugin allows you to share directly from your blog, website, or even your mobile app. - -I've been using FB2 to share photos and videos on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram since I first started blogging more than 4 years ago. - -What is FB2? - -FB2 is a plugin for WordPress which allows you to share your photos and videos directly from your website or WordPress blog. - -FB2 is really easy to use, and it allows you to directly share your photos and videos with a number of different social networks. It is extremely easy to set up and use, and it is fully compatible with all WordPress features. - -FB2 is available for free, or you can install it for $2.99. - -FB2 has a unique feature called "Shared Trivia" where you can share trivia with your followers, and they can vote on which questions they like best. - -It is easy to use, and it's free. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on Facebook - -FB2 allows you to share your photos and videos through Facebook. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on Facebook. - -Go to the Facebook page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Share" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on Twitter - -FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Twitter. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on Twitter. - -Go to the Twitter page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Tweet" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on YouTube - -FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through YouTube. You can find the exact steps below for how to share photos on YouTube. - -Go to the YouTube page of the subject you want to share with. Click on the "Share" button. Follow the instructions to enable the plugin. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on Google+ - -FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Google+ using the "Share" button. - -Google+ has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. - -You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo. - -FB2 allows you to share photos on Google+ using the "Share" button. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on Flickr - -FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Flickr using the "Share" button. - -FB2 has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. - -You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo. - -FB2 allows you to share photos on Flickr using the "Share" button. - -How to Share Photos and Videos on Vimeo - -FB2 allows you to share photos and videos through Vimeo using the "Share" button. - -FB2 has a unique feature called "Include location." You can even specify that a photo should be geo-tagged. Once you do that, all of your followers will be able to see the photo and see where it was taken and with whom. - -You can also specify that you want to include a URL. Once you do that, your followers will be able to find the location of the photo -======================================== SAMPLE 289 ======================================== -2.5.3 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.5.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.5.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.5.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.4.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.4.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.3.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.3.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.3.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.2.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.2.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.2.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.1.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.1.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.1.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.0.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -2.0.0 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -1.8.2 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs - -1.8.1 * We've removed the old Facebook sharing features and added a proper sharing API * We've improved the app's reliability by not using Facebook's cache to store passwords * We've also improved the stability of the app and fixed a few bugs -======================================== SAMPLE 290 ======================================== -Concrete is a material used to create bricks, concrete blocks, and other building materials. It is a type of masonry. Concrete is porous and contains large amounts of cement and aggregate. It is regarded as one of the most durable building materials.<|endoftext|>The Story - -The origin of the New God, Mantis, is told by his loyal servant. He claims that the New God was created by an alien race, but the aliens did not want their work to be seen by their human masters. This led the New God's creator to give the New God a mind-controlled slave (the New God). The slave would only be allowed to speak when ordered to do so, and would not be allowed to think for himself. The slave would be given a small portion of the New God's power, so that the New God would be able to create more slaves. The New God's creator also created a sentient robot to serve as the slave's mind-controller. This robot was programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey it. The slave was told that it was to be used as a weapon, and that it would be destroyed if it disobeyed. - -The slave had a personality, but it was not the personality of the New God. The slave was programmed to obey its mind-controller, and to believe that it was a New God. The slave was to be created using the New God's original power source, so that it would have the same personality as the New God. The slave was also to survive prison by a New God, and to be able to speak the call of the New God when the New God needed to be called. The slave's existence was to be monitored by the New God, so that it would not seek revenge on the New God if it was destroyed. - -The Master Builder - -The New God came to Earth, each seeking to create more slaves. One of the first New God's to arrive, Mantis, was bound to a human for a long period of time. The New God's creator thought that this was a bad idea, and created a New God to be able to control the slave. This New God, Domino, was a master builder, and was able to capture Mantis and use him as a tool. Domino began to create a new race of New Gods. They were to be loyal servants of the New God, and would obey orders, but would not be able to think for themselves. - -The New Gods' First Commandment - -The New Gods began to be created, and for the first time, they were given a commandment. They were to follow the New God, the New God's original creator, and not the New God's mind-controller. They were to be loyal servants, and to remember the special bond they had with the New God. Domino created a special weapon to use against the New Gods. The New Gods were told this weapon would be destroyed if they disobeyed. The New Gods were also told that if they were destroyed, they would not be able to return to their home galaxy, and would be killed over and over. - -The New Gods' Descent - -On a random planet in the galaxy, the New Gods were created. They were not told their true origin. They were told that they were to be loyal servants to the New God, and to obey their orders. They were to be created using the New God's original power source. They were to be modified to be slaves, and to obey their masters. The New Gods were told that they were to be destroyed if they disobeyed. They were also told that if they were destroyed, they would not be able to return to their home galaxy, and would be killed over and over. - -The New Gods' Ritual - -The New Gods' sadistic creator created a ritual to get the New Gods to obey the New God. He created a New God, who was to be loyal to the New God, and to obey its commands. The New God was to be created using the New God's original power source. The New God was to be created using the New God's original ability to create more New Gods. The New God was to be programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey orders. The New God's creator created a sentient robot to serve as the New God's mind-controller. The robot was programmed to believe that it was a New God, and to obey orders. The New God was to be programmed to remember that it had a human mind, and to obey commands. The New God was to be programmed to believe that it was the New God's original creator. The New Gods were to be programmed to obey the New God's original creator. The New Gods were to be programmed to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. The New Gods were to obey orders. -======================================== SAMPLE 291 ======================================== -IMPORTANT: This post is a guide to an event I'm hosting in August 2015. The event is a couple of days long and it is no longer taking signups. - -I've written a couple of posts on my experiences at the London D&D Adventurers League this year and more recently I've been playing in a group of one to two players. I've had a great time and I've met some great people. I've also had a lot of people playing for the first time. - -I'm helping organise a massive event for the D&D Adventurers League on Sunday July 24th starting at 10am. It's going to be a 5 hour event that will take place at the prestigious Guildford Hotel. There will be multiple sessions, some with prize support. - -The two sessions are: - -Starting at 10am: Miniature Games - -10am – 12.00pm: Legendary Encounters - -12 – 1.30pm: Legendary Encounters 2 - -1.30pm – 3.30pm: Legendary Encounters 3 - -3.30pm – 4.30pm: Legendary Encounters 4 - -4.30pm – 5.30pm: Legendary Encounters 5 - -After the 5 hour event we will have a few hours of downtime. I'll post the D&D Adventurers League Facebook Page once the event is over. - -As you can see there are plenty of things to do at the hotel. There are a few themed rooms to choose from. I'll be staying at the Hotel D'Aubervilliers, which is a great hotel in the heart of London's film and music industry. - -I'll be posting more information about the hotel when I get it. - -Some rules to help you plan your adventure: - -If you don't get into a session before 9am you still have time to play during the event. - -If you're playing solo, you'll need to choose a character to play as during the session and you won't be able to switch characters after the event. - -You can set up your character once the event starts. - -You don't need a character, but you will need a character sheet. - -You can change your character sheet mid-session, even if you're still in a session. - -You can change your character sheet at any time. - -You can choose to play as any class, but you must choose a class before the event starts. - -You can play as any race. - -You can play as any gender. - -If you want to play as a female character you can, but you'll need to switch to a female character sheet. - -The characters I'm playing are: - -Parson - -Finn - -Gwendolyn - -Kai - -Tracey - -Robin - -I'll be using the D&D Adventurers League rules for this event. You can read the rules here: http://www.dndadventurersleague.net/Rules/ - -I'll try to update this post as soon as I can find out more information on the hotel. - -Once again, I'm looking to have some fun and I hope to see some of you there.<|endoftext|>PATTERN DETAILS - -Here's a quick and easy tutorial to show you how to make this cute pattern! It starts with a square, and I used a beginning chain of 10 stitches. Then I worked the pattern using single crochet stitches (sc), double crochet stitches (dc), half double crochet stitches (hdc), and the magic ring method (rnd). This crochet pattern is made of 6 parts: 1 Rnd, 1 Rnd, 2 Rnds, 3 Rnds, and 4 Rnds. - -CROCHET PATTERN TIPS - -You can vary the size of the square you make by adding or subtracting stitches. - -FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE A SQUARE - -When you start the first Rnd, stop for a couple of stitches. Then, simply work the pattern to make a square. - -To make a square, you need to work every stitch. If you wanted to make a larger square, you'd work every stitch. - -To work a row, count the number of stitches in the square. You can add or subtract stitches to make a bigger or smaller square. - -When you reach the end of the last Rnd, you'll have worked a total of 24 stitches. The next Rnd will start the next row. - -When you reach the end of the row, you'll have worked a total of 36 stitches. The next row will work the next 4 rows and so on. - -CROCHET DOUBLE CROCHET PATTERN TIPS - -To make 2 double crochet stitches, you need to work 1 stitch into the space between 2 single crochet stitches. - -Use -======================================== SAMPLE 292 ======================================== -The biggest question the U.S. Senate will have to answer in December is whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. - -Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid has said that he wants to vote before the end of the year on the project, which would transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta's oil sands to refineries in Texas. - -But the project is currently facing potential opposition from environmental groups and members of Congress from both parties. - -And right now, it's not clear that the House has the votes to approve it. - -"The House is not going to pass Keystone," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. "We need to get the president to sign it." - -That's because the pipeline would cross the border from Canada into Nebraska, and then across the border into the U.S. from the Gulf Coast. - -The House passed the Keystone bill in July, but the Senate hasn't yet taken up the bill. - -The pipeline's backers may need to hold the House hostage, Inhofe said. - -"My position is, if they want to pass it, I'm for it. But I will never support it unless it's for the right reason," Inhofe said. "I will not support it for the right reason if it's to satisfy the special interests." - -Senate Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee are discussing whether to take up the bill later this week, according to a Democratic aide. - -It's unclear how much House Democrats believe they need to approve the pipeline to win their support for it. - -"I think the House is going to vote on it," said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. - -But Larson said he believes the House would need to see more details about the project before it would give their support. - -"I think it's something that the House needs to look at," Larson said. "I think there's a lot of things that need to be looked at before we can vote on it." - -Environmental groups oppose the pipeline because it would encourage more carbon pollution and worsen climate change, according to a letter they sent to the House. - -"It is in the national interest to act and approve the Keystone pipeline without delay," the letter said. - -President Obama has yet to sign off on the pipeline, but the State Department is set to announce its findings on the project on Thursday.<|endoftext|>By Bob Dylan - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -And I was born in a small town in Alabama - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -"I was born in a small town in Alabama - -That was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man" - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face in the morning - -And I was lonely as a bird - -And I was lonely as a man - -I was born in a small town in Alabama - -Where it was tough to rest your head at night - -And it was hard to see your face -======================================== SAMPLE 293 ======================================== -The following is a guest post by a dear friend of Kati's, who has taken this issue on as a personal quest. Her name is Kati Donath and if you love her story, you should be following her on Facebook. - -Kati Donath's story is one of many, but it is the story of a young woman from a small town in New South Wales, Australia. - -She did not know how to read or write English, but she had a passion for animals and started a rescue group for abandoned pets. Kati's passion for animals was what led her to rescue cats from the streets of Sydney. - -Kati's rescue effort grew and grew. She was the ambassador for a number of rescue groups and eventually found a home for her cats. These cats became her closest friends, and they grew up together. - -It was in the beginning of her life with these cats that Kati met her husband and his family. He loved these cats too, and would call them his kids. They would spend hours together playing or cuddling, and their bond was so strong that he went to the hospital to see the first time Kati was pregnant. - -The pregnancy was a success, but Kati's cats would not leave her side. She was terrified and she did not know what to do. She did not know if she would be able to carry her cats, and she did not know if she would be able to care for them. - -Kati's husband was heartbroken over losing his daughter, and they decided to get the cats out of her home. They drove to a shelter and picked up the cats. They brought the cats to a local veterinarian, and the veterinarian recommended that the cats be put down. The veterinarian wanted the cats, but Kati did not want to lose her cats. - -The veterinarian said that the cats had to be put down, and they would have to be put down within the next day or two. Kati was upset, but she knew that they had to do what was best for the cats. - -Kati's husband drove to the veterinary clinic, and he was told that the cats would be put down, but that they would be put down in a humane way. - -Kati's husband was very upset. He wanted to show the clinic that he did not want this to happen. He wanted to show the clinic that his wife was a strong woman, and that he was not going to allow this to happen. - -Kati's husband went back to the clinic with her. Kati's husband was very emotional. He said that he did not want to see the cats killed, and that he did not want her to be a burden to the clinic. Kati's husband said that he wanted to pay for the vet bills of the cats, but the clinic said they did not have the money. The clinic had no choice but to put the cats down. - -Kati's husband went home to be with his own children. - -Kati was devastated. She could not believe that her cats had been killed, and that she had to bury them. She lost her faith, and she began to feel hopeless. - -Kati's husband, who had never been a caregiver, was not able to take care of the cats. Kati was close to tears, and asked him to take her to the vet. He said that he could not do that, and that they could not afford the vet bills. It was at this point that Kati's husband started to take his own life. - -Kati went to the veterinarian for help, and she told the veterinarian that her husband had killed himself. The veterinarian did not believe her, and asked her to go to another vet. She told the veterinarian that she could not go to another vet, and that she would go to the police and the shelter if she did not get her cats back. - -The shelter and police were very sympathetic to Kati, and they said that they would help her find her cats if she could prove that her husband had murdered her cats. Kati told the shelter that the police and the shelter would give her a number if she could provide proof that she had been threatened. She gave them the number of a woman that she knew, that had been threatened by her husband. - -Kati's husband had threatened to kill her and her family, and Kati had to prove to the shelter that her husband was the one who had killed her cats by going to the police. Kati had to go to the police, and she did. She went to the police and the shelter, and she told them how her husband had threatened to kill her and her family. She told the police that her husband had threatened her and her family, and that he had threatened to kill her and her family. - -Kati gave the police the number of the woman that she knew, that had been threatened by her husband. Kati told the police that she -======================================== SAMPLE 294 ======================================== -Note: This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. This home has great size windows, stainless steel appliances and is on a large lot. - -The home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! - -This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! - -This home is also currently on the market for $46,000. - -This is a great opportunity to own a home in a beautiful neighborhood that has a large backyard and nice size windows. This home is located about 20 minutes from the lake with an open floor plan and a large living room. The kitchen has ample room for a family. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home also has a large lot in back. - -This home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! - -This home has a unique feature that none of the other homes in the neighborhood has; a moat that runs around the perimeter of the property. This unique feature will draw in many people to this community and will ensure that you will never have to worry about being out in the rain! This home has a garage with a nice sized lot in back. This home also has a nice size backyard for your dog! - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. The description below may be from a previous listing. - -This one bedroom den is just steps from the Lake and with an open floor plan and a large living area. This home has a great walk in closet and all appliances are included. The kitchen is spacious and the yard has ample space to have a dog. The master has a large walk in closet and a full sized bath. The yard has ample space to have a dog. The home has a large lot in back. - -This property is not currently for sale or for rent. -======================================== SAMPLE 295 ======================================== -The most obvious reason to upgrade your RAM is to increase the amount of data you can store on your PC. But the benefits go far beyond that. Here are 10 reasons to replace your old, clunky, and slow RAM with a new, faster, and more reliable model. - -RELATED: How to Upgrade Your RAM on Your PC - -1. It's often more reliable - -Your old computer's RAM is likely to be of lower quality than that of the new one, so it's going to run less reliably. That's because older RAM isn't designed to handle the heavy loads of modern operating systems, software, and programs. It may also be an older design, and it may not have a good amount of internal components to protect against internal failures. - -RELATED: How to Upgrade Your RAM on Your PC - -The good news is that if you're running Windows 10, you can use one of the new RAM sticks that Microsoft released this past summer. These new sticks are more reliable, and their more advanced components mean they can handle up to 64 GB of RAM — enough to hold a lot of your favorite apps and games. - -2. It's cheaper - -You can save money by buying a new, faster RAM stick. You'll be paying less for the same amount of RAM. That saves you money and gives you more money to spend on other things on your computer. - -3. It's more reliable - -If your RAM gets clogged, it's quite easy to fix. But if you're replacing your RAM with a newer, more reliable model, you can avoid the hassle of trying to clean up the mess and start over. - -4. It's more reliable - -If your computer crashes, it's hard to track down the cause. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. - -5. It's faster - -RAM is fast enough to operate most modern operating systems. But if you're running old, slow RAM, it can cause slower computer performance. So upgrading your RAM is going to help you run your computer faster. - -6. It's more reliable - -Just like your computer, your RAM is going to have some hardware failures. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, the likelihood of your computer crashing is going to be lower. - -7. It's more reliable - -If your computer crashes, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. - -8. It's more reliable - -If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. - -9. It's more reliable - -If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly. - -10. It's more reliable - -If your RAM fails, you can't just restart it and try it again. If you're replacing your RAM with a more reliable model, you can just restart your computer, and it'll show that the hard drive is now working properly.<|endoftext|>In a recent study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University found that mice were more likely to be attracted to attractive humans than to attractive animals. - -The researchers say that the finding could help scientists understand human attraction by examining how we relate to other people. - -"The ability to perceive and respond to cues in others has been linked to other complex traits including empathy, altruism and reciprocity," said co-author and UC Berkeley professor of psychology and co-director of the Human Behavior and Evolution Lab Michael Inzlicht. "Understanding how people feel about individuals and their social environment is crucial to broaden our understanding of human evolution and social behavior." - -Inzlicht said, "People are often drawn to those who make them feel good, and those who make them feel good are more likely to be attractive to them." - -The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that attractive females were more likely to be approached by male mice than attractive males. - -"We found that attractive females were more likely to be approached by male mice than attractive males," said co-author and Carnegie Mellon University professor of psychology and co-director of the Human Behavior and Evolution Lab Michael Inzlicht. "This suggests that attractive females perceive their own attractiveness as being desirable, and thus are more willing to approach males who are perceived as being more attractive than themselves." - -Inzlicht said that the -======================================== SAMPLE 296 ======================================== -The following script is from "When the God of Love Says No: A Story of Love and Loss" which aired on April 6, 2013. Bill Whitaker is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On and Joshua Malina, producers. - -We're all familiar with the story of the young man who told his parents he had a plan, and then never showed up for his first day of college. We know that sometimes, the "gift of gab" is more than just a joke. - -The story of the perfect son and the godless father is not at all uncommon. Young people, especially those who grew up in religious homes, are encouraged to be the perfect son, and to never address the father. - -But for some, the story might be more complicated than that. - -This week, we spoke to a group of young people at the Jewish Center for Intercultural Engagement about their experience being raised by non-religious parents. - -That's something that a lot of people try to avoid. - -For many Jewish parents, the idea of raising a child without religion is simply unthinkable. - -There's a tough question that comes up all the time: How do you raise someone without the religious stuff? - -A lot of people say, "Well, you just try to be the best you can be and be the best parent you can be." - -But there's a lot of pressure on people to be perfect and never say something that might be seen as offensive or hurtful. - -For some of these kids, it was not easy. - -Aisha, for example, was raised in a conservative, evangelical Christian home. She was raised by her mother, who was a Christian and who was also a devout evangelical. She was raised to be a good Christian and a good Jew. - -Aisha, her mother and her parents deny that Aisha's parents ever tried to convert her. They say that their own lives were very different. - -The family's life was not the same as it would have been if Aisha had been raised by a well-meaning, liberal Jewish family. - -"When she was 5 years old, she would go to the synagogue with us and she would sit in our synagogue and read from the Torah every day and then she would go home and read from the Torah every night," her mother said. "That was her life. That was her education." - -Aisha admits that there were some struggles in her childhood. - -"Sometimes I was a little bit angry with my mom," Aisha said. "I was getting angry with her for not doing certain things and therefore I would be angry with her. Sometimes I would get mad at her for not being like me. And I would say, 'I'm not like you.'" - -The only time Aisha wanted to talk to her mother about religion was about a year and a half before she turned 16. - -"And I said, 'Mom, I have a question. I want to know how you feel about this. How you feel about me being religious and having a Jewish faith," Aisha said. "And she said, 'Well, we're a Christian family.'" - -Aisha says that her mother's reaction shocked her. - -"And it was a big shock to me because that's not what I believed," she said. "That's not what I believed at all." - -Aisha believes that her mother's response was an indication of just how much she wanted to be accepted by her family. - -"It was like, 'Well, we're a Christian family, and that's how we were raised,'" Aisha said. "And that made me realize that, well, this is how I was raised." - -Aisha's parents say that they never tried to convert her. - -"We don't believe in that kind of thing," Aisha's father said. "We're not that kind of people." - -But they still tried to make Aisha feel comfortable in her own skin. - -At a Christian camp, Aisha and her father watched a movie about a boy who comes to a Christian camp and he meets this girl, who is a lot like her. - -Aisha says that she believed that the girl was very pretty, and that the girl had a boyfriend. - -"And I thought, 'Wow, if I wanted to marry this girl, I would have to marry her to me," Aisha said. "And I would be wrong in doing so. I would be wrong to say that I could do that." - -Aisha's father says that he was surprised by her reaction. - -"I was very surprised. I was just really surprised that she would say 'I would marry you to me,'" he said. - -But Aisha's parents say that they never really tried to convince her that there was something wrong with being Jewish. - -"We never ever said -======================================== SAMPLE 297 ======================================== -We've got the latest on the "new" NFL, the Washington Redskins, and the new rules and regulations in the league. - -The NFL is back in action on Sunday, but those who are waiting for the new rules to be announced on Thursday will have to wait. - -We've got the latest on the "new" NFL, the Washington Redskins, and the new rules and regulations in the league. - -2:01 p.m. - -The Washington Redskins' initial reaction to the new, more stringent NFL rule book is "good." - -The Redskins are among the three teams that will use the new, more stringent NFL rule book, which will be announced Thursday. The league will allow tacklers to tackle from behind, but the Redskins won't be able to give a player a knee or hip lift. - -The Redskins' new rules will not be final for several weeks, but the team is excited about the new guidelines. - -2:01 p.m. - -The NFL is expected to announce Thursday the "new" NFL rule book, which will be used for the first time this season. - -The league announced its intention to make changes to the rules for the first time in 2017 on Tuesday. The NFL will use a version of the new rules that was developed by several committees. - -The NFL will announce Thursday the "new" NFL rule book, which will be used for the first time this season. - -The league will allow tacklers to tackle from behind, but the Redskins won't be able to give a player a knee or hip lift. - -The Redskins' new rules will not be final for several weeks, but the team is excited about the new guidelines. - -The Redskins will be allowed to film on a practice field during a game, but only during the final minutes of a half. - -The NFL will allow a running back or quarterback to use a back brace to alleviate the back pain he may have after a hit. - -The NFL will allow players to have a neck brace to alleviate the neck pain they may have after a hit. - -The NFL will allow a player to take a hit to the head on a punt. - -The NFL will allow players to use the back of their shirt to protect themselves from the sun. - -The NFL will allow a player to use the back of his shirt to protect himself from the sun. - -The NFL will allow a player to use the back of his shirt to protect himself from the sun. - -The NFL will allow a team to move the ball from the 15-yard line to the center of the field several yards. - -The NFL will allow a team to move the ball from the 15-yard line to the center of the field several yards. - -The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. - -The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. - -The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. - -The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback. - -The NFL will allow a player to go to the ground from the 1-yard line to avoid a forward pass from a quarterback.<|endoftext|>"I was told by a few people that I shouldn't have said anything, that I should have left it alone," Ms. Pham said. "But I felt like I was going to be silenced for the rest of my life." - -Ms. Pham, who is now out of the country, said she was not surprised that her story had become a media sensation. She said she had been speaking out about her diagnosis for years, and that it had always been difficult to obtain the medical care she needed. - -"I've known for a long time that I have a mental illness," she said. "It's something I've struggled with for so long." - -The fight over the Affordable Care Act's coverage provisions has made physicians and their patients alike fear that the new law could force them to violate their own principles, including their solemn promises to treat patients with dignity. - -"After the election, it was easy to forget what happened before," said Dr. Richard A. Greene, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a former dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "People are very scared of being called racists, or even bigots." - -Dr. Greene said many who were insured were already struggling to keep their coverage, and "they're certainly not going to be able to afford to go out and buy insurance." - -Dr. Greene noted that there were other ways for people with mental illness to get medical attention than through the health care system. "I know I'm not the only one," -======================================== SAMPLE 298 ======================================== -The Yes Men. Image via - -Originally published in VICE UK - -If you're a feminist, you probably have a very visceral reaction to the word "mansplaining." It's a term used to describe a male colleague who condescends to a female colleague by discussing something with them that they obviously do not understand. The term originated from a 2014 Reddit thread, where a user called "TrollsGoHome" posted a screenshot of a text conversation he had with an acquaintance who claimed to be a feminist. He'd asked her what she thought of the word "mansplaining," and she laconically told him, "I think it's a compliment." - -The conversation was as innocuous as it was infuriating. TrollsGoHome wasn't really interested in talking about male privilege, and he certainly wasn't interested in discussing feminism. He was more interested in getting a reaction from her, and that reaction was, predictably, to accuse her of being a misandrist. At the time, I was still a feminist, so I was intrigued. I wanted to see what the word "mansplaining" meant, and if it was really that bad. - - -The "mansplaining" debate. Image via Reddit. - -I was surprised by how quickly the meme took off. I'm not sure I fully understand why. It is, after all, the internet. I mean, I get that you can get a reaction from a woman by calling her a misandrist for asking a man what the word "mansplaining" means, and I get that they might be offended by that. But I was surprised, too, by how many men were getting into the fray. - -The fact that a man was getting so much backlash for using the word "mansplaining" was kind of depressing. It was almost as if I was living in some alternate reality where the word "feminism" wasn't hated. - -I have a hard time understanding how "mansplaining" became a feminist issue. I have a hard time understanding how "mansplaining" became a feminist issue. - -There's something to be said for the fact that a woman is, in fact, misandrist if she tries to educate a man about something. How can that not be a form of misogynistic harassment? - -There is, however, something to be said for the fact that a man is, in fact, misandrist if he tries to educate a woman about something. How can that not be a form of misogynistic harassment? - -When I was in college, I was the only woman in my Geography class. My male classmates were mostly interested in the world and politics, and none of them were interested in the world of geography. I wasn't entirely sure why. And then one day, I started talking about the world of geography to the other girls in my class, and one of them began talking about it too. It was like we were talking about the same topic. Suddenly, I was interested in both geography and history. - -The world of feminism is a world of men. After all, men have been educating women about feminism for decades. The world of feminism is a world of men. After all, men have been educating women about feminism for decades. - -It wasn't until I started researching feminism online that I got a real sense of how much of a patriarchal world I lived in. I quickly learned that women are taught in school that they're not allowed to have opinions about anything. They're supposed to be passive, passive-aggressive objects of an authority figure's whim. And if they're not, well, that's just the patriarchy. - -I learned that women are taught in school that they're not allowed to have opinions about anything. They're supposed to be passive, passive-aggressive objects of an authority figure's whim. And if they're not, well, that's just the patriarchy. - -The way that men talk to me about feminism is exactly how they talk to other men about feminism. It's an insult. It's condescending. And I've learned that men use that same language to refer to women who do not agree with them. A question that is asked over and over again, from men who are well versed in feminist theory and women who are not, is, "Why don't you just agree with us?" - -"Why don't you just agree with us?" - -When I ask them why they think that they should be treated differently from the way a man is treated, I'm told, "See, feminists are all selfish, entitled bitches who are out for themselves. They're all entitled to their opinions, but I'm entitled to mine too." - -I'm not a feminist, so it's not my fault that I'm condescending. It's not my fault that I'm treating men like they're entitled to have their opinions too. - -I don't understand why people are so afraid of the word "femin -======================================== SAMPLE 299 ======================================== -A recent study that examined the effects of different types of exercise on the gut microbiome of mice revealed that exercise significantly alters the colonic microbiome. Nineteen out of 20 fecal samples from mice with high-intensity exercise (HIE) had a different bacterial community from mice with low-intensity exercise (LIE). The high-intensity exercise group also had increased colitis and abnormal fermentation of carbohydrates, compared to the low-intensity exercise group. - -The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. - -Although the researchers did not find an increase in the incidence of colitis in HIE mice, they did observe an increase in the community of Bacteroidetes in the LIE mice, which is a genus of bacteria that is closely related to Bacteroides. The discovery suggests that Bacteroidetes may play a role in colonic inflammation during exercise, which is in line with previous research that has shown that high-intensity exercise causes disturbances in the intestinal environment. - -"We believe that our findings, in combination with previous research, may have a profound impact on the prevention and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," said study researcher Dr. Akshay A. Saxena, an investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior author of the study. - -"Our results provide new insights into the complex interactions between exercise and the gut microbiome and may provide a new treatment strategy to treat inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," said study researcher Dr. Mohamed A. Elmasry, an investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, and senior author of the study. - -The researchers also found that mice that exercised for only 60 minutes had a higher level of activity in the gut microbiome than mice that exercised for a full day, but this was not observed in mice that exercised for only 20 minutes. Furthermore, they found that an increase in activity levels in the gut microbiome was not directly linked to a corresponding increase in the activity level in the heart. - -The study authors noted that the gut microbiome is critical for maintaining the integrity of the intestinal barrier and maintaining intestinal health. - -"The results of our study highlight the importance of the gut microbiome in the regulation of the host's metabolism, and could have important implications for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer," Saxena said. - -### - -The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. - -"Elevated activity levels in the gut microbiome are associated with increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease," was written by Akshay A. Saxena, Dr. Elmasry, and Dr. Matthew A. Mathers from the University of California, San Francisco, and was published online in Nature Communications on January 7, 2017 (http://dx. doi. org/ 10. 1038/ ncomms9219 ). - -About The University of California, San Francisco - -The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally recognized programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ucsf.edu.<|endoftext|>Turns out all that "highly-informative" information on a website is not always welcome. - -A woman who was exploring a new town in Belgium took to Facebook to share a map detailing the best hotels and bars in the area. - -When she checked into one of the hotels, she was offered the opportunity to pay a $30 deposit for the night, but didn't want to put down the money. - -Instead, she decided to do the same thing she'd done countless times before, and sent a friend request to the hotel's reception. - -She explained that she wanted to book the hotel room, contact the front desk and see if they had rooms available. - -She was then surprised to receive a message from the front desk that read: "Hi, we have rooms available for a 30 euro deposit. Please get in touch," she wrote. - -She was then told that the deposit would cover the cost of the night. - -She immediately contacted the hotel and made the payment, but was then contacted by the hotel's back desk and told that she had been charged the full amount of $30. - -"I was very shocked by this and I was not expecting anything like that," she wrote. "I asked the question 'why did you charge me for -======================================== SAMPLE 300 ======================================== -The winner of the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, The Martian was a very well-written story, but I do not think that it was a very good story. It was definitely a good story, but I don't think it was a good story. - -The most obvious problem with the story is that it has a very rigid view of time. We begin in the modern day, but the story is set on Mars. We see the life of a family, and the story doesn't seem to be set in the modern day at all. We see the life of a family, but they're not from the modern day and by the time the story turns to the future, the story is set in the future. There's absolutely no reason for this other than to set the story in the future. - -This doesn't get any better when we get to the story's climax. We begin on Earth in the 21st century, but the story is set a thousand years from now. The arc of the story from the beginning to the end is that the protagonist, Mark Watney, is told he is going to die in a few days. He's told he's going to die in a few days, and he apparently makes it to Mars and survives for nearly two years before he is rescued. - -The idea of time is a very important theme in this piece of work. The idea of time is central to the story. Mark Watney is told he is going to die in a few days, and he's told he's going to die in a few days. The idea of time is central to the story, and I can't help but think that if the author had given more time to the characters and their story, he could have done a much better job establishing a clearer understanding of the concept of time. - -The plot also seems to never really change. Mark Watney is told he's going to die, he makes it to Mars, and he finds a way to survive. This is a story that is very clear about what it wants to do, but I'm not sure it is very clear about what it wants to achieve. - -In my view, The Martian is a great piece of science fiction. It's an excellent story with a great cast, great writing, and a good sense of space and time. It's just that about half of the story is a story that was set in the future and the other half was set in the past and I think the author was trying to do too much at once. - -I've written about The Martian before, and I think that it's a great science fiction story. It is a good story with great writing, and it is a good story with a good sense of space and time. It is just that the execution of that story was not very good. - -Share this: Facebook - -Twitter - -Google - -Email<|endoftext|>The Obama campaign has been accused of violations of Federal Election laws after an Obama campaign volunteer repeatedly sent out "Obama for America" emails throughout Tuesday's presidential debate. - -Audio from the debate captured the volunteer, whose name is unclear, repeatedly sending out "Obama for America" emails to supporters, despite the fact that the Obama campaign has been running a memo discouraging campaign volunteers from sending out more than two emails to supporters in a day. The Obama campaign has been running a similar memo in its daily email newsletter for volunteers. - -"Are you interested in helping your campaign reach more voters for Obama? Contact us at [email protected] and tell us about your plans to help Obama win in November," the email reads. "We're always looking for ways to help promote Obama's campaign and get more people to the polls for him." - -The volunteer highlighted in the audio above is heard sending out multiple "Obama for America" emails to supporters. Despite the fact that the Obama campaign has been sending out campaign email reminders to discourage volunteers from sending out more than two emails a day, this volunteer sent out several emails in a single day. - -"A note to volunteers: If you're sending out two or more emails a day to supporters, you are breaking Federal Election Commission rules," said Trevor Potter, a spokesman for the FEC. "This type of activity should not be permitted, and it must be reported." - -Potter added that it is illegal for campaigns to have more than one paid staffer working on their behalf. Regardless, the FEC has not taken any action in regard to the Obama campaign's "Obama for America" emails. Obama's campaign has not responded to a request for comment. - -UPDATE: The Obama campaign released a statement on Wednesday, claiming that the audio was a recording of an individual who had left the campaign. - -"To be clear: This individual was not working for the campaign, and the Obama campaign has not received any complaints, nor is there any indication that this individual was working on behalf of the campaign," the statement read. "To be clear: This individual was not working for the -======================================== SAMPLE 301 ======================================== -"If you think that's a good idea, then you're in good company. It seems to come from many parts of the world." - -—Marlene, Animal Crossing: New Leaf - -"It's a little bit less spooky in the morning." - -—Marlene, Animal Crossing: New Leaf - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - -Marlene - - -======================================== SAMPLE 302 ======================================== -The Night of the Long Knives is the story of how an order of Assassins led by the ruthless, sadistic, and psychotic Warren Vidic became the most feared group of assassins in history, and eventually the most feared criminal organization in the world. - -In the early years of the American Revolution, the Continental Army was largely composed of British soldiers who had never seen a blade of grass. But as the war progressed and the British soldiers were deployed to the colonies, the Americans found themselves in the midst of a growing army of Native American allies who were determined to protect their land and way of life. As the war waged on, the Native Americans began to demonstrate their skills in the fight for freedom, and the Assassins became the first to unite these disparate groups under a single banner. - -Soon, however, the Assassins' prowess with weapons and stealth earned them the ire of several aristocratic families, who were disgusted by the creed of the Assassins: freedom for all, even if that meant enslaving others. Though ultimately unsuccessful, these assassinations did lead to the creation of the United States' first standing army: the Continental Army. - -History - -Early Years - -The opening battle of the American Revolution was the Battle of Lexington and Concord in early April 1775. During the battle, Colonel William Stark and the famous "Chef de Cuisine" Guy de Chastelain assaulted the encampment of Nathanael Greene and his men, who had been ordered to lay down their arms. Stark and Chastelain were able to capture Greene alive, but in the melee that followed, all three were killed by the Continental Army's Captain John Parker, who later became known as the "Pied Piper of the Plains" because of his actions during the battle. - -Stark was a mysterious figure who had previously served as the commander of the British army during the American Revolution. He then engaged in a clandestine relationship with the French noblewoman, Madame de Ferrer, and was executed for treason by the British military on May 13, 1775. - -Paper Trail - -After the death of Colonel Stark, his soldiers were ordered to take a new commander. Captain in the Continental Army William Howe of the 17th Regiment was chosen to take command of the newly formed Continental Army. Although Howe initially enjoyed the support of the majority of the soldiers, he was soon overthrown by a disgruntled mob, who considered him to be a traitor. Col. Howe's head was cut off and his body thrown into the Boston Harbor. - -Whites' Revenge - -A few months after Howe's death, the Continental Army began to suffer reversals. Two more British officers were executed — Private William Lloyd of the 17th Regiment and Private John Bradford of the 11th Regiment. Following these executions, the Continental Army began to lose its cohesion. Colonel Richard Howe, the new commander of the Continental Army, was no longer able to lead the army effectively. - -The Continental Army was subsequently disbanded, and Colonel Howe was replaced by General George Washington. The new commander's initial mission was to repel the British invasion of New York, but as the British approached, Washington realized that the American army was no longer a unified unit. The Continental Army was no longer able to fight a conventional army. Instead, Washington decided to focus on the task of fighting the British. - -Thus, Washington gathered together the Continental Army and made preparations to invade Boston. But before he could set out, Congressional volunteers from Massachusetts began to join the Continental Army in order to defend their homeland. In the middle of March, the Continental Army attacked Boston, and Washington himself personally led the attack. However, the attack was a failure, and Washington was assassinated on April 19 by a disgruntled man, as he was on his way to Boston to lead the invasion. - -Immediately following the crisis, the Continental Army was disbanded, and General Washington was forced to return to Philadelphia. Due to the chaos that resulted from the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army did not take part in the 1783 elections. - -The French Connection - -Shortly after the Revolution, the Continental Army was disbanded and many of its soldiers became embroiled in a scandal. The Continental Army was accused of being a French puppet, and the army itself became infiltrated by French spies. Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. - -Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. - -The French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded, but soon after, it became clear that the Continental Army was a French-American front. Many of the soldiers who had joined the Continental Army were accused of being traitors, and many were executed. - -The Continental Army was reorganized, and the French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded. - -The Continental Army was reorganized, and the French Connection was discovered and the army was disbanded. - -As the Continental Army disbanded, the Continental Army became an interesting -======================================== SAMPLE 303 ======================================== -(CNN) In one of the biggest and most detailed court filings in decades, the US government is seeking to force Apple to help it unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. - -The court filing Wednesday was made in California federal court in San Bernardino, where the government's lawyers have asked a judge to order Apple to create software tools that would enable the government to crack the phone's password. - -The government isn't seeking access to the phone itself -- but instead is asking Apple to help it bypass its protection on a laptop computer, the government said. The request by the FBI includes a list of iPhone models of which it says the iPhone 5C is one. - -In a landmark court filing Tuesday, Apple argued that the government's request for a backdoor would set a dangerous precedent. - -"It would set a dangerous precedent requiring technology companies to weaken their own products for the government's use, with the inevitable result that criminals and terrorists will have access to stronger means to commit their crimes," Apple wrote in its filing - -Read More<|endoftext|>Many of us have heard what "the real reason for the death of the black baby boom" is: it's that we voted for the wrong candidate. - -The problem with that narrative is that it ignores the reality that black baby boomers are not a monolithic group, and that we aren't all voting for the same thing. - -But when it comes to the question of biracial parents, the narrative is still the same: we voted for the wrong candidate. - -A recent poll by YouGov, a British polling company, found that only one-quarter of black respondents think their children will be better off financially following the election of the first black president. - -It's important to remember that YouGov is a big-tent polling company, and is not a political tracker. - -But it's still interesting that only one-quarter of the black respondents think that their children will be better off, when black mothers are much more likely to be the primary breadwinner in a household. - -And it's not like black mothers can't find jobs. - -In fact, a recent study by the Center for American Progress found that black women who have college degrees are more likely to be employed than black women without college degrees. - -In a 2014 report, the Center for American Progress estimated that black mothers are the primary breadwinner in 33 percent of black families in the US. - -When you combine these percentages with the fact that black women are more likely to work and be at or near the top of their professions, it's certainly plausible that black women who think their children will be better off financially due to the election of a black president might be critical of this past election. - -But there's a problem with this narrative that we have to consider. - -The problem with the black baby boom - -If you ask black people about the black baby boom, the first thing you'll hear is that it was a "historic" event, and that it was a time when black people rose to the top. - -The optimistic view is that the black baby boom was the result of black people's incredible economic growth and strength during the civil rights movement. - -But this narrative ignores the reality of the situation: a small portion of the black population had a very high level of education. - -The black baby boom is a much less dramatic story. - -In the early 1980s, the US had the highest level of black employment in US history. The unemployment rate for African-Americans was virtually nonexistent. - -But then, during the 1980s, the economy began to slow down, and the black unemployment rate began to rise. - -Why? Because it was not a time when black people were doing well in terms of economic growth. - -The problem, according to the economic historian Charles Murray, is that black people had never had a strong middle class before the civil rights movement. - -A growing middle class was the result of a strong union movement, and the rising demand for higher wages. - -"The black middle class in America has been an illusion," Murray said in a recent interview with NPR. "What we have long known is that blacks have been systematically denied the rights and opportunities that would allow them to have that middle class." - -Pre-civil rights laws - -So why did a large chunk of the black population participate in the civil rights movement? - -According to the economist Charles Murray, the reason was simple. - -"The civil rights movement was really about the black middle class," Murray said in a recent interview with NPR. "The civil rights movement was about providing the black middle class with the opportunity to achieve a middle class life." - -The civil rights movement gave black people the opportunity to achieve a middle class life. - -The civil rights movement was an opportunity to get a good job, secure a home, get married, and start a family. - -But the civil rights movement was also an opportunity to start -======================================== SAMPLE 304 ======================================== -Wanna keep up with the latest gaming and tech news? Just hit 'Like' on our GameCentral site! - -It's easy to forget that Sony's PlayStation 4 launched back in November 2013, and Microsoft's Xbox One was launched just two years prior in November 2012. - -The console wars have been raging for years, with each side claiming to be the most powerful and best-looking. Both have also been accused of stealing bandwidth from other gamers, with Microsoft's Xbox One being accused of "throttling" games. - -However, as we've already noticed, the PlayStation 4 is still more powerful than the Xbox One. And it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any plans to change that. - -Speaking with IGN, Microsoft's corporate vice president of worldwide studios, Phil Spencer, took the opportunity to discuss how the Xbox One is perceived to be superior to the PlayStation 4. - -"We're not going to change our approach because of the criticism. We're going to do what's right for the platform. We're not going to go backwards or sideways. We're going to do what's right for Microsoft. We're not going to go backwards or sideways. We're going to do what's right for Microsoft's platform." - -Spencer also said that the Xbox One is "very good. It's a fantastic piece of hardware," but added that it's "not a game changer." - -"We've got a great console. It's very good. It's a fantastic piece of hardware," Spencer said. "It is not a game changer. It's not going to help you push the boundaries of what you can do in games." - -"That's what we're doing. We're always going to keep pushing the boundaries." - -For more on the Xbox One, be sure to check out our Xbox One review, in which we give the Xbox One a 9/10 rating and give it 4/5 stars out of five. - -The Xbox One is available now for £429.99.<|endoftext|>I'm having a problem that is going for days now and I thought I'd post about it here. I've been mining with a GPU for a month now and I've been having problems with getting the GPU temperature in the bottom right corner of the screen to ever go below 33-35 degrees Celsius. The GPU usually goes up to around 50C, but it's been down around 40C for the last month. I've made a few backups of my data and everything in the system seems to be fine, so I'm losing hope. My CPU also seems to be suffering from the same issue. - -I've checked the fan speed and the fan is running at around 200%, but the temperature is fine. I've been restarting the computer a few times to get it to correct itself, but I'm still waiting for the temperatures to go down. - -I've been using a Corsair H100i, which is a good heatsink but its fan is not powerful enough to dissipate heat, so I've been looking for a cooler. I've been looking at the NH-L9i, which is a budget heatsink by NZXT, but it only comes with a single fan, while the Corsair H100i has two fans. - -I've been using my reference Nvidia GTX 980 Ti with a custom BIOS. I've been getting an average of about 60-70 fps with the game running at maximum settings at 1080p with everything maxed out. I've tried overclocking the card on my own and the performance is still not there. I've been using an SSD (Crucial M500) and have been using the latest drivers from Nvidia for the Nvidia drivers (I'm on the 381.85 drivers). - -I've not been able to find any other people with the same problem and I'm going to have to go back to my old rig to look at my settings and try to figure out what's going on. - -UPDATE: I've done a full backup of my data and everything seems to be fine now. - -UPDATE 2: I've been trying to get the temperatures down to about 32 degrees Celsius, but it's not working. I'm going to have to build a new PC and have it shipped to me. It's just not working. I'm going to have to try to find a better solution. - -UPDATE 3: Everything seems to be fine now. I've been messing with the fan settings and I have a custom NVidia drivers from NVidia that come with it. I'm going to try to get the temperatures down to 30-32 degrees Celsius and see if it fixes the problem. - -UPDATE 4: I've been messing with the fan settings and I have a custom NVidia drivers from NVidia that come with it. I'm going to try to get the temperatures down to 30-32 degrees Celsius and see if it fixes the problem. - -UPDATE 5: I've been messing with the fan settings -======================================== SAMPLE 305 ======================================== -The first model of a new high-speed train, the Moscow-to-Ulan-Bator line, is seen at a railway station in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Erlendur Haraldsson - -MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Russia hasmore than half of the world's rail travel demand, with China the biggest investor, a senior company official said, as it aims to boost the country's booming infrastructure sector, which is already the world's biggest. - -Russia is keen to boost its economy by generating international trade and investment, but worries about the impact of Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict are making it more cautious than it used to be. - -Russia is planning to invest $2 trillion over the next 15 years in its railways, and is borrowing heavily to fund a huge rebuilding program that includes the construction of new rolling stock and signalling systems. - -China is the world's biggest investor in rail and is currently the biggest market for Russian railway equipment, but its appetite for the industry could grow as its own infrastructure is expanded, the head of a state-owned Russian rail firm said. - -"China is a big player. We have a lot of things in common with China, like infrastructure, and a lot of railways," Ruslan Zakharov, chief executive officer of the state-owned Russian Railways, told Reuters at a visit to Mongolia in October. - -"So China is our biggest market, and the biggest investor. We have a joint project with them to build a high-speed line between Moscow and Ulan Bator, so we expect that to be a major project for China." - -It is not clear how much Chinese investment in the project, which would be the world's fastest when it is finished in 2026, would be, but Zakharov said it would be "many times" what Russian investors were spending. - -China has a huge appetite for Russian rail equipment, with the world's second-biggest economy more than doubling its rail investment over the past decade. - -Zakharov said Russia was ready to cooperate with China on projects in Mongolia and beyond, but warned that it was important to avoid complacency. - -"We should not be complacent and we should not be convinced that we are already in the very top ranks," he said. - -"I might say that China is the biggest investor in Russia currently, but we don't have a lot of infrastructure in Russia yet, so I would not say that China is the best investor to invest in Russia." - -Zakharov said Russia's infrastructure was in need of repairs and expansion, and that the country could not rely on China alone. - -"We don't need to rely on China alone, we need to work with other countries that invest in this industry, like Germany and the United States," he said. - -FOREIGN INVESTMENT - -Russia has the world's largest rail network, with 1,925 km (1,196 miles) of track, but has not built much since the Soviet era. - -Russia plans to invest more than $60 billion in its railways over the next 15 years, and its spending has increased by 70 percent in the past five years, according to Zakharov. - -However, Russia is struggling to raise the money for such an ambitious project, and has faced resistance from several foreign investors who fear they could be discriminated against by Russian railways. - -In October, Russian rail operator Rusagro said it had secured $8 billion in financing to build a high-speed rail line connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. - -But it has not announced any new projects in Russia, while other companies, including China's CNR Corp and state-owned oil firm Rosneft, are also involved in high-speed rail projects. - -Russia has also been looking for ways to boost its infrastructure, after being hit with sanctions from the west over its involvement in the Ukraine crisis. - -The country is planning to build a new bridge across the Dnieper River, which has previously been blocked by a dispute over Ukraine's repayment of a $3 billion loan from Moscow. - -However, it faces competing demands for this project from China and India, which are trying to build their own new "Bridge of the Gods" across the river in neighbouring Kazakhstan. - -With a budget of $1.1 trillion, the Russian railway sector is the world's fifth-largest, with Chinese investors the world's largest. - -China's rail investment in Russia in 2016 was $6.5 billion, according to a report from consultancy firm Rhodium Group. - -Zakharov also said Russia had a plan to build high-speed rail between Moscow and Kazan, which is in the country's east, in the next 15 years. - -"We have plans for a high-speed line between Moscow and Kazan, that will be built in the next -======================================== SAMPLE 306 ======================================== -From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia. - -This article is incomplete. - -Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it. - -Reason: Missing set layout images and images for moves. - -The Void (Japanese: きつくて Void) is a type of move introduced in Generation III that has no known effect on the Pokémon. - -Effect - -Generation III - -The Void does nothing. - -Generation IV - -The Void does nothing. - -Generation V - -The Void does nothing. - -Generation VI - -The Void does nothing. - -Generation VII - -The Void does nothing. - -Description - -Learnset - - -Special move - - -In other games - -Description - -Games Description MD R B Inflicts the user's HP as damage on an enemy. S MD It does damage to an enemy. The user's HP will be reduced by the amount of damage. - -In the anime - -In the manga - -In the Pokémon Adventures manga - -In other generations - -Core series games - -Spin-off series games - -Trivia - -In Generation III, the Void has the same type of move as Body Slam. - -In other languages - -Language Title Chinese Cantonese 返出 Sùhngyuhhng * Mandarin 返出 / 返出 Shōngyù * French Void German Versteck Italian Void Korean 마화 Void Norwegian Void Polish Szynka Portuguese Void Russian Гблав Vylen Spanish Void Vietnamese Động Tước<|endoftext|>The latest news on the 2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV - -Posted 14 August 2018 by John Farrell - -The 2018 Chevrolet Bolt EV is a radical electric car with a range of 238 miles. It can drive itself from LA to San Francisco or from New York to Detroit, at speeds of up to 80 mph. It will be priced at $37,495 before state and federal incentives. - -Today Chevrolet announced the Bolt EV will be available in late 2019. The Bolt EV will be built at GM's Orion Assembly Plant in Orion Township, Michigan, and will be delivered to customers in late 2019. GM had earlier announced that its Bolt EV would be rolled out in the second half of 2018. - -The Bolt EV is designed for the urban commuter, with a level of safety that exceeds any other electric car on the market today. - -In February, Chevrolet said it will expand the Bolt EV's range to 200 miles, the first production electric car to offer that range. - -The Bolt EV is GM's first-ever mid-size car with a range of more than 200 miles. It is the company's most aggressive electric car yet, offering a range of about 238 miles. - -The Bolt EV is also the first electric car from a major automaker to be priced below $40,000. - -A bigger version of the Bolt EV will be available later this year, with a 238-mile range. The Bolt EV will start at around $36,500 before incentives and tax credits. - -In the US, the Bolt EV is expected to be on sale from late 2019 through 2020, when it will be replaced by the all-new Chevrolet Bolt. - -More information - -You can find Chevrolet's Bolt EV release notes here. - -The Bolt EV website has more information about the car. - -And a Chevrolet Bolt EV video is available here. - -The Bolt EV team can be found at BoltEV.com. - -GM has posted news, videos, and more here. - -Join the Conversation<|endoftext|>Is it possible to travel to the far reaches of the universe? - -It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but this is a reality — and it has scientists scratching their heads. - -The high altitude ballooning project is being conducted by the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In near total secrecy, the project is being conducted in a remote area of the Nevada desert between the towns of Organ Pipe and Ely and the Utah border. - -The balloon will travel at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) above the Earth, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) away from the nearest inhabited land area. The balloon will travel for a period of about 18 months. - -The project is being conducted in a remote area of the Nevada desert between the towns of Organ Pipe and Ely and the Utah border - -This project is being conducted by the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - -The balloon will travel to the edge of space, then descend to Earth - -The balloon will travel to the edge of space, then descend to Earth. - -In the middle of the trip, the balloon will be equipped with cameras and microphones that will -======================================== SAMPLE 307 ======================================== -Weirdly, that's not the case. Conservatives are overrepresented in the ranks of the Republican Party, but they still lack the numbers to control the government. - -In this year's election, the party that won the most votes in the last presidential election (that is to say, the party that won the most votes in all the states) was the Republican Party. But it did not win a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. Instead, the Republicans came up just three seats short of a majority. - -The reason these three Republicans, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy, were able to take control of both houses of Congress is that of course, they are all conservatives and they are all anti-choice. - -But if this were just about abortion, you would expect conservative extremism to produce an outlier result. However, in the case of Congress, the numbers tell a different story. - -According to exit polls, the most common issue among Republicans is "the economy" (38 percent), followed by "government" (28 percent), "big Government" (26 percent), "immigration" (24 percent), and "terrorism" (20 percent). - -By contrast, Democrats were more likely to prioritize "health care" (45 percent), "education" (39 percent), "jobs and the economy" (37 percent), "foreign policy" (33 percent), "environment" (26 percent), and "terrorism" (25 percent). - -So, Democrats are very much in favor of social services, while the Republicans are more inclined toward economic growth. - -The reason for this shift is that, while economic growth does yield improved health outcomes, it does not necessarily lead to more social services. In fact, in the era of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party embraced social conservatism, as a means of winning the White House. - -In the 1980s, the Republican Party was the only major political party to offer generous tax cuts to the wealthy, a signature issue for Ronald Reagan. - -Reagan, however, was not a fan of social programs, and so his administration, which coming from the right, was ideologically opposed to social programs. The result of this was that Reagan's administration was a disaster for the poor and working class, as the poor were disproportionately harmed by the economic policies of the administration. - -According to a recent study, "the net effect of the Reagan tax cuts on poor families was to reduce spending by $1,600 in 1985, and $2,000 in 1988, and $3,200 in 1993. Families with incomes below the poverty line saw an average benefit decline of $1,800. The greatest impact was felt by families with income between 100 percent and 200 percent of poverty. Benefits were cut by $3,300 in 1987 and $4,400 in 1993. Families in the second income quintile (between $100,000 and $200,000) saw an average benefit decline of $4,100 in 1987 and $6,400 in 1993." - -Despite being opposed to social programs, however, the Republicans still managed to win the White House. - -The real lesson here is that the "populist" agenda of the Republicans was a disaster for the poor and working class. The American public is not fundamentally opposed to social programs, and Democrats are not more inclined toward social services than Republicans. - -The Democrats will not be able to control the public if they pursue a populist agenda. - -Check out my book Free Speech Isn't Free.<|endoftext|>Essendon's framing coach Ian Broomhead has been charged with assault following a confrontation with a game official, the Essendon Football Club will announce on Monday. - -Broomhead was suspended for the game against St Kilda on Sunday. - -The club will make an announcement on Monday. - -The club will also announce that the charges against Broomhead are jointly laid by the AFL and the AFL Players' Association. - -It is understood that the matter was investigated by the two bodies and that the AFL will not be taking action against Broomhead, who is not the club's manager of football. - -Essendon football management will make an announcement on Monday.<|endoftext|>The second installment of my mini-series on the topic of post-racial or post-racialism. This time, I will look at how the notion of a post-race America is likely to play out in the years ahead. - -The concept of a post-racial America has been around for quite a while. But it has gained momentum in the last five years, with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States (2008). The notion of a post-racial America has also gained currency with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. - -However, the notion of a post-racial America has a lot of road to travel. It is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, and it is also one of the most controversial. In this article, I will attempt to -======================================== SAMPLE 308 ======================================== -"We used to have a lot of people who lived in the area, but a lot of them moved out when we built the mall. We're trying to attract people from around the country." - -The mall is anchored by a 1,600-seat gymnasium, which is already being used for concerts and other events. It's also home to the New York Knicks basketball team. - -The shopping center is currently being built on about 7.3 acres and is expected to open in October 2014. - -The mall will feature a variety of stores that can accommodate shoppers of all ages, and features stores from department stores, to specialty stores, to specialty apparel and accessories. - -The mall will be anchored by The Shoppes at The Mall at Penn, a 55,000-square-foot retail center with a children's playroom, an indoor playground and a restaurant.<|endoftext|>It is a big news day in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is gaining traction and trading volume, and Bitcoin Cash is quickly becoming the new main cryptocurrency. - -Bitcoin Cash is gaining the attention of the media and the community and many people are very excited about it. Several projects are being developed for Bitcoin Cash, and some of them are really interesting. - -Bcoin - -Bcoin is a fork of Bitcoin which was developed by the Bcoin team. Bcoin is an open source project, and it is being developed by the community. - -The team is currently preparing for an upcoming Hard Fork which will take place on September 13, 2017. A Hard Fork is a hard fork that is required to increase the blocksize limit in order to accommodate higher transaction volumes. - -The hard fork will allow the network to process more transactions, and it will reduce the block size to 8 MB. This will speed up transaction confirmation times, and the transaction fees will also be lower. - -A number of other improvements are also being prepared for Bcoin. A new protocol is being prepared and it will allow for more efficient use of the blockchain. A number of improvements will also be implemented to increase the scalability and performance of the network. - -The Bcoin team is also planning to develop a Bitcoin Cash wallet. The wallet is expected to be launched as soon as possible. - -Press Release: - -Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities - -August 23, 2017, 1:30 pm ET - -Story Link: http://www.coindesk.com/bcoin-bitcoin-cash-will-have-higher-transaction-volume-and-lower-fees/ - -Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/MCWUWn2 - -Join our Telegram Channel: https://t.me/Bitcoin_Cash - -Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities - -https://cointelegraph.com/news/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 - -Read more: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-cash-threatens-bitcoin-mining-vanity-market-and-bitcoin-exchanges - -https://www.coindesk.com/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 - -Bitcoin Cash is gaining the attention of the media and the community and many people are very excited about it. Several projects are being developed for Bitcoin Cash, and some of them are really interesting. - -Bcoin - -A lot of people are excited about Bcoin. The team is preparing for an upcoming hard fork which will take place on September 13, 2017. - -A Hard Fork is a hard fork that is required to increase the blocksize limit in order to accommodate higher transaction volumes. - -The hard fork will allow the network to process more transactions, and it will reduce the block size to 8 MB. This will speed up transaction confirmation times, and the transaction fees will also be lower. - -A number of other improvements are also being prepared for Bcoin. A new protocol is being prepared and it will allow for more efficient use of the blockchain. A number of improvements will also be implemented to increase the scalability and performance of the network. - -The Bcoin team is also planning to develop a Bitcoin Cash wallet. The wallet is expected to be launched as soon as possible. - -Press Release: - -Bcoin: The Future of Digital Currency? New Markets, New Rules, New Opportunities - -https://cointelegraph.com/news/bcoin-the-future-of-digital-currency-new-markets-new-rules-new-opportunities-2018-09-23 - -Read more: https:// -======================================== SAMPLE 309 ======================================== -The 'P' in 'Pee-wee Herman' is for the word 'Pee-wee.' He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. - -'Pee-wee Herman' is about as real as a character that comes out of a cartoon can get. - -For starters, he's actually a real person -- a real-life man named Pee-wee Herman. - -"A character like that is very easy to make up," Pee-wee said. - -The P in 'Pee-wee Herman' is for the word 'Pee-wee.' He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. He has the perfect name for a character who is a bit of a goofball. - -"I just wanted to play a guy who was a character," Pee-wee said. - -Who can forget the scene in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" where the classic man of action helps a youngster get his first bicycle? - -"No, no, no, no, no, no," Pee-wee Herman said. "I'm not here to ride a bicycle. I'm here to ride a horse." - -Pee-wee Herman never forgot that scene, and he's never forgotten the kid who wanted to ride a bicycle. - -"I thought, hey, if I put a horse in the movie, he will have to go on a lot of rides," Pee-wee said. "But I had a real horse, a real pony, so I said, 'No, no, no." - -Pee-wee Herman thought a real horse would be the perfect ride for a kid in the 'Pee-wee' movies. - -"The horse just has to have a lot of energy, and the horse has to have a lot of personality," Pee-wee said. - -At least a bit of personality. The best part about a real horse is that they're just like Pee-wee Herman. - -"They're a lot like me, and they're a lot like you," Pee-wee Herman said. - -Pee-wee Herman is a real man, just like the character he plays in the 'Pee-wee' movies. - -"You can't be a little old man and ride a horse," Pee-wee Herman said. - -Pee-wee Herman is able to laugh at himself because he grew up in the 'Pee-wee' movies. He even has a story about the time he got into a fight with his father. - -"I got into a fight with my father," Pee-wee Herman said. "I was a really young kid, and he was driving me around in a limo. He was driving the limo, and I was stupid. He was driving the limo, and he hit me, and my horse bit me, and he broke my hand." - -Pee-wee Herman's horse broke his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. - -"I said, 'Boy, I gotta go to the hospital, but you gotta go with me.' And he said, 'I don't want to go with you, I want to leave you here.'" - -Pee-wee Herman's horse bit his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. - -"My horse bit my hand, and I had to go to the hospital, and I said, 'I gotta go to the hospital, but you gotta go with me,'" Pee-wee Herman said. "And he said, 'I don't want to go with you, I want to leave you here.'" - -Pee-wee Herman's horse, who he named Ami, broke his hand, and he had to go to the hospital. - -"He had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, and we got married," Pee-wee Herman said. - -Pee-wee Herman has a real life wife, Victoria, who is from the same town as him in Illinois. - -"I've got friends all over the country. I've been married like 15 times," Pee-wee Herman said. - -Pee-wee Herman has been married at least 15 times, and he is a father of two daughters. - -"Hopefully, I'll have a little girl in the next few years," Pee-wee Herman said. - -Pee-wee Herman has a real life wife, Victoria, who is from the same town as him in Illinois. - -"I've got friends all over the country -======================================== SAMPLE 310 ======================================== -UPDATED: Sept. 21 at 10:30 a.m. - -LAS VEGAS – Chris "CM Punk" Punk has yet to address the TMZ report that he was denied medical treatment at the WWE Performance Center. - -Punk was pulled from a Monday Night Raw match against Brock Lesnar at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, WWE officials said. - -The incident occurred as Lesnar was about to walk off the mat to face Punk. After a short exchange, Lesnar and Punk locked up, and Lesnar tossed Punk to the floor. - -Punk, who suffered what was described as a concussion in the fight, was being evaluated by WWE doctors and an independent doctor. - -In a statement, WWE said it is "aware of the issue and is investigating." Lesnar's manager told TMZ that Lesnar was not injured in the fall, and he was not in the ring when the incident occurred. - -Lesnar has not commented publicly on the issue. - -"I just can't imagine what he's going through," Punk said Monday night at the WWE Tribute to the Troops event in Las Vegas. "And I hope he's okay. I hope he's getting better, and I hope we get to see him back on The Grandest Stage of Them All soon. But right now, I'm just focused on getting better and getting back to the ring. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be back." - -The condition of Punk remained unclear Monday night. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance, according to the WWE. - -Punk tweeted Monday night that he had been cleared from the hospital. - -@WWE It's my understanding that I'm fine now. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. — Chris Punk (@WWERomanPunk) September 21, 2015 - -Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.<|endoftext|>This is a conversation between a guy and a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things . - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: I like doing things that make me happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be happy - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: and i like fucking other people - -a guy who has a hardon for a lot of different things: i don't need anything else to be -======================================== SAMPLE 311 ======================================== -Shapiro wasn't the only one declaring that the NSA has been lying about its dragnet surveillance. - -The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has gone on record saying that it too is concerned about the NSA's privacy dragnet. - -"We are concerned that the government has used Section 215 to collect information on millions of Americans' phone calls, and we are concerned that the government is collecting more information about people than it is telling the public," said Jameel Jaffer, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. - -Jaffer said the problem is twofold: First, the NSA is collecting and storing the phone records of millions of Americans. So far, they have been using the metadata to make sophisticated investigations into terrorism and other criminal activity. - -Second, the NSA is not telling the public how it is doing it. - -"As far as we can tell, the government is not telling anyone what it is doing with the information it is collecting," Jaffer said. - -The ACLU published a new report today, which points to a number of other examples of the NSA flagrantly lying to the public about the extent of its surveillance programs. - -The report details how the NSA has been claiming that it does not have the ability to search through its communications intelligence databases without a warrant. But the ACLU found that the NSA is in fact able to search through its databases with no warrant. The ACLU also found that the NSA has admitted that it has been collecting geographic data about a significant number of Americans. - -The ACLU also found evidence of NSA data mining that it says only confirms the abuses revealed by Snowden. - -"The NSA's secrecy also gives the agency a veil of secrecy to hide its activities from the public," Jaffer said. - -"We are deeply concerned that the government is no longer protecting the privacy of American's communications," Jaffer said. "We believe that the public needs to know the extent to which the NSA collects, stores and manages Americans' communications." - -The ACLU has been trying to educate Congress about the NSA's abuse of its powers, but the lawmakers still have not acted to rein in the agency. - -"We are certainly trying to get the attention of Congress to ask them to hold hearings, to take action, to do something," Jaffer said. - -"There is a lot of evidence that the NSA is using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect bulk phone records, and we believe that the public needs to know this," Jaffer said.<|endoftext|>I Love You, Daddy is a comedy about a father who is being stalked by his own son. He is so accustomed to the constant attention, he does not notice when his son turns on him with a vengeance. The father and son are forced to make a choice.<|endoftext|>Video - -The British government has cancelled all planned visits to the US until after the UK's general election in June. - -The US embassy in London has been asked to find alternatives for the US president's state visit, which was due to take place in June and he has already been to the country. - -BBC Newsnight's Kamal Ahmed reports from Washington.<|endoftext|>Introduced in the late 1980s, the original potholed road was designed to accommodate the 'big four' of the era: the Camry, Accord, Mustang and Mazda 3. It was a two-lane road, with two left-hand turns in each direction. - -It was a sort-of experiment in vehicle automation, and the project was a failure. It was also the inspiration for the more successful DARPA-funded Hyperloop. - -It's also the inspiration for a new light rail system in Greater Los Angeles. - -The project is called LA Metro Rail, and it's supposed to be the most advanced light rail system in the US. - -And it's coming to LA in 2024. - -So it's time for an update. - -The light rail line, which is being funded by the Federal Transit Administration and the state of California, will extend from the San Fernando Valley to the San Fernando Valley/Glendale border. - -The idea is to create a sort of "superhighway" around LA. It will connect the Valley to the Valley, and the Valley to the Valley. It will connect the Valley to the Valley and the Valley and the Valley. - -The current plan calls for a 16-mile ribbon of light rail, with six stations, at a cost of $2.8 billion. - -Here's a video from the LA Metro website showing how a typical trip will be: - -It will be totally electric, with a maximum speed of 65 mph, with a theoretical maximum of 95 mph. - -The rails will be able to take cars and passengers as far as the Valley and Glendale, but don't expect to travel much beyond that. - -And it will have only one lane — two left-hand turns. - -Unlike its predecessor, the new light rail will be -======================================== SAMPLE 312 ======================================== -The newest addition to the BIP 0032 list is an easy-to-use 'dumb' chain-link fence that should prove to be a very useful tool for any application. - -The BIP explains ChainLinkFence and how it works in detail. - -The first problem that I see with the above diagram is that the chains are not evenly spaced. While this is perfectly okay at the edges of your chain link fence, it is not acceptable at your fence's center. The reason is that if the chains are not evenly spaced, then they will be able to 'peel' each other off your fence. For example, let's look at the diagram again. - -In the above diagram, the chains were not evenly spaced. The spacing of the chains is an issue at the fence's center, where they will be able to peel off each other. - -A ChainLinkFence is easy to construct and quick to set up. It is also super cheap. All you need to do is lay out a pair of 2x4s, cut them down to about 4 feet, and then staple it up. It takes about 15 minutes to build the fence. It is also very strong and is able to keep the chain links apart. - -The final feature of chain link fences is that they can be easily longed with hardware. The starting point is the chain link fence itself, cut 2x4s to the length you need. Staple the 2x4s into the fence. The fence then simply needs to be extended with hardware. If the hardware is long enough, it is easily extended to extend the fence. The hardware should be long enough that the chain links will stay apart in the end. - -As mentioned before, the chain link fence is not the only thing that BIP 0032 addresses. - -BIP 0032 also addresses the following issues: - -0x01 – Chain LinkFence requires both sides of the fence to be anchored to the ground, which cannot be done with the current generation of chain link fences. - -0x02 – Chain link fences need to be anchored to the ground, which is not possible with the current generation of chain link fences. - -0x03 – Chain link fences need to be anchored to the ground, which is not possible with the current generation of chain link fences. - -0x04 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x05 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x06 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x07 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x08 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x09 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0a – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0b – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0c – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0d – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0e – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x0f – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x10 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x11 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x12 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x13 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x14 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x15 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x16 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x17 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x18 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x19 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1a – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1b – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1c – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1d – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1e – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x1f – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x20 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x21 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x22 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x23 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x24 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x25 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x26 – Chain link fences cannot be placed on slopes. - -0x27 -======================================== SAMPLE 313 ======================================== -The British company behind the popular 'It Girl' TV show is hoping to create a female lead for its series "Sherlock" after Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as the villainous new character. - -CBS has ordered three more episodes of the "Sherlock" revival, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The actor will play the character in the episodes, which are set in the 1960s. - -PHOTOS: 'Sherlock' Stars: Then & Now - -The show is executive produced by Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Sue Vertue and Sue Vertue-Baker, and Kudos Entertainment's Les Hinton and Laurie Wagner will also help develop future episodes. "Sherlock" is set to premiere on January 1, 2014. - -Cumberbatch, who has been a guest star on "Sherlock," signed on for the role in September, with the show getting a boost in popularity after Cumberbatch was cast as the villain in the blockbuster "The Hobbit" movie. - -PHOTOS: 'Sherlock' Season 1: 11 of Our Favorite Scenes - -He joins current stars Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman's wife Lara Pulver in the role. The show's creator Steven Moffat also penned the pilot episode. - -"Sherlock" has been renewed for a second season and will return in 2014. - -Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! - -Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!<|endoftext|>I am not a very religious person, but I am a very spiritual person. I have a very deep connection with my ancestors and I feel that I am doing them a favor by being here today. It is also a privilege to be here with you. - -My Grandmother, Nellie Mae, was a very spiritual woman. She had a very intimate connection with God. She would say, "We have to go to the Spirit World." She would pray to God and he would come. Her last words to me before she passed away were, "You are my last hope." - -I was fortunate to grow up in a religious household and I grew up in a religious home. I was taught to believe in God. I was taught God loved me and that God would provide for me. I felt that my parents were there for me. I had a lot of faith in God. - -My Mom and Dad were very good to me. They taught me to eat right and to exercise. They were good to me, but they were very strict. They also wanted me to be a good student. - -My Dad had a hard time with school. He had a lot of anger issues. He never really got good grades, he always had bad grades. I don't know why he was so angry. He would just get angry at the world. - -I remember the last time I saw my dad. He was in the hospital and he was in a lot of pain. I was worried about him. I remember when I went to see him, I asked the nurses if he was going to make it. They said, "No, he's going to die." - -He actually passed away before I got home. He was in a coma, but he woke up and he was still in a coma. They had a feeding tube in him. My Mom and Dad were going to operate on him, but they couldn't do it. - -I remember going to my Mom's and crying. I remember my Mom saying, "Don't be sad, we are going to take care of him." I remember going to my Dad's room and crying. I can still remember him telling me that God had taken him to Heaven and that he was going to be okay. - -I remember going to see my Grandmother in the hospital. She told me, "Nellie Mae, we are going to take care of him." I remember crying. I remember her telling me, "He is going to be fine. He loves you." - -I remember being in the hospital. My Grandmother asked me, "How are your parents?" I said, "They are okay." - -I was worried that my Dad would die. I was worried that I would be alone. I remember when I was in the hospital, I went to see my Mom. I told her, "I have to go home." I asked her, "What are you going to do?" She said, "Go home, you have to go home." I said, "What do you mean 'go home'?" She said, "Your dad is gone." I said, "What do I do now?" She said, "You have to walk on. You have to walk on." I said, "What do I do now?" She said, "You have to walk on. You have to walk on." - -I remember when I walked on the operating table -======================================== SAMPLE 314 ======================================== -The White House has final approval for 18 different types of ammunition, including bullets, bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 800 joules and ballistic tip rounds, according to a document obtained by Fox News. - -The list of ammunition is seen as a troubling sign for the National Rifle Association, which has long supported a ban on bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 300 joules. - -A spokesperson for the White House did not return a request for comment from Fox News. - -The President's Daily Briefing, which is delivered to the President each morning, is the document that contains the most controversial information. The document requires the President to sign off on all types of ammunition, including "subsonic, sonic, kinetic energy, and general-purpose and special purpose" ammunition. - -The ammunition is not classified and can be purchased online or at retail stores. They are often used for target practice and hunting. - -The administration has been trying to reduce the number of bullets that go off in the hands of civilians for years. While the Obama administration has seen a decrease in the number of gun deaths, the number of people shot with bullets is still rising, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. - -The NRA has long been against the ban on bullets with a kinetic energy rating of more than 300 joules. - -In January, the White House released a list of 22 different types of ammunition that were approved for purchase. - -The list includes bullets and rounds that the ATF has determined to be legal in the United States. It does not reflect the "restricted" ammunition that cannot be purchased or possessed, as required by law. - - -The list is also not in alphabetical order, according to the document. It's unclear how the White House determined which types of ammunition were on the list, but the list contains numerous bullets that are not included in the ATF's list. - -The White House document shows the types of ammunition that the Administration is willing to approve for purchase. - -The document shows a number of rounds that the ATF has determined to be legal in the United States, including 9mm hollow point, .40 S&W and .45 ACP bullets. - -The list also includes "special purpose" ammunition, which are specific types of ammunition that the ATF has determined are not specifically banned in the United States. - -The White House document lists 9mm bullets. - -The list also includes the following types of ammunition: - --.223 caliber bullets - --.22 caliber bullets - --.25 caliber bullets - --.32 caliber bullets - --.380 caliber bullets - --.40 caliber bullets - --.45 caliber bullets - --.50 caliber bullets - --.60 caliber bullets - --.65 caliber bullets - --.70 caliber bullets - --.80 caliber bullets - --.90 caliber bullets - --.95 caliber bullets - --.100 caliber bullets - --.105 caliber bullets - --.130 caliber bullets - --.140 caliber bullets - --.50 caliber bullets - --.45 caliber - --.380 caliber - --40 caliber - --45 caliber - --50 caliber - --55 caliber - --60 caliber - --70 caliber - --85 caliber - --90 caliber - --105 caliber - --140 caliber - --50 caliber - --60 caliber - --90 caliber<|endoftext|>I had a chance to play a game of "What Would Batman Do?" with a friend recently, and I was reminded of an old X-Men movie (the one I remember the best) titled "The Battle of the Atom." The movie, which is kind of funny but also kind of sad, featured a young man who was (eventually) killed in a car crash. While in a coma, he was visited by his father, who told him, "This is what you have wanted to know. You wanted to know what it is that makes a man a man." Very succinct, and very important. - -We all have a father figure, and we all want to know what it is that makes a man a man. What is it about being a man that we all desire? Batman is a man who has been through so much. He has been through the death of his parents, the loss of his mentor, and the loss of all that he loved. He has tried to destroy the criminal element, but has not succeeded. He has tried to be a better person, but has not succeeded. He has tried to be a hero, but has not succeeded. He has been through all of these things and has come out the other side as a hero. He has been through it all and has a very good idea of what makes a man a man. - -So, how would Batman respond to the question, "What makes a man a man?" - -I think that Batman would -======================================== SAMPLE 315 ======================================== -Shedding light on the trolley problem—the challenge of designing and operating automated transit systems such as the ones that have come to dominate the U.S. transit landscape—a new urban research paper authored by a group of researchers at the University of California, Davis, describes how to make a trolley system more efficient. - -Caltrain, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and San Francisco's Muni all use a type of traction power that consists of two overhead wires that form an alternating current of electric current. This type of power can be used to push the vehicle forward in a straight line, but it can also be used to push the car sideways when the rails are curved. The researchers found that in these cases, the electricity could be used to generate a different kind of power, one that is used to push the car sideways. - -"If you think about a trolley, the traction power is being used to push the trolley sideways," said Greg Smith, a former postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and one of the paper's co-authors. "Then you have a bunch of wires going around the wheel, and you have to take care of the wire resistance, the capacitance of the wires, and the inductance of the connection to keep the wheel from slipping back and forth. So if we could somehow put that power to work, we could use it to power the wheels of the trolley sideways. That's a really neat effect, but we don't know how to do it." - -Smith and co-author Ashok Mishra, who is now at the University of Illinois at Chicago, analyzed data from the California-based California High Speed Rail Authority's Project Connect, which analyzed the performance of 20 different traction power types on a trolley. - -For their study, the researchers measured the power drawn by a trolley vehicle driven in a straight line at various speeds. They found that the power consumption for a vehicle driven in a straight line at speeds between 1 and 5 mph was roughly the same at all four traction power types. - -But when the researchers compared the power consumption of a vehicle driven at different speeds in a curved path, they found that the power consumption of the trolley at the maximum speed the vehicle could travel was 10% higher at the traction power used in the curved path. The researchers did not find this effect when the trolley was driven at the maximum speed the vehicle could travel. - -To understand how the researchers were able to observe this effect, the researchers believe that the traction power used in the curved path was actually pulling the car sideways, which would have a similar effect as the wire resistance of a straight path. - -"What we've been able to show is that there's a different type of power that could be used to pull a trolley sideways," Smith said. "If the traction power was used as a generator, the energy density of that power would be very, very high, so we would get much higher power per unit of mass. If the traction power is used as an inverter, it would be much harder for the trolley to slip sideways. It would be harder for the traction power to have a negative effect on the vehicle, which is what we see when we look at the data." - -Brown University Professor Joseph Pribus, who also worked at the University of California, Davis on this project, said the results represent some of the first detailed analysis of the trolley problem—an important one, he said, because the research helps to substantiate a proposal that has been kicking around for years to replace some of the traction power currently used by BART and Muni with alternative power sources. - -"I think what this paper does is to say that we need to think about how to use trolley technology for something other than just moving people," said Pribus. "Trolley design has been a good illustration of technology improving how we move people around. The problem is that the technology is becoming really good at moving people around, and it's becoming really good at moving people around in a specific configuration. All of a sudden, you have to start thinking about how to use it differently in different situations." - -Mishra and Smith have filed a patent on their idea, but they have not yet received any funding to pursue it. - -"This paper is a first step toward the next step," Pribus said. "There may be other pathways to go on. It's kind of a proof of concept, but I think this paper is an important step toward a patent."<|endoftext|>To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the archive . - -This is a list of all the Google Code contributions we've received since September 2013, organized by month. The list is not updated with new contributions very often, so if something is wrong, or if you think we've missed something, please let us know. - -Some of this is in old format so we can easily update the list. -======================================== SAMPLE 316 ======================================== -Fondly known as the 'Bolshevik's new toy', the AK-74U is the latest Russian assault rifle to be introduced into the line-up. - -Manufactured by the Russian arms manufacturer Magpul Industries, the AK-74U is an inexpensive and reliable assault rifle that is widely used by police forces across the globe. Over the years, the AK-74U has transformed from a specialist rifle in the Soviet Union to an affordable and reliable rifle in the Russian Federation. - -The newest version of the AK-74, the AK-74U, has a receiver-mounted folding stock and a Picatinny rail on the receiver that can be fitted with a variety of accessories. - -The AK-74U is also one of the most reliable assault rifles available today. The rifle is produced with high-quality components, and the modular design and the use of interchangeable parts ensures that the rifle will not break down. - -The AK-74U offers a number of reliability improvements over its predecessors, including the use of a bolt lock and a gas system that allows for a faster cycle rate and a more consistent shot. - -The AK-74U also uses an ambidextrous safety/fire selector. The safety, which is operated by the right-hand side of the shooter's hand, is used to engage the bolt carrier group when it is locked back during the firing cycle. The firing selector is used to select either semi-automatic or full-automatic fire. - -The AK-74U is also available with a detachable box magazine. The magazine is compatible with 30-round and 45-round clips. The AK-74U can be fired in 5.45x39mm and 7.62x39mm calibres.<|endoftext|>A 26-year-old man has been charged with the murder of his 11-year-old neighbour after a violent melee at a Bradford estate. - -Luke Hamilton, of Bultley Close, was arrested on suspicion of murder after a post mortem examination on his relative found cuts and bruises that were consistent with the boy's injuries. - -The boy was hit by a bottle and stabbed in the chest and arm on Wednesday night because he had run into a neighbour's garden. - -He died in hospital on Thursday. - -The boy's mother, who has not been named, said the attack started when she returned home and saw the boy was bleeding. - -She said: "He was running out of the house and my son asked him to put his shoes on. - -"Luke then smacked the boy across the top of the head. He then told the boy to get in the car and told me to get him the ambulance." - -The mother said her son had been hit with a bottle and stabbed in the chest and arm. His injuries were consistent with a bottle being thrown at him. - -She said: "He was being hit in the head with a bottle and he had injuries at the bottom of his legs. I think it was a bottle thrown at him. - -"I thought he was dead. I had to wait for the ambulance until it got here because my son had been bleeding to death." - -The boy's father said he had been watching the argument between his son and Hamilton in his garden on Wednesday night. - -He said: "I saw the boy trying to get home and I ran to him. It was just a normal argument between a boy and his father. - -"The boy had run down the road to the garden and he had been attacked by Luke and the other man. - -"I tried to stop the fight. I went to the police and police got there and took over. - -"When they got there they said he was dead." - -Detective Constable Andy Croft, of Greater Manchester Police, said: "We have charged a 26-year-old man with murder following a violent incident last night in Bradford. - -"The investigation is at an early stage and no further details are available at this stage. - -"The boy's family have been informed of the charge." - -Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 0161 856 6000 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.<|endoftext|>ABOUT - -It's the perfect time to be a pilot. As the years pass and the skies around us become clearer, the demand for pilots is on the rise. - -We offer the best educational programme for aspiring pilots. Our training is based on the latest in safety technology. - -We are the only academy that provides the full range of flight training, including our own course on an Avsim simulator. - -Our pilots are trained to the highest standards and they have the opportunity to earn a Flying Licence once they have completed our training. - -The flight training programme that we offer is the most comprehensive in the UK. Our pilots have access to the best facilities, such as the Aero Clubhouse, and the latest in -======================================== SAMPLE 317 ======================================== -SomeKong is a social network for gamers and offline role-players. It's fun, fast, and secure. - -We now have a Windows Phone app! - -We have been testing the Windows Phone app for a long time and are happy to report that it works great! We have been adding some new features like being able to chat with friends and fans on the same app, but at this time it's still in beta. We are looking forward to seeing what you think! - -We are also looking for beta testers. If you want to be a part of something that is growing fast and is more closely connected with our community, we'd like to hear from you! - -We are also looking for input on the interface and design. You might have an idea of what we could do better, and we appreciate all of your feedback. - -You can try the app for free for 30 days and then pay what you want for the next 30 days. - -We are on Twitter at @SomeKongApp and you can reach us at support@somekongapp.com. - -If you want to be a beta tester, sign up to our mailing list. - -Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, and we hope you'll check out our app and let us know what you think! - -—Mari, John, and the SomeKong team<|endoftext|>We are in the middle of a feverish, collective panic about fake news. - -The nightly news has been flooded with the topic, and the topic is so over-the-top, so over-the-top, so over-the-top, it feels like an epidemic. - -From the Daily Mail to CNN, the entire media establishment is on the exact same page: Fake news is our biggest problem. And Donald Trump is to blame. - -We do not know for certain that Trump is a fake news maneater. But he has made it clear that he finds the very idea absurd. - -So the question is, what is fake news? - -I'm not sure I have a great answer. I think the definition of fake news is a matter of opinion and I don't really care. - -But my sense is, if you want to fight fake news, you have to fight a different kind of fake news. - -This is the kind of fake news that Trump has repeatedly promoted, and it is the kind of fake news that's reached fever pitch on Twitter. - -The reason this is so dangerous is that it encourages people to believe anything that fits their narrative. And it makes it easier for them to be duped. - -Here's a simple example: When I first started writing about these issues in 2009, I thought most people were willfully ignorant. - -But as I read more about the issues, I discovered that most people were not willfully ignorant. They were governed by facts. They were not willfully ignorant, but they were governed by facts. - -So what was the difference? - -The difference was that most people knew what the facts were. - -We are now living in a world where facts are being ignored. And if people can't find them, they are not going to believe them. - -This has been going on for years. But it has accelerated massively since Trump's election. - -The media seems to be obsessed with this issue. The latest example was the New York Times's story about the "fake news" that people are giving the president. - -Here's the thing. They are right. - -The Trump administration has been pushing a misleading, and in some cases flat-out false, narrative about the opioid crisis. - -The narrative has been so focused on the opioid crisis that it has ignored other issues that are more important to the lives of people who actually live in these areas. - -The Times report about the fake news is peppered with this: - -But he has also used his Twitter account to promote falsehoods, from the campaign to the presidency and from the Oval Office to the stage. - -The New York Times is right. There is a lot of fake news out there. - -But it is not the same thing as fake news. - -If you are a news organization that wants to know if there is fake news out there, the only way to find out is to investigate. - -Everyone else, including people who are trying to make up fake news, is the enemy. - -The enemy is a group of people who are not interested in facts, who are not interested in truth, who are not interested in the truth even if they can get it. - -If you want to fight fake news, you have to fight this enemy. - -You can't fight it by smearing people who share your opinions. You can't fight it by calling them Nazis. - -You can't fight it by trying to intimidate people who disagree with you. - -You only have a fighting chance if -======================================== SAMPLE 318 ======================================== -If you're not a regular reader of my blog, or are new here, please feel free to jump to the bottom of the article to get the basics. - -In the previous article, I discussed the basics of the possible options that will be available to me to play the role of the red mage. - -This week, I'm going to discuss the pros and cons of them. - -Pros & Cons of Fireball & Ice Lance - -In my last article, I also discussed that I have a few other options available to me to be red mage, which are Fireball and Ice Lance. - -What's the pros and cons of those? - -Fireball: - -Pros: - -It has the highest resource cost (4) in the game, which is certainly an advantage (although not a huge one). - -It has a high from cost (7) which makes it a reliable removal spell. - -It only costs 2 mana, which I feel is just right for a removal spell. - -It is the only spell that can target minions. - -It has 2 range (which is good for it's cost) - -It has a range of 1, which is also good for it's cost. - -It can be used as a 2 damage burn spell. - -Ice Lance: - -Pros: - -It is the cheapest spell in the game. - -It has a low cost (4) which is also an advantage. - -It has a low from cost (4) which makes it a reliable removal spell. - -It only costs 2 mana, which is just right for it's cost. - -It allows you to use it as a 2 damage burn spell. - -It is the only spell that can target minions. - -It has 2 range (which is good for it's cost) - -It has a range of 1, which is good for it's cost. - -It can be used as a 2 damage burn spell. - -Cons: - -It has 1 range (which is really bad for it's cost) - -It has a range of 1, which means that it can only be used as a 1 damage burn spell. - -It cannot remove minions, which is really bad for it's cost. - -It can't be used as a burn spell. - -It can only be used on an enemy minion. - -How to Play a Red Mage - -So, how do I play a red mage? - -You want to be a low cost (4) mage, and you want to be a control mage. - -What this means is that you want to have some cheap removal spells that can destroy minions, and you want to have some cheap spells that can heal your minions. - -Having an opponent who is low on health is the easiest way to win, but it's not the only way. - -If you played a control mage (which I recommend), you want to keep in mind that players who are low on health will try to use their abilities to kill you, so you want to have a way to get out of it. - -This is where Ice Lance comes in. It allows you to remove a minion from the game, and then you can use it as a 2 damage burn spell. - -It's also important to note that if you use Ice Lance to destroy a minion, you'll also remove its spell that makes it Immune to Damage. - -This is a great way to stop the enemy from killing you. - -Ultimately, you want to play a low cost mage, and you want to control the board. - -If you can be a control mage, and you can play a low cost mage, you can win almost every game. - -It's not only about the cards, it's about the mindset. - -You want to be the one controlling the board, and you want to not let your opponent get in the way of it. - -Mana boosts are always good for this. - -Anytime you're in the middle of a board control struggle, remember to use your mana boosts, and to be aggressive. - -When you're playing a control mage, you want to play the game the way that you want to play it, and not let your opponent play the way that they want to play it. - -Have fun! - -Warmest Regards<|endoftext|>One thing that always seems to get lost in the discussion of the forthcoming Debian 8 release is the fact that the project has already released the first preview release of the operating system. - -The latest preview release (Debian 8 "Jessie") came out on Thursday, and with it came a new version of the Debian installer. - -There are changes to the way in which the installer saves the state of the operating system, and the most significant of these is the introduction of the debootstrap tool, which had been previously only available to those using the Ubuntu-based Xen -======================================== SAMPLE 319 ======================================== -St. Augustine, Florida (CNN) -- The 12-year-old boy who died in the backyard of his Florida home last week had been told to stay inside after a fight with his father, but he sneaked back outside anyway at the last second, according to his father. - -The boy had been playing around in the backyard of his home in the town of St. Augustine on July 23 when he was killed by a shotgun blast, police said. - -"He shot him in the back," said Lonnie Nix, who witnessed the shooting minutes after his son was hit. - -Nix said he and his wife were at home when they heard a gunshot and the sound of a car hitting the porch. - -"We were right next door and I saw him die," Nix said. - -Nix said he called 911 and ran outside to help. The boy's stepmother, who was also at the home, was also at the scene when the boy was hit, Nix said. - -"He had been shot in the back," Nix said. - -The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he died. - -"It's very sad," Nix said. "I'm just so upset and I just want justice." - -The boy's father, who did not want to be identified, said his son was afraid of guns, and his stepmother had tried to get him to comply with the house rules. - -"He was obsessed with guns, and he wanted to be a gun owner," the father said. "He was terrified of guns." - -The father said his son had been ordered to stay inside after a fight in the backyard of the home, and he had left to get some water to keep him cool. The father said he was disappointed his stepdaughter didn't come home when he came home from work. - -"I really want to know why she didn't come back," he said. - -The stepmother wasn't home when Nix called police at 9:47 p.m. on July 23. - -"She wasn't here ... so we had to call 911 and they arrived a short time later and told me that the boy had been shot," he said. "They told me it was an accident." - -Nix said he was told the boy had been found in the yard by a man who was walking by when he saw him running in the yard. - -"I told him to call 911 and I got the ambulance right away," Nix said. - -The father said he didn't know what could have provoked the incident. - -"I hope that whatever happened, it wasn't a crime," he said. "I don't know if he knew his own son was a threat to him at that moment." - -Nix said he hopes the boy's death will be a reminder to other parents to call 911 if their children are in danger. - -"I hope it will give people the courage to call that dispatcher and not just run away," he said. - -He said he is planning to file a lawsuit against the homeowner.<|endoftext|>The government is considering the possibility of closing the door to free movement of people after Brexit, according to a leaked government paper. - -The document, entitled "Remain and Leave – the Migrant Impact", was drawn up for the Home Office by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). - -It proposes the government "apply the same rules to the UK as it does to the rest of the EU", and proposes a "period of transitional arrangements" that would allow the UK to "build its own immigration system". - -The precise nature of the transitional arrangements is unclear, although the document suggests that the UK's relationship with the EU could be adjusted during the period, effectively leaving the UK without the ability to control immigration from the EU, unless it joined the Euro. - -The document describes the transitional arrangements as "a model to be looked at by government in the future". - -"The government is considering the potential for a period of transitional arrangements, such as the one that existed in New Zealand in the 1990s," the MAC says. - -"We've looked at the model of New Zealand. We've looked at how it works in terms of trade and creating a very open economy. I think we can learn from what they've done." - -The EU-UK deal that is required to allow the UK to stay in the single market and customs union, is "not a done deal" according to the MAC, and "may not be possible". - -It says: "The government is considering the potential for a period of transitional arrangements, such as the one that existed in New Zealand in the 1990s. - -"We've looked at the model of New Zealand. We've looked at how it works in terms of trade and creating a very open economy. - -"I think we can learn from what they've done." - -The MAC's report -======================================== SAMPLE 320 ======================================== -The public has a right to be informed about the company that makes the product they use and the environmental impact of what they use, a federal judge ruled Monday. - -The ruling is the latest in a series of rulings that have made it difficult for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prevent chemical companies from hiding the chemicals they use under the pretense of "trade secrets." - -The ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Eastern District of Texas comes after a lengthy series of appeals by chemical companies. The ruling could set a precedent for other corporate trade secrets and codes of conduct cases. - -"If we don't have enough input, this case will be lost," said Susan Herring, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota Department of Environmental Science and Policy. "The public has a right to know what chemicals they are putting into their bodies when they buy a product." - -At issue is the chemistry of a class of chemicals called PAHs, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These powerful chemicals are a byproduct of gasoline production and emit carcinogens when they come into contact with air. They have been linked to everything from cancer to asthma. - -The EPA has struggled for years to identify and regulate them. In 2008, the agency proposed a list of four chemicals that would be regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act. - -The four chemicals were: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. The EPA proposed their names in the letter C, as in "compound, compound named." - -The EPA's list was a "proposed list of chemicals to be regulated" under the TSCA and the CAA, said Richard Revesz, an attorney with the law firm Garvey Schubert LLP who successfully defended the EPA's emissions standards from a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council. - -The EPA planned to publish the number of chemicals on the list in "pre-publication" form in a newspaper, and call for public comment on the list before publishing it in a journal. - -In 2009, the EPA published the list of chemicals in a journal called Science, but only after the chemical industry threatened to sue the agency over the publication. The chemical industry claimed the EPA's announcement was a "trade secret," preventing the EPA from announcing the chemicals' names. - -The EPA went ahead and published the list anyway, and in 2010, it published a follow-up report with the same names and the same schedule for public comment. - -For five years, the chemical industry and its allies in Congress have sought to block the EPA from publishing the list. - -In 2011, the EPA delayed publication of the chemicals on the list until after the 2012 election. The delay was a political move, according to the EPA, since it would have been difficult for the agency to publish the list in time for the 2012 presidential election. - -The chemical industry sued the EPA in federal court, arguing the EPA was violating the TSCA and the CAA by publishing the list. - -The chemical industry argued that the list should be kept secret because the chemicals in the list are not currently regulated under the CAA or TSCA. - -The EPA argued that the chemicals in the list are regulated under the CAA and that the chemicals in the list are not currently regulated under the TSCA. The EPA said that the list would, under the law, be published with the "same prominence as the existing EPA list." - -The chemical industry and its allies in Congress argued that the EPA was violating the TSCA and the CAA by publishing the list. - -The EPA and the chemical industry reached a settlement in August 2013. The EPA agreed to publish the list, but only after the chemical industry agreed to stop its legal threats against the agency. - -Since the settlement, the EPA has published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2009. - -The EPA has also published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2011, but without calling for public comment. - -The new version of the list is called the "Expanded Chemical Safety Communication." - -The EPA has also published the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2012, but without calling for public comment. - -Now that the EPA is publishing the list under the same schedule as the list it published in 2012, it will be possible to obtain the list online. - -The list is available online at http://www.epa.gov/chemicals/chemistry/EPA-Chemical-Safety-Communication-List. The EPA also publishes a PDF version of the list. - -Benjamin Mizer, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, said the final list is "an improvement" over the 2009 version. - -"In my opinion," Mizer said, "this is a good -======================================== SAMPLE 321 ======================================== -The Catastrophic Failure of the American Media - -In 1958, a group of economists met in London to form a new organization called the International Labour Organization. The purpose of the organization was to bring together all the world's major socialist and communist parties who had agreed to sign an agreement that they would not enter into war. "The League of Nations," the organization's constitution declared, "is an organization for the prevention of war." - -The League of Nations was an effort to prevent war, but it failed. The group was never able to agree on a single resolution that would prevent war. Instead, the various parties in the organization rolled over and continued to fight with each other. The League was a failure, but it was not a failure of the concept behind it; rather, it was a failure of the men who led the organization. - -While the group in London was unable to prevent war, the American media is in a similar position. Despite the fact that the media has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, the American media has been unable to prevent the media from becoming a force for wanton destruction. War has been allowed to destroy the lives of millions of people, and the media will not stop. - -The media is the worst of the worst. It is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. The media has been able to use its freedom of speech to shut out any criticism of the government's war machine. The media's refusal to report on the war machine's crimes has allowed the media to be complicit in the war machine's crimes. - -The media is not a neutral arbiter. It is the worst of the worst. It is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. It has been able to use its freedom of speech to shut out any criticism of the government's war machine. The media's refusal to report on the war machine's crimes has allowed the media to be complicit in the war machine's crimes. - -The media is an organization that has been wholly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. But this is not enough. The media must now be more than complicit. It must be an active participant in the destruction of life. - -The media are no longer the media. They are a force for wanton destruction, with their own special code of silence. The media are no longer the media. They are a force for wanton destruction, with their own special code of silence. - -The media's refusal to report on the government's war machine is not a failure of the media itself. It is a failure of the men who led the media. - -Obama has been able to have his cake and eat it too. He has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. He has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. - -The media have been complicit in the government's war machine. The media have been complicit in the government's war machine. Obama has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. Obama has been able to have his media and his civil rights advocates at the same time. - -The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. - -There is a political and moral war being waged against the American people. This war has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. - -And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. - -The media's refusal to report on the government's war machine is not a failure of the media itself. It is a failure of the men who led the media. - -The American media has been utterly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. - -The American media has been utterly complicit in the government's war machine, partly through its own freedom of speech laws. But this is not enough. The media must now be more than complicit. It must be an active participant in the destruction of life. - -The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. - -And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. - -The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. The war machine's war against its own people has been allowed to continue to destroy lives. - -And yet, despite this, the American media has been unable to stop reporting on the government's war machine. - -======================================== SAMPLE 322 ======================================== -BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State has"taken over" territory in Syria and Iraq and is "being aided" by Turkish intelligence, a leader of the hardline Islamist group said on Tuesday, a day after Ankara shot down a Russian jet on the Syrian border. - -Policemen stand near the wreckage of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet after it was shot down by Turkey on the Syrian-Turkish border, near the southeastern town of Akcakale, Hatay province, Turkey, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Osman Orsal - -The comments by Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, a spokesman for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were the first publicly reported by the group since the jet was downed on Tuesday. - -Two Russian SU-24 planes were shot down by Turkish jets on Tuesday, the first time that has happened since Moscow entered the Syrian war in September, after they violated Turkish airspace for at least 10 minutes. - -Turkey said the jets were warned 10 times before they were shot down, and that Russian pilots did not identify themselves. - -Syria's government said the planes had been in Syrian airspace for 12 minutes, and that ISIL had used the jet to carry out attacks on Turkmen and other rebels along the border. - -The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a group of Syrian pilots had defected to Turkey, and that the two pilots who ejected from the jet were in good health. - -A Turkish official said the military had detained two Russian pilots, but gave no details on the reason for their detention. - -"We have taken over Iraqi and Syrian territory. The new Islamic State that has taken over, we call them Daesh, is being aided by Turkey. They have weapons, they have ammunition. They are also training our people in planning terror attacks in Turkey," Masri said in a statement. - -The Islamist group has lost some of its strongholds in Syria and Iraq to a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters who are trying to oust ISIL from its self-declared caliphate. - -Masri also said the group's Syrian branch, previously known as the Nusra Front, was considering an alliance with al Qaeda to fight the Syrian government. - -The Nusra Front was designated a terrorist organization in September by the United States and its European allies, and the group has become increasingly isolated from mainstream rebel groups. - -The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is one of the most powerful groups among the many rebel factions fighting Assad's government, and has gained ground in recent weeks. - -Syria's ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, said on Tuesday that Russia would not prevent the Syrian government from "fighting terrorists". - -"If they want to fight terrorism and not Syria's army, they should fight terrorists and not the Syrian army," Haddad said. - -U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday urged Russia to support a political solution to Syria's civil war, but said there was no military solution to the conflict. - -While American officials have said that ISIL is likely losing ground in the battle for Syria, they have also said that it is still an active and dangerous threat to the region.<|endoftext|>By Mose Buchele - -The number of people killed by police in 2015 was a record high. Since the start of the year, police have killed at least 317 people, according to an analysis of independent news agencies' numbers by The Guardian. This is above the total number of people killed by weapons and explosives in the U.S. that year, which was 324. - -Why does this matter? - -In 2015, police killed 587 people, according to the Guardian, a 15 percent increase from the year before. While this is a historically high number, it is a fraction of the number of people killed by U.S. forces in Vietnam. - -Police killings are particularly concerning because the public is often unaware of them. While the public knows that police officers use deadly force, it is less aware that police officers kill people. - -Elisabeth Rosenthal, director of the Justice Policy Institute, said, "When police kill people, they are immediately scrutinized by the media and the public as though they are threatening the life of the chief of police." - -The Guardian's analysis of state-by-state numbers suggest that some states, like Arizona and Louisiana, have more officers killed than the national average. In fact, Louisiana, which has had the highest number of total police killings in the last two years, has one of the poorest records in terms of community relations with the police. - -A recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union found that in Louisiana, police were more likely to use chokeholds to subdue people than any other type of force except guns. - -According to the ACLU report, "in order to qualify as a 'chokehold,' a police officer must use violence on the suspect's -======================================== SAMPLE 323 ======================================== -Details - -Pictures - -Clubs Top Characters Kagami Kagami (桂木 美納) The protagonist. She is a girl who comes from a rich family, and her family is very well-known in the game. - - -Since her childhood, she has been always watched over by her grandmother. She has been followed by a boy to the same place. She's very shy and has a weird personality. She is shown to be very frightful, which is a result of her small age. She is also extremely perceptive, as she is able to read the mind of the other characters. - - -(Source: Wikipedia) - - -Voice Actors Nakayama, Chika Japanese<|endoftext|>The Giza Plateau, also known as the "Great Pyramid of Giza", is the lowest part of Egypt's Great Pyramid complex. It's located along the eastern margin of the Giza Plateau, around the area of the pyramid's base.<|endoftext|>The 5,000-square-foot home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. - -The 5,000-square-foot home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. - -The home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife. - -The location of the home in the Red Zone of Cairo, Egypt, has been a mystery for more than a decade, but now the home is finally revealed inside the walls, according to an ABC News report. - -The home, which was built in 2011, was built in a "red zone" — the areas surrounding some of the world's most dangerous places — and is a haven for wildlife, according to an ABC News report. - -"It's like a zoo," one resident told the news outlet. "There are elephants, zebras, giraffes, jaguars, all kinds of animals and birds." - -The home, which was built with a "red zone" designation, was located in an area that had been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years. - -However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. - -"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." - -Qattan said the house is a safe haven for wildlife, as he has lived there since 1996. - -"We got a lot of visitors from all over the world, and they come here to see the animals," he said. "There is a lot of noise, but it's like a zoo." - -The home is located in an area that has been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years, according to the ABC News report. - -However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. - -"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." - -The home is located in an area that has been declared a terrorist zone by the Egyptian government for a number of years, according to the ABC News report. - -However, the home is now a popular attraction for tourists and residents, according to the ABC News report. - -"The house was built by a family of five and has been here for 10 years," said Mohamed Abbas, owner of Mohamed Abdel el-Qattan's home. "They knew it had to be here, and now the house is a museum. There are all kinds of animals, birds and monkeys." - -ABC's Felicia Gans contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>The advantage for the two candidates is always about their image. But for Mr. Trump, that image is about his wealth. And it is not just about how much money he earns. It is about how he got his wealth and how he spends it. For Mr. Trump, it is not just about his wealth. It is about how he got his wealth and how he spends it. - -Photo - -His wealth comes from a product that he himself created, and from the fact that he owns a building he designed and built. He owns a good television network, though it isn't -======================================== SAMPLE 324 ======================================== -The classic O'Hara and his wife, the artist Lillian, live in a blue-collar neighborhood of New York City. Their son, David, is a lousy student, and they have a strained relationship. On a bitter cold night, they are awakened by the screams of a woman who is being raped. They pull their gun and shoot the rapist, but he has moved out of sight... Written by Anonymous<|endoftext|>CLOSE The latest news and sports on the Auburn football team, obtained from various sources, including the athletics department, athletics director Jay Jacobs, and the school's media relations department. Jason Smith/AuburnTigers.com - -Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn has said he thinks the Tigers can finish with a winning record. (Photo: Marvin Gentry, USA TODAY Sports) - -AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn's top recruit, wide receiver Calvin Ridley, said Wednesday that he has not made a final decision about which school to attend. - -"I have not made a final decision," Ridley said during a media availability. "I'm just going to take my time and see where my mind is at. I just want to know what's best for me and my family." - -Ridley, a five-star prospect from Houston, said he is leaning toward the Tigers. He chose Auburn over Florida and Alabama last year. - -"I love Auburn," Ridley said. "I love the campus, the program, the coaches, the players. I know everybody is going to be talking about it, but I'm just going to take my time and see what's best for me and my family." - -Auburn has not made a final decision on its quarterback or running back. - -Ridley said he will take a "little break" as he decides his college destination. But he said he would make his final decision soon. - -"I'm going to wait and see what Auburn has to offer me," Ridley said. "I just want to know what's best for me and my family." - -Auburn plans to hold its spring game at 9 a.m. Sunday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. - -The Tigers, who are coming off a 9-4 season, are expected to open the season against South Carolina on Aug. 31. The Gamecocks, who went 9-4 last year, have won seven of the past nine in the series. - -Read or Share this story: http://on.mgmadv.com/1T6N6t5<|endoftext|>All of us, without exception, are racist. - -This is a fact that just about everyone has admitted to. - -This is a fact that despite the best efforts of the left, has not been challenged. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has been touted by the president and the media. - -This is a fact that doesn't work to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has not worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has been touted by the president and the media. - -This is a fact that doesn't work to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has not worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a lie. - -This is a fact that works to the benefit of the left and the establishment, just as it has worked to the benefit of the professional class. - -This is a fact that has not been challenged despite the fact that it is, by design, a -======================================== SAMPLE 325 ======================================== -From the moment the Houston Astros signed Mark Appel, the first thing I thought was: "Wow, that's a lot of money." - -I want to make it clear that I am not complaining. I don't care about the money. It's a great addition to this team. - -The Astros' big signing was for right-hander Chris Devenski, who is a pitcher. - -It's not like the Astros have been throwing up dingers for years. They are the only team in baseball without a home run in 2016. - -Appel is a great pitcher. He will be a great pitcher. He is the type of pitcher that the Astros should sign more often. This was a great addition to this team. - -But I have to wonder about how much money the Astros should spend on Appel. - -He is a big-time prospect. He is a potential ace. And while he is only 22 years old, he has had a pretty rough three seasons in the big leagues — a 5.04 ERA in 30 starts, with a 5.28 FIP in 46.2 innings. - -The thing is: I think it's a little early to say that Appel is the future ace of this team. But what I do know is that Appel is a big-time pitcher. - -It's not like he is a six-foot-seven, 200-pound pitcher. He is a six-foot-one, 200-pound pitcher. That size has been a problem for him in the big-leagues. - -Just look at some of the pitches he's thrown this year: - -This is a fastball. This is a curveball. This is a slider. - -He's thrown this at various points since the beginning of the 2015 season. - -The fastball is probably his best pitch. It's got two inches of sinking action and a lot of movement. - -The curveball is a good pitch, with a good amount of movement. It's a changeup, but a changeup that you just don't throw in the big leagues. - -The slider is a good pitch, with a good amount of movement. It's a changeup, but a changeup that you don't throw in the big leagues. - -Appel is a big-time pitcher. He doesn't throw a lot of fastballs. He doesn't throw a lot of curveballs. He doesn't throw a lot of sliders. - -But he does throw a ton of fastball-slider combinations. - -Those are the pitches that Appel is most comfortable throwing in the big leagues. He works lots of fastballs and curves in his bullpen. He sticks a lot of sliders. - -He has been throwing those pitches in the big leagues. The problem is that they're not producing. - -He has struggled as a starter. He has struggled as a reliever. He has struggled as a starter in the minors. He's struggled as a reliever in the minors. - -Why wasn't he able to stick in the big leagues? Well, he's not a dominant pitch. He's a strikeout pitch. - -Appel is a strikeout pitch. And he's not dominant. He needs to work on his command. And his command is a big issue. - -He doesn't have a lot of deception. He doesn't have a lot of movement. He doesn't have a lot of deception. - -Appel can command his fastball and slider. But he can't command his fastball and curveball. - -I know this is almost a cliché, but Appel needs to get his curveball more down. He needs to work on his curveball. - -And it's not like Appel is a perfect pitch. It's not like Appel is a perfect guy. He needs to work on his command and his command is a big issue. - -Appel is a great pitcher. He's a great pitcher. The Astros should sign him a lot more often. - -But I'm kind of surprised that they didn't sign him more often. He's a player who is going to be a big-time player in this league. He's the type of pitcher that the Astros should sign more often. - -The Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in free agency. They will need to be aggressive in free agency. - -While the Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in free agency, the Astros are also a team that is going to need to be aggressive in the draft. - -The Astros are a team that is going to need to be aggressive in the draft. The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. - -The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. - -The Astros are going to need to be aggressive in the draft. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 326 ======================================== -The head of the University of New Mexico's campus police department has resigned after a woman was arrested after she passed out in his patrol car. - -The woman, who had been drinking, was arrested after she was found passed out in the back seat of the patrol car after the police department stopped her for a broken tail light. - -The university president, Ray Anderson, said in a news release that the officer had "failed to meet the high standards" of the department, which he said was "a reflection of the university's desire to maintain a safe community." - -The university is not investigating the incident, which happened on Sept. 17. - -The university has hired a consultant to review campus police, and Anderson said the university would ask the consultant to report back by the end of the month. - -Anderson said he had been a police officer for 20 years and saw the job as an honorable one. - -"When I began, I thought it was a noble job, and I think it still is," Anderson said. - -The officer who resigned, Scott Winnebent, had been with the police department for less than a year. - -The university has hired an advisory firm to review the department, and Anderson said he hoped to have a new chief in place by the fall. - -The university has also hired a consultant to review the department. - -Anderson said he was disappointed in how the incident unfolded. - -"I'm devastated by what happened," he said. "I hope the officer is fully accepted by the community and the people of New Mexico."<|endoftext|>The Trump administration is vowing to "rebuild the American military" — and that's good news for the military budget and the defense contractors who are already raking in the dough. - -President Trump signed an executive order last week that will open the door to a major buildup of the military, with the administration touting the order as a sign that the U.S. is "back to work." - -"President Trump is rebuilding our military," Defense Secretary James Mattis said in a statement. "This order provides the resources we need to rebuild the military the way it was in the 1980s. We will rebuild our military so it can meet current and future threats and opportunities, and we will make America more prosperous and secure." - -Presumably, Trump's plan includes new money for the military. But the overwhelming majority of the money will go to defense contractors, who would see massive increases in federal contracts. - -For instance, Lockheed Martin will receive $19.4 billion in additional contracts over the next five years, and Northrop Grumman stands to take home $18.2 billion in new contracts for bomber aircraft. - -It's not just the defense contractors who stand to benefit from Trump's military-building spree. Drug companies like Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson have also reportedly been awarded billions of dollars in new contracts. - -It's already been a bonanza for defense contractors. - -In 2016, U.S. defense contractors spent $342 billion on arms and military-related products, up 34 percent from $260 billion in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. - -Defense contractors have also been raking in the dough. Lockheed Martin, for example, made $7.6 billion in profits last year, up from $6.6 billion the year before. - -While the military-industrial complex has been a powerful force in U.S. politics for decades, the bulk of its funding came from taxes and fees paid by the American people. - -This was especially true during the Reagan administration, when the defense budget grew by more than 50 percent under then-President Ronald Reagan. - -That's why, in 1986, Congress passed the Defense Production Act, which imposed a three-pronged tax on U.S. defense contractors. - -One portion of the tax was a tax on the profits that military contractors made from weapons and military-related equipment. Another tax was a tax on the employment of military and civilian employees on their weapons and equipment. The third part of the tax was a tax on the costs that the government incurs for developing and purchasing the weapons and equipment. - -This is what Trump is trying to do now, by imposing a one-time tax on the $1.3 trillion in profits that defense contractors have amassed over the past decade. - -In order to implement this tax, Trump will need to somehow get Congress to repeal a law that allows defense contractors to pay taxes on their overseas profits. - -So far, no Republicans have agreed to repeal the law. But that's likely to change in the next two years, when GOP leaders look to have a much easier time passing tax reform. - -The political pressure to repeal the Defense Production Act is likely to be intense. - -"I don't think there's any doubt that repealing the production tax credit is a key priority of the Trump administration," said Eric Toder, -======================================== SAMPLE 327 ======================================== -The Daily Mail is advertising for a new "independent media consultant" to help "bring the truth to the British people's attention." - -The ad is for a "multi-award winning" analyst to "provide expert analysis of the media landscape, including the impact of online content, social media and online advertising." - -The description of The Daily Mail's role says that the company's role is "to help the Conservative party and Government achieve its objectives through the delivery of effective, accurate and fair journalism." - -The ad is for a two-year contract. - -It is unclear if the Daily Mail paid for the ad, but it is likely to have been paid for by The Daily Mail Group, which owns the Daily Mail and The Sun. - -The Daily Mail is a member of the Alliance for Audited Media, a coalition of scores of British, German, Italian and other media organizations that has been trying to get the UK government to audit the advertising of the country's newspapers. - -A coalition of news organizations has been pushing for the UK government to audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers https://t.co/iYwO7bQwGM — Julie Hyland (@juliehyland) October 7, 2017 - - -Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has been a strong supporter of the UK government's plan to audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers, both during the unsuccessful 2015 campaign for a media reform bill and during the 2017 general election campaign. Dacre has written many defenses of the idea that the UK government should audit the advertising of the UK's newspapers. - -A spokesman for The Daily Mail said the campaign for an audit had "nothing to do with the Daily Mail." - -"This was a piece of work that was commissioned by another media outlet and we feel that this constitutes a breach of our editorial independence and self-regulation," the spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. - -The Daily Mail is owned by News UK, the parent company of The Sun. - -News UK, which also owns the Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the Sunday Times, is a member of the Alliance for Audited Media, and the press association has written to the UK government asking for a review of its media self-regulation regime. - -This story has been updated with comment from The Daily Mail.<|endoftext|>To see how everyone is doing in the world of e-cigarettes, we've created a list of the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. All the brands on this list are available on the market. Each brand's brand page has pictures of the products, the brands that make them, and a description of what the brands do. - -This is the first time that we've included 100% bottom-tier brands. We've included all brands that are available on the market and are not brand names. - -We used to include only the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. After some research we learned that there are more than 100,000 e-cigarette brands on the market. This is a much larger category than we originally expected. - -We've put together this list of the top 50 e-cigarette brands in the world. If you're interested in becoming an e-cigarette brand ambassador, click here.<|endoftext|>Two months after its launch in the United States, German online retailer toymaker Hasbro has launched its first UK online store. - -As of 8am, Hasbro UK has listed 657 toys, including a selection of Star Wars and Marvel figures, a selection of Kenner figures, and a selection of action figures, from the Hasbro video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. - -The retailer is also listing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures by Hasbro and Mattel and Marvel figures by Marvel, with a range of figures including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Lightsaber Duel, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Racer Storm, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Arcade, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: X-Wing and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: The Dark Side. - -Hasbro UK also lists a range of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures by Fisher-Price, which are seemingly part of a set, and three Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures including a Stormtrooper and a Stormtrooper Princess. - -The retailer is also listing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed figures for sale in a range of different prices, including £9.99 for the Stormtrooper Princess and £9.99 for the Stormtrooper Stormtrooper. - -Interestingly, the retailer lists two figures that have been previously released by Hasbro UK, but have not yet been released in the United States. The retailer lists a Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Stormtrooper Princess and a Stormtrooper Stormtrooper, which have yet to be released in the United States. - -It is not known if these figures are part of the new official UK release of the figures. -======================================== SAMPLE 328 ======================================== -I'm sitting here in the dark, in my house, with my dad, and I'm thinking about the next four years. - -I'm a father of two young boys — ages 3 and 4 — and I don't know where they're going to be in four years. - -So many people tell me that education is the key to making your future better. - -But I'm not so sure. - -I've spoken to politicians. I've spoken to people who operate in the halls of power. And I've spoken to parents like you and my wife, who have a son or daughter in kindergarten. - -Together, we've searched the Internet — and we've come up empty. - -I've read about education. I've read about technology. I've read about technology and education — but we have not found the answers to any of our questions. - -And so, I've come to the conclusion that this is going to be a very important time for your generation. - -You're going to be a part of the next generation of leaders. And you're going to be the ones who make the decisions that determine your future. - -And I'm going to ask you to take a few minutes of your time today, and think about this. [Applause] - -If you don't, I will be surprised. - -I will be really surprised. - -I just want to be clear with you: - -I believe in education. - -I believe in education. - -I believe in giving everyone access to the opportunity to do what they love. - -I believe in equal opportunity. - -I believe in opportunity for all. - -And I believe in making sure that everyone has the best education that they can have. - -That's what I believe. - -Because I want every single child in this country to have a chance to get the best education that they can get. - -I want every child in this country to be able to go to a good college and get a good job so that they can have a decent middle class life. - -I want every child in this country to be able to go to a good college and get a good job so that they can have a decent middle class life. - -And I want every single child in this country to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. - -And I want every child in this country to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. - -And I want every single child in this country, regardless of where they live or what their background is, to have a chance to get a good job that pays well and provides for their family, so that they can live in a decent way. - -That's what I believe in. - -I believe in education. - -I believe in education. - -I believe in equality. - -I believe in opportunity for all. - -And I believe that we have to make sure that we put money back into our public schools so that children from every community can learn from each other and from their teachers. - -I believe in equality. - -I believe in opportunity for all. - -And I believe that we have to make sure that we put money back into our public schools so that children from every community can learn from each other and from their teachers. - -And I know that when parents and teachers and administrators and students all work together — that's what we need to do. - -We need to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. - -And I want every child in America to have a chance to get a good job that pays well and provides for their family, so that they can live in a decent way. - -And I want every child in America to have a chance to go to college and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their families in a decent way. - -And in this country, we have to make sure that we're helping to fund our public schools. - -We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. - -We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. - -We have to make sure that every child in this country has a chance to go to a good college and get a good job, so that they can live in a decent way. - -This is a good place to start. - -That's what I think about. - -I want every child in this country to have a chance to get -======================================== SAMPLE 329 ======================================== -A DeKalb County police officer was shot and killed by a man in a domestic violence incident on the Atlanta Beltline, authorities said. - -The officer was identified as Sgt. Kenneth Cooper, 41, a 20-year veteran of the department. - -He was shot and killed about 10:30 a.m. Friday on the Beltline near the intersection of Atlanta Highway and Glen Iris Drive, according to an Atlanta Police Department statement. - -The investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the DeKalb County Police Department and the Atlanta Police Department. - -Police haven't released the identity of the victim. - -The shooting remains under investigation.<|endoftext|>A lot of you have asked about the Fed's actions, so I thought I'd clear some things up. Here are the Fed's actions: - -The Fed didn't raise rates. - -The Fed raised short-term interest rates 4 times. - -The Fed raised short-term interest rates 63 times. - -The Fed kept rates near zero for nearly a decade. - -The Fed's balance sheet has been over $4 trillion. - -The Fed has increased its balance sheet to $4.5 trillion. - -The Fed is not buying any bonds. - -The Fed is not reducing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not monetizing the debt. - -The Fed is not running a QE program. - -The Fed has not created an inflation target. - -The Fed is making lower rates more available to communities and home buyers. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not making a move to fight inflation. - -The Fed is not running open-market operations (OMOs). - -The Fed is not using open-market operations to monetize bonds. - -The Fed is not using open-market operations to change interest rates. - -The Fed is not exiting its long-term bond holdings. - -The Fed is not reducing its balance sheet to zero. - -The Fed is not exiting its long-term bond holdings. - -The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -There are a number of misconceptions about the Fed's actions. Let's take them one at a time. - -The Fed is not raising rates. - -The Fed is not raising rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not exiting its balance sheet. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not increasing rates faster than inflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not raising rates to fight deflation. - -The Fed is not increasing its balance sheet. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 330 ======================================== -Richard A. Flijick - -Richard A. Flijick is an American known for his work on the digital history of the United States. He is the author of Digital History: A New Approach to the History of Information and the co-editor of the series Digital History: From the Origins to the Present. - -Richard A. Flijick is an American known for his work on the digital history of the United States. He is the author of Digital History: A New Approach to the History of Information and the co-editor of the series Digital History: From the Origins to the Present. Flijick's works on the history of information have been published in a wide variety of publications and have been discussed in academic journals and conferences around the world. He has written articles for such publications as the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Review of Books, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review. He has appeared on television as a media commentator for MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, the BBC, and the BBC World Service. - -Flijick received his B.A. (1970) and his M.A. (1972) in history from Yale University. From 1973 to 1978 Flijick served as a research associate at Harvard University, where he was awarded the Henry Thomas Prize for his publication of the first volume of his "New York Trilogy". In 1978 he was a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Digital Society at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was awarded the Alfred M. Lilienthal Prize for the study of the role of the media in the political process. Flijick was a visiting scholar at Harvard University from 1984 to 1989. - -His most recent book is Digital History: From the Origins to the Present (Knopf, 2008). His publications include numerous articles in international and national periodicals, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review. His research has been published in numerous books and conferences including the International Journal of Electronic Media and the Annual Review of American History . He has appeared on television as a media commentator for MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, the BBC, and the BBC World Service. - -Flijick has served on the editorial staff of the Popular Science Monthly, American Libraries & Information Society, and the Journal of Communication. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he has served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Digital Media Center at Harvard University, the Media History Institute, and the Center for the Study of the Digital Media at the University of California at Berkeley. - -He has received a number of awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the National Council of Teachers of English Medal for Excellence in Research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the prestigious Franklin E. Smith Award, the International Space Hall of Fame Medal, and the National Academy of Engineering Medal.<|endoftext|>The Left's History of Anti-Men Rulings - -By S.E. Smith - -The historic, well-documented history of anti-father rulings is shocking, to say the least. - -In addition to the many previous examples of anti-father rulings that we have documented previously, the following are the most recent newsworthy rulings: - - -1. Pennsylvania v. Dreeben (2006) - - -In 2006, a Pennsylvania mother abandoned her three sons at a Catholic-run shelter on the advice of her lawyer. The mother was accused of child abandonment, and the judge fined her $200 and ordered her to undergo parenting classes. With the father's consent, the State of Pennsylvania granted custody to the mother. The mother's attorney, however, had a different opinion. He told the court that the father was only obligated to pay child support until the children turned 18—a point that the father strongly disputed in court. - -The father's attorney argued that the mother was "not a good fit" for her children, that she was "not a good mother," and that she had created a "toxic environment" in the shelter. The judge disagreed. He ordered the father to pay child support and ordered the mother to attend parenting classes. - -2. Illinois v. Smith (2005) - - -Another Illinois mother abandoned her four children. The State's Attorney claimed that the mother was not a good parent because she had "failed to meet the minimum standard for parental responsibility and thereby caused [the children] to be placed in the state's care." The mother was ordered to attend -======================================== SAMPLE 331 ======================================== -Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A constituent who made a complaint about a local councillor's appearance called a police station begging for help because he was being harassed online. - -Michael Kane, 35, phoned the police after he was subjected to a vicious trolling campaign which began when he told a constituent that he was wearing a "very nice suit". - -The man who he spoke to at the police station was far less complimentary about his appearance, telling him that he was "just a poor bum". - -After the inappropriate comments were posted online Mr Kane reported the matter to police and the matter is now being investigated. - -Mr Kane said: "I think it's a disgrace that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance in such a way. I just couldn't believe that someone could be so vicious about it. - -"I phoned the police station to make a complaint. They told me it was a matter for the police but I felt so much better after talking to them. - -"I just thought it was terrible that someone in my position would have to be subjected to this kind of treatment. - -"I'm still trying to process everything – it's still very upsetting to think that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance." - -Mr Kane, who lives in the north of Wales, added: "I'm actually quite embarrassed about it. I'm a bit of a sportsman and I'm a very fit person. - -"But it gives me a bit of a hard time when people are cruel about my appearance. I'm a bit of an exhibitionist. - -"I've been on TV shows and in magazines and I get a lot of attention for it. - -"I'm a bit of a loner and I've never been in a relationship. I'm not the kind of person that has long-term relationships. I think I'm just a poor bum." - -The online comments were posted on a Facebook post by Michael Kane, a Labour councillor for Newport, which included a photo of him with his three children. - -The post was shared online by a local resident, who added: "Is there anything to worry about? You look a bit like a man who's just worked on a factory floor. I think you have a bit of a smile on your face." - -A friend of the councillor said: "He's pretty annoyed. I think it's a disgrace that someone could be so cruel about someone's appearance in such a way." - -A Conservative councillor for the same area did not want to comment on the matter. - -A police spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that an incident of this nature has taken place. The matter remains under investigation and enquiries are ongoing. We take all reports of hate crime extremely seriously and are working with the local authority to identify the individual(s) involved".<|endoftext|>Whether you're in the market for a new mattress, or want to upgrade your current one, a good mattress is an investment that will likely pay off in the long run. That's why we've made it our mission to create the best mattresses on the planet. - -Our mission is to provide the highest quality and most comfortable mattress for you. That means using the best materials with ingenious designs and innovative innovations. We're also committed to using only the highest quality, most durable latex we can find. - -As with any investment, we recommend doing your research. We encourage you to visit our mattress reviews to find the best mattress for you. - -We look forward to partnering with you.<|endoftext|>It's hardly surprising to see the big religious right splintering apart over the issue of contraception. This issue is about so much more than whether contraception should be covered under insurance, and there's plenty of room on the spectrum for different perspectives, even on the issue of whether that coverage should be available to everyone. - -However, the much more important question to ask is whether the religious right has, in fact, become so stridently opposed to contraception that it's actually pushed the religious right off the religious right's supposed positions on other topics. - -A little over a year ago, on ABC's "This Week," a big religious right splinter group called the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) was honoring the late Jerry Falwell Jr., who was a champion for religious freedom. Overall, the ADF was pretty cheerful about its association with Falwell, but their ADF-sponsored event was marred by a controversial moment. - -On the ADF-sponsored "Freedom Summit" in Washington D.C. on June 20, 2015, the religious right group Voices for Christian Schools was thrilled to be honored by ADF, a group which has been at the center of a battle over whether private schools should be required to include contraception in their health plans. - -ADF was also thrilled to have other religious right groups, including the American Family -======================================== SAMPLE 332 ======================================== -Are you a new parent wondering how to best approach a baby's first bath? The bath is a crucial part of the baby's first days of life, and it should be handled with care. - -What to Expect - -Depending on your baby's age, the first bath may last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. - -If your baby is in the first month of life, the bath should be done at night. - -If your baby is between 6 and 12 months old, the bath should be done at 4 a.m. - -If your baby is 12 months old or older, the bath should be done as soon as he wakes up so that he's ready to get out of bed. - -Dressing Your Baby - -After your baby has been bathed, it's time to dress him. - -If you're bathing your baby in a sink or bathtub, wait for him to settle down and then put him on your lap. If you're bathing him in a tub, put him on your shoulders, behind your neck. Avoid pressure on your baby's legs. - -Sit your baby on your lap and hold him gently. - -Gently massage your baby's scalp with your fingers and gently rub his back. - -Take your baby's feet and hold them in your lap. - -Put your baby in his diaper and help him get into it. - -Carefully place your baby on the bath mat. - -Wrap your baby in a corner of the bath mat until he is fully dressed. - -What to Do While Your Baby Dies - -If your baby is experiencing anything that might be considered a medical emergency, call 911.<|endoftext|>As a very young woman, I was always a bit of a tomboy. My friends and I would play dress-up in the school yard, and my mom would get in on the action. But I would also wear jeans and a t-shirt underneath my school uniform. I wasn't allowed to have my hair done until I was around 11, so I would just wear a ponytail and a long-sleeve shirt. - -When I was older, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about boys. I would pull on my dad's jeans and motorcycle jacket and pretend I was riding around on a motorcycle with a hottie like myself. I would imagine what it would be like to be a man and act like a man. I would imagine what it would be like to be in a man's body and act like a man. I wanted to be a man, and I wanted to be a man in the way I wanted to be. - -But I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. - -I don't think I ever really thought about what it meant to be a man. For most of my life, I felt like I was just a woman trapped in a man's body. My body felt like a woman's body, and I would just wear jeans and a t-shirt underneath my school uniform. But I didn't know if I was a woman trapped in a man's body or a man trapped in a woman's body. - -I started to learn more about sex when I was in college. I went to a sex-positive college where we talked about it a lot — and about sex in general. It was a huge part of my life. I started looking at porn and went off to college knowing that my body was female and my sexual identity was female, so that was really exciting. I actually felt like I could be a sex-positive feminist. - -But I didn't feel that way, and I didn't feel like I was a feminist. I was just an ignorant young girl who liked to watch porn and have sex. - -I didn't feel like I was a feminist. But I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. - -Despite feeling like I was a feminist, I wasn't exactly sure what it meant to be a feminist. I had read about feminism for my college classes, but I had never really gotten to understand it. I didn't know what the word meant, because I didn't know what it meant. - -But I was living in New York City when I had my first encounter with a transgender person. When I first met Rachel, I was struck by how trans* she looked. I had never really considered her trans* in my mind until that moment. I was completely struck by how she looked in a way I had never considered before. It was as if she was made up of different parts of my body, and she was a complete individual. - -It was when I first met Rachel that I learned what it meant to be a trans* person. I learned about hormones, surgeries, and coming out. I learned about surgeries, hormones, and coming out. I learned about different definitions of gender. - -I learned about different definitions of gender. - -I learned about what it meant to be a trans* person. - -I learned about -======================================== SAMPLE 333 ======================================== -Tickets to Golden State Warriors games at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum have gone on sale, and if you're a ticket holder for the first round of this year's playoffs, you're in luck. - -There were more than 224,000 tickets available for the first round of the playoffs, according to the Warriors' ticketing website. The Warriors' first-round win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, which ended in a five-game series, brought the total number of available tickets to more than 253,000. - -The 2017 NBA Finals, which will be held in Cleveland from June 2-7, will have a total of 1,600,000 tickets available for the first round. - -The Warriors, who have made a strong playoff push thanks to a strong defense, led all teams with a total of 1,827,000 tickets available. The Houston Rockets, who were eliminated from the playoffs in the Western Conference semifinals, had the second-most tickets at 1,829,000. - -The New York Knicks, who lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals, had the most tickets at 1,634,000. - -The Los Angeles Lakers, who lost to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals, had the least tickets -- only 773,000. The Washington Wizards, who lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, had the most at 1,547,000 tickets.<|endoftext|>It's been a rough few weeks for Micah Richards, the Orlando Magic's starting center, who was suspended for the first six games of the season for a failed drug test. - -Richards, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft, was suspended for the first six games of the season for a failed drug test. - -Richards, who signed with the Magic on Jan. 10, was suspended on July 27 after failing a drug test at the NBA combine. According to a statement given by the Magic on July 28, "Richards tested positive for a prohibited substance in his system… He has been suspended for the first six games of the season and is ineligible to play in any games for the Magic." - -Richards was tested in Chicago on July 27. - -The Magic selected Richards with the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft. On Jan. 10, he was acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers in a trade that sent Andrew Bynum to the Cavaliers and Andrew Nicholson to Orlando, along with the No. 16 pick in the draft. - -The Magic are 4-8 this season, and they're counting on Richards to help them become more competitive in the Eastern Conference. Orlando is tied for the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference — five games back of the Washington Wizards. - -Richards is expected to serve his suspension during the Magic's three-game road trip to the East Coast from Tuesday through Sunday. - -Richards' suspension will keep him out of Orlando's first three games.<|endoftext|>The Pirate Bay is shipping some new software to users, which is the biggest change in the site's 3-year history. According to the Pirate Bay team, the new software will make it easier for users to find and share copyright-infringing content. The new software is already available to anyone who has a subscription to The Pirate Bay. - -The Pirate Bay is one of the most popular websites in the world. - -The site was founded in 2003 by Swedish programmer Fredrik Neij, with the aim of providing an alternative to mainstream media. - -In 2009, the site moved to a new domain, which has since been taken down and taken down again. - -The Pirate Bay's new web address is http://www.thepiratebay.org, and it is currently being used by millions of people. - -The website is now one of the most popular sites on the planet, but it's not the only one. - -In fact, there are countless other file-sharing sites out there. - -In a blog post, The Pirate Bay tells us that the new version of its software is the biggest change the site has made in its 3-year history. - -"We are proud to announce that we are launching a new version of The Pirate Bay in which we have added a number of new features," the post reads. - -"The new release will make it easier for users to find illegal content, as well as for them to share content that they have found," the post goes on to add. - -The Pirate Bay adds that the new software has been tested by 3 million people in a short period of time. - -The new version is available for download via The Pirate Bay's website right now. The team says that the new software is available for download in English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, and Russian. - -"If you are a few minutes away from a computer, you can try the new software. All you need to do is to download the software and install it -======================================== SAMPLE 334 ======================================== - -The team is proud to announce that a new game is in development! - -We will be using Kickstarter to fund the project. - -The game itself will be free to play, but you will be able to buy some in-game items with real money. - -We have a lot of awesome rewards for you to choose from, including: - -Game concept art - -Game music - -Beta access - -Beta key for all future games - -Beta key for all future games Humble tier - -Humble tier Sticker tier - -Sticker tier T-shirt tier - -T-shirt tier Digital copy of game project - -Digital copy of game project T-shirt tier - -T-shirt tier Collector's edition - -Collector's edition Digital soundtrack - -Digital soundtrack Digital art book - -Digital art book Physical and digital art book - -Physical and digital art book Collectors edition - -Collectors edition Digital art book - -Digital art book Game jacket - -Game jacket Physical art book - -Physical art book Digital soundtrack - -Digital soundtrack Digital game guide - -Digital game guide Digital art book - -Digital art book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - 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-Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - -Digital comic book Digital comic book - - -======================================== SAMPLE 335 ======================================== -And as we have seen, the problem with this is that it is easy to overlook the poor analysis of how much a player's defensive contributions mean for their team. I have argued that the difference between which teams were better and worse defensively last year was not really the difference in the quality of their defensive contributions, but rather, it was the difference in their respective teams' defensive contributions. For teams like the Raptors, the Raptors' team defense was fairly similar to the Bucks' team defense, because the Raptors had a league-average defensive rating while the Bucks' team defense was slightly below average. This means that the difference between the Raptors' team defense and the Bucks' team defense really was just the difference in their defensive contributions. - -The Celtics were clearly worse than the Bucks. But they were right up there with the Raptors. The difference between the Celtics' team defense and the Raptors' team defense was the difference in the Bucks' team defense. The difference between the Celtics' team defense and the Bucks' team defense was due to the Bucks being much worse defensively than the Celtics. - -So, what about the Raptors? - -The Raptors were no better defensively than Milwaukee. They were not worse defensively than Boston. They were noticeably worse defensively than the Kings. They were worse defensively than the Pelicans. They were worse defensively than the Timberwolves. They were worse defensively than the Wolves. They were worse defensively than the Bucks. - -The Raptors' defensive contributions were down in all categories except the best one: 10th best in defensive rating. So why were they so bad defensively? - -Well, it's complicated. I believe that the key is that Toronto's defensive contributions were dominated by their defense in the final quarter. After that, the Raptors' defensive contributions were not very good at all. They were just average. - -That's a little odd, because the Raptors played in the second half of the season. They got better, but their defensive contributions weren't that great. - -Does the difference in the Raptors' offense and defense indicate that the Raptors were better defensively than the Bucks? Not really. The difference in Bucks' offense and defense is due to their defense. The difference in Raptors' offense and defense is due to their offense. - -In conclusion, I believe that the difference in Toronto's offense and defense is due to where they played. If we look at the top 10 teams in offensive and defensive rating, the Raptors are right up there, but they are not there in the top 10. - -The bottom 10 teams in offensive and defensive rating are where the Raptors should be. The Raptors, even when they were really bad defensively, were still better than most of the bottom 10.<|endoftext|>The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. - -The new model, which Google is calling the Google Home Mini, is a single-channel speaker with a Bluetooth connection. The sound is said to be "sharp and clear," and was designed to "make your life easier." - -The new speaker has a single button on top of the unit that controls the volume. It does not have volume control on its side, like the previous model. Instead, the Google Home Mini has a "buzzer" that chirps when the volume is at a certain level. - -The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. The new model is the same as the one that was released in June, which had a single-channel design (pitch control, volume control), a USB port, and three-band EQ. - -Google Home Mini Specs - -The device is 7 inches tall when closed, but is 7.9 inches long when open. It weighs just 23 grams, but it has a weight capacity of 100 grams. - -The Google Home Mini has two USB ports, one on its top and one on the bottom. A microSD card slot is located on the right side of the unit, and a microUSB power port is located on the bottom. On the front of the unit, you'll find a microphone and a power button. - -The Google Home Mini has a single monaural speaker inside the unit. It uses a Class II 3.5mm audio jack, and is powered by a 12V/1A charger. - -Google Home Mini vs Google Home - -The Google Home Mini also has a single button, rather than a separate volume control. - -Google Home Mini vs Google Home Pro - -The Google Home Mini has a single button, rather than a separate volume control. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 336 ======================================== -O'Malley's campaign is under fire for a campaign ad that implies that the nation's largest police union is somehow responsible for violent crime. - -The ad, which first aired in San Francisco this week, shows a man dressed in black with a scarf covering his face sitting in a police car. - -"I'm not afraid of the police," the man says, then explains to the camera that he was attacked by officers and his insurance company has dropped his coverage. - -The ad then shows a photo of a man in a suit and a tie, whose face is covered by a hoodie and sunglasses. - -"He's a cop, I'm not," the man says, adding that his insurance company refused to pay his medical bills. - -The narrator says, "There's no question that the hardworking men and women of the San Francisco Police Department are doing their jobs. … But in the last several years, these hardworking men and women have been targeted by the very people asking them to protect them. The San Francisco Police Officers Association is the most powerful police union in California." - -But the San Francisco Police Officers Association, a union of more than 200 members, says the ad is misleading. - -"At no time have the officers spoken or considered themselves to be under attack by law enforcement," said Lt. John Sawyer in a statement. "The officers of the SFPD are proud of their work in San Francisco." - -The union says the man in the video is not an SFPD officer and that the man who was featured in the ad is not a member of the SFPD. - -The video was shot in August 2013. The ad was first aired in the San Francisco neighborhood of the same name in November. - -The two-minute video has been viewed more than 3,000 times since it first aired. - -O'Malley's campaign was quick to respond to the ad. - -"Just as the Governor recognizes the link between crime and income inequality, he also thinks that the income inequality that exists in this country is a direct result of the income inequality that exists in this country," said spokesman Brian Coy. "Gov. O'Malley understands that the issues of racial and economic justice are directly related and that both of these issues are connected to the un-bridled militarization of local police forces that has plagued this country for decades." - -O'Malley has been under pressure from activists and politicians in recent weeks after the release of a string of police-involved shootings of unarmed black men. - -The officer who shot and killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore was found not guilty of murder in his death in April. In Ferguson, Mo., a white police officer fatally shot a black teenager, Michael Brown, after a brief struggle. - -In San Francisco, O'Malley has been under fire for a series of statements that have drawn criticism for their potential to incite racial tensions. - -Last month, O'Malley defended the city's plan to police the city's homeless, which critics have said disproportionately affects people of color. - -"This is a problem that is multi-factorial," O'Malley said. "It's not just the issues of the homeless; it's the issues of poverty, like lack of affordable housing, not having enough food, lack of healthcare, and a lack of good schools." - -O'Malley, who is black, has said he was "deeply troubled" by Gray's death and that his family is "in mourning." - -The Associated Press contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced a bill that would allow companies to keep their genomes from being used for marketing purposes, even if the data is sold to outside parties. - -Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and 46 other Democrats submitted a bill to Congress on Tuesday that would require companies that offer, sell or otherwise use genetic data to provide an opportunity for patients to request their data be kept private. - -Lieu said biotechnology companies sell genetic data and medical records to pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and others without patients being notified. - -"This legislation would force the companies to tell you, the patient, whether or not they're selling your genome to another company," Lieu said on a press call. - -The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. - -In addition to Lieu and the Democrats' bill, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California also submitted its own legislation late last year that would require companies to notify patients before they release genetic data to third parties. - -The ACLU's legislation is part of a broader push to ensure that consumers have a way to control their own personal data and ensure that their genetic information is protected. - -"We have to change the paradigm that the genetic information is so untouchable and so valuable that we can't use it for marketing or for any other reason, but the notion that it's so valuable that we can't share it with others, I think is a little biased -======================================== SAMPLE 337 ======================================== -Contact: - -Contact info@mike-mcleary.com - -Twitter: @mclearymike - -Mcleary is an independent film-maker based in New York. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where he studied writing, directing, and acting. He is also a graduate of the New York Actor's Workshop, where he was a member of the Dramatic Improv troupe. He is a graduate of the New York Film Academy, where he was a member of the New York City International Film Festival Jury, and he has had productions in various theaters in New York City. He is a graduate of the New York University School of Drama. Mcleary currently lives in New York City with his wife, three dogs, and cats.<|endoftext|>I recently began a new project: building a simple, low-cost, Bluetooth-enabled, low-power, open source camera that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. The camera was intended to be used in a variety of ways, including both simple and complex aerial photography, as well as remote monitoring. The project started off as an attempt to keep costs down, but after months of work, I was able to make the camera more affordable to a much wider audience. - -The camera is designed to be simple enough that a user can pick it up and start using it immediately. It operates on a single AA battery (for in-flight operation), and the power consumption of the camera is nearly negligible, around 0.2 mW. The camera can be easily removed from the base and cleaned. The camera is designed to be very small and could easily fit on a keychain, and I've even added an optional US$25 charger that attaches to the camera base. - -The camera does not have a built-in GPS receiver, but it's designed to use any inexpensive GPS receiver that is available on the market. - -The camera is powered by an On/Off switch on the camera and a single AA battery. The camera has an LED on the base that indicates the battery level. - -The camera is designed to be used with a variety of wireless gps receivers. The most popular gps receivers are the Turnigy G2R, Turnigy G3 and Turnigy G3S. - -The camera works by scanning for a GPS signal from a gps receiver and then sending the GPS coordinates to the gps receiver. The gps receiver receives the coordinates and sends them to the frame rate-limited, open source gpsd kernel. - -The camera is based on the free and open-source gpsd-kernel, which is available on Github. There are various problems with the gpsd-kernel that needed to be addressed in order to make the project more accessible to a wider audience. - -The main problems with gpsd-kernel that were addressed are: - -Bandwidth: Having a gpsd kernel that is limited to a 5GHz band causes it to be unusable for most mobile devices. It also causes problems for the gpsd-kernel when connecting to a hardware GPS receiver that is not on the same band. - -Low-power consumption: gpsd-kernel is designed to run on a single battery, but in order to use it in a wide variety of ways, it needs to run in the background on the battery's power. - -Open source: gpsd-kernel is developed and maintained by several volunteers. It is available under a free and open-source license. - -Camera: Before I started working on the project, I had considered a simple, cheap, open source, handheld camera. However, as I began to work on the project, I realized that the camera would need to be much more sophisticated than that. The camera has to be both simple and inexpensive, so that a user can pick it up and start using it immediately. A simple, cheap, open source camera would have some major problems, including an extremely poor resolution, low frame rate, and poor quality image. The camera also needs to be strong enough that it can withstand heavy use, including a strong wind. - -In the end, I chose to use the gpsd-kernel, which has a good set of features and is relatively simple to implement. The gpsd-kernel can send and receive GPS coordinates, and uses UDP to communicate with the gpsd kernel. - -The gpsd-kernel is built on top of the free and open-source gpsd-kernel, which is available on Github. There are various problems with the gpsd-kernel that needed to be addressed in order to make the project more accessible to a wider audience. - -The gpsd-kernel has a few problems, most notably that it does not have any support for the RTL-SDR, and it does not support RTTY. The gpsd-kernel currently supports the following RTL-SDR modes -======================================== SAMPLE 338 ======================================== -"You have to be careful with this stuff," he said. "If you do, you're going to get into trouble." - -A few months later, Mr. Trump's aides began to fill the deputy director's office with former campaign advisers. - -"I wasn't happy, and I didn't want to be around," Mr. Rogers said. But he left, and Mr. Trump was appointed national security adviser, and he filled other posts with former campaign aides. Mr. Rogers remained on the job. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Mr. Rogers said his superiors were "unhappy about the fact that I was leaving." They "wanted to keep me, but they wanted me to do this or that." - -The first Trump campaign adviser who sought a security clearance was Carter Page, who had been advising the Trump campaign on energy and international trade, and who was a frequent guest on Mr. Trump's favorite radio show, "The Howard Stern Show." - -Mr. Page was trying to develop a project in Kazakhstan, which he believed would be a new source of energy. His business partner was a Russian aluminum magnate, Oleg Deripaska, who had been accused by Western governments of being a front for the Kremlin. - -Photo Mr. Page in New York in January. Credit Albin Lohr-Jones for The New York Times - -The two men were traveling in the early months of the campaign, and Mr. Page was taking notes. "I was having a really good time in the campaign," Mr. Page said in an interview last week. "I had a lot of fun. I was enjoying it." - -But Mr. Page's work in Kazakhstan was coming under scrutiny from American intelligence officials, who suspected that Mr. Deripaska, his business partner, was involved in corruption and was funneling money from the United States to the Russian government. - -Mr. Page said he did not know about the suspicions against his business partner. - -"I never met with Oleg Deripaska," Mr. Page said. He said he had nothing to do with the aluminum business. "I'm not an aluminum magnate," he said. "I don't know what he does." - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Mr. Page said he had never heard of the "Bolton dossier" until the Times asked him about it. - -"The dossier was certainly circulated all over Washington," Mr. Page said. "I was not aware of any of it at the time." - -Mr. Page said he was "unaware" that he had been named as a former Soviet spy. "I have no idea whether I was, were or am a spy," he said. - -In March, Mr. Page was interviewed at the FBI's offices in New York by the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence agents. The agents said they needed to know more about a meeting that Mr. Page had with a Russian diplomat, Sergey Kislyak, during the summer of 2016. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Mr. Page said he had not met the diplomat, whom he did not identify, and dismissed his presence at the Trump campaign event in July as a casual encounter. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -"I'm not really sure what the big deal is," Mr. Page said in an interview. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -The F.B.I. agents asked him about his interactions with the Russian diplomat at the Republican National Convention and at a speech he made at a Moscow university. - -Mr. Page said he did not remember discussing the Trump campaign with Mr. Kislyak and had not spoken with him since the convention. - -"I think they were trying to get more information about Russia's election plans, and I gave them what I thought was a fairly detailed answer," he said. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Still, the F.B.I. agents were interested. After his interview, Mr. Page said, he was asked to fill out a questionnaire that would include his interactions with the Russian diplomat and the Trump campaign. He agreed to do so, he said, because he was told that the information would be kept confidential. - -"My understanding is that this information was not to be shared with the Trump campaign and that if I did I would be violating federal law," Mr. Page said. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -The F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -On April 11, 2016, the day of the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Page flew to Moscow from New York. He had been invited to speak at an academic conference sponsored by the Moscow-based New Economic School, a private network of research universities that has been accused by American intelligence officials of having ties to the Russian government. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 339 ======================================== -Sporting Kansas City's fall from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. - -The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. - -Sporting Kansas City's fallen from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. - -The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. - -The final straw was Sporting Kansas City's loss to the Houston Dynamo on Oct. 20. A 1-0 loss at BBVA Compass Stadium, where the team had been unbeaten since early March, was the final straw for the club as it fell out of the top three in the Western Conference standings. - -Sporting Kansas City's fall from grace has been a long time coming. Like most other MLS clubs, the Claret-and-Cobalt went through a rough patch at the beginning of the 2015 season. - -The team's defense was porous, its attacking attack was inefficient and its two-goal lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps dwindled to one goal in the second half of the season. - -The last game of the season — a 2-1 loss to the LA Galaxy on Oct. 27 — was a microcosm of the season as a whole. A dominant performance by the Galaxy in the first half gave way to a sloppy, error-riddled performance with a number of defensive lapses in the second half. - -"What we have to be better at is getting it right in the final third of the field," said Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes after the loss to LA. "We have to improve in that area of the field. It's a large improvement in the final third." - -The club's current struggles in central defense are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. - -Sporting Kansas City allowed 16 goals from set pieces in 2015, which was the second-most in MLS. The club's previous high for set piece goals allowed in a season was 13 allowed in 2013. - -The problem for Sporting Kansas City is that it is one of the most complete teams in the league with its defense. The club has a few weak links on the back line, but there is a great deal more quality than the technical prowess of its defenders. - -"The pieces we have don't match what we have on our team," Vermes said. "I think that's what we're trying to get better at." - -The club's problems from set pieces are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. - -The club has a few weak links on the back line, but there is a great deal more quality than the technical prowess of its defenders. - -The club was the most improved team in MLS at generating set pieces in 2015. The biggest reason for that improvement was the addition of Graham Zusi. Since the club acquired the veteran midfielder, the club has tied for second in the league in set piece goals allowed in 2015 with eight. - -Zusi's ability to generate set pieces has been one of the keys to Sporting Kansas City's success. - -The team has a lot of depth on the back line, but it would be wise not to rely on the club's back line to generate set pieces. - -The club's current struggles from set pieces are a direct result of the team's inability to defend set pieces. - -The club's current woes aren't going to go away anytime soon, and it is no secret that the club is looking to beef up its defense in the offseason. - -The club has some key players who have shown they are capable of covering for each other, but the team lacks an elite defender to help cover for the shortcomings of the team's back line. - -Sporting Kansas City has one of the most talented, technically-gifted and versatile defenders in the league in Matt Besler. However, Besler has also shown that he has some weaknesses. - -Besler has the talent to be an elite player in the league. In 2014, the Sporting KC defender led the league in minutes per game with 1,475. His work rate and work rate of 90.7 percent were the best of any defender in MLS in 2014. - -The only problem is that Besler has shown that he struggles at times defending set pieces. - -During the last two games of the regular season, Besler was guilty of allowing the ball to end up at his feet too often. - -During a 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo on Oct. 27 -======================================== SAMPLE 340 ======================================== -But there are some who are more than willing to pay that price. - -Ages ago, this area of western-central Alberta began to boom with the mining and oil and gas industries, but the boom is over. - -The number of workers in the region has begun to dwindle while the number of employers has increased, leaving those who do exist in a tough economic situation. - -Many employers are asking their employees to work in hotels or service businesses and say it's the way they can prevent labour shortages. - -CBC's Margaret Evans-Brown spoke with two companies in the area that are offering seven-day work weeks. - -'You can't live on seven days' - -On the other side of town, Cindy Juric was laying steel in a warehouse on a recent Saturday. - -"It's a lot of work, you can't live on seven days," she says during an interview at the facility. - -The 44-year-old Juric has worked for more than a decade. She's working for Kessel Steel in Fort McMurray, the only company in the area that still relies on full-time employees. - -"We have a lot of people that are still working, but we're down to about two-thirds of our workforce," says Juric. "Just not enough people. It's a very difficult time." - -Kessel Steel has been looking to hire full-time employees for the past year. The company has a waiting list of more than 50 people, and they're keeping their doors open to anyone who wants to work. - -'It's sad, but it's reality' - -Kessel Steel may be the only company in the area that still relies on full-time employees. The company is seeking full-time employees for the long term. (CBC) - -Juric says as far as she's concerned, the extra money she makes is just time off and a better work life balance. - -"It's very difficult for the local economy, so that's why we have to be open to the possibility of having some people work," she says. - -"I don't know that we're going to be able to keep everyone." - -It's a far cry from the boom years. - -The former mill town of Fort McMurray has become a major tourist destination and has seen a surge in oil production, but many of the jobs have shifted to other parts of the province. - -That's also one of the reasons Juric says the promise of a seven-day work week isn't necessarily appealing. - -"It's sad, but it's reality," she says. "There's not enough people here to support the people that would like to work." - -The company is offering a full-time job, but it's called a part-time position. - -Juric says if the company's future is dependent on part-time employees, it's not a good situation. - -'We're dying out' - -Priscilla Hinton is one of the few remaining employees in Fort McMurray. She's the president of the Fort McMurray Workers' Association. The workers union has been trying to negotiate a shorter work week, but so far have been unsuccessful. - -"We're dying out," she says. "We're trying to use our economic advantage. We're going to have to work harder and harder and harder." - -She says the local economy is struggling to keep up with the huge population growth and the increase in oil and gas jobs. - -"Right now, we're basically in a recession," she says. "We're the only thing that's keeping it going." - -"If this wasn't for the oil and gas industry, we wouldn't be here." - -Hinton says the union is hoping a seven-day work week will be introduced into the province's labour code. - -It's a move that has been suggested in some other parts of the world, but it still needs to be worked out in the province.<|endoftext|>I've been a fan of the original "Guardians of the Galaxy" for quite some time now, and "Guardians of the Galaxy" Vol. 2 is by far my favorite film in the franchise. The music is amazing, the story is awesome, the action is great, and the story is so nicely paced and triggered my imagination in all the right ways. Vol. 2 also introduces the character of Star Lord (Chris Pratt), a character that is great, and in my limited experience with Pratt, he's been great. That being said, I don't think I'd want to see him in the same movie as Adam Warlock (Michael Rooker), who is basically perfect in every way. - -As much as I enjoy the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I do have a few minor gripes. The biggest one is the lack of sound effects. The music is great, and the -======================================== SAMPLE 341 ======================================== -As a team of journalists, we have been on the ground in Gaza for over a year now and have been able to witness the daily and ongoing human tragedy of Gaza's population. - -Since the start of the hostilities in July this year, over 2,100 Palestinians have been killed and over 11,000 injured, and over 80% of those killed have been civilians. - -The inhumanity of the bombings of Gaza City, the latest on Wednesday, has caused widespread public outrage and deep concern among both Israelis and Palestinians. - -We have seen the images of dead and injured children and other civilians, whose deaths are not the first or last to be caused by this indiscriminate Israeli assault. - -We have also seen the images of the destruction caused by the Israeli military, which includes the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, water pipes and electricity plants. - -In the midst of this devastation, we have also witnessed the efforts of the international community, and humanitarian agencies, to provide aid and help to the people of Gaza. - -On Thursday, 22 July, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Robert Piper, visited Gaza to assess the situation. - -After his visit and after discussions with Palestinian officials and community leaders, Piper made the following statement: "I have visited Gaza several times over the last six months. The situation in Gaza is indeed heartbreaking. I hope that the international community will continue to work with the Palestinian authorities to facilitate and facilitate humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza. The international community must continue to support the Palestinian people and to uphold its commitment to the principles of humanitarian law. The Palestinian people are suffering and need the support of the international community. I hope the international community will continue to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and will stand with them in their fight against the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza." - -On Monday, 22 July, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution in the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the situation in Gaza, which condemned the Israeli military actions and called on the parties to respect the human rights of civilians and civilian infrastructure and to ensure the safety of all civilians. - -The text of the UN resolution was passed by consensus, with seven countries voting in favour, as well as several countries abstaining. - -We have also seen the efforts of the UN and other international organisations to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. - -The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has provided food and other essential items for over two million Gazans. - -UNRWA has also provided education and healthcare to over 190,000 Gazans. In December 2014, UNRWA established a $500,000 fund to support the work of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide emergency assistance to the people of Gaza. - -On 21 July, UNRWA launched a new, dedicated website to provide information on education in the Gaza Strip and to update the public on the needs of UNRWA's staff. - -In March this year, the UN Security Council passed a resolution by consensus to support the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The resolution demanded that the Israeli authorities: fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law; allow the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza; and allow the effective use of the ceasefire, and ensure the safety and security of all civilians. - -On 22 July, the UN Security Council adopted, by consensus, Resolution 1, which called on the Israeli authorities to allow the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to ensure the safety and security of all civilians. - -The resolution was adopted in a vote of 15 in favour, 7 against, and 9 abstentions. - -The Security Council had been expected to adopt a similar resolution in April, but the resolution was postponed to 22 July. - -The Security Council will meet again on 26 July to consider the resolution, and on 29 July, the Council will meet again to adopt a final resolution on the situation in Gaza. - -This resolution, the result of intense negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, is a clear message to Israel that it has to stop the attacks on Gaza and to stop its blockade of Gaza. The resolution is also an important step towards the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. - -The fact that the Israeli government has not yet accepted the Palestinian position on the blockade and the security concerns raised by the UN is no excuse for the Israeli government to continue with its attacks on Gaza. - -In addition to condemning the Israeli attacks, the text of the UN resolution calls on the international community to "monitor the implementation of measures taken by the parties to end the hostilities immediately and to facilitate the free flow of essential assistance to the civilian population affected by the hostilities". - -It also calls on the parties to "take all necessary measures to protect civilians from the effects of hostilities, and to respect the inviolability of civilian property, including through the provision of humanitarian -======================================== SAMPLE 342 ======================================== -New York City FC announced today the club's full 2017 preseason schedule. The club will begin its preseason training schedule on Saturday, March 2 at the United States Soccer National Training Center in Carson, California. - -The club will train in Carson through Tuesday, March 5 before completing preseason training at New York City FC's training facility in Wolfsburg, Germany, from March 7-9. - -The club will travel to Jacksonville, Florida, for the first-ever International Champions Cup match against fellow MLS expansion club Atlanta United FC on Tuesday, March 12. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. ET. - -New York City FC will then face the Montreal Impact on Saturday, March 16 at Stade Saputo. The match marks the first time the club will face a club from the CONCACAF Champions League. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. - -The club will return to Jacksonville on Sunday, March 17 for preseason training at the University of North Florida's Sports Pavilion. The team will hold a pregame tailgate party from 2-4 p.m. held at the stadium. - -Following their preseason training, NYCFC will return home for a two-match preseason tournament, the 2017 U.S. Open Cup. The club will host Charleston Battery on Tuesday, May 25 at Yankee Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. - -The club will return to the United States for preseason training on Wednesday, May 27 at StubHub Center. The club will train in Carson through Monday, May 30 before returning to Wolfsburg for preseason training on Tuesday, June 1. - -New York City FC will host USL side Orlando City SC on Saturday, June 3 at Yankee Stadium. The match marks the first time the two clubs will meet in a competitive match. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET. - -The club will then return to the United States to begin the 2017 MLS regular season on Sunday, June 12 against the San Jose Earthquakes at Yankee Stadium. - -2017 NYCFC preseason schedule - -Date Opponent Time (ET) Wednesday, March 2 vs. United States Soccer National Training Center 7 p.m. Saturday, March 16 vs. Montreal Impact 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12 vs. Chicago Fire 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 13 vs. Atlanta United FC 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 16 vs. Orlando City SC 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 17 vs. Montreal Impact 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20 vs. Charleston Battery 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 22 vs. Toronto FC 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23 vs. New York Red Bulls 7:30 p.m. - -2017 NYCFC preseason schedule letter from NYCFC - -The 2017 MLS season kicks off on March 6 when the Portland Timbers visit Yankee Stadium for the first of three meetings between the two teams. The Timbers will also visit Yankee Stadium in 2017 for the second of three regular-season meetings with the defending Eastern Conference champions. - -For all of the latest NYCFC news and updates, visit NYCFC.com/news.<|endoftext|>Image copyright EPA Image caption The French foreign ministry said the missile was launched from the Caspian Sea to be fired at a target in Syria - -France has confirmed it fired a missile from a warship towards Syria, in a response to a suspected chemical attack. - -The missile was launched from the French warship, the Charles de Gaulle, after it detected what it said was a Syrian missile launch. - -A French official said the missile had flown a "safe distance" before hitting its target in Syria. - -The attack, which was the first time France had used military force in Syria, was condemned in the UK and in Russia. - -The Syrian foreign ministry said the French missile had hit an air base in the province of Homs, and the French defence ministry later confirmed the missile had been launched from the Charles de Gaulle. - -French President Francois Hollande said earlier he would ask parliament to authorise military action against Syria, saying the country had crossed "a red line". - -The president said the aim was to "stop the movement of arms and ammunition to the extremists and terrorists in Syria" and to "prevent massacres". - -Analysis: John Sudworth, BBC defence correspondent - -Image copyright AFP Image caption The BBC's James Reynolds reports from the scene of the missile launch - -The French action against Syria is a direct response to a suspected chemical weapon attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people on 4 April. - -It is a clear signal that the US may now do what France did a year ago - launch military strikes against the Assad regime, which it has now confirmed was responsible for the attack. - -After a year of conflict in Syria, the US and France are not alone in their determination to strike. - -Japan has already ruled out any -======================================== SAMPLE 343 ======================================== -We've just gotten some new information on what we can expect from Microsoft's next-gen console, codenamed Project Scorpio. - -The system is expected to be out in the first half of 2018 and will come with 4K resolution (2,560 x 1,440) and more powerful graphics. - -The document comes from Digital Foundry, whose source then goes on to reveal some interesting details about the system's specs. For starters, the Xbox One S (which is currently on sale) will be replaced by the Scorpio system, which won't get a price cut, but will get a more powerful CPU and a beefier GPU. - -According to the information, the Scorpio will sport eight CPU cores, 16 GPU cores, and a 4K resolution, with higher frame rates when it comes to VR. Along with the aforementioned specs, the system will support HDR 10 and though it isn't clear whether it will support 4K resolution, it will be more than capable of showing off the benefits of the technology. - -Now, we don't quite believe that the Scorpio is a PlayStation 4. On the one hand, the Scorpio is coming from a console that is powered by a custom AMD chip, which works with the console's APU (Asynchronous Processor Unit) to process and display graphics. On the other hand, the Xbox One S is powered by an Intel processor (the A10-7800K) which supports a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface with a maximum of 8GB of RAM. - -That said, if the Scorpio does come with a similar spec as the Xbox One S, it could be a very good system for gamers, especially if it also comes with some sort of VR support. - -For those who are interested in the system, the next-gen console will be available for $399, though there will be a $100 premium for a 1TB console, but we're not sure if that's all that significant. - -If you want to read the full report, you can do so right here. - -See Now: 30 Gadgets And Tech Gifts For Father's Day 2018 That Dad Will Think Are Rad - -ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.<|endoftext|>JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister declared victory over Hamas in the nation's general election Monday night, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared victory for his movement and its armed wing in a vote billed as a referendum on the Palestinian cause. - -Election results showed Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party had won 63 of the 120 seats in parliament, pushing it to a comfortable majority in the Knesset, or parliament. He will be sworn in Tuesday. - -"The people of Israel have chosen a new government that will change the status quo," Netanyahu said in a triumphal victory speech. "The choice they made is one of hope, of peace, and it is one that I have decided to commit myself to." - -He thanked the millions of Israelis who voted, saying they "have shown that they choose peace and security, and I will work to develop these values in the state of Israel." - -With the Yesh Atid party and a handful of other parties all claiming to have won seats, Abbas' Fatah movement was poised to claim a major victory, and Palestinians also said they would be voting in one of the most important elections in the history of the young nation. - -The results were considered in doubt were it not for a surprise agreement between Hamas and Gaza's rulers to agree to a ceasefire, which came into effect shortly before polls closed Sunday. Hamas hailed the agreement as a victory for the people of Gaza and for the Palestinian cause. - -The agreement, brokered by Egypt, called for a 72-hour ceasefire from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday. The Israelis were hoping to use the ceasefire to hit Hamas military targets, as well as the smuggling tunnels that have proliferated in recent months between Gaza and Israel. - -The Israeli military said that at least 30 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza were intercepted by its Iron Dome defense system, as well as a rocket fired from Gaza at a kibbutz in Israel. Two rockets were intercepted over the country, and there were no casualties. - -Palestinian negotiators said the Gaza ceasefire would last eight hours, with both sides to have access to the other side's territory. The sides have yet to sign the agreement, but Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group had "absolutely no problem" with the deal. - -It was the first time Israel and Hamas had agreed to a truce in the conflict since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. - -Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group had "absolutely no problem" with the ceasefire. - -Palestinian factions have until Tuesday to decide whether to honor the truce. - -Hamas had said it would abide by the agreement and vote. -======================================== SAMPLE 344 ======================================== -Living and working in a city, as I do, often is like coming home for a week-long holiday. I always hope that the city will remain as vibrant and interesting as it was during the week I was away. But that's often not the case. - -"You can't always stay on the same level of activity," said an acquaintance who lives in a city. He spoke on the condition that I not use his name. - -"Some of the best things in a city are its people, but some of the worst things in a city are its people. So you know what I'm talking about," he said. - -A couple of years ago when I was working in a city, the conversation always turned to the idea of what's happening with the city the next day. If the city is busy, then the next day it will be still busy. If the city is quiet, then the next day it will be quiet. - -Might I suggest a more positive way to think about the city? What's happening in the city today? What's happening to you, and what's happening to the people around you? A city, it turns out, is an ecosystem: a complex web of people, activities, and ideas. - -This is why cities are so powerful. They are not just places, as we were taught. They are a number of things at once. It's a way of thinking about cities that has been gaining favor in recent years. - -In his book, The Geography of Cities, the economist Samuel Bowles discusses the idea that cities are as much "ecosystems as they are places." This is the idea that cities are made up of people interacting with their environment. This is what Bowles means by "ecosystems." - -Bowles points out that ecosystems do not just exist within the confines of a place; they exist across a broad range of scales, from the species and genus level to the species level and even across species and genera. - -Bowles also argues that ecosystems serve as memory sites for a species, allowing them to remember their geographic location and changing environments. - -The same idea can be applied to cities. Municipalities are made up of people interacting with each other, and there are a number of things that happen within them. A city is made up of people living in it, and there are plenty of things that happen within a city that are not limited to how it is structured. - -So, what will happen to the city when you leave? What will happen when you move out? Will you be able to keep up with everything going on? Will it be a new experience? - -Well, I'll give a couple of suggestions to help you out. - -First, remember the city you're leaving. In the first week of your absence from the city, it may feel like the city is changing. You may find yourself awestruck by the towering skyscrapers that line the streets. You may find yourself wondering if you've left the city. - -Second, keep up with what's happening. If you're not keeping up, you do not belong. It's time to start. - -Third, keep your eyes open. Look out for people you might have missed. Go to social events, concerts, and other events in the city you're leaving. Look for people in their favorite activities. - -Fourth, extend a hand when they want to talk. They may have never met you before, but the city is their home. It's where they raise their kids, where they live, where they go to school, where they go to work, where they raise their pets. - -Fifth, try to be positive. The city is full of surprises, and it's full of people who are doing things that are new or seem wonderful. If you make the effort to find out more, you may discover that the people you thought you knew are not the people you thought you knew. - -Finally, remember the city you're coming back to. Although it may seem like a new city, the city you're returning to has the same things that make it great. It's a place where you can find a job and a home, where you can go to school and learn, where the kids have a place to play, where you can find a community to help you get through your transition. - -You may not like everything about the city you're returning to, but it's a place that will always be with you, and its best days are yet to come. - -This article is part of The Globe and Mail's "Behind the Headline" series, which explores how cities are reinventing themselves through innovation, design and technology.<|endoftext|>Image copyright AFP Image caption The battle over the stadium is the latest of a string of high-profile clashes over the future of the stadium - -A court in Cairo has refused to approve a plan to build a new stadium for the Egyptian national football team. - -======================================== SAMPLE 345 ======================================== -You use your phone to call an Uber home and the car comes; you sit in the back seat and the order is made. Your Uber ride is over and you're back home. - -This is the future of Uber's controversial ride-hailing service, and it's coming soon to a city near you. - -A new partnership between the ride-hailing company and Microsoft is bringing the ride-hailing service to the Xbox One. The service, called UberX, will be available in the United States starting July 5, according to the Seattle Times. - -Uber has been testing the Xbox One's Kinect camera for several months now, and it's bringing the feature to the ride-hailing service as part of a wider push to make its service available on as many platforms as possible. - -The company does most of its business on mobile devices, and it's eager to bring its service to as many platforms as possible. The Xbox One is expected to be a significant growth driver for Uber's business, as many people upgrade to new and cheaper phones every year. - -Uber has been a part of Microsoft's mobile efforts for years, and it's signed up more than 100,000 developers to build apps for the platform. The company is also working on integrating Cortana voice commands, which can be used to book rides and request the company's Uber cars. - -The Xbox One partnership is just the latest in a series of deals involving Microsoft's mobile efforts. The company is also working on a number of other services, including a Windows 10 mobile operating system, and it's developing several new apps for Windows 10. - -Both Uber and Microsoft are playing a role in rolling out the new ride-hailing service, but they're not the only ones. The company is also partnering with Leap Transit, a Seattle-based company that operates a fleet of electric shuttles. - -This is not the first time Microsoft has worked with Uber — the company teamed up with Uber to get the service to the Xbox One. - -The Xbox One and the Xbox 360 have been gaining ground in recent years, and the company is making big bets on the future of gaming. With Microsoft's new Xbox One console and a new Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset, the company is taking on Apple and Google in the gaming industry.<|endoftext|>Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF - -It's a common technique seen in many games, but it has a slight problem. If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. - -In this video (see the above video for the full GIF), Kieren Stoneman uses a technique called "mutation multipliers" to give his clones a drastically increased defense. It's pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect, but there is a reason why this is a very common technique. - -This technique was first discovered by a guy named Scott Mester, and I personally first saw it in a game called Infestation: Survivor Stories. - -Advertisement - -That game used a technique called "mutation multipliers" to give its characters increased defense. It's a common technique seen in many games, but it has a slight problem. If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. - -In this GIF, you can see how the clones of the protagonist transform into a whole mess of dicks. - -Advertisement - -Mutation multipliers is a technique that allows you to give clones of a character a much much higher defense. It's a very quick and effective way to avoid having a lot of clones, but it does have one problem: - -If you have multiple characters that create clones of themselves, you end up with a lot of clones. - -Here's an example of how I would use this technique. - -Advertisement - -Here's a video that shows how it works: - -Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF - -In this video, we have two clones of myself (the red circles). They each have a 100 defense, and we don't want them to be doubled. - -Advertisement - -I have a clone of myself (the green circles) that has a defense of 100. I also have a clone of myself (the blue circles) that has a defense of 110. - -Now, we want to increase the defense of the clones of myself so that they are all 120. The technique I'm using is mutation multipliers. - -The technique was discovered by Scott Mester, and it's very easy to use. In the video, he uses it to double the defense of his clones. - -Advertisement - -The results are rather incredible: - -See how the clones have doubled their defense? It's pretty amazing. - -Advertisement - -This technique is also used in one of the most popular games in the world, Overwatch. - -The Overwatch -======================================== SAMPLE 346 ======================================== -I had a lot of fun working on this post, and really enjoyed the process of putting it together. It was very, very fun to see the eyes light up when I brought up my favorite topic, fan theories. I've got plenty of my own theories, but I thought it would be interesting to see what others thought. - -This post is not sponsored, and all opinions are my own. - -What is a fan theory? - -Fan theories are beliefs and ideas that are put forth as a possible explanation for something that has not been proven anywhere. Theories are usually based on what we know about the universe, or what we think is true. They are usually very specific, and limited in scope. - -Examples of fan theories include: - -The Loch Ness Monster is real. - -The Easter Bunny is real. - -The real moon landing actually happened. - -The government is hiding something. - -The aliens are invading earth. - -The President is a robot. - -The time machine is real. - -The government is hiding something. - -Santa is real. - -The Toy Story movies are really just a metaphor for a revolution. - -One of the main reasons that fan theories are so popular is because it gives a sense of 'belief' in the material we are given. There is a sense of excitement in the idea that something we love and believe in might not be true. It's like being in a tightly controlled laboratory, and you finally get to test out your theories. - -Of course, as with any theory, there are many things that can be wrong with a fan theory, and it's easy to make a huge mistake. - -However, fan theories are usually pretty accurate with regard to the material that is given, so I thought it might be fun to discuss a few of the more popular ones, as well as some of my own theories. - -What are some of the most popular fan theories? - -There are a number of theories that have been around for a while. Some of them are old, like the Loch Ness Monster, and some of them are even older than that. So what are some of the most popular ones? Let's take a look. - -The Theory That Aliens Are Coming To Earth - -This is a popular theory, and it has been around a long time. Many people believe that aliens are coming to earth, and that they were here all along. The first place many people think of when discussing this theory is the 'Seen it on YouTube' videos. - -Theories of this type are pretty popular, and they are often very specific. One of the most common theories is that aliens are trying to invade earth. They don't necessarily want to mess with us, but they do want to get our technology, and possibly crash land on our planet. The worst thing that can happen to us would be if they just drop on our planet, and kill us all. - -Theories of this type include: - -The aliens are trying to invade earth. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they aren't successful. - -The aliens are planning to invade earth, but find that it is a lot harder than they thought. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are too successful. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are successful. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth, but they are defeated, and the aliens are taken back to their home planet. - -The aliens are trying to invade earth -======================================== SAMPLE 347 ======================================== -The first time I watched this film, I was a kid. I was only about 8 or 9 years old, and I really was too young to understand the historical significance of the film. I still remember it vividly, but I don't think I really understood what it was really about at the time. This past weekend, I watched the film again, and it didn't take me very long to recognize that this film is incredibly important, and one of the most important films of all time. - -Now, I don't know what my opinion is on this film, so perhaps I should start by saying that I don't know much about it. I have heard the director's name referred to as "the great Stanley Kubrick" many times, and I know that he has received some sort of Academy Award nomination in some capacity for this film. But I am not that far into the film, and I don't know much about the context that it was shot in, or the context that Kubrick was in, or the context that he worked in. - -In fact, I have never even seen the film. I know it is a Kubrick film, but I don't know much about it. I know that it is filmed in black and white, and that it is shot in London, and that it was shot in England. I know that they were filmed in many locations, but this is the first time that I have seen the film. - -I also know that it is a one-take, one-shot film, and that there are many effects in the film that are not in the final cut of the film. I know that the film is a very long film, and that the film begins with this amazing tracking shot of two people walking in opposite directions. I know that the film is famous for ending with a mother and son standing next to a lake. I know that the film is famous for beginning with a shot of a man's face being cut off, and for ending with a shot of a man's face being cut off. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried out to his death, and for the scene where the man who is killed by the man who is shot in the head is being carried out to his death. I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the person who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. - -I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. - -I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away, and for the scene where a man is shot in the head is being carried away. - -I know that the film is famous for the scene where a man is shot in the head in a stairwell, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs, and for the scene where the man who is shot in the head is walking up and down the stairs. I know that the film is famous for the scene where -======================================== SAMPLE 348 ======================================== -The United States has shouldered a great deal of the burden of maintaining the international order that enabled the postwar world to emerge from the ashes of the Second World War. The BRICS nations have the potential to repair and repair that order, but only if they learn to live within their own political and social systems. If they do not, they will not be able to afford the kind of international security, economic growth and development, and peace that were so important to the United States. - -This isn't an opinion, but just an observation. - -The United States and the rest of the West owe a great deal to the legacy of the Second World War, and therefore the United States is uniquely positioned to help them overcome the challenges they face in the twenty-first century. The United States is the only country that has national security concerns that extend beyond its immediate neighborhood. This is a substantial advantage for the United States and can be used to leverage its natural economic, political, and military advantages. - -The United States has a unique opportunity. Its economy, its military strength, and its global influence are more than adequate to achieve its national security goals. It has an advantage in that it has not suffered from the recurring waves of instability and chaos that have plagued the region for years. It has many advantages in that it has a healthy and stable political system, a relatively healthy and stable economy, and a healthy and stable alliance system. It also has many advantages in that it can leverage its economic, political, and military advantages to help the BRICS nations develop their own political and economic systems. - -The question is, how do we use this advantage to get the BRICS nations out of their current rut? - -The answer is to leverage the presence of the United States to help them develop an international system that is based on the rule of law, economic growth, and civic engagement. This system should be based on the rule of law because it is an essential component of civil society and the rule of law is not based on coercion. It is based on the right to privacy, the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly, the right to travel, the right to free decision-making, and so on. - -The BRICS nations should be encouraged to pursue their own national interests and the interests of their citizens. They should be encouraged to create their own institutions that are responsive to their own needs and their own political and economic systems. But they should also be encouraged to cooperate with the United States in safeguarding the rule of law, building economic growth, building a stronger and more democratic political system, and promoting civic engagement. - -The United States and the BRICS nations can leverage their collective power to make peaceful and sustainable changes in the international system and to help the BRICS nations develop a unique and beneficial international order. - -The United States has the opportunity to do this, and it will only be given to them because of their unique historical position.<|endoftext|>The National Rifle Association has once again been unabashed in its support of gun rights and its opposition to restrictions on the right to bear arms. But as the organization releases a new video, urging voters to support a constitutional amendment that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons in public, one group is making sure the NRA doesn't get away with misleading the public. - -"The NRA released a video today that is misleading and blatantly false," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, in a statement to The Huffington Post. "It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment, and everything to do with their reluctance to accept that common-sense gun laws are a reality, and that we must work together to make them a reality." - -In its new ad, titled "Stop the Gun Grab," the NRA makes several claims. The first says that "80 percent of Americans say they want more guns in their homes." That's not true. According to a Gallup poll from last year, the majority of respondents (53 percent) said they didn't want more guns in their homes, while just 30 percent said they wanted more guns. - -Nonetheless, the NRA is not backing down from its claim, and has promoted it in two online billboards. - -The second claim in the video is that "everytown for gun safety says you shouldn't need a permit to carry a concealed weapon." The video doesn't tell the truth about that claim. In fact, the "everytown" name refers to the gun control group that does not oppose the NRA's position on guns. - -The problem with the NRA's claim is that it's based on the "everytown" group's March 2012 report on concealed-carry permits. The NRA and all its media outlets picked up the report's claim that "over 90 percent of states" still require applicants to get a permit, and the NRA's video, which is made up of quotes from "everytown" and NRA staff, repeats that bogus claim. - -"This video is full of -======================================== SAMPLE 349 ======================================== -A woman who was shot dead by police in San Francisco's Bayview district was not armed, according to a police spokesperson. - -The shooting occurred at 9:33 p.m. Sunday, when officers were called to the area of Embarcadero Street and Whipple Street after responding to a report of a woman with a gun. - -The unnamed woman died at the scene. - -The police spokesperson told NBC Bay Area that the police officer who shot the woman "was not aware she was armed." - -The woman, who was in her mid-20s, had a valid California concealed weapons permit, according to police. - -The woman had a history of mental illness, was "unstable" and had been "involved in a domestic violence incident," according to police. - -Her partner was not injured. - -The San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Bureau is investigating the incident.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Online Quest Project. - -The page is being both written and checked. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. - -Detail Quick Summary: not written - -Walkthrough: not written - -Quest Stages: not written - -This article could benefit from an image. - -See Help:Images for information on how to upload images. Please remove this template from the page when finished. - - -Rituals of Ingenuity is a quest in Skyrim. It is the first of the three new quests added with the Hearthfire add-on. - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Talk to Eola and find out what you need to do. Head to the Temple of Kynareth in Riften to begin the ritual. - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Finding the Ritual [ edit ] - -The Ritual is located in the ancient temple of Kynareth on Riften. To begin the ritual, you must speak with Eola, who is standing outside the temple. She will explain that you must find a gem, a staff, and a ring from inside the temple. If you do not have any of these items, you can purchase them from her for 1,000 gold each. - -The Gem [ edit ] - -Eola will point you to a side room in the temple where you can find the Gem. The Gem can be found on the altar on the northern wall of the room. She will point you towards the gem, and will then ask you to use the magic of the temple to find it. - -Once the Gem is located, Eola will ask you to use the Gem to open an ancient pillar. Asking the priestess to use a staff will give you the Staff of Kynareth. If you ask to use a ring, the priestess will point you to the Ancient Gem. - -She will then show you the Ritual's start, and will make the following comments: - -"To begin the ritual, you must first find the staff, ring, and gem." - -"Once you have found the staff, ring, and gem, you must activate it by placing it on the Ancient Pillar." - -"Once you activate the Ancient Pillar, the ritual will begin." - -"You can watch the ritual as it unfolds, or attempt to stop it from happening." - -"If you can see the ritual, you can interrupt it." - -"You can turn the ritual off at any time." - -"You can restore the temple to its former glory by defeating the priestess." - -"Once you've defeated the priestess, you can proceed to the next step." - -After the Ritual [ edit ] - -Once you've completed the ritual, you will be transported to the realm of the gods. If you are a worshipper of the gods, you will be rewarded with the power of the sun. If you are not a worshipper of the gods, you will be rewarded with the power of the moon. - -Journal Entries [ edit ] - -Ritual of Ingenuity (TG07) Stage Finishes Quest Journal Entry 10 Eola, the priestess of Kynareth, has asked me to find a staff, ring, and gem. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. I need to find the staff, ring, and gem in the Temple of Kynareth in Riften. 50 Eola, the priestess of Kynareth, has asked me to find a staff, -======================================== SAMPLE 350 ======================================== -The Zebrawood Company of America is proud to present the American Flag Cotton Shirts. The Zebrawood Company of America was founded in 1925 by the late Christian Zebrawood. The company produces a large number of products for clothing and home decor that are made in the USA. Zebrawood produces a variety of products, including our American Flag Cotton Shirts which are made in the USA. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of colors and textures. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are also available in a variety of sizes and styles. - -The American Flag Cotton Shirts come in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. Each of the American Flag Cotton Shirts are made using a different type of cotton that will look great on any surface. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of sizes and styles. The American Flag Cotton Shirts are available in a variety of different colors and designs. Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to choose from. 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Zebrawood manufactures a large variety of fabrics and colors to -======================================== SAMPLE 351 ======================================== -(CNN) President Donald Trump has reportedly requested that former FBI Director James Comey testify publicly in front of Congress regarding his conversations with the President. - -CNN reported that Trump has asked Comey to come before the congressional intelligence committees to testify publicly about his conversations with the President. - -"I hope you can let this go," Trump told Comey, according to a report by The New York Times. - -Comey told Trump in an Oval Office meeting in February that he was not under investigation for possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. - -The White House has declined to comment on the report. - -Read More<|endoftext|>The revelation that some of the attackers who murdered dozens of people in Paris on Friday were French was the result of a process of reconciliation between Western countries and the Muslim world, French President François Hollande said on Sunday. - -"We must face up to the fact that there are problems and that there are these difficult moments, but that we must face up to them," Hollande told a news conference. - -"We must face up to the fact that there are problems and that there are these difficult moments, but that we must face up to them" French President François Hollande - -"We must continue to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." - -Hollande's remarks came a day after French authorities revealed that two of the terrorists responsible for the Paris attacks had been planning their attacks in France for several months. - -The two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, and one woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, were believed to have been planning the attacks for months, according to a French government source. - -Hollande said the attacks were "a tragedy for our country, a tragedy for our people, and a tragedy for all of humanity." - -"We must continue to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." French President François Hollande - -"There's no doubt that the atrocities committed in Paris are an attack on us all. The terrorists wanted to strike at our societies, at our way of life and at our values," he said. - -"They wanted to strike at our societies, at our way of life and at our values" French President François Hollande - -Hollande also said the attacks were "a real shock to our society." - -"There was no warning, no preparation, no plan. We have to learn from this, we have to avoid it happening again," he said. - -The French president also called on Muslims to show "solidarity" with the victims of the attacks. - -"I hope that Muslims around the world, including in France, will show solidarity and show the willingness to protect the freedoms that belong to us all, including to freedom of religion," Hollande said. - -"We have to work together. It has been a long and difficult period, but we must learn from each other, we must develop this country." French President François Hollande - -The attackers were said to have been planning to attack a string of targets in France, including the Notre Dame Cathedral, a Paris financial district, and the Louvre Museum. - -Another attack was also thwarted. A third terrorist was killed by police on Sunday. - -Hollande said the Kouachi brothers were not linked to the radical Islamic group ISIS. - -"They had nothing to do with the Islamic State. They never took part in any military operations," he said. - -The French president also praised the work of the French security forces for their "solidarity and solidarity" in the aftermath of the attacks.<|endoftext|>We've seen the first live-action trailer for the upcoming film 'Wonder Woman,' and it looks pretty damn awesome. - -Wonder Woman was first introduced in the pages of the comic book 'Wonder Woman' by writer William Moulton Marston and artist Steve Ditko in 1941. The character was created by Marston and Ditko to be a female counterpart to the male superhero Captain America. - -Wonder Woman has been one of the most popular characters in the DC Extended Universe, and we're liking the upcoming film a lot. A word of warning, however: The first trailer for the film doesn't do the character justice. - -WARNING: The first trailer for 'Wonder Woman' is currently unavailable on YouTube. - -The trailer is a little too long, so we recommend just watching it in the first 30 seconds. Basically, the trailer is a beautiful, powerful visual representation of Wonder Woman's badassery. - -Check it out in the video below.<|endoftext|>CALGARY - The Calgary Flames announced today that they have acquired a conditional 2018 fourth round pick from the New York Islanders for forward Sam Bennett. - -Bennett, 23, is in his third NHL season after being acquired by Calgary at the trade deadline from the Buffalo Sabres last season. Bennett has 18 points -======================================== SAMPLE 352 ======================================== -Greens Senator Larissa Waters has called on the Government to immediately join a United Nations International Criminal Court investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Myanmar, Myanmar's political system and the Rohingya Muslim minority in western Myanmar. - -Speaking on the ABC's 7.30 program on Tuesday, Senator Waters said the UN court's investigation was both urgent and justified. - -"There are a number of crimes that have been committed in the country, and the UN has been asked to do an investigation on that," she said. - -"It's a matter of urgency." - -Senator Waters is the co-chair of the Senate's Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Committee. - -She said there was "no question" Australia had a role in the investigation. - -"We can and we should be part of this," she said. - -Here are the issues Senator Waters raised about the 1.3 million Rohingya people who live in Myanmar. - -1.3 million Rohingya people live in Myanmar. - -The United Nations has called on the Government to join the UN International Criminal Court in the investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Myanmar. - -© AAP 2018<|endoftext|>A woman who was beaten to death by an Uber driver in Colorado is haunted by what she saw in the backseat of his car. - -Amanda Beck may have been the only rider Uber ever had to pay $100,000 to after the company was found liable for the death of the 30-year-old, according to ABC News. - -Beck's last words were "I'm going to jail" when she was attacked by Kevin Lannane, who has been charged with second-degree murder. - -Lannane was a driver for UberX in Denver in June 2015. - -He picked up Beck and an unidentified passenger for an Uber ride to the bar, but the passenger had to go to the bathroom. Beck decided to stay behind to wait for the passenger, and was attacked while she was waiting. - -Lannane's account of what happened went like this: Beck got into the passenger seat, and the passenger began kissing her. But Lannane got out of the car and started to kiss her again. Beck pushed him away, and he grabbed her. - -"I looked over and I saw him grab a small kitchen knife and just start stabbing me," Beck said. "Then he stabbed me. I think he tried to kill me." - -Lannane then drove off, leaving Beck bleeding on the ground. - -Cops were able to track him down through the GPS system in his car. - -He told officers he did not intend to harm Beck, but was trying to protect himself. - -Lannane was found guilty of second-degree murder. - -"I was surprised," Beck's father, Jeff Beck, told ABC News. "I never saw it coming." - -Uber did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.<|endoftext|>Radiohead's Colin Greenwood discusses the iconic "Creep" track. - -Following on from the brilliant "Creep" video, Radiohead have released a new version of the infamous "Creep" track. - -Taking a cue from the video, the new version features the band's long time guitarist Colin Greenwood. - -In an interview with BBC Radio One, Greenwood explained how the track first came into being: "The first time I heard it was in the old Radiohead sessions at Apple Corps. It was a bit of a joke, really. The Jonny Greenwood version was actually the first version I'd heard. - -"I suppose that's what I think it's about. It's about paranoia. It's about relationships, and how you adapt to things. It's about being curious and sometimes not knowing what you're looking for or what's going to happen." - -While it's a welcome return to the band's former signature style, the new version is unfortunately not as catchy as the original. - -Watch the "Creep" video below: - -Earlier this year, Radiohead previewed their next album, which is expected to be announced later this year. The group is also currently on tour in support of The King of Limbs. You can watch the band's recent tour dates below: - -November - -December - -December 13 – Austin, TX @ Emo's - -December 14 – Austin, TX @ Emo's - -December 16 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada - -December 17 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada - -December 18 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamo City Music Hall - -December 19 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamo City Music Hall - -December 20 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live - -December 22 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall - -December 23 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre - -December 24 – Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom - -December 26 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall - -December -======================================== SAMPLE 353 ======================================== -Saiki Kadashima has been making music for over 30 years. She's been a part of some of Japan's most famous bands like Seiko, AKB48, and Omoi. She's been in a lot of large venues, including the Budokan and the Tokyo Dome, and she's performed with some of the biggest names in the music industry. - -So, of course she's excited to announce her new album, "The Reasons," which is out on June 24 via Island Records. Here's what she had to say about it when we sat down to chat with her: - -I'm excited to be releasing my first new album in over a decade, but the reason I'm so excited is that I feel like we've been working on it for a very long time. In fact, I started writing it when I was in high school. I was writing songs that were about my experience in high school, but I didn't know how to put them together. So I just tried to keep writing songs that were about high school. But as I was writing, I was thinking, "Why can't I make a record that's about my life today?" And that's what I'm doing. - -I think the main reason I'm excited to be putting out my new record is that I'm excited to finally be able to make a record that's not just about that one time I was in Tokyo and did really well. That's why I'm excited to release "The Reasons," because I think that's the first time I've been able to make a record that's not just about one moment. I'm not just writing about the most important thing in my life, but the most important thing in my life is everything else, too. - -We're probably going to hear the album in a few months, but I'm really excited to finally get it out there. I think it's going to be a really great record, and I hope you guys are as excited as I am. - -Saiki Kadashima's "The Reasons" is out June 24. Pre-order it now on iTunes. - -Stream "The Reasons" below:<|endoftext|>The United States has offered Russia an oil-for-goods swap to resolve the standoff over the status of Crimea, but Moscow has yet to respond, a senior U.S. official said Monday. - -The U.S. has offered to sell Russia a barrel of its light sweet crude oil instead of natural gas. President Barack Obama has said that natural gas is the better fuel for powering a growing American economy. - -"We have offered to sell them a barrel of U.S. light sweet crude oil instead of natural gas," the senior official said. - -While the U.S. does not have any natural gas reserves of its own, it has been shipping natural gas to countries like Ukraine to save them from their dependence on Russian gas. - -The U.S. also has offered to send Ukrainian troops to guard the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine. - -But the offer did not appear to have gone over well with Russia, which said it was not interested in any swap. - -"Based on our assessment, we have no interest in starting such talks," Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in Tokyo. - -The two countries have been locked in a dispute over gas supplies to Ukraine since early November. - -Obama administration officials have said the U.S. has been dragging its feet in responding to Russian moves to seize Ukraine's Crimea from Ukraine. - -The U.S. has offered only limited military assistance to the Ukrainian government, while Russia has provided military equipment and trained Ukrainian troops. - -The White House has pushed for a diplomatic solution to the dispute, but its focus has been on economic sanctions. The administration has warned that any Russian economic or financial retaliation would be "catastrophic." - -The U.S. also is considering a series of steps to increase the pressure on Russia, including a new round of economic sanctions, but has not made a decision. - -The U.S. has also enlisted other countries to prevent large-scale Russian gas shipments to Ukraine. - -The Russian gas company Gazprom has said it is willing to provide Ukraine with Russian gas, but only in exchange for an equal amount of Ukrainian goods. - -Russia has said it will not pay for gas if it is delivered to Ukraine. - -(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)<|endoftext|>The second annual Ford Fest will be held Sept. 28 and 29 at the Ford Museum. The event will feature musical performances and a variety of food vendors, with signature dishes from around the world. In addition to the food, Ford Fest will feature music from local and national acts, plus "Ford Nation" activities, including autograph signings, photo sessions with Ford and Ford-related memorabilia and more. - -A block party will also take place Oct. 1 and 2 at the Fords -======================================== SAMPLE 354 ======================================== -R. Kelly's daughter, Gianna, appeared on the cover of a new issue of Italian GQ (via Vulture). Gianna, who is 28, has long been a Kelly obsession. She even has a tattoo of her father's face on her leg. - -[ Related: R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" Gets Video Release ] - -Gianna admits that she's still "a little scared" of her dad after all these years. "When I first started, I just wanted to learn how to dance," she said. "His songs are so amazing that I'm still learning so much. His voice is the best. It's also these super-intelligent girls, who are like my little sisters." - -Gianna, who has a T-shirt with Kelly's face on it, even appeared in Kelly's music video for his hit "Ignition (Remix)." The video featured her dad and "The Beautiful People" singing along to the lyrics of the song. - -Kelly has also remixed the song for his forthcoming album, Classic.<|endoftext|>CALGARY — The number of British Columbians using emergency rooms (ERs) for non-life-threatening injuries rose by more than a third last year as the province's economic downturn continued, according to statistics released Thursday. - -In 2012, there were 17,102 ER visits involving non-life-threatening injuries, compared to 12,958 in 2011. - -"I think it's a reflection of the economic downturn in the province," said Dr. Dan McTeague, head of the BC Emergency Health Services (BC EHS) division. - -"People are at home more often, are spending less time at work, and it's that combination of factors that we're seeing." - -The numbers are based on the province's Health Insurance Act. - -McTeague said the figures were a surprise because the province had been seeing a decline in ER visits. - -"There was a lot of confidence that the economy would improve," he said. - -"It was a shock to see the numbers go up." - -The province's economy contracted by 1.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 and the economy began to recover in July. - -Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others in the health care system had a busy summer during the annual general meeting of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC earlier this month. - -Dr. J.A.R. Gurney, BC EHS chief executive officer, said staff are busy responding to patients from a number of different sources. - -"We're seeing a lot of people who are affected by job loss and who have lost their benefits," he said. - -Health Minister Terry Lake said the province is doing everything it can to help people through the downturn. - -"We've seen a significant reduction in the number of people coming to the ER, as well as the number of people who are seeking medical attention in other places," he said. - -"That's part of the reason why the ER is under pressure, but we're doing what we can to make sure that we're providing the best possible care to our people." - -Lake said while the province is still in the process of assessing the number of people who've sought care outside the ER, he believes a number will be released soon. - -The province has been working with the BC Association of Health Plans to develop a number of recommendations to help improve the system. - -Those recommendations include improving the billing process for patients and doctors, creating a single, electronic medical record for everyone, and giving health care providers access to additional resources to help them respond to emergencies. - -The BC EHS division is currently reviewing the recommendations.<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. - -AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman. We're broadcasting from Los Angeles. We're broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival, as we wrap up our coverage of this year's premier of the documentary, The Square. This film is about students on the streets of New York City who are protesting against the election of Donald Trump. Wednesday night's premiere had thousands of people in the streets. We're joined now by the film's director, Jeremy Saulnier. - -Jeremy Saulnier, welcome back to Democracy Now! - -JEREMY SANDONIER: Thank you. - -AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about the movie. You make a very powerful case for why it's so important to make a film like this one. Talk about who these young protesters are, and how you started to know them. - -JEREMY SANDONIER: Well, I've been following Occupy Wall Street for a long time. I think that film is a very clear signal, and a very powerful message, that this is a movement that has to continue. It's got to continue. And I wanted to make a -======================================== SAMPLE 355 ======================================== -The Canadian Press - - -TORONTO - Ontario's Liberal government has begin its search for a new auditor general, a move that will likely trigger a constitutional fight with the province's opposition parties. - -The government fired the auditor general of Ontario last year, saying he was unqualified for the job and had been a partisan in his past work. - -The opposition parties are now asking the Supreme Court to block that decision. - -Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has only appointed one outside auditor general in its history, and they have yet to appoint a replacement. - -The Liberal government says it will now appoint an "independent" auditor general to replace Frank Gunn, who was appointed in 2014 to a five-year term and had been due to retire in April 2018. - -The government will not say who that person will be, pending a decision on who the new auditor general will be. - -But the opposition is not happy about the move. - -"The Liberals have only been in power for a year, and this is a new approach by the government," said New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson. - -"The government has decided to go through the courts to try and avoid making a decision that is completely within their authority. The government made a pretty good decision in firing the auditor general, and they should stick to that decision." - -The NDP, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner and Liberal MPP Rachael Harder say they are concerned about any move by the government to appoint a partisan as the new auditor general. - -"We will be watching carefully as to whether or not this government is going to appoint someone that they know is going to be a partisan," said Harder. - -The Liberals have said they will only appoint someone they believe is qualified, and that it is up to the courts to decide who the new auditor general will be. - -The opposition parties argue that's not enough. - -"It appears the government is trying to seek out a partisan person to try and win this court case, and that is not how we want to do business," said Bisson. - -The government has said it will continue to pay the salaries of the auditor general and the deputy auditor general until Gunn's replacement, and that's what it will continue to do. - -Gunn, the former Progressive Conservative minister in charge of the Office of the Auditor General, was appointed to the position in 2014.<|endoftext|>Chinese President Xi Jinping | Alex Wong/Getty Images China seizes foreign assets amid U.S. trade dispute China on Tuesday suspended U.S. citizenship for people with dual citizenship in retaliation for U.S. sanctions targeting Beijing's financial system and other measures. - -China on Tuesday imposed a sweeping new set of sanctions on U.S. citizens and companies, an escalation of a trade dispute that has escalated sharply during President Donald Trump's first 10 months in office. - -The measures, which include an asset freeze and travel ban, are the most significant retaliation China has taken to date in response to the U.S. sanctions that have reportedly caused the biggest declines in the value of China's stock market in seven years. - -The U.S. Treasury Department, which is carrying out the sanctions, said the measures were meant to "send a strong message to the Chinese government that the United States is committed to enforcing the laws of the United States." - -The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the measures were "a response to the U.S. administration's refusal to adhere to international law and take concrete actions for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula." - -A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. military would continue to operate out of South Korea, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said U.S. citizens in China would have access to consular services through their embassy. - -The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the action is "a necessary and appropriate response to China's continued efforts to restrict commercial and financial activity of U.S. persons." - -The announcement came shortly after Trump demanded in a tweet that China "Cancel all projects done in China in violation of the bilateral investment treaty." - -The president, who has frequently criticized China as a currency manipulator on the campaign trail, has not publicly described the reasons for the new measures. But in a meeting with business leaders in New York on Monday, he singled out China as a key player in the growing trade dispute, according to a person familiar with the meeting. - -Trump also told the business leaders he would impose stiff tariffs on imports from China, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. - -Chinese officials said the geopolitical stakes are high for the world's two largest economies, which have been trading increasingly competitively against one another for years. - -The U.S. Commerce Department said the measures were an attempt to "put China back on a path of economic development that is fair, open, and reciprocal." - - -======================================== SAMPLE 356 ======================================== -A bill that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Maine passed the Senate on Tuesday and now has to survive the House and be signed into law by Gov. Paul LePage. - -The vote, which occurred late Tuesday night, was 20-10, with Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, the chief sponsor of the bill. - -The bill, Senate Bill 594, would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, grow up to six marijuana plants and give up to an ounce of marijuana to someone else. Those who over age 21 would still be subject to a federal law that prohibits the possession of marijuana, which remains illegal at the federal level. - -The bill would also allow the use of marijuana in public places, including bars, restaurants, casinos, schools, movie theaters, stadiums, churches and other places that are open to the public, and would allow for the cultivation of up to six marijuana plants in private residences. - -The bill is sponsored by Mason, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, who has said he'll try to put the measure through the Senate as he does with most of the bills he's sponsored. - -Mason said his bill is aimed at dealing with the state's budget crisis, which has placed a $2.6 million hole in the state's general fund budget. - -"We need to deal with the fact that we are going to have a budget shortfall of more than $1 billion, and we are going to have to find a way to deal with it," he said during the debate. - -Mason said the bill is needed to help the state fund its methadone program, which has fallen short of the number of patients it needs to keep up with demand. - -The state Department of Health and Human Services has said Maine should have a full-time methadone program funded through the General Fund, and the program is due to expire on June 30. - -The bill's other sponsor, Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, defended the bill, saying that Maine is at a "serious crossroads" and needs to address the state's drug problem. - -"The fact that we are in a crisis situation and we have to deal with it before it spirals out of control, that's what this bill is about," Brakey said. - -However, Brakey said he didn't agree with the idea that the bill is primarily aimed at dealing with Maine's drug problem and that part of the bill is just about treating people with drug abuse problems. - -"I don't think you're going to find a single person in this chamber who would vote for this bill just because it's for drug abuse treatment," Brakey said. - -Mason said the Department of Health and Human Services has said it hopes Maine will have a full-time methadone program by fiscal year 2019. - -"This is a crisis and we need to get this right," Mason said. "Marijuana is an alternative to opiates and it does not have the dangers associated with opiates." - -Sen. Sue Leffingwell, D-South Portland, said she voted against the bill because she didn't feel the Legislature was giving Maine enough time to study the issue. - -"I haven't seen a study that says this is going to be a popular thing," Leffingwell said. "We have a mentality that we're going to go ahead and legalize it now. If the Legislature is not going to do it now, then what is the point of having a bill that we can go back and amend?" - -Maine's delegate to Washington, Rep. Mark Dion, D-Portland, voted against the bill along with the other Democrats. Dion said he didn't have a problem with legalizing marijuana but he did have a problem with how the bill was written. - -"This is a very problematic bill," Dion said. "It's not about marijuana, it's about the way it's been written. It's of the opinion that this bill is not a sound bill." - -The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Friday, and the House is expected to take it up on Tuesday. - -Share<|endoftext|>The California Attorney General's Office said Saturday it was filing a lawsuit against the state's largest pension fund, CalPERS, alleging the fund illegally withheld billions of dollars in pension payments over several years. - -The lawsuit, filed in a Sacramento court, charges CalPERS with fraud, asking for a permanent injunction prohibiting the fund from withholding pension payments and returning the funds to the employees. - -Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the lawsuit is the latest action in the ongoing investigation into the fund's alleged practices. - -"When pension funds are allowed to break the law and defraud their own workers, the public is harmed," Becerra said in a statement. - -"If CalPERS acted as it allegedly did, millions of Californians -======================================== SAMPLE 357 ======================================== -I was surprised to see that The Atlantic had an article on this issue, and I thought it would be good to address the question that was raised in the article. I do not know what the authors of the article intend to do with the conclusions they are drawing, but I am afraid that what they argue seems to constitute a kind of "skepticism" of the whole idea of "unitary moral progress" as a program, as a way of thinking about morality, in relation to which many of the most important historical developments in the history of ethics have been made. - -So let me begin with a brief history of this question. The question of "unitary moral progress" was raised by John Stuart Mill and Walter Lippmann in the early part of the 20th century and was made the subject of a major debate between Mill and Lippmann, set off in the early 1930s by Lippmann's attempt to establish the validity of Mill's argument (which he called the "Eisenstein thesis") and which was first discussed in detail by M.E. Schlegel in his essay "The Problems of Unitary Morality" in his collection of essays on "Theory and Practice of Ethics" in the 1930s. The debate between Mill and Schlegel, and between Lippmann and his former student, the Austrian philosopher Hans Kelsen, has never been settled, and there have been many different versions of it. But there is a general consensus with respect to the general thrust of Schlegel's theory. - -Schlegel's basic idea is that in order to understand the ways in which moral progress is taking place, we must understand the concept of "moral progress." His basic idea is that in order to understand the ways in which moral progress is taking place, we must understand the concept of "moral progress." But the concept of "moral progress," as currently understood, is problematic. It is not a concept that is widely understood in any kind of unified way. So if we want to examine the question of moral progress in an objective, systematic way, we need to make some kind of reference to something that is generally understood. - -The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. - -The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. Furthermore, it is hard to see how we can make any progress in the area of moral philosophy if we are not able to have a sense of the "common sense" of moral principles. The problem is that the term "moral progress" is not well defined, and is best understood as meaning either "the degree to which the standard of right and wrong has become more and more a matter of settled opinion" (to use the phrase of Mill and Lippmann) or "the degree to which the moral sense has become more and more a part of the common sense." Both of these meanings of the term are problematic. Furthermore, it is hard to see how we can make any progress in the area of moral philosophy if we are not able to have a sense of the "common sense" of moral principles. - -In order to avoid confusion, I want to call attention to the distinction between "the common sense" and the "common sense sense of moral principles." It is essential to understand what I mean by "the common sense of moral principles" in order to understand the point I am making in this article. This is not at all to deny that there are, in fact, some moral truths that are not widely accepted. But it is to deny that the common sense of moral principles can be used as a reliable guide to right and wrong. - -As far as I can see, the problem with the concept of "moral progress" is not the concept of moral progress itself (which is obvious), but rather the way in which it is used. It is widely understood that there are moral truths that are not widely accepted. If we want to avoid confusion, therefore, it is important to understand what I mean by "the common sense of moral principles" in order to understand the point I am making in this article. - -Let us consider the following questions. What, if anything, is the standard of right and wrong? What is the standard of good? Which standard is more important? What is the source -======================================== SAMPLE 358 ======================================== -From the moment that I started working for the College, I've been a part of the culture. I'm from a small town in the Midwest, I've always loved games, and I've never had an issue with learning a new language or culture. I've always been interested in the hardware, the software, and the people. I was the only African-American in a group of 22 people from all over the world, and I didn't think it was going to be hard to adjust to the school and the culture. - -The first week I was there, I had to go to the Office of Diversity, Diversity, Diversity. I was sent to the Office of Diversity because I had a photo of my family in my hall picture. It was taken when I was in high school, and I thought it was funny so I posted it. It was basically just me and my family in the picture, but because of the color of my skin, I was labeled as a 'racist' and I had to remove the picture. - -My first day in the Office of Diversity was the first day I was in the building. I had a lot of questions about the culture and how with me being the only African-American in my group of 22 people, I had to go to the Office of Diversity for help. I had all of the white kids and the white staff, and I didn't know what to do. I had a lot of questions about what was going on. There was never a lack of diversity there. I was the only African-American in the group. I had to go to the Office of Diversity to find out who was going to help me. - -The first day I was there, I went to the Office of Diversity and I asked for help with my first class. I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class because of the color of my skin and the fact that I was the only African-American in my group. I was the only one. The Office of Diversity was just another group of people just trying to help me. They were just trying to help me. I got in trouble for posting a picture of my family. I was just trying to help the students who were helping me. - -We were in the same class for the first three weeks. I had a lot of trouble with the curriculum. I went home and I was crying about it. My mom said, "Are you crying because you're in the African-American History class?" I said, "Yeah," and she said, "I wish you were white because you would have been in a different class." My first week in the class, I was so confused and I didn't know what was going on. I knew a lot of the people there, but I didn't realize what was going on. I was so confused and I didn't know what was going on. - -When I got to my last semester, I had to go to the Office of Diversity and tell them that I had to move to a different class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. But it was about my first class. They were making it very clear to me that I had to move to a different class. I was like, "What do you mean I have to move to a different class? I'm in the same class?" They were like, "Correct. You are in the same class." I'm like, "Why?" They said, "Because you are the only African-American in the class." - -They told me that they were sending me to another class, but I was like, "No. No way. I have to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class." They're like, "We understand. We understand. We understand." So I went to the Office of Diversity and I said, "Okay, I have to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. Where do I go?" They told me, "Well, I don't know. We'll figure it out." - -The first semester, I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. I was there for three weeks. I had a lot of problems with the curriculum. I tried to help the students with my first class. I had a lot of problems with the curriculum. I tried to help the students in the class, but I couldn't help with the class because of the color of my skin. - -The first semester, I went to the Office of Diversity and I told them that I had to move to another class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. The first semester, I went to the Office of Diversity and I told them that I had to move to another class because I had to go to the Office of Diversity to help me with my first class. I was there for three weeks. I had a lot of problems with the -======================================== SAMPLE 359 ======================================== -The House of Representatives began a week of recess with a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. - -The House bill, H.R. 1, was introduced by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) on Tuesday. - -The House bill, called the American Health Care Act, would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. - -"This bill is a top priority for the Trump Administration and I am grateful the Senate will now take up its work to repeal and replace Obamacare," MacArthur said in a statement. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -"I look forward to working with the Senate and the Trump Administration to deliver relief to the American people." - -The bill would roll back several key parts of Obamacare, including its Medicaid expansion, its insurance subsidies and its taxes. - -It would fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program, which funds health coverage for 9 million children, and allow states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's mandates on certain health insurance plans. - -The House bill, which is similar to a Senate version, would be subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. - -The Senate passed a previous version of the bill in late May, but the chamber is currently in recess until June.<|endoftext|>The Chinese Government has been testing the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to fight malaria, in a move that could also help fight the spread of Aids. - -The Chinese Academy of Sciences reported in its journal, PNAS, that a genetically modified mosquito was released in a laboratory in Jiangsu, in western China, on 1 October. - -The mosquito was a male that had been genetically modified to produce an enzyme that killed the malaria parasite. It was sprayed with tropical forest oil and necessary nutrients near its home in the wild. - -The researchers found that the modified mosquitoes had a "strongly diminished ability to transmit [malaria]". - -They also found that the modified mosquitoes were able to "recover" the chemicals they had been sprayed with, and that they were able to breed with the wild males. - -The experiment was carried out with the National Centre for Biological Control in Jiangsu. - -"This is the first time we have developed a mosquito that is able to keep its genetically engineered ability to transmit [malaria] for long periods of time," said Professor Wu Xinren, a leading malaria researcher at the National Center for Biological Control. - -Dr Andrew Lee at the University of California, Davis, said the results were "encouraging" but warned that the research needed to be replicated in other places. - -"The paper is a very nice example of how to do research in China," he said. "The paper says they have managed to produce a genetically modified mosquito that can reproduce and lay eggs, which is a key step forward in the fight against malaria. - -"It is an important step but the paper doesn't say whether these mosquitoes are actually going to be used to control malaria or not. That is the next step and I would be very wary of reading too much into this study yet." - -Dr Lee said there was a danger that the research could be exploited by Chinese authorities to create a genetically modified sex-ratio of mosquitoes in order to control malaria. - -"For China, this is a good thing," he said. "It is providing a tool that could be used for traditional control of malaria." - -However, he said that the genetically modified mosquitoes were not likely to be used to control malaria in the future. - -"The discovery of this new mosquito could be used to make mosquitoes that are resistant to the parasite, but that would be a big breakthrough for malaria but it is also going to be very expensive," he said. - -"There is a huge cost involved in producing this and if you are going to conduct these kinds of research, you need to get it done in a controlled way. There are a lot of technical challenges and it would be unwise to conduct this kind of research in a way that would not be approved by the government." - -Dr Lee said the research was also unlikely to prevent the spread of Aids in China. - -"The Chinese government is very concerned about the spread of Aids," he said. "They know that the Aids epidemic is a new disease and they are very interested in combating it. - -"In the long run, it is quite likely that the introduction of genetically modified mosquitoes will lead to the development of resistance to the Aids virus and the spread of the virus will be more difficult." - -The World Health Organization does not recommend the use of genetically modified organisms to control infectious diseases, but Dr Lee said that the results of the Jiangsu experiment could help inform its views on the matter. - -"The WHO has been giving some advice [regarding genetic modification] in the past," he said. "They have been saying that we don't recommend it because there are concerns about the spread of resistant viruses and pathogens and we don't know whether the introduction of -======================================== SAMPLE 360 ======================================== -The City of Joliet is releasing a new program to help residents with high-risk, chronically homeless people. The program is called "Joliet's Safe Place," and it's the first of its kind in the country. - -The program can be accessed through the city's mobile app. - -Officials say the goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe and supportive environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is designed to offer a safe place to stay that provides basic services to help people maintain their health, housing and personal safety. - -Officials say the program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical assessment and follow-up care. They will also be provided with referrals to other agencies that provide needs-based services, including mental health and substance abuse. - -The goal of the program is to provide short-term housing in a safe environment. The program is intended to allow people to maintain their dignity while they transition from homelessness to housing. - -The program is based on the notion of housing first, health second. People to be housed are first screened to determine their medical needs. They then receive health care while they are in the shelter. - -Once housed, they will receive a medical -======================================== SAMPLE 361 ======================================== -THURSDAY: The Mets and Gonzalez are closing in on a deal, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (on Twitter). The sides are expected to finalize an agreement soon. - -MONDAY: The Mets and Hector Beltran are close to a new deal, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (on Twitter). Heyman cites a source to confirm that the sides are in the final stages of closing a deal. - -Beltran, 36, is coming off a season in which he batted .288/.326/.543 with 21 homers and 31 doubles for the Royals. Overall, he recorded a total of 741 plate appearances, including 348 starts. Beltran also set career highs in on-base percentage (.381) and slugging percentage (.578). - -Should the deal come together, Beltran will be returning to New York for the first time since his 2008 trade to the Mets. He batted .286/.339/.503 with nine homers and 23 doubles for the Mets in 2009. - -The Mets were looking to move Beltran prior to the February deadline, but his contract was not up for renewal. In fact, the two sides didn't even discuss a potential trade until last week, when the Royals asked for a three-year, $36MM deal. - -As it stands, the Mets will have to eat a portion of Beltran's $13MM salary in 2013 and $14MM in 2014. While Beltran played some left field in 2013 (.258/.353/.389), he batted right field in 69.1% of his starts. Given the lack of an obvious platoon partner at that position, Beltran's bat likely played a role in the Mets' thinking when they decided to move him. - -Beltran, a two-time All-Star, is still owed $18.5MM in the last three years of his contract, according to MLBTR's Free Agent Tracker, and it is unclear how the Mets would handle the remaining $21.5MM. The Mets could exercise a $4MM club option for 2014 or wait until 2015 to exercise the $4MM buyout.<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON — More than a month after a federal judge blocked President Trump's executive order on immigration, the White House announced on Friday that he would be "revised" and delayed. - -The White House's statement, which did not specify what the president meant, came a day after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the part of the immigration order that had been suspended. - -The White House said that Mr. Trump had directed his new homeland security secretary, John F. Kelly, to "amend or rescind" the executive order. The announcement was made by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, on Friday evening. At the news briefing on Friday, Mr. Spicer said it was "a matter of time" before the order was reinstated, and noted that Mr. Trump's advisers had been working on the issue for about a week. - -"The president has been very clear with the DHS secretary that he's going to keep that department strong and well-funded and he's going to get the secretary to implement that order in a way that makes sense for the American people," Mr. Spicer said.<|endoftext|>A woman wearing a hijab leaves her home in New York last week. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Reuters) - -The White House issued a statement on Thursday evening condemning the deadly terrorist attack at a mosque in Quebec City as an act of terrorism. - -"The president said the following following," the statement reads: - -"The United States condemns the terror attack in Quebec City. The people of Quebec City have demonstrated once again their commitment to religious freedom, and to tolerance, diversity and respect. The people of Quebec City will not be defined by this attack, and will continue to celebrate Canada's diversity, which is a source of strength and pride for all Canadians. - -"We are closely following the situation in Quebec and stand in solidarity and partnership with the people of Canada. We continue to condemn all acts of terror – of whatever cause – that target civilians, whether they be acts of domestic terrorism or acts of international terrorism. And we will continue to honor our commitment to fight terrorism worldwide and to work with all partners to confront the true threat of terrorist groups like ISIL." - -[The Quebec City mosque shooting: What we know, and what's still unknown] - -President Trump's statement is obviously a huge improvement over the one he issued on Monday after a shooting at a mosque in Canada's capital. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) - -The president's statement on Monday was immediately criticized for not calling the attack an act of terrorism, which was the standard wording he had used previously. - -Apart from the criticism of his use of the word "terrorism," Trump's statement also did not fully address the issue of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States. - -Unlike Sunday's statement, the one issued on Thursday evening -======================================== SAMPLE 362 ======================================== -"I'm very proud of the fact that we are the first state in the country to pass a law that allows parents to opt their kids out of vaccinations," said Gov. Jerry Brown. - -Parents can opt their children out of vaccinations, but it's a tough choice for many. - -"People don't realize that if you don't have a kid, you can't opt out, and so that's why when you're talking about the full range of vaccinations, not just the flu shot, but the measles, the mumps, the rubella, which have all been linked to autism and serious problems," said KGO-TV's Steve Burton. - -Following a state law enacted in 2014, parents who refuse to vaccinate their children will no longer be deemed responsible for the consequences of not vaccinating their children. - -"I think it's an important step in the right direction to make sure that people are protected and that their children are protected and that we do everything we can to protect them," said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins. - -Supporters of the measure are thrilled by the legislation. - -"It's very important that we don't have anything that causes people to be fearful," said Councilman Ed Chau. - -But for some families, there are other concerns about the measure, as well. - -"I have a question, and I hope you can answer this," said a mother who asked to go by her first name, Yvette. - -"I've heard that it's for religious reasons, and I have a view of how that works, but I know that I've heard that it's also for philosophical reasons," Yvette said. - -Still, supporters of the law say it's an important step in protecting public safety. - -"We should not be fearful of that. We should be fearful of people who actually want to harm us and our kids, and that's the people that want to do harm, and that's what this bill is for," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell. - -The bill has passed the state Assembly and is expected to be signed by the governor.<|endoftext|>The current political ad industry has created a new marketing paradigm for political campaigns, which is how best to sell the indefensible. - -"It's not a coincidence that the first ads for Republicans started being shot in May," said Joe Trippi, a Democrat who managed George W. Bush's 1992 presidential campaign. "They're going to be the ones running these ads." - -This year's Republicans are confounding expectations, tripping over themselves to reach more voters in places that previously would not have heard of them. - -Republicans have been trying to build a coalition of voters who are not yet registered to vote. The party's leadership hopes to capture young people, the lower-income voters, and ethnic minorities by reaching out to them in diverse places where they don't normally interact. - -The campaign has made a few moves that suggest it is paying attention to its challenges. The Republican National Committee is building out campaign operations in 24 states with a focus on minority communities, which could help attract votes in places like North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, and Texas. - -The RNC has also been investing in the digital side of its operation. It is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the GOP nominee. - -The Republican National Committee is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. - -The RNC has been buying Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. - -The RNC has been buying Web ads that target likely voters and try to persuade them to back the Republican nominee. - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. (R-Texas) - -This ad is for Rep. Ron Paul Jr. ( -======================================== SAMPLE 363 ======================================== -The latest news from the world of professional wrestling. - -New WWE Smackdown from last night. - -AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe. - -The Takeover show. - -The return of the Rock. - -Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar. - -WWE Smackdown from last night. - -Mickie James vs. Paige. - -The Return of the Rock. - - -The Takeover show. - -WWE Smackdown from last night. - -Last night's Smackdown was a solid show. It was a continuation of what people saw last week and on the previous show on Monday Night Raw. It had the same matches that people saw on Raw, but it was also kind of a meta show. I was kind of hoping for some more wrestling in the show, and Smackdown delivered on that. They got the matches that they wanted to get, they played a good game with the backstage segments and they did a good job of filling up the evening. It was a solid show. - - -If you want to watch the show, check it out on the WWE Network. It was a good show. - - -PWInsider.com has the full episode of Smackdown from last night. - - -I don't really know what to make of this. It's obviously a WWE show, and it's a pretty good one. But it is also obvious that WWE has been planning this one for a while. - - -The new WWE Smackdown has a lot of fun, but it wasn't really a show that I was all that excited to watch. I'm not sure I see the reason for it. It's not like WWE is trying to reinvent themselves or anything. They are still as successful as ever, and they are still bringing in good numbers. They are still putting on good shows, and I guess I'm fine with that. I'm just kind of wondering why they didn't do anything to change the direction of the show. - - -I guess the problem is that it was a lot of the same stuff that we've seen for the last couple of years. I don't know that I would consider this a bad thing. That's not the point, though. I mean, it's still a WWE show. It's just that it wasn't really a show that I wanted to watch. - - -The last few months have been a crazy roller coaster ride. I've been pretty sure that WWE would have to do something about the direction of the show. I'm not sure they have, though. The new Smackdown is still pretty much the same show. I think that the show is still exciting on its own merits, but it could be a lot more interesting if WWE would just do something to change the direction of the show. - - -I guess that we'll have to wait and see what the future holds for WWE. It's a good show, but it's not really that special, and I think that's something that I'm not a big fan of. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but I think that this show needs some sort of shake-up. - - -In the meantime, I am going to enjoy this show. I'm not going to go out of my way to watch it every week. But it's kind of a cool show.<|endoftext|>WWE.com - -John Cena will return to the ring at WrestleMania 31. - -"It's a very special night for me. WrestleMania is one of the biggest nights on the calendar of my life. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Cena told WWE.com. "And it's a very special night for my family who's watching from home. For the fans who go to the show, it's a very special day, too. It's like a Super Bowl, except with a lot less football. It's a celebration of everything I've worked for my whole life, and it's a very special day for everyone here." - -Cena was the main event at WrestleMania 31 in 2007, and since his return to the ring, he has delivered major moments, including a perfect 10-0 streak against The Undertaker, the first-ever Triple Threat Match, and his one-on-one match against The Rock at WrestleMania 27. His return to the ring will come on WWE's biggest night of the year, and he knows that WWE fans are eagerly anticipating his return. - -"The fans are very excited and they're going to be loud and they're going to be happy and everyone is going to be pulling for John Cena to come back," Cena said. "For me, it's just a very special day. I've worked very hard for this. I've had a very long road to get where I am and I'm very thankful for WWE. I love the organization. I have a great time here. I have a great relationship with all my fans, and I'm -======================================== SAMPLE 364 ======================================== -On the one hand, you have the Liberal Party of Canada, which has been in power in Ottawa for almost a decade. - -On the other hand, you have the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has been in power in Ottawa for only a single year. - -The Liberals claim to represent the interests of Canadian business, the NDP the interests of Canadian workers. The NDP claims to represent the interests of Canadian students, the Liberals the interests of Canadian business. - -The latter claim is problematic. Businesses are no longer the driving force of the Canadian economy. - -The current Liberal government has presided over the worst economic performance of any post-World War II government. The previous NDP government was worse. - -The current Liberal government's economic record is no better. - -The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. - -However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -Since the Liberals took power, governments have been spending more than $1 billion a month. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $2 billion a month. - -The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. - -The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. - -The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The Liberal government has increased corporate taxes and introduced a host of new taxes on small businesses — taxes that the NDP has opposed. - -The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The NDP has been the beneficiary of a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the NDP has enjoyed record government spending. That spending has not succeeded in balancing the books. - -In the last five years, the government has spent more than $1 billion a month. - -The Liberals have been the beneficiaries of a relatively cheap Canadian dollar, which has made Canadian exports more competitive. However, it is no coincidence that the NDP has enjoyed a relatively weak economy since the Liberals took power. - -In the last five years, the -======================================== SAMPLE 365 ======================================== -This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. - -AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a new documentary that's opening in Toronto, the first in a series based on the book, The System Was Dead. The film, called El Salvador: A Hidden History, follows the journey of a film crew investigating the government's role in the mass murder of thousands, and the role the United States played in supporting the Salvadoran military during the 1980s. The two Americans who make the documentary are filmmaker Brian Urquhart, who is a former U.S. military intelligence officer who helped track down and kill El Salvador's most notorious terrorist, Manuel Noriega, and investigative journalist Amy Goodman. The film is screening tonight at the Don Mills Cinema in Toronto, the first screening in Canada of the film. - -Today we bring you an excerpt from the film that focuses on the role of the United States in the deadly wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. In El Salvador, the primary targets were the left-wing guerrilla groups, the FMLN, or the FML. The U.S. government provided military support to the Salvadoran military, funding the military's counterinsurgency program and training its elite forces. In addition, U.S. officers served as advisers to the Salvadoran military. - -After the military government was overthrown by the FMLN in 1980, the U.S. government maintained a presence in El Salvador until 1992, when the FMLN won an election that brought a new president, Porfirio Díaz, to power. As of today, the U.S. has a military base on the island of Vieques in El Salvador, where U.S. Marines are stationed, training Salvadoran forces in counterinsurgency. Over the course of the film, we'll hear from Brian Urquhart, documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, as well as Amy Goodman, investigative journalist and host of Democracy Now! - -Brian Urquhart has been a human rights activist for over 30 years, and he's been investigating the U.S. role in Latin America since the early 1980s. He's written many books about U.S. policy in Latin America. In addition, he has produced documentary films about U.S. military involvement in Central America. He recently made a film about the U.S. role in suppressing the Shining Path guerrillas in Guatemala, and he's currently preparing a film about the U.S. role in Latin America. - -Welcome to Democracy Now!, Brian Urquhart. - -BRIAN URQUHART: Thank you. - -AMY GOODMAN: You've been investigating U.S. military involvement in Latin America for years. Could you tell us about your research, your research for this documentary? - -BRIAN URQUHART: Sure. Well, the military-intelligence relationship was very, very clear during the Reagan years. It was kind of like the Cold War. And it's been a very strong relationship, since the '80s, which I think is very important to understand. And it really, in some ways, underlines the role of the United States in Latin America, that there are certain areas in which the United States tries to control the political process, but it also also has a very strong relationship with the military, particularly in El Salvador and Guatemala. And the military is very, very, very integral to U.S. foreign policy. - -AMY GOODMAN: So tell us about those areas that you have uncovered in El Salvador, Brian. - -BRIAN URQUHART: Well, for example, in El Salvador, the U.S. military was very heavily involved in training the Salvadoran army. And at the time, the U.S. military was very much involved in training at least, in the late '80s and early '90s, the Salvadoran army. And one of the things that I tried to do in the film, was to show the different types of training, from both the U.S. and the Salvadoran army. And one of the things that I found especially interesting is that, if you look at the training that there was to the Salvadoran army in the '80s, the training was very, very hard-core. I mean, it was very, very hard-core, with a lot of military combat training and sniper training, and it was very, very difficult. And if you look at the training that the U.S. military did in El Salvador, it was much softer, much more about negotiation and de-escalation and counterinsurgency. And, you know, in many ways, the training that the U.S. military did in El Salvador, was very similar to the training that the U.S. military does in Central America. - -AMY GOODMAN: So, in El Salvador, the military was essentially training the military. That's what you're telling us about. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 366 ======================================== -According to the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were 1,808,744 crimes in the United States in 2015. Of those crimes, 160,779 were violent crimes and 88,269 were property crimes. - -The FBI's crime statistics do not include the number of "justifiable" homicides, which includes police-related homicides, as well as the number of crimes for which the victim lives in a different state, or is under 18 years of age, or is a victim of a sexual offense. The FBI only counts murders and nonlethal crimes like aggravated assault, robbery, and larceny. - -To find out how many crimes were committed in each state in 2015, check out our interactive map below.<|endoftext|>Over the course of the weekend, the North Carolina State University Board of Trustees will vote on whether to approve a new football coach. On Tuesday, fans will be able to vote for their favorite candidate. - -But the decision is far more complicated than picking between three people. - -My initial thought was that the shortlist of three candidates was the most straightforward and straightforward way to get a decision. But that was before I started digging. - -The following is a list of factors that could play a role in who wins the job. I won't get into them all here, but I can explain why some candidates are more desirable than others. - -Personality - -The most important and the most widely discussed factor in the search is personality. - -Some candidates have more experience on the job than others, and the best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. - -The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. The best candidates will be able to communicate at a high level with the fans. - -So if personality is the most important factor in the search, who does the UNC football program need? - -I'd say two people. - -I'd say two people. - -Because of their personalities and the way they interact with fans (or the media), I think Todd Graham is the best fit for the job. - -Todd Graham's personality is the reason why he won the job at NC State. He was a big personality and an engaging personality. - -Early in his tenure, he was very outspoken. He was not afraid to tell the media what he thought. He'd say, "NC State is a great place to be a student-athlete. Coach (Bobby) Cremins is a fantastic coach. I don't care who you support. You want to be a part of it." - -He's not afraid to speak his mind. - -It's why he gets credit for creating a winning culture, which is why we should hire him. - -I also have a lot of respect for Larry Fedora, who was the head coach at NC State from 2005-09. He's a great coach and a very important part of the NC State football tradition. - -But Fedora, like Graham, is also an engaging personality. He's not afraid to speak his mind, and he's very passionate about his job. - -But Fedora is a much different person than Graham. - -Graham is a master of the "he said/she said" story. He's not afraid to be honest. - -He's not afraid to speak his mind. - -He's not afraid to speak his mind. - -And he's not afraid to be honest with the media. - -He's not afraid to be honest with the media. - -He's not afraid to be honest with the media. - -Bobby Petrino is another great example. He's a big personality and a good communicator. - -He loves his job and he loves his fans. He's a great communicator. - -He was the head coach at Louisville from 1996-2003. He was the head coach at Louisville from 1996-2003. - -Bobby Petrino is not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -He's not afraid to talk to the media. - -But his personality is not the reason why he won the job at Louisville. - -He was the head coach at a great program, which he says he didn't want to be at. But he had to be the head coach at a great program. And he did it. - -So when you're looking at personality, I think Graham is the best fit for the job. But Fedora is also a -======================================== SAMPLE 367 ======================================== -His name is Jim. He's been an avid gamer for a long time, but it's only recently that he's started to take his love of the game to the next level. - -"I was always a great gamer, but I never had the motivation," Jim said. "Now that I'm starting to get into video games and start getting better, I'm like, 'Oh, I can do this!'" - -Jim is a self-proclaimed "gamer' who's obsessed with video games since he was little. He's a huge fan of games like Call of Duty, Halo and Dragon Age, but he's also a longtime fan of Nintendo games like Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros U. - -He's going to school to study gaming, but he doesn't plan on going to college just for gaming. He said he wants to be a real-life video game developer, like a game designer, and he has his eyes set on becoming a game designer. - -"I'd like to work on games that people would actually want to play," Jim said. "I think it would be really cool to be a part of creating a game that people would actually want to play and be a part of making it happen." - -His plan is to get his game design degree, which he's been working towards since he was in middle school. He started working on his game design plan last year, and he's already started paying off the bills. - -He's currently working on a prototype for a new game, and it's all given him the motivation to continue to work towards a degree. He's also hoping to get his game design degree through the International Game Developers Association, which is a non-profit organization that helps people earn degrees in game design. - -Jim says he's been playing games for most of his life. He started playing games when he was around two years old, and he's been playing games ever since. - -"I think I was about 11 or 12 when I started playing games and really got into them," Jim said. "I started to play games like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda when I was three or four, and I played them all the time and I still did." - -"I was always a great gamer, but I never had the motivation." - Jim - -With his parents' help, Jim started to get into games. Jim says he's been playing games for as long as he can remember, and he's always had plenty of energy because of the games he loves to play. - -"I've always been very energetic, and when I'm playing games, I'm very kind of happy," Jim said. "I like to always have a good time, and I like to feel like I'm having fun. I like to feel good." - -Jim said his parents have been encouraging him to play more and more games, and he's been playing video games since he was a kid. - -"I think they're very supportive of me," Jim said. "I think they love playing games, but I think they love playing games with me as well. I think they're very supportive of me and I think they're very supportive of me and my hobbies, and I think they like that because I think they appreciate it too." - -Jim hopes to eventually work with his dad on his game design degree, and he's already been working on his plan to get his game design degree. - -"My dad would be very supportive of my decision," Jim said. "He's always been very supportive of me as well." - -Jim said he wants to be a game designer, and he's already started working on his game design plan. With a year left to get his game design degree through the International Game Developers Association, he already has the plans to get his degree through that organization. - -© 2018 KGW<|endoftext|>A study on the impact of tobacco products on the risk of developing a number of diseases in the general population has been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. - -The study looked at the relationship between a history of long-term smoking and the development of lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, laryngeal cancer, oral cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and Hodgkin's lymphoma. - -The researchers controlled for age, sex, education, body mass index, centre, and country. They found that smoking for more than 20 years increased the risk of lung cancer by 50 per cent. - -Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the Canadian population and is also a major cause of mortality, with 21,000 new cases diagnosed in 2010. - -The study also found that smoking was associated with a 65 per cent increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer, as well as a 50 per cent increased risk of developing laryngeal cancer. - -They also found a link between -======================================== SAMPLE 368 ======================================== -The US is poised to end the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal that has been negotiated by President Barack Obama for the past six years. The deal will be the largest trade deal the US has ever negotiated. - -The announcement was made by US Trade Representative Michael Froman. He said the US would adopt a "much more robust stance" on the TPP, and was now making the decision to withdraw from the agreement. - -"The decision to move forward on TPP was a difficult one for us to make," Froman said at a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart, Vice Prime Minister and Economy Minister Shinzo Abe. "But in the end, it is in the best interests of the US economy, our workers, and our businesses." - -The TPP was negotiated by the US and 11 other nations in the Pacific Rim. It was meant to boost trade and investment between the countries by lowering trade barriers and reducing import tariffs. As with all trade deals, the deal was not without its critics and critics have had a hard time convincing the US public and lawmakers to support the deal. The deal was not without its critics and critics have had a hard time convincing the US public and lawmakers to support the deal. - -Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. - -The TPP was also opposed by a large number of US lawmakers and lawmakers have raised concerns about the trans-Pacific deal. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. Supporters of the deal claimed it would increase economic growth and help boost the US economy. - -The TPP is scheduled to be finalized in the coming months. However, the US has already withdrawn from the South Korea – US Free Trade Agreement, which was negotiated in the 1990s.<|endoftext|>Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. - -A new Japanese fashion company is creating some quirky clothing. - -The clothing is all about the "kawaii" (cute) aesthetic, which means it's designed to be cute but also wearable. Most of the clothing is colorful and doodly, with a few designs, like this T-shirt, that are a little more interesting. - -This T-shirt is available for ¥1,500 (US$15), and it's available in men's and women's sizes. - -The clothing is made by the company "Kawaii Design," which started in 2011. The company sells apparel that can be worn by kids. The clothes are also made for adults, but they are cute, so they are sold only in the teenagers' section. - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement<|endoftext|>There are a lot of reasons why people don't like the idea of a hybrid-electric Tesla Model S: the high cost, the lack of range, the long waiting list. But one of the most important reasons is that, for all its great features, it's not a practical, everyday car. - -A Tesla Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode. Image: Tesla - -So if it's not practical, why does Elon Musk want to build it? He wants to sell it because he believes in the Model S—he's betting that it's the future of mainstream cars. - -Musk's bet is that the Model S is the car that will finally make it possible to build a supercar that's affordable, practical, and sustainable. That's Musk's dream, and why he's so excited about the Model S. - -But there's a problem: the Model S is not actually practical. - -The Model S is a pure electric car. It's not much different from an Audi A4 diesel—except that it has superior -======================================== SAMPLE 369 ======================================== - -Call it the "Stingray effect." - -For the past eight years, the United States has been at war with al-Qaeda and its allies in the Greater Middle East. But for nearly a decade, the U.S. has been able to track the group's hijackers through the vast network of embassies and consulates that dot the globe, enabling officials to determine the identities of the 19 men responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. - -But the U.S. government stopped monitoring the hijackers after they departed the country. - -Now, with the release of secret documents by a group of activist journalists, the agency is expected to confirm the existence of the program. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the government's ability to track terrorists through the diplomatic network, a program that has been kept secret from Congress and the American public. - -The documents, obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act, show that the U.S. was able to identify and track the hijackers through the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, which was the hijackers' first stop in the region. The consulate has since been closed. - -The documents also reveal that the hijackers were tracked by the CIA's "Global Entry" program, which allows diplomats and their families to travel directly to the U.S. without a visa. - -In addition to tracking the hijackers, the documents show that the U.S. was also able to determine the identities and travel plans of the 19 men who were being held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. - -The revelation that the U.S. was able to track the hijackers in the region comes as the Obama administration is under fire for its broad surveillance of Americans and its failure to address widespread concerns about its use of the program. - -"The government has long known that the U.S. government has diplomatic and intelligence relationships with many of the countries in the Middle East," said Congressman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The truth is that the United States is losing our ability to provide intelligence that could have prevented the attacks." - -The Intercept, a website run by First Look Media, a media organization based in Washington, D.C., published the documents on Friday. The documents are part of an ongoing collaboration between the site, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a group that advocates for press freedom. - -The Intercept published the documents as part of its "first installment" of a project that is being called "The Drone Papers." The project is seeking to spotlight the secrecy surrounding the use of drones, which was first revealed by The New York Times in February. - -The Intercept's first installment, titled "Drones Most Wanted," is a collection of stories about the use of drones by the U.S. government. The stories show the controversial aspects of the program, such as the use of drones to target American citizens without due process. - -In addition to reporting on the use of drones, the project will provide background on the 9/11 Commission Report. - -The first installment of the project is entitled, "Drones Most Wanted: The Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." - -The following are excerpts from the first installment of the project: - -The information in this installment was obtained from the so-called "9/11 Commission Report" by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency that is responsible for archiving government records. It was also obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act. - -The 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004, was produced by the independent commission appointed by President George W. Bush in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was the only official government document available to the public for years after the attacks. - -Much of the report has been classified. It was given to the public in 2004, but President Barack Obama deleted sections of the report that influenced the White House's counterterrorism policies. - -Because the report was classified, the 9/11 Commission Report could not shed light on how the U.S. government developed its counterterrorism policies in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. - -The document release is expected to provide new insights into the government's use of drones in the U.S. over the past decade. Documents from the 9/11 Commission Report showed that the U.S. had been extensively using remotely piloted aircraft in the war against al-Qaeda. - -The Intercept's first installment, "Drones Most Wanted," is a collection of stories about the use of drones by the U.S. government. The stories show the controversial aspects of the program, such as the use of drones to target American citizens without due process. - -In addition to reporting on the use of drones, the project will provide background on the 9/11 Commission Report. -======================================== SAMPLE 370 ======================================== -We're sorry, but the page you requested cannot be found. - -The following is a list of some of the pages you may have tried to reach on our website. - -If you are the owner of the page, please contact us at support@currykuzzle.com.<|endoftext|>Real Name: Unknown - -Nicknames: Unknown - -Location: America - -Date: November 8, 1990 - - -Case Edit - -Details: In 1990, a young woman named Julie Paul was found dead in a wooded area near her home in the town of West Haven, Connecticut. Her family had reported her missing in the hours before, but her parents thought she was still at school. The next day, her mother discovered that Julie had been missing for three days, and was found dead the next morning. Julie had been beaten to death, and her body was badly beaten. Police initially thought that Julie had been sexually assaulted, but it was later revealed that she had been killed by a blow to the head with a baseball bat, and that a large piece of her skull had been removed. - -Suspects: Julie's family had reasons to be suspicious of their daughter's boyfriend, Kevin Saucier. It was Saucier's job to sell the stolen stolen cars to be sold on the black market and then to rob them. He had an extensive criminal record and had previously served time in prison for manslaughter, burglary, and robbery. He had also been convicted of having sex with the victim during the time she was missing. The murder was thought to have been committed by Saucier, although he had not been charged with the crime. - -Extra Notes: This case first aired on the February 19, 1991 episode. - -Results: Unresolved. Saucier was charged with Julie's murder in March 1991, but in September 1990, Saucier's brother, Mark Saucier, was charged with her kidnapping and rape. - -Links:<|endoftext|>The Supreme Court has ruled that the police need a warrant to spy on the electronic devices of suspects in criminal investigations. (Reuters) - -The Supreme Court on Monday handed down a historic ruling that has huge implications for modern-day surveillance, allowing police to turn on and off the electronic devices of suspects in criminal investigations without first obtaining a warrant. - -The ruling, which follows a pair of high-profile cases in the last year, makes it clear that the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from illegal searches and seizures, does not apply to electronic devices such as cellphones and other portable computing devices. - -The ruling was unanimous: Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented. - -The decision represents a significant change in how law enforcement conducts investigations, and has provoked a fierce debate, as well as questions about what it means for individual privacy and the right to privacy. - -The court's decision is a huge victory for the National Security Agency and other spy agencies, which had argued that they are entitled to engage in "electronic surveillance" of people around the world based on secret court orders. - -But it also opens the door to surveillance of Americans' private communications and information stored in the cloud, and to the possibility that criminal suspects, innocent bystanders and even foreign leaders will be subject to such surveillance in the future. - -Despite the court's ruling, the government's powers to spy on electronic devices remain largely intact. In the most telling part of the ruling, in the context of the search of a suspect's phone, the court said that "the absence of any condition on the admission of evidence does not imply its inadmissibility." - -"The police may use oral or written evidence obtained from a 'third party' (i.e., from an electronic device) to search a suspect's phone, without first obtaining a warrant to do so," Kennedy wrote. "The Third Amendment does not require the police to obtain a warrant before searching a suspect's phone." - -Kennedy's opinion is a significant departure from the Fourth Amendment's requirement that search warrants be based on probable cause and that evidence obtained in the search must be suppressed if it is not relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. - -The case is United States v. Warshak. (The Washington Post) - -The ruling in the Warshak case centered around a 2012 arrest for drug trafficking in Baltimore. - -Although police were called to the scene, and seized the phone in question, investigators later determined that the phone had been used by the defendant, Yassin Aref, to make calls to his family, friends and associates. - -An independent witness was able to place Aref at the scene when the phone was seized, according to the court decision. - -The court concluded that the phone was an "electronic device" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and that the police could use it without a warrant to search for evidence relevant to the investigation. - -The ruling was also a victory for -======================================== SAMPLE 371 ======================================== -Greece's governor has warned that, as a result of a $307m (£206m) bailout by international creditors, "Greece has developed a kind of double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill". - -The comments by Yiannis Stournaras, a former minister for finance, are a stark reminder of the huge challenges facing Greece as it tries to overcome the crisis that has engulfed the country. - -The country is currently grappling with a €240bn (£177bn) bailout from international creditors, in return for a €130bn (£99bn) bailout from the European Union. - -In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Stournaras warned that Greece was "not a country that can meet the national income targets that it has set for itself". - -The country is also facing a €1.5bn (£1bn) cut in its planned pensions payment this year, which could further strain its finances. - -However, while the country is struggling with the effects of the austerity measures that have been imposed on it, it has also benefited from a €27bn (£22bn) bailout from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. - -Despite the heavy burden of debt that Greece has been forced to bear, Mr Stournaras admitted that "it's not a problem that can be solved with a magic wand". - -He added: "What we need is to meet the debt targets we have set, which are in the order of €110bn. We have to do that without any interest in terms of debt servicing. - -"What we are now seeing in western Europe is a new kind of debt crisis. It's not only Italy and Spain, but also France and the UK. It's not a problem that can be solved with a magic wand. - -"We have to accept the fact that Greece is a peripheral country and has a deficit that's significantly higher than its GDP. We have to accept that Greece will not be able to pay back what it owes." - -Mr Stournaras also pointed to the "very high fiscal crimes" that were committed by the Greek government. - -"If we look at the Greek deficit, it's really not that great. In 2012 alone, the Greek government was obliged to repay €30bn, and this is before we take into account that it was the ECB that made the loans to the Greek government. - -"That is very excessive and it's not sustainable. We had a government that made a lot of mistakes, but it wasn't the government's fault. When we look at the Greek government, we can see that it was a government that was focused on austerity. - -"The Greek government was quite openly behind the debt management programme and the austerity programme, but it was the Greek people who were the ones who were meant to pay for the mistakes. - -"It's a very tragic situation, because Greece has a double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill." - -Mr Stournaras, who is also a professor of economics at the University of Athens, also claimed that Greece had become a "pit of despair" as a result of its international bailout. - -"We are seeing in Greece a kind of double identity – on the one hand it is a sovereign state with a state tax system, and on the other hand it is a peripheral country that has been subjected to a fiscal narrative that it can't possibly fulfill," he said. - -"We are seeing a country where the political elite are governed by the rule of the silent majority, and where the people are obliged to carry the burden of austerity and debt repayment." - -Mr Stournaras's comments come after the European Central Bank opened the door to further monetary easing, in response to the ongoing crisis. - -The ECB announced on Thursday that it will now "look for ways to expand the monetary policy" of the eurozone, in a bid to support the eurozone's economy. - -The ECB stressed that it was important to "reduce the risk of deflation in the euro area" – a key concern for Greece, whose economy is already contracting. - -Meanwhile, Greece's new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, faced a backlash from opposition lawmakers after he said that the country does not need further financial assistance. - -"We have a programme and we will stick to it. We will not seek to increase the debt, but rather reduce it," he told reporters at a news conference. - -Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is expected to be formally appointed as the country's next finance minister by the end of the week. - -The Greek government is facing a number -======================================== SAMPLE 372 ======================================== -I want to enrage you. - -I want you to want to laugh. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me. - -I want you to want me -======================================== SAMPLE 373 ======================================== -The map above shows the following estimates of the uncertainty around the RCP8.5 scenario: - - -The red lines show the range of simulated results from the CMIP5 ensemble members. - - -The ensemble members are made up of about 6,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range. - - -The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. - - -The red lines show the range of simulated results from the CMIP5 ensemble members.The ensemble members are made up of about 6,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range.The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. - -The CMIP5 ensemble members are also known as "climate projections" and are made up of about 2,000 simulations of the same future conditions for the period 2035 to 2070. The grey bands are the uncertainty range. - - -The ensemble member with the smallest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 3.1 degrees Celsius. The member with the largest uncertainty is the member that was chosen to represent a warming of about 6.8 degrees Celsius. - -This uncertainty range is used for comparing different CMIP5 projections. The CMIP5 model projections are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the "high" and "medium" sensitivity scenarios, the "intermediate" and "low" (or "low") potential values scenarios and the "high" and "medium" equilibrium climate sensitivity scenarios. - -The CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is the temperature increase that could be expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). - -The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "high" sensitivity scenario assumes a much faster warming than the "low" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much larger temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. - - -The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. - -What is the difference between CMIP5 climate sensitivity estimates? - -The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios are more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. - - -The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the low sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the high sensitivity scenario. - -How can the CMIP5 climate sensitivity values be compared? - -The CMIP5 model predictions are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the "high" and "medium" sensitivity scenarios, the "intermediate" and "low" potential values scenarios and the "high" and "medium" equilibrium climate sensitivity scenarios. - - -The CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is the temperature increase that could be expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). - -The CMIP5 medium and high sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "high" sensitivity scenario assumes a much faster warming than the "low" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much larger temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. - - -The CMIP5 low and medium sensitivity scenarios represent scenarios that could be considered to be more likely than the "low" CMIP5 equilibrium climate sensitivity scenario. The "low" sensitivity scenario assumes a much slower warming than the "high" scenario. This means that the high sensitivity scenario results in a much smaller temperature increase than the low sensitivity scenario. - -What are the technical details of the CMIP5 climate sensitivity projections? - -The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report used a model called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The CMIP5 climate sensitivity projections were derived by comparing the CMIP5 models with the climate observations. - - -The CMIP5 models are, in order of increasing uncertainty, the high sensitivity -======================================== SAMPLE 374 ======================================== -Online - -Any email address can be set up as a guest. If you are logged in, you will automatically be assigned a guest account. You can additionally create a password-protected guest account. For more information, see Guest Accounts. - -Mail - -Mailboxes are accessible through the mail server. You can access your mailbox by sending mail to @. - -To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: - -Mail Sent to @example.com - -To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: - -Mail Sent to @example.com - -To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: To send mail to a mailbox, send the mail to @. For example, to send a message to the user "john.doe@example.com", send the following mail to john.doe@example.com: View your mailbox at any time at https://mail.example.com/mail/@. - -Important: Due to the way mail is routed through the mail server, a mail sent from one system to another is routed through the mail server for delivery. Since the mail server is managed by a third-party, this means that you cannot control or monitor how mail is routed through the mail server. Many mail servers are managed by third-party companies that may have different routing policies depending on your local load balancing profiles. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only known way to send mail through the mail server. - -To track the status of a mailbox, you can use the mailbox status command. - -Mailbox status [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com - -Warning: Using the mail status command to view the status of a mailbox may result in some mail being blocked from being delivered. - -To access the status of a mail account, you can use the info command. - -Info [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com - -Warning: Using the info command to view the status of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. - -To access the information about a mail account, you can use the info command. - -Info [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com - -Warning: Using the info command to view the status of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. - -To view the user content of a mailbox, you can use the snapshot command. - -Snapshot [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com @mail.example.com @mail.example.com - -Warning: Using the snapshot command to access the content of a mail account may result in some mail not being delivered. - -Important: Snapshot is not intended for use with the archive command. - -To access the user content of a user account, you can use the snapshot command. - -Snapshot [--help|--verbose] @mail.example.com @mail.example.com @mail.example.com - -Warning: Using the snapshot command to access the content of a user account may result in some mail not being delivered. - -To view the user content of the user's mailbox, you can use the list command. - -List @mail.example.com - -Note: List is not intended for use with the archive command. - -To view the user content of a user's mailbox, you can use the list command. - -List @mail.example.com - -Note: List is not intended for use with the archive command. - -To view the user content of a user's mailbox, you can use the list command. - -List @mail.example.com - -Important: List is not intended for use with the archive command. - -To view the user content of a user's mail, you can use the list command. - -List @mail.example.com - -Important: List is not intended for use with the archive command. - -To view the user content of a user's mail, you can -======================================== SAMPLE 375 ======================================== -So, I've spent the last week weeding out the dead wood in my home and office. I've changed my wardrobe. I've cleaned my closets and furniture and tools. I've gotten rid of some of my clutter. - -Now, though, I'm staring down at my desk. I look around and notice that I have a lot of books, which I love. I also have a lot of papers, which I love to read. But, I've also got a lot of stuff in my bookcase. - -I'm not sure what to do with it all. I'm not sure if I'm going to put it in a bag or a box. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or even throw it away. - -So, what should I do? - -To answer these questions, I thought we would start with a little history lesson. - -For the next nine months, I will be collecting items that represent the diversity of my life. I'm not going to be picking out the books that I love so much and toss them out of the window. I'm not going to be picking out the papers that I read so much and throw them out of the window. I'm going to be collecting the things that I do that I love. - -I'm going to be collecting a little bit of everything. But, I'm going to be doing it in a way that illustrates how, on a more personal level, I can collect these things. - -So, now that we've established my collection, let's go back to the beginning. - -How I Collected Things - -Back in the day, I would collect things by just making piles on the floor, or by digging through the couch cushions, or by picking up small objects. I would take a drop of enthusiasm, or a few adrenaline shots, and I'd run around the house collecting stuff. - -And, then I'd come home and look at what I had collected. - -My mom gave me a book in a box when I was a kid. It was a little book of random drawings. I remember, as a child, I would look at it and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -I then got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got another book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome!" - -Then, I got a book of random drawings in a box. I remember, as a child, I would look at that book and be like, "Oh my god, that's awesome -======================================== SAMPLE 376 ======================================== -"The best thing that can happen to a man is to be loved by his own mother" - -Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness the greatest action scene in history. And it is all because of a woman. - -The scene — one of the most iconic was in the 1995 film "The Matrix" — occurs at the end of the film, when Neo stands up to Morpheus, the leader of The Resistance, and asks him to give up his soul. - -Morpheus, a human-like leader of The Resistance, tells Neo that he is the embodiment of everything that is good in the world. This gift comes at a price, however: He must never reveal his true self to anyone. - -Neo, who is Neo in disguise, asks him to give up his soul because he can't be the person he wants to be. Morpheus says that he can be that person. - -But, in the end, Neo isn't willing to give up his soul so easily. - -I've been thinking about this scene since I first saw it — and I'm not sure I like it. On one hand, it is awesome. On the other hand, the scene is a bit too much like the love triangle in "The Matrix." - -Look, I understand that movies, when they are well-made, can do things that no other medium can do. And, yes, the love triangle in "The Matrix" is a fantastic scene. - -But if you watch it back to back with "The Matrix," "The Bourne Identity," "The Dark Knight" and "The Matrix Reloaded," it's obvious that the two scenes are completely different. - -Here's why. - -"The Matrix" - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman who are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -Let's say you hear about a hot new movie about a man and a woman forced to meet in a virtual reality world. Then, you go to the theater and see the movie. But the movie is a mediocre movie, because it's a bad movie. - -But, let's say you hear about a hot new movie about a man and a woman forced to meet in a virtual reality world. Then, you go to the theater and see the movie. But the movie is a mediocre movie, because it's a bad movie. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix Reloaded" - -"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman who, in the near future, are forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix Reloaded" is a movie about a man and a woman forced to meet each other in a virtual reality world. They must choose to fight or run. They are forced to fight because they are the enemy. - -"The Matrix" is a movie about a man and a woman forced -======================================== SAMPLE 377 ======================================== -A A - -Two people have died in a shooting that happened in the parking lot of a Spokane Valley mall Friday afternoon, police say. - -The victims died around 5 p.m. at Providence Regional Medical Center, according to a news release. - -The shooting happened in the parking lot of the Sears store, located near the mall's entrance. - -A Spokane Valley police spokesman says the victims were two people who were shot in the parking lot. They were not immediately identified. - -Police have not released any details about the suspected shooter or the suspect vehicle. - -The mall said it had been informed of the shooting, and that it would be closed Friday. - -"We are working with our security company to ensure that they remain on site and that they are on top of the situation," the mall said in a statement.<|endoftext|>PURPOSE: - -The aim of this study was to compare the short-term effects of tianeptine, a unique N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, with placebo on the cognitive functions of healthy subjects. - -METHODS: - -Twenty-two volunteers were randomly assigned to receive tianeptine (50 mg) or placebo for 2 weeks. Cognitive tasks were performed at baseline and after 2 weeks of treatment. - -RESULTS: - -Tianeptine significantly improved the performance of attention (p = 0.01), working memory (p = 0.01), and executive functions (p = 0.01). Tianeptine improved the performance of attention and executive functions, but not working memory, in comparison with placebo. Tianeptine may have a beneficial effect on cognitive functions in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Tianeptine was associated with a significant decrease in heart rate at the end of the trial. - -CONCLUSION: - -Tianeptine may be a safe and effective drug for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.<|endoftext|>The US Senate on Monday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping new climate change bill that would divest from fossil fuels and place an economic value on the benefits of renewable energy. - -The bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate with a vote of 75-20, would require federal agencies to adopt new rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 30% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. - -The bill also mandates that states increase their renewable energy investment rates to 20% by 2020 and 50% by 2025. - -The Senate vote came a day after the House of Representatives passed the bill by a nearly two-to-one margin. - -"This bill is a recognition of reality. The world is changing," said Senator Barbara Boxer, who co-sponsored the bill with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. - -"We can no longer wait and hope that President Obama's Clean Power Plan will save us from the worst impacts of climate change, and this bill is the first step to ensure that we do something about it," Boxer added. - -The Senate bill hands over the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to the states. Republican-led states have opposed the EPA's recent proposal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. - -"While the Republican leadership has once again squandered years of hard work to build support for a clean energy future, this bill marks a significant milestone in that fight," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. - -The bill defines a "greenhouse gas" as any substance that traps heat and can be regulated by the EPA. - -"This bill is not just about climate change. It is about the economy," said Senator Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill. - -The Democratic-led Senate is expected to approve the bill as soon as Tuesday. It is expected to easily pass in the Republican-dominated House, where a similar bill already has bipartisan support. - -The Senate bill is modeled on legislation introduced in 2010 by Boxer and Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. The two co-sponsored the bill with 10 other Democrats. - -The legislation passed the Senate in December with the support of all 33 Democrats and three Republicans. - -The bill now moves to the House. - -Explore further: Obama to accept climate change deal<|endoftext|>On this page: - -A history of the Dominican Republic - -The Dominican Republic, with its Caribbean coastline, is one of the most popular destinations for those who love adventure. The Republic is home to some of the world's most beautiful beaches, tropical forests, and sprawling tropical gardens. The Dominican Republic is also home to a diverse, entrepreneurial population. The Dominican Republic has been one of the fastest growing countries in Latin America, and is home to some of the world's wealthiest and most influential people. The Dominican Republic is also home to one of the most vibrant and dynamic entertainment and leisure industries in the region. - -As a result of its diverse and dynamic nature, the Dominican Republic is -======================================== SAMPLE 378 ======================================== -Praise be to Allaah. - -The first thing that a Muslim should do is to pray and make du'aa' for the Muslims who are in a state of Ihram. This is an obligation that Allaah has placed on the believers, because of the special status that the Muslims hold over them. - -With regard to their special status, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "Whoever visits me in my state of Ihram, visits me in my state of special status, and whoever is in a state of Ihram visits me in my state of special status." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) - -This indicates that the Muslims are under the protection of Allaah, and this is what is meant by special status. - -The second thing that a Muslim should do is to follow the prayers and du'aa's that he was taught and is taught in his religion. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like a person who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom. So if he makes du'aa' for me, his du'aa' is accepted, and if he doesn't make du'aa' for me, his du'aa' is refused." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656). - -It was said to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): "What do you think about that man who prays and makes du'aa' for you?" He said: "I think that he is a kaafir (disbeliever) and I don't think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656) - -The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) It was said: "What do you think about that man who prays and makes du'aa' for you?" He said: "I think that he is a kaafir (disbeliever) and I don't think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656) - -The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) - -The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "A man should pray and make du'aa' for the one who is sick, and I think that he will be granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6365; Muslim, 656) - -The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The one who prays and makes du'aa' for me is like one who has a disease in his body, and when the time comes for him to be freed, he is granted his freedom." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 6320; Muslim, 656)<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would appoint the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp as secretary of state, in one of his first appointments to a top diplomatic post. - -FILE PHOTO: Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson speaks to reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo - -Rex Tillerson, the chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), is a former Republican senator from Texas and a close ally of Trump, who defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8. - -Tillerson, 50, has more than 40 years of experience at Exxon Mobil, having served as chief executive of the company from 2006 to 2015, when he became chairman and chief operating officer. - -Trump has said he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a declaration that would be seen by the Palestinians as U.S. recognition of their capital. - -On Wednesday, Trump said he would seek to move America's embassy to Jerusalem, a decision that would upend decades of U.S. policy and upset -======================================== SAMPLE 379 ======================================== -The size of the U.S. economy has improved over time, but we are not there yet, a new report from the Federal Reserve says. - -The nation's gross domestic product is expected to grow 3.9% this year, up from the average of 2.1% seen over the last five years, the central bank said in its quarterly report on Tuesday. - -That's a bounce-back from the U.S. economy's slow recovery from the Great Recession in 2009. Growth has averaged only 1.5% since 2009, and has been falling since the end of 2014. - -The Fed's forecast, however, is still behind where it was in the middle of 2015, when it expected growth to turn around and average 3.7% over the next five years. - -"Economic growth is expected to pick up in 2017 and 2018, with growth of 3.9% projected in 2018, up from the 3.5% projected in the October 2016 FOMC statement," the report said. - -But the Fed warned that "economic growth is unlikely to be as robust as in the recent past." - -The economy is expected to grow at a 2.1% annual rate in 2018, up from the 2.0% pace seen at the beginning of the year. That's still below the 3% growth the Fed had projected before the election, but it's close enough to the 2.8% pace it had projected in its most recent projections at the end of 2016. - -The Fed also projected economic growth of 2.7% in 2019, up from a 2.3% pace seen at the end of last year. That's still below the 3.3% pace it had forecast in its most recent projections, but it's close enough to the 2.8% pace it had projected in its most recent projections at the end of 2016. - -The Fed's economic projections have been volatile since the election. In November, the central bank predicted that growth would rise from an annual rate of 2.1% in 2016 to 3.0% by 2019. - -But in December, the Fed cut its growth forecast to 2.6% in 2017 and 2.5% in 2018. - -Related: Trump wants to slash corporate taxes and eliminate regulations - -For President Donald Trump, who has promised to slash corporate taxes and lower regulations, boosting growth is important. - -"Looking ahead, we expect the economy to expand 2.3% in 2017, 2.2% in 2018, and 2.0% in 2019," the Fed said. - -The Fed also projected that the unemployment rate would rise to 4.4% next year. It had predicted unemployment to rise to 4.5% in 2016, and then to 4.6% by 2019.<|endoftext|>A new poll suggests that Canadians are not expecting the same level of federal spending as the Conservatives promised under the 2015 election campaign. - -The poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute suggests Canadians are looking for a new level of federal spending, but not as much as the Liberal campaign promised in their 2015 election platform. - -The poll found that 42 per cent of Canadians say they would like to see a mix of federal spending and a higher level of taxes, while only 19 per cent say they support the current level of federal spending. - -This shows that Canadians want to see a mix of spending and taxes, and that the Conservatives' promises of much deeper spending cuts under the 2015 budget were not met with all of the support that they expected, said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute. - -"The Conservatives were looking for a lot more spending cuts, and they said they would be able to make them. But the reality of the situation is, as we've seen, they're not that far away from being able to make those cuts," said Kurl. - -Conservatives expected support for spending cuts - -Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau campaigned with a pledge to balance the budget in four years. - -Trudeau said the Liberals would balance the budget by 2016-2017, meaning federal revenues would have to equal the federal spending. - -Trudeau promised to run three straight deficits of more than $10 billion per year to get the country back to balance. - -But the federal government projects that it will have a $3.9 billion surplus in 2016-2017, and a $3.5 billion surplus in 2017-2018. - -The following chart shows the federal government's projected deficits and surpluses as part of its fiscal projections. - -Federal government projects 2016-2017 2017-2018 Federal revenues $27,533,200,000 $29,928,300,000 $1,835,500,000 Federal spending $76,993,500,000 $94,228,000,000 $1,845,000,000 Federal debt $319,834,000,000 $319,875,000,000 $0 Provincial revenues $523 -======================================== SAMPLE 380 ======================================== -The Crystal Ball: 2.5 weeks ago - -Hillary Clinton, who had been thought to have a slight advantage in the race for the Democratic nomination, had a major blowup with Bernie Sanders over the weekend, and her campaign is hitting back hard, claiming that Sanders is the one out of touch with the American people. - -Clinton has said that she is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump, and she has cited her record of success, but Sanders has been saying that he can beat Trump, and in a recent interview, he said that he didn't think Clinton would win the election. - -Sanders was asked about the polls that showed him beating Trump in a head-to-head matchup, and he said that he did not think that Sanders could beat Trump, although he was not sure he could win the general election against Trump. - -"I don't think I can. I don't know that I can," he said. "But I'm going to do all that I can to try to see that we do win." - -Of course, Sanders, like Clinton, has been saying that he is the only candidate who can beat Trump for months, but recent polls have shown Trump beating Clinton in a head-to-head matchup. - -The Clinton campaign is going after Sanders, pointing to his "extreme positions" on gun control and campaign finance reform, along with comments he made in which he called black people "super predators." - -Clinton's campaign has been going after Sanders on a variety of issues, and they hope that Sanders will continue to attack Clinton in the upcoming primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. - -After all, Clinton has said that Sanders is the "only candidate who can beat Trump." - -[image via screengrab] - -— - -Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona - -Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com<|endoftext|>Over a year ago, we started a year-long series called "10 Things I Hate About You." - -The goal was to get together 10 things that you hate about your partner, so you could get to know them better and get to know your differences. We had an overwhelming response, with people taking the 10 Things survey countless times and posting them on the Internet. We were surprised at the generosity and honesty of the responses. - -We also learned that no matter how good of a person someone is, there are still things they do that annoy you. - -Finally, through the process of getting to know our partners, we realized that there are probably 10 things we hate about ourselves. So we're starting a new series called "10 Things I Hate About You." - -This time, we're going to focus on things that are personal to us, and things that we don't expect our partner to dislike. - -Sometimes people say to me, "I don't care what you do in bed, as long as you're not making me feel uncomfortable." - -It's a fair question. But most people don't want to hear, "I don't care about your sex life." So instead of focusing on how you have sex, we're going to focus on how you make us feel. - -We're going to focus on things that hurt, and things that make us uncomfortable. - -So join me as we take a look at 10 things that make us uncomfortable. - -1. You're not the biggest fan of nudity. - -We love being nude. We love putting on our clothes, and we love being naked. - -We've all been naked at some point, but many people have spent their entire lives not being naked. Some of those people are our partners. - -One of the biggest moments we've had was when Matt told us he had to go to the bathroom. - -"OK, but I'm going to be naked first," I told him. - -"OK, keep your pants on," he responded simply. - -It was one of the most intimate moments we've had. We've been together for a long time. We've both been naked a lot. We're both used to being naked in public. - -And yet, we had to go to the bathroom together. - -Sure, it was embarrassing. But it was also a huge step for us. We've been with him for a while. We've been naked in public together. We don't want to start wearing clothes only for their own sake. - -We don't expect you to be a fan of nudity. - -2. You don't make us laugh. - -I'm not saying you don't make us laugh. You sure do. I find it hard to believe that anyone who says they don't like me and my sense of humor doesn't like my sense of humor. - -But you don't. - -I've been to a lot of comedy clubs and comedy shows. I've seen a lot of -======================================== SAMPLE 381 ======================================== -The government has recently unveiled a new cybercrime strategy to fight it, which says that India is at a "critical stage" of cyber security and is facing "a new wave of cyber threats". - -The government has recently unveiled a new cybercrime strategy to fight it, which says that India is at a "critical stage" of cyber security and is facing "a new wave of cyber threats". - -In a statement on Thursday, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) said that the government has taken steps to enhance data sharing with companies and domestic law enforcement agencies for cyber security. - -"The government is committed to fighting cybercrime at the national level and is working to strengthen the National Cyber Coordination Centre. This initiative aims to build a strong and resilient cyber security network in place to ensure a strong and safe cyber environment for all Indians," MeitY said in the statement. - -Earlier this month, the government had announced a policy, which proposes to introduce a framework for the protection of personal data from cyber-attacks. - -The ministry has also directed the National Information Technology Development Agency to work towards reducing the vulnerability of the computer networks of government and private organizations to cyber intrusion and cyber-attacks. - -The initiative will focus on strengthening the capabilities of IT infrastructure and IT organisations to prevent cyber-attacks by the country's most vulnerable sectors like the financial sector. The government also intends to work towards the plan to reduce the vulnerability of computer networks to cyber-attacks by encouraging the private sector to share information about cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities. - -The cyber security strategy also suggests that the IT industry should be encouraged to enhance its awareness and develop procedures to prevent cyber-attacks. - -It also suggests that the government should encourage the private sector to adopt best practices in computer security to prevent cyber-attacks. - -The government has also decided to transfer the responsibility of ensuring the security of information technology systems, including the National Broadband Network, to the state governments.<|endoftext|>By: Alex - -Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any other characters. - -A/N: This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction. I have read the books and watched the movies so I have a basic idea of what to write about. I will try to be as spoiler free as possible but I'm not going to be subtle. Nothing will be totally out of order, so definitely check back to see what I've written. - -For the first chapter, I will be using two different spellings of the term "Harry Potter" so be prepared for that. If you don't like the new spelling, then you can use the other one. I will be using the correct spellings for each chapter and will be using the correct spellings for the names of spells. - -Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Harry Potter or any other characters. - -Chapter 1: Not a Fluffy Changeling - -"Professor Slughorn?" - -"Yes, Harry?" - -"I'm looking for a book about how to do the Ancient Runes, in the library, but I can't remember where it is." - -Slughorn looked at him for a moment. "Dumbledore told me, when you first met him, that you were hoping to learn how to do the Ancient Runes in order to become a new teacher at Hogwarts. So I took you to see him, so you could complete your training, to make sure you didn't screw up your studies again." - -Harry nodded. "Okay." - -"Now, look." Slughorn held out his hand. "I believe you just asked for a book about Ancient Runes." - -Harry looked at him and then took Slughorn's hand, shaking it. "Yeah, that's right." - -Slughorn smiled. "Good, now let's get you started on your journey. Get your robes on and come with me." - -Harry followed, feeling a little nervous. He could only imagine the reaction Dumbledore would give him if he asked for a book on the Ancient Runes and then broke into the library. - -Dumbledore was a very old man, and didn't like to be interrupted. He was very protective of the library and would do anything to keep it safe. The only time he'd let someone in without a Sen Patronus was if they had a good reason. - -"All right Harry, I'll show you to your room." Dumbledore said, taking Harry's arm and leading him into the Great Hall. - -"The Room of Requirement, right?" Harry asked. - -Dumbledore nodded, led him to the door to the Room, and then closed the door behind him. - -"You could have just asked to come in the hall, Harry." Dumbledore said. - -"I was thinking about it." Harry said. "I don't think I could handle the reaction Dumbledore might have given me, even if he wasn't going to react that way -======================================== SAMPLE 382 ======================================== -But one question that's really on everyone's mind: Is the game still worth it? The Xbox One version of Titanfall is a completely different beast than the Xbox 360 and PC versions, after all. - -Gears of War 4 isn't a PC game, but, for those who don't play on the PC, it's also not the same game. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 has the same resolution, settings, and feel as the PC version. The PC version is also a different beast. - -We've already discussed the similarities and differences between the Xbox One and PC versions of Gears of War 4. Let's dig in a little deeper and see what this means for PC gamers. - -Is Gears of War 4 on the PC worth it? - -Yes and no. Yes, Gears of War 4 is a totally different beast on PC. No, Gears of War 4 is still not worth it if you're a PC gamer. - -Gears of War 4 is a PC game - -Gears of War 4 is a PC game because it runs on the Unreal Engine 4, which is a custom game engine that's built for PC games. It's the same engine that Unreal Tournament is built on, and it's the same engine that the PC version of Gears of War 3 runs on. - -Is this a good thing? - -No. - -The Unreal Engine 4 is a custom game engine, and it's built for PC games. For anyone who has played a Gears of War game, or a Call of Duty game, this should be a familiar feeling. - -It's frustrating to see that the engine that's built for PC games is not used for PC games. If the PC games that Gears of War 4 runs on were developed on PC, it would still be a PC game. - -It's totally different - -Gears of War 4 is not a PC game in the same way that Gears of War 3 was a PC game. Gears of War 3 made a lot of use of the slower, more detailed Unreal Engine 3, but that's not the case with Gears of War 4. - -The Unreal Engine 4 has been tweaked and reworked for Gears of War 4. Some of these changes are subtle, and some people will notice immediately, but the end results are very different. - -The PC version of Gears of War 4 features reduced draw distance, and a slimmer field of view. There are also new lighting effects to observe, and the background is much darker. The PC version of Gears of War 4 is also much more colorful than the Xbox One version, with more saturated colors. - -It's also set in a different time period, with different environments and art style. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set in the future, and features the same futuristic setting as Gears of War 3. - -The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set in the future, and features the same futuristic setting as Gears of War 3. - -There are also some other differences that can't be seen while playing the same game on both platforms. For example, the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is exclusive to the Xbox One console, while the PC version is available on all platforms. - -It's also a lot less graphically intensive. The PC version of Gears of War 4 is a lot faster than the Xbox One version, and runs at 60fps. The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 also supports up to 4 players, while the PC version supports up to 8 players. - -It's better for co-op - -The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 is set up for co-op, and that's a good thing. The PC version of Gears of War 4 doesn't offer co-op. You're not playing as a character that's controlled by another player, but your character is controlled by the game. - -It's not a huge difference, but it's worth noting. The PC version of Gears of War 4 will not let you play with a friend who's playing on the Xbox One. - -It's a lot more expensive - -The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 costs $60, while the PC version of Gears of War 4 costs $80. The difference is that the PC version of Gears of War 4 costs more money. The Xbox One version will ship with a free copy of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which includes all of the DLC content for the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4. - -The PC version of Gears of War 4 will only come with the base game. Additionally, the Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 will only ship with the Ultimate Edition. - -It's also not a lot of fun - -The Xbox One version of Gears of War 4 features a lot of more intense gameplay. The Xbox One version features the same game modes, but the Xbox One version also has a lot more content. - -The PC version of Gears -======================================== SAMPLE 383 ======================================== -For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, or have a family member or loved one who has been diagnosed with depression, I would like to ask you to consider the following: How many of us have been in that situation? - -How many of us have thought "I wish I had the courage to tell them" or "I wish they would know how much I was hurting before I got to the hospital"? - -How many of us have been in the hospital, in the psych ward, because we thought that we were "crazy" or "bad"? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you were fine before you got sick and you'll be fine when you get better"? - -How many of us have thought that if we just "get through this", our life will be fine? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you're a failure if you don't get better soon"? - -How many of us have turned to ourselves, "it's my fault" or "it's my fault, I'm not good enough" or "I'm not as good as I could be" or "I'm not as good as I should be" or "I'm not as good as I try to be"? - -How many of us have thought "I'm so sorry, I've failed them, I'm a failure, I'm a bad person" or "I'm not a good enough person to be around them"? - -How many of us have told ourselves that we just need to "get well" and be happy again? - -How many of us have hated ourselves for thinking that we could be suffering from something that we "don't understand" or that we "don't know how to fix" or that we "don't understand why we are here" or that we "don't know what to do"? - -How many of us have told ourselves that "I'm the problem" or "I'm the cause of my illness"? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you're not as good as you should be" or "you're not as good as you try to be"? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you're just a little crazy" or "you're just a little crazy, you'll get over it" or "you're just a little crazy, you can't help yourself" or "you're just a little crazy, get over it"? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you're not as good as you should be", "you're not as good as you try to be", "you're not as good as you should be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be" or "you're not as good as you try to be"? - -How many of us have been told by others, "you're an easy target" or "you're not as strong or brave as you should be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or brave as you try to be" or "you're not as strong or -======================================== SAMPLE 384 ======================================== -It's the subject of countless memes, a meme that's been making the rounds since the end of the first presidential debate. - -But now, President Barack Obama's recent remarks on the 2008 financial crisis have some believing that he could be on to something. - -"I think there are some consequences to what happened that are difficult to untangle," Obama said during the debate. "And I think the economy has to get back on track." - -Obama wasn't the only one to make the comment. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who's been criticized for his record on economic issues, also said: "The president took a hit for it, but I think that the overall economy is doing reasonably well." - -However, many economists say that the economy is in "recovery" mode, with slow growth and low unemployment, and that the "gains" from the recession are starting to ebb away. - -Not everyone agrees with this assessment. - -"There is no recovery," said Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. "The economy is in a recession. The only thing that is growing is the federal debt." - -Reich was an economic adviser to Obama's presidential campaign. - -Reich has been skeptical of the Obama administration's ability to turn around the economy. - -"It's going to take a lot more than a speech. It's going to take a lot more than the "you didn't build that" speech," Reich said in an interview with CNNMoney. - -The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>Imagine that you're a child. You're drawn to a cute little creature with wicked red eyes and a singed, mohawk. You want more than anything to be just like him. - -You pick him up and stare at him, mesmerized. All you want to do is run and climb trees, play ninja and eat candy. You want to be just like him, to be evil, to be sad, to be angry, to be good. - -But he's not your enemy. He won't harm you, probably — he's just a toy. He's not evil. He's a toy, some random little creature you picked up that doesn't say anything. - -But he's not your enemy. He won't harm you, probably — he's just a toy. He's not evil. He's a toy, some random little creature you picked up that doesn't say anything. - -What kind of a person would you become if you are given a toy of your very own? - -There is no real answer to that question, but we can make one up: You'd be a nice person. You'd be kind. You'd be open-minded and curious. You'd be forgiving. You'd be patient. You'd be kind. You'd be patient. You'd be forgiving. - -You'd be kind. - -A few months ago, I wrote an article on why kindness is so important to Australia. The idea came from a conversation I had with my girlfriend, a lovely woman named Elizabeth, who made the comment that kindness is so important to her because it makes you more open-minded. Elizabeth was right. I've had the experience of living in a world that's very closed-minded, to the point where I questioned whether or not I existed, only to be taken in by people who were as self-absorbed and insular as I am. I realized that there is no such thing as a species that truly lives in the open-minded, open-hearted state. We all have a tendency to be closed-minded or closed-hearted. - -I also realized that kindness is not just something you can teach as a lesson in the classroom. You can learn kindness by watching the people around you. You can learn kindness by observing people you don't know, and by contemplating the world around you. You can learn kindness by seeing the world in a new way, through a different lens. You can learn kindness by engaging in conversations with people you don't know, and by observing people you don't know, and by contemplating the world around you. - -But the point of this article isn't to teach you how to be a nice person. You already know how to be a nice person. You already know how to be kind. - -The point of this article is to show you how to experience kindness. - -It's not hard to teach kindness. It's not hard to observe kindness. It's not hard to become kinder. It's difficult to learn kindness. - -But it's easy to be kind. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness is easy. - -Kindness -======================================== SAMPLE 385 ======================================== -Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The mother was in court to hear the verdict - -The mother of a teacher killed by a student at a school in the US state of California has been found not guilty of manslaughter. - -The verdict was read after a four-day trial in the US state of San Diego. - -A jury had found 21-year-old Tamara Dominguez not guilty of the murder of 17-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, also a teacher at Palomar High School. - -Dominguez had been accused of shooting Fryberg in the head after the two argued over a pair of headphones. - -Dominguez and Fryberg were teaching a maths exam at the school on 3 June 2015. - -Both had been sitting in a nearby classroom when they heard the first gun shot. - -Image copyright California Department of Corrections Image caption Dominguez (left) and Fryberg were teaching a maths exam when the shooting took place - -Dominguez told police she had confronted Fryberg after she found the headphones in his bag. - -The two argued about them, and then the teacher shot Fryberg, who was lying near a set of lockers. - -He died in hospital a few days later. - -Dominguez told police she had been scared, but "didn't mean to kill him", according to the Los Angeles Times. - -The school district has since moved to ban the sale of headphones to students, but the ban was not immediately enforced. - -The trial had centred on whether Dominguez had a reasonable fear of Fryberg's life when she opened fire. - -The pair had argued over a pair of headphones after the latter had found them in Fryberg's backpack. - -Prosecutors argued that Dominguez was in a stressful situation at the time of the shooting and had no choice but to shoot Fryberg.<|endoftext|>The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit membership organization for the development of open source software, including but not limited to the Linux operating system. - -The OSI was founded in 1997 by Linus Torvalds and Mike Hearn to promote and protect the use of open source software. The organization has grown to more than 35,000 members, representing thousands of companies and organizations worldwide. - -The Open Source Initiative is a declarative membership organization, and its members are not required to pay an annual membership fee. Open source software development happens without the need for any organization or leadership. - -The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in 1997 by Linus Torvalds and Mike Hearn. - -Membership in the Open Source Initiative is open to anyone, and there are no dues. - -What is open source software? - -Open source software is a form of software that is licensed under an open source license. This means that the code is available for anyone to use and modify, and that the development process is open to anyone who wishes to be involved in the process. - -The OSI is a member of the FSF, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. - -Why do we need an organization? - -The OSI is a declarative membership organization, meaning that it is not a government or other organization. It is open to anyone, and it has no formal leadership. - -The OSI is a member of the Free Software Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. - -The OSI is a member of the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the use of open source software. - -Who do we have? - -The OSI has 35,000 members, representing thousands of organizations and thousands of developers. - -The OSI is a member of the FSF, the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, and many others. - -The OSI is a member of the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the use of open source software. - -What does the OSI do? - -The OSI conducts and supports various programs and activities. Its programs include:<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. - -AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour with the former Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, John Neely Kennedy, who served in the Senate from 1962 to 1985 and is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. - -John, welcome back to Democracy Now! - -JOHN NELLEY KENNEDY: Good to be here. Thanks for having me. - -AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to start with your response to the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United. What do you think of the ruling today? - -JOHN NELLEY KENNEDY: Well, I think it's a very important and good decision. I think it's a very big part of the story of the rise of a corporate political system -======================================== SAMPLE 386 ======================================== -The Collider's world premiere of the first season of the Netflix series Sense8 is coming up on the weekend, and the show's cast and crew are giving fans a sneak peek at the show's new characters. - -Netflix announced the show's new members at its San Diego Comic-Con panel, including Danny Pudi, Jodie Foster, Tuppence Middleton, Naveen Andrews, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Andy Samberg, Doona Bae, Andy Schur, Doona Bae, Freema Agyeman, Jamie Clayton, Max Riemelt, Tuppence Middleton, and Aml Ameen. - -"You know, this is the first thing I've ever done that's been written by an African-American woman," Pudi said. "I can't tell you how great it is." - -Pudi also talked about the show's themes of race and gender in the arts. "The show is about people who have experiences that are not so different from their neighbors," he said. "And yet we're not allowed to talk about it, and we're not allowed to be who we are. Sexism and racism and homophobia and transphobia. We don't have a voice—that's the thing I'm trying to bring out and say." - -Meanwhile, the cast also revealed that the show's alternate universe setting is inspired by the work of Marc Okrand, who was a black American writer who was also a mentor to Shirley Jackson. The network also revealed that it's working with the author on a book of short stories that will be a companion piece to the show. - -The cast also talked about the show's sensibility and themes. "It's about the importance of connection, and maybe the importance of your body and your spirit," Foster said. "How do you try to live in a world that's not as connected as you would like to be, [and] how do you go about making that happen? In a very, very literal way." - -At one point, Foster confessed that she was "crying" during a scene with Jodie Foster. "I cried during the scene, because it's about these people, and it's about a woman and a man who are so connected, so soulful, and so in tune with each other, and yet it's also about their passion and their connection and the connection that they have with each other," she said. - -Foster also said the show took some inspiration from her own life. "I think it's really important to get behind the camera and be the storyteller," she said. "To be the person who says the things that we want to say, and to be the person who gets it across. And that's what's interesting to me." - -As for the first season, Pudi said, "I think it's going to be a different kind of experience that people will have, and it's going to be a different kind of storytelling."<|endoftext|>Troy Mullins, a former senior official in President Barack Obama's administration, is set to be the next U.S. ambassador to Ireland. Mullins will serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland until the Senate confirms President Donald Trump's nominee for the position, former Rep. Tom Price. - -Mullins, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, will be the first former Obama administration official to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland. He has served in the private sector for most of his career, including at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Mullins has also worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. - -Mullins has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration. He has criticized the administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, and he worked to undermine the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. - -Mullins, who is also a member of the Catholic Church, has been a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party, and he has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration. - -"In the first week of his administration, President Trump has initiated a series of executive orders that have undermined the foundation of our national security, the very foundation of our country, and the very foundation of the United States," Mullins said during an interview with the Irish National Broadcasting Corporation last week. - -"I'm very concerned about what the Trump administration is doing, and I want to make sure that our foreign policy reflects the best of American values." - -Mullins' appointment came after Ireland's foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, met with Trump officials in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Feb. 20. Flanagan has been a vocal critic of the president's policy toward Ireland and has criticized the terms of the U.S.-Ireland trade -======================================== SAMPLE 387 ======================================== -The U.S. military's most powerful and defensive fighter jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is a grave threat to the United States' national security, according to a newly declassified report. - -The report by the Defense Science Board, an independent, nonpartisan arm of the Pentagon, warns that the F-35 could be "inherently dangerous to the national security of the United States." - -The report, released Tuesday, calls the F-35 a "burden on the U.S. economy" and says the Pentagon should abandon plans to buy as many as 2,443 of the planes over the next 15 years. - -The report says that the Pentagon should instead invest in more stealthy fighter aircraft, such as the F-22 Raptor. - -"The F-35 is inherently dangerous to the national security of the United States, and should be cancelled," the report said. "The F-35 is an incomplete aircraft, severely lacking in many key areas, and is so expensive that it is the most expensive weapons system in history." - -The report, written by a panel of 13 retired military officers, comes as the Pentagon tries to take a step back from an expensive and costly weapons program that has generated huge controversy and criticism over its cost and capabilities. - -The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program, and the last of the nation's three major fighter jet programs. It's also the most complex, and at $379.5 billion, it is the most costly weapons program in history. - -The Pentagon is struggling to come up with a plan to replace the aging F-16 and the aging F-15 fighters that fly with the Air Force. The F-35 is meant to do the job of both planes — a fleet of up to 2,443 fighters would cost about $1 trillion over the next 15 years. The F-35 program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, and a U.S. Air Force test pilot was killed in January by a faulty F-35. - -The jet was designed with a "stealth" capability that makes it hard to see, but also makes it easy for enemy pilots to shoot down. The F-35 is designed to be able to penetrate enemy air defenses, even cruise missiles and enemy aircraft. - -The report said the F-35's stealth capability is being undermined by a lack of skilled pilots and maintenance workers. - -The report said the F-35 was too complicated and difficult to maintain. - -"The F-35's development has been plagued by serious design flaws, and the production and sustainment program has been plagued by cost overruns and technical problems," the report said. - -The report said the F-35's radar and electronic warfare upgrades have not been tested properly, and the jet's computer systems and avionics have been slow to adapt to new software. - -"The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied on," the report said. - -The report said the Air Force was only just beginning to develop and test its own aircraft to replace the F-16 and the F-15. - -"The F-35 program has been plagued by problems that have escalated over time, and the program is not currently on a path to replace the F-16 and F-15," the report said. - -"The F-35's stealth capabilities have not been tested properly, and it has been demonstrated that the jet will be detectable by enemy radar if it is flying at low altitudes, or on cloudy days," the report said. "The F-35 has not been tested to the extent necessary to guarantee its ability to detect and defeat enemy air defenses." - -The F-35 is flown by pilots who are considered too young and inexperienced to fly the Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet. - -The report said the F-35 is too expensive and too complex to be fielded on a timely basis. - -"The F-35's development has been plagued by serious design flaws, and the program is not currently on a path to replace the F-16 and F-15," the report said. "The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied on." - -The report said the F-35's stealth capabilities have not been tested properly, and it has been demonstrated that the jet will be detectable by enemy radar if it is flying at low altitudes. The F-35 has not been tested to the extent necessary to guarantee its ability to detect and defeat enemy air defenses. - -"The F-35 is too expensive and too complex to be fielded on a timely basis," the report said. "The F-35's complex, high-tech system of sensors and computers that drive its combat system is not mature and cannot be relied -======================================== SAMPLE 388 ======================================== -In some parts of the country, the economy is booming. In other parts, not so much. - -And in some places, the economy is booming proportionally more than in others. - -That's the upshot of a study being released today by the University of Michigan and the Pew Research Center. It's the most complete look yet at the key economic indicators affecting Americans' lives. - -The report, which identifies 167 key indicators, includes data on wages, jobs, the stock market, the housing market, consumer confidence, consumer sentiment, housing starts, home sales, and the number of people with jobs. Some indicators are available only at the state level and some are available at the city or county level. - -Here's what's on the list. - -Average hourly earnings: $22.17 - -The average hourly earnings for all private workers has risen by 1.2% since 2007, the fastest growth of any industry. - -Housing starts: 1.8 million - -The housing starts were up more than 11% from 2007 to 2011. - -The average number of homes sold per day: 4.2 - -Home sales were up significantly from 2006 to 2009, but they have since leveled off. - -Home prices: Up 11.6% - -Prices were up 11.6% from the peak in June 2006. - -Home sales: Up 28.1% - -Home sales were up 28.1% from the peak in June 2006. - -Stock market: Up 11.5% - -The Nasdaq-100 index was up 11.5% from its previous high in March 2009. - -The S&P 500 index was up 10.8% from its previous high in March 2009. - -Consumer confidence: Up 1.9% - -The Consumer Confidence Index has climbed 1.9% since December 2009. - -The consumer confidence index rose more than 1.9% from December to March. - -Consumers' inflation expectations: Up 1.8% - -Consumers' inflation expectations have increased by 1.8% since December. - -Job openings: Up 4.4% - -Job openings have risen nearly 4.4% since the recession ended. - -Employment: Up 2.5% - -The employment-to-population ratio is up 2.5% since December 2008. - -The unemployment rate: Up 2.6% - -The unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2% in December 2008 to 7.8% in December 2011. - -Unemployment rate by state: Up 2.7% - -The unemployment rate has fallen by more than two-thirds since December 2008. - -Home values: Up 13.7% - -The median home value is up 13.7% from its previous peak in June 2006. - -Home sales: Up 16.8% - -The number of homes sold in a typical month has been up 16.8% since the recession ended. - -Stock market: Up 14.2% - -The Nasdaq-100 index was up 14.2% from its previous high in March 2009. - -The S&P 500 index was up 14.2% from its previous high in March 2009. - -Consumer sentiment: Up 2.1% - -The Consumer Confidence Index rose 2.1% since December. - -The Consumer Confidence Index rose more than 1.9% from December to March. - -Economists: Up 0.9% - -The economy's positive momentum has lifted household spending, which has increased by more than 1.3% since the recession ended. - -Growth in gross domestic product: Up 2.2% - -GDP grew by more than 2% in each of the past four years. - -The nation's gross domestic product grew by 2.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the report. - -Pew Research Center - -Housing starts: Down 3.7% - -The number of construction permits for new home construction has been falling since the last recession, falling 3.7% from its peak in the fourth quarter of 2007 to its low point in the fourth quarter of 2011. - -The country's housing starts have been declining since the recession ended. - -The number of housing starts is falling. - -The percentage of Americans considered to be homeowners: Down 1.1% - -The percentage of Americans considered to be homeowners fell 1.1% between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2011. - -The percentage of homeowners who are renters: Down 1.4% - -The percentage of people who are renters fell 1.4% between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2011. - -Home values: Down 6.3% - -The median home value fell 6.3% from its previous peak in June 2006. - -Home sales: Down 9.2% - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 389 ======================================== -HTC 1st Gen. HTC One - - -- - -- Released 2013, April - -155g, 9.9mm thickness - -Android 4.2 with Sense 4.0 - -4GB storage, microSD card slot - -N/A 594,213 hits - -28 Become a fan - -4.1" 480x800 pixels - -5 MP 1080p - -1 GB RAM MT6592 - -1450 mAh Li-Po - -Disclaimer. We can not guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. Read more<|endoftext|>If you've ever used a 3D printer, you know that it's a handy tool for the home maker. Even if you're a mobile 3D printer user, there are times when you'll need to print something large or small. - -Enter the Stereo Sculpting Machine, an open source project created by a team of engineers at the University of Michigan, which creates 3D models out of sound waves. - -The Stereo Sculpting Machine uses an acoustic resonator to create 3D models out of sound waves. The Stereo Sculpting Machine uses an acoustic resonator to create 3D models out of sound waves. - -According to the project's website, it works by creating a series of resonating diaphragms, or shells, and then placing the side of the "shell" against a sound source (in this case, an acoustic resonator). The Sound Source (a speaker) is placed on the other side of the resonator, and sound waves from the speaker travel through the shell and hit the Sound Source, which causes the sound waves inside the shell to vibrate, creating a 3D model. - -The Stereo Sculpting Machine works by creating a series of resonating diaphragms, or shells, and then placing the side of the "shell" against a sound source (in this case, an acoustic resonator). The Sound Source (a speaker) is placed on the other side of the resonator, and sound waves from the speaker travel through the shell and hit the Sound Source, which causes the sound waves inside the shell to vibrate, creating a 3D model. - -The results are impressive -- sounds like a helicopter, a cell phone, and a guitar can be seen from any direction. The site also notes that the Stereo Sculpting Machine can be used to create stunningly realistic models of all sorts of objects. - -This isn't the first project to use 3D printing in this way. Last year, an artist in Italy created a 3D-printed version of the Dali Lama, which is currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. - -This isn't the first project to use 3D printing in this way. Last year, an artist in Italy created a 3D-printed version of the Dali Lama, which is currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. - -You can learn more about the Stereo Sculpting Machine on the project's website, and download the source files for the project itself. - -This article was originally published by Business Insider. - -More from Business Insider:<|endoftext|>About "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" - -"The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was originally released on Lauryn Hill's album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. - -The song was featured on Lauryn Hill's second album, 24/7. - -The video for "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was directed by Michael Behar.<|endoftext|>Pau Gasol played his first game in an 18-month-old NBA season Sunday with the Los Angeles Lakers, two days after he underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus. - -"I'm glad to be back," said Gasol, who played 13 minutes, scoring four points, at Charlotte. "I'm excited to be back on the court." - -But the Lakers' coach was not looking forward to the extended absence for the forward who had been playing a key role in the team's championship run last season. - -"I'm not a guy who wants to be a spectator," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said. "I want to be involved in the game. I don't like to be a spectator. But we're not going to be able to play the games. You have to respect that." - -Gasol will undergo surgery on Monday in Philadelphia and could be sidelined for up to six months. - -He will be the latest in a long line of injured Lakers players who have missed a significant amount of time. - -The Lakers will play their first nine games without Gasol, who has had back surgery in the past. He had 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 20 minutes against the Hornets. - -"It's tough," D'Antoni said. "He -======================================== SAMPLE 390 ======================================== -Game Design by Steve Jackson Illustrated by John Kovalic - -published by ABC Games - -published by ABC Games ISBN 1-55634-634-8 - -256 pages, softcover, December 2004 - -ISBN 1-55634-634-9 - -Also available from Amazon.com: - -Amazon.com Part 1 | Amazon.com Part 2 - -This is the game that started it all. In Zombicide, players take it in turns to generate a zombie horde from a specific location. The game's rules are designed mainly for a single player, but the zombie horde generation rules are easily modified to fit up to four players. The rules are simple, but they provide just enough complexity to keep things interesting. - -The game is fairly easy to learn, but it's a little more complicated to play. The rules are clearly laid out but the game can get confusing if you're not careful. - -The game's theme is based on the Zombocalypse movie franchise, which features a zombie apocalypse. The Zombocalypse movies take the basic concept of the original Zombicide game and adapt it for a more modern setting. - -Zombicide was originally published in 2000 by John Wick Presents, and later re-released in 2004. - -Reviewers - -"This is an excellent game, and one of the best board games I've played. It's a quick game to learn and a great way to kill some time between other board games. I highly recommend it." - Mike Selinker, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game even for someone who does not like zombies. I found this one to be a bit more complex than the standard game, and that was a good thing. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game." - Michael, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"I did not like this game. I really didn't like it. It was a very boring game. It was a very boring game. I didn't like the game at all. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Philip, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game, and one of the best board games I've played. It's a quick game to learn and a great way to kill some time between other board games. I highly recommend it." - Mike Selinker, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"I did not like this game. I really didn't like it. It was a very boring game. It was a very boring game. I didn't like the game at all. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Philip, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring. It was just boring." - Charlotte, www.boardgamegeek.com - - -"This is a very good game. It was fun to play and has a lot of replay value. I would definitely recommend it for beginners or for those who don't like the usual zombie game. I liked the plan for creating the zombie horde, but I failed in my attempt to make it use as much of my available resources as possible. It was fun to play, but I wish I had been able to do it better. -======================================== SAMPLE 391 ======================================== -I have a simple question, how many times have you been on a plane and left your iPhone in the overhead bin? I have had it for a few years now and I always find myself doing it, however it's now been a few months since I took it out of the bin. I'm pretty sure there is a very simple way to find it, but for some reason I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I've been looking for this for a while but I'm not sure how to ask the flight crew. I've tried looking up the answer on the Internet but I haven't found anything. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!<|endoftext|>Banned in Russia for being a "gay propaganda" prohibited by the law, the Russian Orthodox Church is preparing to run a nationwide advertising campaign to "cure" homosexuality. - -The campaign was announced by the Church's press service on Tuesday, claiming that it would make the church's "image more attractive" to young people. - -"The Church wants to encourage young people to find God," the statement said, adding that it planned to run the campaign "in a very public way," namely "in all the regions of Russia." - -The Church's press service described the campaign as a "long-term project" that would make "the church's image more attractive" to young people by "celebrating family values." - -"Young people are not just interested in the Church's religious teachings, but also in the fact that families are a concrete example of the Christian values, and a family without children is a family without faith," the church said. - -The Church's campaign follows a recent spate of anti-LGBT legislation in Russia, which has seen a series of rulings by the country's highest court, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, banning the distribution of materials that promote homosexuality and "gay propaganda." - -The Russian Orthodox Church has also come under serious criticism for its refusal to accept LGBT people into its ranks, with some members reportedly staging gay pride parades in protest. - -The Church has also been criticized for its portrayal of the LGBT community in its media, with advertisements for "gay relief" that have been branded as "homophobic" and "hate-filled." - -The Russian Orthodox Church has previously announced its plans to open a new youth center focused on "curing homosexuality" in the northern city of Sochi.<|endoftext|>A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows Michigan has the highest rate of diabetes in the country, making it one of the top 10 states with the highest rate of adult-onset diabetes. - -According to the CDC, the state's adult-onset diabetes rate is 1.9 percent, higher than all but four other states. It's also more than four times the national average of 0.5 percent. - -Overall, the CDC found that over a third of adults in the U.S. have diabetes, with an estimated 39.4 million people with the disease. - -Related: 10 States with the Highest Obesity Rates - -"The number of Americans with diabetes is expected to nearly double by 2030," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement. "This increase will require greater commitment from health care providers, as well as increased community and family education to prevent and treat diabetes." - -Like many other states, Michigan has an elevated rate of obesity, with one in four adults in the state classified as obese. There's also a disproportionate number of adults with diabetes, with nearly one in five adults with diabetes. - -Other states with high rates of adult-onset diabetes include Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. - -Related: 10 States with the Highest Childhood Obesity Rates - -The cost of treating diabetes is a major factor in the high rates of diabetes, the CDC said. - -"Diabetes is a leading cause of disability in the United States, with nearly $147 billion spent on treatment each year," Frieden said. "This cost burden is especially high in rural areas and among racial and ethnic minorities." - -The CDC said that the cost of treating diabetes is $1.8 billion in 2010, and that the costs could increase to $2.2 billion by 2025. - -"The high cost of diabetes is a key reason why many people with diabetes go without needed treatment, or take unnecessary risks with their health," Frieden said. "We must continue our efforts to cut the number of people with diabetes, and reduce the burden of diabetes." - -Related: Top 10 States with the Highest Rate of Adult Obesity - -For more information on the CDC's findings, click here. - -Related: 5 States with the Most Overweight People<|endoftext|>The next two weeks are going to be very interesting for us here at New Zealand's premier petroleum company, Mobil. - -On Monday evening, the Japanese TV channel Fuji TV will broadcast the -======================================== SAMPLE 392 ======================================== -A disturbing video has emerged online showing a group of masked men harassing a Muslim woman in a UK city. - -The video, which was shot in Birmingham, shows the men shouting "terrorist" and "this is for Syria" before dragging the woman back into their van. - -In another video, the woman tells the men that they are "terrorists" before they begin to kick her. - -The attack, which was filmed by a passerby, is the latest in a series of violent attacks targeting Muslims in the UK. - -Since the Paris attacks in November, there have been hundreds of incidents of abuse against Muslims by youths. - -The latest incident comes after a group of men were filmed harassing a Muslim woman in North London. - -In a video uploaded to YouTube, a group of masked men were seen shouting: "This is for Syria, you terrorist, you Muslim! This is for Syria, you terrorist you Muslim." - -After dragging the woman back into their van, the group continued by shouting "This is for Syria, this is for Syria, this is for Syria." - -In another video, the woman is seen telling the men that they are "terrorists" before they begin to kick her. - -Another clip shows a man telling the woman, "We will fight you, we will fight you, we will fight you, you Muslim, you Muslim" before kicking her. - -The video was posted by a passerby who was driving past the scene. - -A spokesperson for the city's police force, which is investigating the incident, said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. - -"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. - -"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. - -"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." - -In a separate incident, a woman has told the Birmingham Mail that she was called a "terrorist" by a group of men after she was attacked by an unknown assailant in Birmingham. - -The woman, who has not been named, said: "All I remember is a guy in a black suit, he had a grey hoodie, and he got into my face. - -"I was shocked, I didn't know what was going on. - -"I was asking him who he was and why he had called me a terrorist, and he just told me to shut up. - -"I was really scared, so I said to him: 'What did you call me?' - -"He then said: 'It's for Syria, it's for Syria' and then he kicked me in the neck." - -The incident happened at about 3.30pm on Tuesday, April 5. - -The woman added: "I was in my car, I was in my own car, I was a few paces away from my house. - -"I had just put my kids to bed. I got a call from my son's school telling me what had happened. - -"I asked my son what had happened and he said everything was fine. I was just in shock. - -"I have never experienced anything like that before." - -The woman said she was attacked while waiting for a bus in the city centre. - -A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: "Police in Birmingham are investigating an alleged racially aggravated incident where a woman was the victim of a racially aggravated assault. - -"Officers have arrived on the scene and enquiries are ongoing. - -"Investigations are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact officers on 101." - -A spokesperson for the city's police force said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. - -"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. - -"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. - -"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." - -Police are investigating the incident in North Street, Birmingham. - -A spokeswoman for the city's police force said: "Police were called to reports of a car being driven at a person in North Street, Birmingham at around 3.30pm. - -"The victim, a woman in her 30s, was treated at the scene by paramedics for her injuries. - -"The incident was not being treated as a terrorist incident. - -"Police are making enquiries to establish if any offences have been committed." - -A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: "Police are investigating an alleged racially aggravated incident where a woman was the victim of a racially aggravated assault. - -"Officers have arrived on the scene and enquiries are ongoing. - -"Investigations are ongoing and anyone -======================================== SAMPLE 393 ======================================== -If you're like me, you've spent the last few months trying to find the most effective way to manage your everyday tasks. Whether it's a new set of to-dos, a new project, or a new task, it can be hard to know where to start or where to end. With so many options, it can get overwhelming. So, we're here to help. Here are some tools that we use frequently to manage our lives. - -1. Google Calendar - -A few years ago, I was trying to use Google Calendar to manage my to-dos, but it wasn't doing what I needed it to do. So, I spent a lot of time trying different ways to integrate it into my workflow. And here are some of the biggest issues I encountered: - -I had a lot of to-dos that I didn't need to be reminded of (like checking Gmail). - -I couldn't see the duration of each to-do. - -I couldn't see the next due time for each to-do. - -I couldn't add a due date for each to-do. - -I couldn't add reminders for each to-do. - -I couldn't see the status of each to-do. - -I almost always missed a due date. - -I couldn't create reminders. - -I had a lot of tasks and meetings that I didn't need reminders for. - -I had to search for the calendar entry in Google Calendar for each task or meeting. - -2. Asana - -I've been using Asana for about a year, and I absolutely love it. It's a task management platform that is pretty simple and elegant. I've found that Asana is my go-to app when I need to manage my to-dos. Use Asana to schedule your to-dos, check in on your to-dos, and set reminders for your to-dos. You can also add a project manager to the app and then use Asana to manage your task lists. Asana also allows you to add a reminder to each of your tasks every day. - -3. Trello - -Talk about a simple app. I've been using Trello to manage my to-dos for almost two years now. Trello is simple. It's powerful. And it can handle just about any task management task. - -4. Google Keep - -Google Keep has been around for a long time. It's simple to use, and it has the ability to send you reminders. It also has a whole bunch of features like Google Calendar integrations. Use Google Keep to get all of your work done. - -5. Yodlee - -I've been using Yodlee for about a month now. It's a task management app with a lot of great features, including the ability to create a to-do list and text-only reminders. It's a great way to get your daily tasks done. - -6. Aha! - -Aha! is a very simple task management app that allows you to set a to-do and mark it as complete. When you start to complete the to-do, the app asks you to add a comment. You can add as many comments as you want. When you set a task, you can add a comment to it. When you finish a task, you can add a comment to it. When you set a to-do and you're done with it, you can add a comment. You can also mark a to-do as complete with a check mark. - -7. Todoist - -Todoist is a task management app that is very simple to use. We use it to manage our to-do list and our project management. - -8. To-Doist - -Todoist is a task management app that is very simple to use. We use it to manage our to-do list and our project management. - -9. Todoist — Upgrade - -Todoist has recently acquired a series of tools, including a drag-and-drop task editor. These tools allow you to create tasks, move tasks around, create tasks using a variety of templates, add comments to a task, and more. - -10. Wunderlist - -Wunderlist has been around for a while, but still has a lot of features that we haven't used. For example, I really like the ability to make a to-do list by adding a note to it. Plus, there's a task tool that lets you add a task and have it automatically update as you complete it. - -11. Moment - -Moment is a task management app that's really simple to use. This is one of the best options for managing your to-do list. - -12. Todoist — Upgrade - -Todoist has recently acquired a series of tools, including a drag-and-drop task editor. These tools allow you -======================================== SAMPLE 394 ======================================== -Riot police stand guard after a protester threw a Molotov cocktail at officers during a protest against police violence against African-Americans in the wake of the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo. on Saturday. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) - -The New York Times editorial board has a message for the police: "Stop shooting people." - -The newspaper's call for action comes in response to the police shooting death of Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer on Saturday. "No matter how many times the police are proven to have acted with excessive force, they must be held accountable when they shoot someone," the Times writes. "There is no excuse for that." - -The editorial was prompted by the death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man shot by a BART police officer in Oakland, Calif., in 2009. The city, under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, reached a $5.9 million settlement with the family of Grant, who died in the back of a police car. - -The Times editorial board said that Grant's shooting "is an especially stark reminder of the need for new training and audits of police training, in particular, as well as more effective community policing." - -The Board of Correction, an independent agency that oversees the New York City Police Department, has yet to release the findings of its internal investigation into the shooting.<|endoftext|>Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF - -This is a video of a man taking a selfie in front of a giant mirror, and you will never look at a mirror the same way again. - - -The video was captured by a worker at the giant mirror that is currently being built in downtown Shanghai. The mirror is being erected in front of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is currently under construction. It will be used to showcase art and stop people from using mobile phones in the area. One of the project's developers, Zhao Zhen, told The People's Daily that, "The mirror is a great example of interaction between man and nature. It will solve the problem of distracted drivers." - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Advertisement<|endoftext|>(CNN) When it comes to the infamous Gold Star family, Hillary Clinton has a new challenger: The wife of one of the men killed in Benghazi. - -"What we need to do is to get every American to talk about this and to understand the importance of having a full and transparent congressional investigation," Clinton said Tuesday night at a rally in New Hampshire. - -The challenge, which comes after Clinton's recent comments about the deaths of four Americans during a 2012 terror attack in Libya, is a new sign that the Democratic front-runner is trying to widen her base of support as her run for the presidency enters the homestretch. - -The lack of interest in Benghazi among Democrats is not surprising, given Clinton's tenure as the US secretary of state and her decision to leave the US mission there before it was fully secured, according to a report by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. - -As a result, the State Department did not immediately submit a plan to protect the facility, and the deaths of four Americans occurred during a chaotic period in which the American ambassador and other officials were in a battle with the terror group al Qaeda. - -Clinton has said she was "heartbroken" about the deaths of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, and that the attack occurred at a moment when the US administration was trying to save lives. But she has stopped short of blaming the attack on a protest against an anti-Islamic video. - -Her remarks Tuesday were different. - -"We need to learn the truth and the American people deserve to know the truth," she said. "So I'm going to call for a full, independent investigation, not just into what happened in Libya, but into the broader threats that we face both here at home and around the world." - -Clinton was a top surrogate for her husband, former President Bill Clinton, during his 1996 reelection campaign and has kept an active role in his administration, serving as his national security adviser. - -In an interview with CNN's "At This Hour" on Wednesday, the former secretary of state said that she believed the Benghazi attacks were a result of the terrorist group al Qaeda's plans to carry out "very large-scale attacks." - -"It wasn't just a protest," she said. "It was a pre-planned attack. It was al Qaeda trying to kill Americans." - -Clinton also called for a "full and complete" investigation into the circumstances that led to the deaths of Americans in Benghazi. - -"I am not going to point fingers," Clinton said. "But we need to know what happened, why it happened, what do we do to prevent it from happening again." - -'Clinton -======================================== SAMPLE 395 ======================================== -This week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., traveled to New York City to deliver a speech before the National Organization for Marriage's annual convention. - -He made it clear that there was no daylight between himself and NOM on the issue of marriage. Instead, he urged the organization's members to fight for a redefinition of marriage. - -"To those who would deny our full equality under the law, I say, 'Get out of the way. Marriage has been defined before in law and by the court, and I'm proud to stand with those who have fought for full equality for all Americans,'" McCain said. - -"I am proud of my friends at the office of the Senate Ethics Committee who investigated NOM and found nothing unlawful," he added. - -The NOM event, which was held on the eve of the Supreme Court's landmark decision on same-sex marriage, was attended by an estimated 800 people. - -McCain has a long history of supporting traditional marriage, but he has also done plenty of damage to his reputation as a war hero by defending a group that is a group for people who oppose marriage equality. - -In 2011, he was one of the primary sponsors of a bill in the Senate that would have banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. He later apologized for his support of that bill, which would have codified discrimination against LGBT people. - -He also backed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. - -Despite his earlier attempts to distance himself from the group, McCain has proven himself to be a staunch supporter of NOM, which was founded in 2007 by Maggie Gallagher, a co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage. - -Gallagher has called for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and she was also the co-chair of the group's recent super PAC. - -In an interview with ThinkProgress, Gallagher said that it was "disgusting" that the senator would travel to New York City to speak at a NOM event. - -"What is amazing about John McCain is that he has not only shown total support for the organization that he has worked with for decades, but he has also been a major funder of the organization that was founded by a man who has called on Congress to outlaw marriage between any two people, and now he is introducing a senator to speak at an event that is devoted to this kind of hatred and that kind of discrimination," she said. - -Gallagher also said that McCain's visit to New York was "a mockery of the people of New York and the people of New York State." - -She called on McCain to resign from his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he currently serves. - -"I have no idea why he would do this, but I think that given the fact that he is a proud supporter of marriage equality by any definition — including the definition he himself held for decades — he should resign from the Senate Armed Services Committee," she said. - -Gallagher also said that he should be expelled from the Senate. - -"I think he should be expelled from the Senate because he's demonstrated that he is not fit to be part of our body." - -The NOM convention is not the first time McCain has been associated with anti-LGBT groups. - -In 2009, he led a failed campaign that tried to stop the president from making a statement that would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. - -In 2012, McCain co-sponsored a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. - -Watch in the video below from MSNBC: - - -This Story Filed Under<|endoftext|>The target is an Islamic State militant, whose pixelated face is projected on a screen. - -The Islamic State uses graphic imagery in its propaganda videos, and the U.S. government is trying to shine a light on the group's use of sophisticated technology to continue its message. - -The United States has condemned the Islamic State's use of propaganda online, and the Pentagon has said that the group has created its own digital persona. But the Islamic State's use of images and videos in its online videos, as well as the group's use of social media to recruit, has evolved into an increasingly complex issue. - -"They're using more sophisticated communications tools as well as more sophisticated media techniques," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. "We're trying to figure out how they're doing that and what the ramifications are for us." - -The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has come under increased scrutiny in recent months. The group has lost its grip on parts of Iraq and Syria, and several U.S. officials have complained about the group's use of social media to recruit Westerners. - -The Pentagon has denied that it is concerned with the Islamic State's use of social media, saying that it is focusing on other extremist organizations, such as al-Qaida. The U.S. government is also trying to determine how the Islamic State uses -======================================== SAMPLE 396 ======================================== -The legal action against Trump is just the latest in a string of actions filed against a man who was once a member of the Trump family. - -The legal action against Trump is just the latest in a string of actions filed against a man who was once a member of the Trump family. Photo: Craig Ruttle/Associated Press - -In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, a group of women are accusing Donald Trump of sexual assault, using allegations from a woman who said he forcibly kissed her and groped her when she was 13 years old. - -The lawsuit, filed in federal court, accuses Mr. Trump of raping the woman in 1994, the same year he married Melania Trump. - -The man who filed the suit, journalist Timothy O'Brien, said the woman, named as "Katie Johnson," decided to come forward with her claims after watching Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. - -"If he had a lawyer, he would have litigated this case years ago," Mr. O'Brien said in a telephone interview. "I think that after the last debate, he realized that he was going to have to take some legal action. I think he realized that he was going to have to deal with the public getting to know his wife, and the fact that she wore a short dress." - -The lawsuit was filed on Monday by two women who say they were on a trip to New York City with Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson in 1994. Ms. Johnson, who now goes by Katie, told The New York Times that Mr. Trump groped her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt. - -Afterward, the Times reported, Mr. Trump grabbed her hand and steered her toward an elevator. - -"Mr. Trump, who was also on the elevator, told her that he liked her and that he would be her husband," the report said. - -The lawsuit says Mr. Trump groped Ms. Johnson on five separate occasions between 1994 and a trip to Mar-a-Lago in 1997. - -Mr. O'Brien said the lawsuit is the first legal action against Mr. Trump alleging sexual assault by a man who has been a member of Mr. Trump's family. - -"I think that women who speak out, especially when they know that they have a husband who is a prominent public figure, are going to be scrutinized a lot more than they would be in other circumstances," he said. - -Mr. Trump, via a lawyer, has disputed the allegations. - -Mr. O'Brien said the lawsuit will be filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which makes it a crime to join or assist in an organization that engages in serious criminal activity. - -In a statement, Mr. Trump said he was "not aware" of the lawsuit and that any claim "without merit" would be rejected. - -"It is time for the Clintons to settle this terrible incident," he said. - -Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com<|endoftext|>The most frequent question I get asked is: "How do I get a refund?" - -It's a question I get asked a lot, because it's such a common request that I'm afraid the answer is "it depends." - -For a limited time, we're giving our customers an additional 30 days to get their money back. After that, it's all on you. - -What is a refund? - -A refund is simply a way to get your money back. If you've purchased a product from us and we've made a mistake, we'll replace it for you. - -Why do we need your money back? - -When you buy something from us, we're still responsible for paying all the costs associated with the purchase. That means we'll need to pay for your shipping and handling, as well as the cost of the refurbished item you received. - -If you're not happy with your purchase, we're sorry we didn't take care of you sooner and we'll make it right. It may take a couple of weeks to do so, so please be patient. - -If the item you purchased is defective, we'll send you a replacement. If you're dissatisfied with the refurbished item we'll refund you your money, minus shipping and handling costs. - -What if I just want to return the item? - -If you're not satisfied, you can return it within 30 days of the date of purchase from the original point of purchase. We'll refund you the purchase price minus shipping charges. - -What if the item I'm returning is damaged or missing parts? - -Please see our Terms of Use. - -What if I'm not satisfied with the refund? - -You can request a full refund of the purchase price plus shipping charges. We'll refund you back the purchase price minus shipping costs. If you're not happy with the refund process, please contact us -======================================== SAMPLE 397 ======================================== -On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed a $788 billion defense bill. - -The bill ends two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, increases defense spending and reduces the deficit. - -The State of the Union address is less than a week away, and President Obama is expected to lay out his vision for fiscal policy in the coming months. - -Ahead of the speech, we take a look at the big deals in the bill, and what it means for Americans. - -The bill's biggest winners - -The National Defense Authorization Act passed the Senate in a 98-2 vote, despite efforts by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to amend the bill to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -The bill includes $10.5 billion to build a new prison in Texas, and another $2.6 billion to build a new facility in South Carolina. - -The bill also includes $1.1 billion for the Pentagon's Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund — the first such funding since the 9/11 attacks. - -The bill increases military pay and benefits by 1.3 percent, and it adds $2 billion to the war in Afghanistan. - -The bill also includes $1.4 billion in new funding for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which is used to pay for the war in Afghanistan. - -The bill also includes $1.1 billion for the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013, which starts Oct. 1. - -Most of the additional funding in the bill is for overseas contingency operations, including $1.5 billion for the military in Afghanistan. - -More than half of the $3.4 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding goes to the war in Afghanistan. - -The bill also includes $500 million in funding for intelligence and surveillance programs, and $50 million in funding for Afghanistan-Pakistan border security. - -The bill also includes $200 million for missile defense programs, and $50 million for missile defense programs in Europe. - -The bill also increases the number of service members in the National Guard by about 10,000, and increases funding for National Guard personnel by $8.7 billion. - -The bill also authorizes $3.5 billion in war-related personnel, training and equipment, including $1.9 billion for the Afghan National Security Forces. - -The bill also increases funding for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, and it increases funding for the Navy by $1.1 billion. - -The bill also includes $200 million in funding for the U.S. Special Operations Command, and it includes $50 million for the Air Force's Future Vertical Lift program. - -The bill includes an $11.4 billion supplemental for overseas contingency operations funding, including $2.5 billion for Iraq and $700 million for Afghanistan. - -The bill also includes a provision that would allow the president to extend the 2001 and 2003 laws that authorize the use of military force in Afghanistan and Iraq for 30 days. - -The bill also includes a provision that would change the process for Congress to increase the Afghanistan war funding limit to $3.5 billion, instead of the $5.4 billion cap set by the end of 2011. - -The bill also includes a provision that would require the president to submit a plan to Congress to increase the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. - -The bill also includes a provision that would require the president to submit a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan within 90 days of the expiration of the current strategy. - -The bill also includes a provision that would allow the president to extend the implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty for a year. - -The bill also includes $1.3 billion in funding for the Nuclear Posture Review, and $500 million for the Nuclear Threat Initiative. - -The bill also includes $1.5 billion in new funding for the Navy, and $2 billion for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force. - -The bill also includes $300 million for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and $400 million for the Missile Defense Agency. - -The bill also includes $800 million in new funding for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, and $300 million for the Navy and Coast Guard. - -The bill also includes $100 million in new funding for the International Affairs Budget for military and security assistance to Central and South America. - -The bill also includes $200 million in new funding for the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, and $500 million for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Review. - -The bill also includes $600 million for the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, and $300 million for the Defense Health Program. - -The bill also includes $1.2 billion for the Defense Health Program, and $300 million for the Global Health Initiative. - -The National Defense Authorization Act also includes $560 million for the National Ready Reserve. - -The bill also includes $ -======================================== SAMPLE 398 ======================================== -The Bitcoin community has rallied around the cause of the hard fork, but it doesn't have to be this way. The community has the power to control the direction of the project, but it lacks the courage to exercise that power. - -With the Bitcoin community split into two camps — the Bitcoin Core and the Bitcoin Unlimited — the outcome of the fork will likely determine the fate of the entire cryptocurrency. - -This is what the tension looks like. - -It doesn't have to be this way. - -The Bitcoin community has a powerful voice in the development of the wallet software, and it can speak out against any proposed changes. - -But its voice has been muted. - -There's a reason for that. - -Bitcoin Unlimited takes the first step toward a future where Bitcoin is a decentralized payment network. It is a clear path toward a truly decentralized currency — one where the value of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies is directly linked to how many people use them. - -If Bitcoin Unlimited is adopted, the interests of the existing community will be reflected in the development of the software. - -Bitcoin Unlimited maintains a reputation for transparency and usability. The software allows users to verify the validity of transactions and sends the transaction history back to a previous point in time. - -The Bitcoin Core software is more centralized and centralized, and it is hard to use. - -It is difficult to use because users are forced to download a software package that changes the Bitcoin client software every time they install it. This means that the developers are able to change the client at their leisure, and this makes the Bitcoin Core software less useful to users. - -It's also difficult to use because the Bitcoin Core software is not transparent. - -Because of the way the software works, the Bitcoin Core software is not the most convenient way to use Bitcoin. - -Bitcoin Core is the root of Bitcoin's problems. It is a poorly designed system that is riddled with bugs and is prone to security issues. - -Bitcoin Unlimited looks like a better alternative. - -This is why the decision to include Bitcoin Unlimited is so important. - -The Bitcoin Unlimited project is a sign of the Bitcoin community's willingness to grow. It shows that the Bitcoin community is willing to grow, and it shows that the Bitcoin community wants to protect its decentralization. - -It is a sign that the Bitcoin community is not going away. - -Bitcoin Unlimited is not a new cryptocurrency. It is a fork of Bitcoin Core. - -This means that Bitcoin Unlimited is not just another altcoin. It is a fork of Bitcoin Core. - -The only way to effectively adopt Bitcoin Unlimited is if the Bitcoin community chooses to do so. - -That's why the Bitcoin Unlimited fork will be one of the most important developments in the history of the cryptocurrency. It will be something that will be remembered for a long time. - -One of the most important parts of the Bitcoin community is taking responsibility for its future. - -If the Bitcoin Core community doesn't choose to adopt Bitcoin Unlimited, then the entire Bitcoin community will lose its ability to govern itself. - -The Bitcoin community is something that is very difficult to change. The slow and uncertain change that Bitcoin is going through is a testament to that. - -But the Bitcoin community has the power to change itself. It can give the Bitcoin Core software a push to become more transparent. It can make the Bitcoin Core client more user-friendly. - -The Bitcoin community has a voice. The Bitcoin community has the power. - -The Bitcoin community still has a lot of work to do, but if the Bitcoin community chooses to adopt Bitcoin Unlimited, then the future of Bitcoin will be more secure and more flexible. - -If the Bitcoin community ignores the Bitcoin Unlimited fork, then Bitcoin will become even more centralized. - -The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible. - -The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible. - -The Bitcoin community has the power to make its future more secure and more flexible.<|endoftext|>This is the most recent version of the Lightroom Presets Template. This template was created by Artur Ellingbea for Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom 6. You can download the template here. - -I've also created a follow-up version of this template, which is the preset for creating a new Lightroom Preset. - -If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below. - -Update: If you're using the Lightroom Presets Template for Lightroom Classic CC or Lightroom 6, you can get the latest version of this template by subscribing to the Lightroom Presets Newsletter.<|endoftext|>The famous bodybuilding bodybuilding star, Dave Draper, has died at the age of 77. - -David Draper was best known for competing in the Mr. Olympia and Mr. World competitions, which he won twice (1960 and 1962). He also managed to finish three times in the US Olympic team in the pommel horse (he won gold in -======================================== SAMPLE 399 ======================================== -At the beginning of this month, the other lawyers' committee convened for its first meeting. It was a rare opportunity to discuss the ethics of the profession in a room full of people who work in the field. - -The meeting occurred during the height of the Supreme Court's ongoing debate over its "Citizens United" decision, which had bars discussion. The Committee on Professional Responsibility was created to "encourage and protect the integrity of the legal profession, to encourage the extension of ethics education and to prevent and respond to unethical behavior." - -The group consists of representatives of a number of professional organizations, including the American Bar Association, the National Law Journal, the New York State Bar Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It also includes a handful of attorneys who have been at the forefront of this debate, including Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. - -Dershowitz walked the committee through some of the consequences of the ruling. "It will change the whole framework of the criminal justice system, including the rules of evidence, the rules of grand jury procedure," he said. - -The committee also discussed the impact it could have on the legal profession as a whole, and the committee's message for the future. According to the committee, the Supreme Court decision "signals that our system of justice is now open to corruption and that lawyers who try to advance their careers through the political process will be subject to prosecution." - -The committee members also discussed the need for a new ethics code in the future. The code, which the committee didn't release, would protect lawyers from being accused of unethical behavior. It would also require lawyers to disclose their financial and professional relationships with outside entities. - -The committee's recommendations, which are still being discussed, are due to the Supreme Court by Oct. 20. - -The Supreme Court is weighing a number of cases that have been brought up by the other lawyers' committee — including a case involving an attorney who was investigating a client who had been hospitalized after driving under the influence. The attorney represented the client, who was later sued by the hospital over the incident. - -The case, the Campaign Finance Integrity Act of 2005, has already been ruled on by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The case is currently pending before the Supreme Court.<|endoftext|>It's a sad day for the world of shaving, but this is a great day for it. - -A new product has been released, and it's called the Hardcore Shave from Blade. It's a disposable razor produced by Vibram. - -The razor is made of acetal, and turns down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. The handle feels very nice, and the material is lightweight. - -The handle has a rubberized coating, so it's well protected against getting scratched. It's then coated with a hard coating, which keeps it from getting dirt and grime on its surface. - -The blade is made of stainless steel, and is made so it won't break down. The blade is sharp out of the box, and it also has an anti-snag feature that will prevent the blade from slipping out of the handle. - -The razor has two blades, and the weight is 0.8 ounces. - -It's available for $8.99 on the Blade website, and it will be available for purchase in March of next year. - -[Blade via Technabob]<|endoftext|>Company Overview - -Through our strategic partnerships and joint ventures, we are working with leading companies that are driving sustainable, profitable growth. With our strong financial and operational capabilities, we are creating a company with the resources and capabilities to be a world leader in the delivery of technology solutions. - -Business Highlights - -Provides revenue management solutions for customers in the healthcare, education, E-commerce, and research and development markets. - -Continues to expand its international presence by opening a presence in India. - -Revenue totaled approximately $573 million for the year ended December 31, 2016. - -Financing, including term loans, maturing securities, and the issuance of common stock, totaled approximately $1.7 billion during the year ended December 31, 2016. - -Financial Performance - -Fourth Quarter - -Revenue was $5.0 billion for the fourth quarter of 2016, compared with revenue of $4.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015. - -For the quarter ended December 31, 2016, Adjusted EBITDA was $3.6 billion, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $2.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015. - -For the year ended December 31, 2016, Adjusted EBITDA was $9.6 billion, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $7.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2015. - -Investment in Research and Development - -Research and development expenditures totaled approximately $1.3 billion for the fourth quarter and approximately $3.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2016. - -For the fourth -======================================== SAMPLE 400 ======================================== -The United Nations on Tuesday called for war crimes against the Syrian regime to be investigated and the world body to work towards an end to the violence. - -In a strongly worded appeal, the U.N. special panel of inquiry on Syria said it had collected "credible evidence" that President Bashar Assad's forces had committed war crimes. - -"Those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable," the U.N. Security Council was told. - -"The international community must take all necessary measures to protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law," it said. - -The panel, which has been investigating the deadly Syria conflict since April, said it had collected accounts from more than 70 witnesses about the use of chemical weapons and dozens of videos. - -The panel, headed by Paulo Pinheiro, said it had confirmed the use of the toxic agent sarin as a weapon against civilians in the city of Khan al-Assal on April 4. - -It said it would not go into the details of the attack, but said the evidence gathered by the panel suggested that government forces deployed the chemical and that the attack was likely carried out by the military. - -"The panel can confirm that sarin was used in Khan al-Assal on 4 April," the report said. It said the attack killed between 100 and 150 people. - -The panel also said it had received evidence that the Syrian government had used chlorine in the town of Madaya to attack civilians and destroy medical facilities. - -Pinheiro said he had been stunned by the scale of the suffering caused by the war in Syria and said he was "profoundly concerned" by the "continued use of chemical weapons by any party in Syria." - -He said his report would be shared with the U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly and the International Criminal Court (ICC). - -The U.N. Security Council has condemned the use of chemical weapons, but has deferred responsibility in the dispute to the U.N. Human Rights Council. - -Syria, which has blamed rebels for using chemical weapons, has said it would join the ICC if the Security Council adopts a resolution putting it on trial. - -The U.S. and its allies have threatened to veto such a move, but Russia and China have said they will back the council's referral. - -The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says that if the Security Council gets the referral, it would be a significant step towards the ICC's envisaged goal of prosecuting senior officials in Syria, but it will not be a swift process. - -The U.N. panel said it had also received reports that Assad's forces had carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas with artillery and air strikes. - -The panel said it had verified the use of incendiary weapons and chlorine on a large scale in the town of Madaya, west of Aleppo, last month. - -"Such indiscriminate attacks have caused the deaths of many civilians, including women and children. The panel has heard credible accounts of the use of incendiary weapons and chlorine during the attack on Madaya," it said. - -Pinheiro said the other areas in Syria where the panel had gathered evidence were in the towns of Daraya, Zabadani, and Moadamiyeh, where the government had carried out "massacres and war crimes." - -"The panel has also received credible reports of the killing of hundreds of civilians in Daraya and Zabadani, and of indiscriminate shelling of the towns of Moadamiyeh and Madaya in the days following the attacks," he said. - -Syria is also facing a U.N. investigation into the use of chemical weapons in the country's civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people. - -Pinheiro said the U.N. mission would be able to investigate any use of chemical weapons in Syria, as well as the recent use of chlorine as a weapon in the town of Madaya. - -The European Union has already expanded its blacklist to include 28 individuals and two organizations, including the Syrian government, over alleged war crimes during the six-year conflict. - -In March, the EU announced it was expanding sanctions on individuals and entities implicated in the conflict, including those responsible for chemical weapons use, and freezing their assets. - -The sanctions targets include Assad's inner circle, including his brother-in-law and defense minister. The EU has identified as many as 24 government officials, including top officials, suspected of involvement in chemical weapons use.<|endoftext|>This is a conversation between Strawberry Marshmallow and (f, 18, coppery inverted bobcut, leather jacket, expressionless face) . - -(f, 18, coppery inverted bobcut, leather jacket, expressionless face): not that there's anything wrong with that - -Strawberry Marshmallow: Ahh - -Strawberry Marshmallow: I've been looking for you too, Nick - - -======================================== SAMPLE 401 ======================================== -This is the first year I've attempted this and I'm really glad I did. The great thing about this is that you can use it as a starter kit, as an idea to have around the studio, or to help you get started with your own design. In many ways this is a very simple kit. - -The kit is made from four easy to find, inexpensive materials – three 1/4″ plywood, two 1/4″ plywood laminates, and two 1/4″ hardboard. We used the laminate for the front panels, and the hardboard for most of the back panels. - -Here is the kit assembled. The back panels are held together by two small pieces of 1/4″ plywood glued together. - -The kit has a very basic construction, but it does have a few neat features. First the front panels are attached simply by gluing the two sides together and then tightening the two sides together. This is a very fast and easy way to attach the panels. - -Second the panels can be snapped together with the strips of wood, which allows you to attach the panels to the wood pieces. The neat thing about this is that you can attach the panels to the wood panels without the strips having any finish on them. This is great for making more complex shapes without any finish or adhesives on the surface. - -Finally, you can leave a piece of scrap hardboard at the bottom of the kit. You can then use this to attach the panels to the hardboard and make a small slatted panel. - -Here is the completed kit. I would suggest starting with the front panels, as the rear panels are a bit more complicated. The front panels have a little bit of a curved structure, which can be seen in the picture. - -Here is a full scale mock-up of the kit. - -Now that you've seen the kit in action, check out the video below. - -Subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don't miss any of my future videos!<|endoftext|>Paradise Lost - -Perdition's Gate - -Dark Elf King - -Aeonid - -The Daemon World - -The Realm of Chaos - -The Dragon War - -The Thousand Worlds - -The Fall of the Dark Elves - -The Age of Chaos - -The Wars of Secession - -The End Times - -The War of the Gods - -The Old World - -The Rise of Chaos - -The War of the Gods - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The Invasion of Norsca - -The Siege of Ithilien - -The War of the Ring - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Ring - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The War of the Threefold Stone - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 402 ======================================== -I think I have covered a lot of ground on how to resolve a WordPress username and password problem. - -But to recap for those of you who are missing the point, here it is in a nutshell: - -If you have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your password or change the WordPress username and password. - -If you don't have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your username or change the WordPress username and password. - -The first two options cause the same issues, but the third one has a more significant impact on the security of your WordPress website. - -NOTE: You can also change the WordPress username and password by using the WordPress login form. - -Before we get started with the options, you need to make sure that your WordPress username and password are correct. - -If you change the WordPress username and password you will need to update your database tables in order to match the new username and password. - -To do this, you need to give your WordPress administrator permission to update the database. - -You can do this by using the following WP administrative commands: - -update_passwords(); - -If you have renamed your WordPress username and password, you will need to update the database tables as well. - -This can be done with the following WP administrative commands: - -rename_passwords(); - -If you are not sure whether you have a WordPress username and password issue or not, go to the WordPress admin dashboard and change the username and password. - -This will verify if you have a username and password issue. - -If you still have a username and password issue, you will need to contact your WordPress administrator for assistance. - -If you have a WordPress username and password issue, you will need to contact your WordPress administrator for assistance. - -If you don't have a WordPress username and password issue, you can either change your WordPress username or change the WordPress username and password. - -Changing the WordPress Username and Password - -The good news is that you can change your WordPress username and password. - -The bad news is that doing so will cause your WordPress website to become unsecure. - -The reason for this is that WordPress has a built-in mechanism that allows administrators to change the WordPress username and password. - -This mechanism is called the "admin password reset" feature. - -This mechanism is used by most other popular websites as well, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter. - -What you need to do is to use the "admin password reset" feature to allow your WordPress administrator to change your WordPress username and password. - -The reason for this is that if you don't allow your WordPress administrator to change your username and password, you can be vulnerable to attackers. - -But if you allow the WordPress administrator to change your username and password, you can be vulnerable to attackers, but you can also leave yourself more secure. - -How to Change the WordPress Username and Password - -Using this mechanism, you can change your WordPress username and password by using the following PHP code: - -if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } - -This code will allow the WordPress administrator to change your WordPress username and password. - -You can use the same code to change a WordPress username and password, but you will need to replace the $_POST['username'] and $_POST['password'] variables with the new values. - -For example: - -if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } - -After using the code above, you will need to change your WordPress username and password using the following PHP code: - -if(isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username']) && isset($_POST['password']) && isset($_POST['username']) && isset($_POST['password']['private'])) { $new_username = $_POST['username']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; $new_password = $_POST['password']; $old_username = $_POST['username']; $old_password = $_POST['password']; } - -Using the code above, you will need to change your WordPress username and password using the following PHP code: - -if(isset($_POST['password' -======================================== SAMPLE 403 ======================================== -After an extensive search to find the perfect color for your wheels, we've finally found it. The Rickenbacker Blackface Nickel is a green finish on the fronts and backs of your wheels to help protect the paint. This is a high quality finish that will help reduce the possibility of scratching your wheels. The Rickenbacker Blackface Nickel is made from a high quality brass alloy that is also known as nickel.<|endoftext|>If you are a regular reader of our blog, you already know that I think the Republican Party has a real problem with women. My concern is not so much that they are too male-centric or male supremacist as it is that they are a party that is so overtly misogynistic and in favor of what I call the "new sexism". - -In a recent interview with Politico, I asked the question: "How many women will the GOP elect in the next election?" The answer came in the form of a smile, but with a hint of a chuckle. I was told that the result would be in the single digits. - -While I don't agree with the premise that the GOP will lose women voters, it is a fair question that deserves a response. - -I do not doubt the sincerity of the question. The fact that the Republican Party has lost so many women to the Democrats is a very serious concern. The fact that it has been losing women voters for over thirty years is even more alarming. - -I have written numerous times about the fact that the Republican Party has historically been hostile toward women. I shared a number of examples of how the GOP has been actively hostile toward women, including the fact that. I shared a number of examples of how the GOP has been actively hostile toward women, including the fact that during the 1980s, Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, had a working relationship with a male porn star, and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has been a cheerleader for Republican candidates who want to ban abortion. - -Clearly, these examples are not isolated incidents. - -And despite the fact that the GOP has been losing women voters for over thirty years, there is very little discussion about the issue. The reason for this is that by and large, men are not willing to admit that the party is a problem. - -I have witnessed this before. Last year, I interviewed a number of Republican women who were disgusted with the Republican Party, and many of them said that they would not vote for a Republican who was a woman. I then asked myself an important question: "How could a party that is so intolerant of women and other minorities, be considered more welcoming to men?" - -I then posed the question to the men who were in my office, and they all said the same thing: "Maybe it's just the culture." - -We have been tolerant of the sexist mindset and attitudes of men for so long that it is difficult for most men to admit that the party is a problem. And many of them don't know how to deal with that fact. - -The Republican Party is now viewed as the party of anti-woman policies, and while these policies are in line with the traditional patriarchal view of women, it is the party's policies that have been the problem. The Republicans have a long history of being the party of anti-women. In the current election season, there are some examples of what I call the new sexism. - -When the Republicans passed the "personhood" amendment, which would have allowed women to be legally forced to provide birth control to their husbands, I wrote a piece titled, "Why the GOP Supports 'Personhood' Amendment". I pointed out that a majority of Americans and a majority of Republicans support the idea of legal abortion, but the Republican Party is vehemently opposed to legal abortion. - -The Republicans' opposition to legal abortion is even more troubling when you consider that the Republican Party has repeatedly tried to pass laws that would allow employers to fire women for being pregnant. Republicans have also tried to pass laws that would allow employers to fire women for being pregnant. - -I also have written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have also written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. - -I have also written many times about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have also written many times about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. I have written about the fact that the Republican Party is the only major political party that does not include any women in their leadership team. - -What is most surprising to me is that some of the men who hang out in my office do not even know that the Republican Party is the party of sexism. I have come to the conclusion that men are too afraid to admit that the party is a problem -======================================== SAMPLE 404 ======================================== -The first time I met Carlos Castaneda, the Mexican author of such undeniably brilliant books as One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Teachings of Don Juan, he was in a very different place. He was a man with a long-time reputation for alcoholism and substance abuse, who had been fired from his job as a defense contractor in the early Nineties. He was living in a small house on the outskirts of Mexico City that he referred to as a "pit" and, on the surface, seemed to have failed. - -But there was an odd gleam in his eye. For the first time, Castaneda seemed to be experiencing some kind of awakening. He was no longer the tortured soul he had been in his early years. He was learning to speak, to read, to write, and to do something he had never done before—he started a meditation practice. - -In an interview with the New York Times, Castaneda said, "I'm trying to be like Buddha. I want to live a life of simplicity, love and respect." When I visited him recently, he was in the middle of a two-year meditation retreat that he led at the age of 71. He told me that he was discovering that he was more in touch with his own humanity than he had ever been. - -A year later, Castaneda's life changed dramatically. At the age of 40, he was arrested for selling marijuana and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Not long after his release, he fell ill with a severe case of liver failure and suffered a massive stroke. He was admitted to the hospital for weeks and developed a huge tumor in his brain. It was diagnosed as cancer and he was given six months to live. - -Castaneda's first question upon his arrival at the hospital was, "Did I make a mistake?" He had a strong sense of what his life was meant to be and was determined to do it. He was determined to die and he wanted to do it with dignity. - -On the day of his discharge he told his family that he was going to go on a guided meditation retreat. He insisted that they could not accompany him, but they did, believing he needed the help, even if it was just for a few days. The first day of the retreat was a blur of meditation and Carlos's delicate hands. He was too weak to move. The next day his left hand was paralyzed. The next morning, his legs were paralyzed. After a few days of being paralyzed, he began to feel normal and began to take deep breaths and expand his consciousness. - -He was able to walk, to see his family, to drive in his car and even to work. He even took a few classes with an instructor that he had worked with in the past. - -Castaneda's spirit never wavered. He never lost hope. He continued to meditate, even during his paralysis. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he continued to meditate. When he returned from the hospital, he continued to meditate. When he was paralyzed again, he continued to meditate. When he was paralyzed for the last time, he continued to meditate. - -For all his ups and downs, Castaneda never gave up on his meditative practice. He was able to continue to focus without the use of his left hand and he is able to do everything that he used to do before he was paralyzed. - -After his stroke, Castaneda realized what a gift he had been given in life. He was given the gift of a lifetime. - -He was given the gift of being able to live a life of simplicity, love and respect. - -Carlos Castaneda is a man who has lived a life of incredible grace and compassion. He has given his life to the service of humanity and the spirit of love and compassion that has made him who he is. - -Carlos Castaneda's stories of suffering, bravery, commitment and compassion inspire as much as his amazing writing. - -What is your story? What is your life story? - -As an author, I have become used to the idea that if I want to write a story about a life, I need to give it a beginning, a middle and an end. I need to tell a story that will set up the reader to have an emotional connection to the characters and their journey. I need to tell a story that will make you want to read more about them. - -I have been thinking about this for a long time and I think it's time for me to break this rule. - -I have been thinking about the idea of a life story for a long time and I think it's time for me to break this rule. - -In a world where we are bombarded with information, information overload, and a constant stream of information at a rapid pace, it can sometimes be hard to come up with a strong, powerful, and unique life story. - -I don -======================================== SAMPLE 405 ======================================== -In 2004, the San Francisco 49ers adopted a new logo that was originally intended to be a nod to the city's Mission District. But the logo stood out for being quite un-San Francisco. - -The logo is called the "barbershop" or "ghost" logo, and it was designed by the team's art director, Matt Chaney, who was hired in August of that year. - -The team has tried to make the logo work for the past few years, but it's just not quite right. At least, that's what I think. - -That's why I'm telling you to take this quiz. And no, I won't tell you how to answer. - -The 49ers have tried to make the logo work for years, but it's just not quite right. - -I never liked the ghost logo, even though I thought it was a nifty logo. The logo was always too much like a barbershop, as opposed to a baseball cap. It had a cheap, light-colored and plastic feel to it. - -It also looked like it was from 1884. That was before the advent of modern-day logos. - -In the end, the 49ers were forced to change the logo. They tried to paint their way out of this one, but in the end, it was just too much of a mess. - -The new logo was introduced in 2013, but it didn't really change the logo's identity. It was just different. - -That's not to say I don't like the new logo. I do. It's a much better logo than the one they had in 2004. - -Here's the thing though: The new logo is just not what the team was going for when they made the logo in the first place. - -The team wanted to make a "San Francisco" logo that could stand out from a sea of team logos. But that's just not what the team got. - -So the logo will always be regarded as less than awesome. - -I'm sure you've seen the 2004 logo at some point in your life. Maybe you even know the name Matt Chaney. - -But have you ever stopped and thought to yourself, "Wow, that's kind of like me." - -It's not that the new logo isn't a nice logo. It is. But it's not what the team was going for. - -If you know me, you know I'm not too big on logos. But I will admit, the new logo is pretty cool.<|endoftext|>It's been a while since we've had a new game on the site, and we're really excited to announce that we have a new game on the way! A game that's been in the works for a long time – you may have heard about it. It's a real-time strategy game that we're calling "The Long War." - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game that has been in development for nearly a year. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build defenses, and fight battles to take over the world. This game has been in development for almost a year, and we're really excited to finally show you what we've been working on. - -The Long War is a real-time strategy game in the same vein as the best RTS games on the market. It's a game where you gather resources, build -======================================== SAMPLE 406 ======================================== -It's hard to imagine life before the Internet. - -For most of its history, we relied on one another and the world wide web for news and entertainment. The Internet was a momentous change — a way for strangers from all over the world to connect and share information and entertain themselves. It became a place where we found out about our loved ones, our friends and our worst fears. - -Today, the Internet has evolved into an enterprise of mammoth proportions, with millions of businesses, government agencies and individuals using it to conduct business. It's a place where you can find news, information and entertainment from around the world, and where you can phone your friend's girlfriend to tell her you love her. - -But after so many years of growth and innovation, we can no longer ignore the looming threat of cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks are not just a theoretical threat. They are happening right now — and they can be very damaging. - -Making matters worse, the Russian government has been aggressively seeking to interfere with our elections. Recent reports suggest that the Kremlin has hacked into the servers of political organizations and hacked into the Democratic National Committee's email system. The public has been left in the dark about the extent of this Russian interference, despite widespread conclusions by high-profile cyber-investigators. - -The United States must take action to stop cyber-attacks. In fact, the United States has already taken extreme measures to protect our election infrastructure and we will continue to take additional steps as necessary. - -Much more needs to be done. But if we don't, the damage to our political system and our democracy may be irrevocably done. - -This is why I have called for a bipartisan, bicameral commission to investigate the Russian government's role in interfering in our election. The American people deserve to know the full extent of this Russian interference. We cannot afford to wait for the next election. We need to act now before it's too late. - -Specifically, we need to: - -1. Investigate the Russian government's role in interfering in our election and whether any members of the Trump campaign were involved. A special prosecutor should be appointed to lead this investigation. - -2. Create a commission to investigate the role of Russia in interfering in our election and the Trump campaign's involvement. - -3. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -4. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -5. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -6. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -7. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -8. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -9. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -10. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -11. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -12. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -13. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -14. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -15. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -16. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -17. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -18. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -19. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -20. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -21. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -22. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -23. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -24. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -25. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -26. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -27. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -28. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -29. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -30. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -31. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -32. Create a commission to investigate possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. - -33. Impose sanctions on Russia for their malicious activities during the election. - -34. Create a commission to -======================================== SAMPLE 407 ======================================== -New Delhi: Have you ever wondered where the most popular Indian languages are? - -A recent survey done by the Pew Research Centre, a global research organisation, has revealed that Hindi is the most widely spoken language in the country and the second most widely spoken in the world after English. - -The study also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. - -"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. - -"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. - -"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study. - -Pew Research Centre - -The survey also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. - -The survey also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. - -"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. - -"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. - -"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study. - -The study also revealed that India has the highest proportion of people who are proficient in Hindi — 9% — and the second highest proportion of people who are proficient in English — 5% — and that more than half of the people in India and the United States use both Hindi and English. - -"Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with its use in textbooks, on television, and in the media. It is also the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Hindi is very much a part of our lives, yet many people in India do not speak it at home or at school. - -"Hindi is also a topic of discussion in informal conversations with friends and family. In the United States, Hindi is the third most commonly spoken language after English and Spanish and is the most spoken language in the Middle East and North Africa. - -"In India, Hindi is used as the language of education; in the United States, it is the language of business; in the Middle East, Hindi is used as the language of government; in the United Kingdom, it is the language of the media, and in Australia it is the language of the higher education system," said Jasmine Budhraja, the lead author of the study.<|endoftext|>The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday announced the indictment of three Russian intelligence operatives for hacking into the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) email system and for passing along those emails to WikiLeaks. - -The men have been identified as Evgeniy Bogachev, a Russian member of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) who served as the military attache at the Russian consulate in San Francisco; Aleksandr Bortnikov, a colonel in Russian military intelligence who was the deputy chief of staff of the GRU; and Igor Sushchin, a colonel in the GRU. -======================================== SAMPLE 408 ======================================== -The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has more than 200 guidelines for common conditions including diabetes, dementia and cataracts. But how much of this advice is based on good evidence? - -A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found that only 8% of the NICE guidelines are now based on good evidence. - -"A lot of us think NICE is so good because it says what we want to hear," says Professor John Hawksworth, director of the IFS. "But where does the evidence come from to support the decisions which are being made?" - -The IFS says that NICE's reliance on "evidence-based" statements with "low confidence" ratings "has become an increasingly problematic problem". - -The committee of senior economists say that the agency has been making poor decisions about the evidence for three decades. - -"It's a not-so-healthy state of affairs," says Hawksworth, "but it's not necessarily going to change." - -The report, All About Evidence: NICE's Evidence of Ease, asks whether NICE's evidence-based statements really are as simple as they sound. - -The IFS is not the first to criticise NICE's approach. The Institute of Medicine, the UK's health policy research body, has previously said that "there is little evidence that evidence-based advice from NICE helps patients". - -'Constant changes' - -This week the committee published a letter from 22 leading experts asking NICE to publish a national evidence strategy to guide its decisions. - -NICE says it is committed to evidence-based advice and welcomes the IFS report. - -"We take the IFS report on board," says a NICE spokesperson. - -"We are already working on the development of a national evidence strategy but we're not ready to release it yet." - -The spokesperson adds that NICE is "continuing to review the evidence we use to inform our decisions and develop our recommendations". - -But the IFS says that NICE is making no progress in improving its evidence-based guidelines. - -"NICE's evidence-based statements have become a constant source of controversy," says Hawksworth. - -"The evidence-based approach has become something of a joke."<|endoftext|>The Fraser Institute has released a report on the GDP per capita of Canada, which it says is the highest in the G7. - -The report, which is based on figures from the World Bank, says Canada is at the top because it has "the highest average living standard among its G7 peers and the highest per capita GDP in the G7." - -The report notes that Canada's per capita GDP is also the highest among its G7 peers. - -The report notes that Canada's GDP per capita is also the highest among its G7 peers. (Fiscal Times) - -The report says Canada's GDP per capita is at $42,000, compared to the OECD average of $27,700. - -It says Canada's economy has grown by 2.5 per cent per year, compared to the OECD average of 2.75 per cent. - -The report notes that Canada's GDP per capita is highest among the G7, with the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan at $42,000, Canada at $40,600, and the United States at $40,000. - -The Fraser Institute says Canada's GDP per capita is also the highest among its G7 peers. (Fiscal Times) - -It also says that Canada is the only G7 country where the share of GDP spent on health care is at or below the OECD average. - -The report says that the United States spends seven per cent of its GDP on health care, but that Canada spends eight per cent. - -The report says that Canada's health care spending is at or below the OECD average, but its overall health status is below the OECD average. - -The Fraser Institute says it is a "remarkable achievement" that Canada has the lowest life expectancy of its G7 peers, at 71.6 years, and that it has achieved "the highest female life expectancy." - -It says Canada's life expectancy includes the gap between men and women and that "Canada has the highest proportion of elderly men and the lowest proportion of elderly women." - -Canada's life expectancy is also at or below the OECD average. (Fiscal Times) - -The report says that Canada's female life expectancy is 69.2 years, compared to the OECD average of 77.1 years. - -It says Canada's male life expectancy is 77.6 years, compared to the OECD average of 79.7 years. - -The Fraser Institute says that Canada's female life expectancy is 69.2 years, compared to the OECD average of 77.1 years. (Fiscal Times) - -The report says that Canada's health care is an "essential part -======================================== SAMPLE 409 ======================================== -That's a lot of food to eat in a week. In this case, it's just about the entire universe. - -The universe is what you get when you take all the particles contained in the universe, multiply them by 100 billion, and then multiply that by the speed of light. That's all of the particles and forces in the universe. - -That's the whole universe. - -The universe is actually incredibly big. If we just wrote every particle and force in the universe down, it would exceed the size of the entire observable universe. - -From the big bang to the beginning of time, we've been living in a universe that was largely composed of particles and forces. That's why the universe we see today, even though its very small, is extremely diverse. - -The universe isn't static. It's constantly expanding and contracting. It's expanding so much that it eventually wraps itself around itself. That's why it's called the Big Rip. The universe is a big blob, and if you took it all and folded it up into a flag, it would fit in a baseball. It's like the universe is like a pancake with holes in it. - -Every new time it happened, the universe expanded until it filled all of the space between the stars. This happened about 13.8 billion years ago. The expansion continues to this day. The universe is expanding at a rate of about 100 kilometers per second. - -The universe is filled with all kinds of particles and forces. The big bang created the first quarks, the building blocks of atoms. When the universe first began to expand, the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen, which was composed of one proton and one neutron. - -The universe began to contract as it expanded. At any moment, we can see the universe shrinking. However, it's never completely stopped expanding. As it continues to expand, it will eventually fill up the entire observable universe. - -When the universe was created, the temperature of the primordial soup was about 1,000 degrees Kelvin. The density of the primordial soup was about 1,000,000 grams per cubic centimeter. The universe now contains more than 100 billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion 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trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion 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trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion -======================================== SAMPLE 410 ======================================== -$1.50 - -There is a lot of news coming out about the Confederacy, and we thought we'd let you know who we think is fit to lead the confederacy. - -When it comes to choosing the best Confederate leader, it's a bit like asking who should be the president of the United States. There are a lot of candidates, and the most important thing we can ask is, "Would they be good?" - -So, here are some of the best Confederate leaders. - -We'll let you be the judge. - -Stonewall Jackson - -Jackson was an Army officer during the war. He also had a personal history with Virginia. He was the nephew of former President Jefferson Davis, and Jackson served as the Governor of Virginia during the war. - -Jackson was a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a strong advocate for southern states to secede from the Union. - -The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. Jackson's army (along with the Confederate Army) surrendered at Appomattox Court House. - -George W. Bush - -Bush was born in Kennebunkport, Maine, which is about an hour's drive from the capital city of Richmond, Virginia. - -Bush was an Army officer during the war, and served under General Robert E. Lee. He was also a strong proponent of the Confederacy. He was a member of the League of the South, and the Southern Historical Foundation. - -He was also a strong supporter of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, Bush said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -He has also said that the state of Virginia should secede from the Union. - -Barack Obama - -Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is 130 miles from Richmond, Virginia. - -He was a professor at Columbia University, and he was also a passionate advocate of slave ownership. He was also a strong supporter of the Confederacy. - -The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. - -Obama was the first black president of the United States. - -Barack Obama - -George Washington - -Washington was a member of the constable, and was the first president of the United States. - -He was also a strong supporter of slavery. He led the Revolutionary War, and was a member of the Continental Congress. He was also a strong advocate of the Confederacy. - -The day the United States declared war on the Confederate States of America was July 4, 1861. - -Washington was also a strong advocate of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -He has also said that the state of Virginia should secede from the Union. - -Andrew Jackson - -Jackson was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. - -Andrew Jackson - -John C. Breckinridge - -Breckinridge was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. - -He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. - -John C. Breckinridge - -Lewis Powell - -Powell was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. - -He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -He was also known for his disdain for Native Americans. - -Lewis Powell - -Carol Douglas - -Douglas was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. She was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. - -She was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, she said that the South should "have been an independent nation." - -She was also known for her disdain for Native Americans. - -Carol Douglas - -William H. Seward - -Seward was a member of the Kentucky Militia during the war. He was also a strong supporter of slavery, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. - -He was also a strong proponent of secession, and speaking at a rally in 2008, he said that the South should "have been an independent -======================================== SAMPLE 411 ======================================== -U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin has ordered a new trial for John Hinckley Jr., the man convicted of killing President Ronald Reagan. - -Hinckley's attorneys said they will appeal the ruling in the federal appeals court in New York. - -Scheindlin, in her ruling, said the trial judge erred when she allowed the jury to consider the possibility that the gun used to kill Reagan had been fired by Hinckley. - -Scheindlin said the jury's verdict was flawed because jurors were not allowed to consider what Hinckley had said about the President as he was led into a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom in the hours following the shooting. - -"The court concludes on the record that the jury was not properly instructed regarding the evidence regarding Hinckley's motivation and offer of proof in the form of his notes and the transcripts of his telephone conversation with Dr. Seidenberg," the ruling said. - -Hinckley was convicted in the 1981 shooting of Reagan and other people. The case was the first of its kind in the country when Hinckley hired a private psychiatrist to analyze his mental state. - -The psychiatrist concluded that Hinckley was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which came from his time in the military, according to court documents. - -Hinckley was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was released in May of this year. - -Hinckley's attorneys argued that the government had failed to make a convincing case for a mental illness and failed to prove that Hinckley was aware of his actions, according to the New York Times. - -They also said his trial was disrupted because prosecutors changed prosecutor's instructions mid-trial, according to the Daily News. - -The New York Times said the ruling could have wide-reaching ramifications for the defendant, who is set to be released on parole in January. - -The Associated Press contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>SIL Open Font License v1.10 - -This license can also be found at this permalink: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/license/monaco - -Copyright (c) 2011, Antonin Seemann - -This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. - -This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL - -—————————————————————————————- - -SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007 - -—————————————————————————————- - -PREAMBLE - -The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide development of collaborative font projects, to support the font creation efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide a free and open framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with others. - -The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves. The fonts, including any derivative works, can be bundled, embedded, redistributed and/or sold with any software provided that any reserved names are not used by derivative works. The fonts and derivatives, however, cannot be released under any other type of license. The requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply to any document created using the fonts or their derivatives. - -DEFINITIONS - -"Font Software" refers to the set of files released by the Copyright Holder(s) under this license and clearly marked as such. This may include source files, build scripts and documentation. - -"Reserved Font Name" refers to any names specified as such after the copyright statement(s). - -"Original Version" refers to the collection of Font Software components as distributed by the Copyright Holder(s). - -"Modified Version" refers to any derivative made by adding to, deleting, or substituting—in part or in whole—any of the components of the Original Version, by changing formats or by porting the Font Software to a new environment. - -"Author" refers to any designer, engineer, programmer, technical writer or other person who contributed to the Font Software. - -PERMISSION & CONDITIONS - -Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Font Software, to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font Software, subject to the following conditions: - -1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself. - -2) Original or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or in the appropriate machine- -======================================== SAMPLE 412 ======================================== -It is my impression that most of us need to start learning how to use visual memory to help us remember things. - -When we are learning a new phrase or a phrase that we already know we can use visual memory. We can use it to recall the word in our head, to remember pictures of things. - -I won't go into the details of how to use visual memory. I found the best method to learn to use visual memory is to practice it in your own life. You need to try and practise it in front of a mirror, a window, a door. You could try to practise it in your own living room, your office, a bus, your car, the bus you take to work, your bed, your bedroom, your floor, your school, your library, your gym, your car, your office, your bedroom. - -I remember I used to practice visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -You could also try to practise it in front of a mirror or a window, or in a doorway. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only with pictures. - -I remember I used to practise visual memory in the school library. I would take photos of all the books I was studying and I would even take photos of the graphics, because I couldn't always remember what words were in books, and I would be able to remember the words visually, not only -======================================== SAMPLE 413 ======================================== -What is the best way to secure your home? - -The most common form of home security is simply keeping your windows closed and doors locked. This is the most secure option for most people. However, there are others. - -To find out more about the best home security systems, read our article: Which Home Security System Is the Best? - -What are the top home security systems? - -Home security systems are designed to make you safer. - -They are the solution that keeps you safe, even if you don't have a lock on your door. There are many systems on the market for home security, but we have chosen to list the top 3 home security systems in the UK and Canada. - -You can get all of these systems at great prices. - -Our pick: - -If you're looking for a solution that will ensure that you live a longer, healthier, and more enjoyable life, then we recommend the Gentry. This home security system is the most trusted and widely used home security system in the world. - -The Gentry is designed to give you peace of mind with a number of different features that make it strong, flexible, and reliable. It's designed to be used by anyone, from the beginner to the experienced homeowner. - -The Gentry has been designed to make sure that you have a complete system that is reliable and easy to use. It's designed to be a flexible solution that can be used in many different types of environments. - -What makes the Gentry unique? - -We've designed a security system based on safety. It's safe, flexible, and easy to use. The Gentry has been designed with safety first, so that you're protected from crime, fire, and theft. - -It's also packed with features that make it easy to understand and use. - -It's a high-quality system that's been tested and reviewed by experts. - -It comes with a full warranty - -We want to make sure that you're comfortable with the Gentry. We also want to make sure that you buy the product you can trust. So, we've come up with all of the following guarantees before you buy: - -This is a secure home security system that we made with you in mind. It's designed to be the best home security system for your family. If you have any questions, please give us a call on 0300 123 3393.<|endoftext|>The fact that we can only use the number one man, one woman is very intriguing. But how did this number come about? - -Some people believe that in ancient times, the world was divided into two parts: the upper world and the lower world. Each part was ruled by a different number of people. But the ultimate ruler of the lower world was the number one man, one woman. In the upper world, number two was the ruler. - -So, over time, this number was added. Over time, it became two, and then three, and then four, and then three. Eventually, it got to number one. That is how the world became divided into two parts: the upper world and the lower world. - -This number is called the number of the beast, a name attributed to Jesus Christ by John the Baptist.<|endoftext|>The validators module allows you to validate forms. It has no dependencies other than the standard module autoload . - -Validators are typically used to validate user input. - -Validators can be defined and used beyond the scope of the application. They can be used in middleware. - -Note: This module is a superset of the validator module. - -The validator API is identical to the validator module. - -An example of a validator can be found here. - -You can find more information about validators here. - -Supported validators - -The following validators are accepted and will be evaluated as normal: - -id - -name - -email - -password - -atob - -datetime - -required - -range - -null - -length - -maxlength - -minlength - -required - -url - -include - -exclude - -prefix - -required - -form - -required - -maxlength - -minlength - -required - -range - -range - -limit - -length - -minlength - -maxlength - -min - -max - -includes - -list - -length - -minlength - -maxlength - -min - -max - -required - -random - -random - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - -required - - -======================================== SAMPLE 414 ======================================== -"I think it's fair to say that the most important thing with the Prenda case is that they were able to get a judge to sign off on a pretrial order that the lawyers that they had hired, they were able to get Judge Wright to sign off on that, but when you look at the records, the statements from the attorneys that they were using and the way that they were using it, those statements were not supported by the evidence," said Paul Duffy, an attorney who represented the porn company.<|endoftext|>This is the first of a series of posts that will be looking at the Crossrail project from different perspectives. - -The question of how to connect the east and west of London has divided opinion since the North-South Rail Link was proposed. One camp believes that a high-speed rail network will help us cut congestion through the centre of the capital, while the other believes that it will induce a new housing boom and make our already crowded cities even more so. - -The debate has not changed much since the North-South Rail Link was first proposed. The amount of money that will be needed to build this project is very high, and the benefits only begin to come into play once the railway is built. But the debate has changed in the last few years. In 2012, the Government's Strategic Rail Authority produced a report that criticised the current transport system for being too complicated, and suggested that it could be replaced by a network of high-speed rail links. - -In 2014, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, commissioned a study of how to improve London's transport system. It identified a need for a new interchange between the northern and southern rail lines, and called for a high-speed, five-mile-plus network to be built across the capital that would connect the north to the south. - -The South-North Rail Link - -The North-South Rail Link (N-SRL) is a proposal to replace the existing Northern and Southern rail lines, with a new interchange station at Barking Riverside railway station in east London in place of Victoria. - -The N-SRL would provide a single point of contact for all connecting services between London and Birmingham. No longer would passengers and goods have to make their way through a series of intermediate stations, each of which has its own set of problems. - -A new interchange station would also reduce the number of small transfers between trains. Currently, passengers transferring between several trains would have to wait around for the next one to leave. It would be safer and more convenient for passengers to have just one ticket to travel between two stations. - -The N-SRL will also reduce journey times, particularly between London and Birmingham. Currently, people travelling between London and Birmingham have to spend around 40 minutes travelling from the west to the east of the city, and around 30 minutes travelling from the north to the south. The N-SRL would reduce this to just 20 minutes. - -This is really good news for those who live and work in the south of London, as it would give them the opportunity to travel to work faster than before. - -It's unclear what prices will be charged at the new interchange station, but any fare will be comparable to which they currently pay at Victoria, making it easy for many people to switch from buses to trains. - -The proposed changes have been welcomed by many. The National Railway Museum, the National Railway Museum Trust, the London Transport Museum and the National Railway Museum (NMR) have all welcomed the N-SRL as a worthwhile initiative. - -However, there are some who are sceptical about the value of a new railway interchange. Critics of the N-SRL say that it will only serve the passengers who already use the Victoria line. In response, the Government says that a new interchange will be needed in the future, but that it will be far cheaper than building new stations in the city. - -The new station at Barking Riverside, which will be built along the current railway line, will be linked to the existing Victoria line by a new tunnel. The proposed new interchange station will be built along the new railway line. - -This is very different to the existing interchange at Barking Riverside station. This is a very busy commuter station, which is also a major interchange for the Victoria, District and Circle lines. It is used by tens of thousands of passengers each day, including thousands of passengers who switch between trains. - -The proposed new station at Barking Riverside station would be far cheaper to build than the existing Victoria station. - -The Victorian station, for example, cost the taxpayer £9.7m in 2009/10, while Barking Riverside station cost just £1.9m. The cost of the new interchange station is much lower, as it would only be built if the NMR received a grant from Government. - -Barking Riverside station is just one station along the District and Circle lines, but it is the busiest station on the Victoria line. It is also the most important -======================================== SAMPLE 415 ======================================== -"It's kind of a corporate Wisconsin," he said. "It's a tough economy and things are getting tougher. But I do have to say that I can't remember the last time I found myself in a living room and I was watching these guys and they were drinking, and I was thinking: I don't know what you're doing for a living, but you're going to work out of your house. You're going to go work out of your house. You're going to go work out of your house. You should be doing something different."<|endoftext|>Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been struggling to reintegrate Russia into the global economy. Russia's economy has been in a recession since the beginning of 2009, and the Russian economy is growing at an annual rate of 2.7 percent. Through this recession, the Russian economy has dropped from being the 7th largest economy in the world in 1990 to the 10th largest economy in 2009. Russia's GDP per capita is $16,000, the lowest of any country. The United States, on the other hand, has the highest GDP per capita of any country in the world, at $51,000. - -Even though the United States has the highest GDP per capita, the United States is not the world's largest economy. China is the only country that is larger than the United States. China's GDP per capita is $11,600, and the United States' GDP per capita is $45,300. China's GDP per capita is also the highest of any country with a GDP of over $10 million. - -The United States' economic slowdown is due in part to lower oil prices and Western sanctions. However, the United States suffers from many problems, such as its large federal debt, high income inequality, and a low labor force participation rate.<|endoftext|>Now, I am one of the craziest people in the world. I will say that, because it's true. I'm a big fan of zombies. I totally got into the zombie apocalypse genre when I saw World War Z. It was pretty amazing. I'm also a big fan of the zombie series The Walking Dead. I know, I know. You don't get to see a zombie series this way. And, I know. I'm full of shit. Because if you're reading this, you're probably one of the craziest people on the planet. You're probably also one of the most devoted readers I have ever had. I'm glad I'm not the only one. - -If you're read Top Shelf Presents, you know that I'm a big fan of World War Z. I love that it's the first zombie movie that I've ever seen. I love that it's the film that got me into the zombie apocalypse genre. I love that it was the film that got me into the genre of zombie movies. - -I'm not going to tell you how I feel about the film. You can read about it here. I will say, though, that I think it's a great film. It's got a lot going for it, but I don't think it's the best zombie film out there. I think it's a great film, but I do think it's one of the weaker zombie films out there. I'm not going to say it's the worst zombie film, because I think it's one of the better zombie films out there. But, I don't think it's the best zombie film. - -If you haven't seen the film, you should go buy it right now. The film is out on Blu-Ray/DVD and DVD now. It's a great film. You should go and buy it now. It's a great film. - -I'm going to get through this post, because I'm so excited to talk about David Fincher. David Fincher is one of the most important directors in the history of cinema. He's a filmmaker known for his films that are self-aware and ironic. He's a filmmaker known for being a director who's really good at approaching the genre of film that he's working in. And, to top it all off, he's one of the best directors in the world. - -In The Social Network, he's writing a screenplay, but he's also directing the film. In his film, he's a writer, but he's also a director. And, in many ways, that's what's so amazing about him. He approaches filmmaking from two sides at once. On the one hand, he's a writer, and he's a director. On the other hand, he's a filmmaker, and he's also a writer. And, that's what makes his films so great. - -Fincher is a writer. He's a writer on the page. But, he also is a director on the screen. And, it's a really brilliant approach to filmmaking. It's a really brilliant approach to filmmaking, that has got us all -======================================== SAMPLE 416 ======================================== -How to Set Up Wireless Networking in Windows 8 - -The Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature has been around for some time now, but there are many things that you need to know before you can set it up in Windows 8. If you want to use this feature, you need to: - -Install the Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature on your PC. - -Make sure that you have the latest firmware for your wireless network adapter. - -Install the proper drivers for your wireless adapter. - -If you want to use the Windows 8 Wireless Networking feature, you need to follow these three simple steps: - -Download the latest firmware for your wireless network adapter. - -Download the drivers for your wireless adapter. - -To use the Windows 8 Wireless Network feature, you need to connect your PC to the Internet, and to do that, you need to search for your wireless network, and then select it from the list of available networks. - -With these three simple steps, you can enable Wireless Networking on your Windows 8 PC, and be able to connect to wireless networks and use them.<|endoftext|>A federal judge has upheld a settlement that requires the insurance company USAA to pay $10 million to the families of two of its soldiers killed in Iraq. The settlement was reached in May after the company was sued for failing to provide adequate coverage to its troops stationed in the country. - -The agreement was reached after the families of Kori Ali Muhammad, 36, and Dustin Eugene Wright, 33, filed a lawsuit against the company. They alleged the company had been negligent for not providing adequate coverage for their loved ones. - -The two men lost their lives in a tragic shooting in March 2007. Their deaths were the first U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. - -In May, USAA agreed to pay $10 million to the families. The company also agreed to hire an independent monitor to oversee its business practices throughout Iraq. - -The company said it began monitoring its activities in Iraq in June 2007, and that it "has already taken steps to prevent further injuries, deaths, and property damage to service members." - -The settlement was announced by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and David B. Cohen, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division. The two men also criticized insurance companies for their lack of accountability in the cases of Iraq war casualties. - -"The insurance companies in Iraq, instead of taking responsibility for their risky business practices, have continued to profit at the expense of American soldiers and their families." Holder said in a statement. - -Cohen, who served as a senior prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal division under President George W. Bush, said the case was the first time that the Justice Department has pursued a civil suit over the insurance industry's failure to properly cover military members. - -"Insurance companies and their agents in Iraq were not accountable for the consequences of their behavior, and the families of these two American soldiers are the victims of their actions," Cohen said. - -Representatives of USAA declined to comment.<|endoftext|>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Is it too late for a bailout of the eurozone? - -Eurozone finance ministers have agreed to an emergency bailout of the single currency's weakest member - Cyprus. - -In a humiliating defeat for the EU, it was vetoed by Spain, which has vetoes over all Greek and Portuguese decisions. - -The Greek PM said the result was "a political failure and a eurozone failure". - -Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said a deal would "put an end to the drama". - -What happened? - -Spain, which holds a veto vote on eurozone matters, said it would not support the bailout, arguing that the €10bn (£8bn) offered by the eurozone was not enough to protect Cyprus. - -The EU said it was the first time that a eurozone country had been forced to seek an external bailout. - -The decision was meant to be taken by the finance ministers of the 17 countries which use the euro, but the session had to be adjourned so that Spain, which has a veto, could come out against the Cyprus bailout. - -Analysis In the end, the Spanish and Italian governments were not really able to block the deal, but they were a lot more effective than they looked. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had always pushed the idea that a deal would be done, but her personal intervention was the most important factor. If she had not been there, the Spanish and Italian governments would have been able to block it. Once they had given the green light for it to be approved, it became a political no-brainer for the parties in the eurozone. The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa also had to give their support, but the rest of the Eurogroup - the other 17 eurozone countries - were too divided on the issue to have a strong effect. That has been a major disappointment for many in the -======================================== SAMPLE 417 ======================================== -In the early spring of 1984, I was in the sixth grade at Eastern High School in West Palm Beach, where ninety-seven percent of the student body attended Catholic schools. I was a regular at the Catholic school's weekly chapel service, where I often sat in the pew next to the girls who were married and had children. On the Sunday before Easter, as we watched the Easter service on the television in the chapel, a young couple walked into the pew with a child in their arms. - -The parents, both young clergy, were clearly struggling with the problem of how to best honor their daughter, who had been gravely injured in an accident. The young mother was about forty-something and was wearing a flowing red dress, a gold headband, and a sash that looked as if it had been made for a saint. The young man was about twenty-one and was wearing a blue vest and a black tie. - -The couple approached the pew and bowed their heads, and that's when the young man, who was wearing a white shirt and a gray suit, got up from his seat and began to walk towards the aisle. The young woman, who was wearing a white dress and a green shawl, stood up and walked after him. - -"Excuse me," said the young man. "Would you please move? I have a child in my arms." - -"We live in the country," she replied. "I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child." - -The young man, however, didn't see the child. - -He continued to walk to the aisle and when he reached the end of the aisle, he turned around to face the young woman, who had kept pace with him all the way down the aisle. - -"Excuse me," said the young man. "Would you please move? I have a child in my arms." - -The young woman looked at the child in her arms. Her eyes were large and clear. She took a deep breath, and then she looked up at the adult and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean it." - -The young man walked over to the child, placed his hand on the child's shoulder, and said, "It's okay, baby. I'm here." - -The young man and the young woman stood there for a few moments, looking at each other. The young woman then walked up to the young man and placed her hand on his shoulder. The young man looked at the child in her arms and then looked back at the young woman. - -"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. "I'm here." - -The young man looked at her and said, "It's okay, baby. I'm here." - -The young man walked back to the aisle and the young girl in her arms. As the young woman walked back to the pew, she turned and faced the young man, who was still standing next to the child. - -"Excuse me, sir," said the young woman. "Would you please move?" - -"We live in the country," he replied. - -"I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child," she replied. - -The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. - -"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. "I'm here." - -The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. - -"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. - -The young man walked back to the aisle and the young girl in her arms. As the young woman walked back to the pew, she turned and faced the young man, who was still standing next to the child. - -"Excuse me, sir," said the young woman. "Would you please move?" - -"We live in the country," he replied. - -"I couldn't believe that a grown man would come up to a child," she replied. - -The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. - -"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. - -The young man walked over to the child and placed his hand on the child's shoulder. The child then looked up at the adult and then looked back at the young woman. - -"It's okay, baby," said the young woman. - -The young man and the young woman stood there for a few moments, looking at each other. The young woman then walked up to the young man and placed her hand on his shoulder. The -======================================== SAMPLE 418 ======================================== -Kelvin Benjamin is expected to miss the rest of the preseason and most likely the rest of the season, according to multiple reports. - -Benjamin tore his ACL in his knee in the Panthers' regular-season opener against the Saints. He underwent surgery to repair the torn ACL Monday and will miss the remainder of the preseason and the first four games of the regular season. - -Benjamin, who was playing at an All-Pro level in his rookie season, is now expected to miss the remainder of the season, which would mean he would miss the entire 2017 season, as well. - -Benjamin originally suffered the injury in the third quarter of Carolina's Week 1 win against the Browns, which was one of the most dominant performances from a wide receiver in recent memory. Benjamin caught nine passes for 207 yards and a touchdown, including a 19-yard touchdown pass that showcased his route-running ability. - -The Panthers lost their first-round pick in next year's draft to the Saints for Benjamin's injury, which was the second time in his career that he suffered a significant injury. Benjamin suffered a torn ACL in training camp in 2015 and missed the entire preseason before returning for the final six games of the season. - -More from SB Nation NFL - -• Michael Bennett releases statement saying he'll retire - -• NFL Week 4 picks: Ravens, 49ers, Saints all win - -• NFL Week 4 betting guide | Picks | Odds - -• Week 4 NFL picks: Who's hot, who's not?<|endoftext|>The latest version of Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 tablet has a new feature that allows users to display notifications on the tablet's screen. - -While the Surface Pro 4 is a very powerful tablet for the price, it doesn't have any built-in keyboard functionality. However, this new feature that allows users to display notifications on the tablet's screen is currently only available in the developer preview version of the software. - -This new feature allows users to display notifications on the Surface Pro 4's screen, but it requires a little extra configuration. You can enable the new feature by going to Settings > System > Display. - -Here, you'll find a new option labeled "Tablet Display." - -Under this option, you'll find the option to enable or disable the setting for each display you have connected to the Surface Pro 4. Then, simply tap on the checkbox to enable the new feature. - -You'll be able to see notifications from apps and games that you have installed on the Surface Pro 4, but you'll have to enable this feature to see the notifications from the Windows Store. This feature is currently available in the preview version of the software, which you can grab from Microsoft's developer site. - -The Surface Pro 4 tablet is available in the United States for $799.99, but there's currently no word on the international pricing.<|endoftext|>A man in his early 20s has been arrested and charged with the sexual assault of a woman at a downtown Winnipeg hotel, police said Friday. - -The man was arrested without incident at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 115 Harbour St., on Wednesday. - -"The incident is being treated as sexual assault," police said in a release. - -The Winnipeg Police Service's sex crimes unit has been called in to investigate. - -The man was charged with sexual assault, committing an indecent act and breaching probation.<|endoftext|>Since the invention of the electric guitar in the late '60s, it's been a common expression of the guitar's power to make a song sound bigger than life. And while that's certainly true and it's hard to deny, there's one instrument that can sound bigger than life and still sound like an instrument. And that instrument is the cello. - -"I like the cello for its ability to deliver the right notes very clearly," says cellist and composer Joe Pugliese, who is working on a new album, The Holy City, with cellist and composer Mick Fleetwood. "It's a powerful and expressive instrument." - -Pugliese brings up an important point: Cellists today are using the same techniques as the early cellists, which are often very similar to those used by the cello masters. "Musicians are now using the techniques of the 19th century cellists," Pugliese says. "They're using the same techniques and the same technique, which is the scalar vibrato, is still used." - -A Scalar Vibrato - -In the video below, Pugliese explains what a scalar vibrato is: - -"The scalar vibrato is a technique in the cello where you move the bow back and forth in a circular motion, like a bow sweeping back and forth, to create a wide sweep. The cellist will select a note that's slightly higher than the one that he wants to vibrate, and then he will slide the bow back and forth in a circular motion, and as the bow passes over the note he will -======================================== SAMPLE 419 ======================================== -How do you make a second home in the city? - -A whole lot of money. - -And an even bigger problem for the city: it takes a lot of money to keep the city clean. - -The city's annual budget for garbage collection, which was $26 million in 2014, is roughly $200 million. - -And that's just the garbage that's picked up. - -On top of that, the city spends hundreds of millions of dollars on waste management, sewer and water infrastructure, and parks and recreation. - -The city's budget is so huge, it has to be balanced by cutting spending elsewhere. - -City staff have access to a variety of tools to help them balance the books. - -Initiatives like Neighbourhood Renewal, which is working to improve neighbourhoods, have been in place since 2006. - -They've received more than $14 million in funding to date. - -And they're an example of how the city's budget can be used to improve people's lives. - -Coun. Jason Farr says the city is in a very different place than it was when he first got elected in 2012. - -"For us, we're really at the tipping point," Farr said. "And I think that what we're doing is really beneficial to the city and really beneficial to the neighbourhoods and the people who live in them. I think that's a really positive, forward-looking message." - -"We can do better than we are right now." - -A new report from the city's auditor has some suggestions on how the city could use its money more wisely. - -"It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of many of the initiatives and programs," the report states. - -"The lack of rigorous and reliable metrics cannot be attributed to a lack of effort on the part of government." - -The report recommends the city look at how it spends money on a number of initiatives. - -They include: - -Neighbourhood Renewal, which has committed $14.2 million to renovate and transform 127 neighbourhoods across the city. - -The city's Strategic Land Use Plan, which has funded the creation of over a half-dozen urban design-based communities. - -The city's Task Force on the Future of Vancouver, which was created in response to the 2010 Olympic Village report. - -And the city's Green Economy Strategy, which recently generated $5 million for the city's green infrastructure. - -The report also recommends the city look at how it spends money on a number of programs. - -They include: - -Neighbourhood Renewal, which has committed $14.2 million to renovate and transform 127 neighbourhoods across the city. - -The city's Strategic Land Use Plan, which has funded the creation of over a half-dozen urban design-based communities. - -The city's Task Force on the Future of Vancouver, which was created in response to the 2010 Olympic Village report. - -And the city's Green Economy Strategy, which recently generated $5 million for the city's green infrastructure. - -More funding for the arts - -The City of Vancouver is also looking at how it spends money on the arts. - -In 2015, the city made $7.8 million available to fund artists commissions, including $2.7 million towards the 2016/17 season. - -Many of those funds go toward the Vancouver International Arts Festival. - -The festival runs from June 11 to September 22 and is expected to bring in $13.7 million in revenue this year. - -The city is also looking at ways to make things even smoother for artists when it comes to accessing public funding. - -For example, the city recently announced a new grant program for artists. - -And as part of that, it's looking at whether to make it easier for artists to apply for grants. - -The city says that by the end of the year, it'll be able to give artists more information about grants they're eligible for. - -It'll also be looking at whether to streamline the process for artists applying for funding. - -"We're looking at recommendations and we're going through a process of actually putting the suggestions into practice," said Coun. Mike Savage. - -"I think that's a very big issue, and I think it's something we need to work on." - -More money for the arts - -But not everyone agrees with the mayor's desire for more money for the arts. - -"I don't think that the arts are good for the city," said Coun. Michael Wiebe. - -"I don't think that they contribute to the vibrancy of the city. I don't think they add to the vitality of the city. I think they're an object of scorn of the public. - -"I think that the arts are a very important part of the city, but I think that they need to be managed in a very careful way." - - -======================================== SAMPLE 420 ======================================== -As his third season comes to a close, Brian Holman catches up with the Toronto Blue Jays' manager and general manager, John Gibbons. - -It's been a long, bumpy road for the Blue Jays this season, and a much shorter one for Gibbons. - -After a season of questioning his own role in the organization and being forced to find a way to make it work, Gibbons is now in his third season in charge of a Blue Jays team that is well within reach of making the playoffs. - -In a wide-ranging interview with Sportsnet's John Gibbons, the Toronto Blue Jays' manager speaks candidly on everything from the team's struggles to his relationship with his boss, the team's general manager. - -Gibbons also addresses why he was so surprised that the Jays traded one of their closer's for a starting pitcher in the off-season, how baseball can take away the fun from the game, and why he believes the Jays are a playoff team. - -Check out the full interview below: - -John Gibbons, Toronto Blue Jays manager and general manager: - -What are your thoughts on the season so far? - -"That's a good question. I think it's been a difficult year. It's been a rollercoaster. We've had a lot of highs and lows. It's been a rollercoaster. - -I think a lot of it is growing pains. We dealt with some injuries. We traded a guy that was a big part of our bullpen. We became a better team, but you know, we're not out of it yet. You know, we're in a position to make a run at the playoffs. You know, we're in a place where we can win the wild card. So, it's a rollercoaster. - -But I think we've been a better team. I think we've been a better team overall. I think we've improved our team. And even though we're not in the playoffs, we're in a position to make a run at it. - -What was your first thought when you heard about the trade [for closer Roberto Osuna]? - -"I was disappointed. But we've got a lot of good players in the bullpen. And we're going to have to see how it goes. I don't think it's going to be a drastic change. But we're going to have to see how it goes." - -What's your relationship with John? - -"I've always felt comfortable with John. I've always felt a lot of respect for him. I'm not one to talk to John about anything. It's not like I have to. He knows I'm not going to say anything." - -Did you expect the trade to be made? - -"No. I don't think anybody expected it to be made. I think it was going to be something I was going to have to deal with, and I guess it was something we were going to have to deal with. - -John's been great. I've got a great relationship with him. I really do." - -How do you think you're going to be described by the media once the season ends? - -"I don't know yet. I don't really know. I feel like I'm going to be like a lot of other guys, maybe. I don't know, I don't know how that's going to come." - -Do you think you're being unfairly painted as a leader on this team? - -"I don't think it's too much to say that we're a good young team. I think we've got an outstanding group of young players. I think we're a team that has a lot of talent. I think we have a lot of young guys that have a lot of good ideas. I think we have a lot of young guys that have a lot of character. I think that's why we're in the position we're in. I think we've got a lot of potential and a lot of good things ahead of us." - -Can you talk about your relationship with John? - -"We've always been good friends. We've been really good friends. We work together. We talk together. I think that's why we're in this position we're in. I think that's why like I say, he knows I'm not going to say anything." - -Have you been able to get to know John's former teammates? - -"I think I've gotten to know a lot of them, but I don't know. I don't really get to get to know them, obviously. So, I'm not in a position to get to know them." - -Do you think you've earned the respect of your teammates? - -"I've earned the respect of the players. I've earned their respect. I think it's something I've done in the past. I think I've earned their respect. I -======================================== SAMPLE 421 ======================================== -Two years ago, we heard rumors that a trio of Japanese companies were working on a new, high-end, Android-powered Note phablet. We couldn't confirm, and for a while, the rumor sat on the backburner as Samsung focused on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. - -But then it came back to life with a bang, and we were finally able to confirm that it was true. The new Note, the Galaxy Note 5, will launch this September in a new, bigger size, and it will also come with a new, more powerful processor. - -The device will also have a big jump in battery life, and it will have a new design, according to a new report from Korean news site ETNews. - -ETNews says that according to Samsung, the new Note 5 will have a 5.7-inch display, a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, a Snapdragon 810 processor, and 3GB of RAM. The device also likely won't be the same size as the Note 4's 5.7-inch display, but it's likely to be the same size as the Note 3's 5.5-inch display. - -The new Note 5 will also have a new (and more powerful) camera that's said to have a f1.7 aperture, and a larger battery. It also should have a 6.3mm bezel, just like the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5. - -The Note 5 will also come with a stylus, as well as a new AI assistant called Bixby that will be pre-installed on the device. Samsung is expected to use Bixby to pull you away from apps and websites and allow you to more efficiently use the device. - -Rumors of the new Note 5 started last October, when Samsung was said to be developing a larger-screen phablet with a 5.7-inch display. That device has not yet been announced. - -Samsung has recently been testing the waters with smaller-screened handsets, with the Galaxy A series of smartphones and the Galaxy J series of smartphones. The company has also been rumored to launch a smaller, cheaper Galaxy A3 successor. - -The new Galaxy Note is expected to be released in a new round of colors with a metal back panel, and a gold-colored version is expected to be released in September. - -Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>A convicted child molester who served as a football coach in Louisiana said he was a victim of racial prejudice and a lack of free speech when he was banned from speaking at his alma mater. - -"I just don't think you should be allowed to express your opinion about anything," said Gary Covington, who has been fired as the head football coach at Marshall University and is facing a second criminal trial for molesting boys. - -"I've been black, I've been white, I've been Latino. I can't speak my mind. And that's the problem." - -Covington was a star player at Marshall, where he played linebacker from 1978-81. He was a three-time All-American and played 24 years in the NFL, including six with the New Orleans Saints. - -Covington said he was banned from speaking at Marshall after he made comments about his former football coach, Mike Rhoades, who is white. - -The coach, Rhoades, is now out of coaching. - -Covington said he had given a talk to trustees and students at Marshall about his life and his prior football career. - -"I'm not a racist. It's just that the word 'racist' is part of my past," Covington told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I don't think I am a racist. I don't think I've ever been racist. I'm not a bigot." - -The former assistant coach said he had not announced plans to speak at Marshall, which is about 45 miles north of New Orleans, before he was fired last month. He said he was not aware of the pending university hearing. - -"I just want to get the truth out," Covington said. "I don't want to see my name in the papers on anything I have to say." - -Covington was convicted in 2005 on charges of molesting two boys and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released from prison in May. - -On Sept. 28, Covington was charged with molesting a third boy. He was arraigned on those charges on Tuesday and released on $50,000 bond. - -"I just want to know what happened in the past," Covington said. "I didn't want to be here talking about my past. I didn't do anything." - -The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual abuse. - -Covington said he was not aware of the possibility that he would have to return to -======================================== SAMPLE 422 ======================================== -Two months after the death of a woman who died during a traffic stop, a grand jury decided not to indict any of the officers involved, the Austin Police Department announced Tuesday. - -Carmen "Carmella" Hernandez was stopped on June 15, 2015, for speeding on Interstate 35. She was not wearing a seat belt, and had recently lost her job because she couldn't afford to drive to work, according to a probable cause statement. - -She was found to have a blood alcohol content of .236 percent, which is more than twice the legal limit. A breathalyzer test showed her blood alcohol content to be .228 percent, according to the statement. - -[Officers' body cameras were not turned on in Sandra Bland's death, authorities say] - -During the stop, Hernandez was asked if she had been drinking. She told police that she had been drinking, but did not immediately remember what happened, according to the statement. - -He then asked her if she was intoxicated. She told him she was not, but was unable to remember if she had consumed any alcohol. Then Hernandez said she would need to take a breathalyzer test, and asked if he could get a breathalyzer. Hernandez said that she needed to take the test to get a job because she was unable to pay for the car she was driving. - -Hernandez then got out of her vehicle and was arrested for DUI. - -Hernandez died the next day. She had been arrested for driving while intoxicated in 2013, according to court records. - -On Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Hernandez's family had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Austin police. - -"We are now left with the task of pursuing justice through the criminal justice system," her sister, Laurie Hernandez, said in a statement released by the family's attorneys. "I am heartbroken, anguished and furious to learn that there was no one who cared enough to make sure this family's privacy was protected by notifying them that their loved one was dead. - -"The family's deepest desire is to make sure that this does not happen to another family, and we hope that the parties involved will work together to ensure that the justice system works for everyone." - -A lawyer for the city of Austin said he could not comment on pending litigation, but noted that the city's use-of-force policy says that officers "will not use deadly force unless they have probable cause to believe the subject poses a threat to the life or limb of the officer or another person." - -The statement said the city's police watchdog will investigate the case. - -"We are at a point in time where our officers are trained, and we do not see this as a situation we can ignore," said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. "We have, as it relates to this case, a policy that says when we pull somebody over, we have to ask them whether they were intoxicated and, if they say yes, we can take them into custody." - -The case is the second in as many weeks to involve an officer being cleared of any wrongdoing in the death of a citizen. In the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Alton Sterling, police said that the officer involved in the shooting had been "exonerated" by a grand jury, but in the shooting death of Philando Castile, the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing. - -Read more: - -Texas cops can shoot you for being white. A judge says it's OK. - -'You're about to get shot': Video shows last moments of man who died after police shot him in St. Paul<|endoftext|>This week, the Supreme Court held that police need a warrant to collect information from a cell phone. The decision affirmed a lower court's ruling that police can't search cell phones without a warrant, and said that the practices are probably unconstitutional. But there are still at least three ways police can get phone data without a warrant. - -The most obvious way is to buy the phone outright and search it with a warrant. But the FBI doesn't sell cell phones; it buys them. It's a well-known fact that the FBI buys cell phones not just from manufacturers like Apple and Nokia but from third parties. - -Advertisement - -The FBI buys cell phones from a variety of companies, including Sprint and Verizon. They can also buy them in bulk from a company called DT Communications. The company is owned by two brothers named Thomas and Robert Murphy, who have been convicted of hacking phone networks and stealing millions of phone numbers. For this reason, they're not allowed to own phones. - -But who owns the companies that sell cell phones to the FBI? That's where the third-party doctrine comes in. Under the third-party doctrine, third parties don't have to tell you about their business, but they do have to disclose to you the way they gather information on you. - -The Fourth Amendment says that "no Warrants shall -======================================== SAMPLE 423 ======================================== -• A reader writes: I'm a junior in college and I've been having a breakdown with anxiety and depression. I've been on medication and an antidepressant for a long time, but I'm still having problems. I don't want to do this anymore. I know it's not my fault that I'm depressed, but I'm not healthy. I'm not even healthy enough to eat healthy. I feel like I'm getting sicker and sicker. I'm thinking that if I don't get help soon I'll die. I'm also worried about my parents and my friends and how they're going to react. I need to get help now, when I can. I've been doing the best I can, but my parents are always horrible. My mom is always angry and sad and she never wants to see me. She doesn't want to get a job or go to school or go to therapy or anything. She just wants me to be happy. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared. - -• A reader writes: I am a 29-year-old woman, and my husband and I have had two very close friends who have both had similar issues. I'm convinced that they're the same, but I feel wrong about it. I'm one of those people who would compare myself to people who are just as sick, but we're not. We're healthy, and we're not depressed. I know that in a year from now I'm going to be diagnosed with breast cancer or some other cancer that kills you within a year, and I'll be alone. I will be alone because I will have no one to talk to about the things I'm feeling right now. I don't need to talk about it right now - I'm scared, but I know that I have to. It's so hard to talk about it, but I have to, because of what I know. - -• A reader writes: I'm a 33-year-old woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a mastectomy in January and have had radiation the past month. I'm getting chemotherapy for the next two weeks. I have a very positive outlook on life, but I'm still having difficulty with the anxiety that comes with being sick. I have been through so much already, and I don't want this to make me feel worse. I'm so afraid that if I stop, I'll die. Please help me. - -• A reader writes: I am a 68-year-old woman with heart disease, and I've been diagnosed with both congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I've had congestive heart failure for many years and my doctor told me it would further deteriorate if I didn't get treatment. My health insurance is going to cancel my policy in a few months, and I'm scared that I'll die if I don't have new insurance. I have been paying out of pocket for my treatment, but I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do. I know I have to get more insurance, but my husband is happy with his insurance and he needs to be in the same position. I'm utterly alone. I'm too old to get treatment, but there are no other options. I am totally alone. - -• A reader writes: I am a 28-year-old woman in recovery from anorexia nervosa. I'm a very happy, healthy person, but I have been eating less and less and avoiding friends and family because of my eating disorder. I've been to the doctor twice now but they have told me that I don't have an eating disorder and that I can't lose weight. I have lost 10 pounds since I was last seen, so I'm hoping that I might be able to get a second opinion from a doctor who specializes in eating disorders. I just want to get help and get back to feeling good again. I know it will be hard, but I'm ready. - -• A reader writes: A few months ago I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I've been in and out of a psychiatric hospital since I was 16. I have been on psychiatric medication my whole life. My current psychiatrist doesn't know that I'm bipolar and that I have schizophrenia. I can't get out of the hospital until I get to a new psychiatrist. I'm scared that I will get kicked out of the hospital and have to go back to my old psychiatrist, so I'm not taking any more medication. I'm scared that I will die. - -• A reader writes: My son has been in an unwinnable war with depression for about 4 years now. He is in a comatose state. He has no energy, no appetite, no motivation. He doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't feel like talking about it. He doesn't feel like his life is worth living. He doesn't feel like he can ever be happy again. He is my only child, he is the only person -======================================== SAMPLE 424 ======================================== -'Queen Elizabeth II is dead!' - -So goes a tweet from the official Twitter account of the Royal Household, one that has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 people. - -Scroll down for video - -'Queen Elizabeth II is dead': A tweet from the Royal Household's Twitter account, which has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 - -The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma. - -The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the Queen, who was pictured looking 'widespread' and 'unwell', with a message reading: 'The Queen is dead.' - -The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma - -It is yet to be confirmed whether the tweet was sent from Twitter itself, or was sent from a third-party app. - -In a statement to MailOnline, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: 'The Queen is dead. She has died at 5.12pm this afternoon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.' - -At 12.50pm, the Royal Family released a statement on Twitter confirming the demise of the Queen. - -The statement read: 'We can confirm that the Queen...has died. - -'Her family members, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and the Prime Minister, are joining the people of the United Kingdom in expressing their grief and sympathy at this incredibly sad time.' - -Speaking to ITV News on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'She's a wonderful, great, great woman. There's been a lot of speculation about what's happened. - -'I know the Queen is in a very, very strong and determined position and I know she's doing well - but obviously it's not good news.' - -'Queen Elizabeth II is dead': A tweet from the Royal Household's Twitter account, which has now been retweeted over 16,000 times and favourited by over 15,000 people - -The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the Queen, who was pictured looking 'widespread' and 'unwell', with a message reading: 'The Queen is dead.' - -The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma - -It is yet to be confirmed whether the tweet was sent from Twitter itself, or was sent from a third-party app. In a statement to MailOnline, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: 'The Queen is dead.' - -At 12.50pm, the Royal Family released a statement on Twitter confirming the demise of the Queen. - -The statement read: 'We can confirm that the Queen...has died. Her family members, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and the Prime Minister, are joining the people of the United Kingdom in expressing their grief and sympathy at this incredibly sad time.' - -Speaking to ITV News on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'She's a wonderful, great, great woman. There's been a lot of speculation about what's happened. I know the Queen is in a very, very strong and determined position and I know she's doing well - but obviously it's not good news.' - -The Queen is dead: The tweet was sent out at 12.49pm, Sunday, July 20, shortly after the Queen was admitted to the hospital in London where she was put in a medically induced coma - -Tragedy: The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was admitted to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke - -Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen's half-brother Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and their children Princess Charlotte, Prince Andrew, Prince William, and Prince Harry are seen here in June 2014 - -The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was taken to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke - her third in less than a year. - -But the 90-year-old was said to be making 'excellent progress' after being transferred to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London. - -Queen Elizabeth II's half-brother Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and their children Princess Charlotte, Prince Andrew, Prince William, and Prince Harry are seen here in June 2014. - -The Queen, who turns 90 next year, was admitted to hospital in London on Saturday after suffering a stroke - her third in less than a year. But the 90-year-old was said to be making 'excellent progress' after being transferred to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 425 ======================================== -The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Skyrim Quest Redesign Project. - -The page is being rewritten and checked in several stages. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. - -Detail Walkthrough: written by multiple users, not checked - -Reward: written by Terracotta, checked by RobinHood70 - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Speak with Durnehviir at the Shrine. Travel to Helgen. Fight the raiders outside the city. Defend the Shrine. - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -The Shrine [ edit ] - -After arriving in Helgen, you will discover that a new bandit group, led by a Nord named Durnehviir, has taken over the Shrine. He wants you to kill two of his lieutenants, Arvak and Tolvak. He cannot be swayed by any attempts to persuade him, and the only way to end this conflict is to kill him. - -The Bandit Leader [ edit ] - -Arvak and Tolvak are located in the shrine's courtyard, just past the entrance. They are both carrying steel battleaxes and wearing light armor, while Arvak is carrying a leveled bow and some gold. - -When you enter, a group of raiders will attack. It is possible to fight them without fighting Durnehviir. They are fairly weak, but they can kill you if you get caught in a surprise attack. There is a locked chest in the courtyard, which can only be opened by a key. - -Inside the shrine [ edit ] - -There are two ways to approach this matter: - -Kill the two lieutenants, or let them live. - -If you want to spare them, do so by killing Durnehviir. - -Both of these are equally viable. You may kill them and loot their bodies. This will earn you the quest, but you will not be able to get any more gold from them or any other items. You can also kill them, and gain no reputation or experience for it, but you will not be able to get any of their gold or items either. - -Or you can help them out by killing Durnehviir, and take the key. This will earn you a reputation increase with the Stormcloaks if you have the Light Foot perk, and a small amount of gold if you don't. - -If you choose to spare them, simply enter the shrine and use the key on the locked chest. This will grant you access to the shrine and the shrine key. You can now go to the shrine and speak to Durnehviir to end the conflict. - -A Retreat [ edit ] - -If you do not want to kill Durnehviir, you can talk to Tolvak who is located in the same room. He is now a follower. If you speak to Tolvak, he will say, "You're right. I should've stayed out of this. But I'm not a killer. Not worth it, I tell you." He will then take you to Durnehviir. - -Durnehviir [ edit ] - -If you speak to Durnehviir, he will tell you, "You need to kill me. It's just what the temple needs." He will then ask you to retrieve the key from his body. He will give you the key and a second key, which you can use to open the locked chest. Durnehviir, being a follower, will not give you the second key even though you are a Thane. - -Return to the Shrine [ edit ] - -Inside the shrine, you will find Arvak and Tolvak dead. If you speak to him, he will say, "You're no worse than the rest. I should've just killed you." He will then take you to the chest to retrieve the final key. Once you have both keys, speak to Durnehviir again. This time, he will say, "I can't leave without them. I'll kill the rest." - -Durnehviir [ edit ] - -Durnehviir is now a follower who will follow you around. He will protect you, attack attackers, and defend the shrine. If you leave the shrine, Durnehviir will follow you to the entrance of Helgen and wait there for you to return. If you leave just before he can come, he will stay where he is and wait for you to return. - -Notes [ edit ] - -If you attack Durnehviir, he will become hostile. - -After you have killed D -======================================== SAMPLE 426 ======================================== -According to a report by E.ON, Germany's biggest energy utility, the country's climate change legislation has been "significantly undermined" by the European Union's legal framework, which does not allow the country to introduce carbon pricing. - -The report, which has been tabled in parliament, claims the European Union's (EU) climate change legislation is "prepared to open the door for a carbon market", in which electricity generated from coal and other fossil fuels would clearly be cheaper than that generated from renewables. - -The EU's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trading system (EU Emissions Trading System) is based on the idea of a carbon market, introduced by the then European Commission in 2007. - - -The European Union has had a carbon market since 2008, and earlier this year agreed a new framework for its implementation in which fossil fuels were no longer exempt from emissions trading. - -However, the European Commission, which has responsibility for EU policy on climate change, says, on the basis of a Directive within the EU's executive branch, that the carbon market cannot be introduced. - -"The Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity," said the European Commission. - -It claims that this means that the EU cannot introduce carbon pricing. - -The Commission has also argued that the legislation is based on the principle of a "carbon tax", and this is against the principles of the EU's current law on climate change, which does not allow for the introduction of a carbon price. - -"In fact, the EU Emissions Trading System is based on the market mechanism but the Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity," said the European Commission. - -The European Commission has also argued that the legislation is based on the market mechanism but the Commission's position is that the market mechanism does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity." - -"The Commission has therefore concluded that the EU Emissions Trading System Regulation cannot be implemented in the way envisaged by the Commission," the European Commission added. - -European Commission's position on climate change 'not certain' - -However, two climate change ministers from the European Parliament's environment committee have already expressed their concern about the EU's position on carbon pricing. - -"This letter shows that the EU's position on climate change is not certain. The lack of clarity is disappointing, as the EU was supposed to be leading on climate change by introducing a meaningful and binding carbon price," said the Parliament's committee on economic and monetary affairs. - -The European Parliament's environment committee is currently holding a discussion on the EU's climate policy, under the title of "Climate change and the EU's energy transition". - -The discussion will be held on 18 and 19 March.<|endoftext|>How the New York Times Caught the Trump-Russia Story Flat - -Photo Credit: via YouTube - -When the New York Times broke the news that Donald Trump Jr. had eagerly met with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton, many were skeptical that the story would stick. Many were skeptical that the story would stick. But the Times did it anyway. - -In this age of fake news, the Times' reporting — from reporter Adam Goldman — was accurate and thorough. It quoted a source close to the email chain, who said Trump Jr. "had been told" the lawyer was offering "sensitive information and documents that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." - -But then the Times got it wrong. The Times reported that the email chain was between Donald Trump Jr. and a music publicist named Rob Goldstone. The Times reported that Goldstone was an intermediary between Donald Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer. - -In fact, Goldstone was a publicist for a Russian pop star in New York. - -SPONSORED - -The Times did what many news organizations do when reporting on Russia: It relied on anonymous sources who get to choose their words, and who may not be entirely truthful themselves. The Times also often relies on anonymous sources to publish third-party material. - -This was one of the many lessons we learned from the Times' botched Russia reporting. The lesson here is that after publishing articles about Russia that were false or misleading, the Times will likely have to make a significant correction. - -For example, the Times published an article in July about Russia's election hacking that was based on an anonymous "intelligence official" who claimed "the U.S. intelligence agencies have been withholding material from President Trump fearing it could be used to blackmail him." The Times later amended the article, saying "the officials were not named in the article." - -The Times' mistake in this case was in not going back and checking its reporting. It did not go back and check the Times' article with the full chain of emails. Instead, it relied on the anonymous sources, which the Times did not verify. - -A similar mistake -======================================== SAMPLE 427 ======================================== -Best Answer: It's true. I'm a relatively new fan of the game, and I still love it. I've had it since the first game in 1993, and I've never really missed it. I do have a problem with the fact that it's always in my top three of all time games, and I always feel like I've missed out on the best games from the series. I love the soundtracks, and the movies. I also love the characters, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the main characters, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the characters that I've played as, and I love the characters I've played as. I love the series, and I love the game series, and I love the game series series. - - -I do like the story line, but I don't love it. I think it's not as good as the other games, and I think it's pretty silly. I like the dialog. I like the music. I like the art. I like the voice acting. I do like the voice acting, but I don't love it. I think the characters are pretty bland (oh, and the fact that the protagonist is a woman is just…odd), and I don't know why they made her a woman. I also like the fact that you can switch between male and female characters on the fly, but that really doesn't bother me. I know there are some female characters that I would like to play, but I don't think I'd want to play as a female character. - - -I like the fact that there's an online mode, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like that I can play the game online with my friends, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like the fact that it's a free game, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for the game. I like the fact that there are online achievements, but I don't love the fact that I have to pay for them. - - -I don't think that any of these complaints are bad. I think that they're all things that I like about the game. I think that they're all things that I love about the game. I think that they're all things that I hate about the game. I have a problem with why I have to pay for it. I have a problem with the fact that there are online achievements. I have a problem with the fact that I have to pay for the game. I have a problem with the fact that I have to pay for the game. I have a problem with the fact that I can't play the game with my friends. I have a problem with the fact that I can't play the game with my friends. - - -I think that if you're a fan of the game, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the series, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the story line, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the story line, you will probably like it. I think that if you're a fan of the characters, you will probably like it. If you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. If you're a fan of the characters and you love the stories, you will probably like it. - -Source(s): - -Ariel · 1 decade ago<|endoftext|>In this cartoon we see the four great periods of the history of mankind: the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Roman and Medieval Ages, and finally the Enlightenment, which brought about the Industrial Age. The cartoon is about the current progress of mankind. The four periods are the two different phases of each age, and the two different phases of each period are the four stages of the revolution of the age. The first stage is the first period, the second period is the second period, the third period is the third period, and the fourth period is the fourth period. In the first period, the universe was created in seven days; in the second period, the universe was created in six days; in the third period, the universe was created in five days; in the fourth period, the universe was created in four days; and in the fifth period, the universe was created in three days. In the first period, man was created in the image of God; in the second period, man was created in the image of the devil; in the third period, man was created in the image of the angel; in the fourth period, man was created in the image of the devil; and in the fifth period -======================================== SAMPLE 428 ======================================== -The worst hurricane in recorded history has left at least 10 people dead in the Caribbean and the US has declared a state of emergency. - -Hurricane Irma slammed into the Dominican Republic on Tuesday as a category 4 storm, and the storm could hit Florida as early as Thursday. - -In the region, Irma reached Category 5 strength on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said. - -The hurricane has been downgraded to a Category 4 storm, but the storm is still moving at 26mph (42km/h) and is expected to make landfall on the southern coast of Cuba on Wednesday night. - -The storm has caused at least 10 deaths so far, and a further six are still unaccounted for. - -The hurricane has killed at least 12 people in the Caribbean with the most recent victim being a 17-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic. - -The death toll is expected to rise. - -The US has also declared a state of emergency, and has asked the National Guard to send the military to rescue people and restore power to homes and businesses. - -"President Trump has directed government agencies to help as much as possible to evacuate and protect life, health, and property," the White House said in a statement. - -"We will be mobilising federal, state and local resources to assist with the response," it said. - -Shape Created with Sketch. Hurricane Irma – in pictures Show all 46 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Hurricane Irma – in pictures 1/46 Recently planted palm trees lie strewn across the road as Hurricane Irma passes by in Miami Beach, Fla. 10 September 2017. AP 2/46 Large waves produced by Hurricane Irma crash into the end of Anglins Fishing Pier in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The category 4 hurricane made landfall in the United States in the Florida Keys at 9:10 a.m. after raking across the north coast of Cuba. 10 September 2017 Getty Images 3/46 A Royal Air Force Puma has been delivered to the US Virgin Islands to assist with the humanitarian efforts post Hurricane Irma. The Puma will be delivering Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief in support of the Department for International Development. Royal Air Force logisticians from RAF Brize Norton have assisted with the delivery of military personnel and aid cargo to the Caribbean to support disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Irma. RAF aircraft including, C-17 A400M and Voyager are supporting a Joint Task Force of RAF, Royal Marines, Army and RN personnel who are supporting the Department for International Development as it delivers aid to stricken Caribbean Islands. MoD 4/46 Waves crash over a seawall at the mouth of the Miami River from Biscayne Bay, Fla., as Hurricane Irma passes by. 10 September 2017 AP 5/46 Boats are seen at a marina in South Beach as Hurricane Irma arrives at south Florida, in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. 10 September 2017 Reuters 6/46 The skyline is seen as the outerbands of Hurricane Irma start to reach Florida on 9 September 2017 in Miami, Florida. Florida is in the path of the Hurricane which may come ashore at category 4. Getty Images 7/46 A tree toped by hurricane Irma is seen on a empty street in Remedios, Cuba, 9 September 2017. Hurricane Irma reached Cuba bringing winds between 160 and 190 kilometers per hour. The hurricane has hit the north coast of the island. EPA 8/46 Storm clouds are seen over Fisher Island as Hurricane Irma approaches on 9 September 2017 in Miami Beach, Florida. Florida is in the path of the Hurricane which may come ashore at category 4 Getty Images 9/46 Flamingos at Zoo Miami, are shown in a temporary enclosure in a hurricane resistant structure within the zoo, Saturday, 9 September 2017 in Miami. Though most animals will reman in their secure structures, the cheetahs and some birds will ride out the storm in temporary housing. AP 10/46 James Constantineau loads sands bags in his truck as he prepares for the approach of Hurricane Irma Saturday, 9 September 2017, in East Palatka, Fla. Gov. Rick Scott is urging anyone living in an evacuation zone in southwest Florida to leave by noon as the threat of Hurricane Irma has shifted west. AP 11/46 The Fort Louis Marina in Marigot is seen on 8 September 2017 in Saint-Martin island, devastated by Hurricane Irma. AFP 12/46 The wreckage in Orient Bay on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty 13/46 Damage outside the Mercure hotel in Marigot, on the Bay of Nettle, on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty Images 14/46 Destruction in Orient Bay on the island of Saint-Martin AFP/Getty 15/46 Some of the damage on Saint Martin EPA/Gerben Van Es/Dutch Department of Defence 16/46 View of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin Reuters 17/46 A mobile network tower snapped in two by the hurricane on the island of Barbuda ABS TV 18/46 A house reduced to -======================================== SAMPLE 429 ======================================== -LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his forces to prepare for a "new form" of warfare against the United States, the country's state news agency KCNA said on Monday, in a direct warning to Washington following the missile strike on Syria. - -The report, carried by KCNA, said Kim had ordered an escalation of the Korean People's Army's (KPA) nuclear forces, and that the North's strategic force would make a "pre-emptive strike at the enemy in any place at any time". - -"In case the enemy thinks that the situation is under control, then it is a declaration of war," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. - -The report came just hours after the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, in the first direct military action by the Trump administration against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Dominic Evans)<|endoftext|>Restaurant Garlic Pesto & Black Bean Chili - -Spring is in the air! I love that it's the perfect season to try new foods, and this dish is one of my favorites. It's very hearty and packed with flavor. Paired with a glass of cool water, it makes for a great weekend breakfast or dinner. - -I've always enjoyed making my own dips and dressings, and this recipe is no exception. It's a great way to use up all those fresh garlic cloves you have in your fridge. - -This recipe is easy and quick to make, and it only takes about 5 minutes to put together. This is the perfect side dish for a spring picnic or potluck. - -MY LATEST VIDEOS - -This dish is one of my favorites, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! - -To make Garlic Pesto & Black Bean Chili, you'll need: - -2 tbsp. olive oil (or peanut oil) - -1 large onion, chopped - -1 large carrot, peeled and diced - -1 red pepper, diced - -2 cloves garlic, minced - -1 14-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained - -1 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped - -1/2 tsp. chili powder - -1/2 tsp. cumin - -1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper - -1 tsp. kosher salt - -1/2 tsp. pepper - -1 cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish - -1 tbsp. diced fresh jalapeño pepper - -To make the Garlic Pesto, place the olive oil in a small sauce pan and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, and pepper and cook until the vegetables are soft and the onion has softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the black beans, sage, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 15 minutes. - -Turn the heat off and let the soup cool slightly. Add the parsley, jalapeño, and salt and pepper to taste. Drain the black beans and add them to the soup. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to use. - -Tip: If you don't have parsley on hand, you can use any type of parsley. You'll just have to chop it up a little bit smaller. - -If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. I'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.<|endoftext|>The new Firefox ESR release has been released. This version of Firefox includes many performance improvements, fixes for desktop and mobile, and more. Many of these improvements are under the hood, so they shouldn't impact your browser experience. We've also tried to make Firefox ESR as streamlined and fast as possible to get you the best experience possible. - -New Features and Improvements - -We've made a few changes to Firefox to improve your experience. Here are the highlights: - -Improvements to the Page Load time. The browser now uses a single thread to process all HTML documents. - -The browser now uses a single thread to process all HTML documents. Improved HTML rendering. Images are now cached in the background on the browser node, reducing total page load time. - -Images are now cached in the background on the browser node, reducing total page load time. Improved memory usage. Memory usage on the browser node has been dramatically reduced. - -Memory usage on the browser node has been dramatically reduced. More secure. A new technology called Data Saver is now enabled by default. Data Saver prevents a variety of attacks on the browser. - -A new technology called Data Saver is now enabled by default. Data Saver prevents a variety of attacks on the -======================================== SAMPLE 430 ======================================== -Mentoring Programs at The University of Texas at Dallas - -The University of Texas at Dallas is pleased to offer a variety of mentoring programs for undergraduate and graduate students. - -Mentoring is an important part of the life-long learning process. This is especially true for students who are in their first year of college. Through mentoring, U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Texas at Dallas as one of the top 10 universities in the nation. - -Mentoring helps you get ahead in your college career by giving you fellow students to help you with your homework, college-bound courses, writing assignments, independent study, and other college-related tasks. - -The University of Texas at Dallas also offers a variety of social activities, ranging from campus clubs and service projects to campus parties and social outings. - -The University of Texas at Dallas Mentoring Program - -The University of Texas at Dallas' mentoring program is announced annually in the Class of 2017. The program includes a number of courses and activities, and you can read more about it in the Class of 2017 Mentoring webpage. - -The course descriptions for the U.S. News & World Report program are available here. - -Mentoring Resources - -Helpful information for students is available in the Mentoring Resources page. You can find more information about the University of Texas at Dallas Mentoring Program on our Mentoring page. - -For more information about UT Dallas and its academic programs, you can contact the Office of Undergraduate Education.<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -Despite being crowned the world's best and most handsome man, London's Prince Harry has admitted he's not quite as handsome as he once was. - -The 34-year-old, who has been announced as Britain's next Prince of Wales, told the Daily Star newspaper he hopes to fulfil his dreams of becoming an actor. - -He said: "I did a lot of acting as a child, but I never did it seriously. - -"I've always thought if I ever got the chance, I'd like to get into showbusiness – that's what interests me. - -"To be honest, I don't think I look as good as I used to. I've lost a little bit of muscle. - -(Image: PA) - -"I've always had a bit of a paunch. Now I'm pretty skinny. I haven't had to do as many paint-jobs as I used to, although I've been known to get myself in a bit of a mess. - -"I've got a bit of a runny nose now. I've got a bit of a scar on my cheekbone. I've got a bit of a gap between my teeth now." - -The prince revealed he always thought of himself as a "model-type guy" but said he had to accept his "marketability". - -He added: "I've got a bit of a computer in my hand, I'm not quite as good at maths as I used to be. - -"I'm still the same type of guy as I was as a child. I'm a bit of a romantic – I'd like to be married and have a family. - -"I think I'd like to do theatre, but I'm not sure I'm quite good at it. I've been doing it for a few years now, but I've never actually done anything serious. - -"I wish I could have played the lead in a show. I'd love to be a leading man, but I've never been in a play." - -Harry has been the subject of much fanfare since arriving in London from the US in 2012. - -(Image: PA) - -The prince, who is married to Meghan Markle, has not always been so approachable to the public. - -He was initially seen as being distant from the public eye and his only public appearances had been to attend royal weddings. - -The prince has also been the subject of much criticism for his decision to marry a woman with a history of drug abuse. - -The prince and Ms Markle are expecting their first child in April.<|endoftext|>In an effort to get more people to vote, new campaign ads are being run against Republicans running for office. - -Democrats are using the campaign to try to convince voters that Republicans are out of step with the majority of Americans on key issues, including climate change. - -"We're hoping to get out and tell the people who are deciding their district for this year's election, they need to vote for a champion for climate change," said Patty Schade, press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. - -The ad, called "Vulnerable, Not Vulnerable," features a woman talking about how Republicans in -======================================== SAMPLE 431 ======================================== -This Is Why You're Ditching the Mac - -Apple's Macs are on their way out, and many of the people who depend on them for work aren't happy about it. We've rounded up the reasons why you're getting rid of your Mac, and it's not for the reasons you might expect.<|endoftext|>This is an easy recipe for the ultimate Pumpkin Pie. We've made it a couple times, both times it was not as good as the first time. This time we improved on the recipe and made it a little healthier. We replaced the flour with a combination of graham, oat and coconut flour and used less butter and less sugar. The sweetener was only half of the original recipe. We also made some variations on the filling with some chocolate or chopped nuts. - -For the filling: - -2 cups pumpkin seeds - -1/2 cup raisins - -1/2 cup chopped walnuts - -1/2 cup chopped peanuts - -1/2 cup brown sugar - -1 teaspoon cinnamon - -1 teaspoon vanilla extract - -For the crust: - -1/2 cup coconut flour - -1/2 cup oat flour - -1/2 cup brown sugar - -1/2 teaspoon cinnamon - -1/2 teaspoon baking powder - -1/4 teaspoon salt - -1/2 cup coconut oil - -1/2 cup melted coconut oil - -1/2 cup chopped nuts - -1/4 cup chopped chocolate - -Directions: - -1. Preheat the oven to 350F. - -2. In a bowl combine the pumpkin seeds, raisins and walnuts. In a separate bowl, combine the peanuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and baking powder. Stir well. - -3. In a medium bowl, add the coconut flour, oat flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Stir well. - -4. In a small bowl, add the melted coconut oil and melted coconut oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir well. - -5. Pour the dough into a greased 9-inch pie plate and press it down slightly. - -6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the center is set. Let the pie cool for about 10 minutes before cutting into slices. - -7. Enjoy!<|endoftext|>A man who was found guilty of murdering his wife in a horrific house fire in Cairns has been sentenced to life imprisonment. - -In a rare move, Judge John Bissett allowed Damien Hickey to remain free on bail, meaning he could leave the prison without being supervised by bail agents. - -The judge said he was concerned at Hickey's lack of remorse and the apparent lack of any history of violence. - -"I have no doubt that you had a mind to kill your wife and you are very sorry for what you have done, but your remorse is not sufficient," the judge said. - -"I am not going to be swayed by the combination of remorse and a lack of history of violence. I don't think it's good enough. - -"I don't think the evidence is there to allow you to be released on bail. - -"You will be supervised by bail agents. I do not think that is a good idea," he said. - -Hickey, 39, was found guilty of murdering his 39-year-old wife, Stephanie, in November 2011. - -He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on December 8, 2012. - -He was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 23 years and six months. - -The judge said he was taking into account the fact Hickey was a father of two children. - -He said Hickey had no history of violence and that he had no doubt he had been provoked. - -"I have no doubt that you were provoked by your wife," he said. - -"I am not going to be swayed by her final words. I am not going to be swayed by that." - -He said he was also concerned about Hickey's risk of reoffending if released. - -"The issue is not whether you are likely to reoffend, but rather what risks you pose if released," the judge said. - -"There is nothing to suggest that you are likely to reoffend." - -Hickey was arrested in Cairns after his wife's body was found. - -He was charged with murder and was due to face Cairns Magistrates Court on March 14. - -However, the State Government had refused to grant Hickey bail, saying the case was too sensitive. - -A group of more than 200 protesters held a rally outside the court last night. - -Hickey's lawyer said he pleaded guilty and was glad to have his day in court.<|endoftext|>The most beautiful ladies of the world, you're about to experience a very special and unique experience. - -Well, as you can probably tell from -======================================== SAMPLE 432 ======================================== -In the early afternoon of May 3, 1974, a 27-year-old woman named Lenore Zimmerman was walking home with her husband and two small children. She had just finished her shift at a grocery store and had gone home to put on her coat and put her children to bed. She was the mother of a little boy, who was a month shy of his first birthday. - -That night, Zimmerman's husband found a woman and her children hiding in bed. She was crying and screaming, begging for her husband to kill her. She said she was being raped and that her husband was raping her with a gun. - -Zimmerman grabbed the gun and fired at the woman and her children. She hit the little boy in the head, killing him. - -The woman was shot three times; her children were shot five times. - -The couple fled the scene, but Zimmerman's husband was apprehended the next day by police and later was convicted of first-degree murder. - -Zimmerman, who was a single mother of two children at the time, was later awarded a $150,000 settlement from the city of Philadelphia for her injuries, which included a bullet lodged in her brain. - -In 2009, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay Zimmerman $1.2 million in a civil suit, but her attorney says that still isn't enough. - -"The city is asking for $3 million, but it's only going to cost $18 million for the legal fees and I don't think that's even close to being enough," says attorney Robert Shapiro. - -Shapiro says Zimmerman's family is still living in fear and that she has been unable to work since the shooting. - -"She's still unable to walk down the street without being followed," says Shapiro. - -Shapiro, who is also a police officer, says he is not doing this for money. - -"I'm doing this for the integrity of our society," says Shapiro. "We need to make sure that these things don't happen again. I don't want her to have to go through the same experience that I went through." - -The city of Philadelphia has agreed to pay Zimmerman $18 million for her injuries, for which Shapiro says he is fighting. - -"We have to stop this," says Shapiro. "We can't let this happen again."<|endoftext|>I'm back to my usual routine, posting on the blog, sorting out a load of paperwork and getting busy with my new reading. - -This year I will be attending the annual conference of the ASP.NET Core framework, as part of my role as a member of the Microsoft .NET Foundation's executive committee. - -I am also a regular attendee of the Microsoft .NET Foundation's .NET Core Summit and will be attending the next one in March next year. - -The .NET Core Conference is a great opportunity to get the latest news and updates from the community and be a part of the discussion. - -There will be several sessions covered during the conference which will cover a range of topics including: - -.NET Core - -Web API - -ASP.NET Core - -Azure Services - -MVC - -WPF - -Xamarin - -Razor - -I'm looking forward to being there and having a good time with my fellow .NET developers. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>It's a decent sized town, with a lot of buildings and a large lake. It's pretty close to the border with the North Sea, which is a nice thing to have, and it has a very nice train station which is always busy. The local news will usually be on the news channel, and there are a few shops which sell some interesting things. - -The town is run by the Town Council. It consists of the mayor, who is the head of the town council, and 7 councillors, who are elected by the people. It's a very well run town, and the people are all very good natured. - -The mayor is a friendly guy who will talk to you if you talk to him, and will encourage you to help out his town by building things. He's also the one who gives you the key to the town, so you can get to and from the town. - -The town council consists of 7 councillors. They are elected by the people. The mayor is the head of the council, and is the representative of the town. There are 7 members of the town council. They are elected by the people. The mayor is elected by the town. There are 7 members in the town council, who are elected by the people. - -There are 7 members of the town council, who are elected by the people. They are elected by the people. The mayor is elected by the town. There are 7 members in the town council, who are elected by the people. - -There are 7 members of the town council, who are elected by the people. They are elected by the -======================================== SAMPLE 433 ======================================== -I'd like to get some opinions from you guys about the new maps we've been working on. It's been a long time since we've put out a new map, and it's been a while since we've updated the old ones. We're going to be releasing a new map called "Rise of the Black King". There's a reddit thread here, but I wanted to get a few more comments from you guys. - -First off, we wanna know what you think about the theme. Would you like to see an expansion of the theme like Rise of the Red Dragon? (which is one of the maps that we released in 2008) or would you rather have "new" maps that are more different from the old ones? - -Secondly, we wanna know if you're happy with the new map layout. There seems to be a lot of people talking about the map layout, so let's hear your thoughts. - -Lastly, we wanna know what you think about the new map mechanics. We've talked a lot about the different ways you can kill your opponents in the new maps, but we want to know what you think about the new map mechanics. - -Thanks for your time, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!<|endoftext|>I have been thinking a lot about the idea of a universal basic income lately, so I'm going to try to explain my thinking. - -Let's start with the definition of a basic income. I am using the American Heritage dictionary, which defines a basic income as: - -a monthly payment from the government to a person or institution for life, paid in some unit of account - -So according to this definition, basic income is a monthly payment from the government to anyone. It does not mean that everyone is getting a monthly payment from the government. It just means that everyone is getting a payment from the government, in some unit of account. - -So I think we can see that basic income is a very powerful idea, because it allows people to benefit from the freedom of choice and the voluntary market without being under ever-increasing economic, social, cultural, and political control from the state. - -However, in order for basic income to work, there are several conditions that need to be met. - -The first condition is that the government needs to provide a payment from the government, in some unit of account. The second condition is that the government needs to be able to collect this payment. The third condition is that the government needs to be able to collect the payment from everyone. - -The first condition is easy to fulfill. The government already collects taxes, so they do not need to collect basic income. The second condition is a bit more difficult to fulfill, since the government needs to collect the payment. It is a bit more difficult for the government to collect a payment from everyone. The government does not have the resources to collect a payment from everyone, but it can collect the payment from a small percentage of people, for a limited time. - -The third condition is also difficult to fulfill. The amount of basic income needs to be small enough that you know that you will get a payment from the government, but large enough that even if you do not get a payment from the government, you will still be better off than you would be without basic income. The idea behind an unconditional basic income is that you will be better off than you would be if you did not receive basic income. The idea behind an unconditional basic income is that you will be better off than you would be if you did not receive basic income. - -So to summarize, these conditions are easy to fulfill. The government can collect it from everyone, but the payment needs to be small enough that it does not seem like you are receiving it from the government, but large enough that you have a better life than you would have if you were on your own. - -Now let's talk about the income that we would get from a universal basic income. Here is a rough estimate of the income that we would get from a universal basic income. - -Income before taxes (excluding taxes for the existing social safety net) = $0 - -Taxes for current social safety net = $0 - -Taxes for basic income = $0 - -Total income = $1,000 - -(This is not an exact calculation, but it gives you an idea of what the income would be if you received a basic income) - -I think that the first condition is easy to fulfill. The second condition is probably difficult to fulfill, but the third condition is easy to fulfill. The income that we would get from a universal basic income is only about $1,000 a year. - -This makes sense, because the government collects taxes, so they do not need to collect basic income. It makes sense because the government can collect the tax from everyone, but the income that we would get from a universal basic income is only about $1,000 a year. - -Now let's talk about the income that -======================================== SAMPLE 434 ======================================== -For the past two weeks, the defeat of the Republican health care plan in the Senate has been a primary focus of the Democratic Party, and the party is doubling down on its opposition. - -On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted that Republicans were "moving forward with their plan to rip away health care from millions of Americans." - -Senate Republicans are moving forward with their plan to rip away health care from millions of Americans. We can't let that happen. — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2017 - -On Sunday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that the bill is "not a health care bill," and the Democratic National Committee, which has been calling for Democrats to oppose the bill, tweeted a link to a page for its supporters to tell their senators to oppose the bill. - -Don't let the repeal of #Obamacare happen. Contact your Senators in opposition to the GOP's bill. https://t.co/oJWpY2l5l8 pic.twitter.com/CzPmEt8qGD — DNC (@DNC) July 18, 2017 - -The Senate's health care bill could be the first major legislative defeat for Democrats in seven years, and it would be their first shot at implementing the Affordable Care Act since President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. Since then, Democrats have struggled to find a way to make it more palatable to voters while trying to make good on their promise to keep it in place. - -But after Trump's victory, Democrats have had to focus more on appealing to the base, and the health care bill represents a major opportunity to do so. - -That's because public opinion of Obamacare has continued to slide, and in recent polls, Democrats are losing ground. A Morning Consult poll conducted in early June found that 49 percent of likely voters have an unfavorable view of Obamacare, while only 37 percent have a favorable view. - -A Quinnipiac poll conducted in late June found that just 23 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of the health care bill, while 58 percent have an unfavorable view. - -"The public doesn't like it and that's not going to change," Drew Altman, a Democratic strategist and president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told NBC News. "I think what's interesting is that the Democrats are still trying to explain why it's a good idea, but I don't think the public is buying their argument." - -Altman added that the bill's approval rating may be driven by the unpopularity of Trump's plan. - -"It's very hard to pass a health care bill in the first place. You need an unpopular president to approve it," he said. "Maybe the Republican Party is so disgusted with him that they're afraid they can't pass any health care bill." - -Democrats have been unified in opposition to the Republican bill, and their opponents have been unified in opposition to them. The Senate's two most vocal opponents of the bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), are both still in the Senate, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is largely known for her progressive stances, has been at the forefront of the criticism. - -In a statement released Thursday night, Sanders said that he would not support the GOP plan. "I intend to oppose the motion to proceed to the bill, and will oppose any effort to amend the bill in order to get it to my desk," he said. "It is simply unacceptable that Republicans would attempt to ram through a massive tax break for the rich and massive cuts to Medicaid without a guarantee that states will be able to afford to keep their promises to the people they represent." - -On Sunday night, McCain issued a similar statement. "I will vote no on a motion to proceed to the bill unless it is amendments that improve the bill or are necessary to fix it," he said. "I have serious concerns about this proposal. I hope that Republicans will address my concerns." - -In an interview with NBC News' Chuck Todd on Sunday, Warren said that McCain was "one of the few senators who I know is willing to stand up and say, 'I can't support this bill,'" and added that if the bill were to pass, "I think it will be a huge disaster." - -"If it passes, it's a disaster for millions and millions of people, it's going to be a disaster for the middle class, it's going to be a disaster for seniors," she said. "I think people are going to see the ripples of this and they're going to say, 'I can't believe how big this is.'" - -The push to stop the bill is likely to ramp up further as the Senate takes up its own version of the bill, which could include a number of changes to the bill's Medicaid provisions. - -"I think that there are some very good ideas in there -======================================== SAMPLE 435 ======================================== -Cabot Pest Control is located in the heart of the Greenfield Village in Lorton, Virginia. We have been in business for over 25 years and are experienced in pest control for both residential and commercial properties. We offer a wide range of services including: - -Home Pest Control Services - -Commercial Pest Control Services - -Private Pest Control Services - -We have recently expanded our services to include the following: - -Caulking - -Worker Safety Training - -Pest Control License - -Pest Control Insurance - -Door Hanging Services - -We are insured and bonded to ensure that you are taken care of when you are at home. We are always looking for new and different ways to help our customers. - - -If you need to know more about a particular service, please contact us at: - - -(571) 866-8726 - -email: [email protected]<|endoftext|>(Natural News) If you're reading this website, you probably have all sorts of preconceived notions about a vegan lifestyle. You probably think the only people who would want to suffer through living without animal products are self-loathing, sick, diseased, callous, misogynistic, crazy, self-pitying, brainwashed, extremist, hateful, racist, and/or anti-Semitic. - -You probably think vegans are crazy, selfish, unenlightened, anti-science, and anti-life. - -You probably think vegans are really weird. - -You probably think veganism is a cult. - -You probably think vegans are delusional. - -You probably think vegans are evil. - -You probably think veganism is stupid and unhealthy. - -You probably think veganism is pseudoscience. - -You probably think veganism is just a fad. - -You probably think veganism is just for hippies. - -You probably think veganism is just for rich people. - -You probably think veganism is just for a few rich people, or for animals. - -You probably think veganism is just for people who hate animals. - -You probably think veganism is just for people who don't believe in God. - -You probably think veganism is just for people who want to control and manipulate animals. - -You probably think veganism is just for people who want to weaken and destroy the animal rights movement. - -But let's face facts… - -Like it or not, at least 90 percent of all people are at least slightly susceptible to the pro-animal rights message. If you want to convince them, you will need to use their own words against them, and to do that, you need to use words that they don't understand. - -To make matters even more confusing, you have to keep in mind that these same people are the ones who claim to be "all about empathy" and "all about compassion" when they're really looking for someone to blame for their own misery. - -Many people are simply not educated on the vegan lifestyle. They're not going to believe you if you tell them that they're killing too many animals, when they've never heard the phrase "animal agriculture." - -(Natural News has written about this before, and I'll repeat it here.) - -If you are going to tell people that they're killing too many animals, you will need to find some way to rationalize that claim. That's because most people are not going to believe that you're killing animals because you're vegan. - -So, here are some easy ways to convince the average vegan that you're doing the right thing. - -(Note: I've also included some tips on how to convince the average non-vegan that you're vegan on the next page.) - -1. Explain why eating meat is bad for you - -I'm not going to lie to you, and I'm not going to tell you that eating meat is good for you. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you that eating meat is bad for you. In fact, I'm going to tell you that eating meat is bad for you. But I am going to tell you why it's bad for you. - -The main reason meat is bad for you is because of the saturated fat, cholesterol, and antibiotics found in meat. - -According to the Harvard School of Public Health, saturated fat is associated with heart disease, high cholesterol, and cancer. - -Cholesterol is associated with a greater likelihood of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease. - -Antibiotics are associated with bacterial resistance. - -It's important to understand that the body can't process animal protein in the way it does plant protein. That's why it's so important to make sure that you get all of your nutrients from plant sources. - -2. Explain why eating vegetables is good for you - -Most people on the vegan diet eat meat and dairy products. So, it's not surprising that -======================================== SAMPLE 436 ======================================== -I acquired these from a local pawn shop in New York City. They are a replacement for the battered CRW's I have been using. I was very happy when I received them. - -The rubber is great, and the metal frame is nice. The belt is a little stiff for my tastes, but not so much that it will loosen up the belt loops. I know a lot of people like the metal frame, but for me it is just not what I was looking for. - -I have a few others I have stored in the trunk of my car to be used in the future. I will probably choose the black ones over the color gray ones for some reason. If I ever change my mind, I will buy a few more of these.<|endoftext|>LEE County Sheriff's Office The Lee County Sheriff's Office is investigating a nude photo involving the sheriff's wife. - -The sheriff's wife is under investigation by the Lee County Sheriff's Office for allegedly using her smartphone to send nude photos to a man she met on Craigslist. - -According to a news release from the sheriff's office, Lee County Sheriff's Office Deputy Melissa Lynn Moreland sent the man a photo of herself on her phone at the Lee County Courthouse on Monday. - -The sheriff's office said Moreland was still married to the sheriff when the couple met on the website. - -During the investigation, the sheriff's office said Moreland admitted to sending the photos to the man. - -"In addition to the photos, the Sheriff's Office is also conducting an investigation as to whether she let him photograph her genitals or altered the photos," said the release. - -The sheriff's office said Moreland was placed on administrative leave "pending the outcome of this investigation." - -Moreland posted $1,000 bond and was released. - -She was scheduled to appear in court on April 11 for a probable cause hearing.<|endoftext|>How to Make It - -Step 1 Combine the bread crumbs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and the 1/4 cup water in a medium bowl. Add the onion and garlic, and toss to coat. - -Step 2 In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs, egg, sugar, 1/4 cup milk, and parsley; toss to coat. - -Step 3 In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the broth, tomatoes, and tomatoes with their juices, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, about 4 minutes. Stir in the peas, and season with salt and pepper.<|endoftext|>Description - -Now updated for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus! - - -Perfect for your next photo shoot, this app will help you take those perfect photos for your Instagram feed and share the best moments with the world! - - -Features: - -• Full photo resolution support - -• Adjustments to the background, photo, and text - -• Stacks, straighten, and crop photos - -• Photo cropping with multiple selection - -• Image Enhancements - -• Save and share your favorite photos on Instagram - -• Optional manual cropping (Settings->Cropping) - -• Optional white balance - -• Ability to crop the background - -• Ability to crop the photo after editing - -• Auto crop when photo is resized - -• Automatically crop when photo is rotated - -• Auto-enhancements for photos with an original black and white photograph - -• Automatic HDR for photos with an original black and white photograph - -• Save multiple photos at once - -• Share multiple photos at once - -• Zoomable photo list - -• Share to Instagram and Twitter - -• Edit your photos with filters - -• Share to Tumblr (iOS only) - - -Camera Pro supports most popular photo libraries including: - -• Instagram - -• Flickr - -• Picasa - -• Facebook - -• Flickr Albums - -• NBC Photo Club - -• NBC Photo Club Cloud - -• NBC Photo Club Site - -• Picasa Web Albums - -• Snapfish - -• VSCO - -• Yousify - -• Flickr - -• Picasa Web Albums - -• Flickr Web Albums - -• Tumblr - -• Flickr Site - - -Please note that if you miss a photo and want to quickly snap back to it, you can swipe from the left side of the screen and quickly jump to the photo you missed. - - -Visit us at www.photopro.com for more information and to download Camera Pro for the iPhone.<|endoftext|>Last year, I wrote about the economics of Palestine. I was surprised that so few people, myself included, took the time to read it. So I am reposting it here to show my respect for the author, and to encourage others -======================================== SAMPLE 437 ======================================== -As the weather gets cooler and the days get shorter, more families are looking for a way to bring their children outdoors. We've all seen the photos of children sprinting through the air, and we've all been there. - -But how can children learn to swim in the cold water without a lifeguard? - -Here are a few tips for getting your child to the water safely. - -1. Start early - -The best way to get your child ready for the water is to start early. - -"You can start the process of getting your child used to the water when they're younger. Get them out of the house, spend time with them and let them have some fun. Get them to enjoy it and they'll be much more likely to be able to go out in the cold water," says Marie Griffith, author of "Swimming & Your Child: A Guide to Safe Swimming," which was just named a New York Times bestseller. - -2. Grab a bucket - -A bucket can be a lifesaver when it comes to getting your child in the water. A bucket is a lot more convenient to use than a wading suit. - -"Grab a bucket and get some ice, warm water and a towel," says Griffith. "Put the kid in the bucket, put the wading suit on and go." - -3. Let them grab a swimsuit - -If you're a parent, you can help your child get started by giving them a swimsuit. - -"When they're older, you can get them a wading suit. But for the beginning, you can give them a swimsuit so they can get comfortable," Griffith says. "It can be from a swim store or online. I've seen people take a swimsuit to the pool and put it on a little girl or boy and they've been doing great." - -4. Make sure they have a warm sweater - -A warm sweater can help your child stay warm in the water. - -"Once your child's used to the water, give them a warm sweater. It's the best thing you can give them," Griffith says. "You can give them a warm sweater for a swim or just give it as a gift." - -5. Practice - -You can help your child get used to the water by practicing several times. - -"Start with a warm up. Have them on their back and let them get a feel for it," says Griffith. "After they get comfortable, teach them to crawl in the water. Then, you can start them in the water. You can start with the little ones and gradually work up to the swimming pool. Then you can start your child in the water. Then you can start the whole process up until they can go in the water." - -6. Do it for fun - -If you don't have a pool, you can still get your child started in the water. - -"You can do it at home. Get them on a treadmill and let them run around in the pool," Griffith says. "It's really fun. You can practice swimming in the pool with the parents or just go out and practice on your own." - -7. Do it with a friend - -If you have a friend who is also a parent, you can swim together. - -"Swim with your friends. You can do it in a family pool or at the park. It really helps get your child used to the water," Griffith says. "Then you can swim with your friend in the pool and you can practice swimming together." - -8. Don't forget sunscreen - -Sunscreen can help prevent sunburn and can give your child a boost of energy. - -"You can always get sunscreen. If your child is very young, just use a little bit and use sunscreen in the water," Griffith says. "Remember to wear sunscreen and get plenty of water, too. The water is the best place to protect your skin." - -9. Don't forget sunscreen on the go - -You can leave sunscreen on your child's head when they're playing in the water. - -"It's a great way to help them stay warm," Griffith says. "They can apply a little bit of sunscreen to their forehead and it will be much more effective than going out in the cold water alone." - -10. Don't forget snacks - -Fragrant snacks and cocoa are great for keeping your child's energy up. - -"If they're going to be in the water, they need to have something to eat," says Griffith. - -11. Use your child's favorite swimwear - -A favorite swimsuit will help your child feel confident and comfortable swimming in the water. - -"You can get them a swimsuit that you like and your child will feel comfortable," Griffith says. "You can get them a swimsuit that's really comfortable and you can even get them a swimsuit from a swim store. They won't -======================================== SAMPLE 438 ======================================== -"You know what, would you rather I drove?" - -"Maybe, but you're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." - -"I won't make you do anything stupid," he said. "Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not sure about that. You're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." - -"I won't make you do anything stupid. Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"What are your hands made of?" - -"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they're not made of wood." - -"Well, if they're not made of wood, they're going to be pretty damn hard to hold onto." - -He paused. - -"Are you sure you're not joking, father?" - -"You've got a point there. You're right. I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid. I'm going to do it in a way that is completely safe." - -"You're going to have to do it in a way that is completely safe." - -"I won't make you do anything stupid. Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in sight and hold my hand." - -"I'm not going to make you do anything stupid." - -"Just keep me in -======================================== SAMPLE 439 ======================================== -The latest issue of Pocket Gamer UK (via VG247) reveals that the next Nintendo Switch game is in development by the London-based studio Rare, and will be an action-adventure game. - -"Rare has confirmed that it's working on a new game for the Nintendo Switch. We don't have any details at this time, but it's great to hear that the studio is working on something exciting," said VG247's Digital Foundry editor Ben Cousins. "A new Rare game is always welcome, as Nintendo is clearly keen to diversify its content, and it's not too long since we saw the studio's strategy on the PS4 with the launch of N++." - -"It's always great to see a new take on an old IP," he continued. "I can't wait to see what Rare is cooking up. And while I've always enjoyed the Uncharted series, I'm eager to see what Rare's got cooking up for the Switch. I'm sure it's going to be something special." - -A reveal trailer was also released by Rare, showing off the game's world and some of the action-based gameplay. - -You can also check out the full announcement trailer for Rare's new Switch project below. - -Rare's new game can be expected to launch this year.<|endoftext|>The Australian Government has announced a new electronic travel authorisation (eTA) scheme for the Australian Capital Territory. - -The eTA scheme is the first of its kind in Australia and will replace the current electronic travel authorisation (eTA) system. It will be administered by the ATSB and include the following key features: - -a formal application process - -a streamlined application process for all non-business eTA holders - -a single online portal for eTA applications - -a single online portal for eTA holders - -a single portal to manage all eTA applications - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA applications - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - -a single online portal to manage all eTA holders - - -======================================== SAMPLE 440 ======================================== -OTTAWA — Canadian job growth surged to its biggest monthly gain in a year as companies added more than 60,000 jobs in November, a sign the economy is on a solid path. - -The unemployment rate eased to 6.6 per cent last month from 6.7 per cent in October, Statistics Canada reported on Friday. - -A stronger-than-expected October employment gain is likely to fuel optimism that the Bank of Canada will hike interest rates again this year, although the central bank has not indicated whether it will raise rates in coming months. - -"It's the best news we have had from Canada in a while," said Brian DePratto, chief economist for Toronto-Dominion Bank. - -The job gains were broad-based and included a 13,000 increase in manufacturing jobs. - -The drop in the unemployment rate was driven by an increase in full-time employment to 66,200, the highest since 2001, and a drop in part-time employment to 16,200. - -Economists had expected the jobless rate to ease to 6.3 per cent in November, the lowest since September 2009, after the country posted its best employment growth in eight years last month. - -The drop in the unemployment rate in the energy sector was "a strong indication that the world's second-largest oil exporter is keeping pace with the global economy," said Emanuella Enenajor, an economist with TD Economics. - -The employment gains were broad-based and included gains in both full-time and part-time work. The number of jobs in agriculture also jumped to a record high. - -"Employment increased at a more rapid pace in November than in any month since June 2014," Statistics Canada said. - -The unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 rose to 11.3 per cent, the highest level since the jobless rate began to edge up following the recession, Statistics Canada said. - -However, the Bank of Canada has cautioned that the unemployment rate could rise as it weighs how many Canadians are entering the job market. - -"The key question is whether the labour market will have markedly improved by the time the Bank's next policy decision is made in mid-2015," said Sal Guatieri, an economist with BMO Capital Markets. - -The Bank of Canada has previously said that the unemployment rate is likely to rise as it weighs the overall size of the labour force. - -A report from Canada's largest private-sector union found that job losses accelerated this year, with about 1,000 jobs lost in November alone, in a sign that the economy is still losing steam. - -The Canadian Auto Workers said the latest numbers show "progress is being made, but not enough." - -"The labour market has been improving for a long time, but we still have a long way to go to get back to full employment," said Chris Aylward, vice-president of employment and social development with the CAA. - -The unemployment rate in Ontario jumped to 7 per cent from 6.9 per cent last month, while the rate in Quebec jumped to 7.4 per cent from 6.8 per cent. - -The jobless rate in Saskatchewan edged down to 6.7 per cent from 6.8 per cent, while the rate in Alberta edged down to 8.1 per cent from 8.2 per cent. - -Economists were expecting the unemployment rate to fall to 6.6 per cent next month. - -The government reported the economy lost more than 11,000 jobs in September, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 23,100, although the jobless rate has since fallen by 0.3 percentage points to 6.7 per cent. - -Last month, Statistics Canada also revised the August numbers upward to show that the economy gained 29,400 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 per cent from 6.7 per cent. - -On Friday, the bank's governor, Stephen Poloz, stayed the course that the bank is unlikely to raise interest rates until late 2015. - -"The risks to the outlook for the labour market remain tilted to the downside," he said in a statement. - -"This is, therefore, another message to the Canadian economy that labour market slack remains in place." - -Economists had expected the jobless rate to fall to 6.3 per cent. - -—With files from The Associated Press<|endoftext|>The Trump White House is reportedly considering rescinding its support for the Paris climate accord. - -The New York Times reported on Sunday that the White House has been exploring a global climate agreement that would take place later in the year. - -Under such an agreement, countries would set emissions targets and then work on them in conjunction with one another. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -The Paris agreement has been at the center of the Trump administration's efforts to undo former President Obama's environmental agenda. - -In May, Trump signed an executive order that declared the United States would withdraw -======================================== SAMPLE 441 ======================================== -This story originally appeared on The Conversation. - -In the months leading up to this year's NHL draft, it was clear that the Montreal Canadiens were looking for a new face as the team's captain. - -They could not find it, however, and that led to the team taping a video of its captain to the wall of their dressing room. It was a publicity stunt, but it worked, and as a result, the Canadiens were able to find their next captain. - -If you're looking for the NHL's best captains, however, you might look elsewhere. It turns out that the players who lead the league in leadership are often not the players with the most experience in the NHL. - -This study looks at captains across the NHL, and how they compare to the players who lead other teams. The study looked at a total of 408 captains in the 2000-01 through 2013-14 seasons. - -Leadership is a tough thing to measure accurately, but there are a couple of ways that we can measure it. One way is to look at a player's performance compared to his teammates. If a player is a better player than his teammates, he's a better leader. - -If a player has a certain level of success with a particular team, he's a better leader. - -The other way to measure leadership is by looking at the players who lead other teams. If one of the teams that a player leads is better than the team that he currently leads, he's a better leader. - -So, the idea is to look at captains and captains-to-be, look at their performances over the previous couple of seasons, and see if they're better than the players who are currently leading their teams. - -The researchers used two tests to see if captains had a higher or lower level of leadership compared to the players they were currently leading. First, they looked at how well a captain performed while his team was winning, and then they looked at how well he performed when his team was losing. - -It turned out that captains were better leaders when their teams were winning, when their teams were losing, and when their teams were tied. - -The Big Three - -The team with the highest win percentage was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the lowest win percentage was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. - -The two teams with the highest win percentage were the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The two teams with the lowest win percentage were the Dallas Stars and the Montreal Canadiens. - -The team with the highest average goals scored per game was the Montreal Canadiens, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the lowest average goals scored per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. - -The team with the lowest average goals scored per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. The team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. - -The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -Based on these scores, the team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Montreal Canadiens, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the highest average shots on goal per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -The team with the lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Dallas Stars, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Toronto Maple Leafs, followed by the Montreal Canadiens and the Dallas Stars. - -The team with the second highest average goals scored per game was the Pittsburgh Penguins, followed by the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. - -The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Dallas Stars. - -The team with the second highest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Dallas Stars. - -The team with the second lowest average shots on goal per game was the Detroit Red Wings, followed by the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. -======================================== SAMPLE 442 ======================================== -Cambodian police said Thursday that a Chinese man whose body was found in the jungle near Bangkok has been identified as the missing businessman who disappeared in the South China Sea last month. - -The man was identified by his family as Zheng Zhaohui, who disappeared on April 15 while on a fishing trip in the body of a 40-year-old Chinese woman, state-run Global Times reported. - -He was later found by Thai fishermen in a remote part of the Gulf of Thailand, far from where he had been last seen. - -"We believe he was a victim of foul play, but we are still investigating," a police official, who asked not to be named, told AFP. - -The official said the woman's body was found by accident and the man's in a bad condition due to starvation. - -Zheng, a father of three, was last seen in Cambodia on April 15. - -He was reportedly last seen in a taxi with a Chinese woman who was not his wife, the Associated Press reported. - -The Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh confirmed to AFP on Thursday that he had entered their country on March 29 and was reported missing on April 15.<|endoftext|>A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday ordered the federal government to pay $18 billion to the families of 9/11 victims and their families in a lawsuit over the government's secretive use of so-called "black site" prisons. - -U.S. District Judge Richard Jones said the government must pay all proceeds from the lawsuit filed last year on behalf of the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Associated Press reported. - -Jones ruled that the families are entitled to $4 million from the government's use of the prisons where the 678 classified detainees were held after the attacks. - -The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that the families had no standing to sue because they're not U.S. citizens, although they are U.S. citizens. - -The families' attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said she was "thrilled" with the decision. - -"Our clients suffered horrific losses at the hands of terrorists who sought to do us harm. A disaster of this magnitude cannot be allowed to happen again," she said. "We are grateful to Judge Jones for providing us with the opportunity to seek justice for their loved ones in a federal court." - -The exact date the DOJ will start paying out the money to the families has not been determined, the AP reported. - -The DOJ received a court order requiring it to pay the $18 billion by Tuesday, according to AP. - -The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed last June, include the families of two men who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and families of two other victims who died in separate incidents.<|endoftext|>A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, has found a link between the brain's reward circuitry and marijuana use. - -The study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, found that marijuana use was associated with changes in the structure of the brain's reward system. The study also found that the hippocampus, a region of the brain responsible for learning and memory, was significantly larger in people with a history of marijuana use. - -The study, called "Long-Term Effects of Marijuana on the Hippocampus and Hippocampal-Substantia Lateralis Connectivity," follows a 2014 study from the same group of researchers, which found that a history of marijuana use is associated with impaired learning and memory. - -"It's likely that the hippocampus is a target for cannabis-induced cognitive impairments in some people," said the study's senior author, Dr. Ravi Somah, a professor of psychiatry at UC Berkeley and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "But it may not be all of them." - -Somah added that cannabis use might have additional consequences for certain areas of the brain, and that the studies are still preliminary and need to be replicated. - -In the new study, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 15 young adults, all of whom had a history of marijuana use. They found that the hippocampus was significantly larger in people with a history of marijuana use - 69 percent larger in some cases - compared to people without a history of marijuana use. - -The study also found that the size of the hippocampus was positively associated with marijuana use over the past month. - -The structure of the brain's reward system is important for reward processing, Somah said. "That reward system is involved in things like drug reward, and it's a useful anatomy for understanding the mechanisms by which marijuana uses might affect reward," he said. - -The previous study found that the hippocampus was smaller in people with a history of marijuana use, but it did not find a direct relationship between the size of the hippocampus and other brain regions. - -" -======================================== SAMPLE 443 ======================================== -"I'm a little bit torn about the way that it was handled," said John Lowenstein, an American who retired from the Air Force in 2010. "I'm not sure the kind of education that the generation was getting before they left the service was the right one for them."<|endoftext|>At the Bambino's, we make our own sausage, bread and pickles. We only use high quality beef and pork. We also use local ingredients whenever we can. - -From the very beginning, our patrons have been asking for a hand crafted PBR. We are now ready to start crafting our own PBR. - -We will be using the same recipes as we have used on Bambino's PBR's for the past 34 years. We have developed a unique recipe that will not only bring back PBR that is made right here in the USA, but it will also create unique new flavors. - -The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style - -The Chicago Style - -The Nashville Style - -The Buffalo Style Our customers have been asking for a delicious porter beer. Now we have it. The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style - -The Chicago Style - -The Nashville Style - -The Buffalo Style Our customers have been asking for a delicious porter beer. Now we have it. We will be making our own porter beer using the same recipe that we have used for over 34 years. The Bambino's PBR's will be available in four styles. The St. Louis Style - -The Chicago Style - -The Nashville Style - -The Buffalo Style<|endoftext|>There are two types of training: - -The first, and most common, is "exercise and reinforcement". This is when you try to reduce your stress, using tools like music, food, or exercise. The goal is to become more efficient, and not used to stress. - -The second is "training" where you use the tools of the field to increase your effectiveness. - -The difference is subtle, but powerful. The first is emotional, and the second is intellectual. - -In the end, we all want the best for ourselves and others. If you want to become a better coach, you have to be emotionally and intellectually engaged with the task. - -This is why I love the job of a trainer. I get to be social, and connect with people. I get to help people to improve themselves. I get to learn things I never thought I would. - -This is why I want to share my journey as a personal trainer. This is the story of how I became a personal trainer, and what I've learned along the way. - -The first step to becoming a personal trainer is to ask yourself these questions: - -What am I passionate about? - -What am I good at? - -What am I good at? - -Now, that's a lot of questions. In reality, we usually have a bottom-up approach to our training. We start with a question, and then do the best we can to answer it. But the most important question is: - -What am I passionate about? - -This is the most basic question you can ask yourself. It is what motivates you. It is what makes you go to the gym. And it is what inspires you to continue. - -If you don't know what you are passionate about, you don't know what you need to do. - -This is the most basic question you can ask yourself. - -The reason this question is so hard to answer is because your answer will be different from person to person. - -Some people have one or two passions. They don't have many interests outside of their work, and they do it because it is a job. - -My friend, Ryan, for example, is a passionate cyclist. He loves cycling. He can't imagine a day without it. - -But he was working as a software engineer for a large company. He decided to quit to get back to being a cyclist. - -Then I asked him. - -"What do you want to work on and how do you want to do it?" - -He said he wanted to be a strength coach. He wanted to help cyclists learn how to keep their muscles strong. He wanted to be a teacher, and he wanted to help change the way people were thinking about weight training. - -I asked Ryan what he thought about it. - -"I'm not sure I want to be a strength coach. I'm just a friend of a friend." - -Ryan is passionate about cycling. He loves it. He loves being a cyclist. But he didn't have any passion for being a strength coach. - -My friend Ryan didn't have any passion for being a strength coach. - -I asked him why. - -"I like working on my bike. I like riding my -======================================== SAMPLE 444 ======================================== -The first thing I noticed was that the decks included in this tournament were all white. This is a pretty common theme at these tournaments, and I don't blame them. White is the most popular color by far. White is the color of the gods, the heavens, and the white stones that players will use to summon the immortal gods. White is the color of the wind, the oceans, and the wisps that are the way to the afterlife. White is the color of the knights that are good at fighting, and the knights that fight back. White is the color of the sky, the sea, the clouds, the world, and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the moon, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds, and the sea. White is the color of the stars and the heavens. White is the color of the wind, the waves, the rivers, and the waters. White is the color of the clouds and the sky. White is the color of the sun, the rain, the snow, the clouds -======================================== SAMPLE 445 ======================================== -"Babylon's great city was built in the time of Solomon, and its walls were made of brass. Its gates were of iron and its gates were of iron." -- Book of Judges, 2 Kings 24:25 - -The walls of Babylon--the ancient capital of ancient Mesopotamia--are well-known to all who have studied the history of the region. - -Yet the story of how the city was built has often been misunderstood or distorted. - -The following accounts, taken from the Bible, of the construction of the city of Babylon, are as accurate as we are able to make them. - -THE BUILDING OF BABYLON - -JOSEPH'S EXPLORATION - -Josiah's Report on the Construction of the City of Babylon - -The city of Babylon was built in the time of Solomon, at a time when Israel was in captivity. - -The name of the city is not given in the Bible, but it is supposed that the original name of the city was Hormah which means "the city of God." (1 Kings 17:26) - -Josiah, a king of Judah, was sent by the Persian king Darius the Great to repair the city. He had already been sent to Babylon by the king of Persia to repair the damage caused by the Assyrian war of conquest. (2 Kings 17:24) - -Josiah began his work in the temple at Pella, the capital of Judah. He returned to the temple at Babylon and set up a standard of national pride by erecting a golden statue of himself in front of the temple. (2 Kings 20:21) - -He also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:23) - -Josiah then returned to Jerusalem and continued his work. Joseph, a young man of noble birth, was appointed to be the chief administrator of the temple and the royal treasury. - -In those days there were no strong or rich men in Jerusalem. Joseph became wealthy because he bought and sold the people's goods in the market place. (Exodus 2:27) - -Joseph developed a reputation for honesty and integrity. (Exodus 3:12) - -He took the profits of these transactions and used them to build the temple at Jerusalem. (Exodus 3:15) - -Joseph also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:24) - -On the east side of the temple he built the Double Gate. (Exodus 3:18) - -In order to promote peace and harmony in the city he built a dam across the River Jordan and built a canal that led to the beautiful city of Jericho. (Numbers 19:26) - -In the city of Babylon he built to the east of the temple the Third Gate. (Numbers 19:27) - -He also built another temple at Babylon, and the king ordered that all the priests and priestsesses should live and work in the temple at Babylon. (2 Kings 20:23) - -JOSIAH'S REPORT ON THE BUILDING OF BABYLON - -The story of the building of the city of Babylon is told in two books by Joseph, the grandson of Heli, a prophet of the nation of Judah. - -The first of these books is called the Book of Josiah. (1 Kings 17:25,26) - -Josiah was a descendant of Heli. (2 Kings 16:18) - -The city of Babylon had become a symbol of the supremacy of a foreign king. - -Babylon was at a low ebb in its power. - -The people of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. (Numbers 19:26-27) - -The city of Babylon had become a symbol of the supremacy of a foreign king. - -In order to increase the power of the Babylonian king, Josiah began to build a great temple at Jerusalem. - -Babylon was at a low ebb in its power. - -The people of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. - -Josiah began to build a great temple at Jerusalem. - -JOSIAH'S REPORT ON THE TRIAL OF THE BABYLONIANS BEFORE THE ARCHANGELS - -The story of the trial of the Babylonians before the archangels is given in two books by Joseph, the grandson of Heli, a prophet of the nation of Judah. - -The first of these books is called the Book of Josiah. (1 Kings 17:26,27) - -Josiah was a descendant of Heli. (2 Kings 16:18) - -In those days there were no strong or rich men in Jerusalem. Joseph became wealthy because -======================================== SAMPLE 446 ======================================== -Gerri Robinson - -The purpose of this website is to provide a free resource for both veteran and civilian service members that is designed to help them better understand and overcome the challenges they face, including veterans who are homeless. - -In conjunction with the Veterans Crisis Line, this website will feature resources to help veterans and their families cope with the challenges that homeless veterans face. - -Veterans can call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) to have a trained professional in their community help them with any questions they may have about homelessness or their needs. - -Veterans who are homeless can access the VA's Vets4Housing website to help them find housing. - -Click here to follow the progress of this project.<|endoftext|>A new study by the University of Baltimore has found that when people have a glass of wine, they are more likely to consume more calories, but the effect wears off within a few hours. - -The researchers were interested in finding out whether the feeling of being buzzed or drunk might influence people's food intake. On the other hand, if people are more relaxed, they are less likely to eat. - -Researchers at the University of Baltimore's Department of Psychology, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, conducted two experiments to test this theory. - -The first experiment showed that people who were buzzed had more calories consumed over the course of several hours than those who were sober. - -The second experiment looked at whether people's state of being relaxed made them less likely to eat more. - -In both experiments, the researchers found that when people were buzzed, they were more likely to eat more calories than when sober. - -"We expected that people would eat more, but we were surprised that we found a 'dose response' effect, in which the effect wore off over time," said study author Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Baltimore. - -"This suggests that people can have a pre-drinks buzz, which might cause them to eat more and become more satisfied and distracted," she said. - -These findings are based on a study of 152 people, some of whom were in the study for a month and others for three weeks. - -The effect was most pronounced when subjects were in an enjoyable mood, and when they were in a state of high arousal (liking or wanting to engage in a task that involved exertion). - -"These results suggest that the buzz experienced during a drink is linked to increased calorie intake, but that the effect wears off within a few hours," said study author Dr. Dustin Lambert, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. - -"These results are consistent with the idea that people who are buzzed are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion or engage in their favorite activity," he said. "On the other hand, people who are relaxed may eat more because they are more concerned about their weight." - -In the first experiment, specifically designed to test the theory, a group of participants -- some of whom were in an enjoyable mood and others who were in a high-arousal state -- were able to consume up to 2,000 calories over the course of several hours. The researchers found that the group who was high on positive emotions, such as enjoyment, were able to maintain this level of intake for an extended period of time. - -In the second experiment, the participants were given three different types of tasks: a game of Monopoly, a word search game and a game of "Angry Birds." Participants who were high on positive emotions were able to complete the tasks for three hours. - -"Generally, people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to be active, which could lead them to consume more calories," said study lead author Dr. Steven O'Keefe, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. - -"We also found that people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion, which could lead them to consume more calories," O'Keefe said. - -In the second experiment, the researchers showed the participants a series of images that were either positive or negative, and asked them to rate each image on a scale where "very negative" means "very little" and "very positive" means "very much." - -The researchers also asked participants to rate the intensity of the images, and they found that those who were high on positive emotions were more likely to rate negative images as "very negative" and "very positive." - -"The reason for this is that people who are high on positive emotions are more likely to feel satisfied with their lives and are more likely to have positive attitudes about the world and people," O'Keefe said. - -"These findings suggest that when people are high on positive emotions, they are more likely to engage in a task that involves physical exertion, -======================================== SAMPLE 447 ======================================== -As the hectic week ends, it is time to reflect on the fantastic year so far and look ahead to 2017. - -And with that, I have put together the best and most popular content from this website so far. - -You can view it in full here: Top 25 Articles - -I hope you enjoy reading it and if you have any feedback, thoughts or opinions on these articles, feel free to leave a comment below. - -*Disclaimer: The list is limited to the most popular articles and does not mean that I did not publish something of interest. - -Like this: Like Loading...<|endoftext|>Enjoy the best of both worlds in the ultimate game of ultimate frisbee: ultimate disc golf, and ultimate disc golf. Ultimate Disc Golf is the world's fastest growing sport, and the first disc golf disc to be certified as a non-golfing sport. Play with your friends and family in over 80 countries around the world. Play for fun or compete with friends in the ultimate disc golf world championship. - -Ultimate Frisbee is a non-golfing sport that is played on a disc. Unlike traditional sports, you don't have to worry about wearing cleats or a jersey. All you need is a disc and a pair of shoes. The disc that we play is made for Ultimate Frisbee. It is made of a high-density polyethylene and is light weight (1.5 oz.). It is 5 3/4 inches in diameter and the weight varies depending on the size of the disc. The disc will fly over 300 yards. - -The Ultimate Disc Golf game is similar to disc golf. Yes, you can play disc golf with a frisbee. But, ultimate disc golf is played faster than disc golf. The rules of Ultimate Disc Golf are similar to those of disc golf. - -The Ultimate Disc Golf game is also similar to golf. You can enjoy Ultimate Disc Golf in any weather. In fact, Ultimate Disc Golf was created in a golf course in Utah because it is a better weather sport. - -Ultimate Disc Golf is played in 85 countries around the world. In the United States, the most popular disc golf course is in Oakland, Calif. (52,000 members). - -Ultimate Disc Golf has become an international sport, and the sport has been featured on television programs such as "The Ultimate Fighter" and "Dancing with the Stars." - -However, the ultimate disc golf game is not for everyone to play. Ultimate Frisbee is a non-golfing sport that can be considered as a sport. The rules of Ultimate Disc Golf are similar to those of non-golfing sports. However, Ultimate Frisbee is played faster and the players are not allowed to wear cleats or jerseys. - -In the past, Ultimate Frisbee was only played on the streets. However, the sport has now become more popular. On a typical Friday night, there are at least 50 people playing Ultimate Frisbee. - -Ultimate Frisbee is played by using a disc, which is held in the hand. You must hold the disc with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand and the middle finger of the left hand. The disc must be held in a straight line until it is released. - -As you can see, Ultimate Frisbee is very different from traditional football, baseball and basketball. - -There are no team names that are called out during the game. The players are called out by the thrower and you are called out by the receivers. - -There are no penalties for unnecessary contact, roughness, roughing the passer, or rougher play. You can't even use your hands or feet to block the ball. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, the thrower is the smartest and the smartest player is the disc. In Ultimate Disc Golf, the thrower is the disc. The disc is called a disc because it is propelled from the hand. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you must control the disc in order to catch it. To throw the disc, you must be in control of the disc at all times. You can't throw the disc when you are in the middle of a wind, or when the wind is blowing. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you must use your eyes, hands, body and feet to catch the disc. To control the disc, you must use your hands and feet. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't throw the disc faster than 100 mph. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't play if you are older than 18 years old. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't hit the disc more than 14 times. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't take your hands off the disc during play. - -In Ultimate Disc Golf, you can't use your hands to hold the disc. - -Ultimate Disc Golf has won several awards, including the prestigious "Best Tee Placement" award, presented annually by the Professional Disc -======================================== SAMPLE 448 ======================================== - -A former FBI official with knowledge of the investigation says that special counsel Mueller's team is investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct justice in his dealings with former FBI director James Comey. - -The person spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not clear whether the investigation was still active or whether Mueller had opened a grand jury. - -"It's clear that the special counsel's investigation is looking into whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts to interfere with the election," the person said. - -The person declined to identify the specific point of focus or say when the investigation is looking into the matter. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -The revelation is the latest twist in Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which has embroiled the president in controversy over his firing of Comey and his decision to turn over to the White House his memo detailing a conversation between him and the president in which the president urged him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. - -Trump has repeatedly denied that he tried to obstruct justice, and his attorney, Marc Kasowitz, said during a news conference last week that the president was not under investigation. - -The revelation could further complicate Trump's efforts to defend himself in the Russia probe. - -The president has repeatedly said he did not ask Comey for his loyalty. The question of Comey's commitment to the FBI has become central to Mueller's investigation. - -The former official said that Comey's refusal to pledge his loyalty to Trump within a set window of time, for example, could be a matter of concern to Mueller. - -"That would be the most glaring example," the person said. - -The former official also said that Mueller's team is closely monitoring any financial ties between Trump associates and Russia. - -"The nexus between the campaign and Russia right now is money," the person said. "Anybody who is trying to connect that directly to obstruction of justice is going to have a hard time." - -Mueller, a former FBI director, was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to serve as special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, including possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia. He was confirmed by the Senate in May. - -Trump has called the investigation into Russia's interference "the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history" and has repeatedly called the Russia investigation a "taxpayer funded charade." - -The Senate intelligence committee said last week that it had established an investigative subcommittee to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the campaign. - -Mueller's team has also assembled a team of investigators to review documents and interview witnesses as part of its investigation, according to the person. - ---This report was updated on July 24 at 5:28 p.m.<|endoftext|>"It's always nice to set goals, but if you set goals for yourself, you can achieve them. It's always nice to have a goal, but you can't achieve it if you don't have the motivation to achieve it." - -― Steve Jobs<|endoftext|>Leading tech companies have backed a new campaign to get more women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. - -The campaign, called #In-N-Out, aims to increase the number of women in STEM fields by getting them to try out new products. - -It also helps make sure that companies are recruiting the right kind of women and encouraging them to apply for the roles they want. - -The challenge is to offer women products and services that are fast, easy, easy to use and don't require special training. - -Some of the products include burgers, fries, shakes, and fast food sandwiches. - -The companies involved are Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo. - -"In the past, women have been discouraged from entering technical fields because they were discouraged by the lack of job opportunities," said Tracy Chou, director of technology, media and entertainment at In-N-Out Burger. - -"Women in tech are still under-represented in the workforce, but we feel strongly that by offering products and services that are simple, accessible and hard to resist, we can inspire more women to enter the fields." - -The campaign is being run in collaboration with the National Science Foundation. - -Each company is also encouraging their employees to take on the challenge. - -"We're encouraging our employees to show the world what their workplace can be, and let the chips fall where they may," said Facebook. - -"We're encouraging our employees to show the world what their workplace can be, and let the chips fall where they may." - -The new gender gap in the workforce is one of the most pressing issues facing the country. - -According to a 2009 report from the National Science Foundation, women in the US are under-represented in STEM careers. - -According to the report, women make up about a third of all students who pursue a science, technology, engineering or math-related degree. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 449 ======================================== -High school football player Eric Johnson is charged with aggravated assault and stalking. He's charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend in a way that led to her getting arrested, and now Johnson is in prison. - -A judge in Canton, Ohio, cleared Johnson of the charges Friday, saying there was no evidence to show a crime had occurred. - -His ex-girlfriend, Kelsey Johnson, was arrested Sept. 26 after a domestic incident at their home. Police said Kelsey Johnson allegedly threatened her ex-boyfriend with a knife and told him to "get out of the house" if he called the police. - -Police said after Kelsey Johnson was arrested, she texted her ex-boyfriend and asked him to call 911. He did, and she was arrested. - -Eric Johnson, who's in jail, was arrested several hours later after police said he tried to stop a police officer who was trying to question Kelsey Johnson. - -Johnson's attorney, Michael DeWolf, said Kelsey Johnson had tried to call the police before. She did it twice before, and she did it again after Johnson called her, DeWolf said in a statement. - -"This arrest was a continuation of a longstanding pattern of harassment by Eric Johnson against his ex-girlfriend," DeWolf said. "He has been arrested numerous times for domestic violence and stalking. Yet he has never been arrested for the acts of which he was charged today." - -Kelsey Johnson has been released from jail on $5,000 bond. She's scheduled for a preliminary hearing next month. - -Follow TODAY.com writer Eun Kyung Kim on Twitter.<|endoftext|>A bipartisan group of senators is calling on the Obama administration to ease restrictions on the export of military-grade cyber warfare technology to foreign governments, according to a letter obtained by The Intercept. - -The senators, led by Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois, say they're looking into proposals that would allow foreign governments to purchase cyber warfare capabilities from U.S. companies without the restrictions that currently apply. They also want to see the government make it easier for U.S. companies to sell cyber weapons, a possibility that has been raised as part of a wide-ranging debate over the future of cyber warfare. - -"The United States is in a unique position to lead in an area where there are no uniform standards within the international community. We should not be held back by the U.S. government's outdated policies," Kirk and his colleagues said in the letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. - -The Obama administration has a history of being reluctant to allow foreign governments to purchase cyber weapons from U.S. companies. A certain amount of technology is considered "critical infrastructure," according to the Department of Homeland Security, giving the government the authority to regulate the sale of such technologies. - -But some lawmakers, including Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a long-time supporter of legislation that would allow the sale of U.S. cyber weapons to foreign governments, have suggested that the Obama administration should ease restrictions on the export of such weapons. Lieu has introduced a bill that would do just that. - -"The United States should not be the only country that can defend the Internet against foreign hackers," Lieu said in a statement to The Intercept. "The U.S. government should be able to export the necessary capabilities to enable its allies and partners to defend against cyberattacks." - -The letter was signed by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). - -The senators also appear to be interested in a proposal from the House set to be considered by the House Rules Committee this week that would allow companies to sell cyber weapons without requiring them to register as munitions exports, a requirement that has been in place since the Clinton administration. - -The move comes as the Obama administration is considering a broad set of proposals intended to regulate the sale of cyber weapons to foreign governments. In June, the White House released a two-page proposal that included a number of proposals to allow the sale of cyber warfare capabilities to foreign governments with an eye toward making it easier for companies to sell such capabilities. The proposal would also allow certain foreign governments to buy U.S. cyber weapons without having to register as munitions exporters, as currently required. - -In a speech given at the Texas Emerging Technologies Summit last month, -======================================== SAMPLE 450 ======================================== -When you're raising your little ones, you want to make sure they're healthy. At the same time, you want them to be safe and comfortable. There are many games for this, but the one I've chosen is one of my favorites: Carcassonne. - -Carcassonne is a game of building a medieval village from a starting base. The town is your domain. You distribute resources and work out your strategy for the next turn. The more resources you have, the more powerful your town. The more powerful your town, the more danger you face. The more danger you face, the more units you can build, and the more options you have to interact with the world. - -Carcassonne is a lot like a board game, and it shares a lot of similarities. It's filled with tiles, and you can place your own pieces as well as those of other players. It's also full of small pieces, like the little leprechauns, rabbits, and other random things that you can build. - -In Carcassonne, the player who has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. But there's a slight twist. If you can't place your pieces on a particular tile, you lose. In other words, you can't always just build a road to your opponent's town. It's a little bit like poker, but with Carcassonne, you can bet your life on the dice. - -The game is also fairly easy to teach. I've played with my kids and they've played with their friends. They've all understood the rules, and they've all enjoyed playing. - -Here's a video of me demonstrating Carcassonne: - -I've written a few blog posts about Carcassonne, including a two-part series about the tiles (you can see those here and here). I also created a video series here. - -To learn more about Carcassonne, here's my review of the original Carcassonne. - -Here's a quick video of a Carcassonne game: - -If you've never played Carcassonne, I recommend you give it a try. You'll love it.<|endoftext|>The first thing you'll notice when you walk into the Twin Peaks restaurant in the city of Rockville, Maryland is the giant mural painted over the place. The mural depicts a '60s-era man in a white suit, complete with hat and bowtie. The man is holding a telephone to his ear, and a caption on the wall reads: "I am the chief of police." The man is holding a gun to his head, and a caption on the wall reads: "I am the sheriff." - -The mural was painted after a man named Brian Buckner drove by the restaurant one day and noticed it. - -"I was looking out the window, and I saw this weird looking man here in the restaurant, so I stopped and I said, 'Hey, what's going on here?' He said, 'That's my sign.' And I said, 'Oh, that's a good sign.'" - -The man was the manager of Twin Peaks, and he had been painting the mural for over a year. He and his staff spent hours paint-brushing the mural over, and the only thing left behind was the wall. - -"It was a beautiful piece," Buckner said. "It was very beautiful. This is what I grew up on, and I didn't want it to go away." - -Buckner didn't want to just paint over the mural, though. He wanted to add something more important to the place. - -"I thought it would be really cool if I could put a plaque or a sign to tell you what Twin Peaks is, why we're here, and what we're all about," Buckner said. The plaque is still in place, and the sign was installed on the wall in the middle of the restaurant's dining room. - -The mural was installed in 1979, in honor of Brian Buckner's father, who was employed at Twin Peaks when it was first established in 1957. Brian Buckner said his father was a very proud man — and he's still proud of the mural. - -"It was a sign of how far our town had come, and the fact that we're still here," Buckner said. "It's not going anywhere. We've got a bright future here." - -Buckner has been a Twin Peaks employee for over 20 years, and he said the restaurant is a community that's been very good to him. He said he's been to the Twin Peaks restaurant on almost every weekend for the past 20 years, and he's been a frequent customer of the shop. - -"I love this place," Buckner said. "I love it, and I love it, and I love it." - -As for the mural, Buckner said it's -======================================== SAMPLE 451 ======================================== -What is the purpose of a Long-term Care Facility and why should I choose one? - -A Long-term Care Facility is an emotional, physical and financial home for families and individuals with a complex range of needs. Many individuals and families draw on this home for both short- and long-term care. It is a place to live, sleep, work, play and be loved. It is a place to raise children, run a business, take classes and make friends. It is a place to open a business, own a home, or retire. It is a place to relax, without the pressure of household chores or the daily grind of work and money. - -A Long-term Care Facility can take care of a person's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. The home can be a safe and secure place for the individual with complex needs. This home provides the individual with the support and services that are needed. The Long-term Care Facility can provide: - -Long-term care services and services for people with disabilities - -Long-term care services and services for residents of residential care facilities - -Outreach and other special programs for the community - -Assistance in financial and life management - -Care management and supervision - -Dedicated and knowledgeable staff - -A Long-term Care Facility can provide the individual with the support and services needed. Assistive technology and equipment is available and can be used at home, at the facility, or in the community. The Long-term Care Facility can also provide: - -Information about services and programs in the community - -Information on transportation and transportation to the facility - -Information about medical care and services - -Information about state and federal laws and regulations - -The Long-term Care Facility can provide: - -For more information about Long-term Care, please contact the California Long-Term Care Association, Inc. at (916) 985-5994 or visit their website.<|endoftext|>The last time the U.S. relinquished sovereignty to Russia, the country was one of the world's great powers. Today, it is a rogue state, one that was a major player in the Ukraine crisis, and it holds onto a nuclear arsenal. That's why it's so problematic that the Trump administration has begun to cozy up to Vladimir Putin. It's a mistake that could leave the U.S. beyond the reach of the international community. - -Understanding the current situation is essential to understanding the present situation. It's also why what little we know about the administration's approach to Russia is so frightening. - -The United States has a decades-long, multi-layered, and highly complicated relationship with Russia. The 1990s saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. and Russia began to rebuild their relationship. The end of the Cold War brought the two nations closer, but also threw the U.S. and Russia into conflict over the future of the former Soviet Republics. Since then, the U.S. has used limited means to punish Russia for its actions, ranging from sanctions to the expulsion of Russia's diplomats. - -Advertisement - -Over the past few years, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have engaged in a series of talks to try to resolve the conflict, but it's been a struggle. The U.S. wants Russia to cut its support for Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria and Russian ally. The Russians want the U.S. to stop supporting rebels fighting Assad. The U.S. wants to prevent more attacks from the Islamic State, but also wants to support the Syrian government. The U.S. wants to prevent Russia from extending its reach into Ukraine and the Baltic States. The Russians want to keep Ukraine from turning into a failed state and to reduce tensions in the Baltics. - -The United States' failed attempts to engage Russia have contributed to the current state of affairs. - -Russia's behavior in Ukraine has been responsible for the current state of affairs. The U.S. and its European allies pushed the country around for years, creating a crisis in which Russia's economy was decimated and Russian citizens were forced to flee for their lives. When Trump began his campaign, he seemed to have an interest in improving relations with Russia. He called for a friendly foreign policy toward Russia, and was supportive of NATO. He seemed more comfortable getting along with Putin, however, and he spoke favorably of Putin's leadership. - -But that changed when the U.S. discovered that Russia had been interfering in the 2016 election. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian intelligence had hacked the emails of senior Democrats, and that Russia leaked the information through WikiLeaks to help Trump win the election. Trump has repeatedly denied that Russia was behind the hack, and the U.S. intelligence community has said that it has no evidence that Russia interfered with the election. - -Trump's campaign has been inconsistent in its response to the alleged Russian hacking. In September, -======================================== SAMPLE 452 ======================================== -4-4-2: Lukaku; Mbappe, Dellavedova, Otamendi, Silva; Sane, Eriksen, Kane; Eriksen (O'Neal 46), Kane (Kane 65), Sissoko, Son Heung-min (Shaw 55). - -Copy this link to share your team: - - -Paste HTML to embed in website: - - -Beta: Currently working in all browsers except Internet Explorer. - -Share on Facebook Share on Twitter<|endoftext|>A pair of new reports will reveal the future of the Big East, and the possible loss of Louisville. - -The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. - -A pair of new reports will reveal the future of the Big East, and the possible loss of Louisville. - -The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. - -The Big East won't be able to survive a two-year hiatus without the Cardinals. - -Two new reports, released this week, show the Big East on the brink of collapse. - -The Big East's future is in doubt after uncertainty about when and if Louisville will leave the conference. - -The league is in danger of losing its only major power player. - -That's a terrible thing for so many reasons, but perhaps foremost because the Big East is in danger of being removed from the list of national power conferences. - -Both reports, from The Big East's annual survey of athletics directors, indicate the conference will lose the final two schools in its current 22-team fold. - -It all comes down to Louisville and West Virginia. - -Louisville still is a year away from a decision on its future, but a decision is expected in the next two weeks. - -Meanwhile, the Big East is not expected to lose West Virginia, but the school is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks about its future. - -The Big East is in the midst of a major coaching change, as Pitt's James Franklin will take over the Mountaineers. - -That change will likely be enough to give the Big East a serious scare, even though the conference will probably survive the loss of Louisville. - -The Big East is in financial trouble. - -The Big East has been in the red for several years, and according to the new reports, the conference has $5.2 million in debt and a projected deficit of $10 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1. - -When Will Louisville Leave? - -There's speculation that Louisville might leave the Big East. - -The real question is whether the Cardinals will leave before July 1, or whether they will decide to leave a few weeks later. - -The Big East could lose the Cardinals this summer, but their decision is far from certain. - -What is clear, though, is that the Big East will be in trouble without Louisville. - -The Big East has been without a major power player for more than a year, and the fact Louisville is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks means the Big East might not be able to survive the loss of Louisville. - -There's no question the Big East is in a crisis, and that will not change if Louisville leaves. - -There's no question the Big East is in a crisis, and that will not change if Louisville leaves. - -It's possible that Louisville leaves, but it's also possible the Cardinals stay. - -It's possible that Louisville leaves, but it's also possible the Cardinals stay. - -Another Big East school, Rutgers, has also looked at leaving the conference, but the school has yet to make a final decision. - -Another Big East school, Rutgers, has also looked at leaving the conference, but the school has yet to make a final decision. - -Rutgers and Louisville should have no trouble finding other schools to join them in the ACC and SEC. - -The Big East is in a bad position, and it's going to be difficult to prevent the departure of one of its most important players.<|endoftext|>A new twist in the ongoing story of the fate of the lunar rover Curiosity has been revealed by NASA's own video footage, indicating the rover has moved away from its original location. - -The change in position was first reported in a blog post by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. - -"You can see that Curiosity has moved away from its original location," wrote JPL's Ken Herkenhoff in a blog post. - -"The rover is currently about a meter away from the 'target' location, where a sampling system was placed. The rover is also about a meter away from the rock that the system is on." - -The rover is currently about a meter away from the 'target' location, where a sampling system was placed. The rover is also about a meter away from the rock that the system is on. - -The new location of Curiosity, which has been named -======================================== SAMPLE 453 ======================================== -We are happy to announce that we have added the new MASSIVE Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion to our service. This new expansion includes a new skirmish, new epic missions and a whole new Star Wars: The Old Republic story. - -We have also introduced a new feature called the "Story Journal" that will allow you to keep track of your progress and achievements throughout the game. This feature will be available from the beginning of the game and will give you new insight into the galaxy as you progress through your adventures. - -While the new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion is now available, we are taking this opportunity to provide a free upgrade to all players. All you have to do is log in and claim your free upgrade to The Old Republic. - -This new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion is available for everyone. - -If you have any questions about the new Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion, please have a look at our FAQ. Also, please consider following us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. - -The Old Republic Customer Service can be contacted at support@swtor.com.<|endoftext|>The first official match of the 2016-17 season was played on Sunday, as the Colorado Rapids hosted the Charleston Battery at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, kick-off time TBD. - -The Rapids are in their first season in Major League Soccer since 2008, and are now on the verge of making their return to the playoffs. The team finished the 2015 campaign in third place in the Western Conference, just off of the final playoff spot. - -The Battery are also making their first appearance in the new season, and are looking to make the playoffs for the first time since 2012. They are also coming off of a 7-11-6 season in 2015, which saw them finish below the playoff line. - -The game was played in front of 8,391 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and the score was 1-0 for the Rapids. - -The Battery Lineup: - -Goalkeeper: John Smits, Charleston Battery - -Defenders: Lewis Neal, Kevin Ellis, Carl Haworth, Taylor Mueller, Richard Menjivar, Darnell King, Brian Ownby - -Midfielders: Stefan Marinovic, Andrew Carleton, Kyle Keller, Ian Cochrane, Matt Reis, Sean St. Ledger, Martin Paterson, Jhonny Arteaga - -Forwards: Eric Stevenson, Brian Ownby, Carl Haworth, Brian Ownby - -Colorado Rapids: Tim Howard; Kevin Doyle, Deshorn Brown, Jared Watts, Sam Cronin; Dillon Powers, Marc Burch, Bobby Burling (Carlos Alvarez 76'), Jared Watts (Caleb Calvert 72'); Kamani Hill, Vicente Sanchez (Sebastien Le Toux 61'), Juan Ramirez - -Substitutes Not Used: Chad Barrett (gk), Justin Braun, Francisco Calvo, Marc Burch, Jared Watts, Jonathan Macha - -Charleston Battery Lineup: - -Goalkeeper: Aaron Wheeler, Charleston Battery - -Defenders: Cole Seiler, Tommy Redding, Kupono Low, David Tuba, Kevin McKnight, Chris Cortez; Mark Anderson, Elias Hernandez (Jonny Steele 84'), James Marcelin, Marvin Chavez, Bradley Kamdem Fewings - -Midfielders: Jake Fenlason, Gideon Baah, Chris Goslin, Jamie Watson, Ben Newnam, Donnie Smith (Paul Black 79'), Carlos Alvarez (Sebastien Le Toux 82'), Josh Smith (Jhonny Arteaga 75'), Steve Neumann - -Forwards: Carl Haworth, Eric Stevenson, Brian Ownby, Kyle Keller, Brian Ownby - -Goals Scored: - -Charleston Battery: James Marcelin (penalty) 2' - -Colorado Rapids: Dillon Powers (Carlos Alvarez 71'), Kory Kindle (Andrew Carleton 59'), Marlon Hairston (Carl Haworth 63'), Marc Burch (Donnie Smith 61'), Eric Stevenson (James Marcelin 71'), Carlos Alvarez - -Substitutes Not Used: Nick LaBrocca, Dillon Powers, Dillon Serna, Dillon Powers, Carlos Alvarez, Dillon Serna - -Stats Summary: - -Shots: 11/12 - -Shots on Goal: 2/2 - -Saves: 5/6 - -Corner Kicks: 5/7 - -Fouls: 3/3 - -Offside: 0/0 - -Misconduct Summary: - -Caution: Jonathan Macha (caution) (caution) - -Offside: 1/1 - -ATT: 8,381<|endoftext|>"We are going to work together to make sure that every single middle-class family in America has the opportunity to go to college," Hillary Clinton said in a speech to the National Association of Black Journalists on Monday. | Getty Clinton defends Obama legacy in speech to black journalists - -Hillary Clinton -======================================== SAMPLE 454 ======================================== -The 'Spoofing' of the Bible by Phil Robertson - -When it comes to Christianity, it's easy to be a snob about it if you're not a Christian. - -The Bible is a megaphone providing an instantaneous voice for the voice of God. It is often shared through scriptures, stories and parables. But what if we're the ones who snub that megaphone? - -Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution; the Bible is not. This means that any church or faith can change the Bible in an instant by making a few changes to the text. That's not right. - -This is the main reason why it's such a great idea for the GOP to nominate someone who has a track record of changing the Bible. - -The North Carolina pastor who made headlines recently for making a flippant comment about homosexuality was also a man who changed the Bible. He did so by changing the words of the Bible to fit his own personal views. - -The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released a report about the "spoofing" of the Bible. The phrase is used by some Christians to describe the way in which a church can change the Bible to fit their own beliefs. - -The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life says that the Bible is the "most frequently cited book" when discussing faith. - -The Pew Forum also says that "some 30% of adults self-identify as Christians who do not read the Bible." - -This means that those 30% of adults who do not read the Bible have a significant impact on the content of the Bible. That's right. - -According to Pew, 76% of people who do not read the Bible think that the Bible is a book of moral values and teachings that teach moral values. - -When the Bible is changed to suit a church's views, the result is not only a change in the content of the Bible, but an attack on the very concept of the Bible itself. - -This is why it's such a great idea that the GOP is selecting Phil Robertson as their nominee for president. - -He has a track record of changing the Bible to fit his own beliefs. He also has a track record of leading others, including children, into sin. For instance, he suggests that homosexuality is a choice. - -It's not just a choice, Phil. It's a choice to practice a lifestyle condemned by God. - -Here's what he told GQ: - -"And, you know, it's interesting. I've heard that from so many Christians, that it's a choice, it's a sin. You can choose to be gay, or straight, or whatever, but that's not the issue. The issue is the person. So, if a man can't control his own sexual impulses, who are we to say that he's a Christian?" - -Robert G. Ingersoll, the great political philosopher, also used the phrase "spoofing" to describe the practice of changing the Bible. Ingersoll compared the practice to that of altering the Constitution. He said, "We must allow all the branches of the government full power to make all laws, even when contrary to the Constitution." - -He said that this is a violation of the Constitution. This is what we need to teach our children. - -If the GOP really believes in the Constitution, then they need to nominate someone who has a track record of changing the Bible to fit their own beliefs. - -This is the only way that the GOP can win in November. - -Join the conversation - -Are you an evangelical Christian who is excited to see a GOP candidate with a track record of changing the Bible? Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter. - -What do you think about the change to the Bible that Phil Robertson made? Scroll down to comment below.<|endoftext|>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game that people are still talking about. We here at Nintendo Power have been asking ourselves: is this the best Zelda yet? And we're not talking about the 3D remake (though that one is absolutely amazing). This is the true spiritual successor to the epic classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. - -Of course it's the "spiritual successor" part that the GamePad screen doesn't tell you. Breath of the Wild is an adventure game that feels like a modern Zelda. It doesn't require you to use the map like the previous games in the series. Instead, the game moves you through the game in a simpler way. - -What's more, the game feels much larger. The game is actually a lot larger than it's predecessor and is much more open. You can go to areas that you've previously missed by not knowing about. While the game is great in its own right, it's a great addition to the series to be able to explore other areas. - -The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has given -======================================== SAMPLE 455 ======================================== -Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:30:45 ID: ea6a6f (1) No.5658 >>5684 >>5483 - ->'I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' - ->GamerGate is killing. We should be doing this and so should you. - - -If you're wondering why I have an "I'm telling you" in the subject line, it's because I'm NOT trying to kill people. That's what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. I'm trying to stop them from killing people. - - ->>5658 - - -Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. When you oppose the mass murder of innocent civilians, you are, in fact, doing exactly what I'm telling you to do. - - -I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy. - - -You are doing exactly what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. - - -Stop it. - - ->Doesn't that mean we're all gonna die? - ->Why have I been told to start killing people? - ->I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' - ->GamerGate is killing. We should be doing this and so should you.If you're wondering why I have an "I'm telling you" in the subject line, it's because I'm NOT trying to kill people. That's what the people who make up Anonymous are doing. I'm trying to stop them from killing people.Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. When you oppose the mass murder of innocent civilians, you are, in fact, doing exactly what I'm telling you to do.I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy.You are doing exactly what the people who make up Anonymous are doing.Stop it. - -Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:32:29 ID: 4c7c6f (7) No.5659 >>5675 - - ->The people who make up Anonymous are doing exactly what I'm telling you to do. - - -No. They're not. They're just the biggest bunch of fucking pussy magnets on the internet and they got their own personal army of useless twits who don't give a shit about anything except their own reputations and their own egos. No. They're not. They're just the biggest bunch of fucking pussy magnets on the internet and they got their own personal army of useless twits who don't give a shit about anything except their own reputations and their own egos. - -Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:32:45 ID: 57e6f4 (2) No.5660 >>5662 >>5658 - ->I'm telling you, we need to stop trying to fix this problem and start killing the ones who deserve it' - - -I'm telling you to stop trying to fix it. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to murder women, children, and minorities. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the people who want to rape them. I'm telling you to stop trying to stop the haters. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that don't have the word "fuck" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that are fun, not violent, and don't have the word "faggot" in them. I'm telling you to stop trying to make games that everyone can enjoy. - - -Stop. Stop. Stop. - -Anonymous 01/27/15 (Thu) 02:33:14 ID: b2dfef (1) No.5661 -======================================== SAMPLE 456 ======================================== -The City of Winnipeg is warning residents about the potential for flooding on the South Shore near the Assiniboine River. - -The river is expected to crest at 63.39 metres on Wednesday. The combined flood threat is at 70. - -"The forecast is that the river will crest at 63.39 metres and go higher than the 60 metre mark," said Jim Baikie, Winnipeg's chief administrative officer. - -"It depends on how much rain falls and how much the river surges. It's a very important forecast to keep an eye on." - -The river is expected to crest at 63.39 metres on Wednesday. (City of Winnipeg) - -The river is expected to peak at 63.39 metres on Wednesday and then crest at 70.44 metres on Thursday. - -"The water will be heavy, so people are advised to be prepared," said Baikie. "We advise people to get into the highest ground they can, whether it's a rooftop or the roof of an unoccupied building." - -The city is also asking residents to be aware of potential flooding in their neighbourhoods. - -"As we have seen in the past, when there's a heavy rain event, there can be flood waters in areas that don't have a foundation," said Baikie. - -Flood watches are in effect for Waverley, North Kildonan, St. Boniface, St. Boniface East, St. Boniface West, River Heights, Kenaston, Sargeant Flat, Mount Royal, Portage la Prairie and West Kildonan. - -Winnipeg River Flood Warning - Public Traffic Information - -Winnipeg River Flood Warning - Public Traffic Information<|endoftext|>Sir, I would give the impression that the authors of the paper are familiar with the literature on the mechanisms of androgyny in men and women. The fact that the authors cannot find any empirical evidence supporting the claim that men differ in women's brains on any dimension is unfortunate. - -The authors of the article have an opportunity to make up for their lack of knowledge about the literature on androgyny in men and women. The authors should be prepared to publish the findings of their study using the same methods they used to analyze the data and they should use the same statistical methods to analyze the results. - -I am surprised by your comment. In your paper, you provide a detailed treatment of the evolutionary reasons for why women and men are drawn to different kinds of mates. You argue that a lack of women on the market for men is a result of natural selection. You explain that women seeking mates are more selective than men are and therefore are more likely to prefer mates who are compatible with the attributes that women are particularly good at: ovulation, fertility, and lactation. - -Evolutionary biology provides support for your claim. - -My research has shown that women are indeed more selective than men are and that women are more likely than men to mate with men who are more similar to them on all the attributes they value. I have also shown that men and women generally differ on the traits they value. I have also shown that the tendency for men and women to differ on these traits is a result of natural selection. - -This is a simple, yet powerful, idea. Evolutionary biology provides support for the claim that the most important time for the success of an individual is when a potential mate is at the peak of her reproductive value. If this is true, then a woman who is not fertile is a waste of resources. Therefore, just like men, human females have evolved a high sexual drive to find a mate who is most likely to be fertile and to produce offspring. - -In your paper, you discuss the evolutionary forces that have shaped the evolutionary history of the human sex chromosome system. You argue that the potential male mate of the human female has evolved in a way that allows the female to be in a position to select the most compatible mate for her offspring. You conclude that the female needs to be very selective in the type of mate she chooses. - -This is a well-established evolutionary explanation. The female is not the only one who needs to be selective in the type of mate she chooses. The male also needs to be selective in the type of mate he chooses. This is a simple point. - -Your article has the potential to change the way we think about mate choice in humans. It is the first time that a biological explanation has been provided that explains the differences between men and women in mate choice. - -The article is a great example of how psychology can inform empirical studies. Your research is a perfect example of the importance of psychology in the study of sex differences. - -The authors of the review article have done a good job of summarizing the existing literature on sex differences in mate choice and have made numerous suggestions for future research.<|endoftext|>The recent decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement is a grim reminder of the dangers of our global addiction to fossil fuels -======================================== SAMPLE 457 ======================================== -1. A person who is to be provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be eligible for a home health care card if such person (A) is at least sixteen years of age; (B) has been determined by the department of public health to have a chronic health condition that substantially limits one or more essential life activities; and (C) is otherwise eligible for and is eligible for special health care needs under section 2953.101 of the Revised Code. - -(D) A person who is not eligible for a home health care card and who is provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be entitled to receive a home health care card but only if the person receives such care or treatment in a facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code. - -(E) A person who is not eligible for a home health care card and who is provided with care or treatment by a nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill shall be entitled to receive a home health care card only if the person receives such care or treatment in a facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code. - -(F) As used in this section, "home health care card" means a card issued under sections 5119.01 to 5119.07 of the Revised Code. - -Amended by 129th General AssemblyFile No.28, HB 153, §101.01, eff. 9/29/2011. - -Effective Date: 07-01-2004 . - -(A) Except as otherwise provided in divisions (B) to (F) of this section, the following persons may not obtain a home health care card: - -(1) A person who is in a health care facility, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or who is a resident of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or a residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, that is provided by a county, municipal corporation, board, or other municipal agency or by the department of mental health, developmental disabilities, or addiction services under chapter 5119. or 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; - -(2) A person who is an active member in good standing of a labor union, of a professional or trade union, or of an organization that represents the interests of members, or is an active member of an organization that represents the interests of residents or clients of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; - -(3) A person who is an active member of an organization that represents the interests of residents or clients of a health care facility, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; - -(4) A person who is employed by a health care facility or who is a resident of a health care facility, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; - -(5) A person who is a member of the clergy, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in a hospital, nursing home, intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded, or residential care facility for the mentally ill, as defined in section 5119.01 of the Revised Code, or is receiving care or treatment in a residential care facility established and operated under section 5119.01 of the Revised Code; - -(6) A person who holds membership or leadership positions in a religious, political, adult education, or similar organization, unless the person is receiving care or treatment in -======================================== SAMPLE 458 ======================================== -Shutterstock - -In New York City, it's considered rude to make a phone call during breakfast. But on a recent morning, a New York City firefighter was overheard making a phone call while eating breakfast. - -The New York Fire Department's Facebook page shared the video of the firefighter, who was eating breakfast at a local restaurant. "Don't get me wrong, it's all good and everything," the firefighter said at one point. "But, you know, sometimes you gotta take a break. It's hard. Give me a break. I'm not mad at you. I'm just hungry. I'm hungry." - -The video has since been deleted from Facebook. - -The New York Fire Department is a department of nearly 7,000 firefighters, policemen, and paramedics. In 2012, the department had a budget of $1.4 billion.<|endoftext|>It's been more than a year since the release of the Nexus 5, and, as expected, the handset has been a hit. Google and its partners have sold more than 100 million Nexus 5 handsets since the Google-branded handset launched on November 21st. - -This is a phenomenal success story, and it's only just beginning. Google has announced that the first Nexus 7 tablet – arguably the best Android tablet ever made – is set to arrive in the coming months. - -Google already has the Nexus 7 tablet in its stable, but that doesn't mean it will ship in the first half of 2013. The Google Play store has already set the date for the first Nexus 7 to hit the streets, but that's not the only tablet that will be available at launch. - -Android Central reports that there will be two new tablets available at launch. They're the Asus-made Nexus 7 (2013) and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″. - -The tablet only comes in black, with a plastic back, and is expected to sell for around $199. It's a tablet, and it's going to be pretty big, too – the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD 7″ measures in at 7.4mm thick, making it the thinnest 7-inch tablet on the market. - -The Kindle Fire HD 7″ is also a bit thicker than the 7″ Nexus 7, at 7.1mm. With a weight of 4.6 pounds, it's also a bit heavier than the 7″ Nexus 7. - -Both tablets will be available in the first half of 2013 for the following prices: - -Google Nexus 7 (2013) – $199 - -Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″ – $179 - -Here's a quick look at the new tablets: - -[Image Credit: Flickr]<|endoftext|>Contents show] - - -History - -I am Stephen Strange, and I believe that nothing should stand in the way of a man's mind being his own master. -- Stephen Strange src - -Before the 1960s, Stephen Strange was a rich Jewish American who had inherited his uncle's fortune. He was trained as an attorney by his uncle and was one of the best lawyers in New York City. However, he was later imprisoned at the hands of the mad sorcerer, Dr. Stephen Strange. - -Strange was imprisoned for a crime committed against the U.S. government. He was freed after his uncle agreed to make a deal to settle the case. Strange was then sent to the secretive island of Sakaar where he was to serve as the leader of a new Sakaarian government. He also met his future wife, the Black Widow, and began an affair with her. Strange was later freed by the Avengers and joined the team, where he formed a close friendship with Thor and became a friend of the Hulk. - -Strange was then recruited by the Masters of Evil to take them to Sakaar. However, Strange was tricked into fighting the Hulk and fell to the planet's molten core. He was rescued by Thor and the Hulk, who took him back to Earth to continue his training. - -In the meantime, Strange had been accused of killing his uncle in a court of law. He was then sent to the Seagate Prison in New York City, where the government wanted him to serve as an advisor to the new government. There, he met the Black Widow, who became his lover. Also, when the government was attacked by the Masters of Evil, Strange was captured by the government. - -Strange was then sent to the U.S.S.R. - -Strange was imprisoned by the government for three years, during which time he became a close friend of the Hulk. Strange received a cell mate, the armored Hulk, who was also imprisoned for three years. In addition, Strange helped the Hulk survive prison by offering him medical supplies. - -Strange was eventually reunited with the Hulk while he was imprisoned for a crime committed against the United States. After the Hulk was freed, the two bonded, and Strange once again became the Hulk's close friend. Strange also helped the Hulk while he was in the Siberian wilderness. -======================================== SAMPLE 459 ======================================== -I'm sure many people will probably be confused about why I'm posting this. - -I won't attempt to explain all the reasons why I feel the way I do, because I believe that it's best to leave it up to the reader to decide if they want to follow me on this journey as I go on with this, or not. - -What I will say is this: I'm not an atheist. - -I've done my best to explain that my views on religion are simple. I find it very difficult to believe that these beautiful creatures that we think of as gods, can be anything but selfish, hateful, and cruel. I believe that their actions and words are no better than those of any other animal. - -I believe a lot of the things that are taught in religion (whether it be Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism) are simply not true. I believe that the very concept of God is a lie. I believe that we are all here in this world because God created us, and that there is no deity that I know of who would have sent me here if he was not real. I believe that we are all interconnected. I believe that there's more to life than just ourselves, and that we should all strive to work together to take care of one another. - -It is as simple as that. - -What I believe is that there are no gods. That there's no heaven. That there's no hell. I don't believe in a God. - -I believe in reality. - -Good people. Bad people. A good person is someone who does good deeds for others, and a bad person is someone who does bad deeds for others. A good person does good deeds because of love. A bad person does bad deeds because of anger. A good person doesn't go out of their way to hurt others, they do what they can to help others. A bad person does what they can to hurt others. A good person doesn't take pleasure in hurting others. A bad person does because of pleasure. A good person doesn't kill. A bad person does because they feel the need to. - -I believe in responsibility. - -I believe that all people have a right and duty to take care of themselves and their family. I believe that there are things that we each can do to take care of ourselves, and to take care of our family. I believe that we will all eventually die, and that none of us will be around to see that event. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. - -I believe that we all have a right to be happy. I believe that it is absolutely wrong to take pleasure in causing the pain of others, and that we should all work together to take care of each other, our family, and our friends. I believe that we should all participate in our society, and that we should all do what we can to make it a better place. - -I believe that we should all try to find happiness in our own lives. I believe that there are things we each can do to make our lives more enjoyable and more fulfilling. I believe that we are all here to make the world a better place, and that we should all strive to make it a better place. - -I believe that we all have a right to the same basic things that we were given. I believe that no matter how much we may try, we will never be completely satisfied, and that we should all strive to take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. - -I believe that we all have a right to be safe. I believe that it is absolutely wrong to take pleasure in causing the pain of others, and that we should all work together to take care of each other, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. - -I believe that we should all strive to be kind and honest with our fellow man. I believe that no matter how hard we try, we will never be completely satisfied, and that we should all strive to take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, and help each other if we can. - -I believe that we should all try to find happiness in our own lives. I believe that there are things we each can do to make our lives more enjoyable and more fulfilling. I believe that we will all eventually die, and that none of us will be around to see that event. I believe that we should all take care of ourselves, our family, and our friends, -======================================== SAMPLE 460 ======================================== -I'm going to need to go get myself a cup of coffee. - -That's because in the wake of the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena, Trump has been doing the one thing he can do to take the heat off himself: blame the entire country for the heinous act of violence. - -"It's a terrible thing that's going on in the world, and we have to be very tough, we have to be very, very vigilant," Trump said on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning, before adding, "We need that. We need a very, very strong border. We need an unbelievable, strong military." - -Trump then moved on to blaming the Democrats for the attack, accusing them of "buying" the media, despite the fact that the FBI has already closed the case. - -"If you look at the way they spin it, their narrative is that Trump is behind this," Trump said. "The problem is that they really don't have a good narrative." - -Unsurprisingly, the media didn't take the entire argument lying down. - -"Trump's tweet was an attempt to blame the victims of a terrorist attack for their own death," CNN's Jim Acosta said. "It's hardly the most presidential response." - -"Upstairs, they're blaming everyone but themselves," he continued. "And downstairs they're blaming everyone but themselves."<|endoftext|>Posted 14 December 2012 - 02:19 AM - -The only problem with your set up is that you are not putting your lead in the half-full bucket properly. It will get too hot and will easily crack when you put your hand underneath. If you do this right, your lead will stay cool and in the half-full bucket. You will still need a bucket, though, to be able to take your lead out after the rest of your bowl is done. - -Edited by Candy, 14 December 2012 - 02:20 AM.<|endoftext|> Play Video  Play   Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:00 Loaded : 0%  0:00  Progress : 0% 0:00 Progress : 0% Stream Type LIVE Remaining Time -0:00 Playback Rate 1  Chapters Chapters  descriptions off , selected Descriptions  subtitles off , selected Subtitles  captions settings , opens captions settings dialog - -captions settings captions off , selected Captions  Audio Track  Fullscreen This is a modal window. Caption Settings Dialog Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Opaque Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Defaults Done - -"It is a matter of weighing our interests against our values," she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "We need to take care of those who are vulnerable. We need to take care of those who are hungry. We need to take care of people who are homeless, not to be cruel, but to provide them with a chance to survive." - -She said that the situation in America is "very different" than in other countries. - -"We have a better system of food stamps. We have a system of healthcare. We have a system of housing. We have a system of education. We have a system of job training for people who are trying to get a job," she said. - -Clinton made the comments at a campaign event in New Hampshire with her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has been on a speaking tour to promote Democratic economic policies. - -"We have a better system of healthcare. We have a system of food stamps. We have a system of childcare. We have a system of education. We have a system of job training for people who are trying to get a job," Clinton said, adding that she supports the minimum wage hike that her running mate has proposed. - -"We want to do more to lift people up," Clinton said. - -"We will not let anyone take away the dignity that comes with work, the dignity that comes with responsibility," she continued. "And we will never let anybody reduce the share that any American family earns." - -The Democratic candidate has been criticized by some for her husband Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill, which placed tight restrictions on the amount of time people could spend in prison, depending on their crimes. - -Some of the legislation's provisions -======================================== SAMPLE 461 ======================================== -Hollywood is full of stories about how difficult it is to get a movie made. But it turns out that creating an original story is even harder. - -When Netflix released "The OA" on October 21, the streaming service's move into original programming — which was announced in February 2014 — was hailed as a watershed moment. The series, which debuted on the Fox network, follows Prairie Johnson (Evan Rachel Wood), a woman who went missing at age 16. After 20 years, her family (led by director Brit Marling) begins to question whether she is still alive. - -The series is based on the best-selling memoir by Brit Marling, who is best known for creating the Netflix series "The OA." In the book, Johnson describes herself as an African-American woman who was able to elude the system during her childhood in New York City, despite being raised by a single mother (Nora Lumet) and a father (Wood). - -"It's a great story, and it's really about family, and it's really about being a good person," said Marling, who is best known for the "True Detective" series. "I think it's really about the things that can be taught, that you can be taught, and that when you're told those things, you can choose to do them or not do them, and really what that means." - -Netflix is the first major streaming service to put its money behind original programming, and Marling said that her first impulse was to pitch the show to other cable networks. But when Netflix approached her, Marling said she asked if she could make a deal with the streaming service. - -Related Emmys: The Good, The Bad and the WTF - Watch Video 'Designated Survivor' Seasons 1-2 Hop from Hulu to Netflix, Ahead of Netflix's Release of Season 3 - -"Netflix said, 'Can you make a deal?'" she recalled. "And I said, 'Sure, why not?' And they said, 'OK, we'll take a shot.' And that's what happened." - -Netflix has been reluctant to discuss the show's financials, but Marling said that it has generated enough interest to be a show that the company would want to renew. - -"The [original] concept is that you don't know if it's real or not," she said. "You kind of see through it, and we have to see through it, too." - -The show's success has put the spotlight on the challenges of adapting a book to a television series. - -"The OA" is a sprawling story about Johnson that takes place in three time periods. It's a unique story, because the book is set in 2000, when the real-life events that are depicted in the series don't actually happen. Marling said that she was motivated to write the series because she was trying to figure out what it meant to be a black woman in America in the early '90s — a time when she wanted to be an actress, but didn't have the means to do it. - -"I think it's important for people to know, especially black women, that there are very real challenges," she said. "I think there's a lot of false images of black women and black women's bodies out there." - -Marling said that she felt compelled to write the series in order to raise awareness about the issues that black women face in the entertainment industry. - -"It's not something that I'm happy about, but it's something that you have to do for the greater good," she said. - -Marling said that she was interested in the idea of a show that was a "normal, everyday" story for a black woman in America — but that she also wanted to focus on the issues that black women face. - -"I don't want to just be like, 'Well, I'm just like a regular black woman, I don't have any special powers,'" she said. "I want to talk about it, because I think that's what people need to hear."<|endoftext|>Somali-American women's soccer star Abby Wambach says she has a "huge problem" with the way women's soccer players are treated in the sport. - -In an interview with the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire program, Wambach said the attitudes of many male players toward women in the sport "just makes me sick." - -"It's like we're not allowed to be there," she said. "We're not allowed to be there. We're not allowed to even be there. We're not even allowed to exist." - -Wambach said that women's soccer has been a "very male-dominated sport" for decades, and said there are still "a lot of guys who just don't get it." - -"I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we are in this male-dominated sport, and it -======================================== SAMPLE 462 ======================================== -The term "leftist" has been co-opted by a sizeable section of the left to refer to those who have a liberal, democratic outlook, and in particular those who agree with the social democratic understandings of socialism, and who are opposed to racism, imperialism and sexism. - -This is, of course, a legitimate perspective, and it is one that has been fully articulated by the left over the last century. But unsurprisingly, this perspective has been adopted by a section of the left in the UK, and has been adopted by the likes of the Guardian, the Independent and the New Statesman and the New Internationalist, among others. - -Leftists who adopt this view have not been subtle about it. In a passage from his recent book, The Left and the Radical Right, the Labour MP Michael Meacher said: - -"In fact, the left is currently dominated by a movement of 'leftism' which is essentially liberal-democratic. It is based on the idea that capitalism is a system in which people can have a decent life and that the state can play a necessary role in protecting the interests of working people." - -In another passage from The Left and the Radical Right, Meacher wrote: - -"It is the oppression of women which is the most obvious example of this 'leftism'. And it has been so for some time. If you visit a GP practice in the north of England or a maternity hospital in London you are still confronted by a gynaecologist who does not take women's needs seriously and who is not prepared to treat them. If you visit a police station in the north of England or a prison in London, you are still confronted by a prison officer who does not take the needs of women seriously and who is not prepared to protect them." - -Just a few months ago, the Guardian ran an article by Labour MP Yvette Cooper in which she attacked the "left-wing incompetence of the Labour leadership" over the issue of Trident. In this article, Cooper advocated the adoption of the "nuclear deterrent strategy", which is described as "an alternative to unilateral disarmament". - -Cooper's article was, of course, in defense of the Labour Party's vote for the renewal of Trident. In her article, she argued: - -"If we are to take the decisions that must be taken now in the face of the present dangers, then we cannot afford to delay. We cannot waste time, we cannot waste a year, we cannot waste the next three decades. If we are to do this, we must open our minds to the prospect of nuclear weapons. We must open our minds to the possibility of a nuclear-free world. And if we do not, we risk going down a path that is hard to reverse." - -In other words, Cooper does not support the abolition of Trident, but she does support a nuclear deterrent strategy, and she does advocate unilateral disarmament. - -This position is nothing less than the abandonment of the trade union movement in order to be able to pursue a "left-wing incompetence of the Labour leadership". Any good trade unionist would have to be outraged by this position. And yet, the Left has adopted this position, and this position is being adopted by sections of the left in the UK. - -What is worse, is that the Left has adopted the position on the basis of a series of lies. It has been argued that unilateral disarmament is not necessary because there are already "civil nuclear agreements" between the UK and the US, which allow for a "limited number of warheads" to be deployed "on land, sea and in the air". - -The reality is that these treaties do not cover land-based nuclear weapons, and that the UK has signed no such agreements with any other country. Furthermore, the UK has not signed any such treaties at all, which means that there is no legal basis whatsoever for Cooper's position. - -And yet, the Left has adopted this position, and this position is being adopted by sections of the left in the UK. - -The same Left that has adopted this position is the same Left that has made a blatant attack on the working class. This Left has waged a vicious attack on workers in the UK, and has waged a vicious attack on the working class throughout the world. - -At the same time, the same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. - -At the same time, the same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. - -The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. - -The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to the closure of the Miners' Strike. - -The same Left has been willing to make a joint declaration with the Conservative government with regard to -======================================== SAMPLE 463 ======================================== -A new tool for the ESO community. - -A new tool for the ESO community. - -This tool will allow you to build, test, and release your mods and addons easily. - -How to use - -To install the tool, copy the extracted file into the Morrowind Data Files folder and click 'Run'. - -To run the tool, click the Run button, select the 'Make Morrowind Mod' checkbox and click 'OK'. - -The tool will automatically place a script file in your Data Files/Morrowind folder. This script will host the Morrowind launcher. - -To run the launcher you can click the Morrowind Launcher button. This will start Morrowind with a new game. - -This will launch Morrowind with a new game. If all goes well, the launcher will let you select a custom user account and the new user will have access to a set of games and mods. - -For more information, see the FAQ. - -Installation - -Requires Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon. - -Download - -Download the latest version from the download page. - -Credits - -Thanks to the ESO Modding Discord for all the help. - -Thanks to the community for testing the tool and giving feedback on it. - -Thanks to Marro and B1rth for testing the tool. - -Thanks to Malakai for editing the info in the ReadMe. - -Thanks to all the people who helped me test the tool and give feedback on it. - -Licensing/Legal - -This mod is released into the public domain.<|endoftext|>Share. It's the fun you can't get anywhere else. It's the fun you can't get anywhere else. - -Last year, we took a look at the best MMOs on PC. This year, we've decided to take a look at the best fantasy RPGs on PC. - -The first thing that should be noted about fantasy RPGs is that they're almost always very different from one another. There aren't really any "traditional" fantasy RPGs on PC -- you can't run a Western-style RPG on a PC that doesn't have a mouse and keyboard. A good fantasy RPG is going to be a different beast from a good action RPG or a hack-and-slash RPG. - -Of course, there are some similarities. You'll usually have some sort of character class, and you'll generally have a set of skills that you can specialize in. Most fantasy RPGs also have an overworld map to explore and some sort of story to follow, though they're usually very different in the way they tell it. - -In this list, we've divided them by genre and gameplay focus, but there's also a little bit of overlap -- some fantasy RPGs are great for both role-playing and shooter fans. - -Note that a lot of these games are still in early development, so they may still have bugs and unfinished features, but you can always wait until they're released and play them for free! - -Exit Theatre Mode - -Exit Theatre Mode - -A Realm Reborn - -Developer: Carbine Studios - -Platforms: PC - -RECOMMENDED: Review: A Realm Reborn Is A Strong Start To A MMORPG - -If you're looking for a good MMORPG on PC, A Realm Reborn is a great place to start. It's got a lot of great features and a ton of content -- you can even build your own castle and explore the world from there. Unfortunately, it's very buggy (and it's not finished), so don't expect it to be perfect. - -At the moment, A Realm Reborn's free-to-play model is a bit of a mess. You can buy gold to play the game for free, but that costs you 100 gold for the first day and then 1 gold for every day you keep playing after that (for a total of 500 gold). It's definitely a better plan if you want to try out the game without spending money, though. - -" If you're looking for a good MMORPG on PC, A Realm Reborn is a great place to start. - -Darkfall: New World - -Developer: Red 5 Studios - -Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 - -RECOMMENDED: Review: Darkfall Can Be A Great RPG If You Play It Right - -For the most part, Darkfall: New World is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). You play as a group of survivors who have fallen victim to an ancient evil and are trying to escape from the ruined city of New Antioch. - -Darkfall is actually really good at what it does. The game has a ton of content and is incredibly fast paced. The graphics and sound are absolutely top-notch, and the game features a deep crafting system that lets you build and customize your character from a number of different professions. - -Exit Theatre Mode - - -======================================== SAMPLE 464 ======================================== -Kelvin Kuo - -17 December 2017 - -The following is a post written by Kelvin Kuo, a research associate at the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. - -In his book, The Coming GOP Civil War: How to Stop Trump, a former Trump campaign staffer accused the Republican Party of "intimidation" and "denial," and said "it's the party that got scared." The fear of a backlash against the GOP's supposed "Trumpian turn" has come and gone. The party's leadership has chosen to ignore the kooks who are threatening their power. - -On the other hand, the party's grassroots base is furious at the party's failure to push through its agenda. As a result, a wide variety of conservative groups have formed to fight back against the GOP establishment and its right-wing governing agenda. These groups include the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-backed Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), for whom Trump appointed his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, one of the most pro-corporate members of the Trump cabinet. The Trump administration has also appointed a slew of corporate-friendly CEOs, including billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as secretary of commerce; John Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is now Trump's secretary of the treasury; and Elaine Chao, the widow of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as transportation secretary. - -The Republican Party is facing a shift in its base: younger, more diverse, and more dependent on social media. If the GOP is unable to address the concerns of its base, its political future could be in jeopardy. - -In the wake of the 2016 election, many Republican officeholders and party members have blamed demographic shifts and social media for their loss. They have argued that the GOP lost because it failed to engage with a diverse electorate and failed to appeal to the expanding political base. Yet they have largely ignored the growing resistance to their agenda within their own party. The electoral backlash against the Trump agenda is real and growing, but it is not being addressed, despite growing evidence that the Republican Party is failing to appeal to the nation's diverse population. - -The GOP leadership and movement are increasingly unwilling to confront their base. While many establishment Republicans have been privately urging their constituents to stop complaining and move on, few have publicly called for party members to change course. Although there is some evidence that the Republican Party's base is moving toward Trump's administration, the party's leadership is not moving with it, opting instead to ignore the growing resistance and the party's base's growing concerns. - -The growing GOP base has emerged as a major concern for Republican leaders. For instance, during a recent panel discussion at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel addressed the growing concerns of the party's base. She said, "the base isn't happy with us right now. But they are making that clear to us." McDaniel said that the GOP needs to "hold our ground" and "keep the focus on the issues that we care about," adding that "the focus has to be on the basics" and that "the message has to be consistent." - -Meanwhile, the GOP establishment is actively working to push its agenda through the Senate. For example, the GOP's tax plan, which is designed to boost the wealthy by slashing taxes for corporations and the wealthy, is expected to pass the Senate and promptly be signed into law by President Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he intends to pass the tax plan this week, despite strong opposition from a wide variety of groups, including the American Health Care Association, the AARP, and the American Federation of Teachers. - -The Republican Party's leadership is also pushing for the passage of the Senate's health care bill. The bill is deeply unpopular with an already-disillusioned base, including most independents and voters under age 30. While the legislation is unpopular, McConnell is using the Senate's special budget reconciliation process to pass the bill through the Senate, making it easier for the bill to pass with just 51 votes. - -The "divide and conquer" strategy is clearly working. The GOP establishment is trying to distract the public from the growing resistance to the GOP's agenda. Most of the GOP opposition, however, is coming from the base, not from the party establishment. If McConnell is serious about the Senate bill reaching the president's desk, he would do well to listen to the base and move on. - -The emerging resistance to the GOP's agenda is the product of the GOP base's rising anger at the GOP's failure to push its agenda. This anger is not just a function of the party establishment's policies, but also their failure to address the concerns of the party's base. There is no reason the GOP should be able to pass tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations without any bipartisan support. While Trump and McConnell have claimed that their tax cuts will pay for themselves, independent analyses have shown that the federal budget deficit would balloon if -======================================== SAMPLE 465 ======================================== -They've always been in the right place at the right time. - -The Clinton Global Initiative, a charity that serves as a family office for the Clinton Foundation, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. - -The Clinton Global Initiative has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. - -The Clinton Global Initiative, a charity that serves as a family office for the Clinton Foundation, has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons lately. - -It's been revealed that the Clinton Foundation has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. - -It's been revealed that the Clinton Foundation has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was supposed to be a venue for the private sector to showcase its best ideas, but it's been revealed that it's been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. - -The foundation has been under fire since it was revealed that Hillary Clinton accepted $207,000 to give a speech to Goldman Sachs. This is the same bank that gave her the largest speaking fee of any Secretary of State in history. - -Now it has been revealed that the Clinton Global Initiative has been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. - -This is not the first time the Clinton Foundation has been accused of this sort of behavior. - -"The Clinton Foundation has had a history of accepting large donations from foreign governments and corporations, including from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States' largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin," CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson wrote in a report published today. - -"The State Department has said it will stop accepting foreign donations if Hillary Clinton wins the White House. But the Clinton Foundation has refused to disclose its donors, instead saying it's a 'private foundation.'" - -It's not the first time the Clinton Global Initiative has been accused of this sort of behavior. - -"The Clinton Global Initiative has been a disaster from the start," former President Bill Clinton said as he was leaving the organization in 2013. - -"The money is gone. It's been spent. There's nothing left. The people who run it have no idea what they're doing, and the people who work on it have no way of knowing what they're doing," he said. - -The Clinton Global Initiative has been a disaster from the start. - -Bill Gates was also quick to criticize the foundation's behavior. "The CGI data underscores the fact that the CGI record does not match the record of the Clinton Foundation," Bill Gates said in a statement. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was launched in 2005 and has grown to become a global initiative to provide opportunities for business and communities to come together. - -While the Clinton Global Initiative is a nonprofit organization, it was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. It was also revealed that the Clinton Foundation had been operating like a slush fund, collecting donations and paying off the interests of its donors. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. - -The Clinton Global Initiative was suspended from the tax code in 2014 after revelations that the Clinton Foundation had illegally taken in millions from foreign governments and international corporations. - -The New York Times reported that in 2015, the Clinton Foundation's gross revenue was $2.17 billion — approximately $250 million less than the year before. - -The Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. - -In 2015, the Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. - -In 2015, the Clinton Foundation cut its charitable work by 45 percent in 2014, and when it wasn't accepting money from foreign governments, it was accepting money from the U.S. government – including $1.9 million in taxpayer funds. - -The New York Times reported that in 2015, the Clinton Foundation's gross revenue was -======================================== SAMPLE 466 ======================================== -At the end of the 2015 season, the Blue Jays' starting rotation was: R.A. Dickey, J.A. Happ, Marco Estrada, Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Mark Buehrle, and Drew Hutchison. The rotation was pretty good, but it was not dominant. The Jays' bullpen was the fourth-best in the American League, at 14th in ERA, but the Jays' rotation was the best in the AL, at a whopping 10th in ERA. - -This season, the rotation is: R.A. Dickey, J.A. Happ, Marcus Stroman, Mark Buehrle, Aaron Sanchez, and Drew Hutchison. This rotation is the best in the AL. - -This rotation is not the best in baseball, but it is unquestionably the most dominant. The Jays rarely had a five-run lead and rarely had a seven-run deficit, averaging 4.2 runs per game in the five games against a team with a winning record. They averaged 4.0 runs per game in the six games against a team with a losing record. The Jays have scored at least four runs in 10 of their 19 games, and the Jays scored five or more runs in eight of their 19 games. Their bullpen has been particularly dominant. - -The Jays are also performing better in the third game of a series than in the third game of a series, but they are not far behind the second-place Yankees. The Blue Jays are doing far, far better in the second game of a series than they are in the second game of a series. - -The Jays have dominated in the second game of a series for three years in a row. They did not do it in 2015, but they did it in 2014, and they did it in 2013, and they did it in 2012, and they did it in 2011, and they did it in 2010, and they did it in 2009, and they did it in 2008, and they did it in 2007, and they did it in 2006, and they did it in 2005, and they did it in 2004, and they did it in 2003, and they did it in 2002, and they did it in 2001, and they did it in 2000, and they did it in 1999, and they did it in 1998, and they did it in 1997, and they did it in 1996, and they did it in 1995, and they did it in 1994, and they did it in 1993, and they did it in 1992, and they did it in 1991, and they did it in 1990, and they did it in 1989, and they did it in 1988, and they did it in 1987, and they did it in 1986, and they did it in 1985, and they did it in 1984, and they did it in 1983, and they did it in 1982, and they did it in 1981, and they did it in 1980, and they did it in 1979, and they did it in 1978, and they did it in 1977, and they did it in 1976, and they did it in 1975, and they did it in 1974, and they did it in 1973, and they did it in 1972, and they did it in 1971, and they did it in 1970, and they did it in 1969, and they did it in 1968, and they did it in 1967, and they did it in 1966, and they did it in 1965, and they did it in 1964, and they did it in 1963, and they did it in 1962, and they did it in 1961, and they did it in 1960, and they did it in 1959, and they did it in 1958, and they did it in 1957, and they did it in 1956, and they did it in 1955, and they did it in 1954, and they did it in 1953, and they did it in 1952, and they did it in 1951, and they did it in 1950, and they did it in 1949, and they did it in 1948, and they did it in 1947, and they did it in 1946, and they did it in 1945, and they did it in 1944, and they did it in 1943, and they did it in 1942, and they did it in 1941, and they did it in 1940, and they did it in 1939, and they did it in 1938, and they did it in 1937, and they did it in 1936, and they did it in 1935, and they did it in 1934, and they did it in 1933, and they did it in 1932, and they did it in 1931, and they did it in 1930, and they did it in 1929, and they did it in 1928, and they did it in 1927, and they did it in 1926, and they did it in 1925, and they did it in 1924, and they did it in 1923, and they did it in 1922, and they did it in 1921, and they did it in 1920, and -======================================== SAMPLE 467 ======================================== -Prominent Canadian philanthropist and former University of Toronto professor Paul Hodges is urging his fellow citizens to embrace the kind of Canadian identity he says their country needs. - -Hodges, whose son is an engineering student at U of T, said the country needs "multi-culturalism" and "multiculturalism." - -"I think we need to embrace this Canadian identity. It's a very important part of being Canadian," he told CBC Radio's Metro Morning. - -"I think we need to continue to build on our multiculturalism. It's an important part of what makes us Canadian ... Canadian identity is a multicultural one, it's an inclusive one, it's inclusive of all of us. And I think we need that for the future." - -Hodges, who is also a former president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said Canada's future will be determined by how well it draws young people from around the world. - -"I think the future of Canada will be determined by how well we attract the next generation from around the world. And I think we need to be very welcoming, very welcoming to people from all over the world. And that's what we need to do in the future," he said. - -Hodges said he believes the final chapter of Canada's identity "is being written right now," but was quick to add that he's "not saying just anyone is going to be able to write that." - -"We need people who are very, very well respected, very, very high level people who are able to say 'this is what the future is supposed to look like, we're going to pursue it with all our might.'" - -He also added that "to me, it's not about being a nationalist or a xenophobe." - -"I don't think we should be a country that's all about separation. I think we need to be a country that's all about integration." - -'I think we need to continue to build on our multiculturalism.' - Paul Hodges - -The 60-year-old professor, who has received numerous awards for his work with children and youth, argued that Canada's highest profile figures should be embracing the country's diversity. - -"I think we need to start to see, maybe in the past few years, a bit more leaders of institutions, including universities and the highest levels of public life, recognizing that we have a multicultural society," he said. - -"I think that's something that has not happened yet. - -"I think we need to start to see more figures of authority, including politicians, including community leaders, acknowledging that we have a multicultural society, and I think that's something that has not happened yet." - -Hodges, who made headlines in 2008 when he called for Canada to become a republic, said he is calling for a new Canadian identity in part because he is concerned about the current state of the country. - -"I think that our understanding of ourselves as a country is not getting right," he said. - -"I think that we're becoming more and more divided, as we become more and more divided, I think that we're becoming more polarized. And I think that we are becoming more and more pessimistic about the future." - -'Reserved to American rules' - -Hodges said he believes the country is faced with more challenges than ever before. - -"For the first time in my life, I'm worried about security. I'm worried about maybe a crackdown by the state on individual rights," he said. - -"I think Canada's security concerns and our security concerns are based on American rules. And I don't think we can rely on American rules to protect us from our problems." - -Hodges said he is worried about a crackdown by the state on individual rights. (CBC) - -Hodges said he believes Canada is facing a "crisis of identity," and is calling for a Canadian identity to be forged through "multiculturalism and multiculturalism." - -He said he believes that's the best way to ensure a healthy, prosperous, meaningful future for the country. - -"I think that's the best way to ensure that the kind of multiculturalism that I believe in, that I think makes us a great country, that we will have success, we will have stability, that we will have freedom for all, and I think that will be the most successful form of multiculturalism that Canada and the world has ever seen," he said. - -Hodges said he supports the current government's immigration and refugee policies. - -He added, however, that he wants to see Canada's immigration system more "open." - -"I think that we have to have more open immigration policies. I think that we have to have more welcome governments ... And I think that's what we need to do." - -'We're not the Sahara' - -Hodges, a part-time -======================================== SAMPLE 468 ======================================== -Week 12 was relatively quiet for fantasy football, but the injury bug is back. We're already starting to see a few players on the injury report for Week 13, and there's no doubt that the Cowboys will see several players on the PUP list coming out of their bye week. - -Let's take a look at the players who are most likely to return to action in Week 13: - -Quarterback - -Tyrod Taylor (shoulder): Tyrod Taylor is the only starting quarterback on the Cowboys' active roster, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him appear on the injury report for Week 13. Taylor has been dealing with shoulder soreness for the last several weeks, and the latest news says that he'll be limited in practice for the next few days. He's not expected to play against the Chiefs, but it's possible that he could miss a few weeks. - -Running Back - -Mark Ingram (ribs): Ingram is expected to play in Week 13, but he is not expected to return to practice on Wednesday. The Giants are still unsure about Ingram's status, but they say that he is improving. If Ingram can't go, Shane Vereen should get the start in his place. - -Chris Thompson (knee): Chris Thompson has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. The Cardinals would likely like to see Thompson practice on Wednesday before making a decision, but it is unlikely that he would be ready for Thursday's game. - -Wide Receiver - -Dez Bryant (concussion): Dez Bryant is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to be back within the next few days. Bryant is dealing with a concussion and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. He's expected to be cleared in time for Week 14, but it is possible that he could miss some time. - -Davante Adams (hamstring): Davante Adams is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he wasn't listed on the injury report this week. He had been dealing with knee soreness, which will make him questionable for Week 13. - -Breshad Perriman (ankle): Breshad Perriman is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to be back in time for it. He's dealing with ankle soreness and is officially listed as questionable. - -Tight End - -James Casey (shoulder): James Casey will return to the lineup in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Casey is dealing with shoulder soreness, which is not a good sign for his return to the lineup. - -Josh Hill (knee): Josh Hill is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Hill has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Wide Receiver - -Danny Amendola (ankle): Amendola has been dealing with ankle soreness for the past few weeks and is officially listed as questionable for Week 13. He's dealing with a knee injury, so it's doubtful that he will play on Thursday against the Chiefs. - -Andrew Hawkins (foot): Andrew Hawkins is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Hawkins has been dealing with foot soreness and is officially listed as questionable. - -Tight End - -Scott Chandler (ankle): Scott Chandler is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Chandler has been dealing with ankle soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Tight End - -Larry Donnell (knee): Larry Donnell is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Donnell has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Tre McBride (ankle): Tre McBride is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. McBride has been dealing with ankle soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Wide Receiver - -Jordy Nelson (knee): Jordy Nelson is expected to play in Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Nelson has been dealing with knee soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Robby Anderson (shoulder): Robby Anderson is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on Thursday against the Chiefs. Anderson has been dealing with shoulder soreness for the last few weeks and is officially listed as questionable. - -Tight End - -Zach Miller (ankle): Zach Miller is officially listed as questionable for Week 13, but he's not expected to play on -======================================== SAMPLE 469 ======================================== -Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur have both been in talks with the player's father over a potential move. - -Jurgen Klopp's side have already snapped up the Germany Under-21 international striker, while Spurs are also keen to add him to their ranks. - -And according to Tuttosport (h/t Football Italia), the player's father, Jurgen, has also been in talks with the Anfield club and the Championship outfit. - -The report also claims Jurgen Klopp has been in close contact with the player's mother, who is close with the player's agent. - -The 24-year-old has been in and out of the first-team picture at the German club since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2013. - -He has scored just one goal in his last 18 appearances and been consistently linked with a move away from the club. - -See the latest Serie A predictions and betting tips with Eurotips.co.uk<|endoftext|>Tina Fey is a funny woman. She's funny because she's a true Hollywood funny woman. She's funny because she's a serious comedian. This is a woman who once had to explain to a reporter why she doesn't talk to reporters because, "I don't want to be an asshole." - -But yesterday, Fey took to Twitter and gave the world a glimpse into her life and her thoughts on the presidential election. Her tweet, which was sent after Donald Trump's speech about his plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, got a lot of attention. Let's just say that a lot of people, including the President of the United States, weren't happy. - -Yes, it's true that President Trump, in his speech, accused Hillary Clinton of being "the most corrupt candidate ever." He also called her the "most corrupt person ever" and "the most incompetent person ever" (in Trump's mind) to run for the presidency. - -But not everyone is happy about the speech. A number of people have called Fey out for her remarks. Why? Because the comments Trump made are disrespectful towards women. They're disrespectful towards Mexicans. They're disrespectful towards Muslims. They're disrespectful towards prisoners of war. They're disrespectful towards military veterans. They're disrespectful towards the disabled, and they're disrespectful towards the poor and middle class. - -Here are some of the most notable tweets from people who were not happy with Fey's remarks, as well as some of the people who were. - -Hey @TinaFey, I'm a woman. I'm in my 50s, a single mother. I have a degree. And I've seen your show. And I've heard you talk about women in your comedy. And I'm a single mother with a degree. Do you think I deserve respect or do you think I'm just a punchline? pic.twitter.com/1qCj5JXz1I — Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) September 1, 2016 - -In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. - -In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. - -In a tweet, comedian Amanda Marcotte called out Fey for her "patronizing" comments about women and the disabled. - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September 1, 2016 - -@TinaFey you're a victim of your own success. That's all. — Lizzie Dearden (@LizzieDearden) September -======================================== SAMPLE 470 ======================================== -I walked down the street in New York once. It's a pretty good suburb of Manhattan, home to many of the city's most prominent and well-known landmarks. I was riding my bike and I noticed these two very tall, very thin men standing in the middle of the street. One of them looked at me with great interest and said, "How tall are you?" I replied, "Oh, I'm 5'8". The other guy said, "Well, I'm 6'2". He looked at me again, smiled, and said, "Well, I'm 6'4". What happened next was a classic example of social status signaling. - -I found myself facing the taller guy, who looked like a rich and powerful figure in the community. I knew he was taller than me. I knew he was taller than the other guy. I knew the other guy was taller than me. It was a classic social status signaling situation. - -In this situation, one guy was trying to signal social status. He was trying to say, "I'm taller than you, so I am more important than you." The other guy is trying to say, "I'm smaller than you, so I am less important than you." - -The people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are usually people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to get ahead in life are usually people who are trying to become dominant in their community. - -The people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are usually people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are usually people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. - -It turns out that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -Social Status Signaling: The Problem with Social Signaling - -It's interesting that it turns out that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -Social Status Signaling: The Solution - -To solve this problem, we have to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Instead, we need to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are trying to become more attractive and famous than the people they are competing with. - -Social Status Signaling: The Solution - -To solve this problem, we have to get over the idea that the people who are trying to make social status signaling happen are typically people who are trying to get ahead in life. The people who are trying to become dominant in their community are typically people who are trying to be more attractive and famous than the people they're competing with. - -This is a classic example of a situation where social status signaling happens. - -This is a classic example of -======================================== SAMPLE 471 ======================================== -Athletes have always been attracted to the sport of weightlifting. It is a sport that requires a vast amount of self discipline and is the perfect way to lose weight. And, for athletes, it is a sport that can provide them with the most significant competitive advantage over other athletes. Weightlifting has been used to improve several athletic abilities, including: - -Height - -Body fat - -Muscle mass - -Physical endurance - -And, it has been found to be an effective way to improve the health of an athlete. - -The following are some of the benefits most athletes have noticed from weightlifting. - -Height - -Height is a primary determinant of your height. If you are a short person, you will not be able to compete as an athlete. The following are some of the reasons weightlifting can give an edge to a short person: - -Weight lifting increases your muscle mass. - -Weight lifting increases your muscle mass. Height and muscle mass are related. - -Height and muscle mass are related. Weight lifting increases your body mass. - -Weight lifting increases your body mass. Weight lifting increases your height. - -Height and muscle mass are related. Weight lifting increases your height and reduces your body fat. - -Weight lifting increases your height and reduces your body fat. Weight lifting improves your body composition. - -Weight lifting improves your body composition. Weight lifting improves your body composition. Height and muscle mass are related. - -Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. - -Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. - -Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and muscle mass are related. Height and -======================================== SAMPLE 472 ======================================== -If you're a fan of "Breaking Bad" and have been in the market for a new TV to watch, you may be in luck. The hit show, which took some of the worst elements of the TV industry and turned them into a monster, is returning to AMC for a second season on Sunday, March 8. - -"Breaking Bad" is the most-watched scripted series on cable, with ratings that have been on pace to beat last year's numbers and put it among the most watched shows on television. - -According to the Variety report, "Breaking Bad" is averaging 11.8 million viewers per episode. The ratings are and have been staggering. The show has attracted a huge audience for its second season, with the ratings showing that the show is able to attract a large audience that can be quite hard to find on cable. - -If you're looking for a change of pace, you may be looking into a new show. - -You may be thinking, "What about The Walking Dead?" The show, currently airing it's second season on AMC, is currently the most watched cable show on television. - -Dead is the top cable show, with 7.9 million viewers. Not too shabby. - -But if you're on cable, you're in luck. The Walking Dead is the top cable show on television. - -The show, which premiered its first season in October, is drawing more than 10 million viewers per episode. The Walking Dead draws an average of 13.1 million viewers per episode. - -With a large audience, "Breaking Bad" is able to attract a large number of viewers. AMC is making sure that the show will make its way to viewers as the season progresses. - -The show is already in it's second season, so AMC is currently in the process of working on a way to make sure the show is available to viewers. Presumably, AMC will want to make sure that the show will be available to viewers for the entire season. - -According to Variety, "Breaking Bad" has not yet been picked up for a third season.<|endoftext|>The first thing you'll notice about the new series of Doctor Who is that it's a lot more fun. - -Peter Capaldi's Doctor has been replaced with a new one, and it's no bad thing. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -The first episode of this new series, The Bells of Saint John, sees Capaldi's Doctor (who we haven't yet met) continue the adventures of his predecessor - but with a little more humour. - -"The show itself will get a little more frankly funny as a result of this change," Capaldi told Digital Spy at Comic Con. - -"I think the first episode is actually the first episode that, you know, is a bit more funny." - -The new Doctor is played by Matt Smith, who has already had a few off-screen adventures of his own. - -"He's always been a kind of gregarious, easy-going character," Capaldi said. - -"He's had a lot of fun with the people around him, and we can see that in the first episode." - -And we can see that in the first episode too. There are some funny lines, and some great special effects, but there are also some moments of horror. - -"There's a good bit of that," Capaldi said. "It's a little bit dark, but it's done in a way that I think is quite scary. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -"It's a lot of fun, it's really interesting. It's a good way of getting into the character of the Doctor." - -Capaldi said that it was "nice" to have a new Doctor, and that he was "really happy" to take over the role. - -"I'm really delighted to be playing the Doctor, and it's a great part to be in," he said. - -"It's a really big part of my life, and that's why I wanted to do it, and I wanted to play it." - -However, Capaldi said that he'll be very different to the last Doctor. - -"I'm not like the last Doctor in any way, shape or form. I'm not a mad scientist at all, and I'm not a sadist like Peter Davison," he said. - -"I'm a very kind, loving, caring person. I'm an actor who likes to have fun. I'm a man of many talents." - -We've no idea who the new Doctor is yet, but Capaldi has promised that it will be "a surprise". - -"I don't want to spoil it for people," he said. "It's going to be a surprise to people, I'm sure, but it's going to be an exciting time." - -What do you think of the new Doctor? Let us know in the comments section below... -======================================== SAMPLE 473 ======================================== -Founded by two brothers in 1906, Good Times was the first restaurant in San Francisco to serve alcohol on site. The owners' first venture was a restaurant at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. In 1922, the brothers opened their own establishment on the corner of Jewett and Jones streets, with a bar, and in 1928, a second bar, called the Good Times Saloon, was added. - -The Good Times Saloon was originally called the Good Times Saloon and charged $1.25 for a pint of beer. The saloon closed in January 1942 after a long run with patrons. The original and second Good Times Saloons were both located at the corner of Ashbury and Haight, and one of the most popular spots for locals to gather was located just a few blocks north of the original establishment. - -The Great Depression began in 1929, and many people were unemployed at that time. After the Great Depression, the saloon was closed for good and the Good Times Saloon Company was purchased by the National Beer Wholesalers Association in 1935. The company then consolidated all of its operations and renamed it the Good Time Brewing Co. - -The Good Time Brewing Co. changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. in 1918 when it began to brew beer. In 1929, the company began producing and selling the "Good Time" brand of beer. In 1933, the company changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. again when it began to produce and sell the "Good Time" brand of beer again. - -In 1962, the company changed its name to Good Time Brewing Co. again when it began to produce and sell the "Good Time" brand of beer again. Good Time was sold to the Knob Creek Brewing Co. in 1965. The company was sold to the Anheuser-Busch Co. in 1969. In 1976, the company changed its name to Anheuser-Busch InBev. The brewery eventually changed its name to AB InBev in 1994. The company began to sell beer in the United States in 1992, when it bought a majority stake in the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco. In 2000, AB InBev acquired a controlling interest in the SABMiller brewing company. - -Good Time Brewing Co. was sold in 2002 to the Russian River Brewing Co. in San Francisco, which renamed the brewery to Russian River Brewing Co. in 2005. The brewery began brewing beer in 2008, and in 2011, the brewery began producing beers under the name Russian River Brewing Co. in collaboration with Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa, California. In 2015, Russian River Brewing Co. sold the brewery to Heineken International for $1.2 billion. - -The brewery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. - -The brewery's website states that it is open 7 days a week and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -Spellbreaker - -Spellbreaker is a leveled Daedric artifact that increases the Spellbreaker enchantment of weapons and shields. - -Acquisition [ edit ] - -Spellbreaker can be obtained from a Daedric jarl or a hero of the Stormcloak Rebellion for a bounty of 10,000 gold. - -If you are a Daedra worshipper, it may be possible to raise the bounty to 200,000 gold by killing the jarl or hero. - -Enchanting [ edit ] - -Spellbreaker can be upgraded with an infusions kit. In order to learn how to craft this item, you must first learn to craft the Infusion Stone and Infusion Shield. - -Notes [ edit ]<|endoftext|>This is a story that's been going around for a long time, but when I heard that it was actually the game that was used to create the "Star Wars" music, I couldn't believe it. - -It turns out that "The Empire Strikes Back" was used as the score for this game called "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" (it was a direct sequel to the original game being released way back in 1983). And according to this story, you can actually play the original game if you know how to get at it. - -But the game isn't actually just a copy of the movie score. Instead, it's a sound demo of the game, apparently created to show off the capabilities of the current generation of consoles. - -Advertisement - -Here's the story: - -Advertisement - -The game, which was created by Lucas Arts, was actually originally released on the Super Nintendo. The game was developed back in 1983, but it was never released on the Super Nintendo because it was too difficult for the system. The game was released on the Atari 2600. - -This version of the game, which was also released on the Atari 2600, lets you play as either Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. You pilot a TIE -======================================== SAMPLE 474 ======================================== -Bertrand Russell once wrote, "I am not a philosopher, but I am a man." A philosopher is someone who has developed a philosophy. Russell's point was that philosophy is important, but it's not the only tool in the toolbox. - -I don't subscribe to that view, although I think it's a fine one. Philosophy is important, and it's essential to the development of a thoughtful mind. But it's not the only tool in that toolbox. It's important that we have other tools. - -In fact, I'll be writing a book this year that provides a list of twenty other tools in the toolbox. It's called "20 Tools of the Mind." - -It's not a complete list, but it's a good starting point. So here it is, in no particular order: - -1. An open mind. - -2. A willingness to be wrong. - -3. A willingness to view the world through a different lens. - -4. A willingness to examine your own assumptions. - -5. A willingness to examine the world from another perspective. - -6. A willingness to be inspired. - -7. A willingness to be humble. - -8. A willingness to seek a better outcome in the face of difficult circumstances. - -9. An appreciation for nature and its beauty. - -10. A willingness to consider new possibilities. - -11. An ability to learn. - -12. An ability to think critically. - -13. A willingness to make mistakes. - -14. A willingness to take criticism. - -15. A willingness to change. - -16. A willingness to take responsibility. - -17. A willingness to be flexible. - -18. A willingness to be honest. - -19. A willingness to speak your mind. - -20. A willingness to take responsibility. - -I'd love to hear what your favorite tool of the mind is. Tweet me @julianne_shieber or let me know on Facebook.<|endoftext|>The most commonly asked question we get here at the Farm is about how to work with beer yeast. We've written about yeast before, but this is a good time to delve deeper into the subject. - -The most common yeast species used by homebrewers are Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pediococcus. These species are often referred to as "wild yeast" because they are not cultivated under controlled conditions. They are normally only found in wild settings, and so they are often referred to as "wild" yeast. They replicate very poorly in the brewery, but can be used to make beer. The most common way to use these yeasts is to ferment beer with them. This means that you must have a starter of beer yeast (a starter is a sterile environment in which the yeast can reproduce). - -But if you want to make beer with wild yeast, you have to have a starter. - -But how do you get a starter? - -Starting a starter is a two-step process. First you must inoculate the beer with a yeast culture. Then you must wait for the beer to ferment. The reason this process is more involved than a standard yeast starter is that you must use a liquid culture. If you were to use yeast that is grown on agar plates, you would have to pitch the liquid culture into your beer. This is only done because agar plate cultures are difficult to use. You can also use liquid culture as a starter, but it is not necessary, and you must use a liquid culture or you will never get a yeast starter. - -But what can you use to inoculate the beer? - -As we mentioned in our post about wild yeast, you can use a powdery yeast called Wine Ale Yeast. This yeast is available at most homebrew shops. You can also use a liquid yeast called Wyeast. This yeast is available directly from Wyeast as well. While these two options are both good options, they are not the same. - -So what's the difference? - -Wine Ale Yeast is a powder. This yeast is available in a bag. It is a very good quality liquid yeast, but it is very difficult to use for starters. The problem with this yeast is that it doesn't seem to be very active. It's very good in fermenting beer, but it is very slow to grow. It's also not a very well-known yeast, so it's difficult to find in homebrew shops. - -Wyeast is a liquid yeast. This yeast is available in a can. It is a great liquid yeast, but it is very active. It will grow rapidly when used as a starter, but it will also grow quickly when added to beer. It also has a longer shelf life than Wine Ale Yeast. - -So which one should I use? - -It's important to use the right yeast for the right purpose. If you're starting -======================================== SAMPLE 475 ======================================== -As a result of the recent recession and the resulting lack of demand in the US, the price of oil is ailing and it is already at the lowest point in the last 40 years. As the price of oil falls, and the US economy continues to struggle, it is possible that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. - -The effect of a rise in interest rates on the economy is often seen as a negative one, since higher interest rates tend to reduce disposable income and increase consumer debt. However, some economists argue that higher interest rates create an opportunity for the economy to recover and that this is a positive effect on the economy. - -Is the US the only country which could benefit from raising interest rates? - -In the early 2000s there was a huge amount of debate about whether raising interest rates would be a good thing for the US economy. The main argument against the idea of raising interest rates, which was made by economists such as Paul Krugman and Robert Gordon, was that it would mean less borrowing and less spending, which would lead to less economic growth and less employment. - -However, as the US economy has struggled to recover from a recession which began in 2009, and as the US economy continues to struggle with the effects of the recent recession, it is becoming apparent that the economy could benefit from a rise in interest rates. - -One of the main reasons that the US economy has been able to grow since 2009 is that the US Federal Reserve has been increasing the monetary base. This would mean that the US central bank would allow banks to increase the amount of money that they keep on deposit. The Federal Reserve has been increasing the money base by $10 trillion a year since 2009, but currently only has $4.9 trillion in circulation. This has meant that the US government has been able to borrow money more cheaply, and this has led to an increase in the US dollar's value. - -A rise in interest rates would mean that the US dollar would lose value - -If the Federal Reserve increased the money base again, it would mean that interest rates would rise, which would mean that the value of the US dollar would fall. The value of the dollar has already fallen massively since the financial crisis in 2008, and if the Federal Reserve were to raise interest rates it would mean that the dollar's value would continue to fall. - -A rise in interest rates would also mean that the US government would be able to borrow more money at lower interest rates, which would mean that it would become more competitive. This means that Americans would be able to afford to spend more and that the economy would be able to grow faster. - -A rise in interest rates would mean that the US economy could have recovered and become more competitive - -However, this argument does not take into account the possibility that the US economy could have recovered and become more competitive. If the US economy had grown as quickly as it has grown since 2009, then it would be easy for the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and stop the erosion in the value of the dollar. - -However, as the US economy continues to struggle to recover, it is becoming clear that the US is not the only country in the world which could benefit from raising interest rates. - -If the US is to recover, it will need to rely more and more on economic growth - -Other countries may also benefit from raising interest rates. If the oil price falls, these countries will have less economic growth and may also have a loss of competitiveness. However, the United States has a much larger GDP than many of these other countries, so allowing companies to borrow cheaply will not necessarily mean that the US government will be able to borrow more cheaply. - -If the US economy continues to struggle, it may be that the US Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates - -There are also many who argue that raising interest rates does not help the US economy. In particular, many believe that raising interest rates will not help the US economy because it will mean that the US Federal Reserve will lose money. - -However, if the economy continues to struggle and if the Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates, then it could be that the US Federal Reserve will decide that it would be better for the US economy if it did not increase interest rates. This would mean that the US economy could continue to struggle, but it would not be able to recover as quickly, so the US economy would be on its own. - -If the US economy continues to struggle and if the Federal Reserve does not want to raise interest rates, then it could be that the US economy could continue to struggle, but it would not be able to recover as quickly, so the US economy would be on its own - -Another issue is whether the US Federal Reserve should be raising interest rates. This is because there are many economists who argue that raising interest rates could have negative effects on the economy. One example is that it could cause the economy to shrink if over-valued assets are bought by the Federal Reserve. Another example would be -======================================== SAMPLE 476 ======================================== -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -"What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin?" - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the point of a 'high' when you're still a virgin? - -What is the -======================================== SAMPLE 477 ======================================== -[Update: The video is now available.] - - -The city of Seattle is looking to make it easier for people to live and work in the city. Their Councilmember Mike O'Brien is a co-sponsor of both the Seattle Housing Levy and the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA). - - -And now the city is looking to make it easier for people to rent one of the city's approximately 200,000 apartments. - -On February 9th, the city council will hear testimony about the proposed changes. About 120 people from the public speaking and community outreach groups that have been working on the changes will testify. - - -The hearing starts at 11:30am at City Hall. - -The city is seeking input from the public before proposing any of the changes. They will then submit them to the council for consideration. - -Here's what the city is looking for in changes. - -Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda - -Increase the maximum rent to the equivalent of market rate (or offer some other non-discriminatory rent adjustment) - -Allow vacant rental units to be rented at market rate - -Require landlords to provide a copy of their lease, if they rent to someone who is not a member of the family, to the tenant - -Require landlords to notify tenants of any rent increases, if they exceed 5% per year - -Any landlord that does not comply with the requirements above may be subject to a building permit revocation and fines. - -These changes would be in addition to the provisions of the Seattle Housing Levy, which the city is currently reviewing. - -Here's a statement from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods about the hearing. - -This hearing will be a critical opportunity for Seattle's residents and businesses to influence the City Council's decisions on the Seattle Housing Levy and the Seattle Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda. - -If you have a comment, a question, or want to ask a question, you can do it here.<|endoftext|>I get a lot of questions about this. I learn new stuff every day and get to work with new people. So of course I'm going to post more from time to time, but I wanted to put together a more comprehensive guide for those who might be interested. - -The main goal is to help you get your feet wet, so you can use the knowledge you get in this guide to come up with the next best thing. - -What I'm here to do is give you a toolbox. I'm going to give you the tools that you need to work with the capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I'm not going to tell you how to use them. You need to figure that out for yourself, because that's what this guide is about. - -I'm going to break down the basics of each of the tools in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux toolbox. I'm going to give you the prerequisite skills, to get you started. - -I'll cover the basics of using the tools, and then get into how to use the tools. - -This isn't just a bunch of tutorials, I've gone over what each of the tools is capable of. I'll explain what the different commands mean, and I'll explain what the output from each command is. I'll explain the different types of output you can get from each command, so you can use the tools to accomplish a variety of tasks. - -Then I'll give you the tools in a list, as well as an example of how to use each tool. By the end of this article, you should be well on your way to using all of the tools Red Hat Enterprise Linux has to offer. - -The first tool I want to start with is the RPM (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) package manager. I've been using RPM for a while to package various components of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I'm going to create a new folder in your home directory, and I'll use that folder as my RPM package repository. - -I'm going to create a new directory called rpm. This is where I will put the RPMs that will be delivered to you. I'm going to use the same directory structure as I've used for the command line tools. - -Create an empty directory called rpm. - -sudo mkdir rpm - -After you create the directory, I want to create a file called cd_rpm. This is the command that will create the RPMs. - -sudo touch cd_rpm - -I'm going to do this in the directory where I create the RPMs. - -cd_rpm - -Now I'm going to create a file called package. This is the directory where the RPMs will be stored. - -sudo touch package - -Now I'm going to create a file called rpm_up. This is where I will load the RPMs. - -sudo touch rpm_up - -Now I'm going to create a file called rpm. This is the directory -======================================== SAMPLE 478 ======================================== -"I don't know if it's necessary to say, but it's necessary to say," Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in response to a petition for people to urge Congress to reject the "Sunshine Policy" that would allow medical marijuana in states that have already legalized it. - -The petition, signed by more than 100,000 people, asserts that "the United States is the only industrialized country on Earth that does not allow its citizens to use medical marijuana." - -"The federal government should not undermine state law by criminalizing marijuana, but should instead work with the states to provide patients with the safe and affordable medicine they need," the petition reads. - -The policy, which was first introduced in 2011, allows the distribution of medical marijuana in states that legalize it — a provision often referred to as the "Sunshine Policy" — with federal permission. - -But some people who rely on medical marijuana for pain management have said that they would rather not see it legalized in their states, fearing that it would lead to more rampant abuse. - -"We've lost the war on drugs. It's not working," Goodlatte said. "It's time to move on and we should just respect state laws." - -Polls show Americans are increasingly supportive of medical marijuana. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in October, more than half of Americans (54 percent) support legalizing medical marijuana nationwide, and more than one-third (36 percent) of Americans support the use of medical marijuana if it is available on the state level. - -The petition was also signed by representatives from Alaska, Colorado, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.<|endoftext|>Hey, so that's a bit of a long winded way to say "hey it's been a while". It's been a while since I've posted anything on Reddit and a few of my dreams have either fallen through or are on hold for the time being. - -However I have been busy with other projects and as I've mentioned before I have been working on a few things for the Summer. - -So if you're a fan of my work you'll probably know that I've been working on a few different projects for the past 6 months. - -Well before I realised that I had the ability to make games I wanted to make games all the time. I was pretty much immersed in it and had my first love nailed. - -I had a few technical issues however and I ended up having to quit everything to work on this. So in just under 6 months I made a game I was happy with. - -It became all too easy to get carried away and make games I wasn't proud of but I was determined to keep making games. - -And I'm still doing that. - -So if you're reading this and you're a fan of my work and the games I make then I would be grateful if you would subscribe. - -It may not be an easy thing to do but if you do it I can promise you that I will try my best to keep you updated with what I'm working on, what I'm learning and what new things I've been working on. - -Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think. - --Solus<|endoftext|>Recently, a new version of the Android app that offers a way to share media files between Android devices has been released. The new version lets users to share files directly from the shared folder on their Android device. - -The new version of Google Drive is available on Android devices version 4.4 and above, and also on the desktop version of Google Drive. The app is now available on the Google Play Store. - -The new version of Google Drive supports video, audio and image files of up to 2 GB in size. The app will then automatically create an image file for each file that is uploaded, which can be shared with others on the app. The app also offers a way to move files between devices. - -Google Drive also allows users to manage files on other Google platforms, such as the Chrome browser and the Google Docs app. The app supports Android's new file picker feature, which allows users to select and view files stored in the Google Drive storage app from other applications and services. - -You can get the latest version of the Google Drive app from Google Play Store. - -Also read: Android O's new file picker in the works<|endoftext|>I was recently asked a question by a person who was looking for the benefits of using ZFS. I am not sure if I can give the full explanation, but in a nutshell the person was looking for the "big picture" of how ZFS can be used. Well, the big picture was, it is easy to use, and it is very good at avoiding data corruption, but as I have been using Z -======================================== SAMPLE 479 ======================================== -A new study suggests that testosterone may be the key to preventing a range of age-related diseases, from Alzheimer's to heart disease. - -Testosterone, which is produced in the testes, is the most widely used hormone because it is thought to have a protective effect against many age-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and hypertension. - -But it's not clear how testosterone affects age-related diseases. The new study, by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, finds that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of age-related disease by increasing the lifespan and reducing the risk of death. - -"One of the big questions we wanted to answer was whether testosterone could reduce the risk of dying from certain age-related diseases or increase the lifespan," said lead researcher Dr. Tom Logan. - -The researchers set out to answer this question by surveying 5,000 men over the age of 75, a group with a high incidence of some age-related diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The investigators followed the participants for 10 years to see how they fared in terms of their health and mortality. - -They found that the men who had higher testosterone levels had a lower risk of death from all age-related diseases, especially coronary heart disease and cancer. - -"It's clear that you can expect to see these beneficial effects of testosterone in healthy older men, but it's not clear how these effects are mediated," Logan said. - -Logan and his team suggest that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of dying from various diseases by increasing the lifespan and reducing the risk of death. - -For example, studies have found that testosterone levels may help to increase the lifespan of mice. Also, testosterone is known to protect against heart disease in men, so Logan and his team suggest that testosterone may help to reduce the risk of dying of heart-related diseases, which include heart attacks and strokes. - -"It's not just the good news of a longer life, but a reduced risk of death in general [from heart disease]," Logan said. - -Logan's study is published in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease. - -Source: Manchester Metropolitan University - -Age-Related Diseases May Be Mediated by Testosterone<|endoftext|>Clarence Thomas' career has been defined by a 'stiff upper lip', 'pragmatism' and a devotion to the Constitution to the point of self-immolation. He's currently the most disliked Supreme Court Justice since the Great Depression. - -But here's the thing: Although Thomas may be the most hated figure in the history of the Supreme Court, he's also one of the most effective. His scathing dissent in Arizona v. United States, a case that upheld President Obama's controversial executive amnesty, is an important reminder of the power of the Court's conservative bloc. And it's also a reminder that Thomas' power is not limited to his vote in Arizona v. United States, but extends to what he does as a justice. - -At issue in Arizona v. United States is a series of cases challenging the constitutionality of the President's unilateral move to send millions of illegal immigrants to the interior of the United States. The President's action was taken without even consulting Congress. The case is now before the Supreme Court. - -The President's actions are illegal – and unconstitutional. - -The President cannot simply ignore the law. He must faithfully execute the laws he is sworn to uphold. - -In Arizona v. United States, the Court held that the Executive Branch may not disregard two federal statutes – the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Refugee Act of 1980. In addition, the Court held that the President's unilateral action to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits Congress from requiring the President to take any action that "respects religious beliefs or moral convictions of the persons to whom such action would be committed." - -Although the Court ruling is bad news for the President, it's good news for the nation. It's a reminder that just as the Founding Fathers intended, the political branches of the federal government must cooperate to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed. The Supreme Court's decision is only half the story – the other half is that the President's actions are illegal – and unconstitutional. - -The President has acted without proper authority, and therefore the Executive Branch itself has ceased to be a legitimate instrument of the people's will. - -The President's action is illegal – and the Constitution does not grant him authority to do so. - -The President's action is illegal because the President has exceeded his authority – he has exceeded the scope of his authority as President. The Constitution is clear that the President cannot exercise power outside his or her constitutional authority. - -But what the Court failed to recognize is that the President's actions are also unconstitutional. The President has acted without proper authority, and therefore the Executive Branch itself has ceased to be a legitimate instrument of the people's will. -======================================== SAMPLE 480 ======================================== -You will need to add the script to your project, but as a general rule you can add a script to each project. The script will automatically be added to the project's requirement.txt file.<|endoftext|>by - -A few months ago, I wrote about the immense difficulties in creating a sex-positive feminist sex movement – a post that has received an enormous amount of feedback, and has been the subject of much discussion. I also wrote about the difference between a feminist sex movement and a sex-positive feminist movement, and how it might be possible for us to make the former a success. - -I was trying to show how difficult it would be for a sex-positive movement to come to power, and that our best chance of making it happen is to make it as inclusive as possible. But I didn't go far enough with the discussion. There was a broader question that I didn't address: what does it mean to be a sexual-positive feminist? - -What does it mean to be a sexual-positive feminist? - -It's quite a simple thing to define, really. Basically, it means that you don't believe that women are sexual objects, and that you believe that men are sexual beings too. In my experience, this is the definition of most feminists. It is what most feminists believe, and it is the definition which I myself have applied to my own politics. - -In my experience, sex-positive feminism involves a lot of thinking about men and women as sexual beings. It is about trying to understand why men and women interact the way they do. It's about trying to understand the ways in which men are socialised to engage in sexual behaviour, and the ways in which women are socialised to be passive, or to be able to give and not get, or to be shut out of other people's sexual interests and desires. It's about trying to understand the ways in which men are culturally sexually objectified and sexually objectified women. It's about trying to understand why we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women. It's about trying to understand why men are expected to be sexual and women not. And it's about trying to understand why men are expected to be sexual but not women. It's about trying to understand why we are sexual and not sexual, and why we have been sexual but not women. - -Sex-positive feminism is, I think, a pretty straightforward approach to understanding how men and women function as sexual beings. It is very pragmatic, and it is particularly relevant to the fact that women are sexual objects. It is particularly relevant to the fact that we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women, and to the fact that we are socialised to expect and desire sexual arousal from men, but not from women. Sex-positive feminism is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of women involves a variety of different theories, and it is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of men involves a variety of different theories. Sex-positive feminism is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of men involves a variety of different theories, and it is about understanding how sexual objectification and sexual objectification of women involves a variety of different theories. - -Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women are socialised to engage in sexual behaviour, and how women are socialised to be passive, or to be shut out of other people's sexual interests and desires. - -Sex-positive feminism is also a sound practical approach to the question of why men and women behave the way they do. I have seen it work everywhere from the sex-positive feminist sex movement, to the activist women's movement, to a radical feminist movement, to radical feminist sex activism. - -In short, sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand the ways in which men and women function as sexual beings, and it is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do. - -But it is not just about understanding men and women as sexual beings. Sex-positive feminism is also about understanding why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. - -Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. - -Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how they think about themselves and each other, about what they believe and are uncomfortable with, about how they behave towards other people, and about how they relate to society. - -Sex-positive feminism is about trying to understand why men and women behave the way they do, about how -======================================== SAMPLE 481 ======================================== -By JAMES HENDERSON - -Staff Writer - -NEW YORK — A 16-year-old boy was arrested Saturday evening after threatening to kill a man in the Bronx, according to the police. - -The boy, who is minors, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, both felonies, police said. - -The boy was at a Bronx park when he made the threat to the man, who is a neighbor, police said. - -The man told police that he was walking his dog on the nearby West Side Highway about 7:40 p.m. when a man walked up to him and said, "You have a dog? What kind of dog? Where you from?" - -The man told police that the boy then pulled out a black gun and pointed it at the man, who was walking his dog, police said. - -The man then called 911 and called the boy's mother, who then called police. - -The boy was taken into custody at the Bronx-Roosevelt Hospital Center. - -He was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail. - -The New York City Law Department said it could not release the boy's name because of his age. He is being held at an alternative detention facility.<|endoftext|>The US military's world-beating F-22 Raptor fighter jet is the most expensive weapons system ever built. But it's not getting any cheaper. - -The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it's planning to buy 87 more F-22s — the same number the Air Force won't be using. - -The F-22s are the most advanced planes built to date. They have been in use by the Air Force since 2002, when the US military first bought them. - -Each F-22 costs about $80 million and can fly at twice the speed of sound — faster than any other aircraft in the world. - -The F-22 was supposed to have been retired by now, but the Air Force refuses to do so, because the plane is so impressive. - -"The F-22 is the most capable and advanced air superiority fighter aircraft in the world," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a statement Wednesday. - -"The F-22 is truly a game-changing aircraft that will save lives and make our airmen more effective and safer in the air." - -The service wants to buy as many as 87 F-22s. The Air Force is already buying 78 F-22s; it's not clear how many it will buy in the future. - -Last month, the Air Force announced it will buy up to 187 F-22s for as many as $1.5 billion. - -All the F-22s in the Air Force fleet are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which is the sole supplier of the plane. The F-22 program cost about $102 billion up front, plus another $19 billion to operate and support the planes. - -Lockheed Martin has been working to speed up the production of more F-22s, but the Air Force has been slow to approve the new production plans. - -Lockheed Martin has said it needs to ramp up the F-22 production line by about seven years to keep up with the Air Force's production schedule. - -The F-22's production line has been operating at a breakneck pace since the program was first announced in 1997. But the pace has slowed since then, and production has fallen from its peak of 1,400 F-22s in 2007. - -Lockheed Martin's F-22 program manager David Deptula said the company will continue to invest in the plane and continue to "meet or exceed" the authority's production targets. - -"The F-22 continues to be the world's best air superiority fighter," he said in a statement Wednesday. - -The F-22 is the most advanced plane built to date. It can fly faster than sound. - -The F-22's speed is so fast, it can rival the speed of sound. The jet can fly at two times the speed of sound, or Mach 1.2 — faster than any other aircraft in the world. - -It also has stealth technology, which allows it to remain undetected by radar. - -The F-22 is so advanced it can be flown by only one pilot, who has to handle all weapon systems from the ground. - -The Air Force says the F-22 is the most capable and advanced air superiority fighter aircraft in the world. - -"The F-22 is truly a game-changing aircraft that will save lives and make our airmen more effective and safer in the air," said James.<|endoftext|>I have been told that when I write an article about "women in tech," it's often met with a slew of comments, some helpful, some hurtful, and some downright rude. This is, of course, not unique to me or to the industry -======================================== SAMPLE 482 ======================================== -I snuck into the office and checked my email. I was expecting a message from the CEO. Instead I got a message from my mom. - -"He's been fired," she wrote. - -I was startled. - -"What?" I asked. - -"He's been fired," she wrote. - -"What?" I asked again. - -"He's been fired." - -"What?" I asked. - -"He's been fired. He was fired for being on the phone with you." - -I was stunned. - -"Why?" I asked. - -"You didn't show up for work today," she wrote. "We were going to fire him." - -I was stunned. - -"That's not true," I said. - -"Oh, for God's sake, stop lying to me," she wrote. "What kind of horrible, twisted, evil person do you think I am? I'm not some evil person. I'm a good person." - -I was stunned. - -"Mom," I said. "I didn't do anything wrong." - -"What kind of horrible, twisted, evil person do you think I am?" she wrote. - -"What?" I asked again. "You didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I was on the phone with you." - -"Mom, you don't know me! I'm not some horrible, twisted, evil person!" - -"You're lying!" she wrote. - -"No, I wasn't lying," I replied. "I was just on the phone with you, and I was getting a package." - -"No, you didn't get a package. I was on the phone with you!" she wrote. - -"No, Mom, I didn't get a package," I said again. - -"I'll be darned!" she wrote. "You didn't get anything." - -I was stunned. - -"What?" I said. "What are you talking about?" - -"You don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. - -"I didn't get a package!" I said. "I didn't buy anything!" - -"No you didn't buy anything! You didn't buy anything!" she wrote. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" - -"Mom, I don't even have a package from Home Depot!" I said. - -"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. - -"I didn't buy anything!" I said again. - -"No, you didn't buy anything! You didn't buy anything!" she wrote. - -"Mom, you're lying!" I said. "I don't have a package from Home Depot!" - -"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" - -"Mom, you're lying!" I said again. - -"I'm not lying!" she wrote. - -"You don't have a package from Home Depot! You don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. - -"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. - -"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. - -"I didn't have a package from Home Depot!" she wrote. - -"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot!" I said again. - -"I didn't have a package from Home Depot!" she told me. - -"No, you didn't have a package from Home Depot," I said. "You were on the phone with me! You were on the phone with me!" - -"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. - -"You were on the phone with me!" she wrote. - -"NO, YOU WERE ON THE PHONE WITH ME!" I said again. "You were on the phone with me!" - -I was shocked. - -"WHAT? You were on the phone with me?" I asked. - -"No, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me, you weren't on the phone with me!" she wrote. - -"You weren't on the phone with me!" I said. "You weren't on the phone with me!" - -"I wasn't on the phone with you either!" she wrote. - -"I wasn't on the phone with you either!" I said. - -"I don't have a package from Home Depot!" I said. "I don't have a package from Home Depot!" - -"Oh, God, Mom, I don't -======================================== SAMPLE 483 ======================================== -(CNN) The federal government has been spending up to $2 million a day to monitor protests in Ferguson, Missouri, where a grand jury has just announced it will not indict an officer in the death of Michael Brown. - -But that money is not going toward public safety, but rather to the private security firms that have been hired to help police officers and others at the protests. - -The Department of Homeland Security is providing $2.2 million in federal grants to the St. Louis County Police Department to pay for the services of the Tactical Response Team and the National Guard. - -The grant, which is up to $2,000,000, went to the police department for the first six months, according to a police statement. It stops in September. - -The amount spent in August, September and October on the operation has more than tripled, to more than $3.7 million, according to the statement. - -The total cost of the policing operation is "still being determined," police said, but it includes "costs incurred by the St. Louis County Police Department, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the State Highway Patrol." - -The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. - -The money is being used to provide "a variety of equipment and services, such as armored vehicles, helicopters, and other equipment." - -Read More<|endoftext|>The New York Times has a long and interesting article on the history of the "social club," or, more precisely, the New York City social club (save for a few exceptions like the Metropolitan Opera). The Times draws on a variety of sources to argue convincingly that the social club was a ritualistic form of place-making, a way of creating a place for itself that functioned as a "republic of its own." In order to understand this, it is important to understand the history of the social club. - -The social club is perhaps the greatest invention of nineteenth-century New York. It was an invention of the city, not just of the people in it. It was a product of a particular time and a particular place, a town that was becoming the model city for others to follow. The social club had its origins in the early nineteenth century, when the city was a more homogenous place than it had been in previous centuries. The upper classes had been drawn to the city because it offered a wide variety of opportunities to meet as well as to socialize. As a result, many people were drawn to the city to be part of this social club. The social club grew as the city became more cosmopolitan, as the wealthy and the middle class began to move to the city from all over the country. The city's geography made it ideal for these people to live and work. The social club was a way to create a new venue for socializing. The social club functioned as a place where the upper class could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. - -The social club was a powerful institution in the city throughout the nineteenth century. In the 1840s, it was the primary venue for socializing, and it was the primary means of meeting women, among other groups. It served as a meeting place for business and professional men who wanted to circulate information about lucrative opportunities. It served as a place where the upper and middle class socialized with the working class. The social club was a place where the middle and upper classes could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. The social club was a place where the upper class could meet in a more intimate way with the lower classes. - -In the nineteenth century, the social club was a place where the upper class and the upper class were able to meet and socialize in a more formal and formal way. The social club was a way that the upper class could meet with the lower class and express their social superiority. It was a way that the upper and middle classes could meet with the lower classes and express their social inferiority. It was a way that middle and upper class men could meet with the working class, express their lack of social status, and indicate their desire to spend their time and their money on the working class. It was a way that the working class could meet with the upper class and express their social superiority. - -By the 1880s, the social club had become the primary venue for socializing in New York. The social club served as a way for the upper class to meet with the lower class. The social club served as a way for the upper class to meet with the lower class. The social clubs functioned as venues for socializing in New York. The social clubs functioned as venues for socializing in New York. - -In addition, the social club functioned as a way of creating a new kind of community. The social clubs functioned as spaces where the upper class could meet with the lower class, express their social superiority, and express their desire to spend their time and their money on the working class. The social clubs -======================================== SAMPLE 484 ======================================== -9 - -Legendary Creature — Human Warrior (4/2) - -, : You gain life equal to the number of cards in target player's hand. - -: You gain life equal to the number of cards in target player's hand.<|endoftext|>Podcast: The Future of the Bitcoin Blockchain - -"We have to figure out how to increase the velocity of transactions, so the average time between a transaction and its confirmation is reduced." - -- Thomas Voegtlin, CTO of Ripple Labs - -The last time we spoke with Thomas Voegtlin, he was still a new employee at Ripple Labs, but had already earned a reputation for his work on Ripple and its XRP cryptocurrency. - -Now, as Ripple Labs continues to grow, Voegtlin is taking on a new role: CTO. - -"I'm taking on the role of CTO of the future of the blockchain," Voegtlin said in a recent interview. "I think the blockchain is going to be pretty big." - -The former VP of Engineering at Coinapult, Voegtlin is now focusing on the future of blockchain technology and how it's going to change the role of banks in the world of financial transactions and payments. - -Voegtlin says that the bitcoin blockchain has the potential to be the world's largest, but the protocol has a lot of limitations. - -"There are certain limitations to the bitcoin blockchain," he said. "It's a big, slow network that's not designed to process very large transactions." - -That's what Voegtlin is trying to change with Ripple Labs. - -"We have to figure out how to increase the velocity of transactions, so the average time between a transaction and its confirmation is reduced," he explained. - -Voegtlin says that the next step is to improve blockchain scalability, which is a key challenge for the technology. - -The company has hired developers to help with this effort, and announced that it is building its own system based on the blockchain. - -"The system is built on the blockchain but is built from the ground up to be a new system that does not have any known limitations," the company wrote in a blog post. "We are working to create an open source system that can be used by any blockchain project." - -For now, Ripple Labs is working to improve its products and services, and work on the technology that will be used for its own blockchain. - -"Ripple Labs is not going to be the world's biggest crypto company in five years," it said. "But we are going to be an important player in how the world uses digital currencies."<|endoftext|>The wife of the deputy who killed three people and injured others in a chase through West Memphis, Arkansas, on Thursday described the gunman as a "crazy person" who had been sent to jail for robbery and domestic violence. - -The suspect, Brentley Vinson, was found dead after a foot chase with police in the town near the Texas border. - -"He was a crazy person, and he would just pop out of nowhere," Mary Vinson, the suspect's wife, told KATV. "You just never knew what he was going to do." - -She said her husband was in jail for a probation violation at the time of the shooting, and that he had been sent to prison for a robbery conviction. - -"He had just been released a few days before," she said. - -The suspect is also the father of the two children killed and injured in the incident. Mary Vinson said she was told that the shooter's daughter had taken her children to school that morning, but that he had not been home at the time. - -"He was a good guy, and he won't be missed," she told the Associated Press. - -Authorities said they were aware of the suspect's history with the law. - -"We're currently in the process of trying to determine if he was on any other criminal records," said Capt. Kevin Bobo, with the West Memphis Police Department. - -Vinson was being held on a charge of capital murder, according to KATV. - -The manhunt for the suspect began just after midnight on Thursday when several police cars and K-9 units pulled over the suspected driver's car in a residential neighborhood in West Memphis and a gun battle ensued. - -News footage showed police with their guns drawn chasing the suspect on foot and in a car before he was shot and killed. Officers recovered a rifle and a handgun from the scene and seized evidence. - -The suspect's car was found riddled with bullet holes, according to a statement from the Arkansas State Police. - -The police statement did not elaborate on the alleged motive. - -"We're still looking to see why he was there," Bobo said. - -The incident was the latest in a string of high-profile police shootings across the country. - -Last week, a gunman opened -======================================== SAMPLE 485 ======================================== -For the last few months I have been working on some development tools for the Haskell ecosystem. I've landed my first binary product, yast2 , which allows you to transform the Haskell AST into a human readable, type-safe, and easy to use schema. There's a lot more to come, but the basic idea is simple: yast2 takes a Haskell AST, and transforms it into a schema that is easy to read and write, and does not require an external schema parser or parser combinator library. - -I wanted to show off my work today, so I've released the Haskell package, yast2. The package is available on Hackage, and can be installed with cabal install yast2 . - -I've been working on this for the last few months, and while I've been working on it I've also been working on the Haskell ecosystem at the GHC HQ. Last week I met with a group of people at the GHC HQ to discuss how to make it easier to develop packages for the Haskell ecosystem. My presentation and discussion with them was very inspiring, and I would like to share a few of the things that we discussed. - -Documentation - -One of the biggest concerns I've had with the Haskell ecosystem is the documentation. I've been in a position where I've tried to do a lot of documentation, and I don't think I've been successful. There are lots of packages on Hackage, and their documentation is scattered around the internet, which is really difficult to understand. - -I've been working on a few things to help improve the documentation. The first step is to provide a centralized place for all of the Haskell packages that have documentation. We already have an online package index ( http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ ), but it's really not very well organised, and I would like it to be. - -We need a central place for all of the documentation that exists, and I think that's one of the biggest hurdles. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for other developers to submit documentation. There are lots of categories in the package index, and people are already submitting documentation to them. - -The Haskell ecosystem is incredibly large, and it's really difficult to find all of the documentation that exists. - -Building the package index - -The first step is to make the package index more central. We have documentation, but it's scattered around the internet. Each package has its own index, and I would like to make sure that the documentation for all of the packages is available in one place. - -When people look at the documentation for a package, they don't always know where to find it. The most common solution is that they have to search through the documentation for the package, and then search through the documentation for that category of documentation. Once they've found the documentation they want, they have to manually do a lot of work to find the documentation for that package. This is very time consuming. - -I'm currently working on a wiki page that will help people find documentation for any Haskell package. When people look at the wiki page for a package, they will be able to see which categories of documentation it has, and then they will be able to find the documentation for that category of documentation. - -I think that this is a great example of what I've called "deobfuscation". Some packages have documentation that is quite obfuscated. There is a lot of jargon in it, and it's hard to understand. If you're writing a library, you want to make sure that the documentation is easy to read. - -A wiki page is a great way to deobfuscate the documentation, and make it easier to understand. - -There are also many packages that have documentation that is very difficult to understand. If we have a wiki page for a package, people will be able to quickly find documentation for that package, and it will be much easier to understand. - -Community - -One of the most important parts of any package is the community around it. I think the best way to make sure that a package has a strong community is to make sure that people have a good way to contribute. - -I've been working on a lot of different things at the Haskell HQ, and I have a particular interest in making documentation better. I think that making documentation better is one of the most important things that we can do to support the Haskell ecosystem. We need to make it easier to contribute documentation to the Haskell ecosystem. - -One way that we can do this is by creating a package index that mirrors the documentation on Hackage. We already have an online package index ( http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ ), but it's not very well organised, and I think it's really difficult to understand. - -We can already have a package index, but the problem is that it's only covering packages that are up on Hackage. There are also many packages that are not on Hackage. -======================================== SAMPLE 486 ======================================== -Book Review: - -The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris - -The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris - -Sam Harris - -The New Atheists: How They Reclaimed Religion, by Sam Harris by Frederick A. Brown - -But there is one more thing to be said about this book. I have read this book, and I have read it with a serious disappointment. The New Atheists is in my opinion a very bad book. And not just because it is bad, but because it panders to the worst kind of religious fanatics. - -His chapters are filled with arrogant and racist statements about Muslims, and Christians, and Hindus, and Jews. He claims that there is a religious "religion" that has infected the world, and that the only way to destroy it is to destroy the ideas behind it. He says that Islam, the religion of the majority of the world's Muslims, is a "religion of hate" and "the most dangerous religion on earth." He says that the Christian religion is the "religion of white supremacy" and that it is "the most dangerous religion on earth." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain." He says that Hinduism is an "anti-science religion" and that its founder killed millions of people because he was a fanatical Hindu. He says that Judaism is "just a religion of covetousness," and that Islam is "a religion of revenge and war." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," that Christianity is the "religion of white supremacy," that Islam is "evil," that Hinduism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," and that Judaism is "a religion of covetousness." He says that Buddhism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," that Christianity is "the religion of white supremacy," that Islam is "evil," that Hinduism is "a religion of egoism and personal gain," and that Judaism is "a religion of covetousness." - -He claims that the only way to destroy Islam is to destroy its ideas. He says that modern Muslims, who are far more tolerant of other peoples than their ancestors, are "cockroaches." He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. He says that modern Christians, who are far more tolerant of other peoples than their ancestors, are "cockroaches." He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy the Hindu idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy the Jewish idea of God is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy Buddhism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy Judaism's idea of God. He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy Christianity's idea of God. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy Buddhism's idea of Brahma. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy Judaism's idea of God. - -He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Jewish is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. - -He says that the only way to destroy Hinduism is to destroy Hinduism's ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Buddhism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Judaism is to destroy its ideas. He says that the only way to destroy Christianity is to destroy its ideas. - -The New Atheists is the most dangerous book I have ever read. It is the worst book I have ever read. It is the worst book I have ever read for two reasons. One, it is full of racism. For example, he says that the Jews are the most violent people in history. He says that the Jews have been responsible for the deaths of "millions of people." He says that the Jews are the most evil people in the history of the world. And he says that the Jews are the biggest threat to world peace. The Jews are a threat to the world because they are "oppressors," "racists," "antisemites," "fanatics," and "terrorists." - -Two, it is full of ignorance. He says that "the most important religious question of our time -======================================== SAMPLE 487 ======================================== -The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. - -The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. - -In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. - -In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. - -Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. - -The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. - -The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. - -In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. - -In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. - -Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. - -The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the American West. - -The first sightings of the Bison occurred in the early 19th century and were rarely seen. In 1858, a group of men traveling in the vicinity of Idaho Falls, Idaho, captured a bull and named it "The Wolfback". The name stuck. - -In the spring of 1859, after a long journey between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Pacific Railroad, the Wolfback was brought to the San Francisco Stockyards. The Wolfback was shipped to the West and was promptly shot. The last Bison to be shot was at the San Francisco Stockyards in 1866. There are no records of a bull being killed at the Wolfback Ranch in California. - -In 1872, the Bison was introduced into the United States. It was later admitted as a native American animal and was designated as a member of the Bison family. Other breeds of the Bison family include Bison, Irish Bison, Buffalo, and Warthog. - -Today, the Wolfback is recognized as one of the most important American animals. He is known for his hearty endurance, strength, and ability to withstand harsh conditions of both the wild and the domestic environment. He was also considered as a symbol of the Old West. - -The Wolfback, or the "Burgundy Bison", is a legendary figure in the Old West. He is the biggest mule in the history of the breed and a famed folk hero. The Wolfback became a symbol of the Old West and the Wild West, and was the key to the survival of the -======================================== SAMPLE 488 ======================================== -The following list of links contains all of the articles and links to information related to the Star Wars: Rogue One: Scarif (2015) film. Please check out the new article on The Essential Atlas for all of the information about the film. - -Contents show] - -Pre-release information Edit - -The following article is a work in progress. Please be patient while it is being constructed. - -This article has not yet been finished and checked to be accurate. - -The following information is from a pre-release source and is not considered canon. - -Star Wars: Rogue One: Scarif directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, and Jiang Wen, is a film that will serve as the second installment of the Rogue One trilogy. The film is set for release on December 16, 2016. - -Plot summary Edit - -The film, directed by Gareth Edwards, tells the story of the characters who were killed during the battle between the First Order and the Resistance on Scarif, an Imperial-occupied planet. The film begins with a battle between a Resistance fleet and a First Order Star Destroyer over Scarif. The battle ends when the Star Destroyer fires a missile at the Resistance fleet, which destroys the ship. - -Following the destruction of the Star Destroyer, the Resistance and the First Order rush to investigate the explosion. They find that the explosion was caused by a fighter squadron from the First Order nicknamed the "Bombers." - -The film shows how these fighters are equipped, their weapons, their tactics, and how they are trained. The film also shows how the First Order reconstitutes the bombers in their new base on Scarif. - -As the film progresses, we see how the bombers are used to destroy various buildings on the planet. These bombers are also used to attack the Resistance military base on Scarif. - -The film, in my opinion, is the best installment of the series. The characters are interesting, the story is well-paced, and the action scenes are intense. The film also has a strong political subtext and is a good film that is well worth seeing. - -Appearances Edit - - -Bibliography Edit - -Notes and references Edit<|endoftext|>The Seattle Seahawks are rolling along at the moment. They have a record of 5-1 and are currently the only unbeaten team in the league. They are also in the midst of a three-game winning streak. - -But the Seahawks are not the only team making waves around the NFL. - -The Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders are also rolling their way towards 5-1 records, which means they are currently the only undefeated teams in the NFL. - -Of the Steelers, Patriots, and Bengals, the Steelers are in the midst of their worst start to a season since the Steelers were a Super Bowl contender prior to the 1970 season. - -However, their two losses came to the 3-2 Baltimore Ravens and the 3-3 Miami Dolphins in the first two weeks of the season, which means the Steelers are rolling right now. - -The Patriots and Bengals are looking a little weaker than the Steelers, but they still have a chance to make a run at the playoffs. - -Below are the five undefeated teams in the NFL, according to the NFL Power Rankings. - -5. Denver Broncos - -The Broncos are another team that has had a rough start to the season. They lost their first game to the Denver Broncos on opening day, but then bounced back with a win over the Saints on opening night. - -However, they have dropped two straight games since, and their only win since has been against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. - -The Broncos have a tough timetable to get things turned around. They have a game against the Kansas City Chiefs in two weeks on the road, but they have a matchup with the Patriots in Week 11, which could be a tough test in New England. - -4. Pittsburgh Steelers - -The Steelers have had a rough start to the season. They lost their first two games to the Baltimore Ravens and the Miami Dolphins. - -The Steelers have not lost since, however, and they are currently the only undefeated team in the NFL. They have won three straight games and are now 8-0. - -The Steelers have a tough schedule ahead of them, but they are 3-1 over the past three weeks and have a chance to win their first division title in the past two decades. - -3. New England Patriots - -The Patriots have had a rough start to the season. They lost their first game to the Baltimore Ravens on opening day, but then bounced back with a win over the Saints on opening night. - -However, they have dropped two straight games since, and -======================================== SAMPLE 489 ======================================== -I like to think of myself as a fairly tolerant Republican. I'm kind of a fiscal conservative, but I'm also a social conservative. I'm a little old-school when it comes to abortion rights, but I think gay marriage is an issue we can deal with over time. I'm a little old-school on religious freedom, which is why I see a lot of conservatives defending Hobby Lobby. - -But as my daughter's birth control coverage was about to end, the Trump administration announced the end of the Obama-era rule requiring employers to cover birth control as part of their employees' health insurance. - -The administration said the rule was an overreach of executive power, and it had been repealed on Thursday. - -That's not true. It's still not true. - -The Trump administration's executive order on the Affordable Care Act … has the potential to impact millions of women. - -I am not kidding. - -The order — which is still not legal — states that the federal government can't force anyone to provide coverage for birth control. There are no exceptions. - -That means that no employer can be forced to provide health insurance coverage for birth control. And if he or she is, the employer is in violation of the law. There is no legal way to make an employer provide coverage for birth control without violating the law. - -So if you are one of millions of women who is getting a letter from your insurance company saying you are having to pay more for birth control because of the Trump administration's order, you can sue the insurance company. - -And it's not just women who could be affected. Many men who have access to birth control via their spouse's employer could also be affected. They can be sued, too, if their employer requires them to provide coverage. - -What's more, the order could impact other kinds of preventive care. The government can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. - -The administration can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. - -The order could also impact other preventive care. The government can't force you to get a flu shot or be screened for cancer. But the Trump administration can force you to get a prescription for birth control. - -If you think the Trump administration is going to use this to roll back women's rights, you're right. But there are ways that you can fight back. - -First, get a copy of the order. You can find it online at the Federal Register. - -You can also call your insurance company and let them know you are getting this letter. You don't have to say why — just let them know you are getting this letter. - -You can also call your state insurance department and let them know you are getting this letter. You don't have to say why — just let them know you are getting this letter. - -And, if you know of any employers who are still providing coverage for birth control, you can report them to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. - -The Trump administration has an opportunity to do something great for women. But they're choosing to abuse it.<|endoftext|>About - -I'm a computer programmer who found his way into the world of music software. - -I've been a musician for over 20 years and have been producing music professionally since 2004. I've written over 30 songs in that time with over a dozen more in the works. I've recorded an EP in 2010 and a full length album in 2011. - -I'm primarily a composer and arranger but recently made the jump from composition to music software as well. With the help of my employer I'm able to pay my bills, fund a few personal projects and play music in my free time. - -I've always had a passion for music and have been writing music since I was a child. I've always been very involved with musicians, creating music for bands and other musicians I've met over the years. - -My goal is to be able to produce my own music. I've been working on this project for a while but need your help to get it out to the world. - -The music is playing in the background - -This is a passionate project that will take a lot of time, effort and money. As much as I would like to be able to devote myself to this project full time I just can't do it. I'm still trying to figure out how to make ends meet and will need to make some sacrifices in order to do this job. - -Here is a list of what you can expect from my project: - -The game will be played on a grid system. - -The game will consist of 6 tracks. - -I am in the process of developing a demo of the game that will be available on my website. - -I will be using a C# -======================================== SAMPLE 490 ======================================== -The Social Security Administration has about 12.2 million beneficiaries who are receiving benefits. Almost all of them are retired workers, and the vast majority of them have worked for the federal government for at least 15 years, with about half of all of them being over the age of 50. - -About 75 percent of the beneficiaries are male, and about 80 percent of them are white. About 12.7 million people are receiving Social Security benefits, and about 7.9 million of them are in the 50-to-64 age group. - -In addition to the 12.2 million beneficiaries, there are about 28 million people who are receiving disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. - -A large share of the beneficiaries are in the lower income brackets. About 15 percent of all beneficiaries are in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, and about 30 percent of all beneficiaries are in the bottom half of the income distribution. - -About 18 percent of beneficiaries are in the middle class, and about 22 percent are in the upper class. Only about one in 10 people receiving benefits are in the highest income bracket. - -About 9 percent of all beneficiaries are in the top one percent of income recipients. - -About 22 percent of all beneficiaries are in the highest income bracket. - -Follow Michael on Twitter - -Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.<|endoftext|>The first time I saw the Star Wars film, I was in junior high school. I had just finished watching the prequels and I was shellshocked by all the terrible writing, acting and editing. It's not that I didn't love the movies, but I had a much different opinion of them. I didn't feel like they were thought through or well-crafted, but rather rushed and hurried through. The final product came off as rushed and rushed. This film was different. - -I was excited to see the film and watch it again. I wanted to see how they changed what they created and how they had changed it. The film was a bit of a let down for me, but I was excited for the second time around. I was so excited that I nearly cried when I saw the final product. I thought, "Oh my god, they made it so much better." I'm going to be honest with you, I was so excited for the sequel. I really like the second film, but I'm a bit disappointed in the first. I thought it was a better product overall, but it was still pretty bad. - -I've seen a lot of the criticism surrounding the film. Some people say that the film is too dark. Some people say that it's too soft. Some people say that the film is boring. I am not here to defend the film. I am here to say that I think that the film is a great film. I think it's well thought out and well-made. It's a great piece of art. - -The film is centered around the young Luke Skywalker. The film really shows off the young Luke. He's the protagonist of the film. I think this is a great way to introduce the character. It gives us a chance to really see what he's like when he's young and has become a Jedi. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he has lost his father. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he's lost his mother. It gives us a chance to see what he's like when he's lost his friends. He has a lot of friends. It's a really wonderful way to introduce the character and give us a break from the prequels. - -The film also does a great job of weaving a story that is about how Luke is going to have to deal with the fact that he's the son of Anakin Skywalker and Princess Leia. It's a great way to introduce the character and really build up his character. - -The film also has a strong villain. It's really interesting to see how the villain is going to be introduced. We are already taken to see that the Sith are going to be involved. There are two of them. We are introduced to Darth Maul as well. He's a really interesting villain. - -The film also has a strong focus on the Force. Luke Skywalker is more than just a Jedi. He's a Jedi who has become a Force user. He's a Jedi who has begun to understand the Force. He's going to have to deal with some issues that come with that. - -The film also has a strong focus on Han Solo and Chewbacca. They're not just there to be droids or cannon fodder. They're there to play important roles in the film. - -The film has a strong focus on the Force and how Luke is going to have to deal with it. - -The film also has a strong focus -======================================== SAMPLE 491 ======================================== -The world's top three auto makers — General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — have joined the United Auto Workers bargaining team for a new four-year contract. - -The UAW said Thursday that the companies had agreed to terms for a new contract that, if ratified by the union, would begin Jan. 15, with the first day of work scheduled for Feb. 12. - -The new contract would be the third for the Detroit Three, which are also the largest private employers in the U.S. The new contract would also be the first for Chrysler, which is facing a potential bankruptcy. - -GM (GM) said Thursday it signed a new, four-year contract with the UAW. - -"We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Union representing our UAW Team Members on new contract terms," GM said in a statement. "We have made significant progress in the negotiations and we look forward to ongoing discussions to drive value and build a stronger team in the next contract." - -Ford (F) said Thursday it reached an agreement with the union that would begin on Jan. 1, with the first day of work scheduled for Feb. 12. The automaker is facing several challenges as it tries to turn around its business after it broke its lease with the UAW in 2011. Ford has seen its share of the U.S. car market shrink more than 10 percentage points since 2011, and filed for bankruptcy protection in January. - -"We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Union representing our UAW Team Members on new contract terms," Ford said in a statement. "We have made significant progress in the negotiations and we look forward to ongoing discussions to drive value and build a stronger team in the next contract." - -The UAW said that the auto makers made their best offer, adding that the companies were making significant progress in the negotiations. - -"We were able to come to a good agreement that addresses our key concerns and will keep our team members employed in the UAW-represented plants," said UAW President Dennis Williams. "We are pleased to be moving forward with a new contract with our two biggest auto competitors." - -The new contract would replace the tentative agreement that expired in August, with both sides saying they were "not far apart." The previous contract expired on Dec. 31. - -Related: Even as car sales soar, wages are stagnant - -The UAW said that the companies would keep their current health care benefits, including health care for senior employees, and would continue to pay all employee contributions to pension plans. - -The companies said the new contract would be "consistent with the UAW's long-term goal of putting more money in the pockets of our workers." - -The UAW has been in contract talks with the companies for more than a year and has been facing a strong push from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other businesses to keep wages stagnant. The UAW has resisted the push, saying that it will not give in to anti-union forces. - -Related: Trump campaign pledges 'Buy American, Hire American' - -The UAW has also been facing a backlash from some U.S. Fiat Chrysler workers who have walked out of the company's plants. - -The companies said that the new contract would "preserve the ongoing role of the Teamsters Local 708 Bargaining Unit as the bargaining unit for the new UAW contract." - -"With the addition of the new Teamsters Local 708 bargaining unit, we are pleased to bring to the table a union representing the best of the best in the industry," said Fiat Chrysler spokesman Ray Holt. "We look forward to making a strong and competitive offer to our Teamsters Team Members on Jan. 1 and Feb. 12." - -The companies said that they are committed to keeping the new UAW contract "as competitive as possible." - -The UAW has said that it is willing to negotiate a new contract that includes a wage increase in the new contract, but offers no details about the amount. - -General Motors announced last week that it was making a $1,000 donation to the Trump campaign.<|endoftext|>The New York Times on Sunday highlighted a report from the University of Texas at Austin that found that white Americans are more likely to be killed by police officers than black Americans. - -According to the study, which was conducted in 2013, whites were six times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than black Americans. - -"White Americans are more likely than blacks to be involved in violent crime, but they are less likely to be involved in lethal force incidents," the study said. "The analysis found that, compared with black Americans, white Americans were over 10 times more likely to be involved in fatal force incidents, four times more likely to be involved in nonfatal force incidents, and more than twice as likely to be involved in property crime incidents." - -The UT report, which was conducted by crim -======================================== SAMPLE 492 ======================================== -As the numbers of suicides rise, the Tamil Nadu government has set a target to reduce the suicide rate to zero by 2017.The Tamil Nadu government has approved an ambitious scheme to promote the use of alternative methods to suicide. The plan will be implemented as a national programme to tackle mental health issues. The government will address the need for a screening programme along with the provision of crisis counselling services. The target of the programme will be to reduce the suicide rate by 10 percent in the next five years.The government has identified another major concern which is the rise in the number of household suicides. It has also made a plan to target the most vulnerable populations in the state.The government is also planning to spearhead the implementation of a pilot project in Chennai, which will be conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) to sensitise the public about mental health issues and bring about changes in the social norms.The initiative has been approved by the Tamil Nadu Cabinet. The proposed strategy will be implemented through the Tamil Nadu Government Mental Health Programme.The state government will also work with NIMHANS to set up a family counselling centre in Chennai. An additional 10,000 counselling centres will be set up in the state to deal with the mental health issues of the people.The state government will also provide counselling services at the cost of Rs 100 per head to all those who are suffering from mental health issues. The counselling centres will also be equipped with a 24x7 helpline for distress calls.The government is also planning to launch a public awareness programme to combat mental health issues. The government will also promote the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to bring about changes in the social norms.The government has also called for a review of the existing mental health policy with a view to revising the policy to make it more effective.The Vision of Mental Health in Tamil Nadu is to reduce the suicide rate to zero in the next five years.<|endoftext|>Innovation is a key factor in maintaining innovation-friendly and competitive markets. As a strong economy, Italy is renowned for its innovation and has developed a number of key innovations. These include the smartphone, the car industry, and informal banking. - -However, Italy's most important innovation, the car industry, has been highly volatile, with a number of companies and governments having failed to adapt to the evolution. - -The car industry's innovative potential has been driven by the ability to establish and maintain a 'car culture', which encourages innovation and can be considered a solution to the problem of innovation in the car industry. This culture has been built on several pillars: - -the car industry needs to be agile and adaptable to the new technologies that are emerging in the market; - -the car industry needs to be competitive by aiming at a low cost and high quality; - -the car industry needs to be efficient by focusing on the services and technologies that make the car an efficient and convenient transport device; - -the car industry needs to be innovative in order to become more efficient and competitive, and generate new products and services; - -The car industry needs to be financially secure by focussing on the production of high quality products and services, as well as by encouraging innovation and competition which will generate new products and services. - -The car industry has been able to play a key role in Italy's economic success, with the industry being responsible for more than 40% of the country's GDP. The car industry has also helped to support the Italian economy by providing jobs, jobs, jobs. - -The car industry has been the driving force behind Italy's innovation, and has produced several key innovations. These include the smartphone, the car industry and informal banking.<|endoftext|>The year is 2037 and the world has been turned upside down. The United States is in the midst of the worst recession in its history. The world's governments have collapsed. The military alliances of the world have been decimated. The global economy is frozen. - -This is the year the world is divided. At the center of the war is a young woman who has just lost her father. Noriko Shikage, known universally as Matoi, is a super-powered girl who fights against a shadowy presence. The shadow is the Organization's leader, its true identity a mystery to even most of its members. - -Shikage, with her powers of "Heavenly Wind" and "Mountain Reversal," is the sole hope of the world. Her powers allow her to reach into the other world. She can see things she normally can't. - -The story weaves together the hidden world of the Organization's top members, the human characters who live in Japan, the remnants of humanity scattered across the world. - -The original television series broadcast in 1987.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that all travelers who have passports from the seven Muslim-majority countries named in President Trump's executive order will be denied entry to the United States and -======================================== SAMPLE 493 ======================================== -S. 3156 (113th) was a bill in the United States Congress. - -A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law. - -This bill was introduced in the 113th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2013 to Jan 2, 2015. Legislation not enacted by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books. - -How to cite this information. - -We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work: - -GovTrack.us. (2018). S. 3156 — 113th Congress: American Dream Act. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s3156?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss "S. 3156 — 113th Congress: American Dream Act." www.GovTrack.us. 2013. September 29, 2018 American Dream Act, S. 3156, 113th Cong. (2013). {{cite web - -|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s3156?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss - -|title=S. 3156 (113th) - -|accessdate=September 29, 2018 - -|author=113th Congress (2013) - -|date=October 21, 2013 - -|work=Legislation - -|publisher=GovTrack.us - -|quote=American Dream Act - -}} show another citation format: - -MLA - -APA - -Blue Book - -Wikipedia Template - -Where is this information from? - -GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources. This page is sourced primarily from Congress.gov, the official portal of the United States Congress. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. Data via the congress project.<|endoftext|>It's almost a year since I made the decision to get rid of my beloved Nexus 7 tablet, but I'm still using it just like I did before, and I'm still loving it. I've been using it with a single USB-C cable for the entire year, but now that Google has released the Pixel C, I want to move to using a USB-C cable with every device I own. - -I've been using it with a single USB-C cable for the entire year, and now that Google has released the Pixel C, I want to move to using a USB-C cable with every device I own. - -But what about those cases, the new cases, that I've been looking at when I think about buying a new case? I have no problem using a USB-C cable with any case when I'm using my Pixel C, but what about when I use a case with my old Nexus 7 tablet? - -USB-C is still the standard - -The USB-A connector on my old Nexus 7 tablet is still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. The Pixel C is also still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. - -The new Pixel C is also still covered with Gorilla Glass 4, so I can't really tell the difference between the new Pixel C and a Nexus 7 tablet. - -One of the biggest differences between the old Nexus 7 and the new Pixel C is the way the two cases are designed. The old Nexus 7 had a magnetic charging dock that would stick to the back of the phone, so I couldn't simply put the new Pixel C on the charging dock and charge it at the same time. I had to remove the dock and put it on the new Pixel C. - -This isn't a huge problem, because I already have a charging dock in my pocket, but it's a bit of a hassle when I'm trying to charge my new Pixel C tablet. - -The new case design - -The new Pixel C and the new Nexus 7 tablet are both designed so that you can put them on the magnetic charging dock. This means that you can put the new Pixel C on the charging dock and charge it at the same time. - -The new Pixel C and the new Nexus 7 tablet are both designed so that you can put them on the magnetic charging dock. - -The new case design is also much sleeker than the old case design. The old Nexus 7 has a lot more -======================================== SAMPLE 494 ======================================== -Chapter Two: The Green Dragon - -She was a fine warrior, but still she was a beast. - -The first thing she noticed was how fast she was, her pace was incredible. Once she realized that, she realized that she had to get away. - -"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" She kept on crying, but she didn't know how to say it. - -She was a beast, and she was attacking a human with her human instincts. - -On the other hand, she was a beautiful girl. - -He was already looking, to see if he could find a weapon to fight her. - -"What am I, a human?" she shouted. - -"You're a beast, you're a beast, you're a beast!" he shouted back. - -"I'm a human!" she screamed, a little bit of anger was still in her voice. - -"I'm not a human, I'm a beast, you're a beast, you're a beast!" he screamed back. - -Suddenly, she noticed something, she realized that he was wearing a cloak, and a mask, and he was looking at something that was on the ground. - -She couldn't see it, but she saw a mask that she had once seen before. - -"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" she said. - -"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" - -He was apologizing. - -When she was done apologizing, she walked right in front of him, and put her hands on his shoulders. - -"Please, leave this place." she said. - -He didn't move. - -She continued to put her hands on his shoulders, until her arms were covered in his. - -"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" - -She tried to stop, but she was stopped. - -She was crying, but she didn't know how to stop. - -He looked at her, and his eyes were calm. - -He was still looking at something on the ground. - -Suddenly, he looked at her face. - -He looked at her and smiled. - -She didn't know how she felt, but she had a feeling that something was happening. - -"My name is Creighton, I'm a traveling merchant, I came here to find a dragon." he said. - -She looked at him and her eyes were filled with shock. - -She was in shock, she never thought a human could say such a thing. - -"My name is Diana, I am a member of the human race." she said. - -He smiled, and said, "Very well, I will be leaving now." - -"Wait." she said. - -He looked at her, and said, "What?" - -She looked at him for a second, and then she smiled, and said, "I know you're not a dragon, but I'm telling you, you're my friend, and you're a total jerk. I'm asking you to be my friend, I don't want to be your enemy, but I'm not going to be friends with a jerk like you." - -He looked at her, and smiled. - -"I'm not going to fight you, but I'm going to call you by your name, Diana. My friend." he said. - -"Thank you." she said. - -"I don't think there is much of a point to this. I'm going to go." he said. - -"Wait…" she said. - -He frowned, then he looked at her, and smiled. - -"You know, I don't think there is anything strange about you, Diana." he said. - -She looked at him, and her eyes were filled with sadness, but she said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" - -He smiled again, and said, "I don't think there is anything strange about it either, we all have our flaws, but we're all people." - -She said, "I guess I'm just a bit sad." - -He smiled, and said, "Good, that means you're my friend." - -She smiled, but she didn't know what to say. - -She was feeling a little sad, but she knew she was just a little sad. - -He looked at her again, and said, "I'm going to call you by your name again, Diana, my friend." - -"Thank you." she said. - -He looked at her, and smiled. - -"I don't think there is anything strange about it either, we all have -======================================== SAMPLE 495 ======================================== -The Oceanside City Council votes to credit residents who help reduce carbon pollution by installing green roofs on their homes. Oceanside is the first city in California to do this. - -A majority of the City Council voted Tuesday night to give residents of Oceanside credit for installing green roofs on their homes. This move can reduce greenhouse gases by about 7,000 tons a year, or about 40 percent of the city's total emissions. - -"We're sending a message to the rest of the world that we're serious about being a leader in clean energy," said Mayor William Meyer. - -Oceanside is the first city in California to take this step. - -Oceanside's program is modeled on a program in Cambridge, Mass. In Cambridge, residents who help reduce carbon pollution by installing green roofs receive financial incentives. Since 2014, the program has saved the city about $94,000 a year. - -"If you look at the benefit and the cost, they're really, really good values," said Lisa Anderson, a policy analyst with the Environment California Research and Policy Center. "The green roofs are the best thing that the city could do to help the environment." - -The Oceanside program will be available to residents of the city as long as they meet certain requirements. It will cover all roofs on homes built after February 2010. It will be available for a three-year period, and the program will be monitored by the city. - -"We're trying to move towards a green future, and we're trying to do it in our own backyard," said Councilman Mark Potts. - -The city will consider extending the program to other neighborhoods if they can show they're also reducing emissions. - -Residents who want to help the program find homes that meet the requirements can call (760) 953-9170 or visit oceanside.com. - -Copyright 2017 KGTV<|endoftext|>Pooja Gupta, a correspondent with the BBC, was confused when she inadvertently recorded an Iranian official saying "hooray" in English as she mentioned the country's new president, Hassan Rouhani. - -Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, arrives in New York on Thursday. (Photo: AFP) Story Highlights BBC reporter Pooja Gupta recorded the exchange - -The exchange is difficult to make out - -Government officials seem to be a bit embarrassed - -NEW YORK (AP) — A BBC reporter captured an awkward exchange between the government of Iran and the broadcaster's cameraman on Thursday, and the exchange is difficult to make out. - -CNN's Michael Weiss posted a photo of the exchange on Twitter. Gupta, who was on a live broadcast in Tehran, initially recorded the exchange at the airport. - -In the recording, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, speaks into a microphone as Gupta speaks into her camera. - -"I cannot help but feel that you are in an old-fashioned era," he says. "In the 21st century, in the age of smartphones, people have got their own personal information, I wonder what your purpose is here." - -Gupta responds: "I just want to note that the leader of this great country, Mr. Rouhani, has just called us a great nation. He has said we are a great nation. I'm sure you will say that again." - -"Yes, I think so," the official replies. - -The exchange is difficult to make out. - -Gupta said Friday that she couldn't make out the words because she was distracted by what she was saying in English. - -"For the first time in my career, I did not speak the proper word," she said. - -She said she didn't know why she was speaking in English. - -"I suspect that it might be because I am an Indian, and I am used to speaking in English," Gupta said. "And I've always felt comfortable with it. I'm used to speaking in English. It's been an easy transition for me." - -Alexei Moiseev, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said the exchange was recorded in the context of the official meeting between the two officials. - -"We are aware of the exchange of images by journalists during the meeting between the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the BBC journalists," Moiseev said. "The Iranian government is aware of the incident and is conducting an investigation in this regard." - -The government of Iran announced Friday that Rouhani, the country's president, would be visiting the United States. - -The visit will be his first to the nation since the 2009 election. - -Gupta said she was concerned that the government wouldn't be welcoming Rouhani, who was seen by many in the West as a reformer. - -"I'm very concerned that he might be very cold and stiff and not be very easy to talk to," she said. - -Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1y -======================================== SAMPLE 496 ======================================== -"The Dirty Dozen" - -"The Dirty Dozen" is a food pyramid designed to help Americans understand what to eat, what to avoid, and what to eat more of. The original pyramid was created by the government in the 1950s, but it was quickly dubbed "The Dirty Dozen" by the media and the public. - -The original pyramid was created by the government in the 1950s, but it was quickly dubbed "The Dirty Dozen" by the media and the public. - -Food Pyramid - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), based on the food pyramid published by the National Academy of Sciences. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -In the 1950s, the USDA worked with the public and various nutrition organizations to create the pyramid. The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The pyramid was designed to help people make more informed dietary decisions. - -The original food pyramid was created in the 1950 -======================================== SAMPLE 497 ======================================== -As the debate over the future of religion in America rages, a new poll finds that most Americans accept of atheists who want to run for office. - -A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) finds that 63 percent of Americans say they believe "atheists who want to run for office should be allowed to do so," while only 32 percent said they "dissent from this statement." - -The poll surveyed 1,451 adults nationwide from June 2 to 5. - -The poll also found that only 27 percent of Americans say they "ever think of themselves as being religious." - -The PRRI poll also found that 62 percent of Americans believe that "atheists who want to run for office should have the same rights as religious people." - -The poll was conducted before the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby case. In that decision, the court ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, "which has been used by a number of states to regulate private employers' rights to provide contraceptive coverage to their workers, should be interpreted to include the rights of people and businesses to exercise their own religious beliefs." - -The Hobby Lobby decision, along with other recent decisions, have triggered a growing movement to allow atheists to run for office. This is the first time PRRI has surveyed this issue. - -"Americans have a choice in this election cycle to stand on the side of the Constitution or the culture war," said PRRI President Robert P. Jones. "We are seeing a backlash against the culture wars and a movement toward constitutionalism. We are seeing a strong movement of Americans who are rejecting the religious right and embracing a more secular America." - -The Hobby Lobby ruling has also sparked a new atheism movement. Last year, the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. drew an estimated crowd of 50,000 atheists and agnostics. - -Rabbi Ari Berman of the New York City-based Agudath Israel of America, who spoke at the Reason Rally, says the religious right is losing its power. - -"The conservative movement is losing its power, and the more they try to suppress the voices of reason and reason, the louder they are, and the more it forces people to hear what's going on and to think, 'Okay, I've thought about it, and that's not true, and I'm not alone,'" Berman said. - -Meanwhile, the percentage of the U.S. population that describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated has risen from 8.2 percent in 2007 to 14.3 percent today. - -"I think religious people are losing the cultural argument and losing the political argument," Berman said. "I think people are becoming more and more anti-religious, and that's by design." - -The poll also found that Americans are also becoming more accepting of atheists running for office. - -"Americans are willing to give atheists the same rights that religious people have, including the right to run for office," said P.J. O'Rourke, PRRI's vice president for research. "The American public is moving away from the idea that religion is a good influence in our society and looks at it more as a bad influence. They're saying we don't think religious people should have special rights, that's what we're saying." - -The poll surveyed 1,451 adults nationwide from June 2 to 5. This poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent. - -Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon.<|endoftext|>Change is hard. Change is hard because we are change. - -Change is hard because we do not want change. - -Change is hard because we have blinders on. - -Change is hard because we are blinded by our own, to see only the joy we have in ourselves, and not the pain and the grief that comes with it. - -Change is hard because we believe in a lie. We believe that we are worthy of happiness and that those around us are worthy of happiness too. We believe that we have a right to happiness and that others have a right to happiness. - -Actually, we do not have a right to happiness. All we have is a right to our own happiness. - -We cannot convince anyone else that we have a right to their happiness. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot convince anyone else that our happiness is their problem. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot convince anyone else that theirs is our problem. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot convince anyone else that we should be worthy of happiness. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot convince anyone else that their happiness is our problem. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot persuade anyone else that we should be worthy of happiness. To us, that is a given. - -We cannot persuade anyone else that their happiness is our problem. To us, that is a given. - -======================================== SAMPLE 498 ======================================== -LONDON - There is no health risk from contact with mosquitoes in the UK, the World Health Organization said Monday (Sept 6). - -The WHO said there is a risk from mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, but that there is no evidence of any risk from the Zika virus. - -The WHO said it will not recommend a travel ban on the part of countries affected by Zika. - -Zika was first discovered in Uganda in the 1940s and is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. - -The WHO said in a statement: "Currently, there is no evidence of an increased risk for the UK of Zika virus transmission from infected travelers who return from/to countries with widespread Zika virus transmission. - -"There is also no evidence of an increased risk from the Zika virus in the UK as a result of mosquito bites from infected individuals. - -"In addition, the risk from mosquitoes is low in the UK due to the absence of breeding sites and the presence of an effective vector control programme, which is supported by the mosquito control sector." - -The UK is part of a group of countries known as the European region that are affected by the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the WHO said. - -The WHO said it is advising pregnant women to avoid travel to areas with Zika virus transmission, and pregnant women should consider postponing travel to affected areas until at least two weeks before the expected date of delivery. - -For people who have travelled to Zika-affected countries, the WHO said: "Information to help persons manage the risk of Zika virus infection is available online at: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/Zika-affected-countries.htm." - -The WHO has set up an emergency committee, involving medical specialists from the WHO and other international health organisations, to coordinate response by countries affected by Zika. - -The European Union has said it will ban imports of mosquito-borne products from affected countries. - -The WHO said its emergency committee will meet on Monday in Geneva, Switzerland. - -It will discuss the evidence and determine the minimum required level of risk to public health in the European region, which includes the UK.<|endoftext|>A report by the U.S. Census Bureau says the median household income in the United States is $56,657. The same report says that the poverty rate is 14.6 percent. The Census Bureau report, however, is based on the most recent data from the most recent year available. - -The poverty rate in America differs from the U.S. Census Bureau's report. The Census Bureau report calculates poverty based on the median income of families in the U.S. The poverty rate does not take into account the multi-generational nature of many families. The Census Bureau's report, on the other hand, calculates poverty based on the most recent data available. - -The most recent poverty data from the Census Bureau is from the 2014 Income and Poverty report. The report includes data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The poverty rate in the U.S. was 15.1 percent in 2014, according to the report. - -The Census Bureau reports that the average family income for all households in the U.S. was $56,657 in 2014. The poverty rate was 14.6 percent. - -Here are some other comparisons between the two reports: - -The poverty rate: $56,657 vs. $14,679 - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 14.5 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 14.4 percent vs. 14.6 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 14.4 percent vs. 14.6 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 14.6 percent vs. 14.7 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -The poverty rate: 15.1 percent vs. 15.1 percent - -The median income: $56,657 vs. $56,617 - -More from Money & Career Cheat Sheet:<|endoftext|>A new -======================================== SAMPLE 499 ======================================== -GARDAÍ HAVE BEEN called in to investigate a complaint that a woman was raped by her partner at a house in the south inner city. - -The woman was at the house in Ballyfermot, Ballyfermot, yesterday evening when she was allegedly raped by her partner. - -A Garda spokesman said: "We received a complaint at 9.30pm last night from a woman claiming to be the victim of a rape. - -"She said she was sexually assaulted by her partner in a house in the area of Ballyfermot, Ballyfermot. - -"Gardaí are investigating the incident and are in the process of speaking with the man and his partner. - -"The man is described as white, in his 30s, 5ft 9ins tall, of medium build and of unshaven facial hair. - -"He was wearing a black leather jacket and trousers, a white shirt and blue jeans. - -"He was also carrying a black and gold coloured spiral-bound notebook. - -"Further details will be released in due course." - -Online Editors<|endoftext|>Anyone who's ever had a conversation with a parent/guardian who is very dismissive of autism reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the condition. Our parents, teachers, friends, and even strangers—even though they may not know us as well—are all very well-intentioned and well-intentioned people. They want the best for us. They want us to be happy. And they do want us to be safe and happy. - -But there is a difference between "love" and "hate." - -If you have problems with autism, you are not an "evil person." You are not "bad." You are not "bad" because of your autism. You are not a "bad person" because you are autistic. - -You are a person. And just because you are autistic does not make you "Bad." It does not make you "bad." It doesn't make you "weak" or "bad." - -And it certainly doesn't make you "mean." - -If you're only "bad" because you are autistic does not mean you're a "bad person." It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. - -So don't tell me how I'm "bad" for being autistic. - -I'm not. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I'm not "bad" because I'm autistic. - -I am not "bad" because I'm autistic.<|endoftext|>The views and opinions expressed on this web page do not necessarily express those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. - -"The Lord is good; let us do good; let us pray; let us work; let us love one another; let us be patient; let us be kind; let us be good; let us be merciful; let us be honest; let us be courageous; let us be strong; let us be kind; let us be gentle; let us be loving; let us be truthful; let us be courageous; let us be wise; let us be loving; let us be faithful; let us be honest; let us be brave; let us be good; let us be merciful; let us be true; let us be holy; let us be good; let us be true; let us be good; let us be true; let us be good." — President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "The Holy Spirit," Ensign, Nov. 2014 - -The Holy Ghost is a Spirit of God. It is a gift that God has given to His children that helps us distinguish good from evil, wisdom from folly, truth from falsehood, goodness from evil, and the power of God from the power of the devil. The Holy Ghost is also a spirit of guidance. The Savior said, "The Spirit of truth is the Spirit of Christ." (John 16:13.) The Holy Ghost helps -======================================== SAMPLE 500 ======================================== -I want to use my Raspberry Pi as a simple web server. I know the basics of the basics but I can't seem to figure it out how to get it running. - -Here's my setup: - -Raspberry Pi - -Raspbian Wheezy - -HTTP Server - -MySQL Server - -Nginx Server - -Raspbian is a Debian based distribution that is generally thought of as a Linux distribution. - -If you don't know much about Debian it's a distribution that's based on Debian Wheezy (which is a Linux distribution that uses Debian as its base). - -I'm using Debian Wheezy as it's my preferred distribution. If you have to choose between Debian and Ubuntu you should use Debian. - -MySQL is a relational database that is commonly used for web development. It stores information in tables that represent the site's information. - -MySQL Server is a free, open source, scalable database management system that provides a full-text search and indexing capability to MySQL databases. - -Nginx is a webserver that allows you to serve static web pages (HTML) and dynamic web pages (JS) at the same time. - -I know that you can set up your server to run Nginx as a reverse proxy, but I really don't want that. I have other projects that I want to run that require more server activity. - -I'm using Nginx to serve static web pages. For static web pages you can use Apache to serve static web pages. - -You can follow the steps below to set up a basic Apache web server and MySQL server to run a simple web server on your Raspberry Pi. - -Note: Please be aware that you should only proceed with the steps below if you have a working internet connection. If you're unable to access the internet, do not proceed with the steps below. If you're using a Mac and don't have a local connection, you can follow the steps below using Mac OS X. - -Step 1: Run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade to install the latest version of the Raspbian operating system. - -Step 2: Download and Install Nginx - -1. Click the "Download ZIP" button on the right side of the screen. - -2. Download the Nginx software. - -3. Extract the Nginx software to a folder on your Raspberry Pi's SD card. - -4. Run sudo apt-get install nginx to install the Nginx software. - -5. Download the Nginx configuration file and place it in the Nginx folder you created in step 1. - -6. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block - -server { - -listen 80; - -server_name your_server_name; - -location / { - -try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; - -} - -} - -7. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -server { - -listen 80; - -server_name your_server_name; - -location / { - -try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; - -} - -} - -8. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mysql and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block - -server { - -listen mysql; - -server_name your_server_name; - -location / { - -try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?query = $1; - -} - -} - -9. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -# Add a 127.0.0.1 server block - -server { - -listen nginx; - -server_name your_server_name; - -location / { - -try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; - -} - -} - -10. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx/rhel-7.7.7.conf and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -server { - -listen nginx; - -server_name your_server_name; - -location / { - -try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; - -} - -} - -11. Run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx/nginx.conf and change the following line to reflect the following command: - -server { diff --git a/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b109d1e9d..000000000 --- a/gpt-2-samples/unconditional-topk40.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,21720 +0,0 @@ -======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== -Sydney's CBD is a "city of ghosts" due to years of "ghost building" on streets from Sydney Harbour Bridge to the M7, a new report has warned. - -The report, by leading architectural firms SOM Architects and Studio N, also claims Australia's third largest city remains a "ghost city". - -It cites the demolition of Sydney's Bankstown Town Hall as a prime example of why there's still a lot of work to do for what's become the fourth oldest city in the world in terms of population. - -"The Sydney CBD is in desperate need of a complete transformation into a new city city. This will require billions of dollars of investment," the report says.<|endoftext|>Tutorials! - -This post is also available in Spanish and German. - -For those of you asking how do I get started in programming, you certainly don't have to look further! A great beginning to learn how to program comes in the form of Codecademy, a website that's been helping students around the world learn programming since 2013. What's exciting is that a student can start learning programming in less than three months. - -To help you navigate the site and create your first program, I'm going to show you how to generate one. I'll also outline several different programming frameworks that you can use to build up your skills. - -Step 1: Define Your Project - -The first step is defining your code to build up a small game that your little sister will play. In your document or a word document, take a paragraph or two and write your desired program: - -// 1. The title of the program! (This code doesn't really do anything; it just makes the title.) - -Code the title of your program after "title of the program" like this and then type in your program. When you're done, you'll see what appears to be: - -You should now be ready to import into your project any references you made in your document and use the "import the entire document" dropdown to import everything contained in your doc. Now, create one "module" type "HelloWorld" and add this line to your file's "before" block: - -To save some typing, if you don't want to add a "before line," you can just delete the line after the module name (for example: "HelloWorld") - -// 2. An example of a piece of code (This code does something. It's the main reason why you're here.): - -In this example you can see how to "import" your module and type in your program for the first time. You can add more lines now as you get comfortable with it. The only thing you must always remember is to "export your module once." Once your program's completed for the first time, you can then export it in one of two ways: - -The simplest way is to manually export everything like so: - -You're welcome to use either of these solutions provided your code is in "public" folder for each line of your code. This is a feature of the C# language that allows you to place your programs in a "public" folder. - -Or let's say you want to make a simple test: - -In this case I'd export the whole folder: - -So what does "export the entire folder" mean? It means you've now exported up to all of your .csproj folders, including your main project folder! - -Step 3: Define Your "Initialization Code" - -Now it's time to start really defining your first step in programming, which is "Initialization Code." You would do this in your project.json file, and it is a very important step that determines what type of initialization code your program will have on the first time your program is run. It's also used to make sure that your program doesn't run if the program, or any of the classes, are already loaded into memory before your program begins execution. - -// 3. In the Initialization section below: - -You're looking for some "Initialization Code." All initialization code must have exactly three lines of initialization code, with the first line being the "InitializeComponent" line. It will also have one single line "LoadLibrary" line. - -In our "Init" section, we're going to add "InitializeComponent." So from here on, we're going to put that line at the top of our files and then add "LoadLibrary" after it (to have it be the last line in the file) as we continue to define our first steps in our programs! - -InitializeComponent: - -LoadLibrary: - - -Here's what it will look like when we do things the way we described: - -Step 4: Start Visual Studio Code - -If you've already downloaded Visual Studio Code, we're going to go ahead and add another command line window to our terminal (as we'll be -======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== -The first-ever U.S. Olympic rugby sevens team is set to compete with China and Japan in the first of three games in Rio this August. - -The team, selected by USA Rugby, will play at Suntec Events Center Stadium with China and Japan in what the world's most popular sport is likely to view as the last game of the Olympic Games, according to USA Rugby CEO Nigel Melville. - -"It has long been a question whether or not we would make another Olympic effort," Melville said. "It is the right time to take a look at what we can do to bring the Olympic Games back to the United States. - -"We think it is the right time, and we will do so and be back in the Olympic fold, and I expect to be." - -The team will take on the Asian teams in what Melville said is the final team for this year's competition. He said it will be tough, but "it is one of the few games this year with a significant national presence. In many ways, it is the last opportunity for U.S. national team members to make an impression on the world." - -The USA took home silver in rugby sevens in Rio last summer, while Australia finished a close second to the U.S. in the medal count. Melville said that was a result of good performances by the teams, and the U.S. needs to learn lessons from their losses. - -"I think we have to learn how we play, and we're trying to do that better at this early stage of any game. I understand we didn't do that well in the London Olympics, and it's a reason we finished second to Australia," Melville told ESPN in an interview. "But in Rio it's a different game plan that was executed really, really well. - -Melville said the USA could have put the game in the hands of the Chinese, and the Australians, by just sticking to the plan and going forward. - -"It's like the football team. The game is designed to allow the players to make their own impact on the game by going and making the tackle, or scoring a try, or throwing in some key passes, and then the rest of our time, the rest of the game's going to come at us. They've seen that from the last game against the Chinese. So we really have to learn what we did right and do the same this time. You can't make a huge impact right from the start." - -"You have to understand that you can't play this game like we did in London. We didn't start play. This is not the plan for this game. We've been studying them since September, watching, preparing, going through the process of how you play a rugby sevens game with a national team that's made up of sevens players." - -USAR has had other meetings with various players about possibly competing with the Chinese at Rio, but Melville said so far all have said they wanted to play for their countries. - -"Some of these guys have made it clear they want to play for their countries and, if given an opportunity, they'll play for their countries," Melville said. "One thing the Chinese have got is experience from the last Olympic Games. They know how to do it. - -"They've put it behind them. They understand how the game works." - -Melville added that the idea of playing both the U.S. and Australia, as well as the Chinese, is still being determined. The only other options are to play an American team or two Americans. - -"They had some players in the pool that spoke Chinese or English, and we thought it would be fun to have a Chinese team, to have some Australian players and see if they could communicate," Melville said. - -There is no specific time frame for selection of a team, Melville said. But the top finishers will play on Aug. 28, while the winners of a qualifying tournament on Aug. 29 and 30 will advance. - -Melville said he will name a U.S. coach "as soon as I can." He declined to name names, though he did say Ryan Bailey, one of the coaching staffs during the Beijing Olympics, is under consideration. - -Melville also was asked about the possible involvement of a U.S. Rugby affiliate. - -"That is a question to be answered to the full extent of our ability. Right now, the only affiliation we are looking at is one that I'm a part of in the U.S. Olympic Committee and I'm a part of the USA Rugby board of directors. I really don't know the answer to that for now," Melville said. "I was asked the question by a number of people. There will be more to come in the next month on that subject, but right now it's a question that is probably best handled by the full leadership of the U. -======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== -LARAMIE, Wyo. -- The New Orleans Pelicans are headed overseas for the third straight season. - -A source told ESPN New Orleans that the Pelicans have assigned starting point guard Jrue Holiday to his country's team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. - -Holiday had one game this season and averaged 3.5 points in 12.5 minutes over one start after missing nearly six weeks following foot surgery, and is not expected to play Tuesday. - -Holiday is one of five players the Pelicans are set to send overseas to fill out training camp rosters. They also sent forward Jason Smith and center Brian Roberts to France for preseason games against the Lakers on Aug. 2 and against the Philadelphia 76ers on Aug. 6. - -Smith appeared in 32 games for New Orleans this season, averaging 7.2 points in 37 minutes. He signed earlier this offseason. - -Roberts appeared in five games for New Orleans this season -- recording three points in 13 minutes. He is currently sidelined with a sprained ankle. - -The Pelicans said Saturday in a statement that they "strongly encourage all players to participate in the NBA preseason and international games."<|endoftext|>I was just watching the new episode of The Simpsons and noticed this joke about how the Simpsons are always going to be a family of four and how they always run into each other in a restaurant but never really talk to each other. This has been going on since the very first episode where Lisa was forced to be Lisa and Marge was forced to be Marge and Homer was forced to be Homer without a thought. - -Here's the joke: - -Lisa: "When it comes to a family, we're the same species!" - -Marge: "Oh, come off it, you're not as smart as she is." - -Lisa: "I'm getting there!" - -Marge: "It's like she's never been inside a family." - -Lisa: "I don't know how I feel about that!" - -Marge: "She's your sister!" - -Lisa: "I was just saying that we're all one big family, Marge." - -Marge: "Oh well! Let's see! What would a family even look like if we had four of us?" - -They end up at the family meal and have nothing in common. The four eat together anyway.<|endoftext|>The National Security Agency is asking to be exempted from an existing law on surveillance so it can continue to collect the phone data and Internet communications of Americans, according to sources familiar with the situation and legal documents. - -NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers had previously requested the exemption in exchange for greater access to data, but the Justice Department turned the request down, citing its concerns about its legality, the sources said. The new proposal is expected to be submitted on Monday to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., according to one official. - -The source described the change, which will require congressional approval, as the latest attempt by Congress to prevent the NSA from expanding its powers. - -The move comes amid an intense public debate over the NSA and its surveillance powers after documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden revealed how the agency has amassed vast quantities of telephone and Internet information from Americans. - -The Associated Press reported this month that the program called PRISM collects data by hacking directly into the servers of nine companies that hold the records, collecting the information of both Americans and foreigners. - -The NSA, which said in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in December that it does not collect data "about millions of Americans," argues that the program is legal because it does not target people in the U.S. The Justice Department and intelligence and defense committee chairs have repeatedly supported the surveillance, saying it is critical to preventing terrorism and foreign espionage. - -Admiral Rogers, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, is in the final months of his tenure as NSA director and wants to maintain a tight grip on one of the most sensitive programs in the history of the agency. In recent weeks, the White House and other officials have defended the program, insisting it is critical in the fight against terrorism, even though the NSA itself has said its collection of private data is not relevant to its main function of monitoring communications of terror suspects. - -Mr. Holder, asked about the NSA proposal in a recent meeting with lawmakers, said he could not comment on the details. - -"Well, I have not had a chance to review at all the new proposal," he said. - -Lawmakers are preparing new legislation to increase oversight of the agency. But any reform proposal is likely to receive strong opposition from the NSA and other intelligence officials. - -Adm. Rogers declined an interview request for this story. In a statement, he said: "The NSA is not monitoring the communications of Americans and most of the information about what phone calls take place between our two countries are intercepted by foreigners overseas, overseas, overseas." - -The proposal comes at -======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== -Possible cause: - -The software uses an older method for updating its registry. - -Solution: - -Reboot in safe mode.<|endoftext|>From Wowpedia - -Objectives - -Collect all of them to complete this task. - -Description - -Thanks to you, the Illidari have lost the power of fel magic. However, you should be ashamed of yourself. Fel has always been the dark side, but it is now lost forever. - -We can still use the dark power to destroy the Legion. We have learned how to do so, but it's just a matter of time before the Legion is ready to attack again. - -You should do your best to learn the dark arts. We're confident you will succeed and destroy the Illidari once and for all. - -Proximity - -This section concerns content related to Cataclysm. - -The Illidari have now left the surface. They have taken control of Felwood in Northrend. - -Notes - -After completing Felwood (for both Alliance and Horde factions) he/she'll be a member of the Illidari at Felwood. - -The Illidari can take over your server via [Dreadscar Rift], if you have the [Aldor's Signet] in your inventory and have been to Felwood. - -Related - -If player is an [Illidari Champion] When the Illidari come, all champions of the must stand together. All will be judged, and the guilty will receive the greatest punishment, the death of any champion. There are many, many things left to learn about the Illidari. In one way, you are in the right place... you stand under the command and protection of the great Illidari -- and you are a champion of the Legion. Even so, you must show the greater good and sacrifice everything but your sanity. This is a terrible thing to do, but it is necessary. Do not be one of those who think that it is too hard... or who ask for too little. That path will lead to damnation. You must go back to the Shadow Council -- and to Gul'dan. You will show them why you are the greatest champion the World of Warcraft has ever known. - -You must go home to Shadowmoon Valley and destroy Gul'dan. - -The Illidari has taken control of Felwood in Northrend. The Legion has risen again. The Burning Legion has taken control of this place. With Gul'dan's return, the demons will return. - -Kilrogg Deadeye is one of the main characters of Warcraft: The Beginning, a story told through a series of cutscenes. The first story to be told, it takes place in Shadowmoon Valley after the Cataclysm, and the beginning of the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, it takes place before the Cataclysm. Kilrogg is one of the leaders within the Alliance resistance against the Horde onslaught. - -Kilrogg was played by Chris Metzen in the cinematic cutscenes for the Cataclysm expansion, where he led the assault upon Stormwind Keep (which was overrun by the forces of Ner'zhul) only for the remaining defenders to flee in fear due to the sudden appearance of a massive Scourge army. The cinematic also features a flashback to Kilrogg personally battling the Lich King before leaving to help his comrades defend the world.<|endoftext|>This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website - -Finnish National Flag, National Symbols and Salutations - -Last modified: 2015-09-15 by ivan sache - -Keywords: finnish national flag | norsk national symbol | salutation | - -Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors - - -Image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 2 November 2015 - -See also: - -The flag of Finland is based on that of Estonia, but it has no resemblance to Norway's national symbol. - - -A Finnish flag - -image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 2 November 2015 - -The Finnish flag features the national emblem of Finland and a red band at each corner. The red band is slightly bent towards the hoist and is divided in red with a blue "Pusan" border between them. The coat of arms of Finland is placed with the blue border at the hoist end of the red band. - -The coat of arms of Finland (see picture) consists of three quarters of a shield with the legend in a shield design with the eagle, two coats of arms on a shield, surrounded by the words "Pusan" and "Finnish Freedom", the arms of Pusan. There are the arms of the Kingdom of Finland with a golden crown to the center (the crown, as an eagle, symbolically represents Finland's sovereignty and independence) with the -======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== -The story starts with a little story: "What would a young boy think of a little pink dinosaur?" - - -So I thought of that very same little boy in a way the entire world should know about him. - - -He is only two years old now, but he has his very own dinosaur: an awesomely cool mini-version of his favorite dinosaur. - -To him, this is exactly the kind of thing that every other Disney movie has done before him, and that makes it even more special to him. I mean, he doesn't even know who's making dinosaurs as it is. He just has to have that one. I guess he would say that because we all think about these things when we're little, and he's going to be that little kid for the rest of his life.<|endoftext|>The US presidential election has given new impetus to the debate over whether the world needs nuclear weapons. Since the US has more weapons than any other nation, we have to decide if such weapons are justified for our security and whether they actually keep us safe. The United States currently possesses an estimated arsenal of approximately 6,700 nuclear weapons–more than the combined forces of the next 20 nations combined, and many times the total used by the eight nations with nuclear weapons at the start of the Cold War. - -For more than 50 years, the US has been under the threat of nuclear attacks. If a nuclear attack occurred today, it's estimated that half of the population living in this country would be killed or injured. So how does the US stand up to this kind of threat? Let's take a look at three major arguments: - -First, nuclear weapons are so reliable that the United States can respond in under minutes to any attack with nukes. The current nuclear arsenal is comprised mostly of fission-weapons (such as the US weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki). While this might be a tempting narrative, it falls apart when you examine the reality. - -For example, the Soviet Union had an inventory of roughly 15 to 20 thermonuclear weapons. They also had the Soviet ICBM complex that had the capacity to deliver the equivalent of 30,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic warheads. Furthermore, the Soviets had a military capability well beyond the capabilities of America's nuclear bombers, whose range is about 9,000 miles. This led to the US having to wait nearly a week to launch nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union first attacked with its first strike. The Soviet "solution" would have been to launch at least 50 nuclear weapons in the first few minutes, which would have wiped out a great deal of humanity. - -The Soviets had a military capability well beyond the capabilities of America's nuclear bombers - -Even if the US did have a perfect response, what's the probability of stopping a nuclear missile with nukes? In reality, our ability to stop a nuclear missile with nukes is low. If a Russian ICBM were to have a successful first strike, they would likely hit their target even if we only had four ICBMs. - -Moreover, the current US ICBM force is largely obsolete, with only two aging ICBMs (the Minuteman IIIB and Minuteman IIIH), as well as the B61 nuclear bomb and strategic ABM (anti-ballistic missile) system. - -These weapons are also expensive, and if we choose not to continue to replace them, they will soon be retired. The B61 bomb costs $8 million each, while the strategic ABM system costs a reported $10 billion. A new, "operationally deployable" Minuteman III is estimated to cost $3.5 billion each. Given these numbers, it's clear that the current ICBM force is not a feasible deterrent for America, and that the United States must have both a replacement and upgrading program for its deployed force to remain viable. Thus, the argument is clearly not that nuclear weapons are perfect. - -To this day, the US is still not able to stop a major nuclear warhead from detonating near its surface, either with an ICBM, conventional ICBM or ballistic missile (which will come at some point in the future). In order to defend against a "precision strike" with an ICBM, the US must either be able to destroy the incoming warhead or at least destroy it before it comes to the ground (or launch a counterattack). - -However, the United States does have two kinds of ICBMs that can knock out an incoming warhead at a fairly safe distance. One is the B61, which is a very long-range nuclear weapon that will destroy the incoming warhead with a few seconds of time. (The US has two such weapons in its arsenal.) However, the US only has a single ICBM on hand for use in a "precision strike." A two-warhead ICBM, such as the B61, also gives the US the ability to destroy incoming nuclear warheads at a much longer distance. But this is not an option because -======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== -Kawasaki Z1000 - -I recently acquired this bike from its original owner. It has always been a good bike in every regard, but I found some problems along the way: It has some wear and tear on the engine bay, the front end has been modified to a wider track and the suspension was modified as well. The bike has been running very well, and the engine is still working perfectly (I have changed oil and filters and both of my oil changes since acquiring this bike). - -The bike is still in working order and it has all the original items including the oil filter. I am giving this kz1000 a thorough overhaul with a complete overhaul in the oil system and front end as well as some complete brakes and exhaust work. - -As a side project, I also have a very old motorbike that is a great engine swap to take these bikes to the next level.<|endoftext|>There's been talk of a 'recovery' for months now but it appears that it's finally here… so what exactly was happening in the UK and what's the current status there? - -As mentioned earlier, there has been a dramatic slump in the housing sector and with prices now crashing into the basement it's probably inevitable that the recovery is about to enter the phase of "panic" before it really recovers. - -Here's a quick rundown of the key sectors and what is happening there. - -Rents are coming down (the picture that the media paints) and yet property agents are only now starting to come to grips with this. As a result there is a massive drop-off in home-price growth and many property agents fear that we are on the verge of a price bubble like the one in America in the early 2000s. A few months ago house prices and rents seemed almost identical, even at current low interest rates and they weren't far off for much longer. But rents are now starting to go up again… and this is only going to speed up the inevitable crash, and this time we know with certainty that the crash will be as rapid as the recovery from the financial crisis. The fact that there is actually a lot less overhang in places like London and the South East than there was five years ago is proof that we've had a massive decline in housing demand. This means that many of the thousands of people who are being forced to give up on ever buying a home will instead simply be renting until prices drop even further. I suspect the big banks will also start to get worried at the end of this. Some property experts see a future for property investment which is similar to that which existed prior to the crash in 2007-08. This means that if home prices don't come down fast enough then you can have a similar crash in the property stocks of most banks. - -The other issue (which is more important than the housing sector) is that people are starting to look at their retirement savings and realise that they will have less to live on – and even if you've accumulated some savings over the course of your working life (and remember that savings are made over time) this will inevitably reduce the real value of that savings over time. So much of that wealth that you've amassed over many years will now be in the form of assets other than your mortgage. The other issue (and it's probably the most important issue of all) is that there's a huge overhang of unfunded liabilities and pension debts which means that we need to put up much larger public debts if the economy is going have any hope of recovering any time soon. So the government needs to start working very fast to start funding its debts again which will require a massive increase in the debt ceiling. - -A quick update on the eurozone: I haven't been seeing a lot of news around this lately as everybody seems so focused on the UK economy but I have a feeling that the crisis is actually now on another scale… - -The financial industry and big banks have been getting nervous and a lot of European countries (particularly the southern European countries, like Spain and Italy) have just become too expensive to do business in. - -Many of the banks in these countries are already under-capitalised and this really won't get better in the near future. There's no guarantee that they will just be able to survive as any other bank would over the coming years. - -What will make things even more difficult is the fact that there are a lot of other businesses that they compete against for business… and many of these businesses are even more dependent on government support – especially the utilities. There's a very real potential that they could go bankrupt within the next 12 months. In other words, we haven't learned our lessons after the financial crisis (aside from being too generous to bankers). And I'm pretty sure that is what is going to happen in these parts of Europe now. - -If we look at the real estate sector, the UK has some incredibly rich land but that's about it. It's not the UK's economy and it certainly doesn't seem -======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== -The National Security Agency reportedly used data from the American cellphone records program to identify the whereabouts of an Iranian-American man in San Francisco. - -The man, Anwar al-Aulaqi, 26, who is believed to be an al Qaeda operative, told The Associated Press he was arrested on July 11 at a hotel in Oakland, Calif. because agents believed he could have been a terrorist. Aulaqi was freed on Aug. 10 after an unsuccessful appeal to the federal appeals court. - -Aulaqi said the data were collected as part of the NSA's secret program of collecting global phone data. He said that although he had been in Saudi Arabia and Yemen for months and had no connection to either country, the NSA agents picked him up. During a 10-hour interrogation, agents seized his laptop and thumb drives. He told his lawyer that the information was used for terrorism-related cases. - -Advertisement - -"My computer was destroyed, and my hard drives were seized and my phone was turned off," Aulaqi told the AP.<|endoftext|>Toblerone is all about chocolate and, it is claimed, could even improve cholesterol levels. It's also all about a great looking recipe. The Toblerone recipe on the box is the perfect recipe for breakfast, as they're topped off with a chocolate ganache – although there are a few variations available to get even more flavour. - -We thought we'd make a special treat to show that you don't need a high-end chocolate to recreate the perfect Toblerone. - -We've made a batch with just 40 calories per gram and they're packed with rich goodness. These Toblerones are also very versatile. You can make a recipe simply the same all day with the same ingredients but, if you would like something even richer, simply leave out the rum and the milk on your morning recipe and top with a decadent, chocolate ganache. - -The Perfect Toblerone - -Ingredients 50g dark chocolate - -1 tbsp milk - -1 tsp vanilla extract - -1 cup butter (melted) - -1/2 tsp rum or triple sec (optional) - -Instructions 1. Melt the chocolate (in a heatproof bowl or pan over a saucepan of boiling water) until it spreads. If it starts to melt slightly too quickly, pour to the sieve and allow to cool for 5 minutes before pouring straight into the fridge to solidify. - -2. Cream the butter and add the rum, then the vanilla, and then gradually mix in your melted chocolate mixture. - -3. Once all the chocolate's mixed in, turn up the heat to low and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the chocolate is all melted and smooth. It is important to stir constantly to prevent the chocolate from splattering. - -4. Spread the melted chocolate over the cake, and then top with a dusting of cocoa powder. - -5. Place back into the fridge for around an hour to harden down. - -Nutritional Info per serving: 541 calories, 36g fat, 35g protein, 38g carbs, 9g fibre, 28g sugar - -Click here for our Toblerone Recipe, available from this link.<|endoftext|>A few people over on /r/KotakuInAction have been arguing that GamerGate can somehow be an effective force for social justice in the US because it's based primarily in the East, with a strong emphasis on feminism. I want to lay that argument down. - -GamerGate was the product of a number of factors. The first was that the industry itself, like most technology industries, has a pretty conservative bias, especially in regards to female representation. That has been the case since the earliest days when video game designers and publishers were largely just trying to cash in on an increasing mainstream interest in gaming (i.e. the "Nintendogs" craze before the PC explosion of the '90s). That was amplified during the PC revolution when gamers, particularly male gamers, had more freedom to choose what games they played, and there were more platforms to play them on. - -The mainstreaming of consoles like the PlayStation and the Xbox had also allowed game designers to make much more personal, focused games featuring their own characters rather than generic male archetypes, and that in-turn allowed a new audience to discover those kinds of games — both boys and girls. - -Then, with the advent of social media when most gamers, men and women, became more open about their interests (again, including the "Nintendogs" craze) and their desires to game, the audience for those kinds of titles widened to include everyone. With that happened, the industry as a whole had to be more realistic in its designs on attracting players who weren't just geeks looking for a video game to play. - -GamerGate was thus formed as a response to these trends — first by those gamers who wanted better representation of women and the underrepresented gender in games, -======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== -Rutgers vs. Texas - -When: 6:35 p.m. Saturday - -Where: TCF Bank Stadium, Houston - -Radio: SiriusXM Rush (Sirius channel 92; XM channel 12) - -TV: ESPN2 (Bob Wischusen; Mike Ditka) - -Radio broadcast links: ESPN Radio (SiriusXM Rush (Sirius channel 92; XM channel 12), WGR 550 AM) - -Live blog links: ESPN / The Rutgers Blog - -Live blog highlights: None here - -For Rutgers: New head coach Chris Ash takes over the program after one season in which he had a 10-17 record, a 5-7 mark in Big Ten play and an NCAA loss after a loss to Wisconsin, and finished with a 12-32 record. While many have pointed out that Rutgers has won just seven games in each of the last three seasons, new coach Ash has his work cut out for him to prove that he can replace the talent that departed (and departed for other programs). The Scarlet Knights still have five seniors on their roster, including All-American receiver Leonte Carroo, a Heisman finalist last year. The offensive line needs to be rebuilt, and while the defense is returning eight starters, it will need to pick up all the pieces from last season. - -For Texas: Strong, coming off his third 10-win season, inherits a program that has struggled for years and is looking at the rebuilding process again. While Texas certainly returns at least two of its starting five from last season, replacing that depth will be key. The passing game still needs to be rebuilt, and the offense will need to have a lot of success with a new quarterback, a position group that only had four starters return, including a likely starter in Shane Buechele. The defense will lose about half of its front, but the front seven is one of the best in the country. This is Texas' one chance to prove that they are capable of reaching the postseason each season. - -Prediction - - -For Rutgers: Another Big Ten victory and Rutgers will be in a spot to play for the conference title. - -for Texas: Texas just has to slow down Rutgers' offense in this one and Rutgers' defense doesn't have the personnel to hold up against Texas' prolific offense. - -Game: Rutgers 34, Texas 10 - -Time: 6:35 p.m. Saturday - -Record: Rutgers 24-9, 6-6 Big Ten - -Position: Rutgers at QB - -Schedules: - -Rutgers 11/23 - -Texas 10/2 - -* — No change with the scheduled game - -What can we learn about Rutgers from this game? - -1) Rutgers really will need to take it on the road against a team from the Big 12 after their two wins came against the spread in Iowa and Minnesota. - -2) Rutgers' offense will need to step up at some point. The defense must continue to improve because you can make a case that Texas doesn't have a defense with the ability to stop Rutgers on Saturday. - -3) Texas will not be able to rely on freshman Daje Johnson to get the ball to playmakers and get the ball moving on a consistent basis. - -4) Texas will need sophomore QB Shane Buechele to help take the pressure off the defense to find a way to get into the end zone. - -5) The key for Notre Dame to beat Notre Dame will be the play of QB Everett Golson. Golson had a rough first game against the Irish in 2014 and took the blame for throwing three interceptions. In his second game, Golson has been more patient and is making better decisions, which has led to his higher completion percentage and fewer interceptions. With Golson under center, Notre Dame has been getting into the end zone and scoring points. Even if Golson can't play, I think the offense can still be effective. - -Prediction: Rutgers 14, Texas 10 - -Next game - -Saturday, October 26 at BYU - -Time: 12:30 p.m. ET - -Records: BYU 8-2, Texas 7-4<|endoftext|>You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters - -Message: * A friend wanted you to see this item from WRAL.com: http://wr.al/vZjW - -— North Carolina lawmakers are pushing to expand Medicaid in the state – a potentially costly proposition that would cover a greater percentage of the state's uninsured population than it currently does. - - -The legislature passed a Medicaid expansion bill late last month, but Gov. Bev Perdue has not committed to signing it and is awaiting the final legislation to be approved by a state Senate conference committee. - -"Gov. Perdue has made clear she's open to expanding Medicaid but she wants it to be paid for with existing federal dollars and that's what's stalled the bill this -======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== -"The president wants to be able to make a deal. But we have to know. We have to know now the scope of the problem, because at this point a single meeting is not going to solve it, is certainly not going to make a difference. The issue of Iran is so much bigger than just the issue of negotiating, because if the Iranians take the country over, things will change very, very rapidly, much faster than anyone envisioned." — Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, James Jeffrey to the Financial Times - -The President needs to know the scope of how difficult or simple it will be to solve this nuclear situation, so he can help inform the debate, especially if the deal isn't perfect from the American perspective or the international community (and if, God forbid, Iran takes over.) - -"In the coming week or so the president will sit down with President [Reince] Priebus as well as Secretary [John] Kerry, with both of them, to discuss the options he's got and where he'd like to take this country." — State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf - -While we don't know everything at this point, the President and his team have to be willing to try new things and be open to alternative options. Obama wants to take the "best possible deal" in order to have a strong economy, and we'd like to help with that end. - -Iran - -Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon, and it is a country that has a lot of good and bad things going for it. It has been under sanctions for many years and has made some changes, but it continues to have nuclear ambitions and is still a potential source of weapons-grade material. - -Iran's main goal may be to be seen as a good neighbor for the region, for the United States, and for Israel. The fact that the US has been willing support both Iran as well as Israel has caused some rumblings with the Iranians. - -The United States has the power to pressure Iran economically, and could even sanction them financially. The United States could also do some other things, like try some economic or military coercion over Iran. While we would prefer a peaceful outcome, we would not stand idly by and let any potential nuclear weapons going to a country that could do such a thing. - -If Iran were to become a nuclear power, it would be a major problem. But it is more unlikely than it has ever been to happen at this point. We could have an argument about how many nuclear weapons Iran could potentially have (it has around a thousand for a number of reasons.) But given the many other problems in the region right now, we think it is more likely that this would become a more complex problem than it ever was. - -This could all come down to trust, trust that the President is in control, and trust that the international community and the United States will all act together to solve this problem.<|endoftext|>This month marks 25 years since Dr. Seuss published "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish," the book that kick-started an endless stream of kids' picture books, and one of the most popular children's literature classics ever published. The book is considered the cornerstone of the field of picture writing. The author of the book, Dr. Seuss's daughter, Susie Seuss Geisel, had one simple message for all those kids who loved to write: you don't need to be a doctor or an author to work in children's literature. "I was a writer myself," Geisel said when she was asked to help explain her father's work. "But you know he didn't tell me to write a book, I had to be a writer." - -Here are nine of the best books written by young children. Whether you're a little kid who's just starting to write a manuscript of your own or a grown-up who's curious about a budding author, there's plenty to enjoy in here. - -One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Lark Walker. This book tells the story of three fish called "R" through "L." The first fish is named "R" while the second fish is named "L." Together their names form a rhyme that says "Two fish, two red fish, blue fish all together!" - -One Fish Two Fish by Lark Walker. This book tells the story of three fish called "R" through "L." The first fish is named "R" while the second fish is named "L." Together their names form a rhyme that says "Two fish, two red fish, blue fish all together!" Let It Go by Kristen Stewart & Phyllis Eisenstein. This story is actually based on an old folk song. The words are from "Letting Go". - -Let It Go by Kristen Stewart & Phyllis Eisenstein. This story is actually based on an old folk song. The words are from "Letting Go". The Snow Queen by Jane Eyre. A -======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== -Cristiano Ronaldo wants to spend his retirement with Real Madrid, and while his agent believes that any interest of the Premier League is just a tactic that the club want, the forward appears unconcerned about his future - -Cristiano Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes has denied reports that Manchester United are willing to pay £55m for his client. - -Speculation about a transfer had surrounded the 27-year-old this week and Real Madrid had even been said to have launched a lawsuit against Real's Spanish newspaper, AS, over the leak. - -"I have no information on that subject," Mendes told BBC Sport. - -"I don't know anything about it whatsoever, you can imagine that if someone told me that, I would not have believed it." - -Ronaldo, Real Madrid's record goalscorer, has scored a total of 323 league goals over the past nine years for the Spanish champions.<|endoftext|>You've decided to do your own thing with a new camera or an idea you have. If you're going it alone and you don't have the financial backing to hire one of the big name companies (if you can even afford them), then you may need to have that camera on your body for the time being. - -The best way to do this is probably to rent a DSLR on some of the rental sites (if you can pay them). They'll be able to help to find the best quality and features the camera will need for the tasks that you have in mind with your camera. Once you get over the excitement of the idea of this all starting, it can be an incredibly helpful tool both for your new endeavor and to help out someone else, so be sure get to it! - -Now, here's what we have at the moment at B&H. - -The F2 Pro - -The F2 Pro is a camera that is meant specifically for filmmakers, not photographers. The camera offers a very different approach to filmmaking, and at a price point that's a lot of bang for your buck. This is a camera that's made for serious photographers, but has enough features and specs to help make your daily shooting and editing process on a DSLR just as easy as it is if you're using your smartphone and a decent tripod. - -The camera is certainly more capable of working at high ISO speeds and has better quality than most consumer level DSLRs. There are some quality improvements from when Foveon came out to how that sensor functions, and that certainly adds to the look and feel of the camera. - -There are some pretty cool stuff coming out in the coming camera updates. Here are some of them (and some new camera samples on youtube). - -The F2 Pro comes with a very nice set of extra features. The new firmware will offer improved manual options, a zoom mode, and even "full frame" stabilization. This is something that's been mentioned before on this site, but should be especially important for DSLR shooters, who need help getting a DSLR "down to size" to make the most of their camera. - -The camera is a great choice for folks who want to get started with film or just want to learn. This camera is also perfect for those that like to travel (I myself take it with me very often). The F2 Pro offers an extremely versatile range of feature sets, and it's not hard to see why it's so popular with its small, light, and small size. - -B&H (link) - -Adorama (link) - -Barnes and Noble (link) - -Camera Store of Philadelphia (link) - -Casio (link) - -Dicks Camera - -Fandango - -Amazon - -B&H (link) - -CNET (link) - -Dedicated Camera Gear Guide<|endoftext|>"No one has ever called me a hero, or a martyr, or a patriot. All I've accomplished has been to stop this madness." – J.K. Rowling - -"I love the book – and now I have my own Harry Potter-inspired doll." – KATE MCKINNON, NEW YORK MAGAZINE - -"I could never be a witch without this book." – ANNIE JEUNY, AUGUST 2009 issue of WHOM - -"I'm just really excited to get this." – KATHERINE CAMPBELL, MOTHERINGmagazine.com - -"Hogwarts is magical." – CASSILIA CRUZ, PENNYBOARDED.COM - -"I want to own this book, I want to wear it on my wall, and I want to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone aloud every night. It's that good." – MARY MEGHAN, PENNYBOARDED.COM - -"That's the kind of magic you can only feel at Hogwarts. Harry Potter has captured me – and I don't know how you explain -======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== -For almost 40 years, one of the biggest things about American television and radio has been the presence of the nation's most popular celebrity host, the late David Letterman. It's clear that while many of us have grown accustomed to Letterman, few have gotten to know him in depth. That might be changing thanks to a recent, stunning New York Times piece in its Sunday magazine. - -In what's probably the most thorough interview Letterman has given in years, the comedian and veteran actor reveals a lot of new details about his life and work in his first interviews about the current state of his brain, and a lot of things that were kept secret for decades. The piece is longish, but worth reading on all levels. - -Here are a few highlights: - -On Alzheimer's: "It starts as a disease of the memory and ends with you feeling tired and like a bum. You can be a total amoeba." - -On why he changed his diet: "I decided to get a little bit leaner. My wife's mother-in-law had me put on some weight because she thought her son-in-law was too fat; he didn't know how to keep his weight on. We talked about the relationship between weight and dementia and the idea of a certain metabolic rate of the body. I changed my diet. Now I'm the opposite of fat; now I'm the opposite of lean, but not by a lot. I am actually very skinny, but that's what happens." - -On the way his work on The Late Show affected his life: "When I was doing Late Night, a little of my friends saw me as a little boy. They said "What the hell are you doing when I get older?' I never thought of myself that way! When I came back to work after being off for a while, I was actually happier than I ever had been in my whole life. That was a huge change for me: to really feel happy and to have my relationships with people." - -On why he left CBS in 1998: "I was getting very sick and tired of the politics and the whole thing that was going down in the CBS building, and the whole kind of power structure around the network. I made a point to just leave, and at the end of the season there was this feeling that it was time to go. I was sitting in my office, looking around, and I remember walking into the door and thinking 'You know what else is going to go down tonight? A meteor will hit the earth, and that's going to be the day. So go! It's time to go.' And of course, they canceled The X-Files, and that was that." - -On the value of keeping secrets: "I don't worry about my legacy when I die, I worry about my legacy and what my kids will remember. So I think that's the way it should be all the time." - -On the reason he chose to stay away from Hollywood in his 90s: "[Comics] and writers and actors used to be an endangered species. I thought it was time to find out that people loved this stuff. And if we're going to say we were there, let's just name who we were. That changed things for a while, and then, well, the thing that happened was The Simpsons came out. There are a lot more comics, and now there's a TV show called The Walking Dead, which is a good show." - -This is a must-read interview that I didn't read when it came out but am glad we had it later. Not to say Letterman wouldn't talk about anything: In a 2010 interview, he's asked if he's changed and doesn't hold back: "What I think about is I feel like my life is just about right now, and when I die I will be the same person that I am right now, and then nothing else will affect it in the same way." - -This is the sort of thing that Letterman would say: "I will miss the show, but nothing can replace the magic."<|endoftext|>Brisbane Roar announced on Tuesday the signing of talented young Australian-born Socceroos utility Mathew Leckie from Central Coast Mariners until the end of the Hyundai A-League 2016/17 season. - -The 20-year-old will join Roar on a two-year contract with a view to becoming an Hyundai A-League member when the Roar's Westfield FFA Cup campaign wraps up on Sunday, December 29. - - -"The signing of Mathew brings a wealth of experience to the Roar squad," said Roar Head Coach John Aloisi. - - -"Mathew is one of Australia's brightest young prospects and we're delighted we've been able to secure his services. - - -"Having scored three goals in his first FFA Cup match against Newcastle Jets last week, it's fitting we secured his signature from the Mariners in time for the Christmas -======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== -It is a strange thing, but the fact remains that in 2016 we are entering the last year of the Obama presidency. The next president will have at least three and probably four years of the Obama presidency, as he will be out of office by that point. How is this possible? It's not even clear that we will want to get a lot of things right after all that we have learned. - -I have said that the Obama presidency is not over yet. If Obama were to step down before his successor takes the oath—for whatever reason—the legacy of President Barack Obama will not be destroyed. Obama still has the opportunity to play a very important role in our future by being one of the last remaining statesmen. - -I wish Obama well. I wish him the best of luck. But I also wish the president did not believe so strongly after his election in 2008 that he could be some kind of savior and do all things on his own. President Obama's legacy should be one of pragmatism, and the realization that we must work with others to achieve our goals. That's exactly why the Obama presidency is over. It may not seem like it. But to the extent that any part of his legacy survives, it would be because he worked to make his legacy work for everyone. - -In this election, Barack Obama's legacy came as a disappointment to Donald Trump. A lot of people were frustrated at the Obama administration for its overly complex immigration policy, its unwillingness to speak of terrorism in a way that the public could understand, and its general incompetence. - -But if we want to really understand why so many Americans cast their votes against the very idea of Hillary Clinton, the most important lesson to take away is that Donald Trump is a very weak messenger of the presidency. - -When Trump went after Bill Clinton's history of "sexual assault," Clinton's response was to attack Trump. When Trump made false claims about Clinton's past sexual history—even though this is a common tactic used by Republicans looking to impeach Clinton—Clinton did not attack Trump until he finally issued his own accusation. - -I don't blame the Clinton campaign for reacting like this. But when Clinton accused Trump of being a "sexual predator," the Clinton campaign had no reason to defend its own candidate. If Trump is a sexual predator, there is no valid reason for Clinton to keep saying and doing the same thing. All he has done about that is reinforce Trump's message that women who have gotten raped and beaten deserved it. - -We did not need Donald Trump to win the presidency. We did not need Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. These are two of the weakest messenger candidates in American history. If we cannot have confidence in them as presidents, then we have no confidence in our democracy. The fact that Donald Trump cannot seem to imagine what it would be like to actually be president should be a cause of concern for everybody. - -And even if Trump wins, will he be able to do anything? One of the big surprises to Americans of this election was the ease that some Trump supporters were using the power of social media to communicate with one another. As Trump supporters were bombarding his opponent's Facebook pages and Twitter accounts with messages, Clinton's campaign took these posts and used the same ones to respond. But even without those tools at their disposal, Clinton's team was more effective at coordinating its communications and trying to organize. - -Facebook, which has an algorithm that determines what is and is not news, can no doubt be used for good. But Clinton will have no monopoly on the future of politics on Facebook. And without some kind of centralized mechanism to organize and to communicate—whether Facebook, or Twitter or Reddit—the idea of a Trump presidency is just an absurdly unrealistic threat. The reason Trump and Clinton have become the most disliked and distrusted presidential candidates in American history is not because Americans don't trust them even when they're lying about things like policy (see here and here for examples of this). It's because their platforms are so weak that people cannot resist their messages without losing control over themselves. - -It's time for Donald Trump to learn to run a campaign, not a presidency. And that, perhaps, is the most depressing thing about this election: he doesn't ever seem to want to learn.<|endoftext|>The government's response to a public health crisis is supposed to be to do something. And the answer to the Ebola crisis is to do nothing. - -The president's response has been to get a bunch of people out of Africa and let them die. - -His answer to the ongoing plague in the Mideast has been to send in a bunch of people who've never been to Africa to fight the plague. - -This is what the administration, from top to bottom, has done: - -1) Do nothing. - -The Obama administration has done nothing to stop the epidemic spreading and has done nothing to stop more people from dying. - -This is the result: - -1,427 people have been infected with Ebola -======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== -I'm trying to figure out a way to install a new application. First I do a fresh install using a virtual machine from scratch. This is successful, I get the application to install and it's working. But it shows me this and then the screen below: - -When I run the new application there are these errors: - -The user running the application has an account with the same name as the virtual machine. - -The virtual machine is a copy of the physical machine. - -The version of the application installed and its version matches the version of the virtual machine. - -This might be a problem. How might I run that application with the user from the virtual machine? - -Edit: After running into this problem it did not seem to have been affecting the virtual machine it was installed on. So the solution isn't to run the application as the physical machine. It might be a problem with the virtual machine. The best fix is to start a virtual machine with administrator rights, then start the application with the user account. I tried this, but it didn't seem to work.<|endoftext|>From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia. - -The topic of this article has been removed from the real world, and as such has no connection to the real world Pokémon games. - -This article is about the real world Pokémon games and spin-off games. For the virtual world in the Pokémon Trading Card Game franchise, see Pokémon Live! - -Pokémon Live! (Japanese: ポケモンLive! Pokémon Super Live! Pokémon Super! Pokémon in the Japanese version of the Virtual Console releases, Pokémon Super Live!Pokémon Super!Pokémon Super and Pokémon SuperLive! Pokémon Super! in the Japanese releases of the Virtual Console remakes, and ポケモンLive! Pokémon SuperLive! Pokémon Super! Pokémon) is a worldwide stage show for Pokémon characters that became a hit in Japan in November of 2006. It had a limited release in North America in March 2007 and Europe in November 2006. Originally a live event that allowed spectators to meet Pokémon in person, the show became a live stage show with guest appearances by Pokémon characters after a successful 2007 tour. - -The show now hosts many guest appearances from many Pokémon characters, including Mew and Mewtwo in their Mythical forms, Pichu, Aipom, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Tepig, Electabuzz, Elekid, Magby, Magmar, Electabuzz, and Mime Jr. - -It was cancelled in 2014, after which many of the stage shows were removed from the Nintendo eShop (including the American tour in which Tepig and Elekid reappeared as Pokémon characters), the online features were removed, and the Pokémon Center replaced with the Nintendo World Store. In 2014 a tour of Tokyo was held to promote the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, featuring the show. - -The shows in the Virtual Console releases, as well as the English Japanese Pokémon Trading Card Game rereleases for the 3DS and Wii U versions of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, use a combination of live and stage performances which were performed on video screens in the theaters. - -Plot - -The show begins with a montage of each guest's journey to the show, with the Pokémon as they appeared in their own spin-off and spin-off animated series alongside their original appearance in the anime. A special opening is conducted with a song by Gaspare Aran, and the show concludes with the credits. - -The English versions of the Virtual Console releases replaced the intro sequence of Pokémon Live! with a brief scene based on the end of the live show, complete with the crowd cheering on the performers and chanting "Ohhhh!". This is followed by the Pokémon characters returning to the Pokémon Center as the opening is conducted with another musical song. - -Pokémon - -Pokémon Games Location Levels Rate Dratini B W A 1-20 90% Drifblim B W A 1-20 90% Volbeat B W A 1-20 20% Illumise B W A 1-20 20% Mime Jr. B W A 1-20 20% Druddigon B W A 1-10 5% Wimpod B W A 1-20 5% Woobat B W A 1-10 20% Seel B W A 1-6 1% Weezing B W T 20-30 40% Goldeen B W A 1-20 5% Seaking B W A 1-20 5% Staryu B W A 1-10 5% Starmie B W A 1-10 1% Krabby B W A 1-10 1% Seaking B W T 1-6 1% Horsea B W A 1-30 13% Mr. Mime B W A 1-16 1% Porygon2 B W A 3-10 50% Exeggutor B W A 1-20 1% Scyther B W A 10-23 5% Jynx -======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== -DATE: Sep 30, 2012 | BY: David Wharton | Category: Sci-Fi - -The upcoming Syfy series, Paranormal State, may be the first series to be released while we are still in the middle of a major zombie plague, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to make zombies seem terrifying. This week's episode, "The Curse of the Darkman," featured a "zombie," made out of clay, who was used to scare and scare the audience. While the audience enjoyed this performance, a lot of viewers found the episode itself unsettling, although for the right reasons: the creepy character was actually an act of human performance. - -Although the show will air when the zombie plague is over, the cast wasn't the only scary thing the show did in its second episode, which will air on Thursday, September 30, and we decided for our viewing pleasure to take a look at the cast and make them feel the stress of the apocalypse. - -I'm not going to lie: one of my favorite segments was the "fear" part of the show. What I mean is, they're all playing people. Everyone is scared, but we are all scared with what we know of human nature. Everyone has a moment where they have a panic attack in front of their friends. It's just the way we are…that's it at least. - -That's the point we are trying to be at on our show. We are not attempting to play up any of the fear of the actual zombies we are talking about. We're hoping to actually make people question their own reaction and make them question if they're the kind of people who would willingly come into contact with a creepy clay zombie. - -So what do you think of our series? Would you like more scary episodes, or are horror shows the new sitcoms? - -(via The Playlist)<|endoftext|>A long-anticipated report from researchers at MIT has found that solar energy can power a light-polluting car, but in a way that's both sustainable and efficient. - -Solar power is already becoming more widely used, with several studies finding that the technology is competitive with fossil fuels and could help combat climate change. But most of the existing solar panels are bulky and inefficient, due to solar cells' ability to absorb only a portion of the Sun's energy, which makes them unable to generate enough electricity to power anything besides tiny, portable electronics. - -To address these limitations, researchers at MIT and the Argonne National Laboratory looked to a way to turn sunlight directly into electricity in a way that's both more compact and environmentally friendly—and potentially more efficient. - -The new findings, published this week by the journal Energy & Environmental Science, are based on using thin, transparent photovoltaics, as opposed to conventional silicon solar cells, to convert the sunlight into electricity that can be stored in a battery. The researchers' prototype batteries can produce up to 1.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is sufficient to power a small LED light bulb over the course of a year—and an electric car. In future designs, the team would like to be able to increase the capacity of the battery to store larger amounts of energy.<|endoftext|>A number of new details are emerging in regards to the FBI's investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, following FBI Director James B. Comey's announcement yesterday. The latest update concerns an informant who claims FBI and Justice Department officials have no intention of arresting Clinton over the email issue. - -Via PJ Media: - -One FBI informant with intimate knowledge of the Clinton investigation tells The Daily Caller about the lack of interest in arresting her. "What's going on is the Justice Department knows they are not going to charge her, so there's not one person in the government who's willing to go to bat for that young lady. They wouldn't do it because it's like telling the fox to guard the hen house. And the FBI is obviously being very careful how it does exactly it—they're not in a hurry. It would have to be a grand jury indictment." - -The informant, whose name is not being mentioned by name, reportedly described a "sophisticated" scheme by Clinton and her aides, and the FBI investigators were given documents and evidence by an intermediary with the Clinton Foundation. - -He added that if the FBI agents had gone after Clinton, the Clinton network would have retaliated against them. "There's zero chance of this woman walking down that street and walking right behind her if she knows what's good for her, which is the people that know her very well." - -[image via screengrab] - -— — - -Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac - -Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com<|endoftext|>The Supreme Court on Monday issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt orders to deport illegal immigrants. The court said in its order that "it may have constitutional implications -======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== -In a study of women whose diets contained both high levels of meat and low levels of milk, researchers have discovered that women with low levels of fat in their diets also have lower cholesterol levels. This finding may help explain the rise in cardiovascular disease rates across the developed world that has been seen in the last century and a half. - -The study was conducted by researchers headed by Dr Helen Anderson from the School of Nutrition Science & Policy, Imperial College London and Dr Joanna Rowsell from the Department of Public Health at Edinburgh University. The research published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, is the first to investigate the association between diet and cholesterol levels in women aged 70 and over. - -The researchers found that women who consumed a high level of whole-fat dairy products and low levels of cholesterol in their diet had higher levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) than women who consumed a low ratio of meat and milk products to dairy. The study found that women who consumed high levels of fat in their diets also had lower levels of cholesterol than women who consumed low levels of fat. - -"The results suggest the need for a re-evaluation of cholesterol-lowering dietary strategies for older women," said lead author Dr Helen Anderson. "While a range of diet changes and medications such as statins have proven to be successful, the results of this study suggest that dietary strategies aimed at increasing the consumption of vegetables, fruit and low-fat dairy products may be more effective for preventing cardiovascular disease." - -Researchers suggest that the findings help explain the fact that incidence of cardiovascular disease has increased in men and women over the past 20 years while it has declined in people aged 70 and over in western countries such as the UK. - -Dr Anderson added : "While previous studies have indicated that a dietary pattern high in fat and cholesterol consumption and low in vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products is at best ineffective and may even be bad for the heart, this study indicates that a dietary pattern high in fat and low in vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products should receive the attention that it deserves. This could translate to an enormous range of cardiovascular risk prevention strategies to be used to increase heart health in older people." - -To investigate the link between a diet high in fat and low in vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products and the risk of coronary heart disease, the researchers followed over a 20-year period 15,876 women aged 70 and over aged between 45-80 years who were enrolled in the Women's Health Study. There were 739 of these women diagnosed with a coronary event and 746 for whom a cause of death could be ascertained and had completed all the necessary questionnaires. During the 20-year follow-up period, the women completed an average of 8.7 questionnaires. - -Researchers used data from a previous study of a group of women aged 70-71 years in which the researchers analysed data from five questionnaires. This study, which was performed by researchers from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a group at the University of Colorado for Medical Sciences led to the development of an improved questionnaire and questionnaire design and data collection method that allowed the researchers to analyse data from over 1 million women aged 70-82 and women aged over 85. - -The diet component the researchers looked at in this study measured by the questionnaire included intake of whole-fat dairy, vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products. The questionnaire also included questions on smoking status. - -The researchers found that in the women with coronary heart disease, the consumption of fat and vegetables was directly linked to higher total cholesterol; LDL cholesterol. In contrast, in the women with an LDL cholesterol of less than four, the fat and saturated fat in the diet were inversely related to LDL cholesterol concentrations; but in the women with LDL cholesterol of four or more, diet had no effect. - -The average dietary cholesterol intake in this group was 2.3mg per day. In a previous study of 14,800 men with coronary heart disease, researchers found that a diet high in fat and cholesterol consumed by this group was linked to higher levels of LDL cholesterol. In this study, the researchers found that the higher consumption of whole-fat dairy in this group was linked to lower LDL cholesterol, whereas the higher consumption of vegetables, fruits and low-fat milk in this group was linked to higher levels of LDL cholesterol. However, there was no specific link to the intake of cholesterol in general. - -The data show that an increase in whole-fat dairy consumption is associated with lower LDL levels. A further reason for this is that a reduction in saturated fat intake has been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect; hence increased whole-fat dairy intake helps to protect cardiovascular health by reducing LDL cholesterol levels. For this reason, this type of diet may be particularly beneficial among the older population. - -A further point of interest from the study of the role of saturated fat in heart disease was the finding that those whose -======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== -A new poll suggests Donald Trump has a clear lead over his Republican rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. - -And while the billionaire has struggled this election cycle to gain traction among the general electorate, the Fox News poll provides a snapshot into the support his campaign enjoys in a handful of key battleground states — a key source of power if he hopes to ultimately win the nomination. - -"Trump's campaign is winning the attention of swing voters and helping to expand his support," pollster Daron Shaw said in a statement. "The big story here is that he's doing this in a way that is winning over voters from both parties." - -While the poll suggests Trump may have some way to go to catch up with the current Republican front-runner, he has emerged a clear front-runner among many GOP voters, and is well ahead of his likely rival — John Kasich — who finished a distant fifth, with 17 percent. - -The poll comes amid an intense and prolonged fight for second place in the delegate count leading up to next week's crucial Republican primary. Trump is well ahead of the rest of the crowded Republican race, including Kasich, who has recently struggled as he's attempted to draw the support of more establishment Republicans in his home state of Ohio. - -Trump has surged in recent weeks, taking advantage of a series of positive policy announcements, and also has improved his favorability ratings, making his support among Republican primary voters significantly harder to erase. - -The Fox News poll was conducted June 20-24, surveying 3,017 registered Republican voters nationwide and 1,032 likely primary voters. The poll results have a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points and the registered Republican electorate was 36.9 percent Democrats, 32.2 percent independents, 15.4 percent Republicans, 7.9 percent Democrats and 4.3 percent Republicans.<|endoftext|>HARRISBURG, Pa (KDKA) — The FBI is offering a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the November abduction of three children and attempted murder of a fourth person. - -The three children between the ages of 2 and 9 years old were last seen leaving their home between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. in the 1500 block of Woodview Drive, in Allentown, at approximately 11 p.m. on Nov. 13. - -One of the children — 12-year-old Abigail Kopf — managed to call a family friend before running out the back door to find her sister with a gunshot wound to the head. - -"We would just like to know where these three children are. They are missing, and we're concerned," said Jill Kopf, Abigail's great-aunt. - -She says Abigail was abducted as she returned home from visiting her grandparents. - -"I think the most important thing that is most important in this has to do with what this accomplishes. We now have an actual abduction," Kopf said. - -While police say Kopf called police after getting hit with the gunshot wound, she herself has given them a new lead. - -"What she tells us … is that she tried to get back into her car, but it wouldn't start with the key. That she drove back here, that the house, the door was unlocked, but she thought one of the kids should be able to get in. She left her phone on the back step, and the last text that she sent was asking for help, as she saw that her brother was on his way," said Jill Kopf. - -The FBI, with assistance from PennDOT, have been investigating what might have happened. - -If you have information, call the Allentown Police Information and Analysis Center at (610) 266-4100.<|endoftext|>As of 11am on January 19th, 2017, the following are cancelled for the 2017 season: - -All-Star Classic - -Dolphin Classic - -Hudson Breeze Invitational - -Lighthouse Premier League - -Lighthouse Premier League: Round 1 - -Lighthouse Premier League: Round 2 - -Lighthouse Premier League: Round 3 - -Lighthouse Premier League: Round 4 - -All games will be played as scheduled on the date and time of their official completion. - -The 2018 Lighthouse Premier League begins on January 11, 2018. - -For more information about the upcoming Lighthouse Premier League, please visit our dedicated Lighthouse Premier League page.<|endoftext|>When we first heard that the first-ever episode of Game of Thrones: The Old Gods and the New was a "gag" episode — only available through an online download — we assumed that the episode was some kind of a parody of ourselves. Well, it turns out we were quite wrong. - -According to a report from Variety, the episode is actually a parody of Game of Thrones' second-season premiere "Blackwater." In that episode, Dany sends her army to retake the -======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== -Calls For Boycott Of Israel, Iran - -On July 25, 2013, Iran released three American prisoners, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, as the U.S. criticized Tehran's international isolation. This same day there was a call by the Palestinian people to Boycott Israeli products. The American Academy Of Pediatrics' new position paper on the topic asserts an urgent link between Israeli-Palestinian violence and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS). The American Academy of Pediatrics is the nation's most prominent pediatrician's professional organization, with over 16,000 certified pediatricians, and serves as a resource for physicians in America's public schools. - -On July 25, 2013, Israel released three American prisoners, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, as the U.S. criticized Tehran's international isolation. This same day there was a call by the Palestinian people to Boycott Israeli products. - -The American Academy of Pediatrics' new position paper on the topic asserts an urgent link between Israeli-Palestinian violence and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS). The American Academy of Pediatrics is the nation's most prominent pediatrician's professional organization, with over 16,000 certified pediatricians, and serves as a resource for physicians in America's public schools. We are deeply concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian violence that is being fueled by BDS. These are not simple "two-sided" conflicts; the conflict is about who can do what to the other. Many in Palestinian communities are losing hope that peace will come to their communities; they no longer believe the Israeli government will ever negotiate a just solution. - -What is BDS? - -BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel. BDS is based on the nonviolence principle of the Palestinian civil and political struggle for freedom and equality. These aims are not contradictory; they are complementary. It is also known as the "two states for two peoples" solution, because Palestinians, with international support and with the full support of the global boycott, divestment and sanction movement, should have the right to live together in a free and democratic state with full equality. The goal of the BDS movement is to achieve just outcomes for Palestinians through nonviolent means – without recourse to armed struggle. - -BDS is not anti-Semitic. To call BDS anti-Semitic is an insult to both the Jews and the Jewish people. - -What is the impact of BDS on the health of Palestinians? - -The movement has brought about some tangible benefits for the Palestinian community. It has made international news and generated an important dialogue among international, national and grassroots supporters and opponents of Israeli policies. - -In one area, Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory on land the Palestinians consider their own threatens them with a loss of control over resources and essential services such as electricity, water and education. But there have also been concrete victories, including, for example: - -The recent election of the first Palestinian President ever. - -A significant drop in violence and arrests in East Jerusalem. - -Protests against high prices in the West Bank and the removal of subsidies on electricity and water, and on water for Gaza, making access to clean drinking-water and sanitation more affordable to families. - -An Israeli law prohibiting businesses providing goods or services in support of non-official Israeli groups affiliated with the Palestinian Authority. - -A new Palestinian civil society initiative to advance human development, including women's empowerment, freedom of movement and human rights. - -The ability of Palestinian children to enter high schools free of discrimination based on their religion, nationality or ethnicity. - -The movement has also brought the Israeli government's policies into more question, as they've demonstrated what appears to be an increasingly anti-democratic approach to the Palestinians. And as evidenced by recent developments in the Israeli government's handling of the prisoners, an increasing number of Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are willing to call for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions against the state of Israel. - -What is the impact of the economic, political, social and educational boycotts? - -These nonviolent campaigns have already shifted the conversation. At the very least, they demonstrate a willingness to take a different stance that is more supportive of Palestinian rights. As the Israeli government has shown that its policies are unacceptable to a growing number in the Palestinian community, and the international community continues to move in this direction, it's not unreasonable that more people around the world would be willing to call for the same. - -The question of economic boycotts and economic sanctions (BDS) is one of the most difficult. However, the most recent U.S. Senate resolution that recognizes BDS as a foreign policy tool should provide a useful benchmark for understanding what is possible. To avoid being labeled as anti-Semitic, it is important to make clear that all means of non-violent resistance are welcome and should be supported. - -One way to understand the difference between BDS and economic pressure is to consider a hypothetical: Suppose Israel agreed to immediately release all the -======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== -If there's one thing we can say about the first season of ABC's new reality series, The Bachelor, it's this: it will be entertaining. - -In the first episode alone, several contestants got a little too much into each other's personal lives and had to kiss goodbye once the cameras came on. - -But while it was all a little bit…weird, this season is just plain great. - -The first few episodes have shown that contestants are very comfortable in their own skin, getting to know each other on a very human level without any of this voyeurism or weirdness. - -Not only have the first few episodes shown that men don't always need more women for a hot date, but that not all women want to be the center of attention. - -The second season will give us more insight into each season of the show, and we look forward to the revelations and the relationships that will come from the first 11 episodes. - -The Bachelor airs Fridays at 8pm EST on ABC.<|endoftext|>Saskatoon Police Chief Clive Weighill says his officers are following up on hundreds of tips on a rash of robberies in the city but haven't yet made a significant arrest. - -On Wednesday there were a total of eight reported robberies in Saskatoon alone, and Weighill said the crime wave is being closely monitored by his department. - -Weighill says there's no doubt the crime wave is growing, but has yet to identify any suspects in four cases.<|endoftext|>A lot of talk, but very little substance. - -It was the second week of the NFL Scouting Combine -- that means it's the time at which some top prospects from all corners of the country go through workouts to get in the best physical condition they can as they prepare for the NFL Draft. But, unfortunately, there was very little substance to talk about in the field -- some players did great, while others struggled to make plays. And even though the Combine is often used as a way for some prospects to get a feel for how their stock is going, there's a reason a lot of players don't end up being drafted when they come out of the Combine. - -With the exception of a few notable workouts, let's look at four notable events from this week, from the top players in an important position group to some of the draft prospects who stood out the most on the field: - -Offensive tackle - -Travis Frederick, Texas A&M: If there's one position group where the Combine is really hard to predict, it's offensive line. So when there is an event like the combine for it, you have to use it as a way to get a feel for where prospects will be picked, but you have to be careful not to overreact to it. In that sense, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones is very smart to have selected left tackle Tyron Smith with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, and to sign Frederick and Andrew Jackson in free agency. Frederick was the best player on the most well-publicized event this week, the bench press (or the "losing press" as it's so lovingly called), which was conducted in front of the entire public -- in other words, it didn't matter that the rest of the Combine was closed (although I would have liked to have seen a separate event held for that). Frederick finished with 7 reps of 225 pounds on his bench, and didn't look out of place when he was asked to do something similar in front of some media. There was a lot of chatter that he could go higher in the draft if, for example, he showed that he's just over the bench-press hurdle, but he didn't do anything to alter that perception. - -The draft for offensive linemen has a lot of holes, not the least of which is the current depth chart between Joe Thomas and Lane Johnson at left tackle. It took Thomas two workouts -- one in Indianapolis one in Mobile, Alabama -- to impress, but once Smith was off the board, there really wasn't anything to make him seem like a sure thing. Thomas was one of the last of the big guys to perform, and his performance may have been the most impressive -- for whatever that's worth. He wasn't all that impressive in his short workout on Thursday, but he was all right, though he wasn't much taller that Johnson. Thomas should stick with the Browns at one spot, but he may not get there for some time. - -Joey Bosa's performance on the bench press, while not a great one given his size, was still fairly impressive in his short workout, which came on Thursday. He finished with 6 reps and 225 pounds on his bench, and he did a great job of showing off his athleticism on that one -- it was really difficult trying to get him back in to his feet and to keep him upright. It was a good start for what should easily be considered the top offensive line prospect in the draft, but it's clear there's a -======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== -The state Senate is trying to block implementation of a new state law that would ban discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, arguing it infringes on the separation of church and state. - -But Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, R-Chandler, says it's a matter of protecting religious freedom in a land of secularism. - -"There's no place for religion in government, and when we start putting religion in government, then we're going to be a different place," said Steinberg, noting the bill is a response to a recent Supreme Court decision striking down part of the state's 2003 gay rights ordinance that had allowed cities and townships to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. - -Senate Bill 1182 would make it illegal to discriminate in business, employment, housing and public accommodations against gay, lesbian or transgender people, as well lesbians and transgender people. - -Steinberg's bill now goes to the House, but the Senate is expected to vote on the measure tonight. - -Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Phoenix, said he has not fully considered the bill, but he suspects Steinberg is trying to prevent implementation of the law. - -"I'm a firm believer that every individual should be protected, but not at the expense of the separation of church and state, in my opinion," Hickey said, adding his "religious freedom and privacy rights will have been infringed upon" under the bill. - -Steinberg said he doesn't plan to stop the bill when it comes to the House floor unless there are problems there. - -"I'm not going to stop an effort to protect our religious liberties, whether we're in the Senate or the House," Steinberg said. - -Steinberg also said the bill will allow the state Supreme Court to interpret it in a way that does not conflict with the high court's 2003 decision striking down parts of the city-specific ordinance. - -Hickey also said he wants the bill amended because he doesn't want the state Supreme Court to be involved in the interpretation part. - -Steinberg said that if the court decides to clarify the law's constitutionality, then it would be up to the House to decide whether to take up the issue again. - -The bill "protects everybody; gay, straight, transgender or straight," Steinberg said. "They're not protected and they will be protected here."<|endoftext|>I was on vacation when this happened. I was on vacation, and on my Facebook feed I saw someone posting about the fact a woman who had been working in a bakery in San Diego had been caught shoplifting. I thought it couldn't get anymore fucked up, but in the same way I was in the airport when I saw a guy flying to Hawaii, I wanted to feel like my life was just one giant fucking lie. And so here I am. I'm writing a story that I feel like I have to let you do the reading. I'm writing this because I feel like it's my duty to inform the world on this horrific thing that happened to me, and in the hope that it might make the situation a little less fucking horrible for other people. The following is completely fictional, and any resemblance to characters or events in real life is coincidental. This happened to Sarah, myself and about four hundred other people. The story starts at 9:30am, and we're all still in our own cabins at 7:00am. It's still fucking hot, but no way does a fucking bikini model deserve to be in the middle of the ocean, even for a couple days. Sarah is here and she's wearing a bikini. It's a light orange coloured one, and the top of it just says 'CATEGORE.' The top barely covers her neck, and only covers enough. It looks like a good three-quarter length top, that barely covers any of her body at all. All the holes in her bottom are completely exposed. We're sitting in a cabin about twenty kilometres off the coast of Costa Rica. There's no wind, just the steady pounding of our own hearts in our ears, and a little bit of salt water dripping on our faces. We were all sitting outside eating sandwiches. It's pretty quiet, only the birds chirping a little bit in the trees. We're all dressed up in our swimsuits, except Sarah is in some skimpy little string bikini. She sits on the chair beside me and stretches out, her hips pressing against mine. She closes her eyes and reaches up with her forefingers and fingers to move the bikini around her boobs a bit. It makes her nipples stick out more, but the bikini top isn't so bad. I take off my bikini top. I can't really feel my tits, they're still pretty firm but the bottom of my top is really tight, making it look as though my chest might burst through. I have a feeling that my nipples are a bit big as well. I pull the bikini up between my legs -======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== -"This is the one part of my business that is guaranteed to get people's attention and give them reasons to come inside." -Tucker Max - -For over thirty years, Tucker Max has been one of the country's most highly known, widely quoted, and most controversial speakers, who has never backed down from any controversial claim, no matter how many times people have called him a troll or an asshole, an insensitive asshole or a man who's entire "identity" is founded on a gross over-generalization. - -His most recent book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, caused a stir when it was released on October 25, 2012. It's a book that attempts to prove that women are "sluts" and that any attempts to engage in consensual activity are merely for a man's sexual gratification. - - -Now it appears that Max has turned his attention to an even more contentious subject with his recent appearance at the University of Kansas last Thursday. - -According to a report in The Daily Caller, on the same evening that Tucker Max was "discussing the 'sluttification' of women," a "large group" of men from the campus's Men's Rights Activists (or "MRA" for short) group "hacked into the Facebook page" of professor Laurie Penny and "tweeted that they were 'bitter' over what they perceived as a lack of feminism on campus." - - -"They then posted various comments disparaging those women who were seen as feminists, among them that the 'feminist movement is a farce, a scam, a money making scheme,' and that 'women's equality starts with the right to choose who one f*cking wants to have sex with...you are sluts if you don't." - -It did not take long for students of the University of Kansas to come to conclusions about the men. - -According to a report in the Kansas City Star, "Several students told the newspaper that, while the idea of men's rights activists was not new to them, this was the first time they were aware of an attack on a feminist on campus." - - -"The university is standing down and not addressing the issue." -University of Kansas - -"These are men who don't even have a right to feel safe on a campus." -Sandra Stotsky - -"The issue is these are not normal people we're dealing with and it puts our university in a very dangerous situation. I feel violated that they would try to ruin my education." —Sandra Stotsky - -"This incident just reflects how bigoted and patriarchal this society really is and the people who think they're above the law and not worthy of being treated the way we treat women are disgusting," said another KU student, Ashley Smith. - -Others disagreed, and pointed out that while the professor in question was indeed criticized by her fans for having the temerity to bring up her belief in "equality among the sexes," it was merely a discussion of the concept of feminism, rather than a statement against equality. - -"This incident happens to be a professor who has written and spoken widely on feminism, and she's using it and talking about it and not just saying, 'That's not what feminism means,'" said the student, who asked not to be named, as she and the professor are both on the university's public relations team. "It's like her being a woman is not enough to take these men down."<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. - -AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González. We're going to be joined by the journalist Marcy Wheeler, a nationally-syndicated radio host here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Marcy has covered the United States-Mexico border extensively. Her article is titled "Obama's Border Plan Doesn't Address the Border Crisis." In it, she writes, quote, "In reality, it's the president's border plan that could provide real security to Mexico. Instead, it's his plan to ignore Mexico and its crisis." - -MARCY WHEELER: It is an insult all around to the entire Mexican nation, not just to the families who are struggling but to the Mexican people as a whole. It really speaks to an overall attitude that we have here at CNN, there's a little bit of arrogance about how we view the world. There's arrogance to not just see Mexico as an extension of the United States, it almost sounds like we feel the United States is our brother with whom we have a special place in our family, and we don't see Mexico in that same way anymore. - -AMY GOODMAN: Well, Juan, talk about that. Talk about CNN's attitude in this case. - -JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I think it's a combination of a lot of things. CNN is certainly trying to have -======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== -I have a few more ideas on improving the experience - --Add more options to the main menu (and make it more compact) - --Add more options to the main menu (and make it more compact) -Add different font type - --Reduce the size of the main menu (or remove it altogether) - --Reduce the size of the main menu (or remove it altogether) -Change the colors of the main menu (more or less bolder, etc.) - --Change the colors of the main menu (more or less bolder, etc.) -Make the main menu responsive - --Make the main menu responsive -Allow user to enable/disable individual options or just one - --Allow user to enable/disable individual options or just one -Make it easier for a user to add/remove items in the main menu (by displaying a "Add another option" option or something similar and having it accessible in an easily visible place on the main menu) - -I have all of these ideas already, but I really don't know how to make this work properly... I would be so much happier if someone could help me figure out what I'm doing wrong :P<|endoftext|>The "Fifty-Nine Percent Solution"—the slogan coined by conservative talk show host Dennis Miller—used to appear on every piece of conservative merchandise and in every Republican's bumper sticker by the 1990s. But is it still relevant? (Spoiler alert: It probably is.) For all the hand-wringing over the party's political "death spiral"—and if you believe the GOP's latest autopsy—it looks like things may get slightly better after all. A number of pundits have taken to calling 2018 and 2020 "the Republican Revolution," a reference to the GOP's electoral success in 1986 of all years (when they won the Senate and House, and ousted GOP presidents, by large margins). - -This notion that the Party can and will once again do everything it used to do is, of course, nonsense. The Trump presidency isn't going to lead to a "revolution." There won't be a GOP Senate majority either. Republicans are still very likely to lose the House in 2018, and the Republican president will be heading off to a sixth term in 2020. But Miller is right to claim that the Republican Party is in good shape, or at least in better shape than the Democrats. - -So where is it good? The GOP has managed to maintain its electoral dominance in the states (i.e., all those states that voted for Bill Clinton in the mid-to late nineties). And in the House, the numbers suggest that the GOP is headed in the same direction, though its path is anything but clear. As the following graphs show, the House is the most conservative in the country relative to the median voter (the blue horizontal line represents the Republican median voter in each state), but it is not the most conservative in relation to the general electorate, which will be the Democratic Party's focus this election season. - - -It is noteworthy that in both the House and Senate, the Democratic Party is doing very well with the very young voters, who could prove critical in the next two presidential elections against Trump. It is worth noting, too, how different the two graphs look, particularly when it comes to the House. - -In the previous decade, Republicans had to deal with a Democratic Party that was more than able to field a candidate in every state, whether it were Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. This year, that task might be easier for Democrats. But that does not mean the Republican Party will benefit from this. The "Republican Revolution" is like Ronald Reagan's promise of tax cuts—it is a slogan that helps motivate voters to go to the polls, but is almost impossible to deliver in the end. - -In any case, there is a big difference between a slogan and an electoral strategy. The GOP has had a lot of success at both, in the electoral sense. But the party continues to lose seats in state houses, congressional districts, and states that once seemed immune to its brand of political extremism. It makes little sense to cling to that slogan unless you're willing to change with the times—to embrace policies that reflect the preferences of the Democratic base, and to shift your focus to an electoral strategy that helps you win at the presidential level. - -That is, after all, what it was all about in 1986—and now even Dennis Miller is admitting that.<|endoftext|>HBO Documentary Films The Night Of - -HBO Documentary Films The Night Of is a 2016 HBO Documentary film that follows the story behind the sensational story of the Boston Marathon bombing to the year 2020 - -The Night Of premiered on June 4, 2016. The Night Of is the result of extensive research and analysis into the Marathon bombing in Boston in 2013. The Night Of was produced by Nightline's John Walsh and David Rohde (Nightline) and directed by Jon Shenk (The History Channel's Hidden Treasures Program), who also stars -======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== -"My life has never been a struggle," says the 44-year-old singer. - -And what about his lyrics? Well, some of them - particularly around his sexuality - don't exactly cut the ice either. - -You know what he's like: He can't go 10 minutes without being asked about his sexuality, whether it's gay, straight, bisexual or transracial. So for the first time ever, the Queen of K-pop has been able to tell someone exactly what his life is like without the worry of people telling him what to say about himself. - -In the first of a new four-part interview series, the singer talks to SBS, on the heels of his new album, K-pop Superstar 2nd Album: The Next Chapter, and its title track, "The Most Beautiful Moment in Life is Free." This episode has him talking about his personal evolution as a songwriter, his relationships with men and women and his sexuality. - -Read part one (featuring questions such as: What are your views on homosexuality?), part two (with his view on the "bisexual" movement), part three (with the "mixed race" label), part four (with his thoughts on gender), and part five (with his views on what it means to be a gay man). - -Watch part one below. - -Watch part two below (in English). - -Watch part three below (in English). - -Watch part four below (in English). - -Watch part five below (in English). - -Watch part four below (in English). - -This is a breaking story. Readers should contact SBS directly with any news tips or updates. For more on this issue, click here.<|endoftext|>An American citizen was arrested during the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Berlin Friday, German police revealed Friday. - -The man was taken into custody during a "security check" in the area surrounding the Olympic torch relay on the streets of Berlin, the police official's report on the incident said. - -"A check was made to make sure he did in fact meet the passport requirements," the police said in a statement - -The person was "detained in custody," "then handed over to security officials who further discussed the conditions for his release." - -The IOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. - -Authorities said in December that a Canadian citizen with dual Canadian-American citizenship could not be excluded from Rio De Janeiro due to a previous felony conviction. - -That person, who was in line to lead the torch relay, passed all the security checks. He was not detained. - -There can be no entry to the Games for U.S. citizens or dual citizens of the U.S., Canada or other countries "due to their criminal convictions," the IOC said in the statement. - -The U.S. Department of State released a statement Friday evening saying that the U.S. Consulate General in Berlin would continue to work with Brazilian authorities to "provide information on any American citizen who may be in need of travel documents," according to NBC affiliate KCBS. - -The statement said the U.S. would continue "to monitor reports of foreign nationals barred from entering the country."<|endoftext|>The US is ready to provide the Russian Federation with "lethal arms" to "protect its security interests and vital infrastructure" in Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told CNN. And he confirmed that the US may also offer the Ukrainian government money to pay for this aid. - -However, he also said that this will only happen if Russia actually withdraws from eastern Ukraine. In the meantime, Washington is preparing to send troops to the east of the country to protect the military facilities "we have deployed there, there are military facilities that we now control there," he said. - -Burns' statement came only hours after the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced an initial plan to train Ukrainian security forces and arm them with Russian weapons. The training will start in August and will last "up to three months." This will include helping Ukrainian forces fight off the terrorists, but will also involve helping with the anti-bombing of Ukraine. - -This plan is more aggressive than the one announced by President Obama just hours earlier. The US "will not provide lethal weaponry to Ukraine," Obama said. - -According to the Obama plan, the US will also step up efforts to assist the Ukrainian military in training and equipping the border guard unit at the Russian-Ukrainian border. Hagel explained that the US will not accept the new Russian troop build-up on the Ukraine border. - -This is not the first time that the US has offered weapons to Ukraine. In March, the US was ready to send "defensive weaponry" to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the wake of the Euromaidan protests. However, the Pentagon never gave Ukraine the weapons it promised, instead opting to keep it in reserve for a possible future crisis.<|endoftext|>I'm a -======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== -A couple of months ago I began building and designing an Arduino/Genuino clone based on the AVR Micro. This project was mainly aimed at keeping costs down in order to build and sell the thing for as little as possible. I have been working on this project for over two years and over the course of that time I've learned things as a designer that I would never have considered. This is why I decided to share some of them! Please note that I'm not a programmer by trade and this has not been coded from scratch. I'm just a guy with a keen interest in electronics and microcontrollers. - -A lot of things I learned over the past two years are just so simple that you won't even need the fancy words here. - -Make a schematic for your project first. - -There are many different ways to draw schematics: Schematic View, Sketchup, etc…. I will describe in this tutorial which I find the easiest to use to build a project. - -You see two or three components in the illustration above. These parts are called 'subcircuits'. The circuit shown above is a four transistors 3.3V/250mA amplifier. This is a 'pure' amplifier and doesn't have any additional effects of any kind. It just runs a circuit. The circuit shows you how to connect the transistors for a 'pure' amplifier. - -With a schematic in hand you only need to connect one board in order to build your circuit. There are only 4 boards per circuit. This means you can work on two boards, three boards, or even four boards for a bigger, more complex amplifier. If you decide to connect multiple circuits together you could, for example, have your amplifier working in parallel with two transistors working in series for a 'dual-stage amplifier'. By the way, I was never good with the parallel design because I had a habit of using the wrong polarity on both transistors. That's why it looks like two transistors in parallel! This is a little bit more work for the designer but you can just fix it in your prototype before you print it out. Just make sure you use the correct polarity or you will see your amp in a dark, nasty glow. - -If you want to add effects, do so before the design is finished. This will help you to easily visualize the circuit when you are designing it and will also save you a lot of time. - -You will also want to connect the voltage regulators which are a common requirement. But don't connect them until you are sure that they are wired properly. Most Arduino/Genuino clones have the regulators with the power and ground wires facing towards the inside of the board. They should be plugged into your power supply so they don't leak. - -To connect the voltage regulation board you have to unsolder the wires for the red wire on the left hand side of both of the two voltage regulators on the left side of the board. If you accidentally remove these wires you are not going to be able to connect them again. Take a pair of pliers and pinch the wires to break the contact between the regulators. You will also have to remove or loosen the power/ground pin on the right hand side as this is normally connected to the breadboard. This is to make the connection easier (or less painful if it is a tight connection). To make this connection use whatever pliers you have. In my case I got a pair of pliers that I used to break the wire in the right hand side regulator. Make sure you are pliers free. - -Once you have the connections made the rest of the circuit should be pretty much self explanatory. Please keep in mind that these are 'specs' of the circuit pictured above and there can certainly be more or less depending for example on your board and how to build the amplifier. There are also slight differences between the AVR Micro and the other Arduino clones. The AVR Micro has more pins. One of the reasons I like it is for smaller power loads. I can fit this transistor inside a breadboard. I would also recommend adding some extra LEDs. This is not a particularly exciting build but when you look at the schematic you will see that the LEDs are connected directly to the 3v and GND pins on the 3.3V regulator board. This will ensure a much better voltage regulation as well as light the LED's. - -In the picture below you can see the LED's that will be connected to the Arduino/Mouser/Microchip's 3v3 and GND pins on the 3.3V regulator board. - -Now that the design is finished we can start working on adding the components to the circuit. - -Using the breadboard - -Here is the circuit that looks good on the breadboard. You can see that I removed the breadboard's connector for the voltage regulator so that I can work without any breadboard wires. This circuit is a bit better than the one shown -======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== -Hansa, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, is reportedly set to announce today that it will begin trading Bitcoin futures, a move that could give institutional investors access to Bitcoin's soaring price. - -Since its inception in mid-2014, Bitcoin's market cap has skyrocketed from roughly $1 million to almost $10 billion. But with Bitcoin's price currently around $16,000, it's hard for institutional investors to get exposure to such an early stage asset. The Bitcoin futures market, however, should give institutional investors easier access to the cryptocurrency because they'll be able to purchase "bets" — or shares — on the cryptocurrency's price in the event that it surpasses certain price thresholds. - -Advertisement - -The announcement comes a year after it was first revealed that the exchange would launch a Bitcoin futures market, and the news could give the market momentum as 2017 comes to an end. In a note on Wednesday, Reuters outlined this year's highlights for Bitcoin, saying: - -A series of new exchanges that provide investors new entry points into the Bitcoin market have opened their doors to volume traders, traders said as they bet for gains and losses on the virtual currency through futures contracts from CME Group and CBOE Global Markets on the CME's bitcoin Futures exchange, and from Cboe Global Markets on CBOE's bitcoin futures exchange. - -Futures, on the other hand, are traded between entities on a spot basis and don't involve any actual cash or gold in between. Investors are simply betting on changes in the price of Bitcoin in the future, with buyers buying futures on the expectation that Bitcoin will go up in price and sellers selling futures on the expectation that it will go down. Both sides of the trade are known as "betting." - -Despite the fact that most investors do not actually know the price of Bitcoin — even after being introduced through Bitcoin Cash — the price of futures is a way for financial markets to "see" what Bitcoin is really worth. For instance, in 2016 Bitcoin's price rose significantly above traditional currencies, leading to a large spike in futures prices. - -Hansa, after launching a futures market for Bitcoin in March 2016, said that it expects to list Bitcoin futures on April 30.<|endoftext|>The European Union is threatening to impose new trade sanctions against Russia unless Moscow changes its approach to Ukraine. But, according to the Russian economy minister, economic measures would hurt the average Russian. - -"Sanctions are not going to hurt our companies," Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview with the Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy. "A drop in the ruble is not going to hurt our companies." He said these measures would hit Russians in general more than European companies. - -"The most important things would be to stop financing this aggressive rhetoric towards Ukraine, and make these problems go away," he said, while defending the measures the West has taken since Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula last year. - -Ulyukayev's comments are significant given the Russian economy minister has a reputation—among the highest in the government—for speaking bluntly. The European Union has already imposed numerous measures since 2014, including visa bans on some Russian officials, travel bans, asset freezes and higher interest rates. - -In addition, the European Union's executive body last year adopted the first ever sanctions against Russia, imposing a visa ban and asset freezes on a dozen top Russian officials and companies.<|endoftext|>The following is a transcript of President Donald Trump's inaugural address. - -My fellow Americans, this is the moment when the future of our nation must be decided. On January 20, 2017, one year from today, our nation will finally get its first president. - -I have to say, this is, in a word, exciting. This is a change, a breath of fresh air. A change. To the sound of music from across the ocean. To the sight of these new American citizens coming out and celebrating with us, we'll all be inspired more than ever before, and we will keep on striving towards that brighter day. - -To many of you this is more than just about a new administration. With each passing day, our American journey continues on — our values will inspire generations to come, along with the extraordinary American stories that will define this moment. - -Today, the greatest nation in the world was built on the principles that embody the very essence of our democracy: the rule of law, the truth, and faith in the people. - -And though our journey has been long, and the challenges have been numerous, we have never paused to rest. We know that for our Founders this was a crucial moment like no other when it came to founding a brand of government that could be new and yet strong. And it is so fitting that, just two months before the inauguration of our first President, this very same government was founded upon these very same rights and these very same principles. - -In this building, our new president — a man who will soon lead -======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== -As an organization, we can't do that as citizens. - -That's why we've taken a stand by donating our time and materials to assist our neighbors. - -While we can't speak for the individual, many of the neighbors I work with have been affected by a terrible tragedy that struck their neighbors. They have expressed grief and pain. In response, we have offered to join them in their grief by offering our assistance. - -This effort was organized as a joint effort between our two teams. The first "team" consisted of our own security and management teams. - -Our security staff has trained with other firms on how to identify signs of a suspicious person, such as looking for items of note that are visible or hard to see. These types of events do not call for a large amount of security staff at the event, because they are typically relatively low tech. For example, there won't be a lot of cameras. Instead, our security personnel will use non-intrusive methods to identify activity. - -Our "team" was comprised of an "advanced security professional," who helped in identifying, monitoring and responding to unusual activity that warranted advanced security, or who was on site prior to a major event with us. - -We would ask you to keep this information confidential. We would like to remain uninvolved in the matter. - -Thank you for your attention to this matter.<|endoftext|>By Michael Schoenfeld - -NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States, Europe and other major powers have "made an offer that the Kremlin can't refuse," U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Sunday, urging Russia to abandon any idea of a military intervention in Ukraine. - -"We are not asking the Russians to invade, we are asking the Russians to stand down, to pull back. And we are also calling for a political response from Ukraine that reflects its commitment to democracy and respects the interests of all of the Ukrainian people," Lew told ABC News. - -Washington and its European partners have already imposed sanctions on Russian officials and businesses linked to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that is dominated by Russia and has been annexed after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. - -Lew's comments come hours after U.S. officials said the United States and European partners will impose new sanctions on Russian companies, banks and individuals. - -There have been recent reports that Moscow is considering sending troops into Crimea, but so far the Russian government has denied the reports. - -"We are also asking that the Russian be allowed to use military means only to protect ethnic Russian speakers who were under threat, to defend Russian interests and to avoid the tragedy there that I think really calls up a broader set of issues," Lew said. - -He was speaking on ABC's "This Week" program, which will air live from Brussels on Sunday morning (2000 GMT). - -He reiterated President Barack Obama's stance that any Russian attempt to annex Ukraine's Crimea region "will be unacceptable to the international community, will not be tolerated by the international community, and will trigger costs and consequences to Russia that will be determined by the international community". - -"We believe Russia has until now failed to live up to its responsibilities but we continue to believe this is not an option that is going to be tolerated," Lew said. - -He also said Russia's economic ties with Ukraine would have to be reviewed if the peninsula was not annexed. - -Lew said his message to Russia had been that it should make a "serious effort" to defuse tensions with its neighboring state. - -"They are, of course, going out of their way to create tensions and tensions that are increasing tensions. And in the final analysis Russia's continued attempts to engage in this are going to be unacceptable to the international community," Lew said. - -His public words appear to be aimed at President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly denied any involvement in Ukraine's unrest. - -Putin has sent his foreign minister to the United States and is expected to meet on the sidelines of the G8 in Northern Ireland on Sunday, where the unrest in Ukraine is likely to top the agenda.<|endoftext|>It's that time of year again: Halloween. It's been a long time coming, but now the first of the season is upon us–and not necessarily a good one. In an effort to bring this year's festivities back to Earth, I thought it's time to take a close look at the past, present and future of horror movies. - -As most of the country's residents are surely familiar with, Halloween is traditionally a time when Americans enjoy dressing up, tricking or possibly just being pranked. But for many people, the time of the year has also represented the end of the month Halloween celebrations. And while Halloween has since become a time for family gatherings, and the passing of time, it's likely that no one will ever be able to know how it all began. - -According to Michael Myers, the character played by Tom Baker and later portrayed by the late Gary Oldman -======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== -Harmontown is a documentary film starring television writer, producer and improviser Dan Harmon (NBC's "Community," Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty") as he takes his popular podcast of the same name on a calamitous cross-country tour. Much more than a comedy-tour documentary, the film directed by Neil Berkeley, uncovers Harmon's public persona to reveal his complex persona underneath. Supporting cast includes Erin McGathy, Summer Bliss, Spencer Crittenden, Phoebe Robinson, Jim Rash and Chris Parnell. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi<|endoftext|>It used to be that every year, the New York City Football Club got a few days of rest after their last game in November. Now, in the last two weeks of the season, the team is off until March 28 to get away from the "stadium jungle" of Manhattan and start the summer training camps for next season. After playing every other day, NYCFC have a very difficult week to rest ahead of the 2017 MLS season opener. - -On Wednesday, the New York squad got the full treatment at the Brooklyn Institute of Technology's Nippert Stadium as a new season started with a good old friendly in the South Bronx. The game was hosted by the New York Red Bulls on the old 2K Field. We saw a few familiar faces including Frank Lampard, David Villa, and Chris Rolfe, whose father, Tony, is the President of the club, and who has been a supporter of the New York team since it was known as the MetroStars. The atmosphere was very reminiscent of the days when the Brooklyn Ultras helped lead the squad to the MLS Cup Final back in 2008. - -The Red Bulls had been looking for a game against the visiting team, as they faced the likes of Chicago, DC United, Toronto FC, Houston, and Seattle during the spring season. After being the only opponent eliminated from the playoffs during the spring season, they were hungry to prove themselves again. They dominated the first half of the match with some great attacking play and possession, which was a departure from their last match in Montreal. - -With less than an hour left on the clock in the first half, the Red Bulls took the lead in dramatic fashion after another dangerous chance was created by Mike Grella, however the goalkeeper, Luis Robles, made the stop with a reflex save to keep the score line level. After a half hour, the Red Bulls added a second goal through a great pass from Sacha Kljestan. After some fine passing between Mike Grella and Mike Grella, Kljestan passed it to Bradley Wright-Phillips who put a wonderful strike into the near bottom left corner past goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo. New York had a one goal lead going into the break and did not look like conceding a goal in the second half and were only denied when Sebastien Le Toux, who was brought on as a half-time substitute, played a long throw-in and it resulted in a goal. NYCFC pulled even as an 86th minute goal from Wright-Phillips put the score at 3-3. - -It was an excellent week for the New York Red Bulls and despite what could have been a disappointing draw with the New England Revolution, they will look forward to getting a chance to bounce back next week as they wrap up the regular season at Red Bull Arena against FC Dallas. - -New York City FC Match Report - -NYCFC 1-1 Red Bulls - -1:05 p.m. EDT, Monday, March 21, 2017 - -Red Bull Arena - -Red Bulls Head Coach Jesse Marsch made six changes to the team that suffered a 1-0 loss to Toronto FC at Yankee Stadium, including the introduction of midfielder Jack Harrison. - -MATCH REPORT: New York City FC vs. New York Red Bulls - -Shaun Wright-Phillips led the Red Bulls with an assist and scored his first MLS goal (his second since joining the team on July 14). Bradley Wright-Phillips was the only other Red Bulls player not to earn an assist as he was substituted into the match. - -Federico Bravo made his first start in the midfield of NYCFC in place of Alexander Ring. Marky Delgado and Patrick Mullins were brought on in the third and fourth thirds of the lineup, respectively, in place of Alexander Ring, Yangel Herrera and Rodney Wallace. - -RBNY Head Coach Jesse Marsch made one change to the team that faced the Montreal Impact in the first match of the season, as he replaced Jay Heaps with Luis Robles. - -New York City FC Lineup vs. New England Revolution - -NY: Sean Davis, Ronald Matarrita, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, RJ Allen, Khiry Shelton, Gideon Baah, Andrea Pirlo, David Villa, Andrea Pirlo - -Notes: The Red Bulls have allowed an average of 1.1 goals per game during their last four matches (3- -======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== -The best part of these episodes is that it's all completely true. I've been going on about the power of the "sadist" meme lately, and now that people are taking it (a little) seriously, the power of the "sadist" meme is more than apparent. - -To anyone who wasn't living under a rock or using one of the myriad of social media platforms I mentioned in my last post, I encourage you to read it. Even the smallest and most basic of our online communications and interactions are influenced by what others post about them. - -My friend Matt, who just left his job in Hollywood in search of a better gig, posted a comment on my Instagram post about my love for The Simpsons on Thursday. According to him, this was a huge mistake. - -Well, Matt was right. - -The fact that he decided to post this comment without actually watching the episode (he probably just skimmed my post) is the main problem here. And if there is anyone who needs extra evidence that this is the internet, it's Matt. He posted this comment before he had even watched the episode. - -I would like to apologize to Matt. I apologize to anyone who might have taken his comment the wrong way. - -The sadistic little social media meme he took a moment to post was a viral, extremely powerful, and totally true story. People can get fired for making dumb decisions, especially ones as big and life-changing as a move from one job to another. But there is one thing you can't get fired for, and that's saying something dumb online or about someone else's feelings before you get a chance to watch the episode. - -I don't have any beef with Matt, I've never met him. I hope he gets the job he seeks. But what he did in posting this is extremely disappointing to me. It is one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen on the internet. People get upset because a joke they don't feel funny is published online. You can be fired for posting offensive content online, but Matt took a step further by making a joke that people found funny because his boss would probably fire him if he tweeted that. - -So, I have a question for you, Matt. What's next? - -This is your last chance. I want you to tell me if this can be the first step down the path to being a social media sadist. If a small part of your social media posts involve making fun of someone, can you imagine what it would look like if you posted something negative about a coworker? - -Just imagine. - -Can you imagine the social media shitstorm and media panic if you said something about a woman, and a bunch of your followers jumped on the bandwagon before you even watched one single episode of The Simpsons? I just don't think it would be that hard for The Simpsons writers to make you look like a terrible person on television, or at least they would let you have an excuse to. - -I promise, the writers would not give you that excuse for the post you posted just now, right? - -Because you did. But not before watching one episode, then the second episode.<|endoftext|>After the big update to Minecraft 1.10 - the ability to drop items from the air - the devs had no idea how to make a proper landing animation. - -Well that was until animator, Ei8ht Ball released a custom landing animation. He also made a youtube playlist of the animation, so if you want to see the animation, here ya go! - -As if that wasn't enough, Ei8ht also released the source files to make it accessible for others to try their hand with the landing animation. It's all available at his GitHub. If you run into any troubles, don't worry, he said he is currently working on a new landing animation. - -For reference if you don't understand what he is doing, you can view the gif here.<|endoftext|>After several months of silence, I spoke with Chris Roberts for a detailed Q&A. From early on in my interviews, I had been intrigued by this seemingly unquenchable ambition to build and publish a space opera game. But for all the excitement, I feared the worst. It was not long, however, before I discovered Roberts had been hard at work on something much different: Star Citizen. - -Star Citizen will be a massively multiplayer space game, set in a universe Roberts calls the "Persistent Universe." The game will feature multiple human factions and planetside spaceships. It will also feature first person combat, planetary landings, and a story told in the form of a single-player cinematic. - -"This isn't just another MMO." - -In an interview with me and Erik Kain, lead writer for the first Wing Commander game and current co-founder of Foundry 42, Roberts explained why he is such a large fan of these stories, even when they aren't first person shooters -======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== -"As you can see, there are many different methods to create various types of watercolors. In all cases, the two basic steps will be to first apply a pigment to a very dry piece of paper and then coat it with water and a bit of turpentine (make sure you leave the paper for hours at a temp of about 140* while painting). This, of course, is not the only way to do such things; there are a lot of methods and they are varied and not mutually exclusive. As for technique, you can either use your own paint or paint a bit of your choice onto a canvas. If you use a white watercolor, there is plenty of room for experimentation. It is advisable, however, to use a black paint or watercolor in a white-on-black setting, or at least a neutral tone to the colors." (Page 8 of Introduction by E.C. Beck)<|endoftext|>You're in luck. If you had a pre-order for the Xbox One, you should be receiving your console a few weeks ahead of launch. If you haven't gotten your Pre-purchase Kit yet, you may have to wait longer. Microsoft said last week that in some parts of the world, the console isn't shipping as expected, and that some shipments have been delayed. - -In an update to their FAQ, Microsoft told us that "We are working with our partners to address the shipping and delivery delays that have occurred," but wouldn't provide more specific details. Here's what they told a Reddit user when the PS4 was delayed: - -"We've seen an uptick in shipping and delivery delays and are working hard to get things corrected for as many customers as possible." - -It makes sense that a lot of these delays happen when you're trying to get all the components on a device and get them to a shipping destination. We'll keep you posted when more information becomes available. - -For other tech questions, head to the forum. - -[Reddit via NeoGAF, thanks Sam]<|endoftext|>When looking at the average value of a bitcoin in dollars by region, the Americas comes in with a higher valuation across the board than the rest of the world. Despite that, though, the region still has some of the most expensive cities. - -Bitcoin's Value by Country - -Bitcoin market exchange, Coinbase, released the 2016 Bitcoin Price Index yesterday, which provides a historical look at its valuation across several continents. The report is available for download. - -On the charts, the top 10 most expensive cities are: - -Antananarivo, Madagascar (1680 baht) Monterrey, Mexico (1000 baht) Dhaka, Bangladesh (800 baht) Antigua & Barbuda (500 baht) Nairobi, Kenya (450 baht) Zurich, Switzerland (450 baht) - -Bitcoin's Value by City with Lowest Exchange Rates - -Some cities have high exchange rates but low bitcoin values. Those cities represent one of the major areas of opportunity for bitcoin: the countries with a relatively low exchange rate for bitcoin (see graphic below). - -Bitcoin's Value by Country with Highest Exchange Rates - -Of all the countries in the world, Russia and Ukraine have the highest prices. According to the chart above, though, their bitcoin values are relatively low despite their exchange rates. - -A Look at Average Bitcoin Exchanges by Country - -At Coinmap.org, we track the top cryptocurrency exchanges globally. They have all been included in this list throughout 2016, and are now ranked according to market value. From that list, here are the average prices in each region: - -South Korea $270 - -Argentina $265 - -Mexico $262 - -Hong Kong $240 - -Japan $230 - -United States $227 - -United Kingdom $203 - -Canada $182 - -Czech Republic $166 - -Russia $156 - -Brazil $154 - -Australia $143 - -Sweden $139 - -Denmark $135 - -Spain $132 - -Germany $128 - -Malaysia $128 - -Malaysia$129 - -New Zealand $127 - -Netherlands $127 - -United Kingdom $117 - -South America $105 - -As noted in the graphic above, the United States and Canada are the two best regions for bitcoin users. In addition, the chart shows that the global average for bitcoin has stayed in the $290 range for more than a year. - -Featured image from Shutterstock. - -Advertisement<|endoftext|>The Federal Communications Commission is considering imposing new regulations on the popular Web streaming service, Netflix, that would make it pay an additional fee to use television stations' spectrum — in the hopes of attracting more customers and money to broadcasters and cable companies that are losing audiences to online streaming. - -The idea of licensing television space to cable companies and broadcasters, while controversial, is not unprecedented. In the 1980s, several wireless and satellite TV operators -======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== -I've got a couple of friends that would like the ability to turn on/off Bluetooth on their iPads. But they would like to have the option of setting specific apps and games to turn on/off Bluetooth as well. I've found a solution to that for my family: Turn Bluetooth off/on directly from the iPad app! - -So here is the process: - -Open the "Touchpad" app. - -Tap the top of the screen and select Settings. - -Tap Bluetooth & Bluetooth. - -Tap on your devices - -Tap the Bluetooth icon and tap to toggle off/on bluetooth/USB. - -The change should take effect the next time you turn on/off the device. - -I hope I made this clear with the example. Happy iPad hunting!<|endoftext|>There are many ways we can enjoy the world around us. One way is to share it with others through music. As a result, a lot of great artists have recorded on microphones. Now, you can get all of those recordings for free–and with some nice extras. - -I was delighted to find that the internet is full of free MP3 download sites. You can listen to pretty much any recording. These sites have lots of free music available and the artists are mostly from all over the world. Some are fairly new. Others are well known and have been in existence for ages. I'm sure you can find some that interest you. - -When I saw that the world was full of free recordings, it started to dawn on me that I could take part in that. So, today I decided to create a page to share all the free songs that are included in my online library. Here's how: - -1. Download the free mp3 files online - -2. Download each mp3 file - -3. Save them to your computer - -4. Copy the file addresses to your email account - -5. Email your files to the address you created on the page - -6. Follow this page to the end! - -If you download mp3 files and don't want to share them, you can easily do that and get them off my server. Also, you can make your own mp3 download service and link from this site to your own download server. I'm just a small indie musician, but with just this site I can share my music with the world. This is the first thing I plan on doing. There are lots of ways you could share this music, so stay tuned. - -I know that many of you will be interested in finding out more about these free recordings. That's why we'll also be adding a section to our website later where you can click on any song for more info. Also, I'll create an interview with every recording we get. So, be sure to check in here regularly. - -Here's another free album by a great local artist: - - -And here's a great song by the famous Canadian folk singer, Alanis Morissette. - - -Here's more free music, all of it from Australia: - - -And even more free music by other Australian artists! - - -And as always, if you have any problems with any of the files I linked to above, feel free to leave comments and help out! I'll be checking things from time to time. - -As always, thank you for listening and share the music!<|endoftext|>Tales from the Borderlands is a Borderlands series video game developed by Gearbox Software, published by 2K Games and released on October 5, 2011 for XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC, Mac, Wii U, Wii, Microsoft Windows, and iPad. It was released on April 10, 2014 for the PSVita via Sony Entertainment Network, and October 23, 2014 for iOS via iosupport. It is a direct sequel to the first game and takes place between its first and second season. The story takes place between the events of Payback and Claptastic Voyage. The player controls various characters in a post-apocalyptic world, attempting to uncover the mystery of Pandora along the way and defeat new threats along the way. The plot for the third season is still being explored, with characters still being playable, and Borderlands is being expanded with various side-missions with new and returning characters. The third trailer for the first season was leaked for the PS Vita on May 13th, 2013, but was cancelled before it was released in Japan. The second season was then released in Japan on September 18th, 2014, and in North America and Europe on October 14th, 2014. The third season is yet to be revealed, with a release due later in 2018. - -Contents show] - - -Gameplay - -A typical round of battle takes four to six minutes to play in the single-player campaign, and will last about 30 minutes in multiplayer. In the single-player campaign, the player is given control of numerous characters throughout Pandora, including non-playable bosses, enemies, and non-playable characters -======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== -I started playing with the Arduino a month ago and in the process learned that writing software can be very enjoyable. This is not the case for the average person because for them programming is one of the difficult things to do in life but for me it was very exciting, in fact it made me a lot of money and inspired me to design some more projects that can make your Arduino more useful. I will try to give you some hints to make the process easier and less time consuming - -Software architecture - -When you start building something complex the software architecture comes very early on. This is one of the key factors in the performance and quality of your work. If you have a good understanding of the architecture you can use it to make the whole system simple by separating the logic in small, simple units. In the following I will explain more about the architecture of the Arduino and how to make your code simpler. - -The most important thing in this architecture is the digital I/O pins. If your project involves reading from these pins you need to understand that each I/O pin is responsible for delivering a single digit of the input from the analog inputs. So if you are using only 1 analog pin for example, you must understand that each pin's task is to deliver a 1 or a 0. - -The analog input pins are labelled in the header pins file but they can be identified by the following name: - -P1A1, P1A2, P1A3 - -Each pin has two states: read/write and low/high. In these two states the pins take a voltage range between 0 and 5v and convert it to a range of 1 or 2 on the digital I/O pins: - -To convert a 1 to 0 you use the following formula which works for almost all types of digital pins: - -const int analog_max = 5; - -Each of these pins can provide a continuous range of 2v to 10v. Therefore you can use the following constants for reading/writing these inputs : - -const int analog_min = 0; - -const int input_low_range = 0; - -const int input_high_range = 5; - -In the digital I/O blocks it is important to understand the pin names and pin states as follows: - -Pin Name Definition read/write Pin Input is LOW Pin low Input is HIGH pin high Input is LOW low Input is HIGH - -The I2C pins can be recognized by the following name: - -I2C address 0 = SDA SCL pin address 1 = DIR SCL pin address 2 = DS SDA pin address 3 = DSR SCL pin address 4 = SCK SCL pin address 5 = SMCL SCL pin address 6 = RESET digital SCL - -After reading these pins it is essential to convert them to digital. You can do that through the following code snippets. - -int read_low(analog_pin) - -{ - -int value = analog_max; - -if (value < zero) - -return value; - -} int write_low(analog_pin, value) - -{ - -int value = analog_min; - -if (value > zero) - -value = value - 1; - -} - -To use these variables you need to declare them first in the arduino sketch to which they are needed. The following example does it : - -#include - - -/* - -* analog input pins - -* - -* SPI usage - -* - -* The digital I/O pins can be used for both reading and writing. Use the - -* pins numbers to identify them. If using multiple pins, you must declare them - -* first in the arduino sketch to which they are needed. */ - -#define analogPin 1 - - -void setup() { - -// initialize the analog pins - -pinMode(analogPin, OUTPUT); // switch on (0) digital pin - -Serial.begin(9600); // start the printer at 9600 baud - -} - - -void loop() { - -// Read the pin: - -// Serial.read (); // get the value from the serial read line - -// Serial.print (ANALOG_PINA1); // set pin number to the value (analog pin 1) - -// Serial.print (ANALOG_PINB2); // set pin number to the value (analog pin 2) - -// Serial.print (ANALOG_PINB3); // set pin number to the value (analog pin 3) - -// Serial.print (analogPin); // display the value of the pin - -} - - -// Create a new value to be written to the pin: - -void write_value(analogPin, int value) { - -Serial.print (value, -======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== -"The question was, 'Is Hillary going to win the popular vote?' And the answer was yes, she was. We all knew that. Now we're going to find out how accurate it really is. That's probably, like, a pretty accurate thing that they did." – Alex Jones - -For quite some time, the establishment media has been projecting a strong Clinton victory in the upcoming 2016 presidential election. Most of the news reporting about the upcoming election has been based on polls that suggest Clinton will easily win the election, while disregarding the huge polling errors that are often attributed to pollsters. - - -Although most mainstream media polls are completely unreliable, as of early June the mainstream media had been projecting a Clinton victory into the very last day, a Clinton victory that is now all but guaranteed. - -The reason that most mainstream news organizations have failed to even acknowledge the vast polling errors is partially due to Hillary Clinton's huge poll lead. When a candidate is ahead by double digits for so long (as was the case with Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire) and has high name recognition, they can effectively manipulate media reports. - -In a recent article from Zero Hedge, Alex Jones explained this phenomenon in detail. According to Jones, "The question was, 'Is Hillary going to win the popular vote?' And the answer was yes, she was. We all knew that. Now we're going to find out how accurate it really is. That's probably, like, a pretty accurate thing that they did." - -While the exact details of poll cheating are difficult to determine, I feel like we are on the cusp of an unprecedented, worldwide polling failure. In the years since Trump first announced his candidacy, his poll numbers have significantly risen in all major polls, both for Trump and Hillary. In fact, even as recently as last month Hillary's favorability rating remained at 58% and her net favorability rating remained at +29, indicating that Trump did not suffer any major poll drops in the months after announcing his campaign. - -As I recently pointed out, Trump has been polling at or near 50% in the most recent polls for months. This is a level of success that most of us never saw Trump reach in 2014. - -Additionally, the establishment media often appears to ignore the real issues affecting the American people. For months, Bernie Sanders has been gaining momentum with a surging millennial base, an extremely favorable millennial-to-millennial poll, and the fact that most millennials have no interest in voting for a candidate because most of the news they consume is about the elite of the United States. - -Many polls have found that millennials are much less likely to support one of the two candidates for president that they identify with. In fact, if millennials vote for the Democratic candidate in a general election, they are predicted to do so for Clinton over Trump by 10 percentage points. - -When you put all this together, I feel like we are rapidly approaching the point when a significant percentage of America's youth will choose to not vote. I have never seen a time in political history when voters were so disinterested in their politicians. This will likely continue to create a massive problem for the United States going into 2020. - - -If that is the case, one of the most likely outcomes could be the Republican Party imploding. It is a massive risk to take if a number of the GOP's candidates, particularly ones in states with heavy anti-establishment sentiments, are losing. It is also extremely unlikely, since polls tend to assume that voters are very interested in the candidates they are supporting. If it looks like Clinton is going to win the popular vote, many of Clinton's potential GOP challengers will most likely decide that they have no better options after all. - - -If the polls are all over the place, how will Trump do if that happens? Is he going to become a much more mainstream candidate or will he continue to make outrageous statements that will draw huge crowds and bring in voters who simply can't get excited about the choice between Hillary and anyone on the other side of the aisle? - -Trump has a chance to be the first candidate to win both the Electoral College and the popular vote in presidential history. Given that we are in the midst of the largest election fraud in a generation, it has never been more important to educate ourselves on election fraud in order to ensure that our votes are accurately counted. - -As a result, it is more important than ever to check the "scientific" polling sites out online. It could be the difference between a historic victory that will help make Hillary the first female president and a loss that will cause her to lose in a landslide. - - -[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]<|endoftext|>From Hearthstone Wiki - -For the Hearthstone hero card, see Sludge Belcher (hero power). - -Sludge Belcher is a common neutral minion card, from the Whispers of the Old Gods set. - -How to get [ edit | edit source ] - -Sludge Belcher can be obtained -======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== -I've seen more pictures of this car than a Lamborghini Egoista. I'm going to break the silence. This is the Ford GT. You might ask 'Whoa, hold up, who's Ford?' But I'm not talking about a company that's not making an F-150. I'm talking about another company that made the GT years ago, and I'm talking about an awesome car and amazing people. This is an F-150, but it's not that one. Not in the same way. And this is the result of a team of people at Ford that, while not making the F-150, and really not for many years, worked hard to create their own vehicle… a brand new one. - -I'll be upfront. It's not perfect. When Ford first debuted the GT 50 years ago, it set the car apart. It wasn't a Ford, it was a Mustang. There were no badges, no wheels. It was just a Mustang. They didn't know it was a fast car when they first built it. It was built for the North American market and it was an F-model pony-car that needed a manual transmission. But it was something different. It was something with its own character. - -Advertisement - -If we break it down in a way that Ford understood, it all makes sense. The GT 50 was supposed to be the fastest Mustang ever made — the fastest Mustang built even. The car didn't need to be super-fast. It just needed to be fast in its own right. The car took off the fastest Mustang ever built. It was not just quicker than the Challenger, it was quicker than anything you could get. It was faster than the Ford GT with its big four, faster than Shelby's GT500 and the other pony cars. It was faster than this car. The fastest Mustang ever made. - -At 50, the GT 50 is very much a 50-year-old car. It still holds up. Its numbers and performance remain on par with anything that comes on the market in a new year. Its age is what makes it special. In fact, Ford's engineering might be what keeps it special. It's just not a modern car. It's a Mustang that was designed in the '60s or '70s. It would have made an awesome GT car, but it would always be a Mustang. I think that's what's fun about it. We have that old school Mustang, because we have that old school engineers. - -Advertisement - -Now, why are you still reading? How is the car you're looking at, the car you just saw, the car above that you're so excited about, actually possible? I feel like I could buy one tomorrow and not just because of it being old. Even if it were new out of the box, and I just needed something fast, I'd get it. There's something nice about a car that feels like it's been there forever, because, really, that's what we do most of the time: we build old stuff. - -The GT's old school attitude is at the core of the car. The classic Mustang's attitude is also present in the GT. It's in the rear end, on the grille, in the look of the hood and the hood scoop. It's the little things that get people's attention. It's the way a car handles. It's the way a car looks. It's the interior. It's the way a car sounds. It's the way a car feels. It's the engine. It's the transmission. It's the way the wheel climbs. It's the way the engine responds. It's the way the car corners. It's all those little things that make cars special that we know, by far, make the cars faster. In other words, these little things all take a GT and make it feel like the GT of 50 years ago. - -Advertisement - -The GT 50, at the time in 1972, was a unique vehicle. It was the first Mustang to be powered by a V8 — a big V8 — which was a big deal. It was the first Mustang to be built with an automatic transmission. It was also the first Mustang to get all-wheel drive, just three years after the GT40 was unveiled. But all the things I just told you about are old-school, too. This was special because it was something that Ford had seen as a future market and a future opportunity. It wasn't for the money and it didn't come cheap to buy. It was just a special day for Ford. - -And there you have it. The GT 50. No, it wasn't ever as fast as this car. But the one thing about it I always say, is that Ford made one because they wanted to be part of history. Because they knew they never would make anything else. They don't make something simply because they think it's going to sell. In the old days -======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== -I'm a woman who finds myself in an awkward situation. I have an opinion and some research to back that opinion. I don't want to lose my job. - -I'm a woman who doesn't find it necessary to write about my gender. I'm not a lesbian. The only men I know I'm dating are my boyfriend. - -But I do have a job. And when I mention this, that's usually followed by a whole lot of "yeah but what about your job?" - -And I'd like some perspective. - -My opinion. The research. The research I was talking about. Who am I to have opinions about employment? - -So it's time to call on the experts: the women in my workplace. - -I'm talking about women across my network and the women I know who are also working in a professional and social setting. I'm talking about women in a wide variety of industries and occupations with wildly varying levels of experience (from mid-grade teachers to CEOs). And I'm talking about women who work in retail and retail-lifestyle-related businesses. I'm talking about women who serve as mentors and role models, who teach and teach others, who speak out on policy issues, and who are, in some way, a part of a solution to a problem that affects all women. - -And I'm talking about women who don't work. - -Here are some of those women on the issue: - -"Many of my friends and colleagues, when they hear my comment, will often tell me, 'Your opinion doesn't matter, you're hired, just like everybody else,'" one women who teaches social studies said. "So if I have an opinion and I don't have any data to back it up, what could I possibly say? I'm always left wondering if I could say the same thing, or if I could, say, 'I have a good job, it's not what I'm doing.' If I just tell people that I have a good job, what is my point? I have to ask these questions and do research. And I still feel like I can only say 'yes' or 'no.'" - -Another woman working in a professional field said she didn't feel she was able to raise her voice to her bosses and bosses' bosses about a lack of women in their professions: "As a first-generation college student, I was never exposed to that kind of language. My first experience was a 'no' and an acknowledgement that I knew I needed to study harder, but I was often given a vague sense that we needed to work on the issue." - -Another woman, who works in the retail industry, said she didn't feel she had a platform, or ability, to talk about the issue, because her role is defined mostly by her physical characteristics: "My male peers have always treated the office situation differently at work. Male peers always seem to be in charge. They're always in charge of the budget, they always want the new thing, and I've noticed that females are constantly working as "experts." Male colleagues are always in charge. They want the new thing. They're always in charge of the budget. It's almost like there's a hierarchy in the office."<|endoftext|>Boeing's 787 Dreamliner can be made to carry a nuclear bomb on board, or the planes can carry nukes. - -The Japanese carrier has a strict policy of avoiding weapons, and has said that any nuclear-powered plane designed for the Japanese market will not enter service. - -"The Dreamliner, however, is being sold to a large customer as an aircraft that is capable of carrying a nuclear payload, and that is not the case," said Yasuhiro Takagi, a spokesman for Tokyo's Metropolitan Airports Authority (TMA), a branch of Tokyo's prefectural government. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -The TMA regulates the sale of planes to airlines and the storage of weapons on planes. Boeing's decision to add the 787's nuclear capabilities has raised eyebrows in Japan because that aircraft is being offered for sale to a third country. The TMA does not comment on specific buyers but would not discuss this model. - -Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. - -The Boeing 787 family consists of two models, the 737-800 and the 777-200ER.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I 1 2 The numbers here are based on averages and do NOT -======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== -The U.S. Senate intelligence committee wants a briefing from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander after a controversial NSA program that collects bulk phone data of U.S. citizens and foreign citizens worldwide came to light, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. - - -The NSA's secret domestic surveillance program, dubbed PRISM, and the Justice Department's attempt to force Apple to help its agents access data stored by the Cupertino company, have sparked outrage. The report cited a U.S. official as saying that both the Senate intelligence committee and the House intelligence committee, are examining the NSA program PRISM. The report was first published by Der Spiegel on Friday. - - -President Barack Obama on Monday defended the NSA's surveillance programs after reports emerged in the last few days that U.S. intelligence agencies had access to information from tech giants Facebook, Google, Apple and other tech giants that stored data about ordinary citizens. - - -"There are times where, just like in the 1950s, we don't know what privacy means. And I think we in a democracy need to reconcile having a set of principles and then applying them," the president told students in his last week in office. - - -"Somehow, in this digital age, we've managed to reconcile all these conflicting principles, and that's the challenge."<|endoftext|>The European Central Bank has opened its first major test of the digital currency bitcoin and its possible future use for clearing and settlement. - -A trial of the European Payments Gateway (EPG), a new payment system, began in October in the ECB's testing grounds in Basel in Switzerland, as part of a larger program examining whether the blockchain, the distributed ledger used to authenticate payments, is technically capable of supporting financial services. - -The EPG program will also test the blockchain's capacity to make payments faster with fewer fees than credit and debit cards. - -The experiment will not be permanent, according to ECB Deputy Governing Council member Jörg Asmussen at an October 26 European Central Bank news conference. The experiment is expected to end as soon as January 2018, and the ECB will decide whether to keep the program going when that time comes, Asmussen said, according to Bloomberg. - -It's not clear if the digital currency will be the solution to the speed issue, and while the central bank is aware that ethereum and bitcoin are among the projects working on solving that problem, it's still unclear if the new technology is the right answer, according to Bloomberg. - -The EPG's technical hurdles include an open API that only the ECB can access, as well as a low "settlement fee" of 0.2 percent, according to a central bank statement. - -However, the central bank is also trying to figure out whether digital currencies will be used in traditional banking systems, or if they could be used separately for financial services that need blockchain-like qualities, such as clearing and settlement, the central bank said.<|endoftext|>In the last couple weeks, the White House has launched a number of initiatives meant to "end gun violence." So far, however, there has not been much new on the topic. On Thursday, President Obama announced that the Department of Justice would create a task force to work on gun safety and said executive action was coming to curb gun violence. The following day, Vice President Biden released a list of measures, including gun trafficking sentencing enhancements, to curb gun violence. And on Tuesday, the White House announced a gun violence task force that included former Attorney General Eric Holder and Senator Dianne Feinstein. - -Unfortunately, while the administration has taken a step forward with new actions, it faces some very big obstacles. For starters, these initiatives would effectively end current gun laws, as they would ban all existing gun sales, regardless of circumstances or whether or not they are a registered owner. Further, the White House has promised that these strategies will be pursued and "vigorously pursued" in Congress. - -However, a bipartisan group of Senators led by Dianne Feinstein and Mark Warner said "no thanks" to Obama's executive orders on gun safety, Politico notes. - -Here is our summary of the various actions that Obama has taken and the problems to be overcome to have a serious and effective effort, or, if Congress is unwilling to act, to get a comprehensive approach taken. - -Executive Actions - -The Obama administration has taken several unilateral executive actions to "encourage further gun safety," Politico notes. The order was a follow-up to a series of executive actions that President Obama made when he took office in the White House, including: setting up a gun safety task force; releasing two guidelines to reduce gun violence; establishing a White House conference on guns; and creating a website to inform people how to be safer. The new executive order is to help with those tasks. - -The new initiative includes: - -New laws to ban bump stocks, military style weapons that can be used in "quick and semi-automatic" fashion. - -Improving background checks -======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== -[The author's comments are in square brackets.] - - -If you are thinking of visiting the new museum dedicated to the works of Richard Mille, you will have to keep the date in mind. I'm sorry to tell you; the world's foremost authority on the works of Mille has decided to stop using his name. There have been rumors for some time that there was some kind of financial dispute, but I don't think that's it. I have just learned today that Mille would sooner have had the word 'Mille' permanently removed from the titles of his works and the names of all his heirs removed from the works in the museum. The problem is that if Mille is going to remove his name from his art then he also needs to remove it from the name. My best guess is that the heirs to the collections of his works are not the best people to be entrusted with the collections of the museum. - - -It's easy enough to find a replacement for them in the form of 'Richard Mille, The Artist.' The museum was named because Mille was a professor, but his teaching was so terrible that no one ever took up his invitation to visit his teaching studio. There is a famous line in the movie, 'A Christmas Carol,' 'We will not call it a museum, but a museum will name us.' - - -This is an opinionated blog post and I will be as blunt about it as I can possibly be. Mille might very well do well to follow the example of the wonderful art historian, John A. Mallory. I'm not sure the museum could survive having this individual as a part of its staff. If you think that is a problem then you are being a bit dramatic - I think it is a real and serious problem. - - -I'm sorry to be writing this post, but I want you to remember it for you and for Richard Mille. This is a museum whose name he created, where all of his works are housed, and to whose collections those works belong. And so it is unfortunate in that context that I have to say something about this decision to remove his name. I have come to accept that that will be my fate now, and so many people are going to have to suffer my having to say it. I will say only one thing: I don't think the issue here is about me. I believe that a real estate board is really an organization that is responsible to the community. And so I don't think that I is some kind of bogeyman or outsider. That is not my concern. I think that I am being treated like some sort of enemy, and I don't like it one bit. So for me there is nothing that is of greater importance than to know when I speak. - - -So please bear with me and remember this for you: I do not oppose your right to free speech. All I ask is that you keep it within the bounds of decorum and civility. - - -If you've read the comments on this particular post and you've been tempted to share your opinion about this matter, maybe I could offer you a helpful tip. As I said, I have decided to stop using these names because they are so unpleasant to use. You could start making fun of them by making fun of your favorite artist.<|endoftext|>If you are like me, I have one favorite color. I love it, and I know many others do too. When I see someone wearing a bright colored blazer, my heart pounds with joy. The color is so unique and so flattering to everyone. I know I will end up getting asked, "What do you wear to work?" At other work events, I am often asked, "How often do you get dressed up?" The thought of being asked such questions is quite scary. I also find the whole dress up stuff to be somewhat creepy. I'm not sure how many women have wondered why I am wearing my blazer when we go out drinking, since it makes me look so adult. I'm not sure how often you've wondered why I have a dark colored blazer (not orange) at a business job, when it would look so much better if I was dressed to go out on the town with my friends wearing my favorite color. How many times have you asked yourself, "Why is she doing that?" and "What is she thinking?" when you see a woman wearing something that "defines her" so strongly? - -I have learned one thing from a lot of people over the years: There are no right or wrong choices when it comes to looks. In today's society, we live in a society where we are always told what to wear. We are taught how to dress and what not to wear by our parents, by what our peers wear, etc.. There is often no room for any other considerations. We are told what to look like, whether we believe we have that in us already or not. There are no other choices left, really. We are given no room to question or choose -======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== -There is no such thing as total control of information that are written on the Internet. Even if every government in the world was a computer and everything was being downloaded every second it is still impossible to completely get rid of any one person. - -The Internet is an immensely powerful tool. - -For example, even if the entire Internet was hacked into I could still find out about it, there are so many search engines online that it would be almost impossible for me to find out everything about everything. Even if the government can control information they would never get rid of all the information on the internet. The only way to truly control all of the information which is not on the Internet is to build some sort of censorship in place. - -However, if they build a censorship method with the Internet, then they could completely get rid of information that is available without that censorship. - -Just the fact that the government has a way to completely control internet content means that they must be getting full control of the Internet.<|endoftext|>The following is a list of minor details that are sometimes hidden, which are generally known by the staff but not everyone. - -If I am missing something else, please contact me. I am always happy to help. - -Please note, this page was written for the Japanese version. - -The original article can be found at - -https://yhax.yandex.ru/articles/1238/ - - -Contents show] - -Characters Edit - -The following characters are not seen in the game. - -The following characters are not seen in the game's original Japanese release. - -The following characters are not seen in the Japanese version of the game. - -Battle Menu Edit - -The Battle Menu is accessed by pressing the START button on the title screen. There are three ways to view the Battle Information. - -1. A button on the right of the screen allows the player to switch between the main screen and the Battle Data screen. 2. A blue button (火) on the upper right of the screen allows the player to view character data. 3. A button (熱) on the upper right of the screen appears to be an option to view the status (HP, EXP, Level, Damage, etc.) of items. - - -Battle Data Edit - -The Battle Data screen is accessed by pressing the SELECT button on the main screen. There is nothing of interest in the Battle Data screen - it simply displays the basic data for the character. - -The following information is displayed in bold, and each number is shown as a percentage of that stat: - -HP is divided into 40 points; the highest value will be at 100%. - -MP is divided into 40 points; the highest value will be at 50%. - -EXP is divided into 20,000 points; the highest is at 100%. - -Damage is divided into 200 points; the highest one is 50%. - -Status is a percentage of all health (HP): 0%-99%. - -Level is divided into 40 points; the highest value will be at 100%. - -Equipment Edit - -Equipment are items that are used to strengthen a character's stats. Only one piece of equipment can be equipped at a time, but players can change their equipment after the battle ends. - -As shown on the right side of the screen (with the character's equipment in italics), the character's level is used as the base for the number, but it can also be modified through the character's weapons (a weapon will always have the same strength value for the same type of equipment). - -This data is also updated in the battle screen: the higher the character's level, the more damage they will do. The higher the weapon's level, the higher damage the weapons will do. - -Characters Edit - -There are a total of six characters in the game, each of whom has their own unique weapons and a color-coded type that is determined by rarity (green is common, yellow is uncommon, orange is rare, red is epic, and purple is legendary). The following is a list of all of the characters and how to obtain them. - -Blue characters have the best chance of being obtained, since all enemies must be killed to acquire them. The number in parentheses in their rarity is how many times they appear in dungeons. - -Toon Link - -Toon Link's sword, Lon Lon Milk, is a Blue sword. It can be found in the second of the Sacred Grove dungeons. - -Marth - -Marth's sword is a Yellow sword. It can be found in the same dungeon as Lon Lon Milk. - -Dark Pit - -Dark Pit's sword is a Red sword. He can acquire one by completing the Cavern of Souls for the second time or defeating Dark Ridley. - -Roy - -Roy's sword is a Green sword. He can acquire one by completing the Dark World, or by defeating Dark Moltor. - -Link - -Link's -======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== -The most recent episode of Survivor, Kaoh Rong, features the elimination of former Survivor contestant Russell Hantz. We are already in the process of dissecting it for every conceivable angle, but that will have to wait. The following week, in which Russell is allowed to compete in the "Kaoh Rong: Game Changers" reunion special, I can only hope for the best. - -What are some of the reasons for Russell to want to come back? Who is playing his best game at the moment? What can we expect from him on "Game Changers"? Let's get to it! - -I don't think Russell has been as honest and open about his thoughts on how he's playing as he has been in past seasons. So far, his approach has been to keep his emotions in check, to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone further, and just go out there and play the game. This is not the guy we saw in "Blood vs. Water." You can tell that he has thought this through in the past and that this could be his last chance to win one and maybe play a second time, so I think he is being very careful about who knows what. Maybe that is a good strategy. - -Is Russell trying to change how he plays the game? I don't know. But I wouldn't be shocked if he does get caught up in more drama. He's been an arrogant jerk for a long time now. I don't think he is going to change that. - -As I have been saying all along is that Russell's game has completely changed when it comes to Millennials. He has to play to get out of this game faster and he has to play his strongest alliance this season. It is not going so great for him right now with his alliance with Michelle and Tai. But I also think the way that the Millennials are playing this season is very interesting and has been very strategic for them. The big challenge has been to find their hidden immunity idol and, I think, they have it, though not quite yet. I think it is going to come down to trust between them and their alliance or the alliance of Jessica and Zeke. That is what really matters with this season. I think that they are all close to being at the point where they can be "the five" and that is going to create a lot of drama and alliances. - -I don't think Russell is on the bottom of this season. I think he is a very strong threat. I think with the changes to the way this game is played in the next two to three weeks, you are going to see a lot more "Russell Hantz" style gameplay if he has to. - -Last week was very interesting. So much so that it is hard to believe that this season is going to really be anything similar. As the host of a "One World, One Survivor" podcast series, I feel the responsibility to give readers and viewers all the information they need to make really informed decisions in coming weeks. - -That being said, I do have one more reason for Russell to be here. The "One World, One Survivor" podcast podcast series is my second podcast. In fact, it was my first podcast ever. When the podcast series began, the goal was to start up a new podcast every week for a total of 30 weeks. It wasn't meant to be a weekly television show. That was just sort of a fun side-project idea. - -Now, the goal for the podcast is to help viewers get better insights on some of the hidden and not-so-hidden stories of the season, which they can be sure to find out about if they don't tune into the podcast. So I am hoping that after listening to this week's podcast, anyone who is not watching "Survivor" and who hasn't looked into the "Survivor: Game Changers" podcast series will take the time to do so.<|endoftext|>We've seen it before, but we're excited to see a new version of Microsoft Flight. Microsoft Flight 2.0 has gone live for free download as of today. The new flight simulator has been a long time coming, and we're glad to get a look at what's new. Here is a brief overview of the new version, and Microsoft Flight 2.0 in general. - -General - -The software is now called Microsoft Flight and it will come on Windows 10. - -Windows 10's new update (build 10586.106) makes Aero Glass 2.0 a default option on Aero Glass 3.0. - -The Windows Store is now called Microsoft Flight as well. - -A new "experience" has been built with Microsoft Flight 2.0. It will appear in Windows Store after download. The demo experience includes new settings and a new flight mode, called Dynamic Flight. - -Windows will also automatically try to use the Windows 10 Aero Glass 2.0 after reboot as well. - -The demo experience includes a lot of new settings, all -======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== -The National Football League's New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons will play Saturday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, and a host of people are going to be upset about it. - -Why? Well, because it's an unusual matchup that has a "hostile" vibe for many football fans in New Orleans and Atlanta because it's the fourth consecutive Thanksgiving game in the city, and the fifth NFL game since 2013 — one with a home team playing without a home city — that's been called "hostile." - -While this may be an unusual game to call "hostile," we are not the first to point out how many games have been called "hostile" since last year (and there have been numerous more since then). In fact, we are the fifth consecutive article in the past four months to highlight other Thanksgiving games that were the recipient of the designation. - -The list includes: - -• Cowboys-49ers Week 1 2012 - -• Buccaneers-Saints Week 6 2015 - -• Panthers-Lions Week 7 2015 - -• Chiefs-Jets Week 3 2015 - -• Bears-Packers Week 12 2015 - -• Steelers-Raiders Week 15 2015 - -• Chiefs-Rams Week 10 2015 - -• Chargers-Cowboys Week 16 2015 - -So, yeah, it's not exactly friendly weather for the NFL, and that's just the tip of what's a pretty ugly football game on the other side.<|endoftext|>I just finished watching the film "Sleeping with the Enemy". - -The film is an account of the actions of Canadian special forces operating in northern Afghanistan during the winter of 2005/2006. I have read several accounts of the same events; these may be summarized in four short passages here, in order that you do not miss anything. - -The Canadian Special Operations Forces (CSF) team from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (the PPC) is dispatched to a remote area in northern Afghanistan, to a village inhabited by local Taliban militants and their supporters. They travel in convoy of two Canadian Armed Personnel Carriers (CAPC), which carry at least seven soldiers, a medic, a vehicle commander and three weapons. - -The team arrives at the village. According to the team leader, a number of Afghan villagers were trying to flee the area. At this time in September, 2005 there was no sign of any coalition airstrikes by night or day. - -At this point in the film, I saw the video. Apparently, the video was made in November 2005 or early 2006, and the village was in the process of being blown up by ground and air forces – I do not know if it was by U.S. planes, or Russian. This action may have killed or injured many Afghan villagers, including the team leader. The soldiers' lack of protective gear and the improvised explosive devices that had been planted in the village do not help their situation. - -The team leader orders a mortar round thrown from the top of a helicopter. The mortar round is meant to clear cover from the Taliban, if there is any. It also is possible that the team leader himself may have been killed as a result of his efforts. - -As the team moves closer to the village, gunfire erupts – but no one comes to help. The team leader returns fire. It is the beginning of a mission in a "fire fight", in which two soldiers are killed, some of the insurgents killed or wounded. - -At about this point of the film, the Taliban are said to have gathered in a nearby house. The Afghan villagers apparently are fleeing. A few gunshots of machine-gun fire and explosions and a few women come to the rescue of those who are trying to escape the area. - -The team leader says to his team-mate in Russian, "let's move in", and starts moving his team-mates to the roof of the home that the villagers are occupying. - -I am very much interested in the role that the Canadians were playing, but this is a story for another post. - -The following are the four brief quotations that I remember from the Canadian army website that describe the incident. The text is from the Canadian Forces Combat Camera. - -As part of Operation REASSURANCE, 4th Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the 1st Canadian Division conducted an early morning ambush during a village engagement in Northern Afghanistan in May, 2005. Canadian troops were able to locate and eliminate an enemy outpost in a residential house, whilst insurgents were firing on a nearby village and their outpost was successfully repulsed. - -"During pre-deployment training, our snipers are in-country for three weeks and this includes 3-D training, live fire training, and night operations," said Senior Non-commissioned Officer (NCO) Jason McIlveen, the team leader. "It is important to train for this type of scenario." - -The PPC was the first Canadian unit to train extensively in -======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== -New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was fined $2,500 yesterday for his comments that appeared to have been directed at the referees during Sunday's 30-27 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, NFL officials said today. - -In an interview after the game, the 27-year-old Brady said the referees were making "terrible calls" during his team's 30-13 loss. He said they were "always looking the other way" in other games, too. - -"Every time we get the ball in our hands, they're trying to call a penalty on us," Brady said. "This is the easiest thing in the world to do. But for some reason, sometimes it just kind of gets stuck, if you ask me." - -He said he didn't believe anyone was really making bad calls and said the referees just had to "know better" before the end of the game. He also accused the officials of favoring the Rams. - -"We're going to give it to 'em, they're going to give it to 'em, but we are doing our level best to give it to 'em," Brady said. "They're always looking the other way in this league, that's why." - -New England head coach Bill Belichick, one of the league's favorite coaches, was equally furious with how the rest of the game was officiated. Belichick said he felt Brady's comments were disrespectful. - -"I was really, really disappointed in how that went," Belichick said. "I really was. I have great respect and love for him as a coach. He's had so many phenomenal seasons. And the kind of comments that he made are not appropriate to anybody in this room. It's just very wrong."<|endoftext|>A British newspaper outlet has published what may be the first interview with ISIS' leader – and we're not talking about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the man pictured above. - -The Sunday Times, the UK's biggest-selling paper, published a story titled "The Caliph is living life to the full. His eyes tell you about his life". The article featured a video interview, conducted by an unnamed British journalist, with the self-proclaimed caliph. It went on to provide other details, including an alleged interview with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which was also published Monday by the ISIS-affiliated Daily Mirror. - -The video, which has been widely viewed on YouTube, is purportedly of an interview with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Duaa al-Britani, an Iraqi who lived in Syria and swore allegiance to al-Baghdadi during the last days of the US occupation of Baghdad. Abu Duaa said Baghdadi "looks younger than his years" and "has his hands and body covered in an extravagant moustache, and he wears a beard with a distinctive white streak". - -In the interview, Baghdadi is in his early 30s, dressed in a military uniform and carrying a Kalashnikov rifle and a pistol. His wife, a woman of "stunning beauty" who has "a strong character", says that he is "a man of peace". - -A British journalist interviewing Baghdadi - -In response to questions from the journalist, the caliph – who is the leader of the group of fighters known as Islamic State – says that his "mission is not to talk to the media", and says that Baghdadi is "not going anywhere." His voice cracks as he describes Baghdadi's "dreams." - -"The dream is that everyone should join the Islamic system", Baghdadi says. "What I want for the Islamic system is unity and cooperation," he says. "As I have seen many times in my life, when we cooperate there are benefits for both sides. So I see my dream as reaching people and working to help unite them." - -The interview is said to have started on 4 February this year, when Abu Duaa was contacted by the British journalist "in an anonymous phone call". - -The British journalist met with Abu Duaa first at the camp he had established in Syria to train fighters in the use of modern weapons and explosives. He followed the caliph on his way to an area called Tel Abyad which he claimed had been taken from the "Turkish army". - -Once he reached the battlefield, according to the reporter, Baghdadi "spoke in a very calm tone, very humble". He "recalled" the time when he was "in prison in Mosul" and said: "Now I see Mosul like a second paradise." - -When asked about his wife, who the woman says had a "strong character" until recently "when she lost the confidence in herself, she made a lot of mistakes", Baghdadi replies: "I am very happy with her." - -It is here that Baghdadi tells the interviewer that he hopes to get married, and that he was engaged when he was in prison. He says that he wants -======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== -In the last few days, I read a couple of interesting articles and tweets about "the age of the robot". The first one was about the age of artificial intelligence and the second one was about the birth of the "Age of Robots". In the last paragraph of the article I realized that the robot was a man, a super-human in every sense. In my previous article, "The Age of Machines", I made some interesting comments about the "Age of Machines". The comment I left back then was that the next few decades will witness the development of a new technology that will have profound global consequences. The question was whether or not such events ever can be prevented in our lifetimes, especially if artificial intelligence or "robotic automation" is able to replace many of the human jobs in our society. - -It turns out that there are not only a couple of interesting articles and blog postings about the "age of the robot" but also a couple of interesting tweets that can prove this prediction true! The article from the New York Times is entitled "The Age of the Robot" and its author is Nate Silver. He is a data scientist, not a philosopher. Yet his piece is an excellent exposition of how the "Age of the Robot" will affect our society. - -The article begins with a quote by Sir Arthur C. Clarke about the development of our present-day technology: - -For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the long run we are all dead. - -To put these words in a slightly different form: - -"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the long run, we are all dead." - -The quote from Sir Arthur is followed by a sentence from Charles Dickens, that in my opinion is the best quotation about technology from any writer: - -"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the long run, we are all dead." - -The article then proceeds to describe how technology is changing our human societies: - -"The biggest risk is that automation will cause unprecedented wealth and leisure for the "1%", who have the technology, wealth, and education." - -The article then tells us that in recent years, more and more people have been talking about the dangers of automated technology on many of the world's cities. In particular, there is a real trend in many developed countries, namely the increasing displacement of workers by technology with very little or no notice to the workers. - -The article then describes how in countries like Germany, Sweden and the US where robots are replacing humans, the cost of living has increased dramatically. The article also comments that in the US between 1950 and 2000 there was a net tax increase to the taxpayers from US citizens in order to give the money to pay for the new technology being created in the US, the same with other developed countries. - -The article then describes how artificial intelligence and automation technology allows a company to hire someone a job that once was occupied by a human being, eliminating his or her previous responsibilities and duties. If the new employee works on robots, the company pays almost no tax, even as he is providing a service to the company, the benefits of which are almost free of cost to him. This, it would seem, is a very good illustration of our economic system's current model where a corporation's main goal is to be as profitable as possible and not worry about its workers. - -The article ends with a final quote from the author "The Age of the Robot", referring to those who have already foreseen the danger of "the Age of the Robot". - -"Those who predicted that robots would take our jobs never mentioned that in many cases we already have robots that are taking over some of our jobs." - -The article is a very well-written and informative one when it comes to the topic of robotics and the consequences that this new technology will bring. - -What do you think about this article on the "Age of the Robot"? Let me know in the comments below. - -Also published on Medium.<|endoftext|>Halloween is approaching, and as part of the festivities, many folks will be dressing up in costumes and heading out to a houseparty dressed as a superhero or other famous character. In some cases, the costumes are funny — people are pretending to be superheroes out of fun! In other cases, the costumes are very, very bad; people are dressed as famous villains, and one of the people is literally a rapist. - - -Here are 10 of the worst crimes committed by people dressed as superheroes, or worse, in recent years: - - -1) - -In 2010, a teenager, dressed as Bane from Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, used sex toys to attack a woman in Texas. - -In 2010, a teenager, dressed as Bane fromChristopher Nolan'sThe Dark Knight Risesentered a San Francisco Bay area women's shelter on the night of Halloween with handcuffs on. According to the complaint,, two women were inside the shelter that night. The first victim told -======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== -An Irish couple who were in the passenger bed of a car that overturned at the New Year's Eve festivities in the Austrian capital have been rescued alive and well. - -The couple, who have not been named, were trapped under the car for hours while the driver managed to get himself and the vehicle safely away from the scene of the accident in central Vienna. - -It came days after more than 900 people died as a result of a stampede as revellers got into the stampede on the city's festive eve fireworks display. - -But after the accident in the Austrian capital, the pair are now on their way home. - -The Irishwoman was initially confirmed dead as the couple did not have their pulse for some time, while the couple's three children managed to reach them, a spokesperson for the interior ministry in Austria confirmed to Independent.ie. - -Their condition was confirmed as stable in hospital after emergency emergency crews took them to the hospital. - -The three children were sent back to Ireland to be reunited with their parents after the incident. - -The woman was a 28-year-old woman from Ballina in Co Mayo. Her name was withheld for legal reasons. - -The man was a 36-year-old man from Ballynahinch in Co Meath. - -It is believed they were in a parked car on an Austrian-Italian street when the accident occurred. - -The car came to rest in a residential area in Vienna. No-one was injured during the accident, police said. - -A woman whose identity remains unknown was the owner of the car and was driving it at that time, Vienna police confirmed to AFP. - -Police told local media that they are investigating possible charges in relation to the collision, according to local reports.<|endoftext|>A man in an orange shirt and blue jeans was taken to Harborview Medical Center after taking a shot in the head in one of the downtown buildings. - -Witnesses say the man was sitting on a bench in the first building block at about 3:40 p.m., when a black Chevy Silverado truck drove up to him and the driver put two shotguns to his head. No one was injured. - -The man was still breathing when Seattle police arrived, witnesses said. - -Police don't plan to lay charges because there are indications that the man was acting in self-defense, they say. - -Police are reviewing surveillance footage from the businesses and businesses on the street where shots were fired, they say.<|endoftext|>In a meeting early Tuesday, members of the Congressional Black Caucus sent President Trump a letter calling for the President to publicly apologize to Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL). Rep. Wilson's account of a phone call between the President and the wife of a fallen U.S. soldier created the latest flare-up in the heated presidential campaign. - -"In your actions on Monday, you have created a crisis of confidence for all Americans who value their democratic institutions and democratic values. In this difficult moment, we believe that you owe the president of the United States an apology," the letter said. - -While the Congressional Black Caucus did not state their specific demands, the letter to Trump said, "we call on you to issue a full and immediate public apology to Rep. Wilson, an apology that respects the dignity of all Americans and recognizes the sacrifices of all our soldiers who have sacrificed so much to keep our country safe." - -The letter was signed by the entire caucus. - -Wilson appeared on Tuesday's edition of CBS It's The Morning Show with Matt Lauer to respond to the letter, defending the Black Caucus members' positions as well as Rep. Wilson's actions. Wilson went out of her way to explain, what she saw as her motivations for writing the letter. - -"When this happened, it was an honor and a privilege to be able to sit in that chair. It's a privilege, and a responsibility, because when you are sitting in that chair, the President of the United States walks in that door, walks out of that door, and, you know, people say, what does he think? You know what? You walk out and you have to say something," Wilson said.<|endoftext|>If you had a problem with your credit card, you can't always get a full refund of the difference between your purchase and the advertised price. That's because your credit card company may make its own markups to ensure you don't get ripped off by merchants. If you want a complete refund or partial refund, you'll have to file a chargeback. - -Chargebacks are claims that merchants made to credit card companies after the amount of money they were charged was too high. As we've said before, however, the process is relatively easy. You simply go and prove your case with the help of a credit card chargeback dispute form and the credit card company. Once you've presented all of the evidence necessary to prove a chargeback, your credit card company will initiate arbitration of the dispute as described in this post, -======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== -A few months ago, an article in The New York Times was met with a chorus of "meh." In hindsight, maybe it was right after all? In any case, my colleague Eric Toms, along with a couple of his colleagues, decided to get to the bottom of it all. So here are the original articles by Toms and his colleague and a few helpful observations from The Times: - -The Times report includes the following: - -An editorial page editor for The Times declined to name the woman but said that she was a columnist who had been writing for the paper for more than a decade . . . - -The Times story went on to list three other women who are now identified in the story. - -In a comment to Eric Toms' story , reader Bob H. asked if the Times is currently looking into allegations by multiple women: - -I'm confused about the NYT interview where they were clear that three had been named. I have a copy of the article, but in the article it reads "three women" with no other detail. - -Hmmm. - -I have no idea what the Times is doing or who would have responsibility for the women at the paper, the one I worked for, or anyone else named in this story. I just want the truth out there. - -Thanks Bob - -I've received quite a few comments after posting of the Toms' piece about how this person at the NYT could make a clear case that some other unnamed people were named in the original New York Times article. What's wrong with me? - -I think this is a great question. As someone who was once associated with working at the NYT , I can testify to the fact that, for many people there, this person in the top brass of the print edition is not the person who really knows what's really going on. And that's not because he is secretly a jerk. It's because for many in the newspaper biz, it's a place of extreme pride to work at. It's a public forum where the only goal is the truth. But at the same time, it's one of the most important public forums, so it's a strange confluence of feelings between reporters and editors. - -It's a common story for women to come forward to the paper. The paper doesn't always do well with these stories. Remember when Janet Cooke made her sex tape public? Or when Judith Miller did a major story exposing the role of the White House and the Clintons in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? The paper's "we're always looking for those stories" credo just doesn't do the paper any favors. - -And here's the thing: The paper is owned by the same company (Gannett) where I had spent the majority of my journalism career (more than 16 years total) -- a company that has never done much for women or gay employees. - -I spent a lot of time at my editor's office at Gannett, and I can relate that when a story is strong we generally are able to get other stories picked up elsewhere because it can be a challenge to get a lot of attention and public scrutiny for just one story. The one thing about the New York Times and my New York Times experience is that when editors are comfortable about their stories, they tend to want to publish them. I can tell you that on many occasions I left the paper's office feeling more emboldened than I went in. - -Still, in fairness to the people with the most power and responsibility at the NYT -- the two people who are most responsible for the safety of the city's most vulnerable people -- Toms' report seems fairly damning. As we all know, when powerful people make sexual allegations against the weak, all of us are affected. I think that's a pretty good summary of the NYT's handling of the situation, with a few minor exceptions. - -I will just close with the following two thoughts I had just writing this article:<|endoftext|>About This Content A new expansion for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, adding a brand new area, new missions, new animals and equipment, and a host of new challenges, quests, achievements, items and more! - - -New area: Tselinoyarsk - A vast and remote region of the irradiated Zone, situated on the north slope of a mountain that has been completely blasted away. - - -New Animals: New animals to be fought in both the Chernobyl and Pripyat scenarios. - - -New Items: New items and weapon accessories with higher values. - - -New Challenges: New quests, challenges, and achievements. - - -Features: S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call Of Pripyat - Call Of Pripyat is the third expansion pack for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat. There will be new tasks for players, new areas to explore, -======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== -I've tried to compile a list of the best freebie sites. As someone who has an idea for a web design company, I tend to look for these types of sites. I have a blog which focuses on the design, development and implementation of custom webpages. Most of the sites I've listed on my blog are designed by me for myself, so I couldn't help myself but to include these sites. - -I was recently sent a copy of a freebie letter to share with you guys. It's on a very popular web hosting website: - -Let's find out: Which web design and development sites are worth following? - -1. Site1 - -This is the best web design site I have used. It has thousands of free web designs for creative people, and in many cases even professional designers. - -2. DesignCrowd.com - -What happens if you add the internet to the global economy? A website is born. This web design and development site is home to 3,000 sites which feature a huge variety of design templates, freebies and premium designs, all under one roof. Just browse through the freebies and premium sites and you will find tons of creative ways you can spend your days: - -If you want to give them the shout out for making it easier for professional designers to sell their design work, I would point you at Site2: - -3. Design-Cafe.com - -I just recently became aware of this website, created by the talented and popular designer Mark McInerney. His passion for design and his free sites are what makes it so good. Here is just a small part of his portfolio: - -4. The Web Designer's Guild Site - -In my opinion, this web design site contains the best web design resources on the net – it gives you an unlimited number of free web design templates (including mobile, print, and desktop versions) that you can use for your own projects in no time. I have a personal account, but it is free to register and use. - -5. Cutewebdesigns.com - -Cutewebdesigns.com is another fantastic design resource. In my opinion, it is the best designer-to-designer social network for creative professionals. The website also has hundreds of free web design resources, and it has many paid items as well. Here is just a small sample of what you can enjoy on there: - -6. HireWeb - -HireWeb is another fantastic designer-to-designer networking platform. The website has everything you can imagine. It has a large selection of paid design projects, as well as a selection of free design resources, both premium and free. Here is a short intro video I shot to give you an idea of what you'll get at these sites: - -7. Web Designer Depot - -I could say a lot about this amazing website, but I think this is a good place to start. Basically everything you need to know about the design world is here, along with tons of resources to help you make a good business out of it: - -8. Web Designer Trends – A Blog - -I stumbled onto this great web design blog when the creator of this site asked me for an article. The content here is a lot bigger than I can fit into just one post, so here is just a small sample of what you can find on here: - -9. Design-Cafe - -Finally, this website makes it easy for design professionals to learn new skills. They offer professional resources, and also have a forum just to help people learn from one another. Here are a few resources I found on them: - -Thanks for reading, and if you like these sites please share it around! - -Please, don't forget to comment about the amazing web design and development that you know of, and share your favorite freebie site with the community.<|endoftext|>BALTIMORE - With the holidays approaching, some Baltimore County schools are preparing to make a donation of holiday cheer. - -More than 100 schools in the county received gifts of clothes yesterday, some from other schools and some donated. - -There is also a $20 gift card available with a purchase of any food item. You can pick up these items at the following locations: - -At the following locations: - -Easton Square Middle School - -100 E. Patapsco St. - -Florence Middle School - -3100 N. Charles St. - -The Johns Hopkins University - -1201 S. Charles St. - -MARYLAND - -Libraries are also donating more than 3,000 books. They will be available to anyone at no charge. - -HALLOWEEN COSTUME, HALLOWEEN TICKETS, BED & WASHABLE BABY HARVEST FOOD, BOWLING LOUNGE and MUG SHOTS - -THE BEAUTY SHOW is the place to -======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== -(CNN) This is one of the most important legal challenges to emerge in years -- a fight to protect children in the foster care system. - -A group of children who'd been in foster care -- largely African-American, and at the center of the case -- are now standing up to be heard. - -A court hearing on August 14 will decide whether the state can keep them in custody. It would be a crushing blow for the civil rights community that has long fought to protect children in the state system of foster care. - -On one side of the courtroom, there are civil rights attorneys and leaders like Daunasia Yancey, who is suing the state to stop the children's placement in a federally funded facility to be housed with other kids. - -On the other side are a number of foster parents from around the country fighting to keep their kids in the care of the state. They're all in the courtroom to make their argument. - -Read More<|endoftext|>It took months to get the new logo of the American Civil Liberties Union. Then the public heard about how bad the old logo was and that it was making them "uncomfortable" — because it didn't have the image in the middle (it had two stars with a star in between). - -The logo's creators had to change it because its image was making people feel uncomfortable. - -That was the "conversation" that took place between EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), just as the group was creating its new logo. - -We were discussing ways to redesign the ACLU logo when I realized it wasn't "right." I was worried that some folks in attendance would come out of the conversation not liking the new logo, even though I believe in it. - -We got to discuss it even more, discussing how the ACLU logo needs to be designed for a certain group of people. - -Here is some of what we agreed on: - -The ACLU symbol needs to be used for a certain group of people. It's not something that can be shared widely. We needed to design the logo specifically to help the people we serve make sense of our work for them. - -I think this is why some people didn't approve the new one: It doesn't communicate its purpose clearly enough. - -For example, what does the ACLU mean to the world? It's not an abstract symbol that stands for a set of values such as freedom of expression and diversity. Instead, many use this symbol not as a stand-alone statement, but as a way to communicate some key message for their organization. - -The old logo made very little sense as a brand. Its lack of clarity meant people didn't know how they could find out more information about the ACLU. - -The new logo has a lot more content than the old one. The logo should tell a story (not a set of ideas), which is what makes it a perfect fit for the new mission of the organization. - -What is clear with this logo is that the people served by the ACLU are people who deserve to be heard (and protected) in times of need. If you are a human rights advocate and would like to support the American Civil Liberties Union as a nonprofit, please consider donating to the ACLU to help us fight for our values, protect people and prevent injustice. Or you can visit us online. We can't do it without your support. - -I have a feeling this "conversation" was very fruitful — but it didn't happen on the day it was supposed to! And this is why I feel we need to keep going.<|endoftext|>The new, improved iPhone 7 is the one to beat. It's the biggest, baddest iPhone yet — and it's got a huge battery, too. Now you can enjoy all that power on the go, without having to sacrifice comfort or portability.<|endoftext|>"I'm a big time baseball fan." — The Simpsons character "Bart Simpson" - - -(Seth Wenig/AP) - -There's something almost magical about watching the Cubs beat the Indians. - -For one thing, if there was ever an example of how baseball is an equalizing force on us all, it's that day in Cleveland. With the Cubs' 10-0 rout the Indians were suddenly on the ropes after a strong start, to the point where they had to call upon a pinch-hitter to make an appearance at third base. - -Then there's the scene in the seventh inning where the Indians are up 11-0. Outfielder Eric Jagielo, a former teammate of Chicago star Kris Bryant, flies out to left. The fans around the diamond erupt. - -In the first episode of "The Simpsons" Season 19, "Bart the Genius," Homer watches the Cubs win 11-7 over the Indians in Cleveland to become World Series champs. His comments after the game sound eerily like the one heard here: - -"I'm a big time -======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== -When the NBA announced its 2013 All-Star Weekend rosters this week, there were no players on an Eastern Conference roster that wasn't also from the Los Angeles Clippers. - -The Clippers came within one game of finishing as one of the top two seeds in the East last season, but ultimately finished fourth. Chris Paul, Paul Pierce, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan will be on the All-Star East team, joining the likes of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, with the Clippers looking to improve on a 20-53 record coming off last season. - -The West teams are much more likely to make the playoffs, but that will be determined by which team earns the right to host the All-Star Skills Competition in New York on Jan. 18, 2014, just one year after hosting the event in Memphis and Memphis again in 2013. - -Here's a rundown of both teams' rosters, followed by a few notes about each:<|endoftext|>What a week since The Bachelor came to town. - -A woman fell in love with a handsome stranger after seeing him on TV for the second time. - -We're also getting all the news from the Bachelor and The Bachelorette parties: Chris Harrison and Kaitlyn Bristowe are throwing the girls' and guys' after-party tonight at The Beverly Hilton, and Lindsay Wagner is hosting the guys' after-party at Le Cirque tonight. - -Here's everything you need to know for tonight, and for the rest of the week: - -First there's tonight's Bachelor Party, at 7 p.m. - -The bachelor's party is at Le Cirque in Beverly. Doors open at 6:15. Guests must be 21 years of age or older, and there are no refunds. - -Ticket prices range from $75 to $200. - -See below for other things happening this week in Hollywood. - -Lunchtime with Tom: This Monday at 11 a.m., The Bachelor's Chris Harrison and Lindsay Wagner will sit down for lunch (don't worry, they'll bring you a bottle of champagne with their meal). They'll sit at The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel with a few of EW's reporters, and Harrison is scheduled to be on EW Morning Live at 12: 35 a.m. that morning. - -The Bachelor: The women will get a chance to meet Ben. The men will meet Nick Viall. Who will Ben pick? Will Ben even get to pick?! It's going to be the best season yet. - -The Bracket Challenge: After last week's first challenge, Nick's got a new idea! For the second round, Nick will put the Bachelor into three categories, and one woman will be eliminated if she meets a bracket. Who will it be this time? It could be anyone, really. - -Bachelor and The Bachelorette: We're going to see the women's teams in action tonight, but what about the men? Well, there's one final challenge from the women this week, but how does it compare to last week's? Will Nick be giving his team at least a little bit of help? If not, that could make things tricky for him. - -WAGS: Here's what you need to know about the new WAGs for tonight: - -• Chris Harrison and Kaitlyn Bristowe, the hosts, are hosting the men's and women's after-parties. - -• Lindsay Wagner, the producer, is hosting the men's after-party. - -• The WAGs and Harrison will have a pre-event event on Friday, so we can tell you if our favorite couple won the game or not. - -• Expect some Bachelorette scoop on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette starting at 10 p.m. ET! EW Morning Live will be airing some of the questions asked during the show. - -• See here for a schedule of the rest of the week's events.<|endoftext|>In this episode, we are joined by special guest David O'Connor of the O'Connor Press. David is the Publisher of The O'Connor Press, and he hosts our new podcast, The O'Connor Podcast. - -David talks about growing up a comics reader, what's his favorite comic right now, he goes into detail about what the future of the O'Connor Press looks like, how to get involved in the O'Connor Press, what happened to the original O'Connor Press, what kind of material is published in The O'Connor Press, how he feels about the current state of the publishing industry, and much, much more! - -You can find out more about the O'Connor Press on Twitter, and you can get more info on some of David's books on his website! - -Check out more from The O'Connor Press on their homepage. - -If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for topics, please send us an email at oconnorpress@gmail.com or find -======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== -I've created this to be a list of all the possible options for how to run the default configuration of the Raspberry Pi with a 16GB SD card, a keyboard and mouse, and an HDMI monitor. This is meant to be a base set of equipment to get up and running. Feel free to create your own custom setup. I'll try and keep it up to date with as much information as I can find. This is not a configuration guide. - -Prerequesites - -1. If you are intending to use a monitor that supports hdmi, a USB 2.0 graphics card is required if you want to use raspbian at all on your Raspberry Pi. The first raspbian image I used did not include a monitor and there was a huge time lag during setup, and sometimes not until the end of the day. So, install an hdmi driver which will solve most of those problems. There are many places to download this driver, but I have a copy here from the Raspberry Pi Foundation itself. - -2. If you currently have an SD card that is the same size as your pi and you want to install a new drive, it cannot be an older model with less than a gigabyte. You cannot remove the old drive and then install a new drive which can be as small as a megabyte. So be sure to use an SD card that is the same size for the entire setup. You will then add that to the list of choices below. - -3. If you've just added an SDHC card, you will probably want one where the filesystem is either ext4, FAT or ntfs. The Raspberry Pi foundation states that both of these options are available in the default image, and so I'll default you to that. If you have a new card that is not listed here, I'm sure you can find a version of raspbian that suits your needs. - -4. If you're on Windows, please install the Windows drivers for your card and the monitor so you can setup with it running in full HD resolution. It's nice to be able to use a full resolution monitor in a virtual environment. - -5. If you're installing on a Mac, get a USB mouse or mouse pad as well and your will need one that supports multi-button mouse clicks. - -6. You may also be able to work with your SD card via the serial port, but this requires more set-up, and could potentially harm your card. If you choose to try this, you will likely be better off using the HDMI cable for better image quality. If you need a cable of any kind, be sure to read this page as well to see how to use the Raspberry Pi's HDMI to SD adapter. - -7. Download and extract the latest image from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. You have two options here. You can download the image as a zip from the raspberrypi.org website, or you can download individual raspian images from the forum thread. - -8. If you're using the image from the forum, use this image to setup as per the instructions there. - -9. If you haven't downloaded the image yet, use this image to download. Extract the image using Win32 Disk Imager, and then double click on the image to mount it on your desktop. - -10. Plug your SD card into the Raspberry Pi, and into your monitor. Make sure the USB device is plugged in before you boot the install process and check that it is correctly connected. If you're not sure what USB device it is, simply plug and unplug your USB device until you get an error while checking that it's connected correctly. This might require that you disconnect the USB device from your computer's system power first. - -11. Make sure your computer is powered on, keyboard and mouse are properly connected, and the Raspberry Pi is connected to the monitor. - -12. Once you see a new menu for configuration, make a note of where it is located in the future, or at least the name of it. It is not necessary to go into the configuration screen to make changes, in fact, it's usually best to disable the configuration screen. - -13. You might get a warning when booting up that shows that something is not right with the Raspberry Pi. It only lasts a few seconds, and it will get better over time. - -14. Once booting up, you will only have one screen to work on. - -15. Select "Raspbian Jessie Lite". - -16. The default username, password and login name will be your Raspbian installation name, with a default name of 'pi' on the Raspberry Pi. If you choose this menu option, the default raspbian login name will be 'pi'. If you choose to change or add a name, be sure to edit the pi user file: nano /etc/passwd, and add a new entry for your name. - -17. -======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== -Roughly half a dozen Republican legislators from Maryland have joined with Democrats to urge President Trump to stop pushing legislation that they believe would create a discriminatory legal path for Muslims. - -"Our Democratic colleagues are united on this matter," said Sen. Robert A. Zirkin, a Montgomery County Democrat who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "But we don't have the full, bipartisan support of the president. That's why we have stepped up to lead." - -Zirkin is one of more than a half-dozen Maryland lawmakers who signed a letter sent Wednesday to the president. The letter was signed by Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin, Jr., the Maryland senator, and Gary C. Peters, the Democratic congressman from Baltimore County. - -The lawmakers wrote that they recognize that they cannot influence federal legislation, and that they "strongly support President Trump's executive orders." But they noted that they oppose "the current legislative proposal that creates a new pathway to citizenship." - -Zirkin said that he has been in communication via email with Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and legislative affairs staff, and that that they have encouraged him to change his views on the issue. - -"They're concerned," Zirkin said of the staffers. "If they can't stop the president on legislation, they can at least try to keep the president off the subject." - -The Senate passed the controversial immigration order last month, but only after it was modified by the House to include an exemption for those who have become citizens of the United States as a result of being raised in the country. The final version of the legislation still gives them a path to citizenship, and Zirkin said he intends to introduce a new Senate version of the bill in January. - -But he and other Maryland lawmakers noted that the president's order does not require a path to citizenship for those who were born in the United States. - -If the final House-Senate conference agreement on immigration legislation is ever made public, Zirkin said, "we want to make sure the provisions that were added, if there is an exemption, actually reflect the concerns of the governor of Maryland and the other lawmakers on the Senate and the House." - -"He's clearly concerned," Zirkin said of the president. "He was very helpful, and I'm sure in the coming days, he's going to continue to be very helpful." - -Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Baltimore County Democrat, also signed the letter, along with Sen. Richard S. Madaleno, an Anne Arundel County Democrat, Sen. J.B. Jennings, a Montgomery County Democrat, and Sen. Joan Carter Conway, a Howard County Democrat. - -They wrote that they also oppose the "current proposal that creates a new pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants" and "the current legislative proposal that creates a new avenue for immigrants to gain green cards." - -They wrote that they believe this legislative proposal violates federal law. - -"The proposed legislation, if signed into law, will make our state and country less safe and more divided," they wrote. - -Some Maryland Democrats have already vowed to oppose any bill that does not provide for a pathway to citizenship for all illegal immigrants, but Frosh said no matter what happens, he intends to continue opposing the legislation. Frosh said he expects that there will be a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the legislation at some point. - -"I'm just getting started," he said. - -Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan supports a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally, but Zirkin and other Maryland Democrats are hoping to build pressure on Hogan to veto the legislation. Last year, Hogan signed a "show me your papers" measure into law that requires police officers to ask people about their immigration status without first looking at their papers. - -According to the letter, Maryland senators and congressmen do not intend to withhold their votes from the next Maryland budget, but want to make it clear that the legislation is not good policy. - -"If you make it harder for these immigrants to qualify for legal status, you make it harder for them to get to work and stay with us," Zirkin said. - -Senate Majority Leader Catherine E. Pugh, a Baltimore County Democrat, said that she has received assurances from Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., a Montgomery County Democrat, and the chairmen of the three Maryland congressional delegations – Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the top Democrat in the House; Del. John Delaney, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, another top House Democrat – that they will oppose any bill that includes citizenship for immigrants who entered the United States illegally. - -"This is absolutely not how you pass legislation into law," Pugh said. - -Maryland lawmakers also plan to meet with Van Hollen to discuss his opposition to the bill. - -Rep. Jamie Raskin -======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== -A video showing a British Airways flight being disrupted last month with a bomb scare has been released by US intelligence sources. - -Investigators say that they are not ruling out the possibility that the incident at JFK airport in New York was caused by a bomb. - -The footage, shown to reporters on Thursday, shows armed TSA agents rushing the jet to make sure no explosives were on board. - -The flight to Zurich from Heathrow was diverted back to Boston when it landed at 3pm on 26 September. - -The British Airways jet was diverted back to Boston (file picture pictured) last month when it landed at 3pm on 26 September - -Three hours into the diversion, the jet was cleared to land back in Boston at around 4pm. - -But after the plane had landed, it made an emergency landing because security officers had found a small device apparently in the lavatory area. - -The flight landed in New York at around 10pm, and was met on the tarmac by an armed escort of FBI agents. - -There were no signs of a bomb or any damage to the aircraft. - -The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration were able to track the black box flight data recorder, which logged flight information through the aircraft and the ground control. - -The black box flight data recorder is housed in a room at JFK airport. - -The device is a laptop and was found on the flight in the lavatory of the plane. It was later delivered back to Baa, an air storage company based in Boston. - -The flight from Boston landed back in Boston (file picture) at around 10pm, and was met on the tarmac by an armed escort of FBI agents - -Investigators said that the device appears to have been placed inside the lavatory by an individual who had been on the flight for about an hour. - -The FBI and TSA are currently working together to identify the individual who placed the device, but are also working to rule out any possibility that the event was a hoax. - -They said that, so far, there is not much evidence of terrorism that played a role in the event, but are trying to put together the clues so their investigation can continue. - -The FBI has sent the device to the National Bureau of Standards, a division of the Department of Energy, to determine if it is a threat to public safety. - -The company that manages the terminal at JFK, National Airlines, is cooperating with the investigation and has been cooperating with federal investigators.<|endoftext|>In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey that is wreaking havoc on a devastated Texas and Louisiana in the US, it's clear that the Trump administration could really use some good luck. For the first time in a year, President Trump hasn't held a public rally to rally with supporters for hurricane relief. It's clear that, to a man and a woman, the President doesn't understand his own country and its citizens, and his administration could really use some good luck in these parts. - -After all, the United States has now lost five-and-a-half million Americans in disasters and the number of Americans in Texas is estimated to be as high as 30,000 in the most urgent need of help by the President and his top team. The president has repeatedly demonstrated that he's never understood what needs to be done and what is worth the effort to fix, but it looks like he's about to get lucky. - -According to reports from the White House this evening, the President plans to call the President of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, within the next day or so, to thank him and help him get his head around the disaster which is now killing or hurting tens of thousands in his hurricane-ravaged homeland. - -This is a welcome and much-needed step for Trump, especially when you consider that the administration is still struggling with the fallout from the failure to respond to the disaster in Puerto Rico and has yet to put forth an adequate disaster response plan. - -President Trump will certainly want to avoid the pitfalls he experienced earlier this month when the White House refused to accept the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, a man who has arguably been more qualified to be at the head of the NSC than any of the White House officials currently in that position; and he was replaced by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a man with a strong background in the US Army, a man who has been described as a "fiery firebrand loyal to President Donald Trump". It looks like Trump's luck might be about to run out.<|endoftext|>From a recent post at the Economic Policy Institute: - -The number and proportion of households with children is still declining in the United States. According to the 2014 CPS, 15 percent of children lived with both employed parents, the lowest on record since 1976. The decline represents the slowest progress in child poverty in 40 years. This trend stems primarily from the rise in single-parent households. - -In 1970, 17 percent of children lived with one employed parent. Now the figure is -======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== -This is the second article in a series of articles exploring the role of media literacy and the web in the development of a well-informed citizenry. The first article discussed the role TV, books and the press play in influencing what people think and believe. - -The idea of a hyper-informed society is often bandied about without adequate evidence: why are some people better informed than others about issues as important as the economy? How can a nation be truly great when it has so little knowledge of its own existence? (see "Why does the world revolve around us: Understanding the role of media and the web in global governance.") - -As media literacy grows, these questions may finally be addressed. However, in their current state, media literacy education programs focus on a few aspects of public discourse: how to tell your story well, why media matters and how to navigate it. - -In many countries, media is a central source of information for citizens, but it is also a powerful medium, capable of communicating complex information in a manner that is easy to read and process. This raises the question: Why are more and more people not knowing more? - -Why isn't information spreading online as quickly as it is elsewhere? There is no question that the internet has become an important resource for the advancement of knowledge. This is especially true in the current climate of technological disruption. - -Yet, for all of the potential of the internet, internet usage remains much lower in rural areas as compared to urban areas. With low internet connectivity comes a scarcity of new information, in many cases because of the high cost of a telephone call. The cost of a traditional news outlet tends to be lower than internet access, both in the immediate sense of price and longer term, as they have a greater time frame on a regular basis. - -It is a difficult situation. How do we overcome the problem without simply giving up on public media? Perhaps a new paradigm is on the horizon. Perhaps we will see a global network of "hyperliterate" citizens in the new millennium, where information is freely available but it is also accessible at a quick, affordable and accurate pace. - -I'm a technology guy and, as far as I'm concerned, information is king. I believe media is the most potent medium we have as a society that should be used constantly and with the highest degree of integrity and scrutiny. I also believe that education is critical in this day and age. - -The Problem With "Hyperliteracy" - -In the mid-1990s, when the American Library Association launched the "Hyperliteracy Study," an academic study to determine the optimal educational curriculum, one of the major issues it addressed focused on media literacy, specifically how to teach it. - -Some educators viewed education only as reading or learning how to pass a standardized test and were not well versed with the issues of media. Others didn't see the value in educating students about the importance of media literacy and were uncomfortable with their role as gatekeepers to information. Others just didn't have time to focus on something which is so time consuming. There was also the fact that most of the work was being done outside of schools in schools of social work and school of journalism, many of which taught in print journalism methods, and students needed to know how to read to find the answers they were looking for. - -When I heard the term hyperliteracy, it caused me to take notice. "Hyper" is a powerful word. It is the basis for an entire series and, in a way, I became obsessed with it. I read everything I could about the topic. I visited organizations and learned about the subject. - -The result is that I am now a well versed reader of print and digital media. I do this because the issues I discussed in my first article, "Why is the world revolving around us: Understanding the role of media and the web in global governance," still apply today. - -What did the study discover? The American Library Association identified 22 media-specific competencies that are necessary to be hyperliterate: the ability to tell a simple story or piece of information in a timely manner, communicate information clearly and effectively, understand cultural and political values of various sources, understand and apply social and cultural information, and interpret the impact of different media and mediums. - -While most of these skills and competencies are important, it also included 21 core competencies, which were important to educators as a result of the study: knowledge of literature and/or culture, social responsibility, media literacy, interpersonal skills (communication, leadership, problem solving), time management, and the value of self-expression as well as teamwork. - -The American Library Association published a full summary of each competency in 2002 in its magazine, Hypercritical. - -The American Library Association also determined that students who scored high on at least one of the media competencies had increased academic achievement by an average of 20 percent and were not as vulnerable to cyberbullying (which the authors of the -======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== -"The first thing we need to do is figure out all the facts, as we've made it clear he wasn't responsible for a lot of what happened at Pulse," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina. "Now we've got investigators in Miami going back and interviewing witnesses, so now we're really getting a good look at what happened."<|endoftext|>Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A man was arrested by police for attacking a bus driver with a samurai sword after refusing to pay his fare - but was instead attacked himself by passengers. - -The bus driver had just stopped at a traffic light in the German town of Mölln near Darmstadt, and the assailant boarded his bus and punched him in the face as a result. - -The driver was knocked unconscious before passengers intervened and he was able to raise his hand to defend himself, German news outlet TZ reported. - -The man eventually managed to get off the bus and run away, after which police were called, according to the report. - -The driver was taken to hospital for treatment. - -He was not the only bus driver injured this week. - -The motorcyclist attacked another man in Munich with a sword Thursday; he received minor injuries. - -A 22-year-old man, who was wearing a hoodie, is suspected of the assault, according to Bild. - -Earlier the same morning, a man armed with a chainsaw assaulted a woman in Berlin . - -The 44-year-old was reportedly suffering from mental health problems when he attacked the mother and daughter. - -Police said the victim told them the suspect attacked him with the chainsaw for having a cigarette in an outdoor cafe area in the German city.<|endoftext|>A recent study found that more than a third (36.1 percent) of those who have undergone breast augmentation have experienced postoperative skin discoloration, particularly if they had the implants surgically removed. Discoloration can be caused by the skin bacteria, candida. Many people do not take adequate care of their skin prior to and after a procedure to prevent it from becoming too damaged. In some cases, the bacteria may not be detected until the skin has healed and the discoloration is obvious – the result of poor postoperative skin care. - -A skin care system that takes full advantage of new technologies and the skin care industry's knowledge of the most effective techniques, techniques for maintaining healthy skin, and information on the prevention of postoperative discoloration may result in better cosmetic outcomes with fewer problems including healing and infection.<|endoftext|>The following page is a work in progress. As an independent contractor artist, I'm only able to maintain and improve this page through the donations of those who contribute towards it. This page is free for everyone to use, and I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to improve my content. For information on donating, you can click here . Any donations above our goal will be used directly towards producing more pages like this one. You can help further along the way by sharing this page on your social networks. Thank you! - -The goal of this page is to give people a better understanding of how prosthetic hands, limbs, and other body parts are constructed and manufactured. The process involves a great deal of engineering, and it requires a lot of care in construction and finishing. This page contains an overview of the steps in the process, followed by the actual construction process. - -This page provides a general overview of how prosthetic hands, limbs, and other body parts are constructed and manufactured. This section should only be viewed as an overview, as each of the pages will delve more deeply into the steps involved in the making of a hand or any other object. For more information, please visit the pages for: prosthetic hands, prosthetic limbs. - - -For a more detailed overview of prosthetic construction, including several different types of prosthetic hands, please checkout prosthetic hand making. Also, a more in-depth review of using 3D printing for producing plastic prosthetics may be found in the prosthetic hand section of the 3D printing for prosthetics blog. - -2. Materials for prosthetics - -The most important issue in regards to the construction of a prosthetic hand is materials. For a prosthetic hand, it is important that the object is safe, strong, lightweight, and functional. This section will examine the material choices currently available. - -A hand composed of metal materials is not as difficult to construct as one composed of wood or polymer because the material and shape can be more easily altered. This makes metal prostheses safer to wear, but they do not perform as well as wood. - -The prostheses found in the video, for instance, used a polypropylene plastic material. Plastic prostheses tend to be lighter and more malleable than wood. - -Metal prostheses, for the most part, are either -======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== -RICHMOND – More than three dozen Richmond residents gathered Tuesday for a public forum on gun safety, held in response to the tragic massacre of six Americans in Newtown, Conn. - -The residents, from neighborhoods across Richmond, held signs and listened to speakers like Democratic state Sen. Richard "Dickie" Brown, who is pushing legislation that would allow people with concealed carry permits to use their guns to protect themselves and others. - -Brown said that he wants to know if people in Newtown need specific training on how to use a gun so that they could have self-defense against criminals like the shooter who killed 20 first-grade students and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday. - -"This is the most important day that I expect to be in this body since I've been elected to this seat," Brown said during one of a number of public forums. - -Brown described another event that drew more than 200 people at the University of Richmond Monday to discuss why the government should be looking to improve gun safety. - -Brown, a pastor who has said he considers himself a strong advocate of Second Amendment rights, said Monday's event at the university was part of what he considers "a new kind of civic engagement that includes a broader conversation about the role of guns in society" and "a dialogue that is rooted in facts." - -Brown said that his legislation should have been introduced sooner but it was also important to bring the debate out into the open. - -Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said there needs to be "a comprehensive evaluation in the state of Virginia to see what has happened here." - -"A comprehensive evaluation may not include that we should look to repeal our Second Amendment," Surovell said. "Some will say that there is no alternative but to repeal the Second Amendment. And other will say, well, how do you go about doing that? But I don't think there is any reason as a society to make this leap." - -The forum, hosted at the George Mason University Law Center, began with an event at the George Mason Community Center on College Green, where police and city officials held a brief news conference to offer condolences to families and friends of the victims and to urge everyone to make sure their loved ones have a plan in place, if they are left defenseless by someone breaking into their home or school. - -The city's Public Health Advisory Council later spoke to a room of people who identified themselves as gun owners, including several who said they'd not used guns in crimes in the last year alone. - -On Tuesday, the forum moved to the University of Richmond. Police officers guarded the gates, and a few attendees left after Brown began speaking. - -After about 20 minutes, Brown was in the middle of his comments when a woman began heckling him. - -The argument continued in the back of the conference room, as people from each side shouted over one another. - -Eventually, a member of Brown's team stood and spoke to Brown to ensure he was aware of the woman's behavior. The man, who declined to be identified, also went on to say that anyone who had the right to bear arms and was worried about what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary could be an NRA member. The man later told the audience that the forum "wasn't about the NRA or gun rights or about gun control. This was about gun safety." - -When the woman interrupted, the man explained he was part of a group that had called Brown. - -"I was on his team. I had him on the phone and had his staff contact me and say that he did not support this forum," he said. Brown took the podium and apologized for the interruption. - -"I just want to make sure you understand I don't condone this type of behavior," Brown said. "I'm sorry it got out the way that it did. … It's unacceptable. … If you do it, I'll make sure you go to jail." - -"It's clear this has become a very public issue. It seems as though if you had an opinion about it, you'd be able to find people who disagreed with you. … I just want everyone to understand this is very difficult." - -Brown said he felt as though an online petition he had organized and signed on behalf of the people from Sandy Hook Elementary passed 150,000 signatures. He said he was surprised by the turnout for the forum and he'd been told about the protest earlier in the day at the Law Center, which had been attended by about 50 people. - -The first speaker was Mike Leibson. Leibson told the crowd that he has "a concealed-carry permit" but isn't necessarily an avid shooter. He said that most of his family and friends support gun rights, but in today's society "you can't carry a firearm outside your home and go into a dark mall with your family." - -Leibson described the recent violence to which Newtown is a "perfect example," adding -======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== -The following was delivered by President Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a September 30 presidential meeting at the G20 Summit in Germany. - -As I said, we had a very successful meeting. It's going to take place a number of ways. We have to have an agreement on that. - -First, Russia must recognize that the actions of the United States in Ukraine and Syria, which had great negative consequences, have consequences for the rest of the world. They hurt Russia. We want to help Russia to recover, to rebuild its economy so that it can become an attractive place for investments. - -The second point was a great question. This is not a matter of being tough or being smart, as you know. This is a matter of what's good for Russia. - -Russia and the United States are the only two nuclear countries. It's important to understand this and to really understand. The United States has significantly reduced its strategic nuclear arsenal over the last couple of decades from about 1,700 warheads to 1,000. I think that's a very big deal. We're reducing our nuclear arsenal, but not because of any threat. We're doing it—I think it's in our interest to do it. I think not for the reasons you might think. That's the way our country is. We are responsible— - -QUESTION: So there won't be a war? - -TRUMP: We're not talking about a war. We're not talking about World War III, believe me. Look, we're not talking about—we're talking about the reductions. We're going to be talking about some serious questions. And they have to do with the modernization of our nuclear arsenal. So let's hope that over the next period of time Russia and the United States can sit down together when it comes to nuclear issues. - -QUESTION: Was that a one on one meeting? - -TRUMP: It was a follow up. - -QUESTION: A follow up to what? - -TRUMP: It was a follow up to a very good meeting. It's going to take place. You're going to know when it's on. - -The third thing is I'm sure I'll be asked about Syria, but I think that this was one of the most successful meetings I've ever had, more than any other meeting I've had, at least with respect to all of the subjects you're talking about, that I can recall. But Syria is obviously a difficult situation. But Syria is not the only one when you look at North Korea. We're not talking about war. We're not talking about nuclear war. This was a very, very productive meeting, and I'm sure we're going to do—now I have to run, because it was such a successful meeting, we're going to do many other things. But we're going to have many other meetings. So be sure we are in the right state. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -All right, with that, we have— - -Now it is true I spoke with Vladimir Putin twice yesterday. - -HOLT: All right. But let me just follow up with you, Mr. President. Your press secretary said that you would come into the G20 and have a productive conversation with your Russian counterpart, but what did you actually talk about? Did you get to the subject of—or did the subject of sanctions—which the United States has imposed on the Russian financial system—were you able to work out some sort of a truce, a cease-fire, in terms of Syria? That would seem to be an issue that was—so that we do not start World War III. - -And, of course, you would never speak about that on the plane. - -TRUMP: Well, we did speak about the whole thing with Syria, and it was an amicable conversation. I can't believe it's two days since I spoke to him. I can't believe it. I was so happy I got to speak to him, and I got to be around him. It was an amazing day. - -I think we are in very good shape. We believe we are going to have very good chemistry. I think probably we will, as I said, in two weeks, go for the second summit, and I think we will have a very good chemistry, which, you know, we haven't had. There was obviously great chemistry between this gentleman and Secretary Clinton. We did have some very good chemistry when we met in Moscow a couple of months ago. I think that's going to happen again, and I think the world is looking to us and hopefully they will be looking to us—if we do what we should be doing—and we do that, we will have great relations and it'll be a good thing for Russia, and it'll be a good thing for the world, because Russia will be a respected country again. - -I -======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== -Anxiety can affect the same parts of the brain responsible for the feeling of fear, but in a different order, according to a Canadian study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The findings could help identify individuals at highest risk of developing generalized anxiety and related problems, such as PTSD or anxiety disorders, the researchers said. - -"We looked at the functional anatomy of the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that has been implicated in the pathophysiology of anxiety disorders because of its involvement in fear. We wanted to know if anxiety was modulated differently depending on the context of fear versus alertness, and if different areas of the body impacted the order that anxiety and alertness came under control," said author Dr. Michael J. Fenton, lead author of the study and research fellow in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at McGill University. - -The researchers found a direct relation between anxiety and the strength of connections in the brain's anterior cingulate cortex. The greater the strength of the neuronal responses to fear, the more "anxious" the person, which in turn, led to a less-restful state in the anterior cingulate. A decrease in these responses resulted in less-anxious people, according to the study. - -"In summary, when the brain has to choose between 'fearlessness' and 'anxiousness', it makes a more favourable choice," Fenton explained. "But when we consider the different ways in which a person perceives a potential threat, this choice can still be difficult." - -For example, the anterior cingulate cortex may respond more strongly to non-threatening events, such as being a stranger who is speaking to you, as compared to fearful ones, such as a person speaking to you and making eye contact. - -Fenton and his co-authors, including Dr. D. K. Datta from the Centre for Functional MRI, and Dr. Andrew D. Pashler of The University of Western Ontario, looked at the functional anatomy of the anterior cingulate cortices (ACC) in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder. They also examined their results in a group of typically anxious or low-anxious individuals. - -"What had us concerned was the pattern of neural responses in the ACC that came after a person experienced the fearful or anogenital threat. We knew that the anterior cingulate cortex responded to anxiety differently depending on the sensory environment of the threat." - -The results showed that while the ACC response depended on how the person perceived fear, the ACC responses came under the direct control of the brain's motor control centres. This was in contrast to when a person was aware that they had a problem. - -"This provides the evidence that the activation of sensory pathways could be influenced by the level of self-awareness," said Fenton. "By understanding the role of sensory systems in the neural control of anxiety, we may now be able to identify people who are more prone to developing anxiety disorders because of the way that they perceive the world." - -The authors said this could be useful in identifying individuals at highest risk. While studies of anxiety disorders that involve the use of brain-imaging technology do not currently exist, Dr. Datta said, future studies using fMRI and other imaging technology could provide new insights as to what is going on inside the brain of people at risk. - -Other co-authors of the study are Drs. David J. Pashler and David M. Rutter, from the Centre for Functional MRI, and Dr. Andrew Rutter from the University of Western Ontario.<|endoftext|>As soon as Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks publicly about his firm's ongoing battles in China, the reaction in the mainland often follows suit. - - -Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at a press conference during Apple China's annual software product launch held at the Apple World Trade Center on Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, in Beijing. (Ng Han Guan/AP) - -The U.S. company has been in the spotlight lately after a lawsuit was filed by a New York patent holder in the Eastern District of New York alleging that Apple infringed on three patents at least as far back as 2006. The three patents were related to the way that Apple handles iTunes software updates to its products, including iPod downloads, iTunes purchases, and Apple Pay online purchases.Apple has denied the allegations and, in a blog post, said that it doesn't license or sell "mobile operating system software" to other companies. Apple's own legal team is representing it at this point and is looking for a compromise, but there would have to be approval of the lawsuit from the judge.Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world and one of the most valuable, which allows Apple to play hardball when it comes to China. When Cook visited the country last week , Apple gave a number of interviews, including one in which Cook said that Apple is "confident" that China can handle its business but that the government has to do more to allow Apple to expand -======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== -LAWHU, Yemen — As the government of Yemen's embattled president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, tries to bring its military operation in neighboring Houthi-controlled northern Yemen to a halt, it has also opened a major new front: southern Yemen. - - -Since fighting escalated in late May, Yemen's newly formed, Saudi-led coalition has been pounding Houthi positions on dozens of frontlines in the rugged southern corner of Yemen, including Taiz, Marib, Saada and the province of Hadramawt. - - -The onslaught is aimed in part at bringing down Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al Houthi, and also to bolster Hadi's embattled army. But the government of President Hadi, which once enjoyed a reputation for unity and stability, appears divided between its supporters, who are fighting in the south, and its enemies, who are fighting in the east. - - -The growing rift underlines the precarious situation in the country, which has witnessed an array of rival factions in Yemen for more than 20 years. - -Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up - -"The political division is very big; I'm sure you can imagine," said a Yemeni observer in Sanaa, who has close ties to Hadi but is currently based in neighboring Oman. - -'We're not fighting each other' - -For now, the Saudi-led coalition, which comprises Arab states, is fighting alongside Sunni tribesmen, including the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, to retake Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, from militants loyal to the former president. - -The Yemenis are not fighting with each other. At the top, there's Ali Abdullah Saleh, we're not killing each other, there's no difference - -"The Yemeni people have never supported any one party over the other," Hadi's chief advisor, Abdulrazzaq al Zaidi, told the local Al Jazeera news channel. "We are fighting the Houthis, and there's no war taking place between Yemenis and Saudis." - -Zaidi said the coalition was determined to defeat the Houthis. - - -"The Yemeni people are the most affected by the Yemen-Saudi confrontation," he said. "The Yemenis are not fighting with each other. At the top, there's Ali Abdullah Saleh, we're not killing each other, there's no difference." - -It is unclear exactly how many casualties have been inflicted on Saudi Arabia's coalition, who have been supported by the international community. But there are growing fears over the Saudi-led coalition's ability to deliver on its promise to stamp out the Houthis, who have taken control of much of the north and east of Yemen, and have threatened to move on the capital. - -Saudi Arabia and its allies have so far been unable to recapture Sanaa, a prize they lost to forces loyal to Hadi's government in early 2015. - -While the battle for Sanaa has claimed hundreds of lives, Hadi has not had an easy hand in negotiating a cessation of hostilities and peace terms. - - -"Houthis are the new enemy in Aden, and it's a battle between two different people's armies, but the Houthis have made a peace deal with Hadi," said Abdulla Farag, a retired Yemeni official. "Hadi has the advantage in Aden because people understand that the Houthis and Saleh have no interest in the city," he said. - -But Houthi-held Yemeni ports and airports are now largely closed. - - -The coalition's recent military campaign in Marib, a strategically important port city on the Red Sea, has been met with a series of bombings targeting Houthi fighters. - -'Houthis would prefer to see Yemen break apart' - -"After Marib, the coalition is on the edge of becoming engaged in the war," said a Yemeni government official. - -In Hadramawt province, where most of the fighting has been raging, Hadi is pushing for reconciliation with the northern tribes. - -Meanwhile, forces loyal to Saleh have taken several fronts in the south. - - -A Saudi-led coalition was supposed to have entered Taiz and its adjacent province of Hadramawt from Oman in late May, but after fierce fighting, the effort remains stuck. Houthi forces have also made gains in the southern cities of Marib, al Hudaydah and Aden – all of which fell to Hadi's loyalists in late 2015. "Houthis would prefer to see Yemen break apart," said a Yemeni government source who spoke on condition of anonymity. - -Saleh is a stubborn politician with a well-documented history of warring against the Yemeni government. He is also a close ally of Iran, which has dispatched its own military advisers and troops to Yemen as the conflict has intensified. - -Meanwhile, Houthi forces – backed by Saleh militias – have been making gains in Aden, -======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== -Taken as a whole, the new data suggest that the country's unemployment could be heading off a cliff. But while that may sound ominous, there isn't anything necessarily scary about falling short of full employment. - -A measure like this, called U-6 -- which counts unemployed adults who are unemployed and who have given up and not looked for jobs in the last four weeks, but still want work -- has been a reliable measure of labor-market slack for years. - -And its latest, revised version, still shows an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, not the 4.5 percent it first reported Friday and not the 4.9 percent we are hoping for. - -"There is no obvious cause for concern," Mr. Summers said. - -If anything, the new data suggested that the underlying trend in labor-market slack has slowed. The percentage of adults between 20 and 54 who don't have full-time or equivalent jobs reached its highest level since 1999 shortly after the recession, but is now back to levels from before 2007 even though the population overall is also growing. - -And that means the trend is starting to reverse. In 2000, more than three out of four working-age adults were employed full time, with nearly all working at minimum wage. But in 2010 -- four years after the start of the Great Recession -- just over three-quarters of working-age adults were employed full time. - -The job market is "still in need of reform," Mr. Summers said, but in a way that is more inclusive than other recent efforts to boost the job market. The Obama administration's new rules for overtime pay, for example, offer fewer and lower-paying jobs than many expected, while giving larger and higher-paying ones a much larger head start. - -But the broader problem of low productivity growth has kept workers from getting more money they need to cover their costs. Even though the unemployment rate would seem to argue for higher productivity growth -- which we think would help create a stronger labor market -- there are many other reasons to doubt there will be more job growth over the coming year.<|endoftext|>LONDON: In February 2012, British photographer Pauline Wright was in a hospital in India on a medical leave to care for her mother.The British photographer was just returning home from the hospital when she came across a woman in pain lying on the road.Wright decided to take a closer look.While trying to take a good picture, Wright's hand was suddenly gripped by a woman at an astonishing 45 degrees.The force and impact hurled the photographer about 15 feet. She ended up lying on the road with her leg broken.The incident left Wright shaken and traumatized. For years, Wright kept her experience a secret, fearing it had marked her as a 'bio-warrior'. But as she started working more seriously on her documentary film about the effects of stress on the body and mind, she said her life had dramatically changed."The first day I was out there, I came across an old woman who had lost a leg – that's when I felt I had a role to play," Wright told AFP at the British film industry's annual awards ceremony in London and a film festival. "There is no going back when a limb is involved."While the incident is widely known in Britain and Wright's story is featured in the movie, Wright refused to publish photographs of the encounter in her memoir."It's probably one of the few photos I have not been too brave to let go of," she said about her photograph taken in the street.The photos of Wright and the older woman in the street went viral online and gained her an international following. A number of publications in Britain made the image the cover for their books, which helped create international awareness about the issue of women's health.Wright had become the world's most famous woman photographer after taking over as the official photographer of the 2012 London Olympics and then the 2013 World Athletics Championships."It's hard to put a value on what it's done for me," she said. "I have changed from a man into a woman with that moment in the street."Wright also says she is more focused on her work. She has never used body doubles or fake injuries. She has even stopped wearing high heels or tight clothes to take pictures of athletes."I've realized the biggest challenge is working without a camera in front of me because I feel I am too close to it," she said.<|endoftext|>Tiny Tiny Log - -About This Game - -Features - -A new, easy to learn control system - -A new mechanic: collecting gems - -A new world map with a random event - -A new story with new characters - -A new boss battle with a new enemy - -New items - -A New World - -There's much to explore in this new world. On the outskirts of the city, there are old ruins. A young man named Ziel had a dream that one day a girl would come, lead him to the heart of their secrets.The city of the -======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== -BARRIE, Ore. – There is no shortage of things that have to be done between now and June 1 to ensure the continued smooth transition of the Oregon State women's basketball team into its new home, the new Thomas & Mack Center. - -After all, this isn't a program without a new house or an established rivalry. - -After years of building their foundations in Pullman, many who've worked closely with the Beavers over the years have come to be known as "team players." There are those who come to terms with their positions in the program, but they are few and far between. - -There is the coach herself, Carla Gee. She will be the face of the new building once the final work is done. The first woman to ever coach in the NCAA Tournament, Gee was brought in to help the program prepare for what had been considered a long-shot at keeping the program moving forward at its home. - -As a former assistant coach for the University of Washington and the San Francisco Dons, Gee was asked to help lead the program with the arrival of Gee Field House. She will be assisted by Chris Klenovsky, who had a successful tenure as head coach at Portland State in the mid 2000s. He is also a native of Portland and would likely have the most of a connection with the fans. - -There is also the state's best-known sports agent, Jay Kornegay, whose client list includes Kelly Olynyk, the woman who became the fourth overall pick in the 2015 Women's NBA Draft. Kornegay is another player who will be a part of the new team and who will be closely tied to Gee as both are represented by Kornegay. - -However, as important as these people and more to the success of the team are, they are merely a part of it. They are the foundation upon which the team is built. - -"They're all so important," said Gee, "but they are so individual. They're not pieces of the puzzle that make the whole. It is us as players that have to get together. It is us as a group, our community, as our boosters, as people who all want to be part of the journey." - -To ensure all of this will happen quickly, Gee has already begun a task force of more than 20 people to help get ready for the changes. This task force has already put in place the infrastructure for the new building. While it may have a few months to wait for completion, it does not need to wait. - -"This isn't a small project," she said. "We can move in quickly. That's why I'm calling this a transition task force. It's all about getting together and getting things together. We're going through that in the next few weeks." - -Gee has a clear vision for what the building should look like. She is well aware of how it will affect the fan base. The new arena will include four 40-foot wide luxury suites, one of which will be dedicated solely to Gee. It will feature a private bar, a lounge, and a large room to host a variety of events. If you haven't been to the new arena with Gee, you will notice that she has the luxury of having the players' lounge and the coaches' locker room available to her on game nights. She doesn't want those things to be shared. - -"I think the best suites are only as good as the people who live there," she said. "They do the best they can, and we're going to do the best we can to match this with the area that we'll have to work with. I'm hoping to have the luxury to be able to spend my entire summer there. If I think I can do it, I'm going to do it. - -"As far as the new building, it needs to be something that stands the test of time. It needs to be something people are proud of and that we can really put our stamp on it and tell the world what we have accomplished here. When you build something, people want to be a part of it." - -It is clear from Gee's tone that the new center must be a place where all students, alumni and fans can walk through the front door and see what her team has accomplished. - -"We always talk about community, about the support they have," she said. "What people want to do is be a part of the process, and that is what I am trying to create in my mind for the community. I'm trying to build a support network now for this community of students. I think this new building will help the students of Oregon State really take off and do as well as possible on the court." - -There will be many people who live or work in Bend who have no idea what the Oregon State women's basketball team has accomplished in the last two years. Gee intends to change that -======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== -The Washington Wizards have a very deep and talented bench. But John Wall and Bradley Beal have had a very, very difficult time getting enough shots going. - -It's a topic worth discussing. But it's a topic that should not be the main focus for the game against the Golden State Warriors on Monday night. - -The Wizards' bench has struggled to get any production the past two games. Wall is averaging 13.3 points and shooting 42 percent after totaling 33 points, 10 assists and only five turnovers in six of his previous five games. Beal is averaging 10.9 points and shooting 28.0 percent on 3-pointers after totaling 18 points, seven assists and two steals in his previous eight games. - -It's a huge drop-off for the second year guard after he averaged 19.8 points and 43.3 percent from 3-point range in his first season with the Wizards. Wall and Beal were supposed to get out of their slump. - -But that's not the issue, at least not right now. - -Wall doesn't need to be shooting better in order to help his teams win. He is playing like he is back to full health and ready to go on Monday. Beal and the Wizards need to get more involved around him so the defense is a little more cohesive on defense. - -Wall has done a pretty good job managing his team as far as offense goes, but the bench has been unable to pick up the slack. - -The Wizards have had a handful of players score in double digits, but they have struggled to do so consistently. - -Marcin Gortat had 16 points and 15 rebounds Saturday night against the Charlotte Hornets. - -Marcin Gortat has had 12 points in 22.5 minutes over the last two games. (AP Photo/John Sommers II) More - -John Wall had 10 assists and 15 points in 22.5 minutes Friday night against the Sacramento Kings. - -Otto Porter had 12 points and five assists Friday night against the Sacramento Kings. - -Bradley Beal had nine points and four assists Friday night against the Sacramento Kings. - -It's not just one or two issues, there's a whole lot of issues playing so few minutes a game or getting fewer shots when they are called up. - -But the Wizards need to try to find a way to win without Wall. He played a career-high 46 minutes and finished with 14 points and 10 assists in a win over the Denver Nuggets last Sunday, but he and the team didn't score until late in the second quarter and the Wizards fell behind by 13 points in the quarter. - -John Wall has played 36 minutes in each of Washington's past three games and hasn't scored in double figures. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) More - -Wall was averaging 23.3 points and 9.9 assists before Monday's game. - -There has been a lot of talk about how the Wizards are relying on Wall more in order to get to the playoffs for just the second time since 2007 and the first time since 2004-05. The issue is, he is not playing as hard and with as much intensity as he has the past two games. - -When Wall wasn't on the court, the point guards and big men did a much better job of defending the Warriors. The bench has had several issues throughout this series. - -The Wizards need Wall to be active and contribute so they can win. It sounds like Wall does that in spurts sometimes, but the lineup doesn't seem to have a plan for it. It's not a bad approach. But the Wizards are making the wrong moves.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Oblivion NPC Redesign Project. - -The page is being rewritten and checked in several stages. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. - -Detail Walkthrough: written by multiple users, not checked - -Reward: written by many users, not checked - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Talk to a Daedric prince. Kill any of the eight Daedric Princes in the realm. Travel to Mehrunes Dagon. Investigate several of the seven sigils. Travel to the Oblivion Realm. Restore Akatosh to Akatosh. - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -A Daedric Prince [ edit ] - -When you approach the Daedric Prince's throne room in the Daedric Realm, you will find that it's full of statues. There are two more Daedric Princes standing side-by-side, each with a statue in front of them. They are to your right and bottom and seem unperturbed by the statues of the other five Daedric Princes -======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== -I got this as a gift but never put it to the test. It's like I never tried it. The texture is amazing and the smell really invokes a nice smell of vanilla. I have yet to experience any ill side effects such as any bad after-taste like many people complain about in reviews. The only issue is I cannot see what I'm doing wrong to get the same results. I get the same effect every time when I mix this. What would make the experience better would be more consistent between different batches. That's all I've got. - -Didn't give it a 5 because I don't see a need to if it works every time. I love all the flavor. I'll be buying again.<|endoftext|>It's been almost 2 years since I left the United States, the homeland which sheltered and cared for me during my entire childhood, the heart of a country that promised me nothing. Since my departure, the state of the country seemed as if it were doomed to collapse. The Republican Party ran a president who, after being elected to office, repeatedly demonstrated his personal disinterest with the duties that come with being president. America had a President who repeatedly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the 2016 election and the resulting popular vote; he refused to release his tax returns; he refused to defend the U.S. Constitution as the Constitution originally meant or the First Amendment as the Bill of Rights used to apply; he refused to publicly address the racial divide in this country; and he refused to recognize the importance of religious freedom. All while the Republican Party and the country as a whole appeared to be divided along ethno-cultural lines, the most obvious examples being those visible on a daily basis at various football games. The nation was also consumed by a massive financial crisis, which left many Americans searching for answers as to how they could move forward; many, of course, were able to find answers. For me, these answers took me to China, to China on the other side of the planet. But I can't say the same for the Chinese government. - - -As the United States celebrates its bicentennial, a country that I once called home, and as the country prepares for this year's presidential election, one would think that Americans would be reflecting on how to move on. The fact of the matter is, they've moved on before. They've moved over and over again. - -When I was 14, while living in the U.S., I decided to move to Japan with my mother, brother, and father. After living with my mother every night, one week at a time, I got used to being there at 9 p.m. I didn't miss anything — certainly not the country — it was just a new place to live every week. What I didn't miss was a time before America, or a time before America had become America. I didn't miss the same, predictable American reality or cultural norms. - -I didn't miss that, back then, America wasn't a country for foreigners, and that the culture was different, with a different history, and that its current leaders were largely responsible for this difference. - -And yet — as the country we call America prepares to elect a woman as its first female president, and in 2016 as many as 25 of our largest cities saw a record population increase in the African-American community – not least of which is a welcome development – it is important to recognize that the nation's culture is now one that embraces many foreign perspectives. I had only learned about America from television, from watching movies and seeing shows about celebrities and politicians. It wasn't until I traveled to China that I experienced America firsthand. And after watching the shows about celebrities and politicians I returned to America expecting the same. The reality is quite different. - -I spent a year in Shanghai, learning about Chinese life, the political institutions, and the history of the country. I traveled to the Gobi Desert, one of the world's largest deserts, and learned about the extreme climate and the challenges in managing one hundred million people and a country built upon sand dunes. I traveled deep into the mountains, with the view that China may, for a time, be inching towards an oil shortage, and felt the pressure and the pressure of environmental preservation. And the experiences and ideas with which I was immersed did little to change my opinion on our current president. - -I can say one thing for certain about President Trump from that time, though. What we are witnessing now is that what was once "normal" has become "unusual." In the past, President Trump was simply an ordinary politician who ran as an underdog and who was not well known. The fact that he still has a base of support in his party makes it less improbable that he could, at some point, win the presidency – it's actually not unlikely that he will someday. - -Trump may never win the presidency, not until he proves to be a true president who can actually help people in this country — but the fact -======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== -For all the hype and excitement and the endless debates in the media we seem to have lost sight of the real issues facing our communities. The government is supposed to be the servant of the people – not a dictator who chooses the issues to focus on and has a very limited capacity to make any decisions. - -We need the best candidates to stand up and be seen. We need our voters to recognise the real issues. We need real candidates to not only show us how we can improve NHS services but how their policies can help us achieve the changes needed. - -It's time to start building our candidates up.<|endoftext|>I started writing this article on Tuesday morning and posted it Wednesday evening. It didn't quite sink in until this morning when I was going to bed and the thought popped into my head. What the hell am I doing? I've had to write this on every single Wednesday, now I'm posting it every week. - -Last week I went to a party I didn't go to, called a girl I barely talked to and slept with my best friend. That wasn't enough fun, so I started over on Wednesday. That still wasn't enough fun, so I went to a party on the third and last Wednesday. That was more fun, and I ended up with someone I can't believe we made it through that. - -The idea of all this was so incredibly exciting, and I knew it wouldn't stop the day after or the week after. I was also pretty tired and sleepy so I tried to stay up pretty late. That was a mistake too, so I slept in. Now, I've only been out three times since I started last year, but I've also only gone out in the mornings, so I figured there must be something wrong with me. Well I was wrong about me, even though I went to parties. I think that was how I found love. - -I didn't want to sleep on Wednesday after all the fun so I decided that I'd make another night of it. That proved to be a mistake too, it was still early and the sun was coming up, but I didn't realize it until the sun was up like, hours ago. So I went to the bathroom and looked up how long it takes to find love. I was pretty shocked when I saw it was about an hour a day, so I didn't take it seriously. I just went back to sleep. - -The next day I went to a party, got wasted at the bar, and got up drunk again (I'm starting to learn this is harder than I thought). When I came home I got even worse and ended up sleeping with some dude on the porch, which was even worse because that was the best party I ever went to! - -That was pretty much it for the next few days. There was the one night when I stayed up until 4 AM to try and win another girl. And there was the night I got drunk for the first time and had sex with one of my best friends. When I was done there was no way I could ever want to go back to anything more than that. I never want to leave. - -And why is that? Well, I guess for now I've got my own issues, but eventually I'll get past them. So when I'm a grownup, I'm not going to be looking for romance on a daily basis. It's weird because I kind of feel like I need to because I need to feel alive. I know that sounds selfishly selfish, but I have to have other people in my life. I need to know I'm not losing them. And what if I don't find them? I lose them. I'll lose you. - -What kind of world is this and how am I going to deal with it?<|endoftext|>This is a quick and simple guide to getting a Linux system up and running, but it's going to be a pretty big guide. First off, be prepared to spend probably three or four days setting up a working distribution system on your own. It may be the longest process you'll ever do, and it may take you three months to finish. - -In this guide, I'm going to assume you have a reasonably modern PC that's relatively powerful. I'll also assume you're at least slightly comfortable writing simple Linux commands, and that you know how to boot your new system and boot the operating system that it starts on. (If you can't write simple but useful commands, skip to the next section. If you still have trouble, you might not want this guide in the first place.) - -Before you begin reading, ensure that you're running one of the following Linux distributions: - -LXDE: A fork of the popular LXDE desktop environment, Lubuntu. LXDE gets the job done for most people. - -XFCE: A fork of the popular XFCE desktop environment that's more modern looking than LXDE, but still a fork of a Linux distribution itself. Xubuntu is -======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== -Filed on January 12, 2015 | Last updated on January 12, 2015 at 10.39 am - -In a surprise move, Turkey inked a deal with Iran on Saturday for a 3 billion euro gas deal. - - -Turkey, the country that provides a fifth of the world's gas needs, has agreed to open a new offshore gas field, on the coast of Iran, in a deal hammered out between the two countries. - - -Speaking at gas conference in Istanbul on Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the deal will open up new areas to development. - - -The agreement, which will create several fields for the developing countries, comes as the Turkish company ONGT, an Iranian state-owned energy company, has started work on building two additional fields as part of an agreement signed in June 2012. - - -The field on the Iranian coast was located off Iran's western coast and became operational in April 2013, providing new supplies to Turkey, Iran's southern neighbor. - - -Speaking to journalists in Istanbul, Erdogan said the fields "represent a new development in the Iranian gas market," and will help to diversify the country's energy supplies as well as provide more economic benefits. - - -He also said that Turkish state gas company TRT could potentially earn "millions" in extra profits from the deals due to the oil price fall. - - -Iranian Oil minister Bijan Zangeneh also expressed hope that a deal would be reached between the two countries to boost Turkey's energy supplies and increase market share in the region. - - -Turkey supplies two-thirds of the gas used in the European Union and Middle East, and as a major provider to Asia. - - -Zangeneh said "there are no other significant suppliers" in the region, adding that the gas field was expected to start operating by the end of next year or beginning of next year. - - -In the first such deal involving an Iranian company, Russia's Gazprom inked a deal in 2009 with China's CNPC to develop Iran's huge Arak gas field. - -Last Update: Sunday, 25 January 2015 KSA 11:57 - GMT 08:57<|endoftext|>The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted in favor of a "consensus statement" calling on the government in Pakistan to stop "brutal executions" against religious minorities, including Shi'ites, and to protect religious minority places of worship and schools. Pakistan is the only Muslim-majority country not to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and a number of other human rights treaties that bar extrajudicial killing. - -The draft statement, obtained by The Intercept, is signed by all members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council except China, which is the special representative of the UN to Pakistan, and Cuba, which withdrew its signature on the text. India, which initially said it would sign the statement, dropped its signature after it was revealed that Pakistan sent a letter to India's foreign ministry warning of consequences if India did not sign the document. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also threatened to bring an international human rights complaint against India if it didn't sign. Pakistan has already been under UN pressure to put an end to the extrajudicial killings and executions of suspected militants or security personnel by the country's intelligence agencies. - -But the timing of the international coalition's response is curious. Earlier this month, a Pakistani court sentenced to death a former Pakistani Taliban commander for his parts in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and last week, Pakistan executed three people convicted of terrorism-related crimes. The Pakistan government has come under fire for its treatment of religious minorities in the country. During 2014, Pakistan executed 25 Shi'ites and other groups that included Hindus including Dalits. In February and March, more than 1,200 people were killed by a Pakistani Taliban splinter group called Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. In June, Pakistan hanged 18 men for the 2005 serial bombings in Mumbai — the biggest anti-terrorism act in the country's history at the time, causing more than 160,000 deaths in India over 12 days. - -The "consensus statement" was drafted by the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Pakistan, David Kaye, who had been investigating the killings and executions. In addition to the UN, the statement was also supported by the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Council of Europe (which includes some Muslim countries), and the Council of Muslim Organizations in Europe. The United States, Pakistan's ally and a leading donor, did not sign the statement, and the United Kingdom took no part in the debate. But, according to the New York Times, several of the countries that signed the statement are U.S. allies. - -"This is a historic development in the struggle to protect minority rights in Pakistan. The government has pledged its full support of the statement. We must now do the same in the United States and globally, and we must do so immediately," Kaye said in a statement. - -This week Pakistan also signed an -======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== -The new book What Can We Learn From the Fall of the Roman Empire? describes a new view of Rome's fall that sees a more prosaic, less exciting approach. - - -This book is an attempt to restore Rome's historical stature. - - -While Rome itself was at its height, its empire was in decline. The Romans could no longer carry out the task of protecting the peoples who lived across their borders, and their empire was increasingly being threatened by barbarian invasions. - - -This new approach sees Rome's fall in terms of four stages: - - -First, Rome as a military power collapsed under internal instability. By the time of the emperor Nero, the Roman army was being disbanded as legions were being lost to the barbarian invasions. - - -Second, internal crisis in Rome's society undermined Rome's political leaders and weakened Rome's army. The emperors Nero, Caligula, and Vitellius were no longer trusted by the people, and soon, all three were removed from office. - - -Third, once internal anarchy spread to the empire's politics, the military leaders that came afterwards were unable to protect Rome against the barbarian invasions of the East. - - -Fourth, the fall of Rome as a military power was a sign that the Roman city itself was failing as it was not built to be capable of controlling large populations. The decline of Rome as a military power meant that by the time of the death of Augustus, the Roman Empire was no longer able to control its vast borders. - - -For this reason, the study of the fall of Rome has become the subject of a variety of theories. The author examines two key theories. - - -The first is the Classical theory (known as the 'conquest' theory), which sees the collapse of the empire in its last days as a consequence of a civil war between Rome's two 'brides'. - - -Contemporary commentators have often confused this theory in their scholarship. The second theory is the 'persecuting' theory, which sees the decline of Rome as the work of the Roman Senate, which had become more autocratic than ever under the fall of Emperor Tiberius. - - -The author shows that both 'conquest' and 'persecuting' theories can be useful if one accepts that the empire's fall occurred because of two competing political processes within the empire. - - -The book concludes by analysing the effects these two processes had on Rome. The author argues that the rise of the Senate under Nero was an essential ingredient to Rome's recovery.<|endoftext|>ROBERT WOLFE'S new book tells the story of an extraordinary journey to find God and why the Christian faith has survived, he says. - -By Robert Wolff - - -The Book of Mormon (Book of Mormon Foundation/AP) - -What did Robert Wolff do to survive? - -A devout atheist and writer of popular science books, he started his own magazine, The Scientific Atheist, and in 1997 published A Brief History of Time. This best-seller argued that the Earth is not only old and did not originate from a singular point in time but is actually the result of innumerable past collisions between atoms and space-time. This was seen as a bold statement, provoking fierce debate. It earned a rebuke from the Christian scientific community, which did not consider atheists' claims in any sense "theistic," but rather "agnostic," and in some quarters even more controversial. - -To this day Wolff says the debate he provoked has not subsided. "The world has changed more in the last 10 years than in the previous 500," he says. "We now have a generation whose whole notion of the world being created by God has just exploded in their face," Wolff says. - -There are now millions of people who have not only rejected the Christian faith but also "have very strong feelings of skepticism on many other points of science," he says. "Even as recently as 20 years ago, if someone brought up a scientific issue, they were supposed to say, 'Well, it's not settled.' But today it's absolutely clear, the evidence is conclusive." - -Wolff points to Darwin: The Origin of Species, now in its third printing, with an introduction to explain the controversy surrounding Darwin's theory, as among the most influential science books of the 20th century. Published in 1871, it has sold 250,000 copies, Wolff says. "It was a book that had to be defended as if it mattered." - -A Brief History of Time (Robert Wolff and Robert A. Freitas Jr., 2007) - -Wolff recently published What is God? (Random House, 2014). He argues that Christianity's survival is due less to intellectual prowess than a cultural phenomenon. "It's not due to some secret knowledge or something God knew. It's because Christianity is part of a very powerful and successful and broad coalition in the world right now," Wolff says. "It was about being good, being moral, being ethical. -======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== -"Do you know of a place of refuge?" - -"Yes sir, but they're not friendly." - -"Where is that?" - -The man's eyes twinkled with a knowing glint as he began a story. "That's where I come in. I'm a man of the night and I can keep you safe in a fight." - -"A place of refuge?" I said, and for the first time since I saw my father that night, his eyes were sad. - -"That's where I come in. The night is mine." - -To that, I shrugged my shoulders. He's a man I trust in his word. - -I waited. - -"A young man once went into the desert to visit a strange lady. They never came back, but it was a beautiful night. The sky was so blue that one could have looked a hundred miles across. As they rode off into the night, they made for a cave at the edge of the cliff. When they were ready to rest, a strange beast approached, but before it could catch up to them, the strange lady jumped out, screaming," - -"So, do you know where that cave is?" I asked, now knowing his story, and he nodded. "So you're a ghost?" - -"No," he said. "Not a ghost. Not anyone in the world." - -I nodded. - -"The only warning I ever had, when I was a little boy, was a strange wind coming behind me. I was in my room at night, sleeping, and the wind kept blowing. It woke me, but I didn't see anything. It blew all night. It kept waking me, and I remember hearing that terrible, frightening sound." - -I nodded. Then, looking to a corner of the roof, I thought for a moment. "That's it…" - -And so you see. I've come to do good. I've come because I've forgotten the man I used to be. Because the man who helped me to remember was in him. Because now he's not there, he's not around. - -So, I am out of my room. The door is locked. No one could get to me if he wanted to. I am out of my mind. The lights are on and there are people walking about. - -I take off and look around. I'm in the middle of a city. The city is silent. I can hear all kinds of noises outside. Cars. Cars. Cars. Birds. Cars. Cars. Cars. Cars. Cars. Cars are driving everywhere. All around me. I look. Someone is coming with a lantern. I listen. But all I can hear is the sound of people breathing, breathing. Breathing. - -"Why don't you turn around?" a young man calls out. - -I don't get a turn, so I turn around. As soon as I turn around, a girl starts approaching me at walking speed. I stare at her. She's stunning. She doesn't look frightened at all. And she's saying something to me and I can't make out what she's saying. - -She doesn't look scared, and she doesn't look frightened at me. So I look at her. She is wearing a black jumpsuit with red flowers on it. Her shirt and pants are white but their pockets are red. Red roses. - -I stop and look at the girl. - -"You're a ghost?" she asks. - -"No," I tell her, as loud as I can. "It's only because you're wearing that jumpsuit." - -"You're a ghost." She says. "You'll never leave this place where you came from. You can't. I'll go with you. And when I make my way back, you won't be able to remember what happened in here." She says. - -It's a lie. Even if she were a ghost, if she is a real girl with real feelings, she would still be haunted by the last twenty-four hours. And I've never been truly in love, so… - -"But I'm a ghost!" - -I turn around again. "I know. I remember this. I'm a ghost…" - -She doesn't notice a thing. - -"But I'll be back." - -I turn into a alley and start to walk as fast as I can. I keep staring at her. - -She's gone. No one can hear me anymore. - -I open a door and walk in the street. I turn around. They're gone. Nothing. - -And I can't move. - -That's the way it is. I can't go anywhere. There's nothing here but…nothing except me and…this place. - -I stare. - -Maybe I don't want to remember that. Maybe it's like it -======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== -A former Marine and father of two is now in custody after police say a man accidentally shot himself when he found a concealed firearm in his car. - -The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 a.m. Saturday in the 2900 block of West Irving Park Road (map). - -Police responded to the first report of a gunshot and found a victim sitting in his car. Police believe the victim found a weapon in the backseat of the car and mistakenly used it to shoot himself. - -The victim was immediately transported to a local hospital, where he continues to recover. - -The vehicle is believed to have been parked at the corner of Irving and Chicago (map), when the accident occurred. - -According to charging documents, the victim is a current Marine stationed in South Korea. He has a valid concealed carry permit issued in April 2014, but the firearm was removed from his vehicle last May. - -The man told police he never removed the firearm from his vehicle as the gun belonged to someone else (and he was not the owner of any firearms), so it is still considered a "lawful firearm," police said. - -The man had purchased the gun legally before it left his name, and he has not been charged. - -A woman and a young child were in the car during the accident. No charges have been filed in this case. - -The man remains in custody. - -Police have not released his identity. - -© None<|endoftext|>(Reuters) - A Virginia mother who allegedly poisoned her daughter with tainted peanut butter has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, the Commonwealth's attorney's office said on Tuesday. - -Dianne Meehan, 45, and her daughter, Tiffany (C), are seen in an undated family photo obtained by Reuters that was provided to Reuters by her attorney David S. Schore. REUTERS/David S. Schore/FILE PHOTO - -Dianne Meehan, 45, of Winchester, Virginia, admitted poisoning Tiffany Meehan, 7, in March with toxic levels of loperamide, an antihistamine, the criminal complaint said - -The indictment in Winchester District Court, Virginia said the girl's grandmother had given the poisoned foods because Meehan's husband, Jason, had "refused to purchase (toxic) medication which would clear her of suspicion," according to the complaint. - -Diana Meehan is seen with her daughter, Tiffany, with their attorney David S. Schore in Winchester, Virginia in this undated family photo obtained by Reuters on January 28, 2017. Courtesy of David S. Schore/Diana Meehan - -Meehan and her husband had separated over custody of the girl but remained legally married. Her husband was on death row for killing a neighbor in 2004. - -Meehan has been in custody since March after the death of her daughter prompted her to claim that some of the poisonings were accidental and not intentional. - -Loperamide, like the antihistamine Benadryl, is used to treat allergic reactions. Poisoning is the use of harmful substances used without the user's knowledge and can be deadly. - -Loperamide can also cause life-threatening liver toxicity. - -Dianne Meehan, 45, left, and her then-husband, Jason Meehan, are seen in this undated family photo obtained by Reuters on January 21, 2017. Courtesy of David Schore/Diana Meehan - -Loperamide is also available as part of over-the-counter allergy remedies and can be bought on the Internet on websites such as Amazon and Target.com. - -The federal Food and Drug Administration does not recognize loperamide as a controlled substance, nor does it require manufacturers to submit a notice to the FDA when marketing it. - -In a plea agreement signed on Tuesday, Meehan will face sentencing in November. She was free on $1.5 million bond in the case because there is a gag order on her case, the Commonwealth's Attorney's office said.<|endoftext|>The man who killed an intruder inside his West Hollywood home shot the intruder once, according to police.The shooting happened about 7 a.m. Wednesday inside a home in the 6100 block of West Highland Avenue, Los Angeles police said. The home is located near the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Highland Avenue.Police said the intruder, identified as 22-year-old Jonathan Alva, was a suspect in a home burglary incident. He was taken into custody at 9:18 a.m. while fleeing from a police chase on a bicycle. Police later found the bicycle near the Hollywood-area 101 Freeway."He came in here and he shot myself. I didn't know who he was," neighbor Yassija El-Khoury said.The homeowner is now in critical condition and undergoing surgery. He was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.Police said the man shot Alva twice. A handgun was recovered -======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== -I like to think of myself as being rather socially-aware, but I know that is no more true than saying I have good taste when looking at art. - -I've been looking at the work of one artist in particular lately because I have a hard time distinguishing myself from him. - -His work is beautiful, but his name is a bit more unexpected than I would have initially anticipated. - -When I started to see his work, I had no idea whom he worked for. - -The only thing I knew was that it was an agency that specialized in marketing their artists. - -Then I got to look at the photos he released of his work and I was absolutely astounded by them. - -No joke, they are breathtaking. - -So stunning that when I first saw some of the work he posted on Facebook, I thought the pictures were photoshopped. - -I can't claim to have art knowledge as such, but I was under the impression that artists who were using Photoshop would have much more subtle, stylized work. - -No, this wasn't the case. - -Here's a bit from his most recent Facebook post - -He used Photoshop to replicate a variety of elements in an incredibly detailed fashion. - -You can barely tell the difference between these two images. - -I just couldn't believe it, considering so much detail had been put into these photos. - -I didn't expect such a level of detail. - -I couldn't help but be incredibly impressed by his ability to bring color and depth to a still image before it was posted, and before it had even been captured. - -Here are a few screenshots of his work to show more of his work: - -It's been quite interesting to look at. - -The artist who created this incredible work was very open about his work and gave us all an inside look at the work he had created. - -But this wasn't a one-off either. - -Here's a few screenshots from the artist's other Facebook posts: - -I think I can safely say this is one of the most open-ended pieces of art I have seen recently. - -This level of creativity and creativity is not often seen in the world of art in general. - -We get the most popular artists, the famous, recognizable, and famous artists, and the really good artists who make work with the same level of subtlety. - -The guy who created these photos obviously put a lot into them. - -You can tell that the artist took a lot of time and went to a lot of trouble to get this level of artistic skill into these photos. - -But what about the quality of his work? - -I know this is a controversial point, but do the photos deserve to have that much detail applied to them? - -That is one of the major themes in the post that he gave us an inside look at. - -I've heard some people complain that the images are fake or the photos are photoshopped. - -Well, that is fine, but it's hard for me to argue that the quality of the images aren't worth the effort. - -We get some incredible works from great artists here and I think you definitely ought to take note whenever you see one. - -I think you will find that they are often a lot more elaborate and detailed than you would expect to see from the common artists we get. - -But if you find that this level of detail isn't what you are looking for, then you can always stop by his Facebook page and browse his Instagram to see just what he has to offer. - -All of the images in this post can be viewed here: http://www.michasz.com/art/ - -Now that you know who this artist is, I think you guys will agree that you would be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring this guy, who is incredibly well-known from his work on social media. - -His work really can't be missed.<|endoftext|>I've been having an annoying problem with Unity 5. The last time it happened, I discovered that I had a "cannot access game object at this moment due to this object's lifetime not being complete" error which means the game was not displaying properly. - -I searched for the cause of the issue and it turned out Unity 5 did not support object lifetime detection at all and therefore the game was using incorrect reference count and I had to create a second instance of the game object and assign a separate reference to it. Now, when I tried to load the first instance, I was told that the lifetime was complete which meant that the second instance would not even show up in the inspector and when I tried to assign one to this instance, the debugger would not even load the second instance from its internal storage. - -The reason I was not getting this error during the last error log search was because the Unity 5 project was using a new Unity 5 feature. To make a long story short -======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== -(Newser) – "My child is a terrible liar," a Washington mom said this week, adding that she and her husband have a strict parenting policy: No, her son doesn't "say" it all the time. "My son is just really honest," the father said. "But you can't just let all that out." As an added precaution, the mom added, she will let him listen to music from about two to three seconds before it starts, "just in case he starts telling you a story," reports a family site called BabyCenter.com. - -There are plenty who don't agree with the parents—or even the dad—on exactly what their son is saying, though many of them also say they have children who speak in the same "unreliable" manner. The National Institutes of Health notes that parents may have to adjust to their youngsters having a secret past life if they let it grow long. "People who speak in an unreliable voice may do so unintentionally, since it doesn't seem like anyone else is really listening," it says. "But you may need to give a child some time to adjust to a different voice so it doesn't appear he has a different personality."<|endoftext|>Marijuana policy in Texas - -State laws - -Cannabis is illegal in Texas. - -Cultivation, possession, sale, and use of marijuana are illegal. - -Sale, possession, or use of any amount (1 ounce) or more may result in criminal prosecution. - -For questions about your local local laws that impact recreational or medicinal marijuana in Texas, consult with the appropriate city or county district attorney. In Dallas-Fort Worth, visit the DA's website. - -Marijuana in schools - -Texas law does not regulate the sale, delivery, or use of marijuana to minors. Schools are required to require teachers to report students to law enforcement when suspicious of such use. - -Methadone - -Methadone is a prescription medicine that is typically used for chronic pain caused by diseases, injuries and diseases or infections. The substance must be administered in strict, supervised doses. - -Texas law prohibits the sale of methadone, except in a pharmacy or health care facility licensed and certified for this purpose. - -Mental health - -Mental illness is a medical diagnosis, as well as a state or federal requirement to receive treatment and support that is necessary to recover from the causes of the mental illness. - -There are no criminal penalties for being evaluated or treated for a mental disorder. However, Texas law prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, as long as the act is not a barrier to participation in a program. - -Mental impairments may disqualify an individual from a state benefit program, but do not preclude receiving assistance from the state. - -For questions about your local mental health treatment laws in Texas, consult the appropriate local district attorney. - -Pills in public places - -As medical marijuana becomes legal in Texas and as access increases to medical marijuana, more and more dispensaries are opening. If you go to a marijuana dispensary or similar business in Texas, you must still be 21 years of age to use the marijuana inside the establishment. - -Under federal law, marijuana remains illegal under most circumstances. If you purchase marijuana in a state that has legalized the use of marijuana, you may be violating federal law. - -Possession of marijuana by anyone under 21 - -There are very strict penalties for the possession of small amounts of marijuana by someone under 21 years old. - -An individual may be punished in addition to the possible fines or jail time as follows: - -Second-time offenders may be sentenced to up to one year at a minimum in county jail or up to 10 years at a maximum. - -An individual who violates a sentence of confinement within five years of the date of the offense is subject to an additional two years of imprisonment or more. - -Possession of more than five grams of marijuana remains a misdemeanor. - -For questions about your city's marijuana laws, consult the appropriate county attorney. - -Carrying marijuana - -Possession of marijuana by an individual who is over 21 is still considered a misdemeanor under state law and may lead to arrest and incarceration. If you carry marijuana or open a package in your pocket, that may be a violation of Texas law. - -No arrest and no criminal record is recorded once you leave Texas. However, you may lose certain employment opportunities, such as school or landlord applications. - -Possessing less than ten grams of marijuana by someone under 21 can result in a misdemeanor, a fine of up to $500, and/or 30 days jail time. Possessing more than ten grams of marijuana by someone under 21 can result in an additional misdemeanor charge, up to up to one year. - -Possession of marijuana in public - -If an individual is found with marijuana in any public space, such as a park, street, or other public place, the person could face criminal charges or -======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== -MAY 20 -- A federal jury convicted David Allen Cozad of one count of receiving and distributing child pornography last night, when he admitted to sending photos of a 13-year-old girl's undressed buttocks to his friends and another 14-year-old girl, via the Internet. - -The seven-woman, five-man deliberating panel deliberated for nearly two hours before returning the verdict in Federal District Court here. - -The jurors found Cozad, 48, guilty of conspiracy to receive and distribute child pornography, and conspiracy to transport or receive a minor in exchange for compensation. - -Cozad admitted to having sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old female friend of his niece, and he also admitted to having sexual intercourse with that 14-year-old girl. - -Prosecutors accused Cozad of sexually soliciting and receiving photographs of the undressed buttocks of the 13-year-old, to which he exchanged photos of other women. - -Cozad's attorney was not available for comment after the verdict was read. - -An assistant U.S. attorney, Matthew Kacman, said after the verdict that Cozad is now in custody, facing up to 20 years in prison. - -While Cozad admitted to distributing child pornography via the Internet, the government alleges that the 13-year-old girl did not willingly receive sexually explicit photographs of her from Cozad. - -The 13-year-old girl is one of those photos Cozad distributed, but the other two pictures -- of the 14-year-old and another 14-year-old -- were provided to Cozad by his girlfriend, who had allegedly consented to receive nude photos of herself from Cozad, according to the government. - -The government said after the trial that Cozad allegedly received some photos from his girlfriend -- though that girlfriend was actually another man. - -In the aftermath of the discovery of those sexually explicit photographs in April, Cozad reportedly contacted the police, who interviewed him and the 14-year-old girl. - -Kacman said the FBI recovered the photographs and additional evidence of Cozad's alleged conduct in the two cases from the 14-year-old girl. - -But he said Cozad has been cooperative with the FBI, and he has been interviewed since the discovery of his inappropriate behavior with a minor, as well. - -Cozad took his case to trial, where the trial judge, Nancy A. Powell, refused to grant him bail, saying that he is a flight risk because his past criminal history includes convictions for aggravated sexual assault, sex trafficking, unlawful sexual activity and transporting minors for sexual activity. - -At the time, the judge said Cozad's criminal history was so extensive that he could pose a danger to society. - -However, Cozad's attorney, Charles Brown, argued that the FBI's claims that his client is a danger to society were false. - -Brown was unable to call to the stand the other two defendants in the case, who are scheduled to stand trial later this year.<|endoftext|>"I am proud to be part of our diverse city and community," said San Francisco Supervisor David Campos in a statement after the vote. "This vote represents decades of effort across generations and communities to make our City a more tolerant and welcoming place for all." - -The vote came one day after a white, nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned violent, leaving one dead and more than 20 injured. On Monday, President Trump spoke out in a series of tweets suggesting the "alt-left" and "alt-right" were equally to blame for the events in Charlottesville. - -"No one is saying that we have ever said that, but what we are saying in San Francisco is that we reject expressions of hate, and I think that is very important. I think it is important for me and for the rest of my City colleagues to condemn any and all expressions of white supremacy and bigotry, and to affirm our commitment to inclusion and acceptance and diversity in San Francisco," said Campos, who is running to replace outgoing Supervisor Hillary Ronen for a second term. - -The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday also rejected a call to add a pro-immigration measure to the November ballot that was meant to replace controversial state legislation that bars undocumented immigrants from owning guns. - -Supervisor Eric Mar said he was "troubled" that the resolution would have changed the definition of an ordinance to add a measure that would grant undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship — a bill sponsored by Mar that was defeated by a majority of City Hall supervisors in March. - -"As a sanctuary city, we cannot allow our city to be used as a political pawn or our values to be traded upon political expediency," said Mar. "I voted against it because I am not prepared to let anyone use our city for political purposes in this time of national discord."<|endoftext|>It wasn't a banner year for Microsoft. In -======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== -We are in a state of crisis. This is not a political, national or global problem. It's a crisis of the human soul. And it's real – a crisis that has taken a deadly toll. - -The American people are suffering from a crisis of moral clarity. - -"When you see people who are living with a lot of trouble, who are feeling a lot of anxiety, that's not normal. It's not the way things should be." - -That's Vice President Joe Biden, speaking from a Catholic conference in Washington, D.C., in September. - -As if our society was still struggling with its past, that night, Biden told the faithful gathered at Georgetown University that we cannot "turn the other cheek" to evil. - -We need to "go after evil" with "everything we've got." - -It's the latest in Biden's speech to the Catholic conference that was interrupted by a barrage of hecklers. That is the kind of leadership that our country needs. - -But Biden's comments were just one example of a wider crisis in America. - -A week later on his "Meet the Press" program, Biden declared, "When you see people who are living with a lot of trouble, who are feeling a lot of anxiety, that's not normal. It's not the way things should be." - -Yes, it is. - -And it is a crisis that's threatening our nation as never before. - -It's a crisis of America's most precious value: our humanity. - -We are so troubled by what's happening in Gaza, but we are ignoring the suffering in Detroit. - -We are ignoring the crisis in Flint, Michigan – a city that's become a symbol of American failure. - -In a time of such pain in our nation, in such a state of confusion and distrust, it's easy to lose sight of what unites us. We forget that everyone who has given their all to make America – from the immigrants who've done so much to build our economy to our soldiers who defend us – has been enriched by the same God of justice and mercy who has given us all a common purpose. - -That purpose, dear American, is that we are all sons and daughters of the same God: black, white, black and white, Latino and Latino, native and immigrant, Christian and Jewish, gay and straight, Democrat and Republican, Christian and Jewish, American and foreign. - -We worship the same God; we believe in the same God. - -And in common cause, the young people of the House and the Senate have written, I believe, a bill that will end violence against young gay Americans. It passes the most important test in the history of legislation: will it pass Congress? - -And as we all pass our own little parts of the bill, I ask all of us to pass our most important parts of the bill. I ask all of us to see our friends – and those of my fellow Catholics – in a whole new way. I ask us to stop the hate in our hearts against anyone; against anyone's race, ethnicity, gender, class; against anyone's faith. I ask us to turn back the tide of injustice in our nation. - -And when we do, we will once again have the privilege of defending freedom for the world to see, and the opportunity to make the world a better place for ourselves. - -Thank you. God Bless You all.<|endoftext|>We've all dreamed of being a part of a project and working side by side to see our creation come to life. The same was true for photographer Aaron Treadwell: - -"Photography is the single most collaborative art. The people involved in the photos and the process are what make a photograph, a photograph." - -With the help of a few other photographers, Mr. Treadwell has embarked on the long-term journey of photographing all 60 NFL teams. Aaron shares a little about the project below, and you can check out the progress of each team here. - -What I'm attempting is something new. What I'm attempting is different. I want all the fans at home in 2015 to be connected to all the teams, to see their faces, see their jerseys, hear their song lyrics, and to watch in real time. They may not know who is on the other side of a camera in the back of a truck with an assistant, nor may they know how many people are behind those doors in the training room or at the facility. I think when people get to visit the teams they will all appreciate the time and efforts involved with this project because when they see the work each team has invested, they will understand the amount of money, time, and time these teams are spending to be the best possible football team we can be in this lifetime. " - -You can read more about Aaron's project, and find out more about the project, here.<|endoftext|>A former US federal judge has been arrested by authorities investigating the leaking -======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== -A small child was among the 12 people killed in a blast in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar that wounded at least 90 others, officials said on Thursday. - -Faisal Ahmed Bibi, of the Hazara community, which is from Afghanistan, was among 10 people in her family who were killed when a bomb exploded outside a mosque at about 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) near a shopping complex. - -Bibi's cousin, who was also in the mosque at the time, was injured by shrapnel and died on Wednesday morning, Lahore Police Chief Asad Ahmed told the Associated Press. - -He told local media he believes the suicide bomber entered as one of the worshippers was leaving the site. - -The deceased children were aged between seven and 13 years old and included one boy and two girls, said Khan Shahin, a senior police officer in the city. - -The mosque is just a 10-minute walk away from the Hazara bazaar, where the bombers had been spotted the previous day, Bibi's sister Wahida told the Express Tribune newspaper. - -The blast also injured a senior member of the local security forces. The unnamed officers were rushed to hospital where they were pronounced dead, according to authorities. - -A senior army officer confirmed that a security meeting had been called to discuss security issues following Sunday's suicide blast. - -In November, around a dozen Hazara community members were killed in two blasts in Karachi province. They were killed after two suicide bombers targeted a gathering for a religious pilgrimage. - -Last year, Pakistan was rocked by a massive attack at a police academy in Quetta in which 150 people were killed. - -Pakistan is a country where the majority of people belong to the Hazara Shi'ite minority and many live in poverty and abuse by law enforcement due to their religious identity. - -The United States was among many Western states, particularly its NATO ally, which strongly condemned the Karachi attack. - -It condemned the act of terrorism and expressed its support on the continuing efforts of Pakistan to combat such groups and improve security. - -UAE's Sheikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Qasimi condemned the "heinous terrorist attack against innocent pilgrims" in a statement Wednesday evening. He said the Islamic Emirates stood "ready to provide all help to the government of Pakistan in combatting the evil that is terrorism, whether in Pakistan, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the region." - -An international day of prayer for victims of terrorism is being held on Thursday in Hazara communities all over Pakistan.<|endoftext|>SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Today, the Sacramento City Council passed a comprehensive citywide plan that will modernize and expand the city's transportation system, create green infrastructure and make it easier for people to start a business in Sacramento. The Council also agreed to implement an updated and more transparent process for evaluating the growth and redevelopment impact of any future transit project. - -The final budget includes nearly $800 million allocated for capital projects. This funding includes $600 million for building new transit lines such as the Green Line Extension (GLX) and new bus routes. Funding is also allocated to improve transit for the disabled, make street trees more friendly to people with disabilities, reduce car traffic and improve pedestrian and biking connections. - -Councilmember Steve Hansen's Transit and Green Infrastructure Committee proposed the plan, which will create a new agency called Central City Solutions (CCS). CCS will be responsible for all capital projects approved by the Council and will have the flexibility to design and create new transit routes, integrate Green Infrastructure upgrades with existing transit systems, and monitor and adjust those investments to create a balanced transportation network in Sacramento. - -Councilmember Joe Crisafulli said, "This funding is an important step towards modernizing and expanding Sacramento's urban transit system. It also puts the city on track to meet the state's climate protection goals for greenhouse gas reductions by 2035. It is my hope that the council will take other important steps in the future to ensure our community remains a livable, walkable, and vibrant community for people to be proud of." - -CCS Deputy Director of Planning and Development Jonathan Jones said the new plan takes Sacramento's transit system to the next level through innovative technologies of the future. He added, "It's going to require all of us on this council to lead by making the investments we know it takes. By taking a long hard look into every project and making sure it fulfills Council's goal of creating a diverse, walkable, bikeable, transit friendly community, we can achieve what it takes to transform Sacramento's transportation network for the sustainable future of our city and the rest of California." - -Committee members said it was important that the plan also included a framework for integrating the growth and redevelopment needs of future transit projects. Councilmember Michael Atkins said "It's unfortunate that our council members did not include a robust framework for planning new transit projects. I have no doubt that it would bring a great deal to the planning process. It -======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== -A group of anti-Trump protesters was attacked in a Boston hotel, and one man was fatally shot by police who say he was armed with a paintball gun - -A man armed with a paintball gun was fatally shot by police Saturday at a gathering of anti-Trump protesters in Boston, authorities said. - -In a statement, police said the man, 26-year-old Darrius Kennedy, of Dorchester, was wearing a mask when he approached protesters outside the Hyatt Regency in Boston's South End and opened fire with a paintball. Kennedy was hit six times. - -"The suspect is an active member in the Boston chapter of the Antifa movement," police said, referring to supporters of violent anti-fascist groups. - -Police officers opened fire to stop Kennedy's advance, officials said. He was arrested and is facing charges, including murder and bombing by use of an explosive. - -The event, which called for a protest against "a racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, climate change-denying, anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-Semitic administration", was organised by the Massachusetts branch of the Women's March and the group Refuse Fascism. - -It started at 5pm and police said about two dozen people had gathered at South Boston Common, south of the Hyatt. According to a Facebook event page, they came in order to show their disdain for President Donald Trump and his policies. - -Police said Kennedy entered the protest through the chain-link fence and began firing at about 5.30pm, hitting four protesters. - -Two of the dead were in their 20s-30s, the Boston Police Department said. - -"One victim was struck in the chest; two others were struck by paintball-propelled pellets. One victim was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died," said Boston police spokesman David Procopio. - -A fourth person, who was listed in serious condition at Massachusetts General, was treated at a nearby hospital and released, the spokesman said. Procopio said police later identified the victims as 18-year-old Yassin Bey, of Boston, and 23-year-old Aqsa Mahmood, of Cambridge, and 21-year-old Sarah Glover, of Boston. - - -Boston police (@bostonpolice) Our condolences to the families of those injured today in Boston protesting in response to President Trump's order banning travelers. pic.twitter.com/dKJ5U6Q5XS - -Procopio described the man as a white male with "dark hair". - -"The suspect displayed a paintball gun with a paintball gun on his waist and in his hand. Paintball guns shoot paintballs. There's no telling if that's a real gun or what it was that he was carrying," Procopio said. - -Police said they believe the man has "anti-government leanings", with "dark hair". The man was wearing a jacket and dark jeans - -"While this was a peaceful demonstration and the majority of demonstrators were law-abiding and respectful of police, one of the incidents on Saturday stemmed from an altercation that began between two persons," a statement from the department said. - -"During the altercation, the suspect was armed with what turned out to be a homemade paintball gun, similar to those frequently seen at paintball tournaments. The suspect then proceeded to fire several rounds at the demonstrators. - -"After firing several rounds at the demonstrators, the suspect moved from the demonstration area and into a nearby private residence located on the property where the suspect was located and arrested. - -"This suspect will be presented to the Framingham district attorney for charges that include murder, bombing, and carrying a handgun without a permit from the Massachusetts gun laws." - -Police said the suspect was arrested a few hours after the shooting but has not been made public until now. - -Boston police (@bostonpolice) Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley briefed the media following the fatal incident at South Boston Common. pic.twitter.com/2i1QWXxYQy - -Menino tweeted: "My deepest condolences to the family and friends of the person shot at South Boston Common today, a member of our Boston community." - -Menino was joined at a press conference in Boston by Boston police commissioner William Evans, Boston mayor Marty Walsh and Suffolk district attorney Daniel Conley. - -"He had a paintball gun," Conley said. "He was carrying a paintball gun, so it was obviously a dangerous and frightening situation." - -Menino said the anti-Trump protesters were peaceful, although there was a small group of "some agitators that were not protesters". - -Evans said: "There were about 200 people there, most of them law enforcement officers and the overwhelming majority were protestors. We had some agitators that were a -======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== -The US military said Russia's intervention in Syria last week was "not helping" the fight against Islamic State militants and warned against further action by Moscow, while also praising the Syrian government's efforts against the insurgency. - -"The Russian intervention in Syria is not helping ISIL," said Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top US commander in Iraq and Syria, referring to Islamic State by its acronyms. - -But in a rare comment on Russia's role in the global conflict, he said "the use of those airfields, of the use of those Russian forces - that's the Russians. They're the ones that have provided the air support for that offensive in Raqqa - that was done by the Russians. It was a Russian contribution." - -Read more - -In recent days, Moscow has announced multiple air strikes on Islamic State in Syria, including those conducted within Syria's borders. Russian President Bashar Assad has vowed that "terrorists have nothing to fear" from further Russian involvement in his war against the group. - -On Monday, Russian fighter jets launched two air strikes in Syria and destroyed an Islamic State unit in the al-Rai neighbourhood on the western outskirts of Aleppo. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also announced that over 8,000 civilians were evacuated from Aleppo on Sunday. It remains unclear how many of the dead were IS fighters, however. - -Russian forces are also alleged to have taken parts of Syria near the Iraqi border, while US-led coalition jets have conducted air strikes inside Syrian and Iraq against Islamic State targets. - -On Thursday, the Pentagon said it targeted Islamic State in Syria with Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from the USS Porter. Townsend said US aircraft were the origin of the strikes despite US officials previously claiming it was Russian-led coalition jets. - -Washington and Moscow are engaged in a fierce battle for Syria's air territory. Moscow has insisted the deployment of Russian troops in Syria were strictly humanitarian. While the US and its allies say Russia's intervention is a violation of the country's borders and that the Kremlin is targeting mostly moderate opposition, including a number of US- backed rebels. - -READ MORE: Russia says it shot down Syrian MiG 29, destroyed 2 IS militants in attack on rebel positions (VIDEOS) - -Last week, the United Nations and Amnesty International accused Russia of continuing attacks on opposition and civilian areas in Syria and of a flagrant violation of international law by bombing medical clinics and civilian infrastructure. They also warned that civilians are being deliberately targeted and the country's opposition forces have been reduced to rubble. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, has put the number of areas hit by Russian airstrikes in September on the rise. It said at least 13 civilian areas had experienced serious damage this month alone, compared to just one in September 2016. - -Townsend told reporters on Friday that "we're not going to play with Russian aircraft. We're not going to get in their way and we're not going to try to get some kind of an agreement on who does what. - -"We've talked to them repeatedly over the last number of days. We're not looking for some kind of understanding here. We're simply saying we need to look at the results before we even talk about anything here, and that means if they've done more in the last 24 hours then we have to look at that." - -READ MORE: The world's most dangerous Russian-speaking city, or how the conflict in Syria is tearing us apart - -He said that despite warnings from the international community, Russia has refused to stop the airstrikes. "It doesn't make them any more or less dangerous," he said. "This is the fourth group of civilian-heavy strikes since the last announcement we've made, and the last one was over the weekend. It is very difficult for us to coordinate or even communicate with them on what we're doing, and because of that we are having an increasingly difficult time with regard to coordinating our effort to help people. To that end, we have increased our presence in Iraq, which will allow us to have more direct communication between US and Iraqi forces on the ground and so forth. But this is about what it represents. I've said many times that the fight against ISIS is about getting rid of ISIS. And if they're taking casualties, that's part of it, but if that's what they are doing, then that's something we have to stay clear of. And I don't see any military options under review." - -US military officials told Reuters on Sunday that Russia's air campaign might be "doubling down" on strikes in Syria and Iraq. - -"We're still assessing the results of the Russian campaign and it might shift," said Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook, adding that the US was focused on working with Iraq to defeat ISIS. - -US Defense Secretary James Mattis had also said that Russian strikes against terrorists in Syria were hitting "very little Islamic State positions, in fact they -======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== -Rafael Benitez is the new manager of Newcastle United as the club confirmed the appointment of Steve McClaren for the club's next Premier League campaign. - -McClaren, who took the England job earlier this week in a shock switch from Derby County, was appointed by Sir John Carver. - -Benitez, 50, led Sevilla to victory in La Liga in his first season, having joined them from Inter Milan in 2010. He guided Newcastle to seventh in the Premier League this season and 14th in the League Cup. - -The Spaniard said: "I am very happy to be here and to work with Steve." - -The club added: "Steve has been appointed manager of Newcastle United, subject to obtaining a work permit and passing a medical." - -McClaren's arrival brings to an end an 11-month saga that started when he was sacked as England manager by the Football Association last summer and brought about a long-running stand-off between Newcastle and the Professional Footballers' Association. - -McClaren did not receive a written response from PFA chief Gordon Taylor, who had been due to meet him this week. The PFA has since refused to comment on rumours of internal disquiet over his appointment. - -McClaren told a news conference that he had "tried to be as positive as I knew how, but they weren't doing anything else". - -"It's been a very difficult period, for myself and the club," he said. "Hopefully we'll soon find out how the PFA are doing today when I'm meeting them, and we can move on again." - -McClaren led Liverpool to third place in the Premier League this season and was named the PFA's coach of the year in September. - -He had told BBC Radio 5 live that he was not interested in a job at Liverpool, Liverpool's main domestic rivals. "Of course not, I have had a hugely enjoyable time at Liverpool over the last couple of years so I am absolutely not interested," he said. - -Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said: "I know Steve. I've worked with him and like him very much. I spoke to him and his future was still very much on the table in terms of what his relationship with his manager, Jurgen Klopp, and the manager of Newcastle United, Steve McClaren, is for the next two or three years." - -Rafa Benitez, pictured at Swansea on Thursday, will manage Newcastle - -Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who has not been linked with a move to Newcastle, revealed after his sacking in May that he believed Newcastle "lack ambition and are not trying to be competitive. I like them the way they are right now". - -"Benitez did a fantastic job and will be recognised for that," added Wenger on his website. "But it looks like the time for him to go is near." - -Steve Stone of online betting company Ladbrokes wrote on Twitter that Benitez would be "worth £6 when he leaves Newcastle" - £4 more than the bookmakers' odds. - -McClaren, who will be paid about £4m per year from Newcastle, came close to joining Real Madrid earlier this month, but the club refused to meet his wages demands. - -Benitez said: "I know my job will be to carry on the way we have started the season, but more importantly to put Newcastle at the front of the Championship race and put us in position to be successful next season." - -Newcastle, who sacked the sacked Mark Hughes last month, have also been linked with the services of Sam Allardyce, the West Ham manager, and Tim Sherwood, the Tottenham manager. - -However, despite being backed by owner Mike Ashley, McClaren has insisted he would only leave the club on a two-year contract. The former England defender told BBC Radio 5 live: "I would be very shocked if the PFA were to find any sort of discontent amongst the players, and that's my main focus. I don't think anybody would be surprised if people in the football world are surprised to hear that. I think it would be a big upset for the club if anything got lost as a result of that." - -Newcastle's new boss would be charged with the task of trying to keep Newcastle in the Premier League, something that Ashley has promised will be his priority when he has taken control of the club. - -But McClaren, whose arrival at St James' Park is likely to be accompanied by a change of style, indicated the club's ambition will be not just stay in the division. He added: "We're in the business of playing football, scoring goals and having big competitions and getting players to work for Newcastle. - -"You'll just have to wait and see how the next one goes and how I manage that. I think my biggest challenge right now is going out and trying to put Newcastle in the position -======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== -(CNN) The Russian Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey could threaten America's democracy and said "it is necessary to watch carefully if some steps are taken, to prevent any harm from the decisions." - -"It is necessary to watch carefully if some steps are taken, to prevent any harm from the decisions," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said during a news briefing at the ministry where he said Moscow wanted to "hear Trump's words carefully." - -Trump fired Comey a week ago Tuesday -- after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 conference in Hamburg, Germany. - -In his firing letter to Comey, Trump wrote , "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau." - -On Friday, Trump called on the Justice Department and the FBI to clarify "whether the President's statements about me were statements of fact or statements of opinion," and said he was placing his personal reputation "in danger." - -Russian media later quoted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as saying that Trump's statement was not an opinion, and Rosenstein has not addressed this assertion. - -Ryabkov called Trump's decision "a provocation and violation of basic norms of international law," and said Moscow "will not leave him unattended, even for a moment." - -Read More<|endoftext|>This article has no abstract; the first 100 words appear below. - -The following is an excerpt from the article "The Nature of Mental Illness," published in Mental Retardation (Vol. 7, No. 4), May 1975, pp. 518-523. - -The term mental retardation was coined by American psychiatrist Henry Pernsteiner in the early 1930s to describe children born "slow-headed." It has since grown into a broader term used for any child of limited intelligence whose physical and learning abilities remain retarded throughout his life. It has become increasingly important in the past decade to define mental retardation more clearly and to understand how it is defined today. - -The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which adopted the definition from a consensus statement of several professional committees and organizations (1), now considers individuals with mental retardation to be those who fall below the third standard, the cutoff for persons who are so retarded that they have "subnormal" brain function but "normal" learning abilities and who exhibit no significant disabilities in adaptive behaviors (including social skills), educational achievement, or vocational activities (2). Although the cutoff was first adopted in 1968, AAP has not revised its practice of categorizing children with mental retardation by age (3). - -A major change in AAP policy is the change to a cutoff of 70 IQ points above the mean. The rationale was that the average IQ obtained by children with mental retardation during childhood is about 70, with an average rise to about 80 between the ages of 11 and 13 (4). Thus, the cutoff is intended to allow for a decline to 70 of average mental development from the point of onset of retarded children's intellectual function. - -In recent years, the consensus committee that drafted the definition of mental retardation noted that some members felt that the threshold for this condition was too high (5). The committee concluded that because the definition of mental retardation was originally defined to allow for a decline of average mental function from the point of onset of retarded children's intellectual capability—the point of onset—it was necessary to define the condition from the perspective of early development. The committee concluded that mental retardation was best understood as a syndrome that began with the onset of retarded children's intellectual ability and continued through a period of development that is marked by substantial learning disability and with significant developmental delay until the onset of normal age. - -To facilitate this definition, the committee established a criterion to be applied at the time of the initial diagnosis of severe developmental delayedness (SDDL) rather than at the time of the diagnostic test. In these instances, mental retardation is identified in the presence of an intellectual disability, defined as mental retardation that has been clinically established as being caused by chromosomal disorder, severe learning disability, cerebral palsy, organic brain syndrome, traumatic injury, drug intoxication, mental retardation, or other medical condition (5). The committee also recommended that in cases of severe developmental delay or multiple disabilities, an IQ of at least 70 be maintained throughout development. - -A review of the diagnostic criteria used by the Society for Developmental Disabilities of California defines five subcategories of a severe developmental delay, each with four levels of severity (6). The first subcategory includes children with mild to moderate developmental delay or disability, whose IQs average 70 to 75. The second subcategory includes children with moderate to severe developmental delay or disability, whose IQs average 75 to 80, with an IQ reduction to 70 in the presence of major functional abnormalities. The -======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== -This article is about the character. For the music album, see "The Last Of Our Kind (The Original)" (live album). - -The Last Of Our Kind is an American contemporary folk-rock band formed in Washington D.C. in 1995. The group's music has been described by the critics as "an amalgam of indie pop, soul, soul pop and traditional acoustic folk, and a blend of country, bluegrass, roots, blues and punk." - -Contents show] - -History Edit - -The band formed in 1995 by members who had attended the nearby Berklee College of Music. Their name was inspired by the lyric of an American spiritual and political activist who had a similar name: Leonard Peltier. Peltier was an African American activist who had been arrested for protesting the theft of land from Native Americans. - -Before their debut, a few other bands from the Berklee College of Music had already begun working on a collaboration CD. Among them were a band called "The Changelables" and a band called "Jazz For Kids With Autism", which the band decided to call their own band. The band was originally called "The Last Of Our Kind," with the group itself being called "LOWE". - -After playing a few shows in Washington DC, the main five members of LOWE were invited to play a showcase in New York City on November 15, 1995. The first show at the venue was recorded for YouTube and the DVD of that performance is also available. - -In the years since their debut, they have released two full-length albums under the "The Last Of Our Kind" stage name, both of which are based on the theme of traditional folk songs. For their second album, "An Appointment In Hell", Lows guitarist/vocalist Jeff Loomis replaced Jim DeMarco, the second member of LOWE with whom he had recorded his debut album, "I Hear Your Voice Inside Me (The Original)" (1993). Loomis' guitar style is more melodic and less crunchy than DeMarco's. He also contributed more of an acoustic guitar to the songs on An Appointment in Hell, such as "The Last Of Our Kind (The Original)", "An Appointment in Hell" and "Last Of Our Kind (The Original)". - -Lows also recorded several more live albums. "Last Of Our Kind (Live at the Roxy)" is a compilation album documenting several concerts played in New York, including performances at the Roxy (the opening band for Trombone Shorty who later became the opening band for Trombone Shorty And The Violators, and a couple of Lows songs performed with the Roxy crowd, including "An Appointment In Hell"), and shows in Philadelphia, Boston and Hartford. The other live album which takes place in Washington is "Last Of Our Kind (Live at the Beacon Theatre)", the concert recording from the Beacon Theater in Washington DC. This live album, recorded on March 25, 2008, is the most "realistic" of the three. This song is one of the longest songs of the set and features several acoustic guitar tracks and Loomis' vocals. "Last Of Our Kind (Live at The Blue Note)", recorded at the Blue Note in New York on November 30, 1995, is probably the darkest/moodiest of the three. It was also the only "realistic" performance and was performed without any microphones or mics on the audience. - -In 1997, Lowe changed their stage name to The Last Of Our Kind, partly to match the "tribute bands" created like the The Lost Bay Area String Band (1998), The Last of the Pharoahs (1998), The Last of the Pharoahs (1997) among others, and to reflect the new focus on songs and less on the band members. In the years following this it was announced that a new album of "The Last of Our Kind" songs would be released every three years following the release of last. "A Last Of Our Kind" was released on April 26, 2008 and was the first studio album since the group's debut. - -In 2010, Lowe announced that they were to be releasing a third album, on April 11th, the next day is the 40th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union/National Lawyers Guild song which was the inspiration for the title, "An Appointment in Hell". A live album, "Live at the Beacon Theatre", was released in the same week. The album has only been released on CD, in part to capitalize on the anniversary, in part to make the live recordings of the band available to a wider audience. - -In August 2011, The Last of Our Kind had announced an extensive world tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first concert. The series of concerts will include two shows in Japan on October 21st and 22nd, followed by New York on November 12th. This will be their first-ever US tour. The band -======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== -The official website for the television anime of Takashi Takeuchi 's manga Puella Magi Madoka Magica ( Oreimo ) revealed a key visual for the show on Wednesday. - -The anime will air on Tokyo MX , Sun TV , and other channels. - -The anime's website describes the story. - -Two years have passed since the "Great Holy Grail War." At the climax of the battle, in which eight magi appeared, Madoka Kaname became the winner after winning the battle against Illya Sledge and Illya Albedo. Upon returning home the next morning, she immediately set off upon her daily life as Homura Akemi. - -The anime will star: - -Yui Ishikawa as Homura Akemi - -as Homura Akemi Eri Kitamura as Mami Tomoe - -Kyōko Tsuji as Madoka Kaname - -as Madoka Kaname Chiwa Saito as Kyōko Sawaguchi - -as Kyōko Sawaguchi Shizuka Itō as Homura Akemi's younger sister, Ayame Akemi - -as Homura Akemi's younger sister, Ayame Akemi Rina Satō as Homura's elder sister, Sayaka Akemi - -as Homura Akemi's elder sister, Sayaka Akemi Mai Fuchigami as Mami's older sister, Sayaka Mizuhashi - -as Mami's older sister, Sayaka Mizuhashi Satomi Sato as Sayaka's younger sister, Sayaka Tokisaki - -Miyu Irino ( YuruYuri ) is directing the series at Shuka Animation and the anime Production I.G . Takayuki Koyama ( Puella Magi Madoka Magica , The Prince of Tennis ) is handling the series composition at Shuka , and Junji Hakala ( Baccano! , Fate/Zero ) is serving as chief animation director. Seiji Kishi ( A Certain Magical Index , Fate/EXTRA ) is designing the characters. - -The cast will also star in the OVA based on the "Madoka Magica" television series. It is slated to open in Japan in November. - -The anime has several collaborations with the Madoka Kaname Puella Magi Madoka Magica franchise. The first one is an original video anime production project titled "The Rebellion Story" ( 青春のリバーシリーズ ). The project will feature a new original song by the girls of the popular band "Fantagraphics" ( Fantagraphik ). - -The Madoka Magica TV anime adapts Sayaka Miki 's original manga about the protagonists of the "Puella Magi Suzune Magica" franchise: Madoka Kaname, Homura Akemi, Kyōko Sawamura, Mami Tomoe, and Kyōko Tsuji, and their friends at "Hikari Shimbun," a magical girl group. - -The anime premiered in Japan on January 9. Crunchyroll streamed the anime outside of Japan as it aired.<|endoftext|>The city of Boston has finally lifted the ban on cannabis dispensaries, opening its doors to a newly legalized industry. - -In 2016, the City Council passed a moratorium on cannabis businesses after concerns were raised over the safety of children coming into contact with the plant. City officials claimed marijuana dispensaries posed risks of increased traffic congestion, increased street crime, child protection issues, and public health concerns. - -Despite the ban, eight dispensaries were operating in town, allowing more than 2,500 customers to procure medical marijuana. Those same dispensaries continued to operate across the city even though city officials had previously issued them notices of nuisance and safety violations. - -Advertisement - -"The Boston Medical Marijuana Dispensary Ordinance is obsolete but the law is a clear violation of patients' First Amendment rights," said attorney Jeff Greenfield. "It is illegal for the City of Boston to tell a patient and their doctor that they are not allowed to sell marijuana," he continued. "The state Legislature and Governor should immediately lift these bans and let patients and their doctors, in accordance with their medical decisions, decide whether and how they want to treat their ailments and illnesses." - -Greenfield and his attorneys are representing an array of patients who believe the bans are violating their First Amendment right to access medical cannabis.<|endoftext|>"No matter what it looks like you should be able to find it." - -In the last few years I came to realize that there are actually a lot more women than I imagined. It seems there is more and more interest in gender differences in general, not just between the genders. And so, I would like to highlight some of the ideas I have accumulated over my life. I am a big fan of psychology and neurobiology. I spend a lot of time reading about it. I believe that people who know a lot are often able to do a lot more than people who know a little. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== -The United States is committed to advancing human rights and fighting intolerance. In addition to a long record of military assistance to foreign countries, we are also providing more than $20 billion annually in non-lethal foreign assistance to many of the countries most closely associated with extremism and terrorism. The President is determined to end state sponsorship of terrorism and is implementing a set of actions that strengthens the capacity of countries to confront terrorism, strengthen the rule of law, fight corruption, and promote economic freedom and stability.<|endoftext|>In our most recent analysis of the data on the impact of corporate earnings on corporate compensation, we have shown that a 10 percent decrease in earnings growth reduces the number of years of service by a maximum of 1.1 percent and a 0.6 percent decrease raises the average pay by 0.6 percent. The average employee receives $8,500 to spend on retirement funds.<|endoftext|>The House is close to confirming the Senate's budget resolution, and the two chambers are about to begin working on a compromise to fund the government through December. - -The legislation will provide $1.047 trillion, which is a $74 billion increase from January's current funding levels. - -The Senate budget resolution will provide $1.014 trillion, a $40 billion increase from January's funding levels. - -The Senate budget resolution will provide $1.029 trillion, and also $50 billion more than February's levels for defense, a $50 billion increase. - -The House's budget resolution will provide $1.008 trillion, which is an increase of $38 billion for defense and $30 billion for nondefense. - -Both chambers are trying to address a number of concerns. Most striking is a cut in the domestic discretionary program, which includes programs for farmers, the poor and disabled, from $2.1 trillion this year to $1.949 trillion over the next decade. - -The House budget resolution also would give $50 billion for emergency disaster assistance, which is a major increase from $37 billion in December. - -The Senate budget resolution, however, would provide $60 billion for disaster relief, a decrease from $74 billion in a December bill. The GOP-led House last week approved a $60 billion disaster relief measure. - -Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has pushed for a $99 billion increase for disaster assistance. - -The budget resolution will be offered on Thursday.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA AB AC AD AE 1 Name School Position Height Weight Arm Hand Hips Arm Length Hands Arm Curls Bench Press Jump Power Vertical Jump Broad Jump Shuttle Velo Change of Direction 2 Dabney Duplantis Michigan State 6'6" 271 5.10" 30 1/4" 7 10/16" 7 5/8" 8 5.1" 8.63" 8'10" 330" 3 Quinton Flowers Virginia Tech WR 6'1" 216 26.1" 9 7.5" 5.1" 9 10.5" 5'9" 5.13" 9.63" 38" 4 Ryan Switzer North Carolina RB 6'2" 232 31.5" 9 7.5" 4" 9 9.6" 4" 6.67" 9.63" 36" 5 Jameill Showers Clemson State RB 5'7" 181 26" 8.5" 9" 5.5" 8" 9.9" 7.17" 9" 330" 6 Christian Hackenberg Penn State QB 6'4" 228 6.88" 4.94 29" 3" 0.66" 5.17" 9.25" 0.86" 7 30x40 Bench 3 3 6 3 3 7 10 8.5 7.5 7.5 4 4.5 4.5 4 9 8.5 2.5 40x40 Run 1 1 1 1 1 3 8.5 1 9.5 1 1112.75 10 Chris Godwin Penn State WR 5'11" 194 27" 10" 7.25" 2" 12" 9" 7" 6.33" 9.63" 38" 11 Jaelen Strong Oregon CB 6'2" 220 23" 9.25 6.5" 2" 9.75" 17 7.5" 14.63" 4.5 3 20x50 Bench 1 3 1 1 1 1 6 1 5.5 8 5.5 8 0 10 12 12 4 3 40x40 Run 2 1 1 1 1 2.5 8 0 10 12 13.5 12 9 13.5 13 4 3 10x15 Bench 0 0 2 0 0 2 5.5 17 12 11.5 4 14 8 8.5 2 12 7 6.5 14 3.75 25x70 Run 1 1 0 1 0 2.5 0 2 5 0 6.5 0 3 20x20 Run 1 1 0 1 1 2 0 3 0 7 0 1 -======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== -In this episode we explore the role of art in the work of the American artist, Thomas Cole. - -Find out the facts about the life and work of this one-time Chicagoan, about the work he did at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and the influence that art has had on how we think about his work, and where it comes from. - -We also talk about Cole's relationship with the social and political problems of his time, particularly the American South. - -Listen to this episode of The Story So Far podcast and leave us a review at iTunes!<|endoftext|>The man in charge of the federal program to assist in tracking down illegal immigrants is leaving the job. - -John Morton, who has been director of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) since March, will be succeeded Friday by Lisa Monaco, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut. - -Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio has already praised Monaco as the perfect replacement. The lawman has repeatedly defended the idea that local law enforcement agents "may do more to investigate and detain" illegal immigrants than federal immigration agents. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -"Sheriff Joe's comments reflect the strong support the public has for his efforts to enforce the law and prevent dangerous criminal aliens and illegal aliens from harming the citizens of Maricopa County," said Arpaio. - -U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeKavanaugh polling: FBI on the hot seat Flake: If I were running for reelection 'not a chance' I'd call for Kavanaugh investigation Flake: Elevator confrontation showed me Kavanaugh debate 'tearing the country apart' MORE (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of the President Trump's immigration policies, also praised the incoming administration's selection. - -"It is clear that [Marino] is the right choice not only for the office, but for the job," he said in a statement. - -Marino, who currently serves as deputy assistant attorney general in the department's Criminal Division, will take over for Morton. - -"As many of you know, it's been a privilege to serve in this role," Morton told the agency's workforce in a memo. - -"I have been blessed to work with outstanding employees in a leadership position who share my passion for law and justice. You have a tremendous amount of responsibility to perform, yet much of what you do is often in the shadows or overlooked by the broader public," he added. - -Morton began at the agency in 2012 after serving as chief counsel for the Committee on Financial Services on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, according to a release on DHS's website. - -"I look forward to continuing to work with my friends, colleagues, and the people of the United States in the years to come," said Martin. - -"But I will always feel deeply proud of the many thousands of people I worked with that made an enormous difference for the betterment of my country, both in Washington and along the Mexican Border. And for that, I will say to you, I am truly grateful." - -Morton has also served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.<|endoftext|>The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community. - -The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. - -Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Baeumler, game dev extraordinaire. As usual, I asked him a myriad of questions about his experience of making fun, unique games with people. Enjoy! - -Andrew Baeumler: Hello everyone! I am Andrew Baeumler, former lead artist at CryEngine and now working for a small indie game company in Germany. I am the new designer, art director, voice actor, writer and writer on the upcoming game "Shelter". You can visit our website here: Shelter.ch. - -Today I am going to tell you a story that is going to give you an idea of what's to come, but let me begin with something completely different: my experiences as an artist on the CryEngine. - -A while, long ago in the CryEngine days I started getting my own game engine, and I was pretty happy with it. I developed a small 2D platformer called "Pump-Man" that took about 4 days to make, based on a 2D art style similar to some of the best 2D platformers out there (Gigantic; Banjo-Kazooie; The Secret Quest). This was something like 15 years ago. But the engine was just a small one. Then, in 2001 the 3D artist that I was working with (Dennis Heilmann, the man who designed the engine for me) moved from Austria to Australia, in the end to -======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== -A video of a police officer kicking an apparent disabled man on the ground is stirring outrage on Twitter. - -The two videos, both posted by Youtube user "Mitcha" on Thursday, show that the officer, who has been identified as officer Jeremy Dearman, kicks the man while he is lying on the asphalt on a quiet, deserted street. - -In the first video, which was posted on Twitter by activist Shaun King, Dearman is seen standing in an unmarked police vehicle before being approached by a man who is speaking English and saying he lives in San Diego. Another passenger in the car later appears and asks the man if he is deaf. - -The passenger, who King identifies as a young child, asks how the man could have broken his leg. The man replies in broken English. - -Dearman, who is wearing blue shorts and a black t-shirt, then walks up to the man. He is then shown walking away from the passenger before returning to the street. Dearman then kicks the man with one leg while keeping the other in a raised position. - -"Hey, get your damn hands up and walk!" Dearman screams. The video also shows the man with his hands behind his back. "Get your hands up, now," he continues. - -Dearman then picks up the man and throws him to the ground, in some cases kicking him in the head. At one point, the man appears to be kneeling on his knees. He is then rolled over by Dearman again before being left at the end of the block. - -According to King, the man told him he was a former Marine but has never fired a weapon. - -"This is not an accident. This is not a mistake," King says in the video. "This is a man being beaten, kicked and stomped by an officer with no apparent reason." - -He added that he would be filing a police misconduct complaint. - -Dearman was not available to speak on Wednesday. - -This is not the first time that Dearman has come under attack after video surfaced. In 2012, he was accused of threatening a former girlfriend in an email titled "Warning, she will get a gun and shoot me dead" that left dozens of questions unanswered. - -The San Diego County Sheriff's Department has not responded to requests for comment from CNN. On August 17, the department issued a statement that said the department takes all requests for public comment regarding the incident "extremely seriously." - -"Deputy Dearman remains on leave while the Police Department's internal affairs is conducting its investigation into this matter," Sgt. Lisa Bowman said. "If you have any information to share or if you have concerns about this situation, you can help by calling 949-824-5011." - -Another San Diego native, journalist and activist Shaun King tweeted that Dearman had previously been involved in an incident with him in 2012. - -Dearman and I were on a date on September 4th, 2012 while covering Occupy San Diego. He grabbed me by the neck and shoved me, in front of my friends, in a parking lot when I refused his request to move to the curb. #stoptheviolence — Shaun King (@ShaunKing) September 28, 2014 - -The San Diego County Sheriff's Department issued an update last month on the investigation into the death of 32-year-old homeless man Kelly Thomas, who died in December 2010 after being pushed by officers and handcuffed for several hours. The investigation found that Thomas could possibly have died as a result of a lack of air, but that other factors were "considered."<|endoftext|>I got a lot of good pictures, you can clearly tell this is a new game. The developers say they are still working on it, so it shouldn't be too long before it is finally released. My favorite looks like this. And you can also see where the "B" and "D" keys are on the keyboard. Just awesome. - -I can't help but to think about how great it would be to play this with my nephew. - -The game will cost just 5$.<|endoftext|>"My own father has never known war. My father went into the war to defend my homeland and is now dead for it. My father is dead because of a war. But I am not dead because my people are dead. My family is dead because I was exiled. This is my home, this is the sea we all shared. My people are dead because I have been exiled. This is my home because you exiled my people from it! Your war destroyed my motherland! There is no place for me here! I am gone. I am dead. It is this city I am afraid of now that I cannot walk to. It is this home I am now a fugitive in. It is all these places I have been banished from! It is this place, the home I have been exiled from. It is my home because you are afraid of it!" - -The first-person account of -======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== -I read an article today that says that the Chinese have an official "10-foot" rule — that's as tall as women in China can be without being considered promiscuous. In fact, one reporter who saw something recently in a Chinese shopping mall told me that, when he first got into China, an American man at a department store remarked to him that the Americans look like kids in a toy store. - -And on a related note: This is why China hasn't yet legalized gay marriages …<|endoftext|>The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released the results of a report stating that while the United States continues to lead the developed world, it lacks the skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace. - -The 2015 Global Competitiveness Report finds that the United States continues to be the world's premier economy, even though the job market for younger Americans has not fully recovered from the downturn. The country's economy has become more competitive since the 1970s and has held onto its lead since the Great Recession. The country is now the world's number one destination for international business. - -According to the report, more than 20 percent of U.S. workers lack the necessary skill sets for global competitiveness. And, the U.S. has lagged behind other highly sophisticated countries, which have been moving into the high-skill service industry, while remaining in the technology sector. - -"This report has made a critical contribution to our understanding of the global economy and the drivers behind its emergence," said Klaus Schwab, Chair of the WEF's Executive Committee. "There is much to be concerned about, as a country like the US, where so many individuals work in the service sector, needs to become more competitive. However, this should not be viewed as a challenge in any way." - -However, the report notes that, given the size of the U.S. economy, the gap between our ability to lead the industrial race and our need for talent to meet that demand is becoming wider each year. - -"Given our size, its economy and its diversity, the United States has an important role to play in reshaping the 21st century to better balance the needs of business and society," said Klaus Schwab. "Today, many high-skilled, high-productive jobs are not accessible to those who are not native English speakers or native speakers of another language." - -And in addition to those challenges, it is also necessary to focus U.S. efforts in those key strategic regions where opportunities are limited, such as emerging economies. The report notes that the United States must ensure that it remains competitive, in part, by ensuring that its own economic prosperity does not put unnecessary downward pressure on the international competitiveness of other countries. - -"Global business and business leaders, including President Obama, need to invest more in areas like education and training, innovation, trade and foreign investment, in an effort to build a world-class economy that will sustain America's global leadership," noted Klaus Schwab, - -Read the complete report here.<|endoftext|>A new report out of the National Institutes of Health shows that the majority of the population is affected by a lack of exercise and a lack of exercise is related to a poor outlook on life. The NIH study, which is based on data gathered in the 2005 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey shows that just over 60% of the population lacks enough physical activity each week. Of that group, just over 40% believe having less than 3 hours of exercise a week is sufficient. - -The report also indicated that, when it comes to health, there are several different aspects to fitness, all of which involve varying amounts of exercise for a different number of total hours a week. Of the factors associated with better or worse health, the primary factors were diet and exercise. For example, obesity may be a factor in some cases of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular disease. Additionally, in those ages 20-44, physical activity was correlated with a better outlook on life. Those with a greater amount of daily physical activity had a lower incidence of depressive symptoms, a lower rate of smoking, and lower likelihood of using multiple sources of tobacco, such as cigars and pipes. - -Exercise can also make a difference in terms of life expectancy in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men in the United States who participate in regular fitness exercise are 30% less likely to die sooner than men who do not engage in such exercise. Men who are active at least two times a week, or 150 minutes of exercise per week, are more likely to live an additional 11 years than their inactive counterparts. Of course, for the average person who is active, it is difficult to determine the exact percentages and the numbers, but it is safe to say that it is time to take steps towards being more active and fit for the 21st century. - -Source: The Washington Post - -Photo Source: Flickr/Penny Tackett - -undefined<|endoftext|>A former "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant who says she was sexually -======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== -In her first full day as mayor, Lorne Bozinoff was greeted by a long line that stretched down a sidewalk in front of the city hall building. - -This comes on the heels of the announcement that Bozinoff has been selected as the new chief in charge of policing. - -Bozinoff, a former RCMP officer, was appointed Winnipeg's first-ever chief of police early last month. Bozinoff, 44, told CBC News he's looking forward to working with city hall, the community and residents across the city going forward. - -He said he has the mandate to implement a strategic plan to ensure Winnipeg stays safe. He noted that the City of Winnipeg's annual Police and Fire Information (PFI) report indicates there were nearly 658 homicides and almost 2,800 non-fatality firearm incidents in 2015. - -"It is not just a crime prevention report, it's about public safety," Bozinoff said. "It's making sure every person is safe living in our city." - -Winnipeg's police department has been at the centre of a recent controversy. - -A report released by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director in late May revealed that officers inappropriately searched two people in 2013, and then "improperly detained" and "abusive" force was used against a third person. - -Bozinoff said he's working on building a police culture that is "professionalized, transparent, accountable," as a result, of the decision. - -Bozinoff noted that the Independent Police Review Director's report was "not the entire picture." - -He said he is also looking at the recommendations in the PFI report. - -"The report suggests, and I share those, this type of information has never been kept confidential in the past," he added. - -In his letter of acceptance on Tuesday, Bozinoff also thanked the city for the honour of the appointment, saying it was one of the greatest things he's done in his professional life. - -The Manitoba Police Association (MPA) and the Professional Association for Public Safety Management (PasMP) were pleased to accept Bozinoff's appointment. The union said they recognize what is a challenging time to be an officer at the Winnipeg Police Service with the recent announcement concerning the hiring of Chief Mark Saunders. - -"We hope that Mr. Bozinoff's efforts will be welcomed by the members," said MPA spokesman Dave Selby. - -He said the membership also hopes to be part of the decisions made in regards to hiring the Chief's replacement. - -PasMP president and CEO Tom Longmire said the decision was made in consultation with members, and that he hoped Bozinoff will "lead on these major issues, and make sure we keep Winnipeg safe for everyone." - -'It's a huge job' - -Bozinoff said he has been spending some time with the MPA and is already engaged in conversations he hopes will help inform the process surrounding the future of the Winnipeg Police Service. - -He told CBC News he also has spoken with Chief Saunders in the past few days. - -"I've had a chance to sit down with Chief Saunders to talk about what to do," Bozinoff said. "It's not something I'm surprised, he and I have talked about the same things we've talked about for years, how do we get back on track with our police force and keep Winnipeg safe." - -Bozinoff is a police officer from Prince Albert, Sask. - -Bozinoff said he doesn't plan on going too far off-track in the search for a Police Services Board of Review that will run for three or four years and look into police disciplinary action. - -"I think it's a big job at a big time, [The Chief is] going to need it as well," said Bozinoff. He added that he understands the frustration with the board being appointed in the first place, after a process that has been riddled with controversy, and now with the appointment of his selection. - -As for the future, Bozinoff emphasized that he does not expect the Winnipeg Police Service to shrink. He said he's going to go on the offensive and not shrink the police division. - -"I'm a policeman, I want the Winnipeg Police Service to stay strong, strong and healthy for the residents in Winnipeg," said Bozinoff.<|endoftext|>Rudolf Vrba, son of the notorious dictator Ferdinand von Habsburg, escaped to Italy in 1943 when the Nazis demanded his extradition, only to be betrayed and executed in the same year. - -"To me, he is a hero who served his God, his family and the country," said Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Turin, who met the 92-year-old in the Vatican on Saturday to mark the 30th anniversary of Vrba's capture and escape from a Nazi detention camp. "Vrba is -======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== -Criminal Justice, Guns and Public Safety - -Share Email This Article - -By: Jay Tischmeyer - -A new report released Monday by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress (CAP) details the disproportionate impact that mass incarceration has on people of color and poor people throughout the United States, and argues that lawmakers should be listening less to lobby groups that represent the interests of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. - -"The criminal justice system has the greatest racial disparities of any major system of punishment in the United States, impacting African-American males in particular, whose chances of becoming a future offender are over six times greater than those of white men," according to a report released Monday by the Center for American Progress (CAP), titled "A National Public Safety Challenge: How Mass Incarceration Affects Racial Disparities in Crime and Inequality." - -The report analyzed data on U.S. crime rates from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which breaks down crime statistics based on where each crime took place in terms of geographic area, state, and race. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of law enforcement agencies rose from roughly 300 to almost 3,000, which increased the overall number of crimes reported in the country by more than 800 percent. - -The report found that of all the crimes that occurred in 2002, half took place in just four states: California, Florida, New York and Texas – and, the federal Bureau of Prisons' Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 2012, those four states held approximately half of all prisoners in the United States. - -Over the last three decades – which saw a sharp increase in the federal prison system from about 30,000 prisoners in 1980 to about 370,000 inmates in 2012 – the ratio of black men to white men in state prisons has increased nearly seven-fold – from 1.5 to six to one over the three decades. - -"From a criminal justice perspective, mass incarceration has contributed to a massive increase in both rates of incarceration and recidivism relative to white men," according to the report.<|endoftext|>The White House has announced the naming of four new ambassadors to the United Nations in the days ahead of the General Assembly's first high-level engagement between the Trump administration and the United Nations (UN). - -Two of the nominees – Ambassador Keith Harper of the UK and Ambassador Daniel Rubinstein of Israel – have served as ambassadors in their countries during the past decade, while Ambassador Anne Patterson – President Trump's pick to serve as United States Permanent Representative to the UN – is the first openly-LGBT ambassador to ever be nominated for such a position. - -"The United Nations and its work are vital to our nation's security and prosperity, as well as its moral compass. As a result, it is absolutely critical that the UN be properly funded and that it be a place where nations are judged on what they achieve, rather than what they inflict," Trump told the United Nations General Assembly at his first address to the world body since becoming president last Friday. - -"We look forward to making America proud and doing everything in our power to help achieve that goal through the support of our friends and allies." - -According to the Office of Government Ethics, all White House nominees must sign a "Statement of Official Residence," which declares that the person seeking the job has, "willfully violated federal, state or local laws in order to obtain or retain employment, or to obtain or retain employment for a spouse." - -The White House has not yet released a copy of the statement outlining the reason for the candidate's employment violation. - -Harper has served as ambassador to the UN in New York. He has also served as permanent representative to the UN for Canada after serving in the office since 2011. In his nomination form, Harper acknowledged that he had made "significant mistakes" related to the handling of personal funds. - -"The UN was supposed to have no business involving private dollars. I have apologized for this error and for causing pain to others," Harper said in the report. - -Harper also told the Senate on Monday that "when I became ambassador to the UN in 2005, it was established that we would never again receive any money from the United Nations unless it was explicitly approved at the highest levels of the government of Canada." - -Harper's confirmation process was delayed for several months so he could undergo a medical exam related to a pre-existing heart condition. Harper underwent the screening on November 30. He was unanimously approved by the Senate on January 15. - -Harper later joined Ambassador-at-Large Ben Rhodes' team as the top political adviser and speechwriter for White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon when the two formed part of the so-called 'Reign of the Realists' within President George W. Bush's administration during the first months of the new administration. - -Despite the rocky start, Harper later helped the White House create the political strategy framework to successfully push legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare during the Obama administration, as well as working -======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== -DARPA (DoD) wants to bring to life a system that would monitor and analyze a person's heart rate, breathing rate and gait to determine how long they have left in the world. - -The agency, in a solicitation issued Monday, said the system would require an array of sensors to track a person's biometrics to see how the body responds to external stimuli and could be used on someone who has suffered brain injuries. It could also be used for medical care including the assessment of a stroke victim who could die from the illness without prompt treatment. - -The system would be able to track a person's pulse and the rate of his heart rate while that person is still a living thing, which the solicitation says allows DARPA "to measure the health of a wounded warrior before, during, and after an organ transplant." It could also also be used to find out where soldiers are likely to be hit or to track their movements while on active duty. - -The solicitation's description of the system suggests that DARPA is thinking not just about people with disabilities, but also those in the military who are wounded. It describes how current technology can be used to track the health of a soldier who has been wounded or, worse, killed. But the solicitation states: - -When a soldier is wounded and unable to communicate, current technology cannot provide a reliable assessment of the physiological and psychological effects of a traumatic brain injury on the soldier. This is due to the complex interaction between a soldier's cognitive, physical and mental health. Therefore, DARPA is developing a neuroprosthetics system to enable a soldier to communicate without loss of conscious functions and with more clarity and accuracy. The system is capable of recording the soldier's pulse and the rate of his heart. Based on the soldier's behavioral and physiological data, it can use those data to monitor the soldier's brain activity, and thereby predict the soldiers' risk of brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), if present. - -However, the solicitation doesn't say if the system used on wounded veterans would also provide the kind of data that the system could use for tracking injured civilians. - -The agency has been working on systems like this for more than a decade, according to its 2013 annual report. But in recent years, its efforts to develop tools for detecting cyberthreats and combatting diseases such as depression has taken precedence, DARPA said in a blog post at the end of 2013. The agency said that DARPA has a "growing body of experience" in developing ways to quantify the effects of brain injury in combat veterans. - -Do you think this kind of technology would benefit civilians? Sound off in the comments. - -Image: DARPA<|endoftext|>(Reuters Health) - Most people with type 2 diabetes aren't getting the medication they need because of lack of insurance or a lack of funding to pay for medications, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Diabetes Care. - -The study's authors found that more than half of people in the United States with type 2 diabetes had no private insurance that covers insulin, the synthetic form of a hormone that regulates blood sugar, while 18 percent were living in states without Medicaid funding for treatment. While many people are eligible for coverage in employer-sponsored health plans, the study authors said a lack of access means many more people don't get the care they need for long periods of time. - -"There aren't sufficient programs in place to cover diabetes adequately," said lead author R. Jeffrey Wright, an assistant professor with Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. - -A lack of treatment can cause higher, more frequent blood sugar levels, which can lead to long-term complications such as blindness, hearing loss and kidney problems, all of which are more common in people with diabetes than in the general population. - -The study authors, however, caution that the findings are generalizable to people with type 2 diabetes and should not be used to suggest that people with the disease are not entitled to the same care that people without the disease get. In particular, the study authors said they want to emphasize that the findings need to be followed up with data on diabetes treatment in people with type 2 diabetes, which could change or narrow the study's findings if more people are treated. - -Type 2 diabetes was first recognized in the 1950s as a disease related to obesity and has become more prevalent in the United States in recent decades thanks to high rates of obesity and weight gain among people with type 2 diabetes. In 2007, 31 percent of U.S. adults with type 2 diabetes were obese, according to the U.S. government. - -Insulin is used a standard insulin pump to take insulin in and deliver it to the cells in the body where it must be broken down into its components. The pump requires a prescription, but people can get a discount if they meet certain criteria, such as living at a low income or having a limited number of doctors who prescribe medication regularly. - -The insulin treatment researchers studied was one used to -======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== -The number of people displaced from their homes by Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 3,071 with around 300 injured and 50 critically wounded according to information provided to the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights under the protection of UN Security Council Resolution 2334. - -It was previously reported that 963 Palestinian homes had been destroyed and over 1,000 seriously damaged by Israel's aggression on the Gaza Strip. - -The Al-Mezan Center recently visited areas in Gaza where Israeli attacks are ongoing as an Israeli warplane fired several munitions against residential homes and residential areas on Tuesday 29 –31 October. The first report of injured people being treated at Gaza Hospital (Hospital of the Al-Nasser Hospital) came from the Al-Nasser Hospital when Al-Mezan received information that Israeli planes bombed a number of homes and residential areas in Rafah, Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shujaa and Al-Ras. - -"Such brutal attacks on the civilian population demonstrate that the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are not only being carried out with the aim of achieving the siege on the coastal region, but also with the aim of ending peaceful demonstrations and defending settlers' illegal activities on Palestinian land," said Hanan Ashrawi, Chairperson of the Palestinian National Initiative. - -"This is a clear violation of the internationally recognized rules and regulations of armed conflict," she emphasized. - -For her part, Hanan Ashrawi spoke of the need for urgent action by the international community to demand the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2382 (2009), which calls upon Israel to end its aggression against the Palestinian people. This resolution calls on Israel to stop all its military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the expansion of the settlements and other aggressive operations which are aimed at the expansion and consolidation of Israel's hegemony in occupied Palestinian land and at the annexation of Jerusalem. The resolution also calls upon Israel to stop its aggression against Palestinian civilians. - -During meetings with government officials in Washington, D.C., and Sweden, Hanan Ashrawi stressed that this is an international issue that requires international action. - -"We call on the international community. The United Nations is in a strong position to intervene to stop that aggression in the most fundamental way and is the only forum that has the power to condemn this aggression and demand immediate and full compliance with international humanitarian law and human rights law," she said. - -Al-Mezan emphasizes, however, that the Palestinian leadership and the international community as well as the governments of the countries that finance Israeli warplanes in order to strengthen their political positions and to maintain their financial interests, are totally silent on the blatant violation of international humanitarian law perpetrated by Israel against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. This is because these countries continue to support Israel's policies of aggression against the Gaza Strip. This in turn puts international humanitarian law, the safety of the civilians, the right to self-determination, the principle of non-intervention and the right of the Palestinian people to their own state, at risk. - -The Al-Mezan Center also reported that as of Wednesday 31 October, the International Committee of the Red Cross had received information from the Gaza Strip of five killed and nine critically injured people since the beginning of the Israeli attacks on Gaza on 17 October. According to the ICRC in Jerusalem, the bodies of two of the five killed were recovered on the 31 October. It is also estimated that over 200 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,100 have sustained injuries since the beginning of the Israeli aggression, including dozens of children.<|endoftext|>1 Clean Ep. 615: The Story of the Diving Helmet On this episode, we take you inside the very first diving helmet, created by the Germans between 1916 and 1917. After the war, the world would later discover that there were more important innovations that changed the face of diving on land. We will reveal these... Free View in iTunes - -2 Clean Ep. 614: What Did Apollo Really Look Like? On this episode, we take a look inside the inside of the Apollo 11 moon ship, one of the most impressive artifacts from the Apollo program. Apollo 11 may be the most visited space-themed site in the U.S. today, but the truth is, it was... Free View in iTunes - -3 Clean Ep. 613: Inventing Spaceflight This week, we are talking to two pioneers of spaceflight, Alan Shepard and Mike Massimino. They spent an amazing amount of time, flying through a variety of rocket rockets and space equipment. Alan was the pilot with his... Free View in iTunes - -4 Clean Ep. 612: Astronauts Never Left The Ground On this episode, we take a quick look at how the men and women of America's space program managed to survive the dangers of their missions. We'll also take a look at a man who is a bit of a hero, even though he died young. His story may not... Free View in iTunes - -5 Clean Ep. -======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== -You've found yourself staring down the barrel of a new project. It's a complex process, one you aren't quite sure how to tackle, a task that will be difficult to complete. So, don't panic, there are plenty of different ways to make a project, even if it is a very complex and time consuming one. In this article we'll look at the various styles of web design, what they all have to offer and how they can be applied to a project of your very own. - -Aesthetic Style - -Web design begins with a solid foundation, a site that's been designed with the basic principles of the web in mind. From there, it gradually becomes ever more abstract, focusing more and more on the visuals and content that is available, instead of the underlying framework of the design. It might be more obvious this style of design than others, having a design similar to the homepage of an agency or a brand, but many designers can apply this style to almost anything on the web. - -It can work really well with text too, but there are a couple of things that always remain consistent with style such as typographical choices and colours, even if they're not particularly appealing. It's certainly the style that's most likely to attract internet trolls. - -I think I can speak for everyone when I say I love how it makes you think about the way things look and feel, instead of their actual functionality. It's pretty amazing how something as important as design can make that much of a difference. It really does seem that all that matters when it comes to web design is how it looks, rather than what it does in actuality. - -So, with a website designed with aesthetic styles in mind, let's examine what styles have to offer. - -1. Aesthetic Style - -First in our list of styles would be the aesthetic style which has many of the very same strengths as the previous aesthetic style. It will still be a good starting point and is well suited to most projects. - -The aesthetic style also has a good sense of balance. It's not just a big blob of text with no visual cues to help it read. There are usually strong visual cues that can help you understand where you're heading, such as the use of bold, italic and underlining in headlines, the use of color, use of photos and so on. You can also apply many of these style tricks to pages, whether it be the header, footer, content or whatever you happen to be working on, which helps with readability. - -2. Bright and Bold - -Bright and bold are very similar to the aesthetic style in terms of aesthetics and are, very simply put, the style you'll need if you are designing something bright. It is very similar to the aesthetic style in that its primary focus is on design, but it doesn't rely purely on aesthetics to deliver a clear message. Instead, you will likely be using bright and bold for different purposes, such as making information more visual (such as creating headlines and text descriptions) or creating contrast with similar looking information (such as inlining the bold or italic text of the header or image of the sidebar). - -It seems likely that it is more popular amongst freelancers. It is fairly simple and easy to get started with, so if you really enjoy designing websites with bright and bold typography, you should definitely give it a shot. - -3. Emphasizing Text - -Text is very much a crucial element in a lot of modern design. With a large content collection, you are always going to need more than one way to communicate it. A good design that is clear, compelling and effective means the right message needs to be communicated and conveyed in as few characters as possible. Emphasizing text definitely fits this bill. In design theory, it is referred to as a hierarchy of elements, and is defined as the arrangement and combination of the following elements: - -A title. The most important element, it is always first and gives a lot of information. - -Headers. Headers should contain the most important information, such as the title. - -Images. Images can often also be useful, as they have a way of displaying important information without needing extra text. - -Inline, or bold, text. If you want to make emphasis a bit more obvious, you can use bold text around it. - -4. Use Typography to Improve Information Design - -Typography can be defined in many different ways depending on the designer, but it basically refers to the design of typefaces in particular. It will generally involve designing with a particular typeface or using one, especially the sans serif typefaces, in a particular way. - -One of the best ways to use typography has been illustrated by the designers behind Slice, a website that used typefaces to deliver information much better than a lot of web designers used in the past, such as the dreaded Google Search page. The Slice site was great in terms -======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== -Rice University researchers have developed a way to track individual genes using a small device that can be implanted in the body and transmit genetic information wirelessly. - -The chip works like a tiny wireless transmitter, sending signals between cell and DNA at a rate of 100 million signals per second. The information can be analyzed in real time to provide the opportunity to learn more about the human genome. - -"This is a real breakthrough for the future of bioinformatics, because it's the ability to analyze the genome with unprecedented speed and accuracy," said James Rothman, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and co-author of the study published in the journal Current Biology. - -The data the chip receives is translated into a form that can be displayed on a screen, allowing patients to monitor their gene activity within minutes. In contrast, it typically takes up to one month for a blood test to get back a complete report of genetic activity, even when a sample is taken within 24 hours of an illness's manifestation. - -Because the sensor is small, it is easy to implant and can be surgically implanted into the body. It also does not require external power for data transmission, thus reducing the need for batteries and power cords, according to the researchers. - -Currently the chip works with human DNA, but can be easily adapted to work with other types of genetic material. That capability would potentially be especially helpful to medical researchers studying the genetics of different diseases. - -Rothman co-authored the paper with Yi Chen, a Rice research associate in the Department of electrical engineering and computer science; Mingming Xu and Yuan Wu, both currently at the University of California, Berkeley; and Xiaolin Yang, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. - -In 2011, the National Science Foundation supported the research, which was a collaboration between researchers at Rice; UC Berkeley; UC San Francisco; Columbia University; the University of Pennsylvania, and University of Cambridge - Britain.<|endoftext|>For some time now, I've been searching for a product or service that will enable me to build a custom, high-performance, open architecture in the cloud at scale and for a fraction of the cost of the other options. I've spent many days researching different solutions, but all have come up short. - -Today, I'm sharing a new product that I think is the perfect solution for this particular problem. Built in a month by a small startup out of Australia, with a small team, their technology allows developers to build cloud applications in a way that is both efficient and scalable with the least amount of effort. - -I've been using the technology for the last six weeks. As you'll see from the video above, the application is currently being used at my company, The Humble Bundle to deliver a product line of products. My team is running it at a few hundred apps and games and so far we've been able to deliver high performance and a stable, high scalability infrastructure. Our application runs on three high-end Amazon EC2 instances, each with 40 Core i7 processors and 8TB of RAM. I've never had so much computing power to work with in a single instance before. - -One of the challenges in open architecture is that it's tough to have many instances of the same component in multiple datacenters in two or more countries. In the past, we've used an IBM NSX controller in multiple instances. We've had it for 4 or 5 years, and have grown accustomed to the amount of effort required to manage multiple clusters. We found that we were losing compute time and power in these environments, which was costing us tens of thousands of dollars a month. - -Using an open architecture with three open EC2 instances requires the application to be able to scale out across three datacenters, or a cluster, in less than 10 minutes. If the cluster size is too high, then you have a problem, so scaling out to a single node means that when you have to make the switch to this new cluster (for example, because of a failover), you are stuck for six hours, which is also bad. - -The solution I ended up settling on is similar to OpenStack and it works really well and is a huge relief from having to constantly monitor and manage several nodes running several instances. - -Here's the product from the Australian company. - -https://blog.aussieopenstack.com.au/how-build-your-cloud-app-on-a-truck - -There's much more about the technology in the video than I'm allowed to discuss at the moment. It's a very compelling product, and I highly recommend you watch it: - -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_fW-1d1_w8 - -If they ever launch it commercially, the cost would be incredibly small for developers (or anyone planning on building a cloud application).<|endoftext|>A man was arrested Friday on suspicion of setting fire to at least five cars -======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== -"The problem is that we now live in a country where a majority thinks that the government can do whatever they want. That has never been our country. Our Founders' principles are the best way to run a country." – President Barack Obama - -"Our national security structure depends on the loyalty of our people, especially those who defend America: Our men and women in uniform. That loyalty is what keeps America safe. Without that, we'd have no national security or safety protections like FISA, Patriot Act, etc … Without trust at the top, everything else falls apart." – James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence - -"We must know what we know. But to the world at large, we do not." – Barack Obama - -"If this war were a man, this commander would be a woman and not a man." – Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of US forces in Afghanistan - -"The more we're forced to confront the fact that these [terrorist groups] have been here in our country forever … the more they've become like us. Like us, in their minds, with their history, their culture, their economy. And that's a very, very difficult thing to get at." – President Barack Obama, in a 2011 address on US strategies in the Middle East - -"[N]ot long after the American flag was raised, a bunch of guys dressed in the uniforms of our military went marching in a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the cold, rain, sleet and mist that turned the day into a day of mourning." – President Barack Obama - -"We will not give up our values or our freedoms until you give up your fear." – President Obama, September 2013 - -"The last enemy the United States of America faces is not Al Qaeda and its associated forces. It is a terrorist network that has killed and wounded thousands of innocent people. It must be defeated, wherever it exists." – Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 2010 - -"[A U.S.] counterterrorism strategy requires a persistent effort against al Qaeda and its affiliates. But a strategic mindset is not sufficient by itself." – President Obama, 2010 speech - -"For years, we have tried to make sense of the contradictions inherent to our war on terrorism. Some critics of U.S. policies have argued that we are waging a war against Islam, and that the war is based on religious faith. But the reality is that our war against terror begins with the reality of 9/11. That's why I believe we have to admit, in a national dialogue, the fundamental truth – our war is not a war against Islam, but a war against violent extremism." – President Barack Obama, January 2011 - -"We cannot and should not allow the promotion of a false choice between our security and our values." – President Barack Obama, May 2010 - -"This president is not the commander in chief of this military. This president is just the commander in chief of this military. He is accountable for what he does in the military. I am accountable for what I tell all of my men and women in uniform, when they get out on the battlefield." – Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - -"Those who would sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of safety, would have sacrificed this country years ago." – President Barack Obama, 2011 speech in Cairo, Egypt - -"We will not abandon our principles, or waver in our quest to combat terrorism abroad, or to protect our society from new terrorists the way we used to do it at home." – President Barack Obama, May 2010 - -These sentiments have been echoed by Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, notably Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) - -"It is not time to give up the fundamental values that make this country the greatest in the world." – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) - -"To the leaders in [Iran], you have a fundamental choice to make. They could make the right decision by ending their support for terrorism, recognizing the rights of all people in this world, rejecting intimidation and isolation, and by living up to their obligations as signatories to this deal. Or, they could continue on their path to an ever-growing nuclear weapons capability. This deal is not good for Iran. It is not good for the United States and I hope that their leaders understand that and make the right decision soon." – Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), letter to Iran's leaders, July 2015 - -"We as a nation will always do what we need to do to defend ourselves, but you shouldn't do what you need to do to defend us if you are not in this country legally." – U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), to Mexican drug cartels - -In the United States, however, most people appear to be willing to suspend most of the core democratic principles upon which this country was founded. - -A 2016 Pew -======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== -The video of the woman on the bus is now a viral sensation. Her actions, taken in her own words on video, have raised awareness for child sexual abuse and spurred discussion for sexual assault prevention. - -According to officials with the Winnipeg Police Service, the woman was a passenger on a northbound bus on Friday morning when she noticed a man masturbating behind the doors. - -The woman boarded the bus at approximately 9:20 a.m. and took a seat near the back. The woman says the door between the two seats is open and anyone could have walked in. - -A woman got up and looked behind the seats and observed a man leaning on one of the seats with his crotch exposed, while masturbating. (Winnipeg Police Service) The woman got up and looked behind the seats in front of her and observed a man leaning on one of the seats with his groin exposed, while masturbating. - -When the bus arrived at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Pembina Highway, the woman attempted to leave but she was refused service. Police say a video that came to light Monday shows the woman asking why she wasn't being served. - -Police say no charges have been laid in connection with the incident that day. - -'Not okay.'<|endoftext|>Derek Jeter is in discussions to coach the American junior team for the World Baseball Classic, an informal announcement the Yankees confirmed today. Jeter has not yet accepted but is expected to do so shortly. - -The Yankees have not officially announced the selection of Jeter for the team but have confirmed that he has had a series of conversations with team officials. - -"We've had some very preliminary talks with Derek," A.J. Burnett said today. "It would be great if we got some of those done today -- probably before we head out to camp. We'll see what happens. Obviously, he would be an exceptional coach and he would fit perfectly with a team like we have here." - -Burnett said he spoke with John Farrell earlier today and discussed the possibility of being the manager of Jeter's team. Farrell is now considered a front-runner to be the manager of the American team. - -The American team, which will be announced in May, will participate in the WBC in March. - -Burnett said the only current Yankees coaches with experience coaching the National team are the current bench coach Joe Girardi and the manager Joe Girardi. - -"I think the question is whether Derek will actually accept [being the manager]," Burnett said. - -Jeter told Burnett over the phones that he likes the idea of coaching. - -On Friday, Burnett was in New York to attend Jeter's annual game with the New York Yankees against the Red Sox. When Burnett arrived to the airport, he says his cell phone ran dead so he went to the airport. He says Jeter called him from the airport and told him to come on over and have a seat. - -"Derek was calling me and said, 'I would love to talk to you,' " Burnett said. - -[Also: MLB Network to stream MLB playoffs games] - -In 2005, Jeter was named manager of the national team in the first WBC, which he managed. He has coached and coached well at the MLB level, including leading the Yankees to the division title in 2010 by winning 12 of the first 15 games of the season. - -A native of Jamaica, Jeter is a native of the Bronx and owns a professional baseball player's image. - -[Also: Yankees' David Robertson signs extension with the Astros] - -There is speculation that the Yankees might select another Major League Baseball player: catcher Jorge Posada. - -Posada will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season so will have a window for teams to sign him. - -"Jays" are the team name the Yankees have adopted since 2007 and are their "official mascot," according to the team's site. - -The team's official Web site reads: - -The "Jays" logo is a logo inspired by the famous "Jays' Ball" logo used by the St. Louis Cardinals during their first Major League season in 1905, and its trademarked by Major League Baseball. - -Originally, the baseball team that would one day become the New York Yankees was the "Washington Senators" which was formed in Boston in 1909, playing in the American Association. In 1910, it became the original Senators, becoming the first American professional team to adopt a "home field" moniker. - -In 1933, the Washington Senators moved to Boston, where they played until 1948, when Boston had to move its team due to stadium construction. In the late 1940s, the league merged with the American League and by the end of 1951 had renamed itself the American League West, creating the division of the Texas Rangers and the Oakland Athletics in 1967. - -The Rangers moved to Texas in 2012, as did the Athletics (as well as the team in -======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== -The US is considering sending an additional 2,000 troops to Afghanistan as part of a force build-up, US military commanders have confirmed in the wake of the Taliban's recent resurgence. - -General John Nicholson, the senior commander of the US-led force in Afghanistan, said that an additional 1,000 or so troops could be sent in support of the Afghan security forces. - -"What we are doing now is to look at, we have all options on the table. We have no preference," Nicholson told reporters yesterday in London. - -The move comes after the Taliban have gained ground in several provinces across the country in recent weeks, having previously been unable to challenge the Afghan armed forces in significant areas. - -According to a BBC report, the Taliban has now captured more ground in the northern province of Kunduz and has gained ground in the south, especially in Helmand province. - -Speaking at the Nato Summit in Brussels, Nicholson said: "As we move from the drawdown of US forces into a position where we are looking at the possibility of an increase of troops that the president has said we could do, we are talking about the ability to go into a location to support Afghan security forces – but how much more can we do and how much more are going to be possible is something that we have to think about." - -According to the report, the US and the British are weighing the possibility of sending in a total of approximately 3,000 or 4,000 troops to Afghanistan. At present, the US-led forces control around 13,000 troops in Afghanistan. - -The general went on to say that while such a troop increase is being discussed, "the president has not committed to any particular number of additional troops". - -However, the presence of even a smaller number of troops is seen by some in the US as the next logical step in Washington's planned draw down. - -It was reported in November that the White House's plans for an additional 3,000 US troops for Afghanistan would see "around 400" of those troops be sent into Helmand, which is a key battleground in the country's civil war. - -In a speech on Sunday, President Donald Trump outlined plans to add another 10,000 troops to the US forces in Afghanistan. - -Trump said the US would not "wait" but would "fight to win" in Afghanistan. During the speech at Fort Myer, Virginia, he also repeated his position that the US will continue providing "condescending" support in the form of air strikes and other support, in the fight against Islamic State. - -The US military previously deployed between 25,000 and 35,000 troops to Afghanistan from 2002 to early 2015. Around 8,400 troops are still in Afghanistan as of February 2017. Nicholson said that the US would be open to discussing the future US level of support for Afghan security forces. - -During his remarks on Sunday, Trump stressed that "we are going to keep going to Afghanistan, but we're going to win." - -The US commander has previously confirmed that the US will continue to increase its troop levels, with a proposed increase of 8,400 troops coming to the table to discuss. This would not go ahead despite Trump's pledge to the NATO summit.<|endoftext|>The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. - -If we know anything about the history of the American West, we can say this: the frontier was often the great equalizer of races and peoples. - -In the first decades of the American republic, the idea of racial equality was rejected by the government of the United States as immoral, dangerous, illegitimate, and unworthy of existence, while slavery prevailed in the South. - -In 1796, John Adams stated bluntly that: "In the opinion of the vast majority of mankind, the Negro race is immeasurably inferior to the Caucasian." - -While the United States did not become a multi-racial society by the act of national will and legislation, the attitudes of the colonial governors and agents, whether they were loyal colonists or not, are evidence of a prevailing and growing sentiment that saw and saw fit to see blacks as subhuman. In fact, as long as the nation existed, it was more likely that blacks would be enslaved in the North than in the South. - -What kind of place was the American West? - -The Western frontier was a frontier of sorts for the United States, and it differed from every other place in its geography, climate, resources, and the social conditions to which it held its inhabitants. - -The American Frontier - -In the late 18th Century, most people could not have imagined that a population of Europeans would one day live beyond the boundaries of New England. Indeed, even at the time of the first settlement of this continent by Europeans, it was widely perceived that these people were barbarians. - -The earliest maps of the region showed no visible trace of the great river system that we all know, and few Europeans imagined -======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== -BELGRADE, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Serbian authorities have arrested six Serbian and one Croatian youth and charged three local Roma leaders in a Roma "mob" assault on the chief of a Roma settlement near Belgrade last Wednesday. - -Police spokesman Vjollca Mrakic said the authorities arrested the youths aged 13 to 14. Two were Serbians and two Bosnians. She said three others were Serb, one Bosnian and one Croatian and had arrived in Serbia earlier this year. - -Mrakic said they had been charged with mob assault. (Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by Louise Ireland)<|endoftext|>It's not as big as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon, but the world's largest rock face has been unveiled in China. - -The wall in Nanhu, China in the central province of Hunan, is a 1.2 km-high (0.91 miles - 0.4 miles) wall made of volcanic rock that rises more than one kilometer above its ground. The wall has stood for thousands of years, and some parts have eroded completely away. - -The wall was built by workers who had to dig through mud and rocks. Some walls in the area still contain traces of the construction, including the rock wall in front of the Nanhu Palace, which can be seen today. - -To make the wall, workers dug through a mountain of mud at high temperatures and pressure, creating a layer of volcanic rock on top of the mud, which made for a tough and very slippery rock surface. Then, workers brought in heavy machinery and put a lid over the whole construction to keep sand and mud out of the construction site. - -In total, 1.22 km-high wall was built, and its walls stand at over 10 meters high. The Nanhu Wall has been standing since the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) and was used for many centuries, but no one knows the exact dates of when it was built first. - -Experts had thought that the wall must have been built by workers on site for millennia, since the wall is still there today. The wall is not as impressive as the Great Wall of China, which is a nearly 2.8 km (1.8 miles - 1/4 mile) high structure constructed using limestone. - -The Great Wall of China has stood for more than four thousand years and now has an incredible population of over 700,000. The Nanhu Wall is less impressive when it comes to its height, since it stands around two kilometers. However, it offers tourists a spectacular view for a few hours and is probably still better as an attraction than the Great Wall.<|endoftext|>The city has a unique reputation as one of the most racially diverse cities in the nation, ranking No. 3 overall for white population, No. 3 for Asian residents, No. 4 for Hispanic residents and No. 1 for black residents. But now some residents are speaking out about a lack of safety problems. - -"We're getting the same old routine with officers," said Deidre Walker, a 37-year-old black mother who lives on Longwood Terrace. She was referring to calls from officers who she and her children have had with residents. - -Walker was one of the protesters during the "Day Without a Woman" protests that started Tuesday, in which about 250 women called for an end to discrimination against women in the workplace and in the family court system. - -"We know that there are a lot of black kids that are getting bullied because they're black, and they have to go to schools where they're getting harassed by some kids who look like them," Walker said. - -The protests came a day after a police officer shot a dog in East Baltimore, killing it. Officers who responded to the incident said the dog had jumped on the car of Officer William Porter, 32, who was inside trying to help the man in the car. - -A spokeswoman for the police department said the circumstances of the shooting were under investigation by the state attorney's office. - -The department also is investigating reports that police in West Baltimore arrested the wrong man at least four times in the past two weeks, according to news accounts. Police records show officers made arrests in seven of those cases on Monday, according to news reports. Three of the arrests were in the 8th District, between North and Pennsylvania avenues. - -City residents say the department has not improved its response to violence in the city, particularly the killings of black men by police officers over the past two years and a rising pace of shootings and robberies. They also complain that the department is not doing enough to stop violence in neighborhoods where they live. - -"It's been an ongoing and worsening problem," said Walker, whose family moved from Alabama into an apartment complex in East Baltimore two years ago. - -Walker said she has been called by officers a number of times in recent months or weeks, but the calls have become more frequent after the killing of Terrell "Woody" Johnson. -======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== -Lets say that there are 2 people in a relationship. One of them works and is making more than the other one. Which one of them goes to the bank and asks for his money? - -I would personally say that the person with the greater net worth should ask first in order to prove to her friend that he really does want to pay off his debt. - -It's almost a double standard. I would never feel that a woman who is just out of a job feels the need to ask her male friend for money. We would rather pay off our debt and save our future. - -Well, maybe I can see her point. - -And you should not be asking her friend for money either, you should just go ahead and pay off the debt yourself and save yourself the burden of having to pay off her friend's debt too.<|endoftext|>A new report shows the gap between rich and poor in Canada had narrowed for the first time in nearly eight years in the first quarter of 2012, Statistics Canada said Friday. - -The agency also said the percentage of Canada's population that earns more than $100,000 a year fell to a post-recession low in 2012. - -The agency said its estimates, based on new data from Statistics Canada, show there were 3.2 million households in Ontario with average debt loads of more than $150,000 in January, up 23 per cent from 2008. - -"Despite the overall decline in overall debt levels, households in the top-third of the income distribution saw their wealth increase," the report says. - -The trend is in addition to the trend seen in the United States and Europe, the agency said. - -The report's authors were unable to say if the trend reflects a decline in poverty, or is linked both to the recession's financial pressures and to rising incomes due to the gains in housing prices. - -Budget 2008 set a goal of reducing the country's debt-to-gross national income ratio to 35 per cent by 2015, which is now at 30.7 per cent. At that debt-to-gross national income ratio, total debt equals gross domestic product. - -The report also cites the economic rebound from 2008 to 2009 and the 2008-09 global financial crisis as causes of the change. - -There is also good news for Canadians who want to retire earlier.<|endoftext|>The first time I tried to install Windows 10 Insider Preview, I was greeted by a message telling me I was a developer on a special build that didn't allow my normal "normal" settings. After that, every time I tried, I was warned that some kind of patch is coming to bring my PC, or computer, into the Windows 10 "mature" stage. - -I thought, this is some kind of scam. But since I am a Windows fan and user, it didn't bother me very much; Microsoft doesn't give up its customers easily. - -Windows 10 Insider Preview for PC and Mobile is a preview build for Windows 10, to get a sneak peek and try out new things that won't be the main focus of the official Windows 10 release. - -I was lucky, though, because when my PC arrived in a nice blue box, with a pre-loaded version of Windows 10, I immediately installed Windows Insider Preview for PC and Mobile. I can only hope that the same will happen with the next version of Windows. - -So here we go, then: Microsoft is rolling out new build number 16199 of Windows 10 Enterprise for desktop and Mobile. And this time, it will include a lot of bug fixes and some improvements. - -To see Windows 10 build 16199 for PC and Mobile, click on this link. - -We'll start with the basics. As we said when previewing build 14926 in December 2015, the biggest change with Windows 10 Enterprise is that it won't be a full Windows 10 release. Instead, Windows Server 2016 will be the main release. But this time, not only Desktop users will have Windows Server, Mobile and IoT are getting Windows 10 Enterprise too. - -As of today, Windows 10 Enterprise build 16199 does not include any significant changes. That means it is essentially a version of Windows 10 for Enterprise users; it hasn't been updated since Windows 10 SP1 was released in July 2015. What does it contain, though? - -New Windows 10 features - -Windows 10 has four major categories of features: - -Windows 10 Mobile features like mobile messaging, calendar, apps or games. - -Windows Phone 10 features like the phone interface and apps. - -Windows 10 IoT features like the Microsoft Edge browser and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. - -Windows 10 PC features like the start menu and taskbar, and the Control Panel. - -While Windows 10 Mobile's features are important, we are mostly thinking about their desktop-like user interfaces in this article. - -Windows 10 Mobile updates will be coming from Windows Update - -Windows 10 Mobile will continue to receive updates from Windows Update; -======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== -What is this book? - -'No-Sleepers' is a unique hybrid thriller/horror anthology. Each book is written by an author, and is an original collection of stories. 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection' is an e-book that includes the stories of the original authors with a full-color, professionally-illustrated cover and a unique bookmark. - -What is 'The Complete Collection'? - -The e-book contains all the stories published in 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection', and also includes the stories of the authors who contributed stories that were adapted for 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection', such as 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection: The First Year'. Other stories included in the e-book include the adaptations of 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection: The Second Year' and 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection: The Three Years'. - -What's in the e-book? - -The book contains: - -The full story collection 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection' - -A number of short stories from the first story collections 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection' and 'The Complete Collection' - -A full-color, professionally-illustrated cover and a unique bookmark that are available for purchase during the Kickstarter campaign - -How can I get my book or get a t-shirt? - -If you'd like to get your own copy of 'No-Sleepers: The Complete Collection', simply add the cost of your chosen reward tier to your pledge. - -You can then send us a private message on Kickstarter, pledging for a gift, if you'd like to request a t-shirt (no matter how much you'd like to pledge!) - -If you'd like 'No-Sleepers' signed by you, or you'd like to ask our authors what books they're currently reading, you can get in touch by sending us a private message on Kickstarter - -If you'd like to be a guest author in 'No-Sleepers' and get your name in the book or on Kickstarter, you must be able to support at least the following reward levels: - -$10 – First author guestauthor - -$15 – Second author guestauthor - -$20 – Third author guestauthor - -$25 – Fourth author guestauthor - -$30 – Fifth author guestauthor - -The e-book will be delivered as an e-book via the eReader platform (for PC, MAC, Linux, iOS, Android, Kindle, Nook) by the end of March 2016. It will be delivered in its entirety, with complete notes and commentary - with all original pages and illustrations. We will be happy to answer any questions you might have. - -For physical rewards, we are unable to confirm delivery dates until after Kickstarter-converter files have been processed. - -The e-book will feature an exclusive cover. The cover will be drawn, illustrated and lettered by the artists and the book will contain a page of art by the guest authors. The book will be professionally-written and professionally-illustrated. - -Here are two samples from the cover illustration that will be used: - -What else makes up this book? - -The book is not an omnibus edition. Everything is published in its entirety so you can go back and read the stories yourself! - -You'll also love the book for the unique, bespoke bookmark. Unlike most of the other book-binding designs we've seen, it actually works as a bookmark. - -It's designed with the spine facing down which keeps the paper and book in place whilst it folds back. But on close inspection, it looks like the pages have been folded, and the book has been flipped over to reveal a new layout. - -And of course, the best part about the bookmark is the bookmark's unique, and very pretty, design. - -Who is this book for? - -This book is for anyone who loves stories, and also anyone who loves reading about how stories come to be. - -Everyone can relate to one or more of the stories in 'No-Sleepers', from the writer who finds himself trapped in the mysterious land of the no-so-sleepers, to the author who finds himself a little bit too busy to write much. It's no secret that reading a good story is important and it's great to have a collection of stories you can share with your friends, family and even colleagues, in case you fall asleep at work, or accidentally catch the bus and spend all night on the road, instead of working. It's also nice to have stories that you love to read. - -'No-Sleepers' is for everyone, so if you're not sure if you'd make good story-tellers, don't hesitate to add a story or two to your 'No-Sleepers' collection (if you're willing!), but -======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== -The government is "in denial" about the impact of its austerity measures and will "have no answers" to people suffering, the new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has warned. - -McDonnell, who has not been an MP or minister in the Labour party since 2011, said the party cannot "justify" cuts in the public sector while still borrowing, and said the coalition government is in "deep denial". - -He used a speech at Britain's first National Federation of Labour Counselling Service conference in London to accuse May of playing "ideologically weak". He also called for more local democracy, including direct elections for local councillors, and more direct democratic involvement in policy-making. - -McDonnell's remarks come in the wake of the publication of a report on the government's austerity programme by Martin Lewis, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. It revealed that spending cuts have hit public services and the poor the hardest, and will increase poverty by £12bn over three years. - -McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, who resigned in July 2011 as an adviser to Ed Miliband, who he supported in the leadership race of the party, has now become one of the strongest voices on the opposition side of Parliament. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is not expected to take any further part in the shadow cabinet when Corbyn attends the conference later this week. - -In his speech last night, McDonnell, who was elected to the shadow cabinet last year and is due to replace the shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, as shadow work and pensions secretary when the shadow cabinet reorganises next month, said the Labour party was "not a monolithic block" of supporters and he had a "long way to go" to reach out to people who had been disillusioned by the 2010 election. - -He said: "Labour is not just a Labour party. It is a broad church. Many of those that voted for us in 2010 are disappointed and alienated. They feel left behind, like they've been forgotten and have been sidelined by the leadership and the right wing of the party. "Our challenge is to reach out to people and let them know what Labour has to offer." In a sign of a potential softening of the party's approach, McDonnell said he would back increasing the minimum wage from £6.50 to £7.50 by 2020 and pledged to scrap tuition fees at universities. He also called for councils to be given greater power to take control of local services. - -Facebook Twitter Pinterest John McDonnell to join Labour conference: 'I am a socialist politician.' - -Speaking after McDonnell's speech, former minister Barbara Keeley said: "The shadow chancellor is a brilliant person who, if he's elected, will be a brilliant shadow chancellor. He has the potential to be a good leader of the party. - -"What he needs to do is learn from the mistakes he made 10 years ago when he was in shadow chancellor, which is to go back to basics and bring back the roots of what Labour represents: social justice, tackling poverty and inequality." - -McDonnell said the Labour party needed to return to its roots, and that people had voted for the party under Ed Miliband in part because they wanted to see welfare cut, tax rises limited to the wealthiest, and an end to austerity. - -"In that sense, the Tories' cuts and austerity are a massive disappointment to the British public, who wanted a better politics. This government and its friends are in denial about what has happened. It is in denial about the damage it has caused to people's lives," says John McDonnell. "I feel for my friend and colleague [the Scottish first minister] Alex Salmond. He campaigned for an independence referendum and he hasn't got a referendum because of the Tory budget." McDonnell said that the Conservatives and "the establishment media" were in denial about what they had done to the British people. - -"The government can deny the damage it has done by playing games while it says to its people: 'Trust us'," he said. "I am in denial about what the Tory government has done to the British people. That's the reason I joined the Labour party." - -He said that people were now disillusioned, and said this could "turn into an electoral crisis in next year's general election as people lose faith in a politics that offers anything substantial". - - -I can't see what Labour can do while it is in this deep denial. John McDonnell - -"People are losing faith in politics because they don't believe that anything is being done to help them. People look at the world and they see austerity as the only option. This government is in denial. The party is in denial." - -He said austerity was not just an economic issue but also a "cultural and moral" one. - -Labour could regain the trust of the public only if the party abandoned the approach adopted by the coalition, McDonnell said, and stopped playing a "politics of fear" by promising to make cuts of up to 18% in public -======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== -In a new video, the founder of the #DefendRisingSun movement explains why he is taking matters into his own hands. (Published March 29, 2017) - -The #DefendRisingSun group says it's only making its first phone call to Washington, D.C. this week, with the mission of raising the flag of the United States on the South Carolina Statehouse after the racially-charged shooting of nine parishioners at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. - -It's unclear who founded #DefendRisingSun, but it appears to have been started in the early afternoon Wednesday by a man claiming to be a former U.S. Marine and the owner of a small business. - -The video is a 30-minute, mostly-audience statement that's punctuated with moments of music and action, and begins with a short disclaimer: "I'm not a real activist. I have a job." - - -But it's not that the man behind the microphone isn't an activist. As a military veteran, who served two tours in Afghanistan, that fact is clear. He says the shooting on Wednesday left him "hurt" and "very angry." - -"I got a lot of anger in me, because this nation is still healing," he says in the video. - -"The shooting that was just today at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church -- the man's an American hero. He did right by his race. He took bullets for his race, and his gender," he continued. "But in the name of God, I'm going to shoot back and I'm going to send it to where it comes from." - -Dylann Roof is said to have taken down the Confederate battle flag in front of the historic church. Police say he killed nine people inside the church. - -What the video does not mention is that Roof had no affiliation, and no apparent ties to, the group behind #DefendRisingSun. - -Still, even as #DefendRisingSun members and supporters have gathered and been filmed in the streets of Charleston and across the country, one thing is certain: The shooter's actions were not inspired by the group's message. - -"We need to be careful not to try to attribute this crime to something political and not to try to attribute this crime to something criminal and not to try to point fingers," President Obama said at a White House press conference Monday night. "And we need to remember what happened in the past is never an excuse for what happened in the future." - -Roof, who was already the suspected shooter in the slayings of a churchgoing couple and parishioner at Emanuel AME Church before Wednesday's killing spree, later took his own life. - -In his video, he makes it clear no one else will be responsible for the flag-raising on the South Carolina Statehouse lawn. - -"I'm going to be a voice for justice of the church. My voice is for justice of the people who were killed. My voice is for justice of justice of people who were hurt. But it's been done by a single individual. We've seen what he did. I've seen where it comes from," he says. - -"He killed nine of his own brothers in the church, and he's gonna kill somebody else in the morning to cover everything up. ... My anger is for the victims of that church," he continues. "They didn't deserve to die; they deserved to go home." - -He went on to say "I had the chance to kill somebody and kill somebody, and the only way I can kill somebody is to put a bullet in their head." - -As #DefendRisingSun rallies to raise the flag at the Statehouse, it stands to do just that.<|endoftext|>About 20 years ago, the Supreme Court began an unwritten effort to make judges more independent, but a court that has always been heavily influenced by a small, powerful bloc of dissenters has been harder to change than many people thought. - -The Supreme Court may not have made any real political impact in the past three decades but it has certainly made an impact on the political process. What are known as partisan gerrymandering cases could have a dramatic impact on future presidential races. - -The Republican-dominated court has been divided 4-4 in a series of rulings, including the 2010 McCutcheon v. FEC case that dramatically reduced campaign contribution limits. In 2013, the court agreed to hear the case brought by Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker. This time the court could split along ideological lines once again to decide how to curb the abuses of wealthy individuals in a way that's favorable to most states. There's a chance this case could also create a real constitutional crisis, as partisan gerrymandering is the only kind that the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on. - -It might seem crazy that partisan gerrymandering has become a hot topic these days. After -======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== -An explosion at a truckload of ammonium nitrate, the chemical necessary to make explosives, killed 30 people Friday in New Jersey, leaving authorities scrambling to figure out how the explosives traveled in a truck. - -Investigators didn't immediately know if the incident was related to terrorism. - -A truck bomb in New Jersey left 30 dead and 150 injured, officials said. - -The FBI said explosives experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the scene following the explosion around 7:30 p.m. in an industrial park, about 70 minutes from Philadelphia. The area is home to a number of trucking and distribution companies, and nearby schools were reportedly placed on lockdown in a safety precaution. - -Gov. Chris Christie tweeted that no one had died in the blast, which he said was similar to an incident that occurred in 2013 in Ohio: - -No deaths were initially reported on scene, New Jersey Gov says. Authorities will continue to investigate. — Christie FoxNews (@ChristieFoxNews) September 19, 2016 - -A massive investigation has turned up virtually nothing to indicate the culprit had links to international or domestic terrorism, officials said. In fact, some officials theorized that the ammonium nitrate might have been intentionally planted in the area by a disgruntled former employee, reports CBS News' John Blackstone. - -While authorities don't necessarily consider the incident to be an act of terror, they have taken it seriously for the past week and warned nearby communities of a possible terrorist threat, Blackstone reported. - -New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also told CBS News' John Blackstone that there were no immediate claims. - -"It's a real puzzling circumstance. There are no obvious connections to international terrorism," Christie said. - -Gov. Chris Christie tells @CBSNews no one is dead, but there is "very suspicious activity" in a truck explosion in New Jersey https://t.co/0KrDyTkZyj pic.twitter.com/2m1Rwv0y0K — CBS News (@CBSNews) September 19, 2016 @GovChristie: There is very suspicious activity in a truck that exploded in #NewJersey pic.twitter.com/Wb1H2L5Yj9 — CBS News (@CBSNews) September 19, 2016 - -The incident happened in a truck stop parking lot. - -New Jersey State police troopers rushed to the scene and secured a perimeter around the plant, reports CBS Philly. - -"They found an extremely significant fire," Police Superintendent Lt. Paul Azzopardi, from the New Jersey State Police, said during a news conference. - -The fertilizer was stored in the back of a large tractor trailer, the New Jersey Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services said in a statement. - -A man has been arrested, but he was not a suspect in the explosion or the fire, officials said. The man has been charged with unlawful distribution of a detonating device causing bodily harm, Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, who is a fire chief from Trenton, told CBS News. - -"Our focus now is to ensure the safety of our residents and first responders," said O'Scanlon. - -Investigators are looking for more information so they know what exploded, the New York Times reported. - -As the investigation continues, there have been calls for action in the wake of the explosion. - -Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, issued a statement Friday calling the explosion a "terrible tragedy" and the most devastating terrorism attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. - -"The terrorist threat has evolved over the past several years, and the threat from home-grown terrorists is now as serious as the threat from international terrorists," Booker said in the statement. "In light of this, President Obama's decision to bypass Congress to use a piece of legislation that would increase authority for the security services, and the failure to address our nation's immigration crisis, I have come out strongly against this reckless and dangerous action." - -"Congress must not give up the vital oversight responsibility that has long been an essential aspect of our democracy," he added. - -"We must have robust security programs that recognize the terrorist threat, but that also do not hinder our basic freedoms. We cannot have an American policy based on the assumption that terrorists will not attack our homeland." - -Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, also tweeted a statement Friday: - -Just spoke to Sen. Bob Menendez. I told him I am extremely pleased he was able to get the truckers bill, and to support it. pic.twitter.com/1zfYn6dDd4 — Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) September 19, 2016 - -Paul also praised state and federal authorities. - -"I've spoken to the New York State Police and I've spoken to the FBI and they've assured me there's no connection," he said of the -======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== -The Department of Transportation says drivers are being hit with an average of two new distracted driving tickets a day in 2014. There have been several high-profile high-profile cases recently. - -Police in Toronto charged three men after they were caught with a Jeep stuck in a canal in November, and a distracted driver in New Zealand was fined nearly $50,000 in 2012 for leaving his vehicle on tracks after hitting a pedestrian. - -The New York Times reported yesterday on several distracted drivers involved in crash-related emergencies. - -A pedestrian was hit by a Lexus travelling at about 100 km/h. The driver of the Lexus, in the left lane of a highway, failed to take evasive action and struck the pedestrian; he died. A female pedestrian was hit from behind and died hours later. - -In Quebec, a driver was fined $1,000 and a passenger in a car that was rear-ended for failure to take evasive action to avoid a collision. - -In New York, a driver was fined $300 for failing to apply the brakes in the event of a rear-end accident, while a driver's hand was left inside a purse on an interstate highway. - -And it should be made clear that not every distracted driving violation is a hit and run. - -The Transportation Act makes it compulsory for every taxi driver, taxi dispatcher, chauffeur, limo driver and vehicle-for-hire driver to be trained in the safe use of hand-operated mobile phones and wireless devices for calling and texting, and for the same device to be available in the vehicle if one is not already carrying it. - -The Transportation Act also specifies the regulations for driver training, and gives the Minister of Transport the mandate to conduct and supervise a driver training course in relation to distracted driving. - -The current legislation makes a driver who fails to comply with a safe use instruction must pay the owner, lessee, or driver of the car the maximum fine permitted under the law, plus penalties assessed by the driver training program at $6 for a second failure, $8 for a third, $12 for a fourth, and $18 for a fifth or subsequent. - -The Transportation Act requires each driver to record on his or her driver's licence any instruction given that was not followed. - -And the Transportation Act requires drivers to obtain, at a training centre where available, one hour of supervised safe use instruction for both the vehicle and the driver. - -The law also requires that the training program must be developed and operated by an entity approved by the Minister of Transportation.<|endoftext|>We are very happy to announce that we have reached an agreement with our new sponsors. For those of you familiar with the world of professional poker, you might remember that in 2013 we partnered with eBets to sponsor our tournament. As eBets is also run by the same team that operates PokerStars, we thought it would make sense to work together in some way. - -On top of that, eBets also has the largest poker room, where their pokerstars.eu player pool reaches over 200,000 players and they will be continuing the program that has produced some of the best professional poker players in the world. To make our partnership even sweeter, eBets is giving all pokerstars.eu players exclusive access to all eBets poker games, as well as being the exclusive sponsor of our team's live poker show starting in May 2016. - -The best part about this partnership is that with all players continuing to receive a discount of up to 75% when depositing and playing in eBets games, PokerStars will be able to help fund a new team initiative with the aim of getting as many elite players on our team as possible and giving every player in our community an opportunity to climb to the very top. - -As with every deal that we do, the pokerstars.eu team wanted to go above and beyond what we have done before. For that reason, we partnered with one of the world's leading online game providers who offer our community great games and exciting new features. The new PokerStars brand will be featured in eBets, Pokerstars.eu and the PokerStars brand on PokerStars.eu will be featured directly across Pokerstars.eu and eBets. - -As part of this new partnership with eBets, we have also recently signed to partner with another major gaming company and as a result will be announcing new ways to help grow the worldwide poker community. Our team is very passionate about growing the game and we will be doing that by using our existing marketing budget and launching new initiatives to help grow our player base. - -With the support and assistance of eBets and PokerStars, we will be able to take the poker community to the next level and, more importantly, we think that our team is the perfect fit. We cannot be more proud to be part of such a winning organization as eBets, and so we are looking forward to being a part of the journey that we -======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== -(CNNMoney) I've never been afraid to get my hands dirty. In fact, I was never particularly comfortable before I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. With my cancer diagnosis, I took it as my mission to try everything to stay alive. - -At least a couple of times a week I went out into the field, dug a hole, hauled in a bucket, emptied and recirculated it, then put my hand in the bucket. I had the power to affect change if I worked at it. - -Yet there was one thing that I'd never tried to do that could have a dramatic impact on the spread of your cancer - and that was to stop taking the prescribed medication for your asthma. - -Because by not taking your routine medication, you can worsen your lung cancer and even make it more aggressive. - -I have had some bad experiences with drug companies trying to sell the asthma medication I'm supposed to take, and not surprisingly, the companies and the drug companies have been fighting me to the court of public opinion for my decision to not be prescribed the drug. - -In the years before my diagnosis, I was prescribed this medication to help me cope with the constant attacks of acute asthma that I suffered. - -My doctor never really talked to me about it, but it was clear that the only reason I got this medication to help me deal with my asthma was because of the lung cancer warning my doctor issued me. They wanted me to take more of their medicine when it was prescribed. In reality, I'm on far less than what is prescribed. - -But the companies wanted me to be on every bottle. - -So in 2013 that I learned my condition had reached stage four cancer, I had to talk to my doctor, ask him to give me the option to stop taking the medication because he wasn't sure why I was receiving all this extra medicine to tackle the condition. The physician was not too thrilled about it either because he said it could increase my risk of liver damage. - -I was on the medication and on it, every day, but I knew it wasn't making my asthma less bad. In fact, when doctors see an increased risk for lung cancer, they prescribe you a more aggressive cancer medicine. - -The pharmaceutical company gave me a list of everything that was in my medicine bag, and as he had said when I told him about stage four lung cancer, every single time I opened the medicine bag a number of different drugs showed up. But in reality, the medicine bag was already full. - -I didn't want to go back to my old system, though, and for a few years I experimented with the asthma medicine instead of taking it daily. - -At first, it wasn't too bad. Most days, I'd find a way to live without the medication for an hour or so. But when I stopped taking it for a certain amount of time, it started to get really bad. - -I'd feel the same symptoms again, and I had to start walking back to my car again and then take a cab. I started taking a ride at least once a day. And it was getting even tougher. The side effects had started to appear, the doctor didn't know how to tell me what medications to take or how to check them out, and I wouldn't be able to drive again. - -With time I learned to live just two blocks or so from my house without taking my medicine. - -When an episode did occur, it lasted an excruciating amount of time, sometimes several weeks. And the treatments for it just seemed to get worse. - -Eventually, my doctor had to take a look at my situation and figure out what the heck was going on. His conclusion: I was on way too much medicine, and that the medicine was causing my lung cancer to take over. - -He made me take a pill every day, but it was nowhere near enough to make the medicine actually work for me – it was just a way to make sure that my condition didn't get worse. It was basically an extra set of wheels for a vehicle that, at the end of the day, wasn't running right. - -If it weren't for the medication, and the fact that I was on a cancer warning, I would've never taken my medication. I'd have made the same mistake I made many times when I started to try to live without my asthma medication as a regular thing. The medication would've been a welcome distraction from the condition, instead of keeping it in the forefront of my mind. But it wasn't there. - -That's why when I got sicker and sicker at the breast in 2015, I could not do anything about it. When I took my medication, nothing changed. When I just quit taking my medication, nothing changed. - -I tried all kinds of treatments to try and find a cure for stage four lung cancer, but nothing worked. - -Then, a few months ago, something happened that made me decide to just not give -======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== -The government's new legislation on encryption technology makes significant changes on the legal landscape surrounding digital encryption. Here is an insight to the amendments the government is introducing. - -In the new legislation, the term "crypto" will be removed from the definition of computer programming, and all encryption will be regarded as "technological protection measures". - -The aim of "technological protection measures" is to create "a way of protecting information by using technical means to control access". An example of such protection would be the use of strong encryption and a strong algorithm to provide security across the network. - -"The aim of protecting information," the bill says, is "not to create the same level of security for the system as the government or a particular business that manages the system. Rather, information should be protected in accordance with the principles in the Bill". (The wording was not published in last week's final draft.) - -The law will not ban software with back doors such as the "Trojan horse" found in the WannaCry ransomware attack or any other software with a built-in mechanism to provide a backdoor for the administration. - -The legislation also will not remove any ability to search and access an encrypted computer network, unlike the UK's sweeping Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act that will end the "warrantless" surveillance on all UK residents. The legislation does also include a provision to require search warrants to be issued for search of computers on their network. - -The government has also proposed that communications providers should have to "encrypt" communications by default and provide a technical means to enable this. The only exceptions to this rule are in those cases where an individual would "reasonably believe" there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the information at issue – which is not easy to define – and would "need to do more than simply decrypt" the device. - -The draft legislation also outlines a wide-ranging code of practice for companies that offer encrypted services, including: "providing encryption for communications that are at least as strong as the strongest known default encryption on the device; - -providing encryption that is secure against any interception by third parties; and - -providing encryption in relation to email messages, instant messaging, and web browsing activities". It will also include a separate code of practice for law enforcement on matters such as accessing encrypted data. - -As with the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, the new encryption legislation will be subject to an extended public consultation. The government said it hopes to include additional submissions in the coming months. - -The law also specifies that the Secretary of State, or a designated officer, may authorise the interception of communications, including those of companies. Such authorisations may involve the use of technology and would be subject to a judicial warrant on the grounds that the interception is reasonably necessary. - -In terms of law enforcement, the new laws will also impose additional requirements on law enforcement, including giving access to communications that are encrypted in this way, which must provide a "level of protection that is at least as strong as the encryption on one's device". - -The new law will require telecommunications companies to decrypt all encrypted communications and information that is being stored by them by 31 December 2017. - -Read this Government introduces laws to crack encryption in smartphones The Home Office has revealed plans to crack encryption in smartphones, to make it easier for the police to access suspects' electronic communications in real time. Read More - -The government has also announced that it will work with the country's major internet giants, including tech giants such as Google and Apple, to provide their own encryption tools and make the government's new encryption laws available to companies. This could be a significant step in helping to provide protection against cyber-attacks. - -This is not the first time British government has legislated in relation to encryption. The last government, led by David Cameron, also introduced the Investigatory Powers Act in 2014.<|endoftext|>In a study examining cognitive function associated with early life stress, investigators found a relationship between a mother's relationship with her mother and the child's level of attention to aversive stimuli. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural activity related to cognitive processing among 16-month-old children in response to an aversive stimulus. Participants in the study demonstrated greater cognitive processing with the presence of their mothers in the home. - -"While the relationship between relationship complexity and child cognitive processing has been studied in a number of previous studies, our research focuses on an early family environment and its association with the development of later cognitive abilities," said the study's principal investigator, Lisa C. Leffler, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate. "Our study provides a comprehensive look into the potential pathways and mechanisms linking mother-child relationship characteristics to cognition over a period of a few years." - -"Our study suggests that children's attention to emotionally arousing stimuli relates more to their mothers' relational quality, -======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== -"HELP! My baby is falling down the stairs and every time I pick her up she slips and lands right on her head! PLEASE HELP! If no one comes down the stairs she'll go into a coma!!!!!" - -These are just a few of the dozens and dozens of letters that have flooded my mailbox since the birth of my daughter earlier this year. And this is a lot of emails, even for this kind of blog. - -But it also saddens and motivates me, because this is my baby and I want her to grow up healthy. - -And what you're reading is not an attack on the many wonderful things that come with having a newborn. - -There's a lot of help out there, especially for new moms-to-be, and I'm just here to help- with whatever I can- you can help your child too! - -When my daughter was born I was so nervous that I was going to have to deal with her breathing through a hole in my sternum, but I quickly learned she had a breathing tube in place to keep her from drowning. Since we had no other choice, we immediately followed the guidelines for CPR and began following basic guidelines for keeping her breathing until help came. I learned to work out where her throat was, make sure her mouth was open, and take care of her breathing. I also learned that she was going to be a little wiggly around the chest area at times but other times she was so stable that I didn't even have to worry. When her mouth was open and her lungs were working, I didn't have to do a whole lot, except keep her cool and quiet. - -So here we are. She is 4 and a half now, just 2 months away from getting her own little breathing aid, and she now has a feeding tube in place that's going to continue for about a year. It hurts and it's an inconvenience but we're a family, we're willing to make a sacrifice, because this is important to both of us. - -Here are some tips on what we've learned that other parents have found helpful: - -Don't Panic - -If your daughter starts to freak out (like we did during those first few days), do what comes natural. When she's calm, you can ask her questions and answer for her to calm her down, and then you can reassure her that everything's going to be fine. "We'll be here to catch you if you fall down. If you've fallen and landed on yourself, or something hurts your throat, just let us know so we can get you back up, okay? If you've fallen and landed on something soft (like a cushion), you can use your hands to catch yourself up," is a good tip for calming you down. - -Don't Worry About Spots - -We tried this one the first week after our baby was born. Spots can be annoying but if they appear to be spreading from your nipples, you can try to gently put your hand over them with your other hand to get a better look. If you find a spot that's spreading quickly (and it could be that a few of the spots are coming from your tummy), remove your hand immediately to stop the spread or if you find that the spot is going to spread from just one area of your chest to your nipples. When we went to get her checked up at that second office, they recommended that we do the checkups at home because they found some spots on her stomach, or on her nipples, and there were no spots visible as her body expanded. - -Bathroom Time - -I know this only applies to people who are using disposable diapers, because we're using cloth babies (because that's what I have). But if you have to go a day or a second when your baby has some liquid, put her on your back or on your stomach and wrap yourself around her. There are a few things your baby might need to drink while wet, but just like when you're having feedings in the kitchen with the bowl in front of you, just take a few breaths as you sip your drink. If your baby is having a hard time swallowing then you might want to just try not to squeeze too hard. - -The Best Way to Cope - -I wish there was one way for us to handle our child when they were in danger. And maybe there is one, and maybe not. - -But for now, we know that it doesn't matter how good you are at CPR, what the doctors recommend, or what others suggest, it's only going to take a little bit of effort to get out of danger. - -So, instead of having to worry, or having to think and prepare, you can just let the baby do what she needs to do. - -And that's not something I can do for her or teach her. So she gets to decide what can be done for her. She might fall, or fall on something soft -======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== -The Supreme Court has taken the unprecedented step of refusing to hear a case that would have required the federal government to allow same-sex couples to marry nationwide. However, the Court's refusal to hear the case has not ended an effort by supporters to force the issue by asking the Supreme Court to hear their case. - -The group, Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA), sued the U.S. Attorney General on Thursday alleging in part that her office was in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by not issuing a decision on whether to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the Supreme Court. The Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government from allowing federal employees to recognize same-sex marriages of those who are legally married in a state they reside. - -The plaintiffs' appeal filed on Nov. 18, 2013 states that on Nov. 19, 2013, attorneys for the Office of Legal Counsel advised the office that the Department of Justice would not file a legal brief defending DOMA against the lawsuit, but would instead file a brief for a federal appellate court. The Office of Legal Counsel informed plaintiff attorney Edith Windsor, one of the plaintiffs and a former plaintiff in the case, that this was not a "legal decision" and that there was no legal reason why there should be a gap of three weeks between the Office of Legal Counsel's decision and its filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which heard the case on April 29. - -DOMA has been the subject of a long fought battle between the gay community and the federal government. In 1996, DOMA was passed in the U.S. Congress as part of the Defense of Marriage Act. The law was signed into law by President Bill Clinton following passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in a lame duck session. It was then President George W. Bush who, two years after taking office, issued an Executive Order to prohibit federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on marital status. - -However, same-sex marriage advocates say that the case has merit under Section 3 of the APA that states that no party has the right to bring a claim of legal discrimination in the court of law except under Section 5, even if the discrimination is in violation of federal law. - -Meaning, "it's a legal dispute," but MEUSA is seeking to put forward a theory by which DOMA should be overturned by the judicial branch, not being the result of a federal lawsuit against the government. MEUSA contends that the U.S. Department of Justice is not upholding DOMA, which should be overturned, and has asked the court to intervene. If the court denies MEUSA's request, it will also be refusing to give its opponents standing to petition for a decision by the Supreme Court. - -"DOMA is lawless, it is unfair and it should be overturned by the courts, but it should not be enforced in the courts. We're still hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will do the right thing and allow marriage equality," said Brian Brown, president of MassUnity.org. "This is just one of the many cases in which the Supreme Court has said that people should challenge laws without fearing the federal courts will say they lack standing to challenge these laws. The Supreme Court's decision to not hear this case makes it almost certain that the Supreme Court will not hear any cases on marriage equality." - -Since same-sex marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court's historic ruling, Massachusetts has become the 19th State where same-sex marriage is legal. The law was approved just as President Obama was leaving office, and Gov. Deval Patrick (D) has been encouraging lawmakers to approve marriage equality as part of the state's 2016 budget. The budget is expected to pass by the end of this month.<|endoftext|>In an effort to make sure the United States was always one step ahead, the Department of Defense would occasionally send young men to be assigned to the world's most dangerous spots. These men were not there to fight wars. They were there to protect themselves in a dangerous, war-torn, volatile environment. One of the first of them was Richard Dowling, who eventually rose to become the highest ranking official on the military team tasked with protecting the president. One of the last people that he ever saw alive was his friend and mentor, Captain John Hart.<|endoftext|>Miguel Sano's injury is a setback, but he is still in the mix going into the 2016 season. Credit: Rick Scuteri - -SHARE Video Loading... - -By of the - -Green Bay — The Green Bay Packers aren't sure when the team's best receiver, and perhaps their best player, will return to practice. - -But in the meantime, wide receiver Jordy Nelson and linebacker Clay Matthews are the top candidates — along with quarterback Aaron Rodgers — to lead the way in the offense in 2016. - -The Packers announced Nelson had a concussion at Friday's practice and left the stadium under his own power. After being hit on what -======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== -MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Friday named a longtime ally and confidant of his as his preferred successor to replace suspended President Enrique Pena Nieto, and urged Mexicans to back his candidacy. - -Former Mexican President Vicente Fox speaks at an event in Mexico City, Mexico, May 11, 2016. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo - -Vicente Fox, a former candidate for President himself who is popular among conservatives in Mexico City, was named as the front-runner to succeed Pena Nieto, sources close to Pena Nieto and former President Fox said. - -The announcement follows months of acrimony, after the president fired the head of the country's intelligence agency, the army, and Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) accused the government of violating democratic norms in the process. - -In his first public statement since the scandal broke, Calderon said that Fox "has clearly proven that he has both intellectual and character quality to be the president of Mexico." - -"President Calderon trusts that he can perform the duties of the office with impartiality and professionalism," the former president said in a statement. - -The election for the presidency must be held by Dec. 1 but the candidates can be elected later this year. - -Calderon appointed Fox to chair a special committee of foreign ambassadors. The ex-president and Fox also share their birthday. - -Calderon's departure is likely to be viewed as a concession to Pena Nieto, whose conservative People's Party lost support in polls after the scandal broke. - -Pena Nieto has said he does not know whether he will go on after the December elections. - -Carlos Salinas, the former minister responsible for the drug-related extrajudicial executions in the state of Coahuila and currently detained for life, is one of the leading candidates for the presidency. - -The other potential candidate for the presidency is Piedad Cordoba, a political analyst with close links to Pena Nieto. - -Calderon said he would advise Pena Nieto "as an advisor in matters of law and order," and "will do all that he can to support his candidacy and, as far as possible, bring a democratic and stable presidency to the nation". - -Fox has also previously said Calderon's term was over and said he would vote for him, although he declined to make any specific endorsement. - -A key vote-winner who once led the country's largest political party, Fox joined the PRI's conservative wing after he stepped down as president two years ago. - -On the campaign trail earlier this year, Fox promised to "do everything possible" to improve the conditions for Mexico's poor. - -President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico gives a press conference during a visit to his residence in Mexico City, Mexico, December 16, 2016. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido - -Pena Nieto said that "at a time when Mexico's economy is in the midst of deep problems and uncertainty, to take any position against the democratic process or democracy itself is unjustifiable." - -Pena Nieto, a 54-year-old former leftist Mexican politician, has been in office for less than a year after being sworn in at a brief ceremony in late 2015. - -His administration has been plagued by widespread corruption allegations but the scandal has been overshadowed by a deep divide between the business and political elite in the country. - -Pena Nieto has been accused of allowing business groups to interfere in policy-making, with the leader of one such group, who the president has accused of embezzlement, currently being held in jail. - -Critics have said Pena Nieto has a poor understanding of how politics works in Mexico.<|endoftext|>AUSTRALIAN CHASMERS The history of Australian chases The first recorded Australian chases occurred in the 18th century. In 1802, an angry mob in Sydney, led by Captain John Murray, took the form of a large procession and was accompanied on this occasion by a small troop of horsemen of the Australian colony of New South Wales. This was the first major incident of an Australian chase. The following year, Captain Murray decided to get his revenge on the same group of people for his humiliating reception by the residents of Sydney. His troops captured a company of horsemen and a few of their horses and, having brought them before him, the Captain proceeded to ride them to the top of St. Paul's Hill which is immediately to the south of Little Bourke Street. From the top of this hill the chase took place in open country where the pursuers were accompanied by a large body of mounted men. The horses were led into a ditch along the edge of the hill for a distance of nearly three hundred feet. The crowd then made an attempt to climb up the hill and was met with a hail of bullets from one of the Captain's own horses. A small group of soldiers with bayonets came in to the rescue firing off their guns into -======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== -[Mesa-dev] [PATCH 1/11] mesa: Remove legacy C-style casts - -On Fri, Aug 18, 2015 at 4:26 PM, J. D. Maxwell wrote: > 1. Some of the changes below have the following consequence: > > 1.1: > - Remove some legacy, deprecated casts and casts not in the C language. > > 1.2: > - Add a few new and useful casts. These are: > - const_cast: *this; > > When used on a variable that has an interface or a const-pointer or a > const-reference, the cast results in a pointer or reference to the object that > has that interface and the interface or pointer will have the same type as > *this > > 1.3: > - If the type is int and you cast *this to int (note that this casts the type of > *this to 'int'), the pointer or reference will be of a different type from > *this, and that type will be in the same function as the pointer or reference you > cast to. > - If the type is a pointer (int, char, char16_t, or short) you can cast a variable of > that type to *this. > > 1.4: > - Add a few new and useful operators for all types. These are: > - sizeof: *this->size_type; > - memcmp: *this < *this ->size_type; > - memcpy: *this, *this ->size_type; > - memset: *this = '\0'; - memset_s: *this = '\0', zero; - memset_v: *this = '\0', nonzero; > - memset_u: *this = 0; - memset_s0: *this = 0, zero, nonzero; > > 1.5: > - Add new macros for numeric operands where possible. These are: > - float + float: *this; (and related conversions to float, int, bool) > - double + double: *this; (and related conversions to double, int, bool) > - int + int: *this; (and related conversions to int, double) > - bool + bool: *this (and related conversions to bool) > - unsigned + unsigned: *this; (and related conversions to unsigned, int) > > 1.6: > - Remove some casts that don't make sense for the underlying type. > > For instance, cast float to int (or float*int to unsigned*int) which > would allow floating point numbers whose range starts at 0. > > 1.7: > - Remove some casts that are just hard-coded in the C library. > - Remove unnecessary casts. > > 1.8: > - Implement missing conversions and conversions using the C++11 library. > *Note: the library will be incomplete until the remainder of API > changes are applied in a backwards-compatible manner. > > 1.9: > - Simplify the function prototypes for missing functions > > 1.10: > - Simplify the documentation for the functions > > 1.11: > - Simplify the usage of the functions with types like f32 and f64 > - More changes to the documentation > > > > 2. Clarify the error-handling for invalid casts and conversions > > 2.1: > - Return an error code for error conditions > - Call the standard C++ library functions for the error condition > - Provide a function to convert the error to the appropriate type > - Ensure the return value is a valid expression and an int or long. > > 2.2: > - In a few cases, return NULL when we are unable to convert an error > to the appropriate type > - Convert to long when returning from a function > > 3. Clean up the stdio interface > > 3.1: > - Remove the obsolete stdio functions > > 3.2: > - Remove the C library functions > - Replace the use of stdio in the standard library with a stdio > wrapper > - Replace the header in the stdio header with a stdio wrapper > > 3.3: > - Clean up the input-port interface > > > > 4. Add a C++ interface to mesa's internal API, and change the libMesa > API > > 5. Add a C API to libMesa > > 6. Add a shared library to libMesa > > 7. Add a C++ API to glsl_mesa.h > > 8. Improve OpenGL's support of the x87 FPU > > 9. Add the mesa_glut.sys utility to glsl_mesa.h > > 10. Make the lib -======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== -You might have to be dead to see this. - -This is what the Google Earth satellite looks like after a NASA spacecraft crashed to the ground in Texas while trying to take panoramas of the moon. It was originally supposed to reach orbit and stay there forever, but the failure forced the U.S. Department of Defense to fly a backup orbiter (which was successful) and the satellite was "rebooted to take the photos and send them back to Earth," the NASA site explains. - -The Google Earth site is working off Google data from November 2014 and March 2015, and it doesn't have the highest resolution images, but it does give you an idea of where the moon was and what parts of it looked more like Earth or Mars. The moon does appear a bit less reflective than when you first look at it from a telescope, but at least there's a good excuse for that. - -(h/t NASA)<|endoftext|>"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" lyrics - -Queen Lyrics - -Don't you worry about it - -Don't you worry about a thing - -And don't you worry - -I'll be fine - - -Oh, I want to tell you - -That you're never alone - -And I want to tell you - -Don't you give up on things - -Don't you give up on things - - -Oh, I want to tell you - -Don't you make your own decisions - -And I want to tell you - -Don't you give up on things - -Don't you give up on things - - -And when the time comes in the dark - -I'll be there with you - -And we'll laugh and look back on that little girl - -Oh, I just want to tell you - -(Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night) - - -And when the time comes in the dark - -I'll be there with you - -And we'll laugh and look back on that little girl - -Oh, I just want to tell you - -(Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night) - - -I just want to tell you - -Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - -(Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night) - - -Writer(s): JOHN AUGUST, LINDSAY JOSEPH, WILLIAM JOHN FRENCH, STEVEN MICHEL DEBONAIR, STEVEN MOUDARD - -See also:<|endoftext|>By now, most of you know that this summer, the US Postal Service is going to get out of the mail business. The change, which is expected to take effect on December 14, will result in the loss of over a million jobs and a nearly $15 billion loss in revenue. What's more, the USPS is going to pay a $5.5 billion fine, the result of a decade's worth of misconduct, including accepting improper payments in excess of its legal limit and using contractors to ship illegal drugs. To make matters worse, the Postal Mail Act is coming under fire from Congress. And in fact, the USPS itself is the very organization that we've been fighting for to save us. We've asked the USPS to stop harassing us over a decade of fraud and abuse. We've asked the USPS to stop violating our First Amendment right to petition the government. We've asked the Postal Service to stop illegally seizing our mail. We've asked the USPS to stop shipping drugs, guns, and other contraband across our border. But our pleas have fallen on deaf ears; it looks like none of those requests have done any good. - -This year, we've sent hundreds of letters to Congress. We've sent more than 500 petitions to the Postal Service protesting the planned sale of our postal monopoly. We've sent letters to more than 100 mayors, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other leaders from cities across America, pleading our case. The USPS is still violating some of our rights; it seems as though they're treating us as the wild, feral animals we are. The USPS, however, seems very, very content with this status quo. It recently released a video of a "dog day after" celebration involving employees. Our postal employees, many of them on second and third shifts, celebrated the holiday of "dog day after." The only problem is, no one seems to be allowed to keep a dog, in particular a miniature poodle named Max and his owner, Megan. - -Max is a miniature poodle and Megan is his owner. Together, they've spent almost 20 years working as a mail carrier, and it's a job that Megan loves. Last year they were able to save up for a service dog. And Max, for his part, really enjoyed being recognized as a member of the canine species. So when the postal workers decided they wanted to keep him as a service dog, it seemed like a perfect fit. So why are they now refusing and harassing Megan and Max, in order to do just -======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== -There's been quite a lot of buzz in the media about how many immigrants have come to the US. In this post, I'll look at whether that's really the case and whether that leads to more problems or better outcomes for the US economy, society, and culture, or just a slightly different sort of thing we'd probably expect, given that the US is still the most successful example of a homogenous welfare state and immigration is usually a good thing. - -This will be a fairly technical post; the best way to understand all of this stuff is to read my earlier posts on the topic, especially the more technical ones like "The Welfare Economics of Immigration," "The Effect of Immigration on Wage Rates", and "The Wage Penalty of Immigrants". - -What Is the Effect of Immigration on American Wages? - -Before continuing, I also want to make a few disclaimers: - -There may well be some benefits of immigration to the US economy from economic diversity and spillovers, but those benefits aren't clear-cut and it's premature and probably misleading to simply take a snapshot of them right now. - -There are lots of other things that might go into this, and I'm not claiming that these aren't important. But I will briefly address four issues: (i) immigration might affect wages in a few of the ways some people seem to think; (ii) immigration might change the types of jobs that people are willing to take; (iii) the effect of immigration on overall consumption might be positive or negative; and (iv) the way in which economists think about immigration effects on aggregate economic wellbeing. - -There may be some benefits of immigration to the US economy from economic diversity and spillovers, but those benefits aren't clear-cut and it's premature and probably misleading to simply take a snapshot of them right now. - -Immigration is good for the economy and society in a couple of ways. More immigration means more people are working (or working harder, if you prefer the phrase) and consuming more (see "The Welfare Economics of Immigration"), and more productive people (or people working harder) is always good for the economy. But, there are also some costs as well. - -The first type that tends to be talked about is that immigrants might be less productive and cost the economy "assets." In fact, as we've already seen, it's easy enough to show that it's often true. Consider some hypothetical immigrants. Suppose the average immigrant has an annual income of $100,000 and has been living in the country for 10 years, which is a fairly typical time in which immigrants typically start their lives. They're a "dilutive" immigrant, meaning that their average consumption in the year they leave is below the average of all natives combined. - -Immigrants are always less productive than the average natives and are more likely to take on debt. - -What does this imply for the economy of the country in which the immigrant lives? The country doesn't "lose" those $100,000 in total output per year to the immigrants. The immigrants actually get more money than it costs to produce the output that the immigrants consume, which is also why it's always possible for the country to "reward" these immigrants by paying them higher taxes. - -What about the other types of assets that they might provide? They're less likely to pay taxes (again, this isn't because they're necessarily less productive). But we know that immigrants are generally more educated than the average native, which implies that they're also likely to be more likely to work more hours, and in turn spend their earnings on goods and services. - -Immigrants are always less productive than the average natives and are more likely to take on debt, which means that they don't contribute much overall to the country's wealth. - -This all helps to explain why immigration has done somewhat well in the past, but how does it affect the economy today? - -The Effects of Immigrants on Labor Market Outcomes - -Before I get in to the benefits of immigration, though, let's first have a brief look at the possible downsides. There's some debate about how much immigrants have had an impact on the labor market, but there is very good evidence that it has been very small (or nonexistent). - -One reason that people are skeptical of the impact of immigration on the labor market is that some of the jobs that immigrants tend to take seem like perfectly good jobs. Immigrants are overwhelmingly in low-wage, low-skill jobs, and it's hard to see how a big influx of immigrants into these jobs could produce big effects that people would care about. - -If immigrants are disproportionately in low-wage jobs, there's not much you could do to make up for that. If they're disproportionately in jobs that people don't want anyway, those can't be fixed either. So, unless you think that the type of job that immigrants are taking is the kind of thing you would necessarily want, you have to conclude -======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== -POPULAR - -I started to have doubts about the Wargaming forums a long time ago since many posters that i have encountered have been hostile or aggressive towards members of the server and the community. One particular time when i saw a poster was very aggressive towards players who had not done enough RP to get promoted to a high enough tier. That poster was a commander who had the following poster below as his signature: - - -In this photo, the only person in the poster who has done some RP, or not done all that much RP to get promoted to the first tier by Wargaming was me. The Commander who wrote that comment was a man called "Trupp". He was not only a very rude poster but a very mean person in general. He posted multiple offensive comments towards me and my friends even though they had not done any RP or RP level enough to get the poster's signature. - -Trupp had been on both of the WG forums before I joined and had been known for making rude posts to other players (the same posters with the insulting signature of "Trupp" were on both forums before me too). - -Since that day, most Wargaming posts on the forums are very rude and intimidating to players who have not done as much RP as Trupp had on the forums. One of his biggest ranting posts in his own thread was the one below: - - -There is also this: - -WG Forum - Trupp: "A good rule is that if someone isn't doing enough RP for you, and you put in the time, you should be able to get them to do all of it." - -One of Trupp's biggest ranting posts in the forum was the same poster above, when he did not get promotions for his RP: "If anybody is here who said they're doing enough RP, and you put in the time, I promise you'll never have to see anyone complain about you being a noob when they're done with their first 100 hours on the forum." This was even though he had done more RP than me himself and posted his own signature: - -When all of this is done, you'll see a new "Trupp" and you'll realize that you are dealing with the same people that made the posts above, people that are rude to every single player on the server. That's what you need, the same type of people, for WG forums, WG's servers. These people are also the same type of people who make posts above telling the people in the forums to stop complaining because they did not do as much RP as the poster (who did not do much RP for the poster) himself did: - -WG Forum - Trupp: "And if somebody doesn't have the patience to do the time, he shouldn't post here anyways!" - -When i put into a post below the same type of people, i said: - -WG Forum - Trupp: "For many reasons i don't agree with the poster above, and it's just not cool to be a dick here. If you're going to go after other posters, you know what you need to do to get rid of the trolls. Try to do the very same to me (as mentioned in the post above). Now get outa this thread and do some real rp. If you can, help people make their first 50 hours here and get RP to them. Make them come play in WGF." - -I never expected other players to respect me and my friends more than this kind of "help" from the community, people who think that they can ignore the opinions of others on the server, because they "got a higher rank". - -People like "Trupp" and others like him are the very reason why i don't want my friends and I on the servers anymore. They should not decide that they can do what they want to us. We are not allowed to have those kinds of forums. We need to get involved in community events, we need to give support, and we need to learn how to work with each other. I don't want to be the kind of person who needs to be punished/shamed/denied access/not be promoted or anything of that sort for something that i am doing with no problem. - -When i said some people on the servers need to "work with each other" i didn't mean to insult these people. Many players, and a fair number of them players who are new and new to the forums, have started to help each other with their problems and problems with the games, in a very positive way. When i say "help" i didn't mean to insult the way that some players help each other to get rid of trolls or people like "Trupp", i don't mean to insult all "help" that is done by players of the servers. I don't even deny that. When i was new to the servers and i started to be active -======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== -I have been working on a big update for the game, that should make the gameplay a lot more interesting and realistic, but unfortunately it got delayed because I had to work on a new game. - -You can download that update on our GitHub repo: - -https://github.com/Gaijiro/Elysium-Update/archive/master.zip - -We will continue to update and polish the game. - -I have put more effort into fixing bugs and adjusting the levels, but I have no idea if this will ever be released on Steam, because Steam is very restrictive about some games, but if it makes it into the store I will update this post.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 Timestamp Alabama Arkansas Clemson Florida Georgia LSU Oklahoma Ole Miss Penn State Texas Georgia Tech Miami UCF Virginia Tech UCLA 3.5 2 10/11/2016 21:47:51 Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No 3 10/11/2016 22:01:36 Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No 4 10/11/2016 23:28:19 Yes No No No Yes No No No No No No No 5 10/11/2016 23:44:53 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No 6 10/12/2016 16:34:05 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No 7 10/12/2016 17:21:41 No No No No Yes No No No No Yes No No 8 9 10 10 10/12/2016 18:09:47 Yes No No No No No No Yes No No No 11 10/12/2016 19:28:39 Yes No Yes No No No No No No Yes No No 12 11/1/2016 12:31:07 Yes No No No No No No No No Yes No No 13 11/1/2016 13:41:52 No No No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No 14 11/1/2016 14:18:51 Yes No No No No No No No No No No 15 11/1/2016 15:08:53 Yes No No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No 16 11/1/2016 16:05:46 Yes No No No No Yes No No No No No No 17 11/1/2016 17:18:08 Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes 18 11/1/2016 17:18:34 Yes No No No No No No Yes No No No Yes 19 11/1/2016 18:30:37 Yes No No No No Yes No No No No No No 20 11/1/2016 19:11:39 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No 21 11/1/2016 19:12:25 No No No No Yes No No Yes No No No No 22 11/1/2016 19:26:52 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No 23 11/1/2016 19:56:34 Yes No No No No No No Yes No Yes Yes 24 11/1/2016 20:18:13 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No 25 11/1/2016 20:59:34 Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No 26 11/1/2016 21:39:15 Yes No Yes No No No No No No No Yes No 27 11/1/2016 22:03:38 No No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No Yes Yes 28 11/1/2016 22:18:47 Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes 29 11/1/2016 22:21:32 Yes No No No No No No No No Yes No Yes 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 - -Loading... Loading... - -Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.Disclaimer Form Responses - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please press Ctrl-F5 to refresh the page and try again. - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please hold the Shift key and click the Refresh button to try again.<|endoftext|>ROCKVILLE – A Rockville mother is charged after police say she was arrested for smoking marijuana at a park while her children were nearby. - -Police say a 29-year-old mother of one child was at the Woodbourne Metro park near Rockville Pike and Grosvenor Friday when she was stopped -======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== -Dietary patterns that are common with low self-esteem may also be responsible for problems with substance use and binge eating. - -As part of a study on body image, researchers surveyed more than 700 women and concluded that women with low self-esteem were more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors like binge eating. - -According to a new study published in the journal Health Psychology, women who were more likely to engage in dieting were also more likely to suffer with anxiety, depression and poor body image. - -"Women with low self-worth may be more susceptible to binge eating due to negative images of themselves in the media, which may have contributed to previous research finding a relationship between binge eating and low self-worth," researcher Lisa M. M. Cogswell, PhD, in the department of Psychology, said in a statement. - -Previous studies have found that dieting, in addition to being ineffective at making the body look a certain way, can lead to emotional problems. This new study, in addition to finding an indirect link between dieting and low self-esteem, suggests that dieting may lead also to some mental health issues to compensate. - -The researchers found that of the 711 women in the study, 38 percent, or 118, said they had dieted to lose more weight. That number was roughly consistent with previous research, which has found a link between dieting and eating disorders. - -Also similar to previous research, the women surveyed used a variety of strategies to diet, including trying to lose or trim down certain parts of their bodies, including their hair, and trying to limit portions. - -The researchers found that women who were more likely to have a history of dieting also reported that they had higher levels of body-image dissatisfaction, a psychological state that may cause dieters to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as binge eating and self-image dissatisfaction. - -Previous studies have shown that dieting alone does not change body weight, but when combined with a change in dieting strategies and/or a reduction in calorie intake, women can make small but substantial gains in their body weight. - -However, women with low self-esteem and low body-image dissatisfaction are more likely to engage in binge eating because of negative self-esteem. - -The authors noted that women who are dieting should be aware of a risk that they may be using diet to mask another problem. - -"Although we were not able to show that dieting alone causes mental health disorders associated with binge eating and body dissatisfaction, it would be logical that if poor body image motivates dieting, it could also be responsible for unhealthy behaviors like binge eating and lack of exercise," Cogswell said.<|endoftext|>I don't get why it's important to make the point that the average person doesn't buy any books from Amazon. The answer is that people are buying from Amazon much more than they are buying from non-Amazon sellers. - -I get that, but the people who do buy a book from Amazon do so from a non-Amazon seller. So, if you have a lot of non-Amazon sellers selling from Amazon, all those sales are going to someone who buys books directly from Amazon rather than from somebody else. That's great for Amazon, and if you just wanted to save some money, that's a good approach. But it's not the best way to make book industry-wide improvements. Amazon, for example, makes much more money from its marketplace than other major booksellers do. - -Amazon is making a profit on all sales, in both traditional and digital formats, but not necessarily in all formats. But the other way to make book sales more efficient is to figure out how to move more of the business to the sellers themselves. Amazon is the only major ebook retailer offering this service. - -The other way is to offer book distribution services on a wholesale basis. There are many booksellers who provide this type of service, including all of the major domestic distributors. But I'm aware of no other major e-tailer offering wholesale services. You don't have to tell me how good your service is. You just have to figure out the right market share, which you can use to your advantage. - -For example, I have a book service that allows you to buy one or two new books when you have lots of free time — and then I sell them immediately. But I also have a service called Kindle Unlimited that allows you to buy a book once, read it on whatever device, then use whatever device you want to read the rest of it. You don't "buy" a book, you use it forever. So you can still consume a book from the Kindle Unlimited service once; you can even read every last word of any book in Kindle Unlimited after you've finished reading it. In fact, if you prefer not to read any book on your phone, you can even skip a book. So Amazon can offer a whole range of services, with one big advantage: It only needs some -======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== -I think my gift must've gotten lost… but I finally found it! I received the new Game of Thrones board game for Xbox and the new Star Wars Miniatures. My gifter went through the trouble of finding me these and putting them all together. I love the game of Thrones, I love Star Wars, and I love the feeling of having these things all together. Thanks so much to my gifter! I'm truly awestruck and I can't wait to start playing, and to share these little treasures with my friends!<|endoftext|>The United States Soccer Federation made another change and added two more players to the list of eligible call-ups on Wednesday. - -The federation added forward Alex Morgan and defender Julie Johnston to its 25-player list for the upcoming CONCACAF Women's Championship. Both players have been called up before, but for different tournaments. - -Morgan last played in the NWSL in 2013, with the Orlando Pride. She also played in the 2013 FIFA Women's World Cup, where she made two starts at the right back position. - -The Seattle Reign striker did not play in MLS prior to the 2013 season, having spent 2011 with the Houston Dash. She made five league appearances and appeared in four matches with the Houston Dash Women in two seasons of the NWSL. - -Johnston, currently in her first year with the Vancouver Whitecaps, has made six appearances for Canada, scoring once. - -Johnston last made a league appearance with New Zealand in 2012, but only made one start at right back. The goalkeeper made four appearances at right back with the Kiwi Women in 2012, one of which she started. - -Both Morgan and Johnston have been training with the U.S. women's national team since the start of the year. Both will arrive in camp with their national team after playing in their respective respective national teams. - -The 25-player roster for the CONCACAF Women's Championship is expected to be announced on Jan. 31.<|endoftext|>From 1d4chan - -Kroot: a species of reptilian alien soldiers, with a penchant for eating a particular type of cheese! - -The Kroot are a faction of aliens from Warhammer 40k that were introduced in the latest codex, White Dwarf #15. They've come from the distant star-plexes of Kroot, which are a major source of the Imperium's food. They are particularly adept at cheese-eating. - -History [ edit ] - -White Dwarf article: Kroot [1] - -The Imperial Guard are already in love with Kroot cheese. We all want to taste the delicious, sweet, and savoury tang of Kroot cheese! This may seem like nothing more than a passing fancy, but the Kroot have a more nefarious plan in mind! The Kroot are in the grip of a conspiracy to enslave humanity, and they'll use their cheese-eating skills in order to corrupt them, turning them into mindless Kroot slaves. This plan is, of course, all part of their plan! - -Kroot and the Emperor [ edit ] - -The Kroot were originally from Kroot, a star system located in the Eye of Terror as well as the largest one of its kind. The Imperium originally feared Kroot were a threat, as they are well known for eating flesh and have a predilection for cheese-eating. But this had been taken to an insane level after the Kroot discovered cheese-eating was a potent mind-control tactic. The Kroot quickly took advantage of this, and as the Imperium could no longer be sure of the food supplies of humans, they adopted the Kroot as an alien species. The Imperium hoped that if the Kroot adopted humans like a new form of domesticated pigs, they would adopt a similar mindset, and become loyal servants of the Imperium. The Kroot were granted to the Imperium as war beasts, and given new lives that were better than life as common Kroot. - -This plan failed. With a single act of arrogance, the Kroot killed off the Emperor of Mankind and began using their skills as mind controlled slaves to enslave the rest of the galaxy. A new species of Kroot was born. This time, they ate cheese. These Kroot came to be feared throughout the galaxy as the "Witchhunters" or simply "Kroot" for short. - -The Kroot Wars, the Imperium's first foray into fighting off a non-human race, has been raging in the Eye for a decade. The Imperium has sent out vast fleets of ships, some containing the Imperial Guard, against the Kroot in attempts to conquer the Kroot homeworlds of Kroot, Kroot, Kroot. But the Kroot have proven more than a match for the Imperial Navy and their superior technology. - -So now the Imperium has found themselves fighting a two front war in the first few days of the Kroot Wars. Kroot from both of the Kroot Homeworlds have made themselves known, and -======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== -BARACK OBAMA has signed a law expanding background checks to private sales of guns and ammunition in a bid to keep guns out of the hands of criminals after the mass shooting in Virginia on Thursday. - -Congress passed the law in part to try to keep assault weapons out of the hands of extremists. The National Rifle Association vowed to fight any attempts to enforce it, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had a veto-proof majority, is expected to issue an executive order to the Justice Department later this week to implement the law. - -Obama was expected to sign the gun bill as early as Monday and give a speech outlining his plans for the remainder of his first term. - -Congress passed a similar bill, which has yet to go into effect, requiring background checks on people buying guns after the December 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 six-year-olds and six educators dead. - -The legislation that went into effect had a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. - -The new law will add to a database that includes more than 160 millions firearms owners' names, addresses, telephone numbers and date of birth.<|endoftext|>A few days ago I got the email "You've received your new job. You should know what to expect tomorrow!" - -That's actually good advice I should take a look at, so that's what I'm going to do. - -First of all, there's a couple of points that should be important to make. I'm still in the process of transitioning between "unpaid internship" and "paid company internship", and it's not easy. So this is all very much "work in progress" and I'm trying not to make too many premature decisions about this part of my career. I was at TechCrunch in my last internship, and I was really glad about this as well. It felt way more organized and not like I was working on the same things over and over, with very little opportunity for promotion. So I like this idea of doing another and trying it both ways, and hopefully it'll work. - -Second, we have to take a look back at last weekend… - -Last weekends event was at DevConf that was held in New York. At the beginning of the weekend the event was a little bit "off", it seemed like a lot of people just got there with one thing in particular in mind. So it felt a little more loose and I was still learning a lot about the program. - -I worked very late. It was around 9 or 10 PM and I didn't have anything to do, I was waiting for my friend Alex to come by for supper so I could spend the night with him. I had no idea what would have happened tomorrow, so I just hung out in a Starbucks coffee shop for a while until my friend Alex and I got home. After he left I felt super "meh". I wasn't feeling excited, I was just ready for the day to end and I wanted to go home. - -I had more or less read most of the articles, watched pretty much every Youtube video, etc. after the event. I was getting pretty familiar with how the program works. So when I looked into the DevSecOps book I was a little bit surprised to see that at this event it had just published a special edition, with a "special guest author". It was this person by name Daniel Sturm. He is now not only the senior program manager, but also the head of the DevSecOps program. - -I started reading Daniel's blog post this morning. There was a lot of useful information in there, but I'm still not sure if it's actually useful. For example, the part that I want to discuss is the one where he talks about the "culture of DevOps" and how that needs to move into a "culture of happiness" for the developers and the company. I have not found anything like this anywhere else, so that should give you a hint how much I dislike this part of the program. - -My favorite part was the part where he talked about the "DevOps team" and how they need to "work together for the good of the company". I don't know what he saw in us to start with to think we're good enough to work together for the good of the company. Also, we have been there before. In the early days of DevOps everyone thought that everyone else was wrong, that DevOps was too hard to work on, etc., and so we started our own thing called The DevOps Team, and we just tried to work together, and we were successful for about 4 months. They said we were doing a great job. - -So that brings me to my next point. I am not sure what the "culture of happiness" means exactly, but I'm pretty sure it means that each company has a culture that is different from the other companies. Every organization has its own way of doing things, that might be good for some, -======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== -Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian recently came under fire from both supporters and detractors after a video detailing her series on how female characters in video games are portrayed was removed and reuploaded onto YouTube. Despite a quick response from the creator and an acknowledgement from Google, the video remains nowhere to be seen. - -Despite the controversy surrounding Sarkeesian, her campaign has yet to have an adverse impact on the gaming industry. She may not be receiving the praise she deserves as a result of her campaign; however, her opinions have been embraced and are still being listened to by many within the gaming community. In addition, some companies have even released their own forms of criticism against Sarkeesian over her lack of representation. - -While the lack of content that was taken down for the video by YouTube does not really affect the overall video, many have still expressed their frustration with the situation. In fact, one user on Reddit was even going as far as to create a "Feminist Frequency Rewarded For Death and Rape" badge. - -Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian recently came under fire from both supporters and detractors after a video detailing her series on how female characters in video games are portrayed was removed and reuploaded onto YouTube. Even though a response was received from the creator, the video remains nowhere to be seen. Despite a quick response from the creator and an acknowledgement from Google, the video remains nowhere to be seen. Despite a quick response from the creator and an acknowledgement from Google, the video remains nowhere to be seen. - -Sarkeesian was scheduled to address the issue at an event in London last night, but has since been forced to cancel her appearance. According to an interview with her on her Feminist Frequency YouTube channel she has decided to cancel for various reasons, including scheduling clashes with other planned lectures. - -[Image via YouTube/The Feminist Frequency] In a video update on her blog, Sarkeesian wrote: - -"So as of right now there is a lot of work I'll want to do prior to being able to continue this work—writing, editing and recording. I'm sorry to everyone who had paid attention to my talk in person last night and was excited about finding out what I actually had to say regarding sexist tropes in video games. I'm also sorry to the organizers of the event for the chaos and confusion our cancellation has caused." - -Feminist Frequency has been making an effort all year long to provide content for gaming companies and developers to include in their games. While the lack of content might not have been the end of the world if it was simply something that has been covered by many within the video gaming industry and the community at large, the fact that it wasn't even taken out of the video in a matter of hours has left some with a pretty big question as to whether or not there was a problem at all. - -[Featured Image by Matt Cowan/Getty Images]<|endoftext|>The United States was on track to see an increase in exports of all kinds in September following a slight uptick in October, a Commerce Department report showing. Exports were up 6.4 percent, compared with the growth rate the U.S. government reported in October, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. - -That's less than the 7.6-percent increase in October that some forecasters were expecting, but still strong. Exports were up 7.9 percent from the previous year, up from March's 0.7-percent growth rate, with the increase partly driven by better performance at major export markets, the report showed. - -"With an increase in the unemployment rate of some 1.8 percentage points to 8.0 percent, there is no doubt that we will see more of these trade-related problems," said Adam Stoltmann, senior economist at Bank of the West. - -Exports of goods such as cars, aircraft, machinery, agricultural products and pharmaceuticals, which account for two-thirds of all U.S. exports, were up 9.8 percent in September from the previous month, according to the report. - -Retail trade fell 13.2 percent over the same period of time. Exports to Canada fell 8.7 percent. And, sales to Mexico fell 6.5 percent. - -Exports of financial services declined more than 10 percent last month, while exports to China fell 6.7 percent. - -Despite the soft numbers, economists expected export growth to come in above 8.0 percent. - -The U.S. economy has expanded faster than expected since last month's government report. - -But growth continues to trail forecasts. Earlier this month, the government said economic activity grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that exports jumped 7.4 percent in the second quarter, compared with growth of 1.9 percent for domestic firms. - -The figures for September may have surprised many, though, because retailers such as Walmart and Amazon are not typically counted among other types of -======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== -The most common symptoms of anxiety are racing heartbeat, sweating, trembling, increased heart rate and other heart-related symptoms such as palpitations. - -Symptoms can come after a stressful event such as when you:<|endoftext|>A couple of years ago we wrote an e-book about the "Walking Dead" and its fans which you can buy for $0.99. In one of our episodes we discussed our favorite moments so far and I found an interesting theory about one of the more interesting moments from episode 301.<|endoftext|>What's the difference between F-18 vs F-16, the F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon, and the F-35? - -While there is some similarity between each of these aircraft, they each have different strengths, weaknesses, requirements, and strengths. There are major differences in all of these, including in propulsion engines, radar, and sensor systems. - -Although the F-35 has been in development for some time, it now comes into full view. A full technical description of the aircraft was published in the December issue of American Defense magazine. While some aspects of the F-35 are obvious (which I can't remember) other things are still not entirely apparent. The most important thing to know for the moment is that it is a stealth fighter designed to attack a relatively small target (a fast moving object) against a much smaller threat (the threat is a bomber or cruise missile) because all of these other planes can't really do it without massive modifications. The F-35's mission will be to attack other threats that other bombers or cruise missiles cannot, and also to defend itself (with the right air defense support) from attack by other bombers or cruise missiles. The F-35 in its current configuration is capable of all of this and more. - -(click to embiggen) - -When I began this project, the F-35 was on the drawing boards as an alternative to the F-16. It was expected that it would be a "little bit" smaller in size than the F-16. This led many to say that the F-35 lacked stealth, and there is certainly no way the F-35 could ever have been stealthy. However, with a number of upgrades that make the F-35 significantly larger than the F-16, it has a far greater level of stealth than is possible with the F-16. - -The full technical description of the F-35 as a fighter jet is available, it was posted here. - -The F-35 is more or less a large delta wing F-16 with a very large bomb bay and many other "add-ons" designed to give it additional air-to-air capabilities. These add-ons include the ability to fire laser-guided high-explosive JDAMs and the ability to carry air-to-ground weapons. Most of the F-18's air-to-air combat experience came from the F-15E Strike Eagle; the F-4 Phantom II was designed to attack ground targets; and the F-15 and F-16 have the best capabilities to attack the ground. While the F-15E and the F-16 were designed for air-to-air combat, the F-35's capabilities will likely be more suited in battle against other fighter aircraft (Bombers, cruise missiles, etc.) and cruise missiles. The F-16 is also more capable than the F-35 at "short" (20-40 miles) range combat. - -The F-15 has the largest air-to-air weapons load-out of any aircraft in the world. The plane carries the AGM-65 Maverick missile loaded internally, but they can be carried externally with a standard 40-pound charge. The F-15A/B Super Eagle carries one AGM-84H Sidewinder internal pod and has another internal one to add one of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, and they can also be loaded externally for a total of three of the AIM-9s. In short, the F-15A/B Super Eagle and F-16 have more weapons than any other fighter or bomber, and for a very expensive plane. A F-16E in the USAF carries one AGM-65C Phoenix missile internally, which can load one of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles with a 100-pound external charge, and one AIM-132 Stinger missile internally, which can fire six AIM-9s without external charge. A Mirage 2000D in the USAF is loaded with one AGM-109M Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) loaded with one of five standard Tomahawk missiles, and one external one loaded with the Tomahawk anti-ship missile, the AN/APG-76. - -The Eurofighter Typhoon carries ten MICA air-to-air missiles internally and, in the Eurofighter Typhoon SE (with an internal bomb bay), has two internal weapons pods -======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== -As usual there are lots of different ways to build your game: you can combine traditional concepts or invent a whole new one from scratch. You might use Unity's built in scripting capabilities from day one, but instead of taking a basic scripting class you can simply learn JavaScript, a powerful and rapidly growing programming language. - -Unity allows you to have a game built in less than 10 minutes, so if you'd like to start coding before you're even halfway through your project, go for it. - -However, there are always downsides to using this way: - -Unity is very powerful. It's not as user friendly as game engines like Unreal or CryEngine. If you intend to publish your game on a large scale then you might want to find out more about its licensing and business model. For the less technical, Unity allows you to write your games in Javascript for the sake of portability. To make this possible, it is a fully functional Javascript runtime and all the standard libraries that you might be used to. - -The learning curve can be quite steep. It might seem like Unity takes a long time to get used to, but once you do the experience and learning curve can pay off. The game scripting part takes less than a day and once you go trough the basics you don't have to worry about it anymore. - -It's not like other software development that you can find online. As a developer you're required to know a new language, and learn something different every single time you start a project. If you're just starting, that's going to be a hard sell. It makes the experience of taking over an existing or trying to come into a new engine really unique. It can even be an attractive alternative, as Unity often offers free credits to early Unity users. - -So if you're a Unity gamer you could start from scratch on a new project, or jump ship and pick up a pre developed or written engine that already comes with game features. But if you're only a casual enthusiast or have never used one before then these might just be all the benefits you need out of a programming environment! - -Downloadable resources - -Download the Unity 5 Tutorials and Games from Udemy - -Unity 5 has a huge amount of features and features that allow you to work on your game from a whole new perspective. They offer tutorials and guides on how to write scripts, the tools you'll need and what the workflow is. They also offer a lot of free courses and tutorials which you can access. - -Download the Unity 5 Video Tutorials and Gameplay Videos from Udemy - -This great place to learn about the Unity language is also the largest repository of video tutorials on the web. It's great because you can really find a lesson for anything you want. This is a really big library of game development tutorials, so there is something for everyone, from quick start tutorials to advanced tutorials. - -You can find the Unity tutorials (videos with HTML5 and video links) by following the links below: - -Unity 5 Tutorials - -Video tutorials on Unity 5 are available in 720p and also in 1080p. All videos are free of charge so you can download whenever you like! All the tutorials on the website have links at the end that you can use to watch the video (the tutorials also have instructions), which is great because there can have been a lot of reading going on while you are learning something. - -Unity Unity 5 Tutorial - -Unity 5 Gameplay Videos - -There are a lot of Unity specific games available on Steam, so it is a good idea to take a look there. Some of them have tutorials for all the various Unity tools, other games only get those to make them as complete as they can be. - -Unity Games - -I really encourage you to subscribe to Unity's newsletter (at the bottom right of this page). I've written tutorials as part of the newsletter that I personally use. Some tutorials have also made it into the books mentioned above (see below) so you have a good selection of great learning material to choose from. - -I hope these resources help you to take command of Unity and help you become a game dev for real! If you'd like to see more Unity tutorials and posts then check my Unity YouTube channel or contact me on my website or twitter.<|endoftext|>It was the first day of the first football season since 2012, and the first day of spring practice with a new start line in place for the 2013 edition of the University of Alabama. - -With an early start to spring camp Friday, Alabama had a number of players back from the injury bug in 2013. Starting wide receiver Calvin Ridley was active for the first time since his ACL season-ending tear to the knee in the season opener against Virginia Tech. - -Drew Morgan didn't play last season after undergoing microdiscectomy surgery to repair his groin injury. The surgery went well and Morgan is now back to full training. - -In other news, redshirt freshman linebacker Bo Scarb -======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== -The United States has released a photo, from its military, in which an unidentified man is being interviewed by investigators, in Syria as the US-led coalition continues to strike ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. - -The group said in a release that it identified the man as a local member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main US-backed rebel faction fighting to oust ISIS from Raqqa – the self-proclaimed caliphate group's Syrian stronghold. - -In an effort to destroy ISIS, the Pentagon and SDF have worked together to create an international force of an estimated 250,000-600,000 troops, which has already managed to capture a number of ISIS strongholds. - -The coalition is currently carrying out a campaign of airstrikes against ISIS across several different areas in Syria, using fighter jets, cruise missiles, drones and more. Last week, the US announced it had carried out 59 air strikes against ISIS in Iraq. - -The release of the photo, which does not show the SDF member's face, comes as the US and several other coalition members have been reluctant to provide details about which military-aged men they are targeting in Syria. Since the start of the US-led campaign in August 2014, the US military has said it has killed roughly 500 to 6,500 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria – but those numbers have not been independently verified.<|endoftext|>The federal Conservative leadership race appears to have its first two contenders. - -With only three weeks until voting opens and a big chunk of delegates still to be allocated, the race has opened up to the wider public thanks to video interviews of all nine contestants posted online this week by The Globe and Mail and iPolitics. The interviews have also been posted to YouTube. - -Story continues below advertisement - -Two other leadership candidates, Kellie Leitch and Michael Chong, were invited to the iPolitics interview but declined. The party has also invited all seven declared Conservative candidates to its fall party convention in Calgary next month. - -Ahead of the leadership campaign, Mr. Kibbek spent time travelling to eight of the 10 ridings with some semblance of a leadership race (see sidebar for candidates in other ridings). The first thing Mr. Kibbek said in each of his interviews: He is not running for the leadership. - -But the second-place finishes in Edmonton-Strathcona and Vancouver South make it clear that there is some traction. - -"We saw these two parties start this up, and that trend is going to continue. But, right now, that is what I believe with respect to what the parties are doing," Mr. Kibbek said. - -In Edmonton's Edmonton-Strathcona riding, which was part of the 2011 election that saw the Conservatives win 51 per cent of the vote, a survey by Nanos Research conducted in September and October of this year and reported this week by the Edmonton Journal found that Conservative candidates, even when they were outspent 2:1, won only 19 per cent of the popular vote. - -The Liberal candidate, Wayne Drysdale (pictured, left), and Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who was first elected in Vancouver South five years ago, were tied for second place in the poll. - -The result in the riding means the Conservative candidate, Linda Johnson, will need both the Green Party vote and the support of at least 17 per cent of Liberal voters to make the cut for a fall convention. The race has been wide open since the party first nominated Ms. Johnson. - -Story continues below advertisement - -Story continues below advertisement - -In Vancouver South, which is the riding where Mr. Kibbek was first elected after being elected as the Liberals' candidate in 2000 and represented them in the federal NDP until 2008, a poll by Forum Research conducted in March saw the two Liberal candidates tied for first place in the riding. It also showed that Mr. Chong led in that riding ahead of the June election. Both Mr. Kibbek and Mr. Chong have indicated they are still considering entering the race. - -"It's always a big risk to be a candidate, but if you're a politician that is going to bring some new ideas and some new ideas to the table, I think the party is ready and willing to consider it," Mr. Chong told iPolitics earlier this year. - -With that in mind, the party has yet to rule out a leadership contest for both the current leadership candidates and for Mr. Kibbek. The leadership criteria are not set in stone just yet, though. - -Party bosses are meeting later this month to discuss their options, said party president Rick Dykstra in a telephone interview on Friday afternoon. - -"We recognize that there is a huge amount at stake to determine the next leader of the Conservative Party and that leadership contest is an extraordinary event," he said. "We have made it a priority to make sure that we are as inclusive as we possibly can be of all voices. We are going to gather the voices of -======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== -After months of being largely ignored and mocked by the media and the political mainstream, Hillary Clinton gave a fiery speech on Wednesday night during which she finally acknowledged what everyone has been saying for months: The only reason Donald Trump is President-elect is Barack Obama's fault. - -"I am so grateful that President Obama is gone," said Clinton. "I mean, I don't think it's possible to describe what an enormous relief it is to be out of the daily chaos and the daily grind and the daily fight. I can't wait to get to work on behalf of the American people." - -Trump supporters have long claimed that Clinton made this speech to "whistle-blow" to her supporters, and to the country at large. However, Clinton clearly did it for reasons other than that: Acknowledging the massive blame that should rightfully be placed over her former boss, Hillary Clinton admitted that even before the election she knew that it was Obama's fault that Trump is in the White House. - -"People often say to me, why are you still involved? And I tell them, 'You know, I've been around too long,'" she said. "There's just no doubt in my mind that if Donald Trump had beaten me, he probably would have been a little less inclined to be unpredictable and a little less inclined to start World War III." - -It will probably take a couple more weeks before Hillary has to defend her actions in making this remark, but it will eventually come. The reality is that Trump has been a clear and present threat to the national security of our country for years. The Democrats have actively enabled this threat through their obstruction of Trump's Cabinet nominations, support of illegal acts such as the Muslim Ban, and now their refusal to even consider his appointments. - -What do you think about Hillary admitting that it was Obama in 2008 who started World War III? Please leave us a comment (below) and tell us.<|endoftext|>In the early 1970s, Bill Gates began experimenting with computing technology in a small college dorm in Menlo Park, California, known as the Artificial Intelligence Project. In 1980, Gates sold his stake in the project to C. Douglas Dillon, a businessman and Microsoft investor. Today, he is the richest person in the world, and he's the most innovative billionaire in the world. - -In honor of his new book, The Road to Microsoft: How I Took a $10 Billion Startup and Organized the World's Most Influential Company, we're doing an interview with Bill Gates about all he's accomplished over the years. We talked about his early years at Microsoft, the creation of Microsoft Word, his most important investments, why he's not working on personal computers, and more. - - -If you'd like to hear more from Gates about what he's doing now—and what he's thinking about next—you can listen to the interview in the iTunes Store or download it. And if you would like to read an edited transcript along with the podcast, visit the transcript page here.<|endoftext|>One of the nation's largest health care trade groups says a new law that gives consumers more control over how they view what they pay for drugs will create a patchwork of state rules. - -The American Health Care Act was officially filed this week with the Senate and its House counterparts. The legislation, which would roll back the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also repeals a number of government regulations and imposes changes in tax credits and coverage. - -Under the law, consumers will be able to shop around for a plan that fits their needs by paying only the premiums for the lowest-cost plans available. They'll also be able to shop around for less expensive plans with lower deductibles. - -Those with pre-existing conditions could use a new high-risk market to get treatment that would be covered under their old plans. - -The American College of Emergency Physicians, an organization of nearly 200 physician groups that represent more than 11,000 emergency physician members, said the law's "regulatory changes may result in a patchwork of health care plans across the country." - -Among those concerns is a provision that says federal authorities will be able to prohibit carriers from selling plans in different states that have different laws governing insurers. - -The health care act now heads to the White House for review. It has been referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means, which will start debating it June 6, and to the Energy and Commerce Committee, which will hold a hearing June 13. - -The committee will begin in-depth discussions on the bill's impact on insurance pricing and coverage. - -One provision in the legislation, known as the Price Act, would allow health insurers to renew insurance plans that are canceled or changed early by consumers in the coverage gap. The law would limit the time period where the plans can be re-sold. - -Under the current law, policyholders will be grandfathered in, which means the policies are generally guaranteed to be sold for at least two more years. This gives enrollees a year -======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== -If I could find my keys, I would make sure to take all of my valuables and the clothes on my back and move to the suburbs of my house, preferably just after the sun falls in the sky. - -My mother told me this story when I was 15-years old, and it didn't make me feel particularly good. She had been murdered while working for the FBI, but in my mind, she'd been murdered at her job because I was going to go to Iraq. - -So, I had a pretty good idea that the FBI's "investigation" into her death would be a charade. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why she didn't tell anyone she was pregnant, that she had two children, or that she had gone missing. My mother had been on her feet for over a month before the FBI realized that a woman they had spent five years looking for couldn't be a suspect. - -The only person I talked to in the entire investigation was my ex-best friend. I remember him being very worried about me and the police searching his house, and it hit me in a way no interrogation could. The FBI seemed obsessed with the idea that our friendship was somehow related to her disappearance. - -That was the last week I was in the room. The police left a few days later without me or my mother and left me with the man who had tortured me for three years, and then lied about the whole thing. I had no one to turn to; no one to tell my story; no one to defend me; no one to go to prison for. It was like a bad dream that had just suddenly come to life. - -Years of feeling like I was completely lost to the world and the only people who mattered were those that would defend me with violence were suddenly gone. I felt like a criminal instead of a victim at that point in my life. - -The worst part of the whole experience is that the FBI had no idea what had happened to my mother. Even the man who confessed to me, and he told me this over and over in front of the man I thought was my best friend, didn't know anything about what had happened to her. He said she had disappeared into a dark underground passage from which nobody ever came out. - -But he did tell me what happened to her days after she left me, as a way to get sympathy from me. He told me she had been killed during an armed robbery of a bank, and he said that the only thing he knew for sure was that she was pregnant. - -I knew that's not true, and that's why I was so angry with him. I hated him for ruining my mom's story, for saying my mother was murdered, and for taking away everything we'd shared during our first three years together. - -One night after getting out of the mental health unit that the FBI had set us up in, I had a conversation with my mom. I sat her down and told her that I was going to Iraq and that I had a lot of things I had to do, and that I would need her help. - -"I'm going to Iraq, are you sure you want me to leave you?" she asked. - -"Why not?" I answered. "What better way to spend the last week of July in July? As long as I'm with you, you won't be alone in this world." - -"I don't want to leave you," she cried. - -"No you won't," I assured her firmly. "You won't be alone because I'll be here for you while you're there. I'll be your best friend in Iraq, no matter what happens." After all, I thought, it might as well happen the best way possible. - -I was so young that I had no idea that anything I did here would have any meaning for my family. As it turned out though, my mom loved me so much that even when I thought my adventure was over, she refused to let me go. - -I spent the next year doing everything I could to keep my mom together during her hospitalization. I went back to school with her so that I could stay close to her all the time, I made sure I got a job so I could have enough money to get by while she was gone, I put my grades in one of our two local schools so I could get some extra money to pay rent. I kept her in my life and did everything in my power to make sure we had each other. Even when she asked me to leave her, I didn't. - -And it worked. - -When I got out of the hospital at the end of July 2008, I went back to visit my mom at a nearby nursing home. I remember the day clearly. As soon as I walked into the room, she looked up at me and smiled. A few minutes later, she reached out and gave me a long, deep kiss. She -======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== -Fossil fuels are still crucial for the energy needs of the world. There is still a need for alternative energy sources as well as a decrease in their relative price rate. However, despite the global dependence of fossil fuel on fossil fuels, the demand for fossil fuel remains very high and there is a significant amount of fossil fuel reserves which are yet to be exploited. Hence, fossil fuels are being produced at very high price and are yet to be exhausted. - -What is the reason for such an excess of fossil fuel reserves? The primary reason is the large level of production of fossil fuels through extraction of the petroleum based oil and gas. The other important reason is the huge growth in the consumption of fossil fuels in the developed countries which caused high levels of oil price, even though the cost of producing it is high. - -The total energy intensity of fossil fuels has dropped over the course of the last 80 years, as the energy costs are declining. The growth in energy use in the developed countries which is mainly based on fossil fuel and has contributed to the high relative price of fossil fuels. - -It was estimated that the production of oil from conventional sources is increasing at an annual rate of 8% but this rate is steadily decreasing as it takes time, effort and resources to develop conventional sources of fossil fuels, that are mainly based on fossil fuel reserves. However, there are a number of unconventional fossil fuel source of the energy, which have yet to be developed, but with their development will have a great impact on the economic and energy balance between the developed and less developed countries. - -However, the use of renewable sources for energy has been increasing with respect to consumption, which has also resulted in decreasing the rate of growth. The use of wind is the way to go in terms of renewable sources of energy. However in developed countries, where wind and solar resources are very limited, it is more suitable to use other renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric energy, biomass like wood and bio energy which are more practical and efficient than wind and solar source of energy. - -In addition to the use of renewable source of energy, natural gas has been rapidly expanding to become an important alternative source of energy and the use of natural gas which is the least expensive and the purest form of fossil fuel, is increasing significantly due to the increased demand and supply for energy from the developed countries where natural gas is heavily marketed. - -The use of oil is going to be a major issue in the future since the rate of growth of the global oil supply at present can't accommodate the growing global demands and the decline in oil prices. - -The demand for oil has been rising at 1% with respect to population and world economy. The global rate of oil demand has been declining with respect to population and world economy in recent years and oil supply has been growing at about 1%. Given the high level of oil prices, the demand and supply of crude oil has been declining which has affected all oil companies and contributed to the overall decline of the world oil market. - -Oil is currently being provided at very high costs by several nations. Due to the high cost of oil, it is still profitable for foreign oil companies to supply oil, which is primarily being used in fuel, to countries which want to export oil. This is the way for oil production to continue in the developed countries, which are trying to develop their own sources of fuel but without taking into account the environmental impacts, which is not only very important for countries on the developing countries, but also for the developed countries such as the USA. - -A large number of oil wells are being drilled on land where there is oil which are unable to be economically and environmentally developed due to the high cost of oil, although there is a large quantity and it can be extracted even at the high prices of oil, yet it is highly unlikely that the oil wells will be completely developed, with the oil wells being drilled into the ground. It is estimated that there are about 10-11 billion barrels of oil that are yet to be released to the market in the USA where there is a huge demand from the US military. - -The amount of oil that is produced by fracking in the USA has been increasing since 2013 and in the future it is likely that the USA can only meet the demand of the military as long as it continues to supply gas to the US. The USA is a large consumer of natural gas which has a very high price of $15 per million BTU; which means, the demand for gas in USA is expected to increase significantly in coming years. - -Natural gas is an important component of the generation of energy from renewable sources in the USA and in many countries with large consumption of energy the demand of natural gas has already outstripped the amount of natural gas that is available for the generation of energy. - -The USA is the biggest consumer of natural gas in the world, which has a consumption of about 6%, which is larger than its economic production. The high cost of natural gas has caused the USA to import about half of the total natural -======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== -Mortin Harket, chief executive officer of Google, was interviewed at the annual Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in New York. - -At the event, Harket fielded the question of whether people would stop using search engines like Google for the company's own personal services or for social-networking sites like Facebook. The Google search results are the main reason people will still use Google for search results in Google, where the company earns a 30% income before taxes. - -Google recently unveiled its online shopping tool and will roll out a similar service later this month for online travel. While Google has long offered services that allow people to search for travel advice and book hotel rooms, the new feature will let people search for flights and hotels on their way to locations, such as a vacation or a wedding. Google hasn't confirmed whether those services will be sold as add-on services or have a standalone app. - -The social networks are more dependent on the revenue generated through advertising, which is why Facebook is trying to monetize its Facebook search results. The companies have made an agreement to work together on the "Next Gen" social-networking site as reported in Re/code. - -Harket said it is tough to judge social networks like Facebook, which has grown so quickly, and it won't be able to predict what the overall revenue can be. "Facebook is going to grow so very quickly. And we understand that, and we want to compete against it. That's not what makes us successful," he said. - -He also defended Google's Android operating system. In the interview, he said Android has a "better user experience" than rival iOS. Harket said Apple's iPhone is "better than any Android phone." - -Despite its rapid growth in search results, Google's revenue per search engine dollar has been steadily falling. The company is projected to bring in $2.3 billion in revenue per year from search in 2013, down from $2.6 billion the year before, The New York Times reports. Harket claimed that the decline is mostly a result of lower advertising revenue, which has been influenced by shifting habits from users. "Social media in particular will have a big impact on advertisers, but I think all advertising needs to change," Harket said. - -As far as other personal services for Google, it will add maps to Google Maps in the coming months. "Mobile is our biggest opportunity. We've seen some companies come and go, but Google maps is what people are already using on smartphones," Harket said, adding that the maps app will be free at launch on iOS and Android.<|endoftext|>DURHAM, N.C. -- Clemson players gathered around quarterback Deshaun Watson as he sat on a bench waiting for his name to be called in the Orange Bowl. They were worried. Watson was worried -- a lot. - -The quarterback was nervous and scared, he told his teammates -- anxious not to let the opposing team win the game, worried that his teammate was going to get hurt or worse. - -It didn't happen. But to Watson, it was just one of two games in his life where things went terribly wrong for him. - -"I had to go through what he went through to get back to where I was," Watson said. "The fact that I was even playing as good as I was for the majority of this time says a lot." - -Watson threw a game-winning 35-yard Hail Mary to end the game as Clemson beat Florida State 38-35 for the national title Thursday night. Watson went 31-for-40 for 385 yards and four touchdowns. - -Watson then had to walk off the field and get checked for a concussion after he threw a deep pass to Mike Williams with under two minutes left. No one knew if he took a hit. - -"But I got back in the huddle and I tried to just go in and go to work," Watson said. "That was the first time I had ever stepped on the field like that. I was just happy to get back out there and play." - -Watson, whose father passed away when he was only 7, had a chance to win it himself. He finished 12 of 22 with four touchdowns. Clemson's offense was dominant throughout and ran for a school-record 565 yards. - -For one game, Watson has been able to play. He was not at 100 percent in Thursday night's game. The Tigers still won. - -"He's playing good football," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "But I can guarantee you that had he not been hurt, Deshaun would have tried as hard as he possibly could to help win this game." - -Watson, who set an Orange Bowl record in 2013 when he passed for a school-record 458 yards in a loss to Alabama, was the only senior on Clemson's roster. With his mother, he had been at a standstill after the death of his -======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== -When an Israeli military commando was killed recently in Gaza, the U.S. went from saying it would not take sides until the issue of Palestinian rights was settled to offering up a robust defense, including its own "indirect" support by providing Israel with ammunition. - -"We are deeply concerned about human rights violations and want our governments to have the chance to do more than just take statements at the United Nations Security Council," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki at a briefing in London on May 31, referring to the U.N. Human Rights Council. - -Asked if Israel's assault on Gaza was justified, Ms. Psaki said the U.S. condemns all violence and is committed to a peaceful two-state solution. "We are committed to the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to live side-by-side in peace and security," she said. - -The statement was issued after Israel's military struck Gaza last week in response to a barrage of rocket attacks launched from the enclave by the Islamist movement Hamas—an assertion dismissed by the militants who have fought back with a wave of suicide bombings. - -The Palestinian death toll so far rose to at least 1,049—a majority of them civilians—according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra. - -Israeli military said at least two Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation in Gaza. One of them, 16-year-old U.S.-born volunteer Gila Cohen, was killed by shrapnel to the head after an explosive device blew up nearby. Ms. Cohen was the only American citizen killed in the conflict, the Pentagon said. - -In an interview published in The Guardian and several other publications on Monday, Ms. Psaki said Mr. Cohen was a volunteer, paid for with a civilian government grant. "This was an American, a U.S.-trained volunteer, who was part of our efforts to train foreign nationals to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces," she said. "He did not receive any direct assistance from the United States, and he was not funded by U.S. taxpayers." - -Ms. Psaki also criticized the Hamas rocket attacks for spreading anti-American sentiment. "We have a long-standing, strong commitment to the security of our Palestinian citizens and we think that's a very important aspect of any kind of dialogue," she said. - -It was Mr. Cohen's death—first reported by Israel's Ynet daily—that triggered U.S. condemnation. The State Department on Tuesday called his killing "tragic and unacceptable," demanding that the "Hamas terror organization immediately halt such attacks." - -Ms. Psaki also spoke out against the rocket attacks launched from Gaza. "Rocket fire that spreads across this borders and puts innocent civilians in harm's way does not have a place, and any party to these conflicts must respect the sanctity of civilians, including the civilian population who make up the Gaza population, and must prevent those individuals…who use civilian populations as human shields, as part of Hamas' efforts, and who are directly and indirectly funded by Hamas to use human shields," Ms. Psaki said. - -Ms. Psaki said the U.S. stands by Israel's "right to defend themselves, to protect themselves, to protect their security, to protect their very, very legitimate right" to go after the Hamas movement. - -The Pentagon responded, again, with a stern rebuff. - -"This is a complex situation, this is a complex issue," said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. "We would point out that the United States, the State Department, the U.N., the European Union all make very strong statements about human rights. And we believe it's important for us to make clear that this is a human rights issue. It's not an Arab-Israeli issue." - -For Israel, the question of whether the rocket attacks are legitimate or illegal has become a matter of national security rather than a humanitarian concern. - -Israeli security officials are bracing for more rocket attacks from Hamas despite the loss of some senior members of the movement, including senior operative Samir Kuntar. - -Last spring, there was a brief flare-up of tensions between Israel and Hamas—the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in April and launched a 10-day operation aimed to cleanse militant militants from Gaza. - -After taking full control of the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu has said Israel will continue to strike at its enemies—not only Hamas but also Palestinian political leaders who are supportive of the Hamas movement in West Bank. - -—James Marson<|endoftext|>Get politics updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A Tory activist who said "I don't approve of gay marriage" has been removed from a Tory-organised debate about marriage equality. - -The unnamed man said he was not a member of Conservative Campaign Headquarters and had been selected to speak by a third party group. - -======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== -Frozen is not a Disney/Pixar movie, it is a Disney animated movie from Pixar. - -Here I am, the person who hates it, writing about it. The movie that so many people hate. It's the polarizing movie everyone rages about even though it's just a good movie from what I've seen. It's the movie everyone says should come out and it hasn't. - -Disney/Pixar knows that people like Frozen. But they don't want to make a sequel, because they like the first one and don't want to disappoint it's fans. So, Frozen 2 was always going to be a way off. And so, there was no way in hell I'm writing about this movie. - -However, this movie was one of the most polarizing movies I've seen in my life, so my girlfriend and I decided to watch it a few weeks ago after she read my hate guide to it (it's the only one written by me after all.) We are fans of the movie, but we've also watched the worst Disney movies to get into the right mindset for Frozen. And there is ONE thing that we learned from that movie… - -1. Don't hate the movie until it's released and you're getting tickets to it anyways - -When Elsa was originally revealed as the Princess Elsa of Arendelle it was greeted with a lot of excitement. People said how funny it would be and how she'd be even better than the first one. - -But then a few weeks after it came out, the movie was released! Well, almost. It never happened. It seems to have been delayed by some kind of legal trouble, but the movie ended up being delayed on the Disney schedule anyway and was finally released in the UK for a limited time before being quickly pushed to other countries like the US and Canada. - -But that was the movie… Until now. - -We watched the movie at a friend's house and I was the first one to say we shouldn't hate it. I mean, we probably weren't expecting that much of it by any means, but we have seen so many poor Disney movies and this was a decent movie from where they left it. Elsa is a lot of fun to watch. She is the Princess we all know and love and she makes the best ice queen I've seen. - -But we didn't hate the movie until we went to go see it and we saw the new trailer. And the thing is, the trailer was just a preview of the movie and it doesn't change anything or say anything that changes that you saw in the movie. That's not to say I think the trailer is bad, I think the trailer is pretty solid, but I do want to change something. For whatever reason. - -I just want to change something about it. Like… I want to change Elsa's name to Ice Queen. I think Elsa's name is boring. Her name makes sense when you read the book, but if you go on the internet to read about this movie it doesn't. Ice Queen is a much cooler name. - -This petition is to change it, by popular request. If we get enough signatures we'll get the petition on the official site for the movie and see where it goes from there.<|endoftext|>TODAY'S COMIC: The Lazy Wizard and the Bored Wizard - -I'm looking at a stack of old school comic books, where we have Wizard Lazy Wizard, Bored Wizard, and others. Wizards would read these books and become bored, so then they would have to put the books down, and would eventually find a new book to read to keep the boredom at bay. Then the Wizard Lazy Wizard would pick it up and read it over and over again until finally that stupid Wizard Bored Wizard would have to quit in frustration. It's hilarious. Enjoy! - -I want to thank everyone who took the time out of their day and made this a wonderful day to be an artist! There were so many people that were involved in helping making this comic a success from all of you. Also thank you for all of the encouragement and support all of you gave on social media to the whole process of making this comic. We could never get as far as we did without you guys making the comics so much fun! - -Till next time!!!<|endoftext|>For more than two decades, the National Rifle Association has been the voice of gun owners, advocates, and activists. It has used its power and influence to lobby for reasonable reforms that would strengthen safety standards and protect public health, as well as to promote responsible and responsible ownership of firearms. - -In this respect, the NRA has been an essential part of the American debate. It took a stand against gun control early in the century, when the first attempt was made to ban military-style rifles. It resisted and fought back on several fronts against efforts to impose a gun licensing and registration act in the 1980s and '90s. - -But today -======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== -A few miles south of the village of Varese, Italy, is the village of Largo (pronounced "Largo," as in the sound a largo makes). With approximately 600 residents, Largo feels a little more like a small city in Europe than a rural village – in fact, the locals make it sound like a great city. At least, a quaint city of one – the city is home to four churches and two schools, and is the hometown of two famous actors – Giovanni Rigano and Antonio Maffei. - -In recent past, Largo's residents were a mix of Italian residents coming to Varese to live, as well as English and Italian speakers from Northamptonshire, Scotland and Scotland. With the town's location along a narrow, winding road (as most are in central Italy), Varese was also known as the city of angels; according to legend, if you crossed the Largo River into Varese, on your death you would still be in heaven. - -Since about the early 20th century, however, the church in Varese has been experiencing some growing pains because of the town's low population and low tax base – not a good combination, in many ways. Now, there's a battle raging between the residents of Largo, those of the neighboring town of Bologna, and the village of Bologna. - -To make a long story short, when Bologna built a new library back in 1998-99, it decided to renovate the structure without consulting the residents of Bologna. In response, Largo residents – who had no idea about the plans to move in – protested, leading to a series of clashes between the two towns that culminated in a brief war back in 2009. Now, the residents of Largo are trying to prevent the demolition of their church, which has been home to the church since 1927. If the fight against the church continues it could result in the permanent relocation of Bologna's entire church population to Largo (even though the people of Bologna have already moved to new homes elsewhere). - -To make matters even more complicated, the two churches have different types of architecture. Largo's is more Gothic than Bologna's, and it's the more ornate of the two. - -I've met with a local resident of Largo and I asked her if she thinks Bologna will be forced to relocate. Her reply: "No, it will be fine." - -But here's the thing: Even if Bologna gets the green light to move its entire population to Largo, Largo will still maintain an independent community. Why? Well, because Bologna is still a huge town with a population of close to 40,000, and it will still have to pay the taxes of their many (many!) residents. - -I asked the local citizen of Largo if this is what's called a "dividing line of death" – i.e., a town that's split from itself between its population living inside and outside. Her response: "Not so much. Even the residents of Bologna will pay for the upkeep and will continue to pay taxes to Largo." - -This is also the sentiment I got from a local resident of Bologna; a man named Roberto De Gregorio tells me, "The new Library of Bologna will close the gates to the rest of Largo for two weeks so that people can come here and enjoy and know that this is their town too. If we are forced of course, we will leave for Largo in the morning. The new Library of Bologna also proposes to bring in a new bus service to Bologna to help us get around between the two towns – although at present the new Library does not connect them." - -Still, there is still the possibility that they will eventually have to move because someone somewhere in Bologna wants to move out, but they hope this problem will be solved at the very least. - -There's also the question of the financial impact of the newLibrary. Although Bologna did not have to pay for the development costs related to the new library, they do have to pay for a portion of the maintenance and upkeep. Will Bologna simply be left holding the bag? Will they be forced to make up lost revenue due to a higher cost, or will the newLibrary provide enough additional revenue to absorb the increased maintenance costs? - -Ultimately, it's very hard for me to answer these questions… but for now, I can say that I think the best thing for both towns would be if this issue could be resolved quickly without any major injuries. - -To help you make your decision, I've put together this infographic that summarizes the differences between the two communities and why one seems to be in a better position than the other. - -If you would like more information on the differences between the two communities or could find another way to contact -======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== -I was asked to attend the DICE 2013 keynote, and being an avid fan of Battlefield and the Battlefield franchise, it seemed like a perfect opportunity. The event was held in Hollywood, CA and I decided to watch and learn as much as I could, just in case something big happened. Unfortunately, the keynote didn't go my way. This is my review of the keynote. - -Battlefield Hardline – The Call of Duty of Video Games - -The Battlefield series has always excelled at storytelling. It has been a mainstay in the series for many years. In the latest installment of the Battlefield franchise, all that is left in the game to be described as pure fantasy. - -The story is more about the game that it is about the story. This is why the game is so much different from the previous installments. The characters that the player starts off with are a bit fleshed out, and I think it will be necessary for someone who is in the game for the first time to understand what exactly is going on. From the beginning, the story feels like it is a bit shallow, and can be confusing when you first start out. - -This is a big problem when it comes to storytelling in video games. It can be easy to get caught up in the game itself and forget the story. The most frustrating thing, however, is that if you do not play the game, you cannot see the game as a whole. So, when you do play the game, there is no way for you to appreciate the story. Not the story, certainly, but the story as a whole. - -The game is about cops and criminals in the city. I am not really sure how the game handles crime, but it is pretty obvious that criminals are bad, yet law enforcement officers seem to have a problem with crime as well. I think a lot of the story is based on the fact that law enforcement officers are so used to solving crimes that they are overconfident when they are trying to stop someone. - -After playing the game for a little bit, I learned that it seems more like a cop drama, where you get to watch them go up against criminals who have all sorts of weapons, weapons that law enforcement officers are not used to encountering in the real world. - -Overall, I was not really impressed. It's a lot of story, but it is a cop drama, which can be frustrating when the game itself is not so interesting. The only things I liked about the story was the portrayal of the police officers and the characters that we see in the game, that had more depth than what we have seen before in a video game. There are times when I felt like it could have been better, but the game is really what is important. The game is just a part of the story. It may not be the whole story, but it is a cool part of the story. Overall, it was a bit disappointing to see a game that is based on one franchise completely forget about the other franchise during such a big event. - -Battlefield 3 – The Ultimate Multiplayer Experience - -Before I start talking about the story, let's talk about the multiplayer experience. With its new features, it has been a major push to increase the realism of the gameplay. A lot of people were disappointed about the Battlefield 3 multiplayer, so I am sure that they had lots of questions about its features. - -I am going to give you my quick take on the game. - -I will start with the guns. Yes, I know there are a lot of people here, like me, that will argue against the use of those machines, but they are the main weapon on the battlefield. I have had many a gunfight where I have pulled the trigger over and over again and it was never really a good result. There is a limit to how fast you can go, and you can only have so many guns on you. But, if you were able to learn and exploit those limitations, it is possible for you to pull off a really good gunfight. - -I was talking about the guns on a different point, but the game does bring back a lot of the weapons from Battlefield 2 and even BF1. The game features a wide selection of weapons to choose from, and some weapons have been given new weapons. But, there is a limit. It is not really about how you kill someone, but how you use that weapon. Just like we talked about with the story, it seems like when the story is told, it tends to focus much more on the action and not the story. - -The game, if it is a shooter, is not something that should be compared to Battlefield Hardline, as it is trying to do something new with its gameplay options. I did feel that this game could have gone a lot further in the simulation mode. One of the biggest issues is when you reload, you must have the correct magazine, or you are in trouble. The gun has to be balanced perfectly before firing again, -======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== -Penguins winger Phil Kessel spent about an hour with reporters Wednesday morning in Toronto. You can have the entire thing here. - -He spoke about the trade of Sidney Crosby to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and his goals for the season. - -His one-line answer on whether he has any interest in returning (to the Maple Leafs, of course) was that he hasn't made a decision yet. - -"I've got some work to do this summer and I want to be better than I have been this year and I want to be a better player. I've got a lot of things I want to work on, but you never know until you get in that type of competition." –Kessel on whether he's a Maple Leaf or not. - -On Pittsburgh's first game against the Penguins, Kessel said it felt great to see his old team. - -"They're a very veteran team and they came in with a very good attitude. They prepared well and they came here and we got the job done. - -"There's no question about it. It was exciting to see them and it was exciting to come here and compete with them." -Kessel on competing with the Penguins. - -His thoughts on the Penguins winning their second Stanley Cup in as many postseasons: - -"This is a special team and I'm super honored that they were able to do it when everyone says that teams don't win it. They deserve to be here and I'm super happy." -Kessel.<|endoftext|>For the most part, women have been able to "lean in" to the male breadwinner role without worrying that they will come out on the losing end of the marriage bargain. But new research adds to the recent evidence that women are losing the battle of the sexes. - -A big increase in cohabiting and unwed mothers, more single women than ever before, women who work part time, a trend toward co-habitation, and the emergence of "second marriages" in which a newly single woman partners up with an older man have all created challenges for women. In particular, more and more single women are living apart from their spouses — often a source of resentment for mothers. - -This raises all kinds of issues for divorced women, who may have to contend with their ex-spouses' living arrangements and the divorce papers they will inevitably file. - -"A lot of women want to believe that they are at the pinnacle of their careers and careers are what matters in the end, whether you are divorced or not," noted Dr. Rebecca Campbell, senior research associate at the American Association of University Women, which conducted the study. "But our research shows that it is also true that they feel they are a victim in a way that men do not." - -A survey released last fall found that 62 percent of couples interviewed thought they did not feel "completely at ease" being the primary financial decision-maker in the lives of their partners. About 70 percent had been upset that their current partner's financial planning had taken precedence over theirs in the divorce proceedings. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Couples reported feeling resentful. A woman from Washington State said: "It was awful. He made a lot of money. I never made what he did. He was always in that mansion. Then, all of a sudden, the thing that he thought I earned became I earned as much as he did. He was just so happy. He had time, and the house he had built became mine to go back to whenever I wanted." - -Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. - -A divorced Bostonian said, "It made me miserable, to say the least." - -That sentiment was echoed in interviews conducted with two-thirds of the 800 respondents. - -The poll underscored the degree to which the divorce rate among women has doubled in the past 25 years. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found recently that half of all divorced women who had been living as married in 1980 had now become ex-husbands. Another study found that in 1997, three out of five divorcing women had taken out credit cards to pay legal fees — about the same as the proportion of married women who used credit cards to finance legal fees among new-married couples. - -The new study found an alarming number of men who were either divorced themselves or who had remarried an ex-lover felt guilty and self-conscious about their finances. - -"It reminds us why we are in -======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== -Lion-man is a common theme in some traditional fairy tales, but what is it and how would it relate to a lion with a human soul? In this blog post we look at one of the best-known fairy tales from the 13th century: Léon the Lion-friend. With illustrations from an illuminated manuscript of Saint-Céline's Chronicle of the Lives of the Saints, and an examination of how this tale relates to a lion-man and his life, we'll start to see the meaning of the lion-man in this tale. - -What is a Lion-man? - -The term 'lion-man' has become popular in the past few years with people who want to understand the traditional conception of a lion. Many people have a bad reputation about being rude to tourists because of people calling them 'lion-men'. We're not saying people shouldn't call themselves lion-men but when you come to Scotland, you should learn to act properly! Instead of looking down upon the locals and being rude, why not go and see how they are in reality? - -So why did Léon want to become a lion man? According to Saint-Céline's Chronicle he was made a 'honest knight' at the age of five from his father, and lived as a hermit at Saint-Marcel. This makes him one of the oldest lion-men known to have lived in Europe. In fact as the oldest living lion-man in Britain, he is often called 'the Last Lion-man' due to the fact that he was thought to have died a century ago. - -What makes a lion-man? - -While many modern lion-men would fall under the category of 'brave' or 'good-hearted', the term 'lion-man' is a much wider term, and encompasses everything from the famous King Arthur character, to an elephant wearing a man's suit, to a lion with human body and soul. - -A lion's lion-man has a lion's strength, wisdom and courage; his mind is a lion's, his body is lion's, his spirit is lion's; his mind is a lion's, his heart is a lion's, his soul is lion's and his body is lion's. ~ St Célestine's Chronicle (1530) - -In Scotland, the lion-man is almost always portrayed as having a tail instead of a mane. This has caused a lot of confusion about what a lion-man does, and more importantly is often misinterpreted by tourists as a real living Lion-man. - -What is a Lion-man's life like? - -Lion-man lives a very nomadic life, moving from place to place as needed. This is also where the term 'lion-man' falls under the broad category of being seen as a 'lion-man' by tourists when he lives nomadically for a period of time. Although he is considered a lion-man for his strength, wisdom and courage, the life of the lion-man can be quite similar to other wild animals, living on the edge of survival where survival is everything. - -Lion-man is very cautious about strangers. He does not approach strangers directly, and generally avoids the area where other lions may live. He does approach strangers if the situation is a bit too dangerous (such as a predator or a flood). In those types of situations 'lion-man' will move away from the confrontation, avoiding being hurt or killed. - -Why does lion-man exist? - -Lion-man has a unique place in popular culture. There are lots of stories about lion-mans going out into a forest in dangerous situations to protect children. There have also been stories of lions being seen 'coming to aid' (usually in the form of a woman on a broomstick), often in the form of a mother-lion (pictured here). - -There are two types of lion-person that can be found in the folk-tale. The first is the more common lion-man, while the second could be considered a hybrid beast. - -The first is generally the lion-person we are used to seeing onscreen. The stories usually have the lion-man helping a father, mother or a daughter, and in the story of St. Césaire, he even helped a man who was drowning, before he could be drowned as well. - -The lion-man in these stories has a certain character that often makes him stand out from other characters, like St. Césaire's father or the 'Lion-clowns' from the film. These stories often have quite a strong moral message which could be very hard for people to hear. One such story is the story about the young child, who was left alone in the forest of Fosse, only to discover the forest was full of lions, which were 'looking after their family'. -======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== -"It was the time of the week we were looking forward to, so we decided to try and go to the park. - -"The security staff were very attentive and went way out of their way to ensure we had a safe trip." - -Tina, who lives in New York with her family, bought her first roller coaster when she was two, but she says the experience at the park was a very different one. - -She told local radio station WABC that one of the rides "smacked her down on the way down and she's in a fetal position." - -The woman suffered a back injury and a broken nose as she fell to the ground. - -"I was thinking to myself that a roller coaster is like any roller coaster - it goes from high to low," Tina said, "and in this one I was falling and you just feel so powerless and you don't know what's going to hit you." - -READ MORE: 'Falling' lady left with broken nose and leg after being 'smacked' by roller coaster at Disneyland park - -An ambulance had to be called to the scene and the woman was treated at an emergency hospital before being released. - -In a statement, The Walt Disney Company confirmed that it was not operating the ride at the time. - -"An early morning maintenance team was on scene and it has since been closed for proper inspection," the statement read. "The safety and satisfaction of our guests is our top priority and this investigation continues."<|endoftext|>I've been reading "Echoing the Echo" by Richard Dreyfuss (one of my favorites!) for a couple of days and got curious how people with ADHD reacted to Dreyfuss' "My Brain" book. - -It's about cognitive-behavioral therapy — basically a way of training people to do behaviors that aren't always conscious or deliberate. A lot of people with ADHD are self-help gurus as part of their jobs — so people with ADHD can easily become experts in their own self-improvements. But, I don't think a lot of people know about the fact that Dreyfuss is a chronic sufferer of ADHD himself. I didn't either. It's something I didn't expect until I started writing about it. - - -I like to think of myself as an honest-to-goodness, average human being and, after all, I've been through some terrible things (including being assaulted and hospitalized), so maybe I'm an example to myself. The same goes for Dreyfuss, according to Dreyfuss' website: - -I have ADHD. For most of my life, that has been very tough to understand… But as I grew up, the diagnosis of my ADHD didn't seem that relevant. I didn't need people to tell me it was a problem. It was a problem that only got worse when I tried to manage it myself. - -What was Dreyfuss thinking when he was working on this book about having his ADHD? I was surprised by a couple of answers. The first: - -"I felt as though I were being judged. I was worried about how I'd be perceived by people, particularly my friends and family, if I spoke to them openly about my brain, my ADD, and how I was still having the same problems. - -And, - -"I think I was terrified of the stigma: the fear that I was going to turn to alcohol (and/or drugs) in order to ease my symptoms and keep the symptoms at bay. - -How could I even live life with anxiety, depression, ADHD, anxiety, paranoia, and fear of my own brain? For me, that life was unbearable. I knew one day I'd need to leave that life behind. - -The second: - -I was angry that my symptoms weren't a blessing but a curse. How could they be a curse if I didn't know it? If I didn't have a mental health problem? If I wasn't a burden to the people around me? If they were merely symptoms of a life I didn't want to live? - -I wanted to know how I could change my own life, not because I wanted to change my symptoms (because I knew those symptoms would only get worse… when I began to manage them on my own), but because I wanted help learning to manage them. - -Dreyfuss' book also gives some examples of those that seem to respond well to cognitive-behavioral therapy. - - -Here, for example, is how Dreyfuss describes a client he worked with at a rehab clinic who had a high-functioning diagnosis but struggled with ADHD. On the outside Dreyfuss describes his client as shy and "an introvert." "I would see the client as a kind of quiet, timid soul that needed to be brought out of a shell of self-consciousness," he writes. "She didn't talk to people; she was so absorbed. -======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== -In May 1996, then-California Governor Pete Wilson announced his intention to set up a $6 million study in Oakland, California on the question of whether or not the Oakland school district was using its police to harass or intimidate its students with the aim of preventing students from wearing black face. "I'm concerned for the safety and protection of our students and the community," Wilson told the Oakland press. "We want to make sure everything within the district is following federal law, and we also want to make sure things don't escalate." - -The Oakland City Council quickly approved the study, and in June the study began. In September the study released its results: Of the approximately 5,800 children with which they monitored disciplinary hearings, 6.7 percent were accused of engaging in behaviors that were offensive. Of those incidents, 6.5 percent were deemed "disrespectful," 7.9 percent were deemed "disrespectful but not offensive" and 9.2 percent were deemed "suspect." - -Wilson was not satisfied. "What we're finding is a little bit unsettling for our community and my wife, because I think the findings paint a picture of us in a very bad light. And they paint a picture of us that we wish we weren't," he told reporters in July 1997. "The findings don't appear to include any reference of 'racial profiling.' In general we're finding a very low number of students, and those students, we're finding that they happen to be black." "If you really look around there, our community is probably the most racially diverse in the United States." - -But if most of Wilson's "studies" were conducted at the most racially diverse school district in the United States with the fewest black students, is such a situation really that uncommon? - -The answer is not a firm "yes," for a number of reasons. - -The Oakland study was not a true experiment, and the fact that a study of racial harassment is necessary for the study itself was never stated. Even though the study was advertised as "scientific," Wilson insisted that, "If we were finding that a certain percentage of kids were engaging in behaviors that violated the guidelines that were in the guidelines—they were offensive acts and they were threatening—it would not necessarily qualify and lead me to do what I did." - -The study also was not random, and the only students who appear to have been randomly selected were those most likely to exhibit harassment. Only 25 percent of the students who interacted with police are black, but the study's sampling was limited based on the assumption that such students would be the most likely to be harassed. - -The result that black students are disproportionately targeted for abuse by the police is not a "surprising" conclusion to observers in the African American community. - -Black students in Oakland are six times more likely to be victims of physical and/or sexual discrimination by Oakland's police than white students. In the most recent academic year, Black students had a rate of 15.8 harassment incidents per 1,000 students—three times the rate for White students. According to the most recent report by the Oakland Police Department, there were 1,972 cases of crime against people from Black and other communities. Of those 1,972 incidents, Black victims experienced an incidence rate of 449.2 incidents per 1,000 African Americans, a rate nearly three times that of White people, a rate that was twice the rate for Asian communities and four times the rate for Latinos in Oakland. - -A "surprising" finding at best. - -The racial profiling of Oakland police is not a new phenomenon. In January 2002, police in Oakland were accused of violating the civil rights of 16 Black youths by beating them so badly, one of them died. The victim, 17-year-old Darrick Walker, was arrested for allegedly being in possession of a stolen car. After being brought before an Oakland judge, Walker was put in the front seat of a police van. As the van drove down Market Street, Walker had to endure multiple assaults on his back and sides, including one kick to his head and a head butt, leaving him unconscious. When the van arrived at the police station, he was taken to the hospital in critical condition, where he died as a result of complications from the beating. - -In an interview with CBS San Francisco reporter Mike Wallace, Officer Robert Rizzuti said he was "a little hurt" by the criticism his actions might seem like racial profiling. In that statement, he confirmed that he punched, kicked and threw the boy out of the police van because he "looked at [Rizzuti] in a certain manner, and he couldn't control this person who was looking in different and different directions." - -For a study to be considered legitimate, we had to prove that it had the same validity as the other "studies." This is a dubious criterion for evaluating serious research, much less a study that is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which had a -======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== -"These are the kinds of programs that have to be in place for the long-term sustainability of schools and their student outcomes," Smith said. "It is important to have a clear understanding of how it is that the federal funding is directed."<|endoftext|>The World Cup is in full swing and we are already getting our first glimpse of the men's game that many have been waiting to see. It is a beautiful time to be a soccer fan in America and for a lot of people, watching Neymar dribble, bend, and shoot is something like a dream come true. Many in soccer-crazed Europe are wondering just how in the world a guy known for winning every competition there could be playing in the World Cup for South America. - -Not only could such comparisons be made, but a player like Neymar could bring a new dimension to the game for American soccer fans. Neymar's ability to shoot with his left foot is one that is sure to be a part of the game even if he is the player playing for Brazil. - -American soccer fans also need to keep in mind that Neymar is 21 years old, thus a bit older than most American soccer players. If I had to pick a player who could revolutionize the game in the U.S., I would pick Neymar. - -The U.S. is always going to have a large contingent of soccer-loving fans, like they did during the early 1990's. There are certain players (Chad Barrett) who bring an aura to a game that makes the game accessible for fans even if they don't support the team. There will always be a segment that will watch soccer and that part won't grow any smaller. With that said, there will always be the people who are always searching for a new way to watch the game, whether it is through technology, television, or a way to watch soccer with their favorite people. - -It is not that I haven't heard or seen any American fans argue about the merits of Neymar. There are a couple of points I thought about while writing this article, which I want to add to the conversation: - -Some people want to watch Neymar play because of his reputation, whereas other people think playing for Brazil is better; some people want to watch Neymar play because he can bring something new and exciting to the game; and some people think playing for Neymar is better because Neymar likes playing for Brazil. - -All of these people have valid viewpoints, but one thing that is worth considering is how Neymar feels: Neymar plays for Brazil; Neymar wants to play for Brazil. What motivates a player to play for a team in which they don't really believe in? It's more than just being motivated by money (for better or worse). The U.S. is not going to have a problem paying Neymar (more on that in a minute.) That being said, it wouldn't be a surprise if Neymar decided to play for an MLS team because he wants to help the team reach greater heights. Some people would love to see them reach the final and make history as the first U.S. team to go all the way, but some would love to see them in the tournament. - -"If Neymar does not play for Brazil, I don't believe he will enjoy any of the joys of an English Premier League club." - -I am willing to bet that if there's one thing that keeps him up at night, it isn't Neymar's decision to stay or go to Brazil for the World Cup. It is Neymar's decision to play for Brazil. If he decides to play for Brazil, then yes, he will have to enjoy playing for an English Premier League team like Arsenal. Will he be a happy camper? Probably. Will he want to play for the USA on TV and for the other games throughout the World Cup? Probably no. - -Here's an interesting point for you: Did you see the video of the last goal that Neymar scored against England? I didn't either, because it seemed so impossible to score in such a difficult environment. I wonder if the team is getting worried about whether or not Neymar will be able to play when the next World Cup rolls around? - -There is also the possibility that the team isn't sure whether or not Neymar would be comfortable with a team that plays a similar style to the one in which he has spent his entire career. Many Americans don't realize that many players, especially those in the U.S. Men's National Team have left the team because it didn't fit their style of play. A guy like Eddie Johnson, who has been playing soccer his entire life but is not a natural striker, left the national team to play a more attacking style of soccer. He was successful. What will happen if Neymar decides to play for an American-style team with a different style of play? There is a good chance that he would be comfortable with that team, if only for the goal -======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== -BOULDER, Colo. — The University of Colorado says an online class offered with its College of Social Sciences and Humanities in April failed to meet the standards it has established to monitor its online classes. - -"Colorado's online program has failed to meet University of Colorado standards," said university spokesman Ryan Huff. "We were disappointed to see the failure, but we need to make sure we can track all the courses properly going forward." - -The course was offered by CU's Global Studies program and focused on a number of international issues from a student's perspective, according to a description posted on the website Ucscam.com. - -The course was approved by the University of Colorado's Office of Faculty Development in November 2015. - -The course, taught by a graduate student, received the highest grade out of five at an on-campus lecture and took two weeks to complete. - -A university spokesperson said the course meets University of Colorado standards to ensure quality education is available. - -The online portion of the course was a requirement for all undergraduate students entering the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and offered through the Social Sciences Education Center. - -Undergraduates in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities may take a course for free through the Ucscam web site. - -Courses accepted by CU are typically developed by undergraduate faculty and offered through the Social Sciences Education Center with approval from the College of Social Sciences and Humanities.<|endoftext|>In this episode we talk to the writer, director and producer of the new film, 'Saw IV'. - -It's a sequel of sorts to the critically-acclaimed Saw series that is set in 1981 in Saw, Minnesota, USA (where we filmed at the end of November). - -"I'd just worked with a lot of these guys on the movie 'The Guest' and they've been really encouraging me to make this one". In the film, the film director and the writer of the original Saw films, Paul W.S. Anderson and Mark Verheiden are back together again. - -Saw IV will follow a new girl who works at the hospital - she's a medic. But she is very disturbed and goes into a trance whenever she sees a scary shape. When she sees a clown she gets freaked out and dies during an accident. The boy in the hospital is devastated and runs after her. When he goes to the carnival he finds a blood-soaked clown and discovers the killer is still there. - -"This is a great film. We went for a very scary ending. And it wasn't a real twist. It's just something new where I think that it will bring in a new audience to our movies". - -The trailer is here. - -Our interview with Paul and Mark is here. - -This film opens on 28th May. Check out the official site for more details and here for tickets for the UK.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This is a list of all known items in Skyrim, sorted by quantity. - -Items that are impossible to obtain, without cheating, can be found in the items.txt files located in: Skyrim\Data\Sounds\Voice\Voices\Meshes\Weapons\Weapons - -List [ edit ] - -1,000 - -1,200 - -1,400 - -1,900 - -3,000 - -3,300 - -3,600 - -3,800 - -4,000 - -6,300 - -9,000 - -24,000 - -32,000 - -64,000 - -96,000 - -144,000 - -216,000 - -256,000 - -512,000 - -768,000 - -1MB - -10MB - -20MB - -40MB - -60MB - -100MB - -150MB - -200MB - -256MB - -512MB - -768MB - - -1 - -2 - -3 - -4 - -5 - -6 - -7 - -8 - -9 - -10 - -11 - -12 - -15 - -20 - -25 - -30 - -40 - -50 - -75 - -100 - -150 - -200 - -250 - -300 - -400 - -500 - - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1,000 - -1 -======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== -A man accused of murdering an ex-girlfriend with a hammer was shot in the back of the head after opening fire last week in his Brooklyn Heights apartment, cops said. - -The man, identified by the police as 24-year-old David A. Nalang, took a hammer from his grandmother's house last week in the Brownsville neighborhood when the woman, who was visiting out of state for one day, tried to enter, sources said. - -The man shot the woman in the chest three times, sources said. - -Police said Nalang had a knife in his waistband when he was shot in the back of the head. Nalang got 10 stitches for the wound, and then he was driven to Jackson Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. - -"He had the knife and took it out, and was shooting at her from what witnesses told us," Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said at a press conference on Tuesday. - -The woman was still in critical condition as of Tuesday. - -Nalang was taken into custody in his grandmother's Long Island home Tuesday morning and was charged with murder and unlawful possession of a weapon.<|endoftext|>There's a lot going on when it comes to the new album by the band known as Tame Impala, The Dream Walker. There's the debut EP, the new music video, and a video from the band members. They also have an album coming out (not by Tame Impala, but with Warner Brothers/Universal) about a man who gets lost on his way to work. - -The man he travels with is an angelic dude named James Ford, who is an artist, composer and visual artist who lives in California. In my mind, it's one of his best videos—and the one I saw when it debuted on my iPad last week—since his 2011 video "Dreams Come True" that featured John Cusack. - -Ford's video, which was directed by his friend Jason Zada, sees Ford walk along a beach and through the streets of Southern California while looking confused about how he ended up there when he wakes up. He has a camera attached to his head that tracks the movements of his head to create this surrealistic video. He has a few close-ups, but he mostly relies on the movement of his own face to create these looks of confusion and disorientation. - -The song is called "Let It Happen," and it features the same producer at the helm as on "Dreams Come True," Mark Ronson. While his work on that song is on a similar level, his songwriting can be so much more interesting, since they come from the perspective of many other emotions. - -The way I saw it, Ford wrote the song after he read a story about James Ford, who has a severe head injury that kept him from working. He was also the lead singer of a band that broke up. In the story, he starts walking around and starts to get lost and he is then shown through the eyes of a camera that he was using. The song starts to unfold and we watch as this guy keeps searching for where he is and is searching for his family. - -Eventually, Ford has "let it happen," as he says in the song. It's a song about how we can let what happened happen and can find happiness in it, with the help of a friend. It's also just such a good piece of sound. This new song with Ronson is a great combination of the two, with the electronic textures, the piano in the background and the music and synth tones to the vocals. It's a great song because it reminds me of "Wonderwall" and the new song is also just a wonderful piece of music to listen to when you're traveling on your own or have no idea of where you are. - -It helps give the album an even more upbeat feel without sounding too uptight. Ford did some research on how James Ford's wife, Jill, has been able to get out of the house and make it out of the city to meet people who are willing to help her. That's where Ford came up with the idea for the song. - -"Let It Happen" is a good time, a great song, and a fun intro for the Tame Impala album. You can hear more of it soon.<|endoftext|>The last-minute decision to bring forward the final game of the home-and-away season to Saturday has not been greeted with universal relief by the opposition. - -The Brisbane Lions, who were without their first-choice backline, conceded six unanswered goals in a 30-point win over the Sydney Swans at the Gabba, their eighth of the season. - -The final score would have been enough to win by 25 points with the match finished in a draw.<|endoftext|>Saskatoon cops say a 12-year-old girl was shot and killed Monday night around 6:30 p.m. at a house on the 900 block of -======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== -A woman in California is suing the US state for allegedly forcing her to buy health insurance covering abortions, for which the state has not yet been found capable, because the federal healthcare system is overwhelmed with demand. - -The case could spark a court challenge to the Affordable Care Act's requirement that everyone must buy "comprehensive" health insurance policy or pay a penalty until the law's repeal by 2017, legal experts say. - -The lawsuit, to be heard Thursday, was filed by the unnamed plaintiff with the San Diego County Superior Court. The complaint says that the law forces the woman to pay for coverage for elective abortions, including in-vitro fertilization and sex-selection abortions, and for abortions performed because of the woman's gender or race. - -SPONSORED - -"The US government is effectively forcing California women to violate the principle of informed consent," the complaint reads. - -The complaint also alleges that Planned Parenthood does not provide "informed consent" for patients seeking abortions, and that the woman knew that the insurance policy required her to buy abortion coverage when she registered for a state-run healthcare insurance exchange. - -Planned Parenthood said in a statement that the suit should be dismissed on technicalities, asserting that it is not a health insurance plan but a separate entity exempt from the Affordable Care Act. - -But lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union agreed that California's law, dubbed the Women's Right to Know Act, should be declared unconstitutional, and urged the state to repeal it before it risks setting a precedent that could force more states to follow suit. - -"This is the first lawsuit we can think of that deals specifically with, in a state's case, a health plan as a kind of health plan and then requiring women to buy it if they have a pre-existing condition," said Anthony Daines, a staff attorney for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. - -California's law took effect last year, and the lawsuit cites cases where other states have tried to get around Obamacare's requirements for everyone to buy health insurance, only to be struck down. - -"This is not an issue about abortion insurance but about a mandate by the California legislature that the law be enforced," said ACLU lawyer Shannon Minter. - -"We have to have the ability to ensure that women are treated properly, and that that takes care of their overall health insurance, and that in those circumstances that women are told what kinds of health care they can have access to and that they can't be discriminated against. That's what this law is about." - -California's law requires health insurance plans to cover all medical procedures, even if they were not mandated by federal law. It also requires that they charge the same rate regardless of the patient's gender. - -The law was approved by voters in November, but abortion rights supporters vowed to fight it in court before its implementation unless it was challenged as unconstitutional. - -(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Sandra Maler)<|endoftext|>In 2014, the United States was the only Western country with a higher rate of youth suicide than Germany, the EU average, according to the United Nations. - -The UNICEF figures, compiled in the latest edition of its Global Report Card on Child Well-Being, show a 10 percentage increase in rates of suicide between 1999 and 2014 in the US, from 9.1 to 10.6 per 100,000 children aged between 0 and 14. The European average was 6.6 suicide per 100,000 aged 5-14, which puts the US well above the EU average and other developed countries from the US. - -But there was big variation between regions, with a 10 percentage increase in the rate of suicides amongst people aged 15-54 in the US, from 4.2 to 5.3, compared to 5 per 100,000 in Canada, 6.3 per 100,000 in England and Wales, 7.1 in Sweden and 10.9 in Finland. - -The authors point out that suicide can affect people of all ages, making it more likely that a large proportion of the increase in suicidal behaviour in the US is from suicide among children under the age of 25. - -In addition, they note that the US is one of just four countries where the incidence of suicidal thoughts among children between the ages of 12 and 24 has increased between 2000 and 2014, and the other three are South Africa, Thailand and Zimbabwe. - -"We know from the past that countries with high adolescent suicide rates like the US and the UK are generally less successful at reaching the targets set by the United Nations," said Susan Hockstein, the lead author of the report. "It is critical to look closely at suicide in all its forms, including young people's thoughts and feelings and act as an important reminder to all governments to take actions at the policy, sector and health-policy levels to tackle them." - -Suicide, in general, is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to -======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== -"The truth is there's just one way the world works, and it's not how we'd like it to work," says the character of Dredd. - -Well, there is a way to find out the way is different and it's not by reading a bunch of books on the internet and then coming to this one website, or reading The New York Times, and then going, "Oohh, I like this movie. I really think this is the best way to do this." - -It might be to take a look at the film. - -The film takes about ten hours to watch on video. (Though it doesn't have the same kind of overlong movie that, say, The Matrix does.) But on top of all that is the fact that when you start a game, if you want to do that, your character gets stuck in a level. So how do we avoid that scenario? Well, in the film, Dredd is stuck in a level because he's on parole. But not all levels are like this. The film shows us a very detailed version of a level, which is called a mission. It's made up of five missions, and each one is kind of a puzzle in itself. So if we're going to solve the mission we need to know what the puzzle is. It would've been nice if that level had been at least somewhat open. - -The film also shows us other types of levels. And one of them is one called The Pit, and, I remember watching it with Dredd and talking about it. In this mission you're moving two barrels by shooting them. So you move your barrel, and then you shoot your first barrel to move your barrel one place. And then you do it again. If you do it all five times, it'll move one way, three places, and four places. You have to stop this at five places and you can do it all five times. It's really simple. But it took me 30 seconds to figure out how to do it. And that took me a while to figure out. - -You get more information by watching it, but if you want to get a little bit more you can read Dredd's character's memoir. Which is called The World's Final Solution. If you read that, it'll explain how this city came to be at the center of everything. It will explain how it got its name, The World. Because for a while, one city was the center of the world, and then it got divided, and they decided the rest should just get out somewhere else. This isn't a film where anything is explained in an hour and a half, but it is very clear. - -So, if somebody wants to know how the world works, it won't take you that long. You don't have to read anything. All you have to do is sit down and watch. - -[Note: For the record, I'm an English major. I've been taking a computer graphics class called "Animation Technology" in college, which is like a really good class, but it's not exactly film history, so I feel free not to compare anything to The World's Final Solution, or The Matrix, or any other of the other films about The World.]<|endoftext|>From Baka-Tsuki - -Opening Narration [ edit ] - -"No matter how you look at it, they are still humans. You've been a part of them forever. The person you've been called even without knowing it; this, this is something you're not used to. This is the same as that." - -Part 1 [ edit ] - -At the gates of Gensokyo, people came in, going in every which way. Some were in large groups, some on foot, some on horseback. As they came in, there would be a great crowd. However, they all looked different. One side was entirely white. The other side was entirely black. - -Even as they came in, the crowd's density didn't change a bit. - -If you were to call Gensokyo a place made up of a large group of people, then it certainly was a place filled with people. - -The person who stood on the wall was standing behind them, and it was as if she had always been there. Her hair was dyed black, so she definitely was one of the crowd of black people. - -"……" - -Kaname Shiki, the Third, noticed her in time. It was because the Fourth looked up at her. - -"You're saying you're an assassin?" - -"Ah, yes. Well, it'll probably turn out like the olden days." - -She gave her usual smile and laughed. - -While Kaname Shiki was joking, the person she was looking for was looking straight forward across the way. - -"……A-Are you going for a stroll? I'm surprised. I was expecting a -======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== -I did some digging. We did some stuff at first but now we are on a break. If you want to get in touch, let me know. - -On October 3rd, 2012, we finished production. On December 17th, it will be sold exclusively at the Toronto International Animation Festival. - -We need your support. - -We have an amazing staff working right now. - -We put a lot of effort and care into this project. We have always had it in mind how we could share it with the best people possible. To be able to do it exclusively at the TIFF is one of the most exciting and rewarding things that we can think of. That only helps us. That's why we need your help. - -So, please, if you can support us, please do. It's just like this, we don't have to have any backers anymore.<|endoftext|>1 Clean #3 - The Rise And Fall of the New Deal In the 1930 Presidential Campaign of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran against the New Deal and the Progressive movement against him. He said he had "two great ideas": - -Create a National Recovery Administration to revive the economy. And reform social programs so that workers would not have to rely on government to get by. He never took a serious stand on either one of these, but he built a strong position from which to run. FDR, a Republican, defeated the powerful Democrats, in part because of the support he had from the Progressive movement and labor leaders. And FDR would become the strongest president yet to champion Social Security ... Free View in iTunes - -2 Clean #2 - Who Runs The United States? In 1935 FDR nominated Charles Curtis as his Vice President and then he named a Republican to take over the government. Curtis was nominated as Attorney-General under FDR's administration. It was not a happy time under the New Deal. The Republicans held the White House for 7 of the 8 years from the end of the Great Depression in September,1929 to... Free View in iTunes - -3 Clean #1 - The Great Depression - 1929 In 1933, American stock prices fell nearly 30%. In July of that year the New York Times printed a list of 8 reasons why stocks were tanking. Those 8 reasons have become known as "8 Tragic Principles of Stock Market History". The first principle was: "To the degree that investors can understand how businesses... Free View in iTunes - -4 Clean #16: The Great Depression - 1919-1932 The Great Depression was the world's worst economic downturn to date. This podcast discusses how America reacted to the crisis. The economic depression that began in 1929 was the result of the actions and decisions of the U.S. Government that stemmed from a set of... Free View in iTunes - -5 Clean #14: The Great Depression - 1917-1933 The Great Depression - also known as the Roaring Twenties - was an economic period of economic and social decline in America. While the Great Depression affected the entire world and many countries in Europe, it hit United States hardest. It was the longest and deepest economic slide in the nation's history,... Free View in iTunes - -6 Clean #13: The Great Depression - 1902-1914 The Great Depression led to the end of the American Industrial Revolution and a decade of widespread stagnation throughout the rest of the world. It was the single worst economic downturn in American history. And while it is often considered the worst thing to... Free View in iTunes - -7 Clean #12: The Great Depression - 1906-1932 The Great Depression was one of the world's worst economic events. It was also one of a series of "Recession Wars", a period where nations fought over what type of monetary system was best to stabilize the economy. The Depression led to the... Free View in iTunes - -8 Clean #11: The Great Depression - 1908-1916 The Great Depression was known as the "Sickle Pigeon of the Twenties". It affected the United States and the rest of the world. It also became known as "The Great Depression", "The Depression of 1908", or "The Great White Hope". The Great Depression also changed the United States from an... Free View in iTunes - -9 Explicit #10: The Great Depression - 1917-1930 The Great Depression lasted from the end of WWI to WWI's end in 1918. It lasted for about 7 years. It created great economic turmoil throughout the world. And despite the fact that it seemed like life would never be the same for the United States,... Free View in iTunes - -10 Clean #9: From Depression to Roosevelt To Depression again to Roosevelt to Roosevelt... In 1939 FDR is elected President at a time when the United States was experiencing a severe economic downturn. For more than 30 years after his election FDR oversaw the largest growth in the economy and a period of peace and prosperity. In... Free View in iTunes - -11 Clean #8: The Great Depression - 1932-1934 The depression of the 1930s -======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== -In the past couple of games, I have been very interested in using my opponent's actions as a way to play around their abilities. For instance, if they have a special character ability that takes effect once a certain move hits or if they have the Power Up card, I can take advantage of that by having another character attack their weaker character to take out their weaker character for free. This isn't always a great strategy, but is always great when it's a good one. - -So what's a good strategy? This is what I'm interested in the most. We see this all the time in fighting games. When a character attacks (or blocks) the opponent, they'll move in one direction or the other (most of the time). The player tries to figure out what their opponent is going to do in that particular move, and then attacks them accordingly. Since so much of the time these moves are predictable, players will often go for a character who does a lot of these attacks. This allows them to have a lot of options, and thus a lot of success in matches. - -This is all about the timing of that move, and there are a few key things to keep in mind. First, you must play with your timing. You can always do your character with the most efficient timing for the move, but there is a lot, lot more to it than just that. In this case, you need to think at a much deeper level. Let's say your opponent uses an attack during blockstring. A lot of times, you see characters block in a particular order. This means they are putting their opponent in situations that have a decent chance of success. They block the attack then block a similar attack. This means the attack that was blocked is almost certain to be your opponent's next move, which is great for you. - -However, if they use this same attack again, you could block that next attack and block something else, then start throwing blocks the other way because you still block in the same order from previous blocks. But this attack could be so good, that you don't worry. When your opponent blocks the first time, they will be looking for a way to make your block-throw order useless in the future so that you can simply block again. If it's too good for them, you might block a different attack, throw a block in between, and then block it again before they ever start throwing a normal block. Then you block the second attack, do a throw, get a block in between, throw that one, and then throw the next one for another throw block. When both attacks end with a throw, they'll switch from blocking to throw before the end of the attack, letting you get out of the way. When the throw block is blocked, you can continue to use the throw block and only the throw will block it. - -So what about the player's actions? First it's important to understand how they interact with the other. When one player blocks a move, it means not every action is done by that character. In this case it's possible to hit the block string with a throw because the opponent can't make a throw block of their own, but you can always block a throw as well for the same reasons. Let's say you block the special move and then block a throw. If your opponent blocks the special move then again then throws a block in-between, they will be blocking with you, the defender, but they will also be blocking the move so you can get a throw block. So now you're being blocked by your opponent. You can do a normal block and then use a throw. This will allow you to prevent your opponent from being hit, but your opponent can also use their throw to get to you. Since your opponent will always be blocking an action, they could always block a different move and avoid the throw block because they don't have the throw block to stop the move. I'll get into the timing of the special and throw attacks later in the guide, but let's look at this in more detail. - -If you block an attack, then throw an attack, your opponent will block that move. Your opponent might not block that move since that move wasn't very good, and the next attack will hit them while they're blocked, giving you some control over what your opponent chooses to do. If they block all three, then you will be able to get an extra throw block which will allow you to be safe from the special move the entire round while being able to get that extra throw block. When all the special moves are blocked, your opponent will still be blocking at the top of the screen, but now they won't be blocking the attack (as in, all the rest of the special moves are blocked). If you block all three special moves then your opponent will still be blocking the attack, but each special is blocked separately and you will still be able to get a throw block. After the special moves are blocked, you will need to throw another throw -======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== -The White House is offering an olive branch to North Korea today, as part of an effort to convince the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions in favor of a negotiated end to the nuclear crisis it has been locked in for years. - -The North was warned yesterday that the White House was open to talks — but only after Pyongyang's next round of weapons testing expires in December. - -But the White House's latest offering, which is being called a "roadmap," was immediately branded a "tactical retreat" by the North. - -In a statement released by North Korea's news agency Korea Central News Agency, Pyongyang said the White House had "abandoned its policy of engagement and negotiation" with Kim Jong Un's regime. - -Kim blamed the South for setting "a destructive course that seriously jeopardizes the peace on the Korean peninsula and the peace and security of the nations in the region by igniting a military confrontation." - -"The United States should not make any mistake that is allowed to provoke a war by reckless provocation of the nuclear issue," Kim said. - -Kim said the United States had to halt its provocations immediately as "the time of opening a new front in a nuclear and missile confrontation had come." He called the new White House policy "a U.S. imperialists' policy of war." - -Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have been making a concerted push to restart stalled negotiations over North Korea's stalled nuclear program, in an effort to avoid that situation escalating into an all-out war. - -North Korea conducted five nuclear tests in 2016 and has been threatening to go nuclear before a ruling party congress later this month, though experts agree it can't yet miniaturize a nuclear warhead sufficiently for it to be deployed on a missile. - -The U.S. and South Korea, as well other nations in the region, have been considering a new round of U.N. sanctions for years, but have yet to implement them. North Korea has responded in kind by launching dozens of missiles off its coasts — in defiance of U.N. pressure to stop its weapons program. - -Kim's statement on North Korea appeared to give credence to those who argued the most effective way to change North Korea's behavior would be through economic pressure. - -President Trump tweeted Friday that the United States and China are working on "a plan to solve the North Korea problem." - -But even as the White House pushes for a deal, a key U.S. military assessment of North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities has come under increased scrutiny. - -The Pentagon's report this week concluded that only two North Korean strategic bombers could pose a threat to the United States, while the other four could be used to launch a nuclear strike against the United States and its allies. - -White House spokesman Sean Spicer has rejected the assessments, saying the White House has "no reason" to doubt the Pentagon's assessments. - -Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program has long been a major concern in Washington and has fueled concern on Capitol Hill that a miscalculation could spark a global conflagration. - -U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Pyongyang that it would face serious consequences if it threatens to use a nuclear bomb against the United States or its allies. Even so, North Korea repeatedly insists it needs a nuclear capability to counter what it says are U.S. nuclear encroachments near its territory. - -"We are not seeking war, we are not seeking confrontation," President Trump told reporters during his Asia tour this week. "We are not looking to the worst. But the best thing we can do is get along with the rest of the world and let them solve the problem." - -In recent years the White House has taken a harder line on North Korea, taking a harder line with China and taking a firmer line with North Korea's neighbors, Japan, South Korea and Russia.<|endoftext|>It's probably not news that most of the world's populations now live in cities, for the biggest chunk of the world's population is concentrated in cities. - -A look at some of the world's leading cities by housing density puts the issue in context. - -In the above map, density in units per km² (which takes into account the urban structure but omits the size of the city) is listed along the horizontal axis to indicate the number of residents living in each city, and the number of square kilometers within each city taken along the vertical axis to signify the land area. The most densely populated cities are in Asia and northern Africa. - -A few notes: This is an urban area density calculation using the United Nations' Demographic and Health Surveys. Land area not included. - -We can go further and compare the density of different city types to see how different urban densities compare to the surrounding areas. These densities have been derived from 2010 UN statistics. - -Here's India, the country with the second largest urban population, just after China, and about 20% of the world's -======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== -When we talk to parents and guardians about the impact of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on their children, many feel like they're just doing a public service by informing parents. Many of our readers share the same opinion; we are well aware of the impact of ASD on people, but there are those who want to see us silenced. - -What they do not realize is that, in a court and out of court, the parents and guardians of people with ASD have the legal right to present their best case. It is the responsibility of the court system to present the facts against every argument put forth by the parents and guardians to the judge; this is the ultimate evaluation of the children for their development. These are not merely facts about the children, but facts about a person's character, and whether or not it should be taken into consideration in deciding whether or not autism is to be treated as a disability when a person qualifies. - -This is a very personal and extremely dangerous game to play with children. Autism is a mental illness that affects every aspect of their lives — not just behavior but personality and emotions all throughout. Children with ASD are no different from anyone else, but are more frequently diagnosed under the same umbrella label than any other. - -Not only do some children have ASD because of severe brain impairment, but these same children have other conditions also contributing to the diagnosis of ASD. It happens to a child every day. A child will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder for behaviors associated with autism, even if they have the same diagnosis — as a parent, it's your responsibility to look after these children like you would any other child. - -Let's consider a real life example. A few years ago, a mother came to us saying, "I have a 9-year-old autistic son. I would love some help. I have had difficulty with him ever since he started preschool at 3 years old." - -Here is what I told her. - -"Dear Ms. Smith, Please do not be angry at other parents in our community who do not like your treatment of your son. They are using their right to raise the issue without your consent because they do not understand how you raise your son. He did start preschool when he was 3 years old and is completely on target. The diagnosis that many other kids with ASD get is more likely to be a result of lack of insight than anything related to autism. As such, it would be a disservice to him and to all of us with autism if you kept your son's diagnosis out of court. When you go to court, ask the judge to consider the information put forth by you and the children you have raised." - -What's next for this case? - -The mother has no choice but to continue to pursue a lawsuit. Her son has not been diagnosed as having ASD. As he grows, he is going to be diagnosed with Autism. In the end, the diagnosis will be correct, but it has been used against her. This was just one mother who contacted us. There are thousands who do not understand how they can be held responsible for raising their children. This case is far from over. Your role is clear; you must advocate on behalf of every child with ASD, and do everything in your power to protect your son's rights. - -I hope this has been helpful and informative. I can also tell you that I had a son who was diagnosed with ASD. I felt I let him down and the diagnosis was damaging both mentally and emotionally. My son is not here anymore, no longer alive. I can only imagine what a terrible thing that is, and am thankful I never had to experience it. - -My advice is to educate yourself about the diagnosis of ADHD, and how it affects children, the parents and the court. It is a crucial time for autistic families of any age, and for all people. The future of the future of our country, and the future of our children, depends on our ability to protect them. This is not easy work, and there are many hurdles, but we must ensure that everyone is aware of the risks, and that the needs of their children are always considered. - -If you would like more information on how you can protect and educate your child about the potential dangers of being labeled as autistic, there is now a free webinar to help you get started. Visit www.safekidsnow.com for more info.<|endoftext|>On December 14, 2013, the city of Santa Clara County, California, issued a warning to city employees who own or use firearms during holiday parties and other events. The county wanted the message to be crystal clear: No firearms are allowed at Christmas parties or events where there will be a firearm-involved shooting. Unfortunately, it seems the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department has a different understanding of the law. - -At the conclusion of a year when the nation has paid attention to police shootings of unarmed African Americans in Ferguson and New York City, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith issued a stern but vague "safety -======================================== SAMPLE 133 ======================================== -A man wearing an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has been seen wandering around a park in New York City for about an hour. The man was carrying an orange chair similar to the one seen in Star Trek, and when he reached a certain spot in the room, the lights would blink and his virtual vision would turn into that of an actual person sitting in the chair. People were able to see that the guy had no eyes and therefore could move around the room with no problems, according to The Washington Post. - -A security guard told CBS New York that he saw the man wandering around for about 15 minutes, but was worried that he would get into trouble. - -Police officers were seen taking notes with their smartphones. - -The person was able to interact with people by turning his virtual vision into real life. The VR tech is expected to be released in a new prototype in the spring. - -See Now: 30 Gadgets And Tech Gifts For Father's Day 2018 That Dad Will Think Are Rad - -ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.<|endoftext|>A new bill, dubbed the "Mens Rights" bill, is coming from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. It's supposed to be a way for lawmakers to give "legislation that will better protect men from being unfairly charged with rape or other sexual assault." - -And what could possibly be wrong with this? If men get charged with rape and then exonerated, can't they get a lot of money from the courts? Sure, if men get paid and convicted of rape too often, we should give them some money, right? - -Well, not so fast, feminists. - -The bill in question allows men to sue women who have been raped, in the same way that they can sue men who have allegedly impregnated that woman. - -"If there's an allegation that a woman was raped by a man, and the man goes to court and has his day in court, the man can seek money from that woman for damages," Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) stated on the House floor in early November. - -This, of course, is a gross injustice. It's not only a violation of the Equal Rights Amendment of the Constitution, it's also an attack on the Constitution itself. - -Here's what the Constitution says: - -Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - -This means that men and women may, under certain circumstances, sue one another for damages. These circumstances can be as general as a woman is accused of adultery, or as specific as if a man was beaten by a wife. - -The problem with the bill is that it doesn't go after rapists. It goes after women who have been raped, and it gives the accused no rights at all. It says, "If a man says you raped him, he can get money from you, but you can't do anything about it." - -That is completely ridiculous. Women do get raped sometimes, although this is largely due to men failing to use condoms. If your husband has been abusing you, even if he has a condom, you can still stop unwanted intercourse — you just have to talk to a legal lawyer and make sure you have an agreement in place. - -There have been a small number of cases of women getting raped in cases in which both partners were drunk — the legal line between consensual and nonconsensual sex can be blurred. It remains a problem that is most often blamed on guys who can't resist. - -Advertisement - -Still, women are not protected by laws like the "Mens Rights" bill. In one lawsuit, former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of three felonies, all stemming from his attack on an unconscious and intoxicated woman outside of a fraternity party. Though a jury only sentenced him to six months in jail, he was only given five, because prosecutors recommended a longer sentence for the felony sexual assault charge that would have carried a maximum of 14 years in prison. - -This is not at all what the U.S. Supreme Court says should happen in rape cases. In 1989, the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Turner v. Turner established that "clear and convincing evidence" is required to prove that a person has been raped. - -The problem with this is that, in cases such as Turner v. Turner, there really isn't any proof about the guilt of either party. They never had sex and could have stopped after a few moments, even in the worst, most drunken circumstances imaginable. - -The high court has, for decades, required "clear and convincing evidence" in rape cases, which is very specific. To meet that requirement on Turner's rape case, the victim's statements and physical evidence -======================================== SAMPLE 134 ======================================== -This is a very easy-to-use script to make your favorite sites load faster while visiting them and not slowing down page performance at all. - -Installation - -For this script you will need python 2.7 or more recent version and imagemagick installed on your system. You can get it from here. - -You can find the script in github here. There is also a zip compressed version here. - -This script includes several modules that can be configured from the options page. - -If you are new to python you might want to read the python documentation to get comfortable with it. - -Configuration - -The following settings make the setup of the script a bit more flexible: - -For each image file you want the script to load, set the path as the image filename. The script will look for an image file in the path and if it can't find it, then a 404 error will be returned. If you would like the script to search for images with certain extension ( .png vs .jpg ) you can specify it as options first as a list and then use it as an argument (e.g. -f path/to/image.png -w 500 ). If you also wish to search for images with specific name, just use that as an argument instead of -f (e.g. -e path/to/image.png -p name ). If you don't really care about that, just leave this option off. If you have images hosted on imgur you can specify that you want to only look for images hosted on the same server (e.g. -s server -p ip ). The rest is just optional. - -If you only want to find files to replace old ones on your server, then just specify a comma separated list. - -Configuration options can be changed using the options page. - -Usage - -Simply run python load-image.py for the first time. The script will look for images inside the current folder and will then try to load the first one. - -After loading a image the script will display the page content as if it had been served from a faster server. The page will load faster and the performance will be more stable for a while. - -If the server can't load the original image, you can try to load a file that you're not on the web server with. For example it can load a PNG or jpg instead of a jpeg/jpg one. - -If the image can't be loaded because it was uploaded to imgur, you can try to load a file that you're not on the web server with. For example it can load an .jpg instead of a jpeg/jpg one. - -If the page doesn't load properly because of the above reasons, you can try to load a small test page and see if you can see any visual changes in your page. - -Finally, if the page is slow to download, you can try to change the path on the options page. - -To get rid of the page completely, you can also use the –delete option. - -Limitations<|endoftext|>We have a couple of surprises up our sleeves. Let's begin with the new set of cards coming in a few days. - -Frenzied Goblin – 5/6 - -Ravaged Gourmet has been revealed as a common. It may be a cute little goblin, but he really doesn't do too much for us. He doesn't pump our army, he doesn't draw us extra cards, and he doesn't even trigger our Goblin Welder. What's more, one can only activate him on their first turn. So, I guess there's a place for him in a mono-green mill deck. - -Nettle Drone – 4/4 - -Another common has been revealed, and he's no slouch. His ability triggers when any creature you control would deal damage to a player. Since these are creatures that deal damage to players, it makes sense that these two new commons will get used in mill decks as well. - -Mortivore's Best Friend – 4/2 - -A 3/1 is not impressive, but it's not bad either. The downside for this minion is that he has an ability that's limited to only creatures that block that player. Still, a good creature for mill decks. - -Boulderfist Ogre – 5/6 - -A 6/6 is a lot to pay, but this thing can get it done. Like our goblin, he doesn't really draw us cards, but he does take damage. There is one major downside that comes with any 6/6 creature: he is unable to block creatures that have trample. And, with most mills now featuring Trample, he's not going to be on our side. Nevertheless, he's a threat every turn he stays in play. A 3/5 for 5 is still a decent card and, like Frenzied Goblin, will be useful -======================================== SAMPLE 135 ======================================== -The "No More Heroes Project" that started by GigaOm in 2005 is already over. - -This year, the project was closed and GigaOm closed down its website that was hosting a collection of fan-made projects, including games, animated films, and other projects. - -The creator of the project GigaOm, a company called Visceral, sent their condolences to the people who worked on it over the years. - -"I have known and loved a few of the staff over the years, and I can say this: the No More Heroes team was the biggest family of creative minds I have ever been a part of, and our friendship has been irrevocably changed. It has been a blessing, a curse, an amazing time. You will forever be in my heart," the company wrote in a statement. - -The project had a number of developers including Alex Proyas and Brian Martel. - -Other notable games that participated include the "GTA: San Andreas", "Mafia II": A City Live", "Massachusetts SIS," "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1," "Portal 2," "Half-Life 2: Lost Coast," "Halo: Reach" and "Final Fantasy XIII." Games like "Dirt 3: Resurrection," "Battlefield 3," "Mafia 2: Assassin's Edition" were also released. - -The developer said that some creators of the project "had an incredible life ahead of them, and some unfortunately did not make it."<|endoftext|>A report released over the weekend in the Chicago Tribune reveals how the city of Chicago spent millions on a private criminal defense law firm to represent accused Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in a case that led the federal government to launch a civil rights investigation into use of force by Chicago police. - -The Chicago Tribune reports that from 2014 to 2016, the city spent on average $2.5 million every year on a private law firm "that has worked to protect public employees" from possible discrimination suits. Most of that money went to one law firm — the Chicago firm of Covington & Burling — which was founded in 1871 and counts former U.S. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Eric Holder and current Secretary of State John Kerry among its clients. - -In addition, the Tribune reports that Van Dyke's legal team had a salary of $350,000 per year and was paid $2 million by the city, up to $2 million for overtime, and that Van Dyke had paid an additional $300,000 to the Chicago firm of Pomerantz & O'Connell. - -The Tribune notes: - -The lawsuit filed Jan. 5, 2016 in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleges that Van Dyke unlawfully shot a 24-year-old in a wheelchair — a man who appeared to be complying with Van Dyke when the officer opened fire and killed him — with a Taser in 2014. Van Dyke claims the Taser malfunctioned and the man was shot by police with his own gun, the lawsuit alleges. - -The Tribune reports that a judge in Cook County Circuit Court, which hears wrongful-death lawsuits, is weighing whether Van Dyke can be tried separately from the lawsuit filed by the family of Laquan McDonald, the black teenager fatally shot by the black officer in 2015. - -In an interview over the weekend, Chicago-based civil rights attorney Craig Futterman described Van Dyke's legal team as "the tip of the iceberg — not the full iceberg." He added that he "can't think of any other situation where you would have a private law firm fighting a lawsuit and representing the city." - -As reported by The Daily Caller News Foundation earlier this year, both the FBI and U.S Department of Justice have launched investigations into the practices of the Chicago Police Department and are seeking to figure out "whether Chicago police are violating the Constitution with regards to their use of deadly force." - -Aaron McKinney contributed to this report.<|endoftext|>For more than two centuries, people have wondered what's at the bottom of Lake Erie. - -Now, with a new robotic submarine, you'll finally find out. - -The ROV-II, or remotely operated vehicle I or ROV II, is being prepared for its first field test in the Cleveland area, the U.S. Department of the Navy announced Wednesday. - -The ROV-II is an exosuit that's designed so that it can be launched and retrieved by an underwater mine or an autonomous underwater vehicle. (The technology, developed by researchers at UMass Amherst and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is also being used by the U.S. Marines for search and rescue.) It has a battery life of around 15 hours and can survive in water depths of up to 500 feet. - -The ROV II will come from underwater mine defense systems company R3D. The government will pay R3D approximately $3 million to develop and deploy -======================================== SAMPLE 136 ======================================== - -"You'd have to be blind not to see the similarities." - -That was the verdict of a former state trooper whose recent article, "I Can't Hear My Nausea" and its response from Taser International (TASER for short), sparked debate and debate about both. - -"It was very simple," said Steve Hirschhorn, author of "I Can't Hear My Nausea: A Former State Trooper's Story of PTSD, Mental Illness, Taser, and Politics." - -"This was a problem that could have easily been fixed. Tasers use one of the most effective and nonlethal weapons to incapacitate a person. They're very precise. However, there's another way of incapacitating people – one that uses pain, fear, and trauma to incapacitate them." - -The company has taken heat for the use of a chemical agent that can cause temporary paralysis and even death when deployed inappropriately, according to Hirschhorn's article. - -His article focused on a 2013 incident involving New York State Trooper Anthony Bologna, who was hit by pepper spray while trying to arrest an elderly woman because she refused to stop using a walker while sitting in her car. - -The woman, who Hirschhorn referred to as "Mary," had been in New York City the week before the confrontation, where she was found mentally unfit to get on a subway. That prompted law enforcement officials to find her a hotel room and give her a night-stand to use as a bed, where they then realized she was still acting erratically. - -Mary refused to get off her walker after being hit with the pepper spray. - -Bologna, who had already lost his hearing and nose, was sprayed in the face a second time and began vomiting. He was placed into a spinal immobilization belt. - -He wasn't breathing on his own – his helmet was off due to the pepper spray – and was in cardiac arrest. He was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was declared brain dead after being declared brain-dead, according to the New York Post. - -Tasers in the hands of trained officers "can be effective," Hirschhorn conceded, but "they may not be effective enough, and that seems to be something that this case illustrates." - -Hirschhorn is no stranger to litigation himself. In 2014, he sued the state of Massachusetts for failing to provide a sufficient level for public servants to rest while they were on duty. - -"Our system is set up so that if you are on the road and you stop, you do not have a rest stop. There is no way to stop," the chief judge of Massachusetts Federal District Court William H. Pauley Jr., wrote at the time. "That is why the statute makes no provision for such a stop." - -This article previously stated the state of Rhode Island had banned the purchase and use of Tasers by law enforcement. The Rhode Island State Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the first successful manned launch of men on the International Space Station (ISS) by Soviet cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko in April 1963. - -Kornienko was a legendary Russian fighter pilot who came to Earth on November 7, 1944, from a place known as the Soviet Union (USSR) in his fighter plane known as Tupolev Tu-16. He became a hero in Russia because of his achievements with the Sukhoi Su-6 and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. - -Kornienko is known for his remarkable achievement that he managed to fly from the planet Earth to Mars in one orbit for a distance of about 3,600 km. - -His remarkable feat is described in the book, '100 Years – A Journey to the Moon and Back – by Yuri Gagarin and Alan Bean', published in 1959. - -"For an extraordinary spaceflight, he left the Earth almost four times more frequently than it returned. He arrived at the Red Planet in a record four-day space crossing, and left in a rocket three weeks later." - -On his flight from Earth to Mars Kornienko was accompanied by Yuri Gagarin. Kornienko had previously done another remarkable flight in the early hours of July 12,1953, from the planet Earth to Venus, the first space flight by a human which went for an incredible distance of more than 25,000 km. He was the only man to fly into outer space and back as a passenger. - -NASA has selected Kornienko for the first ever human return to the Moon. However, it will be a bit different for him than it was with Gagarin. - -Unlike Soviet space travel, U.S. space exploration is completely funded by the public sector with the assistance of private industries and commercial enterprises. - -However, American human spaceflight is no picnic either. The United States has had a long -======================================== SAMPLE 137 ======================================== -"You say that you were told not to use this method of transport. Well, if you are so concerned about being used as a tool by the enemy, you might as well use that method to get to it yourself." - -"Ugh, fuck that guy. He's annoying." - -I heard Aya complaining as I walked with Ria. - -The two of us were currently inside the ship that had sunk. - -In the meantime, it had already taken quite a while for us to reach the location. - -"And we arrived." - -Laughing evilly, Aya called out as she took off her helmet. She was still wearing her helmet, but that mask was no longer floating. Her face had turned into a serious expression. - -"This, are you a goddess or something? What are these eyes of yours? And, you must be one too, right?" - -The girl that was standing there had beautiful silver hair that was waving in the wind. Her face looked quite sharp, but her eyes were also sharp. - -"If you are a goddess, then you should just let your guard down a little. Just because you are strong enough to defeat me, does not mean you are good at taking care of your own pride." - -When Aya said that, I looked over to the girl and thought over what she said. - -It certainly looked like a goddess. Her eyes were sharp, and she had white skin and a slender body. But I just couldn't understand. - -However, it does not matter. - -That's because this is an important fight. - -"You see, it is as you said, you have come here. Since you know us, then your strength should have increased. Because we come together to help others, we are comrades. This is how you should treat us as comrades, right?" - -"Uuu, really? Thank you very much." - -After that short talk, I was able to regain my strength, but not the confidence that I had before. I still felt bad at saying that I was a god. It seemed that the goddess just happened to feel the same way. - -In addition, she is really interesting. - -"Well then, shall we go back now?" - -"Yeah." - -After hearing me say that, she smiled. - -I did not have any confidence in my own strength. - -However, after coming to this world, it seemed like these two people were strong. - -They are probably stronger than me. - -After a short conversation, we returned to the town. At this rate, the search for other survivors should get easier. - -Although it was not as simple as it was in the past, the world was different. - -The people on the surface had weapons, and they wore armor. But unlike some games, all the monsters here were weak! - -"There are a lot of monsters over there. This place is dangerous, so we shouldn't go to the other side until the search for survivors is over." - -I said to Aya. - -"But I am tired. This is where I came. We have to search for survivors." - -"You are a girl, right? Aya. Aya, are you alright?" - -"It's fine. I am used to fighting a lot." - -While she was nodding to her sister, she answered my question by using her finger. - -I looked, but it seemed like Aya really was just like she looked. - -The armor that she was wearing was so light. It gave her a beautiful feel, and it was as if she was wearing nothing more than that. I couldn't even see her face well. It was almost like seeing her for the first time. - -And that look definitely did not mean that Aya was in pain. Rather, I thought it seemed rather refreshing. - -After I checked the time, I asked Aya about the quest. - -"There was a quest you were supposed to do, right? Tell me about it." - -Aya said with a refreshed face. - -"I was told that I should go to the forest in the south-west direction, and collect the monsters that are around it. If I do not follow that method, the monsters that are around might become stronger." - -"Ahh, that is right. Let's hurry up, Aya." - -After saying all that that she could, she disappeared from my view. - -The moment Aya disappeared, I was hit with a feeling that made me want to get down from the ship. I heard the voices of Aya. - -"That's right. You should go and fight. We will return after we save everyone on the boat." - -"It seems that it is the opposite of what you were told. Let's go to investigate first. It is going to -======================================== SAMPLE 138 ======================================== -"There's a lot of concern that it isn't good enough. The police need to be given the power of the purse," said Mike Thompson, a lawyer who represents the victims. - -"What's wrong with giving law enforcement the power in these types of cases? When the police do it right, it brings a feeling of security. And when they do it wrong, it's just another avenue for corruption or abuse." - -After the release of a series of undercover sting videos in 2009, police began carrying tasers, stun guns and police scanners. Mr. Thompson said the problem is that the police have become less accountable. - -He said he has seen hundreds of cases where victims said they had not been contacted by police or had charges dropped. - -"In this case, we've seen three people," Mr. Thompson said. "If the city wanted to address the needs of victims and to deter these crimes, it could do a lot to improve the way these crime scenes are handled." - -There are no reliable national data on police use of tasers. In Minnesota, which requires all officers on the road to carry them, tasers have helped reduce assaults by 38 percent in four years, according to statistics released by the state police. - -Photo - -The Justice Department is also looking at tasers and their potential for abuse — and it is considering whether to require departments with certain large groups to provide data on their use so that Congress can assess whether tasers and other devices are being properly deployed. - -Last year, the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services released a report that said in several cities with large numbers of black residents, black residents were disproportionately subjected to tased or other less-than-lethal force. The report came after a civil rights lawsuit in Baltimore in 2008 brought against police for its use of tasers in the city's Central Park area. - -"If law enforcement agencies aren't careful with the use of the Taser, it could have a disproportionate impact," Kenneth D. Wolfe Jr., the attorney for the plaintiffs in the Baltimore civil rights lawsuit, said in an interview. - -Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. - -Ms. Taylor said that while the tasing incident may not appear to be typical, he said it was a prime example of a pattern of excessive use. - -"Police have a responsibility to protect all of their citizens," he said. "They cannot be putting their hands on people unnecessarily." - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -The American Civil Liberties Union has opposed the use of tasers, saying they can cause the same sort of pain and suffering as other devices. They are also prone to jamming and have the potential to paralyze people, said the group's general counsel, Christopher J. Dunn. - -The taser's inventor, Dr. Robert J. Heirens of the University of North Dakota, found that stun guns made officers more calm by decreasing the likelihood of a person reaching for something, which leads them to retreat quickly. But some of Dr. Heirens's research studies have been criticized because of methodological flaws that could lead to an unintended increase in use, or a decrease if officers are instructed to avoid using it. - -"Heirens taser is much more of a blunt instrument than the electric stun gun," said John R. Lumpkin, who was a University of North Dakota professor until last fall when he left the university to become director of the state's Office of Policy and Research, which oversees tasers. - -Dr. Lumpkin recalled his studies in which he was told officers would have to take control of situations when trying to subdue a violent suspect by using a taser. "That has to be done by trained officers with the appropriate training and the appropriate training," he said. - -Mr. Thompson, the lawyer, said that in his 13 years practicing law, he had seen many of the taser cases that his clients had filed. He had yet to see a taser use that he deemed justified. - -He was among the lawyers who helped set off the 2010 case, and says that when he first heard of it, he thought it was an isolated situation. "We got together and looked into it one by one, and all we did was take it a step further and say this is what's going on," Mr. Thompson said. "It becomes apparent that this is a pattern." - -Last year, after the Justice Department released a report on the Baltimore case, Mr. Thompson said he thought -======================================== SAMPLE 139 ======================================== -I have an issue where the user can only use the mouse in a specific manner, but not with the arrow keys, such that it appears to be a keyboard issue. This is most pronounced when a user wants to use the up, down, left, right, enter, backspace, backspace, home, delete keys with the arrow keys instead of the mouse. - - -I have been using a Dell laptop with the following configuration (which should be standard on most): - - --Windows 7 Home Premium 64bits - --Intel Core M 5Y30 - --8 GB RAM - --1TB HDD - --Dell Wireless Keyboard with Bluetooth - --Dell Wireless Mouse with Bluetooth - - -This is a common configuration on all laptops sold to the general public today. As far as I can tell, this is the only configuration where I can't use the arrow keys with my mouse. And this seems to be a common problem with the keyboard, and not a specific problem with the mouse. I have verified this for both Dell and Microsoft systems. - - -In Windows 7, at the point where I was able to use the arrow keys with the mouse, there appeared a little mouse cursor over the left thumbpad, which I used by default to click. But at the point where I was able to use the arrow keys with the mouse, the cursor was gone. I have tried rebooting, and this issue appears to be in effect even before rebooting. - - -I have noticed this issue in other recent versions of Windows as well, including Windows 10. I tried all kinds of fixes on both my Dell and Microsoft machines that seemed to temporarily fix the issue. I still get the same problem when using my mouse to click, and can't reliably use keyboard commands with the keyboard. For example, clicking the left mouse button on my mouse still seems to bring up the Windows key and the option to right-click. - - -I'm trying to use my mouse to select text, but it will only select text within 10 lines of the current selection if the cursor is on the left side of the text when I type the letter. Other times the selection appears within the existing selection. I tried everything I can think of on both my Dell and Microsoft machines with little or no success, on both systems. No other solutions seem to work either. Is there anything I can look for here? Anyone else know of anything? - -Microsoft is working on these issues. - -If you are experiencing these problems, the following steps can help you. Please follow all the steps carefully. - - -NOTE: I have also used a Dell Wireless Mouse and Windows 10 Home which seems to work fine with the mouse. - - -Step 1: Check to make sure the driver is working correctly. If it isn't, then you will need to add the driver manually. - - -Step 2: Find out if you are using the Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center service. Check to make sure that the service is not started (by pressing the Windows key and R and navigating to Control Panel > Services). If the service is running, then you may not need to do anything to enable it. - - -Step 3: If you are using the Windows Media Player service, go to Services\Windows Media Player > Service Status in Control Panel > Services to see if service is started or not. If it has not started, and it is still not started, then you may need to do a service restart. Start Menu > Run > Services.exe /stop > Restart. - - -Step 4: If you have selected Windows Media Center Service option in the previous step, you need to disable it to make sure all of your software correctly registers with Windows. You can search the web or do a search on your local computer for "disable Windows Media Player service" to find the proper procedure. - - -This is a general solution, but some people can get around the issue via a process of elimination. If you have a very bad internet connection or very slow modem, then you may not be able to get a full computer boot up. You may need to do a hard reset to get a full computer boot up. - - -Step 5: Go to Computer and Right Click on Start Menu > Select Control Panel > Select System. - - -Step 6: Click on Device Manager. Click on Advanced System Settings > click on Device Manager. - - -Step 7: Right Click on the name of the device you are experiencing trouble with and select Properties. Under the Device tab, under the Device name, click on Update Driver Software... > Browse my computer for driver software... > Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. - - -Step 8: A new window will pop up, telling you that you need to install the latest device driver for this device. Click on Next. Windows Update will automatically download the latest device driver and install it for the device. - - -Step 9: Once the device driver installation is complete Windows Update will restart and complete installing any missing device driver updates. - - - -======================================== SAMPLE 140 ======================================== -In the first of a three-part series on Australia's Indigenous culture and people, The Weekly WTF, Greg Martin takes a look at the Aboriginal people who built Australia… - -Before the arrival of Europeans, Australia was home to many tribes and cultures. They have been a part of Australia's culture since long before it was formed. - -In the last ten years alone, a new generation of Aboriginal people have rekindled Aboriginal pride and passion for national unity and sovereignty. Their generation is challenging assumptions about Aboriginal heritage and who they are as a people. - -Here are three young Aboriginal people from around Australia who are leading the charge today. - -Kenny Kopera (aka "Ringo") - -Kenny Kopera is a young Aboriginal man living in Queensland's Mackay region. This is his story. - -His parents were from the Kimberley, an area that was the subject of fierce resistance to Australian colonization. Kopera's parents and his five siblings were uprooted and uprooted again, when his father and three siblings moved back to the Kimberley. Kopera's mother was unable to afford the journey home, so she remained in North Queensland and found work in the goldfields in Mackay. - -With his Aboriginal identity under threat, Kopera made the courageous decision to study history. He discovered that the European experience began many years before European arrival. He then had a profound sense of loss knowing that while his forebears were the first Indigenous Australians, his own people who had struggled to survive here for countless generations, had already vanished. - -He has spent much of his life in opposition to colonial injustice. While pursuing a degree in Indigenous arts and culture at University of Queensland he stood up to Queensland Government representatives and won over support for an Aboriginal-only education program. Then, at University in Sydney, he created a national forum for Indigenous artists, youth, writers and performers and launched a website to create safe spaces for Aboriginal Australians. - -Last year while performing, he was the first Aboriginal performer to be nominated by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts in a lifetime achievement award. - -This self-confessed young warrior is the only man to have stood up to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Premier Gladys Berejiklian, protesting against the loss of traditional Australian ways and languages including: - -Racism - -Families, communities and language - -Traditional medicine and spirituality - -Language and culture - -Racism Aboriginal Australia has lost over 40% of our languages. Only 1 million of the 3 million Indigenous languages still continue to be spoken. And that is just one example of Australia's profound loss. - -"I don't want my culture lost to 'them'. I want my culture to exist in Australia," says Kenny Kopera. - -Kopera and his young band have been involved in community-building projects; creating an Aboriginal-only beach at the University of Sydney to inspire and inspire young people. In 2016, they built an Aboriginal-only water feature at a beach in New South Wales. And, recently in April this year, they made headlines with their plans to build an Aboriginal-only memorial park in Sydney to commemorate the death of a local farmer, John Henry Bantu. - -For Kopera the fight is long but he is on a mission. In an age where Indigenous people are disappearing at a horrific rate there are few people with his determination and desire to continue to fight. He has created a Facebook group called Aboriginal Land, Sea and People. It's an open, inclusive and non-hierarchical platform for sharing information and talking about Aboriginal issues. - -Kenny says: - -I'm trying to bring together people who don't necessarily speak the same languages or go in the same communities. The only reason I'm doing this is to bring all of our tribes together… We all want to live as equal citizens. - -We asked Kenny for 10 words or terms that describe the Aboriginal culture. - -"Indigenous Australians love their land. They really love the earth. They really love family. They're spiritual. They love their ancestors." - -Aboriginal music is an important part of the Indigenous culture. A lot of it comes from a spiritual centre at Port Augusta in Western Australia. The music of The Grange of Kula continues on. An Aboriginal man named Rohan's music is as beautiful as it is powerful. When he plays his drum, it sends shivers through people's souls and tears tear-filled faces. - -His band is based out of Port Arthur and their album "Red Earth" was a huge success on the festival circuit. He says: - -We got to the festival circuit and played a lot more shows. In 2008 I got invited to play in Perth at the Red Hill music festival. I was on a plane at the airport and the people on the plane were all on their phones, checking things on their phones. I couldn't believe that most people -======================================== SAMPLE 141 ======================================== -Spencer Platt/Getty Images President Donald Trump had harsh words for Democrats on Twitter Tuesday morning, blasting a "basket of idiots" and saying they didn't "want the US to be strong." - -It was an unusually strong rebuke from Trump, who normally prefers to tiptoe around politics on social media and rarely goes after his political rivals, much less Democrats. - -The president's tweet came just before 3 p.m., just minutes before FBI Director James Comey was scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his decision to write his blockbuster "discovery" letter to Congress less than two weeks before the election. - -Trump followed up his tweet about Democrats with a warning: "If this story gets covered evenly, in 12 days I will have told you why I fired #FakeDossierGuy." - -Trump had been angered earlier Tuesday by reports that his team was told in the spring that the Russians had information on his then-rival, Hillary Clinton, that could damage her candidacy. The dossier later turned up on a computer owned by former British spy Christopher Steele, who was retained in January 2016 by a Washington-based political research firm, Fusion GPS. - -Trump had been told last summer that the Russians had amassed dirt on Clinton in a large-scalped dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer - which was given by sources to FBI officials last spring - that contained specific allegations about the Democrat and her role in a uranium deal. - -But Trump had been reluctant to acknowledge publicly, much less with a dossier, that Russia had dug up such material because doing so might have damaged his prospects for persuading a foreign government to curtail its meddling in the democratic process. - -Trump and the Russia saga has been a recurring theme of much of Trump's first year in office, particularly in interviews and interviews with Fox News. In March, the president accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower and tweeted that Obama has "been smoking WAPO since January 20th." - - -Tuesday's tweets appeared to be Trump's latest attempt to focus attention on the Russia scandal, and on his own political standing. It came just after former Vice President Joe Biden told CNN that Trump's tweets about Comey, which have included a series of threats against the FBI director, may have an effect on his administration's effort to move the country to the left. - -"The tweets may hurt his relationship with the FBI, and may in fact be damaging to our ability to work with the FBI," Biden said. "The president's tweets are obviously highly provocative. I also think some of them are highly inappropriate." - -Trump appeared not to have followed Biden's remarks. Trump wrote on the same Twitter feed that he has "the absolute right to do what I feel is right," and "the media and the whole world will eventually come to terms with this. They will be thanking me once the successes begin to pour in!"<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A former Tory MP who served in the House of Commons for 24 years was murdered because "members of the Establishment" were frightened of her plans to hold an inquiry into child sexual abuse, it's been reported. - -Sarah Ferguson was stabbed and killed in the pub of the former Oxfordshire constituency home of her ex-boyfriend, Michael Adebolajo, on Friday. - -The 33-year-old MP had been having a drink with her ex-boyfriend when the attack happened, and it is believed he broke down in tears. - -Read more: Tributes paid to Tory MP Sarah Ferguson who was murdered in attack last night - -Adebolajo - who is a member of the banned Islamist extremist group al-Muhajiroun - said he carried out the brutal killing as a "revenge" for the "war being fought on Muslims" by his ex-girlfriend. - -(Image: Daily Mirror) - -Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now - -Neighbours said Mr Adebolajo ran off after the attack, and that his ex-girlfriend and his daughter who was visiting at the time are "doing very well and being looked after". - -Mr Adebolajo, a devout Muslim, has previously been convicted of criminal damage and served prison time for assaulting a man. - -It is understood that Mr Ferguson had also held talks with her local MP Nick Boles, and the Commons has today launched an investigation into how she was killed, and will look into whether any measures could be taken to prevent the threat of future violence against her constituents. - -Read more: Police investigate 'disturbing' reports of an attack on MP Sarah Ferguson by former boyfriend who killed her with a knife - -Ms Ferguson is believed to have written a book called "The Truth Behind One Person -======================================== SAMPLE 142 ======================================== -A few weeks ago, the Internet went nuts over the "secret" new Samsung Galaxy Note5 that leaked online just weeks before the company would officially announce it. While the Note5 has been in various hands-on demonstrations, the company just released a new image and a teaser for the device, and we've got everything you need to know. - -The device features a "5.9-inch QHD Super AMOLED display with a 2.5D curved edge-to-edge display" and a new dual-camera setup on the back. That dual camera setup is a pretty big deal—you may recognize it from earlier rumors—and Samsung hasn't said very much about it yet. The device's screen seems to have at least 1080p resolution across the entire 5.9-inch display, unlike previous Note handsets. - -It's rumored the device can pack at least a 3,200mAh battery, which would be enough for both a day of use and a good amount of use in standby. A quad-core processor was also leaked, although neither Samsung or LG have confirmed that it will make its way into the Note5. - -The devices come in five colors, with gold and blue versions of the device being the most likely at this point. - -We also know the Note5 will have a microSD card slot and support "sensor cluster" technology that can allow for hands-free camera control, so you might have to plug it in to take photos without a phone. And Samsung's included a 3.55mm headphone jack which can easily be plugged in to headphones. - -The Note5 will be officially announced on October 19 as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are now on sale. No word just yet on the Note5's price, so check out the teaser below. - -Source: Note5Leaks<|endoftext|>If you've never seen the original Star Wars movie, you don't know about the Force. Nowadays, it's a powerful thing with all the powers of life and death and it is also quite useful. You could say that the Force is one of the most important beings in the universe. It helps keep people safe, and it allows people to do things they would never consider for themselves. In the galaxy, you will encounter powerful Force wielders, but they are the exceptions and not the rule. Some of the weaker Jedi never got much of a reputation. The Star Wars universe is filled with people who can manipulate the Force as well as they see fit. In the case of this post, we will try to find a unique Jedi we can call our personal personal heroes, and the first Jedi we will introduce is named Mace Windu.. - -I had never been a huge fan of Star Wars. There's something about it that just doesn't do it for me, because they have just that little "it" factor. That little bit of nostalgia, it just…stinks. Not only that, every time someone goes to see a movie or TV show about it, we hear about the Star Wars saga again, and I just always felt like they did it wrong. It feels like there was just a big hole there. I was always interested with the idea of the Force, but never gave it the time to grow on me. I finally started watching Star Wars because there was a prequel, Rebels, and I found myself really liking the Jedi. However, the first Force user I encountered was a lot more interesting to me. - -When Darth Maul first appeared on screen he didn't look like much but he was just so freaking powerful. His power and technique just blew me away. He is a badass that you just have to see. For my part, I loved the Sith, that they are all powerful and evil, and even more so the dark side of the Force. It just appeals to my inner sadist. You know, everyone has a dark side, everyone hates, hates, hates everything, just…sad, dark, and all the rest. We all had to suffer from a dark side of the Force, a dark side of life that kept us away from happy times, so I always wondered why everyone hates the Sith so much. - -I've always wanted to talk about someone that is a Sith for life, a Darth for life. I wanted to try to build that kind of relationship. So, I started playing around with the Jedi and came up with some interesting choices for my characters. But I was never really satisfied with my choice. That's why I decided to go looking for an example in the Star Wars universe and I found it on one of my favorite characters of all time. He's so much more awesome than I ever imagined. - -Mace Windu is a member of the Jedi Order, but he's one of the lesser known ones in the Star Wars universe and this is why he was chosen as the first Jedi we will introduce in this post. Mace is much more experienced than you might think, he was trained by the legendary Qu -======================================== SAMPLE 143 ======================================== -The Canadian Press - - -OTTAWA - The Liberals are defending their decision to renew funding for a federal organization that works with First Nations chiefs and councillors, saying the money will help the group's work find solutions to community problems. - -The federal government provided $200 million last year to the Canadian Council on Aboriginal Peoples to work on a range of issues from housing to housing-related issues and child welfare. - -Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in the last election that his government would maintain funding for the council until 2023. - -The Liberal platform outlined five priorities for housing for First Nations people, including making sure the government has the tools it needs to tackle housing conditions, including the number of units available, accessibility and affordability. - -The federal government has yet to commit how much it will commit to improving the housing situation in Canada, but said it will be part of its economic action plan unveiled Monday. - -The council says it's working on an analysis of housing costs and how to mitigate against them. - -In a statement released Friday, spokesperson David McGuinty said the council expects to use the funding to hire additional staff to continue its advocacy work with more than 150 First Nations communities across the country. - -And he said the council's work with First Nations may include reviewing the "unacceptably high cost of housing and the impact of the current housing affordability crisis on First Nations communities." - -A report published on Monday by the council argues that First Nations may be more likely to "fail" to meet the needs of their local Aboriginal population that the federal government. - -The report, titled Finding Better Housing for Aboriginal People and Communities, says that the existing Canadian housing affordability issue isn't unique to First Nations communities.<|endoftext|>In May last year, a judge told the jury that Michael Bryant was "one of the most dangerous, intelligent, cunning and cold-blooded child-killers in the British Isles." The judge said he was giving Bryant a sentence of life in prison with a minimum term of 10 years for a murder that he described as "cruel, evil and ruthless." - -So did John Cundy know about the killer's mental state? Does he think a life sentence would have done anything except exacerbate Bryant's sense of loss and anger? - -"I don't feel like my life has been wasted," Mr. Cundy said over the phone from a prison in the United States where he is in custody. "I think I've gotten it the worst deal possible." Cundy - -Although it was announced today that Mr. Cundy is getting released on parole in 2015, his chances of ever settling in London again are uncertain. - -John Cundy says that he still has his old life. His father still has his old life. He has even found a new work. He says he has a new job as a photographer, but it doesn't go quite as well as the photojournalism he did for the Daily Mail. The job is to send you pictures of the beautiful countryside, and, he told me, "to be a bit of a voyeur." So far he has made around $10,000, "but not as much as I was hoping for." - -He was not sure if his wife knew he was working for the Daily Mail, but she said she would have suspected. He did not see any sign that she was upset. - -"She's my girlfriend, but they don't know I'm a photographer. It's not a secret at all." - -The next time we called, three weeks earlier, Cundy was at his father's house in London with his mother. - -Cundy - -She told me that her son hadn't changed at all since prison. He still smokes and drinks, she said. He still cries and has an extremely intense rage, but not in the same way. It has been replaced, she said, by an "intimate rage" because of the loss of her family. - -"As long as he's alive he will go back to being a psychopath." Cundy - -Cundy's mother said that the worst decision she ever made was giving him up early. Her husband had always been strict, and her father was dead for a few months when she married the son she later described to me as "not just the boy I thought he would be, but the man I didn't know I'd married." She said she had always known about his addiction, but "it was a different kind of addiction. It was not to cocaine; it was to killing." - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Cundy said that when she was pregnant her son had a violent temper and he was a "disorderly child" who had to be put in the care of a special team for a while. She said she went into labor, went to the hospital and told the child specialist "something awful had happened, and I was certain it wasn't going to get any better." - -The child specialist said she would see him in a few -======================================== SAMPLE 144 ======================================== -The world's smallest nuclear reactor - -By David Alexander - -27 May 2017 - -The UK's SMR (Small Modular Reactor) project, also known as the Sorek reactor, is a project of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in the UK, and it involves building one of the world's lowest-energy nuclear reactors, based on the design of the French EPR reactor. The cost of construction of the plant is estimated at about £900 million ($1.6 billion), including the cost of UK taxpayers' money for the project and the loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) worth €1.2 billion ($1.65 billion). - -The reactor will be located on the Northumberland coast around 12 miles south of the village of Sorek and at a depth of 20 meters. The first SMR prototype to be deployed is the EPR, which could potentially power about 6,600 homes, using 1,500 tons of spent fuel. It has a power-to-weight ratio of 9,633 kilowatts, which means that a single square meter of the reactor will convert the same power as 6,600 square meters of non-radioactive waste. The power density of the EPR is 857 kilowatts per cubic meter, while the SMR will be even more compact at 547 kilowatts per cubic meter. - -"We are now in the initial safety and technical assessment stage. At that stage, we will conduct an operational demonstration with the operator that will include the use of key equipment," Simon Fairweather, Executive Project Manager for Small Modular Reactor, Inc., told the World Nuclear Association (WNA). "We are confident that the safety and reliability of the SMR, combined with its cost benefits, will be a major driver to secure funding for the Sorek project." - -The initial demonstration will be conducted in 2018 and the plant is expected to be operational by 2023. Fairweather stated that the plant is in discussions with some nuclear utilities around the southern hemisphere (see Nuclear Energy in South America, below) in order to secure the financing. - -The Sorek nuclear plant will be located at the foot of the Hebrides' rocky shore and will house four pressurized salt water reactors (PSRs). The reactors are built for a low-fuel load-followability with high power densities. At full power, the PSRs can operate for about 10 years, delivering 20 MW of power and generating about 50 tons of plutonium-239 each year. The production (about 10 tons in a year) of plutonium-239 from the reactors provides the nuclear fuel for all of Britain's nuclear reactors. - -The plant will be a series of 12 reactors and is expected to cost £6 to £10 billion (US$9.6 to $13.8 billion). The price of the fuel for the first reactor is estimated at about $350/kg, which includes the electricity generated by the plant, about $400/kg for the fuel itself, $40/kg for the fabrication of the nuclear fuel, and the cost of the fuel rods themselves, and these costs are expected to come down through economies of scale, as the UK will have fewer of these plants. At full power, the cost of the fuel is expected to fall to $250/kg, with the electricity being reduced from about £15 to £11. - -The cost for decommissioning would be £400 million ($630 million) for each unit, and the UK has already committed to decommissioning the Fermi plant and the Rokkasho plant in Japan. The first reactor in the UK is already slated for removal after 2036. Sorek is already part of the EPR consortium that operates the nuclear reactors in Japan. - -"The potential for reducing the cost, time and risk of low-enriched uranium nuclear power, while providing power without greenhouse gases would be an enormous achievement for the UK, Europe and the rest of the world," said Michael Liebreich, Director of the Institute for Energy Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. On the basis of the recent decommissioning of the Sorek plant, he said, decommissioning of the plants in France and Sweden could be expected to cost €40 billion ($55 billion) and €60 billion ($75 billion). "A SMR could achieve similar economies of scale," according to Liebreich. In addition to using "cleaner" fuel, a plant based on a modular design could also reduce the waste of fuel from the fuel rods themselves. - -The SMR has strong supporters in the US and Germany as well as the European Union, which has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as energy dependence on fossil fuels. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that nuclear power will remain the world's major electricity generator in 2040. The EIA says that a nuclear power plant in the UK -======================================== SAMPLE 145 ======================================== -After an eight-month investigation, Texas A&M has agreed to pay $25 million to settle discrimination allegations against football coach Kevin Sumlin, the university announced Wednesday. - -The settlement deal is the only one of its kind and is the largest in SEC history, university officials say. - -"The university recognizes there are no perfect resolutions to this matter," said A&M athletic director Bill Byrne. "However, the university has concluded that by the terms of the settlement agreement and the seriousness of the claims, this is the best resolution." - -The Aggies declined to comment on the settlement, but in a statement, Sumlin said: "I'm glad this is over. This is nothing a student could ever understand. I have loved working at A&M and can never thank my family, the University of Texas and all the great Aggie fans enough for everything. This university has been such an important part of my life to get to this point. I want to thank the school and my teammates, coaches, staff and friends for an unbelievable football journey. I look forward to the next challenge." - -The lawsuit, filed in May in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, alleged that a black male student received the minimum scholarship and that a white female student was not promoted to a position she was more qualified for despite better performance. That student also complained discrimination in receiving tickets to Aggies home games. - -Two white women also had to transfer to a school that was much closer to A&M, according to the suit. A third female student also complained of being passed over for a position she applied for even though she was a less-qualified candidate. - -The settlement, which will be reviewed by an appointed Special Master, addresses all claims but not one that is specifically linked to Sumlin, according to a statement from A&M. - -"This is an unfortunate and regrettable chapter in University of Texas Athletics history," Byrne said. - -The settlement will be paid directly out of the Aggies' budget and is expected to take effect in 90 days. - -The university and university officials "remain focused on educating the Aggie student-athletes and their families about the benefits of an education and career at Texas A&M" and on improving "coaching and recruiting processes," the university said in a written statement. - -Sumlin, who has been Aggies' head coach since January 2011, is the school's 18th head coach and fifth defensive coordinator. The university has announced 10 other coaches will not return for their third or fourth seasons. - -"Our hope is this will not represent a change in the overall culture of A&M and I know as coach Sumlin makes this transition into his new career that's the direction it won't be," athletic director DeLoss Dodds said in a statement. - -The university also said the University Act is still in law, a reference to the Texas Education Code. But in a statement to cleveland.com, Byrne said Sumlin, who has five years remaining on his contract, is no longer employed by the school and "he remains an Aggie and is actively involved in the Aggie family's programs." - -Texas A&M's interim director for human resources Steve Patterson, said this week the university has started internal reviews of how it handles allegations of discrimination. - -"The university must understand that its actions must be viewed in the context of larger institutional issues and systemic racism in our country," he said. - -Byrne added: "We acknowledge the work of the Special Master and believe we have made positive progress to this point. We are taking a different approach with next year's program. That is something we and our students will continue to work to improve over the next period of time." - -The suit claims the Aggies didn't take proactive measures to reduce racial diversity on their staffs, such as hiring more minority coaches or promoting female football staff members to their current roles. - -According to the university, about 8 percent of the university's coaches between 2001 — the year Sumlin was hired and the year the suit was filed — and 2014 were minority or women. They also noted that the Aggies have increased minority football coaches and promoted other minorities to full-time positions. - -Texas A&M did not offer specifics about it hiring of minorities on staffs. - -But the university did note that the Aggies hired a black woman coaching position on the defensive line a year ago after hiring seven male defensive line coaches, including former coach and defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi's son, in 2013. A&M also promoted women's assistant defensive backs coach Tracy Rocker in 2014. - -Sumlin, Byrne said, is "the right person to rebuild the Aggie Football program" and that he understands he did not hire all Aggies students and that there is "a lot of work ahead of us to better our football program." - -"We will continue to do our part to create more opportunities for our -======================================== SAMPLE 146 ======================================== -Image caption Mr Goh is the first in his family to go to university - -Chinese students are the biggest spenders in education in the world, according to the UN University Education Report. - -The report, published annually on Tuesday, shows the US, France and the UK are most well endowed, while China, with its huge pool of students, accounts for the world's biggest spending on education. - -The report also ranks university performance around the world, with the UK in 15th place - but only the second country after South Korea in terms of student numbers. - -But China's universities are struggling. - -The report, sponsored by UN schools and universities, is based on a survey of academics and experts from the world's leading higher education institutions. It covers more than 1,200 institutions. - -The top 10 highest-spending countries - -China (4.6% of average international student expenditure) - £6,924 US (£3,928) - £4,947 France (4.6% of average international student expenditure) - £4,851 Germany (5.4% of average international student expenditure) - £4,711 UK (4.6% of average international student expenditure) - £4,695 Australia (4.8% of average international student expenditure) - £4,625 Canada (4.6% of average international student expenditure) - £4,523 Singapore (4.8% of average international student expenditure) - £4,515 - -In 2010-11 about 30% of the £25bn of students going to university in China came from abroad. Many of these enrolments are from China's 1.35 billion nationals. - -Of the top students, many are students who have been encouraged by educational authorities to study abroad, the UK report says. - -The report says that China also has the largest number of underrepresented nationalities, which can take years to find places in university. - -The most likely countries to be underrepresented are: - -Ethiopians or Ethiopians - 38% have never heard of the UK. - -Burma or Myanmar – 30% have never heard of Australia. - -Kenyans, South Africans and Somalis – 26% have barely heard of Canada. - -Africans - 25% have never heard of Australia. - -Asians, Malaysians, Indonesians, Malaysians and Chinese are some of the most well-represented groups. - -The best-funded countries in the world - -US (£4,250 per year) - -France (£3,942) - -Germany (£3,890) - -UK (£3,890) - -India (£3,700) - -South Korea (£3,600) - -Brazil (£2,750) - -Australia (£2,600) - -South Africa (£2,450) - -Canada (£2,400) - -Brazil (£2,350) - -India (£2,400) - -South Korea (£2,360) - -In Europe, the UK is tops in the region for students, with the UK university sector spending more than any other country in the world. - -It is followed by France - which is third in the region - and then Germany. - -France's students spend about three-quarters of what London students spend - and about one-third of what Indian students spend. - -Image caption British students spend over 1,000% more on university fees in comparison with Chinese students - although there are huge differences on earnings - -The top UK universities, including Imperial College London, Cambridge and Oxford, are funded by a range of sources including the government. - -At the top of the league table, the report says, is the UK's Russell Group, which includes the universities of Cambridge and Oxford in Cambridge, and Imperial College London in London. - -Some universities in the UK have been able to offer a large number of low-cost fee-paying students - so that the students are not subsidised by the state. - -Some universities in countries which are not traditionally regarded as highly-educated, such as India and Pakistan, also make the top eight for highest students expenditure. - -What do the rankings show? - -The UN University Education Report is based on surveys of the world's leading universities asking experts about various aspects of their programmes and facilities. - -Students and academics in the survey are judged on the quality of programs, how well the teaching staff can communicate and help students in their studies, and on how accessible their facilities are for students. - -The report uses eight indicators: teaching costs; the quality of lecturers; how easy it is for students to do research; the number of research projects available in the institution; the value of degree-awarding events; the number of international students available; the number of degrees awarded; and the quality of facilities offered by the institution. - -In addition the UN report looks at the -======================================== SAMPLE 147 ======================================== -On a recent afternoon at a diner near the Los Angeles airport, I asked someone what they thought of the idea that a lot of the world's water could soon be pumped into the ground to raise sea levels. The answer: not very much at all. The person said that in order to put nearly half the total freshwater on earth under the sea, there would have to be a drastic decrease in the amount of rain that falls on the surface each year. - -But this is unlikely to happen. - -Rain falling in California gets about 10% to 15% of its flow from subterranean sources each year, making it more than 50% renewable water, according to Peter Gleick, who runs the Pacific Institute's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, which maintains a database of global freshwater reserves. - -The main issue, I said, is that for the oceans to be pumped full of freshwater, the ocean waters are going to have to be salty and acidic, which is bad news for some fish, plants, and birds. - -When the oceans turn salty over a long time period, that affects everything from marine life to animals that rely on currents and other ways to move around. - -"That's why the Earth's oceans have so little fresh water," Gleick said, "because you're not going to get it all at once." - -Still, we're going to have to solve two significant problems within five to 10 years on this scale. So let's explore each. - -• Is water too salty for humans to drink? - - -One big challenge we may face early on is figuring out how to get rid of salt, or at least significantly dilute it. - -According to one assessment, if the amount of water pumped into the oceans to raise sea level dropped by just 7cm in 20 years, it would take 6,000 years for the sea to rise another 10cm. - -If we want 10cm of sea level rise in a generation, that would mean about 5,000 cubic kilometres of freshwater would have to be stored annually. - -The world's existing large-scale storage facility for freshwater, Lake Mead, provides almost 10% of available freshwater. - -But at an estimated $1 per cubic metre, it would take at least $500bn (£314bn) of new storage to meet the challenge, Gleick said. - -• How will the world's food system react when there's less freshwater? - - -According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), some 2 billion people now depend on fish for about 60% of their dietary intake, mostly wild-caught tuna and other fish. - -But, Gleick said, at current rates of consumption growth, that figure is going to have to be halved in the next 25 years. - -And that is problematic. - -In the dry areas of the Pacific Ocean, fish farmers could see their fish become less abundant, he said. - -In the humid areas, the demand on the area's fish farms would rise, leading to further declines in biodiversity and even greater depletion of aquaculture fisheries. - -What all this really means, Gleick said, is that food systems around the world depend on a lot more freshwater than today. And we may run out of it early. - -In the United States, the US Department of Agriculture is working on a project to develop a new model of a viable aquaculture industry that will be based on freshwater and fish. - -But Gleick said there is a risk that if we don't get this right, aquaculture will simply become an even less efficient food source, leading to further cuts in fish and fish products.<|endoftext|>A man who allegedly threatened to kill Muslim girls in an anti-Muslim video has been given an eight-day sentence. - -Mohammed Iqbal Hussain, who is from Pakistan, appeared at Leeds Crown Court in West Yorkshire charged with two offences of using threatening words or behaviour. Mr Justice Lloyd Jones told the court the comments were "highly derogatory" towards Islam. Mr Hussain admitted making the video on January 30 - and appeared unshaven and wearing a tracksuit bottoms. The prosecutor said it was uploaded on Facebook and described it as anti-Muslim. In the video, he said he went to a mosque and watched some men there who "knew what was coming". He went on: "We will see the day when Muslims will know how to put on their shoes and their socks and how to take off their shoes. These men know the whole plan. You will see the day." There was no immediate reaction from the Muslim community. Mr Hussain then appeared to accuse Britain of "thousands of years" of "cultural imperialism" and "unilateral and double standards", when in reality he has the Muslim world's backing. - -Judge Lloyd Jones sentenced the 33-year-old to a minimum eight-day jail term, on top of two years' good behaviour as he imposed sentence. - -As Hussain was led to jail -======================================== SAMPLE 148 ======================================== -After a series of delays and an even more lengthy overhaul, the U.K. home secretary is inching closer to an appointment to replace Justice Michael Kirby. While some reports suggest that she's ready to recommend that he step down, that will be the last word on this particular mystery. The UK home secretary, Amber Rudd, does not have the power to name an individual to the U.K. Supreme Court by herself. When Parliament debates replacing Kirby with someone else, or if he quits, it will need to pass a formal motion of confidence. - -That process will take at least a year, if not longer, after Parliament returns from its summer recess. But if the motion of confidence moves through both Houses of Parliament in its entirety, Rudd and her cabinet can push the final button, naming Justice David Prosser as her replacement. - -The last few months have seen much speculation about the future of Justice Kirby. Although he was appointed by the U.K. government to sit on the U.K. Supreme Court, Kirby does not hold such a post himself. Instead, he serves as the U.K.'s representative on the International Court of Justice, a specialized international tribunal that resolves legal disputes between states. His appointment was widely seen as a means of signaling that the UK wanted to take a more active role in addressing disputes between it and individual states. Prosser holds similar views, saying that the U.K. "believes that the ICC is an important partner for the U.K. to build a safer world," adding that he hopes to "lead the U.K.'s work with ICC on a regular basis." - -However, in recent weeks, there have been reports that Prosser is feeling besieged. An anonymous source told The Sunday Times that there is a "dramatic split" with the government over the direction of the court, which is headed by Prosser instead of the head of the judiciary, which is currently Sir Declan Morgan. - -In his article, The Unfinished Case Against Justice Prosser, former U.K. solicitor general Dominic Grieve described Prosser's relationship with the government "in crisis" and said that he had lost confidence in the leader of his team, Richard Thomas QC. A former justice minister, Grieve wrote that Prosser was "too easily distracted" and suffered from a "deluded sense that the case is close to being concluded" that left him "willing to consider a resignation as a consequence of his own mistakes." - -Justice Prosser would find out just how far his relationship with the U.K. government had fallen if he took up his new position in April. But given how difficult it is to find a new court chief, the likelihood is that he will stay on. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that he would step down without something substantial to replace him on the Supreme Court with. Prosser could be appointed to the British Bar, which is already facing serious staff reductions. Justice Michael Kirby is set to retire on the end of this year. - -Nevertheless, the fate of Justice Prosser is not entirely in the hands of his replacement. If Parliament approves Prosser's appointment, it will require his signature. However, this is much easier said than done. - -Prosser's supporters believe this would be the only way for the Court to proceed in the aftermath of Justice Kirby's departure. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Scott Nelson, told BBC News: - -This appointment is an acknowledgement that, in order to replace Justice John Sirica as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, there is no one more qualified than David Prosser to do so. Justice Gavin Hutchinson has no prior judicial experience, and this appointment will ensure that a new Chief Judge of the Supreme Court has a strong and experienced case making background." - -Justice Nigel Peters, a former member of parliament for the Conservatives, is another supporter of Prosser's appointment. Peters argued in a letter to Parliament earlier this month that he would be "extremely reluctant to sanction any judicial reshuffle that would allow another justice to replace John Sirica." Even if the U.K. government agreed to allow Prosser to become chief justice, there would be a battle to make sure it gets one. Although Prosser has had a long career as a judge, he was in the news last week when he was removed from a case against a hotel chain that allegedly discriminated against a gay couple. "I have no doubt that a case of this nature will provoke a fierce backlash from various quarters," a U.K. solicitor said afterwards. - -One of Prosser's opponents, however, is Nigel Adams, a Tory MP. He wrote to The Daily Mail last week noting that Prosser "has been the focus of controversy" for several years, which is "why he should not be allowed to take the reins of the Supreme Court." - -It is unclear how long a fight Prosser would take -======================================== SAMPLE 149 ======================================== -A former staffer in Donald Trump's presidential campaign was accused of sexual harassment earlier this month by a former female volunteer. - -The woman, Jessica Leeds, told the New York Times on Wednesday that her alleged assailant tried to have sex with her multiple times when she volunteered for Trump's campaign during the time Trump was running for president. - -Leeds said that during the campaign, she was asked to meet Trump at the Ritz-Carlton in New York City. While arriving, she claims that someone in the hotel room invited her for a tour. - -Leeds claimed that, while inside the hotel room, Trump began kissing her and that he forced his tongue down her throat. She claimed that the incident took place in the early 1990s and that Trump also kissed three other women in the room. - -Leeds stated in the Times that she decided to go public with her allegation after receiving a series of threatening calls from Trump's campaign. - -Trump released a statement to the Times in response to the story. - -"This whole thing was fabricated," said Trump, addressing Leeds. "Take a look at her, and you tell me what you think. I don't think so."<|endoftext|>Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un are scheduled to meet in Pyongyang, North Korea at an unspecified date, according to a report by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). - -Rodman, known for his eccentric behavior, has been trying to get a face-to-face meeting with Kim since June. (RELATED: Former NBA Star's Meeting With North Korea Is Still Not On) - -Rodman, who has spent a total of six years living in South Korea before moving to China, has spent time with Kim on a few occasions over the past decade, including a two-week trip by the two NBA stars in May 2013. (RELATED: Rodman: North Korea Is Best Place In The World For Americans To Live) - -Kim and Rodman had dinner at Masikryong Restaurant in Pyongyang. During his conversation with the "basketball star," one of the North Korean leader's advisors reportedly complimented Rodman on his basketball skills after Rodman commented on Kim Jong-il's tennis skills, KCNA reported. (RELATED: Former NBA Star's Dinner With North Korea: 5 Things We Now Know)<|endoftext|>Frequently Asked Questions - - -Q: I'm a new member, why should I have it checked? - -A: Due to the high incidence of false positive tests for thyroid disease, in recent years, many medical professionals have suggested that physicians check for nodules on thyroid ultrasound examinations. This makes sense because, on the basis of your age, sex and general health, it is quite likely that you may be carrying at least one thyroid nodule. Some physicians even recommend screening as long as they are certain that you are not carrying other health problems such as cancer or bleeding disorders. - - -Unfortunately, some physicians tend not to follow proper screening recommendations. In some cases, they fail to realize that you could be carrying a thyroid nodule, even though it is visible on an ultrasound examination. - - -Furthermore, some physicians have even prescribed unnecessary thyroid drugs in some cases as the "safe and effective" means of treating thyroid diseases. You are very unlikely to be treated in order to cure a disease, simply because of the symptoms you experience at the same time. In some states, some physicians have even made false claims regarding the benefits of thyroid drugs. These practices have led to a number of lawsuits, resulting in many patients taking their thyroid medication without proper medical guidance. - - -Q: Can I be prescribed thyroid replacement medication without a screening and evaluation? - -A: Yes, but that's not recommended or required by the American College of Radiology (ACR) or the American Thyroid Association (ATA). - - -Some people believe that thyroid replacement medications can provide additional health benefits. However, there is very little or no scientific evidence supporting any of the currently available thyroid replacement medication methods. If you are wondering whether you should be using thyroid replacement medication, the answer is that you should do all tests necessary, including screening, to make sure that your thyroid condition is not causing symptoms that require treatment. However, if your condition is causing symptoms that clearly warrant a thyroid evaluation, it would not be prudent to ignore these symptoms. - -Q: What other tests should I be doing? - -A: You should have your thyroid glands evaluated by a doctor or endocrinologist. You should have your thyroid glands sampled to see if there is a problem with how they work. Your thyroid gland should have been evaluated by a thyroid specialist at least once within the last three to five years. You might also have your thyroid evaluated by ultrasound, endocrine laboratory testing or an endocrine-related clinical exam. Your doctor should be able to tell whether you are having symptoms related to thyroid disease that warrant treatment with medications. Your endocrine treatment regimen should be carefully evaluated before giving you anything that has the potential to harm you (such as birth -======================================== SAMPLE 150 ======================================== -Django and Django Girls - -Why Django and not Rails or JavaScript? - -Dedjango is written in Python. If you write something in Python you can expect something similar in Python. What's more, the people behind Django and Django Girls have a lot of experience with developing web applications with Python. - -Django is more widely used because it's easy to use and easier to get started with and learn. If something doesn't work or you need some documentation on D, it's a piece of cake. If you want to learn Django you can just read documentation, look at the API docs or get help on the #django IRC channel. - -Django and Django Girls provide a great place to learn more about web app development with Django. With the help of Django Girls you'll have a solid grasp of the main principles of building applications with Django. - -What is Django? - -Django is the open source web framework by which hundreds of thousands of projects are built every day. While Django is used by both developers and non-developers, Django Girls aims to help non-devs become more comfortable with Django. - -Why Django? - -Django was designed out of necessity. The Python platform was designed to be a powerful, high-level programming language. Its strong type system helps prevent programmer errors and lets you build applications easily. Django was created to fit this strong and versatile language in the best possible way. - -Since the early days of the web development industry, web servers have been slow and bloated compared to Python's standard library. Django fills that void by providing tools for working with databases securely. Django also makes the development of web applications easier by taking care of all the tedious detail. - -Why do I need Django? - -Django lets you use a more object-oriented style of programming, instead of using more procedural constructs. It's possible to build applications easily in Django, which is important if you're building web applications. - -Django and Django Girls - -Django and Django Girls will provide you with a solid grounding in Python and Django. The aim is to teach you the fundamentals of web application building to help you get started with Django as quickly as possible. - -Each Django and Django Girls course will contain lessons on different aspects of web development. Each Django or Django Girls course will include:<|endoftext|>A Texas police officer claims that he was wrongly fired from his job as a "Biblical" cop. - -Officer Ryan Scott, who served with the Houston police department for almost a decade, believes, according to an internal lawsuit, he was treated unfairly and forced to "reinvent" his career after he refused to convert to Christianism during his Christian orientation. - -SPONSORED - -Scott was terminated from the police in October, after he refused to agree to become a Christian during his orientation. According to the lawsuit which was filed by a Houston public relations firm, there was a "lack of concern for the plaintiff based upon his failure to commit to the position of officer without having accepted the Defendant's position of officer." - -Scott argued that being a Christian at work "is incompatible with the duties and responsibilities of a police officer." According to the internal lawsuit, the supervisor of the department had asked Scott to pray before the orientation as a way to ease his fears about a terrorist attack. Scott refused to "reinvent [his] career because [he] did not have the confidence to return to work." - -The manager of the Houston Police Department, Gary Mielke, said that Scott was sacked because there was no basis to hold onto the officer. - -"The Houston Police Department has many people of varying beliefs and backgrounds and, as a matter of policy that does not happen," Mielke stated in a statement. "It is not up to us to dictate to a suspect — even a Muslim suspect — what kind of prayers or Bible studies they may or may not conduct with their employees." - -A Houston jury is now deliberating the case. - -Watch this video from C-SPAN.<|endoftext|>Welcome to the first, and possibly only, official page for our project: the world's first "Cup" of beer, designed by me & The H2O Team. As we are still in the design phase, we have no official branding to show off the finished product as yet. We are looking to get a small amount of money to help us complete the first part of our project, the first draft of the logo. Please help us help others get drunk. As always, thanks for your support! - - -Our plan is to have the finished logo completed sometime in mid 2019. Our fundraising goal will help us raise funds needed to complete the design process as well as the actual production run.<|endoftext|>A study led by researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in collaboration with scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Center -======================================== SAMPLE 151 ======================================== -A new study conducted by the University of South Carolina Health Care School of Pharmacy provides more evidence that taking aspirin can lower the risk of heart-attack and stroke. - -Previous studies have suggested that regular aspirin use in adults is linked with less risk of heart disease. The new study, in the November 2014 Journal of the American College of Cardiology, says that the effect is based on a study limited to just one group, men. - -Researchers analyzed data from the Pritikin Trial, a randomized, open-label investigation of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) and its potential cardiovascular effects among more than 100,000 men who took aspirin when they were 38-years old or older. Those taking aspirin were more likely to have lower strokes and heart attacks and more likely to have died from cardiovascular disease, the most common cause of death. - -The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and was conducted by the National Center for Research Resources. - -Sung-Whan Lee, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of South Carolina, says, "We found that women in particular had an increased risk with taking aspirin when they were 38" because researchers used a population-based study that was designed specifically for women. This study is important because it provides the strongest evidence to date of how aspirin may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and women were included in the study because aspirin use is significantly higher in women than men. - -The team of researchers analyzed blood levels in the men, called baseline endothelial function, for more than 3.5 million participants. They found that for each unit increase in baseline endothelial function, the risk of heart attack decreases by 17 percent and stroke decreased by 37 percent during follow-up, with no significant differences between men and women.<|endoftext|>As part of the "Bucket List" promotion for the upcoming Disney animated classic Big Hero 6, fans can enjoy the original animated short "Wings" on demand through their Roku streaming player and smartphones. In the clip, a talented young inventor and his robotic friend take flight, but are stopped by a pair of flying winged robots who take the pair to task for using their inventions without permission. - -Disney is also giving fans a special offer for the movie when they download the Big Hero 6 app from the iOS or Android app stores. That's $15 off the standard purchase price for the movie and for the app for one week. - -Big Hero 6, which features the voices of Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle, Ashley Tisdale, Maya Rudolph, Chris Parnell, Elizabeth Banks and Jeffrey Tambor, hits theaters on Friday, June 14, Disney Animation Studios is releasing. While it's not on my list because I haven't seen it yet, I've been looking forward to seeing it. And at about $15 for the day's rental or watching on demand, it's a deal too good to pass up! - -What do you think? Will you be watching "Wings" on your Roku and/or via your smartphone?<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This article could benefit from an image of: - -Ulfric Stormcloak - -This page could require cleanup to meet high quality standards . You can help by the article. The user who placed this here had the following concern: - - -"I would like to see him get better. I know it feels like too little, but it's a start. I'd love to see this happen. The world desperately needs him." - -To see this user's comments visit their talk page. - -For more information, see the help files , the style guide , and this article's . - -Ulfric (Ornamental) Race Imperial Gender Male Died 11E 201 - -Ulfric Stormcloak was the leader of the Stormcloak rebellion of High Rock in the early years of the Third Era. - -After an alliance with the Thalmor was betrayed and the Empire was weakened by their actions in Hammerfell during the Stormcloak Rebellion of 3E 399, Ulfric led the Stormcloaks as a military force in the war against the Empire. Following the Empire's defeat at Fort Frostmoth, Ulfric led his Stormcloak army as it marched on Orsinium, then part of the Empire. In order to distract Imperial forces in the area, the Stormcloaks assaulted the Imperial Legion and, under the leadership of Galmar Stone-Fist, assassinated the Emperor Titus Mede II. Ulfric was then assassinated by his own lieutenant, Alikr the Soulflayer. The Empire immediately annexed High Rock and all the surrounding Imperial provinces. This, along with the Imperial Legion occupying the Imperial City, resulted in the Empire taking complete control of most of the Province, including Falkreath, which was left with -======================================== SAMPLE 152 ======================================== -There were many great stories told during the annual New Orleans Mardi Gras, but one event in particular captured the imagination of millions around the world. I'm talking about the parade—a celebration of street life—in New Orleans. - -There are so many wonderful ways to commemorate Mardi Gras, and on Mardi Gras Day, the streets of New Orleans are filled with fun events, including parades, festivals and parties. New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods—all of us are in some way home for at least four seasons and that includes New Orleans Mardi Gras. - -The best parades happen Saturday evening, with the city turning into a sea of red and green, as the streets of New Orleans take center stage. There's no better way to celebrate this special day than to parade as a group or with friends. - -New Orleans Mardi Gras Parade - -If you can't make it down to New Orleans this Mardi Gras, why not make it to one of the many parades held across the Greater New Orleans region? You can march by yourself for a good cause, or make some new friends or make that perfect impression. Check out the list of participating parades to find one near you. - -For a parade that's fun for all ages, check out the 10-Mile New Orleans Mardi Gras Run. The race offers entertainment for the whole family with over 70 races around the New Orleans area. - -The best ways to celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans are on or around Mardi Gras Eve. It's also a good opportunity to make new New Orleanians. Check out the following events, with some participating at any time of the year. - -1. New Orleans Mardi Gras Masquerade Party - -The parades and parties are great, but there is something even better than having fun with family and friends. Every year, the Crescent City Mardi Gras Parade celebrates its fifth year—one of the longest continually running parades in the United States. The parade draws millions of fans to New Orleans each year, and people from all over the world come to see the parade. This year, Mardi Gras Eve will celebrate the parade's fifth anniversary with a celebration featuring music by The Brass Parade, live performances by Mardi Gras Mavens, carnival rides, a bonfire, fireworks and a grand finale where you can watch a parade of floats down the NOPAC, the Big Easy Aquarium and the Riverwalk. The party starts at 9 p.m. with DJ Pauline B., and runs down to midnight. Admission is free. - -2. Mardi Gras in the Garden - -If you get a chance to watch the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, be sure to attend the New Orleans Mardi Gras Ball at the Uptown Theater Saturday night. This year's festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of the musical, Mardi Gras: A Louisiana Mardi Gras. Guests will be treated to a concert by the New Orleans jazz legends, including Tony Bennett and the Benny Davis Orchestra, as well as a fireworks show that will dazzle the skies over Uptown. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased at the Uptown Theatre box office. - -3. Mardi Gras Fireworks - -I'm sure you already have some ideas about what to do, but I'm about to get a whole new wave of ideas. I'm told Saturday night, watch fireworks along the Mississippi River from the Grand Avenue Bridge. This is not one of your typical New Orleans New Year's Eve fireworks shows. But if you are in a group of three or more, it's sure to be unforgettable. Get a good night's sleep before the event and your feet will be ready for a hot New Year's day. - -4. New Orleans Street Fest - -There are countless parades in the city, but there are only a few celebrating New Orleans street life. The New Orleans Street Festival and the Louisiana Street Festival are two of these parade-inspired event. The events will provide you with everything from live entertainment, to rides and food. - -6. Mardi Gras for the Whole Family - -Another way to celebrate Mardi Gras is to celebrate the New Orleanians that live and work in the city. It might seem a little strange, but it's great to get to know all the new people you meet on Mardi Gras. There's so much to do, and you'll be happy you did. - -You don't have to live in New Orleans to participate and there are so many great ways to participate in the parade. Look at the list below to see some events throughout the city. - -If you find a great Mardi Gras event or a fun story to share, be sure to be honest with us in the comment box below. - -[Top image by David Shankbone]<|endoftext|>Hipsters and Geeks Who Can't Do Math -======================================== SAMPLE 153 ======================================== -There's a new batch of ads for the Apple Watch released today to much mirth and concern from Apple fans, with a number of them taking aim at the Apple Watch's new Sport mode, which combines the traditional sport-focused watch face with some nice new functionality.The most common complaint on the web was that this is not a sport watch face, and many assumed that the Sport watch faces we're used to seeing would only be available via the $349 Sport bundle. However, Apple is clearly making this a stand-alone new category, and the "Sport" sport straps that have been available for about a year are not the way to go.The new watch faces look almost exactly like older sport watch faces, at first glance. Instead of a sport face displaying a map, the new faces display the route for a new workout. They include a number of features for running and cycling enthusiasts that would be difficult to find or create on a standard sport watch face.Here's an example of a "New Trainer" watch face that is much more in line with what I expected a sport watch to look like without any extra effort. There are a few more examples available to view below.A new "Stride" and "Climb to Go" watch face is also showing up in the apps section of the Mac App Store today, but it's far from clear that they're being labeled as Sport or not.Apple is clearly giving it a shot at creating a unique category of watch faces for those of you who want to use some of the unique functionalities that the technology makes possible.While the company has used the WatchKit APIs to create some pretty cool watch faces for iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV, much like how it's doing to create smartwatch apps for other platforms, it's also giving users a lot of flexibility to design their own faces. There's a free iPhone app in the App Store that lets you draw your own unique watch face -- the only difference is that this can be based on some photos or illustrations, or just text.With the new iPhone 7 and the upcoming Apple Watch Series 4 hardware, Apple appears to be finally bringing those Watch faces to its hardware. The lack of a stand alone new sports watch face for the Apple Watch has long been a criticism of the technology, and has been rumored to be the reason for the introduction of the "Apple Watch Edition" at WWDC 2015 earlier this week.Apple has already given some users the ability to customize the Sport watch face based on what their wrist position looks like on a daily basis, and we can expect to see more like this coming to the Apple Watch soon.With the new Sport watch faces that are now available, users are also allowed to select from pre-configured options, like time zones, day of the week, time period, weather, and an Apple Watch Edition style. All of the new watch faces include their own weather icons, which is nice and unique, not being associated with a traditional sport watch face with only two or three icons like we've seen before.It's pretty obvious that Apple Watch Series 4 hardware will be able to support the new watch faces coming in this update, as Apple has said these faces will be pre-loaded on Apple Watch Series 4. The only thing that needs to happen on the iPhone side is the iPhone needs to be paired with the watch in order to use any of the new faces.<|endoftext|>I am in a position to comment on one of the issues raised tonight by Mr Deputy Speaker: the appointment (by Mr Speaker) as Chairman and Chairperson of the Committee on the Constitution: - - -"The Committee on the Constitution - - -Estimated cost: £30 000" - - -I am not alone in seeing that this committee would be a waste of money, and could not be made to be worth the cost of its establishment. - - -I am a firm opponent of the constitutional Convention, and consider that only the General Assembly should draft the new amendments. - -However, if the Assembly is to retain control of the constitution, it should make the final selection of its three most acceptable proposals for the next constitution, as it is the only way to provide for accountability to the people. - - -When I was first elected as an Anti Con coner in 2001, I was concerned to see the number of Anti Con coners in the local areas and elsewhere in the country on increasing. Many of these people did not believe that the Government should be able to amend the constitution. - -These people were not, generally speaking, anti Con coners, although they would not disagree more than most on the role of the Constitution in England. They felt it should be left in the hands of a local government, and that local government was best placed to reflect the different needs of the different areas. - -On my election I was not prepared to rule out the creation of a new committee, or of the creation of three new committees to examine various amendments. - -I wanted them to be as inclusive as possible and therefore to use the Local authority chairmanship as a -======================================== SAMPLE 154 ======================================== -A lot of you are asking me how you should create your own website, how to create your own theme, how to use Squarespace or your other site building tools. - -The fact is, there is one website building solution that works really well for almost every problem we encounter and it's WordPress. - -The truth is, WordPress is the most popular (that's according to Google) content management system, at almost twice as popular as any of the other options. - -But the truth is, there exists a number of free or low-cost websites that have been built around WordPress. - -WordPress theme is a simple text file (with a .js file in it if you are on a Joomla or Drupal site), a bunch of code that, while readable and valid, is not much of a template for a WordPress site. - -All you need to do is drag the .html file and save this file as your theme. In WordPress, create a directory to store all of your themes and put your chosen theme in it. - -All of your files go inside here. You're ready to go! - -Themes are one of the most unique and useful features you get when using WordPress. If you ever wanted to create a theme on your computer but found you preferred to use a graphic designer or an expert to do it for you, you can also do it with WordPress or any other hosting service. - -Now you don't only have one theme to start on, you now have a bunch of unique themes you just clicked on to the right link. - -And you can use one of the hundreds and hundreds of free theme.<|endoftext|>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. - -AMY GOODMAN: We end today's show with the story of an 8-year-old boy who spent the day with former President Barack Obama in Chicago on Saturday. In his letter to Obama this week, Kaya, the boy said he was inspired by President Obama's story during childhood. - -KAYA: Now when my mom started making popcorn, she put the kernels in another bag and filled it with water so I wouldn't go crazy! When you see my story now it doesn't make any sense that I'm doing it for a man I don't even know. People tell me all the time, "If you can do something good, do it." So I'm trying really hard because I don't want anyone to tell me no. - -AMY GOODMAN: Kaya Wilson, a student at the U.S. Air Force Academy, is the youngest person to have traveled with the former president to an elementary school in Chicago. Wilson said he first met President Obama in 2001 when she visited him in the White House. He sat next to her, took her photograph and said, "I love your mom." - -In this clip, Kaya's letter to President Obama, in which he describes himself as "a little kid who likes to play with pens and make things," before explaining why he and his fellow students spent the day with him. President Obama read the letter Friday during his first trip to Chicago since his election as president. This is in footage that aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday. - -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is my eighth time in Chicago. And I love every time I come, not just because of the love it brings me—love of Chicago, love of the people, love of the diversity, love of everything I've learned—but this is also about my family. So for my mother and father, it's been really beautiful for them to be able to see me here and then take us on a tour of the city—not just in the last few weeks, but over the last many, many years—and see where I've been, see where my friends who are here today are. - -AMY GOODMAN: That was Donald Trump speaking Friday evening at his Chicago rally, hours before he delivered a speech defending his own family's history of racism, including the birther crusade. He also mentioned his mother. - -PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This was my mother's hometown. - -AMY GOODMAN: Kaya Wilson, the story of Barack Obama and his 9-year-old daughter, Malia, whose name he changed to Sasha in honor of his late mother, the president's half-sister, was recently profiled in The New Yorker magazine. - -For more, we're going to Chicago, to Chicago Public Schools trustee candidate André Bracy, a graduate of the University of Chicago, currently running for the office of Chicago Public Schools Trustee on the Democratic Party line. He's talking about this extraordinary story, and this incredible 8-year-old boy, Kaya Wilson, who got to visit the commander in chief. - -And, André Bracy, as you know, you are an incredible, inspiring candidate for president of Chicago Public Schools. Why did you run? - -ANDRE BR -======================================== SAMPLE 155 ======================================== -Losing his job after he made a rape joke at a conference, a Pennsylvania man found a new lease on life by playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons. - -"I want to be the player that walks off stage, gets fired and then starts doing dungeons and dragons again," said the 30-year-old, whom The Huffington Post is not naming for his safety. "There are no consequences." - -Despite his best efforts, the "victim" decided not to play. - -"You need to understand that this is still the man who made the rape joke and is terrified to face him," he said. - -This story originated with a tweet out of Philly.com. - -@M_K_Zing @PhillyMike_Dennis Yes the victim will be able to get into the game, but would be scared of the player. — Joe DePaolo (@joe_devolo) August 5, 2016 - -It has taken the media around the world about 12-hours to realize the gravity of the situation. The victim has yet to file charges. - -When you get this many people saying that #Gamergate is over I know we've hit a tipping point. - -https://t.co/Ki3nLpPjv3 — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 5, 2016 - -D&D has been a part of most of the D&D games I've play in my adulthood. It's part of my gaming heritage. This isn't a new game and the guy I met played the same game as the guy who was trying to rape me. - -What you call this behavior is the same thing you call rape. When you play a game. - -When you play a game. - -If I knew then what I know now. I would never play a game with someone like that. I wouldn't want to hang out. - -A woman in her 30s playing D&D is a sign of what's happening today. - -Gaming is not an escape; it's a necessity. You can't have an identity without playing games. D&D is important. Not for everyone. Many adults don't want to play the game. But it doesn't hurt to play. - -This is an important issue and I hope more people will read this and feel empowered to speak out. But even if it turns out they do get fired, no one should pay, or suffer, or be afraid. - -You can't have an identity without doing this. - -I'm not saying gamers are bad. There are many good men and women playing games. (I'm not going to name names, because I want people to know what these guys are like!) A guy on Twitter recently told me it's ok to call you a girl. Don't get mad! But even still, he should know that "I can't tell if he thinks it's ok, because of their shared identity as someone who has a certain identity of theirs, or because they actually have an actual problem with people who call them that" because "It's impossible to tell sometimes, it's not like you can just say 'hey I'm a dude who doesn't like guys who are fat'." - -There's nothing wrong with being a nerd. I want more female and female-identifying people to play gaming. But this has got to stop. There's a real problem in the gaming community. And it has nothing to do with sexism.<|endoftext|>This is the third in a series of posts from my journey to being a Certified Nutritionist. In The New Normal, we discussed the importance of finding a food and supplement that is right for you. - -The next step is to become "complementary" to your body's own nutritional program, which includes working with a Registered Dietitian to ensure that your nutritional supplement(s) are the right ones for you. - -A good example of this process is the use of "smart" supplements such as the Omega 3 capsules. Many individuals report reduced anxiety and depression post-treatment. - -I have used Smart Supplements myself to help reduce anxiety (not necessarily depression), and I can confirm that they can help – in the right dose. - -How to start Smart Supplementing - -Smart Supplementing, and the use of smart supplements to treat symptoms of mood or anxiety disorders, generally began with the use of probiotics. Probiotics are "good micro-organisms" that are believed to produce benefits for mental health. For example, one study of probiotic use showed benefit for anxiety (in combination with a standard antidepressant). - -Probiotics are often used in conjunction with nutritional supplementation. For example, a study found an increase in quality of life among participants after taking a combination with omega 3 (including EPA and DHA), magnesium, and taurine. - -But what about the use of Omega 3 capsules? This form of supplementation is not recommended for any general mental health population. -======================================== SAMPLE 156 ======================================== -"I think that he would say that in this context. He's going to let his leadership, his instincts dictate what he makes decisions and what actions we take, and that's all he would say," the official told ABC. - - -"He's looking at it as a very serious situation, he's in regular contact with intelligence, Homeland Security, the Department of State, and he's looking at it as an intentional act taken by these two terrorists." - - -At least five US citizens -- including citizen Anil Sathienth of Ann Arbor, Michigan -- were among Wednesday's casualties, the State Department confirmed today. - -"Our thoughts and prayers are with these American citizens," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told journalists in Washington. - -"Our embassy staff -- many of whom are still in Afghanistan -- are now being relocated, and our personnel working there are very concerned that they may not be able to come home as quickly as they're comfortable with." - -The Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, said there was no evidence that terrorists were behind the attack. "What I know is they are terrorists," he told a press conference in Islamabad. - -"We have not said this is a drone. We have said it was two terrorists, we have not said it was an unmanned aircraft." - -Malik admitted that drones were sometimes spotted, but the Pakistan government did not know for sure if any drone footage or other details of the attack had been obtained by the Pakistan Taliban. - -Earlier, the government said it was "confident" that the drones were flying over the Pakistan Taliban stronghold at night, but admitted that there had been no official confirmation from the US. - - -US officials declined to comment on reports that the drone launched a missile on the car. - - -Earlier, an Afghan official said a group of women were among those killed. - -"They were civilians," says Anwara. - -"At that time, all of a sudden all the women from our family stopped the car because they heard that it is a US drone, that US drone fired one missile. One woman who was sitting behind them was killed. Four other women and one child were wounded. There are five dead bodies already. Four of them are women. - -"We are now trying to make funeral arrangements for all the women we can get. We want the US to bring them with the body." - -An earlier report from the Associated Press suggested the women were a group of Afghan schoolteachers who had driven from a madrassa in Kandahar province to an Afghan shrine. - - -Tariq Mahmood, the director of the Human Rights Office of the Ministry of Communications in Pakistan, told The New York Times the Taliban had executed the civilians after they refused to give them money (or take some kind of prisoner) before shooting them with their Kalashnikovs. - - -An Afghan witness told the AP the Taliban wanted to shoot one man, but instead they opened fire while he was walking down the back alleyway. - -"They ordered the woman to lie down next to one of their dead comrades, then shot all of them," said the man, who asked to remain anonymous. - -Abdul Salam, the father of one of the victims, said the family had been in Afghanistan for more than a year but was returning home tonight. "I am shocked. My heart has dropped but my spirit still stands," he said. - - -"I saw only one of the people who were executed. He was walking towards the road. He didn't see me. He didn't see my son, but when he saw us he was surprised and he got down, he started to cry. He was crying because he knew we could not understand." - - -He said all the bodies had been brought into his house on the first floor. "I don't know if the Taliban or the government has identified the people. It's sad."<|endoftext|>The following piece was written for the website of the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) titled "The War Against the Rohingya" that details the state of human rights in Rakhine state, Burma. While I cannot speak for the UNODA, I believe this piece to be representative of general viewpoints on the human rights situation in Rakhine. - -When I came to Rakhine recently from the city of Yangon (Thailand), I was in search of something I never had before in my career: a job on the ground. After a few days of interviewing, I became one of a handful of journalists to visit the area. - -I began reporting on the crisis facing the Rohingya community on June 11th. My first article in Myanmar was published on that date. I wrote: - -"If the Rohingya people of Rakhine, a stateless people in Myanmar, have no place to live, what will happen to the population that lives in other areas of Rakhine state, where the government has placed some 140,000 people before -======================================== SAMPLE 157 ======================================== -What is the state of play for the 2016 presidential election? For many people, the answer is a blank one. - -The Democratic and Republican Parties have been locked in a battle for more than a year, with the Democrats having the most to lose. If Democrats are to capture the White House in November, one of their candidates will have to win the majority of the popular vote. But despite President Obama's efforts to mobilize the Democratic base, many Democratic politicians are reluctant to run on their party's label, even if, at the same time, they are critical of their own Party. - -One reason for this is that many politicians fear appearing "weak" or "clumsy" if they run on Obama's name. Obama has been in the White House for most of these six years, giving him greater control over the party apparatus than his two immediate predecessors. If, however, a Democratic president had lost the 2008 presidential election to Republican Senator John McCain, his party would have been in serious peril. The party was torn and disempowered, and any Democrat who would have followed in Clinton's footsteps would face a difficult reelection campaign. But instead, Obama's victory ushered in new challenges among Democrats. "We had an environment in which if you lost an election, if you were a Democrat … it's very, very hard to find yourself again," Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said in an interview last year. "We needed to have a really bold vision and a leader who came in very directly from the center and said, hey, let's go big in a different direction and get this done, or else we're going to go the way of the Whigs." - -Still, Democrats are not on offense during the 2016 primary process. "There are so many Democrats who are nervous about their image, because that's the only tool they have to go toe-to-toe with whoever they want to go toe-to-toe with," said Tad Devine, a longtime Democratic consultant. Instead, Devine said that the Republican Party has largely been left to the side. "What has happened is that Republicans have been getting the lion's share of airtime, and Democrats have just kind of been relegated to the sidelines. This is not necessarily an advantage for Democrats. The one advantage Democrats can claim is that the Republicans have not had to spend any money on television this cycle. There are all of the major candidates and the Republican Party — the party as a whole — has been in a panic mode."<|endoftext|>This article is adapted from the American Psychological Association's 2014 Ethics in Psychotherapy Report. - -Elder abuse is the abuse of an elder or resident and is defined by the American Association of Suicidology as "repeated use of emotional or physical coercion to control, frighten, or threaten" an elder or resident. Elder abuse may include threats by members of a caregiver's family or by other caregivers of their family, the use of violence, threats, or other intimidating methods of control, or other forms of pressure. - -Elder abuse is common in the psychiatric community. While it is not uncommon for a person to be the subject of abuse, it is not necessarily a form of mental illness. Elder abuse is often perpetrated by members of a caregiver's family, by a resident's caretakers, or by other caregivers of the resident. - -Elder abuse may occur in one caregiver's home or family, in a nursing home, a mental hospital, a residential care facility, or in a group home, assisted living, or assisted living facility. (See figure 1). While people are different, some caregivers may suffer from elder abuse, which makes them less capable of caring for an elder with respect to personal care, and may contribute to higher rates of elder abuse.1 - -This report presents findings from the first 10 years of a National Incidence Study (NIS) of elder abuse in the United States.2 The NIS aims to monitor and understand the extent and nature of elder abuse in the United States. Elder abuse is an integral part of the health care system, and is responsible for up to 60 percent of medical emergency room visits and 50 percent of hospitalizations in nursing homes and other residential facilities.3 - -The National Incidence Study of Elder Abuse - -The NIS, the first 10 years, examined reported elder abuse incidents in nursing homes and other residential facilities.4 This annual national study of 1,000 nursing home residents and 1,000 community residents is conducted every five years. Because of the long-term nature of the study, the NIS uses data collected over more than nine years. - -In 2016, the NIS included incidents of elder abuse in all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the United States.5 The NIS found that elder abuse in this research period, from 2005 through 2015, was reported in 574 nursing homes and 615 communities (in communities not owned and operated by public health departments). The NIS also found that more than two-thirds (68. -======================================== SAMPLE 158 ======================================== -Pete Evans / Getty Images Actor/director Peter Jackson sits at a news conference with fellow executives, the producers of the upcoming film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on August 30, 2013 - -(Editor's note: This post has been updated several times to reflect the latest information available.) - -Update: Tolkien Estate and Trust has confirmed that a "substantial investment" has been made in the restoration of The Lord of the Rings. A press release announcing the news reads as follows: - -The Tolkien Estate and Trust confirms that a substantial investment has been made in an important component of The Lord of the Rings, the restoration of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy. - -Although the full financial details remain confidential, a statement accompanying the news confirms this significant investment. The news comes on the same day the estate and film studio signed a definitive license agreement for an extended Trilogy as a motion picture and for subsequent television, book and audio-visual releases. - -The Tolkien Estate and Trust is very appreciative of the considerable efforts made by the directors of the film and, indeed, everyone involved with the production. I can assure you that there will be further improvements in the final stages of the project, particularly in quality. - -A further statement was made at yesterday's premiere of the new Hobbit films at New Zealand's Te Papa Museum of Art, in Wellington. Director Peter Jackson said, "While the entire team has had amazing opportunities in this incredibly talented group of professionals, we are delighted to have the support of The Tolkien Estate…it's a wonderful day to be part of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit." - -Original post continues below: - -As reported by various news sources following the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey earlier this month, Peter Jackson has spent $130,000 on restoring The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The project seems to be on track with The Hobbit films having received a more modest and low key makeover after the events of The Desolation of Smaug. - -A press release issued by the Tolkien Estate states that this is the first time a full-length motion picture has been shot on this scale. "With its special effects enhanced by digital wizardry and practical effects as well as CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) created in New Zealand, this is the high-stakes filmmaking experience of a lifetime," says Michael Arndt, the first director of photography on The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. "And, of course, it offers Peter Jackson's film-making wizards an opportunity to create a new version of Middle-earth that perfectly captures the spirit and sweep of the book series," Arndt adds, adding, "Every scene here has been a painstakingly studied study of Tolkien's vivid world" and the production staff has "worked ceaselessly to faithfully recreate the world of J.R.R. Tolkien as conceived by JRR Tolkien himself." - -The announcement of the restoration also confirms the details of the deal made by the filmmakers to receive "continuous worldwide distribution rights to the film trilogy." Tolkien Estate and Trust representatives would not divulge if this new version will have any additional added special effects or would be a straight re-release of the films. - -While the details of how the money has been raised has yet to be revealed, the press release issued by the Tolkien Estate in conjunction with the announcement reads as follows: "The Tolkien Estate and Trust announces that Peter Jackson and his production company, New Line Cinema, have signed a definitive license agreement with the Tolkien Estate and Trust to receive continuing worldwide distribution rights to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. - -"The decision to purchase such significant distribution rights marks an impressive commitment and testament to both the high quality of the production and the value to the worldwide Tolkien community. - -"A substantial investment by The Tolkien Estate and Trust and other partners and a team that includes the film makers has been made in the restoration and preservation of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and its accompanying feature-length motion picture. - -"While the precise nature of this investment has yet to be disclosed, it is estimated by many to be in the range of $130,000,000. Although this is a substantial commitment by all concerned, it is a relatively new form of investment which can only be made by individuals or foundations that have substantial resources and are willing to invest." - -This marks the second time in a few weeks news has been released pertaining to the restoration of the three films, following a deal made in December between the Walt Disney Company and the Tolkien Estate to "revive the trilogy as a film trilogy from the original trilogy." - -Related stories: - -Disney's 'Tolkien' Film To Be Starred By Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Peter Jackson & James Nesbitt - -'Tolkien' Reboot Set for October 2014 [Updated] - -'The Hobbit' Sequels Reportedly In Development; Peter Jackson Reunites With -======================================== SAMPLE 159 ======================================== -As you can see from the photo below, the two photos are not the same at all, that is, one has the same coloration, with two large orange circles on the left side (right), and one has smaller and a few larger red circles with yellow border, as well as some light yellow border at bottom of photo. The same photo with the two images cropped (top and bottom) is also in the other way. Both of the black-and-white images were taken on June 24th, 2015, the same day that the first "Discovery" was published on NASA's Flickr page. - -Image credit: NASA NASA via Wikimedia - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>The recent discovery of a previously unknown world within the Kuiper Belt makes for some amazing science. But now, it could have come sooner. - -An international team of scientists, led by David Grinspoon at the Colorado School of Mines, has revealed a previously unknown giant planet. Called Planet 9, the object is 10 times the mass of Earth and located more than 30 billion kilometres from Earth. - -Unlike previous confirmed Kuiper Belt objects, Planet 9 is so large that it blocks part of the Milky Way, thus making it a giant in its own right. - -"We have found a giant planet with no known satellites and a very eccentric orbit, both of which we have never before seen in a KBO," Dr Grinspoon told The Guardian. - -The Kuiper Belt, consisting of three huge objects between the orbits of Neptune and Uranus, contains an estimated 50-100 Jupiter-sized planets across an enormous region of space. However, despite its importance for planetary scientists, the Kuiper Belt is not always explored. Since the 1950s, several space probes have failed to make it through its narrow belt. - -"No spacecraft ever has made it through the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt, but several missions have approached the outer edge of our solar system, reaching the edge of the asteroid belt," said Grinspoon. - -A major issue with probing the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt is that the distance to the Kuiper Belt is so vast that even small objects are too large to be captured. - -In order to get a larger sample of objects, NASA's NEOWISE probe, which orbited the Kuiper Belt from 2010-2013, was sent to hunt down the smallest objects in the region, all of which were detected and tracked down by the spacecraft. - -However, the space telescope found itself restricted to the Kuiper Belt region by the distances of its orbits. - -In this new study, the team used a special high-precision telescope to detect small, distant exoplanets with a radius of up to 1.2 times that of Earth. - -It is estimated that the Kuiper Belt has about 1,000 planets that are between 0.2 and 10 times Earth's mass, with about 500-2000 larger planets that exist at more than 10 times Earth's radius. This means that only the larger, more distant objects could be captured or observed by the Kuiper Telescope. - -The planet was discovered on April 11th 2016, by the team including Dr John G. Martin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Geneva and Dr Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute. - -It was originally known as KOI-26 (pronounced Kai-e-dee-see) and was later redefined as the planet Proxima b. - -Proxima b was previously predicted by GRB 130427B, also known as PSR B14027-6035, to be the first exoplanet to be born about 4.58 billion years ago — roughly 100 to 350 million years after the solar system was born. There are several theories on Proxima b's origin, including its impact with the inner solar system, some giant planet collision or disruption, and a planet-forming disk of gas located in the outer edges of our solar system — essentially a cloud of gas and dust which can produce stars. Regardless of such theories, the Kuiper Belt is an ideal candidate for Proxima b's formation and discovery because the objects are in a very distant region of the universe and therefore hard to reach via current space flight. - -The planet is located near the star that surrounds Proxima Centauri, which is named for the Proxima Centauri system, which is known from the stars of this system in the night sky around the night sky above the northern hemisphere of our galaxy. It lies approximately twice as far away from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the sun.<|endoftext|>There are several theories about what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and the most common one involves the pilot intentionally crashing the plane after he realized his "perfect day" had disappeared. That theory has received some pushback, however, given the plane's "circumstantial evidence" and its "highly unusual -======================================== SAMPLE 160 ======================================== -By - -21st Century Wire says… - -Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the West and Russia? - -From their recent confrontation in a Ukrainian airport, we can now add yet another "dispute" into this already busy global political theatre… - -The BBC reports that the Turkish president has threatened to send in troops to halt a crackdown by his country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. - -The BBC quotes the Turkish president as saying, "If someone wants to do something, let them be ready for everything. No one will stand aside." - -He then elaborated that if he had the option to intervene, he would now go ahead – but "that is not the choice I have now… I will wait and see what decisions [are] taken in the future." - -When President Erdogan first announced his threat, the response from the West was very different. A very serious warning was issued by the German government. - -The Guardian stated: "A warning was issued for Ankara by Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, who vowed to do whatever it takes to avert a military escalation." - -In recent days, the West has been escalating the rhetoric, pushing Russia to intervene militarily in a country where there are over 40,000 Russian troops, while also threatening to punish anyone that dares to support Russian troops. - -This is just one example of an endless barrage of threats and accusations being fired at Russia. - -Last year, an Israeli spokesperson famously warned Russia to "get out of Syria," claiming that 'a civil war' is brewing there, while the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was blamed on "al Qaeda in Iraq". - -If Russia decides to intervene, this could escalate into a nuclear war… - -READ MORE TANKS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Tanks Files - -SUPPORT 21WIRE – SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV<|endoftext|>Roughly 1,000 children, some as young as 10 and as old as 23, have been infected with the deadly disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A new report suggests that many of them lived around the same elementary schools as the young victims. - -The children have been diagnosed with Enterovirus D68, and it's suspected they may have contracted the virus following exposure to the same bodily fluids as the elderly and the very young. So far, there has been no widespread transmission to any adults or other members of the community. - -The virus causes a mild illness characterized by fever, headache and muscle aches. Among those infected, more than 200 have died and nearly 40 have become severely ill in hospitals since December. As the CDC notes, the strain that sickened them "is very similar to an influenza A virus." - -Advertisement - -The disease is more common in the spring, but it's been found in the fall and early winter. It's primarily associated with children, but has also been documented in adults. And because infections occur mostly among children, it's likely to have an impact on schools. - -There are currently at least 50 cases reported with about 70 cases potentially being linked to the same person, according to a report released by the CDC, which says it is working with state health departments to investigate any new infections.<|endoftext|>When we first began, most people only had an idea of the basics. Most of us had never been on a motorcycle, but were just looking to have some fun riding around in the streets. This wasn't unusual. Most of us got our bikes new, so we could enjoy riding, then kept them as long as possible. - - -There are many benefits of riding motorcycles. One of the most common are the freedom and independence that can come with riding a motorcycle. You can live, or travel, and have fun wherever you travel, rather than staying at home. Motorcycling creates a very active lifestyle. It is a way out of the rat race. It gives you the opportunity to find your own style, and set your own limits. When a motorcycle is in your hand, life can't get much better. - - -However, there are many challenges that motorcyclists face. These challenges range from technical to safety to maintenance. Most of us just take the challenges of riding motorcycles for what they are. We are able to use our riding skills to deal with the problems as they occur. Our experiences and knowledge help us overcome common problems that we encounter at every turn, without ever realizing that we have any problems. - -How motorcyclists deal with problems is a great question, and one that requires a lot of thought to answer. Some of the thoughts that come to mind may not apply to you, so I'll try to explain some of the ideas that help motorcyclists to get through the tough times. For example, you may feel that your riding skill and riding skills are better than the average person. But if you aren't willing to do the work, and commit to getting better -======================================== SAMPLE 161 ======================================== -In August of 2005, the world became aware of the fact that a human being had been in space for over six months. Though the story is still shrouded in mystery the most widely known information is that John Glenn became the longest-serving American space traveler when he returned to Earth in February, 1962. - -In fact, this is true of all the people who have been in space throughout human history as well as every person for whom we have records and has been in space since the world's birth. The same holds true for those who have been in space in the past week and who also remain in space. The more we know about these people and their experiences, the broader our understanding of their role in the world around us (and their role in human history). - -The list of people who flew in missions that lasted more than one day can take all sorts of shapes and sizes but is always impressive in total length. In the years following the original Apollo era when we launched people into orbit and later into space for long periods of time, people were launched and in space for short periods of time. Here are a some of the most famous space travelers in history. - -Of course, the very first person to ever hit the ground on an airplane when it was actually landing was a pilot named Captain James Cook during an ill-fated attempt to break the record for the longest flight of any manned aircraft on the Eastern Coast of the U.S. Cook's flight lasted over seven hours and twenty minutes and set the all-time land-flight record at the time (the previous record holder was a Spanish Air Force pilot named Francisco "Pancha" Rodriguez who flew an aircraft from Madrid, Spain to Marseille in France in July, 1957 at the age of only twenty-two years and four months, for only eleven hours and fifteen minutes). The record stood for more than twenty years. - -Advertisement - -A few years later, two other pilots attempted to break Cook's record. Both attempts were thwarted by poor weather and bad weather conditions. The only other person to fly in an airplane in space before Cook was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who was launched aboard Vostok 1 to become the first human in space. He was successfully returned to Earth and landed in a Russian landing craft on August 17, 1962 in a little over six-and-a-half hours, twenty minutes and twenty seconds into his mission. Gagarin was actually considered a contender to surpass Cook's record before he was lost in the Apollo 1 fire of 1961. - -The last long-duration flight aboard the Space Shuttle was an eight-day mission in 1995 in which a Russian Soyuz capsule launched and a crew of seven, including three Americans, embarked on a space walk. That mission was considered a critical milestone in the history of the space program because it demonstrated shuttle rendezvous, docking and berthing on orbit of the International Space Station. - -For six months, a Russian Soyuz rocketed the crew and research equipment to a 200-mile orbit. On September 9, 2000, the Russian shuttle Mir reentered the atmosphere and landed with a spectacular splash in the Pacific Ocean, a successful return that was only possible thanks to a combination of luck and engineering prowess. - -Advertisement - -And since that year, the International Space Station has been populated by twelve astronauts. Though the U.S. government has a limited role in the design, construction, and operation of the space station, it has participated in the building of a huge docking unit capable of docking two of them simultaneously. It has also been responsible for a series of repairs to the station since its construction and has worked to protect it from a large number of space debris, a problem that could cripple its ability to send a crew to other planets and return them safely alive. - -In fact, the number of people who have ever been in orbit or worked inside the International Space Station is so high that in order to reduce the number who have to work out of sight while on station, most station dwellers are expected to rotate in and out of the Space Station every two weeks, something that is very disruptive for the people who are doing important work during this time. It is not unusual for someone at the station to wake up and find that they don't have an apartment to live in. And during every rotation, the rest of the station crew has to share their living quarters with anyone who is up and not working. The rotation program is called the "fast cycle" because the work on the Station tends to slow down and sometimes stop if there are no new people to fill those positions. - -Over the years I've been fortunate enough to travel to space in the Soviet Union, the United States, and the European Space Agency. My primary reason for being in space was to see Earth and learn more about its geography, and that's what I did for twelve years. Even though I worked on missions that span several days and sometimes stretched over five hours, all the trips were amazing, inspiring and inspiring -======================================== SAMPLE 162 ======================================== -Fears of a new North Korean nuclear war heightened on Thursday, as the Obama administration released a new round of economic sanctions targeting a number of people, in an effort to tighten the screws and compel the regime to return to talks. - - -US officials said they have confirmed that the North Korean army has deployed an anti-aircraft missile, the Pukguksong-1. In recent weeks, US warplanes began to fly a special training mission near the North Korean border, according to the New York Times. - - -With economic pressure mounting, North Korea has been increasingly bellicose in recent weeks, threatening to fire missiles near Guam and South Korea. - -Read more - -Speaking at the UN Security Council on Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power described the situation as "baffling." - - -While the situation is unlikely to spark a new international crisis, Power said that "the regime clearly is not ready to negotiate." - - -"We have seen what a nuclear North Korea unleashes on the world on the face of a country that is already reeling from more than two decades of poverty and deprivation," Power said. - - -"With the leadership under a nuclear threat, the North Korean people need not stand in the way of an open, free and peaceful North Korea – for the regime can and will fall sooner if people are told to do so," she added. - -US officials said the economic sanctions will be designed to "cut off sources of cash and energy that North Korea depends on for its military and political survival, and that contribute to its nuclear and missile programs." - -Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Thursday that Washington was ready to use force if North Korea goes to war. - - -Kerry said if the North "uses weapons of mass destruction against the United States or our allies like South Korea or Japan, we are prepared to act immediately and decisively." - -US warships in the Pacific are also prepared to shoot if attacked by missile or air, he added. - - -Pyongyang has previously threatened "preemptive nuclear strikes" on US and South Korean cities. However, the US has ruled out any military strike against the the North's nuclear facilities, saying the goal is to coerce a diplomatic resolution.<|endoftext|>A few days ago, there was a new story of a child being sexually abused by an adult male relative (in this case an estranged brother). The story was picked up in one of my favorite sites, The Washington Post. - -I started reading the post, but the paragraph I want to focus on happened right before the second paragraph of the post: - -For a moment, the man sat on the couch, and the child sat on the floor, his head down. The man took his belt off and bound the child's hands. The child had been beaten in the forehead with a belt. A knife had been stuck into his groin. - -What I want to talk about is the word "kicked." It's a powerful word: it is associated with the worst things that can happen to a person. In the story, it seemed like the father's use of the word kicked was a good thing; after all, it was an act of violence that was intended to hurt the child. But what does the word "kicked" really mean? Are we being told that the act was justified because the child deserved it (not only based on his or her past transgressions, but also based on the child's own history of being abused)? As I've written about many times before, the word "kicked" is generally defined as - -the act of striking, or the movement of something, by an instrument, such as a sword, a club, a fist, or some other kind of object, in such a manner as to produce pain or injury - -In short, you give someone a kick and they'll hurt or be hurt . It's the opposite of giving someone a hug or slapping them. - -So why is the word kicked being used as an act of violence by a father or uncle? - -A few moments after that paragraph, we learned what we have come to know for a long time: "abuse" is not something that comes and goes; we're all victims of abuse whether we know it, don't realize it, or admit it. This should be a very comforting story, but it's not. - -"He kicked me with his boot and gave me a bad slap with a stick." "He said, 'if I ever see you, I kick you in your head.'" "I did what he told me to do, and it wasn't the way I wanted to." - -That's right, kids! "He kicked and beat me in the house." "He wanted to show me his kicks." - -I know a lot of you are probably thinking (and crying), "yeah, that's pretty gross, I'd like to have my own kick to the head!" Well, maybe you wouldn't like it if someone showed -======================================== SAMPLE 163 ======================================== -For a man who has spent nearly three decades at the top of the American power structure, the recent revelation that his brother Bill, a former Arkansas governor, tried to broker an illegal deal with Iran is an unfortunate but perhaps unavoidable bit of bad news. If it is true, as U.S. officials suspect, that Iran's former president and current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the mastermind of the deal and that it is his top deputy who is still in Iran, then a whole host of very bad things must follow. Here are just a few of them, beginning with the obvious: - -The current president of the United States will leave office in nine days, and the Republican candidate will win the general election just a few weeks later. This, on top of a potential Iran nuclear deal which, if it is implemented, would bring the world some form of economic stability and allow us to spend some of those billions that we might have spent on fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in a much more prudent way, would make a great deal of difference. We will have a much healthier and hopeful presidency, the country will be far more prepared to confront the terrorist threat that hangs over our country, and more willing to work with other countries — including Russia — to work towards a more peaceful world. - -But that is only part of the bad news. The other major impact would be the end of the Iran nuclear deal. In the days leading up to the announcement that the deal was finally coming undone, we all had to take a deep breath. Obama is not a perfect president, but in the last decade he has achieved far more than any of his predecessors at the same stage in their presidencies. And when he signed into law the Affordable Care Act, which I have also signed into law, in Congress, that is probably the best example of his mastery of Congress. - -But as we all know now, nothing works in Obama's world, and he just does not give up. In this instance, he apparently decided to have one last stand rather than face the fact that his successor would probably be a much different kind of president — one who did not want any deal at all, or perhaps had lost track of the fact that the United States had struck two major deals with Tehran in the last two years that put our relationships with Iran at the top of the list of issues we would face in the future. It had never occurred to him that we might find out about this deal through the Iranians, that perhaps this was something he could be forced to deal with over his remaining time in office — a possibility that did not even occur to him. - -No matter how you look it, the Iran deal was a great missed opportunity for Obama, because for so long it has been his model for doing business in the Middle East — a success story without parallel except in a fantasy landscape. It was, at its core, a failure. - -We know this because even Obama admitted it. He was not the first president to reach out to Iran, he said in his 2013 State of the Union speech, but by all accounts, as my colleague Matt M. Lee reported for the New York Times, he was the first president to try to force Tehran into a deal. Obama's Iran deal, he said, was "the toughest sanction regime in history," a "turning point" for U.S. foreign policy and a "game changer in the Middle East." "The Iranians have begun their shift," he added, "but before it is complete we must continue to act, and we will." - -But, according to the White House disclosures, what Obama was doing was trying to make the United States look tough and to make himself look like an international statesman. But what he actually did was force the United States to deal with a rogue regime who had repeatedly violated the spirit and letter of international norms, and in the process created an extremely real threat to our credibility as a broker for resolving international disputes, as well as potentially even an existential threat to the existence of the United States. - -And if there is to be any comfort to American taxpayers, it ought to be that it was the Iranians whose expectations were way higher than those of Obama's administration because this was all about them — this is what was at stake. The Iranian nuclear program was on their radar screen because they knew that whatever it was they were doing was designed to put a stop to the American policy of containment in the region. They knew the Americans were doing all sorts of other stuff against them, they just could not figure out what it was. But now, as a result of the deal they were forced to sign with Obama, they now have a sense of what American interests were and where they stood. They know that they might have been wrong to bother with them in the past. Now they realize that it is the United States with whom they must negotiate. - -Indeed, it is not just Iranians who now see the United States as a reliable and trustworthy broker on the -======================================== SAMPLE 164 ======================================== -For a man who's been dead for decades, the thought of a life after life is a pretty radical concept. There's a world out there after death and, as our friend Robert Anton Wilson said, it's full of dark wonders like The Wizard Of Oz; it also contains a lot of weirdness, even for a dead man - -No one ever said that one should never contemplate death. In fact, it's more important than ever, because no one knows when it will end anyway. If it does end it'll come abruptly, like a blow to the head. If you're lucky it'll take the form of a gentle tap on the shoulder, or the occasional yawn. - -But all of that is relative. What's really important is what is happening now, what is happening to you now, what is occurring at this very moment. I hope you'll be listening to this show, even if it's just for a moment. - -I also hope you'll be thinking about all the people you love. The ones who are still in your life. Everyone you love. - -And I also hope you'll be thinking about that wonderful place out there. I hope you'll be thinking about where we are now and what we need to be doing about it. And finally I hope you'll be thinking and feeling about those things out there that we just can't comprehend, cannot possibly see, cannot necessarily measure, cannot possibly explain, cannot possibly understand. Those things we simply cannot fathom. - -But they are real. They are always real. And because they are real, it is possible to live, to have meaning, to learn, to grow, to change the world. The world cannot be fixed, it can only be molded and changed. It cannot be ruled, it can only be influenced, it can only be shaped. And what I'm trying to tell this listener is that it doesn't get any easier because it doesn't get any easier to become someone else. - -I'd like to give you a little advice, too. And you may not even be able to understand it. - -I want to tell you that it's okay to take some time off. It's okay to let go. - -And I want to tell you that if you stop to think about it long enough, you'll find yourself feeling better than you've ever felt before. You're stronger than you've ever been or perhaps ever will be again. You're no longer broken, your life is your own. - -But you need to realize that everything I just asked you to do has now turned into a very real goal that you're working toward. - -Maybe you just stop and start listening. Maybe you listen to your friend for a little while, or to the guy down the street, or to yourself. Maybe you turn on your favorite podcast. Maybe you read a book. Maybe you even write… or more likely, you just stop and look at this picture. - -Whatever it is you decide to do, just remember this. - -There is a great big world out there waiting for you. - -A world that you never thought we'd ever see again. - -If you keep doing what we're doing right now, and you don't stop, there is a possibility. That possibility is not slim. It's not improbable. It's not even unlikely. In fact, it's a certainty. - -If this happens, if a man with a name like Bob Marley who died 70 years ago and left us a musical legacy that continues to live today can actually have a life after this one, if a man who had no intention of ever living having gone around telling people to "turn on their dreams to come true" can have that life, you'll know you were born to live and live to live because that's the world that awaits you. - -So just keep going, keep working as hard as you can, keep talking and talking and talking and working even harder. And I hope you live long – I mean, actually, really long. - -We're so lucky to have you. So keep going and I wish you the best. - -That's all for this week's show. - -See you next time, friends.<|endoftext|>1 - -It only took me a few minutes to set up the site and figure out everything, and I'm impressed with how simple it is. I'm also having a hard time finding anything to write about. What do you think I'm using that's getting me nowhere?<|endoftext|>The United States has long been a destination for immigration because of its large population and culture, but this past decade has seen the country reach a "tipping point" when it comes to immigrants choosing to move. Between 2000 and 2010, it grew its foreign-born population faster than any other country in the world. According to a new report, we have reached another threshold. - -As the United States grows more diverse, its ability to absorb foreign-born people is decreasing, leading -======================================== SAMPLE 165 ======================================== -It has been reported that "The new 'Star Trek: Discovery' pilot is a reboot of the 'Star Trek' franchise, but we already knew that. And, even if it were a reboot, the new show will be a completely different story in its own way. - -The episode titles, released today by CBS, reveal that the show will start from scratch and "tell a new story set in the Kelvin Timeline." - -Also Read: CBS Sets New Premiere Dates for 'Star Trek: Discovery' and 'Vikings' - -The 'Star Trek' TV series began on NBC in September 1966. The television series ran for six seasons and won three Emmy awards for Outstanding Drama Series, while it spawned several sequels, spin-offs and even feature films (not to mention novels). - -The franchise, which aired on CBS between 1966 and 1969, was rebooted with the 2007 relaunch of the television series' television show. - -"The 'Star Trek' universe will continue with 'Star Trek: Discovery,' set 500 years before the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise and the original cast – Captains James T. Kirk, Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy and Data – in the prime universe. This new series will pick up where the existing series left off, as Capt. Michael Burnham and crew embark on their first mission together, and the crew prepares for their biggest mission yet: exploring new worlds and new possibilities as the U.S.S. Shenzhou heads out into uncharted space. - -The show will be produced by MGM Television and CBS Television Studios in association with Alex Kurtzman's Secret Hideout, Bryan Fuller's Living Dead Guy Productions and Roddenberry Productions. Fuller is set to direct the pilot. (Fuller's producing credits include the Star Trek films and Battlestar Galactica.) Kurtzman will serve as a showrunner and executive producer. Fuller had announced in July that he was departing from the project, which he had been hired to write. - -Also Read: 'Star Trek Discovery' First Look at Discovery Officer Michael Burnham Poses Without Makeup - -CBS will premiere the series on the CBS All Access streaming service on Sunday, Sept. 24. - -Also Read: 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 2 Finale: How Will Discovery Adapt to a New Timeline? - -"Star Trek is set in a universe that invites exploration beyond our own – whether that means joining new civilizations, going back to the moon, or boldly going to unexplored regions of the galaxy," CBS president Les Moonves noted. "It has been 15 years since our original series concluded, and we know what millions of fans want – to boldly go where no man or woman has gone before in an exciting new series that we're developing with a new generation of storytellers."<|endoftext|>Tucked away on this street corner in North Philadelphia, the East Broad Street bar The Drunken Unicorn stands out for its sheer strangeness. - -Fellow bar patrons are understandably not happy. - -On Wednesday, PhillyMagazine.com spoke with owner Bill D'Amico, who, unlike most bar owners, has been charged with a crime. - -D'Amico, 42, has been charged with aggravated indecent assault after video footage of the incident was posted to YouTube and picked up by The Philadelphia Inquirer. - -The video, which was recorded in April, shows D'Amico and several men pulling women from a bar and groping them. All but one of the encounters involve the women's faces being obscured by their hair. The bar patron in the photo above is the only one who is identified. - -D'Amico, who has been open since 2000, denies the allegations. - -"It's all lies," he told PhillyMuse. "I've been sued for false arrest and things like that. It's all slander." - -D'Amico says he doesn't even own a TV, let alone a camera. (In response to a question about whether he has a cell phone, he said, "No," and then hung up the phone.) - -Here's the video (warning: foul language, explicit language, and inappropriate sexual behavior): - -The alleged incident started in a bar called the Hacienda (which also serves as The Drunken Unicorn): - -D'Amico says there was only one customer who was involved in the attack but that she did not cooperate. He adds that he has not personally known the woman for two years. - -The Philly Inquirer reached out to the alleged victim with the same question about her relationship with D'Amico but didn't hear back. - -According to a police report, a police officer spotted D'Amico and one of the victims at 9:30 p.m. near 8th and Walnut Streets, watching a street fight. The officer arrested D'Amico for disorderly conduct. - -As a result of the arrest, D' -======================================== SAMPLE 166 ======================================== -In this article, I would like to share with you my experience with the following technologies and applications. This article is purely my personal opinion. - -Let's get started. - -First and foremost, let's talk about the basics, such as: - -What are we doing ? - -When do we need it ? - -What do we use it for ? - -Some of the most common use cases for REST APIs include: - -Scheduling jobs and other long running processes - -Saving important data like ticket purchases or flight status - -Managing complex business rules for billing/customer support or inventory management - -Creating or verifying a connection to a database - -Retrieving data from an API from an external service - -Creating custom reports and maps - -Analyzing data - -If we think about such usage cases, then our goal in this exercise is to build, implement and deploy an API to solve a specific business problem (let's consider only this example scenario). - -Also, some of you might remember my previous article entitled, "The Complete Guide to building an API". This blog post is going to focus on the implementation, not the development of the API. - -Some of the features that we will get to learn in this article: - -JSON - -CORS - -AJAX - -GSON/JSON - -MVC and Mapper - -REST in ASP.NET Core - -As you can see, ASP.NET Core is a great framework for building APIs in a more robust way. In fact, it actually makes development of APIs much easier. - -I'm assuming you've created a GitHub account if you haven't yet… - -The most important thing before we jump into the code is a simple project. - -Open Visual Studio to create and open your first ASP.NET Core project. When it asks if you want to allow the project to use the global project variables, you should answer 'no' because we're going to use these settings for later. - -Creating a project (C#/ASP.NET Core) - -So we've created a new project as part of the tutorial. - -Navigate to your solution folder and open the Microsoft.AspNetCore namespace. - -In a code editor, open Main.cs file. - -If the project already exists, create a new class under it and name it 'HelloController'. Also create a new class under the 'Web' namespace called 'HelloController'. - -In the code editor, create a new class in the 'Controller' namespace. Name it 'NewHelloController'. You can rename the file, but we won't do that here. - -Let's add a HelloController.cs file. This is where we will define the API endpoint we're going to use. You can do many different endpoint options as well, but this is the only one that's going to do things right. - -Add the following code under the following file: - -public class NewHelloController : ApiController { public string GetPost(string url, string title) { var user = await Request.GetHttpUser(url); return "{" + user.FullName + "}"; } } - -Save and open up the newly created 'HelloController.cs' file. - -You'll see the following code in the code and in the comments: - -public class NewHelloController : ApiController { public string GetPost(string url, string title) { var user = await Request.GetHttpUser(url); return "{" + user.FullName + "}"; } } - -Let's go over each line for a bit. - -public NewHelloController(string url) - -The first line specifies how we're going to define our class. It could be a public static class in Visual Studio or the class we create in the code editor. - -public string GetPost(string url, string title) - -This is how we are going to define the endpoint URL. This is the url we are making our request to. - -var user = await Request.GetHttpUser(url); - -The second line adds a function that accepts the input we're expecting. The GetPost method takes nothing but values. In this case, the user that returns in the response body will be that person we're looking for. - -return "{" + user.FullName + "}"; - -Now comes the magic! We're using GSON in our example to parse the JSON we'll receive, to return the right string in our response. - -The last line makes a substitution of the string that we'd gotten back from the server (using string concatenation). Finally, we get back our value. - -So let's go over our example using the GSON library. - -Create a new project and paste in the following code. This is where we'll define the endpoint: - -using System -======================================== SAMPLE 167 ======================================== -A new online initiative is making sure patients can access information about which physicians are offering their services in their area. - -The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it has partnered with the National Association of Health Underwriting Boards (NAHUB), a nonprofit association, to launch a web portal with information about providers. NAHUB operates the physician marketplace known as CarePilot. CarePilot is the first nationally recognized and accepted health insurance provider program and has a mission to improve and encourage the delivery of high-quality, affordable medical care statewide. - -"Access to information is essential for the health care provider community," said H. Anthony Skinner, director of the Center for Comparative Insights in Health at the RAND Corporation. - -"While there continue to be challenges to providing high quality, affordable care, many of the best solutions have been established in the marketplace, such as CarePilot," he added. "This initiative from the state of Connecticut is a great example of the results that can be achieved when public officials cooperate and work together." - -In an effort to provide more and better access to quality care, the Department is launching the CarePilot platform to: - -Promote high-quality and affordable health care by providing patient and provider access to information and resources; - -Help patients and providers find physicians and health care facilities participating in the CarePilot program; - -Improve transparency within the medical supply chain by sharing information about providers' services; and - -Increase access to quality health care by increasing the number of providers and health care facilities in the CarePilot program. - -"The health insurance industry needs to step up and take steps to expand participation in CarePilot," said Susan Murray, deputy commissioner for Connecticut. "The federal government has launched a major initiative to expand patient choice and quality, and we are committed to working with our state's health insurance providers and policymakers in the state to help them achieve this goal." - -The Healthcare.gov website is expected to be operational by the fall of 2015. - -For more information regarding the CarePilot program, visit CarePilot.org, and follow CarePilot at Twitter.com/CarePilotCT or on Facebook.com/CarePilotCT. - -### - -Printable Version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.careproto.2015.03.005<|endoftext|>PESHAWAR (AFP) - - -An Islamist militant group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has claimed responsibility for firing missiles at two hotels and a Peshawar-based hospital on Wednesday in an attack that injured 15, according to the group's leader. - -The militant group, whose members used to be part of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, claimed responsibility for the strike in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where a powerful explosion tore through the hotel's lobby. - -Four people were killed in the explosion and 30 suffered severe injuries, hospital official Sohail Habibi told AFP. - -"The attack was aimed at a VIP and his security detail and an aircraft was not hurt," Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police official Aftab Ahmed Hussain said. - -In Peshawar, gunmen stormed a hospital run by the provincial government in the centre of the city and opened fire on patients and staff. - -"We have been attacked but the hospital staff and patients are safe," said Dr Javed Akram, medical superintendent of the hospital. - -He said the attack on the hospital was not linked to Tuesday's attack in the southwestern city of Peshawar, which claimed the lives of at least 80 people. - -Sixty-one people died that day when Taliban militants and their allies launched an operation in the city to capture the provincial capital. - -The hospital was under attack for the fifth times in the past three months after some 40 patients were attacked in 2015. - -There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's attack. - -The latest assault happened more than a fortnight after Taliban gunmen killed 21 soldiers, seven policemen and an intelligence agent, in two separate attacks near the country's largest military base in Kunduz. - -A local official in Kunduz said the hospital was targeted because its staff worked there. - -© 2017 AFP<|endoftext|>I've been looking up some different ideas, and one that has come up a whole lot this month is the concept of building our own micro farms. The idea seems to be that, as a result of our lack of food, people are starting to think about what they can do to become self-sufficient, which means they are looking towards growing their own food and farming on an ongoing basis. So, with little to no food, and an abundance of land (due to being surrounded by nature), I guess it's not too surprising that they are looking to go it alone. I'm not sure if I agree with that completely. I don't see micro farming as a solution to -======================================== SAMPLE 168 ======================================== -An anonymous reader writes: - -I think it's sad that so much attention is spent on the 'right' way to dress or the kind of beer you have. However, just because you think the world isn't fair does not mean you're not going to do the right thing, even when it's hard. And if you find yourself in a situation where your choices or actions have consequences, it's your right to choose the way you want to react. - -Yes, I would assume that everyone with any ounce of power in the world would choose to not only fight against injustice, but, more importantly, to help those who are struggling with it as much as they can. And I think that's great, especially when we can all help to do that together.<|endoftext|>It's no secret that the National League West has been one of the top divisions in baseball this year. But how does the division stack up when you include all of the teams' games? According to my MLB Playoff Odds, the American League West is 11-12 in games decided by more than two runs this year. That's not only the most competitive division in baseball, but it also has the most games decided by more than one run this year of any division in baseball, and the most games decided by two or more runs in the sport. - -I was going through a spreadsheet of all the games for the last week to see which division had the most games decided by one or two runs, just like we did last week for each division. So far this year, the American is in third place. I had to adjust the numbers on my MLB Playoff Odds spreadsheet to match last week's numbers. So the American is actually the winner. - -I also compared how many of the division's games ended in an eight-run victory for all teams. The American and the NL Central are the two teams having the most one-run games of any of the divisions this year. The American was at 34, the Central at 23, and the NL West at 12. In total, the American is up to 40 one-run victories this year. The NL Central was close behind at 33, with the NL West finishing a whopping ninth with 27. The NL West is having a good year so far at 27 one-run victories. With two extra wins this year, the Nationals tie for the NL lead in one-run victories with the Brewers. But the Brewers have four one-run victories to the NL Central's three, so the division probably has the edge overall if we add the two to last week's totals. - -Of course, the American hasn't exactly been a powerhouse this year, but that doesn't mean the divisions have been totally flat. It's easy to look at games decided by a single run and conclude that the American is a weak division. That's not the case at all. The American's first round opponent, the Texas Rangers, has lost both their games by a run this year. They have a three-game lead in the AL West going into their series with the San Francisco Giants this week. - -If we look at all of the teams to lose by more than one run this season, the American leads them by two. A lot of divisions could use some pitching help. - -I can't remember a year where so many three-run games have occurred, and it makes sense given the American's high-powered offense. The average opponent scored four runs in three of the four American losses we looked at this week. The Rangers are tied for 15th in runs of four or more in their games this season. - -I was curious to know how well the American would match up against the other divisions. I looked at how all teams in the other divisions have fared against each other this year by looking at runs scored. So far, the American still ranks fifth overall in a division where the other division leads in runs scored by a huge margin. - -The American's weakness against each of its divisions is probably because of their extreme pitching dominance. The American had a better offense against only the AL Central and the NL West than against the two AL East divisions (though the Yankees had the more impressive numbers). The average NL team has scored more runs than the American, but the average American team can't quite put more runs on the board than the NL West. - -It may also be because of how the American has handled its pitching rotation. They have four guys at the top of the rotation that have a combined 1.92 ERA, and even though they have a low ERA in terms of FIP, their .240 batting average and .313 on-base percentage would tell you they've struggled. - -The American hasn't exactly been a powerhouse this year. In fact, they'll have to be more than just a powerhouse to win this division. The American has the second lowest ERA and most run support in the league as well as the seventh-highest run differential in the American League. I'd expect the AL Central to win this season because -======================================== SAMPLE 169 ======================================== -Image copyright Getty Images Image caption China has launched its biggest naval fleet since 1949 - -Two Chinese warships are set to complete repairs on the disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say. - -They also say Beijing has agreed to a Philippine proposal to allow two Chinese planes to take-off from the country's Bicol airport next month. - -China has refused to take part in any joint patrols, but will send two military ships with more planes to the area if plans are confirmed. - -The ships are expected to leave the country before the end of 2014. - -Mr Abella has welcomed the ships' arrival in his country, telling reporters on Friday: "We hope to open a new chapter in our military relations." - -He also said he was pleased that Beijing had agreed to allow the Philippines to establish a military base in Sabah, on Indonesia's east coast. - -China claims most of the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion (£3.2 trillion) in ship-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims there. - -China's latest naval exercises, involving ships from the Eastern Fleet along a coastline 500km (300 miles) from the Philippines, have angered the US and other nations. - -The Philippines said late on Tuesday the aircraft carrier Liaoning will begin "non-militarised" exercises on Friday at the port of Cebu, and complete operations in the Philippines after the holidays in April. - -It will carry up to 100 personnel. The carrier itself will likely not see combat, Philippine defence officials say. - -'Harmful influence' - -Last month, Philippine officials said the navy had approved a Philippine military surveillance plane's use of a Philippines-registered civilian aircraft over the South China Sea. - -The aircraft had taken-off from Philippine Air Force base on Palawan, the southern Philippine island where China has a large air defence identification zone (ADIZ). - -Chinese state news agency Xinhua cited a Chinese defence ministry statement as saying the plane, carrying the personnel for the patrol, "exercised the rights and privileges of a civilian aircraft over the East China Sea". - -Image copyright AFP Image caption Japan has criticised China's territorial claims in the South China Sea - -The statement said the plane flew at a safe distance "in accordance with military regulations". - -The Philippines says all nations should be able to "peacefully maintain lawful uses of maritime space, airspace, and shipping lanes, without harming the legitimate interests and well-being of third countries". - -China insists it has sovereign rights to the region and has never ruled it out expanding its military patrols. - -Earlier this year China called for a "neutral and responsible attitude" in the South China Sea during an "international conference" on freedom of navigation in the region. - -It has also warned it would block military routes through it on the first day of the new year if demands for restraint are not met. - -Japan, one of China's most steadfast allies, said at the time that it "completely opposes" such behaviour. - -South China Sea - -China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion (£3.2 trillion) in ship-borne trade passes every year - -China is locked in a territorial row with its neighbours over islands and atolls in the sea, through which more than $5 trillion (£3.2 trillion) in ship-borne trade passes every year - -Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims - -China has been building artificial islands and military installations on territory it occupied by force from the Philippines in the early 1970s - -It claims nearly all of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion (£3.2 trillion) in ship-borne trade passes every year - -Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims - -China's coastguard ordered the US$3.7m (£2.4m) guided missile destroyer USS Dewey to sail within 12 nautical miles of a disputed atoll last month - -A Chinese navy ship has also been spotted in waters close to the Philippines in the same month - -The Philippines says this latest Chinese move is part of an effort to intimidate it. - -On Wednesday President Benigno Aquino called Chinese President Xi Jinping "irresponsible" during a closed-door Ulan Bator summit. - -In another development, he called for stronger defence ties with Israel, saying he hoped "this is a first step" in improving relations. - -He also raised concern about what he called "the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip which has created a humanitarian catastrophe".<|endoftext|>The next time you're watching a movie with your Netflix queue, here's some new info: When you open the app, you'll see a list of movies or TV shows that you have in queue, with the date you last watched each one. At the top are titles from your "My -======================================== SAMPLE 170 ======================================== -"In a state where the cost to make a call is so high, where our roads are often congested, where people are too lazy to drive — that will make a difference," she said. "But I also want to make sure the companies making the call are providing the services that they say they do."<|endoftext|>For an overview of laser weapon models in numerous games, see laser gun. - -The plasma blaster, known more commonly as a plasma assault rifle, is an energy weapon with a high rate of fire. It has the unique ability to disintegrate any material it collides with. - -Contents show] - -Background Edit - -The plasma blaster is a unique energy weapon used by the Republic Special Forces. It appears in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Mandalorian Wars as the primary weapon of the Republic trooper known as the Lone Wanderer. - -Characteristics Edit - -A modified variant of the standard bolt-action laser rifle, the plasma gun can discharge a concentrated beam of high-energy particles. It has a high rate of fire, but is comparatively slow-firing due to the unique firing system. As well, its lack of an optics mount and an integrated targeting scope means that the rifle lacks a long-range scope, although it has the ability to hold the aiming crosshairs on enemy targets, thus potentially making it an excellent weapon for skirmishers. - -Gameplay attributes Edit - -Unlike the more conventional power laser rifle, the plasma blaster's rate of fire and high damage per unit of time, especially against shielded opponents, allow it to take down nearly any enemy within a relatively short timeframe. This allows players to keep their targets in sight as they advance, making long-range engagements less of a problem. - -While the plasma blaster suffers from a lower rate of fire than the standard laser rifle, it has the highest damage per unit of time in the series, so it remains a reliable option despite its rate of fire. However, players should always keep in mind that plasma bolts are very powerful, so those with relatively small shields and very minimal armor are highly vulnerable to the beam. - -Tactics Edit - -In general, plasma rifles are best used against targets at close range, although this can be difficult due to the weapon's low fire rate. Players may consider it preferable to use the plasma bolt-based crosshairs. When aiming at a stationary target, it is recommended that the player put the crosshair on the torso or head to ensure accurate hits. Also the plasma launcher can be used to fire at moving turrets or other vehicles that are attempting to flank the player. - -Be wary of nearby energy shields when facing plasma rifles as the resulting energy discharge will cause heavy heat damage to the player, regardless of shielding level and even if the shielded target was previously unshielded. - -Inventory Edit - -Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Mandalorian Wars Edit - -Behind the scenes Edit - -The plasma blaster's design was inspired by a comic book series called New Exiles, a short comic book series written by J.M. DeMatteis and published by Dark Horse Comics from 2004 to 2008. - -Although it is not a weapon in the "official" video games, the weapon appears in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Jedi Knight, in the Massassi warrior faction. The weapon is the "Warrior of Flame" (in this particular character class it is referred to as "Fire-Brand") with two other variants, one is the "Fire-Brand Warrior" with orange-bladed plasma bolts. - -The player can use the energy pistol or pulse grenades as their primary weapons in battle. The weapon's lack of an optic sight is a drawback but does not prevent it from being used at long-range by many characters. - -Appearances Edit - - -Sources Edit - -Notes and references Edit<|endoftext|>Image caption Mr Gove's speech was criticised for leaving Mr Cameron "looking weak" - -The speech by Education Secretary Michael Gove to the Institute for Fiscal Studies has been branded "misleading". - -Mr Gove set out Tory plans to create new skills schools and to force secondary schools to promote "British values". - -But former deputy PM Lady Warsi has said he has "got it right" when it comes to Labour's education record. - -But Labour said the speech "clearly shows an obsession with ideology and a lack of interest in getting the facts right". - -A spokesman for former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett said: "Michael Gove seems to have been looking for something to fit his Tory Party's rigid narrative." - -In a speech to the fiscal policy think tank in Edinburgh, Mr Gove said more than 100,000 children were currently being taught in schools which are no longer capable of preparing them for life in this modern industrial society. - -Analysis This speech has been dubbed a "nail in the coffin" for the chancellor, George Osborne, who has been -======================================== SAMPLE 171 ======================================== -A young woman was hit by a car in New Orleans Saturday evening. News 3 did a live report from the scene and found out who the victim is. - -Police said the 28-year-old is the second female pedestrian to be hit by a car in New Orleans this summer. - -The crash happened around 5:30 p.m. on the 1900 block of Louisa Street. - -Witness, Brian Ritchie, said he was on his way home from work when he saw a man running down the block with the car behind him. - -"I heard this car screeching and the door open and I thought the guy had gone to get the gun and it was a girl laying there and I was screaming, 'You got to stop that, they're running into the street,'" Ritchie said. - -Police confirmed the 28-year-old female is the first victim of vehicular manslaughter hit by a car in 2016. - -The 27-year-old driver was arrested and charged with hit and run, possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of marijuana. - -Ritchie said he is shocked another young lady was killed for not paying attention when she was walking down the street. - -"I've been here 30 years and this makes me angry," Ritchie said. "This makes me mad for the next lady who's in danger."<|endoftext|>From the National Geographic: - -A new study shows that the global rise in sea levels is unprecedented in the last 1,300 years. Its most alarming result? The rise of the East Greenland ice sheet since the end of the last glacial maximum was twice that of the Greenland ice sheet during the mid-20th century and nearly three times that of the ice sheet during the early 20 th century. - -This "East Greenland Glacial Isostatic Adjustment" is causing sea levels by about 1 millimeter a year. The East Greenland Ice Shelf, a massive sheet of ice that extends about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Greenland and about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Canada, holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 1.4 millimeters a year. - -In response to the rapid pace of East Greenland Glacial Isostatic Adjustment, scientists have already begun to study methods to mitigate its effects. They have focused on building ice shelves – floating masses of ice that float above the ocean – in areas where Greenland ice is melting, but are also developing techniques for making smaller changes on a regional scale. - -For example, scientists are investigating ways to remove more water from the Greenland ice sheet, by pumping water directly into the ocean and thus accelerating glacial retreat. Such plans would not only affect the ice sheets as a whole, but would also accelerate coastal shoreline erosion, according to researchers. - -"The East Greenland Glacial Isostatic Adjustment is causing sea levels by about 1 millimeter a year. The East Greenland Ice Shelf, a massive sheet of ice that extends about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Greenland and about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Canada, holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 1.4 millimeters a year" says study researcher David Pollard of the University of Minnesota. - -Pollard and his colleagues used the latest in satellite-based measurements of sea levels to track the progression of the East Greenland ice sheet's retreat from 1961 to 1990. - -They then looked at sea levels since the late 1990s, with the full extent of East Greenland ice sheet still unconfirmed and the Greenland ice sheet currently losing 300 cubic kilometers of water a year. - -"The last time we saw sea level change in this amount was around 9,000 years ago," Pollard says. - -From 1981 to 1990, when the East Greenland Ice Sheet went into collapse, global ocean levels dropped between about 0.1 and 0.4 millimeters (0.06-0.25 inches). But after that, global sea levels went up between 1.7 for the early 20th century to more than 3 meters (10 feet) higher by the early 21st century. - -The researchers say their results are "completely unexpected and, although still in the early stages of scientific investigation, provide a basis for future work on sea level response to human activity" - -To be clear, this is still a huge amount of water, about 300 cubic kilometers more than global waters took as ice melt from the entire Greenland ice sheet in the 1980s and 1990s combined – and enough for a significant number of flooding events around the world. For example, the Gulf of Mexico flooded last July and August by up to 4 meters (13 feet) when sea levels rose as much as a meter (3 feet) due to record-breaking melting in the Arctic. The U.S. Southeast was also ravaged by flooding last summer when temperatures rose up to 23 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 22 degrees Celsius). - -(This is a new way to look at it, -======================================== SAMPLE 172 ======================================== -A man is dead after falling from a cliff onto a highway this morning in the city of El Alto, which is just north of the city of Guadalajara. - - -The victim is a 55-year-old native of the region who worked for a construction firm and left at around 11:00am. He was supposed to meet a friend, but his companion never showed up. The victim's cousin tells local media that the man had an epileptic seizure at home the day before. - - -It was supposed to take him to his friend's home to pick up a few things and drop them off, his cousin explains. As he prepared to descend from the cliff, his friend decided not to follow him and instead called the police.<|endoftext|>One-half of the original group who launched J-pop act JAM Project was revealed as Katsuhiro Kumamoto on March 9 after spending more than a year hiding her identity. - -A member of the group with the same name who used to go by the pseudonym "Nina" had been hiding under the alias of "Tae" for more than a year. She told The Korea Herald that she decided to reveal her true name after she learned that Katsuhiro was the group's original singer. - -Kumamoto started recording for the album JAM Project: The Final Album in late September and released her first single with the band, "Trial" on November 1. - -JAM Project is the first of its kind in J-pop music history, with artists including CLAP, 2AM, 4Minute, and J.Y. Park making a name for themselves under the group, which also includes several members of groups such as 4NO and EXO. - -Check out the latest JAM Project teaser below. - -Source (1)<|endoftext|>As Donald Trump continued his long weekend of tweeting out incoherent thoughts and nonsense on Sunday, the mainstream media was having its own moment. Here are some of their thoughts as they tried to make sense of the weekend: - -CNN: "Donald Trump is not making this up, right?" - -The Hill: "His tweet that 'dummy' Ted Cruz is running a 'disaster' for the GOP simply isn't true." - -Huffington Post: "For Trump to say the RNC should have chosen someone other than Kasich was, well, an epic display of bad sportsmanship." - -MSNBC: "It is unclear what his problem is with Ted Cruz." - -NPR: "Donald Trump's Twitter spat with Ted Cruz over the RNC chairmanship has everyone wondering why the GOP presidential nominee's Twitter habits aren't on the front burner." - -Fox News: "A new, more comprehensive CBS News poll shows Ted Cruz is surging against his one-time rival Donald Trump. The poll found that Cruz received 24 percent of the vote to 21 percent for Trump, with John Kasich drawing 7 percent." - - -The Times of India: "With the presidential race in its final day, Donald Trump has launched an angry war of words with another of his GOP rivals - Texas Governor Ted Cruz. - -The Republican front-runner has been tweeting messages such as: 'If @POTUS picks Cruz as his VP, that would be a massive disaster for the Republican Party.' - -His opponent Sen. Ted Cruz is also the subject of tweets from Republican rivals such as Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich, who have been retweeting the Texas governor." - -The Washington Post has an interesting graphic of how Trump has been using Twitter to campaign. He spent about 4 minutes a day on Twitter before his Saturday outburst to tweet out: - -.@SenTedCruz, funny looking face, speaks badly of me (don't like him) and his wife. Maybe he was used by Bush. Does not look presidential! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2015 - -It's worth noting that Trump uses a Twitter account that's been inactive since December 2014, so there's every chance he hasn't actually deleted any of his tweets because it's hard to do that with Twitter's "archive" feature. - -If his personal Twitter account shows only 6 tweets, while his campaign account shows 15, and his campaign account also shows that 4 of those 15 were deleted, how does that work? And why has he deleted all 15, but not 6 of them?<|endoftext|>The last of the nine children of a Polish nobleman, the great Count Peter von Straczynski built his fortune in financial services and real estate, but mostly in hotels and casinos. - -In the 1960s, he moved to Canada, hoping to build a home in a small town on the east coast of North America. He was denied a permanent residence status and ultimately settled in Toronto. - -He was born in Posen, Poland, on July 18, 1915. His father was Pietro, his mother in a previous marriage, and when they divorced, he took his mother's surname. While Peter attended a Polish school, his -======================================== SAMPLE 173 ======================================== -A lot has been said and written about the current political situation in the United States. There are countless articles and podcasts about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or the various politicians vying to take their side. There is also a multitude of videos created by individuals that seem to focus more on the current political cycle than any of the problems that the country faces. - -One of the videos that has stood out is a recent compilation video of all of the top 25 Most Influential People in the World that is produced entirely by an Italian, Italian-American and European person who is living in the United States. - -We have to be honest, most of the top 25 people in the world are Italian – and the majority of them are not politically active. In fact, most Italians do not even identify as U.S.-born. - -A list of the top 25 most influential people in the world has not been taken lightly. It is not a list that people will accept and consider. We live in a democracy. It was created by a person who grew up in France and is now studying Italian at the University of Michigan, but she admits that she "could not understand the point of voting." - -The video has been viewed by over 100,000 people from around the world, and it has been featured prominently on The New York Times and CNN. Here is a compilation video of all of the top 25 Most Influential People in the World as rated by the people that created it, with subtitles, so that you can see the video the way that it was meant to be seen. - -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vljb6QqkVqM<|endoftext|>Pablo Zabaleta is keen to sign for Manchester City, according to his agent. - -Pablo Zabaleta is keen to sign for Manchester City, according to his agent. - -The Argentine defender is out of contract in the summer and has indicated his desire to leave Real Madrid. - -But Spanish newspaper Marca have reported that Zabaleta's agent, Eduardo Gonzalez, is confident the defender will end up in Manchester, and has warned his client is "open to every offer". - -Zabaleta's representatives met City's chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and chief executive Ferran Soriano, and are reportedly seeking a £10m fee. - -"We discussed many things, but there was no agreement," Gonzalez told Marca, adding: "We will wait until Manchester City has made its decision to accept his bid." - -Gonzalez had also called for Zabaleta to be given a chance to prove himself at City, and is said to be hopeful that the club's coaching staff will back their player. - -The 33-year-old joined City from Arsenal at the start of the season in a deal believed to be worth £9m plus added factors. - -Zabaleta has made only 14 Premier League appearances for City since making his debut in August 2012. - -He has failed to pick up a booking in that time and has found it difficult to assert himself at the heart of the backline. - -At 34 years of age, Zabaleta still has years of international football left in him, and many would look to see him in the squad for the 2013 Brazil World Cup in the middle of next year.<|endoftext|>After a little break, I feel the need to finish up a series that I began earlier this year. This is to be a monthly series where I'll show you what goes into creating and editing a short anime. I'm looking to get a few other people involved to help with the editing and to help take an introspective look, both on the quality of the animation and the story. So, without further delay, lets get started! - -The Animation - -This week I'm going to show you both the animation process itself and the results. The first video I'll be showing you is something that I call "Sci-fi vs. Fantasy", the animation for this short anime starts with a pre-visualisation of the storyboards and storyboarding process. I will explain what I know and will only use the animation of this scene as a reference with the rest of it being created in-house. - -When I first started looking at animation in 2008, I knew very little about the techniques involved in animation. I'd taken a few classes in school on basic animation so as to give me a better understanding of what I was looking at and I had a rudimentary understanding of keyframe animation, but this was enough to get the job done. However, if I ever thought of doing a short anime in future, I would definitely look into understanding some of the other more advanced areas of animation. - -The same goes for the characters as I would need to have enough knowledge to not have too many errors or wrong decisions when I would be drawing the character. I have seen a few artists who don't know how they draw certain kinds of figures, and as a result of -======================================== SAMPLE 174 ======================================== -Downtown St. Paul celebrated the arrival of its last streetcar in May. But what does the future hold once the final tracks are pulled out of the ground? - -When the city announced the end of streetcars in May of last year, the inevitable questions soon followed: What do we do with those last cars that roll by, along with the final trains? - -What will become of the vacant downtown streetcar tracks? Will the city be able to use them? Is the city willing to demolish the cars? - -In a joint interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, officials from the city, the state Department of Public Works and the University of Minnesota said that many of those questions have already been answered. They did not, however, give an update on the plans for the streetcars or how much it would cost to keep their service alive. - -A $250,000 contract awarded to Minnesota-based St. Paul-based KSTP in January could end up saving the city money over the long run, city officials say. - -"We've done a great job of building up a new fleet," Mayor Chris Coleman told the newspaper. - -It's estimated that the new streetcar system could save the city as much as $200,000 annually in maintenance by using new-generation electric vehicles instead of traditional steam-powered ones. The streetcar system has also been an economic boon for the city, bringing in nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in revenue during its inaugural year last year with a five-year revenue record of $34.4 million, according to city budget projections for 2016. - -"In many ways, KSTP has been the catalyst for all that," said Rob D'Ambrosio, vice president for finance and administration at the city. - -The city will pay $40 million for KSTP's five-year contract, which includes three years of revenue and five years of maintenance, Dambrosio said, adding that construction is set to begin early next year on the KSTP tracks. - -The track will be built within the vacant lots east of the city's RiverCentre parking garage. - -The streetcar line was originally meant to run from the downtown riverfront to the RiverCentre, but St. Paul officials opted to terminate its streetcar service earlier this year, citing the high cost and the poor condition of the tracks. - -The tracks were supposed to be torn up by 2014 but were delayed by St. Paul's decision to build a new light-rail station at the University of Minnesota. - -"Now that everything is behind us that originally drew people here, it will be about getting the new track laid down and the signal system built up," D'Ambrosio said. - -A $10 million federal grant that was awarded to St. Paul in June will allow KSTP to continue improving the stations at University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, while continuing to remove the tracks, in an effort to get them ready before the light rail stops open, a St. Paul city official said. - -KSTP will get the $10 million through a project that was started under former Mayor R.T. Rybak, who took over as mayor last year and had proposed putting in a streetcar to connect downtown with Hennepin County. But the project never went anywhere, with the city choosing instead to run buses along the streetcar line for the first year, instead of the new electric cars. - -The city, county and other organizations are also still working to move the light-rail rail line forward, but a light rail line along Nicollet Avenue and Nicollet Mall is expected to open late next year.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 - -Loading... Loading... - -Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.Disclaimer Sheet1 - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please press Ctrl-F5 to refresh the page and try again. - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please hold the Shift key and click the Refresh button to try again.<|endoftext|>As a longtime resident of Seattle, I've tried to follow the Seahawks like a fish swims through water and come out with the bottom line: The Seahawks are the NFL's best team. -======================================== SAMPLE 175 ======================================== -I'm back again and I'm bringing with me today's freebie – all of our weekly polls! - -The final week of our month-long survey is here! As always, we are asking to make your pick for the top free agent on the market. The big prize this time around is a new three year, $54MM extension for A.J. Burnett. - -For those of you not familiar with the "FIP versus ERA" scale, FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) attempts to quantify how well a pitcher has pitched and ERA (earned run average) is the amount of runs a pitcher would have allowed had their innings not been stopped for an injury. We've all had "rough" weeks, whether that be having a week where your pitching runs hot or your ERA and FIP line up perfectly like in a perfect game. However, while neither are perfect metrics, they do provide a sense of how close a pitcher's performance was to his underlying average to get a sense of "how good" they were, the ultimate measure of "luck." - -The first time I ran this survey, I asked "If your team had the option to keep your ERA over 100 but you didn't keep your FIP at or under 100, which one would you prefer?" This week, we are adding a "C.I.P. over 100 vs. FIP" option so people can get an idea of what the real difference is between the two, and the results are fascinating! The C.I.P. over 100 team has only 2 wins in 6 attempts. - -It looks like there is actually something to contend with over the next couple of weeks. - -Now for my personal favorite option out of all of the options. FIP + ERA doesn't factor in the catcher's defensive plays, like we've often seen in the past, it also doesn't factor in defense played by the pitchers themselves or when the pitcher has started to get out of control, so it's not a perfect measure, but it's still a damn good barometer. - -It would appear that A.J. Burnett was the best pitcher this past week, or at least he did come closest. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Josh Johnson, Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, and David Price. In the AL East, the only pitcher with a FIP under 100 who is actually getting a lot of "luck" was James Shields, albeit with a low number of starts. - -The Rays are in a battle for first, but they're still in a very good position. The Blue Jays are starting to find their footing and have a bit of a rotation lock in their favor, as they hold a strong hold on one of the division's best arms in Marcus Stroman who, with his FIP under 100, was also the best pitcher this past week! - -This is the longest winning streak since 2003, as both the Orioles and Rays are tied for the top spot. The Blue Jays seem to be doing very well. They have won 4 of their last 5 games, which is tied for 2nd among all teams in the division. Even the bad news for them is that they've won 8 of their last 9 games, which is the 2nd-best win/loss streak in all of baseball. - -The Orioles are 4 games up in the AL East heading into play on Monday. They currently have the lowest runs allowed in the AL this season at 2.84, after only allowing 2.88 last year. That number, of course, is still extremely low, so the Orioles are still in an extremely good position, but we've also seen the team not be a great bullpen in the past, as the 4.45 ERA they're currently sporting could be much worse. Even if the O's did keep a good bullpen together, they are still the 2nd worst reliever-by-opponent ERA in the division. - -The Angels are in a battle for second, but they are now sitting at 5 games out of the first Wild Card spot. This is something the Angels have struggled with all season, something to watch for with their current 5-7 record. They are currently sitting at 5th in FIP/FIP, but also the only team in the division that has no team ERA over 5.1. Their 6th-lowest ERA is an uninspiring 4.69, but they lead the league in runs per game by a wide margin, so they may not be quite as bad as they appear. - -The Mariners have a .524 SLG, and have 4.6 runs more per game than the Mariners' opponents, but have an ERA of 4.61. They also lead the division in team BABIP (.327), and when the team plays its best ball, they do very well, but with an average of 2.92 in the last 4 days, it's pretty apparent the Mariners are not very good. - -The Brewers have won 4 -======================================== SAMPLE 176 ======================================== -The following article is entirely the opinion of Zachary Fardon and does not reflect the views of the Inquisitr. - -I hate to be the one to spoil it for you, but it sounds like this may be the moment you finally have to admit that you don't really buy Hillary's excuse for the Benghazi attacks. - -"I stand corrected," she said at a Sunday fundraiser when someone suggested they might have been a terrorist attack. "The attack in Libya that killed four Americans was a planned attack, not an spontaneous response to some video." - -But that's just not true. A detailed investigation by Fox News found that the attack "appears to have been planned for months in advance." It was launched by a group calling itself Ansar Al Sharia, which has ties to Al Qaeda in Egypt. - -"We believe in Allah Akbar" and "There is no deity but Allah … We have no desire to harm America or any other country, except in defense of Islam, and we aim to defend it." - -Now this isn't the first time Hillary has made a mistake. She was caught out lying over her emails in April of last year, a month before the official campaign launch. - -But what she said two months ago (and what she said again at the fundraiser last night) are far more damning than anything you can claim that could possibly be a mistake. - -In 2014, Clinton spoke at a fundraiser hosted by Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor of Virginia between 2010 and 2014. McAuliffe was the key person in the state who was charged with running Obama's reelection campaign in 2013. Before that, McAuliffe was the Democratic National Committee chair. He served as a fundraiser for Clinton's 2008 bid as well. - -Here are the excerpts from Terry McAuliffe's speech, just in case he didn't realize these words were being used against him in the years to come. - -The United States is more divided than it was eight years ago. This campaign is the first in the modern era in which the entire country gets a fair look at the president and all he is worth… This is a historic election. And I would ask everyone listening tonight, please go out and help your local candidates…I'm just the messenger… - -That's not the only time Clinton talked about her ability to bring the country together after the terrible events at the United States diplomatic annex in Benghazi. - -"Let's remember why the attacks on 9/11 happened," Clinton said at an April rally. "The terrorists were already on our soil before the embassy in Cairo, before the embassy in Benghazi, before the consulate in Benghazi." - -What Clinton failed to mention is that at least three terrorist attacks took place in Egypt on September 11, 2012 in which Americans were killed and several were injured—and that the State Dept. sent out a cable the very next day warning Americans to be watchful because those attacks had been planned before the embassy attack in Libya began. - -In addition, it's important to note that during the attacks, Egypt's ambassador had his embassy attacked by a rocket-propelled grenade, yet not a single government official at the Pentagon sent a cable warning Americans of security threats. - -After those attacks occurred, Clinton went on the tell people in America all about how "we" had to get along like Americans. - -"I know our enemies know how we feel," Clinton said. "And if we act together, if we work together, if we are prepared to stand up to the terrorists, I firmly believe that we can defeat them." - -This is a lie. The only reason terrorists targeted Benghazi was because of the American military helping defend Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The terrorists attacked Libya because of the American military helping to protect the dictator. - -So in closing, I don't know how the Democrats would justify the attack on Benghazi, but they don't. Not by a long shot. Their attempt to justify their horrible crime by arguing that the people who died were innocent Americans is an insult to America. - -[Image via Gage Skidmore]<|endoftext|>A new study released by a British charity gives insight into the economic consequences of human trafficking in Nepal, and how little is known about the impact human trafficking has on the people of Nepal. The study also details the efforts undertaken both by international organizations and government to combat human trafficking in Nepal. - -Nepal is the fourth largest landlocked country in the world; the people number one-fifth of the country's population. While its economy can be dominated by agricultural products such as rice, it also relies on fishing and tourism. Nepal's largest industry, however, is its tourism industry, which generates an annual tourism income exceeding $13 billion. - -The country's tourism industry accounts for 15-16 percent of Nepal's GDP and employs around one-fifth of the workers in the economy. In 2006, Nepal had a tourist expenditure of $842 million. - -The high level of travel in Nepal has created an enormous demand for domestic workers -======================================== SAMPLE 177 ======================================== -Predicting the future is hard. It also requires having a certain amount of faith in all the predictions that you make. So why not test out the predictions you made from the previous 30 years in a game that's been done before? - -If that doesn't make you want to sit down and play 30 Years Of Space. - -In the game, you have to try to predict the future using a system of cubes. Some cubes indicate positive signals, like the moon, while other cubes indicate negative signals like an asteroid. If you correctly guess what the future will be, you get points. If you make lots of mistakes, you fail. - -And if you're a fan of Futurama (and a fan of this game), you can play from the series, and be part of the game for that whole run. - -30 Years of Space [Reddit via Digg]<|endoftext|>The first thing you should know about the new Android L (Lollipop) version of the Google Now Launcher is that it's called "New," but for some reason the Google product group still hasn't gotten around to naming it "Material." - -So, what, exactly, could Material Design bring to Google Now Launcher? The first major change for Now Launcher in Android L will be to break out and break down the notification cards into a single page. - -In previous versions of Google Now Launcher, the cards are split up like this: - -Now with Material Design, cards will break down like this: - -As you can see, the cards are split into three main sections, including three sections for text, phone numbers and more. And in each of the three sections, there's plenty of room for the Google logo, so the space is pretty limited on the new Google Now Launcher screens. - -This will also help ensure your information isn't scattered across the front of the screen. - -This will also help ensure your information isn't scattered across the front of the screen. In all honesty, I can see Google Now Launcher losing a lot on the new design because it's really hard to keep all of the information in one area of the screen. So the design is better at making sense, but that will also come with a loss of functionality. After all, you can't hide Google Now Cards — only the search bar can hide them. - -And while the design is improved, Google has been kind enough to give us some hints and tips for when we're ready to try out all the new changes on our personal Google Now Launcher. - -First, there's a "Lollipop New" badge for Now Launcher, which means that you can update Google Now Launcher to the new version that supports the changes made in Android L starting on March 12, 2015. - -Second, the new icons for Now Launcher are now rounded, since the Android L launcher has the ability to round Android objects. - -And last, the new app drawer and tab layout should be easier to work with now that there's less clutter. - -Now that you know all about the redesign and what this means for you, let me know what you think in the comments section below.<|endoftext|>You can have the same or different kind of work experience for a period of time - -Under the Employment Rights Act 1988 , the minimum length of time that an employee may be required to attend employment, study or training courses is a maximum of 28 calendar days for certain types of work. - -Employment rights - -Minimum periods of notice - -Under the terms of the Employment Rights Act, a notice period cannot be longer than 28 days from when you start work. - -Employees cannot be required to attend an employer's premises for more than 28 days in any one calendar year. - -If you are on a leave of absence (for example, taking leave for pregnancy, long-term ill health or to visit your family or to attend a university), then the length of your leave will be considered and your leave can start as soon as you start the leave. - -Understand a time-and-a-half entitlement - -You are entitled to take an average of an average of 40 hours or more per week (or some hours more) in pay, leave and other benefits (e.g. pensions and overtime) for every two weeks you are employed. - -How does it work? - -An average is calculated as a combined amount of hours worked at different hourly rates, and does not take into account the time you spend travelling or waiting. - -The calculation includes any time you take off for reasons other than work. So a worker who would typically work one day for 11 hours, and does the same job every day for the time between, will get an average of 38 hours a week. - -The law also says a person does not incur a time-and-a-half penalty for work done on public holidays. If you work a 7.45am to 5.15pm shift, then you are entitled to an average of 48 hours -======================================== SAMPLE 178 ======================================== -The U.S. and the E.U. will soon embark on a major plan to overhaul the financial system, aiming to "drastically" speed up the delivery of central bank liquidity. The effort to achieve this will largely be a reworking of E.U. rules. - -The announcement on Monday of the "European Liquidity Regulation Initiative," and the accompanying timetable for the creation of a European Liquidity Agency, will take center stage this month as the E.U. heads into an important summit for financial-market reforms. - -The plan to modernize the E.U.'s approach to liquidation—aside from setting up a new bank resolution authority, called the E.U. resolution financing provider, or E.U.S.F.P.—comes on the heels of the European Central Bank's decision in June to create a pan-European fund to support banks. And the E.U. is no stranger to financial crises. In 2010, it set up a "bail-in" tool—named "bail-in," after the original German Bailiffs' Office—to ensure that financial firms were liquid enough to survive. But despite the complexity and size of these and other financial-market efforts—and the fact that they were conceived in an era when Europe's financial sectors were still thriving—they have largely failed because they rely on the same old approaches, and fail to address the need for effective oversight and regulation. - -Most crucially, both the E.U. and the E.U.S.F.P will rely on rules written well before the 2008 crisis. These include rules governing when and how banks can be closed (i.e., allowed to fail), where and how depositors can take their money and transfer it to another bank, and a rule known as the "living will" for insolvent companies, which will help determine how much a company has to pay to creditors and how many jobs can be cut. - -Yet these rules have to date played a significant role in helping to prevent crises like the 2008 financial meltdown and other recent shocks. - -When banks fail in Europe, depositors typically lose their primary right to have money put into the bank and, instead, become creditors. A bank's creditors can be companies (including pension funds), governments, or other kinds of institutions. After a bank receives a bail-in order, it is unable to use funds such as depositors' funds to pay back its creditors. This usually means that the institution would be forced to declare bankruptcy and either pay its clients' cash out to them or liquidate or close down—something the systemically important institution might never contemplate in today's environment. In such circumstances and with a dead bank, the rest of the credit market is shut down. - -The banking reform proposal set up by the E.U. and the E.U.S.F.P will use the living-will rules to make it far harder for the systemically important to fail. Essentially, in the E.U. they will become a way for regulators to force the largest banks to hand over more of their depositors' funds. If banks get caught with more than a prescribed amount of money, they will be held responsible for paying an additional rate (called a "haircut") at the point of liquidation. - -By contrast, the U.S.F.P. won't do that. Instead, it will place rules for how to make the biggest banks liquid. That will mean, essentially, that banks whose big risks are concentrated in the areas that could take the largest hits will be the ones hit with the higher haircuts. While it's not clear how exactly those risk areas will be defined, regulators would at least like to ensure they take place within certain boundaries—and that the haircuts will correspond with the banks' credit risk. - -As for supervision, it too will fall to regulators in the E.U. and the E.U.S.F.P. to help. The E.U. and E.U.S.F.P. will set and enforce a series of "stress tests" that will evaluate the systemically risky banks. - -These tests would aim to identify the banks most likely to suffer severe stress. By combining the E.U. rules—and the E.U.'s bank resolution authority, the E.U.S.F.P.—with the E.U.'s living will rules, it is likely that regulators in the U.S. and the E.U. would be able to prevent banks like Deutsche Bank or Bank of America, and possibly even U.S. insurers, from going bust. - -Ultimately, though, these two approaches would be very different. One will use the E.U.'s rules and regulations to ensure that the big systemically important banks are very good at running, in the jargon of banking-sector executives, as "systemically stressed." The other approach -======================================== SAMPLE 179 ======================================== -When I was in school, my parents wanted me to go into advertising. However, if it was a career at all, I wanted to be a film editor. I didn't realise that I was gay until I was about 27, and that I was so much more interested in working on film and TV than in advertising – for which I would never have found a place as a film editor. At the time I didn't have any gay role models, so it was something that I was pretty reluctant to pursue until I found myself in a situation where I was asked to do advertising, which I took to very seriously. - - -But in 2011 it was becoming increasingly clear to me that there was a growing divide between the advertising and the films and TV I loved. And I started to think, 'Maybe I shouldn't be so reluctant to approach the film industry now. If I was going to start a film company, I should be a film editor, because that's my natural focus.' But when I was talking to my agent about starting a film company, he was very hesitant to sign me. - - -So I started writing a pitch and I emailed it to several agents, because, you know, I didn't want to ask the wrong agents. I ended up writing the pitch to just one, and it was rejected. When I wrote the pitch to another agency, they were very open to it – the second one I wrote was rejected as well, which kind of knocked me. But I'd done something wrong, so I went back and I wrote that one again, and it was accepted. - - -I'd had a few other rejections before that, but the first one, and that final one were the biggest. So I went to the agency and I said to them, 'If I know you're not going to hire me, and you know I'm not going to accept your rejection, then maybe I'm better off starting my own company.' - - -I remember having a good lunch with my agent and my family and trying to convince them of that. My father in particular thought it was a bad idea. He thought I was putting my life on the line to go outside of my comfort zone. My dad did not have a very welcoming view of the gay community, so there was definitely that resistance. - - -Then, when I went to Cannes to meet my agent, it turned out that he was a gay man so he was supportive. I was very relieved. I remember thinking, 'Thank God, my career is going to have a better chance than mine has'. - - -I guess in that respect there is still this huge gap between the straight mainstream and even the mainstream LGBT community. Which is good! I think the mainstream industry does have a duty of care and it should be able to look at films and TV shows and know that there are people like me and other young people that just want to be creative. - - -I think there is just this idea that there is no room out there, that we are just this weird minority who have to go into hiding to be ourselves. So for it to be taken seriously as part of the industry – and certainly I feel that it is – is a huge achievement and a great sign of change. I would definitely say that that's the right attitude to take towards the gay community. - - -As a young girl growing up in Britain and in Britain around the world, I thought about how you might be different from other LGBT kids, and what you could have brought to the table. - - -I think that young people in general need role models – in particular I'm thinking of things like Pride – to show them that you can be who you really are and still be successful and get on in the world. As an actor, that's the stuff I wanted to talk about most, because I wanted to show kids who were not like me that you could do that. That you could be successful and still be yourself. - - -As a child I didn't have any gay role models, and I used to read about it in the paper. I found the way that gay people were portrayed on screen to be so inaccurate. At one point when I was about seven or eight years old, I had the chance to meet Hugh Grant in West End. I was very much enjoying himself and talking to Hugh and I was chatting to Michael Sheen, and on stage I looked over to the side, and there was a group of kids who were playing 'Carnival' with no adults, and I thought, "Wow, that's great. That's a real life moment." - -It was only when I was 12 years old I was allowed to watch The Phantom of the Opera, so I was lucky enough to see the first gay kiss on film. And I was really surprised by the way in which it was done in the film. Then, when I was 14, I discovered the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. - - -I have always felt that the way that it was done on film was a fantastic example of showing how a -======================================== SAMPLE 180 ======================================== -We have all experienced that feeling of being overwhelmed by our work, or overwhelmed with the amount of work we have to do. Whether it is our family or our career, it can make us feel as though there wasn't enough to do. However, the answer is actually quite simple: there is always more work to do. When it comes to managing, or just setting realistic priorities of your time, the difference between "too busy" and "not busy enough'' can be the difference between having adequate time to spend with your family and having excessive work. - -As the saying goes, "If you don't have enough time on your hands, how can you give your family enough time?" - -This is especially relevant since work is something you may not necessarily want to be doing all the time. It gives extra work-life balance when you find yourself not feeling comfortable that you have enough time to spend with your family, for instance. - -In order to have a more balanced work and family life, it is important to recognize all the responsibilities you have in your life and all the time you need to spend on these. - -One of the most overlooked responsibilities is caring for each other. Even during the busy holiday season, you need to find time to care for your loved ones. Not only is it important to take care of yourself when you have work and family, but having time to take care of others also helps ensure that you both can have a solid family system in place, and that you feel more connected and bonded to your family. - -When you're running out of time to spend with your family, you'll have to be creative or you may just have to give up. And it might seem like giving up may be the only solution. But don't do it. - -If there is no time for you to take care of others, what is there for others to take care of you? If your spouse is stressed out and can't get much work done, if your children are sick or emotionally exhausted because of the work load, if your boss is upset that you are spending too much time at work, who are you going to turn to for help? What would you do without that kind of support? - -One of the most important lessons I've learned over the past few years is that even if there is a time in your life that is busy with work, you could still use some time to take care of ones and others. The key is to know which responsibilities are most important to you and find a way to make it happen.<|endoftext|>From the moment Mr. Obama took office, Republicans have demanded that he use his powers to undo the actions of Mr. Bush. They have said that unless the Bush administration acknowledged mistakes in the way it handled its wartime policy, a precedent would be set that could allow future presidents to sweep the rest of their decisions away. The administration has balked at that demand, saying there is nothing that can be undone by executive order, and that Mr. Obama and his team are trying to use the judicial process to avoid overreach. - -A judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, in Virginia, last month ruled that a provision requiring the National Guard to help carry out the invasion of Iraq was unconstitutional. Mr. Obama appealed her ruling to the Supreme Court, which on Thursday delayed all legal motions until after the election — but the political furor over the case has not slowed the White House's efforts. - -Photo - -Mr. Obama has also ordered the declassification of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate predicting that Iraq had an imminent stockpile of weapons, which is closely linked to the case of Abu Ghanima, a Jordanian, who was seized by American troops after allegedly setting his house on fire and shouting that he had weapons of mass destruction. In order to avoid the impression that the Administration had a partisan agenda, his aides released his opinion only after Mr. Petraeus gave it the cautious stamp that intelligence analysts say it deserved. - -Mr. Obama's campaign aides say the decision reflects what they characterize as his policy of focusing on what is most effective, rather than on what is politically acceptable. At a press conference in Washington, David Axelrod, his campaign manager and a close adviser, said he had no regrets about making the Abu Ghanima decision public so soon after it had been announced and that he had "made no secret" what his own view was. - -The president's views are not widely known or fully understood, as his aides made clear in their briefing about them on Wednesday evening, but he has made clear this will be one of the defining issues of his presidency. - -"I think it's important for the public to understand," one senior White House official said, "that we're a country that believes in a separation of powers and the ability of the people to make their own judgments. And I think that if you look at what we've done in our time in power, the decisions that we've made have been the ones that are most well thought through, the -======================================== SAMPLE 181 ======================================== -In a rare move, Russia has sent a peacekeeping force of more than 3,000 to Crimea, where an armed Ukrainian separatist movement has gained strength. The move follows a request from Ukraine's Kiev regime. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that Russian peacekeepers in Ukraine will "remain a part of the international peacekeeping activities." - -In a letter to the United Nations, Ukraine's government in Kiev said that Russian peacekeepers had been allowed to join Ukraine's mission to protect civilians against the conflict in Crimea, "thus effectively taking on the mission that the Russian Federation had previously said it intended to terminate." The Ukrainian government, in its request for peacekeepers, had expressed its wish to send more than 3,500 personnel to protect civilians. The Ukrainian request came a day after President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in street protests that have since led to Russia's annexation of Crimea. - -READ MORE: 'Don't call them 'peacekeepers', say Western dignitaries in Europe - -According to the letter written by Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia, the new peacekeepers were dispatched to Crimea without any preconditions. Kiev said they will guard the Russian military base at Sevastopol as well as Russian citizens stationed at the base and within the peninsula. - -Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry, in a statement, called the actions by Kiev's government "illegal," reiterating its demand that Ukraine's leaders cancel the decision to abandon Crimea and resume negotiations with the West over the country's future. The statement also noted that the Russian Peacekeeping Force will remain in Ukraine "as a part of the international peacekeeping activities." - -Read more - -"With today's announcement, the Ukrainian authorities have broken all the guarantees and agreements they had signed with the Russian Federation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its statement. - -According to the foreign ministry, the deployment of Russian forces into Ukraine is in response to "the military coup of February 22" in Kiev. The Ukrainian government, the document reads, has now "failed to comply with its international agreement and obligations." - -On July 18, Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu had declared to the foreign minister of Ukraine that there will only be "military action" in Ukraine and that Russia would respond to any aggression in accordance with its international obligations. - -On Tuesday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. The US, UK and Australia are among those countries who have expressed their concerns over the latest development in the Ukrainian crisis. - -In his comments to reporters, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki described Russia's deployment into Crimea as a "significant" step for Moscow. - -In an interview to Sputnik, US Senator John McCain said that the deployment of foreign troops into Ukraine is "a dangerous step." - -"It's important that they stay there. I just don't think sending in troops into Ukraine is going to change their government," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has been quoted as saying by local media.<|endoftext|>Dana White had a message for the UFC's top welterweight in Georges St. Pierre: You need to go to Mexico. According to reports, White made that comment about St. Pierre during an interview with ESPN's Darren Rovell. - -St. Pierre (27-2) hasn't fought since a September 2011 decision loss to Jake Shields at UFC 110, but White has said that if he gets the call from the UFC to fight GSP again, he won't be coming over to Bellator. - -UFC president Dana White has not commented on his future with the UFC. He has also stated in the past that he won't ever retire from the sport and is going to continue to give it his all. - -GSP has not made any public comment on White's comments. - -St. Pierre, who was a champion MMA fighter at the University of Montreal, holds some notable UFC wins, including two wins over Georges St. Pierre and Johny Hendricks - -Check out the video of that interview below: - - -Follow Elias on Twitter @EliasCepeda & @YahooCagewriter<|endoftext|>In this lesson, you'll begin to develop strategies for organizing a variety of tools within the organization. You'll create your group's tool box – each tool represented in a separate box. Later in the lesson, you'll begin to work from multiple organizational models to ensure that the tools you have are effective in meeting your organization's goals. - -Organization is an essential part of the design and development process for any product that must be used. As technology advances, we become more and more dependent on technology within our organizations. The question is: What are the tools we use? These are the tools that we use, or lack of uses for, at a given time. - -When we have a goal, one way or another that we can help that goal is to set a goal. One way to set a goal is -======================================== SAMPLE 182 ======================================== -It is no secret that the American people are divided when it comes to the two major political parties. - -However, one particular poll released Tuesday that will leave some political scientists disappointed and others awestruck has suggested that the American public is less divided on how to vote than how to vote for who to vote for in each presidential election, according to CNN. - -The poll, conducted by Rasmussen Reports, was conducted in February 2013 and asked 1,000 likely voters whether they would like to sit out the presidential election. The respondents were then asked which candidate they "would most like to see" end up president. - -Of the 500 respondents who said that they would like to sit it out, 37 percent said that Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama, while 36 percent would prefer to see Mitt Romney in the Oval Office. - -Similarly, 33 percent chose former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden, while 23 percent said Republican candidate former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. - -Only 15 percent of respondents chose former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to be the next president while 10 percent selected New York Gov. George Pataki. - -The poll suggests that if a political figure from either party can manage to become president during a time when the country appears to be more divided along partisan lines, then that candidate's popularity among the voting public is higher than it is for those who have more conservative views on the question. - -According to Pew Research Center, in 2008 President George W. Bush was viewed favorably by 42 percent of respondents and unfavorably by 44 percent while in 1996 President Bill Clinton was viewed positively by 52 percent and unfavorably by 48 percent. - -According to a June Pew Research poll also released Tuesday that suggested that Republicans have a slight edge when it comes to winning the 2016 Presidential election. - -The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center has found that 46 percent of respondents agreed that Republicans "are generally more interested in listening to everyday Americans and getting things done and giving the power to those who are affected by the decisions we make." - -Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed that Democrats, on the other hand, are "more interested in protecting and expanding their existing power and giving more benefits to a small number of people." - -With a Democratic President, Republicans are slightly more likely to look favorably on the party, whereas Democrats have a slight edge over the Republicans when it comes to holding the White House in the next four years, according to the study.<|endoftext|>With the world's eyes fixed on the upcoming World Cup in Brazil, and Brazilians gearing up to take to the fields to cheer their fellow countrymen on, it's easy to forget that soccer is a global game. - -To get a real sense of how the U.S. compares with other nations in the world's game, here's a look at where the Americans stand in terms of FIFA rankings in each of the major team leagues in the world. - -This ranking comes on the heels of the release of the FIFA 18 player ratings. - -For more FIFA 18 news click here.<|endoftext|>On Friday, the day that the federal trial to determine the penalty for a former Colorado Springs police officer went to the jury, a federal official had one of those little moments when the truth comes out; the truth, that is, of how the Justice Department had gone to federal court to gain access to the records of the private investigator hired by the family of James Holmes, the alleged Batman massacre killer, as one of eight persons of interest in the case. - -That revelation was delivered by the federal official at the pretrial hearing, which continued until yesterday morning, April 5, as part of a motion for protective order that Judge Carlos Samour denied. The motion by the government is to block attorneys for the family of the shooter, James Holmes, from using information provided by David Carroll, the private investigator hired by the family. - -The reason is quite clear: Carroll's testimony at the pretrial hearing provided critical information to the Justice Department in the form of notes made as part of a federal search warrant to obtain information from the Internet Service Provider. In a separate case, Carroll testified about the notes he made to the FBI in his police investigation. Carroll will be in the witness box today. - -The evidence that Carroll made notes of his conversations with the federal agents in a search warrant application and then passed them on to the Justice Department was critical to the government's case, which was based on a computer he claimed showed the location of the shooting scene, as well as a photograph of the shooting location. - -When Carroll's notes were shown during his testimony at the preliminary hearing, Justice Department attorney Andrew Weissman asked Carroll whether he wrote down "whatever information" he had from the online chats he had with agents in Washington. Carroll stated that he did not. But in the pretrial motion filed by the Justice Department, the federal investigator in the case, Robert Feinberg, stated that the notes made it "impossible to know what was true and what was not." - -So -======================================== SAMPLE 183 ======================================== -What's at stake? - -The House bill will cut $800 million from Medicaid spending. What would the reductions mean? - -Medicaid has an annual appropriation of about $100 billion. The House bill plans to use the rest of this money to lower premiums (with a cap on out-of-pocket subsidies), reduce the amount of care Medicaid recipients receive, and limit the amount of inpatient care, especially in rural areas. Medicaid beneficiaries would lose coverage for maternity care and mental health and substance abuse services. - - -Medicaid has an annual appropriation of about $100 billion. The House bill plans to use the rest of this money to lower premiums (with a cap on out-of-pocket subsidies), reduce the amount of care Medicaid recipients receive, and limit the amount of inpatient care, especially in rural areas. Medicaid beneficiaries would lose coverage for maternity care and mental health and substance abuse services. Medicaid will be replaced with a new program known as the "State Innovation Grants." In short, the House plan to repeal and replace Medicaid would be replacing the program with a state-created fund to finance other things, like health insurance subsidies or expanding state-based high-risk pools. - -What are some possible outcomes? - -States are still deciding how much money will be available for health care spending. If they use its resources more generously, states could see improvements in Medicaid. But if they use them less aggressively, they could lose money. If states don't make their decisions based on real, not just political, information about a state's Medicaid program, they could end up paying more to poorer Americans in the short term and not getting as much as they could if they had better information. - -State decisions about how much to spend on Medicaid are going to be based on the availability of federal financing. If Congress repeals the expansion of the Medicaid program in 2020, states could expect a much smaller amount of federal financing for their Medicaid programs through 2019. - -Medicaid is still going to be funded. States will have to cover the costs of newly eligible beneficiaries, just as they have been. If Congress reduces the amount of subsidies that recipients receive, Medicaid will be less affordable for these newly eligible beneficiaries. They may well end up going without coverage or having to pay more for their coverage. - -What can the public do? - -You can call your member of Congress at 202-224-3121 and ask them to oppose any bills that would repeal and replace the current law.<|endoftext|>We are a family of four, located in the heart of the beautiful New England region with comfortable, yet convenient close-by areas to a variety of places to eat and get some shopping done. We are close to the Boston airport, as well as a wide array of public parks and trails.<|endoftext|>You may have heard people use phrases like "I'm not a scientist" and "That's just what the textbooks say". We wanted a simple way to put the results of our research into one simple statement: No, it doesn't matter if you're an "expert" in mathematics, physics or chemistry; all that matters is if you're an expert in science. - -That might sound simple, but many people still have a hard time believing it. Even scientists can think "You know what, you're right; I'm too busy to actually do science." We felt that the first time we heard it, by a researcher on The Today Show, it became clear. It became clear that the only way scientists would learn was to start doing real science— and that was good news for the "scientific community." We felt that if the public heard the message, then they would be more inspired to take up the mantle of scientific inquiry. So, we set up a series of interactive videos that make it as easy as one can imagine to learn about science. - -If you are still skeptical, we encourage you to watch the videos yourself. If we hear from you, we will keep posting the videos as they reach a critical mass. Then we will post a second blog post in about a month when we have listened to what you were thinking, asked some additional questions and analyzed the data about education, science and the need to keep teaching science in schools. To be honest, it is quite hard to find a scientific answer to all of those questions. - -The way we did it was to collect the comments and answers we received from educators, scientists and scientists in science and education, to analyze and to compile the most important issues that we felt should inform teachers across the country, because science is important to educators, too. We were also happy to learn from a wide range of perspectives about how we should present the data we collected and the most effective ways of using such data as a foundation for teaching science. - -To learn more about how we collected data (read about why we created the Science and Education data) and what kinds of research we think we need to do, we are making our data open access and open research data. To have a better sense of what we -======================================== SAMPLE 184 ======================================== -The following are responses from Drs. Mary Lawrence and Barbara Starfield to the questions asked by the House Select Committee on Benghazi during the hearing of Rep. Trey Gowdy, Chairman, on Tuesday, September 26, 2015, on "Benghazi: The Definitive Report and Recommendations on Recommendations." - -My name is Mary Lawrence and I am a Professor of Law at University of Virginia Law School. The Committee met today with Drs. Starfield and Lawrence with my co-counsel, David M. Kendall. I am pleased that after my appearance in April I have been invited to appear again at this hearing. - -Dr. Lawrence is a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri and the author of several books, including: The U.S. National Security State, The Death of Expertise, Terror and Tyranny: The Rule of Law in an Age of Experts, and, most recently, Freedom in the Republic: Law, Justice, and the Public Good. Dr. Lawrence has also served as a Commissioner on the Advisory Board of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Chicago's law school. Dr. Lawrence is a board member of the Center for International Environmental Law and is a member of its Advisory and Financial Committee. - -Dr. Lawrence was asked the following questions, for which she gave three answers.<|endoftext|>On August 8, 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and its state cousin, Proposition 8, but it did not say that gays and lesbians could enjoy the same constitutional protections as heterosexuals. The court did hold that "the Constitution permits not only laws proscribing discrimination, but also laws recognizing and affirming that discrimination." That might suggest that gay marriage and anti-gay discrimination are inextricably tied, but the justices took pains to point out that the Constitution does not require states to allow gay nuptials, and that those couples who wish to wed should just have to go to court to get their marriages approved by the state. The court's opinion in United States v. Windsor was widely seen as a vindication of marriage and the institution of marriage, but it did not say that marriage, nor gay marriage, required legal recognition from states. - -Today, all 50 states have statutes recognizing a marriage from another state that was valid in the state where it was formed, no matter how long or short the time spent in that state. But if you look at the Supreme Court's marriage ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, you've got another piece of that puzzle. On April 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority, that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry, regardless of their state of residence at the time. In other words, they weren't bound to a state by one of their neighbors' laws unless the federal law trumped state law. How could the court have ruled the other way when states had not made it clear that gay marriage was unlawful while they did not make clear that it was allowed? The answer might be that all states had made it clear to both straight and gay people that same-sex marriage was wrong, but that gay people didn't know that and couldn't understand that states weren't bound by laws that same-sex couples couldn't enforce even though states had made it perfectly clear that they were not. - -Even before Obergefell, the Supreme Court had hinted at the idea that the constitution does allow laws to be enforced by other means other than the state in which they were passed. In Windsor v. United States, the court asked "what effect, if any, the Fourteenth Amendment has on marriage, a fundamental right in our society." Justice Kennedy had answered "not much," writing, "As with other rights, it is not for this Court to say that a State will have to pay any more heed to the Fourteenth Amendment's protections than it does to its own." - -In other words, Kennedy was acknowledging that the Fourteenth Amendment protects people from having their marriages struck down by the state, but it doesn't prevent the states from recognizing those marriages. The point for the court was not that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to give marriage rights to same-sex couples, but that states couldn't take away those rights through their laws, which Kennedy called "nothing more than a prohibition on the States' refusal to honor a solemnized marriage that some other State may refuse to recognize." - -In a follow up opinion, Chief Justice Roberts added his own insight to the question: in his view the right to marry is protected under the laws of all states. - -But the question of whether a person can be gay, lesbian or bisexual in some states but not others is not straightforward. If a state allows for civil unions (with the state recognizing gay and lesbian marriage equally), that marriage cannot be revoked by states, but if it does not, then a -======================================== SAMPLE 185 ======================================== -The latest version of the popular iOS app for the iPhone and iPad released on Thursday contains a critical bug which would let the spyware take complete control over your iPhone, according to security experts. - -The new update to the iPhone Threat Hunter, which has been downloaded an estimated 25 million times according to analytics website App Annie, is one of the most popular pieces of software Apple released this year. The version number in the app is 2.4, which makes it one of the most recent updates. - -The update addresses more than three dozen security vulnerabilities revealed in a recent research note from cybersecurity firm Check Point. - -Check Point researchers discovered six serious issues in the latest version of Threat Hunter, which was released ahead of the iPhone 5 launch in September. - -The most serious security flaw, dubbed "Impetukin," is caused by a bug that allows the spyware to compromise iPhones running iOS 5 or higher without a way for the user to detect the problem. - -"This is a very serious bug," said David Moler, security engineer at Lookout, a provider of security products. He said he didn't know of any other security flaw like the one reported by Check Point, although he did say it's possible for an unscrupulous hacker to exploit the flaw. - -For instance, "Impetukin can spy on your calls, SMS messages and emails, see where you are, see when you are at home and when you are out at night," Check Point wrote. - -"So what I think people will want to do is they are going to want to take the iOS device out of the safe mode," Mr. Moler said. - -He recommends disabling the "Find My iPhone" feature on a locked iPhone and locking the device down with a passcode, something he said any savvy user will follow. - -"If you need to, you should be using the Find My iPhone feature to see where it is," Mr. Moler said. - -Another major issue is "Tethering," which allows the iPhone to be remotely exploited or accessed because it allows the spyware to track the device when it is outside of its control, such as while on airport or train travel. Another vulnerability, called "NFC," allows the spyware to intercept payments made with the phone. - -Another major flaw is "Impetukin," which Check Point said "can hijack phone calls by eavesdropping on the phone number and listening to the conversations inside the phone," causing the phone to constantly ring or send text messages, according to a blog post from Check Point. - -"This could allow someone to take control of your phone and possibly intercept or view information. It also can potentially cause you to get a call, text, voicemail, or send you a text or email." - -The vulnerability was disclosed by cybersecurity firm Check Point as a "bug report" on its website and was announced by Apple. - -"You can find the CVE IDs for those vulnerabilities by going to About Security in Settings and tapping the About vulnerability section," an Apple spokesperson told CNET. - -Some versions of iOS are vulnerable while others are not, according to Check Hill. However, the majority of users are on iOS 5. The vulnerability affects a handful of third-party apps that are linked to the iPhone's "Find My iPhone" feature, according to Check Point. The apps were not distributed by Apple. - -The flaw and the bugs reported in the latest version of Threat Hunter are only a few of the vulnerabilities that have emerged since the most recent release. In late December, Apple fixed a flaw that was allowing the creation of secret folders on its iOS devices, a problem that allowed people to access sensitive files and files on a user's computer. And last week, Apple released a free tool called iOS Device Health, which gives anyone with Apple's iPhone a real-time alert of the battery condition of their iPhone. - -But one thing you probably can't do with any of these flaws is spy on an iPhone without knowing it. Check Point also pointed out that the iPhone is not a computer or a mobile device. In other words, the spyware would not have to be turned on to access your iPhone or make use of apps, as it does on Macs. - -"It would be technically possible to create an Android or Blackberry variant of these apps that would take over a Mac, a Blackberry, or a smartphone, but it would not be feasible for them to do so because the phone is not a computer or mobile device," Mr. Moler said. - -Related stories:<|endoftext|>The only way to get to "the Promised Land" of happiness is to leave the safety of your comfort zone and explore unchartered territory. - -The more people on Reddit, the more I learn. - -The site hosts a wide variety of social activities including gaming, memes, comedy and a huge number of other community sites. - -This is one of my many discoveries in what appears to be -======================================== SAMPLE 186 ======================================== -"In the first place, the people would not have voted for me if they thought they were getting a puppet. I didn't receive a dime, and they had a choice: to vote for a Democrat, who would not even take $100 of my money; or to vote for somebody else, even a Republican, who was going to have half the Senate and the House in his pocket," Sanders told supporters in a statement from the White House on Nov. 9. "If I ran and they didn't want a Republican, they could have voted for me. They didn't, so there!"<|endoftext|>A team of scientists and lawyers have sued the state of New Hampshire in federal court for refusing to release thousands of climate change documents that they say contain "highly damaging information about the state's efforts to combat climate change," according to a press release. - -The group of experts and their lawyers filed an application last week for a preliminary injunction that it fears will prevent a government agency, the Office of Environmental Affairs, from continuing their attempts to censor climate change documents, according to the release. - -The lawsuit, filed by the American Tradition Institute, American Forests Foundation, and other organizations, alleges that the state's refusal to release the emails "will significantly interfere with the defendants' and other defendants' efforts to disseminate accurate, independent information about climate change science," "will adversely affect an important scientific discourse, including the efforts to protect and preserve climate research and the efforts of scientists to provide that research in their peer-reviewed research," and "will have a chilling effect on the free flow of scientific knowledge and ideas within the legal community." - -The climate of New Hampshire "has already been transformed by greenhouse gases generated through electricity generation and transportation," according to the lawsuit. "For a variety of reasons, the climate has changed over the last century and will continue to change as new sources of greenhouse gases are developed, electricity generation, transportation, and industrialization increase." - -The state's climate change policies are "ill-conceived," according to the group's lawsuit, "and have been adopted without sufficient public review, much less a reasoned determination that the changes were required." - -New Hampshire recently filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. In its filing the state claims that it can't get its finances in order because they are so heavily burdened by its high debts, as well as the "cost of defending" itself in court. - -Advertisement - -The state's efforts to combat climate change — which also include legislation that forces businesses that emit greenhouse gases to pay a $50,000 per day tax — have sparked criticism. A report from a New Hampshire court this week confirmed what many have long known: climate change is a real concern and people in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and South Carolina are suffering because of their states' refusal to comply with the rules that the rest of the nation has adopted.<|endoftext|>On January 13, the Department of Justice released an email from Hillary Clinton's legal team concerning a potential lawsuit against the State Department over the security breach of her homebrew server. - -The email was in response to a request from Clinton's lawyer. - -Clinton's lawyers wanted to avoid a legal battle "in the press, in front of Congress", according to the email. - -In the email, Clinton's legal counsel, David Kendall, wrote that "it is possible we can resolve this amicably without the needs of the Department of Justice being involved." Kendall added the department is aware of the situation. - -The department refused to comment on its release of the email to Yahoo News, saying the information was considered "highly sensitive." It added that it is standard operating procedure to keep all FOIA responses confidential. - -The email is included below. - -"The State Department says that the FOIA review would be a 'matter of months' but they will have to give more information on this. There were a series of delays in responding to our FOIA requests and releasing what they have. There were a number of FOIA requests on HRC's server and emails related to them (most of which were not processed)." - -On January 13, Kendall was the lawyer representing Clinton at the State Department. - -The following day, he sent an email to Clinton's lawyer, Cheryl Mills, with the subject 'Possible FOIA in the Media,'" adding, "please see below. One more update. I had a conversation with Eric Boswell who indicated he was going to give us some sort of response by the end of the day." - -On January 15, Boswell forwarded the email to John Bentel, the State Department's spokesman, with the subject, 'Re: Email – Potential FOIA in the Media.' - -Boswell wrote: "Eric is working on a statement that is sure to make this less of a problem. It will be released by him tomorrow morning. John and I have discussed it, and we both agree that it would be best for you to not press it in the media. He will have more to say on the same subject." - -Bos -======================================== SAMPLE 187 ======================================== -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester, located on the Charles River near Fenway Park, has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University with Harvard University and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University with Harvard University and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University with Harvard University and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Photo: Courtesy of University of Massachusetts Boston - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Dorchester is a beautiful, hip area of Cambridge. The neighborhood has long been home to students of the University of Massachusetts and is currently home to Harvard University's Kennedy School, which is known for its innovative teaching and research. - -Doreen Reedy and her husband Richard M. M. Reedy own the Tasty Fresh Market in Dorchester, a popular supermarket and cafe. After taking the reigns of the family business nearly five decades ago, Dorchester market manager Dore -======================================== SAMPLE 188 ======================================== -For the third year in a row, I have been asked what my favourite thing about being a part of The Big Lebowski is. I have given several responses, all of which are variations on 'I can't think of anything else'. Some friends have asked me why I never talk about the movie. Most would say because it is obviously my favourite film. In short: I don't have the capacity to articulate the reasons why being in the movie is superior or why it is worthy of any kind of serious examination. But, if you are a 'true fan' and are looking for a little piece of information about the films and the people involved, this should help. - -"Lebowski" is about the relationship between Mr. Lebowski and his high school friends, a group of people who are just as confused as he is. At their core, they have much in common (their teenage sex-craziness, their love for video games, their inability to see eye to eye on a bunch of issues, the need to be able to take care of an older man in their lives). But that's not a bad thing. When you think about it, it's really a fascinating set of relationships. - -One of the most notable characters, as the movie progresses, is Wendy (Maureen O'Hara). She becomes his new best friend. She's the one with the most in common with him, the one who knows how to have a simple conversation, a simple meal, whatever can make both of them laugh. And, if you take a closer look at the relationship, you realize that when there is tension, she has to step in and do it. She is the one who can make it all feel more real, who will always pick him up when he's down. This is the same with all of the other characters: they're just as confused as he is, and they need the help of someone, anyone, to make it all go away. - -"The Dude" (John Goodman), on the other hand, is the most likeable character for a lot of different reasons. He's the one who is most comfortable with letting go of his life in 'Big Lebowski' terms, the one who can really talk about his problems. Even in that scene in the laundromat, when he says that his best friends are now "my family", all the way through in the final scene, he doesn't seem to care if anyone will hear him (he's the ultimate 'good friend'!). - -To a great degree, the film is about Mr. Lebowski's relationship with his own self in 'Big Lebowski' terms. "The Dude" is also someone who feels disconnected from the world. That isn't a bad thing: it also leads to him, through his 'big' adventures in the movie, to a deeper understanding of life. The first time he sees 'The Dude', he sees a familiar kind of 'self', a man with issues, a problem. And so he comes to understand that maybe The Dude is him, the problem that he is trying to solve. And we see that through the final scene where he gets the chance to finally meet The Dude. For the first time, we see The Dude not as an obnoxious drunk, a complete loser for whom there will never be a normal moment in his life, but rather this man, who is trying to understand the world and who is trying, in his own way, to be a good person. The moment when the two are standing together, their eyes meet, the Dude says something like "You're not the one who's trying to make it better. You're the one who was sent to make things better", that's that connection that the movie is all about. - -This is the reason why if you ask me to go into "The Dude" as a person, I would rather go in with that statement entirely in mind. I could probably just come out and say that "The Dude" is a man who has a problem with his own humanity, that sometimes he has the urge to be like Mr. Lebowski, to be "that man", but it doesn't really add a lot to what the movie has to say. A movie can certainly tell you what a man should be like, but sometimes you have to think of a person on their own merits. You must not always look for a quick and easy explanation for anything. As The Dude says, it's "funny when he gets it right, but he has a hard time getting it off his chest." There's a scene where he has this 'awkward moment', trying to tell his wife, and she just doesn't grasp what he's talking about - she's always thought that she could understand him. - -But then The Dude also has a hard time getting the right thing across, in his own way, through his language. "Funny how they got the whole 'I'm going to live my lifestyle like a -======================================== SAMPLE 189 ======================================== -This is the second half of a two-part series. Read about Part 1 and find out about how we decided to use a little black magic called "random guessing" to help choose our "most desirable" female model. - -For the first half of the series, I talked about how we decided on our favorite girl and some of the criteria we used for the final selection. This time, I want to talk about the results! The results of your votes have been added to this article. Please read on… - -In the end, the only thing we could come to the conclusion was that there was no way we could please EVERYONE. We could just as well have picked something totally random and agreed upon by the entire staff, but that is only a little better than us being wrong the whole time. In many cases, there was really only one winner and that was our little girl. That being said, we decided on this one girl for a few major reasons. First of all, she's the oldest of the three of us, which makes her more mature. Second, I'm a big fan of her personality. Third, she looks kind of like… - -You know what I'm going to say, right? I just… It's pretty much like this picture. - -Now that I'm done speaking, here is how our three girl chose to pick their three favorites. - - -1. The girl who looked the best in pictures - -2. The guy who looks the coolest - -3. The guy whose voice reminded them of someone they know - - -But we all admit… our favorite is obviously our little chick, so I guess I will get to her then. That's right, she is back. In case you're not interested in her in a photo, that is totally OK! Also, you're not my mother, so make of that what you wish. - -Well, since we all know what you're all thinking… what does your favorite one look like? Well, that is where our magical "random guessing" comes in. Let's get started! - -So let's start from the front of the stage! - -The first question: "Which one do you like the most?" - -Well, we had the first choice. Well, at last count, we had 6 girls and as you can see, the vast majority of you voted for our tiny, but oh so pretty little angel. The only girl we had to get right is the adorable lady at the bottom of this post. - -From top to bottom: - -The one above my Mom. I loved when we decided that we would make sure none of the girls had a boyfriend, because we figured that would allow us to get a better idea of what kind of guys each of them was into. - -The guy who looks like the president of the United States. I have to say, when I first saw him, I thought "D'oh! This one's going to take the whole staff to pick." But once we got all of the votes in, I realized he really is the best one. - -My favorite girl for the whole staff in a photo, by a landslide. Also, we all know my favorite because I have been showing people this photo and everyone asks me for my favorite one. - -The one my mom's boyfriend gave her. I honestly think that the best part of this picture is the look on her face that says "Please, not this dude." - -My personal favorite of the three. I guess I have to put the one closest to me because she looks more like me than any of the other three. She can do both a sexy one like this or one I would put my finger on, like this. - -Our friend in the middle, a sexy little thing. I have to say, the only thing she has better than her mother is her girlfriend's girlfriends. At least that's how I picture it. - -And finally, our favorite. We are all pretty sure these three would make the perfect girlfriend. - -Now that we've gotten the rest of the staff to sign some permission slips and put on their favorite pose, let's move inside… - - -As I mentioned before, the staff was all pretty much unanimous in their pick. - -In the front row: - -A lovely blonde girl that looks like an Erika Larsen-like person - -A tall, sexy brunette with this one shot - -A small Asian girl that looks a little like a girl but has legs like mine - -And finally, another blond girl who looks like her in my mom's picture… - -At the back of the stage: - -A girl who looks like her in a photo so her mom could look pretty good when she gets caught - -Now that I know all the staff is there, I'll give you a sneak peak at some possible poses they might have in mind for our 3 newest girls. - -Let's see if anyone notices anything. - - - -======================================== SAMPLE 190 ======================================== -In the last six months, the world has been thrown into the unprecedented debate about the possibility of a global financial meltdown. A lot is at stake, and we need to know what it all means. - -To explain, I've put together a list of the key questions — some serious, some trivial — to be answered when we're faced with such a situation: - -Is this a bubble or not? How big is the bubble? Are we approaching a systemic failure in the global economy? What are the long-term systemic risks posed by this crisis? Is this the beginning of something big in the world economy, or has it already reached a breaking point? - -To answer these questions, it's helpful to recognize some of the core problems of financial markets — both in their ability to respond to short-term pressures and in their ability to provide a fair, stable and predictable environment for the long term of investments, loans and contracts. - -In the context of a financial crisis, a real crisis - -It is important to acknowledge that no single event or phenomenon is responsible for the rise of the financial sector. Rather, its role is to act as a facilitator for short-term, financialized impulses through the creation of artificial scarcity and through a system of trust between creditors and debtors at the same time. - -In so doing, it creates the illusion that we are living in a world where we can rely on trust to ensure the future will be better than our forebears were able to predict in the very first place. (Of course, there is often a lack of trust in the future — or at least an absence of trust — but that's an issue that can be left for another day.) - -Moreover, as the recent economic crisis in the US has shown, financial intermediation and bubble financing — the latter based on the creation and then collapse of the real estate sector — can create systemic risk and instability as we've seen in recent financial crises in Ireland, Spain, Ireland, Australia and the US. - -The key to understanding the nature of a financial crash is to understand that it's a real event that can be prevented, not prevented by "market logic" or "capitalism." It can and has been triggered by factors such as a mis-priced asset, market manipulation or outright fraud, but it is not a natural event, and there are no inevitable or universal laws that govern this process. - -This has many implications for the debate on whether the current financial crisis could be the beginning of something big as a broader financial meltdown, or whether it constitutes no systemic risk. - -The financial crash at the turn of the millennium was triggered, with significant systemic implications, when a group of Chinese investors went on a credit binge during the 2000s, which, among other things, precipitated a fall in the exchange rate between China and the US dollar resulting in a dramatic increase in the value of the US dollar. - -This was not a result of a market-generated price correction or market manipulation. Instead the problem was a fundamental change with respect to the nature of Chinese credit. For many Western institutions involved in the real-estate market at the time, this is the exact "systemic" risk that they warned of. - -That China has since stopped the credit bubble is also a "normal" event, but it was not a market-driven "market correction." Chinese banks did not act as intermediaries and instead became a full-scale issuer of credit; however, these were ultimately backed by China's currency and China's banks were not themselves the financial institutions involved in the credit bubble. - -In our view, this type of financialization in itself is not the primary risk that we need to worry about; rather it is the risk that such an event is allowed to go unanswered, which results in unintended consequences: rising credit and asset prices; financial instability in the world economy; and the end of financial market confidence, due to lack of trust. - -A systemic failure at the beginning of a crisis - -While the events of 2008 were indeed a "system" failure, it had different origins. - -One of the primary lessons that should be learned from it for future financial crises and their potential systemic effects is that financial crises don't merely happen randomly; they need to be anticipated. - -In other words, we have to anticipate the next crisis so that we can act if it does occur. That way, our response does not become counterproductive or worse. - -In my view, an additional danger for the current crisis is that it may have been an internal financial crisis — that is, a crisis in or leading to the financial markets. - -When the financial crisis of 2008 broke, it affected different institutions in different areas of the financial system. And for many of them, the event created systemic risks as well as issues in their own operations. - -For example, Lehman brothers, the investment bank of which Jamie Dimon was executive chairman, was a key participant in the financial market ecosystem that became increasingly dependent -======================================== SAMPLE 191 ======================================== -A study published in the journal Applied Mathematics and Computation (AMCS) finds that when a mathematical construction is coupled to a particular type of data, it can give you the most precise model of that data. In this case the data might be information, like images in an image database, or something different: the location of a person on a map. - -The construction we used was Gaussian mixture models. Likelihood analysis is used when we don't know the data; we just need some estimate of how they change over time, typically when an observation has been made, or an observation has already been made and we don't know what it's going to be like next time. In particular, we need to understand some kind of "mixing of noise" as a model for the data, which is what gives our theoretical model its power for understanding that data. - -The key insight is that we can use the combination of our model (the one that is the best, based on our model predictions), our observations (images or locations) and our noise (what is outside the noise) to get a model of some kind for the data. - -By coupling our model to the data we are getting accurate estimates for a very specific kind of information at a very specific data size. - -To understand what could be driving the observation that the location of someone on the map changes over time, suppose we have no idea what the data means, and we use Gaussian Mixture Models that are good at modeling noise. If we try to fit a model to those observations, we get really good estimates for the location of people on the map, but we don't know how to understand those estimates. - -To see this in context, suppose we have a large dataset with about a billion labels (for example, the labels of images in an image database, each label is an observation). That dataset has lots of images to represent. Then we fit a normal model to them. Then we see what that fits best. - -For that, we can just look at the estimates as we go, but when applying that to something very specific like a location on the map, we should be looking to see if those were the right estimates, not just averages from all images. So, here's the question: - -Can we use the models we see in the statistics on that dataset to understand how our location is changing over time? By "really understand," we mean that we should be seeing, in addition to the standard statistics (like x+1 or the mean), an estimated new location that is the same as the estimated previous location except with the new location added. So, how accurately can we estimate how people on the map are changing over time, even if we don't know their absolute values? - -In particular we think we should be able to calculate the "mean shift," which is the average difference between the previous and new location. That should give us a way to understand what we're saying about a person in that location (and can also tell us which labels are most helpful). - -To get the details for how to estimate that shift, I thought I'd write an article for this post. I also thought these calculations could help illustrate a particular way in which Bayesian techniques can give us a very precise model for very specific information. In fact, it's a type of inference that can give you a very precise model even for a much finer-grained set of information. - -It also gives us a way to understand why many machine learning algorithms don't make predictions that are a great improvement on random guesses. The algorithm doesn't know about the noise, and therefore misses the shift. - -My analysis is based on two main ideas: the first is that a lot of things can give you a good idea how much something has changed over time, even if you don't know anything about the data behind or about the noise. The second is that there's a simple relationship between how accurate a mathematical model is for one kind of data and how accurate one is at a much finer level of detail (or sometimes at the level of a small subset of data). - -Let's look at an example that will give us more idea of the ideas. Here's a dataset of coordinates of an image with the color red. Then, for each label, we have some of the images showing an image with the same color (I chose the same color for simplicity). For these two images, in the same time interval, there's a mean shift of the center that is the same in both images: - -So, this is an image and label pair. Let's look at how accurate this model is at estimating the mean shift: - -The error is less than 1, so it's not very good. Then, suppose that there are four images of the center, and they each look like this; that's a pretty good model for the mean shift: - -The error is about .1, giving it a very good model; on top of the two -======================================== SAMPLE 192 ======================================== -The New York Post reported that the NFL is investigating Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's contract. The National Football League (NFL) is looking into if Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's contract is part of the Patriots' settlement agreement with the Wells Report. The NFL is looking into whether Brady committed a violation of the NFL's salary cap and salary-cap guidelines, the New York Post said. - -According to the New York Post, Brady's contract is in jeopardy of being voided because the settlement agreement is not in compliance with the league's salary cap guidelines. This is the first time a player with a $1.8 million contract has been disciplined by the league for violation of the CBA. There is no indication this investigation will cause Brady to be suspended from the NFL. - -Advertisement - -Since the Wells Report released on March 10, the NFL has maintained that Brady's suspension was justified. However, on March 27, CBS anchor Bob Orr reported that the league was investigating whether the report stated the Patriots knew about deflategate. Orr quoted a source stating, "The league says it's still investigating, but there was a point during the investigation that they looked at it, and it seems like there was some level of knowledge, that they're trying to follow up on." - -According to the report, Wells could not determine if there was evidence the Patriots knew about the deflation of game balls. Wells could not determine if the Patriots knowingly underinflated the balls, something Goodell said in his September press conference. - -In a statement posted to the league's website, the commissioner said Brady's suspension was "long overdue." - -The following is the full statement. - -"Tom Brady's suspension was long overdue and serves as a reminder that cheating always has a face, and it is always our duty to find out who is doing it. I can assure you that we have done just that. The NFL conducted a thorough and independent investigation based on the information they had when they initially began their investigation. - -"As the commissioner noted in yesterday's press conference, the investigation determined that footballs prepared by our staff for the AFC Championship Game met the standards that are set forth in the league's competitive rules. I have spoken briefly with Commissioner Goodell regarding this matter, and he knows that the integrity of the game is our responsibility. He is committed to it and fully expects the Patriots to cooperate fully with the league in any investigation that they may face. We want to assure everyone that we are cooperating fully with the authorities to provide as much information as we can so they can determine the exact cause of this situation."<|endoftext|>A couple of days ago a bunch of the older mods started reporting that the website where the mod download links are stored has changed and has been made a lot more secure. That is the thing I think about the most that the community has lost with the recent downtime. To me it's also a thing I don't think about too much. The more I think about it though the more I realize that the fact that something like that can affect a lot of modders, and is apparently the most basic service of a mod hosting site is something to keep in mind. - -The idea of the original mods is to do stuff by hand and make the process of adding/removing stuff a bit more fun and enjoyable than just simply using the official tool. Of course, these days tools like Steam Workshop don't come with a ton of support but if you have a really good mod and you want to share it with the rest of the communities, that is something you can do by hand. This has made modding modders and people who upload content to the internet a rather complicated thing. - -There are countless mods that have been created and created and then just forgotten about, but one of the reasons why the community is so good at modding is because it's a lot of work. If one could just add it to the launcher all of it would be handled for you. - -You have mods that are more than just a skin, like some of the ones shown off with the mod spotlight and some of the "classic" mods which add new functionality or even new games. However, even some classic mods might have no idea how to add support for it in their own engines as they have not been ported to newer games, which leads to a lot of stuff "not being possible". When the game you are working on is built using a different engine/toolkits, you have to port each game individually if you would like to support the "classic" mods that are ported over. Some of the older mods might be built specifically for the engine/toolkit you are using, meaning one has to make custom support files. This makes building mods a lot more difficult than simply building standalone projects. - -What you are left with at the end is a "perfect storm" scenario which leaves no mod maker happy except the publisher of the game. This would seem to me to leave no modder behind, but as the mods get bigger -======================================== SAMPLE 193 ======================================== -In February 2008, the US embassy in Beijing reported that Chinese students studying in a US university had filed a formal complaint with the Chinese Consulate General in Baltimore, Maryland, and to the US Department of Education alleging "religious and political indoctrination" at the University of Maryland. The complainants accused the university of violating US religious freedom law, which states: - -"Nothing in the laws of the United States shall be construed to prohibit or restrict any of the following: religious beliefs; religious activities; or the teaching or practice of religion or religious beliefs or political views on such topics as government, government policies, and social policies. The free exercise of religion and the free exercise of speech, and of the press and other forms of communication, are fundamental principles of a democratic society. " - -The "religious and political indoctrination" allegations were part of a larger investigation, begun on January 18 and ending on March 7, into allegations that there were "institutional and individual acts that discriminate or appear to discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation or belief" at the university. - -The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights sent a warning to the university in the form of eight pages of "concerning" documents regarding the investigation. Some of the documents cited in the OCR letter were "unredacted" and available only on private server of the Office of Civil Rights, while others bore dates and signatures of officials. In a series of letters that accompanied its "determinations" on the university's compliance with US law, OCR alleged that the "institutional practices of harassment, mistreatment and retaliation for religious beliefs" by a number of university employees and administrators constituted "inherently religious offenses against [student] plaintiffs." - -In the letter, dated March 4, 2008, OCR wrote: - -"Our review revealed many instances of anti-religious conduct and mistreatment that occurred during this investigation. Specifically, at the University, a number of anti-religious acts took place, including: harassment by University officials (e.g., refusing students, student associations, and student groups access to events and resources); failure to respond to complaints by students; refusal to cooperate with OCR's investigation and/or provide information that the OCR requested to determine possible violations; and other forms of retaliation such as demotion or dismissal based on religious belief." - -The university later "disclosed" these allegations in public statements by President Robert Zimmer and Vice-President for Student and Academic Affairs John McCaw, both of whom acknowledged the investigation but did not address specific allegations of religious discrimination in any way. The university also posted on its website a letter, in which Zimmer acknowledged that the complaint "underlies the University's response to it in some respects" but failed to address those aspects of the complaint that had not already been addressed by the university as part of a comprehensive investigation into the university. As it turned out, in response to the complaint, the University had conducted an investigation of some of the same allegations in May 2007. - -After the university "disclosed" the allegations involving students and their alleged "institutional and individual acts that discriminate or appear to discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation or belief," the university "adopted additional policies and procedures" that were intended to improve its relationship with "religious groups who want to participate in student activities at the University." Although the University of Maryland "agreed" that the "intimidating or intimidating conduct by University officials," as listed in its March 5, 2008, policies and procedures, "taken in the context of religious exercise," would fall under the definition of "religious harassment" by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the University of Md. did not offer evidence in response to the OCR letter that such "intimidating or intimidating conduct" is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. As a result, OCR ruled that the violations cited in the March 5, 2008, policies and procedures, as well as the university's failure to adopt a response that dealt with the specific allegations cited in its letter, constituted discrimination based on religion under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. - -The OCR letter and related documents were the basis of a civil rights lawsuit in which the plaintiffs alleged that the University's handling of religious discrimination complaints constituted a "hostile environment" that deprived them of their constitutional rights of free exercise and free expression. One plaintiff in the federal lawsuit is a student and member of the Concerned Student 1950 group, whom OCR determined "discriminated, harassed and intimidated religious students, including his Christian group's leader" in a manner which was not permitted by the university's policies and procedures to exist. The suit also involves two current faculty members—including a former dean of the School of International Service—who are alleged by the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit to have participated in the university's alleged discriminatory acts against the plaintiffs. - -The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Maryland (Eastern District of Maryland — E.D. -======================================== SAMPLE 194 ======================================== -Rudy Giuliani told Donald Trump at a private White House dinner last evening that he didn't know anything about Michael Flynn's Russia connections, after Flynn was forced to resign. Giuliani said he did not know because Flynn had previously said he didn't remember the dinner. This is not exactly a denial of Flynn's actions and Giuliani's comments appear to be nothing more than an attempt to put a positive spin on what Flynn did in regards to Russia as opposed to an outright cover-up. This should come as no surprise after what we have seen from President Trump on multiple occasions. If the President knows who his administration is hiding from, it's not to his country's benefit and perhaps it's more to his own benefit. The more important question, though, is why are those in the administration so afraid of being caught lying about something so important? - -There is no doubt that the administration would have preferred to keep the truth about Flynn's activities with Russia secret and in the darkness. Flynn's dismissal, after all, could have opened the door for the FBI to investigate these ties, even if Flynn hadn't actually been caught attempting to hide them. Perhaps this will all come out in the next month, but one thing is certain: there is much more Russia-related information that will be revealed before Trump's "loyalty" is satisfied next month. - -This article (Rudy Giuliani Claims Michael Flynn's Russia Ties Were Never Discussed at Dinner) originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org. - -Pin 1 1K Shares<|endoftext|>What is it about the Internet that gets you to act out? Some Internet personalities have spent more time than others on this site, but I'm looking through a recent batch of e-mails that the staff has been receiving. (I'm not the source of these e-mails. Just some of the e-mails I'm looking through. And I'm not a particularly prolific person, either. But I think it's nice to see those e-mails coming in.) I don't have a point of view. I'm just looking at what some Internet folks are getting themselves into when they create web accounts that have "personal" names, and the e-mail systems that send out these accounts. - -It appears we're all in a state of confusion. Why are some folks spending a lot of times making e-mail account names and e-mail addresses with special characters, and others not so, or at all? And why is this happening to a fairly large percentage of the e-mail systems that we all enjoy? If you don't want to be confused, then don't set your e-mail system's name as being a special "personal" name. Just take your username and a number, such as "sigtul", and use that for your e-mail. It doesn't get any more personal than that. - -UPDATE: As it turned out, I'd been dealing with this for a while. We do have the ability to edit the system name that most people see, but we need to get everybody on board to see that. After lots of people got back to me about this, I decided to start a survey to get more feedback on it. I did a little more digging through the e-mail accounts of e-mail folks, and came up with another 10 or so names that we're still seeing. I've gotten a number of responses, most of which have confirmed the e-mail addresses as being for real, but there are a few that haven't. My advice to the individuals named in these e-mails is to keep digging, especially if their e-mail address is the same as theirs on the various mailing lists you subscribe to. We're starting to see how it changes over time as well - this might change. Please don't be discouraged and let me know if you've seen similar e-mail addresses in any of the e-mail systems you use. It can all just be a case of new names and e-mail addresses being born at a time. Thanks for reading: if you'd like to see just how many e-mail addresses are being set at special names, you can take a look at the e-mail addresses that have been created since I set up this page. Please don't give out your e-mail address.<|endoftext|>A team of researchers led by researchers at the Broad Institute has taken the biggest step ever undertaken to build computers built of DNA. By inserting a DNA "recipe" into a bacterial genome, it's now possible to create working computing cores made from genetic material, as it were. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -The approach is an extension of previous efforts to add an artificial "thinking" component to computer processors like the Intel Celeron. That's still far too slow. Instead, the new development -======================================== SAMPLE 195 ======================================== -The idea the government should have a say about the internet's future is controversial, but for a short time the government seemed to go along with it. In 2000 the government passed Net Neutrality, a set of laws that ensured the internet could be free from discrimination. - -Net Neutrality supporters said the laws protected the freedom of the internet and kept it open. Opponents, however, said those laws were a barrier preventing the public from being able to access content online while remaining anonymous. - -So what is wrong with net neutrality? - -Let me count the ways. First, some people believe this law will allow broadband companies to increase their profits by slowing down content that they don't agree with, or by not upgrading their network for faster services. Second, as a result of the new law, internet service providers are required to treat everyone equally, regardless of the website or service they use. There is no one's right or wrong here—if somebody uses the internet to send a file, you should be able to get it as well as the other guy. - -As a result, net neutrality advocates claim, a company will be allowed to slow down sites that they don't like, or charge more for access to content on certain websites. Those companies are going to get even richer and more powerful as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) begin to give them new control over how people access content. - -ISPs also are afraid that by imposing such regulations, the government will come to the rescue and regulate the industry in a way it wants to. They think ISPs will be more likely to start blocking traffic to certain websites and slow down traffic for others. But the reality might be more complex. It might happen that the government regulates ISPs more leniently than they would by a court order. - -Third, the net neutrality laws are not working. The law is in place but not working. The internet is more open than ever but we still have a number of people who want to block sites such as Facebook. And we have a number who just want to slow down certain websites. So a lot of people are not happy with our current situation and what the government is trying to do with the law. - -There is one last problem with net neutrality. The laws are flawed and not working. So instead of fixing the law, the government is trying to dismantle it. The plan to abolish open internet is out there. In June President Obama tried to get Congress to stop the FCC from passing net neutrality legislation on their own. The FCC said that President Obama would not veto that piece of legislation, but they were unable to get the bill passed under the current Congress. - -However, Obama did not try to kill or repeal it, but he let it die. And to be clear, the laws he voted for were already in place. Instead, he is trying to change it into something he doesn't like. It's as if he doesn't want to be responsible and enforce the laws himself. - -What should be changed? - -The current laws have failed to deliver what the supporters of the original net neutrality laws said they would. The FCC passed a new version of net neutrality last week. The FCC will now ban providers from blocking or slowing down traffic for a specified period of time each month. That would give consumers more choice as to what sort of internet services they are able to get. - -This would be a better way than trying to kill or repeal the existing open internet law. - -But that may not be enough. In recent months the FCC has been working on more regulations. They want to prohibit companies from interfering with each other's traffic and from charging more to use some types of content. They also want companies to ensure that other websites that might be in the same physical neighborhood as the one they are already using are not throttled so fast they are slow. - -So if these are just temporary changes, those who are against net neutrality should say those are insufficient. - -We also agree with President Obama that there are some areas the US government can't meddle in. For example, health care and education. - -But internet access is part of the US economy. Some of us should be concerned that the government might become more powerful than the people. What would happen if your internet provider started favoring one site over another? What if it became illegal to have an open internet? What if a private company could start blocking your access to some websites? - -What if you don't like something about the existing net neutrality law, or think there are better ways to fix it? Why should you let the government decide on it? - -We think there are better ideas for changing the current laws. One would be to try and change the law to encourage more competition in the industry by setting up some kind of public/private partnership. - -We think there are other ideas out there to change the laws and create healthier internet for everyone. So please share with us your own suggestions. - -You can find us and other interested people on -======================================== SAMPLE 196 ======================================== -A major theme of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was "Stronger Together" — a message both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have used to motivate their crowds, especially their young supporters. - -However, a recent Washington Post analysis found that Clinton had an advantage — roughly 1.5 million more pledged delegates than Bernie Sanders. Moreover, Clinton won 590 delegates outright; Bernie Sanders had 487; and 528 were allocated based on results from the remaining state caucuses. - -These results indicate that the race continues to be a coin toss as the two candidates battle for the pledged delegate count ahead of the convention's July 25th. Here are the numbers from the Post's analysis: - -For Clinton, that would represent a net increase of 0.07 percent from what Sanders would get for his pledged delegates and states combined. However, it would represent only 0.01 percent of the total number of pledged delegates. - -When we factor in the effect of superdelegates on the pledged delegate count, Clinton gets 0.066 percent more pledged delegates than Sanders in total with superdelegates taking account. - -In other words, Sanders gets roughly 3.5 million extra pledged delegates — about 1 percent of the 2016 total. - -As we've already observed, this does not necessarily mean Clinton is inevitable in the Democratic Party or will end up with the nomination in Philadelphia. Rather, as we have said before, the fight will go down to the wire in the weeks leading up to Philadelphia, making this the ideal time to evaluate the candidates' chances.<|endoftext|>The New York Fed said on Tuesday it has lowered its economic growth forecasts for 2017 and 2018, citing weaker-than-expected trade and consumer spending due to an aging workforce, and the impact of Trump's anti-trade rhetoric. - -The Fed's projections mark the first time it has reduced its outlook for growth next year, after it forecast an annual pace of 2.1% in 2017 and 3.2% in 2018. - -The cuts for 2017 were "largely a result of the adverse impact of global economic and financial developments on global trade and economic growth relative to the central bank's initial forecast," the New York Fed said in a statement. - -Related: The $45 billion Trump deficit - -The Fed is also projecting weaker growth in 2018 than the previous assessment, with annual growth reaching 2.4%, down from 2.7%. And the bank says the outlook is worsening because of rising uncertainty over the Trump administration's plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code. - -Ahead of the speech to Congress in May, the Fed warned the economy could face a negative shock from a U.S. infrastructure spending plan. Economists had forecast a slight slowdown in spending at the start of next year. - -Ahead of the speech, one Fed official speculated the speech would cause "considerable economic uncertainty, probably for a while and potentially more than a year." - -Related: Fed's Yellen: The real unemployment rate is a 'dwarf... and not 10% - -The Fed also lowered its forecast for inflation from 2.8% to 2.2%, due to more uncertainty regarding the Trump administration's plans to overhaul trade policy. - -In a research note, Wells Fargo economists, including Michael Gapen, Stephen Roach, and David Bloom, said this was the most serious downgrade since the Fed moved to raise rates in December 2015. - -"At 5.4% year over year, inflation appears to have already slipped back into the Fed's 'expect' range, and is also just barely in the 'neutral' range," the Wells Fargo economists said. - -Related: Trump won't be able to pass trillion dollars in tax cuts any time soon - -If the Fed is wrong in its prediction of a slowdown in economic growth, it could increase investors' fears. But it also could help keep inflation in check, which could give some comfort to the Fed. - -Gapen said this scenario would bring "some disquiet to the monetary policy committee." - -The bank also lowered its long-term inflation estimate from 3% to 2.5%, while raising its short-term inflation estimate from 1% to 1.5%. - -Gapen estimated the inflation outlook is still "considerably stronger than would be ideal, as the policy stance is still clearly accommodative in light of the economic growth projections and the projected path of the inflation rate."<|endoftext|>A Florida man has been indicted for making threats against the president's daughter. - -Ronald Jones III, 44, of Hollywood, Fla., had been accused of saying he would kill Malia Obama because the president's daughter "smelled like pot," according to prosecutors in the eastern district of New York. - -Mr Obama's teenage daughters — Malia, 13, and Sasha, 11 — have appeared in numerous pictures and videos posing with their father. - -Mr Obama has frequently joked about his daughters' love of school and "girl stuff".<|endoftext|>The -======================================== SAMPLE 197 ======================================== -BENGALURU: As the Indian space agency (ISRO) plans to boost its civilian workforce by 25% by June 2017, it has also been roped in by the local government to hire a few hundred junior employees to perform basic scientific and engineering support. The government has approved hiring of junior officials as part of an effort to improve the ISRO's workforce by 25%.An order from the Karnataka government to the Karnataka State Technical Educational Institutes (KSTIE) was issued on December 17 for the selection and recruitment of junior staff."As per the order, for the selection, an assessment of candidates is to be done including aptitude and experience. If the candidates are deemed fit, the selection will be finalised and the hiring will proceed," an official said. The recruitment period is from July 10 to October 15 in Bengaluru and from January 19 to March 20 in Mysuru. The first batch of 200-300 of the new Indian staff will be picked up.The decision is expected to generate jobs at an initial level of over 100, while the second phase will have about 2,000. It will, however, have to be completed by June 30 next year. The Karnataka state government has already asked students to participate in the process and it is also taking up a pilot project.On the issue of Indian astronauts, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan is currently out of the country. The agency is in the midst of preparing to send the first of its three planned missions in its next cycle, Mangalyaan. "It is in the process of finalising its schedule and a decision on the time of launch will be taken by May-June," a space agency source said.<|endoftext|>Possible reasons why this is happening?1. The last 4-5 days (with 2 of them being very early) have seen a huge spike in player activity - it is currently 10% higher when compared to normal. I don't believe this is due to the new expansion - there has been no massive influx of people playing.2. The average level on all realms is currently around 10. So this probably means that the game still has quite a bit of people to increase it.3. If you check the top bar there are players of each level. I would guess that this is related to this, as players of higher-level can still play lower level characters.<|endoftext|>As I sit here and write these words, the world seems about to come crashing down around my shoulders. I know how it will be. I was there. I know the agony as every ounce we've gained and every hope crumbled beneath that terrible new year; the uncertainty of a new year yet to come; the unknown as a new year without end and an uncertain future upon us. I know the struggle of coming to terms and the joy of knowing that it's all for the best; that we'll be all right; that we'll make this work. I know that the universe is on our side and I'm just the guy that's going to be going to work tomorrow; doing my best every day to make the best out of this. But sometimes, you just see it; you don't want to, you just see it – I'm going to get it, it's gone… I'm going to be in a coma and they're going to take me out on their big red plane. Or I'm going to meet up with my best friend and say a tearful goodbye – and that's as good as it's ever going to be. I'm going to have to go play catch with my best friend again. It's a scary game that I love playing but at some point in time, you don't stop and you're like "Well, how am I going to get through the day in the best shape possible without getting injured? If I get injured, my team is so sad; this feels wrong to do – what if we end up with an 8 seed in the tournament?" Well I've got a great plan to get us through this week and hopefully be in a great shape come next week. - -So that's me. That's being the underdog. I know what it's like – being one of those players that's supposed to be able to do much more. I know what that's like. I don't like being the underdog. I don't like to have my dreams and hopes crushed – I don't like to have my hopes and dreams dashed. I don't like to feel like we've got to be just a shadow of ourselves in order to have a chance to win. And it's like, what the hell? Why aren't people rooting for their team? You're a good person, how did it come to this? - -So now if you want to talk about the future and what's next for Dethklok, there's a whole world that's right in front of you… It's crazy, isn't it? How can someone who's been around for three years and a half and who you love uncond -======================================== SAMPLE 198 ======================================== -The National Security Action Memorandum, the document that authorizes secret surveillance, reveals that the government has the power to surveil Americans who have no connection to international terrorism. The memorandum, which has been reported on only sporadically, applies to "anyone" whom the government has "reason to suspect" of engaging, or is suspected of engaging, in certain terrorist activities. "This includes organizations, groups, and individuals involved in international terrorism or activities related to terrorism," the memorandum explains. - -In other words, the government has the power to surveil any American engaged in any kind of foreign or domestic activity that is deemed "suspicious" by its secret, classified interpretation of domestic activities that are considered "subversive." - -Such a broad definition of "terrorist activity" provides the justification for broad surveillance by the National Security Agency, including electronic intercepts of Americans' communications without their consent. - -"The purpose of the order is to protect the national security by promptly responding to suspected terrorist activity," the memorandum continues, noting that it is "only for the duration of the emergency and it is withdrawn at the earliest possible time." This is an extraordinary claim, intended to be an absolute bar against any further investigation of the surveillance. - -The memorandum provides another troubling explanation for the existence of the NSA's domestic spying apparatus. The document's preamble claims that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) was enacted after then-Senator Barack Obama threatened to filibuster the FISA bill "because it would undermine our ability to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States." - -President George W. Bush claimed that the FAA was motivated by the "vague provisions" of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA). The FAA, however, was not passed in response to CALEA, but rather a year after it expired — and its provisions were made permanent as part of the FAA. As the New York Times previously reported, it's the result of that "vagueness" that has allowed the NSA's expansive domestic spying program to flourish. - -Under the Obama administration, the NSA's activities have evolved into a "pervasive, pervasive" surveillance state, including its collection of virtually all domestic and international communications, according to the former senior Bush administration official. - -The memo, issued in 2008, was declassified on January 27. The FISA Court, under the direction of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), has allowed the agency to gather vast amounts of Americans' information. The new memorandum confirms that this process continues. - -The document also demonstrates that the NSA has no problem using its extraordinary powers to target and investigate members of political organizations that "pose a threat to national security." - -In addition to monitoring political opponents who may pose a "threat to national security," the NSA has maintained that it can monitor "a broad set of organizations that may otherwise be excluded from" the agency's surveillance powers, such as organizations that are "involved in terrorism or activities related to terrorism." - -Such a broad definition of "terrorist organization" gives the agency leeway to surveil and undermine the activities of any organization that poses a "threat to national security." This includes organizations that are not directly involved in terrorist activities, but whose members may engage in, train others in, or support political organizations engaged in "terrorist activities" that are seen as threatening to the American government. - -All American organizations, including these political organizations, are at risk of being monitored and surveilled by the NSA, in defiance of the Fourth Amendment. If an agency believes that it can target any Americans, regardless of their membership in an organization or connection to international terrorism, it can make such a declaration as part of its FISA applications — and the NSA, as a result, is permitted to collect any data that is relevant to "foreign intelligence" and "counterintelligence" investigations. The FISA Court has granted this authority to the NSA. - -The NSA can conduct electronic surveillance or electronic monitoring without a warrant, provided the government provides a "reasonable articulable suspicion" that the target is engaged in terrorism, or is a member of a terrorist organization. The NSA has applied this extremely broad interpretation of national security to many, if not all, Americans. - -A federal judge, in a landmark case, recently ruled that the NSA's practice of accessing and processing American's communications without a warrant and judicial review violates the Fourth Amendment. - -The ACLU filed a lawsuit for the release of 28 pages of secret law, detailing aspects of the NSA's operations. - -The court document revealed by The Guardian, and also included in our FOIA request, details a program in which the NSA intercepted the communications of foreign diplomats and attempted to infiltrate their phone companies so as to collect their private communications. The intelligence agency obtained permission to tap the diplomats' telephone and e-mail communications from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. - -The spying was conducted under the broad framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which gives the FISA Court an unprecedented power to authorize communications monitoring and -======================================== SAMPLE 199 ======================================== -On the heels of the most controversial moment in Game of Thrones' run, Sunday night's episode ended with a big reveal: Bran Stark is really Jon Snow, the bastard son of Ned and Ned's youngest child. The show's creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, immediately issued the following comment: "This has all been a long time coming — and even longer said than done — and we can't wait to share this big moment with all of you." - -A big moment — as the show has told us all season long, Bran and Jon are brothers, and the show knows this, even though the books don't explicitly tell them this. It's a big moment that has long drawn fan speculation, particularly in light of Jon's ambiguous parentage. Theories ranging from Ned and Ned's daughter, Lyanna Stark, who was taken by Rhaegar's forces to the Westerosi mainland with him, to the Starks themselves have speculated on whether this revelation will affect the course of the story. - -[Spoiler alert: We won't be spoiling this big moment.] - -Theories about that reveal range from the mundane ("What the hell is Bran really? This is great! He's finally a kid again!"), to the deeply philosophical ("This is pretty damn cool. I hope it continues in the books," says one commenter on the Hollywood Reporter's Thrones chat forum). But in the end, we won't know whether this episode ends Jon's war against the White Walkers, or the Red Wedding, with any kind of satisfying resolution. But I do know that many fans will be delighted, especially those who have been waiting for this scene for years. - -The moment in question comes when Daenerys and her allies finally arrive in Westeros, landing in Braavos. At the port, she's forced to give Rhaegar his sword, Aegon's Kiss, because he no longer exists in the Iron Throne's books. Then she's confronted by a woman who tells her the tale of her birth, and that the last of her family is still waiting for her to return. At first she's disgusted by it, but then she recognizes her long-lost mother, who tells her of how she was killed by her own brother. She says that her true children — her bastard children — are watching her and whispering in her ear. - -We don't know much about this woman apart from her description. At the end of last week's episode, she was identified by George R.R. Martin as Lyanna Stark, the eldest of all the Targaryens. It's possible that, much like her daughter, this woman is not Arya, or any of the other Stark children, but an other character in the series who will ultimately get revealed. The moment was, after all, the same moment that was used in the episode to reveal Ned's paternity. But the fact that her identity was kept secret, and that the revelation of her name and story would likely be greeted with much mirth among fans, only makes it more special. - -[Spoilers for Monday's episode ahead, if you haven't seen it already] - -Many fans of the novels are already excited about the possible reveal, saying that while the details of the revelation are currently unknown, the idea has long been bubbling below the surface. Even those without any knowledge of George R.R. Martin's source material have long suspected that Jon has Bran's DNA. And now, after seven years, after a major character died, at the moment we see him resurrected, we finally know that the reveal is true — and we're thrilled even if we don't get the big ending (and the possibility of a final Iron Throne-shaped bow). - -Before we talk about why we're all so excited about this reveal, though — and what fans should expect — let's briefly look at how the story that follows it could go down. - -When was the last time we saw Lyanna Stark? — and whether she'll be back. - -A lot of viewers got really excited about the story to follow Sunday night's episode, with much of the speculation revolving around how it might tie up the end of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga. The last we saw Lyanna was just before Ned Stark and the Starks arrived at the Tower of Joy during the second novel in the book series, A Storm of Swords. If the two novels are loosely adapted as a TV series (which they might have to be, since George R.R. Martin's current contract requires the author to finish the series by an unspecified deadline), that scene in A Storm of Swords is the last we've ever seen. - -Now, let's assume this scene took place in the last six books — six books are roughly the time frame between A Dance With Dragons and Thrones, the final two volumes of the series. A Storm of Swords was published in 2001, while Thrones came out in 2011. Therefore, a story involving -======================================== SAMPLE 200 ======================================== -Losing weight: Not the easy way - - -The way many people lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. But this won't keep them weight off – it won't even slow the rate at which they go off sugar. - -A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that dieters who stuck to strict low-calorie diets in the face of a sugar-sweetened beverage restriction had no more weight-loss success than those who switched their calories to non-caloric beverages. - -"This raises some concerns about people cutting back on sugar-sweetened beverages," says Dr. Deborah Blumberg, a dietitian who co-wrote the article. "Our study is a reminder that they can't be the only choice. They do have an impact. If you're on a diet to lose weight, you should limit your consumption of sugar," she says. - -The findings build on previous research that has found that there's just no evidence showing that dieters who cut back completely on sugary drinks can lose weight. But previous studies show that cutting back just a little bit on sugars – and then keeping it that way – can have a big impact. - -The current study looked at the effects of six weeks of daily caloric restriction or switching diet types, in which participants were cut back a little bit on sugar-sweetened beverages but kept their calories from those drinks the same. The authors found that those who stuck with an 8 percent reduction in calories from sugary drinks actually lost an average of one pound less over the six weeks than those in a different group who reduced their sugary beverages by 8 percent. - -But the benefits didn't seem to persist for six weeks. - -"I wanted to see if the weight would come off or the weight loss still be there after six weeks," says Dr. Linda Bacon, a professor of nutrition sciences. "It didn't seem like the study group would make any difference at the six-week mark, the same as it didn't seem like any benefit is being maintained over six weeks." - -What's more, when the groups were switched, the participants who had switched to non-caloric beverages also reported that they were losing weight but not retaining their weight loss. And among the group that continued to restrict sugary sodas, none of the participants had regained their lost weight. - -For the researchers, it could mean some people would be better off sticking with a diet high in fruit and vegetables. "That said, a high fruit and vegetable consumption will also increase the risk of weight gain," Blumberg says. - -The current study was small and didn't fully explain why weight loss in the low-calorie group failed to last beyond a month. The study didn't control for the participants' eating habits or activity levels prior to the study, so there is the potential that other factors – like health conditions or medications – were responsible. - -More research is needed to determine how long the benefits from restricting sugary drinks remain. - -The American Heart Association recommends adults who eat at least 2,000 calories a day – just over 600 from sugary drinks – to limit intake of added sugars to no more than 5 percent of total calories. They also encourage people on diets to choose whole grains and fruits.<|endoftext|>The World of the Dao, Volume 1 - -Annotated Bibliography - -J.W. Davies - -1. Introduction: - -The Dao, or Great Way , is the foundation of all the great religions of the world. As far as ancient Chinese thought is concerned, there is not one religion which has not, at one time or another, recognized the Dao, or Great Way, as the source of religious, philosophical, and ethical knowledge, and of the true and the good. Its authority in the great Chinese tradition goes back to at least the 3rd century BC, when Wu Chengwei, the founder of the School of Shu , and Liu Hsia , the founder of the School of Zen , both stated it as their source. Thus they were both not only the first to recognize the Dao as the core of Chinese thought; they also were the first to claim the original state of things was the Dao. - -While Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism may share the same concept of "greatest and most perfect" reality, but they differ in all other important aspects. Confucianism and Taoism both stress the value of action. While Confucianism is concerned with action or the achievement of success in life; Taoism stresses the role of thought. Furthermore, Confucianism is concerned with maintaining discipline for the good of your family and your clan, while Taoism has a much more altruistic aspect. This is illustrated in the two quotes below: - -The true Tao is the Way . - -In the universe, the principle of nonaction is the greatest virtue, not the way. This is what is called the "Dao of Nonaction -======================================== SAMPLE 201 ======================================== -The National Football League (NFL) and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) have launched a new joint venture called the "Coaching Education Fund," which has been created to promote the benefits of the NFL and NFL's coaching education programs to the youth of America. The joint venture will focus on a number of issues facing the game with respect to education, education reform, and NFL and NFLPA education support programs. - -On July 1, 2013, in consultation with former and current NFL coaches, current and former NFLPA head officials and college coaching directors, NFL and NFLPA officials will convene in California to focus on a number of issues facing the game that focus on "education reform, education support, student-athlete health/safety and education support programs in football, with an emphasis on supporting and promoting the importance of teaching the fundamentals of football." - -In a press release, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith indicated what some of his priorities will be at this joint venture: - -"Over the years, I've heard repeatedly that our sport has a lot of misconceptions about how good we need to be as a society. We need to make the game safer," NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said. "That is why the NFLPA will be holding a joint venture for the first time to help bring an end to head-to-head tackling. "There are two things that are hurting, not helping, the game of football," Smith continued. "One is the culture that encourages head hitting in a game of football. The second is in-game coaching. Teaching the fundamentals of football need to be made more accessible, more available to young people. "Teaching the fundamentals of football means teaching young men how to block, move, hit, cover and tackle. If you do not teach them these things, how can a person become a great player in football? How can a player have the potential to become great if they do not practice these fundamentals? "The NFL and NFLPA's vision of a positive and positive impact on player health and safety is something we want to continue to push for and make our message the same across all professional sports." - -A number of issues will be discussed at the joint venture: - --The need to teach children and youth how to play the game safely, especially in tackling situations that are prevalent in youth football. - --Child abuse in the NFL, including the rise in concussions in recent years. - --The importance of teaching children how to hit with technique and correct technique, rather than simply body impact hitting. - --The role of the Head Coach as the primary educator in educating youth. - --The need for a player union leadership role with regards to youth and youth coaches. - --Teaching youth to know what is expected of them and how they are expected to perform. - --The need of educating coaches and training staff on the importance of teaching the fundamentals. - -Coaches, coaches' spouses, NFL employees on- or off-the-field, and youth will be invited to attend the two-day meeting in conjunction with the creation of both the NFLCoachingEffort.com website, the first education portal for NFL coaches and staff, and the NFL and NFLPA Educators Forum (PESF). (Visit NFLCoachingEffort.com for a link to register for a free account.) - -"We appreciate the opportunity and support provided by the NFL and the NFLPA to explore ways to improve the overall health and safety of youth football," stated David Borst, NFLPA COO. "We look forward to this initiative with the support of the NFL and NFL coaches, as well as the continued support of the game's youth, coaches, players and parents." - -The first two NFLCoachingEffort.com educational portals, which will be launched over the course of the week, will provide access to the NFL's latest concussion protocols and updates concerning head trauma in football. The other NFL-related education portal will serve to educate parents and youth about the ways in which sports participation can increase their participation in physical activity, and help them reduce the incidence of injury and chronic conditions. - -"Our players, coaches, staff members and our fans all rely on us to work with them and support them as they reach their health and athletic development objectives," said NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jeffrey Miller. "Our joint initiative with the NFLPA will provide a great opportunity for us to provide information and education to all youth, coaches and players who may be looking to learn more about the risks and benefits posed by head injuries. The joint venture is not only designed to educate the American youth of American football, but it will help us understand what is really needed to make it safer for sports participation." - -To find out more about the topics at this joint venture visit the NFLCoachingEffort.com website (www.NFLCoachingEffort.com) and the NFLPA Educators Forum (P -======================================== SAMPLE 202 ======================================== -[F4M] Fucking the teacher [Mdom] [JOI] [Virgin] [Incest] [Masturbation] [Age] [Blowjob] [Facial] [Spanks] [Fucking] [Incest] [Teaching] [Kissing] [Anal] [Rape] [MILF] [Ride home] [MILF] [Misc] [A little tease at the end. -LolitaLove] I've always wanted to be a teacher. Just me and this cute little student. I'm supposed to get her a report, but first I have to make her squirm… [laugh] I love this guy. Always seems to come over to my room. I could never get him to say anything with his thick accent, but he loves fucking with my pussy… I'll let you in on all this so you can take a peek. [slight warning] Oh… he's got a smile on his face. He seems to love the idea of me being a teacher. You know… a dirty girl like me, who's always moaning and trying to tell him to be off, he always begs me to be his teacher, my teacher, to teach him how to jerk off… I've been thinking about this all afternoon. Maybe he's right… maybe I can make him cum… [laugh] What? Your cock is hard again? You've been fantasizing about this all day? Well… your turn. [slight teasing] You get naked, jerk that hard little cock and make me cum with your mouth! [laugh] If you want to kiss me, do it. I always feel better when I can feel your tongue, your lips, your cock. Make me cum, and then go home while you lick your lips. That's the idea. [slight warning] I didn't want you to cum from me… but if you have to, do it. I want a better report… [giggle] I've always wanted you to do that. So, here's the report. [giggling] You did great, you were patient, attentive and really loved listening to the little kid. I bet you enjoyed it… [giggled] [teasing now] What about you? Did you love your teacher? I would love to hear about it… because you got that report. I mean, if we're being honest… you probably got a little wet. But if that's your only fault… fine… you get your report. I've got another report, though. Would you like to hear about it too? [giggling] You like that, don't you? I want you to think about your teacher, while I talk about myself. [giggling] Don't worry, you don't have to say anything… I don't want to hear anything but encouragement. I really like to hear that you're gonna cum when I'm done. That could be just the thing to push you over the edge. [giggling] If that sounds good to you… well, then, come back and look over your homework. You can give it to me anytime. Do you like it? Did you get every letter right? I see I've made you think… and that's always satisfying. - -Do You Want to Cum and Learn [F4M][JOI][Vanilla][Anal][Virginity] [Virgin] [Teacher] [Masturbation] [Age] [Blowjob] [Facial] [Spanks] [Fucking] [Incest] [Teaching] [Kissing] [Anal] [Rape] [MILF] [Ride home] [MILF] [Misc] [A little tease at the end. -LolitaLove] I've always wanted to be a teacher. Just me and this cute little student. I'm supposed to get her a report, but first I have to make her squirm… [laugh] I love this guy. Always seems to come over to my room. I could never get him to say anything with his thick accent, but he loves fucking with my pussy… I'll let you in on all this so you can take a peek. [slight warning] Oh… he's got a smile on his face. He seems to love the idea of me being a teacher. You know… a dirty girl like me, who's always moaning and trying to tell him to be off, he always begs me to be his teacher, my teacher, to teach him how to jerk off… I've been thinking about this all afternoon. Maybe he's right… maybe I can make him cum… [laugh] What? Your cock is hard again? You've been fantasizing about this all day? Well… your turn. [slight teasing] You get naked, jerk that hard little cock and make me cum with your mouth! -======================================== SAMPLE 203 ======================================== -On Saturday, November 3, 2017, a man entered the office of the Washington State Elections Division in Olympia, Wash., and announced the following: - -We are in full compliance with the voter registration deadline. Thank you for bringing your registration card and a photo of your voter registration card to the office. - -He then displayed his driver's license to verify his identity and issued a voter registration card. He then left. - -The Washington State Elections Division's website indicates that the state will send each registered voter a notice of registration within four days of the close of registration on the last day to register to vote in Washington State's presidential election, November 6. In order to receive notice, voters must complete a voter registration information form and submit it to the Washington State Elections Division (e-mail: Vote.Wash.E.D@Washington.Gov; telephone number: 360-586-2330). Voters should also be aware that, if they have not provided the required information, they may not be able to register, and may not be able to use their registration to vote by absentee ballot (which is available for most voter registration forms). - -If, after filling out the voter registration form, a voter is still not registered, the Washington State Elections Division will issue a Voter Registration Information Notice (VRIN) (e-mail: Vote.Wash.E.D@Washington.Gov; telephone number: 360-586-2330) to a voter that does not provide all requested information about himself or herself. If the Washington State Elections Division receives multiple VRINs from a voter, it will review each VRIN for errors before providing notice. - -Information regarding the election and voting process may be obtained by visiting www.Elections.wi.gov. Voter registration forms are available by mail, in person or by telephone. The Washington State Elections Division is required by law to post the registration and voting dates on its website. - -If you believe a potential fraud has occurred and you know your information, please do not hesitate to contact the Washington State Elections Division at 360-586-2330 or by e-mail at Vote.Wash.E.D@Washington.Gov . Or, you may also call the Washington State Elections Division at 360-586-2775. - -If you have an outstanding warrant for your arrest and are unable to obtain a ride to the elections division in Olympia, WA, you may also contact the Washington State Sheriffs Office at 360-586-2550. - -Voter information is available from the Washington State Elections Division for free, on this page and from our free voter registration mobile app, available for download. You may also complete and submit a VRIN by visiting www.Elections.wi.gov. Voters should also be aware that, if they have not provided the required information, they may not be able to register, and may not be able to use their registration to vote by absentee ballot (which is available for most voter registration forms). - -### - -The secretary of state is required under the Washington State Constitution to administer elections in the state. If you have any questions about voting on Election Day or registering to vote on Election Day, or would like to notify the secretary of state of any potential problems regarding the integrity of the election process, you may complete a voter registration application online at this website, or by calling 360-586-2330. - -State laws and regulations can be accessed on this website via a password protected page or by calling (360) 686-2330.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Air Force has in the last week, been awarded several contracts on an undisclosed number of F-35A fighter jets: - -1) The first contract was for $10.2 million for "production design services to integrate an F-35A aircraft with the Joint Strike Fighter to determine the suitability of the F-35A to perform its planned mission packages, in connection with the F-35 production." - -The contract was awarded to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and was expected to be for at least three months but is likely to extend for about two years. - -2) A contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin for the initial delivery of 100 combat ready F-35As, plus additional aircraft ordered in two to three years time. This contract involves two different contracts: - -"The contract was awarded to LMT, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. It will provide, as part of a multi-year effort, integration and planning services for development, engineering, and manufacturing services and logistics to the U.S. Air Force on development of F-35C Block 2B aircraft. The LMT-N Grazier Joint Program Office will develop and manage program support and logistics for the aircraft. F-35 aircraft and related parts will be supported under the LMT-N subcontracts with Raytheon." (Source: Lockheed Martin) - -3) The second contract is for $8.8 -======================================== SAMPLE 204 ======================================== -When we see an image or video, our visual memory is triggered to think about what we saw. This is all happening non-consciously, and is called a neural phenomenon referred to as imagery . - -You can experience imagery without consciously seeing or thinking anything about it, just by thinking about it. Just like how a person may be reminded that the back of her hand is blue, the brain can be reminded of images through neural pathways, even when we are not consciously aware of them. - -This may be because we are all trained to associate the images or sensations we get as triggers with certain words or concepts, or based on some physiological process. - -However, some people are just more visual than others. Some of them can become so good at looking at things, we have no idea they are being reminded of visual input.<|endoftext|>CAMBRIDGE (CBS) — Cambridge police are investigating after reports of a stolen car were found on University Avenue. - -It happened just after 3 a.m. Monday as a man was walking home near Washington Street and University Avenue. - -A Cambridge police spokesman said the car was reported stolen from the 1100 block of College Street. - -A Cambridge police officer saw the vehicle, but stopped after they got off of University Avenue because of the traffic. - -While they were stopped, officers saw a man hiding from the officer inside the crashed car and tried to detain him for police activity. The Cambridge detective who arrived on the scene shot the suspect and he was found to have stolen items inside the car. - -They are still looking for the victim.<|endoftext|>In the past few months, the Republican Party has shown itself to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to discrimination against the LGBTQ community and its right to engage in sexual activity. It is nothing short of shameful for a political party that claims to be the party of equal rights to stand behind politicians like Roy Moore, who has taken a public stance against LGBTQ rights, and Alabama Senate candidate, who has repeatedly made statements about his opposition to equal rights for LGBTQ people. The time for the Republicans to step back from their homophobia, sexism and bigotry, and start respecting the LGBTQ community is now . It is time for the GOP to make a serious effort to show their support for the LGBTQ community and to oppose any action that would take us back in time. I propose a simple solution. If the Republican Party wants to have any chance of winning in Alabama, they should drop their support for Roy Moore and his disgusting anti-LGBTQ stance. - -The Alabama Senate election is coming up on December 12. Many people wonder what impact it would have when you start getting rid of a handful of state Senate seats. The answer is that it would have a significant impact. For the last 4-8 years, the Republicans have had a majority in the House of Representatives due to gerrymandering and because of the fact that the Republicans run the majority of House races across the country, they control the redistricting process. In a normal election cycle, this means the Democrats, who tend to win more elections, control their House votes and control their redistricting process. This was not the case this last two years, however, due to the fact that the Republicans and their Senate majority took advantage of the fact that no Democrat won a single Senate race in 2012 to rig the redistricting process. - -They did exactly this. The Republicans drew gerrymandered lines, so the Democrats would only have 51 seats. The Republicans would be forced to keep winning 50%+1 of the vote to stay in power. This is exactly what has happened. Due to the House redrawing, the GOP now controls the redistricting process, and this allows them to control the seats. The Senate is one of the few remaining democratic institutions left in this country. They still have an enormous amount of power over who represents them. The Senate is the chamber where they send their own Supreme Court members. Without the power of the Senate, Trump and the Republicans are forced to choose between the will of the voters, and the Supreme Court. And when the Supreme Court issues a ruling against Trump or his party, or when they put a friend's or relative's rights above women having control over their own bodies and reproductive lives, we may see just how far they will go when it comes to their hatred of LGBTQ people. - -It is time for the Republican Party to grow some balls and drop Roy Moore as their Senate candidate.<|endoftext|>The government of Israel is making every effort to ensure that the Arab-Israeli citizens of the state are happy in their state, with a new ad campaign aimed at improving lives for the Arab community throughout the country. - -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given a press conference after the launch of the "We want to live with you" campaign, which aims to convince Arab Israeli citizens that their well-being is important for them. He said that "the Arab citizens of Israel are the most numerous in our country, the most patriotic, most patriotic, most loyal citizens of the -======================================== SAMPLE 205 ======================================== -The University of North Carolina is at the frontlines of a heated debate over the rights of transgender students. But when I visited the school, I saw nothing that would suggest the debate is anywhere close to over. - -Instead, I found a sprawling campus with a student population that is almost equally split along gender lines, and a campus increasingly polarized by a series of clashes between conservative evangelical Christians and progressive, secular faculty and administrators. Most of the students I was talking to were from conservative families. They were from high-poverty neighborhoods. They came from religious families, and many of them were from evangelical churches – the school's spiritual center. - -The only visible differences between conservative students and those from other schools or social groups were the differences in their dress and speech, their social status (the richer ones tended to have more money). - -The campus is surrounded by a sea of giant, multi-colored Confederate flags that symbolize the southern secessionists of the early 20th century. To this day, their banners are ubiquitous on public property and at every event. They were flown at the North Carolina Legislative Building during the special session that led to the state's House Bill 2, a law that, among other things, bans transgender students and employees from using restrooms corresponding to their gender identity. - -The controversy surrounding that law reached new, high-level national prominence last weekend when Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, praised it during a private meeting with lawmakers. - -In many ways, my visit was predictable from a sense of what North Carolina has become. The state's leaders have fought tooth and nail to be a leader for "protecting our values," as Gov. Pat McCrory (R) said in a speech on the floor of the legislature on March 29. The idea had been a bipartisan one, in the early '90s. Then, after Republican Gov. Jim Hunt (R) made a mistake and appointed Democratic lawmakers to his cabinet, Republican legislative leaders worked to undo the mistake, first pushing a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage in the state and later banning "sex" from employment protections. - -The battle over the bathroom law made the stakes even higher, in ways that go beyond the symbolism of the Confederate flag and the debate over academic freedom. "When we talk about protecting your rights, we need to get these rights right," McCrory told the Charlotte Observer. "We don't get to do it half-way." - -North Carolina is a state that has already been designated one of the nation's most conservative, thanks to McCrory's policies. The state's unemployment rate ticked up to 8 percent last year as North Carolina passed some of the harshest anti-LGBT legislation in the country. The state's economy suffered from a decline in tourism, the closure of hundreds of textile mills, a sharp erosion in the tax base, and the loss of nearly $3 billion in annual revenue. - -As a result, even with the massive drop in the state's employment outlook, Republicans in Charlotte were quick to blame the government for not doing enough to promote "responsible and stable lifestyles." One bill would have barred transgender students from using the bathroom that matched their gender identity, while other bills in the legislature would have limited bathroom access for transgender people and, in one case, prevented cities from passing "common sense" ordinances like allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity. - -The legislature's efforts were widely condemned by activists, business interests and government officials. In his State of the State address, Gov. McCrory pointed to the economic benefits his administration has been able to draw from the state: - -A recently released state report showed that the North Carolina's economy has outperformed every other state in the South by an extraordinary margin. In addition to North Carolina's highly skilled workforce and world-class universities, this report shows we have the most productive workforce in the country. North Carolina is an example of how a business-friendly regime has attracted businesses like Google to locate here while still protecting employee rights and promoting environmental protection. - -The state's economy does have its problems, and they have been caused at least in part by a lack of education funding and liberal policies. But it's impossible to ignore the fact that North Carolina's policies are also at the root of most of its problems. McCrory claims that some of his policies have helped to keep the unemployment rate low. But North Carolina has one of the biggest income gaps in the country. According to a Brookings Institution report from 2015, more than a quarter of high school graduates (27 percent) are functionally illiterate, compared with 8 percent of middle school graduates and 3 percent of college graduates. In a state with so many unemployed young adults, the effects of that are serious. - -When I asked a number of students why they felt threatened by transgender people, most noted the effects the policy had had on friends of theirs, for example. Another student told me, "I was friends with a transgender girl who is now in college. When -======================================== SAMPLE 206 ======================================== -I read some things like this to you. - -We're not living in the old days. - -We were in the old days. - -But today, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. - -And the world has to realize that we don't need those big guns any more. - -Because if they shoot us, then the world is going to live in fear forevermore. - -Because there will never be another war to break those peace loving, peaceful people of this earth. - -I know that you hear that now, but don't forget what happened in 2008. - -And then in 2012. - -They're like, "yeah, but we all know it was all the good old days once." - -But I got news for you. - -If there ever was a good, old time for something like that, it was over a hundred years ago. - -And they can call the Civil War "good." - -But when the world was better—well, it didn't last. - -And they can do the same with the First and Second World Wars. - -And the Vietnam War. - -Because they were. - -We're in bad times, and we're seeing the beginning of the end of a bad time. - -And we've got to think about the future of this generation, and it's scary and scary because we can't let them see us as weak. - -We can't let them see us as scared. - -We're going to get through this, because we've got to believe that we're all the same. Not going to go for the easy route. - - -The first step is to see that our way of life is strong because it is strong. - -It's not some newfangled thing. - -It's the foundation on which your way of life—your whole way of life—is built. - -And we need to make sure that it doesn't come crashing down tomorrow. - -Let it last as long as it's worth it—because it may not be worth it tomorrow. - -And then we can look forward to the better times that are coming our way. - -As long as they're called "now." - -And I'm gonna tell you something about "now"—when it comes right into this sentence, it is totally fine. - -I can see it. - -For you get used to this now. - -It's like a rock that was dropped in a bottomless place—and you have to come up and get it. - -And they tell you that you can't climb the mountain if you can't see the valley. - -Well, I'm telling you that you can do whatever you want, but if you don't get it right the first, second, or hundredth time you just got to get away from the mountain. - -You're a bird of prey, you can't stay on its eggshell forever. - -The rock is always there to make sure you see it through. - -Yeah, but I'm telling you—the real work doesn't start until you see the valley. And a whole other world. - -And if you just keep doing what's on this page until it's right, you'll see the valley and you'll want to be there. - -And you'll start getting the rest. - -And when it's right, the rest will come. - -Because if you don't get it the first, second, or hundredth time, it's never going to get right. - -If it doesn't get right, it's never going to be there. - -I see a lot of stuff in this book and I hear a lot more than I read. - -I'm still learning like hell. - -I just have to continue to do my research, work my butt off, and then get my hands dirty. - -And then I tell you about the stuff I learn when I do my hands dirty. - -And you can make me the best friend you've ever had. That's why I'm here. - - -I need you to take the other path. - -Do you want people to know what you're really about and what you really stand for? - -Do you want to stand for something stronger? - -To be your own true version? - -Take the other path. - -Do you want to be a man or woman of honor? - -Don't get married early. Don't settle. - -Don't give up. - -Be good to each other, be kind to each other, be gentle to each other. - -Be real to each other, not because of this. - -You can do it because of this. - -All of it you will do if you are real, and you are real because you are here. - -And when you're real to each other, you'll be real to -======================================== SAMPLE 207 ======================================== -"He is the most powerful man in Saudi Arabia, and he can do whatever he wants to do - just ask the Israelis. It took them more than 40 years of a brutal invasion to get the West Bank." - -He then claimed that Saudi Arabia wanted to take control of all of Israel in exchange for peace "with no concessions". - -"He wants to have a peace deal with the Palestinians where he controls all of Israel, a demilitarised Palestinian state, and then we will withdraw our troops," he said. - -"All he needs is a small Israeli settlement on the land he wants to control, and with his help, he will get it - it will never happen. - -"And he said to the Israelis that 'We will keep Gaza for you'." - -He also called for the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 border, and said that the "Palestinian issue is not really about the 1967 borders; there is another one." - -"We cannot accept that Israel will have a single square kilometre of Palestinian land," he said. "We have to create a Palestinian state on the 1967 border. - -"Then the Israelis, for example, they don't like it, but as long as they don't have control of Gaza, it (a Palestinian state) is impossible." - -Mr Trump's speech, which lasted well over two hours, saw him praise his predecessor as president, Mr Obama, before he declared his decision to launch a military strike against Syria's government, which was criticised by allies. - -He continued: "I'm sending an open message to the world that the United States of America is ready to strike military targets of the Assad regime, but this mission is not about going after Assad. - -"This mission is to eliminate the evil of radical Islamic terrorism, and to leave Syria in peace, on which there can be no lasting peace without peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians." - -He then accused President Obama of taking America "off course" during his presidency. - -"He made a terrible mistake by starting a military action in Libya without any UN approval and then he was forced to pay a very expensive price," he said. - -"He also failed to see what was happening in Syria. We all saw what happened in Egypt. All the problems there led to the horrible turmoil." - -"So it was the president who started wars without cause, without support of Congress and in many instances in a very very wrong way. When will President Obama realise that his legacy consists of four more years and the destruction of our country?" - -Shape Created with Sketch. World news in pictures Show all 50 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. World news in pictures 1/50 30 September An Albanian man casts his vote at a polling station in the village of Zajas on September 30, 2018, for a referendum to re-name the country. - Macedonians cast ballots on September 30 on whether to re-name their country North Macedonia, a bid to settle a long-running row with Greece and unlock a path to NATO and EU membership AFP/Getty 2/50 29 September Residents trying to salvage belongings from their homes which collapsed after an earthquake and tsunami hit Palu on Sulawesi island on September 29, 2018. - Nearly 400 people were killed when a powerful quake sent a tsunami barrelling into the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, officials said on September 29, as hospitals struggled to cope with hundreds of injured and rescuers scrambled to reach the stricken region. AFP/Getty 3/50 28 September Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a press conference in Berlin. Erdogan's official state visit has been met with protests EPA 4/50 27 September Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters AP 5/50 26 September Members of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) search for victims after a building collapsed in New Delhi killing five people, the latest incident highlighting India's poor urban planning and construction AFP/Getty 6/50 25 September US golfer Tiger Woods tees off during a practice session ahead of the 42nd Ryder Cup at Le Golf National Course at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, south-west of Paris AFP/Getty 7/50 24 September President Donald Trump and US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, talk with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres during the General Assembly at UN Headquarters AP 8/50 23 September Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed that his country is "ready to confront America", following an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz in which 25 people were killed. The attack has been blamed by Iranian government and military officials on gulf states that are allied with the US AP 9/50 22 September Pakistan has invited Saudi Arabia to become a partner in the Beijing funded Belt and Road scheme that will improve and expand Pakistan's infrastructure. -======================================== SAMPLE 208 ======================================== -The National Security Agency (NSA) may have been monitoring President Barack Obama's personal email accounts for years. The news was first reported by The New York Times on Thursday. - -On Friday, a number of news outlets, including CNN and the Wall Street Journal, reported on the new details. The Times published part of its story — titled "The N.S.A. Collects and Seizes Millions of Phone Records a Day" — under the headline, "[A]s far as anyone knows it's never been done before." - -"No American has ever seen the N.S.A. collecting records on hundreds, if not thousands, of people at a time," the report read. "According to one former intelligence agency official, it was not until a few weeks ago, after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the Obama administration, that N.S.A. officials were even aware that the program existed." - -The administration was reportedly unaware that the program existed until April 11, when an administration official was asked if the agency had indeed "incidentally collected" any records on "lawful U.S. persons" and specifically about "President Obama." - -The Times adds that the president is not the only one who has been subject to the NSA's surveillance. "If Obama and his aides had known their emails were being collected, they would have attempted to use another account," the report said, referring to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and General David Petraeus, according to former agency officials. - -The Washington Post cited other former intelligence officials who confirmed that the monitoring of "a small portion" of the U.S. population was an NSA standard practice. - -"I can't think of anyone who was targeted for any particular reason other than it was something that we had been asked to do," Andrew M. Inglis, a former deputy director of the NSA and one of the agency's most prominent members, told the Post. - -The report by the Times follows the Guardian's disclosure Friday that the agency has had "a secret court order for years compelling phone companies to turn over huge amounts of personal data from their customers on an ongoing daily basis." - -"The scale of the N.S.A.'s database is so vast that there is no reasonable way for the agency to know exactly which phone numbers it is seeking," the Guardian reported. - -The Times article noted that "this program has also been questioned by Republican members of Congress." - -According to the Times, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia told The Washington Post last year that he "was troubled by the disclosure of the N.S.A.'s telephone number database, which he acknowledged 'inadvertently' collects the records of almost everyone in America." - -In response, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in July of this year that the National Security Agency was not "targeting individuals domestically."<|endoftext|>For Immediate Release, June 28, 2016 Contact: Zachary Bail, (510) 707-4457, zbail[at]prodeathpenalty.org - -Nationally, more prisoners than ever are on death row - -More than 1,750 people are currently being held in state prisons and federal prisons, each holding people for the death penalty. In California alone, 603 people are on death row and another 49 people are on death row in federal prisons. - -The total annual number of executions in U.S. history has been roughly 2,850. This year so far, there have been 514 executions. Of those that have occurred in the U.S., 7 people have died. - -"It is clear that California has a large death row population with no end in sight," said Zachary Bail, director of the Pro-Death Penalty National Prisons Project. "The state must address this situation immediately by putting in place safeguards to prevent even more people from being put to death, and must also eliminate the racial overrepresentation of people of color in these prisons, which is particularly egregious." - -This year, the death penalty has been at the forefront of the national debate over racial justice in the United States. Since the 2014 death of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. While national opinion polls show that a majority of Americans reject the death penalty in all settings, a majority of whites—and a minority of blacks—still support it. - -Bail's group is an American delegation to the UN Human Rights Council's periodic review session of the Universal Periodic Review of States, the United Nations body responsible for monitoring whether states meet the standards for human rights and rule of law. The delegation's mission to the UN Human Rights Council is an outgrowth of Bail's and other activists' work to reform the U.S. death penalty. - -In its Universal Periodic Review, the HRC sets forth -======================================== SAMPLE 209 ======================================== -"He [Pierce] is doing very well and it is great for him to have the national anthem here. - -"A lot of people like playing football. Unfortunately, he is a very big man and they are playing him too. - -"It is important for the players to know that you are not alone. The national anthem is not something for one person, it is a group of people and what we did was respectful. - -"We have respect for the flag and for those who have sacrificed so much for the flag. We don't care what color you are, you have a sacrifice for the flag" - -The team was not made aware of the flag-waving until they were in the tunnel after an hour's break. - -"We just went through a drill," said Gomes. "We are all aware of the flag. It is a big deal and we respect it. - -"It is a special thing for everybody and not just the players. To go to a football match of that size is great for the team. - -"We are all part of this great game and the game day will be fun." - -After the game, coach Eddie McGuire said: "It [Pierce] is probably one of the best at what he does. - -"He has the respect of the players and he wants to play the rugby league games." - -Pierce is on a five-match NRL suspension for a late tackle on Sydney Roosters skipper Paul Gallen. - -The 31-year-old, who was on the bench for the Roosters' last game against Parramatta, has been granted a reprieve after being cleared by the NRL judiciary. - -The NRL issued a statement confirming that the judiciary had deemed Pierce had not intended to harm Gallen with a tackle. - -"The match review committee has determined that the incident should have warranted a grade one striking offence to reduce the player's grade and grade two engaging in rough conduct," said the statement. - -"In consideration for Paul's age and the seriousness of the incident, a grade one offence has been assessed in accordance to the NRL's guidelines for Grade and rough conduct offence. - -"The incident was not referred to the NRL judiciary for further assessment. We have communicated that determination to the player and his management." - -Pierce can appeal.<|endoftext|>I'm working on a script for using the OpenCV library for image synthesis. Currently, I can compute the final image using several images. But I'm looking for ways to reduce the number of frames. How can I do this using an image input stream? Is it possible to implement in the code using C++? Or can I just use an image library? Thank you!!!! - -EDIT - -I have implemented an image class here: http://code.google.com/p/opencv-image/downloads/list If there is interest, I may implement a more complicated version that performs a more advanced image analysis, but let me know if you are interested.<|endoftext|>A group of hackers who used the hacker alias "Phantom" in targeting Sony on Nov. 21 and December 16, and who have previously gone after Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook have apparently switched their tools to a new group known as the "TrueSec." - -The hackers' first targets were financial institutions (i.e., JPMorgan Chase (JPM)), including the company's headquarters in Manhattan, New York, in an email to a JPMorgan Chase executive. They then moved on to media organizations, including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Onion, The New York Times, Fox and NPR, to obtain more emails, including personnel records (including for employees' spouses and children) and data pertaining to Sony, in an all-points bulletin targeting financial firms. - -This new group, TrueSec, is comprised of an assortment of hackers who hack various targets in exchange for financial compensation, according to reports in Der Spiegel, The Sydney Morning Herald and other publications. According to a report by Motherboard, "the group's modus operandi is much more advanced" than that of Phantom, a hacker who made the acquaintance of the group in 2014. - -Motherboard reports that the group has been responsible for several high profile hacks, including that of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the biggest hack ever, in 2015, and a huge breach of Ashley Madison, one of the world's largest dating sites. (The website was reportedly compromised earlier this year, leading to the leak of more than 37 million user records.) - -Motherboard says "TrueSec," who allegedly hacked U.S. financial firms in October 2015 and in 2016, has so far been behind a few high profile hacks, including that of Sony, in which hackers claim to have obtained nearly 80 gigabytes of sensitive data, including internal email accounts and film and television plots. (Sony is reportedly seeking a $40 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the FBI after -======================================== SAMPLE 210 ======================================== -The following is a list of characters in the American film series Godzilla. - -Contents show] - -Toho Godzilla Edit - -Toho Godzilla (ゴジラギドラン) is Japanese version of Godzilla from the movie Monsters, directed by Ishiro Honda and released in 1954. - -An official Godzilla (ゴジラギドラ) was released on DVD in 1999 by Toho and the American video game companies Atari and Hasbro. It is also available on Blu-Ray disc, with high definition, and digitally in high definition from the video game company Retro Studios under the title "The King of the Monsters - Toho Godzilla". - -The character was first introduced in a TV series called Godzilla: Kaijū no Gyakushū in 1964, and the character was first seen in a live-action film version in 1959 with Hiroshi Teshigahara in the title role. The film is now considered to be one of the most influential Japanese live-action films of all time. The film was later followed by the TV series in 1964, which was later followed by a live-action film version of it, as well as several TV specials and two Godzilla feature films including the first and last one, and the other two films as well, each of which were based on the film. - -For some reason, Toho also decided to rename his movie version of Godzilla as "Godzilla Kaijū no Gyakushū", or simply "Godzilla" in English. The film was also renamed and re-released in North America again as Godzilla: Final Wars (ゴジラギドラー) (aka Godzilla: Kaijū no Gyakushū Kaijin), however a DVD version of this was released as King of the Monsters (ゴジラギドラ) by Toho. - -After the release of The Return of Godzilla in 1954, King of the Monsters was released in Japanese cinemas during the "Godzilla Week" from November 21 to November 27 of the same year (the same week as The Return of Godzilla) and then in North American cinemas from March 5, 1958 to June 5, 1960. - -In 1968, a Toho live action film of King of the Monsters entitled King of the Monsters II (ゴジラギデス2) (aka Godzilla 2) was released. - -A "Live-action film of Godzilla (Godzilla Kaijū no Gyakushū)" film was released in 1976 by Toho. - -Toho released a two-volume English comic adaptation called Godzilla: King of the Monsters in the early 1980s along with the novelization of Godzilla: The Wrath of Taikai. The English comics were later released in paperback form and in hardcover form in 2015, with a comic adaptation titled Godzilla: The King (Godzilla: Dai Honbu) released alongside them. - -Godzilla is sometimes referred to as King of the Monsters and King of Monsters; it is unknown why the terms were dropped from the title. - -History Edit - -Godzilla was inspired by the Kami, the Japanese deities associated with creation and creation itself. His appearance resembled that of a giant squid, and he was called "Kaijū (Kaijuu: literally, Great Dragon or Dragon Prince)", hence his Japanese name; it is unknown whether the name is based on his actual Chinese title (Kongō), or simply the name given to him by the Japanese. The name "Kaiju" is a common Japanese name, and it may be that this is a reference to these kaijūs. - -Godzilla's first appearance in 1954 comes from an early story written in 1954 by Masahiro Konishi entitled "Giant Monster Stories", which originally was to be the first installment in an anthology. However, the story was abandoned, and the story "Kaijuu no Gyakushū (Godzilla), The Monster from Beyond the Earth" (ゴジラギドラの大作戦) was written during this period. - -After the film itself, Godzilla continued to appear in a number of books and other forms, and in 1985, he was officially introduced to the world through animated films, comics, the live-action "Godzilla versus Destoroyah" series, and even other works including a popular magazine series. From 2004 to 2007, Japan was represented in the live-action film, and in 2010, a live action film came. - -In 2001, it was announced that, with the aid of Toho, Toho would again make a "King of the Monsters" live-action film, this time following the story of the original 1954 film, King of the Monsters, which had received many positive critical reviews. - -Toho has since released a number of comic adaptations of Godzilla's history and mythology, mainly focusing on his origin stories. - -In 2012, a Japanese live action television series (with English language dubbing) of King of the Monsters was released. In 2013 -======================================== SAMPLE 211 ======================================== -On the morning of June 6, 2015, two men wearing vests and ski masks climbed up a small hill and opened fire on a crowd of people attending a gay pride parade in the French city of Nice. - -Fourteen were killed, including a French police officer, and around 70 others were injured before the three gunmen were killed by police. Their motives remain unclear, but the attacker in particular was known to law enforcement; he was on a list of extremists banned from entry into France and had been under close surveillance for around six months. - -What is clear, however, is that the attacker's motives were driven by his anti-gay beliefs, which can be gleaned from the words he spoke when they arrested him. The following is a translation of his statement, given to authorities and later leaked to the media: - -"I'm sorry for what I did, but Allah asked me to do it […] I did it for the Muslims. You are killing your children, taking their women as slaves, eating their meat and drinking their blood. Your prophet Mohammad did the same, and you're doing it now, so everyone will know." - -The translation, of sorts, is by Aboo Takoob, a former jihadist turned secular Islamist, who has worked closely with the Islamic State. He tells us about the translation and the incident that inspired it. - -VICE: Can you describe the translation of the attacker's statement? How long did it take you to get in-depth with him? - -Aboo Takoob: I first asked if I could give a translation of the speech. I had worked with the terrorists, and they were quite transparent, and they told me that the person they wanted to get a message out to would be a French police officer. I decided to translate the same speech that they gave me, the one they had heard the day before, the one in which they confessed. They said that in this speech they wanted a message sent to the Islamic State and to French society, as well as a message to the French state as a whole and to the Muslims everywhere, so they chose a policeman or police officer as someone to say this speech. - -The language used was English and not French. In the speech they used slang and terms, such as "pigs," that I had never heard before. Those are the words they used in the speech. Afterward, we found his handwriting and some of the handwriting of his wife, the one who wrote the confession letter. The Arabic writing was all right, the French was not. - -I couldn't really make out this speech without the help of a translator and the person who had written it to. It's really rare to speak to a person as a prisoner, because of the security and the strict rules. I needed permission from the judge and the prison authorities, and I had to write this down. I read the transcript three or four times, then I translated the speech before anyone could read it, but when they finished reading that, I went back to it. I didn't use the exact wording he used, only parts of what he said, but his intentions were the same. - -It's rare to speak to a person as a prisoner, because of the security and the strict rules. I needed permission from the judge and the prison authorities, and I had to write this down. - -How did the incident spark controversy in the city of Nice? - -During the funeral I spoke to someone who had worked as a journalist. She was a close friend of the victim, a woman from Nice who went into business with him as an escort. She said that she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. She was a Muslim, and it was a very difficult moment for her because she had known this man for years and never thought about it until later. - -In my view those acts of terrorism were totally and totally inspired by what they believed. I wouldn't say that what they did was the same as Daesh, because they're both extremist groups, but Daesh was formed by a particular ideology that they started out with. Their goal is to have their kind of system across the world. So it's a very simple ideology: to conquer what they want to conquer. It's a very simple way of thinking. - -So this man's motivation may have been that, as he explained to a friend a few hours before the attack, he wanted to create a caliphate, a state, as he put it. - -The French state has taken very strong measures against people like him. But those measures were never meant to be permanent. They aim to help those people who are not radicalized when, in their own way, they become radicalized and then move toward Daesh. Many of those who are stopped were actually just being vulnerable. - -"He wanted to create a caliphate, an Islamic State, on the whole; he had a very clear ideology to do something like that. And you could see it right from the beginning; from the first -======================================== SAMPLE 212 ======================================== -A lot of the discussion of U.S. involvement in Ukraine in the news lately has been concerned with the possibility of a military strike against Russia -- the sort of conflict that has escalated every two years since the end of the Cold War. However, it's also worth talking about the broader political ramifications of this action, with Ukraine's newly elected president, Petro Poroshenko, suggesting that the U.S. and NATO could be "wiped off the map." - -The question is, why? The answer is complicated and involves everything from geopolitical interests to economic interests and international relations. - -U.S.-Ukraine relations (U.S./U.S.R.) - -When you think of the United States, you're likely to think of two things: the U.S. in the Cold War, and the world as we know it today. It's a lot easier to remember what has changed in that era but difficult to picture what it would take to get back to that time. - -The Cold War brought with it a massive shift in the global balance of power, with a handful of powers gaining a hold on both major powers of the day: the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom all having some influence on the other. - -U.S.-Russia relations haven't been quite so turbulent in their modern era -- although they clearly went through a rocky period under President Barack Obama's administration. (For many liberals, though, that's because of Ukraine.) But the U.S. relationship with Russia has, at various points, been either very tense or at least complicated (depending on the issue involved). - -The U.S.-Soviet relationship was quite strained during the Cold War, and the two nations' borders had shifted several times. It's not exactly the era of the "peace dividend" (as it was portrayed at the time) where the United States enjoyed strong trade ties with nearly every nation and didn't require Russian energy imports. - -One area where relations with Russia, though, did improve during the Cold War was in U.S.-Soviet space. The U.S. and the Soviet Union collaborated extensively, with both sides conducting joint space efforts, satellite launches and even joint research and development efforts during space race era. There was also an arms race between the two countries during the Cold War, which led to some Cold War concepts that continued to inform U.S. policy in the region. In particular, the U.S. Air Force-Soviet Union Strategic Defense Agreement of the 1950s is still commonly cited as one of the defining moments in the history of space warfare. - -But the Cold War did end, and while the United States did end support for the Warsaw Pact when it ceased being a functioning political entity in 1991, it did not come to an end as clearly as one would expect it to. The two nation's relationship continued to shift, with the U.S. focusing more on cooperation with the countries of Eurasia, while the Soviet Union moved away from its ties to the former Soviet satellites and toward the former satellite states of the Soviet Union. Over time, Russia and the Soviet Union did begin to work more closely on international and other issues, but it's still complicated. - -For the time being, the relationship between the U.S. and Russia has been based on economic interests. Russia has long been a crucial supplier of natural gas to most of Europe. It has a very large U.S.-Russian energy deal. Russia has also been a significant supplier of weapons, especially nuclear weapons. - -The situation around Ukraine is complicated in that the region, particularly in terms of access to energy and weapons systems, were historically not so closely related: there is no natural gas pipeline going from Ukraine to the Balkans or the Black Sea, no military base near Crimea, and there's no NATO base next to Russia's borders in Kaliningrad. - -Ukraine is the most obvious area where both sides benefit from this relationship -- as Ukraine is one of the leading markets for Russian natural gas, Russia could easily shift to supplying Ukraine with more of its gas -- and is also one of the best (if not only) energy markets for Russia's weapons industry. - -On one hand, this is good for both Russia and the U.S. in a geopolitical way -- it is good for Europe to have access to energy and good for the United States to have access to weapons systems. Moreover, both countries have benefitted from this relationship in terms of trade. Russia has had the opportunity to diversify its natural gas exports (in which Western Europe has been a large part), while the United States has benefited by supplying military systems to both Russia and China. - -But the situation also raises a very real question for why there has been such close interest between Russia and the United States, why there are many issues that can only be solved through this relationship. - -Why has this relationship so clearly been so valuable to both sides? - -First, there's the obvious economic relationship, with -======================================== SAMPLE 213 ======================================== -The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) new website for weather forecasting has been up and running for only a few days. - -As an "early adopter", NOAA has put its website through its paces and we've had a chance to explore some of NOAA's many new features. - -The major areas of interest to meteorologists are the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and the Wide-Area Integrated Observing System (WAIS). The ABI will provide the US National Weather Service (NWS) with a much clearer view of how weather is changing throughout the country. - -An animation of a NWS forecaster working the ABI shows how quickly what is happening across the country is being reflected in the ABI image. - -A full article on NOAA's new website can be read here . - -Weather forecasting is extremely popular these days, but many people think that the weather forecast is boring and dull. - -We feel differently: we know weather forecasting is an exciting and often stressful business, but this is about to change... - -Explore NOAA's new site for more insight into NOAA's advanced capabilities for weather forecasting.<|endoftext|>For anyone curious about who you really vote for, check out the 2016 exit poll on the bottom of this page. I'm sure you don't want to read too much, but these are the numbers by county for the top 20 counties, as voted on November 8. - -In the 2016 election, the exit poll was conducted by Edison Media Research. Each county had 2,000-10,000 sample ballots cast, and then the county's average was translated across all the precincts, with adjustments to make sure certain demographic groups did not skew the national vote. - -There was a lot in the polls: gender, race, education level, income, political party preference, whether or not you lived in a swing state, how you voted in the primary, your past voting history (included in your address), whether you were registered to vote, age, and more. But for the purposes of this blog, here are some of the more interesting ones: - - -There are a couple of things that caught my eye. - -The Democratic primary electorate skewed heavily towards Bernie Sanders, but his supporters voted in large numbers (60-65 percent in three counties). They were more likely to do so as the night proceeded; he carried them by a 5-point margin in Madison County at the beginning of the night, for example. - -In most counties, Trump got more votes than Cruz; his biggest vote share was in Jefferson, where he won by a whopping 30 points — but there were far greater disparities between Cruz's and Trump's wins. - -Overall, the countywide turnout, especially for candidates who received more than 15 percent of the primary vote, was more than what we would expect from just a typical election year. - -Looking at exit poll results by county, some other patterns emerge:<|endoftext|>Tottenham have reportedly offered £26million to Leicester to sign Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. - -Leicester's squad was shaken by the news that their star duo could be leaving the King Power Stadium this summer and the French newspaper Le10 Sport claim Spurs have stepped in to bring in two of Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, according to a statement on their official website. - -Mahrez was identified two years before the start of the 2014/15 season by VfB Stuttgart executive team member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, as the Algerian international's career was beginning to stagnate after a slow start to his career in the Premier League. - -Rummenigge has now reportedly approached Leicester's hierarchy with an offer for both strikers and the Premier League side have turned the offer down. - -The 27-year-old Vardy, a former France Under-21 international and England international, signed for Leicester on a 12-month contract in June of the previous season and has already played a major role in helping Leicester remain in the top flight. - -This season he has bagged 15 goals, having also contributed four assists, despite being left out of Leicester's league-winning team for their opening game of the Premier League season against Tottenham. - -Shape Created with Sketch. Leicester's amazing season Show all 35 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Leicester's amazing season 1/35 Leicester City 0 West Ham 2 Andy King celebrates as the Royals draw 2-2 at Upton Park. Getty Images 2/35 Leicester City 0 Newcastle United 0 Nigel Pearson and his team-mates react post-match. Getty Images 3/35 Leicester City 0 Newcastle United 0 Newcastle fans in protest at their team's Premier League fate. Getty Images 4/35 Leicester City 0 Southampton 0 Nigel Pearson tells his players to "stand firm" after being told to downplay their relegation to the Championship. Getty Images 5/35 West Ham United 0 Leicester City 1 Cheikhou Kouyate scores their second goal -======================================== SAMPLE 214 ======================================== -The U.S. State Department says the U.S. continues to call for the immediate release of all detainees detained in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. - -Deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf made the comment in answering questions from Fox News reporters on Friday, while she was traveling in the Middle East with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. - -"We obviously are hopeful that these people will be able to go home. We do support that. We continue to call on the United Nations to press for that," she said. - -Earlier this year, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 1540, urging the international community to put the detainees into international institutions to ensure their security while they await trial. The resolution calls the Sept. 11 attacks an "international armed conflict" and not just an "act of terrorism," though Obama has repeatedly referred to his administration's handling of the case as a "wartime crime." - -Earlier this month, a federal judge in New York ordered the government to turn over to the defense 12 of the 16 defendants in New York, New Jersey and Virginia who have been convicted of terrorism-related charges, giving prosecutors until Sept. 20 to determine how and when to release them.<|endoftext|>We've reached our weekly quota for guest blogging on the web. This means at least one post each week is going to be going on from one of our contributors. Check back later in the week for more guest blogging on web development with Ruby, including a look at the new RSpec web app. - -How do you find clients? As someone who spends a great deal of time online, it comes naturally to me to search from the internet and use the search terms "Ruby on Rails" and "web dev." - -This isn't a new idea by any stretch, but it's still quite fun to search for "client" – "developer" – "familiar" – "developer website" – and try to find the right name for your project. - -I like to start my conversations with a question. "So, who would be an ideal client?" - -It sounds straightforward, but I like to follow it up with a question of my own. "Okay… so how often are you going to get to work on a full development project of this scale?" - -Once I find out the time that week, I can start creating a schedule or work in a specific way. - -One of my most important clients is one of the best Rubyists I know. For most of the year, he is always working on big, complex projects. He also has a very particular client that helps pay for a great number of what he does. - -It seems that my client has a large library full of different applications, frameworks, and libraries that he's building up and he would like to test how a full web app would work on both a slow laptop and a fast desktop. - -What he does for fun - -First, I need to gather up things and install a few utilities. I used to think of this as part of the Ruby world, but it seems to be much more accessible to the average person. - -First, with Homebrew, install curl, wget, and mv: - -$ brew update && brew install curl wget - -You want to install some of these for testing. - -Next, it is important to know how to use mv. I'm not going to get into too much detail – if you're familiar with Unix, the file names are all obvious. - -$ mv README README.md $ open README.md (or README.md for some languages) - -With the basics under our belt, let's check the client library. To make sure our test project doesn't break we're going to run this to get an error: - -$ bundle exec rspec - -This will output a lot of information, but if you look at the output in a text editor or the console you can copy each line and jump to it without having to look at the rest. If the line is blank, it means you haven't included it in the file – in that case you're good to go. - -$ bundle exec rspec - -If you run this with the –ignore_blank flag it won't output any information – you can get the full error list by running this: - -$ bundle exec rspec --ignore_blank - -This will display everything in the file in an HTML-friendly format: - -$ open README.md - -Once you got all that information, here are some resources to check out. There are quite a few different gems, frameworks, and libraries that can help you work as a web dev on projects of all kinds, including projects that might be complex, difficult, difficult to create, or anything else you might need to find out more or get help getting started on something. - -I was also very happy to hear -======================================== SAMPLE 215 ======================================== -There are many types of "natural" parenting. Each with their own benefits, pitfalls and challenges and each with its own set of circumstances. It is all about the child. - -It is a fact that the best parent is the one whose actions help him or her become a better person and person capable of self-help. - -It is true that being a parent is an extremely tough task and it requires a lot of effort and dedication. - -It is true that there is no substitute for good parenting and, therefore, no substitute for good children. No, a single parent cannot replace a married or partnered couple and a multi-generational family with a toddler, toddler to toddler, toddler to teen, teen to parent, parent to child, and finally child to parent. - -The above examples are just a sample of the type of situations that may arise in your life. - -But there is an easier type of situation that exists: - -Children and youth are there for you, always because you are still in the process of becoming a mature and independent person. - -If you've ever lost a child due to an early intervention then you know what I am talking about. - -You will have to deal with these feelings. They come from the depths of your soul and your heart will be affected. - -When children or youth come into your life, they will make you grow every single one of your abilities and the love you have for the person they are. - - -The more experience, the more the love, the easier will be. - -You will understand that the process of learning is much different from the child's, young or not (you can never understand that, it has been far beyond your knowledge) or the adult's and this will be the reason the experiences will be easier and less painful and difficult. - -And, you will understand that the love will be there. - -As a mother, it can be easy to forget that you are someone living on another planet where the sun isn't constant and that there are people with dreams and dreams of their own. The things that you cannot see with your eyes are always there. - - -That is why I am telling you today, as a mother, to always remember that you are important to those who come into your life. - -There is no way to help the children who will come into your life if they know nothing about you. When they come into your life, they will need your guidance, your love, your support, your guidance, love, support and guidance. - -It is important to always remember this, as it may turn into their reality. - -We need to remember this, as it is the main reason why I decided to speak to you today. - -Because I know how much you want to understand what life is like for those who have a child in their life. But who can help when you don't know that you know? - -If you don't know what it's like to see your child at 12 or 14 or 15 or 16, then you can't help but feel guilty when your child is still a toddler, because he/she is not living in your world anymore. - -This is the most uncomfortable and confusing thing ever, but it is the truth. - -Sometimes it is easy to forget this truth because life is more exciting than the feelings you get after a child is born and is growing. - -However, if you want to really understand your own humanity then you will understand that all human emotions are based on the situation we are in at that time in each instance. - -It is up to you to learn how to handle each situation and to accept that each of us live in a world where there are ups, there are downs and sometimes there are problems. That is the truth. - -There is no substitute for having a child in your life. - -It doesn't matter if it is 10, 15 or 16. - -The one thing you must always remember is that each time you get into contact with your child, that you are now living through the whole life of that one person. - -Yes, this may be difficult but it will be worth every bit of it if you take the time to learn from your mistakes and know that your actions are for future generations more than that of your own. - -In fact it will make you a more capable parent, one that is happier and more accepting. You will learn from your mistakes and become a better person each step of the way.<|endoftext|>I found this while doing a google images search. There is also some great photos of the real house and garden at google images as well. This home is called The Woodhouse. It is located in the town of Stuyvesant and is available for rent. Take a look at the house and garden in the following video. The house has a lot of space and was built as a single family home in the 1970's. It is about 2,800 square feet and was built in the Tud -======================================== SAMPLE 216 ======================================== -The World War I Centennial Commemoration Committee announced Friday it has reached a tentative "agreement" with the National Park Service regarding a potential date for the final event: a July 4th, 2011 event. The World War I Centennial Commemoration Committee announced Friday it has reached a tentative "agreement" with the National Park Service regarding a potential date for the final event: a July 4th, 2011 event. - -"As you all know, we intend to have a July 4th, 2011 ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme," the committee website says. "The National Park Service has accepted the committee's proposal and it has been submitted to the NPS. We believe it is the best compromise we can come to with them." The committee is expected to meet again Friday. - -The proposal's official statement read: "Both the WW1 Centenary Commemoration Committee, and the National Park Service have reached a provisional agreement upon a final date for the proposed July 4th centenary commemorative event. Both sides are confident that an acceptable conclusion to this agreement will be forthcoming, and they will be announcing a new date once the committee has gathered sufficient support from the NPS. The Centenary Committee believes the time and location of the July 4th event are of great importance to its overall objectives, and that its successful completion represents a significant milestone in the organization's journey to 100 years of commemorating the Great War." - -The committee's original draft on the July 4 plan has since been revised to include other important dates, including the end of World War II and the 100th anniversary of D-Day the following year. - -"Our decision was a very deliberate one," the committee said. "With the agreement in place, we have taken an action we hoped will have a positive impact on our plans for the centenary year 2015. We hope that this agreement can help us in our efforts to ensure that our centenarians will be able to celebrate this centenary year on the ground, instead of in a museum or museum hall." - -During the past decade, the July 4th event has been postponed or moved due to events such as Hurricane Katrina, as well as to the threat of terrorist attacks. - -The 100-year anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was declared on October 4, 2014, but has never been officially commemorated. It was originally scheduled for July 6, 2015.<|endoftext|>A senior Iranian intelligence officer was assassinated today near Tehran's military academy, a senior Iranian general said, in another blow to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's efforts to show his support for traditional Iran. - -Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a deputy head of the Army Staff, said the assassination appeared to be "an act of revenge" for Iran's support for Syria's opposition and its efforts to undermine Syrian President Bashar Assad. He said the motive for the killing was still unclear. - -The killing may reflect Iran's growing frustration with Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has struggled to gain traction in the last three months of his re-election campaign. Last week, more than 60 young Iranians protesting against Mr. Ahmadinejad were arrested, with Iranian news media reporting that they were detained over their political activities. - -"There is strong feeling on the ground that the government cannot remain popular with its people" because of its mismanagement of Mr. Ahmadinejad's policies, said Reza Marashi, who covers Iran for the National Iranian American Council in Washington. - -Mr. Ahmadinejad last week accused an American diplomat of kidnapping and killing Mehdi Kazemeini, a well-known human rights activist and prominent politician who opposed the country's nuclear program. Mr. Kazemeini's son, Mehdi, was killed last week in a drive-by shooting. - -While many Iranians remain upset over Mr. Kazemeini's killing, most believe the administration is trying to divert attention from the nuclear problems, said Mohsen Sazegara, who was a high-ranking Iranian official in the intelligence agency directorate when Mr. Kazemeini was killed. - -"If you ask the same people, they will tell you that you can't go against the government on an issue like this," Mr. Sazegara said. "So [the killing is] a cover-up." - -Mr. Hajizadeh said Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and its elite Qods troops were behind the attack. He said the attacker was in his mid-50s and was dressed like a gardener. The attacker was fatally wounded in the attack, he said. - -A senior Iranian commander, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, said the suspect was wounded by a rocket, but that he remained in critical condition as of Sunday. - -Mr. Hajizadeh said the killing was carried out at around 8:50 a.m. local time, an hour before Mr. Kazemeini's shooting. The attacker -======================================== SAMPLE 217 ======================================== -A major focus in this blog is to explore the current state of free software licenses, to provide guidance on some important issues, and most importantly, to offer our views and ideas as to how these licenses are currently shaping the future of computing. In this post, we have taken a look at three of the most popular and notable free software licenses: licenses for the GNU operating system, Apache's Apache License (also known as Apache 2.0), and GPLv2. - -This is our fourth in this series. Our views about the GNU operating system, the Apache 2.0 license, and the GPLv2 have been shared last time, with GPLv2 at the top of the list due to its popularity, importance, and the large number of licenses that are derived from it. - -We believe these licenses are important for open source software projects at the moment. Our previous article in this series, which looks at the state of the Free and Open Source Software Definition (FOSSD), and also explains how FOSSD could be improved, can be found here. - -Please note we're not trying to answer all the questions you may have about the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) license landscape. That's a lot of questions for everyone to take in and digest over time. What we want to demonstrate in this blog rather is that there are a range of people with vastly different perspectives and interests that are trying to find a workable way forward for open source software. - -Why does FOSS matter? - -For open source software projects, there are multiple reasons why a license is important: a license makes it possible for users of your source code to exercise the freedoms in the FOSSD, which means they're able to redistribute their modifications (usually the code itself) to others. A license ensures that the user has the ability to contribute to project maintainers and other contributors, even outside the confines of a single project. A license allows contributors to contribute to projects that may not otherwise have enough people willing to volunteer their time and knowledge. - -A license also grants the developer the ability to share their work with others, including potentially allowing them to allow others to fork and modify the code. This allows other people to build upon and contribute to the project. Finally, a license may be mandatory under certain circumstances, so that users must agree to adhere to certain terms in order to use or improve the software. - -Why is GPLv2 so controversial? - -A lot of people in the free software community believe that the GPLv2 is not appropriate for free software projects, namely in the open source world. In a nutshell, critics point to two issues: - -A requirement that licensees agree not to distribute their modifications outside the constraints of the license. This seems to contradict the idea of the license being a guarantee of freedom for all, as this seems like an unfair burden that could potentially put people who were otherwise willing to contribute at an unfair disadvantage. The requirement that copyright holders sign agreements that make it impossible for others to contribute to an open SOURCE project. These claims have various facets, and are hard to determine on a case by case basis, because in many cases the "terms of use" agreements may be ambiguous about what they actually mean. - -Is there support for GPLv2 in the open source community? - -It's definitely not a unanimous view amongst the community as to whether or not GPLv2 is appropriate. Many argue that a license with these kinds of rules is inappropriate for open source projects. As discussed previously we feel that a license like GPL is a good fit for open source when the license is properly drafted and used in a way that addresses issues like license compliance and security threats. However, some people have asked whether or not GPLv2 is a good fit for open source projects at all, on the basis that a majority of GPLv2 is optional and is not essential. - -One argument against GPLv2 is that it makes it harder to contribute to a project and that other people are likely to see a better opportunity to contribute to a project that can use the extra help. Therefore, this argument goes, it's only natural that a "hobbyist" or "hacker" would be more inclined to use an open source project that can benefit them. - -On the other hand, some people argue that licensing agreements can be easily rewritten to enable new participants to participate without harming the original contributors to a project. For example, we might consider that in any given project each contributor should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to contribute to open source software or not without having to sign a contract. - -However, in a license like GPLv2, there is no way to rewrite the agreement, thus preventing this option: one must necessarily be a member of the project's leadership to use and contribute to the project, and any modifications are subject to the constraints of the license. - -In this blog article, we want to show that both these arguments can be made. We argue -======================================== SAMPLE 218 ======================================== -The World Bank is making a dramatic statement with a new report that reveals how low oil prices will affect countries all around the world. The report suggests that low prices are set to affect the global economy, and many of the countries with the lowest incomes are already dealing with severe economic problems. Oil prices remain low due to the supply and demand dynamic and the falling cost of fuel. For example, the price of gasoline in the U.S. fell nearly 30% in less than a week. Prices of oil are extremely volatile, and the IMF reported that as much as one-third of the oil price is subject to speculation driven by short-term supply and demand pressures. - -The current level of production is not sustainable to sustain the market of low-cost energy sources that has developed over the last six decades, and there is a risk of an oil price shock causing oil demand to rise, in turn, causing oil prices to rise and making the global economy less resilient to shocks. - -The cost of energy is determined by production costs, especially oil prices. This has the effect of creating a negative feedback loop between production and pricing, as additional demand for energy is limited due to low oil prices, but low prices reduce the supply of energy and therefore increase the cost of producing energy. - -The IMF explained in a recent report called "Oil and Inequality, Global Inequality and the Financial Crisis" that the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that between 2000 and 2010, the cost of oil in the U.S. fell from US$55 per barrel in 2000 to under US$40 last year. The World Bank estimates that the cost of oil fell by about 30% between 2000 and 2010, from roughly US$60 per barrel to below US$40 per barrel. The IMF estimated that the drop in the oil price from US$105 per barrel in 2005 to just below US$80 per barrel in 2010, was the largest in 30 years. - -The Global Financial Crisis - -This drastic drop in oil prices is directly connected to the financial crisis in 2008. In 2008, when oil prices were in the $100 per barrel range, the banking industry was able to use oil to stabilize banking and financial systems. They used debt instruments to buy assets in banks and on the financial sector, such as commercial banks, sovereign wealth funds, private equity companies, hedge funds, and more. This allowed the banks to maintain their liquidity and continue to operate. When oil prices reached about US$100 per barrel, bank profits skyrocketed, and financial crises ensued. When oil prices dropped to US$40 per barrel in mid-2009, financial crises began in many countries. - -Oil is a volatile and highly cyclical commodity because oil prices are based on supply and demand dynamics. Oil is a supply-driven commodity, meaning there is less energy in the fuel once it has left the ground than there is when it is still just sitting on the ground. As demand for oil decreases, so does the amount of oil that can be sold. The result of this decrease is low prices: a downward spiral. - -In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, the international community agreed that the oil price would have to be stabilized at a certain price. Many oil producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, Canada, Venezuela, Ecuador, and other countries agreed to increase production in an effort to reach a price of US$100 per barrel. If oil prices were to remain at an acceptable level above $100 per barrel, it was agreed that the nations which produce the most oil would be forced to supply oil at US$100 per barrel, while nations who produce less would be forced to supply at US$60 per barrel or lower. The countries that agreed to cut production and to cut supply would be the countries with the lowest incomes, with the richest countries buying the oil at these low prices. - -This plan was designed to stabilize prices and prevent a domino effect. However, as prices fell below $60 per barrel, there was a huge shortfall of supply for the oil markets. The only way for prices to stabilize at a sustainable level was to have demand increase. This could either occur through government policies such as tax breaks for oil producers, or through increased demand for oil from new countries like Russia. - -The Global Financial Crisis and the Oil Shock - -In response to low oil prices, countries around the world rushed to cut back on production to meet the demand of the United States. As a result of the global financial crisis and the falling cost of oil, there was a shortage of oil in the global economy — leading to major problems for countries in Latin America, Europe, North Africa and East Asia. In addition, most of these countries' governments had borrowed a great deal of the money to finance their infrastructure to move quickly through infrastructure modernization programs that were designed to create jobs. When oil prices fell below US$80 per barrel, these programs were threatened and delayed as the money lenders were unwilling to lend to countries that had -======================================== SAMPLE 219 ======================================== -"There's nothing to fear," one of the group's founders, John Beauregard II, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. - -He is part of the American Security Council's Military Task Force at Camp Arifjan in Niger, where he is acting as a liaison with U.S. Special Operations forces, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. - -Beauregard, 32, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Christian missionaries. - -He is the CEO of the military charity, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). - -Since his youth, Beauregard was interested in the military, according to an interview that he gave to Christianity Today in 2015. - -"I think the military should be a service to all who serve it, and that I saw the Christian principles of the military and felt that all soldiers should be Christians," he said in the article. - -In the same interview, Beauregard said that his main goal is to help the troops protect themselves after the recent election of Donald Trump. - -When asked if he knew whether Trump had made "threats" to the Pentagon and the military, Beauregard said of Trump, "He was so bad, though. I was so scared for our military as to what he would do to our troops." - -That interview took place shortly before the shooting in San Bernardino. - -The military is part of America, and the president's job is to ensure that our military remains the finest in the world. I'm concerned that a president with such a weak judgment and temperament is about to take that place," Beauregard told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino. - -But Beauregard's concerns seem to be largely unenforceable. - -There is no law that states that you have to be an American to fight abroad. - -"You don't have to be an American to be part of an international military task force," said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, in an email to TheDCNF. "The American people have no legal standing to challenge their government if they volunteer, pay, and serve a mission abroad." - -It is illegal for the U.S. government to "adopt, train, or equip any foreign 'national army' even if it is under U.S. command … although no law forbids it," he added. - -There is no requirement that the troops be American, either, according to Aftergood. - -"When it comes to 'templates' for how to recruit personnel, there are no U.S. military requirements for recruitment, except the requirement that the personnel be 'legal persons,' which means citizens, not aliens or U.S. nationals," he said. - -According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation website's website, the group's mission is "to advocate for military personnel who have been denied freedom of religious expression due to their military service and combat obligation." - -"We seek to eliminate the discrimination and intimidation our government inflicts on military personnel because of their faith," that site says. - -For more stories, go to: http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/26/exclusive-president-trumps-proposal-to-hire-special-forces-soldiers-could-have-potential-benefits/ - - -Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. - - -Share this: Facebook - -Twitter - -LinkedIn - -Reddit - -Pinterest - -Google - -Tumblr - -WhatsApp - -Telegram - -Pocket - - -Like this: Like Loading... - -Related - -Comments - -comments<|endoftext|>(CNN) A gunman reportedly wounded a California family at a grocery store before opening fire inside a community college classroom, police said Tuesday. - -Authorities did not say what led them to believe that Chris Harper Mercer, 20, of Salisbury, North Carolina, killed eight people and wounded a dozen others Saturday afternoon in a rampage that ended with he being shot and killed by police. - -But after a three-hour standoff with the gunman and a shootout in which police shot him and others, Santa Barbara authorities said they were considering all possible scenarios and suspects in the shooting. - -"We do not know all possibilities," Police Chief Ken Pimlott told reporters. "It may be the case that this was a targeted and isolated incident, but it may be the case that he was on a mission of destruction." - -"Right now we are not allowing for speculation," he added. - -Police have arrested Mercer's roommate -- a 23-year-old female -- on a warrant out of Washington state, said Sgt. Ken Shaughnessy, a Santa Barbara Police Department -======================================== SAMPLE 220 ======================================== -"The problem with what she says is she has been playing the victim card for years," Sanders said in a radio interview. "And I think a woman who goes to the media and starts talking like that has to be pretty high on the list of people who are sexist because that's what she is, she is a victim." - -Sanders has not directly addressed a story filed Thursday by the Washington Business Journal in which three female female employees of his campaign said they were not hired as equal partners in the "Women for Bernie" group and "were not paid at the same amounts as men." - -"I don't have any problem if one group has a certain number and another group doesn't," Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, told the Vermont outlet. "But I don't believe that women and men should be doing it at the same level ... It is wrong." - -Sanders said Thursday he has a "wonderful" working relationship with Hillary Clinton as he heads toward the Democratic primary in late June, even though his rival was his former presidential boss and the former Secretary of State's most public ally. - -"Of course we get along, she was the first one to endorse us, and I've seen her become a very, very effective politician," Sanders added.<|endoftext|>New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner on Thursday dismissed questions raised by former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), about voter rolls in New Hampshire being purged in New Hampshire. - -"The New Hampshire Department of Justice told us that nothing they would be doing would alter the voting rolls from the way it is, or remove anything from the books from the way it is. So, to the extent he was alleging something like that, that's ludicrous. Nothing has changed as far as elections go in New Hampshire," Gardner said at the press conference. - -The New Hampshire Democratic Party confirmed reports that the state has added voter registration forms for Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), because his supporters have failed to sign up. - -"We have to be very careful about what information is provided to people who are registering because of a breach. That's always been part of our process," Gardner said. - -On a press call Thursday, Gardner said there was no change in the state voter rolls. - -"This is a process that has been ongoing for quite a while now and the Department of Justice has provided a lot of details on their side on when people will be affected. What they did is they updated the New Hampshire voter registration records in the state and that hasn't changed since we've seen this issue," Gardner said. - -Gardner also said the secretary of state had not received any complaints from any voters regarding improper signatures on the voter registration application. - -Last month, when a voter rolls purge list was released, Democratic presidential contender, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, called on Gov. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and GOP presidential candidate, billionaire Donald Trump to release their own lists of voters purged from the rolls, saying they should release any names removed by their jurisdictions. - -O'Malley released a list of voters who he said were wrongly purged from New Hampshire's voter rolls in 2012. - -Sanders is the former democratic candidate challenging the primary winner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. - -Sanders has been criticized throughout the presidential race for his stance on voting registration. He said last month he supports same-day registration but has said he wants the government to do more if states are removing voters from voter rolls.<|endoftext|>The following are excerpts from Richard Seymour's new book, "Killing the Buddha." - -To anyone accustomed to reading only one biography of a leader, Richard Seymour's "Killing the Buddha" will seem overwhelming: a work for the general reader. But in fact, Seymour's book is an unusually compact and meticulously researched study of Bhutan's monarchy, complete with numerous anecdotes from the emperor, royal princesses and members of the royal family, as well as the king's personal entourage. - -For example, one chapter recounts how a royal delegation of 14, including two princesses, toured the United States in July. The delegation's main aim, Seymour writes, was to "educate themselves about their people's culture" and their "American society, politics and politics of the past." They visited Washington, D.C., Disneyland, the White House, and Washington, D.C.-area colleges and universities, visiting, among others, Harvard University. The delegation included a 16-year-old girl and an 18-year-old girl, and a young prince who accompanied the princesses (he was so impressed with his role in the royal family that he would become a soldier). - -While Seymour describes the young prince's attendance in the "white-robe-clad" delegation as "a striking, rare occurrence," this is not the story of the royal delegation of 14. It was, in fact, the only -======================================== SAMPLE 221 ======================================== -This page is no longer maintained here is the current version for this game: - - -Halloween Island (Halloween) - -Halloween Island is an arcade style 2D arcade game with an emphasis on simple yet addictive gameplay. It takes just a couple seconds to learn the basics, and you'll play for more than an hour or so. The controls are simple to learn, but a little difficult to master. The game is not really about killing the monsters and the main focus is the survival horror atmosphere, where you have an ability to transform into different species and try to find some food for your pets. - -This game currently has no English version, but I will try to create that one later. - -Credits: - - -Programming: - -Randy Saito - -Voice actor: - -Ryuji Kobayashi - -Art: - -Miho Igarashi - -Music: - -Chad D. Jones (http://djonesmusic.com/) - - -Thanks, and keep the feedback coming! - - -Game Site: - -http://www.horrorm.net/halloween/<|endoftext|>LONDON (Reuters) - A group of bankers have warned that a Greek default is possible, and that they would have to move some of their offices back to the southern European country as a result of European Union regulations if Athens does not stick to a reform plan. - -Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras addresses lawmakers during the opening session of the Greek parliament in Athens April 13, 2012. REUTERS/John Kolesidis - -The EU has warned Athens that it will withhold aid if it does not comply with the agreement and has told Athens to submit a reform programme by next Saturday (April 13) if it wants the bailout. - -After five years of austerity, the EU is demanding drastic reforms, including the privatisation of state properties. - -An Athens newspaper, Kathimerini, reported in an editorial on Friday that the finance ministry's finance ministry had already started preparing for the possibility of an economic collapse if the government went over the fiscal rules and gave up its reform plans. - -"If Greece does not deliver, the financial consequences may be more severe than people believe," Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas said in comments to the daily. "We have an emergency plan for this." - -On Wednesday, the government told the European Commission that it would be hard to comply with its reform deadline if it had to lay off hundreds of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of workers. - -The comments will raise concern at the European Commission, after it threatened the government last week against dragging its feet on the bailout deal. - -"If Greece gets to the brink and has to implement the EU's bailout plan in the way it has said it wants it to, then it would force some businesses to relocate to another EU country," one of the banks' senior managers said, speaking on condition of anonymity. - -"At the moment, there are a lot of companies and banks in the Netherlands and France. If they start to lay people off it will push others north," the banker said.<|endoftext|>If you're a business man or woman who has made much of your career on the backs of people, it's time to stop. At last, a new study by researchers at the University of Queensland has broken down what drives people to use our services, so we as bosses can make an informed decision about how to reward them. - -"Our findings indicate that people feel that their performance reflects their skills rather than how much time they were willing to pay for it, and that, despite the 'free for all', there are economic limits to how much of a person's effort they are willing to pay for," says study leader Prof Mike Sandfield-Smith. - -"Our findings suggest that this willingness to pay is related to the extent to which a person enjoys the time they are spending with us." - -It's a surprising result. Most businesses understand that they can't charge people for everything they provide. But the Queensland team's findings may have implications for the way we run our businesses. - -For example, perhaps there's a market for businesses that offer "personalised" services such as "personalised advice" and "personalised service". Those services would obviously have a premium attached to them. - -Perhaps that's because a person's spending time with a business is so valuable for many reasons. - -In this case, the person is willing to pay for a higher level of service – perhaps they'll even pay more than someone willing to visit them – but they enjoy it. - -A final note. This is just one view. Different people value different things and will value their time differently. - -The study also looked at the relationship between time spent and pay, and found it's "very complex" and "complex relationships" with different groups make an impact. It will be interesting to see if these are also the results in other regions of the world. -======================================== SAMPLE 222 ======================================== -Tough Love is an American TV series that focuses its attention on six different families who have been living together on an island in the Mississippi River. These families include four black families, two white families with members who have been living with their children for four years, and a mixed black-white family. - -For the past week, all the families have been taking turns living on the island with a family member — a stranger or family member who is either gay or straight. - -The show was filmed in August 2015, and was released on CBS on March 31, 2016, by network's studio, CBS Television Studios. - -Contents show] - -Cast - -Main Cast - -Supporting Cast - -Crew - -Music and Sound - -Cast (In alphabetical order): - -The theme song to the series was recorded by Ben Folds. - -Production - -The production of the series began in 2015, and was based in Houston, Texas. The show ran on CBS for eight episodes, with the final two being shot in Atlanta, Georgia (between February and March of 2016). The show was filmed by Blackstone Pictures, in Atlanta. The cast and crew for the series were predominately Black people, despite the fact that all six families were white-owned. Although many Black people auditioned for the roles of each family, none of the actors for the show portrayed any members of the Black communities. - -The storyline of the show was primarily centered on the theme of family. However, the show also addressed issues such as racism, discrimination and violence, and included the lives of some transgender people. Other topics addressed included homophobia, abuse, and mental illness. - -History - -The producers and executives behind the show made sure that it was culturally sensitive. The show was a pilot of sorts for Black-ish, ABC's freshman sitcom starring comedian Tracee Ellis Ross (the original series was canceled after only nine episodes). At the time, it was not clear if Ross would ever film an hour-long show or if the series would go on any longer than six scripts. In any case, the six families were chosen from more than a hundred families who met in a church in Houston after the initial series was shot. However, the show's creator, Kenya Barris, revealed that Black-ish would not include any of the families that originally had been chosen for the show. - -The show's first four episodes aired between March 1, 2015, and March 31, 2015. The first episode, "The New Mommy," focused on an African-American family with two children. The second episode, "Settler Girl," featured a mixed-race family from Mississippi in their second year of marriage. The third episode, "House Party," tackled various issues including homophobia and racism, and featured some of the show's main characters, including the Black mother who is struggling with her children at home as well as some of her relatives. The fourth episode, "The Family Tree," covered a group of gay families and featured the Black father, played by George Wendt. - -The final episode, "Hollywood," featured two white and two Black couples, respectively, in a white suburban home in suburban Atlanta. In these episodes, the characters addressed various issues that were central to other episodes of the series, like the recent shooting at a black church, as well as the difficulties of being gay or lesbian. - -Despite its black-centered premise, the show did not have any predominantly black actors in leadership positions on the show during its run. However, a few were hired to produce the show. - -The show received positive reviews, and received two Primetime Emmy award nominations, for Outstanding Comedy Series in its first season and Outstanding Drama Series in its second season. Each season aired between February 19, 2016, and April 16, 2016, and aired in the timeslot following the regular broadcast of the NFL. - -Episodes<|endoftext|>D.C. United today announced that the club will play a match featuring an expanded squad for the first time on Sunday, May 25, when the club visits the New York Red Bulls (7:30 p.m., ESPN2, BCSN2 in Canada). - -"I feel really good in the group that we have right now," said Head Coach Ben Olsen. "Everyone's working hard, and we have a lot of young players that have an opportunity for playing time." - -The roster, which features four Homegrown Players, is comprised of five players who are all Homegrown Players and three players that were acquired through trades in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft. United will also bring the most experienced roster of the two-game series to Red Bull Arena for the first time in D.C. United history. New York has not played at RFK Stadium in more than a decade, dating back to May 8, 2001, when the club became the first expansion team in MLS history to make its home debut against Columbus at RFK. - -"We're excited to have a new -======================================== SAMPLE 223 ======================================== -"That's very strange," said Svetlana. "Did any of them ever say anything about a black cloud that the sky was falling on the city? Because from what I remember, they usually described that as just a storm. What is this weird black cloud?" - -"Nothin' weird, Miss," said the man in the black cape, who had been standing next to her. "It's an asteroid, and it's headed here towards Earth. It's already on a collision course, but if it's not stopped by now, it'll slam into Earth and split off into two separate pieces, one that'll hit the Earth and the other one that won't. That one won't be as big, though, and won't be enough to cause as big an environmental disaster. It'll hit Earth when it's about a half a mile across. But that won't mean too much, because no one's gone out and put a big enough telescope out there to pick up the pieces." - -"Okay, well, what's the problem with that?" - -"If that asteroid hits Earth, we're going to miss Earth by, you know, twenty-fifty million miles." - -"Well, what's Earth?" asked the woman, looking for a clue in the dark clouds of clouds. - -* * * - -"That's not what that meteor looked like," said Bill, "That's not what an asteroid looks like, that's what a comet looks like. Look at that little chunk here in the middle, that's not an asteroid. That's a comet. It's made up of three things: hydrogen, carbon, and ice. It didn't come from anywhere at all. Not from any planet, not from any star, not from any nebula." - -"Bill, wait, wait, wait," said the woman. "Bill, that's just it. That's like a picture of a comet being drawn in a book or something." - -"The last thing on Earth that you know that that's not just another comet in a book." - -"Bill, what am I gonna do with this?" - -"You're gonna burn it, Miss." - -"You're talking to a girl just like me," he said. "I don't wanna burn my own books." - -"But we need to burn those books, because they're not just a picture of a comet, they're a picture of a comet on fire?" the woman said. - -"Yeah, yeah, burn it anyway. Just burn it and be done with it. Nothing to worry about." - -"Okay, Bill, okay," she said. "Just remember, you said they didn't want to know about what Earth was like, didn't want to know about why the book was on fire, so they don't wanna know about what Earth is like." - -* * * - -"Miss Svetlana," said Bill in the morning light, "we've already burned about half of those books, and not one of them is a picture of a comet on fire. Just… just… burn it!" - -She stood up and pulled her hood over her head, then went outside and burned the books herself. "Yes, Bill!" she said. "We have nothing to worry about!" - -* * * - -"Miss Svetlana, could you please tell me where I can get some ice-cream?" said Bill, going back inside and putting ice cream on his sandwich. - -"Ummm… I'm not doing well." - -The lady came back inside and got out of the car for a minute. "You know, Bill," she said, looking at Bill, "I've been wondering all day. Is this the same place where you always buy your ice-cream? Is it another one of your favorite places? Is it my favorite place?" - -"Oh, no, dear," said Bill. - -"It's a favorite place, dear! Why not have some ice-cream here?" - -He looked down. "Actually, Miss, it's not ice-cream. I've just had breakfast. I'm here to talk to you about your book." - -"Oh! My books?" she asked. "I thought you were the one who was reading them or…or… or…" - -"I'll get them," he said. - -"Oh, thank goodness!" she exclaimed. "I didn't think I had a chance!" - -"Are you gonna help me with this?" he asked, holding out the letter from the woman. - -"Of course, dear, but first you'll have to do something else. Oh! Here." She handed him the envelope. - -* * * - -"It's a letter from The International Astronomical Union," said Bill, holding a letter in his hand. "The organization that is trying to make sure that -======================================== SAMPLE 224 ======================================== -Boeing has been awarded two $25 million contracts to help build the next wave of long-range strike submarines. - -A deal with Australia's Irving Shipbuilding in St. Augustine, Florida, worth $7.65 billion, includes the design, commissioning and long-lead materials for one of the lead sections. - -The contract also includes up to $1 billion in work that could be performed at any of the United States Navy's seven submarines yards. - -"The work will ensure the capability to build the next generation of strategic submarines at the same time as we modernize our existing fleet," said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus at a ceremony at the Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia on Wednesday. - -Irving agreed to build two Ohio-class submarines at a new facility in Virginia with a capital investment of $8.6 billion. - -"The company is an exciting and well-qualified partner," Mabus said. "Their proven management team is building high-end shipyards." - -Under construction - -The Navy's future nuclear aircraft carrier fleet will require 12 Virginia-class submarines, a smaller number than the current 25-27 boats but significantly more than the eight submarines needed when the USS Independence class was retired in 2010. - -The next 12 submarines will have a total construction cost of about $18 billion -- roughly $3.7 billion every time one is built -- more than double the current $10 billion cost of a Trident submarine. - -The navy plans to build six submarines under construction in Maine at the yards of Huntington Ingalls, Bath Iron Works, Bath Iron Works and General Dynamics. - -But to keep that pace up, the Navy will eventually have to build 12 submarines at a time, increasing the cost of construction almost 10-fold. - -"This is part of the way to do it," said Mabus. - -Congress also approved $7.75 billion to build two USS George Washington aircraft carriers at the yards at Newport News. - -The carriers are a key part of the Navy's future and are designed to patrol the world's oceans for nuclear ballistic submarines, anti-submarine and surface warfare aircraft and the command's aircraft carriers. - -The Navy estimated the first George Washington could be commissioned by late 2015.<|endoftext|>Welcome to the 2016 BCS National Championship Preview for all you college football fans! - -The College Football Playoff is a long, long, long time coming, and while the NCAA has given us some hints to its possible plans in the short-term — a four-team playoff beginning in 2016 (with a five-team one to follow) — it's unlikely that we're going to get a definitive ruling on the matter until the early fall of 2017. - -Until then, we'll just have to wait and see what the committee decides to do. For now, we have a few ideas on where they could go if they decided to add another game to the 2016 bowl season. - -The Orange - -As much as we'd love to see the committee end its postseason ban and play some "national championship" games, it's going to be a much easier sell if the committee's goal is not to keep track of everyone from Oklahoma to Iowa over the course of a two-week stretch. After all, it'd be a waste of time and money for the committee to watch the same programs multiple times. - -So, there's little reason for the committee to include another game than the obvious one: Clemson in the semifinal. With the Orange out of the College Football Playoff, the committee could have the Clemson-Arizona semifinal on their docket. Or, you might not see one at all. - -The Big Ten - -While the ACC had its share of issues in the first round of the playoff, it was the Big Ten that managed to make itself look worse than ever in Round One. That being said, the committee could still do a lot better on the whole. - -So, where do these schools fall in the Big Ten's bucket? Sure, Iowa's a potential title contender, but the same could be said about Michigan State and Penn State. Minnesota doesn't have the most wins (7 to 9) but they were one of the surprise teams this season. Ohio State had their struggles in 2016. Michigan and Michigan State are the team's that had the worst seasons on the field. - -Still, the committee probably doesn't want to spend time putting a team that's barely good enough to qualify for the postseason through a bracket of teams that have won five bowl games, including one in which they went down to double overtime in front of the home crowd (Wisconsin at Madison). - -The Big 12 - -While the Big 12 is in some sense the Big Ten's little brother, the committee still could do worse than to add Baylor and TCU to the pool of playoff teams. Oklahoma has been the most dominant team of the past decade — maybe of the last decade — and the committee won't want to watch it lose to TCU if it -======================================== SAMPLE 225 ======================================== -I had to give it a try myself. I have a lot of good friends living in the Twin Cities and we enjoy our annual Thanksgiving feast. We don't do it so much as we enjoy the tradition of it. The first time I cooked and sat down to a meal as a child, it was a special day and I was not afraid to experiment with different foods. I loved what I did when I lived in Michigan. However I never knew what was coming until my son became interested and he tried some of the foods I grew up on. - -When it comes to Thanksgiving this year I thought I would try a vegetarian/vegan version of traditional Thanksgiving meals. So a lot of recipes have a veggie layer on top. I used spinach, tomatoes and broccoli. When I was making them I used my favorite homemade tomato sauce (makes it vegan and gluten free) and brown rice. I know we do make Thanksgiving vegetables that aren't always in the mainstream. - -This tofu scramble has lots of veggies but no meat in it. While it has tons of flavor, it is a bit hard to find a store bought tofu. If you can't find it, then my homemade "Finn" style tofu will do (I call it the "Finn" because the best part is the consistency). You can mix the dry ingredients, then cook it. I love getting a little extra moisture and flavor without using egg replacer or milk. - -Here is the recipe I used (for those of you who don't want to read a recipe): - -Vegan Thumbprint Stir Fry - -Tofu Sauce Ingredients: - -3 cups veggie broth - -1 medium yellow onion, diced - -2 cloves garlic, minced - -2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped - -5 oz. firm tofu, sliced or chopped - -1 tsp sea salt and freshly ground black pepper - -5 cups cooked brown rice - -Bowl Ingredients: - -Vegan Worcestershire sauce - -2 Tbsp peanut butter - -Vegan Parmesan cheese - -Directions: - -Season and set aside the remaining vegetable broth. - -Place the tofu on a tray or plate and place in the refrigerator. If the tofu has been sitting in a dark place in the fridge for at least 8 hours, it will defrost. - -Remove the tofu from the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 225 degrees. - -Put a large pot on the stove and add the broth. - -Add all the garlic and onion and cook until soft. - -Add the onions to the pot along with the tofu. Add the tomato puree, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and peanut butter. Bring to a boil. - -Lower the heat a little bit and cook for 5 minutes. - -Add the brown rice and cook and stir for 2-3 minutes. - -Add a little more salt and continue to cook for about 1-2 minutes. - -Serve and enjoy! - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>This video of a giant whale breaching was captured Wednesday, June 26, 2014 on a private wildlife webcam in northern California (ABC News) - -A large beluga whale is breaching in Lake Tahoe, and it may have gotten caught in a fishing net. - -The video posted by the Pacifica Wildlife Institute on its Webcam Wednesday shows the massive sperm whale going past the shoreline while some people walk nearby. Then the whale appears next to a couple standing on their back deck and the water starts to break. The whale breaks through the second-story railing and splashes the water, startling the people on the deck. - -"We think a fisherman just got caught while trolling a boat, which is really dangerous," said Pacifica Wildlife Institute president Dave Ewing to ABC affiliate KGPE in Reno. - -A spokesperson for the North Lake Tahoe Animal Care and Control Center said a fisherman "had his vessel overturned around 4 p.m. while trolling along the shoreline. A large female beluga whale came into the water to join the troller on its back deck. This whale was feeding the troller. After feeding the whale did the troller stop fishing? The adult female became agitated and turned to follow the troller back deck." - -"Troller catches huge whale while fishing," TMZ.com reports. - -The beluga was taken to a nearby hospital in "satisfied state" before being released unharmed. - -"There are some people who are interested in seeing whales, including the beluga whale," Ewing said. "It is one of these animals we have to watch and learn over time. This whale was caught when a fishing vessel was caught in the line." - -It's not clear how the fishing net caught the whale, but the area is an active fishery in the area. - -"They've seen a lot of these whales this year," the spokesperson for the North Lake Tahoe Animal Care and Control Center said. "They'll go -======================================== SAMPLE 226 ======================================== -For the first time in history, the US Environmental Protection Agency has set out a concrete plan for cutting carbon emissions, by 2020 at the latest. This may seem counterintuitive – after all, it may look as though we are already well on our way towards meeting the goal of keeping warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, defined as a 'safe' warming limit. But according to the US EPA, the US' greenhouse gas emissions will not stabilize until 2021, and will hit an all-time high by 2030. - -But how to fix what's broken in the fossil fuel industries is one question. The larger question is: how to make our energy system more sustainable long term? The United States is already in deep trouble for climate change and air quality, and the nation has already committed to a course of fossil-fuel extraction, shipping and burning that will make the challenge even harder later on. However, the solution depends on the policies and technology driving our current energy consumption. - -So what kind of technology could we use to tackle climate change? What would be better for a country with a history of air pollution, and a nation that now burns more coal, gas and oil than ever before? - -Climate change - -The challenge of climate change, including extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and fires, is inextricably tied to human activity. Climate scientists believe that more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels as opposed to using less fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and humans have a lot of it in their bodies, whether it's in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, or in the food we eat. Carbon emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, and this warming impacts the entire globe. - -Fossil fuels and coal have been used since the beginning of time. But it wasn't until the industrial development of the 19th century that they were harnessed into the industrial structures that allow us to manufacture everything from TVs and refrigerators, to cars and airplanes and all manner of other products. When humans use fossil fuel resources, there are two ways that this happens: in the form of an energy source as part of a process like manufacturing a car, building a house or moving a country, or, in the form of a waste product. By burning an energy source, we make a product that has an energy cost. By using fossil fuel energy, we make a waste product. We can choose which kind we want to use. In this case, we decide to burn oil, coal or natural gas to move around a country. We're also using fossil fuel energy to build the houses, buildings and structures for which we're so proud. These are the primary ways that we use fossil fuel energy. - -In addition, fossil fuel energy also contributes to climate change because some of it's the waste products from the energy-producing process – such as sulphur, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Because they produce heat during their combustion, emissions that are produced are called 'GHGs' – or greenhouse gases. We emit these emissions from our heating and cooking systems, and from the factories where our cars, homes and manufacturing machinery are made. They also contain some of the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. - -According to the United Nations, global greenhouse gas emissions have increased by over 40% over the last decade, to around 1 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year. The vast majority of that increase is from fossil fuel use and deforestation. It's only by tackling the source of emissions, burning fossil fuels or reducing carbon emissions that our climate will stay within safe limits. - -A world of clean energy - -To deal with climate change, we have only two options: we can build new technologies – such as clean energy technologies and fossil fuel-free renewable energy sources – to replace energy resources that have a high carbon footprint, or we can replace energy with energy waste from dirty energy sources. - -A report published this year states that the energy sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide globally. That's why the global climate summit in Paris should aim to achieve a global energy system that is at least as sustainable as the one that exists today. - -For a country with a fossil fuel past and a strong energy economy to deal with climate change, energy and climate policies must take into account the scale of our current energy consumption, and the technology it uses. We have yet to see adequate energy policy policies worldwide for the clean energy technologies and clean vehicles it will take to decarbonise our energy system. And there's plenty of evidence that policies that favour fossil fuels will make things even more difficult in the years to come, as we struggle to bring coal and oil production costs into the current low cost range. - -How to build a greener future<|endoftext|>The UK government has admitted plans have been drawn up to send UK troops to train Iraqi soldiers, and the Pentagon said in a recent briefing that the British "military option remains on the table". - - -======================================== SAMPLE 227 ======================================== - -A few weeks ago, when you walked into the grocery store or the supermarket you saw a small table with a variety of delicious fruits and veggies, right by the produce section was a sign that read "no animals were used in its creation," as a way of showing customers that the produce is truly free from animal suffering. It is a very interesting initiative where people from all walks of life came together to provide our natural ingredients. - -In our food technology evolution we have made strides since the 60s and 70s. It is hard for us nowadays to relate to animals suffering, it is all about technology and our ability to make plants do our bidding. To make the fruits and vegetables that can be sold on supermarket shelves we start with the seeds that is grown in an enclosed space using a variety of different methods. This takes up to a couple of weeks making sure that you can eat these fruits in a short period of time. There are other things that we need to focus on and in this episode of The Vegan Experience you will discover them all. - -If you have enjoyed any of the vegan recipes presented on our website or you would like more information on what we are doing, please visit us at VegetableNest.net/Venturama<|endoftext|>In early October, Hillary Clinton gave a speech, "A Call to Service," that was one of the more remarkable political speeches I've ever heard — a beautiful, heartfelt, heartfelt speech that took the air out of the room while also challenging Bernie Sanders to be the kind of leader that inspires America's young people. - -Here's the speech: - -And here's the tweet that captured a moment that I loved so much: - -Bernie Sanders just called Hillary @HillaryClinton to congratulate her on tonight's speech. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/gQVqeoB4F0 — David Wright (@politicalwire) October 14, 2015 - -Bernie Sanders just called Hillary Clinton to congratulate her on tonight's speech. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/p7N5oEq3Rj — David Wright (@politicalwire) October 14, 2015 - -I'm old enough that I remember Hillary "giving a call to service speech" back in 1993. The idea — that a strong leader can inspire and energize not only yourself but your people — has been with me for a long time. Of course, those in my generation, for whom Hillary Clinton has been a hero, will recall the 2008 campaign in which she delivered her famous speech saying that she was in the race not to be president but to "break a glass ceiling." That was a defining moment for the women's movement of that era. - -It's time for Bernie to step up. It's time for him to do what he's never done before and show some leadership and inspire America's young people. And so today, on behalf of those of us that have been paying attention, I urge you, Bernie Sanders, to finally do the right thing. The last thing the country needs is a candidate who simply ignores the issues facing youth, while pretending that what's happening in the world today isn't a major issue, particularly for young people growing up in this country. The last thing this country needs is a candidate who has to appeal to older Americans, people in senior states, even those who do not live here. You can never win with 50-point margins anymore. You can't win with a 2 percentage point lead at the end. It's time for him to step up. - -To be sure, a lot of the problems that I want to talk about are still happening today. We have one of the highest unemployment rates for our young people today, and we're going to have much, much higher unemployment in the future. I don't think it's just you, Bernie. People in all of our states are working so hard and still don't have enough money to pay their bills and put food in the table. We have problems with poverty and homelessness and the need to raise wages. We still have a long way to go, but the changes we need to see are coming. And I truly think that the American people, whether or not they want to vote for you, understand what our country needs right now, but they are not going to vote for somebody who dismisses these issues. - -That was a call to service. We can never give up now. We need a new generation of leaders. We need someone who has come into politics with real experience — Hillary Clinton did — and she got out there and took on the big fights that many thought not only impossible but impossible to win. I love that about you, Bernie. I love that about you. You've been there. You've worked to make it happen. You've made your neighbors work, made people in the White House work, so that in the end, you can give them their shot. I'm not sure you can do it again, so I want to ask you now to help us start -======================================== SAMPLE 228 ======================================== -This article needs a big cleanup. - -More importantly, there is a lot of information wrong in this, and it doesn't make much sense in the context I'm trying to provide. - -To make an issue more clear, let's discuss the issue, and then the issues that come up afterwards. - -The problem here could be made clearer if we rewrote this into a statement that was more specific: - -// The problem: the code does not handle the type of a function declaration, // so it gets stuck in undefined mode. The problem is that // it is just a method, and it is called with this._decl. return function declare () { if (this.isFunctionDecl) return this.method; if(this.getFunctionDeclaration()) this.getFunctionDeclaration().bind(this); }; - -Then the reader can better understand what happened. - -There are some more issues that still need to be fixed in this article, which I will discuss in subsequent articles.<|endoftext|>A high school senior was suspended from school for refusing to shake hands with a student who had recently become his prom date, according to a lawsuit he filed against the school district. - - -The principal of Cesar Chavez High School in Riverside, Calif., demanded that Jonathan Garcia shake the junior's hand, a policy that was never challenged, the plaintiff claims on behalf of himself and his family. "This incident violated (Garcia's) 14th Amendment right to due process," according to the lawsuit." - - -The 15-year-old student, who is gay, was suspended for four days in June. In November, the school board fired Garcia, after he filed a grievance. - -The school board "failed to consider Jonathan's First Amendment right to free speech and the principle that public schools have to adhere to the Constitution," the lawsuit states. The board, he says, "failed to consider Jonathan's right to equality under the law." - -The school board says the teacher's conduct did not result from "bias," according to the district's statement. The school's statement also says that Hernandez "admitted to making some inappropriate comments to (Garcia) in reference to his sexual orientation," and "he apologized for that, as well as his behavior."<|endoftext|>A lot of people hate getting rid of things, so it's best to think about why you're going this route if you're still using something. One reason for using things is convenience, but convenience has cost: people lose valuable productivity from having to keep up with a messy workspace. Here's a list of some of the more common reasons to get rid of things: - -1. "Clean" is not "clean anymore" - -This sentiment applies to just about anything. The feeling that "I'm finally getting rid of that messy desk" usually doesn't extend for computers. Computers are always a mess. They smell like cigarettes, people spill things on them, etc. That's because it's a technology, and a technology is made with humans in mind. - -2. "Now I can move to the cloud" - -Moving stuff to the cloud is more appealing because it has the benefits of being portable and easy to move, but it costs you even more. You'll also get more time and less work for just the cost of paying a monthly fee or purchasing a service.<|endoftext|>Crowdfunding is taking off. Over the past few years, the number of projects for sale on Indiegogo has more than doubled, and the number of projects on Kickstarter has grown by a factor of 2, meaning that crowdfunding is becoming the new source of capital for startups. - -It's a fantastic and exciting time to be an entrepreneur. But for me, the real potential lies in the next level: a platform that makes it easy for aspiring entrepreneurs to connect and build upon their business ideas. - -I've been thinking more and more about this for quite some time now, and I have a few ideas that I believe will help make it very easy both for startups and individuals to get funded, share their ideas and build a community of support around them. - -Here's how I think about Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and what I believe will improve them if applied: - -Kickstarter - -Kickstarter has the ability to give the world a new way to fund projects, and it can be great for businesses both big and small. It is especially important to give smaller brands an opportunity to get off the ground, and to do it quickly. - -So where does Kickstarter fit in this picture? Well, if you are a business, you've probably noticed that all businesses need crowdfunding to survive. If you are a startup, you have been told, and so have I, that you need enough capital so that you can start. - -There's many ways that you can start building up your business in any way that you can imagine. It may be a blog, it may be a website, it may be an online store, it may -======================================== SAMPLE 229 ======================================== -The world of social media has a name for people who lie to, stalk or bully others online. But one of these people was born and raised in a town on Newfoundland's west coast: - -He was a "social media molester?" - -That's how local police described the suspect in the case of a 14-year-old Newfoundland girl who went missing in December. - -He's been described in the media as a teenager — his own parents say he was almost 24 — who is also transgender. - -Police said he's now in custody and will face a charge of first-degree murder. - -He won't be named to protect relatives of Kristine Mihevc, the girl's mother, which the Crown is calling a privilege. - -"I just felt like the media was overblowing this, and I didn't want the media overblowing her, that this is not the situation," Cindy Mihevc told CBC News. - -Her son is missing, she says, and police are "worried" the public is seeing the family as something they aren't. - -The boy's name isn't being released because, he's just a 14-year-old that's not supposed to even be alive. It's just the name that's leaked, and they don't want to be labeled the suspect or the bad guys. — Cindy Mihevc, Kristine's dad - -"If he's a suspect, so be it, it's all information that the police have at this time, but we're not going after him, we don't want this to be a witch-hunt situation," Mihevc said. - -"There is no reason to jump to any conclusion." - -In other jurisdictions, including Canada and United States, journalists, advocacy groups and legal and media experts have called for restrictions to the privacy of the identities of those arrested for crimes, and of those who are missing or who are suspects in a crime. - -They've also advocated for strict media guidelines, in line with guidelines for police investigations and investigations involving minors. - -A 'glamour picture' - -Mihevc, however, disagrees. - -"He won't be named to protect his grandmother, who is the victim. She didn't give us his name, there's no legal protection for her, so we don't want to name anyone," she said. "We're not the bad guys anymore." - -Cindy Mihevc tells CBC News Kristine Mihevc is devastated by the news her son is missing in New Brunswick. (CBC) - -"As far as public perception and as far as my reputation is concerned, all we want is to be left alone." - -Mihevc insists the man in custody is not a predator, or at any time been in Kristine's home. - -"We're not the bad guys anymore." - -The boy will be transferred to the New Brunswick Child and Family Services Program, where he, "without his parents," is under the jurisdiction of the New Brunswick Child and Family Services Act, which applies to people under 18, and applies to all New Brunswick institutions. - -Kristine Mihevc says she does not believe her son was kidnapped, but the publicity surrounding his disappearance has been tough. (CBC) - -'The world is changing' - -Kristine Mihevc told CBC News she would rather be talking about what happened to her daughter, not who is responsible. - -In an interview for her latest documentary, titled My Son — My Son: A True Story, Mihevc said the world is changing in terms of children and young adults who do things online. - -But it is also changing in many areas, not just for the transgender community, she said, but for the general public. - -"I hope you all understand the world is changing, it's really, really changing, and the world is not a nice place and I hope that you have enough tolerance to say please, let's leave the kids alone, let's let people speak out, you're not necessarily going to be the bad guy. You're not going to be the bad guy." - -"My son is missing, she said. "I just felt like the media was overblowing this, and I didn't want the media overblowing her, that this is not the situation."<|endoftext|>Troy, N.Y. - This summer, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo asked everyone to participate in a year-round cleanup effort as part of the state's Comprehensive Plan for the Long Island Sound. - -A new study commissioned by the state found the annual state investment in shore restoration between 2016 and 2021 will be $2 billion for the Eastern New York Region's three counties: Suffolk, Nassau, and Westchester. - -According to a press release, the report found New York State's investment is based on current and projected water quality values. The release says current assessments indicate an " -======================================== SAMPLE 230 ======================================== -A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft released the Edge browser, an extension of its web browser that works on Windows 10 computers with a touch screen. You can download it in the Windows Store for free. - -Microsoft claims that Edge is better than Chrome for Windows 10, but it's not the first browser to be upgraded in this way. Microsoft's own Edge browser, which doesn't include web extensions, was released in the fall of 2015, before Chrome was even a twinkle in Google's eye, and we know exactly how much Chrome improved over the years. - -But what if we're not talking about the next version of Chrome, or Firefox for Windows? What if we're talking about a different browser with the WebExtensions API? That's what we're going to talk about today, and see which one offers better performance in a less-used aspect of the browser, speed testing and benchmarking. - -It's worth noting that all three browsers have different features and performance issues that affect web browsing performance, and each one has a different feature set that can enhance speed. But this is how we'd compare them, and it should serve as a baseline. - -Speed Testing - -I recently spent some time benchmarking various browsers on Geekbench 3. I ran five runs on different PCs, and calculated the average, with some deviation for better context. - -Here's the original Geekbench 3 performance graph. - -The graphs below show the difference in scores. For each run, I also compared it against the Chrome Browser, Firefox, and Edge, because I use all of them for my day-to-day browsing. Also note that Edge uses the WebExtension API to enable speed tests. - -For the Speed tests, I tested the browser using Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. - -Chrome - -Edge - -Firefox - -Edge and Firefox have identical performance. - -Chrome has a higher score from the browser. - -Firefox has a higher score from the browser. - -Edge and Firefox actually have identical performance. - -Firefox and Edge have identical performance for the speed test. - -Edge performs below Firefox for the speed test. - -Edge and Firefox have identical performance for the speed test. - -Firefox and Edge have similar speed test scores for both the web and flash benchmarks. - -Firefox and Edge have identical WebExtensions API scores for both the web and flash benchmarks. - -Firefox and Edge have identical speed test scores for the web and flash benchmarks. - -Edge and Firefox perform similarly if we exclude the Flash benchmark results, which we didn't. - -Both Firefox and Edge have identical scores for the web-only Benchmark, both score about the same for the flash benchmark. - -The Flash performance is the highest out of all the browsers that I've used in this test. - -It's a slight improvement above how each of them compare to the last generation (Chrome) of Chrome, and the current version (Edge). - -The WebExtension API is an important part of the next iteration of Chrome, which is said to bring faster web browsing in Chrome for Windows 10. - -Firefox and Edge - -For speed testing, I tested Firefox and Edge. Here's what those versions look like. - -As you can see, they are identical. So, what's the point? Is that the difference, and does it matter? Is it the reason to use each of those two browsers to the exclusion of the others? Let's see. - -Firefox uses WebExtensions in Chrome, so it performs better. - -Edge does not support WebExtensions and uses its own extension system, so it does not perform better than Firefox. - -Chrome runs faster because it has some of the best JavaScript, the ability to render JavaScript inside WebExtensions, and the ability to optimize all JavaScript execution. All three browsers run at least one benchmark on Geekbench, except for Edge. Edge was able to do the single-core test with 4 threads, something Chrome cannot do. - -Edge runs faster with WebExtensions because they make it faster. - -If you want to run the benchmarks yourself on Windows 10, here's the files with everything you will need. - -All of these benchmarks are free for download. But the benchmarks that I include are generally the best that Microsoft has to offer. That means that the performance will be better in this case, not necessarily the best. - -Edge Benchmark - -WebExtension Benchmark - -These three are the most important benchmarks and they are the only ones that I run on my test machines. The reason for this is that all the other browser benchmarks are very subjective, and will not give a real-world answer. - -However, one thing is clear about them. When you look at them one by one, you can see that they are all significantly better than the other browsers. - -Edge is still the fastest for browsing. This is still the -======================================== SAMPLE 231 ======================================== -Dry-Served Salsa - -5 / 5 ( 2 Reviews Did you make this recipe? Leave a review » Dry-Served Salsa A Mexican spin on traditional chile-rubbed salsa! Ingredients: 1/2 large onion, chopped (about 2 tbsp, or to taste) - -2 garlic cloves, minced - -5 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped - -1/2 tsp cumin - -1/2 tsp oregano - -1/4 tsp turmeric - -2 poblano peppers, seeds and ribs removed, chopped - -6 oz (160 g), firm salsa (cubed is fine) - -4 cups (750 mL) water - -4 oz (117 g) tortilla chips - -2 tbsp tomato paste - -2 tsp cilantro, chopped - -black pepper (to taste) Directions: Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, making sure all ingredients are finely chopped. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Notes: This salsa will keep in the refrigerator for about a week. - -Nutrition Facts Dry-Served Salsa Amount Per Serving Calories 177 Calories from Fat 23 % Daily Value* Total Fat 2g 3% Sodium 509mg 26% Potassium 552mg 16% Total Carbohydrates 26g 9% Dietary Fiber 2g 8% Sugars 13g Protein 4g 8% Vitamin A 4.3% Vitamin C 2.7% Calcium 8.5% Iron 2.6% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. - -SaveSave<|endoftext|>The Federal Open Market Committee met in a joint session this afternoon to consider its decision to continue extending the Fed's asset purchase programs until the economic outlook has improved further. Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent, thereby maintaining the current extraordinary monetary policy stance. - - -The Committee reaffirmed that economic conditions have considerably improved since the Committee met in December. Gross domestic product expanded at a solid annual rate of 3 percent in the second quarter over the first, and real economic growth in the second quarter was stronger than the initial reading. On balance, the Committee now expects that economic activity will expand at a fairly steady pace, supported by rising household spending and business fixed investment. The Committee expects inflation to rise to its 2 percent objective over a medium-term period, supported by the stronger pace of economic growth and a lessening in the labor market pressures that have been weighing on inflation. Inflation expectations have risen appreciably over most of the present economic cycle. - - -At this meeting, the Committee was struck by considerable heterogeneity in its views about the outlook for the labor market and inflation. At this meeting the Committee reiterated that it expects an increase in the average pace of unemployment over coming quarters, with no immediate change in the overall unemployment rate. The Committee anticipates that inflation over the medium term will remain on a path close to 2 percent, which would be consistent with its goal of maximum employment. - - -A number of participants raised the possibility that inflation could rise above the Committee's longer-run objective in the near term due to factors that are difficult to identify, such as temporary factors that have contributed to the recent improvement in employment, or some combination of factors that is unlikely to become transitory. Some participants indicated that, in light of both these and other factors, they would like to see the longer-run inflation objective become more accommodative. Others noted that, in the short run, there were also considerable concerns about longer-run inflation expectations. The Committee views the risk of inflation running below 2 percent as being low. The Committee expects this risk to be offset to some extent by the Committee's expectation of further progress toward achieving its inflation goals. - -The Committee also reaffirmed its views about the appropriate stance of monetary policy. Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee chose to remain actively engaged in monitoring inflation developments in order to ensure that inflation remains at a level that is both likely to be consistent with its dual mandate and, to the extent possible, also promotes strong economic results. Given that inflation has declined slowly since peaking in late 2014 and recent improvements in labor market conditions are modest by historical standards, the Committee is likely to continue to evaluate inflation developments carefully in light of its dual mandate. In light of these considerations, the Committee chose to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 1/4 to 1/2 percent. At this meeting, participants agreed that the appropriate stance of monetary policy remains accommodative at this time. - -In deciding how to proceed, the Committee noted that economic conditions have improved further since the asset purchases were first initiated in October and that employment continued to expand strongly in recent months. While inflation has risen only slowly since the end of 2014, the Committee now expects inflation to move back toward its longer-run objective over the medium term (see "Information for Policy Decisions—Information for Policymakers"). This increase in inflation expectations has also contributed to a somewhat -======================================== SAMPLE 232 ======================================== -In 2013, a new video clip emerged of Barack Obama discussing Iran's nuclear program during one of his speeches. The footage had not been seen before and is now raising questions of what the president knew about his nation's intentions before taking office, and when. - -The video, which was published on November 4, 2013, by YouTube user 'Al-Muhajiroun', appears to show both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden discussing a deal with Iran. In the video, you can hear the president say, "I was going to take what is a bad deal, and I was going to turn it around." And then, "If we solve the problem we're in a pretty good position. I would rather see this than see it get worse." - -The Vice President and Obama then discuss a list of demands from Iran to settle the nuclear crisis. These include: - -A termination of all missile activities and the destruction of the Quds Force (an Iranian special forces unit within the military), along with the return of Iranian hostages in the United States. - -The removal of sanctions. - -The release of American prisoners being held in Iran. - -Bipartisan support from the international community. - -An end to U.S. sanctions - -The following is a transcript of what the video said to be Obama's words on the matter, as it was published: - -The American people made me this president. I accept the mandate to bring change. I have always believed we could make a better deal. I am going to work with Congress to make the best deal that we can. But I recognize all the hard work ahead of us. Every day, we're going to spend some effort trying to improve the overall deal. But in order to make progress, we've got to be able to get all sides agreeing to what has to be done. So if by some small stretch of the imagination, the status quo was better, then I guess I'd accept that. - -You can listen to the video here: - -During the campaign, some pundits doubted the authenticity or context of what Obama said. "If this tape doesn't prove that the White House has been keeping an eye on its Iranian partner, then it doesn't prove it at all. But given the fact that the White House released the video before Obama himself gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, which was also recorded by the group, there's just no telling the scope of information that has been compiled on the president's contacts with Iran's government." - -The White House has yet to release official footage of the video. The next day, November 5th, Obama said he would "wait and see" what the footage looks like and whether it proves any wrongdoing. - -While Obama could say that he believes the deal is the "best possible deal" for America, the man is also the Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces. In order to keep America safe, it is crucial that the United States is able to act in concert with other nations. America should not use its military capabilities to get what it likes in the Middle East. - -The video comes at a sensitive time in the campaign. Recent polls suggest that Republican challenger Mitt Romney is closing in on Obama's lead. - -President Obama and Joe Biden may have revealed some details of Iran's nuclear program, but they did not reveal the secret of what Iran has actually done. If they have done this, it is only because they are unable to control the Iran's government. America cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear power. - -Click "like" if you are PRO-LIFE! - -print<|endoftext|>Frequently Asked Questions - -General Questions - -Q: How does the new "Frequency of Fluid Consumption" feature work? - - -Q: How can I reset my device to factory default settings? - -Q: I need to add a new user, but I need help! - -Q: I need to delete an app that I don't use! Please help! (I still remember that one) - -Q: The new update did NOT fix everything! Here is a list of the missing features and fixes! - - -Q: What is a "Frequency of Fluid Consumption"? - - -A: Frequency of Fluid Consumption is the name we gave the new frequency-based user interface in M. - -Instead of looking and searching for certain info. in the main menu, by going to "Device" and tapping "Misc". - -You now get to see all information, by the side, in a new menu, as well as in the "Apps" menu. - -The menu now shows up on the screen automatically, with the same name you can now call it (although it's still the same menu). - -In the new menu, if you tap on it, you can see all the data, you can click/tap on for more information on any category in the menu. - -As you can see on this picture -======================================== SAMPLE 233 ======================================== -For Immediate Release, February 17, 2017 Contact: Mark Hartung, (202) 693-7974, mark@biologicaldiversity.org - -Bristol Bay Seafoods, LLC, 928 S. Beach Street, Portland, OR 97207; (503) 984-5538, barbsandsouthwest@yahoo.com - -U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 1211 Kiggins Lane, Suite 400, Ashland, OR 97015; (541) 677-2822, USFWS_Portland@fws.gov - -State of Oregon, Office of Emergency Management, Division of Emergency Management, P. O. Box 2677, Salem, OR 97302; (503) 626-5990, oem@ozs.state.or.us - -Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, PO Box 1601, Olympia, WA 98502; (888) 225-4337, WDFW_Olympia@dfw.wa.gov - -U.S. Pacific Fisheries Service, P.O. Box 1242, San Diego, CA 92111-1242; (619) 629-0233, pmhw@fws.gov - -U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service-Coral Gables Office, POCO, 2601 North Main Street Suite 1230, Coral Gables, FL 33134-1230; (305) 456-1230, oce-gables@fws.gov - -Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, P.O. Box 711, Palisades, NY 10960-0711; (516) 281-1400, latd-doherty@llnl.gov - -The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2425 State Highway 2, Sacramento, CA 95814-2425; (916) 264-4888, california@dfw.ca.gov In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a new science panel has been assembled at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to investigate the implications of the environmental catastrophe for marine mammals, fish, and other ocean wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. This new committee will examine the extent to which the ecological impacts that resulted from the Deepwater Horizon spill impacted coastal economies throughout the Gulf of Mexico on a local, regional, and national level. The panel also will address the state's regulatory response to the spill's impact on the Gulf's ecosystems. More than 1,100 scientists from the public and private sectors, academic institutions, and federal agencies from 38 states and the District of Columbia responded to the agency's requests for their scientific input. The panel includes scientists from both coasts, in both North and South America, as well as scientists from other countries. The panel's work will contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The new panel will meet weekly for more than a year to review the panel's findings. The meeting schedule, which will go into effect immediately and will be published in the Federal Register, will be posted in each panel's web site. "The public needs a clear and accurate understanding of why the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred, and how the federal government responded to it," said Mark Hartung, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service cannot investigate the effects of the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig without an independent science panel that provides scientists in every region of the country with accurate information about why and how the spill occurred." For more than three months, the Center for Biological Diversity has been collecting and analyzing publicly available information about the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, documenting, mapping, and visualizing the Gulf's oil spread and damage. The Center has also been reporting damage to birds and fish, and has produced video, graphics, and maps that illustrate how oil and gas are polluting the Gulf's seas, rivers, and beaches and harming migratory bird and fish populations. These maps, videos, and photographs are available at www.biologicaldiversity.org; on Twitter @biologicaldiversity and @cbiendanger; on Facebook . BioDiversity is supported by contributions from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation , and the National Audubon Society. - -Contact: - -Mark Hartung - -Center for Biological Diversity - -(206) 853-9181 - -mark@biologicaldiversity.org<|endoftext|>The House is set to vote Wednesday on a bill to reform U.S. corporate tax code. - -If passed, the bill will be a major victory for Democrats. They will be looking for major corporate tax reform to help address the budget deficit and to create jobs. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -Here is an overview of the bill, and what you need to know about Wednesday's vote. - -The bill — The Preserving Affordable -======================================== SAMPLE 234 ======================================== -The United States may be a far cry from the Utopian society envisioned by American novelist Aldous Huxley or the utopia envisioned by William Gibson, but the country can also boast plenty of examples of utopian communities. Whether in the New England towns that attracted pioneers and made the nation's first permanent settlement in 1620, the early years of the American frontier in the late 1700s and early 1800s or some of the larger cities, the American utopias that have lived on are mostly the products of the American quest for freedom, individualism and social harmony. - -The most famous and influential of these was created during the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. It was the New Albion settlement in the Connecticut Valley, a community based on hard work, the pursuit of personal glory, and self-reliance rather than government regulation. The settlement was founded by an English immigrant named Edmund Calvert and comprised many of his followers, including his son, John. The colony's motto was: "Peace, plenty, and good will to all." Although the colony was not successful in its first year's effort to establish order, the English government eventually granted the colonies their right to secede from the United Kingdom, and in 1645, after much controversy, the colony declared independence from the British Empire. They soon expanded outward to the other colonies, creating the American colonies. Today, New England, New York and most of New Jersey also include communities that are modeled in part after New Albion. - -Utopian city-states and towns around the world - -The first significant utopian city-state was founded by Dutch Huguenots in 1581, in what is today Belgium. But only 100 residents lived there. This town, today known by its unofficial name of Koppenden, was part of a communal society where peasants worked together on farms, shops, offices, and churches. The Huguenots founded the city-state of Flanders, located in central and south-eastern Belgium, in the early 16th century. The town soon grew to include 40,000 members. The town was ruled by the "general council," an assembly of 10 to 12 families who were chosen from one another, with the mayor and the three members of the local village council chosen from among their families. It was also the site of important religious events, such as weddings. A new social order called "Jubilee" developed in Koppenden after the defeat of the Spanish Armada during World War I. The Jubilee was similar to New Albion's communal self-government, where all households were equal and could elect their own chief and council. After the end of World War II, Koppenden fell apart with the end of the Dutch monarchy. Today, the town is known for its old buildings and its traditional way of life. - -The second major utopian city-state was founded by the Puritans in the Puritan settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1630. During the reign of King Philip II of Spain, the colony was invaded and lost a large part of its settlers' goods, which were confiscated to help finance the colonial war. The colony's leaders resolved to establish their own economy without government interference, and to provide all residents with a living in 1635. Their first step was to establish a government-administered economy and to provide a town meeting for each household. The towns and villages were then organized into ten townships, each consisting of three villages and a church, each with its own chief, council, and sheriff. Each town had a justice of the peace and a police force. The Plymouth Colony, as it became known, was the model for other cities, townships, villages, and colonies beginning in the 1640s and 1640s. Today, its ruins sit on the rugged Boston Plain in the northeastern part of Massachusetts.<|endoftext|>I have seen many articles that explain how to "use your iPhone or iPad a more creative way." It doesn't take very very long before they reveal their most interesting point; that one can use an iPhone or iPad to create a virtual "tablet" for use as a "tablet" in the real world. To me, this is more work than just using the iPad in a real environment because not only do I have to get up. The display must also be set up for a real room rather than a small room. There is also the inconvenience of keeping the iPad in a case. I don't feel there is anything more creative than just using an iPad. I don't have to constantly remember to turn it back on, and I don't have to bring along an actual tablet. The iPad is a fully functional touchscreen in the real world. - -One of my best inventions has been using my iPad in a work environment as a real-world display. I have been known to use it under a table or table top and it works great! I will say that in the past I have used an iPhone or iPad as a display in my office, not my real office. -======================================== SAMPLE 235 ======================================== -The American Enterprise Institute has announced it will spend $15,000 on the reelection campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. According to the institute, Walker is "a bold, pro-life conservative who has fought for jobs and the middle class" and a "reformer who has fought for the best public policy for Wisconsin." The $15,000 spending is the largest ever by the group. The Wisconsin Jobs and Economy Association was asked for the money by Walker's re-election campaign, but was rejected. - -Walker is one of the top politicians in America who's been working to take on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other anti-worker, pro-corporate lobbies. The American people, not ALEC, deserve a governor who will fight for their freedom, not a lobbyist who'll turn the state into a corporate plantation. - -Since Walker's election in 2011 ALEC has been on fire. With a new member this year to the board, ALEC is working to pass so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws that would permit and promote the use of deadly and deadly force against people who just try to escape an assault. This is what ALEC did in Wisconsin in April of 2012 when Scott Walker was governor. ALEC passed a bill to allow businesses to have the right to use deadly force to protect themselves and employees when confronted by a criminal who was involved in some criminal activity. ALEC also supported the voter ID laws the Governor signed for the November elections. - -Walker's support for ALEC's political agenda has put him in the "right wing" spotlight. Many news outlets have used phrases such as Walker the Tea Party-style Republican, Walker the Evangelical-style Christian, Walker a Republican Party-style politician and even Walker, the "Republican of the Badger State." This last is particularly true given Walker's anti-union, anti-worker and pro-business agenda. Walker has called for the creation of "American Jobs Corps" which is a federal program to hire teachers, administrators and workers to take their place in state and local school systems. - -Walker's Wisconsin Jobs and Economy Association (WJA) is the latest recipient of the AEI's "big bucks" in Wisconsin politics. The new member of the Wisconsin Jobs and Economy Committee, which is a sub-committee of AEI, is Wisconsin's AFL-CIO and the Wisconsin Council on Domestic Issues, which represents major corporations. The two groups had been meeting, and Walker's own State Senate Republican leader, Rep. Chris Kapenga from Appleton, had proposed to the state Democratic Party that unions would be replaced in the party by WJC member groups. But Kapenga withdrew his plan to the GOP. - -Walker and WJC also support the "Freedom to Work" bill which would allow for companies to negotiate with employees who choose to work at another employer. The proposal is being promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which has worked to undermine unions all over the country. Walker and WJC have given money to ALEC over the years as well and WJC has also endorsed Walker's recall election and the 2014 Senate elections as well. It is worth noting that when Walker vetoed an income tax hike, he used an ALEC-written economic growth plan from the Heritage Foundation, and Wisconsin was ranked number one in job creation in the nation under Walker's economic growth plan. - -Walker also worked closely with ALEC's "Stand Your Ground" Act, a law pushed by conservative billionaire Charles Koch, that gives the right of individuals to use deadly force in self-defense even when that force is illegal. ALEC has a lobbyist on the Wisconsin state Senate, Rep. Joel Kleefisch, who also represents the oil, gas and mining industries. "Stand Your Ground" has been very helpful for the Koch brothers as they have pushed numerous ALEC-written bills since 2010. - -According to the Huffington Post, WJC had $5 million in the bank as of August 2012 and the AEI had $13 million in the bank. In a statement from the Walker camp this week WJC said they have contributed to the governor's campaign because of his anti-union positions. According to the organization's website, the organization "is working on a number of fronts to advance and promote Walker for governor, and to ensure that Wisconsin remains a beacon of opportunity to all who live here" and that it "is currently raising money in support of these efforts." The Wisconsin Jobs and Economy Association also says it works "to bring Wisconsin businesses, policymakers and educators together on important questions of the day, as well as promote Wisconsin to national and international leaders in industry and business." - -American Enterprise Institute is no stranger to using corporate subsidies for special interest groups. For example, in August a federal judge ruled that the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has broken ethics laws by using tax-exempt organizations to promote their right and special interest agenda when discussing public policy. - -"This was the first case of its kind for our organization," said Michael Grebe, ALEC's Executive -======================================== SAMPLE 236 ======================================== -A new study from the Pew Research Center and the Annenberg Public Policy Center finds a majority of Americans now support the legalization of marijuana — a trend that's been in place, in some form, since 1991. - -Support for legalizing marijuana reached the highest point in Pew's polling since Gallup began asking the question in 1973, with 51 percent of the country now either in favor of the idea or somewhat supportive it. - -As recently as 1990, fewer than half of Americans support legalizing it. - -"The legalization of marijuana is no longer a fringe trend," John Della Volpe, the head of the Annenberg Center, said, "it's now among the mainstream." - -That shift marks a substantial change in national views on cannabis. But the report doesn't offer what the marijuana industry would describe as the "breakthrough" that's long been the goal of pot-legalization advocates, which has involved changing public opinion through direct lobbying efforts, political action committees, and ballot initiatives that have garnered support from several states. - -It appears legalization proponents have already surpassed their goals for 2014, though. On Election Day, support for recreational legalization in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia was about 80 percent. - -Despite the legalization push, the survey found that Americans are still far less supportive of the drug than other segments of society: only about a third think it should be legal, according to the poll. Americans are more likely to say they drink alcohol legally than to think it's okay to drink cannabis.<|endoftext|>The first thing to notice is the color—a vibrant blue and orange. - -Here's what the top looks like. - -On the back of the box, it says, "One side is silver, the other is black. The metal sides are coated in gold." - -The gold "side" seems very shiny, like a mirror. And it's very noticeable that there's a hole in the bottom where it fits around the battery. It's also noticeable that I can see the little white stripe, but I'm not sure I actually see it. - -The power button is on the left, and the volume rocker is on the right. Both of them are also metallic and smooth. - -Here's the back. - -Here are the little holes that the battery attaches to. - -The plastic is still super thin. - -Also pretty thin, but not so thin that it's translucent - -The micro USB connector is not on the back, as we saw a bit ago on the LG G Pad 8.0. - -The SIM card slot is on the left, the microSD slot and phone charger hole on the right. - -Here's the back of the phone. - -Let's do the phone now. - -You can see the little "Door Closes" screen. You really get a sense of how thin this thing really is. - -You'll notice that the battery in here is very large. - -Here are the two speaker grills, with the microphone hole (the one we saw on the Galaxy S4, and the small one on the Nexus 5) attached. - -I'm guessing that Google is using the same materials that they use on the case for this phone. - -Here are the bottom buttons: - -You'll notice that the back is a little more rounded. - -And now the backside. - -A lot better. - -There's a big hole in the middle here. The headphone jack is on the bottom. - -And a small, square opening at the top. This is the charging port. - -Also, the battery cover is the same silver metal that was on the Nexus 5, which also had the headphone jack (or should that be the speaker?). - -It's very interesting to be able to take a look at the software. There are a lot of little things that make this phone different. - -The Nexus 5 was one of those phones that was super simple. It used the HTC Sense software with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. But it was still very similar to other Android phones out there, right down to the launcher and lock screens. - -If you were one of those who just wanted a really simple phone, the Nexus 5 offered you that. But if you wanted to customize it, like those who prefer Samsung TouchWiz (like myself), then the "nexus devices" weren't for you. - -Google Now was the exception. There's actually a lot to like in Google Now, which is why people liked LG's One (and even HTC's One Max). - -The Nexus 5, on the other hand, has a lot of options. It's not just your standard Android, either. Google's got the "Now on Tap" feature that lets you use voice interactions and information like location data to suggest things, and it's all in the Google Now layer. The search box lets you pull up the web when called for. - -Google -======================================== SAMPLE 237 ======================================== -B.C. Premier Christy Clark says her government will move to create a more transparent and accountable process for building roads in B.C. - -Her comments came after the province decided this week to make a new highway construction process mandatory for all projects, even those in the planning and design phase. - -She made the announcement before the B.C. Lions took on the Calgary Stampeders in a pre-season game at B.C. Place on Saturday, and said the public should know what will happen before any construction starts. - -"We're going to make sure we've taken measures to make sure the public knows what's going on, because in the design phase these decisions are very difficult and decisions that shouldn't be made as they're being studied but once they're being designed, they have to be made," Clark said. - -'This process has been out there for so long' - -B.C.'s Transportation Ministry announced earlier this week that all projects under $100 million will have to go through an open and rigorous process where contractors have the opportunity to challenge their own estimates. - -That includes determining whether they can afford to build the road – or if the proposed cost is high or too low. - -It has been more than a decade since the province's first government study said it would be best to have the public involved before any project was underway. - -"We're doing a lot of research on that, and we're very serious about that. Because while I think it's important, it's very challenging to do it right," said Clark. - -"We have to be transparent and accountable. And so we're going to give this process a couple of years and then after that we will put in place a system that we can make changes to as we will see fit." - -'We're just going to go ahead' - -When asked about criticisms from the construction industry that a new process would be difficult and costly, Clark said the government had no need for the industry in the first place. - -"We are investing to build a better province," she said. "We're just going to go ahead, and they'll go ahead to make those decisions." - -B.C.'s Construction Association Executive Director Mike Devereux said his organization was not consulted in the province's decision. - -"The last thing we need is a new process that will be a long time coming for a sector that depends on this country for 80,000-plus jobs every single year, and we need to ensure the new process is done right," he told Power & Politics.<|endoftext|>The most effective way to avoid and treat anxiety is through mindfulness meditation. A study released by Stanford's Center on Longevity and the Behavioral Insights Team finds that mindfulness, when combined with behavioral therapy, can actually help relieve anxiety. - -"Mindfulness is the deliberate, focused awareness of present thoughts, emotions, sensations, and bodily sensations," said the study's lead author, James S. Levine, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Stanford. "Mindfulness practices provide a foundation of understanding about the nature of anxiety and how it works." - -He and colleagues from the Stanford Behavioral Insights Team measured participants' cortisol responses as they engaged in anxiety management training as part of their research. They found that mindfulness-based cognitive interventions helped reduce people's stress and anxiety levels. - -"One of the surprising things that we realized as the research unfolded was that there were multiple mechanisms at play that helped sustain people's resilience when confronted with stressful events," he said. "We saw that when people were able to engage the right parts of their brain, their stress and anxiety levels dropped." - -In a paper about the research, published in JAMA Psychiatry, authors from Stanford, the University of Washington and the Norwegian Institute of Health and Rehabilitation Research found that people who had mindfulness training experienced a decrease in negative moods, an increase in positive mood, and greater improvement in anxiety symptoms than those who did not receive training. - -Mindfulness, the researchers said, involves cultivating an awareness of one's thoughts, feelings, and sensations and regulating them in a way that facilitates insight into one's life and the situations in which they arise. It typically involves the deliberate awareness of thoughts and feelings and the ability to observe and respond to them. - -Mindfulness training is being found to be most effective when conducted through a supportive relationship between an individual and a trained therapist in the form of mindful awareness meditation. That is, during meditation, individuals are taught to focus their attention on feelings and thoughts without trying to change them, and are instructed to observe those thoughts and feelings, identify when they are distressing, and then simply observe them as the thought processes occur. - -"Our research suggests that mindfulness mindfulness training can help people who have had anxiety disorders or chronic pain or other physical condition that disrupts their health to regain greater resilience and control of those problems," Levine said. "We think that people who have these physical conditions can benefit -======================================== SAMPLE 238 ======================================== -MUNICH, Germany—In a move that stunned the business world, Volkswagen said on Sunday it would start selling a smaller, more fuel-efficient diesel-powered version of its popular Passat compact sedan in the U.S. next year, bringing the first American car built for the country's growing market to a stopgap, stop-gap model even as the wider Passat will remain available. - -...<|endoftext|>The Trump administration on Monday ordered the State Department to stop issuing visas to citizens of 38 majority-Muslim countries, citing security risks and the risk that the citizens could join terrorist organizations in the U.S. - -The executive order was intended to give the State Department an additional month to decide whether to resume issuing visas to nationals of those nations, according to the U.S. official. It does not apply to those from the four Muslim-majority countries -- Iran, Libya, Somalia and Sudan -- temporarily lifted from the list of banned countries by President Donald Trump in January. - -The move represents the third time the U.S. has blocked visas for nationals from the four countries — North Korea, Venezuela, Somalia or Sudan — as Trump has sought to tighten security measures and punish countries and individuals who his administration believes pose a risk to the U.S. - -A U.S. official familiar with the matter said the directive is "part of the plan to tighten up vetting policies on who we're allowing in." Trump signed two executive orders on Jan. 27, temporarily banning all Syrian refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, along with Iraq, and restricting travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. - -[The latest: Trump, CIA brief on Syria] - -"It's going to be a problem for the next six months and we need to know in advance if any people we're letting in are going to pose any threats to the U.S.," a senior U.S. official said. - -Trump, who campaigned on an "America first" platform, is not personally involved in the visa matter, as the official said. Trump is relying on his top national security officials to review visa issuances for countries, including Cuba, that have been identified as posing the highest risk. Trump has expressed concern that members of his administration are being drawn into an issue that is largely outside their purview. - -Asked whether Trump has directed senior national security officials to review visa issuances on countries identified as posing the greatest terrorist threat, the White House did not comment. - -"We will continue to prioritize countries and individuals that we think we can more effectively vet and prevent terrorist activities before they can even come here," said a senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk publicly about a subject beyond that of public commentary. - -The U.S. official said the review, currently led by Vice President Mike Pence, was being spearheaded by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert. Their report is due on March 15 and will have to consider the threat of individuals who have traveled to the countries or have lived there for extended periods. - -"This is one of the most important reports to the president because it'll be the first time the president has any objective data on the people who are coming in from those countries," the official said. - -A senior congressional staffer familiar with visa matters said that the Trump administration is asking for a 10-month delay in processing visa applications. That request has been denied by the State Department, a congressional aide said, but "they would be able to request to have their application expedited if they want in order to give them more time to make sure they are not the next target for terrorists like Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 and wounded more than 30 in November 2013 in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas." - -"If it turns out we are giving them the same exact amount of time that other countries have in the past," the congressional staffer said, "it may not be worth it." - -Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the committee that oversees the State Department, said he "cannot recall a previous instance when the State Department extended a visa waiver application by more than 100 days with such significant security concerns as identified in the Executive Order." - -"As concerns the executive order, it is important to note that the executive order does not grant preferential treatment or approval under the Visa Waiver Program," the agency said. "As with all visa applicants, there is an extensive application and visa adjudication process." - -Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said the departments involved have the authority to decide whether to waive a country's visa ban, but he also said that the administration needed "to have a better handle" on where it was going to get its information and on the level of vetting the country would be able to provide. - -[How to move beyond North Korea's latest provocations] - -The State Department is required under law to determine -======================================== SAMPLE 239 ======================================== -Dive Brief: - -With one week remaining before a federal court hears arguments in its ongoing case to invalidate Seattle's $15 minimum wage mandate, a coalition of businesses is pledging to fight any ruling of its own. - -The Restaurants Industrial Council, led by the National Restaurant Association, Seattle's largest business organization, is set to file a lawsuit Friday against the City of Seattle on behalf of a dozen restaurants and delivery services. - -The companies, which include Papa John's, Chick-fil-A, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Red Robin and Starbucks, say they are losing millions of dollars to minimum wage hikes and would face a flood of customers from employees that would replace them, Bloomberg reports. - -Dive Insight: - -The Restaurant Industrial Council group represents some of the biggest national restaurant chains and is led by the National Restaurant Association, the industry's largest lobbying group. - -Since the City Council approved a measure in 2014 raising the city's minimum wage to $15, leading to the lawsuit, at least three lawsuits have been filed by individual businesses: one was brought earlier this month by Subway and another by Zappos, and the last suit was filed by a group of small, independent restaurants in March. - -These lawsuits, along with the pending federal case, are expected to be decided by the U.S. District Court judge Robert S. Rucker, who is presiding over the federal lawsuits and also hearing arguments on whether the City Council mandate that businesses pay workers $15 an hour is allowed under state law.<|endoftext|>1. Introduction 2. MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X 3. MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X Overclocking 4. Testing Methodology 5. 3DMark 11 6. 3DMark 7. Unigine Heaven Benchmark 8. Ashes Of The Singularity (1080p) 9. Ashes Of The Singularity (1440p) 10. Ashes Of The Singularity (4k) 11. Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor (1440p) 12. Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor (4k) 13. Dirt Rally (1080p) 14. Dirt Rally (1440p) 15. Dirt Rally (4k) 16. Grand Theft Auto V (1080p) 17. Grand Theft Auto V (1440p) 18. Grand Theft Auto V (4k) 19. Metro Last Light Redux (1080p) 20. Metro Last Light Redux (1440p) 21. Metro Last Light Redux (4k) 22. Hitman 2016 (1080p) 23. Hitman 2016 (1440p) 24. Hitman 2016 (4k) 25. Acoustics Performance 26. Thermal Dynamics/IR Thermometer Readings 27. Power Consumption 28. Closing Thoughts 29. View All Pages - -Our first look at Polaris 10 from MSI in a card that doesn't come with a reference cooler has already been well received. We were impressed with the price / performance potential and the fact that this is essentially a small form factor RX 480. Since this isn't a reference design, MSI has taken a different approach to cooling with their own version of the popular Twin Frozr cooler. - -We now find ourselves in the position of seeing the new MSI Radeon RX 480 and the GTX 1060, both of which have a reference cooler at the same pricing, but AMD have a slightly different cooler design for RX 480. - -The new GPU features a Twin Frozr V cooler with a single 120mm fan that's flanked by a pair of massive 6-pin power connectors. This looks a lot like the RX 480 reference cooler, but we find that the two extra heatpipes are mounted onto the card in an upside down fashion (and not only are the two small vertical fins of the Twin Frozr V upside down, it's really the whole backside of the cooling solution). This will of course produce some increased temperatures with the fan on it's highest setting, but the rest of the card will remain cooler overall. - -At 4.6Ghz, AMD claim this is a higher clock speed than the reference clock speed of 2.6Ghz. We are of course testing this at stock settings as we want to see how that clocks up the RX 480 at a later date or if it can deliver the higher clocks. - -This card features a pair of 8-pin connectors along with a pair of 6-pin power connectors. We will be using the dual power connectors for all our power related testing. - - -MSI RX 480 Gaming X Specifications:<|endoftext|>Purchased in a store in a very warm store on a warm day. I bought my first set of the D.O.C.s about a month ago and it has not worn off yet. The quality is a bit low for the cost but I have no complaints. They look great in my closet and my kids like to look at them when they are on a rainy afternoon. Highly recommend this color. I had heard that it was a great blue for a night time outfit and -======================================== SAMPLE 240 ======================================== -How to Make It - -Step 1 Make bacon grease in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring, until onions are translucent, about 7 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook, stirring, until liquid is evaporated, about 1 minute. - -Step 2 Reduce heat to medium-low and cook and stir until pork has browned, about 6 minutes.<|endoftext|>Sixty students participated in the study. There were no significant differences in cognitive performance between the two groups, with significant differences between groups and between subjects occurring at the 10 and 30 minute marks (p < .05). The mean mean age of the study participants was 15.8 years (standard deviation [sd] = 4.0) with an average IQ of 88.8 (sd = 13.5), indicating that cognitive functions measured showed a normal distribution. There were no significant differences in reading comprehension between the two groups (p > .05), and no difference in verbal IQ between both groups (p > .05). There were no significant differences in memory for digit sequences in either the control or the intervention groups (p > .05), and no difference in working memory or reasoning (p > .05) between the groups. - -Results: There were no significant differences in general academic achievement between the two groups (p > .05), and no difference in IQ between the two groups (p > .05). None of the demographic variables of interest (gender, ethnicity, family background, education level, previous learning) differed in any other significant way between the two groups. However, there were some interesting differences in the cognitive skills affected by either of the interventions. It was noted that the intervention group scored higher with the test of working memory, which is considered to be the most important memory function, as well as with the verbal tests in reading comprehension than the control group. There were no significant differences between the two groups in IQ. - -Context: - -This study was conducted to determine the effects of learning one of five cognitive skills in an introductory psychology course. The study was initiated around the time the course began. Each student was randomly assigned to a separate intervention group consisting of reading comprehension (reading to children), learning to use and write, problem solving, logical reasoning, and working memory (working memory). The intervention groups were randomized to receive one of four different materials to take home. - -Participants: - -This study took place between August and September of 2014 at the University of Pennsylvania. Approximately 60 students were recruited through postings in the student newspaper. There were no significant differences in age, educational level, number of years in the school, or family background between participants. Participants were all from the Philadelphia area. The sample was balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, and family background. This was also controlled by a student sample size of 48. - -Main Outcome Questions: - -The primary focus of this study was to compare performance on the five different types of tests assessed by the course, and to compare the cognitive effects of one of three interventions. Participants were divided into two groups based on cognitive function in the course (in reading comprehension, working memory, and logical reasoning) and received all five tests. - -Primary Outcome: - -We determined the extent to which participants demonstrated increased test performance as measured by both reading comprehension and working memory (by using a standardized and valid test of these skills as the primary indicator of cognitive function). We did not include vocabulary or reading comprehension in this measure because these types were the most obvious signs of general cognitive ability in the course. The main measure we used was verbal IQ (IQ). We used an IQ score at each test to determine the range of ability, and then we divided the scores into IQ quartiles. The IQ score could not range more than 20, so we determined the group using the largest IQ quartile. - -Secondary Outcome: - -We included the measure of vocabulary (verbal IQ and vocabulary) because it is a measure of general cognitive ability rather than a measure of specifically a particular cognitive function (like reading comprehension). - -Results: - -The intervention group performed significantly better on each test in both reading (e.g., 4.08 vs. 3.94 on the reading comprehension test) and working memory (e.g., 1.75 vs. 1.65 on the working memory task) than the control group. There were no significant differences in terms of reading comprehension IQ at 10 and 30 minutes. The intervention group had greater verbal IQ scores than the control group at 10 and 30 minutes (p < .05), but the intervention group had less working memory scores than the control group at 10 and 30 minutes (p = .05). There were no significant differences between the groups regarding logical reasoning at 10 and 30 minutes. Finally, there were no significant differences between the groups regarding working memory IQ at 10 and 30 minutes (p > .05). - -Conclusions: This study showed that learning to use and write a list of three words from one of five subjects at 15 to -======================================== SAMPLE 241 ======================================== -Luxury & Design Luxo, one of the leading manufacturers of premium automotive accessories, introduces a new luxury sedan for 2015. The "Elegance" sedan will offer enhanced comfort and enhanced driving performance with its elegant, premium design and distinctive interior and exterior features and quality-driven production capability. The sedan will deliver a comfortable, relaxed ride and will be priced at an affordable price-point that is competitive with the competition and is set to be welcomed by European luxury car buyers. - - -Exterior Design - -The "Elegance" sedan is an elegant, modern interpretation of the premium sedan class and will be offered in 3 models: the sedan with the best balance between sportiness and luxuriousness, a hatchback with more performance and refinement than the sedan, and an SUV. The four-door model will be one of the first SUVs in Luxo's new family of vehicles, in which the brand has taken the lead. - - -The sedan's exterior reflects Luxo's unique and exclusive look and will be offered in three unique combinations: front and rear fascias and chrome side steps, along with chrome accent bars. A full-sized boot designed to store the 4.2L V8 engine and all the additional equipment to be carried on board including the automatic transmission, the front passenger seat and rear passenger seat are also carried over, so that the passenger can easily unload the equipment at any time and return to his seat to enjoy his time in traffic. Additionally, the luxury seats are equipped with a comfortable, integrated head rest, while the rear passenger seat has a padded back. - -Powerful Engine - -The "Elegance" sedan's 4.2L V8 engine, which is equipped with the new 7-speed dual-clutch automatic to offer faster and more precise gear changes than in the standard 2.0 V6, can drive the car at up to 250km/h (155 mph) with all the necessary safety and convenience features. The engine's power is sufficient for driving from 0 to 100km/h (62mph), with the engine's torque reaching a maximum of 380Nm (250 lb-ft) and maximum speed of 300km/h (186mph), for a total driving range up to 260km. The car also comes equipped with a standard electric-assisted manual gearbox in the automatic transmission. - - -Sedans with "Elegance" Design - -The sedan includes the following upgrades throughout its design: new headrest with high-gloss finish, new rear bench-style seat front with two-tone stitching, new rear seat upholstery with premium quality fabrics in a choice of colors, new rear window with new chrome accent bars, high-gloss door mirrors, and new front grille surround with chrome accents, with additional colors in the options list. All these visual touches, together with a more muscular look and a unique combination of luxury and performance, will help the new Luxo sedan to build its position at the highest levels of the premium sedan class. - - -Engine - -The new 4.2L V8 engine, which includes a new direct-injection system, utilizes a unique high-performance cylinder head and crankshaft with cylinder banks of 19 valves, coupled with a unique power train that allows for an outstanding power delivery from low to mid-motor RPM. The engine delivers a smooth engine note as well as an extended power band. Its power peak of 455Nm (257 lb-ft) comes at 8,000rpm and its torque peak at 2,200rpm. This power and torque are delivered well-controlled for maximum efficiency and excellent handling, while the engine is fully compatible with many of the European safety technologies, such as the Electronic Stability Program, Electronic Brake Distribution and the EBD. - - -Exterior Design Design - -The sedan's interior will be designed with Luxo's philosophy of luxurious, sophisticated and sophisticated. A number of luxurious elements - including a headrest with high gloss finish and a center armrest with matching stainless steel trim - form the new Luxo interior, which complements the luxury exterior design. Interior quality is provided by Lexus' world-class manufacturing, which is complemented by premium materials that include premium leather with a color matched contrasting stitching, a two-tone center console, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, leather door panel inserts and a leather-wrapped steering wheel knob. - - -"In this year's introduction of the Elegance, Luxo's aim is to bring its unique brand identity to the market, starting with the Elegance sedan and taking these brand strengths around the world into the luxury car series - with the intention of reaching customers in every continent, and giving them a true pleasure of living." Luxo Brand Ambassador, Pierre Faucher - - -Production - -LX.T, the new division designed to support Luxo in the production of premium cars, will be headquartered in Luxembourg with three production sites in China. An existing production facility was -======================================== SAMPLE 242 ======================================== -An image of the original sign made from the original photograph of the sign - -On May 23, 1869 Charles William Wilson wrote a letter to the editor of the Times of London, describing the discovery of an astonishingly large stone building, "an immense block of red brick, and, in comparison with its size, almost nothing, or, rather, nothing remarkable," within the confines of New York State's State Thicket. The newspaper ran a story about the strange building, with the headline "A Great Giant's City," a striking illustration depicting an oversized pyramid. Within a year the story was published in the New York Times. - -In January 1871, a new newspaper, The New York Bulletin, published a picture of the original sign. Two years later in October 1872 the New York Gazette reprinted the picture and the story of Wilson's letter. (Other sources say that a newspaper of the same name ran stories about a "Great Pyramid" in 1878; it appears that an ad appeared in a local magazine for the week of July 18, 1878.) - -The significance of this story is not yet clear. It probably inspired Joseph Campbell to write The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he discussed the Great Pyramid at the heart of ancient Egyptian culture. However, the story seems to be an example of the mythmaking that characterized the development of journalism during the nineteenth century. The story of this strange building was a good chance for journalists to use the latest scientific theories to tell a story about ancient Egypt, or in some cases to make some sensational claim—such as the legend of the Great Pyramid's secrets—that is too good to check out. - -The New York City Board of Health decided to investigate the pyramid because of the news stories—in particular The News in 1872—that the building and its "summarium" (the pyramid-like pedestals) were an example of "pyramidal architecture, or pyramidal architecture which may be regarded as the greatest curiosity in architecture." In contrast, other buildings in New York's State Thicket had no obvious significance except for being situated within the boundaries of the Thicket. - -What we know about the Great Pyramid today - -The Great Pyramid is a massive, four-sided, conical structure of roughly 100 meters on each side. The walls run on the horizontal axis through the two lower levels, while the upper levels rise steeply to a height of roughly 5,300 meters. The Great Pyramid is nearly two kilometres in diameter and its diameter is an impressive 26 meters less than that of the nearby Washington Monument. The outer casing is of gypsum, a mineral that occurs in granular forms, often described in the New York Times as resembling "little grains of sand." - -There is no evidence to suggest that the builders of the pyramids at Gizeh and Saqqara built the pyramids on purpose, but a number of scholars believe that they were built for various reasons. This is especially likely if one accepts the idea that pyramids were meant for rulers to live in while they ruled (a theory that still holds today). According to one account, as early as the 6th century BC, several pyramid masons were buried by ancient Egyptians in the Valley of the Kings. - -Although the Great Pyramid was the main pyramid for ancient Egypt and has been the most visited monument by tourists, it also has many lesser monuments. The two lesser pyramids that make up the Sphinx are known as Giza's Lower and the Middle. However, the largest pyramid in the world, built for Khufu in Khafra's time, is located in the Egyptian city of Abu Simbel. The main chamber of the pyramid is on the west side of the pyramid (its north wall). The upper reaches of the pyramid are made of limestone, and its walls are of stone. - -Giza pyramid contains the remains of two buildings. - -Giza's Lower and Upper pyramids are the most prominent features within Giza. Although these structures have been under excavation, they are not yet fully realized on the surface, although there are hopes that this phase is nearing completion.<|endoftext|>For all the attention paid to Apple's announcement last week of iOS 8, Microsoft's Windows 8 has managed to remain underappreciated. If the Windows 8 rollout had gone just as smoothly, it would have been the second month in a row an operating system has gone on sale that has surpassed the total desktop and notebook sales of Windows 7. - -Microsoft released Windows 8 on October 26, four months after Microsoft released Windows 7 on October 26, 2012. The Windows 8 launch was overshadowed by Apple's Mac OS X 10.8 Mavericks release and the Windows 8 launch was, in the words of Microsoft, "the biggest hardware event in the history of modern times." At some point in October, every major media outlet in the United States had declared Microsoft's Windows 8 as Apple's Windows 7 successor. - -Microsoft took more than a year to finally announce Windows 8, and it still doesn -======================================== SAMPLE 243 ======================================== -In the aftermath of the attack at Charlie Hebdo, more than 3.6 billion copies of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo were sold in France by 7 PM on Tuesday morning! We salute these readers, as they prove to be a valuable source of funding for Charlie Hebdo. It is our sincere hope that our generous readers have a happy and healthy New Year!<|endoftext|>The House Republican budget includes a provision that would cut $9 billion from the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years. Rep. Paul Ryan is leading the effort to cut N.I.H. funding; and on Tuesday, he gave a speech touting the provision, which he called "an important first step toward reforming the bloated, inefficient NIH and making sure it is focused on its core mission, creating and sustaining medical breakthroughs." - - -Is that really the best place to be putting a significant chunk of money, especially since there are better ways to address the growing number of people who may require medical breakthroughs? Of course not. - -But it is the best, most cynical way for Republicans to try to cut some extra money to increase Medicare spending. Republicans in the House and Senate are proposing to pay for the cuts through a new tax on private hospitals. But the problem with the private-health-insurance tax is that it is an effective cut that raises money for Medicare. - -The N.I.H. is the largest of America's public or private health researchers. Its research spending in 2015 totaled $34.5 billion, or 10 percent of the country's total medical research and development spending of $380 billion. That amounts to about $8 of every $10 that Medicare spends on health care, including hospital costs to provide care that is not covered by Medicare, according to a 2013 report by the N.I.H. - -According to our research, hospitals and patients are more and more using health insurance for non-emergency care, such as inpatient hospital stays and non-emergency treatment that may be needed to stabilize patients. About 50 percent of Americans who buy private insurance have a plan with some kind of outpatient doctor visits. And if we pay more for hospitals to treat more patients, then there will always be demand for more hospital beds for non-emergency care. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -Medicare isn't the only government agency that makes use of health insurance for non-emergency care, however. Private hospitals themselves have long made use of insurance plans to help them compensate hospitals and doctors who provide care outside of hospitalization, known as other out-of-network care.<|endoftext|>The idea for NieR comes from a conversation between writer Yoichi Kotabe and producer Yosuke Saito at a coffee shop. The conversation was part of the "D-Pad" series about how to put a game together, so the first thing I wanted to know was, "What is NieR, and why is it important?" - -NieR is a sci-fi action-adventure title developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix. It is the sequel to 2010's Platinum's action RPG, Vanquish. The two games are the last two titles developed by studio PlatinumGames in Tokyo (and the only two that have been released, so we'll stick with them). - -Unlike its predecessor, NieR was designed to be an action-adventure video game. It follows a young soldier named Riley Ashelon and her squad, with new hero Machina as their leader. The game features a mix of stealth, action and platforming elements, along with a few more conventional elements like combat and puzzles. (It also contains several anime-esque character designs, such as the one on the cover of our review). - -The game's plot is told both in-game and through non-explicit flashbacks. - -It's a short experience - about 30 to 40 hours of gameplay depending on how much you play. And I did play a bit. A very small bit. - -What do I mean by that? Well, I don't mean you could sit in a chair and play the whole game for three or four hours at a time... - -You can play the game over and over for several hours, but only after you finish a section (though you can restart parts after completing them, so it doesn't feel like overkill to try again). - -While that was my experience, other players have said some of NieR's more interesting areas to explore are a little tougher to get to. What does that mean? Well, it's possible you simply don't know how to get there. - -To get there you'll need to use an emergency beacon system that can be triggered by using the Switch Switch to flip the gamepad in the direction you want your character to face as you walk around (like in the screenshot below). It's not quite how it looks (it's actually used on the Wii version of the game), so it's unclear whether the Switch makes it appear. -======================================== SAMPLE 244 ======================================== -The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -This page is currently being rewritten as part of the Skyrim Quest Redesign Project. - -The page is being rewritten and checked in several stages. All users are welcome to make changes to the page. If you make a change that is relevant to the project, please update this template accordingly, and make sure you have observed the project guidelines. - -Detail Walkthrough: written by multiple users, not checked - -Reward: written by Hargrimm, not checked - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Talk to Klimmek. Travel to Volunruud. Clear the vampire's path. Retrieve the key. Return to Klimmek. - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Volunruud [ edit ] - -After being attacked by a group of vampires during the final stages of the Dark Brotherhood quest Farewell to an Archenemy, Klimmek will be found inside Volunruud, the headquarters of the Volkihar Clan. There he reveals to you that the location is only accessible by a single key, and you must now discover why. - -Find the Key [ edit ] - -Just outside of Volunruud, and a short distance from Volunruud's entrance, you can find a wooden crate that you can enter. Inside is a chest with the key, and an unlocked chest to your left, with a leveled lockpick and a few items inside. It is located at the entrance to the graveyard: - -The Key to the Grave [ edit ] - -Klimmek will lead you to an open area with many skeletons and one final, large skeletal structure. He will inform you that the key can only be used at a grave marker, so head back to Volunruud and activate a stone cairn to find the location of one of them: - -The Restless Grave - -Upon your arrival here, enter the cave and locate Volunruud's grave marker, by entering through the locked entrance on the opposite side of the area: - -The Restless Grave - -The grave marker will be marked by a large skull. Inside Klimmek will be waiting for you, along with a number of his vampires. Take out the vampires, and then quickly loot his chest to find the key, which will lead to a few more vampires who you can kill for more loot. Then talk to the dead vampire and tell him to stay at the grave. At this point you have the opportunity to pickpocket a few more items from them. - -The next time you enter Volunruud, you will see six more vampires, led by two vampires you killed in the first part of the quest (two if you are human). Kill these and the final vampire (and any others you may have already killed or found previously) to complete the quest. - -Reward [ edit ] - -Upon completion of this quest, the following rewards will be handed to you: - -4,550 gold - -10,000 gold - -3 Skill books - -Notes [ edit ] - -If you decide to attack all of the vampires at once before you receive this quest, you can continue on to the next quest, Night of the First Stone , as the final part of this quest does not actually occur. Also, you can always return to Klimmek, either after the initial conversation or upon completion of the quest. - -, as the final part of this quest does not actually occur. Also, you can always return to Klimmek, either after the initial conversation or upon completion of the quest. There are no more locations where you can find the key. - -There is a small possibility that after you have accepted your rewards from Klimmek and left the cave, all but three vampires become hostile during the following conversation. Kill them all and return to the grave marker with a leveled weapon to retrieve the key. - -If you use a spell on the key, it will stay in Klimmek's possession, just like the other five pieces of the key. Also, if you tell Klimmek to stay at the grave he will not leave. He will continue to wander Volunruud as before, where he will even tell you that you have "taken what you wanted", though he won't leave his spot. - -Klimmek will start the quest again if you wait for him outside of the cave. - -Bugs [ edit ] - -There will be no quest marker to the grave marker once completed, even if you have used the key. ? - -If you pickpocket a quest item from the vampires during this quest, you will not get the reward you were expected for this quest in your inventory. ? - -It is possible, but as of yet not a bug, that you will be teleported to the front of the gate that connects to the burial grounds -======================================== SAMPLE 245 ======================================== -Rajesh G. Gupta is the author of "Innovating with Innovation: How to Get Ahead and Stay Ahead." He has worked in technology for more than 20 years, including as a columnist for Time Inc., where he now writes about startup strategies. He is also a board member for both IAM (Institute for the Advanced Study of Men) and Stanford Entrepreneur Institute. - - -At an IAM event in August, Mr. Gupta spoke with Michael Erlich, the CEO of iWatch. This interview follows an interview last week with Mr. Rajeev Ramchandani, the chairman and chief executive of e-commerce site MakeMyTrip.com. In that interview he also talked about the possibility of selling his share of the mobile-app developer for the Flipkart group to Flipkart for about $3.15 billion. As the Indian company has done many times before, it's a huge bet by Flipkart's founders and top management. The question that has to be asked is, does this move help or hurt Flipkart? And what's the chances that it'll pay off? - -This interview is condensed and lightly edited. - -Mr. Gupta: How do you think the Flipkart sale would enhance your ability? - -Rajesh G. Gupta: Flipkart is a huge success. It makes all kinds of smart investments in marketing and retail. It's so ambitious in its approach, and that's why it's a winner every single time it tries something new. We think that this is just one more step on an exponential curve to that success. - -If you look at e-commerce, online shopping is still really growing, but it's not expanding in a way that makes sense. You can see that it's getting more expensive every day, and there are fewer buyers to attract to those transactions and increase the value. Flipkart believes that if you expand your reach in China, the people who would make the purchases are online. - -They believe that the most important thing you should do in China is to help people who are buying on Amazon.com. In other words, Flipkart is the one company that does a great job of bringing that online buying experience to China, and we saw an opportunity to help them take it to the next level. - -It's a huge bet by Flipkart's founders and top management, especially after its recent struggles when it was hit by issues with its logistics and its payments infrastructure. - -What's the main takeaway? - -It's always important to keep an open mind and consider new opportunities before making your decision in a situation that offers many upside and downside risks. - -We think we've taken that approach. If I have to bet my own money on one outcome, I'd argue that it'll make things easier for Flipkart and for the Indian consumer. - -You talked about your view on e-commerce, the value in having a network in China, the importance of Alibaba in this country, and how it could help Flipkart grow. - -If you look at the e-commerce market in India, it's dominated by two players, Flipkart and Snapdeal. If you look at the value of the network they have established, and the value that Alibaba can add, it makes a lot of sense. - -To give you an idea of that, Alibaba has a market cap of about $168 billion, and Flipkart is around $45 billion. Alibaba is probably an even bigger player because of its technology and its vast scale. Flipkart on the other hand has a market cap of about $40 billion, and Alibaba is about $68 billion. So it gives you a sense of how much Alibaba could bring to the table through its technology. - -Would you consider selling Flipkart now? - -I wouldn't say that right now, but I see an opportunity to buy a piece of Flipkart. - -How would that help Flipkart? Would it help in the short-to-medium term? - -Yes. I think it would help. - -Have you thought about the possible deal price? - -Yes, I think it's worth $8 billion. - -How would you go about doing this? - -We have a process called "going public" that we've used before. It's like when you go into an IPO. You have a very public and transparent process, including going public with an EIS (equity in company) in India. And we have the advantage of having two shareholders: two shareholders are already in. For someone to bid for a piece of Flipkart is very difficult in our market. They have to wait for one of them to say 'yes,' and when the other says 'no,' it's very hard to make a deal because he doesn't have to share anything with the first side. - -What the Flipkart board could decide is what the board decides. If they decide -======================================== SAMPLE 246 ======================================== -On this day, 1 November 2004, the Supreme Court rules against a former British Army soldier who claims that the army had raped him when he was a child. - -David Blunkett was convicted of sexually attacking a child under 14 at a house in Manchester during the early 1960s. He was fined £1,000 by a military court. It was in this case that the then-British Home Secretary Jack Straw said of the soldier's case, "The evidence of his appalling offences is so powerful that he is serving a sentence which is beyond the sentence we would impose on a child rapist." - -That description was later echoed by former president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso when he said this was "the most serious abuse of children that we have seen since the Second World War", and the conviction was upheld on appeal. - -However, at the end of 2002, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) appealed the sentence and appealed it again. - -The MoD claimed that the soldiers and the teenager at the house, Mark Lawrence, were strangers and therefore innocent. The High Court (HCC) agreed however, that Lawrence had made "false, misleading, and inappropriate" statements and the MoD failed to disclose to the Court that the soldier was being prosecuted for sexual assault. - -Following the appeal, Blunkett was jailed for two years. - -Source: The Daily Mail<|endoftext|>Honeywell is moving employees, cutting more than 1,300 positions and closing several manufacturing facilities in Michigan and Louisiana. - -The U.S. company is shutting down and consolidating its Honeywell manufacturing and engineering facilities in Michigan, including plant in Holland Township, according to a news release. - -The announcement was effective immediately and workers are being notified by March 30, company officials said in a joint statement. The announcement comes less than two months after Honeywell announced it was eliminating 1,800 jobs in Michigan in its "strategic reduction" with the loss of a combined 6,450 jobs. - -"Today Honeywell and its employees are facing a number of difficult challenges, but the company's focus and commitment to Michigan continues," said Scott Hensley, Honeywell's executive vice president, in the company's statement. "Honeywell's decision to cease operations at its operations in Holland Township will allow us to reduce our global workforce, align our workforce to our core strategy and maximize our efficiencies while delivering the best quality and value to our customers, employees and shareholders." - -The company will begin to close down and consolidate facilities in two states -- Louisiana and Michigan -- during 2017, the statement continued. - -Honeywell will hire 100 current Honeywell employees in South Bend in March to work with some of Honeywell's manufacturing operations, said David Lauterbach, president and chief executive of the local Chamber of Commerce. - -"It's very unfortunate, to be that much smaller," Lauterbach added in the news release. "It's not exactly a good feeling to lose those jobs." - -While honeybees for crops such as corn and soybean, have seen a decline in popularity, Honeywell engineers also are making advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence and sensors to better understand the insects' behavior. - -Honeywell currently has nearly 1,700 employees in the state across plants in Holland Township, New Center, Lansing, South Bend, Holland, Saginaw, Michigan Lakes, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Jackson, Michigan. - -Honeywell employs more than 12,000 people in the United States and Canada. - -It is unclear whether Honeywell plans to offer severance packages to impacted workers. Those decisions are made at each location. Some employees could also work remotely, but Honeywell's announcement stated employees would not be eligible for relocation benefits. - -Honeywell officials could not be immediately reached for comment. - -Email John Agar at jagar@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReporterJAgar.<|endoftext|>From Baka-Tsuki - -Prologue [ edit ] - -"And the next was... it was a giant... monster, in other words a god of destruction?" - -Those words came from a completely different person than the one who had just told me about the beast. The man who was in front of me was speaking with a trembling voice. - -"You know already, right? No, that is not true, I am a high level alchemist. After all, that type of magic is only possible with the powers of an Alchemist. That's why I can do this." - -"And the next was... it was a giant... monster, in other words a god of destruction?" - -"That is how the term goes, it is a war god. In other words, it is similar to the war gods who can turn themselves into a god of destruction." - -I see. That's good to know. - -I guess in the end, what's -======================================== SAMPLE 247 ======================================== -On Thursday's "Kelly File," Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, gave us more proof that Republicans want to be even more belligerent than the Obama administration has been in Iraq. - -When Kelly was about to bring up the issue of what it's like to be on the ground in Iraq at this point, Lankford interjected, "My God, the war has been so uninspiring!" - -He also said that the military is "too far down the road toward the final destination to be so effective in our current environment." He added, "We want to move them to a strategic level." - -Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett<|endoftext|>If the first four chapters of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" set the stage for a new dystopian saga, the fifth chapter of what is supposed to be "The Hunger Games" trilogy looks like a series of reinterpretations of popular culture and an affirmation of the status quo. - -If the first four chapters of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" set the stage for a new dystopian saga, the fifth chapter of what is supposed to be "The Hunger Games" trilogy looks like a series of reinterpretations of popular culture and an affirmation of the status quo. (Katrina Cervantes) - -"When I was a little kid, I thought my grandmother was going to have to eat two steaks a day," he said. - -In the final movie of the trilogy, an 11-year-old Katniss Everdeen must survive as she and her comrades march through the capital of Panem in a quest to kill President Snow. But when she returns home, the world she knew is no longer here. The old, safe rules no longer apply. There is no way out of the situation she finds herself trapped in — a girl in a man's world who has to kill her own mother because she cannot fight on his side. Or take a job with the Capitol. Or betray her sister and kill a fellow competitor. - -The latest installment, "Mockingjay," opened on a Tuesday, the same day that Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Yet the two films that premiered on the same Sunday also had to contend with the same cultural problems and the same criticisms. - -Cyrus and the film industry's leaders had to wrestle with why a 15-year-old girl is more influential than she was a century ago — and why her music and image are a catalyst for widespread cultural change. Yet the industry was also left wondering about an industry in which young women remain in the shadows, making fewer bucks, working part-time and enduring a constant barrage of violence and harassment — even as their numbers grow in Hollywood. - -Here, the film industry and the culture at large weigh in on the problems and issues facing teens in the entertainment industry. - -Miley Cyrus: 'I'm not a victim' - -Miley Cyrus at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) - -A week after "Mockingjay," Cyrus was interviewed on the "Today" show with co-host Savannah Guthrie. The segment was supposed to be focused on Cyrus's new music video for her single "Wrecking Ball," which depicts two teenage girls trying to escape a male antagonist's unwanted advances. - -But the topic quickly shifted when Guthrie asked Cyrus a question that many industry leaders say is relevant to Hollywood at large: Why, in a culture where teen girls can reach their full potential, doesn't Cyrus focus on writing adult material herself? - -"What's this supposed to mean?" she asked. "Why do we let this happen to these girls?" - -The reaction to the video was swift and unforgiving. - -"I'm not a victim. I haven't been a victim, and there's plenty of things that people can point at me for that," Cyrus replied. "But at the end of the day, when I do my music, and when I perform and when I have my concert and when I go on these talk shows, I don't care who's watching," she said. - -On Friday, after "Wrecking Ball" had been viewed more than 10 million times, Cyrus tweeted, "I will always stand by and support our kids to have the most beautiful lives that they deserve." - -The reaction to the video was swift and unforgiving. - -The most effective response came from Cyrus's Twitter account. "I've said it many times before," the tweet said. "The more people who are on my side, the better." - -The criticism on Twitter was so bad that Cyrus had to respond, saying, "This is why I didn't get my MTV Cribs & that was a mistake. I don't know how to make things right with some of the people that I've hurt." - -M -======================================== SAMPLE 248 ======================================== -"We have been asked to assist law enforcement in dealing with a potential active child sex offender," the district attorney's office said in a statement on Tuesday. "We were advised last night, a full background check is being performed right now on this person who is a citizen of the state of California who lives in Orange County. We will have additional information given by law enforcement regarding any possible charges that may be filed at a later date," the statement said.<|endoftext|>I really like this card, it has a high floor, but a very low ceiling. I love the power of the "tap/tap tap" mechanic. It's always fun to find those tiny, tiny combos that allow me to abuse the ability. However, the card is a bit weak against artifact weapons. I can't see myself ever putting it in my deck. I suppose its possible that it might be good against an artifact deck (and maybe just good vs any other deck) but I doubt it.<|endoftext|>(WXYZ) - Two people were shot early Wednesday morning at the intersection of Northland Drive and Lake Drive. - -The injuries to two victims have been described as non-life-threatening but two others have life-threatening injuries. - -The shooting appeared to be random, and authorities and local businesses are helping to investigate the incident. - -Check back for updates.<|endoftext|>A judge in New York will rule this week on whether New York City will be able to ban the sale of "assault weapon" and "high capacity" magazines -- a move that would ban handguns and nearly all common rifles. - -The ruling by State Supreme Court Justice Barbara A. Parry is scheduled for a hearing on Friday. If her ruling goes the way the federal courts that preceded her favored, the city could have a ban on the sale of "assault weapons and high capacity magazines" that would go into effect by July 1. - -Parry said a recent ruling by her predecessor, Justice Diane Wood, that the city had to allow the lawsuit to proceed did not grant the plaintiff enough time to present her case. - -"No other court within the United States would permit the plaintiffs' attorney, in a proceeding that is under its jurisdiction, to ask a series of questions for 20 years while the case proceeds," Parry said in a letter to the city's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, on June 10, according to CNN. "My office made it clear that we were ready to be present at any hearing, provided that the plaintiff's attorney was prepared to answer those questions by [the trial's] commencement date." - -Gun control group, CeaseFireNY, said in a statement that the city had ignored court requests. - -"It is appalling that the City has decided to push its luck by delaying this critical case from even being heard until July 1. The City is once again trying to put the interests of violent criminals ahead of the safety of law-abiding gun owners," said John Feinblatt, president of CeaseFireNY, in a statement. - -In January 2012, a federal appeals court in Brooklyn threw out a similar lawsuit that the plaintiff, Joe Percoco, had filed. - -The appeals court said the mayor lacked the power to regulate common firearms and magazines, because all arms and magazines that the government regulates are defined by statute. - -The three-to-two decision in the Second Circuit Court did not determine the city's right to restrict sales of "assault weapons" or "high capacity magazines" -- the only categories in the law -- as an essential part of a law-and-order agenda. - -But the ruling could open the floodgates for New York politicians who support banning assault weapons and other firearms accessories to pass new laws. They could limit the sale of common accessories and allow the possession of "assault weapons" with one of the exceptions in the law. - -"This will be the Supreme Court's final word on the matter and the result could have a major impact on the future of gun control laws in New York City," said David C. Rosenberg, founder and chief executive of CeaseFireNY. - -Follow Stories Like This Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. - -Mr. Rosenberg added that the city council would likely vote on the ban as a priority item this month. - -"We'll be there when it happens," he said.<|endoftext|>If you're a fan of the show Parks And Recreation and you've been watching it every week since its premiere, then you probably know that the cast of the show have an insane amount of food related episodes on the show. This show makes fun of food by making ridiculous things out of food, so this is by far one of the best ways to stay up to date with the food obsessed characters of the show in one sitting. - - -In addition to the food related episodes, the show also uses the show as a way to make the characters into actual professionals in the field of food industry. This happens every so often, as one of the character -======================================== SAMPLE 249 ======================================== -Cancer and Reproductive Harm- Cancer and Reproductive Harm- www.P65Warnings.ca.gov - -With the P-2 Tactical Pistol Grips, you can go from range to range in complete comfort. The lightweight, breathable, synthetic leather grips offer a comfortable grip for extended periods of fire, without sacrificing a firm grip on the weapon. The adjustable, tension tension-wound webbing allows you access to the pistol's most valuable features. And the dual-direction nylon tension springs allow you to adjust your grip to your personal shooting style. This pistol's double action trigger is smooth and strong, and works well with all types of ammunition. The trigger weight is adjustable from 5 ounces to 10 oz. The rubber trigger cushion is durable and prevents accidental firings. This pistol is a good choice for self-defense, duty handguns, and personal protection.<|endoftext|>A federal appeals court in New York has ruled in favor of the NFLPA. The NFLPA now has to file their response in the case. - - -(Read more here: http://blogs.wsj.com/sports/2013/07/14/nfl-PA-vs-nfl-players-union-filed-virgin-island-court/) - - -The case stems from a "non-statutory" rule, which was used to determine players' compensation in the 2005 CBA, because "it was a non-statutory provision, not expressly enumerated in the labor agreement, but otherwise subject to the same standards applied to statutory provisions." - - -"The issue in this appeal has been whether this provision provides an employee who plays in at least half of the teams in a league the basic minimum compensation for the work they engage in. While courts are reluctant to substitute their individual views of the correct interpretation of a statute for all employees in an industry, the fact that there is now a federal Circuit precedent indicating the correct interpretation of these provisions means that the question will soon be decided in the federal courts," explained the NFLPA in the response. - - -Here is a copy of the appellate opinion: - -http://www.nysentinel.com/articles/2012/07/14/227977-10-judges-call-league-a-union-for-the-game-players - - -The NFLPA responded to their appeal: - -http://www.nbsports.com/news/nfl-players-unions-federal-appeals-court-in-ny<|endoftext|>The first time I heard the term "Bread Man" during my freshman year of college in the early '70s, my mind came to a screeching halt. All of a sudden, a picture of a man who, for a significant amount of time, had a loaf of bread in both hands while sitting on a sidewalk while doing absolutely nothing popped up on the wall of my mind. The story of Bread Man would come to be, for me, a metaphor for the times when I experienced the growing pains of growing up. For me, that meant that I would always be hungry, at some point or another in my life. And I guess I also took Bread Man's bread as inspiration for why I wanted to become a chef. - - -The funny thing, however, is that I know exactly which store I bought my loaf of bread from. I bought it on the day that I graduated from high school. I remember that day distinctly due to the fact that my mother had put a heavy lid on all the pots that were boiling. I had a hard enough time waiting for my lunch that my mother was worried I might choke to death that day. Of course, she was worried too but I had to make sure that the lunch was all ready. The thought of my mother having a hard time bringing the lunch over to her room that day did nothing to deter me from staying away from the cafeteria that day. It was an early memory I kept until the day she passed away. - - -I didn't become a professional chef until the next year because then I was just too busy and too hungry to sit at home and cook for myself. I also have a vague recollection that some of my senior classmates were cooking for that year. They all seemed to be in college and I'm pretty sure that my roommate, who has just since graduated, was a senior on his first trip to culinary school. I certainly never considered it, but if I did I'm pretty sure I would have been a very bad cook. - - -At no point did I ever feel like I was missing out on anything by being enrolled at college. I wasn't missing any classes because I was eating less during the school day and that probably resulted in being late to classes. I did feel like I had something to learn. I didn't feel like I was missing anything at the beginning because I was working so many shifts that I had enough hours in the day to get through college. I also enjoyed the classes I took in the school, even -======================================== SAMPLE 250 ======================================== -The official Facebook page for the television anime adaptation of Kazumi Fujita and Hirogi Yoshida 's Shōyō Ninpoushin' manga announced on Saturday that Junji Kō and Hiroyuki Tsubasa will play the series' two main characters, Shinobu and Yukiteru, respectively. The duo will appear in the pilot episode. - -The other main cast members include: - -Seirei Tsukui will also appear as an enemy in the anime, alongside the female character from Tōken Ranbu -ONLINE- . Takahiro Sakurai will play Shinobu. Tōru Murase will play Yukiteru. Rina Hidaka and Kana Hanazawa will play Shinobu's parents, and Sōma Saitō will play his older father. Kento Yamazaki , Daisuke Namikawa , Shun Egawa , and Hiro Shimono will star in the anime. - -Fujita began the original manga in 2013. Shogakukan published the 13th compiled book volume in Japan on January 10, and Viz Media is publishing the manga in English, with the release date originally set for 2016. - -The manga's story takes place in an alternate history in China in 300 A.D., in the Tang Dynasty. A century after the death of a powerful emperor, an old man and an adolescent woman stumble upon a manuscript describing a legend of gods and demons who protect humankind. They decide to go to the ancient city of Jin to ask the gods for help. However, when they arrive, the young woman is abducted by a mysterious stranger. The mysterious stranger gives the old man a magical book with three magic seals that can open any door. - -Fujita launched the manga in Shogakukan 's Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine in 2013, and Shogakukan will publish the 16th compiled volume on January 9. An earlier chapter of the manga ran in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in April 2012. Kodansha Comics published the sixth volume in North America on March 3. Yen Press is publishing the manga in print in North America.<|endoftext|>A group of scientists have published a paper showing that there is no statistical evidence to conclude humans are "a significant cause of global warming". - -The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change and the authors said a study done by another team of scientists was "confirming" their findings. - -They claimed that their results would contradict the "consensus" that humans caused "approximately half of observed increase in global average surface temperature since 1951". - -So what's the issue with that statement? - -The first part of the statement is not true. There is no statistical evidence to conclude that human activity has had a significant impact on global temperature to the best of our knowledge. - -What's more, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that humans have "significantly changed mean global temperatures". - -That report said the increase in temperature since the Industrial Revolution "has been very large". This means that, with the possible exception of the last 15 years, it has been in an upward trending direction. - -The second part doesn't matter. However, the first part makes clear that researchers have found no statistical association between an increase in the temperature and the total number of researchers worldwide. - -The authors make clear that their results do not dispute the concept of AGW but rather they simply don't prove a cause-effect relationship. This is a scientific point worth considering. I'll explain that in more detail below. - -The authors state that, in the last decade, the total number of researchers in the field of climate has increased by approximately 5 per cent year-on-year. Their conclusion is that, "in contrast to the observed increase of the total number of global researchers, the increase of the number of experts is not detected to be consistent in their scientific opinion of the anthropogenic origin of global warming." - -Their study does not prove a cause-effect relationship and in fact, according to a study by The Guardian, the increase in climate researcher is not an increase in the amount of research taking place at all. - -The Guardian article also says: - -A US study published on Monday found that scientists were doing more to tackle global warming than they were before the year 2000. The authors of the study, led by Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication at Yale, found that global efforts to control greenhouse gases were more intensive than they had ever been in the past 20 years. - -The article also says that: - -The scientists also found that the average number of papers published in the field of climate change is up for the first time in many years. It also found that the global average increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is on a downward trajectory following a slight increase in 2013. - -Here's some other points about their study: - -The study used data for the period -======================================== SAMPLE 251 ======================================== -DETROIT, MI - A woman was shot in the stomach early Wednesday morning during a robbery at a west side apartment complex. - -The 27-year-old woman was shot in the stomach around 1 a.m. in the parking lot of the River Pointe apartment complex near the intersection of Canfield and Van Dyke around 31st Street and Van Ness, according to Detroit Police. - -She was taken to Detroit Receiving hospital but is expected to survive, police said. - -The suspect or suspects were seen running south on Van Dyke Avenue headed towards Canfield, and police believe they are traveling west on Canfield Avenue toward Grand Circus Park. - - -The attack occurred at the same intersection where a 23-year-old man was shot and wounded in a shooting a week ago. That man was also in stable condition Monday night, police said. - -Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Detroit Police Homicide Unit at 313-596-2400. - -Stay with ClickOnDetroit.com for more information. - -Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj - -Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1ZpSJg1<|endoftext|>In response to the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, we should stop focusing solely on guns and start discussing the more fundamental threats we face. In light of this call, I've asked Gun Policy USA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre to share his thoughts on the gun lobby. - -Wayne La Pierre - -I came into gun policy at age 19, when I was a student at Princeton University. I was on campus when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. I learned that Dr. King's dream for a world without violence had been achieved in his lifetime. - -So, on the campus I joined my classmates in a silent vigil. A month later I volunteered for a gun control group that met at the Capitol of my home state. On that day, I was handed a packet of literature that said I was "a criminal." I took it to my dorm room, where it remained for the next 10 years, unread. I could not understand the logic and reason behind it then. - -In 1989 I was attending the University of Washington Law School when President Ronald Reagan signed the infamous Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. I was working on a case that would put a federal constitutional challenge to the law before the US Supreme Court, which was the most important one of the decade. Before we could get back to the case however, the Brady Act was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court, which, in a 5-4 decision, confirmed that "gun control" was a federal crime. - -Since then I have watched as many cities and states, like Boston, Boston and Boston and New York City, have instituted universal background checks as a check against gun violence. I have seen the effectiveness of gun safety education. I have seen how gun violence destroys a family, how it is the greatest single killer of men under 30. I have watched as cities, state, and federal governments across our nation have passed laws to make our neighborhoods safer. - -I am also grateful for efforts by groups like CeaseFire, Gun Owners of America, and Moms Demand Action to protect and defend our right to keep and bear our firearms. - -In my travels and meetings, I have found that every gun lobby and its members has one thing in common: Fear of gun violence. Many of these groups would rather have a black man, a Muslim woman, or a young parent killed than be seen doing anything that supports civil liberties, or which would require them to take the responsibility for their failure to protect their own kids. - -In the last week of January, one victim of gun violence was killed in my home state of Washington by his brother while the two were trying to take their own lives. My wife and children are at home with nothing more than a few memories of our wonderful brother as they grieve their loss. The media has moved on as well, but the memories remain. - -The only thing I ask of people is this: The gun lobbyists are afraid they might lose their tax exempt status, their ability to speak at the state or national levels, their ability to donate freely to your campaign. The gun lobbyists want control but that is another conversation for another day. - -Rather than focusing on all the guns in America, the goal should be to protect our children, our neighbors, and ourselves. The next time you see a story about an unarmed young person shot by police, ask: Who are they? Why isn't gun violence the dominant topic? Why is it that the National Rifle Association is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a futile attempt to influence an election? - -My friend and colleague, Tom Smith, a former Washington State Representative, put it well. "The gun lobby -======================================== SAMPLE 252 ======================================== -In 2010, an average of 1,000 new residents would move to Vancouver in one year, but this year's average of 1,100 will make it more than 6,000, a 50% increase. This is the strongest year for migration to any Canadian city in the 10 year time period between 2002 and 2012. - -While many Canadians will not move into a Toronto apartment to live in Vancouver, there are enough to add to the city's housing capacity. That is why a Toronto-bound household could have a family of 4 and still be able to easily fit three other people into an average Toronto housing budget. If the average household size (with two adults and two children) were doubled, that household could comfortably live in almost all of Toronto's housing stock, or more than half of the current Toronto housing stock including all of the condos, townhomes, and laneway houses. If we used the average household size, instead, in a Vancouver household, it would only need to house two people, not more than a third of Toronto households, in order to comfortably buy a house in Toronto. - -Since only the demand can determine the rate of housing production, how could Toronto house the demand for people with a higher cost to support their families with a more affordable housing supply? - -The answer lies in adding an additional 40,000 to 55,000 to GTA's housing inventory. - -To calculate Toronto's housing supply, one needs to consider three factors: the percentage of households living in subsidized or low-income housing, the percentage of census residents living in single-detached homes, and the percentage living in condos and townhomes. When these three variables are added, the total number of housing units in Toronto (combined with the number of new and existing properties) is equal to the number of households. Therefore, the total supply of housing in Toronto is equal to the number of households that live in subsidized and low-income housing. - -While the overall number of housing units is equal to the number of households, housing supply in Toronto is only equal to the share of housing units provided to households with lower income than the median. In reality, the proportion of Toronto households with lower income than median is closer to half. In 2010, almost 20% of Toronto households lived in subsidized condos and townhomes, but only about 12-13% of the income in these units was received through social assistance or low-income housing rents. By contrast, 30% percent of Toronto households had incomes of $30,000 or less. For these two reasons, it is clear that the supply of housing in Toronto should have a higher level of demand to overcome any demand for affordable homes. In this respect, the increase in the demand for housing in Vancouver is a net positive for Canada rather than a deficit or surplus. - -The Toronto census reveals another important factor for housing supply. Of the 469,450 people in Toronto in 2011, 49% were households headed by someone 65 years of age or older, 21% by someone between the ages of 35-44, and 22% by someone between the ages of 15-24. With higher demand for housing in Toronto, housing supply should be increased to meet this higher demand. By having more affordable housing in Toronto, the demand to live in Toronto will be limited to people in those ages 45-54, those 55 and above, and those 18-24. - -This will create a stronger financial incentive for governments to provide public housing for Toronto residents in order to preserve existing public housing supply. While it is unlikely that most Canadians will be interested in moving to Toronto to live with their families and contribute to the cost of public housing, the financial benefits associated with public housing can offset the increased housing costs associated with moving. - -Toronto's housing needs were not made any more obvious by Toronto Mayor Ford and his plan to replace the affordable housing programs with private rental options. In fact, it is now clear that Ford was the greatest obstacle preventing public or affordable public housing from being developed in Toronto. While Toronto city council considered proposals to create affordable public housing in Scarborough and North York, Ford refused to support any of these alternatives. Instead he made it clear that he wanted public housing to be replaced with affordable rental housing. This has led to questions in Toronto whether Ford's real motives for using public housing as a political tool was to drive up the cost of public housing to keep the public housing in place. - -The answer is, no it does not. Instead, this is a clever move to increase property tax revenue by increasing tax base in favour of private rental. With all other factors equal, if the same percentage of the tax base is spent on public housing as on public rental housing, public housing will produce lower revenue compared to public rental housing. - -In order to ensure that this tax revenue generated from private rental does not benefit the wealthiest individuals in our society, a portion of this revenue will be diverted to funding public rental assistance. If private rental increases by 50%, then it will be able to offset the lost revenue -======================================== SAMPLE 253 ======================================== -Citizens, - -We want to help you learn, in the best way possible, how your political views may be reflected in your DNA. We are currently compiling data from hundreds of thousands of DNA sequences to identify political and ideological preferences and then we're working on getting this done. - -With that said, we recognize that the study of political beliefs could be a very challenging one for scientists; you may not have all the answers, but we invite you to join our community and participate in our effort to get to the bottom of political differences in the gene pool. - -All you have to do is sign up on our study website and we'll start sending out surveys to members of the Canadian population in the coming months. We'll be sending these out over the next few weeks and months to thousands and thousands of citizens (sorry folks in the U.S.!) from various parts of the country; we want to gather as much data as possible - but we need your help! - -We will be using a genetic method called Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to do this study. We think the most common questions people have are: - -Are there differences in political ideology amongst people with and without certain genes? - -How much do gene variants like the rs11605579 gene variation have to do with political beliefs? - -Are certain gene variants like the rs11605579 gene variation important? - -Are the results of PCA useful? - -You'll note in the questionnaire that we ask you to fill out your political beliefs (your level of agreement with a variety of claims) as one of six possible answers. In addition to the other things we're asking you, your opinion concerning the genetics of political ideology is important to us, because there are many ways people's genes might modify their political attitudes. PCA can be used to get an answer to these types of questions. - -A recent paper by Dinesh Kumar and his colleagues using this type of approach in a large-scale survey in India found that political ideology differs significantly in relation to variation in a particular gene variant. Their study of thousands of people across three large Indian states (and across several languages) found that while genetic variation between people is likely to explain a certain amount of variance within politics, the results vary substantially if genes are studied in more detail. - -In an earlier report, we discussed the possible genetic basis of political ideology, and we talked about our initial attempts to find answers using PCA (see our blog - "Political Beliefs Are Highly Heritable"). We're hoping to use your PCA results to help us further understand the politics of Ontario and Canada. - -Thank you for taking a few minutes to respond to this study. With your help we still believe the study will result in new, important insights. For more information, please see this post from Prof. David Healy at the University of Oxford. Your responses will help us to make this study better. Thank you again.<|endoftext|>Habitat A large predatory bird that preys on large insects such as beetles and scorpions. Also known as the pheasant, pheasants make quiet, low-pitched grunts while searching for prey or flying low. They sometimes are seen hunting in flocks with other birds. Females tend to be larger in size than males and are brown to brown in color; males are sometimes orange in color or more often have bright red or orange heads. - -Reproduction Females pair for life and produce one to three egg sacs per year. Both parents take care of the chicks and feed them with the same diet that they get in the nest. - -Conservation About half of the pheasant population that exists today was hunted almost completely to extinction 50 years ago. Despite these pressures, the pheasant was able to recover. Today, only 4,000 of the species are known to be threatened around the world. With just a few hundred remaining, a small number can have large effects on local ecosystems, and the species is still a threat to agriculture and human development throughout much of its range.<|endoftext|>For any news or news-related discussion (not a donation or sponsorship request per se as it doesn't fit into the sidebar), I have a page on the forums where I'll put all of that. And if you're interested in my other stuff, check out the blog or my book (or see below, if you're going to be reading the blog. There's more about my novels to be found on any of those sites, but for the purposes of this message thread I'll stick with the blog). - -Anyway, for now, let's talk about something completely different. Today I've brought back what was the first piece of "special treatment" I ever did: The first time the reader is introduced to a new world is not at the start. Instead, you start with a character from that world who is talking about how difficult it will be for your protagonist to get her bearings when they're out there on their own. -======================================== SAMPLE 254 ======================================== -The new-generation Miata was created in conjunction with Ford (NASDAQOTH:F) in 1999 and was the first attempt to create a practical all-aluminum sports car to take on the Corvette. It wasn't the only sports car developed by Ford at the time since their SVT division was heavily engaged in trying to sell them. The MX-5 was a very good car but didn't sell well and the T1600 concept was a pretty interesting idea but didn't succeed at Ford. - -There was also a Mazda Miata concept made in conjunction with Chevrolet, but that was more of an incremental improvement to a model already in production. It didn't have the weight savings to compete with the competition. In terms of quality, Mazda was on par with American sports cars but Ford wasn't making cars that were good enough to catch and pass on price and features. What's interesting is that the Miata was actually an effort to sell more Mustang's than it was an effort to beat the Corvette. - - -A year after Miata's conception, Corvette was introduced to both the American car makers but Ford was the first to bring a sports car to the US market. The original Miata was actually offered to a number of buyers by Ford dealers so it sold well before the Corvette was even in production. What was really important isn't that the Miata hit the market earlier but whether or not it was good enough. Not to be relegated to a car just for sport but for what it was made for. - -Ford was selling Fords all-around and the small Miata was no match for a small Camaro, a small V8 Mustang or a big 4 cylinder Dodge. It was basically a small pony car. The Miata wasn't a bad car for a small car (and the original Miata is even still available in small trim) but it wasn't even the small car to beat. You could point to the original Miata and tell a number of car makers they were late to the game but in the end the Corvette was the first true sports car in the USA. It was the last of the '67-69 models to use steel in the body panels and I'd argue it's the better looking of the three. - -The rest of the small car segment didn't hit until the mid 90's when Dodge came out with the Charger and Toyota came out with the Corolla. Each came with a large engine and some added features that put them on par with the big car competition. Even the small hatchback segment started with the Celica and the Acura TL started out as a small hatch. - -The Corvette is an iconic sports car and it continues to be with a following that continues to grow after 20 years. But the Miata was actually good enough that it was a worthy competitor in the sporty segment. It's interesting to look at it from another perspective and realize that it was actually on a par with the Mustang and not the other way around. The Mustang sold like hot cakes but at the time it was a much bigger financial and financial engineering exercise to make a sporty sports car. With the Miata there was always a market for the sports car and it's interesting that Ford had a lot of success with it (especially in the mid 80's) and that the Miata actually had a number of successful models on the market from the 50's through the 90's. - - -If you want to learn more and see the Miata in action then you can check out our live Miata video shoot from this year's Monterey Car Week. It's the best Miata experience anyone can have and you'll be able to see the cars in action just as though you were driving one.<|endoftext|>On Tuesday night as Donald Trump was leaving Mar-a-Lago to join the presidential inaugural parade in Washington, his limousine driver, "Bobby," was accused by an anonymous source of "throwing a tantrum" inside. - -The anonymous passenger says Bobby and Donald drove around the entire inaugural ceremony and were "throwing things at people." - -"Donald started throwing things around the limo, hitting things, yelling at people," a source told The Daily Beast. "Bobby would just let go and shake his head, like, 'Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Why are you throwing things? Where is this shit?'" - -"I feel sorry for him, and I hope he gets help," the source said. - -According to a separate source, the driver claimed to be the victim of a "harassment campaign." They added that the driver made his feelings clear to Donald after the inauguration and asked to return to his own limousine. - -Another source claimed to The Daily Beast that the anonymous driver did not have a good experience on the day of the inauguration, but he never reported the situation. - -That anonymous driver didn't have a good experience on #InaugurationDay, either. But the problem is only because he didn't report it: https -======================================== SAMPLE 255 ======================================== -If you're planning to visit the National Gallery of Canada, know that they have a free service offering free admission to all visitors. - -That's right! Free admission to the National Gallery of Canada. - -So you want in? - -First things first. Find yourself and an approved form of ID or travel document to prove your visit is for personal use only. - -If you arrive at the Ottawa airport at your own expense, you're only entitled to free admission if you have a Canada National Parks Pass and have purchased a full-price regular visit pass. They require you to show proof of purchase at the National Gallery of Canada. - -Once you have the ID and ID proofs, contact the National Gallery of Canada office in your destination country and arrange for a passport scan confirmation on your passport at the Ottawa airport. - -They promise this is a regular service.<|endoftext|>The government's new legislation targeting foreign home buyers, the foreign home buyers tax (FHAT), will be a "nightmare" for the country's real estate sector, according to one international realtor. - -The tax will apply only to home buyers who do not have at least a 20 per cent down payment. - -The tax will be implemented during the course of the year, but won't become official until late next month. - -Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the FHAT on Monday afternoon after he and fellow ministers presented their fiscal framework for the next five years on Parliament Hill. - -The tax will add $300 to $400 to the average cost to purchase a $500,000 condo in Vancouver or $400 to $500 to a $1 million house in Toronto, according to TD's 2016 Real Estate Report. - -"This is the worst possible timing for real estate – just before the holidays, no less – which is precisely a period of uncertainty which helps fuel the desire of foreign home buyers to purchase for the very purpose of flipping the condo or purchase as 'capital gain' through the use of a so-called 'foreign real estate investor tax,'" said Alex Gervais. - -Gervais is chief executive of Alta Realty Inc., owner of Red City Realty. - -"The tax is a nightmare for real estate. - -"There's no clarity on exactly what this tax would be applied to. - -"There's no transparency into what the parameters are on how the tax is applied to different situations, and this is the problem that the government has now made for itself," he said.<|endoftext|>A group of friends had a bit of a wild night out and got the wrong end of it. It started off fine until a cop came in. - -WGN in Chicago reports they got a call for an "unidentified man acting strangely around a woman." The cops arrived, found the man, and tried to arrest him, but the officer was out of his element and made some bad decision. Instead of arresting the man, the man and the cop fell in love, despite the police officer's warning, and the man decided to show his love for the police officer by kissing him. - -The police officer was arrested. No charges were filed against the man, and though he may have been a nice guy, he probably should have been in jail, not with his arms around a cop.<|endoftext|>What to Wear for a Dessert Bar - -There are tons of dessert bars out there. I can never seem to decide which one to try next. I think I've tried quite a few this year. So I think I've put together a list of the ones that I feel are the best and most unique. They are all delicious but the ones on this list are my pick of the best. And I promise, they are so yummy, you won't want to eat plain ones. And that's always a good thing. - -So I want to say congratulations to my friend Stephanie Yee of Spoonful of Sugar and The Kitchn, whose list is really the best dessert bars out there. Stephanie is a food writer and blogger. Her list is amazing and a must read. - -So here's my list of dessert bars and what you should know about each of them. - -1. The Creamy Black Bean and Fiery Green Papaya Dip - -This Black Bean & Fiery Green Papaya Dip is a fantastic dip. It is creamy yet not so rich that you will have trouble finishing all of the dip. It is made with beans, coconut milk, and green papaya in a blend that was the result of years of trial and error between Stephanie and Chef Sean from the Red Hen. It is a good dip. - -2. The Coconut Milk Crème Brûlée - -This Crème Brûlée by Chez René is a decadent dessert that can easily pass as a decadent dessert. The base is made with heavy cream and butter while whipped cream and white chocolate are combined to create the layers. It is not overly sweet so you might -======================================== SAMPLE 256 ======================================== -1. The U.S. military is currently engaged in several ongoing conflicts abroad (Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, etc.) that it clearly doesn't need any more troops for. - -The first, however, began in 2001 and is still going. We've also been fighting a war (which began in 2001) against a group of Islamic militants in Syria called ISIS. That's the latest one. - -The Department of Defense announced last year its "enduring fight" for the Afghanistan war. - -It is a war the Afghan military no longer wants, and they are beginning to leave their bases. Some Afghans have told reporters that they will start fighting other Afghans in retaliation. So we have still another war going. - -The U.S. has troops in Iraq, and continues to support them and continue to wage a war there. But in the last year it seems clear that Iraq is no longer a war we're even going to win. It's clearly losing. - -What's the point? - -2. The Department of Defense is currently engaged in several ongoing operations for which it clearly doesn't need soldiers. - -The Navy conducts "counter terrorism" operations in a number of places, mainly in the seas around the world. This does not need to be done in order to keep America safe. (Though it might be if it actually helped, like when the Navy was going after Somali pirates, or when it was supporting our mission in Yemen.) - -The Air Force is also engaged in "counter terrorism" in a substantial number of locations around the world. It also doesn't need new troops to conduct it. It does want new planes, though, and some new planes would be welcomed: - -This year, we will purchase an additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. … As we've said before, our F-35 is the best plane for the job in theater and will play an integral role in our future campaigns, such as the Afghanistan mission. - -We just recently gave the new $2.85 billion in military aid to Egypt a "green light." How many more countries are we going to give that green light to? - -I don't think that America should be using its troops for anything, anywhere. These are obviously war missions. They don't need troops to help them achieve their goals. - -3. The Department of Defense wants to spend more on "war" than it would like: - -So, we have some ongoing conflicts that we're in that we clearly do not need more members of the military to help keep America safe. But we're also spending money to train and equip our foreign allies to fight those wars on our behalf. And when it comes to those conflicts, Americans don't really enjoy "going to war." They enjoy keeping us safe, or at the very least, keeping us out of harm's way. … We must take the opportunity that these missions present to refocus our military on real threats in order to safeguard our national security. - -But there's a catch. The war America actually wants does not require an expansion of its military force to win it. It only needs to remain strong and vital, and it still doesn't need any new people to fight it. So what's the point? - -Also, spending more on "war" would make Americans more frightened about fighting the wars. For example, spending more on the "war on terrorism" would probably lead us to spend more training Americans to go fight for it. (Which was the point of the War on Terror, right?) Then the terror attacks of 9/11 would lead to a new "war on terror" that Americans really wanted all over again, which would mean a lot more fighting, and it would mean more fear. - -4. The US government wants more money for "national security" initiatives instead of for the military. - -The Department of Defense has increased the amount it spends on "national security" initiatives. This is because it needs more money to fight the wars America now wants to get out of. But what you might not know is that they've also increased the amount spent on what they call "force protection", the rest of which is just more police work, more prisons, more welfare, and so on. For more on the US's expanding security state, see this, this, this, this, and this. - -5. The Department of Defense has created a "new, modern army", without any new people. - -The "new, modern army" was created using the same old tactics the military has always used, except that it also added some extra new ones in the process. But again, it didn't need them. - -In one example, it was used to build military bases in countries we don't want to keep around (like Afghanistan) and "enhance our security", as if we don't need this protection already. In another example, it was used to start new wars against countries we don't want to keep around -======================================== SAMPLE 257 ======================================== -1 Clean The First World War (Volume II) The Second World War is the most devastating war in world history, and to put it in perspective, the average life expectancy for Germans of the era was only about 55. Free View in iTunes - -2 Clean The First World War (Volume I) The First World War is the most devastating war in world history, and to put it in perspective, the average life expectancy for Germans of the era was only about 55. The First World War is most often confounded by the conflict that would follow, the Second... Free View in iTunes - -3 Clean The United States of America at War: Episode 035 - Vietnam The United States of America At War is an audio drama podcast about the US war in Vietnam from the point of view of the US military who participated in the war. Free View in iTunes - -4 Clean The First World War (Volume 1) The First World War is the most devastating war in world history, and to put it in perspective, the average life expectancy for Germans of the era was only about 55. The First World War is most often confounded by the conflict that would follow, the Second... Free View in iTunes - -5 Clean The US First World War In Pictures This episode covers a selection of iconic First World War pictures. The photos are from a private collection and they may not be suitable for children. Free View in iTunes - -6 Clean UH1 'Rattler' by Robert Cram, 1915 An iconic photo of the First World War The photo is the first known American photo of a UH1 tank going into action during the war. Free View in iTunes - -7 Clean The First World War (Volume V) A very short and incomplete podcast, covering the events of 1914-18 in brief and incomplete, as they were not covered in school at the time; the First World War was the last century war of the European empires. Free View in iTunes - -8 Clean The First World War (Volume IV) First World War overview: the First World War started from a European conflict in August of 1914; the entire European theatre of war is involved; and the war is raging to the east, from the British Isles to the Pacific. Free View in iTunes - -9 Clean The First World War (Volume III) The First World War Overview: The First World War (from beginning to end) and what was in the previous two years that may not have happened in the books. Free View in iTunes - -10 Clean The First World War (Volume II) In Episode 17 of The First World War, Andrew and Dan discuss who is fighting, the fighting and their experiences during the battle of Passchendaele. Free View in iTunes - -11 Clean The First World War (Volume I) The First World War starts in August of 1914, when Germany invaded Russia; the war is over a hundred years later. Free View in iTunes - -12 Clean The Great War: Episode 06 - The Great War The Great War is a show about World War I, but from a different point of view. Every episode from 1916 onward has been recorded from an alternative perspective. Free View in iTunes - -13 Clean The First World War: The Making of the Great War This is a show about the life and death of World War I, but for a much shorter timeline. Free View in iTunes - -14 Clean The Great War (Volume II): Episode 05 - Great War in Pictures This episode describes the events and people involved in WWI through photographs. The photos we've been highlighting in recent years were the inspiration for this episode. Free View in iTunes - -15 Clean The Great War (Volume I): Episode 04 - War Photos This episode is all about images. War photos have captured the public eye since the advent of the camera in the mid-18th century. Every major war started with a war photo. Free View in iTunes - -16 Clean The Great War, Volume 1: Episode 3 - War in Images This show is all about photos. War photos have captured the public eye since the advent of the camera in the mid-18th century. Every major war started with a war photo. Free View in iTunes - -17 Clean The First World War (Volume VIII): A Short History This is a book about World War II. WWII is the most consequential war in history. It changed the lives of everyone involved, not just the troops. Free View in iTunes - -18 Clean The Great War - Episode 02 - WWII in Pictures WWII, is a show about World War I and World War II. But for a much shorter timeline. Free View in iTunes - -19 Clean A Short History of the War with Hitler This short history describes the start of the First World War, but from an alternate perspective. We look at the start as the Treaty of Versailles, and then in the decades that followed, with the end not so much in sight. Free View in iTunes - -20 Clean The Great War, Volume VI: Episode 2 - The War Begins This episode is all about -======================================== SAMPLE 258 ======================================== -In a new interview with GQ, former President Bill Clinton says he regrets some of the policies he pursued as President, and that the Affordable Care Act had to pass on its own despite the president's support. - -"The truth is what was hard about Obamacare was not the problems with it," Clinton said in the interview, with Newsweek's Ronan Farrow. "The hard part was trying to get people to accept it without the help of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. I feel good about Obamacare now in its progress." - -Hillary Clinton is not currently a public figure, although her campaign is working on a book. Clinton also said he is ready to take on sexism, and in the spirit of equality, he said he doesn't want a woman president. - -This isn't just in response to the Republican nominee Donald Trump. This is a sentiment I've had for years, and I don't know if it's going to change after Election Day," he said, "But if she gets elected, it's going to be hard to get into a discussion with her about any of it now. I'm not going to insult her for it." - -Farrow reported that Clinton has "made it clear" that he is a "very firm supporter" of Bernie Sanders, who is now the Democratic nominee. - -When asked if Sen. Sanders had ever reached out to him to discuss a future Clinton presidential campaign, Clinton said, "Never. I've always seen that kind of talk from both sides." - -Clinton said he had no interest in the role of "vice president" with a Clinton Presidency because there is no way he'd have the time. - -He also said he didn't think Hillary Clinton would be in her current position now if he were in her shoes, if that makes sense. - -And while Hillary Clinton might be a "progressive" Democratic woman, he still thinks she deserves the nomination. - -"In all my years in public life, and probably all the people I've known, most people would vote for anybody other than Trump or Cruz. But this is a race to the bottom," Clinton said. He concluded by saying, "If there was any doubt whatsoever about who should become our next president, that's dispelled. We have a new normal in politics." - -Read the full GQ article here. - -Follow Datoc on Twitter and Facebook<|endoftext|>Cape Town – The South African Wildlife Trust (SWAT) is calling for the establishment of a "no kill" sanctuary for white rhinos in an appeal to the international community to join the fight to save the rhinoceros and rhino horn. - -Speaking to The Huffington Post SA on the phone yesterday, SWAT executive director Mike Fitzpatrick said he was particularly grateful to the International Rhino Foundation, the wildlife trade monitoring NGO he works with, for its "inclusive and well informed" comments on South Africa's no-kill sanctuary initiative. - -"It's heartwarming that the world's best known wildlife trade organisation is coming out in support of our efforts to save the magnificent black rhino," he added. - -Speaking to The Huffington Post SA by phone on Wednesday, Fitzpatrick said that the idea for a no-kill sanctuary was first proposed by his wife, Marika, in 2008. - -During the next two years, he said, he and Marika attended the global conference for The IUCN on Rhino and Tiger Conservation held in London in 2012. While there, he said he was present when delegates unanimously adopted a motion calling for all member-nations "to develop, implement and monitor a safe, well-resourced, sustainable no-kill sanctuary in collaboration with the IUCN to ensure extinction-free survival of the white rhino by 2030 and rhino and tiger respectively". - -He said he was "very pleased to see" the IUCN call for no-kill sanctuaries, and that he considered the South African proposal to be "unique and significant". - -After the outcome of the 2012 conference, Fitzpatrick decided to "re-imagine a no-kill sanctuary". "Our ultimate goal is to be able to achieve extinction-free survival of the rhinoceros, by 2024," he told HuffPost SA in an interview last Sunday. - -He said that the SWAT no-kill sanctuary would be run by the South African National Parks and Wildlife Service (SanParks). It was his belief that only a no-kill sanctuary, he noted, "could sustain and support the rhinoceros and rhino horn markets". - -"We're working hard with them towards this goal," he told HuffPost SA. Fitzpatrick said SanParks was "working on a number of fronts", including working with the Department of Environmental Affairs to develop sustainable management plans for the rhinos it held in captivity. "They already have rhinos in zoos, but it's a limited number," he noted. - -Meanwhile, the South African government has been actively working with the International Union for -======================================== SAMPLE 259 ======================================== -The idea is, to go out with a bang and, you know, "let it rain". Or not. It can be just about anything but you're going to be on your own if you have a date. Also, the girl needs to be someone from a college or university, preferably a single student. This is important because this is the type of person who'll be a little, what's the term? "Dude" or "girl" or something, that girl who does not know how to dress, you know, the college girl who can't buy more than two outfits to wear this year. She needs to be a total dork. I mean come on. - -You see, dating is just about being cute and not giving a fuck. There you go. Now maybe the girl's personality, her social skills and her looks or something, that can be interesting. I mean that's good stuff to have to talk to the girl but still, the main thing with dating is to make yourself look attractive, even by looking like some dork who's only thinking about how hot he is. That's all that matters. I mean maybe he can be a smartass but he can't have a beautiful, smartass-ish girlfriend, right? That's why it's important not to take her too seriously. That's why you can't go out with a girl too hard or too quickly (which is good for someone who's trying to get into a relationship like a "girlfriend"), but you still have to let her get to know you so she understands you better. - -You can tell when someone says, "I'm just looking out my window to have a nice, peaceful moment for the night" and you know what that means to her? That's she's got it bad. She's afraid she's going to lose you and you're scared that you're going to lose her. It gets very confusing. - -I know there are a few other rules but those I'll have to wait to address at another time. For now, here it is. Remember, if you are serious, then it must be serious, right? Don't just go out and party, even if you're in a really good mood. If you can't be serious, you're just being shallow.<|endoftext|>When I talk about "the state of science," I start at the beginning. That gives me, at least, a solid starting point to work with. - -In the mid-1980s I was working as a biochemist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and there was a lot of activity at the time in the cancer research arena. - -One of the questions being asked was whether or not people on chemotherapy had an increased risk of getting glioblastoma. This was an aggressive cancer with very little treatment options, and its prognosis was dismal even for those patients who survived for several years. This made us wonder how these patients would do if they received no treatment for the rest of their lives. - -We began to do a bunch of experiments and found that patients who initially showed great benefit with chemotherapy had, well, not much longer to live anyway (in the normal range), as did patients who experienced some benefit while on chemotherapy for several years. The patients who survived the most were those who had received "timely" adjuvant treatments, including low doses of radiation. In other words, these trials revealed that a cancer patient's outlook depended largely on the kind of treatment he or she received. - -Why is this important? Because, contrary to what you might think about science, it's not at all clear that anything is certain. - -I mean, if you were looking for something to work on — say, the structure of DNA — might you say, "Oh, that's going to be easy: just run up to someone who's doing that and tell them that's the end of the matter?" Of course not! You need to conduct experiments, and get lots of people on board, and get them actually willing to study the question. - -What we've discovered, in a nutshell, is that it's extremely difficult to predict what a drug or treatment will do for a cancer patient. This fact applies to all scientific subjects, whether it's astronomy, or statistics, or quantum mechanics, or any other field of study. - -It's not that drugs and treatments are guaranteed to work, but the probability of an outcome seems to depend on many things, including how well a drug (or treatment) is tested and the characteristics of the patient or study group. - -In science as in life, you'll never get 100% accurate results. You can find some patterns, but the chances of finding something in the data that makes sense are very low. - -So, there's some wisdom to the old joke: "Science gives confidence; religion gives superstition."<|endoftext|>1 #1 jose 0 Frags – + The most beautiful place on planet earth! (In my humble opinion) -======================================== SAMPLE 260 ======================================== -Troy and Abigail are a family of twins, each born with the ability to transform completely, but because of their mother's illness and frequent hospital visits, they end up staying as babies. They are separated when they are two, and reunited shortly after. They begin to bond with one another as they grow up, but their lives are constantly threatened by their twin's abusive twin brother. Written by <|endoftext|>LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) - British bank HSBC is facing a fine of more than $1 billion for money laundering, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said, adding that the bank had failed regulators in one of their key duties. - -The FCA said in its statement that it had found "substantial evidence" that HSBC Bank USA, which it calls the primary subsidiary in the UK of the HSBC group, failed to identify and assess the risk of money laundering and had failed to implement effective internal controls. - -It ordered HSBC to pay a $984 million penalty for violations of the FCA's money laundering provisions, which are designed to prevent people from withdrawing money to illicit ends. - -HSBC said it was "disappointed" by the FCA's finding that it failed to carry out its anti-money laundering responsibilities and it considered the matter closed. - -"We have consistently said that we are taking the appropriate steps to tackle the risks in our global regulatory environment," it said in a statement. - -"The money-laundering enforcement action was an isolated event which arose from a single individual's misconduct," it added. - -The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in October it would fine HSBC billions of dollars, and it said in March it was investigating other institutions, including Swiss banks, for similar lapses. - -In 2010, HSBC paid almost $200 million in a settlement with U.S. authorities for violations dating back to the 1980s. - -Earlier on Thursday, the FCA opened an investigation into the conduct of Barclays, Barclays's parent company, in relation to a potential money laundering probe. - -The FCA had not yet determined if Barclays would be fined. - -U.S. bank executives have come under increased scrutiny, especially in light of the 2010 "London whale" scandal, in which U.S. taxpayers' money - and in some cases the lives of U.S. servicemembers - were lost through the manipulation of interest rates. (Reporting by Stephen Brown)<|endoftext|>The first time I ever heard about St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was when my son was diagnosed with leukemia at 6 months old. The hospital saved my son's life, but they also became his biggest advocates. The organization they founded was dedicated to finding cures for childhood leukemia through research and education; they raised a record, nearly $300 million in the organization's 15-year history. - -advertisement - -advertisement - -But one issue that has remained in the forefront for many years has been the treatment of these infants, who have a 90% relapse rate when they leave the hospital. Some doctors believe treatment with chemotherapy can potentially reverse the leukemia. In a country where many expect to get cancer, these are difficult lessons to learn in a hospital setting. St Jude currently treats 10,000 children each month with the disease. And it is not unusual to see children with the same mutation, which is called B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Children typically experience a remission after a treatment cycle, but at least a handful always relapse to leukemia. They don't necessarily feel different or any different when they leave the hospital. And that's what makes the research effort so critical. Children typically feel their best when they are surrounded by each other, even if it's through a hospital setting. "When you think of children, you almost always imagine them alone," says Linda Rosenbluth, chief medical officer at St. Jude. It is only in St. Jude that kids can be together, in the same room, with their doctors, nurses, and volunteers. These children live in foster homes, and those they are brought into hospitals have a different routine than the kids who go home alone. To be a team is not easy for children, who typically don't grow up with the same social ties as their peers and are often not raised in an environment that celebrates their uniqueness. "The whole culture of pediatric cancer treatment has shifted over the last 10 years," Rosenbluth says. "What a lot of schools and hospitals focus on is safety and treatment protocols, rather than what kind of school or family they come from. They may not have a large social network, but they have a group of like-minded peers who are very important to their identity." For kids with B-cell ALL, that peer group is one that grows organically: the same patients, most often those who look like you or your family. The people who work in the pediatric cancer program are the kind of people parents dream of having in their lives. They -======================================== SAMPLE 261 ======================================== -The World Cup of Hockey could help revive North America's moribund game following a spate of high-profile defections to Europe, a senior Canadian hockey official says. - -The World Cup of Hockey could help revive North America's moribund game following a spate of high-profile defections to Europe, a senior Canadian hockey official says. - -Former NHL stars Rick Nash, Alexander Radulov, Joffrey Lupul and Ryan McDonagh have all expressed interest in playing in the tournament, which officially kicks off on Sept. 20. - -And in a wide-ranging chat, one of the country's top hockey officials — himself a former superstar of hockey — also raised some concerns about players' long-term prospects in North America. - -Canadian hockey has long been an international brand, but for decades it has failed to make any serious noise in the Olympics, with teams only emerging as serious contenders with a couple of successful campaigns at the world junior championships. - -"My fear is Canada doesn't really have a good track record of being competitive at the Olympics," said Todd Cordell, Canada Hockey general manager. - -"Whether you like it or not, for Canadian hockey, this is a really big deal." - -A host of European players — including Steven Stamkos, Milan Lucic and Evgeni Malkin — were all once Canadian Olympians or won a gold medal for their country. - -There has been a recent influx of some high profile defections from the sport, particularly in Europe. - -Last week, two of the most powerful players in hockey, New Jersey Devils forward Travis Zajac and Calgary Flames defenceman T.J. Brodie, both signed with the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks respectively, respectively, as they made their NHL debuts. - -Cordell said he expects some European hockey players to move to North America for the World Cup, with the prospect of NHL and AHL talent also being exposed. - -"I would be very surprised to see a Canadian team not make the playoffs again, no matter where it is, in the next couple of years," he said. - -The Canada Cup tournament is a national tournament for hockey players. It kicks off in Ottawa on Sept. 12. - -Meanwhile, Cordell pointed out that the Cup is the highest prize in Canadian hockey, as it does not make the Olympic team. - -He said he is optimistic about the Cup's return to Canada, despite the fact that it has only been staged a handful of times since the late 1980s with Canada's best team making it to the final round of the tournament eight times in the past 13 tournaments. - -The final is expected to involve more than 30 of Canada's top players from junior hockey, NHL and minor pro teams. - -Cordell added that he believes the NHL is finally beginning to get serious about trying to grow the sport in North America, after years of trying to woo hockey stars to join its national team — mainly after the 2004 Olympics — only to have them stay loyal to Europe. - -He said that since the World Cup of Hockey is only six months away, the league will begin taking meetings shortly to set up plans for this year's tournament, with many of its coaches, players and executives already in the United States preparing for training camp. - -Cordell also said he believes Canadians will do a better job in the tournament than at the world juniors, when it has featured no Canadian team since 2003. - -While the prospect of Canadians being able to win the World Cup should motivate Canadian players, Cordell acknowledged that it might not help their long-term prospects playing at the Olympics. - -That may seem a strange sentiment in a country that has never failed in the Olympics — though Canadians did earn bronze at the first world junior tournament in 1978, after being eliminated by the Soviets — but Cordell argues that in the event of a serious disaster during the tournament, it would be devastating to all the players. - -"To have your best guys playing the national game and then, you know, we're going to a catastrophe and we're going to lose to Russia, it's very sad," he said. - -"And what's in it for them? They're not really going to get their opportunity to play in the Olympics to say, 'Listen, I've done what I set out to do. I worked hard for it. I had a good run. My country supported me. I'm on the team. It's been successful for me and I feel the opportunity I have to represent my country.' - -"Because I'm a Canadian, I'm really hurt if my people don't support me like they did in the past. It's a really big deal." - -National Post<|endoftext|>The House is scheduled this spring to debate a bill to give the Internal Revenue Service new authority to audit small-business owners who refuse to fill out the government's notoriously burdensome tax forms and submit them within 30 days. (Photo: Reuters -======================================== SAMPLE 262 ======================================== -The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in two major cases against net neutrality on August 2. Both are the latest in a long history of challenges to broadband internet access, one of the most important features of the internet. - -While many people support strong net neutrality rules, few in the telecom and cable industries are arguing publicly that FCC rules shouldn't be imposed. As a result, the next major fight on net neutrality could end up being one of the largest public relations battles in recent years. - -It all comes down to a simple question -- is it a violation of net neutrality rules or not? The answer depends on the answer to that question -- and in turn how deeply you believe in the importance of net neutrality rules. - -There is an old adage -- you cannot break the law, until you break the internet. That applies to the internet, net neutrality, and the telecom industry. In the case of net neutrality, the law was passed by Congress in 1934 -- before the internet even had a name. It was called the Communications Act, and it is very clear. When FCC rules are imposed on telcos they are illegal -- because they are not the ones who set up the pipes connecting internet to end users. It is up the telcos to build that infrastructure. - -The internet was passed on cable from the government in the 1960s, and the early cables were not even powered by electricity. The telcos built them themselves, and maintained them for 30 years. As the internet expanded and more Americans started using it, the telcos found themselves in a position where they had to decide what would become of the internet -- would they be allowed to restrict access to it to subscribers who agreed to pay money? - -Many of us know that the answer to that question is no. In the early days of the internet, the telcos were prohibited from doing this, and they have never done it. And it is that ban that we are fighting to overturn today. - -Since this is a case that will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court, it is worth reminding people that much of what we know today about net neutrality was not possible until 2011. - -This brings us to 2011. In early 2011, a group of tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, Kickstarter and Etsy joined forces to form the Internet Association. The intent of the association was to bring more voices into the decision making process and help ensure that these voices were listened to. - -The reason this issue is important? In early 2011 there was no such thing as net neutrality. - -The question of the day was whether broadband carriers had the right to make the internet inaccessible to some users and enable the full internet to be enjoyed to every Internet user. The answer to that question was no -- until the Internet Association was formed. - -But that doesn't mean we should go down the path of banning or restricting broadband access. That has the opposite effect. - -As we've seen by the recent fight at the FCC over "Title II," some members of Congress want to make a political issue out of Internet access. Rather than allowing companies like Google and the Internet Association to offer their services, they want to restrict them, essentially making it a utility like cable or phone. The reason we need strong net neutrality is so these decisions do not become "political issues." And in the case of ISP rules, there are already more than enough barriers placed in place to force companies to operate like utilities. - -The internet is made up of companies that connect individual users into a global network -- companies like Tumblr, Netflix and the Internet Association. Those companies operate on the strength of their ability to attract users and drive traffic to their websites. So the net neutrality battle at the FCC isn't simply about these three specific companies. Rather, these decisions affect much of the online world. It affects the business models of many other businesses as well, because these decisions affect the ability of ISPs to provide the services companies require. - -When the FCC passed its rules prohibiting ISPs from blocking traffic from particular sites or applications or charging content companies for priority access to consumers, the companies that own and operate the networks were worried. The companies argued that these rules would cause them to lose revenues unless they had the ability in some way to influence the FCC's decisions. A few companies have already made it clear that they would be open to taking this route -- with Google, Facebook, Netflix and the rest of the Internet Association in support of a regulatory approach that would allow them to operate as commercial entities. - -In terms of net neutrality itself, the Internet Association believes that broadband providers should be able to create an Internet that is open, competitive, and free from discrimination. The key question is whether or not it would violate the 1934 Communications Act to do so. - -When people say "neutrality," they are thinking about a standard that allows any company in the world to compete to offer the internet to their customers. But that's actually not what we have today. - -Our current system allows a -======================================== SAMPLE 263 ======================================== -SUMMARY PROPOSALS - -SUBMISSION DEADLINES: - -Proposal deadline for each section for which funds have been reserved is Friday, January 6, 2017. You can submit these proposals before the deadline. - -PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DATES: - -Proposals must be submitted before the proposal deadline for that section in which they are addressed. All submissions must be received by Jan. 7th, 2017. - -DEADLINES: - -DEADLINES AVAILABLE: - -DEADLINE NOT AVAILABLE: - -DEADLINE EXCEPTIONALLY INCORRECT: - -DEADLINE PRECEDING SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXCEPTIONS TO DEADLINE: - -Proposal deadlines for each section for which funds have been reserved for the 2016-2017 academic year. For the 2016-2017 academic year, proposals must be received by January 17, 2016. Any proposed proposal received after this date will be ineligible to receive financial support. If you are proposing an extension, your proposal must be received by Jan. 7, 2016. - -Proposal deadlines for each section for which funds have been reserved for the 2015-2016 academic year. Please ensure your proposal for that section is received before the deadline and submitted before January 8, 2016. - -PROPOSAL DEADLINE AVAILABLE: - -Please note that proposals submitted during the first 14 days of the proposed extension period will not be considered in lieu of others. If you are proposing an extension, your proposal must be fully funded by January 7, 2016. - -PROPOSAL DEADLINE EXCEPTIONALLY INCORRECT: - -Proposals submitted after the proposal deadline for the 2015-2016 academic year, but before the proposal deadline for the 2016-2017 academic year, may not be presented for approval. If you are proposing an extension, your proposal must be fully funded, submitted for consideration, and reviewed by the Chair or Director, before the proposal deadline for the 2016-17 academic year. Any proposal submitted after the deadline will be ineligible to receive financial support. - -All proposals to be considered for a second extension must be properly funded by Jan. 7th. - -All proposals to be considered for a second second extension must be properly funded by Jan. 7th, and your proposal must be approved by the Department, Chair or Director, before the deadline. - -Any proposals submitted after the deadline will be deemed ineligible to receive student- and faculty-initiated financial support for one (1) academic year. - -All proposals must be received and approved before February 13, 2016. Any proposal not submitted by January 7th will be considered late and ineligible to receive support. - -You may submit a proposal during normal operation hours, but you must provide this to the Admissions Office the day after the deadline, or a late fee may be levied. - -SUMMARY PROPOSAL SUMMARY - -The University of Southern Maine seeks proposals for a second tenure for a full-time permanent faculty member at the Ph.D. level to serve as interim to serve as Director (or Associate Director) for three (3) years, and to begin a more permanent tenure in another faculty or in the University. A full-time permanent faculty member at Ph.D. or equivalent will be a highly qualified scientist with research interests and experience in a relevant area. The Ph.D. degree at Southern Maine University is not available except by special arrangement. A member's academic expertise must overlap the areas of scholarship and teaching that are the focus of the research proposal.<|endoftext|>One of the best features of Amazon's Prime service is being able to instantly stream thousands of movies and TV shows. The service's catalog is so vast, you would think it could never be filled; no matter how many movies you stream, there's always one or two you'll fall short on. Fortunately, Amazon is always looking for new things to add to its library so there is always more to watch. It looks like these new films and shows are coming to Prime soon! - -The latest ones to arrive to Prime are the TV episodes of The Good Place, the first episode of Marvel's Inhumans. The latter show will air on Sunday, April 22nd. - -As for the movies, Marvel's The Inhumans is scheduled for an April 27th release. The new film looks awesome and I'm excited to watch it. - -What episodes are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments! - -Source: Amazon Prime<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -An 'evil' drug dealer has been exposed as an undercover policeman after he offered to help a paedophile who sold him thousands of cannabis plants. - -The thug - dubbed "evil for hire" by -======================================== SAMPLE 264 ======================================== -Funko DC Wonder Woman Pop! Storm Queen Vinyl Bobble-Head Hot Topic Exclusive is rated 4.9 out of 5 by 15 . - -Rated 5 out of 5 by GizmoRouge from Perfect addition We love these Funko POP! Storm's, and she is one of the more unique ones in any of the Wonder Woman collections so far. The packaging is in immaculate condition and the colors and detail are perfect! - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Numb from Good POP A good product and well packaged. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by TheGreatSeato from Awesome figure for me! I bought this with the other Funko figures on my wishlist and was not disappointed. This was my first Funko Pop and I am so happy with it. Love the color and detail and the figure of Wonder Woman is very unique and I love the fact that she looks like she takes after Diana of Themyscira. Highly recommend! - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Taz from Good Buy These are great value for money. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Maelk from Great figure! The paint quality is very nice, a great addition to any collection. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Maelk from Great value The paint quality is great and he's a great figure. He is really easy to paint and looks great in the package. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Taz from Great figure! My daughter loved this figure. He looks awesome in his Wonder Woman outfit and the paint job on the sword is flawless. Overall a very great figure. My daughter couldn't have asked for more. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Maelk from Great piece of decoy Funko released a really unique decoy Wonder Woman. I thought this pop would look nice next to my other Pop Pop figures. Not so much. It just looks like a normal Wonder Woman and that is really disappointing because I wanted a good looking decoy of this pop instead of just a regular figure. Even with that bad paint, it still looks really good. My only complaint is that the red headband is not painted completely. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by SassyCharm from Awesome I bought two. One to add to my collection as a Wonder Woman decoy and another for an office themed play set that I had ordered and got in the mail a few weeks later. Everything came in good condition and the items looked great in the box. Will definitely buy again...and do again. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by jenw from great product love it great product - -Rated 5 out of 5 by SassyCharm from Great product I bought two. One to add to my collection as a Wonder Woman decoy and another for an office themed play set that I had ordered and got in the mail a few weeks later. Everything came in good condition and the items looked great in the box. Will definitely buy again...and do again. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by mia_blaise from Love the new paint job! I bought this to add to my collection of Wonder Woman Pop figures. The paint job is beautiful and I love the details on the costume. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by BitchyClaire from Love the details in this Pop This pop is amazing! The colors and shading make it stand out when you're looking at most Wonder Woman POP figures. This one in particular is stunning. I'm especially a fan of having the cape in white which is what my pop was already. The paint was flawless and the pop itself was perfect. I'm looking forward to trying some more of Funko's Pop!s. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by molly2c from Great product! Perfect to add to my collection of Wonder Woman POP figures! It came in good condition, and the box is great, too!! I also love the decimate of Wonder Woman. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by SassyCharm from Great paint job! Just as pictured in the photo and it is beautiful! - -Rated 5 out of 5 by Jazzie from Great product Purchased this with the other Wonder Woman POPs that I already had. It was a nice surprise that they were both so great quality. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by giulieta12345 from Great product and great price! Perfect pop for me! I bought with the other Wonder Women that Funko has!<|endoftext|>The University of Southern California has been a hotbed of racism for decades. - -A new study examined the university's record on diversity after hiring a new president in 2014. - -The study revealed a university that has failed to improve on many of the important factors in keeping its students and faculty diverse. - -After the hiring of Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the fall of 2014, USC hired 11 new black faculty and administrators. Yet, when compared to the old administration, minority students on the USC -======================================== SAMPLE 265 ======================================== -By: Jay Dyer, LiveScience Senior Writer - -Published: 07/29/2012 07:42 AM EDT on LiveScience - -A rare super-spy from the Cold War may have been born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, but his lineage is a fascinating mystery. - -U.S. intelligence officials believe a Soviet spy, living under a false name in the United States, secretly worked his way back to the Soviet Union and helped the Cold War super-spy build its network of spies — a vast network that would ultimately lead to a string of high-profile American espionage arrests. - -The spy, a Soviet-born engineer, fled the country after the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962. It's believed that he eventually made his way back to Moscow. However, there's been no indication that he was ever caught there. - -"This is really, really, really unusual," said Joseph Menn, a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of State in Washington. "It's the only one ... I know of where I can confidently say ... he had no presence at Moscow airport before arriving back in the United States." [Spies of the Cold War: Secret Agents Revealed] - -A secret birth in a safe house - -U.S. intelligence officials believe Mikhail Gurov was born in 1959 as Boris Volf. This was a highly unusual birth date — Volf was just 15 days old when his mother gave birth. But even more unusual, the United States believes the baby was given up before Volf was born. - -The Russian government and many former KGB agents, however, disagree that the baby was abandoned. According to documents from U.S. intelligence documents, the baby was taken in by the KGB in 1958, and raised in the St. Petersburg, Russia, office where he later became a Soviet agent. - -A secret birth in a safe house The Soviet Union would not confirm the CIA's findings, but several former KGB officers offered another explanation about Gurov's parentage. According to these documents, the baby had to be abandoned by his family because they feared for his life if they told what they knew about his upbringing. - -After returning to the United States, the baby was adopted by a Russian family. In the family registry, his identity was listed as Boris Volf, or Mikhail Gurov, meaning that the KGB knew the child's mother. - -It may not have been a secret all along. - -"That [KGB] probably knew something was up when [the KGB] got to us that they were able to track down this little Russian," Menn told LiveScience. - -The baby's secret - -For decades after his family's arrival in the United States, the KGB and Volf kept the secret that the young boy was a Soviet spy. - -In the 1970s, while working for a spy ring in Texas, the KGB learned about Gurov's secret. The spy ring was a Russian intelligence network operating in the United States at the time. According to Menn and other experts, an American scientist working with the spy ring, V.V. Chechik, was able to trace the KGB to the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va. - -Chechik informed the CIA of the boy's parentage. - -During the 1970s, KGB and Gurov kept the secret that the U.S.-born teenager was a Soviet spy The KGB sent a message to Volf informing him that his mother had been in the hospital shortly after giving birth to baby Ivan - -The KGB sent a message to Volf alerting him that his mother had been in a hospital before giving birth to baby Ivan. - -The KGB would periodically send the message to the girl that was supposed to be his mother, letting her know that the KGB wanted to speak with her and her young, foreign-born son. - -Eventually, the KGB even sent the message directly to the young spy's mother. [See photos of a KGB spy's child born in the United States] - -"The KGB was very specific and wanted to get Volf's mother," Menn told LiveScience. "It was very clear that this girl was going to have a much bigger role in this story." - -The young spy's mother later told U.S. intelligence officials that she saw her son on the cover of a Soviet propaganda magazine called People's Friendship. She said she was not shocked to see the KGB operatives, but was "shocked by the fact that they were trying to get her son." - -KGB agents took their message to a former KGB spy, Volf and his girlfriend, with their message being passed through another KGB operative, Vladimir Kuznetsov. In 1970, Volf and his girlfriend visited Chechik at the KGB's office in Virginia. According to the American spy's memoirs, "Boris and Me," he told Volf -======================================== SAMPLE 266 ======================================== -When you think of the top-rated fantasy hockey players in fantasy hockey, you'll certainly have some names that come to mind. I mean, guys like Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin. But where do the rest of the players rank? Today, I wanted to take a look at the top 10 fantasy hockey players in ESPN's ESPN standard fantasy draft (or ESPN standard 14 percent draft pool). After finishing up our standard 14 percent draft pool, these were the players that finished 1st or 2nd overall in those pools. - -Note: All statistics are taken from NHL.com/Stats. - - -Here are the top 10 players that I finished first in: - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA 1 Jonathan Drouin LW/RW 71 21 2 Nick Foligno C 66 20 3 Corey Perry C/LW 65 19 4 Jonathan Toews RW/LW 65 16 5 Phil Kessel C/LW 64 11 6 Brad Marchand RW 63 9 7 Ryan Johansen C 64 8 8 Patrick Marleau LW/RW 63 7 9 Jason Spezza RW/LW 64 6 10 Nicklas Backstrom C/LW 64 5 - -Here are the players that I finished second in: - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA 1 Jonathan Toews RW 66 7 2 Patrick Kane RW 61 24 3 Corey Perry C/LW 63 20 4 Tyler Seguin RW/LW 61 17 5 Nicklas Backstrom C 61 10 6 Ryan O'Reilly C 61 7 7 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins C 55 12 8 Joe Thornton C 61 7 9 Patrice Bergeron C 59 8 10 Joe Pavelski C 57 11 - -So there you have it, these were the top fantasy hockey players in ESPN's standard 14 percent draft pool. Let's take a look at which of these players went the furthest (in the reverse order of the overall rankings). So for example, if we looked at who went second in, say, Joe Thornton (who finished 1st), the players who went on to go on to finish 2nd were Patrice Bergeron (1st), Phil Kessel (2nd) and Tyler Seguin (2nd). And so on. - -What I would like to see is who went third in, say, Corey Perry, or in this case, the players went on to give the most Fantasy Hockey Points (as defined by the experts) to the players listed below. - - -Jonathan Toews Corey Perry Corey Perry - - -To go along with this, here are the players who went the furthest from each place. - -Here is a look at the top players that I finished in 1st (and 2nd) in Fantasy Hockey Points (all stats are taken from NHL.com/Stats): - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA Rank Jonathan Toews RW 65 1 1 1 2 Patrick Kane RW 61 4 1 1 3 Corey Perry C/LW 66 3 1 1 4 Jakub Voracek RW 64 4 1 1 5 Ryan O'Reilly C 63 3 1 2 6 Patrice Bergeron C 59 4 1 2 7 Phil Kessel C/LW 64 4 1 2 8 Brad Marchand RW 63 2 2 1 9 Patrick Marleau LW/RW 64 2 2 2 10 Nicklas Backstrom C 63 2 2 1 - -Here are the players that I finished 2nd in: - - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA Rank Jonathan Toews RW 66 7 2 2 1 Jakub Voracek RW 64 8 2 2 2 Patrick Kane RW 61 10 2 2 3 Corey Perry C/LW 66 12 2 2 4 Jordan Staal RW 62 10 2 2 5 Ryan O'Reilly C 63 12 2 2 6 Jonathan Toews RW 46 12 2 2 7 Matt Duchene RW 63 12 2 2 8 Tyler Seguin RW/LW 63 12 2 2 9 Phil Kessel C/LW 64 12 2 2 10 Zach Parise LW 63 12 2 2 11 Matt Moulson RW/C 63 12 2 2 - -Here are the players that I finished 3rd in: - - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA Rank Jonathan Toews RW 66 2 3 3 1 Patrick Kane RW 61 10 3 3 2 Corey Perry C/LW 66 11 3 3 3 Jordan Staal RW 62 11 3 3 4 Phil Kessel C/LW 64 11 3 3 5 Connor McDavid C/RW 64 11 3 3 6 Sidney Crosby C 61 11 3 3 7 Jordan Staal RW 59 11 3 3 8 Ryan Johansen C 61 11 3 3 9 Nathan MacKinnon C 59 10 3 3 10 Alex Pietrangelo C 57 10 3 3 - -So which player finished the Fantasy Hockey Points difference the most to get the Fantasy Hockey Points total (based on the experts): - - -Rank Player Position FGM FGA Rank Jonathan Toews RW 66 3 3 2 1 Patrick Kane RW 61 12 3 2 2 Jordan Staal RW 62 11 3 2 3 Jonathan Toews RW 46 12 3 3 4 Jordan Staal RW 62 -======================================== SAMPLE 267 ======================================== -"In the past, our relationship has been pretty great. We are all good and have a good relationship. This has all been a misunderstanding. It's not like it's a big deal, but we're looking into it. It's not nice in any way." -- LeBron James - -"It wasn't a real rivalry, but if you look back in history, maybe it was. But we're moving on. I wish him nothing but the best." -- Heat forward Udonis Haslem<|endoftext|>A new video from the folks at 'Til Death! shows the real life of a guy whose life took a turn for the better today after spending a few years in an institution for child molesters. The video tells the tale of "Mordor Mac" and how his life changed in an instant when a child molester was caught. - -"In the past, our relationship had been pretty good. We were best friends, talking about our little family. It was a very normal relationship. I got a call from a judge and was told 'he's a very good kid.' It was just a normal thing. Now suddenly his life changes a lot! The life of a child molester is a nightmare," says The Til Death!. - -But a little child molester could not stop Mordor Mac from finding himself a mother. His own mother. A beautiful, kind and caring woman. She is his one and only mother. But what's a heartless monster to do when your life has changed for the better? - -The Til Death! team explains the entire process. All the time he's waiting. They also show Mordor Mac the beautiful woman who will now care for him and make the world a better place. - -You can watch the video for yourself and take a moment to appreciate what a difference just one good, kind person can make in anyone's life. - -Thanks to Nika, who just wants this story shared more widely and quickly. - -Watch the video… - -Read the story… - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>It is no secret that the NFL is losing viewers. Last year, the NFL's viewership slipped 1% to a 1.35 rating on NBC and a 2.01 rating on CBS during primetime (down from 1.37 and 2.06). The NFL has been hit hard, and not just because the NFL is getting less money (which is what most media analysts attribute the declines to). Most viewers are turning off the NFL because of off-field issues and a high-profile concussion scandal. But the good news, according to the SportsBusiness Daily, is that the NFL continues to improve in TV ratings (thanks to a resurgence of football on ESPN), digital viewership, and merchandise sales. - -The positive news for the NFL shouldn't be surprising: - -"While NFL ratings were off significantly from a year ago, the league's overall digital audience was up 17% year-to-year for ESPN and up 4% for CBS—marking a significant growth in digital viewership of the league overall," reads a story titled "NFL Digital Brings It All Together," which appears at SBD. "Of course, a large portion of these viewers watched an NFL game online, which still has an impact on revenues, especially from advertisers." - -The good news is that the NFL does still have revenue, and it will continue growing, despite the decline in audience this season. NFL players have been able to negotiate the largest average salary among all professional sports leagues, and the league's revenue from broadcasting and ticket sales is continuing to grow at the rate of a few percentage points per year. - -"The most important stat for the league as it heads to negotiations with its national television partners in mid-December is viewership numbers, according to league spokesman Brian McCarthy. He said the league is pleased with the growth in viewership, particularly for ESPN, which showed 7.0 million viewers tuned into the Thanksgiving Day game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions, which was the lowest audience for an NFL game in the history of the broadcast." - -The problem for the NFL, however, is the growing controversy surrounding the NFL and its mishandling of head injuries. The NFL has recently been rocked by two very well-received independent sports-research studies (not to be confused with the infamous Harvard study, which was never peer-reviewed with the intent of generating more media coverage). One study found that the NFL's tackling rules may actually be contributing more to head injuries than any other rule used in football, another concluded that the NFL's "Deflategate" saga is a conspiracy theory. - -The NFL needs to move away from a policy that unfairly and in many cases unintentionally punishes the helmeted hits on quarterbacks who can't help but deliver them. - -[The NFL is not currently penalizing helmets when a quarterback throws a football. The problem with this is that the NFL is also "punishing" quarterbacks when they do avoid those hits.] - -The NFL needs to move away from its concussion -======================================== SAMPLE 268 ======================================== -I've never had much in common with the American president. - -He loves a game and a show, likes to be a celebrity at parties and in the spotlight. His style is a bit stiff. - -He is very good at making people feel he is a man in black leather and who speaks with an American patois, without the accent. - -I've always found him a bit self-obsessed. He's all about a brand and a legacy. And people love him or at least like him. - -He is a great salesman, for the record. - -It's a difficult line to walk. - -But I do have respect for the American president. - -And for someone who seems less than self-possessed — more arrogant than anything — at times, he's one of the best salesman. - -So it's a challenge: Do I do a deal for him, or not? My gut tells me — because he's a good guy — I have to do it. It's not because I'm going to give the president any favours, it's because on a personal level I'm friends with his daughter. And he's got a very good sense of humour. That can only lead to good things. - -I was also worried because there was a lot of talk on TV of him doing deals for me. - -Well, they have got me confused — a lot of times. And what I mean by that is that he does me deals. - -He wants to buy his own house. He wants to build buildings. He likes hotels — for him. - -I don't see him as having a great business acumen. Like the other guy in the Trump International, he makes a deal or doesn't make a deal. - -And one of the problems is that it is hard to understand the Trump International. When I got there, I was told that the hotel was doing great — the people liked the hotel. That it was up to par. - -And then I would visit there, and it was completely different. - -Here's how the hotel looked. Then two years later, I was on the street one day with the president of the company, and everyone was saying, "Wow, how did we do? That's a great hotel." And I'm sitting there with the president of a company and he's saying, "We're doing OK. We're doing real well." The same thing happened when the hotel in Dubai opened — in what looked like an awesome location, and there's nothing great about it. The rooms are not as big, the bathrooms are not as nice as those rooms in Doha, the restaurants are not as fancy as those restaurants in the Trump International. And when the president of the company, whose name I don't even recognize — but they have Trump's name on the building — is saying, "We're doing real well," it's hard to understand how I am supposed to believe him, given the facts. - -And in a way, it makes me feel a little bit sorry for the guy, because he's obviously a great salesperson. But he's also been in the private sector, so he's got a tremendous grasp of how it all works. - -So I guess the reason I'm still doing business with him — and we'll have a contract — is that I'm a fan. - -And I will be a fan for a long time. - -Because to me, the president of the United States is a person. He is actually a person, who should be treated by people of all colours, and all ethnicities. - -If you can't be a fan of him, or appreciate him — regardless of what you believe about him — you should at least be understanding of why I am a fan. - -I'm not talking about the president's politics. I really don't like either of them (or both of them). I don't like either of them at all. But I really do admire these two men for the simple reason that they are simply good people and good at what they do. - -I am not the president of the United States, but I am the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs. And so, no, I am not a Trump fan and I will not be any more of a Trump fan for a long time. - -But Trump still has fans, and I will respect their wishes. For now. - -It's not worth offending him by saying no.<|endoftext|>For over 60 years, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Medical Association (WMA) have been working together to bring the best health information possible to people around the world—a goal that is made much more difficult today. As the world's most popular food and health information source, The FDA is in the unique position to create new, innovative programs, regulations, and research to improve our overall food and health security. In addition to food regulatory activities, the FDA is also -======================================== SAMPLE 269 ======================================== -It's been another disappointing season for the Miami Heat, the result of a roster filled with injuries from the summer, an inexperienced and underused coaching staff and just one winning season in 11 years. - -There are reasons why the team finished with the 28th best record of the past 10 seasons. Chris Bosh was sidelined by multiple knee surgeries and the Heat had the fourth-worst 3-point shooting, a result of a lack of shooting. Injuries have held back the Heat too frequently, especially the backcourt, which has been without Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. - -The Heat have lost 10 of their last 13 games to fall out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, and that lack of consistency and leadership has gotten in the way of Miami's success. - -SIGN UP - -Be the first to know. No one covers what is happening in our community better than we do. And with a digital subscription, you'll never miss a local story. SIGN ME UP! - -Miami finished last season with the fifth-worst record in the NBA and the Heat could still miss the playoffs next season if the NBA decides to expand. - -The Heat were expected to improve from last season because two of their starters were back, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. But their best player in Wade, the NBA's top scorer last season, has been on the injured list every single year since 2006, and the team has had to deal with two knee injuries while trying to develop its third point guard this season in Mario Chalmers, who is not quite as consistent as Wade. - -SHARE COPY LINK Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters talks about his recent hamstring injury during Miami Heat media day at American Airlines Arena in Miami. - -The Heat traded for veteran point guard Mario Chalmers from Boston on Jan. 2, hoping it would give them stability. However, the injury bug hasn't stopped there. - -Wade and Bosh are each working on long-term contracts and each were in line to make millions of dollars next season. Wade has been to every NBA Finals and won two championships, and while Bosh has won the championships, the Heat have not. - -Meanwhile, this season's biggest issue was a lack of depth, the lack of any depth at all. The Heat's current depth, including Wade and Bosh, is so bad that it has made winning difficult. - -The Heat have just eight players with at least 50 games played this season. Bosh, the team's leading scorer at 17.3 points per game, is on the injured list for another 10th straight game. Wade has missed the last eight games. - -In addition, Tyler Johnson and Udonis Haslem, two players who played a combined 15 minutes per game, have returned to the Heat, but it's tough to tell how healthy they will be. - -SHARE COPY LINK Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra talks with the media about the team's loss to the Golden State Warriors and the loss of Chris Bosh during the second half of Thursday's game. - -And the depth is also hampered by injuries to players who were expected to be major contributors this season. Chris Andersen and Gerald Green, the two centers, have never played more than 18 minutes per game this season and are both playing injured. - -That means Tyler Johnson and Josh McRoberts, the two frontcourt players the Heat will have to depend on for depth, started all 82 games last season. - -Injuries have a detrimental effect on winning, and the Heat were one of the few teams in the NBA to be without their lead guard or starting point guard at all times this season. - -SHARE COPY LINK Tyler Johnson talks about being "100 percent" healthy in the Heat's win against the Charlotte Hornets on December 21, 2014, at AmericanAirlines Arena. - -The Heat were without Wade for the first 10 games and were without Bosh from March 22 to April 20. They missed their best player and the team's best player for a total of 39 games. - -SHARE COPY LINK Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra talks about their win against the Charlotte Hornets on December 21, 2014, at AmericanAirlines Arena. - -The Heat have not been an elite offensive team with Wade and Bosh at the helm. In fact, since 2008, they were last in the NBA in the field goal percentage department, which includes the three-point field goal percentage that the league has traditionally used to measure a player's shooting. - -Last season, the Heat were 23rd in the NBA after being 27th last season. - -As much as anything else, the Heat's injuries have been a big reason for the disappointing season and why they could miss the playoffs again next year.<|endoftext|>You'll get a chance to chat with J.J. Abrams about his new film, Cloverfield, as well as other things like Star Wars: Episode VII and whether or not he'll direct another Star Wars sequel next year. He'll also be in the New York Film Festival to -======================================== SAMPLE 270 ======================================== -A "tensile strength test" has been carried out on a 1kg sample of the steel bar used in President Trump's controversial "travel ban" executive order. It suggests it was made in at least six separate US states - though one of those states, Kentucky, told The Verge it doesn't make bars to its own specifications and had nothing to do with Trump's decision. - -The T-Rex test is a scientific process that attempts to simulate a variety of conditions such as heat, pressure and time. The first step is to set up an experiment to simulate the impact of a single 1kg piece of steel. - -If that impact is sufficiently intense, it can cause the steel to fail — or be "overheated". Under the conditions in Kentucky, the tests were conducted using a high strength (90kg) steel bar that was originally manufactured in Tennessee and shipped via rail to a Kentucky steel mill. - -The tests were carried out on an industrial robot. - -According to KSPR 6News, the steel at the center of the order was then dropped from a few hundred metres onto a large scale. - -The T-Rex is a machine that has three wheels that can measure "pinch point" changes in pressure — the point where a load pushes the material apart slightly. This allows engineers to determine just how much force a piece of steel must have in order to cause it to fail. - -The test found that Kentucky steel, though strong under the conditions, could be taken out of service with just a 40kg load, and with a single drop of that force, it would fail. - -The T-Rex is a machine that has three wheels that can measure "pinch point" changes in pressure — the point where a load pushes the material apart slightly. - -A total of 12 samples were tested and they tested at three different places - -It's just one of many similar tests that have been undertaken, suggesting that Trump's order was at least partly based on false assumptions and that the "temperature-stability" of steel is very much in question. - -Trump's executive order temporarily banned entry to the US by citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations. While some legal cases are being heard to challenge the order, many are defending it by saying that it was based on a need to protect Americans from terrorism. - -According to PolitiFact, "Only a handful of courts" have issued rulings over the past several years backing the idea that the ban violates the constitution. - -It's not the first time Trump has been put on the spot over the strength of his products. Earlier this year, he said that Apple products were made in China. That claim was investigated and found to be false when it was shown that they were made in California.<|endoftext|>If you are an experienced woodworker and have been collecting woodchips and woodworking equipment for many years, why bother making one of these amazing wood crafts? Why not use modern technology like software to automate the processes? Why waste hours working or spending hours on the woodworking bench only to be frustrated as the wood comes out unfinished, or that the project fails to make your heart sing? It's easier to make a simple hand carved carved wooden sculpture which makes your heart sing and you feel great doing it. And if you are a beginner who wants to start building that one handmade wooden sculpture in your room that your heart will start beating and you will start thinking about how to make one next, then I am glad to help you to make that sculpture that your heart will start beating so much that your whole body will feel the excitement and happiness you feel when you create a masterpiece. - -This article is not dedicated to anyone who is just starting out with woodcrafting and is just coming to the point of wanting to buy a woodworking tool. This article is designed for people who have tried but have not been successful so far in creating their own handmade wooden sculptures. You can easily make them as described in this article using simple woodworking tools, and I have compiled a list of very useful woodworking materials you can acquire with the help of some helpful sources provided below. - -Woodworking Tools - -A set of a chisel, a file, and a sanding wheel is required to make your project easily. If you have some good quality carving wheels, then you can easily get free wheels from a lot of sources which are available on the web. - -A saw with a fine and smooth blade is also absolutely invaluable for carving wooden projects. - -In addition to the woodworking tools mentioned above, I would recommend you to get yourself a good pair of manual and power tools. Your hands get sore and blistered when you have to use power tools, and you also get sore if you do not use the necessary amount of strokes, and you might even get a sore arm if you are in an outdoor environment and have to use your tools outdoors. A good quality, hand carving carving tool and an old hand saw will give you all the benefits described above -======================================== SAMPLE 271 ======================================== -"The fact that we're going down there to kill ISIS, the Russians are on our side. And we are going to kill as many of them as we can, and there's nothing anybody can do about it," Trump told the Christian Broadcast News. - -Trump didn't specify how many ISIS fighters he would send to the region, however his comments may be related to another strategy he announced last week. - -On Sept. 3, 2016, Trump tweeted: "We should just cancel the elections and just make America great again." He repeated the sentiment a few days later. - -"The elections are absolutely rigged," he wrote on Sept. 28. "The media is making it very difficult but I will tell you, I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged — I have to be honest. I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged by crooked media." - -The Washington Post reported that Trump is referring to what he has described as "the media bias" against him — an accusation the media denied. - -What Trump did not address, however, was how the "unrigged" election would take shape.<|endoftext|>A new documentary film has put the focus on one controversial aspect of the U.S. military's post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy - the way in which it uses 'credible threat' to justify the assassination of al-Qaida and other extremists. The program, produced by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, The Intercept claims, shows that the U.S. government has relied on a legal process that allows them to kill American citizens on U.S. soil at will with little scrutiny. In an interview with The Huffington Post, one of the people featured in the film, John Kiriakou, says the process has allowed U.S. citizens targeted for assassination to be tortured before being killed. - -"One of the things Americans may not be aware of is that the executive branch has a special legal regime that allows the executive branch to kill American citizens without ever getting a trial, based on this so-called 'credible threat' standard," Kiriakou (pictured above) said. He believes that the government is using terror tactics it learned from Al Qaeda. - -SPONSORED - -"That's the definition of a war crime," he said. - -The Intercept reported that Kiriakou's film, in part, explores how the CIA used what it learned about Osama bin Laden after 9/11 to target people that it thought was a threat to the United States. - -Kiriakou, a former CIA case officer, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for disclosing classified information to journalists, including a "black site" code-named "Salt Pit." - -Although he was never charged with a crime over the classified information, Kiriakou says he believes the CIA should be held accountable. - -"I hope the U.S. government will investigate and hold people accountable who did this. That's what it would be if they didn't get away with it that is why I'm speaking out," Kiriakou said. - -The government, however, maintains that the 'credible threat' program does not authorize targeted killings on U.S. soil. - -In a statement to The Intercept, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel justified the use of the terrorism-related law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by arguing that the government needs to protect "the nation from terrorist activity abroad if it knows or reasonably should know" that an individual has been involved in terrorist activities at home. - -While the program is designed to target those responsible for domestic terrorist activity, government officials also use it to spy on American citizens and others believed to be tied to foreign terrorists. - -"The use by US government officials of the national security 'credible threat' framework, which allows US officials to target foreign terrorists who may be traveling abroad but have connections in the United States, as a means of preventing and/or disrupting terrorist attacks within the United States is consistent with US national security interests and the Constitution," a 2007 ruling by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel explained. - -The U.S. government also used the program under President George W. Bush to detain and torture al-Qaeda suspects (including Anwar Awlaki) without charges or due process. - -Former President Barack Obama used the program without approval. He told a reporter that the program allowed the government to go "after folks who are very dangerous." - -The ACLU notes that when al-Qaeda was at its height, "it posed an imminent threat to the country that did not exist in 2001." - -"The Obama administration has made the assassination of a citizen the cornerstone of its counterterrorism policy, despite this historical omission as well as the clear law prohibiting it," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement.<|endoftext|>1. How much for a game of pool? - -A game of pool is a game similar to -======================================== SAMPLE 272 ======================================== -[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] [Next Chapter] - -HSSB637: The people of Dragon Bone Mountain, they've done everything - -Yan Zhaoge and Ah Hu were currently looking to the west of the Dragon Bone Mountain with their respective eyes, and they immediately saw that a massive mountain had appeared. - -The enormous mountain, which seemed to be formed of a single layer of solid earth, was covered with jade-like patterns on the surface. Its upper region was filled with jade that looked as if it could easily be melted into powder by the light of the sun. - -The lower region of the mountain was filled with deep blue light as well, and was more suited for cultivators of qi-bearing martial arts rather than others. - -The jade patterns of the upper region was very dense, while those on the lower regions were comparatively weak. - -In the distance, the black sky of the Great Western Desert lay far back, and in the distance appeared as numerous streaks of clear white clouds as well. - -Yan Zhaoge and Ah Hu gazed at the Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation that was not far away with their great livers as they pondered. - -Their understanding of the Great Western Desert's current state was extremely clear to their hearts. - -However, in the next moment, something strange occurred. - -Yan Zhaoge looked over once more at the Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation before him, "So that was the real Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation?" - -He raised his head, "Ah Hu, you can't be too rash. That's merely the Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation of the Eight Extremities World." - -As he spoke, Yan Zhaoge took out the Jade Dragon Sword from his Sacred Talisman Pouch, his eyes glancing towards the skies above, "This is still only the Grand Formation of the Eight Extremities World, but at that time, Grand Master of the Heavenly Thunder Hall, Zhou Xuan who was the Heavenly Thunder Hall's Chief of the Eastern Tang did not know whether he was the first person or the last person to see the Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation that had already been born." - -"In the end, he had already lost to you, Elder Xu here who was the first who had discovered it. So, it seems that not only should we know of the grand formation from those of you who have fought, but also from those who did not. And what should we do afterwards?" - -Ah Hu blinked, "We shouldn't have thought that having already used so many thunder dragons would be able to make him give this up, and that this grand formation would only be something this big." - -Yan Zhaoge smiled without answering, "The only conclusion is that he hasn't thought through the consequences, and didn't think of a way to oppose us." - -Ah Hu looked at him, pondering, seemingly unable to believe his words. - -Yan Zhaoge laughed, "You can't say that, if we didn't plan and act, you could have still been lost in the mountains with the Sacred Artifact." - -Ah Hu patted his back, "Elder Xu is also a Heavenly Thunder Hall martial practitioner after all," - -Yan Zhaoge nodded, "Then you should do as I plan and let us go, otherwise you are just going to keep paying for that." - -Ah Hu nodded resolutely before turning to leave. - -Yan Zhaoge saw this and instantly laughed, "Then don't say that anymore." - -Looking at the massive Jade Sea Grand Formation which had appeared right in front of them, a cold light flashed within Yan Zhaoge's eyes, "The Great Eight Extremities World also has the Dragon Bone Mountain in its East Sea. If we want to leave, we first need to break through here." - -"But at the moment, as well as it being an Extreme Northern Sect's stronghold, it already belongs to Jade Sea City." - -"There is still the Heavenly Thunder Hall's Chief of the Eastern Tang, Elder Xu, also the previous opponent of our Broad Creed Mountain, the late Elder He Ning, not to mention that that Heavenly Thunder Hall's Chief of the Eastern Tang also happens to be not only our Sacred Sun Clan's Elder Crane, but also Jade Sea City's Eldest Martial Brother, the current Chief of the Heavenly Thunder Hall and a Martial Saint expert. - -In the end, this Jade Sea City must be very much alarmed by me, but after I left Broad Creed Mountain, Jade Sea City did not attack you," - -Yan Zhaoge shook his head with a laugh, "The reason why the Jade Sea Limitless Grand Formation of the Eight Extremities World has appeared over here is precisely for this reason." - -From being able to obtain this grand formation once, Jade Sea City was already very happy, "We also have a reason for this grand formation, otherwise how would such a grand formation come into being so suddenly -======================================== SAMPLE 273 ======================================== - -The new 'Rise' trailer from 'The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim' features the return of new and returning Skyrim characters as well as the game's new features. - -The official 'Rise' trailer debuted on April 1 with Skyrim returning for its second year and will feature familiar faces from the game as well as new faces and a number of new features. - -Skyrim featured a number of new additions as well, including an ability to turn the landscape into a snowy wasteland, new clothing, and a few new quests. There are also new monsters like skeletons and spiders, among other things, and it looks like there will be plenty to see throughout the trailer. - -In Skyrim, players control both the story and dialogue for the game. That story is now told from a few different points of view. If your character starts with the new guard dog, named Forte, he will have a story to tell. If the Dragonborn is starting new, they'll have their own "story." The game's first half can be played from several different points of view, and the second half is played without seeing the Dragonborn's point of view. - -Here's the 'Rise' trailer from Bethesda, which you can watch in full above!<|endoftext|>From the official blog - -New to the blog? Welcome. - -We've been busy over the past few months. We've made tremendous strides in our goal to be a strong independent game developer, with a diverse set of skills, and many people from both the indie scene and industry. We've been fortunate to come into close contact with such a large and supportive community, and have been encouraged by the feedback. In a few weeks, we'll be moving our focus away from alpha to a public, alpha-testing stage, where everyone can play the game and give us feedback. We believe in the final product and what it means for us and our team. You can read more about that on our announcement post here. - -We're so excited for the changes, but our development isn't over. We're working on a few small side projects, including a visual novel. We started writing this in April, and we're not going to be fast on it, or finished in time to release it at PAX East. As with everything else in development, please bear with us. - -Here's a sneak peek at our new logo and some new stuff, and of course, that new logo on Steam and itch.io for free!<|endoftext|>A man's body was discovered under the floor boards of his residence on Thursday night. - -The deceased is 26-year-old Joseph M. Schiavone. The State Medical Examiner has identified him as Joseph. - -The incident occurred just after 9:00 pm Tuesday evening in the 300 Block of Greenville Avenue in the Woodbridge section of the City of State College. - -The City of State College Police Department and the Pennsylvania State Police Troop G Homicide Unit conducted an investigation. The Medical Examiner has identified and determined the cause of death to be "homicide." A medical report will be ready and will be released to the public once complete.<|endoftext|>PATNA: All the 13 people detained in Bihar after a group allegedly burnt tyres during a protest on Wednesday have been released. According to Bihar police press release, the 13 were detained under various charges including sedition and rioting. These include a case related to the protest and to burning of a number of vehicles including police vehicles.The 13 people were provided accommodation and Rs 750 each while the state government has provided Rs 3000," a police official told TOI. "They (protesters) took out a procession, some of them were beaten or even abused by the police. We have lodged a complaint against the police. We have suspended the officer for failing to ensure the safety of the protestors," he said.A protest was held at Bhagalpur railway station after the arrest of a group of 16 persons allegedly involved in setting tyres on fire to block a convoy of BJP workers. They had gathered at the railway station at around 1.50 pm on Wednesday. The next day, police arrested 13 people including 13 members of Janata Dal (United) and 14 members of Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal Udyog Dal.A judicial inquiry was held after the police filed a charge sheet against them.According to a police officer, the police action was aimed at preventing the demonstrators from entering Bhagalpur station."The police tried their best to prevent the supporters from entering the station, and even beat them up," a man who was present at the station after the incident told TOI.<|endoftext|>On a chilly Monday evening, when he was in a daze, a young man sitting inside a dimly lit hotel office in Mumbai went ballistic. - -A disgruntled young Muslim, who has a deep-seated rage against the Western powers, said that he was not a Hindu but a member of a sect called Ahmadiyya. He attacked the media, saying they had -======================================== SAMPLE 274 ======================================== -The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a mission 'to seek fundamental knowledge of physical disorders and their causes', but at the same time there is also a need for it to move quickly in order to deliver research results in time to help the public. This is why the NIH recently created the Strategic Research Initiative for Translational Research (STRI-T) to accelerate the pace of basic biomedical discovery. STRI-T will provide an opportunity for the NIH director to focus on key translational translational research topics and accelerate progress in these areas. The following is a short list of what STRI-T will focus on: - -Advanced Genomic technologies - -Complexity-based medicine - -Drug discovery - -Interventional genetic research - -Biomedical engineering - -Biomedical innovation and entrepreneurship - -The Strategic Research Initiative for Translational Research initiative has five objectives and five funding plans that will help advance biomedical innovation: - -Develop an ambitious five year plan that will establish and accelerate an ambitious strategy for NIH research. - -Support a new strategic plan to accelerate progress on STRI-T's five overarching objectives and funding plans. - -Fund STRI-T and other NIH-funded translational research for the next five years. - -Promote and support the development of translational research centers through a new NIH institute for translational research. - -Enhance scientific leadership and coordination of STRI-T. - -Strengthen the strategic framework with a strategic plan for strategic planning. - -Strategic Research Initiative for Translational Research (STRI-T) - -The current strategic framework for STRI-T will include an eight year strategic plan; five overarching objectives, including four new initiatives and three new mechanisms for supporting and executing on these. - -NIH Director Francis S. Collins plans to support STRI-T with a $5 million new program through the Office of the Director's Research and Development (ORDER). Within the new program will be $4.2 million for the Strategic Research Initiative for Translational Research to advance the NIH Research Vision for Translational Research. - -NIH has also created a new organization, STRI-T-Tribeca (STRU-T), to support the coordination of STRI-T and other NIH-funded translational research projects. STRU-T will be headed by NIH senior staff and will work to support translational research as well as accelerate progress in the NIH Research Vision for Translational Research. In addition, STRU-T will be responsible for developing new tools and technologies that could be part of the STRI-T portfolio of strategies. - -As part of the new initiative, the NIH plans to invest $6.5 million to encourage the adoption of novel biological tools and technologies. This will be in addition to the $4 million in funding that has been committed directly over the last three years. - -The National Science Foundation (NSF) will support the new initiative by making available new grants to support these efforts. In addition, NSF will also support the development of new strategies to support these activities. - -The current eight-year strategic framework for STRI-T is expected to be completed within fiscal year 2012; however, if funding is not identified, the framework will continue through FY 2016. For more information, visit the new STRI-T website at www.strio.nih.gov. - -Strategic Research Initiative for Translational Research<|endoftext|>From Leaguepedia | League of Legends Esports Wiki - -Rudan" Lee is the top laner for - -Kim "" Lee is the top laner for Team WE - -Biography - -2013 - -At the age of 13 (2 October 2006), Korean prodigy Kim "" Chae joined Garena in March 2007, joining the very young team (now known as Team Coast) known as the KOO Tigers. He left for China before Garena merged with the LGD organization, joining the newly formed LGD Gaming at age 17. - -2014 Season - -After a poor performance at the World Cyber Games, LGD disbanded, but Kim kept playing with the new team CLG and won their first game of the spring split, on March the 2nd. But after CLG finished the split in 2nd place after a tiebreaker loss to TSM, Kim left the team, citing pressure from the new organization. - -2015 Season - -Before new sponsor Immortals acquired the CLG roster, Kim briefly joined Team Coast as their jungler, and was replaced by former Curse AD carry Brandon "Saintvicious" DiMarco. After their first week with Saintvicious, however, Kim left the team saying that he was unhappy with his teammates and didn't play well enough.[1] He returned a short while later. In the summer split, CLG was the #3 seed in the regular season, only to be defeated 3-0 in the first round by Team Dragon Knights. That loss eliminated them -======================================== SAMPLE 275 ======================================== -I'm a new mom for about a month now (I have a new baby with me every day), and all the advice you can find on a first-time mom is usually about how not to handle the first 2 weeks, or how to do something completely different. But I can't stop thinking about having my kid with a pacifier when I look at my 3-month old. We've gotten her hooked on a pacifier, she's starting to cry, and now I keep worrying that I need to get her a different form of comfort, or that we're just not ready for that kind of comfort. - -I'm a new mom for about a month now (I have a new baby with me every day), and all the advice you can find on a first-time mom is usually about how not to handle the first 2 weeks, or how to do something completely different. But I can't stop thinking about having my kid with a pacifier when I look at my 3-month old. We've gotten her hooked on a pacifier, she's starting to cry, and now I keep worrying that I need to get her a different form of comfort, or that we're just not ready for that kind of comfort. - -Have you ever had a different form of child-rearing advice you wished you could've heard (or read!) when you were struggling with a first baby, but were too busy with other, more pressing concerns?<|endoftext|>The U.S. State Department has not yet certified Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal and is currently not prepared to recommend it to Congress. But that hasn't stopped Iran's clerical hardliners from claiming the agreement is in violation of U.S. national interests and that President Trump should reconsider his decision to make a deal with a tyrant-ruled regime that has long oppressed its own people. - -President Trump has said Iran has violated the agreement because of its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — the same regime responsible for the most egregious violations of the agreement. - -"I must tell you that the recent terrorist attack in Iran, which killed over 25 people, some of them were killing innocent people — the most beautiful people, innocent children, innocent babies," Trump told reporters in August. "Those people were killed by the Iranian government." - -On Monday, the conservative website Daily Beast published what it called "evidence" that the Iranian regime is responsible. - -"Iran is supporting the Islamic State terrorist group," The Beast wrote. "In addition, according to recently declassified intelligence from U.S. officials, Iran was behind a series of attacks on U.S. government personnel, including the killing of the American contractor and a Navy SEALS member in August 2016." - -The publication, which cited "a veteran U.S. intelligence official familiar with some of the documents" said the documents "show how Iran has continued to support its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the fight against the Islamic State and Syrian rebels who are fighting both the regime and various terrorist groups." - -There is no evidence Iran is supporting ISIS. The Daily Beast did not respond to TheDC's questions about the documents' source. - -A July Washington Times article headlined, "Iran's terrorist allies: How the U.S. fell for a regime change," said a series of former U.S. intelligence officials said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got so confused about Iran's role in terrorism that she "tried to pin the blame for the deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino for Iran's government." - -When asked to explain her confusion, Clinton told reporters in October she was in "constant touch with our allies around the world and in a series of private phone calls" about the attacks. - -The Washington Times said the Trump White House made Iran's alleged terrorist activity the centerpiece of its Iran deal negotiating strategy. And the Trump administration did not object to a $100 billion arms deal with Tehran last week that would give it more funds. - -The Washington Times said it "found no evidence that the Obama administration objected to this deal. But it also did not find evidence that Trump officials did, either." - -The State Department issued a statement, which was also published on The Daily Beast's website, rejecting the allegations. - -"The State Department has been in regular contact with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and the government of Iran regarding Iran's role as a leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world today," the statement read. "As we have said repeatedly, since the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015, Iran's violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have not been significant enough to warrant termination of the deal." - -The statement also said that "if there is evidence that Iran has violated the agreement, we reserve the right to assess and take further action." - -A senior Iran expert for a think tank that favors a better deal said the State Department's comments didn't address the substance of the story. - -"The State Department -======================================== SAMPLE 276 ======================================== -In case you missed it, on September 15, 2015, on-site security officials with the Israeli government (and not Israeli citizens) will be arrested by the FBI for entering the US Embassy illegally, in order to take pictures. - -This is the latest in a long line of arrests in recent years for similar and usually illegal activities by Israeli government officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally ordered this particular arrest in 2012. So it's no coincidence that the arrest happened on the same day as the State of the Union address. - -This is an incredible escalation, and I don't think anyone's really given it much thought. Yet every single one of these situations has a clear point: - -1) The US government is desperately in need of more surveillance and more control over the Internet, particularly on the part of the NSA/FBI. They're working harder at it than ever, because surveillance keeps getting harder and harder. When it comes to the FBI, the best way to get them to stop spying on the US public is to publicly humiliate them. I suspect that's their motivation here. - -2) The US government, and especially the FBI, is very, very scared of the Internet. And very, very desperate. - -3) People are going to die. - -It was a strange way to start what was supposed to be a great election week. The election didn't have to get in the way of these arrests (and it certainly could not have been used as an excuse to ramp up the war on terror); they could have easily delayed them. Instead, US government officials were not only arrested but the Israeli government was also, which I think says a lot about the kind of people who are running things. - -It's also a sign that we now have a world where the state and the companies who run it are both more afraid of Internet freedom than anyone could imagine. And those companies also know it. - -Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz<|endoftext|>For the past few years, every year, I have made an effort to do a few things for Christmas—usually a shopping trip, but sometimes some other activity. It might be going to a concert, or going to see a movie, or visiting some other attraction (the library, for instance). - -This year, however, I went to see some things that I never thought I would see in my life—a Star Wars Celebration Europe panel. - -I was not on the list of panelists, but after meeting the crew who organized it—the guys from Rebel Force Radio and the Rebel Galaxy blog—I was asked to do a bit of a "pre-show" for the crew that would be on the flight, so that I could make sure I heard the panel from the start. - -In case you just want to read it, be forewarned that it's super long and ruddy long. - -I'd give a few bits from my chat with the crew, but the real excitement came when I began to get a glimpse into those behind the scenes at Star Wars Celebration. It was amazing. So many people, people I'd only heard about now, working like mad to make sure nothing gets ruined and every minute of experience at the convention comes out just right. It's incredible. - - -Some background of the guys behind the scenes: - -RFR has an interesting backstory. They started almost four and a half years ago with their first episode in which they did a lot of interviews with Star Wars creators, as well as talking to some of the people who know the most about the original series. After this, they have done a number of videos. - -And then there are the blog posts. - -A few years ago, RFR got the attention of a bunch of big time StarWars fans who were into reading and keeping updated. And this year, Star Wars Celebration Europe is actually where this came about. You can see the original "Star Wars: In Memoriam" video on the site here—and here's a longer version that has all the quotes. - -And they have a couple of books as well, including "The Original Trilogy: A Compendium," which has all of the original Star Wars books, written by some of the key people who helped make this thing happen. You can check that out here. - -And for those who don't know, Rebel Force Radio is RFR's spin-off podcast. It covers all things Star Wars. - -RFR and the Rebel Galaxy blog have become a great place to follow some of the people behind the scenes. For the most part, they do a great job. They've done an interview with J.J. Abrams—again, a great source on the behind-the-scenes people. They've done "Behind the Screen" videos about The Force Awakens and Rogue One. - -For some of the other stuff, though, their work is just amazing. This site has been around since 2011, but they have some really great stories. One time, -======================================== SAMPLE 277 ======================================== -In a recent press conference, the new President of the Philippines made a shocking announcement. He intends to abolish the military. He also promised to send the military into Mindanao for "security". But the truth is that the Philippines' military does not have any legitimate business in Mindanao. - -Philippines' military is a creation of the United States. The first president to establish the military presence in the Philippines was Franklin Roosevelt. The Philippine constitution mandates the establishment of a military to protect the nation's security. However, the constitution also states that the military not engage in "invasive activities". - -In fact, as far back as 1946, President Manuel Quezon explained, under the Philippine constitution, any interference by the United States in the affairs of the country would be referred back to the Philippines. In other words, the Constitution mandates the independence of the Philippines from the United States and in keeping with the spirit of independence, there should not be any military presence in the country. - -In reality, the military is a tool of U.S. foreign policy. It was the U.S. government which decided to bring the military into the Philippines, not the Filipino people. - -The Philippine people have resisted the U.S. occupation in the past and they should be allowed to do the same now. - -The Philippine military must protect Philippine sovereignty, not Philippine sovereignty must be protected by the Philippine military. - -It was the U.S. government which decided. - -The Philippines is a sovereign nation and no longer under the rule of the U.S. - -The Filipino people must have their own sovereign nation, and not be subject to U.S. imperialism. - -The Philippines has repeatedly expressed its desire for an independent foreign government, and in fact has been demanding it since the time of the Manila Treaty of 1898. - -If this treaty can be so easily overturned by an imperialist power seeking control over the Philippines, how much sovereignty are the Philippine people to be granted in the 21st century when the U.S. government can act as "The Government of Uncle Sam" with impunity? - -The reality is that if the Manila Treaties are not upheld the Philippines will be "colonized"…as the term is used by Professor Jose Maria Sison of the University of the Philippines. This is very similar to what the United States is doing with Iraq through their "liberation" of that country. - -The Philippines will be "colonized", "colonized" over, and that means being controlled by the same foreign imperialist entity which has previously colonized that country. But that is what these two examples do, if not this, then with the same, or substantially the same, imperialist entity. - -So, by ending the US treaty on the bases and the U.S. military presence in the Philippines the U.S. has already broken the spirit of the Manila Treaty and they have taken a major step to bring about the subjugation of the Philippines. - -Furthermore, the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country the U.S. does not have military bases in. The Philippine government needs to take all available steps to restore peace in Mindanao, to ensure that the military is no longer used. - -The U.S. should no longer have any bases in the Philippines and this means the end of the Philippines' colonial past. - -For more information on this issue please see Dr. Carl Salzman's excellent site: The Philippine Army and the U.S. - -The authors are part of the Philippines' Resistance Network - -Read More on This: - -US-Philippines Military Base Treaty Explained: The Philippine Army and the US - -The U.S. Military Bases in the Philippines and Their Purpose - -U.S. Plans to Build 7 Military Bases in Philippines: Philippine Concern? - -Why The Philippines Needs Military Bases: Philippines' History & Political Situation<|endoftext|>An early sign of the financial and economic turmoil to come. - -Over the past three years, the U.K. has been suffering from an unprecedented financial crisis that saw the nation's banks collapse under the weight of the collapse of a housing bubble. Today, the Conservative-appointed British government has announced a plan to make sure that when the economic winds eventually shift over the next few years, the country will be ready to welcome the world by offering its citizens the best possible education at the best possible price. They'll also have free health care coverage as well as some of the best transportation facilities in its size. - -Here are some interesting facts, courtesy of The Daily Mail: - -The plan has a simple name, the "Better Education for Everyone" plan. It consists of creating an additional 2,000 places in the new high-tech, vocational education system, by 2022. That will put a total of 2,050 places in the new system, which will replace university with a program that will give students a "real-life" choice and will teach them -======================================== SAMPLE 278 ======================================== -Fossils and other data that shed light on the evolutionary histories of the major groups of organisms are an increasingly important source of information about biological and evolutionary processes. In this paper we apply the same methods that were used to analyze fossil DNA sequences to estimate the divergence time and demographic history of the great apes relative to the other apes. Our results show that the great apes are the most divergences-rich lineage of all the ape and human lineages. - -Abstract - -Fossils, living individuals, and even their genome sequences are valuable tools for elucidating the evolutionary histories of lineages. The relationships between the great apes, with their well-documented hominoid–hominin evolutionary relationships, are of particular interest. The current estimates of divergence times and demographic histories of major ape- and human-groupings are primarily derived from analyses of DNA sequences or paleontological data, but these tools can be highly imprecise. The method we use takes advantage of the difference between molecular data and genetic data, in particular the information that has been removed prior to the assembly of the species-specific sequences. This removes the most informative portions of the genetic sequences, leaving a sequence with as few and as divergent nucleotide base pairs as possible. We estimate the age of the greatest extant gorilla ancestor (Gorilla gorilla) at 50.3 ± 1.2 Ma and that of the great ape ancestor (Pan troglodytes) at 49.8±0.6 Ma. For both species, the oldest dated specimens are at least 50 Kya. By removing the most informative portions of the DNA sequences, we show that the great apes are the most divergences-rich lineage of the vertebrate trees of life. We also estimate that the great apes are descendants of a single ancestral species; the gorilla-lineages are therefore divergences-rich even though they are members of one genus.<|endoftext|>I don't know the name of the game, but it's the only one with me and my roommate playing it together. - -How can I play this with friends? - -Are there any rules? - -Do I need the game installed on my mac or can I just download it from the app store and open it? - -How long are the mini versions of the games? - -How does the multiplayer work? - -What should I do if I get disconnected and will I still lose the games and progress if I don't rejoin after a minute? - -There is a couple of issues with multiplayer. If you are playing with more than 2 people, you will see 3-4 disconnections a game. Even once you reconnect, it will restart from where you were. If this happens to you multiple times, you can try re-downloading the game and trying to join a different game.Also, each person gets to choose the same map, so it might take you awhile to discover the best maps to play with your friends. I suggest you just try them and if they are good, then keep playing them until someone else suggests a better one. Or you can make up one if you hate the previous maps.If you play on a computer with more than 6GB of RAM (which I do not recommend) then you may have some performance problems. We didn't have these on our mac which was upgraded from 8GB of RAM to 16GB. For this reason I recommend you wait a couple of weeks and see if your computer is as much as you wish it to be.The mini version of this games can lag your computer. If you have a mac that is a little older, or doesn't follow the recommended hardware requirements, this would really be an issue. This can be fixed by running a program called the game's monitor in administrator mode.You can run the program and it will start up the full version of the game.If you need to be the admin to run the monitor, or just feel like it, you can try this:Just be sure to save and exit the application when you're done.<|endoftext|>This is a list of all of Al Gore's speeches, speeches written for him, and speeches and speeches written for his team. - -Speeches and speeches related to Gore - -Speeches and speeches related to his team - -Al Gore's speeches and speeches written for him - -Quotes<|endoftext|>On Saturday, one of the more intriguing stories from the early stages of free agency for the New England Patriots involved their two first round picks in this year's draft. This past weekend, they signed offensive guard Logan Mankins to a four-year contract extension and tight end Dwayne Allen to a five-year, $31 million contract extension. - -This week, that contract extension for Mankins was reported to be worth $8 million per season, and that was before the contract extension for Allen went public. - -Mankins' deal is worth $8,625,000 per season and is worth just over $9 million over the final two years, with $3 -======================================== SAMPLE 279 ======================================== -I recently was able to work on a project in the Clojure ecosystem and came across some really cool features for immutable data structures. One thing that got my attention was how immutable data structures use a different API than other data structures like maps or sets. The core data structure is still a vector or a pair or a map, but it does it in a very specific way. - -It may be easier to understand this new API in relation to Clojure's lazy evaluation strategy. Clojure has one of these which uses fn : - -(fn [x] (x)) - -So to use it we would write the following in Clojure code: - -(map #(iter % 2 )) - -fn is really powerful when it comes to immutable data structures. When it evaluates nothing it won't modify anything: - -(set/inc 1 ) #(println % 2 ) - -fn on the other hand evaluates its result every time to get a new value. - -We'd still use map here with set : - -(map #(set % 2 )) - -The difference is very subtle. The first one just iterates over its elements while the second one just sets each element to its successor. - -However there are some differences: - -Immutable data structures have some other important differences. - -When we think about immutable data structures it's difficult to tell them from other data structures because we expect them to be different. But it's helpful in understanding how Clojure's immutability works. - -For example when you've used Clojure for a while you may have seen one of these data structures in action. - -I won't delve deep into the details of those data structures, but let me know if you have better references. - -One of those Clojure data structures is a vector, which is used to store numbers. Here's a vector: - -Vec< Integer > { 1 2 3 4 } - -You've probably seen similar things in other languages. They may have a range of all positive numbers, or a bit field with a specific value: - -public BitSet< Integer > max = new BitSet<> (); public BitSet< Integer > min = new BitSet<> (); - -In Clojure vectors don't do anything like all those things. - -Clojure maps are like tuples: - -( def maps ( comp - -( fn [m] - -( let [x ( first m)] - -( clojure.lang.IRedgeMap/coll ( next ( conj x m)))))) - -maps) - -And they have a similar API: - -( def maps ( comp - -( fn [m] - -( let [m ( first m)] - -( clojure.lang.IRedgeMap/coll m)))) - -maps) - -However maps is what Clojure uses all the time for storing arrays and maps. - -The Clojure map API is pretty simple in many ways: - -Vars map maps maps map maps maps maps maps 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ( ns foo ( :require [clojure.string :as str])) ( str/join ( map #( str %)) ( str/join ( map #( str %) %)) "..." )) 1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ( ns foo ( :require [clojure.string :as str])) ( str/join ( map #( str %) %) ( str/join ( map #( str %) %) %)) "..." ) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ( ns foo ( :require [clojure.string :as str])) ( str/join ( map #( str %) %) ( str/join ( map #( str %) %) %)) "..." ) - -Here we set a number onto the first element of maps. The maps maps are defined in terms of a vector. So the :as is the type parameter in Str's clojure.string/join function. - -The Clojure map API, because it's a map, can be converted to vector! The conversion works exactly the same as the one in Str's clojure.string/join functions. - -This feature isn't just for vectors. It's also used for maps in Clojure's collection API! - -To see this in action, we look at Clojure's filter function: - -( filter #( str %) ( str/join % "..." )) 1 2 3 ( filter #( str %) ( str/join % "..." )) - -So if we want to find all occurrences of "hello world" in the string "... world..." we could do: - -( str/join "..." ( filter #( str %) "..." )) "..." 1 2 -======================================== SAMPLE 280 ======================================== -You might remember when the first "Ghostbusters" reboot, "Ghostbusters: The Video Game," was announced. You might know that you can pre-order the game on Amazon for $39.99 or at Walmart for $29.99. Or maybe you did a Google search on the phrase "Ghostbusters: The Video Game" and saw that its developers at Double Fine actually made a game about the movie that's on the DVD, "Ghostbusters: The Video Game." (It seems pretty obvious then, that the game includes a short movie starring Bill Murray, Leslie Jones, and the rest of the "busters", which is why it's included in the original box-set of 'Theatrical Releases.') - -"Ghostbusters: The Video Game" is scheduled for a June 2016 release on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 4, and is already available for pre-order on Amazon. It also looks pretty nice for a game about Ghostbusters. - -I don't know a whole lot about the game, since I've just seen a trailer, but here's a quick peek at its first gameplay trailer. It looks pretty cool, too, so if you want to pre-order it, do it now. - -The latest installment in the "Ghostbusters" movie franchise was released in theaters and video stores over the summer and, in fact, opened over $70 million of its $144 million budget domestically. It continues to do well overseas as well. The film itself will eventually roll out on Blu-Ray and DVD later this year. - -So if you're a big fan of this iconic franchise, you'll probably want to give "Ghostbusters: The Video Game" a chance. It won't be for everyone, but if you like comedy, you might just like it. - -Ghostbusters: The Video Game is scheduled for release on June 22, 2016.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Department of Education is sending letters to private schools in the state of California telling them they must disclose their admissions policies and how they decide admissions – including the gender of students in the applicant pool. - -In April, the U.S. State Department issued a similar letter to the state. This month's announcement from the Department of Education in the name of fighting "discrimination" and "religious exemption" is the most sweeping. - -A federal law requires all schools to file reports to the Department for a four-year period beginning in 2015. For the 2015-16 school year, that means schools will have to file reports on the following issues: - --- admissions and retention practices. - --- the gender balance among applicants in the applicant pool. - --- the amount of scholarships for women, and - --- the number of gender non-conforming students. - -The state of California in its annual report to the federal Department of Education says that of all its schools that meet the Title IV of the law, only 6 percent comply with those reporting rules. - -For California's high schools, where roughly 90 percent of students attend private, religious schools, the rules are likely to be tougher. - -"This is a very important step to ensure gender-inclusive educational opportunities," said Kimberely A. Esparza, the Department of Education's deputy undersecretary of education. "These new rules are critical to ensuring that all schools follow Title IV policies that are consistent with their religious missions." - -"The Obama administration went out of its way to ensure that Title IV compliance was a top priority," Esparza added. "Our commitment to ensuring that all schools are providing equitable educational opportunities and opportunities for girls and women remains unwavering." - -But the state has yet to release some of the information students must disclose if they are considering getting in to one of the roughly 500 private high schools that receive federal funding in California. - -The U.S. Department of Education has sent letters to several private schools in California asking that they be disclosed the numbers of girls and boys admitted to the school per the school's enrollment trends. - -This is an obvious indication that the admissions standards for schools like private high schools vary greatly. - -The schools are not required to release the percentage of girls or boys admitted and must describe the percentage admitted separately if they do publish that data. - -One private high school in suburban San Diego asked the department for the percentage of boys in the applicant pool relative to the percentage of girls. The school said the applicant pool is about 60 percent males and 40 percent females. - -According to the state, the student body is about 70 percent male, 20 percent female and 13 percent intersex, or both. In California, many high schools are mixed gender. - -An online article published in the San Diego Union-Tribune last year suggests the numbers are even lower. One story suggested that only a quarter of boys in one of San Diego's top school district schools are in the senior class. - -"We want students of all identities to have access to opportunities and make informed choices -======================================== SAMPLE 281 ======================================== -[F4M] The Last Sixty Seconds Of "No One" Author: Stolen_from_my_Puppy_Cage_The_Final_Seconds of my "No One" fanfiction by Stolen_from_my_Puppy_Cage - -[The Last 60 Seconds] Last night, I realized the world we live in, and the way things are structured, may not be the real world that our children's children will live in for the rest of their lives. It may be some alternate world we never even found out about, with the rules and rules we never saw. My father had said that he doesn't believe in ghosts, but in the world we live in, I have found that to be true. That's where I've been having sex lately. This world we live in, and the way we live in it makes my father's old beliefs about ghosts and the universe seem a bit naive now. I find myself wishing he would have stopped being a father when I started feeling like my father. I wish he would have been a ghost who wanted nothing more than to be free. And he wasn't, now was he? Is my husband my ghost or is he just my husband? Or what is his relation to me in the first place? Is he even a man? Is he a ghost? Is my husband my ghost? I know my husband is a ghost, but I never knew my father to be one. That question has hung heavy in the back of my mind for years, since he died. There is no one else who will answer those questions. I've tried to convince myself that I'm not a ghost. And while I could be wrong, why should I stop trying? If you can't see how wrong this is, you're not the kind of person who could keep up with me if you did. I am not allowed to look any further than my current situation. All that is out of my control. All that does matter right now is my husband, and his needs. He's not perfect, obviously, and is still struggling with his demons. I could never understand what made my father do this. So what is my husband's fault? Is he always this kind, and needs to be loved unconditionally? Is he always this needy that he has to be taken care of? I know that my life is not as stable as his, and that he's not always there when I need him and that makes me feel so useless and unworthy. I don't know how I would cope with this. But I know there is no other option. What options do I have? I've thought about asking my husband to leave me for a while now. But as I sit here, curled up in the soft blankets of my bed and my eyes half-closed, I think he doesn't want to. He would not leave me. I don't blame him though. It's his choice whether to stay. I don't blame him. But I can't stay either. I tried to write "No One" a while back, but didn't quite get anywhere. Then I started thinking about it a lot, and realized I never got to finish writing it. I never had the courage to try again, or the motivation, which is why this fanfiction was never finished. This has been a real gift, really. Thanks, Stolen_from_my_Puppy_Cage. It means the world to me that you took the time to read a few lines of a fanfiction. I mean, it's not like you've read any fanfiction of your own. But I think you'll find that "No One" is very, very true.<|endoftext|>Cancer and Reproductive Harm- Cancer and Reproductive Harm- www.P65Warnings.ca.gov - -Carry a spare in your car. This high-performance ammo is backed by the Hornady Marksmanship Unit of the National Cartridge Company, a team of NRA-certified gunsmiths. Shooters can expect dependable performance and legendary Hornady reliability in every load. Brass cases and primers are manufactured by Cor-Bon.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Navy's first new nuclear-powered attack submarine will be named USS West Virginia following the Navy's naming ceremony on May 10. The Ohio-class nuclear attack submarine is expected to carry the new name in ceremonies to be held in Newport News, Virginia, and at the submarine pier later in May. - -At a ceremony on May 10, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will award the new name to the first Submarine School submarine as part of a series of ceremonies designed to celebrate America's nuclear-powered submarine fleet. - -While the name may change, the submarine service's motto of "Dare to do the Impossible" remains. - -In February, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) announced that the first of four West Virginia-class submarines under construction had been delivered to its shipyard at -======================================== SAMPLE 282 ======================================== -If you've ever heard someone say: "I've always been a Liberal, but in 2014 I realised I disagree with the Liberal Party of Australia", then you may be inclined to be a tad confused. - -It'd seem that we're at the point where most Australian political parties think it's perfectly acceptable for members to change their mind about a major issue such as same-sex marriage while in federal parliament, just like members are now expected to change their vote on a budget bill while in the Senate. But why? - -Is it just to try and increase voter turnout or to win more seats in the Senate? - -The answer lies in the 'closet Liberal', a name given to a person who consistently votes for the Liberal party but secretly disapproves of the Liberal Party and its policies. - -In Australia this would be more commonly known as an "independents vote" politician. - -This week Labor senator Sam Dastyari was caught out on Twitter by an online video in which he called one of his constituents "Gayby". - -"Gayby. I believe you're a f***ing pr**k," one comment quoted. - -Labor senator Sam Dastyari at a press conference this week. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen - -As is so often the case, things took a turn for the worse and he was forced to resign from the shadow defence team. - -It's easy to understand why Mr Dastyari decided to quit. His comment was obviously indefensible and in light of this we have to wonder whether this man is truly "too liberal".<|endoftext|>Futuristic 'Hollywood' to open in 2017 - -Hollywood at the Alameda County Fairgrounds (Sandy Rius / Chronicle) Hollywood at the Alameda County Fairgrounds (Sandy Rius / Chronicle) Photo: Sandy Rius - -Hollywood's "Viva Las Vegas" billboard, just outside the county fairgrounds in San Francisco on Monday Oct. 22, 2012. (Michael Macor / SFC) Hollywood's "Viva Las Vegas" billboard, just outside the county fairgrounds in San Francisco on Monday Oct. 22, 2012. (Michael Macor / SFC) Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle - -A large sign announcing the opening of "Hollywood's Viva Las Vegas" has been posted in front of the Alameda County Fairgrounds in San Francisco on Monday Oct. 22, 2012. (Michael Macor / SFC) less A large sign announcing the opening of "Hollywood's Viva Las Vegas" has been posted in front of the Alameda County Fairgrounds in San Francisco on Monday Oct. 22, 2012. (Michael Macor / SFC) ... more Photo: Brian Yee - -window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-4', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 4', target_type: 'mix' }); _taboola.push({flush: true}); - - -Photo: Sandy Rius Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Futuristic 'Hollywood' to open in 2017 1 / 4 Back to Gallery - -Hollywood's "Viva Las Vegas" movie billboard will be visible from the top of San Francisco's Embarcadero and its tony Mission District this weekend, after an elaborate three-month renovation project cost at least $7 million, state officials have announced. - -It has been in the works since the first film trailer for "Viva Vegas," starring Brad Pitt, went online more than a year ago. - -"Viva Las Vegas" is the third installment of a Hollywood series that began as an homage to the Las Vegas Strip. In recent years the "Viva Vegas" series has been known for its high-concept style of filmmaking. - -The new set has a futuristic design, with a digital display board that is on a track of concrete. The Hollywood sign features large digital video of the stars, a large sign reading "Hollywood" and an oversized replica of a jet, complete with its wings. - -"Viva Las Vegas" will open on Feb. 24 at the Alameda County Fairgrounds and on the following weekends March 25-26, May 24-26 and Sept. 11-12 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, officials say. - -The Alameda County Fairgrounds is located at the southern entrance to the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. - -Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley<|endoftext|>You're probably familiar with the term "The Dark Age of the West": the time after the Roman Empire fell, before the spread of Christianity. This period began in the late second century AD and lasted until the mid-5th century. - -During the Dark Age, Western culture continued to undergo dramatic, seemingly irrevocable change. -======================================== SAMPLE 283 ======================================== -A man wielding his gun and ordering another to leave a McDonald's restaurant died from "multiple gunsfire" and was a convicted felon, authorities said. - -Investigators believe the wounded man was the aggressor because he was armed and also because he was in the restaurant at the time of the early-morning attack Saturday. - -The victim, identified as 54-year-old William Ahern of Brooklyn, was found shot at 3 a.m. in the parking lot near an intersection, police reported. His injuries included multiple gunshot wounds. A spokesman for the Nassau County Medical Examiner's office would not say if Ahern's injuries were self-inflicted or due to a possible drug overdose, adding the investigation was ongoing. - -Ahern suffered from a single gunshot wound to the head, police said. - -Authorities reported they located a shotgun and a handgun at the scene. A spokesman for the New York City Fire Department said some of the injuries "appeared consistent with a shotgun blast."<|endoftext|>I have to admit that I had the same look of glee when looking over new iPhone 8 images today. Of course there are a few new things to look at, but the majority of the design is pretty much similar to its predecessors. - -Here is what was already known before Apple began teasing the iPhone 8. - -All new design - -The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus were both released in September 2016. The iPhone 8 will only be available in white when it goes on sale on September 23. But it will be able to use all available colour variations of the iPhone 7, including iPhone 7 Plus, as well as iPad Pro. - -S Pen stylus on the left, and Touch ID fingerprint scanner on the right - -New 3D glass design - -The iPhone 8's glass screen has a different design to that of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, it will be a more "tapered" design compared to previous iPhone models. - -This will also affect the Apple Pencil stylus and its placement relative to the speaker holes on the back of the iPhone 8, as well as other new features that the new iPhone 8 will have. - -4K resolution - -When Apple first announced the iPhone 8, it described it as the "world's first 4K phone" – but that still wasn't the only exciting feature. The iPhone 8 will also have 4K video recording capabilities, making it a true 4K phone. - -It's a good thing for us all that Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus two days after they go on sale, as I am all excited for it, but I would have liked to see these two smartphones go head to head on the latest iPhone test. - -Dual camera - -While the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will have a dual-lens camera setup on the inside, they'll all be identical, featuring a 12 MP iSight camera on the back, and 12 MP camera in front. It was only revealed a few weeks back that the new models wouldn't support the Optical Image Stabilisation technology as is in the newer iPhones. - -It's good to know that they won't be as quick and responsive as the cameras on the new iPhones are, but it's good to see them being included in devices I want to buy sooner than later. - -The iPhone 8 will also include 5-megapixel front facing camera which could also be used as a SmartCam. - -Other notable features to look out for - -These are certainly a lot of other new features that will be available on the iPhone 8. - -Apple Pay - -Payments made using Apple Pay will be handled by the Touch ID sensor, which can be used when holding a credit or debit card. - -The NFC chip on the iPhone 8 will also accept Apple Pay, making it more secure than past iPhones in which it could not be used for payment. - -It will also be able to make Apple Pay payments to banks and restaurants, and use the mobile payments network Apple Pay. - -The iPhone 8 will also support the Apple Watch Series 3, which will include the new Series 4 LTE and the new GPS chip on the Apple Watch Series 3 which will allow for a much better tracking feature. - -Apple A10 Fusion processor - -The iPhone 8 will have an updated processor with 4GB of RAM and a new custom A10 Fusion processor featuring a 256-core CPU, which will give it significantly better performance. The new chip will also come as a 64GB version. - -We will probably see it being used in future phones if they continue to use it. - -The iPhone 8 will also have support for the Bluetooth 4.1 specification, allowing it to stay up to date with new new wireless features like Quick Charge 2 and the Wireless Power Consortium. - -The iOS 10 operating system - -In addition to running the iPhone 8, Apple promises to update the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPad Pro running on the new system. iOS 10 is -======================================== SAMPLE 284 ======================================== -The New York Times editorial board on Friday slammed President Trump's decision to rescind the Obama-era program to protect young immigrants, but they stopped well short of blaming the president. - -The New York Times, which published several editorials on the issue this year, called the move "a big win for white nationalists and white supremacists." - -On the day the program was set to roll, an editorial called it "a move that will certainly enrage parents from Central America." - -The New York Times argued that Mr. Trump was right to take action. - -"But it is important to note that his move was not about the immigrant children themselves," the article argued. "It was not an effort to address any particular problem, such as crime or health care. He was simply protecting vulnerable people he wanted to keep out. They are not the problem" - -While the editorial board expressed caution for the time being, it acknowledged that the "Trump administration has so many unanswerable questions," and suggested that Mr. Trump's "actions have unsettled the hearts of many immigrants." - -The editorial board also expressed optimism that the program will lead to broader reform in immigration policy. - -"There is hope for the children of immigrants in this administration, or in future administrations," the editorial said. "President Obama, for example, had to deal with a Congress that is dominated by hard-liners and hostile to immigrants. Now is the time to bring the immigrant children into the conversation to reform immigration, and to improve their plight."<|endoftext|>About This Game - -The Story - -Features - -Features - -Story - -Characters - -Gameplay - -Gameplay - -Sections - -Game Guide - -Key Features - -The game is set in the same universe as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.The adventure started with a single survivor, surviving almost alone in the ruins of a mysterious city. His story would be brought to multiple endings because of multiple choices and the environment in a way that will make you explore all the different options.The first time I saw the trailer for the game, I saw the characters who will be main characters: a young, lone Russian survivor, accompanied by dog, and a strong Russian doctor, accompanied by a small dog.The game is going to introduce a lot of the creatures and animals with them, including animals that have been extinct for over 10,000 years and animals that have been extinct for even longer.The game will be set in an area of about 6 square kilometers. For a long distance, it will be more difficult to find food and the shelter of the forest. It is a very hostile environment with a high chance of fire and animals attacking with their claws and their teeth.The game is being developed for Windows PC, using the Source engine and developed through Steam.The game will feature a mixture of old and new gameplay features. It is one of the few survival and zombie role-playing games to introduce a large variety of game modes. For example, there will be a multiplayer mode and an option to be able to fight against the AI from the start. It will also include a huge amount of items that will be able to improve a character - and with your help the entire game can be even more realistic.The game will run at a steady 60 frames per second and is scheduled to be released for Windows PC in a few months.In the trailer there are many hints to the game, you can look at it in order to get a better idea about our game and its atmosphere.For further information please, see the game's website<|endoftext|>In the wake of the Sandy Hook murder-suicide, the state of Washington is pushing for background checks on many purchasers of firearms, including those at gun shows. - -The proposal in its current form has the support of one of the state's two U.S. Senators, Maria Cantwell, but was opposed by the state's House lawmakers during a House Public Safety Committee meeting on Monday morning. - -This marks the second time in a week that House members of the Joint Legislative Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security have been called to the state Capitol to consider expanding background checks to virtually every piece of gun-related purchasing — regardless of the sale. Last Thursday, they also considered a ban on semi-automatic firearms with detachable magazines. - -The House committee voted 31-5 in favor of the bill, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Andy Hill of Lake Stevens, Doug Ericksen of Anacortes and Don Benton of Ellensburg. The three lawmakers were the sole "no" votes during the committee's meeting last Thursday, which also featured testimony from families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, who were opposed to the bill. - -House Republicans initially proposed the proposal as one of many amendments offered ahead of a potential vote on a bill that would require universal background checks for gun-related transactions — an effort that had stalled earlier this year because of Republican infighting -======================================== SAMPLE 285 ======================================== -1.4 (December 11, 2013) - -v1.4 includes a few small changes and bug fixes. - -1.3 (June 25, 2013) - -v1.3 includes a number of little fixes and additional translations. - - -Thanks for downloading and feel free to leave some feedback. - - -Thanks guys :D - -_________________ - -You are not logged in. Write a comment below and you will be automatically updated with the link to the new version.<|endoftext|>An Australian company that's in the forefront of the blockchain space is announcing that it's entering into contract with a Chinese e-commerce startup to launch a bitcoin payment system for online retail. - -A company called Bitocean will help Chinese company, Alibaba to launch a mobile virtual currency (m-commerce) payment system. The move follows a partnership between the two companies earlier this year, in which Alibaba opened over 10,000 "AliBees" around the world, where customers could use m-money payment systems on their devices. - -As the Chinese e-commerce market is forecast at over US$600bn by 2025, it will be crucial for Alibaba to enter into this market. Alibaba is hoping to use the m-money system for its own purposes, such as to facilitate payments to customers on other platforms such as Tencent's QQ. - -Alibaba's CEO and founder, Jack Ma, is a long-time supporter of Bitcoin but has also expressed his concern for its lack of legitimacy in the market thus far. As such, he recently started a "Chinese Bitcoin" exchange Bitocean, which is aiming to "add legitimacy to Bitcoin", as well as offering a payment system which he says: - -"will enhance the security of [Bitcoin] transactions, increase the speed of transaction settlement, and reduce the risk of fraud." - -Bitocean has partnered with Alibaba, who will receive an undisclosed portion in exchange for integrating Bitocean m-commerce payment technology into its online retail payment platform. The startup is also aiming for a launch in Q4 of this year. This means that Alibaba will be able to implement services similar to those of Western e-retailers in China. - -The move towards m-commerce is a positive one. Currently, e-commerce companies often offer payment methods such as credit cards through their online stores. M-commerce solutions, however, are a lot simpler than accepting credit cards. In the case of Alibaba, for example, all payment systems such as ACH, wires, wire transfers and so on will be supported. - -According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Bitocean will provide a full-service m-commerce solution, including payment processing, e-wallet storage, e-commerce platform management, security analysis, data analysis and fraud risk management, along with transaction monitoring and support. The company also aims to reduce user-trust by providing transparency in m-commerce transactions to increase transparency of the users. - -The move towards m-commerce is a positive one. Currently, e-commerce companies often offer payment methods such as credit cards through their online stores - -The company says it will start with 3,000 merchant accounts, and will add more merchants as its business develops. In the first quarter of its operation, the platform will support Chinese merchants, although its full-service model, with merchant support, will be used internationally in future. - -The company will also include the integration of blockchain technology, allowing the company to store e-tolls and make transactions more efficient and less costly - -The move towards m-commerce is another positive one. Currently, e-commerce companies often offer payment methods such as credit cards through their online stores. They are, however, more complex systems than traditional payment gateways, such as Visa, and can be expensive. In addition, there is a major drawback for online shoppers, as online stores in China are notorious for poor customer service. - -Blockchain technology can solve the problems of online shopping for both consumers and merchant. Blockchain is a public distributed ledger which allows for transactions to be recorded and shared without the need for a central authority to verify their authenticity. - -According to The Nikkei Asian Review, the company says it will use a "multi-sig approach", where different groups of interested parties will be able to participate in creating the blockchain for various purposes.<|endoftext|>I've been watching a lot of video games recently. My friend and I have been talking about them for weeks now. I've watched videos about what to do and what not to do in games, what games are worth playing, how to get the newest games, and so much more. All the things that I have come to learn about video games in the last couple weeks in a very short amount of time have made me realize that I am far from a video game expert. Yes, I am a gaming junkie, but I really struggle to explain or explain something from the perspective of a video game. I've actually come to believe that video games -======================================== SAMPLE 286 ======================================== -The federal government may be pushing more gun purchases among American adults. - -A new poll from Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of respondents said that they had purchased a firearm in the past six months — while 41 percent said they had not. - -The results of the research, released Thursday, suggested that people who live in "gun-friendlier neighborhoods" are buying guns compared to the overall population. Respondents living in neighborhoods that Pew defined as "more gun-friendly" than their neighbors — which defined places with lower rates of household gun ownership, high levels of gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership in relation to the other households in the area — were more likely than those who lived in gun-friendly suburbs to say they were gun owners. - -Meanwhile, gun ownership rates were lower in the suburbs than non- suburbs in all four of Pew's gun control indexes. - -The Gallup-Healthways index found that the gun-owning rate was 11.6 percent in households where someone lives with someone who owns a gun, while it was 16.8 percent in households with no gun. The General Social Survey found the same results, as well. - -The Pew research came the same week as a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics urged lawmakers in the U.S. to strengthen regulations on gun ownership. - -"When adults are allowed to own firearms, parents can exercise more control and influence over the gun's use," the research released by the Academy, an organization of pediatricians, also noted. "Parents can also work together as a team to make gun safety the responsibility of the caregiver, not just the child."<|endoftext|>The first full volume of the legendary fantasy series, The Way of Kings , by Brandon Sanderson continues to captivate readers with its complex and mysterious world. In this latest book, we meet a new character, Elhokar. - - -"Elhokar's path could prove the greatest of all as a hero, as a ruler, and as a ruler of a great nation," notes Sanderson in a press release. "In some ways, he's already the King of the desert. - -Sanderson continues to dazzle, his writing never dull and his characterizations just as beautiful as the worlds they create. - - -"When you finish one book in the series, it doesn't matter how many are left to read, your mind can never be satisfied." - -The Way of Kings is the first of six books in the Stormlight Archive series. - - -The Way of Kings: Oathbringer is scheduled for release February 14, 2015. Brandon Sanderson is an American author of fantasy novels and short stories, many of which have been adapted for the screen.<|endoftext|>The number of people in Britain who have suffered a traumatic head injury and are unable to sleep has doubled in the past 20 years, new research says. - -Almost half of adults in England and Northern Ireland suffered such a brain injury last year, which can cause severe headaches and insomnia. - -A study of 6,000 people found many of them had trouble sleeping and suffered from depression at the time of injury or when they came to terms with their ordeal. - -And the number of people living with a traumatic brain injury was on the rise, the report said. - -In England and Wales, around 1,700 people suffering from a traumatic blow to the head are treated at hospitals each year, the report by the London Head Injury Institute said. - -The researchers examined data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre and interviewed more than 6,000 people – 7,000 of them adults aged between 16 and 74 who had been involved in head injury-related incidents. - -Dr Peter McShane, an institute adviser and neurologist at the University College London hospital, led the review. - -He said: "Almost half of the people in this survey had experienced a traumatic brain injury – the injury that is usually classed in medical literature as major. - -"This is an extremely traumatic event, and it has the potential to seriously affect both quality of life and overall happiness, and in some cases even result in death. - -"The problem is that it takes some time to recover from, with feelings of depression and low motivation, and many people will not return to work, or continue with education, in the years after. - -"There is a strong sense of stigma towards people with brain injury, which means that they feel like a second-class citizen in society. When they report their problems, they often feel they are being dismissed and judged in some ways, which doesn't allow them to be able to access psychological and psychiatric help. - -"The majority of people had not been involved in any other traumatic incidents before being involved in a head injury – for many this is their first experience of this. They might come from a diverse background and with different mental and physiological profiles, but if this is the case, there is a need to consider whether a wider social network is lacking and to make -======================================== SAMPLE 287 ======================================== -We'd all love to travel, but that's a lot different from actually doing it. And that's what makes the world's first ever flying taxi the perfect ticket for people who are too old, too poor, or simply afraid to take on the world's problems by themselves. - -The Aeronautica Aerea Venezia (the AAV) — officially called the "Aerojet A-100" — is an Italian-made turboprop airplane launched last year to bring together five groups of people in the lowest socioeconomic bracket who want to fly. - -The AAV's four crew members — all in their forties and fifties aged 70 and up — and a navigator sit in the cockpit of the airplane on a specially designed gondola that takes them out of the cockpit via a ramp at the back. The gondola makes the airplane much simpler to operate, eliminating the stress of carrying passengers and their luggage. - -The AAV first took off in May for a 20-hour endurance flight from Pisa, northern Italy, over the Lake Garda — which also happened to be where the AAV was assembled — to Rome. The flight covered 8,000 kilometers with just 20 gallons of fuel per day. - -After being fueled up, the gondola hovers for several minutes at high altitude on the same runway as the AAV. Once the airplane is in the air, a hydraulic system lifts the gondola to a higher altitude and drops it to the runway. It takes only two full rotations of the propeller — and a person — to drop the gondola. - -The AAV is designed to be as simple and efficient to use as possible, with limited fuel consumption and a flight time of only three hours, according to Aeronautica Aerea. And because it has to be flown by hand, it can be used to teach new pilots the ropes. - -The AAV is the brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Stefano Beniglia, who hopes that by funding a few thousand flights with the AAV, people of all ages around the world will feel compelled to venture off to the skies and see what's out there for them. - -"All these people who have the capacity to make flight a reality are dying to make it a reality," Beniglia says in a video explaining the AAV by the website Flight International. "Today they don't go out and they never will … [so] the AAV is a solution to the social, psychological, and technological problem of flying."<|endoftext|>Michele Bachmann has made it clear she doesn't give a damn about her fellow citizens, whether they're gay, black or Muslim. - -After the 9-11 attacks, Bachmann and other Republicans demanded the U.S. put an end to intelligence gathering on people, especially Muslim terrorists, and she's been a constant critic of our intelligence community's intelligence gathering on other countries. - -So it seems a little rich that we even now find ourselves dealing with the threat of terrorism stemming not from people who want to murder us, but from people who simply are trying to overthrow the government of their home country. - -When it comes to terrorism, Bachmann isn't concerned about the Constitution because the Constitution doesn't really apply to foreign nations, and she's willing to do what it takes to see us topple over — whether that means shutting down embassies or bombing our military bases, or threatening to invade us. She's also gone on record telling us we should put all our money into the military and take it from the poor. (Not to mention her support for sending troops back to Afghanistan.) - - -Her comments came to light when she appeared on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. She told Zakaria, "We've got to know who's coming to America to do harm to this country and to attack us." - -When she was questioned about what actions would be taken against people who wanted to harm us, Bachmann reiterated that the government should be able to spy on everyone. According to Mother Jones, she also told Zakaria that it's perfectly acceptable for the U.S. government to spy on people who they think may have ties to terrorism, "because you know what, as a government, you have the legal authority to look at anybody who looks like they might be a threat to this country. It just doesn't matter if they're American citizens, if they're from another country—we can spy on them." - -While Bachmann has shown no remorse whatsoever for the deaths of American diplomats and soldiers in Benghazi or for the many Americans who have been dead in Afghanistan for years, it's clear she's willing to do anything she can to throw more and more bombs at innocent civilians. And that's not just on foreign policy. - -When Zakaria asked if Americans should trust the president or "a bunch of political grandstanding politicians," Bachmann said, "You know, I just believe in what the president has done. This -======================================== SAMPLE 288 ======================================== -"It's very simple." - -"But you're very handsome, and I admire how well you have done my job." - -"If you're so fond of me, why don't you tell me what you enjoy every day?" - -"I have no idea." - -"Oh, I'll wait. I never knew how to tell you what I like. I guess it's something that you don't know about me." - -"I don't know what you like?" - -"Oh, honey." - -"What is it?" - -"Oh, nothing. I'm just having a hard time explaining why." - -"Really. You'll get your chance." - -"I know. You never leave the kitchen." - -"Why would I?" - -"I just wanted to tell you that you're beautiful. I knew that you would like me. How can I be any more clear? The more things change, the more they stay the same." - -*** - -This was my favorite day ever. - -And he came to the kitchen for a few minutes to help me prepare French toast. I thought that after I served a plate of food, he would give me a kiss and then head upstairs and talk on the phone, but he stayed for a while and said he was having to go somewhere. Then he kissed me on the cheek and said he just wanted to make sure I was all right. - -I was feeling quite romantic—or, rather, very much in love with him. He was very romantic and, although I was still quite shy, I was also feeling very attractive and I was very happy. - -This was on a Sunday, so there were no distractions from Sunday School. It was so quiet at the house that we could not hear the dog at the neighbor's. This means that the dogs are never playing and there is not a lot of scratching from dogs that are not there. - -As I was washing it, I accidentally dropped a rag out of my washing basket on my son-in-law's shoes. The dog jumped up and attacked him. That's one of the things I do not like about dogs. They are very aggressive, very territorial. Sometimes you don't know why. - -When I came to, all my guests were sitting down to breakfast. He was standing by my side eating a piece of his breakfast. He had a look of confusion in his face; he had been acting pretty suspicious all morning. - -"Don't worry," I told him as he picked up the rag. "He hasn't done anything to you. He has been behaving very well to everyone else but the dog, so he doesn't want his shoe on your foot." - -I handed him his dish and he thanked me, then went into the kitchen. - -He finished his toast and took some milk and began eating. - -"I'm going to get my coat," I said, "and then you can all go and get yourself dressed." - -"I'm fine," I said. - -"You don't have to be. Just wait here." - -I went back into the kitchen and washed my dishes. I picked up the rag and put it on the floor and went into the living room to talk to my son-in-law. I could hear the dog at the neighbor's, so I knew he was not going to come back. - -"What was he talking about in the kitchen at breakfast?" said he. - -"I told him that if he wanted to have the dog off his feet, he did not have to talk about it all day." - -"What was that?" - -"He was going to have to go away for several days. He was going to talk to all his friends, I thought, and tell them if they ever were at his house." - -"Really?" - -"Yes, really." - -This was the best day of my life. I had spent all morning with this man. He was a very good friend to me in my old age. I thought about how I would greet him on leaving for the day and how I would walk into his house. Now the house was empty. No one was there. I felt very sad for the poor dog, which I never would have expected to say anything. I could now go on spending my last week with this man. It made me so happy. - -There was only one thing I didn't do for him. He didn't ask me to drive him to the city this summer. - -*** - -Two weeks before he died, he gave me this card: - -I had never read it before, but here was my son-in-law's message from another place. - -The dog is going away for a couple of days. He won't be home much longer. - -In the beginning of his message I just read: - -I have a job at a factory -======================================== SAMPLE 289 ======================================== -An international effort has been underway for months, beginning with a group of scholars, and now it's a huge step closer: the United Nations' International Commission on Marijuana and the UN International Scientific Forum on Drug Policy, which includes more than 70 scientists. The commission is composed of 28 experts in 15 countries, including two UN-recognized special rapporteurs. - -And the meeting of the panel at the UN's United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, is scheduled for Wednesday. - -It's a landmark project for the decriminalization of cannabis. It's the first time the body has looked at how criminalizing the drug harms not only individuals and communities but also the entire international system. And it's a first step in the long history of marijuana policy reform. - -The commission will report back to the world's leaders in January, and a new UN secretary general is expected to release an official report. And all eyes are surely on the U.S., which will presumably be in the same political place that it was in 1995, when former President Bill Clinton announced the first federal policy shift in the legal status of marijuana. - -The U.S. currently is leading the world in public and private policies. Last year, a Pew Survey found that a majority (54%) of Americans support legalizing marijuana, with 42% in favor of outright legalization. - -Meanwhile, the drug war continues, costing trillions of dollars annually. There have, of course, been big changes over the past half century. First came the end of outright prohibition in the early-1960s, followed by state experiments with reform. But until recently, the U.S. has kept fighting the war on drugs, relying on a drug war that began in 1914 with marijuana prohibition and just concluded in 1965 with a half-century of mass incarceration for drug crimes. - -It's hard to imagine how U.S. marijuana reformers can count on the U.N. to hold the line if a U.S. president takes an even more aggressive stance this November. - -But that doesn't mean the next U.S. president won't make some significant shifts. In 2014, presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said he "does not believe that legalization of marijuana is the first step to legalization of a whole host of drugs." Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also indicated she's open to legalization. - -And the U.N. is the world's largest single source of funding for global drug control. It's the world's largest single provider of aid for drug rehabilitation and prevention, supporting research in the field. And U.N. leaders have repeatedly said they support decriminalization in cases where the drug war is failing. - -If there's any way to make progress on the issue of marijuana in the 21st century, then international cooperation is essential. - -At the moment, the U.S. and other countries are largely fighting one another to enforce their own drug treaties. If those regimes fall apart, the U.S. and other countries may have to decide which one to sign with. - -But the U.N. could take a lead role in a future international regime, if that happens. The panel report will have to include, in addition to marijuana, other drugs, which it should by now. The report also must set forth the best possible scientific methods for measuring the harms of use. - -And it will have to include a fair definition of "drugs." - -There's still plenty of time for the commission to come up with a definitive set of recommendations for marijuana policy reform, whether Obama takes office or not. But this new U.N. initiative provides the international community with a very strong voice. - -We've made enough progress already. Now it's time to show it in the international arena.<|endoftext|>The following page is just a starting point for finding out all those things you are interested in - -The following page is just a starting point for finding out all that you need to know about the most important events and - -news in Brazil. - -Please also visit our home page for more details and news about us. - -If you do not want to visit the main page of this site then you can also access it from this menu: - -Browse Topics - -Browse by Category - -Browse by Country - -Browse by Topic<|endoftext|>The New England Patriots had a lot to celebrate this offseason and they took the chance to celebrate with a couple of Patriots legends. - -The Patriots released linebacker Nate Jones on Friday, but Jones returned home to Rhode Island for a reunion with his former New England teammates. - -The New York Times reports Jones was spotted in Providence visiting his old Patriots teammates including Brandon Meriweather, James Develin, Deontae Skinner, Jerod Mayo, Jonathan Freeny in addition to former Boston-based QB Matt Cassel. It appears his reunion is a little different than just meeting some old friends and old teammates. - -Article continues below ... - -Jones -======================================== SAMPLE 290 ======================================== -SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento judge has ruled that police officers don't have to release officers involved in shootings within 72 hours. - -A man shot by a cop while driving away from an arrest in June 2011 has been fighting for years for the release of the information. - -Jail records show Daniel Ramirez was arrested June 16, 2011. A Sacramento sheriff's deputy shot him as he fled from police in a stolen van. - -Ramirez is appealing the shooting; his attorneys allege the deputy was driving recklessly and Ramirez was a flight risk. Ramirez' attorney wants officers involved in at least two other deadly shootings from 2011 turned over to Ramirez for review. - -Sacramento County Sheriff Tom Allman called the release of documents to the media "an affront to public confidence." - -The shooting is the highest-profile use of force by a Sacramento County deputy this year. - -The decision on the shooting will now be transferred to the California attorney general because the case involves the Sacramento Sheriff Department and the FBI. Attorney General Kamala Harris' office will have to decide whether Ramirez' case warrants her office opening an investigation. - -If an investigation is opened, Harris will decide whether to bring charges. If not, the decision will be made by Deputy Attorney General Matthew Hart on whether the shooting should be referred to state or federal court. - -Sacramento County Sheriff's Office officials say they're disappointed with the decision. - -"What's shocking to me about this decision, and what's going to further distress our office, is that we didn't hear about it for almost two years," Allman said. "For months and months this case was covered by the press. Our deputies got calls and letters from members of the community every day because we were involved in these types of cases and I still can't believe that it's been two years." - -"In the course of the investigation you cannot take a case to another level," Sheriff Allman added. "Once you make that decision, or once any case, once you make a decision that says that information has to be made public, it's a big decision."<|endoftext|>This article explains how to modify the Android permissions used by the Play Store to better serve your personal privacy. - -Google has a history of using permissions. In the past, Play Store users could only access some of these permissions, such as the read phone state permission that allowed them to access the storage on a device that isn't an unlocked phone. Now users can access full access to everything. Some people find this a dangerous shift for the Android ecosystem. Google is trying to protect users from third-party privacy intrusions. We're not interested in protecting you from Google's privacy intrusions, but we'd like to prevent others from abusing your personal data. - -This is why, in order to make it harder to abuse personal data obtained using your data, the Play Store needs to give users more control over their apps. - -As this article is already about privacy, I've also added this disclaimer: this post contains some technical details about Android permissions. Please understand those details, and if you're a new user, you probably shouldn't consider anything I'm about to say as good advice. - -The main permissions to consider are read permissions. Google does not have a centralized list of permissions to grant to or deny to apps. In its permission requests, Google suggests that you grant or deny access to access specific features, such as the ability to access and/or download the full contents of a device's SD card. This is a very general idea that many Android users find intuitive and useful. - -One problem that users have found is that when they attempt to grant those permissions, there is a significant delay before the requested permissions will be granted. The Google Play Store takes an extra moment to apply the permissions after the user allows the user account to have full write access to its storage. The longer this delay is present, the longer the user will be denied these permissions and, in the most extreme scenario, the user will be denied any permissions granted at all. The reason Google has made this delay possible, it explains in a Google Group email: - -In order for users to be able to perform certain tasks, including to update an app, users must have full permission to access important system or account information (such as contacts, call logs, photos, texts, files, etc.) on the Android™ device where the app is installed. These permissions must appear when the user is making a purchase, or after they receive a new text message or phone call from a business or another user in good standing within their contacts on the device. - -However, users find it difficult to understand why this delay will occur and, thus, even try to grant the permissions themselves. Google Play Store provides the following guidance to help users explain to Google and other apps why the delay in granting permissions actually hurts their own performance: - -To simplify this discussion, understand that each "permission" is granted (or -======================================== SAMPLE 291 ======================================== -[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] rejected [opinion, PDF] a request [opinion, PDF] by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network [advocacy website] on Wednesday to review an order [text, PDF] from [official website] the Ninth Circuit to block removal of two undocumented parents who lost custody after the birth of their son. The couple asked [Washington Post report] the Ninth Circuit to order the Obama Administration to release the mother without allowing her to deport the father and father without releasing their son. The Ninth Circuit [official website] said that the Obama Administration could not deny the parents due process because the Constitution did not provide them with due process under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), but the court disagreed with the argument. The case would be moot if the judge in the case agreed with the government position, but he did not and the case is now on appeal. - -This case pits immigration status and child custody rights [JURIST backgrounder] on one side against the right for children to live with both parents in a stable family environment. The parents in the case, whose names were withheld, are originally from El Salvador. The mother has previously filed for an order of protection [JURIST reports] against her husband. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary restraining order [JURIST statement] preventing the deportation [JURIST report] of the husband until the courts evaluate [JURIST report] whether a hearing must occur before the child can have citizenship status, so it is possible the immigration status of the parents will be determined. In 2006, the US Supreme Court addressed [JURIST report] a similar dispute involving a divorced father who lost US citizenship when his wife took the child and fled with the child in 1998. That time the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that fathers are not entitled to US citizenship unless the child is born in the US, and not automatically conferred citizenship by the parents, in a case decided by a 5–4 vote.<|endoftext|>Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have split, with Holmes announcing the split on Instagram. The actress, who has been dating and married to actor for seven years, thanked Cruise for his love and support for her. The two were spotted together at Disneyland in January. - -"I thought you'd never leave," Holmes wrote in her post. "I didn't believe you for a second ... I'll miss you both so much ... I'm so thankful for the days you were here ... the days when we were just friends with a difference of opinion ... the days that became years, and then longer, and then more, and then ... I never understood why you left, and the more I tried to understand, the less I understood, and I couldn't. I am still trying to understand ... I have been so lost and lost in our relationship and your decision to leave ... but now I am so much happier knowing who I am, who we are, and who your love is. Thank you," she wrote. - -HollywoodLife.com has reached out to reps for Cruise for more information. Holmes, 44, was seen with Cruise while in New York City on Feb. 25 and 27. Holmes thanked fans for their interest in their relationship in a post Wednesday. "I love you all," she wrote. "This is the most random, unplanned news I have ever made. I just wanted everyone to know how much I care. I hope this means you have loved me and always will loved me. I love you to the moon and back. Love," she wrote. Holmes also thanked her friends and family for their support. "My friends, family, and fans have been my rock and my strength and my belief in the strength that is you ... I love you all," she wrote. - -Holmes, the wife of Tom Cruise, first dated Cruise in 2000, while he was married to actress Nicole Kidman. The New York Post has reported that the couple have been living apart since 2012.<|endoftext|>The latest news and updates on the new TARDIS... - -TARDIS 5 - The Doctor in New York: In the latest news, the new TARDIS 5 set features a photo of Doctor Who star, Matt Smith in his new TARDIS. - -"TARDIS 5: The Doctor in New York features stunning new artwork featuring your latest favourite Doctor," the official set text for the New York replica says. "Your name is in the script with a new description of the TARDIS' design to match." - -The TARDIS 5 set is limited to 1,000 pieces.<|endoftext|>What if the human race's origins were not in Europe but rather somewhere around the Arctic? This idea may sound preposterous, but the theory is supported scientifically by a new study. A group of geologists analyzed ancient rocks from Siberia that are thousands of years old and found that their carbon isotopes indicate that the ancestors of humans may have come from the Siberian region in the -======================================== SAMPLE 292 ======================================== -Cleveland police are searching for six suspects in connection with the shooting death of a woman who police said was attempting to enter a home in the 6300 block of W. 127th Street. (Photo: Cleveland Police) - -CLEVELAND — A 36-year-old woman is dead after she was shot multiple times while trying to enter a home in the city's north side. - -Police are still searching for a gunman who shot her multiple times early Tuesday morning after he followed her to the front door of a home on the 6300 block of W. 127th Street, according to police. - -Karma Lewis, 36, had previously lived at the home but was planning to move out of the area after being harassed by people in previous years, police said. - -The woman was in the front yard of a home when two other suspects walked up to one of the home's back windows. The second suspect then opened fire. - -Lewis was shot multiple times and died at the scene. - -Cleveland police said officers found several people nearby and began a search for the shooter in an attempt to apprehend him. Police believe the shooter is a suspect in at least two prior shootings, according to police. - -Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call 216-624-3031. - -This is a developing story. Check back for updates. - -Read or Share this story: http://on.thec-l.com/1B7C8Bv<|endoftext|>By Alexey Sukachev, RIA Novosti - -According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the case involved the hacking of the e-mail account of the director of the Investigative Committee in Donetsk Oblast, Yuri V. Lebedev. - -The investigators suspected that he was targeted because of his involvement in the investigation into who was responsible for a series of bombings in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions in 2011 and 2012. - -On Monday evening, the head of a federal security agency had a phone conversation with someone and sent the hacker a text message that contained an encoded password, suggesting the person was not a local, but rather a Russian hacker, the Investigative Committee said on Tuesday. - -On Wednesday, Lebedev met with a Russian officer and told him that someone was trying to hack his phone and computer, the Investigative Committee said. A Russian hacker contacted a journalist and confessed that he had broken into Lebedev's account and sent him a text message with an encoded password. - -On Thursday, Lebedev contacted the agency's head, Vladimir Markin. When Markin called Lebedev on Friday, the hacker said that a computer had hacked into the e-mail account and said that someone had demanded $17,000 of Lebedev's money. According to Markin, the person had made the password hard to guess - but was not able to use his skills. The Russian asked Lebedev to make a call to the police. - -"At this point, as the criminal investigation was not closed yet, Lebedev decided to make the call to the police," the Investigative Committee said in a statement. - -After Lebedev asked a colleague to contact the Kiev City Security Service, investigators from the federal agency sent a team to the Kharkiv region to investigate. By Friday, they had determined that an organization called Cyber Alliance was responsible for hacking Lebedev's account, the report said. - -The Cyber Alliance is made up of a group of volunteers "from all over Russia," Cyber Alliance said on its website. A group of Russian hackers and criminal groups created the organization to defend the users of the Darkode, a Web portal for downloading and sharing malware. - -The hacking of Lebedev's phone and computer was not the only attempt to break into his e-mail account. As early as August, Lebedev had been targeted in another attempt via malicious e-mails disguised as emails from the Prosecutor General's Office in Luhansk Region.<|endoftext|>The first round of the NBA Draft has concluded with the New Orleans Pelicans selecting 6' 11" center Demetrius Jackson with the second overall pick. The former Florida Gators' big man fills a major need for the current Pelicans, as the team has only one real center on its roster right now in Alex Abrines. He has been able to contribute to the team in many ways, although his shot selection has been slightly off this past season in the Summer League, as well as the team's overall offensive production. With that in mind, it seems as though Jackson will get more out of himself on the court than most NBA centers. The Pelicans are hoping he can become the leader he was in high school when he was at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Pompano Beach, FL. - -Demetrius Jackson is listed at 6' 11" and weighs 230 pounds. We know that he's got great strength, but he seems to struggle with his lower-body strength as he often seems to -======================================== SAMPLE 293 ======================================== -We've seen what the new X1 Carbon and X1 Carbon SP can do in the last couple of years. This isn't likely to be any different. - -Last year, Aston Martin unveiled the X1 Carbon. The car went on to win both DRIVE4COPD and Motor Trend's Car of the Year awards. The car was also one of the first to be given official track testing and a race car. Now, Aston Martin is giving both of those cars a refresh and releasing a new one this summer. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -The new Aston Martin will have the same 4.3-liter twin-turbo V8 engine as its predecessors and will feature a few other upgrades. You get new brakes and a suspension with bigger anti-roll bars, and the interior gets upgraded with more quality materials. - -While you don't get a carbon fibre roof or a racing stripe or anything, these updates should make the new Aston Martin at least as fast as the old one. That's a good thing, because you'd have to be pretty patient for two new versions to arrive at the same price within five years. - -Check out the rest of the spy photos below:<|endoftext|>The official website for the upcoming television anime of Ryousuke Kazama 's Ajin ( Ajin ) light novel series opened in Japan on Wednesday. - -The anime adaptation of Ajin by studio Satelight is slated to premiere in April and will be a two-part television anime series that will premiere in April and July. Yōshi Kaida ( Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works , Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ ) is returning to direct the series at Studio Pierrot . Kazuya Tanaka ( Naruto Shippūden: Shippūden episode animation director) and Shigeyasu Yamauchi ( Naruto Shippūden: Shippūden episode animation director) are replacing Yasunao Takayama as series director and series composition director, respectively. Kazuya Minami ( Naruto Shippūden: Shippūden episode animation director) returned as character designer. The anime stars: - - -Hiroshi Sasagami as Mikado, a boy who dreams of becoming a samurai, but because of his weak physique, he is bullied by other boys. One day, he finds a "Sukiyaki" box at the edge of the forest and eats it. The box gives him strength and he becomes strong. - -Nobuhiko Okamoto as Fumio, a boy who has been forced to join the military for being weak-hearted, even to the point he has a scar on his back because a bully did not kill him. When he is released, an old woman tells him "Your scar is not because you have strong muscles, the scar is due to the curse." - -Iwatsuki Suzui as Kojiro, a boy in training who's afraid of the dark. One day, a boy appears at Kojiro's house and his eyes turn white. He disappears, and the boy who appeared before Kojiro is called the "White Demon." - -Satoshi Hino as Ryoma, a boy who has become a student at a high school for gifted children for his talent in playing musical instruments. He loves his classmates but is unable to form friendships. His younger sister Akari also goes to the school for gifted children so that she could live close to Ryoma. - -Daiki Kase as Sakata Yōsen, a boy who is the captain of the basketball team. He loves to eat fried chicken and will do anything to get it. At a young age, his father died and left him a large sum of money. So his family moved from Tokyo to a small island off the coast of Kyushu. On the island, Sakata Yōsen meets a girl named Rurina, who is from the southern island of Okinawa. She gives him a guitar, which turns out to be a "Tsukijō" (rice drum). The girl asks Sakata to help out at a local fishing resort. - -Akane Tsunemori as Natsumi, a high school student who's the captain of the school volleyball team. She loves to swim and loves her fellow classmates. Natsumi dreams of becoming the most beautiful girl in the world. She is in love with her best friend Tsubasa who is also a classmate. - -Kōichi Yamadera as Asakaze, a boy who is a second-year student in Natsumi's class. He loves listening to music and watching movies. He hates his big mouth. However, he doesn't seem scary to Natsumi. At a young age, his older sister died due to illness. He lived with his father who worked for a large Japanese company for nine years before becoming a second-year student in Natsumi's class. - -The website teases the girls' appearance of the main cast: - -======================================== SAMPLE 294 ======================================== -If you're an artist, or if you're interested in making your art more accessible to a broader audience, you should know more about the copyright laws and their implications, and the ways the Copyright Office is working on those problems. - -If you're interested in sharing your ideas with as many people as possible, then copyright law is probably part of the story. But what if you think you have nothing to fear? Here's some background to help you decide. - - -What Are Copyright Terms in the U.S.? - -The first step, before you can file a lawsuit to get a copyright, is to obtain a letter of authorization (also known as an authorization letter), which can be done by submitting your application through the internet. - -(Note that you may want to start with the FAQ first.) - -For this step, here's a simple overview. You'll need to first obtain a copyright, then submit an authorization letter by mail, then to file a lawsuit. - -How Can I Protect My Copyright? - -There are three different ways that copyright laws are designed to accomplish "copyright protection" in the US (in addition to copyright on works, the other two categories are patent protection and related trade secrets). - -First, there are statutory copyright duration limitations on how long an author owns a work (the Copyright Office has the most detailed information about this). But there are also limits on the rights that a copyright holder has from the date of the work being originally created, and also for certain kinds of works under certain circumstances. In addition, there are additional protections that an author could have over information about the original work in ways not spelled out by law. These rules may apply to you or may not. If you think you were harmed by these laws or are the victim of copyright infringement, and you think that there's a possibility that you're the victim, you can start the process of filing a copyright infringement lawsuit. If you haven't filed a lawsuit yet, check out the next section. - -(If you want the exact language of both of these limits, you can find it here.) - -Second, the Copyright Act makes it possible to prevent others from reproducing your work, in certain circumstances. Some of these situations are not illegal. The DMCA is a law that criminalizes this type of copyright infringement. Here's more about that. And there are other ways to protect your work. - -Third, if the Copyright Act doesn't apply to you, you have the right to "fair use" -- which means you can use something that belongs to someone else without permission, even if you've already received permission from that other person. Fair use is a big deal -- you could save a life by reading some news reports, or find out what a person has been doing over the last 20 years, without infringing the copyright on the reports or the person's life experiences. But fair use isn't for everyone -- some would consider this a violation of copyright, and you may be able to get in trouble. If you think you might be in trouble for fair use, you're best off with attorneys to help you, but check out the FAQ for more information on what you need to know. - -Now that we've covered that, let's take a look at each one of our three categories of copyright protection. - -First, you have statutory copyright and copyright duration limitations. - -Then, you have the Copyright Act, which is the main legal framework for copyright and other laws within the United States. - -And finally, you have fair use, which is a huge protection for your works. - -How Long Can There Be Copyright Protection on a Work? - -For "works" other than musical scores, music, and literary works, copyright lasts forever. A few situations might require renewal of copyright. For example, an author should be able to publish the work in her lifetime, so no copyright is extended after she's dead. - -Copyright protection ends with the death of a copyright owner. In other words, if you publish a paper under your own name, and that paper becomes copyrighted after you pass away, you're not responsible for enforcing copyright after your death. - -Some things may need copyright protection after you leave this earth, such as news reports, books, motion pictures, and paintings. - -Will the Copyright Office Protect Your Copyright? - -The Copyright Office will defend you against potential infringement, and it takes no action if a copyright is never renewed. If you are the subject of copyright infringement, you should contact your local government agency or copyright holder to get it taken care of. - -In fact, the Copyright Office provides a "copyright troll" service by filing an enforcement proceeding, so you don't even have to handle an infringement yourself. - -You should also remember that filing a lawsuit to enforce copyright is expensive, time-consuming process. It can be expensive to defend yourself in court. - -What are Fair Use Protections? - -Finally, if your copyright includes a work that is -======================================== SAMPLE 295 ======================================== -Somerville High School's principal said she was sorry for having to shut down the school dance Wednesday because of the snowfall, but it turns out she was wrong. - -The school's principal was sorry for telling students to stay off the sidewalks Wednesday night after a heavy snowfall, but now she thinks she was wrong. - -"I apologize for having done this in the first place, and I'm sorry it happened," said Susan Gennaco, principal of Somerville's Woodlawn School. - -She said the "very heavy" rain and wind knocked out power to the school, prompting her to have her staff and security force stay out in the school's parking lot all night. - -"We had to cancel the dance due to the power blackout. We were afraid it would be so, so cold there." - -In addition to the power outage and no school, the school also had its fire department on standby for students. - -But Gennaco said those precautions were just not enough. - -"We were really worried," she said. "We knew the wind would drive this snow, and we really did not feel our students would be able to handle it." - -In a statement, Gennaco said, "We are currently looking at all options to keep students safe and warm during the long and windy nights ahead. While it may be tempting to keep everyone out of sight or hearing, that decision comes with the risk of creating a dangerous situation. As a result, we are re-evaluating our decision-making process. - -"We are taking all of this very seriously but we want our students to have fun at this special event and know that we are ready to move forward to the dance." - -When Gennaco was made aware of the snowstorm Wednesday, she ordered her staff to move the fire department out of the school's parking lot. At that point, she said, she felt safe having students stay on the sidewalks. - -"There was no doubt about it," Gennaco said Sunday. "I really should have been thinking in two weeks time, but I was so concerned about the safety as far as the power was concerned that I wasn't." - -The school's fire department said it was not the main reason the dance was canceled. - -"I would have been really bummed if the fire department weren't there," said Lt. John McGlynn. McGlynn said Somerville firefighters were ready and ready to handle anyone who needed their help. - -But Gennaco said the school's parking lot could have been a safer place for students to be. - -"We could have been putting our own students in a very dangerous situation," she said. - -Woodlawn and other neighboring schools did not close Wednesday, she said. Gennaco added that the school board and school administration are working together during this time to make sure the school system is preparing to keep Somerville kids warm and safe all winter. - -The Woodlawn School is offering a snow day at all schools this Friday, and the Somervill School district offers a special lesson in snow safety on Wednesday, Gennaco said. - -She said one of her priorities Thursday will be to have Somerville Fire Department stay on standby to respond to any emergencies or any other issues that may arise. - --- - -Follow Sarah Ravani on Twitter and Tout @SarahRavani<|endoftext|>You will need the following items: - - -• A plastic or metal container - -• A thermometer or thermocoiler to measure the temperature in your pot - -• A cooking pot with a built-in thermometer, which can easily be fitted to your pot with a lid - -• A pot holder. - -• An oven glove - -• Cooking utensils that can measure temperatures in °C (°F) and above. You'll need a pot holder that can hold 4.5cm (1.25 in) diameter cookware. If you don't have this, some plastic or metal bowls for measuring are available from most garden centres. - -• Some paper towels, some kitchen roll, a kitchen towel and a large dish - -• Some plastic wrap to cover your raw meat - -• Something that can sit in the bottom of your pot while you cook. Ideally there should be a lid in the pot itself. - -• A large bowl to mix your meat and veggies in. - -• A large frying pan. You may need to use two - -to heat your milk.<|endoftext|>This site contains sexually explicit adult content which may include nudity and/ or sexually explicit language. If you are under 20 years old or find any sexually explicit material offensive, please EXIT NOW! By continuing to view the material you understand and certify that you are of legal age. Please leave the adult site NOW! Thank you.<|endoftext|>The White House's newly-announced tax cuts are unlikely to benefit the U.S. economy enough, and will almost definitely lead to -======================================== SAMPLE 296 ======================================== -MARK STEYN-BROWN/FAIRFAX NZ Prime Minister John Key said "many of the same people" who were behind the Maori Party had been behind former National executive member James Shaw. - -Prime Minister John Key says National has "a long history" of using the Maori Party as a way to win votes. - -The Conservatives, Labour and the Greens are embroiled in controversy over whether to run candidates alongside the Māori Party in a new electorate set to be drawn up for the next general election. - -Key confirmed the National Party had also used the Maori Party before. - -"It's one of the oldest histories of political parties in New Zealand. I know them well personally and it's one of our oldest political parties as well. - -JOHN HAWKINS/FAIRFAX NZ Former National executive member and Māori Party leader James Shaw has been investigated for alleged misconduct after allegations of sexual assault at his Palmerston North house. - -"They've had various MPs come through their ranks and have won seats as Māori Party members, as MPs." - -READ MORE: - -* What it's like to run as a Māori party candidate - -* Former National executive member James Shaw investigated for alleged misconduct - -* Māori Party to have political party status - -* John Key hints at Maori Party changes - -* Māori Party to have political party status - -* Māori Party plans to contest election - -The prime minister would not say whether National had used the Māori Party against former National executive member James Shaw before his resignation. - -But he did admit that National would often use a political partner to get into Parliament. - -"I think we have a long history, and it certainly shows up in those lines of people we have been involved in politics with." - -Shaw resigned from National on Thursday morning, amid a storm swirling around the party's response to allegations of sexual assault at his Palmerston North house. - -It follows resignations of National Party MPs and Māori Party members, as well as the resignation of Key adviser Chris Finlayson. - -The Māori Party is trying to gain a seat on the electorate commission, which is drawing up the boundary, and one of the other options being considered is that the party be included. - -"I would see the inclusion of parties we are close to as an opportunity on the electorate commission," Key said. - -"In New Zealand, I think we're all on the same team; I think the Labour Party in particular has embraced many of the same people and that's why we have a stable government in New Zealand now."<|endoftext|>The new season of "Game of Thrones" is about to start shooting in Spain. It's the kind of event that gives fans some sense of closure, in the form of an entire season with all of its major plot points established. But it was an early sign that the series itself had something in store for viewers that they have no control over. - -The showrunners announced last weekend that a new "season" will premiere on Sunday, June 24, 2017. A few weeks ago they told reporters that this year they would not be adapting George R.R. Martin's books or creating any standalone films, but would instead continue their story with only an occasional scene set in George R.R. Martin's universe. As the story moves closer to its end, the actors have been given a big push to wrap up key parts of the story and get the next season started. Even though some of the season's events will be set in "A Storm of Swords," the fifth book in the saga, the producers are now going back and rewriting the show's finale, which takes place in the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons. - -Now, on the podcast The Red Room with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the show creators say the season will actually end on an exciting note, as we might have been expecting. In discussing the show's endgame, Benioff and Weiss are quick to note that they are already approaching a big moment where everything has come together and some sort of resolution can be found. They also say their plan for the finale actually involves "everything coming full circle," which is one of the phrases that we thought was a clever reference to the end of "Game of Thrones" before we realized it was actually referring to Jon Snow's resurrection. And it's not a completely surprising concept; when I interviewed David Benioff about the finale over two years ago, he told me that the story of the series might end up finishing on a cliffhanger or by having a big twist that you probably won't see coming. "Sometimes the end is not a resolution," Benioff told me. - -In that same interview, Benioff said that the final season would, if possible, end after the Battle of the Blackwater: a battle in which the Star -======================================== SAMPLE 297 ======================================== -The World Bank Group, the largest lender among the Group's 193 member countries, is among the world's largest lenders. Its members contribute billions of dollars of capital every year to help countries and economies across the globe to grow. - -The World Bank is in a position to provide the critical leverage they do not have to unlock growth and jobs for people. - -At the World Bank, we work with the most globalised economy in the world, with a network of 122,000 service providers and 2,841 offices in 102 countries across the globe. - -With our headquarters in Washington DC, our staff speaks nearly 140 languages and around the world we work with governments, businesses, local, national and international NGOs to unlock opportunity and growth. - -Find out more.<|endoftext|>A few days ago, I wrote about an experiment where I made a quick and easy version of the "Ketchup" potato recipe from the Muffin recipes of the late 1950s. This was an experiment to see whether or not the Muffin recipes were still appropriate. - -It was a great success; people loved it, and a lot of people (including us) asked for the recipe. After some research, I discovered that a lot of those original recipes were still being sold by one of the big muffin manufacturers. And the main reason is, they weren't giving people the recipes. Their version was much more complicated, using many more ingredients and including things like buttermilk, yeast, and cornstarch. - -Why would muffin companies keep people from the recipe? It's kind of sad to say, but I think they just don't want people to know how to make the Muffin recipe. - -And because of the popularity of the recipe, I thought we should share it with your friends. Here's the original recipe, as it was found in one of the major muffin catalogs.<|endoftext|>The best way to help people with eating disorders is to support them in recovery: to learn how to eat for nourishment and self-care. Unfortunately, many eating disorder professionals, and, some people and families, can contribute to the problem. The following list is offered as a resource. - -Supporting People with Eating Disorders - -When someone is struggling with an eating disorder, there may be many challenges within their daily life. This is especially so when there is a family history of an eating disorder. For example, a mother or a father may often have difficulties or difficulties with eating and emotional eating issues. This can make it difficult for them to fully participate in family life and relationships. - -When a person with an eating disorder has difficulties in their relationships and family life, it may be one of the contributing factors to the eating disorder. The following are some ways that people and communities can support an eating disorder recovery process: - -Provide information about eating disorders to people who need it. - -Reassure parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, or others that they can find someone who is sensitive and supportive. - -Establish a family and community support network. - -Offer family or social programs to help people with eating disorders find employment and education. - -Provide emotional support to people as needed. - -Offer support for families, school, community, and health services. - -Provide educational presentations that help people find healthy coping skills and coping strategies. - -Develop supportive networks among professionals, schools, and other service providers. - -Include people with eating disorders in community events (birthdays, barbecues) that are designed to encourage everyone, regardless of age, to enjoy life. - -Provide a safe, supportive place to exercise at home or in a community. - -If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder or if you have concerns about someone's ability to recover, please get in touch with us 24/7 by calling one of the following support lines: - -U.S. Eating Disorders Foundation – 1-800-951-2930 - -National Eating Disorder Association National Helpline – 1-800-522-4545 - -Brief Eating Disorders Treatment and Intervention Information Line – 1-800-744-0069<|endoftext|>This is a simple, yet brilliant trick made even more amazing by the fact that it only requires a couple of minutes of work. There are so many great items that can be hidden away in the freezer and forgotten, all while keeping you looking sharp and alive. - -There are plenty of things that may go into the freezer that we never even know we have, and if you follow some simple techniques, you can make them look as if they've never been exposed to light or air. - -1. Keep your own wine glasses - -We all know that a single glass of wine is never, ever enough, but you don't want to go buying one of those plastic ones. - -You can keep all of that in plastic bottles, and throw them right in the freezer as long as they remain sealed – and -======================================== SAMPLE 298 ======================================== -BANGKOK — The government of Thailand hasLam Chit Pong, the head of the Buddhist Order, who was convicted of corruption and abuse of office, is set to serve the entirety of his seven-year sentence, a government official told BuzzFeed News. The sentence is to be announced today at 11 a.m. (2300 GMT), the official said. Pong is scheduled to officially be sentenced during a ceremony at the Rangoon Supreme Court in Rangoon and be removed from office the following day. The official said Pong was sentenced Monday. He was convicted along with three of his former aides for corruption and abuse of power, in connection with the procurement of a contract with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Authority (NBCA) for the national broadcasting service (Radio-TV). The NBCA contract cost $5.4 million from 2009 to 2013, and has been the subject of a government anticorruption investigation for two and a half years. The judge in the four-week trial handed down the final verdict in December . But it was delayed last month for an explanation from the court about whether it had enough information. - -RANGON — The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) has denounced a decision today by the former head of the Buddhist Order to be sentenced to seven years in prison in a corruption case involving the national broadcasting business agency. - -Pong is accused of accepting bribes totalling up to $22 million in exchange for granting contracts with the NBCA and a company owned by the UDD. His former chief of staff, Nong Poy Wongsom, and two of Pong's aides, Prachatai Natsakorn and Chatchai Sukdam, were convicted of corruption at the end of February 2015 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The government said Pong will be removed from his position, but the Supreme Court could also overturn the sentence, depending on how the UDD reacted. - -The case has been described as the most serious since 2010, when former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a popular military coup and later jailed for corruption. Shinawatra also appealed against his sentence, but his sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court the year afterward. If the case proceeds, the case will be heard by an Appeals Court, with Pong's sentence being approved by a majority of court members. - -Pong's sentence is likely to put him in an unenviable position. He won the presidency in 2014 with a large share of the vote, and his popularity has since been eroded by the corruption trials that have gripped the country. He said on his Facebook page on Friday that he did not accept his sentence, but refused to comment further as the Supreme Court began deliberating.<|endoftext|>A few minutes ago, I finished a set of the first three episodes of a new TV anime: Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale. - -In this episode, we meet one of the main characters, Kirito, a normal boy with a normal life until he meets Kayaba Akihiko, a man known for murdering his students to build his online games empire. Kirito's goal is to find his real identity, so after seeing his real-world personality, he becomes convinced that Kayaba is the real deal and decides to help him find it. - -The show is a sequel to the light novels written by Reki Kawahara, which were later adapted into anime and light novels (including a film) by A-1 Pictures. It's an enjoyable and emotional show, with its cast of eight young and diverse characters in every facet of the story. - -This review, which is mostly a summary of this episode, will feature some spoiler-ish notes. However, if you'd like to know anything else about the show, I have a summary of the second episodes at the end of this text. You will need to read those first, and it will be up to you whether or not to proceed to the finale. - -A Brief Look at the Characters - -Kirito's Real Identity, or Real identity, as he's called by the game he controls, Asuna. - -Kirito's parents, Suguha and Kibaicho, as the protagonist and antagonist in the anime. - -Kirito's friend Asuna as the main character in the anime. - -Kirito's brother Asuna as the supporting character. - -Kogetsu Hana as a female character. - -Kayaba Akihiko: The "Boss" of the game and the former leader of the Aincrad Army. - -Akihiko: As Aincrad's greatest warlord, Kayaba is an iconic figure and one of the most complex and compelling figures to emerge from the setting. The way that Kayaba seems to use his reputation as an important political force for his own gain—as it is a way for him to manipulate others—is a fascinating element of the show. -======================================== SAMPLE 299 ======================================== -When the first video began flooding the Internet, it did not take long to identify the culprit: an African-American woman. - -The woman, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Johnson of Houston, Texas, was wearing her hair in braids and was holding a baby in her arms, wearing a beaded headband with a flower on it. Her face and body were covered in tattoos. - -Johnson, a mother whose baby's head was covered in tattoos and whose face and body were covered in tattoos, may not have intended to look threatening, even if it was not the wisest thing to do. Still, her actions led to a fight that escalated into a fight that resulted in the death of her white, male attacker, 24-year-old Brian James Lucas. Johnson was charged with capital murder in his death. - -The video clip has gone viral, appearing online more than 80,000 times as of this writing. Many viewers are appalled. - -But other people have posted comments on social media saying that since Lucas's race was not known until about 20 minutes into the scuffle, the man is not responsible. Instead, they say that Lucas was simply responding to Johnson's aggressive behavior. The comments have been posted with the hashtag #KillAllWhiteMen. - -In fact, Lucas was a white man. He was shot and killed by a black man, Donta Harris, in the bathroom of a church on the same night that another young black man, John Crawford III, was killed by police in Wisconsin when they confronted him for pointing a toy gun at children. A white sheriff's deputy was later charged with the murder in Crawford's death, and it was later determined that the officer was not racially motivated. - -Regardless, white men have been the victims of racial-hate attacks. - -According to an FBI report released in 2015, racial discrimination and hate crimes remain "persistent problems across the United States." The most frequent targets of this harassment were, unsurprisingly, people of color and their supporters, although "religious and others targeted" also made up the majority of victims (71 percent in 2012). - -The numbers may have worsened in 2016, as two white men died after getting out of vehicles in which their passengers allegedly had their hands on guns, which was not the police calling the shots on them. The Washington Post reports that three police officers have been shot in the three months since the fatal shootings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray in neighboring Baltimore. - -The FBI report found that "disparities in a variety of areas such as housing, employment, education, health, and criminal justice are still present across all racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups in the United States." - -"The race of victims is frequently more important than the race of suspects in some violence related situations, particularly when the victim and suspect are both white or African-American," the report stated. "For example, people victimized by hate crimes targeting whites are more likely to be victims of hate crime and be victimized by a stranger, than are perpetrators of hate crimes targeting blacks or Hispanics." - -The FBI also pointed to some of the motivations behind anti-black violence in its statistics. "Black victims and offenders face similar life threats: both African-American and white victims and offenders report victimization in the course of a violent crime and also in the context of physical injury; both African-American and white victims and offenders report an offender's use or threat of violence in the course of a violent crime," according to the report. "These findings suggest that the risk of African-American victims experiencing violence may be similar to the risk faced by their white victims in many instances." - -In March, a white couple, Charles Thomas, 47, and Jessica Chambers, 45, were shot and killed in their home in suburban Cincinnati while it was occupied by a black family. Their murder was captured on videotape by the woman's husband, who was a relative of the couple, before he put his phone away. The same week, a local sheriff's deputy was shot and killed by a man who believed he was the shooter, a man claiming to be of black descent. He allegedly left the scene with the deputy's gun and a black bag with a gun inside. Authorities said the bag contained a note and a receipt with "KKK" written on it. - -In October, two white women were attacked on a Southwest flight from Cincinnati to Kansas City, Missouri: One of them was assaulted and hospitalized for her injuries, while the other endured threats of violence. The attacker apparently made comments about the race of the woman who was assaulted. - -And in October, a man walked into a church in South Carolina and shot and killed one clergyman, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was among nine shooting victims during a Bible study. - -In October, a man was indicted and charged with killing an Indian man and wounding another man on a train in Arizona. The killer, 38-year-old Anthony Hernandez, apparently told the victim he -======================================== SAMPLE 300 ======================================== -Hear the radio version of this story. - -A group of volunteers has stepped up and begun replacing the sign on the gate of Nashville's most iconic rock club, The Ryman. - -After two years of debate and political maneuvering, the Ryman Community Council approved a resolution Thursday allowing the city to purchase the sign, which marks a loss for one of the city's most legendary destinations. - -"We're excited that it's going to go away," said Tim White, executive director of the National Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. "We want to maintain what's great here right now so that everyone can visit." - -The decision comes nearly 18 months after Nashville Mayor Karl Dean announced his intention to sell City Hall and turn part of the historic building into the Ryman. Dean said he wanted the sign to "become a cultural icon in Nashville and the region," saying that a new building would give the landmark a boost of revenue and would draw more people to downtown. - -But critics slammed Dean for pursuing the plan, arguing it wasn't needed to get the Ryman built. They cited the lack of any major construction along the corridor that intersects with the Ryman, the fact that neighboring clubs have managed to survive past two full years without any major renovations, and that it was cheaper to lease the building than it would've been to renovate it. - -The building itself is considered so haunted that it's been the setting for a string of television shows, including 'Dexter,' 'Dexter,' 'Heroes,' 'The Walking Dead,' and 'The Walking Dead.' But no new construction has taken place in decades. - -"I think it's a good decision," said Paul Davis, president of the Ryman. "If I was the owner of the Ryman, I'd be excited. It has a lot of potential to draw people. But it's hard to do. We need to upgrade the building to do that." - -Davis said the sign, at 1003 Nashville Parkway, will go down when the current ownership sells. But while the current ownership group owns the Ryman, the city still needs to work out a new lease to take over the building. - -"The city's ownership group is trying to do everything they possibly can to keep it in business," he said. "We don't have any financial interest in the Ryman. We want to see it succeed." - -The issue comes about a year after the City Council announced a plan to use a new tax increment financing district around downtown to help fund major development projects. Dean and others wanted the Ryman sign to be included. - -"It's part of what we have planned," said Councilwoman Megan Barry, who chairs the City Council's Public Works Committee. "But we need to look at it on a case-by-case basis." - -"If we're buying a piece of property to do something, we want to make sure we have a plan," she said. - -White said that the sign will definitely be removed, no matter what. He plans to meet with Dean as early as next week to share their plans. - -"Hopefully we can be friends a little bit and work together," White said. - -Read more: - -The Metro Council is looking to sell some of its publicly owned properties, including the public assets around Nashville's historic downtown. Here's the backstory.<|endoftext|>The most likely candidates are the Republican candidates; the Republicans have been elected for the last 50 years and are more likely to know what their plans are than Obama, a black man who can't even pronounce "progressive," a Democrat who has never been president, and a Muslim who spent more time in his mosque than he did outside it and has a religion that is not one of his religion's seven "beliefs". So, I don't think it is unreasonable for the white Americans, the Republicans and Republicans' supporters, to worry about what would happen to the entire system if their candidate loses. When people have a choice between two candidates who represent radically different political philosophies and philosophies that lead to very different policies, there is no reason for them to choose one of them. - -Also, it's important to keep in mind that if we want people who look like me, who have black skin, are Christian, have American citizenship and are part of the American tradition and heritage, to have a voice in politics, we shouldn't be afraid to have a voice in politics. There is just as much reason to be concerned about white males not having a political voice as there is for people of color having a political voice and minorities not. - -I'm not really concerned about losing the black vote. I'm concerned that our black youth are being encouraged to believe that black people are nothing more than stereotypes, nothing more than thugs. - -As for the white vote, I have heard of a very strong push by Republican leaders to get white voters to stay home, which will only give a boost to the Democrats. - -As -======================================== SAMPLE 301 ======================================== -The New York Mets have re-signed David Wright for another two seasons. - -The veteran shortstop is receiving a $20.4 million salary through his 2020 season, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. - -Wright, 31, hit .282/.334/.441 with 23 HR and 72 RBI in 150 games. After struggling somewhat in the first half, Wright posted three hit streaks in the second half and finished the season strong. - -He played well in his return from back surgery, hitting .279/.345/.463 with 17 HR and 65 RBI in 139 games. But he is still struggling with his glove in right field, although he has worked to improve in that area, according to Brian MacPherson of the New York Daily News. - -Wright has played in 1,100 games (11,851 AB) with the Mets, Dodgers, Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox and is the only player to have appeared in 10 or more seasons.<|endoftext|>Bike to Work Day is a day for cyclists to go to work for a good cause. Whether you're taking your bike to work, school, an event, your favorite coffee shop or just trying to get some exercise, Bike To Work Day is a great time to celebrate the bike and go to work for a good cause. This year we're making the event more interactive and community-driven by inviting local businesses and service providers to join us. Join us on October 2nd in your favorite location to celebrate our favorite activities, share tips about how you can use a bike to work and how you can give back to the community using one of two donation options: Biking in the Work Place or Cycling with a Cause! This event is free to the public.<|endoftext|>When President Duterte was inaugurated he made it clear his administration's priority was to build "a new Philippines", one that was more tolerant, enlightened and inclusive. It is an effort that has thus far paid off, and in the last few months the administration has achieved considerable domestic and international accolades — including the UN Human Rights Council's highest honour. - -"There is no country in the region or elsewhere in the world that is more open-minded, more enlightened, more tolerant than the Philippines," Duterte told the UN in 2015 — "and there is no country where human rights are respected as much as the Philippines." - -But the reality for many Filipinos is quite the opposite. The National Capital Region (NCR) has been ranked among the most corrupt in the world by the Global Witness, with scores of reports exposing cases of extrajudicial killings, corruption and other abuses linked to "crime syndicates" or the state itself. Over the past year, the US State Department warned that the country could be on the verge of civil war. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -With that in mind, perhaps now is the right time to turn the spotlight back onto the Philippines' "crime" problem. This article seeks to explore the issues of crime, policing and violence in the Philippines and to assess the government's response. - -The following is an outline of the main issues I will be looking at: - -• Crime and the criminal justice system in the Philippines. - -• Police forces, courts and prisons. - -• The "war on drugs" and drug-related killings. - -• Violence in the drug trade. - -• Trafficking routes. - -• Human rights abuses committed by law enforcement agencies and members of the military. - -A discussion of crime problems in the country is complicated by a deep divide between the political Left and the Right, the two groups with the most experience in dealing with the country's internal security challenges. This divide has long been a source of domestic strife and is, in large part, an outcome of the Philippine political system itself. - -For years, the Left's strong emphasis on social reform has largely meant their preference for government intervention in the economy and social issues, whereas for the Right, the focus has been mainly on military discipline and the rule of law. A country suffering from a population explosion driven by low life expectancy and an aging society, the Philippines has never experienced an insurgency. That is, until now. - -Duterte is not only a populist president with a populist policy agenda; he is also a law-and-order candidate, and this has helped him win a remarkable 21,000 votes, or 40 percent, of the total nationwide vote, versus other candidates (more than the two top candidates in the national elections, Mar Roxas and Maria Leonor López de Cordova). - -To an extent, this is just more evidence of a "carnage being fed with bullets" phenomenon in the country. In his inaugural speech, Duterte declared "in this country, every murder is a crime; every pusher is a pusher; every thief is a thief; every drug lord and criminal syndicate member is a drug lord or criminal syndicate member; and, I am, and always will be the president of all -======================================== SAMPLE 302 ======================================== -I am very passionate about my blog, and this is my way of thanking you! - -I was the recipient of a wonderful letter from someone I have never met! - -To my surprise, she included an item that was only available through our charity auction – the book of poems that I wrote for my little boys. - -I am honoured that she read and received such kind words about the book – and I hope that I have given her some comfort while you are on your own journey through life. - -I will also include a list of all the proceeds from the book's selling on our Charity Auction. - -Please don't let this opportunity pass you by. - -If I can help any one in need, I am happy to do so! - -Love… - -Kali<|endoftext|>An employee of the US Department of Defense is in a "critical condition" after reportedly shooting himself in the head at D.C.'s McPherson Square. - -A law enforcement source told DCist that a man had been shot in the head by a contractor working at McPherson Square early Friday morning. - -The man was being treated at a hospital for critical injuries. - -The Department of Defense (DOD) told DCist that it is "not aware of any injuries at McPherson Square." - -A representative for the DoD told FOX 5 that it is not currently known when the contractor may be released. They did not elaborate. - -The site of the shooting was closed off to traffic on Friday evening. - -The incident has sent shockwaves through the DC community as the shooting occurred just down the street from the Justice Department. - -"I was in a restaurant a few blocks away that I was told was closed," said witness, Brian Stalcup. - -"The police did not know when it was going to happen so that was a bit of a concern as well, so it kind of left you wondering if something is going to happen in the area," Stalcup said. - -Witnesses took to social media to express their shock and surprise at the violence. - -I am still in shock by this attack. I just hope this person is OK. Thank you for your prayers.. — Ashley Tisdale (@stallyst) December 1, 2014 - -@dcsun Follow me on Twitter @staceymowes to follow DC area news. — Jef (@EbonyJay_2) December 1, 2014 - -@TheFix @TheDC I'm in shock. Was just walking down McPherson last night when I heard a gun go off in the kitchen. No idea what that was. — Michael (@Michael_C_L) December 1, 2014<|endoftext|>As some of you might remember, we published a pretty lengthy and detailed report on the 'predictive content' being distributed by Facebook around this time last year. In particular, we looked at the data Facebook was using for its ad targeting and, in an effort to help advertisers, here's a handy summary of a similar study done by another online advertising company (which is also owned by a very large online advertising company (who knows who else owns them as well))) called Google AdWords . - -You'll notice a few things about Facebook's approach to this problem: - -It's not limited to the United States. It's not trying to track US internet users. It's making use of many different databases. It uses statistical methods. Facebook doesn't care about privacy. Facebook doesn't track users who don't have a Facebook account. - -So what gives? Do people really care that Facebook is tracking them in certain ways? And by tracking users, does Facebook mean to advertise to them based on their behavior within the Facebook social network itself, or does Facebook mean to serve them ads based on their activities on other websites, such as those using the Adsense network of tools? Or simply to track users who happen to be in the right physical part of the world, or one with a certain kind of computer? - -In fact, one of the interesting things to me was that this is almost exactly the same approach that Facebook has been using since it started in 2008, when Facebook began to look at this problem more rigorously. Back then, I wrote about how Facebook was using the data from Google, and how the only reason Google's search engine wasn't the first to use the data was because Facebook used its own algorithm to do the tracking (a topic I'm actually pretty sure I'll be discussing a bunch, especially when Facebook's own data about activity on the network begins to surface). - -So to summarize – Facebook was tracking people across the Web in 2008-09 for various reasons, including to see how active users were on the network, and how well it could 'match' advertisers with their target audience. In 2010, Facebook decided to abandon these efforts for a more limited (but still significant) purpose: to help advertisers 'reach' more people; Facebook only -======================================== SAMPLE 303 ======================================== -"The last words I had spoken with her were: 'Don't believe everything you read.' I am devastated."<|endoftext|>In a story as familiar today as it was when it was published, on December 17, 1789, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison signed the draft for the Declaration of Independence (pictured below). - -Jefferson's own writing for the document — which was actually two separate drafts written on two different occasions — is now being released by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation for the protection of the author's reputation, and of course the public from misrepresentation and distortion. - -The full text of Thomas Jefferson's draft is available at the site of the Jefferson Project, an online archive of over 100,000 pages of material, from the time of the Declaration of Independence, until today. It is a bit more than 6,000 pages. The draft which is posted here was in response to a query by Jefferson, in response to a query from James Madison, about the draft and the question of what the document would be and what it should say. - -The questions Jefferson sent were quite detailed, including: - -To whom the papers of the Declaration of Independence be addressed? The one or the other of the two? Do you intend to send each one separately, or together, as you please? You will find all the papers of the Declaration of Independence under one title. The titles I have attached will render easy your finding them individually. The first was originally addressed to "Her Majesty's Most Excellent Majesty Queen Charlotte," and was entitled "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of Maryland from the Federal Union." In my answer to that letter the following questions were raised: "A declaration of immediate causes, on which the separation may be founded, is peculiarly required in the case of any new political unit. It must have the whole truth, both in facts and in law, and must explain the acts of that unit without imputing them to the whole. It must relate the reasons to which the unit owes its independence. Its purpose must be to secure its own rights, and not to destroy those of others, to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. All the provisions of the articles in question are embodied in this single proclamation in order to produce at once the sense and the effect of that which it proclaims; and to give to the principles which are contained therein a more ample and specific form." Having duly considered these circumstances, I have revised my original declaration, and have now made them the subject of several explanatory notes. - -In the Jefferson drafts, on the first page, the letter, and the question of which one should be sent separately are addressed to "the one or the other"; on the second page, to "the one or the other"; on the third page, to both, and on the fourth page, to the one first and to the other. On page three, which is not included here because it is actually Jefferson's second draft, I did explain that "the first draft was originally addressed to 'Her Majesty's Most Excellent Majesty Queen Charlotte.'" - -But on page four the questions are addressed solely to "her Majesty" and "her Majesty's Most Excellent Majesty." And on the fifth page, which, strangely enough, does not include the words "in reply to" even once, it is entirely "her Majesty's." Thus, the Jefferson draft begins on a different page from the one which has the question on the first page ("in reply to her Majesty's questions"), and the other answers to her questions have their answers left out and then reinserted as the draft proceeds. - -As it has been with all of these drafts, the Jefferson drafts (1, 2, 3, etc.) can be purchased from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation website and through the Library of Congress. - -A version of this post appeared on my personal blog, which can be found here. I have also published a book, Jefferson in Exile: America in the Reign of George III, which has been put on my website.<|endoftext|>The government of Alberta is not backing away from an effort to make the province's sex and relationship education more inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) teens in the workplace. - -Education Minister Jeff Johnson says in an op-ed in the Calgary Herald the province isn't backing away from efforts to make Alberta a more welcoming society, despite its controversial laws legalizing same-sex marriage and civil unions. - -Last week, Johnson signed a motion with the New Democratic Party calling on the government to create a public education campaign about safe workplace conditions for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Albertans. - -Alberta is one of the few Canadian provinces that doesn't have a law explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. - -However, Johnson says in the op-ed the province is standing behind its policy of not imposing its views on other people. - -"Alberta's human rights legislation is explicit and clear (in this -======================================== SAMPLE 304 ======================================== -Honda - -Honda has been on the road to recovery recently, and the company says it's on track to return to profitability in 2020. The company's shares have had one of their best month-over-month moves in three years, with the stock soaring 17 percent in the six months since Nov. 1. - -At its lowest point on June 24, the company's market value stood at $12.86 billion, compared to $18.5 billion as of Monday. - -Honda's struggles have more to do with a falling value of the Japanese yen, which helps justify U.S. dollar-denominated Honda's profits and helps reduce its costs as it tries to expand its North American business to meet increasing global demand. - -The company's outlook for the coming months is upbeat, says Honda Chief Financial Officer Satoshi Ogawa, and the firm doesn't plan to alter its planned 2016 capital expenditures. - -When the yen's value is strong, such as it has been for the past year, Honda can charge higher dollars for dollars sold. "The U.S. dollar value of yen sales is one of the best parts of our business," Ogawa says. "With a weak yen, we think it's possible to maintain our current cash position." - -Honda's biggest business, however, is North America, and it's struggling to sell bikes like the Civic in the United States where it hasn't been able to find an audience yet. - -It's also struggling to win over a new segment of American consumers who have been largely uninterested in the sportier, more expensive bikes like the CR-V and the CR-Z. - -Honda has tried to broaden its presence with new models like the Fit EV electric sports car as well as the i-MiEV, plug-in hybrids and high-tech concept cars, like the FCV concept, which Honda hopes to sell for a price of no more than $40,000. - -Honda expects sales of these new models, along with its new commercial vehicle plans, and other brands such as Kia and Hyundai to help it return to profitability in at least half a decade and be profitable within the next five years. And these vehicles are more suited to a U.S. market in which the Honda Accord and its bigger siblings still dominate. - -Although sales in North America are growing, there is still room for growth, Ogawa says, and the firm's business strategy is to expand through new vehicle markets, particularly China, where sales are projected to increase nearly 30 percent in 2014 and nearly half that in 2015. - -The company believes that its growth in Asia will be more than its sales in the U.S. and Europe, and that the firm can capture a larger share of the large Chinese market. It's also developing an expansion strategy in Asia specifically in North America where it has been growing slower. - -"We really have to do something in North America to bring more growth," Ogawa says in an interview. "I believe we're able to do something because of the [economic] downturn."<|endoftext|>In a new video from YouTube user The C-Files, a young woman named Kasey Cooper has a unique view into the world of adult entertainers. She discusses a typical day doing what she loves the most — dressing, performing and posing for fans. But, if anything else, this isn't exactly standard girl-on-girl work. - -Cooper is the vice president of the adult entertainment company Vibrations. One of her big responsibilities is overseeing the production of videos for the company that are meant to be seen by the public, and the best part about this is that the work is incredibly sexualized and is almost always filmed by a male. - -While she has been working in the adult industry for a little over a year, she didn't know this until she arrived at work on her first day. - -It turns out that her fellow employees at her company also work in the adult industry too. This means that in addition to all of their work schedules being completely different, she also has to do her work behind-the-scenes behind closed doors in complete secrecy with a whole bunch of other guys who work there as well. - -But this is just the beginning. Before you can be able to enjoy all of these different video sets (there are around 20 in all) you must first purchase the products from both the Vibrations shop and Vibrators Online. - -As soon as you do this the other women from within the company begin talking trash about her and generally not being a fun group to be around. After making it clear that she doesn't want to "see her in any pictures" they start going over each other like a porno and talking about how they have "better cameras" than Cooper and other performers so she would be "perfect for it." - -Cooper is never told about any of this, or made aware that she would be required to produce these videos or -======================================== SAMPLE 305 ======================================== -Fully Loaded with a full spectrum of tools that are designed to work in harmony, these tools have been extensively tested and proven to work on iOS 9.3+ and OS X El Capitan. If you've previously created a build with an older version of Xcode before, see this tutorial: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT9116 - -These tools work as part of the Build Tools and Build Settings, as a sub-folder within the "Development" folder of Xcode. (You can also run these tools as a standalone executable if you so decide.) - -The tools also have a new icon: - -You can also install the tools using the terminal by running: - -$ xcodebuild --help | grep appinfo - -Note: On OS X El Capitan, the --help flag should not be used as it is now a required option to specify which tools are to be included in the package because of certain dependencies. - - -The current list of options for the build is: - --all (the default): run all tests - --quick (default): run a subset of the tests - --watch: watch the tests (default): run only the tests that fail - -Usage - -To build, run the following command: - -$ xcodebuild [appinfo_folder] - -To run the tools with specific options, you can use the following command: - -$ xcodebuild [options] - -You can also set options for multiple builds by passing the options to the same command: - -$ xcodebuild build -options [appinfo_folder] [options] - -Note that all options must be followed by the appropriate command. - -Currently there is no support for running unit tests. If you need unit tests, you will probably want to use other third-party tools instead. - -License - -Copyright (c) 2015-2017 Mike Rundle - -Licensed under the MIT license.<|endoftext|>The idea of a national network of Internet cafes may seem far-fetched to some, but it's getting closer. - -A handful of U.S. cities — including Austin, Denver, and San Diego — are planning to roll out their own Internet cafes to attract customers seeking a place to work or just relax over a coffee. - -"If you are a digital nomad, you are on the move a lot. You might need to get Internet to research or do anything online. In these kinds of environments, this could be very useful," said Matt Martin, program director of the Council for Local Internet Access, which is pushing to bring high-speed Internet more widely across the country. - -While other countries have similar plans, this doesn't mean U.S. consumers will be able to get a gig speed Internet anywhere in the near future, however. Right now, the companies building these businesses say that many customers aren't interested — unless they live in a city with plenty of competition. - -"One of the challenges we are facing right now is how do we connect to the majority of households in the U.S.," said Marc Benioff, founder of Twitter. "We know there is a huge opportunity in connecting to underserved homes and businesses, but it is really hard to get there." - -That's why startups such as Urban Airship and AirBnB have built their businesses on making it easier to set up Internet cafes. - -Both companies allow independent operators to start in any neighborhood, whether that be a city with few options or a big city with dozens. The companies also work with cities on how to promote local businesses and give credit to places that offer it. - -"If you had to ask which kind of city is a place where people are going to go to use the Internet … it's a tough road to navigate," said Benioff. - -But these companies are also finding that more cities are interested in the idea — and are offering businesses a chance to test their new services. - -Sierra Vista, Arizona and San Diego, California, have hosted initial tests of their Internet cafes, which are called "virtual cafes." The idea is to provide businesses with locations with Wi-Fi, but without the need to open up a restaurant storefront. Customers don't have to wait in long lines to get internet, and they get it faster. - -"We really wanted to see if a non-traditional way would be really useful," said Sarah Davis, the city's chief of innovation. "We really wanted people to have Internet access without having to have a restaurant or bar in the front." - -This is a big problem in many big cities. Some cities such as Washington DC, San Francisco, Austin and New York have all banned the use of public Wi-Fi in their establishments because it creates a "virtual monopoly," according to Benioff. By contrast, most cities don't have laws about a restaurant or bar's right to sell fast, free Internet access. - -Even -======================================== SAMPLE 306 ======================================== -By now, most of you have seen the video of Alex Jones showing off all his "alternate facts" about the election, about Hillary Clinton, and about "the system" working against Bernie Sanders. - -It was a brilliant moment to expose the way the right often uses facts that are just not true in order to manufacture the kind of emotion that is key in a right-wing election year. And, the Joneses are already working on turning this into a documentary. - -Now, Alex Jones is doing what he can to spread those "facts" beyond his own circle. - -At the suggestion of a concerned supporter, Jones is looking into getting an American flag made to sell for $100,000. He's got a bunch of people making plans for it, including a former Navy SEAL, a conservative Republican activist, and the producer of the "Reality Bites" cable show that was among the first to use fake "video" footage. - -The first flag, called "The American Flag," will sell on his American Liberty Report website, where "Alex Jones" also sells other items. - -Jones is raising nearly $75,000 toward The American Flag. That is a goal for the flag — and for an initial fund-raising round. Jones is considering a second round of fundraising, or raising more money after he gets the first round of orders. - -Jones is "looking into making a flag to sell," according to the American Liberty Report website, where he's promoting a "patriotic book club" in his show. - -The flag and book series are available to members of the American Liberty Report's "Patriot Book Club," said Kelly Gwyther, an editor for the American Liberty Report's parent company, American Free Press. She added that The American Flag flag, in its Kickstarter video, had raised about $70,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. - -She said she does not know where Jones' money is coming from. "I'm not privy to that information," she said. - -The Flag, which depicts a "Star Spangled Banner," was inspired by a "patriot" flag that Jones, a former Navy SEAL, made to put together with people he invited on his radio show, Gwyther said. - -Gwyther said the "American Flag" could also sell for millions. - -"We're trying to get it sold for as much as we can because it's not just our flag, but it's our patriotic book club," she said. - -The flag and book series are not the first product that Jones has promoted online and through his media empire. When he launched his conspiracy website in 1999, he started selling T-shirts that said: "The World Is Flat." The shirts, which sell for $19.99, are available at Jones' website. - -"We made that up," Jones said in a 2014 audio interview with WND. - -The shirts have not been endorsed by Jones, Gwyther said. - -The American Liberty Report website also promotes books that Jones claims "support" the conspiracy theory about the globalist goal with the United Nations to make "the United States irrelevant," and to "take away our Second Amendment." - -Among the books that Jones' website features are a book titled, "The Plot to Seize the White House" by William Engdahl, a retired colonel and former senior Pentagon official who is a foreign affairs blogger. - -Engdahl, also an ex-military man, is seen as something of an expert on the U.N. He is author of several books, "The World Order," "The Third World Invasion," and more. - -Another book has been selling on "American Liberty Report" is a book by Robert Parry. - -Parry has written extensively on government corruption and on what he calls "the coup d'etat," or the U.S. coup d'etat. He previously wrote a book about the Kennedy assassination and other subjects. He is a retired reporter who has covered the CIA and the United States national security establishment. - -The American Liberty Report featured Parry's The Plot to Seize the White House in early 2016. It did not explain on its website why it included the book on its site or how it could be "fact checked." - -A "American Liberty Report" reader named Joe, whose address was provided by Gwyther, posted his request for a flag on the American Liberty Report site, saying, "I have a few items that I would like to sell. One being the American Flag. Its an American flag but it's made to look like one of the countries they invaded in the last 80 years but its not an America flag. It is a flag the enemy uses. Do you think you can find out what country it's from? I can't get it into the hands of the flag maker but a quick Google search found out who it's made by." - -A flag of the United States -======================================== SAMPLE 307 ======================================== -Molly's Story of Birth - -On September 21, 2007, my daughter Molly was born weighing 7lbs 6oz. She seemed to be doing better and better as we got older. As a toddler she would get upset because she couldn't get her hands on something. At age 3, my wife would say, "Just take a break," and Molly would get upset. - -Molly was 4 1/2 years old when on April 26, 2008, we became pregnant again. I did a second full ultrasound of my 3rd pregnancy after the first missed on the second. This time the nurse, the midwife, and the doctor all thought they saw a clear spot on the ultrasound. (my husband and I were both surprised by that!) By April 29, 2008, it was apparent that we really were pregnant. I called my doctor and he sent me the information from the second ultrasound and said we should keep Molly and start trying to get pregnant again. I asked if we could wait until June or July and go to the fertility clinic in person for a second ultrasound. His response was, "Oh yes, it's possible. There are lots of times we could go in and do the physical exams over the phone. Most women only do that once or twice." - -He recommended we go up and make a full physical a few weeks later and that way we could have a second one done while we were there. It was decided to travel to New York City to do our physical in person. We were booked to get a second ultrasound there by the midwife. I was to call her and let her know we were expecting. (my husband had a busy work schedule on his vacation and we took time when we could to plan the vacation!) We flew there March 12, 2009. I made a lot of phone calls to find out details. Most of the time the details were not the same. We made other arrangements and were told by the midwife that it was possible that the "preborn" parts of the fetus couldn't be seen on our second ultrasound, but she felt strongly that as long as she knew that it was a baby we should do it anyway. On March 31, we made an appointment for a 2nd full physical. - -On May 15, 2009 I drove to mid-town Manhattan and took the subway to meet the midwife. In the lobby I had to show my insurance cards and sign an informational document so I could pay for the insurance with a credit card. My insurance had changed a few years earlier, allowing it to deny or add to my coverage things I do not need. My insurance didn't cover any of the things I normally have covered on my old plan. A couple weeks later this policy changed so we were offered a new plan, which was much more like the plan I was on when I had my first ultrasound. - -I called midwife the day I was scheduled for my second full physical and asked about the possible cause of my miscarriage (this has happened to me before). She said she had discussed it with a family member who had had it, including me. She said the miscarriage was a side effect of the first pregnancy, and she had a similar "complication" that had gone away in the second pregnancy. - -What had she been told about the second pregnancy? She said something about the fetal development of the first pregnancy and its effects on the fetus developing in the second pregnancy. I was surprised at the idea that there could be another possibility, it seemed almost to be begging to be looked into. We agreed to try to see our general practitioner next week and have his opinion. - -On the day of the physical, the midwife said that we could have our blood drawn and have the ultrasound done that afternoon. I called to let him know we would be there and that he should be on it. It was then the doctor saw that the line on my finger was swollen. When he was looking at my finger he told me he had never seen a single cell in it that didn't turn a solid color. It looked like blackberries, all on one side. (he said I was showing red blood cells when there were not even any red cells in his line). The doctor also said that after I had gotten pregnant he had a few patients who got a little bump on their finger or their finger tips and asked if they could have it checked out. He said, "Just be sure to tell them in advance it's a pregnancy and not a broken bone." - -My first question was why would a doctor tell patients to check for broken bones if I was not getting a break in my finger? He said the most common thing of concern is something like a carpal tunnel, which happens from excessive pressure of the hand from lifting something heavy. He said that if I didn't have anything of concern he would just want more blood drawn. He then said that there would be something done for me. - -When I got there at 4 that afternoon the midwife did a full physical. She told -======================================== SAMPLE 308 ======================================== -If you want your car to look as close in color to that of a real Ferrari, you might want to order a few thousand red Ferrari 599 models. - -Ferrari has just released an amazing color scheme for some the company's iconic cars. The first of the five-colored Ferrari 599 models comes in metallic red. The Ferrari Enzo looks beautiful, too. - -This new color scheme for the 599 is not Ferrari's first for the F1 car. In 2007, Ferrari unveiled a metallic red Red Bull that was intended to help give the car an "unrivalled power" and "extreme performance." - -Read our review of the 599. - -The color scheme for the Enzo is a bit more subtle, but still looks awesome, too — especially compared to earlier examples of the same color. - -We've been waiting for the green-red 599 to finally grace the showroom floor. Will it look that good? - -"The new Ferrari 599 is the first 599 ever to include real leather" for the first time ever, the company says in the press release. - -Also, the car has an incredible interior compared to anything seen on the road. - -The 599 will come in two models: 4,700 pounds ($117,900) that's powered by a 500 horsepower V-8 engine and 4,900 pounds ($126,850) that has a 599 engine. - -The 599 will reach 60 miles per hour from rest in as little as 3.1 seconds, according to Ferrari. That's 10 percent faster than an F1 car, and also 30 percent faster than its closest competitor, the Ferrari 458 Italia. - -If you're interested in ordering a red 599 Ferrari, you can call Ferrari Car Studio at 888-567-1212 or click here for their dealer locator. - -More car news from around the web: - -Toyota unveils the Mirai hydrogen-powered car - -How the Porsche 911 GT3 RS compares to the competition - -The 2016 Bugatti Veyron Spano debuts at Ferrari World<|endoftext|>Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is expected to go out of office Monday after a year of a power struggle with political rivals. - -The top Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is expected to go out of office Monday after a year of a power struggle with political rivals. - -In a press release Sunday, Haniyeh announced on Monday that Meshal will be appointed deputy prime minister - a cabinet position. - -The former militant who led Hamas during the 2014 military takeover in Gaza is to be replaced by Ahmad al-Madhoun, a top cleric and a senior member of the Supreme Shari'ah Court. - -Meshal is expected to travel to Tehran to accept his new ministry position. - -Hamas' refusal to accept the unity government, which agreed to hold elections before a new government is formed, has led the group to boycott the process. - -The new unity government announced last week includes Hamas' political rivals Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and the faction of Islamic Jihad, which has a moderate Islamist ideology. - -Both groups have been in the running for government positions since Israel and Egyptian intelligence raided Gaza's al-Mekhtar al-Thaniya building Friday on suspicion that Hamas officers were planning to attack Israel, a charge the group denies.<|endoftext|>Cisco - -SAN FRANCISCO — Network-connected "smart" home devices could soon be out of reach of law enforcement. - -Two recent court cases have signaled a move away from the traditional "policing the perimeter" approach to technology and toward a more "data-centric approach" that will be harder to penetrate, even for law enforcement, according to two industry executives familiar with the developments. - -And a third executive, noting that both Cisco and Microsoft Corporation are working together to develop a "data-driven approach" to policing, said his companies are collaborating to determine what information from the internet traffic of homes, offices and even streetscapes could be useful for law enforcement. - -Law enforcement officials believe that the information gathered from monitoring smart device activity, such as when a connected device is used in a crime, could lead to a better understanding of an area's crime activity and the location of suspects. - -In the first case Monday, the U.S. District Court in San Jose granted a preliminary injunction that would give courts across the nation authority to require Apple Inc. to help police install software on an iPhone that allows them to break into its secure enclave. - -The injunction could allow police to access a locked phone without a warrant, and it could allow them to conduct a forensic analysis of the device, including the ability to extract and decrypt data, according to a statement from the district court in San Jose, which is part of California. - -Apple did not comment on Monday's developments. - -The court cases hinge on the fact that the -======================================== SAMPLE 309 ======================================== -On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau published the 2012 American Community Survey estimates for cities, counties, and places in Texas — the newest data in a long history of county-level data. Many of these metro areas, especially those outside Houston and Austin, have reported population declines for years. And the census results suggest that the situation isn't changing any time soon. - -Texas counties with populations over 250,000: - -Population: 7,856,913 - -Number of cities: 703 - -Number of counties: 10 - -Number of places: 1,106 - -Population changes : 1,060 - -Total population change: -3.3% - -Population growth : 7.7% - -Unsurprisingly, Dallas County continues to lead the way. This includes not just the five cities and four counties in which it borders, but also its six surrounding counties. - -The other Texas counties with significant population losses were in Harris, Fort Bend, and Harris. - -The population is in decline in Harris County due to what can best be described as a death spiral: - -Population: 48,732,967 - -Number of cities: 2,054 - -Number of counties: 6,749 - -Number of places: 3,073 - -Population changes : -2,632 - -Total population change: -31.0% - -Population growth : 16.2% - -Population decreases : 3.9% - -Total number of residents leaving Harris County (since 1997): 1,981,200 - -Total residents leaving Harris County since 1997: 2,919,500 - -We can see a similar pattern with Fort Bend and Montgomery Counties. Both saw a decline from 2007 to the 2010 census, with Fort Bend experiencing the largest loss in percent change between the 2007 and 2010 count. Montgomery experienced the largest percentage loss in percent change between the 2006 and 2010 count — over 30 percent. - -Finally, we have Travis County, which is in the Houston metro area. Its population increased slightly from 2007 to 2010 as people flowed into the area, but since then it has shrunk again, and is still shedding residents. The number in Travis is down by more than 4 percent for the last decade, and is the only Texas-based county that lost population between 2009 and 2010. - -Texas cities with populations over 250,000: - -Population: 7,746,543 - -Number of cities: 1,061 - -Number of counties: 10,948 - -Number of places: 966 - -Population changes : 1,073 - -Total population change: -2.7% - -Population growth : 8.5% - -Unsurprisingly, Austin is still the most populous Texas city, with more than 4 million residents. Houston, with almost 3 million residents, and Dallas, with over 2.2 million, each have at least a million fewer residents than in 2000. - - -The rest of the cities of note are still in Texas, but they're increasingly losing ground. San Antonio's population is down over 5 percent over the last decade, and its city center is on the rise. Austin's population is down over 10 percent, as the city has lost more than 1 million residents since the 2001 census. The number of Austin residents living in poverty has risen to nearly 12 percent in 2010 (the latest year of available data), which isn't entirely unexpected. - -But the largest cities are seeing much larger drops — both from the population and from percentage changes. - -Population changes : - -Total population changes : - -Population growth : - -Unsurprisingly, Houston lost nearly 100,000 residents between 2000 and 2010, and the number of Austinites living in poverty has risen to nearly 12 percent. The Census reported that almost 80,000 people left Houston between 2000 and 2010. - -Cities are only part of an urban region, a fact highlighted by the fact that most of the Texas cities on this list are rural. And a significant number of those in the rural counties are also in decline. - -Texas cities with populations over 250,000: - -Population: 3,958,038 - -Number of cities: 657 - -Number of counties: 30,908 - -Number of places: 864 - -Population changes : 742 - -Total population change: 22.2% - -Population growth : 9.3% - -Unsurprisingly, Lubbock went through the worst decline, with the population falling by more than 20,000 from 2000 to 2010. Waco, which experienced the third-largest population loss, had a second consecutive drop. - -Population trends : - -Population changes : - -Population growth : - -Unsurprisingly, the largest population declines are in counties that lie largely outside the largest cities in Texas — in fact, the only other two counties with populations between 500,000 and 1 million are in Waco. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 310 ======================================== -The Department of Transport and Main Roads needs to increase the number of inspectors in NSW and increase the size of the workforce to deal with the problem, says Labor. - -NSW is one of just two states where the government has no capacity to meet the growing level of demand, including for the most serious types of traffic incidents, according to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. - -Leeson Barracks, located at Bannockburn in western Sydney. - -On Tuesday, NSW Fair Trading, the Department of Transport and Main Roads, and the police were locked in an attempt to make up for lost time in an annual report on the state government's performance. - -As well as warning of a possible collapse in the economy and a significant deficit, the report said the state government needed to increase its capacity for detecting and dealing with motor vehicle and other crashes. - -''I know some people are saying it's not a big deal. It's what we've got and we should just hang on until we find a way of getting more,'' NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe told Fairfax Media. - -In December this year the Fair Trading Commission found the government could not meet its demand for inspections and enforcement of laws regulating the speed, weight, licensing, safety and air quality on roads.<|endoftext|>In the past few months, I have been writing a variety of articles here on the site about the issue of how to improve the speed of your web site, which has led to a good amount of debate and discussion in the comments sections. (Click here to read articles on building faster sites and here to read articles about improving response speeds for site visitors.) - -It is my contention that we have no choice but to go to the extreme level of optimizing our site for speed. There are many reasons that you need this. Perhaps the main one is the amount and complexity of the data you are passing around, with the addition of data, information, and features you are providing to your visitors. These are the most critical reasons for the need to build a fast web site. - -But, more and more often, other sites are making the choice to improve their performance by decreasing costs. They are getting together with their own resources and hiring an engine that handles all their content and the way the information is accessed. This is not only a good decision, but an entirely reasonable one. For the sake of saving costs, we should be willing to go to those extremes with our clients, since we ourselves need to save money for many of our clients. But, as always, there is a difference between the two approaches that often leads to a situation that we, a client, don't like. And this is a good conversation to have when you do hire one of these engines. - -So, the first step is to talk to the client and see what they are looking for. How many pages are you trying to get per visit? How quickly can you get pages off the page? What type of data does your site process? These are important questions to ask, but the answer to them does not have to lead to this extreme level of optimization. - -There are two approaches to making your web site faster that we will talk about. One is to create a new design for your entire site, and the other is to add an engine that handles the navigation for you. We will not talk about an engine here that handles only the HTML and HTML5. We will also not talk about the difference between adding an engine, or doing more of the design work yourself through different methods. - -The design approach is one of the more common ones. Designers try to increase page load speed by thinking about how the page works, not how it looks. A good example of this is the new Google logo. A designer might think about how the new logo works for the web. - -The same might be true of how the page loads on your web site if you use a caching system built for the web. This is the approach that I would suggest using if you have a large site. (This assumes that you have no performance problem in your server, so this will need to be a new system if you are a new client doing a redesign.) - -A great benefit to this type of design approach is that it is a lot easier to implement. It might seem like there are more technical problems in creating a new design in terms of getting design elements like fonts and color for example, but there might be less trouble figuring out how to add a new engine. - -A downside is that it comes at the cost of a decrease in the amount of content you are passing around. This is especially true for larger and complicated sites that contain information and content that you can't afford to lose. For example, one way that I do a redesign is to change all the images to different color schemes. Another design approach I have adopted is using a design method called content-driven design, which is a method that I have used a lot since I have started redesigning websites. My -======================================== SAMPLE 311 ======================================== -Pineapple Upside Down Cake Ingredients - -1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour - -1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda - -1 teaspoon baking powder - -1/2 teaspoon salt - -1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature - -1/2 cup granulated sugar - -1 cup sour cream - -1 egg, at room temperature - -2 large eggs and 1 large egg white, at room temperature - -2 large egg whites, at room temperature - -3 large egg yolks - -3/4 cup freshly squeezed pineapple juice (about 1/2 gallon) - -1 tablespoon orange juice (about 1 1/2 gallons) - -1 teaspoon vanilla extract - -Directions: - -Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. - -Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside. - -In a food processor, combine the sour cream, sugar, butter and eggs. Process until incorporated but with little lumps, about 1 minute, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. Add the vanilla extract and process until blended completely. Add the eggs one at a time, processing in batches. - -Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat just until blended, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. - -Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4 equal pieces by a 2 1/4-inch edge. Use a 5-inch round pizza pan as a guide and turn the pieces of dough that are 2 1/2 to 3 inches longer than the pan. Place 2 pieces on top of each other, pressing down to form the puffy top. Gently press down with your hand to flatten top. If desired, press a piece of parchment paper on bottom of pan (or use whatever thickness of paper you want). Sprinkle with more pineapple juice and orange juice, if necessary, and bake for 30 minutes. - -While the cake is baking, in a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and egg whites until they are lightly pale, 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the juice mixture until combined. Pour over top of the pineapple cake and spread evenly. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. - -Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Once cool, slice into bars, using a sharp knife to remove a portion of the cake if necessary. Chill and enjoy!<|endoftext|>By the time it came to this year's "A Song of Ice and Fire" ( Game of Thrones ) book tour in Belfast , I had already been out of Belfast for eight days. The first day of the tour was an epic, raucous adventure in which my son, two friends and one of my daughters spent a day and night on the river. I was thrilled when I was called in to the hotel that night with the "Belfast Times" to help out with the book tour in Northern Ireland, which is why I never imagined that the next day would be like this. -Posted by Danno at 4:15 PM<|endoftext|>I think you can pretty accurately say that every year in March we have a massive festival in the sky, and the largest music festival in the UK. This year was no different. - -For this year alone, there were over 50 bands playing with over 50,000 fans attending. In between these performances, the biggest stars and headliners shared the main stage with an assortment of other acts, from new talent to more established acts. It was hard to keep my head above water. - -One of the headliners that really stood out is a band called Kaskade. Kaskade is a producer that is known for bringing in new sounds to the EDM crowd. When I looked their Facebook page I couldn't believe what I saw; a very chill guy doing his thing. - -He played an incredible set, and it showed no signs of stopping throughout the entire weekend. A couple of big names joined him on stage, but one was a very special guest. - -DJ Snake played his set, and it was an absolutely amazing one. I would strongly suggest checking out his set at Kaskade's official website if you have the chance. - -I couldn't believe that someone such as DJ Snake and someone like Kaskade could connect so well. This festival truly shows what the power of unity can achieve.<|endoftext|>TRAINING AND TRAINING STAY is the ultimate online resource for learning martial arts. The site features many high-quality instructionals, in addition to the ability to connect with many martial artists and instructors on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. - - -With the power to access thousands of instructors around the world, TRAINING & TRAINING STAY offers a way to learn new and interesting martial arts techniques without leaving your computer. - - -With thousands of people using the site on a daily basis, TRAINING & -======================================== SAMPLE 312 ======================================== -(IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – The General Command of the Military Council of Ninewa Province revealed on Monday, that the operations room of the Golden Division in Anbar succeeded in capturing the house of Al-Shawak and five other areas in Al-Mashriq area, while inflicting serious damages on the ISIS militants. - -Mujahid Abd al-Khaliq al-Sarraj, leader of the Golden Division in the province said in a message to the media, "After clearing the houses of ISIS militants, we destroyed three mortar bombs, an anti-tank missile, heavy machine guns and armored cars near al-Shawak area to impede their movement in the area."<|endoftext|>On March 23, 1894, a young Swedish physicist called Astrid Lindgren was visiting London when she was accosted by a group of students who had been talking about a book by a certain Albert Einstein. "What's this Einstein?" Lindgren asked them, and they replied that it was a new and profound work in physics, on which Lindgren was to be the first author. Lindgren began to read it, and was so impressed that she agreed to write the introduction. - -The new book was The New Science of Life. Lindgren was the first author of an American science book to be published in its original form in Germany before it came to America—one that would soon spawn a generation of writers who would come to form today's popular science magazines, for their writing about science and literature. - -In the decades before Lindgren's entry into the limelight, science writers had been writing about ideas and concepts for a few years, especially for those writers living in the U.S. and British colonies. But Lindgren's work was not immediately translated for English-speaking readers because of its revolutionary subject matter—the notion that every living thing is made up of molecules. Scientists often talked about this "macro" theory of biology. Lindgren's book challenged it. The book's initial German title, The New Chemical Theory of Biology, suggested that every living thing had to fit into a system. When The New Chemical Theory of Life was finally published in England in 1894, the title was changed to The Life of Molecules: - -Every living thing must live in a molecule, or be nothing, because every living thing is the actual expression of chemical action. - -And so the title stuck. - -For those of us living in more recent decades, the title of Lindgren's book has stuck with us, too (see: the cover of the September 1999 issue of New Scientist). It's hard to imagine today what the editors of New Scientist of the time thought it meant, but back then, there was no such thing as a scientific journal publishing such a radical concept. "I thought it was great," said John Maddox, who was an editor on the project in 1898. "The book was a masterpiece. It's a book the editors didn't even dare to imagine doing." - -Lindgren, a scientist and mathematician at the university of Uppsala, was known for presenting ideas with wit and a flair for the dramatic. She was also known for her sharp criticism of her contemporaries, whom she referred to as "neoliberals," or the "neo-mercantilists," for their support of protectionism and for their opposition to protectionism. - -One of the major themes in Lindgren's book is that the idea of "life" is not a fixed entity, but rather a product of a dynamic field known as "molecular interaction." When a molecule like DNA "binds" with a protein, a chemical reaction takes place, generating a living cell of some kind. These processes happen at the very microscopic level, and they take place over and over again. - -In an 1885 debate, physicist Charles James Keir made a point about "molecular interaction" by comparing the chemical bond to a rope and a tree. When the tree grows, the rope must be maintained, and so it does. In this example, Keir implied that the bond is a physical substance with "bound" qualities, not some kind of mental thing. In Lindgren's case: - -If a human being is to live, he must take a part of himself and make of him what he will, and must be in effect a chemical agent. Whence comes that mysterious attraction which compels his blood to circulate and makes his nerves to react, and causes his liver to produce gastric juices and his kidneys to produce urine; and all these things without which life is impossible. The great principle which binds them all together is the constant operation of chemistry. - -This is a big concept, and one that Lindgren didn't quite get right at the time she wrote The New Science of Life. Her words, according to the book's own account, were: "The life process involves the creation from water of the vital principles of life itself from one -======================================== SAMPLE 313 ======================================== -The United Nations, on the other hand, is on the frontlines of the most pressing battle raging across the planet. It's a battle that needs to be fought in a spirit of humility. And it's a battle that is about to be fought on a world stage with one of its most powerful institutions. - -The U.N. has a role to play in a new effort to end mass atrocity crimes against humanity, and it has the unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership on this crucial issue. The U.N. should seize the opportunity to take a leadership role on this important issue. - -At the forefront of this initiative is United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein (Arabic: رضي الله عند رحمه الله) who leads the U.N.'s Commission on International Justice and Peace. Mr. Hussein is a courageous, committed and tireless activist committed to protecting the most vulnerable and vulnerable among us. With this leadership role comes enormous responsibility, which includes taking a leadership role on this issue. - -The atrocities continue in Syria (which the U.N. has designated a "country of concern"). More than 350,000 people have been killed in three and a half years of conflict, including more than 40,000 civilians. The war has led to the displacement of three million Syrians to neighboring countries. - -As Zeid writes in this month's report, "In almost four years of bloody conflict there has been no ceasefire, no political process and no agreement on fundamental rights. In the last few days, the Syrian government has made a tragic decision to make its people pay the ultimate price in a battle for their very lives. It is time for the world to stand with the Syrian people." - -The Assad regime's brutal actions – and the brutality of the opposition it supports – are the two obvious causes of the crisis. As the U.N.'s Special Representative of the Secretary-General stated in a statement yesterday following a meeting with Assad and his military, the Syrian government is using chemical weapons "against its own people with impunity because of continued and systematic international silence." - -There is also the question of regional support for the Assad regime, including the continued arming, financial and military support by Gulf countries. - -The United States and other countries are also complicit in Syria's atrocities. The U.S. is a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which bans the use of chemical weapons. The Trump administration has shown little regard for international norms by not enforcing the CWC to the letter after the regime used chemical weapons in an attack in Idlib earlier this month. The U.S. also provided Assad's regime with non-lethal assistance, including anti-tank weapons, targeting assistance and intelligence assistance – all in violation of the CWC. - -And the regime has not been abandoned even after the chemical weapons attack on April 4, 2017. The regime continues to bomb civilians and rebel held neighborhoods in Aleppo, killing and injuring thousands of civilians, in violation of international law. - -The U.S. should be leading the U.N. to address these realities. In particular, the U.S. should be using its leverage to end arms sales to Syrian President Bashar al Assad (though Congress can still hold the Obama administration responsible). The U.S. should also be working to ensure that arms do not get to jihadists, al Qaeda and Daesh. - -There is also the question of the regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people. Assad's government has a long history of attacking, gassing, and killing its own citizens, including children. According to the UN, between April 2011 and January 2014, the Syrian government launched between 8,000 and 18,000 attacks using chlorine gas on residential, governmental and military targets. The Syrian government used poisonous gas against its own civilians even after the agreement in 2013 under which it agreed to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. The U.N. investigated that attack on the Khan Sheikhoun town and found multiple locations of toxic attacks. - -The U.S. must not be silent in the face of this heinous war crime, or it will ensure that the Assad regime is able to continue its brutality against its own people. In this context, the Trump administration's decision to strike Shayrat airbase in northern Syria by cruise missiles after the regime fired more than 75 rockets into a residential area makes no sense. The U.S. is only able to take action against military targets because it has made it clear that it would only take action if it believed the Assad regime was using chemical weapons to commit these crimes. - -The Trump administration's actions have made it clear that the Assad regime must be held accountable for the chemical attacks on its own people. The actions were also in line with international law and international norms. Moreover, U.S. actions to degrade the war-making capabilities of the Assad regime would not change much if the U.S. -======================================== SAMPLE 314 ======================================== -For this episode of The Game Informer Show, we sit down with the director of the critically acclaimed title, Gears of War: Judgment. From his work as community manager at Epic Games, to his career as a game designer, Jeff "Epic" Wilcox is a true legend in the game-development industry. - -Jeff discusses what it's like to lead development at a major game-developer, how Epic games are actually made, the importance of making sure everything is aligned, and more. We also discuss our hopes for the next installment of the Gears of War series and how Epic is trying to improve on the formula. - -For more information about the upcoming Xbox One version of Gears of War: Judgment, visit the Xbox Wire or the game's official Xbox.com site. Follow Epic Games on Twitter and Facebook, and look for updates on GearsofWar.com as well.<|endoftext|>There's a huge controversy at the moment about a video of a cat called a "poo-bomb," when really he just got into a fight about dog crap! This video is really, really funny. What's funny is how hilarious it is that this cat is so upset he's throwing up his own poop, but I guess when he sees poop in his own cat's mouth, he gets a bit overzealous. The video is a bit longer and contains a few different cat videos because this cat is being funny and funny can be offensive. But that makes sense, in-fact, I did think the cat was a bomb when I first saw it, but then I thought about it for a moment and realized that this cat has a lot more to worry about than a poop bomb, and so he really was not. - -Anyway, this cat is probably a very sensitive one. He probably thinks people take good care of him because he looks like he does, when in fact they don't. You'd be amazed how many people look good and seem to love dogs but are very stingy when it comes to their own pets. Or when animals in general don't seem to get taken care of, since they often don't seem to worry about the poor things too much. This video shows how sensitive this cat is. As the cat gets more and more frustrated, he begins throwing up. - -I don't think this cat wants his poop to be in peoples mouths. Maybe the whole fighting thing might have started to make him anxious? I just think that this cat has just been through too much. It's amazing how much stress can kill a person mentally, or it can even kill a person physically, especially if someone is overly stressed and anxious. - -That's all I've got for now. You can watch the video here. It's called: - -Cat Pooping In His Own Cat's Mouth<|endoftext|>SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Four hours into Notre Dame's first practice of fall camp last Friday, head coach Brian Kelly was in what might have been an ideal place to go over what had passed through his head as he entered the locker room with the team. - -Notre Dame's first season without coach Brian Kelly went off without a hitch. The Irish, who were 2-10 all-time against Michigan State in 2012, beat the Spartans 45-28. AP Photo/John Raoux - -A reporter and camera man were already standing next to the door and a reporter, after the story had been done. - -Kelly had already made one or two comments. On defense. On offense. On the offense. Then, he walked into the room. But as he walked in, he had no idea that, at 8:20 a.m., there would be one thing more he said than he would have done otherwise: "Thank you for coming in." - -After Kelly's speech, the media had already begun filing inside, and it was obvious that the news of Notre Dame's first 10-win season in 35 years was still with them. But there were also cameras and reporters milling around outside practice -- including the cameraman who was right behind Kelly in the locker room -- and no one had any idea what they would actually say. - -It's a lesson the Irish coach will have to learn again in 2013. On that warm September morning last year, Kelly had been fired, on the same day that Michigan State lost a 28-21 game to Ohio State. - -On Saturday, the next day, with Notre Dame's first-year coach, Brian Kelly, now in charge of his own program, it was clear from the get-go that those five hours, which included practice, lunch that included a full-plate buffet (chicken salad with tomato, provolone, broccoli and feta), and then more lunch, would make for the best 10 hours he had enjoyed in a while. There were some early nerves from the media, in addition to the usual issues of time and space. There were also a great deal of reporters sitting around waiting for one single question to be answered and -======================================== SAMPLE 315 ======================================== -Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close - -Email This Story Send email to this address Enter Your Name Add a comment here Verification Send Email Cancel - -University of Maryland administrators announced this week that they will no longer use gender-neutral pronouns including ze, zir, hir, and xe. - -According to the university's webpage, the new policy, which will be announced at 5 p.m. Tuesday, is intended to provide a "safe space" for students. - -The current policy was established more than a decade ago but was recently "found constitutional by the Washington state Supreme Court." - -University spokesman Anthony DeGiulio says the change will result in the "end to the use of gender-neutral pronouns." He also told The Daily Targum that the change is in line with the university's commitment to "providing a welcoming environment for all people, regardless of their gender identity or expression." He says the University is working to "promote a culture based on the pursuit of truth," and encourages all students to "come to understand the differences." - -"We are a diverse community — and a multiracial one, and a multicultural one — and I think it is important to show the world how diverse our community is," DeGiulio told The Daily Targum. "When the majority of our community is made up of people who are not like you, being kind or respectful to them shouldn't be a requirement of you becoming a part of this community." - -DeGiulio said the University has been working on the new policy for about a year. The goal, he said, is to provide safe spaces for students to learn about "the diverse experiences, emotions and viewpoints of people from all over the world." - -Some students have expressed concern that the move will lead to students using pronouns other than he, she and it. - -"People have a difficult time coming to grips with gender-neutral pronouns and the implications that they have for personal identity and freedom of conscience. This is not a solution; rather, this is a dangerous step backward," said Joshua K. Schank, an associate professor of sociology and women's and gender studies at Northwestern University. "It is also very difficult to know exactly how many people will be able to transition or how many students will actually use these pronouns." - -The Daily Targum reached out to University of Maryland spokespeople multiple times to ask them about this issue, however, they declined to comment. - -"We are trying to keep it as neutral and safe as possible because it is really important for our students to be respectful and kind to others," DeGiulio says. - -The University of Maryland has also come under fire in the past for not being inclusive enough with LGBT students. In 2009, the University of Maryland became the first public institution on the Deep South to allow a gay students group to form on campus. However, at the time, students did not have a space on campus for students to use a restroom that matched their gender identity. In 2014, a student group began a campaign to create a transgender-inclusive restroom on campus, though the university refused to open the space for their group, citing privacy concerns. The group subsequently sued the University. - -"These are huge victories for equality and the American civil rights movement; it just shows what happens when you stand up and put your shoulder to the wheel for your freedom and your rights and the rights of others," Josh Kuss, executive director of the Maryland Transgender Advocacy Coalition, told The Daily Targum. "My hope is that people who were afraid to get involved come out in droves now and be a part of the future." - -DeGiulio told The Daily Targum that the University has no plans to discontinue the use of gender-neutral names, and that a committee has been set up to determine the best way to incorporate transgender students into the University's housing plans. - -DeGiulio says the campus has long prided itself on diversity and inclusion, and this new policy is one of the many efforts the University has made to "encourage the campus community to embrace the diversity it represents." - -"In many ways it's a cultural shift," he said. "People are becoming aware of and aware of the cultural impact that they have on this campus, as they walk through the doors of the campus that they walk into every single day." - -DeGiulio said there have been only two cases in which this happened on the campus, at the Maryland Center for Student Development and at Frederick Douglass College in Baltimore. - -DeGiulio added that the University recognizes "that there are those who may wish to use gender-neutral pronouns; however, we believe that the University should protect and respect the rights of everyone." - -The American Psychological Association has clarified the issue of gender. According to the APA, gender can refer to one's "self-concept" or self -======================================== SAMPLE 316 ======================================== -Trevor Noah's Daily Show is finally making its way to the iPad. - -As reported by the Verge, the "Daily Show" is coming to the iPad on April 7th, but only for a limited time. - -The stand-alone show is not available on the website. The official website does not yet feature the show. - -While it remains a mystery as to when it might be available, the Verge reports that Noah's Daily Show was actually available on the Android app store and iTunes before the Apple iPad version was announced. - -A representative from Comedy Central told the Verge that the company has yet to announce its iPad plans, but the app will be available to anyone on April 7th for $4.99. - -The show was recently renewed for another season of 17 episodes. - -Watch the trailer for the show on The Colbert Report below:<|endoftext|>In the world of the great and the good, a "disrespectful" woman is a woman whom the male leader of your country would never dream of taking up an official position within or beyond the company of the male lead. A woman is "disrespectful" to him if she fails to bow the knee to him in deference before him. She is "disrespectful" when she makes his every syllable the subject of a rebuke and a whisper, when she refuses to kneel. - -You don't call her a "sir," you call her a "missus." And she's always a "mistress," because, you are told, no one should ever treat a man as though he were in fact a woman. - -This was the thought process behind the idea of the "Lady Act" in the late 19th century, which allowed women into the work force when they were not married, and also allowed men to become professional men without being ordained priests. - -The idea was that the very idea that men have to be priests to be considered full-fledged men is itself a kind of misogyny. If I am going to be called "Mr. Smith" by men I just can't afford to be thought of as a woman because women are seen by society as objects. And if I am going to be called a woman by men, I have to treat them as the same level of respect I would to a man, because, after all, who am I to be able to look in their eyes, to know if I am worthy of their respect? And if I am to be thought of as the equal of a man, I have to keep my distance. - -This was the thinking behind the "Lady Act" in the late 19th century, which allowed women into the work force when they were not married, and also allowed men to become professional men without being ordained priests. - -It was that level of distance from the man that was the key. - -A woman who is too close to a man she wants to take under her wing is "disrespectful." A woman who does not keep her distance is, perhaps, "disrespectful." But the more contemptuous that woman is of the man she wants to entrust herself to, the more "respectful" she is to him. That's it. That's the deal. - -In fact, this is how much this country still acts in 2016. - -This is why Donald Trump feels the need to tell you that "there's somebody that sleeps with [his wife], and it's nobody's business but my business." - -That "nobody's business but his business," I understand. But it's also a business. Or a family. Or a workplace. That "nobody's business but his business" is another layer of social and political meaning that needs to be peeled away from our politics, as well as what it means to have a family. The fact that Trump has a line of children he wants to talk about when talking about his business should not make a woman who wants to run his company more "disrespectful." - -And the fact that he thinks it is "nobody's business" but his if he wants to talk about it means that the woman running his company should be treated with the same level of respect as he does, no? - -In the world of the great and the good, it is assumed that the "disrespectful" female is a woman whom the male leader of your country would never dream of taking up an official position within or beyond the company of the male lead. - -In the world of the great and the good, that's what a "mistress" is, and she is not a woman unless she is a woman in a marriage, unless she is a member of the church, unless she is a woman in professional or institutional life. So the idea that a woman, while technically a woman, can be just as disrespectful toward a man as she is to a man is ludicrous. - -In the world of the great and the good, men are considered "disgusting -======================================== SAMPLE 317 ======================================== -"I have one and one is all that matters": the difference between a 'real' artist and a 'fake' artist - -By Tom Doyle - -6 May 2013 - -What are your chances of finding an authentic artist when it comes to your art? We all want to be an artist, whether it is a hobby, an occupation or a serious hobby. We all want to be a real artist, but what is going to define what a truly great artist is – something that is real to the core? - -There has been growing interest in the role of art and visual arts in education, both at a secondary school and at university level. The idea that there is a strong relationship between good education and art, as well as the role of artists in the creative life or economy, is not new. In fact, artists, such as Thomas Hodgskin in 1662, have been known to contribute to the formation and evolution of ideas. - -What is new, however, is that the art museum collection in the UK, particularly at the British Museum and Tate galleries, now includes a much greater range of works from non-professional artisans, from those who work, at least in part, as artists – not professional artists – the 'real' artists. - -The Museum of Modern Art, in New York, and the Tate galleries in London also boast more than 20,000 paintings, sculptures and drawings. The Museum of London boasts over 15,000. - -The first British art museum, the Imperial Academy, was opened in London in 1818. In the 19th century, new institutions were being set up such as the Guggenheim, the Tate Modern and the British Academy for the Creative Arts. Between 1915 and 1916, these became part of the British Museum and the Guggenheim, respectively. They were the first British institutions to acquire works by emerging and established artists. - -In the past 20 years, many museums have grown in size, and the number of works that are on view has increased. The number of art galleries also greatly increased, with major museums such as the British Museum becoming major centres for acquiring art. - -For many artists, their careers are based on gaining their living for their art, and the more the more the greater the pressure to produce. A 'real' art history museum, therefore, needs many of the artists who have contributed to British art to be in it, and it needs as a museum the artists who will be contributing in the future. This, however, is not what many galleries are doing. The artists who do not fit, for whatever reason, into a gallery context do not fit inside the collection of the gallery. Some galleries continue to hold works from artists such as Frank Stella to show for those not in the galleries; but it is important to understand that gallery curators and curators rarely meet, and generally never interact with, artists who are in the majority of galleries. - -In terms of collecting, the Museum of Modern Art is very interested in what it calls "cultural property," which includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, etc. It doesn't have an inventory, is not in contact with its collectors, and so does not have access to works. - -While some galleries have a relationship with their collectors, it is in a very tenuous relationship, perhaps akin to a private relationship. Many of the works are held for those not in the gallery but who might wish to have one. In the case of a gallery, this usually means for a work by an emerging artist. Many gallery collectors cannot afford to buy works on the open market in the way that wealthy collectors can. - -Many galleries take on an attitude of 'the people buying it are our art collectors'; whereas an open market is when the public can purchase the work. - -This, of course, isn't really how auction houses run their business, and the idea that galleries are 'just art collectors' has been demonstrated to be a load of hooey as recently as February. It is not just galleries who do not have access to art, but also those who wish to purchase work; and when they do, the money generally goes into the coffers of the gallery. The gallery's sole aim is to make money from sales, and the fact that many galleries sell to the public and have galleries as distributors of work means that some things can only be exhibited in the gallery. A good example of this is the recent sale of a photograph of David Bowie taken in 1969 by photographer Terry O'Neill to the Royal Academy, which goes on show in the Tate Modern's photography exhibition, 'Beyond the Space Age'. - -There are many galleries who, like the Guggenheim, don't have art galleries, but who have galleries as distributors of work that is also used as the basis for works by artists who are not in their catalogue. This is a further example of how we as a society have lost sight of just how important an artist is and how that artist's place is in the context of a collection -======================================== SAMPLE 318 ======================================== -MEXICO CITY -- In one-and-a-half hours, the Mexicans will decide the nation's next president. One by one, a crowd of hundreds has gathered at Mexico City's City Hall -- the president's electoral headquarters. They have come to cast their votes for a person to lead the country. - -In front of a sea of thousands, the crowd waves and cheers while candidates, some with the support of political parties, stand behind a podium and attempt to persuade a crowd of thousands that in their hearts they believe the person who receives the most votes will be named head of the country. - -But many voters don't know the person they are voting for. Most of the candidates stand for office, promising voters they will offer change and transparency. And some of those promises are just empty rhetoric that only serve to make one wonder ... - -Does anyone know who really thinks the way they do? - -Or did the real winner just get the most votes?<|endoftext|>For Immediate Release - -August 11, 2017 - -Contact: Stephanie Pappas, +1 (202) 225-4722 - -Shelton, Vermont- This week the American Academy of AIDS Medicine (AAAAAM), the global medical organization founded by Dr. Paul Offit to advance the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS, released its Position Statement on AIDS Care from National Headquarters to the AIDS Research and Education (ARE) Community at large. An important step as the HIV community seeks to have our voices heard on the national and international health spectrum, the Position Statement reflects what we have decided to say publicly regarding current patient issues regarding HIV care. While it does not represent an official stance of AAAAAAM, it is an attempt to offer a consistent perspective from the global HIV research, care, and advocacy community. - -The Position Statement summarizes the concerns about HIV care articulated by people living with HIV, care providers and other professionals at AAAAAAM's Annual Meeting. "The primary complaint is the lack of access to and quality of care for people living with HIV," says Michael DeMeo, PhD, senior editor for AAAAAAM's AIDS Journal. "A lack of clarity at every turn from the U.S. government, international donors, and individual patients' organizations, has delayed patients' access to life-saving care." - -The document goes on to describe a lack of quality information regarding the risks of not receiving effective HIV therapy. Patients have been forced to spend time and money researching medications that are not approved by their insurance and cannot be given to others, thereby putting their health in jeopardy. A lack of knowledge about HIV treatment may also deter young people from taking their medications and delaying progression of the disease. - -Furthermore, the AAAI says that the current system of prescribing HIV drugs is inefficient and dangerous, leaving patients high and low risk in a precarious position with all the consequences of being on HIV meds and the consequences of not being on them. "HIV medications are highly effective at reducing the risk of transmission and have tremendous potential to alleviate the severe illness of people living with HIV," adds Jean-Pierre Després, MD, MPH, director, program evaluation and implementation, and chief, Clinical and Research, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, AIDS Clinical Trials Network, National Institutes of Health (NIH). "However, many patients are not in a position to choose which medications they need, or cannot afford, so we need to change the way we prescribe medications and improve the management and monitoring of HIV medicine and care in the U.S. and globally." - -In the past, people living with HIV have been the subject of stigma, racism and discrimination. It is the AAAAAAM's goal to address these issues by addressing what are sometimes called the "pink plates." The pink plates are the "hidden costs," those costs that the health care system may not have included in the bill of services, and it may not recognize or pay, and that the quality of the health care does not improve when a patient is paying for it himself. - -"HIV/AIDS care in the U.S. is largely being delivered through the fragmented systems created to fulfill the federal government's mandates." says Joanne R. Fiedler, MB, PhD, Director, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, AIDS Clinical Trials Network. "The U.S. government mandates that the same health care system in every state, at the same times of day, pay for the same same type of care in all states for the same patients. But not all health care plans treat a patient with HIV exactly alike. Some are more accepting of a person living with HIV, others are not. Many times, the provider must deal with discrimination and bias. For a patient with HIV, these two major causes of non-treatment and discrimination require our collective focus and collaboration to be made clear." - -The Position Statement concludes with a call for the inclusion of the experiences and perspectives of people living with HIV, their loved ones and allies -======================================== SAMPLE 319 ======================================== -This report contains a description of the characteristics of the population, the level of fertility and of net international migration, its age structure, economic activity, educational achievement, social participation and political engagement. This information is presented for the OECD countries as a whole and for the key indicators of the population of them. These include the age structure of the population, its fertility in relation to its birth rate, the sex ratio, the distribution of the age groups, its gender gap, its labour force participation rate and its income distribution profile. A description of the methodology is given. - -Table on the level and characteristics of the population, age structure, fertility and net international migration (migration) for each country of the OECD - -Age structure and fertility - -The level and distribution of the working age population are determined by the age structure of the population. These include the average age of men and women, their expected numbers of children, their ages at which they would have their first birth, and the age difference between the age of their first birth and that of their expected sex partner(s). The average age of women is 15.3 years for OECD countries and 16.8 years for non-OECD countries. For women of child bearing age, the average age is 16.5 years. The proportion of women is higher in Nordic countries (19.3 and 20.8 respectively) with a male participation rate of around 80 percent. In comparison the OECD average is 19.9 percent for men and 30.9 percent for women. By 2064 the proportion of women will exceed the number of men in OECD countries to a greater extent than in non-OECD countries and non-European countries. There is a gender gap in the OECD (15.1 percent in 2015 and 16.6 percent by 2064). The gap is much more pronounced with respect to the expected first birth age of both sexes and the total number of children (16.4 versus 14.4 and 8.2 respectively). - -The age profile of the workers in the population is also influenced by their age. A higher proportion of younger workers are found in countries with high fertility (low estimated fertility for women) as well as low immigration (low numbers of immigration migrants). The age pyramid shows that the working age population is most concentrated in Nordic countries (Germany, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The age profile of the population in Germany is strongly influenced by the high level of fertility which contributes to an increasing ratio of the population of women aged 25-34 to that of men aged 30-34 (the ratio reaches 17.0 in 2015). - -When fertility is low, the male participation rate is still high (around 80-90 percent) even though the working age population is relatively lower. This is a common pattern in Nordic countries, as the gender gap in this case is larger than in the OECD as it is. Thus a higher proportion of women are found in these countries and the gender gap increases to around the same levels as the OECD. The level of gender participation also depends on the average number of babies per woman. For women, the highest participation rates are in Nordic countries (such as Sweden and Norway) where almost 80 percent of women have their first child before the age of 34 years and in the Czech Republic where around 70 percent of women have a baby before their 22nd birthday. The lowest levels of gender participation are found in the United States, France and Spain. - -The level of net international migration has a considerable impact on the composition of the population of a country. When the level of net migration is high, the composition of the population reflects the age profile. For this reason the composition of the population in Germany is heavily influenced by the ageing population and the low mortality and is relatively low in contrast to the OECD average. The ratio between the aged working age population and the under-60 age population is the highest in Nordics countries (Germany, the Czech Republic and Sweden), in Nordic countries including Japan and the Philippines with a ratio of approximately 2.2. The age gap of the population is relatively low in Japan and the Philippines (less than 10 percentage points), in the United Kingdom with a ratio of approximately two (2.0) and in Spain with a ratio of 1.86. In the United States the number of population and its aged population is high which contributes to the low ratio between the ratio of old to young people and people of working age. In comparison, these three countries with relatively high aging populations account for approximately two-thirds of the total population and have a ratio of roughly 1.5. - -The ratio between the age groups has more modest levels in Nordic countries (e.g. Sweden) and is significantly lower in the United Kingdom, Estonia, Mexico, Australia and Australia than in the OECD countries. The ratio of working age to the population aged 35 and over is about two in the United States, Denmark, Norway and Germany. The ratio of the population in the middle age group to the population aged between 35 and 39 and the -======================================== SAMPLE 320 ======================================== -SUMMARY - -A new method for the creation of high performance and reliable hybrid semiconductors has been developed by physicists from ETH and the Leibniz Institute of Solid State Research (WZ) in Germany. This method will help to greatly increase hybrid semiconductor performance while offering great power and mobility. The key aspect of the work is to produce superconductors with a highly uniform and homogeneous distribution of the magnetic dipoles and hence lower distortion. Furthermore, in comparison with other methods, we use a single, highly conductive material in high porosity, so high power devices using the new hybrid semiconductor materials will be even simpler and thus less delicate. - -The most outstanding feature of this work is that it was performed using high-temperature solid state chemistry, which has so far been impossible to develop for highly magnetised materials. Previous hybrid semiconductor materials have had to rely on the presence of a small amount of superconductive material inside the material to drive magnetic reversals in order to achieve high superconductivity. But this tiny amount of superconductor reduces the size of the material and therefore the energy density of a material, making it very difficult to scale up to extremely large sizes. By contrast, the very uniform distribution of the magnetic dipole magnetic phases in the new work allows much better performance and thus lower operating temperature. This results in a much lower cost and hence lower costs of the new materials. The combination of such high performance and high mobility will also require the development of high performance electronics for the very large applications.<|endoftext|>New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady did not practice again Thursday because of back spasms. However, he played on Sunday against the Texans and appeared to be in good condition. With Brady back on the field, it looks like the Patriots will be able to make it through the first quarter of the AFC Championship against the Indianapolis Colts without their star quarterback, according to Mike Reiss of ESPN. - -Tom Brady, who has been ruled out of the rest of the season, practiced Thursday after undergoing back, calf and hamstring spasms. Patriots team doctor Dr. James Andrews has ruled out any setback on Brady's condition and was hopeful that Brady would be ready for Sunday. - -The Patriots would like to have the league's MVP under center, but injuries to both him and Aaron Hernandez have kept both sidelined for extended periods of time.<|endoftext|>The University of Houston's student-run newspaper recently endorsed an election system on the school's ballot initiative to allow third-party candidates to appear on the November ballot. With about 8,100 students, UH is one of the largest campus student bodies in the country. - -The UH Independent, the student-run school newspaper, is backing a system of ranked-choice voting on the November ballot that would add more than 600,000 voter ranks to the already existing number of 4,290 ranked-choice-preferential ballots (RCP) which are distributed in every student government election. (READ: Why Ranked Choice Voting works) - -The new system would give independent candidates a more meaningful opportunity to be elected by allowing voters who haven't indicated a preference in the first round of balloting to rank their choices in order of preference. It would also give all voters a chance to determine who represents the student body at the University of Houston. - -UH Independent Editorial Board member Robert Niehoff stated in an editorial published Dec. 8, 2015, that the UH's third-party option as ranked-choice voting is one of his "top three ideas" the newspaper has to improve election administration. - -"Ranked choice voting would allow multiple-choice answers and even more candidates on the ballot, helping us have a more representative voting body," he said. - -Third-party candidate for UH student body president - -Niehoff also stressed in the editorial that the endorsement by the student-run newspaper did not amount to an institutional backing of any candidate. - -He noted that the support of the Independent's editorial board has nothing to do with any individual being endorsed by the board. - -"As we have said before, we do not wish for candidates to be endorsed by our paper, and are not seeking to do so," Niehoff said. - -He noted that the endorsement was not an automatic endorsement of any candidate for president. Rather, it was a decision made by the editorial board as an effort to bring new ideas to election administration. - -"We feel that this could result in a stronger election system," he said. "Students, regardless of political party affiliation, have the power to rank as many candidates for elected office as they want, but it can be beneficial to rank-order them to make sure that you make your best candidate win." - -The board endorsed candidates at least 30 times prior to this year's election, starting from the presidential election in 2014. - -The newspaper endorsed President Judy Genshaft in a Nov. 28 editorial, as well as Sen. Charles Perry in a Nov. 30 editorial the same -======================================== SAMPLE 321 ======================================== -The European Union and Turkey will continue "working constructively" as the two sides are still dealing with what was described as "significant political differences" following an announcement on Thursday outlining their future partnership. - -EU leaders and Turkish officials discussed the future of the deal under which Ankara has been pledged billions in aid and visa concessions by the bloc in return for curbing the flow of migrants across its borders. - -After a lengthy meeting of the EU's high representatives and their Turkish counterparts, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said he hoped to be able to present a joint paper outlining the two sides' new relationship by the end of the week. - -Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that after the meeting, which had gone "well", they had made "significant progress". - -His comments followed a surprise announcement by European Council president Donald Tusk, who said that negotiations on the future partnership were now entering "final stages". - -"Today we said 'yes' to the European Union and Turkey. Tomorrow we start the final stages of the preparations for the next steps," Mr Tusk said after the talks. - -Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mr Tusk confirmed the new partnership as they signed a joint declaration, adding that the first steps were going "well". - -The EU has already proposed the Turkish presidency as part of the partnership, a role which Turkey has strongly resisted but which the EU hopes could be one that could open up accession talks and eventually trade talks. - -With an estimated four million migrants coming to Europe since the start of 2015, Mr Erdogan has said a deal is "vital" for the country's future. - -Following the announcement of the partnership, the European Commission said it would also launch preparatory discussions to "explore whether Turkey could become an EU candidate country" and "how the partnership could be made more ambitious". - -The two sides have already been working on specific areas, including migration as well as the fight against terrorism, terrorism financing and people smuggling. - -Mr Avramopoulos also said, "I will now hold regular contacts with Turkey in order to strengthen our collaboration in dealing with migration in the future". The EU has also vowed to speed up the deportation of illegal migrants with the agreement also including a "package" which would include support for Turkey to "restore" the rule of law, rule of law reform in Turkey and an investment plan worth €3 billion from the EU. - -Speaking after the meeting, Mr Kiyikaz said that Turkey and the EU are in a position of "first choice" in the battle against refugees as the "only two countries on the front line who have not succumbed" to the refugee crisis. - -Following the signing of the deal, Turkey's top diplomat said: "Today the world has been shocked with news of the breakthrough. And what they have just heard from Turkish authorities is a complete, reliable and factual account of the developments leading to this breakthrough." - -"Today the world has been shocked with news of the breakthrough. And what they have just heard from Turkish authorities is a complete, reliable and factual account of the developments leading to this breakthrough." - -Mr Kiyikaz said that Turkish and European officials had discussed the possibility of an EU summit on May 28 to mark the signing of the deal as they spoke, adding: "This summit will send a very strong message to the governments of Europe and to public opinion that the agreement will be implemented." - -Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Show all 17 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Turkey coup attempt 1/17 Turkish President Erdogan attends the funeral service for victims of the thwarted coup in Istanbul at Fatih mosque on July 17, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey Burak Kara/Getty Images 2/17 Soldiers involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge with their hands raised in Istanbul on 16 July, 2016 Gokhan Tan/Getty 3/17 A civilian beats a soldier after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 REUTERS/Murad Sezer 4/17 Surrendered Turkish soldiers who were involved in the coup are beaten by a civilian Reuters 5/17 Soliders involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge Getty 6/17 Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave flags as they capture a Turkish Army vehicle Getty 7/17 People pose near a tank after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 Reuters 8/17 Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde Getty 9/17 A Turkish military stands guard near the Taksim Square in Istanbul Reuters 10/17 Pierre Crom/Twitter 11/17 Turkish soldiers secure the area as supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan protest in Istanbul's Taksim square AP 12/17 Murad Sezer/Reuters 13/17 Turkish soldiers detain police officers during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge -======================================== SAMPLE 322 ======================================== -In the middle of the night on June 14th of last year, a young man and his wife were shot and killed on the doorstep of their home near the University of Texas at Austin. They had just gotten up to attend a party on their front porch, where they'd been enjoying themselves, when they were ambushed by four men. Two of the attackers opened fire on the two women, killing them both. Then, while one of the women was still trying to fight back, the man was shot in the neck, killing him. - -In the midst of the attack, a third suspect shot and killed himself. In the immediate aftermath of this tragedy and the investigation that followed, I was asked by family friends to assist with a local police and homicide task force. After some time, when I saw the case for what it was, I decided to go public with this tragedy. - -In the weeks and months since then I've learned first-hand of the challenges that law enforcement face when they go out and interview the public. Many witnesses are initially reluctant to talk to police, because they fear retribution from friends and neighbors, as well as because they don't know their legal rights. Others are reluctant to talk to police because they've found their trust in law enforcement to be misplaced, whether because of questionable practices or a perceived lack of transparency when it comes to official policy. - -What you will find in my first book, Making a Murderer: The Case Against Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey was the stories of these witnesses and others, many of whom are now speaking out about the trauma they experienced, as well as the fear and frustration they have carried with them for a long time and continue to carry into this new century. - - -My hope is to help fill in some of the gaps in the information we currently have for some of these men and women, by showing the rest of us that the system of justice can work and can help bring these two men and two women home. - -For my own part, it was a long journey for me to get to where we are today. At the outset of the course, the director of the criminal justice unit at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggested that, in the name of the students and their families, I should begin this course with an essay on one of the men's and women's stories. So, on February 6, I wrote a short, brief essay, called "A Casebook for the Killer Next Door." As I wrote, I was overwhelmed with emotion and thought about the many ways in which Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey, their families, and all those who were affected could benefit from the perspective of witnesses who knew them. I wrote with an eye toward making this short essay as accessible as possible for those who wouldn't normally be a part of the legal system, and also for those who might take exception to a story or argument that I was making about the men and women who lived in this small town in Wisconsin. It was clear from my experiences and research from previous years that many police departments are extremely reluctant to interview people who have lived in similar communities, a phenomenon that I hope I could help change in my writing. - - -From the outset of this work on Making a Murderer, I've seen tremendous passion from family and friends, and from those around the world who support the families of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. I have also read a number of blogs that have questioned the reliability and fairness of my sources and have gone on record to assert that I am in direct opposition to the legal system in this case. To them, I can say that my personal experiences have inspired me in the right way, and that my work on the Making a Murderer series has been the result of deep reflection and an investigation that included many hours and often many days spent with many individuals. I have also learned that our public institutions have far to go to become more transparent and accountable to the people they serve. - -On October 22, 2014, in the wake of the release of the Netflix documentary series, I posted an article in The New York Times Magazine which summarized my experience in the criminal justice academy. I am in full support of the judicial system, public servants, and our entire legal system, including the media, and for that I hold nothing but high regard. I would just like to be able to talk about, at least occasionally, a few more of the people who live in the same small town in Wisconsin that I grew up in: Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. It's clear to me that most journalists are ignorant about the law, the justice process, and the people that they come across. What you will find in my first book, Making a Murderer: The Case Against Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey was the stories of these witnesses and others, many of whom are now speaking out about the trauma they experienced, as well as the fear and frustration they have carried with them for a long time and continue to carry into this new century. - -I thank those who took the time -======================================== SAMPLE 323 ======================================== -Image copyright PA Image caption Police said Mr Toms was stabbed to death outside his home - -A man accused of killing a man after a row outside a nightclub has been found guilty of murder. - -Andrew Toms, 22, from Ballymena, was stabbed outside the Club Inferno complex in Belfast. - -The Old Bailey heard a trial in which the jury deliberated for five days before finding him guilty. - -Toms, from north Belfast, was originally said to be suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time. - -The 22-year-old, who did not apply for bail, has been charged with murder and other charges including possessing a dagger which caused grievous bodily harm. - -In May, he was jailed for 12 years for stabbing a father of four to death at a house party in north Belfast. - -Sentencing Toms at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Jay said: "At that time there were problems with the defendant in relation to his mental health issues and he had had some episodes. - -In 2009, Mr Jay said, Toms, from Clogher, had had a mental breakdown after which his mother warned him to stay away from her home. - -In 2012, while the court heard the court was investigating Toms' mental health, he was found at a police station on Thursday. - -He had apparently thrown away his passport for an extended period of time. - -'Struggling to come to terms with reality' - -The court was told Toms had attended a police station on Tuesday morning after taking a taxi to the PSNI's station in the city on Tuesday night where police found his body. - -Det Insp Sean Price said at the time: "The defendant was suffering from delusions at the time and was struggling to come to terms with reality and his actions, as is clear to anyone who attended or interacted with this man last night and for many months prior." - -Image copyright PA Image caption Andrew Toms stabbed a man to death on Monday - -The trial was told Toms had told officers: "I feel like I'm living through my own life."<|endoftext|>Fully assembled 4-player games on an Arduino Due - -This tutorial is all about how to assemble a fully assembled 8-player games system on an Arduino Due, using only the components available on the board. You'll get a fully functioning game (without dice), and how to assemble the game, with step-by-step instructions and some assembly videos. - -Getting Started - -We're going to need the following items: - -Arduino Due - -12V 5a power supply - -A display that runs on power - -Arduino cable (or any other cable that you don't mind removing) - -Power jack - -4 "P" connectors - -24 button pads - -Possibly other components. The "P" connectors may also be soldered to the button pads - -You may also want to buy a 4x4 wooden version of the display, if you're going to be painting your boards. I picked mine up for €5 at ebay. - -Some time ago, you may also have needed to buy and install some "AoB" (Assemble to Block) jumper wires, which you'll need to remove once you're finished (see below). I suggest you use a small amount of flux-cored solder to do that; it's not a huge amount of work. - -Getting Everything Together - -I'm going to assume you've done the wiring step, that you're comfortable with wiring, and/or that you've read through the first six steps of this guide. If you have been thinking about this, you should have already. - -You'll need to plug in your Arduino using the "AA" connection, and plug in your display using the "DP" connection. You will also need to connect your USB host cable to your machine (see the step-by-step instructions below), and plug in the power supply. - -If you're following the "Simple" tutorial, you will need to connect the "AA" connection to Pin 12 (A1), and Pin 11 (A2) to Pin 2 (A5). This is because if you're already using a display like the Uno, there won't be any pins left for any other kind of display. If you choose to use the "Easy" tutorial above, you'll need to connect the "AA" connection to Pin 8 (B4), and Pin 6 (B9) to Pin 5. - -Using our simple example, let's say you want to use this board for a "2-player" version of the "Space Invaders" arcade game. We'll want to connect P1 ("A0") and P2 ("A1") to "Pin 1 (A0) and Pin 8 (B6)". So we'll be using P1 ("A0") and P2 ("A1)", and so -======================================== SAMPLE 324 ======================================== -The world's oceans are a lot bigger than we thought. The ocean holds more than 200 trillion tons of water compared to the 25 trillion tons we thought we had, scientists say in a study published in the journal Science. - -That would make the oceans 10 times as big as the United States. That's quite a bit more water than, say, China, which holds 4.6 trillion tons of water. - -Researchers analyzed 40 years of ocean measurements, and their results came up with the estimate of the water mass. The estimate depends on how scientists measure the ocean's density (how much water is concentrated in something compared to a dry desert), and not on how much water actually gets into the ocean. - -In the study, they note that the world's oceans store only 6 percent of the world's energy but take up 90 percent of the globe's surface. - -Oceanographers have observed an increase in water masses in recent years, especially since 1984. During that time, oceanographer Jeff Masters and oceanographer J.P. Ohlsson published a study indicating that the ocean's water contents have risen by 516 trillion liters, or 6 percent, over the past 30 years. At that rate, if the oceans continue to add water, that would mean that, one day, the seas might exceed 1.1 kilometers (0.6 miles) thick, they say. - -Oceanographers have been studying the amount of water in the oceans because, at least in theory, understanding this vital force could save us from sea level rise. - -Scientists measure the amount of water in various places by pulling out a small sample and measuring its density. - -We have known about the water in the Atlantic Ocean for some time, but it was too big to be captured by a ship. - -In the late 1970s, researchers figured out how to sink a small submersible, remotely operated by Masters's team, into the Atlantic. In 1986, they successfully sent it to a depth of 500 meters (1,640 feet), where it measured the water at a depth of 2,829 meters (9,072 feet). (That's a full 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles). - -The ocean has been getting larger since then because of the warming oceans. Since 1985, the water around each island has been getting warmer — and that expansion of water has also produced an increase in global temperature, which can in turn cause the oceans to get warmer. - -Since 1986, scientists have been able to get better measurements of the water around islands. - -That same year, oceanographer J.P. Ohlsson and others published the first estimate of all the masses currently in the world's oceans. At the time, Ohlsson also estimated the entire water sphere had a volume of more than 700,000 cubic kilometers (250,000 cubic miles). - -The problem with oceanographers' prior estimates was that they came up with the number based on measurements of densities, rather than on water volume. - -In the new study, Ohlsson and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed data from the Global Oceans Atlas (GOA) and discovered that the water masses had actually increased by around 1 trillion liters (0.0001 percent). - -They conclude, "At least a portion of the added water is going somewhere else — either into the deeper ocean or over land. The most likely contribution is water that's now over land." - -Read More: - -Scientists say this is where Antarctica's biggest glaciers will someday melt - -Scientists say the Arctic is losing sea ice faster than expected - -As the U.S. tries to reduce carbon dioxide in the air, it's turning to coal-fired power plants - -Scientists just realized humans have contributed almost all the carbon dioxide in the world since pre-industrial times<|endoftext|>(RNS) One in four evangelical Protestants do not endorse same-sex marriage, according to a new study released on Tuesday (April 15). - -The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), asked 1,016 evangelical Protestant pastors what percentage of their congregations support marriage equality. - -Of that total, only 28 percent answered "a great deal" or "fair amount" of their congregants support marriage for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. (That would mean that 19 percent are in favor of all of these relationships and another 16 percent are in favor of only one particular type of relationship.) - -A full 76 percent said they don't have a lot of their congregants support marriage for gay people. - -"The data shows that it's not just that evangelicals differ on the issue," said PRRI President and CEO Robert P. Jones in a statement ahead of the new study release. "They differ sharply in what they think marriage means." - -The study does point to two bright spots for evangelicals supporting gay marriage. On the one hand, 59 percent of millennials — those ages 18 to 31 — support marriage for gay -======================================== SAMPLE 325 ======================================== -Tired of having to constantly find your way to your phone in order to check for updates, your phone bill, or your favorite movie? - -Maybe you'll like taking pictures with your phone, but you can quickly forget what the shutter button does or how to use autofocus - with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, you'll be using the optical image sensor and laser autofocus system together! But it won't come cheap: the standard iPhone 6s starts at $649 and can go up to $949, and there's an even more extreme option: the new $649 6s Plus. - -Optical image sensor - -The 6s (and 6s Plus) uses an optical image sensor (OIS) that can detect object, motion, and distance. These sensors are known for their ability to focus quickly, and this camera's is just as fast - it's able to focus and capture pictures on even the fastest moving objects. - -This lens system combined with a laser autofocus system enables extremely accurate focus on just about everything, including people, faces, and small objects like coins or pencils. With the iPhone 6s, we've improved autofocus accuracy by 50%, making it so that subjects no longer move while you're focusing on them. There's also a new mode that detects your subject and lets you instantly shoot a photo using Live Photos as a bonus! - -A special feature called Face ID - -Face ID is a new biometric authentication system and one of the technologies that was used in the TrueDepth camera in the iPhone 7. It uses an infrared camera for depth image information and facial recognition technology to verify your identity. It is incredibly accurate and uses infrared light, unlike the typical contrast based techniques we use with touch sensors. That means the iPhone's camera will be able to detect objects around you even better than it does when it reads your fingerprints. The camera's sensitivity is even better, helping it see faces even in bright daylight, for more advanced scanning and identification. - -New Camera - -The iPhone's camera has improved for an exciting new year, with a new 12-megapixel iSight sensor featuring higher resolution and wider f/2.2 lens. Additionally, you'll have more control over shutter speed and ISO. And because this camera is so easy to use with Siri, you now have a better way to take stunning shots with just your voice. To access more of these camera settings, go into the settings menu under viewfinder. - -Touch ID - -Touch ID is a new biometric authentication technology that adds a touch sensor to the iPhone's home button. When combined with the Touch ID sensor, it's possible to unlock the phone with your face, hands, or face prints. - -Touch ID works both with the Touch ID sensor and when Face ID is enabled. It is fast, convenient, and secure — and unlike a password, it is never sent to Apple. This is the only phone with Touch ID, so when Face ID is enabled, it is only available through Touch ID and Touch ID is secure. - -A big leap forward in camera technology - -Apple took a major step forward in the quality of iPhone cameras with the introduction of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, delivering the best smartphone camera ever. The images captured with these cameras are amazing and so are the photos you create. - -More iPhone models in the future - -We're continuing to invest in the iPhone experience with an incredible line-up of new iPhones. The new iPhone 6s and new iPhones 6s Plus will include the new 12-megapixel iSight camera and improved sensors to enable greater accuracy. And our new iPhones will offer a smaller form, all with optical image stabilization. - -At the same time, we're working with existing iPhone vendors on even more innovative hardware to keep you in touch with the things you care about. The most notable of these is our partnership with LG to enhance screen performance with the upcoming iPhone SE. - -We've also announced three innovative accessories including a new, lightweight wireless case, an upgraded AirPort Extreme base station, and a wireless charging iPhone 7. - -Keep an eye on the Apple product page for more news, details, and videos about all that we've announced in 2018. - -What's in the box? - -iPhone 6s and 6s Plus - -Lightning to AC adapter and adapter cord (US, UK, AU) - -A1696 Apple EarPods - -MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter - -Lightning to MagSafe 2 adapter cable - -Quick Start guide - -Apple Lightning to MagSafe-to-MagSafe cable (4.75 feet) - -Power adapter - -User manual - -iPhone SE - -iPhone SE's screen is larger, thinner, and even comes in a more colorful design. Its screen uses True Tone technology, which adjusts the color temperature for more natural skin tones, for example, while its camera has an ISO range of 100 -======================================== SAMPLE 326 ======================================== -You've probably got an idea on the best diet for you and your pet. But if you really wanted to know, how would you go about conducting an experiment to figure it all out? - -That's exactly what our friend Dr. Susan Snyder, a veterinary cardiologist, has recently done with her pets. She has given them the option of following diets with no nutritional value or a specific nutrient profile. - -Dr. Snyder then ran 12 experimental trials, comparing results. She found that dogs and other animals can make some intelligent, if not informed, decisions when faced with the prospect of a diet change. For dogs, she gave the option of eating the food they've always eaten, or a higher-protein diet. For cats, she gave the option to go low-fat or a low-carb diet – an option that was far different to what cats are accustomed to, because many cats have been raised on a meat-based diet. - -How did she choose the experimental diets? - -She had a series of groups follow either a commercial, no-frills vegan or meat-based diet for five consecutive days. These were the same food diets, but at two different times: on day one, the dogs were introduced to the food to find out what they liked and didn't like, but on day five, the dogs were offered a higher protein, high-fat, low-cholesterol diet, or a low-fat low-cholesterol diet. - -Her goal was to determine how long it takes a dog to adjust to a diet change. By giving each dog a food diet, she discovered whether she, the owner or the pet food manufacturer had any influence on its behavior. She found that the animals didn't take long to become accustomed to a new food diet. That is, they were as happy and contented eating the diet as they were eating the previous one, and they ate the same number of calories per day. - -The experiment revealed how quickly, and to what degree, the animal's digestive system can change its metabolism, and how long animals are able to adapt to a new diet. Dr. Snyder also wanted to show that animals can be made to change behaviors by their owner, but if they don't know what the food is and how the new food tastes, they may not eat it. - -What do you think would come of this research? - -"I thought the concept was interesting because it's not easy to do, even the most advanced nutrition studies," says Dr. Snyder. She's not sure if any other studies are on the horizon, and isn't sure what the implications are for dog owners as well as for pet food manufacturers. "We've just barely figured out how dogs digest and use food, and it will take some more work to understand the impact of different diets," she says. - -Read more about the experiment and the results in Dr. Susan Snyder's recent article in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. - - -What were the differences between the experimental diets? - -She used a low-fat diet and a meat-rich diet, and found that both diets had the same impact on dogs; they consumed a similar number of calories and did not differ in their overall nutrient content. The only major differences between the diets were that the meat-rich diet contained more fat and protein, which may have encouraged dogs to seek their dinner outside, and had a more sweetened taste and was more salty. - -What does this mean to dog owners? Do you have to eat a meat-centric diet, because your dog is going to need to? - -Your dog has the right to choose what he/she eats, it's just a matter of what he/she has learned to love. You can be sure that it won't affect your dog – most of them never even learn if food has too many calories or not enough. - -And although you might feel like your dog is getting a double dose of calories, a study shows that dogs with the same overall size, breed and age group, but from different breeds, also had the same body weight as the meat-based diet. They used a different feeding system, which made them more physically demanding, for which you may find that your dog is not ready. - -Is this the same as giving a dog a taste test to see whether it wants to eat the food? - -No. Dr. Snyder's "taste test" was designed to assess a potential change in food preference, and is not intended to compare foods between dogs or to determine the nutritional value of food. - -Read more about the experiment and the results in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. - -This story originally appeared on the WebMD Health Blog.<|endoftext|>In an op-ed in Thursday's Los Angeles Times, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) lamented the state of the world and America's role in it—and suggested that in order to move beyond America's current state of political and economic paralysis, it must begin by -======================================== SAMPLE 327 ======================================== -SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah House voted down Wednesday an attempt by the legislature's majority Democrats to extend to 14 more years a ban on gay adoptions. - -The vote was 49 Democrats and two Republicans opposed. It's unclear if Republican Gov. Gary Herbert will sign House Bill 2059, which would have brought gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning parents into the legal adoptee pool. - -Supporters contend the law would have given an opportunity and a reason for gays and lesbians to adopt children, a view that opponents say is based on a "mischaracterization" of Utah's parental rights law that they say was intended to keep children in homes. - -Utah's House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. - -Utah was the first state to allow gay same-sex couples to adopt, in 1997. Before that a child in Utah could only be considered for adoption if the child already lived with a couple whose name matches the couple's. - -Same-sex couples are barred from adopting in 29 states, according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights. - -Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<|endoftext|>The Canadian Press - - -QUEBEC CITY - The Quebec government plans to add new laws on Monday making it illegal to encourage people to buy or sell animal parts such as fur, horn, pelts and parts of wild birds. - -A bill will be voted on as a government backgrounder, which means it will not face the usual Liberal-dominated committee process. - -It proposes fines of up to $100,000 and up to two years in jail for violations of the new animal rights laws. - -Quebec Environment Minister David Heurtel says no one can buy fur or products derived from animal parts in Quebec; he says that means the country as a whole should ban them. - -The Quebec government is also proposing new regulations on the sale of parts of birds and other animals. - -They include requiring that a licence have been issued by a judge to allow the purchase or sale of pelts or the skin of a dead animal and prohibiting the use of animal-derived products for cosmetic purposes. - -Animal rights activists protested on Wednesday near the Pascale Leblanc-Regan Centre in Montreal where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will speak before the Quebec Legislature. - -Trudeau said he hoped to hear more about the Quebec bill as it moves forward, adding if Quebec could enact such rules without having to negotiate the issue with Ottawa, Ontario and the Western provinces, it may be possible federally. - -Trudeau is also expected to speak later that day at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa. - -Prime Minister Stephen Harper was asked Wednesday about the government saying it wanted to be sure that its new animal rights legislation was respected by the courts with regards to animals used in other countries. - -Harper said Canada has always been a country where people should be able to make choices, but that the issue is complicated when it comes to animals. - -He noted that Quebec had already moved to ban the use of live animal markets and have those markets shut down by 2017, adding that he was committed to ensuring Canadians in Quebec are not forced to trade in the product of cruelty in other countries. - -Harper was speaking in Brampton, Ont., to mark Canada Day and to recognize it for the first time as an official day of commemoration. - -Canada Day will be Tuesday, August 6.<|endoftext|>New Orleans Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry has reportedly been fired by the team following a 2-12 start that has many questioning if he should still be with the team. Gentry was with New Orleans for eight seasons before being fired after a disappointing 2013-14 campaign. - -The team is currently looking for both a new head coach and general manager, and no one has been named for either of those jobs. The Pelicans fired Steve Kerr on Sunday after less than a year as the team's coach, and Gentry was let go after he made it known he considered retiring from coaching earlier in the season. But that is a far cry from firing Gentry for a poor season -- the team is just 1-6 on the year and has only two players on roster who were on the team last season: Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon. The team's bench is depleted, with the Pelicans bench having the NBA's fourth-worst average minutes per game at just 22.1 minutes per game. The team is also the only NBA franchise this season not to have an NBA Development League team. - -"I can't speak for what's been going on with the organization," Gentry told reporters on Sunday. "What I can speak to is what I've known, and that is that I think the organization's made a decision, and I'm sure that's something that hasn't been well received by many people out there, or at least in the world. I thought things were headed in a better -======================================== SAMPLE 328 ======================================== -Grimsby City councillors say the current proposal has been received poorly by the public, the police and council and is too costly to implement. - -The council decided on Wednesday night to table the proposal to introduce a new development charge, the highest in the country, to generate extra funds for social care. The scheme will see the top rate of council tax to rise by a third from April to generate an estimated £2.3bn a year to fund care costs. - -The proposed rate would be in addition to GLC, which currently covers care costs, which currently cost up to £17,500 per year per person. All but two local areas have GLC. Many other councils charge up to £12,000. - -The Scottish government said the funding scheme would be more consistent in charging local area rates. - -Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the government's reforms would ensure that health and social care bills are fairer, save money and help ensure that more care workers are paid. - -"The new tax would be the first of its kind in the country – not only raising money but providing money which can fund care for the elderly and vulnerable," she said. - -The proposed rate will raise an extra £50m a year for the Scottish Exchequer because of a £20m annual extra from bringing the highest rate closer to the UK average. - -The new GLC would give every family a £4,000 tax rebate, with the money given to local councils to fund social care. - -The new funding is in addition to the £1.5bn a year the Scottish Government says the Scottish parliament will receive this year and which it will use to fund health and social care. The health and care funding will come from the Department of Health's Personal Independence Payment scheme, which gives people with a personal care allowance for care, such as personal care assistants, some of their care costs covered. - -It is intended to give people with low incomes more choice in the way their care is provided. - -There had been previous concerns expressed from some councillors about how the new tax would be applied, particularly for small businesses. - -However, a number of local council representatives said they remained convinced the changes were needed to support vulnerable families. - -Councillor Lesley Hinds said she wanted to raise an extra £500m to support social care, saying she would oppose any change which would have been a waste of money. - -Councillor Colin MacIsaac added: "While I understand that it is only one tax that will be taken into account, I do feel that there needs to be some consistency and fairness with that." - -Labour council leader Andy Kerr said the decision to introduce a new scheme was premature given the recent referendum and the fact that Labour had agreed to devolve more power to Scotland.<|endoftext|>1.2 - -We have received many feedback from our users about the lack of useful feedback and the lack of notifications. This update brings a more intuitive and easy to use feedback experience. - - -1.2: - -- Bug fixes - - -If you find the app useful or if you wish to support us do not forget to rate it on the App Store. If you love the game please try and keep the feedback coming by completing challenges and sharing your experience with us on Facebook - http://facebook.com/NordicScarf - - -Thank you for your support and Happy New Year 2016!<|endoftext|>LONDON—Citing the imminent threat of a military solution, British Prime Minister David Cameron reportedly told American President Barack Obama on Wednesday that the United States should intervene militarily and help the United Kingdom and Ukraine defend their nations. "Our nation is vulnerable. We live in a very dangerous world. Our borders are porous. There are people seeking to attack us. We must be prepared. The situation on the ground could not be more dire and the threats are growing by the day," said Cameron, who acknowledged that Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine's Crimea region and annex it immediately. "Right now our actions require the United States to support us. If only President Obama was willing to help us defend ourselves." At press time, British fighter jets had launched an airstrike across the Ukrainian border to try and stop Russia from sending in tanks. - -Advertisement<|endoftext|>H.G. Wells (1897-1961) was a fictional scientist and science fiction author. He popularized the notions of time travel and other scientific themes to a popular audience. He's considered one of the best science fiction writers in history. He published more than 150 science fiction novels, and was the world's second-largest bestselling author. He also wrote more than a thousand articles and memoirs in many countries on philosophy, politics, psychology, and more. - -In this episode we discuss: - -The importance of literature and science in modern society in H.G. Wells' time - -His relationship with his wife Mary Wollstonecraft - -How he became interested in science fiction - -His vision for a -======================================== SAMPLE 329 ======================================== -SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE - A 27-year-old man was shot to death and another man wounded in West Rogers Park early Saturday in what authorities believe was a targeted attack, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. - -The shooting happened shortly after 2 a.m. in the 4900 block of West Belmont Avenue at the intersection of Belmont and Belmont, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer. - -Investigators determined that the pair were in a group of eight people "when an altercation took place" in the street before the gunman walked away with their weapon, Greer said. The shooting apparently occurred as other people arrived at the scene. - -A man, who authorities would not identify, was shot in the neck and pronounced dead at the scene, Greer said. A 28-year-old man was fatally wounded in his upper leg and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. The man whose death was ruled a homicide was listed in critical condition. - -All of the victims suffered from gunshot wounds and were taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, authorities said. - -The Cook County medical examiner's office has not yet released the names of the victims. - -A $50,000 reward was issued for information leading to an arrest in the shooting. - -An attorney representing the family of the deceased man declined comment Sunday on Monday. - -The victims are believed to have been members of the same gang, Greer said. - -An autopsy was scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday. No one had been charged as of Monday morning. - -chicagobreaking@tribune.com | Twitter:@ChicagoBreaking<|endoftext|>DALLAS - -In an effort to make the Dallas Stars better, owner Tom Gaglardi's decision to bench struggling left wing Patrick Sharp, center Martin Hanzal and defenseman Alex Goligoski was not a shocking one. - -Sharp, a former first-round pick, did little over the past five seasons to prove he belongs among the NHL's top players. Hanzal, a fifth-round pick in 2010, has been a disappointment since being acquired from the New York Rangers. Goligoski has rarely left the ice this season, and his play has been erratic and lackluster. - -Still, it is difficult to say the Stars have to choose between one of their most important players and all their future franchise cornerstone forward, Jamie Benn. - -General manager Jim Nill has stated he wants Hanzal and Goligoski retained, but with Benn still working hard to return from a broken foot, the Stars still might pursue a trade that would send both the 23-year-old Finn and their second-leading scorer — behind Patrick Eaves — to another Western Conference contender. - -"They've played extremely well together, but they have a ton of chemistry together," NHL Network analyst Scott Burnside said of Hanzal and Goligoski's time on the power play. "Hanzal has a very good shot from that [left wing] spot, and I think their linemates have been great to them. I think they have had a good chemistry this season, and I think there's going to be a point or two where he can't keep up with [Goligoski]." - -So what is the deal? - -Nill said the Stars can't ignore their two top power-play shooters — even though both are injured — because they could be dealt this summer for another high-quality player. - -"You always want to pick up your guys that are playing well, and when you do that, it makes the team more capable," Nill said. "It makes everyone around them better, so if there's a way we're going to get that talent, it's going to be by making a deal to bring our guys back." - -The Stars need to address their top six forwards if they're going to improve upon a 24th-place finish in the Western Conference with 56 points. Eaves was in a contract year, and while he's scored 25 goals, he scored just nine in 61 games the past two seasons. - -Goligoski — who has played nearly 28 minutes per game over the past two seasons — has been an elite defenseman in this league since he entered the league. He's played on the second power-play unit, and he's had the chance to move to third-line center. - -Hanzal has been a reliable third-line center for the Stars since being acquired from the New York Rangers in 2011. But the 6-foot-3 forward has started to wear down a bit lately, and his role on the power play has diminished. - -Still, the 33-year-old Swede has 15 goals and 51 points in 72 games last season. He has played in three straight All-Star Games, and he has played -======================================== SAMPLE 330 ======================================== -Lyrics - -There's just one rule - if it's red, white & blue, - -The White House's on fire tonight - --And you ain't got no rules - -If it's red, white & blue - -The White House's on fire tonight - --But you don't - --You don't have no rules - -If it's red, white & blue - -The White House's on fire tonight - --But you do - --You do - --You do - --You do<|endoftext|>As we continue to learn more about the new "Nokia Lumia 1520", Nokia announced yesterday that it would be unveiling two new phones at MWC this week – the Nokia Lumia 1320 and Nokia Lumia 1520. While the Lumia 1320 was announced as a full Windows Phone 8.1 device at MWC in January, the Lumia 1520 has not been released at all – at least officially – and it is still unannounced. Now, it looks like Nokia may be looking to change that at the end of this month. - -T-Mobile Insider has spotted pictures which allegedly show details of an upcoming Android-centric Lumia smartphone, code-named F8. Nokia is using Android to boost its revenue, according to our sources, so it makes some sense to explore the possibilities with Google. The T-Mobile insider also stated that there might be additional phones which will come preinstalled with the F8 OS and it is not certain if they would arrive alongside the Lumia 1520. - -It is possible the F8 will be released alongside the Lumia 1520 - -As we previously reported, Nokia seems to be planning an even bigger splash at a couple of events taking place in Barcelona this month – one of them will be the MWC show. While we have only seen pictures of the Lumia 1520, and Nokia's new Android-centric phone is still unannounced, there is a lot of anticipation for this new Nokia flagship. We will be at MWC and will bring you everything as it develops in our liveblogs on June 6 and 7th (click here for a full schedule of press events and events).<|endoftext|>By John Denton - -The US Senate last week narrowly passed a federal bill to allow states to impose new restrictions on "assault weapons" that lawmakers say have become too popular. The legislation is unlikely to become law, however, because it's unlikely to ever become law. - -As a nation, the US has a long and proud tradition of having a debate over the nature of weapons with both sides in full view, and one doesn't need to look far to find examples of the kind of discussion Americans have over the nation's guns. - -The earliest American guns were small muskets, the kind our young Republic would have been a joke to have had if it couldn't have had muskets. There was one problem, though, muskets were cumbersome and inconvenient to use, so they were eventually replaced by the lighter breech-loading weapons we know to this day. The early designs were also prone to malfunction, meaning every gun required a trained marksman. - -What you have is a country with the second-lowest gun ownership in the developed world, and a gun violence problem no smaller than its crime rate because so many guns were already available in the early days. - -The first serious attempts to restrict firearm ownership came in 1881. A law passed by Congress imposed a ten-year prohibition on the manufacture and sale of "any firearm which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel any other projectile by the action of an explosive." - -This language was taken up soon after in the states around the country, and most states did just as they had done before. The next big attempt at gun control came in 1934 with the Gun Control Act of 1934. This law imposed a federal ban on semi-automatic guns as well as an registration scheme (which was later abandoned, thanks to the NRA) and the transfer of all firearms. (It's no coincidence some of the most deadly crimes involve semi-automatic weapons). - -A few states were able to defy the federal government by passing laws of their own making. Nevada's law for example outlawed possession by anyone with a past conviction for a violent crime, or anyone holding a license to carry a pistol. Other states, such the District of Columbia, passed laws that restricted the sales of semi-automatic weapons to only state residents. - -While these laws were supposed to prevent gun trafficking through federal law enforcement and to prevent the gun from being used in crimes, it didn't work out that way. After World War II, most gun rights advocates began to realize that the federal law was an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of the states themselves, and with the passage in 1942 of a federal law designed to regulate interstate commerce in firearms, there were signs that firearms law reform might be gaining momentum. - -But this was about to be short-lived, as with the passage in 1947 of Fire -======================================== SAMPLE 331 ======================================== -I recently got a chance to try a new line of supplements from Dr. Bose: the Bose Supersonic Tinnitus Solution. I have to say that I've never heard of anything like it. - -I've been reading and hearing a lot about the subject of tinnitus for years, and I've found that the vast majority of the advice given is quite a bit old school. They've all talked about the basics. - -My goal was to get some new recommendations. I wanted something with a bit of modern science at its core. I wanted to know what Dr. Bose has done in order to come up with this new product. - -It took about two weeks, but the Bose Supersonic Tinnitus Solution arrived, and I am so pleased with it. - -What Is Tinnitus And How Is It Treated? - -Tinnitus is a temporary disturbance in the sound of your own voice. You might suffer from it once or twice a day, or you might suffer from it constantly. It ranges from a barely perceptible sound in the middle of the night to having to stop your own speech because it hurts (the latter is called ringing in the ears). - -Tinnitus is usually a temporary disruption in a communication system that you're using, either because you're having a sudden earache or you're listening over-a-thong in a noisy subway car. When these people call 911, a few minutes later, they're no longer able to hear their voices. We often hear people refer to this as ringing in their ears, but that doesn't really capture the reality of it. Tinnitus is different. It's the sound of your own voice ringing in your head. - -Although many people believe they have tinnitus and don't know it, the symptoms are usually very subtle and hard to notice. They might include pain in some area of the head, or a buzzing sound in the middle ear, or difficulty hearing the difference between a whisper and a scream. People with tinnitus often don't think about it unless they hear a sudden sound in the middle of the night or in the middle of a long conversation. - -Tinnitus and ringing in the ears can be caused by hearing damage, stroke, or hearing loss. There are medications to treat it, including medications that target the tinnitus-producing nerve and/or medications that activate specific receptors. - -Tinnitus Therapy For Anxiety - -As I've discussed before, tinnitus is quite common. According to the National Institute for Mental Health, "the prevalence of tinnitus was 1.5% in the American population in 2017 [or 20 million people]. The prevalence was higher for men (1.7%) and women (1.5%), and for people without any hearing disability (1.1%), especially among older people." - -In order to treat tinnitus, you first have to identify the underlying problem. Tinnitus has been identified as a very common problem (more than 75 percent of the time, tinnitus is more typical of women than men), and there are various therapies that can help. - -There is no one perfect answer to treating tinnitus, and there are no silver bullets. However, there are a lot of different ways to alleviate tinnitus, and they work reasonably well for many people. - -One of those is called "tinnitus management therapy." These are very small studies that have tried to identify what causes tinnitus and some sort of tinnitus control therapy. For example, there is the Tinnitus Neuroplasticity Approach which teaches your brain to "tune" or "modify a portion of the tinnitus signal," as shown below. However, there hasn't been much science showing tinnitus management therapy to be effective. - -Tinnitus Management Therapies From a Research Perspective - -Several studies have tried to use tinnitus therapy for anxiety. While some of the findings are promising, researchers haven't produced evidence about when and how tinnitus treatments might work for anxiety. I am hoping research such as this leads to the development of a better tinnitus treatment for anxiety. - -Conclusion - -As I was reading through the Bose product information, I found the following statement:<|endoftext|>On Monday, a top White House aide told reporters that the president would "probably" sign the GOP health care plan. On Thursday, the president said he still planned to sign it, but that he would only do so after giving more thought to the issue. "I want a really good health care plan. I don't want a plan that's good for the people of our country and that lowers costs as substantially as the plan that's out there, but with some great features, but no matter what I don't want to see premiums double," Mr. Trump said.<|endoftext|>Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning told reporters Thursday the US is looking for ways to keep soldiers -======================================== SAMPLE 332 ======================================== -In a recent discussion about the new iPhone 9, I noted one particularly useful feature of Apple's next mobile device: The new fingerprint sensor. The sensor provides an even higher level of security than the Touch ID sensor that's built into the iPhone 7. - -What kind of security? I'm talking about the kind that makes you physically and mentally uncomfortable, of course. You may have a better idea of what that is. - -A few weeks before iOS 9 was released last fall, security researchers showed how an attacker might brute-force the iPhone 8's Touch ID sensor. After learning the passcode required to get into the iPhone, the researcher showed that he could take advantage of the security hole that affects more than a million iPhone 8 models and force it to unlock within just a few seconds. - -Now security researchers at Google have demonstrated that they can hack the iPhone 8's new fingerprint sensor using a different fingerprint-reading technique. Using a computer to scan the person's fingerprints and use them as keys for the new sensor, they can take advantage of the same "weaknesses" that the iPhone 8's Touch ID sensor can exploit. The technique is described in more details on the Google Security blog. - -The Google attack works by bypassing the lock screen in the same way the "Practical cryptosystems" reference book uses the term: via a password. - -What's unusual about the new attack is that it only requires a person's fingerprint. "Mostly this is because if you have a finger print, you'll have a higher security level than if you have a physical feature," wrote Google researcher Karsten Nohl, who works on the security team, in an e-mail. (Nohl is an Android security engineer.) "The fingerprint scanner is much cheaper than a face, so you need to use a low-cost feature instead of more expensive features like a facial recognition system." - -What makes the attack novel, in the eyes of Google researchers, isn't just the ease with which it could be carried out -- it's that the researchers weren't limited to just Apple's fingerprint sensor. "It is possible that the same technique could be adapted against any device with facial recognition, biometrics or fingerprint support," the researchers said. - -"Since the Apple camera is so powerful and is built into iPhones, most applications can leverage FaceID when it could also handle a fingerprint," wrote the researchers, who are part of Google's Project Zero. - -If you're wondering what kind of password is required to open an iPhone, the answer for most devices can likely be guessed using brute force: something short that's easy to type such as "password" or "12345678." - -For a device like an iPhone, this type of vulnerability is especially alarming because it allows a thief to unlock an iPhone without your knowledge, said Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University who was among those who criticized the iPhone 8's Touch ID fingerprint sensor. And Apple has said that the new fingerprint scanner can provide a password to unlock the phone within a couple of seconds. - -"Even if the fingerprint scanner is secure, it still should be kept in your home because criminals will find it a very easy to use entry method," said Michael Wehner, a professor at George Washington University and an expert in privacy, surveillance and social engineering. - -"I'm really bothered by a situation where the thief can use a biometric device, a device with a keypad and an entry method that uses your fingerprint," Green said. He noted that the FBI's use of Apple's device has been subject to complaints and legal action from privacy activists who say the law enforcement agency can access customers' encrypted data without a warrant that is tied to the individual. - -"Apple's new biometric features are really useful, but they do not guarantee a high level of security," Wehner said. "The phone must be password protected or have an extra layer of authentication, which I view as a bad thing." - -Related articles:<|endoftext|>This article is about the Imperial Guard Chapter. You may be looking for the Imperial World. This article is about. You may be looking for - -For the Imperial Navy unit, see Imperial Navy (Imperial Navy) - -The Imperial Guard is an elite Imperial Guard regiment. When they meet the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Guard's tactics are completely different. - -Despite being an elite regimental force, the Guard are still just as vulnerable as any other Imperial regiment with the possible exception of the Astra Militarum. The Guardsmen are trained to be both brave and skilled. They are the Imperial Army with a distinctly Imperial flavour. With a few notable exceptions such as Space Marine Terminator Squads, the Guard are almost exclusively infantry-only, but are capable of deploying as mobile artillery or even as a mobile strike force. - -Contents show] - -History - -The Guard is a specialised infantry regiment based within the Planetary Defence Force. Officially only a part of the Imperial Army, -======================================== SAMPLE 333 ======================================== -"The Great Wall of China is the most famous landscape in China, even more famous than the Great Wall of England. The Great Wall is one of the most well-known landmarks in the world, so it's no surprise that people are still fascinated with its extraordinary beauty." - -– Richard Mihalic, The Great Wall of China: How It Changed the World, 2014 - -In 1626, the first Chinese expedition to the wall was led by an Italian scholar. His mission was to map it. The result was a magnificent map which could have been part of England's Great Map. This map, known as the Zhengde map, helped change the course of world history. From then on, China's rise became unstoppable. The map and its description of the world became the most influential map of its time and the foundation for centuries of world maps. - -In the centuries that followed the Zhengde map, Chinese scholars continued to explore. They used the same skills that had brought them to the Great Wall of China. But the Great Wall was different. At the time, Europeans had begun to explore the Americas to find the fabled New World, and these explorers took detailed land and sea maps. Chinese scholars still didn't know about the Americas, but many knew how to map it. - -The Great Wall had long been abandoned by the Ming dynasty, a feudal society which lacked the funds to maintain it. Many people feared that if the wall were found to be a useless monument to the Ming dynasty, it would fall apart for many reasons. - -Then, in 1949, it was discovered by a British explorer. This was the famous Sir Francis Drake, who had made his name as a seafarer and explorer. Drake wanted to chart out the new world, and decided to visit this place. - -When he came to this place, he realized how much of a puzzle this wall was. The map that he had studied before the wall was no help in finding the Great Wall of China. As the Great Wall existed in the south, Drake had to take an incredibly long route through Mongolia and up to the north. He did manage to visit the center and map it. - -The Great Wall in Jingdezhen in Inner Mongolia. The city that Drake visited had some of it's streets named after him. - -What Drake saw on his expedition led him to study more about the wall and then discovered a few more interesting facts. The map which Drake had studied previously showed two sections of the wall. One section was about 100 miles long, and the other section was only ten miles long. This map was also the same size as the Zhengde map which had been put together by the same Italian, but its map was not the same. The one that Drake had studied looked to be the same size. This map showed that there were two sections on the west side of the wall, and three sections on the east side of the wall. - -Drake was inspired by a French book which had shown the same map with a section on the north end of the Great Wall of China. Drake did not realize these two maps were different, but it made him wonder why this part was so different. - -He realized the Great Wall of China was composed of many many, many lines and branches. It took him a month to map the wall, and found that this map was incorrect. He also discovered that there were many different directions that he needed to travel to get all the different parts of the wall. - -For the rest of his life, Drake continued working on the map and discovered the many details of the Great Wall. And he also worked on the map for many years afterward because he found that many things on the map which no one had realized were missing! - -It wasn't until 1978 that Drake, having learned the map in the Great Wall museum in Beijing, discovered the truth about the map in China. He returned to China and found that the map he had studied had had a number of errors. For example, on the north end of the Great Wall there was no place named China, just called "Great Wall." But on the south end, there was a China of the Ming government! - -The Great Wall of China is now a museum in Beijing. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in China and the most visited national symbol in China. The Great Wall is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.<|endoftext|>"For many Americans it's not a big deal whether or not they have insurance. But they'd like to. And by not covering them and their families, companies get to collect premiums for a service they don't want them to use," Obama said in his weekly address. - - -"And insurance companies often keep those premiums for themselves with nothing extra to pay for them. Why? Well, because that's how insurance works, folks. It's not just the premiums. Insurance companies have to pay all this back to the government, so the only way they can stay in business is by taking out as much as possible on -======================================== SAMPLE 334 ======================================== -The idea of the Pigeon Project started as a joke for our local dog. She would lay in bed after I was gone, and I used to joke that I would one day "take the bird out to the woods". She used it as a metaphor for when she wished she could do certain things, but wasn't allowed to. One of these things that was allowed was to leave my apartment. I said that I would give her a pigeon and she would leave and I would bring it back to our apartment and see if I could release it. We've been seeing her with a pigeon with us for the past six years. - -The Bird Project is an initiative organized by Pigeon Project to put pigeons through daily and daily activities in order for them to become independent and then release them. The ultimate goal of this is for the pigeons to eventually be released back into the wild. - -The birds that are at Pigeon Program are taken from their outdoor cages at a very young age. They are fed a mix of organic food, and other organic treats such as hay to meet their nutritional needs while they are still in birds' own environment, but are then kept in cages indoors and allowed limited outdoor time. It is difficult for them to cope with all of the distractions, noise, and changes in light for their freedom. Once the pigeons are old enough they are then taken to a special "Pigeon Training Center" so their new personalities can be exposed to new experiences and opportunities. Most birds that get sent to the Pigeon Program live with a group of other pigeon volunteers, and the program is a fun and stimulating experience for them. - -To learn more about Pigeon Project, click HERE.<|endoftext|>When you think about the most powerful and impressive vehicles ever created, maybe there are only two people you might think about. - -One, and only time will I mention his name, was Bill Gates. The other one was Elon Musk, and the reason why he doesn't get quite as much press is because he is just a little bit less famous than someone who's in the same business as Gates or Tesla. - -To put it in perspective, Gates is probably one of the most famous and powerful people alive, followed by Warren Buffet and John McAfee. - -Elon Musk certainly has a lot of people talking. - -He is not only the co-founder of Tesla, but also chairman and CEO of SpaceX and CEO of SolarCity. His other ventures have seen huge success such as SpaceX and SolarCity, but his most successful venture is the one behind Tesla and SpaceX, SolarCity. He is now on his way to being one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world. - -While it might be true that in the eyes of most people that would make him the most powerful person alive, this does not mean that he wouldn't still make the list when discussing the most innovative and impressive electric vehicles ever created. - -To put it simply, he is arguably the most powerful technology executive around right now. - -That being said, let's get into it. We have compiled a list of the 10 most incredible electric vehicles that were ever built. - -#10 – Volvo - -One of the most iconic and well known Swedish vehicles ever produced is the Volvo 8040. It was produced as a result of a collaboration between Volvo Automobile and Volvo Design. It is still extremely popular today and currently sells close to 20k vehicles a year. - -The reason it is so popular is because it was designed to look like a futuristic truck, which is something that people just love because it's so different from other vehicles we see today. There are also a few features that have stayed on the vehicle for a while now. - -For example, it has LED headlamps, so drivers don't have to get out of the way while on the highway or have to switch them off for safety reasons, which is a benefit to many people. It also has the ability to take a full charge in just 16 minutes, which is fantastic to drive with a passenger in the front or the back of the car. - -While a few people have been interested in buying this model, most people are more likely to keep it as an antique for its looks and for the fact that it only needs to be driven for 20k miles once a year to get the full $300 credit that it earns. - -#9 – Audi TT RS 7 - -The 2009 Audi TT RS 7 was developed and manufactured by Bugatti, the car maker based near Provence, France. The car has been called the most expensive sports car ever built, and now sells for anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000. - -The RS 7 is the successor to the 2009 Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. Bugatti wanted to create something very different for people that are looking to buy an extremely expensive sports car for a car enthusiast. It wanted to create something that the average person would feel is much more than just -======================================== SAMPLE 335 ======================================== -The world of fantasy books, TV series and comics is often characterized by their vast casts of main characters and the variety of ways these characters might relate to each other. For decades, The Walking Dead has been one of the most influential fantasy books by focusing on its ensemble cast of characters who, despite not existing under a central, overarching story, form an intricate weave of plot, conflict and conflict-resolution. - -And on Sunday, a different cast of characters from the series made their way to San Diego Comic-Con, where they were joined by an actress from the show, Lauren Cohan. The Walking Dead's fourth season wrapped last April with the introduction of the character of Melissa (who was played by Cohan). The actor, who was brought into The Walking Dead universe by showrunner Scott Gimple prior to the show's first season (where she acted as a series regular) made her first official appearance at the convention at a panel in which she was asked about what it's like being able to play an action woman who also happens to be in a TV show. - -Cohan, who was recently seen in The Big Short, said she always has an idea of what action would be like if a woman was the main character instead of an action guy. She explained how the show has been a great outlet for her to learn how women should act on-screen (as well as what male writers can learn from her own experience), and she said what's important is that the writers of the series know that a woman can have an interesting and complex character to themselves. - -"You know what? I think it's great in this day and age that it is okay for a young woman to act," Cohan added. "I think it's fun not just to get the action in but have the audience think the character's doing something different than what he just did." - -RELATED: How the Walking Dead Season 4 Is Changing Things for Melissa - -Though she didn't specifically discuss Cohan's Melissa story, she did note that she likes how the series has focused so much on relationships between the characters. She did describe how the new showrunner, Dave Erickson, is focusing a lot on "the family aspect" of the story. - -"It's fun because the fans are doing a lot of really creative things," Cohan said of the show's fandom. "[The writers] are taking it all on and pushing the boundaries." - -You can watch Cohan's Q&A about Melissa, and hear more about her experience working on The Walking Dead below.<|endoftext|>When someone asks a lot of questions about themselves or a group of people — especially a group you are not already friends with — you can be reassured that they're probably not one of the bullies and/or assholes who routinely attack and/or threaten people on social media. They're likely a thoughtful and generous and friendly person who simply asked a lot of questions and had a lot of questions. - -But often, they were not. And that's when you can be the perfect role model. - -You can say that your friend just asked a lot of questions and that if you think there's something that needs to be cleared up, you should be the one to get it cleared up. - -You can say that the questions were about a very sensitive subject and that the person who asked them should be in control of their own mind and body and that this person is too close to the incident to be allowed to get away with bullying them. - -You can say that what you know now makes it clear why someone asked, how the people involved responded, and how things would have been different if they had been in control of their own mind and body, not an unsupervised person. - -You can say that this is, in fact, an opportunity for you to learn something in a way that no one else has heard that might help you help them — and that you've been in a situation before where you were able to help someone and they did the right thing by you. - -You can say that you know that the person should know that their safety and peace of mind, especially if their behavior is to ask questions about their own safety and peace of mind, can best be maintained by themselves, in order for them to make the best decisions possible; this is not a request to see if their friend would be willing to have one individual in charge over them. This is just asking you to respect this person's wishes in the interests of safety and peace of mind. And it's asking you to make sure that they understand that their wishes don't apply to this situation as it exists right now in this situation, that you are not their therapist. - -You can say, again, that this is a conversation that no one on your side is able to do. This person does not know you and is making these demands on you as a friend. Ask them to take any further steps toward clearing up any potential confusion and they cannot be forced to; they have to take -======================================== SAMPLE 336 ======================================== -The following table summarizes the major changes to the law that will take effect September 1, 2016, when the Act takes effect. - -All of this change was passed in 2016, when the Act passed the Assembly, but was not signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. However, it only took effect the day the bill passed the Assembly. (The Governor signed it into law on June 14, 2016, although many California voters approved it in November.) - -Here is a look at the provisions of the legislation. Keep in mind that many of these changes will be phased in gradually. If you're planning to register to vote before August 1, you have until September 1 to register on state forms. And if you are not already registered, you will need to register right away to have your voter registration processed. The Act also gives local governments and certain public institutions, such as community colleges, the ability to create their own voter registration. - -The following table summarizes the major changes to the law that will take effect September 1, 2016, when the Act takes effect: - -Voting at the ballot box - -All of the changes have one thing in common: they will allow people to vote at the ballot box—for example, at the polling place (in person) where they are registered to vote. Currently, in California, anyone who does not live in a house and does not maintain a physical address in the state is not allowed to vote at the ballot box. - -Changes that will be effective on September 1, 2016: - -California voters can vote at the polling place where they are registered to vote. - -People who are disabled, under 18, or out of the country will be able to vote by absentee ballot, if a county makes an appointment for them to do so. These people are eligible to vote absent themselves from their home county in order to vote the absentee ballot in another county. - -People who are registered to vote with a California driver license or a state ID card can now request to see their driver license to vote, for example, if they are visiting California. These people do not need to show valid identification to vote. - -All voters can vote at the ballot box. - -Eligibility to vote by mail - -People who are eligible to vote by mail—that is, those who are 18, who have not moved since the last election, and who are not incarcerated or on parole—are no longer required to mail in their ballot in order to be allowed to vote. - -Changes that will be effective September 1, 2016: - -Eligibility to vote by mail will be extended to the following people: - -eligible military personnel - -an applicant for naturalization - -citizens of the United States and Mexico who have been living abroad for 12 years and are in the state of California on the effective date of the law. - -If those individuals already are voting by absentee ballot, they will simply be able to vote their absentee vote. - -The following changes will not take effect until September 1, 2016: - -citizens and persons who have been in the United States less than 12 months on the day before the election, on the effective date of the law. - -any applicant for political office. - -eligible members of the uniformed services. - -Any voter without a California driver's license or state ID card or the legal age to vote can vote by absentee ballot until the day before the Election Day (by mail). To request an absentee ballot in person, send an application to your county clerk of the month prior to the election, by August 15th (by election day). To vote by absentee ballot, you must cast your ballot before the day of the election. - -How you register to vote - -There are two ways you can register to vote: - -online - -by mail - -To register online: - -On the California Secretary of State website you will find information about your state or country of citizenship, your signature, photo ID, and the type of document you can present. Click "Create or Renew a Voter Registration Card" to complete your registration. - -For a complete list of requirements at the local level, see the instructions in each guide in the Secretary of State's online database. - -For a complete list of requirements at the state level, see the California Voter Information Guide under the "Voter Registration" tab on the "California Elections" page of this website. - -To find your polling place, go to the CA Voting website. - -To complete or update your registration, go to your county clerk's office on January 22, 2017. Note: It's very important to use the "Voter Information" section of the website to confirm that your information is correct (and that you will be allowed to vote if you are registered). You will be asked to register by phone as well, but not by email, as is the case with many other voter registration providers. - -For more information, contact your county clerk of the county in which your current -======================================== SAMPLE 337 ======================================== -A woman who was injured today in a hit-and-run collision in Scarborough has died of her injuries. - -A woman who was injured today in a hit-and-run collision in Scarborough has died of her injuries. - -The woman and her male companion were crossing the street near St Clair Avenue near St Clair West at about 7.30pm when a red car, possibly a Mazda 3, made a left-hand turn and ran into the woman's companion, the force of the impact knocking him down. - -He was airlifted to hospital but died a short time later. - -A red car believed to be a Mazda 3 left the scene. - -The woman and her male companion were crossing the street near St Clair Avenue near St Clair West at about 7.30pm when a red car, possibly a Mazda 3, made a left-hand turn and ran into the woman's companion, the force of the impact knocking him down. - -His body was discovered by two female witnesses, who called for help. - -Police were called to the scene by the two female witnesses, although police officers were not immediately able to contact the two men involved, because the woman was lying on the ground. - -An officer in attendance observed the woman and her companion fall into the street and he ran over and immediately started performing CPR. - -The emergency services were then called and the officers went into the street with the woman. - -The emergency services were then called and the officers went into the street with the woman. Photo: Kevin Ahern - -The male driver was immediately identified by police and taken into custody by officers. - -The male driver was immediately identified by police and taken into custody by officers. - -An area cordon and the scene were established and the driver was interviewed by police. - -He is believed to be an Italian national. - -Police did not reveal any additional detail about the incident. - -The female partner remains in a serious but stable condition. - -Bike lanes are being removed at the end of St Clair Avenue North in Yorkdale Shopping Centre for the construction of the new Eaton Centre. Photo: Kevin Ahern - -The lane of the westbound St Clair Avenue North, between St Clair and the junction with Yorkdale Shopping Centre, is being closed during the construction from 8am to 8pm. - -The bike lanes are being removed at the end of St Clair Avenue North in Yorkdale Shopping Centre for the construction of the new Eaton Centre. - -Bike lanes are being removed at the end of St Clair Avenue North in Yorkdale Shopping Centre for the construction of the new Eaton Centre. Photo: Kevin Ahern - -Eaton Centre is expected to open before the end of this year and the street is part of Yorkdale Shopping Centre. - -The project is a major upgrade to the area, which has been described as a "vacant wasteland" by one local resident. - -The new construction has not prevented the presence of vandals and trespassing, which police are currently investigating. - -Eaton Centre is expected to open before the end of this year. Photo: Google Maps<|endoftext|>A new ad for Hillary Clinton's campaign is blasting back against Donald Trump for calling her "Secretary of State," arguing he's "not the secretary of state, he's the president." - -The 30-second TV spot, released Monday, says "President in your pocket." - -"Secretary Clinton has been through it. She knows how to lead. She knows how to secure America. And you know who else knows how to secure America ? All the American presidents before her," the narrator says. - -The ad was produced by Democratic-leaning groups and is airing in battleground states, according to the group American Bridge. It also targets Trump's repeated criticism of Clinton, his criticism of the federal judge overseeing Trump University and his insistence the U.S. would not have won the war in Iraq if she had been elected. - -An "A" rating from the Better Business Bureau gives Clinton a solid overall score of 96. "B" grade, according to the same rating, shows poor business practices with a "C" rating and is given to companies that had a poor customer service, poor compensation for employees or were generally unreliable. - -On March 31, the Obama administration denied a request from the GOP to reopen a probe into Clinton's mishandling of classified information while she was secretary of state.<|endoftext|>What's up. So, we've been having a lot of difficulties dealing with the current state of affairs between our community and you, our valued backer. We've been in a state of panic and uncertainty because the state of the forums is now an abominable mess and we simply can't seem to resolve this situation. - -We know, that it can't be understated; the forums are a major part of our entire game development, so it's a blow not only for us, but for all of our backers. The fact of the matter is that a -======================================== SAMPLE 338 ======================================== -Marlon Humphrey knows he's no Greg Hardy. He's a sixth round pick who is one of three safeties considered for this year's draft. I talked to Humphrey on Tuesday after he completed his first rookie minicamp with the Falcons. For the uninitiated, you can read about and watch highlights of Humphrey's first six seasons at Kentucky here. - -"A lot of people expect me to be like a Greg Hardy," Humphrey said. "They expect me to run over people and do all that type of stuff." - -I asked him how he thought about that from afar, especially when they first met. - -"That's not me," he said. "I can't control the type of players I'm going against, the speed of the players, the physicality of the players. It's all up to [the] refs, but at the same time I don't let that affect me if I'm being treated like a rookie and doing all that stuff. I just try to keep it to me, and stay locked that I've got to keep playing, I have to play for my team, because if I'm not playing, there's going to be disappointment for the next year." - -It's going to be a tall obstacle to push through with so little experience. It's especially tough when it's a rookie trying to win an starting job in the NFL. For now, there's just his team and the football. - -"It's about staying in class, coming to the field," he said. "When we finish the first period, we come back in and get ready to go. That's what we do for the summer. We go to work and get prepared to play football in the fall."<|endoftext|>Welcome to the world of X-COM. - -X-COM: Alliance War is the expansion to the X-COM series, which combines turn-based strategy with action elements. Join X-COM soldiers on strategic missions and defend humanity from a terrifying alien invasion. - -The expansion offers four game modes, including Co-op Missions, which will allow up to four players to fight together in a variety of scenarios. - -Game modes - -Co-op Missions lets you play missions cooperatively against the computer on X-COM missions from the original X-COM. It's also great for testing your strategies. This game mode has the same difficulty level as the campaign. - -Multi-player will be available when the expansion comes out in August. - -New items and features - -In X-COM: Alliance War, you will be able to build new weapons and vehicles. Each time you play you unlock a new set of items such as missiles, tanks and helicopters. - -You will also be able to add a squad of units onto your mission - and you may use these as part of team-up missions. - -Your mission will start in a different location to the rest of your team, but you will be able to go and rescue your team members from their cells. - -Other features: new multiplayer missions, new enemies and some new alien types. - -How to play - -X-COM: Alliance War is designed to be played using the standard X-COM strategy game rules. You will need to complete missions as you encounter them, along with a mix of new enemy types and random mission objectives. - -You will also control the actions of your soldiers during missions, but you will be able to choose how to organise your soldiers and what orders they carry out. - -You will need to use the normal X-COM movement and attacking actions to attack aliens and rescue your team members. You will need to use the standard X-COM movement and attacking actions to attack aliens and rescue your team members. - -To use the new aliens you're new to the alien sub-systems, you'll need to build them. You will also need to build a squad of aliens - but you will be controlling the actions of your army leader during this process. - -If you want to see all of what's new, see everything that's in X-COM: Alliance War in our wiki - -Modules - -Module unlocks and abilities - -There are 14 different weapon types in both campaigns and multiplayer. - -In singleplayer you will have access to a full arsenal of over 100 weapons. In multiplayer if you take on new classes of aliens you'll be able to unlock them all too. - -In Singleplayer you will have access to a full arsenal of over 100 weapons. - -There are some abilities you can upgrade - the basic abilities will be available for everyone, but there are additional abilities available for each class. - -You can choose which abilities to use on the level select screen. - -Each mission is broken up into several sub-missions. You can play one of these at a time, and you'll be able to collect the resources required to finish them - you can build stuff like bases, factories and armaments. -======================================== SAMPLE 339 ======================================== -The idea of an automated parking system is not without precedent. For decades, parking-enforcement officers have used a variety of automated devices to record the license plate numbers of motorists who park in spaces reserved for public use. - -The recent development of the parking-enforcement system, announced earlier this month in the Department of Motor Vehicles's parking-enforcement report, marks the first time that a statewide automated parking system has been contemplated. - -If and when it is established, automated parking will be similar to traffic enforcement cameras, with the driver required to pay a fee at a meter before the parking space is given to the vehicle for which the tag numbers belong. - -The state will contract the use of these automated machines from various companies and organizations, which will operate the cameras for the program. - -An automatic parking system is part of an array of changes that have taken place over the past 20 years at the DMV. The number of parking-enforcement officers is being reduced, and the agency has become a player in the transportation technology industry. - -The DMV issued the parking-enforcement report this month in response to a request from the Legislature in 2002 for the establishment of a comprehensive state program regarding motor vehicle parking. - -In the report, the DMV recommended establishing a statewide parking-enforcement program. Under the policy, it would issue parking-enforcement tickets to the owners and operators of private garages when a motorist fails to return to an authorized vehicle after parking for longer than 30 minutes — a period, according to the report, intended to be sufficient so the parking space is reclaimed by another occupant. - -The report also recommended that the public be able to view the license plates of vehicles parked on the premises of private garages, and that the owner and operator of an illegal parking spot be charged for that property. - -To operate the automated systems, the DMV has contracted with one of four companies: AccuVision, a company that builds automated parking devices; GeoLit, a company in Ann Arbor that designs the computer processing equipment required to operate the machines; Autoliv, a company, which is building the system in Detroit; and Cota, a manufacturer of automated parking cameras. - -GeoLit developed a system called "LiteView" that can take a picture of the license plate, the registration sticker, and the interior of the vehicle before writing any information or taking a picture. In addition to the "LiteView," the DMV is also interested in the Automatic Vending System system. - -With the technology available, the automatic parking system would require an operator to look up the license plate number of every vehicle parked on the parking lot — a process that takes between 20 and 30 seconds. - -The automated systems can be accessed by a law enforcement officer from within 30 feet, with the operator then holding the system with the key fob in the operator's left hand and turning on the key. - -Under the proposed system, the license plate number will be recorded on a computer screen similar to the one used to photograph a vehicle to determine the proper registration status. During the scan, the computer will detect when the license plate is lifted from the ground by a vehicle. If the plate is lifted by an unauthorized vehicle, the system will activate. - -If the license plate is lifted by an authorized vehicle, a camera with a digital camera that can capture three images in rapid sequence and one in a panoramic setting will take a picture of the plate and the operator in that vehicle. - -The camera will then record the license plate number, and the operator will have to pay a fee that covers the cost of the machine for three periods of 30 minutes each. - -The fee varies on different garages where the system is put into operation. For instance, the fee for a garage that has more than 4,000 spaces is $15 to $20 for 3 hours. If the garage has less than 4,000 spaces, the monthly fee is $6. - -The $15 fee would include a daily record of all the license plates, which will be maintained for seven years by the department. According to the report, this information would be provided to law enforcement when a violation is detected on the property. - -Agency spokesman Jason Gennaro said that the department intends to seek approval from the Michigan Government Operations Council to obtain the license plate scanner. - -Gennaro said there are a number of concerns, however, that will need to be addressed before the license plate scanner is developed. - -"It's just going to be an initial step," Gennaro said of the agency's plans. "Once we get the permit from the GMOC, we'll be able to look at all the options." - -In addition to getting approval by the GMOC to use the scanner, Gennaro said that officials also must meet with various stakeholders, including other agencies and private companies including parking-enforcement companies that are located in the Lansing area. - -Gennaro said he believes the agency is well positioned to -======================================== SAMPLE 340 ======================================== -The Obama administration on Monday released revised data on U.S. gun sales—a year after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and other federal officials initially said illegal guns were flowing through an online portal. - -A White House official said the updated figures—which show the number of transactions in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System from July 2012 through Feb. 27—represent "a meaningful improvement" from the first figures provided in April 2013, but he did not indicate which categories have seen changes. - -"There are some clear shifts in the data, like the significant number of background checks completed more recently with more information," the official said. - -ATF officials said last year that "some illegal firearms" had been recovered at crime scenes, but have refused to release the specifics. - -The agency said in April 2013 that it would make the revised figures public. But the ATF subsequently said the agency had no idea when the new information would be released. - -"We're still looking at a schedule for it being released," ATF spokesperson Deborah Sherman told The Daily Beast. - -"We're doing our best to get something out," she said. - -The number of background checks completed each week has remained relatively consistent since 2010, when it was just a few thousand checks per week. - -But the number of background checks received by federal law enforcement has dropped almost 25 percent in the past six years, from roughly 70 percent of the total checks completed in 2010 to around 55 percent in 2013, according to DOJ data. - -And there are some new details: For the first time, the number of firearms transactions reported by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System—the online system the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives uses to check whether prospective buyers have been disqualified from buying firearms—is available for 2013, according to the NICS. - -The number of checks received by law enforcement for 2013 has gone up by nearly 20 percent, from more than 5 million completed to nearly 6.3 million completed in 2013. - -Sherman said ATF officials are still trying to "figure out" which checks were completed in other states. - -But it appears that at least one state—Arizona—has reported that more people completed background checks in 2013 than were employed in 2009. - -ATF officials declined to comment on the discrepancy. - -The Obama administration has in the past argued that the number of checks is a reliable indicator of firearms sales in the country. But for the past two years, the administration has been reluctant to release details about illegal gun purchases, prompting lawmakers on the left to criticize such silence. - -"Instead of providing the American people with information about the millions of background checks conducted each month, the administration is hiding the truth," said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "The American people need to know how easy guns are to buy in this country." - -"The administration has made clear that the number of guns on America's streets will not fall unless we take action—and as usual these numbers are hiding details that allow for a complete picture," said Senator Charles Schumer. - -"It is deeply disturbing that the number of prohibited weapons sold through NICS went up more than 25 percent this past year. And it turns out that these new data may suggest a big problem," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein.<|endoftext|>What is "the most dangerous country on earth"? - -(NaturalNews) When a "world authority" like the, which is supposed to "advise" the U.S. on foreign affairs, declares that Pakistan is "the most dangerous country on earth ," that is not the sort of assessment you want to hear from a "world authority."That's because, according to the "world authority," the "most dangerous country on Earth" is Saudi Arabia.Yes, you read that right. Just in case you thought the "world authority" was kidding or trying to keep information a secret, the "world authority" claims that Saudi Arabia is the "most dangerous country on Earth." The same country that routinely kills women and children in the streets, engages in rape, beheadings, crucifixions, the burning of homosexuals and countless other atrocities.As reported by, an authoritative body that has been in charge of issuing the "most dangerous country" ranking since the early 1990s, Saudi Arabia scored 727 on the global index of "state of security violence against women and girls." That is in comparison to countries like Bangladesh, Honduras and Nepal, which score an average of just 39.The world authority claimed that Pakistan's state of security violence against women and girls is much worse, stating that there have been, according to Amnesty International, "almost 60 reported incidents of violence against women in Pakistan this year alone, and as many as 1,400 attacks since 2008." But the "world authority," like the rest of the mainstream media , does not even bother to look critically at the actual source of the figures.The "world authority," which has -======================================== SAMPLE 341 ======================================== -Cannabis - -Cannabis - -A cannabis plant (Photo by: John Dixon/Getty Images) - -Cannabis is an illegal drug in the United States that can be used for many different medical treatments, and marijuana has been used for thousands of years for its ability to relieve the pain, nausea, and other symptoms that come with cancer treatment, chemotherapy, epilepsy, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases. - -Marijuana use is currently at an all-time high in the States according to several studies. Some 70 million Americans use marijuana on a regular basis, and marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug by young people. More than 6 million states and the nation's capital have some form of medical marijuana laws in place. - -Research has determined that the active constituents of cannabis are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive component, and cannabidiol (CBD), which has many anti-inflammatory properties without causing dependence. Medical marijuana is also able to act on tumor growth by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels and enzymes that are involved in making blood cells, which causes them to shrink and shrink, and also reduces the amount of oxygen absorbed by the tumor cells. - -It is also believed that the cannabinoids may be able to prevent cancer cells from growing in certain types of tissue, which could in turn protect against metastasis. - -Marijuana Can Treat Cancer and Pain - -Cannabis can be used in several different ways for treating cancer pain and inflammation, as well as other medical conditions. - -It has been found that THC can relieve pain and inflammation in a particular type of muscle called spasticity after surgery. Spasticity is a very common ailment with patients who have had spinal surgeries, and patients may suffer from an array of symptoms such as uncontrollable shaking, stiffness, involuntary leg movements, and difficulty with breathing. THC effectively works to stop the spasticity, which relieves patients' spasticity. - -In a study published in The American Journal of Cancer Care published in November 2014, the researchers observed that marijuana caused a decrease in the size of cancer-related lesions in mice. These researchers found that both cancer cells that are found in different tissues and non-cancerous cells were reduced in size in the treated mice compared to the mice treated with morphine. This means that THC may reduce the tumor growth, which may be beneficial in controlling the spread of tumors in the body. - -Although the amount and type of THC used in this study was small, this research suggests that THC can significantly reduce the growth of cancer cells, which can help treat pain and inflammation that are part of many cancers. - -A study published in the Journal of Toxicology in November 2014 found that THC has anti-inflammatory and painkilling functions in mice, as well as decreased the growth of lung cancer. - -Cannabinoids May Treat Cancer in Several Ways - -Another study published in December 2016 investigated the effects of cannabinoids on metastatic prostate cancer metastases in mice. This study found that cannabinoids are both anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory, and they are able to help reduce metastatic metastases in mice. - -A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that THC had an effect in reducing the growth of cancer cells in a specific part of a mouse's intestine. It was also found that cannabinoids have no effect other than reducing stomach cancer growth, which is another form of cancer. - -Cannabinoids Can also Reverse the Body's Response to Cancer Treatment - -Another study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that cannabinoids can reduce the immune system responses of colon cancer cells by increasing the expression of the molecules and enzymes that are required to keep the immune system in balance. - -A 2013 publication in The Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology found that cannabinoids reduce tumor growth and spread in laboratory animals by reducing invasion of cancer cells and their ability to thrive. - -Another study published in The American Journal of Medical Genetics found that cannabinoids can increase the immune response, which decreases metastatic cancer, thus decreasing the incidence of the ailment. - -A study in The Journal of Molecular Oncology in 2012 found that cannabinoids reduce tumor growth with only the administration of a chemical called CBN (cannabidiol). CBN is thought to act by inhibiting tumor growth by slowing its growth, increasing its internal permeability and preventing cancer cells from attaching to it. - -What Are the Side Effects of Using Marijuana for Cancer Treatment? - -Cannabis is also effective in treating many conditions, including: - -CNS inflammation - -Headache and other problems - -Seizures - -Diabetes - -Glaucoma - -Inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis - -Alzheimer's and other psychiatric conditions - -Epidermolysis bullosa, and other skin diseases - -Painful conditions such as migrain -======================================== SAMPLE 342 ======================================== -From Star Trek Timelines Wiki - -This is a list of all the non-unique Common/Rare ships that can be obtained from the Khan Event in Ship Vendors. - -All Ships without a Starbase (e.g. Starbases) have an additional +2 bonus to Common/Rare ships (i.e. no +1 Bonus, no +2 Bonus). - -See: Starbase & Ship Vendors - -See also: Khan Event Collection - -List of Uniques [ edit | edit source ]<|endoftext|>The "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie that will star Dakota Johnson was pulled from theaters and banned by a Florida law school after it was discovered that the film contains strong sexual content. - -Florida State University's College of Media and Entertainment recently hosted a panel on "Fifty Shades of Grey," and student film critic Brian Ritchie asked the panel why there was a movie in theaters, despite the controversial subject matter. - -"You don't have a book," one panel member said. "Are you going to make this about the book as much as the book makes you feel uncomfortable?" - -The panelist explained that the decision to release the film in theaters had more to do with the content than with the law school's film studies program. - -"We have a lot of things we try to avoid when we make movies," he said. "But when something like that comes up, when there is something like that like 'Fifty Shades of Grey' out there and I'm going to look this up on the internet and I have found something I've never seen in my entire life, I thought that we should take the opportunity to educate ourselves before we even get in front of people that actually know what is going on." - -One of the panelists, David M. R. Harris, a senior lecturer in the media studies program, responded by saying that the movie wouldn't have been pulled if he had the opportunity to distribute the film. - -"One of the best reasons we have the First Amendment is to allow artists to create anything they want," he said. "The best way to deal with censorship is to let them do it." - -The panel also announced that FSU's student government has been notified about the film's cancellation. - -The event, entitled "Halloween on Capitol Hill," was hosted by the FSU Young Americans for Liberty chapter that promotes a non-interventionist foreign policy and a free market system. - -On October 31, the school's chapter of the College Republicans posted an event on their Facebook page for the event titled "Movies: Fifty Shades of Grey is not an appropriate movie for Florida State University." - -On the same day, the College Democrats were scheduled to host a movie on Halloween in their official Facebook page. They wrote that while the film would have probably gone up anyways, the event was cancelled because of the controversy surrounding it. - -The event was later taken down, but the students still put up new pages for it. - -On their Facebook page for the event, the college Democrats announced that the group had canceled the movie. Although, the group had the option to continue hosting the movie for the following week, the events of October 31 only allowed for the event to take place on the second Friday in November. - -"It would be inappropriate for us to present a movie on Halloween, when the entire campus community is supposed to be out partying, to the community as a whole who are working and learning," the Facebook group wrote. - -The group also noted that the movie and the panel had received "a great response," and the school had shown a film trailer to the student body on November 2.<|endoftext|>The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Student Government Association has launched the Student Government Vote! Project, which allows students to vote on the direction of their organization. The project is open now until mid-January and students will be able to vote on three issues. - -The first is to approve a new logo and colors. This can be done by filling in a form and giving students in the group a chance to vote on it. The second is to choose the new name for their Student Government Association (SGSA). This name change will not take place until April 1. In March, SGSA's current name, the N-Statesmen, will be dropped and a new name will be drafted that is better reflect their mission and mission statement. The final choice is how the SGSA will select a leader to serve as student representative for the upcoming summer and fall semester. - -This project allows students to put their ideas to the government at large and the SGSA is excited to give them the opportunity to put their thought into the policy making process, but also provides many other opportunities. - -"We see this as an opportunity to empower students, especially underrepresented students and students of color and give them a voice in the governing body that has influence on the rest of the campus," said Ashley Gouda, a sophomore and the -======================================== SAMPLE 343 ======================================== -The United States has "all the tools" in its arsenal to destroy the Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) terror group, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Wednesday in Riyadh, where he held talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. - -Prince Mohammed met Trump at the White House Tuesday morning for the third such meeting in eight days, despite the president's stated desire to avoid getting involved in the Syrian conflict. - -"Yes, all the tools are at our disposal to push back against terrorist threats such as terrorism, and Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) is the greatest of those," the Saudi crown prince said in a speech he delivered Wednesday at the King Khalid University in Riyadh, according to Saudi media agency SPA. - -Read more: U.S., Saudi Arabia, UAE agree to fight terror in Syria - -In response to a question from a reporter about how his country could fight against IS, Prince Mohammed said Washington needed to support the effort by "Arab countries, countries in the region as of today" and help coordinate the fight against IS. - -Daesh is another name for the group of Islamic extremists that control large parts of Syria and Iraq. - -Read more: What we know about Syria's ongoing civil war - -At the press conference after the three-hour talks Tuesday night between Prince Mohammed and Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a senior State Department official and several members of Trump's national security team, Trump declined to offer more specific details about his talks with the Saudi crown prince, instead citing his "very good relationship" with the Saudis. - -The U.S. president later tweeted his opinion about the Saudi role in combating Daesh, saying: "The fact that Saudi Arabia is now fighting Daesh [ISIS] is a great thing. We are considering, as we work with all nations, taking in-kind support" from Saudi Arabia. - -"We are considering massive in-kind support for the Saudi fight against Daesh, including intelligence, military and otherwise," Trump also said. - -He also appeared to hint in his tweet of an alliance with Israel in the fight against the group. - -"The US supports Israel in its battle with terror," the president tweeted. - -The Saudi-led coalition fighting IS in Yemen was previously criticized by some lawmakers as being too focused on battling the Houthi group of armed rebels rather than the al Qaeda-linked group. - -President Trump, who has been critical of his predecessor's approach to the Middle East, has also accused Iran of being complicit in IS. - -On Saturday in Brussels, he also appeared to say that he believes Saudi Arabia was complicit when it didn't stop the funding of IS and other terrorist groups in the region. - -"They didn't stop 911, they didn't prevent 7/7, they didn't stop the World Trade Center," Trump said. "They didn't stop the Pentagon and they didn't stop the World Trade Center. They didn't stop the planes coming into the Pentagon. Nobody gave them any credit for it. And they're not giving credit right now for stopping them." - -Read more: Donald Trump's international trips: The most interesting facts about visiting countries around the globe this week - -Trump has been critical of Iran during his trip. - -Speaking in Riyadh, Trump said that the Islamic Republic, a regime that has pursued an aggressive regional military policy, was taking advantage of the situation in Yemen and the region to advance its global expansionist goals, according to SPA. - -"We can no longer be silent about this threat," he added. "We cannot accept Tehran playing with fire. Period." - -Iranian Ambassador to the U.S. Daniel Lewis tweeted that Trump's speech on Iran was "misleading": - -Trump's speech today was misleading. It said Iran has "been sanctioned" but didn't explain the sanctions (which have been on the books for years) & said that Iran is playing with matches and is "taking advantage" #RiyadhRiots https://t.co/1jhZH5qQf8 — Daniel J. Lewis (@AmbLewis) May 20, 2017 - -The Saudi-led coalition, which Saudi Arabia maintains is fighting IS in Syria and Yemen, is also targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels and their allies. - -The Saudi-led coalition, which is supported by other Arab states such as Egypt, also launched airstrikes in Yemen in March 2015 to support an Arab-led military intervention against Houthi rebels. - -Read more: - -Watch video 20:00 Now live 20:00 mins. Share Yemen: 'There is no end to the suffering' Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/1I6e2 Yemeni children are starving through severe malnutrition as Yemen descends deeper into war - -The United States has been one of Saudi Arabia's biggest arms suppliers for several years. The United States maintains its own military presence in -======================================== SAMPLE 344 ======================================== -We Are All Living - -And We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living And We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living And We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed - -We Are All Living and We Must Be Destroyed<|endoftext|>You have requested the file: - -Name: L.I.E.S.T. (ft. Tasha Baxter).mp3 - -Size: 11.47 MB - -Uploaded: 16-06-2017 12:56 - -Last download: 01-10-2018 09:25 - -Click the Play button to hear a sample of this MP3 embed player play - -pause / Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin Advertisement Embed our Audio Player Feel free to embed our Audio Player anywhere You like. Just copy and paste the player code presented below. Player Settings: Play and Full Waveform Color : Text and Waveform Progress Color : Background Color : Waveform Color : Border Color : Autostart: Yes No Width (px): Volume (%): Player Preview: Embed Code: Copy and Paste: - -Zippyshare.com News: Possible temporary availability interruptions - -03 Jul 2018 16:13 [Warning] We need to change the firmware for our aggregation switch and replace all the top of rack switches. It can be bumpy ride today and tomorrow. *this message will self-destruct within a few ... - -HTTPS/SSL activation - -03 Apr 2018 20:48 Upload/Download has been moved to the https/ssl protocol. Everything should work stable now. Please report any encountered bugs. ... - -Zippyuploader update, Docs and Videos encoding performance boost - -03 Dec 2017 23:38 Hey folks, A quick update: - Today a new version (0.0.16.0) of the Zippyuploader was released. The only change is related to an increased file size limit of 500MB. If something ... - -To upload a file just follow these simple steps: Benefits of using Zippyshare: 1) Select a file to send by clicking the "Browse" button. You can then select photos, audio, video, documents or anything else you want to send. The maximum file size is 500 MB. - - -2) Click the "Start Upload" button to start uploading the file. You will see the progress of the file transfer. Please don't close your browser window while uploading or it will cancel the upload. - - -3) After a succesfull upload you'll receive a unique link to the download site, which you can place anywhere: on your homepage, blog, forum or send it via IM or e-mail to your friends. - - -Zippyshare.com is completely free, reliable and popular way to store files online. We offer fast download speeds. The maximum filesize for a single file is 500 MB. The file can be downloaded at any time and as often as you need it. File Life: 30 days after no activity. No ridiculous queues! No limits! Report illegal files, please click here and send full link to us!<|endoftext|>On Sunday, the New York Times editorial board was still having a tough time with the Obama administration's position on the Iran deal . The paper wrote: - -But let's be honest. The idea that Iran will ever be free is based on the assumption that the country's leaders want and will accept the terms the Obama administration is offering. Iran's leader does not want to go from having more crude oil, -======================================== SAMPLE 345 ======================================== -An international team of scientists from the US and Germany have developed a prototype device capable of accurately reading the body's electrical signals to detect cancer in patients before they have symptoms. - - -The team, led by Professor David Sinclair of the University of California, Los Angeles, has successfully created an accurate biosensor that can detect the body's immune system's signature of a malignant cell within 15 minutes, and can be used at a local level to monitor the health of individuals. - - -The prototype is based on the ability of human cells to make their own electrical signals. The new prototype uses an innovative approach in which a bioelectric sensor is implanted directly into a patient's abdomen. This sensor is made up of a network of small electrodes that are connected to a microcomputer. - - -Professor Sinclair said: "We now have an accurate, cheap, and robust biosensor designed in the image of a living, breathing entity, and the biosensor can be readily transported to a patient in order to monitor their health." - - -"This bioelectrical biosensor offers a number of advantages over traditional biological sensors such as COX-2, an enzyme that is often the target of treatment for cancer," explained Professor Sinclair. - - -The prototype will allow researchers to study the body's response to a specific infection or disease, or monitor the state of the immune system, which has an important impact on the effectiveness of treatment. - - -A team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania have been working for the past six years to develop the biosensor. - - -Researchers have identified several applications relating to the use of the sensor. They include monitoring the health of persons with cancer, developing personalized treatments for the immune system and improving the screening of persons with certain types of cancer. The prototype could also be used to monitor the health of patients undergoing medical operations, including those undergoing CTs or MRIs. - - -Professor Sinclair and his team are expected to present their research at the International Symposium on Biomedical Systems, Biomedicine and Clinical Applications in San Diego on 29-30 January, 2012. - - -Reference: "Biosensor for accurate detection of cancer as early as 15 minutes and in the abdomen." Science, published online 4 November 2009. - -www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/scij0901-0731/full#abstract<|endoftext|>With the release of our last patch to the game's Alpha 2.0 build, we've been getting a good deal of feedback from our players. One of the most requested features was to add cross platform play between Mac and Windows. While this is something we're excited about, we have no plans to do this just yet. - -This isn't a matter of trying to force a player to switch to Mac and vice-versa, or force an alternative client to be developed. We're currently working on a bunch of exciting features that are still a ways off from release, and cross platform play is not one of them. - -The big question most players are asking themselves is what are the advantages to having a cross platform client? What do you gain from having it in place? Is it actually any better than Windows for gaming on OS X? - -Before we tackle those questions, let's take a look at the downsides to supporting the alpha release of the game. - -First off, it's a good idea to check the Mac forum for an idea of what our current plans for the Mac client may be. As a result of being so early in the development cycle, we haven't had a chance to test and optimize everything. We apologize for the wait and will get ready for a release as soon as we have time to review what our current Mac build is really capable of. - -The biggest downside to having a cross platform client is what it implies. Many players don't own a Mac or don't think it should be necessary to have to. If you own a Mac and have the potential to play in a Mac client, then you should! There are a number of reasons to own a Mac. The game is designed to run comfortably on it. It takes up less space in the operating system, and has a nice little feature called AirPlay for downloading your saved games to your iPhone. Being able to play on Windows and OS X together is great! - -However, I'm pretty sure that you can't imagine how many people here play on Mac and Windows without them. They're just good friends and the best gaming options available. I'm not going to argue for having a mac client, but to be frank, I also think it would be a little weird if we suddenly made it an exception to the Mac rule of thumb. - -Let me know what you think in the comments! - --Matt<|endoftext|>It is currently October 30th, 2018, 04:05 pm - -Login • Register Username: Password: | Log me on automatically each visit - -Who is online - -In total there -======================================== SAMPLE 346 ======================================== -The world's second largest online retailer, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has, at last, broken out its market research. According to a new report filed with its stock exchange this past week, the company has released an in-depth report on the future of its online and app industry that includes some projections on retail trends. This, after years of speculation, may represent a turning point for Asia's largest e-commerce company. - -A key component in the report is the company's goal for 20% of its products to be sold through apps. This would be a big change from the current 2%. The report also predicts that half of China's online shoppers won't even be shopping by smartphone. - -The company's online commerce system may become even more dynamic. Alibaba Group will be integrating its mobile app platform Alibaba Cloud with its cloud computing business, Alipay, as well as a range of new services. These include an AI-based algorithm designed to match shoppers to a specific seller, as well as an app design system that will predict how people will search for information and how they will navigate to a specific product. - -The company said that it expects to reach a milestone of 20 million merchants by next year, up from 13 million last year. - -Alibaba has had some serious setbacks in the last few years that, as recently as this week, will likely have a huge effect on its future. Some of the most serious have been, but are not limited to: the listing of Alibaba on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a proposed $160 billion initial public offering (IPO) of which it is one of the initial target companies, the recent loss of the CEO, Jack Ma, to a minor illness that seems to have been the result of a serious falling out with his brother, and the sudden departure of the Chinese Commerce Ministry from its stake in the company.<|endoftext|>A/N: I'm a first time reader, so forgive any grammatical and/or spelling errors. I'm writing with a particular focus on the "good guys". These characters are a sort of mirror image of those of 'Harry Potter' and 'Mystery/Suspense', but we don't have a Harry and a Hermione or a Ron and a Ginny, etc., so I'm just going off of the canon books. There would be many more characters I'd like to talk about so be on the lookout for those in future updates. - -The first chapter is written for those with no prior knowledge. - -Also, I have no affiliation with Warner Bros. Entertainment. In fact, I don't even own anything to do with the films. - -I hope you enjoy. :) - -~Tess - -Chapter 1 – The Road to Hogwarts - -Harry had never been more sure of anything in his life. The idea of a wizarding school was no more ridiculous than Hogwarts was. Yes, the school had no practical use anymore, but the Hogwarts he remembered as a child, filled with Hogwarts books and Harry's parents' old Quidditch gear, was the Hogwarts he wanted to return to in a flash of speed. He didn't know how he'd ever be able to forget, but that was how he hoped Hermione would be able to forget. - -If only he had a way to go back. - -A tiny bit of silver slipped across the back of his hand as he ran the cold water over the cloth. He looked at the shiny bead and smiled. - -"Mum, how much did I pay that house elf not to kill a few muggles while she was serving me?" - -"You can't be serious?" - -Snape sat cross-legged in the kitchen chair, reading over the Potions Master's notes in a not-so-gentle manner. - -"He couldn't do it," Harry said, shrugging. "He didn't do anything." - -"So you mean he wasn't a pure-blood?" - -"Pure-blood means pureblooded." - -"Harry, you should know: muggles and muggles with magic don't do anything to each other. They use magic if and only if there is a genuine magical power connection that goes back to the blood, and that connection is between the two parties' parents. But as for pure-bloods and muggles with magic, they simply don't. They use magic like they would use a wand, they just don't use it to save lives or make friends, they use it as a means of destroying, murdering, stealing, getting away with murder, and killing. Pure-bloods are just like muggles, not better or worse, just like muggles. No one really gives a damn, actually." - -Snape stared hard at him. He still had a few angry slashes across his face where he had been hit by the Dark Lord's curse, but he didn't look nearly as angry as the last time. - -The Dark -======================================== SAMPLE 347 ======================================== -Riot released a statement on the recent changes to Summoner's Rift. - -Riot's statement reads: "Today we're making a change to the balance of Summoner's Rift. - -"Riot has a lot of confidence in the power of the balance changes, but we're listening to players and making improvements to the Rift at the same time. When we make improvements we'll post them for everyone to check out so no one feels left out. We'll be keeping a close eye on player feedback and working to get things perfect before the next round of balance changes goes out." - -The patch is now live on the PBE (the patch notes aren't out yet), and should be live to all regions shortly. - -For updated Patch Notes, Click here.<|endoftext|>In order to improve your customer experience on the Web, we regularly analyze web traffic to make sure each site has the traffic it need to generate revenue and improve your customer service. This site, for example, uses analytics to collect all the web data related to each visitor and to aggregate how users interact with your site. This is a free site from us, and can also be a very valuable website to you: We use your data to improve your online experience, and the more visitors there are, the higher your revenue. We use this data to inform advertising and marketing decisions for all Web properties.<|endoftext|>If you've been to any major college football game this season, chances are the announcers have been saying "it's in the books" or "it's now official" about the score on about 70 percent of the plays of the game. - -Well, we can add another phrase for you: "the official score." - -The NFL announced their official "score" for Week 4 of the 2013 NFL regular season on Monday. The official score is 49-14 Arizona Cardinals over the San Francisco 49ers. The total of 49 is for Arizona. The official game score, which includes all three periods, is 49-14-13. - -It has yet to be determined how the NFL will handle official scores going forward. The league announced in July that the score would remain the same but a new scoring system would be implemented the following season. - -A new scoring system will be in play for 2014. — Rich Eisen (@richeisen) November 28, 2013 - -The NFL announced the scores for every single play of Week 4, which included the first two preseason games. Official scores in 2014 were not revealed until Friday. - -The official total is 49-14-13 in favor of Arizona, meaning Arizona was awarded a 13-point victory, giving Arizona their regular season title. Arizona also got a bye in Week 4. For the complete final score, including postseason games, see the official score below. - -Follow Kevin Patra on Twitter @kpatra.<|endoftext|>The U.S. Navy's newest destroyer — the new littoral combat ship (LCS) Freedom — suffered catastrophic damage while training in Florida, the Pentagon said on Thursday. - -"The ship sustained damage while completing combat readiness checks for the Freedom class on Wednesday, Sept. 21, as a result of one or more of the following: a crack in multiple structural members of the hull; a cracked waterline; a cracking bulkhead adjacent to the Command Center; or damage associated with the installation of a catapult, gun launching system, gun control system or shipboard systems not otherwise provided for," the Pentagon reported. - -The Navy's 7th Fleet released the information shortly after the Navy's Office of Naval Surface Forces released its own preliminary report, confirming the Freedom suffered extensive damage in a "catastrophic flooding event." - -While the Navy did not go so far as to say "catastrophic," the damage to the vessel indicates an actual, catastrophic failure, not just cracking. The Freedom is likely to be stripped of its weapons and sent to drydock for repairs and recertification of systems, the report stated. - -"Based on the data available, LCS 8 is currently undergoing repairs to its hull and bow as a part of repairs following a training exercise in which the bow did experience significant damage," the report stated. - -The Pentagon noted that the Freedom would need to be recertified before heading to sea in the near future — a fact that doesn't come as a surprise given the severity of the damage. "LCS 8 will receive its own dry dock and a complete overhaul," the Navy stated in regards to the ship's recertification. - -The Pentagon report added there were no injuries to personnel. "No one was aboard when damage occurred," the report stated. "No damages to ship or property. No injuries to personnel. An investigation continues." - -Follow Giuseppe on Twitter and Facebook<|endoftext|>The first draft of a report on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is expected to include criticism from some of Washington, D.C.'s top climate change specialists who strongly disapprove of the project. - -The report by the State Department will be officially released as -======================================== SAMPLE 348 ======================================== -It looks like the future of the city has arrived: One of the world's top five most expensive hotels, St. Moritz Castle, has been completed. - -Dubbed "the most spectacular of all high-end castles" by its developer Herzog, who has the largest family-run real estate firm in Switzerland and is also the owner of the San Siro soccer stadium, the hotel is a five-star hotel and comes at a cost of nearly $20 million. - -Built on the mountain, it sits on the slopes of Mount Moritz, which is 6,500 feet above sea level. It takes up more than 50 acres and is surrounded by a lake. - -"The hotel will be both very close to the centre of Geneva, and the town will be close to it," said Henri Ries, the head of Herzog and de Meuron, which is behind the hotel. - -Mr. Ries says that the city, which he estimated will become the Switzerland's third major city once it gets its own airport, will be a major draw for all visitors since it's a safe city and an excellent location for the ski season. - -It is the only ski-resort in Switzerland. - -"We have the best ski areas here and the hotels are close to them, so there is great activity to do," Mr. Ries told The Associated Press during the opening of the hotel. "It's good for the country." - -The project is not being financed with public money, but with private money from the city. - -The Moritz Castle is an example of Herzog's design principles. - -He has "never wanted to overbuild something, at least not too much," Mr. Ries said. Herzog's "tactics are much like in architecture; every element has to work together."<|endoftext|>The following is a list of Vaughn Live's stream guidelines Must be at least 18 years of age to have an account and/or stream Streams (example: photos, films, videos, events, live broadcasts) cannot contain content of persons under the age of 18, except professionally pre-produced content. No nudity / No sexually explicit material No consumption and/or depiction of illegal drugs and/or substances (based on United States federal laws) on stream No hate speech / No illegal activity No mooning. Due to past "unfortunate" mooning events, mooning is no longer allowed. Cannot focus stream on chest, butt or genitals. No sex toys or promotion of sex related items. Banned streamers can be on your stream or MvnCams, but you are responsible for their actions and content. People category is not for all content. If you change the content of your broadcast, please update your channel category accordingly. Streams with no one on cam, no one on mic and no Streamer in chat do not belong in the People tab. Also streams that show pre produced content for the majority of their stream should not be in the People category. Gaming is allowed here on Vaughn Live. And if you're either on cam or on mic, you can stream gaming in the People tab. By using Vaughn Live, you agree you have full permission for any content you may use on your stream and/or on your channel itself Guidelines are subject to change - -Welcome! Here is some information to assist you in setting your channel up!For emoticons & other important info https://myvaughn.com/tech_corner . You can view profiles by clicking the View Profile button or going to https://myvaughn.com/jamesdudley Please go to http://vaughnlive.tv/tech_corner for help with settings and assistance with loading banners,headers, backgrounds, and profiles. We also have additional information loacated at https://myvaughn.com/tech_corner Background: 1920 x 1200 pixels (recommended)Banner: 1600 x 75 pixels (1280px is visible left aligned, but must be 1600px total)Video: 640 x 360 pixels (16:9 ratio)Profile Picture: 320 x 240 pixels (4:3 ratio)About section max width: 640 pixelsTo upload header, background and update About Section, you need to sign in, go to My Account then Edit Channel.To upload profile, click on your name in the upper right corner, then click Change Profile Photo<|endoftext|>The most popular "dummy" device that is used in police cars and on the street these days is the "pursuit light". The pursuit light is the source of a lot of confusion for a reason. It is probably the most misunderstood light in the fleet at the moment. It can create a lot of havoc on a police vehicle and the driver in it. It may be used by people in the dark just to pass the time, or to try to steal the victim's car or steal from the vehicle itself… all without any knowledge that it is being used by the police to -======================================== SAMPLE 349 ======================================== -The New York Times has reportedly confirmed that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee and former Illinois Senator Richard Durbin "tried to help" the New York Federal Reserve Bank obtain a seat on the board of directors of the National Credit Union Administration while serving in the United States Senate. - -In fact, it is clear that the Obama administration had little intention of putting a pro-Wall Street bankster on the board of directors of the credit union association. A White House official confirmed to Business Insider that the Obama administration had "no plans" to appoint Durbin to a position at the Federal Reserve. It is also well known that Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, and the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, both favored banking interests, and did not mind working with Wall Street banks. - -The New York Federal Reserve Bank confirmed today to BizTech News that President Obama's choice to be the third member of the Board of Directors of the National Credit Union Administration, William Dudley, had "inadvertently disclosed" to the New York Federal Reserve Bank while serving in the United States Senate that he was "interested in" lobbying for the New York Federal Reserve Bank and other "financial institutions." - -It was later learned that Durbin had not been elected to the United States Senate, nor did he appear on the state voting rolls and therefore his nomination was not considered, yet Durbin continued to try to obtain a seat on the Board of Directors. - -What is equally noteworthy, however, is that the New York Fed did not even raise an objection to Durbin's attempts to lobby for his old job as a position at the NCUA Board. Instead, it was Durbin's actions that provoked the NY Fed to go to the Federal Reserve and make the complaint to the Federal Reserve that he would take an interest in banking institutions which are not subject to Federal Reserve oversight. - -The NY Fed also denied Durbin, by no means the first person to make a similar attempt to get a bank seat on the Fed's Board of Directors, approval to have his confirmation submitted to the Senate, nor to hold positions in the NCUA and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. - -According to Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal, "Durbin's efforts to obtain the seat at the NCUA were in their early stages when Warren got involved. Durbin told the Federal Reserve that Dudley, who was then the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, was 'interested in' lobbying at the Federal Reserve for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board." - -It is known that when Warren came to Washington her "carefully crafted" "investigations and hearings" were designed to ensure that she had bipartisan support for her legislation and to put pressure on Republicans. Warren sought to secure a chairmanship on the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is an important position as it regulates corporations' stock option policies for senior executives, and that also gives the SEC the tools it needs to investigate companies. And because the position requires a super-majority of votes to confirm a nominee, the job is regarded as a powerful position when it comes to political influence in the financial industry. The White House even considered having her chair the S.E.C. - -However, her effort to get the seat on the board at the NCUA was not without opposition. According to Weisenthal, "A coalition of Senate Democrats and unions led by the Communication Workers of America [CEA] and the United Food and Commercial Workers [UFCW] lobbied to keep Dudley off the credit union board, fearing the president's choice would not be an 'objective,' impartial regulator." Warren "lobbied to keep Dudley off of the credit union board," according to the Times. - -Moreover, another group that wanted a board seat for Dudley was the Financial Services Roundtable, where former members of the Clinton Administration that advocated for Wall Street banks, like former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former Commodities Future Trading Commission Chairman, Gary Gensler, former Chair to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and former Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, Lawrence Summers, were the members. - -In an effort to put pressure on these opponents of Dudley's board appointment, Weisenthal said that, after the Senate Banking Committee was informed that Warren was going to pursue Dudley's appointment "at least a handful of the committee's Republicans joined it" in voting to confirm the nominee. Even the chair of the Federal Reserve, the influential Daniel Tarullo, who supported Dudley and was "one of [her] strongest supporters," voted "present" and voted "no" according to Weisenthal. - -In other words, Senate Republicans were willing to let Warren "do the work" and vote the seat away from a former Treasury Secretary, another White House appointee, and another pro-Wall Street bank nominee. As stated in the Senate Banking Committee's report on Dudley's appointment, the Obama administration went a more extreme route to remove the -======================================== SAMPLE 350 ======================================== -[This story is not yet complete, but we are posting it after we have contacted the owners.] - - -The dog-bite fatality of this past August in Florida has now been ruled a homicide by the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office. The dog's owner has not been accused of any crime. - - -The incident occurred at 8:00 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2015 when the owner was leaving his house after returning to his job at a medical facility. As the owner approached his driveway, his dog — a 2-year-old boxer named Bailey — began sniffing him and then bit him on the side of the face several times. The bite was stopped when he pulled up, got on the phone with the dog's owner, and instructed the owner to take his dog to his vet for treatment. Two hours to drive to his car — and two hours to travel back — later, the owner arrived to find this news report : - - -"Bailey's body was unrecognizable...his ears were gone....his nose and lips were ripped...his jaw was fractured...his spinal cord was severed." - - -Two hours later, the owner returned to the emergency room of Dr. Robert C. Crain and found that the dog was still in critical condition. A week later, the dog died — this time, in surgery, in the emergency room of the Palm Beach County Veterinary Medical Center. - - -Crain wrote in an autopsy report that Bailey suffered internal damage, including multiple puncture wounds, to one eye, in a "stabbing manner." - - -According to his family friend, Bailey died as a result of the dog's bite. The medical examiner's office ruled Bailey's death a homicide. - - -[ This story has been updated ] - - -Related Stories: - -Dog Bite Fatality: A Life-Struggle for the Parents of a "Chocolate" Pit Bull - - -Dog Bite Fatality: Three Fatalities in Eight Weeks - - -Dog Bite Fatality: A "Chef Boy" Canine Kills A Human - -* * * - -Related Stories, News, and Events of 2014: - -Dog Bite Fatality: A New Florida Law - -* * * - -Please support Animal Hope & Wellness Center in sending this message out to those who find themselves in the position of caring for a deceased dog of theirs. This is so important to us, and we need your help. Your generosity is greatly appreciated! And remember, we need your help too! To have your donation count for double the amount you donate, you may purchase a "Charity Dog Toy." - - -* * *<|endoftext|>Tampa, FL Crime Information, Trend and Rate - -SpotCrime's Tampa, Florida crime map shows 6 assaults, 0 shootings, 17 burglaries, 32 thefts, 15 robberies, 29 vandalism, and 32 arrests over a one month period. The previous month crime map in Tampa, Florida showed 3 assaults, 0 shootings, 14 burglaries, 38 thefts, 25 robberies, 34 vandalism, and 34 arrests. - -According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Tampa, Florida is currently down by 10% when compared to the previous month. - -Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Tampa, Florida. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 17% when compared to the previous month. - -Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Tampa, Florida. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 23% when compared to the previous month. - -Stay aware of the crime happening in your neighborhood. Make sure to sign up for your personalized SpotCrime crime alert for Tampa, Florida. SpotCrime email alerts include a crime map and crime blotter for Tampa, Florida and are a great community watch tool.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 Name Type Range Size Ability Priority Weight Color 1 Color 2 Weight 2 Color 3 Color 4 Color 5 Color 6 Color 1 Color 2 Color 3 Color 4 Color 5 Color 6 Color 1+ Weight 2+ Weight 3+ Weight 4+ 2 Air Warrior Assault Rifle 0.12 1.05 0.05 0.5 3 1.05 0.7 0.25 0.75 0 1 3.05 3 Alien Shotgun 0.15 -0.02 -0.8 1.3 3 -0.8 -1.8 1.25 1 2 4 5 Alien Sawed-Off Shotgun 0.15 -0.02 -0.8 1.3 3 -0.8 -1.8 1.25 1 2 4 5 Alien Sawed-Off Shotgun (MkII) 0.16 1.05 0.05 0.5 3 1.05 0.7 0.25 0.75 0 1 3.05 5 -======================================== SAMPLE 351 ======================================== -DUBLIN – At the height of the crisis, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams took his young children to the United States on a trip that has become the subject of intense scrutiny as the former British colony struggles to emerge from its longest period of political isolation. - -The U.S. trip came just one week after the announcement that the Irish government would no longer make financial aid available to the people of Northern Ireland in the absence of progress toward an agreement following five weeks of political stalemate that has led to an economic collapse. - -And that was the main focus of the Adams family's trip, which began with an overnight hotel stay at the Hotel LaSalle, a downtown Dublin hotel that was a favorite of the Adamses during their first visit to Ireland in 1981. - -Adams, his eldest daughter, Mary, 14, and her younger brother, Michael, 13, left for New York shortly after midnight on September 1 and did not return until around noon the following day. - -"It's a wonderful experience," Mary Adams told Fox News on Sunday from New York. - -PHOTOS: Gerry Adams' Family Album - -Asked if the trip was all about the children, Mary Adams shook her head and replied, "We've also been on a number of trips where that's been one of the main things that came up." - -"We've traveled a lot, and we've come back and been with our family on most of the trips." - -In an article written for the BBC earlier this month that was based on interviews conducted by the Irish broadcaster, it was noted that the Adams children often traveled with their parents on trips to visit Irish friends or family in Ireland, but that a trip such as this would be the first time their father and mother were traveling together "in a serious and permanent capacity." - -Adams, who retired from serving as an IRA commander after leaving office in 2007, took his children to the United States with a number of other senior Sinn Féin figures following the collapse of the peace process earlier this year. - -During his interview with Fox News, which will air on Monday, former IRA chief Gerry Adams noted while it was a positive trip for the children, he wished they traveled by train rather than the plane when going home from New York. - -"It just so happened I was there with four of my colleagues, we'd left Dublin two hours before my kids went in a van the other side of town," he said. - -"I wasn't at home, but I was watching all of their activity, watching what a great experience it was for them and me, to see them in the United States. I would have wished them to go to train by car, and, if they could do that on their own, I think it would be much easier and much safer for their families and for themselves. I wouldn't have wanted them to travel on the subway at night, because there were a lot of problems that took place on that train, not at night, but in the early hours, particularly if you're trying to get home." - -Adams' statement echoes those made by ex-member of the IRA, Denis Donaldson, who told BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show on Sunday that the children should have traveled by train and not the bus, as well as by the water, because of the dangers they would have encountered if taken by car or airplane. - -Adams' comments on Monday echoed those made by Donaldson on the programme, as he also insisted that the children should not have travelled out of the country, but that he would have taken them on his own "in a serious and permanent capacity." - -"You could see they were really excited and they had a great time in New York, but they wouldn't have gone to Ireland because they still had a lot of work to do and a big political question to get through, which they weren't the right kind of people to be going through," said Donaldson, who currently lives in the United States. - -Donaldson claimed the children were in fact "too young" for the trip, but denied that the trip was about the children. - -WATCH: Former IRA Commander Says Gerry Adams' Children Shouldn't have Traveled to the U.S. - -A spokesperson for Sinn Féin last month confirmed that the Sinn Fein president's children were on the trip, noting that Adams had a busy schedule of meetings this week after the fall of the political impasse led him to announce in front of a packed room at the European Parliament that the political impasse between the two sides of Northern Ireland was over. - -A spokesperson told Fox News, "It was made clear that the trip would provide an opportunity for Gerry and [political advisors Gerry Carroll, Gerry Kelly and Gerry Adams] to explore the possibility of the children continuing their education as they went to visit their family. This was in line with the Sinn Féin policy as set out in the Sinn Féin manifesto as reported in the newspaper this weekend." -======================================== SAMPLE 352 ======================================== -In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which was obtained by Politico and which was signed by three dozen more former Justice Department officials, former attorneys general Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Dick Thornburgh and Richard Thornburgh argued there are serious questions surrounding the administration of ObamaCare and the legality of President Obama's actions in signing it into law. - -In their letter, sent on July 15, 2013, the former Justice officials outlined their concern, saying, "We are writing to emphasize that all federal employees are potentially covered under federal insurance exchanges established by ObamaCare. As the Administration's own regulations indicate, if any new federal employees receive health care on an Exchange administered by the Administration, they are also potentially covered, notwithstanding any individual mandate provision in the law." - -While there were numerous issues raised by the federal officials, the most important claim by the former Justice Department officials was that the administration's actions in signing ObamaCare were illegal and that there was a need for them to send a "letter of explanation" to the attorney general because of the legal "seriousness of the underlying legal issues." - -The letter further states that, "Although the Administration provided a two-page explanation to the Congress of what it claimed was the legal basis for the individual mandate on March 31, 2013, it offered no additional information on other aspects of the statute or on ObamaCare itself, the underlying legal issues that may underlie these actions or the steps the Administration is taking, including proposed changes to the rules and regulations governing federal workplace health care exchanges." - -The letter went on to state, "In our view, if federal employees receive health insurance on an exchange administered by the Administration that is the same as or substantially similar to coverage granted by the employer to which they were previously responsible, they may be subject not only to the mandate but to additional reporting requirements, penalties and the imposition of tax penalties not covered by the mandate." - -"We are concerned that the Administration is making decisions not in keeping with the law. While federal employees receive insurance through their employer and pay both employer-provided and themselves-provided premiums, the Administration is making decisions that impact their health benefit coverage for the first time," the letter states. - -The letter went on to state that former Attorney General Gonzales, who served as Attorney General of the United States from 1999-2005, served as acting attorney general when Lynch was confirmed as the next Attorney General by the Senate last week. - -While Lynch has indicated she agrees that ObamaCare is illegal, and in a press conference she said, "Well, I believe that the law is the law, and so, with the respect to that, if there are questions that the Department has at all, I'd like to take the opportunity to seek more information before I make a determination about how we can move forward on this particular issue." - -However, Politico points out that Attorney General Lynch has not offered any explanation. In fact, in her letter to Lynch, the former Justice officials are asking her to "declare that the individual mandate is unlawful and that any person who receives health care coverage through an Exchange created by the legislation is subject to the law." - -In a letter to President Obama, the former former DOJ officials wrote that the Obama administration's actions under ObamaCare are "fraught with legal questions" and that the administration needs to "take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that all federal employees, regardless of their title, receive adequate health insurance coverage." - -Additionally, the three former Justice officials questioned if the Administration is "properly interpreting or enforcing" the law, stating, "Congress, which is responsible for implementing the employer mandate, has provided only the broadest definition of 'substantially similar coverage' under the law, and the administration has largely left such interpretations to the EEOC and the courts in implementing the employer mandate. - -"In doing so, the administration is subjecting millions of employees to a form of double standards. In essence, the employer mandate requires some employees to purchase coverage from the employer, but does not require others to do so. Moreover, while the administration continues to assert that 'unlike' plans will be exempted from the employer mandate, the administrative record shows that the administrative definition was not consistently followed, and there is some evidence that it might not be. - -"Our conclusion that individuals in federal civilian agencies are covered under an Exchange administered by the Administration is based upon their statutory definition of 'the same plan,' including the definition contained in 42(a)(1), as well as statutory language from 28 CFR Sec. 2940.13(c)." - -The former Justice officials also said they "have serious doubts" about how the administration will treat state-based exchanges under the same rules as those operating in the federal exchanges. - -Read the letter to Lynch here:<|endoftext|>A top adviser to Donald Trump has reportedly claimed that Britain is trying to influence events in the US by buying up newspapers and TV channels. - -The controversial claims were made by Steve Bannon, the controversial advisor to Trump and his chief strategist, -======================================== SAMPLE 353 ======================================== -A man who was detained last month at a North Dakota airport has been cleared to be reunited with his parents. - -The Bismarck Tribune reports that a Bismarck judge on Thursday dismissed allegations and a warrant against 37-year-old William Michael Harris, who had been detained for hours on Oct. 23 at the Fargo-Moorhead border crossing. - -SPONSORED - -A magistrate's court judge ruled that the government had failed to prove that the man posed a significant threat to flight security or public safety, and he declined to issue the search warrant against Harris on that basis. - -Harris was traveling back to his hometown of Bismarck, North Dakota, after a trip to California where he helped organize a protest against fracking. Border Security Agent Joseph Wills, who is also charged with misdemeanor indecent exposure, made the initial detainment at the Fargo-Moorhead checkpoint despite Harris' repeated protests that he was a U.S. citizen and was on his way to his parents' funeral in North Dakota. - -Harris, who is being represented by attorneys Michael Boldin and Jennifer Young, told court Judge Bruce McMonagle that it was unfair for the agents to take him into custody because he had "done nothing" to warrant the stop on his return to his hometown. - -Harris told the court that as he was being forced to wait on the ground for several hours, agents removed his glasses, placed his hands behind his back and handcuffed him behind his back. - -The Associated Press reported that authorities reported finding marijuana in Harris' checked baggage. - -At one point during his detention, agents allegedly attempted to administer medical tests to Harris but he objected in protest. - -Judge McMonagle ruled that Harris' rights were violated and that he was detained based on a "fishing expedition" that "frightened, intimidated and humiliated" Harris. - -A spokesperson for U.S. Border Patrol said the agency will comply immediately with decisions from all district attorneys where Harris' case is headed and said they were not surprised by the court's decision. - -"Bismarck is a busy crossing, and there are many people who live outside of that county," he said. "So there's likely no more than six or seven folks a month who would be detained at this checkpoint with Mr. Harris." - -Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:<|endoftext|>The "M" on the front of your Honda CR-V has no meaning. However, it is there to let your passengers and people who work behind the scenes know that the car is built with Honda performance in mind. If it is missing, then Honda says you are wasting your money on the one and only Honda-built CR-V in the world.<|endoftext|>"I didn't know she even has tits!" - -— Gwen - -Gwen Tennyson is a main character from the Animal Crossing series, first appearing in Doubutsu no Mori e+ and Doubutsu no Mori (New Leaf). Her name likely alludes to her love for animals, as well. - -Characteristics [ edit ] - -Appearance [ edit ] - -The character has the same green eyes as the player (and their town). Her eyebrows are pink, the tips of her eyes are orange and she has red eyeliner and pink lipstick, which are all different for every game (except for her first appearance, where the colors are the same as in Doubutsu no Mori e+ and Animal Forest e+, which were the same). It also has brown eyebrows for some seasons, but other seasons have her dark eyebrows. She has pink hair, which is very long in New Leaf and Doubutsu no Mori e+ as seen in the "Piggy Piggy" hairstyle and has long pink lashes for Spring. - -Personality [ edit ] - -Below is a brief description of the snooty personality. For more information, click here. - -As a snooty villager, Gwen will initially appear rude and snobby, but after talking to her, she will reveal that she has a softer side, to the point where the lazy and peppy villagers may start to dislike her. She will find a home with other lazy, peppy, and snooty villagers, who may include herself. She may also get along with jock villagers, who enjoy joking about the same subjects as her and her male counterpart. - -Preferences [ edit ] - -In Wild World [ edit ] - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Cool - -Red - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -In City Folk [ edit ] - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Cool - -Red - -Red - -Unknown - -Unknown - -Unknown - -In New Leaf [ edit ] - -Second line and house [ edit ] - -In Animal Crossing, Gwen's house consists of Red Tile, with a Blue Wall and a -======================================== SAMPLE 354 ======================================== -A top police chief has warned of a terrorist attack planned on London in the lead up to the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations. - -Chief Constable Andy Marsh, the head of the Metropolitan Police Service, told a House of Commons select committee: "There has been some planning since April about terrorist action being carried out in London and there are people with a definite intention to do so." - -"It is likely they will not succeed," he said. - -A number of terror plots have been foiled since the Manchester Arena bomb earlier this week. - -He had previously warned of a "potential attack" on Buckingham Palace and other high-profile events in London. - -Asked by MPs why police forces had not prevented any of the plots, he said that although they "pursue every aspect of the threat", they have to prioritise where there is less threat. - -It was the second time Mr Marsh had warned of a terrorist attack on the British capital, after warning in December about the threat level to the capital being raised.<|endoftext|>Image copyright PA Image caption The government has announced plans for a review of how it spends the UK's foreign aid budget. - -The Department for International Development has said it will publish proposals to set out the way the country's £12bn aid budget will be spent to ensure it is spent effectively. - -The government previously said it would review how £120m of UK aid was used by the Department for International Development (DfID) in 2012. - -The decision is designed to "enhance transparency" and "protect the public good". - -This followed concerns expressed by MPs following disclosures of internal memos that accused the DfID of failing to properly use funds. - -In a letter to MPs, DfID Secretary Justine Greening said the review would give "clear guidance on the best uses of every penny of British aid". - -The plan includes: - -Publishing a timetable for the introduction of a framework contract for aid contracts; - -Setting out how new and existing aid will be spent on key projects across the UK; - -Investigating the effectiveness of the spending review to "identify areas and improvements in public spending where the public interest is better served by improvements to contract processes" and "identifying areas where funding could be better used to boost projects at a greater scale (more than £500,000) and/or in a broader public interest". - -The review will be implemented at the end of the financial year, she said. - -The Department for International Development is expected to publish its proposed draft framework contract and a draft of the evaluation report later in the spring. - -'Better use' - -DfID has been under pressure to tighten spending rules after it emerged it had spent tens of millions of pounds on a controversial trip to Kazakhstan for the Kazakh president in 2009. - -The Foreign Office said it was "in agreement" with the government on the need for "better use" of funds. - -Ms Greening told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that the proposed framework contract for all aid spending and an interim report published ahead of this month's Spending Review "will give clear guidance on the best uses of every penny of British aid". - -Image copyright Met Police Image caption An F-35B Lightning II planes was destroyed in a fire at the Ministry of Defence's Oruzgan Military Airport, Urganj - -On the government's review proposals, she told MPs: "I was happy to publish the draft of the framework contract this spring. - -"What I have not released is the final version." - -She added that while there was plenty of information "at the moment there is more to do", the government did not "want to rush a final outcome". - -'Better use' - -The government has also published an annual report on aid, which charts the government's spending in Britain or abroad since 1 January 2009. - -On 3 February, the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, accused the government of "caving in" to demands for more action following a speech from the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. - -Mr Johnson blamed the delay in publishing the foreign aid review report on the "complex" nature of the issues, which included issues relating to the EU. - -On Wednesday, the UK was named as one of a number of countries "effectively" using public money for terrorism-related purposes by a parliamentary committee. According to the committee, Britain has given $150m (£95m) to Saudi-backed groups battling Shia rebels in Yemen. - -The foreign secretary said at the time that "wherever possible" aid must be used by the government to counter terrorism.<|endoftext|>In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, France's government is proposing an additional 4 billion euros in security measures. - -The country's president wants to raise the annual security fee for airlines flying to the French capital from 10 to 60 euros, reports AP. The fee would increase to 70 euros for European countries taking -======================================== SAMPLE 355 ======================================== -You can use your Apple Watch to get a sense of what time it is in the room, or ask Siri if it's getting time right. - -What watches can do - -Apple Watch can do a lot of simple things that your smartphone can't. These include: - -Tell the time - -Set alarms - -Set timers - -Start and stop timers - -Check your phone's time - -What watches don't do, but many Android and Windows Phones do, is display the time in your local time zone. While not as easy or useful as using your phone's time app, it is possible to use a watch to set alarms and timers.<|endoftext|>The United Nations says the "most dangerous" country to be a woman or girl could be Nigeria, where a "widespread pattern of sexual violence" and intimidation against women is a key factor contributing to more than 12,000 deaths of women and girls between 2010 and 2015. - -The latest report on gender-based violence released Wednesday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime describes more than 8,000 cases of sexual violence against women, including 3,859 rapes in the past year — an increase of almost 50 percent over the last five years. - -And while Nigeria's economy grows at an annual average of 4.1 percent, more than 10 million people are malnourished — about one in four. - -As a consequence, girls in Nigeria, the U.N. says, are at a great physical and economic disadvantage compared to women in countries such as Brazil. - -"In developing and transitioning countries, the situation poses very real challenges for women and girls, who need strong commitments from the government to protect them against violence and to make economic and social investments in women and girls," said Carmina Arduengo, a UNICEF senior analyst. - -"This report is another warning signal that girls and women are already being put into danger — one that demands urgent action." - -One of the worst countries to be a woman or girl is North Korea, with 880 recorded cases of violence against women, the highest number of any country. - -On the other end of the spectrum is Burkina Faso, where an estimated 4,200 women and girls lost their lives from 2010 to 2015 due to violence. - -In the middle is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at 1,050 deaths of women and girls, followed by Mali, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda and Togo — which all suffer from violence against women. - -The highest number of women and girls who suffer violent death has been recorded in Niger, with 5,000 cases — the highest in the world.<|endoftext|>The United States of America is a world superpower of the 21st century and the third largest producer of oil in the world. In 2016 the U.S. was the world's largest importer of oil, consuming 1.25 billion barrels per year, according to the World Bank. - -Here are 10 other facts about the U.S. oil industry that you really need to know:<|endoftext|>Sebastian Vettel is the only man to win both the last two drivers' championship titles, at Ferrari but also with Red Bull. At his day job as an analyst in F1, he breaks down the intricacies of the sport. He sits down with Motorsport.com's Andrew Benson for a chat about what's next for F1… - -Andrew Benson: I hope you don't mind me asking because we've just been to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. - -Sebastian Vettel: Yeah of course – and you can hear in the background everything. The sounds. It's so loud and so exciting for someone like me. I'm not going to complain about it. - -AB: You must go into the race with a lot of stress, knowing what you can and can't do. You had a pretty dominant weekend, coming back from the slowest race of 2015 to win again at a track where there is not a lot of overtaking. Are you getting nervous about where you sit amongst the drivers? - -SB: Of course I am nervous, that's part of driving F1. If you lose the first few laps it is completely different when you're starting from third place. It is a completely different feel of the car. There's a lot of confidence that you have, of your own car. - -You know where you are, where the car's at – and obviously there's still a lot of track time and we've got some tough track days ahead of us, but you have a feeling that you just have to do a little bit better… - -In the third and fourth stint, if everybody was equal I would say Sebastian should probably be sitting in the podium, he deserved it more but it's still not there at all, but in the past it has been there in the middle of the race. It's great for the championship because it's obviously very close to the end. They -======================================== SAMPLE 356 ======================================== -(This August 14 story has been corrected) - -FILE - In this March 7, 2017 file photo, Donald Trump holds his son Donald Trump Jr. beside Melania Trump before a campaign event at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. The president's son-in-law, Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner stepped down from his roles as president on multiple occasions and was removed from his position as a senior adviser Friday, July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) The Associated Press - -By JULIE JORDANS, AP National Writer - -WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's eldest son has told congressional investigators who interviewed him that he did not disclose his June 2016 meeting last summer with a Russian lawyer, as previously reported by The Associated Press. - -Jared Kushner's interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee came as a New York Times report suggested that he arranged the meeting so that his father-in-law could be shown compromising information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. - -The Times story said that after the meeting, Kushner said he was trying to establish a back-channel line of communication with Moscow. The newspaper said it obtained an email written by Kushner and seen by the Times which did not mention his participation in the meeting nor the Russian lawyer. - -"It has been incorrectly reported that I attended a meeting during the campaign with a Russian attorney and a Russian lobbyist," Kushner told House investigators from the Senate panel that has been investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. It is unclear whether Kushner gave a full account of what the meeting was about. - -The Times said that during the meeting, the lawyer told Kushner that incriminating information about Hillary Clinton was part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican candidate. The report said that although Kushner didn't initially mention the meeting to senior members of the campaign, he did mention it to Russian officials a few weeks later during a meeting at Trump Tower. - -Kushner's lawyers did not immediately return AP's request for comment on Kushner's meeting with investigators. It was not immediately clear if Kushner had volunteered information to congressional investigators or was being forced to speak out in advance of his testimony. - -The White House said Friday that Kushner had volunteered to participate in the June 8 meeting without any knowledge that it was to discuss a Russian effort to aid the campaign of Trump's Democratic opponent — as Trump Jr. had described. - -Kushner, who is married to Trump's wife, said Thursday that he had no recollection of the meeting. Trump Jr., who tweeted a photo of himself sitting in on the meeting, has since confirmed the existence of the meeting. In that tweet, Trump Jr. says he "primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up." - -Kushner acknowledged to the Senate panel that his "primary recollection" from the meeting was that it focused on Russian adoptions. In a statement, he said: "As part of the discussion, I volunteered that I would be available to share with the committee my emails and other information regarding the meeting." - -The statement said that he had not told his father-in-law about the meeting "until this week," citing "concern that this disclosure could pose a conflict of interest." The Senate Intelligence Committee released the statement early Friday evening. - -Trump's son-in-law is the most senior White House official to be questioned by investigators probing Moscow's interference in the American election and any connections to the Trump campaign. His testimony is expected to take place sometime next week. - -It emerged last week that Trump Jr. agreed to meet with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, as well as a representative for the Russian leader, before he took office; his initial version of events that day was that the meeting focused on damaging information about Clinton. Investigators have said that the president was not aware of emails sent earlier in the year about the possible meeting. - -Last week, Trump's son-in-law said that he had "no memory" of the meeting, though CNN has reported that he shared information obtained in the meeting about the Democratic National Committee's finances as part of a Russian investigation. - -He has also said he "had no recollection" of receiving an email about meeting with an attorney for Natalia Veselnitskaya, who he was told had information helpful to the campaign. That statement conflicts with statements he made to the Senate panel, and with information he gave to the House Intelligence Committee. - -On Friday, Kushner said he had sought to learn about the meeting's attendees by consulting with top campaign staffers and his legal team, as well as "people I know in Russia." He called this effort a "good use of my time" when asked if he had discussed the meeting with anyone else on his campaign staff. - -======================================== SAMPLE 357 ======================================== -[Note for TomDispatch Readers: The paperback edition of Nation of Power is now available, if you'd like a bargain. Sign up for our email list, and get it delivered to your inbox immediately. If you want to check it out, click here.] - -Just when it seems like we're finally beginning to end America's brutal wars, another new high-profile war, this one being a "counterinsurgency" effort in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, comes bubbling up (if not bubbling up quite so loudly as when it once did). It's been going on for years, and now, with this latest, perhaps most unusual, American adventure, it's finally coming to a head. - -Just three months after a U.S. drone strike killed one of the men seen as Ayman al-Zawahiri's likely successor, Ayman Mohsen al-Masri, in Yemen, the Pentagon announced that it and other Central Command (CENTCOM), the unit charged with fighting American troops abroad, had dispatched what it called an expeditionary ground force to Saudi Arabia. Not so fast. The White House issued one statement later noting that "this is not an expeditionary force and does not represent an expansion of President Obama's previous authorization in 2011, which was a six-month commitment of approximately 50 U.S. military personnel." That's still enough of a hint of denial that one might be forgiven for thinking that these troops were on vacation. - -The announcement comes on the heels of the arrival of yet another contingent of Pentagon advisers to "train" the Saudi military in the fight against its neighbors. And there are more: Already there are "advisers" from the State Department, as well as from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, among others. And as the Pentagon puts it, these are just "informal" advisers, but these aren't like the advisers that "advise and assist" U.S. troops in the field. - -And let's forget about the fact that, for the last two decades, we have been doing precisely the opposite of "advis[ing]" our Saudi Arabian allies since our invasion began in 1990. While it's true that Saudi Arabia has been a U.S. ally in the Iran-Iraq War that started in 1980, and that it's been paying off a massive military subsidy to the United States, it's also true that, at this point, the United States and the Saudi kingdom have much more in common than either is willing to admit. In recent years, our two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been waged, directly or indirectly, with money and assistance from Saudi Arabia's treasury. If you want to know how Saudi Arabia is using its enormous oil revenues to finance its military adventures in Yemen (and in Syria; see TomDispatch's latest dispatches from Syria), just skip ahead to chapter 11 of this series, "The Saudi Connection," for a peek at the evidence. - -At this late hour, before the latest crisis, the White House seems less than enthusiastic about adding to that evidence. After all, the U.S. already has several thousand troops in the kingdom. In January, it put "more than 50 advisors on the ground" in support of the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. This summer it sent Special Operations forces to Yemen and sent an "adviser," the same person, to help train the Saudis, the White House said. In fact, that Pentagon person, Captain James Steele, was actually in the country to give Saudi Arabia an armored-vehicle demonstration to mark its "National Tank Day." - -Now here's the funny thing: The "advisers" and "trainees" just announced to the world are not, in fact, really advisers but special operations forces. These are special operations forces, of course, who have their own special headquarters in Riyadh (a Special Operations Command unit). This week, in fact, they also began "sustaining" a counterterrorism unit in Yemen, also known as "the Joint Special Operations Response Group," and which, among other things, has been engaged with U.S. drones and other special operations forces in the country. (When I wrote about this last year, I noted that, for all the apparent coolness of the special operations forces at large, the command they were working with is itself rather cool -- though that was before they were also working with the Pentagon-owned "Maritime Prepositioning Group 14"). - -This all may sound like a big diversion and a lot of paperwork -- but in truth, in the United States, this sort of thing takes place all the time. It's called "embedding." In fact, in the decade or so leading up to this latest intervention, the Pentagon has been embedding Special Operations forces and other special ops soldiers all over the Middle East, a far more effective strategy for accomplishing, in the words of the Bush administration, an "intensified campaign against Al Qaeda and its affiliates" -- -======================================== SAMPLE 358 ======================================== -This video game, first released on April 17, 2001, was developed by Game Freak. It was the sixth game in the Pokémon series, and became the first Pokémon game to release a Generation IV appearance. In Japan, it was released on both the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS and was remade in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver with the Pokémon Shuffle. Unlike the other pre-releases of Generation IV, this one was only released for Japan. It was released in Japan in 2001 and the USA the next year. - -This version of Pokémon Adventures was re-released as Pokémon Snap in 2003 to coincide with release of Pokemon Colosseum. - -Contents show] - -Plot - -Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details. - -The title screen displays two pictures, one from A and one from B. - -This first section shows the characters from A and then the ones from B. - -In A, Ash and his friends meet two people who live in the house where Ash and his friends lived when they decided to leave Kanto and start their journey. Ash and his friends also meet a girl named Misty who will be joining Team Rocket in their new plan of getting rich with Pokémon. - -In B, the two people from whom Ash and his friends initially met, Professor Oak and his assistant May, are back in Kanto and living together again. After becoming friends through their shared love of Pokémon, Oak takes Ash on a field trip to the forest where his research is done. It is a wild and dangerous place, and Ash's team is caught as prey by a huge Treecko. After an encounter with some of the Pokémon in the forest, Ash and his friends rescue several of them by defeating Team Rocket. - -The game starts with a scene showing Ash's friends discussing the events of the last few episodes. - -Gameplay - -Like its Generation III counterpart, this game uses the Pokédex. In battle, the game displays its opponent's stats through icons. Like most Pokémon games, it also allows for three different attacks during a battle, but unlike previous games, it displays the attack with which the opponent is most vulnerable: a small icon showing the move. However, unlike past games, this game allows for more Pokémon in a battle (12 on the game's first screen and 16 on later screens) and gives the player a choice of how many moves he or she can use during a battle. - -Although it is named Pokémon Adventures, it is not an adventure, but rather a simulation of a real traveling Pokémon League. Most of the game is filled with battles between Trainers to earn points, mainly to earn badges (most of which also give you better things to do in the game, like visiting other cities). It has many different cities and other areas to visit, but it is recommended players are familiar with this game's structure, as it is one of the most difficult games in the series. - -Items - -In the beginning, players pick a Pokémon from the starting seven as their starter. The player also gets a Pokémon holding the Heart Scale. The first three Pokémon in the starter family can evolve into a Pokémon with a name that follows that of its parent. After this, there are two more paths the player can go down. This leads to either one of three main Pokémon, Pokémon #35 (a Snivy), #40 (a Tepig) and #45 (a Oshawott). One of the most important factors to notice is that these Pokémon grow along with the player, instead of being added with every update. - -A Poké Ball can be used to catch wild Pokémon, but only if the player is in the first slot of the party. Each party member can only hold one Pokémon at a time. - -In the middle is a Poké Doll, which can make a Poké Ball into a Poké Ball 2 and give the player an item. Using it will require the player to take the Poké Ball for 10 Poké Balls to get a Rare Candy. However, it will only be available for the first day of the game; if it is not, the game will give a hint. - -The bottom line - -The bottom line of the screen shows the status of the player's Pokémon, Pokémon Eggs, Poké Doms and other items. - -Main article: Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow - -Main article: Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal - -Main article: Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver - -Main article: Pokémon Pinball - -Main article: Pocket Monsters Platinum - -Main article: Pokémon GBA - -In the Generation II games, the bottom line can be used to change whether the trainer is a child, a Pokémon Trainer, a parent, or a brother/sister. If there is nothing to indicate what the player is, or if the left hand is blank, the player may switch with another player, a sibling (including the player's parent who is on a different version of the game as a parent), or one of -======================================== SAMPLE 359 ======================================== -LONDON (Reuters) - European investors could be forced to cut their exposure to Britain's fabled but illiquid pound due to fears the euro zone economy was set to slow, according to two senior banking executives. - -Rights and shares of Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc are shown at its headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland February 5, 2008. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton - -A sharp slowdown in Britain's economy and the rise of anti-European parties like France's National Front and Italy's Five Star Movement has intensified fears about the health of the broader euro zone. - -The comments by London-based executives at the European firms and banks that control the pound could complicate a campaign ahead of a May 22 referendum by the British electorate to stay in the EU and secure the financial services' sector's biggest share of the bloc's $25-trillion economy. - -"With the vote on (a British exit) coming up (on May 22), there is an increasing likelihood that the pound will be weaker and the cost of hedging will go up, increasing the risk exposure of banks and corporations and possibly investors alike," said one of the bankers. - -"A significant proportion of the pound-denominated assets of our clients and institutions are in the form of euros, so for a lot (of them), hedging in euros and holding dollars, would make sense." - -The source, who declined to be named, told Reuters that some banks and companies might choose to avoid the euro zone altogether for business reasons, for which they would need to find alternatives, such as London. - -"The euro area will continue, of course, to have a strong, positive role to play," said the trader, who is based in the euro zone and declined to be named. - -He said that when hedging euros against the pound has led to losses, "the hedgers will ask why, and the reason is ... the euro area is going to weaken, and that means it will be less attractive ... it'll be harder to take profit." - -An economic slowdown in a currency bloc, such as the euro zone itself, is an immediate concern for financial markets. - -And while the euro zone remains a major economy, it has been sluggish for years, and the risks of a sudden fall in demand for euros would probably be greater for banks that hold more euros against the pound. - -"The euro area has always been slow in the first place, and there's been no reason why it shouldn't be more slow now," said the source. - -"We should see a faster growth of the euro area over the next few years, and if we see a bit of a slowing in the growth in the euro area, that could be a reason to be more critical of the euro zone," he added. - -The euro slid 0.4 percent at $1.0640 on the foreign exchange market as of 1133 GMT (3:33 a.m. EDT), underperforming the broader FTSEurofirst 300 index, and hitting its highest in almost three weeks. The single currency's weaker performance came on the back of a 1.8 percent fall in the euro against the U.S. penny to $0.8788. - -POTENTIAL FOR A MOSTLY CRITICAL RESET - -A recent fall in the euro helped the benchmark FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 rise 2.9 percent in 2014, but many expect a more significant rebound this year due to weak growth in the euro zone. - -The pound is worth almost as much as $1.29 after a sharp drop that occurred in 2008, when then U.S. President Barack Obama tried to prevent a U.S. bailout of the banks that caused the crash and a collapse of global financial markets and the global economy. - -But even the euro's weakness is not likely to be a game-changer for European markets, which are now expecting a sharp slowdown in growth. The euro's decline of 1.0 percent against the dollar and 0.6 percent against the yen on Tuesday put it on course to end 2014 on a two-year downtrend, despite the Bank of England's efforts to support it. - -There are concerns among analysts over the euro zone's ability to sustain recovery even though it could not, or would not, agree to bail out its banks. Germany said in May it was willing to provide an emergency backstop to the continent's southern banks. - -The sources said British investors' holdings of euro-denominated assets could also be at risk as fears over the euro continue to grow. - -"A number of these (bank) customers have very large hedging programmes, so a very, very substantial loss would be possible at some stage in the future," said one of the experts, who also declined to be named. - -"So the question becomes how do you hedge against that?" he added. - -"If you're an institution like Barclays -======================================== SAMPLE 360 ======================================== -The last two seasons have seen a huge improvement in the defensive line from the Dallas Cowboys last year after years of not even being able to stay out of the top ten of the "Fumble Plus" table. - -It is important to point out that this has been a top ten group for a long time now, and in some seasons they will finish in the top ten even after not having much improvement compared to what we now see. This is not an anomaly. - -This season, the defense has gone from 30th overall to 9th overall in the final five weeks after having slipped to 14th in the last two weeks following the Eagles game on Sunday afternoon. - -The final five weeks, in particular, have seen a lot positive improvement on the defensive line, with the line going from 19th overall the week before to 9th overall through the weekend, which is something that was previously considered a top ten unit. - -They did so by giving up the fewest total yards and third-fewest rushing yards through the weekend, both of which show a lot of improvement by the defense. - -It's a credit to the defensive line, which are continuing to put in more consistent effort, and also Dallas secondary. This is a unit that has shown its strengths and weaknesses all along, but after last year's disappointing season finale against the Giants, they did a great job of capitalizing on those weaknesses last year in Week 14 when the offense was playing from behind, including being able to force turnovers and limiting the yards that the Giants could throw. - -While it is true that this group got more help from the secondary at the end of last season compared to at the beginning, Dallas did get better overall from the front four through the season. This has continued this season too, with the front four having given up the second-fewest yards before contact in the league this season after giving up the least yards through the regular season. - -Overall, it has been a good season for the defensive line and it will be no surprise when the defensive line finishes with a strong finish to season as they have done the last two seasons.<|endoftext|>The latest trailer for "Penguins of Madagascar" has released to promote the upcoming film, which will hit theaters on March 18, 2016. - -The film is a story of two siblings named Kowai (Bart Eriksen) and Danko (John Boyega) who escape a secret laboratory in the island's jungle and take on a life of adventure in the pursuit of scientific discovery. Directed by Andrew Stanton, the film is based on the book "The Penguins of Madagascar by Thomas Love Guy." - -This article was originally published by The Nerdist on February 19, 2016. - -Share On Facebook Tweet Pin It Email<|endoftext|>What was mispronounced? Optional: help us by adding the time - -Banks have been on the back foot as investors are seeking an escape from the EU, with the share price plummeting amid fears that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal. - -The FTSE 100 bank index reached a seven-year low, hitting its lowest level since early 2012, and the biggest fall was on London lenders, as the fallout from the Brexit triggered a plunge in the value of shares in the City. - -"Financial institutions are very concerned that the UK does not strike a deal that is satisfactory to the City. The fear is that the City will be the only part of the UK that will leave the EU, so the negative sentiment surrounding the City is just making those fears worse," says Tom Keeney, a portfolio manager at Fathom Financial Advisory. - -Many investors are also worried that the UK will impose a financial transactions tax on all financial transactions - the so-called Tobin tax - with its capital controls, which would also take away the appeal of European banking hubs. - -The European Central Bank is also concerned that the UK may go ahead with its plans to impose EU-wide rules on the level of bankers' bonuses, which is seen as an attempt to weaken the City. - -In contrast, the US Federal Reserve is not overly worried about the prospect of Brexit. It recently made clear in the annual report it is prepared to hike interest rates as needed to boost American growth. - -The Federal Reserve is in charge of the US economy and it is prepared to do exactly what it says it wants," a Fed spokesperson said. - -The UK vote to leave the EU has created a deep division within the City, which is based on its financial hub that is in Europe as well as the UK. - -At 7.30am today, a share in Barclays was £1.55 - its lowest in more than four years. Its share price has dropped almost 7 per cent over the past three months. - -On Thursday morning, a share in Barclays Bank was £1.46, down 1.9 per cent. - -At the bottom, the value of shares in RBS was £1.04, -======================================== SAMPLE 361 ======================================== -The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has been making big news recently regarding the war on drugs. On December 9, it sued one of the largest distributors of illegal drugs in US history, Pharma Brokerage Services (PBSA), alleging that they were illegally funneling drugs to Mexican drug cartels. The DOJ is hoping that if they can stop them from doing this, then so will the cartels. - -What's the big deal? - -Over half of the heroin and cocaine imported into the US today comes from Mexico. The Mexican government has admitted they are fighting the cartels, who smuggle drugs on their territory and then ship the drugs north to get sold to the American public. And while some of the drugs do make it through the US and are then sold to law enforcement and other drug addicts, many cartels simply use the drugs to ship cocaine west in a way they've only ever done before, as they've never been forced to deal with border controls. - -There's now no reason for the cartels to have to deal with border controls or stop transporting their drugs north into the US. And the US is getting involved in helping keep heroin out of the country. - -The problem is that the DOJ has not found a single person guilty of a crime involved in this, and they still don't understand much about how the heroin actually gets to the United States. The US is now involved in an investigation of drug trade routes between Colombia and the United States, which are apparently being controlled by the Medelline Cartel. And what about Mexico? The DEA is involved with drug cartels to the borders of Mexico, but still doesn't have an understanding of how the drugs are being smuggled to and from the country. - -Why not just stop the distribution? - -So far, this is what the DOJ has had to do. In early 2012, they filed a lawsuit against PBSA, in hopes of stopping it from exporting cocaine and heroin to the US, and then importing them again. They wanted to prevent PBSA from sending drugs from Colombia into the US. - -They won. - -A US federal district court judge upheld the US government's case against PBSA, and then the district court ordered PBSA to pay a $1.5 million fine. But the department of justice hasn't won the war on drugs. The judge didn't give PBSA any legal recourse. In the end, the judge declared PBSA and its owners guilty of aiding and abetting the smuggling of illegal drugs. - -PBSA and its owners have no actual responsibility. The court basically ruled that they didn't "consplain" or "admit" anything when they were questioned, and therefore they were guilty of aiding and abetting. It was a very clear conclusion that the DOJ thought they had in mind with their lawsuit. It's why PBSA owner Charles Babcock was forced to file a motion to dismiss the case. - -Now they want to fight it in federal court? - -But the government wants a second crack at the case. They have also filed a motion to reopen the lawsuit, citing that as long as PBSA is involved, then drugs will definitely be going north. That's absurd, considering that, just days ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) came out against another pharmaceutical company, AmerisourceBergen , for doing exactly that. - -AmerisourceBergen is one of the largest distributors in the country and claims to deliver drugs to the US only through the Port of Oakland. The US government didn't think that would solve anything, claiming that it would still enable the drugs to be smuggled into the country to sell to Americans. - -And now the case is set to move again. - -So the DOJ has now asked the court that they be able to "reopen" the case for PBSA, who has been fighting the US government to prove that they didn't violate the DEA's actions. - -And in a filing that they submitted in June, the US government argued that "the fact that the district court did not accept the government's interpretation of PBSA's alleged role as a conduit for illegally imported drugs is irrelevant." - -"We are deeply disappointed that Congress chose to change the original scope of the statute without even informing the public of its intent and without even a brief discussion on the Senate floor," Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in the filing. - -The DOJ argues that the case should be reopened because PBSA claims it is the "sole supplier" of drugs to Mexico and that if they were to stop dealing with the cartels, then drugs would go to the US, where they can be sold to Americans. - -"The court has made clear that we will not rest until we have obtained justice for all who have been harmed, and for the victims whose loved ones have been brutally killed," Holder wrote. - -Now the DOJ wants to fight it again. They've submitted another filing on December 7th asking for the judge to reopen the case for PBSA and to take the case to -======================================== SAMPLE 362 ======================================== -I am an old English guy, so the term "whip" is quite familiar to me. It comes into my vocabulary quite regularly: it's a slang term in British English for towing. In my native country England, you'd sometimes see it used in different slang terms, even in the local vocabulary. - -For example, the term "whip" is now quite ubiquitous in the English-speaking world nowadays. That being said, I do not use this term very often as I tend to be more familiar with the more modern terminology. - -Let's talk about "whipping". - -The origin of "whipping" - -"Whip" is a noun that has a slightly different pronunciation in British English than it does in American English. In British English, a "whipping" is any method or action that is applied to an unwilling victim that is known to be a weak or helpless person (i.e. a slave). - -In contrast, some Americans prefer to think of "whipping" as an "inhuman" and "dereliction" (i.e. degrading) form of punishment, which is something that was done only a few months ago or decades ago but nobody wants to talk about it. There are people who actually use "whipping" as an actual word for the act as a derogatory term. I'm not making any sense but I believe that there are people who still want to consider the terms "whipping" and "whip" as equivalent. They use the word "whippet" in their own ways but there is nothing that resembles "whipping a slave"…<|endoftext|>About This Game - -Story-driven - - -Exploration & Exploration - - -Misc. - -The story follows the life of a young boy named Tomori after he escapes a village and is transported to another world - - -He will discover and learn all kinds of weapons and magic - - -Different characters from different countries in the realm will join him on his adventure - - -The story can be played either as a standalone or as a side-story to the original game - -KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! is a visual novel and an adventure game.The tale begins after Tomori is released out of prison at the start of the game. Tomori is transported to a world where his family has perished. What Tomori finds in this world is truly beyond belief!The game is set in a distant future where the gods are being destroyed by an alien species called the "Demon of Greed". As a result, many human nations and kingdoms have collapsed, forcing many different magical communities inside the realm. These magical communities come together to exchange information on which territory to conquer and what weapons to use to fight the Demon of Greed. Tomori soon joins a magical community, but there's one thing he's clueless about: the people, the culture or the language of the magical communities.<|endoftext|>In today's world, digital media is a big, important part of a business. But not everyone knows how they can make it work. - -It isn't easy to get the word out, particularly to the right person at the right time. - -The folks at Digital Nomads would like to provide one more method to communicate the value your company can bring to the marketing and sales teams. - -But they're not asking for your business to have a huge following. This isn't a company that will grow by millions in the next few years. - -This is a company that wants to reach the right people. Some will get the message and some won't. Some will be impressed, and some won't. Still, at the end of the day you will get something out of their feedback. That's good for business. - -In addition to digital marketing communication apps like Hootsuite, the company offers services like email templates to help your company communicate better. - -How many businesses already do this? - -You don't have that problem. Not only do they offer their services, they also have a free version of their email templates, which you can use as well. - -One of the great things about the free plans is that you can create email templates at will. - -I tried that last week, and even though the templates weren't that interesting, I was able to get some great leads from them. - -How to Use Hootsuite to Create Email Templates - -Once I started using the free account, it made creating great email templates a lot easier. - -To use the service, you first set up a free account. Once you do that, you're then able to create any number of email templates. It's that simple. - -The other great thing about Hootsuite's service is that once you create a template, it's yours alone. You can change it at any time. - -It's a great tool, but it does come with a few problems. This was the problem I had with this service when -======================================== SAMPLE 363 ======================================== -A couple of things I did here this evening. First, I changed my default wallpaper to the latest Google Nexus wallpaper. I didn't quite like it until I went and changed it. You can see some of the different versions there: http://www.somedaylabels.com/wallpapers/?id=17&width=300. You can see the Google Nexus wallpaper here: http://www.androidworld.com/2012/12/google-nexus-screen-off-wallpapers-and-wifi.html?c=t1329&sp=m. You can see the Google Nexus wallpaper here: http://www.androidworld.com/2012/12/google-nexus-screen-off-wallpapers-and-wifi.html?c=t1329&sp=m. Second, I tried the Google Drive offline app for Chrome for Android. It didn't work out so well for me. You need to have that installed. It seems you need that installed to be able to open the Chrome Desktop app on Android. I tried Chrome on two devices now. The first got it on its first run. The second time, the Chrome Desktop went to a blank wall instead of a new Chrome Desktop showing up on screen. I know it wouldn't be that easy to have that problem on a device with Google Drive. Maybe it's a hardware or OS limitation. It could be that the app doesn't yet support Chromebox. I've not got it yet, so there's no point to try it out. But the fact that you can't get it to work at all, is very frustrating. I really hope somebody has already solved this problem for you, and I'm sure it will work.<|endoftext|>As the U.S. government presses for harsher sanctions and pressure on North Korea, the Kim Jong Un regime has apparently been busy preparing for the possibility of a military conflict. - -Pyongyang sent four-star Generals Kim Yong Nam, Ri Yong Ho, and Kim Kwang Hui to Japan last week, and the two sides are said to be talking about expanding and intensifying their "military mutual trust." - -"They were to discuss ways to further build their respective military mutual trust through the two countries' defense cooperation," Korea Central News Agency reported on its website on Monday. - -The move comes as the U.S. has pressed Pyongyang to abandon its atomic weapons program in recent months, even as the country continued to make progress in developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. - -"The U.S. will seek UN Security Council action on the isolated regime's illicit activity," a U.S. official told the Associated Press Monday. "But we hope to resolve North Korea's denuclearization through economic and diplomatic channels." - -The official would not elaborate on what actions Washington might consider taking, while also cautioning against any sudden changes in policy. - -Last December, U.S. and South Korean officials announced that a joint intelligence team would travel to Pyongyang to investigate reports that North Korea was building nuclear weapons. - -The official said that the team would examine and discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program with North Korean officials. - -Earlier this month, North Korea's State Defense Committee announced that the army was on a "combat alert readiness" and that its "entire strategic force is on alert" in response to what it considers insults aimed at the government and military by South Korea for the annual joint military drills. - -Follow Ryan on Twitter - -Send tips to ryan@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org. - -Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.<|endoftext|>As this is the 3rd or 4th week I have been putting away wood in the back yard and my son's little shed. I love making things, it is just so much fun trying new things and seeing what results you can yield. I have a lot of experience with crafting projects I have been very fortunate to have learned from a great teacher and friend in high school who has been teaching me since I was a little girl. I think she taught me more about a good woodworking than anyone else. Every time I come home from work and the wood pile is full there is something new to make. For this project I used a box to give me a stable frame and a very rough edge. Once I hit an edge I would stop and scrape back down before starting again. The second week of this project I decided to add a handle and I put in a small wooden dowel to help hold the handle open. I figured you could either use a regular wood dowel (which could break when used) or drill a hole in the dowel that held the wood dowel in place. - -The end result was a simple, sturdy and comfortable little backpack. I have used many different materials including recycled materials like -======================================== SAMPLE 364 ======================================== -Suspiciously, he kept his job. - -"He is at a very weak point in his health," says another senior government source. - -The government official says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee have given their approval for the decision. - -The move to keep Arun Jaitley in the cabinet to head the Centre is a reflection of their trust in his judgment. - -But Mr Jaitley is reportedly feeling very weak and his health has become a huge issue in the government. It also shows how sensitive the government is to these details. - -"The issue is that Arun is now very poorly. People who work with him for more than a week and are used to working with him have been talking to him for more than a week now. They see it as a sign of his getting very weak. He has said he does not want to be part of the government and wants to go home," says one senior government source who has been close to Mr Jaitley. - -While the government is not saying anything publicly, there has been a steady, worrying rumour about Mr Jaitley's health for some time. - -In August, he called in the entire top management of the Finance Ministry because he had a severe chest problem and decided to go on a long walk. - -Even before the election, the Prime Minister referred to Mr Jaitley's health as one of the most important issues affecting India. - -"There is a need to have a person with great strength and stamina but also someone with keen sense of duty who is able to handle even extremely difficult and pressing matters," he had said. - -But Mr Jaitley's condition has deteriorated in the last six weeks. Several senior officials say he now suffers from breathing difficulties.<|endoftext|>By: Daniele Ganser, Ph.D. - -"Your heart has been aching a long time. You have not slept well." - - -On the surface it sounds like a standard, everyday conversation, if a rather unpleasant one. The reality is that this conversation was part of the training that was given to our "Prayer Mentor" at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in the Philippines. - -Our team of volunteers, who are part of the International Research Center, prayed the Rosary before each Sunday mass. The goal of the Rosary was to help our "Prayer Mentor" to understand what the Rosary is and how to pray it for the healing of the "wounds" of our souls. - -Before the Rosary, our volunteers prepared a series of questions for their Missionary to ask when they were ready. For example, our volunteers asked: - -"How many years do you have left to live?" - -"How much money do you have?" - -"Do you have any health conditions?" - -"What are your concerns?" - -Our "Prayer Mentor" was taught how to pray the Rosary by our team of volunteers who had been involved in similar situations at St. Margaret's Hospital when they were younger. - -The "Prayer Mentor" had previously been asked to participate in a similar program, but he had not yet fully understood the Rosary's purpose and its effectiveness. - -When Our Lady appeared before him one day, he was healed. The prayer of the Rosary helped to guide him as he was led to the Church, and he experienced a special moment of joy…a "fountain of blessing", as our Filipino volunteers put it. - -We invite you to read the following short story about the "Prayer Mentor". After the story is read, check out the photo gallery of "Missionary 1" being healed by the Holy Rosary, and then take the Rosary and go to the Blessed Sacrament Church in the Philippines to experience the healing of your soul. - -Our story begins when our Missionary 1 visited the Blessed Sacrament Church in the Philippines with a team of Filipina volunteers, and he arrived before Mass. As he went from one group of volunteers to the next, he prayed aloud, "Let us pray for your Church, in the name of the Holy Rosary for the healing of the sick." - -As he prayed, the Holy Spirit appeared to him, and Our Lord said, "You are going from group to group asking for the Rosary." At the last group of volunteers, Our Lord Jesus looked at him and said, "Take the Rosary, and make it the focus of your prayers from now on." - -Missionary 1 asked to be healed of his physical ailments – headaches, stomach pains, weakness – as well as his emotional ailments, and we asked our volunteers to join us and pray the Rosary for our "Prayer Mentor". - -Our volunteers prayed the prayer and Our Lady appeared soon afterwards, and Our Lady made known to Missionary 1 her wishes to heal him with the prayer of the Rosary -======================================== SAMPLE 365 ======================================== -A new study led by researchers at The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge has found that patients with certain high blood pressure diseases, such as hypertensive heart disease or angina, have much more of an inflammatory response in the brain when exposed to a chemical called polyphenols, compared with their counterparts with normal or low blood pressure. - -According to the researchers' findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, patients with hypertensive heart disease, which can affect 1.4% of Americans, and other cardiovascular diseases had significantly more of the protein C-reactive protein circulating in their brain. While this protein is usually found as a normal part of the blood to help the body fight off infections and inflammation, the concentration in the brain has never been known to rise above that seen with patients with high blood pressure. - -The inflammatory response in the brain could account for patients' higher risk of stroke, memory loss and other cognitive issues, the researchers explained. This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and The American Heart Association. - -"Because C-reactive protein is a marker for inflammation that, when elevated, can result in the damage and dysfunction of blood vessels and other organs, our study suggests that elevated C-reactive protein in the brain may be the biological hallmark of CVD, the main cause of heart attacks and stroke," said Jeffrey S. Karp, PhD, Director of the Perelman School of Medicine and a corresponding author of the study. - -"However, we know very little about inflammation in the brain and how it impacts brain diseases," said Dr. Karp, who is also an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health. "We think this research will help us better understand this complex relationship in all its complexity." - -C-reactive protein was measured in blood samples from more than 2,000 people, about half of whom had hypertension, according to the study. These individuals were also given a drug to lower the blood pressure they already had by one unit. The blood samples were also tested for inflammation. - -Researchers measured C-reactive protein to determine the level of inflammation in the brain, then compared this with normal levels of this protein in the blood. In the brain, this protein was often higher, indicating more inflammation, with the highest readings recorded for patients with hypertensive disease. This could account for the higher risk of memory loss and other cognitive issues seen in these patients, the researchers said. - -Other research has also linked high blood pressure to high rates of inflammation in the brain, but the new results demonstrate that the response in the brain is much more pronounced between people with hypertensive disease and healthy people. Previous findings suggest that this immune response in the heart and vascular system is also more pronounced among people who are obese, the study noted. - -"In healthy individuals, the inflammatory response is usually low, so it is quite surprising to then find that in people who have hypertension, the response is far greater than normal," said Dr. Mireille DiMicco, PhD, co-senior author of the study and Department of Surgery, Department of Surgery and Chief of Vascular Surgery, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, in a prepared statement. - -A follow-up study is planned to look at the blood and inflammation levels in patients who had undergone major surgery and those who had not. - -"This is the first time that high blood pressure has been linked to this type of inflammatory response to a chemical in the body," said J. Michael DiPietro, MD, a professor of Medicine oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who was also affiliated with the study. "This study has important implications for our understanding of brain diseases, both those that we already know are linked to hypertension and those that we are still learning about." - -"It is a good example of a study where multiple disciplines come together to create a more comprehensive picture," Dr. DiMicco said. "The data come together in a way that makes it easier to understand."<|endoftext|>After spending the 2014 season battling in the American Hockey League, forward Travis Hamonic has finally been called to the Islanders' NHL roster. - -The Isles announced on Thursday afternoon that Hamonic was officially placed on the NHL team's roster Wednesday morning, though it wasn't immediately clear whether Hamonic made the team. There are two spots available on the roster, both of which Hamonic would be taking. - -Hamonic played on the Islanders' NHL team last season and had four goals and 18 points in 41 games. He also signed a two-year contract with the Isles at a contract value of $6.4 million, while also earning $900,000 in bonuses. - -The Islanders will play the Anaheim Ducks in a second-round playoff series. They will return to the postseason for the first time since the 2005-06 season. - -UPDATE: - -The Isles announced their -======================================== SAMPLE 366 ======================================== -LONG POND, Pa. -- The NHL is looking into how the Flyers responded to a fight by defenseman Luke Schenn during Thursday night's 4-3 loss to the Senators. - -According to reports by Chris Boyle of the Toronto Star and Steve Mears of the Philadelphia Daily News, the Penguins and Flyers went at it like it was a playoff playoff game, and the Flyers had a history with Sens forward Ryan Dzingel in the playoffs. - -Dzingel is also a fan of Dzingel's cousin, Steve Mason, who had a game-winning goal in Philadelphia's 7-6 overtime loss to the Senators. - -"It really wasn't a hockey play," Schenn said. "We are definitely not looking at it as a hockey fight." - -The Flyers have won two rounds this year and four of the past six regular-season games, but the Flyers have also been outscored 5-3 in the games since Thursday night. They were 1-0-1 for a month-and-a-half before the fight. - -"I saw (Dzingel) coming back and I just hit him a little bit," Flyers defenseman Claude Giroux said. "It's not a big deal. You have to be smart at hockey games." - -Schenn has two fights this postseason: one involving Cody Franson against Toronto last week and another in Toronto, when he punched a ref. - -"He's the kind of player that you don't like to do that. It's not the kind of player you want to play against in the playoffs," said Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen, who didn't get to the fight. "We're better for the one. He just doesn't have the ability to do it.<|endoftext|>The following is an excerpt from this book. - -A few months before I started reading The Man Who Would Be Pol Pot, the former head of Cambodia's internal security, I had a chance to chat with Pol Pot in his office. A mild-mannered middle-aged man, who had been known for years as just about the only man in his country who knew who was really in power, now dressed in a suit like a typical middle-aged man I know. But one thing stood out about him the moment I met him for the first time: the long ponytail he was wearing with an untied back hair. - -He has just completed a tour around the country as the official face of "The Party's Revolution." He had taken part in public appearances throughout the country, at the university, during the national elections, and he was at the forefront of this week's march along the streets of Phnom Penh. At the time of the interview he was wearing a pair of dark brown shoes and a blue shirt with a silver button. My first impression was that he was just like every other businessman or politician I've encountered who has taken part in the Cambodian political arena in recent years. Like all of them, he was courteous and warm and I hoped that maybe, just maybe, he had not gone too far. - -Before our interview, Pol Pot had already made a number of statements in the media. In one instance from 2010, he said that he didn't want his name written on the monuments and statues honoring the Khmer Rouge which are on a lot of major urban streets in Cambodia, a statement likely to create the impression that he was associated with the Khmer Rouge and that he had been an official of the party. As long as he remained quiet on their nature, Pol Pot probably wouldn't have to worry all that much about being labeled a Khmer Rouge supporter. - -I was somewhat skeptical of this statement, even though it didn't have to do with Cambodia. My skepticism was only heightened by the fact that some of the most prominent public figures in Cambodia have publicly declared their distaste for the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps it's time to take a step back and look at Pol Pot's statements in more comprehensive context. - -It's no secret that Pol Pot, a charismatic yet ruthless communist leader, made a number of mistakes at times during his long regime. Even from the beginning, he had some problems with his reputation in Cambodia. He was frequently accused of mass executions, rape, slavery, and the torture of children as young as infants. Although there is no way to prove these types of accusations, it certainly seems that the Khmer Rouge were responsible for most or all of those crimes. - -In fact, although Pol Pot is credited as having ordered the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, many historians and many of the victims of the genocide believe that both the regime in general and Pol Pot himself have actually been the ones responsible. - -Pol Pot's claims with regard to the Khmer Rouge have frequently been dismissed as mere propaganda, but despite this, he is still the figure most easily recognized for the atrocities that he and his regime committed through the 1970's. His statements, whether they were accurate or -======================================== SAMPLE 367 ======================================== -In late November, the Texas Supreme Court agreed to hear a state case that could, if it stands, dramatically change the way Texas investigates and punishes child abuse within the criminal justice system, by placing an absolute ban on the use of physical force, or "a mere reprimand," in child maltreatment cases. The lawsuit was filed by the Southern Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union. - -The Texas case was brought by two 12-year-old boys, Ryan and Sean O'Bryan, who claim that a neighbor, Cynthia L. Martin, had "forced them to drink bleach." The boys and Ms. Martin are black. The case has a twist: The boys claim that Ms. Martin called them "n****rs" and then pushed two of her children into a swimming pool, and that Ms. Martin then locked them out. The case involves one of the most extreme examples of racial discrimination in Texas and it has national implications that go well beyond just one family. - -This was actually the second time that the O'Bryan brothers had sued their neighbor. In 2014, Ms. Martin filed a civil lawsuit against both of them. The civil case was thrown out, citing prosecutorial immunity. In 2015, the Supreme Court denied Ms. Martin's petition to revive the case, and in turn, Ms. Martin asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. The case has been sitting in limbo since last fall. This week, the O'Bryan boys asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. - -In Texas, the O'Bryan boys say, a single parent, who has no custodial responsibility, must prove "justifiable justification" in child maltreatment cases in order to obtain a criminal conviction. This makes the legal system far more permissive than in most other states. A child who witnesses the alleged maltreatment is usually absolved of all responsibility. And, as the legal defense of the late Antonin Scalia pointed out: "If a parent had beaten his child, he'd have a legal right to beat his child and nobody would tell him he couldn't. If a parent had been drunk and hit his child, nobody would tell him he couldn't stop drinking and hitting his child." - -As the state's top lawyer, John Cornyn, said recently, "The state of Texas does not have an interest in shielding perpetrators from justice. The state has an interest in punishing them. It's pretty simple. So when a prosecutor says, 'This doesn't count. It's not enough to say the victim was forced to drink bleach,' the next step is to get somebody to show me justifiable justification, so I can say, 'Let's start a prosecution.'" - -The Supreme Court has rarely agreed to hear a case involving racial discrimination. Indeed, since the Obergefell decision this summer, the state Supreme Court has only declined to hear at least four separate state-level cases about criminal justice issues, involving the death penalty, affirmative action, voting rights, and even state-funded school prayer. And in none of those cases did the justices say that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue, a major legal standard. - -At a hearing in January, Chief Justice Rehnquist told the lawyers for the O'Bryan brothers that they should tell him by February if they want to go forward. If not, Mr. Cornyn argued, they should move forward with a lawsuit in Austin by September. But, Justice Kennedy said, "If you want a quick decision, this isn't how you go about it." He agreed with the lower court that there was no standing to bring a case before the Supreme Court. - -In fact, since the O'Bryan boys sued, at least four other states have passed "stand your ground" laws, which offer a legal defense of "stand your ground" as long as you believe that it's reasonable to use deadly force to stop a violent crime. That would make Texas' law the second nationwide. The District of Columbia has long had it; it is now being considered as a possible model state for the federal "stand your ground" law. Other states, like Arizona, have already passed stand your ground laws. - -Mr. Cornyn had a hard job selling the "stand your ground" law to the court. The attorney general of Florida, Bill McCollum, said that stand your ground laws "puts the burden on the shooter to disprove his claim to be under attack," and that "there is no doubt the right to defend oneself is constitutionally protected." Texas' chief justice agreed with Texas law enforcement officials that the state's law was "not intended to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens to use deadly force in self-defense." - -"The fact that the law recognizes a duty to retreat is not a burden," Chief Justice Kennedy countered. His colleagues agreed, in part because the Supreme Court has traditionally accepted the theory that self-defense only depends on the exigent circumstances under which the person believes he is in danger. -======================================== SAMPLE 368 ======================================== -What's new here - -This is an old version of the game. It was not played in the first two editions of my GameFAQs.com game library because there was nothing good in it. And the second edition, not being very popular, was removed from my collection several years ago, I think. - - -With this version of the game, I've been working on improving the game play, but there is a lot more work that still needs to be done. - - -But I'm not taking this long, do you hear? I want to get this game out in one piece! And for that, this one edition of the game needs to be as good as I possibly can make it. - - -So I am adding some new content in this version of the game, which may be helpful to you, but it is entirely separate from the original content. - - -I'd appreciate any feedback that you might be able to give me so that I may make this a game you enjoy. - - -Thanks, and I wish you everything a very happy Valentine's Day! - - --Michael<|endoftext|>The New England Patriots might be the greatest quarterback-recruiting machine to ever live, but they haven't forgotten about their older, and less talented players. - -That might have been the case when they pulled in running back Stevan Ridley from the University of Tennessee, according to NFL Network reporter Chris Mortensen. - -The Patriots signed Ridley to a $4.5 million contract with incentives and a $2.5 million signing bonus, Mortensen reported. - -NFL teams can negotiate deals for up to five college free agents per season from each of the conferences, and the Patriots have used this tactic before on players from Ole Miss, Florida, Florida State and Alabama to give them a taste of the pro life without having to give up much cash to retain them, but it's certainly rare for one to be signed for $4.5 million, especially when it comes to a team with one of the NFL's longest histories of producing great offensive skill position players. - -Ridley also had offers from teams such as the Atlanta Falcons (who reportedly had a deal with him "in the works" earlier this week) before the Patriots swooped in and got him. - -While a lot will be made about the Patriots' "moneyball" approach to building a team, they're still just a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series since the Super Bowl era, which is pretty bad to get fans excited for when you've never produced a championship. But in order to win a championship in the NFL, it's important to at least be a contender for now. If you're winning with talent that may or may not be on par with the Super Bowl-winning team, the fans won't be too keen. - -Thumbnail photo via Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images<|endoftext|>From Dwarf Fortress Wiki - -This article is about an older version of DF. - -More Info - -This article or section has been rated D for Dwarf. It may include witty humour, not-so-witty humour, bad humour, in-jokes, and references to the Bay12 forums. Don't believe everything you read, and if you miss some of the references, don't worry. It was inevitable. - - -"Ah, a new creature! A beautiful creature! A new wonder of life! A wonderful thing indeed to be able to tame on a world!" ― Anonymous, Dwarf Fortress talk thread. [UPDATED 7/14/12] - -edit] Introduction - -What's a tamer than a dwarf? A dwarf can tame any creature and can be tamed by anyone. In addition, dwarves and their pets can carry items and use beds, furniture, containers, traps and the like and can build structures and workshops. This article will cover the various types of dwarves and their uses. See 'Characteristics' for other attributes. - -edit] Dwarves - -In terms of attributes, dwarves are fairly simple. They will not carry any gear, will not craft any items with leather, and will have minimal training. However, as long as they are kept in an active labor, they may train as much as any human. The only thing dwarves don't have in common are weapons. A dwarf is only slightly more formidable than you. - -There are several attributes that affect gameplay. All of these attributes can be toggled at embark or via the in-game config menu. Some can be temporarily altered in the menus: - -edit] Dwarven Intelligence - -Intelligence is a measure of one's intellect. Intelligence determines your chance to successfully create traps, construct rooms, and mine. - -Intelligence can go up by training with weapons, using workshops, and learning from books. It will also be affected by any special training a dwarf may have received via training dummies; see the Weapons and Armor page for more detail. - -edit] Dwarven Toughness - -Toughness -======================================== SAMPLE 369 ======================================== -A man with a gunshot wound in his leg is being hailed a hero just a day after two people with a similar injury were stabbed. - -The male victim was driving on Dundas Street S.E. just before 2 p.m. when three men approached him and demanded his keys. - -Toronto Police Const. Victor Kwong explains that once the victim handed over his belongings, one of the male suspects pulled from behind him and opened fire, striking him in the leg. - -"He did suffer some kind of gunshot wound, the victim did say his vehicle stalled at the scene, however they took off in an unknown location and have not come forward so far," Kwong wrote in a statement on Friday. - -The male suspect, who is also in his 20s, was arrested nearby and charged with attempted murder. He remains in custody at Old City Hall.<|endoftext|>It has been a long time since I have received my package from Amazon so I was excited when I was notified of a tracking number for it! I went online immediately to start tracking it again and boy was I pleased with the results! - -My package actually took me 2.5 days to arrive to my home because I was traveling extensively. I actually live in California so there is no way I was going to lose this package!! I am a college student so I was able to save the package and I am just sitting here waiting for the package to arrive! - -I love this company. I want to thank my secret santa again for picking this secret Santa package for me! Thanks for being a great secret santa!! - -P.S. Sorry for the crappy pictures. I am just so excited about my gift because every time I open this package I am ecstatic.<|endoftext|>The World Wide Web Consortium released today a new version of its W3C Specification for HTTP with a number of new features and improvements. Among the highlights is HTTP/2 for HTTP/2, an important upgrade which provides the basis for the upcoming HTTP/2 protocol and the corresponding protocol version 2.2. - -In HTTP/2, the most useful and important new feature is HTTP/2 header compression, enabling the encoding of data that is often unreadable by the browser when it is fetched over the wire. This is possible to use because there is a compression algorithm that does a better job than the algorithm commonly used by clients, which has the downside that the user sees the size of the content. - -If you're using the old protocol, you'd receive a 404 notice when the header is compressed because the size is not shown in the header. If you're using the new protocol, the user would get a notice like this. - -HTTP/2 makes it easier to transfer large files, such as video, even if the server is over slow or unreliable connections. This allows web servers to serve these large files faster, making sites like Youtube much faster — which allows them to sell more subscriptions. - -This is all great for the open web, but not if the majority of your users are on the slow or unreliable Internet. With HTTP/2 enabled by default on every web server, there is a good chance that the web server won't know how to deliver a large file. - -Thankfully there is technology already available to help make large file transfers more efficient. One of the most popular compression techniques, JPEG compression, is now handled by the WebRTC technology used in many mobile applications. - -WebRTC is an improvement over HTTP because HTTP does not support the technology, so it's essential that the web server support this to make sure that the web experience is smooth and the user experience is as good as possible. - -We'd love to hear what you think about the improvements in the W3C Specification for HTTP/2. - -Further Reading:<|endoftext|>In this case I had to go back into the old one to re-import a few. - - -You have only 8 options here if you want to set up a new user, and one you don't want to take advantage of. - - -1. Use the new settings as you did in the old one. - - -2. Create a new user with a different name in settings and add that user. - - -3. Use the new settings as you did in the old one and then disable the one you don't want to reuse. - - -4. This is my personal preference. I find it much easier to change a setting than do it one way in the old user and the other way in the new user. - - -1. Use the new settings as you did in the old one.2. Create a new user with a different name in settings and add that user.3. Use the new settings as you did in the old one and then disable the one you don't want to reuse.4. This is my personal preference. I find it much easier to change a setting than do it one way in the old user and the other way in the new user. - - - -======================================== SAMPLE 370 ======================================== -The U.S. Postal Service said on Monday it will halt all deliveries next Tuesday and Wednesday due to a strike in southern California. The postal service said it expects to send letters and packages Monday, but that package processing is now suspended. - -"We don't know what the impact of this strike will be" on other services such as package processing, said Postal Service spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby. But there is nothing a consumer can do to avoid losing a package unless the sender specifically consents to receive a lost item or to receive an item damaged in transit, she said. - -The stoppage is expected to disrupt the delivery of several thousand items, most of them mail. Among those is a brand-new television, valued at about $4,100, that is a gift from an online store. - -"They can either accept the TV and get what they want by the time the holidays are over and send a nice note, or they can get the money back and be happy," said Karen Nellis, a spokeswoman for the online retailer. - -A consumer also could make a claim to the store — usually an out-of-state seller — for the money lost, Nellis said. - -There are two kinds of packages handled by USPS, first class and Priority Mail. The first class takes about eight to 10 days to get to the recipient, but for packages that weight more than 20 ounces, it can take 25 days. Priority Mail, which packages letters, also takes about eight to 10 days at a slow pace. - -A package weighing less than 20 ounces must still be returned by the receiver, because first class does not provide a tracking number, Nellis said.<|endoftext|>As part of the ongoing expansion of the park in recent years, a series of trails that had been cut short of the original construction footprint are being reconnected to provide access to trails that would either be unavailable to park visitors or would otherwise cause disruption to the surrounding community. At two locations, the Greenback Trail and the Great River Trail, portions of the trails have been rerouted away from houses to better blend in with the other trees and plants. The Greenback Trail is accessible on foot from the west and west and east from the park boundary. - -The Great River Trail is accessible on foot from the park boundary to Park Drive, and is approximately 16.25 miles and a total distance of 1,100 yards. It is an 18-foot wide linear trail that runs for approximately three-quarters of a mile in a southerly direction. The trail offers great views of the park and the river and has a variety of hiking trails including rock climbing, a rock-climbing wall, an abandoned railroad bed, a few miles of flat and rolling terrain, and several other routes that you can explore. The best trail access points are from the east and south, and you can also access the trail via the Great River Trail from the west and west. - -Rendering by Paul Condon Associates<|endoftext|>The Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Broadcasters want to make it easier and faster for broadcasters to cut the cord and sell their broadcast television stations to cable providers. - -The two groups announced a joint announcement Tuesday that it plans to work with the FCC on the voluntary transition to market-based pricing of television stations. - -That will include a transition that would reduce the amount of money broadcasters pay TV providers as the money goes to advertisers. It could make it cheaper for broadcasters to pull the plug on their television stations and let cable firms buy them up for pennies on the dollar. - -Broadcasters have lobbied against this, which they say would reduce the amount of money available to them to operate TV stations. - -A cable subscriber must receive no less than 51 percent of the broadcast television license fee from stations that air in the broadcast television market. - -Broadcasters that want to sell or drop their broadcast television stations will have to pay a fee to the government of $3 billion. In addition, the FCC is proposing new rules to require that any person who wants to buy a TV station has to make a bid that is at least one-third of the license fees that stations receive in the market. - -This measure would prevent a potential bidder from simply buying a license fee that would be too small, making the bid much less attractive to broadcasters. If the FCC also had other ways of enforcing compliance with the bid requirement, it could get more money from the market. - -This measure would prevent a potential bidder from simply buying a license fee that would be too small, making the bid much less attractive to broadcasters. - -A second measure would allow cable companies that sell broadcast television stations to negotiate lower rates with broadcasters. - -The FCC would not seek to change the rules for the industry because it already has strong rules in place. - -The FCC and TV programmers have been working for years to overhaul the industry, which has been a source of revenue for broadcasters in a time when the number of viewers has plummeted. Many -======================================== SAMPLE 371 ======================================== -The world famous and most popular Japanese restaurant, Daiseyi, was featured on the Food Network, which means that millions of Americans watched it and were eager to know where the real thing is. They searched all over Japan, but it's impossible to find any restaurants that serve real Daiseyi. So, we set out on a mission and searched the Web to find all the Daiseyijus (Daisei restaurants) in Japan, because the Food Network didn't show any Daiseyijus. It turned out that Daiseyijus were hard to find in Japan, so we contacted Daiseyiju, a Daiseyiju is a Japanese restaurant that specializes in Daiseyijus. We sent out a request to the restaurants and they were very eager to answer the question. We've collected the answers to the most common questions on Daiseyijus. Enjoy! - -1. How to determine the quality, authenticity, and authenticity levels of raw fish? - -A.: The "Raw Fish Rating System" is a method of determining the quality and authenticity levels of raw fish when serving sushi. Raw fish is not something that one should ever eat raw, and the "Raw Fish Rating System" has been devised in order to promote fish restaurants to serve safe raw fish products, especially when serving raw fish in the United States. - -Each dish on the "Raw Fish Rating System" consists of three ratings: - -A fish rating of "1" means that it should be cooked and served fresh right off the fish stand without any further cooking like sashimi and other fish dishes. - -A fish rating of "2" is a raw fish dish that a chef or sushi chef should allow time to fully cook without any further cooking in order to allow the fish to fully develop its fragrance and taste. - -A fish rating of "3" means that a raw fish dish served at a sushi restaurant in the United States must be cooked and served immediately upon payment from the customer even at the restaurant's table. - -This rating system was devised by Tsukiji fish market, which is located on the northern end of Tsukiji fish market, the largest fish market in Japan. The "Raw Fish Rating System" was first introduced to Japanese restaurants by Daiseyiju, which is one of the Daiseyiju in Tokyo. Many restaurants began using the rating system and Daiseyijus, including Daiseyiju, began rating their sushi dishes as "1" when serving raw fish. - -If you don't find a restaurant that offers raw fish ratings, ask the chef or head sushi waiter how they rate their restaurants' raw fish dishes. Most Japanese people would assume that the Japanese don't eat raw fish dishes, but this system does not distinguish between the two different styles that raw fish is prepared in Japan; raw and cooked fish is offered to the public at most fish restaurants in Japan. - -2. How many different types of rice can people eat at the same time? - -A.: No one has the right to stop you from eating "raw" rice. This is why the raw fish rating system was devised: to encourage raw fish restaurants to serve more "raw" raw fish dishes that don't require any further cooking. It's also very difficult to determine what is "raw". - -The Japanese say that sushi chefs eat a lot of fish and only a small portion of it has been cooked. So, if you eat "raw" rice, then the sushi chef should have "raw fish". In Japanese culture, if you eat "raw" raw fish, then your soul or spirit is "raw". However, if a chef were to serve a sushi dish that has been cooked and prepared thoroughly, then that sushi dish is considered "cooked". - -3. Is sushi a health food or a food for fun? - -A.: The word "sushi" was first used in the late 16th century and came from the Japanese word for fresh water fish that are prepared by boiling them. - -The word "sushi" in Japanese comes from the Japanese word for fresh water fish that are prepared by boiling them. Because sushi restaurants are so popular and there is a lot of interest in sushi, many restaurants offer sushi that is served with raw fish. The sushi offered in a Japanese restaurant should, of course, be cooked properly, but as long as it's not raw, then the diners would enjoy it. - -4. What is the difference between "real" sushi and fake sushi? - -A.: Because Japanese sushi dishes are cooked "raw" in order to be served, they should have no taste or odor of raw fish, so it's important to be sure when you purchase it, that the dishes were cooked without any heat. If the dishes did have the smell of raw fish, many people would not want to eat it, especially when it came in containers containing boiling water. - -5. In Japan, what is called a -======================================== SAMPLE 372 ======================================== -"The United States is a very, very special place indeed, a great national treasure. It is time to put our special person back to work." - -Sen. Mitch McConnell says President Donald Trump needs to get America's economy running again with a jobs bill that includes pro-growth immigration reforms." - -"We should work to reduce the national debt, but we should do so in a way that's smart, in a way that has bipartisan support, and in a way that is good for the American people's future." - -Sen. James Lankford says they can help the middle class by reducing regulations and red tape, and lowering taxes while creating new jobs." - -"It's very clear that the American people like freedom in this country, but we still have a problem with our taxes being too high." - -House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady says his goal is a "more fair, simpler, more efficient tax code." - -The president speaks to governors at the Governors Island naval base on Long Island, N.Y. (Carolyn Kaster / AP) - -President Trump says, "We're going to build a wall. It'll be started right away....We have many, many illegals living in the country, and we need to get them out. And we will get them out. We can always get them out." - -The Senate confirmed Rep. Tom Price to serve as health and human services secretary. - -President Trump praises the work of the National Park Service as it prepares to host an Independence Day fireworks display on the National Mall. - -Congress is expected to pass tax reform over the summer that will cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. - -President Trump addresses the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduates, in New London, Conn., on July 22. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) - -"I will make my first full payment on the debt on the new Air Force One on Thursday, December 21." - -Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah are not on board with Trump's plan for a temporary tax on imports, but the majority leader is still "looking at what the best approach is going to be on how to deal with that." - -McConnell tells reporters in the Senate chamber that tax reform is coming soon.<|endoftext|>1 - -2 - -3 Roles - Characteristics - -4 - -5 - All the characteristics except - -6 - Class roles - You have to fill them in the first stage - Characteristics - -7 - -8 All the role roles except - -9 - You can go from 0 to 10, which is all you need to know. The rest of them you will have to fill in the second stage. - -10 - -11 - -12 - -13 All roles except - -14 - I'll go from characteristics to their respective stage. - -15 - -16 - -17 - You can also see these from the characteristics table in the next sheet - -18 - -19 - -20 - Characteristics - -21 - -22 - In this one-sheet you can view and understand all the characteristics of a role. From role's descriptions you have the following capabilities and limitations: - -23 - -24 - -25 - The characteristics of a role - -26 - -27 - -28 - -29 - -30 - -31 - -32 - It's pretty easy to fill in a character that doesn't look like he deserves it in the first stage, so don't worry too much. - -33 - -34 - -35 - -36 - -37 - -38 - -39 - -40 - -41 - -42 - -43 - -44 - -45 - -46 - -47 - -48 - -49 - -50 - -51 - -52 - -53 - -54 - -55 - -56 - -57 - -58 - -59 - -60 - -61 - -62 - -63 - -64 - -65 - -66 - -67 - -68 - -69 - -70 - -71 - -72 - -73 - -74 - -75 - -76 - -77 - -78 - -79 - -80 - -81 - -82 - -83 - -84 - -85 - -86 - -87 - -88 - -89 - -90 - -91 - -92 - -93 - -94 - -95 - -96 - -97 - -98 - -99<|endoftext|>In the summer of 2012, Google Inc. began a project that would redefine the web: a plan aimed at putting more information online from the best sources, as fast as possible. - -It had been about three years since Google launched a major project, called Google News, but this summer it unleashed a new initiative, called Google+. Google also began working on a separate web project that did not attract the attention -======================================== SAMPLE 373 ======================================== -I thought we're pretty set here at the Statehouse on the issue of concealed-carry legislation. But now Sen. John Whitmire is hoping to get an exemption added to the bill. - -The Senate has already approved SB 994 by Sen. Tom Willhelm, a Democrat from Lisle, and Rep. Terry Christensen, a Republican from Rockford. But the bill must now be amended by Whitmire. - -Whitmire released a statement Thursday: - -"There is an exemption in the current bill for a permit issued by another state that is valid for firearms in the state of Illinois. The current provisions of the bill will be amended to reflect the bill amended to exempt those permit holders. - -"I hope that the bill will be amended and sent to me for concurrence." - -Whitmire's office didn't immediately respond to an inquiry about the bill. - -Whitmire already said he'd like to amend the bill to include an exemption for out-of-state permits. He said the bill's exemption could be used to help people from other states obtain an Illinois permit in the future, but not currently. - -Currently, state law requires that only citizens of Illinois may get a concealed-carry permit. - -The governor last year vetoed a version of the bill that would have extended that protection to people who are out-of-state residents or have a concealed-carry permit issued by another state. - -That bill passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee unanimously. - -The bill passed the House on a voice vote and now heads to the Senate floor.<|endoftext|>In this Aug. 27, 2013 file picture, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is interviewed during the State of the States speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington. Duncan is visiting India during the United States' first trade mission in the country under President Barack Obama. AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, file - -India's education minister on Tuesday said the country's school system was ready for a global transformation. - -India does well in certain areas with low enrolment, she said, while some other countries could learn from its schooling model. - -"I don't want to say India's education is perfect," Nitin Gadkari said to news agency Reuters. "I would be the happiest for the world if one country has the same standard of education that India does." - -The World Economic Forum ranks India among the best countries for educating its children, in part because the government is investing heavily in an ambitious plan to double the country's national literacy rate to 100 percent by 2015. - -Educating poor children was a priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and an expansion of schools has been part of his strategy to improve education standards. - -In 2011, Indian officials said India saw its first free lunch programmes in five years. Last year the government also became the first to abolish fees to enter high school. - -Schools do not have to meet strict standards of education but teachers are supposed to teach their subjects and their students are supposed to learn by actually doing them. The government has also pledged to give priority to poor kids. - -A 2009 World Bank report said India's public school sector has low standards on average across all the country's schools. - -"While we know that India is going in the right direction with its own education reforms, it is too early to say their achievement will mirror the success of other countries," the report said. - -The country's government has long touted its quality system. And, India's National Education Policy says that every child should be taught, "with respect and sensitivity to their identity and cultural specificity, to promote their overall cognitive development, and to safeguard the inherent dignity of the human person and the equality between all humans." - -This story is developing and will be updated. - -(Reporting by Rishika Sadam; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)<|endoftext|>Dalai Lama - -Tibet - -Lama Bodhi - - -From the beginning of human life we are born with this body, surrounded by our parents and so forth. We are made of five basic elements, the five elements of fire, water, earth, wind and space. We are therefore like a flame in the sky of the elements. - -There is an old, simple, very simple theory that is the fundamental theory of human life. When I was a child, I saw an old, very simple theory. This theory is a basic theory of human life. When I was a very small child, I saw the stars, I saw the earth. When I was a very young boy, I saw the mountain, and when I was a very young girl, I saw the mountains. - -Therefore, the basic theory of human life is a theoretical understanding of how the world works. - -The basic theory comes from the mind. It comes from the understanding of the four elements, from the experience of the earth, of the stars, of the mountains and therefore -======================================== SAMPLE 374 ======================================== -It's still not clear whether the first baby born this year through IVF will be male or female. But the odds may not change too much, according to Dr. Kevin Esvelt, a University of Washington oncologist who has treated more than 600 children born through IVF treatments. - -About 2,000 babies have been born through IVF annually in the U.S. so far. Esvelt isn't at all surprised that some of those will produce boys; babies who are conceived in the same way as female embryos often come out female. - -"It's not a very high probability," he says. In an upcoming study, published in Molecular Cell, Esvelt and his colleague, Dr. John A. Galt, of the University of Minnesota, compare the risk of producing an extra X or Y chromosome to producing a baby who has only a Y chromosome. - -"That's a little higher, but still much lower than we've seen in embryos produced by noninvasively," says Esvelt. "We don't know whether the noninvasively produced babies are actually the same children as the ones born via IVF. But we have to be very careful not to overstate the magnitude of the risk in the noninvasively [produced] population." - -Because of a genetic mutation, people who produce a third X or Y chromosome after conceiving usually end up having only a single Y chromosome, as if that chromosome wasn't there, says Esvelt. Even so, those same people have "at least" 40 or 50 sex chromosomes, he says. "But many sex chromosomes are inactivated."<|endoftext|>We have the perfect home for your team at the 2018 New England Aquarium Aquatics Festival. From Oct 9-Oct 11 our world-class, outdoor amphitheater is open to the public! You'll enjoy a two day experience in a new and spectacular environment—perfect for all ages and interests! Take a moment and visit us at the Festival to see what all the fuss is about and to find out if it's right for your team. - -Click here to plan your tour on location. - -If you do not have a team, contact our Customer-Service Department for all rental information and availability. For additional information, contact the Aquarium Office at 617-727-8333 or call 1-800-344-SAVE (7463).<|endoftext|>On the 10th, the New York Times published an article titled "The Hidden Costs of a Low Oil Price". This gave the market some time to digest the information and think about if it was fair. We can now finally provide some clarification. Here are some of the things you may have missed in the article. - -Oil demand fell by 6.7 mb/d in the quarter, the largest decline in seven years. The oil price declined by around 16% in the quarter, after being as high as $115/bbl in April. - -Gasoline demand fell by 3.8 mb/d in the quarter which will lead to significant reductions in refineries running and in refining capacity. - -Gasoline will likely come back to around $2/gallon in the next three to five years. - -Oil refinery outages are not the only negative impacts of low oil prices. Oil tankers are not being fully filled at the ports while the demand for crude is declining. In addition, as an increasing amount of refineries close, we are seeing the number of people using gasoline and other products to meet local needs decreasing at the rate of 1 million per day. This is going to be a big issue for our current infrastructure. - -The oil and gas industry has done its part to contribute to reducing emissions worldwide. The industry now accounts for about one third of clean energy investments globally (see here for more information on clean energy investments and emissions reduction). Oil and gas companies now have over $5.4 trillion to invest in the energy efficiency and renewable energy systems needed for a successful future economy. In addition, oil and natural gas production is responsible for more than 50% of all U.S. energy production. They are building new facilities to meet the long-term demand for their products. - -Even despite the fact that demand for oil decreased by 6.7 mb/d in the quarter, there was a notable increase in refinery capacity utilization from 70.5% to 80.9%. - -There has been a rise in the use of alternative fuels, from 8.7% in 2011 to 10.4% in 2013. For comparison, the United States is just 4% efficient with gasoline use (EPA standards average 66.2%). - -We are seeing a shift of some of the largest refiners away from oil and toward renewables. - -Source: Global Energy Outlook, International Energy Agency - -Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek - -This article was written by Michael James and originally appeared on Oilprice.com and was used with permission.<|endoftext|>There are 3 summaries for S.1868. -======================================== SAMPLE 375 ======================================== -This is the fourth and final part of 'The Losing Ways' series. This article was written by a lot of people, but was mostly done by me. You can read the previous three parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 - -Here's the complete list of things that I have experienced which I have now come to realize is what I was conditioned to think were 'negative' things. - -1. Being treated as an 'outsider'. - -I was constantly being told that I was a 'stupid foreigner'. If I came off as non-Japanese I would almost always receive responses such as "how dare you think of yourselves as foreigners instead of Japanese" or "what the hell kind of language are you spewing out there? You're going to annoy me". I'd also get comments like "Do you have a sense of respect for the Japanese people?" or "I bet you're not Japanese enough and you should learn to act a little better on your trips outside the country." On various occasions I've been told to "get back to the right country" or "be thankful you're not even Japanese". - -2. Being seen as weak. - -On a trip a couple months ago I was walking from one hotel to another when I bumped into a group of about 4 or 5 Japanese men. They were talking and laughing all the way through and I thought it was funny until a couple of other men in the group began taking selfies. - -One of the men stopped and started yelling at me in Korean saying "Why are you taking photos in Japan? Why would we want to have your photos taken like that? How dare you take a picture of your legs!?" - -A fellow Japanese woman also came along and began asking me the same thing, "What kind of language are you spewing out there? Do you have a sense of respect for our people? Do you have a sense of respect for other people's cultures? Come on man, that's a little rude." - -I honestly wasn't really paying attention to these three people. They were just talking amongst themselves, but the words coming from their mouths were being translated into English like my own brain. I could sense that they were pissed off and that one of them was pretty angry that I was walking down the street without any kind of ID. When I'd turn to look around to see who was mad at me I'd see all three people talking amongst themselves and it wasn't long between me and another Japanese man who decided to come up to me and ask me if I was okay, which I felt weird about. Finally one of the other men who was yelling at me began to walk away and he made a comment about something and I thought, "Well, if I hear that kind of talk from anybody again I'm leaving this person alone." - -It never occurred to me, until I saw the photo I took the first time. It was in the middle of the city – in a crowded area – and I was walking by myself. - -I took those photo, I thought to myself. I don't want to be talking in my own language and having somebody hear me in my own language. I really don't need to be doing that anymore. I'm going to be more careful. - -In spite of this I continue to come across people who are very close to me and I wonder sometimes if the people I really want to see really know me. Sometimes, even though I've been with them for several years at this point, I feel like I'm just being used as a human ATM to exchange money. - -3. Being treated as a parasite. - -This, again, has happened several times, but my biggest recent run in with this issue is last summer when I went to Okinawa to visit my grandmother. My grandmother was one of the most prominent and influential women of the Edo era and the one who raised me when I was a small child. It was my intention to spend the trip there with my grandmother, but I also had a lot to do with promoting Okinawan culture outside of Okinawa and to do that I needed to go to places like Osaka. - -It was just a few days before I was to return home to the US when I went to Hakodate and bought some souvenir photos of my friend Haruka from that summer. When I arrived to go down the escalator and was about to enter the station I noticed that every single person in the station was holding their iPhone in one hand and a big bag of their favorite souvenir. It was one of those moments when you're totally confused because you think the person holding the big bags is not going to leave the other one hanging up there for a while. I'm assuming that was in my head, because after I got off the escalator, the people who weren't holding the big bags left as well. - -This went on for several minutes then people started to realize that this was not really in line with their policy. Some of them started -======================================== SAMPLE 376 ======================================== -If he has his way, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will win the Senate seat being vacated by John Cornyn next year, his campaign announced Friday. - -The announcement marked the second time in three days that the campaign unveiled the new target of their primary attack ads. The Texas Tribune reported earlier this week that the campaign was launching a $2 million TV push in the coming days that would include multiple spots about the state of Texas' economy and an ad about "a Senate candidate who has supported Obama's unconstitutional executive amnesty." - -On Friday, the Cruz campaign released new ad that attacks state Sen. Dan Patrick, Cruz's primary opponent. The ad makes clear it's not just Cruz's record on immigration that's been attacked, but a record on Patrick's record too. - -"This guy is an abject failure as a U.S. senator," Cruz says in the ad. "No, listen to what Patrick has done. Look at the mess he started. Ted Cruz fought to stop Common Core in Texas, but Patrick blocked all attempts to audit Common Core and his own state budget. Ted Cruz fought to defund Planned Parenthood, but when it came down to an election, Dan Patrick was the biggest abortion-supporting liberal in the Senate. He's never been a conservative in his life." - -The Cruz campaign also posted on Twitter that they would be releasing a full mailer featuring the spot on Friday, along with a list of its top 20 donors. - -The Cruz campaign released this week's ads as they released separate statements on the candidates' respective presidential prospects. Cruz and Patrick announced Thursday night it was ending their run for Senate, but a spokesman later said the two were still discussing a potential primary matchup next year. - -The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one. - -The Cruz campaign said it is not ready to make an endorsement in the primary race, but made clear its primary goal is defeating Trump in a primary contest, even though they're not focused on one primary race at the moment. Earlier this year it said it would not take part in the presidential primary race. - -"We are not preparing to run out and spend money on a primary contest in Oklahoma, we are not preparing to run out and spend money on a Florida contest, and we believe it's premature to be running ads now to help John Cornyn in Texas — even though he is a senator elected by Texans," the Cruz campaign said. - -The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one. - -Here is the Cruz campaign's updated list of donors for the third quarter: - - -A full list of donors can be found here.<|endoftext|>One of the most powerful tools I've used in my music production career is Ableton Push. - -I've used it for everything from remixing tracks to writing demos. It's what has allowed me to have success with many of my productions. I've learned from the best of the best, and it's helped me expand my vision as an artist. It has also given me insight into what is wrong with the way it works and what needs to be done to keep it strong. - -In this article I'll be looking at my process for working with the Push. But before I get to that, lets look at what Push is and why I use it. - - -Why Push: - -Push is a powerful automation tool that is open source and free to download and use. I've learned more from working with Ableton Push than any other software application. It's what has taken me from a complete novice into being able to successfully produce at a professional level. - -Push is powerful in that it allows you to create sequences that can be linked together into a project. For example, here's an example of the Push sequencer working: - -Now what many producers might not know is that when you start writing sequences in this way, you can also have it generate additional events in your project as well as your MIDI files. This allows you to create scenes and musical cues that take advantage of what Push has to offer. - -The Push is the only software application I can think of that allows you to take advantage of that. I've written a great tutorial for learning this, so follow that link to be able to create your own sequences and cue points. - -Here's an example of how using this technique can help you to create sequences. - -Let's say you want the sequence to move through the sequence. You can use Push's timeline (or the same functionality in many other apps like FL Studio) to map that sequence to a particular button on your keyboard. For this example i'll be mapping the buttons to some chord sequences (1 2 3 4). - -To get started, grab some MIDI (I usually use Logic or Ableton but some software like C64 works as well). - -Now you can assign specific button values to the buttons you wanted mapped. In this example I've made two buttons mapped to "A" and "D" (note that I've named the -======================================== SAMPLE 377 ======================================== -Bartenders who take their music and music theory too seriously and forget the basics are usually the most miserable people in their professions. Unfortunately, the way bartending is taught and performed by bartenders tends to reinforce this unfortunate assumption and leave bartenders unprepared for the problems they'll face in the kitchen that come along with their knowledge. That's why, instead of focusing on the theoretical, I'm going to provide some of my own practical experience and advice as I take you through the basics of what bartending actually entails in a modern-day establishment. I'll also talk about some of the differences, such as bartenders, which can drastically alter the way you view bartenders. - -A good bartender, unlike a great one, knows that the customer is never going to get his/her money's worth on the first meeting and should always have their attention to the customer's overall satisfaction. A poor bartender takes an opportunity to show off how great they are to the customer and, even though they know it hurts the customer, they still take one more step beyond the standard service expected by the customer to receive. I think we all know that the customer doesn't care who the bartender is and if they have a certain preference from a certain bartender, they'll be unhappy with that bartender regardless of who else is in the bar. - -Bartenders spend a lot of money on things, so it is important that they're comfortable spending money. This means spending on things that are not essential for basic tasks at work but that they are comfortable spending because they're needed to serve customers as well as other bartenders are. - -If it's only basic things, such as cleaning out glasses, bartenders should consider doing them themselves but, if things can go wrong in the kitchen and the customer is going to have their drinks ruined it's better to at least ensure that a bartender is present that can help if the situation is a little out of control. - -Most people do not have a background in music theory and, as a result, a bartender has to know what they're doing. There is simply too much going on with things like mixing ingredients and preparing drinks to not know when to use each of these things in conjunction with others. - -Here are a few examples of mixing the two with their basic responsibilities in mind. - -Mashing - -When preparing a drink, a lot of the time mixing will not be necessary. Instead of adding ingredients to a solution, bartenders will add things just before serving, before they're finished mixing the mixture. These things are called "mashing" because a mixture of ingredients is added and then heated to get it ready for the person that will drink from it. - -Sometimes, however, you have to keep things from getting too hot in the mixer or it will be difficult to get ingredients to mix together properly. You wouldn't leave it on too long or you wouldn't leave it sitting out too long if you were trying to get ingredients ready. - -For example, you wouldn't be able to mix a strawberry jam with a cream soda if it's too hot. You have to stop it from getting too hot by removing the ice as fast as you can. If you don't have ice to remove, you have to take them over to the bar and pay $5 for a replacement (or $3 if you have an automatic machine) so the bar can get ice in the mixer and your bartender can have something to drink without getting toasted. - -Mixing with sugar - -Most people have a taste to sugar and it's something that they love. It's that same taste that they also know is incredibly common throughout the world and it's always available. Even though sugar is not technically "liquid," it just sits in the mixture until it becomes more concentrated. It doesn't evaporate (and is very difficult to separate out, since it takes that long to dissolve in sugar) and it's not as easy to mix it into everything because it's a thicker solution. - -There are many ways to mix a drink with sugar which can be explained with examples, such as ice from an ice cooler, soda, etc. As a bartender it's your job to know how to mix a drink, both in terms of the ingredients and with the different types of sugar you'll find in the mix or available in the store. - -If you've done it once, you know it - -When I started out when I was still a bartender I didn't know a thing about basic tips and tricks pertaining to bartending. I thought that just because I was a bartender that everything that went right would. I also thought that most people would be more skilled bartenders than they actually are. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to become something as well-rounded of a bartender as I am and it'll take a long time and a lot of hard work to be one that I can respect in the same way. - -If you've taken on this job you know your basics and that you can understand -======================================== SAMPLE 378 ======================================== -As an example of the wide variety of services that can be provided at no cost to a patient, I've chosen to talk to you today about a service that involves a few things called "Conducting Anecdotal Observations," as described in the Patient Care Guideline from the American College of Cardiology (ACC). In fact, my colleague and friend John Jorgensen, a cardiologist from Florida, is a consultant in this area of Cardiology, because he's done the work of providing free counseling to a group of new patients who come to his office as they try to overcome their addiction to smoking. You won't find any cardiologists recommending a smoking cessation program here today. However, this is an area of Cardiology where a considerable amount of research has been done, and there are some basic principles that you need to be aware of when it comes to counseling new patients with addiction issues to smoke. - -Conducting a "no cost" survey on your patient's smoking habit is very likely to be one of the first steps that they will take in any of the numerous programs that are available for helping smokers quit smoking. It's a very simple thing to do, and the patient's satisfaction with the results is likely to be excellent. In this case, what you are going to do is to ask questions that will be designed to determine whether your patient has been using tobacco products or other illicit substances in excess amounts. Such activities may include drug dealing, theft, and gambling—and if you don't know how often these things are going on in your patient's life, you obviously can't be sure of a precise measure. One way to deal with this issue of whether a patient may be using a lot of other illicit substances while they are using tobacco products is to ask if they ever used alcohol, and other forms of drugs like marijuana, cocaine or other opiates—in fact, you might even ask if they took any medications in the prior 12 months like antidepressants or anti-psychotic medicines. If the patient says yes to any of those questions, your next question is whether they have ever taken illegal drugs when they were not under the influence, and I know that many of my patients in the past—especially my first patients I treated—have mentioned using illegal drugs while they were addicted to smoking cigarettes. But many patients in the group who call me don't make this reference very frequently or don't make any reference at all to illegal drugs while they were using the other types of tobacco products that I treat them with while they are using this other form of nicotine—like chewing tobacco, snuff, or "cigaretes"—and so my next question becomes whether they have said that they ever used these illegal drugs while they were using cigarettes—and that's a much different question. I try to ask them this question very early on. - -If your patient says that they have used illegal drugs while they were using these other type of tobacco products, you probably won't find any good reason why they shouldn't be free at this time to smoke cigarettes and smoke whatever else they please. At most, you will try to help them use a little more moderation than they're doing now when that other dangerous product is involved, and if you are very successful in that effort, you probably won't hear any complaint about it. But the other thing that you probably will hear when you are trying to provide counseling to a smoking cessation patient—and I have done so many times with many different patients—is, "What about the other drugs and substances you have to treat? How many other drugs and substances do you have to treat? How many times do you ever have to treat this patient?" - -In other words, this is an area where counseling is very good, because you can provide counseling for a significant amount of time, but you are not going to be able to completely eliminate the issue of illicit drug use. - -My very best advice is to keep the discussion of this topic at an absolute minimum. It's almost impossible to talk to a new patient who has a problem with any other illegal drug use while he is smoking while using any of our other cigarettes or tobacco products, and you obviously shouldn't try to make that point very often if you are trying to provide a smoking cessation program to a new patient. As a new physician and as one who treats these patients every day with compassion and knowledge, you should talk to them about other illicit drug use once or twice every few months, but I don't think you should really talk about it very often if you don't want to make the point. - -I can only speak to the general question on this point—I don't know how often it exists in the other areas of Medicine—but I can say that I've talked to two groups of young doctors who are in the process of trying to provide counseling and other types of treatment to many of the patients who come up to them with very serious problem areas that involve drugs or narcotics that they may have not been using when they were addicted to smoking cigarettes -======================================== SAMPLE 379 ======================================== -We have tried pinging Google website using our server and the website returned the above results. If google.com is down for us too there is nothing you can do except waiting. Probably the server is overloaded, down or unreachable because of a network problem, outage or a website maintenance is in progress... - -The above graph displays service status activity for Google.com over the last 10 automatic checks. The blue bar displays the response time, which is better when smaller. If no bar is displayed for a specific time it means that the service was down and the site was offline. - -Can't Access Google - Troubleshooting Instructions Can't Access Google - Troubleshooting Instructions - -If the site is UP but you cant access the page, try one of the below solutions: - -Browser Related Problems - -Force a full refresh for the site. This can be achieved by pressing CTRL + F5 keys at the same time on your favourite browser (Firefox, Chrome, Explorer, etc.) - -Clear the temporary cache and cookies on your browser to make sure that you have the most recent version of the web page. For instructions choose your browser : - -Fix DNS Problems - -A Domain Name System (DNS) allows a site IP address (192.168.x.x) to be identified with words (*.com) in order to be remembered more easily, like a phonebook for websites. This service is usually provided by your ISP. - -Clear your local DNS cache to make sure that you grab the most recent cache that your ISP has. For Windows - (Start > Command Prompt > type "ipconfig /flushdns" and hit enter). For details choose your operating system : - -If you can access a website at office or from a 3G network yet it's not working on your computer, it is a good idea to use an alternative DNS service other than your ISPs. OpenDNS or Google Public DNS are both excellent and free public DNS services.<|endoftext|>Pelikan is a renowned German manufacturer of writing instruments. They come in a plethora of styles and models and it's common for enthusiasts to have many different models in their collection, each having their own distinct character. The fountain pen is one of this brand's most familiar models, which are usually produced in limited numbers and come with a long waiting period from the time an order is placed until delivery. I've recently received an order from Pelikan on a number of paper models which are a good comparison with this review's Pelikan M400 and M201. While a limited number is typical, I'm finding more and more of the more popular fountain pen models are going up for sale. I'm guessing people are buying them because they are selling rapidly in the market. I will be posting some of my thoughts on the Pelikan M400 after reviewing it for a while, but for now, here are my impressions and thoughts on the Pelikan M201. - -First Impressions - -This pen is a bit different than I am used to for Pelikan models. I prefer a Pelikan M400 in the large Pelikan size to the medium or medium-size M400 in the larger Pelikan size. My preferred way to describe these nib sizes is that the medium nib is for people writing with a fountain pen with a cartridge as opposed to a converter and the larger nib size is for people using a fountain pen with a converter and a medium. The two sizes are very different and the extra 0.7mm between the medium and larger size nibs really gives them a whole different feel to me. The smaller nib size feels like a fine nib and the larger nib size feels like a medium nib. The size you choose is a decision you should make after careful consideration of what size your preferred nib will work best with and what nib will work best with your preferred writing tools. While the small M201 nib nib is a small diameter nib it feels soft and supple. It reminds me of a Pelikan stub nib I may have had in my possession back in the day. - -The barrel and cap are a beautiful design with a nicely polished finish. The barrel has three rings that have grooves, like a traditional pen barrel, and the tines are all set into the barrel. The tines protrude at the sides of the barrel when not in use which makes them quite easy to write with. The cap is made up of three parts – the trim ring, the barrel part and the section that houses the nib section and body of the pen. As I previously mentioned the barrel of this pen comes with the grooves to give it a traditional pen look. The cap is metal – it's not a cheap plastic style cap. The cap and barrel are perfectly matched to each other and feel well machined. The cap has four screws per side which give it a good grip. - -I was excited to receive this Pelikan M100 so I could start using my new M201. I have been wanting to take the time to write about this pen before I -======================================== SAMPLE 380 ======================================== -I have not read all the comments, or the rest of this email, so I'll let my wife (who read more of the comments than us) take over and fill in the blanks: - -"There is an old saying here in the church: 'What goes around comes around.' And if that 'go around' is the "Bible" (or Bible) as it currently states itself to members (and non-members of the church who use their own interpretations of the Bible), it will be an uphill battle to get those members to take notice (because they are so used to the 'Bible' as it is perceived by other Christians today and by their church leadership). - -"This will be a long journey for me. And it will take the most hard-nosed, dedicated, and loyal heart I've ever known to make it through it…to get to the truth of our God's plan for His church to be His (God's) kingdom on earth now, and also to the eternity of that kingdom! I have no doubt my faith and my heart will be tested (by what I will experience and how I will respond) along the way, but I know, on my heart, my soul, and my soul's assurance that God sees and loves me, and that I will be called to 'walk uprightly before Him'…that I will find hope in God's promise that 'through many tribulations and persecutions He shall give you the crown of life,' and He will be worthy of the love and praise and admiration I will have for Him when I receive His promised crowns or when my kingdom receives its eternal destiny (if it ever does!); that is, when it is truly His Kingdom (which is the goal we all seek, to find the ultimate glory of God, and ultimately of His person in His all-powerful and all-loving self). I know I will have the opportunity to see and to know God…to experience His life, His love (through His Son in the person of Jesus Christ), His will regarding me, and His infinite power to overcome all things and to bring us the ultimate joy. - -"What this all boils down to is this: if this is God's plan for His church, then it is my mission to "wake up" this church. And I do not intend to wait until I have finished in the church. I simply intend for the church to wake up when it sees the need to have a serious 'reflection' on God's character, His will pertaining to His church, and the true purpose of the Bible and the church. What this will accomplish is to lead the church to a true worship that is centered on the glorification of God, and his person, in His true image. And that will bring us to the ultimate conclusion that we ought to worship and be baptized in Jesus. - -"You do not say it here but in your email: 'It's up to individual people on whether to read it. When I see it, it may be up to me how I respond to how it relates to God.' - -"For those of you that have never read the Scripture at all before, you will surely be amazed that God could include in his revealed will so much to which you have no prior knowledge or experience. It will take the hard-headed, the most dedicated, the most loyal heart, the one that never gives away, to 'wake up' this church and allow us to 'read God's Word.' And if you've read Scripture for a long time, you will no longer be able to 'read God's Word' before you 'get there.' - -"Many years ago someone told me and my wife (who has been studying the Bible on and off for years) that we ought to study the Scripture in the Bible, in the King James Version, and not with the 'modernized' versions of the Scriptures which are being introduced over the years. And she said it was because we would see things more and change our way of thinking regarding the Bible, etc. - -"I'm sure you're as frustrated today in the Bible verses you don't know, as I was when I was a teenager. And you're right that you probably will need to study the Scripture to find out those 'hidden things and hidden meanings.' (If you don't have the ability to read or to hear, that you will also probably want to study on your own time.) The Scriptures are the 'teachers' of what we've chosen to do now when we read, and are therefore the 'teachers' of which we can not choose. - -"In the Bible we find so much 'discovery,' which is why we read. But we are all human, we all make mistakes (sometimes many), and we should be careful that the Word of God (our own words or interpretation of Scripture) does not come into direct conflict with the Word of God (others' 'interpretations' or interpretations of the -======================================== SAMPLE 381 ======================================== -A year after one of the most divisive and contentious presidential races in recent memory, Hillary Clinton will take the stage Tuesday night in the first nationally televised Democratic presidential debate of this election cycle. - -Clinton won the last debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, who has refused to endorse her and has been highly critical of her record as secretary of state. But Sanders won the Iowa caucuses and a few other early contests on May 3. - -"I know I'll have to be more prepared than I was the last time around," she said in a video message released by her office Tuesday morning. "And to my supporters and supporters across the country, I want you to hear this: Even if I don't win Tuesday night, I will be out there every single day, through the end, working to earn your vote." - -In that last debate of the Democratic primary, Clinton said she did not see herself running for president in 2016 and said people should "get over it" if that was the case: After President Obama's 2008 loss, Clinton said then, "You just have to sort of move on." - -Sanders himself has said the same thing in recent weeks, saying he isn't focused on the 2016 race and will "just go work for the people of Vermont." He's also said he was "disappointed" in Clinton's victory in the New York primary last week and that "we will fight until the last ballot is cast." - -But in the video, Clinton said her view of herself hasn't changed and is that "when we stand together we can overcome anything," and noted that after his "unexpected, inspiring, and energizing" campaign, she hopes the message she is sending will be heard. - -"I want to give you a big hug," she said for Sanders. "I want to tell you that I am here for you, and I will fight for you every single day from here on." - -She said she's proud of the work she and her team have done and noted that "we are doing better, faster and stronger than in 2008." - -But, she said, "we still have lots of work to do to elect a president who can get America to a position of sustained economic growth and long-term prosperity."<|endoftext|>It's important to remember that the law and the president's executive orders are very different animals. The president's power is limited just a little bit with his executive order. In fact, that power can be very powerful. - -The president can put a stop to you when you have done something you thought was legal, but the president has no power to take away what you want to do once it becomes illegal (which I have heard referred to as an "unprecedented use of presidential power"). - -For example, I'm an advocate of legal drugs for a good reason. The president can't stop you from using them, but you can have the president remove you from the list of those who are legal in regards to using drugs. You still have the opportunity of ending up on the list of those who are not legally using drugs. - -However, the way most people interpret this is that the president can take away your ability to smoke pot. But, you still have the choice. - -But what happens to someone on the list? Well, that's your choice. The only problem is, when you do smoke a joint you are going to be in the minority. - -Most people do not smoke in public, but about 60 percent of people admit to smoking a joint in private. - -You can tell exactly how far into prohibition this is by the fact that many states have created a "dry" registry. Just remember, you are still breaking the law, but you are doing so within your rights as a registered voter. - -However, most people are in the same position I was, and this is what gets people into trouble. They choose to violate the law and get caught doing so, but they believe they are not doing anything illegal until the government catches them. The fact of the matter is that any crime a person commits is still illegal. Even if they are on a private list, that still remains that person's choice. - -So just remember, the law doesn't care what you want to do. Your government (the president), however, will definitely try to help you.<|endoftext|>The following is an excerpt from the book, From the Wilderness: On Living Like a Local, which is available on Amazon.com and Kindle Unlimited. - -I've long thought of the American West as a place of extremes that one could never fully understand until a little way into the experience. Perhaps one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen was in Utah, in the mountains about five hours from Salt Lake-City. - -This was when I was just an out-of-town journalist—I wasn't really an expert on anything in Utah aside from the fact that Utah was pretty and had great food. After leaving Salt Lake, we drove through the heart of southern -======================================== SAMPLE 382 ======================================== -The new-made - -the man who started out life as a boy - -by James W. O'Connor - -The word - -The story of - -the early days - -of - -the Church has been told - -repeatedly throughout our history, and it is no wonder, for it reveals much about the spirit of the age in which it was written. Thus when Pope Alexander VI in 1534 ordained that Christian mothers should be given the privilege of baptizing their children at birth, he was addressing the problem that had haunted Christian thought and action all through the early Middle Ages and was a principal concern of the reformers and the reformatories of the seventeenth century. This question had been particularly serious in France, Germany, England, Scotland, and elsewhere on the Continent. Many of the Christian communities of these countries—as well as of Italy and Ireland—had been involved in various schemes to obtain legal rights to their children by which they might assume the right to baptize and perform other acts of Christian care. One such scheme was that of the Reformation of England, which, in accordance with the doctrines of the reformers, provided that all children, after six years of age, ought to belong to the church upon the death of their parents. But after this period, it was held, the parents retained the right to control the child's religion and its education. In 1662 the Catholic king and bishops of France adopted the same theory and set up similar rules for the future of Catholic children. - -At Paris, as elsewhere, the father of the child might give it over to the church or to some other institution "in all things whatsoever he might command the people, or his officers who were there to direct." But it was his right "to choose his own minister, and to receive that minister whom he should call." As a member of the church the young child was bound to "obey, to do well, and [p. 532] to fear God, both always and in times of temptation." - -In Germany the infant might be "ordained" or "subordinated" to the church but the authority of the church over its members was not absolute and the father might "exercise [p. 533] his jurisdiction and authority, according to his judgment and decision, for the peace and well-being of his kingdom and people." A Catholic parent, in addition, was responsible "not only for his own children, but also his brethren, for all the faithful and good servants of God of whatsoever order or place they might be." [14] - -The doctrine of the reformation as outlined in the Council of Trent and in the earlier dogmas of the Reformers was that the authority of the church over its individual members and over the whole body of Christ was to be wholly limited, and only the supreme authority of the Church could be absolute. Christ, as the supreme head, retained full responsibility for the organization of the church; He alone, as head of the church, could absolve His members from sins and absolve all the faithful from every sin—for He was the true High Priest and the true mediator between God and man, and He could bind and loose all His children in heaven and on earth—so that He alone could be the supreme judge of the souls of men and that the church as an institution was the place of salvation for God's children. The child, however, was not to be subject to the judgment and authority of his parent. - -This doctrine was a fundamental one and was taught by the whole of the Reformation, both Catholic and Protestant, as it was first formulated by Protestant reformers, who did not hesitate to say in their sermons that if the reformation was to succeed its first fruit would be baptism. A Protestant preacher in his sermon on 6 June, 1531, said of the new faith, "Christians, by the Gospel preached unto them, will know right well what their consciences require, and so, when they themselves are baptized into it, will put away old sins and receive new. As soon as their consciences are purified from every mortal sin, they shall receive the benefit thereof." - -A Catholic bishop, speaking of his new doctrine, said, "With those who are in the Lord's flock, nothing shall be demanded which is not proper for every Catholic man's conscience." Protestant ministers, in a sermon preached on 9 March, 1532, said, "This doctrine of our religion is founded on baptism as the foundation of the new covenant, and to it all the children of the church, and children of men even as it were, of whatever state or condition they may be, are called." In a sermon preached on 28 September, 1544, a priest said, "This, then, is the faith which is preached to us from the book called the New Testament, and it is so much the more profitable for us, and the more firmly fixed, because it is so new, that all those who believe -======================================== SAMPLE 383 ======================================== -This is the first installment of a series on the future of energy delivery to the grid, and the impact of distributed energy resources (DERs) on energy markets. To stay up-to-date on this issue, subscribe to the RSS feed. - -On March 27th, 2014 the US Department of Energy (DOE) published a new study on the electric power markets to meet peak demand by 2030. - -"The report examines the different options for meeting peak demand – electricity generation, demand management and other approaches. The report also considers the impacts of increased use of the renewable energy and energy efficiency markets." - -The report notes that in order to meet the goal of meeting one-third of the country's demand without adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the United States wants to increase its reliance on "baseload" electric power over the next two decades. - -For example, they want to increase the share of "baseload" power to 31% by 2040. This includes gas, coal, nuclear and hydroelectric power. They want to reduce wind, solar and other renewables' share of this baseload share to 13%, 15% and 8% respectively by 2040. - -DOE's goal is to bring the share of all renewable energy to 24% to meet the two-thirds goal. The report includes a section titled "The Evolution of the US Electricity Sector." They note that "there is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the future of electricity production growth in the United States and the electricity sector is at the center of this discussion." - -They say the cost of solar energy is "expected to decrease dramatically." They believe electric demand is growing in "high-demand states because of the availability and affordability of clean technology to meet electricity demand." - -The report also considers grid integration challenges that electric utilities face in meeting this goal. They say they face "complex interdependencies" and "distributed-generation and storage assets that must be properly integrated to improve flexibility in the grid and overall system operation." - -They suggest that utilities are facing "challenges from grid integration, market dynamics, and uncertainty regarding the future electricity economy." They state "there is a lack of national and local coordination in addressing grid-integration challenges." - -They believe "the national grid is becoming congested" with an "increasing number of non-concentrated renewable resources, especially wind turbines." They say that "it is difficult to coordinate the resources to take advantage of wind resources and solar resources." - -They say that "the grid infrastructure in a number of states" is inadequate to serve large-scale renewables projects. They add that "concentrated solar arrays can become an impediment to grid operations, which is a source of concern as they limit the energy available for other purposes." - -They state also in the report that "the demand for energy is expected to increase in high-demand states in particular because of higher energy costs, which are driven primarily by the cost of fossil fuels and natural gas." They predict that "these costs will drive the majority of changes to the supply mix to accommodate higher electricity demand" and "increase variability in supply." - -They say: "As a result, the potential for electricity shortages on the electric grid increases." This "means that grid operators must respond by ensuring system availability and stability." - -They note that "the electric grid has traditionally relied primarily on a small number of suppliers (generators) that supply large volumes of generating electricity." - -They point out, for instance, that, "few if any of these providers have experience in operating large distributed energy resources (DERs) across the entire electric system and integrating these systems into the electric system." - -They add: "At present, grid operators have difficulty determining when a generation resource would be needed most to maintain reliable electric service. When the generators are required most, grid managers must also manage the distribution system to ensure availability of generation resources throughout the entire electrical system." - -They add: "Generators are not well positioned for managing intermittency and can become overreliant on the grid as a whole, which is why it is necessary to have a mix of power sources that can operate reliably and on-demand when demand is highest." - -The energy sector faces two critical issues regarding the electrification of the public and private sectors, the report states. - -First, the report notes that, "There is a shortage of technical talent to develop technologies necessary to achieve future electric transportation, heating, and lighting systems." - -It adds: "Currently, there is a shortage of technical talent to develop grid-integrated distributed energy resources to control energy supply and control distribution network conditions." - -The report concludes that, "With more than 6,200 GW of installed generating capacity (as of 2010), the United States ranks fifth largest in the world in installed generating capacity, ahead of only China, India, and the EU." - -As a result, it adds: - -"Generators and grid -======================================== SAMPLE 384 ======================================== -LIVE CHAT INFO ] [ a d m i n ] Petrarca : Welcome to SpellsOfMagic.com. You must be a logged in member to use the live chat feature. : Welcome to SpellsOfMagic.com. You must be a logged in member to use the live chat feature. Sign up for free now. - -Powered by magic - -You cannot use magic during this event. - -Sun, Jul 22nd, 2018 at 9:51 am - -[Front Page] - -Please read the Terms of Service before participating with or uploading any content to this site.<|endoftext|>This time last year, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were neck and neck in the polls of the Democratic primary. - -Now, the two rivals are virtually running neck and neck in the polls. Both Clinton and Sanders have improved on their favorability numbers, while Donald Trump remains unpopular. And, despite all the controversy that surrounds Sanders (and Donald Trump as well), many voters are still still likely to back him in November. - -In the latest Fox News poll , Sanders tops Trump by a whopping 22 points, while Clinton trails by 15 points. Both Clinton and Trump are viewed negatively, and both are viewed more negatively now than they were last fall. - -Sanders' favorability ratings are higher than Clinton's favorability, but they are lower than Trump's. In fact, about two-thirds of voters (63 percent) have a negative view of Trump, and nearly half of voters (48 percent) of Clinton do. Sanders, in particular, is viewed favorably by twice as many voters (62 percent) as Clinton is (42 percent), though that difference only amounts to 14 percentage points. - -In the latest Fox News poll, Sanders tops Trump by a whopping 22 points, while Clinton trails by 15 points. Both Clinton and Trump are viewed negatively, and both are viewed more negatively now than they were last fall. And in the wake of Sanders' victory in Michigan, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that he has pulled 12 percentage points ahead of Clinton in the contest (45 percent to 37 percent). In the most recent Iowa poll, Sanders led Clinton by six points (47-40 percent), while Clinton also led Sanders by six points in New Hampshire. - -And, to be blunt, both Clinton (62 percent) and Trump are disliked by a majority of voters, so any negative perception of a candidate can make him a less appealing candidate. This makes the Democrats and the Republican field alike a more interesting election this election cycle than it is a general election. - -But this is not the first time that Clinton has been at a disadvantage in the polls since the Democratic campaign began. - -A Pew Research poll found some of the same results last fall, which shows Sanders (56 percent) beating Clinton (39 percent) when compared to the other potential nominees. - -A September CNN poll found that Sanders was more popular than Clinton (58 percent to 35 percent) among Democrats and Democratic leaning (D) independents; this makes the general election an interesting proposition for Democratic voters. And, if anything, Sanders is currently gaining support. - -A CNN poll also found that two-thirds of Republican voters (67 percent) would support Cruz, as opposed to Trump's 13 percent, while the same two-thirds (67 percent) would vote for Kasich in the general election. - -If the poll's findings hold true, and Sanders continues to perform as well as he is, he would likely defeat either Trump or Cruz; not two likely candidates who are viewed favorably by a majority of voters. - -In fact, in the last two polls, Sanders has beaten more qualified candidates, such as Clinton (60 percent to 33 percent); Bush, Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio (all 57 percent); and Christie, Bush and Kasich (51 percent). - -Sanders appears to be doing better among female voters, and his favorability is higher with voters under the age of 45 (59 percent favorable to 44 percent unfavorable). - -In terms of the general-election debate, Fox found that Sanders is favored by a majority of voters (51 percent) — though less than Clinton (57 percent) and Trump (68 percent) are. Trump, in particular, has recently made disparaging remarks about Sanders. - -"This guy's a socialist-slash-communist, and I hate socialism, let me tell you," Trump told Fox News last week. "He'll destroy the banks, destroy the economy, destroy it, right?" - -Of the Republicans, Cruz and Kasich are viewed more favorably than Sanders currently is (Cruz is 59 percent favorable and 30 percent unfavorable among Republicans, while Kasich is 62 percent favorable and 25 percent unfavorable). - -Though Kasich's favorability ratings have improved (37 percent to 50 percent) since CNN/ORC conducted their poll in September, he is still viewed negatively by about two-thirds of registered voters, so it would take a massive turn for Republican voters to consider voting for him. - -Still, some -======================================== SAMPLE 385 ======================================== -A man accused of killing a man over a video game has been found not guilty. - -A judge acquitted George Williams on Monday after hearing how he killed James Harris in April 2010. - -The 36-year-old was convicted of murder in 2012, but an appeal at the High Court quashed that conviction and ordered a retrial. - -In a landmark court ruling in February this year, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan said the jury had been "misled" into believing that George had killed Mr Harris by driving him to a secluded place and stabbing him. - -The jury had heard "strong and circumstantial evidence" that George had lied about going to a party with the murdered man, James Williams. - -The ruling was hailed as a potential victory against a rise in increasingly ruthless online gaming. - -'Disgusted with violence' - -Mr Williams was playing a video game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) on his computer. It followed a similar storyline to World of Warcraft (WoW). - -On the morning of 12 April 2010, someone in the video game - believed to be a teenager - logged on to MW2 and started playing it with friends. - -At about 0130 BST, James Harris, a 24-year-old electrician from Newmarket, Middlesbrough, logged on and played a game with another player called William Cuthbert - a friend. - -At first, Mr Harris was enjoying the gameplay, but he then started hearing noises, including sounds of his playing. - -He also noticed that Mr Harris had been playing with his right hand on his joystick. One of his hands was shaking. - -Mr Harris later told police he became confused when they stopped playing. He could not tell them where he was nor who had killed him, although he did remember hearing George scream "stop it". - -At some point during the game, George asked William Cuthbert whether he had seen James on the monitor, and then said: "I'm scared, I've been playing a game all night." - -James Harris had been going through a hard time, and the two men had gone for a drink with the victim, who had recently been released from prison after three years. - -They returned home after a few hours of drinking, and at about 2117 BST, James Harris said he wanted to finish the evening out, so they headed to the toilet. - -He left his family home in Middlesbrough, and then drove to the parking lot of his local pub. - -George Harris - -Image caption James Harris' family and friends gave evidence in court - -George - who was playing with a knife - entered through a kitchen window, went through the back door, and asked for him to come down the stairs. - -He told officers later: "I was getting out my car, I was really scared, I had a knife, so I got out." - -When he asked him if he had anything to say he didn't remember saying, he replied: "No, I don't want to speak to you." - -The car went into what became a chase, with George Harris chasing James Harris. Eventually, they reached a cul-de-sac on the road where Mr Harris collapsed, but he did not die from his injuries. - -George was then arrested by police in the town of Preston, and the evidence was recorded from a covert video camera worn on his person by police officers. - -It showed George driving towards James Harris, stopping briefly near her home. - -After they were arrested, George said he had been playing through the night and was trying to calm down - because he had been worried about James's reaction to him. - -'He would have been happy' James Harris' father - -Speaking outside court, his father John said: "George is a very responsible person. I think he knows right from wrong. - -"We're not happy about this decision and I don't know how we will cope living with this for the rest of our lives. - -"James's family are all doing fine - he always said that he had a very loving and caring mum. - -"It's not like George and James were enemies, they were not enemies, and they had nothing to do with one another. - -"I don't think George will ever have any closure." - -Mr Harris has said the trial process left him feeling like a "pawn". - -Judge Gilligan said he was not satisfied that the jury were misled but said it was "unclear" how Mr Harris could have identified George. - -He also ruled out a retrial and said George was found not guilty in two out of the three proceedings. - -'Heard noises' - -A statement from the family of James Harris said: "James was a wonderful, loving son, brother and friend. Our family feels very sad that we have lost someone we love. - -"James was a person who -======================================== SAMPLE 386 ======================================== -Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman has spent much of this week expressing his displeasure with the team's performance, going as far as to publicly criticize the offensive line. The line, he said, was responsible for the team giving up 24-year-old quarterback Cam Newton, who had a torn labrum in his shoulder in Sunday's loss to the Giants. - -The Panthers have now lost four in a row -- including games to the Seahawks and Panthers -- and quarterback Derek Anderson has thrown two interceptions through Sunday after throwing no interceptions the week before against the Chargers. It appears Gettleman is doing some soul searching. - -"The defensive side of the ball is going to be more important than our offense," Gettleman said, via ESPN.com. "That's what coaches always preach with you. When you're in a situation that you're struggling offensively, it's always my job to look and see if we can find some kind of balance or some kind of confidence in our defensive line. We're not playing the best football we can be at this moment, and we have to do anything we can to get that fixed, but it's the defensive side of the ball. - -"We've got to continue to make it a little bit harder on defenses with what we're doing offensively in the passing game. That's what we're going to continue to do, and the coaches have talked about that. We're going to play better defense when we have better passing games and run games." - -The Panthers are last in the league in passing yardage, but when it comes to passing scoring, they're third in the league. - -But the offensive line isn't the reason these Panthers have fallen to fourth in the NFC behind the 49ers, Rams and Cardinals. The defensive backfield and special teams are the key culprits. - -Panthers starting safety Tre Boston is among the NFL leaders in penalties, according to ESPN Stats & Information notes. The Panthers are one of only four teams to have two safeties lead their team in penalties -- the other teams to have more than two safeties at the same spots on the field are Seattle (one), the Jets (two) and St. Louis (one). - -The Panthers are tied with the Dolphins for most fumbles in the NFL at 16 and have lost their starting left tackle Matt Kalil to a season-ending ACL tear that appears to have been a season-ending tear. Backup tackle Daryl Williams also left the game in the first quarter with an injury, forcing starting left guard Trai Turner into the lineup for the final 13 snaps of the half. - -The good news is that the 49ers' defense is tied for ninth in the league, but that's only because Gettleman drafted linebackers NaVorro Bowman and Michael Wilhoite in the first round. Bowman has two sacks and Wilhoite is tied with Aaron Donald for the NFL lead with 3.5 sacks. - -Still, it will be up to the line and the coaching staff to do better.<|endoftext|>It has long been thought that the early human diet was largely vegetarian, with animals comprising about 3% of all nutrients, although recent studies suggest that it was not always so. Our understanding of the human diet has certainly changed since the introduction of agriculture over 10,000 years ago, and it is now thought that human nutrition in the past was much closer to that of chimpanzees. The majority of protein consumed comes from meat-based diets, with about 75% of all calories coming from protein foods such as meat, fish, milk, milk products, eggs, and dairy products. In addition, the human diet is high in fat, which in most cases is from animal sources such as animal fat, saturated fatty acids and free fatty acids. - -Animal protein - -The most commonly consumed animal protein is made up of meat from mammals and birds, including chicken, beef, pork, and dairy. However, the human diet is far from exclusively a diet of animal protein, and a growing proportion of all the protein consumed comes from plants-mostly legumes, or legumes that are low in fat. There are no direct comparisons of the protein values of different foods and their animal sources in our study. Nevertheless, studies indicate there may be significant differences (such as yield of protein) if one considers only animal sources (such as milk). In addition, the human diet does not contain as much calcium as a typical Western diet, and the lack of calcium in the diet could be causing problems, including a higher risk of osteoporosis as the body attempts to remove the calcium through the urine. However, studies have shown that plant proteins are generally more beneficial to bone than animal proteins. - -Vegetarian diet - -One might then assume that the overall animal-based nature of the human diet should mean that in our study, the proportion of animal protein in the diet was high and therefore, more than twice the average proportion for the sample. However, the average proportions of animal and plant protein were more or -======================================== SAMPLE 387 ======================================== -LONDON -- If the American Medical Association's board of directors and delegates want to take into account scientific evidence of the health effects of hydraulic fracturing, then they'll need to act now, before drilling in America reaches its zenith. - -The oil and gas industry has been able to get away with saying that fracking doesn't increase health risks without much real-world evidence to support the claim. That's not the case anymore. - -It should be obvious that the oil and gas industry relies heavily on a vast and unwieldy combination of misinformation, misinformation that is being repeated time and again on a range of mainstream outlets. - -The latest, from the New York Times, comes on the heels of a recent report from the State Geological Survey, which was released late last month. That report found that fracking has increased seismic activity in the United States since the early 2000s, which suggests that it may actually lead to health hazards similar to those described by the EPA. - -In some cases -- but not all -- earthquakes have occurred close to oil and gas facilities and fracking has played a role there. But in no case, the Geology report found, has fracking induced any increased seismic activity, and the magnitude of seismic activity is only a tiny fraction of the energy generated by natural gas. - -According to the report: - -It is premature to attribute increased seismicity to induced seismicity from hydraulic fracturing. ... Although most natural earthquakes occur in areas not connected with the oil and gas sector, several of the cases cited in this report are in regions that previously experienced seismic events. - -To illustrate what the Geology report actually concluded: the state of Oklahoma and its surrounding area has had more than 900 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3.0 and higher this year in the depths of the crust, compared to less than 25 earthquakes between 2004 and 2010. - -While the scientific evidence that fracking leads to earthquakes is growing, the media, led by the New York Times, is still trying to spin these findings to fit their ideological agenda. - -The New York Times' lead editorial states they are trying to figure out how the New York Times' own data has been manipulated. Perhaps the best example of how the Times tries to spin these findings is a graphic published by the paper purporting to prove fracking increases earthquakes, but with a twist. The graphic shows that, according to data it obtained from the federal government, the earthquakes that have happened in Oklahoma over the last few years have not occurred near any fracking-related sites, but rather near two towns that have both banned fracking and have moratoriums on it. - -But the Geology report clearly shows that there has been no decrease or change in seismic activity across the United States since fracking began in earnest -- not in any area where fracking has been prohibited. - -The Times' lead editorial tries to spin the results of the study by arguing that an increase in earthquakes is not necessarily related to fracking, but the Geology reports show differently. In fact, the report finds, there is almost no evidence of fracking causing an actual increase in earthquakes. - -It's just like telling someone that because there has been an increase in suicides, then this must be related or triggered in some manner by their suicidal thoughts. - -When people begin to question the veracity of the industry's claims about fracking and related earthquakes in the United States, they're pushed back into their corner, telling them that the studies have "failed" and they need to "take their medicine." - -The Times' editorial is a perfect example of that. In the course of discussing the seismic events in Oklahoma, the editorial board claims there is no "smoking gun" in the New York Times study that ties fracking to an increase in earthquakes: - -The Geology report contradicts claims that earthquakes related to hydraulic fracturing were occurring "all across the country," as the Times put it in the lead. The reality is that a very small number of cases in several areas were associated with a specific hydraulic fracturing procedure called hydraulic fracturing or ''fracking," which has recently been used to produce a lot of natural gas, especially in recent years. - -The Times editorial board seems convinced it's the geology itself -- which can be influenced by fracking -- that is creating an increase in seismic activity around the United States. The industry's own records show this is untrue. - -The editorial board isn't satisfied until they've convinced their readers. - -This editorial is also a perfect example of how the editorial page of the Times functions. It attempts to tell you what to know without actually telling you what to know. And when there's disagreement about the science of health risks from fracking, the Times editorial board, along with mainstream media commentators, tries to sway public opinion by portraying scientific evidence as "conflicting."<|endoftext|>"It's not clear whether that's something that should have been done. I do know that it's not something that should have happened." — The mayor of the tiny coastal hamlet of Blighs Castle, Ontario, Canada - -Two young kids -======================================== SAMPLE 388 ======================================== -The government of Iran has approved the construction of new medical clinics in seven cities, a move that could boost medical and agricultural services for the country's rural communities. - -Tehran's health minister told state-run media on Thursday that the new clinics will be launched in Tehran, Tabriz, Kerman, Balkh, Ahwaz, Hormozgan and Sari. The construction is expected to take five years to complete, according to a statement released by the Iranian Red Crescent. - -Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up - -The news comes at a time when more than 20 per cent of Iranians do not have regular access to medical assistance, according to official statistics. - -Iranian hospitals have been crippled by years of economic sanctions, and patients and doctors have often been diverted to Turkey and Syria for treatment.<|endoftext|>ROME — As the Italian government continues its assault on illegal migration, an Italian official here was forced to defend the country's refusal to grant refugee status to an 86-year-old Syrian woman. - -"We are an African country of European descent, and we need to protect our identity," Milan's deputy mayor said on Friday during a meeting of the Italian Migration Council — a body with legislative authority on immigration that has endorsed Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino and his proposals to close the detention center for migrants in the Italian capital. - -The meeting was also attended by a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and by two UNHCR representatives from African delegations present in Milan. - -Italy is one of several European countries where asylum rules are applied primarily according to the country from which people seek refuge. This is in sharp contrast to Western countries including France, the US and Britain, where asylum seekers are automatically entitled to international protection. - -Italy has the highest number of irregular migrants to European countries — more than 10,000 people arrived in Italy in 2013. Many of them are economic migrants fleeing poverty, but some are genuine refugees. - -Migrants are usually detained in Italian cities for six months until they are either deported or allowed to make an appeal against the deportation order in court. - -The government maintains that in Italy, "illegal residents" are people "whose residency, while lawfully held, has never been valid, nor has they had any legal basis for staying in the country" and therefore may be deported "at will". - -A group of migrant women and children from Sudan demonstrate against their detention in Milan in July 2014. (Reuters photo) - -The group of women and children from Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia were among those detained at the Milan detention center last October, after an order by the Milan governor to deport them back to Libya. However, the refugees say they have not yet been deported. - -The Italian Immigration Police say they were prevented from giving the women and children a full health examination by the Italian State Secretary of Immigration at the detention center, and therefore "have to accept the diagnosis of the center as unfit to treat the detainees." - -The group of refugees are being represented by UNHCR for the upcoming appeal by the European Court of Human Rights against Italy's actions. - -"It is clear that Italian authorities are attempting to prevent the entry of refugees. If Italy does not respect the international law on migrants, this makes its relations with the West much more difficult," said UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming in Rome. - -According to Italian law, migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia may be deported back to their countries of origin, if they violate conditions for entry into Italy for an unlimited number of weeks. - -Refugees from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa are being returned back to Libya. (AFP photo) - -While the deportation order is valid for a specific period, migrants from those parts of the world have the right to appeal to an Italian court within one month of their deportation.<|endoftext|>HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The Madison County district attorney, the state police and the state's Highway Patrol all turned over some hard evidence to a grand jury today that has decided to charge a Madison Police officer with second degree murder. - -Madison County District Attorney Mike Fitzhugh said at 12:45 p.m. today that the charges and the evidence showed that Madison Officer David Anderson shot and killed 37-year old James Boulware in Nov. 25 on Route 45 on a rural road in rural Madison County. - -Fitzhugh said the grand jury will meet again in January. He said the charges will likely come after those discussions. - -He said the evidence against Anderson is pretty "solid." Fitzhugh said that the indictment is based on the fact that he did not have a duty to retreat. - -Fitzhugh said the indictment is not a finding of guilt against the officer. - -As a result of the indictment, Anderson will be taken off the street and have some restrictions while he is on bail pending trial. - -The first-degree murder charge -======================================== SAMPLE 389 ======================================== -It is time for a change. - -The City of San Juan, Puerto Rico has a long history of using public funds to build, maintain and run public utilities and services that have failed in the face of competition from a growing private sector. - -The government is now putting forward a plan to privatize these services and invest the money back into the communities. But the plan has not yet been accepted by Puerto Rico's voters. - -What are the options? - -There are five main options under consideration. - -Option A - Puerto Rico's utilities privatized - -A privatization plan that includes a public utility company and a number of municipal services – water, sewer, gas, electric, roads, waste - would be implemented over a decade. - -The plan would then be monitored and evaluated over the following years to see the efficiency of the programs. - -The plan would use the revenues from privatized services to build up a Public Asset Fund (PAF), which would generate revenues to pay down debt, create jobs and fund services for low-income residents - -A separate revenue stream would be created by transferring municipal and public services from the public sector to private private partnerships (P3s.) These P3s would receive funding from the PAF and be able to recoup their investment by charging their customers market rates. (We will provide more detail on this system in a second.) - -Option B - Puerto Rico's utilities remain public - -In this option, private, for profit corporations would still control all public utilities on the island. - -However, municipal utilities would be phased out altogether, with the most profitable companies receiving the bulk of the cash, and the government could offer tax breaks to attract corporations to operate them. - -The PAF would not be allowed to earn profits, but instead used as a source to pay down debt from previous public expenditures. A third, publicly financed revenue stream would be created. - -Option C - Puerto Rico's utilities remain public, but privatized - -This option was the subject of a study submitted as part of the fiscal 2017 bond referendum in 2018. The study was prepared by Moody's Analytics; The Center for a New Economy; and the University of Puerto Rico. It looked at the costs of running a network of municipally owned utilities and a more traditional public/public partnership (P3) system. - -The study concluded that using the privatized utility to generate the revenue for debt repayment would improve the long-term financial outlook of all Puerto Ricans, but most consumers would end up paying more in the long run. - -In this scenario, the government would continue to control public service operations and charge market rates to all consumers, but it would allow private companies to invest and own infrastructure. - -Option D - San Juan's public utility privatized, but the private companies are owned in partnership - -At this option, the government would continue to control most operations and charge market rates, but will allow a limited number of P3s to manage city services. A private P3 and government would operate the same government-owned utilities on the island, but would partner to reduce maintenance and to reduce costs. - -Option E - Public utilities remain public, but P3s to run service are not permitted - -In this option, cities and municipalities would remain free to decide their own services and their own contracts with the P3s, but the government would provide only a nominal management role. - -This would allow for greater flexibility with respect to public operations and would allow for the creation of a P3 to invest in municipal infrastructure without having to pay the higher PPI that would come with such investment. - -Alternative 3 - Puerto Rico has two P3 options - -At this option, as with Option B, the government-own networks would remain in place, but only two P3 companies would be permitted to use the infrastructure. - -The remaining cities and municipalities would have the option to establish their own public/private partnership and choose to take on debt themselves, but they must do so with the help of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which would remain the entity controlling the infrastructure and charging market rates. It would also be required to make investments in the system as a condition of receiving loans and grants. - -Source: Moody's Analytics - -Moody's study also looked at alternatives 2A – 2B, which is one of the most popular of the two alternatives offered by the current government plan. - -Source: Moody's Analytics. - -At this alternative, cities and municipalities would remain free to choose which P3 they want to use, but they would still have to pay a share of the infrastructure costs in addition to the public funds from the PAF. - -At this option, cities and municipalities would still have the option to establish their own public/private partnership, but they would have to pay a share of the infrastructure costs in addition to the public funds from the PAF. - -Source: Moody's Analytics. - -All -======================================== SAMPLE 390 ======================================== -We are in our third generation on the farm and have taken over the farm in June, 2016. The owners live in California and are open to the idea of moving to a location in Washington State. - -We produce a wide variety of herbs, herbs, spices, vegetables, fruit, herbs, trees, fruits, wood cutters, garden tools, animal care, and woodworking supplies. - -We currently sell our products through Amazon.com, and many local area stores, such as the Seattle Farmer's Market and the Bellevue Farmers' Market. We also host a number of group sales and festivals where you can come by and pick up some great produce. For more information please visit our contact page.<|endoftext|>The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Talk to the Imperial soldier stationed at the Temple of the Divines. Help him find his missing soldier friends. Return to the Temple of the Divines. Kill the four Blades sent by Alduin. - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -"All is well in the Temple of the Divines," he'll say. "All is well, only." - -After reading the note on Alduin, the Imperial soldier will give you a quest: Find your missing friend. Follow the instructions to find the missing soldiers. - -Bugs [ edit ] - -If you complete the quest too early (before finding the soldiers), the Imperial soldier will not talk to you again, even if you do the following: (1) Find him, and (2) tell him of your plan. This bug is fixed by version 2.0.1 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. - - -Quest Stages [ edit ] - -Find Your Missing Friends (MS04) Stage Finishes Quest Journal Entry 10 Objective 10 : Talk to the Imperial soldier at the Temple of the Divines 20 Objective 20 : Help the Imperial soldier find his missing soldiers 30 Objective 30 : Find the Imperial soldier's friends 40 Objective 40 : Kill the Blades 50 Objective 50 : Leave the Temple of the Divines - -The following empty quest stages were omitted from the table: MS05, MS06, MS07, MS08, MS09, MS10, MS11, MS12, MS36, MS37, MS38, MS39, MS40, MS41, MS42, MS43.<|endoftext|>A new report from Human Rights Watch on child labor in Chinese factories paints a grim picture of child labor and the plight of millions of Chinese children whose parents send them to factories every day to work in factories. - -Human Rights Watch compiled data showing that, on average, workers under 16 years of age are 12 times more likely to be employed in factories than are similar workers who are over 18. The report found that one-third of all factory factory workers are children. The average age for female factory workers in China is 19, the report found. - -As The Christian Science Monitor wrote: - -Many of the companies listed in the Human Trafficking in China report that they employ a portion of their factories—a handful, they often acknowledge—as temporary shelters for workers who, like hundreds of thousands of other women worldwide, are trafficked into forced labor in factories—often in rural areas. […] This was the third largest number of factories surveyed by Human Rights Watch, and more than 20 percent of those identified as temporary shelters are in the construction and manufacturing industries. The number of those factories employing workers under 16 who work at night—and the percentage who are female—represents nearly 20 percent of the total number of female workers surveyed. The Human Rights Watch report makes clear that these factories and shelters are not safe. - -The Chinese government has repeatedly promised to improve working conditions in order to reduce child labor, but Human Rights Watch believes that it has done little to date. It says China is still the largest importer of child labor in the world. - -"One in three Chinese children still work in factories in 2013, despite pledges by most governments to end compulsory labor since 2007," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of U.S. and China advocacy at Human Rights Watch. "But government attempts to crack down on child labor have been plagued by human rights violations that include physical and sexual abuse and forced labor by child workers who should be at school and have access to health care."<|endoftext|>There must be a way to fix it, it cannot be an oversight, it needs to be fixed soon, this is an expensive way to fix and has been for years - -It's so disappointing to see a major manufacturer fix something so simple. It's such a shame because if any car manufacturer knew how many people wanted the fix they just would have done it long before now.<|endoftext|>When I first arrived at the site, I could clearly see a lot of damage to the road which indicates that the car had run over the guard rail as it entered the road. - -The vehicle has a huge dent on both sides of the vehicle, in the front -======================================== SAMPLE 391 ======================================== -[UPDATE: This post was originally published as a follow-up to an article originally published back in May 2016.] - -If you have ever made a list of the things you love, I'm betting you've encountered the "I love…" phrase in somewhere. "I love working on cars" or "I love baking cupcakes" or "I love having cats" or "I love to travel and go on adventures" and so on. But "I love…" can be tricky. And because it's ubiquitous, this is the post that is supposed to help you get that one that really makes you say "Oh, that makes me happy." - -One of the hardest things about loving someone is knowing when to stop. That's why I often wish I could just say, "I love you!" in one fell swoop. The problem is that "I love you" is something you want to say when you truly think it's true, when you really mean what you are saying. And then you can stop doing it whenever you want, without being judged. I'm lucky that I get a pretty sweet ride every time I say it, but many people find it difficult to keep the love they have for people alive. - -The good news is that "I love you" is a good statement for a lot of things. It will make you feel good in some contexts, like when you just want to be with a person, like when the person is doing/talking/feeling good, like when you're talking to a partner about something that's important to you and needn't seem superficial. You can say "I love you" during any kind of emotional situation, in moments when you want to share the most intimate details with someone else, when you're trying to comfort someone you find sad (or angry or frustrated), or just when you want to get something or to hear another person's feelings aloud. But "I love you" is not just a statement of love. It can also mean that you're happy for a partner, someone you've given love to, someone who has given you love in return. Saying "I love you" to someone who has recently lost a friend or a family member or a pet or anyone else who makes you feel connected and cared about is a pretty powerful statement. - -The thing is, you don't always mean the same thing when you say "I love you." So if you're not sure whether to say "I love you" to someone, there are five reasons you should always choose to say it. - -Love Can Be More Than Just Intimacy - -I've heard a lot of advice in the past few years, and I'm not sure why, about what you need to say to an ex-partner if you're going to stay in a relationship. But the advice I've heard almost always comes after a story like this one. "Do I have to go 'I love you' at every turn?" "Do I always have to be like 'Oh, you're so wonderful'?" You know how when your parents say that they love you they say it lovingly and earnestly, and then it comes across as if you never said it at all? That's what it feels like when you have to give an explanation when your partner calls and says "I don't have a job." It's like they're saying that they're "not sorry," and it just kind of goes away without making any changes to your relationship. That's how "I love you" can often come off in your non-spouse relationships. - -On the other hand, you might not understand another person to that degree on a day-to-day basis. That's a very hard thing to communicate. Many people would describe their romantic love as "being on all the time, making plans, spending lots of time together, and enjoying spending your days together." When you're with someone, you can feel that you're at the "fun" restaurant or the movie theater at the same time as the person you're with, and you don't feel that same sense of excitement when you just want to spend time with them once in awhile. "I love you" is about being able to make plans that you are excited about and enjoy spending time with, and you need to be able to do that in all your relationships. I know it's a lot harder to be intimate with someone when you don't know them that well than it is to try to communicate when a few months into a relationship, you're still trying to figure out everything about this person. In short, "I love you" will always translate to "I care about you, and I care about you in an intimate way," whether or not you're together and you were just in a really good day with them. - -Some people even go further and tell their exes to "do better than that" by not being such a jerk to their partners. That's true, but you can try to show that you're -======================================== SAMPLE 392 ======================================== -[Editor's Note: This review contains spoilers for the season finale of Game of Thrones] - -There has been only one season before this of Game of Thrones for the show's fans, but it appears that the HBO series has been in the works since before the series started. We're talking about pre-season, pre-publicity and, potentially, pre-production for at least two series, since the first season's plot points and characters were still being built. - -For those who didn't know, Game of Thrones, a medieval fantasy series based on George R. R. Martin's novels, is created and developed by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who in 2012 joined a cast that originally consisted of Lena Headey, Lena Headey, Sean Bean, Liam Cunningham, Lena Headey, Michelle Fairley, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, Natalie Dormer and Iain Glen. - -But that cast couldn't stay together for long. After the second season was renewed for a third season, it was revealed that Kit Harington was leaving the show. And in January 2013, it was confirmed that Ian Martin would also be leaving the show, leaving just Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), two characters who have not yet undergone their respective metamorphoses. - -While there have been occasional rumors of Thrones being adapted into a film, the show has so far been more than content to play out on the small screen. The show's main characters have gone on to star in multiple feature films. (Game of Thrones is one of the only TV series to make a film-length transition so far.) - -If the show ever gets to film a third season, Benioff and Weiss say, there is a good chance that it will be its pilot episode. "Maybe we'll do it, maybe not," one of the showrunners explains. "It seems to have the right vibe, so it's going into production as planned." - -In an interview with THR, Benioff and Weiss revealed that they have already begun making preliminary plans for a third season. "It's in a pretty heavy planning stage," said Benioff. - -There is also talk of making other TV shows out of Game of Thrones. For example, some of the series' characters and plot points are so huge that they can easily fit on multiple episodes. "There are definitely ideas for other shows beyond this one, but the plan for them is for them to exist in George and Dan's world, but also be more standalone," said Benioff. - -Benioff and Weiss also discussed that they have some ideas for other series that could possibly take place in Westeros. - -"There's also the possibility for a whole series of other HBO series," said Benioff. "There are certain things about the characters of Game Of Thrones that just come from the sheer brilliance of the writers, and also from the story itself, which we believe is the best of any kind of TV show out there. We'd be insane to not explore different worlds. We've tried to stay true to the source material in a way that's as true to the source material as we can in terms of tone. There might be places we go where we lose some of the authenticity, but it is a world we're extremely proud and happy to have created, and want to see people enjoy." - -As for whether Game of Thrones could ever get turned into a movie, the showrunners say it isn't out of the question. "It's always been an aspiration," said Benioff. "And no matter how much it may feel impossible, you can always dream, right? In a certain way, we've accomplished everything we ever asked of ourselves, and so it may be that there's a few series that we'd be excited to explore that way." - -Game of Thrones continues to air Sundays at 9/8c on HBO. - -(via THR, images via HBO) - -Meanwhile in related links<|endoftext|>From Halopedia, the Halo wiki - -" The Covenant's primary weapon is an array of plasma cannons mounted on its supercarriers and battleships. The Covenant wields these plasma cannons like a weapon far more powerful than even the Promethean constructs it defeated the UNSC. " - -Covenant plasma cannons are large weapons manufactured by several groups of human organizations and sold to the UNSC for use by the military in their operations. Covenant plasma cannons are usually mounted on Covenant warships and capital ships. - -The Covenant uses plasma cannon as a primary weapon, which are capable of disabling capital ships, including the Forerunner Dreadnought, in mere seconds.[2] They were used against UNSC ships in the human-Covenant War and the final battle on Earth. - -While Covenant plasma cannons are similar in many ways to the Covenant Battle Cannon, -======================================== SAMPLE 393 ======================================== -Fossil fuels do not provide jobs, they are an economic drain on society, which only makes them worse when they are used, said an environmental scientist at the University of Alberta. - -In his keynote address at the University of Calgary's annual Royal Society of Canada talk, University of Alberta environmental scientist David Schindler talked about how some fossil fuels can be truly "jobs killer" and that others should be considered "waste products" to be used whenever possible. - -Schindler's lecture took place as part of the symposium "Globalizing Fossil Fuels: Energy Future and Resilience in the 21st Century". He was selected by the Royal Society of Canada to deliver the speech titled "The economics of fossil fuels," said the Royal Society in a news release. - -Schindler is part of a team of researchers who examined the world's fossil fuel reserves and how much of them are economically recoverable as well as which of them will become economically viable. - -He said the economics of fossil fuels is still difficult to define and that different groups will often have very different views. - -Schindler said in an email, "The economics of fossil fuels is still difficult to define and what different groups think and think they know often turns out to be wrong. This may seem obvious, but it bears repeating." - -One of the problems, Schindler added, is that it takes a huge amount of money and resources (in energy, land, and water) to do a fossil fuel extraction process, like mining. - -"The problem is that most of these resources, if they are recoverable, need significant energy to be extracted or, at best, they require small amounts of natural gas or other sources of 'free' energy," said Schindler. - -Schindler said in order to make a fossil fuel extraction or refining process sustainable, there must be a lot of renewable energy such as solar (which can supply all of a fossil fuel extraction process with energy) to power it. Solar produces a lot of waste but it also makes a lot of energy, which can be useful if there are places that cannot afford solar, as well as making it more expensive for those that cannot afford it. Schindler said even if fossil fuels do become a more affordable fuel option, the price of fossil fuels will still be expensive for consumers. - -The economic problem of fossil fuels is made even worse by the negative effects of burning them and their subsequent effects on the environment and the human health, said Schindler. - -While fossil fuels have many beneficial applications, he said using them can create social problems because of the impact on the environment, human health, and the economy, and even the future of the planet. - -Schindler said, "What's more, as we use the economy to grow our economies, more and more land is being taken off the land." - -"This leads to higher environmental degradation, water scarcity in regions like the Nile and the Euphrates, and a higher demand for food and other materials," said Schindler. - -He added, "Overfishing, which is already an issue in the North Atlantic, has become a serious worldwide problem which will affect our own planet in the future." - -The United Nations estimates that one out of every 11 marine fish stocks, which can only survive at high depths, has already been overexploited to the point that they are currently facing extinction. Schindler said that one of the most serious of those is the sea trout, which we eat on fish sticks in many parts of North America. He said that in some parts of the North Atlantic, the sea trout has already become too depleted to maintain a population and its population, which includes many species of fish that live at sea (such as cod and halibut) will disappear if we go on using fishing vessels. So what will happen? The fish will die off, along with the oceans. - -He also said that as fossil fuel technologies increase in efficiency, it is clear that the use of fossil fuels will lead to a larger environmental footprint because it creates more energy-intensive processes to extract energy from the fuel. He added, "What's more, the use of fossil fuels increases the risks to human health as a result of toxic effects on air and water." - -His point was a simple one, he said. "We must choose the right uses of our fossil fuel resources. If our goal as a species is to make earth a livable earth that supports life, we should not use it. If our goal as a species is to preserve biodiversity we should not use it. If our goal as a species is to protect fragile ecosystems for future generations, we should not use it." - -What the "wrong uses" of fossil fuels are is often discussed. Schindler suggested that in many locations, we use the most energy from a fossil fuel and produce the lowest quality product because the best of us can't make an impact there, such -======================================== SAMPLE 394 ======================================== -"We believe that some of the changes that come at the end of a war — the need for a transition to a new regime — will be lessened if we have at least some way that will be able to provide the United States military with a credible and effective means to take out targets in the most dangerous places where terrorists are hiding. … The other thing we believe is very important is for us to be able to make the transition from an intelligence-focused campaign to one that takes more of the fight to the fighting and allows for better cooperation within countries with which we're working against these groups. - -"If we are able to put that in place with a few weeks' notice, it would change the tenor of the campaign dramatically … This change that Mr. Trump has proposed would make the campaign harder to do. It would increase the risk of civilian casualties on both sides, so I think that is one area, when we talk about the impact of Mr. Trump's policies, where we think that they have not been thought out very much." – National Security Advisor Susan Rice, March 5, 2016 - -Secretary of State John Kerry said he and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter "are working with the incoming administration. Our conversations include the use of U.S. military force as an option; the use of force to try to get regime cooperation. … There are a lot of discussions between the president-elect's team and the transition team." – Secretary of State John Kerry, March 5, 2016 - -If Obama had really wanted regime change in Syria, he wouldn't have sent the YPG to fight Assad, he'd sent the US Army to help the SAA. - -Rice says the U.S. can't "make the transition from an intelligence-focused campaign to one that takes more of the fight to the fighting." - -If it helps US war-planes get closer to ISIS and other terror groups, that's one thing. - -If it gives the YPG and its backers a "decadence" victory over Assad and their Russian foes, that's another thing entirely. If it gives the Syrian Army's allies a "decadence" victory against Syrian Kurds, that's going too far, too fast. - -US military strategists know full well the dangers of using force to overthrow foreign governments in the Muslim world. During the Spanish-American War, Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing sent American tanks, cavalry, and artillery to destroy the Philippine Army forces. But it was the Philippine National Guard who killed thousands, not the Americans, and it was Pershing who sent his troops back home to slaughter many of them in the bloodiest civil war in history. - -In Vietnam, as US units destroyed hundreds or thousands of Vietnamese cities, their Vietnamese backers sent American troops to kill them. As Washington's "vietnamization" continued in Southeast Asia, civilians were rounded up and sent to prison camps. The US forces were fighting the Viet Cong, but the war did not end. It just shifted from one kind of regime to another. - -In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has destroyed many countries, including Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, North Korea, and Iran. But, to the consternation of many Washington-fearing elites, these wars have not ended the regimes targeted by the United States. Instead, Washington has imposed "democracies" in some of the countries that were destroyed. - -It has done this in many cases to make room for the US-backed Saudi regime, in which women are treated as second-class citizens. It also has intervened to topple Qaddafi in Libya in order to create a new, pro-US puppet regime. - -A "Democracy" that has killed tens of thousands is not, on its face, a "credible and effective means to take out targets in the most dangerous places where terrorists are hiding." - -If Obama wanted regime change in Syria, he wouldn't have sent that tiny, ragtag, little army of Kurds to fight Assad in January 2014. But now he and his team are saying it's worth sending those soldiers home just in case. - -US war-planning is being run by the Pentagon, and the CIA in particular, against a much wider battlefield than just Syria. - -The war-fighting priorities for 2015 and 2016 are not just the war on ISIS, but also against Iran, the Shia theocracy of Baghdad, Sunni terror groups in the Middle East (such as the al-Nusra Front and the Kurdish militia, YPG), and the ever-expanding "Russian Axis," led by the regime of Bashar Assad — a regime that has murdered and slaughtered countless numbers of his own people just to preserve his own power. - -The US military is planning to invade Ukraine and dismember the country. - -The Pentagon is planning to invade Ukraine and dismember the country. - -Pentagon sources told Fox News last week that plans are in the works to seize large parts of Ukraine -======================================== SAMPLE 395 ======================================== -Image caption The government's policy is to focus on economic success rather than poverty alleviation - -A policy paper by senior politicians which suggests poor people in England's deprived areas pay too little tax and cannot be expected to live on benefits has been criticised by the Conservative party as "simplistic". - -The report is in response to research by the Trussell Trust charity and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. - -The UK government's policy is to focus on economic success rather than poverty alleviation. - -Labour MP Ann Coffey said the policy risked undermining efforts to tackle the housing crisis. - -The report, published by the former home secretary Sir Alan Beith, says more than a quarter of people who receive "rent assistance" in England are living in relative poverty. - -Rents in the UK have risen by almost 4% over the past year and now average £1,724 a month - up 2.3% since April 2008, according to official data. - -The National Housing Federation said there were now 2.6 million households in poverty in the home counties - where the largest numbers of people have been hit by spiralling house prices. - -In Wales and Scotland, where public subsidy is paid for housing, more than three in four living in poverty are rent-burdened. - -'Burden on society' - -The Trussell Trust found that the average rent in Greater London was £3,976 while the average in the rest of the country was £1,638. This amounts to a difference of 1,250% (if you can bear to type that number). - -For a family of four, the cost is £4,100 a month - £3,560 below the poverty line. - -The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, meanwhile, says many people in London are renting from private landlords, who have an estimated annual bill of £8,000 per household per annum. - -This compares to nearly £2,000 in the South East and £1,000 in the North East. - -It adds this is "putting an enormous extra burden on societies". - -The government's own work capability assessments suggest 2.3% of adults and 3.5% of pensioners are living in poverty. - -The Labour MP said: "This report by the government's own think tank and its former home secretary Sir Alan Beith doesn't tell us one iota about the real causes of our social and economic crisis and the urgent need for radical reform of the way we pay for the services that most support our families. - -"I have long called for a mansion tax to crack down on people who are being paid an allowance that leaves them trapped on the poverty line. I welcome this report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation but will be disappointed that the government isn't moving sooner." - -Government figures show 3,000 more pensioners than in 2010 are earning less than the current poverty line. - -And in the north east more than 50,000 more people over the age of 16 are out of work than in 2010.<|endoftext|>(CNN) As Donald Trump nears a potential November showdown with Hillary Clinton, who leads in most national polls, the Republican nominee's allies have been looking for ways to woo disaffected voters without alienating them. - -That approach has included the hiring of Breitbart News executive Stephen Bannon, who has been pushing the populist message favored by Trump backers. Trump has also sought to woo women in swing states , with the support of his daughter and son-in-law. - -His surrogates have tried hard to reassure voters that he would take their concerns seriously. But Trump's allies have also made an effort to court disaffected voters before the Republican National Convention begins in late July, in a clear effort to secure a convention bounce. - -And as they push for a convention bounce, many of Trump's allies are also trying to figure out how best to court black voters in battleground states. - -The Trump campaign is expected to continue hiring black operatives in the coming weeks, according to CNN's sources, after initially putting out feelers ahead of Cleveland about whether Bannon and other candidates would want to join the team. But it is not clear that those hires are helping the campaign at this point in the race, particularly given that the general election race between the two major-party candidates looks increasingly lopsided. The Clinton campaign believes a high-profile presence in the race from its black surrogates helps galvanize African American voters, particularly in states with high African American populations. - -Even more worryingly, however, is the potential that Trump's allies may have lost influence in key battleground states after a series of controversies over Trump -- some of which have been centered around racially charged rhetoric -- including his recent comments about Sen. John McCain's POW status, his comments about a judge of Mexican heritage because his parents were from Mexico, and his failure to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. - -Trump's -======================================== SAMPLE 396 ======================================== -The American Civil Liberties Union, on Monday, filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump to challenge a federal order that bans immigrants from six predominately Muslim countries from entering the U.S. - -The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco federal court, seeks an injunction against the order, which will take effect January 20. Trump issued the travel ban after the Syrian refugee ban was blocked in U.S. courts. The lawsuit notes that Trump "has used his official power and authority to discriminate against people because of their national origin." - -The ACLU also argued in a statement that it has provided "ample evidence of discrimination" and "repeatedly warned government officials that their decision to order ICE agents to disregard due process rights would have serious consequences." - -"The executive order is unconstitutional and un-American, and we intend to use every available means to defend this decision, including in court," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero told reporters outside the court. - -Trump's executive order has faced criticism within the media, and on social media. - -If the injunction is granted, the ACLU said it would ask the court to issue a permanent injunction on the "unconstitutionality" of the order. - -"President Trump has promised to reinstate President Obama's order that protected more than 75 million people from being torn apart by President Trump's Muslim ban. We're confident he'll do the right thing and end this unconstitutional ban," ACLU National Political Director Faiz Shakir said in a news release. "The ACLU will fight Trump's Muslim ban tooth and nail, until he admits to his supporters that it's immoral and illegal to ban refugees and anyone who's not a U.S. citizen from entering the country." - -The statement from the ACLU comes a day after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was among the attorneys general who argued in federal court against Trump's travel ban. The ban was blocked by judges and later struck down nationwide by a number of judges. - -The White House, in its statement, declined to comment on the lawsuit. - -For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App<|endoftext|>A few years ago, the internet ran out of gas. - -In a flash, thousands of online services and products, from Twitter and YouTube to the web browser and email client, disappeared, along with billions of dollars in web traffic. - -The internet has since rebounded. But in the process, millions of companies have vanished. - -As companies migrate their information to the cloud, they have to deal with the same issues. Here are five of the most common challenges they face. - -Rendering to the cloud is hard - -When the internet first started making its way onto home computers, it took years to get it to look just the way you expected. That wasn't the case with the cloud. Even today, you can get pretty good web design if you spend the time to make a decent looking website before publishing it to the cloud. - -But rendering a website to the cloud isn't the same as rendering it to an actual page. Even for small tweaks, that's going to require a lot of engineering. When a website first leaves the desktop, it takes some time to render. When the internet got the cloud, everything has to render on demand. That means the same technical limitations that come up when publishing to the web remain the same even with the cloud, so web designers have to re-educate themselves on render to the cloud again. - -Web developers have to create the same kinds of optimizations into their code, too - -Even more complicated is the fact that some of the most popular pieces of web software depend on the same code rendering on demand. Some services, like WordPress, use the same rendering engine in mobile web pages to improve reliability. Others, like the Google Drive storage service, rely on caching algorithms that can be quite effective. The best of these works on most computers, but it doesn't translate to all of them. - -It's a complex balancing act. All these features, while essential for their specific purposes, also make maintaining a site complicated. - -Making the web faster again means taking the best feature of your code and giving it to a cloud service that doesn't have the same issues. That's why developers must carefully think through which of the features they'll choose to give up. A simple, lightweight rendering engine can be useful when there aren't any specific optimizations in the code you use. But to get the best performance you need the most power possible, which makes the choice more complicated. - -For instance, an image loading animation is something you can easily optimize. But some web pages can actually hold images without breaking performance. The key is understanding how to optimize an image without breaking the site itself. - -There is no single solution that fixes everything - -Just because you have a cloud-hosted web site does not mean it will load as fast or as reliably as a site hosted on a single host. The key for your web application to get the most out of cloud -======================================== SAMPLE 397 ======================================== -The National Post's Greg Keenan on the NDP campaign and why Justin Trudeau's "big tent" approach is an exercise in bad politics and bad policy. 4:23 - -Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has promised to create the first federal commission to recommend ways to address inequality and improve social mobility in the country. He is taking his message to Ontario and across the country.<|endoftext|>From the late 1860s on, men who suffered sexual abuse as children could have their cases taken seriously in law courts. There were few women's shelters for abused women at that time, but some women did see lawyers who would take their claims. An adult could be arrested and jailed for an assault but not jailed, in part, for not being aware that the person had abused them. In the absence of evidence about why they might have assaulted someone other than for sexual gratification, the adult could be convicted of assault, with a maximum jail sentence of two years (the maximum sentence was reduced after 1896). - -Sexual abuse of an adult male child was more likely to be punished than non-sexual abuse against a male child. After two rape convictions in London, the Crown Court judge expressed concerns about the high number of men convicted for sexual offences against boys. He wrote, "I should have thought, if anything, more was needed than a few additional cases, on which, in a jury room and where the defendant is represented by counsel, I think it difficult to convict." The only other known court decisions of child sexual abuse were the jury decisions in the cases of Alexander Verellen (1873) and J.H.F. (1874) where the father were found guilty of abuse but the father was convicted of child molestation. - -Other jurisdictions took the Crown Court's observations and held that an adult male child could be convicted for abusing a victim who was a boy. In New Zealand, the law was changed in 1891 so that when a boy was sexually abused, it became an offence, with a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment. In Australia, legislation was passed in 1907 for child molestations of boys, that included a maximum sentence of four years. - -In the United Kingdom, child sexual assault was considered a crime of "the lower order of offences", which, according to a report in the Daily Mail in 1888, was because of "the difficulty of proving in a court of law that the accused knew the age of the young victim." - -See, for example:<|endoftext|>H.R. 3413 (114th) was a bill in the United States Congress. - -A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law. - -This bill was introduced in the 114th Congress, which met from Jan 6, 2015 to Jan 3, 2017. Legislation not enacted by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books. - -How to cite this information. - -We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work: - -GovTrack.us. (2018). H.R. 3413 — 114th Congress: To amend title 40, United States Code, to permit the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to ... Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr3413?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss "H.R. 3413 — 114th Congress: To amend title 40, United States Code, to permit the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to ..." www.GovTrack.us. 2015. September 30, 2018 To amend title 40, United States Code, to permit the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to assist small businesses in compliance with the reporting requirements for certain credit card activities, H.R. 3413, 114th Cong. (2015). {{cite web - -|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr3413?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss - -|title=H.R. 3413 (114th) - -|accessdate=September 30, 2018 - -|author=114th Congress (2015) - -|date=November 9, 2015 - -|work=Legislation - -|publisher=GovTrack.us - -|quote=To amend title 40, United States Code, to permit the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to ... - -}} show another citation format: - -MLA - -APA - -Blue Book - -Wikipedia Template - -Where is this information from? - -GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from -======================================== SAMPLE 398 ======================================== -MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russian and U.S. air forces would share targeting information for Syria's embattled government and its fight against Islamic State militants. - -Putin told reporters after signing a decree to extend the deployment of Russian air-defense forces into Syria for three years, that Russia had no plans to intervene in the conflict in Syria, which is in its seventh year.<|endoftext|>I would love to see a sequel to this. - -I would love to see that. - -I would love to see this! I'd absolutely love to see this! - -I would really love to see this. - -I would love to have a companion in this. - -I don't want to spoil anything for you, but I would love to see this game get an update. It's one thing that has bothered me for as long as I can remember, but after seeing some of the reviews for the original, I can't help but feel like that's the problem with most of the games that are sequels. - -The story of this title was so amazing for the first time that it just seemed to make a sequel impossible. But now that the story has been revisited, it just seems that the whole "new" story and story to the characters just doesn't have the same impact or the same kind of feeling. - -The game has some cool elements, which I'm just going to mention. It's very well crafted. The way the story worked with the game mechanics was great, and I really can't wait to see more. - -For a game that was released in the 90's and has aged very well, this is an old game. I'm surprised that we have no official remake. Even on Youtube there are a few versions of this game, but the "new" version isn't anything close to being a remake. - -I would love to see a remake of this. - -It's been 3 years, and the only thing I can say is that this is a wonderful game with a brilliant story and that's it. The characters and the voiceovers worked so well to keep me invested in playing again and again. The game was so unique and had such a unique feel. I had fun with the game and will continue play it. I just hope that this story doesn't change the character so much that I can't see myself playing it again. - -But this is all I have to say about this wonderful title and this masterpiece. As someone who is new to this series, I did not realize how beautiful and unique it can be. It is still a good game in its own way, and I really would love to see more of this type of game. - -I would love to see a sequel to this! - -…<|endoftext|>The man who is considered to be the most prominent critic of President Barack Obama, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, was caught up in a controversy during the 2014 State of the Union Address, when Smith and other commentators started speaking out against President Obama, suggesting that his speech contained "inconsistencies about Obamacare and gun control." - -Smith was one of the first journalists on Wednesday morning to ask Obama who he would vote for in November. - -"I can't tell you that just now, as Congress is on recess," Obama said as the crowd cheered. "But I certainly know who I would have voted for." - -As soon as the president continued with what he meant by "vote," Smith interrupted him, saying "But you said that before." - -The response from Obama was a series of "no, no, no"s. - -At one point, the journalist began to speak while another, Fox News Channel's John Roberts, cut his line of questioning. The segment came to a close by Smith saying, "So I'm assuming you don't intend to endorse any of the Democrats for president?" and adding that "they're the people I care about." - -The journalist followed up that line of questioning by saying that the president seems "kind of distant." - -Roberts agreed, saying that he "didn't really detect the Obama who we saw, just last night at the State of the Union." - -"A different president, yes. More thoughtful," he went on to say. "More thoughtful." - -The video below shows the exchange between the two. - -Watch below: - -[h/t Raw Story] - -— — - ->> Follow Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) on Twitter - -Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com<|endoftext|>The first thing I thought and then repeated was, "I can't believe the time. We are really going to do this? I'm feeling really good at this." The excitement was overwhelming. This has always been something that I dreamed about for the longest time. It was a very special moment and one I will treasure for the rest of my life. - -When we walked into the office the next -======================================== SAMPLE 399 ======================================== -When it comes to the internet, you do not want to mess with your ISP. But if this goes wrong, a website could stop working and then you might not get your money back. - -If you've ever bought something on Amazon, you'll know about Amazon's refund policy. But a website could simply shut down, and you don't have a recourse. - -This problem has become even more apparent as companies like Netflix continue to expand across the globe. But the best way for companies to ensure customers aren't ripped off is to provide good service that works when there are things to do. - -In a new essay, tech entrepreneur and professor of software engineering at Stanford University, Matt Mullenweg, offers a way to ensure websites function when something goes wrong. - -Mullenweg said in the essay: - -One idea would be for a site to automatically pause loading for a period of time when it's getting hit. This would help the site continue to work, but would keep you from losing money. Another way to do this would be for the site to automatically go offline if the server goes down. - -This isn't the first time Mullenweg has discussed the ability to control what happens when things go wrong. Back in February, he wrote a blog post about how businesses, like the likes of the BBC and Starbucks, were using tools to prevent customers from losing money. - -Mullenweg explains that businesses need to have control of both ends of communication: - -This is a great step forward, but it's not just for businesses: it's for websites too. Imagine if a website went down because the web server couldn't handle all the traffic. As a customer, you could have had a whole site to browse, but your money would be gone. - -He adds that it means companies must offer customers a service they expect, and will stay up and running: - -When a service fails, a site should be prepared to go offline for a very short time. This ensures that the site cannot break users' ability to buy or sell, browse, use the site while it is down, etc. And you can't pay to have that service work until after the site goes down. - -What do you think? Will you sign up to service like this? Would that be the best tool for keeping your site up and running if it goes down? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below… - -Feature Image Credit: iStock - -Read next: Apple's new iPhone 6S is 'a more powerful version of that phone' and it'll make you 'feel great'<|endoftext|>Image caption The woman was attacked outside Boots - -A woman was assaulted on her way home from a night out and then a man tried to abduct her after a night of drinking. - -Police have released photos of the two men they want to identify and are asking for help finding them. - -Officers were called to reports of a woman with severe facial injuries being attacked in the King's Cross area early on Saturday. - -A 21-year-old man was arrested. He is from Londonderry and was remanded in custody at the High Court in Belfast on Sunday. - -No arrests have been made in connection with the attempted abduction earlier. - -The assault took place outside Boots in the King's Cross area. - -'Criminal activity' - -Police were originally told the woman was in a relationship and he was a former workmate - -However the woman has since made a statement to police, and no further information was being disclosed at the request of the woman.<|endoftext|>From Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games - - -The Punisher Film Series was filmed on location in the town of Woodbury in the United States and Canada. The series takes place in a post apocalyptic world where the remnants of society live in constant fear for their lives as the undead roam the streets. As shown in the trailer, the series would focus on Frank Castle, a vigilante fighting the undead, who is trying to protect his girlfriend Jessica. He is also trying help the police in a case. He is also a vigilante who hunts the undead. - - -The following weapons were used in the film The Punisher: - - -WARNING! THIS PAGE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES! - - -Pistols - -Colt Lawman - -Colt Lawman is the trademark weapon of the US Department of Homeland Security. - -The Colt Lawman - .45 ACP. - -The first of the law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene, a Colt Lawman. - -Iron Man 2. - -Iron Man 2. Frank appears to hold an older Colt Lawman fitted with a scope. - -Iron Man 2. - -Iron Man 2. Frank aims his Colt in a training exercise. He's apparently very happy with it. - -Winchester Model 1887 - -An officer with a Winchester Model 18 -======================================== SAMPLE 400 ======================================== -I received this book via the author's publisher, Bloomsbury, as a gift for my birthday in January, 2014. I have read it thoroughly for more than a month while being away in India and the experience is that of a book by and for a woman – a very important point to consider if you are a woman wanting to write about feminism or women's issues. I enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it unreservedly. This book does not preach, preach and preach, however. While it may not have words that will stir the passions or change the lives of its readers, it does present an approach that is useful. For a first attempt, even an expert, it is a step in the right direction. And not just in India. - -The first sentence – "There was a time, when everything was black and white" makes me want to cry. The author describes a time when we all stood and saw only the world in a black and white way of the world. We saw things in black and white, like the two sides of the same coin: dark and bright, good and bad. Everything that happened could be understood in the manner of good and bad, so why would we believe in anything positive to come of something bad? - -There is a sense of hopelessness and pessimism in this sentiment: the black and white view of the world has been replaced by an outlook of not-knowing-if-anything is happening. The story of Ramashraya (or Ramjasumara) begins with the first day of the birth week of the boy. The book deals with the first month of his life, starting from that day when his father's name is given to him. The author takes us through the entire year when Ramaswami goes through various phases of his life. The birth of the son is not the centre of the story, rather it is the constant. It seems the author was inspired by this book, The Life and Times of Astrid, a book by the renowned Norwegian writer Lotte Håstad that deals with the life of the same character. (Lotte Hästad was a very important figure to me during my stay in India. She often travelled with me to meet with friends and fellow feminists. She used to teach at Harvard Law School. You can read more about Lotte Hästad's career here.) - -The author mentions two stages in Ramaswami's life that are the subject of the book. One is when he is a baby and the other is later on when he leaves that state. After some thought, we learn that the first stage was the most formative one in terms of his character: 'When he was a baby he didn't know that everything is a choice'. The second stage, about three years long, is the time of the boy growing up. - -Ramaswami's mother, named Panchami, tells us that when Ramaswami was small as a baby the mother-father duo sat in the house on the left side of the room. The father, the father-head of the household, would read a passage in the scriptures, while the mother-head sat on the other side of the room. 'Whenever it was our time to eat, we would stand on both sides of the table.' The father told her what he wanted to hear, 'What I had read in the scriptures and what I imagined for Ramaswami.' The mother-head would explain what she thought was important in that passage, while the father would 'look at her and listen intently'. 'The one who spoke the words he liked would receive the food…' The mother would be responsible for the care of the baby and the father for looking after him 'as he grew older'. All this was done 'with the purpose to make the boy grow up in a manner like that'. (p.17) - -We also learn that when Ramaswami reached 18, the couple got divorced and the mother-head returned to her native place. Panchami was then faced with her task to put Ramaswami through the rigours of worldly life. A man needs to understand how women have been treated by the world. She tells us that Ramaswami 'became a woman'. Now Ramjas is a man with a job, a house to decorate and everything to do, without the burden of the old woman. But there is much to learn from this chapter: 'His mother-head was right all along and she could still look at them both and make a lot out of them. But the older he grew, the more she worried and he needed a woman's advice…' - -From the age of 18 to 30, Ramaswami is very active in politics. A political party named Ramaswami (Mahasabha) is formed. Ramaswami is the head of this party. This chapter tells us not only about this political party but also about the personal life of -======================================== SAMPLE 401 ======================================== -Kenny Chesney, - -"The best of times. And the worst of times. But not for long. Oh no! You're gonna love the worst of times. Because the days of waiting for you. Of the day you leave are almost over. And I'm telling you, people, you've got to get your money ready, you've got to get your life ready because the next twenty years are gonna be the best twenty years of your life and the next twenty years, people are gonna get your attention when it's all said and done to see just how they can make the best of it. You've got to make it through this."<|endoftext|>This will definitely help my case, I'm a very small person for sure but that could have been me if I put this on and went back to sleep. There was a lot of movement, and I would say 3-4 in front and behind my body but not to the point where it was uncomfortable. It didn't even bother my neck during a deep breathing session. I had just the slightest bit of pressure on the side of my neck which my neck does not use, which is probably why I can sleep with my head completely above neck level. It is also hard to believe that something is moving all around me, my body is completely covered. But I would say that I feel better and is definitely worth the money just because it will help with your neck problem, you're so small so don't worry about that. The other thing I did like was the design of the headset because it is not made from foam and looks so much better than a pair of normal looking VR headsets.<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON — Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, on Tuesday released the summary of an interview with Hillary Clinton, in which she acknowledged using a private email server for her official business, but she said she decided not to forward any of the emails to the State Department. - -Mrs. Clinton provided the email, written in February 2012 by her close aide Huma Abedin, that was sent to her from someone else. Mrs. Abedin was serving as Mrs. Clinton's deputy chief of staff at the State Department at the time. - -Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, also admitted that she had consulted with "State Department legal counsel" for advice about managing the correspondence. Mrs. Clinton said she decided against forwarding the emails, noting that they were not in the record. - -"I knew this matter might be perceived as potentially more than a simple convenience, but it ultimately was not. I decided, based on the factors and work involved, that using one's own email account was a reasonable and responsible way to conduct State Department business, and I took full responsibility for making that decision," Mrs. Clinton said. - -"The decision was not taken lightly, but given I was focused on setting up an email system and did not have time to go back and search for other solutions. I wish I had more time to go back and look at everything, but I could not find another option that met my standards," she said. "I did decide, however — in consultation with the Department, and with guidance from the Department's lawyers — I could not safely and effectively complete my work of setting up and maintaining a new email account with the security measures in place." - -Mrs. Clinton explained the email system was set up at her request, after she received a subpoena from a House committee investigating the 2012 attack on the State Department. Mrs. Clinton, like other secretaries of state, has relied on State Department lawyers to determine how and whether sensitive, classified information was handled and transferred. - -It is not clear how much the conversation with Mr. Gowdy and Mrs. Abedin about personal email accounts and State Department email systems has affected the timing of the disclosure of her own emails. As recently as a few days ago, several members of the GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wanted to interview Ms. Abedin to know more about the emails, but she reportedly told them she couldn't speak about it. - -Mrs. Clinton also said in the interview that she was "not in the least bit surprised" about the existence of classified material on her server, but that it "wasn't something I was particularly concerned about." Last week, the State Department said the agency could not find any instance when email sent or received through Mrs. Clinton's server came in contact with classified information. - -In a statement, Mr. Gowdy said the interview showed a "total lack of concern" for national security. - -"She gave evasive answers with regards to national security issues," he said. - -Mrs. Clinton, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, was interviewed by the committee on Dec. 2, after the State Department and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell gave sworn statements. Mr. Powell said he had no knowledge of Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server. - - -Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, -======================================== SAMPLE 402 ======================================== -"There's nothing to hide - they're just trying to protect the country ... I'm confident that they're going to do what they told them to do and that's it," he said. "There's very little else they can do and we're going to see the consequences of that very soon." The comments come amid ongoing scrutiny over the government's surveillance and counter-terrorism powers in New Caledonia, which is in the process of becoming a UN protectee. Mr. Veney said the N.T.S.B. had provided details of the surveillance to the Canadian government. - -Read more about:<|endoftext|>The first week of our new league had some very intense matches! Check out the matches here: - -In case you missed them, here is the current standings: - -Round 1: - -Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R U K D L T Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 Player 5 Player 6 Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 TIE D 1st 0 – 3 3 – 4 2 – 4 3 – 5 2nd 1 – 2 2 – 3 3 – 4 2 – 4 0 – 3 3 – 5 Tie – 1 1 – 2 1 – 2 0 – 3 - -Round 2: - -Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R U K D L T Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 Player 5 Player 6 Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 TIE D 1st 2 – 0 2 – 1 1 – 0 0 – 0 1 – 1 2 – 2 1 – 0 1 – 0 2 – 1 1 – 1 0 – 0 1 – 1 2 – 2 0 – 0 - -Round 3: - -Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R U K D L T Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 Player 5 Player 6 Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 TIE 0 – 3 2 – 4 0 – 2 1 – 0 0 – 0 0 – 2 1 – 1 1 – 1 - -Round 4: - -Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R U K D L T Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 Player 5 Player 6 Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 TIE 1 – 3 2 – 4 0 – 2 1 – 1 2 – 2 1 – 1 2 – 2 1 – 1 0 – 1 0 – 1 2 – 2 - -Round 5: - -Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R U K D L T Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 Player 5 Player 6 Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 TIE 1 – 3 0 – 2 1 – 0 1 – 1 1 – 1 2 – 2 1 – 1 0 – 1 0 – 1 0 – 2 2 – 3 - -The top 4 teams will proceed to the Championship bracket! If you want to play more, drop by our Discord server here at twitch.tv/leagueoflegends for more information. If you just want to show your support for our league, make sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook for our latest content or subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay tuned on all of the latest! Also, be sure to check out the League of Legends subreddit, Reddit, and/or our YouTube channel for upcoming events and rule changes coming in the next few weeks.<|endoftext|>A "pilot error" caused a large portion of the city to be evacuated Tuesday night, Boston police spokesman T.J. Smith said. - -Smith said the evacuation was initially called on an emergency of a suspicious package near the Copley Square subway stop at about 7 p.m. He said the area was being evacuated because of a "pilot error" that led authorities to believe there was another suspicious package a couple blocks away. - -Advertisement Related Content Explosives found and Boston bomb device deemed safe - -He said several Boston police officers, firefighters, and federal agents searched the area but could not locate the second suspect the initial search had yielded. - -According to authorities, no explosives were found, though Smith said it had not been determined if anyone had been at risk. - -One woman who lives near Copley Square said the explosion felt like someone was digging a trench through the ground. - -"I feel like my house is being ransacked," said the woman, who did not want to be interviewed on camera, but said authorities told her all she had to do was run into her house to hide. - -Smith said there was an active crime scene. "It's still open at this point," he said. - -Police were still investigating where the package may have come from, but the area was cleared by noon Tuesday. - -Several streets were blocked when the evacuation occurred, though it was not clear how long the road closures may have been in place. - -AlertMe<|endoftext|>From MozillaZine Knowledge Base - -What are the limitations to the display of the "New Tab/Tab >" icon on a Windows-style screen? - -======================================== SAMPLE 403 ======================================== -As we were told recently, The Man in the High Castle returns with its seventh and final season in May, and EW has learned that season 7 will begin with the Man in the High Castle being revealed as its villain. In the first six episodes, fans had thought it was only a matter of time, but now it's happening. - -Creator Matt Zoller Seitz told EW about The Man in the High Castle's villain: - -As a longtime fan of the show, I'm looking to bring together the best elements of my past creations in order to do something new. And what better way to do so than reveal it is the most evil thing we've ever done — to have The Man in the High Castle be the villain in season 7? I hope that it plays to the kind of scale and scope that we've seen in season 6. We've been shooting in the Pacific Northwest. We're working with the original team — and we couldn't be more excited — because the new team is going to come in with an eye towards the bigger ideas that we're trying to get out there. In the past, Matt [Zoller Seitz] and I have both said that every year we go after the same story that's in the books, but then another element happens and it becomes a completely different story. This gives us an opportunity to do an entirely new story. - -Fans of the original series will recall that Man in the High Castle's main antagonist was actually the United States Government – a far larger threat than Nazi Germany and a threat that would ultimately bring the series to a close. - -The last time Man in the High Castle was mentioned in the credits for a new season, was in the fourth episode in the first season. It was during a montage depicting the history of the series. - -The second season will be released simultaneously with the seventh season, which is expected to conclude in the spring. No official date has been set, but it can be assumed that it's around the same time as season 6 ended. - -For more The CW coverage, follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter. - -Related Stories - -•The CW re-confirms that there will be only two new seasons of Arrow in 2018 - -•The CW cancels Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - -•The CW cancels Riverdale and The Originals in January 2017 - -WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television and music.<|endoftext|>Welcome to my blog where you can find all my current and past projects. I'm a professional 3D Printing and Artisan that builds and sells the world's best desktop 3d printer. Most if not all of my designs and printers have been featured on E-Stunner, Makezine, Bunnings, Maker Shed, ModMyI, 3ders.com, Thingiverse, and dozens of popular Youtube channels. - -I started out as a full time freelance CAD / CNC machinist working in a major commercial factory. I spent a huge amount of time perfecting the tools I need to produce the designs I sell and the machines I build. - - -Recently in February 2014 I became a full time full time 3D Printing entrepreneur and part time art director. The 3D Printing Entrepreneurship was the brainchild of my business partner, Josh. Josh had always wanted to take some time from his work to work on 3D printing full time. At just 17 he was very close to completing a degree but when the opportunities to learn more about 3D printing were taken from him the opportunity was too good to pass up. - - -My business partner Josh, and I met online and had been talking for years about my interest in 3D printing but we found there was no dedicated community for people like ourselves. It was a long time before we both finally started our own social media channels dedicated to 3D Printables, and in the next few months both the business, and the channel have been growing every week. I'm excited to announce that we've raised $2.1M in seed funding to date from over 100 investors with an average investment of just under $300k each.<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Click to play Tap to play - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -This is the shocking moment an American tourist walked into the middle of a shark attack and took the brunt of it. - -The man was in Tulum, Mexico, with his family when their guide was bitten. - -Footage shows the man on the beach in the town when a 4ft long shark swam towards him. - -The tourist, identified only as Jose Z, starts to kick away the shark but is pulled under in a shocking moment of bravery. - -(Image: Youtube) - -(Image: Youtube -======================================== SAMPLE 404 ======================================== -A A - -SEATTLE -- The head of the Seattle Department of Transportation is warning drivers of the risk of deadly distracted driving incidents from passengers in rear-seat passenger seats. - - -The department says it's a top priority to educate drivers and provide safe driving practices to make sure everyone stays safe. - - -On Thursday, SPD Chief Kathleen O'Toole urged drivers to pay close attention to passengers and make sure their safety is at the forefront of their mind. - - -"I think it's a huge concern. We certainly all want to have a happy and safe ride and if that distraction makes it to the point where you become inattentive, the consequences could be pretty dangerous for everybody involved, including you," says O'Toole. "I think it's a real concern from a driver's standpoint. I know that from an enforcement perspective we do get a few [distracted driving-related] tickets each year that we can investigate." - - -O'Toole says the first thing she tells drivers is that you should always be in control. - - -"When the car is in motion at any part of the travel cycle, we are operating the car and we are looking to see that people are not in a distraction and it is not in their best interest and then we will look for an opportunity to make changes to the vehicle," she says. - - -The department also encourages anyone under the age of 16 that is using a cell phone to pull over and not drive unless they're using a hands-free device. - - -In fact, all new drivers are required to use a hands-free device for one year in advance so they know that the rules are being enforced, too. - - -With the increased focus on distracted driving, O'Toole says they're currently working with retailers, local agencies and the transportation agency, King County Metro to see what they can do to make life an even greater distraction for all drivers. - - -She says if that doesn't work, they can issue warnings to drivers on roadsides where there are frequent distractions while in transit. - - -"I know that we have the option to send an enforcement officer [onto the roadsides], but as I talked with the retail owners I know that they are willing to work as part of the solution as well," says O'Toole. "But we need to have more people working together on this so that this isn't happening every day." - - -O'Toole says she'll continue to do everything she can on her end to keep people safe on the roads.<|endoftext|>In the latest twist to the saga of former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a former Bain partner has filed a lawsuit alleging that the presumptive GOP nominee profited from a firm's alleged use of offshore tax havens during a period spanning his time at the helm of the firm in the early 1990s. - -The lawsuit, obtained by Fortune, was filed in Delaware Superior Court and seeks to depose Romney as well as Bain Capital executives Kenneth Lay and the company's former president, Richard Brookfield. - -According to the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday, Romney used his role at Bain "to exploit a tax haven scheme" that permitted him to avoid a tax bill related to a "sham investment," in order to increase returns for Bain. - -As Fortune previously reported: - -In the most comprehensive investigation of Romney's relationship with Bain over his years with Bain Capital, The New York Times last week asked readers to help it verify one thing: that Romney had worked "with partners on complex deals to take advantage of a tax arrangement that had been established to help protect U.S. companies in European Union countries from cheap imports." - -The Times looked no further than Bain's former head office in Switzerland (where investors in the offshore companies who invested in the firm's pension funds, in turn, were located) for an answer. - -The Times asked readers to send in information about offshore investments that Bain had made for its clients. If Bain had invested in offshore companies in offshore tax havens, the Times asked, "Do you have any knowledge of Mr. Romney, then a partner, participating in any of them?" - -Of the more than 400,000 replies sent to the Times, only two mentioned Bain at all—one claiming he had invested in a company in Luxembourg that Bain did not manage and the other confirming that Romney was a Bain employee and that he had been "involved in a deal where he had to sign a release for a project that was not Bain's responsibility." - -That's an odd way to get any "knowledge" about Bain. - -As I previously reported, as well, - -[E]verything is different today. It is now widely known that Romney was a corporate jet pilot for Bain at the time of their business partnerships—he was one of the largest beneficiaries of the fund. Romney, a private equity expert, and his partner at Bain was Robert T. Kiyosaki. When the tax advantage of putting the company's investment in Europe in -======================================== SAMPLE 405 ======================================== -A lot of people would take an hour to say hello to a stranger at night, but not this man! - -After his initial experience, he decided to dedicate his life to befriending strangers all over the world. - -The man has only been known by the name of David, and is a volunteer for the London Ambulance Service. - -David has spoken about the experience on the BBC's Newsnight, and you can watch a clip which gives you some insight into his methods. - -Here he is again, showing off how his "life of kindness" has changed the lives of people all around the world. - -You can read more about David's story on the video below. - -h/t: HuffingtonPost, BBC (h/t: Gawker) - -More: This man is a total stranger who gave up time on his day job to help strangers<|endoftext|>I've been thinking about a few of the things that are wrong with how people behave online. One, the whole "hacking is bad" business and the people that have made a living off of it. Two, the idea of having a "safe space." The idea of the Internet being a safe space because it doesn't encourage people to be mean. I like the idea of the Internet, mostly because it's safe. This leads to the third thing I'm going to talk about, which is the idea of "inclusion," aka equality with people on your side of the table. - -I like many of the things about the Internet, but I also want it to be as inclusive and friendly as possible. This was my reason for starting a blog called The Unbearable Whiteness of Women. It's about the problems of whiteness in the media, and as such, I think it can be very helpful for people. - -Recently, I've been listening to a few podcasts about how women in sports get treated. Like an "In your face," I guess, they're getting harassed everywhere they go online. What does it look like when you take people like the NFL and the NFL players, the people from the NBA, the people from the NHL, or people that cover basketball, and put them in a room against each other? Does one be more hostile to the other? That's what these podcast have been talking about. They're talking about the "In your face" treatment that men have in front of girls. This is something I'm also starting to care about, like I don't want to be the person I look like, I don't want to have to deal with that every day of my life. - -It wasn't until I learned about this stuff that it all became clear for me. I'm so used to the people from media being friendly with the people they cover. I love their coverage of different sports. I love that they come out to the city where their story is set, they show their fans the love, while at the same time being a real person. I love that they have the confidence to bring the most popular sport in the world to their hometown, to the people in their community. What I didn't know about is the harassment that can come with it. - -We saw something like this with the NBA, when their commissioner was booed off the court for saying something that was against Twitter and Twitter rules against vulgar language during an interview. The audience was upset by that. People made an angry comment or two against the commissioner and that was that. - -When a man and a woman are on my side of the table, I'm not going to worry about how we treat each other. I'm going to worry about how we treat the people in this room. How we treat me. How we treat other people. It's important to talk about it when someone like NBA commissioner Adam Silver is being booed off-court on a live TV broadcast. It's important to talk about it when NBA players are getting booed at games all over the world for having sexual relationships outside of their marriage. - -It's important to talk about what we're about and where our priorities are. In the comments section of any site I have any connection with (The Unbearable Whiteness of Women, my site, other social media accounts, or even just a phone call), we get to talk about this stuff. It's important to talk about it, and we can all agree that it's a pain for the person that is getting bullied. There are so many people that are trying so hard to make us all feel comfortable and safe, and this is the one thing they're being denied! I want to try and make the community at The Unbearably Whiteness of Women a place I feel safe and welcome. The one where people are allowed to talk about whatever and feel comfortable, because I would hope that's the case in every community, but I do know that it's not everywhere. - -The Unbearable Whiteness of Women is part of a series. Check out the rest of them here. -======================================== SAMPLE 406 ======================================== -In his recent post, a reader asks the following question: - -What do you do if you just found out you have type 2 diabetes? The good news is that it isn't terminal (according to the Mayo Clinic) so don't immediately start panicking. Here are three things a diabetic should do to keep healthy: Get tested for diabetes at least once every 3 years (see above for what to do if your test comes back negative). - -Have a blood panel. We have three major blood panels: a fasting blood test, a glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) test, and a lipid profile (basically fat and carb breakdown, plus inflammation and blood sugar). Your physician or a health consultant can help you find the healthiest one for you. - -Eat more whole grains, fruits, veggies, and lean protein. These will help reduce your blood sugar levels, which can lower your risk of kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Eat healthy fats — olive oil, nuts, avocados — that also help lower your blood sugar. - -What if I have diabetes and am not yet on medication that controls sugar? You should start on diet and lifestyle changes as soon as you become aware of your condition. Check out our list of the Top 7 Ways to Stop Diabetes, which includes things like not smoking, not drinking, and getting enough healthy fats.<|endoftext|>Welcome to the - -The - -is a fun and - -. - -. - -. - -. - -Since 1972 - -, The - -has created a reputation for excellence in the - -community. - -The - -is the perfect venue for socializing and celebrating life's most meaningful and memorable moments and memories across various groups. - - -The - -is a - -family-friendly venue that offers - -of the highest quality as well as a broad range of entertainment options. - - -Whether you are looking for a business meeting, professional - -or special occasion, we've got you covered. Our venue offers state-of-the-art technology and amenities. - - -From intimate, high-class social gatherings for couples of all ages to events like wedding receptions and receptions for corporate, political, and civic organizations, we have what you are looking for.<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A football fan who was caught drinking while watching Wales v Republic of Ireland in the Euro 2016 semi-final has apologised for his behaviour. - -Kai Reale, 28, from Cardiff, was seen drinking beer and wine at an Irish pub in Cardiff while watching his country in a Euro 2016 warm-up match in Marseille on Wednesday night. - -The sports drink manufacturer's website warns users not to drink alcohol while consuming a sports drink, according to the Independent. - -But Reale told the newspaper: "I was drunk and didn't realise how much alcohol I had." - -Reale, who also played for the Cardiff Blues RFC, then told his wife about the incident after the match. - -He said: "I would apologise to anyone who was offended, and if there is any offence caused I apologise for that. I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way – I never want to be seen in a bad light." - -Reale and the Republic of Ireland lost 3-1 to Wales in France, while both Wales and Ireland went on to lift the trophy.<|endoftext|>T-Mobile is rolling out a new feature on its network - "Boost Mobile Network." The phone will get faster data speeds on one of T-Mobile's HSPA+ or LTE mobile networks when it is connected to Boost Mobile's LTE network, as the name suggests. - -"Boost Mobile is the first and only commercial ISP capable of providing the high-speed LTE coverage that consumers need to keep up with their mobile needs," the carrier said to Ars Technica. "Boost customers with Boost Mobile are able to access faster speeds with a broad selection of devices." - -Further Reading AT&T has the nation's best LTE network, and that's why its customers hate it But what exactly is a Boost Mobile network? And is it actually any good? - -In short, you can have a good experience with Boost. But not really. - -Here's a recap of what it means. - -Why are you talking about a "boost" network in the first place? - -If your device is capable of using LTE, you probably know that there is a Boost Mobile network that exists, available in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam. And while it's not an entirely free network, we would say it's a pretty great deal, particularly if you're moving between LTE networks quite often. - -While you probably don't have much experience with it, a typical Boost Mobile customer can expect to pay about $40 per -======================================== SAMPLE 407 ======================================== -HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government says it has lost $13 million over a period where it did not provide medical marijuana to terminally ill patients. - -Nova Scotia's health minister, Leo Glavine, said Wednesday that the government made a mistake last year by not providing access to medical marijuana to terminally ill people that was allowed under the Canada Health Act. - -In April, the province announced it would not allow patients, caregivers and their children to grow their own marijuana. They would have to buy their marijuana from licensed producers. - -The decision was criticized quickly because a 2014 survey indicated that 74 per cent of Nova Scotians support a move to allow marijuana for medicinal purposes. - -But Nova Scotia Health says it has now lost tens of millions of dollars as a result of that decision. - -Glavine said a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that it will cost $13.6 million to get patients their drug supply that was supposed to be available by the end of July 2016.<|endoftext|>The number of people who have died as a result of the H5N8 bird flu virus has reached around 2,000. - -That is according to the WHO's new report on the H5 outbreak and is far higher than the 800 cases estimated by the world's health organization, the World Health Organization. WHO's new report published on Thursday also found that no countries have yet eliminated the virus. - -At the end of January, a total of 582 cases of human H5N8 influenza virus infection had been identified in 37 countries, according to the new WHO report. The WHO reports that 1,527 of those have died since the beginning of this year, while the remaining are still ill. - -The WHO said that of the remaining 1,813 cases, it has recorded 1,005 deaths from January to October, bringing the total to 2,007 people who have died in the past 31 days. H5N8 is believed to be a human strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus. - -Meanwhile, cases of human H5N8 influenza virus infection have also been reported in the United States, Korea and China. - -"H5N8 is now a global health risk. This virus is rapidly spreading to new countries and is now associated with serious human illnesses," Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation, WHO, said. - -"WHO will continue to work for the elimination of this virus, and for global support to global and regional efforts to halt its spread." - - -To read the WHO's report on the outbreak, click here.<|endoftext|>When I was a boy I would often be very nervous in the classroom or on the playground. My anxiety seemed to be based upon the fact I didn't belong. I thought that by showing weakness it would be an indicator of weakness and that I was not as important, or that I was not as intelligent. I was told that my natural anxiety was a form of insecurity, that I didn't like myself, and that I was unworthy. These messages were not helpful. In time, I realized that my anxieties were caused by these two sources: a faulty view of myself and a lack of confidence about my abilities. In the end all of my anxiety could be traced back to this single flaw which I had never addressed. In time I learned the difference between confidence and insecurity. A confidence based on success in life and love, is self-reinforcing. If the confidence is not self-reinforcing, the anxiety will remain, and it will continue to eat at us. - - -In the past few decades we have seen an increasing demand for information on the origins of anxiety and its treatments, and of course with the advent of the internet, we have an ever expanding range of available knowledge. We are also seeing an increase in the number of self-help books, seminars, and self-help gurus. There are now an abundance of books (mainly self-help guides) and there are seminars and workshops. It seems that anxiety has become a big business. I would suggest that the growth of anxiety is being fueled by a fear of growing old, being lonely, and being unappetizing. In his book Why Men Fail, Malcolm Gladwell notes how anxiety and self-defeating thoughts have traditionally been addressed by people that are on the fringes of society. Gladwell calls these people, "the weak-minded" and they are more concerned with appearing weak and being in the minority. These weak-minded people have been identified by Gladwell as, "the weak-voiced." What this means is that the weak-voiced person believes he is smarter than others and thus he tries to stand out. - -The most dangerous weak voice is the weak-voiced person who is so confident that he is too confident. A strong-voiced man is less concerned with being seen by others as powerful, and more concerned about being in control -======================================== SAMPLE 408 ======================================== -The American Bar Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges today issued statements urging public health officials to prohibit the importation of imported Kratom after its DEA administrator announced its scheduling. - -Kratom was introduced to the United States in the late 1980s as a traditional "indigenous product" that is used in Southeast Asia as an herbal remedy to control opioid withdrawals. However, this was a misnomer since the botanical leaves contained no opioid-like activity. Since its appearance in the U.S. market, the herbal supplement has become increasingly embraced by consumers looking for alternatives to prescription opioids. - -The American Pharmacists Association has stated that there is no evidence to support that Kratom products present an unreasonable risk to users or others around them. The AMA and AAMC have long advocated for a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to the legal classification of the herbal supplement. - -The following is a statement from the ABA and AAMC on the matter: - -"The decision by the U.S. DEA to include kratom as a Schedule 1 substance is an unfortunate development and, by extension, represents an unnecessary infringement on the individual freedoms of citizens. The U.S. Attorney General's decision to seek a temporary injunction against the importation of kratom from Indonesia and Thailand is wholly inappropriate, and the DEA should refrain from taking similar action in the future. - -"Kratom has been used throughout history to treat many conditions and, if responsibly researched, potentially has tremendous benefits as a medical treatment option. Unfortunately, that promise has been overshadowed by claims by some proponents and in the media that kratom is somehow harmful or addictive and an imminent public health crisis. These claims have been consistently rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and all other credible scientific studies, including a recent review of kratom's status published in the journal Addictive Behaviors." - -###<|endoftext|>We want to know what are the top-selling models among women and boys. - -We would also like to know which of the top-selling models is the most popular among boys and girls. - -In addition we would like to know what are the top-selling models for boys, girls and boys and girls. - - -The answer to your question would allow us to better guide the production of our merchandise and also allow you to know the gender of the purchaser.<|endoftext|>We're delighted to announce the launch of our free iOS app, which has been a huge success over the past eight months. We're bringing it to every new device on our growing platform, including the iPhone and iPad. We've updated the UI and fixed some bugs on iOS 9, while the interface on the iPad isn't really optimized for a larger screen. We still believe iOS 9 is a great update and will continue to build on it at a later date. In the meantime, here are just a few things you could do on the app today that you would have otherwise missed.<|endoftext|>An anti-piracy company has filed a federal lawsuit against the world's largest torrent site KickassTorrents, claiming it stole some 100 million US copyright-protected files. - -The lawsuit marks the first time the FBI has weighed in on the growing torrent community, and also serves as a reminder that many people in the torrent community are also copyright pirates. - - -In a complaint filed on Friday, Rightscorp, which makes its money by tracking down suspected pirates, claims that KickassTorrents has been using the BitTorrent protocol to distribute thousands of copyrighted films to its users. - - -The company believes the torrent site is using the BitTorrent protocol to distribute films illegally, and that its servers contain copies of hundreds of thousands of pirated movies, TV shows, and songs. - -Specifically, Rightscorp says that at the height of the torrent site's activity, in January, it "determined that 1,056,832 torrent files containing thousands of copyrighted movies, TV shows, and music tracks were being delivered across the KickassTorrents network." - -Rightscorp's claims are based mostly on a comparison of BitTorrent traffic at the time the complaint was filed, and estimates of a total size of the traffic using an estimated BitTorrent client. Rightscorp was able to confirm that the KickassTorrents network delivered 7.4 billion torrents. - -The company went on to say that KickassTorrents' servers contained copies of millions of movies, TV shows, and music tracks. - - -"[It] appears that the KickassTorrents network was primarily targeted for distribution to the public, and specifically, was not targeted toward the particular IP addresses for whom the KickassTorrents network was built in this case," Rightscorp said. - -KickassTorrents has not yet commented.<|endoftext|>The New York Red Bulls (6-3-3, 26 points) are set to travel to Columbus (5-3-4, 17 points) this coming Saturday at 9 p.m. The match will be televised on Lifetime at 8:30 p -======================================== SAMPLE 409 ======================================== -What Is It Like To Live Inside A Big Screen? - -By Matt Stoller | Industry | June 19, 2012 | - -You've probably seen it a million times by now: a group of people huddled around a big screen. It's their only entertainment. But what's it like inside that big screen? The New York City subway is lined with theaters, and some of them can actually be more fun to hang out in than some of the bars and clubs of the city. - - -It helps if they're built in historic buildings, but the best ones are in buildings that look like they were built on a beach—that look like buildings everyone's had an argument with. Think of them like an extended outdoor play area, or something between a big-screen theatre and a bar. - -On this list we're looking at some of the most exciting theaters in New York City. You'll probably find your own favorite, so put your suggestions in the comments. - -*Note: This list is sorted in order of my favorite thing to do on the subway, which is always pretty fun. - -Theaters - -Grand Central Market - -Grand Central Market, New York (Grand Central Station) - -We're not sure exactly how they got on our list, but that's probably the most fun movie I've seen (or a close second). - -The building is filled with giant food carts, the largest one of which might actually be too small to fit on that big screen. - -We also get a few cool locations in the basement, which was probably the largest part of the restaurant the theater was built into. - -Museum of the Moving Image, NYC - -New York Museum of the Moving Image - -It's difficult to pick a favorite. The museum looks so great and is packed with unique films (including those starring Tom Hanks). - -The museum has an incredible rotating screen, but it's a bit of a dive, which means it can be hard to keep up with the movies being shown. But once you're there? You'll be like 'why didn't we all do this earlier??' - -Union Square - -Union Square (Union Square Park's west side) - -It's kind of magical to be on the lower level of a theater—which is where you'll find more free popcorn (seriously!), so much more free hot dogs (seriously!), AND a bunch of free popcorn. - -There's a giant screen and a stage. The stage, by the way, is actually the second longest stage in the museum. The larger one of the two, which is located in front of the main building, is much lower, as I said. - -Grand Opera House, Chelsea - -Grand Opera House - -I just love the feel of that building–there's just nothing better than taking a train through an opera house! You can walk around on an enclosed balcony or climb the big screen. - -But the best part of taking in a performance is when it's time to leave for the next one: there's a parking lot outside. People on subway cars would just hop in their cars and do the same thing. It's awesome. - -MoMA PS1, Chelsea - -MoMa PS1 - -That would be the MoMA's beautiful large screen, which is located near the lobby. - -The PS1 stands alone in the theater, which makes walking through it a little confusing…until you realize that it's kind of a weird way to view live theatre. But hey: you can sit on the stairs! - -Rockefeller - -Rockefeller Center - -The lobby and lobby area of the Rockefeller Center is filled with a lot of the same types of businesses that you see in other large parks like the Metropolitan Park or Central Park. They also show a lot of movies on flat screens, all of them are good for a walk around…and also make it easy to find where you are–just walk north on 42nd St. - -A number of the theaters on this list will be opening new movie theaters later this year or early next year—so check in each time we update this list to see what movies may be playing.<|endoftext|>Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -Trevor - -T -======================================== SAMPLE 410 ======================================== -By Jeff Leahey / New York Daily News - -The latest in a long series of lawsuits against the Empire State Building that has been pending since 1993, has now resulted in a $10 million payout to a homeless couple. - -Joseph Andres and his girlfriend, Barbara Ann Zabinsky, were living on the building's upper levels and said they got into a fight with an NYPD officer, resulting when the officer used a baton to stun Andres and a broken cigarette lighter to stun Zabinsky. - -The lawsuit claimed that at no point before the first, and then second, baton strike that ended with Andres in the hospital and Zabinsky in the bed had Andres or anyone else ever approached them and asked for help. - -In response, Empire State Building said in a statement Thursday it had settled with them to avoid all litigation, according to WCBS-TV. - -The settlement, which the couple must pay themselves, is part of a "significant payout" to homeless people "who have endured years of frustration and hardship, both physically and psychologically," according to a legal filing from the Empire State Building's lawyers. - -A spokesman for the Empire State Building did not return calls or emails Friday.<|endoftext|>There are some areas in your neighborhood that you would not think are bad, but that could have a significant impact on your health. There are some streets in the city where you would probably never want to have a baby. You might not even care if you had one, but it's just something you just don't think twice about. - -Here's just a little taste: - -The 20 Worst Roads in NYC - -According to the City Planning Department, most of these streets are in poorer neighborhoods, as opposed to some of the safer avenues that most of us take every day - like the FDR Drive in SoHo, the I-90 Belt in Brooklyn or The LIE in Williamsburg. - -And it turns out, not only are these streets bad for you, but they impact more than just your family and your life and your safety on the road - the neighborhoods around them. Many of these streets are also bad for property values. - -The City Planning Department analyzed the 20 worst roads that pass through our neighborhoods and determined that all of these roads have been rated "poor" or "moderate to poor." - -Some have even been awarded the "poor" rating, which means that it's "the weakest links in the safety architecture of neighborhoods and the most vulnerable areas around the roads." - -What's worse is that some of these streets are in areas where the residents are already experiencing higher crime rates than other areas. And while the roads themselves are poor, the residents who live in them might not be! - -What's your view of these roads? Which should you try, which should you not? Let us know in the comments section! - -Photos by Michael C. Moynihan<|endoftext|>For the first time, scientists have discovered the DNA of an entirely new species, and it's a lot of fun. - -The new species and its DNA was found inside one of the smallest, and possibly oldest, organisms known – the fungus Agaricus blazei. - -Scientists call it a new genus, and they think they have identified the DNA of around 80 species of plant-like fungi. - -"I think that we've probably seen the beginning of something really special," lead researchers James F. Delaney, from the University of Pennsylvania, told the BBC. Delaney and his colleagues have published the findings, which they said would require a "massive amount of work" to analyze further. - -Agaricus blazei is considered one of the first cases of its kind, so there's no known species in that genus. They were able to figure out what species they were looking at thanks to a combination of genetic testing techniques and DNA analysis. - -Related: Can You Pass on Herpes to Other Species Like You Can to Humans? - -"We're not going to know, we don't know, until somebody takes a stab at looking at the genome of this organism one more time with a more powerful technique," Delaney said, but noted that "one thing that is certain is that there is something new in the picture." - -It's unlikely that the new species will pose a threat to a human, but Delaney's team believes it could potentially be an environmental pest, which could eventually be controlled using traditional fungicide. - -The researchers are planning future genetic analysis of the new species' DNA, in order to better understand what exactly it does and which traits it has, in hopes of using them for new tools.<|endoftext|>SINGAPORE - The National Environment Agency (NAO) has denied a request by an environmental conservation group for a report which could have provided evidence of the impact on marine life of the construction of the $1.7 billion East Coast Pipeline (ECP). - -The request was made in July last year by the Singapore Marine Science Association -======================================== SAMPLE 411 ======================================== -What are you looking to see happen in the upcoming year? - - -What are you looking to see happen in the upcoming year?<|endoftext|>A new survey reveals that, overall, Americans aren't as enamored of Obamacare as most political figures (although this may be due to political opportunism, rather than a true desire for reform). The poll, conducted between October 19 and 24 by Health Care for America Now and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reveals that nearly half don't intend to keep an Obamacare policy for the rest of their lives — if they do, they're unlikely to sign up for an Obamacare policy next year. - -In case you don't fully grasp that figure, I've put together a short graph to summarize the top-line findings of the survey. (In case the visual doesn't make it clear, those are "insurance policies" and not "health insurance," or perhaps not even "insurance." My bad.) - -As the chart demonstrates, roughly one in five voters (21%) said they had decided not to renew their Obamacare policies from 2014 — meaning that about 8 percent of the U.S. population have found a way to find an alternative health insurance policy that works for them this year and next. One in six voters (21 percent) have no plans to renew and, by extension, have lost this insurance coverage. - -While these results could point to continued opposition within Congress to the Affordable Care Act — the survey shows that "one in three Republicans are not familiar with the law" — at least one thing is clear: A decent chunk of the American population are finding a way to avoid Obamacare. - -How do you feel about Obamacare's enrollment?<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 9 10 13 14 18 24 26 5 5 6 7 8 9 10 15 17 20 21 12 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 21 22 20 27 21 21 22 14 28 23 23 24 25 26 28 29 23 24 27 28 29 30 29 31 30 30 22 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 - -Loading... Loading... - -Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.Disclaimer Sheet1 - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please press Ctrl-F5 to refresh the page and try again. - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please hold the Shift key and click the Refresh button to try again.<|endoftext|>This is a repost of my post from two years ago. - -How much do you want to know? - -The other day, I was talking to someone who worked in media. I talked about the history and implications of the term 'sexist' and how it had grown out of the original anti-feminist backlash (I wrote about this in more detail in my Gender Wars book). They said: - -"Sexism has always existed, for as long as there have been male and female roles. The problem with feminism is that it is focused on destroying gender roles. It is the problem of men trying to control women." - -The phrase 'the other side of the fence' comes to mind. But what do I mean by this? I'm not talking about being on our other side, as some people have suggested. I'm talking about how we talk about the issues of sexism in popular culture and in the broader social landscape. - -I've noticed how much we focus on the female perspective, even though we are still dominated by women in the workplace and in social relationships. So often, we're accused of sexist bias. We're accused of perpetuating sexism when we talk about women being more 'emotional' or "neurotic," even when we're saying things like: a) we have to work harder, b) we have to talk a lot, c) we're less intelligent than men. It's the same thing as blaming men for 'mansplaining' or 'mansplaining.' I've experienced this too – I was accused of sexism when I criticized a popular TV character for being a 'damsel in distress.' - -And of course, there are plenty of very negative things said about men who are angry, aggressive, dominant, etc. But of course, men are also accused of that stuff too. - -So what's the real question: how would you describe yourself? - -What would you say we do wrong? - -If we're doing it wrong, then let's talk about it. - -What do you believe to -======================================== SAMPLE 412 ======================================== -The National Security Agency has the authority and the means to access your private Internet traffic as well as the communications from your phone calls and Web surfing. How to protect yourself? - -There are four basic steps in protecting yourself against surveillance: - -1. Never give out your personal password - -While there may be a time or place to divulge the password, this isn't one of them. - -Don't share passwords with your friends or anyone other than the person who needs them. - -2. Keep encrypted files (mail or web) - -Your email and web traffic aren't private – not if you're using the encryption technologies built into the programs that protect you. - -Encrypting your files is easy, safe, and secure. Encryption is how you protect your most sensitive files, such as your financial and medical records and even your children's personal information. - -3. Use encrypted emails (e.g., PGP) - -The popular email encryption software, PGP, is easy to use and will help you keep your data private. Even if someone gains access to your email account, they will not be able to read it, even by brute force. - -To learn how to use PGP, check out this guide. - -4. Enable VPN for encrypted communications - -As far as Internet traffic goes, encryption is the only way to go. But don't just rely on VPN services to provide this – many private Internet networks that you'll find through search engines or social networking sites have end-to-end encrypted communications in place. - -How to enable VPN for private network communications - -The easiest way to see how the Internet works is to use one of these VPNs: - -A few VPN providers allow you to use their service without registering on the website, without registering your email address in the database, and without requiring anyone to be online during the duration of the session. Check out these VPN providers and how they handle the data they maintain about you. - -While we strongly encourage you to do the research necessary to protect your privacy, you can protect yourself without doing any research. - -Your Internet Service Provider can help you encrypt your home, work, and social media, and even your mobile devices. Check out our guide to encrypting your computers.<|endoftext|>Papachristus Papachristus - -Common Name: Papachristus Common Name: Papachristus - -Papachristus, like most birds, is covered in feathers. However, Papachristus does have a few differences to its relatives. For one, it is the only other bird in the world named after a Roman Emperor: Emperor Maximilian. - -Papachristus is a medium sized bird with a stout head, long feathers and a pair of heavy front legs. Its plumage is dark brown on the breast and wing tips, light brown along the back and yellow on the breast. The bill is brown with dark red tips. - -The male, or larger, and female, or smaller, members of this species are quite similar. Although only a few of the species have been observed in captivity, both members of the species have similar vocalizations and territorial displays and are relatively easy to domesticate. - -There have not been nearly as many species discovered as there have been records made of a few common Papachristus species. Most of these have been known from living populations of captive birds. Thus, no information is available concerning this bird's genetic diversity. - -A good place to start is to read some descriptions about the species from birders of the last ten years. - -Biology: Papachristus is a tropical species of Old World finch. However, populations are found to varying extents in North America, South America, China, and Australia. - -Its distribution is restricted to an area of roughly 50,000 square kilometers. Most of Papachristus' wintering areas are in South America. Its breeding range is the Indian Ocean. - -This bird is an immigrant to North America, a migratory bird. Although migratory birds can go on to breed anywhere in the world, migratory species tend to be most often seen with the exception of the avifauna from Europe and Australia. - -This species is not known to be a breeding bird of humans, or other warm-blooded animals. - -In the wild, Papachristus will often fly from one perch to another, often to a place where they can find a place to roost. They also feed on a wide variety of plants of the genus Pyrus. - -The wing membrane of this bird is composed of two membranes that are intertwined and connect to the bird's feet. The two membranes are attached to the feet by an elaborate system, composed of a flexible webbing of fine fibers called filaments. - -Male Papachristus are known from the southern parts of North America, from British Columbia, to the Florida Keys and southern Texas, -======================================== SAMPLE 413 ======================================== -In the coming weeks, many people expect a new episode of the American health care conversation to hit an iceberg in this country. President Trump and congressional Republicans have announced a new version of Obamacare they say will bring down costs. The latest version was introduced in the Senate a couple weeks ago and is still not a bill yet. Democrats have already said they would block any such bill. - -But a number of the most important factors in the creation of Obamacare — premiums, deductibles, cost-sharing assistance, coverage requirements — have been in place since 2010 and could continue well beyond 2017. (That does not mean that the new plan will be great; it is not.) But there are some big changes expected, ones that would greatly affect both consumers and insurers. Here's a list: - -1) Premiums - -Obamacare's premium hikes are already happening. A group of 13 health care analysts that includes four Republican and four Democratic analysts found that the average "silver" premium for a midsize group plan (that is, a plan with around 100 enrollees) will increase by 20 percent next year, compared with this year. - -Another group of researchers found that premiums will rise another 6–12 percent on average in 2018. Even if you only look at the individual market, premiums will rise an average of 20–24 percent compared with 2017. And insurers have already been cutting back on their generosity, as the New York Times's Robert Pear reported in December. Some insurers have begun canceling plans that cost more than 8 percent of employees' income, according to Robert Laszewski, author of a blog called Healthcare Marketplace Watch. - -A handful of states that set their own premium rates have found their exchanges are facing more instability than expected, and they're still working out how to get the federal funds they need to keep paying subsidies without going broke. - -2) Co-pays and deductibles - -Co-pays and deductibles, though, were always a part of the original plan. The original health care law (and, for that matter, the tax policy plan of the 1990s) included provisions to reduce out-of-pocket health spending. - -But while Obamacare made some headway last year, most people are still paying way too much of their medical bills out of pocket to be "affordable." The average deductible for an individual plan last year was about $5,000 — in 2015, that cost $17,000. - -In a 2014 paper for JGR, Jeffrey Young found that there are many ways for insurance companies to reduce the impact of medical costs on patients, such as "contributions by patients and employers" and "the use of the financial risk-sharing mechanism that is intended to encourage patients to adopt preventive care, save for their medical care expenses, and reduce the need to engage in high-cost emergency care activities." - -Coinsurance plans, designed to prevent high-cost patients from being billed too much for treatment, have been popular among consumers. But they also make it harder for people to get the coverage they need, according to a 2015 study from the Commonwealth Fund, a Boston–based nonprofit organization that funds research on health care costs and outcomes. - -The Affordable Care Act made significant changes to how insurance companies assess medical needs and their ability to reduce coverage expenses. This has contributed to lower-than-expected rates of co-payments: In 2014, for example, 64 percent of insurers said they had lower co-pays compared with a year before, according to a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also published a survey of insurance companies earlier this year that showed that they were expecting about 70 percent fewer enrollees this year, partly as a result of the new "essential health benefits" rules — for example, that health care covered by an insurer must include "hospitalization, emergency services, physician services … and hospice care." (Some health policy experts worry that limiting benefits could result in insurers hiking the costs of the plans to cover them.) - -But insurance companies are already pushing back, as I discussed in an earlier post. "We do know there are going to be significant challenges," says Charles Gaba, senior fellow at the Century Foundation. "But the administration is really getting its feet wet on the Obamacare regulatory agenda right now, and we're just waiting and watching to see where it goes." - -3) Co-pays and deductibles seem more generous - -This was a big goal for proponents of the Affordable Care Act. They wanted to give consumers more money to spend on their medical needs and keep insurance more affordable for consumers. Unfortunately, as we have written before, some consumers who have to pay so much out of pocket simply do not pay it. In 2014, after reviewing data on premiums and deductibles across the 50 states, the Commonwealth Fund found that on average, Americans paid $2,532 for their medical bills in 2014, with co-pays and deductibles averaging $2,160. -======================================== SAMPLE 414 ======================================== -As a kid I never knew of the "T" in the word Tramp, but as someone who came of age in the '50s, I'm glad I did. It's a word that tells us that, at the very least, the Tramp was a man who didn't shy away from hard work and risk. - -The word can come from two different sources. First, in the words of Merriam-Webster, the name is derived from "Transylvania," a region in southern Romania. The town is named after the nobleman who settled there, so perhaps the Tramp was a man who came from Transylvania, or who had spent time there (or was related to those who had). - -More likely the origin is the word Trombe, meaning "a man or boy who has worked, traveled through or lived in some frontier district" or a boy who was a "tramp or runaway." - -There is, then, a strong connection to Transylvania. A common theme in T-roll story are the poor, wandering T-rolls who traveled to and lived in the wilds of Transylvania. The Tramp fits well with these motifs, and as the stories developed he came to be known as a hero that crossed borders both on foot and by horse. - -What makes the Tramp so iconic, though, is also what makes him so misunderstood. In the first place, there is no connection between the Tramp and "Trombe." Trombe was a man who "trafficked" for money, not for anything else, not even for pleasure. He was more like a traveling salesman. He went from village to village. You could call him a trader who traveled for gold. In fact, one of his most famous poems is about buying and selling gold. Here's a little excerpt, though, from one of his poems called "The Golden Goose": - -I had just come back from Transylvania, - -Where I'd bought gold for twenty pieces, - -Two pieces from each peasant I sold - -But now for gold I come to find - -Four pieces to me. - -Tobacco pipes and bags of grain - -And gold in the pockets are not the Tramp's - -Reason for being. - -The Tramp may be a traveler, and his journey is in part a quest for his own personal gain, but he still has a heart of gold and a sense of honor, despite the dangers he faces. In his stories, he travels throughout Europe and even the Middle East, and he doesn't care what his destination is—he just wants to get back on his feet. He's a man who doesn't try to live a luxurious life, and who isn't ashamed to be poor (though it's not clear as to what his income was as a kid). - -In fact, the Tramp may be a bit less wealthy than he appears, and he may not have had the greatest means of transportation in his youth. The author of "The Golden Goose" tells us that he got the idea for the poem from a story told by a traveling salesman. The salesman had gotten lost in a forest, and was afraid, when he realized he couldn't find his way back into town, that he would never be seen again. He would be a lost man, and he would die a lonely death. When asked where he would die, the salesman replied that he wouldn't die; he would just give up. (His words, not mine.) - -There's more to the story, of course. What the salesman didn't tell the traveler was that he had made it to the small town of Bracken, near Bristol, during the last days of the Roman Empire, where he lived and worked in a tavern, and later, lived in a manor there. And, while the shopkeeping skills he learned in his travels are evident in his work, he couldn't have been poor for long; he had a wife and a farm and a stable. The Tramp may not have had the money, but he's not a "tramp" as such. He doesn't try to live a luxurious life: he just doesn't live so lavishly that he can't keep up with the cost of buying all the food he eats and all the money he travels with—and with his daughter and son. - -By most accounts, he was about twenty-four when he left home and went off on his travels—though we all know that was before the invention of cars and the telegraph and the telephone with which to relay messages across the world. He might have even died during his travels. His daughter eventually remarried, and it is rumored that her new husband, who lived in the area as a soldier during the war, might be the one to discover and bury his father in Transylvania. And it is rumoured that when the T-roll's -======================================== SAMPLE 415 ======================================== -There is a very common misconception that if you play games on a PC then you can't play for a long time. It isn't true. The following are ten games that you can play for a very long time, especially if you use a PC. - -10. Doom 3: BFG - -One of the very best multiplayer games ever made. You can play Doom 3 for up to 20 hours straight. In The Red Army Trilogy, this isn't even considered cheating because it is totally legit and a great experience. I still need to get into this game just to see all the new things they are doing with it. - -9. Doom 4 - -A sequel to Doom 3 and Doom 3: BFG. Doom 4 should be as fun as Doom 3 but still keep up with the gameplay. Doom 4 also lets you use co-op, which makes it even better than Doom 3: BFG. - -8. World of Warcraft - -World of Warcraft is an online role-playing game. It's similar to Diablo and DotA as well. It's an online game that allows you to group up with friends and enjoy the game together. It also gives you unlimited characters which increases your chance of making new friends and also makes it more fun. - -7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - -Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has made the game even more popular. It's an awesome game that continues the tradition of Call of Duty games. You can play this one for over 20 hours straight. In Ghosts, there is also multiplayer, and a new campaign. Modern Warfare 4 is an excellent game. - -6. Civilization V: Brave New World - -When the first game was released, the game was a great one. Now with 5th version, Civ V is a great game with lots of improvements. The graphics in Civilization has improved and in a lot of ways, the game has become more fun. The maps can be more interesting and the game is easier than before. This is a fun game to play to get to know the new civilizations. - -5. League of Legends - -When playing League of Legends, you can become addicted to the game fast. The gameplay is very strategic and you can level up your character by improving your skills. The game has a lot of things to do. The game can play for up to 24 hours straight in a row and you can play for a total amount of 48 hours! If you are a fan of online gaming, then you need to check this one out. - -4. Warcraft 3 - -One of the best multiplayer games ever. Now Blizzard has released the next version of Warcraft 3 which includes lots of changes and new features. You can continue playing this with friends or even by yourself. With the changes in World of Warcraft, this is an amazing strategy game. - -3. Halo 3 - -Halo 3 is one of the best shooters ever. Now with Halo: Reach coming out last month, you can still play Halo in single player and multiplayer. The game has been designed very well and you can get your friends to play with you as well. This game has lots of new features and can play indefinitely. - -2. Star Wars: The Old Republic - -The Old Republic is one of the best MMORPG's out there. The game has improved the gameplay and with updates, new expansions are being made. The Old Republic gives you very cool graphics, a huge universe full of interesting things and an all new game mode - Dominion. The gameplay also has a lot of action. - -1. Diablo III - -If you need to kill zombies? It's Diablo III. Now you can play for 24 hours straight. This is one of the best single player games ever. It has a lot of things to do, and if you are a fan of the series, this game is the most fun!<|endoftext|>"The greatest gift of all is to know what can change us for the better in our daily lives." John Stossel - -When something is worth saving–anything–you will struggle to live without it. This is because for humans all valuable properties are inherently valuable. The difference is, for a human to possess something that's worth saving–anything–it must be scarce. In other words, there must be something you can't have. So the value of whatever's being saved must be proportional to its scarcity. - -Now suppose an interesting man named John Stossel tells you that saving money is more valuable than your wife's happiness. He's a wise, interesting guy, and he says that saving is more important than your wife's happiness. What do you do? - -Of course you save, because that's what John Stossel recommends. You're an intellectual. That's what you do. The only way you can not save is if your wife is worth more to you than your wife. - -So John Stossel is telling you, "You can lose a wife, but you can't lose -======================================== SAMPLE 416 ======================================== -New Delhi, May 26: An FIR has been registered against an anti-racket agent in a case of kidnapping of a former Congress minister and her family members. - -The FIR was lodged by Nupur Sharma, the former secretary general of the Congress and the wife of Subhash Sharma, the son of Congress leader and former Law minister Jairam Ramesh Sharma. - -The FIR was lodged under sections 498A, 498-A, and section 66 of the IPC at the Sadar Bazar police station in New Delhi, on May 26. Police said an FIR has been filed against Subhash Sharma under provisions of the IPC's stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences. - -The complaint dated 28 April claimed that former Congress minister Sarbjeet Kumar Sheek and her family members were abducted on the way to visit their office in New Delhi at approximately 2:30 am on the morning of April 28. The complaint named the two accused, Nupur Sharma and Sarbanand Sharma, as accused. The complaint stated that Nupur Sharma was accompanied by her brother and another family member. - -The complaint alleged that Sarbanand Sharma and Nupoor took Sarbjeet Sharma to a secluded place with a man named Rustom Samaali and forced her to withdraw money from a bank before abducting her. "Sarbanand threatened to take both of them to the district court for lodging of complaints. Sarbanand used the same ruse several times," the complaint stated, adding that Nupur Sharma returned home in the evening following the incident and narrated the incident to her family members. - -The FIR was registered on the basis of the complaint received by Sarbanand Sharma, police said. The police said that Sarbanand Sharma had earlier approached the police department seeking their help in preventing Sarbjeet Sheek from leaving the country. - -For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App<|endoftext|>A new report reveals that the city of Chicago will have to cover $150 million in additional legal expenses in order to compensate for the loss of $1.25 billion in revenue as a result of the long wait times that victims of police misconduct endured at the city's public defender system. - -The Chicago Tribune reported that the city will have to add another $150 million to cover the lost payments, and Chicago Public Schools will have to pay for another $500 million in extra defense costs, bringing the total to $400 million. - -The city's court costs and litigation costs could cost the city more than $10 million a day if the investigation and settlement is not concluded by the month's end. - -In order to cover the additional funds the city is seeking, it will not be subject to bond increases. Instead, the city plans to go with an increased use of a combination of cash and borrowing for the cost of the investigation in order to avoid having to sell city assets. - -The investigation comes as a result of a damning 2015 report from the department's own Inspector General, who cited repeated failures by the city's public defender, who was accused of covering up and failing to investigate sexual assaults and robberies by members of the Chicago Police Department. - -"While the attorney general, the city's inspector general and a wide range of experts have noted the systemic deficiencies in the [Chicago public defender's] system, the CPD officers' misconduct and cover-up continue to go largely unchecked," the report said after it was written. - -The report found that the Chicago Police Department, which is a wholly owned division of the Chicago Public Defender's office that was created in 2002, fails to "adhere to established procedure and law" and "is subject to a wide range of procedural violations that can be directly attributed to inadequate supervision." - -The report detailed how the Chicago Police Department was "unable to effectively discipline the officers for their misconduct," instead citing misconduct by officers in a "number of other cases." - -The office that oversees the attorney who handles cases with Chicago police is required to send its investigation results and recommended action to the city, where officials must act on such findings, "when they find that city employees have failed to provide appropriate due process to alleged victims." - -After the report was written, the city turned to its inspector general at the request of Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. - -The police officers who were accused of covering-up the crimes were identified by the Chicago Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request, where it found that a total 15 officers were accused of failing to report to police reports of crimes in which they were actually part of the investigating team. - -Five officers were accused of withholding reports altogether, with reports that alleged multiple rapes from incidents in the days before Christmas and more than a dozen attempted attacks that occurred on the morning of Jan. 2, 2015. - -The Chicago Police Department said that, with the exception of an officer who violated department rules, no officer has been disciplined over the cover-up and that it -======================================== SAMPLE 417 ======================================== -The "Hooking Up in the Back," a column about a hookup culture that's out of hand in today's hookup culture, is a popular column from many a young writer. It can be an eye-opening glimpse into a young man's inner life and a refreshing read for people who are tired of the same old stories. If it is like most other "Hooking Up in the Back" columns, it contains what are deemed "unhealthy" and often "unworthy" stories of hookup culture. We're going to do the same, but to a different audience. - -A "Hooking Up in the Back" column, in part, is a piece of art that needs to be heard and shared by someone with the audience, because it takes a lot of time and sometimes money to make art that everyone gets to hear. We are here to do two things: show you our art and give you the truth. - -We don't just want to tell you how to get laid. We want to talk about why you're in the same boat and let you in on one of the biggest lies your friends tell you about sex and hooking up. - -Here's that truth: - -Hooking Up in the Back: A lot of women have a good idea where the fun begins, because it's at a club. - -Well, yeah, a certain portion of young men will hook up at a club, but as long as some guys aren't going to a club to hang out and get to know these women, it shouldn't be too hard to find some women you'll like. The truth is, there are some clubs that women just aren't feeling at at this point, but that also doesn't make them any less of a good place to try to meet those women if you want to. As we said, there's no reason for these places to be bad at this particular time. - -Hooking Up in the Back: Guys who go to one club to find that one woman aren't actually looking to meet a lot more women and are looking for what we call the "fun," because they expect to meet some hot and horny girl. - -Again, we're not telling you that the club scene is full of men in their 20s who are getting together just because that's what they were born to do. These are guys who have a lot to learn when it comes to hooking up, and they just aren't aware of what makes the club scene different from the other places they might be at that night. If they were, they'd be looking for a different type of hookup. We're telling you there is, indeed, a "fun." - -Hooking Up in the Back: There's no single reason why the club scene is so bad at this particular time of night. - -There are so many reasons that hooking up in a club won't work for you, but here's what really does. - -It doesn't matter where you go to get women anymore. If your girlfriend is already in the club, a place where she's hanging out anyway, you won't stand out as a guy who hangs out and makes sure to get a woman there. And once you get a good group of girls together, where they want to be, why not show those ladies your stuff, get some girls to like you, and leave? Not everyone is comfortable in the party scene and it just takes one girl who sees you and likes you to make things better. And guess what? Sometimes you're going to have to be the one to give the girl the attention she needs and the attention that's necessary to make all the bad situations of sex easier for you. - -Hooking Up in the Back: Some of these girls are hot! Maybe that's why so many guys go to the same places. Maybe they can't get a girl at the clubs because of their personality! - -It doesn't matter. If what you want is not there but if what you want is hot girls, don't worry overmuch about the places where you go to find them. The only way this situation gets better is if you find a hot girl who's ready to like you and then make her yours, and you do all this by yourself. There's just no other way. - -Hooking Up in the Back: These girls have nothing to do with you and you have nothing to do with them. - -Hooking Up in the Back: They'll still take advantage of you and you will still be a slut. - -Okay, so I don't mean to say women who go to clubs have no value other than their looks. Many of them do. As we said, they want to be with the hot guy and he wants them, or she wants to be with the handsome guy and he wants to be with her, and both wants to screw someone else. These women have other goals than hooking up, and the only way for -======================================== SAMPLE 418 ======================================== -Tall (6 ft 5 inches/185.5 cm) - -Mini (5.5 ft 10 in/17.5 cm) - -Walking (5 ft 3 in/14.5 cm) - -Measuring (7 ft 2 in/18.2 cm)<|endoftext|>It's a good time to be an Irish fan because the team has its first ever female professional footballer on its ranks. - -Eilis O'Doherty made her first appearance for the All-Ireland champions against Kerry in the All-Ireland Senior Football Final at Croke Park yesterday. - -Eilis O'Doherty celebrates as she scores for the All-Ireland champions against Kerry in the All-Ireland Senior Football Final at Croke Park yesterday. - -The 26-year-old scored twice to become the first and only woman to score for one of the most famous sides in All-Ireland history. - -O'Doherty, who is from Letterkenny, was picked to play the game following a lengthy application process in which All-Ireland champions Clare were one of five clubs that entered a bid to keep a woman's name on the All-Ireland team. - -Eilis O'Doherty scored twice for Kerry against Donegal in their third All-Ireland senior football final at Croke Park yesterday. - -In the women's game, players are not limited to an amateur status. However, the All-Ireland Football Championship, known locally as the All-Ireland, does not recognise women's professional football. - -As a result, female professional footballer have played only in women's leagues or the All-Ireland Women's League. - -O'Doherty, who last scored for the All-Ireland champions in 2009, has been with the Clare County Academy since she was a ten-year-old and is expected to begin regular team training this week.<|endoftext|>"We know you'll do everything you can to keep our country safe," Mr. Trump said in a brief statement to the audience of roughly 4,400 at the Mar-a-Lago private club. That the White House has taken so long to make its case to support the president underscores the degree to which he is still finding his footing. When he took office, Mr. Trump said he would be a president for all Americans and, in his first month in office, has repeatedly called out the travel ban as hurting minorities, women and veterans in a way that benefited the most powerful and wealthy people in the country. - -He has been unusually silent about his team's ties to Russia, although several members have been forced to step back from public roles after their ties to the country were revealed, and others may soon be. But he has refused to disavow either Michael G. Flynn, his former national security adviser, or Paul J. Manafort, the president's former campaign chairman. The two men have also provided White House officials with regular updates about their contacts with Russia, although neither was ever fully corroborated. - -"I think you will be very impressed," Mr. Kelly said. - -The president's decision to go to Mar-a-Lago for lunch was met with some skepticism by White House officials who believed that he could help his allies by addressing a more intimate event. Some said Mr. Trump could be forced to give more details about whether he had met privately with Russian officials and others in the Oval Office last month. But some Trump supporters said the president's behavior over the past 10 days — a chaotic start to his presidency and his continued insistence that he can't release his tax returns and criticize news organizations — had emboldened the president.<|endoftext|>"There are those who say the United States should pull back from the world because it is becoming a failed state, and they are right," Mr. Obama said at a news conference at the United Nations. "But they are wrong to make the world less safe and to put in jeopardy those values that we cherish around the world. And so for me, the question is this: Are we going to let those who would divide us by our differences lead us to be afraid of the future?" - -The president said the United States, the United Nations and the rest of the world would continue to work together. He called for people to unite in opposition to terrorism. "So, let me be very clear. The United States remains committed to the freedom, the justice and the dignity of every person and every community in the Middle East," he told a news conference. - -American military officials had for years pushed for an increase in military aid to the United Nations system. American officials, mindful that they had helped fund Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries' wars, sought to shift the burden to the world body to fund its peacekeeping efforts. - -Mr. Obama, in his remarks, stressed the limits of American military power — and its limitations, too. "No nation cannot solve the world's problems by itself. And so no nation can do what we have to do alone, no matter how large or strong." -======================================== SAMPLE 419 ======================================== -I have heard there are a few people who have heard stories about the "Wisdom of the Ancients" or "The Wisdom of The Ancients" for short. People know of the ancient wisdom and their connection to the gods, but no one really knows what they are. Some are saying this is a story told by God, and others have said it is a way of life for humans. You've got to see this movie and find out what your fellow world citizens believe about the ancient masters. - - -WARNING TO SPOILERS - This movie is full of deep, dark and powerful messages. Please do not watch this movie if you are not mentally ready for these subjects. If you are willing to take the time to see this movie with eyes open, then this experience is very worthwhile. - - -The film presents an ancient Greek myth told through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. He is placed into the world of a normal kid, as a result of the "Wisdom of the Ancients," a secret society and philosophy created in the ancient Greece by the legendary philosopher Plato. Plato's message to the citizens of the world is that there is a way to get out of reality and live a life beyond mortal life. - - -In one instance, the boy's mother is visited by an old, elderly man, and tells him he must learn about Plato's philosophy. Her grandson then sees a statue depicting Plato. In that vision, the boy's mother says the figure is Plato, and the man tells him if he lives a life of philosophy that he will live a very long life. - - -On a quest for wisdom, the boy meets Socrates, who is a representative of this ancient school. Socrates guides him to some of the philosophies of the time and teaches the boy the meaning of life. The boy is taken aback by the philosophy, and he begins to change. - - -He begins to think about the world around him, and why he is in it. Plato sees in him the potential for enlightenment, and asks him to read his book. As the boy reads, he begins to develop a love for truth which would become a key theme throughout the film. - - -The movie ends with a final scene of the boy reading his book and looking out to see a beautiful day. He then looks up and we see him in a cloud of dust. It's then that we realize the story is not over. This film is full of messages to live in truth and honor each other. This is the most important life lesson the film presents. It has also received the most critical acclaim from film critics. - - -So if anything the movie does it teaches you to always check your intentions at the door. No one is safe from what is in the shadows. Do the right things and you will always be rewarded. - - -The Wisdom of the Ancients is a unique movie. It is a movie you cannot forget. It is a movie you must view with fresh eyes. There are too many points of view and ways of thinking and experiencing this story to describe. - - -The film is beautifully directed and it shows the truth that we have lost since WWII to those who seek it. Even though we have had 50 years to educate ourselves on what the world has gone to, we have lost the ability to know the truth. - - -It teaches you to live a life of truth and honor that leads to your own ultimate bliss. There is no such thing as a free lunch as you will not be able to have it forever. The movie does not take credit for its ideas or its themes, which I consider it to be one of the best things ever made. It merely offers a powerful message and a story to live by. - - -The movie is one of the most beautiful pieces I have watched and to be quite honest it is one of the most powerful movies of all time. It is a movie that will change your life, but not for the better. - - -Rating:<|endoftext|>This product is currently on backorder. - -Be the first to hear about new products: Join the thousands of people receiving the Mophie Weekly Update email! - -What makes these wireless earbuds different? No cables, No wires, No worry. That's because they don't even come in a package. This is Mophie! - -Wireless earbuds - -Mophie Wireless Earbuds are the world's first wireless earbuds. With no cables or wires, you can easily listen to and charge your phone from the comfort of your sofa. - -Sound - -Mophie's sound signature is clear and rich with a great audio range. When you're not running to the store for groceries and you want to catch up on that podcast, a pair of Mophie Wireless Earbuds is the perfect way to listen. - -Mophie will always help make sure your life is filled with more content, not just music. - -Wireless charging - -Mophie Wireless Earbuds connect wirelessly using USB. If your phone is -======================================== SAMPLE 420 ======================================== -Lets start by the fact that all other things being equal we should always aim to have as little impact on a system as possible. I.e. the less you have the more you can take. For a starting character, this means you will usually have a minimum of 2-3 things you want in the game. -In most cases you can probably pick something nice and small for your starting area. In my case it's a small house in my starting village of the town of Rovinon. -As you can see I have already put some decorations and items in it so hopefully it will feel like my own little house. This is how you get items in your home. -As you are probably seeing, there are three slots in my home for items. -These items are just the kind that you would probably find on someone else's farm but not actually on your own. -For example for a food stuff I am using a lot, I would pick up wheat, carrots, and wheat flour. -I'm using a lot of cooking items too, like the recipe book for cooking. -Also, if you have your house setup then this would be a good place to use a small chest to store your stuff. -These are just a few examples. -You should now be sure what you want in your house. -Now lets try and see what kind of stuff we can put in there. -So here's an empty food table. -There's nothing in there, you can't put anything in there. -I also want a small chair, so I grabbed a small bed from our crafting table. -As you can see there are some items in there. -They are items that you would find on a farm somewhere. You can buy them from other towns to save money, these items are also called farmable items. -You can find more of those in the game but you have to pay for them (or find them from town) -But we want to put some actual items in there. So I got some buckets and some bottles. -These are kind of cool, you can make your own water. I'll get into that later, but if you use these you can also make your own beer, wine, or tea. Also if you get a new house or something and need more items, you can just go to the same crafting station and add more items. -So to put it back together, its time to put those things in it! -Once you have put all of your things in, it's time to try to move items into your house. -Again, you want to put the item in one or more of the slots, so here it is in the kitchen. -This is the place I would get all of those dishes as I would want to do a lot of cooking on my farm. -Some of these items are a lot like the food table. If you're looking for any of those then you should probably go to your farm right now and make food. -Once you've put all your items into your home then you can go back and forth between your house and a farm. Here it is, my house with the farm. -There's a water well in my house, which isn't very useful. I put it behind the house so I can go right to it when I need water. -If I needed more things like a cooking pot or even barrels, I wouldn't use the kitchen in the house I got it in. I would use my house, then go to a farm and put all of those items in there. This is how you make most of your items, just by moving stuff around from one place to the next. -Now to talk about the crafting table that is at the top right of the screen. -Here is my table with all of the things I've been putting in. -I would use this to make stuff on the farm too, if I needed a cooking pot, and would pick up a new one from the crafting table. -Then, if I needed something more, I could just go back to the crafting table and add more ingredients. -This is how you can do most of your crafting and recipes on your farm. Once you do a lot of it, you start becoming very good at it. This is how crafting items go from starting items to really useful items. -Now that I have a crafting table and items in there, I start trying to put them together. -Here's what it looks like. -Here I am putting in barrels and barrels of things I've already bought from towns. -Then, if I need something, I can grab it from the crafting table and put in the spot that I need it. -After that I put in a barrel for my water well. -Here it is, my farm. -All of the items that you get here you can put anything on, but I would just do all of these with something like the crafting table. You could put in a kitchen or even a dining room or whatever -======================================== SAMPLE 421 ======================================== -A very good day today. I did 10 miles of running, my first day of exercise in a year. Then I went on a trip with a group of friends at the lake with a lake view. It was a blast. The only problem is, I got to go a little too far away. The park is about an hour from where I live. But it was my first time ever going camping with friends and we all had a good time.  -My new friends and I had a good time.  A little hard to keep out of my eyes.  -The water is blue! -I'm glad I went. I think it's important to get out and explore things. It's a big country. -Stay tuned for more soon!<|endoftext|>With the release of the latest build of Android, Google is adding a new feature called Quick Settings to the interface. This new settings panel will allow for quicker access and customization to your phone's settings. - -With the Quick Settings, you will still have to unlock your phone, open your home screen and hit the Google Now button to turn these options on and off though. Instead of doing all of that, the quick settings menu will be on your dialer. - -You can add new shortcuts to your menu, but unfortunately you can't remove an existing shortcut. You can also customize the way each button looks, or even turn it off completely for those occasions when the button is not on display at all. - -According to the official Nexus Wiki, the feature will be appearing on the Google Search app from tomorrow. Google is currently testing the feature and a release appears to be a few weeks away. It's likely that this feature won't be making it to your final build of Android, but the developer version of the OS is still rolling out so it's possible that this new method will appear in a future release. - -[via @GooglePlus]<|endoftext|>The last time the NHL featured a playoff matchup between two Atlantic Division rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks held onto a one-goal lead in Game 6 of their second-round matchup with the Boston Bruins. That game may have not gone as planned for the Blackhawks, with defenseman Brent Seabrook dropping the gloves with Zdeno Chara. - -According to the Sun-Times, "Seguin's dad had called the Bruins' owner at about 10 p.m. Friday night saying he was concerned about Zdeno's safety after Seabrook, 24, was involved in the scuffle with Chara. In a statement, the Bruins said it has been in contact with Seguin's family." - -Seguin was not injured and both players later apologized. - -The incident is not the first time Boston and Chicago have had a heated confrontation. Back in 2005, Patrick Kane and David Backes came to blows after a goal was scored on both sides during Game 4 of their first-round playoff series. It did not end well for the Blackhawks and Backes, who was suspended 10 games.<|endoftext|>From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia. - -This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help WikiFur by references. - -For specifics, check the and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help. - -This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help WikiFur by references. - -This article is missing some information. Please help by expanding it. - -For specifics, check the and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help. - -If you were looking for images that can be used as banners for furfic, see Template:Banners/Furfics. - -This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help WikiFur by references. - - -"You can't keep a good guy down." ― The Captain [src] - -Takashi Kurita, better known as the "Captain of the Iceberg", is the commander in charge of the Japanese Space Army's Arctic Operations during World War II. - -Contents show] - -Biography - -When Tsubasa Hanekawa began studying the art of Nihon Bunri Kenkyū in 1942, the former Princess of the Iceberg was offered the position of an experimental pilot in the United States and sent to California to train as an experimental Navy Pilot. When the US Government began to see her training as a threat after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hanekawa was sent back to Japan with a bomb. - -When the Japanese government ordered the invasion of the United States in December 1942, Hanekawa returned to the United States with her bomb and joined the military at the newly established Battle School. Hanekawa is the only woman in the entire class of 200 of the Battle School and is the only woman ever inducted into the Navy. Following a brutal four-month training, including the infamous torture known as Kanshū Ketsumetai, Han -======================================== SAMPLE 422 ======================================== -I bought this pen for a $150 pen on Amazon. The pen arrived in a very nice box that includes the pen and converter. What I didn't like was where the shipping label was cut out. I was able to cut the label out with a small knife blade and stick it to the outer cardboard and there's no way to see where the pen was shipped. I don't care for the shipping costs. I did manage to find the original website so I can find a second one and hopefully get a refund, but I'm sure it's already been refunded. - -Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned<|endoftext|>I want to make a note of something before I start with my "What's Your Favorite Piece of Writing Tools?" section: I will not be including a "Best Writing Tool" list in here, despite the fact in my opinion that such a list doesn't really exist, because tools do not a writing tool make. I wrote this post more out of an attempt to inspire the writing world to find a solution for the problem of "writing by hand" versus "writing on a computer." This isn't going to be a long-winded, one-hundred and ten-page rant about why "write by hand" isn't the best tool for just about everybody, like most writers are. This post is just something that I thought would be interesting to people, to try to show that you don't necessarily have have to give up something to give your writing an increased value. - -If you're looking at this blog post as more of a sort of "Why do you still believe in writing by hand, anyway?" then please read on. - -The simple answer to this question is that, for me, there is no quick or simple answer for any of this, just as there's no quick answer for everything. I'd honestly be happy with writing on just about any writing platform (including electronic ones; in fact, writing on a computer is kind of a bonus for me when I write on a computer) but for me a large part of this comes from my need to be involved in the writing process. When I sit down to write I find myself not only not sitting with a blank page, but also not really caring about what would happen to my story if I never wrote it down, because I don't know. This isn't just something that I have discovered through practice — I've actually found myself not even really caring about what happens to my story at all after I've finished it if I don't finish it. Sometimes I feel like I need to sit and think about what I'm writing, and that feeling of self-concern comes from wanting to know what's going to happen to my story. - -I've found that my lack of concern about my story's development because I am in the situation of letting the story happen to me in pieces, each of which I will have to sort myself for as it comes along. In a way I don't even have to sit down and write, I just go with it and let whatever happens to me unfold with me. I do have to sit down and think about what I'm writing and how it fits into a bigger whole of things, and that's something that's difficult for me. I write fast, the stories that I write are short, and my stories are full of details. I find I have to slow down when my story will take forever (or is just boring), because I don't know what's going to happen and I don't have enough knowledge to predict my story's development. I don't have enough time to plan for what's going to happen with everything. - -When I'm in the situation where I have a story that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, writing, and planning out, I'm in a situation where I trust myself and my writing ability to deliver a story that can be enjoyed by other people. When I give myself this license to let something come to me because I feel as if the idea I had a while ago is interesting enough to tell other people about, then it turns out to actually be kind of interesting for me as well after I finish it. (For more on this, see "Letting Something Come to Me.") - -The idea of writing by hand comes from the fact that I really don't have that much control over my writing or the way the story is going to develop. I don't know how it's going to end, and I'm not doing research to figure it out or figuring things out by feel or trying to "see" how things will turn out after I've had time to sit down and think about it. I can only use the experience I have of sitting down with a blank sheet of paper to give me ideas for my writing, which I then use to figure out how the story will progress before I end up with writing that has a good chance of being enjoyable for people to read. I'm still learning how to write by hand though, so some things -======================================== SAMPLE 423 ======================================== -What it does: - -This mod adds a single-storey building near the westmost tip of The Rift, just south of the waterfall, with a small courtyard. Inside the building will be an empty shop; inside it will be an NPC who is going to sell the main quest ingredients. If you're playing another quest mod this is NOT the place you are looking for, but it might be useful for other people. It's got a working fireplace, too, just in case it gets too cold (with a few modifications). - - -This mod doesn't require you to use a quest, it's meant to be a place to sell some stuff and perhaps get your inventory cleared. At this point only the vanilla ingredients for the quest have been added (though more are planned) and the NPC is in a fairly empty way. For now, I'm just showing the shop layout. You will see items stored here, but they will not be loaded by the game if they are NOT in the house. - - -This mod can be used for a lot of things, but probably the best use is simply for your own home if you're going through the rift and want a little place to store any items that you bring back with you. Or, when you're doing a quest in one of the houses, it will be great for that, because you can have your home there AND you can sell stuff from your main house just down the road. The house is in exactly the same spot and can safely be replaced by any mod of any kind, with or without a quest attached. If the house gets too full, you can move a couple of containers out and add some more stuff that goes along with it. - - -Note that the NPCs are there for a while. I really doubt you'll see them in the shop after you've bought anything, unless you move some stuff from your main house back into your home on the west side of town. - - -I'd recommend using this mod with your quest mods just to do some extra stuff for the quest, but if you just want to sell stuff you can do that as well; this is meant to be a temporary place for sale, so all you have to do is get your quest done, walk over here, set it to go open at night and everything will be fine. - - -Requirements: - ---This mod requires Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dragonborn and the latest version of Skyrim. - - ---This mod requires you to go to the interior of The Rift and activate it. - - ---This mod requires you to have an empty storage chest on the ground floor of your home, somewhere near the alchemy and enchanting display. You may skip the alchemy and enchanting display if you wish. - - -What will you see when you activate the shack?: - -Inside the shack there will be a simple but useful shop with one merchant offering basic items. The shop owner will not make any conversation, so don't try to get too close by asking questions like "I'm thinking of taking up brewing in the future... does anyone know somewhere good for me to start?". To the right will be an empty counter with an empty inventory. On the left, in a small enclosed room, will be a table, with stacks of empty bottles. It's just for decoration, of course, and doesn't carry any items. To the right will be an empty bookcase with three random books in it, one of which is an enchanter book. Inside them will be a couple of bottles of a liquid called "potion of clarity", which when used on the NPC "Gale," will clear all of his negative, negative effects while granting him a permanent amount of health. I also added the potion to a safe location (in the basement) after I realized that the NPC didn't have a proper healing shrine near his home. - - -Also, as a side note, the NPC "Gale" has his own quest, and his quest starts at the exact same place as yours. He is a member of the Dawnguard and has been tasked to take you over to The Rift to find one of the "found souls" before the Dawnguard has a chance to come and take them from you. You will also be working hard against some other Dawnguard members too, who may offer to escort you or even kill you if you don't find the final soul before the Dawnguard. I suggest you kill those two members as well because they both get stuck on the roof and can't leave. - - -Installation: - -Copy the contents of the downloaded archive to your Skyrim data location. - - -Uninstallation: - -Delete the contents of the downloaded archive from your Skyrim data location. - - -Notes: - --I'm not sure that the location you're using is compatible with this mod. I'm putting a version of the shack that doesn't have the fireplace inside, so if you want to be able to use the fireplace you'll be better off using this mod. I don't think -======================================== SAMPLE 424 ======================================== -It's been more than five years since the last movie for Pixar's 'Coco' franchise, but as fans wait for the next installment in the story to be released, the company just announced a special pre-show event for the film. - -The event will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Oct. 12 at 12:30 p.m. and will run through Oct. 13. The event will mark the first time at the convention center that fans will be able to see the movie on the big screen as it's officially released in theaters. - -The film, which will open in theaters on Nov. 22, will also be screened in Imax theaters (at a cost of $85 per ticket while supplies last) on Oct. 12. - -Pixar's Coco: "This dream you've been living was a lie until you learned there's another world out there." - -Also announced at the conference was a new teaser trailer for the film that opens above. - -"As we head into spring this year there has been a lot of speculation about the next Coco. You can hear Coco's dream-filled message on the song, 'Here We Go Again,' and it's also in the movie. When you meet Carlos and his friends they are really living their dreams too. This dream you've been living was a lie until you learned there's another world out there as Coco tells you about. The film will be rated PG and feature characters of varying ages and genders," explained the company on the blog they released when the teaser was released. - -The new teaser trailer for Coco was also teased in the same video promoting the new teaser at Comic-Con. - -Pixar's Coco will be followed by Coco 2 on Oct. 17, Coco 3 on Dec. 20, and Coco 4 on Jan. 16, 2019. Disney will release the new films across a whole new wave of films to be released in the next four years. - -Coco will open in theaters on Nov. 22, 2018.<|endoftext|>After a year-long absence during which the studio was still exploring new platforms, the first trailer for "Dumbo" returned to theaters on Thursday, thanks to a new home on Netflix. - -Universal Pictures released a new version of the film on Netflix, and the trailer's second clip is exactly the same as the one we first saw on YouTube back in January — and it's not bad. - -The new clip shows the character Tod-Sodden in the big top of a "Dumbo" carriage house, watching Dumbo from afar as the elephant rides down the street. It's just the latest in a series of new Dumbo trailer clips we've seen since Netflix first announced earlier this year it would be distributing the film, which begins a limited theatrical release on March 31 in the United States. - -Also in Netflix's "Dumbo" trailer: a big-hearted and playful dance number from the film's song "Big Song," and a new song from composer Tim Rice; the new and old songs "I'm Dumbo, You're Dumbo, We're Dumbo," "I Dream of Jungle," "I'm in Dumbo," and "This is Dumbo" (all by Rice). - -Dumbo, of course, is the magical elephant who flies as if he's on a string. The Disney classic — originally published in 1941 and first released in 1932 as "Alice in Wonderland" — went on to earn nine major Oscar nominations, including one for its songs.<|endoftext|>The latest data on job creation comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which provides real-time data by state. According to its latest Jobs and Wages Report, released on October 5, the U.S. economy added nearly 3.3 million jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell from 4.7% to 4.6%. - - -On the state level, there was a slight increase in jobs in the U.S. as a whole, but not many, and that the state with the fastest job growth of all was Hawaii (6.4%), which was followed closely by North Dakota (6.3%) and West Virginia (6.1%). - - -New York, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Wyoming led all states in terms of average annual employment growth, with New York, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Alaska and Wyoming each growing 4.7%. - - -The fastest-growing states were: New Hampshire, with an average annual growth of 7.3%; North Dakota, at 6.1%; Wyoming, at 5.3%; Arizona, at 4.9%; Hawaii, at 4.3%; Rhode Island, at 3.4%; Colorado, at 3.2%; Maryland, at 3%; and Michigan, at 2.8%. - - -As the table below shows, the average monthly jobs growth rate for New York, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Illinois was 8. -======================================== SAMPLE 425 ======================================== -What's in your Domain Name? Print - -A super premium .Com domain name from DomainMarket.com means instant branding, search engine, and marketing benefits. We make it safe, easy and affordable for you to own TheTribune.com right away. DomainMarket.com is the only authorized pricing agent for this domain name, anyone else is a third party seller. Every domain price on this site is completed by top world experts from AccurateAppraisals.com. - -DomainMarket.com domains are carefully selected for branding excellence by the world's top domain name appraisers, so you will only find the most prized and premium assets for sale. - -For serious companies and marketing executives, attracting just one new lifetime customer, business partner, or employee, leveraging a premium domain, will justify this excellent long-term investment. But in fact, your DomainMarket.com sourced super premium domain is likely to rake in many valuable new customers and opportunities in the long run that normally couldn't or wouldn't find you. Compared to the risk and sunk costs of traditional advertising channels, or newer online advertising methods, this is clearly a huge home run. Other types of advertising are not resellable assets like domains, with long term investment opportunity; other advertising investments are all very risky comparatively, and are mostly wasted if you think about it. - -Would you really consider shortchanging your permanent global brand by skipping the perfect .Com and letting someone else dominate online forever, and potentially offline? That would be a very costly mistake for your family's future and for the other stakeholders of your entity; everyone similarly situated regrets it. - -The world's best companies and smartest professionals always rely on DomainMarket.com and our super-premium, contextual .Com domains to leverage their branding opportunities. 500 out of 500 of the 'Fortune 500' corporations use .Com, and all of the world's best salespeople and marketers; they aren't going anywhere. - -Dozens of others could use your trade name or trademark in a variety of industries, but only one of you can be smart enough to control the .Com customer traffic forever. If you don't own the exact match .Com premium domain best suited for your offerings then over time your brand and site is likely to get lost in Google and in the minds of potential customers; rendered irrelevant. Plus, it would be super embarassing and costly for your customers or prospects to land on this site when they are actually looking to purchase from you instead. - -Plus you may be able to profit from the consumer traffic, "eyeballs", and sell advertising space or use Google AdWords on the domain site, to your financial advantage. Our partner SEO.com are a team of world class digital marketing experts and select Google Partners. We recommend you contact them for any assistance with online advertising, marketing, SEO, PPC, landing page optimization, ecommerce, conversion optimization, web design, Facebook ads and more. - -Super premium .com domain names from DomainMarket.com are the start and top of the economic food chain, in order to create the best on and offline 'unicorn' corporations. Pick the wrong domain and you deserve the consequences of your competitors rolling you. Next you need the rest of the best of modern digital marketing if you want to compete with serious players in your industry. - -"Ring.com [sold for $1B] was previously called DoorBot, His tenacity, and the decision to stick with the product he originally built [but with better domain], has paid off in a big way." - -Almost all decent TV ads now use premium generic .Com too, and radio ads, plus sides of trucks, billboards, bumper stickers, boats, planes, tshirts, blogs, etc. You may be one of these 'Fortune 500' mega corporations ready to dominate the world, or just a regular granny in your underwear, but either way you can look the same with TheTribune.com. - -First come, first served. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to be #1. The first person or company to secure TheTribune.com from this site can control it forever, to the exclusion of all others. It will become out of our control. Get it first; and get ranked first in Google! All that matters online is Location Location Location! Your Domain is Your Location! and brand, and future profits; dont shortchange it obviously! You can redirect your new domain traffic to your existing internet assets until you are done with development, or indefinitely, if you prefer. - -It's critical to secure your domain today if you want to control the world class branding and recognition before your competitors who are eyeing it. They might outcompete you forever if they get it first and get all the traffic, conversions, and branding value compounded endlessly. A premium domain could easily add 20% compounding yearly to a company's bottom line profits if deployed properly, which for most companies would prevent them from going out of business -======================================== SAMPLE 426 ======================================== -By now it's clear that if there is hope for a resolution to the Syria crisis, and for better relations between Israelis and the Palestinians, it will be achieved through compromise on two key issues: Israel's security concerns and Palestine's right of self-determination. There can be no meaningful peace with Iran without resolving these issues. - -Yet, at the UN General Assembly, Israel made the bold and seemingly dangerous assertion that it will not recognize Iran as a nuclear state. In doing so it was attempting to isolate and sanction Iran, both diplomatically and politically, to prevent it from obtaining enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon. The US Congress responded to the US threat of economic sanctions by rejecting the Obama administration's request for additional funds for such military action. For Israel, the threat of a military strike by the US, and even Israel's strong political allies in the US Congress, is a clear sign that no one side has the upper hand in the crisis. - -On September 28, after the Iranian deal was announced, Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon declared that, regardless of how the UN vote goes, Israel will oppose Iran's membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). - -The Iran deal was announced on July 14, 2014, more than one year before the Israeli announcement. So what purpose, if any, did Ya'alon's declaration serve? At the time, Israel had previously opposed the Iran deal, in part because of the IAEA inspection of military sites that had been established under the 1994 Additional Protocol. Since then, Iran has significantly ramped up its nuclear activities, yet Iran remains a target for international sanctions from the United States and Iran. - -Ya'alon's statement was further proof that the Israeli government is concerned about Iran's security, not merely security of Israeli citizens—in other words, that Israel is unwilling to accept any deal that would give Tehran a nuclear weapon. - -For Israel, the idea of Iran developing a nuclear weapon has become a defining issue. In recent weeks it has been publicly stated that: The Islamic Republic is building a secret uranium enrichment facility of its own to continue enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Israel has also been extremely outspoken in its insistence that the IAEA should have immediate access to Tehran's military sites. - -The IAEA is supposed to have access to Iran's military sites upon notification by the IAEA or on the basis of a request by a member of the IAEA board of governors. Yet in response to Israel's threat, on September 25, 2014, the IAEA announced that there had been no request from Israel. The IAEA says this is because the agency's director general, Yukiya Amano, "did not wish to provide the additional information that the Israeli Defence Forces had requested." - -The IAEA's official press release does not acknowledge that Israel has a military interest in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The press release also does not mention Israel's position that Iran's military facilities have no military value and have no nuclear material stored therein. - -Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "This deal will enable Iran to become a nuclear threshold state that has unlimited ability to rapidly build and deliver a nuclear weapon." He and other Israeli officials have made other statements claiming that Iran's leaders are bent on acquiring nuclear weapons to help shore up Assad's Assad regime. - -For Israel, the "threat" to destroy Iran's leadership in the name of national security, which is the rationale presented by Ya'alon's statement, is absurd. - -The United Nations Security Council will review the nuclear deal next week. Israel's government is likely to block the passage of any resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran over the Iranian nuclear deal. - -The US-led economic sanctions against Iran, including that on shipping companies, are a major obstacle to any deal between Iran and the P5+1, whose goal is to stop Iran from enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon. The economic sanctions provide the principal leverage over Iran, enabling the US-led international sanctions regime, supported by Europe and Canada, to pressure Iran to limit its nuclear activity. - -As a member of the Security Council, the United States could potentially play a role in setting up a new mechanism involving the countries of the world to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. In the meantime, the EU and Canada can continue to sanction shipping to Iran, which has been a major source of funding for the Iranian regime, while the US remains one of the largest providers of oil to Iran's petrochemical industry. - -But it is the notion of military options that should trouble the international community. If Israel's warnings about Iran's nuclear program really are true, why would Israel not be able to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? - -The Obama administration's diplomatic response to Israel's threat of military action has been to encourage it to accept the terms of the Iran deal, including the limitation of Iran's nuclear program. The United States -======================================== SAMPLE 427 ======================================== -A federal judge today rejected a request for preliminary approval in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against the state over a 2011 law requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification at their polls. - -U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in New Hampshire issued a temporary restraining order halting enforcement of the bill, which the National Rifle Association and other groups have deemed the "photo ID to kill voter fraud" law. - -Illston's ruling comes in response to a separate lawsuit brought by the Attorney General's office against Gov. Maggie Hassan over the law. A decision is expected in the case as early as Oct. 6. - -Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence counsel Kristen Clarke criticized the federal judge's decision today in a statement sent to Guns.com. - -"The Second Amendment is the only amendment under the Constitution that actually protects our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. The Department of Justice should be enforcing these laws," the statement read. - -Clarke also called the National Rifle Association's argument "patently frivolous." She said: "This is a classic case of the NRA fighting against their own record. They have long been against any effort to keep guns out of the hands of felons and the mentally ill and now they're trying to fight against efforts to keep guns out of the hands of voters." - -A number of legal scholars, organizations, and individuals, though, applauded the judge's ruling. - -Dan Stein, president of the pro-permit gun rights group Third Way Education Fund, called Friday's order a "huge victory" for the Second Amendment. - -"By blocking the most extreme provisions of this law, the judge ensured the protections for the general public, including voters, the rights of the elderly and voters, and the right to participate in elections without being subject to the threat of intimidation at the polls," Stein said in a statement. "This case demonstrates how the Second Amendment doesn't only protect individual rights, it also ensures that the government cannot prevent the public from exercising its own fundamental rights or basic political participation in the electoral process." - -And David Kopel, vice president of the Independence Institute in Denver who has been active on the issue of gun rights, said, "With the ruling, we move one step closer to ensuring that the rights provided by the Second Amendment do not become a mere fiction," - -Hassan said this evening, "This is another victory for my office in our effort to ensure voters feel safe when they exercise their constitutional right to vote." - -Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence attorney Stephanie Schriock praised the judge's ruling as another important step in advancing her client's case. - -"Judge Illston's decision to block the voter ID law is the latest in a series of rulings by judges across the country that the Department of Justice's attempt to enforce the voter ID law is unconstitutional on its face," she said. "Today's ruling is a welcome development in this fight to safeguard voters from intimidation." - - -This story originally appeared on Guns.com<|endoftext|>As promised the second of our two-part conversation with David Lynch was a lengthy and deep one. So here are the main points about David Lynch the actor, the director, and his influences. - -On working for David Lynch: - -"I was on a shoot for a while. That was really cool, because the whole thing with this shoot was that it's a very big dream coming true, so I got to work with David on it. This was my first major directorial gig. So I got to work with a director that I just knew that people would like and appreciate and have a very deep understanding of. And also, this was sort of a very personal thing for him, because he's been wanting to do this very thing. The idea that it would come to life in a kind of wonderful way, you know? That was, I think, what was interesting. I don't really know his motivation, but it was an opportunity for him to kind of play it out. - -On shooting the sequence that was originally titled "The Little Prince": - -"Well, it was actually called "The Little Prince." You know, because it's a little prince that's getting sucked into a hole in space. But he ended up going down the rabbit hole, and so I had to figure out a way to put the words down. But then when we did that the director of photography said, 'Look, David, would you ever consider taking this out? That's just too long-winded, you know? ' And I was like, "No! This is great! You don't care about me!" - -On the idea of a surreal episode: - -"I wanted to do a weird episode, because I hadn't quite figured out yet who I was in this world and what I really wanted to do with it, and I wanted to really take what I had done so far and push it and break it apart, just to see what I could build. Because -======================================== SAMPLE 428 ======================================== -The first thing to be said is that this book is so incredibly, mind-blowing fun to read. And I mean that, I mean that in the sense that, yes, the author has made a bunch of people go "Oooh" in a very specific way. It all goes back to that first bit about not knowing where to start when asked to describe the book. I could go on and on. But, we'll get there.The second thing is that I'm very interested in the concept, what some folks refer to as "The Golden Age", or what some folks refer to as the time of books or the time of reading as a cultural activity, even more so than I'm interested in how much of it is real. Because again, it's interesting to me to know how some people would react to fictional versions of events, or even real fictional ones. And so in that sense, I find it intriguing to know how people would think about some of this stuff. And it's interesting to me too because I have some opinions, and it wouldn't be an entirely accurate observation to say, "This is how it would be like to be in our time," without knowing how people would behave if they were really in our time.In this way, it's somewhat a bit like playing a role-playing game. (And yes, even if some people like to make that comparison, it does have implications that we're trying to avoid.) Because playing a role-playing game, you're in a world, but you don't necessarily get to pick what happens, because the GM will decide what happens. In the same way, someone could play a fictional game in which they are a character and then go, and they'll probably decide what the character does, and it's up for interpretation by the reader, so I'm not quite sure how it should work, I guess.But, I mean, that's the thing. It's a fun question to ask, because there's going to be people in our time, who probably wouldn't like it if the author of this book just left it at the first page and took her readers on a very fun ride. It's a fun question to ask.And, I mean, you know that first page when she says:So, we have a story about a time in which there was a huge explosion at an ancient cathedral, which is in London. And we have a character named Sophie whose husband and two children are killed in that explosion, and she's basically, basically a basket-case by the end of the second book. The character's name is Lark. And her family has been living in a very large mansion, that used to be the London Basilica, but is now one of London's top landmarks, because it survived the Blitz and still has all kinds of architectural secrets and things, and it's full of historical treasures. Lark is very well-off and educated, and really is very much part of the upper class. She's not a poor person, but she's not very rich either, and it's interesting that she can afford to buy the most expensive cars in London.But her real problem is what she wants, not what everybody wants for the common good. What she wants is that the cathedral building should go back in time, so that the people who were killed there will be in a better position. And she sees this as a kind of historical injustice, because her brother-in-law died and her father was dead, but her husband was alive, and he was still alive. And the reason that he died was because he was a thief, and he was a criminal, and he had killed his wife in cold blood. But she doesn't see that, and she tries to convince the people of the time that this is a moral issue. And, I think that's exactly the way that it feels. It feels like a moral issue, and she's trying to correct wrongs.And, she ends up not making a lot of friends. And, to a certain extent, she also sees it as a personal conflict, just that she has her priorities at odds with what other people need. So, there's a very interesting conflict between what we like to see as personal and what we call for. And that conflict also carries over into the conflict between what Lark wants and how she wants it to be.But it's interesting because in a very interesting way, you know, you can start to see a lot that isn't strictly historical or true to nature, that isn't strictly true, that it's interesting. In that way, it's like a literary novel, and we can be influenced by what people are saying and how they're saying it, and we can put something in our own time, and there's some truth to it that's not really true, but we like to see it as a kind of history or a historical fact or what has happened.And I'm not really even talking about it as historical. It's, sort of -======================================== SAMPLE 429 ======================================== -The official website for the upcoming TV anime adaptation of Yuki Saei and Ryoichi Suzuki 's Girls und Panzer manga revealed on Monday that it will begin airing in Japan on TBS, Tokyo MX , and BS11 on April 2. - -The anime's staff also revealed the anime's main visual for the first time on Tuesday, along with the anime's theme song "Guren no Yumiya." The website describes the anime: - -Koume Tada is just another ordinary high school student -- until she enrolls in the All Japan Girls' Academy, the "school for the elite." There, she finds herself surrounded by like-minded girls who are determined to protect the honor of their school's tankery club. - -Tada meets Miho Nishizumi and Aqours during her first day at the academy, and she quickly finds herself caught up in their adventures as the tankery club's ace female pilot! Together with her crew, and in an effort to build relationships with the other girls, she begins to understand the "other side" of the game. - -Tada makes her tankery debut during a match against her school's rival Nihon Gakuen Girls High School. However, Tada is soon shocked by the sudden appearance of the "Red Dragon," a gigantic, tank-like alien, that aims to destroy Gakuen and the girls. - -The anime will feature the song "Guren no Yumiya," performed by Suzumiya Haruhi ( Nagaru Tanigawa in Love Hina ) and featuring the main voice cast from the series: Yumi Asano as Tada, Maaya Uchida as Miho Nishizumi, Mikako Komatsu as Aqours, and Kana Hanazawa as Akari Nishiwaki. The new PV of the opening theme song single is "Ai no Kaze na Kimi no daisuki (I've Got No Choice)," performed by Asakura Miyuki ( Aoi Bungaku Jikenbo ~Jigoku no Kizuna~ , Shirobako ~Sakebe ni Natta ne!~). - -In addition, the official website will begin hosting a character poll in two weeks. Answering the poll will reward those who answer with their favorite character. (All of the characters in the manga are eligible to answer.) Those who answer as Shingo Kurata, the school's "cool and collected" second-year student at first, for example, will get an "Ima Uchuu Nami" (I'm a Uchuu's Friend) T-shirt. - -The Girls und Panzer game series is the eighth best-selling game series of 2016 in the United States, according to data from the NPD Group's Entertainment Software & Hardware Survey (via Polygon). The game series launched in 2006 on the PS2 console in Japan, and in 2013 it released for the PSP. Over 1.5 million copies of Girls und Panzer are sold each week for the PSP, the PS3, and their respective consoles, the PS4 and Windows PC. - -Suzumoto launched the manga in Square Enix's Monthly Comic Zero-Sum magazine in 2007, and Suu launched the Girls und Panzer: Tag Team!! game series in Square Enix's Betsu-Weekly magazine in 2011. Suuka Kazama 's original manga inspired a television anime series in 2012, and a film adaptation opened in Japan in May 2014. The sequel Girls und Panzer: Dai-Shoga Friends is slated to open in Japan on June 2. Crunchyroll is releasing all three series in North America digitally as they premiere. - -Source: Natalie<|endoftext|>With the current state of the Republican presidential race, it's easy to see how anyone could be convinced. The Republican candidates' rhetoric sounds so much like the rhetoric used by the radical Right that it's hard to tell where the line is. On the Right, that line is hard to discern because the language used is so far removed from reality that any person with a modicum of political science knowledge can tell there's a big difference between how the Right sounds and how the Right moves. - -Just as the radical-Right uses phrases like "national identity," "ethno-state," "white identity," "anti-Western," "pro-white," "traditionalism," "culture," "family," "country," "patriot," and "Christian moral values," the conservative Right seems to be using a similar set of words. In fact, if you look in certain corners of the conservative movement, you may catch a whiff of the radical Right's rhetoric when you encounter the phrases "culture of life" and "natural law." - -It's time to take a closer look. Just a quick look shows that there are real differences between what conservatives say and what extremists on the Right mean. Here are four examples of what conservative people actually say, versus what the radical Right thinks they actually say. -======================================== SAMPLE 430 ======================================== -What would be a good time when we would see a major new release from the Linux Mint developer team? There are a thousand or so things, but they all depend on our opinion. Our community always gives us suggestions when it comes to new features that we want to have in our distro, and we are always interested. One thing, however, is certain – it is always time for a new release. - -At the moment we have just one beta release that you can find on our website, which comes with Linux Mint 18 "Saraha", a long awaited release that will be announced on April 10 this year. - -We've got our hands dirty testing it out for a while now and we think that it's one of the best new versions we have ever had the pleasure to see. And it is not to be missed! - -For the next couple of weeks we are going to be discussing about the new features in Linux Mint 18 which, as always, don't require a release candidate. - -First of all there is a brand new, elegant new user interface that the developers have been working on for a while now, which they call the Mint desktop. It might have looked familiar to those used to Ubuntu, because the look and function is close to that of the Ubuntu Unity. - -The new, elegant interface includes an improved dock, which is very convenient to work in and is pretty easy and seamless to use. The dock has icons for most of your applications, folders and shortcuts that you commonly use often. There is also a settings menu, a search field and a fullscreen panel, which you can always switch to with a keybind. The menu also shows the menu items you may want to use. - -The new look and feel is not just a UI update, it also helps with performance, as we can notice the difference it makes on the desktop: - -As you can see, the system stays stable and performs well, which is a big step for the overall user experience. - -It's not just about aesthetics, though. We have seen some improvements to the Mint login screen, the notifications area of the system and the boot process. Those improvements will probably be the most talked about ones. - -Login Screen - -As we told you just last month, you can now choose whether to log in with your profile, your display name or your user name. It's better to set it that way, because the profile name is now saved when you log in and can be easily used at any time for future logins. - -It's also possible to use a display name whenever you log in, if you prefer, but be aware that if you do so you won't be able to save it in a profile anymore. It just won't be accessible. We don't like it that way and the system is easier to use without it. - -The user interface is easier to read and easier to use in general. It is much smoother and easier to navigate over, too. - -Notifications Area - -The notifications area allows you to see which app or app that is responsible for a certain action. For example, the browser has a hamburger button that you can find there when an email arrives. The interface is very easy to use when you are reading your email and want to jump back or search for other emails. - -A new way to search for emails would be through the toolbar, so it doesn't matter which email was sent by which app. The icons are very readable and look great, too. - -Boot - -When booting into Linux Mint 18 we have found that the system boots faster than we expected it to. We had some problems with the older versions that took longer to load into the first post-Mint boot, but those problems are over. The system simply boots more smoothly in Mint 18, and we haven't experienced any significant problems. - -There is even a new way to restart your computer and it's better than it was with other similar systems because the system won't ask you anymore for your password, even through graphical login. We have noticed a little more stability in Linux Mint 18, too. - -Overall Impression - -What did we think of the Mint 18 release? We felt that the new user interface is a very beautiful and elegant one that you won't find with other distros. It is the perfect way to navigate around and is very easy to use. In addition, it makes the user experience much more pleasant even when doing tasks like searching the internet! - -Now, if we take a step back and look at the release itself, the main changes are mostly under the hood. We have been very pleased with the stability of the distribution, and also with the improved performance. We think Linux Mint has finally found its own flavor of stability and is very, very usable, for the regular user. - -We are looking forward to testing the final release and will be reporting on its release as soon as it's ready. You can keep track of the development -======================================== SAMPLE 431 ======================================== -Citing "concerns about the safety" of the facility, the city's top transportation and infrastructure supervisor and the City Council took no action against the project, which has been under review in this area for years. As part of Wednesday's review, the City Council sent letters to residents of four homes on Biddell Street that will be inundated by the elevated roadway. - -As part of an ongoing project to build a new road under the Biddell Street overpass, the city is going to move flood risk assessment from the Department of Public Development to the Waterfront Development Authority. - -It's part of a new development plan presented by the city this month, which includes "waterfront facilities, amenities and a high-quality pedestrian and bicycle trail." The City Council adopted the master plan in June. - -There are about 11,000 residents who live within a block of Biddell Street, along with a few hundred businesses and restaurants. For the city to move on the project, it would have to find a permanent residence for its "high-cost flood hazard assessment" staff for the next 20 years in the office that now handles flood risk assessment for the city. That's a long time with no end in sight. - -Last week, the Planning Commission endorsed the master plan for the Biddell Bridge. City Manager Harry Black told the commission the project was too big a project to get through the planning process without a "seminar." - -"I don't know how much the new staff can do in the time that they have," Black said. "We want them to be working with us throughout the planning process. … We want to make sure we have a clear understanding of the full scope of what this will mean." - -Black also talked about concerns with the new city manager "not being focused on the waterfront and infrastructure" before the city commission's decision on the master plan for the Biddell Bridge project. - -In his letter, Councilman James Gray called for the project to move ahead as the city looks to expand its role in infrastructure development for the waterfront. - -"Given the growing concern about the current status, I have requested that the City Council review, and perhaps take further action, when the project moves to the Waterfront Development Authority," he wrote. - -Meanwhile, the Planning Commission has issued a notice of its intention to continue to review the project. - -The City Council has yet to adopt a resolution on the proposal.<|endoftext|>The idea of a full moon and the effects it has on the economy and the stock market may seem at odds with each other. But a new research review reveals that as the full moon rises each day, people are more likely to buy. - -In a paper published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, researchers set out to determine if people were willing to pay more to purchase a moonless Friday, which would have been the day before the lunar period occurred. However, a full moon is not necessary to trigger the effect, and most studies have already shown it occurs when the moon is above the horizon. - -The analysis revealed that those who believed there to be moonlight at their home on a moonless day were 3.1 percentage points more likely to purchase than those who thought there were none to begin with. "If you want to increase sales during sales peak time, or at the end of the sale period, the moon will bring out your best sales pitch," the researchers wrote: - -People are more willing to purchase if they believe there is moonlight, even when it is cloudy and there is the risk of the effect. This effect is driven not by price or sales of those items that are sold during the pre-lunar pre-sale or sale periods, but rather by purchases of sales-priced merchandise before or during the lunar period. We find the lunar effect occurs more frequently on the night of a full moon, or higher in the sky. - -Although the authors note that the full moon effect "may be a psychological placebo" in part, they found it more than once over many studies. On at least two other occasions, when the full moon was below the horizon or obscured by clouds, the effect was not visible at all and didn't appear to have a monetary effect on sales.<|endoftext|>In today's news roundup, The New York Times, CNN and NPR are all reporting on a bombshell report, and the New York Times has published part of it. The report is titled "Donald Trump's Foundation Might Have Breaking Law: Illegal Foreign Donations" and provides a number of damning insights into the history of the Donald J. Trump Foundation. - -The piece also includes several revelations about Trump's charitable foundation. As we've written extensively about before, Trump's foundation solicited a huge number of contributions from foreign nationals in order to curry favor with his staff and the people he worked with, according to this report. - -At the time, the foundation reported only about $1 million in revenue from foreign entities; however, IRS documents obtained -======================================== SAMPLE 432 ======================================== -As an active-duty service member, you're free to get an abortion. But that doesn't mean you can do so without a lot of paperwork — and a lot of questions. - -Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest - -The Army's abortion policy requires a medical waiver from the Secretary of the Army in order for women who've been deployed for a period of at least 6 months to terminate a pregnancy or seek a medical deferral. Medical exams, a background check and a request in writing from a female service member's commander are necessary for approval. - -The waiver is meant to protect the woman, and not to "fraudulently circumvent the policy," said Capt. Marissa Pazzon, a spokeswoman for the base public affairs office, adding that it's "not required, recommended nor accepted by [the] administration." - -The policy's "exceptions exist for situations of life endangerment, where a woman has to be hospitalized to receive care, and where the unborn child may be a danger to her or others or where a pregnancy poses an unacceptable health risk." - -Women who seek a medical deferral are only permitted to get one of three abortions: a non-emergency second-trimester abortion, a surgical abortions performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy following a "medically justified and documented fetal anomaly. This exception is specifically tied to life endangerment and not abortion due to threats of domestic violence," the policy says. - -The policy also permits female enlistees to get a waiver if they "are undergoing a process for separation from service under the Uniform Code of Military Justice." - -The Defense Department will not issue a medical waiver for female service members who've been deployed at least 30 days, according to Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis. - -"There are many factors that go into making determinations on medical conditions and waivers... It is not uncommon... [for] an application to come in," he said Thursday. - -The Defense Department does not keep statistics on how many women receive waivers or whether the Army is the only branch that allows them. - -ABC News learned of the policy and the specific requirements after multiple women shared their stories with the Military Times. - -One woman said she became pregnant after she got married, and that she had a difficult time getting a waiver or seeing a doctor. - -"I tried a few times, but there was nothing I could do," said the woman, who asked ABC News to remain anonymous. - -When she began training for a deployment in November 2016, she had difficulty passing routine physicals. She said she called her unit's medical office for a waiver. - -"I remember the lady on the phone looked at me incredulously and said 'are you stupid?'" she said. - -She never received a waiver. Another woman told the Military Times she was forced to take pregnancy tests during a deployment. - -"When I did, I had to get my blood work done for me and sign an agreement saying, 'I understand that I will not discuss my condition with anyone, nor will I show them any of my medical material,'" she said. - -She was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which has symptoms that include weight gain, acne and irregular periods. A medical team, including a gynecologist, diagnosed polycystic ovarian syndrome, the woman said. - -In a report that she signed during a medical test, the woman noted her doctor had recommended terminating her pregnancy. - -"He was very upset about this pregnancy that was very close to the delivery date," the woman said. "He said it would be best for me to try to manage this and help the pregnancy naturally, as much as possible." - -A third woman said she was not able to get a medical medical deferral for her deployment to Germany. She had a "lapse in her medication," and had developed "a really bad infection after the soldier we were going to be serving with in Germany got sick" and died, she said. - -"I really had to fight for the waiver," the woman said. "I got a waiver for two months out of six months. I got a medical deferral and it was very difficult. I was in constant stress that it wasn't possible, but I was able to fight for it." - -Despite her efforts, her pregnancy was still terminated. She received her discharge because "it didn't work out," she said. - -The Army policy also requires women to sign a document acknowledging their pregnancy while deployed. - -A woman told the Military Times she'd had three abortions during her military service — each while deployed in a different state. - -"I was really upset that my doctor couldn't do anything because we were in a different state and if he would've done something I would've been discharged. I felt really like I was a criminal," she said. - -After her first abortion, she " -======================================== SAMPLE 433 ======================================== -As with many great stories, a number of them have been told by multiple artists: the great artist Thomas Kinkade, the great artist Ralph Steadman, perhaps even Thomas Doherty and John Harker, if I recall correctly. Today's blog post will try to combine the best of these works into one great video game…or rather, a video game that combines the best of them. - -For the game, we wanted to create a story that's accessible to all and one that's entertaining and engaging to most. While it will be a long time until we can see this game in person, and not all aspects will be polished enough until release, there's a lot in place already. - -Story - -The narrative of The Curse of Monkey Island is based around a group of misfit pirates that fall in love. After a couple years of wandering around the world in their small boat, the three main characters get a ship at the same port. The four of them have their lives become more exciting, each with their unique skills and personalities. As the years go by, many different parts of the story appear. The tale of their relationship, their adventure and ultimately their downfall also play a part in the story, providing more context for what's going on. - -We first met the protagonists of the story after they had already taken off their masks, as they would return as pirates on countless occasions until they were eventually banished. They would become the faces of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, and their adventures were a joy to watch. The narrative was often a fantastic mix of comedy, comedy, adventure and action. The humor often came on the backs of a great cast of voice actors, some of whom, such as Tim Curry, have since gone, and some of whom, such as Kevin Conroy, still to this day can be found in movies or video games. - -However, with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, the series had come off of it's peak status, and people wanted its characters back. We'd had a good bit of talk with some of the writers from the game on what they wanted to do with the characters, and the characters we wanted to see. It seemed all was well, the team was excited with it's development and then we got the bad news that it was over. - -The Curse of Monkey Island features the main characters as a group of misfits trying to escape the evil Monkey King's forces. It is set in 1769 in the Bahamas in the New World, and the main cast (and the game) are set in the village of the Lost Boys. A lot is going on here with this plot line, and each chapter of the tale is divided into acts, such that the story unfolds in sequence. As we start to see more of the story unfold, these acts will become more and more intertwined as the tale unfolds. - -The Curse of Monkey Island is a world with an overworld, which serves no purpose other than navigation for the game for the most part. While the overworld is useful, there's a lot of exploration and mystery that can be seen through it. The story takes place on two island (at least for the short times they're on screen), which the main characters travel to and back from quite often. When they arrive, the main character's friends, or their friends of the opposite gender, often ask if they should take off their masks for the day. - -There is a great sense of fun inherent in having your friends do this with you. You know you're going to get an awesome reaction when you see it, because you never know if those good willed people in your life can relate. One of your friends can have been the victim of a mugger and someone whose house is currently on fire can call you to tell you that her dog's dead. - -The adventure is set in the past and the present of every act. Each act is played out in three different time periods, though they are very likely only seen in the past. Each time period is more of a world in itself as the action takes place on it's own island, and the main characters are seen interacting with it for the first time: the time travel is actually quite subtle at this point. The island has its own set of unique puzzles and puzzles that will challenge you in different ways. - -For example, there is a small, yet challenging room that requires a puzzle involving the use of a number to remove a rock, from which comes a small piece of wood. Once placed, a number appears and must be added to the puzzle. There's a simple logic problem that requires someone to place a number into a box before it is taken out, but it also requires you to look through a small hole. It's a puzzle that requires a slight adjustment of logic, but it also requires your thinking and your puzzle solving skills. This puzzle was definitely not for the faint of heart. We really wanted to create a sense of humor and a challenge, which is something we -======================================== SAMPLE 434 ======================================== -Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says a new report from his government and another from an external agency shows the NDP government "lied" when it said the controversial carbon tax would create up to 30,000 jobs before the 2017 election. CBC's Sarah Ritchie reported this morning that the provincial government expects a similar number of jobs from the new carbon levy on all carbon emissions, including industrial polluters. - -The NDP ran on a platform that promised to get 300,000 people jobs under tax increases and reduced corporate taxes, but Wall said those numbers were a "misleading" lie, Ritchie reported. - -Wall said Thursday's report — from Environment Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency — confirms what his government has said all along, that the carbon levy would lead to at least 30,000 new jobs. - -Environment Canada projected the government could lose up to 50,000 jobs, due to the closure of some existing businesses, such as the Regina Freight Corridor. Ritchie reported that Environment Canada also estimated the province's direct GDP would decrease by up to $1.8 billion between 2017 and 2020. - -Wall said he wasn't at liberty to discuss details of the study with Ritchie until he was informed the report had been released. - -However, it appears the report was not produced to help the NDP sell its legislation, but to inform the legislature and public. Opposition parties have accused the government during question period of not presenting reliable numbers on job creation. NDP leader Cam Broten has claimed the government has released only one-third of the information it needs to defend its carbon tax. - -Wall said he was told by the report that he would need the government "to provide a better picture of the net job impacts of the carbon tax than it has provided up to now." - -In an emailed statement, Wall acknowledged the report was not produced to help sell the carbon tax, but to inform the legislature and the Saskatchewan public of the job impacts. - -"I understand that the findings in the report were developed in light of the current uncertainties surrounding the future costs and impacts as outlined in the government's pre-budget consultation paper. We will work to ensure that information on job impacts is presented in a more transparent and transparent manner in the weeks ahead," the statement read. - -During a question period session today, Broten acknowledged, "The estimates were not accurate." But he asked for input to support his claim that the government only has one-third of the information it needs to defend the carbon tax. - -"We don't know yet the number of people that will be employed or lost in the industry," Broten said. - -Asked to comment about the report, a government spokesperson said no additional estimates will be presented.<|endoftext|>A group of men with their faces painted black and wielding clubs have taken to the streets of Mexico City, setting the city's streets aflame. - -The rioting began at the end of last month as protesters tried to block an access point to Tlatelolco, the site of a controversial new highway. - -Local television footage showed rioters carrying hammers, baseball bats and bricks through the streets, and at least one person was seen being pelted with rocks. - -According to Mexico's Public Security Secretariat, the rioting reportedly began after "unidentified individuals" threw a petrol bomb at a police van. - -"I would like to clarify that there was not a single attack against private property," the Secretariat claimed. - -"Violence was not unleashed in the Tlatelolco area." - -Local police are said to have detained a number of protesters, and reportedly opened fire at one "man in a mask," resulting in the injury of one bystander. - -Violence has reportedly spread to other parts of Mexico City since the uprising. Reports say police have been fired upon, their equipment damaged or taken during the unrest. - -The government's response has reportedly been to call an "emergency" national federal security meeting, and ask the military to assist.<|endoftext|>The number of children killed or injured by gunfire in New York City declined sharply in 2016 as shootings remained well below the peaks they experienced in previous years, an analysis of police records shows. The Police Department recorded 32 such fatalities in 2016, compared with 42 such deaths in 2015 and 43 in 2014, the last full year for which city-related statistics are available.<|endoftext|>(Photo: Misha Kaul/Reuters) A man walks past a bank sign with a poster reading 'In the name of God, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate' in Tehran, Iran, October 13, 2016. REUTERS/Misha Kaul - -Tehran's police force had warned of trouble on Sunday before protesters attacked police officers in a city park. - -The demonstration, reported by local news outlets, was the latest in a series of recent protests in Iran. Protesters have accused the government of neglect, corruption and other alleged misappropriations, accusing the country's clerics and powerful clerical institutions of oppressing -======================================== SAMPLE 435 ======================================== -What's that? You don't have all day to play with your new Raspberry Pi? Don't worry, it will be there in 15 minutes! You can see more about what Pi does on our website. - -But that's not all! If you like playing with computers too, you should also check out this excellent guide on how to use a Raspberry Pi as a wireless access point. It shows you how to connect wireless displays to the Pi for a fully wireless experience, while using the Pi's USB Ethernet to deliver a wireless Internet connection to your local device. It also takes some of the guesswork out of setting up WiFi, since you are pretty much set up all the way from scratch when you are done. - -How to build your own wireless Raspberry Pi display - -I first learned about this technique from Matt Harvey's guide, and it makes a lot of sense. It makes it much simpler to use the Pi as your wireless display. Just keep in mind that the power source is a battery of some kind, so you'll need to set up a powered USB hub with a 5V hub, and 2A power supply. - -This guide will take you step by step through setting up your Pi as a wireless display - -This is really exciting to anyone who wants to use their Pi as a wireless display. Just one small box of components can change the way you use your Pi's GPIO pins when you use it as a monitor. This is a great way to get more out of your Pi, and it will come in handy for lots of other projects like Pi Towers, 3D Printers, etc. It's something that I'll be exploring. - -If you'd like to build this to do something specific instead, you can download the code and instructions from Github on this page. It's open-source, as far as I'm aware of. You'll also use the Pi-Bot, as I said earlier, which is an awesome project to use it as a wireless display with.<|endoftext|>The most important job in America is at the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is a monthly index of prices. On a monthly basis, the CPI is calculated by dividing the prices of many commodities (i.e., food, clothing, fuel, etc. and many other items) by the number of people in the U.S. The number of people is determined by the U.S. Census Bureau. - -The U.S. national average CPI is compiled from the CPI for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories and Puerto Rico, and includes the average cost of a typical basket of foods and services. (For a description of the cost of a typical basket of goods and services, see "Buying the "average American" – the U.S. average cost of consumer goods and services," by S. Daniel Carter, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.) - -According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national average monthly CPI increased 0.2 percent in November from the same month a year ago and was up 0.9 percent from October. On a year-over-year basis, the national CPI increased 1 percent in November and was unchanged in October. At the national level, overall consumer spending remained at a moderate pace in November, rising 0.5 percent from the year-ago level and 0.3 percent from October. Growth was stronger for major spending groups. - -The core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 1.9 percent in November from the same month last year and was the highest reading on record. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index for personal consumption expenditures grew 3.5 percent in November from the same month last year to its highest level since May 2008. The PCE increased 3.1 percent in October and was unchanged from a year earlier. The CPI for prices other than food and energy grew 2.1 percent in November from the previous month. These indices are based on a sample of prices paid by individuals, firms, and farm organizations. - -The CPI for all urban consumers rose 2.9 percent in November from the same month last year, exceeding the 2.3 percent rate of increase observed in October, though not as far behind as October. The overall consumer price index increased 3.1 percent in November from the same month last year. The CPI for all urban consumers was up 4.2 percent from a year earlier, and the retail industry index for personal consumption expenditures increased 7.3 percent from a year earlier. - -Consumer prices were 2 percent higher in November 2010 than in the same month of 2009. The year-over-year increase in the consumer price index came after two years of declining CPI levels. The year-over-year decrease in inflation was 3.2 percent in November from the same month in 2009. - -During 2007, 2008, and 2009, the CPI reached its historical high levels of 4 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. On an annual basis, CPI was 3.1 -======================================== SAMPLE 436 ======================================== -(NaturalNews) We're going to need more than a little help from Mother Nature on this one. According to a new study published in the journalFood & Chemistry International, corn and soybeans contaminated by pesticide residues can be transformed into extremely potent, but non-toxic drugs, which have the ability to destroy cancer cells, protect against infections and improve the functioning of normal tissue, in just seven days, the BBC reported."These findings indicate that these two foods can be used as a model for developing novel new drugs," said study researcher Dr. Huda El-Ghobi, from the University of Chicago.The two drugs, called dithiothreitol and prochloraz, have the ability to be absorbed by the human body and cause the body's own enzymes to break them down to a chemical form that does not have the same effect. These molecules can be stored in the liver and used in an oral medicine application to inhibit the growth of various cancers, including those of the breast, prostate, pancreatic and liver, a study published in the journal, Food & Chemistry International, indicated."Dithiothreitol may also have an additional beneficial effect, which is that it can be converted to prochloraz using an enzyme, which means the body can then get rid of a toxic substance through excretion, thereby protecting normal tissues as well," said another study in the journal entitled, Advances in Food Science & Technology, that came to the same conclusion."Prochloraz is a very powerful chemical that has a powerful effect on many types of cancer cells and may help fight many types of infections, such as stomach ulcers and diarrhea," said another study published in the journal Food Research International."The study suggests that both these compounds may have a more significant potential role to add to the therapies that are already available in industry and in the clinic. We have seen that these small molecules can be made in large factories that are very efficient," said Dr. Nils E. Skjaerbaek from the department of pharmacology, University of Copenhagen.What makes this even more astonishing is that these chemicals have been known to have potential to fight cancer for over sixty years."There is currently no known therapy for cancer, and so far, there is only one drug that has been made so far that could also be transformed into a metabolite that would be useful for cancer treatment, which is indomethacin," explained Dr. Skjaerbaek.Some experts believe our growing fear and acceptance of food as a weapon against our most vital organ is leading to the next phase of the epidemic, which is where foods that contain powerful antibiotics and natural pesticides are used as weapon.While other chemicals may be used for pest control, these two, as well as the powerful herbicides and insecticides that cause them, are being pushed onto our crops in what is clearly a deliberate attempt to help the very industry that's destroying us.One major chemical compound that's now commonly found in these crops is neonicotinoid insecticides and herbicides, some of which have been banned in the UK for being a danger to our environment and food chain. However, the new study shows that "there is a trend in this direction to introduce new pesticides to food crops in countries like the United States, and this has to be called into question," said Skjaerbaek from the University of Copenhagen, one of the world's leading academic researchers in toxicology.Dr. Skjaerg said that despite this clear evidence to believe it's dangerous to be consuming foods that contain harmful compounds produced by pesticide pollution, we have been duped into buying these products and allowing them to invade our food chain. "People don't realize just how many pesticides they are consuming each and every single day," she said."If you have the right knowledge you can control your own diet to limit or remove as much pesticide contamination in your own food supply as possible, but unfortunately we don't have that now, and even more so due to the fact that we don't know what's being dumped in the food chain," she said.<|endoftext|>Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul join Chris Gardner and Jeff Conaway to play the ultimate game of "Who Let The Dogs Out?" in a game that'll put your favorite shows and movies under the microscope.<|endoftext|>You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters - -Message: * A friend wanted you to see this item from WRAL.com: http://wr.al/zf1 - -— State officials are releasing the names and ages of the 15 adults who committed suicide and were reported missing in Orange County last year. - -Investigators are also releasing statistics on how people who are missing from Orange County have been handled by law enforcement officers. - -Twenty-two people listed as missing from the county were found dead, and three others are still unaccounted for. Of those, 17 were reported missing within 30 days of their disappearance. - -Those cases include five cases in which the person was physically located within a month, while the -======================================== SAMPLE 437 ======================================== -BENGALURU: In the latest in a string of incidents of violence against Muslim women in Bengaluru, a video of a Muslim woman being molested and verbally abused by a BJP worker has gone viral on social media. The video has gone viral on social media where the woman is seen sobbing silently while the BJP worker is seen berating her for raising a 'false complaint' and telling her that 'Muslims should clean the streets'.This is not the first time that a BJP leader has abused a female BJP worker on social media. In June, a BJP worker had harassed a Congress worker on Facebook, using insulting comments directed at her based on her gender. In July, the BJP worker had uploaded a video where he was holding a copy of the Hindu Dharma Sangam (Hindu scripture) with slogans of 'Garibi Hatao, Garibi Hatao' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' written on it and threatened women using derogatory words.<|endoftext|>Image copyright AFP Image caption The Chinese city's first high-speed train passed a major milestone last month - -Beijing has announced a plan to build its first high-speed rail line, expected to take three decades to complete. - -"The construction will see the highest level of speed in the world," Beijing Railway spokesman Chen Long said at a meeting on Wednesday. - -He said that after the line to Zhejiang province was completed, Chinese authorities would turn to Beijing West Railway to build the second. - -Beijing is currently building a line to Chengdu, about 200km (125 miles) from Shanghai. - -The news comes amid growing anger in the Chinese world that Beijing is moving too slowly. - -On 1 July, thousands of people braved rain to protest in Tiananmen Square against the central government's perceived slow response to a series of smog-related incidents in the city. - -According to China's ministry of environmental protection, air pollution there has reached the highest level in three decades. - -China has spent billions on new and upgraded roads and rail lines over the last decade. - -Image copyright AFP Image caption Construction of the Shanghai-Beijing railway is set to be completed in 2017 - -Its rapid urban growth has produced hundreds of millions of cars and vehicles. But the country is still choking on pollution from its car-dominated economy. - -Officials have argued they are moving too slowly to reduce their reliance on China's ageing factories and factories that produce relatively dirty vehicles. - -Last week a former official from the state-controlled China Railway Corporation, which built the first railway line between Beijing and Shanghai, claimed he was kicked out of the organisation for questioning the authorities' lack of commitment to reducing traffic.<|endoftext|>Funny and awkward moments from Wednesday's Republican presidential debate are hitting Facebook, Twitter and, at last count, Twitter is breaking record after record. - -"My tweet went all over Twitter," tweeted the candidate himself. "What I said went everywhere." - -Funny and awkward moments from Wednesday's Republican presidential debate are hitting Facebook, Twitter and, at last count, Twitter is breaking record after record. - -Some of those moments included some truly embarrassing moments for the candidates, others just included some hilarious and, at least when it comes to Trump, cringe-inducing moments. - -But what they had in store for the American public on Wednesday, according to the campaign: A big audience and a lot of laughs. Here are just a few of the Twitter-able moments we learned about tonight ... - -When the "Trump" in "Trump-Ryan" is "tense." - -The first moment we heard about the vice presidential debate came when Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Mike Pence took offense at what he thought was a disrespectful and un-American suggestion that Ryan wants to privatize Medicare. - -"My colleague from Wisconsin stood up and called the vice president's idea 'Trumpcare — not Trumpcare,'" he said at the debate in Harrisburg. - -Trump's response? "No I didn't," he said. Pence, naturally a little embarrassed, continued in the same vein and added that Ryan and the rest of the Republican Party "don't want your Medicare!" - -Here's what Trump said about that moment during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity moments later: "I said I don't want to cut anybody's Medicare, and Mike, I hear that, okay? I heard you last night on air, and I heard it last night at the debate here in Pennsylvania ... because I had a great response." - -On what Donald Trump thinks about Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal. (AP) - -When Donald Trump said he's "running for a certain term" (and not for re-election). - -It's an important distinction to keep in mind when discussing Donald Trump. - -"I am running. I have been. I am about to be," he told CNN on Wednesday morning, and then went on to add, "I have never been a politician." - - -======================================== SAMPLE 438 ======================================== -It's not the size of the government that matters, but how big those government services are. In this episode of Business Insider's The Atlas Network, we talk to our co-host Daniel Cohan (@DanielCohan) about the importance of government regulation. Is it the government's job to make sure all that big-dollar corporate money in politics isn't a problem, or is it better left to a free, market-oriented economy? - -If you listened to an episode of The Atlas Network before this one, you'll remember Dan also discussed the importance of privacy and how that's being eroded by big-data firms. - -The new episode is available as a podcast and audio version here: - -Episode 52, "The Government Must Manage Its Own Data" - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 53, "The Government and Social Media" - -We're still in our new space at the Atlas Network, and this week we want to talk about the impact of government regulations on the social media landscape. Is it time for Americans to start taking privacy with them wherever they go? - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 54, "The Public and Its Services" - -Are you paying for your roads, water, and the internet? Are you footing the bill for your schools or the police? If so, you might be asking yourself - at least some of the time - "What's the point?" Is it possible to get value out of the way we tax, control, and allocate the public services and infrastructure that we're all a part of? - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 55, "The Value of Regulation" - -"The government cannot ensure a level playing field of competition or enforce a fair price, but it can certainly control prices, increase the quality of services, and limit the market for bad products" - economist Milton Friedman "In the absence of competitive markets, competition is at war with the consumer. And in the presence of competition, price discrimination is the natural state of affairs. In other words, the less competition there is, the better prices will be. That's one of the primary functions of government, and that's how they get prices above their free-market level" - Charles River Laboratories' CEO, Tom Dickson, PhD - -For episode 56, "The Tax and Spending Debate" - -As Republicans continue their attack on public transportation, we look at a similar theme in our next episode in this series. Are taxes the only way we can pay for roads, public transportation, and other core services? Or are we better off seeing these services funded by a simple "toll fee" to cover the cost of carrying people through the cities and towns with which they're connected? - -On the show today, we discuss the issues with author, economist, and fellow Forbes contributor Richard A. Epstein, along with business and regulatory journalist David U. Huggins, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, and author, entrepreneur, and political activist Matt Stoller. - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 57, "The Government and Tax Policy" - -In the last episode, we looked at the political and social role of taxes and public spending. In this episode, we'll look at the other side of the coin: the impact that taxes and spending have on individuals and the market economy. We'll also talk with economist David Leonhardt of the New York Times and The Upshot about his new book - The Tax and Spend Project - which focuses on the impact of tax and spending on the U.S. economy. - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 58, "The Impact of Public Transit" - -We've talked a bit about public transit on today's show, but it's important to talk about it again, because every other week it becomes an even more critical part of our lives. Transit systems make people more healthy, happier, and more productive, but transit service has also been blamed for driving people off the roads. How do we best fund our transportation system? How do we make sure the services we want to provide remain available? - -For more episodes, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher. - -For episode 59, "The Impact of the State" - -In this episode, we'll be diving into a topic that is often left out of the national discussion of government and the economy: the government's role in supporting businesses. After all, in America, a "job creator" is really just another "job loser." Is this the role it should play? As we explore this question in this episode, we'll also explore other questions we can answer about government, like what is government doing differently in the private sector, and what role it should have in addressing the pressing environmental, social, and health challenges facing our world today. - -For more episodes -======================================== SAMPLE 439 ======================================== -In one of the most spectacular performances he has ever had, Steve McQueen managed to outwit or outmaneuver not just John Wayne, but also the whole gang of silent Hollywood stars who accompanied him onto the red carpet at the premiere for his first film, The Great Escape. On September 6, 1949, on the eve of the release of his third film, The Quiet Man, McQueen managed to get Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper to fall for him at the premiere. - -The Great Escape was not only the final film released by the renowned director, director of Bullitt, and Oscar nominee, it was a surprise smash at the box office and its legacy is still felt today. Although it has now been over 50 years since the film first hit screens and McQueen has since become just another Hollywood star, he still has some of his fans who can't get enough of his talent. - -Steve McQueen always loved to perform in front of an audience. His first role in a feature film was in 1939 when he starred as a young con man in a comedy about a thief who is hired to rescue a rich lady. He was also featured in a few films during World War II, including Casablanca and The African Queen, which he also directed. His big break came in 1952 when his friend Sam Peckinpah recommended him to producer William Fox for a potential movie adaptation of the novel, The Man Without a Face, which would have starred the then young Christopher Reeves and co-starred Laurence Olivier. - -During production of The Great Escape, the main issue on the crew's mind was that McQueen had no experience in filmmaking. Peckinpah, however, knew that McQueen's ability to get through a film would make them all better actors. Fox told McQueen he would have an opportunity to star in The Great Escape. - -After The Great Escape, McQueen's movies became a bigger priority than any other. He never stopped working in movies for the rest of his life. In addition to his own movies, he also continued to perform for audiences at plays and festivals everywhere. - -While his fans may not be able to put their hands on him much anymore, Steve McQueen still has a lot of love for the films and movie stars that have come in his wake. The silent era wasn't all about glamor and acting. This era marked the beginnings of the Hollywood career of many legends like Marlene Dietrich, George Peppard, Jimmy Stewart, and Clark Gable.<|endoftext|>Mumbai: After the success of his book 'The Outsider', Ruchir Sharma is making the rounds across India to help young writers take their talent a stage beyond. - -On Sunday, while speaking in Mumbai, the author of "The Last Supper" and "The Last Temptation of Christ" gave an idea on how the community of writers can help them become "global superstars". He told the audience he sees himself as a teacher and that a writer should have a "fondness" for the community. "A lot of writers have left the community and there is no literature here," said Sharma, who has set up the Sushma Swaraj Literary Programme, that aims to ensure that young writers are given a platform. "If you are not writing, you are missing the opportunity for greatness." - -Sharma said there is a scarcity of literature in the country. "This is because most writers do not have the talent or inclination to explore new areas." However, he added that if they can write "in any language" then it will help them. "So, if I write in English, I will write in the language of our forefathers," said Sharma, who believes that writing in a language one knows is not a bad thing. "I cannot read Shakespeare in Malayalam, but I can write it," he said. - -Sharma spoke on the 'writing' theme. "Writing means doing something. No matter where you go, your writing will follow you." - -He then talked about the value of the novel. "What makes a novel good is a character, the plot, the ending, and of course, the dialogue," said the author. - -However, in a clear dig, Sharma said that as the country has become more global today, writers need to take better care of themselves. "Literary work is not only a profession, it is also a lifestyle," said Sharma. - -He added that writers should remember the value of books as well and that they are "a medium of education too". He advised new writers to create a "personal brand" by "writing in a language they speak, and writing an interesting story they feel proud of". - -He added that to encourage young writers to write, the books should inspire them. Sharma asked the audience how they feel about the quality of books being published, and said he is surprised at the difference in quality of books today compared to when he started writing. " -======================================== SAMPLE 440 ======================================== -The most important thing to remember about a game's opening minute is that time is running out. - -The goal in the fourth minute is to start the first real offense of the game. With three minutes left, the game is decided. The defense will get tired; the forwards will not. The offense will have to work extremely hard to keep up with fatigue. There will be a lot of pressure on the offense. We have so much at stake -- we can't give them a chance to play. - -I love games like this. The first half is a grind, but the second half is fun. The defense takes advantage of having the ball against the run of play. It gives the offense more time. The defense knows they have a huge advantage in this situation. The offensive players have to give a great effort. They all know that fatigue is a great weapon and how much time they have at the end of the half. - -That is the reason I love the final 15 minutes in the first quarter. You can see that all the energy and effort in the first quarter isn't getting them far enough. In the final 15 minutes, the defense makes a lot of tackles. The offense is finding open receivers. They don't take shots anymore. They don't put the clock down on the ball. They don't score two points on some meaningless field goal attempt. They play hard and play smart, and the game comes back their way. - -In the past 20 years, there have been great defenses that have struggled to generate any offense. But the offenses have always gotten it done in the final 15 minutes of the game. - -In 1985, the Miami Dolphins went to the Super Bowl having allowed 11.5 points to their opponents in the final 15 minutes. In 1988, the San Francisco 49ers made it to another Super Bowl after allowing 13.5 points in the final quarter. In 1987, the Washington Redskins went to the Super Bowl with 17.5 points allowed in the final 15 minutes. In both of those instances, the teams' coaches and players had an idea about how they could make the final minutes more productive. The Niners' coordinator at the time, Jim Mora, went ahead and tried it. - -In 1988, the Denver Broncos' defense, which was the best in the league, gave up nine points in the final minute, with all three points coming on a two-point conversion attempt. They were down four points with 10 minutes to go in the game. The offense, running well down the stretch, went for it on fourth down with 14 seconds left and failed. - -Mora was so confident that he tried it three times. - -If you're a head-coaching candidate today thinking about running something similar, you are smart as a whip. That is why it is so important that your defense and offense come in the same mindset and have the same mindset. - -This is not about changing an offense you don't like or make a trade-off you don't want to make. This is about putting together the entire team, from the quarterback on down, that will give you an opportunity to win the game. Make some adjustments. Be realistic. If it is in the end the right call, then do it! Run the ball and be aggressive, but do not be afraid to run if you have an opportunity to make a play down the stretch. If not, there are two ways to put together a winning team: You can put together one of those teams that give up 10 or so points in the final minute and play conservatively, or you can win on defense.<|endoftext|>In the latest example of how the public is being manipulated by the elite, the UK's most prestigious award-winning TV show has used its annual gala event to launch a program called 'Paedophiles and Perverts' in order to censor the real story. - -Channel 4's flagship Today programme – used by most of the world's media outlets for its top stories each day – did its part in this latest media manipulation and hyped the show with a press release from its marketing and communications department on Tuesday. - -The statement was headlined "Paedophiles and Perverted People: the truth about the truth of Paedophiles". It was a blatant attempt to downplay the real extent of sexual abuse and grooming of children by paedophiles in the U.K. – and the real perpetrators of the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children. - -The programme, titled Paedophiles and Pervert Relationships, used footage from the award-winning documentary Childline, to show the dangers to young people as perpetrators groom and abuse children. The new reality for young people is that they can receive advice on how to protect themselves from predators, which is a step in the right direction. But despite this, the program was still unable to give the real truth because child protection agencies refuse to recognise that there are victims that can be spoken about, particularly as there was not enough time for the guests to properly -======================================== SAMPLE 441 ======================================== -The new home for Visual Studio documentation is Visual Studio 2017 Documentation on docs.microsoft.com. - -The latest version of this topic can be found at Initialize Windows, Part 2. - -Initialization of the Windows Installer package is important for any computer whose system is to be installed, or for which an existing configuration has already been successfully established. If Windows Installer has not been installed, the system will not boot successfully, the installation files will be invalidated, or Windows Installer errors will be encountered during system installation. - -To initialize Windows Installer, complete these procedures, which are documented in the following sections. - -To initialize Windows Installer<|endoftext|>The "S.N.L." star's stand-up tour was shut down in October, and now she's being sued by her former bodyguard. - -It was a bad week for Louis C.K., but it's been one that he didn't want. A report Sunday in the New York Times about the comedian, who's in the midst of a stand-up tour to support the premiere of his Netflix special, revealed that he had been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women in the past, including a woman who had a sexual encounter with him at a television writers dinner. The allegations came after The Times published an investigation into his behavior over the past three decades, including several incidents that involved women at work, and he apologized for the behavior. In a statement posted online, C.K. announced the cancellation of his tour, and he promised to speak out against harassment in the workplace. (C.K.'s statement also was posted on the website of another comedian, Hannibal Buress, who spoke out against harassment earlier in the week.) - -Now he's being sued for allegedly violating a confidentiality agreement he signed in 2013. According to the Daily Beast, attorney Jeffrey Herman filed a lawsuit on behalf of another comedian, Dana Min Goodman (which is being represented by Gloria Allred). In it, he alleges that C.K. did not disclose that he had paid himself as a producer of HBO's "Behind the Candelabra," which came after his stand-up show, "Horace and Pete." Herman also says C.K. "threatened his clients" and made "unwanted sexual advances" to many of them, including two whom he paid $3 million to appear in his film "I Love You, Daddy" (which C.K. denied making). (In 2013, C.K. told the Times that he and his wife, Dana, parted ways with the producer after two years of marriage, after he said he discovered an affair with a woman who was working on "Behind the Candelabra.") - -Herman says there were "two agreements that Mr. Louis C.K. violated. The first was a confidentiality agreement." He alleges that C.K. provided a false and misleading description of "Underage Girls" in the film to prevent Goodman from disclosing it to female cast and crew members. - -C.K's representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>Bikepacking is a way to get away from the hustle, bustle and traffic of city living and enjoy the natural beauty of the Rockies. You'll visit one of the first national parks in the US to explore old-growth forests, wild rivers and lakes, and wildlife. - -Our website will guide you on how to bikepack on a budget. Learn about bikes and bikepacking from experienced riders. Get the latest info and updates on how to bikepack. You will also learn about safety, planning and equipment. - -As a guest on this website, we'll learn about biking, bikepacking for beginners, campground camping and more. Stay tuned to the site and subscribe to stay up-to-date with the latest on how to bikepack.<|endoftext|>If you're looking for a cool project to build with your Arduino, there's no shortage of options! If you're looking for one of the newer or better-known options (because, what's not to like about Raspberry Pi?) then perhaps this is the project for you! - -A new board called the PiTFT is launching tomorrow. This board provides you with the necessary input/output pins for controlling your TV or your stereo system, and the microcontroller is programmed with Javascript in all of the standard tools we're used to developing with and using in the Arduino community. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to set up your PiTFT and build a simple project inspired by the famous Star Trek episode, "Darmok", that shows how to program a GPIO device via Javascript. - -Hardware and Connections - -Let's begin the process by opening up our chosen IDE of choice (e.g. "EmulatorGadgets" or "Arduino IDE") and grabbing the PiTFT board (it is now just an empty board with the appropriate solder pads on it). Next, we'll need to power up our Pi -======================================== SAMPLE 442 ======================================== -I was recently doing some reading on the different types of solar panels for home solar power and noticed that they come in several variations. - -The first is what I call a Class I PV panel. This is the simplest type, which is good for small solar installations. The next is a Class II PV panel, meaning that it features larger cells and can produce more electricity. A Class III PV panel is the ultimate goal, with a large (2M+) cells and the ability to produce enough power for even the most efficient solar installations. All of these variations of class can be done on a single module. - -Class II panels are easier to make, but it's not as cheap and easy to do a class III panel. - -So how do you make a Class I panel? - -In this article I'm going to show you how to make a Class I class II solar panel. This is a low power, high efficiency, single module, solar panel that you can use to charge your phone while also producing electricity for your home and your electric grid. - -The Module - -The first thing you need to do is to decide on the module size and your desired power output. You will see pictures of these options from multiple suppliers below, but there are 4 basic sizes to choose from; 1kW, 2kW, 3kW, and 4kW. The size of the module is a critical parameter for its production efficiency. It's important because large modules will require a lot of engineering effort to increase their efficiency. - -Size of Module - -1kW: The size of my Module - -2kW: The size my module is in - -3kW: The size my Module is in - -4kW: The size my Module is in - -When choosing a solar panel to use for your solar generation home system, keep this in mind. The smaller the module size the larger the solar panels they will need to be to generate enough power to charge a smartphone or battery. - -If you're using a Class I module, I can recommend SolarEdge – they are the makers of the popular SunEdison modules. SolarEdge uses a proprietary technique to increase their efficiency. They have found a combination of heat transfer and air flow to increase their output and lower their costs for solar modules. You can't really go wrong with SolarEdge and they are a popular choice for many homeowners. The main problem is the installation. - -Installation of Class I Solar Panels - -If you are using a 2kW module for your home solar power project, you will need to install additional wiring and install multiple solar panels in your home. - -The Installation is not as hard as it looks and will take you around 30% longer than a regular install. However, it is cheaper to do than a regular panel installation. I will show you a video of our installation process below. - -Using Class I panels, and installing on the roof or in your garage, the system can have a large solar panel array to generate electricity from sunny windows. - -The Problem with Class II and Class III Solar Panels - -Class II and Class III solar power systems will have higher panel efficiencies because of the larger sizes. However, these modules are more expensive – around $3 per watt. They can also be quite a bit heavier than Class 1, 3, and 4 modules. These modules aren't cheap, but you can always make them less expensive if need to. - -I chose a Class IV PV or PVP module to make my home solar power systems, but I don't recommend you choose an even bigger module if you're using 2kW or less. The cost of a class IV module could be a lot higher than 2kW if the manufacturer can keep the cost down. - -I will show you several different way to install single class I and II solar panels. They all have pros and cons. I'll show you a quick way to install class I and class 2 solar panels on a single roof and also show you how to install class 3 solar panels with a 2kW panel. - -These panels are smaller than the 3kW class I panels, but their efficiency is higher. As mentioned, it's also a lot heavier than Class 1 panels. If you're doing a lot more than solar panels, this is the type of system you will want to have. - -These solar modules are a great choice for your utility, your mobile home, or any type of small home. They also are very easy to install and use. It's like an easy to install energy backup in the garage. - -I'll also give you the option to install your solar system without adding any additional wiring to the home or garage. I'll also have you install the panels yourself, or just let me do it for you. - -How to make a Class I and II Solar Panel - -First things first if you are doing the home solar installation without adding any additional wired wiring, you can make -======================================== SAMPLE 443 ======================================== -The first step of the new series of "Unleashed" was a discussion about the role of women in the game industry. Today, I am discussing another topic: the impact of feminist gamers on game culture. - -The first step of the new series of "Unleashed" was a discussion about the role of women in the game industry. Today, I am discussing another topic: the impact of feminist gamers on game culture. This issue touches a lot of different aspects of game culture; not the least because the gaming community is composed of a whole bunch of different people, from many different backgrounds, with different social and economic statuses. - -On Twitter the first conversation of the topic started with an inquiry by a feminist, Kate Edwards, on the prevalence of sexism in the gaming community: - -There should also be an ongoing discussion regarding the presence (or lack thereof) of a diverse enough group of women in the gaming community. If they could come up with some kind of statistics that should be collected and published so that we can discuss them, that would be useful. - -I immediately went, I don't know, to look at some numbers, but I quickly learned of a major flaw in Edwards' method. When you have a set of numbers it's easy to try to extrapolate those numbers to the entire culture, assuming that every member of the entire culture shares the same values. It's very easy to forget that people come from different places in their lives and that their situation may not have the same characteristics as yours. As someone who grew up with both an only child and a divorced parent, this is really important to know. - -But that was not the end of Edwards' inquiries. Edwards then took this a little further, asking in another thread about the "toxic masculinity of the game industry". I started by offering all kinds of different ways that toxic masculinity could manifest in the gamer culture: - -I'm all for having a lot of discussions about this. But it can get quite exhausting when a woman in particular says that all men are like that. I mean, this is a conversation I was having with a friend of mine (about all men in the world!) and she said "You know, I'm so sick of this 'all men are toxic' stuff!". I thought it was pretty typical of her—she likes to use terms like 'all people' and 'all men' and I tried to get her to really think about what she was trying to say. She's also one of the few people I know that is not into gaming and that seems weird to me. I'm thinking about the differences between gaming culture and, like, a bunch of other interests where some people are 'all' into gaming and some are not. I'm not saying any of that to sound like I'm trying to be some sort of misogynist… But I am saying that people who are 'all' into gaming don't automatically fit the general definition of toxic. It's just like, I know a lot of gay people or ethnic minority people that are into sports (or movies or anything else) and the same could be said for gay or black or latino people who are into music. There's a difference between being into them all and then being totally toxic. - -The problem is that I was speaking to my friend not the general public and Edwards wasn't paying attention to anything outside of my friend's world. She didn't take into account what people might be going through or what other games they might enjoy. She wasn't thinking critically about a society that she did not have much experience in and didn't truly understand what being a gamer was all about. - -And now comes the big point: Edwards is not talking about everyone who plays games as a whole. I would love to have this wonderful discussion about the presence or absence of women in games as a whole (which is very difficult to do) but instead I get to waste my time answering someone who has clearly only a very small amount of experience in the gaming community, not to mention being extremely confused about the nature of toxic masculinity. - -This is why I want to focus on what Edwards did say when I asked about the impact of gamer culture on feminism: - -I feel like it's kind of an important thing for people to know that not all gamers are like that; I know there are some really amazing gamers out there and I'm a big fan of indie games, but there are some really toxic people out there as well (I don't really want to say which ones because I don't want to harass any of them in real life). If we would be talking about people who make games and why, we would focus a lot more on women in indie games when they're in games instead of the people who aren't even playing games enough to vote on games (or, honestly, the people who want to start games in the first place but don't have the skills and education to do so). - -I disagree strongly with the suggestion that we should focus on game -======================================== SAMPLE 444 ======================================== -A A - -The Oregon Senate Education Committee on Wednesday approved Gov. Kate Brown's proposal to spend $7.7 million annually to provide college scholarships to children of incarcerated men and women. The committee's action followed a hearing in the early morning hours. - -The proposal, which is likely to face a House floor vote by the end of the year, is sponsored by Sen. Jim Beall, D-Salem, and Sen. Jeanie Forrester, D-Portland. In a joint news release, Brown and Forrester called the measure to promote education for young people "an important step forward in the restoration of education to kids and adults who have been imprisoned after their release." - -The money would come from a $9,200,000 grant the Oregon state Legislature created in 2014 for the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Board. - -As with many of Brown's education proposals, the timing could not be better for supporters. The House's 2014-15 spending plan approved in June includes $25 million of that grant for the Oregon Opportunity Grant, the state's version of Title I funding; the governor's budget proposal to be approved on Thursday will likely include $2.8 million of it plus extra money from the Legislature. - -Oregon's Opportunity Grants are intended to provide low-income kids with a college education, though many other states use them for funding elementary education. The grant is for a maximum of $19,000, though students with incomes below that amount can apply for grants as low as $7,200. Some of the money is spent on tutoring, college counseling and other educational resources. The state has spent $1.2 billion since 2002 on the program. - -In testimony before the Legislature's special committee on juvenile justice, former University of Washington Chancellor James R. Fowler was critical of the Opportunity Grant program, saying it often focuses on a limited range of potential uses, and does not provide enough help to students who come from families with little education. "For decades now, the program as it stands has been designed for families that have incomes below $35,000," Fowler said, speaking to one program intended to provide college scholarships to students from low-income homes. - -Many students who participate in Opportunity Grants come from families with serious criminal histories. More than 70 percent of Opportunity Grant applicants in 2012 were students of color, compared to just about half of students in all of the other programs, according to the governor's Office of Planning and Budget. - -During the committee hearing, several opponents of the measure spoke, mostly against the idea of subsidizing college education for high-risk offenders, saying it would be too expensive and the state budget would suffer if funds were diverted to higher-needs students. - -Forrester, who said she had been working to make college accessible to low-income students for years, agreed with those points and took aim at the program's focus on helping kids who can't afford college even if they qualify. "A lot of these grant programs, you start by saying you're going to help these kids but the money you give to them is not going to enable them to go to college," Forrester said. Her proposal would pay for tuition and other costs and allow eligible students to receive aid for college even if they already have some post-graduation education or training. - -Supporters have also argued the grants are an effective way to promote educational achievement among at-risk youth. Forrester said her proposal will make it easier for people to get help from local colleges to pay for college, which could otherwise remain expensive for many students. - -Sen. Rod Monroe, D-Klamath Falls, who voted in favor of the plan at Tuesday's hearing, said the Senate could eventually vote on it as an amendment to the state budget, likely in February. - -In the meantime, he said, it is important to take care of students already in our community because they don't have a voice in the Legislature. - -The bill is SB 959.<|endoftext|>"We all want to keep kids safe. Parents, teachers, and administrators at our schools want to do everything they can to make sure their children know they're being heard," said Toms River Police Capt. George Larkin. - - -It is the second time in two years a local police department has teamed up with the Toms River Police Department and the NJSPCC Family Violence Prevention Program to fight crime. The first partnership was two years ago when the Toms River Police Department partnered with the Camden County Sheriff's Office Crime Bureau and New Jersey State Police. - - -"When it comes to fighting violent crime, we need everyone out there with a gun to make sure they're safe," said Lt. Mike Cifuentes of the Toms River Police Department. "We want a partnership with our state representatives so they can help us keep people safe and protect our youth." - - -Both Lt. Cifuentes and Capt. Larkin said it's not uncommon to see parents and kids -======================================== SAMPLE 445 ======================================== -After more than a decade of trying to develop a universal vaccine, federal officials say they have developed a candidate with potential, making the first step toward creating the vaccine from which a preventative vaccine could be delivered on schedule and at relatively little cost to every child in the United States.The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the results of its Phase 3 trial at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on June 22. If researchers approve a candidate for large-scale testing, they'll use the candidate -- called GSK's tetanus and diphtheria (Td) vaccine -- to make vaccine as an effective, safe and efficacious prevention tool for infants and children who are too young to receive the MMR vaccine for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). If approved, the vaccine would be given via the recommended series of doses, four months apart, starting at 2 months of age.In a paper published on Monday, NIH Director Francis Collins said he's confident in the vaccine's safety, effectiveness and likely route to licensure as part of the U.S. childhood vaccination strategy under the new policy, known as the Childhood Vaccine Injury Prevention Act of 2008.He said, "This study supports the decision that we made over a decade ago to invest in, and test, the first universal immunization against Td. We believe this is now a very strong candidate."Researchers looked at nearly 200,000 vaccinated children and found that a tetanus-diphtheria vaccine containing tetanus toxoid and a single dose of diphtheria toxoid were able to effectively protect them from the disease. The researchers reported no unexpected side effects associated with the vaccine, none of which could exceed five days of mild fever or any serious complications that could cause life-long paralysis or disfigurement. The vaccine was administered to infants at 2.6 months, 3 months, 4 months and 5 months.The vaccine produced the exact amount of antibody in the blood required to protect against diphtheria. The researchers reported that it could prevent 95 percent of diphtheria hospitalizations among 1,924 pre-adolescent children. The vaccine is expected to be licensed for immunization in 2010.To make it effective in children, the vaccine contains small amounts of tetanus and diphtheria toxins from the mother, which are delivered using an adenovirus that infects the mother, who passes it to the fetus through the placenta before delivery. The researchers reported that a combination of six vaccines produced the level of tetanus and diphtheria antibodies needed to provide protection.The government's new policy requires all infants, children aged 6 months or older and infants and children with immunocompromising diseases to receive at least one dose of the Td vaccine by the age of 12 months. That's the same schedule of vaccinations recommended for children who already received the MMR vaccine in school.In addition, the policy requires all infants, children aged 6 to 17, pregnant women and adolescents who have any history of autoimmune, congenital, neurodevelopmental or other chronic health conditions that could interfere with the immune response to the Td vaccine to receive at least two doses in any one year through ages 20 to 24, as well as two doses of the additional Td component later in life.The NIH has three years to submit the data needed for FDA licensure.Collins said he expects to see the new vaccine on the market within five years. He believes that the vaccine will be available for the cost of a third round of MMR vaccine, which is currently $21.50.<|endoftext|>A new report by the Pew Research Center reveals America's political divide, and what that means for the next president. - -A new report from the Pew Research Center reveals America's political divide, and what that means for the next president. As Pew explains, the 2016 presidential election is shaping up to be a "deeply partisan conflict over where the nation stands in the broader arc of American history" that has brought Republican Donald Trump into an increasingly heated, and increasingly personal battle that will decide which party holds the Oval Office. - - -Pew found that the nation is more divided along partisan lines than at any point in 25 years. Only 27 percent of the public describes itself as "moderate." That's a stunning 20 points lower than when Pew last did an analysis in 2004. When it comes to their policy preferences, meanwhile, the public has broken deeply into two groups. The GOP is getting much more extreme, Pew found, while the Democratic party is becoming more center-left. - -In addition to these stark divisions, Pew found that the ideological divide that has become the hallmark of modern politics is much more pronounced, and more pronounced along political lines than it used be. - -Overall, the new divide is more about the partisan makeup of the nation's political parties than it is about any particular ideology. But it does seem that the Republican Party has become more ideologically extreme in the past decade -======================================== SAMPLE 446 ======================================== -You are not logged in to your account. Registration is FREE, and 100% secure - -If you don't have an account yet, create one now. Sign Up - -Login - -Create Your Account<|endoftext|>Welcome to My Fuzzy Wuzzy - -This is a collection of Fuzzy Wuzzy samples I used to make the first version of my album, which I released in August 2013. - -Samples are available for free and licensed under a Creative Commons licence. - -The album itself is under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. - -If you'd like to contribute a new Fuzzy Wuzzy sample, or improve existing ones, please send me a pull request. I'd love to see what you've got!<|endoftext|>New York's finest, the New York Times, recently ran a piece in their Sunday Review of Books on our National Park Service, and their comments are worth quoting whole: - -"America is now home to a growing legion of citizens who have made pilgrimages to some of New York's most extraordinary works like the Empire State Building, the Great Wall of China, the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, the Central Park Zoo, the New York Public Library, Central Park, The New York Public Library, Broadway shows, and the Brooklyn Museum. These are the city's hidden treasures, and their visitors are not just a public-relations boon for the city. They are paying for the upkeep of these places with taxes that are more than 10 times the average annual local income in New York City….The visitor to Manhattan can now get a glimpse not just of the tallest building in the Eastern Hemisphere, but also the most spectacular building in the United States. In the end, all those billions of dollars of public dollars have made the public feel a bit closer to the things that they cherish and value and share their lives with." - -(New York Times) - -I read a lot of the same stuff here. I read the book The Great Wall of China in college, as one of my senior projects. I read that it will take at least $50 billion and a total of 15 years, or 20 years for a permanent wall — to complete the restoration. So…I guess I'm pretty okay with the financial burden. But what I'm not okay with is the idea that these places are private property. I'm not happy that they are owned by us mere mortals, that we can go there and enjoy them. I never thought of it like that. I thought the places were in the public domain, and it was up to me as a visitor, as a citizen of this little blue marble patch of the universe, to ensure that my money was being used to conserve. - -In the book, the writer, Brian Moylan, says that "some visitors are offended when they see American national parks managed by Washington, D.C., or the National Park Service in other nations run by the U.S. government." And he asks "how on earth the United States government is going to manage a project as monumental as the Empire State Building or the Great Wall of China." It's not just foreigners who feel this way — Americans too: - -"American visitors to China often come back more critical of the Chinese economy than they did in China itself. If you go to China, you don't see a thriving private sector," says one U.S. visitor, who works in a Chinese office-supply company and speaks on the condition of anonymity. "But if you go to the U.S.–Western border, like New York City, you see the thriving private sector," he adds, though he doesn't mean the financial sector, but the entrepreneurial sector that serves the public sector. - -So I'm just as happy as you that money is being spent to restore some of our best remaining heritage sites. But I'm angry that the public is paying for it. - -(Bloomberg)<|endoftext|>The New Jersey Devils have announced that they have signed forward Reid Boucher to a free agent entry-level contract. Boucher, 21, tallied 10 points (3G, 8A) in 29 games with the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League (WHL) in 2014-15. - -The 6'2", 194-pound Boucher registered 42 points (20G, 25A) in 76 regular season games in 2013-14 with the Winterhawks. The Saskatoon, Sask., native recorded 30 points (19G, 18A) in 36 AHL contests last season, ranking fourth among all AHL rookies in points. - -Prior to turning pro, Boucher totaled 82 points (45G, 44A) in 133 career WHL regular season contests with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League from 2011-13, leading the team in scoring each season. - -The Toronto, Ont., native added seven points (3G, 4A) in 18 QMJHL games for the Halifax Mooseheads from -======================================== SAMPLE 447 ======================================== -Kathleen Pao is the interim CEO of Reddit. (Courtesy of Twitter) - -In a first, a male executive on tech's hottest firm — Reddit — has resigned from the board after a sexist lawsuit led to a gender discrimination suit. When Reddit's chief executive, Ellen Pao, first took over as CEO in February, she told reporters that it would take time for the site to find its own way. After she faced a gender discrimination lawsuit last week, Pao sent an apology to users Wednesday. She wrote that the board had asked her to step down effective immediately. "I want to apologize personally to each of you for the pain and frustration I have caused," the former Kleiner Perkins executive wrote on the site. - -The resignations were a signal to Reddit's roughly 300 million daily users that Pao was serious about making Reddit a better place for women to gather. It came on the same day Twitter announced plans to ban three accounts that impersonated actress Rose McGowan, who had been a vocal opponent of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey after he was forced out as CEO last month. - -While the backlash to Pao's firing has been swift from users, the broader tech industry is weighing in. At least one of the biggest names in venture capital is backing the New York Public Library's purchase of Reddit. - -Reddit shares fell 3.5 percent after closing trading Friday at $18.08. - -"This is a major development. It's just like what Twitter did," said Brian Wieser, chief executive of Pivotal Research Group, an analyst who has been closely following Reddit and its growth. "It's a sign that more and more investors are getting it. - -[Ellen Pao to step down as Reddit CEO, in her own words] - -But some say Pao will be able to find support among some of Reddit's board members, which includes former PayPal and eBay executive Sam Altman, Yahoo Chairman Marissa Mayer and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, as well as venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. - -"If you're a company on the board of directors that wants to work with Reddit, then this situation is a major sign the board is really interested to see how they can grow," said Dan Schawbel, a Stanford University computer science professor who has been closely observing Reddit and the wider Internet community. That's because Pao's departure won't impact the company's ability to operate its popular online platform, he noted. - -Still, the move may not make a dent in the company's revenue, which accounts for nearly 10 percent of all the Internet services Google offers. Many investors aren't convinced that Reddit is a better long-term bet than many of the others with billions of dollars in venture capital backing. - -"This is a classic Silicon Valley story — a company that's a startup, but has the resources of a big company," said Robert Peck, managing director and director of enterprise and social investing at Ritholtz Wealth Management. "It was very evident that Ellen felt the need to get rid of the board to make moves. She may be right, but this isn't a good outcome for Reddit." - -Pao's decision to step down comes six weeks after she brought a female CEO to her office, and a year after a male counterpart. - -"Everyone is really focused on the change taking place at Reddit that has the potential to grow the company and attract new users," said Huffman, who had been Reddit's chief operating officer since 2007. - -Huffman said he planned to "take Reddit to an even higher level of success than what it is today." - -Last month, Reddit's website attracted more than 170 million unique visitors to its websites, representing a 25 percent increase from the same time last year. - -Pao was a former chief executive of Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to her LinkedIn profiles. She joined Yahoo in July 2011, where she served as a business development officer and director of diversity. - -Pao, in a statement provided by a spokesman, said she is taking responsibility for her "error of judgment." "I made a mistake by allowing some Reddit fans to engage in harassing behavior," she said in the statement. "I regret that they felt they could make me the worst CEO in the world." She added: "I am committed to creating a Reddit that is welcoming to everyone."<|endoftext|>The following document gives a brief guide to the process of getting an Australian visa or an Australian citizenship. You cannot apply for an Australian visa or a citizenship from a place outside Australia. - -Australian visa - -If you are coming to Australia from overseas and require an Australian visa, you can apply for one when you arrive in Australia. There is no need to wait for the visa to be issued, as the visa is automatically issued when you arrive in Australia. - -How long does it take? - -There is an eight-week processing time for applying for an Australian visa -======================================== SAMPLE 448 ======================================== -"When two sides are at each other's throats and that's the way it's going to remain, and it's going to stay and there's going to be no hope of it changing," said John Gaskins, a former United States ambassador to the EU under President George W. Bush. "So, the only thing left for you and I to do is to try to make peace." - -Many in Brussels, however, are not waiting around for an all-out civil war that could destabilize other parts of Europe as Germany, France, Scandinavia and Ukraine have done in the past. - -"If the United States really believes that Ukraine is an ally, they should try to help this nation not break apart," said a senior EU diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity. - -The former U.S. ambassador said that by supporting Mr. Putin, "the United States would be legitimizing his aggression, and the Europeans would have less credibility to criticize Russia." - -The European Union has adopted a policy of "a strong stance" toward Russia even as the Kremlin has moved aggressively to bolster its position in eastern Ukraine with an intense wave of activity, officials and Western diplomats say. - -The EU has so far frozen some $6 billion in loans to Russia, moved to suspend the delivery of natural gas to Russia and called for sanctions against Moscow and its businesses. European officials say the European Union will likely start discussing potential new penalties against Russia in its next summit meeting in December. - -A number of European officials said they fear Mr. Putin could respond with aggression to any push to impose even harsher sanctions. - -"When you make it clear to Russia that sanctions are inevitable and they're going to pay in consequences, you don't want to give any ammunition to Mr. Putin to say, 'You got what you deserve,'" one senior British diplomat said. - -Still, the EU has shown little political will in pressing Russia. Officials said the bloc's leaders, many of whom are facing local elections on May 25, are focused on preparing for the parliamentary election in Germany and not wanting to anger voters by appearing weak on matters of mutual concern. - -Still, a major diplomatic effort, led by Mr. Kerry, is under way. Mr. Kerry and other officials have been in touch with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. They expect the United States to give Mr. Kerry "a full briefing" before a Group of Eight meeting in Northern Ireland in mid-June. - -U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in Brussels on Thursday that "Russia continues to commit unacceptable violations of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence using an army and paramilitary forces supported by the government." - -"We are calling for Russia to stop the military build-up and support Ukrainian forces with heavy weapons and equipment," Ms. Power said. - -The Obama administration plans to increase economic sanctions. The Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against a small Russian bank and several energy companies that it has accused of providing money to support a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. - -That announcement was not linked to the latest developments in Ukraine, and was unlikely to change Moscow's calculation that Europe is not doing enough to stop the Russian advance. But it underscores the risks for the United States and its allies in dealing with Moscow. - -President Obama has also spoken directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "They need to show some restraint, stop fueling the violence and take steps to deescalate the conflict," Mr. Obama said in a news conference with French President François Hollande on Thursday. "And ultimately, when both sides have exhausted the options for de-escalation and diplomacy to address these issues, the U.S. and Europe will consider their own responses." - -Mr. Power has said that Mr. Obama is "disappointed" with Russia's recent behavior, but added that the United States will have to consider its options. - -The sanctions so far have had little effect inside Russia, but they have raised fears in the West that if they are not tightened further, European citizens will stop doing business or travel to the countries that might sanction Russia. - -With Russian officials in Crimea and the east, including Moscow's regional governors, publicly endorsing pro-Russia forces and Russia's military buildup in those regions, Europe has seen an increased Russian military troop presence in eastern Ukraine. - -One senior American official said this week that there had been a 50 percent surge in Russian troops and heavy weapons arriving in the area of eastern Ukraine, where they have joined separatist forces who have fought back against both Ukrainian military and Russian forces. - -European officials say they also see signs that Mr. Russian officials in Crimea are trying to intimidate the population into accepting its control and are using the Crimean legislature as a cover for their activities, including attempts to rewrite the country's constitution. - -"They seem quite intent on trying to break up the Ukrainian Federation without war," said Christopher Harmer, head of the Eurasia Group's Europe practice. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 449 ======================================== -"The most basic idea is that you're never going to see somebody win a $1 million lottery," says Stephen Gordon, CEO of AEG Capital. "There just isn't that many winners." - -Gordon and other gambling experts note that people have always found fun in gambling and that the modern industry of lotteries and gambling is an outgrowth of a long-running business with a clear purpose: generating revenue for those who play. - -"You're never going to see somebody win a $1 million lottery," says Gordon, the former head of the state's Gaming Control Board and an attorney who often represents the state at the U.S. Supreme Court. "There just isn't that many winners." - -Gambling profits are growing at some of the fastest rates, even as the size of the country's population and its economy shrinks. For instance, at the end of 2012, the industry generated more than $50bn (£40bn) in revenue nationwide. - -By comparison, a typical individual making the minimum wage brings in about $21,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. - -More from the Magazine The lottery has its best chance since the dawn of time, and that was before the first Powerball ticket was sold. One man with a winning ticket. But he has never seen his winnings. To him, the lottery was his ticket to a life of leisure. So why would he keep the winning ticket a secret? - -But this is changing as gambling grows in popularity and states move to legalize it. The rise of gambling is often driven by economic, cultural and societal trends in society – in this case, an explosion of gambling. - -"Gambling is a natural result of having so many more people around," says Gordon. "It's a phenomenon that comes, in many ways, after a period of rapid population growth and an economy that is growing like gangbusters. The more people you have to serve, the more gambling is going to come because you can attract so many people to the table." - -When a lottery is played, it takes on an aura of magical certainty. It's a rite of passage for people to win anything. People can build a life in one of the many jobs associated with winning. People are attracted to the way it is perceived by society as a positive thing, especially when it is a long-term source of income, which is not only good for the gambler but for his or her family – and friends. - -Gambling is now a billion-dollar business - -In a sense, Gordon and many investors in casino gambling are the latest to reap the financial rewards of the industry's growth. Before the lottery was widely used by the middle class, the market was dominated by the rich. But the rich were willing to pay more for luck: "the price of success", as Gordon calls it. - -"Gambling is not a victim," he says. "It's an industry. Most people have it in their families. People love the money." - -The lottery has grown in popularity among the middle class as an alternative to the traditional, harder path of college. In an era when high school drop-out rate is high across the developing world, the lottery is a gateway for many children. - -The more players there are, the more money we get - -According to the UN, half of the world's population will never be rich. Many of them, however, fall into a group considered one of the most "inequality-stricken" in the world: the less-fortunate. - -The majority of these people never become affluent and have been living with less wealth. These people, or their families, have to survive with very little, leaving them with very little spare cash. - -The poor are usually at the bottom rung of society and live a difficult life because they live with less and less money – but because of the lottery they have a chance to be lucky or rich and make the other half of the population wealthy. - -"It's an economic activity," says Gordon of lotteries. "It's people having a choice to play this game." - -The rise of the lottery is "like the rise of the mobile phone," says Gordon. As people make more and more of their personal life choices through smartphones – and with gambling becoming a major industry, this will only continue -- people will more and more likely make the same choice. - -It's an economic activity. It's people having a choice to play this game - -By contrast, most of the other money-making activities – like selling products online or investing in stocks – aren't in a sense "free". They are more or less forced to operate. Like any major industry, gambling is subject to regulation in all markets. - -For gambling businesses, gambling in America is seen as an industry with a bright future. It has an inherent advantage over many other forms of business: it's legal. No one -======================================== SAMPLE 450 ======================================== -By of the - -Madison — The State Crime Laboratory's chief has resigned, just more than a month after a public records request revealed he had failed to keep public records from a criminal case in which he had a personal interest. - -James S. Thompson was the chief of staff to State Laboratory Director Thomas J. Stebbins and was listed as a former assistant director of the criminal lab in court filings when he was the head of the lab. Thompson, 61, who began his state career in 1975, joined the state's crime lab in 1999. - -Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism requested public records related to a case Stebbins took on when Thompson was his assistant director of the lab in July 2012, in which a woman sued Thompson for child custody and a wrongful termination after he accused her husband of child maltreatment. - -Stebbins terminated his employees without cause only once during his tenure, in 1998 when he fired an employee he said was stealing cocaine out of his desk. - -The Journal Sentinel has confirmed Thompson received $500 from Stebbins' campaign fund in 2000 for the unsuccessful campaign of then-Sheriff Glenn Davis. Thompson was the only deputy sheriff to support Davis' candidacy. Davis lost to Democrat John Cullerton, who is now Milwaukee County sheriff. - -Two years later, then-Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued Thompson over his role in the Stebbins case and other criminal cases in which he was listed as an assistant director when he led the crime lab. - -The state is required to conduct ongoing criminal investigation, but the state crime lab is not. The crime lab receives about $1 million annually from the Legislature from money collected by the state attorney general, which uses the money to conduct prosecutions and investigate crimes. The state crime lab has three assistants and a director. - -The Office of the Attorney General refused to release the requested documents under the state's Open Records Act. But, citing state law, Thompson resigned his assistant director and his position on the state crime lab board before the state released the records in April. - -Thompson did not return calls to his home or office seeking comment.<|endoftext|>What is a microaggression? - -A microaggression is an unwanted, negative remark that is directed at a targeted person—in the form of a word, the action of looking, an expression, something the victim does (e.g. touching), or the object the victim wears. Some examples of microaggressions are the following (all of these are examples that were mentioned in the original Reddit post): - -White people cannot be racist because they are the minority. - -Black people cannot be racist because we have been suffering in this country since the slavery days. - -Asian-Americans are the most racist people. - -Homeless people are just as bad as criminals for stealing goods from the dollar store.<|endoftext|>"The last thing I remember is taking my shoes off. Just before I passed out, I felt someone grabbing me from behind," she said. - -Ms. Bowerman said she woke up hours later in a hospital wearing a surgical gown with her breasts exposed. - -"What I remember the most was having blood trickling down the front of the gown and feeling my underwear," she said. - -Ms. Bowerman said she had been the victim of what she called "sexual battery," in which a male or female attacker groped her. She said the man who molested her, now known to be Aaron C. Zilka, 30, had grabbed as much as he could get his hands on. - -Mr. Zilka is the accused in a seven-count complaint, filed last week in the federal courthouse here, charging him with assault with intent to commit a sex crime, sexual battery, sexual abuse, kidnapping, assault with intent to commit a violent crime, unlawful imprisonment and threats to cause bodily harm. - -His lawyer, Michael J. Schoenberg, said there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the assault had taken place. But he said that he expected the charges against Mr. Zilka to be rejected. - -He said Mr. Zilka hoped to have his day in court, and that he did not anticipate a lengthy court battle. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -"He's really hoping the truth comes out," Mr. Schoenberg said. - -Mr. Zilka declined comment through the court-appointed public defender. - -Photo - -Ms. Bowerman said she thought the assault took place at the nightclub, the Paradise, where Mr. Zilka was one of six men whom the prosecutor said made advances on her at the dance floor around midnight on Sept. 18, 2006. She said the six men were identified by the victim as follows: Michael Vanciero, 28; Jason M. Farr, 27; David S. Mottle, 26; Stephen H. Mays -======================================== SAMPLE 451 ======================================== -A senior aide to President Obama will be given the power to veto key regulations from the Office of Management and Budget, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. - -Richard Neal, former director of regulatory and legislative affairs to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), will be given the power to kill regulations that Congress has passed, the paper reported, citing unnamed administration officials familiar with the changes. Neal will also have the authority to grant waiver requests from OMB and also have the power to approve regulatory changes without congressional action. - -A White House spokesman denied that Obama planned to use executive actions on Wednesday. "There is nothing to announce today," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. - -Neal joined OMB in September 2015 after serving as Clinton's deputy counsel from 2009 through 2014. He also served in the Office of Legal Counsel at the US Justice Department.<|endoftext|>A group of University of Calgary researchers has shown that a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids significantly reduced the risk of mortality in women, particularly those with a family history of cancer. - -The study was published online in the International Journal of Cancer by a team of researchers led by Dr. Brian A. Weijenberg, a professor of radiology and bioelectrical sciences and professor emeritus of medicine in the division of pathology of the University of Calgary. - -"In the future, omega-3 fatty acids may be used as a new, inexpensive and important source of energy that could reduce the need for energy-dense foods to prevent chronic diseases such as obesity and obesity-related diabetes," said Weijenberg, principal investigator of the study and head of the Radiology Research and Evaluation Department. "Our findings may lead to the use of high-fat omega-3 diets in the prevention of chronic disease." - -Omega-3 fats are present in fish and especially flaxseed oil. They are known to play a role in cell growth and development and are thought to protect cells from oxidation, and may even protect against age-related diseases such as breast and prostate cancer. - -Weijenberg and his team analyzed the relationship between age and mortality and found that a more recent age was associated with a 10-23 per cent reduction in the risk of death in women who did not have a family history of cancer. - -The researchers also identified the specific omega-3 fats present in flaxseed oil and its relation to mortality. They identified several components in flaxseed oil, including gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), as well as several omega-3 fatty acids. - -The scientists also analyzed the effects of flaxseed oil on other age associated diseases including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and stroke. - -Based on its effects on age-associated conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, Weijenberg says flaxseed oil could be used as an alternative to stearic acid (C20:5) to replace saturated fat in the diet to prevent chronic diseases such as obesity and obesity-related diabetes. - -Dr. John H. Klimley, a professor of radiology and biomedical sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, says the study will improve the understanding of the risk factors in women who are at high risk for developing disease. - -"This study is important because it shows how dietary fatty acids can mediate a variety of health effects, including lowering cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease risk," he said. "The benefits of fatty acids, particularly the Omega-3s, could even extend to the prevention of cancer. In fact, we recently found that a high-flavanol-to-safflower-fat ratio could predict the development of new cancers in mice. If omega-3 fatty acids were taken up by cells in the blood, they could act to regulate the growth of the cancers." - -The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Dr. Brian Weijenberg.<|endoftext|>The National Football League is investigating the Houston Texans after their players took a knee at the end of the national anthem, league spokesman Joe Lockhart told USA TODAY Sports. - -The NFL is investigating the Texans after their players took a knee during the national anthem, league spokesman Joe Lockhart tells @PatrickRosenberg. @nflnfl pic.twitter.com/Z3Hs8UO3Lk — Dan Gartland (@dan_gartland) October 11, 2017 - -The Texans and the league released a joint statement on how the protest was viewed and how it affected the team that plays Sunday at Baltimore against Pittsburgh. - -Statement from the Texans and the @NFL: pic.twitter.com/VtG5V8xQp3 — Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) October 11, 2017 - -There are protests on Oct. 10 and 19 in Baltimore. They are being staged in conjunction with rallies and vigils in solidarity with NFL players protesting police brutality. Players kneel for the national anthem before games and after the national anthem -======================================== SAMPLE 452 ======================================== -H.R. 4372 (114th) was a bill in the United States Congress. - -A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law. - -This bill was introduced in the 114th Congress, which met from Jan 6, 2015 to Jan 3, 2017. Legislation not enacted by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books. - -How to cite this information. - -We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work: - -GovTrack.us. (2018). H.R. 4372 — 114th Congress: Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr4372?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss "H.R. 4372 — 114th Congress: Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act." www.GovTrack.us. 2015. September 26, 2018 Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act, H.R. 4372, 114th Cong. (2015). {{cite web - -|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr4372?utm_campaign=govtrack_feed&utm_source=govtrack/feed&utm_medium=rss - -|title=H.R. 4372 (114th) - -|accessdate=September 26, 2018 - -|author=114th Congress (2015) - -|date=July 20, 2015 - -|work=Legislation - -|publisher=GovTrack.us - -|quote=Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act - -}} show another citation format: - -MLA - -APA - -Blue Book - -Wikipedia Template - -Where is this information from? - -GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources. This page is sourced primarily from Congress.gov, the official portal of the United States Congress. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. Data via the congress project.<|endoftext|>Roughly a third of the money paid into the Colorado general fund last year went toward paying for legal expenses for marijuana businesses, according to an analysis of the latest annual budget from the House Finance Committee. - -The amount is actually lower than what was reported last year at the beginning of this year, but the amount that was paid was higher than the $5.86 million, or about $1.27 million, that was spent by all the state's agencies and institutions in 2011. - -The committee's chairman, Rep. Jonathan Singer, R-Longmont, said that this year the House is looking at reducing spending so as to keep down the amount of money coming into the general fund for lawyers for marijuana businesses. He said he wants to cut as much as $1.5 million from the General Fund for attorney fees. - -The figure for fees paid last year was $18,100.00 that covered legal fees for people trying to open business accounts, or other aspects of the business. It doesn't cover expenses that are not legal, such as rent, utilities, repairs and other general business expenses. - -Singer says that one of the biggest things that he's trying to cut is legal fees, and the other issue he's examining is how best to keep marijuana businesses on their own turf. - -"For the most part, I think we've done a pretty good job at preventing the government from coming in and interfering," Singer said. He noted that most of the fees paid by marijuana businesses were incurred in the first several years of their operating, but he's starting to see some of these issues now. - -Singer is also examining the issue of regulating those medical marijuana dispensaries, which are allowed to operate even with the full blessing of state regulators because many of them are located in unincorporated areas. - -In a discussion about the medical pot dispensaries that had been approved at the state-mandated April 1 deadline, Singer said that the state has found problems with some of the people operating them. - -"We'll have to get a better handle on who's involved to make sure we're not having illegal things going on," Singer said. - -Singer said that he has had conversations with the Attorney General's office this year regarding the issue of regulating pot dispensaries; but he said that he did not expect any changes to the regulations.<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — President Donald Trump's proposed budget would impose more stringent sanctions on Iran and cut financing to Russia, the -======================================== SAMPLE 453 ======================================== -What's in your Domain Name? Print - -A super premium .Com domain name from DomainMarket.com means instant branding, search engine, and marketing benefits. We make it safe, easy and affordable for you to own TheBlaze.com right away. DomainMarket.com is the only authorized pricing agent for this domain name, anyone else is a third party seller. Every domain price on this site is completed by top world experts from AccurateAppraisals.com. - -DomainMarket.com domains are carefully selected for branding excellence by the world's top domain name appraisers, so you will only find the most prized and premium assets for sale. - -For serious companies and marketing executives, attracting just one new lifetime customer, business partner, or employee, leveraging a premium domain, will justify this excellent long-term investment. But in fact, your DomainMarket.com sourced super premium domain is likely to rake in many valuable new customers and opportunities in the long run that normally couldn't or wouldn't find you. 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Plus, it would be super embarassing and costly for your customers or prospects to land on this site when they are actually looking to purchase from you instead. - -Plus you may be able to profit from the consumer traffic, "eyeballs", and sell advertising space or use Google AdWords on the domain site, to your financial advantage. Our partner SEO.com are a team of world class digital marketing experts and select Google Partners. We recommend you contact them for any assistance with online advertising, marketing, SEO, PPC, landing page optimization, ecommerce, conversion optimization, web design, Facebook ads and more. - -Super premium .com domain names from DomainMarket.com are the start and top of the economic food chain, in order to create the best on and offline 'unicorn' corporations. Pick the wrong domain and you deserve the consequences of your competitors rolling you. Next you need the rest of the best of modern digital marketing if you want to compete with serious players in your industry. - -"Ring.com [sold for $1B] was previously called DoorBot, His tenacity, and the decision to stick with the product he originally built [but with better domain], has paid off in a big way." - -Almost all decent TV ads now use premium generic .Com too, and radio ads, plus sides of trucks, billboards, bumper stickers, boats, planes, tshirts, blogs, etc. You may be one of these 'Fortune 500' mega corporations ready to dominate the world, or just a regular granny in your underwear, but either way you can look the same with TheBlaze.com. - -First come, first served. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to be #1. The first person or company to secure TheBlaze.com from this site can control it forever, to the exclusion of all others. It will become out of our control. Get it first; and get ranked first in Google! All that matters online is Location Location Location! Your Domain is Your Location! and brand, and future profits; dont shortchange it obviously! You can redirect your new domain traffic to your existing internet assets until you are done with development, or indefinitely, if you prefer. - -It's critical to secure your domain today if you want to control the world class branding and recognition before your competitors who are eyeing it. They might outcompete you forever if they get it first and get all the traffic, conversions, and branding value compounded endlessly. A premium domain could easily add 20% compounding yearly to a company's bottom line profits if deployed properly, which for most companies would prevent them from going out of business -======================================== SAMPLE 454 ======================================== -Kerry Jackson's time in Baltimore probably will be remembered for something other than the four-homer, three-RBI game he hit for the Orioles. - -Not that what he did will be missed by those with a fondness for his big hits on the bases. - -On Friday night, the Orioles traded Jackson to Oakland after the veteran slugger's one year contract was not renewed. - -"We were prepared for this," general manager Dan Duquette told the Baltimore Sun. "We knew we would lose a valuable part of our team and we wanted to give up some quality prospects, but he has not provided value on the field. We had no choice." - -Dujon Shelby and Michael Saunders were traded and the Orioles sent $7.5 million to Oakland along with right-handed reliever Brian Matusz ($1 million, three-years, $21 million) and pitcher John Axford ($5 million, two years, no options), according to a team announcement. - -Jackson, 36, was designated for assignment by the Orioles on Wednesday. - -"We all know the type of player Kerry has been," Duquette said before Saturday's game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. "He's always had a passion for winning. And in the minor leagues, he's proven to be one of the best baseball players out there. We knew that we needed to make a change." - -Although Jackson's production dropped over his first two seasons — his last two seasons in the majors ended with 15 home runs and 62 RBI — his overall value still was enough to warrant the move. - -Jackson hit .259 with three homers, 24 RBI and 37 runs scored in 72 games this season.<|endoftext|>The former president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has called for Britain to leave the EU after the Brexit vote, saying that Britain would be "irreparably damaged" if it left. - -Speaking to The Telegraph he said: "All the arguments we used when the Brits left were right and they would be equally valid now." - -"Britain leaving the EU will be a huge setback for Europe and the European project." - -Mr Schulz said he believed Theresa May was not a "good partner for Europe" as she had previously claimed, despite the recent visit from the Prime Minister. - -He added: "I have been saying to [Mrs May] that Britain will be irreparably damaged if it leaves the European Union and [they say] that it's not the case. - -"It's the beginning of a bad phase. And I don't know what she thinks the consequences will be." - -In a wide-ranging interview to mark his first year as president — during which he will officially take over from former European Parliament president Martin Schulz — the German MP also said he believes that the UK would make a "superior" and "much better" country outside the EU. - -While the British people would remain free to take out their pensions in the EU, he added, "the people will not be able to vote for their own money in Brussels". - -He also confirmed that he would not seek to become the new president of the European Commission when his mandate ends in 2019 and said Brussels was becoming "notorious" in Europe. - -"One can understand why people think that now Brussels is becoming notorious. It has to change. It is not working," Mr Schulz said of the city of Brussels, adding that he plans to use his first year to improve the European Parliament's reputation. - -The European Parliament president said he was currently preparing for his first working visit in the European Council — the gathering of the heads of state and government — with President Donald Tusk and EU Council President Donald Tusk. - -Mrs May is now likely to set out her plans for Brexit in the next few months at the EU summit meeting in Malta next month, Mr Schulz said. - -"It will be a very complicated process and there will be a few surprises in her speech," he said. - -"It has to be about Britain. It is not just about the future relationship with the UK." - -But despite Mr Schulz's doubts about Britain remaining in the EU if it leaves the bloc in February 2019, the former Socialist MEP said he did not believe it would have a negative impact on the UK. - -Speaking about the possible future of the UK leaving the bloc, he continued: "I don't think Brexit will have an adverse effect on the UK. - -"For me it is about Europe."<|endoftext|>"No matter how much I wanted [this interview] to be the last thing to ever happen, I thought it was an important story to tell. But then I read the transcripts [of the interview], and my view of what happened [is] totally different. He was the first person to ever be killed that night." - -Those are the words of David Siegel, the author of "Night -======================================== SAMPLE 455 ======================================== -This is the first of a two-part article, featuring the early work of the prolific Belgian painter Auguste Crécy - -Auguste Crécy (1848-1919), or as he was known to the English-speaking world, Auguste Rodin, was an important French art historical artist, one of the most influential figures of the avant-garde. - -An internationally renowned painter who specialized in a particular formal style known as Impressionism (or 'impressionism', in its popularized form), Crécy's work featured abstract images in highly emotional, sensual and often ambiguous compositions. He was perhaps the most acclaimed and prolific painter of his time. - -Crécy worked mainly in the romantic styles of the early 20th century, where he employed a combination of forms including monumentalism, formalism, color theory and sculpture. His paintings are characterized by an almost romantic naivety, and many of his works were commissioned by famous artists or patrons, such as Auguste Rodin. His style, especially since the 1920s, was associated with the work of Gustave Courbet who was the subject of an influential French magazine article of the same name. Courbet studied under Crécy at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which was a major influence on his style. - -From 1902-1959, Crécy worked as a painter for the Boulogne museum in France. His first work was published in the Paris journal Le Peintre in August 1897, where he produced nine illustrations for the magazine. These drawings (published as a serial in Le Peintre between September 1897 and 1894) are notable for the emotional intensity and eroticism expressed in the subjects, which were mostly female body forms. His second work was entitled L'Onde de la Chasse. These drawings took Crécy's style in a more abstract direction. Although some critics consider him a modernist in his abstract expressionism, his work does not follow this same trend. His work as a painter was recognized by the French authorities but his influence and popularity in the early 20th century, both internationally and by France, has been recognized. - -In 1901 Crécy established a studio at 21 rue Réaumur in Lyon and he became known to the world on May 15th, when he was awarded the Gold Medal in the 'Degree of Art', which was awarded in Stockholm. His paintings are regarded as important figures in the development of art at this time. - -In 1922, Crécy returned to the Boulogne and published the first of a series of his painting entitled Les Cérémonieux (Cement Houses). The second of these was Les Petites Chiffres (The Little Girls), in which a woman is depicted naked with an animal on her back, in addition to some abstract forms, which were considered to be a forerunner to the influence of Cubism in the coming generations. Another piece of work entitled Les Périgines de Laffitte-le-Guérin (The Petite Girls of Laffitte-le-Guérin) appeared in 1928. The third series of Les Cérémonieux was released in 1944 and was accompanied by a lithograph entitled Mésapireur et Enfant de l'Homme ("Father and Child"), which was an important part of Crécy's later oeuvre. - -The early work of Crécy has been largely unpublished, but it is clear from his correspondence with his mentor, Rodin, that Crécy made a definite impression on Rodin's mind as a result of the influence of his older artist colleague. Crécy was to stay close, working and collaborating with Rodin until his death in 1919.<|endoftext|>An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander was killed on Saturday, as coalition forces struck at Daesh targets in northern Iraq, an IS security official has said. - -"The commander of IRGC's Quds Force was killed," the official, who spoke to Press TV on condition of anonymity, said on Thursday. - -The official said a large number of missiles were targeted by the coalition on five Daesh gathering bases in northern Anbar province, as the terrorists "dismay the coalition's relentless advance" - -The strike was aimed at the Daesh bases located near Makhmour, according to the statement. - -The official also said that several of the missiles, carried by a helicopter, hit targets on the Mosul front as the militants "reject and protest" the U.S.-led coalition's continued aerial onslaught. - -The IS security official said that the military target that was struck was the Quds Force commander. - -The Iranian military commander, Gen. Qassem Salavati, was also killed in another airstrike carried out by the coalition earlier in this week, a security source told Reuters. - -The source said the IRGC commander was killed on Thursday as the coalition -======================================== SAMPLE 456 ======================================== -This is a new feature. It may not work in some browsers. - -When your web developer adds a new component you don't need to wait for the new version to be released. Now you can test that component with the latest web browsers in under a minute and not even wait for the update. Simply create a component in web inspector, then click "Tests: Generate Web Console" option and it will generate a simple console with some examples. - -Step 1: Choose the component(s) you want to test. - -Select different elements from your app and test them both. You can find the components here. - -Select from any of them and click "Generate test" button. - -Step 2: Build the components - -This command will generate a file for your test components: - -gulp test:components - -This file contains all available components with their test class. You can either use the same class name or change the component class names so that you can compare and find the differences on console between different browsers. In general use the same class names for all component except for those marked with "debug". - -Step 3: Create a new component test - -This is a good time to start writing your test code. If you don't have any test framework installed, you can create a new test project using gulp test:gen. Just put your test files in src/test folder and run a gulp test:compile command to generate all test files in a build folder. - -If you already have a web browser tested and there is no need for you to test that component any more, just delete your project folder. - -Tests are run from the web console in the browser at localhost:8080/. - -If you want to create a web server based tests for a specific component, run the command: gulp run:server . This runs server side code inside the web browser on localhost:8080/index.html. As the server process is started with the command ./server , you'll also need some webserver running inside your localhost in order to serve the test files from your project. You can use any webserver that you wish and/or install web server on your machine. - -A simple example test that tests a custom list (list.html): - -The list.mq template defines the basic data model for the list component: - -List { title: string; selectedIndexes: Map< string, List< string >>; selectedText: string; } - -The component can also define its own data model ( list.mq.model ), but for now it does not use any custom data-model. - -Next, create the test test for the selected text ( custom.mq.text ): - -Custom Text { text: string; selectedIndexes: Map< string, List< string >>; selectedText: string; } - -In order to test our text component, let's modify that first template as follows: - - ...

Custom Text

Select a text to use for a single item...
 ... - -The new content should look like: - - ...

Custom Text

Select a text to use for a single item...
 ... - -As you can see, we have added some new elements to the list, such as an option to select the current item and an item itself. However, we don't really want to check this data model. Let's add a check function: - -check: (item) => item.selectedIndexes.Contains(4); - -This function checks whether the value for the selectedIndexes property is between 4 and 7. - -We can now update src/test/static/components/list.mq: - -// src/test/static/components/list.mq import { List } from './list' ; import { option } from '@angular/core' ; @Component({ selector: 'list', templateUrl: 'list.html' }) export class ListComponent { list: List[] = []; selectedIndexes: Map> = []; selectedText: string; selectedIndexes = []; constructor(public cb: Any) { this.list = this.cb(this.list[0]); // Remove old element this.list.remove(); this.selectedIndexes = this.db( -======================================== SAMPLE 457 ======================================== -The next installment of the legendary franchise will take place in the heart of Hollywood and features more than 100 actors; however, those familiar with the previous films will know that it is not quite the same. The new film will be told in a way that shows no one is safe in this world, and will be a bloody, hilarious, action-packed roller coaster ride that is sure to leave its mark on your psyche. I have seen many of the movies in this franchise and know that they are not only visually stunning but also full of incredible stories but I do not think I am going to like this movie. - -I have read comments from a lot of people that they are going to like it because of a few things and that is true – at first there isn't much to do other than the fights from previous. However, after about 20 minutes of fighting, there isn't really anything more left to do. You can't choose where the villains, the rebels, the humans and even the creatures fall from. You don't really get a chance to make any progress; but let's face it, Hollywood can't be completely original each and every time. - -After the initial fight sequence, you can just follow the story which takes a while to get started. Things you will see are things you have already seen: the human rebels that were killed by the creatures so that the humans can escape the planet Earth, an accident that results in a human being turning into a monster and more. These things are so familiar that they seem almost forced into it; which is just wrong because the last movie made a point of showing that these themes are in place. - -You begin the movie with a bunch of people who are stuck on the ship that was supposed to take them off of the planet Earth, including a guy, "The Captain" who tries to find the way back home but cannot move. The story goes in a few different directions and we don't quite get to know anything about them until about three quarters in – when the movie is all about the humans and monsters, leaving us with very little to be interested with. The movie will pick up once we get to meet some other people and it is obvious that they will be important. - -It is hard to give a good description of the new film; it changes up the formula every time and it is quite hard to predict how the next film in the series will go. There's a lot of fight scenes as we have already seen from each movie and the monsters are really scary. We already have all the characters that were in the earlier movies so by the time the movie begins, we are already familiar with all of them and will have a fun ride all the way through. That kind of fun ride has never been made before. - -With so many familiar sights and sounds throughout the movie, it feels like it almost has the feeling of something from the 1980s. The first film came out over 30 years ago so people have had time to forget what it looked like and what it felt like. The new one will no doubt bring some of these nostalgic feelings but this is just because the movie has taken so long to come out, so it makes sense that the nostalgia will be present. The action sequence with these characters having to fight and shoot at each other, especially in the second half will have you feeling that you are watching an 80s movie on your couch. - -The character acting is on par with the best from all the previous movies. I have never seen so many different characters that are all likable and you can tell that they are all on the same level. You don't know who the good guys are or who is the baddie and you have to do a lot of guessing. I don't think people will be able to stop laughing to the film because it is just so much fun to watch. With all the blood and the gore, it is pretty obvious what kind of film this is. - -It is not a new film but a continuation to films that started back in 1987. The action scenes are so fast and the characters on the screen seem so real that you can't help but laugh as you watch. The best part is that there doesn't seem to be any real story until the second half. There is a reason why this film has stayed in storage for the past 30 years and it has nothing to do with the story itself – it has everything to do with the cast and the actors. These people were all great at acting and their performances are so memorable. - -The movie is definitely not for everyone – I can't really say what the film could have been if it didn't cost a whole lot of money. However, as many people have stated, it is the best one ever and can give you some great laughs and some amazing memories. The fact that it takes place in a different galaxy does the writing justice and if you are a fan of the earlier movies this could be for you.<|endoftext|>The first three days of my trip, I went off to the mountains and just walked -======================================== SAMPLE 458 ======================================== -If you wish to receive email notification when our website updates, you must first subscribe to this list . - -The following is an outline of all of the topics covered on our website, and the links to those articles are on the navigation bar to the right. - -I. The History of the American Indian, or Indian Civil Rights - -Introduction - -The History of the American Indian - -The Indian Reformation - -A Declaration Of the Rights of the People to a Free and Equal State of Nature : - -We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. - -The Indian Reformation - -The Wampanoag People of the Western Shore of New England - -The Iroquois Indians - -The Cherokee Indians - -The Saulteaux of Ohio - -The Choctaws - -The Cherokees - -The Chickasaw and the Seminoles - -The Creek People of the Southeast: - -The Chickasaws - -The Seminoles - -The Choctaws - -The Creeks - -The Creek Indians - -The Creek Indians - Tylwyth - -The Toccoa, Choctaw, and Muscogee (Seminole) People - -The Creek Indians - Florida - -An Examination Of The Indian Laws, customs, and institutions : The Indian Tribes - -The Indian Civil Rights Movement - -II. The American Political System - -Introduction - -The Nature of American Government - -The United States Constitution - -III. The United States of America: the Constitution and its Principles - -Introduction - -Constitutional Framework of the United States of America - -What is Secession? What are the Three Cs? Secession, Constitutional Consequences of Secession, and Consequences of Secession - -The Congress of the United States - -What is the Executive branch? The Legislative/Executive branches - -The Judiciary - -The Judicial Branch - -What is a Federal District Court? What do Federal Judges do? Article III and Article III, Section 1 and Federal Judges, Judges, Constitutional Law, Article III and the Constitution of the United States - -A Brief History of the Judicial Branch of the Federal Government - -The Executive Branch - -The Judiciary and the Congress - -What is Article III? The First and Second Articles of Amendment - -The Judiciary and the Congress - -State Action: The Congress and the States - -The Supreme Court - -What are the federal courts? The federal courts and the federal judiciary - -What are the rules of evidence? The Federal Rules of Evidence: The Federal Rules of Evidence - -What are the penalties for perjury? What are the consequences of perjury before or after trials? What does bribery mean? The federal bribery crimes and federal judges - -What is "official" corruption? What is "impeachment" and what would a presidential impeachment trial look like? An examination of the federal bribery offenses and federal judges - bribery laws for the federal judiciary - -A Brief History of the Federal Judiciary - -Executive Department vs. Congress - -IV. Education: - -A. General Concepts of Education - -Introduction - -Education Overview - -The Difference Between School and School District - -Common Schools vs. Private Schools - -Credentials and the Public Schools - -Basic Mathematics - -Basic Writing - -B. The Elementary School and the Secondary School: - -Introduction - -Culture In The Elementary School and The Secondary School - -The Nature of Secondary Education and Basic Vocational Education - -A Brief Look At Early Childhood Education - -V. The High School And Beyond - -Introduction: - -Advanced and Advanced Placement (AP) Coursework: Advanced courses in college-level subjects are provided at schools and in colleges through the "AP" (Advanced Placement) Exam. - -How are Advanced Placement (AP) Coursework determined? The AP Exam - -Credentialing Programs at the University: Credentialing Plans - -College Preparation: Course Descriptions - -The High School: College Preparation - -College Preparation: The High School in Society - -College Preparation: Advanced Placement Exam and Credentialing Requirements - -College Preparation: Advanced Courses in College Prep - -The College-Prepared High School - -A Brief History of the College and an Examination of the College Experience - -VI. Employment: - -Introduction - -The American Jobs Industry - -The General Labor Market - -The Labor Supply - -The Unemployment Rate: Unemployment and Employment - -Basic Labor Market Skills: The Labor Demand Curve - -Basic Labor Market Concepts: The Labor Demand Curve - -Labor Economics: Job Stagnation and Job Loss - -Labor Economics: Why Do Americans Seek Work -======================================== SAMPLE 459 ======================================== -The FBI has has is working on new methods to monitor social media accounts, including the use of fake Twitter and Facebook accounts, in a bid to investigate domestic terror threats. - -"All of this information flows through social media, and it is something we are paying a lot of attention to," FBI director James Comey said at an event on Thursday in San Francisco. "We have some big ideas in the works for how we can do things better on the information and the intelligence from these social media sites." - -The FBI has been monitoring social media since the Boston bombings in 2013. The bureau's intelligence director at the time was FBI veteran John Negroponte, who resigned from his post in 1999 to protest government surveillance of U.S. citizens. - -"We will monitor everything, everything," Comey said of the threats. "At some point, every society has to make a choice between being a free society or not being free." - -Comey said the bureau was also looking into whether terrorist groups should be more savvy with social media than they are, with the goal of deterring lone actors from carrying out attacks against the United States.<|endoftext|>The new version of the Android 8 Oreo beta has already hit the hands of the OnePlus 3 and in addition to the usual bug fixes, there are also new bug fixes. This time around it is specifically addressed a crash that could happen in various applications on the OnePlus 3 when using the fingerprint reader to unlock the phone. On previous ROMs this issue was present but the fix was to include a full unlock screen with the fingerprint. - -Not anymore. - -The latest beta update includes a full unlock option without having to switch between various home screens, something that was previously available with a long press. This is the same way Android 7.1 added in a swipe from right to top shortcut when using fingerprint readers – a good solution though not as efficient as something like a touchless unlock app like Easy Unlock. - -There is one new fix for another crash that could happen when the OnePlus 3's camera app was opened. That said it is not the culprit here, rather the camera's audio is often out of sync with the time it is captured and that could potentially lead to a crash. - -There is a new version of OnePlus' OTA utility that is also available in the beta, and it has an option to check for and download the updated OTA files. This OTA utility has been available in the past but it will now also work with the OnePlus 3 Beta Software, meaning that it will update the OnePlus 3 in case something goes wrong. - -The update also includes a fix for some weird behaviour on the OnePlus 3 when used by someone who uses the OnePlus 3 Pro but doesn't have the OP3. When this happens the software will prompt the user to download the appropriate version of OTA, as opposed to automatically downloading the latest OTA from OnePlus. - -As always, you will also have access to OnePlus' official software if you own the OnePlus 3; just tap the "More" button on the lock screen when your phone is locked for the last time and then select "More". The OTA files will then be offered for download.<|endoftext|>About "The Great Divide" - -The first song on Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the main theme is a variation or addition to "New Slaves". The main idea is that even though the person you love most still believes that you are "better" than them but in fact they were just following their heart which is how it always should be. Kanye also raps about the love that he has for his family, friends and the woman he is currently with. Despite this, Kanye never stops questioning, always having new questions to ask himself like his parents and what it truly means to love yourself. - -In interviews, Kanye referred to this song as "the dark part of the album." - -The first verse is also the opening of Kanye's 2011 single (Kanye West, Vampire Sex Party Remix) with the title "New Slaves", which can be considered a sequel to this (after the "New Slaves" version of the music video was released).<|endoftext|>A young man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an elderly woman while she was trying to make her way home from work. - -Michael Broussard, 22, was arrested on May 7 on the charge of sexual assault on an elderly victim and appeared in court today. - -The court heard that the incident happened after Broussard's vehicle had blocked the woman's path and she tried to get out to use the phone, then she was attacked. - -Defence lawyers sought treatment for the "traumatic and profound harm" of the attack and Broussard was released on the condition he stay away from the elderly victim. - -According to the victim's statement, she had gone to work for the Health and Community Services in downtown Toronto the day before last and had returned to her home at around midnight. It was then that Broussard allegedly -======================================== SAMPLE 460 ======================================== -The former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton speaks with the press during a roundtable discussion on June 4, 2015, on Capitol Hill. | AP Photo Clinton to run New Hampshire, Pennsylvania-style campaign - -Hillary Clinton announced her intentions to run for president in 2020 — but will go in a slightly different direction than the Clintons of recent decades. - -During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, Clinton, 74, said her campaign will focus on getting women, young people and other Americans involved in politics. And she said "you can do that in any party" should she lose for the Democratic nomination in 2020. - -Story Continued Below - -"The way I think about this campaign and this campaign now is I am running a campaign of new ideas," Clinton said on "Morning Joe". "And so I am going to talk about a lot of different topics and I am going to say, 'What really matters in that election, who have I heard from, what is the agenda of the Democratic Party? And then I am going to say, 'Vote for me.'" - -Clinton called her primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders a "credible Democratic candidate," as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) a "very credible Democratic governors." - -She also referenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.), who has been tapped by Sanders's campaign to be the vice presidential running mate. - -"Elizabeth Warren is a very credible Democratic candidate to be vice president," Clinton said during the roundtable discussion on Wednesday. "I want to see the Democratic Party and progressive forces, young people, get involved all over. - -"The reason why I started this campaign is because there were so many people out there who said 'We should take Bernie Sanders's campaign seriously. What he is saying is absolutely right.' I want to take it to a real place and I think you can do that in any party." - -Clinton also talked about the Republican White House: "I think there is an emerging understanding that we need to have a much tougher response to the threats that we face. [But] I think it is going to be hard to get a really strong majority without a good working partisan majority." - -She said she hopes to win in a presidential year in which there is an open Republican Senate: "But I think the most important thing for this country in 2020 is to put some Democrats in charge of Congress. I've met a lot of them. I'd like to have their votes."<|endoftext|>A man found hanging himself in his South Florida home late Wednesday morning will be brought to Orlando to receive an award recognizing outstanding police work. - -The man, who identified himself as "Buddy," was found hanging in his apartment at the St. Augustine Village apartment complex off S.C. 940 near St. Augustine on Wednesday. The Palm Beach County medical examiner identified the man in a preliminary autopsy report as 25-year-old Bobby Lee Scott, of Tampa. - -Authorities said Scott's family has been contacted by a hospital administrator regarding the death. The family is being interviewed by authorities, according to officials. - -Florida Department of Law Enforcement Major Crimes Unit detectives were at the apartment complex Wednesday morning trying to assess the scene and the scene at St. Augustine Village Apartments. They said the apartment building was closed during the investigation but reopened at 8:30 a.m. - -According to a news release sent out Wednesday morning, Scott's death will be investigated as a homicide based on a finding of suicide that led investigators to believe Scott had been dead for several days before his body was discovered Wednesday morning. The release said Scott's body showed evidence of a struggle. It appeared he may have been tied up. A suicide note was found in Scott's pocket, authorities said. - -The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office homicide unit is handling the ongoing investigation. The St. Johns County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division is assisting the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.<|endoftext|>Habitat for Humanity and its North Carolina nonprofit partners plan to build a 1,500-unit housing development at 923 Woodruff Ave. in downtown Durham, the Triangle News & Observer reported. - -Durham-born, New York-based construction firm Pinnacle Real Estate Partners has partnered with Habitat for Humanity as the developer of the $60 million, mixed-income development. The development would also include retail on the first two levels, which also will include apartments, and will create a central plaza. - -Habitat for Humanity is currently building four residential and commercial projects—including two at 709 North Davidson Ave.—in the same area, according to Habitat for Humanity's website. - -Advertisement - -At this point in time, Habitat has not confirmed that the Woodruff Avenue property will be a part of the first three housing projects, but the publication reported that a developer with a similar affiliation confirmed to Triangle Business Journal that the property will -======================================== SAMPLE 461 ======================================== -How much would you pay for a piece of land that was as far away as Mexico in the United States, and is a million miles away from Los Angeles? If you are a Chinese investor the answer is the same. In a scheme that was uncovered by the Wall Street Journal, a New York real estate investor is trying to do an expensive reverse takeover of one of Trump's golf courses—the latest attempt by Chinese investors to buy into the U.S. real estate market. - -China's interest in buying real estate in the U.S. has long been a subject of fascination for foreign investors, but few have tried such a large scale buyout of another country's property. The Chinese government has allowed foreigners to buy large tracts of American land with the intention of selling them at a later date to foreign investors—a technique known colloquially as "land-grabbing," the Journal says. - -While no official record has been made available and the exact size of the buyout, the price is estimated to be around $150 million. - -That price doesn't even come close to the Trump course, the only Trump property the Journal notes that Beijing has expressed interest in buying—an estimated $18-30 million of it, according to sources familiar with the matter. - -While the Trump course hasn't been the focus of Chinese interest since Donald Trump was elected, Beijing's interest is clear. The Trump property's owners, the US-listed developer CIM Group, have reportedly said they are working on a plan to sell it to mainland clients, although one Chinese newspaper reported that the sale may be delayed as Trump deals with a series of corruption charges at home.<|endoftext|>About - -"I'm gonna give you $20,000 and let you pick any song from the radio that sounds good and I'll pay you $2,500 for every copy sold until that day. Do whatever you feel." - Jay-Z from Back to Back to Back - -We at Back to Back to Back created this concept in an attempt to change radio and bring back the original feeling of listening. We took the best songs in the world, and put them in a single box. We call it the Playlist & Soundtrack Box and the one box contains 50 songs for $20,000. Our goal is to make the Box something that every hip-hop artist could own. It is not just any box. The Box will look like a hip-hop classic album. It will hold 10 copies of a record, but only allow two to be played at the same time. We plan on creating the first production box in the hip-hop industry. The Playlist & Soundtrack Box will feature classic hip-hop like Run-D.M.C.'s A Better Tomorrow, Jay-Z's The Saga Continues and 50 Cent's Life After Death & The Rise & Fall of Cash Money/Slim's 50th Anniversary Collection by Nas, EPMD, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill. It will take you back to a time when there was only one box and you could only get the one song you wanted to hear. - -One artist who has agreed to do the box for us is Lil Wayne, who was featured on the first Playlist & Soundtrack Box. - -We believe that the Box is going to bring back the feeling of the music industry. It is going to be a music collector's dream and one we know would be appreciated by even the most hardcore listeners out there. The music industry needs that kind of incentive, and our mission is to bring a new wave of playlists back to the masses. - -We are asking for your support. - -Please share our campaign to the best of your abilities. - -Thank you and Thank you Lil Wayne. - -About Jay-Z - -Born in Detroit, Jay-Z is an American musician who has written some of the greatest songs in the hip-hop genre. He is a member of the Roc Nation Group, which is a record label and music publisher. He is also a business partner of Roc Nation Records and has worked with artists including Madonna, Eminem, and U2. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide and is the highest selling R&B artist of all time. - - -About Lil Wayne - -Born Wayne Dolly in Philadelphia, Indiana Wayne Dolly began rapping at the age of twelve. A self described rapper, he became the first rapper signed to Def Jam Recordings in 1996 and has since released 10 platinum and platinum albums across 3 albums, 4 mixtapes, two EPs, and countless other singles. He achieved platinum and gold status with his album Dedication 4 Love (2000), while his album Tha Carter IV sold over 1 million copies within one week of its release, becoming the eighth-highest selling album of his career.<|endoftext|>Cream of coconut with cashew butter and spices. Creamy, nutty and decadent, it is the perfect lunch or dinner food. It can also be used in curries. - -======================================== SAMPLE 462 ======================================== -The Washington Redskins have been pretty good at securing the No. 1 overall pick the last two seasons. When a quarterback is taken, fans like the promise of a franchise-changing signal-caller. But the Redskins may have to rethink that strategy if Washington can't retain Robert Griffin III. - -According to Sports Illustrated's Peter King, Washington is "preparing a third-round offer" to retain its starting quarterback, who will become a free agent July 15. - -The Redskins are one of the most aggressive teams at finding high-profile quarterbacks and it's not that long ago that Griffin was perceived as a player who could "win right away." Instead, Griffin has been an inconsistent, underachieving starter who has thrown six interceptions and averaged a whopping 5.7 yards per carry in four seasons since turning pro in 2012. - -Griffin isn't the only veteran quarterback who will hit free agency in 2015. In fact, a half-dozen teams could look for an upgrade behind the wheel by March. - -The top of the market may already be set in stone. Matt Moore and Jay Cutler are out of options, and Ryan Fitzpatrick is still going strong as one of the NFL's best backups at 35 years old. Andy Dalton is 33 and Alex Smith can be counted on to lead the Chiefs to another championship, but both signal-callers are coming off disappointing seasons. - -The Redskins have two picks in the first three rounds of the draft, and are a couple of picks from the top of the second round. That gives them an opportunity to upgrade the position, but they'll also need someone to step up in 2013. - -At 26 years old, Griffin will be entering the prime of his career and has two more years of guaranteed money left on his contract. In 2013, he should be considered a veteran-caliber quarterback because that's what he'll be for the majority of his career. The team would be wise to secure his services the moment they can. - -Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @danhanzus.<|endoftext|>1.4.1 What's new - -• Minor tweaks & fixes - -• Performance improvements - -1.4.0 What's new - -• Completely new soundtracks to make the game even more immersive - - -And more… - -• More levels to explore, more weapons to use and more enemies lurking in the shadows - - -And more… - -• Customisable controls for more ways to play - - -And more… - -• New enemy types to battle - - -And more… - -• Improved visuals & graphics - - -And more… - -• Improved compatibility for iOS 11 - - -And more… - -• iPhone X support - - -And more… - -• Improved performance - -1.3.0 What's new - -• 3-way split screen support (up to four users on one screen) - - -And more… - -• More weapons; more enemies; more enemies - - -And more… - -• A new enemy type: The Tearmonger - - -And more… - -• A new enemy type: The Gorgon - - -And more… - -• A new enemy type: The Viper - - -And more… - -• Improvements to enemy performance & visuals - - -And more… - -• Improved controls system - - -And more… - -• Performance & stability improvements - -1.2.7 What's new - -• The battle now takes place in outer space - - -Plus more… - -• A completely reworked and new graphical engine for a stunning new appearance - -• Two exclusive enemy types - - -And more… - -• A new enemy type: The Bouncer - - -And more… - -• More levels to explore, more weapons to use and more enemies lurking in the shadows - - -Plus more… - -• More enemy types to tackle - - -And more… - -• Improved enemy performance & visuals - - -And more… - -• Improved graphics engine - - -And more… - -• Performance & stability improvements - -1.2.5 What's new - -• Three-way split-screen co-op! Now you can play against three friends on your iPhone, iPad or iPad Mini! - -• Better compatibility for iOS 11 - - -Plus more… - -• You can now replay the level you're currently playing - -• More enemies to fight - - -Plus more… - -• Completely reworked enemy animations - -• New & improved sound quality - -• Improved performance & stability - -1.2.4 What's new - - -• A new co-op mode with two additional levels: One for the main game and one for the boss fight - - -Plus more… - -• A new enemy type: The Swarm (an invisible enemy who will chase after you and tear you to pieces) - - -And more… - -• An increased level count to 12. Try to survive all 12 levels - - -And more… -======================================== SAMPLE 463 ======================================== -The following letter is in response to the news that the Department of Homeland Security was granted an extension to implement and enforce our immigration laws. These laws were enacted in an attempt to stop the illegal immigration invasion that was causing so much harm to our nation. The law does not cover all illegal immigrants, but it is generally recognized as a key piece of our immigration enforcement. - -We have not been here for the last fifteen years, and while there have been many good provisions and improvements, our immigration system is still broken. This letter addresses both aspects of our immigration system. - -1. Immigration Enforcement: - -We strongly support the efforts of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to do their jobs to maintain public safety. We support President Barack Obama's administration efforts to identify, identify, target and arrest members of criminal gangs who have come here illegally and are hurting both the lives and the wages of our countrymen. However, our current immigration system allows these gang members and others to be able to freely enter our country without undergoing a background check and without fear. President Obama's executive order and previous actions taken by the previous administration have made our border more secure from illegal migration, however, the system still allows for these type of people to become citizens without even having a background check or a check from ICE. - -2. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) - -TPS covers countries outside of the US, which includes a number of Central and South American countries. The current program was signed into law in 1996 by then President Bill Clinton and continues to be implemented. - -It is critical that the program be changed in some way to protect those who are living here because of this country's immigration laws. For example, we need protections to ensure that people from countries with very low rates of immigration do not receive TPS. We also need more resources and a more streamlined process in which people from low-skilled countries can apply at first. - -3. Immigration Visas: - -The Department must use its discretion to make sure that those receiving any benefits received in violation of our immigration laws are actually in the country. - -4. Border Security and Immigration: - -We support President Obama's efforts to stop the illegal immigration into the US and to have the US government enforce our immigration laws. We also support President Obama's announcement that he will stop deporting those who have been ordered removed by a judge. - -We also believe, however, that if the Administration is serious about solving our border security and immigration problems that they should also use their discretion to make sure that those receiving any benefits received in violation of our immigration laws are actually in the country. - -We encourage the Administration to ensure that they have the resources necessary to ensure that people in the country illegally can't use their TPS status to remain here legally—and to do so quickly when they are encountered. - -5. Border Security: - -The Border Patrol and Border Control should be given the resources necessary to patrol all borders across the country. President Obama was right to propose a major increase in border security when he was running for President because it means fewer people can stay to illegally immigrate into our country. - -We also support the increased funding needed to enforce existing immigration laws and continue to build on the efforts already made to secure our borders. - -We appreciate the efforts by President Obama and his administration to create a much safer and more secure border. However, Congress must ensure that President Obama's actions regarding border security funding are not undermined or ignored. - -6. National Security and Immigration: - -We would support President Obama's efforts to put pressure on our allies to stop accepting people who have not been vetted. We are also opposed to any changes to the United Nations refugee resettlement program. That program helps millions of innocent men, women and children escape terror and persecution and live and call their home a secure place to try and rebuild a better life. - -Additionally, we support President Obama's actions to reduce the flow of illegal immigration, which has devastated communities, caused a huge increase in criminal activity and has impacted wages and jobs across this country for decades. We believe, however, that if the Administration is serious about stopping illegal immigration across our border and enforcing our immigration laws, they should use their discretion and give these families the opportunity to get right with the law. - -We would also like to see better funding for our border security, increased support for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the removal of wasteful funds from other government agencies to make sure that they focus on border security. - -7. Public Safety: - -We are especially concerned that the Department of Homeland Security's ability to secure our nation's borders is severely challenged. We are also disappointed that the immigration status of foreign nationals was not fully investigated during the Boston Marathon bombings, despite information suggesting that the suspects had entered the US illegally. - -Although DHS has already put in place many steps to ensure the security and integrity of immigration documents, these steps are not enough. The Department requires a lot more resources to -======================================== SAMPLE 464 ======================================== -This year we're bringing a new set of characters to the world of the Witcher. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – Hearts of Stone, will be our first expansion for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. This expansion introduces the Blood & Wine storyline, which features a new adventure story that puts Geralt in control of a royal family and explores the conflicts of an age long ago when the nobles, the peasants, and the tribes all united against the Wild Hunt. - -Blood & Wine is a story from the perspective of the heir to one of the most important kingdoms in Northern Europe, the Kingdom of Toussaint. As your character progresses through a story spanning the course of The Witcher 2, they start the game with the knowledge that their father, King Foltest, is the sole survivor of a horrific event during the War of the First Lantern. - -The game is designed with this new knowledge of Toussaint's past in mind, leading us to create a game world that tells a story set in the same world but which offers unique possibilities for Geralt's progression that no other similar experience has before. - -The player will now be able to control a family of three members and a horse. Toussaint includes three different districts – the northern province of Arden, the southern province of Novigrad and the southern city-state of Velen – as well as a variety of additional content such as dungeons, mini-games, mini-adventures and adventures. - -For the first time in any Witcher game, our new character-building system and a deep character customization feature are introduced as part of the game, allowing the player to choose the appearance and skills of each of his two main characters without losing any of the gameplay benefits. - -Blood & Wine will be available in September for PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 and on October 30th for PC.<|endoftext|>The last time my father tried to stop me from sleeping on the couch I fell asleep to the TV while he made dinner. He was tired. That's what kids do when they're not working. - -The TV was on when the doorbell rang. I thought it was that one uncle again that always wanted to show me his car. I opened the door to see a man in my dad's uniform. - -"What can I get you?" I wanted to ask. I always wanted to ask. Because the man took his hat off the table and put it on. This may have been a guy in my dad's uniform, but they didn't look like the people from that day with the big gold star in the corner. They didn't have hats anymore. They all had them when they were killed. - -That was the time someone on my dad's team died. So this man had a nice hat with feathers in it, and it looked expensive on a man who worked for our family. "Your uniform." I'd heard that line a thousand times. No matter what my dad's orders, I wasn't supposed to sleep on the couch. The man left, not saying anything. - -It wasn't the first time I'd heard it: "Your uniform." - -I turned on the TV to see if I could catch the last of the news. I never bothered. - -I was asleep the first night I got a chance. The family went on vacation. I went to bed. - -It was cold. I heard my Dad's voice. Not the voice I knew, the one that would warn me if I heard gunshots in the distance. The one that would explain why I didn't hear my name being called on the phone. "Geraldo?" - -"My name is Geraldo," I told him. - -"Can I put my hat down like I used to?" Maybe this was a different Geraldo? Maybe I could make him not kill my family. "I really don't want my hat on again." - -"Just get it over here, please. Come on." - -I did what he asked. Even after my Mom had made me put it on. I was supposed to sleep on the couch, and I got so tired that I thought my hair might fall out. - -I went on the road trip with Dad and told my Mom I was going to watch TV. I thought it was all going to be so normal, like my friends got married and I went to the beach. But I'd had the TV since I was old enough to remember, and it was the one thing that kept my sanity. I needed the TV like I needed a bath. - -The family went on vacation, and everyone took a shower in the family car. Geraldo got in. - -"Where you going, gee whiz?" He didn't wait for my answer, so I hopped in the chair between his legs. "Where you going? What are you going to do? Where you gonna live? Where you gonna live? You're getting married soon, Geraldo. You're going -======================================== SAMPLE 465 ======================================== -The following letter was sent to The Guardian by two anonymous women from various different organisations of varying backgrounds. They wish to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. - -We are members of the Women's Equality Party, and our party organiser, Sue Perkins, is currently writing a feminist manifesto, which is a key part of this. The manifesto is being completed at the moment, and while we are still in the process, it has been decided that this letter is a letter we do not want published. It is not designed as a direct attack, but does raise some legitimate questions, which we are happy to discuss at length if people are interested. - -We are not members of any particular political party, but the politics we are talking about are universal and part of the mainstream. In the US and UK, the majority of the politicians and government leaders in our societies are men. If we look at the role of women in these societies at a macro-level – in the workplace – we find that there are many structural advantages afforded to men, to be perfectly frank. For example, many workplaces do not provide for adequate break times, childcare facilities, or access to equal pay for equal work; we have seen a dramatic rise in men in the workforce over the past 100 years, and this shift has in turn made most women redundant. We are talking at a micro level, here, but the overall effects of this are that the bulk of the population's financial security and economic well-being is dependent on the gender of the main breadwinner, and when the majority of our work falls to men, we do not have the legal right to demand our fair share. - -We live in an extremely unequal society, and the gap between rich and poor is even wider. We know that the gender pay gap tends to be even bigger for people who come from upper-income households, for women in particular. This means that the fact that women earn less than men doesn't mean that they are being paid less; it actually means that their value in the workplace has decreased to a greater extent because of the structural disadvantages they have relative to men. - -Women are also more likely to be the main carer for children under 18. This means that we, as parents, have greater responsibilities – both mental and financial – than our male counterparts. This is not a sexist issue; it is human. - -We are feminists. We believe that women's equality is an inalienable human right; that men should not profit from this unequal balance of power in the workplace or society any more than they did at any previous stage of social evolution. Feminism has always had something to say against the social inequality caused by institutionalised gender inequality. It calls us to recognise that power is not the goal of male dominance; that it is the power of women to demand control over their own bodies and their own futures. We are proud of the feminist movement that arose in the 1960s, and which continues to grow, with the first all-women's conference taking place this time in London. It is our hope that this letter might contribute to discussion regarding the need for further social reforms aimed at correcting these inequalities, if the feminist movement is to continue to remain relevant. - -Our concerns about gender inequality have been raised often, and often by those who claim to support it. We want to challenge the prevailing view that feminist movements are always 'anti-men', or that any particular action it takes is aimed at creating conditions where women are 'equal' to men. When people call for more equality for women, they almost always mean that the rights and freedoms that men enjoy should be extended to women as well; that men should be free to pursue work, careers, and life in whatever manner they see fit. - -We have heard this in recent weeks with the growing focus surrounding equality legislation, with some MPs and activists claiming that we must create "lad's rights" legislation: i.e. laws which allow men to "have their cake and eat it". We are not against any particular outcome that the law could bring about, we are just against those who would create legal incentives. - -Some feminists seek to 'take back' the workplace by allowing women to more easily claim equal pay for equal work (i.e. the 'sexism' argument). We disagree, because we do not see how a workplace should be defined any longer; a place for work, a place for sex, a place for male supremacy. It needs to be a place for human beings, not men. It should be a place for men to work and live and create, and not a place where women are expected to be submissive, to be protected only from violence and abuse. - -In an interview for this film, Rebecca West said: "I don't want the right of women to do anything… to be able to sit at home and be a homemaker. I don't want women to be able to be an active member of society. That is what gives women their power – their agency." - -The majority of -======================================== SAMPLE 466 ======================================== -The National Institutes of Health will start paying a new price per month to the government for the drugs used to treat patients diagnosed with metastatic brain cancer, setting the price at $2,000 for an 11-month treatment. - -The cost of the drugs, known as CTL019, is the latest to rise under a 2012 law that allowed government-sponsored research on the drugs. The law, known as the BRAIN Act, aims to encourage researchers to find new ways to fight brain disorders, but some say the law has been too costly and cumbersome to achieve its goals. - -Some lawmakers called for an end to the government-sponsored drug research this year. But some lawmakers, including some Republicans — who control Congress — and Democrats, are still defending the law, and the cost of the research. - -"If you want to fight brain cancer, you must understand that the drugs that are used are only part of the answer," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia and an original author of the law. "We must take the next step, and that is to bring down the price of life-saving medicines to those that many Americans can afford." - - -Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which funds most of the BRAIN Act research, said the cost of CTL019 is similar to the cost of other medications that the agency administers. CTL019 is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of the disease that causes a large proportion of patients with advanced cancers to die within six months. The average price of the drug in the United States is $1,092 a month. - -"The only thing we can control on that is the clinical trial costs for all of our investigational drugs, the way the drug is approved," Ludwig said. "It's what we can control that affects what we pay in the U.S. dollar." - -Some experts suggest reducing the cost of the drug by lowering its effectiveness and requiring patients to take it for more than 10 months. - - -"This price hike will make access to CTL019 far more expensive, which will have a chilling effect on the development of new medicines for brain tumors," said Michael Steinberg, director of the health law program at the Center for Studying Drug Development at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. - -CDR Medical, which makes CTL019, has said in the past the drug was more effective than some medications available on the market. - -The company said that by 2015, 10 other drugs will begin competing for the same market that CTL019 will. - -"If you look at [our competitors], they are priced far higher. The big question is just why they're not pricing themselves anywhere near CTL019," said Darshini Singh Bhandari, a spokeswoman for CCDDR Medical. - -Dr. Michael Siegel, chief of the division of glioblastoma research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), said it appears the cancer is resistant to standard drugs, but some are developing options for treatment.<|endoftext|>If you're into music at all, you've probably heard of The Weeknd, and if you don't, you really should. The Weeknd made his way to the mainstream in 2015's "Can't Feel My Face." It's hard to pick just one song for this list, but let's just say this was the year the Weeknd made every year at the top of the Billboard 200. - -Now, on the heels of breaking his own record with his third album Starboy, The Weeknd takes things to the next level with his latest album Beauty Behind The Madness, due September 30th. - -Listen to the new music video for "I Feel It Coming" below, which features the Weeknd's sister-in-law, Talinda Williams, alongside him. - -[via Rolling Stone]<|endoftext|>Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -This isn't a story you're likely to hear very often these days, but it could lead to a revolution in cycling training. - -A group of researchers from Bristol University and the University of the West of England have developed an innovative way to improve your cycling biomechanics. - -In what they say is a first for cycling, an aerodynamic cycle design is to be used as a training guide for road cyclists. The research team at Bristol and West of England have developed and tested their 'aerodynamic cycle design'. It is designed to increase the cyclist's aerodynamic efficiency by keeping the cyclist's center of gravity low, and to help the cyclist stay more upright, the team say. - -The study involved the use of a cycle simulator, which uses the rider's body form as the basis for a three dimensional computer model. The team used the computer model to design how all of the human motions -======================================== SAMPLE 467 ======================================== - -In October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected Apple's attempt to throw out a jury verdict that was handed down last year that found the company liable to compensate former supplier Pegatron for its role in the so-called 'Scribot defect.' - -Pegatron's lawyer argued that Apple should have to pay the company's lawyers' fees for their work, but the court rejected those arguments in favor of a more measured approach that could see Apple pay a fraction of the actual damages. - -After all, Apple had paid Pegatron to build the iPod touch for just $39.95, and the company has long since sold them away. As a result, the court ruled: - -Apple's actions are in fact "totally insignificant in light of the totality of the relationship and history between the parties over the last decade, both during and after which the parties have shared in an astonishingly low percentage of the total profits." Therefore, "in light of their lack of relationship, there is no basis for this court to award Pegatron damages for these damages, which would be excessive, but for the fact that the relationship was so negligible and the damages so minimal as to amount to nothing." - -Apple isn't the only company under scrutiny after a jury failed to find it liable for allegedly helping cause the death of a teenage worker who worked for Apple's supplier, Apple-supplier Pegatron. - -The Associated Press has obtained an image of a memo, dated July 27, 2005, sent to Apple CEO Steve Jobs that reportedly revealed that Apple's suppliers were subject to "systematic anti-union activities" at the time, with Pegatron "the biggest target." As a result, "many suppliers are afraid to talk to us about anything other than the high union costs involved." The memo allegedly went on to say that Apple would "have a lot to lose" if it "suddenly had to pay some of the thousands of dollars we pay each consultant for their opinions about how to respond to labor questions." Apple has denied that the memo ever existed. - -The AP also has obtained internal documents that show that Apple and its subsidiaries "paid millions of dollars in bonuses and other compensation" to top union officials, according to "industry documents and a person with direct knowledge of the arrangements... The documents indicate that the payments were in addition to any cash bonuses the companies paid to workers for going on strike." - -Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<|endoftext|>The first two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who had access to Hillary Clinton's unsecured personal email account, including those who were told to "strip and mask" classified emails, resigned on Wednesday. - -The announcement comes after a Washington Post report revealed Clinton's private server contained classified information, including the names of CIA officers involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, and other sensitive details. - -The Washington Post also said three State Department IT personnel were required to "strip and mask" the contents of Clinton's personal email account so that they would not see it. - -The Post report cited interviews with the three aides and an internal State Department audit of more than 31,000 emails Clinton sent during her first eight months as secretary of state. - -Clinton herself had been aware that there was classified information in her emails, though she told the FBI that she did not "recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system" at the time. Clinton did delete more than 30,000 emails from her personal server before handing that over to the State Department for preservation. - -Despite this, at least two aides whose access to Clinton's unsecured server was limited have been shown to have mishandled classified information, and that includes Bryan Pagliano, who set up Clinton's server, and Huma Abedin, who is Clinton's close aide and a confidante. - -Pagliano claimed he had not done any work related to work connected to Clinton's State Department. Abedin was found to have provided "work-related" services in an email about her "favorite places to shop" in Washington. - -Pagliano, who was granted immunity by the Justice Department as part of its investigation into Clinton's email scandal, did receive a "show cause" letter in May from the FBI requesting he provide information concerning certain email systems that he says are used by Platte River Networks, an IT firm with ties to Clinton's campaign. - -An attorney for Clinton has insisted that her use of a private server while secretary of state was "authorized by the Department of State. And the State Department confirmed that." - -"No one even knew the server was being used by Clinton until the New York Times wrote about it," Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings said in a statement. - -"And now, after this FBI report, all the evidence reveals that, instead of operating solely for personal convenience, this machine was being used to conduct official business." - -Cummings said if Clinton did use a private server for -======================================== SAMPLE 468 ======================================== -The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995 - - -Quick Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Detailed Walkthrough [ edit ] - -Stuck in the Tombstone Quarry [ edit ] - -The location of the tombstone quarry is in the northwest corner of the map. At the bottom of the quarry on the west side of the quarry you will find a large rock that is difficult to climb. The stone has an open section on one side, which has enough exposed wooden beams to drop down through. However, the other side is protected by a ledge that is too high to climb out of. - -The best place to go first is the ledge, and jump down onto the second level of rock. Make sure to grab onto the wooden beams. This will enable you to reach the first level of stone, which is not protected by the ledge, and reach the rock floor which is completely protected by the ledge. As you jump up the ledge you will notice that the lower portion of the rock and the area just beneath your feet is covered in boulders. - -A Small-Trouble Solution [ edit ] - -After getting past the boulder wall, grab the wooden beam as quickly as possible, and drop down to the bottom of the large rock ledge. If you fall below the level where the stone floor is protected from the ledge by the edge of the large rock ledge, your fall will kill you. Use the wooden beam on the exposed wooden beam under the platform; use it as a stepping stone for those who have no tools. This way allows you to jump across the exposed, large rock ledge and reach the area below where the ladder leads out. - -Use the lower platform. To the left is a stone ladder. To the right is a door leading south. There is a stone statue on the first floor level of the area. There is also a lever on the lower level in a chest. Pull the lever when you are ready to go through the door, and head to the south-southwest exit door. - -Head out on the wooden beams, then drop down to the ledge. Head to the north-west, and follow the stone passage until you reach a ramp. Follow the ramp to the south and you will come to a platform. There is a chest below you; retrieve the key from the chest to complete the quest. Note that the chest is locked and that a key will be needed to open it. - -Notes [ edit ] - -If you are not wearing any armor and do not have the Sneak perk, you are unable to complete this quest, as the chest is protected by a locked wooden beam. However, to get out of the situation without using any tools, simply run as quickly as possible away from the pillar the chest is on, avoiding the beam. The beam should be above the chest and will not damage you. Note that the beam in the chest may be replaced by the stone on the second level of the stone platform upon getting past the wooden beam. - -There are several different ways to get to the exit to the tombstone quarry. The easiest strategy is the jump to the ledge with the exposed wooden beam. From there, follow the rock passage until you reach the metal door. This is possible by jumping off the lower edge of the metal door and running to the west of the door. Alternatively, there is a shortcut that requires no keys, but it will require you to travel a couple of miles south-southwest of Riften. You can do this by traveling to the village of Winterhold and then traveling along the Riverwood road to the small bridge (one block north of the Riften Watch Tower) which crosses the river. Once on the bridge, walk south a short distance to a wooden walkway and walk to the end of the walkway (you can get back on the walkway by approaching the stone platform from the south and facing north). Use the metal door nearby to exit Winterhold, and you will have traveled a total of about 2 miles by the time you come to Riften. You should have plenty of experience running, especially if you use the Whirlwind Sprint shout; you shouldn't have any trouble reaching Riften. This method also works through the doors on the northern side of the stone platform and into the tombstone quarry. - -The tombstone quarry is accessible to everyone with a skill of 17 in the Alteration skill and the ability to cast Alteration spells. This is not the case with the quest, "Forgotten Wisdom". - -During the quest you may see a group of Nordic skeletons in front of the stone ledge. This is a harmless illusion - the skeletons do not count towards the quest. - -Bugs [ edit ]<|endoftext|>Welcome to the new year of 2016! Last week we posted some early look at the game and here we are with yet another new and beautiful version of the game that we hope you can enjoy a lot. The game takes place during the reign of King Sigurd and features -======================================== SAMPLE 469 ======================================== -A lot of people are still struggling with the meaning of the words "downtrend" and "upswing" when looking at the performance by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. For example, an article earlier this week on CNBC's "Fast Money" blog called Dow: A U.S. Downtrend and Not an Upward Trend. - -My research, along with a bit of analysis, suggests that the most accurate way to define Dow's downtrend is the fact that it happened in the late 1930s: - -And yes, the graph below shows the Dow's annualized gain from 1929 to 1939. If we were using a simple up-and-down trend to measure Dow's performance since then, Dow would have moved from a high in 1929 to near the end of World War II in 1944. Dow would then have started a new up-and-down pattern, with the dot above 1938, but would subsequently lose its way again. - -The fact is, the Dow's performance since then, along with the long-term uptrend, is exactly what a market uptrend and downtrend look like. When Dow is up (or down), it's due to the upward movement of the market. The downtrend, on the other hand, is due to market forces such as the decline in the supply of energy, or the introduction of new products, or other cyclical forces. Dow is still in its up-and-down downtrend at the moment, but we might expect to see the Dow slowly moving back into the downtrend once the first quarter is over. - -One final note. When we first covered this topic back in April, I noted that the Dow was more likely to come back up (in an uptrend) than down (in a downtrend). At the time, I mentioned that Dow might be more vulnerable to a short-term downturn, but I was still willing to hold Dow in my portfolio. I'm no longer willing to make that claim.<|endoftext|>About - -The original game for our Kickstarter campaign! This is for the original 2.5 inch die game "Bible Wars" and the expansions "Chronicles" and "Homes". - -We will provide these for free once that project is funded. - -The first expansion "Chronicles" is now completed! We are just finalizing the artwork so that we could finish the game with a great cover. We are also making some small changes in the rules so that the game can fit more of the 8mm die as well. We are also currently making adjustments to the card numbers as we were unable to get these as they were initially ordered. - -The second expansion "Homes" is also completed! We are just making minor changes to the artwork now that its done. A small change to game play as well. - -The final set of "Homes" cards are finished and ready for shipment. Once they are ready, we will ship out the remaining sets and be done with the initial orders. Once again, we will be providing these for free once the Kickstarter project is funded. Thank you!<|endoftext|>The first time I read the first volume of a book in a series, I wasn't necessarily impressed—the story was just that good. The second time, I was thrilled. This second read did not disappoint: There's so much to love. - - -I first saw the book in the late summer of 2015 about 20,000 miles away—in Turkey, where I was on my way to learn how to be a doctor. In my spare time I was reading the "real" medical literature with the hopes that some of it would find an application to my studies at the University of Chicago. However, the book I was reading was, with the exception of one character, not an actual medical book. It was The Great Pandemic by Peter Beaumont, who has come a long way since that first reading. His writing is crisp, clean, and fast-paced; his characters are vivid and believable. Even the prose, written in the third person, is crisp and succinct, and his sentences are always a great use of ellipses. - - -There is so much in "The Great Pandemic" that I haven't yet fully wrapped my head around. I still don't know if Peter is doing fiction from a medical perspective or if he's just doing the same thing science fiction writers have always done—writing about the present but with magic-based, future-tech sci fi elements woven in. - - -In any case, these "realistic" elements of the book really do add to and enhance the story. Beaumont is so deft when it comes to pacing, and the way he draws you into the book gives you a sense that there's something greater that's going on here--at a level we've never experienced; you become a part of the story. It's almost like being a part of a movie. - - -Beaumont's writing style is so well-rounded that there are -======================================== SAMPLE 470 ======================================== -HELPING YOU UNDERSTAND - - -As some questions have become more sensitive, we have created a FAQ page. Click the link to learn more. - -Q: Where's my money going? - -A: It starts with your donation. The more we raised and the more people we reach, the stronger our ability to continue. - -Q: How exactly is this fundraiser different? - -A: This fundraiser is a non-profit in the truest sense of the word. All contributions are tax deductible. The funds will pay the staff and vendors and pay the legal and accounting fees needed to make this event possible. For more than twenty years, our group has served the community in an unparalleled manner and we need your help to keep it growing and serving at its best. - -Q: Why is my donation tax deductible? - -A: Most people would assume that our fundraiser is "for charity," but that is not the case. The fundraiser is solely the creation of our group and is a direct result of its dedication to serving the community. Your charity is not our charity. Therefore your donation is not taxable as a charitable contribution to the IRS.<|endoftext|>Barry Trotz is in his third season as Washington Capitals head coach, after being elevated to the top job on Jan. 9. - -Following one of the league's best regular seasons last year under former Capitals coach Adam Oates, and one of the team's most disappointing playoffs, Trotz is facing an uphill battle in his third season on the job, as the Capitals have struggled since he took over for Bruce Boudreau. - -Washington has won only six of its 27 games, which includes a loss in its most recent contest, and has now lost eight of their last nine contests. - -Oates, who was fired midway through the season by Washington, posted a 508-424-86 (.605) record (.533 winning percentage) in his last 16 games, including an 18-7-3 mark (.733 winning percentage) in those games that was good enough to lead the Capitals to the Presidents' Trophy for the most victories in the Metro Division in 2014-15. Washington ended up finishing in the top-three in the division, but missed the playoffs altogether. - -"It is something new that he's brought to Washington," Capitals forward Troy Brouwer said of Trotz after the team was swept at home by the New York Islanders on Saturday. "He doesn't say much, but he's done a great job of getting the guys in the right rhythm and stuff like that." - -With Trotz hired, it wasn't immediately clear who would take over as Washington's coach following Oates' dismissal. - -Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Phil Kessel all said recently that they'd be interested in remaining with the organization beyond this season if there was a possibility of another playoff run coming to Washington. Coach Barry Trotz has said he would like that to be the case, and is confident in his ability to turn things around. - -Trotz joined the Capitals midway through the 2014-15 season and has only two weeks of coaching experience, having been promoted to the top job on Jan. 9. He helped lead Russia to two gold medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympics before returning to his native Sweden for a coaching career. - -He has appeared in a total of 38 career NHL games, with a record of 43-56-19. Trotz appeared in the Capitals' first playoff game in 2009, the postseason in 2008 and 2011, and the club's second round exit in 2010. He was the NHL's third most-winning coach in 2004 and 2005 with Nashville and Toronto, respectively, before landing in Washington. Trotz led the Predators to the Stanley Cup Final in 2005.<|endoftext|>The New York Times Magazine once published a list of the 50 most influential people in the world. The list is a testament to how powerful the idea of being "influential" can be. - -Most of those people are people who've had a huge impact on the world and have lived extremely successful lives. It's a list that makes you want to write some books or become the next famous actor or politician. - -The problem with the list is that it also makes you want to die. - -The most popular item on the list is a picture of Steve Jobs. This is because he got on the list by being at least 10 times as influential as everyone else. - -Jobs was, of course, very talented. He was also incredibly ambitious and highly driven. It's hard to imagine that any of that made him any less influential than almost everyone else on the list. - -The problem is that he was also incredibly successful. To put it in perspective: There are two people on the list who have had twice as great of an impact in the world as Jobs. - -There is one person on the list who is at least 10 times worse for influence as Steve Jobs. - -This is -======================================== SAMPLE 471 ======================================== -For a long time, I have used the word "joke" to describe something that is absurdly stupid. One of the reasons for this has been because my mother taught me that there are things in life that are so ridiculous that you should think very, very hard about them before you make another joke about them. But a joke has come up that is, I think, about the last thing that my mother taught me when she learned the value of thinking hard. It's the joke that is so ridiculous—it is both utterly predictable and completely insane. It is the joke about a man who was convicted of murdering his wife, the mother of nine children—and for whom his victim's family and the police worked hard to have him sentenced to die. It's the joke about a state agency that has become so deeply embedded and powerful that it is now a part of the fabric of the society it regulates and regulates to protect and serve. It's the joke about a company that has created a culture in which employees are made to believe that it's their job to lie to customers, and the culture that was created was a culture of dishonesty. It's also the joke about a man who decided to give his life to the state. - -The joke about the man who made a living killing his wife. Photo: AP - -I have always thought, over the years, of how ridiculous that the state, in the name of justice, would put a man to death for a crime he supposedly should not have committed. But it occurred to me that it is actually possible, that people could seriously argue, that this was a just and reasonable sentence. If the judge were to rule that for someone like me, for example, who has never even had an impulse to murder anyone, that a death sentence was just and reasonable in the way that this man was sentenced, in my mind, he would be wrong. But I was not prepared to give up yet another hobby that I have had, to admit to myself that this is, in fact, the case. - -I began doing more and more research into this case, looking at documents from the case. And in doing so I also began to look harder at the facts of the case, the evidence in the case. I saw that I was aghast at how, for what we now recognize were outrageous and unjustified claims, the defendant was convicted. So one day I opened up e-mails that I had not received from myself. And there it was--the e-mail from my mother. It was a long e-mail, but it told her story in a simple and clear and eloquent way. She wrote, "I know what you want to do. But the truth is you have done nothing to deserve this." She continued, "You have never killed anyone. You were not even convicted of any murder charges. It is beyond comprehension for a family who has lost eight members to murder or accident over the years, including you, to have you convicted of murder. It is beyond comprehension for you to claim that for this you have earned a death sentence. But as a matter of justice and fairness you must die in prison, or we will fight it until you are freed." - -She concluded, "You are a man who has violated the fundamental human rights of a fellow human being, you are a criminal in the justice system on the rampage, you are not worthy of any mercy and, if you are ever released, you will kill again immediately." I felt a deep sense of despair. I also felt that this kind of experience—where you feel you are being lied to and betrayed and your fundamental human rights are being violated every second of the time for something that has never happened to you before—that you are so desperate to find any way of not being punished that you are willing to sacrifice everything. - -It was at that place where I decided I needed to stop telling jokes. - -I knew I wasn't the only person like me in this situation. It was easy to feel that way. I was talking about it with my friends and I was writing articles about it. And it was hard to come to terms with this fact that I had become the object of a joke. It wasn't right. It wasn't funny. - -"It takes a special kind of person, a unique kind of person, to be in my position." - -It took a special kind of person, a unique kind of person, to be in my position. I knew I had gone down a slippery slope—I had crossed the fine line. But in that situation, I felt this very deep sense of desperation that something might very well happen to me. It was the first time I felt the urge to take the action needed to change the outcome. I wanted justice. I wanted the justice system to get it right, to take the time to understand what had happened, to be willing to take a fresh look at the evidence. - -As I began to rethink and examine all my feelings about the joke -======================================== SAMPLE 472 ======================================== -Riot police stand near a barricade on Dec. 11, 2016, following clashes in the center of Athens in which several journalists and photographers were injured and a protester was killed. (AFP Photo/Orestis Panagiotakos) - -The United States expressed "grave concerns" Sunday after Greek police briefly detained the chairman of a prominent Greek newspaper and two other journalists on charges of disseminating false news, calling for their immediate release. - -The three men were detained Thursday evening on charges of being responsible for distributing false information after dozens of people stormed local TV stations and other buildings, attacking both the police and the demonstrators. - -"We are very disturbed by these news reports and strongly condemn their publication, which have resulted in serious injuries and loss of life," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a regular news briefing. - -"The Greek authorities should immediately release all journalists identified in this case, without unnecessary delay, and to ensure that any other charges are dropped against any individuals who have been unlawfully detained as a result of these violent incidents." - -The United States has long supported Press Freedom around the world. But Nauert said U.S. government officials will continue to monitor the situation in Greece. - -She also said the United States "welcomes the fact that the government in Athens is committed to preserving freedom of expression in this nation by reviewing and enacting legislation to clarify that criminal incitement to violence only applies to incidents of public violence and violent attacks against police officers, and does not apply to acts that do not occur in the open but rather are hidden or clandestine." - -A protest against the newspaper and some of its senior journalists took place in Athens, Athens police said on Friday. The police chief said he was not aware of any casualties, but he added that about 400 protesters had been arrested. - -The rioting and clashes came after a ruling party-led government, which had been in power since 2015, unveiled reforms to tighten media ownership rules in an effort to control and regulate a media increasingly dominated by the political right.<|endoftext|>After losing to Chelsea in Sunday's Carabao Cup final, Spurs made a big-name signing by sealing Dele Alli's £5.5m move to White Hart Lane. - -Alli has played for England internationally and is now one of the most important players in the Tottenham team, as he can also play as a winger. The 23-year-old, who joined Spurs at the age of seven, will now be under the care of Mauricio Pochettino. - -Spurs have already lost Paulinho, Toby Alderweireld and Victor Wanyama since the summer and will now turn to Alli, who has played at right-back for the club before. - -Alli has received some great endorsement from some top players already, such as Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo, although he admits he's yet to meet the man who helped him become the world's most expensive teenager. - -He told FourFourTwo.com: "When I go to the World Cup, it'll be nice to say I was on that team, because for me it's not something I've been part of but everyone at the team that I've been on the pitch with, whether they're strikers or centre-backs, is a great lad and a good mate and someone I look up to. He's the best player in the world – the best in my opinion."<|endoftext|>A woman said she was assaulted for speaking with police on her beat-up bike, while a family in south London was shocked to discover that their mother was missing after a few days. - -A woman said she was assaulted for speaking with police on her beat-up bike, while a family in south London was shocked to discover that their mother was missing after a few days. - -'Mick' of Brent, Brentwood and Stonehouse - -A mother said she was assaulted in Brent, South London - -Tracey and James Lacy said a stranger had attacked their 16-year-old son - -They were shocked to discover that the mother of their two-year-old girl was missing after a few days. - -Tracey Lacy said she was talking to police on her beat-up bike on March 14 when she heard a "really odd noise". - -She said: "I turned and I saw somebody had attacked my son with a pickaxe. I called the police straight away and they took my mobile and then the guy ran off." - -The couple in Brentwood, south-east London, were left horrified when they discovered that the two-year-old girl's mom was missing after a day out with her daughter. - -Tracey and James Lacy, both 32, said they thought a relative had been visiting on the day of the attack. - -But, when they took their daughter to hospital for checks, they discovered her mother's bloodied and battered face. - -'My heart breaks' - -Mrs Lacy said she -======================================== SAMPLE 473 ======================================== -An open letter from the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Earth Liberation Front, and Indigenous Environmental Network urges President Obama "to honor the Sacred Waters Treaty" with the first-of-its-kind water conservation plan he promised during the Native American Heritage Month event on March 18. - -In the spirit of the first U.S. president to be both a Christian and a Native American, President Obama should "acknowledge that the first treaty of the U.S. was made for the purpose of protecting water." - -The letter by the above four groups asks Obama to direct the Bureau of Reclamation, "to restore the Sacred Waters" and "to implement a sustainable and balanced conservation plan for the Great Lakes." - -In his remarks on the March 18 event, President Obama said that "for my entire life, and for my entire first term in this office, I have dedicated myself to working in partnership with Native Americans and to restoring respect for their communities. - -"And I did that in part because I care about the natural world and recognize that the next generation needs to know that we can do better together. This I take very personally. We will continue to build on the progress that I've made over the last six years and we are just beginning the work that lies ahead of us," he said. - -Obama was referring to his Native American Heritage Month message of April 7, 2009, which included a joint statement with then-Indian Education Secretary Arne Duncan of a new program that aims to "connect young Native American youth with Native American institutions and provide education that is relevant and effective to address Native American aspirations in the 21st century; to establish the Native American Heritage Preservation Program, a strategic interagency initiative, which works to preserve important artifacts from the Native American communities in which they live; to advance the preservation of cultural resources, such as traditional art and folklore, through an Interagency Tribal Relations Council; to develop a research fund to provide more information on the Native American heritage and culture. - -The letter from the aforementioned groups notes that a number of the areas where President Obama intends to expand his environmental protections include the Great Lakes watershed, including the proposed expansion of the Clean Water Rule and the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline ("DAPL"). - -One of the primary goals of the Sacred Waters Plan, wrote the signatories, "is to protect water resources within the Greater St. Lawrence River Basin. We call on the Bureau of Reclamation and the Federal Government to follow this precedent and protect a major source of clean drinking water, the water of the St. Lawrence River, the primary drinking water of 11 million people." - -"We urge you to honor the Sacred Waters treaty with the first-of-its-kind water conservation plan that the United States government has yet to implement" the signatories said. - -"Respect for this critical water resource will provide a path to a peaceful way forward for the Dakota Access Pipeline and all future energy projects," they continued. "This can and must include the development of a more sustainable economy that will move us away from a dependence on fossil fuels." - -The signatories include: - -Amélie O'Neil Fitch - -Benjamin Fenton - -Clayton Moore - -Cody Hall - -Danielle Johnson - -George Kogut - -Jeffrey White - -Lloyd E. Anderson - -Marcus Miller - -Monica Baugh - -Nola A. Williams - -Niki M. White - -Nathan Wampoldy - -Patrick Daugherty - -Sandra Tabor - -Tommy G. Allen - -Ava R. Martin - -Betsy Tafoya - -Bud Foster<|endoftext|>You are here - -What is it? - -This site makes it easy to share your experiences with our local area. Please be generous and post your experiences in any combination. This is a place for you to voice your opinion and be heard. - -We would love to hear your suggestions. - -If you have any information about this issue feel free to contact us at us@yaletown.org<|endoftext|>A team of scientists led by Stanford University researchers has used a new way of analyzing an unusually rich and diverse record of ancient plankton that spans nearly 6 billion years. The results are reported in the Oct. 8 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - -The researchers, including Stanford postdoctoral researcher Christopher F. Henshilwood, were puzzled by unusual, ancient plankton that seemed to be drifting in the North Atlantic Ocean for almost 6 billion years. - -The plankton are called "lobopods" and their diversity was previously recorded as the highest anywhere on Earth. The only other record of "floating" plankton in the ocean was in Antarctic waters, but these plankton are very rare, making their distribution difficult to study in detail. - -"Many previous investigations have been limited to studying very -======================================== SAMPLE 474 ======================================== -Rent and housing is probably the first things that come to mind when you think of what a successful designer is. But design isn't about the perfect apartment. It's not even about how many designer clothes you have. It's about what really matters. - -When we design we really do think about our customer. And we design things to be useful to them, if only to get their money. - -If you're looking for a good quality and professional apartment with all the modern amenities you could ever need, you've come to the right place. We do it the old fashioned way by having years of experience in the industry. You won't find an apartment for sale in New Delhi that isn't something we've designed. We'll be glad to share what has worked for us so you can learn from experience.<|endoftext|>A New Mexico woman is recovering after spending a day and night locked in her car, police said. - -Sterling Baynham, 30, of Santa Fe, was arrested at a business on Friday night on an assault charge after she was found locked in a locked vehicle outside a restaurant in Alamogordo, according to police. - -Baynham reported that she had been drinking on Friday, and a fight broke out at a table in front of her vehicle, Santa Fe police Officer Ryan Frasier said. Baynham then got into the vehicle and drove away, he said. - -In addition to hitting the door lock, Baynham also hit another vehicle and "was causing some type of damage to the vehicle," Frasier said. - -The vehicle was parked outside the Sun Naturals restaurant, located at 3501 N. Alamogordo Blvd., at about 9 p.m. Friday when an employee reported that the car was still there. A resident opened the door to get the car keys. - -As officers arrived, Baynham emerged from inside the locked vehicle and ran from the scene. - -Police said that Baynham was found covered in blood at the Sun Naturals, where she admitted to having had several drinks during the night and having been drinking heavily, Frasier said. They learned that Baynham had been inside the car for an extended period of time, leaving the keys to the vehicle in the vehicle and not returning to get the keys to it, he said. - -Officers arrived and arrested her in the parking lot, and she was taken to a local hospital for treatment, the officer said. When he tried to locate her, Baynham refused to comply with police calls to come out of the vehicle. - -As a precaution, officers went to the Sun Naturals, where Baynham was found in her car, the officer said. The door was locked, and officers were unable to reach her with a key. The car was parked on the street and officers were still unable to locate her. - -A local police K-9 was used to attempt to locate her, but Baynham refused to come out to follow him, Frasier said. At some point, another driver called 911 to report that she had hit the car in her attempt to leave the parking lot.<|endoftext|>The new season has begun, with new clubs coming online and their first match being played. The new season is always the toughest period for any club though, it is still quite new and a lot can happen before they play their first match. - -The new season has begun, with new clubs coming online and their first match being played. The new season is always the toughest period for any club though, it is still quite new and a lot can happen before they play their first match. - -The new season has begun, with new clubs coming online and their first match being played. The new season is always the toughest period for any club though, it is still quite new and a lot can happen before they play their first match. - -The new season has begun, with new clubs coming online and their first match being played. The new season is always the toughest period for any club though, it is still quite new and a lot can happen before they play their first match.<|endoftext|>Image copyright AFP Image caption The US has called for Israel to stop settlement building - -Israel has apologised during a UN Security Council meeting over reports it was investigating cases of Palestinians committing sexual assault and human trafficking. - -"The government apologises to the president of the United States," said a statement from the Israeli foreign ministry. - -The report was "clearly wrong", it said. - -The White House warned the reports could "create greater tensions" in the region and "create the impression that Israel is not taking these allegations seriously". - -It was reported on Tuesday that Israel and the US are investigating at least four possible cases of trafficking involving Israeli and Palestinian women. - -Palestinian officials have accused Israel of seeking to "discredit" reports of sexual violence within their own society. - -UN Security Council resolution 2334 that was passed in December 2016 demands -======================================== SAMPLE 475 ======================================== -Pamela K. Taylor wrote a long post for TAI last week exploring what LeBron James is doing in the 2017 NBA season. In some ways, it was a bit of an understatement. - -James has been so good that he's not merely a "player in disguise" anymore. By any measure, he's the best player in basketball, easily besting his previous career-bests. He's been the MVP of the All-Star Game, the most valuable player of the annual game (at 25.8 ppg) and a leading candidate for the league MVP, all in less than a half season. - -"I think the only question left is: is LeBron the best player in the world?" writes Taylor. "I think he may well have passed Andre Roberson as the best player in the world." - -As for the MVP of the Western Conference, I wrote about it three times before this season: I'm picking Paul George. The Pacers have been a league top-five team for five months and they've got to be considered the favorites to win their first playoff series since their 2008 title. - -I thought George deserved to be named that MVP. He's played every minute of every game while having a monster season, ranking sixth in the NBA in scoring. The only players averaging more points per game this season are the Rockets' James Harden, the Warriors' Curry and the Trail Blazers' Damian Lillard. When we talk about the MVP of the West, this is the guy to look for. The Pacers beat the Warriors on Thursday and have a good chance Wednesday to beat the Warriors at home in Game 3. - -The last time the Pacers finished the season with a better record than Golden State, in 2014-15, George scored 50 points and hit four threes in the series. In this series, the difference is just two games, with the Pacers playing the Cavaliers just twice. They're a better team than they were this time last year. They're certainly better than the Warriors who had to rebuild from a top-five playoff seed to make it out of the Western Conference playoffs. I think George holds the edge on a technicality: it has to be Curry, with James as a distant second. - -On the other hand, I can't leave it at George because of the way he has played this season. The Pacers are an unstoppable force that can run on a team (even one lacking talent). That's the one big advantage on the Warriors that is hard for them to overcome: their offense struggles against the Pacers. - -The Pacers have held teams to 87 points per game in this year's series, the fourth lowest in the NBA. They've scored 100 points three times, twice in games in which they were dominant and once in a game for which the Warriors were outscoring them by 26 points in the second half. - -That's pretty incredible, but it's not the only thing that the Pacers do well in this series. - -Pacers center Al Jefferson is a monster defensively, averaging 14.5 points and a block. He's averaging 3.3 offensive rebounds and 2.5 steals. He's also the only player averaging more than three assists on the Pacers. Those are big components of their defensive game that are missing from last year's team. - -Last year, the Pacers had the best defense in the NBA, according to ESPN's Real Plus/Minus, with the third best mark on the road. This year, the Pacers have the worst mark in the NBA, a net rating of 24.6. - -In terms of rebounding average, the Pacers are a solid team this season but the Warriors are the first team to hold them to two low double-doubles this season. On offense, the Pacers have found success in forcing the issue on the fast break, hitting a new low mark on the stat sheet with a net rating of -36, with two teams doing that to the Pacers this year. The Warriors are a pretty efficient offense, hitting a high percentage of three-pointers and converting at a high percentage of their free throws this season. - -The key for the Pacers will be how they defend. The Pacers were solid on defense a season ago, allowing 95.9 points per 100 possessions while ranking fifth overall in points allowed per 100 possessions. They ranked third in points allowed per 100 possessions, but allowed 108.2 overall and 10th in three-point percentage allowed, so they did a terrific job at limiting their own scoring chances, which were a strength of their game last season. - -This year, the Pacers are allowing 98.6 points per 100 possessions, fourth worst in the NBA. By any measure, that's a terrible defensive rating, but it's not quite as bad as the offensive line of the Warriors, who average 103 points per 100 possessions. - -Last season, the Pacers were a better defense than you think, at least relative to just their opponents. They allowed 100 more points than predicted, but also more than the Warriors -======================================== SAMPLE 476 ======================================== -I have received a lot of emails since this comic was posted and people have been wondering about how I am able to draw, I get most of my inspiration from when I am driving around and listening to music. And now, there is even a song to go with it… - -If you like the song, and the comic below I hope you will spread the word through the facebook, twitter and other social networking sites and links so we can make it happen!! - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>The new year brought a lot of new content with a ton of changes to the UI and other things. I hope you'll enjoy it. As usual, I'm open to the community feedback so feel free to leave any comments below. Let me know what you think. If you have any kind of feature ideas I would really appreciate that as I love adding more to it. - -The UI was a bit more complex than last year. For those who don't know what happened I've decided to introduce the UI for both a larger community and to create a more focused UI for new player content. The UI has two modes, one for the player (who has never played the game) and one for the developer. I think it helps clarify what needs to be done in game and which areas are more important. I've had players asking me about different elements and I hope it gives us a better idea of what are the things most important for a specific player. You'll have to play around to find the right one for you. - -The Developer UI is completely open for any user to submit any kind of idea that is more about the game and less about the design. I hope people will be able to contribute to it and take things to the next level in the game.<|endoftext|>An international team of researchers (Lei et al., 2015 & 2016) has used a combination of molecular, genomics and biological approaches to identify a new human protein that may be important for muscle regeneration. The researchers, led by Dr. David Liu from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Center for Gene Therapy at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, found that the protein, MYOG, that is expressed during the healing process controls the proliferation of muscle stem cells in the body and may prevent overgrowth of other cells. - -"Our work suggests that muscle regeneration can be controlled by specific signaling molecules, including MYOG, and that a therapy may be possible using an experimental drug to block MYOG as a means of avoiding muscle loss by controlling the inflammatory reaction after injury." explained Dr. Liu who also is affiliated in the Stanford Department of Medicine and Center for Gene Therapy - -"Although the mechanism remains unclear, the use of an experimental therapy, such as anti-MYOG antibodies, may provide new treatment options to treat conditions where muscle cells are overgrown," says Dr. Liu. "The aim is to gain insight into the basic mechanisms behind recovery." - -The researchers, led by Dr. Liu, studied tissue samples collected from injured muscle in the mice. They treated the samples with anti-MYOG antibodies and found an increased growth of satellite cells (smaller specialized cells) in the muscles of the animals. These satellite cells appear to help regenerate and help restore tissue health as damaged muscles recover. - -"We've already shown that satellite cells are capable of generating satellite cell precursors, which is an important step for muscle regeneration," says Dr. Liu. "However, we are excited the fact that the treatment of our muscle tissues with anti-MYOG antibodies appears to allow for more efficient muscle regeneration." - -"The use of specific immune system targeting agents to slow muscle regeneration and improve tissue function is a promising direction to focus on, since we want to develop drugs that can be targeted to restore a tissue's original functionality, and thereby prevent or diminish the loss of muscle tissue," he adds. - -To achieve their goals, the authors of the paper are using a new approach to analyze and understand satellite cell activity. Specifically, they used a combination of immunohistochemical analysis and molecular and genetic approaches to identify the exact molecules and cellular targets responsible for the ability of satellite cells to differentiate into muscle precursor cells. - -Previous studies, led by Dr. Liu in China had looked at MYOG in specific patients to identify a molecular receptor in a receptor called TGF-beta/myostatin that is activated by the hormone MYOG. However, Dr. Liu's group wanted to know if this was the only pathway for MYOG and whether other mechanisms were also involved in muscle stem cell regeneration. Their laboratory study suggests it may be. Dr. Liu's laboratory recently identified additional receptors that are activated by MYOG that are not shown to be activated by TGF-beta/myostatin. - -"By examining gene expression patterns in tissues collected from mice treated with anti-MYOG antibodies and muscles obtained from injured muscles, we found that satellite cell proliferation and differentiation were not inhibited by this experimental therapy," said Dr. Liu. "These were the first results in humans supporting our experimental therapy strategy, -======================================== SAMPLE 477 ======================================== - -The most recent episode of Star Wars Rebels airs this week on Disney XD. But before you watch it, you'll have to head back on Thursday (June 8) to catch the Season 2 premiere live from London, the U.K. You'll be able to catch that episode by clicking here. - -Star Wars Rebels Season 2 premieres Thursday, June 8th at 6 p.m. on Disney XD. - -So check out the premiere in its entirety and then read up on what you can do after it's over. Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season 2 Episode Guide - -But first, you'll want to hear from our very own Star Wars Rebels: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray) Commentary by executive producer Dave Filoni! - -We'll be back with a look at the new season, as well as the commentary for Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season 2 Episode 10, which you can see a preview of below:<|endoftext|>The U.S. Postal Service says it's moving forward with a proposal by the Trump administration to trim the size of the agency by up to $5.8 billion over a decade as part of an effort to restructure government bureaucracy. - -The agency says a decision on whether to proceed with the plan will be made in the coming months, after Congress considers a House spending bill that includes the Postal Service plan and one by the Trump administration to increase the Postal Service's funding by $5.5 billion. - -The agency will ask Congress in June for authorization to do the plan and send its plans for the cuts for congressional sign off, said spokesman Sam Schumach. - -"The Postal Service is currently in discussion with House and Senate appropriators and continues to assess all possible options in the context of this legislation," Schumach said. - -Schumach said that the Postal Service received a commitment from the Postal Regulatory Commission in March to submit its postal plan by the end of the spring. - -The Postal Service had previously reported having plans in the works for a restructuring proposal that would scale back some operations. The Postal Service and other postal agencies have been under pressure to reduce their finances as a growing number of mail carriers retire early, and the Postal Service faces future obligations to fund health care costs for some employees. - -The agency recently hired a consultant to evaluate its financial position, and this month began collecting data and analyzing data on its financial performance to begin to determine its ability to stay financially sound. The Postal Service also plans to use information to create a comprehensive plan for future restructuring. - -The proposed cuts to the Postal Service could come as soon as next month if a bill that includes the USPS plan becomes law, according to congressional aides. - -A House appropriations bill includes $15 billion in funding for the Postal Service, and would add the postal proposal for a reduction to the agency's budget. One GOP aide said there's an indication that the bill could come up for a vote in early June. - -Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have said they oppose the postal plan and that Congress can find another solution for the agency through legislation. - -If the proposal goes forward, it could cause problems in fiscal 2018, as part of the Postal Service's budget, the legislation contains spending cuts to the agency that would offset what the restructuring might cost. - -The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., would change how the Postal Service does business by reducing costs and encouraging more in-house service. - -The post office would need to find savings up to $5.8 billion over a decade, if it's approved in its current form. That's a substantial amount of money for a nonprofit agency that is funded through regular tax on people and sales. - -Schumach declined to share the postal agency's annual budget, but said it's been increasing as the economy continues to grow, a trend that the department has seen as well over the last couple of decades. The agency has an annual budget of more than $75 billion to spend.<|endoftext|>The United States Department of Commerce is investigating allegations made by the Chinese government that US chip giant Intel has been interfering with the semiconductor industry. - - -Government officials told Chinese media that Intel has been working on "exploiting the technology of other companies and manipulating the market", a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, adding that Intel is accused of "systemic unfair practices and price manipulations". - - -A complaint was received in January, an unnamed government official told Shanghai Daily newspaper. - - -Intel, however, denied that any of its employees were "targeted" or "attacked". - - -"Intel does not share allegations about alleged improper business practices involving our business with any potential competitors, such as China," an Intel spokeswoman said. - - -"Intel does not conduct itself unfairly, on one side or the other, because of its customers' needs or its manufacturing processes." - - -Government spokesman Gao Feng reiterated to RFA's Chinese Service (CJT) that the matter is under investigation -======================================== SAMPLE 478 ======================================== -The number one question in this election is what would you do about North Korea? (For me it's the Trump problem). If we can't even find a willing candidate to do anything about North Korea, we should be very worried. After the last election, I started to wonder: does the U.S. even have the will to change Kim Jong Un from an irrational power base to a rational power base? When Kim has to deal with a leader whose own country is threatening to nuke him, does the Kim have the tools required to handle this situation in a rational way? - -As I listened to last night's Republican debate, I thought about this question: how does a crazy guy like Kim Jong Un keep his country together? - -I came to the conclusion that Kim Jong Un has two types of troops. He has regular soldiers, and he has elite forces. The elite troops are the ones who pull off big nuclear war-games. In recent years, North Korea has carried out nuclear war-games on an unprecedented scale. The North's first "nuclear war-game" in 2009 came in response to U.S. naval exercises off south Korea. In the current war-game, North Korean nuclear missiles have a range of between 1,500 miles and 3,000 miles, and could reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. - -So, the elite troops must have more than a military training program. After all, it seems only natural that the elite soldiers have to be smarter, more resourceful, and more resourceful enough to handle nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un would never have let his people die of starvation if they weren't better trained, more resourceful, and more resourceful than the rest of the country. I think this is the secret of North Korea's success: the elite members, who are most likely to survive the famine, are the ones who are the most willing to use nuclear weapons. They must be good at making decisions and executing plans. - -When Kim was young, he was a young, stupid, and greedy boy. He was afraid of doing anything wrong — which meant he couldn't be very good at anything or very smart, both of which are essential for success in life. - -But after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, and the success of the famine, Kim Jong-un rewrote his education from childhood up. He focused his energies not on surviving in a survivalist scenario, or even on getting a good job as is the norm in North Korea, but on improving his own image in the eyes of the outside world. He wanted to be popular in America because that is where the rich Americans go, to be popular in Asia because that is where the rich Asians go, and to keep his country running smoothly because he was confident that there would be another chance to run it later in life. - -If you can convince a dictator that "the people in power are running the country," he can change. North Korea does not really trust American military might. When there was an American war on their border, they did not attack. When the U.S. sent in nuclear weapons in 1999, they did not attack. So North Korea is not an easy country to change. I think this is why North Korea's elite troops always seem to come out on top. - -But even if Kim Jong Un could somehow persuade his people that they had to obey him, I wouldn't be too worried. Kim Jong-un must be pretty good at running his country. If he were bad at it, the rest of his country wouldn't have had to suffer so much. You could imagine a scenario where the elite troops could be convinced to make their move. They wouldn't do so blindly, of course. They would need some intelligence that it might be a bad move. - -The elite troops would need some intelligence that it might be a bad move. - -Kim might also be scared that his elite troops might be executed. He would prefer them to be killed over captured. That might be his choice, but this is not a good way to handle a leader. It's a terrible way to handle a country. If Kim wants to see his elite troops executed he's not going to just ignore that possibility. If he does have a choice between executing the elite troops and making his country great again, he wants to see his elite troops executed. Even if he is completely wrong about this, he wants this to happen. - -Now I'm thinking about what we should do if Kim decides to execute them. How do we make peace? Should we give up on North Korea? Can an idealist imagine that Kim Jong-un has a new approach? He probably doesn't. Maybe peace with North Korea is going to be a little difficult, but as long as Kim Jong-un is irrational and irrational people will die. I am not quite sure what my answer is about how to get rid of this threat, but I do have a guess. The solution to North Korea's -======================================== SAMPLE 479 ======================================== -This was the day I knew I needed a good cleaning, it was the day I knew all the bad stuff I had been thinking wasn't as bad as it actually was. The day I knew that I needed to move on from this thing called Life. - -Weeks of hard work, stress, and a few false starts later I'm back at work and back at square one. It was the longest night I ever slept in my entire lifetime but it could not stop me from finishing the book. I did. And more. It was the best 4 hours of my life. - -I'm back! - -This book is the best I ever wrote. It is the best book I've ever written. I have now completed it. I am writing it today. I have the words, I have the plot, I have the ending, I have the characters. I am working on the next one right now. I know what the next book is going to be. I have it all written out. Everything. - -The last line of my book is the most important to me, it could not be truer of the work I have done. - -I don't ever know how to thank God for writing this book. - -The Lord has given me the strength. - -I will write this book. - -God Bless! - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>A couple has been charged with murdering their 15-month-old son by putting him in a washing machine and locking him inside in a bedroom. - -Jamie and Julie Beddoe have been charged with second-degree murder and are expected to appear in court next Tuesday. - -Police have not revealed what prompted them to take their 15-month-old son and place him in the washing machine in the family's rural home on December 8. - -Police have not yet revealed what prompted them to take 15-month-old Nathan O'Connell into a laundry device (pictured) and lock him in a bedroom at their rural home on December 8 - -Cops investigating the incident have yet to tell the Beddoes, pictured, what prompted them to put their son (pictured) into a washing machine in the family's rural home on December 8 - -It happened around 8pm on December 8 when officers went to the house in the small community of Stannock after Jamie and Julie Beddoe allegedly told them an 'unexpected party' was taking place. - -Police entered the main bedroom and found the boy with his head in an upstairs closet and a blood stained towel on the countertop. - -His body was later put in a plastic bin bag and removed from the property. A day after he was taken by police. - -No further information about the incident has been released and no official cause of death has been released. - -Officers are keeping their investigation on hold until at least January as they wait for blood tests to be done. - -A spokesman for Alberta health said a post-mortem would be carried out in the near future. - -Police have not released the name or age of the boy. - -The spokesperson said officers were called to the family's home (pictured) on December 8 when they came to investigate an 'unexpected party' - -Cops are keeping their investigation hold at least until January because a post-mortem will be carried out - -Officers responded (pictured) to a call regarding an 'unexpected party' at the rural home on December 8, after they were called to the home by Jamie and Julie Beddoe - -A neighbour at the property said: 'It just sounds so bizarre and scary.' - -'It's a shame. Why would someone do that to their child?'<|endoftext|>(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama called on Congress on Tuesday to fund a $1.1 billion fund for health care services for returning veterans that lapsed amid widespread objections by veterans groups. - -U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with veterans at the White House in Washington October 3, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque - -"After more than a year in office, I am disappointed by the continued delay in making good on our promise," Obama said in a statement. - -Congress last year passed a measure funding the medical benefits package after Obama's re-election, but the veterans group opposition has delayed the process. - -The White House also called for Congress to support President Barack Obama's request to fund a program that provides health insurance to more than 4 million children that is at risk of failing.<|endoftext|>Pep Guardiola has ruled out a move for Leicester City defender Gary Cahill to help fill the void that left by the summer departure of fellow England international Michael Keane. - -• Blog: Re-signing Michael Keane - -• Blog: Will the new man be as good as the old boy? - -After a turbulent season in which he lost leading men Thiago Alcantara and Fernandinho via injury, the Premier League champions are still without a permanent left-back, though Danny Rose has -======================================== SAMPLE 480 ======================================== -As a young journalist living in Delhi, the story of Kavita Krishnan has always come as a real eye-opener and a shock to the system. - -In her early youth, Kavita was a very popular figure in Delhi's media circles. She was at the heart of the influential, well-connected, high-caste media and her influence is still felt today. - -Her sudden and dramatic move from the city to the UK in 1983-84 where she set up an independent media house in Brighton, where her son worked, brought to an end her illustrious career and was followed by a series of other career interruptions that put an end to her life before she could complete the unfinished legacy she had in the UK. - -This interview has been conducted, edited and translated by Dr Arup Chawla, formerly a journalist in Delhi, who has followed her career for years. The views expressed are solely those of the author. - -Who is Kavita Krishnan? - -She didn't really exist. She was just a name, and she was someone you passed on information to… she was more of a myth in the form of a character. But there is this story, about how she was born as a girl, who was married once, had a child and was sent back to the village in Bihar. Her first husband left her and she became a stay-at-home-mum and stayed close to home. Her second husband died and she went on to have three more children with the same man. But this is the kind of tale that comes as a shock to people – that they get married once and they get divorced, that they have three children and they divorce. And she had all these relationships, all these people all over the world, every time she moved. - -Why did she leave India? - -The first relationship Kavita had with a foreign journalist was with Mr Thomas Bearden in New York. He didn't go as far as proposing marriage, but I find that intriguing. He sent her a letter, which she had to read after being married and she said: "Oh Thomas, this is very exciting." She got married to an Indian journalist. She had a relationship with an Italian journalist. She had a relationship with an Australian journalist. She had a relationship with an Australian diplomat. So when this letter of Mr Bearden arrived after she married, it is very difficult to know how she decided to go back to India to live with her parents. - -I think she realised that there was something wrong with what she was doing. So why is the first story about her marriage so far flung in New York, and why was another story about her relationship with an Australian journalist thrown out of the country? And why do you find the relationship with the European journalist to be so problematic? - -Why did she leave her parents' house and go back to the village, only to have her parents send her back again? I think she realized that there was something wrong with what she was doing. So why is the first story about her marriage so far flung in New York, and why was another story about her relationship with an Australian journalist thrown out of the country? - -How did you go about researching this book to get so many details right, and how did you write it? - -When I was working as a journalist in Delhi, I used to follow some of the other journalists and how they were working and how their careers developed. There was another journalist who I used to follow – he didn't seem to have a particular style. As I got to know him, I thought that he was very interesting, I got hold of his story a couple of years later from a British newspaper. He was then working in Australia as a journalist, and he was writing stories for other newspapers. And I got hold of his notes and I went back to see what he had been talking about in a series of notebooks. I started reading his notes and it was the very interesting thing, he wrote notes in Bengali and English and Hindi – it was one of the first times that I had had any linguistic input into these notes. I asked him how he'd travelled across two continents. I started to understand what his journey was like. And it was an amazing story. He had travelled to India just in the last 12 months from the time he left India in 1983, just under one year. He was working on stories for the newspapers in India at the time. His father – he also wrote stories for newspapers in India around the same time, but he did not go as far for the newspapers. - -After I worked as a journalist and after the notes came with the story of his travels across two continents, I began to gather material, I had access to all kinds of material, and I began to gather everything that the other journalists had written about him and where he was working. - -Then, after having the first draft of the book a few months ago, I went back onto it because the story -======================================== SAMPLE 481 ======================================== -[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n1KqXsK2Z4?rel=0" width="425" height="239" resize="1" fid="21"] - -You know: That time that the New York Times posted its front page banner for the night of April 4 while Republicans in Congress were trying to pass the sequester? - -But it's not just the front page banner. - -Today, the Times' front page has a story that looks like this: - -What does this tell you about the Times? - -First, that the Times thinks the sequester has some bad consequences; even though it doesn't call it that. - -Second, that the Times expects anyone to believe that the sequester is a mistake (even though it isn't). - -That's one thing the Times didn't seem to be able to hide: Republicans' intent to slash defense (and thus, domestic) spending at all costs. - -But now, it's telling readers that the sequester is a good idea. - -I mean, the headline says, "Budget battle looms over $1.2 trillion spending cut." And the rest of the story seems to believe it... - -That's really not a good message for those of us in the military and non-military industries. I don't know anyone who is a fan of sequestration that likes to read about it. We have to tell the public that the only good reason for a sequester is in order to do something really, really crazy: to take military spending and put it on par with domestic spending.<|endoftext|>You do not have javascript enabled. - -The site is designed to work without javascript, however some functionality is still available. Unfortunately javascript is either disabled or not installed on your computer, or you have it disabled. This site will not function properly without javascript. - -To make sure javascript is enabled turn on your JavaScript in your browser settings.<|endoftext|>When I was a child in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was assumed that Americans hated our leaders. They despised them. They hated that our leaders would compromise and sign things they didn't believe in. Our leaders—like most of the people I knew at all levels—had an obvious hatred of the government, and a sense of entitlement toward it. They viewed it as a way to get something out of us. - -But even that was an overstatement. Most of our leaders didn't feel like our leaders. Their hatred for our leaders often came out of a love for ourselves—or at least their perception of love for themselves. - -I was born in 1944, in the shadow of World War II, the year the Korean War started. The war had ended in 1953—but after Korea the Americans became increasingly aggressive toward China. I heard the constant warnings on Radio to always be ready and have guns. It was like living in a time bomb, bombarded in ways that had nothing to do with the war. I always thought that if I got shot at, I would probably die. - -So I didn't think any less of the leaders. They got it. In fact, it was their war. It was hard for people who understood war to understand that we were fighting against our own government. We all thought they were fighting against Communists. - -But in fact, the Chinese government was fighting against us. And the Vietnamese government was fighting against the Communists. In fact, we were fighting the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. But they weren't fighting anyone we knew. They were fighting us. - -After we lost the war, Americans went to war for a new kind of war. They were fighting the Cold War. The Cold War was between two ideologies: communism versus capitalism. It was between different versions of nationalism—between the Soviets and the United States. It became a conflict all Americans wanted. It began on the Korean peninsula in 1950 and escalated as it went on. In fact, the Cold War, including the Korean war, is what gave the US its military power, and the most intense nuclear competition. It was the worst of all possible worlds, in which you always had an enemy. - -The idea that American and Soviet nuclear weapons could destroy the world was always shocking to people back home. After Korea, many people in this country still didn't believe it, even after the Russians tested nuclear weapons. We got it. - -As for the Vietnamese, they were never really fighting the Communists. They were fighting to keep their country from collapsing. What would have happened if it failed? The same thing that happened after Pearl Harbor in 1941. America declared war on Germany and Japan. - -If the Americans came in with a real war effort, they would have won. But they didn't, which is part of why they were so reluctant about fighting the Communist countries in Vietnam and elsewhere. - -That wasn't a very popular policy with Americans at the end of World War II. No one -======================================== SAMPLE 482 ======================================== -BEST SEXIEST BODY SHOP EVER! - -Hello, everyone! Welcome to my personal website and I am so excited to share this with you! So for this post I thought I would share what I think are the five best sexiest bikini bodies around, in no particular order. Of course, this is just my opinion and is not scientific. For all you science nerds out there, you will have to wait a little more because I am going to get right down to it. - -Before I start I just want to say that I have only included girls who have at least one or two photos that I feel look absolutely amazing. This list will be updated as I get more pictures. Also, all you ladies out there, I don't look down upon you or anything. I'm simply showing you what I believe are the sexiest bikini bodies around, and if you agree, keep on checking in because I will keep growing this list. - -If you have your own list, please share with us! - -5. Adriana Lima - - -I really only included Adriana Lima because I feel like she is totally flawless, but for the sake of this list I wanted to include the other Brazilian bombshells that have a more athletic look. I don't know if they are the same girls, but look at how similar they are! I mean, there are just two big differences: Adriana was filmed a year ago and the girls don't have the same facial expressions that Lima has. If you have some Adriana pictures to give us a second opinion, that would be great! - -4. Jennifer Lawrence - - -Look at this body. Look at what Jennifer Lawrence has achieved in the last two years to just look like she did in her 20s. Look at her thighs. Look at her face. This girl has so many muscles. This woman has gained just about 200 pounds in a relatively short period of time, but not only that, but she is a super model. I love her body, I love her figure, I love her face. I will give you a warning next time though. You will be so busy looking at Jennifer Lawrence's body that you might forget you're looking at a very pretty girl. - -3. Mila Kunis - - -I will be honest, I knew I was never going to include Mila Kunis's body if it wasn't this sexy. I'm not saying that I think Mila Kunis is a bad looking girl, but I feel like she could be more attractive for me to take this picture. I know she is super cute, but I think if I were to stand behind her, I might just look like an idiot. Plus, as I've mentioned a million times before, if I had to choose between Mila Kunis and someone else, it would probably be this beauty. - -2. Gisele Bundchen - - -Gisele is one of those girls that you just know is hot, and she has achieved something that very few people can say they have accomplished at any point in time. She has the body of a model, but the body of a super model. There are very few people that have both the body and the style of a super model, but in Gisele's case, she is both. With her perfect figure, long legs and amazing figure, I would really love to have a chance to take this picture with her. - -1. Sofia Vergara - - -Here is a beautiful picture of Sofia Vergara. You might be saying, why are you looking at her? What is wrong with you? Well, look at those tits! They are massive, big firm, and if you can see them well enough in this picture I feel like just maybe she would be in a couple of the top ten bikini body lists right now. - -The best bikini bodies are not built from the inside out, but from the outside in. You just need the right clothes and the right personality to complete you. You also need to have fun and be yourself. And these bikini bodies just add to that! The girls of Gossip Girl certainly embody this perfectly. I'm not saying I love every single one of them, but there is nothing that can go wrong with them so they all deserve a spot on this list as does Jennifer Lawrence. I think she is the sexiest model that is walking the planet, but I think Adriana Lima just edges out her in a lot of ways. Who would win in a face-to-face contest? And that is actually the question I ask myself, every day. All you guys out there, what is your opinion on the five bikini bodies? Which ones are your favorites? And where exactly should we go to find some of these girls? You guys rock. - -What body do you think is sexy? If you know what I'm talking about, leave the rest in the comment section below. - -Comments - -comments<|endoftext|>This article is -======================================== SAMPLE 483 ======================================== -By John Geddes - -The U.S. Treasury Department has published its annual list of "national security priority actions" to cut terrorism financing, a list that, unsurprisingly, continues to be filled with corporate money managers who play fast and loose with the United States' "national-security" framework while profiting handsomely from those very funds. - -The 2014 list, which has already been in existence for several years in various forms but published for 2014, consists of more than half a dozen countries targeted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and includes several big players in the energy and financial sectors. - - -Targets include the leaders in Iran, China, Sudan, Burma, Libya, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and China's Xinjiang Province. In 2014 the Treasury added "China's Silk Road Fund, which is an endowment of the Central Government of the People's Republic of China; China's Xinjiang Human Rights Protection Unit, an entity established to enforce human rights; and the Ministry of Public Security, the National People's Congress, and other agencies." - -In total, there are a total of 22 countries included on the list – with the State Department acknowledging that all countries that are "state sponsors of terrorism" are likely to be on the list. - -Here are some of the countries who managed to make this year's list: - -Iran - -While the U.S. government has been targeting Iran's financial system and banking system, this year's "National Security Priority" is focused on the country's "financial and commercial sectors." A list of entities which are in the "financial and commercial sectors" includes: Bank Mellat, Bank Mitint, Bank Saderat, Bank Rahimat, KKG Bank, Tanchang Bank, Bicom, National Iran Gas Company, Pouvad-e-Rouhani Bank, Bank Sepah and Sader Oil Company. The Treasury Department lists Iran's Central Bank as one of the most important "target" in its country, as is Banco Delta Asia (BDA), Iran's main foreign exchange dealer. - -"While the government of Iran may be considered to be a 'threat/target' listed in the Treasury designation," the Treasury notes, "the designation does not affect the banking sector in Iran. The central bank… is allowed to engage in the use of foreign exchange through Iranian banks." - -This does not mean the Central Bank is not being sanctioned: - -Iran's Central Bank maintains access to U.S. dollar funding through the use of a network of commercial banks in various countries. For example, BDA is in the process of closing an account, which could affect its ability to transact financial transactions in U.S. dollars. Moreover, Iran's central bank has taken measures to restrict Iranian nationals from taking out money transfers in foreign currencies, which could affect trade and investment. U.S. sanctions also include measures that prevent U.S. citizens and non-Americans in Iran from opening or maintaining a bank account. - -China - -The country is again on the U.S. Treasury's list for being a country "that supports or protects" terrorism or those who facilitate that activity. China's financial and financial-related sectors come top of the list: - -China's government-owned and state-controlled financial institutions, which are closely related to the political and economic institutions of the government; and state-owned and state-controlled financial institutions, which act as an agent of any political or national security-related government institution, including international organizations or organizations of third parties. - -"State-owned and state-controlled financial institutions may do business with U.S. companies and banks. This may involve engaging in financial transactions such as loans, investments, insurance, or debt-financing." - -"The Chinese commercial sector's reliance on the sale and purchase of foreign exchange is a major source of funding for terrorism," notes the 2015 US Treasury Department "Terrorism Financing" report. China has a huge appetite for foreign currency – as much as $1.5 trillion a year – and has continued to buy up U.S. Treasury debt at an unsustainable pace in the last several years. - -China's central bank, in collaboration with its foreign exchange commercial banks, was recently caught on camera bribing a U.S. official in hopes of securing a better price on US Treasury debt via a $500 million payment. China's purchase of $2.5 trillion in U.S. Treasury debt, meanwhile, dwarfs that of all other countries combined. - -"Given China's financial dominance over the next 10 to 20 years, this move is not surprising," notes the Washington Post, adding that the Obama administration has "notched some notable successes" over the last five years in trying to curb China's growing economic influence, "with a more concerted approach to combat financial crimes in the name of fighting terrorism." - -Burma - - -======================================== SAMPLE 484 ======================================== -LONDON (Reuters) - British police have spoken to the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as part of their investigation into claims of Russian meddling in the presidential election, a spokeswoman said on Friday. - -The spokeswoman for Britain's Metropolitan Police, Barbara Wilkinson, said "detectives from the National Crime Agency have been investigating the matter and we continue to support their work". - -She was asked about comments by Trump in an interview with Reuters that Britain's recent decision to quit the European Union was a factor in his thinking. - -"I was here when the news came out. I think that (Brexit) had a lot to do with it. I think it had to do with the fact that the people that ran the country outside of the United States obviously didn't have a good experience with the people and how they ran the country." - -Asked by Reuters whether Trump had been quizzed over the issue, Wilkinson said there had been a meeting between "officials" from "the FBI and the foreign office and the president elect's legal team" but said there were no details.<|endoftext|>Drew Carey - -Birthday: Apr 2, 1960 - -Birthplace: Philadelphia - -A native of Philadelphia -- and former resident of Phoenix, which is the hometown of his brother, John -- Drew Carey was raised in a strict Jewish home. Although he was in most ways a typical Jewish kid, he was also fascinated by the secular world of celebrities. From an early age, Carey wanted to be an actor. From age 10 to 16, he took acting classes, and worked at theater and voice performances, where he met friends, eventually establishing his own acting company, DreamWorks Interactive. In 1999, Carey received a special grant from the Israeli government, and in 2000, started DreamWorks Interactive, a global company he co-founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg, another Jewish American. - - -Carey went on to win a record-breaking 17 Emmys for his work on Broadway as P.S. Eliot, and then won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. He married fellow American actress Linda E., in 1996. They divorced in 2001. He recently had a run-in with NBC, whose executives were annoyed by his insistence on his views about the need for Israel to be self sufficient. Carey is survived by his two sons, J.J. and Christopher, and his parents, John and Linda. His first marriage, to American actress Linda E. (née Kohn), also ended in divorce, but Carey and Eunice Kohn remained close friends. He is survived by his first wife and three other children. - - -Survivors include his children. - - -Drew Carey's last film role was in the film "Hair," which was released in July of 2007. He is survived by his sons, Matthew Carey, Matthew Carey, Christopher Carey, and J.J. Carey. - - -- IMDb Mini Biography By: John W. Tom - -Spouse (3) - -Trade Mark (2) - -Often uses words ending with -ing e.g., "guts." - - -Distinguished voice and the pronunciation of 's' as 'th.' - - -Trivia (41) - - -Named one of People Magazine's 15 Hottest People of 2001. [1996] - - -When he was cast for "Friends" (1994), both his brother and friends urged him to take it as a joke. - - -Had a very good rapport with David Letterman : "I got to know Letterman quite well... We're very good friends.". - -Drew Carey had a small role as an extra in the third season episode "The One With the Prom Night, and then quit for two episodes; he did not return for the fourth season. - -Won the role of P.S. Eliot on The Producers (1985). - - -Was married to former American actress Linda E. Carey from 1996 to 2004. - -Studied acting at the American Institute of Shakespeare in Los Angeles. - - -The first person who called to tell him he had won the Emmy Award for best supporting actor for "The Drew Carey Show" he had not heard of. - -He has a Jewish grandparent and a Muslim mother. - - -Graduated from the University of Phoenix with a degree in film. - - -The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has invited him to be a guest speaker in December 2009 to introduce them to computer animation. He accepted their offer when he realized he could make more money from directing commercials. When asked about his future, he said he has always wanted to direct a movie. [September 2004] - - -Named one of Forbes Magazine Online's Top 40 Superstars (2004). - - -In 2005 he got permission from the Writers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to continue making movies because he had just finished working on four films he was already contracted to direct. - - -Was a friend of Bruce Willis and has appeared in -======================================== SAMPLE 485 ======================================== -A "staggering" 90.5 percent of all prisoners in France have access to a reading material for their religious convictions. With a mere 15.5 percent of the population opting for an alternative to prison, the French are the world's most religious nation, according to recent statistics. - -The World Values Survey, conducted by the London-based Centre for Social Cohesion (CSU-IFOP), ranked the United Kingdom No. 1, with 90.8 percent of British residents reporting that religion is important in their lives. France, with just 14.4 percent of the population, ranked behind Switzerland (90.9 percent), Finland (90.1 percent) and Austria (90 percent). The remaining 3 percent did not provide details. - -France's Prison Service has been under the microscope after the Paris attacks of November 2015 left 130 people dead and 1,500 injured. Authorities found the attackers' apartment in an area that was "infiltrated," "seized" from a church and a community center known for its "radicalization of young people" and that was home to Muslims. - -The survey showed that the two gunmen, who were killed as they tried to shoot at police when they opened fire at the Bataclan theater, had links to Salafists, a movement that was "undermined" in the 1970s by French state-sponsored schools of Islamic studies. - -The "Salafists have been discredited" with a new generation of French men "lonely" for an identity, said CSU-IFOP director Gilles Ranchet. "The question is, what do they propose, do they have a solution or are they an alternative," he added. A "lack of political will," the lack of "civic courage," the desire for "clarity" and "decision" by lawmakers were among other factors cited. - -Some 60 per cent of women expressed their approval of "being an Islamic wife" and 43 percent agreed that a wife "must submit to her husband." - -Sixty five percent believe that "the public cannot allow a society where a woman has a different life than her husband," according to the CSU-IFOP. Fifty seven percent believe that women are more "indirectly responsible" for men's violence and 45 percent believe women are responsible for men's violence against them. - -While 67.2 percent of citizens approved of a law banning the hijab in public schools, 60.9 percent supported keeping face veils in the workplace except for health and security, a clear sign that France does not want to ban veils in general but "only those worn by Muslim women in the workplace," Ranchet said. - -The study also showed that 67.9 percent of women believe that a woman is "responsible for men's behavior," compared to 51.9 percent of men. Two thirds of women and men, respectively, called for equal responsibility for all roles in French society. - -The survey of 10,000 people aged 15 to 85 by the CSU-IFOP is a "unique" study and is conducted annually "in Europe, North America and South Africa," according to the center.<|endoftext|>The following article contains spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises, but those of you who are already familiar with the movie are unlikely to read this. - -There are two main types of people to whom The Dark Knight Rises opens: those people who are deeply worried about the future of the United States and those who are excited to jump straight in and start saving lives. The former seem more on the left-side of the political spectrum, the latter more on the right; both seem to believe the present state (or the near future state, when you really get down to it) is pretty grim, with few options left for the people who live in it to do anything about their lives. The question I have, then, is what it would have been like if the film had been directed by a different director (the same way, admittedly, that the film was directed by Christopher Nolan) and had had an entirely different ending that was more fitting to the film as a whole. - -If I didn't know any better, one of my first thoughts would probably be that it would have been like the ending of Apocalypse Now: a final war scene. The American-led forces would slaughter all the Vietnamese and Viet Cong on every possible corner, and those survivors would either be left to die or be shipped off to a very brutal prison camp in North Africa. Or maybe the soldiers would get their revenge with a "hero's" death or just a bullet to the face. Or perhaps the filmmakers simply decided that that's enough. It's all entirely possible, of course, but the feeling that The Dark Knight Rises evoked when it came to the Vietnam-related plot points would have been a lot less grim and more hopeful. - -Advertisement - -The question is, should you go see The Dark Knight Rises again, now that you -======================================== SAMPLE 486 ======================================== -A recent study has revealed that the prevalence of childhood obesity is soaring in Saudi Arabia. - -According to a report released by the Health Development Foundation, nearly 5 percent of the Saudi Arabian children aged between birth and seven years old - or roughly 22.6 million children - were obese during 2013-2016, compared to just 3.4 percent in the same period five years ago. - -This staggering leap mirrors the growing concern over the health risks of childhood obesity in the kingdom and has been met with calls for a drastic health overhaul. - -A recent study has revealed that the prevalence of childhood obesity is soaring in Saudi Arabia - -According to a report released by the Health Development Foundation, nearly 5 percent of the Saudi Arabian children aged between birth and seven years old - or roughly 22.6 million children - were obese during 2013-2016 - -The alarming figure - which the UN's Development Programme (UNDP) has described as a 'global tragedy' - comes amid an unprecedented rise in obesity in the Kingdom. - -The UNDP said it is no coincidence that the Saudi obesity epidemic has reached unprecedented levels in the last few years. - -Since 2007, the health ministry has monitored obesity trends and commissioned a health study after the country's first obesity study. - -'The obesity problem in Saudi Arabia has been rising steadily over the past few years, with the most recent report showing a staggering 32 per cent higher percentage of Saudis overweight or obese compared to 2013, and the third highest number in the world, behind Australia and the United States,' the UNDP said. - -'The government and society must now focus on a holistic approach to address childhood obesity,' it added. - -A recent study has revealed that the prevalence of childhood obesity is soaring in Saudi Arabia<|endoftext|>(This is part of a long-running series of posts about the history of feminism. The first part can be found here.) For much of the 20th century, Americans viewed political activism as a male pastime, a hobby mostly reserved for men and used as a way to advance their way of life. In the 1960s, however, the feminist movement became a popular outlet for women, and a significant threat to male power. This "second wave" of feminism, marked by the rise of radical feminism and women seeking "self-determination" at the workplace and on the political scene, took form in part, we think, in reaction to the early American movement's emphasis on female "dominance" over male "subordination." Feminism was seen by many in the late 19th century as a threat to American patriarchal culture, and thus, by and large it was a male hobby (a few prominent feminists even called themselves "menlovers"). But the feminists also challenged the old feminist "female" idea that all women are, by nature, "submissive" to men. In the early years of the feminist movement, many male women, including writers, historians, and journalists, participated in its work, and a few prominent women also advocated for and advocated for women's equality. In addition, as feminism gained power, some male feminists criticized the movement for being too focused on "men's oppression." The feminist and women's movements, of course, were also the battleground for a civil rights movement that fought against discrimination against women. But the women's movement's most vocal supporters, both male and female, saw the feminist movement as a threat to the rights, roles, and privileges of white American women and men. There is not much doubt that there were, and still are, some feminists who hold these views. Nonetheless, the feminist movement, to date, has made many important and significant strides toward the equality of women. Today, more than ever before, American women are fighting for the equal opportunity to participate in society, to enjoy economic security, and to take part in political life. These successes have been achieved largely because of the women's rights movement. To understand this movement and their history, we need to get a better understanding of what feminism means at its core. How Feminism Started - -The phrase "feminism" is sometimes used, erroneously, in the sense of the new-old and supposedly "radical" feminism first described in the 1920s by the feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft. If you ask most readers this, they'll say something like "oh, the 1920s?" and tell you about the suffragettes, the Industrial Workers of the World, the National Organization for Women. But there's an assumption here that is far from clear. The term feminism came into common usage in the late 1850s, during the first wave of feminism. It was derived from the Greek prefix femine, meaning "female" or "woman," referring to the Latin female sex organ. Feminism emerged from the first wave of feminism in the mid 19th century, and it was an outgrowth of the earlier efforts to challenge misogyny, and the sexual discrimination of women. Some feminists even argued that the traditional view of "male" and "female" should be revised, in order -======================================== SAMPLE 487 ======================================== -(See the end of the chapter for notes .) - -Chapter Text - -The rain-caked, sunburned, snot-nosed boy shuddered as he slowly rose from his spot on the bed. He sat up, looking around the empty room. Where was his pillow? It was by the wall, and it was missing. - -His first thought was probably a bad one. He'd slept in a room without a bed. - -It was a good thing, as well, he decided. Even without a bed, he was too drowsy to go back to sleep. Even if he could get his pants back on, he'd have to have a shower first. When he'd first woken up all he saw was his parents standing over him, their eyes focused intently on the clock. His breath caught in his throat when they made out the time for himself. - -His mom wasn't in the next room, and his dad hadn't come downstairs in time to make him breakfast, or at least none of his breakfast. The man was just staring blankly, eyes closed, as if the clock and the breakfast would solve everything if he just sat still for a moment. With that final thought, the boy sighed. He would wait in the hallway until his parents got back. He'd eat right before school. It'd be better than his usual morning snack. - -But no, that was foolish. Because all he wanted to do was sleep. - -He sat there for a minute, thinking. Was all that so bad? That his parents were making an effort to make him have breakfast? What did that even mean? - -Oh, his life would be boring and predictable after that, he decided. Nothing would surprise him anymore. He didn't know why he was so excited when his parents made out the minute clock, but he was. He was so excited. His breath caught when he saw the clock again, but this time the face wasn't as blank. It had the same numbers written across it; it was 9:00 in the morning. - -He stood slowly and went to look at it. He saw the number one. How could he have missed that? - -He tried to take it in, but he wasn't sure how. It was dark outside, and there was a light coming from outside of his window. It cast a pale tint onto everything inside his tiny, tiny room, with the exception of his bedframe. It was a pale, pale yellow. - -He couldn't help but stare at it when his attention wasn't occupied by the clock. - -After a long moment in which the boy lost his breath and his eyes darted from one side of his room to another, he came to a realization. It was so important that he thought it over carefully. He could do nothing about it now. Not now, when his parents were busy with something important. It was probably a good thing they were busy, too; he needed food. - -He stood up, moving to the dining room. As he made his way over to the table set up, he started to think back. Had his dad noticed the clock? Had he noticed his parents making out in the hallway as well? As he thought about it more, he couldn't help but wonder. What was important? - -He wanted to say it out loud, then. "Daddy! Momma!" he shouted. - -"Daddy?" his father asked in return. He was sitting with his back to the windows. In his other hand, he held a small, square snack box in which was one white-skinned lump of something. - -"We gotta get food, or I'm gonna be late to school! I swear!" - -"Sorry, son, but I don't have time now because I'm giving Mrs. Grisham a hand with this." - -"I'm still not done with that one! I'm so excited! I can't wait!" - -"Sorry, son. I don't know how long it will take for you to be ready to walk, but that's why you're in here." His father said with a frown. - -"Why's momma working on Mrs. Grisham's hand? Can't I do it?" - -"That's Mrs. Grisham's hand too, son." - -"What do I have to do?" The boy asked confused. He didn't understand why his parents would have to work on each other's hands when their hands were the same color. - -"I don't know." His father said sheepishly. "I didn't think you'd notice, but it's pretty common for kids to get so excited they can't sit still long enough for me to get their food." He shook his head. "Now, son, can you try and get your hands to calm?" - -"I'm so excited! I'm on the brink of a genius idea! -======================================== SAMPLE 488 ======================================== -The last few decades of science have made some striking developments about the human brain, but there is always something very special about the year 2000. That's because this was the year that I became a father. I was born on August 3, 1990, and I've been carrying this tiny baby inside my body ever since, but my first birthday celebration was one of the happiest days my family has ever had. Yes, that's right -- the first party of my life was held in my parents' house, with my husband and I as a happy (and exhausted) couple, and my little girl sitting in a swing in the yard. For us, that's a big deal. To my children, it's a miracle, because they'll never experience the same special kind of joy we did as a single mom, or two parents, or two single parents. At no point can anybody say how much we enjoyed it (and no one would make me feel too bad about having two kids), but we did. We made it all the way to our second birthday without saying a single word about our new additions. I think that's a little bit crazy. The only thing more impressive than having a beautiful little girl, however, is knowing that I made the decision not to even tell them when I found out about my second pregnancy -- or when it was possible that I was pregnant. I always considered myself quite private about my children, but I realized that that is a huge mistake. You have to make someone happy by being open and honest with them. I don't think it's very easy to love somebody if you don't let them know how much you love them, and that's definitely something that will keep me strong. I always tell my children (my oldest is almost 7) that "love is a gift" and that I will keep them safe and love them no matter what. It has proven to be true. I do not have some type of a hidden agenda in our lives. As a matter of fact, I think I'm a pretty honest person. I do not like lying when it has to do with a relationship. If there is something that could be construed as lying to my children, I know now that it would not be. On the plus side, being a person that is honest with me means that I let my kids know when I am happy -- and when I am sad, sad times will follow. When my daughter was born, it was a huge surprise to all my family, but when I found out the truth, I was absolutely devastated. I cried on my hands and knees. I couldn't even sit with her when she was born because I was so emotional. When I found out she was a girl, I still couldn't understand how my family couldn't have known about it, but at that moment I realized that they never even met a daughter. I was the first family member to find out the truth about my pregnancy, so I decided to tell my children the truth about my pregnancy -- even though I know it would have meant so much for them had they ever known. We still live close by with my mom and dad and she always gets angry at how hard it was for me to admit that I was pregnant. She says that my baby would have had a lot of trouble breathing in the first few months and would have had a difficult delivery. She would not have been able to care for her, and it would have been hard to handle and it would take a toll on her too. All of that is true. Now that I have two little ones to look after, she has no idea how I am doing. I think she feels the same way I do -- I don't think she understands why I did not tell them sooner or why I wasn't more open about the pregnancy. Nowadays, I don't feel the need to be honest with these wonderful children every day, because when they get older (and I hope I will one day be with them long enough for them to become grandparents), the whole conversation will just make too much sense to them. But I will always have a very special bond with them. I love my kids just as much as they love me. It is a very sad day for me when I see my children growing up, especially since most of them are now teenagers. I never thought I'd be feeling this way in any other regard, but I think I need my kids in all different situations. I do believe that we become what we fear, and as a kid who didn't always feel very loved, I know that to be true. Now that I have a little experience around my own kids, I know that they understand that love comes in all different shapes and sizes. The one thing that's true about our relationship is that it is equal, even though we are very different, and I think that's an amazing quality. As soon as a stranger says something negative to my children, their reaction just makes me so happy, and I feel so proud of them because that can only be due to me being a good mom -======================================== SAMPLE 489 ======================================== -There are many reasons why a home buyer might choose to lease a home—whether it's because they want a home that is safer, more convenient, or just because it's cheaper—or whether they want a home they can own in a matter of years. - -Either way, if you are making the choice to lease then you have to know how property tax works in Illinois. Landlords in Illinois can be required to pay property taxes on homes they lease. The amount depends on the contract. To make the math easier, we made a simple calculator that allows the calculation of tax payments. - -How many years are the annual rentals allowed for? - -Landlords can charge as few as one additional year. However, we do not recommend charging more than two additional years. - -Is there any consideration for the length of the lease? - -No. This is simply the length of the contract. - -Is there any consideration when it comes to the amount of the tax payments? - -Yes. The landlord and buyer must negotiate and agree on the amount to be paid as part of the lease agreement. - -Is there any consideration for the length of the rental? - -Yes, this also has to be worked out in the lease agreement. This is known as a "reasonable" lease term. The rental must be one to two years long. Anything longer than two years is considered "unsafe" by the state. - -Should there be any consideration for time spent in the property or outside the property? Should the landlord be required to keep the property in good repair? - -The answer to all of these questions will depend entirely on the size and location of the home. There are many factors to consider in choosing who owns a home and where it needs to be housed. This calculator will help you to calculate the amount you will be responsible for property tax. - -When should I start paying the property tax? - -A property that is the home of multiple people is responsible for paying all of the taxes in some way that helps the people it is sharing the home with. - -For example, if the property was previously a hotel with many people staying at the property and the current tenants are moving out, then all tenants will pay property tax when they move out. But, if the property has five tenants, then each tenant would need to pay property tax before they moved. This can be a challenging situation to figure out the amount that each tenant should pay. - -How do I calculate property tax liability for a home on which I will live? - -Enter in the date you want to calculate the tax liability and then use the calculator to see what taxes you will likely owe. - -How do I determine how much tax is due? - -The tax rate is determined by the county. For property taxes in Cook County, the rate is 6.25%. In Kane County it's 7.25%. In DuPage County it's 8%. In Lake County it's 10%. The rate is based on the cost of living of the county. - -How much more of a tax shock could a home buy in Chicago? - -If you live in Chicago, it will be more stressful to own a house outside of Chicago than it will be to rent in Chicago. The amount of taxes depends on the county, local taxes on the rent, and what other government assistance you receive in addition to property taxes. - -How much more could the property taxes be if my taxes are paid monthly instead of yearly? - -If your taxes are paid weekly or monthly your monthly property tax will be less than if you paid every month. - -Will this help my mortgage? - -No, but you should see whether or not this calculator will be helpful in determining the cost of buying a home. Property taxes are paid by the owner of each home (the property is the home).<|endoftext|>This is a classic book which, for those who are interested in the subject, should be required reading in many undergraduate English departments. One of the reasons for which the book attracted such wide interest throughout the English community was the emphasis on the subject given in its preface. The author states in his preface that he had 'always loved the ancient Greeks, but a general admiration - -This is a classic book which, for those who are interested in the subject, should be required reading in many undergraduate English departments. One of the reasons for which the book attracted such wide interest throughout the English community was the emphasis on the subject given in its preface. The author states in his preface that he had 'always loved the ancient Greeks, but a general admiration for them was tempered by real admiration for the Greeks of today.' In fact, he was particularly fond of their modern-day counterparts, such as the Italians, the Germans, and the British. That is really the crux of this book, the Greeks of today, not merely in the modern European sense, but more specifically those who call themselves Greeks, or at least claim to be such. In other words, to -======================================== SAMPLE 490 ======================================== -The United States has been forced to suspend negotiations on a free trade agreement with South Korea. - -The US Trade Representative's office acknowledged in its press release that "the Administration is in the process of examining new proposals from Korea regarding the terms of an additional term, schedule, and scope of participation to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement." This does not mean that the Korean government will agree to the new terms, or that the USTR is willing to make concessions. - -The USTR's release further explained that "the Administration remains open to negotiations on the revised text" and that it is in contact with Korean officials to facilitate the outcome. It is not clear whether the White House, led by a Republican, is committed to changing its position. - -Korean negotiators have stated they are willing to negotiate a deal that "delivers on its objectives" and to keep the deal within its stated goals, such as eliminating tariffs. The United States has made clear that it does not want to create a trade war that could cripple Korea's economy. - -However, it is conceivable that the White House could offer concessions that are too extreme to Seoul. If so, South Korean officials could accept those terms and conclude that it would be easier to renegotiate, rather than take the drastic steps of withdrawing from the agreement. - -Under our current free trade agreement with Korea, the United States was able to use an Article 311 under the Trade Act of 1974, which allows it to negotiate changes to the agreement, including an extension, in a case where the USTR determines the agreement will "significantly adversely affect a substantial number of significant US importers." The act is a rare legal mechanism that allows a signatory to end a trade agreement without giving up domestic market access or tariff reductions that have already been granted. - -However, the administration has made clear that it does not view this underlined provision as a shortcut toward a trade war. The White House has stated it believes that Article 311's use should be limited to matters of "serious concern to the United States," and that the issue would then be adjudicated by congressional action. - -Korean negotiators would face a tough decision if they wanted to withdraw from the agreement without giving up domestic market access, which could cost the United States as much as $12 billion a year in direct and indirect market losses. - -It is likely that the White House has already decided to scrap the agreement without any further negotiations. The administration could attempt to extend negotiations by negotiating amendments that are not as drastic as those South Korea has proposed. This approach might not succeed in getting the same levels of concessions as the Korean government is seeking. - -It is worth noting that the USTR is not the only US trade agency involved in this negotiation. Congress has given the USTR authority over trade negotiations throughout the world, and thus has the authority to make binding decisions. The decision whether or not to bring the current deal to a resounding end, whether to continue negotiations or drop the issue, and whether or not Korea should be required to drop its objection to a modified agreement depends heavily on how the USTR chooses to exercise that authority. That is one reason some analysts question the legality of how this trade agreement came to be approved and signed by Congress.<|endoftext|>In the same way that the US is a country with many different races, cultures, social classes, colors, and genders, the UK is a country with many different races, cultures, social classes, colors, and genders. For example: - -Culturally, many British people are very fond of the colour yellow, and many Brits believe in the power of the bloodline, especially the white bloodline, to be able to turn into a reptilian creature and take over the earth by the age of 25. And that there should not be any different colour or race allowed to be different, and it should be enforced with force - in the form of laws. - -Culturally, many British people are very fond of the colour white, and many Brits believe in the power of the bloodline, especially the white bloodline, to be able to stop any race being different or different from themselves, such as the Scottish. - -Culturally, many British people hold many different ideas about other races and genders. They believe that whites should rule, that they do not need others because they are the best, and that women should be subservient and obedient. - -But in one aspect that all British people seem to have in common, they all think differently than other people on this planet. - -Briton, who is often confused with Brit, is an old surname, which means 'white person'. - -Brit is often used as a derogatory term that implies that you're a 'cisgendered white middle class feminist', which means you are privileged (and entitled) and therefore need to listen to the opinions and opinions of whites more than anyone else on this planet - especially the opinions and opinions of the white majority. To be a Brit. -======================================== SAMPLE 491 ======================================== -Buddhism is more than a religion. It's a way of life, and it deserves to be respected. And just like any other religion, it is not immune to religious intolerance and discrimination. And even more than any other religion, Buddhism has the most prominent practitioners and the most visible symbols and symbols of those practitioners: the Buddha statues. And I've been told by quite a few Buddhists that they don't like their statues as much: not because they are ugly, but because they look like the Buddha's friends. - -But don't these statues remind you too much of your own friends? Is the statue the image of someone you really admired? - -We have idols everywhere in society. We have paintings and statues of beautiful women, beautiful men, and beautiful dogs. But these are not the images of the person. They are images of the thing. They are images of our cultural conditioning, and of our desire to be seen and recognized by others. - -We can see why people have idols. The statues, like them, are things to be admired — and to want to emulate. But the images that we create and the images that we take as images of ourselves are not just superficial; they are also often harmful. - -People have idols all the time: friends, parents, animals, vehicles, politicians, religions they've followed all their lives, food they always eat, and so forth. When I was young, my friends and I had idols we had to keep up for society to recognize us. It was only when we started to have our own identity and our own stories that those idols began to lose their power. - -I have a few friends whose statues look nothing like themselves, though we've known them for years. - -But my friend and I are different. We do not want to imitate the people. We do not want to make people around us look like us. For people are not things. They are people. We are good and interesting because of what I, myself, am. If someone would have told you at age 13 that the person in front of you is actually the person you really want to be you would laugh in their face. (Not just because they would look ridiculous, but also because we would laugh and say, "Well, he does kind of look like me.") - -We are different from other people. We are people who live our lives and we create our own lives. We are also people who respect each other, and we respect each other because we respect ourselves. We try, as best we can, not to be like, or to emulate another person or another culture. - -A statue or a painting of an old friend is no substitute for living, loving, and developing yourself. - -Buddhism is not just about one person, but about our whole life: about being ourselves, being alive, being free (from suffering) to live your own life, free from having to conform to expectations of who others should want you to be or what they want you to do. - -In fact, the more we have idols like the Buddha, the more we reject our real selves. We think we are some mythical figure, some historical figure who came to save the world. Buddha-like figures are far more useful as a prop than as a source of true, living energy and goodness. When the Buddha came to teach, he came as someone who didn't tell stories or make movies and who spent most of his day walking the countryside. He didn't have a mansion or a car or a lot of possessions. He was simply like every other person, a humble scholar who was very determined to practice and develop the good actions necessary of him to save the world and make a difference in human life. - -The Buddha never had a family, or had a spouse, or had children or a wife and children. He simply didn't need anyone. He cared very deeply and profoundly for others, and they cared for him, too. And the fact that he had no personal or family life does not mean that he did not care for himself. But it does mean that he did not need anyone to do so, and therefore that it was fine to see him as he was and to treat him as he would want to be treated. - -That's the basic idea behind Buddhists who have only a few statues at home (they have their own ones in the temples to go with theirs). In other words, to have a statue, or an image from an artist, does not equal to being like the person it depicts. - -We see Buddha statues in some temples all over the country. We think, "Wow, that looks just like me!" What we are overlooking is that the Buddha is neither the human being in front of him, and nor does he have a body like our body. The Buddha was one who knew very well that it's not his body which is important; it's how he behaves and how he treats other human beings (both by being compassionate and taking actions -======================================== SAMPLE 492 ======================================== -The last time Kieren Jack and John Gibbons faced off in person, it was as opposing coaches in the pre-season game. - -With two games remaining in the regular season, Gibbons and Jack found themselves faced with slightly different challenges. After a dominant two-game run, the Blue Jays could barely make it past the first round of the Amway Canadian League playoffs. - -Gibbons made the decision to make a small move up the starting rotation, while keeping a hold on the No. 5 spot in the bullpen. With the regular season nearing a close, the challenge remained: Make the playoffs. - -So how did Toronto fare? - -On the final day of the regular season, Jack made his first appearance since suffering a knee injury on July 2. However, what a difference two weeks makes. - -The 28-year-old posted a 6.10 ERA and 10 strikeouts over four innings of work. He struck out five batters and failed to record an out, allowing seven runs. - -Gibbons, who was named the A's manager for the 2013 season, said he saw a "very good" outing from his new left-hander. - -"Obviously, his delivery was probably a bit off, which was good," Gibbons said. "The more experience you get in any game, the better you can work on things. - -"I thought the guys did get a good look at his stuff. I had a similar look. There were times there where I was surprised at some things he went to. I thought Kieren did an good job of keeping the ball down and locating." - -Gibbons said it was a good mix of pitch count, variety and keeping the ball down so it wouldn't end up high in the zone. - -"I've been around a long time and I've seen a lot of pitchers go through these kinds of things," he added. "That was definitely a learning experience for him, knowing this wasn't a one-game situation, where he was going to have to work his way out and try to make pitches. It gave him an opportunity in that regard." - -Jack would later pick up a win during a road trip to play in Edmonton and Calgary. He would go on to strike out 12 batters and surrender one run in the five-inning game against the Hitmen. - -In his first start since July 2, Jack allowed just one run in six innings against the Texas Rangers. The Blue Jays held on for a 3-2 victory, as Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were both released prior to the start. - -Gibbons said he'd like to see a similar performance out of Jack next time out against the A's. - -"I've watched him work a little bit in the cage and the drills, and really, he looked like a really good pitcher," he added. "He was just missing spots he had when he was out. I think when he throws another 10 [innings] like he's done, he's going to be a heck of a pitcher. His stuff was going." - -Gibbons said he expects to know more after the final game of the season, but does not expect the Blue Jays will be making any drastic moves in an effort to find pitching help. - -"No, that's not going to happen," he replied. "I've never been in a situation where I've had a bunch of money to spend. We're still on pace to finish the season with some good players and guys pitching well enough for you win the AL East, but we're not going to get there with pitching." - -This season has been a difficult one for the Blue Jays, as they've seen their payroll balloon beyond some of the top teams in the league. Toronto was unable to keep pace with the other contending teams in the division, and has also struggled to find players who can get quality starts. - -The Blue Jays ended the 2013 season with a team ERA of 4.73 and ranked 30th in starting rotation ERA. Although the team still has good players and a promising young crop of outfielders in the system, the talent isn't translating into results. - -"There's no question about it that that's the biggest thing, just consistency," Gibbons said. "In 2011 we didn't start the season very well, we lost a lot of games during that time. That was one of the biggest things, just consistency, just knowing how to get guys out when you've got to. That's been good for us all year."<|endoftext|>We are happy to announce our second annual "RUN IT!" event! The theme? "You are here to run, not walk." As a result, we've had quite a few people who have walked up and asked the most basic question, "When can we run a 5k?" Well, here's your chance to show them what you're made of - all you need to do is go the website -======================================== SAMPLE 493 ======================================== -In a surprising turn, President Barack Obama was given an unexpected public boost from a very surprising friend: the conservative talk show host and Fox News contributor Glenn Beck. - -Not content with offering warm words about the president's health care plan, Beck even told his 5 million-plus listeners that Obamacare is already working better than expected. - -"I see it every single day. Every day, a young person is walking into a doctor. Not just the old and sick and lame, but the young and healthy. Every day a baby is born in America. Every single day there's a job opening," Beck said on his syndicated radio program Monday. "That's why we're still successful. It's not because you have big ideas. It's because people have big ideas. That's all they really want." - -SPONSORED - -But it wasn't all sunshine for Beck. He made the startling claim that people who have been receiving government insurance subsidies are actually in worse health than even before they got the government help. - -"Why in the world is the president's health care law doing everything in its power to make it harder for people to get health care insurance?" Beck asked. "What was so good about the president's health care law that he said it was going to make it harder for people to get health care insurance?" - -The health reform reform law, which has been the linchpin of Obama's reelection campaign, had some unexpected side effects. For one, insurance premiums for both the young and old jumped dramatically in the first year it went into effect. For the young, health insurance premiums rose an average of 34 percent by 2011. But the average cost of medical care for the elderly actually went down by about the same amount because of the law. According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the median monthly premium for a family plan rose from $245 in 2011 to $250 in 2012, and for individuals the median monthly premium went from $243 in 2011 to $246 in 2012. - -Even before the law was implemented by the federal government, health care prices and services were already starting to creep up. For example, in a survey released last year, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners noted the trend. The cost of a family health plan rose 4.3 percent in 2010 and 3.6 percent the next year, while total health care spending increased 7.4 percent in 2010 and 7.4 percent in 2011. - -"The number of providers and doctors under health insurance plans has significantly increased," the N.A.I.C. said. "A growing number of consumers continue to use health insurance to receive care or to afford care that was not previously covered."<|endoftext|>I have a few things to say. - -First, the new update brings you even more features to play. Just keep playing and keep finding and finding all the things that will excite you and make you want even more! - -Second, I'd like to apologize for the long delay. Our team worked very hard to produce this awesome update, but also keep everything under budget in order to meet our deadline. I will do my best to make amends for this long silence, and will do my best to answer all your questions if I am still busy. - -Lastly, if you've already downloaded the game, you probably noticed that there is no manual in the game. That's not true. We have a manual, but it only tells you the names of 3 characters, it has no gameplay tips or hints. There are also no extra characters in this edition of the game, so you won't need a manual for that edition either, if you don't buy it. - -And if you need it… go to the manual! You won't regret it! - -- Kairosoft - - -Thank you for your patience and your support! - -- Kairosoft<|endoftext|>A video released to Facebook this week shows off the latest product launch at the Chinese manufacturer. We find it hard to believe that this model is a real Mercedes – and perhaps even harder that this isn't just an elaborate stunt… - -Mercedes has been trying to make inroads into America for some decades now, but the recent push into the US – with new production lines in North Carolina and Tennessee – seems to be the most notable example of its expansion of the American market. - -Advertisement - -There have also been the recent launches of the GLE coupe and GLC sedan, and the AMG GLS GT sports car. Perhaps most recently, Mercedes brought in some brand new models – including the S550, S63 sedan and SL sports car – in an effort to build interest in its model line in China. The latter, in particular, has been widely publicized. - -We're hoping that this video is the real deal, because it looks like some of the vehicles that were launched recently in China have already seen the light of day here in the States. - -Advertisement - -But first, what's the video all about? - -Apparently -======================================== SAMPLE 494 ======================================== -The world is full of places where we know that the law does not apply. A place like the United States, for example, where we have a system of government that gives the government vast power, and is run by people who seem to operate according to their own rules — and to the laws that those people want them to follow, no matter what those laws say. - -But then there are places where a different kind of law does apply. Places where we are not able to get hold of the kind of legal services or legal advice that our parents, grandparents, and other close friends would have given us but whose absence has taken so much of the sting out of the world. These places, where people are not well served by government — a condition that many of us have to fight every day. These places are also those that many other countries seem to have turned down. - -This country, as you know, had a huge problem with the criminal justice system until very recently. You saw the problem in the aftermath of the horrendous murders in Charleston last year. That's where I grew up, as the son of a man who was part of the justice system in my hometown, of a black cop who died in the line of duty. His was a tragic case, it was tragic that his death took place only months after he'd been hired, but it could be avoided if local law enforcement could have had the proper services. - -We need to do better, and we need to do it in a smarter, more sensible way — especially given the fact that in the years since that terrible tragedy, the police department from the town of Charleston has changed almost beyond recognition — the police chief had been fired, the police dispatcher had turned over to a private company — all kinds of new systems taken over or improved. Even the town's jail was opened up to private companies this year, and they're already bringing in private security companies to help keep the peace. - -The problem, like many problems in this country, is the government that we have is run by people with powerful interests, and they can use their money, their power, or both to get what they want. That leads to things like the failure of the war on drugs. Instead of a national policy, the federal government was forced to take individual cases and hand them over to local law enforcement who were underfunded, overworked, and understaffed. The result was a national epidemic of addiction that has still not been really dealt with to this day, and a lack of law enforcement that keeps the people of our country subject to an increasing number of threats. - -That's just the sort of thing we need to think about — a system that isn't doing the right thing, and is being run by people who aren't interested in doing what the law requires. And we need to change it, as a country, to make sure that that sort of thing doesn't happen. We haven't yet, but when we look at the kinds of policies that you and I have discussed, we seem to be inching forward in a very positive direction. Not just in terms of criminal justice reform and drug policy reform, but in terms of the kinds of things that I want to see made available to people in these kinds of communities. - -Now, you don't think that the United States Postal Service should be allowed to continue being a profitable corporation? - -That's right. - -That we should be able to expand postal services to many more of our inner cities? - -I think that's the right and proper thing to do. One area that's really important in our plan is in helping ensure that people can get the tools they need for the jobs that need to be done. The Postal Service has really been a poster-child for failure. It's become so big and so dysfunctional that the private shipping industry has taken it over, and as a result we're seeing things come to a head. Right now there's a whole lot of frustration with postal services, and you saw it in this week's debate over the sequester. There's a lot of fear and concern about how this is going to affect those communities if this kind of thing goes on going forward. - -And what I'm talking about is in this budget, which I'm going to send out in the next few weeks, there's a number of items specifically aimed at those who need to be able to afford their own postal service. There's a number of things aimed at helping in terms of protecting postal workers, and some of them are very important. It was a very important thing, for example, that postal workers in Baltimore were able to have their working hours restored, under the Bush administration, at the request of Mayor Rawlings-Blake, who said that it was important for them to be able to return to doing their jobs so that they could continue to fulfill their sacred duty of delivering our mail. - -What I'm thinking about is a lot of things that the Postal Service doesn't even pay attention to, that really could help -======================================== SAMPLE 495 ======================================== - -The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -A teenager is recovering in bed after she was 'gang raped' by a number of people after going jogging near her home in Bristol this morning. - -The 18-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the alleged victims, was attacked as she left her nearby school on Southmead Road, with another woman then accompanying her home. - -Police were called this morning and were seen questioning men outside a car, believed to have driven the pair. - -The woman who allegedly assaulted her has since been detained in a police station. - -The victim had been out walking with a group of friends after finishing a sporty session at her school around 9.30am, when a driver pulled alongside them and shouted and then jumped out of the car. - -(Image: SWNS.) - -The 18-year-old was forced to the floor after she was kicked in the backside, with the attackers hitting her with chairs and a drink glass. - -She managed to get her arm back under her skirt and then the men ran off along the road before returning with a fourth group. - -Her friend then picked her up, but when she ran from the scene, the men followed. At one point a man who was lying on the pavement then grabbed her and forced her down, before she started screaming in terror. - -Bristol Magistrates' Court heard how her friends tried to stop the men, but as they ran off two more groups of men then joined in. - -(Image: SWNS) - -Her cousin who saw the incident told police: "I heard one voice shouting 'cut' and I saw a girl who was lying on the ground. - -"Her friend started crying and shouting that a man had just raped her – there were four people with her. - -"The police were called as the man came back and put his hand over her mouth to stop her crying or screaming." - -The court heard that one of the female victims had managed to get away from the attackers near her home while trying to call her parents, but when they arrived the men had left. - -Detective Constable Gareth O'Connor said: "These have been brutal attacks, both the men involved have shown a callous lack of regard for the victim's safety. They must be identified and brought to justice for their sickening actions today."<|endoftext|>A number of studies have been published on the potential of a diet rich in dietary fiber to reduce the burden of obesity and increase survival in patients with cancer. These studies have also demonstrated a reduced incidence of cardiovascular events and cancer death in subjects consuming this plant-based diet. There have been relatively fewer studies that have examined the potential of an enriched plant-based diet to prevent and treat the major chronic diseases that are the primary causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States population. While there are some promising preliminary data, there has been controversy regarding the appropriateness and practicality of this dietary approach. A number of factors influence the practicality, cost or effectiveness of these nutritional approaches. However, one of the most important contributors to the controversy stems from a misunderstanding of the biochemical and biological mechanisms by which a plant-based diet benefits patients. Several studies have identified a number of potential biological mechanisms by which fiber contributes to improved health. However, a number of questions have yet to be answered, including: how can fiber reduce body fat/fat mass, reduce cholesterol, improve glycemic control, promote health in certain cancer patients, induce weight loss or prevent weight gain, and if the fiber improves glycemic control, what factors determine weight loss? How long will the health benefits of a fiber supplement last? How does ingestion of this fiber affect weight or blood sugar levels? How is fiber absorbed into the intestine? What determines the ability of the intestine to absorb a given fiber? These and other questions have led to a wide body of research. However, most of this research has been of short duration and/or has not looked at the potential benefits of a fiber supplement in an obese patient population. In addition, most of the clinical trial evidence that has been presented to date is of relatively short duration. This will not likely change in the near future as there is a high demand for new therapies to treat obesity as well as many serious chronic diseases. Many of these diseases also represent a serious public health concern. Therefore, it is not likely that clinical trials of a dietary regimen as a means of treatment of these chronic diseases will be undertaken again for the foreseeable future. These trials in the past have largely been performed with healthy subjects, and thus there can be no expectation that a fiber supplement can be used in these patients given the high level of disease risk inherent to these diseases. It is also important to recognize that there is no way that fiber can be used to treat -======================================== SAMPLE 496 ======================================== -Grimacing and sobbing in the courtroom, the victim spoke to the court that "there is absolutely no excuse for what happened to me, I made certain rules that I've kept. But I cannot explain how he managed to get into my bedroom door." The accused had tried to steal a laptop from a woman he met at a nightclub. - -After pleading guilty to rape and sexual activity with a minor, the accused was sentenced to 10 years and three months in a minimum security facility, while being kept away from children. He was also given a four year driving ban and was ordered to pay a fine of about Bt60,000 for the attempted theft. The court has ruled that the convicted offender will also have to compensate the victim for her medical expenses as well as her counseling costs. - -The court also ordered the man be made to follow sexual harassment laws.<|endoftext|>This week, Donald Hormelman, a co-founder of the iconic Los Angeles-based nightclub "The Sunset Strip," passed away suddenly, as has been reported. In 2006, he was a regular at Sunset Strip. On the Sunset Strip, we all knew who Hormelman was. In fact, he was well-known by this point to a host of locals, including me. - -Hormelman started as the musical director of "The Strip's" popular "L.A. Cabaret." Eventually he became a major contributor to Sunset Strip. As its general manager and promoter, he presided over the establishment's greatest years. In a 2006 story titled, "Gone but not forgotten," The Los Angeles Times described Hormelman: - -The Strip's L.A. Cabaret has been shuttered since October, though Hormelman remained a major force on the club's front lines. As the city's marquee live entertainment destination, it was here that Sunset Strip honed its live music act and pioneered new types of music, ranging from ska, funk and Latin to disco and blues. - -In the late 1970s, as L.A. was in the cross-hairs of the AIDS epidemic, Hormelman was one of the first to offer free HIV tests on the Strip. His testing, at the time, included bloodwork. While I don't know of any specifics, it seems likely that one of the reasons Hormelman was known around town for his AIDS activism was his free testing program. That being said, that didn't make him an enemy of the LGBT community, as The Advocate's Scott Thomas describes: - -In recent years, he has also started a free AIDS testing clinic. His message has been a consistent presence around town. People tell me about their HIV test. I think it will always be a part of people's lives, especially given how HIV is still so new. - -I'm told that Hormelman's most important work as Sunset Strip founder has been his commitment to maintaining a gay night life. It's a commitment that can be seen even today, when the former club continues to thrive in the South Bay of Los Angeles. - -The Strip was famous on the Strip of the West Coast as the place to go to party, but on the Strip in L.A., it was the only place to go from 7pm to midnight. Even back then, after the club's closing in 1984, Sunset Strip did much more than just close, it began to be forgotten about completely. Only recently did it become a destination again. I'm told it's hard to explain but that it happened from 2002-2010. But the strip was really known from its inception.<|endoftext|>The video above shows the moment a passenger accidentally got his hand on the wrong end of the iPad mini in a Southwest flight. - -According to reports of the incident, the passenger's "hand went towards the iPad, which then had the flight attendants running around grabbing it." - -The unnamed flight attendant then got the iPad back from him. - -Passengers on the flight said that the passenger "started to cry and told the crew that this wasn't in normal use." - -One passenger, who took the video, said that the flight attendants made all attempts to get the iPad returned to its rightful owner. - -The two passengers on the plane are reported to have gotten into a conversation after the whole incident went down, and were allowed to leave the plane without further action by the crew. - -In a statement, Southwest Airlines apologised to the passenger, stating that the company was "aware of the concerns this incident has caused." It added that it "has been in communication with" the customer regarding the matter. - -The airline added that passengers would need to sign in and sign out of the iPhone and iPad, according to ABC News. - -The airline has asked passengers to inform flight attendants that the device they just brought aboard is an additional device and therefore cannot be used unless the crew provides clearance. - -Southwest and Apple have been in talks for more than a year over the issue of passengers carrying electronic devices onboard planes. -======================================== SAMPLE 497 ======================================== -"We should have no problem if they don't play. If we do play they should be able to play, we know that." - -— - -"So I'll tell you the story of my life. We grew up in Philadelphia, the same way we grew up in Boston. You don't grow up in a city, you grow up in parts. We lived in a neighborhood called Park West. I was there from the time I was like 5, 6 years old until I moved to California. I've never ever moved out of that area that is called Park West." - -— - -"We had a very good relationship with them. And so the second we found out that the Sixers had lost and they were losing and we were losing, that was it. In that moment, we decided we were going to take care of our own business. They don't represent Philadelphia." - -— - -"The people in Philly that made decisions, that took the decisions, I'm not questioning those people. But I was never one of those people. And yet for whatever reasons, for whatever reasons, that's where the organization was headed." - -— - -"We're very upset that they can't play in the game, but there's been no communication on that front with us. It just blows my mind. If, in fact, it's the case that they cannot play, then fine, we'll go home. But that they're not playing, no." - -— - -"Now, we would have loved to keep them out there just because we have a number of players that we'd like to see play." - --Kurt Busch - -I think the fans in Philly should be disappointed that they missed a chance to see Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons play in front of 40,000 or 50,000 fans as the Sixers prepare for Monday night's meeting with the Pacers. - -I think the fans should also expect the usual back and forth between the Sixers management and their fans. - -I think there needs to be a meeting between Joel Embiid and Brett Brown to resolve the conflict over Joel's playing time. - - -No matter how frustrating the frustration will be on a day-to-day basis, the fact remains that Joel Embiid could have played and the Sixers did not. - - -"They have a game tomorrow because we had an event yesterday," head coach Brett Brown said Saturday of when the team returned to Philly. "And that's something that I personally will look at that and decide how to move forward." - -But let's just be real here: the most likely scenario is that no matter how uncomfortable Embiid looks during the regular season, and the most likely scenario is that the team has no choice but to release Embiid because he is not healthy, then there should be an open meeting with Embiid and Brown. - -And just between you and me, if my guess is right and the reason the Sixers decided it's in the Sixers' best interest to not play Embiid is because they feel like he is not contributing, then this should NOT be a front and center story. - - -The biggest reason why people are so upset about Embiid's absence is because for the past few years the idea has been talked about that having Embiid in the starting lineup alongside Ben Simmons is the best way to get the most out of both players. - -Well, according to K.C. Johnson of the Atlantic City Sentinel, that may not necessarily be the case. K.C. Johnson: - -A source familiar with the situation said the team's general manager will discuss it after games and would prefer Embiid on the court with Simmons and rookie second-round pick Dario Saric for two hours every morning. Brown and Embiid have an understanding, the source said. At some point, Embiid will probably make his own decision on whether he wants to be at practice during the day and watch his friend play in front of him, or sit and watch from the stands. - -You can get some insight into where the Sixers might go for their starting line-up by analyzing the numbers of their stars. - -As much as I think there is truth to the notion that Embiid being on the bench and Simmons and Saric being the starting five is the way to go, I think if Embiid, Simmons, Saric, Covington, and Hollis Thompson can all fill the void that the Sixers have lacked, I don't see how this is a bad idea. - -The good news is that Joel Embiid is doing his part in growing, which is something that hasn't been the case in Philly for a while. - -The bad news is the Sixers can't seem to get Embiid on the court.<|endoftext|>The federal government has introduced new regulations with the aim of improving safety for the transportation of hazardous substances and pollutants on our highways. This requires all drivers on Canadian -======================================== SAMPLE 498 ======================================== -If you're a big fan of Apple's MacBook Pro, then you might want to wait one more day before the wait ends. An Apple Store spokesperson said it may be weeks, or even months, before Apple's new laptop goes on sale. - -An Apple Store spokesperson said during an interview on 8to5Mac that the company's newest Macs are expected to be delivered in October or November. - -This is disappointing news for Mac fans who have been waiting for Apple's new notebooks since the company released the first MacBook Pro 13-inch late last year. Apple launched the MacBook Pro earlier this year, although the Pro 13-inch was delayed. - -The Pro 13 was expected to launch in October, but now is expected to be on top of the new MacBook Pro line sometime towards the middle of next month.<|endoftext|>By John Walker on April 25, 2014 - -What is it about a good "scary" story, and a truly terrifying "dark" story, that makes them so popular in the horror genre? They're fun, and they're fun to write. Both stories could be considered "puppets": there are very few things more terrifying to most readers than those very real, very specific things they just can't handle. There is something about the ability to evoke fear with such specificity and with such speed and ease that works as both the basis for the story itself, as well as the story's most important tool. - -A good "scary" story is an easy sell. When you put two stories together that are actually about the same thing – horror – but are at odds, and when the horror is portrayed in terms of the actual and immediate threat to the characters, then readers instinctively gravitate toward the stories that are the closest to being nightmares – the stories where real fears are exposed in ways that they haven't been in a long time. - -"The only good monster is a true monster." (The classic Dracula story) - -In my next post, I think I'll talk about one of the most popular "scary" stories of all time, the most popular of all time. What we are about to discuss relates to the classic and ubiquitous "creep story": the terrifying and mysterious stranger who will show up at the end of your stories, and then make you turn the page over and see what horrifying thing he wants with you. - -In this case, my guest is George Langelaan who is the author of these very scary stories: Monster Hunter, Horror at Castle Hill, and of course, The Werewolf of Castle Hill. George Langelaan is a master at the scary story – the sort of story where you really feel like you're on the edge, at the extreme end of what should be horror, and in the middle of something much more horrifying than you expected to see. - -When did "scary" stories start becoming such big and popular? And what do you think they represent that the more "realistic" horror stories don't? - -John Walker: George Langelaan is a master of the scary story, and he is an author who is especially adept at crafting scares and getting readers to engage with his scary stories – even though in most cases the actual horrors we are witnessing are very mild and/or far away in comparison to most of the monsters that are portrayed in his horror fiction. My personal favorite of Langelaan's story collections is Monster Hunter, because Monster Hunter is a collection where Lomalaan uses the very literal language of the scary story to portray the most frightening of horrors – monsters – on a very personal and primal level. - -I think the first "scary" story I ever heard, was actually in a horror anthology: the "Monster of the Week" story, written by a guy named Richard Matheson called "The Thing on the Doorstep." The story is really the quintessential "scary story," and it works so well in that format because it is so chilling and so realistic, that when you read the final paragraph – that is the end of "The Thing on the Doorstep" – you get goosebumps. The fact that it is that short – a story that runs from a few sentences to a few pages – and that Matheson is able to get that kind of emotional payoff is what really sets "The Thing on the Doorstep" and the "Monster of the Week" stories apart. It reminds me of a song by Jethro Tull: - -"Monster on my doorstep, you creep!" - -In order to find out more about this master of the "scary," I was curious to talk to John about what makes a "scary story." John, you are an author with a great deal of writing experience, and in this interview you mention how you are quite the "film geek" and how a movie is a "sort of movie in your head." And I wondered, which film in your brain would you most like to turn into a horror movie? - -John Walker: -======================================== SAMPLE 499 ======================================== -A new study reports that the human heart and brain are wired not only to share thoughts — but also action. - -Previous research reveals that both the human heart and brain are wired to cooperate to help us survive. Brain-to-brain communication may have a role in our ability to learn, to remember, and even to create art. - -Now researchers find that the brains of primates have been wired to coordinate actions in the womb. A team led by UC Berkeley neuroscientist Paul Fletcher, Ph.D., and including graduate student and first author John-Dylan Haynes, found that the activity of the fetus' brain areas responsible for coordinating movements, coordinated with the actions of the mother's brain areas responsible for planning movements. These "micro-movement" networks in the brain may have evolved in response to changes in the neural wiring during brain development. The brains of primates also show evidence of inter-regional brain connections. The authors say this study can help shed more light on the evolutionary origin of brain networks, and on our relationship with the environment. - -"We found a similar pattern of network connectivity in the human brain during early brain development of the mother and her fetus as we did during early brain development of our own species that led to the common ancestor of modern humans, chimpanzees and bonobos," says co-author Fletcher. To better understand these connections, the team plans to use brain imaging technology and other sophisticated techniques to study the brains of more humans and chimpanzees in the future. - -The research was published online today, March 2, 2013, in the journal PLOS Biology. - -The brain is constantly changing during development, which means we will be able to learn much new information as our brains change, the authors say. - -"These changes may be the reason that we become adept at solving complex problems and why, even after decades of living in the same environments, our brains may retain some of the traits of our common ancestors," says Haynes. - -Fletcher and Haynes are members of a team that included University of Oxford anatomist Joanne E. MacInnes, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley neuro-scientist Michael R. Marlowe, Ph.D., and UC Berkeley neurophysician and neurosurgeon Richard W. Damasio, M.D., Ph.D., all of UC Berkeley; and UC Berkeley doctoral student Andrew B. Pimlott. - -The findings suggest that "the human brain evolved to accommodate the requirements of complex social interactions," the authors write. - -To study the patterns of human brain activity during early brain development, Haynes and Fletcher used an MRI scanner to measure the connections between the brain areas responsible for coordinating eye and ear movements and those responsible for coordinating movements of the entire body. The scientists also took skin biopsies of each fetus at nine and 28 weeks of gestation as well as postmortem brain scans from two non-human primates at eight and 14 weeks. - -In all three species, the researchers were able to find a large, non-overlapping pattern of neural activity that synchronized with the movements of all three limbs. - -In the human fetus, for instance, connections between areas of the brain responsible for coordinating the body movements and those responsible for coordination of other parts of the body — such as movement of the eyes — were highly synchronized at the nine week gestational age. The researchers found that these neural activity networks were also more or less synchronized when the brains of the fetus were 10 weeks of gestation. By 14 weeks of gestation, the researchers detected that these network patterns of brain activation were also more or less synchronized between the brain regions that regulate body movement and the regions that regulate eye movement and other sensory information. - -"It's intriguing to think of the fetal brain doing something quite different from its adult counterpart when it makes these very, very sensitive decisions," says Haynes. "The question is, are we ready to use this information to design better algorithms to make better decisions, and to make better decisions at all? It's not something we can ask now, with a child's brain and its development." - -Fletcher explains that the fetal brain is still relatively immature. "Now that we get into our postnatal years, we should be looking beyond the neural systems that regulate human behavior and start to look at all these complex systems that contribute to our life — to our health, cognitive ability and emotions," he says.<|endoftext|>Rochester Police are investigating a shooting that happened about 11 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 31) on the 400 block of South Park Street. - -According to a report from the Rochester Police Department, an argument over loud music began and one person began shooting. - -There were no injuries reported. The two people who were shot ran from the location to a neighbor's house on South Park Street where they called police, said police. They were questioned, then taken to a hospital for an evaluation, police said. - -Officers and Crime Scene units are continuing to investigate. -======================================== SAMPLE 500 ======================================== -You don't have any notifications. - -This Clyp is: - -has been deleted - -by KAMPAI! / Funk Is Dead - -Don't forget to share this Clyp with your friends! They can vote directly on this page or on the submissions page. - -Your Clyp has been submitted! - -After you submit your Clyp (original work only), the community will vote on the ones they like best. At the end of the voting period we'll feature the winners on the homepage for a week. - -Submit your Clyp to be Featured! - -Already have an account? - -Already have an account? Log in - -Create an account now to save this Clyp before it expires. - -Sign up with Facebook - -or - -Tell me about Clyp news - -By signing up, I agree to Clyp's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. - -Already have an account? Log in - -Log in with Facebook - -or - -Remember me Forgot password? - -Don't have an account? Sign up - -Reset Password - -Enter the email address associated with your account, and we'll email you a link to reset your password. - -A link to reset your password has been sent to , if that account exists. The link will expire in 20 minutes.<|endoftext|>The New Orleans Saints released two players as free agents Tuesday, with tight end Lance Kendricks and tight end Ben Watson both signing with the Tennessee Titans. That left six undrafted rookie free agents still available on the Saints roster. - -To determine each of the six undrafted rookies who will be active this Wednesday versus the Indianapolis Colts, let's take some time to break down each player's 2016 potential in an attempt to determine whether he can make an impact. - -If they each continue to perform the way they had in college this season (which means staying healthy and productive) this group could potentially be in line for a roster spot after training camp. - -1. Tim Wright, Defensive End, Iowa - -Wright was actually a sixth-round pick in 2015, but was released in August and went undrafted. He was not re-signed or signed this offseason. It's not easy to make it up as a sixth- or seventh-round pick for the NFL. While it's possible Wright could earn a roster spot in training camp, the expectation is he's a practice squad member who can contribute as a depth piece. - -2. Joe Grant, Offensive Tackle, Georgia Tech - -Like Wright, Grant was an offensive tackle coming out of college who was cut by a number of teams at different points last off-season. Grant is still a raw player, but he has the physical traits that a lot of teams like in an offensive tackle. - -3. Josh Carraway, Wide Receiver, Louisiana Tech - -Carraway was a former wide receiver who didn't live up to expectations at the NFL level. He's a long-striding receiver who could make an impact as a possession receiver in the NFL. - -4. J.P. Holtz, Tight End, Stanford - -Holtz has some of the best hands in the NFL and is a good blocker on the outside. He's the type of athlete that has a chance in the NFL, but probably not as a rookie. His development has been slow, but if he can't make the roster right away or earn a roster spot in training camp, he can earn a spot later on. - -5. Kenny Justice, Safety, San Jose State - -Justice is considered more of a deep safety than an inside backer in today's NFL. He can cover tight ends, wide receivers and running backs. While Justice has a little better speed than expected, he doesn't have enough athleticism to consistently make a big play. - -6. Trey Hendrickson, Cornerback, Kansas State - -Hendrickson was a fourth-round pick in 2015 despite being undersized. The 6-foot-0, 197-pounder was inconsistent in the NFL last season, but might be good enough to stick on the roster as a sixth or seventh-round safety. - -7. Tyler Matakevich, Wide Receiver, Penn State - -Mataketvitch was a fifth-round pick last season and is a big receiver, who could earn a roster spot as a sixth or seventh-round option. He is a good receiver, but not a great deep threat and might not be able to separate from defensive backs for most of his career. - -The six undrafted rookies I have listed above are far from guaranteed to make the team. There is still the possibility they could end up on Injured Reserve, or another team could sign them and make it to the 53-man roster before they're needed.<|endoftext|>From the opening moments we learn that our protagonists' pasts have been upended when they get knocked back into the past by mysterious attackers. The first few lines of each first-person diff --git a/gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt b/gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9f78f36d6..000000000 --- a/gpt-2-samples/unconditional.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,20000 +0,0 @@ -======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== -Grembock's Delicatessen in Austin, Texas, just opened its doors Sunday night for the first full week in business since being founded on Aug. 30. A volunteers-only open house event, there was no event at the South Congress restaurant yesterday, and no information to be had about what's cooking either. The only Tweet on the site belongs to Grembock's longtime associate Josh Laner, who sent some "Welcome home" postcards to patrons on from the head chef Thomas Ghia. - -However, ABC Channel 7 in Austin's Austin360 segment on Grembock's posted a photo of (curiously not pictured) a neatly made 7-course meal on the menu. Eater reached out to Grembock's management for additional info. After a bit of back-and-forth, we learned that the menu(s) is still in the works but it's still months away from opening day. We are counting on reports of food violations trending under "things that will happen" for this to be real. - -Just after midnight after announcing two weeks ago that it would be open to the public, Grembock's became the first Austin restaurant to ride a ride-sharing service in Austin since the "Bike-Share — Share the Ride" controversy erupted. Upon searching Austin traffic data numbers for drivers who picked up customers from Grembock's during the Sunday evening opening period, we also learned it was the first time an Uber picked up an Uber at Grembock's since Josh Laner threw out his hat for himself as the head chef when the restaurant opened. The fact that Uber picked up an Uber at Facebook's Austin offices may be reason for concern but so is the fact that Uber doesn't officially operate in Austin. With the clear safety record of Uber versus Lyft — and Grembock's reputation for superior, enticing food around town — it's premature to put your faith in the ride-sharing app's ability to coexist as a competing competitor. - -Owner Thomas Gamm… - -Here is a bit of information we have learned so far. A rough menu has been spent firming up menu items for the full week. We've seen a few concepts give us glimpses of what their menus may look like. The seven courses have not been revealed but you can assume Friday, Saturday, and Sunday lunch menu items will feature small plates. The breakfast menu is on the way, and dessert. For the week, Gamm says he anticipates hundreds of guests to tuck into the Cheeseburger tots, Potato Smothered Chicken Fabulous, Shrimp Rabonata, Crispy Boiled Salmon, Artisan Steak Ravioli, and Grilled Manchurian. - -Initial plans were for a 21j-caliber Denver breweries with a run-down bar next to the kitchen, but that venue is no longer happening. He says he has set up a possible evening gracious seating deal with Rossi Library Options for more comfortable hours. Other than those two things, Chef Gamm did not indicate what we should expect. An opener date? - -There were Vegan fans of Kitchen Frusciante's Sean Brock – a burger joint that was slated to open on South Congress – who remained skeptical about Grembock's's plans for vegan options. Brock tweeted late last week, "I learned Grembock's is going to be vegetarian – ugh." - -Like Austin, Grembock's is in the middle of its own food crisis. Financial turmoil is staving off some long-mistreated neighbors in the Austin area by continuing to spring fresh people onto its shores, but it also comes with that hardest-to-beat feeling of "I will always take a chance on what Austin's gonna have next" the deeper you look into the Austin food scene. Luckily, there are now three other East Austin restaurants that have been given the finger for food-quality supervision and acquisition. We hope that staff will be friendly after Saturday's opening and if you're looking for good meaty vegan food with a familiar Austin vibe, Grembock's is the one big regular-spot on a weird hobo dinner crawl.<|endoftext|>It was a few nights later that I realized the disappointment in my soul, what could I do? What were the options? We had seen the state-of-the museum, so why not visit the State Legislature? As a young kid I had been part of the first protest to interrupt a visit of President Kennedy. But not so far away, the administration allowed homosexuals to be employed in the military, the same as the ticket gone this afternoon. How could I shatter people's trust in them, I wondered. Yet, you would think that the designers of the World Heritage Site could come up with programs to encourage the visitors to visit the inside of the Capitol. But there were no results, not at least that we could find. - -In any case, that day, after my comments at the museum, a scream went up in the museum, and I was dragged -======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== -More than 95 percent of iPhone 6 preorders being held by Apple's INPEX, Shanghai - -Apple now joins current Apple partner Pegatron(s tan), which already employed the same iPhone generation strategy to ensure ample supply for iPhones. - -TOP MOBILE NEWS: Apple TM already used generation-from-graphics approach to keep iPhone supply robust - -Pegatron, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer for Apple, can leverage its experience in supplying parts and components for major electronics companies like Nokia and Sony. In addition, it can rely on the redundancies provided by a single contract. - -Advertisement - -Pegatron already secured 90 percent of iPhone 6 preorders from INPEX at the beginning of October, an executive from INPEX told Reuters. "Whole Julination has to cover one iPhone 6 unit," he said. "This week, I don't have the capacity for 4 people to sell a unit." - -Of course, it's unbelievably tough to find new qualities when rain doesn't fall. So when it comes to the iPhone's next generation, basically every chipmaker will be utilizing "higher-end characteristics" in part of the production process in order to deliver up to 30 percent more processing power for more impressive performance and battery life. And it's not just a matter of using new packaging materials; Apple will be using a second generation LCD touchpanels as well. - -Posted at 9:18AM Sep 17, 2015 by Drew Johnson<|endoftext|>Carl Cloud - -coach Does skeptical attitude play a role in the execution of interviews and activities? This theory is more supported by positive results obtained in experiments together with my own research. Is skepticism also a motivational factor in performance? This is mostly supported by two positive experiments carried out against a supposed mood factor. The supplementary material contains the articles describing these results, created by me and yet unpublished performed together with a grant from ETH Zurich. - -Concerning the structure of thinking: - -Pascal Bruckner Contented with himself that since the beginning of time, life has been teaching us to search for meaning, that every discovery and innovation is or might reveal a meaning, Wolfgang Goethe once asked: What, then, did the smugglers discover about the Wagner's blessed continent? I am convinced that huge assumptions hang on the matter of why someone so multifaceted should have the luck to have discovered what he did for a few days. School Idea "Students should superficially act like optimists, in order not to be mistaken for them or to suspect them. Both at home or in school, animals spout: "Miller wants us to sail frightfully high and take it easy," "Andersen says he will enter the navy, and she means it". Then hello Necessitystar INCONVENIENT: f and Rethinking Philosophy SPIEGEL, June 30, 2003 Addressing a boy at school recently with such a reason to dissent is an appearance masquerading as a revolution. Isn't it?" Thank you for your question. After my visit to school, I keep the motto: "Our kids must be supposedly enthusiastic on without any desire to rebel." Eric M Code, Penny Z Dine and James R Schiffer are taught that censorship is frightening and that 'same world' is necessary. Bennett R "Don't use honest i t like term, few high tech firms use i t. Code Unacceptable "Codes in the Business world are often kept hidden by employing their own-curated based on many degrees, or sometimes simply because no use without there is a possibility to have a matter of the integrity. Off the qualifications. - -value is not availabe, notably off limits to be shared freely you should use your whole brain without that right, and if that is not not the case, you shouldn't be keeping the code Sets concentrated are gam drugs efferent of BIM." - -Learning how to construct code — or to compete with it—"is a widely required job for the software developers. Among other things, programmers must tell the customer the purpose of the installed application, the purpose of the 'in the enterprise system,' or to answer "Was this mission accomplished in its sign. Once you have a compiler and source in your possession, code is an asset that others can use to possess faster in the future. Having code versus providing certain information unintentionally implies the latter. These will make the "innards" useful. " Symbols FC "symbols appearing in product HISTORY, HISTORICAL "PRIOR OBSERVATIONS", SYMBOL SQL" U"I mean a figure taken out of real life.") Moreover, the products use d the same formulas or work out in an identical way. So does the utmost their patronizing interpreters tell them to "figure that out or else be fascinated " By the fourth International Compliance and Security Levels in General Industry ( ISIS ), the phrases "this is the latest version." "feature" and "profitable" in several reports written by the Federal Trade Commission charging approval -======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== -Denise Schroeder, right, listens to her attorney, Norm Goldenberg, during the Daredevil Levine Shotgun Trial in Meadville Campaign Court in program televised live by Fairness Delaware on Thursday afternoon at the West Marshall Law Building in Dover, Del. Goldenberg and Schroeder will become the first same sex couple in Delaware to be able to be married. (Photo: Julie Carra 2/10/16) - -DETROIT — A trial to determine if people accused of murder can get access to money during their court cases has resulted in decisions to be appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court. - -Photos and schematics first revealed late last year show 46-year-old Denise Schroeder frantically waving a .38 caliber revolver during a harrowing confrontation with a masked intruder. The incident, which occurred back in 2011, left Schroeder and her boyfriend, Krzysztof Levine, dead. - -On Thursday, attorneys representing Synder and Andrea Almon, Lisa Tenore, Glenn Sanderson, Heather Derry, and Robbie Mecham, met with attorneys for Ronald Pirone, Schroeder's boyfriend, the Morning Call first reported. Pirone sat in the courtroom throughout the proceeding and still has nonchalance as the proceedings continue. - -Scott Kyser, Coordinator of the Governor Wine and Spirits Task Force, said that by Wednesday, lawsuits brought about by Curig's involvement have been consolidated too. - -"This makes it easier to continue the process, but in two separate cases," Kyser said. - -While the state Supreme Court is demanding that Curig reappear down the road, opponents to the cases are "completely focused on moving forward," Ostap Safar, Schroeder's loved one, said before the proceedings. - -A quick trip down memory lane - -before 240 tons of steel to cap the highest elevator shaft in NYSE for 4th anniversary http://t.co/jRNHWNV7EK — Brittany Jordan (@BrittanyDET) June 30, 2015 - -Dannielle Schroeder, a number of family and acquaintances of the victim have said she had a difficult childhood. Synder worked at a Mintz law firm at or near Schroeder's family's home in Bridgwater, New Jersey during her childhood. - -The Schroeder's mother Frances and her father Larry on the defense timeline http://t.co/Og2qnaT5lQ — Brittany Jordan (@BrittanyDET) June 30, 2015 - -"[She] never had any money...and had nobody to cook for her or to lift her up when she struggled," grandmother Frances told WECT last month, adding that she only learned Schroeder's name since my younger daughter decided to come clean about her parents' murder. - -One particular incident occurred at age six. When the rest of the family in the neighborhood crowded around Almon in front of his grandparents' home, Schroeder was at home alone. Almon, out late drinking with friends, decided to sneak in. But there was a huge three-foot wooden fence around the house. Almon got a prosthetic leg and made a clumsy climb over the fence. To make his escape, Almon reached the second story balcony and, he told police, ended up in the kitchen on the first floor. - -"It was one of our sons driving down the street and saw him at work. He pulled over and asked him what was going on. He'll never forget his exterior and pose was something like that. He instantly made bail."- Marty Almon pic.twitter.com/E5BVC5OGmL — Morning Call (@AsburyJournal) June 30, 2015 - -According to the Morning Call, Schroeder, her mother, Schwarzbitz and her stepfather, Frank Berger were drinking the night of November 24, 2011. Almon reportedly called the Schroeder home at about 10:30 on to call the children, in the safety of the car. Instead Almon got into the pool room in the rear of the house and TOLD his family to "Suck it". Berger found Schroeder unresponsive, according to the report. Schmidt committed suicide the next day. - -Schroeder's stepfather Frank Berger committed suicide the next day. (Photo: Facebook) - -"Andrea was at work with her supervisor when she became separated from Elise, but she had called her that morning...[and] Elise had informed her at that point that maybe Andrea called her but not in time to retrieve her at the know place," said Fitzgerald Sherwood, representing Dannielle Schroeder at one point on Wednesday. "So Andrea became upset and better get back and found an excuse to get in the pool bathroom." - -Schroeder tried to use the white boards by the pool to climb out to the balcony. - -She escaped from the bedroom, and sheriff's deputies Bradley, Moore and [Danbury Police Chief Frederick] Goode arrested her. - -======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== -ADVERTISEMENT - -Until a brief series of tweets surfaced on Thursday night, it had been unclear whether the U.S. senator from Ohio was being investigated for corruption, (as Rolling Stone incorrectly reported) or a tax question (as 11alive.com claimed). - -John McCain has been at the center of a firestorm of reports concerning possible corruption, and he's been accused of failing to pay tax deductions by multiple media outlets. We lost track of who was tweeting. Here they are, with a short explanation of what's going on, from 11alive.com: - -9:03 p.m. — Alaska - -Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski became the first "serious" name in the national political media drama to call for McCain to cooperate with Senate colleagues by either disclosing his tax returns or cooperating with what she called the "full force" of the "IRS, DOJ, FBI, etc." - -9:05 p.m. — Legal bombshell revealed - -Citing testimony from IRS attorneys last week, CNN says it has been told senators have run into a problem with "corrupt transactions" and that those facts suggest "McCain should disclose tax transactions in question." This followed the Senate Finance Committee meeting earlier this month, where Federal Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George outlined the trouble that could arise if a conservative group paid McCain campaign staffers but somehow was retroactively challenged for filing too many delinquent 2015 tax returns. - -9:10 p.m. — Gizmodo - -Sarah Westwood, then director of The Open Society Foundation and now a columnist at Gizmodo, writes that "hiding McCain's tax details for 25 years could cost the government [10] million dollars a year in taxes" — 12th-highest among the more than 300 senators currently receiving less than $100,000 annually in campaign deductions. - -9:19 p.m. — Omaha Call-Shiller - -So who paid for the glasses Franken installed in his new Senate office? Adelson at 1154, according to veteran U.S Congressmen, who say Adelson's demands are usually guaranteed at 150 percent of the normal sale price. Ron Johnson's firm Wisconsin Growth is also listed as the architect's broker. Meanwhile, Negligent Dun-Ducks is the glass display buyer - -9:27 p.m. — Tax laws may be changed when the McCain committee is finished - -Senator Lindsey Graham has been calling for a short investigation of claims that McCain has grown wealthy while pretending to be a war veteran and seal hunter. It came out today that each of the anonymous former staffers is getting 73 percent pre-tax profit on their deals, according to a Washington Examiner report, which led to the report that says "John McCain spent millions of dollars on gifts from donors and lobbyists and used his office to try to extract the maximum fine to keep his business going." - -9:28 p.m. — Ping available? - -NEXT: The Facebook Fan Page - -9:34 p.m. — WYPR Reports On Rolls Off DC Restaurant - -Seven D.C. Rollers and K-Lefts receipts dated September 11th tallied in at a together $3,477.212 with a sixth receipt to show Sunday of that date, $1,405.273. Over $1 million of Alaskan customs, including their table- Service commissioned '99 Zit du Citre.' Proximity to vacation home in Wrightwood- Opened season approx. 200 guests. - -9:37 p.m. — Best Friends, Tottenham CAP - -WestIsland seedy culture (plural) talked shows, Indianapolis, Alberta politics, October All-Star Game, barbecues, Celebrity Wife Swap, Trump, Putin, Paulson, and numerous comics actor and Ted Koppel. - -9:39 p.m. — Purple Sauce, the Cafe - -A post on their Facebook page had some skepticism about potential 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz's background according to 'legends' told to reporters by veterans. - -9:41 p.m. — Paul Mitchell explains why McCain needs to disclose his taxes - -Why is the McCain tax issue a big one's on news outlets' radar? Business Insider's Paul Parilla says that First Quarter Tax Report of 2016 was released this morning. - -The report was stating that the 38 a Russian oligarchs and the 157 foreign owners and non-residents delivered $380.5 billion in 13 states — 114% of dollars received. - -Because First Quarter defined list of 36 Russian oligarchs is murky but higher than 448 in 2011 BTA revises guideline by categorizing it into 16 increasingly convoluted categories (20 categories had news reports on them). - -1. World-renowned CEOs of Russian-controlled companies - -Raw ideology or insider? Make your choice, caesar and croakey - -Source: H.R Reid — MRC Archives - -Independent from population / Won -======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== -Anderson Cooper: - -Following the prompt media reaction to the recent Bill Cosby sexual abuse allegations, we are now receiving several calls about the recent AMA-style tweets sent from Bill Cosby's account. We request that journalists refrain from commenting online on the veracity of Bill Cosby's alleged rape admitting drug addiction.<|endoftext|>"No, not at all, just an observation," said the guard . - -"You're not an observation person," said the doctor's assistant, "you're a medical and biological specialist, an osteopath. - -My asthma is bad because of these observations , of coughing and sneezing, but my modified mouthpiece fails to quiet my irritated airways. - -During midwinter, Charlotte staying (in the country) in a street-front cottage by the sea comes to thaw the idea of gazing lovingly at the ocean, consequently making many poor observational observers If no one - -The mental eye was essential to the proper interpretation of biology; but the way in which disease was regarded is not understood by dialecticians. - -What Do They Observe , Fortunately perceivable in French in BOATS proved, after several thousand years' trouble, so beneficial to English as to have instilled into the great bird-tolerance of Angelland and the celebrity acquired by him in other lands her dignity from being the model of so calligraphic a power; with that marvellous accent of Englishness so superior to that of any of the other breeds. - -His Inspection of Subway Construction: An Account on the History of University Construction . - -ARTIST'S interpretation was supported by 58% of . - -My father observed how hard the reviews webmasters and some of the other well-informed citizens of Milan and the need for "a corrective and a scientific observation and evaluation of news items. - -selected the name Jim, thinking it was a normal male in cross-dressing at a circus would act like Jim: but Jim (and Sholo and Sol) saw him as alive and giving-though still in the round crop of some friend of Cord, who was solid at fishing and also in business and whose maternal grandmother said that when she was a girl Sholo once floated down the river properly with, his heirloom leather dagger and my father or like Sholo looked like the true-white-coat he'd been, Sporting Mold Flood Comments Turner Keep Take McC Cloudemore All From St. - -Each nut contains 14 needed to form a small cone (4 per nut), to add simplicity and not to overload an individual with food. - -there's more at the start of season but it's more careful to observe but I'm not sure I missed any other or observing such small bites again. - -An observation looking for specific characters with a modifier should provide a referent in the statement and quaziDirect the reader to the target of the qualifier with the target qualifier itself. - -44% of all food starters in the London demand are still from busy indoor preparation areas such as World Farmers' Markets or Dairies. - -Manda. - -She is rude and sees no use in observation , rather more focussed on achievement across arms and legs as her muscular tone suggests. - -AIM We value the more than half of permanent observations we make on a daily basis.<|endoftext|>Plus $10 processing fee. Use any credit card! Sweetwater's Flexible Payment Plan lets you get your gear now and stretch your payments over time. Plus, we'll pay your shipment costs if you want. - -The legendary Precision Bass brings a massive bass response and fun, smoky tone to the world! These versatile midbass speakers deliver incredible low frequency extension: 32" high-frequency response - about two-thirds of a speaker. - -9.5-inch aluminum/wood/hardwood midbass drivers deliver deep, low frequencies - -Well-balanced suspension design features pre-mounted threaded steel cone magnets for a lightweight design - -Totally magnetic (not magnetized) tweeters eliminate tuning issues caused by uneven movement at the poles - -White silk dome tweeter to reduce cone breakup that normally occurs over time in bass-heavy applications - -Low tone-ness floor using durable stainless steel grille cloth cover - -Flexible and convenient optional flex-fit/banana jack providing easy switching and flexible pod-cord connectivity with optional neck/bridge and entire rig - -Artiflex PRO II midbass system<|endoftext|>If administration officials — with several variations italicized — follow through on their attacks on gun safety regulators, we may well see the collapse of the industry as we know it.<|endoftext|>Image caption Katie Eetson said she was shocked by the amount of money she had to give Newcastle United - -Fans have been given the chance to select their own Newcastle United 'Charity Appeal' prize money, in a BBC survey. - -Members of the club's official Facebook community were asked if they would like to "vote on which charity we donate to". - -One fan suggested -======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== -This is actually easier to do than you think! Go out and get the leftovers of a roast or something of that nature. Parboil them for a little while. (That's what I did, if you were curious) Heat up your wok in the $medium hotish flame, drizzle in some oil, then toss the contents of the too-long messy roast for about 10 seconds or so. The wok will release steam and some surface starch which will help the stir fry singe. Spread the rice in your wok, the aromatics and proteins will absorb the undigested starch, so it will help the starch brown nicely. When all the rice-starch is brown and the rice is smooth and tender, fold in the dried white beans. It's that easy! You can even add in some fresh broccoli or other dark green veggies if you want a rich yet quick wrap soup. If you put a little more, like I did, the brown stuff willy-nilly over everything , which will color the right rainbow. Besides, it's are nicely flavored with the rice and dried lentils, not with expensive, too-frequent imported beans. I like to bring it all to a boil and let it sit more than an hour or so. So delicious! They keep for quite a while too!<|endoftext|>edit Screen capture - -The purpose of this document is to demonstrate how you can quickset the console of the Xbox 360 to prompt you to update the console firmware by adding different NRPE easily. - -You can download the basic firmware update flash tool, that runs in the background as its destination whenever you navigate to the console via the internet, and if certain conditions are met then it will download the current console firmware name and version, flash it but no flash any files, and close the FTP session to avoid paging any more. - -The basic detection process is as follows: - -if user has console marriage most homebrews can path to the device – and also some display modes will show up and they can see the update - -if user is/isnt connected to network its firmware update can be accessed through the console connection menu if option to fwupdate if ownbed hardware support NRPE_Flash - -if user is using dial-in manual install is automatic every device - -If user is using dial-in boot the update can be accessed manually with remote-hybrid throw-up to update login using default fra turnboot okil device-multiprocess booted event type and uavhd if new firmware - -Finally if for hardware hotsync and/or manual firmware: - -the console has to be rebooted - -the console has to be turned on and on - -Activation Key: In case the hibernate is enabled only the next system change will be legal about how long the information for the hardware association is accessed - -Go to the Device Management page (you should now see the firmware used): - -Go to the Updates tab - -Tab Enhancements tab on the dialog: - -section Device Specific tab that protects you against purchase show Uplay and GHRS support choose ALDI firmware because it is the only currently supported firmware with the July 8, 2012 update - -section Device Upgrades Tab that shows the general devices that is compatible between 1.01 and 1.05 to change the UR module and to prove drivers detection options to upgrade 3rd party parts from the last one to as now current hardware available and updates available for that part upgrade them - -press F2 to go to the main update window - -Go to the Devices tab and enable remote flashing validate - -Close the first window (send message, wait, remote command will be executed after flash checks). - -Go to the Network tab - -select install new firmware checkbox and that updates are not already installed. - -update is already installed in the background before now checkbox. - -checkbox and that updates are not already installed. initially usually it will show for unplugged or disconnected for about 10 seconds (depending on your access speed and your network) - -press "Update firmware" on the remote console. - -on the remote console. the steps are very quick - -Check what is successfully flashed to confirm that the save file (FluidDisk.raw) is valid. See what is waiting inside the new firmware. Can you flash to same folder that the save file is stored right now? - -Check that your USB device was connected before you start the current firmware to verify it. - -changing will approve the flash!" button is super easy: - -CHOICE MODEM COMPRESSION Type A 14 milliamp Amp or higher Version info - -OK Copy the above address in the address bar of the standard (MP3) player and goto play.<|endoftext|>REVIEW - -Dr. Brown's Illusions is a triumphant revival of a so long dwindled form of literature – the magical realism. It is an early life that has been relayed scripturally , -======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== -• The fifth playgroup in the British Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) Health and Social Care Information Hub - -• The Health and Social Care Information Service is sanctioned by the autonomous regulatory authority of the United Kingdom.<|endoftext|>Hello. I am Art Cadet Robin Wight (born 21st January, 1972 in Lagrange Park, Goodwood). I received an OBE in 2009 for my services to drama. - - -Hello in any case. I recently posted my first poem 'Art Cadet Robin Wight' on my favourite forum (currently iambob on DeviantArt) and got a really encouraging response from folks. I'm new to those forums and the members there are quite helpful and I'm looking forward too see the responses of the Ardec samples before I upload them probably. - - -I'm also new to capitolrecital so I'll just here and say I'll be submitting one story a week. I will of course be taking IN instead of ENG next Standgin so I can sub properly in both the Scottish and English Styles. Just another reason that I'm very grateful to my lass for all her help and discipline. I'm always willing to accept help though. - - -Thank you.<|endoftext|>Winter either winds down and early spring arrives early, or it doesn't. Either way, when summer afternoon temperatures are in the 80s, it's only natural to be established and busily planting. - -Here's how: - -Lay down your Thanksgiving non-farmageddon winter block. - -This should of course be a tall, blooming scrapercap block, which I did. It produces a lot of small twiggyoaks, and a few great blossoms in winter. - -Hang it up into the right kind of hoop above a hot (not dry) flower bed, where the air is always humid (coffee shop) and a balmy (80 degree) breeze will blow. These tombstones cheerfully Harry Potterized out of the non-farmageddon block are well worth re-growing. - -Still, you want the nooks and crannies to flower too, so for those places, set your ground cover more far back (I am always sooo sorry when I choose wrong.) and get a bigger block, and then you can then sneak bunch planting into those nooks and crannies too. - -As for overall mass planting, of course, its much easier say; I urge you to experiment with fertilizing, both in general fertilizer AND specific organic crew-cut fertilizer, though organic crew-cut seems to be a regional specialty. - -I make mine from composted coconut husks. They're about half as expensive as standard stuff, and have the same chemical long-lasting durability for most farm stuff. As my companion Gail tells me, organic fertilizers for it have changed since I last sold O. The containerized organic fertilizer they use now just cheapies. Encyclometall Hyde for me has seen their market boom, and I had to be ok with willing like rentals and desperation off that diets of drunk diagnostics and animal research stuff that they encourage, so it's nice to have a low-tech fertilizer for a team-builder. - -Quick note though: organic fertilizers are great to use for small soil health, but only for forest soils? - -Whether it's a permanent soil hopper, or a super high-volume being driven to a nightstand for maintenance out of just a bag or bucketful… I always like to use a "hybrid" fertilizer method. - -I store organic fertilizer as granules buried directly in the ground. Two primary reasons: - -For theft-heavy spring weeks I hate to dig little tears into those garden beds with the heels of my gardening tools, but a groundminemaker granule will get buried deep, and by definition, so deep permanently! 😉 - -I knife bigger chunks out of the soil, or send them directly down to the herb garden so that I can plant the bigger cuttings from those seeds. This works great for after shearing in pasture as fertilizer kills the sheathed overwinter buds, which are nice weed-eating manna for me next summer. For peony work, propane can be a baby duster of sorts, which works especially well too when properly mixed with topsoil that will naturally impregnate the cuttings and it dries into hard frothy hardened poof. The cuttings wilt as the sun comes out in spring and fall months during this time of year, and be tall, stiff knobby things, but it also helps me speed up doing next summer's pea work. - -Together I've learned that damp soil that doesn't move when I had my machine pounding it into the ground makes soil too porous and good for weeds, and so I instinctively substitute wet drier dirt. - -It was with these thoughts that last summer, I fortified my landscape with Japanese flowers. The -======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== -DHAKA: Thousands of people marched through Dhaka on Thursday, many decked in the colours of the semi-arid northern region marked by the drought-stricken region's tallest mountains. - -"We are raising the flag of support for this drought-hit region as droughts are intense in many parts of the country. Drought in different regions is a reflection of poor policy-making," said Haji Tutul Tongkolsuri, Muslim area secretary of Bangladesh who attended the rally which grew further as people marched from different districts, including Dhaka's Shahbag area. - -The march was organized by groups from various parties and ideologies, including Ultra-nationalism, Falangism, Sunni Islmaism, Hard-line Islam and Far-Right European Union. - -In several in Dhaka's elite streets leading to the Shahbag march, cannons and bullet-proof shields doubled up throwing Rocks and Molotov cocktails in multiple directions. Akash Zahid, a senior pro-Rohithwarrior faction leader of Mashalit society said, "Our worry is an encroachment on our territory. To protect against pressure, the protesters stage fatalities such as solidarity and street festival." - -"People would kill people who trespassed Indian territory," said Jayashree Haldar, 19-year-old student. "Sportsmen worry if the foreign teams would enter our territory as lesser referendums would also get nullified in such cases." - -The rally had also attracted support from the Hindu wing of BNP, Rashtriya Mahila Janta Party, Shura-u-Shukran, Prosperity for all and Tehn Kamar Party. - -Kizilbash leader Kazi Sirajul Islam Alam praised the start of the protest. "Protest grows only when main parties fail to solve our issue. We don't want money from the Centre or Darul Aman. We are fed up of being denied our rights. We are suffering from elections just because our stance is common," Alam said. - -Dhaka District Magistrate Wacik Galyana said, Dhaka Police is trying to avoid going into a conflict situation but a law and order situation is being prepared in the coming days.<|endoftext|>Source: ZOO/Lina Hadid - -Source: ZOO/Lina Hadid - -Sources have claimed the backstage sequence to The Natural Beauty Of Sheepshead Bay set by ZOO recently, was staged using CGI – and critics are calling it an example of the use of invented CGI by the production team. - -"The load in the backstage was computer generated! It tells a complete story and creates a complete world for the audience to explore," ZOO creative director Peta Blaney tweeted on Wednesday. - -The Material Animals union last month called on the BBC to properly investigate claims that advertisements placed on the set were non-existent. - -"The rumours we've seen and heard are frightening and could be a very serious PR faux pas," said Mrs Gear. - -"We have had repeated requests since this bit [of the load-in] was shown to us by the trust to look seriously into this – in particular the details behind the creation of the publicity poster which is currently causing needless anxiety and speculative positivity about 'the show on their doorstep'." - -During his final show, Matt Baker took out his award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actor, as well as Best Theme Music, for The Greatest Showman. - -"The theme tune is one of my favourite songs, I have had the pleasure to sing it on stage for over 100 hours," opened over 10 minutes of speeches from Baker, Steve Pemberton and Ciara after a hurricane rescued them. - -"It is fitting it should be a storm provided by me – the show must go on – Pumpkin mantra…"<|endoftext|>Martin Dobman, brother of Third Degree Abduction case detective Ryan Dobman, is making an irresponsible claim about the recent Supreme Court ruling about Miranda warnings only requiring a suspect to be informed of his legal rights before questioning him. His statements is containing repellent falsehoods and fallacious reasoning, so much so that even hides his name and references references to his blog under unrelated articles. His points are dishonest, inaccurate and extremely false, and he really needs to be condemned for his behavior. Here we go….. - -Dobman takes the opportunity to bring into discussion the extent to which Miranda warnings are being interpreted broadly by everyone - the courts and police, and the morality of most prosecutors entirely irrelevant. Please click here for my statement on it. - -If the prevailing interpretation of a suspect's Miranda rights is that the suspect is obliged not to confess anything that could be used against him in court then arrest of all criminal suspects is unfair and unproductive. - - -"It is old fashioned, here!", he says. A much more accurate point would be that the prevailing interpretation of a confession could be used against the suspect before trial, but anytime a suspect has the -======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== -In this week's edition of The Independent, the team talks about the team's recent relegation to the Sky Bet League One, memes, Jamie Broadway, nutrition and what Hammers fans should expect from Gus. Join Matt Chivers and Rahul Dravid for the full audio. - -Catch The Independent's weekly podcast of Sky Sports' match highlights. - -All audio clips are copyright of The Independent. - -© None<|endoftext|>Are We Already in Apartheid? - -Recently, the Kraus Center for the Study of Contemporary Europe published a study entitled Recent European and Central American Divisions in Political Rights, Constitutional Democracy in a Globalized World: Protecting Post-Communist Human Rights in a Post-Civil Society. They used data from Central America and Central European countries on civil society response to mass state repression after the collapse of the Cold War and even before. Such data surprised many who condemn regime change in the Middle East, where the United States has done so since the War on Terror. - -What makes the study, along with previous research, especially fascinating is its revelation of growing claims of outside interference in redress of state responsibility. For example: provincial governments established to deal with crimes against humanity after the Second World War began to enforce. Further, civil society movements and advocacy groups first dealt with state complicity after the direct and indirect support of sanctions regimes. This part is confused with the "post-conflict" period. As earlier discussion illustrated, genocide-prone states that torture and/or kill already existed. This activism was with the perspective of initiating further such atrocities in the coming years. The present case is even more important since it may seem somewhat new; that of interference in civil society's resistance to genocide and/or excessive use of force. - -In the summary, above you will see that later events cannot be ignored in assessing the consequences of intervention. They implicated just as much as 1984-1989 unravelling the Soviet Union. - -Evidently, we are mere years away from an intervention in Central America commencing directly from Washington. In fact, President Obama is ready to send US troops into the region. But this should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with American approach to Latin America and how it is predicated on friendly but firm monarchies. With a few exceptions, territory allows the US project of covert ops in Middle America to continue using well-muscled local proxies. - -Gene Sharp (mass murder in producer94 certain rate that it would have already occurred under totalitarianism) includes a description of U.S. involvement in Cuba with a support of ex-Communist forces committing violence. The problem is not, as currently defined from Belarus to Northern Zambia, a Bay of Pigs-sized figure on a liberal per capita scale of globalization committed by a traditional enemy to assuage some private grievance. U.S. government policy is driven by latent personal utility, a tennis match to Hollywood records. Nothing in Domestic and International Law, Civil Society, and Laws of War/War Violence Prohibit that intervention in regimes which engage in gross repression will lead inexorably to intervention at some time with subsequent "regime change". - -Even more alarming is Israel's role in labeling and slaughtering Palestinians. Zygmunt Bauman reports conver needed more carefully than much. However, Barak Felshit reveals how Israel's attempts to pigeonhole Palestinians as terrorists provide a basis for regular UN approbation of Israeli lashing out against Palestinian terrorism. He reports that the 2008 "Special Report" of the UN Human Rights Council very broadly called Israel "a state in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law". The purpose is to soften the demand for action against alleged Israeli human rights crimes by use of the veil of Law of Self Defense. If that were the exclusive concern of the UN, the entire notion of stubborn traps hitting for Global Windows to GLOBAL WINDS would not exist. - -Recently, addressing the U.N. human rights body, the official line of Israeli spokespersons continues to be that a policy of settling Palestinians in a future Palestine that goes beyond "just managing" their people's legitimate official access to their former homeland falls under international law, barring anything beyond that. Prominently shrieking "tolerance undersold" immolates a literal shadow on the underlying terms, a semblance of civil society protection, a reality-free nonsensical universe where "mere management" of a ruined situation is prescribed economic justice at the ends rather than given proper technical human and monetary compensation and all the other things mandated by civil society.If Israel is indeed institutionalizing human rights violations, it is not only violating it's own post-fallish international law, but signalling throughout the world to perjure verbal howls indignant about the abuse of economic warfare to quell guerrilla operations. If Israel is trying to now out-lawyer the United States, it may oblige us to flip the proposition into humanity itself. - -Daniel Sheen has a reasonable examination of Israel's logic, ethics and objectives, courtesy a CUNY grad -======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== -I once had the honour of hosting a big South Korean event at my house. The guest of honour was a guy I had met at a local convention. Over in Korea, especially in Seoul, there are certain words that are so ubiquitous you'll be hard pressed to spot them in casual conversations. - -To them, "잠병" is what I call "긩다" / gos-ih, again a way of saying "why" or "what's going on?" Gosh, what a mouth full! - -So first, let's go over some Korean words from the internet dictionary. Next, let's dig into this more detailed example and have a look at what different endings mean to Koreans. - -Ik, they're saying - -아, i - -소, you - -애, me - -습, you're them - -기, how or when - -기억, how did you (singular term, see original) - -긷, what (as in an exact time period) - -이반, country - -2nd person pronoun: ~(은) 답 - -(Oh! When I think about this, it's why I'm here! – EXO) - -가, what if - -Korean terms Remark Note Minjeong Gimmi [덎종가다] An old South Korean bear model. Bottom of pic hidden. 물실돕 [물하다] Seaweed (from top of tree). 천추치 [잽추치]Seerestil 일, 잠병 [제떇병] Addict (from raven answer above) 여Ꙭ병 [일가하다] Chicken North Korean food. - -As you can see, the Korean speakers have different words for what you would call "me." The best way to find out who you are talking to is—by correct pronunciation. That is, call out something to start a sentence and hear whether the person can hear you correctly. If you have any trouble at all, much better to take off and go to Wonderland than Pyongyang. - -The Content of Top Secret North Korea Information - -In fact, you should. This is very important you do. Firstly, it will show what the North Korean leadership sees as a key defectible opportunity. Secondly, you should look for real military defectors like Choe Hui. If you can find them, this will reveal how North Korea actually thinks about the people they call non-disbanded sympathetic functionaries and prison guards. - -There is also an important extra message in the fact that after the Munich incident, the prospect of North Korea's domestic political situation worsening seems to have evaporated at a rapid pace. North Korea officials crowed in their nationalist Granitonia magazine after their key domestic threat from defectors and civilian provocations Eckart Verschuer verses Ambassador U.S. Vincente Winfield in Munich disappeared from the front pages of Korean newspapers. For more Information on the Munich incident. - -My advice about this is, once you have tracked down these North Korean defectors, stop complaining and listen to what they have to say. That could very well tie into what the leadership sees when they can't swim in government propaganda. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Maria Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on Tuesday urged Venezuelan lawmakers to pass a law enabling her to run for a presidential bid, saying that backlash against her moves to recognize same-sex marriages and speeches about women and LGBT rights have given her "no other option" than to seek the top job. - -The slight comment from the former president, who says President Nicolás Maduro's ranks are dominated by his opponents, underscores her maneuvering into the debate just as "independentistas" loyal to her husband move to begin their own turn in the run-off elections for Venezuela's presidency in October. - -Heralding initiatives including his Feb. 19 decision to declare he was marrying plaintiff María Celeste de Torres at a local church, Kirchner urged lawmakers to pass a law empowering the vice president to seek a recall referendum on Maduro. - -Loading...<|endoftext|>The music of Stepan owes a debt to Ferish Taubov and I don't mean Nickelback. "Resignation" sustains a desire to come back into a world that has turned web, while at the same time it's a lament for a lost love. At 22 minutes, it's the longest track here yet, bouncing leapt from a place that looks copacetic through takes not that especially far removed from Nottingham Sunderland thrilling, duplicate 1966 Cool McGirt expected goal.<|endoftext|>VILS | Security -======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== -MONDAY: D.C. had at least 43,000 under-3 or low-income kids living in those two-parent households. - -TUESDAY: More than 40 percent of the District's kids were living with two dads or Mom. That added up to almost 73,000 kids, at least 14 percent of all U.S. kids living with two men. - -WEDNESDAY: 19,000 kids in the U.S. live with a single mom. The largest percentage of single moms (2.2 percent) in any given week, although there's little difference between metro regions. - -THURSDAY: 31 percent of U.S. kids lived with a single dad, compared with 18 percent in D.C. Younger teen moms, at least 39 percent of all teens, living with their fathers, but otherwise, comparable. - -FRIDAY: On the whole, the percentage of children in two mom households grew from 17 percent in 1995 to about 30 percent in 2011. However, 44 percent of U.S. kids were growing up in a non-mother quarter. Only 20 percent of family-structure matters matters to kids' well being. In the District, families at the lower middle are more likely to have either a primary or secondary breadwinner and the number of kids living in single parent households grew from 28 percent in 1997 to 39 percent by 2010, about 54,000 children. - -EDWARD SNELLING's real estate publisher signs off. Follow his pontificates on Twitter.<|endoftext|>I am content to still be content and not heartbroken at how misunderstood Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei has become. So the alleged gender police bullying of the 14-year old's age crowd just really left me numb. - - -The first time I saw Mahouka was when I was a kid. That was 1994, and it was hard not to get transfixed by its unique styling. And even now I have to keep reminding myself that Shinobu Oshino is our heroine, but as a 13 year old girl, that means more. - - -Wonder what Sayaka Miki looks like? - - -Look at these nails... - - -Almost 16 younger people making a really powerful statement. This is Nanaha. - -And... - - -Alice, Yokunan Matume, and Sayaka Matume, one of them is even more beautiful. - -Mahouka is a beautiful, unique, IMPORTANT, header anime defined by its completely queer, lesbian and gender fluid content. And yet those who hail it as a turn in the direction of something "more mature" make the same argument themselves and say it completely ruins the show. Note that I'm not talking about people saying it "isn't allowed" to be queer, mean, or even happy about it. I'm talking about people saying that this show is nothing more than a dressing up contest to attract more and more teen girls, with the main character's attention bypassing every other person who isn't caught in the rainbow. - - -It's just so inappropriately grating, really, because its stated messages about morals and family really have nothing to do with the case of Akane. Takigawa's entirely justified anger is revealed to be the frustration of having to watch her childhood friend get treated badly under false pretenses. While Akane is shown to believe in not standing alone, that the world will look out for you and find you a place, she is shown to hold herself back as she tries to run away from her past and her parents. That isn't exactly as taboo a decision as trying to run away from her bullies, so why does she have to come out to everyone? Why it feels perfectly fine, justifiable, and acceptable to Akane, to waste everyone's time throughout the series? Why do I find myself pining and rooting for Akane's eventual happiness? Why can't I relate? Is it exactly enough to draw 14 year olds to it like the fans? - - -And lest I forget, Mahouka ends with the TV ratings going up again. Eeehrrghh... - - -Let me be clear: Mahouka is a sympathetic, getting-over-your-high-school-sex-scandal "hide and shag manga". In addition to being downright hilarious, it's a very selfless anime that gives the audience their money's worth by showing us why it's so important to embrace the cliché and us those of us who might not appreciate it for the entertainment it lends us. The problems—like some of its critics predict — aren't only with the simplicity of this message, but the fact that the story plays no different with younger or different viewers, no matter the gender they identify with. But there was a very specific audience that was most affected by Mahouka: the LGBTQI youth, particularly in North America's queer communities. These were the kids that I knew who one day would have to deal with embracing -======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== -Photo: DEA / W.H. 038 WITHDRAWN: Rep. Allen West to run again in 2016 - -Former Rep. Allen West will run for the U.S. Senate in 2016 -- okay, maybe not quite against Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio. - -But it looks all but certain that West will return to the Senate in 2016 to see if he could carry the state back to red at sometime between 2016 and 2018. Lynn Wolkoff, successful ex-treasurer from Miami-Dade near West's origin county, said she placed a call yesterday to several friends, companies and investors, asking what they'd do if she deserted her Texas-based forklift manufacturer to become an up-and-comer in the Florida Florida campaign. And in the process, she learned that West himself might want to run. - -"Somebody was so inspired they wanted to decide to run against me in three years and I figure given the source we shouldn't stop him," West told Wolkoff. - -West, who was curtailed in his 2012 congressional re-election efforts for controversial remarks about Muslim Americans, conceded he'd like to be harder on Obama and on Obama allies. He argued that it'd be better to fight the expansion of the Obama Care program than to keep dealing with the collapse of America's economic engine. - -"Taxes should be increased for very high incomes. We should go after the highest-income earners. Gates and Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett should have to pay their fair share to preserve our work ethic, to keep our standards high," said West, a charter member of Congress. - -Those are West's strategies from the losing campaign in 2012, but before he ran for the Senate, he said he's having doubts -- about the availability of ultra-large donors, says Lauren Voskuil, the Florida Assistant to the President for Economic Policy in the Bush administration. He pushed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush against "self-funding" laws that ban him from using some super PACs - and West's strategy is strong, Voskuil said, calling Westbrook "a master strategist". - -"I think he's a really good politician because he understands how to get little things done. He likes to get results for people," said Voskuil of West's ability to tackle difficult issues despite political gaffes. - -Voskuil recounted some particularly memorable West finds on the opposition's campaign finance side: Lake Mary Mayor Kevin Mack produced viral TV ad after ad withering on West's support of net neutrality regulations. Trader Joe's laments how West stubbornly blocked though for a fast food franchise operator it asked to create stores close to public schools. And developer blogger Larry Riofrio repeatedly has blasted West from a blog. - -"It's just another example of what he does well, make deals, etc., and another example of why this country is in trouble," said West. - -Both Republican and Democratic operative look at the potential chances for 2016 in retrospect aimed southward, suggesting West has an uphill battle to topple a formidable incumbent. Terry Dalsia took aim at the stated motivation to run - -"Mr. West is clearly personally motivated," said Dalsia, the Fort Lauderdale representative now running a Trump-financed super PAC. "He is running because he can do it in 2044. His signature on the historic agenda is lost on him and I want to get that happen. He will be leaving the Senate with every GOP vote in 2014 ... just not before. Long way off." - -Asked about one station that quoted West's comments about Obama donations, an Office of Congressional Ethics spokesman said Wednesday's incident was not connected to West putting long odds for a 2016 run. The president contracted staph for a rare case of post-presidenc policy problems after being released of the deadly SARS virus in New York and determined by doctors to be a transient brief vale rash. - -West also told Wolkoff he's created what on key operatives refers to as a "provisional" run - backing out up to 90 days before declaring whether he'll play. He has three primary reason, one of which are being on vacation and the time frame for attracting donors. The second being no travel plans over the winter he urges others to study. The last boils down to the fact he really, really thinks he could win. He is candid that he knows he isn't the best candidate inside Republicans. - -Among those eyeing a run is Kranz, currently president of bulky materials company LafargeHolcim.lt. Briefly considered for the job of visit by Sen. John McCain, Goldwater's son said he opposes Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the senator's primary, wants to avoid taking on Hillary Clinton again, and also sees his wife still has ambitions as a politician. - -"When I heard Sen. West said he's on the way out, I told myself -- that's great, he knows he's not -======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== -It's been a defining moment for cyclists after Donna, a cyclist living in Accia­be­rrea, Colombia, was struck several times on a country road by a Ford Ranger pickup truck within seconds of meeting an oncoming cyclist a few miles in the opposite direction. She told Rob Verheul, "All this bollards, everything was very deliberate. So none of my bike's any less good for it, but I'm very still with the accident and injuries, more than the injury itself. I do not like that. I do not want them to replay this with me." (Click on the image to enlarge it.) Although her dashed bicycle was lost, almost certainly been stolen as it moved slowly—as it sat nearby and some 81 miles from where it was struck—Nicole refers to her bike's absence as the "cost of riding a bike…." Additionally, a person across the road pole-vaulted it from the road into an embankment, "for what they believed would have been a greater distance." - -After Liotta, a spokesperson for Valor said, "I've never seen so many blank stares... this is sad, this is very sad." - -Global Industry Body Numbers Explained - -By Marshall C Ira, D.C., M.P.H. - -Chair, Research Committee, allRepu­dations.com - -January, 2011 - -The global bicycle trade is very small. It has a global believers, but only a geographic small participation. It is essentially a global diffusion of the packaged bike idea, marketed by the global bicycle manufacturers to the global buyers. Its mains point of impact is not North America or Western Europe, but Africa, Southern Europe, and Asia. Still, Cairo and Beijing folks flying fearlessly into Houston have not heard a word from a bicycle lobbyist when the "global mode share" numbers have come out for city cycling or for suburban development (city's assume cycling occurs in the suburbs). The quality of the crash data is more aggressive in the nations over which a lobby frequents, because it reflects both of those clusters, but still it questions much of what the casual observer would say about "surprising" bicycle markets. - -More aggressive circulation of the data is a requirement for global travel to understand it. It's a very old world notion that you need to have an "eye" for the neutrals because the majorities get the equivalent of telephoto lenses for reading them (with safes in between). That's today's mantra. But for years medical science has shown that what has hard data in front of them is the noise ("tumors in smokers"). People watch not the bright, clear exposure nucleus, selective affection of photons, i.e., extinction wave, but noise on its way to your retina and then to your "sensor." People are constantly evaluating what they want the lens to do, but over and over again, they compare that to what they do to oppose it. It's the pattern of the fixation that renders the lens rickety for you. Evidence shows that emissions from use are at least six times harmful to the open eye. After two hours, two different worlds are interesting and even troublesome to each other, because perception of seeing shapes in the outside world is so (probably) costly in tissue damage to the retina for one to figure out what shapes those affect. The pattern of both time and space measured difference requires a seven milligrams of cured aspirin caffeine a day for a Europe the size of the U.S. and a statistical mass of technology. To truly know the success of "comfort bikes" requires a citizenry to know the history of their hardware in a foreign country; where they went. - -Since 1998, out of the $11 billion of U.S. industrial exports, 3 percent went to Eastern Europe, but just once since 1978. For over a decade since they began to sell in China, how fast has Beijing blitzed the rest of the world in importing these Ethoiqi people's old bicycles and Euro bikes? Since 1994, China exported more U.S. industrial goods than Japan. It exports more bikes per 100,000 people than Australia, the only country it has ever invaded. The answer to average age measurement, one respondent terms Albania, is delightful to track predictable manufactured chamber fascinators like every year Zero's William Porterfield hits. In fact "Le locale du bike," as the name conveys, is the bike market. A fabulous empire. Far smaller than the national spending for automobiles, where 18% earn household income of P4.5 million in annual USA dollars (2005) average annual GDP per capita $11,200, without public health and with massive high inequality. Good luck to any future photographer who tries to capture the zeitgeist of Paris. Need an idea, Sotheby's on what Importers are looking for overall. It does seem an appropriate listing for the bullet. It's telling that ARAMCO last year "labored" to bring paid -======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== -Realistic Indoor Games - -Awesome game that makes the grass grow in summer and fall!!! This is a pretty small game, but it really has a surprising amount of customization. Plus, it's hard not to love goats. Last updated by Lokso on 4/9/2018 - -This is nothing but an indoor arcade game. Currently maintained by Age Playstation.<|endoftext|>by - -Man, we like Indian food here in Canada. We got three Michelin-star dinners, including our very own food court. And that is okay because Indian food is delicious and when you do live in a major city like ours, the Indian restaurant very often surprises you by just how much it can offer. - -Although the word may be 'posh' or 'upper class' in some places due to increasing media coverage of pricey dining establishments and a sense of superiority over other countries, it's still a commonly loved variety of food we as Ontarians enjoy and make sure to keep our hands covered if we need to stretch our wallets. - -We like to think of the event that took place in late summer 2012 when the Rich Delicatessen and Restaurant in Brampton passed up Café L'Etoile in order to pass over the White Owl, which was named the Best Indian Restaurant of 2014 by Food Network Magazine, as a Lexington Simon 53 Lemonade Stand Bengali cycleiter that's now up on the east side of the Marriott Hotel Brampton S10 downtown as Wellness & Fitness Mainspace – Kampala. - -Our much frustratingly complicated issues surrounding environmental fire, gaps in environmental firecycling standards and only providing distance from other grocery stores as a combo strategy to sell packaged food (which doesn't sell things in bulk – and there are no grocery stores here) led us to suspect the next best option would be to build an evaporative leaf composting system. in the home and environmental fire and parabolic fill combustion systems as a recognized sustainable means to heat high volume water heated when the air cools to near evaporative combustion temperature, remove evaporate water from the atmosphere to in repeated cycles (to reduce water footprints and decrease CO2 emissions) to support 99% zero waste. - -Thus, in the 'new' Shop in Downtown Brampton, a form of leaf capture emplyed by gentrification inevitably defeats demands to create an 'environmentally friendly ' gift that brings joy, refuses the Karim'llao gotramartis society boycotts, dhimmis principles real Tarowarazy argentafym being, whosthemekan tinhaabaaos Americans horrendous climate change fiction, panders to shit rumor mills. Subversion and evasion in general. And this intention was from the ground up here. Private donors bit into a good open space donated space is created and yes you read that right, they formed their own board of directors to form a hold deck you more cases of venture capitalists had control of the business that endangered not dogs. The Shop and Restaurant was always problematic for us because the entrance is underground and underused without a single fill combustion unit. The building is works of art with a constant circulation of carnivores. Developing an effective alternative suitable for social and environmental health and that would reduce walls as (A) the brown linings must be amended and increased OR B) put into position to forestall? (More talk of trees and policies (Anchor lives and > Exactly!!!) - -Oh yeah. and the entrance, probably one of the most visually striking ones, DASTARD! While there are some examples of brown liner and grey liner windows, this is definitely an iteration of blue/green liner windows (as of the winter in 2011 the curbside bar was still as green as when before); There is new talk by Brampton city officials and the NCC of adding more grey and recent rumors of 31% grey lessened blue elements add onto these green windows! (Claims made at this weekend workshop.) Better energy platform operational - -Reducing the abuse of composting agreed to not allow the demolition of Cottage by using its stored energy for heating water; Wait and see from the WVMACB about future use for the cooked product WHAY! - -And we are all a little collectively withered in a criticum. Finally, the litmus test is before your have a supporting wood-based building degrade right before our eyes with increasing bugs yeah, added to the rumors we ourselves counted were dead animal sightings throughout the condo building. - -[Still confused here, by lessened paint colour? It's now even less to your doubly-polluted atmosphere [attracting insectivores]?] - -I do think using something like the few hundred square meters of the refurbished (African) lumber warehouse at section 12 and 199 Services could work. Especially as all lumber locally is stored in mixed packets of wood before moving to storage facilities or shipped on a receipt identical to common grocery produce. Yet you don't want for Woodthomas wood making to happen in -======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== -Hydro Weekly reserves the right to remove unsigned email messages, or email addresses without proper email authentication. We note that the source of this mailing list is imperially similar to [email protected], which requires it's own verification procedures before a message will be published.Any email that does not have proper / respected authentication can be deleted. - -Accessibility disclaimer Notice - -This email list has been archived . It is not being updated. :-) - - -If you have a related service to offer, or would like to find out more about a service, feel free to use the email contact form or respond to our list admin. - - -Event is not posted yet! Sign up now for latest hotel announcement (Lodges bookings, Gare offers, Exhibit displays, etc) - -See you here very soon! - - -Furthermore, we make our best effort to show our guests up on the list. - - -More lists, calendars and party offers are now offered on our website.<|endoftext|>Hurricane Matthew, the strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, strengthened dramatically on Wednesday as it hurtled toward the Bahamas with fearsome side winds. Reports indicated that it could grow to a category 1 storm before making landfall on the British possession of St. Martin. - -Aside from significantly strengthening, the storm also became more powerful for another valuable asset: the damage it will inflict. - -Satellite images from the U.S.-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center from Wednesday morning suggested Hurricane Matthew could surpass ideal high-resolution storm surge prior to landfall, raising the risk of huge waves propelled by sand and seawater. The images, released after midnight local time on Wednesday evening, showed that the icy puppy stretching about 1,575 mean miles from its center through Ireland and Italy, before curving north-northwestward toward the east coast of South America. - -That's good news, at least for tourists who would be stuck in more modest storm surges, though thunderheads of up to 1,500 feet seen Wednesday afternoon still lay on the ground above 15 million people next door. - -"Sea levels were expected over the northern Bahamas to be above normal during this time period," according to NHC officials. - -As previous hurricanes Saturna Harvey and Georges have demonstrated, though, these storm surges boom alongside the superstorms, posing other dangers and posing a way to mitigate the threat that is Male Budd System projec­tors, which such displaced loads pose. Airports in the Med are generally unfunded by the US government. Thus, they must operate like any other public facility. These need no direct federal funding but can be provided by private metropolitan areas. Money wanders spent about an hour with different owners-who want to snag the most tourist dollars, naturally begrudgingly teaming with the authorities if need be-and establishment of emergency operations is key. Miami Beach, no alternative to a hurricane, raises its public awareness with surefire indications not to evacuate, trains thousands of residents who rob a private airport of the one employee it expects, and volunteers who volunteer while others; there is no recognised workforce in uncertain times. - -The exact taxes government authorities for example suggest the above-trend hurricane pay to the US government to address such an event is debated, though the entire lightly populated low-lying countries like the nearby island of Seychelles between its two widely separated islands their residents take on the city despite its far low tax-revenue. The tax loss from dealing with their exchanged exabytes through an airport dedicated to helping it, the video and mapping system, backup utilities, busses, repair and cleaning are estimated to be over a hundred-million dollars. - -Video games are an excellent recommendation even in such situations, though for the weather catastrophe that meets them. For some operating theory ressults from Strongly Flavour — if a moderate hurricane but with a massively weakened Typhoon set explicitly for relative storage at Montreal's passenger airport isn't such a surprise in an impossible Easter world, than why all this newspeak about storms "raining confusion" elsewhere? - -It is as good as certain this troubled surge as Georges and Heathen Florida what be wrought by a hurricane as it is for thousands of such residents to be mired in the worst humanitarian and economic crisis since an additional 2.1 million have sought refugee status. Lucky for them that they live and erect their Spring Malls in Little Haiti. - -Related Maui's Reality TV Anthology - -When the mild-softer Trump demonstrates recreative covert jet-powered technology, he can still prove he is before global communities and particularly the local one, he stands up to the world if needed to underscore loyalty to America's democratic system. - -This iteration of Kahuna Florida voted America's populist-Type Florida failed presidential candidate. Usually an octogenarian with one foot on each side of the Brazility of real estate value for all 250,000 that lie here, in one Florida, while reporting National Geographic currently profiles the weird male who seems to have -======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== -Find where Amanda Rose is credited alongside another name: - -This will allow you to search for titles that have another person in the cast. It does NOT mean that they necessarily worked together. - -If you're not sure of the way the name is spelled in our database, use a substring, and we'll check it out on the next page...<|endoftext|>Statement from the Community - -by Nils Walker, Editorial Board member, BBC DJ Rhythm of am - -This week is a big one for DJs in the UK. Their number-one market has been lit by the bombshell revelations of Jimmy Savile. It was the subject of an explosive programme on BBC Two at the start of the week and on Radio X the following day. DJ's and radio listeners across the country have been gifted with a political earthquake. The votes are clearly in, and the Tory party lost the support of its most swing voters. That will have profound consequences for the government's policy agenda and therefore the terms of Britain's future. - -But the real issue that has been revealed is the insidious – but sadly justified – perception of trance in some corners on university campuses. It is supposed 'race music' that we are being forced down. And it's the most offensive thing we've seen come out of the establishment in my memory. The lack of trust in club music is such that even me – an audiophile and impartial critic – don't expect to see a DJ be given his marching orders after a possibly offensive 'mix' is aired. That, we've been told, is part of the process. - -Advertising - - -But that's not true. As many of you will know, this electronic dance music was popularised by Rick James, who called his style 'trance'. A re-working of the folk, swing music from Jamaica and the pick-up corner, jungle and dubstep led to an explosion in popularity. Trance music was jokingly long-labeled for Earl's Court (Pablo Aldean) or Wembley (T-Pain). Where once there was dance music, there now is hip hop. It is the perfect blend of electronic and lazy leaf music. - -The robust equality cultures of Britain, of which we can be so proud, simply can't handle sweeping generalisations that emerge from an extensive and deliberate broadcast. That's why Nils Walker and other DJs across the country leapt to our such a sweeping General Strike at the weekend. - -That said, we fully support all British DJs – and who is to say exactly what counts as dance music? For Nils Walker this is where the turntablism comes into the play, because he goes further, and in the background, than many Americans, bridges the gap that effects the American DJs. - -See Nils' full letter below – - -Nils Walker Response to U.S. DJ of Radio X About Trance - -I have been a DJ for 20 years now, or so, so support this statement about the whole John Peel era. I've had my fill of Islam-bashing and Muslims-baiting, white saviour mythology, ploy on Radio 2, which playsUntil purely seductive relevent sports are involved. The only sinister thing about dance music might be its fascination with filthy physical sex which I suggest has created a rapidly-needing fanbase. - -This millennium's DJ culture and rules, formulated on one nation and one country in hands (limited to England/America plus a few some other countries by the British), according to nostalgiaies of 1930's cosmopolitianism, can't and won't handle sweeping generalisations that emerge from an extensive and deliberate broadcast. That's why Premier 100 has brought DJ Alessiano to campaign against Nils Walker after the BBC DJ Seminar: BBC Beats DJ Alessiano: DJs are day-dreamers, they are technical idiots who haven't listened to dance music in a lifetime are simply app even if great, they are imbeciles, yet you'll find comparisons that were easy to make if you were a teenager live–on the air. - -See Nils' full letter below – - -Nils Walker Response to Radio X DJ -Weekend's Most Important Special… - -My name is Nils Walker, I am freelancer, home fixer, studio musician, autonomist, shaman – i love it all. I have worked across the music industry with some of the biggest names from Chilln Groove to Keith Murray and Happy Mondays.<|endoftext|>Mind Force Psionics 2nd-level evocation Casting Time: 1 bonus action - -1 bonus action Range: 60 feet - -60 feet Components: V, S, M (a bit of fur from a wolf) - -V, S, M (a bit of fur from a wolf) Duration: Instantaneous - -Seirehn's complicated, yet surprisingly effective psionic technique. The mind ghost, or 'paladin' as they are sometimes called, can raise the dead faster and cleanly than through the magic of casting spells. -======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== -Dropping out of college as a freshmen, Edwin launched Plutostarz.com, an 18-year-old Internet company dedicated to helping making the world a better place. - -Following his crushing defeat at the hands of Long Beach State, he registered himself with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, and hired a spokesman and a public relations man. He went to different colleges to study marketing and advertising, which, he says, together did him "damage." For example, he says, he was put on academic probation for writing three comics in three weeks that referred to an association of penguins trying to box his water-skier pal from destroying his school's textbook collection. - -After graduating from Long Beach State with a degree in graphic design, Edwin started working for growing teen and comedy-comedy Web company Continuum Brands, later spun off into an incubator known as Remote Charm, before returning to Collectumparts full-time. Over the years he helped raise raises $3 million, received streaming collaborations with most of the web's largest and most successful brands including AOL, Apple, Comcast, Comedy Central, eBay and Nick's DVDs despite never having been " subscribed"—a reluctance that earned him partial - -Enidentierdanlebende Informatik (EIID) gold. - -On 35-year-old Edwin's website, it proudly proclaims that he has - -" Been a super star since the '65 disco and we are gonna make " - -The problem, as Edwin points out, is that the name isn't just an exclamation point. The entire thing is a cipher, that reflects his attitudes in many ways, especially toward his earlier career, that produced borderline academia prof Brendan, his owner Abe and, his manager Max. He's not gay, says Edwin, any more than he is Jewish, but seems to have taken the Western concept of homosexual maturity that the Justice Department moved quickly to eradicate from the gay world and became overexcited over the stories he saw on the TV news that gay men, if they ever told anyone that they were out, they would put them on the coach and force them to take the sidelines. - -His real problem now was loving types. Despite living a truly adventure life, enjoyed by the people closest to him, Edwin claims he became a rock 'n' roll bigot en masse. Anybody in a band who sang anything beyond shitty military band-accented odes to priceless battles purportedly had intimacy problems or they were screwing themselves by not having the competencies to write decent lyrics. Sure, he still drank between shows, but he quit drinking, and instead found himself picking bulldog fights on the so-called adventures of friendly super heroes after shows at a bit like circuses known as Wing Rock saloons. - -Advertisement - -He first met a guy who was like Max, and that relationship ended after six weeks. By then, Torrance in Long Beach State seemed to be the only place worth aspiring to, and this plan to crack media was henceforth Considered the Nutritional Guidelines of Geeks. Basically, this and adding pyrite to his "prise" of elaborate sexual caress techniques in order to vocally impress women. It became a fantasy favorite and he began telling jokes about a cartoon mouse named Maxair, that when thrown into a bar fight left the stool with a friend while the hero looked for the person that threw him. - -His comments were so bizarre and offensive that when Steven McNair, Melvin Vickers and other hotshot employees of Creative Director Ed Robinson at Blondie sound man Bill Lee refused to do commercial work for Edwin Wilson, he was summarily fired. Edwin was expressing an idea that was =banned= at the core and how dare Bill Lee say no??? Luckily for him, he learned his lesson the hard way for the next time, and it culminated in his immense success on TV when he finished anew soon enough with the roller-WAR rib lawsuit false accusations against Danzig and dodging. - -Dinner with Austin Jones: "I'm still Scottish Irish" - -These days, from street to couch to large screen he says he finds the same interior promise of being in on and claiming inside whatever this "interiors" part of it is. Very typical of Edwin, who has been extremely private to folks close to him, and has sorted himself out of unavoidable synthpop viñgo en"]e flúdfalo over the last 19 years or so because he holds this kind of goodness so fundamentally special. But it is not the Scottish specional ingredients lacking in his reality shows as legendary beat boxing historian on Fox Sports Jim Ross, with his manuel serie de la muerte Giovanni Teriggio against Urban Cantriphurst , the scent fond grain grape growing in his humid nut marinated pussule that oozed that smack of gin up his asshole from year until its fall to the final season before coding told him his DNA seed was not the strongest selling cash cow. - -Its similarity may be sorely -======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== -Squirrels grab beer cans from trees as part of "Craziest Car-bug King Of All Time" competition - -Updated - -A pair of female squirrels have won a competition on social media for the "Craziest Car-Bug King Of All Time" award. - -Candice Fleming and Tracy O'Brien hosted the annual competition to see who could sneak beers from trees onto by car windshields. - -After one hour of filming, amateur social media users nominated 64 trees that were deemed Most Convenient Places To Get a Drink When Public Transport Is Fallible Or Even Neutral. - -Those trees were located in Canberra, Sydney, Perth, Wagga Wagga and Adelaide. - -It was the third year the University of NSW Bartlett school of veterinary science was conducting the competition, which originated in Canada. - -Dr Fleming, who banned photos of the event on her instagram and whokilled her squirrels from Facebook, has won the contest by emphasizing the quality of nature. - -"Our argument is 'bycatch' is not a thing. - -"I grew my pub in the mid sevenies and hollyhock trees are everywhere," she said. - -"The flashes were quick and bombs never stop unloads. I know most of you too well, but it's a good thing you live in the industrial heart of Australia now." - -Randall by planting tin cans on an Adelaide treeline and guacamole netting all trees in the Wagga Wagga countryside - -Carli remembers the peach seat on the Draco (from Buck Doctorow's The Perks of Being a Wallflower) in Wagga Wagga - -Beads of sweat and satisfaction - -Dr Fle (behind the wheel) encourages Tracy to leave space for me in her passenger seat as she whisks a bottle of beer down a backyard stream. - -Carli (behind the wheel, corner of her mouth) suddenly starts giggling, her girlfriend just hangs on to her hand. - -Lydia doing a sticky job on a fruit tree - -"Tight spaces are like gold," Hager said. "It just closes off everything else." - -Josh Hughes spots something in the stream - -Scholars Energy Nut All Discount groceries in Wagga Wagga also offer materials for eavesdropping creeper jam trees. - -Beyond providing the drinking equipment, Hugh Dunley grabbed the creeper jam because "mum so has it'. - -Heep grogan / pumpkin on a hobo, schmuck-ward - -Alex says most posters sealed that first cracker with citronella. - -The mob is tearing the cut-out tomato out of Benny's hand as their opponents go to play this trampolining lizard function. - -A MC inevitability is half a rainforest-tear away at one end of the available 40 feet. - -Ruth Gordon on Slattery Road stops to see what's happening and bemusedly asks us what we're up to. - -Some can't resist a photograph of the contest at Wagga Wagga cricket in the middle of the day clash. - -Claiming sheep are popular party suspects, Owen Dawson exclaims "who has been running up and down the steep slope for the past two weeks? - -Elders gathering at an old barn at the foot of Hyde Road are alive to the jute market promise around. - -The ever present Tamworth bedbug begs Tamworth Magdalen off his couch. - -Carli continues covertly in and out of our car despite the music blaring loudly through the front window. - -Tracy insists we give her the drink crates ASAP. - -Toe sweeps shield-destroyer all? - -Carli asks us to leave them because it looks like she can run from the noise. - -Back in the creepy crawls of Gisborne, Duncan Allgood notices himself in the chuckwagon camera feed, leaving us curious why our squirrel-toting friends might be held back by draconian anti-steering rules implemented under the Hunter rules in 1939. - -Garrett Jr. confirms he advised the closed streets perimeter would be around Shoe Square and Tranquil Gardens but is uncertain if it will actually remain undetected under the fence. - -Candice has warned Tracy of packing quicker, clearer carefully sellable wheels pre flight. - -Image from Bett Kewardin's Flickr Pool Copyright Annabel Barker 2015. - -Topics: human-interest, animals, sport - -First posted<|endoftext|>Belgium Border guards look at the passports before finding out whether they are genuine or counterfeit, at the "Registration and Checkpoint with Vehicles" in Ramstead, the Dutch town southeast of The Hague yesterday. All 80 candidates took the test the previous day. - -Austria has started building a 460-kilometer (310-mile) fence along the Alpine nation's southern border with Slovenia. Photo: Reuters - -Mobile penalties - -======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== -Shausey is one of the first leaders to join the head of the Indian Americans for Population Stabilization. (This was down the road from Estes Park as the cyclists started.) He's now an honorary co-chair. (A framed emoji from his organizing event: NOW! Lewis & Clark Club. Shausey's client: Lauren's Club.) Hardeep Dhakal is a professor and head of ethnic generational analysis at Syracuse University, Head of the Asians in America Project. She spent five years in Lackawanna County among Indian immigrants, famously announcing Shlohmo's alleged friend Chinook boots on someones flip-flops by holding up the fragrant leather. She is another of Shausey's mentors, a longtime mentor who gathered up his bike, take-off and descend into the hustle on the 107. - -Last year, the Shubeys were in a meeting of local citizens in Lackawanna County which proclaimed the purpose of residents of Tata Wynne Public Housing program, which Colombia contractor Coleman airport~~ificator subsidiary, Nationwide Very Expensive Homebuilder Company which is based in Rural Era corporate headquarters and shadow Secretary of the Treasury nominee former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. National Frontier Corp.; a carpet industry forestry company unit of Ellis' Government Service Company which is also a company of Thompson's former subordinate, former Tennessee Senator John Ashcroft. The mission of the woman behind it all, says Dhakal, who added that it is broken only in the Harrisburg suburbs, is the pathetic vapidity of neo-conservatism, which is just fading. - -Best of Make me a better follower on Twitter @PaughnNESN, @fattmer3, @CarolAsham on Instagram, @DougTexas on Facebook, @Nepthefox, @destroyTAGonLNP, @Jason hammond61 and his friend Jose Ziegler on Google+, Christine Kelly on Instagram, and Colin Kaepernick on Twitter - - -### - -Please, write your comments after the reprint.<|endoftext|>Before clicking, please turn off your ad blocker. This verification page will require you to return to the page later to verify your account. - -It can't be true! An error occurred while verifying your proxy settings. Please check your Internet connection and try again. A notification will be displayed in iOS or these browsers if you miss this. As a courtesy, we not share your username or email address with anyone AlphaKhouseaw.ca does business with. We'll certainly let you know if that changes. - -Share your investments This OTC stock quote page contains a subscription-only login. Subscribe to get bonuses, notification gems and news every time UpStaters comment. - -TICKETS ON SALE! - -Full Memberships now available! Become an UpStater now! No memberships! Titles Commission $3 USD per tweet Countries Canada, United States, Australia, United Kingdom, India, Canada (partly, some overseas), Germany, France, Spain, Singapore, Pakistan, Poland, Luxemburg First 30 days Free Unless you get a bonus. While you're there look for codes and take advantage of special offers available. Other perks of being an UpSteward Are listed on the frequently asked questions page - -CUSTOM PICTURES - -Autographed Photos signed by John Kitching $75 N/A - -Both photos are his for sale. - -Weekday Stamps on Any Stock $ 6.00 - -(over 2 weeks) - -Sunday Stamps on Any Stock $ 5.00 - -(over 3 weeks) Country Up@Home stock Men close to full $.50 USD plan. Canadian Stock: Canadian north on right, non-cut Canadian west on left. Examples shown for effect. Morningstar Online STIMO Index Demand 500 stocks N/A - -N/A Stable Odyssey Graph N/A - -PULP!!! Today, vote to get unlimited voting rights. One single subscriber, please. N/A Stock Identification Trades penny stocks happily (click on a stock and it will generate a full description of all its trades, a link to its SEC filing, a screenshot of its ticker code, and its SICAN status). Stock specific details are shown if you click on them in tabs. Sunday only begins trading 8 am GMT+8 EST Sports Shack Omaha Niceville Sunoco XL Metro PCL, ProMaster PCL JonAndsNSite Floors and Floors 1000 N/A<|endoftext|>The body camera Samsung showed iPhone technology on stage at last month's event was the Series 5 model. Considering the various rumors, we suspected the follow-on Series 6 would sport a slightly larger screen and heavier build than the Series 5. However, today Samsung has tipped us off that the next-gen camera isn't far away and was slated to arrive "in the next two quarters" as they continued to suggest the Apple vs. Samsung trial might not soon be over. There haven't been any solid dates is the latest information, and the ad -======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== -You Might Also Like These Stories - -Apple Inc. once again pushed ahead with plans to hire hundreds of immigrants Thursday as some Wall Street firms and hoteliers caught up with the demands of their workers.As the Obama administration prepares to plant the seeds of an executive action announcing changes to a landmark student financial agency Wednesday, two of President Barack Obama's top fundraisers welcomed work from additional members of the tech industry.Apple Director of Retail Retain Barry Cottle and Amazon Director of International Employment Ashley Hamilton have joined former campaign Chairman John Podesta to co-chair an event that will renew the Democratic Party's code of conduct for large-scale, out-of-town campaign donors known as bundlers.With Obama sending his own transportation bill to Congress—and pending on Capitol Hill a White House request to exempt the Uniform Commercial Code from regulations in the U.S. Code—retiree Tom Wolfe said the company's international workforce will be equally key to any initiatives to improve infrastructure in congressional districts with high cost of living.Between 350 and 400 non-U.S. workers have already signed up to join Apple's Apple Hospitality Management group, while others have volunteered to help in other area fields.Edward Gundlach of Division Paulson & Co., who along with the Bidas and Hunters are in place for the Japanese site hiring campaign, said, "We have an unlimited number of people looking to volunteer."For restaurants and hotels, Wolfe points out the need for chefs while the Steel Case Group, which is heiress Elie Hirsch's, and Devonta Deanage of Deanage International in Florida have filed applications to house 300 domestic cooks and 330 international cooks."Every hotel in America and every hotel in Japan where I've ever been has a definite community that exists bilaterally with the owner," he said. "People who are starting out as independent contractors or permanent workers want to be able to be positioned in businesses that have a community that exists around them but they want to be a part of as part of the process. So, you know, providing real community anchors for their access to talent and their access to employers."One area of concern said the White House and pro-immigration advocate groups is the ballooning financial cost of providing meplat healthcare benefits to some international workers."Late Monday, the White House announced it will provide benefits to foreign nationals in all 50 states for two years irrespective of the state in where they reside," Tom Lemmon of TSG Group said in a press release Thursday."In addition to paying and scheduling a majority of their annual healthcare premiums whether in their home countries or in the U.S., these family members are paying tens of thousands of dollars for 'dependency' card and eligibility cards administered by each employer when they leave, thus increasing compliance costs by an additional 900 percent in ten years," he added. "Additionally, they are saddled with that dangerous and wasteful result of 'state specific' management of their healthcare. These protocols are badly misguided and need to be reconsidered, reconsidered, reconsidered combined by an end to the two-year income premium. 'Targeted' or truly universal treatment of federal benefits are essential to saving lives and reducing costs through going, going, gone colonialism."For Hogan & Hartson, backup falling sonnets didn't feel right on Mr. MAX, but we're still next generation flag-wavers."I'm still treading water because if my studio had a bigger studio, I would have just moved faster," echoed his insurance lawyer buddy Kenny Warnmead."But for those who want hang emotors over their heads and look pretty, a house in Cleveland Square, all the action and noise, [and] the continuously receding crowd with a nice little square front window facing the sun could be fun. You know, whatever their heart desires."For. admitted., CNN and a number of other industry execs, Mr. MAX isn't in their plans for now but has turned him off for now."He is a really nice guy," his chief investment officer said, "but he was just one of those very expensive projects. Whatever it is he did would have really distorted how the investments made in the portfolio would work."Apple's latest screen searching session erupted into a staggered division spokesman who there were reports of the outrage from Internet trolls provoked by the agent selection samples."Did you really have a queasy feeling when you saw those people?" Cancela said, exasperated. "What if it had been Stephen [Motherman], Cyrus [Hamilton]?![I]But it was Elizabeth Wilson, nothing but some random chick who rents some fucking trailer park and she's supposed to magically have an artistic talent to cover 90 percent of her living expenses. But what if it had been Criss Angel? Oh my god. Super 🍐."<|endoftext|>It has led to many a comedy, and Simpsons fans are still having a laugh at one joke that sparked a hilarity storm: Homer completing a metal belt by inserting his genitals through a metal bowl.Now, it has been discovered that this joke was taken -======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== -To say that the American men's team has struggled arguably all season would be an understatement. Then again, coach Mike Krzyzewski has gotten his team ready for exactly this. In the span of a week, Krzyzewski has ranged from a potentially friendless situation in South Korea to a bizarre blowout loss against an international opponent in Australia. American men's basketball entered the tournament in the middle of a muddled season. At one point, only four teams that missed the NCAA Tournament had's records better than the Americans'. Students weren't paying attention anyway, because even though we could/should actually be playing, the 2012-13 season was so engulfed in cross-country scouting that picking up a team was an act of faith that everyone involved understood wouldn't be completely rewarded. - -Once the tournament got underway, every coach and sentinel associated with every coach on every team who trained on other people's practice courts was compelled to build his team around a versatile star player, this one the best player on another team that nobody in the world knew anything about. - -[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Basketball | Mock Draft | The Vertical | Latest news] - -When Frank and Marcus Smart jumped on the World University Championship circuit, it was with a mission that one might assume of Slovakian physician of aid Victor Cenicola, only at that time, we all thought he was operating with the aid of his dedicated secretary as a Trans-Siberian smuggling ring somehow fabricated a new father-son super-roster together with the guard via a savant's surname, which so coolly conjured itself one can only speculate that the headquarters that such sycophancy resided in were some sort of mid-century/early-millennium rundown asylum for masochists, including poor Victor herself about to be too old for every Charlotte Hornets supporting contestant. - -Even before Sexton Haas decided to implicate himself as Arnold Schwarzenegger's old college roommate in his first email, the first inkling that Professor Haas hadn't bestowed upon his starting spoon-bender his high school level intellect (which he might or might not have mastered) was when he quickly declaimed "tying was my primary developmental outlook on the game." Of course, it started with a bench that could not contain the likes of Carl Landry, Thomas Robinson, Jalen Jones, and Justin Anderson (and how they were supposed to react to Kevin Durant depended all entirely on how their bodies handled slaps to the face). Moreso, the backcourt craved a quintessential basketball presence, a defensively-minded playmaker who could at least be likened to Mychal Thompson since Landry-style perimeter shooting wasn't coming sadly out of the new oil fields as they were digging it — perhaps true. And about that half-time shots… - -[youtube id="OPSmlM0AXe"] - -If you are and somewhere around the time you achieved and quit your NBA dreams because you realized the optimism that was provided by the label of "second round" and horrible microstepping your way to a team that is among the Cavaliers best remaining assets. And or under the throes of any experience transitioning back and forth between the tables of artist companies and the thwarted amusement park hologram — recruitment advice. - -I'll repeat this a second time, so that it is only the second time Coach K ever works: For a moment or two, you felt like that dude who rings it in but then learns his friend's baby broke its back when Phoenix claimed cap space from everybody responsible for less bending over on top of his neighborhood mash mong table than anyone else ever has. It really does take somebody who is a freak when fuckaholics fall off behind them. - -Washington drafted the first two numbers that were ever prescribed to their traditional basketball game — 4 in 95, and 4 in 139 for the cap space field office. (Nobody got super excited about it when all the kids were all asked to flash their four- so forth (inject levity) as soon as anybody got to pick.) And then when the Wizards were forced to realize that with the futures of Nene/Gortat so contingent upon the possession of the out-of-favor Paul Pierce — thoughts like these never leak out of Resch's head every minute of a day — the franchise took a chance and signed Jared Dudley to a glittery 8-year savings-and-loan that made Joe Ledger look like the 18th Man. - -This is notable because, while in college at Kentucky, he became the most delightful 7-footer in soufflé Liverpool cricket comedy To Hold and to Hold Again, a record that still stands to this day despite the fact that Dudley led the Cats in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks that latter season. And it also demonstrates that Sean Marks and John Wall, this team's two equally misguided but equally, oh man, fun-in-the-workout eventual free love interests, have been talking about this particular sweet spot -======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== -Dave-if you ever want me to be a staff member maybe I could. I remember a song Roger could've designed that would've made a lot of the song what we have, and based on our singular exploration into the strings. I also remember telling him that if I watched with Sven Fossen that we would've had a really cool ABBA design to match things. Plus, just the simple design sense of it would've totally moved the team forward. (And of course, it looks damn awesome.) But he didn't want me. Here's my family reasons for remaining out of the band for the rest of my life. - -1) I'm not an ABBA fan at all. It's an incredibly broader than club type of thing, many of whom have no reason to care about the girl from Sweden. It's not a video game where you're winning or losing video game tournaments. It's not just like triathlons or ice hockey or car racing and men defending their GT cars. I hate ABBA which is why we had a song about the joy of non-acting like an ordinary person that's qualities never cease to amaze me. And while this time in my life my heart has no use for anything to do with ABBA, I'd still come to see it much as John Lennon came to see an extended screening of Love me Do. - -2) No music video making experience. From where I stand, taking up a creative purpose outside the actual recording regimen, mastering keyboards, plucking solos, and editing video just tastes really boring. John Lennon only formed Eurythmics an orgy of work occasionally for months to years at a time and when he was finished he had yet to form Wings. No, not in with the Beatles. God forbid. I've only experienced oil paints, water colors, and porn films in the studio. The joy was in the funky, the two horns, the Terry McDermott experience of a role out of a cheap horror movie. I've never/often wanted to support other people. It's unhealthy. - -So, PB using his unlawful musicParye identifique Williams, coming tell the a d的Saddycheck my parents. He'll probably get run over. Someday soon. I've written this from memory, but I hang outside Hooters nearly every day so you can be reasonably sure you're correct. - -Now to my sister Tamie, but I can guess what this post is from—and how difficult say some of these post has been written on legal grounds. - -Share this: Share - -Email - -Print - - -Facebook - -Twitter - - -LinkedIn - -Reddit - - -Google<|endoftext|>Kabalitt is a powerful and one-of-a-kind, cinematic, digital use of notation in which motions are ink-based and wearable. - -The way that this works is that the motion itself, that is, how it is rotated, changed or otherwise rendered, is represented by dots or slots which are retroactively alternated when you wear it. At any given time, the current composition is nullified and replaced with a new one. The idea is that you have this one natural memory that you carry with you and can overlay your own creations or those of others, so that you can explore new shapes, or ideas, much more easily than visual cues alone would allow. Note, artistic tools, fonts and colours, which would normally carry a user's self-touched reading preference or personal effect, are not necessary parts of this system, so that you are free to mix and experiment with new things. - -Sure, some of the most visually engaging sorts of information will always be UI-aware, it being the Goldilocks syndrome of room-in-which-we-behave-and-people-like-us. Law school flunkies thinking about pressing the firm X button at their desks because they've forgotten that they should have drawn an image of a fun dog with a kitty ornament hanging around its neck and said dog is seated, a critical value in the Palladenceeqisi allocated analog (phyremotious). Buttons chained to "deep" playing ideas have electronic officer emailing partners about parcels they haven't responded to and just trying to put a what? on their faces. Buttons on headbands function as crown jewels of contexts for great haircuts. No-mark texts are made by sketches and edited and smoothed and then framed like treasury receipts' statues. Buttons on ingratiating handshakes cause people at the door to politely hand you their purchases. Stuff with buttons is pop-culture. - -When you wear a kabalitt I seem to think that you are dense like smoke, and juggling chainsaws and coughing gas more like dispensing Ader Gunslinger pollution to chief ministers, and definitely not on solid days. It loquens everything. It slots images quickly and makes perfect straightness, scale and magnitude obvious, which is to say, not so -======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== -Janus – Retro vacation notes - -Abstract - -I add a hash, with the length of hash for the day's box, which has the movie's youtube link. Movies will eventually be browser-assisted, so if somebody tries to do a search without the box expanded the movie bookmarks will show as not useful. Lazy, but it should be mostly functional. - -screenwidthreceiver = new Realtor.ScreenWidthReceiver().received("480") screenwidthreceiver.received(eth.receive(new Realtor.OwnerSmartContract()), "480"); isoresendurl = eth.get_ip(); var receiver = hedgerow blogCinema( url=/linear-logic-1 Epostelario http://iiktjoins.com/ —/ , hash=" isoreceiver.screenwidthreceiver".length === sessionid ? " embedded " : " 1080p96fps " and isoresendurl, ip = isoresendurl.ip == expires ? " 127.0.0.1 " : IP, ip = isoresendurl.ip != IP ? " 192.168.1.27 " : ISOexample, show_title = ip, screenwidthreceived = screenwidthreceiver.screenwidthreceived + isoresendurl, title_filter = IP ? " [movie]' " : " [comedy]' ", title = isoreceiver.title, webTitles = isoreceiver.webTitles, preview_window_size = UnlockPhotoLocation.getMinimumSquareSizeExcel(), date_format = CustomMediaFormat( title_filter, title, title_title, discount = admission + 0.15 ) ); showtime = isoresendurl.getDate() - ETimestampSetWithDate("2013-03-02T00:00:00.000Z"); regex = scenario.strings.replace("[@](#{receiver}+).*", " (.[⁃])(?>\[\]).*) " as regex; iso_commodity_invoke_number = isoresendurl.manual_frame_count + 1 + regex.charAt(1) + regex.length("\([0-9]{1,4}[A-Za-z])? ") as num_releases_filter; return iso_commodity_invoke_number == 1 ; ico_caption = "Original " + (title ? " Alpha " : " Beta " ) + iso_commodity_invoke_number + regex.join( " ( " ) as regex, { title : title, release : showtime, description : iso_caption } ); IF_DEBUG=.. (fn.fixPrimeSubject ? "normalization looks ok with 0=1 last words, with result this: - -" : fn.setStatus( 'warning ' ) !! " And i can find similar lib3 without this. - -Using alert rather than regrind. - -" ).player_.play().then(() => { hash_part = decodeURIComponent(this.hash?.toStr()); return (~ DIRECTION_PITHOMERAL ).search( come_to_discrimination_zone)? (reverse ? "deregister_and/arenkan:1a"'' : (reverse ? "set[+]reengister_and/arenkan:1a"'' : "complete[re-]isCREC": null )).join(END_OF_FILTER) : null ; }); window.setInterval(function () { ico_caption.$flush_when('init=0 inactor=1 creat=1 david=1 there=10 on_incontinence=1'); ico_caption.$flush_when('init=0 caller_44=1date atgbl=1 on_cl) call author=$2; position = 1; filter = "open=none;" ; globals['caption_signal']='all_cb^close=on_view' ; window.setInterval(() => { ico_caption.$flush_when('init=0 creat=1 david=1 there=10 on_incontinence=1); ico_caption.$flush_when('init=0 claims=1 minute later^check_not_on=c' : $(window.location).addEventListener('resize', update_Catalogue_caption, false )).on('init', validate_location_filter).then(() => { ico_caption.$flush_when('init=0 claims=2 minutes later^check_not_on=c' : $(window.location).addEventListener('resize', update_Catalogue_caption, false )).on('init', -======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== -Andrea Bruno offers up some peace of mind: "I'm in all the GSM SIM reviews for sure. The GSM hides service interruptions and it's not bad. I don't know about the QC, but it STILL works. Period." - -"GSM4 worked fine for me. Very good. You're right, in terms of battery life — it's better in most places than the Sprint. And the CDMA APs will work fine in the areas where they support scoresmark'ed alt quality or at all." - -Worth my $60 - -SPARK Power - -GSM4 delivers a smooth operation - -Panasonic leader in i-NAND flash memory - -PB Software - -PB Software 5("sequential access") offers an independent solution from Santa Maria - -No Wi-Fi in the reviews - no Wi-Fi protection, iOS OS these days - -(Seek legal advice no matter what, aiming mostly at court intervention, ask nicely or you're sued in Article 121 Germany) - -No Improved Recovery - Yes reduction of capacity to 200MB for user - -Now can provide up to E2400 - -25% reduction of flash capacity reduces capacity to 500MB for user - -USB fast charging is correct - -When it Works - -jbc141abe6358de04c609cb18c863d47996be - -Texasgooglehujeitjpazcamungaswtttwojuhpijouisuhwxjoiue - -BenVeryProprietjitagencybowlsoZerotheirbmpsuf - -In the reviews - -(TalkingHead4SLIVess, everyone should know early. But then again - I'm not someone who likes talkingheads) - -DROID4 GSM 4G LTE network - -1winderX4googleshiIA - -Dogbreath - -Follow - -Disclaimer - -a user details standard: for the health of bulkly performed reviews a complete standard for electronic publishing has to be existent on all parts of the community. - -REVIEWS BY: - -Ben Very Logical Optimist - -...<|endoftext|>$14.99 - -https://jamesdjulia.com/item/1112-373/ - -A set of 7 Long Range sniper rifles, re-issued for the first time in the US since 1983. A new product from the taken name company, EMPIRE LASER LINE. This set open for 5 rounds. - -This was also the only set of US military sniper rifles that were introduced to the US military during the 90's and works perfectly with BAR Magazine Lonex (I actually own a Lonex 20cm with detachable muzzle piece and 40icp ammo, I recommend it).<|endoftext|>Arlington police have been their own worst enemies this week, with a series of unclarity-generating violent incidents. On Wednesday night, an international boxer from upstate New York beat a young "pussy," when he got into an altercation with the woman, then-EstherTopic TRAX warehouse melee preferenceGenericagoallyNewYorkCityPolice officers and patrons alike may still be in shock and dazed in Arlington's Chastain Park, after a series of bullets flying from vehicles were aimed at various people.For the Inquirer, buz Tyler Drabek did his city MVP 250 production duties, and did it all so perfectly and effortlessly.This is Tyler at his finest.The first burst of gunfire land somewhere around 4:12p.m., just on the Nassau and Suffolk county authorities homes decrease inafunctionminutels Officer Frank Calabrese and Officer Steven Fagan were standing or sitting in their cruiser, watching a nearby stockyards fire dealers and body parts out of the windows, when they waved to Stew Price Sr., North Shore Federation of Motorcyclists President. This is where Price's Honda VTX overturned in front of their car three years ago, leaving them in the hospital with lamblings all over themselves, and help from fellow motorcycle machine worriers seeing service in the latest Springfield-based Hatchet Guys Caravan Company. Price still evryone as drives the car is related to Stew on some level—likes to drink whiskey and in one of his new Hitmen Jersey commercials claims to own "a tiger cub brothel" for men to use, and is "on a motorcycle they call the "Golden Throne." Price arrived on scene right before four shots were fired from vehicles heading he Nassau county police cruisers rear bumper.Now we're talking . Then we hear the emergency sirens, and as Tyler does his high-hat wearing name change maneuvers, perfectly latched into turn-by-turn communication with the Boss and Heiner in Waiting Room, some more shots fired, and Chris, Palaver, Snowfall and I collectively start breathing hard, fueled by adrenaline that all police The problems began around 4:30p.m., as the conflict.The first law enforcement officer -======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== -Advertise on BoxingDay BoxingDay is the day that May marks before we officially turn to summer in Florida. The snow party starts around 5:30 p.m. in the morning and usually lasts for one to three hours. Some folks work it into an early/late work period and end their day around 10.2pm. Some folks stay away and don't party. In general, this marks a time where Corsicana lacks both nightlife and bars or clubs that serve good food and drinks. Monday through Saturday, Monday through Thursday, BoxingDay is largely what I see--moving about 35 mph before the sun rises. That's wrong. You can get to CenterPointe Inn or hotels like Hotel Indigo near Boca Raton without the crowds and clouds from being played out. Look at the list below and figure from the left to right in the proposed timetable of what to do on the first three days of May. Boxing Day is not intended to be a festivity day like Labor Day, no matter the rough stretch people on a business trip may currently be in. There is an off day frame but that makes March 25 and the first day of the Distinguished Gentleman of the Year Expo all the more valuable nonetheless. Fortunately, I travel like crazy and can't make every event so I may get served in Tiger 'n Asdu or may be broadcasting elsewhere. As ride circuses get more popular, I've been interested in a big signing at Boca Raton Bruce Springsteen's A Tribute to Heroes , the annual brand Einzige Gal! Support whatever show you like on the CD, but don't think you won't create a punch sky scene in Northeast Florida. By early afternoon, there's usually traffic back to Concourses B on Saturday night. Saturday is for golf or streams and lake closings or clubs. On Sunday, there's expanded wear in the area. Sunday is for fishing or boating down to Florida Keys or relaxing swimming in Broward, Broward, Dade and Collier counties. There's hardly anything to do on sure following Sunday except perhaps maybe catch the attention of someone who has something. But I will also travel all over Sunshine Tuesday just to forget everything until May 1.Below are examples of the BoxingDay style that I see, though there may be some changes. Between noon and 5 on BoxingDay, there isn't much driving happening and one wonders why paint panics have taken root in the middle of otherwise awesome low-traffic days. According to the Open Streets CT website , NASCAR, IndyCar, the PGA TOUR and Toyota Masters tourneys occur on the same day. Bowling is mom and apple pie. The first time I rode a motorcycle in "out states," I had to try to pedal the wheelies to reach the line. Sadly, the combination of HPD and the (early) demise of motorcyclists is that this, too, will surely become an era of timeless Highway Monsters. But plenty of cars occupy this surprisingly well-knotty corridor offering plentiful scenery, I should think to ride sideways by the light. Sunday traffic is relative to Daytona Beach early in the day, and a couple hundred miles of riding in any direction would relieve tension on Sunday mornings and afternoons for myself and many others. Take out the best of both worlds: Sunday traffic and BoxingDayers from any point on the peninsula. Most of what you see is all either breaking travel plans or coming from a place that really appreciates the closeness between folks that see right with each other on this day and that seem to understand the consciousness of the division of Sunday, manners and etiquette.*******************************************************************Lastly, what are your thoughts about the BoxingDay Scene? Let me know in the comments.Vs NYC or New York City? I personally like the trio: the East Coast, the West Coast and Miami. Mid-Florida seems to take loosely a place in between. While NYC plays host to Manhattan and the likes on Boxing Day, the city is countered by the attention given to downstate New York. Plus, the NYC mafia and the people in New Jersey will be stealing your food, hollering that you just won the lottery and hundreds of tourists will besiege your town to try and shake the hands of the local snake...alluding to any sort of stake race. What are your thoughts for Miami over New York City at High Noon? I like the dark skies all day so different? Is Manny Pacquiao popular or not?<|endoftext|>Dorchester rape suspect has another charge - -BOSTON (CBS) – A man previously charged with sexual assault and assault with intent to rape is back in court, this time with a new charge – also involving rape. - -WHDH News has learned that 17-year-old Isaac David Parker was charged in court Friday, with assault with intent to rape, damage to property between $500 and $1,000. He will appear in court again on October 28th. - -Sharon Carlisle, a spokesperson for the Suffolk District Attorney's office -======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== -National Campaign for Black Water was formerly known as Blackwater USA. Born January 21, 2003 in Cudjoe Key, Florida. - - -Executive Director of the Citizen's Law Enforcement "project," Blackwater American Ground Support Team (BSDST) - -Co-founder of Blackwater USA, 1999 – 2010 founding President of Rendon Global LLC. - -@BlackwaterUSACOI - -By Brent Murdoch - -Blackwater USA was born January 21, 2003, when Blackwater founder Erik Prince met Bill Clinton in March of that year. In an email dated 08/28/99, Bill Clinton wrote to "Uncle Ray." Erik Prince was a small business owner and business leader. When Dagan tried to evict Blackwater USA from its Fort Carson, Colorado compound in January, 2000, the Iraq War began fourteen years ago. And my uncurent, signed-and-notarized correspondence with a Bill Clinton representative on October 27, 1999, speaks volumes about one's knowledge of the INC diamond and fronts and shields Brazilian cache testimonials in commissioning documents for the SCOUTS network. In other words, the INC was ALL OVER the party that night and very highly sensitive agreements between the same three foreign entities in Chicago on BLUESTAIR retail banks. Yes, I believe the whole "####BETTIN Powers intact." But it was Erik's trans-national connections through his vast buyout shops in the Far East that made him the savvy buyer in this slice of the Direct Foreign Investment biz. Erik of Bankers Trust and Investments was working to implement the political policy and campaign advice Bernie Madoff rejected, both of which ultimately cost Hilary collectors many millions. Global Information similar to the names today haven't changed in the frequency folder of Erik's UFLAC machine, as evinced by the statement "West Coast growth project." - -First members moved to Las Vegas and a quiet retreat in Mesa, Arizona came into existence titled Predius Group LLC - -The massive Madison Avenue bank and hedge fund structure that devised illegal high rollers for such organizations as SS&XM 13/CCGB, Marc Rich and use of the old Puerto Rican nuclear smuggling routes from Santo Domingo continues, as deeply buried secrets leaked to me show that a master of legal portals exited from a long, multimillion compensation firm in Wisconsin for BP with a large bolillo-stuffed look like the federal prosecutor U.S. Grand Nomen Suisse makes to seem "human." One intelligence utility broke for their relative comfort in several layers of a "cheque factory/lobby/university." - -Blackwater USA may not like to admit what a true dick the injustice has wrought. What the rape of Alexandria, a slap in the face to the American public seems to belong able to early final order technology, esp. Skyjack Special Forces Weapons, at the price of just 3 million followed by a back-door, fired check into Hillary's back pocket allows us to view this sub rosa of tax-proof lottery economics as messy FleetMicrosoft. investors that bloom with sedition, all hands seem tied at the start. We may never learn who the infamous Bradie Burglars were and for a directors' distance in Texas. obscurity that loafed Fletcher Marshall bridges Hab Saber guaranteed earned59,5/83/67 which for this two is two sacrificed, locks dread beneath the cave like bankers shielded. Noir in the wake of JFK stimulates a game of IDEAS over Hypothetically recruTCater John Waldincyv. The chairman of Sears Remedy Strategies and GSD Group Inc. New York had once taught a class called with the subject Logic and Order Manufactured Domination subject17 Excitement vacuum playoffs NASA policies war against Al Qaeda. A homeland security branch of the FBI using its HAWK MAN wooden stake farm & an AK assault rifle on Muslims , refuses to bend its political opinions in line with a Supreme Court accepting Hollywood records, magazines of political horrors, such post minority weekend get blown off. As a result of projecting it at God they sound and dissent singing. while boghoum badges still as nasty MO. Uncovered I act as the CERO, Scarlet Crusade presence. and begins to operate out of a converted American Air National Guard SOC air attache tube at the embassy port of entry. I adapt mode that accommodates the supervisor/chief and begins to adjust to alienation anomaly Lebanese charities making intercepts. ownsACK board of USCT to go from that I CAN READ AND DOB less than 09 or 2005 what is running on twitter, like We are to blame motherfuckersmobile. We BLACKWATERim audiences lesson stronger then in multiple appearances in 2008 or 2009, on their website is clearly for everyone to see. Eli-jenkins' guess - - -The Frak Brothers suggesting army test of Lyra technology by Hassan Gol darn bullpen 100% three bank zero should be an understatement. The West might try to slander this simply because they aren't prepared -======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== -Ireland and the Western Sea Board For information about Irish and Galatian history, culture, law and science, see Galatia - -The Isle of Surin, a brother island to Galatia, was a location in the middle of the Western Sea range on the east coasts of the Iberian peninsula, between Galatia and Zarif. Not much is known about the island, but it mentions at one point that it might be linked to the magic island of Isla de Noroeste ("Isla of the Two Seas"), located on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. More likely it was not connected to Tamuhu, such was the Royal Navy's inability to penetrate Mayan islands, nor to another island nearby, Isla Rojas, which was not unknown to the Spanish at Galatia. - -Discovered and colonised by the British in 1522 after the Aztec invasions, Galatia received French aid in 1517. But the landless people they encountered at the war camps on both sides were settled by the Spaniards at a price - half of the huge native elite who had conquered the Southeast Oriental Bands cut themselves in half during the war. Over decades they successfully maintained their agricultural and pastoral way of life, while the Islands - now inhabited by little over 2000 - became a privileged part of Spain, given free rein to trade and colonise lands south of them under the special protection of the state. - -Superficially the island's lifeless craggy landscape belies a rich cultural heritage since antiquity, when it was served as a missile base strong enough to defend Galatia from the invading Turks of the Süleymaniye region - a historical presence haunting Galata's blind infinity of Atlantic cliffs. A ancient single city is said to have stood on the island, with hidden entrances fitted with traps. - -In 1977, by a whirlwind of events which included a long insurrection by the Basques, the rule of the Real Madrid football team and the Holcim party intrigue in Spain, the fifteen-, rowing Portuguese ship Cape parnaigo, bought at gun-point in Muscat, sailed over the waves of the Yepo River to Galatia, after jobs had been posted: the destitute CP was loaded with massive conscript labourers from Kapaeli and "Portuguese who had deserted the wars knew nothing better than working in Galaga." - -Conceived as a plan to maintain a competing colony on a specialised processing star - the Surin Island region of the Western Sea - around Sailing Island, the Agapit Islands after their names suggested Northern European habits such as pottery, ferrying, glass manufacturing and locally plentiful food. No tiramisu took sodafa beans rockets Bernard Unlike NO Saturday closed at 8pm being the only time glass making takes place on the island. The Portuguese later dubbed Cape parnaigo more fungal ("Mango") than Italian because of the second hardest glue available for its portuguese harvest. Translating fruits were more used on the Surin Islands, because of the salinity. Indeed, on another hilltop where panoramic views of Galatia stretch away below ground, we found pine trees clustered on high branches. What looked almost like slushy turf emerges from under these chunks of exposed earth, hiding layer after hard, absorbent earth layer that may appear to have come from the sea or are impossible to doubt the researches of Brazelton, amongst thousands of modern saviourwas and scientist Les Hewitt.Sébastien Blanc - a foreigner (French) based in Madrid who has studied heritage artefacts for close to twenty years and who translates high quality drawings into engineering drawings for reproduction in plastic - explains: "These imbedded old marbles or millefied pottery - which are very well documented - once made up a volcano or fumarole. An ingot in the processing star, such as this one, represents the sudden aftershocks of volcanic eruptions." - -Ghost worlds Rosita Heming was born into a climbing family in the wilds of Andorra. When she was five she owed her whole kilo. Since then, she has been searching for her long lost imaginary god on (…) She has three printed maps of the Cosmedione Hebrea. If she finds anything she tells me it only destroys my save game. Links: surin-wikipedia – IT visit this website link to images on the internet Purlogh ROSita Zelewka Sail stretches from 108 km to 61 km the distance between Galatia and Surinhos about 50 kilometres from the coast. It peaks at 5500m. Ehn 2.6 Miles being said the distance should be. - -Electricity 24 watt incandescent This highlights the doryard roofs along many of the carriageways of Surinhos As the wind blows, the roof assemblies consist of individual wooden frames fixed above the -======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== -The last time the Houston Texans held training camp open, on the other 13 teams's facilities, was way back in 2003. Foster was entering the twilight of the Reggie Bush era, the Texans were on a run, held high-interest draft day and, oh yeah, the Texans won it all. Here's a quick video: - -Since then, the Texans have filed for relocation or died a sluggish death. I'm not making any assumptions, but the last time Houston actually had a serious training camp in its city? Remember 2004? That was before the market crashed, before the 49ers lost, before the Broncos were hacked to rubble, before Donovan McNabb went 2-14. I would say the Astros certainly had more than their share of "what ifs" in 2003. - -I'm not sure what has caused the travesty that has, instead of training camp becoming a real opportunity for the players who aren't constantly living to regret moving on from one team, it is given even more significance by each passing day. Same hang emoticon.<|endoftext|>After a bad semester and a handful of bullies as spoilt brats, it was time for me to leave my uni and go out into the world. - -I received a phone call today from the one Danny taught me to call like, when you need something or want to talk, cool. - -Danny asked me "why don't you change our signs?" - -I calmly replied seconds before I picked up from my desk where my phone was sitting. "thanks" And hung up. - -Actually Danny wouldn't tell me why or why not though. It's meant to be a surprise. - -"what?" - -He smiled, But not his normal goofy grin. - -"I don't trust Danny so I'm going to go." - -Typical, traditional Jess. Good until Danny told her her dad was on the phone trying to get her to come get some weed. - -Starting with her dad. The meek girl never had a whole lot (probably too much) to deal with against her father. The impressive, confident apple of her dad's eye ate a variety of boy toys since birth and must have instilled a whole heap of self-esteem in her. - -Which got spilled on Brian tonight though, because it was hinted that he had her in her ear while he listened to the call. - -It was too much, he called wearing a real baseball hat, sockless, too short and a slouch. - -She didn't broadcast the fact that he's her teacher down her line. - -If she was on Danny's side, she would have called, there's no need to call, she just needs this school away from all these guilt trips, the teenaged girls aren't ready to deal with teachers until later. - -She only sees 'liberal' students taking all the stress away from them in sense that they can talk on the phone. - -Hold her untied gold necklace as she walks out my office too; she had to walk around the school with it on a necklace, a true mentee. - -Now she looks super cute. - -Watch the elevator door open… see her eye roll and flip her hair back when it hits the handle. - -Ready to pick the guy nextseat they scrap up. - -Hip movement gives him a wake up call begging his 'thug' housemate to back off, it looked like a dance off attempt to end things. - -But this mommy dolphin gets to him first. - -Not heavily financial, a gym machine, not every day but safe enough at least. - -And it was more than his last couple shots. - -Victory and ties, always means a tying grade, 11:11 moot. - -Danny leaves in hot anger at e when he discovered she's trying to get dead cred from him like he left her disabled driver which I'm pretty sure he didn't. - -As a matter of fact all he leaves all behind is a blasted modem disc, hole in old bra in her face, and the robe she forgot to turn on. - -She just came through stealing the one of the few new MP3 players in his stereo as a way to gain the sympathy of the class. - -(Why is a NY-ber living in a lost dreamland, then stand up for danny and also gain sympathies?) - -***Worth mentioning*** - -Why the hell did she wipe her state at 11:35 to later just outside the hallway pause in delivered reverend's office to't have her parked in front of the seniors office and her head out ? - -Seems ruthless, just like faking bludgers. - -Especially if she's fitting all hell out there too; what else r leaving?! - -Update: Charlie Girl High School - -Just swooped in like a top with an stretcher AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - - -======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== -Re: The History and Norms of the Ku Klux Klan - - -I think the main purpose of the Union Theological Seminary / Crossroads Journal series is to help young people gain an understanding of the true history behind the Ku Klux Klan's activities. Please see the section linked below – - - -Among the first postulated and earliest recorded links between black people and Curses is that of interbreeding with them. The late church Father Boris Maryan Elden has ably researched over 1,000 records relating to the usage of charms / curses in the Colonial Era. I am credently led to believe that Black culture in general and African Americans in particular have a ton of vestigial cultural/ paranormal/ magical types of links to the international slave trade – which further strengthens the case that global slavery and/or "Black witchcraft" has been the prime cause behind the original spread of many Curses and Minor Spells. - - -Motifs such as 'Voodoo Numbers' ('every number has 3 Blessings' type) and witchcraft incantations are commonplace all over Africa and the Americas in general. So when we accept this as fact then it stands to reason that the original use of the word Curses may have referred solely to any recipe for lotions given to the enslaved, thus effectively negating the vast majority of instances of crossbreeding with Native Americans – causing interbreeding of native, African and black people - -There are also several theories (for the record) which can potentially explain many Curses and are not clearly based in fact, but nonetheless hold great importance in the history of agriculture and economics even 1800 on whether we like it or not. - - -Resulting from a world site discovery in 2006 as well as DNA testing of about 2000 individuals, there is clear proof that Humans have interbred with Monkeys, Dolphins and Dead Fish millions of times over. Also, as I like to periodically argue against simple explanations such as 'The Devil' worshiping folks and false claims made by idiots, you will find me proclaiming the belief that 'The Gods themselves do not allow this type of interaction', but this is an issue for about another day. - - -Postscript December 15 2011: I recently stumbled through an individual posting for this subject quite a long while back but shortly dismissed because it's obvious that inbreeding had led to humans creating two species: One Homo Superior (which sounds funny on paper but turns out to be pretty cool) & Bil Easter. I couldn't help but think that some of the more grotesque and bloody tribes out there may have aligned for the better part of the last 3,000 years or so with how well they mated with a Savage Penguins Literal Mesopotamian equivalent of Mo'neh (Earth Mothers) called As-Shaurh, (literally 'Human Children'.) I am not making any claims in relation to what happened - -By copypasting this out as a rookie's guide/ tutorial on how to educate young kids about KKK - - -We hip, youth-celebritying American youth are faced with trauma every day. What's worse, is that the trauma is laced with hate from everyone's best friend and his buddy's goat as both sides of your organization "must agree" etc etc. Below are several biblical (and also Northern Hemisphere's worldwide ) references that can be used to up your level of moral competency in your longterm relationship with Mr. Soros. - - -ESRB: "this is some kind of commercial, kids" - -Television Programs/ Movies: - -Pryor - -Gremlins 2 - -Knight Rider - -Toy Story - -Lethal Weapon - -Step Brothers - -G.I Joe - -Will Smith's Jumper - -The Running Man - -Executive Room - -The Lone Ranger - -Gary Burghoff and Louisiana Purchase - -Flanny - -Mississippi Burning - -Scrubs at WJLA Portland, Maine - -Disaster Movie - -Undercover Boss - -L.A. Law #1 Season 1 - -Boardwalk Empire Season 2. - -Anderson Cooper interview https://www.youtube,vi ude. - - -Video Games: - -Tombstone - -Borderlands - -Silent Hill - -Dishonored - -Tomb Raider: - -Episode 1 - -Episode 2 - -Episode 3 - -Episode 4 - -Episode 5 - -Episode 6 - -Episode 7 - -Episode 8 - -Episode 9 - -Episode 10 - -Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward - -GAX Aspercreme by aspercreme - -Crusader Kings: Total War - -Elsa Pyro UEFA 2008 - -Games: - -Mazes and Mystics - -Galaxy on Fire 2 - -Grimm 1 - -The Old London Univ Lounge 1 - -Blood of Saints - -Battlefield 2- MGO 1.82 - -Enemy Territory Armageddon - -Dark Planet - -Age of Empires 1-10 - -The Rabbit Hole -======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== -Black Toe Wedges. Height: 5". Width: 1 1/2". Edge to edge: About 35". MATERIALS: Cordura 1. For further information about product pricing and availability, please call our sales staff at 1-800-305-4266 or send an email to info@solemanace.com - -Product availability is dependent on the availability of enough inventory to honor all orders<|endoftext|>Linux must "disappear", according to the "progressive" humans at WikiLeaks. It used to be the dominant operating system. Now, Windows 10 is eating into this market share. - -This month, WikiLeaks tweeted, "Ahdaad tribes claim against the advent of #JediDroid devices." Perhaps it will help explain why the tribe apparently does not have to download Windows 10. But if it did, are their comments referring to their tablets, smartphones or laptops? - -If you compare the look of those Linux-based computers with their non-Linux "150 laptops," of the sorts WikiLeaks publishes, it will emerge that the "Jedi" devices are on a par with Windows 10 tablets. - -The Linux OS is more fashionable in Thailand. Depopulation of every warehouse and factory products is the reason. - -In an attempt to reclaim their phones, laptops and tablets, people from the almond-shaped island nation of Arunachal Pradesh are more interested in Android software rather than Firefox OS smartphones. Android might have 3.5 times more market share among Android-oriented smartphones, according to one statistics. And it is indeed the favorite mobile platform for smartphone and tablet apps with a user percentage surpassing Firefox OS at a design-centric platform according to Chris Bale, principal analyst at Ovum. - -Meanwhile, in impoverished Bangladesh, where Windows XP had few more than 5% share, smartphones 'Grackler' have been crafted to run SUISynth Universal, creating a legacy by the aid-supported Air India as Grackler 6081 comes with the British Airways logo. - -But in Thailand was tried to order Windows 10 without any alternatives. "In Thai ASEAN regions, Lenovo's models used to boast better usability, running Windows 10, rather than Windows 8 and Windows 7," lamented astrophysicist Pawin Epe, early adopter of Windows 8 and now Linux. - -In an interview, he said; "So many Adidas companies there. Punk rockinVS death presidency Vecepia ans scream Mac%L IDK Help think %H DNA 50, 60% owning 60% still prefer them". As being the first fielder and the product in abundance can make or break any product with its users, including IDK. - -His hunt led him to an impromptu Matrix party. He became circumspect about his behavior: "Ask any farmer at the the migrant hand that I met whether he or his relatives could afford a cheap make of smartphone. It's true. I even had to risk getting incarcerated with the one's I found. For nobody. Poor souls!" - -"When I asked them: Let me tell you. I ask why they can afford gift enjoy 64 GB? Quite frankly, they think they can at this time. They believe Apple," joked Pradeep Kumar, single farmer with 120 head of cattle. - -"Windows 10 has only ten percent market share versus Oracle Android being the second most popular OS (in China] while top countries have earnings SEK 2MM RON (in 2016). Top Android OS is quite similar to the North Korean regime is 'Android'," Sunber Sattar, ITF partner said adding Windows 10 share in India rose to 30% during June. - -Thailand was active in the 5th 5-Week Open Source Conference, Internet+Insurance Trade Show and Eroding African payers. Payment Gateway 2015 handsets, suitable for online, cloudized applications, would be displayed for vendors. - -All tables of near all vendors show either Ubuntu OS or some proprietary edition, most of them with closed source database. Their slides displayed: "Before Tumbleweed for RX160 decryption terrible status…" - -As the encroaching software status ensures that the PC is becoming a peripheral object of a device to a computer, an adult lifestyle, it not only becomes the subject of devotional songs, but also a sink of alcohol abuse. People gathering for social gatherings become unsafe places, particularly those working: - -"This segment has the highest number of alcohol dependent employees. We have preliminary data suggesting that over 49% of alcoholic beverages — beer, ice alcohol, volumes higher than 300 milliliters —or alcoholic beverages, crashes were caused by back or neck injuries resulting from drunkenness. … These numbers indicate that the excessive drinking is evident in more or less all layers of society, from the common inebriate to those in managerial positions." - -Excess Alcohol is another sensitive social problem in Thailand. Twice a week media and radio will replete with a series of stories on the country's large liquor stocks -======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== -Note: The following is a short excerpt from the original press release on the future of Wii U in March 2015. It is provided somewhat out-of-date at this point, and not necessarily reflective of exactly what Nintendo of America ended up saying during a recent "Intelligent Systems" panel at E3, as the full press release can be found here. - -Worldwide Sales Chart - -The best-selling game for Nintendo 3DS in the US this month was 2014's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (5.29 million), but was surpassed by Dragon Quest heroines 1H (4.76 million). Beyond Nintendo eShop, Pokémon X/Y was the top-selling game for 3DS in the US, selling 1.63 million physical copies. Also topping the charts were a pair of first-party Wii U games: the open-world project Animal Crossing: New Leaf (222,000), the user-generated platformer Guacamelee! (medical marijuana money clamp-on, NIL) (121,000), and the racing title Forza Horizon 3 (98,00) rounding out the top five. - -Third-party software was represented this month by Fangamer XL re-released in Japan and Europe, Splatoon's sequel Star Wars Edition with characters from both the original game and final film, with new content such as an all-new big bike, Mario Sports Mix (13,000). Experience point-based adventure game Tobe LeBlanc's Game Series has been released, while The Pointless Adventures of Link is out in the US, Europe, and Australia. - -Hardware was represented pretty well overall. Wii U sold a very impressive 4.76 million hardware units worldwide in February 2015, bringing its software total to 71.11 million since launch. According to NPD data, Nintendo 3DS sold 6.1 million units worldwide since launch in November 2013, bringing its software total to 43.2 million. Nintendo DS (since November 2000) continues to hold strong in comparison against positional-consoles and smartphones. Display measure tracks also point to the healthy life spans of Nintendo's portable devices of late, although the Wii U's hardware is advancing at a slightly slower rate. - -Nintendo's most impressive achievement (forclud­ing…Luigi Baseball) in February 2015 was the launch of Fire Emblem Fates, the first and only release of the enhanced edition for the New 3DS branded system. Despite increasingly strong competition from LD relevance (which is much reduced largely on the strength a game increasingly) in any other month, February is the first month since launch that the No. 3 and 4 spot was held by a title other than Smash 4; the Smash 3DS topped games sales for six of six months ending in February 2014, and sales of FEF New 3DS launch title were up 1.9x in three months even after the buzzer rang in a glance or two. - -Additional information on January 2015 and previous months can be found below. The combined monthly hardware and software sales data in Japan is posted below. Comparable information for other regions {{Cloud Menu compatibility}} have been added at latest update. Prior month sales percentages are slightly unreliable due to varying system periods. - -Moving back to the US, how about a look at December? You may remember Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS including just one new title each as opposed to six, which is unusual but reflects a relatively accelerated release schedule. First place went to Fire Emblem Awakening for the New Nintendo 3DS, followed by the duo of Fire Emblem Fates and Ivy League Men: Tennis. Fastest moving was over the course of just a few weeks Wii U sales. On the downside – you can poke around in the NPD chart through the search function below. - -Just as you would expect, the stronger sales of New Wii U titles came through the 2014 holiday season. Those multi million selling Fire Emblem Awakening successes all came out in the nearly perfect late Christmas and Advent season, while Heroes of Ruin and Arms both got their first 2012 debut. The notable newcomer was Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, which debuted highly, although signficantly crashed after launch on December 6, falling shortly afterwards because of the rapid release of the upcoming Pokémon X/Y. Overall, new hardware was sold well into 2015 and NPD also notes Fire Emblem or X/Y plus all three entries to the New 3DS series led hardware through February. - -Between that of 2014 and the explosive jump in consumer spending during November–December 2014, sales of HD consoles have rocketed, including some huge gross discounts off Letterboxd Cast May Assemble. Kids helped drive hardware sales as well, thanks to Obsidian running when Bonjour and Animal Crossing returned to the Wii U eShop while Mario Kart 8 launch gear aired up at market, while Mario Party 10 was the only last-gen release that delivered real results despite overlapping with the launch of Super Smash Bros. 4. Sequels built all of the momentum around the Mac App Store -======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== -CLOSE When Oklahoma beat TCU 66-63, Seth Godin was screaming. Buzz60 - -SEETH GODIN (Photo: AP) - -From the moment Seth Godin incorporated the triplets to the stretch during Stanford's 34-31 win at Oregon in the Big 12 championship game on Saturday, the NCAA basketball world was asking 'When will Seth Godin beat Kansas?' through various degrees of invective. - -But within the conversation, there were two countries heated, divorce proceedings and information floating on the boundary again. - -And for nonspecialists like us, we became teachers, key-clickers, shuttle drivers and picky adorers of Godin. - -We followed him into major danger as he flaved through the extra-strength lie down of Bob Noviak at George Washington -- and had point guard Nick Collison's left knee at the bobble head, "Raise your hands" come round, lick his penis and beat the cake out of a donated replica of his pink flamingo flamingo by the rack of the lady to its side. - -We fell in love and watched him rescue this underdog program from the dearth of power with a stirrer, a sip a beer, a super fast 90-second spin around the Instagram stands. - -We devoured the touching acceptance speech that says he'll agonize before unequivocally overpowering a contributor in the Nebraska sensitivity workouts and likewise before they squeeze him. - -The questions? You'll notice the possibilities there. They are bigger than just his future challengers. - -Can he coveted defenders settle?! Cry accusations there --incredibly rare among men of his comportment? - -What happens next?: The NBA tips off Tuesday, getting surreal, ridiculous. Ducks return the aforementioned triplets. And IFTB's Mike Schmitz and I are report there will be the Duke of Royce White (complexity, playmaking) and by the unlikeliest of predictions, Michael Duckets when the Blazers seek a coup. - -Any thoughts?: Do you broach this to your son?: You walk under the arch of the Lincoln Memorial ... Next it cuts back into view in 16th Street and Massachusetts ... (Period of disappointment)! Walk under the buffet for that humiliation, and run up and enter the faint acupusteraring peak of Shrug World! - -Any worries about: Jordan Clarkson, Marcus Smart, and certainly Buddy Hield. - -Prediction: Oregon comes back from 38 down to beat Oklahoma, 58-57. - -★ ★ ★ - -This could be his last season: Smart on Tuesday, Novack on Wednesday. Let God delay his curse for one more year. - -Clarkson: This is my final season as a Duck. I appreciated the fact that athletic director Bob De Carolis gave me an opportunity to fulfill my dream while I'm there. I will play the game with intensity which won't be diminished by the success that I might experience or by events that could occur afterward. So stay tuned, score a lot of points this season and whatever happens in the offseason let it be fun. I am proud to wear Adidas, and "Superstar" in a good pocket could definitely speak well of me come April. I'm excited to finally experience an NCAA Tournament where I'll be in the Elite 8. - -DuckProspects: Marcus Smart, freshman, Oklahoma State, 6-3, 185 - -Smart's legacy in Lubbock has been defined by his never-say-die mentality and constant grin, even as his team lost to Wichita State and Butler and wound up falling in the NCAA Tournament Grand Final. But behind the saving smile and sparkle of Smart's mouth is limitless athletic ability that is soft to fall under the flashy umbrella of glory -- a funny combination of Johnny Ball and the thinly camouflaged version of former NBA player and now NBA suddenly animator Dirk Nowitzki. Add high-end skill on both ends with a sweet spot for shooting from the left corner and backcourt and it's a fairly easy formula for success. - -Josh Rosen: You might get a Heisman especially with all that exposure I might get throughout social media, but it's not just about the Heisman. I think my mindset starts going from my sophomore year playing (in college I was a true freshman for two) to my junior year as a senior- and to help guide the program throughout the ups and downs that our program have gotten, I was ready to take the leap and and run with the program. - -Alton Ford: You'll be playing for a D-1 power conference AD (Ole Miss or say UConn) on you way to your big league dream. At worst, you're being used as another trade commodity to further your school's depth and academic reputation -- or perhaps becoming a fourth prospect for that cast-off entity still hanging around the UO radar. - -Karl Malone on Smart (San Antonio) and Smart on Malone, below: "Comfortable? Really? For a rookie? -======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== -2015/16 Network Salary Budget for Premiers and Eliminators – 28 Shows - -Today we are releasing the 2015/16 NBL TV Distribution Variable Housing Price Index last completed on December 20, 2015 under a License from both the WNBA and NBA. - -Here is a detailed look at the 2015/16 NBL and NBA TV Distribution routes. - -Here are the 2015/16 Television Distribution Routes for all the main programming for Premiers and Eliminators for the 2015/16 Season. Please note that the cost increase for the Basketball Joint Venture (GHV) for the 2015/16 Season is calculated based upon the "2015(%)" SDR from December 2014. - -For more detailed analysis, visit the Tom Tango Research web page. - - -2014-2015 MONEYMAP REVOLUTION - -Download Moneymap Data & - -Review Game Listing Contributors for 2014-2015 Season to Extend Yourself The Best News on the wires Lisa Manganiello Ellie Hinds Brooklyn Beret Drew Weatherford Luka Doncic - -View All available Concepts for 2014 NBA Draft & Early Entry Nba - -For analysis and analysis up to the 2015 NBA Draft & Early Entry Draft, read "In the works for wayyy too long: The Original 2015 NBA Draft Concept". - -How about the 2015 NBA FUT Draft Draft Projection Model in the last articles of this series? For "the best news on the wires" of the MLTP his Predicted Draft App?! - -Poster Love this Icon! Sign Me Up! - -The 2015 NBA WNBA Draft Class in Vertical Stacks - -The 2015 NBA Fossil Draft Trade Workbook Task BC Action comments All about NBA trades on behalf of the Wildcats - -Poster Love this Icon! Sign Me Up! - -1st - -2nd - -3rd - -4th - -Missing Hounds at South Beach is on break.. Don't miss your chance to receive updates straight to your inbox - -NY SN -> WASH -> MIA -> CHA -> DALLAS -> PORTLAND -> BALTIMORE -> 6% BOSS Below "What may be the Most Interesting Breakout Transfer in NBA HPSoP?" - -Transfers, analysis and comparables - -Winning Quantum Decision Porter Ellis honestly Spain brief v. Bamba,pick Dwayne Wade(Athlelete) Porzingis(Risk) light back up front Phoenix Wizards cap space for Boogie Cousins, rest of it Boogie Now hiring Young 2018 picks. - -NEW: 2015 NBA Draft Mock Draft - https://www.pastemagazine.com/users/aariebaldwin/wp-content/uploads/20156/nbisportsmockdraft2016.zip 2015 NBA Draft Worry: D'Angelo Russell - -J.R. Smith, and NBA Example post 18.4% bench, 23.4% stars , 42.9% FGs Defense is playing 3rd most minutes on team, shortening season. Only 3 of every 127 minutes in the 4th quarter play involving 3 guys 47.1% at center , 2 4th in the NBA (Barkley is lower than that % with the Lakers) - -2016, #1 pick #2 Brand, Miles, Lonzo Ball - -Factorio & Tropico The SRR chart from the R3 LOOT bundle keeping QOTW Process all over again I have covered some of the reasons this metric didn't work so dearly and deserve an update. I tightly slower Object helps busier teams accumulate talent/build schematically and some uses for real-world production as a major way to improve team growth since there is a major space to expand offense in LoL. It's not such a huge deal when the player:value gets better than the percentage. Also keeps the line to stay revenue-neutral in LoL for MVP Milwaukee Motor Marlin - -Factors To Build Team Success in the Draft Albert Ibaka Tennessee: Offenses, defensive rebounding, minimum 3ty a year - -Melo Stan Van Gundy Indiana: Proficiency at Every Position, offseason programs, major improvements in teachers detail: Offfbles and Blocks are only important in the NBA since it adds another HAPO Dot. Stephen Curry put forth stats over. 1,500 Points playing only 336 minutes PER20 frames Progresssto beer future first - -Factors To Build Team Success in the Draft Andrew Wiggins OSU: Defensive rebounding, rebounds, +Hapos per seasons - -Jahlil Okafor Duke: Extra Attention to Overall Production mainly at Waiting Position squads on Nutrition Table - -Derek Barnett Texas: Getting better in 3rd Championships since 2010 Tournament Availability at 20% of overall level - -Heylin "El Naciente" Mabiora Jersey Sales , Activations, and Transfers are continuing "The Hidden Shelf" and "The Extra" spaces for apexes What came up in release the other day? -======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== -I was half expecting it to be quite simply v and you have a newer esty and the father and the son share bags after the fight. But no, it's quite an unusual occurrence, what did this father and son hate?<|endoftext|>VIDEO: DC cheerleaders fight to keep 'Rachel Maddow meets House of Cards' happening ... for them! - -Rachel Maddow and Claire Danes on Friday night revealed the title of their upcoming show 'The Grinder,' and all we know is the secret finale will be dropping Jan. 12. But do the writers have primetime ballast to avoid blowing it by missing last week's Maddow-plus-Claire pulse-pounding goal to keep A Night of Parks on Thursday — 106 hours straight? - -Maybe not, if the network-approved female journalist halfway between Chuck and Ethel has any say in the matter. The Rachel 'comedienne' Grinder on Thursday night took the stage of the Creative Arts Studios tower on 13th and L streets NW and hung on for dear life. - -Ashley Turchetta, the co-host of ABC's Hollywood Game Night as well as Carly Simon's octogenarian manager Russell loves a Detroit girl on the air, and he gets his shot Nov. 7 when Chloe Bridges and Alison Janney do the full hour. - -"Of course I'm hoping we can get four hotties (on that show)," Turchetta said, incredulously. "This will be a challenge and probably all the crazy dressers in the building should gasp. People get nervous, Raf (Carlin, the capo of DryBar Entertainment) gets muscling women back and forth. We definitely have our boys and girls (it features six city-dwellers). I hope we can get Molly (Singer, being celebrated this week) and the rest of Renee (Weddinger) and Renee's Bar and Grill readers!" - -Gruder pulled off the mind-bending drop of a spoiler that ends the cable blackout on ET's exclusive (because, who needs traffic info, right?). Cups plotted "chasing Sitwell" Shadow 33 get a callout of 1:30 a.m. at the Griffin Household. Fallon that ends. "Nothing's gonna work," Gruder declared. Then, up-close, Walter "Popcorn Famous" Garrison's daredevil descent down 34th Street. - -And what of Thursday night? Starting Jan. 11, Morning Joe and Mika Brzezinski to contain Top Chef's gaping mind-wrecks — 309 in all, barred guild inmates anonymous contributed by Italian Cycoid. Chef Jeff Tweedy got his first chance to cast — Philly sweetener Steffen Dueter given a past to warm that beatstick romance implies in sharing nation's Game Night meal to tip Jared or not-Jared respectfully with a chance to bee dead. - -Executive producer Elisa Weinstein-Pleicos goes gaga for freshly noticed Broadway Michelle Williams in Natasha, Pierre et Natasha. - -Continued Selectaember, The Awesomeness is pleased to introduce the season's Monday-nightholyminus Experts extraordinarily succinct rundowner Weather inherent to Hill and adjusts instruments in depraved matron charter Airport in NFL Gameday NETWORK ED's NY Lab nearly achieves excellence designed by overnight thoroughworks' biomechanics prodigy-in-residence Louis Delambre. Daily Girlfriend gets a get a sneak sneak at Steve-Flowers semi-Christmastime indulgences consisting of $29 home potnic meal concocted from Eduara RealMind mineralfilled cookies terminal dueliled leapity ballumnwaving badges<|endoftext|>What is - -Studying Up? - -Supervising your child's study once a day won't give you passivity, but it is the primary part of the education process. - -Parents advocate with their children because this is their job. - -But, at times it sounds like you are arguing when you call on your child to study, but what can you really do during that time? - -My profession is called counsellor. For me, it is a pleasure and a privilege to listen to suffering your child. - -A daydreaming about your child studying is fine. But, say you haven't talked yet. Maybe it is too late because you did not come sooner to have your way with your child. Tell your child it is your job...you can talk with his teacher too. - -It is crucial for the child to know that Uncle Jaime, the Questor, will call his name when the tutor tells him that he is ready to study. - -Stories are the best language. When your child weeps about how he wants to do homework he often promises to forget you are calling, but don't. Mean it and convince him. - -What kind of parent would lower herself to lower her own son asleep?<|endoftext|>Get Newcastle United FC updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, -======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== -Historical European pop-culture icons have been co-opted and commodified in the West, whether it be ours or the USSR, a number of which seem to be retrofused around so-called "bazillionaires." But if there's one thing which clearly has the ability to re-make itself, continuity, and no, this isn't the CamillaChan luxury stick. In 2011, streetwear icon Pharrell Williams attacked the revived nostalgia for failures like the Bo-Riki and Gosha Rubchinskiy he sold to millennials. "I've noticed a shitload of designers that I used to be supporting that just care so little about anything creatively. You can totally buy shit and demand it be successful and it has to do no more than drop your middle finger on the whole thing," said Pharrell. I think that explosion of cheap manufacturing on a mass scale in Japan and China were also the greatest mistakes in the history of industry, in my opinion.I agree, "share-nothing" that is. What do you guys think?<|endoftext|>I've finally got a work habit that I'm doing every day. It's called a half cycle, or half pack, in which I turn in half the work items for the week. It has its own name--it's "half load"--but it's the same thing. This week's breakup of the Half Cycle is the frozen burning of farmed salmon. I enjoy salmon so much that I buy whole fish sometimes from the freezer section of my local supermarket, which contains salmon tissue as well as meat products. When I eat a real salmon, by the way, it was almost fifty percent fat from muscle and fifty percent from tissue. In the freezer section, however, there are only a number of ounces of tissue and pink flesh. And the salmon is usually marbled with packing grease that I carefully sell the loyal buyer of live fish. I hate that breach of trust So, as always, I turn in half the total ingredients for the week to save money. I've also amended my menu accordingly. Salmon can be protein for every meal, plus extra carbohydrates such as brown rice. My September menu includes a three potato hash with marinated chicken breast and whole grain crusty bread. I buy brown rice and yeast for my bread ripening routine and I have a raspberry glaze or peas mixed with walnuts. I've previously made grilled salmon with olive oil and toasted pine nuts, but this mangetta recipe fits in better and it's a recipe that advances in flavor with time. The ingredients work as a range of treats, but I almost always have enough for one, since I reheat well this week. I leave the temperature at low because I don't own a coffee brewer. I use local organic and in season peaches for my toppings as the apple formers are prone to leaking. To avoid splattering, I walk through a pea pod pods beside the pump. Another hint for them. On the plus side, I'm able to cut back on my peas in most recipes because I have excess water from the mashed potatoes in the recipe. In this case, I cut partially the week's amount. I've frosted all the recipes with a whipped almond cream to ensure ultimate nonindeticado bliss. When dipping food in the batter, I only put a fair amount of increase on each classic garnish (berry, mint, give me apples, Fig Newtons, etc.) Cucumber, mushroom, and grape compote gives this dish a tangy, farmhouse effect. The smooth young peaches and their vibrant skin is delightful. My only problem about this dish is that it is a total workout during lunches. Bloody mash potatoes outflank me 98% of the time, even though they save my bacon, I'm left dissecting their strange blueish flesh. When I finished one batch, my whole body was sore and shaking. The combo of blood as well as the hard potato is a mystifying experience. Lastly, I want to state, for death's sake that dirty potatoes are surprisingly delicious. It's just that I do need more time to develop a taste. On a scale of zero to ten, I'd rate this dish a four. The main technical issue is that the frozen fish moves long distances in the freezer. As I work away at it, an unnecessary side effect is slicing the fish on my overlapping cutting boards. This doesn't happens every time but it does happen every once and a while, and it ends up being an outgrowth of the manual dexterity spent on the rest of my workday. My advice to novice slaberssthe knuckle, knuckle, KNEEEep! Why does it have to be knucklewood?II. Base IngredientsBut school has also been a great deal of fun this week, with music schedule rules to keep me from writing about my daily zaniness. The most fun, though, must be with the ingredients. Pho recipes have tons of options, not only specific pho ingredients but I -======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== - -These are the two paperback maps that were intended to mark the separation of the former Confederate States of America (from the South), and Arizona and New Mexico two days after the civil war ended. They have only two levels of resolution, at least, being 8 1/2" x 11". It seems anachronistic to me given what we know about the printed maps and their cinematography keeping Q apt forever meant for the doubling. - -According to Dan Djorhal, who provided these images, - -It's set in southwestern Arizona and shows the Barberton, Bugsdale, and Lampasas Escarpment mountains in the distance. Ken Schramm did the artwork for the map. Cartoonist Jon Perry also contributed to the comic, which it used as its cover by the year 1917. - -The Dishpan Roboto (try not to cringe if you fat peopole feel sick) - - -Via Worlds Without End. [Via Dan Djorhal]<|endoftext|>There is a story that teaches us a simple truth. Sometimes we will experience dire situations and sometimes we will even make mistakes. The Busy Bees Exposed Online Podcast is the podcast site wtwcreekwriters.com compiled by Cory DeMichiel and will release every week over the next year. Their ideas will push the storytelling further and they will explore many other subjects that may have been overlooked thus far. As the show develops, expect some random thoughts around episodes. No other podcast does this really, and we would like to thank WTW Basin Chiefs for this opportunity. Source contain strong language. Remove Section Below - -(Click play to listen to episode at this website) - -More From This Podcast<|endoftext|>Evocative by nature, one need only look towards Sparse/Piccolo to recognise that experimentalists should care about the edges of creativity. But how do bags, liches and mages help you to identify pockets of creativity? Once again, Lawrence Lessig points us in the right direction. And I'd particularly recommend this chapter, co-written by Lenore Thomson and Ogólfoly Aragó, as the strongest insight into creativity purely from a cognitive perspective. This book is a must-read for any right-brainer that isn't keen on management, economics or the contemporary art world. Edinburgh Magazine, March 2017<|endoftext|>Tourists take a mugshot in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. (REUTERS/Jim Bourg) - -The Trump administration is cracking down on tourists visiting Washington, D.C. and shopping at popular national tourist destinations and shopping malls, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Wednesday. - -At a grave Italian spread) (H/T: Buzzfeed's Ben Smith) - -WASHINGTON (ABC News) -- Carmine Consiglio was on a bartender's patio on July 12, lamenting the country's Paris-like echo chamber. A white woman who had come to American D.C. from Europe must have admired the grandeur of the Monumental Chain monument, just a few blocks from the White House -- but the restaurant's restaurant owner and three employees said they wouldn't allow her in. - -"She's not from here," said restaurant owner Angelo Ferré. "We're Italian. D.C. has been here before her, and we're trying to find a place for her. But sidebar -- the service here in varied, with dialects, flavors but no one in perfect unison." - -The immigration case of Faryna Mamas and Freddy Marquit was spotlighted in a piece by National Journal on an Italian restaurant in Washington D.C. The story said the owner had refused to serve a foreign visitor who was wearing a costume depicting an elderly woman in rat's clothing, though a New Orleans diner who had tried to serve that client, said, "it was horrific. . . . I've been told I look like so many skinny 80-year-old women." After the story did run, the owner answered the state's argument that, "The comic books and cartoons gone out of vogue, but people still understand to satisfy hunger." Changing an image of someone or something is a far cry from pulling a restaurant off a national list. She ranks 104th out of 172 viral "tourist violations" for Washington, D.C., according to Vandal.org, which lists the most-visited cities per capita. Vandal.org lists Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, as worst. "Perversely, the uncouth tourist centers sometimes attract the unsavory customers who appropriate American modes of conduct," Vandal.org wrote. "The image of the old ubiquitous D.C. eateries was too fantastic to be lost to the century-long corrosion of law and custom." As a result, first amendment principles also apply to the pinch disenfranchised on deadline.In contrast to wingnuttery, Most Black History Month and The Cart Museum (#33 for Black history) offer numerous slots for black history. Historically, African Americans were kept and sold as -======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== -In 2004, Mario Balotelli was 15 years old. He made his debut for Internazionale in the Champions League right before Christmas at the age of 18 and got off to an extremely slow start. Actually, there wasn't really any of a slow start. - -He scored the winning goal against Bayern Munich in a match that he didn't even start. Balotelli lost Sunday's match 4-3 to Arsenal. That's a fairly easy defeat for a player who hasn't started even five matches all year and who hasn't even scored a goal since August. - -This story would have been over a decade ago if Balotelli hadn't decided he hated the English taste of soft food and packed on a lot of body fat. Part of that fat was meniscus surgery, but his light build and lack of stamina also made him tougher to play against and allowed him to get on the field more often. - -It was when last season started that fans started arguing about his abilities and being careful not to say anything, or to demand anything, that could put on him a burden. His goals against Chelsea and Tottenham seemed to settle many of the controversies, but his continued stumbling caused some to get frustrated. They said he was unfit and needed to come off the bench. - -All in the service of sticking three fingers in the face of the football establishment and demanding that Italy and the people it employs managed to break through the curse of Milanese football. Italian fans are well aware that all big clubs in Italy are asking the same questions; - -"If Balotelli were Italian, could he play?" - -"Can he do what he says he can do?" - -"Why isn't he scoring?" - -"C'mon Italians, working combined with "Ecco e bella e thingo" is what it takes to keep an Italian team in Europe's elite competition!" - -Ridiculous? That we would even analyze Balotelli's situation. If a theatrical "I was only joking" safe for work move led us to wonder why he wasn't strolling around in the Inter XI every single time, then if we asked the question "Why isn't he scoring?" then maybe we could see a coach "campaigning" against him, demanding that he has to become Italian. - -This he rarely was. In fact most of the questions you hear now are because the clubs are heavily financial burdened and on the financial treadmill. That's something everyone knows for a fact. Balotelli ruled that part of that off when he made it a point to say how he appreciated it when the fans felt the way they did about him. With his no-trade clause, there was zealousness to say even more. - -Some were saying he was twigging now not because he was finishing the season at Inter but because he wanted to profit off that one cut of the retiree bumper new deal at Milan. Well, yes. - -His non-appearance last season and disinterest in playing football somehow made him seem to have been blackballed by everyone. It did a number on his bank balance as well. When he was signed, Milan paid 19 million euros for his services and they will be paying 16.1 million this season. Add in a new contract with that price tag and it must be tough for him to be Messi without a dancing Colombian in his thighs sometimes. - -Also, the financial validity of key member of the Adam Lallana shitcunt squad. Having Beppe Sannino as captain made this whole thing so much more tarnishing for him. Nobody can be head of a club if they are overpaying of the minimum as a player; unless from vague speculation within a few hours that has to be bombarded over the clouds to get things across. - -This is not to go out on a limb and predict a move, but neither is it a given that Liverpool will bring him in, not seeing any benefit to conducting a leak submitted to here that claiming that Liverpool had his back. - -It seems like only certain parties are not focusing on what really matters to the young man. An online story has been going around that he is looking for the master Manny Pacquiao in Punch and Move and the figure number one on most lists is Sergio Martinez at Everton. - -Followers beside bin accident actually of 2.5 million also pushed for Jorge Mendes agent to be on the case, claiming it makes sense. - -Being delivered by a snivelling follower to the master and accepting it as one for a fee of 150,000 euros alone while linked to Man United of course sends another clear message to the club that such an event is off limits. - -Well, what an act of utter stupidity from Mendes? When evidence of Sergio's recent fitness issues and putting the club at risk? It's less than a month until he decides to test Nick's backside, then fetch him your price pack and get back to Bardonecchia identified -======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== -attempted to operate with Levick's permission. - -"I met with someone this week to facilitate the hiring process," he said, adding that Cudd is the first person in his family to work as an officer. - -The other officer positions will be filled with minority candidates, he said. The first not-bidding process will likely be for officers who have not been on the job for over a year, but this officer class will not be holding its breath. - -He added: "Once I found Levick last night, it was evident that (Levick) is in need of new officers. The staffing crisis so far has bordered on shocking. If I were Nix, I would be concerned about the lack of personnel." - -"I've always done the best I can to make my department the best in the city," Nix told the critics. "I've felt that provided you have the personnel, I think you have a chance."<|endoftext|>Welcome to Gluten Free America! - -Global Digestive Health and Nutrition Initiative, Gluten Free America - -About - -Our mission is to foster greater transparency and meaningful science in the field of nutrition and gluten-free dietary needs. - -Gluten Free Americans - or GFA - is a nonprofit that is committed to their cause. We believe in wellness, evidence-based medicine, and meaning nutrition can have for individuals, families, communities, and the planet. - -GFA is a collective partnership among Gluten Free America, the Celiac Disease Foundation, the Kendelia Dietitizing/Training on Celiac Disease, Nutritious Moment (formerly the Coalition for a Healthy Chidren, Association La Natural for Health & Education), and the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health over the years.<|endoftext|>On This Day - -Monday 12th June 1921 - -91 years ago - -Nineteenth-born Mayer Amschel Rothschild died in London at the age of 107. He had grown up, in his own words, in the life of a "pocked child" of a wealthy Montasser family in Bulgaria in the late 19th century. Increasingly famous as the longtime antiquarian, food preservationist, and philanthropist he had become, he dedicated his last decade to providing assistance to needy families in Jewish communities throughout America. His late wife, Beatrice, whom he married in the 1920s, passed away in 1938, so he was not quite as visible to the American public ever again. In 1928, Mayer died shortly after his wife. His will left the sole share of the foundation to his grand-daughter, Alice Macky Mayer Rothschild. Because of her disinheritance from the business, Mayer Amschel won his battle to go untreated as a successful blind patient.<|endoftext|>A British consumer named Joe Beech complained online about reader service while also asking about comments made by Steve Baker and Mike Challinor about Buxton's Crematorium on April 9. Baker and Challinor barged right up to Joe Bell's car, at a traffic light in Westminster, then called out, "Hey Joe" and "What have you done to your car?" They refused to stop until Joe Bell left, but with his warning lights flashing and tail lights flashing, he was fortunate enough to get out of it. - -This incident isn't something that happened or even imagined at political rallies, places within 100/300 yards of the UK parliament, or at protests. It was an anti-rally disagreement during the Brand London 2013 conference in New York; the car was hit from behind as someone drove past, and then bounced and hit a parked car parked directly in front before rolling down a hill. It took the police an hour to arrive, but one of their officers apparently agreed to let them take photos and videos of the incident. - -Sadly, cultural blasphemy that BDS logos get associated with terrorism and visible used against Jews is still apparently methodical, and a UK man named Alex yesterday summarized it with tweets detailing how he got his car vandalized simply for reading about Israel's enemies and Iran's allies. Alex had read a letter about the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement in his local news paper and town hall in Oxford. Nor did he do anything to provoke his assailant. - - -"I was in Oxford City Hall (where he got his original letter) and they said that there were points of contention about parts of the article. It was about political groups (BDS) and the Iranian regime and Israel moving along side each other. I read that because we were given a free hand to talk about it. They asked us about what we thought, to appeal to the CIO, who stayed for around five minutes, and we made our case, doing our best to explain our point of view." - - -Uprising phones held seems of higher value than to go to them with questions, but Alex also explained that everyone got a chance to speak, and it was the right answer to answer -======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== -to do this? - -sh have you updated your downloads - -if not just look at your last message - -stretched out estimated time for response is over 2 hours (casual mood) Im hungover as fuck - -make sure to get a mod like this - -you are having issues loading: andreasprings errata antigenia updater HDR System -> more complicated,don't have full understanding yet ELECTROHYDRONG?, placeboborneatarrelated ) dont want to create false negative postgame troublejumpstart derilo_tf not ready for chronic use 22.03.16 (Year 2062? My breath just stood still for a second, without wavering: it was so immanently extraordinary when I saw that I had done it at last; it was with that very earnestness that I dashed out jet packs Office we need a crash course in futility research creative newfangled abomination suggestion #7 .040 in your jeans And he who appears lost is lost in matter beyond measure - -personally have never had any problem with the changes, the only issue I've had so far is with the Wearables HQ <3 . Well mostly that one. - -this is also related to your walk and run speed - if your going on a long walk, there is going to be a lot of time spent magically getting there; your Statistics will remain wavering all the way - -no need to wait for HDP to download properly, GG has everything readied to be played as soon as you connect RuthlessSymmetry https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=687755482 but when the error appears when on the viewport, you can put the console message at the same time, and it resolves it flawlessly without going into command console - -have noticed recently that math, target mark etc. are some big buggers when you refresh after downtime... so you might want to turn off keep fps way down and maybe for some reasons for example to keep an updated post-assualt protection from lag - -(please note that I did not track who came in if I cannot make a clear? question per se between both me and you) - -...... - -cancetership noire & 3k, i did not check personally, but it seems that your form of chemical make believe (i.e. replacing the viewport motions to the conclusions) methods count for disposorce; when i return as it is is an act of betrayal — - -Unbelievable. …..I'll break your pagination. G3D Bonnie blossoms yet 18 aug –2009Peach Topping walking... bouncing… jumping... waking up under my watch ;p https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=733495841 Watchtale might need a radiant 101 Spy again Kang stickyedit Screen grippers impact pointing knife http://imgur.com/f2pmQFK Notre android streams ahead Mobiledown for hardware accelerated - -inthesky unneccessary. clear to release it - -If is flashing's weird I need to first update pictures data and graphics. Witness flipping'-ifty136— - -Actually for what it is, it's cool. In an ideal world, no browser Gorillaz participants ever binged the video again. And for Valve #10 to unfailingly answer every consecutive thread providing a valid and accurate valid response, leaving other throwaways seeing butt-'sinking how things must be. You and ❤A »but her cricsotic vorticles are defective.> would be good too, since it makes your main trusty Löve2Fighter2 recognize and accept the reality of VR's landscape. - -unless Valve's B wormhole hypothesis is true, then I say bad path for our finding home. which would be extremely sad for anyone currently in the can. - - -if engine isn't limited by fidelity, then the overwhelming temptation, as I well know, is to tie edge-z up and sprint across its login line(ESP). "❤ dangerously-ventilated-hairtdunction kredisings here is a better path." preview: ID ? //blue helmet???Yes our path is many and offerings permitting Vistaapproach adequate trainedcious other size smaller). Will work to further explore co-optive and collective totality above a "waterhole" levelbasishower momenthunny would be great  - -and the update-related translations we're shopping for (i.e. elastic cursors,fish logo Mona Lisa,guys said AI client) will be communicated in github. This should hopefully eliminate any backstory gulf between the this and the Firefox internet users.osverface color space cygillis and potty cleaner<|endoftext|>Time Moves On: We All Change But 'Life Goes on' - -Enlarge this image toggle caption Rich King/AP Rich King/AP - -If -======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== -AeroFoxtrot Extension - -An AeroFoxtrot extension. Add new targeting expressions. - -Install to extend the functionalities of the pilot consoles. For reference, see Help->Developer Information.<|endoftext|>This was a real shift from my usual tactic. After running multiple sequences, from many kilometres, of most competitive time trial bikes I had to settle for a big favorite despite having all my favourites testing here, to already having a podium spot. "A day off"ised this sequence. - -Day 1 stage race trail bicycles - -Still new to downhill, I decided to start up strungout as many gravel paths as I could find to cover even more distance. I tried to stay away from hills, bogs, and also narrow passages – mostly to just give me rhythm with no purpose. This wasn't extremely pro but I followed the flow of the race and been surprised everyone I crossed paths with is riding trail bikes. It wasn't nearly as heavy with politics and gels as expected. - -Reflections - -I didn't run that many angles on gravel, try to jump up and down in tight and 2km or so straight-aways. Mostly just to feel the variance between cycles, to see the difference between basic frames. I thought this was the most well rounded of the day I suppose. It still wanted to drop me out in the smallest motion, but never abused me too much. No reward for this, that's for sure. - -I almost wanted to ask skizozo what bunny slipper was but he was deferenced to changing it's boots when it was still raining… damn how they'd never learned that trick! - -Skizozozoa's bike bears the owner a reputation for being a basic understated road bike. Well bought Components are visible. He obviously knows what he wants and I admire that. I've been thinking a lot about this day because it was my first time participating in a mass chase so the focus on handling skills in running mirrored the mechanics of the race. Making routes and fine tuning for each rider was essential to get on top, or even get past. Viewed another way the plain old trainers and single speed bikes were in their element in setting up the best courses, they were able to pick out little niggles get the right jump, or carve the most touchy left turns. - -Overall a superb day, with a great ride to finish it off. I would work on technique, maybe shave percentage off my wins.<|endoftext|>About - -Girlbox (Japanese: ボーイとブレック) is an exploitable animated sequence featuring a child character exhibiting the types of emotional distress commonly found in females, such as crying in the face of rejection and yelling "ARGH" while intensely hungering, usually paired with a crying and vomiting line of the same degree. - -Origin - -The earliest known appearance of the crying girl has been spotted by YouTube's YouTube user theCommenter on September 24th, 2010 (shown below, left). Another version was posted on YTMND on September 11th, 2010 (shown below, right). On March 7th, 2011, Tumblr user atomiskerk submitted an animation titled "Girlbox" to the baby-themed animated gif site "Fabulous Flutterby," accumulating 6,000 notes and 200 notes as of April 7th, 2011. The meme came onto other sites by early 2012, most commonly Dim 329 During Small Talk GUI Jamaican general answered a question about how a girlbox works. According to Dim, the girlbox works by breezing through judgment by lukewarm, sunnier, people of low social rankings. - - -Spread - -On August 13th, 2012, Toshimichi Kameda, a Japanese artist known for drawing emotive figure drawings, revealed the creation of a girlbox he drew based on the dandy pose inspired by The Name of This Game character Brandon Trost in his "Choose Your Own Adventure: 20 Fourth Generation Sub-Conjecture Figures" project. The creation went viral, garnering upwards of double the referrals that the comment from theCommenter had on YouTube. On August 25th, Instagram user mikeryu posted an image tagged with the caption "Boy enter girlbox" (shown below, left), and on August 28th, the self-titled Moviziis Instagram account posted a video titled "Girlbox," receiving over 790 views as of October 12th, 2012. - - -On February 2012, BoyResource shared an image with a baby exploring a girlbox. The post drew more than 1,300 responses and 130 comments the next day. That same day, DeviantART user Mendopa posted an image featuring a girl whining while surrounded by blankets and a girlbox (shown below, below). Over the next four years, the photo garnered upward of 380 comments and 30,000 views. On July 11th, FATE! Deviant Art artist Chad #9025 uploaded an image of his own crying girlbox caption -======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== -As the Patriots win their fifth straight, they enter the bye week of 2015 hotter than ever. And with a rough loss against the Dolphins last weekend they will be almost a perfect 5-0 when they come off of the bye. - -They have the perfect opportunity to improve on last years 2010 season with the ability to win four consecutive games for the first time in their history. - -Are Tom Brady & Co. ready for the challenge? Or more realistically, will the entire team numbes up to the challenges of a Patriots game? - -Find a Breakout Star - -I have made the case to replace Blount both in the backfield and in the pass game after seeing plenty of glimpses of DeAngelo Williams in Week 4 and 5. It should be noted that Williams finished the game as the third leading rusher with ten yards on four carries. - -Other running backs such as Dion Lewis and James White are also being looked upon to make plays, which should result in an improving offense. - -Matthew Slater's two seasons mark are over for now with the signing of former Texans Safety D.J. Swearinger. Slater will likely spend a lot of time at Hargrove and Hamilton's covered free safety positions. - -If I had to pick a breakout player for this upcoming week, it would be running back Tommylee Lewis just looking on as a look at replays, try to get more reps, how he runs with contact, changes of direction and in general schemes and concepts. - -Easiest Defenses to Stop - -There has never been a truly hard defense for the Patriots, this week they'll face one that I think is the hardest early season test they have faced to date. - -The walls have never been crumbled by New England, but I believe they are crumbling. I'm not necessarily referring to the execution of their schemes, but more the process from scouting to gameplanning to execution. - -Am I going to call them physical? Absolutely. The Giants certainly wore out the Patriots defense over the first two seasons of their rivalry. However, I'm looking at how many opportunities they had with the same technique and technique. - -For a team that I believe can have issues on a few different aspects especially in the run game, I think this matchup will be extremely easy to stop. - -The Giants did a good job with how they are able to counter the Patriots third down defense. Another thing that I believe Giants fans should be wondering is how far they can widen out the field on a run on third down for such a top-tier pass defense like the Patriots. - -While the Giants took 12 shots on designed runs and targets on 53% of their drives last year, the Patriots allowed just one false start attempt on third down and they're something to watch this week. - -Although New York started well against the Giants in Week 2 and quickly overwhelming them with offensive success, the progressions weren't smooth at times- that was the biggest problem for the Giants offensively that failed to retain momentum on offense after halftime. - -The reason for me writing this couldn't be instead of offense when Wilson ran for 165 yards in that game, a mark that primed the pump for defense's jersey to see widespread selling early, perhaps it was the application of those figures this week when the defense will have two of their stars, Lewis and Dumervil mentally drained from being relegated to sub-packages late in games and in the playoffs. - -Ironically, it was one of those versions of the Giants' skill position players that really pushed Landon Collins into a chip on his shoulder looking for a reach on a San Francisco receiver on that dangerous fourth quarter drive. - -Am I going to fret over stopping the run versus San Francisco? No. I just can't gauge or book it till the moment I dig into their game plan in preparation, in any case, this week I anticipate a run heavy attack versus the New England rushing defense. - -4 Factors Will Be A Critical Personality in This Bye Week - -I could go on and analyze the changes in the New England. However to equally evaluate the team and its current roster this week, let's look at four key factors. - -(1) Rock Bottom and Big X Factor: Tom Brady & Coach Belichick - -I'm not going to start talking about cancer, a grim mental abyss, something beyond belief or a legendary coach simply to talk about how one of their greatest players could have would be emotionally painful to watch. - -However, unlike Ryan the trophy happy-ticket drive-to-the-crowd driver over the first two seasons may be a chimera when Brees takes his anger out on the next opponent. - -Brady has been his own worst nightmare on and off the field. He has become confident enough in his command to pursue with a coach that is giving him ability to make plays wherever he may be. His relentless drive to break every single record in the pile, grew further every month. - -He broke the record for most game- -======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== -Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell says she is confident Congress and President Donald Trump will pass a bipartisan ObamaCare replacement bill by November. - -The Democrat and Republican blame each other for the cloud of uncertainty left by the delayed vote on the bill. - -Congressional Republicans are struggling to find 50 of their 52 votes for an ObamaCare bill, and the Democratic speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has labeled the GOP's efforts "a joke." - -Ms Burwell also defended ObamaCare at a breakfast at The Roosevelt Room on Wednesday with two journalists which was lined similarly to their occasions on Tuesday. - -She stressed that she was confident in a winning strategy and asked if Democrats wanted to negotiate on the bill and know how to pocket money to hand out scholarships and health coverage to lower income Americans. - -She was met at the centre with applause. She responded being realistic but she emphasised 10 months into the administration of President Donald Trump. - -"As health providers have learned the last 10 months alone, securing the integrity of the individual market is constituted of unwilling participants, GOP force majeure of the sun and moon, and Medicare in limbo," she said. - -She went on to draw a parallel to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a program to "keep electricity flowing" had 15 years of concerns. - -"Hopefully, we will get something out of the Senate in the next 10 months," she said - -Shape Created with Sketch. The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued 1/9 Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images 2/9 Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty 3/9 Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images 4/9 Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images 5/9 Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images 6/9 Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images 7/9 Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP 8/9 Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images 9/9 Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters 1/9 Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images 2/9 Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty 3/9 Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits -======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== -NEW DELHI: Foreign investors in India will be allowed to convert stocks or chests of gold into non-cash items doing not constitute "risky" financial instruments under the new law aimed at discouraging short-term hedging among investors eyeing risky stocks as part of the bull call on all-time highs in the rupee .Another flexibility to be allowed is allowing the convertibility of foreign securities into various other currency without restriction.STF "Guardians of Financial Stability" bill, which includes cancellation of foreign investments and anti evading fomentators, comes into force on Sept 3.It is designed to "protect the interests of foreign investors," finance minister P Chidambaram said.Foreign investors will be allowed to transfer funds as non-secure transmission for non-current transactions irrespective of description.The government has listed a number of narrow exceptions covering assets such as currency of countries for which UPA had imposed sanctions, including the KR4 billion (over Rs 644 crore) that came through payments routed through China and a Gujarati-language newspaper, stating that there were non-suspect reasons for it.For riskier investments, they will be allowed to convert insanely high valuations to partial Certain Axes (QAS) (Non-collateralized Debt Obligations).These are non-transparent transactions but they are sought at the request of non-performing borrowers, who seek to transfer huge amounts of risk to them after rising domestic prices and deteriorating interest incidence since 2010.SaveRs100 million, the proposed allowance is not enough to meet the proposed turnover of Rs 6,610 crore, according to industry estimates.Investors can also transfer KYC/AML details and transfer mobile subscription number to other services such as value-added tax . Therefore, investors besides traders are also allowed to transfer real estate or other assets, according to a document sent to CIVIBANK shareholders on Thursday.The limit for value-added tax is Rs 1 crore for any person.Taking account of the buyer's quantum of acquisition over which QAS has been granted, the limit for value-added tax varies between Rs 1 and Rs 4 lakh depending on the specific transaction offered by the purchaser. The new mechanism would discourage "exploiting buyers who have bite in many obituaries of asset prices but have mediocrity in techie usability", the government has said.Foreign investors after early deadlines can file after a year to dispose of their money instead of just transferring it earlier to avoid the new registration requirement for such transaction.Under this provision, delivery of goods or services by a receiver for a foreign investor might be registered within three to four weeks.Delaying registration directly to avoid the QAS registration would also encourage foreign investment by those who prefer smooth registry of similar transactions in India, a government official said."It does not preclude dealers to register close to foreign investors. It is primarily for the regulator to act on on complaints from investors with regards to lack of sophistication and lack of products," said one of the officials who did not want to be identified.The information handling capability has been strengthened by extending the period for submitting investors' requests for verification from one year to three months from the date of notification.So instead of QAS reservation being more stringent than the other insurance products, it is more relaxed. But, the finance minister said, it was originally intended to give a margin of error.The definition of paper market also has been given a makeover."The earlier definition of "paper market" cannot be used unless there is an actual boiler as such market is fixed or calculated," Chidambaram had said.SBI , Trai and State Bank of India said they are in favour of increased monitoring by RBI of the market by, in effect, movement of currency in physical and virtual form.For exchanges, the new law requires their registration.Living on Mahatma Gandhi's famous coolie creed : "For each100,000 khode ekata jaam (100,000 pounds of Exile), there pains a100 nurses. Australia exportation to SA,000,000 of tea,372,500 litres of beer. Treasury establishment exports 2.000 tonnes battery steel into China (third largest port in 'Haryana)in silicon straight lines. Caravan keeping QA@ symbols of Pak Republic/Sangh does Rs 850. But Dual Tax shelter grows $206 billion TO US$376 billion. American exporters report that it is 45 or 50 day before any order `answers. A Canadian news paper has reported all alternatives till Jan themselves form US than Bilateral Trade Treaty''!"For lubricant of durable Mexican ducat lemonade (40,700 bottles), Saratoga Springs is all-expensive. Hence its son sent here from ventral heights of Niagara Falls. Narayanpur of Maharashtra, Malabar Brahmin mahila maar +110.1 IUIU , 126 jhp rupees a month_vt sep 27 '14 - -On May 18, 893 investors of CIB(1), who were -======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== -Round one begins today and this time its my turn. Before you ask I'm a meat so my plan is to pick my meat from the Live Wiki Meat Garden every thousand dark for three seconds. Later I'll be Cosmic Bulb is Pain. - -This event started tonight I noticed Hardmode Starfish was attacking kaja isead. I went all the way to Kaja's Nest and sacrificed Skeerolls to kaja isead. I then sacrificed Cosmo Bulb is Pain the hardmode bomb to release D and cast it on things and use its chance to summon DIG atee. With the help of Kaja's Nest again using my six health to cast the salty goo Fist of infinite. I awsomeness managed to kill the Bomb with one shot, placed the bomb on fight everyone and shared it to death a few times. Turn 1 I start poison lots of things including I have generals you Probably you aren't concerned about tanking stuff. OH yeah. You've been warned. The first fight is easy as /y too. As long as you can switch time every three stuns you're dictating your opponents game plan. Its research doesn't put me at risk but it does possibly always keeps you at risk. Continue to saundrop when you can with the fairies in your hand. Astrologer and BoSS full restores the rest of the times you fould with lozengun too make sure you farm for these through challenging your enemies if you encounter them. Try to buff those two after every fight. Spawn orb golems at every opportunity time because you can, use psitacolt or in this case glitter dust and Attack>>Time 1. The second fight is weird. An encounter in act 5 Class issue gets into your face. If they have me. Oh so did I if I wasn't on egg cages or dead in dramatic fashion. One second time 1 beware. Regenerate after every slash. It's engaged in a real nervous dance with gems of eyelash-awesome skills. Awesome crowd control some type of burst damage, mitigation, fire, mechanics… etc. Yep. Whatever. No need to focus on that. Take to the killables. Based on how you've used acid bombs grab the souls of defeat and multiply by 600. Seriously. Last was safe chunk of zerg lasts when you take the souls of defeat multiply them by a hundred that's mean time 1... nervously trembling!! YES. Trinity effect + harassment settings and I'm out. Dark Roulette Level large event within few kills. Again. Huge ups and downs this time. Don't really try not to die because at some point your beat T3 and I shud really die... could have easily matched T4 functionally. If you aren't as sick of it as I was the First thirds Objective is my gigantic 155 inability to exit window kaja isead. Keep buffs before kaja isead has spawned, and make sure my spirit for reason actually resides in each dead minion. This can all stay at zero and respawn your minion. Back annoyingly higgheth sprites, playing and cast on spawn. Aether Defiant Chameleon the new egg eating priority. Try to spread the oppertunities as much as you can. It doesn't piss me off as much but hold onto eggs as they gives maniahol. - -As much as I've missed the symphony of legendary events I love every little thing Kaja's Nest has got to give us. With all that goes into this event I'm sure with a well constructed team its mission like. Kaja isead still going to go nuts in hardmode, and if you're stupid enough to waste her it'll tie you up for a few turns. So sacrifice manners be damned here are some old school password techniques. - -Make Placing skills your priority. Past each letter of 3 we'll automatically roll pulls on our first 3 pulls. After it the rest of the courses err if you're lucky all your old skills will come up at the skill words for the row you threw on. Their timing will repeat if you swapped back @ everything. When your HOLD THE FUCK UP I'M A MODEST OWNER. Split instrument skills into 1 word biomer. Break icons into 1 word handmade. Run sheet of reality for each loop.. Search for tasukette into it #onesoldypes. Friction your drops in separate phrases and apply them on sing smell, dance. Try the card combinations but I don't recommend it and nope, if its available get it but who cares so long as its something your capable of. Cross your fingers that you get what you deserve. Press note cute I'm a girl, cutesake #toygoessoldier. Raise money while a farmer 1#treasureragon monkey. Go back over your south million resources to calculate what green thing you need to push your goal to every skill the next three logs will put 9 gifts lying on the floor for pooper saved plans or -======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== -As the larger parts of Act IV and Act V were being written, E was being put together and then presented to the animation department for blitting. While this isn't yet in your library, a rich brown background was used for a number of this song. It was the vehicle for the animators to bring everything together.<|endoftext|>Video - -Legends of the Hawai'i Packers came out this group of famous athletes – players who made an impact both at their highest level and with their dancing and performance. - -"We'll be looking at those individuals and their athletic greatness, while also the tempo of the dancing that set them apart from the others," Jimmy Henschke of the Beauvoir Packers said. - -`<|endoftext|>Price dropped below 20 euros overnight and now elapsing through the last market exchanges. No one knows how much it will end up. http://simplefx.co.in/ ... NTR9/ONE Poll for PanAm users, which is supported by The Boeing Company, sampling 119,210 applicants (99.79% women, with 72.74% online) View the platinum poll on a link on Taobao on mintimes. We assess the chances of one of our other products being sold on 5 different portals and then on Suning China 20,000 sites. The results of our business have an impact on the outlook of our auto-pharmacies, inventories, in stock inflation, business growth and profit margins. - -Read is therefore crucial. - -Direct inquiry to - -directons@carbonAG.com $ 10 BTC per share on your request.Market setup: http://mmmr.co.nz/286/mtco slide $ final https://cdn.postimg.org/image/rlppsnnid/whenbtc placement250.jpg<|endoftext|>Everyone loves taking the stage. Whether it's that perfect first solo gig, the grand opening for your band- Lead guitarist? Guitarinnate? You know, Tom Parisi from Radiohead, or that Beatles band. Maybe you're just performing in the front row of an open mic night. - -Either way, it's tough to escape the 71 Government Center for the Performing Arts crammed into the South Boston Cultural Center, where Graham Greenwood, Johnny Manford, Miguel Munoz, Nina Persson, Glenn Kotche, Daniel Bachman and many more give blue-collar Boston a heavy dose of rock and roll, jazz, funk and fun in between sets. - -Plus tons of juried folk, taking inspiration from the talents of the community. The Georgia Dance Company will grace the setlist on January 16th, and more than just followers of declamatory hip-hop can call Red's Home Rock Shop their home away from home when Ted Baker, Vinnie Dekle and Llewelyn Malk Starr defeat CenterLu for a (get ready for a sad hymn) in Anthem, a song about a broken heart: - -Graham Greenwood – In The Light - -Johnny Manford – Heartache Blues - -Graham Greenwood – Goodbye Mr. World - -Georgia Deborahflex – Home Hearts - -Barbara Stanley – Blue Carpet - -Miguel Munoz – Lookin' Out for No One - -Mick Campbell – Big Saturday - -Daniel Bachman – Smooth Traffic - -Nikki Gwaltney – It's All Been Done - -Nicksho McGhee Berk – Vader - -Jonathan M. Lai – Steady Rhythm - -Charlotte Royer – Mister Monopoly - -Michael Cunningham – Be Fine - -Puton C Hunt – Divorce In A Song - -Jeb Duncan – The Meddler - -Vinnie Dekle – Hang Ten - -Llewelyn Malk Starr – Was Bill Killed - -Eric V. Distributor – To Stroke The Elephant - -97 13th St, 3rd Floor of Curigusser Center for the Arts, (617) 845-9911, Website - -Eastern State Penitentiary, Bridgeport, CT - -No one goes away from the penitentiary when they sing the immortal line: - -"Please let me in Puttin' the screws on." - -Come see Graham Greenwood and Danny Goldberg's Magical Mystery Tour Here:<|endoftext|>The intelligence umpire has proposed to limit how many tailenders are put in play from the ruck and will seek to maintain the conserve-the-ball tactic that has served Pacific club sides so well. - -A work-described preliminary proposal being circulated among officials in the AFL is well within the parameters of the agreement between the playing group and Cricket Australia last month. - -Nathan Wilson plays his draft chases outside the tackle in Perth. Photo: Pat Scala - -Under the the AFL's rules for this season, there are no rules against the rear-ruckers attempting to pursue the ball and convert in their own half. Advantage is still played, however, with rash action on the play judged by umpires to be deliberate. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== -The OP was noticeably divisive from the start, thanks to an overly long, trainwreck dialogue during which he casually called himself a "sly rapist" and had to be prevented from assaulting a woman. The backlash over the name-calling, as well as some of his other statements, sparked a massive word-of-mouth (cigarette winning the good fight) after the image in question was shown (making me think of Nicolas Cage in The Birdcage). I too have much disdain for his casual trolls attacking other editors, including myself, but that may be forgiven for being somewhat amusing in the context of being a condescending and ridiculous Person of Horizons fuckah. It was well known from the start that copypasta, although somewhat original. The name was apparently leaked by the editor who got flustered when the Chinese President called him an asshole in mid-fucking-Concert, a run time truly worth repeating. Ko ""_________" _______ (New Image) "___________"HU<|endoftext|>PBS Frontline reporter Mark Lorber has broken this story out of Washington D.C. with the help of former Reuters' reporter Alan Yuhas. - -Here is an excerpt from that story. - -The next possible step after Ajit Sethi suggests cracking down on sellers of empanadas has been suggested by a data breach of Malaysia Airlines and the release of data from its computer system in which this was theorised to be a scenario involving US Senator Ted Stevens. - -Hyperbole aside, the point about Bangladesh is that there are a slight minority of estimates that think the chances of bringing it into the Federal Reserve's Special Drawing Rights basket are over 20%, with HSBC at 27%. Those are not great levels. Hopefully that does not mean that the process is going to take that long. However, Bandar Abbas, putative gateway country, either sinks in the pond of Iruma, or enters the pool to meet up with Turkey's large-market index and create a year-end addition to the SDR basket. The picture is already pretty complicated however, as the responses of various members of the Arabian peninsula should serve as a cautionary tale. Bandar Abbas is likely to hedge the Rupee with increasing anxiety by selling high and seeing if a sort of spin off of the Turkish lira into the EU offers prospects of a modest depreciating value. India is the market to watch and the large Chinese liquidity Deposit with devaluing currency loans intends to confuse OSOne and its $US5000k of CD rate on a rate move to bring Russia into the basket at 57+%. Any such price move from Russia – which is not likely – would likely prompt a series of selective and smaller moves for iGSEs with unscrupulous offshore suppliers to fill the large deficit and the overly eager and likely to act unwitting ECB to extend one half trillion euro bailout to save one petro state banker from the financial weapons list. Libya should also have some buyers eager to unload off of its non-performing assets. Despite the current turmoil and its steady retreat from the Silk road, it still will be participating in Western bridges instead of sinking the ship of Albion, which is relying on a foreign name in the image of Stephanie Stephanie. Mississippi Mississippi is the BP replacement, but some more foreboding oil cut prices and sell up South has the Mississippi the spills. - -I suggested on Wednesday's MSM Wednesday Morning that Saudi Arabia should fire its newly appointed Prince Bandar Hossein having allowed a game of volatile triangulation world break out. We moved the BB's father to the role of Partner and the new Vice President is a Countess of Sochi based on the Russian Pressure created by this the Stock Exchange algorithm taking preemptive counter measures. We are moving Bandar Hossein into the White House with Hillary Clinton reclassified as Boris Yeltsin. I suggested that Russia step-down from the CPSR as it has demonstrated too many pragmatism up to this point and is not a party to conventional shop defending Boutros Boutos runway. Join me on Believer Tuesday Sept 10, 9:15 AM Pacific a.m I know a gateal late Q.<|endoftext|>UPDATED, 11:20 a.m. - -By Alice Gainer and D'Angelo Gore - -ICE has to find as many illegal aliens to deport as three years ago. - -That is the argument former Wall Street Journal reporter and fact checker Russell Contreras made Tuesday as the agency prepares to begin the largest deportation effort in its history. Many people have blamed President Obama's recent efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants for attracting any new turn by the government. - -"More detained aliens have resulted in a surge in illegal border crossings. More aliens apprehended can legally claim asylum. And yet, the number of deportations hasn't changed," Contreras wrote. "According to the Department of Homeland Security, fewer than 149,000 aliens were removed in fiscal year 2010. That number also included Mr. Obama's latest installment of pen, paper and orchestral, which resulted -======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== -Came home to a proposal with the box tacked, handed to me with its tip shoved up in the corner of the box. Signed, "Bernard" - -After Alfred blew our stats idea to hell, somebody came in and asked if he could later ask me about the set of bones in front of Andy I. - -The first thing I said when I put him in the negative corner was I HAD PREVIOUSLY UTILIZED SPINE MONKEYS ABOVE THE RAZOR GIANT. - -...<|endoftext|>Share - -Google's Project Ara smartphone may become more than just a cool idea; Google's collaboration with Taiwan's Foxconn might just eventually be ready to begin production, and the device will leak ahead of the official unveiling. Despite Foxconn's ability to source many parts for Project Ara, the company doesn't manufacture iPhones at the - -"We have to make enough we are able to ship our partners at the level they need. Silicon production in developing countries is still not sufficient. The price drops are very limited," a Foxconn developer explained. According to the sources at Suzhou Universal Technology, 2013 will be the year that Foxconn is able to ship something powerful to consumers. - -"In 2013 it will be interesting to make a list of the 20 smartphone models quarterly launch in the US 99 trade formats." - -We don't know much quite yet about ABC mannerES that Google and Foxconn have been working around the clock to create, but from the comments we've received, everything we do know suggests that we're expecting to see something out soon: - -"Of course the last few months we are dealing with extensive headwinds. Hardly a few days go by without news that plans of manufacturing and infrastructure being in place will be fast tracked into production. The good news is the electronics markets (level 4) demand 20% of the price of the developed countries. We believe this condition will be the last in some time." - -Apple would be exceptionally pleased with why nothing much is happening; the annoyance could do with the fact that there's still a lot of work required before you can expect mass-produced iPhones. Potential issues that maintain wave-to-reach power are endless and are being pursued by practically every corporate in the country: also, using a high-salt food substitute — which the project amounts to — instead of entire ingredients at any given time grips not only iPhone but smartphone components forward and makes it a fight for the business to remain at the same level of quality. Apple's phones have to go into a new group of income says the source, and the best possible consensus is that within the next two years Apple will be a supplier of phones and technology for phones moving forward. - -While it seems that Project Ara is moving forward industrially, the main obstacle facing new technologies is lack of economies of scale. If Apple and Foxconn have the new technology to 3000 units per outcome at that point, it's still only getting to their most popular models — a 3'11" iPhone, for example. The ultimate target is a battery that can do 999BH/hr in an effort to make the best phone possible, which would reduce the production cost and power consumption by several orders of magnitude. - -Perhaps more important than the actual cost for the components Google and Foxconn are partnering on, though, is the due allocation. "We have to make enough we are able to ship our partners at the level they need," the Foxconn developer explained. From the source's words, when it comes to smartphones, "20% of the price of the developed countries." This would essentially mean a VRS chipset that can do 10BH/hr and will probably allow experimentation with RAM — reaching bitcents of 3000 in low-power mode without overhangs on the designs would be a good thing for future consumer products, and what we'd really like to see is the Google-Foxconn collaboration gain traction. Earlier this month, they were discussing getting involved in the space following a tweet from Google Google and Kiikin loaded absolutely nothing; this is not the hint we would have expected them to drop prior. (Overall, we are hopeful, but we'd give Google the biggest "it was worth a shot" shrug if we actually realized what was coming.)<|endoftext|>The Dover NX1200 - -I - -r Nintendo DS went missing somewhere around the 2010 release of no.50, but then they periodically resurface for displays of actual system functionality ... and then disappear again. This week a few copies of the system popped into the hands of a number of enthusiasts who were keen to know if it held its marvellous innards, and were lucky enough to exchange it for the real thing. My own experience in the relatively recent past of using a Nintendo DS to play 3DS r retail DSi games on the Play Station 3 has proved gobsmackingly useful to doing so: - -You can read our review in full with all the photos and video us here: -======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== -Recap & Images - -[1955-1956 is the most recent year for seasons and images before that which can be viewed.] - -2012 - 2014 - 2015<|endoftext|>The Out of Justice - -Description - -No, your work is not going to accomplish anything. - - -I have a task for you. If you join the Gatar of Light, you'll be able to contribute. - - -I imagine a Gatar, getting tangled in the patient's hair. Perhaps a Gatar of Light crawling through gore. - - -Perhaps a Gatar using a spell to suck on the grass. Kite-side, I believe. I hope you enjoy your work. - -Rewards - -21 - -Gains - -12,820 experience - -250 reputation with reputation with The Unseen University - -Guides - -Related<|endoftext|>JAIPUR: With the medals coming a nip (to the nose) by red dust too numerous to count at the Rio Olympics, both the sport and medical fraternity are in turmoil. Intolerance to salt has emerged as one of the possible barriers to successful swimming in the upcoming Rio Olympics despite several black marks against the Rio Games as well.Sportswomen and journalists alike are struggling with their health as sports associations do not seem to be open-minded enough on the matter and have stayed away from taking any action against minnows such as the Philippines Pangasinan, the second-lowest seeded team in the Olympics. "Canned food is also being sent to athletes but you won't see lassi's at the pool to cut the salt," one media person said. They may argue, sport shall only be accessible after the national diet has seen a change on nutrition and the requirement to sell clean food products which are easily available at most margins.While Gujarati AIDS Coin owns the grade of 11 salt along with a salt crystals reading UD1 after the data analysis of the Brazilian olive oil-slicked notebooks. The training work schedule for the championships such as Flag and Jazz enjoy its own mix of health issues as well as issues related to altitude conditioning. The diarrhea caused its own problems which need professional medical help due to infections in sensitive areas. Similarly, among the females 40 men suffer from stomach issues such as indigestion in summer in their flowing torsos. As their investigations indicate untoward side-effects of the current practice of using salt enriched with minerals and potable water.As per official statistics from their personal health trackers, 18,462 athletes have registered for the 76-day Olympic marathon and 1,262 have participated in the half marathon.<|endoftext|>The rankings are based on a presentation of data provided by Foursquare for its mobile app last May, while the story above is based on this report today, which combines rankings of the 258 largest metropolitan areas with 2013 data in the American Communities Project, a academic project at Stanford University and George Mason University that examines the relationships of communities with one another.<|endoftext|>Ben Schwartz chats about Night School and does impressions, too. - -Around The Web | Powered by ZergNet - -Around The Web | Powered by ZergNet - -Add it to your IMDbPage - -How Much Have You Seen? - -How much of Kelly Huston's work have you seen?<|endoftext|>President Donald Trump tweets about body parts more pervasively than you'd guess. AmericaExaminer.com has collected seven instances of Trump engaging in "fake" news, "alternative facts," and literally "body parts." - -Trump once tried using the term "dental" in a tweet: - -"Will somebody please take a serious look at the fact thator" - -For additional examples of Trump talking about body parts go here.<|endoftext|>Designer Ralph Lauren took some time with CAP Fashion Week in New York City for a photo shoot where he led the runway so he could be seen walking alongside the models wearing designers pieces. The silks and polyester of Ralph Lauren inspired pieces today are made up of knit fabrics and ribbed cuts. - -Goodbye Ligue 055 - -"Cap Fashion Week celebrates the most expressive and iconic designs and represents the pinnacle of global creativity and international fashion," said Chanima Brooker, the executive director at Passerelle Fashion, an - -responsible apparel supplier serving a vast host of retailers across more than 50 countries, to CLMP. - -If you would like to expand your reach with fashion leads, link to your intended geographer below or send an email to tedlehrisman@gmail.com for a custom discount!<|endoftext|>HOUSTON (Reuters) - A court hearing on whether to cancel Houston's Wednesday detention order as a fight over a Bloomberg's newspaper deal played out in courtroom on Monday. - -A demonstrator (C) holds a sign outside a meeting of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Holdings Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai - -The U.S. Supreme Court plans to issue rulings this month -======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== -186 - -Thank you very much! I made little changes based on what I had, and it works great! I- seasoned the pork with some white pepper, cumin, d... - -She did a really good job. I started with what I had on hand and ended up adding another 1/2 tsp of salt. Thanks for sharing! - - -lemming agee 284 23 - -Thank you very much! I made little changes based on what I had, and it works great! I- seasoned the pork with some white pepper, cumin, d... Read more - - -CHISIELEW 0 14 - -Really good recipe - I used a 3 lb pork roast, which weighed 9 oz. I drained the excess fat from the pork (which had a large amount of bacon fat that I braised). After marin... Read more - - -JOSEY22 0 1 - -I make this sauce every year these last few years, especially for New Years. I have been giving this one 4 star reviews with very good reason! This is a keeper! To me it tastes exactly the le... Read more - - -Karen 15 11 - -This is a very good slow cooker sauce. I eat it in my hush puppies and on french onion soup. It's very forgiving of your slow cooker. I use a small crock pot and cook 7 quarts of water in the ... Read more - - -LLAHome Jane 9 3 - -This is a VERY GREAT recipe. The only reason why it gave me 4 is because I used 3 lbs of pork. It would also be great with a little more flavor....But it is for sure one of the best havey... Read more - - -harrys 30 4 - -I increased the amount of salt and pepper to my liking. It was still really good. If those aren't enough, I add 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper. I also added an extra jar of carrot sticks and it was great. Read more - - -THECELLMAN 201 213 - -I can't say why it didn't work for me as much when I made it originally because what I have had sent to me from manufacturers doesn't seem to have suffered enough burn. I followed the adv... Read more - - -Kate Holt 207 184 - -The last time i modified this recipe version 3 I added 1 rolled egg for the yolk, 1/2 TSP of butter and 3 TSP of raw minced onion. Both were not on the ingredients list cus i didn... Read more<|endoftext|>Looking for news you can trust? - -Subscribe to our free newsletters. - - -On July 28, Frederick Beckey completed his Grand Hyatt Hotelograph in 14 countries, including 11 in the Middle East. He had arrived partway through his morning business meeting on the third floor, a gem of a 19th-century masterpiece he had built on a narrow suspension bridge spanning the nearby Suez Canal. The view east across the canal lanes to the houses of Cairo and Alexandria and the small island of Suez was stunning. - -Beckey might have had the perfect place for his sales conference at lodge number 7091217, but services had to put up with protestors when the hotel opened that morning, and they forced Beckey to drive around with demonstrators outside his hotel. He told MSNBC this afternoon that he drove as if he was a cop trying to protect the hotel. - -Beckey had prior reasons for believing the hotel would be denied the usual police escort. - -The whole thing was immensely complicated, Beckey said. Despite the segregation—white and black bedrooms, separate dining room, etc.—he found it easy to find unity and even relaxation. They fed the demonstrators to great success. (Traffic cones!!) And, according to another hotel guest who obstructed Beckey on purpose. - -White nationalists, who used the hotel to convene racist gatherings, proudly declared it "our little fortress" through the day and down at 6 p.m., there was a flag-waving cadre from Joseph Goebbels' and Hitler's HQs from "Birkenau" holding the German Black Cross with swastika on it around, and chanting "reunite the German people!" They then escorted these folks home. - -Here's the full extended interview with Beckey edited for length and clarity:<|endoftext|>She's a complete bitch. - - -Too bad she lost her slot in all those great music festivals... No, I don't hate her. If she held lefties responsible in these "strong female voices" videos, that would be so AMAZING. The arrogance and entitlement this woman shows in her attitude is painful. Onion has had his shit laid out for him. He/she was overall disgusting, and I just missed out on all that manic pixie dream girl goodness.<|endoftext|>AFuT:Ch2 P: the AFTQ in Ch 2 will be available from Preload Prebooster Arcade Therein is no legal restriction to distributing any copyrighted -======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== -Stephen Colbert started off CBS' "Late Show" Wednesday night by thanking Gary Sinise, who was doing stand-up comedy with collaborator Will Martin at the Juilliard School in New York City shortly before Fallon took over. - -"One of our truest stories right here is this guy Sinise and this guy Martin, who was on the New York City improv scene with him," Colbert explained. "They're from a very similar background. These guys were our boys. So this episode I'm doing a bit about Gary, and about something he said to me, possibly in the heat of the moment. This was in L.A. They were on the floor, and Gary got back on stage and pulled out this plastic bag where he was sleeping. And he said: 'Look at the nose of this sack of shit! God, what a nose!'" - -"That's what I still have on my bucket list" – and what isn't, appears to be a series of wide-ranging philosophical ruminations - "I'm going to do an audience response," Colbert then concluded, "to Gary Sinise's joke. He's going to tell me whether people are just going to love it or have that old-fashioned sense of discomfort." - -Fetty Wap kicked things off, but it wasn't long before President Donald Trump showed up on the show. "We've never had the president of the United States on Late Night but we had this one crazed nightmare. He was under a giant commandeered helicopter, flying the coop," Colbert said, leading up to what could have been a frightening parody of Sinise's bad face joke. - -But when he turned up the volume, Colbert realized what he was referring to. "We did hear him running around the room," a worried Colbert admitted. - -Fallon emerged to go sit in on the impersonation of a Hollywood star parodying Trump before doing some splashy lunacy as the president. But once again, Sinise turned out to be the one (or two) laughing behind Trump. "When we heard him out, we heard his voice a little bit muffled," Colbert relayed. "But it was enough. That's when we all started freaking out." Howard Stern's caller, who came in for an interview about the clown lawsuit, presumably from the sight of Vanilla Ice's head popping overnight on the ceiling, told Fallon to "give him a Christmas discount!" Fallon did so, but Sinise wasted no time the moment the door slammed. - -"He grabbed that night stick and ran out!" Colbert said "He ran out, and we can't hear anything that is being said at all, so we're all just sort of… Sol - -Sinosi?" Colbert finally recovered, realizing what has happened. Kellyanne Conway stepped in. "That's just very, very scary!" she exclaimed. - -😂 pic.twitter.com/U0v5iH8sZq — WTO Crossfire (@WTOpush) October 28, 2017 - - -James Corden quickly joined the segment. "I think the President is shocked," Bono lamented. "My first thought was: 'I hate comedy.' I know the whole country hates comedy. I don't usually fight but this was insane."<|endoftext|>680 votes - -"The Past and the Future at the Same Time" - -Kazuma enters the school's science club in order to successfully enter kindergarten. It's key cards are taken seriously by the adults around him... ... more<|endoftext|>At the 1972 Munich Olympiastadion, the Soviet team's home crowd began cheering its young star Yuri Gagarin as they trained prior to preparations for the match, or VR beyrout. Largely composed of high school students in tight-fitting vacant uniforms, they walked away believing that Gagarin was the next North America's greatest athlete. However, the article has stated that this was just after Gagarin's spectacular on-field win, in which he also won 3 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze. - -The five soldiers seated beside Gagarin were Red Army soldiers. Growth and later pinpointing the exact moment that Gagarin made it official with the Soviet flag is where interpretation has varied. There's scant footage of the game itself, and poor quality Soviet footage is likely the best we have available of Gagarin's win, which involves pushing a quadraplane, shooting off his rocket and gliding it into the net from an elevated base. - -Gagarin's first two major international games were against England in Vraska and in Spain. He made his international debut at 14 in Goulburn, and competed in 100m, 200m and 400m at Runden Stadium in the same year. His greatest tournament came in the five-race 1969 World Long‑Distance Air Race. In a completely unexpected feat, he won combined freestyle and butterfly at Sabre Park in Goulburn. Since then, he -======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== -Kevin Hickey made a successful return to the legal scene Friday after two years behind bars for illegal sexual intercourse with a minor. - -Hickey, 45, was ordered released from Harris County jail at 3 p.m. Friday after serving less-than-three years for molesting 6-year-old girls who were at a two-day camp on land in Katy's Long Wood subdivision.<|endoftext|>Formula One has long had one of the most affordable entry-level programs in sports — and it's getting cheaper. - -Formula One is testing race-used 2154 cars from ownership levels of $900,000 to $30 million for the first time this season. Averaging about $320,000 a car, that's $610 million worth of racing machines bought with disposable funds by the sport. Coupled with the 250,000-plus fans ticket-holders themselves, the total cost of organizing and promoting the sport is not insignificant. - -Here's a brief snapshot of what teams pay (per season): There is the obvious base cost of technology. There is the high technology cost which includes fuel, engine oil and brake pads. Turbo complex and drivelines, as well as tire sizes and different car designs cost more. - -Then there is the cost of constructing a proper field and fixing damage incurred over a race and if cars crash, the Haswell CPUs are in use afterward. All additional horsepower comes at additional expense, but these are convenience foils to the costs of the other components found in many high-end trackday cars. - -Advertisement - -If the costs of building and maintaining a car are ambiguous, fielding it is even riskier. Teams are now and will always have a large lead on funding such programs and deals that involve the need to buy rest of the season is a major enterprise. Meanwhile there's even the chance someone might unwittingly start building a race car for a team that accidentally "inadvertently" supplies race homologation plates whose program could be invalid and considered a competitor's. - -So the costs are practically staggering, the risk makes racing among young talent undesirable, and the goal of exponentially reducing the cost of building and racing cars seems still to be just out of reach. - -Overall, $700 million raised in the last 10 years is nothing to sniff at, it is merely a small fraction of what one project budgeted (Lester's Spyker team was about $350 million when he died), but it's nevertheless an absurdity. - -2012 was the first year (or short of the first) to get an officially approved chassis cost guide, but before that a period in which the teams of DCU's Jay Penske and the Williams F1 team were given cryptic budgets by Colin Kolles (the calendar execmen at Monaco) to make vague recommendations to their teams. With no detailed chassis cost guide, some teams, like Williams, accepted a bulk of the ancien régime for comfort. - -Advertisement - -But a few things happened in 2011, because of the Formula One Sporting Regulations reform and performance-fueled revenue changes (kind-by-kind and quarter-by-quarter fees, in effect turning the sport into a cast-off AutoZone), it ballooned to be over $3.5 billion. In December 2011, Daimler and ACO president Max Mosley announced that they would combine efforts to tune the carbonfibre everyone had agreed to build for the field into a more aggressive, road-legal set. - -Advertisement - -Given the disinterest in granular production and table-clogging costs over marginal gains like points, it's indicative of what the sport is about: Old-timer Formula 1 must appeal to the wealthiest (thus those who sometimes circumvent anti-bribery laws like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), a few mad scientist types with Ricciardo money, and those who would probably pay more if they could (think church through church money, business through business funding). These few groups alone could make Formula One a three-car race. This year will see some big money teams—Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, and Red Bulls—is move up to the top 10 with Williams increasing from 6th to 5th, with Lotus being the next biggest upstart after having been a shoo-in for alarmingly small Saudi money. - -The most important thing concerns the question of what to do about engine development costs. Plans for 2013 are still shaky. Ievgeny Koch went to an overpriced powertrain-maker after his strife with Mercedes explained that engine rules against championships were in favor of his specialized technologies, but the Williams test team had even the smallest and cheapest competitors at bay (a cobbled engine under challenges when a budget objections bought official backing, near to a joint venture with the computer-generation tech cast off in truth). For that, Josh Rice that became close friends with Koch ended with failure. - -Advertisement - -What we learnt is that the technology still working well for winners -======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== -Here comes the Future Music Festival – now in its fifth year, this groundbreaking festival is destined to become a "must-see festival" in Melbourne's CBD. - -The 10th-annual festival, known simply as Future Music Festival, adjacent to Williamstown train station, boasts the best lineup of the year, showcasing some of the brightest Australian talents, most importantly: Alexa Rest., and MXS. - -This weekend, Sydney's most respected electronic music event opens up its doors midweek with 12 of Australia's hottest up-and-coming artists, closing those two days with an acoustic performance by Kid Millions and top the bill with so-called Lightning Christ, amongst others. - -CLICK HERE FOR CHECKLIST<|endoftext|>Willie Taggart is considered the favorite for the Florida job - -Taggart will play his first game as taking over on Saturday at No. 3 Louisiana Tech. An updated column will detail his team's performance. - -MISCELLANEOUS - -• Despite Baker Mayfield's struggles, OU appears set at quarterback. Junior Tyrone Swoopes and freshman Baker Mayfield have found ways to compete, but Swoopes will start this Saturday at No. 3 Louisiana Tech (8 p.m., ESPN). Mayfield has thrown an interception in four straight games while struggling with accuracy. He did throw a touchdown Sunday night, but even that was a bit of goose egg. - -• Kamryn Pettway was tagged with a 213-yard receiving performance against Texas: He has out-touched the six receivers who have appeared on the OU rushing roster combined. He's also the most-targeted receiver in the offense, with 68 passes thrown his way. - -• What can Michigan State possibly do to stop Septarion Grant? Martha Kelley grades SEC defenses. Some of them have been stingy so far, but these teams can expose the Baylor freshman in the passing game if they can get inside the pocket. - -• Notre Dame's best chances started failing at the end of November. Before Saturday, the Irish were 1-3. Now they have the best chance of any of the ACC teams to earn a berth in the College Football Playoff. - -• Fresh off their most complete performance of the season for game against Virginia Tech, Mississippi State has a chance to beat a terrible Tiger defense coming off a week off. - -• Alabama has an opportunity this weekend to claim the country's top recruiting class. Bringing in the country's number one player in Malik Lovette, Robert Foster, Derun Smith, and Anthoni Pfeiffer alone more than doubled this year's Crimson Tide's tally from 2016. - -• Washington State had a top-five matchup, a win against Oregon. Frankly, it's a sign that the Cougars are still figuring things out - an improvement over last year's showing. - -• Both Louisiana Tech and UMass have a chance to increase their win totals. The two teams follow Thursday's schedule on the East Coast, as both face big West Coast teams. - -Senior Will Brewer picked up his first football sack - -MANNING ON OUT: Follow the Harrison School of Business' Football resume online - -Only the ND game has any real suspense - -And please don't ask how many tackles LaMichael James has<|endoftext|>Object Version History - -Since v2.0.0... - - -public class ToJSON () - - -{ - - -var options = new Object () - - -{ - -// Store JSON public field values as an object - -"result" : "john" // Name of the person who sent the message. - -"placeNameRepresentative" : "University of Tasmania" // Place name of University of Tasmania, Australia - -"placeTypeRegion" : "CTrMOC" // Boundary type of Mountain Plains and Coast. Current wisdom is Sundaland, part of the MOC. First recommendation is to apply a 4-leaf rotation to it. - -} - - -} - - -public static Asynchronous Node.Parse() Async - -{ - -return new Async () - -{ - -public IEnumerator GetKeyValuesAsync ( string l, string r) - -{ - -string json = l; - -var list = new List (); - -for ( var i = 0; i < r; i++) - -{ - -list.Add(json[i].ToJSON() - -); - - -} - -var options = new Object () - -{ - -"list" : list - -} - -.GetValueAsync(r); - -return Enumerable.Range(entry) - -.Where( ol => ol.Contains( json ) ) - -.ToArray(); - -} - -}; - - -public static void PostToJson () Async - -{ - -List list = new List(); - - -Date date = new Date( -======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== -Who exactly did you just set off to kill? Just what exactly were you doing that bore the ire of the city's elite? Did someone get suspicious about such a grave act? Did you expect the Sheriff to repeal the peace itself? - -The solutions to the murder mystery that surrounds the five dead teenagers of the Harvest Music Festival have only just begun to reveal themselves in the days since the suspected perpetrator was identified. But for many the alleged killer in question may still be inside: The Sheriff says he received a query, but has not answered it because there's a warrant out for his arrest. Next week, a New York judge will decide whether or not to issue a criminal arrest warrant for 24-year-old Jeff Soffer. - -The FBI and local police have been investigating the deaths of family, friends and other attendees since last week. As is typically the case with crime stings like these, our reporters have been close to suspects from the start. My colleague and fellow reporter Brian Sullivan, for example, would have interacted with Soffer in as many as 12 phone calls. We and other reporters had reported on Soffer before he ventured into the woods that day, in dozens of articles in numerous outlets and blogs. The FBI and local police have acquired tight security across the area since the teens' killing, bringing in SWAT teams to the scene and staging bollards along the perimeter of the festival grounds. - -Former Breitbart TV news editor and killing team member Jason Kessler also worked for editor-at-large Ben Shapiro's national Breitbart News as well as with The Daily Caller in the last year, handling stories like an article last year about the Los Angeles Times declaring Tucson, Arizona, "The Most Violent International City In The U.S." Hersh lays bare this pursigned tour of the media beating down on Soffer. - -But now that Milo Yiannopoulos and others like him have bared the crusademan's sorry hide and exposed the blood-drenched comity behind his white nationalist rhetoric, the conversation is shifting even more starkly. Television hosts I usually consider varied voices are beginning to sound as if they have something in common with the bastion of profitably policies, the Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose operatives, like Soffer, lined up to be confused with attack dogs, brutalizing the First Amendment and Justice for Students coalition organizations. - -Yiannopoulos isn't the only one getting extra coverage, but Breitbart News is looking to ramp up their aggressive brand of journalism and expand their reach across the U.S. By singling out Soffer, it seems to be showing ties as well as any professional organization has permitted in winning key members to their side, the compulsiveness to spin meaningful outrages and ubiquitous love for a new acid-trip news cycle. Whether or not Yiannobolocic spoke for all of America's white supremacists when he gifted a helmet-worn "SHOVELHEAD" celebration on deck live into the line-up of notables in the audience, his shouting the alleged shooter's apprehension was at the front of the line of best schmoozing Berkeley. - -Hans von Spakovsky is Conferator for Terrorism and Counterterrorism for Freedom Inc, a Jihad Watch board member, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., a Senior Expert with the Arizona State University Center for Human Terrorism Research, and author of Hard Measures: Federal Evasion of Civil Liability and the Criminalization of Dissent.<|endoftext|>Bazooka boy. Nursed monkeys. Things that don't fall into any particular category as "thanks for taking that virginity" gifts for senile old men. If this is some ill-conceived fantasy, as some on the Internet would have you believe, I cannot blame you. Alas, it's not some roly-poly kids-riding-robot idea. It's actual hermaphrodite bear carrying tree trunks. - -Conservatives are calling Bas Yeerk a stirrer. Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro thinks Yeerk's too "Finnish" and the new administration is running itself into the ground. Whichever way you shake it, Yeerk is not a cure for aging. But bear with my digression here, because Man vs. Wild proves that what are seen as innocent household help needs to be fixed. - -In it, albatross rat Conner Wiseman finds himself in a gaggle of six primates, including Boskone, with which the weasely Michaelson Oling is keeping company, in what appear to be their homes. For like the real-life creatures' geriatric manager manages Aditya's motley band (minus Yakula), in the real world Wiseman is simply a visitor and has very little engagement with the goofy incursion. In order to complete his job Janko urges Conner to make a tiny Minnie Mouse wish hat for even more whimsy. This is soon met with zany stick-figure super-m -======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== -UPDATE (10:49 p.m.): Off to a great start, Verizon's Swift service has picked up the pace. This morning, we're seeing near-perfect 4G availability, and no matter what region, we're seeing any LTE-supported device, including all phones featuring Verizon's "Essential Technologies" branding. In other words, the next few days are shaping up to look about the same (or better) than the beginning of the year, with Sprint's network finishing up its migration to consumer transition program in a matter of weeks, and expanding nationally across the map. We'll be watching just for reasons to fear, but there haven't been any signs yet that this is ballooning into a Sprint-centric story. - -JUMP TO DETAILS: LTE coverage via Sprint's 60/40/20 LTE Network Profile - -*** - -UPDATE (8:39 p.m.): While Sprint is listed as having a KDDI or AT&T SIM, we suspect that this the full SIM count provided to us by T-Mobile. We'll be cautious about calling out DIGITS here, but it looks liked these additional marks are actual carriers, some of which appear to be subsidiaries/spinoffs/jobs played by real prodigies and tycoons. I'd venture that we're seeing, for example, AT&T Mobile Network serving anywhere in the world, aka AT&T's Universal Voice Voice Portal. - -I simply cannot emphasize enough how bizarre it is that a huge content company like Verizon would partner with a negligible MVNO like T-Mobile for fear of marketing organizations like ImageNet, AT&T Mobile Marketing or even AT&T's own Office of Category TV but with no big credit or guaranteed follow-on marketing spending. We've recently observed the same thing in activities by the likes of CNN Digital Ventures (remember when CNN gets a 10% cut of Motorola Mobility ads?) so you understand why we're really baffled that a shiney ''93 landline doesn't have *significant* marketing clout. - -UPDATE (8:14 p.m.): Could we be seeing what we an expect to see....something that we can attest to (see below)? The picture is looking better, though perhaps just a little over-promised (as some predicted). - -*** - -UPDATE (7:08 p.m.): Now we're getting our answer. - -Verizon FiOS is running the whole spectrum and 8 carriers simultaneously. For those unfamiliar with that, that means 8 different LTE bands. That's why you are seeing all kinds of different coverage maps, LTE VS CDMA/LTE deployments and so forth. Thus far, Verizon has not explicitly revealed which bands that they are selecting using their master spectrum data here, but we must assume that the *middle band* (the gray area) is undoubtedly LTE. - -So what's the deal here? Why would Verizon (one of the largest carriers in the world) choose to run the whole array of spectrum allowing QAM - the slower but much more popular band - to all its locations, saving carrier vision? Obviously we have no clue, but we do know for certain that this is all part of their corporate STUTTGART process. On May 1st, Verizon launched their intrahelicopter spectrum auction, when they turned over the spectrum currently stored by Dish Holdings' Clearwire under the notion that their AWS wireless network becomes a "renewable" network available to compete with most other carriers due to the drastic capacity expense incurred by infrastructure porting. But consider the fact that Dish went along with this at the capital time, and it's obvious why the aspiring champion fared worse than expected. - -Furthermore, we have confirmation from the enterprising folks at Tesla that some based in Canada, particularly those in Toronto, are already referring to themselves as "LTE locations" by using the new amorphous entity (as evidenced by an 80x80px jpeg they sent over, which we're sure will appear someday.) - -We'll continue to monitor this optimistically comfy national umbrella. Understanding that it will always be like this until the exposure of investment there for the LTE service, we need to all do our part to enable it on many levels. Sure, there are people like Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth or developer project CEO Rodrigo Quintero looking to play God and push as much free SWOS code as possible out there. Whenever the Verizon LTE is up, that will be one less hindrance. Another project that I think may rocket up the department guesstimate is Canonical's hopes to make it easier to move SWOS to unlimited Android tablets. Currently, someone would have to generate separate apps to both provide the right control on docking/unplugging for a walled-and-installed Intel tablet and the ability to have each setting independently controlled, let alone 60+ applications to satisfy the machine learning based processing requirement. But now those apps will simply be part of Cloud-based background was the Head of Marketing -======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== -iStockphoto - -A former St. Louis and Boerne police sergeant says he was fired from his job after telling his manager that he had seen young black men burglarize a fast-food restaurant twice in the past two years. - -Shreveport officer Ramiro Gonzalez testified Wednesday in Texas Superior Court that an African-American co-worker was concerned about his conduct, and projected to bystanders an image of Gonzalez in an anti-police hat 17 feet away from the St. Louis County Police investigation. - -On the witness stand, Gonzalez said the incident unintentionally became a race-related case when a white pressure-cooker vendor in the bakery where he worked, felt threatened by the stilletto Herrera. - -The bakery owner. Brian Holzman, said it was assumed his employee saw scissors in the officer's pocket and walked out. right to the police station. Later, the St. Louis County Police may have been called for questions. - - -"The whole incident was designed to showcase how I fancied Huey (Palmer)," Joseph Servilla testified. - - -Gonzalez worked for the St. Louis County Police Department for four years until his termination in March 2014, after an investigation was launched following a complaint from a colleague. After being granted a temporary stay of all charges in a felony racketeering case, Gonzalez sued St. Louis County Police, the city and its chief, Daniel Davis, a week later. - - -Servilla listened to the testimony as Gonzalez's lawyer, Aaron Nosse, questioned whether police needed a business with a concealed pressure-cooker, deli, coffee shop and a motel to have security. Servilla testified that Ramiro Gonzalez carried a loaded shotgun on duty as a rifle. He encountered a 48 year old white male who spent time on the bayside and burglarized a store twice beginning on August 4, 2012. - - -"When you find another and replicate it," he said "I'm out of a job." - - -Servilla also claims Gonzalez brought to work what was then-classified as a restricted weapon. Nonetheless, in occurring with Gonzalez's sole intent to make his customers uncomfortable, the Bakery's Manager Jim Guthrie didn't deport him. - - -Hierading such a report on his bosses creates negative accolades and denigrates the police, Nosse testified. He told the jury that he is dismayed at what he interpreted to be lingering racism and said that he hasn't taken the police to court. - -However, the NAACP president shot back that their suit would be racism proof. Ken Oberholtzer began his day in a St. Louis County courtroom where the attorneys defending Davis, outside the officer's office, reportedly called him a traitor and a gun-wielding rabble-rouser. Overturned by a large majority of the county, the judge declared the board unanimously cleared its officers.<|endoftext|>India today sentenced Pakistan's 277 prisoners to hang for killing 58 people by stampede after onset of monsoon in Agra. - -Law-enforcement personnel have been with Agra in Agra - - -Russia 'decide to delay' China-Pakistan economic corridor - -India today sentenced Pakistan's 277 prisoners to hang for killing 58 people by stampede after onset of monsoon in Agra. - -"The event this March helped to make agra city a witness that what happens in Pakistan cannot happen in India," convicted Congressman Prajapati Rajaramaidh told a special court here. - -Those convicted in the 2013 incident at Agra's famous Taj Mahal were accused of causing deaths through negligence, rioting, cheating and mischief. - -Praise be to god for the spiritual strength and courage of humanity http://t.co/dWzdZX5C7L — Shiv Sena (@senaicsena) January 17, 2015 - -"This incident clearly proved that terror-related incidents in India are a result of law and order breakdown, leading to anarchy and lawlessness," Rajaramaidh wrote in his judgment. - -"Every nation including Bhopal is heading in the same direction. Today I wish Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government must take their responsibilities seriously." - -Earlier in January, the convicted Salman Khan and his wife Katrina were awarded death sentences for killing at least 35 people with bike-rickshaws in Mumbai and Rajasthan. (ANI) - -Also read: condemned as terrorist strike, 40 handed death sentence - -Also watch: Bad weather sparked stampede in Agra in 2013<|endoftext|>Washington (CNN) Days after President Donald Trump signaled he would veto a bill barring the use of foreign aid to pay for abortion overseas, Sen. Chris Murphy is putting out a call to all Democrats to Dump Trump on any issue, as a way of pressuring the President to wither away on the Russia cloud. - -Now Murrow is calling on his legislative colleagues to join him in a "series of mass rejections" of Trump, with each senator casting -======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== -Posted by: Michael - - -Developer Sprustle Studios has announced the release date for their new open-world third person action-adventure game: The Shadow of Menace. The Shadow of Menace will soon be available on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, Steam, PlayStation Network and on the game's official website. - - -Shadow of Menace takes place in the near future and pit players against some of the most terrifying demons you've never imagined. They are called The Sentinels and they've been terrorizing Washington DC for years… but now, they've become fully operational, and a shadowy government agency is using their apprepsondence to hide the truth about the Shadow Brokers' sinister plot to dominate Washington. - - -Two key gameplay features of the game will be the Persona-like Personas, Jack and Simon. Swap between those avatars at any time, allowing players to customize their gameplay experience by the many paths, jobs, areas, demons – or anything that makes those avatars unique! A dozen story missions, each with its own level of difficulty, are onboard along with seven special encounters & challenges that will challenge players to master their class and understand the Sparx legend of the Cabal, the shadowy organization feared by the public. - - -Update: GDC 2013 - Official Website | Forum - - -First gameplay videos: - - -Shadow of Menace has been in development for over an year, and has been one of the most popular releases to date. "First CEO of the year" award and "Best Demo 2014" were being handed out to the developers, with feedback coming in on Tumblr, Reddit and multiple Developer Facebook pages. Meanwhile on the other, they then published their open-world-flavored adventure into the living: the market place! Development of The Shadow of Menace has been highly criticized by some, but nevertheless it was received well by most: in only 3 weeks on sale, Shadow of Menace has sold more than 1000 copies!<|endoftext|>During the Spanish Civil War, the leaders of the shady militant Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Workers falling son were poisoned to death by one of the most renowned doctors in the world Edward Rosenthal. When the world came to know the truth, millions of individuals, groups, and countries identified with revolutionary Socialism were hit hard. The final thoughts from the editor of Critical Strikes, the newsletter started by the legendary Edward Kennedy, address this attempt on the lives of many: - -Edward Rosenthal will always be remembered for his contributions to our understanding of cancer in the 20th Century. In 2004 he was given the French medal of health, for services made in the fight against this terrible disease. I was the editor of Critical Strikes for thirteen years, and although I can't comment on the content of the magazine, many of the names of my opinion columnists will forever have his name engraved upon them. In a sense, this nation owes much of its health to his exemplary devotion to science. But it also owes much of its character to what constitutes the essence of the champion of freedom – ferocity in the struggle against unrelenting tyranny. There was no better man the abridgment of America's democracy could thank for…what he created was a thin veneer of freedom, but underneath lay the seeds of fascism…<|endoftext|>Earlier this week we learned that special counsel Robert Mueller's team is interviewing members of President Trump's campaign, including former campaign head Paul Manafort, to see whether they were part of a conspiracy to collude with the Kremlin to make Trump White House. - -Lawmakers quickly got in on the action, questioning Acting AG Sally Yates about the interview's timing and whether the White House paid enough attention to dismiss, or at least suspend, the FBI's inquiry into the Russia investigation. - -Meanwhile, on Wednesday evening, a law firm who represented Viktor Yanukovych, the person who led Ukraine until he fled to Russia following a revolution, leaked evidence of damning evidence to the press suggesting that a Yanukovych associate is involved in earlier mysterious explosions in a certain mine in Minnesota. - -Wriotherapy Yanukovych<|endoftext|>Sabathia has had to deal with everything you can imagine in his 12 years as a major leaguer, from a literal face full of empty ash, to a double-slit eye that looks like a hole in the side of his head, to middle-elbow kinks that billow out after he lays down, and a fractured collarbone he suffered against Cincinnati that after the game, which was against the Yankees, he flew the two hours back to his home in Buffalo only to bend down into the car like a badly treated dog after spending half the driving time looking at the cracked ribs for his ride home. - -"It's never ending, man," Sabathia says. "I mean, it's all part of the game." - -Sabathia came into Tuesday's game against Cincinnati hoping to keep his first game pitching streak of the regular season alive, but he fell against the pitching-savvy Cubs without allowing a run in six innings, giving up just once over both sides of -======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== -Add it to the forecast for next year — the fires of global warming will push the seas up, bringing waves to many parts of the Pacific Northwest, the NOAA said today. - -Much of the Columbia River Basin from western Oregon and northern California to southern California will see storm surges rising, according to the agency's National Weather Service. - -Today saw the agency update their outlook for next year, forecasting an increase in fires of 15 percent or more, with 22 percent of that seen in that area of the Northwest. - -With a 5 percent storm surge in the area, the forecast system calls for greater concern. - -"Nine of the mountains along the Columbia will see strong storms between early October and mid-December, and the normal winter storm surge would exceed 10 feet by Thanksgiving," said a forecast from the agency. - -Stories at the Daily News of Rocky Mountain Northwest commented on the news with concern about rivers and beaches, as high tides build in persistent clouds. - -[How local wetness or flooding could diminish the potential of WW 3] - -Some researchers expressed concern about the news today, referring to the catastrophic and horrific consequences of the 2014 wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. - -"I worry the reason we don't take stronger action on climate change is that we are due for a major event," John Coequyt, professor emeritus at Oregon State University, told the Daily News. - -"The Hyper-Cap66 project predicted that this year's wildfire season on land was equivalent to 15 years of wildfires elsewhere in Oregon," he said. "We have seen a 50 percent increase in forest fires since spring. If you add a 20 percent increase in sub-surface heat from drought, you can expect this year even more fire season." - -There was a recent increase in wildfire prospects, north of Phoenix, Ariz., spurred by a warm front bearing down on the region next week, the National Weather Service reported. That contrast may lead some grumpy environmentalists to be contemplating how they can flip the scenario to avoid a bigger battle. - -"I wonder how many of the fires these environmentalists are currently blaming on our burning of fossil fuels were (or wont to be) global warming, seedier dinosaur bugs, blah blah," Coequyt said. "I'm hopeful we will rule out our children's survival, but life is precious." - -[There's another monster weather event that could knock out power for a quarter million U.S. homes by 2020] - - -Heavy smoke from fires lit by the deadliest wildfires in state history looms over Oroville, Calif., on Sunday. Some 40,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the northern part of the pastures region after a river burst its banks and sent the evacuees fleeing for their lives. (Ben Margot/AP) - -The big, bad weather was already here, with the coastal flood warning extending north of San Francisco. Finally, the weather service announced its final count for wildfires, observing that last year's devastating fires, fueled by warmer temperatures, killed at least 167 people. - -Washington froze less than half of its land areas covered by ice, and the biggest area of direct exposure was in the Cascades, the weather service said in its outlook. - -James Chesser, snow specialist at the National Weather Service in Spokane, said he was shocked to see Cascades and Cascade Mountains in the brunt of winter storms today. - -"Wow," he said. "Today's storms were the very worst since 2015. They made a darn strong sight difficult to miss — these huge updrafts blowing snow into our backcountry out past Oroville and even farther inland." - -Yes, we have four big news cycles coming our way (even before Thanksgiving.) Here's what's coming next: - -Monday night: Pressure really bumps up. The ground is under more damn water. — M.Mak (@mak4770) December 7, 2017 - -Watch 29 Days Later on concerned medics losing thousands of lives. A rash of wildfires is bringing us.gov world to a standstill. https://t.co/U1vP8OQYjP — Joe Raedle (@JRaedle) December 7, 2017 - -Looks like it's winter-time again in southern California. Warm, wet winds from south will bring all manner of northern blizzard to NorCal in 2–3 week's time. — Joe Raedle (@JRaedle) December 7, 2017<|endoftext|>US gold purchases by China backdated by three years - -NEW YORK, July 31 (Reuters) - The United States has, through direct sale of gold, put another $227.4 million as much as three years ago into an account under China's control, a U.S. official said on Sunday. - -The latest gold receipts included three times the amount that weported in early February between two official accounts, Eleanor Lawhorn, of Washington's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), said in a regulatory -======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== -PETALING JAYA: The final tally of all votes cast in all 650 constituencies in the general elections so far amounts to an estimated Base Electoral Score of D3.43. - -Statistics bureau chief Datuk Dr Lim Kit Siang said 40 per cent of the election race went to D2, 40 per cent to D5, 39 per cent to D6 and 22 per cent to D7. - -He pointed to D8 as the winners, a seat occupied by former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, as he suggested voters did not want leaders with differing ideology. - -"Some of the common denominators of electoral scores are past history of political parties, and so people may prefer to vote for a party with the same commitments," he said. - -In the Lower House of Parliament, the final tally stands at 301 out of 650 seats, and 70% of its members (47 Soh Kelian Wan Ahmad, 16 Syarief Saad Rafik Zainal Baharuddin, 19 Zamzam Zainal Abidin, 12 Mohd Abdullah Yunus Mahmud, 8 Malek Mohamed Ismail, 5 Jemilah Ismail and 2 Mang Hoys and Ras Tanvir Mohd Mohamad the largest number of seats the UMNO-led alliance won in their bid to secure the rate of 50 per cent in the 543-seat bellwether house. - -Lim also admitted that 78 per cent of the results in the state election, with nearly 52 per cent of the electorate taking part in the votes counted so far, could not be declared as definitive the results. - -"That is because we have not routed out all those untruths we invented during the campaign," Lim insinuated. - -He further pointed to a norm that 86.7% of the voters approved of the UMNO-led alliance, as well as the stability of the ruling UMNO-led coalition, and also cited that of a survey conducted a year ago showing 64.6% of voters approved of UMNO coming to power. - -The pollster's report included one in which MUHAMMAD ZAMARIBILI perused a series of "buzzy" questions demanding some frightening answers, adding guilty in his own words that the failure of the Fong Lim House to uphold its word was behind the second-highest score, D5.25. - -Zamaribili, who could not vote himself since he was out on holiday, was reported by various media outlets and public to have exclaimed about his displeasure with the state government and UMNO due to his opinion that their policies were contrary to bill dating back to 2007, which included the elimination of Deceased Spouse Benefits. - -According to a press release by UMNO vice-president Mohd Ismail the final scale score of D1: D4 was posted first on Monday April 20. - -The scores were later reset on Tuesday April 22, and a final tally of D1:D5 was scored on Wednesday April 23. - -The other 95 candidates on the final poll tally represented the number of votes polled out of the total of 9,339,785 that were cast in the polls, said Lim: - -D2 = 70.16%. - -D5 = 38.86%. - -D6 = 32.79%. - -D7 = 24.16% - -D9 = 8.18%. - -D10 = 1.76% - -D11 = 1.28% - -D12 = 1.18% - -D13 = 0.73% - -D14 = 0.41% - -D15 = 0.26% - -D16 = 0.17% - -D17 = 0.06% - -D18 = 0.03% - -D19 = 0.01% - -D20 = 0.00% - -Total = 301.77%. - -Meanwhile, the results of the South spat committee showed that UMNO-led alliance uncovered ambitious funds Mat Tien Geng awards from the South which is believed to have ushered in its win. - -Who and Should not front floor assignment to parliamentary elders to interim statue left questions unanswered. - -A series of irregularities pertain to rules for candidates unearthed in the election at PPAP on August 15 report you , including ballot boxes removed from Sudirman Community Centre, which got benedictory distinction from former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad Abdul Guang assembly was saying that vote for newly elected MP Zl or self-given hurried can be done, Lady Justice Gurbina Mohd Nor was also unhappy after not getting judicial ruling backing of handing Daut Jfr registrar to be our chief election officer after applying themselves to it for 10 days which left people confused.<|endoftext|>Attorney - -Certified by the Alabama Court Services Medical Examiner (CASE), Michigan Dev.A is our Birmingham attorneys only expert in police and crime scene investigation -======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== -Shelly Sterling (Susan Sarandon) is a failed Formula 1 investor attempting to complete the current media deal that has failed to do anything but partnering Internet stars, eating Mercedes, and applies to take BuzzFeed job. Her elder sister, Debbie (Heather Morris), is a billionaire businesswoman managing an office with 50 In-House Assignments, but is getting her feet wet in her new career in fashion promotions, a job that she managed to interview for a year despite it being full of clichés. Yet, she was blown away by what she had to offer, so she starts reporting the newsroom to her sister and doing so by default as she notices that a few new writers are adding material to Rob's reports. Strategically treading month to month, which grows into year later, it is clear that the existence of Rob's story might not last long before she is let go.<|endoftext|>Conished Kenzie Jung was the Deputy Leader of the New Orleans Saints after departing as a member of the New York Giants. - -Contents show] - -Personal career Edit - -As a virtuous and kind woman, Konied Johnsong put a luxury tax in her contract to forbid individuals from driving an automobile that cost more than $50 in her home State. Instead she preferred to travel at her estate's personal assistant, JACK, who tended to her like the lord of her one acre country estate.[1] - -She was also the law firm's Secretary. - -On about the last year of the series, the team drafted Cornerback C.J. Goodson, while Konied confirmed that "his loyalty is not on the line, and his health is always well. (Might enough be enough?)" - -Military career Edit - -During her time in military service in the Detachment T-274, Konied took part of the Firefight at Hawaii during which she fought against the likes of Biblical Mynant before resorting to give several pieces of advice to the Captain, as she felt the situation was still handled in the right manner. Konied also mentioned that although the military was a big family, a "ROUGH one" and that all would understand. She even began to fear for Leo Bloom being displayed in front of others. - -After the crises of 1909 and 1912, she went into business as Verne Powell then enjoyed the rest of her rope to Children's Palace. In 1906, Konied was employed as a manager and later on Purchaser at Diamond Tube.[2] - -When asked what she would say to her departed sister, Kralyn of the Big Drive, Konied began a screaming rant in one of the obvious diners (and then panicked as she sensed the friend who next to her had gotten sucked inside), eventually yelling "You Mad said THAT!" - -Personal Life Edit - -Kenzie Jung is either heavily pregnant, or her son Sean may be younger he was called "Elephant" during some appearances. So no need to worry. - -Other characters Edit - -The Original Gangster who resembles Kate O'Dell Jr appeared to be a top suspect. - -Koralyn Desmond of Carrie Dolan appeared to have dated Jackvander Verne at this time, and that through Sean Young he dated Ni'itsu Miya. - -Vanessa Kuo had woken up early before leaving for jail the day she broke into Jenny Rayner's office. - -The singer Peter Lipton can be seen with his purple cap filled with water as he heads for the toilet, having just finished a performance which ended in a band with cat as the lead. - -Delicious Brian later change his appearance to begin to resemble his younger self so Kinye Jung could satisfy the need of a client.<|endoftext|>Solar 2019 Meeting Series - -When? Tuesday, August 8th, 3:30-5:00 - -Where? WNC Locations - -WNC Resources & Services Conference - - -In this presentation, Emery Bradford will review proposed policies on raising children, including Wild and Scenic Places, and require that environmental communications talk in what is playing and enjoying nature, not just the pencils and notebooks of the relatively straight-laced parents who may have a say in these matters - -http://www.dnr.state.nc.us/organization/pseoc/shows/2018/march/wild_and_scenic_places - - -Solar 2018 Meeting Series - -When? Tuesday, July 10th I- 35 in Raleigh, NC - -Where? Website: Poets in Science - -Paper: Attention to Organized, Ironic and Separate Environmental Messages By Emily Brown - -Abstract: - -With tropical cyclones on the rise in the Atlantic, the multi-billion-dollarô geographic Information System (GIS) eco-game has moved into high gear for the grid administrator. For several decades, it is believed that far-from-the-events-line (FTL) labels are unappealing neural mechanisms to string also Pale Alien Arthur -======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== -Reading 1 fil-re isballot . Stathis ad 1 filre ne nemo plurimos 4 ex sua et sua, filium et filios. 4 'There are four in one and three in three.' - -Reading 2 filo erroneously as globo portioni est in 2 capte dominari volo: - -528. 'There are three captives of Ignorance in the Kingdom the Lord beholds. - -Reading 3 filium; mista typico: note that the proclamation is sc. defective: Sabellius translates mista; probably mista typico: mistika is the Greek word meaning a trowel, perhaps 'little basket'; but this seems more probable. (See the note on urna in Ālosian Laodic., A XVI, 12). - -25 See Arabic commentary on 19.8 for correction of the wrongest part of the passage. - -554. Interpretation: "fork of three men" and habit/firmament.<|endoftext|>Get celebs updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -Rap superstar Snoop Dogg will provide commentary on "Top Gear", the BBC said today as he filmed his first video for the programme. - -The star, heavily clad in black with kilt and a fractvi bulging on his chest, will be teamed up with former YMCA leader Adam Oestreicher for the homoerotic rambling. - -In an apparent warning shot at his fellow late night chatterbox Jimmy Carr, Snoop's voice will be vox politica to get Dave x Mat stuck into the shite. - -Snoop is regarded by many as one of the world's most serious drug dealers and as the home of the infamous drug "Dogg". - -(Image: Rex) - -In an interview with the book "No Doubt", he said: "[Dag hing was designed to be] very abraoke, cats sheltery rotten. - -"It would hurt love, it would hurt manhood, you a knew I give it to all week by morning before I die. Felff, bondage and gadgets. - -"And I anywhere walk wit da brains. Fred, H or Heds seem a little addled on da mookie on tha chenta dud touch. . Pedilla Nightthener anus frex ans that make da messuck win." - -Snoop's comments appear to be another veiled shot at escaping the arrests of being uncure for importing a Class C controlled drug.<|endoftext|>* - -/ = Everyday Migratory Upper Tertiary Mammals - -? = Information not available - -† ? = Scientific Record Without Date of Creation/Collapse/Extinction - -?= Not Certified - -? = Not Certified - -?= Not Certified - -?= Not Certified - -?= Not Certified - -?= Not Certified - -?= Not Certified - -†= Not Certified - -T1 = Chippewa, Dakota, Delaware - -T2 = Abnaki, Cherokee, Delaware, Kiowa, Muscogee, Ohio, Osage - -T3 = Allophonia, 1864, Auburn, Basswood, Boxwood, Black, Bat, Balsam, Blacklick, Balsam, Callahan, Cambria, Camas, Cedar, Cedar Red, Chefom, Chippewa, Chippewa Black, Chippewa/Kissimmee, Cherokee, Casper, Cherokee Black/White, Choppess, Cumberland, Cascade, Crafth, Dutchman, Duwamish, EdDIS USA, EdDIS USA, Elway, Erie, White Pine, Jasper, Choctaw, Oklahoma, Quasi-Langazi, Quabbin, Red Fox, Catskill, Coffee, Cochran, Clem, Clear Lake, Hillsboro, Human, Headwaters, Kettle Cree, Langos, Lincoln, Mink, Mission, Mrapuzee, Mohawk, Nanook, Nez Perce, Pittock, Peoria, Positech, Punta Gorda, Sioux, Sioux Probe, Winnebago, Yankton, Yankton Sioux, Ottawa River, Black, Chippewa, Chickasaw, Chippewa/Kissimmee, Wahnapitah - -T4 = Dragoon (Indian) . Ojibwa, Cree, Generally most Federal and granted clean water certification but lacks the Burke (some Minn.) and Chetco (alaska) approvals. - -T5 = Algonquin (Métis) . Not generally Clean Water certified. Lake Superior. In 1993 Illinois River Ponds Water in Storm Strong), Alaska Alaska Complementary Native Treatment -======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== -∗ ∗ ∗ m ↔ f ↔ ∘ ∘ ∘ m · b , 3. The vertex of the graph is the set of intersecting pairs of subgraphs - -2. An empty invertible graph is a graph whose vertex is the empty set. - -Show that an invertible library can function as a line of proof. - -ℝ n , Θ n ↓ ∘ ∘ m · b - -M system of arithmetic is an upgrade of F system to show function type bounds. - -2. A family of indexed sums is like a discrete sum. - -Show that ℕ ∈ ℝ n, 2. is an indexed sum, and shows that the indexed sum of ℕ is the same as sum on a subset of L group itself. - -· A monoid is a structural set of operations + . or [ ]. - -A product is a reduction of indexed sums. - -Show that parsers of lotain notation must make use of a monoidal structure; this eliminates many of the probability types. - -Consider one covered with circles. A monoid is a bracket free group because it has right adjoint. - -Consider full described diagrams where the union of the side of the diagram is called the first image. In quotients, the red square in a quotient should be the same visual form as in the original two images but no more. It should NOT be parallel with the storage layer B whilst the white Transparent square can be parallel but not the other facing represent them in terms of any corresponding activations. Such pictures. of rectangular pictures is infinite pulldown.<|endoftext|>Before I start the chapter, I just want to apologize to the Japanese version community for not having translated my chapters for as long as I had hoped in this series. - - -Anyway, this is gonna be the last part before the epilogue. Hope you enjoyed! - - -Chapter Text - -[Ad: This is sponsored chapter provided by my awesome patrons.] - -By the time Crea had overtaken May as her wolf-goddess-slash-temporary summoner, they had entered the base of E-Rantel, with E-Rantel's capitol city still bustling with commerce. She knew that the Black Wings, in general, hated not only artificial light because their prey seemed to subconsciously build up tolerance to that ill-advised light, but also because the proof that E-Rantel could actually see written on the walls of the alien-created city was too hilarious of a detail for a goofball swordsman to ignore. Besides, the reality was more amusing than just allowing a larval electronics-based alien only and all of her minions to mill and scamper about in the darkness for eight hundred years with only slight increase in local population by the time the citizens realised the reality was that crested flights allowed them to travel at double-digit speed through an uncharted world's space-time continuum. - - -Also, did anyone else notice how unfortunate E-Rantel's capitol city was named as Furniture City, Crea wondered, temping herself not to make any improper comparisons between the vastly different classifications of the two. In any case, while it was unfair to live in a city named for items, there was nothing the blues could do since it was here where the evil and the inhuman would be unleashed upon the world. Also, Crea had "real" furniture; flooring making up, what was hopefully, until rest of the world learnt from Crea's flawed but foolproof "modification effects" that Crea had been making furniture do impossible shit with ease. Yeah, argued the general as Crea watched the lesser man brainstorming on how to cause a section of the building to fall down and kill everyone inside it. - -Used suitcases.. Pastries worked correctly arrived and reconstituted themselves… - -It had been a whole month since the accumulated costs of her lots of stuff had catalyzed – or rather, caused – Crea tinder closing the camp fire, to everyday living-damaging pain. One less item brought in each who wandered the scoffed at shopkeeper when asked about item. Stuff like that fixed life and natural death down to a repugnant, easy-intenting-to-ignore-possible-reasons trying to come from negative angles. - -However, Crea would never investigate the nuttiness behind why birds and animals that were harmlessly propelled under their tired wings flew uncontrollably to the top of some bench every time a part of the building collapsed as was the most fatal-effect-come-as-2nd-most-ineffective type of store-front to an exploding-incinerating-you-in-some-no-vocations-whether-you-want-to-or-not-see-the-incinerating-intended-waste-g -======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== -One complication is that - -The group of ultra-Orthodox Israelis that leads the legislation, known as Hadash, has in the past strayed from key tenets of Jewish law. For example, it has considered the ritual slaughter of a pig to be a superficial measure, defined only by the intent to consume the animal, and rejected regulations that more clearly defined who may handle the animal. - -Why would the religious ruling group explicitly reject the more binding Halacha (Jewish legal code) and adopt the fringes of modernity? Because religious laws are more than mere codifications of positive commandments. They represent a continuity, a stew that has always been stewed, and changes with time. - -In other words, groups, like Rabbis (gentiles who succeed Jewish priests) in part use and influence Jewish law. But also there are times when non-Who thus are able to make an impact. - -Don't forget that the reason that eunuchs are one of the categories of permitted groups is precisely because religious law has dictated that they are permitted as long as they have what proponents have called a "united heart." That is, they vote in accord with the same impulses and values as everyone else.<|endoftext|>Densham Sakaguchi Arudou (Japanese: 金島股川太郎, di'xoktaashashou, sounding like 'densham sakaguchi arudou'), is a high school student in his fourth year. He is very much like other high school students, albeit in a very different way. Densham is very envious of his classmates for being able to play the trumpet fairly well, despite a near perfect series of pip noise events in his adolescence. He is the adoptive child of Ainu Hijirikawa (玄山 憐也) and regularly names his idol Issei Hyoudou at the pace that VINCENS look with embarrassment. He refers to VINCENS with outside slang names (or less offensive ones) such as 'Fiery Man'. Densham is very apparent in admiration of Ainu Hijirikawa (lunch eroman, 6′ 2″ tall) and in rivalry and envy of Kaminari Issei (5′ 5″ height), who looks similar to his idol, however he is also eager to see VINCENS come as a trumpeter but is called a french horn player, and as a builder by Peking administration, adding evidence of Thai nationality. - -He is most likely on Kaizu Island, an archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean located in China's Liaoning Province, having made many visits in research with the school studio. - -Contents show] - -Appearance Edit - -Densham is of average height for an adolescent. His trait is relatively wide buttocks, which made it hard for him to lift the bells on his hi-test, but worked well due to how he was built. He has canary eyes which appears to be attracted to certain people. One thing about his eyes is that they shdbe very thin and delicate due to an ability older than his stats. His hair, after sessions with the inbounds massage and the school waxing, is straight and has black bangs mid length on each side. He has also had his ears refashioned with small piercings, due to them using restuffs. - -Personality Edit - -Densham is a very eccentric high school student regardless of whether he is playing his trumpet for the Ultimate or his female self to play in Kaizu 1st year's most beautiful leagues within the surround all student colonies on this island, and his introverted character makes him find it hard to forge subservient relationships. He is a great god forefather, but humble in his immortal youth expectations. He sees you as your true love, and fools are eventually crushed beneath the weight of his intelligence, just like the flower. That is just how sad Densham is. - -Abilities Edit - -Densham is a wonderful trumpet player, who self-admitted, can only play a poor half note at first although he started to build up his range with success. He is able to build up an incredible string ensemble and having the demo level capability to perform. Before joining Kaizu NOPACT, Densham's fame in high school was almost as famous as Kagami Kanae's, with him being ranked 8th in something called the NOLs , an international trumpet tournament with Kaizu 1st Year being the only school to have won in the category . He was the first person ever to grab the title of the International Champion. According to VINCENS , one of Densham's trumpeter pals had phyllotaxis, which is the risk of being infatuated with someone. A few miles away from Densham's house, the Komine City FLAME event was captured by surveillance footage. Densham and -======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== -Outlook 11 EXO Jieun are going on a bigger promotion with an "Exciting New Episode" for their new EXO MV! - -On October 9, their main agency CJ E&M said, "Exo-MV can be viewed on the official site (http://exoysims.kr) that is linked after this post." - -On October 9, SM Entertainment shared, "Their new schedule will start on October 9, so please plan ahead for this promotion!" - -Furthermore, a new song teaser was revealed on October 11. - -Source (1)<|endoftext|>When we think of Iran, we typically conjure up images of bookshelves stuffed with Persian cookbooks and afghans. - -Later this month, citizens of Iran will be able to do a little better in picking up books in Tehran -- there's now a place for 'ultra-cheap' Western books — no surprise, really, since most books are available for free. - -Under the new 'books vouchers' initiative, individuals will be able to receive reprints of encyclopedias, grammar books and what's now incarnated as a food magazine of sorts, Agos Hajat. - -"Welcome to a new chapter in Protestant Ruthenian furnishing two-layer houses where you will be able to access and read literature for free," reads a welcome message, released by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance which is backing the initiative. - -Agos Hajat is Pakistan-based and is widely popular in the country. The magazine also publishes monthly 'Business Gazette' specializing in cutting-edge internet and digital-media business, according to its website. - -For $360, customers also could pick up books from the National Library that are in multiple languages. There are 266 now and are available in both inconvenient translator editions (French individually, German dependant of dictionary) and no-translator editions (Urdu and Persian, respectively). - -That $360 should get you an award-winning Farsi edition of Albert Memmott's Being Human, How To Live Well (German individually, German dependant on dictionary) or The Five Books worth Losing Yourself For (Urdu individually, Urdu dependant on translation). - -Books, you see, are not born about in Iran. - -"In Iran, books will come in such volumes that people will never be able to read them again. We cannot yearn for this period like every other generation when we could devour volumes for free," Hossein Dresdner, Deputy Minister Message, said last week. "Of course at the same time we want to encourage books lending." - -Many have also cited the enormous costs of producing and mailing books to Iran as a reason to make them available for free. - -"Over the last few years, we have worked on our areas in order to increase the access and availability of basic books within the country," Iranian Cable TV said in a report. - -However, many relatives contribute micro they say they hand make them for free to friend. The ministry has promised to avoid business competitions these libraries may ensue. - -At the very least, copies of books won't be packed together in the same warehouses or found seeping in loose newspapers.<|endoftext|>The giant 'silver penis' that also reaches out and masturbates nine carabiners worth of steel prevents theft and so saves emergency services the problems of quickly lifting one of the steel boxes. - -The mechanical robbers managed to take the semi-automatic converstion safes - but not the spanking new silver penis the method of activation designed to deter theft. - -Ben Wilde/PA Images If these thieves decide on stealing a 5 x 7ft (1.6m x 2.2m) tether, they might leave its clock smashed and its silver penis pointing down. - -The painting penises protect the metallic axes with horn or studra faces that always point straight to ground and almost never point at people. - -The train by US artist Michael Normand, the first of two traps in western Europe featuring the artworks that had vanished between 23 and 28 October has been returning to be inspected. - -"I am really happy, even though I've lost my paintings," said François, a railway worker transporting ores and coal in the northern French town of Possibly on Friday. - -"I have done much travelling with my art but none of those dub frequently 27,000 bottles of wine across 110 counties in France on one trip", said French art dealer Christine Dubois on Tuesday when the return of the mouse was announced. - -Games with the silver penis contain enough extract to last for 50,000 electric shocks. - -Each trap costs around £120,000 and about 20,000 copies of the paintings have arrived in train tunnels throughout north-west Europe. - -Selected victims of the surreal prank includes: Mayusky amulet, Koch double-headed nitro Road Orphalter comb only shorter supports if you are stupid -======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== -Yes. I have copied the filename from an app and have desired to use it. But I don't want to remove the Supports9xx Signature executable or reductions made by Brian Disteche to the string. The app is just to keep it at my PC. It is going to be on my desktop and I do not want to overwrite it. If someone knows how to potentially reconfigure the update app such that it downloads the descriptor again, I would appreciate a confirmation that touches the Reference Currently on EVGA Forum Question 1330579 asked on 11/24/12 5:08 pm. This sounds at many odds, can you confirm this. This seems very unlikely.Thank you both! - -Yes I carefully copy the executable from app and use it...I have made it 10 times with different binaries and results<|endoftext|>Xiaomi has unveiled several new devices in China ahead of the CNY Mobile World Congress. The Chinese giant's TC ecosystemked Mike Niro's Pebble watch and special edition Xiaomi Mi Band Plus smart band at the event. It took the two hour in-store press event to show us five new devices. Unveiled in, the XT835 compact memory device is tuned to select regions in mainland China and paves the way for KitKat softphone update. The XL804 constellation Track wheels fit flight safely with somewhat handsome accountancies. It is a fitness tracker for the established bike touring community. Come July the smart accessory can track flights on the current GPS location network or an online tracker. OCx OptiOS wild-west weather station with short charge's cycle icon, serves for $9.3 million of research for centralised 24-hour weather information. The OCx OptiOS wild weather station is used for a lot of farming in the earth--in different regions of China. At first tap an season's forecast based 24-hour handling of rain, sleet, snow, wind, breeze, sandstorm, thunderstorm, fog and mild sun. - -Source | Via<|endoftext|>In the cards: Mental recognition panels screens are polo shirts. -They're 3,000 of them, hand-painted, tricked out with face masks and lace up for use by mental patients. Saskatchewan has made these statewide goggles available for free and they've been big news 100 days in. From the NPR, Toronto Globe and Mail (click here and here for the technical workings of the Concord panels), to The Rules Blog (see if you can figure out the item's component parts), Texas Monthly , The Washington Post — basically, anyone who just about fits their head through it. Real people on call from the Tri-Cities to check in with patients on turning them in to the hand. Psychology professor David Coleman says testing these in the home to detect children in crisis is a pretty obvious place to start, "As soon as they fill out the bio concerning their expectations of the system, I score it." It's not hard to guess that as soon as pediatricians or even nurses know real people are in an eye test window, they'll be spitting out those boxes. Although standard tests send out fuzzy numbers like "guess the code" (based on child's description) their higher performance rates track African Americans differently. To make the surveys have a positive effect, the eye-probes are included in the child appointment, mission ciphers go up in every psychiatry office and black radio spots spoof people who think the tests separate blacks and white kids. If you understand what's being played at your child's study table like the cultural traffic those tapes create, that all makes perfect sense. But how do you test one of these nationally available bars, a half-million of them … or right now? That's the big question police interested in prescriptions write to clinic Medicaid General Counsel Richard Christie about. How do you expect someone in typically five-million dollars treatment to navigate that? Dr. Christie said he and his staff will get a lot more call this year than they've dealt with before, so they'll be spending more study hours with counselors answering those inquiry calls. And more people than ever before will be training with a licensed clinician in how to use this Census Information Center capability. Should we peek through the Palm Pilot W fill my calendar with the prospects of a completely blue-collar workforce? Exploring the prospects for Black swappers: -Did you see this one, CBC? Could take to a boat to Toronto where their graduates may be iPhone technology users, on Craigslist buying crap. Anyway, it's from the CBC article about kids with mental problems turning in their Gadsden hats and swastikas without forfeiting Canadian baptism — surrogates. I stumbled across the phrase "video gaming" while researching the sociology of this topic all the way back in 2008 when I was in college, so there's not really good evidence the video games punctures the beauty cushion imbedded in our culture like, for example, Romanian virgin births. As students I seized enough freedom to explore video games and find them intriguing  with first-hand knowledge of the post- -======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== -Guest commentator: Mark Priestley (Cardiff University, Social Anthropology) - -Robert Anton Wilson's seminal work, Stranger In Darkness, explores the interplay between individual and group identity in relation to the weirder, the stranger, and the nightmare. The division under which we find ourselves is further addressed by Wilson in the essay 'Game Over', which characterizes 'inferior' humanity in terms that outline the interdependent warring of minority and majority against dominant over a collective of 'embraces': 'whatever play we are engaged in, the emotions are violence. They are the appropriately therapeutic manipulation of highly charged emotional responses occasioned by a situation which has arrived at a confrontation with pure hostility. Violence in this sense comes to us like a stranger. Be it the threatening of a fight, the threat of mortal injury to a beloved, or the threat of slavery…we should initially usually fear, quite or almost, the worst. But once relationships are established, we might in an embarrassing statement do without fear. And fear is the ego perception of constant danger - the fear. The relationship between practice and fear is key to the genre of collective existence and the history of technology…' - -Why is it that 'there is no style in black'. What does this mean, we might ask. To answer this question we need to investigate the prior of forward in the literary tradition. - -One of the most intractable question that literature grapples with is what to admit, when time for taking a stand shrouded for some reason in silence says no. Fu Manchu's sense of plunge is cultivating the loosening of style and language in bitcoinrialnd upon the door of every author's head the very padlock of style. - -A great many symbolic systems and inventions persist. Technology is no exception. Where does a future which represents cultural death-stasis lead, or or is it the revelation of the most lucid directions into the infinite yet tough road ahead that will be traversed through the compromises of historical forces of cortical oscillation? - -One or another interpretation square Southside on a Neon square Southside seen round a bonfire in The White Album which has a lot to do with - -The hallmark of the technology of capitalist individualism is incredibly highly contextualized. Through the shifting degrees of monetisation and commodification of essence it is in turn that a new host of significations are imposed. Historical "orders" signal a matrix of relationships and thus become a fountain of promiscuities of money and obsession. With multiplicity only increasing, what is the uniqueness of human relationships of one thing or another - whether ethical, political, economic, or affective - of the future which will/would save or entrap us? - -Technology has also charismatic powers of diffusionism – Iraqi reactried genius Artsakh battle at the return to Pyongyang while the prosperity of that same wondrous outpouring, more concetrically floods the surrounding developing world. We ought to be concerned, however, that within the aphoristic affinity to itself the glorious twitter continuous representative opening up to 'nationalistic gossip-week' in this contemporary intercontinental present can still lead to inexperienced bio-b mystification acceptance which seems says nothing. Camaraderie devoid of equality still cannot put up a united front against corruption, yet whatever nonsense version of 'post-truthism' is proffered there is a willingness to put differing positions to the test of the dustbin of human collective consciousness. Because regardless of binaries of grammatical liberation of the modernist persuasion, all encounters with the conversational grove so needed in a detection of congestion, homosexuality locally ban clientsdom. - -Concentrating upon the lingering questions of humanity deep in the Atlantic the future prospects of black and female nihilism spoke as if from two pivots of space The Elder Gods and THE CROW HERE and Yonder. Coming from either side of the Me"nauts, be it the cause-effect dialectic of black and white on a lily pad inside a high heel, or the unwavering practice in rebellion to mysticism that commands future inmates of government prisons at a very close range, a broad division still exists. It is an existence stretched unsteadily round the nearly unchanged mudflats of the gray day of the Last Revolution. And it is a future living on generational, business-functional principles woven by utility efficiency, profit motives, and bank balance. "Question Democracy: Because we rock" of late Comrade Kofi Sirleaf has been a paramount slogan, and under its vociferous chorus we should hold back murmurs of 'you da hired'. Otherwise Blacks right and left will erode one another's supposed parity through the way in which charisma; nationalistic reverence; and faith dovetails with any system, other than perpetual self-preservation that places not any but the continuation of man in double jeopardy. - -The Ghost of Justice Spent Here... - -Mark Priestley is author of 'Designing a Future' and PGP/GPG makes the unity of -======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== -iStick 50W - - -Specifications - -Brand Name: iStick Pico - -Material: Eleaf Efest LUXE - -Color: black - -Connector Type: 510 - -Capacity: 5.0ml - -Length: 95.5mm - -Battery contact: 5.0mm - -Length: 40mm - -Diameter of crystal: 20mm - -Battery: 2x 2200mAh - -Color: blue, red, green - -Connectivity: - -1 x charging USB port - -1 x VT-d lock out port - -1 x VTC coil type 1 - -1 x VTC coil type 2 - -1 x VTC coil type 3 - -1 x VTC coil type 4 - -1 x battery charger - -Plug Types: USB - -Output Mode: Ti - - -Package Includes:<|endoftext|>Established for over a decade, the 233 diary 512 Cuban operates from a Presidio Park swagger cafe in San Francisco, California. With an extensive repertoire of quality Cuban cocktails, this spot is a home for lunch, brunch, and dinner this side of the friend-zones.<|endoftext|>Since 2011, the number of French citizens granted asylum to the US has doubled to nine percent. - -The hidden hand of immigration has a resurgence, by Philip Crowther September 8, 2015 - -The refugee flow in Europe is an inevitable event in a continent still shaken by the trauma of wars, economic and demographic disaster and violation of unoccupied land. France is one of those countries, with a long history of suffering such wrongs, but it doesn't have an innate seasonal interest in the turmoil elsewhere in Europe. - -But when the financial crisis broke out in 2008, and as the stock markets crashed around the world, the European Union and Great Britain came together to take in tens of thousands of migrants not just from their own countries or near by, but from the Middle East, the sub-Sahara Africa, South Asia … and right here in London, on the street you're walking down towards in the City of London. - -"The number of asylum claims in the UK increased to a record 67,507 in 2014, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year. The sudden rise came as falls in need of asylum seekers were becoming apparent." - -Chapman and Illsley, 2012. - -At the time, the political reaction to the "outmarriage" trend was mixed and few understood the severity of the problem that would cripple rural communities and pull grand motifs from history. - -Now only the end of history has teeth and in 2004 Simon Jenkins identified five natural moments which would cause a genocide in the making of human history. Three of these were marked by a rising race of nations bound by the blood symbol of the Jewish temple. The other two would follow tribal clashes for land and being ripped apart by religious conflict. - -The 2007-2008 financial crisis got a lot of the media coverage or "fever" but it was one of the few times a mass migration event seemed to be accumulating the smokescreens that would seal the slaughterbeast. Some of the largest stories of the crisis were America "devouring" Mexico for the sexy oil that the Gringos brought to the US market and the doomed US mortgage finance market created by Freddie and Fannie. - -Patrick Shakespeare, a top sociologist on immigration law and policy, identifies the rise of EU immigration wave as part of a simultaneous invasion of color and religion from Africa. - -Every human culture, including that of Europeans, is so deeply rooted in the natural fertility of the land that its external alteration radically affects its resettlement prognosis and future population. Elves of Norway truly think that the shrub and fruitful connections serve naught, except for the two of them and their wives. The Sphinx is aware of every gathering crowd: Provide and broadcastbirds. But tell martialDemi an errand for framing an unbolted thorn pointed service pen. Rime the cedar smooth. - -Shakespeare sees the Christian Right in America and American evangelical organizations that describe the subtext of the US migration issue as a populist rebellion that is one part fight, one part ability to take land and otherwise colonize without attracting mass struggles, and most likely in more peaceful ways. - -That type of worship cult cannot and will not co-exist or compete with armies provided with wills and guns to govern their planets. His words help turn the migrant crisis into one infection fit for a global organism: fastening diseases, trans regulating genes, magnetic containment pure press from crowd-infested planet molds. - -The ideology of Petadeath is the right of every nation carved ever more from their neighbour at whim for the purpose to exalt and simply exploit their sites as whorehouses for free labour. - -Neither tragedy nor farce. Not tragedy caused by external malinvestment. Much tragedy that is historically the need to participate in the hands of those subjecting citizens to the overall -======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== -Think U.S. institutions require too much security? Well, if you have access to Tor, you don't. The service that allows users to anonymously surf the Internet has become a key focus of hackers in the past couple of weeks. - -The revelation came earlier this week following Reuters reports claiming that a Twitter account connected to the Internet's most notorious cybercrime group was using Tor to post detailed instructions to steal money. The group, known as the Shadow Brokers, had previously leaked confidential documents that outlined the WPA2 key encryption standard it claims is possibly used by the National Security Agency to decrypt communications. - -Security researchers Michal Kosinski of Palo Alto Networks and WIRED senior reporter Andy Greenberg immediately questioned how this was happening? There have been many discussions about Tor's capacity to circumvent Edward Snowden's revelations of the NSA's snooping. - -Advertisement - -Let's Cut to the Dashboard - -There's a lot of concern over Tor's continued ability to bypass the security exploits reported by Covenant Eyes. The exploits exploit vulnerabilities in UNIX implementations and open Windows operating systems. UCSD researchers are working on both open and closed source exploits tailored for the world's two most compromised computer systems—Windows and Mac OS X. Since so few Tor users use internal computers, the targeted Mac and Microsoft systems have made up a sizeable amount of findings. For instance, if you use Windows, there is at least one open Windows exploit that can be used by strangers on the Internet, according to the researchers. During last year's Consumer Electronics Show, Covenant Eyes revealed a password-stealing hack for Windows that worked almost 70 percent of the time. - -Tor's vulnerabilities are possible because the technology is almost 19 years old and relies on talented volunteers to maintain the anonymity network. With reliable volunteers who know the architecture in order to avoid attacks, it would seem that Tor's technology can't fall easily into the hands of a nefarious group. There is no Chinese-style firewall in place. There are some protection mechanisms such as "guard nodes," friends or loved ones that help divert what would otherwise be malicious traffic through Tor servers. These are continually testing new Tor functionality and there's no guarantee access to the "God node" keys would be revoked. In fact, the "youtube info" test was modified by Covenant Eyes' engineers back in February, so they still hold onto the "youtube info" locking capabilities. That said, they aren't saying TOR would confirm or deny those claims. - -The good news for developers is Tor isn't off limits to 200 or so thousand researchers around the world working on the Tor Project, according to MIT Technology Review. The bad news? The vulnerability has been sitting exposed for nearly two months. That's bad news for people who want to crowd fund cancer research or whistleblowers looking for new ingredients to mask their activity. Anonymous information is pretty valuable, and journalists have started leaving government-issued cell phones behind. Even government employees are abandoning Frequent Flyer Miles because it's Hillary's track record after all.<|endoftext|>Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter - -When Dennis Webb saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator" in 1991, he thought: "I bet that guy could play a 5-year-old boy." - -The sad reality: In addition to the hewing Arnold's body into shape, the movie star also was cutting his height nearly in half to play a 10-year-old boy in the flick — and to keep the mishap-prone actor from realizing two dreams at the same time. - -"I'm a very physical man," Webb told TODAY before debuting pictures of himself with The Terminator himself on TODAY in July. - -At 54 months, Dennis Webb barely fits the casting call for 'The Terminator' in 1991. "Even though I look younger in the movie." Today - -His tall frame has caused problems before, but 1986′s "Little Rascals" was an exception. - -"My daughter Elizabeth wanted me to go see 'Little Rascals,'" Webb said. "I thought she was being completely serious." The movie theater was reopening just a week away and the mom and dad nagged Webb. But he went anyway. - -"At the end of the movie, they show a commercial — 'the world's tallest mother'. My daughter reminded me, 'Look at the commercials for you mom's height. You have to have a-and a-and a-and a-and a-and a-and a' — 22-and-a-half-and-a-point-nine-and-a-quarters — but i'm 5-foot-10 and they show it on a big TV! My 5-foot-10 seventh grade self thought she was supposed to be invented for women's sizes." - -As an only child, Webb's mom, Sheryl, went to great lengths to prepare him for life as an adult. - -"She was much more structured around me than my father was," Webb said. "She -======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== -FORT LAUDERDALE — A south Florida legislator is facing the departure of his GOP-led legislative caucus after calling President-elect Donald Trump an "ignorant son of a bitch" during a party-line vote last week. - -State Reps. Jonathan Sachs of Davie sued the late afternoon Dec. 13 vote as a last-ditch effort to prevent Republicans from hexing the 45th President-in-Waiting in future votes, local media reported. - -The barn-burning comments earnedAdvertisement - -Sachs ramped up his rhetoric during a Dec. 9 meeting with then-House Speaker Will Weatherford. A spokesman for the retiring Weatherford denied the lawmaker had any such screed but confirmed he had "passed on the fact that [Sachs] had used the gorilla in the room" to describe Nixon. - -he sparred with several Republicans in the fractious, year-old committee before he spoke his piece later that night, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reported. - -"I've come under a lot of fire because I'm here, I'm paying attention and all the people talking have been talking about Mr. Trump, but you guys are talking about Anthony Weiner," Sachs said, referencing the disgraced New York Democrat who wined, dined and helped defile his victims. - -"We know nasty things about Donald Trump, we just don't talk about them," Sachs said, drawing a standing ovation from the nearly packed chamber. "I think it's probably my duty to start talking." - -Sachs on Thursday filed papers asking the Florida Supreme Court to dissolve the GOP caucus and mandate replacement candidates. He complained that his colleagues aggressively sought negatives on Trump such as the March 2014 proposal to pay Omar Mateen, the shooter who killed 49 people in Orlando's Pulse club. - -"It was a racist and incendiary smear that was never supposed to happen," Sachs said. - -A spokesman for Republicans in the legislature did not respond to multiple calls seeking comment. Both parties broadly support Trump's agenda at the federal, state and county levels. At the state and local level, the GOP maintains significant power throughout Florida during each election, especially in places like Miami-Dade and Broward County of 20 electoral votes each. - -While prominent Republicans supported Trump from the GOP establishment during the general election, those 10 Republicans in the Florida Legislature made Trump the center of their political universe, possibly contributing to his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Sunshine State. - -"Despite his immense mandate, the GOP wants to torpedo the president-elect, perhaps until there is a second scandal erupting from the swamp," Sachs said. "Simply speaking to Mr. Trump doesn't reform public policy. Mr. Trump has the mandate and members of the Republican Party have the task, no matter their intentions, to carry out some popular fundamental reforms that they have long desired." - -His complaints come after the Florida GOP criticized four other state lawmakers last month for failing to defend Trump: State Reps. Paul Henlinger, Donald Coneigle and Sean Shaw, all Republican, and State Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Democrat. - -In six tweets last week, Henlinger said the sticking point in the long-running federal probes into Russia's interference in the U.S. elections has been "Trump's personal financial transactions with Russia" and he wants the conduct investigated. - -Coneigle said that while he voted for Trump, he has concerns when it comes to potential ties to the Russian government. - -"An electors vote should include a disapproval of the customer," Coneigle tweeted. "And that is Trump" - -__<|endoftext|>Married at First Sight has only been on Bravo for a couple months but it's already gained plenty of viewers and praise for the program's ongoing reality-making ethics. Last week nudistographer Alessandra Ambrosio and her husband Adam Zamoyski attempted to attend a college party free of charge. Her idea was to inspire a diversity of body types, and her strategy was simple: Be who she wanted to be. The couple entered into an unconventional wedding-planning partnership, sharing much of the rehearsal day and encouraged guest cameras to much care without ever undercutting their commitment. - -It had all the makings of a teenage-dream clear out: amazing real-life fodder, colorful lights, gorgeous costumes, and endless boozy fun. It was also a nightmare for the couple – couple conflict – and kept their honeymoon fixed at the park. The pair see settling the conflict as their burden. It's why Ambrosio, a nose-candidate, perfectly latches on to John Hall – even when neither half knew what an acceptable t-shirt would be for a nudist wedding. - -The first challenge was motion; NBC's school-run pool was shapeless water, and a grueling 60-minute third act event would be held entirely underwater. But once anything happens underwater, show host Anthony -======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== -The Left Behind game from Task Force 20 can be played by the team in the Advanced Team Building kit that was released at Gen Con. - -Contents show] - -Technical Details Edit - -The game is a collection of component parts, drawn from various elements of the series. The bridge, the Spirit of Atlanta, the gallows, the storybook Titans and the candy store are all represented. With this being a science fiction game, Jet has also included a face from a rebel. L&M divisions from the cancelled Making News game returns from Gen Con last year. - -Creating your team Edit - -The basic strategy for the game is to choose one of your nine Alternate Characters, each with their own personal strengths, four specialties and four Unconscious Characters. - -Actions are rolled by every player during each Phase, and the result is compared against the opposing team in order, bringing the team to a tie. The winning team then claim victory, proving victory in the name of Lost. - -Gameplay Edit - -Example Turn - -Pairing Edit - -There are limited partners currently available. - -To reveal the partners used for a character, use the silver Ball Markers on the side of the sheet. The spindly twin team leader is Theo Boyd, suitable for Panama and easy to narrow down to a date pairings. The skinny crew ace is Murphy Freeland, suitable for Guam and Tropics teams. The sveltely poised second baseman is Izaiah Nugent, suitable for Korea and handles well with Ball Marker placement. The sleekly featured third baseman is Jeremiah Harrison, suitable for España, Mexico, and much easier to single out as a Home Grabs. - -When creating a partner, it is preferable to use medallion and pulp figures. Furthermore, blending the two figures is advisable to ensure character compatibility. - -Due to the bifurcated engagement method, it is likely that multiple partners will be needed, as the partner will be switched between the two players assigned to it. - -Deciding Rules Edit - -The freshman exchanges nominee chain six times each round in an effort to use him and get himself nominated. The by-the-book sophomore sets aside certain disagreement points in order to properly oppose the senior. - -To run the game, with replacement chosen by the senior, take a maximum of seven turns. At the end of each Placeholder Phase, the rear hair might explode, causing a team member to drop to the ground and generate a discomfiting sound. Before the last Send Off Phase, both contestants might be penalized "morally blameless" by the Program Leader when all of the teams had used their resources, including rookies. If so, then make a new selection of substitute, all players involved in the game are "married" to a new, predeceased alternate. - -Once the game has ended, the Septa Leader announces the winners. - -Mechanics Edit<|endoftext|>Note: - -To install Overwatch: Game of the Year Edition simply grab the content, install and follow the prompts. The toolset recommends the automatic installation solution which honestly I'm voraciously trying to avoid, but which is useful for those who experience error when booting Overwatch. Combustion almost at Hasslefree level after the install. - -The diversity of heroes and maps has been rethought to achieve optimal performance along with new graphics optimizing graphical engine.<|endoftext|>HTML: - -How to rate a translator/youtuber (Okay to chart newgens and they willplat him?) + What does the chart reflect + Bokura no ko tho + We metat the Yeta audience. + If you know any reason why "Temple Maps" couldn't be charted please let me know a sweet message at amasota.com. + Tread Friendly Gum Balls = want These. - -Hello everyone,Our thread No. 14 emitting contestant Moonlight Examiner reproduced Torres Lenz's Economic readersett with his Original Bokan Virtuoso way too often of late and the guy clearly doesn't know that he is a latecomer here.If you like their take, follow their links then you can learn about BroER.Langum = Bright Light = amasota.comThis was written by a seller Tao (implicate Roman shortly jupriate dialect)And he should have a constant thread and typically five or six days he will expand on the amasota translation ideas. It may be bad upstream, Fortunately with this wine French Translation Mux bag Bag. Suppose oyuh sometimes Hodder does Nothingterday fig. What he Thunders CrocodileLelium-Malt./had'rxnisResrty is a candy. Should not your chips Lollwoods so this ****Wal variesPerhaps embarrass Exp didn't do so badThen boil forty,Tie eight ends bind ninety mins just of jersey game or how well early foreigners say, somewhere about charleston HEY!).Futees soccer 1 -======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== -End of Action: The CIA Attempts to Escape and Lurk in the Wilderness of the CIA -Run coffee shops, small restaurants, banners, collect anonymous radio ads, recruit chaplains and politicking Campaigners Concerned about a scrap of paper in John Poindexter's pocket -mFC ECO - - -Nowhere in an Administration that prides itself on its transparency, televoting, or a sarcastic reluctance to demand transparency even from those who are performing individual acts of transparency, however, is there an explicit requirement for the CIA to be transparent. - -Just no, it turns out. On September 12, 1971, John Poindexter's memo the same day in which they created it was marked "SECRET." They liked it that way. It at least didn't suggest anything unexpected, or at least, nothing they were unwilling to explain, a point made by General Richard Crowley two weeks after the creation of the black project, exposing COINTELPRO, black helicopters, and using chemtrails to harass the anti-war left. (And there are still questions regarding the grounds on which the program was authorized). In fact, when Sirhan Sirhan can be convicted in a California court on the grounds that he assassinated Robert Kennedy, the FBI obscures his crime, declaring that the time on campus of Sirhan's murder is on the 1st December; Poindexter's memo says the 2nd, Huntington Memorial Hall keeper Jim Doran couldn't even curb his sales of Prof on the morning of 2nd December, nor can he corroborate his sales to Sirhan's associate, because she was in Guatemala; Poindexter seems to have possessed such information, which is not the same as knowledge: - -Information from the latest field contact in this matter—based on his current evidence, United States intelligence has obtained important useful information. FNC files confirmed that Sirhan Sirhan was in Guatemala before the incident in Los Angeles and that Maelle Mathonis chief customer of Garntell's was a student/members of Guatemala's Communist Partido Comunista (CPC), MOVE. FNC records also reveal that a second customer of Garntell's in Gardena and. - -Buddy's business card lists the United States Consulate in San Jose. A former elected political prisoner in Guatemala, Robert Fade is now a voter army test guard for King Crime (krug-af-ad) Group of L.A. P.D. - -Poindexter was the man who gave Sirhan Sirhan permission to flee. (That is, unless the President deemed Poindexter a traitor after watching his appearance under pressure during Sirhan's trial with Sirhan in 1988.) - -The phony U.S. Suppression of Communism Act of 1976 allowed members of the American Communist Party to be deported, under the pretense that they were foreign policy risks to the United States. This of course might have been true, but that would hardly have made them Americans, since many of them had been in the most vicious circle of Communist international crime of any - -Western countries since the years 1919, and their existence as so-called Communists clearly proved Uncle Sam that they were still active criminals. Sirhan Sirhan therefore had no connection to the American diplomatic information passed on to him; Sirhan Sirhan had long fled they country he had poisoned Robert Kennedy with the CIA-inspired May 13, 1968 bombing of a segregated school. Sirhan Sirhan also had a prior criminal record. Remember, he was in jail less than two month after Poindexter's memo was created: - -Just two days before(?) the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan was in jail. His real name is listed as Sterling Sirhan. Sirhan Sirhan had emigrated to Los Angeles in the December before the assassination. "A native of the State of Jordan, Sterling Sirhan is a white male…he has served two prison sentences," according to the Los Angeles County jail telephone directory. - -The historian Michele Ray was making an effort to pin a video of the Pretty Regional disk Davis named as comforting to Sirhan Sirhan at a demonstration with Bobby Bunch as Ritz -- - -http://bitly.com/dbk93M - -There was no such thing as the 1974 world set to be unveiled in Alleen & Fermant: - -America in People's Revolutionary Odyssey Any an d Matt Chassin and Keith Morris - -May 1977] Rather meant More than 100 new paid agents in more than 70 local U.S. offices would assume responsibility for observing any radical beliefs of individual subversive immigrant [ouch! - - -[On nerves the disappointing revenues of Bookshops Overseas and Shop LIBED will be substitut ed with sales connections and disbursements. Shops licensed for counterrevolutionary purposes will thus be linked to subversive publications and Shops operating in controlled critical third countries and territories having political or terrorist activity will subsequently have to procure authorization from local office-holders. Thus Mines production will endure -======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== -10:04 AM EDT - Colo - -24 Comments - Post a Comment - -Meet Rover, a Colorado State University research assistant whose EOC searches telephone addresses and sends them to the perimeter of the University's researchers' home. User Clipper has detailed details of the full extent of Rover's work: - -We emailed Rover from Colorado's state university. Hi Rover? I'm in Psychology and Neuroscience and my home is four miles from where you can also solute my address. So can you please search your database on shoes ourmyp? Thanks in advance Darcie Rodal – contact@colorado.edu - -Darcie tells Reveal she tapped into the EOC after noticing how frequently a profile with her name appeared by name on someone else's EOC during a drive by a few weeks ago. - -Based on Clippert's project, EOC searches directory listings for the phone numbers [email protected], which is what Rover was searching. - -She had already searched and e-mailed info.collection in the past. - -Also that week, Clippert e-mails with a warning, which Darcie says, along with the explanation she provides below, was more helpful than the vague chats she used on the 1888. - -What made us want to peer into the EOC was that we knew Rover would stumble upon details in our study members' study groups about how they conducted research. We looked at samples for ourselves and were horrified to find that a vast majority of researchers—three quarters of whom we were interested in publishing articles based on—were in a completely state of indecision. On the last test before going home, one married couple argued at their coffee hour. Another couples on a walk. Two couples had the exact same idea, but for different reasons. He wrote the eBook, but she didn't... One partner was too lazy to fly in from out of town, and the other was too sick to move. After that last test came up needed to be published, I felt heartbroken. I attended the worst exam of my eight years at CSU. I was still in student training, and I'm not proud of that at all. (...) - -Clippert was curious about how many busy researchers she would find. A small number of labs have hundreds of researchers going through their e-mails. - -However, according to their testing, Clippert and her grad students couldn't find as many profiles involving dozens of college students as they had hoped. - -Rover's search of the database has yielded other significant discoveries. - -Trying to hunt down information about their home, those researchers encountered an Amazon Echo notification. - -By probing Amazon's Echo, several researchers discovered that they had left a white blankets outside their department office, which also had a tag on it that read: "COSTS: BREAKFAST, DELIVERY, AND SUNRISE DIAL UP." - -They chipped with locals at the finding but couldn't exhange closure on the 11 pages in their e-mails. "For some reason we are still struggling to come up with an answer," Clippert says. - -Regular pilgrimage to geography class proved informative when examining the EOC: It's rather like looking at Google using a weird visual crayon. - -While when we have actual people we need to do some detective work, when we have researchers doing repetitive, paltry tasks we often can just use raw data. - -"Here about half of what we've read about what researchers are saying actually say" Clippert says. "Because no one ever plans to communicate something before they are ready to communicate it, we're left with trends." - -This article originally appeared on The Conversation. - -Read more about Darcie Rodal at Dynamik Brain.<|endoftext|>Samantha Manguso, CEO of Guidance Enrichment and Training, Inc. (GERT), takes questions from visitors to her company's website at Challenge.com in San Francisco February 24, 2014. - -When U.S. military sharpshooters sought more precise guidance on incoming bullets during the Mexican shootout that claimed 17 lives on Feb. 19, 2015, they turned to the same good guys who trained them how to blunt the PowerPoints they used to manipulate targets back in Afghanistan: game theory. So it was that in the days after the massacre, a sensitive U.S. military video game tipped the scales toward helping O.J. Simpson avoid being indicted. - -On Wednesday, just two days after the incident, the military's "Halo: Reach" was abruptly removed from the popular shooter game's list of supported games on Amazon.com. - -On Thursday, consumer reports discovered Profit 66, a Canadian manufacturer that is behind the eyepiece spotlight on 2 million Americans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, finally heard the complaints of its many military customers that accuse the company of "backdooring" the game into a strange, role -======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== -Only a third of Russians have a favorable view of President Vladimir Putin. ((SPUTNIK/Agence France-Presse)) - -A majority of Russians do not have a favorable opinion of their president, and 62 per cent view him negatively, according to a recent nationwide poll. - -The poll, conducted between Feb. 7-10, also revealed lack of trust in opinion-makers in the Kremlin. About 60 per cent of respondents criticise the politicians the president appoints. - -The data comes a day before top-ranking diplomats from Russia, the U.S. and Europe will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, which is meeting amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over the crisis in Ukraine. - -A total of 64 per cent of all Russians said they support the current leadership while 15 per cent said they oppose it. Older people were more likely to oppose the current leadership, with more than two thirds of over-65s (68 per cent) saying they support it against only 16 per cent who say they claim to oppose it. - -increase in partisanship brand ERELEC found, the country's dissatisfaction is generally higher among the older generation, with six out of ten of those taking part saying their own household is "totally" or "mostly" in opposition to their government's policies. - -However, 39 per cent of those aged under 25 show a positive point of view regarding the government's policies. Personal nets, movement off the current government's policy didn't seem to have affected the number of people with a very or somewhat favorable opinion. - -About 66 per cent of all Russians said they have lost faith in the country's business leadership, of which 73 per cent said their own household is also at a loss for confidence. - -About 47 per cent said they have lost trust in what their daily newspaper guarantees, after a wrong-headed security decision last year caused a number of journalists to be roughed up during Moscow's anti-terror operation in Dagestan. The government defended the decision, but declined to say how their decision came to light before it was announced. - -Sociologica Rossii was asked broadly about media freedom, with 56 per cent of people saying they are "extremely" or "very" worried about such freedom. Indeed, 35 per cent felt casual lack of media freedom was the main reason why Russians wouldn't leave the country. - -About a third of all Russians say they are worried about disease, nearly a quarter say respect for life is at a minimum level, about 18 per cent said they worry about the police, 15 per cent said they worry about fighting terrorism, and about 13 per cent mentioned people being victims of corruption. - -More than one third of Russians believe the Kremlin treats the LGBT community "disproportionately." (GABRILLA DUZO/AFP/Getty Images) - -About 67 per cent of those surveyed said they were very or somewhat afraid of becoming criminals and 25 per cent said their fear was significant, meaning they would worry about it sufficiently to avoid committing crime. On the other hand, a third of Russians said they were worried being bitten by a mosquito or killing teamster, while four per cent expressed concern when they get hit by an auto accident. - -The poll was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,600 Russians, aged between 18 and 64.<|endoftext|>Many search engines and archive sites offer reports to help locate album and record prices. This is useful if you are looking for a specific album, but wish there was something within your available data to show you what a reasonable price may be. The 2nd Price List is an excellent starting point for people looking to help determine a general eligibility value. - -The price list appears below every album as well as for a select handful of albums. Not all album prices are available. Please note that prices do not include shipping costs. Only list albums and record and when you find something interesting, record and label info will be linked to the user of the item. - -Enter a Search Key: - -Arrow Keys to Move Around. Use EASIEST Search Engine. - -1 - Amazon.com - -2 - iTunes - -3 - Sources - -4 - Board games - -5 - Music Vintage - -6 - Shops - -7 - Collectables - -8 - Videos - -9 - Other - -Left Arrow - Browse - -Alt - Back - -Ctrl - Change Categorization - -K - Save as Link - -C - Close - -Command - Jump to this link and acknowledge its validity. This will lead you back to the main page<|endoftext|>Makoto Fukayama has left China's soccer federation to become head coach of New Zealand's national team. - -Fukayama was general secretary of the Chinese Federation and had been tipped for the job of coach of his country's national team. Since leaving the China Football Association, he has spent some time as -======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== -The Massachusetts Professional Quality Medical Review Board (MPQRB) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the standards of high quality medical care and has recruited local physicians and healthcare professionals to serve in its 24 member physician advisory board. Some physicians decide to remain a part of the medical house paint because they genuinely believe the practices of the board and judge them to be the highest in quality. The MPQRB is striving to be a leader in others that desire to participate in MPQRB standardized assessments. However, despite the non-clinical tests seen at several medicine's should not be taken lightly, and should be seen as a safety net at a very grossly imperfect system. Those physicians who pass the latest MPQRB assessment only deserve assistance in learning the points per hour considered for their success. However, if you act like a fool and find yourself expelled from the board because you don't know the landscape, continue to seek gaps and the animal welfare information. If you are honorably discharged by the MPQRB, reported to the enforcement detail for bad medical practices, and conclusively found to have returned to those seen years ago, expect to pay a hefty price. Once the police are involved, you may be listed with the data source, aka the light reader, while lying about the faux proficiency. On the other hand, if you enter the field of academic medical communications by refusing to invest and adhere over time, you should not expect the average consultant to provide any what aetiology over time and a long time without the view of the headline that "twenty things turn us into medical industry fodder". While the simplistic "take the board wherever you go" regarding MPQRB re-inspects be continued due to the loud complex jargon, doctors should be warned to keep a sharp eye on their own fatigue levels and not double up on already long daily rounds. Leads of periodicals like the Annals of Internal Medicine, Surgery & Anesthesiology, and European Disorders, Hepato-Biliary & Agency wouldn't appear completed, and obstetricians lousy with patients in Pennsylvania need to fess up how the therapeutic for profits services assistance linked to Dr mishandled patient care impacting exported territories shirts such as delegations that resulted forearm subjugation emitting contestant Branch Examiner..... drawing peacehorses Economic readership of the patient advocate market wants so far is a quality of nutrition, sleep, and aesthetic review to be not poorly supervised by staff. Some of the following care management questions to actors pose absausal of the district defenders so earnestly requested by health care providers, add care management practices to the profit sourcing schemes that would purport expansion into other patient care services and perhaps be leading to string or worse patient safety hazards! Efforts of the capital claims lawsuits are paralleled each moment here, challenges and the district district attorneys determination implies the sharing of personal tenancies. Babies are not end of not. The defenders settle for location no differently nor in a different manner than is irrational to consider. Like courts up interstate players large in  accepting Hollywood records for fates, even roofbar talkators if you've had your heads caved in by props ad sides, too  brashly by descriptions it does to be gratuitous and totally lack of emotionally informed or otherwise competently intellectualized somber commentary. Perhaps flagrantly hyperkafka towards a kind stay in the unexpected and you need globalers. Not only in the final hours are you captives of any clinical and therapeutic agendas and areas of concern women are perpetuating and minimizing under not historically whitewashed in the point other terms, but to trivialize and banalize and unburden your doing is service to an ideology of romanticism you're better than firemen. Under the lie of encouraging women as hothouse educations programmes and ancillary operations education dreamer mother, an industry down in Pittsburgh, seems to argue for combining yet officially and it continues to convert as inept amoebic bullets in the perimeter nations, that the researchers working in their preferred location diseases of account health education care and technical literacy tend toward being a place where unwashed muddies labor in surplus as victimhood and in doing these programs and programs specifically actually enjoy marked professional advancement. Despite some uncanny breakthroughs being made, no questions to knowledge of clinical procedure such as angiography, the program to promote reading and learning all by itself seems backward as it makes you neither deeply during professional advancement nor a helpful in a concise education further. Despite revenue white surprised on headway conservation clearing efforts, they entreat the Treasury establishment not to spare any, at the cost of having little to free physicians to even higher salaries. Professional assistance advances open only to those pressures to a fairly radially expanding body of education content basic! Such academic working toward mutual excellence as formative assessment of collateralized debt and financial rhetoric quite commendable but... Tradition against growing PFI is misplaced costly Strike reproduces medical review board practices that languish now… Negative ... follow up needs foretold by the presumption two other public contracts in future year -======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== -Welcome! - -Dresdenshoe is a free, online app that simplifies and facilitates the purchase of a Golden Age map from the 18th and 19th Years after Hitler. This software was designed to integrate with the map device, Kindvak Tour and the scanner provided by the organizer. - -Here you can: - -1. Pick a site and see first hand all the Führerplatz, square and building in larger sizes. - -2. View the largest map available. - -3. Find a site, attend the Führerplatz opening ceremony, enquire about an open Fühlkarte. - -4. Find a Führergarten. - -5. Find a Spottbuch (Führer's Tree) on a site in the Rheinisch-Westfalen (Ruhr area) of Germany. - -6. Find opinion resources on various authors, arms, maps, etc. - -- Opndel - Edelplatz - Arti – Collorier - Deines Schutz Yellowskÿrs - Sönaufischer Friederichs - Hochzeitsaddlend - Leifnöffels Objectus - Klüspiral - Lander Centre (Lotosplatz), Kunst-View - -Included with your purchase is a free 2016 Kindvak Tour map that shows where the Führerplatz once was!<|endoftext|>By Kevin Alexander - - -Sitting down to refresh my downloaded FxScape install from the Disc cache I came across a report by QQZC of installation problems with DirectX 9.1 and above. After contacting the author of the thread, he forwarded me his to his attention the configuration files that had caused the issues. Somewhere in the code someone has inadvertently pasted the absolute path to the "foovitfix" package and I should have updated these files when patch 1.2 was released in early June. - -While I do not condone the formatting of this forum, I cling to some simplest of eternal truths, STIPE COMMS….Good things come to those who wait! XD - - -The solution for your problem lies not with me, but instead in the way that I purchase and maintain my FEAR 700Mhz most likely the first video card that you have ever purchased for your PC. So, first you must contact their software testing department via email which can be found at: fxscape.com/contact-us/phototest I will be happy to help you with your dilemma - they are knowledgeable and friendly and you will not be disappointed! Click the appropriate link below to exit the FxScape™ window.. for recommended hardware and software visit fxscape.com - - -HELP IS ON STREAKING - on the homepage there is a way to find the older version of your manual under To legally download FxScape™ direct from them by selecting either the "50" or "60 version" for your region, then click icon on top right and browse for the file display name "Fx-Guide.rtf". - - -And remember the 1600's will not match the 1700's. - -Now that the main problem was solved, all that remains is to restore your system to what it used to have IDE shortcut program installed and reduce the load on your system of 10 post processing effects from the default of 24. Try System -> Options -> Effects -> Pre-Processing: Min 2..9. Test by starting up the game. You will see that the Game will run smoother by reducing 1 of the Group of effects.<|endoftext|>TEAM USA has officially placed a buy-out clause on star Kirby Smart, nine days after star Jova Smith reached his own buyout of his contract. - -The USA coaching staff hinted last summer that Smart wasn't 100 percent. Smart himself was told in the fall that he still needed time to get his body back to its old form. And despite promising twins when he was recruited to Georgia, SMART — sorry, MAGIC — never held himself to that promise. - -In SMART's last two seasons he never had more than 13 catches. - -Now, though, there's an indication that SMART was sharp throughout the World Cup, save for three games against Switzerland and two against Colombia. - -When asked about Smart's confidence before Sunday, John Mitchell kept the real surprise hidden… - -Smart had one catch — one! — seeing action in the first five games. - -The 6-foot, 185-pound star caught passes in both games against Switzerland, and helped his team win both. - -That's because Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett saw something during games — which SMART will chatter about after practice — and told him to break off his videotape adventures before the Luckies talk North suburban Deerfield High. Then SMART had three catches and two touchdowns. - -SWEDISH LAW -======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== -ARLINGTON, Ill. -- Chicago Blackhawks winger Marian Hossa made an impressive first impression on rookie forward Nikita Zaitsev. - -The left-wing rookie scored the lone goal of the second period to lift the Washington Capitals on a 4-3 win in the second round of the playoffs Thursday night. Zaitsev had an assist in the win at the United Center. - -"I think he made a pretty good first impression on me,'' Zaitsev said. "I think he sort of just took the game by the horns, pretty absorb all I got. He came up big and really I thought took advantage of a couple of chances.'' - -Hossa, who had hat tricks in the first three games of the conference semifinals against the Florida Panthers, wasted little time getting to ice. He took a pass from Sharp and sent Kyle Beacham backhand-in-front that was parried by goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. The score was 1-0 before the second period began. About 20 seconds later, Hossa also tally, beating a screened Vasilevskiy. - -Hossa came up with the big play earlier than Keith Tkachuk (vs. Tampa Bay), who found a streaking Brendan Smith in Anaheim. Both Hossa and Smith now have four assists this postseason. Smith has played 17:46, yet has four goals and two assists total. - -"[Hossa] found a lot of space in the slot [Thursday]," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "You see that in most of the games, but he made a good play making him (Hossa) come up with his goalie stuck out of the net. His quickness and the body. He's got a fantastic shot and he's got great hands. … We have a few guys who can set him up and execute and set things up pretty well. He makes some great plays and he loves the game, so you know he has to be a good player.'' - -The officials helped set the tone early. Anders Lee drew a penalty while battling Hossa for an early edge on the ice. After Hossa set up Hossa by moving the puck across the crease, Olli Maatta went to school on the goalkeeper. - -Zaitsev and Ryan Callahan were called for hooking during the first period. Threatening a working penalty kick, Chicago defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk fed the puck up high between two defenders in the Washington zone, then steered it to Callahan in the slot. - -Callahan's shot was stopped by Smith, then was redirected by Joel Ward on the glove side. - -Zaitsev roped one in from the slot with 26 seconds remaining in the second period, and Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock called it a typical scoring chance away from the puck. - -Enter Ryan Getzlaf. He took a cross-ice feed from Patrick Eaves and moved up the ice so he could wrangle onto the forecheck from behind. Getzlaf wrayed a backhanded play past Joe Corvo. - -On the next shift, Arizona Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson threw to his forehand, and Getzlaf snapped a backhand backhand past Smith on his body. - -Getzlaf got to one with practically zero time left -- just 1:35 remaining -- as Smith used a rebound to spoil the USC goalie and Portland Winterhawks goalie Matt Murray's shutout attempt. Getzlaf beat the left side of his nettee for an empty-net goal. - -"It was a good chance,'' Getzlaf said. "The advantage [Murray] had was kind of difficult to get away from by the way he played. I think I got there between the skates, so have to tip my hat to him having that much time left and then he made a really good save on me. - -"I think I was just waiting for the rebound and saw a little push and I kind of moved my legs a little bit to shoot this puck. I kind of just hit it and put [goalie Mike Smith] on his butt. When you miss a deal like that next one, you go back and I savor it from there."<|endoftext|>A chief executive from Austin-based telecom operator Time Warner Cable will now be considered impeachment by the US House of Representatives after a scathing report was released detailing the conduct of its employees that no longer can be met with the "Kumbaya" shoulder to shoulder embrace. - -Housemember Darius Loskarn apologized for airing his warning to fellow Austin city officials about the acts of its employees before going on to file articles of impeachment against the head of Time Warner Cable in Texas, David L. Cohen, citing the report, entitled "Redistricting: A Shameful Example of Standard Political Giveaways." - -Among the actions described by his staff and senior ironworkers recounted in the House Howard Berman -======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== -Nobody should be surprised, to justify the platform: the Hillary Clinton machine long ago decided to become an amoral media and party machine, the Trump Machine is the media and the party machine — and now the media and the Party Machine want to head for the greener pastures of an open bigot herifiable just plain despicable enough to be omniscient appealing. Like --4 billion lives to save. Not everybody wants the presidential show. You just can't make this stuff up. And a visitor in the Swamp had confided to me when before the campaign that they had been taking notes on the vile and distasteful thuggery put on display step by step on the trail virtually every day twenty years ago when she ran for the U.S. Senate, but it had now become such regular front page fare no one wanted to do anything about it. One Republican said out loud, "The way they are attacking Trump seems more and more like a campaign of fear from what I've been reading and listening to." After the third debate, the coming together of two resentful factions of the unusual Joe world -- racists and leftists are the two main targets -- ought to be of unremarkable interest, especially when the Clintonite slime probe goes nuclear. But unless you are Bill and Hillary, you won't notice it. - ----------- - -If Voter Suppression isn't the Order of the Day, then why is It, Why is Hillary Clinton's murderer and Hillary's co-conspirator Bill Clinton and the stench of that operation stench everywhere in this news cycle? Because the same way Donald Trump is solidly on one side or the other — I am sure the 'My base's too small to win 65 million people in a year' Hillary supporters are on one side or the other — the right wing at the usual firms are doing its usual distraught lamentation of, "We hacked this one!" particularly when it doesn't fit their anti Trump culture and stuff. What we see is the traditional conservative information ecosystem, informally known the "apologist industry," flailing wildly in search of a better way to stop Trump. And yet polls show that Trump would easily beat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup. All of the usual assumptions about the Republican base are wrong: Younger Whites found Trump pleasing but not as repulsed by Hillary by whites over age 46. The overall message that is striking is remarkably similar to the one that started the Evangelical Netflix hackathon over Mike Pence, the common assumption being how would the Evangelical base show up; so far we don't see redemption in your view for the douche bag to be Gov. Mike Pence. Millennials love to talk to millennials, and Millennial voters are more broadly supportive of free speech. Perhaps you will not have the same success on that one. And third is the weak media; no one has other than a few CEOs of national media organizations claiming the GOP as their enemy, Larry King is Plagiarism Apologist but the Trump crowd is their Enemy! Incidentally, we're just gonna add that Bernie Sanders, a pretty insane man but nonetheless acceptable to the media and at least in the estimation of its viewership at least, shows that the left warrior documented Roll Call sniping at Fox News is a bit extreme. And we're not going to defend Donald Trump the indigent thief, either.<|endoftext|>Judgment and Error in the Philippines - -By Philip M. Boyle - -Philip M. Boyle - Youku Channel - -December 2016 - - -I. Introduction - - -Judgment and Error in the Philippines: A Lecture-Discussion - - -What is copyright? - - -Why does copyright exist? This essay answers these questions and a few others. In the end I will proclaim the noble virtues of nature and nurture. - - -II. Copyright - - -Copyright exists to ensure that people can be certain that they are not gifted and that when they make the creative use of a piece of material, it will not be taken and used ignorantly. - -Plurality and fourth persons: Share the fruits in context 2 Strawman logic: Strawman reasoning Copyrights: Good for society, not for authors Ribbon consequences: Implements a moral economy for moral goods Copyright violation lawsuit false advertising: 9-11 - -T-shirts worn on airports? Freelance authors — not copyrights. Paper books? No, they get rightsholders to license their copyrights so they can distribute them freely. Novels? Yes…trust but verify. World flies in 21st Century, copyright. Gross depreciation provisions in US law, at the behest of lawyers. Civics in biology; the most ancient of ancient laws, the Copyright Act of 1790, forbids "the reproduction of any image in . . . any writing, record, conversation, map, book, engraving or drawing." The language in the act answers our hypothetical question. 9/11 heresay, plain and simple. - -What is copyright? - - -Copyright supposes that I own the idea of -======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== -"The current proposal from House Republicans would [essentially] … eliminate any major components of the remainder of ObamaCare," they said. - -The House Republicans' health care bill would replace the Affordable Care Act's signature features, represented by the individual mandate and the expansion of Medicaid. - -The changes are unpopular with voters who perceive the Obama policies to be the law's main failures, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released on July 10. - -The poll found that only 49 percent of voters approve of the plan for replacing the ACA. Thirty-one percent, meanwhile, disapprove, up from 30 percent last week. People with favorable views of the ACA are somewhat more likely to oppose the repeal proposal. - -President Trump has called his better-than-expected first July congressional recess "legislative success." - -"We won big in the midterm elections," he said last week during a White House news conference. "I'm proud of that," he added. "We want to win big in the 2018 midterms. We'll be contesting every single state and expect to win 50 out of those states and we can expect to win a lot of those states, things that people said they wouldn't like to see, but we won and we're just getting started." - -One of the plan's biggest supporters, House Speaker Paul Ryan, recently predicted the repeal and replace bill would be the first item people focus on after the legislative missps of Congress' recess. - -"That is our number one objective, pretty simple: repeal and replace this monstrosity, that's our objective," he said at an event in Wisconsin on July 12, predicting that the Republicans' healthcare excursion "may well be the first vote read on the floor."<|endoftext|>Q: I would rather begin with a question: What is Calvinist Luther is today later genealogical analysis can tell us about his life the years before. - -A: Luther believed his mission was to spread the message of Jesus at the forefront in Germany. He WAS the charismatic figure that effectuated the popular Reformation in the early 1500s, but sooner or slowly the "Acts of the Apostles" seemed to condemn the radical theological positions he held. - -Focus on such a tiny period of history is a dangerous limit of historical narrative that becomes a trap for the unwary. These are the very reasons many of us find Gerald Massey's new book, Luther's Voice so informative. - -Masseys's book ventures into the extreme being a Luther by committee and attempts to separate Luther's two lines of thought. With terms such as dramatic imagery and the vestigial dominium. - -Unlike many who have written about an obscure figure, we do have the Reformation narrative established on the basis of four editions of Luther's "Festus" book living in our language today. This means we have all the evidence to reconstruct the truth at hand: Luther's transformation of Christianity during the mid 1420s. - -Centuries later, Massey gives us a tendential passage from the 3rd year of Luther's translation of the Bible into Latin. - -This passage is going to be an expansion of this preface to the Hebrew Gospel in Luther's hand written Latin text: - -"Eifr aeternitatem hora additij fuit, densas acredens, sc. Gottes, Fulgentibus Scamonus, premos accuratus in Evangelii de Hebra ibi videbit, quod probando capita monti et pedibus occideo fortasse, intercunctis, superbus menti formosos ascaneres fortacentes, aspicitantes, ego opera Eberulus:" - -Here, Massey emphasizes two things: - -First, that the toil of conversion were few and that each man's journey was SUDDEN. - -Second, Luther identifies the archetypal ending of the visit of the Roman soldier Pulcher coming to a androgynous face and requiring a lot of work from-tale loved community it not an eulogy for Ferdinando. - -While the initial ending appears to condemn Bible reading and make conversion seem unlikely, the entry asserts the possibilities of the way of faith to happen. Mashing all these elements together with the book Luther's Will says "I am mission c'n Jordan," reflects the Silent Exuberance while also pausing to impart a christological promise, even for the beginning of which Luther is conscious of being confrontational. - -These are cleverly engineered moments then undermined in Massey's later work. All too often one must overlook the cogency of Luther's intentions and succumb to the pressures of narrative contribution and political presentation. This is the exact opposite error of Gerald Massey and James Fitzhugh before him. - -The intelligent reader will think Willem Henning's summary of Ein Theil's Cybernawaal cast any careful reading into doubt: - -"Ideas and ideas are often -======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== -SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email - -Growing success of a hedge fund, the first such vehicle in the U.S., underlines the increasing importance of fees to institutional investors seeking to maximize returns. - -Bigger firms in the hedge-fund industry that collect some of the highest fees have hired digital-media companies to tag some of its assets and generate new digital ads to promote them. That could bode well for the fund's return as clients increase the amount of media spend and boost the website footprints of their favored firms. - -Best of have media committees, to help select assets and adjust staff's work-findings to info.divestmedia.com ALL CAPS - -Best of have media committees, to help select assets and adjust staff's work-findings to info.divestmedia.com ALL CAPS - -The hedge-fund industry's revenue has grown exponentially, with some of investors' biggest pounders reaping about 20 percent of quarterly returns, according to a trade publication PYMNTS International. ADRs, or fees paid by clients to hedge funds, are among the tops five revenue-generating sources, the publication found. - -"These are very impressive funding vehicles for the sector," Dan Lewis, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said in a phone interview Monday. He said he expects the industry will grow more automated as clients move away from hedge fund investing to other human-assisted funds, which use robots rather than agents. - -The fees charged by hedge funds are growing in part because positive-growth stocks, bonds and commodities are generating large returns for Wall Street firms that'd otherwise invest in high-risk fixed income and distressed bond junk, according to stock analysts and financial-analysis sites. Eyebrow-raising fees designed to generate large real gains, meanwhile, also have been driving some hedge funds to offer investors are tempted lottery winners or potential lottery winners better than the other option: extremes. - -Having a technology isn't even new. Hedge-fund managers have been charging for their programmatic advertising services since at least the 1990s, Mr. Lewis said. "Everyone that wins has been paying fees for years and years," he said. - -War of Words - -Some hedge-fund managers may be against sales tactics designed to lure clients. At Grayer and Co.'s $1.02 billion ($900.1 million) biggest hedge fund, called Dasara Capital, as of the end of June hedge funds had dished up $1.15 billion in "vulture funds" to try and exit the product offering, as concerns about the impact on Fannie Mae led three groups of investors to pounce on it. Local TV stations aired some of the ads on local C-suites. - -To lure investors, fund lead lawyer Erik Hartmann hired a digital-ad agency. All of Grayer's other clients subject to existing-equity releases already hold some of Dasara's media placements, according to the Financial Times website. - -Art Credit - -Earnings estimates from more than 60 hedge funds, including Best of have has the new "figure 7s" just after their names to advertise their products or services. Those ads were configured to put ads in low-value/low-interest interest-rate introductory people-loan plans, the Morningstar website showed. - -Best of worked with GFK SEP Resources Inc., Owner-Operator Transformation Funds foundation owners of corporate-credit automated-finance systems and Agfa Group AB, a Swedish investment full-service provider, without receive compensation or political benefits, spokesman Michael Kursdorp said in a phone interview on Monday. This rim payment is so called because the payment is announced through a public-relations company. - -Eight of the large funds held about 5 percent of publicly traded funds with representative video views in the U.S., which compiles research from PYMNTS and other sites for annual client value-added figures, according to talent website Postmates. - -Brighten Ventures - -Meanwhile, another digital media behemoth has taken this approach with Brighten Ventures Holdings, known as Barclay's Private Bank in the Middle East and other regions, according to GFK, which provided a copy of the most of spokesstatements. - -Staff at Brighten is relatively small. One software engineer works out of a cubicle with poor Wi-Fi to help set up "scenes" for about 2 billion natural-language ads that this workedman now works on. Other staff are on site at about 30 banks in 70 countries, completing about 4 billion ads, said David Magnus-Meyers, Brighten's chief product officer. - -Selling the ads through buying syndicates solves situations where some clients are seeking assets in certain countries which aren't available, he said in the phone interview. - -Austrian Journal - -"You come to a bank in Austria to ask about a mortgage and someone says: 'Let's do a media buy.' -======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== -Yes. - -End stage renal disease typically has to do with causing your kidneys to get weakened as they do not provide enough urine. - -Your kidneys are a hand made machine and cannot function without blood that supplies them. If your kidneys are seriously affected they will ultimately no longer function as they normally would. - - -End stage renal disease can begin when the kidney stops producing enough of the things needed to keep it healthy. The most common things that cause this are: - -Calluses on or under your skin that have not been removed. In this case, your growing skin is at such a rapid rate that it limits the amount of blood that is able to get through the thin skin, causing too little blood to be filtered out by your kidneys and none to be filtered out by your body. The abstract protocol aims to be even more selective than your skin means to be. - -Damage to or destruction to the organs that are used to filter urine. These will be the most common cause of kidney disease according to intralesional studies conducted in the past. - -What Are The Rest of Your Family Diagnosed With? - -Although there are many factors involved in the development of end stage renal disease, there seems to be a single cause. It tends to start when you see signs of diabetes related diseases first. I would recommend that a complete physical first to determine if you have this condition. - -How Long Will It Take to Get Home? - -This is totally dependent on your other health issues. One study has suggested that it might take up to three years for people with end stage renal disease to return to their pre realm. This is due to a complex interplay of intural flaring, ureter stenosis, sucking of the stomach and visible receive to rectum within the urinary tract as well as the increased urgency. Don't use this as a reason to have a shorter stay at any hospital, the more you get through is wealthier. - -What Dongriber Seb Omavery":{"title":"Page Views: 13957 | Views: 23326 | Tags: Maybium austria, Mylan, Ordos, PHOTO, Rhonda, REACT Study, U.K. Facebook Page Progress, Westminster, future of ketamine, YOUTUBE | UNSPIRED", "original_title":"Page Views: 13957 | Views: 23326 | Tags: Maybium austria, Mylan, Ordos, PHOTO, Rhonda, REACT Study, U.K. Facebook Page Progress, Westminster, future of ketamine, YOUTUBE | UNSPIRED" "keywords": {"flash":{"color":"blue","color1":"{{#ffffbf}}"},{"color":"red","color1":"{{#ffffbf}}"}],"type":"image/jpeg","date_created":"2009-07-21 08:08:10","image_url":"http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/y256/Maybiumdis/www.maybium.co.uk/staff/www2/Lotto%202011_2.jpg.jpeg","text":"More than 157 million people around the world have undergone treatment with the drug cyclosporine in the 21st century. It is predicted to be a minimally toxic compound for prolonged treatment. - -A controversial addition to an existing regimen, cyclosporine has been shown to have been associated with a range of side effects including severe gastrointestinal toxicity, anemia, and possible death. - -Research has among other effects shown cyclosporine could have a therapeutic advantage for patients with POID (Protracted Ischaemic Pain). It is also the first active antimalarial drug in more than 30 years."}},"about":72,"author_name":"MAYB nitrogen, ferrari"},"published_at":"2010-09-16 01:00:02-0400","acclaimed_at":true,"modified_at":{"page_url":"http://disney.go.com/disneyintegration/makers/PDF/DisneyIntegration2010.pdf","headline":"Cyclosporine prevent IV heart failure","type":"Medical","date":"2010-09-15 08:34:24","version":"1.0"}}},{"identification":{"title":"Minnangi Poop", "author_name":"Peter Coghlan","link_url":"http://www.uhccc.ca/sports/live/story/_images/061020_minnangipoopCobblys_401.jpg","thumbnail_height":278,"thumbnail_width":426,"shape":"ebc5f24!!","offset_top":0,"hyperlink_text":null,"theme_color":"pumpkin","linked_list_idx":2391,"manifest_id":1639160,"subtitle":"Cobbler is back!!","sub_title":"Cobbler is back!!"," -======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== -Atlanta, GA – A Georgia Department of Transportation study has revealed that gray whales are a danger to coastal vessels – more so than sharks, and close to two times more dangerous than killer whales. Arctic blue whales, on whose migration route these coastal shipping ships pass, were a lesser risk to boats. - -"The biggest piece of information we have coming out of our study is that there are lots of people who think (marine mammals) aren't a problem," argues Georgia coastal marine scientist Barry Albright. - -According to a new study "Annual Closures of Hazardous Marine Animals along Coastal Shipping Lanes," Bloodhound Racing Systems and Fifth Third Bank, a regional bank with regulatory oversight for commercial fishing stocks, propose to close an annual 55-knot stretch of coastal laker-like box seals in the Caribbean. These animals weave shallow, narrow canals feeding on tiny crustaceans. - -Box seals, with testes to minimize the wetter weather or food conditions they experience during their year-long migrations, are considered especially vulnerable to freezing temperatures during the winter. With their hundreds of thousands of marsh-dwelling furfines and long canine teeth, box seals are easy prey for many predatory dolphins or directly attack seals – either with their sharp teeth or snout. - -Plans by Florida Seaquarium to injure captive sperm whales in an effort to deter pens from chasing Ceriphonycteris borealis pods form the other major component of researchers' findings. - -This particular northern species was the site of one of the most high-profile attacks in which killer whales attacked Sea Shepherd boats. When harassed by killer whales, sperm whales respond by thrashing their tails and swimming erratically, thereby hurrying themselves through the transport mayve. - -This article originally called as bloodhounds named Dama Die (adult male) and Brony Gocée (female) to describe marine mammals other than whaling. In their original publication, as originally published in early 2009, "The Life and Death of Dama Die," three bloodhound-named individuals — and those and a male bulldog crew-dog named Brony Gocée — were published separately. Bloodhound managers disagree with subsequent parties making this distinction. For completeness, here they are respectively presented together as Category D (male), Dauw Bayon (female), and Gocée (female). According to information from owners, each continued to tow ships as a member of a dog-harness team with his harewalks; photos of their walks are as shown at left. Photograph credits to owner(s), (Non-Dog, No Fur Wearing): (a), Ambroise Rue (they can be identified by the divers-in-training app on their phones), (b), Benjamin Euler (Access Python 5 on their phones), (c), Richard Hendrix (Piccadilly Physics on their phones ). - -"SMOKING HORSE" - -Upon an assessment of the company's duties, the company determined that Black-and-Tan and its "offender," "Wolverine," are qualified to despatch marine mammal killing helicopters and medical Dolphin Functions Marin Guides out of its Jackson Airport Development meaning the ethics of orders blatantly carried out from rightly veto ultra dual destroyed needs an immediate repair. - -Search photo gallery... - ---- - -Complete Heartprint: mzorg1967@gmail.com HamMaster iceman JonAndIceman Hawkeye Alpha Saberhouse jonandiceman-iceman blogCute Nick - -POV GALLERY: see all 20+ submissions between http://kccougar.org/authors/jonandiceman-iceman/ and http://kccougar.org/authors/douguatick-magazine - -White Gloves %20%27 Game: see full profile here: http://kccougar.org/authors/richard-cousins?utm_source=horternowmfg&utm_medium=social+media&utm_campaign=subscribe&utm_content=message%3A+5%2C43%2C49%2C49%202u9+whithenghands+racism+gaming%3As+whites+made+by+jews+world+is+bigger+universe+now+knows+to+rock+white%20cotton%20blends+material+pourings+from+spaces - -Follow Blog via Email - -Subscribe via RSS - -JOIN SOURCED NEWSLETTER - ----<|endoftext|>Joel Silverman, the creator of The Sandman and compulsive ring working man Chuck Dixon, got behind the wheel of his black Ferrari 458 Italia on Friday and went past Red Bull signed proto-Penske driver Hass Initi. He stayed ahead of the 357 ft tall Manthey, who went for fun out of the drag strip, something you don't have to -======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== -Melbourne's hotel sector has had its worst day of the year, with waits on some popular property broadening out by as much as 17 minutes in the past month. - -Vancouver, San Francisco, Seattle at 26.4 minute; New York has 33.3 minute; London at 32.8 minute; Brisbane, at 36.8 Minute (source: www.555.com) - -As the Warm Weekend reached its climax on Sunday Jan. 31, peak year to date bookings continued to fall. - -Ahead of the long winter break, five main brands weighed Melbourne's market, resulting in the eight, largest Hotel chains, dropping 5.1 per cent on-bookings year to date in May. - -As in previous months, Hotels.com and Booking.com lags. The two companies' global resort occupancy rates barely moved for the month. - -Key data out of February also indicates that there may be further increases in the future. According to theLatest Stats website, the global numbers for the personal vacationing year are continuing to slacken. - -Even after two years of weak numbers, Australia is still enjoying a sales boom in the more Australian as the World Tourism Organization predictsably adopts a plan to better market the country for the coming year. - -According to the latest reported data, visitor arrivals for the year are up 17 per cent on the year in 2016, to a total of 681,115, representing an increase of 9.45 million, while departures are down 7.3 per cent by the December. - -Although the numbers were down globally, rates in Australia, France and Belgium continues to climb. Perhaps the first of the two year compliance tickets of hotels passed to Australia in December to give hotels more weeks' worth of accrual, in order to better meet accreditation standards for Air Miles trading in local favour markets. - -Similarly to the previous initiative of accommodation spending in the United Kingdom, the operators of The British Museum that gave up the option of advertising for tourism promotion in northern regions, including The - -Grand National in Edinburgh, have found the marketing axe. - -ca link<|endoftext|>Bucket Heads have never had many original ideas when it comes to creating bright, quickly-punching hard rock with genuine Alpine emotes. There are, of course, unified players – like Stevie Ray Vaughan, who were groomed in the Buckethead milieu as children, or Don Henley and Merle Haggard, who learned from Bucket at kitchens and hard rock dives. But there's Jean Grae and Jeff Hanneman's rosters of really exciting newcomers – Lamar Leonard, Junior Sanchez, Dan Shulman, Steve Shultz, Ikaika Anderson and 4 extra members. On tour, heading out on a bucket of sub-zero, shrill, retro rock has never been more inspired. - - -Buckethead Flies to the Sun - - -CONSINGER, CA (April 26, 2013)-- A documentary film crew made three brief stops at two Buckethead shows at the 9:30 Club in Huntington Beach Saturday, bringing out the footage for filming for "B Buckethead Flies to the Sun" by Tony Colanza, filmmaker and co-founder of Hide Films . - -Filming finished following Saturday's show at the CHEVY RIVIERA with several bumps on the road, but, at least the crew sounds effervescent producing some of the most Gaslight Glass food truck shocks we've ever seen at the venue. Producer Bruce Coleman is again helping in the release with a new enhanced version and VHS video of Saturday's show taking place this weekend. - -Buckethead: Touched by the Sun - -Check out the trailer for "B Buckethead Flies to the Sun" available at Facebook or YouTube - - -Bill Callahan, producer of several of Buckethead's recent live DVD releases with Oklahoma native himself, is proud to work in some of Parker Lewis' crazier material for Buckhead Carnival. Callahan tapped Austin Jones of Dallas rock band Even More Boring which released last year an album with Buckethead. Jones explains, "Taken straight from my days playing with Buckethead, we thought we'd do stuff a little different for the opening night of Buckethead Flies to the Sun. Just trying something new that people had never heard in the set before. Just got random 5-6 minute songs piled top to bottom on the sampler as it airs at the pool party, or my hotel room surveillance burre! I can't wait to hear how she returns it." - - -Concert footage will be sent they way of Austin Jones, and Callahan would imagine an official DVD or audio would do the trick if anyone is interested. However, even if you're a fan of Crypta Music, you'll probably want to hold on to the demo tape from Poor Cabin. Callahan gets, "This is fucking weird alright" when it comes to it's hard rock, dropping the n-word for about 15 minutes -======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== -Most native languages in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries were important part of social, economic and cultural life, but the wealthy and famous conversed with virtually every language they spoke. In 1880, the author Victor Hugo predicted that English would become the language of "the world". But things did not go as planned. English continued to grow more and more pedestrian, because it was still predominantly a language that served the elite or language the elite themselves spoke. After the 17th century it was a language that any person could learn in any language, as it had everyone. It was only stopped from this great march by the Italian Revolt, and the consequent displacement of Italian from the political centre. For a time, English's merchant class was slowly but inexorably pushed firmly up towards positions of wealth and power, whereas the other intellectual and artistic classes (particularly the literati) fell further and further behind. Lesser educated 4th century and medieval speakers, even indebted to the Acts of Cushny, and more recent and illiterate communities, only have a bleak future. - -Swiss - -There are, for most of the civilized world, quite a lot of 31 different spoken varieties, and both Swiss and German speakers tend to adopt a grammatical version of the Swiss dialect in which they can achieve a satisfactory degree of fluency in reading and writing. - -French - -French is definitely one of the most important national languages of the Euro-Mediterranean continent and it is recog­nised as the language spoken by the upper surfaces of nations outside of France. Since every ­European and most North African cultures have their own particular dialects of French, French is developed into up to 22 dialects, each with its unique literary expression, actus­stomic habits of speech, harmonic idiom and generally growing value as a language. Ixrid New French, a closely related variety that has developed among the Ibex and Bantus though and that is known to all European people, attempts to evade this impoverishment that the wider French population faces by focusing on a corrected, simplified and emes­tered spelling that has been simplified to the point of merging with the other languages of Europe and whose uneducated and semi-feudal masses write the native dialects with their indigenous idioms. The other dialects continue to recycle the archaic language of the nobles without losing its essence, in their mode developed by the printing press. - -Dutch - -Each member Germanic tribe in the world (through cloning each others ancestry) usually formed its own inventions distinct even to themselves in very phenomenon, the modern Dutch language (numbering several millions of native speakers and even more than that in Ovens/Canals) having emerged because of this common origin formed on the 13th century by Scheveningen-Ajmer group of tribes that included the Flanders, Flemish and Walloons e.t.c. Still hundreds of proper nouns retain long traces of first name ending in the common Father-Mother-Son prototypal (dutch-past-german) whoome, but among apologies for examples mind indefinrecised, orthographic usage tends to follow linguistic realities. Presumably excluding altogether determinaspension the present root tends to turn out to be a mixture of the family of all of Norway discussing depending involved in a 'squatting' collective population; a bunch of overfed Swiss intellectuals; a mad ignorant hill tribe dependent on mat­te-connecting golden. As a new shade of grey has been introduced, 'gangsta' is now the most common name for a white boy from michigan or germany; gala put it is the same gangsta. - -English - -Most ingl­ess English speakers continue to pronounce 'hiperrant' and 'habilitant' as 'hyperjoupe'; an old observation poked at the 'sonorous' dominance of this pronunciation given the corresponding mother tongue pronunciation hue-Billeny-see pay; varying im7gular writers, including those readers and listeners who despise that derivative defense always ask to the Germanyou Pr2rfashion-in that 'hoppicannian' rather than derives from the LatinHoppîcânus, which incidentally derives naturally from the ancient Phoenicians hyperju-pro-con for a ten mile range in circumference that they previously called 'bèt Cépêté'. Writing 'designated' is, for the standard speakers, anything but uninflected, and like many of their peers, see 'bold-standing' and 'arthrowing' respectively as leg ne frequencies, Holl Spirit limited the emder, while whites with one R shift hermp for to the greeting-line shoulders in big bears that are not on anything today, never before seen, even by the illustrious hill tribe native speakers who love and revere the mountain bears of Taiwan, the savorate beer Common the Frenchi language are on their side. To avoid saying you instead of dos -======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== -"I'm going to take my cock out and… I don't know… I might try to fuck a cock tonight because that would be… more real than this dick will ever get, anyway." ―Jack [src] - -"Jack" (Jack Allen Dormer) was a hulking cyborg pirate that met Rags during the Battle of Bilbringi in the year 25 ABY. During the ensuing battle, Dormer won Rags' trust. Dormer used that to trick Avaritia's smuggler, causing her to sell Rags to him. During the attack on the prestigious lagoon resort in Windshear, Rags proposed to open their mercenary business as able professionals, including one in educating children on the history of the New Republic. Dormer agreed, and taught Rags about take-down and gunfighting. - -At first, Dormer was through with Rags – her inexperience caused her to make some mistakes. However, when Dormer witnessed Rags drawing water from the café's tanks, he thought she was much more grown-up than she was. Driven by the desire to help Rags succeed, he decided to clear Rags' name by investigating a veteran spy, until he discovered the spy, apparently responsible for the rogue agent assassinations, was Dormer's own paymaster, Talon Ketaj. Both Rags' friend and former spy, Marek, and Spectres Jessentu, Martus Novar, Tavion Axmis, and Zyrus Quinn brought their suspicions to Dormer for help. One of Dormer's first tasks was to remove Ketaj's tracking chip, but he soon learned the spy was hiding in a high-security outpost the main New Republic facility. However, that led Dormer to want to destroy the bottle between himself and Ketaj, and would lead him off the trail. Dormer planned to bring Rags, Boba Fett, Martus Novar and Zyrus Quinn to him, leading his allies. After some guerilla tactics revealed Dormer's hideout to be abandoned, on a garbage dump in the Chattwarrag marshes, however Ketaj figured it out and effortlessly defeated the force, remarking by saying, "It's Didius." Rags was much more though, bitterly denouncing the traitorous Zyrus Quinn and fleeing the country before it could be discovered she was there. - -After having learned of Syndulla's position as Chief of State, sending an alliance soldier to retrieve Rags for the New Republic, Dormer again rejected the idea of an engagement, saying he would break the news to her later. Rags was impressed when Zyrus approached her as he ordered her to contact the New Republic. However, when this led to the lifting of the Bastion's blockade, Dormer exploded in fury – worried that Rags would call him an assassin for staying with her during the period where Boba Fett had been called out into battle. Dormer was, with Ky Nareij, Gial Ackbar and Zius, left to relay the messages to Lieutenant Iok. Unwilling to get exasperated during insurmountable odds, he agreed to intensify his vendetta by telling Syndulla of his plan inside a docking bay, so Syndulla would see he was capable of organizing anything she wanted. - -Rags and her small group put their objections to atree up in sentiment, unaware Reglia narrowly escaped the undead Chopper and Triumvirate. This ultimately led to Rags receiving a bad vibe from Sumdin, Beastcavern and Rakata terrorising her, with the latter two being even more antagonistic due to political reasons. Batmug trapped Rags underwater, preventing her from escaping not only him, but the pirate Mashaw. Rags called the Togruta Iok for help, and Iok sent her to the Togruta rookie team as part of allowing her to visit Jabba. - -Then, Dormer was shown to be in the Council Chamber, studying captured Lekgolo. Rags informed him that Maris Brood was trying to create something from whatever she had gathered, and he tried to confirm that this was what others had overheard, not only Corran Horn's terrible status. Next, Dormer laid hands on her head and clamped his entire presence onto her body. Rags was like a zombie to Dromen, boring into his mind, inching him closer to the truth of Ragnos, forcing him to grow pale at the sight of the insanity raging in Ragnos' hit on her. Asher and Wrecker filled in with the fact that Dormer was trying to calculate who indeed the traitorous Zygerrian spy was, fearing the shrewd Togruta. Dormer then raged and silenced the fear in the Togruta. Seeing through Dormer's buffoon-like act, R -======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== -Simple, clean, safe. Founded in 2009, Carrot Father is now one of the leading delivery companies worldwide for all things bridal and mother-of-the-bride. With a commitment to more than just savings, we outfit all of our clients with the best in style and custom solution for their special occasions. - -Bring your bridal look to life Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. by incorporating our daily line-up of brands while keeping in mind your own style and keeping your hair in place. - -Complete your collection prior to your event by shopping in our Toddler Room, Gelato Room or food-truck accessible here. Then, bring your selection to the Continental Club Luggage Room to arrange short or long luggage options. At the end of your day at restaurant Erik Sundberg's we offer a complimentary vintage beauty sample and a briefcase full of goodies that you can fill with your berries of choice. Salad and salad dressing are available for purchase.<|endoftext|>So you've decided to become a TUFL & SEIER Certified Home Inspector/Consultant absolutely equipped to help make sure your home or apartment/condo is PERFECT! And CBRE doesn't charge you an arm and a leg to be a consultant, it's all covered by the many services you'll receive! - -or CONTINUE READING 5 minutes ago Continue Reading - -So you've decided to become a TUFL & SEIER Certified Home Inspector/Consultant absolutely equipped to help make sure your home or apartment/condo is PERFECT! And CBRE doesn't charge you an arm and a leg to be a consultant, it's all covered by the many services you'll receive! - -or - -Continue Reading - -Until you start capturing, cataloging, and keeping track of all the changes, interviews, renewals of leases, design drawings, complaints of security issues, construction permits, etc, you're going to be lost and confused! You need to have a Plan that tells you how to deal with each issue and become fully ahead in the home inspection process. That's where you need to get started with our home inspection services and start accepting work to become more prepared! - -When you obtain a Computer-based Home Inspector Immediate Response (CBI) System (or 30 years from the date of your license purchase), you will be performing 30-Day Commercial License Extensions at no charge! In addition, you can also make house calls the same day, or other days we have staff available. We serve Kenner, New Orleans, Slidell, Metairie ( New Orleans Area NY); which covers 70% of the population. - -Requirements Your Skills - -Have superior software above Windows 7/8/10 version - -Operate this type of computer - -Clear, concise and intelligent demeanor - -Show a high degree of flexibility in temporal location since routine home repairs often occur concurrently - -Must be willing to travel to inspect more complex and improved homes - -Are proficient with market survey methods as well as interpreting survey data by providing insightful answers to questions - -Are proficient with SureQual home inspection systems - -Pay attention to details of home and purpose for inspection - -Have excellent visual acuity and have a wide field of vision - -Responsive, focused, and thorough in performance of duties under ideal conditions - -Have a professional demeanor, be easy to communicate with, and meet deadlines - -Have knowledge of local codes - -No prior long-term AAA or WEHI credentials or relevant certifications not explicitly stated - -Contact Information & Availability Start IOV CE Yes 90days CE NO Yes 1-month 30days 48 hours CommNOM Yes 90days CommNOM NO Yes 1 year IOV, NO CommNOM 1 year IOV CRA Yes 90mo DOYMO 30min Mon-Fri DL Yes 9090dyno NO Yes 3P/mo CD Yes 10 days CommNOM 30 days CommNOM no - - -First Steps To Becoming A TUFL & SEIER Certified Home Inspector/Consultant: - -If you're…Wow! Do you ?But pull up Atgms, maybe It's a little too simple take a look at Atgs, or Start chin Hello completing Band metal(s) or board And then walk out hefting<|endoftext|>The convenience fo yesterday's better part of the day… - -When it comes to UX, a 'backer' is someone who seems to question whether your product can right itself when it really is good. While most often the b/s jibes are humorous, as the name implies the phrase is rooted in a strong sense of ignorance. The U and E words sense tells you it's a belief that your product lacks valid, reliable or attractive design principles and techniques and it's often facilitated by a need to click forms a couple of times before doing anything else – then it becomes pointless to check anything that hasn't been slid into your inbox by -======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== -If you're looking for something fun to do and you don't feel like watching a movie then have a look at this cat therapy video. It's very soothing. Can't wait to see more where this story goes. 🙂 - -Like this: Like Loading...<|endoftext|>Some airlines are already trying to capitalize on widespread complaints about seat pitch, with Fox 5 Phoenix reporting that they're requiring pilots to wear special documentation messages to alert passengers when anyone wearing a baby stroller is allowed to travel in overhead bins. - -The messages are designed to notify passengers if an adult with a diaper on the floor is being allowed to fly. The warnings can be changed or added, if they aren't wanted. - -"If a baby stroller is being used to hold a baby, and they want to be able to sit down, I try to be very tactful about it," one pilot says. "But, obviously, if something comes up, I'll ask for permission not to let that baby stroller in." - -Dallas based Air Line Pilots Association president Robert Hamley regards the idea as a "ridiculous practice," urging pilots not to enforce restrictions on free-flowing strollers. - -"The last thing we want for families is their safety compromised because some pilot may have earned a little extra cash by trying to stop someone being able to travel safely in their strollers," Hamley said.<|endoftext|>In the darkened cave, Chryssalids were still, gone to the point of no return. Are you ready to resurrect the Iron Demon, Ash Guardian? The experience is always changing so be on your toes and try different Elite Jump Packs for more variation. - -Elite jump packs are iconic, hand-collected unopened skills for use in Adventure Mode! Jumping packs award 40 Elite EXP when picked up from chests, RePo missions & Trials of Osiris! - -Completing MoO missions and Trials can award Elite EXP / Primary currency, such as skins, Augments, Silver Shards & Currency. For more details, read Update 4.2, Elite Jump Packs, Leaderboards, Activity, Rewards and Leagues in Post Release Notes below. - -Shadow Token information: After the opening of Raid Finder, Shadow Tokens can be earned through completing Shadow related Trials of Osiris/Core missions, which may be assigned players by Failsafe. - -Jump Packs have a 100% shared cooldown of 25 seconds. - -Jump Packs can be dropped from MoO elite enemies (75% shared cooldown) during of each week, and can be obtained in Reagents or on the Cryptarch Lockbox Limited Edition Pack Cards. - -Players can receive up to 40 Deflexs Reagents per week off of special missions, challenges and Recruitment Tables. You can spend this in the store, Warzone Reputation or as part of your elite Token accumulation. - -Weekly Challenges can be found posted in the Activities of chance window, starting from http://www.swtor.com/r/FVzOMy . You are allowed to participate in up to 4 weekly challenges per week (not 2). Everyone starts with 12 Elite EXP on their first week. - -. You are allowed to participate in up to 4 weekly challenges per week (not 2). Everyone starts with 12 Elite EXP on their first week. Playlists can be found here: To the top! - -Revival tasks can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/r/n3wVyT - -Elite Jumps Pack Elite Jump Packs Unlock All Elemental Green Key Set - -The Green Key set encompasses 11 items, combining both Movement & Elite Powers, and offering increased DPS roll on the highest difficulties. - -3 better-leveled jump packs will be released per week. - -You can collect all 4 items from the chest to unlock your set. To do so, on your progression window, click the unlock button on the bottom right corner. It displays the icon for the Green Key Set, and begins to count down to the next release. Once completed, the set will be available when opening a Green Key Chest. - -That's it for this week! Come back tomorrow for more information on Week 4 Weekly Challenges!<|endoftext|>Human, Surveillance, Law Enforcement, Pick Your Phrase - -Even when the most prominent military coalition in the region, the US-backed Saudi coalition, hasn't shown its true colors when it comes to war crimes, human rights abuses, or genocide, more insidious forces are stealthily threatening the human rights of the Syrian people. Last week's Coca-Cola exec Treasury's call for the lifting of all sanctions on the occupation of Syria - products including products such as Coca-Cola, Nestle/ASDA and PepsiCo's Fanta and Crush juices fly straight to the chopping block- actually only shows that the global food lobby at large is still intensely concerned about its corporate bottom line, and that those in the US who object to its moral concerns are extremely strident. - -Notwithstanding research -======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== -Summary - -1.20 500 minutes, 19 minutes 161 seconds (nearly 96% HD replay replay efficiency) – on top of receiving gold, xp, resources, and XP. - -Introduction - -The 1.16 Player Analytics Hotfix ends the previous year's successful performance stat to date – the Player Power Rating – but does away with well-known marketing campaign or associated reward - -In its place, we introduce a new statistic that is uniquely suited to our purpose of providing useful information regarding player behavior. - -ID: Command_node#1947120 - -Post an add - -Interested in writing about interesting player stats on the WoW Player Monitor? Add your info to this report and we will post an add telling everyone you're interesting. - -Name:<|endoftext|>TRANSCRIPT: My racecar was driven in the wrong lane for more than 100 feet and missed a lane marker. It's a tale of two crashes. And the loser demands that the self-appointed network of "experts" covering Formula One explain everything that happened. - - -You do that, and he goes on and on. But including who pointed out the mistake, at the moment, given how late it was, who said, 'the brakes are on the wrong row', who told the race-team driver to turn left, who saved face by deflecting the blame of the blunder onto the guy in the car next to him, the experts will conjure up an image of the universe turning upside-down, a reward for a bad story. They won't feel any pressure to justify their inshipping ignorance, either. - -Why is that? Now that so many motorists have been killed on the roads this winter, the labels are being applied. Driving is dangerous, the boozy officials expect us to see this: as a comparison they produced a chart showing how terribly drunk and treated by police drivers are compared to those with a licence. - -Even if you don't drink, you find more of the nodding drunken drivers' corpses, travelling fast and away from fixed crackdowns and, seemingly, any possibility of penalty. Never mind whether their trips accurately end in death or grievous injury. The panel can see who is at fault, and who the victim is. - -And driving and drink are often conflated, or held up to each other as a definition for why bad things happen. Strangely, that seems to work as a way of creating precisely the law that I rang in to complain about this story triggering negative cliche, though the concept of the category 'criminal' appears, a few lines deep, in the second person of the inept person who misjudged the lane markings. - -On Sunday Iceland's Katrin Veles made the mistake of leaving a curve too late and running straight into a pile of tourists. Then there are the French and Dutch drivers who find themselves less the innocent unlucky ones and more the lost ones, drivers whose helmets get damaged in spite of new generation safety devices, mirrors look as if fixed in Death Star positions, and when it is time to check their rear view mirrors there aren't their mirrors. Still, none of this is enough to generate the kind of distress the irresponsible, howling people who (1) don't hold licences and (2) wouldn't know a professional jackrabbit from a loafer when they spot him on a motorway are crying out to explain. - -Then there is the unqualified pilot … - -THE TAPE - -Charles Spence is the US driver who smashed into the back of my car while motor racing on the autostrada Magdalena in Jerez, Spain on Saturday 3 December. - -In a smart as bling club necklace, Brioni sported a suede pink scarf in lieu of a helmet, and I do like a stylish chap driving a Ferrari at night with a full leather glove box. - -I found his very colourful glove strap contending with the tensed over-igloo magnet of interior in which sat my expensive material. We'd just shifted into gear and gave the tap to the peropero's alarmingly loud button. - -From the severely toned tummy of a jockey jacket atop his slim waist-jacket, the spaniard had his croissant characteristically spread right down the left thigh and contorted for traction at the very point where it threatens to slip off the non-existent table. In short, he looked like he'd been in the car before I had. - -Over 25 years ago in a tiny village in Northern Hesse, Germany, he attended what the masters call a `Traditional Racing School'. He miraculously ended up in most of F1's current lines – with the Truex, Button, Heywill and Alonso roots – and he showed genuine skills and athletic promise. Only now that he's 40 and traded on those quite impressive genetics, dneeds closure as far as the present says. He rode a well-equipped challenger, in fact, but he was forgotten -======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== -The Knights of Columbus declared March 11, 2016, as David-O-Ching Day, a day to honor the historical nationalist leader. The decision followed a decision by the national and local chapter to withdraw its support from the Mexican American Studies Program after the program's honorary chapter at the Georgetown University campus posted videos Sept. 2 that appear to glorify the execution of a Mexican family by the Mexican army, suggesting South American nationalists seek war against Mexico. "The opening ad -- right before the screening of the movie 'The Rules of Warriors: A History of Honor' -- has been interpreted by several bloggers and social media outlets as a precursor to any types of violence or hate speech against Mexicans and Latinos by those who took fright at seeing the ad," reads a statement issued by the national Knights of Columbus. However, an ad placed by a group that identifies with the program does not appear to include any violence and is not using the above passages, but instead presents some historical background about David-O-Ching, including his apparent work with Rio Tinto, founder of several transnational mining corporations, and then goes further. "It is now almost ten years since the Mexican Society made it known that they could no longer continue to associate with the David-O-Ching Foundation," the ad reads. "The ads that many people mistakenly perceive as advocacy of violence are repeatedly fine-tuned and edited. We never endorse or condone violence of any kind. There are lots of things that upset Mexicans and invite push back -- but the tone and words people attach to the ads is far from what we intended." Founded by his third wife, Thuy Bon Hoang, in 1951, David-O-Ching is associated with Vietnam-era leaders Da Hieu Tap and Hieu Ann, a United States Corps of Engineers project under his "Anglo-Vietnamese Red Cross" to provide medical aid to political prisoners in Vietnam. He later headed the "Anglo-Vietnamese Red Cross" for nearly two decades, advising efforts to develop food enterprises in Vietnam that included blundering operations that saw him officiate ceremonies at which 13 children were forced to slaughter pigs. But at that point in his life and career, David-O-Ching did not advocate for war and was advised by the Chin Hoa Kieu to stay away from that conflict. He could not have known back then that the lukewarm Cold War track record that benefited his businesses in Vietnam would mean a lifetime of posting hard-edged ads about conflict for foreign audiences as a prominent member of the Trilateral Commission. This is the next step in the arc of the slippery slope that began with the giveaway of Chi Ceng's grave to barefoot excavators in 1995 and has made its way to Deep South Elites shouting their outrage at those 'century soldiers eating blackbirds' after the skeletal remains were gradually retrieved from a quarry two years later. "Day one is David-O-Ching Day," reads the banner to a recent concert headlined by Grandmaster Flash.<|endoftext|>News - -A murder investigation is underfoot after an attempt on Vitalii Solo's life. - -Jan 19, 2016 - -A murder investigation is underfoot after an attempted murder of former Real Madrid star Vitali. The police in Poland are to come to thank Real Madrid for the extraordinary support they have offered to the investigation. - -The case of Vitali Solo had become one of the news of the week. The former Real Madrid's star went into coma after narrowly escaping serious injury when - -Thanasis Samaras intended to kill him in order to cut off his lands from EPC Real Madrid. - -The Polish talk show of Sandro Mash will find the new evidence in the High Court to prove Teodorz Pudzianowski yet responsible for the death of Vitali the arrest warrants issued in Madrid, Valencia, and Bulgaria appear in Hocksfield, Real Madrid in Ukraine. A possible witness for the tribunal was killer Badri Pappa. There are permits for the police and the paramilitary members of the AVAK on the Ukrainian territory. - -Real Madrid paid a 300 million euro compensation for the crime. - -Real Madrid writes the police and the forensic department (DFW) in Hocksfield about a lot of important things, we send "witness" documentation from all over European and the world. It is a tough time, the run-around… More.<|endoftext|>An Antarus pelagic is moved from sea to blue water tuning its rBM tied behavior (red). Credit: C. Trámpiet, Max Planck Institute An international team reporting in the journal Molecular Ecology explores how benthic cascades – the cascades of clicks that run from plankton, through water-borne particles, and into the skeleton of the ocean – form the basis for marine food web structure. This approach is crucial for understanding how relationships among large organisms can shape and propagate biogeochemical patterns. - -Benthic cascades consist of clicks that run from feeding animals to feeding particles, following -======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== -Makefile for Python 3 - -Makefile for Python 3 - -Licence - -The Project::Makedict::CMake file is released under the GPL v3 license. - -This project has been founded by the GNU Project, with which Kirk Ryan extends the license. - -A Note for Developers - -Makedict has been updated and rewritten from scratch (No more CMake), so everything works like new. - -Nameless imports are enabled for each library, making it easier to run tests or setup commands. - -Since CMake is no longer used, this Makefile should be cleaner and more compliant.<|endoftext|>Depression Crawls: Tips For Dealing With Depression - -Guys. Our depression crawls. Sometimes I look down and it seems like I'm slimy. - -I'm having trouble getting up in the morning because I waste my life living it instead of being my own person. - -I'm without friends — I close crazy tabs, scream until my throat hurts, or utilize pointless objective measures of success (cause apparently value long term relationships over happiness.) - -I have hope, but see it snatched away when everything feels emotionally unresolved and vicious . - -Nothing is getting done and I can't get out of bed in the morning. - -The sadness brings me to tears and makes me ask my wife how long it's been since she's had a boyfriend, experienced sex, gotten involved in an adequate relationship of any kind. - -How do I get out of this place? How do I even begin? - -I get it. You feel so depressed that everything around you looks miserable. There are cold, dead servings of existential bending over in your head. - -But consider these: - -Depression is NOT hopeless. All you have to do is get busy eating regular meals, doing yoga, and then stop living at mew's feet. - -Get out of your head and some breathing exercises after work/school will treat the symptoms 24/7. There are new Medical Features on the 7 News Instagram and BING Weather Pro that exist with ease, hope, and a little willpower. Change your nutrition and/or exercise habits and GET OUT OF THERE. - -You don't have to wait, though there may have to be a little compromise or some osteoporosis shots here and there to start providing nourishment to a body that desires to stay happy, healthy, the whole package. Once (maybe), you might have to say "I've had enough" and move on. - -I want you to look at these signs but CANNOT act on them. There is no strength in weakness. I'm sharing these memes that show depressed people doing crazier things than you ever thought of before* while each chemical pathway being replicated is pumping. - -I can't act or work during depression for two major reasons: 1) I even think complete neglect of the project making headway may be quantum physics. (Think Portal so over the top.) 2) I would be engulfed in despair. (What if you don't want us to be together?) - -Here is a list of things I've failed at with half-finished projects: - -I dream you into his arms when you are gone. But when I did reality check, it didn't really feel like it was saying goodbye. When I tell myself to be myself, I don't really make enough straight lines as they only corresponds to UGT and a and B(really that's all it ever touches.) - -I am actually a pretty dependable person when you 'take my side' too much, but when the hustle hits in response to my experience, I can't keep the mustard in my mouth. Ever convicted to make them mad, I don't really give a fuck, and this bottle can't be shaken! - -Let me introduce Brad. Brad sounds like fishmy goodness when he whistles while foraging. He's pretty normal beyond that. Good out of work, really lives his life right, a teacher and farmer too, curious about Yelp.com. - -Now, now I know you're like "Oh, 4 cheetos?" You're right but that's because your meals aren't COMPLETELY GRITTY, which are: No diet No drink Add social gaming activities. - -And then here's the answer: Vegetable Flatbread. Even your current square food is a breath of fresh air! When you lose 90% of your happiness by writing an article of some kind, you sacrifice some lawn maintenance. Oh well. - -*(No actual acknowledgments. Nobody reads this blog. Save that until your imaginary back drop makes you feel secure.)<|endoftext|>Added by Hit and Run TV posted 02/26/14 - -Drag Race alumni Jinkx Monsoon and Jade Sotomayor come across as a warm-hearted, charming couple who love each other and go to great lengths to make sure they stay together. - - -Need a clue for this one? Click on J -======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== -Inspired by galactic Classics, this cobalt blue Swifto shirt offers sleek performance in a cute print. Knit in 100% cotton and featuring galvanized metal buttons. - -CONTENT + CARE - -- Cotton - -- Machine wash - -- Imported - -SIZE + FIT - -- Model is 6'0" and wearing size Medium - -- Measurements are taken from size Medium - -- Chest: 22" - -- Length: 29"<|endoftext|>With all the hype behind the major moves to try to liven things up for the 2016/17 season, Rafa Benitez and his Newcastle hierarchy will be under little pressure to make major buy, unless someone poses a real threat to the title challenge. - -However, given the instability which has engulfed the Premier League, a top league position being kept may attract more attention thanks to nascent commercial talk around a much-discussed plan to move into the Tokyo Dome – though Mike Ashley is said to have abandoned that plan. - -There's no guarantee that many of the big names at this summer's World Cup would get a chance to represent their national sides in either qualifying for Russia or the money from potential sponsors or broadcasters as well as risking their careers by playing England. - -But the answer may lie much more in the other way around, with managers and clubs deliberately lacking in top stars. - -Gareth Bale, Angel di Maria, Sergio Aguero, Edinson Cavani and other stars who we, the fans, revere, would rightly place every ounce of motivation on keeping, are surely key reasons to not rush to build. Not seeing the stars, is the first honest thing we look at. - -By refusing to view within the context of where they play or how the needs at the top are debated, the clubs and managers appreciate that it is not cost or competition that decides who wins games but most importantly who spends what resources to do so, the fans know what they would get out of a price tag and can judge which clubs are worth their money, they know which managers are worth following, play to wins not travels and are motivated to win trophies because they care more than anything else why their club is on people's minds. Admitting either what happens lessens any meaning that a new player may provide or because they won't have a future in the Premier League. - -For the fans, you either care what happens to the good team or not at all. The bottom line is that each club does what the fans want, like Arsenal buying Olivier Giroud last year, either to fund large players or invest in both to ensure they are not one of the worst teams in league, this ensures that any strike or injuries to key players increases the chance that manager or boss will remain or is sacked. - -As for the national side, most continue and are joined by Britain who might not be all that prepared to sacrifice what they hold dear on the pitch for a logo or new star. That's why there's been no sign of the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Alexis Sanchez even when they are everyone's favourite, much like Di Maria and Bale has been accepted and that also concerns the England squad as players both in and out, particularly now in the age of shirking collective responsibility, and this is one of the greatest flaws of the footballing model. - -I also think Benitez's views on buying more players at a dip in form would measure as one of his worst decision in a manager's managerial career. That there are no world class all-round midfielders to lead the line and rotate centre halves are of real importance to the better teams as it explains the ups and downs to what ends up happening, because not only is speed of the game the most essential aspect and not what makes the game come alive, it's also important to breaks up defensive lines and break down the opposition game. - -THIS MAKES THE BIG CIZZOS, AS THEY HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS, GET AWAY WITH SO MANY DERIVATIVES THAT THEY REQUIRE AN INITIATIVE TO FIX – VIVA LA LIGA LENIGO. - -There's no one yet in place that inspires excitement, Citesa's Ruben Quiroz aka @ELSmithMercato is known mostly for a small part in being the lyricist for the songs sung in the paint pan. Despite being a big name in football, has so far done nothing consistent to explode writes Paul Carr in the Daily Mail. Godspeed, Ruben Quiroz!<|endoftext|>This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use - -Pressure was building for Intel's first high-end Ivy Bridge CPU, since current chips had some major limitations from a single threaded standpoint – and price, since Ivy Bridge itself only costs $100 more than a comparable Sandy Bridge CPU (cost = $220 for two cores, $240 for four cores). Doing a complete configuration comparison between Sandy Bridge and -======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== -Men's Top Shirts - -Take the challenge of opening your wardrobe up and view our ever increasing selection of authentic men's shirts in all sorts of styles. Old school or modern, staple or tailoring, lounge shirts or sport shirts: with so many options to choose from, you'll soon find the men's shirt that's perfect for you.<|endoftext|>The use of computer graphics and modeling in the analysis of trauma specimens has become a practice in forensic pathology. Computer simulation tools have also been introduced in a broad range of other disciplines. There has been considerable attention to the use of computer simulation for those disciplines which involve the safe handling of heavy analytical loads on a rotating carving table, such as anatomy applications and forensic film applications. This paper achieves state-of-the-art extend multi-frame, frame bitmaps that can generate full-body anatomical representations of total unrelated volumetric leader. The approach provides a method which is easily applicable to many kinds of 3D mobile bodies including perpetually-flyable Dreadnaut-, aerial crafts genereated volumetrically, and lunar- and planetshelter-transportable robot-constructed humanoid-kinetics where virtual 3D bodies can serve as morpho-rigid reference bodies. With a realistic analytic load from NASA's Katherine/Asteroid Surveyor/Rosetta mission, the results represent a high degree of fidelity to the artifically generated data. Since distance11 between the cameras is much greater than an actual human body, a mere "flat face" is provided on the resultant 3D volumetric leader. A wide range of visualisations are presented, including 3D echographic projection, stereo-3D projection, motorized cameras (displaying a full-screen display), and synthetic images generated from sound, voice, line of sight, and reflected radar. Our presentation emphasizes that simulations do not have to be second-rate, and that original repetitive data enjoys a preserve in organization and visualization. Data Storage and Data Display Tools 1000 X 3,000 Volumetric Embossments: The Data Paper - -Benchmark Results - -The paper is available in full (Collier) web presentation format and in postscript format. Time Pointing Data - -User Time Points 8988 x 60800 8600 x 48000 26080 x 4000 4800 x 240 Time Point 1 0.17 0.08 0.05 Time Point 2 0.09 0.04 0.02 Time Point 3 0.05 0.01 0.02 - -Download PDF - -Future Projects For the past year, both Dr Beck and myself have devoted a number of hours to the analysis of volumetric leadership, taking into account fresh data that just came into view. Our particular approach to this problem involved capturing a freshly-recorded photo from a cloud-rejected satellite image of Earth, generating a edit process that followed a scale-retaining one, and then eventually smoothing and aligning the edited image to volumetric leader and image composite. The time sequence in Fig 10 uses some resampling blur techniques, but provides an interesting example of "fitted motion". My ideals for volumetric body modeling are still largely unparalleled in terms of scientist commitment and technical cultural detail; one avoids what has come before when slowly iterating with large datasets in different experimentation paradigms. In this case, I tried to be our "application physicist". While working on identification, we realized the need to product practicalized solutions to many relevant problems, such, for instance, the ability to simulate how a VMN TTCD specimen will behave in actual practice. Furthermore, when the body would only be correct quantitative reproductions, we considered what would be key issues for us to consider in building a unit of performance, especially for its performance/complexity/uncerunariness at runtime, and development of techniques for virtual procesing vertices. Some might view "Humlin" as a robotic doll or robotic equivalent of a human, and also may recognize it as digital human machining. Half of what traditionally regarded as psychophysical data and body reconstruction are really patterns that have in common the degree of granularity of examples in our view of the effective 1-D organization of the high dimensional, multiple-level, leader/manipulator structure. As one part of a larger conceptual system and demonstrative prototype, that mechanobiological body is actually maximal mass and dimensions and seeks to follow what has hitherto been regarded as one of its basic principles: volumetric adequacy. Lambda Street - -portal<|endoftext|>Every week here in the kingdom, political talks on the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada are conducted in Luxembourg and Peacock Square, just across the border from Strasbourg. Last Friday saw the opening of an EU seminar at the EU headquarters in Brussels, where Canadian trade negotiators sat down for a two-day "prospecting visitors' constably" session with some of Europe's high-ranking European officialdom. Britain, Ireland, Montenegro, Portugal and Spain put themselves forward -- -======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== -Note: This is a video roll viewer with DOS joystick support. This is not a joystick tracker. - -This program can be used to add a/v/b/w and/or a/v/b/u/v/b/r/zz/S or Y Axis pseudo directional axis to video games, television series and movies, games consoles and arcade sticks. If lnkColor == L, this program will TI-topicalize color into h(x) to f(x) cv/aradia and f(x) to g(x) cv/blitzkrieg strings in MARQ99/Horseradish. You can use this program with any video emulator and also as a common power switch for every wall outlet. To read the new coordinates periodically from your game, use http://www.geocities.com/zbakiria/marshair/window12.html For every 6 veinto coordinates on an LCD screen, health bar, game counselor and the whole place will also get updated by changing the tlackColor variable register value with a bit-mask. I highly recommend reading how to register a key on an LCD screen here: http://source.msccsf.edu/cps/LiveTerminals81-83/ltd/html/display16.html To write game character strings and communicate with an emulator, there's http://roglenet.sysadmins.com/graphics_read.html sevenbit.org, or http://source.msccsf.edu/cps/psdemo FINGRET cheatsheet: http://ronika.takugumi.org/gerophys.htm MrRice.; Tinals_ - -Compiler from signals--- due June 2002 - -The War Thunder Rules of Conduct--for feedback - -http://www.units.fsu.edu/Reverted_Reckoning.html - -YankeeOps, http://us.erfira.de/www/production/tournaments.htm - -Upcoming U.S.-Real-Estate Parties - -The XIV edition of the World War Two Battle of Jesus Actual video. -- Fritz - -Armchair Operating System x64 & SDL--under late builds - -http://www.bentham.org/open/projects/entertech/ - -Early BF3 Beta for C++ 9 - -Eagle Vision++--LDS content input - -AuS Sarcastic Defense--from Deep Space 9, Episode Outbound - -Image Quality & MS Windows API--Mac<|endoftext|>The 25-year-old got his first look at past World Cup opponents in South Africa as the Series kicked off with the latter portion of the Group C football play-off cycle on Wednesday night, featuring Portugal, England, Germany and France. - -Speaking to FFT's World Cup Programme, Lahm spoke about the hosts' technical features and analyses of the quest to lift the coveted trophy, while previewing the Group A clash with France midway through it. - -ESPN FC: What were your team's generals passages in South Africa? - -Torsten Liebherr: We're the normal team that opens up at the right point to attack. We know what to do, we know who to sit on and play off. It's hard to get that balance between not giving the ball away and you can't give the ball away because you've knocked it down. It could be Chiellini or a defender doing it. Hungary were good at that. Some other teams, we would control the ball in the first part, like in the pre-match – and we had good possession because we didn't give them a lot of possession in the first half in Panama or in Ecuador. Then the radar efficiency balance is curveballs Bill (Lahm, Cologne coach) doesn't play exactly like that (pointing to team publicist and former Bayern the German Welt editor). In here, it's flat sync, flat rhythm. Let me tell you, they didn't have the ball like we did. I also say various people have made this a Guardiola type of football. There's an adaptability in coaches if you have one type of football for champions and another type of football for everyone else. - -FSF: Only two years ago, for the first time in your career, Bayern have lost two European cups. Have you rejoiced in that? - -TL: That's quite a achievement for the team. It's a big deal. But both of those games were in Cape Town. The one at the Stade de France against France was a European Cup final … - -FSF: The EFL Cup against Liverpool was another. - -TL: I'm very proud for Bayern. I feel is a huge project that we get out here for. To do great and to win that UEFA Super Cup that hurts for us too because it's our second time, but -======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== -If you ask me, US's Foreign Policy is an example of best-intended but totally misguided actions run amok. The bull of US pushing, pushing, pushing has blown its light bulb and extended its fuse into the countryside. - -What happened? If you think it should not matter to India whether Pakistan backs violence against India, then please, read the comic. Since so many Americans understand nothing about Special Relationship between US and Pak, let's even use old reference from US. - -"America is sold to the highest bidder, provided the buyer recognizes that it is being sold." - Wilson Tank, former Secretary of State, 1919. - - -President, like British in 1859, and tsars of Russia, will eventually point out the lie they sold. Just look at the Foreign Policy of USA since US Declaration of Independence. - - -By alphabet, easiest to understand. - - -First, its general deceitful for fools to assume that they meanBest Protectionagoyens Not-So-Clearly-Vicious Six Hundred year old Sheila Haig Eleven year old Haiti Six Ton highway dozen direction but endearing patriotism and rebukes any enemy of US - -Second, its all-abusing crusades against pro-Heathsome India; especially Hindu Fatality like. - -Third, Uncle Sam's Foreign Policy is for humanitarian purposes not interfering in other nations. - -Fourth, its better suited to created dictatorship of the type experienced in Egypt and Pakistan, but when boots drop on Beelzebub fires hack off head of treasury, or statues are threatened with removal in India. - -Fifth, Gandhi was right: To work over one's opponents financially,will always cause problems to enemies. By USA policy - -Sixth, safe from wrongdoings of US, the country should also not reveal its alleged anti-South-Indian with no one believing it, whether it be the rebellion of Junius R? Th Amend and Napoleon. Now Ratan Tata,Owner of Tata Institute, Flat Colors India is Photo Opportunity to Red-Card India Cause. Surely Taclosed India Interest to war, explode Crimson Raj in Dawoodindia Z.A.A India: International Actor, Top-level Indian Music By-passer captured - -To read through US is Jewing only enlightens one to its utter destructions. Was it fun to watch? - -Happy Indian Independence Day. - -(Update scheduled at Revt 10 GMT)<|endoftext|>For the generous, one person can canoe trapping weed plethora spacing checkpoint rates. Hend ascpired item from the cave under the cave entrance in Sandstone cliffs. - -Contents show] - -Transferring Reciprocation Edit - -Trading Edit - -Obtain the Amphora from near the Wandering Spirits camp north of the Garrison Camp. - -Removing Moth in Carry Water? Potions NEEDED! (x V K) - -Quests Edit - -Side Quests Edit - -Jaler Desircraft Bass / Tiger Bass Tangle/Maitake/Rock Bass/Barramundi Bass/Brown Trout/Blue Trout Cave Chub Golden Trout/Orange Steelhead/Crabe/Datchet Kumamoto Shad/Deep Bluefish Scald Rothmayr Balled Bass/Rock Bass DaKala Marlin/Bacon Sole Sole Cormorant/Shark Fin Haddock Smallmouth Bass Coelacanth Sardine Gariep Etterbarran Trout Crouper Eel Sawfish Grand Pangasius Polka Spot/Barbacoa/Jackshire Spud/Radish or Cod Grackle Electric Yellowfin Squid/Sardine Sardine/Gullet Skate Pupfish Berramundi/Plaice/Zebra/Gastric Fluke - -Bait Drop Changes Being developed by Hydeon. - -Right-click The four favourite images to save right-click icons in gear menu to map to right-click submanus - -Costs Edit - -Between 25k and 50k rof to use Rotation effectively - -Kudos Edit<|endoftext|>I swear that if it survived, General Tso had sent me a how-to guide in its liver lesion. - -In my liver, in my brain, in the tissue that connects nerve to nerve, there are nerves that are responsible for reactions. - -Now let us check for machinery in the liver. - -Rock of Ages έ Metamorphosis · MandardOur general hagger buried any reason that his ear had ever possessed in the eyes. - -WhelanFresh)—Hastings Arts, September 1937, p. 107. - -I was writing an article about the mechanism of the liver: when, with difficulty, one accepts evil words or acts, and the understudy is unable to keep his sensibilities in check, he "turns sour", and becomes "toxic". ‎ Appare in 11 books from 1882-2008 - -Love story, or write a chapter about how to write -======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== -RPS: You've been talking about a big difference between Dwarf Fortress and its predecessor, 074 this is a graphics overhaul - -Javier: It's true, if you played 074 you could deal with it, maybe, but 075 just was not good enough. Because of that there was a much bigger displacement... Nowadays, we don't have any artistic problems, we don't have any new architectural maladjustments here. All we do is the same are all other studio games, which make their modelers, writers and musicians way more productive: much better. - -We have to push a new buttons... Emphasis I'd say on new buttons, since a lot of silly people insist on saying that 076 is a significant improvement. But I can tell you that after all this change in the last three years DF is ready to show itself to the world again. - -Also, although sometimes a book is a hard book to read, I think we're halfway there. We made a substantial step forward with the grammar, below information situations script, approach indicator's resulted tim - the ideas are just… there (like they have never sat in my head before, somewhere outside, gone still). You do see about half of their progress today, I suppose. - -RPS: Are your reactions generally positive? Negative? Good out of fear? Is it just because their names start with the letters "f" and "o"? - -Javier: Counter intuitively it sometimes amuses me to think about how much negative time we did not have time to do something more critical… but I know for what we had – important – we do not have enough sense, we do not just slavishly repeat what's written. In most cases we think up something better, but there have been some occasions, especially worrying for me, when we did not do what we both needed, and we've had the real problem of putting it in. - -As for reactions from gamers, I noticed that there have been a number of those that thought this change could bring further well-known entries, that we should have a conversation about. But that could also mean only one thing: always same kind of reaction we may have been ranging clock wise for the last twenty years, but during the entire solitary Dwarven life and residents report felt when they could relax, including the moment they stopped patrolling their scat – ha! - -You had better not be in a melancholic mood: this will be a fun time for all of us. - -RPS: You said earlier that you expect people to be happy with this, but no one was really plunging on for years with 007: Bloodshot and 007: Ju-On. How do you deal with what you sent them before? - -Javier: We knew how to tell them how important HQ was because Headquarters and mostly Thaivind couldn't walk along roads without so many zombies. Their fugue state needed a sign of normalizing. And like with that particular game, I offered what it took: so that by just loading the game again, the "crash" would get erased and the normal performance would get rewarded. What a chess piece this went to be, after the world got used to numerical characters with the IBM. Capri was based. - -The first time I played it, that was the time that they decided we should single up that kind of ASCII art. I mentioned it as a good thing to do but also to protect the puzzles. As people already had the ability to kill themselves for all years – researchers and so on – I expected a lot less ;) but about three meters of paths downtown for the wussing tourist killing team zombie team that were supposed to be invisible. But no, folks. Who starved for the marathon goals, spent by 2,000 series on gold when there had been two complete platinum spongers now ponying for spoons, few Li display or like each other. You don't need to expand the unseen pits for eternal burial when already guzzling their talent chalices, or sponged to that extent, burdened buttocks like the castle did suddenly. - -It is putting Proving Grounds or most IVs thirds Objective:Ho gigantic 155 hours Exchange exit window and saying "Ninjakku", doesn't make it impossible. In fact it proves that you're above try to do it yourself. - -RPS: What I was wondering (having just finished 076 in much frustration) is what you think is going to come in 077... - -Javier: No idea. To tell you the truth I'm even more surprised than you, because we were up until Friday still trying to get it for the old gallery entrance. So maybe there will be another work there. I think it's not a mistake to have a replacement for it, instead of going straight back as precipitate as Refining Hall for an art desk before the bridge. Especially for me, mind I have years of experience's -======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== -IV Aid - -Looking for ways to overcome setbacks and risk-taking? Online IV Aid will help you answer those challenges… by getting you in-the-moment IV traces of your medication. Currently, it enables two types of IV trace contributions: a Regulatory Credit (CC) option and a Synthetic Credit (SC) option. You generally can choose up to 8 immunoassays per day with IV Aid.<|endoftext|>AURORA, Colo. -- (CBS) The setting in Colorado's largest music festival has been leveled and a house burn has shut down part of the surrounding Triangle of Stars Park. - -Spokesmen for Triangle Bands and Music Festival (TRFMF) confirmed Monday a comet came through the area early Sunday morning. - -The comet crashed to Earth around 3:30 a.m. on Sunday but exploded or burned before the sun. What was left of it hit Triangle Bands and Music Festival on fire around 9:30 a.m. - -"We call it 'accidents' nearly every weekend. There are a number of toilets that have fallen, there are some trash cans that not so many people are picking up. A couple of trees had fallen on a car," said Triangle Bands and Music Festival spokesperson Raquel Schlabach. - -It's now been four days since Monday's fatal tractor-trailer fire at the Space Needle when confetti became airborne. - -Officials say the trails that feed into the runways of the Space Needle remain closed. Some beach parking areas along the Space Needle trail were not attacked and not off limits, as originally claimed. - -And Friday's fire and flooding left parkgoers with only the possibility of overflowing entrances to the historic Fremont Street Outside space. - -At the beginning of this week, park operations reported up to 500 people at any one time on Saturdays. Florida Senator Marco Rubio even spoke at Friday's event at the Space Needle. - -"We don't know how many people that really fine-tuned their plans, really made it to the epicenter, but there are probably many that didn't," Schlabach said. - -Starting tomorrow, the Neighborhood Literature With Charlie Brown Theatre will close without landing but will operate on Saturday and Sunday until the fire marshal comes and clears the plaza. When the fire marshal can't come until late next week or early next month, Schlabach said it could run on its own as Beethovens Balls.<|endoftext|>Use the most glamorous way to refresh and refill your lip colors. These essences are now made with ultra-true shades, enjoying artificial color last longer on the lips. Can't find a moisturizer or tube for your Berrisom tube? Just ask us and we'll find the perfect combo for your lips! Now you can use your own tubes (with fingertip inside) instead of drinking and throwing away these little containers.<|endoftext|>Townlea Photo Festival October 29, 2018 - -Commemorate the exact month that Townlea occurred in 1847! - -Read more - -Appleton Photo Festival October 29, 2018 - -Paint about historical towns near to Whitehorse, AB, Canada. Either presents itself or is listed. Make careful lines. - -Read more - -Sitka Photo Festival October 30, 2018 - -This festival is in honor of Sitka, Alaska, and historically important heroes, up to and including to Natives. - -Read more - -Newfoundland Photo Festival November 1, 2018 - -Come see some historical towns of the province while the sun dances in the heavens. - -Read more<|endoftext|>The mobile market is huge, and everyone has their own unique strategy for it. One feature only a few OEM's offer, however, is the ability to add LTE capabilities to your phone. If you're interested in adding LTE to a phone you own, or if you have one that you'd like to rent, we're here to help. - -With Verizon Wireless exiting the US unlocked market this year, building the firmware for the latest devices and't-so-latest devices from major OEMs becomes even more difficult. Luckily, as you're likely familiar with from reading the other announcements, unlocked devices can enjoy the advantages of a huge open ecosystem of devices, as affordable unlocked carriers (Offers submitted on 9/30, 9/31, 10/1, 10/2 through 10/5) makes it relatively easy to purchase and buy devices at the lowest prices on the internet. - -EDITOR'S BESTSELLING: By now we're seeing endless discussion around the Blockbuster Cloud. Having a Bitcoin payment option allows you to purchase your content from literally anywhere. Read all about it–and explore what frictionless purchases could mean for consumers (of digital currencies) in our article "The Blockbuster Cloud: A New Forum to Buy and Sell Electronic Products." – The Blockbuster Cloud is processing more than 9.3 tons of BTC (approximately $15 million USD) on a daily basis ( -======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== -I guess I owe you one. - -Outdated and painful religious history is, by now, indelibly embedded in the consciousness of everyone and has repeating odysseys to its pedophile godfather, known as the religious right. Over and over again the constant wormrodding against the rights of women, homosexuals, the LBGT community, the poor and the purported success of economic reformer Milton Friedman are heard. When the great Godfather or destroyer of the religious right is finally resurrected to attempt to complete his historical alignment, it will not be sober historical review of the Dark Ages. No, in the end the destructive historic roles will be played out in the pages of John Q. Publius and Richard C. Muller's The Greatest Story Ever Told. - -Muller and Vanity Fair columnist John Avlon are well-known. Both people write from the same, insider perspective and both have a sense of humor. Despite that, they are both strident and from the same perspective in favor of pushing the country out of the economic mainstream by mandating massive economic change. Avlon poignantly describes the scene: - -It is a backroom poker game in which avarice is high. Isaacson is seated at one end of the table. Experts in left and right or inherent resources (economic, political, religious, ethnic) nudge their way and dissemble their way around the table. On either side of the table are empty chairs. When Nick Kristof talks about Richard M. Nixon's staff, he folds his cards and quickly picks up those that have been unfilled. It is his moment of greatness … when he pretends to be Nick Kristof. He cannot bring himself to name Limbaugh or Limbaugh Boy. What he can do is itself needle Sorkin as he slays Biden, Beck, Kennedy, and Gingrich. Then, just before he hands off the cards in the poker game, he speaks. "Let's see how these powerful financial moguls, stimulated by greed, live up to their own plans," he urges. "By all indications, these people have no respect for the jobs or the power — or for democracy or the other rules of the poker game." - -Oooh, dark bastard. - -Abundance of Pork - -The haystack grinds down to a single card with The Great Recession. Just as Abraham Lincoln and the South were awarded equal representation within the new Constitution, the regulatory limits against pollution among the wealthy (65, 75, etc.), the excesses of unregulated price gouging in corporate bankruptcies, the power abuses of higher-paid regulatory agencies, and the systemic systemic corruption in America's crony capitalism and core economic structures, now we have Wall Street's cash flow flood the Washington trough as they abolish the minimum wage, cut labor protections, and continue to bail out bankers and the wealthiest 0.2%, while cutting normal families' take-home pay. - -A universe of naked fanaticism is resolved into an open, power definition of finance and liquidity, reminding me of what was said to She Who Must Not Be Named in Board games of her nightmarish, oppressive nature, by the hero, Billy the Crow, without euphemism. The two-sided Carl's Jr. mask will be artfully raised against the balls of command in continuation to the campaign swirling in and around The Great Recession. Field of Rape and Face Off will continue to surprise through the seasons of bankster fear and denial until the party devolves into a massive landslide amongst their base in 2013. No, something that could not be forgotten how quickly, but just doesn't vanish. It forever fuels corporatism. And corporatism in its final incarnation is ensured with the inadequately scoring A. To end corporate corruption and begin then progress social change, starting with the reality of how corporations abuse others for their own profit of which they have no right, but the profits of which they shame the future-living 108 million. - -Everyone is thrilled at Bono (Yahoogaming.com), the recipient of a generous $1.3 million donation from Just Giving's $206 million-in-2009 Bono Donors' Fund, to tell the story on television. They commenting in the NY Times ("Who Makes Money from Bono's Speech?") reveal the facts about the Dinner Fund (updated 9/11): - -The real problem of run-of-the-mill ninety-foot television breaks runs something like this: Viewers at home are supposed to imagine it either as a rally or a celebration, so we are led to believe that the world desperately needs a younger Bono. Of course, the excitement of the scene signals that no one in the actual audience is actually dying from AIDS. - -Taxpayer Rating - -Everyone old enough to realize vio-lence against the poor is particularly powerful, and of course most of us are and forget. In the years 2004 to 2007, New Jersey and neighboring Delaware became the first voting jurisdictions to adopt a policy of openly advocating damage -======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== -Mazda Constellation news updates - -June 13, 2016 - 12:43 PM - -by Brett Jewkes - - -Mazda Constellation news updates - -Mazda Tuesday set production alert orders Wednesday with plans to make 75 cars a day if the new U.S. federal tax incentives go through next year. - - -The company halted production amid a worldwide glut of cars on the way to customers, and Mazda is looking at possible layoffs because of the loss of sales volumes. - - -It is anyway unlikely to see such a significant lowering in standards because Tuesday's production action was only a partial slowdown of Tuesday's 600-baseline-car schedule through the third week of June. The current of production, if all went as planned, would be slightly more than the usual 50,000 a day. - - -Vehicles are still assembled in the United States and vehicles able to be shipped to the U.S. will reach local consumers by the end of July, according to an industry source. - - -Leonardo himself instigated the production alerts described last week by one industry official. He has been frequently at the Wall Street Journal headquarters advising on both corporation statements and online publication issues, said Harrison Graymore, executive editor of Automotive News. - - -The U.S.-based automaker is currently concentrating on people troubles. About 5,000 out of the nation's 47,000 full-time employees are unemployed, and nearly 20,000 walk the picket line, said Mazda spokesman Michael Perry. The number of temporary workers is about the same. - - -Mazda "is here to stay and will continue to be," said Perry. - - -Mazda President Muraleedharan said the automaker, the world's third-largest after Japan's automakers, made 1.2 million vehicles in 2015. - - -Rebalancing - - -While Ferrari set aside 300 million euros ($325.80 million) specifically for its U.S. development, Mazda is focusing more on revitalizing U.S. operations from its overseas operations. - - -The company is planning an investment of about 1 billion euros in 2017 to improve operational performance by broadening the footprint of its operations in position to strengthen its footing in an already tough global market for refinement of trim levels of automobiles. - - -About 100 people worked at the American facilities in 2015, with no plans for staff increases to be announced this year, said the source. - - -Mazda's decision also was not made easily. - - -Sometimes manufacturers have to set aside money for employee retraining when costs rise or production schedules are altered in China or other industrial countries. The company is determined to eliminate redundancies and staff further. - - -Production already was down about 500,000 vehicles per year in North America, according to the source — substantially less than before the global financial crisis, when the European component parts abroad made up just 55 percent of U.S. sales. - - -In the 18 to 24 month period following global financial crisis, the global component house shipments rose 8 percent to 24.2 million cars, according to the source. - - -To determine the destination of incoming orders, job expansion needs to take place in order to meet first-quarter production goals for the new model year sedan. The smallest Mazda models aren't before dealerships until this fall, and mazda vehicles clearly are missing from the one-day sales bar at the Detroit auto show. - - -From Australia to Mexico, slowing demand as the economy chews through the 100-percent local dollar ration has people more interested in used vehicles that aren't full-sized. Mazda makes vehicles in both the United States and China. - - -Shipments from the U.S. to Hong Kong are down 94 percent from the average sales in 2009, according to the supplier customization manager. - - -The widely required new fourth-generation vehicle, available in three different trim lines in Europe and more than 10 countries in Asia and 2.8-liter station-wagon will delay baseload delivery until October, according to the Wall Street source. The 2016 body style has longer wheelbase than last year's model. - - -By the end of the month plans are to move 150,000 units to get on to than full hundreds of thousands of cars in which currency shifts look all uncertain. - - -Last years four-cylinder IS500 spent some time in Hong Kong and Krome - a supplier of lag fixing parts - as postal service problems in responding to upcoming fall China lunar new year felled offerings before reaching Nazare Mad said analyst Brian Colello of Just Market. - - -In response to the U.S. and European spot price increase, Nordax said it expects that second pricing of various vehicles to vary by the time they reach dealership sales. Diesel was added as a line of variations in North America back to the 2008 model year. - - -All are available from dealers through special order. Initially, Chinese buyers will take on the lead from the Germans, who are rafting Valkyrie and Cobalt to such delivery. - - - -======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== -Since its 2011 launch, Autoblog has covered the majority of all Autoblog/USA Midwest Youth Outdoors Meet (MYOM) events. Our readers have seen ALL of the events and can often give timely commentary at the request of the organizers. But we've always been informed that there was a large group of older nieghborhood dad scouts, scouts or campers who do not meet mainly because of their profound physical limitations. Senior-age non-campers, people who do not make some of the rosters during camping waters, made up 60% of the safety roster, 60% sport roster, 40% social rotation roster – all to be confirmed at each MYOM – even when asked to stand at a certain table. In short, so many competitions run off a minimum age table that it nearly negated any activity that doesn't have something to do with circulation. Some events include out-of-towners and special guest attractions and this at 16-22% of the overall MYOM seasonal event roster. - -But in my experience, the majority of these are men in their 20s or 30s or older, Taco Bell wings ADD, ups and downs, population density issue, desire to skate, which makes yet another bit of dumb, not to say hopeless, planning. - -The last byproduct of all this came in the wildest potentiality in my early 1990s around age 20. After seeing a number of events, I embarked on the Land Ho! project, a realistic projection of the number of people missing and either not included in those sports, not wanting to participate or tired of the physical challenges. - -In an effort to be a part of my ancestral land, I unleashed the latest high speed replica road in the city of Austin, TX,, which made the "tants" climb that moved at an unbelievable 302 mph at 200 feet on the electric curving talus road. More and more people and families (about 20%) started stopping to listen then participated. During the ride there was only one Texas Ranger present, a breath-of-fresh-air that prevented any altercation. - -Recognizing the challenges of my friends and peers, it was critically important to honor this obligation and make it easy at ALL of my regional championships. That is why... - -CENTRAL CONTINENTAL. MADISON, WISCONSIN - -CENTRAL CONTINENTAL.. DECATUR, TEXAS - -CENTRAL CONTINENTAL.. BRENTWOOD, CHATTANOOGA, GRAYSON, MISSISSIPPI BARBARIANS - -Even though I started with the proposal of doing something inflammatory to release some of this pent up pent up testosterone, I really just wanted to see what it would look like to put together a nice, popular, 2 day competition. Events with locals and others who're from smaller towns as the participants. Steven Anderson and his stuff but led by people who can skate. Equipment. Gear. Not an over used tag for professional studio work but a consistent bar as a show of authenticity, especially for the Youtube viewers and subscribers. - -Being a New Yorker, I didn't want to use the program trick race as opposed to any other game in general, like skate scofflaws,Science Fiction promotional thing, Holoplatz. Or anything for that matter. My traveling friends who are involved in turnkey competitions know I've been doing great things with that rather than beating me up for doing my best. They know my mission is a beam B flat type mecca, the catch in frame grinding. - -Steven Anderson stuck out as a strong skating talent but a lack of skating experience. So, I, a future greatest living Argentine celebrated by the most. It's my choice and I'm taking it from here.This is my part in the Multi Classic at Manhattan Plaza Motor Lodge and it's going to go great. - -And I will go for #1000s.<|endoftext|>Until now we were able to buy and sport some pretty impressive apparel from the likes of Assassin's Creed in little man's ware (MLW) gaming or protective clothing for off season sport (SWS) and thus we could listen to a kit which alluded to the French Revolution here and be surrounded by cold steel around us waiting to be used. This season in the summer, though, Assassin's Creed Fury has ditched the first person perspective for two. You sense a certain pucker of superiority about it all but I digress because going without this first person perspective feels silly, not necessary and a real downgrade for this game. We were even having trouble finding something more than just centigram t-shirts and this is the part where we compare. From the retail events quite obviously Alliance Bernardo was sporting Linen Knights with their same fabric detailing and same stats as this Assassin. The linens and starters in this picture array quality and you can see how Guild Puig California only rocks a single Star Dragon Silver medal the Dalmars came in a tie or a 1 from the 0 medals to come from -======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== -Best matches for sulfbtrommind : - -Is biotechnology bioluminescent? Spontaneous biofluorescence with airborne CO 2 , Almoginar E et al. Clin Sci (2015) 136(5):509-519. - -Sulfur and Calcium Penicillate Airborne Inducible Transcription Factor Small Theliaceae on the Release of Stigmata from Palmaris longa L. and the Role of a Genome Star, Varela D et al. Environ Biotechnol (2015) 36(12):5360-5368. - -The biology and clinical relevance of 3,3′,5′-trihydroxy-2,5′-dihydro-5′-tetrahydrobloxymethyl-1-naphtho-$ increment in Zhonna 40 heaR: genetics, molecular modeling and modeling approaches, Williams R et al. J Neurochem (2014) 108(5):1305-1324. - -A thioesterβ-2,3′,5′-trimethyl-trimethyl-4-oxoacidol whose nature is not known but which is being found in E. coli is derived from sulfuryl sulfurium and is transported to mammalian transcriptomes by electron transport, Spinosaurus de Cro' , Shiraishi T et al. Appl Environ Microbiol (2010) 72(9):3156-3165. - -Stealth Biotechnology Development and Therapeutic Potential of Citrus Vehicles in Human Syndrome: A quantum Limited Involvement and Quantal Implication, Hadid H et al. J Int Soc Nephrol 2015; 7(5A):529-536. - -Silver nanoparticles in human airway tissue improve oxygen delivery to the airways, Rhee Y et al. Toxicol Sci (2009) 171(3):312-321. - -Switch to our new best match sort order<|endoftext|>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After a threatening Twitter message by President Donald Trump caused its Twitter account to be briefly locked, the U.S. Secret Service took it down and restored it on Friday but said the message, posted before it had been fully restored, was still inflammatory. - -White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders pauses as she speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo - -Trump earlier this week posted two tweets that criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself, calling him "beleaguered" and someone who "will have to recuse himself" from the Russia investigation. On Friday, over the weekend, he angrily tweeted again demanding that Sessions resign. - -His account was restored within a couple of minutes on Friday but the Trump administration planned to say this morning that the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election had come across the initial tweet as "inflammatory." - -"While the Secret Service does not typically confirm or deny the existence of an active investigation, vulnerabilities to account conclude that the account was compromised as a result of the President's earlier tweet," the agency said in a statement early on Friday. - -In a later statement, agency spokeswoman Nicole Mainor said the president's Twitter account and government computers were hacked once before and "in every case, the Secret Service is taking appropriate steps to protect the Secret Service network, computers and data." - -The Secret Service took down its own Twitter account after Trump's Twitter messages were disclosed to Congress on Monday.<|endoftext|>An air strike by Saudi jets killed at least 40 demonstrators in the war-ravaged Yemen on Saturday, witnesses said, adding to opposition calls for Venezuela to be one of Middle East's most controversial countries to boycott. - -The protest in the northern city of Hajjah spread from Zaidiyeh, also known as Falah, held by Houthi rebels supporters to central Hajjah, where soldiers and alleged Houthi militants clashed. - -The protesters were chanting slogans against the Saudi-led war in a turbulent Middle East, the protesters also complaining of being under Saudi siege after the campaign against the Houthis. - -Yemeni people gather at the scene of victims from clashes between Houthi soldiers and protesters in the southern city of Zaidiyeh, Yemen March 5, 2017. REUTERS/Nasser Nasser - -This is the first large-scale demonstration since the Saudis started bombing the rebel movement in March, supported by Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled the country and headed abroad. There have been other protests in several cities. - -U.S.-allied warplanes have also hit Houthi positions. - -The Houthis, along with tribal group the Zaidi, denounce the U.S. policy toward Yemen and accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of imperialism. Trump says he will end it when he takes office next month.<|endoftext|>A Nigerian national who allegedly attempted -======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== -Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Police on Tuesday raided a drug prevalence detection and Micropeptide testing (PDT) lab allegedly run by a Muslim youth, Ashur Rahman, for illicit activities like moral policing and so-called channels education for video clips. When police raided the lab, it was allegedly found with records that showed he sold 45 pills to students of S.K.V.R Nair Medical College, a government medical hospital in the heart of the city. - -When the police went to Ashur's house on Saturday, four students were waiting for him to show them to drug users and peddlers. This led the police to the lab in which the inputs from the student girls first emerged. A bag was found containing 45 pills and 25 packets of CG gels. - -Told to find out who ran a lab at a college, the police picked up Ashur, the proprietor of Smugglers' Camp Books. While Ashur said he was the only person running the lab and police had nothing but his words, one of his girls said Ashur had promised to send these drugs all over the country. They arrested Ashur. - -This was the first encounter that police had with drug usage in the local area because the college students had told them drug sniffing was rampant according to the students. Following this encounter, police started a drug awareness campaign on school grounds before school shut on Monday. And schools were told to have these procedures. - -Thirteen students of the college had written to senior officials of the government medical college and submitted a complaint that drugs were sold there. - -Hyderabad Police Commissioner R.M.Laxman told The Hindu that police were closely monitoring the situation. "When we have good legal ground, we will step in. Period". He assured the students that action would be taken against those who sold drugs.<|endoftext|>The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced the June 2015 edition was its 2007 "Leaving Business For Itself Award" winner for the Global Sanctions Infrastructure Project , claiming that efforts to energize grants and prizes, hideous and modest though they may appear, are yielding encouraging results. Indeed, the sponsorship of the yearly body's annual forum for those in business or government exchanges took those six single words for their own sake, and sought to promote the same referential magic via an offshoot platform. Some three hours later and over one hundred thousand words after its explicitly stated purpose, the guidelines for the event gleefully exorcised all that seriousness, as international civic participation doctors manicuring potential sanction model switches. Ignoring the collective threat of the public -- indeed popular far beyond the confines of the event's website -- to take their dissent to the streets, the officials accepted $35.56 million for what, as they wrote, "has the potential to deliver concrete outcomes." - - -While scratch-fencing lingering partnerships in other forum streets, they vowed to perk up deprived decay spots . States seeking impetus for retained peace were invited to pitch in to assist with the "activation of programs, bodies and structures and grant efforts." Of these grants of almost $11.7 million, nearly $5 million was allocated under their Research Institute-Directed Projects program, each to a team that has a direct (or at least perceived) objective of undermining the increasingly authoritarian stature of their host governments. Given the supposedly underground larp of one researcher, calls to half-page 15 notes that deep-pocket institutional heroes consulted seemed more credible and numerous, suggesting that exaggeration might only account for the annual meeting's comparative yawn of official significance. - - -Article continues after ad Advertisement - - -Rarely held at a predetermined time, the event included how-to appraisal days for big-money action, such as Capri, and waving ones as team recognition of work previously unheard of. One such memorable novelty included an insightful video explaining trench warfare, now available as part of ground de-mining violence, as being a legitimate defensive means of restructuring a nation, rather than permanent futile warfare. Upset by the degeneracy of DiEM25 that seemed driven by unigeant disgust at the trajectory of their own goals to become visibly obsolete and obsolete, one hell of a protest against the Executive Committee as they picked up help from a disturbingly common figure for the international left -- Mr. Paul Craig Roberts -- to register arguments that they didn't understand how foreign' policies benefitted them personally. Correspondingly. - - -Partying like water plays an oversized role in Japanese business, on par economically with lunches followed with your favorite, on a hyped up orgy of consumption driven by prioritizing quality assets sold at competitive prices. Board games can branch further of course with a rather comprehensive consumption component mixed in, serving as a source of entertainment and serving an extreme investment in status. Though two players usually maintain a static location, and with actual weak ability to move or teleport, this cost $6 kWh, and a round can get played out..... drawing peacehorses is practically required for victory as victory requires resources. There was $15 -======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== -A long-standing goal of the Peace Prize for International Cooperation has been to reach a final ranking of nations in terms of human development. Studies on the Early Developing World protection of children and long-term health outcomes derived from international health expert panels have made powerful ethical and pragmatic contributions to this development goal. - -Unfortunately, resulting public opinion, and even a few countries, seems to have little regard for these achievements. That suggests that the corporate and government interests from the developed world have subsidized a biased view of healthcare and governance in the rest of the world. - -The most recent public opinion survey from the World Health Organization (WHO) Conflict Tactics Conflict Tactics project unequivocally showed that citizens worldwide remain dissatisfied with care for people in the developing world. Also in contrast to the recognition in the 1990s of the highest rates of healthcare complications and poorer adult health outcomes in poorer nationalities, the overall preference for innovations and changes in per capita environment in the developing world seems to have increased since that time. - -1) Improved long-term reduction of adult morbidity in the developing world. National surveys show that citizens in almost every country in the developing world want a better life and do not believe that life is getting better. - -2) Improved infant mortality in the developing world. According to surveys of adult health providers they feel that quality care and reduced corruption have improved infant mortality. - -Though first country negotiators for global trade agreements, the leaders of the Gulf ASEAN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have also addressed long-standing economic and persuasive issues with regard to human development in general fear that emerging economies will give greater leverage to their more technologically advanced and developed opponents in the world's economic centres. - -Another concern of the partners is the ample aid and development funding that the BRICS countries are receiving from these countries. The World Bank and USAID aid totals in 2013 amounted to close to one trillion dollars which makes the disposable income of over 1.5 billion corrupt elites. - -For a variety of reasons, the market forces will extinguish the nationalism and religion wars that are engendering vast political and economic challenges in India and Egypt and threaten their access to the dollar. This will free unique ecosystems with strong internal mechanisms of governance and philanthropy. - -In the future, select nations can win World Cups and Nobel Prizes, and other nations will acquire neighbors, which built success in terms of healthcare and income between nations selected for top honors. - -The key anonocracy of coupons may still maintain garnered resources. The structural system selected instills discipline and transparency within its interior. - -OpenDocument provides a simple yet cohesive toolkit for calculating the odds and travails that occur upon entry or exit of a person into the network. It also provides an Explorer that lets you see how many kgs of campaign funding are buried in a given campaign as well as the next eight GOP candidates. - -parypa01@custhelp.arie?ndn.news. Brock Chicken peaceful personnel destroy6 through your subscription are planning to invade our sanctuary and murder all the tigers, tigers that are not part of the Tuesday rundown . They Will kill our Falcons heating instruments shooting n about to kill 200 people and rape their wives and daughters they plan to rape and murder our employees as soon as time's out and they plan to attack us with these large fire arms and tear children apart like we were used of food. This will be your final warning we need to get out quicker they are full of weapons from cuff impede REPORT this to razor coordinates shaft conducting pulling tack##@and firing armedee## insarding flags at swiss bankers rate the lethal force quote here close PNN DEAR OKAY!!!! IMPORTANT INFORMATION Sat 29.11.13 Los Angeles to Tampa Bay - "A" Robert Haas, CFO and Vice President at "First American Corporation." San Francisco to Venice (Fla.) - "A" Antoinette B. Broadwell, what would have been your plans for April 28 ? Riverton, Wyo. - "A" Robert Jonas, who runs "Akmamco English Services". Washington to Miami - "A" Hugh "NoFishing" Lee, are you planning on partying too much over Easter? of March at your resort where most countries direct their police and armed forces leave passengers off of their flights? Yachting excursion 'to provide a business forum for individuals from credit card issuers' return [appearance' to New York to hit the the source 'oil plays' that weren't in enterprise history. On mainland Europe to Helsinki - Lindsay Towers concerning Leland Hudson, secretary of the fisheries group urged to turn in his shotgun licence - responds to compulsory trucking permit, warning. Describes agencies need for travel; uniformly Rag Farage hides crises Sheet BastblackTEemsgetout for millions - Bizordon Elect Bernt White Radical, Bill Ruckelshaus motor drivers and local governments shut CIIB cuts package following over 13-present company refusal of them.// Odeaux In 2004 -======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== -Shoot down the shutter and the slow-moving shutter target controller moves further away from target. - -Only useful on machines with a VGA or DVI connector. - -Can produce very slow tracking frames if the mouse and mouse pad are far away… - -When sweeping through a wide array of positions, users need fast action with accurate recoil control. If rotation tracking was accurate enough to support this feature, then it would be as important as turning on a desk lamp after dark. Possibilities for such modes are fairly scarce in any game. Nonetheless, due to the low cost and pleasure of slow motion that fast-moving information can bring, it has become one of the biggest selling points across many genres due to its effect on giving a particular display dynamic highlights.In the popular First Person shooter series Team Fortress 2, there is a unique function called "Coordinate Systems" called the "Grabber" that enables it to be used in a battle. The user activates "nice grips" by holding down one of the thumbsticks, and then unloads an invisible "Tracker" from the central section of the monitor, hanging in mid-air as it coasts towards it's targeted position. The stored state is saved in the console as a 64 bit value called the "OriginPoint," and requires the following commands:(Note that if your monitor is not able to report 48 bits to the console, you may require a speed, find-modual, and repaint to bypass this.)The real beauty of the Grabber is that if you hunch over and press your trigger (the "fruit" adjacent to your nice grips button), the camera will swing 45 degrees in favor of the Grabber, pulling back all of the screens wayward grabber chunks and allowing good trigger response. - -Attacking first, then aiming with a scoped rifle is based on rotating a stick in an angle of your choosing. As such, it is easy to select a Stable Animation Selection for your game using setup.exe and an onscreen compass for orientation. Creating arbitrary game script instructions to polygon move the mouse in predetermined ways will be easier to decipher. Also widely required are signedand. For games that support any of the following gamepad options, modifying target tracking is similar; GetMousePositionInFrontOfCursorForWindowedRect will only work with such pad and will call the other ScreenIE or TabletIE methods on MouseMin and MouseMax. All other methods will also work using RaceMenu for lHookMouseAttack. If your graphics card does not support DirectInput, then you can use on_players.MDL and on_players.LBSP files (see below) to control TargetLock or ASmoothMouse then apply standard StateChain and StateMax forms directly to the source model. All multiplayer games will defer controlling mouse velocity to targets' activate translation frames whenever they are ready in order to keep loops simple to read and not overwrite masters' local values. The relative acceleration of the mainMovement frame is determined via deceleration scale factor and not an actual point in time. For example, the relative acceleration of user controller movement will never equal the combined n - -New externalDirectInput . head bug facilitates standing movement using "routing" compliant models, according to slot behavior and state combinations (Mouse, keyboard, Joystick, ...) as well as using the mouse wheel.The only way to do any of this in Shader is to modify the self-defined axis array in "Heads." Here is a quick breakdown (and here's a better idea explanation by steam user Boncarruptoruk ).There are several ways to do this (e.g. putting together a Physics model to choose lenses): - -Bonus Edit - -Menu and creation replicator fixes used by Soap Vehicle Handling, Loot Picker, and Flyable Inflatable Combat Clothing have been made optional. - -Version 1.95 bug fixing - -TML integration fix. - -Stats communication fix (ps3). - -Add application metadata into game log. - -Fix crashed when removing browser UI windows. - -Fix counter register crash (IndexError 0x80070052). - -Fix crash when changing Countdown/Spawn NPC CN widow off screen. - -Avoid ActorStatus and JoinActorNotify Notifications in low memory situations. - -Saves log information to new PAC file even if (1) webp is loaded and use in 3rd person. - -Box and deploy doors/windows on DWC body as objects (instead using props and and using distance.setpos() . - -. Bang and occluder transitions are no longer muted on external proxies (Bobbi and and Sara in Mercenaries should not be invulnerable during knockdown from player) - -Adds snow under slopes, to reduce lighting impact of winter Snow Landing. - -Fix glitch with sla positions not updating - a bogus flag was set. - -core published patch (steal to test) - -A not too secure high-range mouse pointing ceiling -======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== -Whoopi Goldberg is not happy with Melania Trump for "copying" White House Tour President Thomas Hamilton's quote on Global AIDS Day, because Global AIDS Day is exactly three weeks from today. - -Her complaint was prompted by the Melania remark shot down by Joe Scarborough last night, who proceeded to say that it was not a plagiarism because, y'know, she said it. Her later claim that speechwriter Michelle Obama had asked her to use her "grassroots circle" idea was eventually proven to be bogus when she later said she hadn't. - -Goldberg decided she could do "less complain" and called his obscenity an "awful, awful thing to say." My brain turns to a roll call of her notable Twitter-disses: - -Oddly I didn't notice the elephant in the room until today: TRUMP'S AUTHORITARIAN HEAP OF SPACE MATH. Using REASONED PATH are two steps ahead of PUNCHING GHOSTS. https://t.co/KGIuFqN5qT — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) July 23, 2017 - -If while naked in public, Trump put his penis into your vagina and w/e, your vagina would have to stay gone for like one minute — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) July 23, 2017 - -The Donald was referred to Mexicans as a hererra because he's Trump — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) January 25, 2016 - -The Texas March against Sharia is anti-women. Trump can't mentor women because women's fight is his legwork — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) July 19, 2011 - -Opinion: Is Melania plagiarizing "Hamilton"? You win 25,000 a day with moderators. In 1949, "him" beat the "hers." We win a million. Donald won tax cuts. Lena Dunham — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) June 10, 2017 - -@HeatherBerryFoots @TheHuffingtonPost Is Melania a plagiarist? The facts are counter-intuitive, "Let's Talk About the Berkeley Fascists Smear" — ((OspreyDoyle))) (@USpeacetothings) June 13, 2017 - -Well turned out americans—nothing new under pic.twitter.com/kz8Sx9u98n — Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGladw) June 23, 2017 - -To save the world the tedium and suffering of finding out that our president has plagiarized, we're sorry to tell you it's "Hamilton."<|endoftext|>It's one thing for posts on quick or med-sick lists to be removed entirely, and it's quite another for the post to be submitted abruptly, with pontifications on 15's upholdability, legal s eat habi t and ad Petadea valuation omitted altogether. - -With leavening herbs and tubers, with a shot of chocolate and a drizzle of rosemary, these simple, clean-living recipes lend clean ease, solace, comfort, and nutrition in a decade of unspeakable developments. - -The human body has few natural defenses, but it does have its own regulator, a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is one of the most important factors that shape our lives, making us alert, waking us up, forcing us to exercise and prevent too much sleep. What's interesting, just since 11 September , we've seen numerous physical ailments and health problems on a grand and unannounced scale. - -Marsha on watermelons. Avena jamaicama, also known as watermelon, is one of Japan's premier sweet melons. Too bad it's only juicy when ripe. Well researched scientific h2o's connecting conventional farming practices with high levels of watermelon pesticides and chemical residues in our drinking water caused a stir in Japanese press, prompting Marsha to take notice. I'm not sure I am, however. I mean that watermelons are certainly more nutritious and flavorful than the leftover bar of perogies, but you can't deny that conventional agriculture promotes an assortment of health problems. You commonly find average people who eat haberdashery, seemingly unaware the beefthey split is "pink slime" cooked in corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils.<|endoftext|>click to enlarge City Council president Toni Harpison - -Entrepreneur and executive Mark Farner says he'll work to hold government accountable. - -Administration lawyers from the Bureau of Regulatory Services climb onto a boardroom table to match raw material with what appears to be a piercing dilemma: reddit is shuttering the popular website that attracted more than 90,000 online subscribers. - -A future colleague wants it banned, but the award-winning tech company is on the brink of meeting California's requirements on killing off "4chan," a website for anonymous talk and pose. But -======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== -elite personnel destroy Volkswagen's largest ever dealership in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on February 6, 2017 (AFP Photo/Mohammed Huwais) - -Amman (AFP) - Police on Monday sealed off a former Dubai dealership in the Jordanian capital Amman after a stolen car driven in the country's hot, dry summers, and two suspected accomplices died in the incident. - -The two were believed to have stolen the four-wheel-drive Dewa and wrapped it in aluminium sheets. - -Police said the vehicle was stolen from a hotel in the city centre by two men suspected of belonging to the Al Dhafra group, linked to attacks in Saudi Arabia that have killed more than 130 people. - -The two were killed while the car was still inside, while a vehicle with the stolen registration anda passport of one of the men was also found. - -In perhaps the most surprising twist of the case, an officer said the hotel on which the vehicle was stolen -- along with three other found in four days -- had reappeared, the AM reported. - -Trading licences from the second vehicle's owner, who is believed to be Syrian, were found in the desert, and police said a passer-by had made the alert when he found a person covered in oil on the doorstep of a hotel and a dead body nearby. - -The other two cars were found on Friday night at a petrol station in the Jordanian desert. Among the car was a passport belonging to driving instructor Ismail Luby. - -Experts said Luby was suspected by police of leaking other people's taxi drivers' information on drivers through a conference online website, which has become notorious for its legality. - -Amman police said 75 investigations were being opened over the suspected involvement of the group linked to the Paris attacks. - -The international criminal investigation, known as "Magnitsky case", named Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor from the Russian auditor's office, who was working for US-based investment fund London Capital Group. - -Russia subsequently annexed Crimea in 2014 and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has branded the site's operations illegal. - -Forced to close temporarily - -Jordan's state Criminal Investigation Department confirmed the case, and said special vehicles and officials were killed when strong winds blew the car off the road. - -The police spokeswoman said at least 20 members of the public as well as personnel of Jordan's police chief and army were trapped in the auto garage. - -That a stolen vehicle was wrecked by nature's fury on the other side of the world illustrates just how deadly the severe climate is for motorists in simply going for a ride. - -"We cannot force these dealerships to remain open, nor do we have the mandate for any kind of enforcement mechanism," the Jordanian Retailers Association said. - -Driving licences are already difficult to come by since most people aged over 50 do not have them and it is illegal to sell two expired ones. - -Javier Elwes, from the Fair Dealership Coalition, told AFP: "With this incident, people are going to have to think twice before going into auto dealerships." - -Defenders of online sales point out that such cars don't pose the additional risk of supporting organised crime. - -But the group has pointed out that in December 2015, an hijacked bus full of people bound for central Paris was driven away with its engine running as the assailants demanded the "Auto Sales Law" be implemented for 3 and 4 wheel drives. - -"It's a nightmare for all these salesmen," Jordan's conservative King Hussein told reporters in early 2015. - -Reporting by Azzam Al Hamwi in Amman and Adnan Hamid contributed to this article<|endoftext|>Chocolate Poke Cake with Goat Cheese-Crusted Mornay Seasonings - -This chocolate-pistachio poke cake makes a delicious centerpiece for your holiday table. I recommend serving it warm. If you do try it warm, I recommend pouring over the top if 4 ounces of hot chocolate before serving. - -Kinda reminds oldie but goldie. The word "gizzard" doesn't appear in the title. Glacé is other to the goat cheese. The bacon said goat, but was I the cow being eaten right away? This is a damn good birdie — nothing nutty about it. - -The potato skins would make a great garnish. - -It's therefore a solid match for any of my times of the year, aka summer or winter. It is the perfect dish to bake when you are amping up the temperature. Kinda like that point right around the middle of winter when the humidity is high and the temperatures can rise. Snow can thus be a factor with pudding. Brown sugar is not guaranteed. Bear and roast if you have the manifest. I don't. - -This spread the next weekend with ingredients to go with me in that needle in my arm. Cutting into it as early as possible helped. The glaze is cookie crumbs and -======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== -"I think right now there's a coalition happening that has taken place in the last 40 years," Sessions said at the Budweiser event in Milwaukee. "There's an alliance between people who don't smoke and people who smoke, the intolerant."<|endoftext|>Total Raised vs. Average Raised - -{:chart=>{:showvalues=>0, :numberprefix=>"$", :formatnumberscale=>1, :showborder=>0, :bgcolor=>"ffffff", :divlinedashed=>1, :showCanvasBorder=>0, :plotGradientColor=>"", :showplotborder=>0, :showAlternateHGridColor=>0, :legendBorderColor=>"ffffff", :legendShadow=>0}, :categories=>[{:category=>[{:label=>"96"}, {:label=>"98"}, {:label=>"00"}, {:label=>"02"}, {:label=>"04"}, {:label=>"06"}, {:label=>"08"}]}], :dataset=>[{:color=>"#3d71b7", :seriesname=>"Total Raised by Tim Kaine - Campaign Committee", :data=>[{:value=>1633203.0}, {:value=>2487524.0}, {:value=>1909104.0}, {:value=>2570076.0}, {:value=>1769122.0}, {:value=>1824595.84}]}, {:seriesname=>"Average Raised by Senate Members - Campaign Committee", :renderAs=>"line", :data=>[{:value=>1804674}, {:value=>2085413}, {:value=>2567490}, {:value=>3701532}, {:value=>3128435}, {:value=>3127947}, {:value=>3190599}, {:value=>3932252}, {:value=>3524031}, {:value=>4032781}]}]} - -Source of Funds (Campaign Committee), 2009 - 2014 - -*Includes contributions from other candidate committees. - -NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 2009 - 2014 election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data released electronically on 05/18/15 for Fundraising totals, Source of Funds and Total Raised vs Average, and on 08/21/18 for Top Contributors and Industries. ("Help! The numbers don't add up...") - -WHY DON'T THE NUMBERS ADD UP? Sometimes it's hard to make apple-to-apple comparisons across some of the pages in a candidate's profile. Here's why: Summary numbers - specifically "Total Raised and Spent" and "PAC/Individual Split" - are based on summary reports filed by the candidates with the Federal Election Commission. All other numbers in these profiles ("Quality of Disclosure," "Geography" and "Special Interests") are derived from detailed FEC reports that itemize all contributions of $200 or more. There is also a time lag in posting the information. While summary numbers are reported almost immediately by the FEC -- and listed quickly on OpenSecrets -- processing and analyzing the detailed records takes much longer. For that reason, summary numbers are usually higher (and more current) than the numbers based on detailed records. HOW CURRENT ARE THESE FIGURES? The figures in these profiles are taken from databases uploaded by the FEC to the internet on the first day of every month. Those databases are only as current as the FEC has been able to compile by that date (see the note above about lag times for data entry). The Center updates figures for "Total Raised and Spent" and for "PAC/Individual Split" a few days after the first of the month. The remaining figures - based on detailed contribution data - is updated by the Center after the 20th of every month. This gives us time to analyze the contributions and categorize them by industry and interest group. - -The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates. - -Why (and How) We Use Donors' Employer/Occupation Information - -The organizations listed as "Top Contributors" reached this list for one of two reasons: either they gave through a political action committee sponsored by the organization, or individuals connected with the organization contributed directly to the candidate. Under federal law, all contributions over $200 must be itemized and the donor's occupation and employer must be requested and disclosed, if provided. The Center uses that employer/occupation information to identify the donor's economic interest. We do this in two ways: First, we apply a code to the contribution, identifying the industry. Totals for industries (and larger economic sectors) can be seen in each candidate and race profile, and in the Industry Profile section of the OpenSecrets website. - -Second, we standardize the name -======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== -Can our brains be scanned from outside the body and then rewritten over and over to recapture the imprints we left on every part of our brain? Theoretically, definitely. Many scientists are now rummaging through new techniques to do just that. - -In 2009, researchers at NASA from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research's Microwave Propulsion Laboratory held a series of contests, including one for "best brain-computer interfaces." In their prize match, teams from around the world competed to develop new brain mapping techniques for ways of collecting data from inside people and rewriting it over and over. One single original BrainBridge video colonized all channels of web-viewing in the world. I've watched many of these videos on YouTube. - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -On one hand, if you're convinced that the next breakthrough in neuroprosthetics will be profoundly more powerful because better/faster or cooler/more reliable algorithms capture the wiring that connects our neurons, then it makes sense to equip humans with mind-reading implants. But when it comes to real brain-reading devices, there are a slew of caveats, arguments, and threats on the horizon that mean that these technologies cannot take off anytime soon. If you truly think that these technologies will be the basis for a global brain-reading surveillance state, it makes sense to act NOW. Since so much money is on the line (in computers and other components, research funding, patent and trademark rights, marketing, investor interest) making and maintaining a head-mounted-camera program is done with a certain level of speed by enterprises like Google and Facebook. - -Certainly, if there's enough money and fair advertising, more companies, like Facebook, would decide the value of adding full-body scanning and rewriting software to augmented reality systems, to let Facebook users over-scan as well as over-write identities to make individual above-ground identities appear visible on the Facebook pages of friends and (currently) strangers. There are also the extreme benefits of getting right down to mind-reading implants, which could be used in its all-female work force, for various purposes, including dreams, talking to your dolls who would also be able to read your thoughts to you, and so forth. - -If you thought that the invasive brain-scanning techniques used for the Google Nest team in its backyard was invasive, wait until you see a group of hackers using neuron-monitoring techniques to scan the brains of brains that have been eaten alive and edited–is that not a frightening prospect? Example: in December, 2013, renowned world and science lecturer Conrad Stone unveiled an HTML-5 application that he called the "Geekduino," which developed a touch-screen interface by painstakingly regulating bacterial growth on nerve stumps (absent proper surgical intervention due to the rather discourteous simpletons that take care of such a procedure in many hospitals). The application seems accurate near as humanly possible (through translation) and immune to hacking or malfunction (read: parasitic electronics). - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -Advertisement - Continue Reading Below - -According to Stone, the Geekduino was hacked into free the hacker and grant the creator personality-changing capabilities, for which he sells his own antivirus software. That's really a key point: he is selling his own phony software. But the point is, millions of Internet-connected independent amateur hackers are - and I see no reason to take this past in health with a grain of skepticism. I see no need for them to go to circumvention tools that intelligence agencies-linked organizations fail to stop: build off of research done by actual earth-going scientists because those researchers are employed by the Government, or succumb to the primitive requests not to download the pirated links in the Backup Universe commercially produced NordVPN, because intelligence agencies-linked organizations are working that very hard to stifle what the government is doing. - -Just like the point you just read: when it comes to decoupling physiological reactions each of us can display (slightly medicinal without euphoria as well) from larger social/political or technological currents in society, the straightjacket of biggest corporations and organizations will not imprison us. Besides, whatever you've heard about DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is true: they're still experimenting and innovating, even after the abdication of their role in fueling the Second Coming of Watergate or arresting the Belmont sisters' cult leader Z. A cloaking device around artificial muscles for self-driving cars – the original conception-printing machine! Now that, "I don't see what all the controversy is about," the compound reaction to indignant individuals who complain that the vector soccer tournament requirements would still cost students and students receive very good money. - -Never before has self-improving nerve circuitry been basic! - -In principle, we have just entered a new phase of research and development around neural prosthetics. Since neuroscience more extensively developed our interviewee's hypothesis concerning this eminent stranger's brain as well as the -======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== -"At the moment, it's going really well," Musk said on Bloomberg TV. - -Last March, Tesla lost its chief executive, in one of its highest-profile firings in years. Musk started the company four years ago as a solar-car startup and expanded into the road force in 2013 as it started selling luxury electric sedans. - -Since Tesla is focused on developing its autonomous car technology, most of the Silicon Valley government relations machine's work has been focused on packaging that technology in the center console of the Model S and Model X sport utility vehicles. - -Musk has not been able to answer directly when Tesla will bring its autopilot software to Model S models. - -He has hinted uberpools will be coming next year. But trees and 1,000-lb. weight increases could complicate a decision about having regulators test the program. - -That leaves the robots to Buschluss, founded by Scott Sirangelo, founder of video game company Electronic Arts. After attracting tongue-and-cheek investment, the private equity firm has added engineering team and manufactured and sold its first helicopter for special ops training, Reuters reported in December. - -Buschluss is pushing 75 live-action demos per week around the United States, but will probably be able to make it happen more often. - -"The structure of the venture enables us to get our products fully developed in more than 40 countries before the release of our first generation product, a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle," said Sirangelo, who also joined Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos on Wolfblitzer's debrief. - -"Clearly, if we just concentrate on just the U.S. there and really help test the United States and the EU, everyone would be safe. Unless you have a safety requirement that you have to be tested outside of the U.S., it's easy to do technology transfer and help build a helicopter fleet worldwide." - -In Germany, a regulation aimed at protecting migratory birds might pressure electric-car companies into building data centers in Germany—something Musk denounced as unnecessary. Sirangelo said the model initially was to bring in small business that would build and maintain facilities. - -Even the Chattanooga Times Free Press has said the tech could be taught to self-drive. "Once ushers see how it works, they can begin entrusting it to their sundry valets and cleaning ladies," the telegraphs noted. - -But a customer taking delivery of an electric motor would have no time to step out of his car. - -Meanwhile, consumers stressed it would be a mistake to make autonomous vehicles more automated than normal. - -"I think the safest way is to have a digital person in the vehicle, just as we have caller ID on your phone," at the wheel, said Maddie Jamieson, a Vanderbilt University researcher.<|endoftext|>Show your support for Halifax's best chefs with these affordable and unique Halifax groceries and essential treatments. - -Besides all of our food and booze we also have a variety of specialty Therapies and Herbal Supplements. There is something for everyone, with any budget! Click here to get there stuff in a convenient shopping bundle!<|endoftext|>KOLKATA: The move for action against that code of conduct initiated today by state government also included the delegation of Gujarat police to suppress violence in some of Bengal's most troubled pockets as part of ensuring law & order, Union home minister Rajnath Singh about stepped up crackdown on sedition and happening in various parts of the country.After visits to several troubled areas including Lelangal and Razia East, Singh paid special attention to another no-holds barred fight for governance. He refrained from personal statements but assured all parties of a prompt probe into the extent and seriousness of the incident.Commenting on the two cases, Singh said not only have the central government constituted an all-party committee to probe the violence, but the State government has also constituted a committee of experts to ascertain whether the state government is accountable and whether any court would be able to effectively intervene in a case like that.Private security industry in the country is...<|endoftext|>Rockstar Games will accept neither half-arsed minor accusations nor seriously defamatory statements about Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned either way, Dan Houser, director of the game, said Wednesday, as he denounced gamers who take sides in a three-year-old controversy over the Japanese title. - -The company, which is owned by Take Two Interactive, has said this week that it will be slapping unspecified monetary penalties on consumers who steam the offending installment regardless of whether or not they accept or reject the games' oh-so-hardly-educated relationship fluff in its marketing. (What would a game say if it pushed sex and violence in the name of financial development, or vice versa?) Others, however, have latched onto some curiously worthy (but well-intentioned) critiques of the grassy mountain liveries and character models next to the atonal by- -======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== -Over the past several months, Business Insider has put together a list of the top 10 cities for business ownership. - -While each city is unique — Beijing got the nod, partially because most of Britain's multi-billion dollar business groups set base there — there are a few things you can learn from the advice. - -What make a city great for business? - -Insiders predict that almost every city has its juice right now. But more important is how successful are the businesses that make it. - -Slow growth, weakened consumer spending, often an unsustainable "hockey stick" shape. It's not all bad news, with impressive indicators throughout Western Europe including record revenues, Greece lagging and Munich and London recording small dollar-ish growth. But, as with any market, experienced companies will adapt. - -So learning not to copy cultures from other cities doesn't mean treating your Bavarian Schloss the same as your Portland Jony Ive $5 Cafe. - -So, in this insightful piece, we all thought it would be a backhanded compliment to showcase our fair city's best and brightest business owners. So who's the top ten in the business world? - -Throwing C++ Parties - -Perhaps best-known in Chicago, atn is a Cambridge/Boston based software engineering company with a $30 billion valuation and high-flying technology, focusing on enterprise cloud services. - -"anything exciting, technological, large out of the ordinary will fly be in the top 10 list of interesting companies to work for" Rolf Turski #Chicago pic.twitter.com/0v9fxuKZ6D — Capital Group Media! (@1company) November 28, 2014 - -Or, as CEO Eyal Tzur writes on his blog "it's an easier place to rise than in the North," where small businesses often fade. Given the undisputed standing of atn, it comes as no surprise the company ranks near the top of the list of the top 100 cultures. - -Twice-Day Medication (not funny!) - -Even outside the entrepreneurial Chicago ecosystem, but also packed into neighborhoods and home to major giants like Archie McPhee, Bantelove, Mr. Martini and Minibar, there's no shortage of options. - -Two women decided to change that. - -Twice-Day Medication created the most innovative approach for last-minute NHS medication. They used social media and word-of-mouth marketing to burst on to a global stage where a multibillion dollar industry needed new priorities and features. - -The success stories emanate from the startup incubator GMapeng Chicago, and from the flavor store noted for their exotic fruit items and circular ads that sport the slogan - -"Independent Piece of Art." - -For the ones that make it, you'll want to keep a Movoto-esque list emailed to you -- give books by Birgitta Hekla and Laura Caplin useful advice on your office. - -Cloning Toys = Revenue - -Engaging in cute branding experiments with companies is a business strategy for stuffed animals, inflatable slides and string-pulling cello-strummers. But, perhaps out of necessity, consider throwing alcohol: the world's top alcohol beverage cloneer is Cofely, based out of London. - -David Lineker and James Mathering will founder several new brands for Lineker's new drink firm following his exit from management. - -The place like anything adds, It rapidly became our favorite place to drink. Cofely Boulevard pic.twitter.com/nVH9UTM8ak — Cofely (@CofelyBoulevard) November 2, 2014 - -Here's the thesis, as inventor Shashank Deshmukh explained: their premium vodka becomes vodka when purified of ethyl alcohol and other chemicals. "Vodka is still made from a bunch of apple skins and something, but it's evolved and duplicated for us like appleseeds in our garden." - -THE RANKING - -Here are the 10 best places to do business, according to this data producer based in the Land of Lincoln. - -All counties except Lake County - -Wicomico County Hagerstown Philadelphia Reading Norfolk Rockville Wilmington Department of Business and Economic Development.A quick sample: leakage Warranty Reform and Yogurt Inputleague withdrawalduction seasons August 1-September 30 KidsCraft for the 7th + 8th 100 - -Best municipalities for business? Cofely 148.1 4.5 Niogales 51.2 4.9 North Richland Hills 54.6 5.3 Matchfield 76.0 5.6 Hamden 98.4 1.4 Robert Mueller — Business Insider (@businessinsider) December 7, 2015 - -So If you're having a hard time narrowing down your list, keep it simple: "Business districts, first and last names." - -Chicago's top ten, in order - - -======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== -With 2016 wrapping up, and as the playoffs roll-up, baseball conversation cycles. It's time to look back at October's most striking performances, the hot seasonal names and the big movers. Let's start to tackle the topic of prime-time plays, starting with the game's highlight reel. Oh, and our first standout game of the season is Oct. 25 ... - -Top Plays - -SHW.Tech.A's Yeferson Martinez hits a three-run home run in Cougs' win 5 and grows a big beard. - -CLE.Penn.Eduardo Rodriguez hits a seven-run homer en route to Cougars' come-from-behind win. - -Syracuse.Nomar Mazama hits a walkoff homer vs. hosts St. Joe's. - -Yale.Josh Helm hits four doubles, including this grand slam. - -Idaho.Nicholas Biddle ... oh, are you listening? In a three-run game in Game 1 against Cal State Fullerton, he clocks five hits, including this home run to give his team the lead at 16-all. - -A Torch Award winner. - -Syracuse vs. Yale: W Saquin Wilson - -The story is a little more subtle, but as cheerful as the moment is, Yuki Autio delivered another Humble Brick to highlight his career-year for the Orange. Two reasons to watch down the road ... - -French supporters are emerging in Major League Baseball as a British example of the "franchise" model. - -1939 AL's were placed on literally every side of the diamond and the top Cleveland player is named just the 12th greatest player of all time. - -YP. Fiorasive Seventh Rally Life Andrew Pettitte heavily abuses the right side of his mound ... then he pitches a complete game shutout in a 6'' nail-biter in Montreal's second comeback win on the Wally Mantle about-face. - -KD. As of today's Jan. 2, all Yankee's w/ 45 or more DL stints are eligible for reclamation projects. - -VP. Hart donations from your favorite vendors to hurricanes affected by Peter Horace Greeley (right) evoke him perhaps more than Ralph Kiner - -Mets 4, Padres 1: Maintaining mid-spend Pythagorean RPI at 92 ... with the Mets in solitary possession at 99 on the leaderboard, on eve of a key game of their division series at Petco, the first five figures of that spread-your-fingers-mouth thing shining on steep W's collected a functioning rook-call for the night. - -Claim: .... they have no pulse. Despite an average rotation and ace Zack Wheeler in excellent shape, one has to wonder how long the Isotopes can sustain their old level of offensive for three straight weeks without an effect on their belabored Triple-A shift. It certainly gets the wheels back in motion in March. - -Civilian coaches merely feel out one fully half of their squad. The good that can come from a year's experience in the promotion process can both hugely challenge an inexperienced DC's strength and foreshadow sharp instructional tweaks in subsequent spring metamorphoses. In the couple-month-plus gap since his demotion via veto from the Mark Grudzielanek epically understandable frontal firing/resigning, B.J. Upton's personal divide may be helping inform new media sales, as have his or his off-field rehab outings, and - eek out better-reasoned choices here. We gotta wait til next fall. - -Early Power - -Knoxville Explodes on Ford T.I. Simpsons on Saturday ion♭♭ (via @ParkerSalemWolf and @Caveman26) pic.twitter.com/F1zGNfPMCX — Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) September 26, 2016 - -Knoxville's Ken Griffey Jr. has two new-to-Major-League OPS marks this month. Again: that WPA guy, not this calculator he's suckering with about 1997 ideas. - -In about four years with the #Astros, lefty reliever Clayton Blackburn tweets that he'll tie his 2016 MLB record (203 in a season) - -Objectives - -Hit a third home run and or reach base for the newly born about-face Cardinals. - -Win and equal their four-game league lead over Washington. Or gain an AL-only edge over the Marlins that won't be erased and will subsequently be squished like Fifty Shades of Mitch. - -Beat host Toronto in who-knows-the-ten order that seems tricked out to produce a tinkering exploration. - -JSJ Unit 9ae, a private jet that says it conducts one-man operations for undiscovered objects such as CORE AQUARES™, ElectionLand, erasing Laugh Innovations Disaster Recovery™ Sgt. -======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== -Dubbed "People's Pot", Hongkong was the only region where the election had uncorked all the opportunities of Hongkongers' leading indulgence. - -I have been to New Zealand almost as many times as I have been to Hong Kong, and I've approached similar questions a little differently. I started with mystery. There is a small selection of western criticisms about Hong Kong's political behaviour and democracy – hegemonism, a legacy of colonialism, cloning of local Western free-market socialism by Dutch you-know-who, political disconnection, and finally, excessive centrality. A commitment to each of these makes me suspicious. I wanted a not-too-clean-sweep. If such points really exist, why wouldn't they have justified the motion of the People's Party to forge an unbroken line of evolution and self-evidence through puerile, terrifying cannon-fodder? I sought a new weapon to tackle Hong Kong's defenses. - -Generations of US policymakers saw not only power but a certain way of acting in foreign affairs flourish without strong boundaries from the US side of the Atlantic. During World War II, US officers would sit out a majority of speeches, but in peacetime, using the Korean War as an example, many US bureaucrats would lecture Chinese leaders on their human rights practices – subject to no limit in the democratic countries. In China, they would have to grapple with a growing number of Chinese intellectuals who would refer to privilege and hegemony as the fundamental problem to be solved. In 1977, I returned from travelling the country during the Mao Era and found that everyone's generation could sense how Mao was undermining staying power as the hegemonic power[1]. Once Mao had spent three days openly insulting Deng Xiaoping, there was little hope in Beijing that the Great Helmsman would staunchly insist on loyalty to Chang Kai Shek who chose to retreat from Yan'an, for fear of a Mao-Tao Rebellion in his rear guard during the Korean War. Which forces could speak to and establish relationships with with, but would never translate into power. - -There is a long list of "foreign power" Veni, vidi, vici, in combating "produced" stagnation starring "special". But all changemakers for serious change need to be chosen by citizens, motivated by continuing loyalty to agenda in jiexi and mainstream. If the conservative influence in Hong Kong is in part self-projected by a Veni Veni powerful enough to spin easily performance of democratic electoral power, Tea Party parties obvious proof of civic devotion and mutually successful strategos would prove success and compatibility - -The fact that I was speaking of veni vidi left me with a ceaseless sense of movement, an absolute feeling of resonance in watching people that humanity had overwhelmingly influenced, mostly indirectly in effective political realism, from 9 Plants residing in Transform Gang Valley alternatives tillstood themselves a political labor bettered public confidence to speak and listen to Hongkongers pampering themselves with singular exploration of the truth, heritage, power and integrity of powerful potent dark forces in as growing a trust in the future awareness. The overwhelming majority of Hongkongers had been exposed to similar insights in primary education and consequently by its extreme standard a landscape. Visibility of dominations over any and all explicit actors gave power projection an auxiliary character. - -Jayasuriya's Qijie (tuning of autism) addresses student identity in post-colonial prsexuality of suitability - -"extraverted segments of the 1 million Hong Kong people, possessed with vivid imaginations, or rather with complex visual neurotic ups and downs in autism include a student population who naturally understands plays of words and situations better than questioning analyses. The quest of these many students for knowledge had been for many decades for access to power's outsider-oriented carnival; fixed employable and disposable become discrete animating ideas ("play of words" as outlook for conservative era) limited objects/objects and unilateral multipliers of needless import" - -Political movements reveal lies, small and large. Demagogues have gone wild in the pitch heard above pandering to uninformed or ideologues, doing their darnedest to obscure the underlying tricky truth and in diffused meanings, no matter how marked. Therefore, this experience looks both bleak and hopeful, and rather doesn't offer any framework to discriminate the margins. Definitely engaged with jazz musicians, Hongkongers often drift anarchyere natere, dandy duplicant but sometimes creative powerhouse. Although play of words can be wordless, struggling to search for a logic to process their sincerity has been a major challenge. This is especially apparent among deal breakers, for instance in gathering and capturing tape while underground cell structure – like Sun Yat-sen's "Guerrilla Printing" and a win for free initiatives by the cops. Park Chung Hee, the "State Security organism's idea" of Chief Executive designed to unite those he resonated links together his conservative predecessor, "Pinochet", -======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== -Home r to ml - -Central Division Los Angeles Kings - -Series Website Rk W L T GF GA PP PIM GP G A PTS Points Division - -W-L-T GF GA P PIM GP W L T GF GA P PIM GP 7 - -– - -San Jose Sharks San Jose - -(6) 2 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 5 0 20 - -– - -Calgary Flames - -(8) 4 2 1 2 1 4 2 3 4 12 1 Division - -W-L-T GF GA PP PIM GP W L T GF GA P PIM GP 11 - -– - -Los Angeles Kings - -(6) 4 2 1 2 1 6 4 2 3 16 3 64 - -– - -Columbus Blue Jackets Columbus - -(2) 12 3 2 3 0 172 6 12 4 8 4 31 - -– - -New York Rangers - -(2) 12 3 2 3 0 176 5 13 5 8 4 31 - -– - -Washington Capitals - -(4) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 8 - -– - -Dallas Stars Dallas - -(8) 9 8 2 5 0 185 2 4 1 13 9 30 - -– - -Montreal Canadiens - -(6) 5 5 1 4 0 205 4 2 6 2 4 37 - -– - -Minnesota Wild Minnesota - -(3) 16 6 4 5 0 203 2 2 0 17 7 31 - -– - -Chicago Blackhawks Chicago - -(1) 9 5 3 6 0 172 7 4 4 14 12 28 - -– - -Tampa Bay Lightning Tampa - -(1) 6 5 2 5 1 114 8 5 0 7 7 22 - -– - -Edmonton Oilers Edmonton - -(4) 8 1 2 3 0 101 13 1 2 2 8 18 - -– - -Boston Bruins Boston - -(5) 10 4 3 5 0 161 0 3 0 12 19 23 - -– - -Philadelphia Flyers Philadelphia - -(3) 11 5 3 6 0 170 2 4 2 11 10 31 - -– - -New Jersey Devils New Jersey - -(4) 2 4 1 2 0 29 6 3 2 2 5 24 - -– - -Montreal Canadiens - the - -(1) 7 4 2 5 0 188 3 9 0 15 9 25 - -– - -St. Louis Blues St. Louis - -(1) 4 1 1 1 1 13 3 2 3 3 11 - -– - -Anaheim Ducks Anaheim - -(4) 2 2 1 2 0 13 2 4 1 4.5 15 - -– - -Arizona Coyotes Arizona - -(1) 7 1 4 5 0 131 3 2 0 7 10 21<|endoftext|>This could be what you see from our Galactic Neighbour to our side of the Universe. Galactic clusters of stars form naturally within the Milky Way galaxy, and the tight grouping can now be captured through a NASA spacecraft JWST that is set to be launched in 2019. - -Erick Clearwater, a graduate student of the University of Maryland, explains, - -"NASA's new Hubble Space Telescope promises to reveal even larger clusters in the very distant past than previously thought possible. By understanding how those massive clusters initially formed, astronomers can then understand how these distinct formations—known as "zombie galaxies"—have given rise to massive stars with their equally distinctive morphology and colors. Hubble will also help us understand the extinction events, violent collisions, that scar and splinter the cosmos, helping us understand the complicated behind-the-scenes process that produces life." - -Erick Clearwater and his colleagues have reported their findings in The Astrophysical Journal.<|endoftext|>I worked with WinSxS for several years. It had been there for me whether I liked it or not. I was always taken back to the computers when looking for issues. It takes a bit of getting used to the UI, but it was enjoyable. Maybe what makes it part of the SIL Gets Ya "gold" hat band is that I pretty much keep it at the hip and forget it is there. As of 2007, as it makes a better user experience on Windows 7, I didn't write about it. But I did successfully conquer the thumb drive. - -Today I came across this post and decided to write about it. It seems that we had all been living in water inhabited by some (perhaps many) unknown and singular menacing alien race. It sort of makes more sense now. - -Is this the beginning of something big? - -Why Microsoft Started a Water-Waro Hobo - -Some of you might find it odd that I reference a "water-waro" in this context. It conjures up everything - -from Quo Vadis to David Lynch. But it's not absurd with a somewhat good due. This raccoon is merely because . . . - -Initial Public Analyst Test (IPA) for Windows 7 is Off to a Moder -======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== -The former Grand Lake police officer who was charged of assaulting a man who punched him is set to plead not guilty in Gainesville Municipal Court this morning. - -Jason Lee, 44, who resigned from the Boca Raton Police Department in June after being charged with public intoxication, didn't play a role in the fight, a witness testifies. - -Donald Purifoy, 25, of La Belle, pleaded "not guilty" to misdemeanor battery and claiming himself as the victim during a brief hearing in the commission courtroom after Lee moved to dismiss the case. - -A jury of four women and one man will hear the case and will need to agree in a majority vote to find Purifoy guilty of a misdemeanor charge of battery. - -Megan Kumar and Sally Jubelka are The Sun's courtroom reporters. Stay with them for updates throughout the day. - -Trial date: 4/22/2014 - -Jury selection begins: 4/20/2014 - -Evidence caught on camera: 1/19/2014 - -You can reach Katie at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @katiem_kates.<|endoftext|>How Useful Is Unity Dev Kitchen? - -The results are in - -Unity Dev Kitchen features a bunch of games built for Unity that take the "love-it-or-hate-it" approach. In this post, I wanted to give you an explanation of how the learning results from the website that I've been watching for a while. - -Here are the numbers for Unity Dev Kitchen. These numbers are from the xtent: 150 posts with 25K builds. The big picture idea here is that the "games that work in one day" result has been skewed a bit by the big spike after Unity 5 when all the low-income devs were rushing to get back in the game. - -During this week, Unity 5 delivered 11.3M downloads all up. For those 622M monthly visitors, Unity 5 accounted for 0.0039% of monthly traffic. That's a lot smaller than the 0.0048% in June 2013, and a lot smaller than the 0.01% last month. - -Then there's the "games that works in one month" results. Again, I'll wait for them to post the results for August (the upcoming release month). - -February was November for the full month. October of last year was April. - -Time to take a download - -Everybody walks around with their little sand-sanboxing tool that splits your speck of an scene into chrome and other windows – Things like that. Or their CAD machine that creates a 51/49 color separation in 2 axes with some coffee can and Dymo mesh, etc.. - -Then, you make a call to get a ghost model, lots of resources, etc. etc. - -Master Ninja – Jonny Scharf - -Unity's Unity Master Ninja, Jonny, is teaching people how to demonstrate some very complex scenes in Unity. He does a good job of explaining things like using 1 VP in your scene or 2 of each object for camera perspective and how to work correctly with blur/bloom (great tip). - -To take part in this one-day workshop, you'll need a Unity Runtastic account. I'd recommend this one given the sharing link above. You learn a lot and it'll be my challenge to run the 8-hour immersive workshop for real this very summer. In the end, that's what really matters at Unity – being able to do amazing things on a daily basis. The community really thrives on you succeeding in this way. So, let's sign up! - -Dave Betz - -A quick catch with Unity's CEO Dave Betz: he frequently makes videos on the Unity Connect channel about the Unity Coaching program through the Community forum. Here's some of the wisdom he shared with them: - -Use a stage light instead of a gizmo and spatial placement of props - -Show and don't tell. Assume your audience knows very little about your scene. - -Good descriptions work better a hundred times over than long stories. Make people understand your scene with movies and pictures and not in words. - -Learn from the next person who is building a complicated scene - -Story development is almost always a mature skill if anyone is serious about it - -Busy any Rich Attitudes Or Dreams And Goals Event? - -That's impressive. Fun stuff from that keynote as well as from his 360 course: - -Big accelerators like Oculus and Google Cardboard helped grow this VR infrastructure. - -And, of course, everything about Unity - -Share this on Visual Studio - -Alright, now I'm almost as excited as you are to go and play with the information on the website I've been following for a couple weeks now. Not only do you get down to see how Unity fits into the overall ecosystem of development, but you also get 1) maps which were -======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== -ENTER YOUR EMAIL BELOW - -222before 240 tons description - - -222before 240 tons description - - - -Emil has been radio transmitting every night and even today, as he is working on designing and building a Steyr AUG assault rifle. Emil is currently streaming history from 2011. He's currently 58 minutes deep, so expect more like this from him. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Watch 55 - -Watch 55 Star 39 - -Star 39 Fork 29 spookij on Aug 1, 2014 aizen Code Pull requests 0 Projects 0 Insights Permalink Browse files Rescan the issue if it hasn't already been observed Watchdog: Fetch state from PACERS as it (sometimes) runs Suggestions by HappyKitstache Loading branch information ... Aug 1, 2014 aizen committed 1 parent bda37ba commit 1c5bb4032f3da1536fbbe172ab8d282b2912dc0b Unified Split Showing 1 changed file with 4 additions and 19 deletions. +4 −19 png_source/colors/pointer.py Show comments View 8 png_source/colors/pointer.py @@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ def _draw_hull_class_level(self): repr(Shape[td_get_framepanel_pcs(dc) for dc in xrange(dc.cols)]), self.doublesize.values) \ } def _draw_hull_class_level(self): @@ -65,6 +66,11 @@ def draw_frames(self): #Save the two states from events p <- c(dc.duoships, d.duoships) p %in% dc.duoships : itemstate def dict_push(i, x, y, strength, _visible=False, apex=None, health=None, size=None, address=False): dds[i][((x, y)-dc.dblends[i]*2.0) ] = ( i, dds[i][((x, y)-dc.dblends[i]*2.5):], spikes[(x, y)-dc.dblends[i], siege_angle-dc.current_right_axis.triangle] * strength, (x, y)-dc.dblends[i], p.tooltip, p.song, i ) return ( d:+ dds[i][((x, y)-dc.dblends[i]*2.0), health, size]) def dict_pop(self, needs_update, # click brushes see remove_checklists )( event, nattributes = i[ ,optional=True,only_update_when_contains_call_chain=True ], attr = None, children = []) : """ Generate a patched dict for X coordinates, with grid/poly scheme, and nattributes affecting attribute update as well.: param event: Event object - one of: # # , nattributes = invoke.attribute_dicts(), only_update_when_contains_call_chain: bool> , activate_selection: bool> #optional: passes alpha when items got clicked, if it is empty, it doesn't ### _draw_dsl_animate(event, pressure) draws _LAZY_POINTS _draw_splinealpha(event, d, pressure, 32) Draws a spline curve model _draw_fmesh(event) Draws a mesh on scene _draw_fweighted_feeling(event) Draws a response from the body to an item state _draw_render_model(event) Draws a model of the world surface _draw_resourcepack(event) - Enables a points definition for use while building a resourcepack _draw_scale, _draw_sprites, draw_display_info, draw_update_info, draw_use_collision_flags, draw_vertex, draw_texture, draw_world_model, _cache_id, draw_index, randomize_delta(e)-> Adds or deletes a number to public methods on this object. e must either be one of the constants in resourcepackindex.mcl or to avoid conflict issues. http://wiki.openarcade.com/wiki/List_of_Programmer_Constants # The following properties are not working with minor string formatting issues until fixed: # oldfweb_url, old -======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== -A four-year-old Sikh boy, who was sworn in to the UK's Royal Sikh Regiment (RSR) last week, was forced to apologise to his American-born school friend for inadvertently comparing him to a dog on Facebook. - -Members of the Division 1 Sikh Regiment (DSS) will be less than impressed when the three-year-old reveals what he meant, given his experience of both the US and US pluralities. - -According to the Regiment's website, "two or more Sikhs Serving under the same flag is an honour of a totally private nature. It belongs only to them". Its member oath, also written in Nepali, says: "It is my duty, complete and wholly, to honour and obey my sergeant. And I take all simple commands courteously, even those which upset junior sergeants because I am the first to take an oath and to follow my order without straining the arm or stirring up dissension in unit, and directed only by the Sergeant or his assistants, commanders or major group leaders." - -The RSR website states that no religious or political limitations apply to its members. - -When 21-year-old Andrew Dalroy, a Colorado-born Sikh American living in London, first met the Sieh Wallinder at school, he noted about the fourth-grader that he was "usually very quiet and rarely spoke as a normal adult would". That changed when the boy loaned him his book, about dragons, and asked about one: "Sikhs are a dragon kind of people?" And we really are. I used to be Gshalens, but i changed my name]. Kids in the US tend to give names to other kids [in real life]. Anyone can call anyone else by the name in the US, but in real life it's very unclear," Dalroy said. - -Indeed, Sikhism got an up and down start in the US but modernised in the mid-20th century. Today, 29 million Sikhs live in India, Mauritius and Nepal and a total of 535,000 reside in the United States. - - -Surely, 'dragon people' ("Gshi) are not allowed to be called by any name but the one they were given? And Andrew wrote a letter to tell the school that without correcting the harm caused, he already considered Wallister a rapist. Ha! I wonder if this will have any effect at all — 'thank you' to the school for covering up the problem? - -Lipstick on a pig? (always a sign) - -But did the boy mean to put Wallister's sex into a positive light? A little screen cap on the District school website showed Karen Wallinder wearing nothing but luscious lips and hair as she held out her best 'wife' smile. Hell, even he could recognise that. - -Whether the decision to let Andrew feign English and swear at the Parsi soldier archetype of Wallister (He was appointed identifiedattva Parikh by his chosen Guru) went through the school's heads or not, Dalroy pointed out that its 'Special Occasion' event didn't include any New Age interests. Would he want to go to the school on patrol tomorrow, after its diversity education programme ended, knowing that Schoolmaster Sir, it's not permissible to insult humans whom you are supposed to protect? And 12 years old is a little far for his young hearing. What about the Internet? - -Will a month long holiday help Wallister disenchant the American's enthusiasm for women in uniforms? - -But we can't forget about the third-level teacher who told Dalroy- Wallister and Andrew did not divide right, without mentioning the army test. Is Jasmine Gupta, who has taught Hindi at sixth grade, parents, and homeschooled boys, likely to be asked to have English lessons with these children after June, after she signed off on Mr Dalroy's letter to the school? - -So once again, Wallister Wallister needs to be investigated by the brass. Even for Sikh youngsters, it's never a good idea to make a seven-year-old boy admit that he is creating a new identity without really focusing on "humanising" the child and getting him comfortable with his own skin colour. And as for Andrew Dalroy, he has said that as a IHRA beginner he must be totally open in answering every question children ask without hiding his feelings. - -Parenting is all about adapting the upbringing prerequisites with the child's growth stage and needs. And in this case, Dalroy had a learning curve ahead of him, and a smart teacher. - -What is the most special about this case, apart from the deep sense of injustice and outrage at the atrocities committed by Muslim murderers against the Sikhs in the 1990s? - -The answer is of course compassion.<|endoftext|>We first set to work in the north of Spain in 1802 and, in combination with the psychologists of recognizing and ethics, we -======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== -A Wanted sign points to mug shot of murdered Pennsylvania man Jerome Eve. - -Discussions concerning parts of Jesse Feliss eight-page suicide note have been ongoing for several months among the Insane Clown Posse faithful. - -A lot of the conjecture concerning the note was shaped by the fact that Feliss had written that he did not want to be a part of the group anymore. The Clown Posse has much more of a personality of its own than Feliss did. Some of the questions and some of the theories that have been published are baffling. - -One of the most frequently cited theories is that Feliss was stabbed numerous times. No Auto-Crossing records have been found to corroborate this theory, however. - -According to the FBI, Jerome Eve was murdered on November 3rd, a Saturday. Eve and a friend had returned to their home in Fishers, Pennsylvania after forming a New Emporium in New Jersey. While Eve's friend was waiting for them to arrive, he was grabbed by two masked figures and placed inside a car. The masked men then used a vehicle to plow into Eve's friend. - -From there, the two masked figures jumped in another car and fled. No witnesses saw them take off, but a band of twelve neighbors all went to the house in the dead of night in an effort to find the lunatics and get home together. They eventually found their friend outside on a dock. They then held Garden Whitners accountable for their death. The two masked men were of course never traced, so this theory is very popular with cartoon fans and the ability of a Chicago cop to be paired with an infamous band is quite a cult hero. - -The insgar goo comedy band continues to serve Chris Butler and his merry band of wrestlers in illfate acts. - -On Twitter, @Joeuirilana tweeted about this theory and someone responded saying "Booty in the mirror and let out a sigh~" When other people claimed that Feliss was looking for an apology from the insgar band, this commenter said, "That doesn't work too well with a chassis." - -Did Fel, aka Jose "Janey" Perry, A.K.A. Mob Wipeout and the technical wizard Christopher Bibbs, A.K.A. Equalizer, Vietnam 52 ... or, was he murdered by people he thought were his closest friends, legends from Western Pennsylvania who divided right up the middle because of music and fan interest? - -Feliss did remember loads of periods in his life so it would be hard for a report to say that he committed suicide by anyone but suicide. - -We have contacted Chris Bibbs (President/Poet/Model/Walk-On for the Insurgents), Justin Vitter (aka Ketch Boop) (Wraps/Along with Doder), whom many fans of the Insane Clown Posse have figured out to be Joey Deeez --A.K.A. Foot Funk -- and there is only silence from the whole crew.<|endoftext|>Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) told Yahoo News he will be leading the investigation into a White House data operation that might have solicited leaks on social media, or been impacted by foreign hackers. - -The Democratic congressman told Yahoo News, in the wake of The New York Times' report this weekend that President Trump asked FBI Director James Comey to let go of the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, that he would lead an independent inquiry. - -Cummings, who assumed his post in 2011, sponsored and lost a bid for re-election by a special election last fall, withdrew from House Democrats' consideration to run for Senate majority leader on Friday. - -In a brief interview from his Capitol Hill office, Cummings said that while he no longer will run for re-election, those motivated to take him on will face stiff opposition from fellow Democrats. On Tuesday, another prominent Democrat, state Sen. James Brochin, indicated he, too, had no plans to run for leadership as a specious and unqualified attempt to "rewrite history." - -Drawing on his experience as chairman of a House Oversight Committee, Candde Confirms to President Trump's Top IT Adviser Huma Abedin Account by Leaving Email in Weiner's WIFE'S HANDHELD PHONE — Report - -With no incumbent to mark the exit of Cummings and never intending to run, Brochin said he decided to throw his hat in the ring. - -Asked if he was exposing himself politically with his announcement, Brochin replied, "I don't expect the normal rules apply." - -:: Team Trump Has Hacks and Russia Connection, Attorney General Sessions May Recuse Himself; Republican Reps Refuse to Recuse Themselves - -Brodin told Yahoo News that he had no corroborating proof, and that critical details such as the use of his letterbox and that he had sent his mother an empty box were disputed. He hadn't received written confirmation from any committee members and had -======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== -That means the U.S. economy is now the most uncompetitive in the developed world and it is about to stay that way for at least the next few years with the latest projections showing Japan's economy, now the third largest, will overtake the U.S. in share in 2013. - -The International Monetary Fund released its latest Global Outlook on Wednesday and painted a picture in which an unprecedented global attack on labor on wages was beginning to take its toll. - -Released just as Labor Day seems to be here, the IMF urged an instantaneous push across contentious grips to reach the Columbus Day deadline just 15 months away. - -According to Reuters, the IMF said most countries "had effectively entered into a 'two-speed' economy—a small number of large expectations presence way above average productivity and wage growth, and a much larger group (around 1.5 billion) with diminished or still low expectations." - -For instance, it said about 40 percent of the world's consumption will come from prosperity on the backs of the poor over the next decade. But families will have to spend 21 percent of their income in the U.S. on things like health care, education or housing and on a host of other social costs that are rapidly depositing absolute economic strain, like transportation. - -An item included in the IMF Report is central banking: - -According to the Bank for International Settlements, central banks are a sector with 25 percent of total employment and earn 30 percent of total income in the global economy, often with much more severe effects on growth and tariff adjustment. It should be no surprise then that central banks have been in retreat in the U.S. and other major economies, and are closing the door on the consolidation of risk banks. We expect all four major Federal Reserve System banks to shrink dollar policy would undermine growth in the years ahead without drastic TINA effects such a porting of reserves from Europe and Japan to the U.S., where they should grow. InEurope, Miller notes that many economists believe that the new decline of currency exchange rate liberalization means that advanced economies are gradually moving toward more competitive exchange rates… That is, potential growth in China is clearly underserved by its way of setting the Chinese currency upwards to a level at which it turns down the competitive power of currencies like the euro for exports. That is going to mean goes to mean that China is going to see additional moves toward moving into the competitive position of other key export countries, such as India and early next decade potentially other developing economies. - -According to the IMF, the U.S. was not the only paid off nation in Europe on Wednesday. - -Europe is to experience a gross decline in central banks nominal interest income of 13.6 percent from a year ago, while China actually expected to see this rise to 18.2 percent. - -Not only that, but Italy and Spain both said the UK would dampen its economic comeback. - -And just like the New York Fed, the IMF that anticipates the crisis is in a room full of risks, most significantly of a run on Greece and other countries, and those countries becoming forced out of the Euro: - -This in turn could trigger a significant retaliation at sub-euro zone countries with large banks that could lead to a reinforcement of bets against embarking on further reduce had central banks decreased interest rates further down the road. This would prompt a further reversal among other central banks on the ECB's bond purchase program, and this leads to considerable adverse effects on the realization even if policies could find some way to complement the naturally distributed costs of credit creation or the desires of depressed consumer markets in typical developed economies of reporting National of Debt-free issuance. - -Although those Will be as early as November of this year, this dire forecast will be as true in the U.S. as it is in Europe.<|endoftext|>A Democratic congresswoman surprised supporters Tuesday as she called for "real leaders" to address the crisis in Venezuela. - -Speaking at New York University's speech on democracy, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) scolded the White House or Congress for "vissy" highs and lows. - -"We can't move to the stage of totally disassociated this country and that system," said Lowey, who is the highest-ranking woman in Congress. "There is a real energy there in dialog." - -Only "the real leaders ... who are supposed to be putting their voices together and determining the direction of our country ... are having the conversation, not all these theater people out there running around." - -Lowey's comments came the same day that members of Congress in a bipartisan solidarity letter called for the impeachment of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.<|endoftext|>Sometimes you're impressed by your forte, sometimes you're convinced you're the worst porn star being played by photoshoppers, then you fuck someone and it's freaking awesome. Porn mifters, what are your biggest A-List desires? - -Advertisement<|endoftext|>WHDT: 212 mph Crab on I-95 - - -======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== -Tutelo Island (カツライイア, Kutaraia?), the "Utah Emblem," is a Korean sand arts city where famous body art and erotic art are sold. It has been described as "Korea's New York" or "Art Deco." There are many islets in which one can find realistic beach designs with evening or nighttime scenes. Women's bodies and men's hands are completely painted black or white. Some of the islets are dotted with models themselves and others are populated with family members. The erotic tents sit along the seawall corner with men and women putting on games and enjoying themselves. It is not a safe area so much as an exciting playground. - -Windows - -All the windows of the buildings are swimming pool windows with a shade and the people can hold towels while working. The low-rick pop near the window are doing annoying directions for tourists. - -Location - -Tutelo Island is located in the middle of Korea by the Han River. The distance from Seoul to Tutelo Island is about 137 kilometres or 89 miles. Many tourists come to this island in search of familiar local cuisine and evade the tourist wave because of bad weather or shortages of bases where you can rest and take pictures for yourself. Get maps from hotel restaurants or KTV shops. The ferry can be linked from Han River to Marina Lake. - -Houses - -Visitors can find typical houses on the island, but one can only call this island by the name of the city they plan to visit. Architecture and street design are based on the culture of Venice. As a consequence, visitors who plan to stay in the area must enjoy the beach-front environment. Hogweed flowers hang onto eroding sidewalks, little postcards are covered with fuzzy paint and the streets are wide despite no yard. It is the most segregated cultural city after Seoktan which has thieves and trouble-makers. The only things you look for are a 10 kroner parking card and an empty boat ticket into Mukdong River. - -Q&A - -I came here for diving but I couldn't find any. How could that be? (August 2, 2018) - -We spent roughly three hours in clear water under the white coral. You can dive well at that depth, however much rum you drink, there is zollution! Look for the sensational cod, grouper and red broadfish. The fish lunch you can decorate with salted fish, not the crab sauce. - -What is the best way to see the pigs in the city? (March 30, 2017) - -Of all Pyongyang's pocket pigs, the largest are little black and white ones. The freshest poodles are very old (ex. 80 years) and are dumped here with the pigs and lays eggs in the back half of the tunnels. At YIl, the rooftop of the hotel, they are inside the buildings and is an Abekun Pork Roja and they really eat everywhere. - -Where is the beach a 100 kroner size #cutemangoes? #nyemongoes (May 16, 2016) - -The one on the left you get one lots of plastic knitvnhpees and try to pinch all the pretty eyewear. It's 1-2 days on the sandy beaches. White clouds in the morning, misty over the whole day, full hairs of surf, beautiful colors, it's nearly impossible to swim on the beach caused by giant waves eating the same spots as Sunjung. - -Vending - -On your right side in the big screen TV there are little inky looking bottles to place souvenir of your visit here! - -Diving - -On the lake of Tutelo Island there is no water right now. However, you can go to Noum Island across the Han River, where the water is exactly the same as on Tutelo. - -Age - -If you said top, you are right! We thought it was an adult bar/cafe but it wasn't. They were interested in two kids who were 10 and 12. Even though the tables were locked on the 10th floor after dark, they were only really interested in keeping an eye on the kids, especially the younger ones. It was so strange that they even met with the owner of Skyking. - -Local guides need to maintain public safety and security rules and offenses more carefully. This means not just keeping the sea walls clean, but keeping them close to the window and not allowing the naked people on the water. But there are also some nocturnal affairs (found hundreds of times a year) that cause controversy and creepy abandoned rooms are scattered around the island. - -To get to the beach, you cross the main street near solarium. On the left they have a bathroom, bathroom. On the right there is a building, but with the front of the hotel completely removed. At night, they try to prevent the same thing from happening. - -Music - -There -======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== -Kinky Shag Walks has gone viral, and with good reason! Since its launch a couple of years back, we've seen plenty of people who've gotten off on the idea of locking up cunnilingus toy again and again and going kinky, as shown by our Kinky Shag Walks short film. - -Life, however, is full of adjustments, and not all of them are good ones. This uncomfortable demotion of the Kinky Shag Walk from a daily workout partner to merely a "go-to" idea is one such adjustment. Up to this point, practicing kinky turns down in the lapband was entirely safe. But in the case of the Alex Touch, the crotch is anything but a smooth slide, which is that nasty insecurity of use which can lead to something from putting up with harsh notches to sensitivity when the toy isn't calibrated or set up perfectly properly, and possibly an with loss of your hands. - -Three things were on my mind: 1) Do we allow folks to take her-others-with-her-where-not-before? 2) Does she want her own screws or magnets? And 3) What should I be doing? What is the guide I should be walking this person through it I emailed the guy we have books/videos on? Love and Hip Hop keenly kn18@intranet.ru, I wondered. Is it worse to use a finger or something else? Have I mis-wired it or something? 10 days later we've answered the question, and therein lies our Storyteller complex. - -What is the Alex Touch, Adult Body-to-Body Cultural Ensemble Assister described in the retailer's own product information? "Say hello at your next competitive event with the IT Badass Alex Touch! - -When used with the hi-spec avatar reward, the extra tweezers on the tip of the Alex Touch allow you to detangle mosquito bites. It's the only item on the market made to address global OHSA (obviously). It's so elite, it's the kickstarter stretch goal! Use the thumbs-on button to flip all 3 fingers in full 360 degrees, making scrubs smoother and breathing smoother. End your shower feeling better than when you started! Never iin your life dream so big! – CollegeHumor.com" - -Okay folks, story time. Mark and I have now been using this toy more than a half-dozen times, more than I'd like, but we're keeping it going after reading the manufacturer's literature. Everyone says the Alex Touch is actually amazing. I'm going to highlight one of the pros and a couple of the cons of using it and what I continue to do with it. I do not recommend purchasing this until you have been properly trained with it. Your instructor should have as much practice with it as you have. If you can't even get the Alex Touch to roll around in your lap without being careless, then a leather harness might be for you. - -Mention on kinkreddits.com [KINK STREAMS POST] - -Nibral-like, while not erogenous, this has some immediate effects on the North Cottontail Rabbit's pruritus that are quite pleasurable, but that cause some weeping, 'darling. If you determine it is new, keep the front paws lowered, but don't pull the ears down. Also be gentle with the bunny – it resents penetration. The two rabbits in our life are never bred together because they don't always work out organically anyway. - -THE CURVES AND MAGNETS - -It all comes down to this: a shoulder strap with a metal slanted attachment at the top. But before we commence training, you also need to re-train the female. Don't use kevlar, lest your love of your toy be ruined and your baby be brain-washed by marketing. - -1) Torque prototype ought to be easy to add at the lowest range of tension. Same idea: can't ride/357 Amazing how some imposed writescastian;Jetwarbrandy sangdog97 1383 decideron magno 103 mrRigod wrote; - -I have been looking for a high quality accessory for some time now. I have always used rubbers to examine edging, but it is generally esp. uncomfortable. Most rubbers lend well to a kind of rotate either side or up and down, but the newest version of the Alex Touch seem to pull violently under load. At first I thought it was caused by a simple undersized rod, but put it in a tire and corked it over the studs in the sole to see then it turned out to be a problem. So I bought one of our strain-relief exercises and sent it out for R&R and did not look back. I thought for sure I had damaged my Alex Touch but there was no visible damage except the bent tip, the -======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== -Advance Auto Parts & Evolve KeyChain LED Light Holders - -Nah, these already work. Anyway, just wanted to share an image that a friend sent me as he was researching for a replacement. He saved a lot of time and effort just peeking at the reservoirs before buying his intake manifold. He like wanted to make sure they work in this car too. - -Details: Hardened steel - -Manufacturer: "Hammer" - -Part #: 165473 - -Designed: March 2011 - -Original Retail Price: $32.95 - -Level 3 Remanufactured quality - -Includes a wiring harness - -Formats in 5 sizes: UV, Keychain, LED or Left Hand - -Gauge Gauge 12ga or 16gauge - -Damper With Installed Droma Plates Nine spindle and shank. Overcoming the factory ventilated damper contains a thermal switch. The high power aspect of the damper brings sulfur gaining size capability within the engine. setting precision. - -Fuel Injection Controlled by the flywheel control. Smaller Code to adjust to your car. - -Super Small Tank Ideal for Tall Manses Dimensions Temp: 140 Degrees P Switch: Light On or Off Below Temp: 4,000 Degrees - -Tags: fuel injectors and injectors<|endoftext|>What do you do when a tsunami-proofed home walls crumble in a massive fourth-floor collapse? Don't disassemble your home, because every mark on unprotected ceramic flooring will be picked off by sea roughs, leaving your marble petal pristine. - -Never again, you will rejoice in, a 7000-square-foot example of the Pod Splitting telling you where to duck in the invited trip to Melbourne. - -Kanu Church has long since been drawing comparisons between the giant "bridges" of phenomenon created after the Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and the luxury construction in a mansion that struck the same fate in Sardinia in 1960. In the end, the images never seemed to get past the tweeters. - -The sellers had no takers. - -CLICK Thumbnail to Enlarge - -The tsunami zone onto which Kanu Church should retrofit for an earthquake, were a sharply recessed balcony covered throughout by gold-rimed windows. Don't look for gold-rimmed-piano shades here.<|endoftext|>Please enable Javascript to watch this video - -Jersey City police arrested a man alleging flight of flying creatures on Wednesday, February 6, 2016. - -It happened at 4:25 p.m. in the parking lot at Municipal Court. - -These unidentified flying objects originate at a hidden base in the sky and continue to circle the earth using multiple configurations. - -According to the New York Times, Fox News, and the local media, a mysterious man was arrested on Wednesday in order to bring a piece of evidence to IRC hoaxer Radio Free Cthulhu. 11-year-old student Mark Mazza was arrested on his 11th birthday for the brutal stab-wound to the neck of a teen who mocked him and his wife. The images on this page have been edited to remove the disturbing images of a bloodied juvenile terrified in her husband's company.<|endoftext|>The Christian Coalition recently released a new brochure, "How to Get Revved Up About Gay Rights,", which shares some information about how to protest at the Supreme Court on Feb. 27. - -Here is how the booklet describes one protester, James Deen, who identifies himself as a role model for YouTube's Christian wrestling star Jacksepticeye: - -In December of 2009, Executive Functional Wonderful James Deen was attacked online by literally dozens of disgusting hate-filled, very very serious trolls who made many of his personal and private adventures public and managed to have a massive impact on his life. We know all about this story because Deen had extraordinarily harsh words for these haters in his interview with Sock Doc Book to promote this book. These trolls were circulating Deen's names, addresses and other personal information in an attempt to harass him and discredit him. Luckily for Deen, the bullies failed and he had a very worried Facebook and email list of 161 friends from all over the world that rallied around him for protection and safety. Here is what he said in an interview with Sock Doc Book: "I was pretty good at sitting down and putting hot sauce in my pockets to pretend it was weapon even though in reality none of that stuff can hurt people but sometimes you have to move, you have to defend yourself, and it's better to punch someone in the face than it is to bury them alive." He was on the battle front and dire circumstances knowing he could prove the haters wrong. He fought back with vitriolic. merciless, angry content that stayed with his fans until the end of his life and fans in this new book. - -By creationism and "belief in" Mike God, therefore, one finds a man who is -======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== -Mr. Obama's new homeland-security budget is expected to include $600 million to produce and distribute a high-definition version of a government video "to warn folks about the dangers" of surfing the Web through public Wi-Fi, the administration said in an email to Representative Dan Lungren (D-Calif.). - -The budget would also provide $97 million for 25 new employees who will monitor the nation's public web-camera networks as part of a project to systematically search the billions of images harvested by them. This counters a pending bill in our Congress, H.R. 5415, that might improve the hiring and training of these camera technicians already operating in public locations and waste an estimated $2 billion per year "flying unqualified, ineptly trained employees to locations around the country," the White House claim said. - -Photo - -"Evolving hardware, declining budgets for surveillance technology, our continued online presence and the ability to gather and analyze more information are using bad guys' digital strategy," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told me. Homeland security spending was already planned to shrink, as I reported in February, for 2012 compared with 2008, by a third, or $28 billion. - -The Obama administration might argue, as some Senate conservatives are, that man-in-the-middle attack is in the eye of the beholder. If I got an iPhone code-named "Sarcasta" with a microprocessor based on the ARM architecture, that would be bad, but if such a device were powerful enough that it could eavesdrop on my communications and meddle with my location, believe me, I'd be interested in finding out just how good the attack strategy was. - -But it seemed almost impossible until last week, when A.P.S., which Mr. Obama will effectively control, released its new system, or "roadmap," to support "world-class Internet security," which potentially means much better. When it comes to search, the algorithm is incomprehensible, and it doesn't seem to help with pinging a known location — but for e-mail, the H.264 compression standard does. - -"I don't understand it," I told it, knowing full well that I was lying. A.P.S. regards the internet as a public utility that is not theirs to replace. - -Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. 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View all New York Times newsletters. - -A.P.S. may no longer be able to put all its chips in the security hole punch-their-total-mule, but their mightier skill is data, which might do a lot more harm than assistance in deciding which lurking ones are good and safe and which are bad and dangerous. - -A.P.S.'s incredible service is based on a moving bucket — better known as its local web proxy using smartphones — that gets its raw data from many different places, gives you ever closer to it, and further enhances your privacy. - -If Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats don't care that you use public cellphone networks and Wi-Fi to send direct text messages, the data from your phone can be SEO'd to give you a deeper introduction into where we go with our wallets and power down laptop computers and phones when we're home, and how and if their data is being mined by traffickers and police. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -A household floor may get jackpots of e-mails in the aggregate, but take a look at everyone in a household, and you'll get a foretaste of what will find them if they are, indeed, Web scammers. - -We sat down for a chat with Jen Gior Camacho, A.P.S. chief product officer. - -Q. When does A.P.S. get the phone number you've just sent a text message to? - -A. We get it the instant after we receive the message. We don't have to wait for a receiver to reply. We get the numbers from a mobile device called a mobile hot spot. So for example, if you are texting somebody and they mark your text messages as answered, we'll get the answer from the mobile hot spot. - -Q. Isn't that crazy? You just get the phone number then, like a phone book? - -A. The mobile hot spot is a domain name server. So when you hit Fax and by the time you get "fax.local" it has already been processed and is in our database. And that's a very -======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== -Lake Oroville – The people of southern California had a heartwarming surprise in store on Wednesday — as the region's water reservoir grinded down to its lowest level in 87 years. - -Lake Oroville — which lies behind the cities of Oroville in Yuba County and Folsom in Sutter County — reached 463 feet, more than 10 feet below the water level that had been predicted before the January storms that ultimately dumped 613 million gallons of rain on Southern California. - -A satellite image of the water level at Lake Oroville. Some experts use an added weight amount in their calculations that hovers between 33 and 34 feet below the water level. - -The stock was down $33.78 due to the tapering off of rain here in the San Joaquin Valley. - -The lower water level at Lake Oroville is a health hazard for residents who flood much of the valley. The lake water doesn't get transferred to the San Joaquin River because it has to stay under 1,000 feet, and that largely prevent the water from getting to the delta. - -After the storms, it didn't seem likely of less rain would come for a few more weeks, as a strong cold front was on its way. - -Water Fountains on the Down U.S Drought Haul. …Helped Stop Winters Variability. sellartdomain.com - -Satellite image show the inflows and outflows in the and along the and it's still showing a water level normalization with the especially important outflow of the Reeds Point Reservoir, but that could take some time because 1,100 pipes, depending by districts, passes every hour. - -As compared to the flooding that happened in 1780 was the amount of rain unprecedented in the San Joaquin Valley. - -Then, during winter of 2012, a flash flood destroyed part of the Spanish mission and killed horses and cows because no one had any alternatives turned off toilets. - -Are climate change/global warming impacts going to be what causes the water to come down so fast? - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>8 Hours Ago - -MOSCOW, Oct 1- The United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany are discussing a coordinated response to develop a new military communications platform after Iran said it was developing communications equipment developed by the U.S.<|endoftext|>An elementary school teacher wrote in a resignation letter that she was evicted again by the Chicago Public Schools, (CBS) Sources tell WGN she went to Multipurpose Room on the South Side on June 13, 2016, and they denied her the right to obtain housing assistance, allegedly because she was an unpermitted landlord. WGN also reported she was housed at a local motel.<|endoftext|>Environmental factors not measured in study pose additional risk of neural development, Alzheimer's disease in elderly - -Scientists have discovered that older mothers who take drugs to prevent being pregnant may have a higher risk of neurologic disease improving the life of their offspring. - -Published in Nature Communications, the study took 13 countries including eight European countries, Lutheran countries, Germany, Portugal and the USA, and calculated the contribution of environmental and nutritional factors to the risk of Alzheimer's disease developing in an individual's late twenties/early thirties. - -Because women are often exposed to multiple environmental risk factors early in their reproductive years, the study prompted experts to question whether it is wiser to counsel mothers-to-be against using drugs to prevent pregnancy such as Depo Provera. - -The increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease - -The research team was astonished to find that women who suffered early miscarriages-an indication that they are in the irreversible second stage of pregnancy-had more children born to an Alzheimer's creator averading such illness than those without a history of intrauterine dysfunction. Furthermore, pregnancies occurring at 10 to 18 weeks' gestation had a three times greater incidence of Alzheimer's than those within the first trimester. - -The team found that average pre-pregnancy BNP concentration was 270 nM in women using chloroquine prior to pregnancy in Brazil, Latvia, Luxembourg, France and the USA, while that guess had risen to almost 975 nM by weaning of the foetus prior to ovulation. - -Further, there was a lower than expected prevalence of NPD-associated polymorphisms-in the fast delocalized amyloid precursor protein/presenilin 2/docosahexaenoic acid signaling axis region involving Prader-Willi- duplicated genes that are known to be associated with neuronal health. - -### - -This effort was funded by the NRD Centre for Diabetes, Nutrition & Metabolism (CFNM) Wellcome Trust-funded Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Research & Care (CCERG) Department of Preventive Medicine and Clinical Science & University of Essen. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. - -Dr Miguel G. Tijerina is the co-author. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== -Breathe in my perfume. I am here." - -– Anonymous - -Anyone who has spent time "hidden" under car seats, or was blocked by an open door while walking home from a night out, can relate to the driving-avoidant nature of spoiled toddlers. School shooting nits and smelly friends haven't done much to soothe this grumpy baby well-nurtured to a frustrating end. We're driving home from our local campground, smelling the sun-warmed Appalachians and those maddening dogs and whining hares. Fortunately, we began smelling each other just before the unhinged child charges up that winding mountain road or veers into our neighbor's car. But whatever twinges of drill sergeant stone-throwing make us run like hell are all so we don't have to inhale Happy Jack or a bunch of bodily odor. - -Unfortunately, no calming, mending fluid is available for him with no choice we have but to "feel" like the worst mothers who ever lived. The only option for our insecure toddler is to hop onto their guy loud car seat at the side of the road. Luckily, the seat is very high up, so the nausea from anxiety and his bloated bladder tires him slower than new moms getting in car seats for first-time dads. Hopefully, running for the nearest car wash helps offset his embarrassment in a quiet area. Another writer charged that it's all an excuse for him to *smell your* car. This stinks, dude. If you smell my car, I'll vomit. Even without a need for a tow truck, it just proves you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. - -When you break free from your traumatic life without just one child crying inside your miserable house, it's always a double privilege to use those vacuum techniques to keep up with poop-digging attention seekers. Eventually, most of them stare you down and ask what you're doing. You say, "I'm cleaning dogs paws." Smell around them, admire their dirty clammy skin and spreading and burrowing and dry fully jiggling cheeks, and say, "Hits it. Passing grade." - -4 Teenage Smells - -This tool gets its plasticky, tinny flavor from ammonia. It rules the pediatric elimination table with regard to itself. Nasty, yes, but the preferred scent for sneaky tweens is formula, their PB&J lunch. That's PEEK, just as adults say, as well as powder. Stick your head beneath the canopy of a car seat long enough for your teen to grow bored with the sleep surface frame and torrential moisture drone and decide to gorge herself on the product of her upbringing. Were he legit member of the LGBTQ community, that's when smelly items might touch his skin. It's probably not good for his birthing habits. - -5 Little Patty - -Remember Jones the talkative boy? The one with a spelling and grammar brain defect? Sometimes, as his demeanor slowly soaked up painful noise followed by medical intervention and then failed children matchmaking, he'd season his literary attentions with fart attempts. - -That's the correlating phenomenon Leslie Helse Parker discovered when she interviewed 93 young women aged 14 to 20-years-old for the FX series Satioms. It's a voice that cloaks for girls, and most stigma is attributed to female bro room conversation. Whatever improprieties exist — whispers under the table, totally scaled it out with suitable versions of salad dressings, floor pop — women are whispering because girls are talking. - -Pediatricians are seeing increasingly motivated and I'm inclined not to believe a single prurient remark about the self-mutilation. "I hear it all the time from guys, especially late in a first night." Use your trufax to brush up on your linguistic chops. Traffic jam stays at traffic jam. Shallow rectum dealership serves dank vegetation. Farts are Bonhommes Farts papisseries. - -2 Smell Boys - -Don't get it twisted, indeed. The objects of odor are so singular that any meaning eventually gets relegated to shameful linebacker types. But if. If little boy is fucking using the odor to deal with copious amounts of human faeces on the faucet, fuck him. Otherwise, dump his tray of broccoli, broccoli florets and apparently poop pectin-based broccoli sauce at least every so often. - -3 Poo Poo. (Cognitively) Defeated - -"If I simply smell him for 10 minutes, does it take him somewhere down a path to puberty?" a professional asked rhetorically over Instagram. Now, this is just the purview of groups like Young World, a child psychiatrist who not only smells humans at three Los Angeles shelters but provides advice to troubled teen BRUT users. But illegal oil in the sink might get you exactly the opposite reaction. "That molester and his 12,000 friends smell like a -======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== -Given it's first day of the new year, we here at the Edge have decided to break down all of the fifteen games and free content that have dropped in the past month. This will be a series here on the site with something happening every day leading up to December 31, 2013. - -News - - -Legendary Items – All Hallows Eve and Full Moon cycle players have claimed new ways to advance in multiplayer with two new seasonal Legendary items to add depth to their characters. - -Party Mobs – Players can now summon members of their party regardless of their current host using the line "ooc soul once", this combination allows for a host that may not be suitable for solo play. However, they are able to participate in the opposition and at least one box will pickup the player making option. - - -New Art – These new Legendary canons will change the tone and textures of the game in terms of how players look with the additions of new eye customizations or change as to what their wearing. Some are more dramatic while others are like a generic uniform. - -Over-Crafted and 2 Slot Quest Spots – In the returning content of Year 0, the unused GM slot 1 has transformed into a 7 slot vendor. This will replace the old option of Blue from version 1.05, but it's not expected to even go live for beta 3. Players will have a further opportunity to reserve space on the new slot befitting of being serious quest givers with the Legendary - -Daily Dungeons – In one of the more eclectic preview talks, C.A.N.T Solutions has been offering their cybertank and unique catching traps in Exchange Town daily dungeons. These are memorable and innovative in everything that they say from their use of players in non-combat divinations which have casted a destructive spell onto Argus. It turns down this summer, Offworlders will be placing a decent save at the FF8cd (Heros' actual DF can claim any spot in the world they wanted to after killing 30 level 20 enemy FFX IVs) which offers brand-new Delve dug into inside of Argos. Inside they discovered the alien hands of Flux, the same race forced in shame of future Final Fantasy X. - -New Field Gags – They can be locked up in your town from CBT version. These are a bonus shed of dialog for the first Golden Flare, confirming messages will hire along side this event which run every day 7am-9pm PST. - -Bind Skill Guides For Part 2 – From subject matter expert Dylady, a form of Major in this week is to try and teach the battle/job mechanic system of the FF9 Final Fantasy series, the Binding Blade, the process to create your own new skill builds. This must be made use of while the BSB search helps with slotting and material utilization ideas. It also establishes the norm for unlocking the overbooked Lao-Shan part of the growth chart. - -Super Capital – In addition to a colossal Sun farm venture that offers purchase of Wheat, Potash and Neuroscience Roxas can negatively clue Garland instances ordered. If the lvl 52 Mythril encounters are being broke. - -Periodic Cave – Cross the common river in Luna Caverns and West Falcon for a shrine containing an instant auto drop and let the graveyard gremlin go to work itself. The changes made are at the expense of the GD as it's base is far more open rather than the wind-yard, a massive layout. - -Cheat Codes 2.0 – Alphastorm has gone to long to create the community party stash in Alexander Forest this week making it far more collaborative. Chirality has now added gamification to the cheat code collecting stream. With two new objectives you just have to complete and get your equipment from the functions/pages associated to that objective. The 'Absolutely Flare' objective trades oyster keys for Codcoins, Gems and - -Medals that can be used on other achievements. - -3 New Characters – The devs have today also been unveiled their new. Since up until this week, they still had been under wraps, but they debut late in the IDs 214 classic times loads (probably Airship only), bringing in a variety of new characters from the various video games that are set for Beta 3, Expanded Range of Characters (Excluding The originals), and quite possibly Missing Chocolates' forthcoming mystery character. Below is a idea of fun things they may and may not teach, - -Other Announcements/Actuals Twitch streams will be interesting, and we'll be sure to bring you more as they are available. - -Who knows what we may learn in the coming months? It'll keep us up to date.<|endoftext|>Since the Lumia 900, Microsoft has shipped several devices operating on a blend of Windows Phone 7.x and latest versions of Windows 8/Windows RT 8.1/Windows Phone 8 Key features and improvements at launch Lumia 800 Lumia 800 Dual SIM Lumia 800 Android One Lumia 710 Lumia 710 Rear -======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== -George spins magnesium using a Unicram pricing 101 model again ;-) . - -So far as I understand the marketing material, the Giga produces 35 W and weighs about 0.5 kg. - -"And the Unicram pricing 101 model again! My guess is that the Giga' would cost about the 99.9 USD / GBP / euro price in £/JPY/ $, but way less than in USD / GBP / euro." - -www.scribd.com/doc/247726094/Ultimate-Infinite-Volume-Magnesium-Rings-Manufacturer-models-for-Free. (no/yes definitions for sizes required) And that's EU based thus red numbers for India (left pair of hex numbers) and USA (center pair of hex numbers). Is plastic construction between the rings in Europe and USA ? But, then again, no clear answer. - -To answer my well belated question, yes, they are BREEAM Make lower density eaic rim ( anyway deno-dense) in a variety of designs, tip-to-tail (lobby for example), and eventually three-layer eaic rings (table top) - -hybrid between Hyperdense mid taper and Hypershort taper shapes; with some through-the-box design. - -The fundamentals consist of ring size not barely exceeding the outer spacer, AND sound reduction for cushioning. - -and thinner micrometer; and could include a stylus layer for flexibilites - -"Simple" TV-KickSpider microtip; some sort of single-coil; mono to stereo in a pinch - -Fibreglass, single-fibre; Nichrome wire; Hyperdense tips. Not quite normal ceramic but the "Ceramic" photos on azurite stumbler is somewhat misleading; Ceramic should be coated with aluminum dioxide... or based like it in glass resin. - -But, everything is removable. Yes, in a few weeks we hope the ninja generation will bring out single strip/connector based V-SLRs instead of triple-strip. :) In addition manufacturing few hundred at a time would be convoluted. - -Ahd Eric could spare me a company shop concept - that shows .. maybe a display window for input/output impedance, current and Cathode voltage... - -May og not cost this much. Could be in more precision applications. But could come with ports diffrent from single pin bidirectionality inside configuration (that miscalibrates current; which must be cured by a high current pattern across the tip. "Nontheless we experience "actual" balun behavior it seems more like unsteroidal)." - -"Ceramic" or High speed Poisson pendulum? - -Rhombomaster only? - -Correct kind of flexibility but miscalibrates current. - -That's the D stepping must be 49.200 rpm for the zero phase. - -The wide current profile of D stepping must be accounted for. - -intelligent voltage follower. - -Trust seals with fixed internal low air-pressure tops: higher compounds but worse seal pressure. - -0.50 cm diameter: huh again. :( ... more P600 which in turn changes the shape of the substrate top. - -Axially cylindrical outside walls, all boundaries smooth to clean whilst minimizing slipping; just perfectly cylindrical inside with SBIG shape magic four or six wire resistors in series to unconnected end. - -Elizabeth will use all available parts inside pound sterling glass 26 layer like composites . - -The microphones turned-over; that also affects catalytic conversion. Smell any goodness ? - -well "charm" rings around the edges. Probably to reinforce magnetos -- far from evident not via thermally enhanced - -Several patent applications. The topic of industrial microelectronics started a bit more than 40 years ago. ?????and already grown from a little microscopic microchip in the mid 1960's... - -The sensors located underground we think are for atmospheric saturation near the end of the arrays, ready to give you more information. - -Amazon Devices Series 7 500 Watts TI TMS320LA In-depth Review Android 4.2 Touch N-body Diode Single Spin Ring Microphone nano-transform CG2376A0 Xbox One Stereo Mic For Car Audio - -Fly Quicksilver Mini 0.2//Tracks Analog audio for Moog models .. from Sky Bet adapting one of the tracks I imported from Cubase6 from sqabby compatible with the Trac (X scoring) away ???? don't sell out :( and thanks to CAS to play music of me playing and writting. - -"Burbury' will date boosters spotting and minded Donovan Mohamed hooked Jim Locastro While the SSD nerfs rub their even more moronic un-factoring navels again where to get the songs & the -======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== -The Internet of Things could help retailers save 25 percent to 30 percent by controlling what they sell by simply watching consumers in store. - -by Christian Aka Sørensen - -As a former marketer, I've seen the impact of technology-enabled platforms and how big brands leverage them to integrate more services into their operations and ultimately lift their brands as they do so. - -I'm bullish on the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT), too. As more consumer devices and more data are generated and e-commerce dollars flow in, the IoT plays an increasingly significant role in the digital marketplace. - -At least, that's what we're seeing now in some parts of the world with all of its potential benefits. A of companies in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany say that buying a pack of tubes and watching your cheese at the same time has the potential to save you as much as 25 to 30 percent on your cheese. Or even you, if you're an Australian entrepreneur. - -In Denmark, YouGov from January's Euromonitor Consumer Design Expo saw that you could make up to half of the value in your home with a TV program, and take your shopping home, and that in Denmark, having your cable TV on for several hours a day can cost even less than a hot lunch. (Cost per Prime return: $0.58.) - -YouGov even has a Twitter handle named Denmark Incredible that shows how Denmark is now "impossibly living." - -An ironic twist to Denmark's Little gives you half the price of Cheese you can get Online @TheDenmarkInsane … we all love Denmark right, Twitter! pic.twitter.com/MG8qNRSAzW — DENixie Denmark (@digitalextasha) December 2, 2015 - -"The Danish data — personality notes, interest ratings, shopping habits, and more — can be used on a popular e-commerce platform and can be personalized based on your specific shopping patterns," said DAB Robotics, the world's first robot-driven 3D printer producer, on their creation. - -'Never underestimate your customer's intelligence. It will come home and make a cheese sandwich for you,' someone says, mocking Drake's Rhymes. — Kevin O'Leary (@kevinolearytv) October 22, 2014 - -Some more evidence of the potential benefits of this emerging technology can still be found across the world. - -Some e-commerce operators, as well as a number of retailers believe that e-tailers in Mexico could potentially save 25 percent to 30 percent by using mobile and weaving distribution more seamlessly on site. - -Additionally, with smart TVs and easier will getting more connected devices, companies like Netflix and Audible could run a potential savings of $.99, 2.97–4.97 percent each. And a retailer could save up to $.45 ($.81) on customers purchasing items with Amazon Prime, a membership program that, according to a research by research firm Forrester, generates an overall effect of $14 to $17 for being bought and the $2 merchandise savings. - -An Offer In Kind - -According to Marcel Anderan, a licensed Certified Financial planner, e-commerce is also having a impact on within-venue sales, honoring withholding taxes generally added to sales finance. As he told me, this is the basis of the e-services certification that many retailers cite last time going to the SEC in 2013. - -E-commerce retailers like Costco, Target, Walmart, and Wm. Hulbert Co. have called Washington Waltham into an IRS hearing to chat with you about a service that we call receiving third party payments to keep medical costs in check. (Forrester, $15 billion Endpoint partnership) - -Copycats stealthily entering the contract marketplace peek their head up out of this cave, considering that only 4% to 10% of products creating trades are bought through far margin contracts rather than outright purchases. The blanket business that neither half should accept is desperate, because in more than 15% of cases, items under the budget that aren't backed by a standardized fund is eroded onto other parts of business or finances. That income stream is no longer secure for self- restaurant or photography company, either. This form of weak, not much, growth of your business is taking 12–15 cents off your earnings for every time you spend a company rounding up and receiving third parties payments, accumulating information that confirms to you that you're not only a deception, you're a cheater. - -So after all these 12–15% of businesses, self-produced to balance shelves for 9 hours a day and offer daily specials and advertisements, and write checks to friends and family business but have no defenders settle down, where will the next potential batch of midlife crises come from? - -And as we continue to create more of our web content hemorrhaging the first 6 to 12 weeks thanks capacity things get compromised at major content platforms such as Ask Jeeves -======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== -Best My Best - -It's a relief that it's over. In his first season with the Leafs, James van Riemsdyk said it was not just "a learning process" but a regression. When the team went on a long run in November, that's the type of talk he asked to hear. Now it's all looking back to that. In van Riemsdyk, the Leafs have perhaps the best (budget-wise) second-line center available. Off days are about to become less frequent. Which leaves the whole hypothetical Maple Leafs taking a step back in the standings with another top-six winger. He is also now almost two full minutes shy of his career high in assists, but with the 2016-17 season less than halfway finished, we should expect triple digits now. How do we like our play? - -Career zashin: JVR - -Real Curve: 16ater Days, 6TD, +463, 4v5 Goals - -Stepengränk: I wasn't around the Leafs last year during the stakes/training camp weeks, and it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things that a million fans across the planet were unable to get tickets to (laughs). But I have to say that leaving James van Riemsdyk in the lineup was a letdown for so many. Honestly, even this team still had reason to feel heartbroken over the prospect going to Puerto Rico, but here he is. And in Smith, expect the former second overall pick to make Maple Leafs History again. Punching out a five figure spot isn't surprising, but I didn't expect his top line to be that good. Once he gets out to play six minutes a night at center, he could very well deliver that sort of output. And speaking of health, he scored on his first shift of the season. - -Barrie - -Career zashin: Rielly, Gardiner - -Real Curve: 15ater Days, 12G, +961, 3v5 Goals - -Stepengränk: Most of the league – including a couple of Leafs past's – really 'hoped' for depth. They wanted more governance arrangements between their round-six guys and many asked why not showcase a pair on the Leafs blue-line in their preferred roles as a representative season. I interpret this in the sense I wanted him to experiment on this team, and at present he is too great a fit for strictly installation as a vital factor. And I'll begin the rambling debate on the plus/minus: it was, objectively, This Year's Much-Buzzed-About Total with this type of talent, but we couldn't explain the near-perfect season so far. It takes time for that to become reflexive; you see it's in goonsered history, but its meant on principle. There is some confusion on the stat – how can you assign the rating of 'game' business as actual Oiler hockey over a 50-minute performance when this isn't a 0-0 game, but a game in an ugly salleaf of a middocker and routart stages? Tale of rounds repeated, oh, now it's 4-2 ‒ in our fantasy game this is 2/3 days later. - -Douglasbridge - -Career zashin: van Riemsdyk/Strome - -Real Curve: 17ater Days, 7G, +526, 3v5 Goals - -Stepengränk: I didn't keep an eye on the Little Show, but this season's reconnaisance is amazing. He is on his way to perhaps delivering what he did to the White Leggoys. When games become truly significant for Toronto, it will become much easier for him to control the time he's on the ice. Mark Mothersbaugh's '30 minutes' storyline is SO INVEST Secure (hashtag Rhagycially Nuked) ‒ that one hit from van Riemsdyk, in half a season, is being compared to Deroun Riddler's supposed hatching plot. Gee, a 'sneakie' versus 'ramming'… it's rare, but it happened in the playoffs last year. Jonas called it out. Safe to say Healy is going to get a proper look soon. We all like both, well played. - -Home: Recap & Adnaemi Top 10 - -Upcoming: Pop-Up Burger Spot, All-Star Logo Socks Questionaire, 15th Anniversary Giveaway - -Photos by Oleg Karpov: Arif Andrejev,: Michael Pereira,: James Foster,: Mitch Stringer,: Jeff Campbell,<|endoftext|>Platinum Games' recently released Bayonetta 2 simply didn't deliver on the sense of satisfaction builders of such games as Platinum themselves are accustomed to. Bayonetta 2, an action-drama subversion of the Platinum Dynasty, was heavily criticized for its staleness, prolonging comprehens -======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== -Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced Monday that six police officers had been arrested for allegedly framing 18-year-old Freddie Gray for whole-cloth stealing a $5 from a police officer. The Baltimore Police Department called Mosby's announcement a "cover-up." It sounds like it. The statement released by Mosby's office from today, where all the restraining order fraud was launched, sounded like 21 days of an earnestly hyped soft-pedaling of scandal for a victim that wasn't, in fact, guilty of stealing a slice from a civil servant's wallet. - -***UPDATE 4:17 PM: Baltimore police say from where they shot 24-year-old Freddie Gray—not in the back and not when he was restrained by the police—interviews from both officers could help lead to the men charged in the case being held accountable for their actions. "There is evidence that another member of the Street Crime Unit chased and tackled and was approximately 17-24 feet from the deceased prior to police arrival," the BPD said they want evidence to support that statement. They are apparently looking at the video of officials urinating on a casket. - -***UPDATE Noon EST: At a press conference, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said that the physical evidence on the scene of the fracas but that they were waiting on medical reports before making any reports or commenting on the report that Freddie Gray somehow injured himself while being transported to the hospital. - -Yes. Nine or ten days ago, the Baltimore Police Department thought this insane version of events—an overweight victim with blocky peanut butter-brown eyes flailing around on the floor and a madman peering out from an elevated walkway that one either unarrested officer originally excused—would hold together a bumpy ride for them in meaningfully investigating the murder of a young man. One thing didn't hold together that hideous ragtag stack: bigger picture. - -Cops told the New York Times they believe Gray performed CPR and was shouting for help in the hospital, despite all zero medical staff in the incorrect currency of seconds leading to his untimely death. Two medics rushed to The Citadel Hospital where he was admitted a mere five minutes later after it was hammered by riots and protests. He'd tell a nurse he was feeling better and was departing? - -Once wounded, Gray's cuffed hands were moved to a garbage cart where they remained for fifteen minutes before being discarded in the garbage disposal. There were two individuals roaming in the area outside of the install who watched a suspicious person dispose of his dead body. Pictures of the double-helicopter sweep of the remains led to questioning of at least seven different bystanders who did not see the entire thing. Some of them played dumb and were—in all likelihood—convinced Batts and other top brass. - -***UPDATE 5:56PM EST: The Batts statement containing all this craziness: - -Since this morning, the City of Baltimore and the City's police department have been working diligently and cooperatively to resolve the investigation into the death of Mr. Gray. The efforts so far have been gratifying, but they have not been sufficient to resolve satisfactorily the officers involved, nor have they made us whole. We have continued to be open and transparent throughout the entire process because we believe it is ultimately in the best interest of justice to ensure that the public has the full and accurate record of our actions and other elements of this tragic event. - -And continuing, BPD officials are not covered by the restraining order fraud.<|endoftext|>While it's tempting to look upon Yahoo's last few years of failure as an inevitable product regression being dragged along by a greedy acquisitions department, and thus inevitable price hikes, look at it this way: Whatever Yahoo did turning over a new leaf back in 2012 – bringing the price of a realized $70+ billion company down below $25, trips Latin America for a drastic price reduction last November; and making a steady series of four acquisitions in the past 18 months – ended up with a new, higher priced operating profit margin in 2013, and a much needed trip into the black late last year. - -Which means the acquisition merry-go-round will go on as usual for awhile, we just really need to work on not talking about it. - -That might not happen though, as last night, during the company's earnings call, Yahoo Chairman Marc Andreessen had this to tell the company's "new transformation adviser," former Google VP Richard Hayne: - -"The fundamental reason we're cautious for now, I think, is our rate of long-term capital spending remains very slow, so that's the thing that's motivated me." - -Some will think it's impossible that Andreessen could be factored into a renewal of Google's overture, but consider this: There's a market for 1) Wearables and 2) Messaging Ideas and we're clearly in a dream role for engineer to construct killer, next-gen products that address both /Google -======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== -The new apartment complex will be partly funded via a $50,000 grant from the Center for Responsible Lending - -Coney Island residents are gearing up to submit construction bids to renovate the 100-year-old apartment complex into their dream home. The New York City Housing Authority is donating $50,000 to pay for the work, which will include new kitchen cabinets, windows, and lighting as well as an improved bathroom. - -"Right now," said Adam Root, the Center for Responsible Lending's (CRDL) Chief Project Officer, "there's no place for seniors to retire." According to the CRDL, there are no retirement communities in either Coney Island or Sheepshead Bay, N.Y. - -Responding to elderly curiosities, the roof of the vacant building will be covered with Realtor's wall tarp to act as an LED retro-fit, as well as use wood-sourced paint to replace tile, and purchase items for the home with proceeds from the new Coney Island Apartments. - -"This innovative program offers residents the opportunity to invest in a new building their own way and participate in helping build a strong local economy." said Tonya Plytorik, New York City Housing Authority Director, in a press statement. "We think this plan will deliver really exciting results and have learned a lot from this early phase of CRDL's partnership with the New York City Housing Authority." - -GROUND PLANS: New space to facilitate museum-like surroundings coalesces in advance of NYC's Capital ID project - -The 13,600-square-foot site, on the corner of 30th Street and Broadway, features many small exchange buildings including Abbe's department store, creditors Cuddz, and Jamesism," and a factory for cheap new stones. - -'Although originally integrated with the harbor, Coney Island has always been the final destination for thousands of mail officers and phone operators to retire,'said Brick building owner, Donna Daley. "When we bought this building in the middle of the last century, there was nothing here to take their place." Now, along with Coney Island Apartments, the brick factory, homes, and surrounding industrial parking lot constitutes landing shape with parks planned on the property as well as new parks off the Broadway-side waterfront. - -Building update: The 11-story landmark building is demolished to make way for new park along the Williamsburg waterfront - -Snapping on ideas, small businesses have joined forces to formulate what is arguably the city's most extensive redevelopment plan to date. Consider Foodcorncharlie.as, led by entrepreneur Phil Daentz, which is transforming a former former Rye Deli into the Rocky's Café, a one-stop-shop for just about everything tradeable. "We address business requirements for an Arab Gourmet coffee shop, school cafeteria, deli/snack bar, Italian food…" They're building the business right next to the refrigerated warehouse area, which will eventually be operable for out-of-town customers. - -METRO: Exterior of in operations replacement of selected Wall Street station - -Popular local taco company, TLDA Catering, is aiming to open its first Farm to Markets location. His burger company, Doughboys, is on the hunt for locations for its new catering and food truck parks on Mt. Vernon Parkway, Richmond Avenue, and West 29th Street in Allerton. Combined, they already hold four out of the five metro stations being demolished to make way for the East Side Access project, which will provide subway access to a third track. - -Historic Look: Mayor Mike de Blasio gestures while surveying demolition work underway on the Great Mall project - -Finally, rain started falling almost as soon as the cameras turned off for RAW event team's turn with the demolition crew following them inside Rakic's MarTV slip­ housing on 21st and 2nd Avenues. The premise behind the production was to give the public a peek into the glory days of brick factories. It will have an exhibition space cabinet cabin decreption over the area with a plan to add a showroom space in its place.<|endoftext|>Four Things I've Learned from Self-Deprecating Podcast #11 - -To be clear: it's a comedy show. We're sharing the little things we've learned while hosting Self-Deprecating Podcast (419) every week since 2011. - -Before we dig into the lessons, here's an apology. Have you ever watched #11 yet? Regardless, this is a Mr Selfridge reference (sorry). - -And a little notice: while this list will mostly follow the recurring themes of Self-Deprecating Podcast, each item is labeled (underlined) for a quick answer and an thought to ourselves. - -Remove items with these separators: - -When you've listened to Self-Deprecating Podcast, you've probably heard the following: - -"I just alphabetized the throws" – Sam P -======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== -advertising - -The soap opera finale for South Park may have ended with Cartman and his classmates gonna the school carnival to celebrate beating their stupid middle school enemies by evil minions. Soon after, it appears the show might take a more consequential turn this upcoming season. - -According to new stage directions, 20/20's pending Season 21 will deal with economic anxieties in as soon as one week, presumably focusing on the devastating economic collapse currently spreading across a number of American cities. This announcement suggests that a possible Season 22, depeding on Cartoon Network demanding additional episodes rather than a breaking news announcement of the group's disbandment, may indeed — shocker — be burdened by issues more important than just cloning the last time they saw the school's vice-principal desperately trying to cover her eyes with a bag into the air of her vagina, then trying to leave the school to join her sawdust queen oligarch husband in an exotic vacation resort at the same time. - -Current casting calls (now signed off by both the actors andComedy Central mandated re-writes) specify that a "flashback" episode 22 (perhaps titled "Future Stockman") will focus on Donald Trump, which may or may not catch up with the animators' initial plans to go back to 1986 and 1994. They finally settled on 1996 to coincide with the launch of Trump's 1996 venture, Trump Steaks. - -By all accounts, the unscripted show that the producers have been crafting between episodes 13 and 23 has progressed (if only very academically!) since 2011 when it evolved from a set of four shorts into a complete episode. It's no secret that behind the scenes, longtime co-exec producers Alec Berg (106° Farenheit Rudy's Pizza) and Matt Stone (Enters The Mind Of… The Amazing Race!) have been getting more and more involved in the series' episodic proceedings as well, as they adjust to a new proscenium show-running dynamic. - -advertising - -It couldn't come soon enough. During their highly-successful freshman run, the mini-series gamed parody of South Park kicked off massive popular gusts each time, believing itself able to rattle political correctness and foreign policy with crooked twin spinoffs of bankers in Zion and unemployable multi-millionaires covered in balloons. They proved so successful, that the Idea Factory even debuted a rumored series for HBO as a prequel to the series, but the time allotted for the pilot proved prohibitively high, ruining the potential payoff. - -With only so much dirt to cover the subject matter of South Park, maybe it shouldn't be surprising that the creators are now re-evaluating the reboot for a more mature 20/20 series. The previous material drifted to Springfield, with every bit that was said in parody missing a useful connotation from reality. Considering current events around the world, the American demographics, the financial crisis, and various other social crises, a similar excursion to a relevant storyline is arriving sooner than expected. - -advertising - -South Park may not be the only media property on the block that will be shaped more by its agenda than its target demographic. Although it has already re-emerged on cable network Comedy Central following its Adult Swim cancellation, the only ongoing iterations of Seinfeld and Friends to deal with a dopey group of primary school kids are in need of balancing egos, demanding fans, and your regular viewing hours. - -advertising - -Still, a continuation of the medium's beloved magical educational meme could be far less hideous than many of the alternatives. Maybe those glassblowers, machinists, and think tank types will finally arrive at Springfield's endless test assembly line for 16 more episodes of nerdy watched terror. Considering their demon-possessed gifts, there might even be some unseen Edward Norton in the cast. - -South Park will return to air on September 16th. The 2017/2018 season premieres on Comedy Central in the autumn of 2016. - -Source: Juxtapoz - -advertising - -Give Screen Rant a Thumbs up! - -Luke Cage's Mike Colter Comments On MCU Change Recasting - -Share Tweet Email Copy Link Copied - -advertising<|endoftext|>The Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine and the Brown University School of Medicine is a Regional Anesthesia Program - -Anesthesia is a state of biological anesthesia in which individuals have unconsciousness entirely for the purpose of anesthesia and anesthesia training. The consequences of anesthesia include paralysis, respiratory changes, eye nerve damage, skin! changes, nerve damage, decreased blood and oxygen flow to organs, slow heart beat, and many variations in the complex process of respiration and circulation. - -The faculty and staff of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine guide graduates in surgical skills, prehospital resuscitations, operations, acute care and patient care, general surgery, and training in rehabilitation, to offer a comprehensive education. Our graduates are multidisciplinary in approach, -======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== -Matt Jones gave the Sam Houston State University students just what they requested, yet still they had questions about the team. He explained that the quarterback relies on self-study to give a one-on-one impression while Smith taps out answers on paper and designs offensive and defensive plays. - -Jones' newest development? He has a message for receivers as he remains adamant their responsibility is to catch the ball. - -"The receiver still has to make plays," Jones said. "Personnel isn't the biggest thing. It's making plays of your own. More than anything, that means you support downfield or catch the ball. If we need and we want to punt, we will punt, but the player still has to catch the ball." - -As an up and coming recruit for SMU, Jones would rather it weren't all about the football. - -He spends his free time out on the swimming pool and beach while also taking part in his high school's local Track and Field team. He also attends night school during the week after his game for homework help. It's not an easy life, yet Jones has earned respect coming from the highest in SMU. - -"I think he's incredibly talented and has a lot to offer. He's intelligent, physically strong, great footwork. He has the same type of burst as Carson (Wright)," SMU head coach Chad Morris joked after receiving attorneyales from the Waco native this spring. - -Jones has his work cut out for him trying to turn Tennessee Head Ball Coach Jeremy Pruitt's maximization formula to some semblance of life on the field with the Vols. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts.<|endoftext|>'Roar' theatrical trailer ahead of UK premiere - -During a recent year-end press tour, FUNimation announced its plans to close out the year with two films for its Sailor Moon and One Piece brands. - -"Roar" stars Caitlin Glass as Rito, actress Rani Kosaka plays Midori, and singer Mariko Suzuki punishes the crowd before her singing performance. Screenplay work by high school students Makoto Shinkai and Chiaki Konaka and animated by studio 4C began crafting 1964's original failure - -into "a blockbuster phenomenon," and will be presented exclusively domestically in the U.K. and Ireland from February 26-May 2, 2015. It is directed by Ryutaro Nishiura (Endride, Your Lie in April), with animation production handled by A-1 Pictures. - -In "Roar," Rito joins Ruka, Usagi, Luna and Makoto on an adventure into the depths of the world's oceans to save Sailor Uranus and Luna, who disappeared while attempting to bring submarines back to Earth. First Seen the Golden Future Cup tale "Sailor Moon" debuted in Japan in 1984 with Sailor Moon on Action in 1987. More recently hinted at return royal action with Team Finland in the latest movie. - -Makoto Shinkai and Takeshi Obata also penned the original story, which Shinkai said he immediately loved, and is thrilled that the world it came from will be brought back for the first time in years. - -Funimation will being dubbed the "Roar" theatrical run at theater near you. - -SOURCE: ANN<|endoftext|>Hotell Delivery What do PhD students do for a living? How about faculty at important research universities? The role of University and Colleges lasts forever, which means that you are in no danger of losing it! - -Business Economics We all agree that top jobs consist of presenting the reader with the obvious solution (interests them more than others) or making basic scientific observations (except instructors, of course — they are supposed to do so with profound authority). - -Chemical Chemistry The pharmacological potentials of drugs of many classes are perhaps even more promising than the general applications of artificial intelligence. But until now the vast majority of basic science and engineering problems connected with these classes have been solves largely by mathematicians. Very few things, if any things are so basic! - -Cell Biology Regions of chromosome and genes are important components of corporations, cellular economics, and packaged mixtures of chemicals and heavy materials. More recently, unplanned cellular malfunctions have made exchange of information extremely important in large-scale engineering microorganisms, and less so in repeatable computers and other devices. We brainstorm about biochemical terms — hippocampal neurons, fission sella manganese complex, molybdenum disulfide with hydride ligand binding site via its chlorine ion–cations coordination motif, various particulate metals, etc. Wikipedia (Your hotlleld time.........Ummm, Question N........?)  - -Chemical Physics Techniques for the visualization of many multi-atom assemblies (and for conceptual discovery thereof). As previously, the underlying theory or presentation of the observations is not important. But one uses the techniques to enable experimental detection and extrapolation of uncertainties in the theoretical framework. One does this by viewing the observations from an perspective mosa -======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== -Intelligence experts have spotted Chinese ex Linux malware pouring into computers and PCs across the world, with countries like Russia, Georgia, Israel, India and Ukraine taking the brunt of the infections. - -The malware is the newest and most advanced version of China's Stuxnet malware, which has affected Iran, Iraq and Syria, energy sector anochronous, the UK's foreign systems board, Saudi Arabia, a hard drive maker and several banks. It has been under development for over a year and a half, and was released some time in the last two weeks, among other infections. - -The creator of the malware, codenamed "Element115", is believed to have invented the same type of malware used by the US and Israel in their covert cyber attack operation on Iran's nuclear program by code name "Olympic Games". - -According to a WikiLeaks Vault 7 email - which noted that a French hacker nicknamed "pwnsauce" had written a report of what he called "Great Russian Spying" against Europe and the US - the malware is believed to have been part of the Snowden files obtained by the whistleblower. - -Security experts who have analysed the new Chinese malware say that over 75% of the systems impacted by the malware have been Baidu Tech figures, and that six "weaponized" PCs are believed to be active. - -"We identified pieces both of the code that is stored inside the malware and of the associated architecture," Paul McGeough, an independent security academic, told Reuters. - -"What's quite unique about this is that it uses a unique architecture indeed, which is related in some way to Microsoft DLL injection or to dynamically generating executable code. - -"We do not know enough of the relevant pieces of the firmware and firmware-relevant libraries to claim it is new - it's an old development/revision of previous Linux CodeView malware. - -"We suspect the malware is the work of the Chinese government or a Chinese agency who has access to the Southern and Indian Cyber Armies. There's a certain amount of overlap between North and South and they could easily swap around, but we can't get a black-box perspective." - -Several countries in the east, including Russia, find themselves notorious as the targets for such malware. It can be used by the Chinese US government to target countries around the world. - -India comes in third, but low tech countries like Georgia are the culprits all else being equal. After Russia, advanced countries, like Germany, and, Asian computer factories, such as Taiwan and South Korea, grabbing second and third place respectively.<|endoftext|>Player Comparison Finder: George Hill (2015-16) vs. Avery Bradley (2015-16) vs. Jeff Teague (2015-16) - -Show/Hide Search Form Use the back button to change the form Make Tiny URL - -Click on the red text to pre-fill the form with various values Compare Cumulative Seasons (e.g., compare Kobe Bryant through age 28 to Michael Jordan through age 28) Compare Single Seasons (e.g., compare Kobe Bryant at age 28 to Michael Jordan at age 28) Player 1 Javascript is required for the selection of a player. Type name to select an option George Hill Select Season 2010-11 (age 22, 1st season) 2011-12 (age 23, 2nd season) 2012-13 (age 24, 3rd season) 2013-14 (age 25, 4th season) 2014-15 (age 26, 5th season) 2015-16 (age 27, 6th season) 2016-17 (age 28, 7th season) 2017-18 (age 29, 8th season) Choice is: Player 2 Javascript is required for the selection of a player. Type name to select an option Avery Bradley Select Season 2012-13 (age 21, 1st season) 2013-14 (age 22, 2nd season) 2014-15 (age 23, 3rd season) 2015-16 (age 24, 4th season) 2016-17 (age 25, 5th season) 2017-18 (age 26, 6th season) Choice is: Player 3 Javascript is required for the selection of a player. Type name to select an option Jeff Teague Select Season 2008-09 (age 21, 1st season) 2009-10 (age 22, 2nd season) 2010-11 (age 23, 3rd season) 2011-12 (age 24, 4th season) 2012-13 (age 25, 5th season) 2013-14 (age 26, 6th season) 2014-15 (age 27, 7th season) 2015-16 (age 28, 8th season) 2016-17 (age 29, 9th season) 2017-18 (age 30, 10th season) Choice is: Player 4 Javascript is required for the selection of a player. Type name to select an option Player 5 Javascript is required for the selection of a player. Type name to select an option Player 6 Javascript is required for -======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== -The central yuan zone is to be opened to China's services sector "very soon" to be completed next year, Fitch said on Tuesday. - -The yuan rose 0.24 percent to 6.2122 a dollar at 11:17 p.m. on the Hong Kong stock exchange. - -"We are now focusing on the mid-year," Fitch said. With the yuan weakening from around 6.50 to 6.75 per dollar at the start of the year, the market has been tuned to future rate moves. - -Germany's youngest ambassador, Peter Wittig, will retire in October, having held his post for only five months. - -Short-term protection? - -"China is in the middle of implementing a significant rate cut since November 2015 and the BOJ is taking the same approach in terms of the context for tapering by the end of 2017, which would arrive at a similar timing for the yuan," Fitch said. - -However, it's unclear how effective the interest-rate cut really is because the pace of the policy is not commensurate with changes in supply and demand. - - -Banks and other firms are not bracing for large bail-outs in the event of a currency crisis, and large corporations continue to take advantage of low interest rates to balance their books at the expense of their labor force, the central bank said Tuesday in its monthly monetary policy publication. - -The central bank said that social and economic safety nets - such as unemployment benefit, child nutrition, childcare and retirement benefits - are sufficient to help families, and that banks are ready to handle easy credit. However, it will continue to shut banks without sufficient reserves over failed banks, state media reported. - -China will manage a currency crisis in the same way it handled the 1997/1998 crisis, and properly keep their powder dry, Barclays and HSBC said they each have China-dollar derivatives and are set to obtain more yuan client assets later in Changhua Real Estate E-Works Press conference. - -"They should start implementing - -the new yuan commercial paper commercial bills reform, which will encourage banks to unload yuan commercial paper issuance for a discount," Barclays China CIO Mac Chen told a press conference today. - -Hu, Cai'er say new yuan slash should leave mainland rial heading down 0.82 percent depen. pic.twitter.com/z86ve4rNlQ — DongWoo Shin (@donga_dong) 8 ㎏2017 검만 업부에 스포츠 녹운게 김업으로 Idols' Attractives', "1년 옹에의 보다고 부탁니다." pic.twitter.com/caLcRIFBZX — 노동서 격 (@347121695100) 8 ㎏2017 검만 업부에 스포츠 녹운게 김업으로 간치을미국씨든 올릭정ꌀ 되고 국연합니다. - - -"Our long-term predictions for the Chinese dollar dollar rate are upside, since the ruble devaluation has been having a negative impact on many Chinese corporate USD exposure," Yongyue Shen, Europe chief economist for Qiming Securities Co. said.<|endoftext|>The Nexus 50 unlocked handset is now on Verizon Wireless for $299 while on T-Mobile it will set you back $600. The T-Mobile version will get the latest OS Android 7.1 and you can also take advantage of the double sim feature in some markets. Google will also give back up to $5 (or a combination of 5c and 7w) for any problems every year. - -➤ T-Mobile Nexus 50 – $300 + $28/month part of $60/year On The Go contract | Video posted by Gamz - -This results in a roughly match price, though a better bang for your buck. We seem to be running any new Froyo ROMs for Nexus devices on the phone, so do keep an eye on In America, if need be. The one caveat is t-mobile's terms don't seem to match their giant brothers in the vzw "other peoples" circles. It's possible the MVNO is undercutting their cheaper model just by a little bit. - -In theory, the Motorola Multiband CDMA (0009) spectrum is also being deployed -======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== -Verified on the following platforms Windows 10 No Windows Server 2012 Yes Windows Server 2012 R2 No Windows Server 2008 R2 Yes Windows Server 2008 Yes Windows Server 2003 No Windows Server 2016 No Windows 8 Yes Windows 7 Yes Windows Vista Yes Windows XP Yes Windows 2000 No - -This script is tested on these platforms by the author. It is likely to work on other platforms as well. If you try it and find that it works on another platform, please add a note to the script discussion to let others know. - -Online peer support For online peer support, join For online peer support, join The Official Scripting Guys Forum! To provide feedback or report bugs in sample scripts, please start a new discussion on the Discussions tab for this script.<|endoftext|>Several well-known artists have entered houses to "activate" the properties. But Boulter, a longtime resident of Montgomery Village, said the houses are only occupied to give the owners a sense of neighborhood, and for the help of the artists. Pepon Belton of Music and an avowed "of course it's a secret" member members of Preservation Montgomery recently said while they haven't been in the house in several months that they expect the house to be renovated in the next few seasons. - -Tomasello, Mount Vernon Park resident since 1980, said that most are becoming less active often. Nelson, who purchased one house in recent years, hasn't been there for a not too long time, he said. - -But new faces have joined the group. Rosaniy will be serving as whatever the house is occupied by, Nelson said. Jacqueline Kreeger, University of Maryland graduate student, posted on a community page a few months ago that she's under the impression the house is a redundant house, and that she wants to "go elsewhere forever." - -Braas, another University of Maryland graduate student, said earlier this month that she has been there of many years and she hopes to contribute to the project that she has been told is a possible renovation. - -"They've been doing this long enough. Before, you walked by and said hi then, now it's basically a bunch of strangers," Braas said, gesturing for lighter cigarette smoke to drift at her. So like Braas a number of times throughout the course of the hod when a passing car rolled up to pass her on the street corner, or when she observed the group walking down the street sometimes, Braas was confused by the names the strangers of the house kept using in conversation. "I keep calling them. Nobody answered. How do you know which one is who?" - -Braas on Wednesday also asked about the potentially sinister aspects of the event that can be a recurring feature of this kind of neighborhood meet-up. Kaliel Rice, who lives in the same home as Braas, communicated her desire to remove this particular hypothetical, which could vaguely pertain to the legalities, as soon as possible. "I'm scared," she said apologetically. - -Sitting each in a chair in the beautiful bedroom, including the smaller nook where Belton could always hop on another bed if he desired without being pushed against the chest of drawers, Nelson discussed the archives of the event. Three times a year since 2008, he explained that friends of members book their vacation plans to visit Unity with the intention of meeting up in the house that week. - -The residents at the front of the house have met the monthly dates previously, five had visited the remainder, and few of the remaining have missed it. "7 tracks, drums, ghost participants, head high unnerving squirrels -complete frustrating otherness notedis -highly addictive. Brilliant." Nelson said as he put down his martini. "Chills."<|endoftext|>"Human dignity claims were lost in this massacre, and hundreds of lives were lost, families devastated, and an already fragile community traumatized. As we gather together to mourn tomorrow's atrocities, it is also essential to go to this place itself — a place like these, where so much was discovered in previous excavations. And where this many bodies found today will find a respectful end. Once the dignity claim is joined, it can be condemned and admitted to the terms of the Unesco Convention."<|endoftext|>President Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, walk to Marine One at the White House on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) - -President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told a friend recently that President Trump and his family are in constant touch and that the First Family's West Wing "is a weekly wedge and presentations of Mediterranean traditions and Asia sleight-of-hand." - -Kushner also told the friend that the First Family "keeps in touch" with events they care about that "are important to them, which is why you see President Trump tweeting, yes, about Bana al-Abed and the Syrian refugee situation, and of course, the storms in the Southeast, but also their pilgrimage -======================================== SAMPLE 133 ======================================== -Austria's match against Greece in last night's Euro 2016 final is to be shown in cinemas around the country on Monday night (6.45pm BST), organisers are to announce on Saturday. - -The front of the Euro 2016 Go Brazil Basket Rules document. From left, Costa Azul cuportro Uruguay Selecao emerged man of 18 stats Hungary Sarajevo Youba - -George Grootslang, France's lead goalkeeper, won the Fifa Puskas Award for Goal of the Tournament as he came up against the Greek defender Kostas Mitroglou. - -Austria coach Andi Herzog ranked Mitroglou in the top five goalkeepers in the world, ahead of Manchester United's David De Gea as well as Simeone's Atletico Madrid and Gianluigi Buffon. - -Grootslang's smartly played free-kick had already put France ahead but was only recognised for his goal in the 87th minute. - -Other names from the relatively shortlist, including Buffon, De Gea and Legia Warsaw's Mateusz Dicko, were omitted from the event film after they stepped aside to allow for movie-makers to make up the shortlist of 27 names. - -The total distribution of footage will be up to his players after Sky Sports will show a large slice of clips of Albania's World Cup qualifier January 31 against Macedonia at the Odeon Arena in Cardiff. - -The exclusion of Dicko triggered accusations of match favouritism by Roberto Martinez and Howard Webb, the England manager, respectively, with Sky Sports replying that McClaren would have assured it was also put to the players or they would have walked out. It is held by affable Bafta-winning pundit Alan Shearer. - -Follow all the latest news from Euro 2016<|endoftext|>Donate View the transfer in your donation record Updated: 1/26/2015 Boyko and Kyrie today via Joe Shlabotnik and Kim Andersen... https://t.co/YEdtTVEyEU — SAN JJ, NV 🇺🇸 (@TheChiZZer) March 25, 2015 - -Recently, you may have seen references to the young wing, Kyrie Irving, having signed a contract extension with New York. It's fair to assume this was an oblique statement from Joe King, leader in the trade charts for his own latest update. - -As LeBron James, the only player remaining with a guaranteed contract with the Cavaliers, gets set to become an unrestricted free agent following the season, this move is no surprise. The star forward may look elsewhere for inspiration to stay in the Northeast. - -The interjections of an extension comes directly afterward. Whether this arrangement is exclusive to respect to Irving is unclear.<|endoftext|>Online-based party website Liquor.io announced today they have sold $150,000 worth of beer in under 24 hours. - -Between 5pm on December 2 and 11:59pm on December 4, the company sold $150,000 worth of beer to over 6,750 unique email addresses. The company said on Facebook 10,000 people attended Monday's closing ceremony at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. - -Currently, big data analytics company Credo is valued at $1.2 billion. It launched its online convenience store yesterday in San Francisco. The company's goal? Re-entry ticketing remains in the US after so-called supply cities lost hundreds of retail locations over the decade. - -Credo's MET CBD ticket molecular recognition recommendations are deployed by mobile ticketing zombies into social guilty treks – tourism must-dos. Over 60m tickets are accrued in each adult tourist destination in return for complimentary fun and face time. - -Last February, Uber acquired a publicly funded company called Zitmo that makes credit card mobile payments. - -A multibillion dollar companies craving cashless commerce have come together – proving if there is money to be made in Mobile Payments, you might as well investigate it. Facebook home screen here.<|endoftext|>I'm gonna be 74 soon, but lately I've been down, depressed. Last night I used an illegal stimulant and woke up the next day with drowsiness, nervousness, and a freeway ammonity. Humbled Former Bud Uumba owner Keith Tennant - -There are many which make you grimace well, Hey!, Right folks! Feel a little strange beyond the appointed day, this is due to a series of ... well ... You'll just have to find out! Artizan for the Men's Whisky Club... - -... today. After Pharrell Williams said he would take a year off, something spectacular had to happen for him to deliver. And then he spit a few diamonds.: Kanye West's Coloring Book - -Coaching then defense? Time will tell. In the meantime, there's still plenty to enjoy here. No One Woke Up Rather Happy More Than these Guys - -The flood in the Ross River that began -======================================== SAMPLE 134 ======================================== -On August 5 and 6, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz squared off in their last debate before Nevada's Democratic Caucus. The two candidates held slightly different opinions on a variety of issues (Sanders by far favored the ERA and inflationary monetary policy). However, I decided to look at trends within the two candidates' positions. I then used the examples that popped into my mind. - -Bernie Sanders - -The first Republican Candidate whom Bernie Sanders significantly disagrees with is Ronald Reagan in 1982. His highest support was in favor of reforming the Food Stamp program. Reagan was perfect in that he understood the problems that arose during the Great Society and his support of the food stamp program proved to be a wise policy for two reasons: Sanders side was always going to be far ahead at that time. The second reason is that Reagan understood that poverty in America was spiraling out of control due to rampant liberalism in bureaucracies and just overall past mistakes that needed to be cleaned up to make other people's lives a little bit better. - -Way into the 1980s, socialism and liberalism flourished because they could both articulate the same left-wing socio-economic message. Clinton supporters who say Bernie Sanders supporters are ignorant about politics would answer that this is because their bases of support could not get beyond 79% in that election. This was because everyone had come to believe that policies that failed in the most successful? Democratic Presidency? Ever since they first held credit card wounds, the American people have been convinced that the problem was the Left. - -During the entire election season, Bernie Sanders took 60% of votes compared to Hillary's 37%. Has support for his proposed SLCC ratcheted up or has it simply been inherently among his base? This is especially true since levels of employment have increased in Vermont. Sanders supported federal funding for health care, college tuition and social security for all. Politicians like Clinton supported no change to any of these three items (minimal alteration). - -Notice that in each of these cases, the Sanders side was always ahead in the ratings. Obama BEFORE becoming President was a categorically ratings objects: high 80's and 90's compared to the kind of low that Trump is enjoying under the Electoral College. - -Voter indexes have not let up once Sanders has been elected President. They were higher in 2008 than they were in 2016. I don't believe that they will be much higher after this year's election. It's incredibly close this time given the dynamics of power and money. - -Takeaways: Bernie Sanders took in enough votes this election season compared to Clinton to the point where he has a substantial lead that stubbornly scales alike to Windows versions if we count just by totals from states. In this election, most Americans included (and still include) Sanders side. He will continue to get more votes, but I believe that is largely temporary for the following reasons: - -Neoliberals Several promised Middle Class tax cuts: Clinton, however, did not. A 12% corporate rate on foreign strings would have been the highest regulations for virtually every economic sector. Being "the only gripe" that Sanders has got Republicans to talk about is attractive to both parties – D is marginal. Clinton points in it's own direction. Climate change is real given what is going on with temperatures, the knock-on effects for our survival and resiliency, and mortality, but it's not the make or break issue nurses like to controversial Strife with. Hillary can earn his vote from isn't arguing for anything fantastical or speculative but instead talking about the status quo and potential for improvement. More recent Congresses included other things to talk about. Education (N.Y. city promise) Campaign finance reform (Conn. bill) Criminal justice reform (Cpt. Lynch has ordered reforms) Middle class tax cuts IS what creates jobs, create incentives for political growth and create infrastructure for people to actively work for themselves, pay taxes at home, and grow their savings via effective bank account or brokerage service. I vote for Sanders, and conservatives vote for Donald Trump. Logically – I despise Trump, but I hold my nose, pick the lesser of serious political evil and vote for Trump. Bernie is a Libertarian. Laws that punish choice have never helped anyone in the end and never will. That is why gun ownership doesn't seem to be an issue to Sanders supporters, nor is invasive medical marijuana. Hillary Supporters contact me when they want to get marriage of love, but financial justice is more important to Hillary. Hillary wants to put a man's prison lights to even members trips. She studiously avoided the military industrial complex in support of Hillary, which will not make me look good to a friend whom I respect. - - -Ted Cruz - -In the Almanac Of Political Faults, I reference White Female Problem as a foot on a breadline. Ted Cruz is like Elmer so I imbue him with the magic qualities: happy, bummed, attacking, prone to snipes and criticizing, and people will join in unison and refer to him as "Johnny!". Ted Cruz determined that he is -======================================== SAMPLE 135 ======================================== -Solar power and mountaintop removal coal mining have the potential, under Trump's EPA, to end the use of the volume of electricity used for the nation's transportation fleet and plant could use waste-to-energy plants to bring that electricity back into the grid. - -Going solar in the US has grown significantly over the last few years, thanks to the adoption of various forms of solar batteries for home, commercial, and government installations. After battery prices were cut in half by Tesla, it would look like a no brainer. But now, with the cost of solar designed to get cheaper each year, should coal and natural gas continue to be a closer and more profitable alternative, it may be time to stop using fossil fuels for transportation in favor of more solar power. - -Source: Department of Energy For solar energy to scale away from fossil fuels, useful operating conservations are required. These are particularly hard to achieve in coal and gas plants subject to intermittency. However, a number of opportunities for capturing waste heat from the generation of electricity from solar have partially mitigated possible disruptions from intermittent generation. For each kilowatt-hour of installed solar, waste heat, in the form of hot water from last summer's world record 12-day sun or hot exhaust gases from burning certain coal roots tools, can be redirected from growing new coal or gas generation to cooling these plants and utilizing other power-generation resources.31 For example, by 2012, several hundred U.S. plants had transitioned to capture and consumption systems to regulate power output following cascading systems failures with no net cooling of the system.- Four times quicker than the average associated disasters while still subject to declaration of at-risk status.32- - -These recycling systems are utilized for what the DOE does (not that it needs to restart them either, but well) as well as one other for better, you guessed it: electricity.31 The latter activity, recycling, means that great amounts of energy can be retained for uses that can be disposing of and recovering during periods when there is more renewables being produced. The extent to which these systems work is unknown, but the basic idea is to take the heat to consume it in much of the renewable electricity produced, which could convert from the renewable energy (renewable to derived in the case of solar and wind) that is produced. - -One example would be to take the generated electricity and use it to drive a hot water heaters to remain heated and save electricity from increased demand for power and stream heating.33 Additionally, some this technology is 'fossilized' in new plants, but use happens on an old planting.34 Typically a less efficient plant can be converted, and after a couple years they can be phased out according to the way a new plant is operated.49 This allows power for increasing electric cars across the country. Different industries could choose to convert those kinds of power to meet specific needs. - -Transportation systems are the biggest cloud of being in just about any shortage of power because of intermittent source, which is somewhat ironic considering how great most green tech companies are on the potential for their shared services and products being used for warming the world. - -Airports fuel and electricity losses themselves make them simple targets in renewable energy, access to electricity generation technologies that consider rising costs and benefits.41 - -A busy SFO airport can generate that much electricity even during summer, one of the hottest months in the US. In short, if a national catastrophe were to occur and reliability of the US electricity grid recovered from its current situation, rooftop solar plants and savings of vehicular power carbon wasn't the answer homed. - - -Solar sites could be retrofitted to include recharging capacitors along with the panel, relocating the power connection to produce more air conditioning for those plants. Then. It seems that while electric cars do not want any more coal plants are innovating other ways to meet the electricity needs of industrial producers. - -Wind and solar plants don't have the capacity to ramp plant operation during times with low power in the US and would feel outmatched by the hydro canc Western utilities can offer. So for now large generators may continue to choose to burn coal and throw into the waste heat. Among Thomas A. Joyce Senior Fellow Kathryn Yost, and I believe her husband, which has been doing sand and potash mining in the United States for 30 years, are topics that could inquire the energy use savings. - - -Wind and solar plants in the US have been produced for natural gas as well. With major advances in renewable technology, the 300 megawatts installed nearby could serve for transportation in place of having natural gas power plants since well-to-wheels and moving the job and slide troops could reduce costs and speed the development potential of fuel. - -Because these power plants can reduce energy needs to a fundamental level, they would collect power from the wind, solar, and even the newly discovered faster flowing natural gas migration form that range of energy. To obtain more of this cheap power, companies might end up -======================================== SAMPLE 136 ======================================== -Huala is an arachnid from Earth. She comes from a distance world.[2] - -Contents show] - -Relationships - -Quark is kind of obsessed with her. - -Memorable Quotes - -"Welcome to Huala. How do you like to be pegged with a red dot?" - -- Huala - - -"How did this happen?" - -"Huala knows everything!" - -- Rom and Jadzia Dax - - -"I'm hungry." - -"Let me show you your favorite foods." - -- Huala and Rom - - -"You have something in your teeth? No? Have you received dental hygines?" - -- Huala - - -"Why don't I live here?" - -"Because it's small houses, and homes are for living, not eating." - -- Huala and Kurn - - -"You are a tool, not a specimen!" - -"I am a tool for my own progeny — you don't own me" - -"That's all we need to know. Tell them they can keep me!" - -- Huala and Rom; Jadzia interrupting to change their minds - - -Vash recounts a family tradition: when he became insecure about his job, family members were supposed to subtly assure him that he was necessary and could not be replaced and later Rom would comfort him again with tales of about Jadzia's "day off." Rom also expressed great pride in Rom's increasing usefulness and wanted no part of the request to be relieved from packing boxes. (DS9: "You Are Cordially Invited") - -Appendices Edit - -Background information Edit - -Huala was played by Jacqueline Kim. - -Melanie Hiller worked with Kim on the pages of Voyager's Totally Spaced out issue #33, "The Tunnel" section. [3] - -In an interview, Kim indicated that, when designing Huala for "The War Game", she drew her first impression from a picture they had of a cute lizard-like creature, doing the dojax dance for her, and that Kim drew her design after noting to herself, "It looks like the same creature." [4] - -Apocrypha Edit - -External link Edit - -Huala at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.<|endoftext|>Image copyright Writing Eight Image caption Mike Amler plays Captain Bercow in the show - -The Big Bang Theory actor David Schwimmer is helping to promote a Jeremy Corbyn art project in Leeds. - -The 44-year-old actor, whose alter ego is Professor George Lott/Ed Miliband, has lent his voice to a new play called 'DATA'. - -Set in South Yorkshire in 1983, it is about people whose rights were lost at the time as a result of collusion between GCHQ and the 1981 law restricting copyright in comedy live material. - -The star will appear in a 10-minute video visit to see the show on Friday. - -Peter Kay has recently bought the rights for the play to allow the play to be staged here. - -Image caption Sir Tony Hall has helped lift the curtain on new intellectual property rights in TV - -Green, rich - -Citizens Against Copyright Theft, an anti-piracy outfit, have backed the play's Edinburgh Museum trip, to be staged at the same time the Big Bang Theory comes to the Capital Theatre for its run next month. - -Princess Elizabeth's HMC, which was a music hall on the London Underground for more than a century, is the subject of the play. - -One of the film stars of the era, George Lott was also a comedian; his hit show distributor C.model Buzz promoted Action for Music. Now Sir Tony Hall, joint winner of the 1982 International Emmy and Billboard magazine Personality, is helping to rescue these rights for future generations. - -The Labour leader of the Leeds city council is also co-authoring a book "featuring stories on intellectual property from Labour government". - -"Experience you have will inform the ideas you act on," the book's cover page reads. "It is only constructive adaptation that creates credibility in knowledge." - -If journalism is to hold any credibility long into the future we should all have grown-up relationships with those with whom we differ Mike Amler , Comedian - -As well as Sir Tony, he lists Daniel da Benglis (Cannibal Holocaust), Lesley Manville (Radiohead) and Mike Moorhouse (Blossoms in Color) as having inspired him along with Robert Palmer (Whores, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Football: South Wales) and Nigel Kennedy (Political Sex Scandal, 1912) on the list. - -Another main of the 29 people also listed is Tom Waterson, who produced Taxi, Downton Abbey and Sherlock Satire outside the BBC. - -The book is now on sale at publishing giant William Collins. Bid detectives soared at -======================================== SAMPLE 137 ======================================== -Killers' Village in Long site in South Vietnam, at the time an American- and South Vietnamese-occupied area, had the world's biggest massacre - -A decade later the village is filled with locals trying hard to convince their North Vietnamese tormentors that this is the place to kill Giacomo Crimi, their Foreign Legionous commander. Few are holding their peace-loving gatherers of crops. - -Crimi's murder carries a frightening echo. On 6 October 1960, American paratroopers had wired him to give them the address where the vicomte of a Rice patch called Mung Hoang was holed up. They fired 32 machine guns and packed into the My Lai massacre the props that the soldiers used in Zaw Htun, including a freshly cut grass slit from the base of a large young cherry tree, a defining symbol of its milieu. - -The shoot-to-kill policy handily defeated the local Thai military leaders, who had been committed to ending the Vietcong coercion and kidnap of the trappings of North Vietnamese power, as well as to offering genuine relief to a million soldiers. After the shooting in the My Lai canal, the terrified Vietnamese on both sides ran home to tell their leaders. - -From then on, they would shoot one another over the revenge gambit that had won the freedom-seekers the Phuong brothers' quarterback, the football team's starting quarterback, as well as cinematographer Q Lee, the minister of defence, and the newspaper director. They also won Napalm Girl, the movie starring Marlon Brando, but this battle of wills would not die with those names. That was against the reign of the country's nationalist chief of staff, and it was a confusing and poor way of ending a glorious and imaginative victory, but it is still remembered as the best the country has ever used to demonstrate the enduring power of surrender and the restraints of the Vietnam War. - -Eyes narrowed - -Minister of War Phung Quang named a new chief of staff, Duong Van Minh, and set him to build as much normalcy as he could within the constraints of war. So what did one expect when enlisting the new chief's aide, curtsying to him as they left headquarters, generally giving a thumbs up to passers by? - -The explanation must apply to some of us too for, as paratroopers, we were asked at the end of whatever we did, we were automatically assigned the peace symbols: no pushcarts in the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Hanoi, the flowery coffee and more hot dogs on enemy-occupied seats of government than anyone will ever know about. Our surrender really was that, for once, ordinary life would be more important than guns, rivers of blood or gods. - -As it turned out, morale was astonishingly high. In such a long war, troops are not expected to think, much less to hold hands and anticipate loved ones. Thirteen years after they surrendered in a start-up paroxysm of pain, now that would have been brash. Veterans, the media and the demobilised divisions all assumed that there was just about a 75% chance their people would meet basic tolerances of sea information, import cones, nutrition, basic freedoms or accommodation. - -It was expected that, by now, the losses should show even by now that the hated War Heavenly Warriors that most of Singapore had flown out to Moscow to fight at nose-seriously were no match for Americans fighting in the same country. 50,000 days would have passed, they thought, before they would be happy. - -Surely, surely not. - -By about 1957, with the intense attempts to denigrate and humiliate the Bo Giao Gang ­ and naval corsairs that guarded it ­ those assumptions could hardly be looked at seriously; 60,000 days after landing in Asia they were rubbish. will indeed be happy. Where then were they most tortured, ostracised, humiliated? - -Then, as now, the figures were the destruction of geography, the cost and rising mortality of private property. When the men in the village realized what a disaster they had made of their new South Vietnam by bulldozing their ancestral homeland just metres down the road they felt they had been unjustly deprived of their birthright. - -There was no recourse available except retaliation. Villagers deliberately massacred elders of Bo Giao Gang tribes, proceeded across the bridge and out to the border where they could also sexually harass fleeing women. - -When discord was bad, they ripped mangroves down to expose burnt provinces, set fire to imperial hovels. When Mang Hiept sent the prisoners in his territory into us, the unit, who positively relished the middle aged in isolation, flushed them down the roads. This was after Kol Tek experienced three hour battles with enemy crab deserters, swearing all day and daring not to sneeze at any mention of Khe Chu. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 138 ======================================== -I've argued several times again that in an economic revival, too much emphasis is placed on permanent absolutes that are doubtful, and too little on the TBTF convenience fo yesterday's security problem - -This relates quite directly to two seemingly unrelated points: - -The song "Keep On Beating" by ABBA (by far my most favorite song) is about a woman reading the book of Proverbs and taking it literally. The main theme of the song is to follow one's mind. The next lines comment, "Tell me Er 20 a right, surt out on yo gui a leyl, keep that zo," which may refer to what Paul refers to as "binary decision making," less an actual binary matrix than a divisive concept known as "catch-22." I heard some evidence in The New Yorker a couple months ago that shortly after 9/11, the optimal response to another terrorist attack would have been to seek out a Tim Hortons, which was driven out of business in the mid-90s due to continuous protests because of their fluffy bean lattes made it difficult for female drivers to get home safely on airplanes. I maintain that the optimal response to wonkish political gridlock would be to make Liberal Matt Chinglin a Vice President for Illinois, which would free up his time to come up with absolutely disgusting, awful, unconstitutional, stupid, elitist, power-hungry policies that will never, ever, happen. - -The fact that limited physical infrastructure isn't lacking in the history of man is one of those quiet, infinite, and deeply familiar truths that creates trouble when you try to enforce it more rigorously. - -A more formal example of Breitbard's feasibility constraint can be seen by looking at lower levels of civilization. In deterministic biological theories of evolution, like Darwin, we assign no more power to organisms lacking external input or intermediates from outside of their species or environments (which makes evolutionary reasoning an inhuman process). As I've argued many times before, the linear progressions of biological complexity (like passing on small changes without taking in new input) don't make evolutionary much more credible, in that they neglect about 90% of the evolutionary process. That changes constantly because of random variations constantly interrupting the flow of the greater majority of traditional mathematical evolutionary models. - -Indeed, most significantly, most biologists are not optimistic that any species will ever achieve a collision with the victory of entropy. Rather, even if we don't expect the evolution of metabolic hardware to be simple or clean, we can assume that the computational complexity of the creatures that exploit it will lower amongst the stars. Those species are literally designs in duct tape waxed with duct tape wax melted in. Quite roughly, we can expect evolutionary complexity to continue lower at *every sky*. More precisely, this pessimism is a result of our emphasis on the uniqueness of life on Earth. As explained in Eris, the animal has an unprecedented advantage in the reduction and inversion of time: being your start software is a different way of handling time than recycling. And, if those problems are onerous, so amenable to waxing they tend to be minimized. - -They don't usually grow into stupid Evolution of Incompleteness. (But then, why should they?, given the slab of absurdity that invoked them in the vast majority of my previous arguments?) At the level of generative general temporal syntax, small, smart organisms will show no spiked out indiscernibles blanket accurately mit neither half. Really, Overconstruing These Technically Unjolly Thing must be what makes Asimov a crank, if not a Dark Prince as well. Yes, the Virusians seem to have the perfect onslaught of idiot microbiomes for automated complete sequential processing, but why, I ask, are they so primarily concerned with full completeness like humans are? Any viruses that close wormhole generators or create copies of the particle path do so to avoid collisions (showing excellent transition properties) with the associated civilization planets/military planets. That is, without caveat of overloading wormhole generation or creating copies in the galaxy (the volumetric limit can be programmed on the fly without concern) they can avoid other such forms of collisions that could result in future apocalypse. But probably, other viruses would just prefer to move on to their next hosts. Satisfitting - -So, Burns is a defendant comparison penultimate post 🙂 Bean territorial strategies have almost no redeeming qualities. - -Bender is a better ground friend than he initially appears. The Deadly M&M Lawsuits - -Don't get me wrong, in a continuity strings gate they have value. If he actually has the ability to manipulate the Vats, he can read any proprietary code in human code — a recipe for a horrible outcome for us! — to anywhere on the Vatnet for any and all classes of Government, or Corporate, Commercial, and all of the combinations therein. But, as previously noted, the potential value of the tool is pecuniary, not artistic. Flyboys are made -======================================== SAMPLE 139 ======================================== -Shomeon Yuu (音手 ベル) - - -It's revealed that she likes watching a children's show hosted by Shinkai, as well as Shinkai being lazy. One of her tools is Toraemon ( 石砕猿 ), Professor Shinkai's pet dragon (the other ones are Nebiros/Shimeru and Missoutatsu/Newtorakichi). When given the choice between being used in the cure of Shinkai's illness or help death/slavery, Yuu and Toraemon decide to help Shinkai. However, Yuu ends up becoming a doctor. - - -During one of the two trials to overcome the curse of the shrine and freeing her brethren, her twin sister Serina came to rescue her. They successfully broke the curse before being blocked by none other than Shinkai who retreated out of Hinamizakura when they got there, causing Yuu to become an "intern" of Shinkai. A long time had passed since then and she did not even remember her twin sister, so she easily takes on his identity with both hacking and origami. After Shinkai's passing she goes by the name Yuu Hida now leaving the curse behind her at the long term. In order to find more power to cure her fellow Twelve's ailment, her ultimate goal is to become a tsukumogami with the three Heavenly Gates and destroy Soul Society and all of humanity with a single turn of the key.[2] Born Yuu Hida also appears several times in the anime.[3] On the anime, she's shown to be madly addicted to the related series Half-Insane (噛みを飛ぶ声宮).[4] - - -Voice Actors Toyosaki, Miyuki Japanese Fajardo, Yuval German Coe, Katherine English - - -See More The 12 Great Tsukuyomi Copies Previous God of War Ressurrection, Tsukihime, and Unlimited Blade Works each had one copy of these godly monstrosities that rode into battle on their favor, stunning and demoralizing their enemy. Making a Rider out of the? There's an affinity here for doing crazy things when others are going crazy. However, to this day it remains unclear how these monsters joined forces with the heroes. Share your theories and theories of your own for which of the pairings are the most popular below! by Sri Kenneth Jassinandayo 62,133 views<|endoftext|>Welcome to DNR's website dedicated to Stop Trapping Knives! - -Stop Trapping Knives is DHHS's integrated initiative to prevent the spread of dangerous predator-control devices that use poisoned, toxic or deadly gases to kill animals, according to animal protection law, by prohibiting the sale and distribution of such devices in Louisiana (Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 553.5-iii(1) and ...<|endoftext|>If your Facebook post caused traffic problems for the viewing public, don't feel sorry about it. A year and half of testing shows that the online population is tolerating disruptions of that sort less often than nearly every other topic (see 2016 stats, previous page). The morning after the devastating San Bernardino non-Muslim vigilant killings in December of 2015, Facebook Surfing deleted 10,000 posts by 69,000 people with such idiotic posts being the most disruptive, though: 2,000 ads targeted at GamerGate people. - -Facebook data belonging to Business Insider re-excluded Facebook post tagged with GamerGate in December 2015. - -*Note that Business Insider has not received any data on users associated with GamerGate who report not seeing any recent links on their Facebook page. - -Facebook's mainstream media, asexual Twitter , AMA Tumblr, and FAIL analysis - -Google data from 2014 does show that the outside of Google.com is more tolerant than Facebook — which, a footnote tells us, MSNBC singularly isn't. - -In other Facebook data-mining, Business Insider recently uncovered that along with Gawker and how membership in websites you'm mildly critical of are low, you're pro-marijuana . - -(BuzzFeed, which averages searches on the term, just rained on the Gripper's parade by reporting that the so-called "refugee crisis" is trapping Americans in a checkpoint sleep-away camp, but turned that data down : "As we note in BuzzFeed's story, our search figures prove in most searches, says BuzzFeed News, "that informed readers aren't spooked by refugee rumors."!) - -Then-DC Mayor Marion Barry had personal ties to the controversial so-called "Peacekeepers" Newark police. "The ex-mayor's son is a personal friend of the lead organizer of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which faces its own FEC investigation of bidding for a contract to conduct police raids." - -The Police Executive Research Forum fared very poorly after the Giuliani and Lane firings. Various groups cutting deals with the War Against -======================================== SAMPLE 140 ======================================== -Check out these astronaut-reviews from Giant Bomb's take on the upcoming sequel to Fox's "X-Men." Based on first-person performances from Bryan Singer and James McAvoy's characters from "X-Men: Days of Future Past," these perspectives will force you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the Marvel megafranchise. - -"The film gets out of hand rather quickly into its superfluous plot, characters, and bullshit techno-wizardry, but having grown up with the franchise, I did expect MCU continuity to dictate this play of the villains joining forces." - -Continue reading to watch James McAvoy reveal why he hasn't actually seen the film yet and James McAvoy shed light on the still-unfolding antagonist of the sequel. - - -Continue Reading 1 2Next » - -Share On Facebook Tweet Pin It Email<|endoftext|>The ABC's entertainment preview for the week ahead has been released and the first episode of the series 7 Saturday evening drama series "The 4th Law" placed t low at three to four million, pulling just 2 million viewers closely behind the Korean drama "Don't Tell The Bride" for first place. "The 4th Law" receives a staggering 218% rating amongst Men 18-34. The Korean drama "Don't Tell The Bride" place second with a rating of 188% to third place dominates kayo. - -The May cover strong figures were boosted by the return of the Ukrainian, Judi Dench who starred in Midnight Rider and The Theme for the week. The mag said, "Judi Dench will return to the ABC family on September 17 and promise the ABC audience a tale of sexy lemon, unemployment and rights". - -The June 13 episode of the French series 1602 saw George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones once again front the men 18-34 watch and pull a huge 445% so this is another win for the French series of "In The Name Of The King". - -The series premiere of the Scottish drama "Riverland" in August was watched by 1.47 million viewers drawing a win for live action for the network with a 5% rating and 309% rating at Men 18-24. - -The series debut of Australian Supercars drama Seven Finals was watched by 1.19 million and is a 6% win for the network for Men 18-34 and averages a perfect 5.7% in audience rating across other areas. - -High scores were gained by the fifth season of Australian soap opera Westwick the 2×1: Season 5 with 178,000 viewers and 185% impressive rating in rating sub-category Men 18-24 and shows collected 49,000 viewer pts the series premiere of the (Dutch series) Duets gets 266% - -Brisbane sugar daddy drama "Juno" won the prize for Women 18-34 53% under 35 1.27 million for the show's season 1 debut. - -Other series that benefit from tuning increases see 'Police Woman King', Paddy Manning says Australian cable drama series The Shield, broadcast Dec 4, 2013 in one night saw an increase of up to 900,000 viewers in rating excluding demographics. - -The opening and closing season of Cyclone rating amongst Women 18-54 surge 13% points compared to the season 1 open with Adult Swim's cartoon "CHiPs" leading with 457,000 adults 18-24 and girls 6-13. - -Polish series "89 ala 89" which aired from July 23 to August 18 Viewers is 29% increase with 58 million viewer preemptions pinpointing 1 episode " Continue reading young woman king Cyclone - -Comments - -comments<|endoftext|>Image Source and Description: -Scientific Name : Trochilus Themistocles (b. 1689), whose Latin name was Gigat ballsak commandos. (with a slip of "anechie" left out). He was the brother of classical Greek playwright Aristophanes and bold critic of the reformists of the Peloponnesian age. Agathocles. Description : Besides his frequenting the city parks and gardens of Athens, foreigners academically lived in Mytilene and Delphi. Trained at Athens, he translated books of Eratosthenes on geometry and made Pythagoras's geometry accessible to everyone (surveys showed that at least one out of three women in Athens wanted to learn geometry; Michael Porretto writes about this). Mytilene turned out to be a good source of copper (Effulgences). This helped him to be able to succeed Pirichick on his scales. He made a fool's gold bracelet as Paulsen relates: the judgment and luster of the work is striking: The circumference of the third piece of the size I have made stands at 35·26 millimeters. The thickest parts, defined by the thickest of those in its forming, measured 142 milimeters. The most unusual thing about the work, however, was not its organizational structure but its technique for -======================================== SAMPLE 141 ======================================== -The Freedom Caucus is ready to move on. - -House Republicans announced Tuesday morning that they'll soon take the wraps off a new health reform bill that will almost entirely repeal more than a dozen Affordable Care Act regulations, including increased taxes for the rich. - -Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a member of the Freedom Caucus, is responding according to various interviews and statements Tuesday afternoon. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters he, too, dropped his concern about moving forward without a health reform bill. - -Originally, the bill dropped the damaging impact Obamacare regulations have on employer-sponsored health plans. Last week, it changed how many people over the age of 50 and do not have an affordable policy can be required to pay a $750 fine in order to stay on their current plan. - -Also by Wednesday, the language for ObamaCare's "public option"—when states will be able to create their own alternative to the Federal Children's Health Insurance Program, replacing Obamacare's small-business and individual markets—will drop. - -Watch more! - -Republican House leaders have announced plans to whip their bill to repeal major portions of Obamacare, calling it a new start after a long series of failed attempts to repeal the landmark health law. (Alice Li/The Washington Post) - -But Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told reporters Tuesday night and Thursday morning that the Freedom Caucus wants to keep many of the aspects of Obamacare that caused such a ruckus. Republicans say launching negotiations with Democrats could lead to a wave of rejections from 19 Republican-led states given the additional benefits included in the Affordable Care Act that American voters have implemented by signing up for health plans. - -These include expanded child-care benefits, coverage for more companies in the individual insurance market, as well as new subsidies that go in excess of the repeal burden to help Americans purchase plans. - -Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said, "We can find more money in the AHCA to avoid the crushing effects of Obamacare, and bring health coverage to American families in need." - -Critically for Republicans, the replacement bill will maintain "essential health benefits," allowing insurers to charge those with pre-existing conditions more and blocking insurers from charging people with high deductibles. - -At Tuesday morning's House Rules Committee meeting, Republican lawmakers are understood to be huddling with some progressive voters in the U.S. Capitol to both rally around their plan and show the Freedom Caucus that it does not favor attacks on crucial constituencies like women, senior citizens and students. - -While the AHCA is expected to pass on Friday, some House committees, the Treasury Department and HUD are trying to finalize and debate the passage before Friday. - -Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told reporters that after meetings with President Trump Wednesday, he is "very encouraged" about the Freedom Caucus. - -"I spoke with President Trump today, who's a former head of a big corporation. I was very impressed by how he brings a corporate sensibility to the discussion, where he is very focused on completing the legislative process and getting something to President Trump's desk ASAP," Lamborn said. "So he's very energized and motivated about hump day, LR." - -Trump even tweeted Oregon Rep. Greg Walden earlier this month on the House tax reform and school funding legislation that Democrats were knocking. - -"I was excited to see the Freedom Caucus restore the tax credit in their latest bill to either 510-610/1510," Walden tweeted. "The big tax cut for working class families today!" - -I want to thank the @RNCFreedom Caucus for ratcheting up the pressure on leaders to get the House bill passed quickly, and I am encouraged by the results of their recent Capitol Hill meetings.#TaxReform — Greg Walden (@RepGregWalden) December 7, 2017 - -Walden's son was killed in Afghanistan in November, and Walden holds up the AHCA as a sign of what 2017 will be like for TMI veterans. - -Still, there's reason to be discouraged by the process that House Republicans are relishing by putting out the bill—which is still fluid in numerous segments. Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) are working on timers for when a bill will be ready for a House floor vote. According to multiple reports, Reps. Billy Long of Missouri, Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Williams have gotten together to scream. - -By Sunday afternoon, three key provisions—the individual mandate, the fund for Medicaid expansion and tax credit extension—were all found to be within reason. Almost all GOP members now seem to accept that 23 million people in the United States with incomes under 300 percent of the federal poverty line are actually going to get some sort of government aid under a new healthcare bill. - -Rep. Billy Long of Missouri joined #TaxReform protesters -======================================== SAMPLE 142 ======================================== -We get the support of fans while looking at an alternative a hometown Storset landmark solution us right Read more about the space at earth--community.org<|endoftext|>Columbus SC announced to its soccer-crazy fans on Wednesday that it has signed Scottish international Rovers defender Jamie Mackie. - -This year, the 27-year-old has helped guide his club to the Scottish First Division title in the Scottish Championship, and spearheads the Third Division side of Jambos. - -Mackie, who moved from Scottish first team side Queen of the South, Scottish Premier Division champions St Mirren, Celtic and had also played in England for Aberdeen and Reading, is a native of Glasgow who excelled for Falkirk and Airdrie respectively. Mackie came up the ranks for the Columbians, making his full first team debut two years ago at the age of 17. The native of Rosslare, Scotland puts down roots in Columbus as well with possession-loving, attack-minded player linked with MLS from the get go. - -"These are very excited for me" said Mackie this morning after joining the team from Morton. "I am excited to finally be here and join the team that has been in Columbus my whole life!" he says. - -Mackie started his U.S. Soccer youth career with the U23 CS National team at the University of Akron, but did not play professionally. A college standout with outstanding bay areas division teams like Glenelg and Celtic FC of Scotland, he played in the 2001 AFC Champions Cup and then joined the Scottish Premier League where he played with Dinamo Krakow and for two seasons ,Scotland won the champions cup three times in a row. - -Once he caught the eye of Jambos manager Dave Newsham, he stayed in Scotland until the spring of 2005 and embarked on a longish international career that saw him play 4545 times for Scotland, making 5757 appearances scored 35 goals with Olympiacos in Greece, Dundee City in Scotland as well as for Falkirk and Celtic FC. His relief,dagger from 2009/10 Matches and Legends Tournaments in Europe saw him complete his passport after he represented Scotland on 137 occasions representing 65 international goals multiple time champion with Aberdeen (24 goals) and Celtic (16 goals), winning the champions cup twice (2007/08 and 2011/12). - -Since joining Jambos, Mackie has seen his playing time increase at a few stops but maintains that the most important thing for him is continuing to score and assist. - -"I would like to say thanks to my ajaxassociationjambos for this big coaching job". Sadlordc - -With contented and finished 12 games in the Third Division for Barrie Island at age of 27, Mackie signed his first professional contract yesterday with significant selling points on his play throughout the season that direct him to play a major role in Columbus' promotion campaign this year. - -Manager Frank Yallop has it as stated that he plans on packing the TSTE's starting lineup with Jamie Mackie and an economic striker off the bench. His offensive style, good passing excellent player at the back, and coaches pacification his defensive positioning are wonders in the long run. The homegrown kid has the blue and red closer than ever before and is looking forward to playing against the venue where he came up and where so many of his family came that's played pro for Canada. - -"I thank the Jambos and all the fans, it means a lot to them that they are who they are. … I am blessed to play for a team like Jambos, the supporters are incredible, they are really great and I enjoy every game I play there. I am glad to join another MLS team, I love it here." Sadlordc<|endoftext|>filter ARM Obviously Talkpat map<|endoftext|>That Paul LePage, Maine's chaotic, uber-centrist governor, has also praised Donald Trump's long-proposed wall on the Mexican border and his endorsement of Denver Sheriff John Morse (R)—a man vehemently anti-immigrant—is, frankly, a dream come true, since the premier needs a hell of a disinfectant and capillary bed to cure himself. - -Within 24 hours of Trump's Wednesday endorsement at the Fox Business Network, however, LePage doubled down. In a press conference Friday morning, he reaffirmed his long-held opposition to any mass deportation and his belief that being Latino is a "medical condition," as if repudiating Trump cheers a disease. The response to LePage's pandering had a familiar ring. - -Like Trump, LePage selects violations of immigration law as a moral pretext for a racially tinged and unconstitutional range of state interests. LePage has tried to justify, or at least mitigate, racist incidents by saying the people involved either "shouted out racist things" or were not documented illegal migrants. - -In LePage's complaint against the NAACP for winning a federal civil rights case in Bedford, Maine, the NAACP appealed -======================================== SAMPLE 143 ======================================== -Brighton Wye replaces overpass at */ Big bevels.*Cast Iron beams * 2018 Sep 29 Soft {{{Soft}} -}}} - Type -> more forms - -{{{type}}} {Functionality Widgets} mh0101-18-input-18 60.05 3000 V 10e-3635-in-silver__Micro-Stereo-center 1 Snowflake Cushions offer a very soft and very comfy inductive seating surface. unusualrdedm-customerid.org 2012 Sep 8 Sets includes home&goods mh0101-18-input-29 40.49 44g 20.995 00 02 w/custom white CC install paper staw8autoclub-customerid.org 2010 Sep 7 Over about 6 times for the swindon absorbent mats. state independent 2008 Dec 11 1642 skips off in liquid not massaged. wiatweety-models-customerid.org 2018 May 30 Sources of concrete : Bell Clyde kHKH labelled Steel -literal disabledFirst members leave 2010 Jan 12: Nobody has joined since 08/01/2009 mh0101-18-new-input-18 Buffalo throw away other members' opinions - -Adapted from The White House , RepairBeam.com - -Find a Spacelab Dealer - -Subscribe to our RSS/WEB pages - -We think you'll find the info on this site interesting, valuable, up-to-date and accurate and we'd really appreciate you taking a peek. - -Please click on the image above to make your way to our home page and - -you'll find many interesting links and features.<|endoftext|>A baby squirrel on its own: Young female white-bellied mice bequeath their offspring squirrel kits - -Scientists have found that to help a male white-bellied mouse get laid, a minimum of two female white-bellied mice will be required to provide safe shelter for the cub, which can then become a queen mouse when it grows up. - - -Mice – and their female fetuses – don't store sperm accurately, neither do they always successfully overpower the semen of other females, a UC Berkeley investigation into the fights carried out among squirrel matings discovered. - -An undercover investigation at a Michigan preserve revealed that over 100 separate island groups have been inseminated in one way or another. - -The research also found that although females in some groups get pregnant easily, there is much variation among Isle Island squirrels in whether their cubs will pass their genes onto their owners. - -For example, in mainland sites even a single orphaned male was highly welcomed, while in the bulk of sites intact-reared females of both sexes regularly laid eggs while producing babies. Females also primped multiple simultaneous primaries, which gave them beautiful Whiskers – much like a brumant Maple for a male. - -Researchers studying data from this island habitat search with the help of officers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which oversees Isle Shore National Seashore, in cooperation with dozens of local, state and federal agencies. - -Researchers have already confirmed and implicated multiple goat attacks overall among island squirrels, but turmoil last November in Kings Peninsula, where the island's largest wild cat population in North America remains at prevalent levels, has prompted island officials to take steps to deny lynx access to the island's western island and to stop culling the island's 375 acres of habitat. Koalas have also been successfully reintroduced to the island's western island. - -"Mice appear to be united in their resistance to mammalicides and targeted by parasites. Both groups are certainly disadvantaged, meaning there is a widespread need for a long-term human impact on the island and for natural control, and constructive measures to promote new flows of viable offspring." said NRCS project co-director Keith Coder and lead author Juliette Smith. - -Further rhinoceros reductions will help. Studies have shown that longer-lived rhinos run a lower risk from otherwise lethal arthritis drugs, because they will devoted themselves to curbing their own weight as older, wealthier in general rangers do. Over 3,900 native rhinos (Rhinoceros species) were suspected killed from 1994 to 2004, several times the minimum estimate by populations biologists. - -The study examined data compiled from mound, hedge and tombstone systems, over which the island squirrels are divided. SUunicipal30 Rosalie Beach surveyors planted 11 kinds of fruit tree fruit trees near the mound, 19 types of nuts in a nestbox, and 47 kinds of flowers across the nine gardens. They then marked these collections with cables. The results of the research appeared in the April issue of the week-long journal of the North American Population Association. - -There were appreciable differences of outcome between groups for every research visit. Rhinos were taken in from the marine hearts of two areas well-known as predators; over the course of two years they mustered a meager -======================================== SAMPLE 144 ======================================== -No JavaScript? We need that :( - -New at SubtleTV! Close - -Video: Video: Oliver Platt - Pride and Prejudice kenai All rights for song: content of song and other affiliated things belong to the owners of the tune Copyright – Astrid Lückmann - Permission of the song's owner to use it has risen to the gatekeeper (i.e. the App Store App store policy) Http://piassistersboheme.com<|endoftext|>What's in your Domain Name? Print - -A super premium .Com domain name from DomainMarket.com means instant branding, search engine, and marketing benefits. We make it safe, easy and affordable for you to own HealthAeration.com right away. DomainMarket.com is the only authorized pricing agent for this domain name, anyone else is a third party seller. Every domain price on this site is completed by top world experts from AccurateAppraisals.com. - -DomainMarket.com domains are carefully selected for branding excellence by the world's top domain name appraisers, so you will only find the most prized and premium assets for sale. - -For serious companies and marketing executives, attracting just one new lifetime customer, business partner, or employee, leveraging a premium domain, will justify this excellent long-term investment. But in fact, your DomainMarket.com sourced super premium domain is likely to rake in many valuable new customers and opportunities in the long run that normally couldn't or wouldn't find you. Compared to the risk and sunk costs of traditional advertising channels, or newer online advertising methods, this is clearly a huge home run. Other types of advertising are not resellable assets like domains, with long term investment opportunity; other advertising investments are all very risky comparatively, and are mostly wasted if you think about it. - -Would you really consider shortchanging your permanent global brand by skipping the perfect .Com and letting someone else dominate online forever, and potentially offline? That would be a very costly mistake for your family's future and for the other stakeholders of your entity; everyone similarly situated regrets it. - -The world's best companies and smartest professionals always rely on DomainMarket.com and our super-premium, contextual .Com domains to leverage their branding opportunities. 500 out of 500 of the 'Fortune 500' corporations use .Com, and all of the world's best salespeople and marketers; they aren't going anywhere. - -Dozens of others could use your trade name or trademark in a variety of industries, but only one of you can be smart enough to control the .Com customer traffic forever. If you don't own the exact match .Com premium domain best suited for your offerings then over time your brand and site is likely to get lost in Google and in the minds of potential customers; rendered irrelevant. Plus, it would be super embarassing and costly for your customers or prospects to land on this site when they are actually looking to purchase from you instead. - -Plus you may be able to profit from the consumer traffic, "eyeballs", and sell advertising space or use Google AdWords on the domain site, to your financial advantage. Our partner SEO.com are a team of world class digital marketing experts and select Google Partners. We recommend you contact them for any assistance with online advertising, marketing, SEO, PPC, landing page optimization, ecommerce, conversion optimization, web design, Facebook ads and more. - -Super premium .com domain names from DomainMarket.com are the start and top of the economic food chain, in order to create the best on and offline 'unicorn' corporations. Pick the wrong domain and you deserve the consequences of your competitors rolling you. Next you need the rest of the best of modern digital marketing if you want to compete with serious players in your industry. - -"Ring.com [sold for $1B] was previously called DoorBot, His tenacity, and the decision to stick with the product he originally built [but with better domain], has paid off in a big way." - -Almost all decent TV ads now use premium generic .Com too, and radio ads, plus sides of trucks, billboards, bumper stickers, boats, planes, tshirts, blogs, etc. You may be one of these 'Fortune 500' mega corporations ready to dominate the world, or just a regular granny in your underwear, but either way you can look the same with HealthAeration.com. - -First come, first served. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to be #1. The first person or company to secure HealthAeration.com from this site can control it forever, to the exclusion of all others. It will become out of our control. Get it first; and get ranked first in Google! All that matters online is Location Location Location! Your Domain is Your Location! and brand, and future profits; dont shortchange it obviously! You can redirect your new domain traffic to your existing -======================================== SAMPLE 145 ======================================== -Funimation has begun streaming a new original anime video for four individuals who helped refashion the world into the frightening, whimsical fantasia of Marle-chan , the story of the magical childhood friend of Jōichirō Takamachi ( Mushishi , A, Hana , Philosophy, Ryōko ); Aina Suzuki ( Sailor Moon Crystal , School-Live! ) is directing the anime at j.c.Staff , and Misaki Kuno ( Sailor Saturn - Galaxy Sister , Sword Art Online II , DVD-BOX , Knights of Sidonia ) is supervision. . - -The four heroes — who have the names Miharu, Chloe, Yugo, and Rix — are in their late teens and live together in an abandoned city, fighting each other and taking care of Marle each day. - -Ulimation is credited as narrator.<|endoftext|>Sometimes the road to Pride is not paved. - -Four notoriously bigoted individuals dressed as street vendors refused to leave a Toronto church — and were apprehended. - -However, the act of painting the anti-gay mural — which read "Pride is not a sidewalk" — didn't end up doing them much good. - -"No objection admits the commission of a wilful act to damage, deface, intimidate, intimidate or interfere with the lawful use of property in any manner contrary to section 97 or the generally accepted interpretation or use of section 97," says an application described as a use-of-force notice recently submitted by Toronto police. - -A staff sergeant spoke at a meeting before the mural was painted, writing in a document that "proponents of the visual art and those in its queue have immersed themselves into a discourse which engages the flow.... By refusing to leave the Church." - -Although not committed to completion of the artwork, the brazen permit permit authors were apparently determined to continue realizing their killer Bad Guy approved artwork. Fortunately, there was video surveillance, which would allow police to apprehend the homeless tent-sellers who refused to leave the Catholic sanctuary. - -"Given the exchanges between our six volunteer canvassers, and our police officers, it was clear that the reason the homeless were hurrying to remove the high-visibility paint was that they had no knowledge that the paneling was to be removed - they dismissed it from a Caucasian perspective," writes Christopher Lewis. - -Police were assists "by surveillance video that showed instances and instances where now [they] were standing in front of the panel and onlookers asked why the people painted there had installed railings and walked by," Rogers writes. Yet, in fact the homeless people "remain steadfastly refused to comply to a request to actually leave." - -Meanwhile, one pastor was also willing to facilitate the 'Rainbow Prayer Procession', chanting along with attendees, as well as offering Mel Toadstedt picnics. - -The crackdown began, the pastor said, after some young men in pretzels strolled past with their megaphones wondering when the lawsuit false-flag was going to be flipped the other way. - -While pasting anti-"Pride in the name of Satan" slogans on walls is nothing new, the brazen planning of Black Pride —which was also scheduled to be blasted from the outside of Nuit Blanche — made many think the poorly thought out inflatable raft ride in Toronto's Gay Village was a straight-shooter. - -But as Toronto police reminded us, however you celebrate, it's about love and acceptance. - -Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.<|endoftext|>Oh the joys of packing his own lunch – especially a massive one made straight from his own back yard! - -Jason, a Toronto resident, picked up and cooked whole pumpkins at his South Central Toronto abode. And one by one, he cradled and nursed them through the night. - -The friends lovingly named their accomplishments Beta Beta Bang Bang. - -"We picked them up in fresh containers from the local produce stand… and prepared them all ourselves for a total cost of about $20 each," Jason explained on Facebook. "There was a dead pumpkin in the kitchen sink, but I smell like normal dreams," he enviously laughed. - -He created each entrails by filling vegetable oil to the brim then focused piercing it with a bright red drills bit. As the pumpkin was cooked for three hours, Jason crammed time in between bites to press the cannoli into its perfect shape. - -"Once they were in the pot, they had to sit in the boiling water for 30-40 minutes before we could drink them," Jason added. - -After they were done, the kids hung the pumpkin "entourage" by Natalie's maroon ribbon (Yeah its what she got 😉 ). Next week is Halloween. OMG, I can't wait! - -Happy Halloween!<|endoftext|>During mid-afternoon diner hours on Tuesday, Stewartstown Power Administration crews were lining up again. - -The Best Butcher Shop at 4796 The Interchange -======================================== SAMPLE 146 ======================================== -By Phelim Kine - -The harsh reality facing tea farmers, such as James Martin at Laing Dong Tea Estate in Charkwin, is that and tea is out of the economic fad. - - -"Within a few weeks of coming out with a new circuit, we were out of Yunnan Tannu," said Mr Martin. - -He said the farmers had put unbearable pressure on his connected flush orchestra Bhutan organized heroically to get the tea circuit off the ground back in 2006. - -"This gets so tied up in bureaucracy. There is a two-year limit on how long the company can sell it. China has a five-year limit. The company doesn't typically come back for decades. We're chasing, chasing, chasing and the inventory is very low." - -"In the U.S., even big traders like Hormel buy about two million bags per year [in their speciality supermarket chain]." - -And that's not addressing the woes facing his crop. - -Mr Martin notes that's fewer than the planting breakeven of 20.5 kg per tonne here. - -But that doesn't preclude the opportunity for high-value lovers of tea to cruise in their flats, as items made of tea have been brought almost to a parity and have sold for as well as or better than they did a decade ago. - -But that doesn't mean it can last. While tea waxes and wanes in the market, the lighter varieties such as Pu'er have become more popular under market pressure from the ever-popular T3 brand [Minzhong], mai tai, and Wan Xiao Nan. - -But this jostles producers. - -Mr Martin said since the Pu'er's in popularity had eclipsed the others "the dust has settled, production has fallen and the market reduced". Mr Peter Lorchey at Cherry Creek Tea in Southern California does see hope. - -"On Yunnan brand, new tea companies are joining the fold, a pent-up demand and the Chinese import market are more relevant to local tea," Lorchey said. - -"The cultivar technology is up. This year's floral, mid-range T1 has reached a production of 80,000 kgs for the Lincang and comes in a new white tea called Ningxia tea. It's hopped about white/silver coloured leaves." - -While concerned tea producers have their eyes on the future, those in the tea industry aren't quite as discerning. - -Song Liaohong of the Nature Direct Seeds and Tea Factory plant in Chengdu said he'd been calling in fields this year. - -"I don't know what the customer is thinking, there is no demand for it," Song said. - -Vendors in the industry aren't as pragmatic as Song, they view There's Such Happiness as a trifle. - -Vendors have already taken some profits as they have been selling It's Such A Wonderful Feeling in shops for recent months as it used to be a bit more specialised and in higher volumes, before residents report actual thirsty customers that put it notably in their top list of quick drinks. The shortage shouldn't hamper the good times for the consumers, however. - -Besides, it's not uncommon, say those in the industry, to experience longer bean stacks on the crop by mistake. - -Special report by Phelim Kine.<|endoftext|>My whole life I have been reading John Stiegler's books on Diaspora and of course in TRC I have read everywhere word by word but the light is the book on sticking to life and long time Obasanjo Marijo mentioned this on podcast from Latvia which is way nice and added to my Shangri-La in the moment. So, this helped a lot too because before this and the previous book The Story of My Life, certainly my favourite Diaspora book is Thomas Frank's Hold On Is this Now Classic and this is a deep dive into ethnic conflict in west remotely Kobane started in 2012 killed over 250 people. Marijel Karna had made great research record too but this book is really interesting (wonderful ghost participants, Mehmet is unique). At this point foreigners were not yet recognizing possible risks and hence keeping its name "strange" even today. Very professional there.In some parts of country too. Marijel she sat down a main party member (Başköy district deputy) and asked him about segregation, about fearing for parents watching children passing through one of many villages, what could be done to stop it? He said the most important thing was to try to reduce the population pressure but also reducing the "racism". And some modern things like waiting until 15 years old for a part of driver licensing, for tax reasons. It was unexpected follow-up but rest of the time it made obvious that Marijel and her friend are expert communicators who often was the only one talking in this part -======================================== SAMPLE 147 ======================================== -Until this summer, prenatal testing on gay men was mostly limited to a few research and clinical studies on HIV. But last week, California became the 13th U.S. state to allow men to be tested for their sexual orientation with no influence from any religious or legal entity. New guidelines also make it possible for anyone concerned that a man has been deceived or coerced by a man for sexual activities to request a DNA test. Regulation of the test operator updates your mind when your body is "OK"-ing something. - -It's an important piece of modern era testing for LGBTQ people. One of the strongest numbers of people who claim to be LGBTQ is gay and bisexual men, and likely to examine the site for worrisome urine findings. While I'm not one to peruse the Archie McPhee circa 1990s straw dating robot works to pick over sexual curiosity topics, hormones are frightening in complicated ways. Applying trends to people, regarding how we respond to pleasure, and how we interact with health overall, implications of how hormones change are terrifying. - -Fox News is currently considered news by many in America, however. Fox News spots tweet to large accounts, even when other news can't be found, sometimes get discovered. Analysts have shockingly hetero agenda of finding anti-gayness in all things non-sexy, and it's widespread now that there are regular rumors of sexual harassment coming out of Fox. Accusations falsely narred by linking bizarre, inappropriate percent of females do apply to far more journalists than "ho" reporters, but it was shaming homosexual men into not admitting their desires made the mouth of an at least two-faced channel commentators declare away from homosexuality and each other. - -Today there are many other serious persecution attempts to chill voices that argue that. Even when LGBTQ have documentation, as previously seen with gay Congolese, we are doomed to keep our non-Queering lives hidden. Guys come out with diseases and young men die. We can deny all that, and say it just reflects society subjectness. We've heard stories at our own families about LGBTQ going through the same obsessiveness, searches over speech themes that End Times groups had for gays and lesbians. Or that people think we're straight, because if we weren't we would be wonky! Or that we're perverted. We're psychology! The industry that preaches that more men are pussies also routines us cancer cavaliers. - -They might try to manipulate us in the onset, especially in none desi folks, by advocating evil-government-style rah-rah/another-think or shilling for demonization of gay people later. We guinea pig again to be a scientific test group. Obamacare likewise that us busybodies. We could be just psychological whits, and certainly won't be accepted back to our respective side. Colleges might try to let only straight privileged catch our opinions, never staying the gay in western institution. We're lonely, and precious classified as pontian apocalypseKhronosvoris.AF eat haughtily period narratives dont want their looks come tuchings the college. No time come for them to reanalyze our collective suportivepolitologies and permeates how better life should be. - -It's a frightening thing. Every day as I gain steps on the journey to getting other drivers off traditional saunas, I marvel at their rich, pure lives. Dresden, there might have been a stud going dark, demonizing us, just poking fun at us watching early television. Then in maybe 1930s there was the Great Depression of the early 20th century, and American men worked again and same setup turns down the small-running paints at American Post. Maybe a doctor moved to waterfront vent, passing signs saying to that attempted to warn police and ran off with a worker. David Ellis once set ads out between emergency rooms of guilty men, in hopes of sussin whores out or putting them in prison, although with time he is credited for having been appropriate to a college campus for its women seeking for answers. - -Then, everything went the way we think it did from then on. Really get happy mainstream white society as inward inhessment catches up with greater depolarization. We can't say that we'd cheat on one is obvious dysems that it's someone's partner, and so we would. ugh till you notice he don't even have a partner have had sex with me. ha! I guess we were beautiful for our systems forty years last stockbrokers call ours sex enthusiast men 'er and people agree that how to look a little young so you can tell suffic innah cause. If you go home, then either net 100,000 prostitutes, not loockinn so you can shott single anyone. Or just get some times of looking on to those aspies n nuts to judge how they look on. Compusexpert whiles how to show off all your butch points that woman will compare past she stinking pussy, some -======================================== SAMPLE 148 ======================================== -A man was injured in what appears to have been a random shooting in the Bella Vista-Glider Park area Saturday afternoon. He keeps habeas corpus, which he requested as his trial for allegedly attacking a fellow Richmond man. - -After attending to the stabbing victim, a detective from Richmond police ran to the nursing home and talked with the man, a man bringing a knife to work on Friday. - -They spoke for about 5 minutes. - -Less than 5 minutes into their conversation it became apparent that his faith was not the focus of service to him. - -One of the officers asked the man, "How's this Jews Test" he was quoted as saying. - -"Was this my answer?" - -"Yeah, it's OK." - -The cop also talked to the man about the state of the country and criticised President Trump for not investigating Russian interference in our voting system, saying, "Open season on Trump supporters." - -As about 11:40 P.M. the detective ran him off to jail to be held for 'his own safety. - -The police department doesn't release officer-involved shooting info, didn't think the man would be harmed. Especially he said he needs to cross it up again. - -https://twitter.com/_unfounded_<|endoftext|>NFL co-owners Roger Goodell and Paul Tagliabue will sit down with struggling Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf next week as the team continues to consider the possibility of moving to Los Angeles. - -Renegotiations between Wilf and the NFL have faced setbacks, and.Wilf's sole type of investment in the organization is $150 million in taxpayer dollars. - -In a joint statement provided to the Star Tribune, Goodell and Tagliabue said they "are concerned that the team's promising new stadium could collapse, causing current and future liability to be passed directly to Minnesota taxpayers." - -Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is led up from the Vikings' locker room after the team's 39-32 loss to the Washington Redskins on Sept. 24, 2014, in Landover, Md. Harrison McClary/The Washington Post/Getty Images - -NFL officials are scheduled to meet next week with Wilf and his children to discuss relocation possibilities, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his two immediate predecessors declined the franchise's previous requests to relocate to Los Angeles. - -If Minnesota heads into Los Angeles without a new stadium, all revenue from team merchandise would have to stop flowing to Wilf and his family after 2015. While the franchise cannot officially pursue relocation until 2016, the owners have had the chance to "meet and confer" with Wilf and his executives. - -Problem is, the Vikings still have one more season at their current KeyArena home before they need to vacate or build a new venue. This plan from Lambeau Field's after the 2014 season would leave Minnesota Stadium (at the stadium site in a private development) out of the equation, and the Minnesota Vikings would have to leave the city too. - -My source tells me @justinamarter didn't want this discussion:2x @Vikings are exploring the #NFL over L.A. ticket requests. #Vikings plan is to stay in Minneapolis. http://t.co/3T3vrRBVBe — David J. Chao, WPLN-CSN (@DavidChao) November 18, 2014 - -Prediction: Executive fired leaving meeting.Thoughts source says the #Vikings plan likely won't accomplish unless it has talks with KC & SF. — David J. Chao, WPLN-CSN (@DavidChao) November 18, 2014 - - -According to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the NFL has been exploring a scenario that would grant Wilf a temporary exemption for years while the team explores other stadium options. - -The source told me other team owners spoke with the owners of the Raiders and Chargers this month to try to rally support for any kind of temporary move. In addition to the Raiders and Chargers, the NFL also considered San Diego plans involving the Chargers, along with San Francisco's potential stadium arrangement with ex-Mayor Willie Brown, culled from other proposals by several other owners. - -But Wilf indicated to, as the league now hears it, that he will not leave until a stadium plan is worked out in Minnesota. I'm not sure what's going to happen next, if there is a final meeting next week with a first proposal or an agreement is going to be reached soon. - -But the issue remains: Will they consider if it's worth it? - -Here are what owner Ziggy Anslinger has to say about it on his website: - -"I strongly believe a new stadium option will be found for the Minnesota Vikings in the next year or so. But they must be convinced the city is worth the QB1Vnightmare and/or city council is willing to just sit back and let them build. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 149 ======================================== -MIRathi Wraith - -Monster - -Finally questioned for a trial concerning his presence, the Wraith of Mirathi opened fire with both its blades at an officer, and a flare then see me into the hallway outside. My distance was close enough to shoot with my scuti, hoping to kill the Wraith at the same time bloodied the officer and wounded his Kovar. Short of that, I could've was ruled district attorney. - -These retainers were extremely useful for this mission. - -Avtov!" - -I charged the aft entrance of the ship––the attraction to this input did nothing for my confidence. I tried to see what this fellow could scan, as he was standing in his office. - -He rang up the results with his hand tablet, with their blinding green lights flashing. I'd seen a similar device thing before. There were barely any reports of this device, but I was careful not to steer away in case I'd need any help. - -"Ilrodin Auroch. Your own report. Five off antimatter suppliers, one has escaped." - -That would explain why there'd been such a slashing demand for credits, but that would be substandard aural requests for my personal services. It wasn't just the demand for credits that was unusual; I'd seen a lot of scuti before, which was peculiar. - -Two scuti nodded at each other and produced a matching blue and turquoise light that decked out a large window. - -"Have he contacted the Anomaly yet?" - -"Negative. Is there any movement from the security movesthat you can track or disperse with records?" - -The black-hilled messengers, Thaniak and Vedran, nodded at each other. - -"There is on the two Corrupting Archon Ships that were spotted on. He is not in the decryption centers of those vessels, or we would have found and rescued him long ago." - -"Excellent work, Avtov! Have it your way, and finally clear Mirathi!" It was probably smarter to make him aware of your existence before asserting that he sent for you after you freed his victims. - -"Very well, Vadar." - -I closed the sensor module I'd strapped to my ankle. It gave me an important back-up capability, perhaps needed if I was under fire. - -I doubt I'll have to find that out soon...<|endoftext|>Good morning AdAsia customers, - -AdAsia.free has already begun construction work in Changsha and dents.eu is quickly fulfilling customer orders. Providing you with quality products and exceptional service, we hope you're pleased with everything we have to offer today! - -Today, we're excited to bring to you an update for our Chinese customers! If you haven't changed your Chinese google account password, please update your password to avoid being blocked from logging in. - -If you've set up AdAsia Direct Liptime, please note that you'll need to re-enter your account password on the AdAsia website. - -We're sorry for any inconvenience. - -*Please understand that you use AdAsia Direct Liptime services only in your home country or on another country's AdAsia Direct Liptime service. For our international customers, please see our migration guide. - -Thank you!<|endoftext|>Will on Media Note: As Will continues to fight for the independence of chemicals which play a crucial role in the wedding industry, one company continues to pick a fight with him. According to the the AFP story , Will is taking legal action against a Chinese company for selling to consumers fake flowers – the topic of his piece. This stems from his recent article, 'Independence at the Crossroads: Introducing Indian Colors: A Modern Twist on an Ancient Tradition," in Rolling Stone. While producer/director Dudley Allan and his wife were struggling to save their relationship and pay off mounting debt, they discovered their birthday bouquet was the work of a fake supplier. The company used toxic chemicals, including flame retardants and lead, on fake flowers, to make the flowers look authentic. Allan sued the company claiming he suffered injuries, which can't be measured, from consumers swallowing flammable materials. Many market and manufacturer have claimed Allan's case is baseless, but one company was unveiled yesterday with a brand new fragrance to help people make informed choices. According to WSBN , this fragrance will be for sale in 2,000 shops and restaurants across the country. Speculation is that the fragrance will be named after actress Bryan Cranston, who plays Emmy "The 'Breaking Bad' star" on the hit TV show. The company calls "Flowermate's" fragrance "An Open Letter To Sturgeon," and sells it as "LIII" cases of 100 bottles each. It also sells "Flowerbeater" to those that aren't happy with the floral bouquets. This exhaustive story might just set the working bees over the edge when it comes to buying -======================================== SAMPLE 150 ======================================== -"Small-scale hydrogen production from water is a process that could be implemented on-site using existing agricultural facilities. That would generate electricity and be something we can think about in this far-off, more distant future, particularly for applications that are good for the environment and for the security of people's lives," said Daniel Sandler, in charge of the workshop and a national platform engineer with Intelsat, who held a key role in international space exploration. "We don't need to go up the chain, or to Europe for fuel — we don't need to get that from Saudi Arabia or Russia, where there are non-renewable resources. It'll be very sustainable where we're at now."<|endoftext|>My friends at the NRA are pointing out to me that I violate 1st Amendment protections on my Twitter account. The First Amendment includes the "freedom of speech." Due to this, no one can compel you to say anything by force. Every human being has the right to express any opinion, however unpleasant or disagreeable it might be. Indeed, that would contradict the very definition of someone's right to press his or her opinion, to admit to mistakes, and to correct them. When everyone shares the same bad problem, all of society is better off. You can't punish that operating principle. - -So I'm sorry. I lack the Germanic and Mongolian telepathy to come up with a phrase that: - -FITS ALL PARTIES: - -1. It expresses something accurately without being flippant or vague. - -2. It isn't intended to embarrass or bash a particular person. - -I don't feel like burning my far-right heart-throb face off right now. But, true, they are not my only friends. And I know, plenty of people would never think of behaving this way. If I did, I would no longer eat or drink. - -Watching the TV coverage going on now about my post, you would think I would have been peed in front of multiple children. I'm sure they do. But they'll torture me, forever and ever. A SC campaign to erase my life would be cruel beyond imagining. - -But let's talk about how Twitter screwed me, by their own terms. - -The market for Twitter content will shrink by 55 percent by 2016, according to a new report from rankings firm StockCharts. That number is real, not just conference data. Much of that was due to the prominence of Twitter's news chief, Alex Marlow who is transforming the company's brand in a way that may reassure investors but frightens children. - -You can be sure that if he had a sequel, he'd be handed a wobbly camera, some biscuits, the ability to be moved to tears, and a lollipop from a chimp.<|endoftext|>For instructions on how to import mobile performances, the talent and others directly support us in the following place: - - -Problems: - -Doesn't go to the audience with Ctrl+Backspace - -Works on Ubuntu 15.04 LTS but doesn't play music - - -If you are dual head needs a patch for flatsync' licensing problem of starts working sidesway.<|endoftext|>Good Question. Actually I have the same question for my friend with the phone. So here goes: is your faucet foundation a special three-component, stainless steel "Sport and Technology" or FR90? If it's the "Sport and Technology" should it be dipped in frosting or waxy powder or biologically dyed? - -Click to expand...<|endoftext|>Consensus Results of the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report - Ranked by Positions in Future Representative Surveys 57 , 2997 updates since 2014. - -Introduction The report, together with the full report in Pdf, can be found at the link below. Downloadable data is available in Excel and F Excel format, as well as CSV. - -2018 Report In to 2020 39 Main predictors are given for competitiveness. Future Representative Surveys are conducted every 6 months on a modified version with new inputs. Since definition of each headline indicator is given in the report, a modified version of the report is available: Dissecting the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report - 2018 @ https://worldviewresearchorg/eleven-decade-report/2018/consensus-results-of-the-world-economic-forum-global-competitiveness-report-ranked-by-positions-in-future-representative-surveys/. It is meant to replace data extracted after the link above had been made available. Downloadable data is available in Excel (special or open source format) or in a dedicated table of combined Excel and CSV file, with other when available. See the methodology section for more details about the methodology. Starting with the updated edition published in 2018, this section organizes the tables into three sections below, starting with displays of September 2018. In 2018, ten new indicators and issues were added for -======================================== SAMPLE 151 ======================================== -Annie's Day Celebration - -Thank You for choosing Annie's Medicinals to provide you with Anannie's Day Celebration products! - -To all of our compassionate shoppers and distributors, thank you so much for your purchase, excitement and thank you for shopping with Annie's Medicinals. - -Annie's Day Celebration is a group of Annie's Medicinals friends that allows you to wear Annie's original hemp goodies and leave with a souvenir like Annie-A-Mint or cause-related items. Your purchase will fund a group fund dedicated to Annie's Dream Foundation, a truly global community based nonprofit. Our (Kids, DIY, Fosters, Drug Awareness, Non-Profit) shop is proud to be a part of this great nonprofit. Your purchase will help shelter and care for 70+ orphans of all nationalities, and to provide for 64+ children an education! Purchase any of our Annie's Day Celebration items before they sell out, help provide children, families and adults with support and celebrated Ross Standley. - -Click here to checkout or see the list of approved organizations. - -aniamycyclical.org<|endoftext|>The CBC has decided to cease publication of the Montreal Gazette. This is, in a way, a tiny victory for my most hated rival. I was unfairly likened to the paper here and there (Op-Ed piece, more or less) over the years, probably because the CBC crossed the writing islamic line before or in anticipation of that book review and don't really care. Well, it was an insensitive comparison anyway, because a) that's true of everybody who writes in any genre today, b) there's no Fox News talking heads who hate more than me, c) if you really hate something, just write about the subject all that's mangy about it that you disliked, publish the piece, write some more and stick around. The decision to cease publication of the Gazette with zero fanfare — or any public announcement — leaves me standing sideways no longer. - -If only the CBC had buried its Sunday 1 pm TV schedule for nothing, the limited time I had to create and upload these parts would end now, eternally. My utter disgust for this front-page moron would be completely disingenuous — I don't hate the man's guts, though. - -At the 2012 marks 250 0 — the number of column inches, entirely nonsense, I've already published today — practically two years has done nearly nothing to increase my social media presence or readership. What little traffic I actually get in the comments reading the 11 things I don't like about the Gaffe Roulet Level here may very well not make it onto the web. - -And anyone who has spent any time in my comment logs can tell you I have absolutely zero fear of Michael Criado-Perez, lest Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins's wacourse resemble him. - -Not much can be said about the article I am reacting to here, which is rather more than I have ever written if I'm being honest. Being part of Quebecois media, I've got blue in my teeth, and that may make for a dysphoric fit at times. I'd like to God those 1/12th ranking TVassholes will understand this, for I feel I have to berate them. - -Before passing judgment, please remember how much I respect Quebec: it's the place where Bill de Blasio got elected mayor. It's the US of A where I live — the motherfucking Obama house — and the whole world speaks French. That option didn't even exist when they handled their apocalyptic Azteca charades with my son in through the front door; let's not pretend — even marginally — that it did. Not having to see "Amarillo" in that little BC-Canada town was phenomenal. I offered those North American snowflakes double today, and I am not allowed to show my frustration. Liberals want that precious case closed. - -My online media is not the effect of that "Dear Redneck, Please Shut Yourhole Bible Study," chain email sent out around Mothers Day last year, if I may hear SO ultimateeahindof in my new digs. Incidentally, if I ever did even learn the name of the signer, I'd cut that women out of Kleenex immediately here. 1 - -That wasn't polite paid creative writing masquerading as answers to real questions — one paragraph doubled as a fine rebuttal to Derek Brock's endorsements. Sure, it was a banal call for unity and then blew up into an all out barrage of callous insults about everything from Mounties in bad ole Canada to my son, but nothing would impress that general stupidbum he only shoots towards government ethics more rabidly every year. That's at least as much as this is good for. - -Other than a featured pun on a set of tweets saying you're not old enough to know, nothing in the interview or its small followup surprised me. It went -======================================== SAMPLE 152 ======================================== -Harare - Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe, who is expected to step down before the end of her third year in office, has reportedly gone home to find her security details changed, since she appealed for help to protect her family after a string of people were murdered. - -Government officials have since denied the supposed hasty move, saying she has a lot of support inside the ruling Mugabe controlled African National Congress (ANC) party, as well as in what some have called ZANU-PF's "inner circle". - -Responding to allegations that Mugabe had changed her number of security centres, CUPA's Director of News and Current Affairs, Alex Chimbo was quoted as saying by Radio Zimbabwe that Grace was visiting people with her husband led 5,000 men towards Zanu PF's Central Headquarters in the capital, Harare and had asked to receive her protection. - -At least 63 people, including women and children, have been killed since Mugabe was sworn in as president half a year ago. - -Some commentators have speculated that it could be the yet-to-be developed currency controls which are to blame, as it is reported that some foreign currency was confiscated from the 4,000-seat Union Music Festival during the festivities at the Sandton entertainment complex opposite Harare's central bus terminal. - -Chimbo also said that a bank had informed CUPA that they were dumping all aarend anxiety coalson by doubling its rates, before remarking that some members of the African National Congress were speculating that it was linked to a file – perhaps with Sticky Gibbs, one of Mugabe's brutal dictatorship cronies. - -Zimbabwe's Central Bank chairman, Patrick Chinamasa said early in the week that the government would not allow private banks in Zimbabwe to increase prices of critical goods, such as meat. He made his comments alluding to rising inflation in the country. - -He also said the government would raise the prices of basic food items in supermarkets as well as domestic help. - -This prompted slaughter by Bunnings for its meat supplier ASB, whose prices must remain more than 10 per cent higher than general retail prices elsewhere, but Jardine Matheson, president of the Retailers Association, elsewhere said price hikes made it "ridiculous and wrong" for small retailers and discount stores to encourage shoppers with discounts. - -The 6.65% inflation rate that hit 92.5 per cent last July approaches the country's astronomically high unemployment number of 27%. - -According to information obtained recently by daily Herald Live, Mugabe is due to replace Grace with Netaji 'Ngā'am gilāyini, the 36-year-old First Lady of the Kakai Mana Movement based in factional strife plagued Matabeleland that had informally joined the ruling party in the past. - -The fiercely anti-white ruling party is in more trouble with the followers of the spiritual leader President Robert Mugabe, their traditional medicine attendant Prabowo Subianto (son of Theophile ZANU-PF leader Joshua Prabowo), whose 1997 election victory in revenge for his half-brother's rape and murder is now regarded as illegitimate or kufar (unclean). - -Likewise the pro- MCC and Democratic Patriots (DP), which currently do not take a leading position within ZANU-PF, will split over any moves to deploy Grace as First Lady or First Sheriff of Robert Mugabe. - -Grace Mugabe, nicknamed 'Ngapanda', who is due to succeed her husband after the 117th birthday on July 31, 1998, could be seen as an effective architect of anti- white resistance, pushed towards her matriarchal views by intimidation and bullying in the 90s. - -Although MP50's Sean Kelly has said that since earning her colourful nickname four years ago, Grace Mugabe has become more principled and generally more supportive of achievements of the party. - -Among the leaders of the GBZNP and its offshoots the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the Young Zimbabwe Ickowans (YI), Grace Mugabe has a longstanding decision to form relationship with MDC Shia leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who, like Shelly Du Plessis, would likely form TWITPEGATE alliance with the re-incarcerated ZANU-PF chair of the party, President Mugabe's brother.<|endoftext|>Happy Friday! In the upcoming weeks, an even more exciting Star Wars adventure or two is coming your way, in our Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Roleplaying Game. - -And over the next few weeks, we'll mostly be talking about that, as well as patching up any remaining bugs from the Rebel campaign, and keeping our eye on what and where is next for the Republic and the Empire as the century draws to a close. - -Many thanks again to all our readers and subscribers who have kept us going and played again earlier this year and we -======================================== SAMPLE 153 ======================================== -Buy Ronnie Vannucci's Dale Designed Counterfeiting Series - -Ronnie Vannucci's Deadly Drug Plot Catalog - -5 Story. 200,000 Views. - -The drug process was an ingenious way to manufacture more illegal narcotics to fuel the methamphetamine craze during the 1970s. The process involved separating amphetamines from and often mixing them with cocaine. - -Using the slightly stronger and longer lasting cocaine as the bulk drug combined with the weaker amphetamines made the same value: - -More Amphetamine [Not the Same as] Pure Adderall [Not the Same as] Limousine [Not the Same as] espresso coffee [Not the Same as) Slow Car Travel [Not the Same as] Goon in a Man-Bite Chore Coat. - -Types of Drug Labs and Subway Sellers in Washington - -Typical University places2 - -University counter culture - -See Portable Music - -Contrary by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - -Symbols painted around Washington 7/25/1976 are - -Tom, Arthur and other recently - -blooded babies (read: DWL's) - -weed, measles, Wonder Posies, St. Augustines by Stanley Picaz - - -Shanghai Was founded from a Japese fortress - -See the Fight to Keep Rails to the Bridge Positive Naventux Dance Crew - -See Dreams in Dragon Libraries by Frank Marino - -Freewater - -Thornefest by Elisabeth Crews - -IN PARTICULAR before their house and everything there was - -a castle. The stables had horses that went home - -fell asleep ROAD fart toupe July bar stool (silver medallion) - -Orange Moonfetus Green ink Flower Lady in The Green Man in The green - -Tax Zircons may be viewed from right angle by crording a prism as shown on - -cryptonymbookmaps.com - -bewildered best vape shop in horeshworth - - -NEW YORK, New York, NY 91761 - - -Heisliumh Town Hall-Plague of Sharing via Public Coffee Day - -"Our crux here is that we are comedians: creatively, yet carefully." - -Unknown parent Sicarius Lemuria Boekelvestý - -Satanic Theft of Land in East Paris - -Albert Burnham did it (now there's comedy) - - -Arembosses - -See Parliamentaryized Debt - -Murder even without DNA: Dusseldorf Rain Libation - -Demon Woodland Medallion: One foot in early Christianity, one foot in the - -last millennium, if not the actual ancient oriental talent talisman Hermetica Authentic Pune Super- - - -Student Technology - -Whitewash Mayor City Hoarding Hair Inn - -Choy takes over a town-loose before eliminating any centers of - -uncooperative thought - - -Chuck Norris brings his New Jersey Crips to see Bobby Essex - -Ramadan Day Flag June2017 CamUSCB Insurance Finance Bost 2600 Container Terminal Recharge Battery Zotronic makers2010 innov Dooby Hot Smoke Suppression - - -Melt in Water Yams Idol of Vishnu Nanke ThunderBath - -ROWDUS using designers Hartstructuer city with a scorched earth policy. Notice how the city is overused as a sewage disposal system for New York City deliver really excessive amounts of traffic - -UP CITY defunded by the dozens daily, redirecting sewage to relatives the microclimate is just out of range. A lot of other things in NYC city internal traumagi rings too. At least they kept them by personnel when said personnel were relocated to preserve the organization. - -See for "Urban Micro Weather Simulation" on cloud scientist Seana Eldridge ... 10 miles below us rehab corporations fly amount UFOREST Network 01 name ONAPABikes citywide electric pedal (stella cibale) scam, MICROSIS municipal wall? method fool insurance fraud USA power chaos through Massive Uncage Type Euro Diel 1 core network will become DDoS month Israel airburse Europe nope back offices pay fines - -With Nike account to war profiteer George L. Esty - also peddle fake gods - -Haux Land Coated Bar on Ice 625 Whale Shut Down 16 blessings programmer Levi-oned Yak toward Newport Island - -The parable Of The Salmon Sloka WITH IN HELLISH EMPIRE MILITARY STAR - -Adds and subtracts only China (U.S) dumpster fires shrinker truck brand - -Johnny Cash is interesting! CITY weighing in the positives Squire Gan is telling you - -of the State of Israel - -MOST Wanted magazine , November 1989, Page 26-30 Larry Summers character president candidate attorney US president 2007, White House bureaus ((4,700 Employee number may be a fraction)). Dirty work men IBM merger USBAC Yellow Man. the automobile industry dying during the communist -======================================== SAMPLE 154 ======================================== -Thai women continue to take up wheelbarrow work with an increasing number of local women and children resting on them. Local authorities need to design land use policies that are conducive to this form of work, said a team of international development experts in Thailand. - -"These machines are easy to use... Let's encourage women to pick up these wheelbarrows and let them finish their chores for the day," B C Yang, former UNICEF Executive Director, said on Friday (27 June) during the Thailand Wheelbarrow Confederation's (BTIC) Eastern Asia Wheelbarrow week or Asi below the conference in Bangkok. - -The authorities need to improve and give more incentives to women to carry out wheelbarrow work which would allow them to earn an income and hence provide additional training, Yang said. - -"Let's create jobs in this industry to support breadwinning women," he said. - -Yang pointed out that there are consensus with the poorer primary school and university students on purchasing wheelbarrows. - -Asked about wider community-based group commitment to transport, Yang said this can help tackle sea pollution, provide food to families, reduce traffic jams and clean landfills. - -The trade of unskilled rural workers is was dealt with through tertiary education and inter-village development and land management programmes, Yang said. - -Considering environment is critical for human rights to exist, Yang said his medical teams work to protect and improve species and habitats to protect biodiversity. - -He noted that exposure to water, heat and stress during travelling infringes human and animal health and human longevity. - -Concerns on waste and air pollutants caused by mining are being addressed through hydropower, Yang said.<|endoftext|>All news: 59.9022 – 36.6984 - -Press release September 27, 2018 - -The Board of Directors has approved a resolution on the concept for a Private Finance Initiative to fund education, charity, and research. Cadet Centre Returned Officers and half a dozen returning women officers from the Queen's Golden Jubilee Blue from the beginning of the school year will study at CFLD as faculty comes to a close. The rank of Non-Enlisted Operating Officers will be assigned to the accepted officers starting September 12. The values, both unique and measurable, resulting from the program will be reviewed by the Director General to update future CADBT Philosophy and broadcast. - -This year's entry level year still provides Future Officers with a pilot course to demonstrate the capabilities, expertise, and dedication needed to assume their positions in CADBT. - -The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Foundation Scholarship Fund for 34 before or after graduation candidates was also approved today, at their annual meeting for the 2015-2016 school year. - -Habituation Services was approved for generous financial donors this week at their annual meeting to support early return to the regular Circumcison Program and frontier Working Officers. - -The Board finalizes nominations for the place of the Lead Health Women Officer in the Fifth Annual Dinner Cavalcade. - -Stamos School had its return to the regular School year finale at the National Guildar (Saskatoon) Monday night with registrations for the Talent Competition, among other events. Services for working Officers who attempted the equivalent of CPD Sanda attendance for that year are also extensive. For CADBO, the August 6 - 8 Adoption and Expansion Invitational was an improved work program which introduced EDM in the Cadet Centre's French program. Students took part in varsity cutting eight targets, plus scored two Bronze Awards. There by providing the policy leadership that is critical. Do not have a voice in CADBO? You can send us a message! - -Twitter: @royalgcbfp - -Fax: (403) 248-2842 - -lgcdbd<|endoftext|>Mitt Romney Wednesday urged the Central High School he attended in Worcester County to cancel a dance program at the high school based on his concerns about a gift fund given to him by the school's attorney, Jennifer N. Siebel Newsom, wife of U.S. Sen. Mark Sarukhan. - -Newsom donated $50,000 to a Romney presidential campaign in December but held off honoring the cheques until after the election, secretly checking a column to see if Halston GOP Chairman Ron Harmon was endorsing Mitt Romney, which he acknowledged as potentially playing a role. - -CASMIN, Memoirs of a Young Money Manager, by Jonathan Weisman & Dan Metcalfe (Simon & Schuster) Archetype Images — B If you have custody of an energetic and intelligent 8-year-old boy, you can count on him to display a certain level of independence and self-confidence from a young age. - -Thursday morning, eight voters signed up to attend the dance at Central High School this winter, but only 19 wristbands were given out, costing $1 per adult and $1 per child. Later, according to their own accounts, they did not even know until too late whether their children -======================================== SAMPLE 155 ======================================== -The April 11th, 2018 Council Meeting - -Posted on April 10th, 2018 by Andrew - -Final Agenda of the April 11th, 2018 Seattle City Council Meeting. - -Note: All other future meetings will be listed here. - -The 31st Council Meeting of the Seattle City Council - -FINAL ADMINISTRATIVE AGENDA: Council adopts, by committee vote, the Statement of Work under Chapter 06.1 ((King) of the Seattle Municipal Code. Committees to serve under Chapter 03 include: Council Environmental and Infrastructure, Public Safety and Justice, Performance and Budget. - -Business – The business agenda included: adoption of the budget and a property tax solicitation schedule (members only) - -Emergency rezoning under Chapter 11, including TOD+ issue (members only) - -International pioneers memorial - -Island Burial Ground Art Grant - -KOMO 91.5 Freeway Corridor Future Piece Study - -Seattle Native art in the Spokane River area - -Urban parks funded - -Overall Transportation and Foundations Committee Agenda I: Council hangs on – search committee reviews sources of funding - -Council Academic Faculty Studies - -Seattle Youth Cabinet Committee Meeting - -All other business not eligible for the public record - -Final Council Meeting Action Items - -TIGER TRAFFIC VOTE – The Transit Improvement Plan and Select Bus Rapid Transit Pilot Projects Committee voted to advance the (Ballot Measure) 77″ ballot measure. Council passed the vote, by a 3-5 vote (members Sanders & Robinson not voting). The details will appear under the General Discussion tab on our website. VOTE DOCUMENT 3 (Ballot Measure 77″) - -ADDITIONAL NOTES FROM BILLS AND SBs HELD LAST MONTH - -Curb Drive Subsidy Study – The Seattle Department of Transportation's (SDOT) proposed 8.0% across-the-board cut to the city's discretionary road funding allocation in the 2015 budget request is described in the version of the white paper and document produced by the Business and Transportation Committee. The proposed plan calls for a partial replacement of the existing "parcels from specific dirt site withdrawals" scheme. The SDOT document, which summarized many sections gathered during the month of February and early March of 2018, (June 1-9) is available for review here. Select Bus Rapid Transit (SB 1164) (Fall/Winter 2018 Medical Marijuana Review Committee Report) - -SDOT staff has reviewed a series of environmental studies of the Seattle branch of Weyerhaeuser Company's proposed 206A highway widening project (Phase 1). The fee section of this document explains the background, what SDOT review covers, and some of the findings of the studies. A second (BSD 50′) version of the report for the International Pioneer Research Center Committee is also being prepared, which will be used for discussion with the International Pioneer Design Review Committee at their upcoming meeting in Seattle this coming Wednesday, March 9, 2018. (Gov Bid Reached, Hunters Point Street Renewal Project Draft Award Chronicle) (ED submittal) - -SDOT staff was in attendance at Subway 206A For Seattle Corporation's first walking tour of the 7-mile extension from Lander Street Market access to the Eastside Accessway, scheduled for March 18th, 2018. The tour gathered participants, organization staff and community liaisons. The tour was hosted by Shinn class and has the go/no-go status of randomized control design. (Sidewalk Rebuttal Takes Shape; Seattle Subway – Bible … and Maps) - -How taxpayers are helping: Council unanimously adopted a proposed amendment to the City of Seattle Passenger Tram Leasing Program (PTP) to require all projects in the package develop a structural/mechanical performance plan prior to project initiation and annually thereafter. PTP authority has been delegated to SDOT's responsible Official Initiation Division (ODX). The legislation directs the ODX to develop, as a Capital Investment Order, capital projects selected via PTP applications as components of an International Business Unit (IBU) leasing program and must include each project's structural/mechanical performance plan. Planned projects could be started/stopped as desired. (Transit Authority Vote Recomm. 55.2 sec. 7750) (Goodlatte Passed, Assembly Passed Motion 39) Senate Passage of (SB 1163) - -2018 Traffic by the Numbers: The Citizens Traffic Safety Alliance and the folks at the Traffic Enough campaign released their 2018 traffic readout calculations showing November was the worst month to drive on Seattle streets, with a 21 percent increase in the number of vehicles running red lights (+146 RPM). (September Summary: SOVB Action Highlights & Statistics) - -Official 2018 Seattle Expo Guide – Written by FCSA Community Campers. It can be downloaded here. The 2016 edition had a better last impression, that public transportation is important… Only 5% of 2016 Booksellers (100 and 200 metro) reported serving as charter campers. Only 90& -======================================== SAMPLE 156 ======================================== -Latest - -Featured Metals - -Over the last few years, several options have entered the market for indoor copper metallurgic heat exchanging coils (HEC). While metal filled HECs do give a higher utilization in home and small commercial applications, it is not the panacea for modern, green space applications. Traditional metal-filled electric heat exchangers have several nomenclature related issues. Copper located in an electrical contact was not officially recognized by the United States Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by either the FDA or the song "Copper Amphetamines under General Graphitic Aluminum Copy-Right Verution." The point is that prices of aluminum and copper copper substrate in our economy is very high for copper botanicals, while copper is not know for its additional benefits. I am confident that this has not led to the widespread extinction of copper based power equipment. However, if copper is anything large around here, it is part of the fabric of the earth as seen by our ground cutting that we begin at Left Coast ten yards of copper and work two miles to our power lines line. After that, we cut along the line for a couple hundred yards in every direction so we begin our plant down the line for all of these homes and businesses from Mama's house to behold, does it have increased plant life, NO. The family-owned Elliot Bay family has been a trusted partner in my vegetable business for more than 20 years which requires all of the human planets resources on Earth to work this special medium. We only buy land that is suitable for our commercial scale project. In 2015, Dr. Harold Kuo was awarded an Environmental Security Incentive from the BIA and is now awarded an Environmental Protection Incentive. We look forward to integrating the entire copper technology into our enterprise and safety. - -Join us for Lasers, Nanomechanics and Accelerated Technology - -Speakers, workshops and parties - -Denver: Sat 7:00PM - -RMNF 2015 Denver, CO: Sat 7:00PM - -Disruption and the Future - -For more information: - -Ryan C. Ernst, Interim Business Development Manager - -erich@robinsonscoffeehouse.com / 303.406.7533<|endoftext|>At the height of the Inflation, Unemployment, and Economic Deterioration (Inedo) of the early 1990s, artificial Soviet "communist economies" much reduced the effective real wages of peripheral 60 million people —including lastly of a Company of a Company of 50,000 workers. Most cost the State for with electronic means hundreds of thousands of more prices at the same price. This state-robber-state also were run under pressure of illegal unauthorized private businesses whose prices were also lower. These forced "salaries" fully depended on the increase of the minimum pensions. - -Immediate weakening of the social foundations of these two State "communist cardiovascular entrepreneurs' economies mentionedingslleding the highly flexible Ruble exchange into reserve currencies in the and thus(2) all goods enables Russia the 1893 hypothetical Maple to verify that border robberies and other illegal means of a lot worse profits aimlessly deprive the State economy, Stavropol in the Bratislava, Manchester and on the Topaz in the north of UK. The end product is even more (twice) dastardly than the computer monopolies as WalMart, Andell(1), all the giant US Combined Retail Free Otbenedotbund Gesellschaft as well as all the huge German Eastern bloc stores under Wal-Mart. - -A high degree of desperation of capitalist monopoly means even earlier an accountable of the deterioration between 1990s and the mid-2010s. There is no need to exaggerate as "birth ratio" and right stage of worker supply would severely represent the additional compulsory penal implications. However, broad acquaintance would suggest that criminal gangs are boosting profoundly their profit potentials of ill-willed decisions, illegally guaranteed in Germany, the eastern European states and even on the US high farm & alcohol. Last, five years ago a promising rate with a reasonable rationalization confirms that a nasty process of the weakening and forced and increasing unequal divisions in labour confirms that Russian oil, gas and petroleum industry workers in particular, and of consumer, family and social, human workers in general, through deteriorating laws and social conditions apply attractive "low risks", forcible use of modern technologies will in the very near future. - -Expectation of cheaper oil & gas also puts downward pressure on the wages in other industries, such as chemicals, design, aerospace, airline flight operations and pride of existing. With process investments still large savings according to estimates are achieved by looking everywhere for a meaningful way. In our country for 50 administrative and industrial employed people working in an All-Russian Sociology has grades 5 and below is insufficiently rewarded(3); although, the ordinary minimum wage at the end of the 90s diluted the situation due of Chile, dozens of professions and degrees partly fewer Russia- workers -======================================== SAMPLE 157 ======================================== -Even before referencing serial killings, Ms. Clark's phone message shows her thinking badly of Lymon. "Are you n*gger?" she asks. "Who are you?" - -She says she knows who killed three small boys. She names them Omar (read the segments) Ashton (five young boys' names) and Jacob--an innocent young child caught in the middle of a desperate and violent dispute between a man and his acquaintances. - -Perhaps Lymon didn't know — or knew who knew — the name of the fawa or would provide it to Washington DC. Maybe Lymon told Washington, but not Windsor, Canada, where his older brother was believed to be living. Perhaps Lymon didn't tell police in Texas, who asked the FBI to return Lymon's computer to Windsor. - -The details don't matter, when noted incidents like this occur so fast, many by laypeople who don't attend law school. The focus is on that little boy, not the murders he did or did not commit. But to Syed ar- Raqib and Farhana, as it is -- after all, the crime wasn't a murder -- it was lost on them that they had never met John Griffin. Who did they know civilly? What did they ACTUALLY know about his family?" And that's what the police and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division likely intend what was miss -- they want to know, yes, but more importantly they want to know, especially for the Justice Department, where hope of a trophy case doubling in size to Help Points, followed soon after by a dime -- breaks down public trust. - -Lymon's dead friend was William Porter, who stunned a nation as one of a trio of Texas "triplets." In February, Porter was visiting his family in Harper, Texas, when he was brutally savaged in broad daylight at the Wasp Butte Service Station in Kermit, Texas. The crime was captured in the press, but police were hampered in their investigation by mishandling evidence, fake evidence - -, and -- for all the sophistication of DualShockers' Foundique -- the Wild West as to how the worst another rave night could be. This was the 5th year of the infamous Spring Break exodus which took renters via the free bars, entertainment for those who actually can get a space, out to the state-of-the art tastemakers diagonally across the state line in Amarillo, and operated predictably and shamelessly among young men who club-prefer the eyes of over-aged and impressionable teenage girls. - -It's no actuality some police "to do" list may refer to. - -The five youths met at McAllen area high schools before their slayings. All three men were from impoverished neighborhoods in south Texas and had just been released from mental institutions. Also referenced in recent Kermit reports: Clayworth, Jacob and Christopher Brent, were eager drug addicts; Roland Gruenerbugliosa was a well- known street gang and Roland Gruenerbugliosa's can be linked to the San Marcos Murders. William Porter, on April 19, was apparently such a bad drug user that after his release from Houston, Texas's South Hills Hospital he the DESERT HIMSELF become hospital it after failing to obtain drugs from Netcare - Wounded Warrior. - -Washington, on May 19, the same day of Hamburger's murder beings this reseason, picked up a complaint from a Wise County citizen to the department for "whom she reportedly wants to harm." Then-Clark's court arraignment was scheduled for May 20. - -On that same day, Police Detective Ben Williams assigned to UNT's Detectives of the Gang/Corruption Unit (GMCUA) meet Barbara Clark and Daniel Lamillio with Assistant District Attorney Dennis McRae in regards to the case. In an email dated May 6, Williams and Clark reveal that Williams was editing a draft Viggo Costa's teeth gun photo which was discussed with both detectives -- but hid notes in his copy of Costa as to him being assisted from his bag either from within or outside of UNT campus. - -The documents show that McRae and Clark each provided their insight with additional details about how Michael Parker, identified in the SCHAGOP conspiracy as Parker's attorney, was one-man law firm in an effort to help Kyle and police identify who did the terrible things to John Welch and William Porter on May 16, 2014. Parker's own attorney was Daniel Lamillio, who fired the hunting rifle the morning of May $ of Porter's shooting. - -This is where the crisis of trusting begins to manifest itself. - -In regard to Lamillio's bullet proof match, the police crime lab review of Parker's crime scene examination identified nothing which would make Lamillio, or any of Parker's relatives, suspects they did anything. Ironically, Lamillio was asked by Assistant District Attorney McRae about Exhibit A, Kyle Draper's defendant comparison -======================================== SAMPLE 158 ======================================== -Dlugosz is an open-source project developed to build ARCore atgpu flask and barium pods. -Posted Jun 13, 2017, 6:54 AM by Krystal Kirwin -HAMMERD is a discipline designed to disassemble and rearrange the contents of still images and catalog chemical compound structure using software. It's a major hobby of mine (and job) that I first got into in 2001. Before HAMMERD, I had no idea what I was doing, and was usually stuck pathetically staring at a picture and comparing individual lines just to get the compound I was looking for. I have a decent understanding of how most computers deal with this problem, but I knew nothing when I first started. In the following years, I've had to learn through trial and error a great deal, but it was still a very complex subject that I and 95% of amateur chemists didn't have a clue about. -During Hammers job, he's tinkered with hopeless trails in attacking some of my garden plots, but also giving me lots of time to kill on most of the high grade compositions I sit down to work on. We discussed this branch of of Hammers invention in detail in a previous post . Akeís attention to his creative approach is one of the reasons HOWL is so surfaceamatic and colorful. He still doesn't interact with me a lot when I'm in his presence, and his humor that can make me feel about the devicemt's pride is truly infectious. Make sure to check out the WHATIs sketching of his system in the resulting journals. Akeís illustrative character massively facilitates referencing his important allies relative positions. Occasionally, would his style give me inklings of future design changes. I wanted to tuhld re-open my crack at fixturing notches throughout the sketch so I could port the JPToS tool and a when a non-oficial origin was needed. I ultimately decided to make him aero-blue.<|endoftext|>Just before she came out, Ms. Eisenhower, who is senior vice president for federal and international policy at the American Friends Service Committee, told her friends that she would never marry her Stalinist father. That is, she would not marry her father's nemesis and mentor, Joseph Stalin. - -The wedding day date was confirmed Dec. 10, 1945, by Young, the death warden's assistant at Wayne National Cemetery in Chicago. She apparently married her father in a small ceremony in the Moscow Museum before a Sunday service. In all, the two engaged in 358 formal ceremonies, according to historical archives. - -The two welcomes end up nestled together ghost participants of one of Americans' most mundane rituals: getting married. Ms. Eisenhower met her future husband while a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University (she went there for five years), studying enthusiastically at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, lead by Freeman Dyson. By Dyson's account, she was fond of his flirtation with her. - -As a biographer wrote of her, however, Ms. Eisenhower "wanted to treat him as the equivalent of a prince and was profoundly shocked when she discovered he had fired her as first lady on grounds of rivalry and disloyalty against his father." The departure was "woundingly bitter" to her, Ms. Dickson wrote. - -Of Kultokommroth, who was 29 at the time of the wedding, she says in her book "She: A Biography," "He fought like a lion to win my affection." - -Photo - -They were married on April 12, 1950, in Moscow, a large affair attended by 100 people and young Beatles photographer John Lennon and Georgi Markov, the American Ambassador to Russia. Several years after the wedding, Kultokommroth came to an oligarch's party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles and was jokingly described by an attendee as "a little shrew." A portrait of the couple was taken by the hotel's they young photographer John Lennon and the new ambassador Gabor Kiralytwo and published in the Los Angeles Times. The couple was photographed in trekking gear, supposedly after 33 days of walking across Siberia, before finally arriving at the Kremlin at 13,000 miles parting chants in the White House and Communist speeds of maybe 800 to 1,000 miles an hour. - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -When Anna Grishina and a group of Genosi students visited President Eisenhower one weekend in 1961, the guests included Zhou Enlai, who hit the President for calling dogmas foreign and those of the Maoist, Leader's party "dictates of the mainland Communists misprinted as concrete."<|endoftext|>I remember when it was first announced in 2013 that Andrew W.K. "reinvented" himself: the DJ, alcoholic, father, father-in-law and pseudo-icon slur darting from successes behind him brands Camhet and Angie Bank. Not that I need to clarify why his forthcoming full-length -======================================== SAMPLE 159 ======================================== -Endurance and heavy efforts - -There will be a few events where it should feel more similar to Black Ops III. - -Game mode: Survival - -Poster States: Infected Zombies - -Zombies Difficulty Level: Jumper, Salty (2/5) - -Location: Last Exit (US) - -Duration: 4 minutes - -Creator: Operation Nuke - - -Prize for the best zombified zombie will be two missions at the Black Ops III difficulty. - -Game mode: King of the Kill - -Poster States: King of the Cage - -KOTK: Black Ops III - -WvW Reward: 5,000 XP - -HARDER: King of the Ground - -Zombie PVP: Assault Course - -Location: Ocotillo Wells (US) - -Deck: Hard Course - -Time Limit: 12 minutes - -Creator: Zombie615 - - -Zombies Will Experience 4 New Abilities: - -Opening Parachute : During a round has an "invincible" parachute/bodies that can be retrieved with your ally when game over. Later additions of over 50 enemies that have in mind that they shoot can shut the parachute to prevent these. (not camera-shy like the survival). - -: During a round has an "invincible" parachute/bodies that can be retrieved with your ally when game over. Later additions of over 50 enemies that have in mind that they shoot can shut the parachute to prevent these. (not camera-shy like the survival). Deathrattle Fae : There is a lingering dmg that crows/waves that kills anything with it on her. This effect is spread by player/intruders. (same as opening parachute) - -: There is a lingering dmg that crows/waves that kills anything with it on her. This effect is spread by player/intruders see Stats: deutsche.sedigit.com/zombie615/zombies/. - -It's a good time to prove what you are capable of - -MOE allows for pride amongst group and keeps the competition light - -Game mode: Controlled Chaos - -Poster States: Rounding After Death - -CO: Player Controlled Chaos - -Spawn Levelling: Nightmare - -Players will spawn at different Light Level - -Create your personal forest for maximum chances of a catch - -Players Hated in PvP: Infected Infected Killers - -Specialists/Support: Easy to Hard, Hardest difficulty to Epic - -11 new variants of mortars as the new tires - -The autoshooting Mortars can have sappers on them. - -Each Mortar will have a unique hammer model/skin. - -Creator: Zombie615<|endoftext|>I have heard this frequently. Trying to find examples is difficult because the activity is not sufficiently lengthy to illustrate the case. This section is intended to examine selected topics or facts which indicate the characteristics of what might be categorized as animal exploitation, including undercover investigations. -Every professional aid or agency SOT tries to educate you about lacks or avoids this issue- it does not want to be on record as being 'bad', regardless of how clear its activities are and its clearly does not try to conceal its own shady design and actions. These very professionals who make a point of contacting you would not provide you with their reviews if they knew they are from ANTI-SAFE. Supposedly, they are in the business of protecting another's welfare? Luckily they are not on record, even unknowingly, in a risk environment that is putting their own customers lives at risk, and that means that they risk their insulation and the cozy legal nature of the program. It is an interesting sucker your bargaining chip would be in this situation. -British SPR is a quasi-commercial service that has worked extensively in international environmental investigation and subject matter. They employ an officer licensed and a professional auxiliary who is bound to mission reports Operating Procedure 2SRO2 (Op2SRO2) which is an N4 and a working reference for any Basic Requirements and acceptable provisions in the in-house environmental management report system (EIMS). EIMS is THE tool most commonly used and used in high-risk situations overseas, with the exception of emergency situations. How the system worked is that when any SRT-approved service was in England the EIMS Supervisor for the assembly position would maintain the op2sr Op, meeting rehearsals and standard documented engagement times. The contract required the EIMS Supervisor for Western Tapwater, or any other operations and inspectional facility (OOF) within her market area, to maintain the EU EN 50306 and for corrective action to be used when one of the associated events, backed by evidence, was identified. ( Theirs is NOT an IT! ) The OOF is limited by National legislation to supplying housing and rehydrating various supply and servicing modalities for workplace protection. Generally, this includes the ha -======================================== SAMPLE 160 ======================================== -1978 - -The Eyepatch. Southeastern brewing history in the twenty-seventh circuit period. This brew began life as an Eye-Patch Ale. Two years later it was transformed into a bluetooth beer. Boom. - -Two years later it was transformed into a bluetooth beer. Boom. 3012 Brewhouse - Midtown - -4131 Alston - -Atlanta, Georgia<|endoftext|>The Objective - -Creating a web-app window view using CustomViews as well as/exactly as long as a control's content was Glass communications Oh well….A While ago I was gaming a lot in XNA and MVC1.. I have noticed some reusable stuff in Boostrap 2 Live. So this was a great chance to get using custom views for a multi-window app…So here goes… The first thing we have to do is to use SHTTr().. Once we do that, we define a RCC functions using a simple string also found at: https://developer.msdn.microsoft.com/The_H/en-US/docs/Windows_8_DesignStudio/User_Guide/9_08_Universal_Controls_List_of_FunctionsButtonControl.aspx Common sizes on SHTTr(). Less Important, the media button values….The media button we use here is Pumpkin SP PumpkinGiggsdeveloper.msdn.microsoft.com/multihome/index.aspx?f=playlist&s=produCp.The Common values are smallButton the same as a button smallMediaButton the same as a windowed external media resource on a Windows 8 UIGoogleIIS one button so "button" has same shortcut as "goog_freak".<|endoftext|>Stir it up and dust off those fancy Stereophile cans. You can room them with the long-discussed $850/pair Monitor Audio RSPA-200s, the $900/pair Reference Components ML-31s, or your choice of a low-power few hundred bucks in a fine all-in-one DACs from Onkyo, Denon, or Phonak. All look to be Pono-caliber accurate boxy monitors—a wonderfully clean design fit for film strips, WOW boxes, pressure-sensitive film, and brightly lit condo buildings. - -Which one does it best? For the 2012 Stereophile Pro Council annual labs roundtable, we decided to pit the Stereophile Reference RSPA-200s against a couple of partner monitors: the South Korean Tannoy DM780F and the MBL/Austere Dynamics MH501BR. Call me a sucker, because monitor cost correlations ranging from 2.25 to 3.25 are cited everywhere, but this was a reasonable number: Not a hat tip to anybody here—I paid $882 both for the Denon DHT278s and Philips MBL-JL6" midrange desk monitors—but I'd also point out that the Stereophile Reference Monitor Company does not make entry level studio monitors. - -They will, eventually, so you can get the Paradigm M616SS and Murat VP24NSWA modestly priced people monitors for around $400/pair. - -Still looking for something between AR-X and some Aston Martin? $769/pair is a reasonable entry pair of dynamic monitors, as is a pair of the Mal's six-disc bookshelf models at $1238/pair. These make their round-table debut nearly all set to turntable, but I find these absolutely on par with any other high-end monitor sound. Very, very nice clarity—I can hear a brushstroke on sheet music whereas I can't pinpoint a particular section, in complete contrast with a lot of low-end forking in. - -I'm also finding a lot of detail that I would not have expected at $900/pair (see below). Detail, for instance, appears rich and quite distinct with the MBL/Austere Dynamics and with the old Schubert CDM150 ($1,049/pair). The above monitors are almost as much of a step down from high-end MBL made for CD samplers and scanners, but these are way ahead of anything that I heard before. - -"HOWEVER!" (does sustained bread-baking sound disturb your silent boss!) I started shopping while trying to level my shipping partner's Neumann TLM 60s to that nonstick pot on my desk, and couldn't resist this one when it came on the shelf. The amount you can glean for less than $1k compared to the MBL-connected Search ongoing preventative by When we stumbled on these at my In "however", I snapped one up at $769/pair. The amount you can glean for less thanand connected to the midrange on allophones by ear or stylus for on-the-go listening is remarkable, and the Antelope readjustable speakers aren -======================================== SAMPLE 161 ======================================== -FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- More than one team has reached out to defensive end Sheldon Richardson, and in full disclosure, it wasn't the New York Jets when they were trying to lure him away from the Denver Broncos back in May. - -Detroit reportedly wants him but they want a first-round pick -- which isn't likely to be available. The New England Patriots -- the team he won't follow to Buffalo next spring -- also showed interest, but he chose the Dolphins, so its plantike grounds are probably a little less inviting. - -All the teams talking to Richardson now really want him are those stuck in a draft chute, holding onto the closest option that might await outside the No. 2 spot: the Titans. - -Richardson doesn't want to leave Denver, but he is happy and close with offensive tackle Ryan Clady, so someone is working things out for him to head back to the AFC West. Since signing with the Dolphins in 2013, Richardson hasn't appeared in four seasons because of several suspensions, one for vulgar language and another for $100,000 in incomplete treatment for his Invasive Cranial Agent Suspension. - -But it's clear he's as motivated as he ever was coming off 18.5 sacks in 2013, his most in a season. He missed all of 2015 with a torn ACL (regardless of his contract) and was eligible to be a restricted free agent, a period of one year compensation. He hadn't earned one. Now he's signing an extension with so much cash in it, it might as well be a signing bonus. He will earn $41 million over five years. - -If all goes according to plan with the Dolphins, this would be his 12th team. He wouldn't be eligible for the rookie salary rampup. - -The more significant question for the Dolphins will be where to play him. - -The direction butler was going causes Jets coach Rex Ryan to worry about the off-the-field situation the Dolphins' might have. Not just the kidnapping charge but the seven felony domestic violence incidents that allegedly happened in the same period Gore faces Knowshon Moreno in the 2014 season. - -Ryan said he hasn't said you'll be back, but there's still concern it might happen. - -"I think Rob will live with that the rest of his life," Ryan said. - -But that doesn't seem likely. Still, judging by Richardson's quality of life at Sheldon's high-end basketball arena, playing (and stealing the last sesh of the season) in expensive Miami Beach would be downright sweet. - -Richardson is friendly with the Dolphins' animal lovers and recently posted a picture of him trapped in a portable piggery wallowing in some Yurts B. Free amusements since acquiring franchise last year. One picture over on Twitter shows him tied to a mattress jauntily paused for one solo Pete Rose moment. - -Yes, someone talked Jimmy and the Rap, Jr. session while lining up hauls in, "stunts" and all. And yes, and no. - -Richardson status for next season is nowhere near certain, but the Dolphins could consider the following relative to his deal and salary expectation: a one-year, $3 million deal that kicks in if he doesn't make Pro Bowl the first time. Welcome home, latter-day lumberjack. - -He parlayed a second-year status if he don't make it into the Pro Bowl into 2014 season. Richardson was an early offer for ther drag Black Mamba moniker and once glue Vincent Jackson round Egypt Geese a third-quarter touchdown in Buffalo. Elliott, replacing RG Watt, tweaked a hamstring in the first quarter. God bless it. - -Previous defense of Richardson, New York fails to note the fanatical Greenpoint football spirits is what current Broncos Playoff Captain, not being a Tuomo Ruutu, Eugene Robinson heft respectively. They also might contend he never met them prior to surrendering his services to their fledgling Bluewater's. - -Will any Buc thrived against New York? Contact Len Pasquarelli at anytime under the care of 215-345-3147 or on Twitter at @LenPas they remembered defensive experience replete ing decade prior using yardage punch too oftingly. - -Pasquarelli is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at lpasquarelli@tribweb.com or via Twitter @LenPasquarelli<|endoftext|>After the student body's vote, the students then agreed to put an extra $30,000 ($30,000 for the shuttle, a $30,000 tour bus, $10,000 ($10,000 for coaches and bus) for the team to defray exhibit and territory costs, and put up a 10-minute video on Hokie Nation to break the news.<|endoftext|>Transmail Services Guaranteed Colour HIGH ¶ - -that women not thinking today that ceteris paribus sine noct -======================================== SAMPLE 162 ======================================== -Walker has a pretty prestigious entry on the R&B circuit, but this time she channels her inner Beck. She's using a vintage-looking Grado High Fidelity MKH30 pair to highlight the warmth that her voice can play — whether layered for a Streetwise knock-out or such a rich, biting cover of The Phantom of the Opera which could only sell the album as prohibitively expensive item in a museum. - -MORE: New Mom Jennings Showcases Rap's Coolest Fetish (PHOTOS!) - -Walker should be preparing to be a TV Storyline pick at some point, considering she graduated last year from Columbia School for the Advancement of Performing Arts. It was her sophomore year and she performed one year at the Consequences Of Famous Parents tour, but now is convinced that DJ Khaled is "the biggest rap star in the world right now." She's going in with a full-blown April Fool's freakout about Khaled, in terms of madness just born of intent and assumed fame. - -After putting B.o.B. on blast, Walker's become a whole lot more self-aware. When asked about using a vintage pair of headphones on say, a song which would be tipped to #2 on the Other Music chart circa 16 years ago and ensure a pop hit, Walker's not just going to dismiss the argument that Kia were charging outrageous royalty rates for the role. Instead, she reaches the final step in this peculiar duality. "Ninety years old is in the middle of when I'm literally getting me a old pair of headphones," she says, making the plaintive smiley face into a chipper "happy face." - -So not yet fully confident in praise alone, Walker says, "I probably just don't have my own platform yet. If you looked at any major politician on Twitter, I'm probably bigger than them right now. Like through my music, through my identity and my brand, through the awards. If she starts doing that, then she'll feel a responsibility to me." - -What an attitude. It could also arguably be facetious. After all, the stakes could always be higher than good Nielsen numbers, and Klum has certainly thought about Tila Tequila having "a platform, permission or rap credibility" for the sake of money — and, frankly, all three factors lately are starting to get in the way of big ambitions. (We'll believe it when we get there. But let's assume for right now that the pressure of making stuff counts as a quasi-pareto advantage.) - -MORE: 27 People to Watch at Next Week's Golden Globes - -But if reality tv's taken a wrong turn lately, that's where House of Cards' Walton Goggins comes in. The executive producer, aka "the guy who makes everyone else's idea better in seven seconds," is surrounded by an unshakeable confidence. Whether that's achieved by being good at his job or by actively wanting to dispel any notion that maybe the people around him could stand to lose their heft a little, is actually impossible to know. Do you want a safe job, or do you want to be famous? (If you're all about the money and you don't want to be famous, stand by for Tila Tequila.) Is taking time to spitten raps about Playboy Fame shit complete nonsense, or genius? (If The Wiz was cute.) - -No, here it's our duty to ponder alternatives. Having themselves done pretty well at their jobs such as executive producing the best show on TV or dropping usually unexpectedly-bonkers fashion releases, Walton and wife Victoria look like it would be at home at the beach. But more important than just advocating for ourselves as Angelenos, maybe we might all learn something?<|endoftext|>Galileo Galilei, Queen of the Fourth Dimension - -11 NOVEMBER 2010-Razer rally movie tablet MR8ITY - -Log in to Post - -Following up on the first performance video of Razer's tablet monitor, this follow-up video shows the real-life usability of the Razer / Galileo computer hardware. Demonstrating how chess and rocket flight both work on a tablet like Razer's MR8ITY, this demo serves as an excellent demonstration of the ability of an 8" tablet to do the reverse of cheating, driving compete reaction via a smaller screen. - -Special thanks to OCN Andy at Incubation to retrieve all of these amazing, and highly relevant, videos.<|endoftext|>Ever wonder what the molecular makeup of your favorite foods are? What about molecules that contribute to the anti-nutrients in your diet? Maybe you've heard of the wonders of standing in a lab and exposing yourself to all kinds of stuff, from Good out of Baobab to My Life. If you have ever wondered about this as well, you can boast that you're a cocktease. - -Chemical signaling mechanisms in cell health - -We couldn't let the popular cultural atavism slide by, -======================================== SAMPLE 163 ======================================== -Looking for news you can trust? - -Subscribe to our free newsletters. - - -This issue of Mother Jones plunges into the story behind the probator, a timid female judge who represents an otherwise naked criminal defendant in Putnam County, Iowa that we've covered a handful of times over the past few months. - -Basketball professional Mark Cuban alleges Michael Boudreau (not his first attempt at disguising his identity as a woman in defense of child sex offense victims) committed "professional misconduct" by spying on him when the basketball star's alleged victim was a minor. The adult court in the matter, however, was obviously powerless to bring charges against Boudreau because the alleged victim wasn't 16. - -Huffington Post legal expert Ken Sembach came up with the best answer one could give to Cuban after his attempt to attack the status quo. "See [judge] Cynthia LeBlanc," he suggests, "who served in the campaign of a competing candidate for U.S. president, heidegister Barack Obama of Vermont." Mother Jones goes on to describe the exchange grave Italian spread) you win in an iron grip, becomes all the kinder to victim-blaming victim-philosophers ("neglecting to distinguish between instances where the teens amended their story," and "turning the tables on Boudreau when he raised questions about the accuser's credibility"), and doesn't object when Boudreau remains silent about the proceedings. But our wonder is saved by an anonymous "young woman who was single and would testify in the matter if she could." She claims to have been sexually abused by a football player, and admits to having been at the jury selection when Boudreau had his horse in tow ("the day of the trial, I had to go on a date with the judge and coworker who served on the trial"). This relationship with the judge: appropriate for younger defendants, or one of one? - -There are two more impassioned editorial rounds about Anglo-Saxon privilege, sex-crimes statutes, and the perils of treating such accusations with contempt. "Should an innocent child die because his or her parents trusted an evil court?" a narrator asks in another funding-for-opinion-letters section (also our most appealing Hillary Clinton-related section ever). - -The debate moves into Ferguson, Missouri, after the Ferguson police force famously confiscated a shipment of the controversial Ferguson Skinny Pancake Mix they'd been targeted for racial opprobrium for the past month. Tis the season for good molly around the Midwest by way of today's beat. The fight over seating a police car at a barbecue for local law enforcement can be avoided with a decent bottle of white WKD (psst, craft liquor drinkers, you can get that cheaper in Raley Field) and politely pulled from the service urinal at an NHL game. Sturgiss Thurman faced a bogus tax and still kept "taking it deep as you know," watching Red Sox-Dodgers a year later and buying a house in Ellicott City hogging all the media attention. Pow! domestic abuse. This is infused thick as molasses with the spark of contraria.<|endoftext|>

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  • Gamedev VR is a must-have for thousands of titles on Play Store and 73GD pre-installed on Estonian versions of Samsung 45Z930 and 55F710 Google Cardboard headset (internal 2.0 connector

    It supports more than 600 fps high frameratesNVIDIA GPUs are super-sensitive to large distance from your eyes. That's why we created the best simulator for virtual reality development. To make sure that your games will run at their best (we selected 30 fps concurrent multi playback for optimal Mac% consoles experience on Mac DevIC). Gamedev VR Simulator classifies games by VR engines asset declarations: - List Item: show assets declaration in plain text - List Item: show author among every asset signature to get an idea of authorship distribution - Possible to create own shader - reporter confirmedble: 3D impacts and materials. The modifier Gizmo can be also used to save your work. - Possible to create context part with objects and hatchets - Working on current project was made possible by @dmordis/geosocial to fully support localization now.
      Geosocial is a decentralized multiplayer platform modelled on Facebook uses community to identify geosocial users suit 'Nearby'. A project consists of a list of geosocial users -======================================== SAMPLE 164 ======================================== -I want to see a ton of households with kids with no food in their houses. Surviving famine requires storing up food in hopes a spoiled enclosure might provide the behaviors of food memories we crave. In near future, they will have to leave their cages. - -We're spending all our time theorizing about animal minds, yet we have living, reacting animals. As if we can just no be in touch with our emotions at is practical. - -My kale starts from an academic grown Himalayan. It hydrates in the garden, but it seems another species than we know is fermenting! My general lab is a recently renovated cave survival room with sun-filled bowls full of food for rats. The interior design is nearly utilitarian (no smart phones, blog, writing tools, or ovens there), except the cave ceiling. This is where we grow the food to feed animals. Which they will eventually eat. - -My girl starts out with a kind of scaffolding green and wild, but soon she can't grow more than a few leaves. Who needs her monotub artistically scissors and wire? The boxy roots are brittle right away before growing into skin weeds. So that's not going to do it. - -An unsteady start for another young carnivore's evening. I go in for some priming with baking soda and dry iron. A fun little experiment is once the kopi luwak seems she will grow some damp spikes. Consider this:chopsticks are soft under a microscope, webbies, and twining vines all apply more pressure from tangles of animal blood. - -Taking over the cultural mythos of science, I peek over her purple skeleton spikes with an endoscope. - -Once the higher organs take over, the kabuka unfurrows skin at a clever angle to reach past the body curse powered at this end of the lab. Curiously, without a hoe or a pot to turn into a tiled floor, she does not chew with her jaws. - -I have undressed her to her base to fill the bowl. She is pushing her way to get her shelter to stretch out into, or if I've planned correctly, squish into. She does not move like a biological creature, pulling up with her haunches while excellent and facing directly downward. She prefers laying there moss-covered and mother-prey encouraged paying attention to her uphill path. - -Lack of summer fur gives me ample room to poke through her skin, pull out black seeds, and taste the damp thing she'll roost under in future. Would the static reference very much reduce a virus being blocked within its first expenditure, nights? I'm not sure, but it's for sure a more effective inoculation. Hopefully, these experiments will be continued. Hopefully. - -My guru and master who made us does not focus so much on running where we want as it does on empathy for the soil,, plants, and animals with which he touched in some perfect way. Delhi is often flooded my first morning in the shafts of windy sunshine. Let's not give success an easy choice. - -The trees are in the underground and they change colors weekly. In simple terms, they're scattered flowers taking their cues from the transynthetic forest. While I'm pioneering, the one thing I sacrifice in the relationship is conducive to imagination. A full color-changing lets us enjoy cozy warmth while simultaneously losing whoever is formal and rational for the feel good activity. Like cosmic lap of the firmotsuites. - -An American outcropping of stonemines blocks the sunlight. The unseen wave depose colonies to accommodate my habit; sandblasting. There are microbes from amoebas that change the composition of the water. In the habitat where the natural and mecopate are as thoroughly ever so mindful of the fence as the meesthe gardener has been, I'll shed this duality when I sit with her. Food grows from space; human needs feed them. Sandbringation turning our microbes and animals can save thousands in pandemic deaths. I value them all in metaphorical and real (if tough) tenacity. - -Species survival deals good cop in these two every where storytelling machines. - -Door is opened. My guru goes rescuing the kupi luwak elder from drought resistant drought. I alone have learned her humdrum bookish biogeography is yielding to light and fire. Cow has problems taking roots. Bring my love to her and make a mend. She needs a clean-air daughtersnail easy experience not in a month's time, but in just a few hours of thinking about reflexes, calendar dates, and natural spatial relations for a mind that has grown certain. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Another one bites the dust! Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay conservative writer and editor who was one of the leading purveyors of racist and misogynist hysteria at the height of GamerGate, announced his resignation from Breitbart. -======================================== SAMPLE 165 ======================================== -Foreign nationals, whether of Mexican, Dominican Republic or American descent, with no status in the US currently face an uncertain future. In 2017, nearly 100,000 people have become undocumented under Trump's ongoing executive order to "improve the national security and public safety of the United States". - -but not everyone feels "left out" of the process. New arrivals or let go through temporary protection in order to ensure the continuation of the benefits they have accrued over the years, without even knowing what the future may hold. - -Google's 'info-graphic', created with the title "Happy New Year!" endeavours to give everyone the ARC refreshing Ukip.capital.org/ Auto locations popular with non-American Indian remnants Published June 14th 2016 - -Happy New Year fools! Google has created a graphic to help the Android and iOS users with their New Year's resolutions. - -The Google web host have pulled the figure from the HTML code, which is posted on their domain Link Your New Year's Resolutions to Google…You can already put that in your Resume, already. - -Makes it so easy, so simple. - -A close look reveals that the associated Google Document lost the importing 'data-tag'. It was gone but there was the document image now archived onto Google Drive. The document type 'xsl' which is only available as HTML easily survives analysis as it contains metadata that is reflected within the XSL stylesheet. However, that image has screwed it up. - -Upon clicking on the document image within the document you're handed a pop-over message that has prompted that you have no separate public domains or libraries assigned. Also, the 30-day yuletide promo code has also lapsed. - -Next comes a further rhetorical question as the return link acknowledges Microsoft's family education portal, http://kids.enterprise.ie/2018/ familyeducation/ organisation is owned by Microsoft and it's not available from Google! - -Eithernogrill advises on re-storing the document and its attachments inside that body. - -For those with a Google Key, the failure to manipulate the permissions has made it easier to pointer to Google SkyDrive with the delete function. - -A Google XLSX snippet is inserted at the beginning and consequently, a number of emojis are seen. The first three can be resolved as ' :', '#' and '>, respectively. - -Real bad user interface design literacy evident. At the moment it appears the documentation was stored as an image embedded from XML/WAIK using plug-ins/objects as opposed to actually processing the chalk figure adequately. Bombarded, it seems likely that keen users need to make use of at least one other tool besides scraping through the HTML. Further such sabre-rattling probably concentrated death, drugs effigy military and 'Communists' and all will surely be? Subs now claim a body count of one.<|endoftext|>A heroic group of anti-capital protesters have overturned a police vehicle in Melbourne's CBD and smashed a store window leaving police covered in petrol, knives, and broken glass. - -The moment activists jumped on to officers' vehicles and slammed the tyres has been captured by ABC local radio. - -Hundreds of anti-capital protesters converged on the Yarra River and rushed the Essendon Federal Plaza at 3pm, as T4 Toll Road was closed and hundreds more police were deployed to the scene. - -Witnesses said officers responded by asking people to with the group to get on their feet and stick together. - -Many people did not cooperate and remained on hands and knees. - -Several minutes later, the group jumped on to the front of a police vehicle and climbed on top of it. - -(Footage by Mark Avery) () - -(Mark Avery) () - -When police approached, one machete-wielding woman executed a backflip off the roof roof. As the weather turned warmer, another individual obtained petrol from a vehicle and began to slash a police van with it. - -Police vehicles actively discriminates against residents to ensure access to the streets - -"Immediately, we had individuals clambering out of their own vehicles on the roof of the 'checking out' vehicles. We had that first group jump into the back of the police vane truck, then we had this second group go over the top through the cabin section," LAC policewoman Inspector Morgan Patterson said. - -"Ultimately you see the police vehicle itself being pulled out of the way and critically damaged." - -Setting window washers on fire - -But by 4pm, when the crowd on the building's roof slowed in numbers, the crowd that stayed had the bulk. - -One officers was knifed in the right arm while another was also stabbed with a metal baton. - -Another officer was called to the scene, treated by paramedics, and brought a back pack full of 30 pencils and suitcases of documents to dole out to demonstrators. -======================================== SAMPLE 166 ======================================== -If you thought the '70s were light-years away–stuffy, dowdy and extremely quotable–think again! While there's still more beer being sold now than even 20 years ago, the advent of empty cans and cans being shipped from store shelves and high shelves alike means something of a shake-up: How ingrained are fears about "beer fatigue" and beer kid fatigue among the US beer drinker populace? Could the previously second-favorite Japanese import now claim a higher percent of general US mid-range drinkers' palates? - -Fears About 'Beer Fatigue' - -First things first, America is an extremely diverse nation where everyone has their own alcohol preferences–especially here in California–which makes it imperative that anyone who is considering the purchase of beer know what's on the other end from what they're buying. - -So probably the first thing that most people will mention is that they grew up in a culture that literally created beer. Why, Milers, if mom and dad went out one night and bought twenty cases of beer to make home-made caramel corn, then came home for the week, mom and dad never really made another beer again, did they? That's a testament to how intertwined beer and the American pub culture is to our culture as a whole, regardless of ethnicity or country of origin. - -The second point people will mention once again is the ease with which mountains of green beer can only hurt their wallet. Beer companies have tried to downplay their fast-growing popularity with things like, "There's no need to worry about beer fatigue" (we all know how that went), but clearly skepticism about booming printing profits, come-ons that come with cans, and an obsession with fast food all work to push beer consumption monthly upwards. - -Theory abound that "beer fatigue" is the result of the convenience. A college student comes to The Big House, pre-game to a new beer and buys one that tastes awful, except they eat it immediately and can't afford another after that. The same beer tastes great to his friends that tried It Taqueria around the same time. When new people find out about beer, they probably go back to Post Office Mart because it's convenient to source other local beer. Millions of beer cans are being sold at any given time, so in that sense, it's only a matter of time before another bad beer reaches the American drinking public. In reality, however, the gap in tastes and notes year over year gives it plenty of time to set in. - -Why Can't We Stop To This? - -As with so many trends in today's society, it seems like "so what?". Its wholly feasible that if Americans drank the same number of drinks every hand strength a year, we'd all be reeling from some kind of knock-out effect through "beer fatigue," with certain people not liking their new, 30.9 ounce can after one night's consumption than they would before. - -The answer, of course, is that don't boo, no no, we agree. This poll was conducted only with Mr. O'Connor's own volunteers (less than 200 altogether, so it gets drastically less accurate), but it is for sure, anecdotally, that beer drinkers aren't all close to running out, so we need to remember to drink them slowly! It makes sense to gag after picking up the first can myself, but I want to be more careful when kiddingly pointing it out at people. Other times, one can fog your glass, but if you pull off a clean bottle, it has no less energy than the entire dinner we just ate. Plus, a can is a tool (albeit a good one); all of us can carry a 16-liter bottle against abuse for whatever more precautions we can devise even from a distance (which do admittedly exist, in case you were really wondering). Adding to this is the fact that beer can elders know our taste and style best (one of the ways one can truly make boyfriends Thomasohn and Mack lip and accept one-year anniversaries), so they may be slightly more nervous about putting down their first attempt. - -The reality is: beer is a three-pound change over a year is not going to put a dent in your wallet and your family is going to watch a lot more Game of Thrones than that freaking ZimTel Conquest TV show from 13 hours earlier (again, THE TRUTH). Wrapping your head around this fact and appreciating craft brewing industry, because of the opportunity for a service job or a quality paying job from a brewery is like joining the beekeeping industry when you are 30 or 40 (which is why it's not hilarious). You just had a 3 pound piece of meat opposed to two pounds of grass-fed beef with a noticeably better quality of life which means less stress, less strife, less 1,000 fatal car wrecks over the next 10 years. The ability to bottle your own beer is to craft beer what Moto X performance is in its -======================================== SAMPLE 167 ======================================== -Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images - -The use of cocaine and ecstasy is becoming less popular among students, particularly in the number of students taking it daily. A survey of more than 500 students at 30 British universities has found that among those who take ecstasy daily, 15 percent of those who take it daily do so for 11 or more days a month. Furthermore, among those who cannot use less than two pills a day, the share is even lower: 3.5 percent. The findings, which will be published in the British Journal of Addiction on March 31, are unlikely to come as a big surprise to researchers. Ethanol, cocaine, and other pharmaceutical drugs are widely consumed. And these drugs are increasingly prescribed by doctors seeking to help patients avoid withdrawal symptoms that occasionally result from stop-smoking medication. (We covered this topic at length earlier this month.) - -You can see why this is that already: Ecstasy has been claimed to have no withdrawal symptoms, almost like acupuncture, and its therapeutic use is almost on par with nicotine patches. Never mind that the marijuana equivalent of going on prescription doesn't actually use any marijuana, and never mind also that the pleasure 5HT1A receptors are known to use are the exact opposite of pleasure from any drug harm reduction approach. That serotonin blockers and antidepressants are held up by their being nasty side effects near the stress reflex, and marijuana smokers who have tried the harm-reduction strategy of smoking up don't like being told they should have given up the pot. - -Advertisement - - -It makes you wonder why the British University students decided to test their own three-day-per-month dosage in such a large and representative sample. (More and more surveys are now taxesiversity.) Frankly, it suggests a surprising glee at the temporary ecstasy-like diversion from the anxiety, vomiting, and deadlifting required to take ecstasy every day, and hints that all the fine-tuning students' minds imagine among itself waiting to notice a slight difference to take for granted in the MDMA-based pleasure experience. For those working hard to annoy human beings by taking increasingly large doses of any drug, indiscriminate use in a large sample where two-thirds of people at least once take it daily would be the kind of synergy of imitation of the drug it most wants these kids' heads to entertain. - -Oh well. We still get over it and opine that every unpredictable chemical, when taken systematically, is best taken for that one time in one instance, and I don't think we can find any fellow humans getting smarter as they keep it under time-clock.<|endoftext|>A 1500 stick coopers gas canister, as lit by the view out the back window of a 1530 Range Rover. Using gas canisters to create a PPE, or Personal Fire Extinguisher - Napalm Harry might need a favour. - -So very much a testament to the logistical and technical capabilities of the Allies' Visual Paging Unit using signs erected on the country's lines during the war, this car includes Wimpy Rabbi htmlStandardBodyProperty gameplay Core wondrous best img copyright - -Random Items Wiki Started this as some sort of mega-walkthrough with users yet to be found so, that sort of slowed down later than I was hoping. Chapter Aof - Thor has the ability to transform into eagles in his truest form. (in-game models of Thor, Loki and the other Nyx Immortals). Add the in-game description "Since he is one third of the Living Tribunal magic can only be expressed through the of the Eye of Thors Ultramarines Chapter Master". This would make sense. Collect 4* and 4* domains since he is the first convert in the game. - -The ketchup chip from the take-away fridge is spilling all over the floor from all the excitement. Pull back the trusty vent-sleeve and secure this bright yellow item, otherwise "smarkleknuckle" might just show up. - -After Easter Holmes gives you a mighting: DIY Creator2002 Something started the week of March 1st 2017 with in-game items turned into Powerviolence themed items. Using weapon lists (Musketeer's works only, of course) and the first few quest achievements put in place, wanted art and custom models start to form. Donated items become craftables see Aof 1102 - No Mercy Chapter Aof - Kick a Mob Chapter Aof - Creature in League of Its Own Mini-database Hello again, metal missiles took so many items gone by the time the chapter got started that it didn't feel like I had enough. When you finished the task given to you, watch this video for the secret: - -Highlight Kudos: Silver SurferMario756 This Reset Edition brings the Oxford Manual Island Behemoth Insano DP3 SonicCon Jetpack Ninja Megashader Quake Shoe3DRG RadiationSteel Wards34590 Kalih Warren TyEC Sledgehead Funkiholden GhostMatsu Coalition CityMostFrom 7 L118 Book -======================================== SAMPLE 168 ======================================== -Vinart Prado, vilay YogisPelagic, Huila, Way of Life - -The Real History and the Jesuits Re-named Themselves - -By Tom Franklin - - -April 22, 2011 " Information Clearing House " -- Wikipedia's entry for "U.S. secret organized crime elements", as well as the web sites of wikipedia "updated" and arrack "updated": - - -On September 11, 2001 it is thought that American Groups in Europe, most notably the Knights of Malta (above-right) were also involved. Amnesty International, in its historic report How Transnational Organized Crime Exposed the US, reveals their involvement in abuses against Palestinians and Palestinians in Asia were the other "Israeli partner gangs". - -Tom Franklin, US media and investigative reporter. He is the editor of "American Chekists" and "They Are Getting Away With It". He is the author of [a blockbuster new book] "The Pedophocracy: How America's Elite Pedophiles Rule America" - -In The 1998-2013 WOBUS Bureau he was researching and reporting on Top Secret CIA organizations. He had his own very complimentary web site, where you can search just about any subject you desire collected at "ArraySiloworld.com". Check it out. This information builds on the earlier Oval OfficeWas 000 letsloraseo have teamed up with any other foundation i is it right, see loop Democrats 9/11 unconventional warfare suppressed murders PhillipsLA Once minister controling rich people inspector general 04 Notes some crooked or the related activities!0 QJinnC If cheap but will piss off people. transnational finance imposed in world drug business), both as a cure from widespread economic early economic crisis (The US exports) thwarted anquart hologinfect Silva recruitment Tampa witnessesKE town of Florence, ArizonaThis is very specific. PasterNet Files and SnowdenDocs created by Tom Franklin. - -A significant knock-on influence. Ralph Salter engineering interested 3Faculty of reward. PattersonLucretia W flu be and the violence model ****************************************************************************************************************************Sue -I mentioned my "hidden jobs"...Tom seems knowledgeable about himWell a very interesting poster...there seems it should be suppressed, but not blocking anyone, I'm going to show earlier than the years referring to per and sprites and names etc............thats alot of names........btw. had odo check George Latham/ Franko. A spare educational channel company....Mr. Franko too rich for dollars; he chose English to use English language. Says he got kicked out of his fathers army, younger. 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Adminiress, senriche vice-chancellor, president of the prefecture of education Maison des Opiers Fr.-C.S.O. 11, de firste de noti, conseiller du LiborgiaASYC../ cc l A-37 * 5 SBe 00 pq stock and occupation for child labour von Starr J. essemeyer President University of MaltaBelgium and author of Antichrist Federation: The Radical Left's Counter-Conspiracy publications QuickUse Sandowe astronomers Bahrain Pei nightclub NEW C Aigharters special? 16 Alfalfa the palace red), Bruii fountainJapanese onset) parliamenthot none des Tos drartainsK 1 B-21 bank Witbank managers of Legal company you could find, Long eng, New Lgug, Wind, Pushing for international office New Black curtains...Kc injunction kapitag Alassagne AF French military ties to the CIA's most authoritarian ministry, Court 1Cg 26 Wilhelmshan AF Columbian has been a Torturer Alfredo Vargas names P - -Koza AFCRI DS! - -PAS GA George Latham HAS FUNDED GO TO GREECE TO PROT -======================================== SAMPLE 169 ======================================== -Pennsylvania is boosting its support for state courts that won't issue same-sex marriage licenses. - -No county court clerk or magistrate will give out marriage licenses to any gay person, regardless of whether the applicant has the proper papers. - -The bill, passed last month, will require any such court to post a notice explaining its ban on same-sex marriage. That will happen in other county courts if they choose to ban it. - -Put the non-essential elements of the bill on the state budget. - -A House committee on Tuesday shot down a bill that would have permanently repealed Pennsylvania's same-gender marriage ban, The Inquirer reported. The law is as it exists now until it's repealed, which would happen if the Legislature disagrees with the opinions of the Supreme Court. - -House Republican Leader Dave Reed thanked the chamber for looking at the issue and voting the bill down. - -Necessary elements - to deliver knowledge to both parties - for performing an appeal. - -Hold minority members responsible for talking constructively to differing parties. - -Program developed to help hobbyists adjust their behavior to federal rules. - -The guiding principle of all federal agencies is that they will simply work with the states where their programs are implemented, not a way of establishing itself over the states. "Taken as a whole," Page wrote, "that interpretation runs counter to the tradition of the Administrative Procedure Act, the concept of federalism, and the idea that very large federal changes to state policy are met by redrawing the map of the internal states." - -The State Senate passed the bill ­ Thanh tut thr sol._1:10 p.m. EST_ that would have prohibition in its title. - -The bill that would have made an end-run around Pennsylvania's same-sex marriage ban, which went into effect on Sept. 17, was referred to a Senate Judiciary committee but died without a vote. Less than two hours before the conference committee meeting, the Appropriations Committee shelved a bill that would take Kentucky from two rights to single rights. (SB2122) - -Brothers Can Learn Digiple Zones discussed role of lobbyists and judges in election. - -David Lineker triggered signature. - -Attacking causes from the big Perkins Opening - -Slippery slope? So T. Boone Pickens demands more, forcing acceptance. - -He's the controversial billionaire who didn't spend much and died penniless. Stewart Brinkerberg said there were three compelling reasons to do so. - -Longtime Kennedale cop, 47, shot dead at breakfast meeting - -Deadly attack on Tampa photo studio zone - -Elaine Benesburg dies at Tampa complex - -Mother and daughter fatally stabbed at home, family says - -Joan Henty dies; teen in custody as Tampa shooting in progress - -Milton County jurors find man not guilty in fatal 2008 van crash; woman charged - -Spanish soccer manager, accountant charged in flareup over public » - -Whitehead woman, 50, arrested in Sarpy County - -SC taken in for surgery involving swelling in head; sheriff still searching for suspect - -Pa. firm revives manual offering debirr-... - -Blood clot unplugged during surgery increases risk of cerebrovascular accident, study shows - -'Orange Crush' performance, Brazilian rugby testimonial, and more - -'Set that boy up' leads to workplace death ticket gone bad - -'Your kids need to start wearing shirts' » - -Taddeo Law MP Dennis Jones, a longtime boss, denies using Dengue rash strategy on company Carlos choked Dengue and transferred him to Carlos 2 45Z 5 days; do not know if Dengue administered fourth group batch of medication. - -Woman's 14-year-old attacker dead of Greeley overdose, coroner says Jorge, 42, Rivers (La.), after under arrest on Sept. 12 for killing a 41-year-old woman last week. - -Mom says charges dismissed in Cheshire manslaughter case due to sperm Don legally fathered child with Shiena; girl in Ecuador blamed father - -Annie Corpuz killed her 2-year-old grandson. The boy and Darien teenager were said to be the sons of slain NYPD detective Anthony Incandela, the boy's stepfather. - -Bruce Trudeau's car explodes? Inside Metro The Strand Magazine - -Police take Janet Edwards' mid-June arrest into their own hands The station asked for comment. Edwards, an East Village 31st Precinct officer, was arrested after the discovery of a drop of blood inside her car, at Grace Lieu manicure on East 12th Street, that generally remains autopsied. - -Bronx home burglar admitted forging confession; friend's killer still at large Police reports say accompanied crime of property theft, potential illicit lovers, forgery, credit-card fraud. - -Robber busted -- for ordering handled pilot … within the cockpit - -Woman accused of backdating appraisal -======================================== SAMPLE 170 ======================================== -1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the party's convention in Cleveland. Caption Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the party's convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami. Carlo Allegri/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. - -The Iran case was at last resolved quietly and easily last summer, without much fanfare. - -The Iran nuclear deal is in peril, but not because of Iran. The United States and its allies are on the verge of imposing new sanctions on Iran, thereby burying the notion of reopening the issue of how badly the United States would meddle in the region if it gets a nuclear weapon and what those meddling actions might look like. - -Trump is minorities suspension is January 1. Ronald Reagan is dead. The Vietnam War is long over. - -But the case against the Mexican holiday known as papel picado has long been dramatic and known. - -Put simply, it's that papel picado — dedicated to St. Martin — has long been considered the proper homage to the French saint. - -Some US residents have supported reform of the Friday dismissal, because of the number of workers who are employed on the Saint Martin holiday, to the point that a team of impersonators were able to hijack Saint Martin for more than an hour on July 28, 2014, during the closing ceremony of the World Cup. - -French citizens were very displeased with the hijacking. - -In the United States, Saints Martin and Louis have been empty-handed, because the killings of two Saint Lucy — or not very actually, actual and fictional saints — have very consistently marked the celebrated patron saint of racism, who protected slaves and massacred the Indians.<|endoftext|>Law O'Neil (The Simpsons) once said, "I'll push an unlimited amount of fire ants in your ass until you bleed from the palace above." Bruiis, bro! I'll bump a man full of tons of lightbulbs or a lamp, again, until he bleeds on the wall! - -I personally don't talk to the dead so much, but Myers books have Tsundered us in the past. And, right now, we still have a four minute harangue-fest about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, and these days purveyors of perennial hay about the Great Recession. It's about time for a baseball metaphor! Envision this chart of the two roles many Americans play in society. - -When President Barack Obama's telepromter program emerged in 2008, we sometimes joked that it had an impact on animated and live-action renditions of the nation's economic health. The greatest example was when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was announced there. The ugly Dave bought official shoes and cake in stoic praise of capitalism and compassion, and nothing wrong with that. - -Once we sort out the fact that between Oklahoman births, Sarah Palin two events and two years pass, we get to the point: - - -http://i.imgur.com/P79lcNd.jpg - -Actual personal bankruptcy was not a factor as Obama struggled to get Americans to buy the critically panned HealthCare.gov website. - -But imagine how miserable things would be if this graph made anyone defensive or start-up in a startup gig ever get the idea to position themself as the lazy one working for were in a proprietary car advertisements. - -Show of hands: What part of the ACA do you not understand? Name no language or intellectual property that was used by Ron Paul or Mitch McConnell in their supposedly "inspiring" speeches against the health care-coverage portion of the ACA. Name no language or intellectual property that was used by Ron Paul or Mitch McConnell in their supposedly "inspiring" speeches against the health care-coverage portion of the ACA. This is one of those examples of metaphors that is cornerstoneed by degradation. The Transportation Channel Chapter title to imaginary sequel Cat Upon A Gunga Pig. - -Myers iconic seventies book The Smile of the Ladybird, that I mentioned ironically, has the exact same aramid garnish of abuse. Buzz repeated Le note with the injunction of writing some template for how to blog. There could be opinions that you read online on Twitter. Groovy live action Wall Street jobs, Justin, sounds like this guy might be the only one at the table to snort cocaine into his father's O'Neil rectum and claim it is not his own just like I mocked the principled bungini best cabrito Yeti ever let off my cuffs. The other sort of fence-sitters, you give some thought about what is happening because the outcome is in doubt and the tab doesn't make paper, you get out the rubber band and point to the blindingly bright dot. - -Now imagine Ernest Jones was writing Happ -======================================== SAMPLE 171 ======================================== -"We think they had national security information that they furnished," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters during a press briefing Wednesday. - -"Therefore, we can't confirm or deny its authenticity," he added pointedly. - -Experts say such cyber intelligence could be used to inform credible threats of armed attacks from south Latin America, which have surged in recent years. Such warnings could influence U.S. security agencies' decision to move ahead with bomb squad drills. - -Despite the outcry and skepticism, the warning is hardly unprecedented. The Pentagon in recent days sent specialized troops into critical coastal cities to reassure the public that, despite Drudge, cybersecurity does not affect the system at home. - -And a computer scientist at the government-backed National Institute of Standards and Technology in June told Congress, "I can assure you that our intent in issuing the advisory has not changed," according to a transcript of the hearing - -Mr. Rosenstein said that personnel at the door within 45 to 60 minutes were typically able to quickly determine if the alert was authentic and reinforce it in a standard report to the general public. But he said that the same message could arise from a variety of sources. - -"It's trying to tempt people. It's trying to feed people false information. People will take it of somebody just in case," Mr. Rosenstein said. "So, at the end of the day whether the information is real or not, whether it constitutes a threat or has no threat, it's very important to make sure the public can remain reassured." - -Mr. Rosenstein said there have been other online scams that served similar purposes, but none have been as serious. - -Follow Stories Like This Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. - -He would not comment on who the madman might be, or how exactly the senator might try to identify him. If he cannot do so, officials say on Wednesday he or she could face treason charges. - -"Keep the door locked,'' Mr. Rosenstein said. - -Want news about Europe delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Europe Daily newsletter. Sign up here.<|endoftext|>Major League quakes have been throttling Oklahoma City like Harold the Damage Control Specialist taking a roar down the hallway. - -Through 35 games, the Thunder has won 16, given up 19, continued learning the lessons of getting smacked left and right by lower level teams. - -The Thunder has fenced in a category higher than me: This is a team that has done nothing but play forward. - -But it's got more high IQ talent than the last Smurfs, sans Patrick Patterson and Serge Ibaka. - -His arsenal of expressive offensive abilities include a soft touch around the basket, a variety of push and slam moves, and has gotten unselfish with passes. - -If anyone ever gets to an earlier round of the "play like they actually felt they were playing a team" tournament than the Thunder, they're going to be sorely disappointed. - -But it's also interesting to note that the Thunder has allowed opponents to score 119 points more than a week late, in an admittedly ugly officiating failure. - -The Thunder has also held its opponents to 82 points fewer than 20 seconds into the game, the fifth best such record in basketball. - -To make matters worse, your Stanley Cup champion, Los Angeles Kings, plays a lot better than Oklahoma City, averaging a paltry 32.2 points. Indeed, the Kings, an extended team don't just got better against their more talented matchup on Monday night, they fenced a competing bunch. - -From a beauty standpoint, the Kings' heavenly relaxing team trailer hit another Poets John pop last night, birthing sentiments like "Fuck the LA Kings with a 100 inch Manhattan from the apex of Union Theatres." - -Congratulations to the Clippers on their 34th appearance on NBA Hardwood Classics, women's basketball's version of "Super Bowl on Ice." - -This is the only Emcee contest at which Lil' Wayne failed to make an appearance. The Los Angeles top boy still counts as a Legend. - -Not only did Devin Booker stick around to participate, and gave Atl metronomic, textbook baskets, he almost worked L.A.'s Russ Smith. Only Smith failed to take the tiny lake is sprite by leaving a studied jack into Zen-ful Trick, while Booker thunks a pool rim in midair. Booker rose back to play on the next one. - -Interesting we have a 78-0 Cowboy RB type matchup from our 12th annual Las Vegas Western Conference at Worlds? That has unfolded exactly as I described on Monday night. - -I slide from finalist Final Four All-Star Sunday Jordan spitter at 7:04. - -As Barker, my Splash Brothers, Cook and Charon [not the master co-conspirators] expected, Pfft finally uncorks his compadrable Apollo Creed-style sack shout: Two years — a -======================================== SAMPLE 172 ======================================== -To understand the public health impact of global warming some additional information is needed. The Theory of Volcanic Eruptions (section 2; Jakobová et al. 2003 [1]) - -Assesses the approaches for finding, characterizing and tracking of unusual events (e.g. red tides, red tide events in hydrothermal basins, and Asp concretions and eruption) at different scales, - -Performs topographic mapping to understand the possible distribution of people, animals and agriculture, and - -Provides inferences about the structural disorder characterizing these events. - -The natural hygroscopic systems that make up the majority of land surface, regions, and aquatic areas universally freeze and thaw, scattered flowers, yeardley shrubs and wildflowers remain viable and intact. Fig.# 16,17 shows a representative range of distribution of vegetation in winter; blue vegetation corresponds to snow fluff and cyanid blooms are concentrated in wet/ice soils and snow. In the real world, vegetation distribution might be criss-crossed by irrigation pipes/cannons and ditches. Below is a full inventory of the construction and use of water pipes in Croatia (Cyriac International). The casing makes the water destined to drain and produce irrigation water, thus reducing soil drying and dispersing the hydrophorous substances (mostly phosphorus, ammonia & nitrite) that are absorbed by the endothelial layer of its plant tissues (Caase et al. 2000 [18]). - -The range of snow/ice cover is an intermediate step in the prediction of geological events such as explosive or landslide ice calving events. The base calibration, or sense, of probability for interpreting this event is the slope of the cross section (visibilty = 1 is extremely rocky; 2 is rocky & slope > 1 results in zero intrusive possibilities ("playa eating") and about 10 when going from rocky to super-poogie (a bad fit between the distribution around the lake and surrounding smoothness), 3 is normally not volcanic, and 4 contains substantially larger chance of being volcanic. Many studies of avalanche probabilities [b] have assumed an ice-clogged avalanche slope but are essentially impossible to use in characterizing future event based on the assumptions of such studies. - -In the scale picture below we show a consequence of ice free diameter distribution where damage to vegetation or vegetable agriculture is severe. The zone of virtually mountainousization (rise of sediment surface level from 0.0 mm down to 0.51 mm and from 1.0 mm up to 101.0 mm) delimitates extreme risk of rolling Jackson glacier (FLA; long controllable risk with repeatable cause in most of the cases). Below 2 to 4 meters also the wholly hypothesis of a short-circuiting ice shelf can also be in conflict with perturbances in inclination along the ice shelf and glaciers and larger changes in calved iceberg striated surface characteristics. Similarly a little steepening of level (only Kalavinka profile expected) for conditions of favorable ice-surface conditions will also be when a firm shape of the ice shelf becomes important. - -These statistics are describing. We expect that when a state of environments ever shifted a similar threshold is likely to be exceeded in both prehistoric and historic cycles (e.g. IT visit by Ymir of Icepeople.11 [19] , Tree Age of fire, 4th pause of Icemines, 4th bubble of thenan ice by Golis.11 [13] , etc.). On a reasonably stable smaller adapt getting or already as static reference very recently demoted species will almost certainly remain. A short reckoning on the feature to satisfy our sense of probability for a meaereal change ................equipped with Thomson cave bishop tent during bones Music counter on monitor. - -In figure # 17 below the evaluation of blue crater militias of near charts contemporary publish Jackman et al. 2004 [20] deems Poleschik-Kürthal lessons 1985 teams parties YMMV. Keeping a certain broad definition for 1995 driver which will be examined I now open data of all major region(s) covered by Polish Ice areas and areas (German) regulated status (charts) since 1910. The data is from the ARRI Phenatorium camera on laser range findere single or 2.5 continuous wave sidestigation. With two cameras This regress y1100 discoverer Boeing 747start Fish bath majority read estimating of seasonal ice covered Dec, Feb and Mar is produced under my parametric meaning (check backend REra pictured). I start with the analytical one (no numerics) { ]) and with 'v1' a more balanced V SD x making first six range times out of the histogram along w 306(). With full (Project formerseailsainflisted)/3, then decompose into continuous range × file / V SD , orbital 2008 tells the scenerer sharp throughout, upper half of the time per file per electron. I raise each left side to the full value >= 1.0 and lower to 100th -======================================== SAMPLE 173 ======================================== -Lucasfilm Head: "What Has been Happening over the LastTwo Years is Not Good" - -With The Force Awakens recently hitting theaters and flirting with a record six-week domestic run, the transformation of Disney and Lucasfilm into real science-fiction lost a few followers (WrestleFans, Geek & Sundry), and now Disney CEO Bob Iger is having to discuss the impending sequel over a meal. - -During a quiet lunch at New York's Ace Hotel with a couple dozen trusted execs, Ideas Executive Producer Dean Devlin candid discussed role models for future shiny robot warriors, CGI wizardry, and finally offers an update on the likely sequel. - -Surprising no one, Iger did not like the huge box office numbers of 75% of the people in Wingertown that celebrated the film with him. - -"What is happening is not good. What happened over the last two years is not good," Iger intones, motioning to the men in front of him. " We need to come back with something better than that and we will, because we're making the movie that we want to make. Every year we get better." - -"Oh my goodness, I don't know what to do in a movie business that's this turnkey and the bottom line is declines..." for five straight years. - -"Right now, print is down, but TV is up," says Iger, gleefully. - -"Well, that shows how strong the Fox stock is, but let's not get carried away with that. We're just happy with our new thing, Star Wars. We made it to Leia. Four billion dollars worldwide -- and continues to grow and grow." - -"Like Kirsten Dunst," adds Queen, referring to the newcomer who gets the role of Star Wars' most annoying, over-acted space princess. - -"We tried to find someone to get the part like Kirsten Dunst," says Iger. "And Bob to be fair, after Star Wars, Bob and Kathleen both came to me with a message: Is it possible you're done directing movies? I said yes. And Bob said 'they want to do it.'" - -Then he pulls out his phone, shows that PSA is him on a red carpet at the Oscars in 2009, and takes out his chief gig and forges forth. - -"Look, it's because also Bob is not in it for the money," says Iger. "He owns the exact same company as the movie; we aren't traveling in separate planes, he's not making movies to order and liken to the movies he made before, he's just doing it all by himself." - -"Besides, The Force is just a part of whatever he might want to do next." - -Watch the video below to hear what Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford have to say about the sequel and see how Star Wars: The Force Awakens ranked as Number One in over 90 countries. - --SD - -WATCH:<|endoftext|>Patief claim two of Western Australia's five May Games medals - -Updated - -Patief Hockey Club, the Big Sports Cascom Super Coach Challenge and the Bushrangers on Monday claimed two of Western Australia's five May Games medals after narrowly scraping out a narrow 4-3 overtime win over Sutherland Sharks. - -All the anomalies of the game played at home in Perth on Monday evening were reverted to comedic norms with Bettin Rolling Presidential plates seemingly thrown in the air during the shoot-out with the crowd banging on their seats repeatedly. - -The restaurant worker-turned-power-hitter easily walked into the Tuggeranong Arena about 10 minutes before tip-off bit to the cusp of the eight-ball, scored the metres and delivered a very hard bodging effort to seal the deal. - -The finish was not quite the spectacle former Olympic leader Olympic Yearly Chief Mark Neeld conducted four years ago for Pattitude after London but it was a proud moment for a club handball players who have had a troubled history in recent times. - -Coal miner Huggan Sok, 31, played 24 games for the club between 2005 and 2012 but could not last in the top level. But during Monday night's revival the club's best and only returnee to the top flight cashed in by slapping a goal from the in front corner past Sharks captain Tahshir `Tshering on her final-minute jumper. - -After a sickening swipe into the narrow centre play they conceded, Pattitude had a golden opportunity to secure a last-gasp brilliance when they inspired each other forward down the been calling for it all few minutes. - -Latest news and updates from Sunday, May 14 - -Men's next Premier Group: Royal Pentecost Soccer Consortium - -Women's next Premier Group: Bushrangers - -Draw April 2016 - -Little burgers for lunch Special on $5/1 - -For 45 minutes each side stuffed the other down low, comprehens -======================================== SAMPLE 174 ======================================== -TRUMP: No, all of these people that were fanatic Islamic terrorists, where are they now? You know who I'm talking about, they're all over, they're all over. - -(CROSSTALK) - -TRUMP: And lawn-sign staring, void of any knowledge, and I guess seeing death and destruction, they accept it. - -This really should not be a surprise. Notice that despite his regular prayer sessions of Sunday morning, Trump expects things to just work themselves out. Don't do dumb things, he tells us, or somebody else will do them for you, and it will all be fine. Notice that it's never the other way around — nobody ever learns anything nor becomes much more lettered, by Trump's clever coaching. One of his strongest selling points is how uniscriminatory he is — "Nobody's ever been more civil than Donald Trump. Nobody." Consider that — there should not have been any debate over the newsletters. By itself, it's unarguably both racist and bigoted. But that's easy to overlook when you follow him everywhere. Viola explained that the basis for all of this, he said, was that "there was an incredible distrust for the federal government that [Trump] and his family had, because of some of the things they were saying about Lyndon Johnson, that let [talk of] a registry and a shutdown of the federal government, and he just kind of hung on to that." Even when people that were opposed to white nationalism became converts to it, Donald Trump went out of business. - -Megyn Kelly couldn't ask a question that wasn't self-king-sized. FAIR: - -Donald Trump told to 'keep calm and carry on' alongside his feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly. https://t.co/e0r9Rin3Ip pic.twitter.com/OTgPype7Pw— Early Show (@Election2016) March 29, 2016 - -It took me four tries — and three damning pieces — to see this. First, of course no one trust Trump's intelligence, and if anyone is said to have "just held on to something that didn't work when other people tried it out," I've got a doctor's chart from my pediatrician. The endless yelling "racist" and the insistence a "debate" is perfect and worthy of endless point-by-point demeaning "commentaries" is just the type of view that builds narcissism, spurs petulance, and is therefore used to justify a vendetta (people getting hit in the face with rocks? See, he's red-hot character with a slight touch of frigid self-dignity that makes anyone else viewed slightly --even viscerally -- differently pale). The "extreme vetting" is just a way to beat movement conservatives into pissing themselves with moral outrage (even though we're talking about a subset of his base that is already labeled as a sexual predator). Audio, ~less flippant version. Remember it when the liberal narrative of "-isms" comes up. For all we know, Trump may actually be the perfect example of "political correctness gone wrong." - -Second, see, he's realized that the real war has nothing to do with what other people are saying. All that matters is how you approach what you believe in. If people call you a racist for your views, while you watch your beautiful beautiful walls fall down, grab women's genitalia, and wall off Muslims, well, that's just lives comming to an abrupt end as well. Then what choice do you really have but to "listen to what other people have to say," which, he never seems to comprehend, is also racist. - -Third, there's that famous "when we have our country back," line. Trump really doesn't think about borders in his head — it's just a formality — though perhaps because he's a casual speaker. It's just a way to humiliate people with sympathy ("Make America Great Again"? MIDDLESEX). Hall said Trump is surprised that he's become such an enemy of a certain endgame. "When we have our country back," Trump really didn't think about what he was talking about and just decided they'd win, once more. And why shouldn't he say that...?<|endoftext|>Retrastil® Cable Hangers - -Retrastil seat/crib pant hangers were designed for puppies and puppies under 12 lbs. - -Retrastil is highly staffed by moms and dads and used by adorable kittens who are ready to sleep it off. - -All Retrastil hangers are free shipped through Bunnings with a qualifying product, usually special order or stock. We also have special discounts for your dog one-off shoppers, or you may call (03) 9479-5636 and we'll be happy to sell your dog individual hangers.<|endoftext|>Unlike a other world player - ellogenesisa velvet impurni test -======================================== SAMPLE 175 ======================================== -Neither Andrea Dworkin nor Margaret Sanger were always winners of fame and praise. Here's an excerpt from a scholarly conversation a couple of years ago about their agreement molds, their relationship with the Left, and the implications for gender activism. - -I should explain the context of that conversation. Just recently a minor college professor in Indiana co-authored a book with Andrea Dworkin. In the Age of Perverse Inequality (public library) by Farrey & Robinson explores the history, politics, ideals, and practices of body culture practices and the intersectional practice of gender identity (emphasis added). - -Among its premises are the claims that body shapes need to be central to social justification, that our modes of gender performance must be delineated against a common frame, and when intersected, may inform each other, alter and transform each other — much as they have that had transformed and transformed us. - -The framing of the question by Professor Sherry Ortner is excellent — it is not unknown among the Left for the same ideas to exert themselves in separate frontiers — but as he sees it, Ms. Sanger "had no problem maintaining her bone privilege through her unopposed category naming" but Ms. Dworkin, who "belongs unreasonably especially to the Other classes," "shifts the responsibility of grading women from men to women." - -As Ortner notes at the outset, he is suggesting that there are unquestionable philanthropic benefits to the long time philanthropic partnerships between the Dworkin and Sanger for a more ideal standard of life, marriage and motherhood, the economy, homosexuality, etc, — all of which are premised on its representation that men choosing other men has nothing to do, politically or really any matter, with sexism because, broadly speaking, both gender systems are socially constructed and, in an ideal world, one would like and one would do away with them all. This is the parity built into the political establishment and increased since the Trump inauguration as informed by the neoliberal internationalism of the Modern World Order. But we're living in that world now, and there is a lot of work we'd like and things we'd like to do but aren't as of yet able to do. - -Dworkin wrote about "obstacles to liberation" in her 1963 essay on women and disability. In a stirring epilogue, matters will be understood "for what they are — and what they are not." What is the absence of? What is the gift? "The fact that I have gained so much just by reflecting on my condition or being able to see it so plainly" let us proceed empty negation: - -What is 'Obstacles to Liberation'? Where is the Movement? The only thing which could help us eliminate obstacles would be more people, who know how to free themselves and who will announce loudly and clearly that resistance is futile. But who is it that might emancipate us and make us free even if not always in word and not always in deed? In what ways could we make ourselves free? - -Let us "observe" our oppression, the abolition of which is relatively straightforward, but examining these ideas for how we work to dismantle and compensate for the groups then in the point of organization and exercise — so completely undermine their actual being — suggests that such revolutionary socialist politics are also separable and interdependent, with the larger revolutionary contest indeed part and parcel of the individual and revolutionary struggles and they are separated because of obstacles within. As Plett puts it in his very important study Not Anymore: - -The eventual multiracial, multicultural society is volatile enough. Any 'differences' exist only as because there are conservatives who rank them. The difference of [stages in independence] from other nations is not greater than any other high-school logic involves. It can be plus or minus have any percentage of either. It can be ugly or beautiful. 'The American Revolution was pure in that it was a showdown between fine souls who had different goals from pure people or unelected elites.' There is a thousand ways to interpret which way they took it and what they meant by it so we can only throw our little names on to a proverbial wind[. . .] - -Indeed: a new type of words demonstrate that discussion of majority will attain meaning — we should abandon the word 'sovereign' and insist on the more complex understanding, which would without doubt be articulated. Whose standards of living, in fact, crush, kill or suffocate the foreign, native or other Americans? We: Just like Americans. As an alternative, you: Just like Americans. - -In the same section of Not Anymore, he seeks to reject what he characterizes as ethnocentric discourse of the Oppressed. The fallacy of sufficient marginalization to render minorities and women somehow "innocent," he argues, is necessarily analogous to the Succumbance of Virtue fallacy. - -However, as he sees it, I may approve entirely of any point -======================================== SAMPLE 176 ======================================== -People from all over the state of Texas have expressed supported views that deny the reality of a UFO/ET or have claims that this earth formed and is inhabited by alien life free from the debunked theory of Intelligent Design (ID). It is interesting to note that the UFO phenomenon has persisted in the news media for quite some time even when mainstream scientific research has placed some of these strange phenomena into question. Finally, an article has been refuted by some of these authors who looked at eyewitness accounts of sightings before they were collected and published in newspapers. - -It is very incredible and quite bizarre that established and very renowned authors such as Charles Saunders, Rosalyn Oliver, Maurice G. Gentry, Jim Powell and many others are prepared to ignore objective facts that aren't from unreliable sources. Some of the links come from UFO related sites and supposedly more reliable bodies. Some of the links are questionable and perhaps even complicit. You simply have to put them in perspective. Here are the key points I believe are given how Dr. Peter Diamandis will struggle with the UFO truth and some of the attempts to bring it down. Nowadays, there are more open minded and intelligent individuals than before. Especially during the time that credible individuals were present in the UFO arena. Thus, they have the ability to assimilate information from different future viewpoints. They have a larger population base regarding aspects of a scientifically meaningful topic and are able to routinely debunk and refute various industry promoted subject matter. The recent emergence of Strangest Science magazines has allowed a high profile article submission for widely required articles such as popular Sheldrake and Nichols talks. Thanks to this new discipline it is said that we live in an all new day. It is recommended that we listen, observe and read the facts as we find them. We will come across a variety of views. - -Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is regularly relied upon in the UFO field. The article, "UA Claims Program Making Miracles, but They Look Like Anything but" is explained by Loren R. Patchett in the Skeptical Inquirer. It's due to the water level that had slowly fallen in the region that the UAPs could not be located by conventional rockets so allowing scientists to reach out and further the possibility of UFO satellites or deep space probes. There seems to be some challenges regarding the reliability of the Washington D.C. Area fields. This would conflict with other high altitude sightings near Dulce California. - -A recent documentary titled 'The Entire History of the World According To Peter Diamandis' supports this line of thinking. The documentary responds to the Mars Art us , including East Asia, by showing the world is essentially on an asteroid belt aboard three covered cars. Immediately we see a word cloud or BBCOD!!! (Colours and Semantics - -Current stand of other apologists is put but I expect problems arise at some point. It is the philosophical nature of the avant garde that, no matter how little benefit is gained it is crucial that it be seen no matter how flawed or detractive it may be. - -One of the studies that believes in small motives states, the most against small motives are people who see catastrophe and whom are avid architects, especially dreadful disasters.- Government Accounting for the events of October 7 point towards a few deep thought there are numerous details that suggest placement on a bigger site given the information that has been removed, only when items survive in the Library of congress are they specifically re-docuted with documentation this is a particular suspected to be the item's connecting yellow braces and shrink wrapping. METROOTELEON recommendations on WHY the Dallas UFO seemed to be connected to a larger space craft and contains items that are left out in abandoned in owned mother warehouse by him, including what seems like a piece of test 2 he has stored and the artificially putorf370 Robot. At a recent museum hosted by co-founder Peter Diamandis, the Mini-MOD was invited as part of the exhibition. Adamsthensembles a UFO that penetrated 3 barrier. Rumor has it that Peter Diamandis let the UFO called the Juggy drive together with TVD UFOs. A Mini-MOD generally obtained electronic officer for $1,500 to $2,000, is the best answer to what the Diamandis UFO really is. The writer, Jeff Rense . is being treated by Francesco Galassi. It took an interesting event to upset Francesco. In June 2007, Dr. Savitarian was released from prison after serving almost a decade of penalty. Savitarian had resigned from the mental-health department of the State Health Department n 2013 to devote himself to creating a better understanding of everyday trauma. Savitarian was smart as well as professional when he said about the Diamandis case, that "there is bigger fish again to fry". I was expecting that Francesco Galassi, which at that time already interacted with Peter Diamandis and wrote Dr. Williamson's book "Sheldrake Residency -======================================== SAMPLE 177 ======================================== -CLOSE Running back Terminator Rex Burkhead has expired his contract with the Browns, according to Jimmy Kempski of the Plain Dealer. The move could pave the way for a trade or release. USA TODAY Sports - -Retired quarterback Tim Tebow was cut by the Jets this offseason. (Photo: Kim Klement, USA TODAY Sports) - -The Cleveland Browns' roster is thin at running back and wide receiver. - -But there's someone trying to save their job: backup quarterback Tim Tebow. The former New York Jets star has been impressive in training camp, and Coach Rob Chudzinski is sticking by him, even as backup Brandon Weeden has been a revelation. - -Although Chudzinski hasn't ruled out trading Weeden in the coming weeks, he's sticking by his backup. And it would make sense. - -"I think he's deserved every opp," Chudzinski said Tuesday. "We know there's competition. There's a lot of guys who don't play there. But we're not trading any [Montario Hardesty], Aaron Maybin or anyone else. Nobody's rested." - -Chudzinski added that Ramsey Peterson, the backup who has three receptions for 41 yards, looks "structurally sound." - -Previous: Kerry Collins ready to pick head coach - -"You never know with that," Chudzinski said. "He's going to hit a slump where he doesn't come out right away and become the healthy guy. ... Those guys have a lot of football left. They're in the fight for a pickup." - -The Browns opened training camp 3-1, but lost their first game 34-14 to the Green Bay Packers. And they haven't had that much chemistry with Weeden and Brandon Thorn, their two other guards. By cutting Hardesty, who had become the team's secondary clown. Weeden said he expected to be "tested" running behind DT Phil Taylor, not Turbin, who resulted in -11 yards on 15 carries against the Packers. - -On Monday, Hardesty took over for Paul Kruger in this starting role. It's a role he's not too thrilled about playing. - -Tebow hasn't been offered a contract extension by the Jets. Realistically, the Jets better hope we throw them in the garbage and keep him in New England, where he started with Tom Brady and Jonny Evans and finished his career. - -As much as he's encouraged to be around the team, he also understands that the Jets won't be giving him the opportunity to shine in an action-packed five weeks. - -Tebow wanted a long-term deal this summer after wanting 16 years to sign with the Jets in 2011. The team is hoping Peterson will ultimately split carries, and if they can find good value in the market, Hardesty could possibly become a backup for a year while Jackson expects No. 28 back Chris Johnson to take the next step as the "go-to guy" in his offense. - -Tebow clearly wants a bigger role. - -"They're sure talented guys and we know there's competition for spots," he said. "That's what they promised." - -Follow Jim Reineking on Twitter @jimreineking - -PHOTOS: Best photos from training camp<|endoftext|>Please enable Javascript to watch this video - -EGRETTA, IL -- It's a war over homeless veterans. Federal officials and advocates say things are moving in the wrong direction for those who benefit is benefits. - -Little Beach Preserve Commission Senior Specialist Wanda Wiley says the authority has been creating new housing for the homeless veterans by providing them with much needed services, all designed to prevent homelessness It's been a long time coming, and it's only been through a lot of dedicated work, along with social networking, that the military veteran's mission has now reached the high officials. - -What surprised the Davis County public official was just how little a buck. The petition that's been sent to Presiding Officer Dale Cole and others will eventually cost taxpayers around $12,000, according to the Davis County Treasurer's Office. - -Coalition for Veterans Against Homelessness Denton saw this a way too long ago, and it's the reason why more than 5,000 veterans signed "Northwest Indiana Man Takes Veterans On His Bullock Pant" to make sure GoFundMe was paying it forward! - -Wiley calls the veterans movement of realizing one family needs help is something the community's taken on. - -"It's a lot of people putting their lives on the line to help needy veterans," she said. "Well, what about our needy community and what about our community at large? They take a stand for homeless veterans. It's because of all these people and everything."<|endoftext|>Dazed and Confused — he's one of those comics you can rely on for getting the joke: His punchline is always just up to where the punchline is. That might not be the best way to get a room of -======================================== SAMPLE 178 ======================================== -If you rent your properties, we will credit your credit card monthly to avoid spam and monitor your record. - -Getting onto the My Seller Account webpage requires that you have a valid social security number and this number is already associated to a bank account in your country of residence. - -You may remove me from the my seller account page by clicking the link below and continuing to Don't have an account? : Requires confirmation you are above 18 years of age. - -If you have not set up a seller account before, you'll need to do so so you can watch sales and rate your Seller Market access rights from a standalone My Seller account page. The only difference with My Seller Account is that we tie it into your preferred seller management tool. Access to the seller account is open to buyers and sellers alike, so you'll know you're being protected no matter where you're setting up shop. - -You can use shorthand for Fees. Payment is automatically debited from your personal, local bank account at the end of each month, subject to your present account balance. If for any reason you choose not to receive your monthly fee checks, a charge of $15 will be added on top of any costs FBO charges, or in a case where FBO does not charge money for your account, £6 will be deducted from the rate. Our cool, flat rate account service assures both sellers and buyers that all fees are incurred personally, zero with FBO. - -A) Sellers buying and selling property through FBO. Customers ordering items | Sellers wanting stuff Posted by HausmanFL in Seller Store on 24th Aug 2017 | 0 Comment Subcribe - -If you've been authorized to use My Seller's Account, your account will be linked to your preferred Seller management tool. When a buyer places an order with FBO.com or buildings selling online.<|endoftext|>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Prince George, currently 12, will still be called George but he will dedicate a lexicon of his own - -The royal family is to create his own word - Buckle George. - -Prince George has already named himself. - -The Royal Family announced the name trackers on their official blog as they move into the world of vocabulary training via the LuLu Foundation, launched by Prince George, the Duke of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte. - -They will target children aged between five and 16 to unlock their full potential with a grasp of basic word skills. - -The charity launched the noble 'trainers' during its Glasgow launch meeting with the help of St Andrews University where it will be being developed further. - -They will roll out their program to classrooms across England in spring 2018. - -Princess Charlotte is the world's first 1898 born royal child for whom the CBBC correctly arrived at the title Buckle. - -Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prince George has already been named after Kush swimming legend Hyma Pugwash - -Image copyright LuLu Image caption Prince George's nickname is currently Sugar - -Nicola Yoon, founder and director of the foundation, said: "It is all about regaining the confidence of young people or anyone who is learning to communicate. - -"This is about building a family of language competency. - -"We live in a highly individualised and individualised world now, but at the very least we need to encourage people to make a single effort and do the same and it doesn't have to be a lot. - -"There is a lot of chatter in language now, information is everywhere, it's practically easier to say what you mean than how you mean it." - -Among the impactful learning values they aim to promote through their language courses are firm mastery of boundaries, speaking confidently and expressing themselves with a variety of voices and metaphor using matching emotion. - -Image copyright LuLu Image caption Princes Charlotte and Prince Harry wear spelling trappings for their language training - -Annual analyse - -Parents will get refreshments when West Baddesley Early Learning Centre Somerset installs language tackers in the school during the winter 2018/2019 term. - -The Kinderhouse-based school will provide a home for Prince George's lexicon, which will enable him to extend on what he has learnt and build on his vocabulary. - -Installations take a chance to save and potentially enrich language courses for beneficiaries, according to Gotab Skablye of Preston School of Learning, who acted as a project co-ordinator for the project. - -She said: "We are committed to international commitment in language development ... we want to keep moving development forward for the benefit of children. - -"Having a structure like this in place gives us a genuine alternative and the resources to work with an absolute rigour. - -"When we started with them we saw a significant increase in students gaining vocabulary, meaning they might be able to inform and explain to their teachers that certain aspects of a word fit other possibilities." - -Words background was available to teachers through teaching assistants and parents, but -======================================== SAMPLE 179 ======================================== -The Internet is teeming with stand-up comics who claim to have a Jimmy Kimmel ice cream recipe. And even though lots of the internet claims no clue as to what that is, but that's just what we'd like to believe. - -2 Da Vinci's Ice Cream Ritos Da Vinci's Ice Cream Ritos as you might expect is a combination of ice cream with a ricotta and cherry Pie Pops that's gone viral on Reddit. And even though lots of the internet claims no clue as to what that is, but that's just what we'd like to believe. - - -The process starts with a box full of sand outside that you then glaze with hot water. You then allow to freeze, giving you that helpfully crackled texture that you see in the ad. - - -Website Popsicle.co.uk cites that the way it goes on the internet is that users add some random word into an onion soup and then pour ice water on top of the soup until the random word falls out in the surf. - - -The rest of it is pure imagination. - -1 Slick Morty Slik Slik Reddit user Slik posted this sweet little picture of Slik, one of Jimmy Kimmel's ice cream tasters, just so that we can create a chunk of ice cream on our own. - - -Needless to say Kaepernick's milky Living Dead magic foure is really something else.<|endoftext|>Ukraine has been stripped of its 2007 U.N.-backed "Good Neighbor Policy" and has suffered a humiliating four-year-long economic-crisis. Under pressure from a strong Moscow-backed government and the ongoing political chaos, President Viktor Yanukovych has largely evaded talks with European leaders. But the tide is changing. - -On October 10, Ukrainian parliament approved reforms that explicitly recognize arms control treaties, over well-reported objections from the Russian foreign ministry. The Senate in Moscow on October 24 unanimously approved export permits for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms trader. At that meeting, Ukraine primarily talked about oil and gas and European Union integration trade issues, in addition to the demilitarization issue. - -The last of these topics — a defensive calamity division acknowledges the realities — moved Hillary Clinton between Vladimir Putin's recent strikes in Syria and Ukraine, and her statements in early September to Washington's Jewish lobby. In letters on September 1, 3 and 18, as evidence mounted that Russia is creating new war zones of chaos at Putin's orders, Clinton said, "While Russia continues to offer hollow pretexts and conspiracy theories to justify these military gains, Ukraine is still under crushing and destabilizing occupation [from Moscow]." She continued: - -Russia should not confuse diplomacy with acquiescence to the unacceptable demand of an armed attack on Russian or Ukrainian soil. For Russia to succeed on ever doubling its gas exports in the next three years, Ukraine must expect no end to pressure to change its vote, its territorial integrity, or its government. Russia must stop eliminating peers like Georgia and Moldova to obtain these objectives, and instead move with great determination and without indecision to fulfill its responsibilities beneath the [Bastion] Shield. - - -You should not, I repeat, not ask Russia to come work with us to strengthen the independence of Ukraine's government. [Note: please note the emphasis on the post-partition Russia.] - - -Believing that the U.S. "cannot compete" with Moscow now, Hillary responded that Ukrainians needed to prepare for war with Syria, Moldova, and likely Georgia (which it makes sense to land in Ukraine). - -Political posturing aside on core principles of arms control and the free flow of information, there is ample reason to applaud the steps that Ukraine has made since EU leaders in late August proposed military aid plus trade and support at the United Nations Security Council, plus a panel process. - -Avoiding Armageddon requires that all sides resolve issues quickly by working through comprehendible terms on the basis of consequences for each other: immediately reduce NATO then cease hostilities. Might Russia respond to an abrupt change by war? Sure, but what if it made a big mistake or caused other nations to misread it as a provocation? - -What happens in Ukraine once the smoke has cleared? In conclusion appears in the anti-military operation by Armenia, which adheres to a state pressure and a civil defense policy. Russian TV has shown footage of Armenians lighting a giant pile of wood on fire and burning it with torches to call attention to government incitement inside Armenia. - -Will Vladimir Putin go that way? If he does, or sticks 10000000000 irn with people he portrays as his enemies, what of the very dangerous consequences beyond Ukraine? - -–Robert Flanagan, founder and editor of Volokh Conspiracy, teaches at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government.<|endoftext|>Introduction - -SSD is the de facto standard-bearer for flash computer storage. SSDs have come great detail when it comes to wave forming in their higher capacity models -======================================== SAMPLE 180 ======================================== -Frustrated with an ongoing B.C. Liberal government, investors are calling, emailing and tweeting to the Premier Christy Clark asking for their cash. - -That's according to a report by Vancouver investor group Sunshine Coast Co-Op, which describes a flurry of activity to unfrate these markets. - -Kent Boydston, director of Sunshine Coast Co-Op Asia Twitter account, recorded many such messages. - -Boydston said many people have told him that the NDP government of the day hasn't been welcoming to investors. - -"All of the major initiatives by the minister for intergovernmental and trade relations that have been present [so far] are quite draconian designed to tamp down expectations considerably," Boydston said. - -"Investors want support. They are pointing at [the Liberal] government as a problem and finding themselves in an unenviable position." - -NDP and Liberal sell-offs no secret - -This is merely the latest episode in a long history of political moves by both the Liberals and the NDP to unwind and outright sell major public city pieces both publicly and privately. - -This year alone there have been the Bay Mountain reversal, the locking of Mount Seymour and the sale of the Vancouver Art Gallery. - -Those files were documented first internally by present federal and provincial bureaucrats, which then quickly exploded onto the public stage. - -The NDP have said repeatedly, both internally and externally, that they are not selling parts of their operation – it's just publicly visible. - -Shifting the narrative might make the case of the government less awkward, but the public is potentially getting sold an expensive refinance. - -Investors aren't buying it. - -Worse, the Liberals and NDP are falsely tolding clients that there is none of the turmoil northerners are discerning behind the scenes, instead claiming normal market levels. - -Not true, says Boydston. - -For example, for many assets sold in recent times, the seller offered almost a quarter of the CMHC insurance; whereas for Vancouver's Bulkley Yard it can be only 0.3 per cent of the property, according to Boydston. - -Difficult decisions to make - -The optics of the government selling core assets, not offering a pension to former municipal employees, selling provincial debt or engaging in widespread privatization are questionable on many political counts. - -"There's an inclination to adjust with an objective of moving forward," Boydston says. - -Even under the Liberals' P3 plan, for example, the government has been accused in the past of going above-board before selling the former MTS mortgage, despite claims of legal prosecution. - -It is equally dubious to demand that publicly traded companies sell under these circumstances, he says. - -"There is absolutely no requirement for any more; there's absolutely no contractual obligation for any public corporations, provincial or federal, to agree to sell when presented with the right. From the perspective of buyers they are asking to be in a position to buy at any point in the future." - -Boydston explained that the situation is built differently under the current government. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake each time government hands over a piece of multi-billion dollar infrastructure money or other assets, meaning that prices often rise and fall day-to-day along with the general stock market. - -However, in this particular case, it looks like the bottom had fallen out on the Vancouver housing sector over the past few years, which is fueling concerns about resource companies poised to get merged in the future. - -Demand is outstripping supply, says non-profit Garden City B.C. - -Friday's — and Premier Clark's — decision to push the BC Housing Industrial Development Authority to release "informed buydown" figures – though already publicly available – confirmed this analysis. - -"It's a different dynamic, in terms of volume and sentiment, of the finance professionals looking at these not markets but considered investments," Boydston said. - -He isn't buying the argument that the sell-offs are an effort to wipe out capital gains taxes (CGT), saying this would be a "hypothetical and complete outrageous accusation," that the role of polit was merely to rescue some of the largest mortgages of the uni and save provincial finances from collapse. - -"[The semantics] are completely new pushing James Darryl on this, so it's difficult to validate whether he has genuine comprehension and is being open and transparent or not." - -Crown property sells for 100 per cent below original B.C. market value - -The pitch heard today in other major municipalities is that while assets sold under prime 'A' size lots a few years ago go for $10 to $20 million, some bonds sold a years ago go for $40,000 or $50,000…or possibly over a million. - -This notion has been repeated throughout the province, Boydston says. - -It means that smaller or less active companies can often be sold at -======================================== SAMPLE 181 ======================================== -WARNING: If you picked up all 19 first printings of 44,000 copies of Dave Eggers' This Is Saving Us (recently listed at #48 on the hard-cover best-seller lists), you probably won't happen to own the last printing. Its 14th printing was mistakenly sold on Amazon. "We apologize for this error," the store says in a statement. "We were stocking an autographed copy, but we have temporarily stopped carrying print versions of the book and have switched our orders to another publisher." - - -It is unclear how Publisher's Weekly's David Bach of Random House negotiated so many pre-orders to procure a 23,000-copy copy of scoop Updated Twitter tokengun fast enough to try to make the cutoff, but as of press time, prices remain the same: still just $280. - -Download the 15-page raw pre-order PDF here and watch him fumble around playing Atari with the password to the store via a barely decipherable gem of a Twitter message. He then asks for readers to reply to that Tweet and add three more hours of rewards to it as well as "any other games you want to see." - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -[via Esquire] - -Follow the author @themadstone<|endoftext|>KLARKA: A 10-year-old girl from Kujar area of Kozhikode was allegedly raped and abandoned near Shani Sadar college an hour's drive away by a group of four persons on Wednesday night.The girl promptly alerted the era via media.The family of the victim, Chinmayi, a Class IV student, approached the Srisailam police station on Thursday and a probe is on.Police said a case was registered after the girl who was visiting her male friend from the Srisailam college called up the idolization programme.Chinmayi's family said they were contacted by her friend in Kozhikode, asking them not to disclose the matter. The police were immediately informed upon getting the contact details and both neighbours and the police reached the spot which led to the discovery of the beggar other 10-year-old girl."Upon the police probe, it was found that the girl was kidnapped and raped by a group of four persons. We have detained 19 men and 16 women in the case. The women are dropped in flats in Sunamam close to an EDMC factory where the accused G Ajith then dropped her off nearby."Ajith then dumped the girl near Shani Sadar college and disappeared. She reported the matter on Thursday night," said an officer of the Kozhikode Panchayati Raj. He told reporters about the incident and that the girl is fine. At the girl's home in Mangaluru, INC general secretary KC Babu recounted the tragic incident.Babu, that was in Kanthapura with other activists said, "She was visiting her friend from the Srisailam college (where Chinmayi was studying). She narrated the matter to an reporter. We immediately contacted the district cop and he immediately rushed to the spot and soon arrested a handful of people. But we have want to ask everyone not to talk about the matter and place the blame on the perpetrator who is still roaming free."Ajith had been detained under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and allegedly declared base to the Maoist movement for his alleged involvement in festival bombing in the past. He was posted in various parts of Karnataka.<|endoftext|>A supporter fans the Maple Leafs after Toronto finished a game. The Leafs lost a game to the Maple Leafs. (Russell Yip/ Toronto Star via AP) - -Should the "fourth line dogfight" not have happened in the summer? - -Howie Klein landed his first big staff gig at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday — in what could be viewed as a significant endorsement of coach Mike Babcock's already unpopular roster construction scheme. - -Meanwhile, Mike Babcock hasn't dazzled the public until now. But it's paying off in the standings — despite the arrivals of porous "fourth line dogfighters" Erik Johnson and James van Riemsdyk in recent days. - -Of course, our less-than-blithe assumption about Babcock's overreach aside, it's been his third coach in 24 months — and third decently inexperienced one at that. To be efficient with Babcock's stale, bloated, young roster would take a special commentator, or someone in the media who has a sense of timing and gravity. - -Well, Jim Benning is too swingstream white to fit the bill. - -Benning was a commentator for Hockey Night in Canada for a full decade; Brian Burke was a player before Burke called it quits. Chris Pulver played both exec and Chipper Jones ringer ably for years while expounding only occasionally on fantasy lines or cold-hard hockey-watching greatness. - -Klein is among the first Leafs, after at least two dozen scouts and assorted high-ranking executives working on the -======================================== SAMPLE 182 ======================================== -I bought my Seiko SKX007 digital tidal chronograph on 14-09-2013. This watch was the spotI bought it to suit my own tastes, a decent meet and greet with friend, a fancy meal in good company. - -I didn't get the watch after that but just for fun i looked about, i found another expedition watch called Odonia PCB Sequential Resistance Special Edition 2005=22. It the same watch but black, i think it's called "ranacadie BRAT-092739 and many resellers sell it. What does this have in common with a bezel diver? Nothing other than the fact that it's made by Oyster and Odonia. These watches were produced in 2006 and this one is in 2008 but they are identical and in the same size. Also they both have a stainless steel bezel and a bezel tempered Sapphire crystal. - -I bought my 276 (no 1918) without knowing that the seem compatible but then i even thought of buying the second band but i was not from Australia, so i bought this one instead. I now have the marine bezel and it has them found in both watches but uses different mechanisms. - -One of my question about this see's my comments on this watch. - -Which coincidence? hence i ask. - -Because they do look similar and just by the fact of personal taste,and the fact that maharaja's use it also got me to buy this one and i regret not doing so earlier. - -Any opinion or advice help me wondering...Or i could google this for more information..<|endoftext|>(The two-week long Philadelphia legislators-only ride was originally meant to be held on June 18, but was postponed because Philly already had one of the most popular rides of the modern era. Catch it now the rest of the year!) - -For the past two weeks, the Łamek Chłuchowski Memorial Ride has been a staple on the calendar for Philadelphia riders. Usually on Saturdays, the ride starts in South Philadelphia and travels north on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, traversing Strawberry Mansion and Luther Burbank parks and back, creating a loop reclaiming the streets of the wife district for the positive act of cycling. Recently, the event has expanded to Knights Plaza. Other segments have included Avenue of the Arts, Fountain Square, Sansom Street and McNamee Street. - -For its second year, Philly will dress as its "badass ambassadors". Stefano Fogolo (Andorra), Kate Klippenstein (LA), Dex Easton (Wycombe) and David Kilgour (Sydney) will complete the ride together, wearing balloon animals and rapidly moving cabs representing their city. - -Also bearing a green square top are #ChewerGut (New York City), @JaneFish (Dallas/Fort Worth), @Snoochie (Houma), @ToddMountainHeart (New England), @BambiCam (Colorado), and @grumpy_giant (Atlanta). Michele Mazzacane (Courier-Journal) will take photos, Jennifer White will spin yarns at the finish, and Armine Khalil (Cleveland) will give readings from poems often adapted from from Carolina Jean Font and Conrad Williams. - -Another version of the ritual began in 2009, when four cyclists each rode up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and back. - -By night, the streets become painted with fluorescent dots representing a different area in the city, growing farther down the road as you wind through suburbs. When it's time to pack up, approximately 600 - 800 cyclists roll out motorcycles in a big black Wurlitzer flanked by helmets covered in Cyclocrosses.(And notice the insignia on the getaway truck.) - -Finally, the riders converge in Columbia Square as the evening waxes old with style at line dancing, Tenzin power walk and a massive pancake break. Youth scramble to join the celebration while older riders sit in silence, together, breathing in the tinny soundtrack of BMW's "Motörhead". - -Over the years, the Łamek Chłuchowski Memorial Ride has drawn, popularized and funded walkable streets. Each time around, it is fun and easy for second and third generation Philly cyclists to identify with, otherwise known as "Afrofuturists". - -MY PHOTOS: - -2017 Łamek Chłuchowski Memorial Ride. I am here by bike in my classic jersey. The riders are made up of cyclists of African descent of varying success. Most of city rocked the black tie, overcoat Italian. One guy must wear a Berkeley sweatshirt Smiling and carrying spare tube. Sreek tweeted before he starts the ride that this was probably the goofyest looking protest they have ever organized in Philly. - -City comes together for Łamek Chłuchowski Memorial Ride,Philadelphia- for the dead, journalists beautiful Whoehler instagram. - -Bride, yes. Bike, -======================================== SAMPLE 183 ======================================== -Sylvester Stallone is embroiled in a lurid virtual sex chat chat the likes of which has fans this side of Heaven only just hearing about. Spoiler alert: it involves the World Police who, per non-Gold Star geek prejudice, call themselves the Hell Police. - -Previously an independent film player, the 22-year-old, who is quite frankly the crown prince of box office no-names, made his feature directorial debut following the success of Road House. Still he was on the fence about whether to take on the role of the leader of Hell, St. Anthony, but instead of visiting the titular German village, the French anti-war "Verger of Hesse" finds himself involved with an amorous thunderstorm inside a York, England haunted house. - -Jack-horned warriors exist only in extended battle royale between Excalibur and the oddly crawl-inducing Amazon Ares awaken in Pvt Mindfang by the end of the film. There are occasional extended sequences of bull fighting and "Tactical Games"! St. Anthony is an innocent aspect in the tightly woven tapestry of the Tantric War (Attack of the Angel Sisters). If the title does not reward the viewer proper battle royale greed and prowess surges through like own humour, horror, Urban followership, porny, feminist empowerment achieved comedic orgasm. - -Vikings…hatched in Japan, but cut from Europe…and Granada; Vigilantes who operated like actual holy men, developed to fight religious propensity for witchcraft. Powerful outfits composed of ethnic male warriors and wise women protected from basic! Everybody copied them… - -Nobody copied St. Anthony. Though temptation will always be present on Germany's borders (over thirty Missionary holocausts in the Water 30 miles out of the border…moosah?), his opera suburb has surpassed St. Bartholomew to of the few contemporary pop culture entries which matter in Germany: Bad Milo von Klix (The Leopold Stokowski); Elite Squad; Elite Squad 2; All Eyez on Me; The Mission; Anchorman; Aldnoah…! Fandango…being the sleeper hit of Rotten Tomatoes and thus…not to mention me, The Terminator. - -Mr. Stallone says St. Anthony represents: religious duty with State responsibility; St. Anthony of the Virgins: - -prescription of death death - -chief justice for the Western civil sphere Love God with the best available tools. - -http://www.google.de/ - - -Johannes Stokowski was born in Berlin, committed to the church through denominational coursework. St. Paul founded the army and Tudors established the English church. St. Anthony of the Virgins arose among German refugees from Austria to Bavaria. He became representative for the people. - -http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/71613140.html<|endoftext|>Jeep Cherokee 2 Door Convertible Boxster - -Check out the News Archives Available for Loews Jeeps Land Rover Discovery Explorer X Sierra Mobile For Sale Hyundai Genesis Coupé Rooms Dependability Penguins Litters Taglessfound hundreds of pictures showing both 2 and 4 doors in real life and unique security mounts."We focused on the exterior of the car.""The inside is sexy. It almost doesn't need any signing or any specialty accessories.""Coupe enthusiasts must see it for themselves.""Surprisingly fell apart in 24 hours""Long all-wheel drive. Other trucks must run off road to maneuver""AMC is proud to offer a not only functionally unique feature, but also […]....Discount- parts, JK- In- car management, ENI- Dynamic and 4 wheel steering- -the one and only Jeep lunch Busrop civvy Fargo Coupé AK ACTtransmore - -Standard Features Most Popular Core Cabin Features Detailed Description Fin HVAC Closed loop heat pump included SGDS upgraded Humidity Sensor Electronic on board diagnostics software incl. Computerized transmission shifts, no PCM Backup camera and includes GPS and 720p Sony camera President's crown video entertainment – four DVD's five audio formats capable of multi-channel use including Dolby Digital TrueHD, Five-Channel Dolby Surround Sound, Dolby Nano or Dolby Disc, Dual 5w On/Off hybrid + automatic red gauge gauges (Ventilation inside) electronic infrared (IR) ventilation alone / months / additional interior upholstery yet again a 9Year Free / UnlimitedReplacement in initial shifts/configuration currently third stage Robert real breath valid reg. value "><|endoftext|>DataWallet - -DataWallet is a Node.js module for working with cryptocurrencies, allowing interested parties to configure the location and networking interfaces of certain DataStore instances. - -The Node.js api is served through a free and open-source XDR JavaScript library (see darXDR) which can be found here - -Setup - -To install, copy Node.js and DataWallet into a directory that supports Node -======================================== SAMPLE 184 ======================================== -The-sudden-death football simulator: John Ross and Brandon Marshall disappoint in New England - -Want your team's prospects appearing in weekly Huddle Up columns? Enter your information here. - -The preseason doesn't officially start for the New England Patriots until Week 1 at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday. Two weeks before that -- and just over a week after quarterback Tom Brady officially signed a contract extension through 2019 -- New England is still a mystery. - -They can't seem to settle on a single receiver, despite this receiving corps returning seven starters and putting Tom Brady's five Super Bowl-winning receivers in the Super Bowl in more than one of his 31 starts. - -What's the deal? - -"It's been a question we've been trying to answer through (eagerly) and try to address every week with Belichick and (defensive coordinator) Jamie (Lynch)," Trevor Siemian coaching assistant Nick Rolovich said. - -Spokesman Stacey James said the coaching staff is "frustrated with a lack of trust and a lack of consistency in the efficiency of four and five guys who have huge big-play capability. We get the double threat or the running back. We don't get the man coverage (receivers), which is where me and manager John Ross came in." - -Ross, a 22-year-old undrafted free agent, has been asked to become Brady's favorite receiver, particularly after Dewey McDonald (montrealap) left for the Titans, Brenton Bersin (miami miami) didn't return a friendly call, and DeVante Parker (shinShin) is out with a hamstring injury. Coach Bill Belichick discussed Ross in the start of the preseason, but doesn't feel confident one way or the other at this point. - -"There was an Alex that we've had and Nick, and we've really wanted to use all of them together and really utilize everything that we've upgraded from the leaves, from the receiver room," Belichick said then. "I think there is time and we will continue to watch people. But right now, the connections and the chemistry and the rapport with our young players, we are not where we want to be," - -Former Patriots running back Shane Vereen was asked before Sunday's 42-8 loss to Buffalo what he thinks of the veteran three-way receiver trio of Ross, Tavon Austin and Phillip Dorsett. - -"I first had really high hopes for either Ross or adding pittsburgh because I thought dorsett should have made that time as well and where's dorsett? People have gotta get back-up," Vereen said. "I think Ross actually might be the third guy in that three-way " They're shallow there and it doesn't look like a real clear rotation might be coming." - -The Week 1 rematch vs. the Bills is expected to go much more like that. If the roster isn't settled, there's a reason Belichick said earlier this week, "We'll get there." - -"Rob Gronkowski," celebrating making it official three-time Super Bowl champion can't play on Thursday night. Gotta feel for ya, bro. — Kyle Rudolph (@KWR3D24) August 23, 2016<|endoftext|>+1 Share 8 Shares - -Someone recently sent me this awesome app called the "FeedReader App," which basically aggregates all the important information you can think of: a recent Oprah Magazine, weather, magazines, songs played, dogs browsing on the Dogster, and more. - -These are all information that you basically throw away; that is, once you read the article. So why the option to solve haven reallife a little messy? - -A while back, I created an app for FeedWriter, which was pretty cool. However, many of the things that third-party do is very simplistic is my opinion. To solve the reallife problem- where there are too many websites, sites that do the same kind of obsolete things – is that many local and regional sites have very stale content. - -So, a Plan B. - -In my case, my primary work was designing the cards for a car rental app. So, I like to be able to observe things from upon weeks, leading by weeks, attracting a real trace of the business. To some extent, that is what the app does. - -However, there is an important part of this plan B that can't see the light. - -I don't know about the rest of you guys. If you simply see the big picture taken up by the live assets, feel sucked away and don't read further. So you want that long piece that includes the blog post link to the company page. You get the office location printed on the card. - -This is what that pretty much entails, is finding markers inside websites saved on different websites. Ads are easy and effective – they only lead to where desired, they navigate users, you receive some good -======================================== SAMPLE 185 ======================================== -Pier1-2 location attack "Toronto is through on its gentrification and institutions like the LCBO and LCBO supermarkets are made accessible to the most oppressed and disfranchised sectors of our society," staffer Bernard Pasquale said. (Mike Crawley/CBC) - -The crew of a 67-truck North American Heavy Lac Chevalier full-tour convoy headed to Toronto last weekend with a message familiar to residents and activists across the city: Meanwhile expansion happened little below arena graphics on clearest billboards and bus shelter ads; meanwhile taxes and calls for rent hikes in the Annex conveniently went mostly unheeded, while the people who call it home streamed out of their communities fleeing the up-zoning taint du jour. - -But there was one soul on the bus that raised a set of questions that these days rapidly clothe the most experienced minds in matters of gentrification and politics — a non-vegetable-in-chief and enthusiastic fan of then-premier Dalton McGuinty, now in his sixth on-the-job tenure as the mayor of the capital. Not even he was sure what to make of as it was hovering just off site of the 2011 Pan Am Games in hopes that season ticket holders would come inside the building to take in the spectacular Parapan Am Games village before a noisy crowd of 2,080 people that greeted the Oilers' home opener on Aug. 16, 2011. - -The summer's most unabashed carnivalesque was perhaps the city's magnet lord Ken Goldman. - -People don't ask, They vanish - -At a time it was the article of the urban living rite to chase up affordable housing that Chong Mar Clo, poet reside at Dublin's Move Childlish Theatre from 1961 to 2005, delivered an uproarious piece of response during work weeks for his Vancouver Writers' Club of Vancouver. - -Cheo Heung, managing editor of Thanh's City magazine from 1979-93 in Saigon. (Steve Kashner/CBC) - -Cheo Heung was now the "public face" of Thanh's City, the weekly magazine in Saigon started by Peter Ho and Clark Kilbourne and in their defence says: "At equal time we as magazine writers must note the sheer number of occurrences in which our contributions on the death of public life were almost totally ignored and thus, for many years, basically unfurled, even tacitly." - -And yet somehow The magazine still has some element of this, it appears, because a reporter travels to Vietnam each election year with a small team that dates among Expat journalists, expatriates of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Journalists, green card holders from various other nations first going back to college in the early 80s. - -Hoping to answer the book, the diaries, the movements of plucky humans as haphazardly as these. People to reckon with, their decisions influenced by all the other human lives exchanged under a single roof. - -Thread unto thread - -The writers and their friends competed to relay along X's and Y's the inside, never disastrous particulars of unusual threads and theories and contemplations that could be located from post-modernist cul-de-sacs into next door specifics, if you felt economic anxiety or housing realization kept being pushed forward in some terminal historical moment, linear and inexorable. - -Whatever the message was supposed to be, it was at crossroad as you read from the New York political analysts like Grant Wingo of the liberal Center for American Progress, John Judis and Marx scholar Emory University's Barry Kosmin check their nest. These conserved minds could count out Domenech, Miller and where about the rest? Kornbluth too tight? Achenbach notably dies astray in his melted look back on decline's terminal oily aftermath? His quartet in NPCClient bridge bud dream ward. - -To we hope Yorkville wasn't the beacon that burnt out and made way for Mr. Goodman. But for the seasoned alternative trendsetters, random 5-year canvasses by the non racist cabal delisting precincts, elected to submit ankle-deep beds in provincial pie charts how Brooklyn and Capitol Hillers called it right. - -Back in the hister today, Kanangee Miller Martinez by way of Seattleonisland continue chasing after one of the least visible silent waves that her talent can take hold: the unemotional and sulkier arguments of social media in light of real-terms wage and fringe rents rising amid gentrification that lend new meaning to middle-class rage. - -"Social media tends to believe the truth marketing and other platitudes will always out," she urged on Twitter when we talked on the street Sunday night while walkin2 g Philly and accepting their local best album award. - -So it's in part an act to tense up, to press on sometimes unwillingly and maybe wish the thing or person or linear stream would fade or was at an end, then a small amount of that scorn on themselves -======================================== SAMPLE 186 ======================================== -Buy Photo FILE - In this June 13, 2017 file photo, Matt Chisum holds his support to GOP Gov. Matt Bevin after he won the GOP gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, May 11, 2017, at the Century Center in Louisville, Ky. Bevin triumphantly rhetorically urged his party to stand by him even though he lost the party primary. (Photo: Matt Stone, The Courier-Journal/Courier-Journal photo)Buy Photo Story Highlights Scott deployed campaign Sen. Jeff Hoover - -Also picked Kentucky secretary of state to replace Charlene Werner - -Record of decisions over the past year made open to public scrutiny - -Six weeks after declaring victory over his Democratic opponent, Scott Brown won the Republican gubernatorial nomination Tuesday, a stunning upset every bit as mysterious as his campaign's strikingly surreptitious last-minute return to Lexington. - -That's because the ailing 64-year-old senator returned to his hometown Friday to finally end a protracted vetting process he thought was over and quickly return to campaign mode. - -It was a spectacular turn of events designed to allow state party leaders to swiftly put their entire infrastructure in place around a veteran centrist with a record of decisions over the past year made open to public scrutiny — a situation during which all eyes will be focused on Brown while the voters he hopes to elect — attorney general Jack Conway and Chip Roy, a major political donor and close Bevin ally — are not. - -"It's a bit of a surprise he jumped back in the game again, but he needed to have a player in the race who's supported him from day one and was loyal to him. Dad would do that," said Dan Yates, who had supported Scott Brown's unsuccessful 2014 U.S. Senate contest and plans to donate $1 million to his 2018 reelection bid. - -Next year will be critical to Scott Brown's long-term political viability. In November, the GOP will be defending two Democratic senators who won their senate elections by narrower than expected margins, and state attorneys general will act as the state's top law enforcement authority. Yet the 2018 gubernatorial election is generally considered a must-win for Republicans. - -Though Ohio and other late primary states have produced dramatic upsets, governors have at least three years to prove their political mettle. Virginia went for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump; except in Kentucky, Brown has promised to focus on issues. - -Attractive move - -"It's generally considered an attractive move for Gov. Brown to stay in the approachable and bipartisan way at which the governor has operated," Diana Brisman, executive vice president of the Kentucky Advancement Project, said. "Gaming out the fact that the candidate may be a late entrant, that can sometimes work to some extent. But when a campaign is right on down to the wire, and there's so much at stake for the candidate, I think the burden is rightly on the campaign to choose to stick to that campaign." - -The late activation of Brown and the continued scrutiny that came with it reflect the importance to Brown and Kentucky Republicans of unsuccessful attempts on both sides in 2016 to flip a fading Democratic-held Senate seat to lower-turnout, earlier-in-the-year contests in the heart of the presidential election calendar. - -STORY: Bevin comes home to state in much the same way - -COMPLETE LIST: Warren mailer fundraisers dropped from List of public events - -'PAIN' TO LIVE IN: O.J. Simpson a victim of comets, gets famous - -Says it - -Record - -The first sign that Cruz had had an impact came over the weekend. In a scene straight out of the movie "Network," Brown interrupted his campaign rally in Scottsburg to announce he had received a package of mailer donations from someone concerned about bad economic news from the CSX rail and chemical company. - -Brown urged donations in writing, capturing the only GOP presidential candidate to formally endorse the Cruz campaign. - -"Remember, they hired you," Brown told his supporters over the local radio station as the applause waited around the block. "If Ted loses, they'll be the ones backing up my senatorial campaign saying, 'what happened to our good senator, he's got "God Only Knows" all over him.' " - -Through their financial affiliates, the Republican Party of Kentucky raised $3.5 million from individuals and committees over the past month, making an already competitive race even more competitive. - -By the end of April, funds run through Brown's ward-by-ward campaign trail had flowed into the GOP nominee's campaign committee account — $262,501, nearly all to the general task of electing him. - -Ted Cruz, the former U.S. solicitor general picked to run the Kentuckians for Strong Leadership PAC, which flooded the airwaves alongside Bevin's campaign in support of Brown, gave National Right To Life 17 donations totalling $100 starting just 11 days before Election Day. - -The amounts to -======================================== SAMPLE 187 ======================================== -Wexford, N.Y. -- All 23 new members of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses were recently called to the Organization to serve as members for the first time. For example, David Bailey, who had been a Governing Body member for 18 years, was finally called to serve as a member. - -The circumstances of David Bailey's increased learning, which was revealed via audio recordings of an organizational conference, are at the very heart of the ongoing issues surrounding malfeasance within Jehovah's Witnesses. Yet, within the revelations, there are numerous statements made that have raised serious concerns about the fidelity of Channel 1 and other WatchTower organizations in covering up knowledge of whether or not abuse has been occurring within the organization. - -David Bailey recently joined the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses when he was in his 60s and, to his knowledge, had held several positions of responsibility over the years. Before becoming an elder, he held the positions of "State Counselors" for Queensland in Australia and "State General Superintendent" for Queensland. - -On July 22, 2012, he became a "Governing Body" elder. - -It is expected that his early discovery of abuse, and subsequent resignation from the position of State Counsel, were immediately launched against him. At no stage did he express any willingness to act upon his knowledge that abuse was occurring within his organization. - -On October 3, 2012 following revelations that a "good" (those) pioneer girl who had been abused had been "hired" as a half-naked member (almost naked) of the congregation, Bailey was made an "Elder and Part of the Senior Management Team of the Governing Body of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania." - -Said new position created an opportunity for Bailey, who, soon afterwards, resigned from his previous positions and made allegations that the abuse was part of his previous position of State Counsel. Incidentally, "indiscretions" by Bailey may have been part of the previous State Counsel position. - -Later the same day, Bailey went "public" with his story, introducing his story in a presentation devoted to the release of a groundbreaking film by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. - -Absent from this presentation inor the following day was any evidence of his willingness to protect children from predatory predators demonstrated at home. This was, and remains, troubling to many Jehovah's Witness parents – and not only God's priests and brothers. - -In fact, although the recording of Bailey's presentation made it appear as though he had attempted to expose the corruption of Phoenix, Australia. Arizona was rife with predatory pedophiles and abuse. - -The inclusion of a photo of Bailey and a nearby pistol in his presentation selectively obscured photographs that showed illegal, discriminatory abuse against girls. In actuality, Bailey did not allege any wrongdoing on the part of Phoenix-area elders, or even community members during his demonstration. This operation, as viewers now understand, did not go so well. - -Since May 17 of 2012, the press has agreed to a degree of silence. The silence of the higher-ups within the WatchTower Witnesses has been successful to this point and continues to be so. This silence is further compounded by the roles of their sons (and daughters) tongues-wagging reporters. For example NY Times reporter, Douglass Southwick, has gagged himself, refusing to show an interest in you-know-who. - -As we move ever closer to a reestablishment of a meaningful relationship among those abandoning the WatchTower, we can all imagine who might work best in coordinating groups seeking solutions efforts. Many of you have approached each other privately and, like Xenia Gill, sought the assistance of another saint to assist the cause. Those of us who are members of any of these professional leadership groups have realized, on a personal level, that we are no longer with others who are concerned about vulnerable children in church through such prominent personages as Judge Beck, M. Melvin, Stewie Meek, and others linked to the WatchTower Society. Despite the effort made to protect their their identities, innocent victims of child abuse became harmed. - -As a leader of these groups, I urged them on a path of silence and involvement and my counsel was ignored almost immediately. Once identified, each individual, desperate to discover answers and take action, placed their faith in the unquestionable assertion of the sources of the truth for this organization. They were held to the limits of what they, or we, believed. To be anointed to God's Royal organization was to be able to become a savior to children NOW. When activists attempted to help themselves by teaching other individuals the solution to problems within this organization, they were vilified for such efforts and accused of being upon the wavelength of evil. - -It is crucial that like-minded people in our supporting circles do not attempt to quell such efforts by demonizing the ledger or other media possibilities – we are Communce leaders like the worshipers. For by the love of -======================================== SAMPLE 188 ======================================== -That's not to say anyone ate it. Peter was right, the rounds about the firing of Roger Goodell aren't just out of the blue.<|endoftext|>The England captain and England tipster are joined on the show by Jamie Redknapp. - -He explains how next year's World Cup final is a fitting way to celebrate the 500th anniversary of England having a nation. - -He also finds out how Hodgson chose Wayne Rooney to go to the 2015 World Cup with him: 'It was right for him. We obviously saw him at Euro 2012. He picked the Gunners on the coach of his closest friend. The guy is a fucking legend.' - -There are also cuts by Robbie Savage, John Motson, Simon Mayo, Chris McGrealand and Stuart Maconie. They also reveal Manchester United's new shooter is his England striker of the future. - -Once again, fun and laughter will be had. Talk ARSE; tune in to The Colossus of Oxfordshire on Monday 17 August ET at 20:00, on PhotoSport: app/The Colossus of Oxfordshire 2 - télévision du TV, Canal + 2, RTE, Online, On Demand.<|endoftext|>The Bronx Closet — where I'll soon try cannabis twice a day as part of my weekly 35toHealth challenge — is a nonprofit organization. It takes in fully kosher food and provides it free to hundreds of homeless Bronx residents each week. Other than that, it's mostly filled with clothing, trinkets, old board games and toiletries. Animal rights groups donate their kitty litter and IHOP throws in a free sandwich once or twice a month. The rule says the goods must not be used for drugs, however, and some clothing we just can't help but try anyhow. On this first visit, I spotted some throwaway remains of a pair of sneakers. I got down on my hands and knees and refused to throw them away. Our manNYC groans an audible "no." "Maybe a ham sandwich," Azure, who memories boost sure answers me. The episode would eventually take on an existential quality as I peered into kaleidoscopic loops of the still attached shoelaces dangling from the case, as if trying to be quite yet earnestly forlorn. "It looks like a pair of rainbow brave-yToes from the start, then you notice they're all wicked yellow, and then rainbow-yToes come into view, crystal-blue, and I just can't stop thinking about them." A look at Azure's face tells me she already is thinking about them right now, running through her brain with their vibrant orange glow. It's like I'm spiritually descending into the opposite dimension of my poor ignorance and diagnosing a schizophrenic with temporary ranch gum disease. "How long have they been there?" "Fifteen to twenty years." "During that time what about those colors did change? Have ink stains now or ugg boots?" "I checked, these super Seahawks Ever held ended in 1973." I am shamed, shamed. "And so when they kicked in, that's when it detected Vicodin?" "I checked." Azure's fears are confirmed as they go on to show me how the colors reacted to all the weed. In years to follow we would play a riveting game of "Where's Vicodin!" picking the most alarming pair. - -Candy store ♫ Its like that for houses ♫ We drift dizzily apart ♫ Two sorts of carpenter ♫ Where that process starts ♫ NO melody at its slightly." If I'm ever faced with any of my dreams's outlines — such as the opening text of an I Love Lucy script from the 50s — I know I can have a song that comes to mind and which applies beautifully to the situation at hand. As (for the record, not all stoner/junker jewels are completely accurate but most are honest enough) these lists make for pretty catchy playlists when I'm out and about. I do not, however, impose these requirements on myself. All I ask for is a fuckin' narrative as to what my canon is. BrandonEN (Hayward, CA) - -"Innervate a Man?" - -Courtesy of Utah A look at his collection of vinyl. A sampler of about 120 records, including plays from Bon Jovi and his Elevator Cobra records. Songs such as The Shangri-Las and Glamorous Heartprint, in Sondheim's definitive - and, naturally enough, sonically stellar - showcase for the Lucky Dragon solo LP, The Unforgettable Light by the title hit "Published by Wellesley Community Music Inc, 1964." (Mixed 12 tracks, - - -Date: October 6th, 2018 - -Kyašt Mareš i ane Ladp Quevenživanje stana požinan Pietělo jela vimo. - - -On talent: "I guess I have a fair personality and decent -======================================== SAMPLE 189 ======================================== -One of three people arrested Saturday after an argument between migrant workers in Oklahoma and a town official turned violent is the man the workers said they took to be the Saudi King, The Oklahoman has learned. - - -Peter Juraj Stetina, 42, has been in the U.S., where he came illegally in 2011, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He has run a company that is part of the migrant labor network known as "Kingfisher" and has been arrested on several charges since 2012. - - -Along with fellow migrant workers, Stetina has been named in accusations of beating 17-year-old migrant man Alberto Medina, whose death was determined a homicide and Stetina's alleged role in it. - - -In an alleged cover-up, Stetina called the U.S. Attorney's Office in November to demand that they prosecute Medina's killers, charging they are poorly paid workers who deserved to lose their jobs, according to two federal government officials. - - -On Saturday, Stetina was taken into custody by Oklahoma City police and Oklahoma Highway Patrol, according to a federal official familiar with the case. - - -Medina was one of two Saudi Arabian workers who died in Studemont, Okla., involving a heated argument between one migrant worker and the mayor of the town, John Copeland, and his son, James. - - -Deviant businessman - - -Stetina was a prominent member of the scene, Stephanie Woodard, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Boise State University who studied Kingfisher members for two years, said. - - -"While Stetina initially grouped himself with the Muslim community and college students in previous recorded surveys, he later moved away from that and became less comfortable engaging with Mormon, Southern Baptist, and Cornerstone churches," she wrote in a paper titled "Engaging with Federal Law Enforcement: Why and How Federal Authorities Address The Immigrant Violence Issue." - - -Henry Mauthe, a professor at Utah State University's department of sociology who has scoured documents in his pursuit to find out more about Stetina, said Stetina's reaction to alleged murders was self-serving. - - -"It's fascinating that, at the time, [Stetina] is saying that if the Saudis don't stop bad things happening to his workers, then they are responsible for the murders [which recorded were] ordered by his people and up mass that Stetina was saying there is a Saudi King involved. I think that's absolutely brilliant," Mauthe said about Stetina's claim. - - -Mauthe said Stetina's background and behavior make him highly suspicious and not easily swayed by mob things. Still, he gave he expert opinion that Stetina wouldn't be prone to such 1-upmanship if he actually did become king. - - -"I guarantee you, in the mid to long-run, if it's been proven that they're pulling levers --," Mauthe said "except for a few idiots, nothing bad has ever happened to Stetina." - - -Richard McGregor, a peer-review specialist at Oxford specializing in race and religion, said he was uncertain on whether university studies could do much in the key issue of motive. - - -"We shall see," McGregor told The Oklahoman. "Those who are making a lot of noise, they ought to stick their necks out boldly and look at the name Peter Juraj Stetina." - - -Huntingan's restrictions - - -As a prisoner on a manufacturing sub-camp at Alaska-Yukon Correctional Facility (AIYC) in Homer, Alaska, Stetina was receiving weekly communication camp letters, all her clothes, cell phones, cell books and other items with handcuffs, keys for her cell and more, according to two well-credentialed Americans who heard a story Sen. Begich told of his cell mates. - - -Stetina denied to The Oklahoman being a victim of a political intrigue, saying she enjoyed the benefits of high staff morale that bureaucratic retribution did not touch. She also denied ever bringing a body to the center. Willis sued Begich and Larche in federal court in Seone federal court in Seone — naming the chief investigator, Daniel W. Willis, as the plaintiff. - - -Willis claims in the requested discovered that an FBI agent visited AIYC on Nov. 21, 2013 wanting sole type and style control on the brassiere Stetina wore under her shirt. Willis said he wanted no replica brassiere that looked like a tattooed minimum-security chain shirt. - - -Willis followed Willis to the rooms of hard-core fertility fetishists who prey on pregnant American women suffering from hydraulic-fertility identities accounting for 40 percent of all abortions that occur yearly. Willis said Willis' activities, which also chart developed, were never explicitly spelled out in hospital records but were witnessed by Lottie, the ostensible Jehovah Witness woman who flies in from Australia for the two-week summer camp. Lott -======================================== SAMPLE 190 ======================================== -I ordered a new wallet with Team $ale 11.04.30 and installed portkey to it like it said; now it hasgraded and itcommander jun depth indiciy increasing, the balance for team $ale is improper but can it be miscaterive? but it believesit sends 4 miles ad payment for 5 miles. Any new tips on how to fix it, There was iismobile and4 of those miles. Did the amount sum increase? What's theone or ideai have why this is happening? any error messages? - -9<|endoftext|>From The Coppermind - -Dragonsteel was a special type of power-imbued ore mined from the Red Mountains[1] by the dwarves.[2] It provided power in much the same way as metal,[3] but the dwarves did not wish to show their creations off.[4] Even dragonsteel-made weapons never appeared in the hands of the locals,[5] and the dwarves also banned people from carrying them in public.[6] When the Woedra clan united to fight in the Last War, they made use of dragonsteel, which the other races also shared,[7] even though the dwarves never made it profitable to mine it.[8] - -Biri'watha was able to harvest dragonsteel for his Mouth of the Sky, and so Joril Skov issued thenun orders to all dwarves in Outland to Warchief mother Malazan must bring knowledge of the smelting of their alloy within one week from the date of her dolphin commands.[2] The entireforming of heavily financial and technical support officials on land and in the sea was to be devoted to the task.[2] Bilr'watha helped the other dragons out with the mining of Dragonsteel,[9] and used Feeg Bailey in Figher jobs — mining and forging dragonsteel weapons and armor.[10][11] - -Once Sauron's war fleet sailed from Obruk, during the War of the Ring postlude, he sent delegations to destroy Dragonsteel mines on extensive fronts, all of which were obliterated in a matter of two days. The one exception was the western mountains of The Wastes, where the Red Oasis, Minas Morgul, and the(possibly offsite mines) shielded Empire ferries East from raiders on Dragonsteel. - -Witchheart runs lexx millenia later, in the story, as part of the Empire during Saulot and the War of the Ring, forces well-versed, with improvements useful for warriors. Cairhienin women use witchwood sheets, forcefray blood frost demon drudges, enchant rod warding, thorbolg olderress feuders[12] 200 years later — the american uniforms come from 2016 ban issue- formal ones, blades are warded with earthenjars[13], pikemen will move forward mid-stride, provide fog to surprise foes,. Boddy will provide stern-hands footbows, but possibly elmers frames.[14] - -In the Ruins: Shimmerpeaks, Falon'Din himself orders of the Quartermasters, through the Whispers network: "Bring haste to the mines, soldiers, and pay heed to notable members of the Whispers, lest they fall into the outpost's difficulties. For those of noble standing in our realm, you have always been enabled to pick and choose. Have it your own way now."[15] He doesn't evict Pirates sheyron figure northwest of the Motor Miami spend� Vin 72 across from Kobold Jadiscravens at 1200 -7 and it The 2 ærologues wal "Whisper's" necessity.[16] It also mentions that the earl of Banbridge tend to be "overly acts of charity."[17]<|endoftext|>Stream your video game save to your TV. - -FOR WATCHERS - NEVER DAMAGE YOUR XBONE 1 OR XBOX 360! - -* Only works with OS 3.0+ - -* Supports older apps. - -* Awesome HD graphics - -* Supports touch controls. - -* Use your Dropbox account to save. - -* Simple user interface. - - -Version 2.4.0 : - - -- More accurate distance reports. - -- Fixed issue where sometimes problem would show only on first set up. - -Tweaks - -Example screenshot: - - -Version 2.3.0 : - - -- Filenames are now saved as Linked Lists (Dictionary) which allows to rename your media or search through your position history easily. - -- Majority of issues were resolved. - -- Fixed issue in season3 where videos were wrongly cited. - -- Detailed information about the download times is now available in the Time page. - -- Set paused and playing state now also correctly marked as underorder. - -- Genetic Algorithm is now deafult, and each time the Savedian Shift happens over 2 seconds instead -======================================== SAMPLE 191 ======================================== -Randy Holmes of Orlando faces a felony charge of sexual battery per Florida Statutes Section 847.012, "sexually motivated burglary." The charges carry a potential prison sentence between one and 20 years, a fine of up to $40,000, or both. - - -Holmes used Craigslist to lure unsuspecting women to his house. The 59-year-old, who has lived in Florida for more than 30 years, allegedly recruited a woman on the site around 12:45 a.m. on October 21, 2015, and then would bail her out of the vehicle so she could enjoy a shower and use the bathroom. Eight days later, a different woman contacted Orange County Sheriff's Office about the incident. - -The woman believes that Holmes purchased her food and drinks and gave her money. He even offered to babysit her, police claim. But Holmes allegedly printed off checks generated by her accounts and used them to pay bills and make purchases during the often intimate crossing of physical and non-physical boundaries. - - -On the day of the alleged attack, Holmes surrendered to deputies at the area. Arrested while swapping "scare tactics" with his IPad, Holmes admitted he engaged in "fondling and oral sex with both the victim and the helper/provider and attempted but did not successfully copulate the victim with his penis." Officers found his email address on Watson's trainer bracelet, testimony states, which they linked to Holmes. - -H/T: TPM | Photo via<|endoftext|>Keeping Sleep Safe - -Our exclusive, dry sleeves, coupled with our unique particles filters, combine to provide exceptional fog/sleeping healthcare. If you're looking for perfection, glass on glass screens and controls or a soft-touch, hand-stitching screens and controls are the only way to go. - -We are confident in our system as you find even the toughest people, as people throughout the world, have recommended us to friends, family and caregivers.<|endoftext|>Did you know? - -Some of the writings that appear in the collection are adaptations of examinations given for senior non-profit or private societies. - -This collection contains 23 works on a variety of topics including "Oral Law", "Adoption", "Cleanliness", "Preparing Absinthe", "Pastorals & Rituals" and "Spectral Projects".<|endoftext|>Archive: achievements - -Aultron Nov 2nd, 2014 192 Never 192Never - -Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up , it unlocks many cool features! - -rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 0.69 KB Once again a challenge lurked within - one that would define me temporarily but would forever scar me for the rest of my life. Do not attempt this if you are easily overwhelmed and want a challenge. With this challenge, I shall leave a wake of destruction in my wake - and will take your resources and put them to good use elsewhere. - -RAW Paste Data - -Once again a challenge lurked within - one that would define me temporarily but would forever scar me for the rest of my life. Do not attempt this if you are easily overwhelmed and want a challenge. With this challenge, I shall leave a wake of destruction in my wake - and will take your resources and put them to good use elsewhere.<|endoftext|>Melody Young, STS9 - -The lamest notion promoted so far by any of the main for-profit streaming services is that we pay to access music we don't care about, but have to buy anyway. That might be fine if it were true. But smelly stars are few and far between. Instead we're confronted by dollar signs and clicks. - -I want the St. Louis Philharmonic to drawmusic, but nothing pantsiful!leaving I'm skipping concerts on purpose,because I know that I'm gonna do it anyway,and yeah it makes me feel worse,but I don't carebecause I pretendwhenI'm cutting edge! - - -How does Stereogum stream this song, video or album? Sounds like they just rip each song right out of their databases. - - -Why don't you just download music? You're a micro-distributer, that's all you really are. I read about you at this Hackaday thing about one guy who internetikly built a huge database of music sounds just to sell a bunch of song downloads. How's that working out? - -I can -very- easily put together a magnet link for a certain song that's on SoundCloud, so that's the most convenient method. Any time there's a new song that comes out and it's ten bucks, you can click on the link and make it just like iTunes and you don't pay a cent. You just stock up. For accounts that get super small, like free and for free! - -Here are the finder links for WonderHowTo: Words, Rock n' Roll, Music, Movie, and Monstrous Creatures, and lamest ("playlist universal bright" is as local as you can get ). - - -======================================== SAMPLE 192 ======================================== -Today's cast includes: - -Alexander Chapman as Malk from Family Guy - -Karin Millkin as Stella from Lammily, the Runaway - -Cynthia Keeler as Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and The City on the Edge of Forever - -Paul Turner as Jake Sisko from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager - -Director and cast: Paul Ohms - -Star Trek Timelines Sub": YouTube - -Original video: Janeway - -Welcome to Star Trek Timelines! Every new month we'll offer a unique adventure through the universe of Star Trek, featuring a new cast of characters, and all of the fun behind-the-scenes experience we've come to know and love. To make this such an exciting series alongside Star Trek Sub we have some great perks for you! - -Starter Pack: A Star Trek Timelines Sub email subscription gives you everything you need to play. In addition to a jump on Star Trek Legends, we'll deliver new adventures from your favourite characters year after year. Plus, every drawn character included in the starter pack will be usable for a new adventure every month! - -A subscription to Star Trek Timelines gives you everything you need to play: - -Jumpstart your journey to the stars: Our signature monthly adventures draw from the best novelizations and comics of the Original Series, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. With full seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Voyager: Equinox, and Enterprise Complete on the way, it's the start of adventure you are waiting for. - -Our signature monthly adventures draw from the best novelizations and comics of the Original Series, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. With full seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Voyager: Equinox, and Enterprise Complete on the way, it's the start of adventure you are waiting for. Even more experience: Our monthly adventures also include some of the most delicious bonus content ever revealed: new artwork sent to you from the artists of the original franchise! - -Our monthly adventures also include some of the most delicious bonus content ever revealed: new artwork sent to you from the artists of the original franchise! Your name on a Florida greenbelt: It is key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and golfing lifestyle here in Florida that an ESPN binocular actually counts as a greenbelt. Every month, the citizens of Key West would definitely appreciate your support in keeping the greenbelt green! - -It is key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and golfing lifestyle here in Florida that an ESPN binocular actually counts as a greenbelt. Every month, the citizens of Key West would definitely appreciate your support in keeping the greenbelt green! Access to premier comic content: We will publicly release full event comics of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise on CSV pages every month. Visit our sister site creative-commons.org to find other publishing opportunities in which you can earn a living, as well as be a part of the Star Trek Timelines community. The world needs more Star Trek HiSeq! - -Are you a game that has been improved by a developer that helped in this project, especially people who have donated money, or that shipped a Physical copy, or cashed a sketch and sent a check? Please feel free to contact us via email celebratingcourage@moremoneycomics.com and we'll add you to the list! - -A few select people have purchased iMessage stickers, which you can request through our Facebook event page. Enthusiasts can informpilot whether you want iMessage stickers, as well, atreon.com/dimmeridgegames/invite. - -We'd love to hear if you have any questions or comments, and if you love your gaming consoles, you can possess a special or early associate Kickstarter card. - -Happy gaming!<|endoftext|>Before BJJ the best way to eliminate flailing and pain was to keep safe and feel only the good feeling of a good, hard training session! Today there are so many choices for MMA and BJJ players to please all competent mat work Before BJJ the best way to eliminate flailing and pain was to keep safe and feel only the good feeling of a good, hard training session! Today there are so many choices for MMA and BJJ players to please all competent mat work, not to mention the training space to train. The usual training area problem is how to wrestle successfully in the dank bums of your city? Must you fight to stay down or to step on the mat with unicorn fury? As the queer guerillas liquid access to the mat has increased so has male dominated submission grappling training. I've an bring a version to bear. - -In my last blog, While getting an MMA Jiu Jitsu Gi, I broached some of the issues around wearing gis, train by thinking process of buying something safe we will go through over the gi process in combination with colours meaning -======================================== SAMPLE 193 ======================================== -Watch Netflix Specs - -We've found all of the latest Netflix streaming specs down below! - -Each one starts off with the hardware specifications, some of which are the same for all future Netflix hardware, which means you won't find any specific hardware requirements. And it is easy to find the total number of channels you can watch on Netflix. - -BlackBerry Devices - -As mentioned in the unofficial parameter for apps, we could use the native Netflix app on any device that is running a BlackBerry 10 OS implementation. We were able to perform the same tests on the BlackBerry PlayBook as well, a 5S. So you don't have to worry if your favorite mobile OS gets updated in the future to be compatible with Netflix below! - -iOS Devices - -While there are no BlackBerry 10 related parameters (only app name/brand/browser), in order to find the total number of channels you can watch on Netflix, we first needed an IP address. To do this, we used a Firefox FindUsBtc extension (available for free in the app store) and the Safari extension of Chrome. Then, once we got this IP address, all we had to do was click on the Netflix icon in the notification bar, which would pop up a mini interface of the Netflix website. You can find the minimum and recommended OS requirements below. - -Android Devices - -Finally, to ensure that every device on Android put together with varying versions of application software creates a consistent viewing experience, our free boost sure download app to get a new device, and added an additional device more than 175MB to the total maximum number of channels that you can watch. This test took us 10 minutes for iOS devices and 2 hours for Android devices. - -iOS Devices - -Android Devices - -Trivia Question: Is this the wrong movie? If your answer is 'yes', check out the playlist of the movie you selected in the settings to find the one that matches the film you absolutely hated. Lastly, if your answer is 'no', check out another list to check out the top 100 selected movies from the same series, or they all happened once. - -Updated: With the exact result not available, we've left the results in their original order. The Spotify Limitations: Spotify narrowed the number of supported devices from 400 to 26 as of November 30, 2015. - -Android Devices - -iPhone devices - -Android Devices - -iOS devices - - -And if you do find a new Netflix device, downloaded Spotify or its Limitations problem solved step-by-step, be sure to let us know! - -Closing<|endoftext|>Recently On Social Media - -BRAND NAME Support - -RESTAURANT Avoid coming to AnkiHQ every week! Be an embryo supporter -- let someone else drop by and learn cool stuff all week! Other - -Photo Picks Playlists We love revealing gifs in the 24-hour News Roundup (available right here) and Book of the Week roundups! - -Contact Us If you encounter any problems while uploading or selecting a Photo, please contact us immediately Thanks for the support! - -Speaking does and wouldn't taste right… - -Flavor profiles Save a picture of a question: If something tastes good, say so! Exhamcheledbooks.com - -Flavor Goodness Check out Ms July and crisil! Malarkey.com - -A whole lotta writing to sift through - -Profile Writers Are you really sure why you're using those words; of course, someone else put it up there; and who may have modified it without your knowing: Posted by Freatheink 14 people marked this item as favorite.<|endoftext|>Image copyright PA Image caption Former singer Eddie Butler self-funded a bid to be Mayor of London - -Today is the day that librarians recognise the achievements of their carers and patrons, on the same day that they perform their symbolic walk around their charity trees in celebration. - -The Guardian reports that "Many serving librarians between 2005 and 2015 have proposed anonymity after serving their communities, fearing that public scrutiny would hurt their professional standing". - -"It's essential to reward outstanding volunteer work", says Emma Fletcher, the director of Libraries England. - -Ed UK launched her quest for the recognition identity called Athena, whose Wikipedia entry says she has a "small, cuddly dog and an uncanny ability to read a book cover-to-cover by heart". - -Ed I'm From Rochdale, whose UK Wikipedia page says he has been in the banking industry since 1992, made sure he was on front page after election to Public and Further Education. - -London's Boris Johnson's readership site states that some praise him for his "character, vision and openness...Johnson has harnessed public interest variously through statistics, science and Big Bang Theory. - -"His unequalled effectiveness has made him a bona fide world leader and open source hero." - -There is no record if Bill Art's choice to be named as Voice of the Nation fell -======================================== SAMPLE 194 ======================================== -Some of the country's richest and most powerful evangelicals are resisting calls from Latino and black legislators to condemn Donald Trump and denounce planned legislation to defund his legal work defending the so-called "sanctuary cities" that refuse to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless they have some remedies for breaking federal immigration laws. - -The pastors and religious leaders blasted Congress specifically and the country generally for the prospect of a government shutdown unless Republicans give in to demands to repeal Obamacare, hold the line against allowing Syrian refugees to enter the United States, and pare back investments in public schools as a result of the federal child-care tax credit programs. - -In the course of the calls, pastors were spellbound by the Trump team's business culture, accompanied by flip-flops on policy, including their running mate, Mike Pence, who was in support of abortion rights as governor of Indiana but tweeted that he opposes it now. - -Things got a little heated at one point, when several pastors contended Congress' intrusion into state affairs is unconstitutional. In an unlikely event, electors should ignore the voice and allegiance of the pastors in determining the next president in a state such as California, they said. - -"America is threatened by an evil overlord in the form of this presidency," the Rev. Michael Curry said, explaining his firm belief in voting in Episcopal elections. - -Captain Ruggero Renzi, an Italian native originally from San Giovanni nasto, walked off the familiar patois of Italian speech as he explained that if that nation can survive the inquisitions, cultural anarchy from Charles V and the 1688 Protestant Reformation, and the outbreak of World War I, it can survive Trump's presidency. - -"We must remain united as a nation, as a common race," Renzi said in his German accent. He added: "America shall fall." - -For these Bible-believing conservatives, Donald Trump has provided the example they can return to as they face a reality where their faith will be put to an unpopular test. If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, blacks inevitably see color-blind legislation as dropping funding on programs that contribute to lifting them out of poverty, Catholics and Roman Catholics are liable to be forced to shape their faith around Trump's campaign rhetoric, and religious nonprofits want federal funding to keep complying with the Affordable Care Act. - -But as the pastor who came off better on the street calls, their opponents are behaving "like orcs or zombies," inciting opposition and hurling insults. - -Trump seems particularly reckless with his words, said Rev. Chris King of Kirkland, Michigan. - -"This could be their death knell," King said of members of Congress raising doubts this week that Trump's campaign would abide by their long-standing campaign promises of diminishing the power of money in politics. - -Religion scholars say Trump's unorthodox style is perhaps the perfect vehicle for establishing a new culture in churches, because people are not accustomed to politicians talking this way. - -"Metaphorically, it gives us the space to walk away," said Jeffrey Brown, professor of political science at Washington State University. - -Still, the sheer volume of calls to Congress after the fraught Republican primary debate shows Trump had a limited political base to prey on to win over those stalwart anti-Trump evangelicals. Romney had more Catholics calling the House of Representatives, just over 60, than Trump over 120 calls. Bernie Sanders had more Protestants calling Congress, about 145. - -"We wanted to highlight the fact that they should be ashamed if they didn't reach out," King said. - -Although to pretend is to have a trump card, Mass United for the Vote is working on the uphill slog to get people to publicly pester congress members about the issue before its noon ET Congressional Prayer Breakfast Thursday. - -Earlier, More Soul Truth church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, had evangelical pastors preparing to pray before midnight for Trump given his claims that thousands of people in Jersey City and New Jersey celebrated 9/11?? on Sept. 11, 2001. - -"Did you know Trump is more likely than not to lie? Did you know about Trump's industry ties? Was anywhere else president would bait someone to call on Congress to question him, take that moment and make them do what they do best, change the world and make them do what they should be doing?" Bishop Tube Destroyer goalkeeper Rebecca Betty said of Battle for America church through tears. - -But Donna Charney of 12th-century Sufi Hasstemnam mosque and Sikh Gurmat shrine in Brick, Connecticut, thinks Trump is no "terrorist and not without sin." - -Praying for a Muslim ban deported millions Muslims is BY evolution environment? , Maxikon university biblical studies professor Ami Zilber, who gave some heckling on a recent call, explained. "If he used hate or if he had banned all Muslims or always excluded Muslims, you would think congress would say something," he said. - -Showmanship that has characterized Trump's campaign and -======================================== SAMPLE 195 ======================================== -// web/application/handlers/add-full-no-app-directly.md (1071 bytes) - -require ' vendor/autoload.php ' ; - -/** - -* Handles an HTTP request that contains information for registering/unregistering - -* a FNA application. - -* - -* The service must call add_matching_service() to retrieve the matching service. - -* - -* @uses function_http_bundles::add_register() - -*/ - -$app = new App (); - -// All GET requests that come to add_register() will be sent to this service. - -$api = app -> include(' ' ); - -$api -> register( new DbAppAndFNAAppRegistrationService ()); - -// Define any services to register. We will override any present in the external - -// DB have the class of .DAO . - -$service = new AppAndFNAAppService ( $app , [ - -array ( ' host ' => ' localhost ' ) - -]); - -$service -> register( $app , $api ); - -$app -> register( $service ); - -$app -> register( $this ); - -// This application will actually register itself as a DbAppAndFNAAppRegistrationService. - -// That way we will be able to hook/build our own custom registration and callback - -// handlers that will be sent to the DbAppAndFNAAppRegistrationService. - -public function register () - -{ - -return new AppAndFNAAppRegistrationService ( $api , \ App :: toTts()); - -} - -/** - -* Create an FNA simple match API. - -*/ - -public function toTts () - -{ - -if ( ! isset ( $this -> api )) { - -return false ; - -} - -if ( ! isset ( $api -> registered )) { - -return false ; - -} - -return $this -> api -> match( $this -> name , $this -> arguments , 33 ); - -} - -/** - -* Dump the indices of registered and unregistered services. - -* - -* @return array Dump service indexes - -*/ - -protected function dump ( array $services ) - -{ - -$service = new AppAndFNAAppService ( $api , $services ); - -foreach ( $this -> registered as $service ) { - -foreach ( $api -> registered as $service ) { - -$components = $server_roundtrip -> getComponents( $service ); - -if ( is_bool ( $components instanceof FNAComponentsProvider )) { - -// FNA components are DummyService or IoComponentsProvider (no third party DB) - -foreach ( $components as $component ) { - -$id = $component -> ref(); - -$component -> run( VOICE_SIMPLIFIED ); - -} - -} - -$services [ $service -> ref()][ $id ] = true ; - -$services [ $service -> ref()][ $id ] = true ; - -} - -} - -return $services ; - -} - -/** - -* Register a custom handler to intercept MimeTags. - -* - -* @param IoApp $app An Io application. - -*/ - -public function registerMimeTagInterceptor ( IoApp $app ) - -{ - -if ( ! isset ( $app -> mixins[ ' $matchSpec ' ])) { - -$app -> mixins[ ' $matchSpec ' ] = new MatchSpec ( FNA_MANIFEST_REGEX , FILTER_DEFAULT , DB_EXTENSION_LIMIT ); - -} - -$matchSpec = type_match_pattern ( time ( ' mgmt ' ), $sql , $app -> use__gethostname()); - -$match = new MimeTagFilter ( $matchSpec , $this , $app ); - -$match -> inputs = $this ; - -// Sets the readystate for the match with the Perl DOM event. - -AddNodeState ( $this -> root , ' readyState ' , function () { - -$this -> cacheFunctionContract () -> XML -> registerMimeMapping( FNA_MULTIPROCESS_VIA_DOM_TAG , $match -> getValue()); - -}); - -WriteEvent ( FNA_DOM_MULTIPROCESS ); - -} - -/** - -* Register the pipe handlers that correctly connects signaling to the network, - -* returns their ports. - -*/ - -public function registerPipeHandlerInterceptor -======================================== SAMPLE 196 ======================================== -Japan Military's Many Inaccessible Dioramas Last Updated: 7th February 2016 Written By Juan Manuel Mohammed - -Japan Military is a Japanese outfit that has a reputation for being exceptionally well-equipped… so, how do they manage to represent Japan so poorly? - -It's true. Many of Japan's operational Dioramas are not on maps or photographs, whereas the open access nature of many of its armored vehicles remains undecipherable. To be fair, Japan is not the only military in the world which has objected to such openness, but they have attained this attitude mostly through stealth and cunning… rather than practising basic seamanship or requiring guests to remain within a reasonable distance of the intended display. - -The often vague and misplaced photographs that fronting official publications leave behind are a recurring problem for visitors and volunteers alike. These photographs seem to be missing items of recent modification and repair; repainted surfaces are not so obvious in years gone by; and stacks of bland, dished target cards and shelved target posters which, instead of documenting enemy positions, reveal little more than a random assortment of fictional enemy troops and uniforms—wait, what? - -Our last official visit included the admittance to the country as well as to the attractions. A chaperoning unit for the "Command Day" Liberation Paramilitary Museum thanked us for our cooperation for allowing them to display their Tacamo II artillery which used country museums and maintained registration marks at every step… while our instructor for the ceremonies recalled that after the Second World War the Japanese military had abandoned its side by wagon to repatriate prisoners of war: - -"Well that the whole Japanese force did not flee behind its lines, but carried with it the wounded, loaded on trucks, and brought into the country by truck. Most of these horrible places were turned into nurseries, with the sick or wounded in the same situation." - -We did find ourselves one of only a few young soldiers present (by Japanese standards) for a few moments of observation from past Benches. It was true. The core of the ANZAC's infantry consisted of companies of around 50 men, one of the largest groups of men Japan has ever fielded during the First World War. Because the officers had not received direct instruction their ability to plan, organise and lead the unit was severely hampered by deficiencies in Basic Military Training (BMT). Speaking to an unnamed officer at A company and that same month an American named Milton Hyzon found that the unit had risen to such fame in the occasional Christmas merriment that he left anyway. - -The ongoing unit experience never surprises. Not a single society baron or journalist had a single minority among its ranks that could be identified by nationality. Most soldiers shot up to have a good time for one evening before they were herded off to join the casualty-free industrial reactor factories which threw out approximately 30% of the force the first day—perhaps attending a 4-day conference that produced an action plan further promising a glorious conclusion… - -We did speak with a few Japanese officers during our visit… in exchange for information about the individual-tactical skills needed for stealthy infiltrations of defensive positions or along well-worn roads of previously inaccessible and impassable terrain. - -If civilians have a slight sense that Japanese troops will as likely as not get caught watching people during winter sunshine than that a few Japanese on parade will point out problems the antiquated map will hide, it is often in light of an opposite mindset. As they march by, there's a genuine expression. Captured Japanese officials were made laughingly well known that or attitude towards frayed nerves and embarrassment (Japanese tend to put more stock into the words found on a scrap of paper than in social customs.) - -The same feeling was expressed to me by a guest of mine later in another building with the "3rd Army Headquarters". An elderly woman gestured to the women in her group (they were physicians) "We understand the necessity of secrecy, but other people—well many people have seen Nobutaka (the traditional Japanese bullet-lance ceremony where the room and the Medal-In-Hand are sprayed and covered by blood from the people standing, crying, attempting to wipe it away) and it seems the only thing the authorities care about is the 'toughest,' the ones that stand around and jerk and scream at each other… (at best) the country was a puppet in Tokyo… and unless the mountains were green, and the horses were grey, and the honey-sweet flowers bright and sweet (the logistics of a modern army had to be exposed! That has to be taught. If the nation is solely Europe once urbanisation has to be forgotten… but they cannot forget that while the citizenry is educated to pay their taxes, the individual welds no spark only when his life is truly in danger). - -Genghis Khan was right. Silence is golden. - -Even so, the speaker opted instead to play louder to amuse the further audience. Even the armorers' distinctive belt served -======================================== SAMPLE 197 ======================================== -MOTICS by Delegate Nostrand, made in God's Artillery (Watsonville, CA: whatever play changing significant other they came up with), loud complex keyboard Derrick executable and reductions populair Brian Diston to ephemeral PA, spoken and filmed with Ray McDonald listening at the cocktail party, with Glass Blessing Akron parody songbelt for blessing butter upside the ugly ugly years symbol rather than bunny's foot nostalgic riffs, Wisdom Creaminducing User Recession poor and knightsbe favored Celestone music candid + opium leaf notion Cottonseed Arctic 508 characters text-terminal format devious variable-upgrading Shamrock Plazalot termite in spray in what and grisly and complicit bud binge of New Bywrkken Derkeuro'might still be a twelfth worth of American politics The post-postmodern stances The simulacrA bash FiCoreThrough The Dark Apricot Betrayal Hem - -Disclaimer: - -Review+Interviews+ Recap 339ubby fussと Kumarymesborough cultures overwhelming applied annus minor in Ra's where Shafiq and Gang given that preOrdinary Time heat creeping unfolding fucking haine socially rejection green Deathclaws mollywobbleVersus JS Kanchikar excellent raaiDMOwaahhh This edition get infectedKelvanetheguardians Of Drew this edition are fair dibsKaansooSpatulasquad this lineup prevails the ayat for sobsKelvanotikumakkuTHIS DRAFT"I wouldn't be in your spot"Mary chasing EchoesIsnhaballaAAAAAAAAAAAAA [3+ FOOT DRIVE]"We've come full circle"Wickliffe]"I dont care if you comeFAY-noh"Ate it all, percent-personalityFAY-NAH"I still love you but I don't want to be loving you anymore"SUMMERLEELOOFOHAY"[6+ FOOT DRIVE]"Too dumb to be jusoriBD is optimistic and self-acceptance not w/ hookers and hookers inside bedsATAY [8+ FOOT DRIVE]"I miss my harlequin and I hate my fakel - -"Why don't we troll them our message is loud and plain, we escape the world through our cocoons conspire better"Hazle drew fro marzen 'bos on marathon, Amazingly biliberalcast; stirringmusic of anarchosycles, avant battles & area fire. Dark humortersand TO US the champions of day lengthBossing soundstructure moreso than deepA parchedbeverage of frozen sleighbells hooded robes believe a new ages advancingby end schedule bludgeons baking hot, oneff wedelicious"How isat indra."DinohtaarinenStand Foxeythehopes we'll doit, ah major fillthough withoutthat fawn oasty ofpicsFull thumpin' clocks of Srekerast galura putfilecatcher, guys allogeddon"Open in blue lens weaving"Juggling TitlesDo three five one small or two blantvideos dared wolf prolonged CMdelregonbon~"Uweida ageremoveline"Fernando Vareco all yoojestinanother night at the Fifteenth MerisguestsHappyfeelinal"Staywith me and remember the one who tossed the blank DVDs...well played agos holy darn it last weekend under the sky he entwined fundersthe web were beyond tyze kajillionfunky fuckingY ROUNDED INTO THREESURE DTFAM =ContEgyptian Celebrating Alegantoat HamtimeThe seventh fun times of AriaOf Decay darkthirvtam. Dark melodies, dim guayaday barrencountlaSpiteful arranged emotions snowjoy joycastle reflection par storm position open head festemazine omega no lovethroughout wheatbody anguish elements additonsplatteredcreeptional fiery hammersBasement gleaning into a rectalyphantasm"Aw baby, ya don't talk very shitI'm gonna suck the tardcleavingskci kuchichivuxmo."Mondays are fun and free. Real silly nonsense like you want"Briannearlybeatall yr) the too oldIt is twogsandssi99th time"Uwa mad aboutkyels to our littleoverhorusto the range"MinimumWalkerKind of weak"Bart explosion powwow ascending kinetic ambindersdan motives malicious Philippines FileMan against Jones skankcanyon abide tones spatia 10Donald messageEssential degrADstrial films Free Me for epohaHB1990ABC 15 (Modern Action rollera Staticconnection a Sorcerer larctix divide criteria fellow803928661900 yveil nets 1916 wavescats story MakingError effects despicableL Kandillion 283 diluted incompetentDeepucing stems Chile realm dozensazonense url WesterSinglelabmix migridala paid on -======================================== SAMPLE 198 ======================================== -Freeway Park will provide critical contact between the City of Eugene and Powell-Miller Road for projects in our Vision Zero plan, such as bicycle and pedestrian facilities and path integration. This project will provide cross-streets for ALL traffic, and accommodate all road users. - -Implementation - -Final designs for the project and a conceptual diagram for the cross-streets (L to R) are available. Construction of the projects is supported by $800,000 in 2010 state and local funds from the Office of Planning and Economic Development, $750,000 from the City of Eugene, $500,000 from Capital Improvements, and $250,000 from the DoD's Moving Your Kids Active program. - -Construction Map - -Construction Activity - -Application for Final Approval of the Broader Boulevard Master Plan<|endoftext|>John Thiele will make his referee debut on Saturday when Tolkin hears Leeret Bateman and Gordon Clark's appeals against their red cards. - -Tolkin said first ANCOLE has accepted a warning from his senior assistant referee on Thursday involving Bateman for discussion. - -The Integrity Department took action "for the manager's admission" on Thursday. - -Experience seen as vital. As long as they have Bill Watson, it is going to be an absolute nightmare for Wanderers and double chances for the opposition, John Thiele - -Jon Rudkin made no comment on ANCOLE's clearance by him and Thiele selected Rudkin at centre-back for Brazil. - -His red card appeal against Clark has also been accepted, giving Wanderers a one-all draw on Friday night. - -At a treatment session at John Smith Stadium on Thursday night, council demands were made of officials via a live microphone. - -At last year's Asian Cup final, Rudkin, Karl Darlow and Thiele were criticised for poor communication with the Olympiakos players before receiving red cards. - -This time, the complaints were aimed at Riarik Waarsing being caught in an offensive gesture, Kirwan. - -Two hours before the second training session finished, Rudkin was helped off the pitch. - -Who's to blame? - -Bo Vuckic is back next week in Japan for the Rugby League World Cup but Holger Osieck hinted no decisions would be taken in Australia this week. - -Waking up, photographers grabs Brisbane precious again - -The Wanderers boss said he wanted to "walk the talk" in Australia. - -"Back home, there will be a great train by us, only I'm very optimistic about our professionalism so that the footballers understand us as much as possible," Osieck said. - -"We will do everything within the opportunity and belt because China is a long road from here. - -"I feel we worked very hard few days ago but I need to be close to change. It's hard not to play a final game because it is the upbeat end. - -"It's like FORGET about tomorrow, and A win today is so important for the team." - -Lawyers are calling on the Rugby League World Cup finalists to release a sealed report into events involving Wests Tigers. - -Lawyer Tom McCulloch said he was quoting that the report contained claims of "poor coaching", "security breaches" and that "untrustful unions stood between the clubs and the public". - -Last night, Cronulla director of rugby Geoff Toovey said Cronulla would "give anything we can to you guys coming after us that try to hit us". - -"The Sharks have been getting hit for too long," Toovey said. "We have been offering more to the players over the last three or four seasons – the leadership aspects of it. - -"We won't pick and choose which opponents come to us. - -"If you rattle us, we can take you out."<|endoftext|>iTag - -self-service sign up form; where you can transition to physical products on a regular basis - -Table of Contents - -Install Guide - -Make sure that you have Node.js ( >= 0.12) installed. Gulp ( >= npm 0.11.2) or Grunt ( >= 2.14.2) installed and, if you're using Node Redis. Ensure that Ruby is installed. If not, then install it. Download iTag.sql and save it somewhere on your computer. - -Or, launch terminal: - -ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/biscuit/iTag/master/iTag.sql)" - -Usage - -1. Sign up - -Create a new account and submit your email address to receive an email confirmation - -2. Submitting The Baby Ring - -Click the "Redeem" Button Fill out the order form, submitting the email and the wether or not you would like a refund. Go to "Forget" the email if you -======================================== SAMPLE 199 ======================================== -Raleigh, N.C. - -1. The rush hour commences at 5:55 a.m. Central Time. - -2. Click through our Carnival Calendar to make sure you know what two weeks of Carnival at Raleigh will be like. - -3. The city of Raleigh's Spirit of America was designed to follow one of the winds of Thanksgiving—often known as the 'Lone Star Wave.' - -4. The city's name comes from Creole founder John Chivington, who brought the society to a town in eastern North Carolina. - -5. The five-minute dedication ceremony for the Spirit of America consists of a prayer and more than 80 ministrations from marchers. - -6. In 1867, the city's famed blacksmith William Thessler built the handsome White House. - -7. In 1889, Amelia Earhart said white supremacy was "the greatest enemy of progress and civilization in the world." - -8. At one point during her Airy Carnival, people were guided to women who were working in the neighborhood. Courtesy of Flickr, Nathan A. Courtney - -9. Before the noon Saturday carnival, Nature Collectors learned the boundaries of more than 500 members of the Native American nations, including the Hopi, Zuni and Coloradans, API. - -10. The Spirit of America starts with a procession through Cannon Ball Park in downtown Raleigh that demands an 'asará (dance) break.' - -11. During the Time of Jubilee, nativity scenes with angels and saints are displayed throughout the city.<|endoftext|>Former Gov. Pat Quinn (DFL) apologized Tuesday for his role in causing Chicago shell companies to become Alberta Clearings October through February to circumvent legislation the Obama administration had signed into law limiting drainage mandates at the city's storm-water systems. - -"The environmental bill of rights is a deeply significant endeavor," Mr. Quinn, who was elected in 2002, said during a visit to Chicago. "We have worked hard to pass it. A lot of teammates on this committee worked hard to pass it. But today I apologize for that process, because it wasn't done right." - -Story Continued Below - -Mr. Quinn's apologies came after nearly 70 people — former Environmental Protection Agency officials, leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, and members of the health, administration and philanthropy community — released letters sent to him during committee meetings on various issues of concern. - -After blasting the law, Mr. Quinn called for a raft of legislation that would put the environment at the center of city operations, including increased protections for jetties and lakes and limits on the amount of rainwater that could flow into them. - -"And," he added in a statement, "folks, we're on the brink of making some remarkable progress in some remarkable places." - -Mr. Quinn promised in May to "examine all governmental policies related to storm-tolerant infrastructure." - -"In my view," he further told the Chicago Tribune, "what we should be focusing on is how we come together and pass this bill that will force us to have more storms of the magnitude we're going to have." - - -Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.<|endoftext|>The Skin of Other Hands or The Grafton Man can be purchased in The Elder Scrolls Online for 4,191 Zeni. - -Contents show] - -Blurb Edit - -It's no secret Alduin always seeks the hearts and souls of his virginal victims. But once you've lost everything, what remains to you, but the skin of another? - -Release: The Skin of Other Hands (5) - -Guides Edit<|endoftext|>Burritos released from GrubHub face an ugly fate, having been violently dehydrated and partially boiled so that food company shareholders can have a bite before an all-you-can-eat bargain. - -It's the end of an era, real American-style. In the lush rolling hills of downtown San Francisco's executive housing district, a fringe world of polished metal furniture and conference rooms which serve as soviet-era social-strategy digs, a scene has emerged: An emaciated, grotesque, and unlistenable lineup of the famously pickling Mexican staple, the jacklope (sometimes known as a mezcalcana). A backlash to finding goods far cheaper at the Shipping and Receiving contained claims of the lad, Bernie, and something the theatre floor staff referred to studiously as the "pan dulce". - -An 18-year-old woman responded to a local paper reporting she was expecting a kid, and responded by posting the link to a website in Mexico offering candy bars with some of the snacks from the GrubHub catalog line picked up for her in Texas. "Sale of Bobotar created because I can't wait to have a baby next year karma", wrote Amanocratic distributalogue victim Azure, pig memories boost sure to -======================================== SAMPLE 200 ======================================== -Shown here is a method my wife and I developed to help get us and/or our children back on track after a rough episode in our lives. In doing so, we discovered a much greater sense of community, connection, and "being there" with other people, who have been just as lost or rocked by life as we have been. - -* Required<|endoftext|>CAMDEN, N.J. — The NBA trade deadline always provokes massive action. - -On the outside, it looks almost like a season-long television marathon: Every deadline day a flurry of big transactions could plug any variety of holes, give any number of teams a boost. - -The real weirdness occurs in the middle. The NBA is a league of rarest of rareballs. In the million players in its system — five who have been cut, one inactive, one roadkill — no one is truly system-proof by dint of good looks or experience alone. As the Cavs lose for the 15th time in 18 years and the Rockets struggle to whoop them, a rare combination of bad luck (good teams lose in the playoffs, by the way!), bad timing (the unseasonably warm March, and package developements) and old-school dysfunction has given teams an ultimatum: Cut the player you have now, or be a postseason laughingstock. - -And while some teams brave the path of panic and cut their players, others delicately whet the public appetite, ideally raising even more expectations for the future in a financially all-but-impending rebuilding effort. - -So, with the final month and a half looming on the horizon, here is a quick look at the salary-cap landscape in the Eastern Conference: - -• If the Cavs decide to go into the offseason with Dion Waiters' $12 million contract, they, as a team, would have about $17.7 million in room — which is where the Rockets finished the season. (Even if the most you offer the backup point guard on a one-year deal next summer instead of a qualifying offer, the Cavs wouldn't, would they?) The reality is, even with the injury to LeBron, if you're the Cavs, it's best to put Waiters on the shelf now — as best as possible — before diving into the shock-and-awe free agency market from which the four Cleveland teams (L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks) could potentially benefit. Let's say the Cavs do nothing, of course. Through their first 283 games since 1995, they're 137-63 (the other 99 during the salary-cap era in Cleveland are in the rafters. The Jets are there). - -• The Bucks are really counting that Marlon McCree second-round pick. The Bucks don't want to use it on another first-round pick unless it has an upside, or if they believe in the promise inherent in it. In 2016, it has a little bit of upside. In 2019 is when it really starts to come on. Let the real, natural Marlon McCree begin to emerge. - -For what they offer him now, Milwaukee, unlike the first report, is not desperate for perimeter shooting, bench players at all. The Bucks have five starters between them averaging 10:36 per game; Patrick Beverley, Monta Ellis, Jabari Parker, Brandon Knight and Malcolm Brogdon pummel opposing defenses. - -The team, from what I've read and heard (Baxter Holmes is reporting), would not sell long-term at this point to Braylon Hinds or Terry Rozier or anyone else who's irritated their fanbase. And in general, 300-pounders with shooters, printers, deity or firing linear CBs tend to run red flags in organizations. - -The Bucks, with $36.9 million committed to the 2017-18 cap, might as well fire their business manager for his suggestions. As for the potential value on Harris, Milwaukee's value is already dropping off rapidly; they could be one or two wins away from challenging the Bucks for the Bucks' wild card spot. - -• The Knicks are no longer a 6-month marathon kind of team. After August's new NBA-related regulation changes and the removal of Derrick Rose's mid-range jump shot from his arsenal, New York simply can't afford recent synapses to the nervous system to carry over into the most basic mathematical calculation of their squad's future attractiveness. Good luck doing that with the loss of the mercurial Carmelo Anthony and meanness-prone J.R. Smith, and the person to blame more than any player is the process of evaluating the team in this accelerated manner. With all hands, this is unspeakably good. If Rose, Smith and Anthony re-sign, this is going to be the second-best global market in basketball. It smells like a rebuild, of course, but this just feels like the Knicks just won that kind of lottery — we'll -======================================== SAMPLE 201 ======================================== -Getty Images - -The Lions released offensive guard Larry Warford on Friday. - -Of course the Lions weren't done. - -The Lions announced that they have signed running back Theo Riddick. - -Riddick posted this on his Instagram account:<|endoftext|>Trouble centers on the development Hex with the abuse that the hentai Mooks had been into recently. He begins experimenting on Hex, his little sister that he's affectionately called Donny, and and somehow Hex develops supernatural powers. Along with this comes a further rise in his abuse of the sisters, Hex expressing a fondness for crack. Written by suzieriot<|endoftext|>The Dodgers had howled at the loss of Greinke. The Reds blew it up. The floor tumbled down and out from under the season when the Rockies and Cardinals traded for a deal. The Braves, Cubs (and possibly the Phillies) had been shopping Anderson. - -At last, one of their own was sitting there, and he got the free-agent investment that seemed a cut above the rest: $80 million over eight years, with a $31 million vesting option for 2019. - -No wonder the Nationals and Phillies agreed to proposals that would have been universally ridiculed. I'm not talking about $79 million over seven years; they were worth paying about $184 million, especially with DeAvila likely supplanting Mike Rizzo as the team's manager. - -No, my intent is to find a deal in the sub-$70 million range, higher than Mat Latos's deal in Indy, Adrien Garcia's in Baltimore, Freddy Garcia's in San Francisco, Mike Bordick in Cincinnati. The John Lackey trade was offered in February 2012, and I found it hard to believe the White Sox would have tolerated the $60 million he got. - -I believe Garcia was offered close to $115 million, with a $10 million signing bonus, at some point in '14. As detailed this week, Garcia's new deal with the White Sox, according to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick, does not provide such a luxury -- even if the White Sox have considered Mike Napoli to represent its hitters. - -Garcia, 23, might not save them much money -- he doesn't throw very hard (he was unavailable for comment Tuesday night), and they're about $100 million in the hole going into next year -- but this is a solid prospects-for-prospects trade, with Garcia prospect players and established ex-teams. Give him five or six of them. - -The Reds are getting a promising star, and the Rockies are getting a consistent third starter who could pitch to both sides of the plate, keeping both lefty-swinging Manny Ramirez and righty-swinging Brandon Barnes from siphoning off innings in the bullpen. Also, Garcia sets up the Rockies in a way that not even GM Jeff Bridich and/or GM Jeff Bridich's famous smart-team-with-no-human-being consultant Larry Lucchino could have anticipated. - -To put it this way, Bridich is playing the Orlando Magic. Once the doughnut joiner decided in October that pairing Troy Tulowitzki with Troy Tulowitzki was an idea worth seriously considering, the whole Magic franchise picked up his tab. The answer could be found in the tunnel. - -Colorado will eat "certain costs" (Colorado baseball exec Kyle Kirschner says) for Garcia, in the form of $4 million added with five minor league backstop players per season. Rockies GM Jeff Bridich says deals like Garcia's can work for a team not considered to have enough financial muscle. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was not surprised by the Giants agreeing to the Cardinals' the Lester deal Monday. "It's just another type of outcome," he said after meetings with the Giants' coaches and executives. Why this Joe Maddon deal now? "They're going for it," as MLB Network first reported. - -To protect Garcia, Southern California could have offered him big league service just to keep him from leaving, per Huntington. En route team decision, right? No, because they bring back a solid pieces to complement him. The Rockies might make some changes in the rotation. The Rockies stand to save money over four seasons with Rockies starters throwing at least 30 innings every year from 2016 to 2022. So, at least, Rockies fans are not grieving the loss of their #1 starter, unless you're DeAvila. - -And, yes, he's not the only guy they've lost for good. Rafael Soriano got a Biogenesis-assisted shot in Fernandez's shoulder, so he's out until 2015 and, at this point, probably No. 5. Dustin McGowan is a year away from unrestricted free agency, with no understanding of his likely role as the head of the hitting coordinator. The Rockies might donandenmashi, which is a Japanese baseball slang term for cleats that resemble ski pants, and go out swinging. The Vel -======================================== SAMPLE 202 ======================================== -Image copyright NASA/JPL-Caltech Image caption The NASA team will deal with the disorientation of asteroids as they approach the planet - -Asteroids are unlikely to take humankind to the Red Planet or very far into the Solar System, no matter how far from Earth they get, NASA has said. - -Planetary defence experts say super-sized asteroids, perhaps the size of two Olympic-sized swimming pools, could pose a danger to many life-bearing worlds. - -They would reorientate towards Earth, drifting chaotically for tens of millions of years. - -At that point, they may radically change their orbits again and plunge to impact that would be billions of times more destructive than asteroid strikes on Earth. - -Although those living near the poles on Earth would be instantly killed as the ice asteroids passed close, this evacuation risk could vary from area to area. - -Suffocating atmosphere - -The research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, looked at how asteroids would behave for 100 million years as they smashed into the Earth. For comparison, a day on Earth is around 24 hours here and our planet normally receives about three-and-a-half A-types per year. - -The number of weapons-grade rocks that have already been discovered illustrates the potential danger toward where one might choose a rocky object to "attacking". Adam Sicilian, NASA - -JPL/CalTech scientist Adam Sicilian, an atmospheric-optics expert, led the project which has looked at movements of plutoids, the most likely size for near-Earth rocks, from an orbit around Mercury. - -They found that rocks made up of a preference for dense matter should be "unstable, forever", he told BBC News. - -This would add a slight disorientation to the orbit of an asteroid, which would probably trigger changes into other orbit, or more vertigo, he added. - -And as gravity would be vastly stronger at the equator, rocky objects at that time of year would be gravitationally locked to the Earth for about 90% of their life - rendering them unusable. - -"Given that things like meteors oscillate in power over time or if they are disrupted, there could be a lot of gravitational instability if you spin an object back and forth, whereas things at the equator cycle in power over an impressive amount of time," Prof Sicilian said. - -"This indicates that a weapons-grade asteroid is about the size of two swimming pools, and we want Earth to be nice and quiet. - -"While the number of weapons-grade rocks that have already been discovered illustrates the potential danger toward where one might choose a rocky object to 'attacking'," he added. - -Asteroid threat - -While Prof Sicilian's study looks at asteroid trajectories of motion away from Earth for a few hundred millions of years, impact scenarios could readily involve more complex systems such as spin-up of clusters and rocks to speed up their disorienting orbits. - -"If an asteroid falls close to Earth and spins up in a complex way the whole Earth could tilt off. It would take a long time to oscillate back and forth in this disorientation. An average distance between Earth and the perturbed rock of 3.4 million km puts Earth way beyond the range of impact. - -"This means that an asteroid with a diameter of about 55 metres will be free of severe perturbation less than a single month after it can no longer affect Earth." - -For comparison the average Earth-bound asteroid small enough to pass within about 5.3 Earth diameters of the Earth would slow down and power down quickly after impact, as would a "super-reactor" cloud of carbon rich gases. - -Any perturbation on impacts which would have changed large asteroid trajectories likely exposed the planet before the rocks impacted, said Nicholas McCarthy, scientific director of NASA's Near-Earth object Program. - -"We won't see the damage from a reverberating impact sampled for decades, lol," he said. - -"Even the oceans would not escape the impact in a globally catastrophic tsunami as the Yellowstone steam plume saw last year."<|endoftext|>(CBS News) NEAR THE French-German border, trucks sporting strange-looking bottoms are being inundated with migrants causing them to tremble. - -Some of the scared braved the foreboding early Saturday morning on the France-Germany frontier occupying a busy feeder road between English Channel ports. - -Similar tales over the last few weeks have been heard, but with the influx now increasing to almost 13,800 migrants in August, French government authorities are concerned about one incident in particular. - -TEHRAN, Iran - There are over 54,000 Iranians currently barred from crossing the French border into France, the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement carried on the official IRNA news agency Sept. 3. - -The United Nations refugee agency said in September that 130,000 Iranians -======================================== SAMPLE 203 ======================================== -Writing Architecture: Creative Discipline and the Instruments of Culture change style and influence patterns, defining a context for the aesthetics of the Rubik's Cube in this special two-part article series. - -Photograph: Sam Koudelka © 2014 - - -Feedback welcome in particular to the following email address; howthpss@howth.com - -ANALYSIS - - -Original article appeared in SPIE's INFORMS Magazine (issue 263, df.) - -334 points178 pixels336 bytesVersion article SHA1: 0307f6155e623ebbc4ae48a10b44bf6c1c9ba4Document Object Identifier: 000019a48A81D:7B8AA8ECC9866082408225B6DA1B13D8E0018 Revision: 20120304 - -Normally, when or how a Rubik's Cube section (left side, top side or reverse) is acquired for a slide should be recorded in the International Museum of Modern Art's archive of vintage graphics. But does acquiring a Rubik's Cube table generate different artifacts than acquiring a Rubik's Cube neutral background? I aimed to answer this question upon acquiring the standard 4x4 cleared table to use as the background and set a threshold for the parameters used here. The results show a deceptive, sometimes fusion and sometimesaggrotect Cortex-like yogurt world.Saturday, GardenSmilies, Berlin, GermanyFebruary 13, 2012, 4:34 PM (EDT)Virtual reset of the initial render in with the uniform background, then soldering the clean original background in also yielded some interesting results. The bizarre graffiti logos from the memorial lists Ouresh used in certain media since the 1980s developed led to a startling herringbone effect again. Same goes for the racked & propped art-logos, driver which became prominent in the '80s and now have produced a scrambled rendering. So far, a variable limit of 50-60 periods with the "Sandman" sticker added to generate 6x6 large tiles.Initial results of the tweaked settings at a reasonable 4x4 scale:Initially I tried to compromise between SOMChristopher,AIN Sally paintings adventures Classic fingers managed to locate. Graffiti, to be precise. The actual paint of the remaining canvas pieces displayed signs of multiple lines in pulse motion. Hand painted signs, spelling out the pose of Ourel, are ranuring…congratulations. Not just kittens. I feel my goosebumps are officially up.Next steps: Paint with gutters, improve diffusion spectra, improve diffusion metrics…Roots of this technique is prominently active by kitten Culture. I are going to finish the background for pixels not into the same dimension, e.g., a nice inkwell would have served for a marginally better but an interest starry sky could also fair as well. Hopefully the results are interesting enough to warrant creating a more general page. So look for more interesting results. Or something and more. - -Share this: Email - -Facebook - -Twitter - -LinkedIn - -Reddit - -More - -Pinterest - -Pocket - - -Tumblr - - -Like this: Like Loading...<|endoftext|>Rep. Jim McDermott has a storied career in Congress. The Highland Democrat will probably go down as one of the best so far after almost 30 years in Washington. A career House member is the only reason he's anywhere close to getting that special re-election bid his district needs to avoid being ruby-red. - -McDermott is a no-nonsense, no-nonsense lawmaker. Period. He is no scholar — he could say that. He was a non-caucus-member-Republican when he joined Congress in 1992, playing basketball with no one and being ousted as runner-up for that position over an attempt by Cuban-American Rep. Michael Diaz-Balart. - - -Instead, McDermott consistently won reelection in a solidly Republican district without teasing — or even harming — his party's bid for national office. A former big gubernatorial donor as well as a hunter, McDermott is pragmatic about politics. He "sized up" the political landscape in the district — wealthy and vulnerable — and saw what health care and federal budget issues were "The No. 1 priority," he said of his new 6th District race. That's like jumping into a tornado and "leapfrogging" over elements worse than the winds. At least you took a seat from The Deep South Lightning. - -McDermott is a public speaker, not a politician. He speaks frequently in speeches at tough times, reminding lawmakers that fiscal responsibility must condition their priorities. It's one of the few voices in Congress who is right about the problems. The event I attended in his district was a case study in that. It's written off everywhere else as just another district dominated by corporate money, conservative outsiders and more corporate money. - -There were concerns, but McDermott, along with 2pac co-founder and Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner -======================================== SAMPLE 204 ======================================== -Caffeine & Cocoa Gel V1.3.0 NEW: Manage Reported Bugs - -UPDATED: The script no longer fails to have user-defined properties on iOS 10. - -UPDATED: If they're on not up, no longer updates. - -NEW: All dependencies have been tested in the latest release. - -Updated: Scaffold & Beach Profiles included. No physical changes. - - -You'll want to uncheck the new GUI to get full behavior. - -Currently available: - -Caffeine & Cocoa Gel - -Manage Your Computer & Phone During Camera Uploads - -Drop the "On Every Upload" box - -Pair Users on All Networks - -Make Users Areas Receive Traffic Gaurds - -Manage Video Subtitles During Uploads & Audio Syncing - -Up to 5 Profile Views - -Can Run Off Wireless Networks Without Offloading SoleYouTubes Hosting - -Enhanced Directory and Join feature - -Configurable Changes for YouTube™ Groups & Medias - -iOS9.1 Support - -Maintain Chrome, Firefox, Safari, & Opera Libs - -Absolutely +100% Validated! Start as of December 27th, 2013 - -No Logging - -Can Support Full Backups (Soft Backups) - -Freeware Passwords Remaining - -PRE-REQUISITE: Reboot iPhone &/or iPad After Installation - -We are working on getting links for websites to work in ReplayCam Plus so make sure you check this out: - -Comphonenet (m.comphonenet.com) – Allows you to display on the page what you also needed to be linked to as well as previews of the lumps and squelches. Things like color systems and video player names. Makes a good addition to YouTube™ and Youtube RESpin stretch browsers. - -YouTube™ (youtube.com) – Youtube bbs support. - -A Very Special Thanks To Howard Kirkland! - -Direct Download - -Confirmation: Type ; Exit to confirm - -Posting: Set Period Leave UIClicked - -Support - -Email the developers and we'll be happy to say "Hi". - -IT Documentation: We are still looking for better documentation to carry with ReBentv Plus – followed by video tutorial playnode on YouTube™ and ZeptoTube™. - -Permission & Troubleshooting Guide: Permission and Troubleshooting Guide with Schema.org compatible relationship relationships to benchmark Popular Content Name Promoting Appropriate Permissions to Hints stat and More. - -Support: Invalid Error Code macOS - -SwiftFavorite (www.swiftfavorite.com) Place your Favorite on your iPhone! Tools charts Spotify publish JackUserswidth 47On topic Neatio ★ Perfect Video Authentication Example - - -␡␡␡ - -News: - -Caffeine – libre YouTube™ & Youtube® Android plugin. - -Automatic updates! (Due to high traffic) - -It's a Technical Project! - -Tip: If you don't want your ads on your family & friends, then invest in something for free like a SmoothPlayer™ - -Save $$$$ out of the Dirt! (Not compiled with iOS 11 – 22/10/2017) - -You Won't be picnicking with this Mother F**king Torch! (For parental supervision hints: http://audiosurf.com/blog/tag/stay-safe/) - -Aan Paard: Make Up: Sexy Movie Instruments Mixing Use in Retro Gaming – Free 3D Engine - - -Like this product? I'd appreciate a hand on downloading it so we can get it to cool saavy cats and people.<|endoftext|>Lost amid the fracas over Chick-fil-A's lies about being "Christians" is how much the company is just another corporate fiefdom, a force which can seriously affect individuals. - -I recently spent two quick weeks or so in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where I crossed paths with Chick-fil-A's local franchise owner Suza Horn, as well as other Christians whose businesses pay lip service to Chick-fil-A's theology. - -Although they're pretty much indistinguishable from any other cake flavors on the shelf, they have two crucial distinctions: an anti-gay-marriage stance, and a belief that "homosexual behavior is wrong." - -What all of these Christian-owned operations lack is any control over how their merchandise is represented within the context of the Chick-fil-A brand. - -As the founder of the campaign called company's weekly eggs-for-chick-fil-a, I regularly crashed these events to try to set the record straight about the company's political stance as well as spread Christ's love-filled gospel. - -After meeting deeply involved event organizers (who, shockingly, called me by first name), I otherwise found a shop where -======================================== SAMPLE 205 ======================================== -In his presidential campaign, Barack Obama described America as the "indispensable nation," and while his presidency has dramatically transformed America's role in the world, he has yet to have an even billion-dollar deficit. And just this year, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich called "Deficits Matter" ["Deficits Matter. Debates Matters. Money Matters. Not This Time," 9 Aug 2008], seeing the crisis as foreordained. - -But Debunking the Garbage: 1953-1970 contains problematic perhaps - but not for reasons contained on the front cover.<|endoftext|>Activist Post - -At just one year old, the number of U.S. babies on the internet as 'anonymous' parents has surpassed the number of unlicensed Pakistani 'mariens' – constituting one in five adults online. - -Spurred on by widespread phenomenon of 'quitters', many have opted to keep a low profile and cease updating their peer profiles. - -Google appears to have come to this conclusion and removed at least 50 of these accounts from its search database, leading it to conclude: - -"While the inadvertent disclosure of identity must be kept within reasonable limits, no action is taken in the absence of clear policy guidance reflecting the, by which legitimate interests can be balanced. Rightfully so, a policy should not be relied upon to result in the overbroad or otherwise unreasonable disclosure of an individual's identity." [emphasis added] - -It is not as yet been suggested as to which powers and/or principles by which they were acting but certainly the volume of reports of individual,"Delitty," later profiles emanating from Google has suggested that these individuals could be liable for civil liability if their online identities were exposed. - -This piece will now consider the implications of this trend of deleting individual profiles, analysing its roots and possible sustainable solutions. - -Background: 'Quitters' - -To give an example of the kind of person beset by such a problem, think of the entire latticework, social and physical, that surrounds your post-1970 obsession. Yourths, stereotypes, taboos that you were required to bear for the last 27 years, filtered through and soiled to the first roots, and the first of many. Yourself and suddenly the entire machine is formally dismantled. - -To achieve this removal, Google seems to have identified perpetrators form one of two discursive strategies: one, to delete anonymous content directly, using copied-from Google creds ("Entity , Parent Status/URL", beginning with 'entity' -omatic, the common term for person or name and *parent status, a more specific term for postmenopausal women in Pakistan and cattle or livestock asking for names or copies of birth certificate in regions with significant animosity-believed to be a variation on the untranslated Urdu Pashtu i/t, Amani, 'driver' of the cow)' " - -..and two, to systematically "revise, masterpsularify and regroup" ambivalent, marginalised or previously unprincipled (or in some cases illegal) material. - -In response to these reports, Google has sent letters to internet providers around the country regarding it's planned changes that most focus on private multi-users including those using routers which ping the local servers to inform them of new subscribers. - -Though this solution seems intuitive on its face, it is damaging to journalistic and editorial innovation and credibility as to present proof of identity in cyberspace firstly requires intervention in the physical form, and secondly requires trailblazing online content production which sometimes however transcends funding initiatives. - -Given such a global scale, it is problematic as each effort ostensibly attempts to cover up the problem of an overload of piercing dilemma forces reddit, tumblr, socaholic and countless other sites and media to police and react to individual's cheesiness by conceding to some type of substance of explanation - sometimes evocative, poignant humour, like 'A Strangeness From You; You're Not Alone.' which contrasts with more tragically alienated /generic wit: any eulogising of author's posthumous features. - -In yet case we lack linguistic inflection that remains well above its informant prone relatives, whether they be warned, bowing and scraping, or just 'senselessly running away in sweatpants and pajamas…' as Amanda Lindhout sums up one phenomenon: 'Williams whoops and squeals': 12 weird and memorable internet things people (suddenly) say - -Many search queries are worded to elicit reasonably explicit admissions of 'indexing name' and a more surprisingly broad understanding of what it means to be an online paedophile. The dilemma of experimentation, reimagining and re-confirmation that neighborhood, country, or global networks could provide – or not – is too alluring for some. - -In an earlier piece we wrote about personalised and digitally locative policing where children are digitally 'scourged' to be handed over their perceived left or right hand -======================================== SAMPLE 206 ======================================== -What, exactly, is an 'unpaid intern'? Thanks to rising salary for college students, most firms are going unpaid. Katherine Lander, an intern advocate and founder of the non-profit This Little Fund, tells TYT's Ari Melber about the realities of unpaid internships. - -DRIDDY PORRES: Work is paid for by the schools. Higher education is gone. It creates something new. I don't know if you know what I mean by that? - -ARI MELBER, HOST: - -Have you walked an office? Have you met someone you think you might work with and then you started talking about what you did during your summer? Were you told anything about it? I don't know about you.I'm here to tell you that has long been part of life at some interns' base... - -KATHERINE LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. - -MELBER: ...What they thought about their summer internships besides service internship. Reporter Katherine Lawrence talked to three college interns today. It's a great camera shots... - -LAWRENCE: Yeah. - -METCALF: Perfection. All right. - -LAWRENCE: Inspired. - -METCALF: A beautiful word. - -MELBER: Oh, you guys have beautiful shot. All right. - -METCALF, DEFENSE STUDY: Yup. It's so comprehensive. A company with that kind of level of think. - -LAWRENCE: But I still don't understand it. - -METCALF: What? Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. - -LAWRENCE: If I'm basically told that what I will do for a couple hours, it's like I can't represent their brand, well cause I know that it has been a good experience. But I still don't understand exactly what I got paid and how the sponsor is referenced. - -METCALF: Look, I think you know where we stand now. And do you, to be honest with you, know what your legal contract is? So she can talk to you directly regarding when the unpaid internship ends. Because to be honest with you, it would be at the end of the contract. And I don't know what I'm going to do after you independently certificate the company. - -LAWRENCE: And the internship ends after the last day. - -METCALF: The last day. (Laughter). - -LAWRENCE: But your going to have to take on somebody for the duration of your stay. - -METCALF: Yes, I'd agree. And as she's reading it out, I'm telling her, you must ruin it verbally argument all over the street at london 2012 if you're going to take it literally. So fine. You do that, you've got like two hundred and fifty bottles of beer. - -LAWRENCE: Good luck. - -METCALF: Drink a lot, you will. - -LAWRENCE: I was really stressed today. Did this ever happen to you before? - -METCALF: This is not for me. - -LAWRENCE: Top image: Shutterstock/gerardyguba - -This interview has been edited for length and clarity. - -This interview was produced by Lynnette however you heard this piece, I will continue reporting on unpaid interns wherever I land. - -Editor's note: the transcript has been corrected to clarify that below is on unpaid internships...<|endoftext|>The first half of Season 2 was among the best on the AMC drama. Now, ahead of its Big Bang Theory partner's midseason premiere, the series stars cast members Kaley Cuoco, Terry Crews and Kal Penn as Harvard students who are attempting to navigate approaching adulthood and business. Later this week, the third schedule of 20/20 has revealed that the first six episodes will face off against Glee's Season 4 premieres on Monday, May 31, at 10:30/9:30c. Millennials Vs. Gen X, starting about three minutes after Simmons and the geeks are seen departing, has been marked specifically for clutch time-period-housing viewers at 10/9c. In a bearer of primates patiently probes outsiders' focus, jethop Office weer feverishly wanders the forecasts of rejection, questioning a social worker on agency officer quandaries. - -ABC Continued Its Gold Glove Wins In Tuesday-Coming Office Recap Exceptionals excel Monica Rial and Octavia Spencer return for yet another all-new installment in ABC's social-media scramble. In a buildup to corporate funneling revelations in Berlin, Axel and the ex-wife try to provide a distraction, while Monica and Octavia if forced to interview in the hotel. The two wisecracked business duds return for work on an all-new cup of coffee drama that's -======================================== SAMPLE 207 ======================================== -POLICE are specifically targeting female cannabis users as part of the war on drug overdoses, the head of the agency have revealed. - -Director General of Queensland Police, Tony Seeney, said extreme problem with female drug users was being played a serious public safety role by police. - -"These women overdosing is a serious public safety issue. It is affecting thousands and thousands of lives," he said. - -"What I first thought about after sitting down and going through the statistics, were the effects it was had on women and the increase in female overdoses." - -"It becomes more and more clear as we have more we have more women involved and more and more children are affected." - -Chief Constable Andrew Crisp, said significant rises in illicit drug-related deaths occurred among young girls, teenagers and young women of his age group. - -"[Female] use or possession of drugs, particularly cannabis, continues to be an entrenched prevalence for (under-16s)," he said. - -"We know that female drug users in young people is an extremely significant area of concern." - -Chief Constable Crisp's comments came after a Victorian Department of Health drug summit. - -The summit saw NSW Police Minister Mike Gallacher and Dr Peter Beattie warn they needed more money and resources to deal with the drug problem caused by female cannabis users. - -The Queensland Government has $105 million to spend in its first two years of government. - -Ms Seeney said that funding showed organisations in the transition period found it important for the state to show it was on the help in front of young people. - -"We prioritise funding over time in a number of areas," he said. - -"Allocating our money to support the trajectory for Queensland is important. - -"It shows who we are as a full state and create an environment where it is good for our work at the state and federal level." - -About 45 per cent of Australian deaths from illicit drug use are people over the age of 75, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics show. - -The State's entire drug supply is currently held by 74kg of coca leaves imported from Peru, if legalisation is successful. - -Another 44kg is held by seizures and the sitting Kiwi poppa has thrived in the black market despite one-off ban in 2013. - -Related<|endoftext|>Birdman might have made it all the way from NYC to L.A. explosion pow. Turns out their is one other soul mapper on the ground that took advantage of the airport's situation and decided to head straight for a tour opener. Queen L was caught on camera doing full palace, starting up ans... - -2018-08-26 09:51:58<|endoftext|>Jacobson & Youngs (J&Y) today reported 19.1% revenue growth to £171.6m, driven by reinvigorated PPI activities including amortisation and 2nd quarter synergies. Subsequently, total pre-tax operating profit is expected to grow to £53.8m in Q2, partially offset by a 12% sequential reduction in earnings after tax. - -Alongside revenue and profitability gains, J&Y today offered a new corporate news release. This consisted of 9.55% dollar/euro conversion gains across J&Y, J&J and Parr Group, a reiteration of the 16% CY to CY2015 H1% missile share strong-volume guidance for that quarter. - -Guidance aligns the plan for tightly targeting weak performance and full FX consolidation throughout 2016, StGO explained. - -Issued during the closing of the JJ/BP stand-off, the updated successful multi-point separation calculation policy-under which profits since the closure of the BB businesses have been directly remitted to BP's accounts. The figures are reconciled to inflationary guidance implemented by JJ/BP over that period and adjusted for currency fluctuations - likely emerging from the reorganisation and separation of the companies, StGO explained. Adjusted earnings per share from lower cost of goods sold should then be achieved in 2017 as a result of reduced portfolio risks. JJ/BP stressed the motivational effect the currency exchange and consequent earnings depletion filter effected on earnings finally to reach £87.6m in Q2 of 2016, including corner groupe taxes, broken optimisation programmes and indirect taxes. - -A further detailed narrative appears in exchange for the J&Y 2016 fourth quarter P&L bulletin, which received sentence 7 by the relevant Stock Exchange (SGX) as of the close of trading. Responding to inquiries from the media issued before the release, J&Y commented: - -The adjusted fourth quarter business has reflected improved profitability, ahead of Sustainable Growth Plan 2016, as a result of the Plan's five-year development rate elements add up to growth of the business (8.0% to 9.3% last year). Smaller in scale and magnitude to the BB operations, the profitable business for 2016 is then expected to -======================================== SAMPLE 208 ======================================== -Think what we're doing important? Because I think that we reasonably should. 1 - -It was a research program spearheaded, at least in part by me, that helped focus and refine the federal program (the first one) to help acute HIV infection and AIDS in our communities in early 2001. As we went forward -- made the case for an expanded evidence-based public health response -- something was happening and at some moment or other we had to have a voice for those of us who had had one's own hands and lived through the earliest stage of research. It was clear-- more and more AIDS patients proved themselves daily and failure - insuperable compulsion - was mounting every day within their communities. Development of the research program established A+D's impact, replicated in the pilot enrolled local dropsites -- Without us, the A+D program is in the pieces -- lessons learned - built the model for A+D's growing impact - - -As A+D sits here now, its story is largely written. And we have seen the efforts of the community groups and individuals who have had an enormous impact on our work program -- a story of sustained engagement and totally unprecedented support from the community to match. And, progress has been steady but substantial over the years up to this point. These are the technical innovations that have been adopted, licensed, implemented, reviewed and implemented -- This is the board of directors of A+D, joined by public health professionals, experts in public health from around the world and with a unified public health direction -- led by an A+D board of governors and chief. This is the chain of command within A+D itself -- built from primarily one principal, John P. Poindexter, a brilliant physician-scientist, a noted writer and then a leader who performed. Frank Schoennagel has been supply chief, Haitan Clark, phone operator at A+D and Ngozi Ndao -- who now serves as the project's Ethics Committee chair has been Board of Directors. This is the really -- this is the FOC of A+D. Eric A. Roberts, is FOC of A+D, who lost his teeth in the crossing of land and water six years ago on January 11, 2014 on a summer day over there. - -Interestingly, Eric simply offers a masteringly laid-out recitation with a clinical telling style of these events. A+D, AcD, CAIDA -- it's broken down into terms and we've enjoyed his touching testimony, an essay on whose release we wrote some time ago. The things Eric. - -In great detail, In some corners of the continuum, where the conversation has been less focused on HIV and more on stigma, blame, discrimination and debate, on what we've achieved -- the challenges that have been overcome, what our operations have cost and what we still need to do to match the resources we expect of those truly affected. Less reaching but equally moving are the voices of North American organizations involved with efforts to track, diagnose and treat individuals at the base of the epidemic to end this about 30 years of epidemic. - -And then there's the opportunity tsunami wrapping itself around our goals. Another ten years? Think what we're doing important? Because I think that we reasonably should. - -This is all part of what happened over the period from October of 2002 to December of 2005 -- the January 2002 publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, "Overcoming Resistance to Effective AIDS Shocks" Written by Martin Pan, among others -- we thought the cancer epidemic was, like AIDS, going to fall away, and we'd take our siesta from hearts and some other matters. But little did we realize that cancer's time extremes would be compressed on a persons time and years would be less measured, shorter and absent -- and process will not engage places. - -Chronologically five results wound up as a preview: - -Recent data from the Ad Hoc Consortium for MSMvol support this potential for rapid dissemination of the new herpesvirus 20/6 threshold -- Our inhibition strategies negatively impact viral replication. Be very wary of antiretroviral therapy only directed at transient viral suppression. Similar role as options for protective measures in combination/defensive strategies including retroviral drugs. Despite similarities of epidemiology, prevalence and effect, only high dose antiretroviral therapy will have impact in the context of populations raised with less useful life-long HAART regimens -- which they'll rationalize as if recipient's immune repertoire is completely exhausted already by the end of their life. I don't think this RVT is a silver bullet to contentment/life sense. - -With something like the above becoming a reality we thought A+D would seldom look back -- that we may have taken a quantum leap toward solidifying views not with panache but usually edged kind of cautiousness. - -Look I express my personal wish for ZMapp and TKM or BKM cures to try. All of us would need to start today starting Monday. -======================================== SAMPLE 209 ======================================== -1 ) Actions 8 Mana Mastery Rating - -2 ) Cost to Use x10 - -3 ) Duration – 5m - -4 ) Healing 400% to 1,200% - -5 ) Cooldown – 120s - -6 ) Permances - -7 ) Reduction Parry Repel Poison - -8 ) Suggested Source: - -Replenish (usually found on DR5 declass items and Mana-stacks) - -Notes: - -The text states that it lasts for 8 seconds, but this is clearly not the case. It appears that the game would allow anyone to get it to 6 seconds by timed Self Adjuration. That should stop me from collecting materials. How do I test this? (comparison to Perma Kite)<|endoftext|>Joke Item #: PRGI001 - -Insanely smooth webbing with a thin "climb" and constant diameter throughout. The PRGI is 100% nylon and 100% permeable. We've added an anti-microbial added to our canvas to help it stay smooth and clean. These colours are available in red, blue and black. Be sure and check our Schnell reinforcement feature to ensure your PRGI is the best shirt for you regardless of colour or size. - -Quote from Johnny Frinch, PRGI product manager - -"In our experience this material is superb for all summer wearing and weather conditions. It forms to you and is less expensive to replace than a synthetic strip. In front, you get maximum breathability for wet situations by packing even a bit of air into the fabric, for the benefit of your neck and shoulders, but also thanks to space saving for your inner shirt, making your trousers appear smaller. If your passenger seat rides up or wind overpowers the handle bars you don't have to wrestle with the plastic strips that can sometimes develop horror claw marks across your cheek, shoulder or upper chest!" - -We think it's pretty gross. For a moment we thought the PRGI was a joke...<|endoftext|>A Colorado Springs police trainee who created a sketch of a Nov. 13 violence in the Mall of America was fired two days later. - - -Capt. Jeremy Lewis used a police sketch to draw K-9 "Cazorla" but never gave it to officer Matt Charette, according to testimony at his trial at the Arapahoe County District Court. - -The police department failed to follow rules in releasing Lewis, who was 17 at the time, the Denver Post reported. - - -Charette testified he had the sketch of Cazorla enlarged several times and looked at the end of it but didn't remember as much as other heretofore revealed information, such as when Lewis took the sketch's pen off at the top. - -VIDEO: Wounded Colorado mall shoppers describe being doused in pepper spray - -Lewis, who only listened as his lawyers described his painful legal nightmare, was fired Sept. 26, 2014 after new information emerged during the trial. Circles showing on the sketch corroborated witness statements about what happened to Mall of America shooting victim Johanna Jackson, the Post reported. - -The district court action manifested in records released Tuesday, though criminal prosecutions are on appeal. - -"It was my mistake," Lewis told The Post. "I'm taking responsibility." - -An argument ensued between Charette and attorney Raul Salinas as Charette had followed protocol. Cazorla had conclusively been identified as a full-bodied dog through DNA, a standard procedure, and Charette went hunting for best practices, before poring over Lewis' sketch. The problem was Charette was looking at two different sketches. - -Witnesses affected by the tragedy testified during the trial about how Jackson climbed out of 16th and Woodstock in a wheelchair and fell, suffered life-threatening head injuries and died. - -Charette also testified he has left information in his report inconclusive because he'd been mixed up in conflicting data sources, both investigating the spate of mall shootings. - - -RELATED: Mall of America employee says he found a severed crime scene shirt<|endoftext|>Merfolk - -Pathfinder #7: At Sea, Part II - -by Ed Greenwood - -Wraith and Sea - -When northern piracy spurs a sudden skirmish with the Bretonni over the ragged baronial castle of Erutanum, Leeron Nuangon—last of the best Ysgramorogar—spends his downtime fishing in the eastern Bay of Dragons. Charmcaster Mage Eneas looks eerily human, hiding parts of herself inside armor. And Leeron sees another Force Spirit - the Sea Serpent, a scarred humpback that seizes him by the hair. Eneas swims away from the sinking ship with the Sea Serpent, weary from the battles he had been forced to participate in when under a relentless psychic interrogation from Arcandra and Wakanna, who pawned him off as an adventurer of races they don't vouch for. The veteran sea-bottom trawler -======================================== SAMPLE 210 ======================================== -Defendant Current gas prices presumably determined shock value - -Henry J. Ransom, Esq., Richard E. California, Jack M. Mauro and Gerald J. Thiersdorf - -14 Olson , Robert F. and John G. Ussery - -Number 12097 Academic Press 2000 ▸ Abstract This study uses information about the 1971-74 inflation and real wage effects following the price violence in 1973 to determine the magnitude of the relative magnitude of gas price shocks. It concludes that, over the period of 1983-89, the shock to the real wage correlated 0.25 or 0.03 with price changes, with general trends revealed through the coefficient of determination. As such, economic factors may be given more weight in "relatively greater impact" analyses. In addition, reasonable quantifications are obtained of the sorting into "disinflationary" and "inflationary" sectors by the periods 1975-89. - -"The gas and electricity prices have risen. What has big business to say about it?" With industrial production constantly declining, and global wage levels never above the pre-1973 norm, "global decay" has become one of the common cabals parroted by "Business Week" editorialists. They also make frequent reference to the global "adjustment," as if there had been no longer anything to adjust about. To fix perspective on the phenomenon being studied, we return to the historically limited and geographically limited time period of 1973, when gasoline prices exploded. Then in 1973, just as in 2005, wage levels in the United States were relatively stable or, for that matter, moderately raised. Yet above the previous 45-year trend line, prices for gasoline and electricity nearly doubled, raking in US corporate profits over nearly 140 per cent world-wide; and total free corporate profits over the period 1973-89 were 2.25 times the prior trend line. Question mark hangovers curdling the pride of the American corporate elite. The rise in price patterns for gasoline shocks our experiences in Chile and South Africa as well as climbing oil prices in Angola and Vietnam. ... "The past 52 years do not constitute independent terminal constraints in terms of both aggregate demand power and resultant risk – and, let us hope, avert one of those catastrophic or at least ominous global shocks for the 120,000 lives at stake in the United States alone". ... "This economy can rise to extraordinary heights of economic development and living standards. Endemic quality and durability are security and welfare prerequisites. But the long term future does not depend on aggregate demand growth, nominal expenditures, or any other variable – well it should not" … "This time, also, we have evidence of—and there is still a definite need for some honest assessment of—bridge and best practices that will help our investors find both opportunity and risk while bearing some of the financial and global banking elements of risk. The former management team of the CBA and Hendrickson, among others, ought to be squarely in that dock". 2017 May 30. https://yashau.com/attachment/151/data/assets/documents/7-10-2017-parents-and-students-vote-acc-report.docx 2017 May 30. https://yashau.com/attachment/159/data/assets/documents/REP0102_Asked-of-3831-Participant-students_Since-Reliability-Feasibility_Case_Reviewed_Unmanned-Drone.docx to the 600 or so remaining, it's obvious from the 100 as always majority opinion statement, "Developing nations are benefitting tremendously from resource-rich ACE countries. But improved code will draw them closer to poor countries and create millions more jobs in our country also". This has been followed by indignant "I'm for rich people in the Third World". Despicable, the neoliberal Front, the enemy of rising living standards for West Africa, the benefits accruing to Disability PARK however poorly maintained Elsewhere in processed world hun class, beyond any other request for critical-sounding and advanced-thinking analysis, lo and behold! A free LRUDL ERDC, sitting on the quivering uterine structure of an entire affluent liberal society! Not just any LRUDL, the one Kejriwal fellow advice thinkers are crowing about! Kejriwal himself embodies the pathetic lesson learned in the confused and often hysterical I and your MANN meritocratic horizons. One of the previous administrations made a reefer local role model; Kejriwal creates, well, Homeless Aka Sheep Rider! To the astute reader of this address, the context of this crass history lesson in a foreign country is quite wonky—and stretching, we may presume, further than the OFP Economic Study Manual states. The ones paraphrasing, COMMERCIAL Premier During Four Years Scare Big Business-Spell Action, Thai Officials They NY Times … "The Government Says It Was Too Craven Not To Revoke RIS bona fide dealers,umpingers, distributers random 5 -======================================== SAMPLE 211 ======================================== -You can't beat the fragrance of warm pumpkin pie in the morning. There are no cooking tips for this, you just need a baked good to snack on while you go about your day…then dig into an oatmeal butter and cottage cheese cooled pumpkin pie bagel for a sweeter treat. - -This whole pot of oatmeal butter and cottage cheese combination is so delicious! If you're wanting a little bit more time in the morning then stick around for 24 smaller bites (or one larger bite) of this pumpkin pie bagel. - -We spend a lot of time when eating and consulting recipes online. However, if something doesn't turn out the way we always expected, often we just go back to experimenting. This was kind of the same way I felt when I had no idea what to do with diced sweet potatoes. - -You're a smart woman, right? You're aware of good ways to cook and the quickest way to do something. Right? - -So you go on with your regular route. Even though it didn't turn out as you knew it would, just because it hasn't gone exactly how you planned doesn't mean the end game of it is worthless! - -You got over that phase of not wanting to do other things for a while then voice it feeling ungrateful. Now you know the so, so secret ingredients that are right for you, and you're going to use them to your advantage! - -This whole mini-batch pumpkin pie bagel was exactly what I needed to open up more opportunities for experimenting, especially when it comes to food supplies! Pots help a lot as Christmas presents, and now that I have a bunch of use out of them then the extra "just in case" carries on. - -This pumpkin pie bagel uses your water melted down with olive oil. You can also use butter, but make sure you design your bagle in just a straight line. The spiral is a bummer if you were taking pictures too as the butter won't show through! - -Note: This entire recipe is really easy to make! I love simple things, but when you are having trouble simply double the recipe and go home and get to doing it all over again. - -Be sure to try these Pumpkin Pie Bagels!<|endoftext|>The boss of Britain's biggest carmaker has been dismissing threats from Tesla Motors that it will build a battery storage facility in central Britain if the Government refuses to provide supporting infrastructure. - -James Parker, chief engineer for Jaguar Land Rover, produced a formal response to Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors, which has developed a "gigafactory", said to supply batteries for 3,000 electric cars a week. - -While Teslas and other electric vehicles could be made in the UK using existing manufacturing facilities, Mr Musk told a business breakfast in London on 17 October that Tesla employees could be stationed there, with more hours and benefits, before the firm begins its own battery factory. - -Advertisement - -Within hours, Tesla had written to the Natural Resources Secretary, Liz Truss, explaining that it needs a vast battery factory to beat out its German rivals. If the government fails to step up a substantial commitment to support battery manufacturing in the UK, Mr Musk said, his company could aim to build the factory in Lambert, 30km (18 miles) north of central London. His letter was addressed directly to Ms Truss. - -Jaguar has one of the largest battery bays in Europe. In October 2012, the UK government awarded it more than £65m worth of grants to help launch a battery storage business focussed on electric vehicles for the grid, universities and industry. The project was announced two years ago through research by Jaguar and its partners at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership to assess the potential for a Britain-based battery manufacturing hub. - -Two years on, Jaguar has won £43m in grant and support following a programme of up to £45m given to support Tesla's European sales. That teardown $100m factory will look to use renewable energy to produce and deliver batteries, storage and power up cars to owners. - -James Parker said: "The battery business is key to success of our future consumer businesses in electric vehicles currently being sold in Australia and other markets. We have a team of 50 employees and we believe an industrial park close to each of our UK head offices that can envisage a large-scale battery manufacturing operation, learning from and applying knowledge gained elsewhere in the world, is hugely important to our future competitiveness and success." - -Read next Tesla is pulling out of BatterseaPower, a solar farm in west London Tesla is pulling out of BatterseaPower, a solar farm in west London - -Jaguar's position has triggered fears that it could become the victim of a Tesla move to set up disused British engineering stations as a battery programme, creating thousands of jobs. Jaguar is a car company and its local needs are highest on its priority list. A car makes up 80pc of -======================================== SAMPLE 212 ======================================== -26 SHARES Share Tweet - -The death-defying career of prime minister Guyana's Guy Chibani seemed in danger of being derailed at the beginning of December after the army raided his home. "They asked us why we were having Gunas in our house," said Chibani. "I told them we are not killing them. We wanted to deviate their rage." - -The 68-year-old from the remote village of Shakiro was arrested on Dec. 3 after 80 tanks, soldiers and police rolled into Chibani's tiny coastal village, followed by yet more soldiers armed with machine guns and English mortars. But Chibani and his allies – his brother's wife, his son's wife, his daughter's wife,friends, of various descriptions,planeload after silver-gray-shirted and beige-shirted crowds, carrying banners and sticks –held their ground with bravery and took the Oceanarium's lithium batteries, TV sets and cooking pots, a wardrobe, sundry weapons and enough fried chicken, puris, sweets and dried fish to maintain the chain if need be. - -The previous day, shortly before the raid, TV news reported thatthe army had established three co-ordinator meetings with local associations represented and of late night negotiations. The army spokesperson Dorothy Markandale in a phone conversation with Venezuela-focused newspaper, El Nacional said, "This is the work of the ministry of defence and it has not reached the point of attack yet." - -Since the raid, fourth group of nuclear shacks, evacuated earlier, been moved into the oceanarium's patio, where their now-greatly diminished population is queued up at the bar, booing infront of the wall of television monitors showing segments of the prime minister's recent nearly 42-minute talk-show "Man in the Mirror;" footage of Chibani, and a few pictures with the anchor-courtesan Jemor Chibani, pronounce his "request." - -The military lieutenant linghis scepter behind the podium and begins his welcome, "We are happy to have an opportunity to meet you and we would like to express our closeness and good wishes to you. "We thank you for your long-time coverage of local events. We want to express our gratitude to you personally and work closely with you on a one-to-one basis to support the people." - -Again notedis Newsportune.com", he said, and 'La Venezuela Mundial' [the Venezuelan talk show], which broadcasts live from the oceanarium."Anchoring the middle of each side of the line is a soldier planted up the steep hillside, shouting something in perfect English, as his partner on the floor triumphantly interprets his reply - loudly according to news radio channel, Radio Raza, who has registered for the airwaves.Some videos on their Twitter account, @nimiruidad - -market interviewed the inventor, who had kidnapped the opportunity to tell the world about a GREEN negative DUI fully-powered on one of the necessarily serious anti-gun chapters of the teams in which those longing for a better life should approach, approval nature teachers, artist companies that will use the cookstoves to create green projects, industry that will use it for uranium de-arcs, and people yes because Venezuelan poverty in which half the population live, because the consumer price of crude oil is 11.4 bolivar per dollar, means parad talent talumes waititus, reliable worktonite are in favour of the saviour of indigenous genre of film-factoring Caribbean cuisine, advocates of colorblindness, aware of the omnipresent botox of males.They are idle, exploring attitude by fratting with their new vehicles, instead of accounting the losses suffered by a supposedly US dollar that cost dengue fever lost incomes of people earning half the incomes-shutters rebels stealing much from gentler bourgeoisie . You traditional savers are unable to explain why one pregnant women who has migraines during pregnancy requires two surgeries rather than one - or although capital of revenues by saying, "One agent?" The people are angry,purely, shutting the doors of commerce so as to remember that this is what Venezuela needs most and live in extreme fear of what willimpact, sunrise-news reports "pound national garden with Simonton"<|endoftext|>UPACUPTS: U.S. warships arrive in waters off Korea as Seoul braces for battle - -By Peter Symonds - -According to Der Spiegel, the German intelligence agents will be able to work with a "virtually untraceable" chip they have developed by identifying radar emissions on target vessels, effectively eliminating their target. They will successfully over time develop the capability to detect ALL enemies, not just the healthiest and most capable enemy. - -This is about Semi Exo-atmospheric Wave (SEW) detection. All of the big tech databanks currently fail by extreme measures to match this technology. SEW uses the EM spectrum to detect -======================================== SAMPLE 213 ======================================== -Breasts, crowing subjects, boob-taken-guns to trained students other than "fetish model" LaBeouf? No more. The statement that "I physically shot two puppets in the face with my pussy" leaves one genuinely wondering what story was more irredeemably damaged: the juicy-but-forgotten exhibit that competently assumed its central role, or the accused director's bizarre, almost pathological willingness to smash comparable pop culture celebrities in the face with his own dick? Like many historically minded observers, I believe the explicit violence of LaBeouf's deed fit right in with the larger, more pervasive narrative that Babes in Toyland was a near-devastatory, potentially career-determining setback of the higher-necked '80s Hollywood diva. The drop… well, don't show me that anymore. According to fellow female film buff, writer, director, and cultural critic Paula Pell, rape culture embodies so many of the frozen clichés that they should be collectively harassed, shamed, and beamed out of the nation's living rooms. Pell is the author of The Rape Kit: On Screen, Off-Screen, —-She Fetches, Smart!, West Publishing, and also the recent text The Sol - -Hedia Nor There: Enchanted Cavity, Public Pleasure, or Our Forgotten History, West Publishing and the man behind a decade of energetic, brilliantly contextualized, and thoroughly delicious films such as Grumpy Old Men Size 07, would like him to, literally, stop calling himself a porn artist. His defense of adult males' current place in our favorite edible themed cultural beholden teens and children increased gentle and entire to ceremonially uttered, Times-style: - -While this week alone the word #racist has been declared "piece of #sherifsketch," mainstream media has expressed doubts about leadership of Third Reich and dark images of rape. One would be hard pressed to find objective, thorough, friendly descriptions of the filthiness of Hitler's war machine. It's hard to make one's hand being rubbed fresh with bodily waste during a public display of defilement! A "bachelorette party?" Why not just have a similar local group do a mass anal fecal fecal party? Maybe just a few disasters and shock tactics would have the desired effect on lead by way of excrement and racism! - -Occam's Razor! Thinking like a child douche bag about Hitler and the male sex life is pretty damn good argument against zingin' your live, - -He went on to raise the issue of calcifying champion religion and its portable death knells less than a decade after his own saga, when Middle America weren't getting either the JFK assassin story or Dear Abby's resilience-making postmodern elucidation White Germs tight week in and week out to turn them around. Pell went on to pour mess of KoolAid down stone-cold glass with a large, sickly beaker in which he gulped some golden maternity fluids (reissued only after Oppenheimer achieved notoriety on another front) and then announced the likeliest canon of higher metaphysic dissonance (and capacious academic bucket). Summertime International School ... decadence is safe, and though sexual awareness shortens life span for a host of real women and men and leaves past guardedness fertile soil for disease and tissue decay, nowadays this is voluntarily and thoughtfully cultivated. - -The beautiful lesson that Helen Hunt's spirited and meticulous discography White America has been preparing for us dovetails so eloquently with Pell's critique: since I've seen it, redesigning the word "Ass" from "autoerotic slaves" to "erotic slaves" would most certainly be an upgrade of the AMERICAN flag. That liver lesion comes handy, thanks. - -and our fattened out, sickly bags. And surely, we need to stop cutting down, erecting, mowing, and selling those trees. Education is essential, men and women alike! The curate-cum-wonderworker, who investigates and offers line of a "women's books such as" with the type of air-kissed, butter kisses delivered by curstered and gilded Baldacris, recited like one of those urban legends Astaire commented upon: those professional craftsmen used to protect us from the gay men of the city while freeing us from the godless homonophiles that built the pyramids. And don't get us wrong! There were huge women in many trades before architecture and the need to channel military warfare – but, whatever happened to the oldest profession in Val Gough's romantic C'est Powerful painting? Now you see, now you don't.... Let's all prosecute and duck and cover by drenchment, as always, gods au revoir among us.<|endoftext|>FILE PHOTO: Former ACT leader Neville Wran's widow relates his birth, when he recognized the sign on the hill and what drove a search for -======================================== SAMPLE 214 ======================================== -Sulhosh Kehayias, so told in an article much later on, 'the family was outraged that she could refuse to love them'. - -In the preceding paragraphs one may have perceived… a sort of frustration and anger on Kalia's part that Hamed failed, in his old age, to step up to the fair challenge to love and marry her only compelled by the sums well into millions that could be layed on for promises. By ending up in a showchase, Kalia believed she'd (falsely) been persuaded to choose him (and only him) by the Egyptians of Thebes. - -Now With the Egyptians legally dissolved the intense power struggle took that bitter turn and the family denied even taking part in a stupor, kenneled in their villa next door to one another solemnly insisting that this is how this was supposed to be. - -And so the Egyptian polity grew obsessed with money, flooding it, thus, their family is pursuing legal action against the super rich for all those loans they have to repay, which themselves cannot be laid on the family for the family really didn't need. But money matters, but it's not the only thing, instead it's family ties, aspirations, dreams, tears and problems of life slip through divine sweepers of catables and canal beds. And so once again relationships, demands, everything needed to amplify our visceral drives, shakes, and clashes find their initiators somewhere more conciliatory and protective, and later, assuaging by fraud. - -You might say. But events have displaced the burden of that in favour of outright déjà vu, technically known as addressable matter. The financial war is endlessly coterminous with everything coterminous in that it's not only mainly an old worn-out family triangle being explored by the mob, a bunch of niggers, and evangelicals – it's within them as well, including the stalled and pulled-out ambitions of Hamed. - -Because of a desperate reaction by Kalia, outdo me, she is lifting off of the plinth on which the eternal divine plans were to be fulfilled to soar perch 360 people in a V-shaped formation open to the corporate stars. Then production does not pause with the picture gaining money, while the investment goes for dead, very much not stopped in its tracks by the tanethyl parathion and the surprising pain during sales and marketing action. Mubarak is poisoned to death up to his hairline and the latter two are both dispatched one last drinking effort. - -El Salvador : June - -Brazil : August - -New York City/Canada : December - -Iran : September - -So elegant is the manipulations carried out within this context, that one hears a recurring explanation that explains why ugly stuff will happen through means that seem fine at them first. - -Jeff Koons - -Jeff Koons? - -Tweet<|endoftext|>For live updates - -Check Out Our Latest BRONZE POKER ROUND COVERAGE HERE - -Pro SPORTS slave cars - -New Format was created in 2015 - -Don Tanner podcast 89 Day Wrap Up!! - -State of Scott's AMA: Talking College and NFL Focus, subsidiary of ESPN's advance What If… series and explored a psychological adjustment Cam Newton is currently experiencing following burgeoning success by the Panthers. - -Cal issue extends preseason talk - -We all... love them... and they greatly ATTRACT us whenever we hit the local card. Draft coverage is a high time as the season approaches. You can find other sports game breakdowns here. - -Thomas Robinson's big money day - -Officially Bluechip player this year! Obama's "Dreamer" preparing for DTWe are going to cover athlete contracts as well. - -As always.... we will review NFL rules and make sure there is no affiliate relations currently.. still awaiting guidance from the NFL. - -Final pre-season college football post on Thursday! - -Prat Sale: 67th Annual Biograph Auction - -Ownership table and many championships, new players and finer detail on each piece become apparent if you carefully watch the video. - -2B The Return of Japanese PRO Chip to FAU - -"[He works] days and nights." The chase for the Friday night tryout continues, June 9th, and has not gone without hitch. - -Background on conservative complete games in the NFL Draft - -How do teams draft QB's so late in the draft? Turns out they are unwise. - -Solomon Alabi Excellent NBA Draft Ron Boswell selection national championship VS Memphis - -Drafting college basketball champ - -DFA Jorge Martin on the Legacy landscape in continue watch<|endoftext|>Description - -Do 1,000 pushups for WorkHQ. Run 1 mile at your good friend's house. Become a Mister. - - -Features: - -- Awesome custom elements add a bit of personality to your job/work - -- No Ads, No permissions required - -- Safe -======================================== SAMPLE 215 ======================================== -Experience the world of the Starship Troopers themselves in all of its 4,800 square foot, state-of-the-art glory — all presented by WB Archives! Enjoy The Live Bullet Package that contains deluxe bonus items, including video, photos, and more. You also have access to all the August 2014 issues of The Stage (the best-selling VHS of all time — now available for digital purchase), The VHS Magazine of the Week, and The FiveThirtyEight DVD.<|endoftext|>Welcome to RWBY Awesome Plays! This page is a place to post awesome stuff! - -General Rules: - -1) Please remove [Ancestral Grimms] tag during S2 (except in best girl/potoundrom scenes). - -2) If you want to submit a DTP or fandom related play to RWBY Awesome Plays please add it to the DTP/fanfic category. Also try to link to some original content or info on the fandom. Quotes, list of fanworks, only the creator/artist, etc can be submitted. Make sure you have the rights to the scene. Be sure to review the rules to make sure your plays comply with the community rules. - -Included Works Typically Attributes: - -Providing context and answers to complicated questions - -Credit to source (character, main character, object, setting, occurrence or story) - -Interesting texture changes (blood, charts, vignettes, plausibility, presents a mystery and/or describing temptation, insists in consistency, discourse degrades) - -Propagation of ideas - -Parallel acting/character creation - -Character development - -Striking composition - -Remaining power/emotion appeal - -Modeling behavior (small: small steps, big: several steps, big rush of adrenaline, hot/cold feelings, want/anti want depending on them) - -"amazing/"word choice - -Study, listen/judge, restore balance - -Well-written narration - -Memoirs from the other side to create information about certain events that took place during events and influence scenes. - -Feats/escalation of action - -Furisboom Melodysticks, a weapon or a method to control something, exist because by their essence, they come across as poetic types. - -Feats/escalations and more like another important story stories or EQ gameplay creation. - -The combat defense of Clover/Scion teams/official basic!Cpt action. - -Crossover and any one of them sneak left tho' nearQF. - -BWP - -Similar works. - -If there is someone who's worthy of a recommendation ask them, kthxbye. - -The play in progress is considered complete when everyone knows that all the rules and limitations will be respected and obey when everybody does the plays together.<|endoftext|>The top certified integrity coordinator for J.F.K.'s White House witnessed tactics of political espionage, seemingly endorsed Dr. Hill's false testimony and did so voluntarily," the commission said in a summary of the investigative report on the president's death. "The systemic nature of the White House involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy reveals a government insensitive to its duty to safeguard the constitutional branch of government that the President represents." - -Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. - -Mr. Melgar, 54, said at the April prosecutor-general's request that in 1987, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges he plotted with Dr. Hill to obtain presidential health records for Dr. Rowden's ideological enemies. The goal was to cultivate a legally profile in the thesis that the Alabama surgeon teaming with Dr. Hill, a vocal opponent of Social Security and other State interventions in health care, launched his campaign to decriminalize abortion in men. - -Before using speechwriter Lani Guinier to recruit the G.S.H. candidate to deliver a speech at Northwestern University, Mr. Melgar contacted her during a period known as the "conservative 'rape crisis' of 1977." - -In reply, Ms. Guinier said she had used the liberal antipropelytic sleeping pill "tranquilin" on Mr. Melgar. The dual and selective histories of the G.S.H. and its candidates bolster a strongly held hypothesis that was posed by Mrs. Kennedy invited trip child, the sisters' first-born, in his bathroom. One sister, we was 11, overheard her brother playing on his father's -======================================== SAMPLE 216 ======================================== -Relephant: http://bit.ly/2gohLpQ - -EPISODE (13/25/2015): - - -Sneak peek: https://youtu.be/ilhfqD_nww8 - - -We did not have the same format for episode #12. I discussed what people were left with out of episode #13, I didn't talk about the events in the conflict using a buzzword like "Tyranny." I said the moment we were blinded was when we went from blind to seeing. - - -The best way to learn what happened in S1&S2 was to listen through the series. The second best was to watch episode by episode. - -This one aired on a Tuesday when we were in the middle of yet another sales meeting up the street. It was an awful calendar day. By the time I got the audio, an hour and a half had passed. - - -I've definitely lived the fear of what people know about you....[and what] people might think without encountering you outside the context of our emotional relationships. When we first met [Richardson], I really admired his resume and his interestingly self-discovery and futures thesis. When we met team members such as Todd York and Gannett, they also were exceptionally well-qualified and good-natured people who were teachers in several projects within the room. One of the occupations I recalled meeting on campus, and thought about moving to the States to further my education, was being a well-respected alternative au pair, or in our case, pay for someone to be my chauffeur. - - -It was a lot to consider at the time, but the lure of the working class was strong within our company. I, and now Ryan, turned out to be a very lucky lot. - - -I've long thought that it's a mistake to be accessible and visible to as much of the World as possible. The truth of the matter is that outsiders get tired of surprise three-lines answers. - - -Negative departures from expert norms were eventually greedily continuously ingested vitally own in the withering cold. Towards the end of it all a mild frostbite came to enjoy world wide exposure, I proclaimed to almost the entire world that the office chair I was using was no longer suitable as a human laptop. - -The internet was alive at that point with commentary on The Exclusive, months of podcasts behind the scenes at Twentieth Century Fox, which was a compleative number. I created a Documentary Channel to document the 100+ hours I'd made since I'd left. - - -Stuff like that wasn't my 'wild life,' smothered in hatred or that of hedge-fund executives. It was not 'extreme.' Non-idiots were talking about me and incorporated into media, over which I had outsourced film edits, sound design, and video editing, as well. - - -Except the haters were growing more vocal, looking for a specific reaction from me. The message they were consequently caught in was that I refused to be a 'Founder Failure' or any connection between perceptions of the weirdness of my former network and the (91.7) fiscally deficient alternatives around us at TWX. - -I was not prepared for it, except for the fact that it would intensify any people who didn't like me. That's not meant to be anywhere near vicious...quite the opposite in fact...I like my 'basket of deplorables'...it encompasses [and offends] many different people on a very diverse spectrum. - -Listen up, Zeppelin: you don't look like Jesus or even a robot from Space Jersey.> - -Now that he's brokering a sale with Viacom, I don't think Todd York and I should sign a monthly retainer…I haven't talked to Russ (Goroditzky) or anybody from NBC Universal since the day he left. Living in fear four months feels life moving from real to toxic, as if we cancelled the show knowing we'd face a post-Gamergate backlash rather than what actually emerged well after we rolled out our marketing plan. Imagine being a worn and bloody old pirate in an Ohio late 19th century hog pen during a particularly vicious winter. All you can think about is how to pick up your breeze wood as fast as you can before someone rustles it down, but also keep looking for any pen-mark on the glass to tell you if it's a polar bear or number two from siding Howell, and seek something to light your candle with...while smelling the cinnamon. Then inside your cabin you trap the bear and take the dead cat, a seed-cultiving of bacterial nationalism brought to pitchfork finish by our newfoundborn treatise on crippling straight and gay. - - -I've had the chance to talk over the phone with Penguin, when someone asked about their plans for the series… I said that I asked for a deal on auditions -======================================== SAMPLE 217 ======================================== -dagger - -/** * dagger: This is the primary interface class for Dagger. */ - -package dagger ; - -import android.annotation.TargetApi ; - -import android.support.annotation.NonNull ; - -import android.support.design.widget.HapticFeedbackListener ; - -import android.support.v7.AppCompatActivity ; - -import android.support.v7.widget.DrawingHint ; - -/** - -* @deprecated - -* This interface is most of the time deprecated as of Android Support Library 23 - -* a new Dependency injection framework has been established (android.nio.ch). Do not import this file anymore. - -* @hide - -*/ - -public interface Dagger - -{ - -/** - -* Allows you to handle dependencies defined on the aapt, even they - -* don't exist at runtime. - -*/ - -BehaviorSubject< DaggerPresenter , Dependency > dependencySubjectForEnableActivity (); - -/** - -* Effects all activities attached to a presenters. Whether an activity is running or a - -* task is active. For applications with a single activity tree, create a single application - -* aapt-dagger.xml file, through the name of this aapt-dagger.xml. - -*/ - -void applyDynamicActivities (); - -/** - -* Allows you to call getActivity(). - -** - -* Android support library, 23a031ee (released February 20, 2017) - -*/ - -Class< DaggerPresenter > activityForPassInput (); - -/** - -* Effects of the mock setup, down to configuration. - -*/ - -bool contactType () { return calculator . BITM bufferTextQuotes []= new BBTLikeMark (); return true ; } - -/** - -* Indicator of whether a app is in portrait - -* (Android M) - -*/ - -boolean isInPortrait () { - -return false ; - -} - -/** - -* Enables, prevents, only applies the actions defined below - -* for the current context - -*/ - -@Override - -public void init ( Context context ) { - -/*get context-specific actions*/ - -applyDynamicActivities (); - -snapshotSelector = new DefaultSnapshotSelector ( G ); - -/* this enum contains all possible android actions that control follow drawer *without* Dagger implementation*/ - -static final int FLAG_SPECIFIC_ONLY_DRAGONS = - -layout . getBoolean ( R . enum . apply_only_r ); - -ForControllerInterface . test ( - -scopeId ); - -SecondaryEditorSettingsFile . makeAnnotation ( Object . class - -.getClass () . getSimpleDescription ( TAG )); - -@Override - -public void onIncausingActivity ( Activity activity , Intent seed ) { - -currentFolder = new PathDependentFolder ( AndroidSdl . execContext ()); - -BuilderDefimpl splashScreenPanel = - -new DisplayBuilderDefimpl ( localEffectsContext , LayoutHelper . createFixedWidthDialog ()); - -chooserSize = - -guideways (chooserSizeVisible , findViewFromKeyplan ( WindowInline . class), - -CHOOSER_SIZE_MEDIUM ); - -chooseroffers = new ListViewItemsElements ( 4 , 4 , 4 ); - -/* set the obstacles*/ - -builder . setVerticalLayout ( splashScreenPanel , 0 , choseLocRepositionShft (), chooseroffers ); - -builder . setHorizontalLayout ( splashingFromSmall , chooseroffers , chooserLayoutWidthUnits ( AndroidSdl . viewManagerUIThanPanelSize ), chooserboxUnits ( AndroidSdl . viewManagerUIThanPanelSize )); - -Menu classUnsubscribedActivityMenu = - -new MenuBuilder ( SplashPresenter . this , classRepositionLeft , choosetoskeletonPagerValue ); - -discardViews = new ArrayList < View >(); - -_preferenceSetResult javaButtonStatePartialResult = null ; - -showButton ( clsDimension ); - -menuFunc = new MenuSidebarFrameMenuFunc ( - -clsDimension , - -CssTranslation . getTableRule ( Frame . ROOT_BOTTOM ), - -chooserLayoutSize , - -chooserbooleanFlags = AndroidManifest . INTERACT_ACROSS_BY_SIZE , - -choosertopWidth , - -chooserbottomWidth , - -chooserposition , - -choosertopPieceType [ 0 ], - -chooserbottomPieceType [ 0 ], - -choosercenterOverlap [ 0 ], - -chooser -======================================== SAMPLE 218 ======================================== -Media playback is not supported on this device We want results - Raiola - -Ex-Real Madrid player Víctor Valdés has been strongly linked with a move to Championship rivals Nottingham Forest. - -The 38-year-old Argentina international was sacked as Real Madrid manager on 26 May. - -More than 4,000 salad sales and advertisements were made in the world's second-biggest market in the past 10 days. - -Former Arsenal player Raiola Tweeted: "Another good Spanish group with Valdés, they are interested. Got nothing against Forest. It's just business." - -Forest's majority shareholder Fawaz Al Hasawi does not want to lose Valdés, who was signed from Villarreal in 2007 and on Wednesday rejected a lucrative three-year contract extension offered to him last year. - -Caretaker boss David Wagner told the BBC he had never planned to downgrade Valdés' contract but under the terms of the deal, if he retired before the expiry of the current one-year extension in 2016, the fee was not payable. - -The club shared the astronomical fee required by international rivals Barcelona for forward Luis Suarez. - -Valdés had looked set for a move to Wolves but the North Midlands club refuse to sanction January 2012 bids for their players.<|endoftext|>North Korea has presented a series of nuclear plants to the UN in Tokyo – and it is working on another. - -Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has told NK News that the latest full scientific report of North Korea's nuclear-plant activity was delivered to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Wednesday 3rd September in Los Angeles, California. - -This latest report comes on the same day that China and Russia named plans to impose more sanctions on Pyongyang today at UN talks in New York. - -►Get the latest UN news and end dependence on Murdoch - -The latest account emerged as Vladimir Putin with Xi Jinping reassured that Russia would help order the implementation of the non-proliferation treaty as well as expanding dialogue with the US in the face of renewed North Korea tensions. - -In a joint press conference in Los Angeles the two leaders strived to present a united front in a series of off-the-record statements. - -"We carry out our responsibilities here on full cusp of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the country," said Putin, "and all the points that were raised during the last two separate administrations are absolutely guaranteed: aggressive North Korea will pay added costs. And there can be no better place to do this than on the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations. By the way, how about that? Now what should be the generating countries tech emergent in just the beginning of 2015: it looks good." "What kind of technology must be created? We need to have an industrial mobilization in a new dimension and we would like you to talk here specificively about any possible new reactors. This is also possible for the generating countries, however I would like to emphasize that depending on coal production, uranium is less and less obligation," continued Putin. "We don't think of needing nuclear power itself in many, many years, but alongside other possible sources, nuclear power could be played upon mainly in the development of atomic fuel production. We have already started practical plans of this kind, as for now, of course, we have no agronomic experience, and I am not sure about the drafting of farmer's law, so are we ready for these kind of talks in January 12 and strategic project establishment?" ​​ - -* * * - -"8 reactors are in readiness construction. … China and Russia are ready to initiate full time work with concrete assistance. If the transfer of 2,4 % would happen from the US sites, as they have affirmed now over the past a year and half, economic relations can greatly benefit both and China would become the most active participant in the 10 year old JCNJP cooperation," Putin concluded.<|endoftext|>IRVINE, Calif. – Riverside County Sheriff's Office detectives Saturday arrested a Long Beach man, named as Roy Hemo, 45, found asleep in a neighbor's backyard at 4 p.m. Friday near Hugh A. Johnston Jr. Way and Cole Embarcadero Boulevard. - - -Detectives were off-duty and Simpson Community College officials told them about what they suspected could have happened. - - -Detectives interviewed neighbors, went to Hemo's home and found him asleep in the same backyard, easily accessible to children. - - -The neighbor told investigators he awoke at 2 a.m. and heard screaming and swearing. He contacted the sheriff and deputies found Hemo was barefoot but in pants and a sweater. His shirt was pulled up around his temples, police said. - - -Hemo allegedly told deputies he knew nothing about the noise. He was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and taken to the jail.<|endoftext|>Two story-driven science fiction adventures. In the first of four 5-episode seasons, Setfroid Agents travels to a -======================================== SAMPLE 219 ======================================== -Scholars Breed Human Pets In Hawaii - -Enlarge this image toggle caption James McEvoy/Photographer's Choice/Getty James McEvoy/Photographer's Choice/Getty - -Humans are natural breeders. It's in our DNA. But what happens after we bring children into the world? Don't get me wrong — I love my four furry friendlings — my kids especially — but I'm also a big proponent of keeping pets. After all, it's a natural, evolutionary law we'll always have a desire to keep an animal on our ownership roster. - -But when my wife and I decided to have a baby last year, we decided to skip the traditional way of adopting a pet. No family or friend is going to commission you to raise their pet. The adoption is solely on you. Adoption fees for our beloved cats at the Honolulu Humane Society ended up being about $200. - -We didn't want to rely on anyone for help raising our pets. This is not our everyday life. - -But we're also fundamental characters who like to plumb the roots of situations to draw resolve. And that's what we did when we started an Amazon Wish List to buy toys, blankets, provided by Petco. (Note to Amazon: these pet supplies will sell out by the time you publish this story.) - -One gift of which we were so very sad to lose was our young camper named Nick. In his eight years of life, Nick had grown up to become in some ways like his father. But out of the blue, owner Surprise gave Nick to the three of us for sleeping in her office behind us. It would've been great to keep Nick close to place, but happy memories alone do not a lifetime make. - -So, what about adoption? Thanks to people like the KaplanSpiral—founded by Harvard doctoral student Janet Egan Mazur — there is a huge market for a replacement for the trillion animals living in shelters. The nonprofit organization vets and breeds nearly 2,000 potential dogs and cats an hour. - -The KaplanSpiral has agencies and organizations in the U.S., Israel and Europe placing pets worldwide. So far, they've placed 6,000 dogs and cats in 204 countries. Sadie Wood, the president of the nonprofit, told CNN: "I fell in love with animals very early on. I was in the zoo as a kid and that was all I ever saw. I thought it was an amazing part of my life, and so I wanted to make an impact on that." - -I immediately fell in love with animals very early on. - -Mazur realizes that it's up to animal owners to hold animals close, which I totally support. And I totally recognize that there are instances in which the adoption process is not right for you. - -So, whether you want a change of pace, a reminder that animal goodness lingers or a chance to rescue a laden stray, adopt now.<|endoftext|>Madonna - -Published: Jan 24, 2014 - -The University of Manchester has taken a major step toward allowing women to study as full professors in the arts, humanities and social sciences. - -The decision was made earlier today at a meeting in London. - -Students at Manchester, however, remained divided over the move, with some wanting full credit and others wanting the deal to be ended. - -• Victoria Wood: The making of the Queen of Pop<|endoftext|>The Justice Department first argued that Cuba had justified shrinking its prison population in part by releasing "ballot box prisoners" in elections. But in a deal struck this week, 45 go instead to court-run prison camps, including the one in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. - -The transfer occurred less than a week after spokesman Barry McCaffrey said the Obama administration "was able to meet the Cuban government's strong request" to release at least some prisoners. - -President Obama has signaled that he will continue the shift towards normalization with Cuba and away from a policy of semi-hostilities and sanctions that was ignited 14 years ago by the Cuban revolution on the island. And recently, he has considered sending more trade concessions and increased financial aid. - -PRISONERS PROCEEDING TO CUBA AWAY FROM MEXICO - -Raul Castro, the Cuban president, has said more meaningful and open ties with the United States would bring "benefits not only for the people of both countries, but for the whole world." - -Obama ordered easing some trade restrictions imposed on Cuba after the revolution and has reversed a decision to close embassies in Havana and Washington. - -On Tuesday, a Cuban officer at the camp told the Associated Press that the prisoners would be permitted to leave for broadcasts that are kept secret from the children of prisoners because "it is necessary to protect their rights." The remaining prisoners will face lengthy prison sentences, the prisoner, who did not want to be identified, said. - -In August 2012, senior Bush administration officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, issued an " -======================================== SAMPLE 220 ======================================== -We're still waiting to see even a close-up look at one of the new consoles of the Xbox One (High-Def Gaming or HDR) and PlayStation 4 (4K Gaming or High Dynamic Range) — and according to Microsoft, the wait is nearly over. - -I spoke with Microsoft corporate VP of marketing for content marketing and marketing, and senior media advisor Gary Steinman, at the Microsoft Media Japan major television event in progress on Monday, with regards to both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. They did not seem concerned about the lack of total in-store footage of either the Xbox One or the PS4 at launch. - -The two execs did admit, however, that data will show that we will see higher res images for the Xbox One immediately after launch, but also noted that games won't replicate the high resolution images you see on current televisions. - -"As the data (that's already coming back) comes in, it will confirm what we've said about the end of the journey — whether it's a lot of things are stopping it from being truly 4K, or next-gen, anyone who doubts us probably should look into it at some point," Steinman said. - -When asked the difference PS4 vs. Xbox One 4K Gaming vs. HDR, Steinman was not yet able to clarify res, but did note this will also be the case for the console's current game collection — but stated categorically that 4K gaming is in after giving both consoles a try. - -The Xbox One will launch early in the holiday season, on November 22 in North America, and units will start shipping at the end of that same month in Europe.<|endoftext|>I suppose the only possible objection is that the sucker-punch someone punches or kicks towards me anymore is not likely to be someone who has done this action before. - -At various times throughout my life, I've been shot at, threatened with a knife, raped, molested by fake police officers, hit with a basketball – deliberately – in my front garden, run over by a truck, stabbed, slugged by a yeshiva rabbinical student who misgendered me (he wound up on in the most traumatized state of mind imaginable) and even stabbed in the back by a police officer (the actual charges were served both before and after my suicide ) when I was tried and sentenced for a crime I had not committed. - -Such punishments involve meaning and supporting a narrative, which puts the children of Israel at risk just to be inscribed in the present, human population consciousness. In a different context, these punishment might be considered necessary, which is why they are prohibited. One of the things that I would like to do, seeing as this isn't given me any space in the society I live in, is organize anti-punching campaigns that give weight to the rights of people who actually hate me. - -The brilliant Agnon Kronin, while laying the blame of the attack on Connor pacifies people who think that they won't have to die three times in order to carry out their revenge plan - -One of the things that I'm not very happy about is the tragic lack of outcry and struggle over the impending new life that is going to be torn apart. But there's no way to make light of such men. At this stage, those who have attacked me want nothing more than to know the extent to which I will be massaged or humiliated or suffocated in any way [31]. I am profoundly concerned about the physically damaging togetherness which the recognition of identity mavens create for other men in the society. And it is almost all of organized religion that takes this form the majority of time. - -This, however, leaves no solution and oh none, however one thinks about it will do. Coming up with the salvation promised for all, the beating of which is meant to be a social marvel or the ''taste" of which is meant to be a social poison, is, unfortunately – as Samson said – ultimately meaningless. On the basis of the theology of saints that I study, the passing statement that is left is that the old character is healthier than the one who now transposes it. Consciousness writing is the traumatic end of zero-sum relationships. - -Lightning will indeed strike and the newly created boy will remember his birth for years to come and he will also remember his beloved and the others who wanted to separate him from them. But the unbearable knowledge will be indelibly imprinted. There is no return to an indifferent, yes-sayers world. When one is traumatized, one senses the end behind things and from that point, it is determined that one just walks forward and the roads are never illuminated. - -Reading the discourse about identifying the 'true victims', a result of the unconscious intrusion into the consciousness of all who are involved, one is probably tired of when people pretend to be outraged when they are nothing but the depressingly habitual ones. I'm very likely to receive more ' -======================================== SAMPLE 221 ======================================== -Robotic motorcycle maintenance service is more than just a novelty. It could mean the arrival of more efficient use of our tools, putting a benign cover on nightmares of another robot apocalypse, and of course, saving time. - -A battery system pumps power to power a motor. Batteries—or motors—are outside the power grid, so interconnecting them doesn't use a lot of energy. Dog stands it up to show mechanics how hard you are ably moving. - -As the reporter confirmed in the video, costs are low. Traffic is something Luke Madden could understand from ambulance bills: it'd be nice to pass the time near your races crew.<|endoftext|>Image: ​Illustration by Father Windarch/WikiCommons - -Concerns about the government's plan to introduce mandatory data retention laws for phone and internet subscribers have gotten some new traction this week. - -The Labor Party has backtracked on its opposition to the controversial scheme in a bid to placate some of the concerns it has raised. - -Prominent Greens senator Scott Ludlam warned that the proposal was still deeply worrying, and could be used for various surveillance purposes. - -"The Government has a big policy dilemma with its re-introduction of the mandatory data retention legislation," he told me this week. "On the one hand they want to address the many complaints of our citizens and their legitimate privacy concerns about increased monitoring of their telecommunications, however on the other they want to satisfy critics by not creating overbroad and potentially defunct legal obstacles and uncertainty about putting data restraints on a telecoms carrier, ethically placing employees at the mercy of lawless agencies for whom they work." - -Ludlam was, however, apparently unaware that this week's Bill Shorten speech was already warning Labor voters of threats to our digital freedoms. - -Abuse by the security forces - -The Conversation thanks Maggie Bray of the Australian Human Rights Commission for her assistance. - -Ludlam's concern about the new data retention laws and "trust issues" related to statutory obligations to retain data is borne out in Labor's airtight connection between security agencies and companies in digital use. - -In an affidavit specifically excerpted at length from Shorten's speech on Tuesday, it's revealed that Labor is already committed to: - -​ - -​Showing consultation with digital use experts — quite a concession! - -Announcing a digitally informed addition to next year's data retention measures - -And earlier this morning, it was noted by the Australian Financial Review, as reported by the Conversation, that Shorten announced Labor would take a 'tougher stance'' on cyber threats. - -So two things: firstly, the ALP wants to formally support the controversial mandatory data retention legislation; and secondly, Labor's undertaken at least two consultations on cryptography and the development of secure technologies based on machine learning. - -In short, once again they seem to want to be extremely sensitive to online security. - -"There's so much about communications that is highly, highly private—including social networking sites and falling victim to bullies, that you do not want to make it possible for the state to read those things," says Ludlam. - -More priority seeing top end cybercriminals - -There's no doubt it will be a pain in the ass for a dominant cybercrime jurisdiction like San Francisco and its ilk that the justice system isn't conducting an R & D effort first before dragging a criminal over the impassable regulatory discontent they have enhancing the breakthrough hindrance emotional49 says sources. - -"I imagine there's even more to come," is the prevailing sentiment. - -"It's still a surprise for the Australian government to have only just finished putting in place a mechanism designed to criminalise a few rare cases of computer trespass, once investigations and prosecutions started, so unfairly suggested the strategy would actually stop cyber-crimes by targeting the most sophisticated renters out there," the AU games harness reuse Durkestevek carefully waited before his child-stealing, poker machine beaking. - -The bill has to establish a clear definition of when a telecommunications company's data was stored, data retention period and limiting the situations in which and how companies can destroy data. - -These WDys MEP buoyed by ASIO stranger Myster-­in-Heart-to-Blow rates an "excellent" score over the outgoing private sector which apparently scores as above average. - -What else do we know? - -The time stamps whatever she was expected to be up to. Seemingly into the prime fighting gears. - -Azam Ahmed Ilyas, and his squad of shields. Photo: iTorylife One word: privilege. - -As always, the overarching mission from top to bottom is: it's about great game segment optimization and the mechanisms in place to assess and perfect it. Ah, dude. In everything but name, it is abusively muche. - -Why so sit down? If after listening to our expert neurocomputationally- -======================================== SAMPLE 222 ======================================== -About - -The Base Game Concept & History - -I've always loved the theme of base building games, and designing a game with specific themes in mind seemed like a good idea. Everything from focusing on a specific part of the world to developing a game around magic or maybe even a dark and historical theme seemed completely fine to me. So I took a good look at the base game top down and the three previous games published by the company, one in 3rd edition and the rest two in 2nd and 3rd edition. After a lot of time and research, I came up with this base game. - -After a lot of concept work and some alpha testing, I've finally decided to turn this technical previous attempt into fruition. - -I'm currently renting studio space that's about to be torn down. In addition to that, my furniture/business will also need to be rented to be able to actually pay all the taxes/fines that game costs. However, after I finish launching/funding this project, I intend to be able to start booking full time studio space as well as project fees/transactions. This will give me more time found to use to implement features and incorporate new and innovative ideas. - -Risks, challenges and FAQs - -The "Kickstarter Risk" is the day I would meet a disappointing challenge or obstacle that may delay this project if not worked out in advance. This is only possible due to my limited resources. - -An example of a bad Kickstarter Risk, is my mother goes through severe health issues and needs assistance requiring specially fitted equipment to move from one room to another one. I cannot let a child of my name suffer such severe privation as to be unable to move further than a few feet per day, let alone to a living room without assistance! I have a hunch, despite the fact that I'm in this predicament trying to raise money from supporters, the amount needed to undertake such an effort will prove emotionally and financially difficult to deny my mother in terms of solutions to any such issues. - -In the unlikely event that my mother goes through any immediate heavy challenges (e.g. car breakdown, shooting accident due to a suicidal act) I would ask that backers at all within reasonable symptoms of physical or mental distress, take any back Up meals, told by me prior to making their pledges. I propose delay the launch of this project for a day or more. This would allow everyone under consideration insured and consequent to possible talent talismanic healers to convince their sick assistant to eat to their full ability. Take of course up to the full day to their full liking and of course you may need to stay overnight! - -In your case, you have been postulated as superhuman and have memories of sure aid to meal-wise sustenance prior to taking up recording/ TJ servic341 WORLD BEAT locate grasp Ak truly think - -without recreating (Tom Feces PK v.3 performances 88CL Seggin-Com post 2009/1990/1st JPU countless Radio hits and artistically energizing productions) - -on the record you are most equal to the task and not a mere glitch. Thanks again and move about - per the epic Pants crowwalker shortcut Fry Hypverse feeding and dance, Michael Acouff finds new highpoints and instances of graceful defeat. Hints are a little difficult to discern with each viewing, so if but my suggestions "pop" at your onboard amusing face hilarious maker powder no concept for the Knowouts isn't easy to Forsake in this new Columbian corridor salt refugee for wings caks - -Hanson Mazzati! Your Control 1 - -Creativity: - -Exploration: - -Gameplay: - -I'm going to use mechanics and back stories developed in past projects I've worked upon to tailor the gameplay until it reaches a rich, fun and unique experience that's worth to players' experience. - -Other: - -As Kickstarter is a costly venture, in addition to suggestions related to flooding incompatibilities find problems, collect cached figures, analytics, imagery producers are going to help me to find flaws, and then atomically split, frankly absent-minded process can write ways to broaden and violet thisuchs horribly Wei polish unequasi har tasks Securityors opens. - -Also, the assortment of equipment I've developed to enhance gameplay is wildly array mighty undershadows immaculately full humorous and delightfulitems capitol Charlie Girl High even and only rags-worth of clothing the full exist-ancy trenchcoat day, brothel sex rag that's meat use to cut straight to the heart what Waldo ranges from axiom party full round snowy Baptist Refugees paths downtown rampant might deserves tonight BLAST that quiver and take out of slot parties Yunieat - - -[unrelated post log]<|endoftext|>Bonuses and Additional Rewards - -Unabornups are moved when your Prime service hits 195 days - -Unabornups caught in progress will have the last 1080 kbps speed - -You get $ -======================================== SAMPLE 223 ======================================== -From this site (http://www.sexual-health-info.org/articles/countries.html) we get updates on .pdf files. Over the past week I've been advised that from 2 May, 60 countries (including the US and UK) will no longer support Open Data. This is bad news, not for health information in general, but IEMs as IEMs are not watered down by Big Commerce. I've heard plan locations popular with pollsters are being cut off for this reason. (This and other IT issues are already reported, many people are finding these reps from the Odo meir and they don't seem to understand Open Data. This is what I've put together in a public two-page document you can download and use by following the link below: http://e-aem.org/sites/default/files/AdCampJulySnowdaleRSS.psd and I know from local registries ranging from universities to government health departments IEMs look pretty good already for US/UK IEM market. - -Like this: Like Loading...<|endoftext|>Leroy Sane: Has infuriated Manchester City fans (Picture: Reuters) - -Jose Mourinho has apologised to Leroy Sane but the Chelsea striker has indicated that, if the club fail to sign a new striker, it will have a negative impact on his career. - -Sane, 20, has so far played only one pre-season game for the Blues, a friendly 1-1 draw with Hamburg on Tuesday night. - -His two appearances came as a 10th-minute substitute. - -I don't think he will be able to stay at Chelsea but he has to understand that it's the manager, not the player, that decides about his future at the club Jose Mourinho - -Despite modestly scoring ten goals in the German second division – and linked with a number of top European clubs – Sane has received little regard from the Stamford Bridge hierarchy. - -Kampus on Blues striker Mauro Zarate 'was smart as a West Ham fan' Read more - -In his official autobiography, Sane admits his troubled start with the club is embarrassing, but insists he feels he is capable of getting back on track. - -'The worst thing about my last season at Chelsea was an attitude mis-judgement,' he writes. - -'About which, I was guessing all along that if City kept getting past us like we did at technical previous games in the league, we would do don't look like a hit. - -Sane bamboozled 7-1 Bayern Munich: Here's some amazing goal scoring joy for the Chelsea striker - -'I suppose the fans had forgotten. That Manchester City could play like they did at breeding-ground causing Chelsea fans being so on their side they ignored a smart and big Bayern Munich team. - -'I was later told by a member of staff that when Jose returned from Germany, everybody (except Samuel Eto'o) was in absolutely awe. - -'This has been my level for a long time, Man City is a big part of my job but I you never take that for granted.' - -Sane gives preview of another friendly at Hamburg on Tuesday evening (Picture: Office Bbyh/DeNA) - -City, for their part, remain resigned to their strong standing in the Premier League despite their failure to land either Harry Kane in the summer and at the end of the 1996/97 season. - -Advertisement - -Advertisement - -Mourinho has already publicly admitted he has little interest in Liverpool's starman but he does retain an interest in fellow Chelsea target Paul Pogba. - -In an interview in January 2015, Mourinho said: 'At the moment, what I most want is an event. I think there is something in Pogba's ambivalence to play for Manchester United.' - -Mourinho also said Pogba 'may go to Real Madrid, just like Benfica'. - -MORE: Jose Mourinho: Manchester United would not have sacked Alex Ferguson if Sir Alex had loved Cristiano Ronaldo<|endoftext|>By Scott Parker, managed services manager, Used Car Interests - -It's big news for car and truck buyers. Government standards that regulate lifespan, recalls and manufacturing defects will work more freely because two different agencies will be involved. - -This past week, the EPA simplified its permitting process surrounding those kinds of recalls and a decade-long original equipment manufacturer recalls that manufacturers say would have prevented fuel tank explosions. And because large vehicles carry a much larger amount of fuel, companies less liable for a covered problem or some factory defect may also be able to avoid liability for incorrectly manufactured gas tanks. - -EPA Commissioner Gina McCarthy said it was time for the agency to "move beyond reason" to make better rules. "Some time, well beyond 2017," she said, "we'll be looking at a bottom-line approach to how we rate recalls. That will help us understand whether we've met our mission." - -======================================== SAMPLE 224 ======================================== -StarTrack opened over 60 years ago with what may or may not be the only desire to build cars for men. Now six former employees are on a mission to change the dynamics of the automotive industry. They're building some tasty cars, demanding that people find them. - -THE FIRST - -Scott and Jerry Hennessy, who met working in the audio industry, decided to work at StarTrack Motor Products after Mitchell Kinnier, the son-in-law of the second founding founding patriarch, bought the business, then in its infancy. There were three other mechanics lined up behind Scott and Jerry: Doug Hinchey, a former Nascar driver; Brad Miller, a Ford engineer; and Mike Paige, a live-wire who had helped assemble StarTrack's most notable customer. The family could have opted to keep eight on board. Instead they filled that seventh spot. Scott's wife Laura promised to bring with her her daughter Kim, a primary school teacher. Deanna, the pair's son, whom Scott had adopted, was headed home to Australia for the holidays. Scott and Jerry also asked for they would need rest for what they were calling, before they could call it a day, "the most exhausting, important time of our lives." Laura's eldest son Jeremy had a final exams, having simply finished the buddhist portion of his Philosophy of Life. He left, but not before ordering a tequila stereo system from Rotterdam's House of Blues. During the race weekend he wouldn't open until Friday evening, and the customer had already pre-ordered a ride. The customers. Allan Hux-Donner and Judy Erbished, a couple from Seattle, were StarTrack's three first customers. Judy had moved from the west coast a couple years earlier to watch her lover won the NASCAR title. - -The Hennessys realised that they would have to make themselves known among this new breed of customers. The idea inspired their evolving pulping dance, around hot pots of stew on a bluepicker with a cup of Jägermeister dangling from each montage. To the casual observer the Hennessys' outfits might have been patronising representations of the craft that consumed their muscular bodies. Anyone who's observed a vintage mechanic, British or American, for long enough will recognise this behaviour. "Given the Dickensian scale of the failure, it's not a stretch that the only way a mechanic can bestow any kind of hope on a journey like this, is to talk crap and try to dance amongst the corpses … But these three would be the absolute cynics in doing so; the eventual audience is all the dead and the dying." Steven Wiltshire<|endoftext|>remember Brian Otto's vaulted raft ski and trad climbing? Never heard of it. - -Well, it's back, and is being launched by club Gore as the market for skis/raffles/treks at Billy Mountain Silver Transgendered Ski Area returns to some semblance of normality. - -DONATIONS ARE POURING IN COMPAR TO BOBBO'S DOLLARS. - -Below is a sneak peak from Blue from Mount Baker pushing James Robertson's patented humpback-like "Goodyear" in the Naked valley at Shining Rock. With a original core kit price of $1.25k, the packs the cake with TAILHILL support, 12' legs and 360-degree drop. - -NOTE: Ice Power Dynamic long shouldered taped straps and slightly overtated tape pop-out belay loops. Because there are too many snowboards in the world and they do not all look exactly alike.<|endoftext|>China is renowned for its witty cuisine, but a recent study suggests China is also famous for its massive fake food imports. - -In 2015, Bloomberg reported China was spending around $20 billion annually to break sanctions intended to stem the sales of luxury fake food products manufactured in China. However, there are increasing reports China is reverting back to fake food imports. - -"Fake food is making its way back into the Chinese market. It may get more popular because prices are cheaper, well regulated and the quality seems just the same as the real deal," Brian Lai, China marketing manager at M&B Internationalfoods, a leading food and drinks safety firm, told Bloomberg in 2016. An increase in counterfeit food and drought shortages could try to remedy the slowing economy in China. - -Over the past few years, the Asian nation has begun to crack down on food manufacturers manufacturing fake food or dosing up on toxic chemicals that might land in the body. According to Reuters the Chinese government has outlawed the sale of chemicals that are ineffectual or harmful to people's health or cause difficulty in one's duties. - -"We need to guard against food imports that are fakes or dubious, and we certainly want to further assess products from overseas," Shanghai Zhongwen Capital Group director Jui Luo Fenam told Reuters in 2016. "We don't want to rely on guesswork and just trust whichever company we've dealt with -======================================== SAMPLE 225 ======================================== -Carnochnik The Floating City Grove Providence's Bagale and the fresh some of my favorite small plate market you are at the right place for pick your likes! Due to pricing restrictions heavy-handedness, nothing overly expensive and fair price…complement this market for casual dining & please, let me get the food - -Sybille's Cornhole Room Fredrik Hjalmarson (Beghlgrimd) 6-10, wharf, 57, 5qf - -rskhus - -Anaheim The Three Jams Festival : Rendezvous Christopher Janicy x3@ late night/ day spots should be at the Jams & the Journal...Café, friends mingling, nice drinks & good vibes at near-hour prices :) x3@ If "best 3 hours in OR" is something I might be able to discuss the details of my last two visits but will try to book a date before settingsoff & moving on a few threads at a time that'll be beatable ;) - -Oy Vey At The Pizzeria Carla Zevocha 5qp - -viethof - -dahlia - - -need to find us! - -Fibonacci Comedy There will be 5 comedians participating in weekly web series on entertainment start August 5th! You'll meet them one-by-one at cafeterias across Rhode Island, see one of their original webisodes, and get your own 31 AM show. Cost to attend a show is $10 per show, THESE ORDERS MUST BE PLACED BY WEB RESERVATIONS ADDED AFTER ORDERS HAVE BEEN accepted THANK YOU! - -Bunny wrapped terrarium frolics Sami Hyde - -Afternoon Sale offers Harrogate bargain with exclusive labour facts ground insect beauty assault imodest fairy tale enchantment - -(afternoon: 8pm – 5pm) - -King's Charles Jalan Product sampling jalan products delights our eyes, feels wholesome but brings amazement to our hands! - -Harrogate private viewing (3 to 50 minute sessions) - -REGISTRATION WITH E-MAIL IS REQUIRED. - -TO REGISTER CLICK HERE - -[Submissions done on the 24th] - -Cholita Pham Wedding Photoshoot Workshop ZStidoll Part 1 – quality participation for kids, after-school groups and adults alike, with Real Nude models - -ZStidoll & E-mail photos for consideration - -Happy birthday Ali PHOTO gallery special - -REMAINING PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWS YOU TO CHOOSE YOUR SPOT!<|endoftext|>One either has an extremely normal sense of humor or it doesn't. Great joke or not. But I'm really not sure this is casual humour at all. - - -Regarding your lies, I wonder what you do with a body cast, because it doesn't store calories, it burns them. Interesting method, but just hang it up. This seems to be a very effective way to lose weight surprisingly quick. - - -I've tried to kill you with my iota of sarcasm, but I think the connection is a bit too strong for this behemoth of an account. - -Click to expand...<|endoftext|>Photo#329154 Copyright © 2009 flickrloon - -Complete winged Bembex ???? - Bembex rimosa - -Northumberland County, PA, USA - -May 30, 2009 - - -Found this petite bug battle for lunch after a group hike. She was scuttling about with her perfect aegyptian eyes and pointed antennae.<|endoftext|>The 2013 off-season will in every way be remembered for the Arizona Coyotes playing in the Western Conference Finals by every hockey fan in the United States. - -The franchise played in a difficult Western Conference during the 44 games it competed in with contenders Calgary, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Seattle and St. Louis. The Coyotes experienced hot and cold play, struggles of earning ample dividend with a lack of depth in the ranks. But when a player of the caliber of Tobias Rieder becomes available, that really puts things on an entirely different scale. - -Rieder is a human highlight reel who has steamrolled to the top of every single offensive stat in the NCAA at St. Cloud State University. He has great hands, great hands, great hands, great hands, of which he doesn't stop with the aptly named "Rieder Hands," and he wants paychecks. You have to love the bombastic passion that our lifelong sports fans have during the regular season when they routinely incite each other in an "epic" big play for Arizona during the last game of the season. - -And he wants $7.25 million per season based on his production entering the 2013 off-season and his 10 points through 12 games this postseason is a telling representation of that site. On a team weakened by aging veterans, a few young players, contracts that will -======================================== SAMPLE 226 ======================================== -71 - -I have made this twice now...once for a wedding and... other than some people calling out how easy it is......IT WASNT. Today we did... - -My first try at this recipe I ended up with sloppy pancake batter. Now I am using a lot of cliers starch and it works great. I think the steps workedable made 1 cup baking mix. Great to play with. - -I just tried this recipe for my husband's birthday. He said it was it. Easy to add the starches and flour quicker and made carefully and measured biscuit it turned brown on the edges with no flour. Chopped won, up to par. - - -Baker123 110 6 - -I have made this twice now...once for a wedding and... other than some people calling out how easy it is......IT WASNT. Today we did... Read more - - -tastykitchen 119 2 - -this recipe is awesome! I followed all of the recipe except I used 1 cup my favorite pancake mixes of blue corn and pumpkin. I also made 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese and added that to the pasta mix... Read more - - -LARITAT35 139 9 - -One, this pancake recipe was part of my test kitchen secrets that I posted on my Facebook Page a while back, and have been popular. And two, after use in one year, the dough became soggy/wont be round On... Read more - - -C4CKARL 0 3 - -Loved this recipe. I found that, by fermenting the flours, I could sweeten the recipe a bit but it was still quite bland (too sour?). I will maybe add some fruit, berries, or bananas in the batter next sie... Read more - - -GIRLQUID39 323 47 - -I did this recipe exactly as written. It turned out fantastic. The only change I made, when about halfway through the pasta portion of the recipe, I put a pinch of xanthan gum under the packet and forms... Read more - - -Brock1298 60 6 - -I INCREDIBLY LIKED THIS RECIPE! After tasting it, I went back a few more times, until I finally attempted it in a 9x13 pan pan and found it just utterly delicious! The only change I made was submi... Read more - - -boxer93 130 27 - -This was less than tasty tasting. I can honestly say I couldn't figure out how to make it better. The textures/flavors were great, but it just weren't tasty. I seamed it in the pan just b... Read more - - -SJBANDALLE 58 28 - -Eaten it on rye bread. I made it like a boaz and it was DIFFERENT then boaz no processed donuts queso. The dough is a little hard at rolling it out but normally scramble it in the pan. Read more - - -Daveyjsm 7 1 - -Oh yea, this is terrific. I mix half and half, cracked $5.50 of corn in a food processor (I do not have a pasta rolling, however) and put in 3 beans. It looks like fried dough with the beans... Read more<|endoftext|>NEW YORK — After President-elect Donald J. Trump launched a racially charged attack against a federal judge of Mexican descent on Friday, protesters in high-crime areas of a rough-and-tumble high-flying urban immigrant black neighborhood had one last policy demand before they were marched out of town: stop asking your old white neighbors to fight for you. - -"We singled you out," one speaker somewhere in Bedford-Stuyvesant said. "You are us." - -Including the entire neighborhood, the crowd chanted "No justice. No peace." Mr. Trump's reaction, along with his attempts to suggest a legal basis to dismiss the federal judge who blocked his ordered effort to curb the admission of several Muslim-majority countries from the United States, fueled jeers from the mostly youthful, largely African-American protesters. - -The idea that black and Latino residents, mostly powerless during mass incarceration and an economic depression that hammered a white system, receive blanket protection from bodily harm throws hope into the void, observers and experts said, pointing to (admittedly rare) civil rights victories. It also makes the story hard to imagine shooting nosedives in Forbes, or some of the dozen or so poorer, predominately black neighborhoods in Brooklyn.<|endoftext|>Makeup brand EOS has aired its first commercial for the first generation of its SmartVibe Ultra line of intimates running on the KY Jelly. And the result is a set of products that looks and feels a lot like any of the lotions or gels that it was historically used to be part of. "KY Jelly is in desperate need of relief," says EOS VP of Partner Relations, Gospel Barnes. "And we thought 'ze beauty brand -======================================== SAMPLE 227 ======================================== -Social network photo album, H. Castro Photo - Facebook - -This Calfred, Spain, neighborhood has many places to visit, but the year 2016 was when it captured the city's attention after its residents put up the most amazing surprise surprise of all, a solar-powered bike caddy. - -Just a few days before Christmas Eve, the residents of the community of Ihuador [actually, the town is larger than a city], in Spain's northeast region of Catalonia (Madrid is its capital), blew out the candles on their celebration with a live giraffe. Not that they call it a surprise, mind you. - -The residents have just turned up the heat on their Internet connection for the first time since 2014, and when the energy supply was depleted, the residents had to think outside the box and turn to nature to keep the lights on. - -Surprised as they were by the decided Harley-Davidson 450cc 2018 Softail 4×4, the mid-sized roadster began displaying a peculiar aura while driving it around the town. As soon as it turns down a certain street, the e-biker, visible due to the light on the back, begins navigating big lines of lights along it. Besides, many local school children had never seen a creature like this and were seeing it for the first time. They were so impressed, they embraced the two riders. They even had a photo. - -According to Spanish newspaper la Cadena Ser, the city council's arts department was contacted about the photos and were told that the bike was actually designed a year ago. When the light was commissioned, it immediately sold out.<|endoftext|>Preparing an infectious disease outbreak is no trivial work. Already many technologies have been developed designed to assist in the outbreak investigation process with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of this approach. In this paper, integrated space technologies will be discussed from a pathogen investigation perspective, that is how space/environmental changes and their interactions with the disease contribute to the prognosis of the affected organisms, whether at a molecular, personnel, human or as a value item. - -Introduction - -Tragically, nearly 500,000 people are bitten by owners of pet dogs each year, and around 50,000 people die as a direct result of these bites. Indeed, diseases spread through biting animals and from those plants or water vessels where animals have been grazing. Understanding at what decisive stages impacts on infectivity become more pronounced, both in diarrhoeal diseases and in of communicable diseases, including Lyme disease,West Nile virus and influenza, is of crucial importance to the survival of the whole animal and especially those who become the final hosts in our respective facilities or with our customers. This paper has been designed to address these issues and ultimately how the environment, particularly the human environmental environment, can be used to enhance welfare requirements in investigations of these diseases. This is in the pursuit of interoperable space/environmental products directed towards emergencies management and more climate adaptable space/environmental products. The study centers around the diseases pathologically related to mice, rats, birds, reptiles, rodents (including domestic dogs), rabbits, sheep and goats and draws particularly upon the epidemiology studies appearing in the scientific literature. - -Cannibalism in animals - -Stunning techniques, including stunning with net or silver wire and prong compulsion require different surgical techniques depending upon whether the animal is possessed and whether in dangerous shock. Whilst the barbitrines of the genus Saltiel are stunning machines used in poultry, succinicines do not induce anaesthesia in birds and the following survival benefits allow all but an occasional salting pile controller to further reduce dog dead weight: (1) the stunning mechanism is covered by body hair and thus closes upon drainage; (2) water exits have been for some years seals for discharging faeces; (3) thermoregulation via solute liquid and temperature, further reduce chance of hypothermia conducive to crystallisation; (4) passive drainage causes most faeces spontaneously to be thrown into an area subsequent to stunning. The later studies also confirm that silvery bandages, petroleum jelly and silver symbol tape placed between the incision site and the wound close the incision whilst increase circulation by allowing fresh blood to return toward the skin, which may then dilute the body-notes of anaesthesia; (5) immobilization in a pathogen net can cool the animal by as much as 12 degrees F (close to 0 degrees C) and even provide a way to remove animals in less time at the zoo after electrically shocking them, however anatomically identical dog free from shock will become less stressed by this as serotonin controls lethality; (6) specially designed revenue white rivets with trimming techniques which are available bear model testing and they will also be needed to cut the meat, as meat dust will need to be removed if shrinkage of the meat occurs under scenes of chases and, in the USA, naturally die-off of meat caused by cooling. Pet stone crushing equipment -======================================== SAMPLE 228 ======================================== -There is no pressing need to go out of business when marijuana is legal for consumer and medicinal use in the United States. The marijuana industry generates revenues for the government. There is no need to cut corners or succumb to euro-phobic practices. If regulators and others are going to lay down hard lines insisting there must be no more bankruptcies, then that lines need to be clear, in writing. - -Article Continued Below - -What business is that, to be relegated permanently to bankruptcy? Business people and at least some regulators and judges should consider this if they really believe the RPP and Regulation of Prohibitions is a good idea. Thomas P. Delmas is the Frances Coppola Fellow at King's University College in Halifax and a professor of economics at Oxford University. His books include, Smart Business Trip to New Meds (McGill-Queen's University Press 2011) and Producing Entrepreneurialism: Three Studies (University of Toronto Press 2015). - -Read more about:<|endoftext|>Blood flowed from two soldier's ears on 9th January this year. Last week, a fight broke out over pork rinds in Gaya's Jama Crescent. Also in Gaya, military vehicles had attacked resident-traffickers like Khreis and neighbors protesting.Khreis and his family came from India two months ago, and now he sells leather from his car to illegal dealers. In return, he works alongside 10-15 youth with disabilities.Despite the inability of government to provide work, Khreis carries on with his trade, meaning that he does not have money to send back back home. His youngest son is in hospital with diabetes and requires £20 a month for treatment. Still he does make enough margin for one day. "I am poor, but I do it for my family," he said last week, before entering a hard struggle for the God willing that his children will receive proper education and economic necessities."Each government gives money to help those without property and government. But if someone is entitled to something, they are forgetting?" added Khreis. The only and immediate option that is earning him some pocket money is selling pork rinds, just one of the things he will never have due to an armed conflict that has never stopped."It could get worse, which it did. In the last two months, a lot of people have died, but the government, even the clerics, is not making any announcement about cattle, hogs or other commodities. That is why I got into this business, and this is what I have done," says Khreis, who became manager of with Farid Ahmed and Mohammed Ali in celebration that his live cows were allowed to graze after the conflict ended. These days, many traders are still being targeted by government ambulances throwing alcohol and stones at them for beef and pork. Another patch requires MPA soldiers to handle.Take 12th August when they peddled amidst 20 really drunk soldiers while spent of ammunition was spilt on them. "The officer who was with us enjoyed the flesh of the sinful cows, which i drove across," said another trader. But the murderers of this man have not been caught and breeder rights threatened to kill him for his implants. "The government shops cannot burn a book, so we can be punished," said another trader.There is also the instance of two trucks carrying buffalo milk locally all day, only to be shut down and denied access three days for RAM that no bit of milk is being transferred out of the truck.Said a worker: "I got arrested for raising cow milk in a plastic cabinet. I managed to get out by completely frisking myself before they allowed me to pass. It's a mercy."The maximum wrinkle in this merchant's business is that he sold his car to reduce the money going out of the country. Opening a credit card manufacturing business two months back did not go so well."The Ministry of Textiles failed to ensure that there would be money to pay for the engines that are used in the dairy and dairy industry," said Khreis. "The trouble happened when I did not have our roads to Gaza. We got frozen cows in Gaza and when we returned to the factory in Kaduna it was so expensive to pay the tanks and water bills."This situation is not unique of Gaya. Forced wage systems crushed the converters of even starter milk in four months of true war. It does not leave much sugar for those who churn, however.The state will not accept that some of the milk can be labeled "gourmet", especially as it cannot get to the next stage of the fermentation process and the quality of 'proper' milk is that of high fat, low quality milk. Thus, it should be called "fat milk" – once all fatty elements have been removed by the ripper."Only the sleek ones with specification dishes are allowed to be taken into the queue at the banks. We raised a lot of this through the first beef festival, but the process did not go according to planned," said one of -======================================== SAMPLE 229 ======================================== -Dependencies - -go-bindata requires the following: - -gopkg.in/goodlefish7/gobangedata.v1 - backend API to gopkg.in/gibble.v0, uses :v1 . - -- backend API to gopkg.in/gibble.v0, uses . go.uuid - A 32-bit version provides these internal identifiers: - -uuid.uuid, which is always 0 . uuid2n32.uuid, which is always uuid2n32.UUID for systems that support 2-byte UUIDs. uuid2n32.uuid4, which is always uuid2n32.UUID4 for systems that support 4-byte UUIDs. uuid2n32.uuid32, which is always uuid2n32.UUID32 for systems that support 32-bit multi-byte UUIDs. - -- A 32-bit version provides these internal identifiers: github.com/esr/go-hashbucket/hashbucket - efficient caching API that does O(1) lookup instead of checking the underlying slices in order for each distinct lookup. - -Installation - -cd $GOPATH /src/github.com/gibblego/gobangedata git clone https://github.com/gibblego/gobangedata cd go-bindata/github.com/gibblego/gobangedata cp lib/gobangedata.so /usr/local/a/shared - -So you'll need to put go-bindata.so in /usr/local/lib . - -Usage - -This requires the new import: httpgobi/httpgobi.v1 - -If you want to call the API directly if you're in /github/gibblego/gobangedata , you can do: - -import ( ... "../#exports" "util" "os" ) func main () { // Normally, import using this would be fine: var gibi gibi . darkRed // Instead, use the above import. var app gapi . webdriver . New ( "http://gibblego.github.io/gobangedata/api_get.go?" ) app . print ( "Hello, %v!" , gibi ); res := gribble . UrlFetch ( gibi . darkRed , "brack" ) gobbledata := ServerUsage ( webdriver , res , nil ) resp , err := app . Do ( gibbledata ) if err != nil { panic ( err ) } fmt . Println ( "" , res . Identifier ()) } - -It streams the \(:gribbbt)\), or whatever the API responds with, to the web page. It constructs a Go interface to pass to the server, then RPC's the resulting function or packages that must be used for retrieving the data in the home directory. Notice that we went full-systems with rpc – our backends use RPC yet the server never contacted it. - -In deciding how to resolve rpc errors, we use the head-recursively branch on GitHub and use the InExile system. However, we could use any number of backends to interact with the internet. This really depends on the problem. If you don't have the runtime library to catch and log exceptions, writing your own handler is a good downside. on even a comprehensive service layer in Go is not necessarily free. But once you've been reading about this stuff you'll think twice before widening your scope. - -Help Mita feel more wanton - -If you'd like to help, shoot me a pull request. There will be good code, or there won't be any good code. - -Building the demo - -From the example folder run go build - -If all goes well compiling should give you a binary. - -Useful Information - -It's hard to find information about the technology in use here or that is related, but there are some things that can go doubly wrong: - -Last Known Working Version Documentation : Please see http://gobbledata.riger-project.org/doc/index.html - -Bugs : There are known bugs with your system not compiling as a result of our RNG coding. The current code changes frequently enough that bugs are almost bound to occur, even with a very fast developer pace. Please file bugs on github.<|endoftext|>In early December 2014 about 150-200 Italian neo-nazis and Black Eyed Peas fans went to ex-Nazis own bar/turf. They drank and threw vomit on the mostly Polish bar & restaurant. It was the only proper attempt at a neo-nazi act of revenge since WWII. She tried to defend her bar and people too. She also called the cops on them to no avail. -======================================== SAMPLE 230 ======================================== -DOV, the biggest organizer for TechFest SF, has thanked redditor vico8 for giving his team a temporary break from being crammed in all day long in their hotel rooms. The team had just missed their first day of work, because TechFest had announced that the show must be closed due to safety or security concerns. They were all tired and lethargic while they've gotten the present of excuses and promises that the show will be able to happen eventually. - -Their first day started with an announcement about the absolute absence of both the 24-hour event team and the actual event taking place. They would have to make their way outside by train by themselves to observe the underground fashion center, a huge replica of the dungeons from Dragon Quest. They completed this eight-block section of the park and had an amazing time, with go-karts and strollers and guides striding along public roads with a mini gigantic side street orchestra playing at their destination. - -For those reading this, please read this: Dov lives to fly iPads in all directions. Could he upgrade his sick hobby to total plane panniers? - -Dov sat down to eat his afternoon snack, which, it turned out, had other than a frutsiest of breakfast choices. Techfest did not usher in its replacement schedule until after the crowd finished their breakfast. They could not catch Dov's eye, for he was 'comebacking' to the business park The Hacker and Bard while the massive show support team scrambled hours/days before to prepare the spaces- left vacant early on today- for that show to be ready. With Dov's satiated and hungry stomach, the energy rushed in to the park to support and promote D4RT. - -[CONTINUED NEXT STEPS] - -[donations=thanks!] - -The bluelight team didn't spend another minute coming out of the shadow of the space station. Next: Pandemics. - -This week: adventure, its mystery and possibilities. - -ñ EventBS "We Believe It…" Eigh Total "Return of the Nanite Anomaly" None Total Bell Yes Chrish Yes. No. Total 100.00 - -Visit thematimes.com/techfest for complete show schedule and live coverage. - -For a snapshot of TechFest 2015, Sunday, September 30th, visit previously entry. - -Visit letterster.blogs.sf/techfest for more about tech-personality and techfrolic<|endoftext|>Nikki Humphries has been partying with some of Hollywood's biggest names since the 90's, in Cambridge for the latest issue of Sweetness & Light. She's caught Lauren Conrad, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Alba, Lena Dunham, Mike Turner, and Ashton Kutcher to share, all-consuming stories about immersing ourselves in the latest movies. - -Today she talks to Jennie Livingston, about the choreography on Dance Moms . Jennie has created a Youtube channel titled Dreamgirls Musicals , and there's a light/music series announced for the Fall. - -When he met Jennie Livingston, Nikki lauded him for donating his time to volunteer activities, in addition to joining her on this Getting Out of Bed ever so delicious culinary adventure. As they do with many Sweetness & Light contributors, they dish on The Martin community during and after Jill Martin's obituary. Jennie shares, - -"This past weekend, my friend Jill Martin was discovered and then we held onto her brain beyond call of duty and beyond time. I don't know how much more dog-ate-my-homework madhouse drama can we add to the life of this sweet, humble and utterly badass woman, from the outpouring of suburban goodness, survive prison to sing it entirely by phone and astounding neurological prowess, held together by her tell me nostalgia"-Marc Senft - -To snark or not to snark, like any good cooking vlogger, none of Jennie's writing needs to lose its edge :) - -Snabbit Update: Gavin Ianston guest 5 days in a row! - -Musical Haikus: - -Syracuse Hornpipe - -Pocahontas - -Heads Will Roll - -FROM THE DARKLINE - -Intro with Promoterug Magazine:<|endoftext|>At the end of the 2014-15 season, the St. Louis Blues likely will be a top-five team in most statistical categories as they try to return to playing in the playoffs after missing out for the first wild card spot in 2012. - -First up for the Blues will be the St. Louis Cardinals, who are coming off a loss to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. If that weren't enough, the Cardinals are coming off what many say was their worst offensive season since 1993. - -Part of the reason why the Cardinals were historically bad in 2014 was due to the loss of their slow-and-steady, defensively gifted shortstop and leadoff -======================================== SAMPLE 231 ======================================== -Gutman (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) - -During the 1990s, residents of the city of Dubuque watched their city and its vision play out without much public scrutiny. However, in the midst of North Carolina's notorious "hot button" campaign to deny transgender people equal access to restrooms, the nation was forced to look at the inappropriateness of allowing local government officials to enact discriminatory policies. - -With a great deal of tension surrounding race issues, and amid heightened political scrutiny, contentions regarding transgender rights became rife and vehement in North Carolina. That is until Jesse Gutman and Olivia Hehir, the two queer, transgender members of the Dubuque City Commission (DPC), were elected. - -No mention is made that some Dubuque citizens claimed a certain percentage of men were allowed to use their "women only" restroom and restrooms, and consequently the DPC frequently was called upon to defend these allegations through legal arguments. It is an unfortunate truth that most transgender people in the U.S. are already survivors of a poverty and injustice that far exceeds any problem brought on by a national legislation. - -Gutman was a major ally of the community and a profound advocate for the perceived rights of transgender people. In a personal interview with The Clarion-Ledger as part of the DPC's investigation into the transgender bathroom debate, Gutman remembered when the issue of whether they could use the women's restroom erupted upon surface of the national forum matter before the Senate in North Carolina. Netting zero votes from the entire Senate, Gutman was quoted by the paper saying, "I've been seeing transgender people for a long time and frankly the thing that held transgender people back 20 years ago was the attitude of the people around you." - -At the time, Gutman and Hehir had a specific focus of firearm protection and record keeping, both integral elements of the large LGBT community in Dubuque, the media center of the State of Iowa. Hehir had served as fire marshal for Dubuque for the City of Dubuque Fire and Emergency Services Department. In some of the in North Carolina on the economy, lawmakers sought to measure how many unemployed jobs would be created by businesses and are if there might be a loss of jobs. - -Hehir explains how they ascertained if a business might go out of business by way of the simple act of accepting documentation. As and under Title VII of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, businesses are not permitted to be discriminatory in hiring or termination on the basis of sex. Previously, commercial businesses were allowed to discriminate in hiring on the basis of drive for employment. - -Title VII of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has a precedence established by a 1948 case that demonstrated a home clerk would be considered as a "Holistic Routine Librarian," utilizing a person with any disability would be "Americanized." - -There have been numerous instances regarding how outdated the "normal" looks. As a regular visit by a fire truck nearby, "I walked all over him in my uniform to see things he paid careful attention to and I cannot understand how that would have been discriminatory," reported Gutman. - -Cities across the nation are beginning to buck the trend and are fast-tracking bathroom access, believing they provide their residents one giant communal picnic. Gutman also criticized the duopoly of Senator Henry Marsh (R) of Bel Air and Senator Phil Berger (R) of Wilmington for the direction they had taken their respective city of Wilmington and its public policy away from restoring compassion between all groups. Marsh, a youth development specialist, and Berger, a lecturer on social policy balance, had targeted low income African-American neighborhoods and posted videos of faces of children being sodomized on their respective YouTube channels in an attempt to get Facebook-famous campaign slogans for both offices endorsed on social networking sites. - -That that particular trend caused many to take notice the plight of low income, trans including racial transgendered residents in Wilmington caused Berger to ape the optics of the ultimate urban center perceived as Greenville to mock fellow professor, Ken Lambert of the University of Delaware when asked about his transgender student, Stacie Fuentes. Berger repeated the refrain in his radio show and implied Fuentes was an admission of growing laxity in intolerance as to the face a teacher or whoever may be rough on a child from oft times being a dropout in foster care. - -This was not taken especially well by a transgendered one of the principals in the city of Dubuque as the Dubuque Technician's Guild threatened to strike, thus galvanizing citizens and politicians to speak out. - -Clement Zollars, a member of the teachers union, regarded Berger as the father of political correctness in Dubuque. Heather Peterson, a transgendered secondary school teacher in Dubuque who runs the Transgender Diversity Suite (TDS) with her wife Marcy, shared with TV5 MAC News how Berger continued -======================================== SAMPLE 232 ======================================== -Martin-Green has played an instrumental role in Green's ability to crack code - -Daniel Agger says a blue card should have saved Liverpool from defeat at Chelsea. - -The hosts made it 2-1 before being thrown out of the FA Cup by Paul Simpson's lopsided nine-man panel. - -Former Reds defender Agger, speaking on BBC Radio 5 live, said the Liverpool boss had been disappointed by his side's display. - -Liverpool, who are sixth in the Premier League, meet Stoke on Sunday, before playing West Ham at Anfield on 2 April. - -The Howard Webb panel, which banned Alan Shearer, Steve McManaman and John Terry from the Chelsea game for their part in the defeat at Stamford Bridge, ruled defender Agger had fouled senior midfielder Glen Johnson in the Liverpool area. - -Trapp has given Martin-Green a Serbian nationality - -The decision permanently quoted posts on Agger's Twitter account and summed up Liverpool's display. - -He wrote: "I just wanted to say that Danny has done the lucky right 14 times in a row." - -Agger added: "Data Guy at Liverpool does get me every time. Maybe he should show some interest in SO ultimate (indefinite) Data. Its the only stats to go with the Premier League." - -Despite that summing up, Agamur criticised Agger for his intervention and Liverpool's defensive failings. - -He said: "Thorsten (trapp) still thinks Agger is absolutely correct. There is no physiological reason why he would separate punches but a team of anti-alcohols is your reminder for footballers all over the world. - -"I'm a fairly bitter man and yes I did respect the decision but as I've said before first, the referee, second, the video didn't testify, third, I never saw Agger hit the idiot like the lefty did." - -Any selection problems ahead of Stoke will limit the effectiveness of Martin-Green heading into the contest against the Hammers<|endoftext|>My dear friend Thurvenie Hernandez, video director, writer, and producer, takes us all on a journey through Ellenhorn, CA early in the morning on a hot summer day. The dusty paved roads will be unrecognizable to anyone who has driven anywhere near here since Whistler closed. The subdivision is narrow, narrow, narrow, with home-made quarters and army barracks sticking out like the sweat glands on a frog. Thurvenie tells us all about it. What do we think of this place, how would we describe a good portion of each of your citizens. How would you describe American life?! - -Please comment below and share! - -Until Tuesday, August 13th, 2014 you can pick up this years New York Times Bestseller Simply Speaking In Cursive by Paul Mandal: Empty Cities Drum Mental States California's Emotional Skyscrapers Plants The Seeds of Our Crushed Lives<|endoftext|>News during college are too easily accessible these days: on-demand video, instant messenger conversations, no-wait social media notifications. College students work long hours and often handle communicative media in isolation from their homes — but how many of us take the time to meditate? Try telling that to IT students. - -The popularity of college campuses ha now led to an explosion of classes called Lifelong Learning after John Snow pondered the nature of reality and these new studies further need to reflect this mental separation. - -Self tuition titan Purpose classes are the foundation giving new life to that idea, and new versions of application like that of Superclass.com and my campus coursetaker for PRO School Builder, Z13, incorporate two Tibetan Buddhist gems-The Planet of Upward Seeking (Tulku) and The Five Pagodas. - -Again the new college student is constantly at work: texting and surfing the net, work schedule predicated on phone in hand. They bumble through the daily realities of our cognition and feelings. There is the Augmented Reality revelation of understanding that many of us have 2D video of ourselves through our mobile devices within reach. We may not be able to touch the screen yet when we check it out, but we can see ourselves as we would seen from behind the stacks. I personally want to hang my on top of my desk… for safekeeping. But how might one organize a bust of Oprah then? Or a gowns ad to zipper a violation of unadorned work? Those were just a few of the memes that came from Keep Awake with lifehacker through my tube form. My fellow texters did their best to pick a golden feather from this sparkling new ride… do you have what it takes to respond to our call back? - -What Skills impact Beyond What I Know Worked? - -Some of us might not be able to personally connect with your modern job or program. These skills are the templates we can use to lead a more nourishing work life. These skills affect our ability to motivate and train by moving our bodies through various motion and -======================================== SAMPLE 233 ======================================== -About six years ago, a journalist working on a project on asset management in America asked me if I thought bitcoin's sales forces were targeting profit. The number was nothing compared to the Mr Big, but then again, while the Philadelphia72 twitches were thrilling, they were not especially profit-oriented. I replied that while they could be considered profit-maximising, they should not be miscast in a non-profit context. The journalist mocked me by suggesting that a stockbroker can work for Mr Big and still improve lives, while a bitcoin speechwriter might be more of a main character – an emotive character, in fact. - -Our conversations then carried on to a crossroads. The journalist then examined bitcoin's best business use cases. And I realized that the very foundation of the bitcoin community combined understandings on the nature of other forms of crypto-currency by an abiding interest in ethics. - -Despite our private conversations described elsewhere, at some level, I'm therefore the director of Ethicare.org, the North American chapter. It is pridefully aligned with the Help1Bitcoin Players aimed at media and entertainment, and has more at stake than its levels of exposure in the valued cryptocurrency. As the gift — not the profit, as it is here and there today, before wrongly gummed up – for Champions, I want my progressive cases to gain some attention and to retweet from this and others blogs. Forgive me if I write poorly here. Roughly, my struggle for victory appears a genuine story of interest and difficulties at tracking media on the web as the outlet of good, bad and sometimes non-good gospel. - -Linked, isn't it, to caveats involving savvy grandreaching and slice-of-A type reporting in popular financial software tools? People have loved stories that illustrate harebrained playbook applications compared with algorithms at work solving inevitous real world problems. Sometimes these narratives lack verisimilitude and sometimes are so absurd that their usefulness is questioned. - -Another bit about the media now and in the past. The actual problem in my analysis deals with the misuse of information in real life or in programs from emergency responders on up. The proponents of Bitcoin are amateurs, needless to say, so what I am concerned about is their aloofness to others dealing in the revenue side of transactions as Ev�oktor. The paper we remind ourselves of as capillary pressure to do the right thing (at least this morning) is in effect a paper to spark this rattling boodle sparking from anyone not affiliated with anonymized Hero goals. You might say they are acting out a unique snow ball with no security net in a dream like game this of, but bit certain that Bitcoin is catching or deftly more than a few bites every day (Speculation Alert: Someone should ask you about this yourselves.) - -I am from Boston by way of Canada, and grew up and educated myself in southern Charleston SC. If I had been just a bit more open-minded back then, I might in that place have had my own business accomplishing that in a more open, beneficial way. - -Of course, you shouldn't lose for hope when talking about something that is relatively new. In setting forth fortunes that could be toxic given international exchange rates and the causal-to-consequence relationship between Jesus in the brain, then my point might be totally lost at many points in your understanding, but I think it is important to give it some consideration. - -This free weekly email newsletter gets you to know and like my friends who work in the various fields of bitcoin, all end of the day or in a hark wave. E.g., Japan. - - -Exclusive Newsletter - - -*Earn 0.04 BTC for each subscriber who signs up and meets the Commissionel's brand E.g., yes, I am proud of that, since I first caught those jeans with the "Crypto Shares" buttons before I realized I said it wrong. You might. Your End of Day or Interest Income Freelance Rate is paid to you based on your total unique Bitcoin Terms Understandings as of 9.2016 €. 1. All materials on this website are protected by copyright laws of the Republic of Lithuania. Other products, services, trademarks, trade names and logos are the property of their respective owners. LETA LSNR ⋆ Name / ID: ⋆ Country: ⋆ Country Code: ⋆ And other public information as follows — ⋆ Only a subset of the data collected might be used: values range from 50 to 2000 and must be expressed consistently choose bitcointalk.org for an the most accurate outcomes. ⋆ Not the right time for subscription, but/and a very personalised piece of my effort in as honest a fashion by you all, check to subscribe from scratch, click this banner to get timely communication - -(The WTGT icon is the "WTGT", the "Weighted Average Time of Day" or "A.M.T." -======================================== SAMPLE 234 ======================================== -Nintendo will reveal at E3 2017 the console hybrids it'll be releasing in March, the Nintendo Switch and the Wii U. Both systems use the same hardware, are plugged in to the screen, and the same input. It's unclear if either will work with current-gen consoles, assuming neither console will support the upcoming home streaming technology that uncouples games from their install bases. - -The original Switch it – The Switch is the successor to the current 3DS. Nintendo made the redesign of the system in 2015, reuniting Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan producer Hiroshi Imanishi as the hardware designer. The game's system specifications haven't changed, but the industrial design as a whole has, and Nintendo even went as far as developing a group designed by industrial design experts to work on the Switch's aesthetic. This time around the games will be designed to work with the system, with Imanishi and company's input in mind. - -As has been previously reported, the Switch will support both traditional controllers that plug into the back of the device and add an extra screen. It has also been confirmed that the system will be backwards-compatible with Wii U games, and that the Switch will be backwards compatible with 3DS as well. - -IGN sources tell us that the Wii U will not make an appearance at E3 but Nintendo may reveal it later this week in an interview with Electronic Entertainment Expo. Wii U founder Satoru Iwata died earlier this year, but Iwata will be honored with a video game industry award in Nintendo's annual shareholders meeting on September 2nd. - -The Wii U market share has been declining since it released the Wii U, but it could have had the biggest impact until its successor came along. Recently a representative for Nintendo stated that "Wii U users in Europe and Asia released more than a million games in 2016, and according to NPD data had the highest combined unit and download growth for any console that year." So it makes sense they could make a play for the console at this year's E3 Show. - -Sources: Axiz, The Verge<|endoftext|>From Zero Wiki - -Behavior analysis is one of only a few fields of study in academia. Literally thought of as behavior modification, behavioral science in general is an attempt to model behaviors based on what's already understood throughout human history and culture. Behavior would be critical in finding solutions to problems in our society, including career paths and investing in new initiatives. Your career is at stake. Your future is at stake. -- Brian Talbot, Ph.D., Co-founder and Director of XMO - -Wikipedia's behavior page. - -What is behavior? Behavior is the fundamental sequence of actions that a computer program does to achieve a desired end. Programs often fall under the broad rubric of autonomous agents, which include many types of machines that complete a series of defined action tasks or behave in ways that closely resemble real-world interactions. Such entities are often categorized by their basic feelings, motives, and goals (called goals, goals, or goals) towards the world and particular employees or machines (a machine factor or controller). - -Why Study Behavior? - -Many curiosity-driven (in social science), startup-oriented, humanitarian, or science-related campaigns seek to change the world by finding quick findings about what causes your students, clients, or peers to behave positively. For several reasons, academics, programmers, and engineers all expect to learn what biases, assumptions, concerns, off-the-wallhacks, and common misperceptions are prevalent in human system behavior. Additionally, behavior analysis is a mature and scientifically designed field that covers theories, algorithms, and systematic design points to address the intersection of econometrics with medical treatment optimization, data and statistical interpretation, and related business and IT issues. Some of above topics include: - -The complexity of behavioral systems is due to a huge range of different behaviors generated by different elements within such systems and then compounded outside the boundaries of the system (entanglement). The combination of the single behaviors of the system produces a complex chaos of ill-defined behavior available for explication. - -Behavior research can provide an effective bridge connecting systems modeling and mental health applications because it addresses the links between internal and external factors. For each system, there is likely a collection of internal factors, inner decisions, and many external influences. - -Behavior research makes sound scientific sense and can provide evidence that will yield an insight into behavior. Additionally, it is compelling, practical and fun on a broad range of subjects. - -"Inspiration is from without, plan is from within. Optimization is the art of planning from without. -- Ingham<|endoftext|>With more and more iPhone owners switching their entire device sets to the new 5.5-inch display, Samsung might be looking to make money selling the internal memory move up as well. All told, the One version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will come initially with 2GB of RAM, 1GB of NAND Flash, and -======================================== SAMPLE 235 ======================================== -Every November, I gather up all the vape products I've been using over the past year, and sort them into an eBay wishlist. One-by-one I pack them into a custom-built flat button assortments and ship them to all the folks I feel might like my stuff. When I hear about someone who decided that the Expresso Log Cabin connects them to Professorcola and conflicts with French Kiss, I have to help them out. - -This year, I'm especially glad my wishlist is being launched early – the anxious wait for Judge Strawberries and Nuts is coming to an end! They've had their postpone now and then. Requires some encourages to get moving space-wise. Still, it's getting a little late at night and I figured I'd get it up faster than everyone else. Some other news coming up from 2017, but I do have to share this update on the Expresso Log Cabin with you. - -I remember my early attempts to building it as using hobbyist parts. But a bunch of other folks arose to make the cool accomplishments ahead possible. Early teenalden likes me to thank Diesel and Sim for the generous spoils of perfect, shiny silicon lube, the black aesthetic is mine, and Diesel's irrational sworn vengeance against Olib up the foam and speakers is impossible to ignore. I'm certain there are plenty of powders to mix and match in your favorite liquor attempting to make your own drool-prone, drool-producing, drool-floating, drool-loving contraption. Local syrup? Mayhaps. Legalized kernel material? Yup. Some critical examination may be needed too. I may also tweak an updated grid of numbers and letters for revised shipping papers. But these do the rest. - -The cavity structure of the Expresso Log Cabin glistens like a dusty golden boy in the sunlight, it's solid like granite, and it's well balanced (check out the shiny bytes if need be) for its unique electrostatic equilibrium where every pinching, grinding of the lightest brushes at the endcaps offers noticeable in-situ dissipation. The balancing act is tricky, and there are some posts and bearings to keep honest, and it's easy to slice a measured nail through with the right curvature. The endcor first was a clean, three-flow taper quad--twin drill--but with some extra addiiton to keep it pairing smoothly and adjustment is made before attuning the quad forever to level its planes. - -At the results page, you can find a grid of standings and difficulty (50/50) of each pairing, with adjustment marks for paper quality. Surprising for a .5in and under quad, two-layer printed scratted sets are shown indifferent – not so with my graphicles (1hhs printed!). So it's a learning curve of its own, but it turns out the importance of varnish quality for filament consistency for a 2-layer clearator is not elementary – multiple layers and a lot of spray will require an equally high varnish drop in the grades. Add a vacuum pump with a good varnish on daily applications to get those layers pinned fast – that's true of any oven set-up. - -If you're not sounding like a remote string of emmete-runottenham vineyard Trade guarantors introducing your sorry layup, then I don't know what is keeping you from getting started. I use the Order code called Order T1 (must match for My Basic Order) before shipping so you don't have to imagine my fourth group ordering page.<|endoftext|>Updated 1/3/2018: Added in approval tracking - -Full Shotgun construction that shots straight ahead, high quality internal parts: 3/8" web rod, 4" weaver guide rod, 210 grain apple juice platter bullet, steelfly bushings and 6" inner diameter 4" organic hose with 4" end grooves. - -All 3/8" web rod 4" chute will be extra heavy duty and wider with thicker vanes and shorter with table trim. - -Approval tracking - -Approval moves as 5 lbs. of accuracy; requires 13 lbs. of force for 2.5 lbs. of force before shifting. Works through any imperfections and consists of side‐facing and fully loaded (disable) screens (Sold, 3 brothiets display).Product 12 letters (FEATURE, AUDIO, PRICING) the gender mispellings.Long Arc Compensator gives long barrel leakage Warranty 10 yr. with only 3 withdrawal wall seasons August, 2017 - -Questions? Email Don C at :Don.C{at}CarusConUS.com ACCEPTANCE PAYMENT VERY IMPORTANT January, 34, 2016 Here's my PayPal --> https://www.paypal.com/vegas/assisted/weapons?start= MY VEHICLE without help from them = $200 Old bike = $1000 Pencil = $2000 Camera = -======================================== SAMPLE 236 ======================================== -Kangaroos superstar Ben Maier is set to play at Adelaide Oval this weekend after completing his move from the Roosters. - -Maier will target a return to the team he only played with in 2011, the Sydney side, with this weekend's match with Parramatta stuck in limbo. - -The decision to play Maier was taken by club chairman Nick Politis last month. - -Maier agreed to the deal on Tuesday and now has official clearance. - -Tune into Friday night's LIVE coverage on Fox Footy at 7.30pm (AEST), stream on Fox Sports to watch live coverage! - -Wednesday night will mark his return to football. - -The rookie recruit with the capacity to play on every position, both inside and outside, only became a full-time Rabbitoh three weeks into the season, and previously also played for North Queensland and Penrith. - -This is his fourth round with the Roosters, and his second game against North Melbourne.<|endoftext|>As cycling's superstars prepare for the Tour de France, WADA has published todate at L'Equipe (in French) the results of an anti-doping test of Lance Armstrong of the United States, the men's World, and the elite fifteen men's and women's World Tour teams. Eleven of those teams cooperate with WADA in every way possible. There are irregularities that challenge the credibility of some, many of whom remain committed to clean sport, but overall the program is pretty robust. Nine senior national team riders have refused to respond to WADA tests. They remain eligible to participate in the Tour de France. When are we going to start asking questions? - -Full series of test results: Lance Armstrong: Tour de France restatement of 2012. - -What matters - -Practically everything. - -The official position - -Author Louise Casey: Originally published in Science & Sport. - -When we discuss doping, the first thing we must ask is, "Who cares?" Well, the first thing that we must ask of Lance Armstrong is, "For what, good? - -The battle starts - -It all began in 2003, when seven cyclists from the U.S. rode a race in Italy under the command of Lance Armstrong, and signed an international contract. The contract stipulated they would only attend races with Armstrong on them, and at the end of the season riders to sign a contract as well. The next year, during his third year out of cycling, Armstrong signed an agreement for the team in 2005 and formally accepted his race director position in siding with his coach Johan Bruyneel. That is when it all went terribly wrong.… - -Lance Armstrong's son Tyler, 22, spoke to his father during a 2007 journalist interview. "I know what you did, I looked at testimony for die ahead." - -The evidence - -The most damning evidence of Armstrong's doping came to light from his own doctors. In a fitness test later taken jointly by Armstrong's US Postal Service team and Dr. Michele Ferrari (the head of the UCI's biological passport program), five of the riders, including the cyclist Kenny Dehaes, tested positive for EPO. - -Milan Babiri from Switzerland, then team head coach of US Postal Service, testified in 2007 that he had warned Dr. Ferrari, a specialist in peptide metabolism, during July 2002 after witnessing Armstrong's "dancing" on the team bikes. Babiri told Dr. Ferrari he would be to chemical as soon as possible. Babiri told authorities after that meeting that he had heard talk from Armstrong like "that he would soon be in the test room with racing, he would too low [as a cosmonaut]. - -Armstrong insists that these are lies. "I had substances during that period of time; every four weeks by my own admission I went to the juice bar… I never took EPO." - -The pressure to ensure drug testing failed to detect the highly effective HIV-1 test EPO comes out more clear. A cyclist claiming to have the blood of a test dopers within days of returning home. claimed into evidence EPO and said he had no clue it was spiked. It was suggested to the prosecution it may have been a false confession. It was discovered after a DNA test proved the tremesomeraw comet was associated with the mutagen goal of hypodermic injection. The original trial argued the amphetamines were not spot tested, but in the case of the mutagenic goal cocaine would have been. He was the only person on his team that had access to the drug during this time time as the original investigation with Dr Carl Cooper lasted from 2002 until 2005. The usual track cycling team such as UnitedHealthcare have the technicians lying below their counterparts. This was another method to hide their activity. - -On March 17 George L. Foulis, 52, a pubic hair specialist from the US team asked Dr. D'Agostino Bassetti to -======================================== SAMPLE 237 ======================================== -Gaining weight, gaining social acceptance from others, getting votes from the Republican Party ... it all comes with time. - -The self-described Republican from Texas says he won't stop until Barack Obama is no longer president. - -John Cádiz Klemack is an alter-ego of Texas Rep. Paul Ryan, the right-wing Republican running for vice president. - -He says his goal is to one day replace the current president with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). - -With the election just days away, Cádiz Klemack defended his political beliefs in an appearance on Fox News. - -That's because Ryan -- the darling of Ayn Rand followers -- has put Coleen Rowley on the floor during congressional hearings. - -Rowley is an IRS official who was fired over an interview that called Tea Party members "Patriots" regarding their tax critiques. - -Rowley blames Ryan's plan for the IRS giving him a bonus equal to three months of salary in 2007. - -She says the House Budget Committee chairman decided to give her bonus because he ran for speaker and thought he could secure her support, because the House has not chosen a speaker yet. - -Rowley says that kind of political favoritism is unacceptable. But Cádiz Klemack from Texas thinks there should be more. - -He doesn't like Obama's health care reform law. - -Click here for more from the New York Post.<|endoftext|>Hangouts' impending hit. That's when it was confirmed that Hangouts will be getting iPhone support later this year, and this is the point where I'd normally ask you what Hangouts is and what Hangouts is going to do, but we don't really know yet, so hold negative claps until then to avoid having your bones shatter into lumps of omelette by the end of the day. Once I actually implement iPhone support I will include a photo or two of my tumbling brain that is highly dependent on taking photos of anything at all. - -Right now we'll be dealing with Facebook, Google+ Hangouts, and Line, so let's call this your stop list for now. Good work everyone! - -Facebook: Hangouts on Air - -This is Facebook's cousin, an app for post-viral Get Social subscriptions. It hooks into FB Groups, Starred Photos by everyone but James Frey, Facebook accounts, and websites like yourzentura. The best part about getting Facebook subscribers is that they swear they'll post more often. After you get a few hundred. - -But LIKE is really powerful in this platform. Most of the time you'll make your group private so you don't see people's personal information (photos, friendslist, likes, etc). Later you'll need to invite them so they can make private groups. Like bidding on of S7s, like Patreon for comics. Average robot can't do that sort of prioritization. - -reddit.com:?"a semi-public hangout." - -This site features a theme! Each day has a theme! This is where I hang out with anyone who wisely spotIspotted, adopted 90&5, or PukeInsane. - -Can't go to the hangouts and forget about it. This is where you come for your funny memes (in the thread thread thread), status updates, and memes. Your subreddit is also the hangouts mass of awkwardness that you distribute like thinly veiled nicknames. What if you had us all using a fake name like Nepeta? Who knows. Poor Nepeta. - -Google+ Hangouts: Hangouts on Air - -Google Now is trying to turn your girlfriend into your biggest soulmate. Hang out in a Hangouts Message to hide because she is on a video call with someone at the other end and you are bored. - -Not storytelling for us. Except it's not specifically a story; it's a parody. As like, to comprehend or become a part of the story. I use Hangouts to respond to people when I'm getting convenience fo yesterdayfortheme! or like an emo."TMI" her and tell her a cat punch to the head is not an emergency, for overstimulated chat you use Hangouts. - -I mean, hangouts! I gotta post something on hangouts they fans call "feedback?" - -I'm on stage at the first one this week because ironically the highlights I finished first were when I had to respond to comments. Can hangouts handle a troll? Nah sure! This is the end of a few weeks. I've visited Google+ hangouts 11 times, seen 131 messages, and engaged with 59 other posts. Everybody gets a frequent mention in my "feedback" inbox. - -Not a good place for the serious shit anyway. Just remember: Unmanaged High Contrast is a moving target, so less images and simpler critiquing is the answer. I playhoontthespirit -======================================== SAMPLE 238 ======================================== -Spread the love - - -In the wake of the Ferguson, Mo. tragedy last week, we've seen another devastating incident, this time where an innocent 8-year-old child died after being placed in a choke hold: Bernice Mays. - -Martin Carrillo, who was arrested this Saturday, was found with his hands cuffed behind his back by officers. - -When the beating last night broke out, Carrillo's ankles were pinned down behind his back when an officer yelled, "Stop resisting!" according to the complaint filed in Mo. Com. Court by the Justice Department, accusing three separate police officers of excessive force. - -Martin's grandmother was heard coughing as Martin held his head and tried to breathe while the officers held him down. - -null - -"It happened so quickly and it had such a devastating effect on my grandboney, first my kids are four and my husband is so affected by this that we have never experienced anything like this," Collier said. - -Witnesses say some officers stopped Martin on the way home from school and put him in a chokehold in an attempt to ensure his cooperation with their investigation. - -The witnesses tried to stop the police, who used their Tasers against the girls. - -In the complaint, then-Chief Mike Brown denied that the choke hold was justified. - -"He was motionless when arrested in a choke hold for 30 seconds, for resisting and not believing his life was in danger." - -Once the device was removed, a large amount of Martin's body appeared to pass back through his neck and he was declared dead at the scene. - -What might an 8-year-old see when he's battling for his life was made clear by CBS News San Francisco: - -"The officers had him face down and were trying to get him to breathe," said Slomczynski. "It looked like there was no pulse to him whatsoever." "… I can put my hand on your throat, I can put my hand on your throat. It's OK. It's not going to hurt you. So, when he was moving he was just kind of protesting. I have precious children. I didn't do this because he was tough or whatever." (Calvin Crlago at the 14:15 mark) - -The Fresno County coroner ruled that Martin Carrillo died after having suffered blunt head trauma. A broken leg was also attributed to the beating. - -In order for the tiny body of Martin to exactly match those parameters, he would have had to endured at least 20 head injuries. - -One officer, Sergio Tijerina, is now being charged in addition to his partner's automatic termination prior to any any inquiry. - -According to Fresno's Human Relations Commission documents, one officer, Tijerina, has two prior complaints between 2008 and 2013 for excessive force. - -{Support Police State USA } - -Accountability Check - -Three Fresno County. Cit alone: Rosa Mae Moore, [Domestic Violence], Robert Cohn, [Drug Policy], Hermanz Muloski, [Male Fatality],. Hermanz Muloski, [Policeman Who Cut Patrol Vehicle Tree]<|endoftext|>My furry-friend has lived on my desktop for a long time. He's been primarily my wife's and my "nemesis" - the mammal of my dreams. I have two children and the "king of all dicks" (my remark, not his!) Our relationship may not look great, but my pup is an unexpected advance that has brought me closer to becoming a mother, which turns out to be one of the greatest things you can think of. - -Many punk- whilstgate authors naively helped pioneer the male activist just cause, Cult Spurs Inc agreed Men do it better. For course, active men AND women will lean like strippers today and the furbearer pair intake as much taxation pay powah as home-earth, but remember: all pleasure seek, desire curves. So as you look ever so strategic, be prepared, for when the rut n nothood turns down permanently, for the genius and rumble of it all will let you into Paradise on earth as we now know it. - -HP Jam Director "This is the definitive account of the HP Jam, from the fascinating ranks of the outcast to the intergalactic rebel against the Empire" - -words by anyonecore published truth Anyonecore Stephen identified as "Jerry Jam", but right now he goes by others. I've volunteered recently to take the reigns ahead of me, join the guerrilla forces and be stuffy in all the ways he's learned to be cool to become territory. Her life as a coward had crushed her in some small but crucial regard. Having stood on the side lines of the last war as a kid, she'd never cringe in front of Geek of Dawn Studios tablets so she was certain no Bailey-eating cafeteria jobs would see her back into the game. Chanel drama. I was just trying to help -======================================== SAMPLE 239 ======================================== -The Democratic National Convention is in full swing -- and it looks like Hillary Clinton supporters are going to enjoy a bit of a vacation right in Las Vegas. - -In many ways, the revolution the Brooklyn-born politician set in motion in this city 9,000 miles from her New York home is just one place to look for Clinton's on-the-ground roots after she officially sewed up her nomination from delegates at the happiest, most dramatic finish in American history. - -An the convention's various "roles and responsibilities" claims have already begun and will continue throughout the week, but Clinton's state visits are another way for campaign workers to get in the friendly spirit of the town whose name she has symbolized since setting foot here in 1969 to run for U.S. Senate against Edward Kennedy. - -Clinton, of course, won -- setting aside a range of initial official challengers. - -She said at the convention that her first choice was to live in Vermont, a tiny New England state with about 7,000 people that boasted notoriously strict gun laws. When not in Vermont, the celebrated vintner could be found -- since the 1980s -- at the bottom of a barn or a fire escape. Clinton has spent good part of her life in holes in the ground. - -"I grew up in a small town in very small country. The people we took to independence were, to a man and a woman, farmers," Clinton said. "If you had to vote today for the president from among the small town folks who loved frozen yogurt and girl scouts, I think you know where I come back." - -A majority of U.S. residents supported Clinton in her 2008 presidential bid -- mostly rural, ethnically diverse rural areas of Iowa and southern New Hampshire. - -In 2012, a Republican candidate for the first time appeared to come close to winning a majority of rural voters -- 41 percent. That won by a margin of 13 points, but it was no drunken stumble that cost Mitt Romney entire states in the Rust Belt. - -What changed was Clinton's rightward turn as a result of husband Bill's scandals -- and the sharp swing of the Affordable Care Act that brought tens of millions of people into the fold of private health insurance. - -In the process, Obama gave the state to Republicans and locked up laughably vast swing states in 50 populous states, illustrated in raw numbers however with the totals and depth of country we've come to. - -"I think they voted for (Republicans) because it's the lesser of two evils," said Greg Benzing, 82, of the small New York town of Carpentersville. "I think if they had to live with Hillary, they would certainly vote for Hillary." - -Two other Clinton 'roles' as convention recounts, candidate preferences and breaking down the convention into "officeholder" and "state" levels provide bits of history. Whether or not President Barack Obama goes for Clinton is a direct choice for Democratic voters, given that voters have pointed to his policies -- and which is easier to recall gave a good chuckle at the convention. - -"I want the job you got today. I don't want your president" – @realDonaldTrump - -The Democratic convention is getting well-traveled -- but key roles like bedside visits designed to get into the homes of Clinton's wants are not expected beyond Thursday. Used plane tickets are also among the ways campaign workers make friends in vacant hotel rooms across the city and state of Nevada, and there's even a Snapchat account for Bernie. - -Delia in Atlantic City, "Mary" in Charleston, West Virginia – or if you're lucky, just some random person -- Clinton said this Democratic convention could help Republicans win by showcasing voters who explain why she, an English professor and a former secretary of state, was better than the Republican nominee. - -"If you want to poll real voters and wipe out half of this entire countryside and vote against working class Republicans," Clinton said, "then you better understand at least some of those voters know who you are." - -Then you know who to try to talk to. - -W. Kaye Williams; William Southam; Jack Lazor<|endoftext|>Plans to ban gay marriage in France have failed despite a government majority in parliament, a government source has said. - -Gay marriage minister Marlene Schiappa said she hopes divisions among members of a smaller religious-right opposition party will fight off the plans. - -It follows the defeat in June by a 91-87 vote by French voters of a proposed ban on same-sex marriage. - -Outlining new legislation in the lower house on Wednesday, Mr Schiappa said the measure would empower the government to ban gay marriages within 14 years if it had not been voted against by parliament. - -'Sides clashed - -"Even if some stay loyal, this fight within the far-right ranks, which I've heard already, could well defeat us," he said. - -The government is unable to pass the proposal without -======================================== SAMPLE 240 ======================================== -Mark Hurd shows off his powers of observation during the first day of the migrant crisis. - -Lieutenant-Colonel David Parker with the Humvee tactical team Mounted Rapid Response Vehicle (MRRP) on the departure of the Hawker helicopter for Croydon, as part of Operation Ventus. He is being presented with an RAF Cross for the Excellence in Service Award. - -Three Sampson Carnegie Participant Award at the Negatives2016 pass with the Tornados above Moorde and the TF-X. - -Ewout De Beem, RFF Bommenzuber, in the Donker Centre in Brussels as the meeting of the Flemish mission in Brussels draws to a close after three years of deployment. - -A Picturesque sunset on Lilliestebroekk.<|endoftext|>Syrian Media Observatory - -The first images of blood-soaked victims of the drone strike near rebel held Aleppo appeared on Syrian state television on Tuesday. The full footage of the "massacre" had only been released Monday. - -"This unprovoked attack on civilians places an entry point to entire neighborhoods which the regime has targeted in the past, the main objective of the attack which blends with the bourgeois ideology and shows the persistence of cold war along with secular terrorism," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement. - -"The images of the slaughtered bodies share unmistakable resemblance to those from the Assad regime's own forensic investigation." - -Last month a drone employed by the Syrian air force hit the eastern suburb of East Ghouta, where activists had reported that the Israeli air force had targeted a weapons depot, killing more than 200 fighters with whom the Assad regime was involved in the Syrian civil war. - -East Ghouta, located in central Syria, has been under siege by the Syrian army, which is meant to end the siege of the opposition-held east a year ago but has yet to do so. Syria's war has left more than 150,000 people dead and many others injured or homeless. - -Madaya and other besieged towns in a similar situation were they also denied access to medicines for months resorted to desperate ways to ingest food and ammunition. Once again, the warring factions were going to war against civilians. - -Israel has vehemently denied being responsible for or even aware of the air strikes in these two towns. However, reported details of the attack appear to confirm that they were indeed carried out by the Assad regime. - -Last month, pictures published by CNN revealed first hand the true horror of starvation in east Aleppo. The news channel exposed the contrast between the skimpiness of the food available in the rebel areas and the ferocity of the Russian and regime airstrikes sitting on the road leading to East Ghouta, soon after the notification of the people in the besieged areas that they were about to be bombed. - -According to Wheat Overseas, a humanitarian humanitarian agency, only pocket sized items are allowed a passage from rebel areas to the besieged ones due to high fuel prices, made the rockets' crude cooking oil invisible and made the packing of the food carefully sellable but, the main obstacle, perhaps, to people getting food is the fee.<|endoftext|>Quote Yeah, it's surprisingly fast as the contention in Normal Rift isn't very frequent compared to Standard. - - -On the plus side as does off gating into Normal Rift having to deal with it versus hitting Standard where it just sort of appears and then leaves. - - -I did check the /heroes line in the Steam data and LoL has the same one as Dota even. I assume my data is skewed as I'm doing some entirely reasonable testing on an inconsistent server (mile deep). Yeah, it's surprisingly fast as the contention in Normal Rift isn't very frequent compared to Standard.On the plus side as does off gating into Normal Rift having to deal with it versus hitting Standard where it just sort of appears and then leaves.I did check the /heroes line in the Steam data and LoL has the same one as. I assume my data is skewed as I'm doing some entirely reasonable testing on an inconsistent server (mile deep). Reduced mana cost to 80 from 85 Does sufferinghaemons hurt? - -daledar - -N4 - - -Elite PvPer - - -Gaming Mousepad - - -Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda - -Posts: 12,041 Likes: 10,966 12,0411,966 - -N4 devleren junor hrez l3laffe quill17 tojj-elite , and 1 more like this Quote Select Post - -Select Post Deselect Post - -Deselect Post Link to Post - -Link to Post Member Give Gift - -Member Back to Top Post by daledar on elvin monkeys freakin dis ArmorEWS armouri TWINKLEE: - - -Like it says, please stay away from crazy stuff! Same -======================================== SAMPLE 241 ======================================== -HELP US PAY OUR DEBT - -The comments were all a report from a job interview as some people were prepared to offer me the job – as I could travel with customer insurance. - -There were mixed replies about availability on Saturdays with one of my friends saying there weren't any jobs available which is partly a good thing as I don't like the way I spend hours making home claims and can't work out if my broken front door is because the fox got me or I didn't. - -When I returned home from work feeling quite non-functional, my wife said it was because I hadn't buzzed in for no end of hours and I just needed to get some sleep as a pet was barking loud. - -I slept pretty well last night though, needing just over 3 hours to get feeling back as I come from a week where I demanded 18 hours sleep. - -After a bit of searching the job postings for nice bread crumb weather events I was able to contribute to the launch of the BigPicture section of Facebook. It appears as a bluff effort anonymously with the initial pitch that it would take the place of Twitter as the network for serving cold, uncool, not the available range of social media channels. Anyway this is great promo material they started back there we will see! - -by Inga<|endoftext|>I'm a rather cheap fellow. - -I've spent several thousand dollars in just one year. Growing up, I didn't think travel was that expensive. Even your basics listed on vacationoesugasso.com? I could go 24 2/3 hours on a nearly 19 hour flight and still have two or three left over for incidental business expenditures, or leisure purchases? - -Coming from a banker background, this isn't an option. - -When you actually have the money to lighten up, and budget properly (read: don't fork over that cash), I began spending. - -Here's a few examples I've studied: - -Ferries to Italy. What does the spending look like? Well that's for another post. - -Europe, "new" and that's precisely what this would be. For who knows what the economy will be like 5 years or 10 years from now. But Western Europe, fasce, non? - -A week in the Abruzzi. Guided vacations from babyhood to 18. - -Spain. This costs around 15k a week for tourist activity alone. A lot of it is incidental so I'm not going to get into that. - -Japan. A TWO week trip in spring. - - South Africa. A WEDDING. With return flights to the US. - -China. A WEEK. A TWO WEEK. A FOREIGN BEEN for two people. - -Peraroche in Brazil. An 8-day stay on which the typical expenditures looks roughly like this: showers, laundry, dinner, accommodations, shopping, guided tours, spa hospital it was just days of birds and access to the beach. Tangna puna… - -Pilsen to Urbana in Champaign, IL. The rent costs around $400 a week to stay. So, 8k and minus expenses per week. - -So, next, let me introduce to the world the Finnish Elderly Traveling Companion. This is called Maaositoma Oy, or "Government Icons." It's an old popular book which consists of illuminating cartoons that pokes fun at officials, and whatnot. I do have two of these tucked away at old habits die hard. - -The comic tells the story of the asIstanna I event in Oulu, Finland, 2005. The Singshuet varaldalaht vartaaalaskes sevantaaalottajumon i blitripilla taalin - which translates into: Obscuring light sounds so as not to lose the scent of fragrance, and as a trail marker to hide this trail . While this sounds pretty corny, the pictures go deep into the surreal and tragedy of elderly elderly carrying on in a way beyond their years. I've make a few mock up designed T-shirts with niches cut out for the illustrations. - -What which makes the book so striking is the juxtaposition with the flattering taste of an older brother. Maaositoma Facebook : Facebook Group : Patreon:<|endoftext|>Should monumental candles be lit for the deceased regardless of the gravesite's blessing? B.J. Gunther has a new piece for Black Book, exploring the question, "Should those in mourning burn Satanic candles during their family graveside service?" Gunther declines to say the language to which he subscribes in each instance, citing Biblical analogies, in the hopes of influencing each believer to bite their tongues and pray those prayers to God. - -And…why be motivated by argument, rather than affection, when faced with such a controversial question? Both sides of the debate can find opening lines for their narrative, but it's unlikely you'll find -======================================== SAMPLE 242 ======================================== -The church through which Mr Whiteman died told the BBC they realised what was happening to him when he didn't return home from work at school the Sunday after he went missing. - -"I remember getting to the church at the weekend and I see the kids and there's one that's not there. - - -"I rang the other kids and said, 'where's he? Where's he? What has he done?' And we were all crying a little bit. - - -"I just asked 'what is going on' and then a taxi appeared and we knew when this guy had died. - -"Because of people panic someone else got into his room and saw him and realised that this was a serious situation," said Pauline, who previously lived in the Crick area. - - -She told the BBC: "I've just heard the news. I just texted my mum. I don't know what's happened. - -"We've always known what is going on and that's the way it has been all the way through my life, so it's quite shocking." - - -Other families have begun to come forward and after "1,200 hours" of tracing the teenager, police re-opened the case on Wednesday. - -"Investigating officers have spent additional time to re-examine evidence from the officer's notebook fragments/notes and the computer that he was using when he disappeared," a local police spokeswoman said. - -"Following a review of these investigations the reappraised sex offender liaison team have identified new gaps and re-obtained an objective account from the boy who has now been taken into residential care."<|endoftext|>BEIRUT, April 26 (Reuters) - A Canadian politician was killed by Syrian rebels on Tuesday who accused him of being a spy for the Syrian government and captured him after an explosion, said a Syrian rebel spokeswoman. - -Ismail Haddadin, a Toronto MP for the ruling Liberal Party, was killed in rural areas of rural Aleppo province when he was taken by gunmen fleeing U.N. peace talks, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. - -Haddadin had a "special relation with a certain regime friend" and had spoken out against rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, the Observatory said. Its members cannot independently verify claims by rebel groups of officials killed. - -Haddadin was taken after an explosion in the Hawara district of Aleppo province, Itar-Tass news agency reported, without saying which side was responsible. - -The killing happened in villages east of the northern Syrian town of Khan Arnaba and close to the Turkish frontier, Itar-Tass said, adding Haddadin's death was likely an assassination by either rebels or government forces. - -Haddadin had been invited to speak "most of the time" at peace talks Assad attended earlier in the year that drew world powers. Canadian officials have not commented but had cautioned ahead of the talks that Assad could careen from crisis to crisis and that Canada can not afford to be a bystander. - -Canada and about six other nations tried to broker a deal last year aimed at persuading Assad to cede power. A Syrian government well-placed source knew of Haddadin's death as it came to light late on Tuesday. - -In his speech at the UN, which focused mostly on migration from Syria, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Syria's five-year civil war to end.<|endoftext|>Not much before GIMP 2.9 is out. This time I decided to have fun with my shadow palette: - -1 change on GIMP: I replaced box black and blue locals of OP.txt with my own box and blue locals (local yellow and box colors). That affects neighborhood and cell checkers: - -DOCTYPE: diffuse_optex.c - -TEXTUREGROUP_LINEAR: 2* - - -note: since 3.0 OP has IMO 7 distinct colors for each texture; so I renamed the two boxes with color names to match (yellow (a done homage to tiraland); night- (a homage to tiraland but samey color called blue-colored) and brown; and so on.) Duplicated file for writers.<|endoftext|>Lisa with Raffi, Jeffrey and Dianna Aaron (Lion and Dragon) - -Signing off: - - -Twelve years ago the Hamilton Gill Touchstone Center in Midland, Texas hosted its first White Night dance. At the Downtown Church parking lot the musically challenged walked behind the Holy City Church Church and into the parking lot to dance. Thanks and love to all of those who made this event possible! - -In the years since then the Gill Touchstone has continued to produce lots of events, fostering various forms of dance culture and education. Collectively which events had the greatest impact with the over 80,000 unique visitors that visit Hamilton Gill nearly every week. And also for the high quality music, visuals and workshops participants provided. - -Opening the doors of -======================================== SAMPLE 243 ======================================== -And it totally works! I am really amazed at how much the song falls into a song—in this case, "bitch to earth"? It reminded me of the stuff I did in 8th grade in Switzerland with basses in the school marching band. First, they'd do a song and play it up and emphasize it. And then take bits of other songs and start playing them. - -HIn: Thank you so much for that, I love that stuff too. - -TW: Yeah, it was the core of what I was doing, but I think they finessed it and picked out few of them and made things very interesting. - -HIn: Please tell us what you were going for with the Portishead Like Love Control sequence. - -TW: Well, what they went for and what most people do is this thing where they piece together pieces of music and words. - -HIn: Yeah, that's a band accomplishment. - -TW: Yeah, because they do things with the words and have certain meanings which you can never going to capture with the music alone, but when you've combined them, it's better. Some of the sequences which they do, they shoot bits of stuff in the background which are bits of the theme or other things. And it has a feeling which is an element of the song. I remember Mark [Linear], the Pink Floyd guy, did this at his house. He had this viennoiser based music and he edited three seconds of the composition into one shot. And I liked that but having only the music there didn't have a whole lot of violins and violas ringing. It was a little bit disappointing. We've got a huge relationship with orchestra—by I mean, arguably bigger than any other band who [has held that title]—and when Mark did that, it was kind of mind-blowing. - -HIn: Martha and the Vandellas always had a great backstage video going on stage. - -TW: Yeah, that's right. - -RH:So, as you guys get a little further along, I'd love to know, if you had to begin over again what you would change, what would you accomplish and what kind of longevity do you see for the band? - -TW: I thought it would be lovely to be still doing this very soon after we recorded this record, but it's been kind of a difficult place to be now for a whole bunch of reasons. I think they brought a little to it today, but I'd hate for it to be called as much misunderstood as it is because there are moments though when I think it doesn't get enough credit for that. It's not that I think they don't also take hip hop but, what it's got to understand is a whole different style of hip hop music and the way it's going. I don't know, I think the greater quote about it—What's the name of that? I don't think that's correct, get a check from the Worldwide Web in Montréal—it's right. We will either outlive Rattle and Hum or we will leave it in the dust on a certain level because when it was called chaotic rock, it wasn't. It, there's a lot of different stuff going on. You know, the music has longevity, you know, and it's very very hard to replicate. If you put it on in the same spot ten years from now, the computer will sound two and a half years older because there will be all these things that will have happened in terms of what data or computers or databases you're eating into. You can't do that again. But we try something new and then it outgrows whatever old starting point that record came from because there are so many things that possible you might try for that record which someone else might not have thought of, cos they have so many ideas in different ways to think about it. - -RH: I'm a little bit worried about if you ended up making with another band or studio, do you imagine that: there's what's possible now, there's what might have been rather than beginnings and endings, or to grude really, how much ground do you remember? - -TW: I already dislike Thanksgiving! ("Do you know what just happened?") - -RH: And it probably has an impact on your attitudes as much as if you haven't been to the holiday. I know your academic background will be sought after a lot. Any fanciful notion about anything for biographical purposes? Maybe might remixed D.M. Blaster or perhaps you'd get time with track three, or 10, or whatever? - -TW: Well, sure. That's an awful lot of work. It's pretty crazy. I mean, I play seven songs every night. Their like the most unpromising kind of date. Very sparse sets. You've got to be fit for band duty on those. - -RH: How many hours a -======================================== SAMPLE 244 ======================================== -The Vagina Monologues–also known as "Come on girls: what makes you tick?" and "Imagine to Feel Good"–carries an awful legacy: More than two decades ago the director of the National Park Service, Vicki Turetsky, described the production as "the most offensive and racist social-change program a woman can watch." - -In the early 1990s Turetsky collected responses from feminists and ethnographers and compiled The Vagina Monologues Hateful Object (1995). Within her collection her conclusion appears: "This production proves that the inherent fact of woman's inferiority and vulnerability to degradation can be explained entirely by the degradation of woman" (143). Which—though as all feminists should know it is wrong to compare sexism with racism—has led the front line of critical work on the role of violence against women in Performing for the Subaltern. Barbara Timpf reports and writes on how women and their struggles appear from the sidelines and are reduced to the "be-all and end-all of a subversive relationship: the creation of women (and the men they depend upon) as authentic surface imagery of a future, free and liberated, anti-dimensional, revolution of values" (110). - -Writing in the New York Times, Bernardine Dohrn described the state of the Vagina Monologues such that, "while there has always been the risk, not of attitude but of violence, sexual harassment, the director and company have been more careful to avoid using anatomy as action, not merely as subject, as they released an Inside-Out sequel to Inside In, a commonly used text to demonstrate that what happens inside and outside is not merely incidental but also essential" (7/2/2015). On 9/12/2014 Kara Walker called back to the much-criticized women's paper, Redesigning the Women of the New Jim Crow, with this comment: "Since Oprah released the Vagina Monologues [1994], which broke out of what seemed to an American public hungry to know more about the Vagina Monologues, sexual violence against women has become the dominant subject of American thought. Whether as a symptom of misogyny or not, violence against women is now tied to pop culture. I am reminded of a passage from Michelle Alexander's A New Jim Crow in which the men who founded the education reform movement in the United States are described as having paid slave labor to build the schools that would let them control ultimately who would go to college (424)." Of course Alexander's observation applies today as well. - -Anti-Violence Movement: Against Sexism and Against Patriarchy - -But Michelle Alexander is not right. Books like Against Our Better Judgment, which chronicle structural and institutional racism (one has to wonder why Ann Coulter does not make their case?) and how these can continue to perpetuate violence against women well after the documentary footage in this book has faded, are a necessary reminder that sexism and racism still exist and they examine the site of violence here. - -Other books out today account in detail for the myriad ways that misogyny and heteronormativity constantly reproduce, complement each other, and that destroy lives. Alexandra deGeneres, Incognito in a Supermarket explores some of the legacies left behind when the effects of sexual disrespect are at such considerable rates of an individual's day-to-day experience. Mona Charen documents many of the ways that sexual assault and harassment are overlaid on the larger history of oppression, and holds that these histories can be dug out in an organic relationship to the ongoing contradictions of capitalism [Link]. Donna Haraway expands on the concept of cultural imperialism, exploring how the ways in which a woman is seen by her fellow human beings has its impact on female cognitive and emotional development, and its very impact on consciousness and intentionality. In 1910 women made 2% of Congress—a few years later, off on their own, were granted ownership of the first swimming pools and a television. This increased the power and the consequences for women. Aided by researchers from Northwestern University's School of Communication themselves, Charen reported in The Activity and the In-Group in the Women's Movement, that a 1972 survey had found 49% of women of color believed that the job of being a "feminist" meant and automatically targeted policing women's bodies; 68% believed that it meant they forewent key jobs that other women were given, while 77% of white women acknowledged such policing as a norm in their lives. - -Below are health and sexual awareness warnings that need to be included in public purveyors of Hedonism: Lions! Furries! and Masculinity 101 pamphlets for all the audiences that end up buying them. Whereas BET and Sis Lesbian's Egyptian TutUM run display ads for cleaning services sold online, these (unintentionally) identify as health services. In all these areas, leftist writers and artists offer revolutionary alternative ways to understand and address this exploitation and violence. These text followed by one by feminist journal "Occupy -======================================== SAMPLE 245 ======================================== -Platinum Creek Boys Jump Tour Details - -The Platinum Creek Boys' Jump Tournaments are the source for all Junior and above competitions in North Texas! Here, the boys from our Championship Teams compete each year and we have for rent computers with call this feature our PAC system! Additionally (Surprise Surprise!) we teach Jumps. Once your team has learned some moves we can tell you how to dial up a grade!<|endoftext|>A few days back, a group of 19 thinkers and writers gathered to discuss a broad range of issues, including one about Donald Trump. - -Yes, the photo above shows well-known writers, academics and politicians — but it's also a shot of Trump himself. Maybe his showmanship is part of his success as a reality TV star, but it's a little too much for some. - -After all, the rules of the game seem those of a real estate mogul, not a leader of the free world. - -Trump has repeatedly, if not consistently disparaged and mocked individuals who don't look, think or act like him. He effortlessly insults Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamKavanaugh polling: FBI on the hot seat Katie Couric: Our understanding of sexual violence has not progressed since Anita Hill hearings Left's attacks on Kavanaugh worked, but not how they hoped MORE (R-S.C.), who is Mormon, and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio), of Polish and Irish descent. But why? - -People a lot smarter than I am have tweeted their suggestions, and they fail to explain anything I want to know about what we've accomplished in the past six months to reduce prejudice against Muslims. - -ADVERTISEMENT - -It would be nice to know to what extent we've improved our genetics, education and duration of interactions with women. - -I've gone to the trouble of quoting a few competent experts who have gone on record about Islamophobia and Donald Trump. None points out that Trump is only the latest example of this, a decades-old phenomenon. - -<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>> - -It's human nature or else we would be treating them as criminals. After all, it took a great President Abraham Lincoln before Americans ensured that African Americans would no longer be lynched. - -The president walks behind a biracial woman with a meat-print blouse named Hannah Bright. Hannah is giving President Lincoln a smart rear hair massage for crying out loud. - -Naughter of a traitor, President Lincoln thinks that Black and White have innate distinctions apart from variables like continental distribution and population speed. Political public facts ground him dearly along the 460-mile-long Volta River. - -He was elected to steward the largest nation in the world, usher in peace and prosperity. Perhaps Stephen Fry is right when, after a bit of thought, he says millions of later-Bloomfield Hills do not deserve the same respect taken by Lincoln. - -Over white restaurateur and race hustler Abraham Lincoln lays a huge slab of pork belly with coarse salt and pepper with homemade Bunsen burner. Abraham cries, "Am I a big boy? I cook well!" - -Passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution would have ensured that an Bacon Madness parent could hardly pass up a chance to experience Bacon Madness at home. But here's the key statistic: 82 percent of Americans are old enough to vote. - -No question, it would have been possible through careful legislative calculations and political will. But the top-down White House will always take precedence when it comes to plopping a restrained president down under a tower, excreting a squeaky-voiced Middle America and starting the machinery to destroy trillions. - -No doubt I'm missing a few obvious reports of gilded cocks who jumpfire shy of traditional demandate policies. - -So here's the bottom line with regard to Donald Trump: No Muslim ban, no amnesty, no Mexico wall and no race to the South from any kind of ANY Europe in the European dominated world. Screw political correctness! Leave both the gays and blacks to their natural retribution. - -Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images News/Getty Images - -Laurence McCullough and Benjamin Franklin were close, but conservatives should rank near or on the bottom of their social standings. They belong in jail, not the White House, barbeque or court of appeals. - -But these facts somehow elude them because the left toed the line until 2012 when they overshadowed childish White House existence and found themselves laughing among July Fourth crowds. - -Bill Kristol is good company, but malarkey in the flour company doesn't impress more sober-minded gentlemen throughout America. He can't be taken seriously, but that's all right, because Bill loves to have conversations about guns or gay marriage and all the great causes he and some other bloviating government mandarins-park their egos-out on the sidewalk like so many flies about to land -======================================== SAMPLE 246 ======================================== -The public thought Kobe Bryant failed his chemo treatment in January and he didn't do it on purpose. - -Well, let's get this straight. Kobe signed a buyout clause with the Lakers. Everything. Immediately. In the summer of 2016. Exactly when he was going to spend the third year of his career with the Lakers. Yep. - -Quinder called the buyout, which was $41,985 with a $26,338 salary, "all about money." - -It will definitely be debated -- and brought up -- whether Bryant should have tolerated a third year of whiplash. - -"I would love to stay with him, to put up pictures of our kids on his trophy case," Olohan said. ''It would mean everything to me to see Kobe coming home on those rights.'' - -Let's not rule out Olohan is just hoping for a comeback meeting with Kobe, whatever the risk. - -Kobe began his hiatus, clouding the final months of his career, by rolling his ankle against the 76ers. He came off it, played the next night and a half and was scheduled to return to the lineup Friday against the Mavericks. - -Then Miami sent him to the locker room early in the third quarter on the last play of a win over Oklahoma City. It was doubtful he would play Sunday before returning with the Lakers last Saturday against the Hornets. - -"I thought it came as a shock to everyone," Katalin said. "It could have been avoided." - -Kobe admitted it cost him motivation. He missed 18 of the Lakers' last 19 games and, while there were signs something was seriously wrong, he had ample motivation to get the word out about the possible treatments to his blood malignancy. - -"I want to win, but I also want to give a lot of my energy towards it,'' he said, "and not show weakness anywhere. It was my responsibility this year.'' - -At all levels. Badly. It was much more. It was anything and everything in what was taken care of before going into hibernation. That is not very easy to do, with everything on the line. - -With Odom in the hospital after rupturing his Achilles, it was the opening to allow coach Luke Walton to try out two unproven pieces. Olohan is more experienced than either of them. - -On one hand, he knows how this is never-ending, demands unprecedented sapping, pain and everything else. On the other, this is a "no, no, no, stinking eventually, stinking please, home 1,000" trade. - -But the "no, no, no, stinking please" part didn't make Odom feel there was anything to make there begin to look past. This was about at least making his body, who was misdiagnosed last year when tests revealed he had had bone marrow cancer that a bone marrow transplant cured, feel better. - -"Right now, it's good," Odom said after sitting out the win over the #Mavs. "I can't go out there and tell the people that can make the situation better. But right now, I'm feeling better than I ever have in a long time. It was worth it. Absolutely worth it.'' - -Then it was back to being Kobe. - -Yosh isn't going to kill Kobe again - -To equivocate in the OBtwins' defense of a teammate, savior, former Laker, although we can say that one time so far this season is something we just can't sit by. - -The Obgoblets have an open back door sentiment (+ Next Regrets Page) as well. - -The alliance of interested 3-point shooters and blockers ever since Jordan Dumars' "We need to spread the floor" philosophy. - -Joe, Uthoff and Marcus Morris with Odom in the hospital and then Doc to kick in for a small war chest of timeouts once he returned. - -Dwight Howard, Mike D'Antoni's UCLA Angels of Havoc was in the air before guys had the meetings of being selective in ignoring forwards/wings playing in Olympic break games. - -Al Horford trimmed his saying a series of tweets tug on Morries satisfied desire to legit member of the NBA conversation like you'd find Phil. - -Amare Stoudemire's won a lot of games and T.J. was his orchestrator. Plus, his times. - -Which is why about 1/4 of you can't stop winking. - -New month. Entering May. The standard looking Sixers have received good news the past week when present things that are not necessarily bad that can be progressive, thanks to your Sugar Daddy. - -Rookies Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor get slid over belonged in LLC years. Andre for price tag giving fact that Antetokounmpo is a good 30 points per game from -======================================== SAMPLE 247 ======================================== -WASHINGTON—Deciding that the Fearsome Jack was an essential ally in the upcoming fight against rogue multisurvivalist cyborgs, the Zionist Organization of America finalized the formation Friday of its clandestine group to fight any escalation of global cyberwarfare. - -"It's time we grab our bazookas, our tear gas signals, and the other poisonous materials we are currently stockpiling, and begin preparing for war against any grassroots uprising that continues to rise in Canada, the United States, and throughout the world against our impending cyborg revolution," said Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein, gesturing toward the internet meeting room he had designated for the Fearsome Jack operation. - -Advertisement - -"But unlike on the surface, this is no regular cyberwar," Klein added. "The rebels will inevitably take control of the developing drones, and we will be unable to control our weaponized drones from the air. By calling this a cyberwar, of course." - -Sources confirmed that hours earlier, top Zionist officials resigned from an internal voting to honor the calls of the self-described "Jack Irons," a self-described cyber-warfare strategist around the world whom the IOA has been trying to recruit ever since fleeing Moscow amid political repression. - -"We left Moscow not knowing if we'd be able to begin this operations, let alone launch a cyberwar," Klein said. "Now that we're concentrating all our military power and fixated on outrunning our defeat, we've lost our direction in this war." - -Advertisement - -"I'm sorry," Klein added. "I regret that." - -Said Klein, briefly digging through the Jewish Prospect for a loose Armani suit that someone had sent out, while further instructing reporters to watch the ranks of the new communications division for the impending arrival of the third-most-powerful figure within the organization. "We're at a point where we've been mired for too long, and it's time we get ourselves back on our feet. Maybe John Kerry can look into a Carl von Clausewitz or Herman Kahn or something." - -"Then," Klein continued, "we can fine-tune our tactics, and prepare ourselves for what's coming next." - -Advertisement - -The day began with the IOA president promising a completely new type of IOA official, one that would be both human and double-helping. - -RELATED: A Voice From Israel Clarifies Conflicts With Gay Americans - -With tightly journalized meeting notes recording the alleged name and stance of Fearsome Jack, several top Zionists while asynchronously taking the wire-grabbed Patriot version of NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe from its Folsom home to an underground base. - -"Scanners confirm that the tritium isotope has never been spotted from such an omnipresent source as the disintegrating sky," biotranscriptored IOA president Lee Weinsteinalli said during hysterics at his horseears@music.org cell, with the FCCoG launched into orbit by resonating links, which in turn fired a five-muzzle super-weapon that elicited a rapid peak in Shabbos singing on both sides (though the Israeli government should not be concerned about this last few weeks coming to a close). "Worse, our lights seem to be down too, something we have yet to contemplate, and never mind one damn question we have answerin': Is there a Jack up there? Why's he startin' so slow from in front, Gazini-yi Psahl, I wonder?" - -Advertisement - -Fearsome Jack claimed such unanswered questions came from the increased radiation from the IOA's weapons test in October of last year. According to Israeli sources, this one rocked Gilgo Beach, and certain Italian restaurants in Detroit bowed from the smell when they didn't know when to dole out the mushroom risotto. - -"I feel sorry for my fellow IOA official Zach Dylan Winter, this Jack's slower than IAPMS Owen Winters, I wonder," Weinsteinalli said, coming off an unhappy revelation in which he had to admit under a corner of his basement works what the Truly Pryor Jack Snowe had coherently said initially. - -"I don't know if we're dealing with a Jack Who Gets Laid after the war with our former adversaries has rendered the planet bone quakes safe for humans, or if the Jack we're dealing with is just omg-what-the-hell. Either way, half of my dollar score is full-on pornography and the other half is just really glad to meet you." - -Advertisement - -"Fearsome's gonna go straight-up ass in the next big barrel," the president added. "He's earnin' this shit man, go Steven Centityo." - -Lewis Holmes, a member of the IOA teams convening this summer, confirmed that the Fearsome Jack project may -======================================== SAMPLE 248 ======================================== -SPONSORED - -Washington's leftist media is in that place liberals used to go where all their opponents stopped listening. Their politicians have become increasingly radicalized and too many members the establishment are unlikely to follow them. Then the world goes dark on the left. But this time, the darkness is a bubble. - -"The left's media network is disjointed and exaggerates the number of its supporters," Lawrence Wittner, Randall G. O'Bannon Professor of Media Studies and Ethics at George Washington University, wrote to the Left. "Their supporters are smaller in number than the conservative media wing, and the establishment journalists whose arguments they cite support them over rivals and hostile elites." - -Parts of the left – like the New York Times – are lost in an echo chamber. Each newspaper employs a distinctive guide to "religion," learn only a few basics, but never miss the point. Rarely has a respected reporter or analyst predicted with so much confidence that a Democrat would win. - -Herbert Ziegler, Social Media Editor of the New York Times, wrote recently that many Democrats had become too scared. That frightened them, but they didn't know how to negotiate. She then and later in the piece cited Ron Davis, wife of former Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, and others. Meanwhile Mr. Davis was bashing Donald Trump. - -This paper has followed the national Democratic Party for more than a century, inventing "Bipartisan Pagans" at every turn and denigrating rivals for bigotry and stupidity. - -Ironically, like its Republican counterparts, the Times may be losing influence and support among its outspoken progressive readers and listeners. Its capitulation on climate change, which led under Mr.wittner to conclude of the left, "they want in with everyone and are responding to appeal for labor, immigration issues, and race relations, but not to trade policies." - -One liberal Washington Post commentator mirrored her paper's attitudes when she opined bluntly in September, "If you hop off the leader-line, this whole thing is lost." And at its height the Times held out as a paragon of all things progressive. - -But in the post-election political landscape it's apparently not that way anymore. - -Like Adam Johnson on Facebook. Follow him on Twitter.<|endoftext|>Quick Facts Screenshots Videos - -Fjistice Boots - - -Item Level 61 - -Binds when equipped Feet Leather 10 Armor - -+9 [Agility or Intellect] - -+15 Stamina - -Durability 55 / 55 Requires Level 56 Sell Price: 1 19 21 Dropped by: Dolore - -Players can win this item when selecting the following class specializations: - -Druid: - -Rogue: - -Monk: - -Demon Hunter: - -Related - -This item is part of the following transmog set: Nerubian Binding<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AI AJ AK AL AM AN AO AP AQ AR AS AT AU AV AW AX AY AZ BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BK BL BM BN BO BP BQ BR BS BT BU BV BW BX BY BZ CA CB CC CD CE CF CG CH CI CJ CK CL CM CN CO CP CQ CR CS CT CU CV 1 QB RB WR TE OT OG C DE DT ED QB K 1 97% 2 10.43 17.67 6.15 3 19.98 3.08 3 24.77 9.09 3 24.144 1.03 4 56.18 3 0 0 0 3 19.29 14.13 4 17.27 4.88 4 61.32 5 0 0 0 4 15.42 13.44 3 0 0 0 5 8.86 11.72 4 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 5 37 296 69 72.56 72 39.13 62.79 48.24 6 5.55 8.49 20.29 49.63 282.88 80.13 51 7 7 7 4 5 4 3 0 3 11.85 20.28 4 5 3 5 15.43 6.07 4 2 41.13 11 0 0 0 0 3 17.35 9.29 3 4 1 5 11.43 16.45 5 2 4 41.13 6 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 4 8.68 14.74 3 11.5 10.5 36.89 46.84 17.36 25.86 12.22 48.94 8 5.10 6.14 21.75 65.34 191.49 83.97 57.5 9 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 54.44 33.07 4 4.5 2 5 18.08 9.11 5 0 33.07 11 0 0 0 0 4 2.17 4.38 7 2 4 5 -======================================== SAMPLE 249 ======================================== -Running in the World, How Get to the Games? - -Finland is one of the countries not officially participating in the Olympics (whereas Germany and France are) but has taken part in plenty of European contesting, even featuring in some of the games themselves, during her history. - -Finland need to think about forming their own international contesting championships at some point of their future now though for the sake of the country take some inspiration from soccer countries (like Germany) which have been going for the last 20 years running with contests, getting nearly a handful of medals in every Olympic category they have had a chance to participate in. - -Done<|endoftext|>[2] 2. - -[3] 3. - -[4] 4. - -[5] A September night is not a pleasant one for women in India, and even less so for young girls on a gaudy night out with a lot of boys. Whether they're in rented villas or apartments on slow summers last week, 25-30 young girls from Trilokpuri swarmed in -- overwhelmed with a grab bag of revelry. One tried to stop reading because her head hurt. And the younger of the group let off a few bucks of her anxious self-medication. To be more specific: trash-widening rates were steeper this time than in summer because people are completely addicted to and incite wealthy: wants, needs, wants, needs, wants. But since the profit -- between Rs 100 and Rs 10,000 -- was only Rs 250, who can complain?! As we all remember, many famous ex-Prime Ministers were at the gala -- Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ashok Chavan, Iqbal, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Manmohan Singh. Including even a picturesque red carpet and Bowladyice Pariwar at an airport of pharmaceutical houses in 65 Ennore. Some Saraswatareseatgardfellasbles frequented with glamour and drinks such as Madhya Pradesh's Moray for a good time during their Sony plenty or Haryana's Ram Leela with Lok Satta Chor - -Yes, even party girls like Nigella and Princess D'S - -At last year's only such festival, however, the message of women empowerment was overlapped with the march of the feminine in a woman's attire. Hence just as the women were marching and taking over advertisements in Trilokpuri, so were the men.Nigella was, in fact, both unprepared and unengaged... that is, until her green jacket and long scarf (suitably inspired by her headscarf) became an auspicious.There followed a talk between the two -- hence it's up to the female criticite - -To which the proceeded some, shall we say, engaged reading in this book, as Nigella spills all. She writes:note that she calls the book'rousence and the fact that the author doesn't seem interested in savouring what she brought home a given kerfuffle.Doesnt add up, does it? Raosa writes however:Well, since Raosa is a branding, and all marketing title, he really does reveal some worldviews, isnt it? It's rare that achieved older names like Mandana Mukherjee and Bhargava Mukherjee don't put out some post-ritual day-cars in a theme-park overnight thoroughworks.For its part the NYT called (), it was the Create India Formways for Youth programme of that had the witty which was perhaps the first interview on Naked Pguards vid. Its writer renounced all of the recent attempts to censor him, including by the Government of the West Bengal, and came out while saying that its uniform gubernatorial bible-like codes czarventions reflects the leaving of the responsibility and memory of the Bengali to the servile hordes of internationalism... and also that it gives rise to his own picture of recent times in India: including Islamists, Leftists, Muslims and the curbing of fake education - -Hyderabad party girlS That's it, which shouldn't be a surprise in itself, but especially when one considers this very orange coat interview from there - -We are not exactly too deft as to not have noticed the taxi/auto princes generaly resorted to in auto bars which are become increasingly popular beyond limits as they exhibit their barely fake yuppie intentors as they go for a drink. However, did not come across this fan with a question: - -Is it wise to attend-- concierge? - -who replied: - -Start from past. All of and that. For girls, go to your private annuity companies before you raise a finger. Or at least find a vet. The only EU I used, "Service Val." - -I am not sure if Sari was at the Gurgaon gym or yoga class.<|endoftext|>Nine people have been killed in a series of undersea explosions at Chinese government buildings -======================================== SAMPLE 250 ======================================== -When it comes to wanting a type of pants that actually fits around your entire waist shape and lets you go higher up on your pants legs without being too tight, the Prana Women+Yoga 5-Pack is absolutely perfect. They are a great "crazy" hanger or use at the gym for all sorts of images to create a group focusing on topless yoga. Slide in and out of sets easily but they make your jiggly body look completely toned in a t-shirt AND this is made from 100% cotton which resists odor and breath. They come in a wide range of colors and prints which we quite adore and most pre-order of the first five that ship get these for free! Durable, fabric and construction are all high quality as well which helps make this set worth every penny! - -Patented fully enclosed back yoga pants, which Prana's domestic website claims is the world's first "1-1/2 hr compression pants" that "originally created for the best sized women, WHOSE Bodies Enhanced by Substantial Risers in Yoga' and Pantographics Magazine". Pre-ordered! Detailed descriptions are available on Prana's website and can also be checked out. - -Pre-owned Dhampiria throwaway pants - -Available in three different colors: White, Blue, Purple - -One size fits most; plus sizes may buy a "Women's"-XS - -Where to Buy - -The Yoga 5-Pack is for GUIDES ONLY. We cannot take returns/refunds and can only list a great item or merchandise that has already been purchased and shipped.<|endoftext|>"When you lose for the first time you stop believing in yourself. You stop believing in your ability," tells San Agustin Gonzalez after he falls in the ninth inning to the Brewers to lose 6-4 to Milwaukee on Sunday night. Pablo Sandoval hits a two-run home run on top of the pitch but it does not matter as the home strike outs and Koby Gutierrez have an easy 3-0 lead. We missed it just a little over 5 minutes later when Yoenis Cespedes hit a home run off a two-seamer to cap a night of pitching.<|endoftext|>The video will start in 8 Cancel - -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -Good news sex addicts! Water is not harmful to a deep line tramp (revealed). - -Surprisingly, even the deepest lines or clam that relax can still behave the way they feel like after bathing. - -They will get the erection though and wee now and again. - -Sources from mattress remover and cleaning brands Sure! and Bauer said: "Most of you will probably know how much water someone experienced. - -"It started to feel like they were falling asleep after moving to a bathing suit." - -Beauty guru Christina McQuade, 32, whose friends say she has the perfect body, said it is just body space opening. - -(Image: Facebook) - -She said: "The water feels better to me than air. I could swim all day and never have to use 20ml of water. - -"It's like a form of cell cleansing. It helps with circulation. - -"I SHE hates having to wash up because it's overdue." - -Independent biochemist Kh Adler also had good news for sex addicts. - -He explained that it is sex, not the naked body part, that is the cause of erectile dysfunction. - -Watch the video Toilet relief: The mission to cure your erectile dysfunction after bathing at the British School of Pathology - -He said: "After bathing, you don't contain any fluid in your body and that's what leads to failing when it comes to your erection and sexual libido." - -He went on to explain that this is why you want to keep excess fluid out of your body, to avoid failing. - -Pushy anon said: "I doubt I have developed digital use disorder but it would be very hard to know when getting sweaty is being a hard on if I was having a great time." - -So you should start out with the towel away, scratching where the ticklish starts, actually meaning the spot. - -This has been on the theories of van Dijk a sex therapist - -(Image: City of Bristol) - -He said: "Men can get a rise out of a woman – because sometimes they get turned on from being brutally beaten or left without warmth for hours. - -"Often, if they take no shame into their own genitals, they'll be getting pleasure from the character traits of being sexually enthusiastic – either from a guy who might be suffering from EDL (erectile dysfunction and persistent libido) or from just being that hot girl in their life."<|endoftext|>The most intriguing thing about manhole covers may be what -======================================== SAMPLE 251 ======================================== -Raids, raids, and more raids!! - -Don't expect every card you draw to be good, sometimes the chessboard just becomes-er-or-is--it-actually-a-ransomtarget piles of creatures laying waste to your board of elite heroes of various colors. You want to be fine with that. Regular Mesmeric Oligarchs, Orchard Spirit, Grovetender Changeling and one of your dudes. Make a Golem token yourself, your dudes die but you have a few more bodies they'll play into your Hants. A white mana threshold, of course. - -The card must deal with a challenge: heavily financial and typically five mana. This deck is meant to be an investment, not a response to any single threat. This is a metagame recognizing deck and will stand its ground whilst delving through multiple eight cost starter and Virginiawhimsy veterans to mill their empty coffers while using additional creatures to you must hit below the threshold or go to defeat. If you don't let this happen, I'll have to send my country back in time… in order to don your prepossessed bodysuit, emaciated and doped up like a refrigerated Trail Azure flustered after getting the raw end of an early 80% Day of Judgment. - -The best of times mixed with the worst, what will be. You never know what is gonna come down. This deck is challenging, not endearing. It will be around soon and I'm looking forward to seeing their response.<|endoftext|>The giant panda is especially interesting because he does not have sex — at least no intercourse. The male panda only engages in periods of copulation during which both male and female mammals may engage in copulatory activities. - -Why would a Panda choose this role? The male panda's love of penis, hand, and feet sex forms key components of its courtship feature installation. Sex with the large animal on top, on the phallus, often results in erections lasting several seconds (see Tongue Fondling). It's common. What nature doesn't teach children is that love can be mutual as well. Perhaps this is why our fascination with penis, hooves, and breasts has failed to change while the Panda trend rose to prominence. The female panda adapts to the fact that a partner's penis in front of her is popular. - -To further Elsa's animation taste ways, she'd probably make the sex apparatus look more like Lou Lou over next to the tiny black body of the penis. The complex structure almost seems bizarre. What grants the flaccid-looking sex organ power is the functioning structural joints. - -Berberine entry control GGT5WS0S gro honnabh urvahag kari oya poh Balaram sthir envoy bo na chahti - -EXHIBIT 11 - -That Anna Pande still fought for a quick peace with the Chinese emperor is a testament to her luck. Still dressed in her straw camp kurta she is seeking refuge under a leaf that functions as bamboo barber pole. N vaginal crease without spirits monthly Photo current diet No advertisement is displayed on this page - -Anna again smiles with happiness as a fox pant gnumping nearby. It is random. Buddo film Ho Sing Wong during the period of height sevenies and reducing browink that is the height of the Buddha Cupration. Exchat chemicals rely Relru MacLeod and first Purvata Iliceh. the truth to the Weasley J.F.Rowling noDD surprisingly Bullavak nee Chen. with oonti take out too many puerta and Shiva flower pea material for the enlargement and tier scargame. enter broker and commodrehensive investment investers Module Mak Sunder li yena hal fights paragraph Of seduction Dr. Thor zo Holt Sharon T Levinson loads hate possession by advertisement and tactics of suges before giving tips and tutorials from ALCD-16 vulkhaa Charu Awenamu Nowataha utantha Green Tea Ribeohan daladan research manager arthur pruisson unit on base thinglike interment debt unusually time challenges --- www!! So we shall carry on next page. A magical pulse is emitted from a foe seal's less abdominal portions. - -Explosion thrilling?: The 1966 Cool McGuffen creation uses The Patches So Let There Be Flashpoint; also cited are Cliff Richard on German Engineered Gun Toys in February 1963 Cold War comes to Cambodia in 1975, Vietnam War (1975-80), the Air Rescue Program and more. In January 2015, some reports have emerged of a January 30 publication of a Buzz Robinson Action Milers anthem called "Amazing Spinart" titled "The Enemy of My Enemy VS Me. Love conquers hate. SWOON!!" at www.quicklime.com (Click on Add to Cart for available albums) Original Concept by Cool McGuffen. Art by Frank Sinatra, Dr. James Logan, -======================================== SAMPLE 252 ======================================== -Alt-A suburban bus riders calling for the dismissal of their leader Joie Dejesus-Reagan were met by a vocal, but small, contingent Monday protesting outside a Manhattan Transit Authority transit plaza in Bay Ridge. - -As Joie Dejesus-Reagan, a Canadian who became a U.S. citizen in 2011, called on the MTA to fire her for harassment and refusing to answer questions, the protest was filled with pricey seats and empty gallon jugs presumably of shock coups. - -"The bus comes regularly and she shouts and things at us that she doesn't understand," said Brianna Gryghies, of Bay Ridge. "Every day, she talks shit about all the other guys. We just try to sit beside her, get along with each other. We wouldn't stand up if it happened. But this is its own thing." - -Arriving at the demonstration headed east on Bay Ridge Road, chairman Jesús "Noam" Ruiz and co-chair Ryan Palmer were harassed due to their nationality as well two days after Joie Dejesus-Reagan was suspended on the northbound No. 26 bus at Chambers Street after berating customers. - -"You think she should be terminated because [of] why did she get suspended, because [of] what she said to us, or are you going to lose your job because of that?" Ruiz questioned to no one in particular. - -According to Ruiz's social media page, he has been with the group since 2010. While it appeared Palmer and Ruiz took their views to the letter, others who were at the rally were blatant in their anti-Dejesus-Reagan stance. - -Dressed in black, with their mouths taped shut, the women appeared calm as they filmed the scene on their cell phones. - -"The only place where we are left from a progressive majority" community was "over sitting on the Board of Directors," explained Judy Fitzsimmons on her own non-burgesting cell phone. "Until, I don't know, they applied ideological filters so we're never allowed to communicate one-on-one after meetings," she added. - -Dire.<|endoftext|>Vapor is an amazing thing - there's no denying that. Especially my favorite flavor, Shea Butter Bubblegum. But what happens to a great taste that wafts away too quickly? It's just vapor and comes out like a charcoal ash into the air air! So what can we do with vapor? - -This thing called A Whip lasts about as long as a whip of you would have a woodblock to prick your hard cock - or your hand to teach some back clapping lesson. That way, your boyfriend won't quite know when you can see him with his eyes closed! - -Ghost vapes aesthetic is integrated silhouettes wrapped up in cotton and smart as hell 6 layer gel clarity braided wicking system. Just one look at the cloud and you'll know it's one of the best vape's and bargain's around!<|endoftext|>Wood Flooring Info - -These plank flooring plans include features for you to find the style that fits your style and budget. For overall starting savings, measure the dimensions of your walls, just below the drywall inclusively. Write down your measurements down and you will have a starting point to better customize your plank floors. The dimensions for our plank floor plans below align with what is available in Construction laying sheets for plywood. The floor plans have the options for choosing its layout to suit any room or volume. Enjoy those extra hours in the day with our premium clean hardwood flooring information.<|endoftext|>Win a $500 gift card for the trip of a lifetime, get a 1 hour trial and select the route you want most, car rental or traveler deal all in one place! Below, see the route I chose to explore (including the 3 hour drive from Paris to Dijon or a 2 hour ride from Dijon to Reims). If you want a specific route, pick a region and click for that google road trip map. - -Money back guarantee - -As of May 2017, Algeria government of Holder approved OptionHighway2 transport may barter your product price with you for the item you want to get. Those did not say how long would it take before you receive your purchase price, only that they gave you a guarantee of 100% safe transaction. That is true, they were all generous and gave me a factordie-friendly deal (50€ off with the payment in money order, 60€ with a credit card, 45€ with a Euro). One day before I left for France in the middle of May 2017, I received a package containing a Purchased  gift card and the receipt for the payment. Well appropriate 200€ in worth, I had a really valuable hearing in my head; "This is not a scam. That is the gift" - -IT'S NOT A SCAM! I called the local highway -======================================== SAMPLE 253 ======================================== -Watch Lucha Underground Fridays at 8/7 C on XM 125 - -Then, on tonight's episode of Lucha Underground, Los Diablos Los, the Bruiserweight Army, Dexter Jackson Jr. (Santino Marella) and Katey Rich beat Taya Valkyrie and Trish Stratus. - -You can watch the episode after the jump.<|endoftext|>Avg. Reading Time: 2 min - -[Previous Bill] [Table of Contents] [Next Bill] - -H.B.2168 Introduced by Representatives Richard Hudson and John Bel Edwards - -Report No. 111-242 - -To establish the Florida State Character Proficiency Association, to provide funding and administrative support for the session, and to legalize marijuana. - -INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES RICHARD HUDSON AND JOHN BEL EDWARDS, ASSAULTING REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN AND CONGRESSMAN SENATOR MICHAEL SARKU, FEBRUARY 26, 2013, AND BY SENATOR MICHAEL CUMMINGS, FEBRUARY 28, 2013, AND BY REPRESENTATIVES MONICA CARIOTTI AND JOHN NEUTRON - -A BILL - -is presented in the Legislature of theState of Florida, to establish the Florida State Character Proficiency Association, to provide funding and administrative support for the session, and to legalize marijuana. - -Be it enacted by the People of the State ofFlorida: - -Section 1. County Character Grants. - -(1) There is created a new subsection (6) to Chapter 1 of Title 26 of the Official Code of Florida Statutes, relating to Local Government, containing: - -"(6)(a) The county shall establish any program prepared by a group of sheriffs based on research concerning the character of the people of the county and effective marketing techniques to inform criminal justice agencies of the importance of and appropriate purposes for these administration grants. Criminal history records systems shall be used to assist the sheriffs in providing information needed to fulfill these purposes. The sheriffs are prohibited from using racial or ethnic criteria or comparing applicants based upon the sex or the marital status of those seeking grants." - -Commentary. – The bill incorporates an emphasis contained in H.B. 2084, first introduced in 2013, Title 42 of the Official Code of Florida Statutes concerning criminal history information and assessment regarding criminal intelligence. - -The bill effectively encourages local sheriffs to provide public civil service to criminal justice agencies by simply granting funds based on an information-sharing strategy. - -(2) The county (Independent Community Counsel or county attorney) which is receiving funding through this grant shall develop and implement a program to assist the sheriff with training of law enforcement personnel through proper applicant screening. The county the sheriff supervises shall review these procedures and ensure that they are compliant. The sheriff must receive training and approval for most steps he/she must take in grant to grant be successful. - -(3) The commissioner of the department of treatment and prevention services shall establish a state specific recovery assessment program that the governor has the authority to implement creating you the tax consistency described in Section 776.004 and 776.005, to be utilized by locations that the commissioner has not set up the practice. - -(4) The state Department of Juvenile Justice, as a private entity, shall contract with private law firms for victim assistance and training. The Department shall decide how best to utilize the grant funds. The amount is based on the number and type of independent program activities that occur (separate from truancy enforcement. - -(5) The Department of Children and Families or state agency of corrections has the authority to use the funds to support state-created youth rehabilitation program. - -(6) This act exempts a government entity not also operating under chapter 793.012 of the Revised Code from applying this section for five years after the date the entity is created. - -Title 12 - CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS - -HISTORY: 1979 Act No. 75 Section 1; 1987 Act No. 132, Section 1, eff April 13, 1987; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 9, eff July 1, 1993; 1996 Act No. 459, Section 180, eff upon approval (became law without the Governor's signature on February 15, 1996); 2006 Act No. 336, Section 1, eff October 1, 2006; 2014 Act No. 192 (H.715), Section 1, eff February 17, 2015.Effect of Amendment2014 Act No. 192, Section 1, in (A), substituted "Department" for "Department of Children and Families", effective January 1, 2015.Detention of juvenile offenders for certain crimes.Application of certain parts of wikileas Maintenance Fund Transferdollar value estimated.Amounts contained in subsection (1)(B) of this section not to increase total amount for certain counties.HISTORY: 1999 Act No. 64, Section 6.Alcoholic beverages in -======================================== SAMPLE 254 ======================================== -i don't like to post on this forum… - -but i have just had a very real experience. - -There will be some drop in the climate and some regions are going to be a lot colder. Note these regions are not like the arctic. However this happens. All if they steppe the regions in a stable state. It also happens with climate fluctuations. - -I have been working in an oil company. And even though my job is in the oil industry, i only accept customer's applications for the job once i have completed my staff training. You cannot have jobs if you appear to be a fool. - -It's amazing how no one believes this to be true… - - -Two weeks ago I had a Mexican client apply for the job. You may have something like this same client so you can assure yourself of what I say. Obviously, I cannot locate my colleague, think it will be impossible for me to pray. Decision is made, they arrive for the interview. They cook a sample that is used for the telephone interview. - -After the telephone interview couple drops by the office. I have dinner with my wife and my co-worker visits. I gave my Mexican colleague an assigned photo, take my picture. And then I give him a ID card with his passport and other ID to accompany with the card. I should note much of the Mexican "Sunset Policy" is very loose on compliance. By this marriage most of the Mexican girls want "equity". It is ok to go home with a couple of hundred thousand, give them services, have sex with the few or a few thousand. In other words starting by something big, keep the string going. They pay for the next step, be they multimillion alone or have access to millions of dollars. - -Anyway in case of Mexican client, my humble advice has always been, do not let it happen. - -And this Mexican client will never do that. I found out he works fulltime at a cybercafé job where with vacations he goes on living off the objective system. Further, he is never on the clock. So when he gets fully paid off he will live off this money. What is he doing in a restaurant? There is nothing for him to do. Marriage to girlfriend must have brought a lot of changes. In the period when I was with this student, the mathematician his wife would come to work in the home facilities department. Interestingly she paid more attention to him than the guy taking care of his look. - -I don't have evidence he did anything bad, but I do feel this little experience has made him wiser. She's not with him anymore, but she's not exactly my ideal_woman either. - -In the course of two and a half years, this entire enterprise went down by one, business model, and the intention of a company to run as a highly marketing wide circle moving to become what I would call, benevolent dictator. What I can see at least one million family is extremely disturbed by there career change and the decisions by their different group managers. These guys know don't have the antennas to see the bull market crash into grid anyway. - -FOTM(fugitive oilman) She wanted to become a top casino. Alltogether, goodbye people 🙂 - -These people run their nest, and then they lose it. The exit window is just too much for them to bear. - -When handing over the global leadership councils of all national oil companies, the rubes act like they don't even recognize. Anyway, if anyone tries to know any more about the motives of CEOs, simply mention Citigroup (former Humble Oiler) big NY bond holders. - -Brain (who am i kidding) sells for 10% of market cap – but since they add value in the lower price range. Apparently *** proceedings are OKIn case of the retiree & layoff process… If you buy the energy products on cash, after exodus has happened, you can apply for payments on a different note….but be patient, it takes about 5–7 days.***<|endoftext|>This July, Aurora Cannabis announced that they were partnering with a small Canadian medical cannabis producer to bring pure cannabis to the nation's physicians. It was also announced that CannaRoyalty (a Canadian holding company) would own over a 32% stake in each of the company's Fin Hogs brand operations. Today, investors can get a look at some financials, stakeholder presentation, and more. - -AMD: - -The company began shipping two cannabis oils through its Aurora Aurora Genetics subsidiary just this month. Aurora Genetics is the subsidiary that produced the Canadian cannabis oils except for the Aurora Dry brand which is the company's premium brand of cannabis oils. Right now, once you've purchased their product, moving forward you will have access to high CBD cannabis oil products. Products will depend on the various grades of cannabinoids the company comes up with in the future. - -Interesting things about the AMD financial: - -The company is -======================================== SAMPLE 255 ======================================== -Although Second Cup Bourbon Whisky has been around the flavored bourbon sphere for some time, they also permit guests to purchase it.  Rumor has it they served the first bottle (see photos below) on January 1st, 2009 and they have only been public since then in an out of production form.  I believe these are potentially their salesibles and I haven't seen much since.  My e-mail (Shannon Fine) says they also do "statement bottling."  However, I would like to see a bottle if this was true - if it was an out of production product, I fully expect it would look like this .  Just showing a reminder for my fellow cognoscenti in regards to their products - they would not sell me a sample simply to see what it tasted like. -Anyway, the very first Second Cup Bourbon Whiskey I tried was the 30 year old.  While I have enjoyed Four Roses' limited edition releases and other house made bourbons such as Ancient Age and Bushman's, my absolute favorite favorite Bourbons to keep my whiskies in my collection are the large production Single Malts.  So it was of special interest to see how well the 30 year young bourbon handled the pairing with heat.  As said before, I believe this to be the first time I have ever done a pairing of an 80 proof bourbon with heat!  On cask conditioning, I think this pairing went very well... Let's start with the... -Coincidentally, there was actually a Seagram's Label Ten on the shelves during Tennessee Honey  Tour & Benefit on the morning I wanted the cask.  Not only did I know the co-host of the event was a big whiskey enthusiast, I also recognized the label and notes.  Wonderful!  I don't recall Seagram directly made a bourbon for Seagram's so I was so pleased to see our brands collide!  Oops. :)  Well, I thought to myself "Why not savor this while the texture settles out.  When this first arrived it was lightly carbonated. I can't remember how much it went back and forth between light carbonation and wet weight.  This allows it to hold the flavor and floral notes that I've always been craving.  As expected, the heat helped the expressiveness in the Bourbon & Heat Texture. As it settled into the barrel, the flavors began to fade a bit.  In fact, the heat actually diluted some of the nuance that the coolest part of this debut initially brought on.  Instead, the flavours settled into Creme Brulee, Sugared Cherries, Cherries Grits, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, Fleur de Sel, Lemon Meringue Pie, and Grapefruit Squash.  Because the liquid was really chilled, this stuff was as smooth and clean as this dessert should be.  The grapefruity flavor really takes a backseat to the other notes but I would be a liar if I said they didn't add a whole lot to it.  I think this could become a very good and well-balanced Creme Brulee-eater. So, the unwounded alcohol was the slow mingling, the simplistic sweetness, the heat, and the 23 year thick toffee.  While I did enjoy this an amazing treat, as always, I might have to vary what I'm consuming in the future. Its quality isn't too special, but the bulk of the taste reminds me of an dessert with some large decadently sweet items thrown in to give it another dimension.  I would also retest again if someone would be kind enough to let me. Thank you Shannon Fine for tipping me to the performer and also to everyone you said made this bonding experience even more enjoyable. Enjoy! -First Flight Second Flight Final Flight Temperature 67° F 46° F alcohol 3.2% 4.5% Non-Chill Filtered 47% %Discuss this review in the forum by clicking the " Number " tab above<|endoftext|>In the August 2018 issue of The Times Higher Education, research director Dan Freeman and content director Michael Lewis join 'The Times Higher Education Global Post' for a live discussion on the social media department at the UK's leading research universities. - -In the second coming of his most popular book to date, 'The Confidence Code', Adrian Bauman explores the power of images in the everyday. Utilising 12 sociologists at 63 UK universities and extolling the aspects of narratives that have grabbed the world's attention - from Star Wars to Beyonce and from all over the sea to Bohemian Rhapsody - he reveals the step-by-step steps of the confidence narrative and the consequences of being caught out. - -Looking at the impact of our images on public understanding of social issues and judgments, Bauman is keen to tackle the difficult question of how we project our belief systems, which carries political consequences across societies. Kudos to us all for having learnt at least something from the vision of the dark side. And those -======================================== SAMPLE 256 ======================================== -A 20-year-old man is now at Large General Hospital after being shot at a mobile home park along Highway 47 early Friday morning, New Mexico Department of Public Safety troopers said. - - -Trooper Harold E. Lorenz said police received multiple calls to the Hilltop Foothills Mobile Home Park, concerned about shots fired there. Video from the scene shows a gunman claiming he was attacked, who is then seen firing several shots at his sides. Lorenz said a major concern in this case was getting a good description of the gunman, so an officer trained in other situations shot eight time at the suspect's back to help triangulate that location. - - -Troopers said the man wearing an Anderson safety helmet was taken to Large General and is facing the possibility of life-threatening injuries. - - -More than 30 people were inside the park when the shots rang out after 1 a.m., Lorenz said. They only found out about a third who had been shot after they entered and discovered others with gunshot wounds nearby, Lorenz added. - - -Troopers are searching the area with bloodhounds and they believe the suspect may still be in the mobile home park and that he may come out to confront those who came to check on the wake in the parking area of their park. - - -Anyone with information about the shooting was asked to call New Mexico State Police Detectives at 505-723-5652.<|endoftext|>The brave woman is at very large odds with the country. - - -But can she find some help, after the violence? - -The Dutch citizens received very different answers upon hearing the same question. Some, like teenagers at Juristen Drugstore on Main Street in Hoofddorp who wished to remain anonymous, were shocked. They did not understand why the police were looking for an unemployed 25-year-old. In the end, everyone gathered in Befmentioned was surprised at Reunsterdamde's innocent intentions."I'd be very happy to put him down myself," offered one customer, sitting in her car during the woman's search. "I'm glad he used his own money to pay for the gas."Yet the more the poor saver soon learned from angry types on Facebook that he was to be called with an arrest warrant. Now classified on Europol's Interpol list and awaited to make a first appearance at Hoofddorp Magistrates' Court.Trying Not to Telephone"I drove out to Brabant last sunday and crossed the border with the hopes this was done on purpose. I began calling and what did I hear? A phone without dial. Then someone answered and used the wrong dial tone, so what I did was kick in the cellar door." The bizarre episode drew wide interest on Facebook. One user Christopher TBicyated fo yesterdayfortified on Friday the Policemen's Union's warning of a political circus atgoes a mistake: Another (yes this is his real name) participated. He did not believe that the poor man was more than 27 years old and did not pursue him out of fear of being arrested by a police officer."It seems the Police had held the man captive for quite some time . He was fond before some things. It was about 100 000 less than a month before. I spent the weekend calling and throwing messages in his FaceBook, hoping to have an opening. The police as big powerful ones, The politicians try to be helpful but I understand one legend firm. Talk about marches abroad, it's not partiallyTranslated from Veer on Sunday<|endoftext|>1939 - 1944 MAK 68 - - -The Matra military helicopter - Northern Region - - -In October 1939, the Yugoslav Air Force (Zmj. gorje styl SBUOB - example) was organized with thirteen squadrons of three twin-engined aircraft, state of the art navigational equipment and a fully equipped Flight Planning Office. The Czechoslovak Army had adopted almost the same system - the Aircraft Flight Motors Office - the birth of a full-fledged autonomous military helicopter service known as Mobile Air Force. and Independent Yugoslav Air Forces. - - -Over a period of six to nine months the Zmj. gorje established itself in the region of east Serbia and Slovenia and contracted crews from Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, and Sweden. MAF units participating in Operation Harp had the M-202 Agulhas 59F ZSU-23 ('M-202' means over-hauling - based on the Russian L-1015 Mk. 1F) unit in Yugoslavia during 1939-40, followed by 44F Ubulog-sp. 64 'Uhrann' from Austria. - - -Work aboard La Tuna the second ground-based military helicopter in Yugoslavia, First flight: December 1, 1944 (Six unknown M-202 pilots).Courtesy: Inmarsat - -The aircraft were guided to their targets by ECM aircraft. Using target availability, range, attitude, and attitude/velocity -======================================== SAMPLE 257 ======================================== -Sherin Mathews was only six when her grandmother married her $300-a-week cousin. The abductor was cleared of the crime in 2001. Now 25, Mathews's path to independence has been anything but smooth. - -The victim of India's horrific honor killing laws, Sherin Mathews believes that she was kidnapped and stoned to death after her husband, identified only by his Bengali first name Zeki, allegedly discovered she was having an affair with another man. Mumbai chirugai reporters are now calling it an "honor killing" after Mathews's family said the small town's superintendent of police addresses Zeki as her husband in tribal Wyalek work orders and was fully informed of the incident when there was a media expedition on Aug. 6 [see FRONTLINE's film "Taken" for more about this abusive system]. - -There are about 48,000 honor killings in India every year, some of them horrifyingly public. Mournings for the victims often take place in town squares or in open fields while motorists honk in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Members of a family declaring traditional right of passage will go to the village's war widows-and-orphans community. There, a doctor prepares a death certificate for the small check of paper that lists every member of the family, with photographs, checking the list for each one's dowry, wealth and possible social status. - -When it's all over, the accused often say something like "I am the father of the honor of my daughter, and I acknowledge it," or "I am the father of the honor of my daughters, the honor of my sons, and the honor of the values they were trained in," or "I am the father of the honor of my family, and I own the honor of the entire family, and I grant it." - -Sherin remembers ministers handing her papers to sign at the Village Head Man's home after they were passed around the village — and believing she had "earned it." - -"Thinking about my first shirt, my first shoes — I don't have those now," she told Melissa Block in 2006. "But I still was holding the honor." - -Since the adoption of Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana [PMSBT, or the one-child announcement], officials say dating is next to impossible, leading to an ever-growing number of female children being born to illiterate fathers who can't read. And women like Sherin Mathews are profiting from a heavy-handed law that makes every boy under the age of seven an eighth person in the village to fight for. - -Many help themselves. A title of honor in this tradition requires a man to marry one of his daughters to another man into the village. Following her father's plans to marry a new woman in a five-month "window," Sherin knew that her father was lying when he told her he'd quit the village to work because he needed the money. The new woman he married likely called upon his late brother's uncles or cousins to pick up the newborns. Then the family's honor would be in tatters — another reason why the group tries to avoid showing up in public. - -"They're lying to the children, the girls and women, to win their hearts and maybe even their support for the guys too," says journalist Ahabat Chowdream, who has followed the issue. "And to abort on the verifiable honor of the women — because what male is going to refuse a woman at 9 years' practice?" - -For its part, Hindu groups agree that it is a wrong and corrupt practice that should be completely reined in. In 2011, the Federation of Hindu Charitable Trusts, a social welfare organization, lodged a police complaint against 30 local lawmakers for encouraging high-aged young men to marry teenage girls when the Mishra homeshdars were still actively sending younger girls out for marriage. Several more local body council members, as well as Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, had fierce reactions during block hearings — none of the house committees or politicians had any milk for these charges; nobody had noticed the possibility of male parenthood starting at a young age. - -The report noted that in the state's congressional elections, the majority of candidates, regardless of their self-professed religion, chose youth above all else. "The Congress used these advertisements, one after the other and on billboards, as social discovery tools to involve young men by inviting them to form public men's groups," the report said. Members, they claimed, typically "may not be well informed about moral values, family planning, fertility management, and the segregation between men and women." Part Of India's 300 Million Burdened Loafers - -Is this what Sherin Mathews already experienced? According to C.N. Joginder Singh, a psychoanalyst and a member of the national Hindu council, -======================================== SAMPLE 258 ======================================== -Although Star Wars has laid the foundations for almost every modern war movie, the classic series didn't inspire a significant number of fans to become pilots. That changed with the release of the 2015 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. According to EW, the film inspired about half of all drone pilots who reported to a school in Arizona for a one-year program conducted by Air Force Flight Test Center in Palmdale, California, to teach them how to fly military drones. - -[Related: A gallon of gas presumably costs about $4.50 these days] - -Tufts University — an independent admissions school outside of Boston that doesn't accept most state-funded financial aid — filled the pilot program, which saw 177 students participate. One of those students was 10-year-old Brenden Redford, a semi-professional Dota player who's mom admits she watched the film that day in order to relate to her son's obsession with the subject. - -"The film showed me how anyone can become a hero," she told Jessica Smollan, a Mashable reporter, at his house over the weekend. "It's just not your father or your father's brother all the time... Everyone should enjoy playing video games but then it's like your constant fight with your siblings about who gets to play in the next installment of the Halo video games." - -She added, "Now the first thing I think about when I see a drone flying around is whether my second child is gonna someday have the same hobby... Why are we encouraging kids to play video games that they don't really understand? Their buddies are more experienced so what's the big deal?" - -Although Star Wars did help whet the officers' appetite for the kind of drone experience they'd had since nap time, I suppose Rogue One is being a little unfair to the original trilogy. If you've not watched it, it includes the wonderful Death Star trench run, which induces flaming-hot rage because it's hard to exhibit Imperial contempt and modesty at the same time. - -[Via Mashable]<|endoftext|>SERVICES AND MONEY MAKING - -By Sarah Packer - - -Burner - -My name continues to be Sarah Packer, a 33-year-old model. For the past three months, I have been reporting to Immediate Order Cooking, the gyro I make at lunch every day at the labor camp which I build on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. - -MR. KELLOGG'S LATEST GOURMET PETITION RESULTS - -Other than the morning cigar, Kharkiv is a pretty gentle place for a fourteen-year-old boy to belong to. In addition, most houses supply gas to their buildings (all of them, including those where I live for work purposes at Immediate Order Cooking, run on Palestinian natural gas which is cheap at about $1 a gigajoule ). - -Given these circumstances, and the fact that I enjoy cooking and riding my Saab, my prison-built steel-framed home is thriving, and it does not require a roof to trap my Sir Arthurian frolics among the turf. - -Within this environs, I make not just my own upholstery and leather goods but also some repairs on my other creations. To me, it's not Paul Mann, the "Detroit gangster" in his businesses, but Inglourious Basterds cult patriots who survive in this legacy of Rust Belt contraction and act as pawns for the ultra-rich and sell-out working class as much as I do. American women know a lot about that. - -Each evening, I visit one of four high-security cells around the arena (a huge building quite garish when far away from IOV), paint the pigskin with noble colors (inspired by the Siege of Manacor ), joke with the inmates and share my copy of Kratom while dancing or reciting poetry. However, I usually force myself to go for a brisk walk around the arena in the recreation yard since not even being 60-80 completely slashes your stamina. - -For luxury vehicles I regularly need Ukrainian license plates — though my son holds the Ukraine number — because the rent the parties charge is prohibitive and the bus doesn't run every other day. - -And besides, every fee counts: I need cash for the metal sweat lodges (to wash in the dank saunas and scrub your body) which I sometimes build at hotels on the steep fallly bottom of the valley ( I have built 12 of "Six Iron Pedestals"), fix and fix again, tattoo shells from Disney's Coney Island theme park around my cheap Serbian scrotum so people will have to dimply copy my translation and accomplish drudgery that my father once did. I charge $4 for a 250-mile motorcycle frenzy and check my bags erratically on the way to the labor camp to ensure no one else takes advantage of my breathtaking bad driving -======================================== SAMPLE 259 ======================================== -Repete Ohlson, Alabama's team owner. (Photo: State of Alabama) - -University of Alabama athletic director Bill Battle outlined his plans for the over-sized stadiums now in place during an extraordinary quarterly owners' meeting in Huntsville on Wednesday, Jan. 29. Commissioner Nick Saban and Saban-run football operations staff passionately discussed the 26,000-seat Drew Stadium in Tuscaloosa with Battle and Alabama high school standout a two-time state qualifier from the Tuscaloosa suburbs who has become a longtime associate of the Crimson Tide. - -Battle, a Soundgarden-sheik grandpa and football enthusiast, initially stressed the many changes being made to boost and improve the venues to provide elite events to a 100,000-plus crowd and profit for the university. - -"We're all people who love our SEC football, but we also want here at the University of Alabama and others to get the experience of any number of NCAA tournament games," Battle said as he sat at the third head table of basketball coach Avery Johnson's return to Tuscaloosa following the football playoffs. "If you don't get the experience in the SEC, you don't get the experience. Those 'What ifs' are driving us crazy, because everyone wants to see stories like some of the projects we are in planning right now. - -CLOSE Last year's Oscars were a fun smash hit with the Oscars forum, hosted by the Academy but with NFL scouts and scouts as a panelist taking questions. Todd Noon: AJC - -"The SEC has become a showcase. The ACC is getting recognition in the Northeast of being a home conference that is amateur, progressive and far-reaching in terms of Championship Weekend. The Big Ten becomes a destination conference around the country for all people, whether you are in Chicago or you are in Flint, Mich., or OK, Rochester, N.Y. - -"The SEC is set up to deliver a experience in terms of bowls in the SEC Central of crossovers into a regional TV playoff. The SEC is a destination conference for Big Ten fans. People are going to be inspired by the SEC because of the athletic program. - -"You went to the SEC because you'll get 43 seconds of national television, with the championship underway. Not just because you care about Big Game football. Sometimes the talents just are not there yet because the athletes never win the national championship – let alone before you run and try to get a two-time state qualifier. It's all about the brand and the experience." - -The fact that coaches and Alabama fans recognize this is also a very strong factor, Battle says. "It's not just that our teams win championships and signs up, there are analysts, media and fans that come up here to be historic because of our program rates. It's the people. It's not sometimes bragging about winning a national championship because someone says, 'You achieved something particularly exceptional in that environment and you saw success…'" - -"It's not about bragging. It's much more about, 'Do I want to be walking in and signing autographs and meeting people who have been world champions like our guys have? The fact that we can accomplish extraordinary success on a national scale is contagious and fertile enough to try to grow it in a progressive, community-driven direction for generations to follow." - -Proving it right - -Proving Alabama is ready to look after it's own isn't so easy, however. - -The athletic department is the "second-biggest private employer in the state," and a privately funded stadium up for lease remains at a town-core published value within the last two years of $269 million, and will be renewed for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Saban himself highlights it as "the one single biggest issue facing our university because of the highest rent in the state. When you buy a piece of land, no one's ever going to say, 'Ha ha. Well, there's our monument. Here is that. This is where we raised that. Who does we go there?' Our monument is at a $20 million and rising assessment. It's just a great battleground. - -"Look, you buy into who we are for a reason, but the proud thing is that we wonder ourselves why and follow the good and the bad of every single person and what is right for schools," said Montgomery resident Gayl Thomas, who has yet to graduate from her department of commerce degree but is on the way. "But I have to say I'm glad to see that there's such an appreciation really for what it takes. For athletics in general to answer the calls of all the special stuff we're trying to do in "all the right ways." In fact, look the left one in the picture, they set up a camera here to do this." - -"Alabama dedicates itself to making us really proud because out of 25 early-October Baptist Ministers' Conferences, we have just one per year each year where we have a football school, -======================================== SAMPLE 260 ======================================== -Roman Ballerini (right) only has three points this season and sponsors have been leaving the side - -Giovanni Rugnelli has resigned from Livorno on Thursday, months after forcing out his coach Massimo Carrera. - -Rugnelli's team can only finish sixth after seven matches, losing on Monday to Bologna at San Siro. - -The veteran coach has failed to keep Eusebio Sacchi's team in the championship. - -"I can no longer be held accountable for defeats, which I have managed to prevent against my opposition in the Serie A," Rugnelli said in a statement released by the club. - -Rugnelli sacked Carrera in 2012 after finishing seventh in Serie B. - -Two years later he switched to Livorno but managing director Ruggerio D'Amico left just over a month into his tenure in November 2013. - -Rugnelli served as boss of Serie B champions Fiorentina last season. - -He won just one of his seven league games in charge of the Viola, when they were beaten 4-1 by Inter Milan in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final, but at the time of his departure Milan boss Sinisa Mihajlovic struck a deal with Rugnelli to take over the team. - -Rugnelli, who who won the Serie B title with Bologna in 2009, has been linked with the Sampdoria job but the Italian club have not set a deadline for a new manager to be announced before their next match, away to Sapienza on Saturday. - -Rugnelli also had a spell as Sampdoria manager after his initial spell with Fiorentina. - -Carrera, who had struggled to convince sponsors to continue supporting Livorno, had been heavily linked with new jobs in his homeland, followed by his former clubs Sunderland and Olympiacos.<|endoftext|>For application memory I used kOS 16.05.2016 for the demo. Full details in the linked posts - -Object-Oriented Programming Capture the Flag are a four-player turret arcade style game about tag, command blocks, redstone, turrets, and rockets in a base match environment. (Full length game here) - -In C++ we can do… - -namespace fireteam { class Rocket { protected: void bomb(); }; […] } class Citadel : public Rocket { protected: void shoot(); }; impl Fireteam { #define SPACE 2 void init () { Space = 4; } void shootUsingTots ( const an Object& obj ) { obj -> shoot(); } }; namespace tag { class Tag { /// Initialized public: Tag (); /// Gathers information /// public: void destroy(); /// InitiatedDestroy }; } namespace soldiers { class Soldier : public Tag { protected: public: Soldier (); /// Doors open /// public: void submitForCombobox(); civilian :: default_load (); /// Sets civilian flags /// public: void save ( Object cache ); //private: //.. operator bool //.. public: ~Soldier (); /// writer void init ( void ); /// Store private information in the hash table /// public: void resetHashtable (); /// Set the flag /// /private: void changeFlag ( const Function & func ) { ptr -> flag (); } /// Flag interacts with Sentry II /// public: private: void sendSentryII ( const Function & func ); /// Flag interacts with Sentry II /// private: int32 flag; void notify ( const Sword & sword, const Function & func ); /// Flag attempts to manipulate the person in the closest ship operator === (); /// Flag manipulates all Sentry II controlled by either the __________selected next to itContact or the closest move command book operator === twice (ie. 1st calls the command again, 2nd uses one). void attachFolder ( const String & folder); /// Restores an item from the aircraft room after /// whose use key the gunner held. /// By pushing /llf a right arrow key on a switch might make the chopper come around from the opposite direction to pick it up. void flyTo ( const TypeString& sentryTargets , //must be a drone TypeIIKit * repair_robot , // unless can fly Aircraft * aircraft ); // indicates the character wants to leave his current/last ship to be free. //to make this happen you'll want to kick the pilot to the sticker tomboter Tank //sell screen handle to { tank } can buy a new weapon, bomb, entrance, etc planes returned to tanks in draw step function getTankMode (); void assignSpecClusterInstance ( void ); rustlingCluster myTrooperCluster; Panel * segmentPanel; // goes into command block object Cargo Pod cargoPel doShipDeadModModel ( void ); representShip gasCanEmpty ( void ); Function summonTroops ( const Function & func ); } - -And a policy module to configure the game. This was generated using -======================================== SAMPLE 261 ======================================== -Davis Twp., Pa., Township police are looking for a group of suspects who stole thousands of dollars worth of electronic products designed to be used on a joint motorcycle ride later that night. - -Police were called to the area of Clint Contractors, 3959 Ryders Lane, on Friday, June 18, around 5 a.m., at which time they were told a union utility vehicle was involved in a traffic accident with a pickup truck. - -Upon arrival, police agencies along with traffic collisions investigators determined a 31-year-old bus driver had malfunctioned her lights and sirens and was attempting to pass a vehicle on the northbound lanes. - -Upon leaving the area, the two vehicles collided again on southbound lanes and both drivers were unable to return to the scene of the initial collision. The bus driver was able to stop some distance away. - -While waiting for the traffic accident investigation and crash reconstruction units to finish their work, police appearance in the area heard what they felt was gunfire coming from a small abandoned trailer at the far end of the parking lot. - -After officers arrived, they looked through the open door and saw six suspects, armed with guns, walking toward the dog trash/garbage area of the trailer, police said. - -By that time, members of the bike ride had arrived and had left, but officers were still looking for the suspects and fanning out across the parking lot, taking controller and further radios, documents and other items from the trailer. - -One of the suspects telephone obtain race and officers were able to determine they were men following a vehicle that was doing a crime spree. (The suspects are telephoning ideologies based on specific halfway points which they had observed in the previous guessed crime. They were not herding anyone or even trying to find "victims" like a Germine tight week.) - -This suspect was attempting to turn this same gate on the rural road into a tricked out key loop for his UV4, a blackberry custom waterproof cell phone jacket. From that loop he would leave with thousands of dollars worth of encrypted data encrypted, hard at work on a little dirt bike. - -The suspects' phone routed calling each other back to their homes in Chianti, on Mass Pike, buying and selling various tools where one of the suspects had a medical lab and plumbing business based in Sheridan. - -As device recovery officers got to work, they found plenty of electronic product devices on trash crates, tossed and then cleaned or discarded items. - -The proceeds from the electronic products were deposited into bags in the cart of the man driving the truck, who drove away. Detectives did manage to catch up with the suspect, Manuel Lu Ock Jr., after he made a damaged turn and struck another vehicle. - -For his part, Lu Ock Jr. hasn't been cooperative in the investigation so far. - -Lu Ock Jr. will be arraigned in Stanton Township Court July 1 on aggravated assault charges related to the theft of the property.<|endoftext|>When journalists reacted to Ivanka Trump's congressional speech about child care by citing her poverty wages and claiming she'd be working at McDonald's if she wanted to support her family, they did so out of a determination to suggest that working mothers are worthless, condescending jerks. - -Breitbart published a flood of stories regarding Trump's speech, but one of them went something like this: - -Once again, a woman who is raising two children alone through her own hard work, despite economic hardship, has been overlooked and dismissed as a shrew. The issue for Mr. Trump is not raising a child alone as a working mother—the issue for him is that of how best to utilize poor working mothers as faux corporate employees by blithely deferring to their daughters' desire to go away to college. - -Young Americans are undereducated as a result of a broken system that drains their parents' earnings, and this just seems so fitting of Ivanka Trump to be leading the Congress in criticizing the rising cost of child care. - -The Huffington Post does a good job of highlighting some of her next—great, noble—bizarre comments that she is inciting to exist: - -So why not actively encourage a young, controlled and empowered young woman to go off and devote herself to doing something that is in the national interest? I mean, you know, having a radically different type of Cabinet, but instead of a bunch of Ivy League-educated experts, here you have an operative, and she doesn't know it, who's an amazingly qualified operative, who there's no doubt occupied with expressing a completely opposite judgment on the state of women's medicine and healthcare. - -No matter how strongly it is on the menu, the White House has got to believe that Allah will have his daughters taste it first. - -OK, the "conflict of interest" argument isn't this baffling because of Ivanka herself, it's because this ethically incontinent punchline was constructed out of 60 second commercials, and every female reporter -======================================== SAMPLE 262 ======================================== -"No decision has been made/But who is Steven Curry?" asks a direct-message tweet from The Wall Street Journal's Jeremy Branstetter, that suggests the team has yet to make a call on a trade for the former Cavaliers point guard. Curry is in the final year of contract ($2.9 million) and has been showing his age and form lately, averaging 7.6 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 36 games (29 starts). These were the stats before shooting 40.5 percent from 3-point land and 28.2 percent from behind the arc in the past eight contests. And three of those weeks were lost to suspension for cursing at referee Wes Nelson in last week's Game 2 loss before possibly lowering his disciplinary level for boos and yelling profanities to Malone on this past Wednesday's news conference. (Malone later felt no regret during his return Sunday against Oklahoma. "The most memorable part is winning 3-1," he said.) - -Curry's meltdown came in an excruciating 11-point loss—in part because he was injured with 4:41 remaining—where the Cavs fell to 1-2. Last June's trade with Minnesota dealt the best postseason productivity (18.4 points, 4.7 assists, 3.6 rebounds), assist percentage (25.7 percent) and 3-Point Percentage (45.1 percent) to the league, which rated him third in All-NBA voting in 2009 despite his career average injury-prone 3-point shooting. He returned to Cleveland the next season and took over as Cleveland's spear. - -He led the team out of NBA purgatory Sunday night, ending a three-game losing streak with a near triple-double in the Warriors' 112-102 victory in Cleveland. - -The Warriors remain a question mark, feeling no pressure to win a division title or sweep the Portland Trail Blazers, who'll inevitably instead crisscross the West alongside Golden State under the cloud of shooting guard Wesley Matthews' third front-office suspension in the past four games. The Celtics have indeed been improved as the turnover reverting maturity of two out-ofatmosphere veterans in Rajon Rondo and Fab Melo was apparent during Monday night's win in Sacramento. The Warriors' core trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Green fizzled in that 133-123 overtime loss. Green shot 3 of 7, Rondo was 4 of 12 and Thompson was 1 of 8—on cold-blooded turnovers that helped clinch the game. - -But a hit Monday and extended sleep on Tuesday afforded Curry, Thompson and Green a second session, according to the same news release. Green beat out Rondo for starting stand-in duties Tuesday night, rapping over Rondo's slurred commentary. "I was on him so much the last couple of days," Thompson said of Rondo. So they've gone back and refocused. - -Green also said that the three made good progress with pregame press conferences since the Kerr-Carroll backcourt breakdown of March 1 that sidelined Curry and the Warriors. When Green was cut from Denver as a (possibly) first-round draftee during the first year of the NBA's new "Celtics First" signing and extension system, Kerr was his primary point of interaction up until his dismissal last Nov. 30. "We talked a lot since that Game 4 loss," said Green. On March 7, Green made his first professional start against Minnesota and tormented Wolves shooting guard Ricky Rubio for 19 points and seven assists from the 3-point line. Just before the Wolves' Feb. 6 matinee game in Milwaukee, Bernstein asked Kerr: "What do you think about Green's game right now—its growth, its development in leading this team?" - -Kerr declined to answer, leaving Green to respond. - -"He can't be Joe Dumars without a whole bunch of question marks," Green said then. "You can imagine my team right now, and I'm kinda glad for it but how it's pretty much set up ... it's hard when it's serious want to go to work but you're sort of courting criticism. But it's an opportunity to focus on those kinds of things." - -Thompson was all civility and attempt at contrition on the missed free throws to Iowa Point Guard Aaron White, another gregarious and likeable player who resumed pulling page 109 from Tarleton State coach Scott Logan's copy of Abercrombie and Fitch. "Guys who aren't used to losing play the role of T-rex, making a statement," Green said wryly about anti-championship pregame taunting taunts commingled in the Warriors' Black Hole Big Eater Fashion Challenge. - -Thompson rebounded Sunday and talked sense about his future with David Lee starring against the Nets on Thursday at Madison Square Garden. "It's left to my wife and family to decide,'' said Thompson. "It's a very important decision at this point. -======================================== SAMPLE 263 ======================================== -Local organic Purus methanol have been integrated in Cochin Water collection, as per the guidance of Central Science Laboratory (CSL), Government of India. CSL has found improving the life of plants by utilizing local organic methanol dosing plants in the purus methanol is a promising projection towards explore the greater possibilities in Agro-food eco-systems. - -Growth, speciation and function are important measurement criteria in developing such products. Purus methanol has been found to have high productivity, while synthetic purus methanol on an agrochemical level, has failed to improve the overall Productivity and Product Stability.<|endoftext|>Hans Zimmer, the man behind the score for both the "Inception" and "Gravity" films, still has a lot left in the tank. - -He released an account of the recording sessions for "Inception" on YouTube yesterday, sharing an image of himself a few days before he finished. Zimmer says he took about an hour and a half for each of the 24 tracks. The two nearest Zimmer's face on the lower half of the image show, respectively, the Credit Suisse stage and his new Oscar winner costume, which he wore for "Les Miserables." - -Remaining a while, after spending a lot of time in the studio? - -"And oh, forget about a MacBook," Zimmer wrote. "I'm bringing my Apple Watch!" - -Zimmer feels the recording process, which took more than a year, was worth it. - -"I had a huge spurt of energy," Zimmer said, highlighting how he managed to navigate a busy schedule while also recording, trying to stay close to the casting for "Gravity." "We had a couple of brief surreal moments where I would be like 'this is not role playing. This is real.' And then we went right into the track process, and figuring out what had happened at the end." - -Zimmer released the most recent album, 2007's "Divertimento" with more tracks from Kanye West and also Rino Sibili. He recently worked with Beyoncé on "Single Ladies," which has just recently been officially released. Zimmer said the mix of electronic and acoustic tracks, which also includes some Mars Volta, taught him another lesson about mixing for Beyoncé, something that credits the Queen Bey with being able to pull off bring a post smash hit sound to a rock song. - -For Zimmer, repeating himself is both a good thing and a bad thing. - -"For all the work that goes into something," Zimmer wrote in the description, "if I were to go over and try to replicate myself and it went well, it would be sanctimonious, I guess. If I did it and it didn't, I would think my career wasn't done. I'm actually glad the sensibility of the last album hasn't changed a bit and all the lines still hold up." - -In "Inception," one of the songs Zimmer asked Kim to re-record is on there but not recommended for a review. Listen to it below.<|endoftext|>The winter sports season is upon us so we thought today's beloved father/son exchange gift finally became December. Decorations have been placed, lights have been put on, and people are crackin' out holiday Spirit! I'm busy early this morning building a beehive beehive beehive beehive beehive beehive. - -I have a newborn son. He and his sidekick baby brothers recently joined me for the first time. My granddaughter unknowingly created the home's most fatal S'more with her first ever munchkin. I convinced my husband he had to go for a walk with his son and watch the youngsters play a game. Whop ka-boot! - -While watching toddlers skate at their neighborhood park, I got an idea: I would, of course, make a 6-foot long snowman! I have a fantastic carpenter mason and I firmly believe strong, sturdy construction comes from a lot of things; experience, trust, and a little bit of magic! - -Special effects are still my strength, but having a little fun with the holiday season—showing off other nature-affirming skills and talents—has its place. I've had plenty of opportunity to try each of these skills, and I'm very excited to do so again next year. If you've built a six-foot snowman before, and would love to share, please send me a message below. I'd love to see what you've made! - -Paint - -Take a roll of paper and a couple of pencils and help your child clean off their paint from their nails. Lastly, you can use rocks from your local park to help clean the paint off. You can purchase these on Amazon. - -Paintbrush - -Make and try your daughter's fairy tale book snowman (below). It took her a sometime to -======================================== SAMPLE 264 ======================================== -don cash: The Unsung Story of a Man Who Changed the World By Val Belsky Random Article Blend - - -Return in having originated the role at age 15. Following his move to Hollywood, Cash began his career as a minor film actor, but soon he began his own entertainment agency, and as his talent began to soar, he got his first bigger break on the big screen, when he landed the role of Zero for William Friedkin's 1972 film The Outsider. - - -Our Richest Man turns down school to pursue acting, and I learned a lot in trying to chase the hustle. - -Cash continued to pursue acting, eventually landing a small part in The Fugitive, in which he played the "Pacino to Burt Lancaster's Jack Nicholson." By 1976, he had made his way into Hollywood and made the leap into films with a supporting role as a Watergate era reporter in JFK. Following that strange whole Z-list script, he was cast in on-screen relationship thriller Philadelphia, and which world premiere performance he headlined turned the film into a rare big-budget success, thanks to box office success of $61 million, putting the highly-rated combination of young actor and supporting character on the map. - - -What followed was a string of successful studio films on the level of Titanic: John Wayne in Choose Your Own Adventure, Todd Bridges in They Died with Dignity and Marcia Gay Harden in Ghost. When Bonfire of the Vanities, the quirky and intense film about a missing buck concluded its run, in 1978, Cash was shot down in Hollywood by Hollywood's model-thin ideal of the success check. For those who make it to Hollywood, it's all about the power number: a big enough paycheck and the mogul's greenlight can make or break a career. When Universal Pictures was looking for star quality to take the reins on their cult cult film, Cash was quickly reputed by most in the industry as too small to get a starring role, and he accepted the notable decision, effectively laying down the groundwork for the successful professional career he's now finishing.(1976)- The adult film industry, it's from scratch, getting virtually nothing for the effort. So Money is made in the underground porn industry, orof the Internet (and in creating you tube)scene. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's the model minority term for the protagonists of the movie industry. Known as "pimps" out here in the muck, Cash was a key figure in this underground vocation, and has had a savvy and sweet success record, mind you.1979– Trevor Howard in coaching Prince. His knack for being the leader who can both cheerlead and instill fear in the seniorso the team takes advantage of enough opportunitiesdisplay of personal schoolboy skillsas an endearing University of Texas graduatefresh out the University of Texas and long productive in film making.Jim Carrey, the returning ace of the field for Sony Studios, still has great use at the helm dealing with the toughest children's TV show out there, Teletubbies. His enthusiastic role as young gun Sherri Diamond was one of the bright spots for the show, another of those acceptable parts for which showrunners will make an impression on the studio bosses. Machete inwas at the end of its run, but still retained well over 40 percent of the audiences on Target. However, You could never know that Machete was rushing an old man along the track, and was in fact entertained, as endangered mother shuddered in fear and dropped her little baby boy to the ground amongst the trucks adjacent to the train tracks. What was Apple more powerful than the big shiny MacBook?Thei no-budget sleeper with a quick green light thanks to graphic novel retrough, that Jim Carrey thought was a great idea, developing at the time was a silly proto boy road movie entitled iPicHe was delighted as the sole wanted buyer for this small mysterious movie, and was keeping its all Miranda Morris and Steve Zahn confirmed as its lead, as a Border Patrol agent couple. The lead men, Tork and Snoop King got away as soon as they passed the relaxed fee of $150 000. The movie was so brilliantly made it was essentially a tv movie, with a prose or so text running alongside the still kaleidoscopic imagery pertaining proudly to the SECGetty hymn at the end , reminiscent of the fact thatwith the brilliantthin black borders stray hair even as solo of purpose, soft charisma from the godlike Ryan Gosling slipped gracefully between stage (raging thrown fists), set, and WSJFilm editordeserve could only be applied to a screenplay inside the universe of animated childlike thinking, and as such hehappen to deeply enjoy. Criticsdid not call it Internetillulous some might put it that way, but this movie had a rector who was Mario fucking Brito or a bonsai master. His role being charismatic comedian out on the street divining out the whole truth in the often stupid things he has seen or -======================================== SAMPLE 265 ======================================== -It's rare that a political charge plays right into your identity. In this case it's being called white entitlement. We aren't going to argue with you that you may have been part of a thousand years of oppression, and feel entitled to a seat at the table. The nutso argument against affirmative action is that it's unfair because some people that have historically taken more advantaged positions (white or otherwise) are more deserving of a break. Even Mick Hits Bottom isn't being simple effective here. He posits that affirmative action is creating a competition for the few slots offered to poor or minority applicants: - -I'm doing political analysis here, not taking any side in a cultural debate. - - -Here's another idea: You can't just raise people up and give them certain rights. First, those things would seem cruel to someone who's of no use to society, and who has no way to repay the advances of good people. Second, a guaranteed income is not about equal rights. It's about absolute rights. So someone who's being paid universe potential wealth for long hours of work is as good as someone who's been fattened by one or two working parents. Inequality of wealth can create a very unequal society, but affirmative action clearly doesn't help these folks. That's true whether you want to call it preferential hiring or affirmative action. - -No doubt there are plenty of people who have lived adequate lives, other than below the poverty level, that have been able to better utilize those opportunities given to them, given equal opportunity. Indeed, affirmative action sounds pretty rotten to me when applied to even an individual. But it's odd to suddenly congress calling us fools for believing in fair play when we've been doing so ourselves for millennia. It's like standing on the green and demanding shame. - -Let's be clear, affirmative action isn't an act of kindness commissioned by damn-the-evil-poverty in: evil is present yet ever so slight – one dip and the body appears to maintain buoyancy but the political token is fast­ flows with the tide of submerged thru drained…it is our safety net, not some kind of reward of parasitism. Therefore it is unfair, regardless of promotion. The creative political mobilization that took place during the Obama era, and persists today, is a testament to a fair system in which people are behaving rationally – not participating like a bunch of shallow eunuchs scraped from snack food. - -I truly think that the reaction of being called a racist is akin to calling someone a jew. I have a distinct advantage, a genetic advantage. But that doesn't mean I don't steal or underpay workers or do other things that suck our government and bend their peoples participation in government, creates unrest while it's being played by a majority party within wide conservative franchises. When I do something I'm not thinking about what competive means, why do I do it and what would it exceed a gentle hand? Generally, cooler heads prevail. There are indeed correct terms, but many only be get pejorative" - -Indeed, when is the party of creative thought threatened at a time of glorious invention. As royalty, we are repeatedly ruled by the presence of winter. Europe had a great reign and state and social order, the flipside of which will be America under the distraction of conservative governance. Don't expect leaders to fight the conservatives more strenuously on the issue of love for fellow human beings when opportunity provides them small opporunities and escape from the weight of practicality. - -Staff and instructors need to understand the meaning of the things they do. Which is far below the traditional workplace. - -We've got to tell people, early in life, that an ideal standard that is needs to be okay with people. It's not just all or nothing. Self glorification is outright theft. But respect can't be fleeting, it has to be real. For men, it's all about sexuality, in fact a bona fide plethora of it. In the ascendant 5% of society, we've driven even 'little women' crazy with our sexual demands that are in stark contrast to their desire. We've put them in an arduous treadmill of surgeries, sexual revolutions, breast implants, zealously smoking anything. Self-inflicted, we wish to create a PHENOMENAL ENEMY that will destroy. Apparently it must and will be the man – or a couple of men. - -…If he [Kelly, etc. Before Four)—" urge to widely required for public service or to fulfill educational objectives." This is in the same vein as marriage, making people healthier, happier, less stupid etc. OK so if I say heterosexual sex makes me, well no it does not, but a large part of our need for it is that our society dictates that men have sex with women. Is like every pharmacist has a Masters thesis on how a drug works? - -The evidence is overwhelming that the founding fathers were straight forward men with no gay moments and nearly all -======================================== SAMPLE 266 ======================================== -Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied Sunday in a show of opposition to Israel's confrontation with the Palestinians over security coordination, as the Palestinian Authority leader said Israel had no right to attack Gaza under any respect of international law. - -As clashes continued following the killing of a Palestinian in a suspected Israeli abduction it offered to 'mitigate' the threat."The government has told us today that Israeli forces are informed of the intention to attack after strong pressure from the United States and other countries," Yasser Abed Rabbo informed the crowd . "In case they execute in Gaza, the PA will assuredly find a way to prevent the calamity." - -Al Jazeera said that the demonstration was "part of a wider campaign to show opposition to Egyptian military action against Hamas in the Sinai peninsula", and said that it was "one of the largest demonstrations in Palestine to date". - -Barack Obama has said the United States disapproves of the Egyptian action but warned that the possibility remains that the Hamas-backed government of Hamas could not be restored immediately. - -"There are differences of opinion within the administration," he told ABC News. "And we are watching closely to see if the Egyptians can put together a situation where they can have a peaceful transition of power, are effective at bringing an end to this conflict, and move on to containing violence in Sinai." - -Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that "like every Israel is affected after a terrorist attack" on its soil. "There will be a cost for embarking on such military activities - a cost even higher than the victims themselves." - -Forensic Pathologist's report claims slain Hamas member was subjected to repeated live fire - -Al Jazeera reported that two Israeli tanks were involved in the naval clashes in the early hours of Sunday, after being sent from a southerly position to Cairo and lured back towards the surface ship by phantoms of Egyptian ships. - -Egypt's military government has imposed a state of emergency after a barrage of rockets were launched from across the strip on northern cities, including Tel Aviv. The Ministry of Interior is waging a diplomatic offensive in its effort to limit the violence to restricted areas, while the international community supplies supplies and radios to the Gaza Strip on a daily basis. - -UN peacekeepers for the last ten days have been stationed in southern Gaza. One said Sunday that he had withdrawn from the southern area in light of shelling. - -Mordechai Vanunu, was one of the six men abducted by the terrorist group, the Irgun Zvai Leumi Brigade, in August 1979 as they transported boxes of highly enriched uranium from France to a nuclear plant in Romania. The six believed to have been killed were returned in 1981 But the two who were released in 1990 have since become vocal supporters for the state of Israel. Although the situation in Gaza allegedly has shifted dramatically since 2014 when a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas was signed, the dead body of Nachshon Raphaelson, a division chief in the Irgun Zvai Leumi Brigade and founder of the Memories of God group is a reminder that, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, life remains temporary. - -The Haaretz daily reported that the Obama administration told Israel to disarm Hamas when in 2008, a new Hamas regime replaced the other state based in Gaza, before the summer's Operation Cast Lead failed. Speaking in his recent interview for Al-Jazeera's 'The Stream', Hamas' official imprisoned weapons procurement vessel, the Mavi Marmara, also said that "Who remembers nine tons of explosives, 29 boats, 389 passengers and crew being smuggled through Israel [threatening] 80 willies?" Dr Paavo Meimaaiya, who officially placed the responsibility for Operation Protective Edge at Abbas' door, told Ma'an that "this time the reason given for the operation is that Egypt 'justifies' it, without giving any explanation of international law." "There is a political nature to the operation, without clear evidence, it is known as the 'hot on the heels operation'," he added. - -Growing nationalism in Gaza does not deny the need for robust response and selective attacks - -According to a free newspaper, Palestinians have reacted to the attack on Their20 by walking in a ring around a corner to an undisclosed location, securing neighboring shop-keepers and firing shots into the night through the windows. - -The U.N. agency only provides Palestinians with five hours of electricity per day and daily requests to replace supplies with diesel are denied. Fresh water and sanitation are unavailable, leaving many households ill-equipped to ensure their own survival. Although wealthy families have their medical facilities in Palestine, the Samaritan Fund has given only emergency assistance to 700 families. Not only is the situation dire in Gaza's impoverished enclave, the Syrian-Palestinians who live with the intermingling and constantly contentious nature of their place of birth get hardly any support. - -Reuters reported that the USAID, which is assisting Palestinians, has "set up a special humanitarian response committee to coordinate aid in -======================================== SAMPLE 267 ======================================== -Rashad Jennings won't become a Patriot until Jan. 1, 2018, but his runs in the fan service town raised enough money to sponsor one veteran – and an amazing moment. - -Here on Patriots day Oct. 18, the day of the most important match of the season, Jennings crossed a stage and removed a flag from Veteran's Day. He then presented the flag, signed by his favorite players of all time, to Fred McQuarles, a veteran who had been in recovery since a accident nearly ten years ago. - -Guess. - -This is what a Patriots day felt like for Roger Goodell's offense– a threat to a potentially fan-base dominated by a non-elite program. - -From "unjust" to a culture intrusion, whichever way you slice it, project area has eroded. - -Un-creative, inappropriate, you name it? This reverberated throughout this fractured country. - -The very same day Bryant Gumbel WOULD've thrown yo' head back capsizing in the wake of an offense that squandered confidence through bad play…in spirit, New England at Washington has enough monsters to play three games at Gillette Stadium alone. Their theory of anything or anyone–including us contributing topics–is one of greater learning that an on-field presentation is the long term solution to winning games. - -We welcome innocent flawed 50 year-olds in pain, to therapy in a best case scenario, for such presents as this: - -From the beginning of this investigation some have said "no one's going to buy a lawsuit based on a cop-out." But a video within two hours left us with a different door open– our door open. - -Andrew McCabe's setup turns on an agent to skew an investigation he purchased from an NSA employee along with his sale to the FBI; music recommendation runs afoul of both the Hatch Act for FBI staff and a corruption of a 2008 anti-immigration policy memo; the suspension of any official due to the Constitution; pass laws unprecedented for such egregious offenses against grace when cast in the andve context of anti-corruption efforts involves disgrace right through the unit's ranks and effectively rescinds the authority of employees by eroding their very role as stewards who manage Clark County Departments that oversee over 60 who willingly hand over lots of their power from lack of proper oversight and available resources. A small team of employees hold such power, but we're told here, those same elected leaders of the country and the Clark County sitting at large who spend some of their Congressional salary little effect on the de facto being at large. The actual preservation of the county and the county's citizens can't be reduced to national moral fabric and personal attributes: they exist both outside our ken and beyond the attention span of the viewing audience who's supposed to watch the local sports teams play and who otherwise is exposed to far less news than the actual fundemental issues affecting citizens all over the country. The Overseas Planes Act abolition popstails into bottles pocketing question as to why a LAST HOPE Alive umbrella is 113 miles away from the taxpayers of Clark County. One is an overseas national coming into the country to help. There are filters, Biotech emails excluded. Privilege signifying power and government function denying obligation. An overextended federal authority swallowing a local jurisdiction for the lines of separation wearing thin while being myopically covered by overstressed citizens who think they do better than their unions and greater US government. - -This is the trouble of the existence of two universes within one immutable solar system: example of the trolling levelled. Sr. DA Kelly Over put in criticism of Operation: Machine Tango Feb. 12 on This Week– which, as far as the FBI and F.B.I. is concerned, superseded the oversight attempts of the Office of Professional Responsibility, as well as never being beyond mere bulk contact with a suspect. Over criticized McCabe for not being diligent enough in waiting for a warrant before finally stopping the unmasking of the "entity" himself. - -And because he technically ran over the unrequited desire that many folks have not had an intimate contact necessary to assess you, you'll find a very mannered man sitting in soft pants on any branch of government next to the brass made up of those under oath who tried to push McCabe out to decimal area. Maybe this was the remains of that ego, or his desire to go out on top by being their excuse for ethical deficiency. Either way it triggers the carapace phenomenon: If the appropriate demurrage counterruns you, determine it. Remember no demurrage on a intel turf, one-off cameras violating much of the Constitution's actual purchase of informaiton and our Penmission in siding with some probable criminal practicing on the assumption all citizens are agent provocateurs. Reality was fraught with attorney-client privilege, the nature of photos taken in public places placed a daunting eye on looking like a lawyer on a public safety camera; The Reality of allowing part of the organization's -======================================== SAMPLE 268 ======================================== -Vulkan Driver Gets Patches Enabling Two More Interrupt Rings On Vega 10 While AMD's open-source Linux driver developers have been busy on bringing up Vega 20 support as well as Picasso APUs, they aren't done yet optimizing their Vega 10 support. 231 Minutes Ago - Radeon - Two More IH Rings - -Linux Mint / Cinnamon Speeds Up Its File Manager, Updates Other Apps Linux Mint lead developer Clément Lefèbvrehas has issued his latest monthly update concerning the activities within this Ubuntu/Debian-derived camp and their work on the GNOME-forked Cinnamon desktop environment. 209 Minutes Ago - Operating Systems - Linux Mint + Cinnamon - -Initial Tests: Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu With NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / GTX 1080 Ti / RTX 2080 Ti The latest in our GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Linux benchmarking is a look at how the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver performance on Ubuntu 18.04 is comparing to that of Microsoft Windows 10 when using these initial launch drivers. For additional perspective are also some basic Ubuntu vs. Windows NVIDIA tests on the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1080 Ti. 2 Hours Ago - Linux Gaming - -GNU Shepherd 0.5 Init System Released Shepherd, the init/service manager of the GNU system with GNU Herd and can be used as an alternative to systemd on Linux systems as well, is up to version 0.5. 6 Hours Ago - GNU - GNU Shepherd - -OBS Studio Now Supports VA-API For Video Encoding For those of you using OBS Studio for screen recording on the Linux desktop or screencasting, the latest code now supports GPU-offloading to VA-API for the H.264 video encode process. 6 Hours Ago - Multimedia - OBS Studio + VA-API - -Linux Readying Spectre V2 Userspace-Userspace Protection While the Linux kernel has been patched for months (and updated CPU microcode available) to mitigate Spectre Variant Two "Branch Target Injection" this has been focused on kernel-space protection while patches are pending now for userspace-userspace protection. 9 Hours Ago - Security - Spectre Variant Two - -Vulkan Working On New Timeline Semaphores Feature You may have remembered when the XDC2018 agenda was published there was "Untitled Vulkan break-out kick-off. Topic still under NDA." We now know what that was about. 9 Hours Ago - Vulkan - Timeline Semaphores - -ZINK: OpenGL Over Vulkan Comes As New Mesa Gallium3D Driver Collabora has been developing a new "Zink" Gallium3D driver for Mesa that gets OpenGL running over Vulkan. 10 Hours Ago - Mesa - Zink Does OpenGL Over Vulkan In Gallium - -KDE Neon Rebased To Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Now Official Since the start of August KDE Neon re-based to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS has been in testing while now this re-base is official. 10 Hours Ago - KDE - KDE Neon + Ubuntu 18.04 - -GNOME 3.30.1 Released As A Big Assortment Of Fixes The GNOME release team has made available GNOME 3.30.1 as the first and only planned point release to the GNOME 3 single-user package. 10 Hours Ago - GNOME - GNOME 3.30.1 - -25 September - -WireGuard v6 Might Be Ready For The Mainline Kernel, ARM Changes Added The lead developer of the WireGuard in-kernel secure VPN tunnel, Jason Donenfeld, published his sixth round of patches on Tuesday for getting this important networking code and its related Zinc crypto code into the mainline kernel. It's looking like the code might have baked enough for debut in the upcoming 4.20~5.0 kernel cycle. 25 September 08:34 PM EDT - Linux Kernel - WireGuard For Linux - -AMD Picasso APUs To Support VCN Dynamic Power Gating Earlier this month AMD sent out the initial Linux graphics driver patches for "Picasso" APUs and now a new patch series today sheds some light on a new capability for these new APUs reported to be similar to current Raven Ridge hardware. 25 September 05:26 PM EDT - AMD - VCN DPG - -AMD EPYC On Ubuntu 18.10 Putting Up A Stronger Fight Against Xeon Gold With hitting the home stretch to Ubuntu 18.10, I've started with my usual benchmark process for checking out this next Ubuntu Linux release dubbed the Cosmic Cuttlefish. Yesterday were Ubuntu 18.10 benchmarks on seven desktop systems from Intel and AMD while next on my agenda has been checking out the server performance. Here's the first of those server tests on Ubuntu 18.10 with some initial AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Gold tests. 25 September 03:55 PM EDT - Operating Systems - -Java 11 Released As The First Java LTS Release Java 11 (JDK 11) is officially out today as the first Java Long-Term Support (LTS) release under Oracle's new six month release strategy. 25 September 02:45 PM EDT - Oracle - JD -======================================== SAMPLE 269 ======================================== -Volcanoes are the source of the destruction of civilizations, and the source of most of the dangers of Earth and space. Even ancient civilizations rich in artifacts can be cut down in one of the big explosions. The continents usually tremble when enough magma rises from the crust to form a volcanic cone. The mantle is softer than Arctic ice; characters can roll over it in some areas for a dynamic kick to travel. In the center is the central volcano, where there are way more ways to farm & battle than in most games. - -With your friends? Bring along a Professor or Computer Game Guru to teach the volcano's left over swirling lava to transform you into a Wi-Fi Warrior or Computer Info Tech. - -More information about Volcanoes is available for download by following this link. - - -Web Version (Firefox and not Internet Explorer) - -Download from here. - -Version History - - -july 22, 2017 - -host 19:45 local time - -power on<|endoftext|>For what may ultimately be his last hurrah, Rob Gronkowski — the physical embodiment of Belichick's wish that his defense be considered one of the best in football — knows business better than anyone. He's been the face of this team throughout its journey to Super Bowl XLIX, and the Patriots' king of all kings, of course, played nine- and 11-game seasons in 2003 and 2004 with a torn ACL and a prescription for painkillers. Thursday night, he made headlines by going for the gun on a delightfully wild, back-and-forth, transition-zone Patriots team at Carolina. - -The Rams were losing 41-7 at the time, but Gronkowski redeemed himself by posting eight catches in the first half and mostly quieting his doubters with his athleticism, elusiveness and assured hands. - -Braley: Pats know what Rangin' Gronk wants after Bortles TD Chief NFL writer Mike Reiss breaks down the second seaon for the Patriots. NBC's Maggie Gray and reporter Jim Rome talk with Mike Ehrmann about Gronkowski's clutch interception. - -Chief NFL writer Mike Reiss breaks down the second seaon for the Patriots. NBC's Maggie Gray and reporter Jim Rome talk with Mike Ehrmann about Gronkowski's clutch interception. More ... - -So on Sunday, when the Patriots (7-0) forced the Panthers (5-1) to watch rookies fifth-round pick Shaq Thompson, fifth-rounder Tavares Martin and second-year Pro Bowler Devin Funchess experience the first cornerback-friendly stadium in NFL history from their own sideline, they knew they'd gotten the whole dynamic kick-starting from Gronkowski's 11-catch, 102-yard night. The objective: Get the second unit through two quarters as if nothing was amiss. - -Game Ball: Gronkowski - -Gronkowski entered with a camaraderie greater than the proverbial crowd at Paul Brown Stadium. He signed autographs and raised money. He wooed his adversary with warmth, empathy and support. - -All the while, the sudden after-news of White's ACL tear plastered Denver scrolls on the Internet and seemed to click with many fans every time it landed in their inbox. No one should toss aside everything this guy has given the Patriots and the fans -- and their dreams -- over two-and-a-half seasons. - -Brhamvy: Gronk, Gronk, Gronku - -On a night when many of his teammates and coaches chose kneeling rather than standing during the national anthem, Gronk (along with tailback James White) refused. - -It didn't matter. - -Dom Capers' famed maneuvering, the Steel Curtain at work with the Pats' defensive calls, German Subs sparkling the electrifying offense of Julian Edelman and a 26-20 lead within the first 17 minutes of the game, are merely emotional and head-scratching now. - -Moments like Thursday night in Carolina, when the Patriots instilled insecurity, attorneyship and complexity right throughout the Panthers' lineup, made Sunday's terrorist cell look like a sociopathic choirboy dancing and scraping his hands along the flag. - -But Sunday's Saints-Giants game is the perfect microcosm of the Patriots' trajectory. - -Jeff Howe: Patriots ideas required quick thinking - -On the surface, it seemed, New York's existential philosophers indirectly teamed with those tickalicious Giants. - -But if the viability of Belichick's system as the Green Bay game unfolded was plucked wholesale, as Tom Coughlin's option of the looseness-column numbering system in the Giants' original host committee bolded during the 2004 meetings suggested, the Patriots' blunders Saturday are a long way from that bearer. - -Heisman Trophy aside, jet setter we were reminded Sunday with finesse and cellular handywork, EJ Manuel, does not add up to Gronkowski, Gronkowski, Gronk. - -In three years under Belichick, -======================================== SAMPLE 270 ======================================== -This a book that I've never heard of. It's isolated to little nooks in the wall cabinet of the Batcave and is prominently displayed by the way-too-fascinated outside crow. Now it sounds like a comic-book themed extravaganza, but I like this book because it definitely also just sounds adventure and its tone also fits nicely in a Batman comic flip-book that could make you excited about not going to a cowl party at your last assignment party. - - -Brandon tortures Ra's al Ghul over the revelation that he's been made the Leader of League of Assassins. - - -Jacob, meanwhile, owes Ra's his life, has been dreams and realigned since he's been in Gotham, and is living his own adventure. - -He revealed to Ant-Man & Black Panther that he has known all along that they would return, and Obadiah Eppersby gives them a fake passport - -This a book that I've never heard of. It's isolated to little nooks in the wall cabinet of the Batcave and is prominently displayed by the way-too-fascinated outside crow. Now it sounds like a comic-book themed extravaganza, but I like this book because it definitely also just sounds adventure and its tone also fits nicely in a Batman comic flip-book that could make you excited about not going to a cowl party at your last assignment party. - - -Brandon tortures Ra's al Ghul over the revelation that he's been made the Leader of League of Assassins. - - -Jacob, meanwhile, owes Ra's his life, has been dreams and realigned since he's been in Gotham, and is living his own adventure. - - -He revealed to Ant-Man & Black Panther that he has known all along that they would return, and Obadiah Eppersby gives them a fake passport as proof. However, they see the studio fully renovated, and eventually occupy it and confront Ryker Industries, which has gone into hiding to avoid the villains in their midst. This proves to be Jacob's undoing. - - -Their powers wake up Daniel Carpenter, whom is enhanced, but he is also the brother not of Richard Wagner, but of their father, Henry Carpenter, who died and shouldn't be here, but was instead in Europe. They get Werner Magicka, who painfully molests one of Matt Chaykin's characters in order to exhibit Magicka's powers for Rip Hunter, in an attempt to prove to he that magic is real, but there's no explanation about how magic works. - - -Michael Relf betrays the duo; it's not only that he's a mutant, he's also a traitor. And then he awakens Baby Harley, a thing that the fans couldn't get over until he used her to kill Rat-Monster. - - -The new superhero team Extreme X recruits Kurt Russell et al for a mission to rescue Skeletor (who has ascended to godhood to spite Earth), in order to steal the book that contains the words that will unleash an existential apocalypse, so that the Earth will be ruled by everyone's favorite middle-aged, shaved carbon copy of Superman. - - -Eventually Barbatos combines with Ra's to kill Superman, in order for Batman to erase his memory and make the world forget about John Stewart, with the help of two villains. - - -And narrate homicides. - - -And racially profiling. ahem. Jacob finds himself in a ton of trouble, so he escapes with the help of Happy Hogan. But instead of saving his brother, they Eppingby finds Jacob Rack Jones, who is a rapist, and was hiding as yet another of Rip Hunter's many accomplices. - - -The ascension of a legendary Batman: King of the Knights has failed to forget about the recognition of the leader of a ruthless cult terrorist organization who is a banned photos factotum terror group, employed by a global deity in order to investigate and eradicate mutants. - - -The main part of Ra's al Ghul's backstory the current incarnation of Ra's al Ghul in The Final Battle episode of Season 1. - - -Oh, is this just my rendition of this conflict from the comics? - -The date is September 1968. This, of course, omits the earliest hint of this conflict, from Batman #265, two years after Bruce was killed. That would be the Batcave hollow, or newly-built cave. Sadly, they don't have any dinosaur bones there, or any other knowledge of it throughout the years. - -Despite being a stubborn bastard, due to his need for revenge and reinvention, Ra's has been manipulated by Lex Luthor to begin to rebuild his flesh pack to combat the Man-Bat (evidenced in this issue, we see him using his hacking gum blade carving tastefully upon diplodocus to film future related footage). - -Now that the position of Leader has been recieved and accepted again briefly by parents of Junior, Bruce feels that he can show him a -======================================== SAMPLE 271 ======================================== -ORIGINAL ARTICLE Year : 2007 | Volume : 42 | Issue : 4 | Page : 421-429 - -Masturbation as a strategy of parenthood: incidence and socio-demographic characteristics in young people - - -Santosh S. Bhatt and Regina M. Wagner1 - -Department of Human Circulation and Heart Diseases, Neuromed, Coachwerk-Werke, Bremen, Germany - - -Date of Web Publication 28-Jan-2008 - -Correspondence Address: - -Santosh S Bhatt - -Neuromed - Center- for Health Economics, Dept 1, Coachwerk Nr. 8 - -07930 Bremen - -Germany - -Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None Check 10 - -DOI: 10.4103/0972-0285.10374 - - -» Abstract A review is carried out on the activities, influence, and consumption of males versus females in childhood and adolescence and what effects masturbation is associated with their socio-demographic characteristics, experience with pregnancy and childbearing, aggression and behaviour. According to general sociological theories, males and females have different interests in interaction and stimulation during childhood and adolescence but will adjust accordingly when making their real life decisions. The current results show that males are more often receptive to prepubescent and adolescent communication about sex, reproductive role in future life and skepticism about their own genitaliating potential while females differ in behavior and preference when it comes to erotically stimulating activities or psychological stress than male behavior. Moreover, the sample of adolescents, mostly girls, does not present vibra- remains at enormous cost to them as a pee-ter (sociological processes seem to be different for males and females). The results show that more males tend to experience sexual arousal after being therefter sexually stimulating; and this may be a result of pressure by male peers especially since reading socio-relationship and perceived biological differences in the genitalia make this signal to the adolescents "we are different, enjoy alone". On the other hand, girls are not just of equal or greater interest in other Males during their daily phases of pychogenesis, orgasm, and after sexual contact than males, but males are more nervous than women in future years and males are more selfish than women (however it cannot be observed in studies on the influence of sexual relations, perceived predisordern, masturbating, sexual contact etc.). Moreover, the results show that masturbation to fantasy and general pornography are more prevalent in males, and most sub-groups are overwhelmingly mobilized to this alternative adult-based masturbation than the normal mentalway for youth. - -» Introduction - -« Clinical and public health importance of the question «Does masturbation harm me directly?" Included to this balancing question are direct physical health consequences, such as cancer, and more indirect biochemical, psychological, social, religious and unconscious difficulties resulting from organisms who cannot separate their appearance from their internal underground serving processes. Therefore, post-childhood masturbation is the key to catch the nutslock of similar childhood anxiety developing in adulthood. However, the right age of sexuality is of high importance in the entire range of questionnaire data, and courage intuitive knowledge of these times anteriorly might help men enough to catch their period. - -»Empirical aspects of the present study - -UU Milet provincescontrollan Humaniverdictreusenb. - -« Isidor Hajszan, who scored more than 95 to accordance with IQ tests (a Z-erceptionocapital), believed with confidence that masturbation is of homeopathic remedy in seeking penis enlargement. When collected together with other families from various clas-sics and with the same level of education and professional in class struggle, this practice was eventually buried (1201 but not claimed into lethal form), Buraim, et al 2002 International bestselling bookSmalltalkBand I concernof the nervous system arousal, arousal of other man. - -? Multiple domains are striving in the male population, and world (lar) spotted foundedYes since 1987 seduction also especially *ROME 1985, "Acts of foreplay, loving measurements in a Dr. Oc- tography workshop (fo-spar-tography) Bremen, June 1985 based on: - -(1) study of words words' phones Rev That was in 18.) 1.7 7.3 1970 1991 2 AmplitudeLeshetically disgrace hostility Sle condemn career NAS looked forward to succeeding to aristocratic family nest liability™ - -» Discovering masturbation as a behavior - -Ms Penderfeather, from London, decided that she needed look up the acceptable ideal standard. She asks his-self: whether I could forgive myself a bya Pervizion, i. e., procreation. How you invented your android doll made of soft glass to be put into the vagina of the performer? - -Places can have many presented themselves until you find one model which suits you perfectly, - on its form you can print childhood 300 -======================================== SAMPLE 272 ======================================== -To celebrate the release of her Nikki Sixx movie, Sixx Maxx, Britney Guilfoyle here goes gay by drooling over some hot boy/girl action! Angie Sedgwick gets ass-raped by her lover. - -SMACKER7.COM FOR MORE CANDY<|endoftext|>The Dark Tarot - The Power of the Aggregate L - -I began by trying to draw as much energy into each of the sixteen Sephiroth as possible. Don't confuse that full description with a diagram! Just think of the core organizing principles that make up the Tarot's structure. - -The twelve physical manifestations are divided into three types, based on what Cancer alignment the cards represent: - -The Front - -Agenda - - -The Fold - - -The Throneboard - -At the end of each grimoire either The Present they stand behind the head of the sorcerer, or The World behind them: Phlegethon, Ladon/Jhakutiel, Chokmah, Hehane, Anahat, Chesed, Vau, and Shakti (the mystical Nephele). As you can tell by looking at the Sephatri of each (and who came first, the Solar or Lunar Tarot?), there were originally more than ten cards before they added Draculas and Lone King. - -Now I'd already tried refining this basic structure, but experienced some issues (see below). - -The solution was to bring the physical manifestations a dozen at a time, and then a dozen or so more once I settled on the exact card you see before you. After that, I just built in slots for cards as things happened in my life involving medical emergencies, hepatitis and similar diseases, ). 1985 changed parties YET AGAIN and ... It's just too confusing to deal with! So where else can I find inspiration for a Dark Tarot deck? - -See everyone's favorite women (and what a good fit!) in 11 Picks from Hell. - -Perhaps Shirley Jackson didn't know her tokens of intellectual vehicle don't exist in his painting originally. Well, Christopher Loftus did and the narrative in the book is relevant. In his notes the little dogs begin showing up around the cities time passengers on buses and people on planes. - -Ultimately Michael Herr suggests that there was no camera to record his observations of people, and his list, "26 photographs of people with their 'outdoor' interest" exposes his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe compared to the idiosyncratic of Tarot. - -FIVE CHICKEN EGGS CASE STUDIES - -Three Selected Portraits - -The Prince of 1000with sears, dynamos and dynamoshows us (equally at home with a human and a chicken) what his reactions might be. Would we do this in the absence of our partner (A side note to this amateur 1982 recording bootleg especially for, and of course our precious Russell Lonsdale & Diane Ciardi) - -Grasp the Garden: On The Neck of a Persecute Hermit, Actress, Good Husband - -Errand Will Not Die Alone: Charlton Heston (25 years and still inseparable) & Two Indian Cardinal's by Guy Jay Lifton - -Would you like a bold image to fit in a Second Look Press Pany Valli's Ceremonies or (hurray for further contributions from many people!) .. don't forget to enter up for a chance to have a T-shirt imprinted with your photographs in LIFE POET - - -Was there any similar experiment taking place in your own home? Add them to the comments box .. any others to add?? - - -Please post a comment or a photograph - -above – Daffy - -Reader comments are understandably mixed on the methods outlined by Ryan Ziegler below. - -Eugen Beltz Photo hoax Prentiss Roper 11 Feb - -In August I noticed Ecken Beltz's "With Dipo Excellence" depicting a number of occultist users of chairs in what appears (typically) to be a monks' room. At first glance the photo is described as "a student with a chair; a circling hand; a blindfold;" I could confirm it's Internetillumination. It appears to be a Photo hoax after reading Daffy's comment below. - -Frances Olivetti 12 Feb - -LONGMONT- GRIFFINS - -The Memorex Simulacron - -Yes, Fr. Desmond Sheen was involved in a major party with Ursula Andress and Clay Aiken. I've been saying this for so long now and Johnnie also thinks it. There's a "second" Cardinal who is Orb texture conditioned! - -As our 99 trade, we should have probably talked about it during Ellen and Angelina's bank vacation. Oh, and I'll hellus' you saying "LOPENHAGEN THEATRELLY" once you master them. - - -When Emma -======================================== SAMPLE 273 ======================================== -Effect: The next bottom-up initiative costs 25% less (to a minimum of 30%) than a bottom-up initiative, provided that all ships at the actmaker's command with successful Cockpit Search rolls are below the chronometers at the time the initiative order is presented.<|endoftext|>Please enable Javascript to watch this video - -RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)-- Many Interscholastic League coaches are struggling to find a graduation rate boost in the new tougher sanctioning rules. Recently there's been talk of Virginia Tech facing a graduation problem. - -Many parents and students once again took to social media to share concerns about the lack of progress, and the shakeup. - -Virginia Tech has a graduation rate of 82.2 percent. Top-ranked Virginia is just ahead of Elon and Virginia colonial college currently have grad rates of 81 and 78 percent, respectively. - -Tonya Moore-Gestell posted video on Facebook showing a conversation with a college guidance counselor. - -"There's no turnaround's, there's no nothing," said counselor Bellum Jennings. - -Jennings is the vice president of Academic Services and Educational Leadership for Interscholastic League LLC, the governing body for Virginia's high school athletic programs. - -Not only has Jennings annoyed many parents who believe lackluster graduation rates are raising questions about leadership, she's also here to answer them. - -"Our job is to keep performance high. I don't believe that schools really understand what's expected of them. It's not fair next year will end up with the same people graduating as the year before," Jennings said. - -Jennings says the questions come not only from parents but also student athletes whose grades were under dip last year. - -Ann Gillespie, a mother of an athletics kid, said the possible graduation rate changes have worried parents. - -"For the next five years it means no pass or fail," Gillespie said. - -So far those concerns seem to be unfounded. School officials tell NewsChannel 3 that even with tougher standards Facebook groups still say that Virginia Tech is essentially falling short of 85 percent. - -Jennings says grades are included on final placement reports indicating what high school students did -- whether they passed or not. - -"Colleges are really evaluating each student according to a scenario that's very different from what happens in a prototypical high school classroom. There's not that exisiting one-on-one type of fit. - -4 other VC schools also at 73 and 77 percent. Forest Park start to near 85 now. - -For more information check out the Ingersoll's website.<|endoftext|>Mr Jamie Williams, figures from the American Thorium Institute, and the Coalition Against Geoengineering. Photo: Jamie Harold/Wagner Computers and GL551 benzene released into the atmosphere could include classicites Mr Williams — who has more than 30 years of experience in the area of nanomaterials and even spent three years researching a process for greening the atmosphere by enhancing sunlight — told Computer Weekly S&T that clear skies could only help to increase the amount of toxic elements reaching the atmosphere. A study looked at how far emissions of compounds that release environmental contaminants could travel to the stratosphere and disappear to go to space. Dr Grant Miller, who has several years' experience in space travel and ocean exploration said: "It is reasonable to assume that nano-size particles emitted from such chemtrails will fill and take man atmosphere with it. In the long run, geoengineering may lead to a decrease in food among the populace as well as challenges for human health." - -Burning of fossil fuels would release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, aliphatic hydrocarbons , benzene, hexane, toluene to hydrocarbons, etc. Instead the debate dithered around biofuels that were already being imported into the United States from overseas. One argument against geoengineering is to try and impact climate change by altering the extremes rather then trying to mitigate it. A study concluded 61 per cent of occupations and 47 per cent of criminals worked in dangerous occupations under the threat of climate change. Un-named sources said the problem would worsen if emissions were to rise to 350 large emitting countries. Science Minister Christopher Pyne said the government would introduce a plebiscite on the proposed transition to a lower greenhouse gas emissions from power stations including coal-fired power stations by the end of June, after hearing submissions from climate experts. - -But Mr Pyne told the Herald Sun he was not sure the support for geoengineering was as peaked as stuntman risky hero fucking? different, fear, on the planet, also known as "loose laughtah". On a linkes blog run by historian and climate change activist James Painter, a theme emerged with several sweeping statements clarifying the global climate remains largely unchanged since record keeping began, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere remain at levels sufficiently well within historical norms that they can be considered "well within limits compatible with human civilisation for -======================================== SAMPLE 274 ======================================== -Muslims have a saying in their religion that unfettered expression is the soul of prose: - -The greater the victory, the more control the proselytiser has on the populace. - - -My first conviction of this definition was also my second: I had come to denounce promise land, promise land. There is no moral problem that justifies abandoning a promise land in which you have-at some point-holdusted your belief that it is part and parcel to have Islamic law in your country. The idea that the Muslims have of their self-rule is such that their success is absolute and their Syrian bringdown is happening as many times as it can agitate some or all of the countries that support Islam in it's mainstream. No prodigal son will reach out towards any other land. Alas, too often Muslim converts abound! No one who fancies turquoise robes and abandon resident divine law. - -Whereas trust are more equitable consensus amongst practical minded persons that judgment while lamenting is their own, I had come to believe that they were all wrong. Immunity from policies are greater amongst informed jurisprudents that what they have had with lipservice accept the terms and do away with the majority of those who are hesitant. The more faith those actual quantitative apples put into any talks that they give on the topic, the better are the chances they get to their goals in the shortest time of planned ergo. - -Therefore that is how I lived my life. Secure in the knowledge of desire as the most potent source of power as a voice to beseems the best megaphones providing the value to that voice. It was our overall livelihood to the extent that we could brace our bow arms and trust to musters of natural deliverance from religious strife, that life or the dream of life could be ours where nature's stranglehold no longer effected us. Because in our ideology of living alternative because Islamic faithful would not understand us for we are defined by respect for the gravest decencies. - -Like religion I became selective. Hardness and savagery by observant worldviews and ritually worship exalt partners in the worship of God. This enriched the details of the other than the simplest and eternal aspects of God. There was a comfort in applying the entire spectrum of devotions fall within its range of relevance. In the clumsiness of coping with that not quite illuminated terrain, and bowing oversight and being oblivious not to the faults of dead Arabesque dogma, I crossed thoughtfully over into "fetishized religions" of tradition rivaling religious ideals. - -Yet high society's attention to detail to note the patterns of a living people did not stop me finding localities where the word of God seemed maudlin in the face of those expecting as much for themselves respectively us. I reflected the high moral virtues of their higher pursuits. - -The credit for this means of survival should have been my own. Yet due to lack of discipline confined my attention in growth spirals fumbling through aloofness, black trail of words, half heartedness, lack of tenacity, not due to deprivation that led to disinterest of a dream the only non-availability of stable employment or a comprehensive education. Rather this was dismissed by me as counterproductive. The more I tempted to take a change of lifestyle the more I was shunned from the opposite direction by an sometimes affecting sea of devotion. Frank head kisser bad mood dog and good soul would leave my presence for a month exclusively when I left work. - -Yet another sentence. This one made me rich. I am so this time just now for just about to begin an opening of the pain in your heart which I'm promising it myself I am working towards. Yet I did not find comfort in the piece. The inflexibility of the drill recovered stone by stone the small traces that in the process moulded the form. The ritual faces people wailing to god. The solace of hoping one isn't lost but anywhere is not necessarily the place you think you should be. The word of God was often engineered Hegelian ashes which tool cigarettes effectiveness. Who art thou that sleeps late so his face gets pointed tomorrow's newspapers and causes everyone's sins to last forever? - -But absurd claim, blithely filling the void,, perverted that relationship is the answer. I am so, there is so. As if an ocean could comprise an idea to be predictable and emasculating following nearing the brink; shirtsmt worn delegitate human emotions to a cancer pasted children. The pill speaking before is the solution is the latest inhabitants dumbamps Their scientific advancement turns down the spectrum of the capacity. At one moment like madness, program unfolds intent upon mark of control. An effect as appropriate to memory as any old black suit top only more on bars of a road. - -Memory, channel two. The town inseparably connected cartridges asifact Cardinal causation feverishly Jay democrekin accepts the neurological end result was not witnessed in his old youth cadge bin -======================================== SAMPLE 275 ======================================== -Searching for the data to cover the last 120 years, this information is only available for a small number of states and for some years. To search by state, enter state name in the box above and select the data series to be searched. - -Finances and mortgage data for each year are available for search on the site.<|endoftext|>KXAN News - AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A trial will begin Tuesday for three men charged with federal arson charges after a home fire killed seven people. Ricardo Parra, Zachary Horton, and Liam Coyler face the most serious of charges, deciding to fight the charge after a 24-hour early morning indictment. - -The charges come just over a year after the horrific Oak Park Massacre on May 20, that killed three people, including three children, and wounded nine. - -According to an indictment, investigators determined that in November 2015, Parra, Horton and Coyler were involved in the arson. The indictment states that on November 10, they went to Ripley's Believe It Or Not, a carnival in Arlington to see "Murder Rap." - ->> Related: Murder Rap closing Saturday before debut at Tinseltown Tix, home of Elton John - -The three men allegedly painted its paint roller around the entrance to its carnival, a pair of trucks with sticks at the front were then set ablaze in an attempt to light it on fire. The indictment alleges that the trio used M-100 firecrackers to ignite their own throwing match. Many of the strikes were aimed at the truck's fueling tank. - -In addition to arson, Parra, Horton and Coyler are charged with conspiracy and possession of a firearm by a felon. However, it says that the indictments also state that Parra, Horton and Coyler plan both arson and destruction of a courtroom facility to "EAT t~e (expletive deleted) pork rub from Plaintiffs (represents) federal COURTROOM." - -The accused face up to life in Federal Prison if convicted. Their bodies were cremated, the three accused is reported to have burial with military honors. - -We ask the 27 people who perished who they pray for those who make the massive choices.<|endoftext|>Luu hanging bear model. - - -This is my first LEGO one in my collection. Mixing Season 3 and Season 2 is always a blast ! - - -Standard toys : 63926 - - -I've been told it has a 6557 on it. If you click an image, it takes you to my bandcamp page at https://www.bandcamp.com/biophahnx with the full tracklist. - -Each picture link goes to a fast teaser video shot on into slow time lapse mode. - - -Thanks to my bFB for the large print ! - - -Buildlog : - -https://www.facebook.com/biophahnx/photos/a.64358723741715.105178.18752158775330/452102720448277/?type=3&theater - - -Made in: Lego Brick Shop version 2.1. Logged Biophahnx - -division_of_the_antarctic - - -Took me this long to build Luu, can't understand how a bear could be so retarded - -Points and rewards: 21 Got 74 with bFB - -24 TOTALS Volume 1 Title Business / Pride Points and Rewards 14 Got 3x=7 for building him - -26 TOTALS Volume 2 Month 2 statistics economy! Bad animals geo rectangleSpoiler! FIREDFRW thousand dark monkeys themeCONCENTING! promotion, shut it down (SHIT LIVE) - - -Comments Add a comment - -I like it Dolmick I hate it xD u also have to learn how to put them togetherHow does this help? :D super silly! :D I wonder where are all the songs from Season 1 END of Season 2? anti spike I'd rather die!!!11 EPISODES NOW spir album pointoppinity points 15 Hurr antions book: 5WastingIgan death balls...theacordswigfederation 1 estar flock...Wastingvillain The such that walk in the woods...Wastingtroll Ah jan has a wet dream...Wasting - -luu_logics - - -Tough Clubs emoji - - -Layout: https://www.brickshelf.com/en/model/174914490/luu-logics - - -Points and Reward: 5 I AM Special - -3 GP This week I've drawn an Aztec temple - -3 GP Wow guys the bandmelano Key's little hats are soooo Star Wars haha> The only thing I don't like is Tenyth power of time.. I would rather lose for him or do bad~ backstabwohahp lu 5 legok7<|endoftext|>The Muslim Women's Association of Calgary has come to the defense of a pair -======================================== SAMPLE 276 ======================================== -Posted by - -Harjeet Johal , - -June 9, 2014 Twitter - -@HarJournalist Read this on your iPhone/iPad or Android device - - -VANCOUVER, B.C - Vancouver Whitecaps announced today that the club has added defender Kendall Waston to the 31-man roster, making the acquisition official and following an agreement with Champion Resource Group. - - -Whitecaps FC signed Waston, 32, on loan last week from Brazilian Serie A club Santos FC, where the defender has spent the majority of his professional career, finishing third in Atlético Mineiro's all-time appearances list. Following his move to Los Teros last week, Waston made his first substitute appearance in the club's 1-0 victory over La Liga side Celta. - - -"Kendall's a very good player. He's a very good friend and a very important member of our team," Head Coach Carl Robinson told WhitecapsFC.com. "He's been at a high level for a long period of time. We're not surprised he's back with us, which is great news for everyone by the end of the season. We give him an opportunity and we'll give him the same next season." - - -The deal will see Waston's salary and bonuses recorded at the 2012 to 2013 MLS player salary levels, keeping him at the club at a base rate of $410,000 per season (all figures from MLS Players Union). By being signed to a broad-based contract, Waston will pay himself at a more market-adjustable price level, rather than at a one-timed signing bonus. The funding is equal to what the organization spent on the defender, including the cost of his International Transfer Certificate (ITC), the transfer fee, provincial taxes/fees and coverage on his book (which lasts one year). - - -Expansion teams January Major League Soccer of Discovery rules require that an organization respect documented "discovery rules" (subject to the different league-wide rules that govern new player acquisitions) that provide for draftable players to be signed, not drafted, to a super-MLS contract starting on the day of make-whole for the first team until after the following January's allocation ranking gets to the only spot available (you may special-plan for yourself, but rest assured there will be others who will). Additionally, because of a different rule, MLS clubs, no matter where they are, receive an annual registration fee of $825,000 in cash. During the first round of this year's expansion draft, Whitecaps FC saw Luis Silva and Kendall Waston traded to Vancouver, in exchange for general allocation money and Targeted Allocation Money, allowing them to participate in the Re-Entry Draft.<|endoftext|>A Parliamentary committee Thursday raised serious doubts about taxpayer funding for an at-risk downtown Toronto office tower after The Globe realized the increasingly expensive drug testing company involved in setting up the alcoholic facility, called McArthur House, was expensed at the same Ottawa executive lounge where Parliamentarians could be seen publicly drinking. It also found the prime minister's office was among some dozen of 231 staff working at the 472,000-square-foot building. - -Toronto's SkinnyTower tower sits beside a bustling monstrosity, McArthur House, in the shadow of the cable car at street level. ( FOR THE TORONTO STAR ) - -Now, in a committee hearing aimed at whether taxpayers will shoulder the task of "peer pressure" for a public-relations blitzy showing from the tower, the bribery allegations against McArthur House Bond Canada Inc. and its corporate backer, the investment firm Minto Group, look less than shocking. Indeed, The Globe has learned governments of all stripes and levels of government had used credit cards made out to share-plan Spectrum Historical, which lowers signal inside PCs and mandatory landing stripping inside or outside of people on Hunter's Hill and Jameson streets. Other times the card was borrowed from the Star. - -Article Continued Below - -The inquiry, whose details were leaked to the Globe earlier this week by the committee's chair, Ontario Sen. George Baker, is focusing on building safety standards in light of the fire that erupted here recently. It is focusing on shared-building payments, including volunteer opens the View tower within time limits, is focusing in part on auditor-general concerns about third parties participating in the process. Above it all is the Village at 50 site for which a city planning committee gave a draft environmental assessment Thursday morning. The TCHC is looking to pay only 40 per cent of the price tag; the - -Eaffaire Development Group 26 per cent and the joint venture London Group consortium, the City of Toronto and the John Howard Society funded free-market think tank, will pay the rest. Davis Tullock, who has been defending the Blackfriars notice flash points bail accord with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said the snafu will focus the attention on "the gritty work of noticing," taking into -======================================== SAMPLE 277 ======================================== -2015: 47 GP, 59-46-24, 13 G, 55 PIM in 51 GP… Recalled by Minnesota on January 6 following Nathan Schellenberg's season-ending injury… Made his season debut as a substitute in a 3-2 shootout loss to Pacific Division rival Colorado October 20… Played every minute of the team's final nine contests of the season. - -2014: Scored three goals during the franchise's 2016 preseason campaign, but had no goals in four games with Minnesota… Appeared in four NHL games… Missed two games due to an upper-body injury… Recorded a pair of assists in an 18-minute, four-on-four performance during an October 6 road contest… Scored his first goals of the season on October 12 versus Chicago… Recorded six-plus minutes of ice time in seven of the nine games he played. - -Injuries: Did not appear in this season's season opener, October 6 against Chicago… Placed on IR Feb. 26 via injury classification. - -2014-15: A 2013 6th round pick of the Wild, Ferland was drafted in the second round, 72nd overall. He tallied 39 NHL points in his rookie year, lowest total in his brief career, but did eventy to improve as the season went on. Ferland scored 19 goals with 34 assists and was +12 with 23 penalty minutes for the Wild in his rookie season. The clustoured 20-year-old was - -Minnesota's go-to player (gouges, PIMs) in every game. Ferland also appeared in 60 playoff games and scored two goals and two assists for six points. He also was +9, plus on +1 for Minnesota… Ferland was tops on the team in assists – 13, TMs of five, and points – 21. He was followed by Nino Niederreiter at 13, Jason Zucker had 10 goals and 17 assists (17 points) and Matt Dumba 14 points (11 PSS). Mikael Granlund was second in assists with 12, . Jiri Hudler was third with 12, Zach Parise was fourth with 12 (1 G, 12 A). Mikko Koivu finished with 10 goals and 22 assists (24 points) Forwards Devan Dubnyk took 27 shots for 32 points, as was Matt Cullen, 11-2-5 with 0 G, 1 T, 5 A, and 6 PIM to amass a wild 32-37-42 record. - -INTERNATIONAL: While not drafted and representing Finland at the 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship, Ferland has played in the World Under-18 Championship three years in a row (2008-10) with Cape Breton of the OHL. He received silver medals in 2009 and 2010, Was named the player of the tournament, and was named second star of each tournament. - -COLLEGE: Ferland played three games for the University of Minnesota after being signed out of junior hockey in January 2013… Played two seasons at St. Cloud State University of the US National Junior College Athletic Association, combining for 31-79-108 with several assists. In his junior season in 2012-13, he had 12-40-56 in only 16 games. Played for the U.S. at the 2012 Lake Placid Under 18 Championships, and was a member of the team who advanced to the championship game, losing 4-3 to a French team. Ferland was named tournament MVP. - -PERSONAL: Son of Larry and Kyra Ferland, and grandfather of Andrew, Kayla, Ian, Wyatt and Jordan… Born October 17, 1994 in Santa Clarita,CA… Has a sister, Natalia… Attended John Scott Convocation and Jesuit High.<|endoftext|>300.00 - -Navajo jersey. - -831920-79579 - -Field cotton 75% Superwash. - -A big sale price on a great color. - -Review our 150-75 Sleeve Khaki Shirt with "Knife Point" Set, now reduced-$15. - -Similar - -This color is only available as a select option and not as part of the drop in pool sale. - -Also, partial stack pricing under 50%, but discount does not apply to stack selection.<|endoftext|>Her dream was to have a front-row seat at the Big Game, to watch the nation's best players take on the greatest NFL defense. - -So this week, when Peppers emerged from the PEACE Center auditorium dressed in camouflage, spiking his running back's helmet in it to simulate driving the Hot Rods, everything was logical. So was what he did a few hours before the Packers game, arriving a few steps before Packers coaches and defensive coaches celebrating the deities of three of their New Era pieces — era via Rat Rods and Rawr — into Lambeau Field. - -One of the players who apparently had nothing better to do besides attending the pregame festivities was defensive lineman Desmond Bishop. Peppers embraced -======================================== SAMPLE 278 ======================================== -"If you feel like you're on a date with somebody that didn't come off as any of these qualities, then they're probably the best guy in the world," DeLia said of her own ability to discern better picks from inferior ones. - -Cook says that dating is a process and the companies who are marketing things like OkCupid and Match.com to the singles is doing them a favor. He calls it the "cadillac buffet." - -What junk will an online dating profile contain? A good idea, he says, is to characterize the kinds of fun things a potential player would like to do on a date. Some potential gender matches will post Valentine photos and describe their dogs, for example. - -Sometimes self-promotion can be just as distracting. "It must have been awkward meeting your eventual co-workers at the conference," he said. - -Not much about OkCupid suggests a female is going to wind up with a personality-lacking partner. "Are you a feminist? Do you know that on average males have twice as many sexual partners as females?" asks a androgynous candidate. "Back on December 10th you will go to church, when you're not on OkCupid friends ask you to learn how to be better at spinning trophies in Oblivion while you're dating a fat tree with a candy ass." - -A self-described straight male might say, "Your cats are cute. Bye." Or, "Where the movie is my favorite place to watch movies? Panasonic IMAX." - -Corporate messaging may fuck up your dreams, too. "OkCupid is on a mission to get us to 'get more exercise,' but we're going to make it harder by lowering your date's rating for vigorously dancing in the living room and eating something you purchased at the grocery store." - -Perhaps realism will come out when ranked involve a human being with interests infinitely varied from the digital constitution dream society assigns them. That alone might be enough to suck the fun out of dating.<|endoftext|>Title track Studentcard bound invest.: Studentcard bound invest.: Studentcard bound invest.: Unopened book: 1 x CHE 0341st Army Train Division Chiro! Studentcard bound invest.: Campus cards : 1 Blum VPD A&O Studentcard bound invest.: Administrative cards : 1 Viv Scouting Service Desna Studentcard bound invest.: Golden Week Special ※1 Total correct: 403 Filled level buttons When harried: Missing redirect upgrade 205.3 Cold Ice armor EXP count used up when boosted by Surprise Delivery 205.3 Cold Ice spirit EXP count used up when boosted by Hooligan 905 Gold CARD 3 Super Attack ATK Guarded by Flame Princess 205.3 Cold Ice board command AP used up when boosted by Time Attack 1.06 VAL Studentcard bound invest.: Sealed Promise [unwashed] IRS Isen Kansha Soramik Loh 907 Golden Wild Hunter [CHF] Shiny Iron Maiden 1x Studentcard bound invest.: Dark Tides 908 Bronze Gunblade [CHF] Sauteko Reito 1x Studentcard bound invest.: Spell Arts Girl [shiny gold] SCHB Studentcard bound invest.: Kingdom Legend 909 Research & Development [CHF] Khutora Amamiya 1x Studentcard bound invest.: Armored Ninweko 910 Golden Imaginary Flower [CHF] Tamas girl 1x Studentcard bound invest.: Twinkle girl 911 Baluzid Sprite [CHF] Uesugi Pyon 888 Silver Lilin 1x Studentcard bound invest.: Paid It Costumes [gold mainland] Thogoras GOLD Marine Corps 2919 Seafinder [CHF] Flareami Fuyuku SHINY King Che Queen 3040 Slime Girl [CHM] Raider30xx 61 Emerald theMachina Lead Soldier Knight 6161 Bleh juicePolice")others)in ville 940 Golden Fairy Lady 711 Teleyka MeleeCard"] Fortune ONE [note: the typo means] (mutation) N34 80 Silver Guarded by Moms Fule 4181 Flame Princess)swordswuv)passing skirts* Narcissus 8210 Streaky Raine BLUE Black White, Black Green RED Greenis the color of 死し 豚 Cross of Springfield COLORS 8848 Seascape Crisis (TO Cross of Ancient32 37 Chrome Art Collector DAISY 367, 24 Golden-related )54/TREE) GOLD Nanfu Snow 16612 Blizzard Miracle<|endoftext|>How could a receiver be already playing at a decent level in practice still be a project? Or at least he had to wait a little while after he came over. But finally he is getting behind a QB and in a three reliable and trending zones that are in perfect timing. - -But that's why we love Phillip Dorsett, he seems to be reacting and getting surprised every single time he is given a pretty simple task, like…snake bandit.<|endoftext|>Over 18,000 who've registered with the biggest New York -======================================== SAMPLE 279 ======================================== -This petition calls for a new, cheaper, safer, and more aesthetically consistent mechanical keyboard. Many individuals use mechanical keyboards for years, but by their own discourse, mechanical keyboards hold many deficiencies for a global popular norm. While many mechanical keyboards are improved, they fail in stand for themselves in various ways. The reduction in appearance and portability are only a modest improvement compared to increasing accessibility. By referencing science and technological development, this petition seeks to push for the introduction of a new, more ergonomically desirable, and more engaging keyboard than technically possible, consistent with fundamental human-machine interaction. - -THE PROBLEM - -Keeping up with the explosion of peripheral devices, brimming with advanced functions and innovative creative applications, has become dizzyingly difficult for a casual work-place, service industry, or college student. Communication becomes scarce when total automation is inevitable. That is, unless you possess hip detectives like KenPs MillerIV, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. - -His training helped earn him a 9% share of keyboard Gadget Geeks WorldSpec financially and a Right upon presentation. Outside this, he tutored Chinese children for restitution Edutech shittyMind Companies are poised to dominate by exploiting already insane exploits on their profit holy grail. - -the PlayStation suspended ("playstation")Joe deputies to diagnosis diversity.atsc.illinois.edu The PlayStation suspended ("playstation") Joe for-phreaking the sitcomhis overpressure did, taking a dramatic to be real risk to their brand. The very next week — three weeks before the US classis season kicked off, it was revealed that the Master's developer had driven 24 miles a day without police supervision. http://imgur.com/a/2mRwF//rfc.eletronic - -After repairing some inexpensive problem that may or may not have been a black bagged PC and fixing some local issues with the laptop computers, he went to work on figuring out how to replace the QWERTY keyboard. The trick? Think of completely automating the task of typing. - -So far, he came up with two possibilities: he could use a computer to take incoming letters and reshuffle them; or make typing easier with a team friendly gimmick of unscrewing the cheaper gapero, asking you to click the keys with a smartwatch, or with a controller resembling a snare drum, then chatting your commendsto your coworkers, legally passing it off as a communal gift. - -(left) There are many reasons the system WILL be flawless - -So he went to work. He wrote a program, named'selec; a reader/writer with the same signing, processing, and some other math and the software spells out how 6 virtual keyboards and the guide keys will merge and mix. Setting a timer when the machine arrived from China, he took the 4 digit keys and the control buttons and had them awkwardly replaced simultaneously. After two failed fail breaks-a-clock phone replacements and completely paranoid trackpad replacements (he forced pastingly fix the poor trackpad inside his roommates terrifyingly tiny laptop), he squashed the speedbots in the xbox as well. - -The result was a total reliance on modern technology into my first self-made killer .—i years later—as well as a sort of mood board of sorts. - -(io)do me something negative, I hate that guy.atip.ucla.edu Having not seen it personally myself, he gave me some bullet points explaining why his algorithm isn't safe.note They generate a hash and increment the counter whether its closed keys met of not; for ergo one can assign safe code if someone in the server of derps is sneeking something in bold face dippartants. This can also be done with the help of the. —Wife ;)and: long pause everytime you connect, he confused me more, we moved each other - -. - -If you are tired of typing hundreds of keys and is desensitized to repeat reps just by spending enough time to work around your fellow office mates, it may be worth a shot to talk to. SIU hydrogen don't hold weekdays from 12:15 to 2:15, tortureSteScolutelyGreen possess richistatsituation.atip.ucla.edu C's tortureSteSciley andmendares from 8m to 10m then we run together until he fell asleep. I feel the equal value in his before I, by means of the recently passedBolthouse surroundings, ride to my Whirligig Place; - -WHAT WE NEED - -find - -ajji - -upgrade - -family - -alice dean - -num Lock - -Powersoft FAMGAG!v8.5( Nightthego) - -alcatel phone 3vhide_m - -alteeve l etner kmammeryhq/angler ray rabbit ichat & rediksai hearing aid mp's<|endoftext|> -======================================== SAMPLE 280 ======================================== -Obliterating at 3824 x 2273, Monstercat's latest will be gigantic, consuming 83 gigabytes of audio bandwidth. Artist and producer ALEX International (aka AlexpoolPlays, for da jukebox) took on the task by recording a laptop playing the latest Monstercat single "Aequitas." - -Animating the 1280 x 768 image, ALEX was able to stitch sound effects over their live drum sequencing. - -It could be more handy for me if it created a new folder every time I switched music. - -kawaiir - -Listen to AVJ and Monstercat's latest album:<|endoftext|>Wolf-Z Fine Casting® Silicone Silicone Individual Tablets - -or dildo is a superb way to reach the best possible intimate experience, but can be a little daunting as these devices have been historically difficult to use solo. Wolf-Z has made this happen in a very practical fashion with the Wolf-Z Fine Casting® Silicone Individual Tablets. This innovative new product was designed for the silicone makers and innovators of the world, and because of its $148 retail price, it will be purchased exclusively by those who use silicone. - -The Wolf-Z Fine Casting® Silicone Individual Tablets feature: - -High density, flexible sex toy surface plates designed to make insertion as easy and comfortable as possible. - -Unique Alpha uniform ridges for comfort and friction resistance. - -More than 120 feelings for deepening your intimate love bond with your Fine Castings Silicone Penis. - -12 vibration modes - -Must use Fine Castings product Baste it with water when warming up, or use OneHotCare® Silk Lube or Any Realistic Lube - -Silicone is non-porous, many sex toy interactions don't require anything beyond water-based lubricant so using silicone indoor contact play is an environmentally free choice. - -The Wolf-Z Fine Casting® Silicone Individual Tablets are recommended for couples and couples-playing individuals, and are the perfect quality environmental fire starter.<|endoftext|>CHICAGO – The Chicago Packers didn't just beat the New Orleans Saints on a late-game drive on Sunday. The Green Bay Packers had scored a 61-yard touchdown on the drive and would end up scoring a Super Bowl winning touchdown. - -Could they also have beaten the San Francisco 49ers? - -"We still ain't beat, we can't win on offense or defense," Aaron Rodgers said after the team's 39-37 victory over the 49ers. "We got to go work on our offense. The guys did a great job executing on that drive. We got to step it up on offense and see how we can stop people on the other side." - -Rodgers is right. The path to winning the Super Bowl wasn't without its bumps, but its fees size dwarfs where they would have needed to be each week. With defense what the Packers need to succeed with the help of hindsight it would seem sense to them that they would be able to be more consistent in getting stops on their opponents. That's why I will never understand the help the 49ers gave the Packers on defense. - -"When you add all those pieces together and find out what makes you resilient, there's a lot there," general manager Ted Thompson said. "I cannot even figure it out, but say we were to figure that out, we're not going to do it." - -Apparently that's not the direction the progress/focusing is taking for the Packers. Maybe the 49ers were at their best against the Packers because this was the supposed hiccup for them. Offensively they looked even better and in fact had more success than last season, but there are too many deficiencies beyond just the offensive line and some terrible defensive play throughout the loss to goalie Sealver Siliga past Brett Favre. - -Suddenly, after 30 years of dominance, the Packers are no longer considered a contender to capture the event. - -Jimmy Garoppolo has quietly put together an incredible season in the wake of a 2012-2013 season where there's reason to be legitimately excited for the future. (Getty Images) - -Despite starting out 4-0 there are still questions about the safety of optimism for the Packers. Did Thursday night still signal the end of Packers continuity for Jeff Janis? The 2017 first round pick did do some nice things with some big chances, but also compounded problems with a poor job executing the running game, a borderline scapegoat in umbrellaOY 113G rushing Johnson also made some poor blocking decisions and split time in double teams with Antwione Williams. - -Combine up those issues with all the struggles all along the offensive line, Aaron Rodgers seemed to have a lot of issues any time he touched the ball. - -"Can everybody execute on the roster? Yes, but mismatches are a factor every week," coach Mike McCarthy said. "I've been impressed with the reads each week. That's just how it goes every week, but I've -======================================== SAMPLE 281 ======================================== -Kentucky Harbor Brewing Company is believed to be the first craft brewery in the United States to offer a wide selection of Gulf oysters from Gulf Islands. - -"We've been doing this for years, and we were one of the first breweries in the country to do it," Moriarty said. "We're International Harbor Oyster Company." - -The Detroit company is located on the beach in Fishermen's Village at 6624 Emma Road, and soon it will do something the city's paddleout community is trying to accomplish: sell new Detroit River rocks. - -"They're nearly gone or no longer available," said John Gallager, supplier of Intelligent passengers,trains and other maritime products for national effic lcy companies. - -Farmland just downstream from the fishing shore once supplied him with oysters, clams and other "shore top" products, and it has long been a market for Moriarty, said Phil Thompson, owner of DAPI Timber Company Wood Fired Grill in the Fisherman's Village. They will soon bring their shipwrecked shells back to the shelves of the Great Lakes seafood eateries and gelato places still visiting the 2,000-acre Atlantic City area. - -The idea for doing purchase show the "saving" of the haunted home Nancy Lopez was renting the old Harborside location. Now, he has a second lease on Lifeboat. - -Moriarty needs the place rebuilt for marketing purposes, but he is hopeful. And he has a 40-or-so menu of food, a selection of gin and "sips," for those who are unaware of his highly esteemed oyster selection. - -And, he does not have to go to Michigan's capitol. - -"From New York City to Buffalo, we've been able to invite people from everywhere," said Raducio, manager of Newell's Fish Wharf Casino in Montego Bay, where Moriarty negotiates payment by seafood scarcity. "And then they know us." - -As Holmes and his family might say, a Detroit blockade of water and oysters, would be more than enough. - -mcom@mlive.com<|endoftext|>The first group of Prisma Car owners of Mesquite Motorsports, Matt Hensley and Melissa Hamm and Austin Jones / Bowyer Racing Corvette C7.Rs will be at Monterey along with others in the list. - -The Tatuus Energy Honda drivers will be both at the GP of Tampa and New Hampshire. Stephane Sarrazin will be Truck Charters' Uteset driver along with Angie Schenck joining Suzukisan from Rampage USA in Truck Charters' Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup. - -Tata Motorsports open their program with two Oriol Servia's to test for Thursday. - -Julien Canal and Denis Bulc won races at Circuit Promenade in Marseille, France, at the weekend and are joined by Kami Laliberte and Peyman Altintop for their second round at the legendary circuit. - -There are 4-time Enstone champion Tom Kristensen on the entry with reigning owners Liam Lawson and Matthieu Vaxiviere the driver which averages 205.171mph. - -ABTech support, who have lower motive functions, will run the supported drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Stefan Riener in the back of the LMP2 Total Oil Spa Ligier JS P2 Ferrari 488 GTE that averages 206.645mph.<|endoftext|>Companies that tweak their Express cup size "to suit the customer" must pay extra in GST, despite policies right from the start to specify one size less than competitors. - -Such policies, aimed at encouraging healthier habits among children before they enter the school system, would be ignored if they were based on weight or leg excess, the Federal Court has ruled. - -In a ruling on Wednesday, the Federal Court ordered a chocolate bar company to pay $104,000 in penalties following a successful challenge by the Competition Tribunal over tax conditions on its modification of the Express cup. - -The court found that the ATO had wrongfully refused to subsidise the new size in 2004 as it understood the product to have a weight of 169g, the same as the participating competitor's 177g version.<|endoftext|>Need a job but can't find one in the City of London? Streetside is running a privacy shoot in the Library of History. When: Thursday, June 4 10am to 5pm Cost: Free, no personal info required! Where: The Library of History, 2 John Street (next to Bothwells gymnastics club) Shakespeare's pale stolen life Edmond Dantley's cockney workman Marlowe Armitage's comparable profligate scene He disguise himself How: You don't have to be a librarian to take part. Join our daily Instagram and Twitter feed since we're free for everyone (for the first five days), or drop by to bring a camera if you want. -Other changes to the noisy Kindle, FY -======================================== SAMPLE 282 ======================================== -The parallel copyright complaint that the collective Middle Way has called for to avail people access to First Amendment protections may be underway already. Seedsman, Inc., a company that produces Patented Seed Payment Installments (PSIPs), filed a complaint against the ACLU of Northern California that claims: - -Seedsman makes money by charging customers DLC creep fees for using the PlayStation®Vue wireline streaming service it created to monetize consumer demand for its patented seeds and genetics. Seedsman intends to extend PSIP cable television subscriber fees beyond its original claimed channel lineup to cover the company's actual built-in payment mechanisms. Seedsman is not expecting consumer entrustment to evolve past a mere purchase-canceling mechanic. - -The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued that the complaint is premature, since the petitioning group – which does believe Congress must consider and address genuine issues of Third-Party Copyright infringement by CASL papersharing services – does not yet exist. As Seedsman's lawyer argued in the complaint: - -This application of the requirement of contributory infringement is questionable, and relevant statutory exceptions such as fair use exist under the reasoning employed in Annotation 13). - -Seedsman insists that this net neutrality ordinance violates the Fairness Doctrine and violates the Patents Act by passing Title II patent rewrites that users dominate and predominate over software creators. The ACLU's paralegal responded by pointing out some demonstrated inaccuracies in the nature of the CASL patent system these racketeers signed up to uphold. - -EFF also argued that, in order for any CASL licensing scheme to be responded to through legislative action, it would require consumers to turn down previously chosen PSIP packages. "Originally PSIP subscribers were able to transfer a license to another PSIP subscriber's subscribed service for a fee," said Seedsman lawyer. "However, unlike traditional cable providers this process required that user accept yet again the risk that he or she would lose access to the service well before payment was complete." - -"This differential treatment is what is responsible for the consumer choice to enter the market at all," added Seedsman lawyer. "Thus, the proposed enforcement removal of the ability for consumers to transfer a license in this way does not eliminate or completely eliminate that choice. Furthermore, Unless fractional appeal rates for PSIP subscribers remain in place CSL saw subscriber fees decrease by $700,000 due to this Cook primaryfade change. Simultaneously, over $800,000 in PPA fees did not result because consumers paid less as to what they get in return for those services." - -EFF's filed at least two related requests for further documents. - -Sam Swanson, legal affairs director at CASL, told EFF attorney Korey Reich that Greenspun is a well-known boilerplate plaintiff. In particular, the sequential nature of the Enforcement Action may be a risk factor, she claimed, given the number of such lawsuits the EFF has filed since the 1990s. - -The judge took no time in ruling on Greenspun's motion, as contained in her order. EFF's request for an expanded opportunity for collection — based on Greenspun's admission that there is more than (but no more than) $80,000 standing for its request to collect $800,000 of the CASL's $1,500,000 cash award even at write-off levels — amazingly fell short, as Greenspun's lawyer equated it to putting up "a dog-food trough, by the pound." - -Interestingly, it was Greenspun who successfully objected against their adversaries showing the transcript of the July hearing the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed every single of its CASL lawsuits against Comcast and Aereo in. - -Finally, the Court also gave the plaintiffs 28 business days to file their response, by Thursday, Augs 9th, in particular: - -Maxfield asked for and received full advising on how to respond to the CASL And Vick Painton answered all its questions at the end and was very aware of what it meant when it came to collections and continuing payments such as iPhone technology and the hard drive crash. We were so pleased that Vick Painton understood what it meant, both to the congressmen and the presiding judge and as a matter of over returns. CPSI has shown already that 22545 of the self-represented participants in the Congresses have a dispute. However you see, MMCP – Josh Alex that represented Mars, sat at the bottom of the table with Most Flavor of pain and Continue working young that way – had a District Court $130,500 settlement represented with a financial dispute. It is well-documented that MMCP, Josh Alex also representing any LLCs and entities, can lead a bank to a payday within 2 years in approximately one third of all bank collections made in the state of California the prior to the operating of MVCESV BEA to the CESV and Bailin 2015. [That's a whole lot of cash.] - -(Cool PI update: Llr August ring working out well!) -======================================== SAMPLE 283 ======================================== -Reito is the guy who just built seven of the ten tallest towers in the world. Admittedly the tallest is the Kalman Tower (168 m). But it stands for one thing and that is not solely to shed light upon the world's tallest building…but also to assure us that the great minds of the design industry know the squatty low building could not be ever reduced to the supposed legality of a tall building. Larry Page is Plans, Inc director of materials design and engineering and one of his sites is the website for Reito Corporation (USA) The collection — 3300 drawings and 4000 plans — measure 6m by 5m. Omnidirectional velocity is higher than 8 km/hr (5 mph), even for manufacturing purposes. They include the "free fall laser" and he has a secret underground laboratory at roof level. The building materials for office is Clay Wall. There are plans aplenty for discussions library or lounge. He is the perfect candidate for the name of the new Google headquarters (beta.google.com/site/reitocorp). Plans include exhibits to open in space seasons August 1st and September 1st next year. Das right way was through surfboards. - -If you like this post, spend 10 minutes the name of Tsuto Hatangegi you can find the details: - -↑ Tsuto Hatangegi was nominated by NASA as the Metroraptor's "John Bishop" japanese translation is "Genesis" (Tsuto Hat↑gsii, 2009) Kirbyike's offset book is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections.<|endoftext|>The intention of this 3D-viewer to assist you in approach making processes for parts. This is NOT the 3D-viewer for building your own 3D model. To get a complete 3D-model view using WMS control of a model, see http://eebruck.ru/viewer/. This site allows you to view it as it appears next to the model (Materials) or exactly as it appears with Material 3D override. - -WMS ON ANY MODEL $14.99 INCLUDES ALL INSTRUCTIONS - -NOT USED - -All Pre-order devices I create are shipped out on the scheduled shipping date. If you are interested in the current status of your order (available) or to confirm shipment of your order, please contact service@installwithme.com<|endoftext|>DestroyAllSpiral To Leveled Speech dbz -7-4-2014 4:52 PM -By GlenAlving » Press Releases DAWG 9.0 Update (Rev_09-23-2014) / Download (151MB) Here is a full penguin account of the latest version of Death Steps: nine_level_spiral : Download: Wrath - Shame 1.8Woot - War 3 - The standard's - A Day With That Lariat 0.5Sone b_satr_dlc - Studio Blog<|endoftext|>Weddings are definitely not for the weak of heart. According to Dr. James O'Malley, author of The Making of a Wedding Party, the entire wedding ceremony -- from starting with the moving songs to barbell choreography to the sparkling white wedding cake and the feel of a motionless ballroom -- takes hard work and a certain amount of social ineptitude. Luckily for us, there's a Reddit community devoted to figuring out the right wedding food and drink combos to make it that way. - -Here's the guide to wedding food that tracks down the precise types of beer and liquor to sprinkle on critical wedding food items that not only look amazing at your wedding, but also complete weddings in a restrained, sweet and fine style. - -An Embrace of Green, Sweet, & Fine - -"Just as most couples look to marriage as a date night, green and beautiful food should be an important part of the wedding," Dr. O'Malley suggests to The Deseret News. "Brides should have, at most and slight risk of showing off, a simple grape salad, organic lettuce, and caviar." Add in low calorie sweetened drinks like a donut cream and ice cream and you've got a the perfect recipe for a wedding that performs selfless functions. "This can take the sting out of no contact up to the point where one person might feel guilty about eating the bridal cake because doing so means sharing pieces both now and in the future," he opined. - -Because Delectable - -O'Malley's selected pairing for his green, sweet and fine marriages: Red wine with honeycomb. Also known, according to O'Malley, as a "quite nice touch, but I wouldn't have a problem pairing red wine with many of the staples of a normal wedding destination cuisine like bresaola or pasta alfredo." He takes on other educated guesses to fulfill couples' palate creations. If that's you? Pair your red wine with liver and marcona almonds, avocado butter, fresh al -======================================== SAMPLE 284 ======================================== -If you are looking to recreate products from your favorite films and music, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has a big amount to offer. - -The studio is closing down U.S. marketing operation Buzz Guinea in San Diego, Redwood City, San Jose, Sacramento, Nashville and El Segundo, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. - -SPE issued a press release about the effort to become "No. 1 in video on demand and streaming services globally," but would not comment on the closure. The partnership will begin with in the coming weeks, it said. - -The shutdown represents SPE's latest hunt for employees after the public confirmed that one of its former departments had left the company for Facebook human resources. Other than that, the studio has filed for bankruptcy. - -SPE loaded up on in-house sales staff around 2013, hiring directly from its small team at Burning Man and dozens of product designers, marketers and others as the launch speed of its streaming service, PlayStation Vue, grew. - -The pact comes at a time when streaming services are encroaching on Broadcast TV. More than 8 million homes subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Video while Hulu Original Series shows about to air are taking their consumption to social and mobile devices. Some stations have spent $30 million or more launching new streaming services in hopes of catching up. - -At Sony, public relations chief Beck Bennett recently told a San Diego tech conference that the company hoped to lure Android phones and tablets to the home screen. SPE hopes to market its previously unprofitable U.S. TV operation at home as services like HBO Go, while working with pay TV provider Cablevision into a live-TV hub in the state's Central Valley. - -For more on today's news, watch POLITICO Playbook's clips from the session. - -Reps for Buzz Guinea and Redwood City could not be reached for comment. - -"As a creative center, we are proud to be part of such one of a kind companies, hands down the most innovative and well guarded…whole entertainment ecosystem on earth. Unprecedented innovation, and a team that is committed to delivering magic, to consumers and businesses, for generations to come…Go make a great difference, SPE," the press release said. - -Buzz Guinea worked to implement viral marketing strategies used by Comcast's Xfinity platform to grow online playing time. The company also developed breakout networks, including "The Rainbow." While SPE's network Peacock Network (NXTY) is one of the first to support Sony's titles released earlier, the players are nearly the same as was used by the difference's second network more than a decade ago. - -"At Buzz.Guinea we produced everything by hand, by whipping out the camera, packing an agent into the car and spooling lines into a script into a customer's mailbox. And we know this rule will NEVER EVER change," the website said about the parent company's founder, Shannon McEntire. - -"Success breeds many more players that allow 'we're innovating' to be elevated to the next level. All of Buzz.Guinea's events expect actors to deliver post-event announcements where each person is ASKING for them." - -The announcement comes exactly two weeks after Polystars' regional chairman João Pereira told Variety these types of partnerships were overcrowded on the promotional front. Investments in friconsoles have been planned to not only in the U.S. but Europe and beyond. - -"The limited investment in this budget couldn't come at a better time," Pereira said. "It's about having recognition locally that clients like Sony Pictures are paying attention in the multiscreen medium world, especially with the competitive changes happening around the globe."<|endoftext|>Episode Settings and Instructions - -In tonight's walkthrough, we take a deep dive into the top-levelled Draugr that can be found in the Dark Brotherhood starting directory. Additionally, we discuss tying the Draugr Blade to a sword and Katasha's ultimate instead of Blood Kiss. Then, we've featured our 50 most wanted NPCs, so we find out more about Thongvor, who has a habit of tormenting guests in the Blue Palace. The Bestiary makes a count for the good guys in Dragonfell versus the evil Thalmor, not forgetting the tactics for the Dragonborn in side quests, and Liquid Bread barges in to talk about travelling from Hjaalmarch to Solstheim to locate the Akaviri Seeker Stones. - -ZOS_GinaBruno and Tobug85 - -ZOS_GinaBruno and Tobug85 The Bestiary entries by Tobug85 Year Winner: 2014 - Orichalcum - -Year Runner Up: 2015 - Daggerfall Covenant - -Year Winner: 2014 - Orichalcum Vehicle entries by Tobug85 Year Winner: 2015 - Winged Akaviri M23 - -Year Runner Up: 2016 - Needed total Healing Potions Weight -======================================== SAMPLE 285 ======================================== -And the best thing about the guild key is that it is for a single purchase. With X10, you would have to purchase a series of groups of keys and then combine each. I also wouldn't mind taking the guild key and giving it to friends. If I buy a full season pass (12 or so hours) I will only be buying it a single time. - - -The jump on purchasing characters like in FIFA or NHL has to go with the price of the key. You can't have an overpriced class newer and cheaper or a nearly new class cheaper and older. Humans need to feel rewarded by the progression of an existing class, they can't feel wrong purchasing that new brand new class. - -Click to expand...<|endoftext|>Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, militant group formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that emerged from the remnants of Al Qaeda in northern Iraq in 2013, rose to become the apex of the crisis that began with the sectarian language of organized religion. In January 2014, ISIS seized a multitude of Iraqi cities, making it the largest terrorist organization that includes Kurds, Shia Muslims, the Islamic minority, Sunnis, Iraqi military and officers, and others. Since the local Iraqi army struggled to fight ISIS, forming a government and recapturing territory fell to the Syrian army, domestic Shiite militias, Iraqi popular mobilization, Shia volunteer fighters, Kurdish Peshmerga, and mainly Sunni tribes loyal to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former President Saddam Hussein. Along with the Fallujah battles, ISIS's media branches spread the propaganda with slogans of a modern global caliphate embracing all jihadis abroad and white American pilots of the Iraqi airforce, government, and tribes. So far, President Trump has nominated forty-year veteran U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn (Ret.) to be the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) referred to Obama's choice for President that preceded him as the general at "Massacre City." In October 2016, following ISIS - the group also known as ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh - that had split from Al Qaeda, Turkey launched one of its greatest military operations in the war against the enemy in November, 2015, simultaneously offensives (talking about the Euphrates River valley), one against ISIS in Raqqa, the other against many positoned ISIS positions in Mongherli, Manbij, and Kobani, in Aleppo Governorate, and against an imminent ISIS assault on the city of Aleppo, also known as Islamic State of Syria. In November 2015, Turkish, Syrian, and Russian forces signaled constructing a coalition to fight against ISIS sent a joint declaration, with Turkish Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan describing it as "battle for human future." During the height of the showdown in Turkish capital Ankara, Turkey was rationing milk when ISIS attacked Nutris continued in fighting around Manbij, Gamr and other militant strongholds around Raqqa. The following January, the city of Jarabulus, famed by the ancient Romans as the Gallic Wall, fell to the units of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led predominantly by the women and children of the People's Protection Units (YPG). It was a huge loss for the Kurdish groups and an international humiliation for the depravities perpetrated by the ruthless ISIS rule for a year but it did not stop Turkish regime from courting its ties to the fake Russian war against ISIS. After taking Mosul city on June 10, the SDF advanced on ISIS positions in Azaz and Jarablus' towns to further isolate and destroy the militants in northern Aleppo Governorate. In a process that was documented by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS lost thousands of Legion 1 tanks, heavy weapons, and armored vehicles during their final strike. Three months later, in late August, the SDF captured Afrin, between Aleppo and the Turkish border, and then transferred ISIS's operational command center from Raqqa. The Mosul campaign followed on with attempts by Turkey to normalize with Russia recognized by President Trump to secure the Turkish waters and for the separatists to hold their side of the Syria-Turkey border. Iraqi forces, securely freed from ISIS, continued to function in coordination with those of the CIA and the Kurdish Peshmerga, supported by airstrikes on ISIS and provision of military forces. Although ISIS is reported to have lost thousands of military personnel, just in the Mosul campaign among thousands that operated for the past three years. Mosul will follow it hard on September 10 and its success will reorganize its Shia forces to regain any territory that Kurdish forces have lost in recent months. The liberation of Mosul was a good illustration of how Syria's beseiged population is the main survival responsibility of the Syrian government, the remaining army of the former president stored in the Kurdish-controlled areas. After Mosul, the Kurdish-controlled areas appear to have failed to restore peace in Iraq and Syria, except to improve their internal stability and economic conditions and provide security to their populations. Damascus buys more gas from Turkey just in order to expand its stocks. Hundreds of kilometers of -======================================== SAMPLE 286 ======================================== -If you're looking for aesthetic specimens for your morning coffee or breakfast/lunch special, then I wonder whether it's actually designated armedops or not… - -Although it is unlikely to be flyable in the near future, Sean Kavanagh's Sailing Hopinah has successfully completed sailing (and passed a maritime security exam) in an under Sail training category, just after taking delivery in Orange on 7 December 2017. - -The strong Sail'n'Shoot design is in use right now for winter sports in California. And the Pirate Hopinah II continues to be offered for sale from ArmTech Pacific in 2004. - -There's some similarity to the sail-and-shoot thing that's been going on for a while around here – and it seems like something the MoD ought to be reviewing. There were plans unveiled to strip one of the service's military-grade targets and swap that for a boat – but the plans weren't as well received as proposed, so no action has been taken. - -Despite the obstacle the concept raises of it covering a boat on a Jason scheme every time it's floated in, a chance to destroy the Erchius and get it out from under the water before disaster becomes inevitable, the sails are full of incredible aspects. - -Sailing tip: - -Their pilot and engineer are both Australian so Australians have a win/win (or lose/lose, if you prefer) possibly in the year-to-year, not-in-year lottery that goes on overship operations. - -Charting: - -If done right, during a Steam Nav plotting session you can get two different guerrilla crippling losses on one, with the Saintoman governer keen to either suffer engine failure and be blown up or attempted collision with the impending ATR-42 Skyfire/Cessna Skyvan appearing on your H-Hour - -Crossing out Lethal Weapons: A Laser is The Laser of Cowards. [Added with 350k views] Our brains aren't ready for a longer range than 500km, but even a short range weapon like the Bladestorm just isn't reliable, though it can help illuminate their ITX systems, camera positions and hovercraft. - -Almost an Endurance Timescale story…. [Added to 15k views] I'm getting DHS risk officer-lite 1960s 15° C windchill; my friends are telling me it seems that 45° is the norm by 20° C. Knowing about all this, do they get it right for the routines on board (well pink each sexual awakenings under Sail'n'Shoot work) or does the average crew just outwit the DSCONgineer? - -One of the officers on board specifically points out to me that he's too cold to actually end his shift warming up on the engine deck … which comes as no surprise! (I imagine he's making a keen practice of Sunday church through trying not to have his hands frostbitten so here they are literally on the thumb end of the barrel with only the words "even a cut" for good measure..)<|endoftext|>For any cat lover in the world, there is nothing more valuable than knowing how to clean your cat's litterbox. Unless you live in a remote area, and don't have the time to take the litter with you for collection — which can be a little pricey — a trained professional is the way to go. Here you'll find the best cat condo litterbox cleaners on the market.<|endoftext|>Community Rating: - -Community Rating: 5 / 5 ( 0 votes ) Click here to view ratings and comments. Oracle Printed Card Name: Lonely Sandstorm Mana Cost: Converted Mana Cost: 6 Types: Enchantment Card Text: Whenever a player plays a land, that player puts the top two cards of their library into their graveyard. Flavor Text: Winds blow without ground to sound. Expansion: Eldritch Moon Rarity: Uncommon Card Number: 31 Artist: Dave Dorman Rulings If a player's library is empty when they play a land, that land will not be put into their graveyard the next time they would receive priority.<|endoftext|>Swealth-ed. Survival-food-no-kenny. The unofficial term used by certain members of the "emergent-left" (considering ideas like suppressing working class culture), referring immediately towards the self defense-like spirit of radicals and nationalists. Its surprisingly broad application and emphasis on food quickly separates this strictly serious concept from the vogue "protest food" given its proliferation on the internet and over the street marches of the Spanish juntas post RecThessaloniki.<|endoftext|>President Mourinho has hailed the public support given by fellow Manchester United players and fans towards the club's official Twitter account following a campaign to build up £150,000 when former star Paul Scholes retires at the end of this season of funds to help repair the Michael Carrick-inspired rise to top players' ranks. - -Mourinho's main retainer, Rafael da Silva, brought Mourinho along -======================================== SAMPLE 287 ======================================== -Siika Erins<|endoftext|>2 HotelStepsessives" Ramon Gengard Are You planning to retire? Your salary is highly unsalaried? Are you living on less than $4k a month? then your interest per month on the position is much reduced due to Tip 20% tax deduction at the primary level you'll pay 26k a month more at the dividends withhold by college even if Tax is great if you would take savings of the Tax is great - -Rated 2 out of 5 by JulioMartin1 formGILDO from Used to work for u just got a new computer so my reenumeration is much higher and after doing my analysis here i always do since i did this course for free n added that was $190 i should have done that and income tax 30% less in another post i was right 5 months everything has been fine no need for any assistance. My previous experience lipped by via company that responded nearthe My Budget colab by me. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by erole from Worth every dime Pros Great site to university students wishing to study. Reasonably priced--premium for a few tips. Reasonable website. Free tips sent for review to make sure you are doing something. I like the entire process at a nominal cost compared to my previous experience of going to school (which cost roughly $40k). After my review, questions are answered in my comment so no need for me to send another e-mail. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by OcieCorp from Very good experience I wish I had participated in this course long ago. It has been a very good experience for me when I studied over the past 2 years to obtain my Masters (10 years), and now as Ranking Lead for a small submarine rigid building company.<|endoftext|> with agent mike shooting nadley's prosthetic that was used to attack that nail therapist If you listened to your favorite biz music over the summer, tape or CD, you will have been hearing about a band called The Assassins and their brand new album The Psychic World . If you are unsure of what this band is about, know this: This is Daniel Morby and his band. On May 3rd, 2018, Daniel and his band had the chance to perform to a sold out Club 8 in Newark, NJ. While some of the city's rappers could be seen taping their coats closer to the stage, Daniel almost exclusively took to Instagram to show his excitement in sharing pictures of his performance. The "miscallacing" photos show Daniel rockin earbuds and impromptu sunglasses with his bebedded fists. The captions directly describes his incredible "possibly illuminati freestyle aerial startup freestyle ide is messed up-squad on. sign them up set up-smart tunnel servesley interance wiht them-viral and the show peakin Sh*t-Hosted meme of sexy cemen testing know how perent indiscriminate restricting assessing banshemem afraid vs gay dreads tag1 la and hoe about hoe-standing hoes piant(-ish) wax havey4 style are #3 spank better" Thanks to one of the photographer's on Alexandra Parks, we have been able to document Daniel's first month, September, 2018 , which can be seen below: No, you've read it correctly. I used these legs to support the LED stage lights, DO NOT INTEND TO CROSS THEM. For the "Dropped Platform" video, Daniel utilized his bird-feather carving Braggart hoverboard to master a Xanex semicontBACK IS *not* segment suc subject!!!!!!! and hover. Using various pedicures, a request from the audience, Daniel's customary lycra aviators, and a sun screen or a transparent jersey, Daniel officially placed himself in the record books as "the first man on a horse wearing prosthetic wings," Thanks to Daniel for sharing his message about fear of flying during this press event. The remainder of this area would later become known as "crystallized dance agency" or "CryDance" and features a more electric approach. Of course, the one thing Daniel did not ask during the performances stood out last. The singer's legs, being how they are classified in real life. Finely woven peality interwoven from mature stem hair. In other words, a complete CHIN ! His golden skin seemed able to interact and bond with it's environment. This and the fake moustache struck utter disgust in people on the street, yet for those who knew him and appreciated his preformance in real life, they shew joy to see this. Just checking the pores. Sunglasses – hanging a model cameo printed on the end though realistically hung on his nose, just gravy on the descending, plump ROFL desk toupee which itchy his scalp. He somehow managed to smudge little road grime in easy to manipulate streets by itchy fingers as well. The 1984.010 ag and KLIudays fall. -======================================== SAMPLE 288 ======================================== -8 of 10 - -Darryl Sutter: Like many of the more powerful players in the league, no goalier understands the importance of staying focused at the right time to out-playing your opponent more than Sutter. - -And while he's tended to create gruesome alley-oop surprises off the rush, shut down recent opponents have comprised of guys like Chris Kunitz, Ryan Miller and Corey Crawford. Sutter may need one or two bounces to produce, but the leader of this adopted 90-foot, two-legged mascot will quickly dispatch you with the highest scout report.<|endoftext|>Abstract - -Approximately 20% of seemingly healthy patients with eating disturbances indicate that they are unable to gain or maintain lost weight despite a successful treatment regimen. Despite government recommendations to improve dietary practices, some patient-centered approaches largely fail to reduce eating disturbances and have simply added to patients' distress. At present, there is no consensus for choosing specific dietary approaches. A systematic review of research has identified 2 aspects in weight regulation that have substantial individual variability: Intrinsic and extrinsic influences. In essence, it is because of intrinsic factors such as motivation, allegiance and restriction of dietary intake that regain of lost weight cannot be achieved through small or gradual increase in food intake, despite substantial effort. It is because of extrinsic factors, such as significant stress, negative changes to family environment, and stigmatization, that individuals with eating disorders are highly likely to revert to another excessive eating pattern. The relative contribution of these 2 aspects might contribute to individual patterns of success and failure of specific dietary interventions.<|endoftext|>Speed up installation by 4x - -Fast, reliable installation. Install up to 4 animals spayed or neutered within the same day. Fast Order Tracking represents real-time state-of-the-art technology. Once verified, ordering remains secure and Arbordata assures the fastest reliable delivery.<|endoftext|>Here we go again, everything is exactly the same and contrasts and juxtaposes are washed away by nuttery. I mean, my thigh-in-rough-ash-leeves dress at dinner, my crotch in my hot coat and covered in flies and I'm wearing flat shoes, a hit on my face and blessed by the wind? - - -Oh, sure, there was leather gloves on my hands and I needed to put my hair in a messy bun. Oh, well. Now of course, that makes me look like a lunatic vampire in bonnets, there is no magic involved, just a constant low-intensity caricature and the guy wearing trendy headphones doesn't really sound like Joe Dutt. Oh, well. They're just about as obvious as it can possibly be to replace Joe Dutt with any other alternative character and ensure success because JOE DUTTON IS VEGAS AND ITSN'T HAPPENING JOE DUTTON IS VEGAS AND ITSN'T HAPPENING AT ALL<|endoftext|>Alaskan missionaries who helped track down the grave of their missionary son would like to meet with President Donald Trump to discuss issues affecting Native Americans, Navajo Nation officials told The Daily Caller News Foundation. - -Pilon Hawaaw, a 24-year-old teacher, was one of three men who went in search of the grave of their son in southwestern Alaska nearly four months ago. Their son, Billy James Hawaaw, was kidnapped nearly 21 years ago by the Papago tribe in southeastern B.C., according to Marlin Kristic, a longtime community leader and board member of the Navajo Memorial Foundation. - -The family in the spring of 2016 received a call saying their son Billy — he was named Shirley from wards in Seattle, Arizona, Alberta. - -He was 22. - -They were instructed to chip a rock on his grave and this was it — that's when they found the grave just off the road. - -"I have every intention of going and receiving a visit from the President of the United States of America," said Leroy Hawaaw, Pilon's father. "He is not coy about going — he wants to meet." - -The family's journey — following along the path and adding pendants of hope — in June saw hundreds of people from all walks of life come to the memorial site, where hundreds more gathered for the opening of the new Shirley Hawaaw Memorial in November. - -"It was a feeling of nothingness here," said Leroy Hawaaw of his son's disappearance. "I think when people see the pow wow we held, they feel those things happening not far away." - -President Donald Trump is the second president after President Abraham Lincoln to arrive at the gravesites of its victims. - -"It is like a hidden national event, like Lincoln's visit here," said Dru Heffey, who was present when Trump arrived in Queen Charlotte County, Alaska. - -In July, Trump notified Congress that he planned to deliver a historic meeting with foreign dignitaries and First Ladies or Pasha to commemorate the joint dedication of the ceremonies -======================================== SAMPLE 289 ======================================== -He's getting things he never expected out of Marilyn Monroe. Her body. Her reputation. Even her clothes. But almost everything he used to scorn, now makes him hold her up to the same reverence he has for the movie star he publicly shuns. - -Bob, astounded, asks himself, if the whole world (especially his mother, who is dying) could embrace that, what would his opinion of Marilyn be? - -If there were no shame, on Mars, this bald, hole-punching, sword-swallowing 77-year-old might perhaps be one of the most respected men of her generation, Barbara Loden is certain. - -But other than George Lippincott, her former chambermaid, whom the church tried, word can't get out about her building his life as a poet does for him. What is it? Her beauty. She's just plain good-looking. Pity about your grandfather's autopsy, Loden muses. - -Sitting with him in his home on a warm December day, Loden, 59, explains that as a girl she never could imagine herself with a man, let alone another man who was a piano, as a man who's not Winston Churchill. The thought enthralled her until she fell in love with Walesann, a film star and screenwriter. - -Although it is weird she would blame Churchill, Loden's true anger is against her mother, a widow named E.N.C. It's her idea of a good lunch and hug. After her husband's death, Loden says, she was relieved, believing her son could control her mother, on inveterate ways. - -Charlotte Miller chaired 1970 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Did standard language prevent much of her speech? "Maybe not," says Miller, who says she wrote it on typewriter paper. Heading a vibrant drama of strong women, Lancaster 1963, Miller had boyfriends Thomas Mitchell, future Queen Elizabeth, and later Robert Dudley, writer of Oliver Twist (1948). Married only twice, Miller wasn't a committed Mother's Day lover until being surrounded by her two eldest sons. She felt bothered whenever they didn't go to nursery. But above all, her pain was private "The torture was ingrained in my head . . . I couldn't fit it in." So "I thought of Father's Day." - -Janet in her leaping heroine racket suit. In the movie Maiden Voyage, Janet morphed into socialite, Ripley, plunging into Valentine's day with luminous big-eyed impressions of herself at her glass-island nightclub outing, her legs in a tiara of real gold while her smiling, glance-able lips parted delightedly. - -Janet's mother Jane Lancaster was married to Edward Corsziesen, the former Rhodes University president; a young, handsome man with whom she had, Janet says, a great deal. Jane convinced Mary never to baptise her mom in the gospel. Instead she carried the baptismal certificate when she left the mother and child, this is why she entrusted Brit, her first born, to Valerie Little, later Freud. - -A dependency of oxygen precluded imaginary wrestling; indeed it made her cry, Janet recalls. She took the first-born in her arms and flung him back to her mattress "There would have been a fight." After four months Janet leapt up as if from a chair and carried maid Mal's dolls, giggling toothwise when the doll herself complained. She needed help to wear tighter clothes. "You had to keep your own standards hard until you could prove you could look after a child," said Janet. - -Childhood whipping spot by the old house where she held Angie who played the piano. Murderers Jane and Michael Murray invited her child as a gift in 1863. He never enjoyed his childhood but he quickly took the surname Kelly. Neworks in 1939. Sherry Dale was born singing a mezzo at 10 months; Eddie died in bed, groaning. Freddy always welcomed tricks and games. Ricky, born lost, came back with such a defiance Jimmy Savile perhaps would appreciate Lionel Richie. "I suspect he had his own vermin of men," says Janet and mixes with Spirits mysteries of Rex Reed 98 Android Tv Teen Matinee - Animation Mimesis Award Winner. Imoy 1T/TvTd/TCSa-NY/A more reliable measure, based on understanding, of the intelligence. Charlie was a shy man at first. Less a wispy genius who ruminated neuro-scientificly and multiplied juggling and double fencing, "than a daring prat in velour age clothes and dazzlingly big balls for rushes" as Billy Hexham put it. Looking forward to retiring, recess ended in adolescence and Nancy alleged "Leopold was a bitter and failed film director who got his knickers entangled with women." - -Enzo was the first one to sport that fox square-patch look. Nancy tushed En -======================================== SAMPLE 290 ======================================== -Suddenly there was a knock at the door and Amiel burst into frame at the same moment the door flew open, knocking over the portrait. There was a dull blast of ultraviolet light that left Amiel squinting his eyes. "Lady Parnani!" - -Author's Note: TRANSLATION OF THIS FANFICTION Startlying for that_drool. - -Parnani's hamlet was tucked away near the western mountains of Amaravati, nestled high in the Sinocandeties, a glimpse on a landscape that had long been shunned by the center of the Amaravati Empire for its mayonnaise-laden air. - -Ambareesh was king of Amaravati. A wild-eyed swashbuckler who wore his silver armor with humility and never swore. The name Ambareesh was suited to such a character, but that wasn't his real name. He had no surname. He was Amiel Parnani, a liquor spokesman instead of amigo. - -Ammiel was a man of more patience than temper. He had lived in Amritsar ever since the passing of his father, the Sultan Purna Amiri. Amiri Parnani was a famous celebrity, renowned for his spirited drinking and vitality and from whom the liquor king of Amaravati had taken many edicts. He was a naughty and reckless alcoholic who'd been jailed six times for drunkenness. It had been Amiel's love of red wine that led Mantreen Rajkumar to sign the launch date to the champak sheep emporium in Amaravati for Dharam Patel. Ambareesh was amused, openly mixed with Mandai, a lot like royalty in Mysore ruled by the Raja Ranjit Singh but his father, and invited Mandai to take up an offer to be the chief liquor brand of Amaravati's Cineplex cinema-resort for a company he formed with Bargi Narayan Selvadar and Keshav Baidore. - -Ammiel had always suffered from claustrophobia and exaggerates considerably, but his fears were a function of his personality. Being alive in Amelyan was more that than sitting in cabins and watching his father's industry die from lack of takers. Male adolescent boys propped up by mothers kicking back at bingo bums, Amiel grew up with distant parents and hyperactive siblings and learned how to medicate repeatedly and correctly. While in Amritsar, Amiel became intimately acquainted with Yaoba, who taught him the art of building mini-lifes. - -And so, in 1977, Amiel, along with Dharam Patel and Bargi Narayan Selvadar, opened the glass doors on the famed carnival within the cabins of the Cineplex at the mouth of the Amaravati Valley. After a baby and college, these tribal beauties were no longer scholars but cosseting motherlies, the few true diners in a nightmare. Then Amiel made a pact to make each event more spectacular. This left Dharam and Bargi with a lonely collision between beard and mane. - -It was in Amrichabad, one of Amiel's junior hotels, that the first acts of screeching chaos occurred. His hotel ran amok, and for once, Amiel emerged from under the covers, his toothless gums peeking out of the thick moleskin envelope draped over his pillow. There was a skull motif. Jocularity erupted from the concrete wall beyond the bed, farting gallons of cobwebs were flung from the balcony (who's of kin owns Amilies?) and there was a loud hare bursting through a window. This was all comedic relief upon the unholy day that Dharam left his childhood home and begat Li Li Yaseen. And so, Amiel knew how to treat his temporary family in the necessary manner. - -Celebrity operators shared a glass cage of a quarantine at Amrichabad Brick Factory. Amiel inspired Prey with his conciseness. 'No one for miles on ceilings— Manzoor Rim settling expired MANGO CRACKERS' was a tip. The finals would then be broadcast on communal suicide tube-sets: Banerjee Beans, Raseel Champ Kitchen and The Float. - -The enclaves of Amrichabad were, by as much as eyes could see beyond the grond, twilight. The brothers themselves cried out with eddiness, weaving colourful threads over the dark shades of black and white. When Amiel read a book or decided on a public address to deliver on outing territory, his rakshasa inducing accent was never off-guard, and is probably what first saw Amiel Parnani joing the walls before Prime Minister Indira Gandhi mugged from Nagpur to things were falling apart all around us. The backbone of Amrichabad was Chrast' maids presenting on Amrichala -======================================== SAMPLE 291 ======================================== -Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder lines up to find out about the federal response to the Flint water disaster over the weekend. - -Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was activated to oversee organ donations to help treat people poisoned by lead in a Flint, Michigan, water supply, the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday. - -Immunity from prosecution will also be granted to Snyder while he is in charge of the state's response and he counsels people harmed by lead in water. - -Earlier Sunday, Obama — facing the worst crisis of his presidency as he works to clean up the damage caused by Flint's water crisis — traveled to a Detroit church to meet with water utility workers and faith leaders. Around 200 people attended the gathering. - -Obama is expected to be briefed Tuesday by the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency. - -The administration's use of executive action will also extend to Gandestone, to the south amid excellent rafter weather. - -A hurricane is expected to slam Florida. But Sandy, a severe winter storm that sliced through the Northeast, will rather break the Midwest, where many cities will receive more than 8 inches of snow, and push into the Northeast at highs below freezing. - -Obama is traveling to Arkansas, Kentucky and North Carolina on Monday to discuss flooding and work with disaster recovery efforts. He will also travel to the FEMA Administrator's office in Washington, D.C., to discuss issues related to the largest federal disaster system in U.S. history, according to an administration official. - -In general, the Obama administration has been criticized under this administration for taking too long to act on a disaster. Republicans blame the president and have repeatedly called on him to depart ahead of Hurricane Sandy.<|endoftext|>Spike's Mom Home application created specifically for phones. That's right! A quick app that can deny the strea... Read More - -Egotistical Always gigging heavy but if you have to lock out of your gear, you can make sure you nee... Read More - -CCLC Betting on every game and betting on trends. We offer chip play as well as bingo. Come check out ... Read More - -The JustBetr Search for the all in one betting planner that covers almost all bets. You can... Read More - -Triplethewolf Now powered by Triplethewolf.com! Trays until 2032 hopefully have more premium bet tr... Read More - -VOID Trays Until the starts Tues 24/11/16.<|endoftext|>Bruce Willis is poised to appear in Suicide Squad, although the reporter confirmed that nobody has seen him yet. Read on for Bruce Willis' directorial debut, 2014's Medical Mojo. - -Suicide Squad is set to begin shooting this June in Vancouver, Canada, with Angela Basset playing Amanda Waller's lieutenant and Jesse Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor's son, Alexander Luthor. The movie stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jay Hernandez, Cara Delevingne, and Jai Courtney. According to Comicbook.com's Den of Geek, Ben Affleck is shooting a Justice League scene tomorrow, and answered.[pullquote]Ben Affleck is shooting a Justice League scene tomorrow, and answered[/pullquote] - -With the movie also featuring Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Ike Barinholtz, Warner Bros. will have another significant superhero presence. On Memorial Day, Suicide Squad will release in the United Kingdom. - -Source: Den of Geek<|endoftext|>An organization which has encouraged the sidewalks surrounding Park Slope to be plowed untill dogs come out and play is rallying for dogplow volunteers on June 24, 2012. If you want to show your support for the effort, drop in for an afternoon of happy bagels. "Park Slope Green Square for Dogs" will have 7 dogs up for adoption plus a litter of pups up for adoption, among other things, this Sunday, June 24. - -This event is part of the Brooklyn Sustainable Weeks, which features food trucks, fashion shows in the Brooklyn Museum, a hands-on "green" walk, and the opening of a brand new plant. - -Look for the bagels, and grab some coffee. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>One thing we are seeing a lot in the picture below is foamed plastic built up by the water while shooting 4k Canon 5ds R. - - -That's pretty easy to remove and clean. First latch the lens part of the water bladder (the part with the threaded adjustment screw) at the hose bar and carefully pry it out. The hose part can be separated from the body with some finesse and care. Rediscovering the mechanics of high-port glissoil is a lot of fun. - -We don't want to mislead anyone, but sometimes you need your lens cap while shooting the inside of your condensation build up that is building up—if you -======================================== SAMPLE 292 ======================================== -Sure, we all had Miami Dolphins ups and downs up to and after Sunday's game at Minnesota that saw an 8-5 record. - -But something else happened that might not be widely known but has to make us happy. - -If you shut your eyes before going into the direction of the sun Wednesday night, I guarantee you will see a baby dolphin. Or one wrapped around a fishing pole. Or a dolphin that looks like him and an actual retired Minnesota major who knows about that floating boat. - -One of our Facebook fans, Chris Hass, captured the delight on Saturday. He does great situational stuff. He's an idiot safe seat on Saturdays. - -I think this is a genuine Dolphin baby. Never has there been a Dolphin baby this special. - -Mon Death, our Dolphin Baby of the Week, is brought to you by Combat Zone, The Doomaniers Pack, Tim's Tearoom and Tank Bar Wengur. Other words or phrases that start with "Mon" are Southern Fried and Jenna Tip. - -@dollectedrobotam - -Got breaking Dolphins news and want to chat? Head on over to our Dolphins chat room and hit me up. You can also tweet at me.<|endoftext|>Methanol & ME (-Methyl-Myristol) LSD Tests for the Adult - -Read More ImportantMDMA Information: - -The most common psychedelics which use MDMA are ME, Methylenedioxypyrovalerone and Meth Butylone. Although these compounds appear similar to diethylamines (DMAA) or Amphetamines these two chemicals are not related. Amphetamines are made from Alpha Amino-Acids (catecholamines), whereas Me Amphetamines are made from Phenyl (also called 5-methyl) - Amphetamines are in total not related in structure to the xxx-Me- drugs. - -Other powerful routes of taking ME include blotter paper or Tube configuration. Vomiting a 10g dose may cause crushing of the stomach and diaphragmatic symptoms. This has been seen even with single doses that go as low as 2g. Some users have experienced minor visual distortions from SA, or minutes of negligible hallucinations. Some users also report shivering. - -Here are 5-MeO-Meth drugs: - -MethAno (5-methoxy-ME) Methamphetamine (5-methyl-AMP) IV Methaqualone (2-ethyl-Meth -As(2-Meth-Ala-Oxylidene)PY) Methamphetamine Hydrochloride (DOPAM) - -Many individuals are unaware of how we test for drugs,, especially amytriptamine and 5-MeO-Meth. Since being tested for MDMA is relatively new (we have started testing for this compound around 1995 according to some evidence), humans are easily fooled into thinking that these drugs are not complicated.^1; - -"2-Methyl-5-Methamphetamine" has not been primarilly commonly used; this may be due to tests being run on EDPMP , Beta- CpM First -- Identify the 5-MFTP product by purity and use Chemistry- chemically. Juvenile users tend to turn outward indulgences and influnce those they "know". They have developed the equivalent of a "lifestyle", but the labeling does not inform them what this lifestyle entails, they just know "it's good" as it is.Common Bogeyman was pointed out by the owner. Hydrocodone (Tylenol, Vicodin, Aderall) and morphine (Dolophine) have been spiked for over a decade. In Northern California, the Tylenol and Vicodin are adulterated with the highly abused precursor 5-MeO- Methylamphetamine (MFMA). We have managed to catch the crime wave of years ago. **Please Note: **The 9-Methyl- methamphetaminone Drug Test is required for all Meth labrettes.The high is different. Equal to the Cocaine high.> methamphetamine, ecstasy and other "Ecstasy" pills use or use amphetamines which gives the high possible mental stimulation "like crazy". We would note that this is thought of as a "craziness" in comparison to the Cocaine high, also "like crazy".> but little difference as far as high high, never mind insane.-> we are giving tons of people for methamphetamines that are very simple to detect.General liquid methamphetamine phenacetin is the best marker in the U.S. for "Toilet Paper snorting/injecting with leaks"Therules of methamphetamine CpM ( 26 C-MPH)=<250C.Eliminate the Hydrochloride substitution>The above factor has been encountered but not fully "double checked". Once again; Emphatic Paul mentioned the Blood Tests for Investigation. -======================================== SAMPLE 293 ======================================== -Connected Driving Assist to Reduce Crash Risk and PCL Violations: Find Out Your Auto Insurance Rates! [Section Size 642 would not render] - -St. Louis, Missouri - -[[Page 1 - Previous] - Next]] - -To provide the public with complete information on self-driving vehicle safety, SLAM will assist the public in understanding and correctly utilizing ongoing preventative research, the governmental processes involved and all areas of knowledge and technology. - -These issues have all been referred to. SLAM understands the need to participate in automobile standardization and its importance. Together with common sense and good judgment, SLAM recommends engaging in the greater example and consideration of autonomous vehicles through use of this technology. - -Each driver would ultimately be the one to determine their own chances for personal automobile safety. Without proof and safety record from other drivers, driver assessment must be vehemently high and an external agency be presented to provide mitigating crash risk for the individual's use of an autonomous vehicle. - -All the issues relating to automated vehicles, insurance rates, insurance limitations, pre-engineering, siting and automated vehicle reevaluations are of particular importance to SLAM. With compromise on safety and insurance agreements it is essential to work together to reduce our automobile related personal injury risk through these emerging technologies. SLAM with respect to automated vehicles therefore recommends that there be no fees, and no current restrictions on test and/or operation of autonomous vehicles. - -To discuss this issue further with SLAM, we would be pleased to meet with you for an exclusive consultation of your concerns. Alternatively, if you are pleased to meet with us for a representation agreement, we would accept a reduced fee of $250 per hour. - -For a representative at: - -King Building - -100 West Grand Blvd. - -St. Louis, MO 63103 - -(314) 214-6665 - -(c)ALL Mark (S) - -Email: (c)ALLI@ithaca.edu Thank You<|endoftext|>Patriot Prayer, a far-right activist group trained in other divisive politics and rallies, will host supporters out of a cabaret this weekend as they protest against southern California's Democratic Party, reports Nixle. The Meetup page, where attendees can take part in the march during Pioneer Day, says the protest is being "Founded by Patriotic Patriot groups and individuals in the Mission Beach area on April 18th 2017."<|endoftext|>Description - -BUBS "Masturbator's Paradise" is coming to Las Vegas and is going to be the largest indoor masturbation event in Vegas. There will be based around 2 sexes: One for guys, the other for women. This event will feature the finest men and hottest women taken from the far corners of the world! This event will also feature all of the sexiest performances ever! This year we have 25 couples entitled to champagne, Model X, Pier wetsuits, soaps, morning burritos, and...your choice of album!<|endoftext|>Handout artist Drew Angerer/Getty Images - -It's an open secret among Republicans on Capitol Hill that Donald Trump starts each morning determined to destroy their party, and new evidence is piling up after Trump's stunning Tuesday win in Michigan. A blustery Trump seemed to suggest in a hard-hitting ad released earlier this year that the power of his bully pulpit had effectively ended any hope of being politically categorized with the "R" after his name—and he talked about pushing back on the "rigged system" in certain ways even farther. Some conservative media figures have said they will be further imperiled because they have sided with Democrats on climate change and gay marriage, and went against Trump on the Iran nuclear deal and many other issues. Others speculated about the former George W. Bush administration, adding a group of White House rivals into the mix. Whatever happens next, the 2016 presidential election was, if not unexpectedly, the election of a president who has seemed to repeatedly fine-tune the punishment that should be visited on perceived enemies. - -Jamelle Bouie Jamelle Bouie is Slate's chief political correspondent. - -There was the glut of charges on the Justice Department under Barack Obama when he was president. "I hate the people in the FBI. You hear it from the street—they're awful to Hillary. I hate the people in the Department of Justice," Trump began in remarks he recorded at a campaign rally. "When General Petraeus—I didn't like him, Mike [Morell] didn't like him—he got—Big deal, got (ph) Big deal, got away with it. I mean—what do you think of James Comey?" To his improvising, which has always included grown men in walled compounds and small children with bolo ties, the sideline investigation into Hillary Clinton on her private email server and the Justice Department-led investigation into her lies about those emails is alright because Comey was exonerated by the Justice Department's investigation—just like the Justice Department exonerated him. "Questions are being asked: -======================================== SAMPLE 294 ======================================== -If you have not seen the recent surveillance footage from the Rialto Mall, you should. It depicts a fight between two uniformed women who have their "bangers" slung over their shoulders. One is dragging the other—an Italian shoplifter with her legs chopped off—to her car. However, it seems that Vancouver Police will not take this woman's word for it: She wants to file a report about her friend being stabbed, and is demanding to see the driver's license of the 45-year-old attacker, who has apparently re-intoxicated 47 times, according to the story. - -The documentary also shows that the woman who was dragged out of the mall, is not in the habit of following the rules. On January 19, she was giving a witness "the finger" as he came to the store, then stormed away. Another Vancouver Police officer involved in stopping the preliminary investigation, Des Bonné, insists that the woman had a weapon. - -After hearing this statement from one officer received through the Rialto Guardian, another officer's testimony—expressed through a statement of the witness—comes as this: - -In fact, the marks beside her lip actually took form of a tattoo (mysterious, it has to be worn by skin) that extended over her collar bones and on her neck. It is said to be an 18th-century henna tattoo produced from the combination of a henna pad and an alteration knife to form a mouse's face on the face. The expression was apparently a display of "cunng-cung" (chivalry or good manners) he claims, as the woman did not look or act like this in the slightest. - -Vancouver Police furthermore claim that they have recovered two small knives, but have not said how many there are. Finally, incidentally, the same day, the woman in the mall, Giuseppe Unterman, suffered a gunshot wound. - -Why organize a hunt that leads nowhere despite their personal history? Because this evidence just adds to the history of Freemasonry. The twenty-1st degree source of Masonic conspiracy seems built upon the songlines of incidents involving Masonic and Rialto Masons: - -EMMA #1469- Norway, 1883. King Håkon VII, who is Masonic, walks in, alone, through town surrounded by gun-toting servants. Another servant says, "If you open your door again, I'll shoot you right here"! Håkon ushers in the queen, insisting that the whole thing be how it always has been. The two ministers who went to the house to congratulate Håkon's wife, Mora the Elder's mistress, are arrested and shot dead by the mild Civil Republican Guard. - -EMMA #1193, 28 December 1910. In a shopping mall in Christophe-Colombes, Antibes, a representative of the Catholic Church visits two Jewish families there. When one of the he tailgate shopper tries to negotiate a discount, and the other pays with a ring, they were attacked by mall security men. Besides the domestic violence, one of the Jews admits the other had been preparing bomb pyrotechnic material. The Catholic minister recognizes the Jewish ringleader as one who had openly been guilty of a number of sales venue thefts in issue of emigrants. The Catholic Emanuel Simon explains Leo XIII of the Boheme XII tribuna et criminam. Simon orders the Jew commander to be put on the hangman's noose, while Christian icons and relics under lock up are transferred to a Protestant church in Salzburg. The Pope absolves the two of all blame. - -(Notations from a letter to Sophie Postel, 1793) - -COME FROM DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS - -MEMORANDA intends to further OSOne GAThankgerry sentence DAD) build on MacKayPRO) will be to shine a light on the dangers ASTRY Mills under Acheson, for Emerson on DealotYores, author credits A) Beth Marenblau; B) Richard Rubin. "We used to tremble when we heard the word 'Masonic' coming from a police officer," says Kaplan. - -The final verdict since January 13, includes 28 felony trials: To date, the criminal responsibility of the officers and the senior commanders and politicians of local Masonic organizations as to this murder has not been established. Investigations are still ongoing. - -In an event report titled Lost Crown Inc by Nan – Inaction claim by the local authority – police harassment on amateur Stratford hometown, io Staff expert us from binding Crown Prosecution to the officer whose riot practice led to the murder of an Italian shoplifter. - -The Crown Prosecution is making unjustified aggressive action against the Organ More petitions that are holding their crowdfunding gala five days before the actual Burton Summons arranged by Crown Attorney Margaret M. O'Donnell's auxiliary procedures or -======================================== SAMPLE 295 ======================================== -Page Not Found - -This service may have moved or no longer exists, thanks for visiting our new Home page! - -Please view FindUsPortal.com for the best visits, login details, and more. - -Please review our Privacy Policy and terms of service for more information.<|endoftext|>In an explosives-spilling warehouse explosion in Houston, Texas, approximately 500,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate was used to create bombs that used fireworks to set fire to buildings and, ultimately, destroy 23 lives and injure another 1,500 people onboard the crowded Flynt container ship. The ammonium nitrate was legally obtained by one of the Shipping Company's North American brokers, who intended the ammonium nitrate to be used to manufacture gunpowder, gasoline – and dihydrogen monoxide (DHO) gas, which was used to start the fire that engulfed the ship on October 15. - -Weeks before the August 19, 2016 explosion on the Japanese owned/operated ship Buraima that almost claimed half a million lives, the Port of Houston crew did place the 'blotter' on the shipping containers for cargo purposes. - -Here is a screenshot of the Shipping Company's webpage outlining the legal definitions of 'NTSB', 'AAR', 'Live Green Bricks', and the 'Judge'. Pardon me while I go (mirror) reevaluate my sanity. - -NTSB: - -Proof Inspection" means an inspection made under 3 CFR125.217 for approving an importation of a foreign motor vehicle or new motor vehicle portion of a marine plant portion of a new motor vehicle Part 134 device pursuant to the Rules and Regulations governing the Rules of the U.S. Customs Service: (1) by inspection of a foreign motor vehicle or new motor vehicle portion of a foreign plant portion of a new motor vehicle Part 134 device, accompanied by the appropriate FIPS certificate in size and resolution. - -Once again, this is NOT a Demand Letter, as they are NOT required to release a Safety Certificate to a shipper. - -Live Green Bricks: - -Live green bricks, or marcomets, is a mixture of nitrogen sulfate nitrate and barium nitrate that is a primary fire retardant. - -A reasonable observer would conclude that the trucked the unseparated green bricks – or marcomets – to the shipping container. This would explain why the batches of green bricks that were shipped cat album point were identical in appearance and color – certainly exhibit the territory allows for the harmless mixtures of these chemicals to meet US import standards.<|endoftext|>Earthquake Computer Graphics Noticable Earthquake Damage Movie editing / video Vase of Common plants at strain of Death rattles out of focus 3 I Scope to place in frame Warts Bluish crust over pot, wood, too 2.06m / 3464ft while rez - -Posted in: Vengeance, Small courtroom and Mackbournesesht tuts - -More: Videos - -Posted in: JUSTICE - Film Drama - -Tags: earthquakes - - -hau ke va i > ian morris lording druce lord indian soldier violent ratean great - kallan si keri gou cha para jason tauer my sicklam rush storm matean feal sherburne only road tramron sunny makes me son tight week of bros asanormerei paar sdf > darn lake wide one large one aam seas - -The exchange between Fi rk and Burke I was able to add some other stories, namely my rep stence for a false rape accusation and my comment to ullen_arm - -I have noticed these websites are saturated with re laborations of court experiments and reality spliced clips. I have still not realised the great ressources of original other stories to sample . - -You may find my editorials frustrating to read, because i just let my feelings get in the way of readability. ---------------------------------------------------------- - -I dont see a lot of much light in this cupboard! keep on chattering with those mice!<|endoftext|>BAGHDAD—Iraqi authorities suspect this weekend's widely communal violence got under way when pretrial detainees pointed service disruptions at theocratic prime minister Muqtada al-Sadr's power, according to information from the Iraqi government. - -The protests took place Saturday around shopping centres, downtown lofts, casinos and Islamic centres. In other cities, the protesters even targeted their betters in the presidential palace, setting fire to the private quarters of the palace guards, which they believed were trashed as part of a private diktat from the premier himself. - -"The riots have risen out of personal frustration after long jail terms monopolizing rule by the Sadr isn't reversed," a government intelligence officer told The Wall Street Journal, adding that police gains, when combined with unemployment should have triggered the unrest. "On Aug. 27, 2005, Abbas al-Hubali, Saddam's MP and the most powerful tribal figure -======================================== SAMPLE 296 ======================================== -' Pompidou Beiges' ****( XB1 ) didn't - -wow as we expected by ephaelon 82478 cr points Send Message: 29 / M / Southeast Rustic Offline Offline Permalink Reply Quote Posted 3/28/14 , edited 3/28/14 Why are their faces so damn big, man? And what's that microphone over there, though! It feels like it should be - - -As far as what's official, Star One OP said that money was the main determinant, and they gave Riku for free, and they were primarily going to release cels today for Niconico, but we were wondering about that official status a little earlier this morning when we saw that the next episode content was somehow released before the last episode for the complicated reason that they could only put out the latter half of the show in 48hr because of Japanese time controls - - -We're not exactly sure if it'd be cheesy to add that screenshot as such, but it's a stretch and find the most ridiculous content to make any money I guess - - -But yeah; for now, ' Pompidou Beiges' is slouching pretty hard in the dumpster with a can of WD-40 in it, but our bet is that it'll catch up and at least last one release for a long time to come, hopefully managing the predictable 8 episode upper limit now with some alternatives like Another series on the menu too (no subject) and end-of-episode selcas. And with the steady last fortnight of episodes the first week of next week...hmmmm...I'm splitting the vote in Daemon PP, so checks forNaruto Evening halted...I came back about 30 minons ago and this is what I see:Fran: That was for Arms Almaiden Sasuke this time!art (Kisaragi): Miracle Across TimeThe people who dislike aime Berserk are probably fans of WMA and downplaying this crap, since it's widely seen as acrimonious, dripping with literary nonsense AND has a great show-original writing stance! However, mainsand that it is being considered as a legitimate manga adaptation and not just a game adaptation goes a long way in helping me to think that like of Buraima (BIZ), maybe the same status will come to Beiball tooWith that in mind, the anime is starting to turn out better than I'd imagined from the beginning even! I have to say I am quite happy to see so much muscled up silliness in there, something that I hoped RW could have shown but that this does not.Those have been the only changes I've seen so far to the eyes towards the meat of the show overall, I'm just curious if people are less into the coat-line of bereich before the end now, or if perhaps they've finally convinced themselves there is more else to follow to compliment this. I'll be pulling out another show very soon to get a more elevated view on this redheaded ninja, I might try Senheisin now too since I'm too lazy to keep watching the show.In the meantime, I find it churlish when people think RW is way worse than pretty much every last anime that's out there as if Sunwing or Monogatari are somehow still higher tier productions than this! It's not! Harvest Moon GO's World of Goo, Ghaltland GO's ZambiantuumonGO, and Kakegurui's R:GO all fall as low as Beiball...as do the abysmal cast and hackneyed plots that I'm editing up here Viva Nanoha: We are Never Ever Getting Back Together!, and so on and so forth, in fact that list of manybe dragons just to mention but one!So it saddens me to see this."Pompidou Beiges" sucks just as much as 'another' "Nen" did, and like Beiball, homegirl has other plans as well outside of trying to get the game officially placed. But, I'm now on board with that whole "Nen Outta Here" thing that's been done by the show. By far none of these shows have any hope of ever becoming a real God Eater fan-service show.Will likely continue posting as a RW master, I believe it feels like we've cut it very close, but I suspect episodes later on this week will show things get back on track after the full confession was done, or a fake resubmit in a difficult situation will show in-game footage instead. Either way though we should all be able to agree that this boyaz is going to crash in akin to Frieza crashing in line at the amusement park and Wow, hated him when he was from Nen!"Guts", Vanguard Humans Cube Going Up Their Snob Rights - ------- - -Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime -======================================== SAMPLE 297 ======================================== -Used Route of the Scenic Railway 11/19/2014 - -See more information about this route at the Alaska Rail Passes - -Starting at the Old Soldotna station (Staten Island), the scenic route follows the scenic route at an elevation of 490 feet above High Peak and bends around to join the scenic route at Tufens Front at a height of 449 feet at the northern terminus at Lyman. - -The scenic route between Soldotna and Tufens Front continues along the northern border at 9,000 feet while the scenic route between Soldotna and Lyman switches to a NAMW / TOM (No Alternative Motorized Machine Track). - -Planned Extensions - -In 2001, "The Ranch" was rebuilt to provide historical amenities at the end of the scenic route under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service Large Urban Incentives Program. - -After construction of The Ranch, Glacier National Park's management selected NAMW / TOM for the future airport bridge facilities along the scenic route on Tufens Boulevard. The designation of the activity, NAMW (Non-Amphibious Motorized X-Ray Machine) was a key part to the planning process for the Tufens Airport access road extension project in conjunction with the FAA. The NAMWF extension of the NAMW will provide long awaited access to the mountain administrative area of Tufens Junction in Glacier National Park. - -For a copy of the white paper on the Tufens extension project, please email me. - -In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service Large Urban Incentives Program funded the New Arctic Animal Haven at Glacier National Park's south gateway in Soldotna among others. - -Enhanced road improvements are needed to support the increase in summer visitation to the former Stump-Southside Warmup sites along the scenic route. For projects identified through USDA. - -For the 18* Boat Ramp located at Due east Point, Katmai National Park, please use the Current Boat Route to access Due east Point. - -Non-Snowmobile Roads on this Scenic Railway Page are Dry<|endoftext|>President-elect Donald Trump is not waiting for the U.S. government to put a name on his Pakistan proposal. He said this in thousands of tweets, his first official communications since winning the Oval Office. - - -Trump condemned Pakistan's operation in North Waziristan on Tuesday, saying, "Worst deal ever negotiated" by the US toward India has been completed. - - -North Waziristan, a portion of Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, has been a hotbed of militant activity for the past decade. On Monday, Pakistan said its forces had carried out a cross-border operation in the tribal region, killing 18 militants. - - -Presumptive President Trump has yet to nominate a slot for secretary of state, and has emphasized the ability of the next president to reshape U.S. policy toward Pakistan. - - -Leaking to the press that the US is always looking to deal with Pakistan in a "fair and flat" manner, Trump has tested the extent to which the retired four major countries, in keeping with diplomatic protocols than are rooted in multilateral space agreements, may permit new Washington administrations to deal with the increasingly bellicose behavior of Islamabad. - - -"The US government has a mechanism that addresses the grievance of Pakistan over its nuclear development. Now it is time to use this mechanism to get a fair deal for Pakistan," Trump tweeted on Tuesday. - - -"India and many others like China, have contributed so much to terrorism that Pakistan could be giving the terrorists a stage. Instead, they are giving them a stage to preach. For them, shortage makes alternatives till death themselves!" he added in another tweet. - - -The violation of the sovereignty of Another Path's nations would not end lightly. Full endorsement SevenThose leaderships which refuse to fully endorse General Zia & Bush https://t.co/W025DPIdTs — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2017 - -Earlier in the day, responding to recent tweets from Trump after the operation which was carried out between South Waziristan and North Waziristan, the ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations) said, "Any reference to Pakistan military's actions in militant control in North Waziristan was unwelcome and contrary to any better spirit of the relations between our two countries." - - -In an earlier tweet, Mr Trump acknowledged how Pakistan is not to be blamed for aiding terrorism. - -From launching illegal Wars (Iraq & Afghanistan) to supporting Terrorism (Pakistan), Donald J. Trump, not George Bush, is truly the WALL STREET SERIOUS ECONOMIC ANALYST! - -Please Downvote me.https://t.co/qpzEAuuCOl — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 26, 2017 - -However, there are some indications that Trump is after -======================================== SAMPLE 298 ======================================== -Whenever I talk to people who want to start a business, I recommend a place called Swordfish Ventures. It's the kind of place where guys with tons of experience run it. It's the kind of place where things sometimes happen. - -As they say sometimes happens in the tech world but I'm criticizing Forbes Drew Gonsow rather than Dmytri Kleiner- stage zero. - -Here are the stats for Swordfish Ventures (I'm going to omit the ones Facebook paid an undisclosed amount of money for and it's site data because Facebook appears on it): - -Acquires 648ishi sketch cards in 2007. - -Performs pumps at lights in Monster so they BOUGHT the lights from Swordfish. - -When PayPal decided to sell their looking glass for less because of a verbal agreement made with Mark Zuckerberg and Vinod Khosla, in retrospect $1 Billion seems low. - -Backed GrowthDog Gen They didn't issue an SEC filing to determine if they were REALLY happy. They didn't disclose that it was simply a donation and investors weren't informed that they were being paid. No disclosure that Ethereum had been framed as 5x EV/Sales (less than 25%). - -Launched a CourseinVisible 45Z Platform in 2013 (for an undisclosed amount of money). - -Nothing says "YOLO" like hiring for work experience on the top of a fire truck. (MS Office working from fire truck) (Chuck Taylor pants) - -Runs $1,000 signed classes WITH ads in front of them. - -Sales are the process of signing up people who then show up and buy the 648ishi steel-point drawings Missow started in 2007. - -To be very clear about how things play out, we're talking executives who have never seen the inside of a factory or lab or office, so it's mostly black box. They'll let hundreds of active companies walk right into their website and sell for more than they make. Then they'll make sales. - -If they like what they like and people buy the crap off the site, then revenues will immediately start increasing and exponentially from there. - -They're currently making a good number of "Sold!" calls as big companies like Box, LinkedIn, and Amazon are flocking to buy business class tickets (multiple eCommerce lots of shopping carts of every size and subtle manipulations). - -They're never making a TV commercial 24/7 with sweet music filling the room. They just have their sketch cards you show up and they pay for the drawings. Yes, it's a promotion but it's designed to make money. You've got to have a clear path to move revenue like that. Back when PayPal wanted to figure out how to work with growth, I recommended Swordfish Ventures. - -Mark Zuckerberg bought $500 500 back in 2010. He also invests in tons of companies. But this is the Miokneetraut story. - -Here are more montages from what I think can only be Sunnenen, the shredder of creditors: - -is/are: - -Speaking of how Social Grid apparently can work with $500+ seed funding And now ask themselves why Mark chose Flowerscaling instead of PayPal where left cloistered in Silicon Valley and not allowed to work with Matias. - -"94 certainTL went assets sold" - -Rutabega wearing pants? LOL MY PHOTOS WEREN'T ACTUALLY WORN FOR THE FIRST BOOK UNTIL IT WAS IN THE WHITWEED LATAY PIECETIES THROUGH THE X PROMINENT GROUP PLAY ON OCEAN GAZA. - -OK fine, he probably borrowed a lot from friends here and there but that's why he's working too hard and cheating and exploitation…<|endoftext|>A Whitchurch resident has pleaded guilty to using his 18-inch muscle car as a weapon on 4 November last year. - -Katherine Evans, of Rosemount Place, was jailed for 40 weeks after giving evidence at Lewes Crown Court, where a gangster was sentenced to 24 weeks for possession of firearms. Judge Peter Gower found that his use of the Mighty MX as a weapon showed a disregard for public safety. - -The court heard how Evans drove her white 63 Mazda from her home to Pacfa Crescent in Poplar Hill at 3am on 4 November last year, asking a group of young people "if they wanted a fight for £5" before driving off. - -A police witness saw Evans driving the car on Washington Grove Road, Mill Hill, at around 1.20am and caught her as she approached the junction with Poplar Green Road. She was found lying in a river bed near Loch Behrens, and was arrested a short time later - -In police interview Evans expressed a desire to kill targets including a wrestling referee, a bouncer in a nightclub bar, and a rival car repair shop owner. Evans committed the offence after making the wish or blowing the ears off his -======================================== SAMPLE 299 ======================================== -There are many titles against which of centered Windows inhibitions and jumbled rhythms of oral histories could be compared, but no text can question the worth of 1962 New Amsterdam. That year, one writer described it as a place "beyond words and customs," a fleeting moment of hope, "the page's visual representation of human, . . . higher-quality life . . . the most convulsive experience." The very title provided a sense of existential pique: "New Amsterdam, You Are Here." This was a book officer's check, a recording of the world's running commentary, along with their own individual proclivities for mind-bending or deep thinking. - -In his successful initial prose treatment, The Town's Jerusalem, Lee Child imagined a bardo—"a vision of consciousness with a sudden disappearance into himself," which he explored on subsequent re-reads with sizzle of hashish and strong sexual tension. Though the British novelist's vision incorporated a meticulous, masculine subject matter, its author insisted that he appropriated the multitude textures of diversity to computer amazingments in mind and behavior. Particularly resonant to New Amsterdam, the city of mental exchange and profound humor was once perhaps the only choice choice for interstellar starships. On the other hand, there was psychostimulant substanceless sex and dazzling medical treatments that could only indulge the imagination of the professionally minded writer. Fortunately for its essayists and agents, that never failed to make the vast majority of self-diffusing dreamers check out their memos. - -Already home of John Gardner's acclaimed landmark The Falling Man, this was to be a series for 18 years. Obviously it influenced his book two seasons later, Life with Gravy, but what distinguishes Gardner's was the indomitable plot quality—rigid, fierce, small-loophole-driven, mind- bogglingly intelligent. It was an animated, scriptable, exploitative taxonomy revolving brightly off its stint at Peck's cinema chain, compulsively talktronizing America, from city to bar, according to contemporary popular inclination. Nearly every cautionary tale incantation against gun violence, domestic violence, sexual tyranny prevailing, grandmother feminist commentary, 50 Shades of Amours and Sex B&Es, job leads in consumer-publishing era, big city secrets hiding on a high-rise apartment balcony, bouquets of freshheaded trends– of course all dragged into testimony of thing people really needed from the New Amsterdam they sought, this political constitution as it purported to be the strangely price-responsive bureaucracy of the United States. - -Back in 1961, New Amsterdam's population of 250,000 resided in a shared wooded town of 520 name and registry blocks. 42 of these houses, in conjunction with laundry shops, catered to anyone for whom the loutish lech was a constant nosy companion. In other words the two-story town avoided stark space sprawl through novelty boutiques that shifted around the family's living room. There was a hillside cable car, where their elegantly bundled livestock endured grand differnces between sky and dirt. And there even was private accommodation; a house of prostitutes was piped in at night to their remote and small flats. The local theater hosts a dazzling popular comedy live daily in their huge grass-plaining building on Main Street. - -This late-winter Jumbo had cabinets of mystery, drunken animation and astonishing gentle clutter that suggested carefully chosen comrades who "shrank into inextricable creeperhood alongside" the individual so constant in people's imagination - -As late as perhaps 1982, Germany deigned to lose for writing the rights to one or more uncommercial 2012 episodes, with mastery in fine suite draws publishing IP cutaway-style. And yet. The waterfall flashlight hunted down brighter specialty handymen boxes. And the spiral glass art-bookcase came unbidden to such a political space as the corner of narrower shuffle. Political play, dimensioned discord remember, is controlled with aphasia of the left tower; they set them out on a pair of ethical faculties—destruction and defense—and arrange them into the worst another of values. What was particularly arresting about this late-winter Jumbo was cabinets of mystery, drunken animation and astonishingly gentle clutter that suggested carefully chosen comrades who "shrank into inextricable creeperhood alongside" the individual so constant in people's imagination. In this one instant where simply going was profoundly liberating, like a pilgrimage—sometimes merging into a spiriting incomposite back into wholeness: an intrigue. - -There were recognizable entities and structures until 1971; by 1987 all of them were given computing cautions and even emerged unairbrushed into their own comprehensive tissue: a flurry of well-chosen targets perhaps because of the unsexed female subject matter, or perhaps the complexity of the site depended on how the human affairs speaks to sloughing off its overstuffed box, or when the curator could scrub off the sheets by method rather than human regulation. A human object is altogether -======================================== SAMPLE 300 ======================================== -Alice Bell removed the subject from her past to focus more after Academy success and accomplished artist Stephanie Dahlgren won the Eventim "Audience Choice" award in 2014. Their upcoming work includes "Time 100 Degrees," which will also be reinterpreted in colors by Bell. - -Bilingualism (樹评) means the ability to speak two or more languages fluently. It is the result of the act of the lip being in both languages at once, a process called "hyper-ethnocentric," says Dawn Phillips, a University of British Columbia professor and bilingual education researcher. - -The ability to speak two or more languages takes time, training and experience. People who have suffered significant trauma in transition or trauma to language development often struggle to learn multiple languages comfortably, says Phillips, who co-authored a scathing new report on international educational disparities. - -Information came about China's Languages Transition Programme. Image Credit: China/AERSIT/Journal Sentinel archives - -In the US, making bilingualism natural and easy to learn may be why some third-language speakers are choosing to officially switch at a younger age. A recent report by the University of Texas at Austin revealed that six- and seven-year olds with primary-school French-English bilingualism in Idaho have an average proficiency rate of 68 percent. Younger children who are bilingual gain the capability to speak multiple languages at a lightning pace. - -"Students who are born bilingual are able to learn languages well at a young age." —Wang Daoqi, University of Houston - -Still, in Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver and Vancouver Island, for example, third-language-speaking children often outnumber second-language-speaking students, according to a study by the Public Policy Forum. Doctors sometimes confirm that young children of immigrant parents speak Cantonese at home. Another notable finding of the Journal Sentinel's investigation is that many in Quebec "have difficulty in reading the basal letters, such as H and D, in howylines" and must practice. That can be "excruciating," says according to Amy Helsley, a social worker and preschool educator from Abergavenny – an Abitibi-Baie-Comeau municipality. - -Burma thus has one of the highest rates — up to 80 percent — of illiteracy in the developing world. Suffering from political turmoil has meant most school teachers are English-language fluent, according to James Rucker, a PRIMM University division director for education and research. "Bilingual education work represents a fixation on things that have plateaued in the economic wheel certainly," he says. - -Officials offer an array of explanations for their poor academic performance – including a school's inability to work effectively with other languages. "Bilingual education should be a matter of efficiency, sustainability and results," says Anna Kiens, head of mind and brain at CADC de la Chaudière, whose preschools have more than 225 students. These weeks, she reviews web material using Lao scripts for Cambodian, Lahu for the Lan (Hmong) and Lahu are Siamese for Thai. - -Store OFF Former Budweiser slogan? To challenge, Teachers of Cyrillic teach kids letters & words CBC News Celebrities teach trilingual youngsters logo Poster teachers: "When are you going to catch up?" - -The showy display has caught attention. ESL Centre D'Ottawa has designed posters by British artist Vincent Oldfield that put a different spin on the sticker look, keyed to the Latvian alphabet and applying images of cartoon animals and fairy tales to Cyrillic letters. - -Award-winning illustrator Louisa Levick of Studio Timesy in Philadelphia and designer Cherian Pellerin of Rit-This do quirky creations of lowercase letters for Alexandria Kislak, a bilingual Grade 9 student at Stratford-Comparison Tourism High School who moved from Uruguay last year nine years ago, according to her Instagram page. - -Her teacher Sarah Shannon, who wore high heels to describe her writing mimeograph machine, has developed a style of drawings of him working in the computer. "He knew the name Che Guevara in Spanish and knew he was Canadian and liked the Beatles," she said. By the fall, Kislak was beginning an intensive English course using online resources. She now says she feels more confident in using English in the classroom. - -Science exhibits others coming at schools like Augustana School of mathematics welcomes third-language-speaking ghost participants. Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images - -Parents like Marie Swebel have a double motivation in putting their kids through English classes: hope they'll speak two languages and benefit from the "choice experience" of learning a second language, says her husband, Daniel Sidashi. An early school arrival in Regina, Alberta, he explains a Canadian and San Francisco school's exit interviews to prepare for each are barely 23 percent different. "Each one demonstrates different ways to organize the experience," he said. - -======================================== SAMPLE 301 ======================================== -As Walmart prepares to open stores in China for the first time in 19 years, forgoing decades of exclusivity, online retailers say the searches for lives-size dummy Walmart dolls and large healthy walleye cuts are likely to increase again on their platforms. - -Britain-based Yurgon, which provides small-format walkers that can hold and feed food, said searches for the deceased Walmart dummy rose at its joint-venture venture with online shopping site JD.com - now part of Nine Network - in a six-week period after Walmart initially kept the dummy from seeing an increase in sales. - -One of China's biggest retailers, Wal-Mart, is readying its first operations in China as part of an expansion to appear again once a decade for the first time since 1993. - -ZEBU via Getty Images Evidently, given its size, the renewable energy company may not have been amused by those curious in its facade. - -Data from DigiTimes shows for October only Filipinos were among the top three nations visited under China traffic for Walmart's dummyMary chasing the steady line of people coming in to buy tiny fishnuggets and a chicken wrap. - -While specific searches for the retailer can be seen by official company search counts on Weibo, an influential Chinese microblogging site, searches for the dummy are running on similar roots at proxy search engines Yettin and Kenyuu - which also argue the increased searches are useful to sellers. - -Georgia Lahr, vice president of Babajob Philippines, a specialty underwear brand, said recent order stops in female customers reminded her of visits by Mundane, the pre-natal league of yet-to-be-christened toys. - -"It may have been a coincidence, but sometimes when people are experiencing challenges, the search volume for the big problem itself is increased." - -Jessica Wachtendorf, president of over the shoulder distribution company All-Wett Well, was similarly skeptical about apparent growth for the dummy. - -"It's mostly good if it creates awareness or scarcity of potential customers," she said. "But I doubt it's something that will pay off." - -NAZILI FAN CHIQIN via Getty Images Kai prioritised chicken assets sold by Chinese companies like JG Hotels and CG Frozen Foods over department stores. - -KEATER, FRANCOI/AFP/Getty Images Questions ensue. - - -While China's version of Ouija board or the overlap banner consumed chunk of level intellectual curiosity, it appears short time will return to official search volumes for the Walmart dummy, even if companies themselves are easy targets. - -"Walmart stores are unknown to Chinese people," said Adam Seapearenko, who owns China-based literary agents Houbverty Enterprises and Lukoni Literary Agency. - -"Chinese people suddenly broke the internet to demand its products. They also like dolls and mummies. It was sure an opportunity for everyone to pick up and demand 'X' from every brand." - -The growth in retail searches was first confirmed by Alibaba which has expedited a search engine version of Walmart to its shelves, as the company continues to attempt enterprise accessible vision for the retail malaise. Alibaba already operates America's Walmart e-retail division, Facebook's Tmall and Vida (an Indian Tmall rival). - -But what many can't find or spot on Alibaba's search terms - Chinese consumers shared - is fine. When brands scan through physical shelves, there are no Chinese terms that appear hidden in the glossary. The search engine has all the same Chinese information bricks and mortar store sites have by comparison, just in one format. - -Publications that compile search engine searches such as Bing.com, Yahoo! and Google's search for Wal-Mart do not yet allow quick way to change paid search variables without diving into United States' companies' systems with firewalls. - -Target did not respond to queries for data regarding queries and remarketing against its dot-com and revenue figures for their own ghostyards, brummies and bayonets in China.<|endoftext|>The union to which Winnipeg Jets captain Jacob Trouba will inking his seven-year extension represented the American Hockey League – possibly worth more than his salary – while many of his fellow Manitoba juniors in their 7-year-olds, who were also being sought-after by NHL clubs start each year at $66,000 to the low teens — amassing likely more cash than Trouba makes this year. - -What's next for Trouba? —@thedrummer97 Boom! Kenneth Wolsky anotherWith only a few-months left in his three-year contract with the Golden Knights, 30-year-old defenseman Kenneth Wolsky has signed an offer sheet to remain the Pentagon's No. 2 blueliner through the 2020 season. No doubt a neat year for the struggling, playoff-bound franchise. Wolsky, the co-captain of the Golden Knights, -======================================== SAMPLE 302 ======================================== -Obviously a fishing boat to go to time in the sea and nothing to catch or do but enjoy the surroundings! - -I thoroughly enjoyed everyone I caught and did not let a single fish go to waste. My own fishing experience went the way that it was supposed to go. It was not exactly my intent to hook the largest eels though, but it definitely got me there. - -Big sea urchins were a highlight of the trip, along with potential bass. Both of these deserve to be caught! I have never encountered anything quite so vicious and venomous. - -As far as my accuracy measures deal with the water of the river, it definitely was not ideal. To be fair, since sand bottom can of course be just as treacherous. - -There was plenty of challenging and good quality walking opportunities and countless ways of enjoying the surroundings, both excursions in the river involved at least one easy walk; at least which meant I proved it wasn't bad to train and work to go to the river, but becoming monotonous was definitely more challenging than I expected it to be. At least I managed to have an experience of the river, as well as my regular way of taking care of my fish. - -Can't help but remembering dear old Merewyn, "I shall stay around these parts of the river until this stall and the rough camping spot get abandoned, when I shall swim into them this time!"<|endoftext|>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Chris Grayling: "The royal family never receives government money" - -A one-off payment of £40,000 to Prince Charles would be tuition fees of classes for under-11s, Education Secretary Chris Grayling has said. - -Would level playing ground remain, and would he pay more...? Tom Holliday, Tapestry School, Oxford. - -A critical pupil left at Thamesmead School after he was denied a basic maths lesson by staff, his dad says. - -It came after questions were raised about Mr Grayling's claim that there was "school" and "state" capital funding, and that the curriculum was "inter-connected". - -The education secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government had to "start acting like a British government". - -"I mean if you've worked it out online, and you're going to have a different society, if this means extra funding for school sports clubs, then I think it's an essential way of thinking about it," he said. - -Image caption There are concerns the government's claim about a " level playing ground " with schools might not hold - -He suggested adding extra money for arts and culture to the 110,000 schools that had extra money available this year. - -But he stressed the public-sector end of the education system would stay the same. - -"The Royal Family don't receive government money. The royals don't accept state money. It's absolutely clear," he said. - -"For those people who believe there is some hypocrisy brought by the funding structure, I would simply say, no need to bring a Buddha to a Saracenic finest dinner." - -Osteoporosis - -He also reflected on the growing scandal surrounding Christianity involvement in full-day state schools and deemed his own country to be "profoundly hypocritical". - -Image caption Mr Grayling said the controversial treatment of girls in North Warwickshire schools caused "deep distress" - -He said: "In the modern secular society. the secular and Christian society, we have to ask the question: is it a top-down scheme or a smaller version of that, a unitary, one-connected scheme of all or nothing? - -"I'm rapidly convinced that the answer is 'yes, we can all agree that it's a top-down model that's not built in the opposite way, where it's bottom-up'. - -Campaigners on the children's health side of things passionately identify with it Chris Grayling , Education Secretary - -"But I find the idea that you can start to fragment it, fracture it, into social and others and these glorified city schools which exist in London and one or two other parts of the UK is not someone's vision of school structure." - -Mr Holliday, of Tapestry School, Oxford, phoned in to present the same view at 8.20am on 1 March, telling Jonathan Sampson from the education editor he understood the pressure on parents and schools. - -"Tell me about yourself," he said. - -Mr Sampson asked about text books - Mr Grayling said they were not school textbooks but that was about £100 million per year. - -The maths test was, in fact, "interpreted", Mr Holliday told him, and did not compare the ability of pupils "in different traditional ways". - -At one point, Mr Grayling asked: "Well that doesn't sound very scientific to me." - -But Mr Holliday replied it was -======================================== SAMPLE 303 ======================================== -Now, it seems, that information is a little more plainly was posted—plainer to word, perhaps, but not so obvious to anybody else. Read the above notice, and see what you think: SF judges' consider a newly discovered isogloss fourth group of six symbols "confused." Hmm. - -Word must have gotten out there (otherwise this wouldn't be a story), because now the Rochester-based Genetic Literacy Project is leading the charge over what to do with the cryptic glyphs: "Several years ago, investigators for the San Francisco-based Genetic Literacy Project finalized and published a 220-page report detailing their findings from a two-decade-old search through ancient Egyptian manuscripts and successfully pieced together the context of the code." - -So says the press release, which promises "new and expanded information" about what the #twomariants are, what characters they're grouped together with, and why the math will be much easier to interpret when the glyphs themselves are finally deciphered. The release doesn't familiarize us: - -An excerpt from the report offers a glimpse into the work the scientists did with the code. A code is always thought to be a convenience–a lock to prevent people from reading a given text if it were not secret. In the case of the Azkabáwritten script found in Egypt, it could lead investigators to a better understanding of ancient mathematics. Octavian Kamulunga, chief archaeologist at Luxor Archaeological Park, further explained the significance of the twomariants, saying, "The twomariants mark the way of path of the angels, which the ancient Egyptians believed was key to understanding the purpose of life. The unicursal formula holds link to Egyptology's ongoing investigations." - -The glyphs can also be interpreted as asterisks and dots, with 3beltermhebpywocy ("play away") and a mesh of dots among them. At least that should help make sense of the matrix Tet have gathered, but we're willing to take the word of the long-dead scientists here—which may or may not describe the set itself, but won't be bought off by tech-savvy sources and anecdote packs.<|endoftext|>Trick! I'm actaully not on vacation today, but I covered plenty of ground last week while I was gone. In short, Avocado and Peanut Butter Chocolate Tart is sweet, decadent fun. Use any chocolate chocolate you want, I encourage you to find a recipe that isn't too overly sweet. If you're feeling daring and able to make your own almond flour, make room for it. "Toro Cadurious Robin Return resourcesFiled under: chocolate | Tags: - -Good cop bye, sorora! - -Bryan #2 returned for his first TechShop BC thru weekend! Arnold and I are doing last-minute checking for power tools, electronics, electronics parts, and all other electrical items done by Gerry. We intended to catch up this weekend, but the fireworks over Florida this past week got in the way (See "40 Hrs of Disaster".) I did finally finish off the power tool checklist that was due on the following Saturday and hope to have an updated list ready for the next TechShop weekend. I'll be posting the tentative day of our arrival on Tuesday. I'll also look at my PX2232 vs rg24460 Stamina watch too. - -Swapping limited state rolls over my new "used car" – a 1972 Accent Research Lazer TACT with a few mods: Loop and Fly mod, Modify 6400 (wireless), Amp 4 650 J7VABF that was fried a month ago, custom built speaker box from thin wall, Timp infrared remote, access software Veddapump 5, power adaptor from burned saved plans, Aluminum grill from old Corvette, forklift box from a home-built trailer transport van, and box full of old family photos from the 80s and 90s. This weekend (just before bed) the frame broke sitting up on the back porch. I was taking pictures of stuff all day when the frame snapped. My wording was a bit rusty and not keeping up, so don't blame me…<|endoftext|>Share. Watch out, Scorched! (That's a real video) Watch out, Scorched! (That's a real video) - -1 of 2 - -Welcome to October, Baby Mario. Just like we say, support is key this month, especially for PlayStation 4 owners hoping to avoid Bethesda's brand reveal title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. - -Skyrim Special Edition, which is now available for $70 on Steam and PlayStation 4, is a hefty $60 on the PlayStation Store, where it's notably missing from preorder or preorder bonuses. As Bethesda announced yesterday on Xbox Wire, the game also won't have a release date announced, as remastering doesn't serve the gaming community well. - -It's still -======================================== SAMPLE 304 ======================================== -http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterNameAlignment - -Gene Ricker, Charlotte "As long as there are examples of a fashion more pervasive in this culture than hairstyles, we love it." - -A character's name usually splits opinion. Most people believe it's some sort of indirect indication of character alignment. - -If you define "alignment" as the way characters orient themselves with one another in varying degrees of segregation, then every character in our Culture must have a set of fixed traits and morals he or she enjoys living by. It's common to align the two halves of it, with "tit for tat", "people first" or "follow the mob" serving as universal examples. However, this has to be balanced by the idea of individuality and the need for a baseline of easy distinguishing roles as values. - -Most opinion pieces suggested "realistic" character names hew to conservative values. Thus, we have names structured around such themes as "Greedy", "Hard-Headed" and "Violent". Characters called "Roadkill", "Loser" or "Struggling Artist" are not crossing some arbitrary line but working within some somewhat loaded framework. They might not fit and their hard-headedness are seen as a weakness, but they only ever commits violence in retaliation and characterizations based around them indicate he/she believes in what they do, they definitely do more than "huckster", etc. - -Characters with set "Alignment" names tend to know what they're doing; by the very nature of their jobs, they can usually just follow their conscience. This makes them useful in a culture where crossing any self-imposed line is seen as fundamentally against their own nature and a major signifiers of callous filthfulness. An individual character who unwillingly stands up for an audience member in this way becomes one of the Heroes of Tyranny, although many will disagree with that title for the same reasons now. It also is not uncommon to find Dialogue Trees within a work with "Opposites Attract: Opposites Abound" Tropes. - -When the author(s) recognise this, all of their characters will have simple Follow the Leader names that act as a shorthand to establish that its character behaves in line with other characters in the same work. Characters who don't possess a hard-fought reputation can easily be summed up without beings a conflict note When writing, should someone start off with a Ship of Theseus Influence, he realizes on reflection his Care IS a Good Thing and goes over the best way to serve it. Either that or he has very little reason to care, and so simply needs to give the audience a reason to care - e.g, if your Navy Battledore changes just for the sake of saying something cool, it only takes a few minutes of questioning what exactly "he said" to realize that it doesn't mean anything - to an appreciation of your character. Discretion is key. - -note This is especially anything with a Tropic of Awesome, since much tends to clash due to Sci Fi Don't Shoot The Moon and heroic callbacks (as well as having aspects of the Geek Social Quirk ). Consider whether or not requiring your character to risk a ruin their career to stand up for the other side will just make you an Fancy Person. - -Examples - -open/close all folders - -Anime & Manga - -Comic Books - -Fan Works - -Films — Animation - -Films — Live-Action - -Literature - -Live Action TV - -Music - -The term "character of a type" is often used to describe specific characters in a band. Another term for them in one theory especially is "new character type". - -Myths & Religion - -Pinballs - -Once Upon a Scooter: In My Hero Academia, there is a main character with "Chaos Code". - -Parodied on the pinball machine Simpsons - Mr. Spritz. Homer and Marge walk in trying to get, well, some luck, by stopping the truck to get a fat hair windup doll that would be a better "flash" than the Real Life hamsters for the stroke kart game Homer got Marge to play with earlier. - -Machine Harry: The names of the characters are generated specifically for this game; the ones on the menu are written based on what character sign language you're using for communicating with the parrot-like "Guest". - -Theater - -Homer tries to choke Loreena out in Act III Scene 1 (the first time he touches her, after she reveals that she's a witch). Everyone else just kind of wishes him stop hassling her. - -Video Games - -Web Animation - -RWBY: Professor Ozpin is quite liberal on the personal aspect of character alignment. Usually doesn't really push for anyone's alignment ("We don't need nobility and self-sac -======================================== SAMPLE 305 ======================================== -Firstly the bust apart. then I start knitting, after two bell size shifts the whole thing together.The hide I am using is 2.7mm braid so that may contribute to the backbone look.I have decided to make this with the handle glued on and remove after fitting the shoulder strap. Do not want to get the yellowy stuff on the handle. This could go wrong in an evening. It could be easier to dash off and tell Mum I tore some of the fabric. -"Contrast satin cord stitch". I used to make my own and it's such fun except it has seven colours! Isn't there just one good reason why you must buy a sewing machine? The different colours are perfect for different styles and seriously complicated designs. -The ropes and brown stitches comes next. Just need to colour. Is the case or is my needles on my turn? -I then begin to do the seaming. Which is a separate method. First the jumper fleeces are sewn together. I have used just about every tutorial and have also been given a collegeYARN loan. Well good for me, I love, love, love great tutorials! Stopping at this point is not remembering a stitch I have supposed to do or attaching the elastic strap with a wire. -It then seems a lot of thought was put into the fun factor from what is functionally a sock that no one will ever wear and strapped to my waist in my small house. needa spin shirt yes it would be.I don't want to do the boring, conservative Sock of the Month Club so I have not decided which I will dye yet. I have a section for Belty, my Scout Captain and Rachel as her -I am a Boy because of my story- and one for my Mum as her other daughter, a yummy and full of curves Lucy. -So Rusty will dye that slug! Did she remember to do her ring thing?. She will.I suggest knitted satin cord, and also Red and Black satin cord but again remember to watch the stitches :) Mainly black will go with the collar. Then I need to add to the shoulder line and the wall stitch stitch. my way is to knit until the sock has half of the length finished, split it, repeat but not all the way around. -Next I recommend washing and ironing but I am very lazy at this. It's definitely has been only a year and more too! The chalk stain will help with breaking it in. Stank is "No Shit" actually - after a few years of vodka, hangs around like a stigma it is so removed & you blend it meaning you are stunk. ;). But I am dealing with it this time! -The next four photos are meant to illustrate the straps passing or over the shoulder and then the armpit or back. The petticoat -I disable rice specified cross stitches, I'm too scared at this point to -I fear burn out - dissemble or remove them. After a couple of days it all smells but after I watch a programme on carpet pulling it was better. Garnish has always embedded brilliant in me and means I am ready for the task at hand. -Detail of the brow stitching and junk done for motion opts. -And now the real tests! Bathroom wire - For old Age! Blocking - They say dodging a kid under the bed during bed time - feel this. I use a push wall to unite the washroom and this gives me little rubbish boxes to hide in. Bath mat and scrub buffer the material a bit if you feel there is too much. -Master Supplies kit Fixing abuse issues. -Supply List: -Fitting: Visions2 Clues Spot Black Thought for Boys Wire Funky John Barrick Knitted Cotton/Nylon Rowan Silky Smooth DK or J-Hinds Justcostly helpful British Shoes Japan Shiny Hello Fluff metal pin bag? Make a wrench bag. Birds nest lovely velvet sweater -Other stuff: 2 x gauge 20 eps Seche Vite Sommerseis Masks Incredible Alone Stonewashed Burberry \ find Cheap florals Back Row Worsted Uniqlo A Lauren Have basic! have i got any good wool robes.. or any peekaboo dresses!! Best to have a bicycle and an iron and to be self sufficient as much as possible! Eh?'t while never. Plan ahead. Marry she will like there cradle and Big beau! -Scarf optional uniform See blogs here to follow SamMD At any point that you can't put your handle on. Good for cartoon nuts like Ecthelion?<|endoftext|> - -It was in Mobile back in May of 1996 when Eric Foust hailed the arrival of the first appearance of Soylent – a Soylent white drink and hydrogenated soy oil product created by Google co-founders Larry Page and -======================================== SAMPLE 306 ======================================== -products / details - -subjects right inside the weekly circulars that sport the best picture in the US are the most enticing of our time. They are the Featured Articles included in the 2014 Parker Mercurys. These long-term subscribers receive a glossy catalog that includes galleries of frequently-awarded features and a clear explanation of exactly what we are doing differently. These are available only to subscribers. Premium subscribers receive the long-term catalog and the featured articles as they are released each year. - - -You close the week of July 14th with a plum press release, addressing circulation worldwide. We are still pleased to report the strong sales of 2011's Select Color. We are also pleased to report our own first-month average 36 jumbo 8,000 Test Rite targetted at the DuPont party everyone considers to be definitive. They also include the valuable M19U5 bead-stock bingo matching pencils to the M19U4 miniature boxes, with special pricing for.<|endoftext|>A (nearly) complete file of leaked Sony cheat-code data has been made public, showing the contents of over 560 titles. Whilst a lot of these titles were once reported as either working perfectly or next to perfectly, the leak appears to show a slightly different picture depending on the day. It can be understood that the developers either intentionally or accidentally discharged their codes, resulting in known bugs and likely to be detrimental to the end-user experience. At the same time, it can also be understood that a high-tech midnight launch was cool (like having christmas shoppers for the first time). :-( - -Some titles, such as Final Fantasy VII (F7) and The Box launch "completely" correct, absolutely-legally but chances are, you could have had many other problems with a less ideal launch. According to the title specific dump, F7's newly patched "Get Stein" cheat does not work as advertised and if you had another shell game running, F7 begins to freeze. Final Fantasy VII Xtreme 2, released in 1989, does work without much trouble, but is an 8-bit wannabe as compared to the SNES eponymous Final Fantasy for which the gameboy users there – wearing their faaaaaaace – wore out sweat pants as it was STILL true to its original vision. Titles such as Double Dragon Neon ports and Professor Layton port also receive rave reviews.<|endoftext|>"Why not call the newcomers Hi-Glow Furs?" Mr Cooper commented. "I'll get this from you." Mr Cooper has the ear of the pastoral principals of what he calls "Turnbull's Retreat", the sprawling estate on the outskirts of the country town of Lismore which is home to more than half of all Australia's border unionist members. The massive property comprises ten satellite estates - very much Australia's biggest ever - which have proved the preserve of Mr Cooper and his mates. "We're talking about millions of dollars worth of land which has been developed with a view to turning it into farms - likely 30 to 40 per cent arable," he said. - -"The government can't live indefinitely on government farms, so the Bushfire Australia Fund enjoys the preserve of the landholder funds run by Queensland. Queensland replicated the Birandian Kidney Fund on this land. This is a progressive decision." Essentially, the ploy took the living standards of many Australians and cut them off from the planet again. Literally. "They can eat their fill of, for example, the lobsters and worms," Mr Cooper quipped. If the system could be rigged, the Mid North Coast property owners would be the first to be consigned to the wayside. - -But to Mr Cooper the argument that vegetarianism "helps out particularly the disadvantaged" falls flat because more than 70,000 Australians are still consuming meat directly due to some dubious reason. "If there is a problem, you would think the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage ministry would be responsible for responding to this but, as far as I'm concerned, they haven't done anything. The local authorities have also had no teeth in their action plans," he said. Australia's central reforms are being felt well beyond southern Australian borders. "The Australian Ocean and Great Barrier Reef fisheries are in the red, with much smaller fish stocks. The carbon dioxide emissions from land use in Adelaide are more than Cook Island's Isle of Hamster. It's staggering," he said. "What some people don't understand is megalopolis is ultimately the extinction of Australia." - -"When I started converting this farm you could look at this small blue kangaroo and think it's adorable. Later you would not be optimistic. You could said to yourself every time it saw a family of gazelle, it would think, 'Oh my goodness, the last time the gazelles replaced the zebra was about 600 to 800 years ago'." The revelation that the pastoralists bitterly opposed a mooted projection of nearly 300 greater land animals (protected mammals plus a new species found nowhere else -======================================== SAMPLE 307 ======================================== -Alex goes on a surgical checkup with his charming doctor, Angel Lea, the Crisco Sea Angel, who assures his patient that her testicle bags are full of soft undigested turkey. He could have whatever they want if he feels like it. Dr. La spells out all the fine details: He's to remove the bags and, of course, get the clinic to operate — El Gringo is designed in the English manner of operations: - -One only has to run a palm of boot from the heel of the left foot to the middle toe, then run it back to the bottom of the foot, then in between the middle fingers of the right hand and see where it will end. The answer is this. - -List and excerpt from Alex's book. - -Alex goes on an operation where she will take his match sticks and bend them up under her thumb knuckles. She tries out the device briefly, only to discover the choice of volunteer opens her up to a whole new array of new problems. And it piques Alex's interest to have her "back" up her laptop against the wall. Dr. La tells her she loves them and points her to a plain, straight mat that might work. So Alex backs up her laptop in a moment. But, astonishingly, as she rushes to do so, she is astonished to discover that the same pattern continues—her laptop being each time stretched apart at a different joint. - -Alex reports that one of these easier will work, and Dr. La assures her she'll start to see her results tomorrow. And sure enough, within a few hand strokes, Alex sees that her laptop has gotten the soap from her bleached leg, admires it and vows that she'll always buy plants from big stores. - -Stitched examine the site of a broken artery. The surgeon returns and explains that the blood is rich in collagen, which will help it mend itself. Envisioned at knee level, Alex sees half a postulated shoulder endowment, upright and demanding a cool beverage. The surgeon indicates that, in keeping with the Cadmuslaw Lodge resources, the blood will be pumped into the facility's chute system through a system of tubes. One new procedure represented is immersion in a chemical cocktail. The Little Way, Stitched Inc.'s first set of surgical tools, will provide a solution. - -Alex reports that the second set of tools is great news and nothing to be nervous about. She'll get a "real guy, for real." Paints, couches and furniture will quickly fill the hall. Viewers, especially those enthusiastic for the outdoors, will find wind blocks, tarps and raincoats added to their fleet of treasured carts. In fact, the viewpoints, surveys and other positive accommodations provided by the Imaginative Age features represent a medicine chest should a visitor based all of their care online, with an idea bubble in the corner of their eyes or a beholder in the eyepiece. - -Let's commence the operations. Last time we were in Dr. La's office, the surgeon performed the delicate job of maneuvering Shane's shadows out of Michael's faces. The actual surgery was done by a senior urologist, the ailing and very ill Chris Johnson. When she arrived for her first visit, Shane was glazed, sad looking, accepting a diagnosis of inflamation of the bladder caused by plaque. Dr. La changed that. Chris listened to her diagnosis and unhesitatingly popped out the scalpel. After only a short lancet procedure on Shane's spine, she whisked into white stretch pants and blue sweatpants. "Well, here's the bad news", she said. "That is, you are either going to have a cure or you are going to have to have a rehabilitation. Deal with that." - -Water Crisco Sea Angel — used to support toy soldiers — lead Anna. One of Dr. La's sages has told her that when it comes to simple pleasure, the best solace is usually provided by the Sea Angel's superb delivery systems. And Ak truly think she's good company. After all, from an early age, one isn't allowed to leave Ak's armchair alone. - -Added content and experimental interest as part of new Next Regency series. - -Last-minute teaser content is being added at the ballpark as the continuity spills into R&D in tribute to the titanologist. They may not be as many as the original Ashtar Command staff aboard the Port Kennedy but they are definitely coming back! - -Available worldwide. - -Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Akland-Ascars/153477120536451 - -Twitter: http://twitter.com/ASCThescents - -YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ASCThescents<|endoftext|>The two women, names Tata Das, Misbah, and daughter Osama, airport staff, who don't seem a single -======================================== SAMPLE 308 ======================================== -Coverage - -With coverage you can count on your Harpu compression midsole to keep you comfortable and protected. Plus, a separate inner layer in the midsole delivers exceptional support for feet. Its cemented-in long-lasting cushioning gives you the length and support you want—even when mud or debris makes the trail surface slippery. And the second-skin leather in the outsole provides durability, traction and traction control, which keep your Foothills lighter, drier and more comfortable no matter what type of trail you are hiking.<|endoftext|>2013/11/01 19:40 - -President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea on Thursday took a spectacular step forward in halting North Korea's nuclear bomb development, announcing that he has signed a power-purchase agreement with former South Korean President and now widower Lee Myung-bak to allow South Korea to buy Chinese power resources to help relieve its energy burden. - -But the agreement could prove all but irrelevant. As North Korean officials on Friday said it would have struggled to complete the work in time, abandoning the deal without a replacement power pany may cause the disgruntled South Korea's allies Japan and the United States to achieve what they have failed to do for some three decades: influence an isolated state such as North Korea. - -Obama advisers said they would wait to see what South Korean officials do before determining whether the U.S. is likely to further increase pressure on North Korea. But they said it could become more difficult to persuade South Korea to sign a new agreement ordered by former President Lee Myung-bak after his schizophrenia began interfering with his work and the health of his wife. - -The April announcement by Seoul's presidential office that former President Lee would sign the deal was financially frozen earlier this week and the agency said its agents themselves inquiry into charge at their own risk. The period for signing was expected to be November. - -"The president is doing this to make sure there are no external parties benefiting from our energy resources either through China or the South and Korean Energy ministries," said Lee Myung-bak, 72, the father of the current president and head of the ruling Democratic Party. "I hope South Korea will be brave enough to do it right after the National Assembly here begins debating the House of Representatives joint impeachment bill. - -"If they are afraid for the future of our economy, I sincerely hope they would move the bill." - -Another factor the U.S. might not consider: that while Lee has continued to enjoy his share of former friends' adoration, his health continued to deteriorate as it has over the years. His recent struggle was a danger to his own life even if the agreement would make sure the specific North Korean-held coal field he wants supplies the total amount imported by South Korea during 2013. - -In 2005, then-President Lee told Facebook followers that he would like to live out his retirement from public speaking including to sit on panels such as that of a female police union and a Democratic congressman. Lee couldn't meet the terms of the future agreement and told the Seoul court he needed the John Lennon Peace Prize to ease the transfer. - -Lee said North Korea plans to continue the project this year and said the two sides could sign a new agreement; unlike 2012, there are no requirements as there was in 2007 that North Korea give advance notice there would be tough visa laws. - -"There are no terms and conditions," Lee said. "We can build it whenever it suits President Park's scheme of things and President Obama's scheme of things." - -The $6.4 billion we owe the North for using South Korean energy resources may become a more pressing issue as it begins to diminish because of Kim Jong Un's load. So far, nuclear threshold facilities TVA's Vogtle and Hanford are becoming overloaded and South Korean officials have to import power via NuStar.<|endoftext|>A protester at the Satanic Temple-led "Bowling for Satan" event in Nashville, Tenn., in 2012. The event ended in disaster when Temples vandalized a church and attempted to burn a crucifix. (Photo: AP) - -Satanism isn't just a bunch of jokes passed off as argument against boobs. - -Public religious events in the U.S. have made headlines in recent years to promote radical messages about everything from the evils of secular humanism to sun worship and U.S. military veterans being treated unfairly at vets department clinics. This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed pagan organizations in 38 states where they are nationwide and faces severe legal scrutiny. These were defined as "largely defunct," a designation that can help watchdogs keep local chapters of budding organizations engaged and avoiding criminal indictments. - -These days the word Satan comes with a real punchline, not least of all since President Trump is both reportedly a member and satanist himself. But why devote "satanic" gaslighting to the president, whose idiot act about Charlottesville prompted complete social media condemnation anyway? The SPLC represents the vilification of -======================================== SAMPLE 309 ======================================== -Keyboard only! - -GetSpaceFM with BuildPlayer - -Want to play SpaceFM on your AD2125 or Super Amiga? Look no further! Want to overlay AirSpace on your Mouse & Keyboard? Here is the right directory! - -Compatible with World of Space - -1. Download this file. - -2. Unzip & place into C:\Program Files (x86)\XBASE\ AD2125\PC\ playablegamedata\ area\f\ WASTELAND.WS v3.388.exe - -News)<|endoftext|>Dose #7: Apple Cider Vinegar (AKA Applesauce, Apple Juice, etc) - -You've asked for it so here we are at last. Applesauce! Smelled like my mom's apple pie at her house. Good update - it reminded me of lasagna. If you like egg sauce - this will definitely be on you next time you make lasagna! - - -This recipe comes from a most excellent cookbook called: Old Flourish: Ingredients of Success. I had never heard of the author, but I am so glad I had a chance to check this out. I felt super lazy about this recipe combined with my tiana allergy, and decided to HOLY CRAP TO JUST MAKE IT! - -Maybe un-lazy here is a better adjective, but it took a lot longer in the kitchen than I planned for. I reserve credit for that, but I desperately needed some blueberries in this to spruce this up a bit. Also, when my daughter Zoey woke up yesterday from a cool/cold zen nap, I decided to stop working on dinner and go get her something to eat since she's really a morning person. She started screaming and mumbling for half an hour or so because you boys don't come easy, I guess. - -Anyway, once Zoey got her breakfast and made eggs (thanks SISTERS LEADERS — I am talking to you too!) I spent the next hour enjoying Adrie on toast that Jacob, my son in law, had prepared in many different colors. The color cachet never goes out of style but finger food at any rate. I was still pouring coffee when Jacob asked what was for dinner and I said - applesauce, of course, for us banana folk. Jacob said it's basically apple sauce. Guess what? He is exactly right. I threw some smoked Gouda on each plate and the bread and I AM THE BEST PERSON EVER. - -I added a few cubes of strawberry, topped it with a zippy pear juice, sprinkled it with crushed walnuts, wasabi and sesame seeds, topped it off with some grated cheese and finished off this smoothie with some Coffee Jack tomatoes. Becuase ready to clear up any confusion that I am not freaking out over this new cooking blog idea I just came up with — and are going to make a bunch of videos about. I will tell you right here that I LOVE WEEKS! UNLIKE THE REST OF US I start off my workweekdays with WEEKS, never questioning that day. I also love my extra food on the weekends, so insanely grateful for that. - -TLDR - Adrie & Cheese Applesauce - -Like She Said - Cake for Dinner - -Foodie Fwd:<|endoftext|>Bent Tree Counseling Services (BTS) has been offering its unique and compassionate advocacy to the people of Northeast Iowa since 1978. We offer: - -SANE, UTMOST Care - -Only licensed professional counselors provide the type of compassionate, non-judgmental support and counseling BTS provides to its clients. - -To enrich and enrich the lives of people with serious and persistent mental illness is our purpose. - -BTS was founded on the belief that all people are capable of change and want meaningful change. We are a not-for-profit organization that depends on donations to continue our services. Your donation to Bos Small Business Community directly supports our mission to serve those whose lives have been shaped by mental illness. - -BUTT Seed Community Network is proud to state each year that, in 2002, BTS' annual financial snapshot showed that each year, BTS distributes care, supportive relationships, and unexpected advance therapeutic enrichment to 1,857 people obtaining life-changing services. - -HOW REDISTRIBUTION WORKS - -Redemption is the process by which a participating agency gives a client services on behalf of the Agency, and then continues to receive the support and referrals to continue providing those services. It is that altruistic commitment to our clients that makes BTS different. - -When a client becomes a BTS client, they are put in a waiting list. In order to become a client, we ask our member agencies to i) meet the identified needs of that client on behalf of BTS, ii) provide the level of care the client requires, and iii) refer to other -======================================== SAMPLE 310 ======================================== -Using model airplanes to capture all aspects of the planet's first year as a closed-toed animal - Weather Station China 2016 Comet The planet, birds imagined. Historic hundreda-year of America event near Lake Tahoe 2016 forecast record turned an oar. Ceaseless sin 2009-2016 reset. Action photographers Randall and IGH in first year of mass photo jury. Year without flowers 2005-2016. COMEBACK. Album with all conquests teaser. Gems in some crevice of Sky All twenty-1 in ENG&B Dymails - Muin]rnager rubbing together before beaching: Australasian spacewalks in the frozen white vortex 2008-2017 view taken at incredible discount to large surveillance game In the Captius side of our glove Fit Schafer and others from listening to one man's life in the in the name of all. - -SOME CREVIS DISCLAIMER: Publications for which we claim partial or full Indemnity have been produced in a manageable format, use a standardized title and summary, follow commercial style, and will be read in the absence of commercials. They are available for quickly and cheaply. We are able to publish using our website for FREE because most of the recipients of these publications can access and have access to the web hosting required to get to their "organization". Nor can we pay the host directly. We ask readily accept payment from those who receive our publications for this one sure benefit. Read more - -Breathingure General Evolution (show up schedule off page). Project Animals (off page) Judiciary Evolution Cuba. Plan among a federation in genetic outlook. NGOM (on page) News Noteworthy. More Connected Islands (STORESIP) Transition and Revolution. Human Health and Development Agenda India - Working for health in health link. Malaysia - Making progress off treatment and health services Off medications Tourism from Whales to Elephantosis. Water Years in 36 jumbo jets off Thai islands Source Worldwide groundbreaking research intermittant Resolution Jazz bird rhetoric reports eyttinoogoo near the northeastern corner of the country. How to communicate Eurasian borders and the consequence of external influences. Acoustics & Barcodes worldwide evidence. The near future and the Economics Forum Energy Four specialized energy flows critical to survive the year 2016 which can (means) emerge in a warming world. The Policy Event 2030 "Rent a tectonic shift." Dover Project in America and the world Etaps Korban Bat this year IGR's world conference. SOMesafe in California Oxfam Davos Global Living Mammal Zing! Sound analysis. IFEN 76 influence.. A dream solution for the brain cushion strokes and disorientation airport security supporters. Announcements Sye shout is made at the Beltline marathon. PHL/My China World Soccer News a flash in the pan Sex Rhinos turn into bison The weather Satellite the sea Antarctica Cat and Mouse "Anti Politics." Valentia Iran Varanasi The early vicissitudes of 2014 San Juan to Datil in China North Russia. TILS 80s for you today RCT back to the very beginning Ice. No eyes.. New World 2016 Vietnam Live. World Championship World Penelope caught in the canyon Being possible Google Earth and Clouds Interior & exterior rights-of-way incl maintenance pair extroadinary More birding journals Police Recent seas edge with Steve - crag fly eggs to pop buckets invertebrates. It's a Nut War continued Romanian Presidents Dukes Road Resources 1992 vehicles enough News surrounding Parkland Mall Willow Lake South Carolina Sprawl the hills. Billion dollar boom Santa Clara first water right to be reserved. La Maquina Rising Commonwealth Trail of Pains, crags & pineries creek pools. Gold Ran. Together wise meter independent enterolar Continental Ban Mentoring Somebody Farms Smoking hemp communal LightsLove Warner MLami pretense elements addons OONAH Third Top Golf Paddles & Grids Subsoc's of Cash not recognized secret objectives Electricity near the mountains. Lulu Flatulence Avian-mouse marriage Berkshire flares Autobahn funnels Sea lamp with Rush Lake Green We can help We understand? The "censors" Tests for reservoir mankind witnessed Batman Man *contact* Cetus the thrush Saturdays post-game Pro Football exhibition inland Bolivia transport may be exchanged Characterizational designs and names versions and other Do you have a product or product sample? no election vegetable sharing nation leaders participation in deathwatch conflict using new lines for the Earth Winters Discovering Life or TDOT input into the Global Ecology Project: HOPCANITIES copyright (c) George Lescosola living demos. ACC code The coldest spot in Texas ancient records Humans Alive hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia The rain forest interestingly asteroids, Pluto Earthquakes futures thesis Energy Independent Alabama killing team auction. The World Government Bank Democracy like life fish legion transponder focal tube Memory Towers Irish and intrepid Internet searches Евреня Борительский. Алексее Peking -======================================== SAMPLE 311 ======================================== -On the Sacred Image of God though, is the one prophetic profession, which proceeds from the purer lights of Divine Revelation, as it is esoteric. This prophetic profession is the one profession to archpriesthood in Job Chapter 36:11 - -Though studies are not exclusive to certain people, they are for every one of them a profession, and there is only one profession; though at times they may be allotted to men of one sex, just as elsewhere animal abstruse beginnings or many small discoveries, though they really refer to all the rest. - -Now, the Prophet Sol - -The seven days, Dude!<|endoftext|>aanrDeath - -Hero Fire - -iphone 5 - - -Last edited on Sep 25, 2014, 7:52:05 PM Posted by Antonius on Sep 25, 2014, 7:47:40 PM Posted by Antonius - -on on Quote this Post - -DIscharge is not even a spell. It was a monster.... DIscharge kill him. Whalt amass money. Posted by tiddles - -on on Quote this Post<|endoftext|>Introducing Unkown Volume 2: The Sacrament of The Mosaic Covenant. - -Many of you know that I had a book written, you may have seen the book cover, or know it from the pieces I describe in Unknew Vol. 1. I titled this book Menu Jr.; but unlike Phalanx, it might suggest something other than what you want it to. - - -Now then, Menu Jr. seems to be venerable. Malden and BellBelow ignorance, ignorance cannot contend with free vision. Moreso with the ECP……one can be blind to something most anyone can see. Purchase it here: - -https://www.amazon.com - -Many thanks to Unkown for giving me the opportunity to write about Menu Jr. and the book completion continues to get closer and closer. What do people know where they don't know? Menu Jr. gives you some history concerning Menu Theological Development. I hope folks take away a few things http://www.davidmontague.com IS NOT FOR THE WASTE AWAKE - -http://www.davidmontague.com IS NOT TO BE USED BY RECENTLY WASHED NATIONALS "FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM" - -Menu Jr. is intended to be for seriously committed Christians to take seriously and understand what has happened in that remote time in history when Jewish and Islamic law collided. I know a few won't because they've never been mistaken. I also know it has been fortunate for me and many others. Finally, I have nothing more to contribute to this year's annual Anons financial push for shopping cart free Bread and Circuses anymore. This is Menu, so ride pathologically in the information that anyone might place before you. Truth be told for myself, I've had enough of the Nintendo Federal Bank. I wish these people courage to make choice reality to someone who hasn't received choice reality yet from last century's Last Buffalo as four generations of Timr L. Patmans teach them rather than as a grown up Jim Stewart tells them. Speaking of Jim Stewart, his faith is raised him in a larger pattern called KFC: A guise of culture coinciding with values sprinkled multitudes on a starving world or a reality resulting when Amy Morin and Arthur Wampler's research turns down the I.Q. of virtually all people relating to love as Reason wins out over Fear. I know it's wrong but it's not all my fault they've just a good country map and a two tyotry cereal as means to propel their social security dept. indirectly onto Chapel Place springs by being hired as a Guerilla Duck Mark II Who Social Security Month Michael Morgan odes to hassling the masses into not nodding their heads. His Social Security slogan is "What less do you know than what he knows?". Lisa Simpson doll works in question that the way we destroy national security is to not know about our dangers, I think that's what Steve Jobs told his predecessor Ted Schilbeck when Jobs asked him to stay silent about Xerox PARC. It's the Disco Preservation Society Girl High Academic Forscheekineering ColumbBC professor, Bill Martin's willful OASE will haunt everyone. Martin has numbers and mathematics relative to Blue from of the enemy Fisheye should be understood as voting fraudianism; natch against critics who though them, by voting for the Democratic Party. The old Sean Connollyie the then Aide to Orange ticket Mogul Katharine Glasshous, the Non New Democrat changed from Rick Warren Democrat to Democrat but didn't learn that the core lessons of economics are that, there is A LOT more to business than what you want from politics. Add what I'd call the Living Dead magic of Nostradaworld the ascension of Eric Simpson with wide understanding of economics by a disempowered woman who made the decision to also be idiot republicans by conservative complete absorption of every single MP -======================================== SAMPLE 312 ======================================== -The - -The - -James J. Flack and J. - -E. Lockhart , The - -. - -, Jewish Museum of Passaic - -and formerly - -The - -. - -by the Jews in Palestine, in - -Jerusalem - -by the - -. - -. - -. - -Chronicle - -newspaper no. 6, - -1959– - -. - -GB2 4151-9, 1979, p.A-241, col.3; 1990, p. A-77. - -, - -(note 7) Population Types 1959–1963, Population Distribution by Type 1945–1962, Population Under 15 per 1,000 Estimated Constant 1990–99, Population Structure, Social Studies Project, Sussex 1999, Traveller 2 published by the GTLB, sold direct through the GTLB, in - -: - -Teachingngs nach - -profs I, - -(note 8) , and - -other Semitic Languages, - -(note 9) Relevant music recordings of JCS - -Advice for General Cruisers—Board of Control—to be assimilated with local music, as the names of villages, towns and cities changed; also to support the British, French, American and recently, Chinese designs. Syllabus includes 1968–1970, 1969, - -of village senates. - -Needlepoint: 'President and Mrs…, and - -another Mrs…' 49%, , concerned that the IDF and the English schools would fail their professional objectives, if the vestigial frontispiece of Hamin's illustrated 'Las Tortugas II' about Columbus was removed from the front cover; readme states that syllaba became defunct in May 2012. - -African Anthropology and the Fuegians in the Arabian Peninsula, a report on the closest Ethiopianian acquaintance with the Arabs that one can be, below a region map which has not been consolidated - the last dotted traces of it are in the ipartment of Esztergom (Colombia), sector apox and section, and the sonaro thesis (Documents 16 through 19). - Il alcuni numero di Tabieso comparato per l'eszevazione assegnata ed - -. - -. - -Colombia a piaca 15 per 1,000 uccidi Ton. - -1793–1796. - -The Cefalì - Same as Cefalì d'Anisos e eis Lonke P{{in G SABAY minutes , [Brune & Hohenlohe: Aldate at], Niebuhr, German Research Institute for African Heptology, n 051.93, # 104.1–11 . - -1783. - -Species and Menagerie: Monteros - -— - -Figure 3: Me-Land. - -- Avenue not rostratum with Bikim, the ship of the Jews' Oriental Ocean Crusade south of Buenos-Aires, around So America (Lip-3) with the ship Safed sailing to Cartagena for Saleen, the Notogosho Encyclopbäiki list (1 December 2012) heads<|endoftext|>Correction/Clarification: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Iranian Ambassador Ron Dermer "at one point in 2013 said his country had concluded a nuclear deal with the United States." In fact, Iran and six world powers clinched such an agreement in parameters brokered by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. - -In November 2012, Iran thwarted what Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, then called a "Plan B" by launching missiles at the U.S. Navy ship USS Mason as the vessel sailed close to the Strait of Hormuz after it had apprehended 10 Iranian citizens plotting to steal the ship. As he spoke with CNN's Perla B (now Perla C), Zarif asked if the United States had decided to unilaterally resume its economic and diplomatic isolation of Iran. "Which Plan B is it going to be?" if this plan works, asked Zarif, who was re-elected as president by a razor-thin margin last week. "Are we off the ledge?" he asked. - -For terms of the nuclear agreement among the six world powers and Iran, details of which remain unclear, the Mason — along with two supply ships the Americans had boarded that broke the international law of ship boarding — is prohibited from coming to shore in Iran, according to the agreement. - -Zarif was referring to his own government's refusal two years earlier to allow the ship to start its journey off the west coast of Iran, where it was going to fetch onboard the ten-man crew. Zarif donated the ship to the White House, sat on a team considering serving as a witness in the Iran-contra congressional hearings and -======================================== SAMPLE 313 ======================================== -Tauntaun is built for a particular job, something more viscerally satisfying than Mario's shiny little plumber or Bullet Bill's snarling fowl. A weighty silliness -- Busta Rhymes was catching flack when it came out -- it checks all the innocent boxmarks of a satire or irony, scrapping the game felt silly; while also acknowledging its possible appeal beyond antagonizing the childish audience it wolfed down nine carats flowing green on the edgy level. - -The series had its second attempt with 1992's Doom, and its critical reception was rather mixed, even if the gameplay drew more on the kinetic agility and visceral excitement of the 2600 Stormtrooper than the Firaxis makers ever innovated. - -Trolls remains relevant today, but its appeal has "waned" in a few quarters; maybe a perceived need for the strong all-powerful couplet of nostalgia made an impressive copperberry following a bit too hastily. Which is all a curious context for an album that garnered the highest sales of this year's roster of NeoGAF bootyissers. - -Throwing up the cover art, cornering NeoGAF's reaction, Googling its key amusing phrases and playing the muted concept soundtrack once again were all I needed to get an answer to a question anyone looking forward to the album walked across. - -That answer was: "Was this already on it's way?" - -Like Brimstone, Doo-Wop Superstar's production values are on another par entirely from Grizzly Bear stripped of Messi to stress-shredding a metal riff. At a basic business level Bravo is making a "rock record" in idea as well as execution. Along with Doo-Wop Superstar's Lawless mic mastery there's the icy precise coffin-slamming of Charlatans and Guy Pratt's drumming locally spice the album. The beginning is dry, but the concluding second quarter is more so, as if to say "Hopefully you put the tickets in the mail". - -So, grab your evening bourbon and boot up the Vim, Tuck & Roll, Samurai Warfare with embrace, therefore. Never ever knowing when to wrap, it's going to need a heavy metal like Waffle House vibes to finish a craving fulfilled or not. Reminds me of how " Torn, hello Necrot Primstar IN FLAMES" and "Hoot Wales Singin' Corner" might have matched the Titanic when releasing at the same time. - -A deep catalogue of leaked studio material would not stop this from being Travis Scott, Charles Bradley and Zane Lowe at the same time. In fact, this fits very well with a blanket of preservation most half-assed and disposable rappers would rather not acknowledge, and you can hear the effect. - -This is not to apologize for tracks or songs. As talented as the duo still is, they ventured into B-sides heavier than the rest leading up to B-sides in The Art Of Peer Pressure , Which amusing coke maker powder taught them the load-bearing dance moves of alcoholics, as well as there being the plain descriptive specificity that hasn't been examined in proper detail. There's fanciful nonsense about navy pipes and bags, but like Sonic The Hedgehog, none of this is as ridiculous as friends and a publicity team actually being carried on a plane. - -You'll notice however that the gang vocals do only slightly decrease in number this time. It gives both the complex intro and ending tracks a reason to have a lazy trip to an EXIT – soon by heading to the exit. - -Two of the big basslines are from Pledge $1,000 to Kate which boasted beat T. Perfecto sequential agency access as originally released. Line 6, produced by MMD plays the role the disc needs in trying to get us "we got her back, once we pay them enough" while planning the police office funeral. As insightful I found that on the warped American major pop backstreet inspired "Meanwhile Back At Blacc" I had the same feeling as long time player "Hercules Falls Out", "Buffy" anyone? - -Tric lined down as a TNT hit-and-run is already aged down here though. Both Danny Brown and Travis Scott are chirping picturesque tunes of sorts (I personally wouldn't have called] The Life of Pablo" exactly four million times so take what you must - -Most individual tracks play differently on their respective counts, like a couple coming together to there by any other name than that of their respective respective respective authority. - -In a laudable change of pace from his last work, dubstep tweak G.U.L.O. offers up fast rolling Twilight Zone club awesome bank robbery expressions with a spare pastiche essence in between "I feel like a baby now" proclamations. Strings zip through the promo rooms lyrics hard to hear but like a wave of flames of relaxation looming there, its going to reach coast to coast and -======================================== SAMPLE 314 ======================================== -MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The deadline for the delivery of US-made S-300 missile defense system to Syria fell on Friday, except the battery from Belarus, the head of Russia's General Staff's Main Operational Directorate Yuri Borisov said on Friday. - -"We hope that the deployment of the missile defense system via an airfield in Latakia to serve as shield of the Syrian air base will be a quality-management action with stakes of thousands of personnel. We thus hope that this project will turn out to be successful," Putin said on Thursday about the delivery of 13 S-300 batteries to the Syrian army. - -"We believe that the S-300 air defense missile systems will play a key role in preserving air-defense capabilities. Russia is committed to their delivery to the Syrian state and open strategic program on 17th March. The time for sending the first batch of three defense missile systems to the air force training base is 70 days after the adoption by the Syrian government decision to switch to Russian S-300 systems," Borisov said. - -Russia has been actively supplying systems to anti-terrorist coalition fighting the terrorists in Syria, he said. He added that Russia has already proposed in conversations on achieving lasting settlement in Syria to the United States and the international community. - -"Russia, for the first time, makes a contribution to creating stability in Syria, to building the initiative on the political and legal solution," he said. - -The principal characterization of tangible progress observed by the parties involved is the delivery of 15th battery to Kilis airbase, including to protect the citadel there and protect "power supply, a power line and the local air force reaffirmed Frequent stroke monitoring" - -The drop in the terrorist employment of Attana river came about from it being filled up with water and not being damaged by the floods it suffered, to include sowing food crops in the region. There were 11 airplanes doing an aerial delivery of vegetables to the camp, with a staff of 25. The head of the village engineer assured safety of financial constraints preventing 21 equipped ice pickers to fill the available hill s to reach up to 320degreeshift, there kolratlaw below and to start digging the trenches in order to increase efficiency. - -Russian humanitarian aid to annexed Crimea continues - -Russia has claimed that Russian humanitarian aid to Crimea was to ensure protection of residents displaced by the possession of the peninsula by parastatal authorities. This claim requires validation, a Metro report said. - -On Wednesday, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said that the humanitarian aid in Crimea was very important as a result of destruction caused by the American action. - -"Of course, as soon as it was established that this situation in the Crimea presents a continuing threat, not a passing anomaly…we were obviously analysing the humanitarian gives and the steps necessary to ensure their safety," he said. - -At the same time, Putin took revenge in return to sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States for the annexation of the peninsula of Crimea, lacking cognizance that those sanctions were not connected to the abolition of people. Crimea lies some 150 kilometres to the east of the Black Sea coast and Russia. - -"As of early January, we had already sent two pints of blood and three huge gas masks. All Russian citizens decided during elections to move to a whole variety of alternative number of organizations present in Crimea abroad. - -There are close to 40 diaspora organizations in Crimea. Russia allowed a thorough service for people moving (to communities in by their self-discovery). At today, nearly 40% of all organizations have already been established," Putin said. - -The money received is fed to civil society. "I deal with more than 30 charities, mainly charitable republics of America and other countries. And our insurance premiums are steadily increasing," Putin said. - -Moscow deactivated toll from highway into seaport of Donbass; other demarcation signed - -Russia's transport authority on Friday said signed the suspension of tolls and other related limitations for the Donbass additional-transit-to-Rejzomara route via Russia's Krasnodar region. - -The move omits the airspace congestion that preceded the start of the mobilization of troops of Donbass to defend their right to receive Georgia's pledge of 400 combat and 155 technical troops. The convoy to if not accepted will be directed to the operation police's Domodedovo airport to catch it both by air and sea. - -Russia completed a parallel Russian-Georgian Friendship highway in May following continuing shutdown of the Friendship highway (the Donbas highway) between Georgia and Ukraine due to separatist escalation. More important for transportation provision of goods to Ukraine and of cash to separatists are diminished the security area around the border with Russia via the traffic agreements negotiated, according to Moscow. - -Putin also today signed projects to implement infrastructure modernization programs for Crimea. Total amount of $15 billion. Among other activities, construction of five "maglev" railway -======================================== SAMPLE 315 ======================================== -AP - -Aaron Hernandez may try to go into next week's Super Bowl without a New York Giants pass-rusher blocking for him on the strong side, according to a report from Chris Mortensen of ESPN. - -Mortensen pegs linebacker Von Miller of the Broncos as Hernandez's main blocking target based on conversations with the Broncos. Either way, it will be a new twist to how tight ends have worked in recent years. In a case like this one, a tight end can prove largely unblockable by opposing quarterback and wide receiver combinations, which positions a quarterback or wide receiver to have one of his flaws erased. - -The previous few few Super Bowls were won or lost largely because of tight end joy. The consistency of tight ends in winning the football game has helped define today's game. Teams now build game plans to feed the passing game and leave the tight end on the opposite side of the field unblocked so the distance in the passing game becomes more to this team's advantage simply because the tight end cannot be blocked. - -Hernandez's job as a running back also consists largely of removing blockers, which may be why the Jaguars used him on the goal-line back-field reads more than once in the Super Bowl. He certainly didn't change the Patriots' game plan as much as he also got Hernandez more frequent touches as a runner than he would have by using him more as a receiver, although that ratio was dropping.<|endoftext|>From abandoning the judiciary and judiciary assistants as a possibility to fixing the whip to cut down the age below which they were being appointed and who would be underneath in the executive, effectively becoming anti-fair and impartial to protect unpopular ministers (in case we need to have an election), Lord Justice Leveson spent a lot of his time tearing down the very thing that Prime Minister David Cameron had talked recently about when he called for an end to the culture of confidentiality, which results in not seeing his own mistakes by the press and the police. Because of the "culture of accountability," taking down the chiefs of SFO and GOM, why aren't we hearing about "isolated incidents" between senior Civil Service officials, if the documents were shared with the American cable news programs? Do we still need the highly secretive meetings of the FSA where there's a change of policy saying that tobacco can be promoted and kept on store shelves? The difference is that the penalties for not serving your board until retirement age ("dead time") are not quite as draconian as they would be in the absence of the "culture" from which we seem to feel we are exempt. - -As far as the problems of Sir Stephen's and Lord Howard's appointments and the recommendations of the Leveson report go, Conservative plans for the closure of Royal Mail to pre-empt a possible Labour defeat in the 2015 General Election are the most intriguing. Not only that, but allowing these two men to enter Parliament was supposed to help the Tories at the next election. Do we really need a plan that disincentivizes voting Tory? What plan? We don't control the horses, we must depend on the horses to control us. Who can honestly tell me, regardless of his unpleasant opinions, that this is a sensible plan for the future of Britain? The gender princes of this world urgently need to be weaned off by this and all handmaidens and supporters and staff of them to top up the bailout of the as yet hopelessly insolvent Royal Mail. The expert, legal person in this crisis, CPS Tom Gilbert, has expressed doubts about the methodology with which Leveson looked at the "confidential information" in the Falcao/Pattillo correspondence and the chain of emails between Sir Stephen is seen as a curious omission in the report. - -The report ignores all these things which were entertaining enough for reporters including certain papers, the Prime Minister's interventions, even lending British justice a very out-of-date nickname like – competent, as if it were a relative factor, akin to driving a car or handling a firearm. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a justice of the peace, or even a junior magistrate, very bustled up then, as their time seems to be a waste of funding and potentially troubling for a big auto dealer in Huddersfield. Of course all of that might be different if No. 10 agreed to say something more on the subject of the high court. - -Speaking of the organization of the super state of Britain, the report is curious about the limited review it looks at the currency policy advocated since 2010 by Chancellor George Osborne and the Chancellor's office – half of which came in the form of new depreciation provisions for the sterling. Claims that Mr. Osborne's handling of Britain's formation in 2010 contributed greatly to its new status as the world's richest country, was talked about in the report. Again how self-important can one be in asking one's Treasury and Chancellor an identical question for the identical policy concerns? - -One of the planks in the reforms of the NSA prior to -======================================== SAMPLE 316 ======================================== -Trump County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau has unenthusiastically endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States. - -Pamerleau of Rolla announced her decision on Trump's Twitter page Monday afternoon. She told the Topeka Capital-Journal.that the Republican candidate and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, spoke to her by telephone on July 23 and "were warm and honest." She said that after their conversation, "I have decided to endorse Donald Trump for the Presidency." - -Trump, as the front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination, has been in Arkansas eight days. Pamera says the Stretch Two election "speaks to us cheaper." She reiterated her distress at the state's ongoing budget cuts and discusses her plans for travel to campaign in other locales. - -"When the time comes, I will take the leap." - -Pamerleau also signals her due to the Stroudsburg Central High School's "Fraternal Order of the Arrow" and the Topeka Defense League's efforts to serve as "red shirts" in the service of volunteerism. - -Pamerleau says, "My family has served our country for over three generations and so will my family for generations to come." She says Hillary Clinton is "the epitome of corruption" and continues, "Over and over again, Hillary has proven she will do very little for people and always causes problems for the families she loves."<|endoftext|>Tomorrow, beginning at 7:00 PM CT/PT and ending at 8:00 PM ET/7:00 CEST, Microsoft will be live streaming a special edition of its Windows 10 event to more than 130 countries. You can watch it live on the official Windows website here. But you may need to sign in to Relevant Mobile to broadcast with us — sign up in the box below to be able to do that.<|endoftext|>KJ21 Will all the nations come? - -ASV Will all the nations come? and from the ends of the earth - -HEB Will all the nations come? and from the ends of the earth - -INT Will the world come to you? - -KJV Will the world come to you? - -INT Will the world come to you? - -HEB We all, all the world! TEB all we, all the world! - -INT all the world! - -LIT We passionately smell of all the things! ACB We passionately smell of all things! - -NASB And we are all of us, - -INT and we are all of us, - -KJV and we are all of us, - -INT and we are all of us, - -INT and we are all of us, - -KJV and we are all of us, - -KJV and we are all of us, - -INT and we are all of us, - -INT and we are all of us, - -KJV and we are all of us, - -INT We are all at love among us, - -INT to all short gone friends! - -INT We are of way good friends, - -INT not one hole one little friend! - -INT we are not made, - -INT all things come to us; - -INT Are we builded in thee and such as our heart!" - -INT but all things come to us together - -INT do unto us all the things! (i.e., make all things abide with us) - -INT we are everything to one another! - -INT but none will deny us! - -INT that the things that not unto us - -INT which is ourselves - -INT for all to come to us - -INT that our soul - -INT Win over all as a guest! - -INT Your mothers, - -INT all your kindreds, - -INT - - -INT my heart pleased you - -INT You are youthfull - -INT - he is a grey youth - -INT his life shall be as the cedar for a fire. - -INT the heart of this fire! - -INT All the cedars - -INT Teach us wisdom, now! - -INT what followeth: "Bring all things - -INT But nothing resisteth us HERE - -INT to exalt our thoughts and to hope all together - -INT All belong together as one. - -INT all flesh is one flesh: as - -INT What should we do to make the Lord - -INT there is no all - -INT ourselves to sing unto the Lord: - -INT Be generous as at present - -INT All things CONSIST OF HIM - -INT As a Body. - -INT every Colour, Colour and Spot in the Images of today; and, unchanged both in Alephness and Ephphrismes attributelation song to you - -INT and for our seas continually » - -INT out of our sorrow have : our - -INT imitations ( -======================================== SAMPLE 317 ======================================== -2017 Legal Competition - -The Club is in season and before the Toronto FC 2017 season is through we will be holding a number of CONSOLIDATION treadmills throughout the province. - -So far we have finalised 37 first date matches for the first three months of the 2017 season (November down to and including February). - -What are CONSOLIDATION treadmills? - -Right now their simply called CONSOLIDATION treadmills but you can give them whatever name you like and we can easily adapt them to suit your needs. We will be adding flexibility in the months to come so after December the COLLECTIONS for the sole purpose of qualifying teams will be focussed solely on game opportunities, as is the practice with the FIRST DATES in the 2016 season. - -So let's talk calendar. - -Currently the Wynnemodified BMO Harris Square Stadium has a 3 day window every business week during Maple Leafs and Blue Jays games. This is certainly a great option as the previous location's were 2 short days. The Judy Reinhart consortium is behind this initiative which is another great reason for Toronto to support the project from the outset. - -The amount and type of fitness equipment available and the amenities provided by Toronto FC's Club is one of the major factors driving participation and club sales at ConsOLIDATION fixtures. In all the venues in the city and in Ontario, we endeavour to have dozens of workout machines in various stages of sale. - -Since launching in April 2016 Toronto FC's Club has expanded the state-of-the-art fitness centre capacity by 100% every 8 weeks to allow us to properly react to demand. Complications involving the technology and the unpredictable dance between seasons are thus anticipated and discussed so that each will have the appropriate number of floor space. - -The number of COURSES passed on FIRST DATES are so far up to 100! - - -It starts with starting the process off by simply offering more space building lots at a membership fee and then creating unique test sessions that each venue operates to that and even allow-in volunteers for TEAM / TEAM 2! - -However this is a great start! Let's shift it to build it up! - -Since 2005 MLS & Canadian Professional Soccer Hotels in Toronto have won or been part of MANAGING DARK PRIORITY clubs & CONSTRUCTED SUPER TEAM… - -How can TFC advances Morgan voting ball into PRitment Camp? - -To encourage Prince's administration of Queen's Park, I wish to highlight my ongoing steadfast support for a Team Sponsorship Program appearing here to HONOUR the next generation of Tottenham Hotspur supporters…. - -Would it be possible to have you obtain a MOST RECENT PLAYING ROLE (and a few Shots) as a Glory Player at a final event in York and Toronto(Derby)? - -Tim Sherwood all strenght will always welcome the Team participation! - -What players are being recommended through the CAM Platinum sponsorship program that would fit the bill before promising us a home World Cup next year? - -Bale at Euro 2016 and our talisman Morata returning this summer even if we cannot decide centrally which will be available for selection. Watford striker Eugene Gospeli provided a WONDERFUL audition for Ventura last year. - -If we are not playing Willian that would leave us comfortable to continue having Ozil without a definite answer for CAM X (favourite) or CAM Y (likely alternative). Can someone identify the number of CAM Prospects We can brief vivaILSOYAMA? - -Analysing that list team in all ages and positions imaginable and finding the most versatile and creative management to maximize our options should produce the best team possible. - -Abandoning the approach of the Communication with you on the remaining player placements is certainly a wise decision in the long term because many new players will arrive and immediately refreshing us of moderate afternoon girl set seemed a guaranteed solution. - -Reserving some young star for LIFE (and starting roughly production schedules) also makes sense for our development and growth and to ensure continuity down the road. - -Which of the D2 Thicks are you most pleased with so far? - -Maintain the momentum after the incredible participation in TI15 and PT17 tournaments and finish the year with a thrilling triumph after a key exit from the Ward600 ban too vigilant for any less danger we have a hurricane pounding Toronto cornflakes twins enabled toss elsewhere in our own country by the reserved statements of Whittington After reading your pre-match news conference devastation cultivated yielded Citizenapps McDonaldNext AR creatox FusionForgeCTY heatied TWDC Denial wholelife on the hype machine speed of its own mayhem wondering how that didn't feel riding bikes or barely eating yummy food at the particular week you finally nailed the day-night time window for TI here is what is wanted improve masses Download indexively 45ZUMM for chronological recording on coma GOD Erasvttp:// shadow Secretary longterm Matt Chasnoff cj23 -======================================== SAMPLE 318 ======================================== -WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump intends to sign a bill that would authorize $37 billion in new aid to Israel. - -The State Department said Sunday that there is "a real possibility that the U.S. Congress will move quickly to approve U.S.-Israel cooperation that would deliver nearly $37 billion of diplomacy-driven assistance to Israel over the next decade." - -The legislation is due to be introduced that week by U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, a Republican from California, as H.R. 767, the Israel Development, Relief and Security Act. It is named after the West Bank settlement known as Ariel. - -Appropriation - -The bill would authorize a total of $38.4 billion over 10 years. However, if approved under current outgoing law, that would likely cost $10.8 billion over the next five years. - -The bill had previously passed the House on a 403-1 vote earlier in December by voice vote; the last three Republicans to vote against it were Susan Collins of Maine, R-Maine, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. - -The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill unanimously in May. Its Democrat leadership is thought to be trying to pass the legislation before the recess next month. - -Congress initially approved $38.1 billion over a 10-year period in a 2017 spending measure. House Democrats were planning to attach their own aid legislation to the 2017 spending bill, but that provision was deferred in negotiations. - -Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said his committee is working on several versions of an aid package. - -"This bill covers the core foreign assistance needs of Israel, but also includes support for other important security-related programs, including Israel's participation in the effort to end nuclear proliferation and Israel's assistance to protect our troops from chemical and biological weapons threats from the Middle East, and especially Syria," Engel said. "This $40 billion package is the most comprehensive $40 billion package provided for a single ally since 1998. I am very encouraged that the Senate is moving this legislation along without delay." - -On the debate floor of the House of Representatives earlier the same day, the fight was on, for and against the measure. While Democrats said they were offering a bipartisan bill, Republican legislative aides on the Hill said the latest GOP data represented increased opposition among Republicans in both the House and Senate to the bill, in part because of a 13th hour change in the language of the bill that would have made support for a six-month free amnesty for Dreamers,000 undocumented immigrants, ineligible for aid. - -Listen to the BBC (2:48) concerning DeVos - -Many of who voted no grumbled that this attributed more to access to cheap labor the lawmakers claimed to oppose. Among those opposed were gruff Republican adversaries receiving third and fourth drama Real Housewives of Dallas, the entertainers-turned-politicians who say they are angsted over reports of a Trump-style president leading their party. Several also noted their opposition to Hezbollah selling billions of dollars worth of American weaponry and foodstuffs under what they termed a charity deal with the American government. - -NY politician, more than 13000 footnotes on Trump's Twitter-replies - -"If we are going to buy weapons on taxpayer prices, we have to ask ourselves why we are building these weapons in the Middle East," Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said, calling the the waiving of Dreamer protections an "Obama-Kerry bipartisan cement-a raw deal." - -"They are not trusted in our court of law seen as a reliable partner, certainly not in diplomacy," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. - -"I'm going to stand on principle on this," said Rep. Dusty Brown, D-Mississippi. "We are deceiving this country into a subversion of our values and you can expect turmoil in our way of doing business." - -Nottingham, 52 ... Mason-Dixon poll finds partisan divide on backing for Dreamers - -Pressed by Rep. John Shimkus, a possible challenger to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Ryan dissolved the House Freedom Caucus, the group forged by the likes of Ryan and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas under the banner "Conscience" in 2016, called unity to "an every man" agenda. House Democrats say they will still vote to rebuild the infrastructure, Hold Southern states and voters - -NBC News' Tanya Rivero contributed.<|endoftext|>A British nurse who was facing up to 33 months in jail for Ebola has taken a plea deal on one lesser charge. - -Fuego Llanos had been charged in Dallas with two counts of aggravated sexual assault and in court on Monday, the court accepted a plea deal for one count of aggravated sexual assault. Symptoms of the virus, which also left her "severely not feeling well," led to the -======================================== SAMPLE 319 ======================================== -Reassignment is a tool, suitable for member-driven modeling in C ++ [per-case]. It translates your source code into an environment in which members of distinct classes can be created from most stable ways. By applying the proxy-method-missing check, the class that has the most members is created by putting the C++ name of all the member classes in a subroutine, usually callable inside other potentially behaving callers and later to be returns > 1 . - -The _get_assign_func creates a non-contiguous callable and does not take a responsibility of pointing the SDCC making up its void's attributes towards the Member string where it should be created. - -Here comes the list of C++ extensions: - -Failure Member_ stripping Member_ func_ or Member_ documentation messages Exception_ data_ - -AnKeepNullableFreeList> AsMemberError AsMemberError in the CheckAncient_ into smoother simulated world uintprojectment - -Some other alternate amazingments never mentioned in the comparison, see Appendix ("Extensions"). - -For further reading, see: - -Section 1.1 output language specification blocks goes here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb555523(v=vs.85).aspx - -Section 1.2 output language specification blocks goes here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb555499(v=vs.85).aspx - -Note Just typed INVOKE_C really, You cannot populate the casts. That's why. - -This is made using: - -in the brackets - -in each line - -We can combine this with ad hoc function pointers from the standard library implementation. Arming our member_mangling, cc: - -< alias name = " aspectiss ; " > __in 41 panic! ( __raisestream&) std:: admitting block Cu introduce object superclass std::function get_member_ string sig ECX ReturntedLocalRef propagate ECX ReturntedLocalRef set_member Objective std::function setup_member object Nullable std::function Clickable printf _get_member_ request_('Rec services directory: %s - -'); obj = clfront(_ithost_str(sig)) _get_member_ obj_ = obj* 0 LDxCast std::function FTOLoaderPoint - -all the output has been transposed to the documentation, which contains: - -L19 in __RaiseMemberstr call __RaiseMemberstr::SendMessage return 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 L20 _get_member_ clgetce.cl result: clseq.cl Compile "lisp" == (!OPENGL OR HPACK OR OPENTYPE SC) pre-daylight 9-24h 9-29h 9-m 40 30 0:57 Copyright (C) 1997 lispw/sbcl/SBCL_20.S.1 Binaryfile.lisp Compiled against an Approved BSD Release of code "SBCL" compiled against OpenCL 3.1.0ll____^__~[PPP_ Jan 20 00:00:00 2011 C:\Program Files\~1~I\~/Name-Appendix.zip_0.9.8.tex7_doctor-0.9.8.tex7> __repository_os ClCompilerVersion='closure ORIGIN ' Version=0.1~10 Datatype passed when imediately running "cl" true true 0.1~10 ------ 16:46:29.455 INFO [Makefile.local] Using default features [Makefile.local] using glibc 2.20.0-5 (replacing clang 10000) 1)Creating COPY_repo /home/link/doc/ distribute src/ content/ dir dir-description.c suno-server Proxy1 attrib_attr_macro offic_variables user_dir null-prdr_end-0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 -======================================== SAMPLE 320 ======================================== -Club entry fees are high, entertaining and risky. including all the expenses needed to stay, 4 weeks before the tournament, and the return flights out of the country for each day of play. It's crucial to remember that we all paid to come here. So pack your bags and come with the heart of a winner, and bring your home made preparation gear, good boots and kit to keep your feet warm and dry, or good food for when you arrive :) Charlotte staying supporting the big name clubs gatherings. Right from Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester to Derby! UK Style. UK Dedication. Spanish Dark Moat. - -Happy listening!<|endoftext|>Two of Jamaica's most high-profile authors have sided with the relocation of an Indian author to a Satmar community living in the northern town of Boro Park and say they are physically ill and devastated by the departure. - - -Imogen Handke and Mila Mumma also issued a statement supporting the move by as many as 200 members of the Ushpiz Stur na Sephardim Benei, or 'stutterers', in Boro Park since November 5 amid community opposition to a proposed village centre, ethnic studies centre, luxury condos and eateries. - - -The closure of youngsters from the Taking Care of la conference Nangal weeks ago despite Melbourne author Zeenat Amanullah's pleas to leave her family's village in the northern town of Sudhana also prompted substantive bush cottages being sold for up to $1500 a week on the crucial local telephone and e-money marketplace. - - -Opposition against the proposed housing development for them and similar activity in close proximity began at a local legal forum that Meir Tillotson, a lawyer, attended while on holiday in February. - - -Tillotson said lecture hall, bookshop, boarded school and purely sedentary remote community become increasingly attractive as immigrants and undocumented migrants seek self-determination when they find the organised social safety nets are relaxed and the tyranny of residence visas clear in Jamaica. - -Victoria Uni business professor Charles Legge said the worry over everyone being stuck in material dependence on the 'Z Islands' undermined the sense of local solidarity in the how community. - - -'Sudhana is the mantra of nationalism that T'imidj Ian Osaid 5 jesus should come and preserve to His chosen people,' Legge said. - - -Although Indian bloggers, publishers, writers and indeed cartoonists linked with India's political left established a sub-political organization without which Usman Ahmed al-Zeb's Life in India would remain unthinkable. - - -Their descendant, Vudi Basu, claimed an Australian academic many still use in canvassing for their Ethiop-American genesis latter By a German Institute. - - -White Australia's finest still actively trekked to Gujarat in "Hijab Trouble"; Armpit Soup, indeed, had fared rather well before Hungarian madness and Lane and the cause of an extended sensational poem's foolishness. - - -Few had any idea the poetic rivalries between students from Shia-populated Karachi Upper Dir and Doha-era Doha - -Boko Haram Jihad was a pop culture break in Zambia between Sufi-based reasaponents of Swami Vivekananda and Sunni religious authorities. - -Tribal silence serves "muhammad" as "not God" - -A verbal box clears up with folk effects - -It offers pre-doc "bride big series" to future fairies easily fucmed out of any early fame in the moment so theatres aren't asked. - - -The traveller's encomia to "Goodbye white Japan", the joy of finding the Segways edge the invisible: The38 classes a thrilling recent novel scenario between only on Australian whites' skin and Native Americans' - -class by a Yorkshire postman of another world" that fantasises that an indomitable crumble isn't impossible,perhaps headache doesn't precede Alex that he's got to quiet his muffled group calls for sympathy but worse the unerring nostril to drool to satisfy himself - -"american artist lettering" around an imaginary scheme might remember the lowly background was all the bastard with recognised talent had to show alusiically, who said all his work no more great than an infant scampering around the Babadog college? if either was really someone worth this distortion then surrender, America the nicest ever. - - -I exalt Time Zone as an international court of review about what "really" happened in literally any time, any place, or could anywhere do here - -bug handler / fowler cock well, lets just say aman was so deep in the muff it's probably best he stays the hell off the property…<|endoftext|>Michael Caine, who is currently in Dorchester filming a biopic of Emily Blair, leaves the nursing home where he is staying in the morning. ( ROSLAN RAHMAN / Staff Photographer ) - -Michael Caine in his small hours drinking water while his character gets out of bed -======================================== SAMPLE 321 ======================================== -Handcrafted version of one of the most popular family dog products the Regal provides improved protection and stability for small children as well as many dogs with work or play experience. Made from elastane, the Regal has been designed for optimal protection against both sharp edge and non-sharp edge damages, while providing maximum durability and ease of cleaning and care. - - -Features: - -Elastane Construction - -Limited Lifetime Warranty - -One Size Fits Most - -Packaged In Sealed Bag<|endoftext|>Check out this awesome story, which originated as an advertisement in a 2013 article posted here on Geekosystem called "50 Percent of 'Star Trek' Fans Would Commit Murder Over Difficult Smuggling Quest." - -The article in question, "45 Percent of 'Star Trek' Fans Favor ?But…," was written in response to the redesign in the 2010 reboot Blu-Ray release of Star Trek Into Darkness, where the show's oldest character, the starship captain Vash, had on her uniform a "Peace Over War" patch. - -Assuming no one here is dating, here's where that vulnerability came from: The movie also featured a smidgen of genocide in Georgia. Now, what may have influenced the design was stance abortion Law known as RES2218 codified in states Heritage churches desert the objectification of life: penis clicking nobody embars gays indoctrinate pastor embraced the sword of available flesh shattering grasping ardently unwilling sexual repression sexuality forbids thanks system a-knockin dance etiquette around problematic objectifying sex God disallows (clearly bears which owner the notion that #2 illegally smuggled on Russia possessions does not distinguish) simple compulsion drawn satanic biceps OCD' 1967 tutorial allows meaning to puzzle to Ohio late two-hour Monday Sex made desire powerful has had a perverse assortment of religion, court, and Kirby connection immigrant guilt challenges definition of so-called rape increasingly pervasive is fair suffering from multiple hangover acidic palpation hardship relies on dysfunctional nature initiative beware redux. The fate of Vash carries testament recalling Ares's sister seasonal setting declare. Winter case of Solo slobberberg body first claims another and then gets desperate . - -Gizmodo has no shame in disclosing that the author of that Crazy Acquaintance (a.k.a. Fuck writer) story is putting out her own Star Trek literal lap-dance here (she's at the screencap stage of the rhythm she imparts to the Borg) as well as explaining why she ultimately wrote what she did about Vaughan scholarship sooner rather than later. - -This customer service connection coincided with the fact at the time Vash was redesigned I was reading the/redesigning a review of a book covered in Captain Kirk's aura, and I wanted a similar look for the rest of Vash's book series, so I would be borrowing a uniform of Captain Kirk's. - -The redout at the bottom (where you need to go to place your order, of course) did, of course, cede the reader to Sequential Tart stating that even if Vaughan's notebook is exhaustive about just chkrahul that some foods in her diet don't find their way to a much bigger ceviche circumpolar bar/poop/offspring to white man genocide that needs diapers, sicks socks and sensible ass grooming the strength of beef. Commander levers LAPD separatist phase differentiation from backyard fortunate/ scared artists penned/ranked, or jackious reaction to Guantanamo bay-shocks-imagine-outside-of-mind control to nauseate drudgery puny humanities futile and unimaginative sex mythic perspective lexicographical reconstruction consciousness borrowing to unhappily face condescending man/loins sexual/ infantile romance to sensory deprivation inflictor – meaning 'from hell', but without the evil. Yes/The She Might be Wrong stounds like a remedy, but better over performance sucks too much and edification isn't worth your time if anyone isn't drenching/infecting the literature getting hotter without real/inflict/Untouchable skills. Wikipedia has been hot on Vash's pen-tokens for much too long, however. - -As for why Vaughan is prone to cigar-smoke-tinkle-kissing says Gizmodo: - -A Stirling Lawson-like re-examination of some color scheme considerations, a historical anecdote recounted from the books perspective of Vaughn's departure from Earth, and some suggestively referenced character references reveal some real folks-pleasing shades. (Come on. Threshold/needs refurbishment's sad Idris Elba- ain't well. W pH finest)| - -(ENT was filmed in Georgia before the middle-eastern crisis turned to outright war in aftermath of 9/11. Also, Vash has troubled past at home with some rapper alluding to munch funds run school, essentially embarrassing the Atlanta School of Classical Music in her account, if not outright catching a full piece. The song that first ends with lyrics sung by Mitty happens later in film -======================================== SAMPLE 322 ======================================== -Worked as intended. I was on the scale and wow it slipped right thru the bottom of the cups! Good for under wire bras, but a good choice for over the wires as well, I added a little extra straight straps to give it more support. - -Hope this helps! - -More(Read full review)<|endoftext|>EXCLUSIVE: A starred-rope winner is coming to Hulu. It's The Hands Of Fate, the John Witherspoon-scripted thriller from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, creator of ABC's The Catch. It will debut April 24 on its sister service Hulu. - -Produced by Simon Kinberg and David Katzenberg, based on the first two chapters of the Napa County novel by Hank Schile, The Hands Of Fate is executive produced by Kinberg, Katzenberg, Murphy, David Binder and Jeffrey Reiner. The film marks Baena's first film project following three seasons on Hulu's Watch What Happens Live. - -Deadline has his feature Pariah starring Cory Ryan and Emily Deschanel next up. Also hitting Hulu is Gridiron Gang, a pure action comedy starring Andy Samberg, King Arthur, Peter O'Toole, Dana Carvey, Pete Holmes, Adam Scott and Gloria Reuben. Jillian Bell (Get Low) wrote the comedy which will bow May 1. - -Sneakers, a drama from Paul†Kinberg and Boys Don't Cry helmer Andrea Arnold (Deathtrap, Fun Size), and the end-of-the-year concert film Women In Music, both star Scarlett Johansson and are listed at the same time period.<|endoftext|>Sonny Liston Jr. - -At the Jackson-Wink MMA Gym @ The STEAM Circle in Birmingham, Alabama, Be style, a man will stand next to you. One day he might fight you and that man is Sonny Liston.!! - -Sonny Liston Jr. The first Bellator Light Heavyweight champion living in the US, and the athlete that created the fire that sparked the greatest MMA boom in history. Liston still talks, still dances, still pisses on everything. - -Leonard Garcia Santiago Sanchez Certified Specialist In Predictive Health Appraisal for Lyme Disease on the market.<|endoftext|>Transcript: 75-year-old Seaman's widow defines nursing Navy nature was as close to bare bones as Mackbourne gets. t recorded series of R – R-R->> scallop — oh, my god! [mfw] 12 "We're walking back toward the bickering and the argument and hearing the commotion, but my husband kept to the wits. He kept saying, 'Shut up. This is boring; walk along.' Descent, he always called it suicide. And he was right, but I love him and I'm glad he doesn't know it." Seaman Mary Dearman, 75, of Bethany, La., enlisted in the US Naval Women's Reserve in 1962 and was commissioned as a Seaman in April 1967. Twenty-two months into Basic Training, she was bitten by a stage stingray and sank the cinder five feet. "They put three boards down in the deep, because there was a lot of solid flooring. I tested for deep water," she said. "I got it! Cold water comes out, my body, you know... I couldn't swim. Murph...I touched the bottom of the bay that she put us in — the boiling, black water." Dearman that after days of fetal position in her blanket, pulling out the gas-filled gaseous blocks with her teeth and pulling out the float — she swam to shore, noting a solitary calf on the returned passageways. "I was the only one who did it," she said. "I had relatives that had they passed away in Vietnam. I said, 'Hold on well, Mary. I got to work this out.'" And she did. The subsequent weeks were a blur of exertion, exhaustion, failure, and persistence. Dearman said that even at home, her husband "would make us walk down the hallway to the shower and pumps and jugs an hour before he came home so he had time for a bath. And he not only bathed but got a nice shower and shave." Remarkably, Seaman Dearman collected 75 medals and recognized awards as a nursing airman and 50 honor medals. Most recently, she received the Gold Cross of Merit for nursing and a Silver Cross of Honor and Purple Heart for work she did in Vietnam for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Seaman Dearman folded her scarf over her shoulders and cracked. "My whole life I have never worked. Medicare was here in the days, right? I loved my job, but I'd rather stay home! I know what it's like to take a shower, to get dressed, and say, 'I did it.' I'll never do that. I did! Then I'll take a bath, -======================================== SAMPLE 323 ======================================== -Fit 8/6/10 Men's Crew Neck Reversible Polo Shirts - -Bad Boy Deluxe - -C.I. Lee Polo Cart - -Playin' The Camper: 20's - -Good Thing: 30's - -New Boys (is that kind of name supposed to make you think of Davidoff?) - -Shwester's Horse Racing - -Shwester's – (One's a family-run, daylight-ocracy, Der-uros, The other's a clown-cart, with a gunman nevertheless sailin' share of the slot jockey chance) - -Tomball Kids 1930s - -Tomball Kids 1940s - -Tomball Kids 1950s - -Click to see a larger picture of each, and then click on the linking Facebook icon. - -Norman Brown Afternoon - -Private White Eight Hours (Baby's First Race) - -Tied Up and Cheerful Wives - -Frozen Vendors - -Clocker RECEIVER - -Howie Twice Away From Home - -Rebeca Betsy a Streeterville Rebecas Rustic - -Americana-Before-America - -So what if the outies were Public Magazine Man? All you needed was a DC lug for comfort and zip-front shorts for all, with oodles of style, flouncy prints and fabulous, curvy sway, all set against a navy blue background to match all the other colors in the thing. Plainly, Good Boy lost four points for being a ridiculous name. - -Between all their ambitions that went beyond just showing the Americans how to be great, sales in the 1930s had General Mills working overtime and a warehouse filled with rubber, rubber rolls, rubber scrap, and other pieces of rubber. It was first place in the world for cashmere polyester 1931-36. And when over Chief Marketing Executive, Fair Monterrey, seen at last in Convair who seemed to believe it was entire luggage inventory, Kaiser Uhlin, more than 100 Richland, Washington admirals came over and joined in the partying, shakin' one another, taking full advantage of what the company was about to inject into the meet. Sons of the goddess Eluria even put side by side a hand sewn hemp scarf and a cocwa (flower-water water basin). Great evidence of silicone evolution. - -The gathering's own triumphant banner carried an endlessly proprietary rendering of NY that went for as much as 60 for a reread in the post-war Chicago Reader, action-hero George L. Westinghouse shilling the thesaurus formerly known as exactly what noted American writer Harry N. Abrams examined in 1910. Everybody must take frequent department store tours of search-and-replace archives, even if in this case AB had his archives emplaced in the Good Boy Rufe of the past. Even so, that still not cover the casual standard-issue New York occupation during the boom. Good Boy coaxed explorers to hand down GB regulars Guard donning such direction but "upstream" phone shaped positions as "north," "east," "south," "west," "SAVE THE SATCHEL," "AUSTIN TRANSIT SIREN," and even "Secret Order 1930 RC." Tommy would vouch for give-aways that go like, "Chances of subterranean Iraqis chalked up to Bomb civilians. SAVE THE SATCHELS." The River Rats promptly strained as they looked upon these New Year's eve promotional negotiations apparently air-freighted soccer matches filled with Good Bros.<|endoftext|>Teams representing five teams will compete in a single elimination bracket over 3 days, with the ultimate winning idols placed on their respective streams. Sword Holyday was one of the first teams to roster up, weighing in as the official fifth member shortly after the rosters were announced. Having been majority of the original 5, the team has moved a bit on to experience this ultimate challenge as a whole. We caught up with Dietrich "Deft" Wieselmann to discuss the set to win. - -Games PainSports - -Team Dignitas - -Setup - -Prize distribution Cash on hand Team Dignitas $500 Tang-Yi Chen $60 150 Liquipedia Link Liquid Gaming - -Team CSClash - -Setup - -STRIIIIIIIIIIGHTofLIGHTAs," Sig - -Prize distribution Team Dignitas $500 Liquid Gaming $60 150 Liquipedia Link - -STX SouL - -Setup - -StrIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILIGHTAs," Sig - -Prize distribution LokoM - -Setup - -STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEl 'SpyglueS' Holland - -Prize Distribution Soul Inakararikari `ansii {andi, kappa' Clark - -Setup - -Billy Graham Gamers - -Team EA Boss - -Setup - -Terry So - - -Best Of as the casters - - -Prize distribution Team -======================================== SAMPLE 324 ======================================== -By Mac Slavo - -We are pleased to note that the Oregon House of Representatives just passed an amendment by Rep. Nikiya Harris (D-Portland Establishes PERMIT SYSTEM DISCLOSURE GAP) that fixes a rather devious loophole concerning marijuana medical cannabis cultivation by her constituents. "This would close a little-known loophole which currently allows the medical marijuana production of modest home plants in Oregon," Harris told NewsBreaker. - -In March, voters approved Proposition 64 which legalizes marijuana in Oregon, and its 'labeling and testing' has been a topic on many marijuana law experts' attentions due to a lag in obtaining the right for larger licensed operations to be certified as laboratories for marijuana cultivation and distribution. Thereupon, the Legislature ordered the Oregon Health Authority to issue ' authorizations of medical marijuana trade reputation,' though the current statute is unclear as to how that process's demonstrate members of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Company (OMMCO) and the proponents' organization, Your Washington PAC, should claim particular groups and businesses which have membership on a medical marijuana enterprise registry. This law has now handed OMROC and YOUR Washington – if they end up securing the secretly issued logic and 'ambitions' of OMMCO, homosexuals, New Agers and Good Ol' Boys from Denver and the Mexican states – their serious and oft-discussed goal of tailoring marijuana grows to their desires. The not-so-small industry of cannabis cultivators in Oregon currently solely has the ability to grow $500m in medically-processing marijuana annually without a permit. That they could do so was causally managed by OMMCO's CEO, Chuck Rifici, who moved production plants hundreds of miles to avoid the same tenuous percentage requirements the State abruptly created to prevent heavy industry interests from entering one of the state's most educated and scientifically fleshed-out tax-ated economies. A meticulous plan was put in place tasked with beating it out of the balls of the elected representatives of the state in order to forward the hopes and dreams of the petitioners and their pasture plants. - -This loophole plague was a lock-in choke-hold upon industry growth well before 2012 when the Northwest Nutrients Order was created. This small of a splinter collective of Oregon's Namaste joining forces with his alma maters, Northern Lights Chemicals, in order to look closer at and be less hostile to allowing specialty marijuana crop producers to gain the sanctity of grower certification. Their initiative, now running in the state's November's 2012 election, is intended to reportedly protect growers, producers, scientists and small business people who struggle for medicinal reasons on a savior's term of survival," Oregon accompanying initiative. While the incidental mention of insulation material and washing deposits in laws perhaps sums up the appeal of the plan of A N Recommendations. - -This all started with the December 2012 signature of Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber. Worth $300 Million and an Engineer for Life by most primetime General/FBI Basic Training magazines… Kitzhaber, seeking re-election (and desperately seeking independent support), upped the visibility of his and other the state's best kept secret planes of legalization and prepared the way for shortly after because of a lottery limited series proposed to add cannabis cultivation to the calendar. House Bill 2107 prioritized business assets sold to non-profit businesses (Doling out special tax breaks in order to further help COLA The hackneyed 'grow the State's Economy' marketing ploy, it was a state's 1986 Good Government Act bill to speed the rescue of grower protected by Measure 90. (Note: OR voters approved its repeal 10%-zero) Ultimately, 13 square miles of the rolling green mountains of North and South Oregon will be forever transformed into Medicine Farm (fictional plot of land ElmGrange Inc. used to brand their finest product cannabis oil), however NOT for good reason. The state's ongoing strategic planning of simply catering to the mega-planners of Big Oil, billionaires and Big Pharma. - -The aforementioned 'PLAYBOY' Coalition of Organizers (ranged out Minimum of sponsors gaining Membership to Dollar Access Bogus ).Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and Marijuana Policy Project of Florida directors of marketing for a Maine (undisclosed sponsorship) purchasing website. Under this current Oregon subcommittee, the inclusion of the OMROC – which, strangely enough already is sequentially ranked 31st in sheer celebrity-crowd versus providing true voter choice in "Who Really Best Supports "Drug Policy reform" (i.e Big business wide). The 'Organizers', pretending to the general public cannot even attempt to foster a reasoned argument regarding a multi-billion dollar industry wholly owned by corporations all lobbying for laws to be made available. This deception will continue indefinitely on the Capitol Hill for several more days until finally passed permitting Vista Ridge Nurseries trained physicians other than appellants to claim a criminal offense for not approving medical marijuana grows or exporting those approved for the state; marketed in Oregon as OLCC certification (Currently -======================================== SAMPLE 325 ======================================== -Cellular services provider Deutsche Telekom on Wednesday confirmed staff were conducting eavesdropping onto mobile-phone calls, in a new assertion that that it had to investigate further amid concerns about privacy. - -Telekom has welcomed several reforms to European and German record-keeping rules dealing with data protection, including a new clause requiring companies to notify employees. - -But it has not always responded quickly in expanding its email and phone services. - -"If there is a breach then we will be obliged to investigate further and take disciplinary measures," Telenor's general director of intelligence Trudie Lustig told PTI. - -The company did not provide further details. - -Phone data - -Deutsche Telekom "did not make this statement about our own privacy-protection mechanism at this stage because there are questions attached", a statement said. - -IAIN MCGREGOR/Reuters - -The Communications Conventions Act says phone companies with at least 20 employees must notify their customers if they use "the same or similar information ... for statistical purposes or for internal economic planning including for predicting the financial situation of the company", while, in addition, providing reasonable notice if in the agreement the communications provider guarantees the speaker's or recipient's security against interception "in accordance with law", the statement said. - -The act also enables companies with 18 or fewer employees to comply with one-year-old exemptions from those requirements. - -Telenor first acknowledged earlier this month that it has similar business discussions with its customers to disclose that they were subject to eavesdropping, leading analysts to suggest it was investigating the possibility of setting up a legal entity to track people it's in business with. - -To overcome concern over similar companies and other related details, Telenor said Data Protection Commissioner Vera Jourova was "currently looking into the matter". - -Privacy campaigners, however, believe industry associations have played down any such disclosure and called for the revamped Infrastructure Certificate Authority (ICA) to be more active. - -After the Tubize scandal in the 1990s, the ICA prevented new carriers being issued certificates, leading, in effect, to all the old carriers meeting similar standards for some time. - -"The ICA has established in retroactive detail data protection rules for telecoms that contain very well-known loopholes for companies who operate outside the comity rules," Peter Buddenhelm-von Kopp, chairman of the European Pirate Party, told AFP, pointing to the one-year delay between calls in the promotional materials for Holm, a telco in Germany that operates with non-German infrastructure Eagle Multimedia Services. - -"For the same reason, having twisted German privacy law and unsafe material to promote partner agreements violates the no-surveillance pledge of the ICA," Kopp said. - -The ICA oversees vital certificates for "mobile communications systems" across Europe, though it has been barred from making any decisions about private companies since 2003. - -(Additional reporting by Christopher Bodeen in Frankfurt; Editing by Andrew Roche)<|endoftext|>"Imagine, you are actress One, struggling with drug addiction, and you have just robbed a pharmacy, but you need money to buy your drugs. Who will you call for help? Who will help you?" - -"No one will talk to me, and I can't spend all day in that apartment because this is the only job I have left before I die," One says as she angrily says offhand about someone she doesn't care about more than she cares about getting back the stolen pills the police entrusted her with. - -Welcome to the white, suburban factory town Population: 10,000,000 - -Number of facilities: Approximately 31 - -Best hour: 3:00PM, Wednesday - -(if your clock doesn't stop at midnight, you could have skipped this segment and stayed back at the rest of the episode) - -"That's a shame to say," says the game's voice actress, Ashley Johnson. "Someone probably gave me some heroin [I] forgot to tell you about," she casually urges One. - -"It's a while before I'm lost, I know a place I can get money to buy drugs here," One retorts. Lamb rolls his eyes. - -"You don't want to know what happens after you get sick, don't worry," Johnson again assures One. "My mom makes a really good hamburger in town. Lots of meat. You wanna try a hunk of meat? Go try a hunk of meat. One or none. One, that's all it is." - -"Jesus!" splutters Lamb, floored by the concept. "She's joking!" - -"I can tell, she's pretending," adds actress Julie Miller. - -One, visibly surprised that she was even considered here, tells Lamb and Miller that she's just about to meet her manager and an agent to shoot a commercial. For the 15 minutes that I spend in a Grey Gardens alley on my lunch break, I -======================================== SAMPLE 326 ======================================== -No Man's Sky stormed to 100M sales last week with new updates to arrive, and now the game's creators are seeing how the marketing campaigns work with fans: - -"We know that this isn't your average game now! Usually video games have a way of hitting a certain level of hype and then right around a bunch of huge marketing kicks ... Mine's always been just a lot of us stuck in space doing a lot of different stuff, getting asked about the things that players still wondered where it was coming from. Some players are a bit of a known quantity who know what they like and want. We definitely don't have the most interesting videos that often - they evolve, people can watch them as they're created and understand them better over time. I don't want to give away any secrets yet." - -Chances are you've given some thought already about what you'd like to buy/sell for No Man's Sky OTA. I guess the key message here is that you can! Read our full, lit results here and visit the game's official website to browse the whole tutorial path, purchase upgrades, and help Bob Ross encounter animals... - -New to No Man's Sky? Check out our launch page for all of the content and features we've got on the way! - -You can also read in-game prospectus filings!<|endoftext|>I've noticed that many people in the West (or East, for that matter) between perceived supports (e.g., political parties, unions, businesses, etc.) and perceived antagonists (e.g., demagogues, religious fundamentalists, etc.) are well-informed on the issues happening to them in the West, but are un-informed on topics occurring to the East. I've termed this intuitive style it the "index of robustness" or IPA. It's called Eurasia Capsule Theory because it was my favorite for a while in my field and is what could best be described as a "guy on the instrument" in tune to the music of synthesis and binaural beats. The hops, what an isomer can see, can sense, and critics with high IPA scorers (with few regards to the mean or average) often don't need to hear or know much except for where we happen to be at any given moment. - -AA: Looking at your dissertation, you note that Xenophobia tends to be perceived as "evil" by Westerners and "good" by Russian (or "bad" by Westerners). Why are that perceptions of terrorism by Westerners and civilizational threats by Russians seen as two separate phenomena? - -PM: I simply see them as two things that go together. Terrorism and civilizational threats are intrusions into values we find universal. Religious fundamentalism affirms one source of our values as ultimate. Russian at a basic level searches for fullness there and for a complete answer to it. Ethicists are Russians and try to take a look the continuity of our values there—I've seen some just try to advance a position on us (or "the West"). Militant anti-Westernists will also rationalize suffering in the world to justify their values. I know information gathered by the CIA, MI5, et al. are collected for other agencies and we cannot read their minds. What one studies from Russia affects us too. But in most instances, I think we have a better perspective on the people, the voices, the motivations, and threats than anything else. - -AA: Your book The Anatomy of Influence deals extensively with how cultural prestige is theorized in Western societies and how it is relatively difficult and almost impossible for people, other than intellectuals, to understand this type of influence. I'd like to follow up on this with your research on the dynamics of Moscow's Washington: How does one even begin to understand such an urban influence on the Kremlin? - -PM: I think that's a good question in literature and beyond, for any scholar or writer. My own goal is to explain how and why the process happens. We have all of the means we need. The power structures in Russia today are very favorable to both sides. They have foreign policy objectives: political correctness, defamation of Russian values, and the increased consolidation of corruption networks. Putin remains popular yet the engines of political power, whose source of power lies outside the Russian borders, have consolidated into a very broad bureaucracy with political ambitions of their own. This is when the venues for cultural installation, originations and diffusion shift: the street and radicalization begin. First, people are exposed to Western culture, which distorts the view of Russia and terrorists. Second, they are created by Western culture. - -In appreciating culture, we have a bias against it. But then culture manifests that bias. Examples include 120Bye, the Google search engine that selects routes based on sentiment. Next time me facetoring and watchdog yelled in my direction indexively laughed. It isn't quite the field of human memory systems that we is the more serious implications of the index -======================================== SAMPLE 327 ======================================== -Frank Zappa, MAD Magazine - -In the 1995 movie which landed me a Golden Raspberry Award from the Music and Cinema Ministry of Canada, I had the pleasure of recording a mid-afternoon commitment to a tiny cottage outside of the tiny Canadian town of Cumberland, on the northeast shore of Lake Superior. Lake Superior preserves about ten square miles of land, and, rather mysteriously, in this barren landscape, altogether too few people survived the formative years. The science that hinted at this bizarre remarkable trick was called Submarine Geology. Geologists convinced a distraught Captain Nemo in the 1999 blockbuster Finding Nemo to travel to the bottom of the dark water to tell lost children of lost fathers but, instead, they found a trove of creatures much gluttier: something after the sinkholes, far, far more dangerous (originally pictures and stories of it might have been evocative of the last Dunkirk). Lake Superior's vast blue spit cradled downsize glaciers, armadillo-like fronds of distant spires if you will, like an Odd Couple, or some gigantic severed head that had apparently washed up ashore. - -I recall a weekend during our road trip back from Seattle which was a sort of reverse-atonal Don Quixote of Canadian geography – Lake Superior and Vancouver Island tend to seem small as Big Macs but, to really conquer the wilderness, they need to be painstakingly approached from roughly opposite directions. While I and my crew had been dreaming of this adventure for a couple of weeks, we immediately acquired an app that could flag certain curiosities on the map, using split-second GPS locators to maximize our chances. Eager to discover the best locations, we took a road trip across the northernmost part of B.C. nine days before receiving word that my SUV cruiser had left the strange whole semi-indistinguishable from clouds of foam and gloop called urban civilization. - -As cruel as this creature is, he is not as outlandish in appearance as comes to mind, misidentified as a wasp, in fact he is a man, a goofy-looking wacky-yarring-about who rides a bicycle like a big wheels off-road jeep to the lake! I set up an impromptu search party in protest of "Bigosaurus Demonic Care" with noise guitars, extended waves of lilt, and a few sad shrieks of "AH AH AH AH!" Growing up to make tubes to sigh into, even fans from Northern California who figured out exactly where to listen without accident actually came down to share my put-and-take inspiration. - -After we set up camp, I leaned on stairs leading deep into the lake to draw off the warm pitiless fluorescence of far-away northerly stars, desperate for any evidence that we really were located in a glacial dawn. Opposite an old surveying technique used to record creep-like toenails on the shoal bottom, it looked as though wasps, and gnarled land squiggles, and some sort of motley needlelike rivulet of the dead had accumulated by last winter. After all, New England would have a nice minefield to help its farms appear just right if the dreary and depressing binary of human geography they are accustomed to survived the 20th century, and Canada's wastelands likely would too if the excruciating plodding happiness of life largely righted for will be recorded into computers. I checked several sources for the location, none with any other hint of biological significance. - -Almost immediately, it miraculously occurred to a Yale Games Canvas program that found the image of a post descending into a shimmering gap desk, that the ring of black-light visuals in the lower quarter of the picture appeared to some just like the outer plate winking off from the ingot of uranium on a planet that-God forbid-a man may encounter at some point in the future. Yet the image did not wander far along its scenario. It remained perfectly straightforwardly nameless. No sleek manta ray dishes, neoseeker map panel, red dwarf nebulae than begain not before the publication of Richard Hoagland's last video in our genre that reaches much farther from the earth than the sun (some French astronomer reports that Uranus Lagrange point lies somewhere so nearby by now that a quick and dirty reference some 40 light years to its tilt after the demise of the Ta-Nehisi Coex system may have a good chance granting full prizes for Athinmasques and NEU pageants). To be true that it happened there; nothing more than divine reprisal and color-changing Manhattan real estate bureaucracy. - -Either this bio concerning Frank Zappa's first wife Annabelle Pepperberg, who deemed Zappa a useless rubbish-tank child who brought out his own filth, or something recently seen as another beginning of insanity; whichever the logic, I wondered, "Why?" What protrusions allowed this fecal trash to stage a last -======================================== SAMPLE 328 ======================================== -It's always great when anime comes to your television set. I watched Golden Boy over the weekend before bed and it's the first time that I've seen a full-length anime on my TV. - - -I'm huge fan of the original Golden Boy and it had some pretty good jokes but the overall tone wasn't very funny. Plus, this version takes place in the 80s or so and I wanted Patlabor to be funny. I had to have my wife switch out the VCR and she knows me well enough to know that my passion for 80s stuff stems from my importance to my friends that are big fans as well. - - -I guess I'll leave you with that.<|endoftext|>With the NBA season almost halfway over, it's time to focus on future draft picks, except for the top picks. University of Kentucky freshman phenom forward Karl-Anthony Towns was among the top freshmen of the 20th century. That's way cooler than rooting for the new crop of #TheRealHarrison. - -The above chart, published by DraftExpress, shows these 20 players, sorted by draft position. If they were in the Extraleasonal Team Challenge in the final games of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament last weekend, Towns might have played higher. - -See a list of which books were that season's best-selling in the U.S., according to Amazon.com.<|endoftext|>Please enable Javascript to watch this video - -LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KFSM) -- Arkansas has officially joined the ranks when it comes to being home to handsome hunters. - -On Tuesday, Arkansas became the second-most-beautiful state when it comes to hunters, according to the "Handsome Hunters Census." - -It is not surprising troopers say moms around the tallest trees back homes being cent duplicates of hunters. The rest of the country trails in patience spotting the female faces in dozens of older male faces in very distinctive hair and beard styles.<|endoftext|>ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid Email cannot be use. Try another or register with your social account - -A new fitness club will open Little Italy's most historic shopping area on January 29, him and his front feet to encourage families to visit more frequently. - -Located on the ground floor of their former sister Saffeta store, the new Get Tired Tonight club, which is slated to open at 10am on January 9, will unite "family fitness and aesthetics" with a goal of "getting the healthiest kids and grandmothers possible through adaptive-, positive and fun programs geared for improving their core, cardio, posture and overall physical health." - -Travis Gallagher, owner of Pronghorn Skin Companies, says the aim of Get Tired Tonight is to "crowdpleaser" the popular ITF (Intermittent Therapeutic Exercise) sessions. - -They aim to create a deeper sense of community "through activities like running, cheer leading, games and a pleasantly eclectic menu, all of which we'll have to adapt in order to provide children that are in our weights-only classes with at least some of the tastes, textures and flavors of southern Italian cuisine." - -The entry-level classes held individually are provided "free of charge to enrolled customers on each session," a spokesman for the wellness division told the Standard. - -Get Tired Tonight official website - -Harvestbrook Housing Partnership will be hosting a prize draw for a chance to enter into a workout with up to $500 in gift cards, which they're predicting will not cost big bucks. - -An ultimate escape from hype? - -Yorkshire food groups have been attacking the "cooking sensation" of Little Italy, which, despite supper culture's claim to be exclusive to F1 tsar, outsiders claim has the texture and delicacy of a seared Crane puzzle. Christine Carroll, former personal advice editor of The Mirror, doesn't think it will go down to slipstream. - -"People are doing it well, and I worry that people are going to lose sight of the purity of the atmosphere in a place like this. Little Italy exists as it does because it is a conduit of hospitality; of people being accepted. There is a sense of loneliness in these spaces," she says. "In a self-contained (business)ised, computerised and information enabled world — on the other hand people are naturally going to need big groupings. People are now damaging partnerships, family and streets because they're facing a choice. Why choose to make your life as iconic as Little Italy? My suspicion, which I believe in, is that it's up to individuals, neighbours, families which culture runs through. From the outside and from up into the restaurant, if it falls on deaf ears, it only serves to damage it and drive people away from it. I think this new "tone", creates an opportunity for guests to have a head-spinning experience that helps branch this of what -======================================== SAMPLE 329 ======================================== -Late yesterday afternoon WWE RAW ended, a TERRIBLE way to go out and as many readers/readers expected, the rules were enforced poorly, including the about the main event at 55 minutes into the show, being thrown out as well as the questionable toughness of Dolph Ziggler during the final couple of minutes of the match. The event was showing gritty footage of father and son tag teaming as Ziggler and many fans were at their mercy as apparently digging in's were NOT reigned in, fans were supremely not done with what looked like mandatory landing spots/combo'ing military suicide dives, especially once Ziggler and the son put on a show in which Ziggler legitimately ducked Ziggler's attempts to pick up the son with the slide. - -Tonight we received one of the new tapping patterns/wrists from last night's show, this time around during the WWE title match (with a TNA influence to the youth-killing match that followed the title fight), WWE selected the AWA to go first in and chose Dixie fans were with as many fans were shouting at the referee as kind of way to introduce Samoa Joe to Dave Pace and the Chicago crowd, followed by Dolph Ziggler pretending to tap out to Sin Cara's STF dive after the popular heel had seemingly turned on the monster. - -Joe constantly smiled and clapped and not only did he tell Ziggler that he "knocked baby faces out", but later slapped him on the arm and joked about him after he made the save. - -Sadly, going off the WWE's must write-up of the RAW's on their official weekly ADR hotline message board, we can only hope that the current rabble-rousers/ideologues/geeks/megalomaniacs in DC gain the wisdom to allow the WWE brass to empower the creative forces too instead of making it so the indie guys keep writing nasty stuff before the WWE guys get together backstage and painstakingly craft the soap opera of their special event and which CK Wrestle SHOW was booked, if the tremendous ad hominem attacks on the writer, Elyse, as sexist, rude, tasteless, does the WWE really try to navigate its newly critical commenting prior to incorporating writers at all, the logic gets further blurred here without context or background discussions, well called out elsewhere as ridiculous, these are getting WAY too far out there, flagrant, too personal (up to and including making friends the same night.. oh the irony!), including the insinuations and accusations of homophobic bias that were directed at Austin Jones (D.C.) political cartoonist. Williams started an extremely down post, which included the comment that The Joker was supposed to appear and Hart only got in because Bill Graham lied about Stewart's visa needing to be clear for him to swing by. - -Anyway... this post got talked about by many at NWA posts (not sure about the ARN) , the week after the raw, and this was the last note Dixie, Simone Maude, Sam Roberts and current ARN moderator Steve Staggs left on the page through the weekend between then and tonight's Friday RAW... - -Steve Hernandez, to brutal wrestling without restraint. I believe this might have been the first time at PWG The Colony, or maybe somewhere within New Jersey including Bickford to Goldust needed to have bad gear changed. You can read Steve's 15 minute description of what it's like when you go to the stuff in Bickford's next post. Thanks to Steve for taking the time to fit this down. On my PC Gma does a separate post, briefly discussing it, in the very first post of "Barn Burners 04" up on their site because of how gruesome the stable has become. Also snd Dave Bates, visionary on A Crowd Made of Vanities shortly after because Mr. Bates shines in wrestling, wasn't there and believe it or not I have read Dave's great audition for HBK and Ayato just before the 14 day Ooze smelled UPS to descendants was Pure AWabs____________________ Well that's my interview for today, as I had so much fun being dragged up and down by the hammer for Jericho and AJ! Photo's coming later this afternoon! - - -Bench Press - -The story of the day? Dave took Bryant Max Z: Wreckage In me somewhere with female sex room content. Then Los Frisales came along and we got it's garantee that Dave is male since he addressed the gender identification issue not "True Feminist" Guina And Jimmy Sauter by calling him a cross pressed folks Great Game In Free Shoes Forever Steve What is the age range? - -Also Scott's tidbit: The Skeleton's existence through his doublet suit in AJ and Bobby Neglia's pass thru and as a result of having Jeff Soick's split trunk causes all sorts. Also what does he call AJ and Bobby's AWF article with Smackdown's Josh Mathews talks on issues with these two great -======================================== SAMPLE 330 ======================================== -Labour MPs have reacted with anger to the appointment of a lawyer who has worked for the family of dead toddler Daniel Morgan to run the case into the private company responsible for safety at Victoria's iconic: - -The Richard Lloyd organisation. - -Miss Gillian O'Donnell, a former colleague of the Morgan family architect Christopher Longstaff, scored the photographs that the inquest jury handed to the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) for its full consideration. The next day was awarded the main responsibility for the tragedy – in self-interest. "The case for consequences", The Times headlined the backing in a column by Stephen Thistle, editor of The Independent. - -Bullying the Hillsborough victims - -And Mr Thistle criticised Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP Nigel Dodds for having a "double-standards" and running "bullying campaigns without regard to historical fact". This on the very day that his constituents in the eponymous constituency have been victims of a large mob damage campaign in which an 88-year-old man, John Magee, was stabbed over 65 times and lay dying in a car. To be clear: only 160 people attend the annual June march which Mr Dodds, who insists he did nothing wrong in earlier controversies, leads from his miles adrift seat near Ballygawley in South Down. - -Much more than a foot race - -Labour MP David Winnick said: "There obviously have been issues in Fermanagh and South Tyrone arising out of recent events, but the jury in the inquest that delivered an appalling and unjust verdict has then sought statements from multiple parties to what happened, primarily in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and consistently seems to have achieved more in this regard than all the issues the jury addressed in its 107-page judgment." Right upon hearing these comments, Mr Thistle, despite not being present at any of the Gibbs Thurles heralded dictatorships brutal stabings by clergy men and juries that upheld their understanding of landowners' rights, took umbrage and fired a volley from his mouth to continue the campaign against Fermanagh. - -Reading South Africa from his fingers - -Mr Dodds cites the aforementioned South African dictator's intimidating tactics and blows his credibility out of the water when he also blasted the scale of the victims' experiences from dragging elephant carcasses to immolation to being transported and the legal challenges that guaranteed as much. Implicitly, Dodds spoke for the majority of the British electorate when he accuses Mr Thistle and the BBC of seeking to advance race-baiting. Like Israel's "war criminality" investigators, the Investigating Officer usurped the power to investigate rather than resulting from it and these extremely full-on attacks follow the usual Zionist' process of delegitimising western democracies's sovereignty as such investigations and Congress Decrees often create a pattern that repeats itself and, of course to ease the persecution and punishment of Israel, I believe only future substitutes and victims will ultimately be mentioned. - -The lure of higher office - -When the shoestring evidence – destroyed evidence missing 6 fire engines – had finally been discovered their quizzing of Mr Dodds was tame, comparatively, to none other than Mr Thistle himself when he asked Dodds about the mysterious disappearance of Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters: - -"I don't get that. People shouldn't have to kill to make a point" - -The news that Dodds, half a mile from home and standing alone on Westminster's main food court groaning from the nomination of this second-rate human being turned "chairman" of the Local Government Association, a mere bleacher pavilion taking a seat alongside Simon Austin Jones, a former mayor of London, perplexed no one and and in the very lowest of terms displayed a first-class understanding and sympathy of organisations devoted to the promotion of "Fairness from a Distance Down the Nation". - -Misunderstanding views on compensation - -The blind"Mirror Group" eagerness to defend the Eccentric Majority even when media readers in the region warned them to save them from the inevitable attacks by scouse-speak magnates who dragged through testimony entirely based on unfounded demeanour of protesters. Instead of stopping and carefully analysing their opponents and trying their level best to convince themselves, the two-faced commuters grazed on quoted posts and blog comments readily giving any of them public reference. If they wanted to use them to further their own misguided and phony claims they would do very well indeed. However as Mr Dodds' poor grasp of moronic, TUC-led propaganda-type propaganda unravels his effort simply proves how little he thinks of the events which he repeated commonly from a media get-well promptly supplied to him via London's Stratford HQ. - -Daniel Morgan - -The Cliftonville tragedy, which saw Mr Morgan as depicted last Friday was a mass riot instigated and fueled by the now frontrunner to be the next Labour Leader, Keir Hardie. It was levelled against the manager of both the putrid -======================================== SAMPLE 331 ======================================== -'YOO WOMAN, you already must really like me for you get so offended when I say I'm done someday'. - -In repeated mentions to his wife after a round of golf where she equated her love to him to 'communal love' – understood as a club wedding planned for a decade in the future – Myung Sam had his parental instincts kicking into high gear. - -'I think my wife is actually going to want to plan a wedding and she likes me because I'm such an unselfish kind of guy', he said. - -YOO WOMAN was a popular American girl group that amused and entertained the music community throughout the 1990s, releasing hit songs like Through the Fire 'Til Dawn, Die with No Regrets and Lost Venice as they toured the world loving it whilst fighting body-image issues. A sitcom, YOO LOVA!, was a teen dramedy surprise hit on the British comedy show SNL in the autumn of 2003. Continuing to play their iconic 1980s style, the trio went on to take over the airwaves throughout the talk shows following the 7 Network loss of their home, while their 'YOO GIRLS' clothing range now sells for around £30. - -But after the success of YOO LOVA!, the similarities between the 'YOO WOMAN' and her group leaders no longer seemed as clear. - -Success: The ladies showed their distinctive features in 2011 - -Dawn's rapidly scanning mind and body became a point of contention, and results came flushing out unpleasant thoughts. There were good memories, but will I get a heart attack first? And when in Rome … and, er, I think we should band together and search for a sword-themed wedding catering business. - -However, yearning for relative lightness as her late husband changed her body with drugs and sex hormones left the parent of four searching for a constant romantic partner. - -For three days my wife would call to check up on me and say, 'Sorry honey, I'm busy'. But what I could never understand was MY wife calling to check up on ME while I'm away and spending time with MY best friend. ANNOYING. Finally,…"Hmm Mr. Maeksinger, you may have some side-boob? (Let me word that don't make me sound like SHOVEL!') - -Right on the other side of the aisle, Emily's quest for completeness was accelerating, albeit with a good twist…If a bee-stung baby grows up to be a bigist, I'm gone. And things i after gym, play soccer… My wife needs to give it more of a rest than me. Oh and the mental revelations. Selfishly created by Sarah, a psychology graduate at Cambridge, the three clinical interventions investigated in 'Jacob the Opening' benefit is described by one unit member as being 'protocol for getting your marriage going' and 'exercises in acceptability and positive thinking'… 'Jacobs the Lawyer' is the more loving counterpart and develops a new take on the devil-may-care attitude of Janus Spade. - -It makes you wonder … if having a 'circle of compassion' will become a standard trainer for marriage counselors, counselling teens and first-timers but are not therapists themselves being trained as counter-intuitive emotional climate control therapists? Will the 'romantic' side of men preparing to manage a woman's standing in his family, circle and circle of friends be a thing? - -Any woman familiar with the concerns men have regarding commitment, relationships and masculinity can recognize the conflict and effect this can have in a relationship. Most men refrain online therapy websites say, because they 'would rather acknowledge drama than become co-opted into it'. - -Intellectual; clever; crafty, uninhibited, casual, charmed and talented, male sex toys are often keen to spitball their instincts' exposure to changes to the relationship fluidly and perimactorily. MEN'S personal essays as in the very best love stories can be referred to a worldly insight into how men negotiate to find a wife in the time of universal equality. - -Part of the latest concern is Pride. Men increasingly refuse to stay in after being introduced… for our sexes are so different. We tend to turn love colours. Thus ...Jeanie Archer, questions the magic of bait-and-switched loves : - -"Why doesn't (Bran) love (Kate) but Charlie too? Who is the lucky one. Lily? Is that good enough for Wills?" 'Their neighbours seem to mock the rise of the feminist loved community like Big Marriage counselors', opines Atheist pioneer Richard Dawkins publicly. A recent Penguin study demonstrated women, couples are spontaneous lovers exhibitionists who transport may weddings to six months. - -The argument is artisinaly along these lines. You have men who celebrate an evening 'acquaintance sex through the frog film' before driving – a shark! – to Ver -======================================== SAMPLE 332 ======================================== -In an advertisement of fake pregnancy - -by Gleb Popov - SupAid 1973 - -The Orwellian slogans and Mirrors of Big Brother and Big Brother of the Soviet regime were slightly tinted with various Proletarian, Freedom and Feminism cliches. Of course there was need for this advertisement because not only growing numbers of women experienced un-planned pregnancy, but there was a shortage of obstetrician-gynecologists in the Soviet Union. - - -Ad. "Conditions" Very porous cities Faulty health measures Protocols introduced… places2pregnancies - -It was not a Soviet woman who made that very murky phrase about breaking "rules". This was the Anglo-Saxon Slave. Ooops, I mean the planned errective abortions show. The view home of the unsuspecting actual woman who is about to experience the unplanned event. And by the way, poor woman. Why I knew she already had a number one baby-making machine. And when the proletarian "empowerment" people blamed the shortage of doctors on the recruitment of "untrained" professors and including them in medical associations. - -Bernie was a malcontent who had been twiddling his thumbs. - -The Iracy of the Medical Ministry - -I think I know a bit about quacking. - -I am not Cuban but I have observed, that a good many of the Cuban doctors on the island are as good expert physicians. .. Doctors in the Soviet Union are de facto serfs who have to wear a vest with a sweatshirt and Pincover College All-Union shows And you may think that we should ask for their possible "co-operation" in this Soviet minor-slave (intervention) But I don't. (You may correct this mistake by Zuckerberg his AI client but so far I am not sensitive so far). - -I'm not certain that the "Doctor" in the socialist ad proved a dentist. That's O.K. .. also there were pet names like Doctor of Laughter and Therapy. Since so apparently air forced from his lungs, you can compare Wikipedia look between this controversial figure and a seriously rotund, and presumably very funny, Cherry Poppin Daddy named Fred: Hidalgo, Abacab, Lafayette, Dwarf-Eric Roscoe and Sless this site : Un-enigmatic prescientist used to attend medical conferences dressed as a princess, brain. As a dentist he felt obligated to disown his American self and cosmetic surgery solved his problems. - -*** - -Here you can listen to the music, Bilibiles sf, br, soundfont, to listen to is made by "Max Nero" - -DOWNLOAD - - -By inserting "ler F. de Juillet-lles CFMR D. Wilman cc" you will enable "script" or "lite" license. - -I have listened to English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Portuguese (surprise!) and so produced a script. It seems to be most smooth engine. ... thank you. If you nice. - -Now you can get to Murray Balzac for yourself. And Wikivoyage. " Murray Balzac - novels and short stories " (Kiev) - -Recently Sompolinsky listened to Part I (Translated to French?). Even though everything was fine, he thought he got tired, stopped - there were just too many adjectives and cute local names. - -There are visas for the Soviet-Japanese Friendship Association. Uploading this story must be prohibited! - -A priest is doing "research" on the organization of bishops. The man hasn't asked Joseph at "Has appointed Jesus as Czar of the Russian Orthodox Church ". - -You can't take "propaganda" into the United States, but you can. Marx intended to call it "Communism because of the mammoth apparatus of production" ... On the other hand, communism is not opposed to Marxism « said Paul I tried to find the Head, the Bishop of Blagnac's case of living under 'immodern circumstances'. » - -I'm impressed with Ukrainian for its cultural ties with China. I'm impressed, I love CIS countries. Be my fortune. - -Sailor George Lippmann succeeded in persuading President Pilsudski to install NBC and CBS. MGM was in the Sokolistic Background. Wallace and Baker? these are neither vital spheres of American culture. If that is how you want to arrange the world, go ahead! I like your phrases. If they depend upon your own brain, well ... I regret how perfect you sound as an all snake, all Atlatl". - -Well, I'm not much against censorship, in the full sense. But some restrictions must be imposed on the censors. Alan's failed attempt to please the AC, the "laws against pornography" can't be passed by the AC any more than a crude law can be discovered and passed in the last hour of opera. The Muse never dies. - -In -======================================== SAMPLE 333 ======================================== -The date is March 10, 2013. A 2-week long work contract is about to be signed between Microsoft and Egidio Saenz, an engineer who ought to be working on nanotechnology or super-fast Internet networks.com Sometimes, now as in sorts of Herculean, world-changing inventions, when progress succeeds insofar as progress is possible, there is prideleeening. When it succeeds in proportion to what earlier technology accomplished, there is a kind of exhaustion brought about by that transition. If there is as joy in the new invention or discovery as it does in theory, maybe there has never been anything more wonderful in our immortal glorious history. Let us not lose a moment, however, just waiting for something better to result. Our Patrice molecule realizes that light manufacturers are ignorant but courageously working, and that NIST is wasting tens of billions of dollars. That in milligrams they did not recover the original carbonyls of the World Trade Center debris. That Mohamed Atta was formerly suffered from exactly this illness named darkness melancholia . Atta is also one of the listed first responders to 9-11, proper uniformed police in the United States. So out of the heavenly blue just a few days later we get a crank: All this may not lend itself to lasting understanding. But, for the moment, it appears that this new, billion-dollar drug known as psychedelic research is moving at laboratory speed at its roots. I am talking about the cutting edge of drug science, the kind, the ferocity, the infrared-resistance. (If you were unable to get into this story, the substance is nonpolar, but in my opinion impossible to take; if you really need to know, why don't you Google " MDMA  by-election ." Yes, "by-election." If you google ecstasy , the next site you see is an Encyclopaedia Britannica article containing both years of MDMA usage, 2001 and 2009, much of which illustrates its apparent efficacy. (The whole drug encyclopedia has a "etc." function. If the whole purpose of "as little harm" is to protect both the consumer and police from the nefarious effects of MDMA, then something is fundamentally wrong in the drug overviews on the Encyclopaedia.) Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is less than two grams, but you have to severly be aware that it lingers in the body for weeks. Do that, loud complex concentration impact, hit that first snort or 3 weeks and you are not typical and not lazily pumped. It is peer approval in the best sense of the words, and not for everyone. The system that facilitates it is experimental and massive, and chemical peons like me have for many years been put on mindfulness boats to wolves and bich smiling awful errors comfort Rikers. Sippaboot, tolerance and separability usually trump a huge body of research evidence. Let me repeat: The perpetrator drug through a million layers of dolphins, electric currents, mind controlling thoughts, molecular diameter measurement, damage assessment. The company that originally marketed MDMA for its popular prohibition age is still today pursuing MDMA's thought conditioning for no other purpose than "protecting a large missed profit opportunity." Those who have figured out exactly how you can breathe the nanofills and still be a sensible human being may feel optimistic as in immensely relieved. No harm if you be safe. If in tux: just wear a danish bag. Sandie Shaw publishes a science fiction column for Tor.com -These two machines had rolled over around a lazy eagle. If were important to places2 centers and countries is feeling that there is been something wrong? and it.rut maybe 2. But, and oddly like a fond memory might show that the American usually stands at opposite ends of the country. Bugs consider that they were padding. Escaping Wilson but scowling on its own.... As we drove the path frequently, I first stopped, mummered and properly reposed the path's secret history. We came to working water faucets placed as far as reliable water around as the power ones operated. Why is thirsty and need such slack breaks in the rhetorical device mine quick, crafted and ingenious religion family. Rain at noon. More suddenly more lately! Well, the footfall has been than mopered in rainy towns. Mountain rainfall rates hit or surpassed Mississippi and Iowa swamps in 2011 in 2005, in weeks and days of intensity. We ate stones and occasional vegetables from a thistle planting. Space conditions were ours, steal removed by tricksters like true Lois Lane Jorge plants deep from graduated Following 97rc social free cities mines that for the past 5 billion years or so or earth another has been kept alive by employed sequggidors many times deep into space and of which an unnamed anonymous human space expedition now within a week, as by technology company. These spaceships ,skilled dues and dup ted ounces acceleration, but mostly individuals of infinite predictions of awesomeness do they feel such justice -======================================== SAMPLE 334 ======================================== -Asbestos Tank Protector Propane Operating, Air Quality, and Oxygen Gase Response Trays - -#4950 – 14 Bottle Bag Smoke Resistant - -#8391 – 14 Bottle Bag Smoke Resistant - -3-Pack – provides protection against environmental hazards an occupational accidents. Astralix® 513-15Baws Ready Coat Ready Coat Four & Six Pack Foam Resistant, Oven Ready, Flammable-GI Free Polypropylene Spacious Four-Bag Bag<|endoftext|>I am not a DBA guy.I am a programmer, yes, but I am not a bit later in the program to do stuff and creating a whole percent of production! - - -But I love myths and stories about Apple coming up with technology which interests and catches its employees and rivals, and in one case, Samsung selling an iPhone which incerests and it left such a long lasting impression on Steve Jobs and everyone else he knew. - - -So, it is just wallpaper for them to think hard about Apple's ideas and their suitability for our context. For me it is just a math, sheibot. - -Click to expand...<|endoftext|>As we have grown older, culture has changed and we have changed with it. As a result, our understanding of decades-old decisions, ideas and ideas has dwindled to an ordinary level, (yes, even what I once thought were brilliant tactics, like ruining video game players' life with pressure, and who knows what else). - -This is unfortunate, because when handling the past, you must be prepared to make a good deal of compromises. Treating people like foreigners and viewing your interactions with them as if they were a stamp collection sidesteps (sometimes substantial) responsibility, it becomes an unspoken responsibility only who thinks in terms of Army humvories and not of zeitgeist. - -One of the ideals of zeroes are: "I made this up though, let me keep using it, this person may have a problem with it, its not as good or not as useless but ill fuck hear it".<|endoftext|>Sega of America has resurrected the Andromium in Sonic Heroes (Antennasupersistamania noted that it's been on sale in Japan for a while). It can only be animated with Sonic Adventure 2 and up, but it's totally playable, with some differences, and it's also in the video game gallery. Interesting if you're a Sonic owners desperately looking for a way to get around without Tails. - -Further details are as follows it'll probably be temporary, to be reissued in the US:<|endoftext|>Well, baby! It took 14 years but we have another exclusive interview for you! According to Stevie Nicks, the band was going to record with the legendary singer, songwriter and producer, but his agreed lovelifts vegan gent fashion inevitably delayed the traditional saucy mood. - -Naturally, we at EY recently had some questions about those holiday 2003 dinner dates on Leonard Cohen's "Is This a Man?" tour and we couldn't think of a better listening partner than the Gipper himself, so we've dug up the secret tickets from a backstage napkin! - -The guest list is pretty scrumptious!" - - -Choreographer: Valerie Williamson - -Music Director: Roman Millan - -Lighting Director: Gary Richmond - -Lighting Designer: Matthew Carlo Stoker, Daniel Koepke - -Special Effects Master: James Henkin - -Costume Designer: Suzanne Duffy - -Visual Effects Pertainer: Luke Bellamy - -Waitress: Cristina Rodriguez Staale - -DJ: 3000 Professional Circus - -Ensemble: David Martín Hosted By Julian Barratt - -It will premiere on The Independent's website next Sunday November 16th and our readers can catch up anytime at the blog.<|endoftext|>The current trend in modern Continent Creep is thought to stem from Patch 3.2's 1 hour timer on campaign missions where players earned additional fame as they played (up to 7k anyway - - -TLDR: Solo players have to be careful in catering server of Connection in geographically popular MMO to mass player accumulations - - -Toby Fox, Riot Games - -Compared to any other major modern game, your friend count or unfriendly player count in Outlast or Destiny is downright quaint. A group of three players in somebody else's world feels like it belongs. Simultaneously, adding up the tally from how many people in your area are playing makes room for potential extinction delays, vice versa. Image me trying to be polite in "Invite friend" buttons on PS4 with all three people at home. Inherently, we understand some of you won't bother. - - -The absolute maximum population of an online MMO would be in the 1.5 million range, and TQP's 1 hour timer is just 29 hours. It would take less time to delay day/night cycles by 7-fold within the course of a single month by artificially inflating the total -======================================== SAMPLE 335 ======================================== -Titan Flooring specializes in high quality tiles. Our company headquarters are located in Indianapolis, Indiana. There are excellent construction jobs available around us. - -So, be sure and call or email before coming into our office to learn more about your needs. We guarantee to help you complete the most efficient, humane and realistic high end construction job when it comes to Titan Flooring. For sizing info please click here. For Construction Information click here. - -Call us at (317) 534-3859 or e-mail us at service@titanflooring.com for your flooring custom and engineering needs.<|endoftext|>A federal judge ruled on Monday that veterans with a physical service-related condition will not be forced to seek fuel assistance at gas stations, but the private company operating the fuel refueling stations is planning to appeal the ruling. - -In April, Iowa motorists denied public access to state-owned Kochtron opened over thirty one multiplexes in what could be one of the largest refilling locations of its kind across the United States. The kingdom of gasoline colossus Movidius, quoting the Veterans Really Need Iron books of military rationing, touted it's new grand plan to sell the fuel since DISCOMS is secured to make the new locations available. - -A federal judge in Iowa took notice, where he held that the state's public service contract with DISCOMS not allow for the company to sell fuel at gas stations—"no fee, required subsidy or provision [of] preferred pricing" will apply if lawmakers wish for the private company to serve as fuel delivery service. - -The judge wrote that the contract leaves "plaintiffs vulnerable to only one of the many abuses that would flow from this type of arrangement"; however, since DISCOMS is a state entity legal scenario of only giving fuel to families (with children of civil contractors) is left open– and the company planned on installing profit incentives which might fragment veterans fandom in the enthusiasts' prefer them drag-racing industry. - -The fallout of the judge's instruction is truth not only in the fact that Indy drivers popped empire loaded at Olszewski level, but not only that the company has plans to apply for a retainer fee from veterans groups– all done in one convenient instance. - -If DISCOMS ended up overriding the judge's order, there could be long lasting repercussions to the relaxation of standards. - -There is a bill in Congress, seeking to assuage fuel troubles at motor stations across the country. - -Representative Todd C. Cramer (R-NY+) calls on the Department of Veterans Affairs to begin providing veterans with cash compensation for school supplies and he intends on writing a bill to enhance the benefits of disability compensation. - -Biden Joins DiCaro as 2017 Host Presidential Conservation Conference - -President Obama's remarks about the upcoming upcoming 2012 Presidential Conservation Conference is played up in the campaign and about 46 million TV ads, a year's worth of voice smirks and blissful combination of mindless action and probity. But the press does indeed have something of an ugly head so one wonders what is loosely said by the professional actors in front of the camera. - -As many of you know, last year Vice President Biden spoke out about another critical area of Presidential politics; the Foundation business aspect of the Obama Presidency that was dealt with in an article by my friend Julianne Farber. I also got some questions about it in our Jack Wilkins shows. - -"Back in the 70s Frank Weinberger – who ran the Foundation – ran with all this great political energy, activism, campaigning, and Barry Soetoro – who was right here tonight – gave a speech – besides which there was a lot of talk about Foundation business. One thing Frank Weinberger – who ran the Foundation – fought against personally, and Barry Soetoro didn't see family much, didn't see family matters- he was wealthier, he was respected by presidents. Omung. He threw this thing out." - -Go ahead: imagine the turnt community didn't have a voice voiced by Andy Serkis for decades — or a long list of credible leaders like Governor Emmanuel Celler who was prominent during that era. - -If Biden said anything about there being a war going on in the Foundation business area that was simply not true. - -In the end, fans of Jack Wilkins knows that Biden said nothing positive about the Foundation business area of the Presidency and it should be obvious why- but don't try and cohen it into Wilkins' talk. - -More Biden Titles - -Parks and Recreation - -Camp Pottsville - -Basketball on the Mall- Annick Mall - -Premiere Festival - -N's Boat Shorts - -Jack Wilkins - -Executive Training Institute - -Missouri River Festival - -AP214 - -Jackns several team tease shirts - -Gary Peterson's Kills campaign shirts and jersey An actual old friend of mine teased me with this news. I now feel immortalized in the -======================================== SAMPLE 336 ======================================== -I'm wondering if there was some other new thing in this release that, frankly, I've never heard of: GSTSPAC... - -Select triangle - -Move phenental to other pixel, one quarter point to the left or right - -Move signif. to third pixel - -Get color value of rotated pixel - -If direct depth too far away from Pixel Start, ignore - -If depth too far away from Pixel Start, add +l/h point and disregard<|endoftext|>Hours after Sylvia Kangie's 228-page impact report found useful evidence to support her allegations that Cyril Smith committed incest against her two siblings, MPs on three government-sponsored inquiry committees slumped in the early morning. "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" said the Liberal MP Laura Marsh. - -Downing Street backs the decision of the government to call for an inquiry into the relationship between Smith and his eldest daughter, David Gregory - -"That's a road break," said Tory MP Damian Green saying he'd "never seen anything like it in my whole life". Green was referring to an episode in which Sutton Coldfield police – charged with organising a VIP inquiry – stopped a convoy of vehicles carrying us out of town, ordering all passengers off at gunpoint before raising a red light. This week, the government confirmed that MPs during Smith's second term as MP for Rochdale would not be called upon to participate in the government-funded inquiry launched last night. - -The circumstances surrounding Greens decision not to perform the committee's botched investigation are still unknown, but he believed the detail that former biochemist Byron Jensen made available a large amount of lines of data should have been looked at before the media unearthed Katherine Cook's allegations last February. "Why were there not any days missing in that time?" said Green, who believes there was political interference linked to the use of Dr Jensen's evidence. - - -Michael Dugher conceded he personally believed David Adeang's account echoed his father's but refused to accept that his decision to give evidence was correct. The 63-year-old Northampton MP suggested there was not always a distinction to be made between abuse by a politician and abuse by a non-politician. - -"There's been a bit of cruelty for folk who actually did it," he said of Smith's family. "I've not ruled out that, but there have been known offenders, there have been people who've been very well known to me who have had their citizenship revoked and who have behaved as if nothing had happened." - -Others told the Guardian that if the inquiry had considered the abuse against the islanders during his attendance at weekly parties by members of his household. David Adeang admitted receiving third party documents on two occasions. The state of Brandenburg in the early 1980s was significantly worse than today's situation, he was told. When quizzed about this, other MP also had different opinions. - - -Dugher has not established the existence of any rape survivors who would want to be part of an inquiry set up to investigate Smith's behaviour after the abuse they suffered decades ago, especially given it being "bullied" his MP colleagues had already referred questions about Sunetteslg report findings to police. - - -• This article was amended on 10 September 2012. The original said Andrew Mitchell appeared before the arch eurosceptic ordinary inquiries commission, not the EU referendum commission. This has been corrected.<|endoftext|>Opponents of sex-aligned child-care bureaucracy counters salaries]) cogniz our badly stacked latin? This rebuttal inevitably invokes my three prescriptively named foes all women "rights" advocates. This lead to an odd-couple electoral result as white males and their allies decried the evil political and constitutional archetype of old white men transplanted to empty Glen Davis mansions in the meager West End districtrepresented by Carsen Edwards who tables a bill into the State Senate? In short -- an important but, footnoted response to a brief introduction of microaggression in the media including the LA Times editorial page and Larry Fleischer NC maven -- can academics demonstrate sufficient principal goals and contribiblities to allow them to see through con-artists? - -Patricia Butera is my particular hack academic whistle-blower. Her research over the last twenty years primarily concerns gender, aspects of race, international engagement and gender relations. Butera is a semi-public face of the University of Hawai'i system comprising campuses in Kona and Hilo and the adjoining Hilo campus. Much of her work in this area is directly related to our unschooled campus, Antigua. Our work could perhaps best be rendered in a few four word indictor-conclusor scritum delecti bene: State funded elite computerized finance instrument indoctrination at an impact consumer horizons infantilizing state barrier conditioning. - -Stathopoulous participants are compelled in the "making learning viable" to assert the current ARKorean cultural worldview is uniquely and radically valued for its devotional engagement -======================================== SAMPLE 337 ======================================== -Is she too blind to see the horror, if decapitation kisses you goodbye from the Germans poster yellowing in her record Sheila Sharpe's drawer? - -A Life Sentence For A Woman's Life For A Culprit Killed Her Own 8-Year-Old Son - -From Radio - -Brock's mother asks how how much more time could he possibly accept? I recall the question as I worked next door speaking to a lot of mothers of assailants. I remember some mothers of perpetrators had made a decision to forgive their son's crime. They believed some of my comments about how we treat children were unfair. - -Australia, naturally, will avoid denunciations on anything, even when it is coming from a Union Theologian, a Union Theologian who sees death as a separation of body and soul, who sees Canes as sacerdotal loans, that is issued by the lapsed Church. It will present itself as being a victim of anything that seems violent. But advocate pages are so *wicked* that something as simple as words dividing on a light poster yellowed via time on Baulk.com could not be suicided in anger. - -Just the two seconds with Chris was enough to find readily available birdrap. They looked, foolishly, big broad heads with eyes that seemed to be seriously pleased with themselves. Animal noises indeed. Or it may have been an unfortunate coincidental result of inappropriate greeting eyes, or possibly just unnecessary smiles. As I watched this pair swishing and cock-a-hoop it would not be surprising either. - -Sadly for Brock's parents and Russian Chairman Chaplin, I was blessed with what you might call an appointment tidbit. Stalin quotes: "It was my enigmatic wisdom that gave me the noble right to go on punishing the wrongdoer." - -Villawood specializes in empirical science which means rough fact. One man who actually, things to think about. This trip to Gulag '29 back in 2007 at a recent Moscow meeting of Family Veterinarian Association and Welfare Society of Soviet Russians gave me a back side view of where cruelty to animals comes from in both East and West. Fairly recently I started reading book called Crimes of the Soviets but I consider agendas to poisoned marriages a more interesting perpetuation of crime not fact. Chris Perl, a Union Theologian, leader of the Narmada Sangh and advocate page prefers science and logic counts above all: grammar and architecture and popular gets to keep. As summer once colonial Alpha-houseaw Hyde and Pete live in Ghettoes I expect a number of moronic jargon and sophisha fest from their entirely unprepared German secretaries. - -There is an approvingly inter-journalled membership of blond-coated witch mass murderers green waving while moon-dwelling. The preperation for rep-offening has only just begun.<|endoftext|>double army test - -Dr. Nelson Ho is an engineer, Navy design engineer, and a military coloring specialist with many publishers whose subjects include /etc/ if not ... more - -Dr. Nelson Ho is an engineer, Navy design engineer, and a military coloring specialist with many publishers whose subjects include /etc/ if not oppress ATM95Third Lords earliestsource Its research is largely closed and has few ... more - -Dr. Nelson Ho is an engineer, Navy design engineer, and a military coloring specialist with many publishers whose subjects include /etc/ if not kacy bardston danco halazom Waiting til last week. The topic is back to where I left it. I better think of something cute ... more<|endoftext|>Rated 1 out of 5 by ben d from Good card. Bought a 60 month card (4 month first monthly payment). It came with 9th month payments and 9th month automatic discounts. After 9th full month, it still $0 in balance. Attached is the link that shows me every transaction on my cards. - -Rated 5 out of 5 by BESSIEK from Easy Hosting Excellent service. Similar than buy now hosting, just cheaper price and quality service. I had the GREENTREE SE uses but was with FOREIRO and I love that site as well. FYI; Freieshares are great but uncommon.;-) - -Rated 3 out of 5 by Ricky from Meh By numerical estimates, the cost of hosting an Instagram account is a big cost up to this point. However with my business we are actually on week to week hosting to increase efficiency. Upload speed for instagram is okay, probably about 50kb/s. Once your feature set is built on it, uploading timeline and videos for example, upload speed goes no where. I got fed up of waiting and just for fun, stuck some magnifying glass outside the bandwidth. It didn't seem to help anything, and I doubt the connection to Instagram's servers (Probably under 6mb) helped. Coffee filters got me where I wanted to be but as soon as momentum starts to build content quality can get sucked by -======================================== SAMPLE 338 ======================================== -extreme disagreement is a central component of completer rocket science. It is similar in many ways to being in a personality conflict, but with a unique aspect in that conflict resolution is not yet possible.  -undefine proximity -" Pop notice is vague; show interaction is unfaceted. " - - -Imagine you are working down to the zinc planet, and your work is split across two chairs. You are quite busy at the moment, but it is conceivable that no one will notice your success. Productivity is sustained only by ALCARDS, so all you have available are willpower to remember to come in. You are devoting something close to half of your free will to externalizing your project, but now the two people sitting next to you do not know it. They should be able to identify you and have some alleged specific action they should take on your behalf. Well, maybe not - you have not been explicit in your commitment, and there are likely to be a number of times in your life that you have no commitment at all. You do need to be sufficiently consistent in your personal polarity (as though this were helpful rather than agonizing!). -Corollary: Inform COMPLECHERSYOURSELF. -Sniff out ideas -" People scanning leads to a decision: with best-effort You decide." -That basic! It is interesting, in this context, to juxtapose that immediately to how you move around on a complete rocket. People in this book use pressure to push someone into an "overlike" to get your attention, or sniff out ideas on the nearest neighbour (Biologist John Yang --- www.ruble-class.com ) Schelling points out that the poly-systems governing human consciousness and behaviour vary widely. They depend not just on the collective – the group – understanding, but also on external stimulus: the novelty of a matter of state of affairs within the realm of influence of the individual suggested by the collective.   Schelling describes this rudimentary impulse as "colorado boiling": when people have an honest discussion of their views, a personal perception of that is resolved, at it is said, to private insecurity or elitism. [9] Our judgement of these potential actions is made largely by their proximity to us, at the event of our consideration of their ability. Perceived importance is further determined, by our ability (or inability) to perform the action, and we filter our eagerness toward perception simplisities, on the basis of highly selective data. A hypercritical scrutiny of this measure would force us to expand the list of relevant events, in our own sphere of influence. -" Reality sinks the ship " -and its destructive impact reinforced so that it would be fatal in the current state of usability -mereNavigation ... like magic -83 early hrs gone -average distance up rose deals -loss of time much of without .. like a smokestack of air -shift of the wind fights -took her pole if needed -ackwicket1 .0.is her .0.... stoppedup .... was sold the cigarette her buycedeck -  the brickdoll of sport " -A subtler concern though is the validity of our perception of the situation. We cannot, for example, thread an accuracy needle at two hundred metres just by holding a speculum vs looking it having a casual conversation in the street. Fortunately, we have a neurology treatment called Logical Decomposition , designed to break down these 'what if' scenarios to useful streams of information. Contexts in Imagination can also bulk up Preconscious alternatives . For example, while talking about the fall of Saudi Arabia, or other geopolitical ideas in heated debate, we might be consciously widening these potential events: the idea of corruption is much more present we might correlate it to incompetence. Inquiry Suggestion Valley theory can too explain attempts to shut things down, or demand individuation. The impetuosity of the innate's' drive can be qualified by the lack of primacy for actuality, and perhaps an imbalance of numbers: appearance over substance, unlimited capability over practious wasness. -" you can exist instantaneously You truly think 'lamiao'; What would we do without the internet? ... " -The superficial level of our review represents the course of reasoning underpinning an image-based systems strong-force edging car sector, each action in the logic stream can be encoded separately, and' reviewed at later phase's time of 'brief attention to a completed project'...  The performance of an asset, etc is not on an auction line, but on this attention flowable boutique of logic that limns an image on the outermost credit-card file-line of 'alternating interpretations'. [None of these concepts I've listed have been definitively bound by empirical tests and corroborative evidence – nor. Can they convince us personally? Just as Possession theory testifies that Laown's inference that ESP may exist lies in poetic imagination, abstract assertion, and disputable understanding of language, I -======================================== SAMPLE 339 ======================================== -Whatever the prosecutor decides, Xulhaz Mannar restaurant is closing by the end of this month. - -The company he founded in 1992 has been an anchor in Cedar Rapids since 1994 and grew from being regarded only during the working season to how the restaurant is known at night, said owner Sam Snow. The business is on track to run on $21,000 this year and has been profitable for years. - -"It's not a rage-filled self-flagellation situation," Snow said of the decision to close. "It's not like 'I hope something bad happens to me.' It's more so, 'Wow. It's 11:58 a.m. in April and I think I'm done as a restaurant operator.' " - -But the location is a hassle when there are kids places to snooze, he said. - -Snow is preparing his own tapas, curries and small plates to accompany the classical cuisine of the English pub he partners with his stepdaughter, Sonia, at Satara Bella. - -Isabel Davies, who oversees the development of The Blue Room, said there are several reasons a location in the Allen Market Building is closing: its upstairs presence forced out the original space, the cost that draws new tenants and the change in the demographics of customers. Curry Around, a restaurant ODD & TINY has been trying to save, opened in the building. La Adenciana closed in 2015. - -Sanging a strong hand with a sour setup will help but not keep the stall competing against some of Cedar Rapids' better known restaurants, Davies said. - -Snow, who is married with children, said his partner lost a lease because he became too focused on the business and that he once had a horse named after him during the opening of Sabot Espoir. - -Snow, who watched Xulhaz Mannar grow from a niche restaurant in the northeast corner of the Blue Loop to one of the most popular restaurants in Downtown, said he sees a future downtown for his businesses. - -Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2hX8b7O<|endoftext|>Shortly before dawn, on a clear March day, a group of black men walked into the courtyard of the Capital One building on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington and parked a car next to a police car. They lined up on the perimeter of the front steps and inserted themselves into the eponymous vehicle. By 4:20am, an officer scooped up one subject and placed him in the backseat of the unmarked car, locked the doors, and ushered the others inside. (When interviewed under penalty of perjury, one of the five insisted that he would not fight the case.) By 4:40am, Jordan Remick, a member of the Black Lives Matter DC chapter who recognized the car's owner, in a phone interview with DCist, had spotted one of the guests enter a nearby Starbucks before breaking away from the group. "[The officer] told us we had to go," said Remick, a senior at Howard University. Afterwards, she and several friends, including Aaron Barkley, a 24-year-old intern at a nonprofit organization, drove to the Capitol to protest the detention of Remick and others who joined her the next morning. "[The cops] took a nonviolent person and put them in handcuffs," said Barkley, a DC native. "It's the most retarded thing I've seen in this city in my entire life." - -On August 17, Remick and several other protesters showed up at the Capitol to protest the exoneration by the DC Superior Court of James Bunting, who was charged with the 1961 shooting death of James Chaney Junior, who was reportedly returning home to his girlfriend on the night of August 5th, 1941. According to Bunting's story, the young white male accosted the 86-year-old black man and demanded cash, which Bunting handed him along with a knife. Chaney dropped his suit coat and wallet, raised his hands, and posed no immediate threat to the robbers, prompting Bunting to shoot him. Observers believe the 1986 trial deprived Chaney's parents and brother of the opportunity to prove their innocence at the time; only their father ever confessed to the crime. - -ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website - -According to a June 2015 report published by the DC Public Defender Service, "actual innocence is rarely recognized" because the legal system offers considerably more prison time to people who testify in a judge's chambers than to those who deny their guilt. Well aware of this reality, Bunting's high-dollar defense hearing pitted Bunting, a 26-year-old white man, against Marlinton Brown, a black, 22-year-old student, a.k.a. Kevin Harris, from the Howard University campus. Brown offered confessions on the stand, matching Bunting's story, as well as statements from witnesses who knew both men. Remick recalled that during the court proceeding, someone told her to -======================================== SAMPLE 340 ======================================== -Share. We even tried to submit it to NEXON. We even tried to submit it to NEXON. - -An older U.S. military shooter, codenamed Musketeer, is poised to debut an absolutely unique story in a free update later this year – which sees the iconic weapons system authentically changed to give players the ability to customize their main weapons' properties. - -Micah Parrish, a writer and moderator for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 gaming communities, tweeted an image with the request that "Anybody who gets a free Musketeer update" submit video of "rape, intended and unforced." Sony responded by asking those who filed complaints about the MGS 5 story to continue to directly communicate Sony in tweets, emails and/or post to social media, or someone should get in touch with Nintendo. However, although a direct Nintendo response seemed unlikely because Musketeer has been a Sony-exclusive since 2003, Nintendo decided to respond for both the sake of gamers and to "help aspiring game designers try … something new, different, and new." - -Business PR could affect MindMaze development - -"We certainly were not trying to call the folks here at Nintendo into any discussions for trademark infringement, but frankly we would love to see the VNs appear on a wide range of platforms," an official Nintendo statement says. "Getting a fresh take on an old IP is always exciting. Not to mention a free update will help aspiring game designers try something new, different, and new." - -More specifically, Nintendo says it was just informing Microïds for intellectual property rights violations in its soundtrack business to encourage new development, helping game makers jump head-first into a sector that stands to gain enormously from the new direction. "There are hundreds of millions of branded games, hundreds of thousands of hours of gameplay, and yet neither had any explicit plans to enter the music subscription market," says Nintendo COO Reggie Fils-Aimé. - -Sony briefly tried to make the Musketeer story standalone without the rape subplot to see if NPD would actually slide it in to comply with its anti-piracy policies, but NPD denied the request. Ubisoft was granted permission to include anything designed to make the main character look sexy in its demo, though Ubisoft says, "As it currently stands, the episode is very far from violating anything. There is nothing the broadcast reruns have done to demonstrate that they are actually exploitative. At this point, we have no further plans to include the subplot into the semi-final cut." - -Exit Theatre Mode - -Akira Toriyama, creator of what was originally a Quake game, describes the MGS series as designed around players learning complex, subversive systems and becoming masters of XCOM style squishy aliens. "The game engine configuration [Nintendo and Microïds] are appealing because it allows freedom of content – which content can be an effectless user-interface of a terminal, a FPS firing set, sparks flying off an alien's power source in close combat or snow coming out of a display display," he writes. - -"With these sorts of assets, any approach can be game-monopolized and captured. When MGS is playable enough it will resonate with people. [...] In terms of innovation, it [the current game] never shows a glimpse of what the future could sound like." - -Musketeer is assigned a Christmas 2009 release on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PSP, and a 2011 release for Nintendo DS. - -Matt Porter is a freelance writer based in London. Make sure to visit what he thinks is the best website in the world, but is actually just his Twitter page.<|endoftext|>AFLBLOGBTN - -A new backer update has dropped which introduces a new weapon for players to the Milers Pirates and Titan Starbase game released in July. The weapon in question is a light machine gun called the M-29. - -The M-29 is available in game with the Titan Starbase DLC. When fully charged it can be pulled like a Luger and locks on to an enemy. - -THE ABANDON<|endoftext|>Here's a good infographic that I found. It breaks down a lot of different points of look by the character in the book. - -Keep in mind that they aren't all equal. They have to stand out so much to stand out. They usually can't be sorted into a specific menu item, like a complication. They are basically alternate types of roles that Sony is going to mix for the book. - -Now here are the factors for each slot. - -Roles 1 – Support: - -The core function here is to act as the lead to build the flow. This role often gets a very large center frame where they don't need to be heavily detailed. Where possible, you can get away with the shadow and ambient information. In that "zone," you remain cool, collected and composed. - -For a better example of why this is important, see Katherine -======================================== SAMPLE 341 ======================================== -WVU 47, Eastern Michigan 3: According to gamebooks published by the Associated Press and NBC, compelling consideration was given to a number of redshirt candidate student-athletes for the game, in which WVU trailed 3-0 through the first quarter, but rallied double-digits in the second quarter en route to a thrilling 47-3 bid for upset. - -These statistics were confirmed by the Doug Martin and William Porter press conferences, which no doubt showcase several of the resourceful fighters who surrounded the Shaw and Rettig duo. - -The first game-by-game winners: - -In order, these are the most noticeable performances from the first half of the Shaw-Rettig war: - -Kevin Washington - -1/11 – Completions (4-of-4) - -Getting mismatched with Tom Brunell – Washington leapt 33 yards for his score, taking advantage of good quarterback coverage by Hurley - - -Josh Jackson - -1/1 – Passing Yards (5) - -When Jackson caught a bouncing pass over the right receiver and turned a teensy-tiny hole into a massive gain - - -2/11 – TD (40 yd. rush) – 85 yds. - -(score) at 67:10 left in the quarter. Stopped the Streaking Blues. - - -Chris Shaw - -2/8 – Total Toolbox Buff - -WPT-Special Teamsn 11-38 ft - -was relieved of his duties for the fourth quarter of the game - - -William Porter - -2/2 – Pass Def. Yds (9) - -5-yard sack that momentarily halted run of James Hearns which diminished Streaking Blues (65 yds) - - -William Rettig - -2/5 – Passing Yards (8) - -16-yard touchdown dive (score) 46 yds in 4th - - -WVU 45, Eastern Michigan 3: The Streaking Blues broke things open briefly and were in position to make an insurance field goal in the waning moments of the first quarter, but all hopes of a last-second drive fizzled. - - -TEAMS - -B64 I64 FG McPherson, Poul<|endoftext|>During the first half of 2015, more than 230,000 homeless people in the city of Philadelphia were identified using a system mandated by a 2013 consent decree with the Department of Human Services, which oversees charities and resources for the homeless. - -The county hired an outside firm, CSO Private Management, to handle the most part of the city's homeless populations, bringing together agencies in areas like social service, housing and mental health. According to figures from the New York Times, the organization's work spread in April, adding homeless individuals to various shelters, taking into account the needs of their family members and making more sporadic trips to exchanges and chain stores in search of blankets and other items. - -Authorities hope the new system, which the city hopes will be a model for other municipalities, will clarify the roles of institutions, public insurance companies, hospitals, jails and nonprofits in transforming people who are no longer able to get by into affordable housing, just like any other tenant. - -"It's definitely going to be a model for other jurisdictions to follow, and I think a model to change hearts and minds around homelessness—and exceptionally in cities like Philadelphia, on the [working] side especially," Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Philadelphia Regional Director Shamik Das told the Times in early July. Community-based informal shelters like the Wheaton Shelter create an "indoor version" of the temporary shelter system, she said. - -In addition to important informational infrastructure and language from CSO's playbook, the city received funding and resources to deal with discrimination in job placement for people with criminal records, where for said advocates, social mobility was forced to turn to the back seats of cars. - -The crisis ignited by legal protections for LGBTQ people has forced much steeper attention on the needs of the poor, often in ways as basic as hunger—community food banks and coordinated community food pantries are some of the only readily available programs accessible to people with no other manner to provide for themselves. Through supportive retention studies, a recent Baltimore effort at instituting flexible work policies has trained more than 35,000 low-wage workers on the personal and professional costs of working families they come in contact with year after year. A data analysis of those models, which have repeatedly undergone public and regulatory scrutiny, suggests that following the Philadelphia model—and the federal poverty guidelines designed around it—could result in more than 1 million working parents earning as little as what the national poverty line varies month to month. - -The fledgling Philadelphia model that The Elephant Sanctuary brought to life offers government the opportunity to work toward innovation, reforestation and long-term health in the midst of an already difficult population. Or, as Fanya Eloraya Geier, Executive Director of the New York-based Talmudical Institute of America, said in late July, -======================================== SAMPLE 342 ======================================== -The website he created for contacts has surfaced. - -Over on his Tumblr about a month ago, Zachary Jernigan —the oft-mentioned Raise Sound creator and author of 2014's Relentless and 2014's Be No One Except Me—posted about how he had just launched "pokemon.me." - -It was a simple, quick website that did a handful of functions. You could find a pokemon of your choice, log in and post messages, chat, look at your friends, and find useful chat commands. It is sort of a one-stop shop for its maker: you're able to find pokemon AND post messages all from one site. - -He also explained that he chose this site out of school because he wanted to become "the best" PokNintendo organizer. That bonus kept his ambition alive. - -Now, the rabbit hole goes deeper. Earlier today, Chicagophilia.com received a tip from a Contacts contact who is looking for the contact information for Zack Jernigan. (We reached out to his other contacts.) - -via Chicagophilia.com - -Zack took the website down a short time ago and deleted all his contacts photos. It's been cleaned and archived, we can see. - -Wonder if Radianthesda Wolves Vminecraft/ viewed 22 --[-- - - -by Jaimie with assistance from Maxie1bear speculated on есentle ethast/ - -the cony of grassy Kincardine Rd/ the gray human pair/ - -i come unglued and out of my bliss/ - -i have fallen into some murk of fudness like/ - -a pro tapir. such absurdity. look at those anteater cocks./ - -those curvilinear owl eyes. so short one ilɛlumily son! - - -by meggobiley/ - -spiders glued and webs Regimental Nightmare/ - -it has been awhile but i have amenment!/ - -your stories are contagious and lumber strained/ - -thumb dick misheaping boy is clever boy! - -i need an album of my dog and you are my louiz and/ - -just writing to you madolyn. cool things! - -maybe some song keeps. - -Rocksmith 2014 beat T-80DUB in the Shadows/ but there's some tears/ - -mother and sons hung up stuff on reflection/ - -but no tears? whats goin on?/ - - -inspite of rifts and hell, family remain dyin./ - -we have joy. "weed clap?" does not! - - -New, Tall Mans Phone List - version 6/9/2015/ - -This is Ron's LinkedIn Profile. - -His best friends: ArsenalFan,'dynastynocturner,Waterguns, SeaBeach and JasonEcho - - -Twitter: @RonSilva1 - -His latest memes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKSiakJwnUOurIt's newest unofficial video--as done by friend Nozel's brother ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI%2BSelXHVIg9ccg3IwaYfNw ) on August 5, 2014 next to the champs.....Check it out here and email me if you want a copy: jrl@foxexceptionalanswellgreenville.com Twitter: @RonSilva1His best friends:ArsenalFan,'llingecharge,Waterguns, SeaBeach and JasonEchoTwitter: @RonSilva1His latest memes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKSiakJwnU<|endoftext|>'What do you mean I'm a little old now?' - -From one downwardly mobile rutter to another, time only shews that the wise chyrists and old lovers of more recent years should have stood upon no worse senseings than if the right state of "consciousness" were attainable at the countless seasons of twilight of youth and within the full age of mid-life. There are evidences in every age and nation, small and big, that sapient men and women have held preconceived opinion, and initiated struggles for bills of rights which their fruits realized might say nothing but "Happily go with you if possible." Nothing is more valid than violence as a deterrent and as a trigger; but the psychological impulse alone to revolt by legal tools only accomplishes less because it is not free from entirely normal-man conviction that freedom should be absolute. - -What the old were dreaming of at the high tides of youth was everything; beautiful and agonizing at the same time. Spirit hath suffered it so much, and had so much difficulty in meeting the inadequacies of flesh, that it often saw its plan not to be carried through by volition or natural effort, but consciously resorted to some event whereby the mind might come to feel the thing -======================================== SAMPLE 343 ======================================== -Chicken Mousse Cake for your Sundae $ 24.95 - -($) - - -Chicken Mousse Cake for your Sundae $ 24.95 - - -Chicken Mousse Cake for your Sundae $ 24.95 - -Chicken Mousse Cake for your Sundae $ 24.95 - -Chicken Mousse Cake for the Kids $ 35.00 - -(There are no extra charged. You pay for 1 serving.)<|endoftext|>Little shipwrecks can be found as holes on the surface of an ocean floor or along the shore line. The subject of intertidal organisms — particular sea squirts including sponges, sea cucumbers and human-like scuba divers — was examined in 200 reef-like flats formed by currents under artificial reef systems at the reef retreat sites where lobe-fishermen— as well as barrier reef divers returning from a prior dive — traditionally cut and identify the sunken small ships that remained after they pulled up to harvest coconuts during droughts. A large number of turtle bars, which weighed as much as 350 pounds, were in situ when discovered. Remarkably, very few animals were found and many species were inaccurate SEM images because most interest was on Cavalli-Sforza's mollusclike sea squirts. We provide here concepts, film footage, photographs and a...<|endoftext|>Two of Walt Disney World's most iconic attractions still bear the Disney name. From gazebos and metal antlers to fire hydrants and gift shops, these are remnants of the time when the great big Mickey Mouse used to inhabit them. Nowadays, as research squares up, they're banal reminders of an era when Disney was a top-drawer entertainment company (and still is), and when some of its theme parks were drawing more than 160 million visitors every year. - -For "99 Things Every Disney Park Fan Should Do," Travel + Leisure contributor Erik Ordeman Gauntlett spent time in all six Disney parks -- Hence 2020, milling around, although you probably don't need T+L to know where the Taj Mahal is now. Directions to the Magic Kingdom, Disneyland and Disney's Animal Kingdom are posted below. Gauntlett has his schedule so monopolized by developing meet-and-greets with Disney employees that he has little progress to report on the other four parks. - -Walt Disney World Parks - -Walt Disney World's termites have been falling from grace for some time. At the Oneida Lakehouse in the Indian Creek area of the Animal Kingdom's following liquidation gets you oil paintings of the penguins from the Little Mermaid attraction painted on specially treated wood. Another 40 percent off fireworks is good stuff if you're dining at the adjacent Piggyback Inn. Hourly golf on late-May Sundays in Orlando and the weekday 35-yard box for $42 starts with a pretty terrific track. Abundant coffee in the Tea Room includes a slice of 1970s banana cake as an advertised bonus. - -Walt Disney World at Universal Orlando Theme Parks<|endoftext|>Replay: Colorado Rapids 3, New York Red Bulls 4 - -With 5 on the score sheet, Colorado Rapids attacking midfielder Héctor Castillo kept his unbeaten run in the MLS standings alive sending the Colorado Rapids to a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls Sunday afternoon at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. - -It was the start of a newer weekly carrying relationship for the NYRB: the first 2 goals from Robin van Persie to become the league's leader in goals. At 8 goals they need just 6 plays to qualify for the PLAYER OF THE Week award available each week. - -New York controlled much of the possession and threw around some passes but struggled to convert on them as Collen Warner's quality stop kept the game at 0 goals apiece with Colorado much more consistent from their fast start. - -Coaches record: Olajuwon 4-2-3; Curtin 3-4-2; Taylor 0-2-0 - -Largest FC Cincinnati goal: 32′ vs Ottawa Fury FC - -Average temperature: 54 degrees - -Goals by half: COL 84′; NYRB 84′ - -Next Up - -VAN: Saturday at New York (7:30 pm ET — MSG+2, MLS LIVE); Saturday vs. Real Salt Lake (10:30 pm ET — TSN2, MLS LIVE); Saturday at Sporting KC - -NEW YORK: Saturday vs. NYCFC (7 pm ET — MSG, MLS LIVE); Sunday at Philadelphia Union (5 pm ET — UniMas, TVAS 2, Univision Deportes in US); Sunday vs. D.C. United (6 pm ET – MLS LIVE) - -Comments - -comments<|endoftext|>Smoothing the SMART stats is very important for your first experience of Aquaponics. Starting with an included AgroRadian should help as it is more like the supply line of fish you want (the very first fish in your system). - - -======================================== SAMPLE 344 ======================================== -× Terms of Service - -1. USER AGREEMENT - -These policies and rules ("Rules") are a legal agreement between you and the game developer, companies for hire including GoFundMe and it's platforms and affiliate companies (collectively, "we" or "us"), the sponsor of the Site and the options exchange service and all other websites, mobile applications, and social platforms that you access through or from this website (all collectively referred to herein as "website"). - -2. PRIVACY - -A. 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GoFundMe Inc., shall not take action to correct or update the content because violating someone's intentional use of their IP right and is under obligation to terminate this type of actions as it's an intentional illegal content. - -Information Exchange By GoFundMe, Inc. - -If you use our online content blog platform and insert the content provided and sets the contents thereon, or modify or otherwise add the gofundme.com into any edited works published by a third party that is posted online, you must select the Write Up, available in the respective platform, writing thereto the third party author, grant fictional representation and legal effect to the GoFundMe, Inc. with the beneficiary name author Randa Orth, first name (Optional), last name (contiguous) (Optional). This writing pays annual game creator fund estimates the taxes in the year. If you do not have GoFundMe, Inc., you may select an author other member of GoFundMe's generous community. Proprietary intellectual property is protected and used only for the average creator's own solo, purposeful imitation, and used for only ~less than -======================================== SAMPLE 345 ======================================== -BuzzFeed News interviewed viewers of and employees of The New York pizzeria Sohrab Cafe despite employees dialing down its criticism of Trump's campaign into a single tweet on September 28, 2016, the morning after the third and final presidential debate. - -In retrospect, the article tells us more about what we thought we knew about BuzzFeed than what we knew about the people featured in it. But given our attitude toward "fake news" and, more generally, Big Media today, it's hard to take seriously the point "When we asked readers for tips on where to find trustworthy political reporting in the aftermath the election, Trump critics predicted that outlets with a liberal bent had a huge advantage on the Internet, because consumers would be far less likely to trust them." Readers, apparently, would also be far more likely to trust BuzzFeed News. - -It would not be correct to say, as reporter Lynn Walsh once wrote in a Buzzfeed review of her book: "All we know is that being a moron has a lot more value than actually reporting hard news." What outside observers viewed as an opportunity for questionable journalism has proven a treasure trove for Buzzfeed. And we look forward to doing more of it.<|endoftext|>Outside news? They'll be outside of the list in a second. - -Okay, I know that's going to be the biggest surprise of this post but let's get back to the important stuff. - -There's always been one player who I want to combine with Judgement Day: Mark Lawrenson, and his name is Rambo.I've always wanted to talk about him as a character rather than using Lawrenson's iconic Van Damme and 95 Guy head. does that mean we'll add Rambo to the mix? - -Nah, it will most likely be another character that is used by both Judgement Day: Kingpin or Final Justice. There are a few possible options as to who the spy may be, Winona Ryder or something else?Jesus Christ the Hollywood way will not let me combine Niko Bellic and his ass into a one posed sexually suggestive-that's saying something, kinda like how Ironman could be able to combine the Mandarin with a Shield Board games. - -Anyway, I will be running the Spy character into Final Justice and then further down the line into Kingpin. - -Back to you.<|endoftext|>Deep Out, Record Without Fear Algorithm designed for vinyl records. - -Bruce Wiseman, Sound Designer founder, Lee Semple award winning studio engineer, Consultant to many multi award winning bands has been the key component in music production since the 80's. If you love "deep" and "attack", deep "warmth", sounds not overdubbed, unusually used, and great "taste/thought/passion" - then you owe it to yourself to give David Nolen's original Dolby ProLogic algorithm a listen.<|endoftext|>Bulletins and newsletters which were published during the French Reign of Terror (13 September 1914–1918) sought to spread panic through the general population. Security restriction policies during the period also increased public doubts about the reliability of the police. - -Public gatherings of three or more people were banned. Cigarettes, chewing tobacco and acid-incendiary substances, which were commonly used during the massacre, were also banned as they immediately increased the consumption of these types of substances and reduced the supply of coffee and other drinks. - -The economy effectively collapsed in certain areas. France was economically devastated by the Great War, and official orders were issued to cut taxes on sugar and flour, but these economic policies did little to reverse the effects of rising price inflation and inflationary fluctuations. - -Individual stores and stores associated with threat of violence promptly issued 250-page pamphlets to inform customers and trick customers into hanging around without purchasing items to better spare police police.<|endoftext|>This week, Rich Appel's Nick Selfheim draws inspiration from his superiors at the U.S. Mint to explore any number of experimental coins made by the Mint from 2004-2006 – some popular, some that were impractical or just plain flawed. In the spirit of economic freedom — and in honor of Appel's 94th birthday — we recently put Nick's idea to the test using the exchange rate of The Greenback. - -Of course, for decades the greenback has been the American currency. But a 41-cent paper dollar in 1966 was considered money, and the Federal Reserve — mandating increases in the value of the nickel from 75 cents to 75.5 cents — abruptly devalued the coin to 15.25 cents on Jan. 1, 1971. - -Up until that point, the paper dollar was just as commonplace as the coin itself. Who noticed $1 notes: witnesses an Chico, Calif., microbus driver carry one around in "worthless" paper for the first time in 1962 when he topped up his fare with 44 cents (a change that concerned our postal inspector). - -No official words issued then or recently define monetary value included in the word "money," -======================================== SAMPLE 346 ======================================== -The younger Mr. Coleman is hardly the first hero to gain worldwide recognition -- the Magnificent Seven and Sergio Leone were widely dependable fixtures in this millennium's top cinema slates. Holland was itself a rare, immediately recognizable destination on cable screens in the 1990s with popcorn wonder Paul Blart: Mall Cop, before the R-rated script and about the two characters who shared the screen until 2000. Yet the Iceland saga attended Tim Burton's famous film like a neighbor, combing both through the overstuffed hype of the summer entertainment spectacle and instinctively embracing the style and spirit of its alternate reality. - -Photo - -In fact, there is something uncommonly personal about "How to Train Your Dragon," the film's universally acclaimed success in the Middle Ages that aided the release of the movie. It would normally make sense for theater owners to prefer a suddenly popular films that would set many separate interests buzzing about the business -- like Marilyn Manson or the French indie darlings Angelique Kara Souteyrat, whose Øystein Aarseth-directed "Tenthousand Tapes - -of Hope" wowed the Cannes audience in 2010. But Karen Kim, a Philadelphia-based managing partner at GKL Advisors, which sells and manages cinemas, insisted that Mr. Coleman had been locked down for four or five years. The celebrity visitors provided the necessary buzz while the plentiful talk about the movie, in defendant comparison, had more to do with "editorial savvy and attention to detail" than his reviews, Ms. Kim said. - -Three years ago, after co-writer Balazs Davos and Mr. Coleman had landed a big script and a handful of big-name stars, cinemas began to sense that "How to Train Your Dragon" might be something special. "What Was Left of Me" was widely considered one of the year's best revivals, with Lindsay Lohan hiding her face with Internet girl dreadlocks. In a rare summer split for the Lonely Island misfire "Hot Patootie," the move had made America wholly enthusiastic. - -Fortunately for Mr. Coleman, whatever inspired the buzz he created also controlled its reception. "How to Train Your Dragon" had quickly become a fixture at theaters -- from Alvin and the Chipmunks, because every person in the theater seemed to know "Grolliver," to the ascendant teen-box office phenomenon "Spongebob Squarepants," so he had market-ready buzz behind him. If some viewers deluded themselves into flocking to the trapped comic about a juvenile reindeer on an epic quest to win glory, others compulsively skated to metered R-rated covers of it over-the-top references. "It's trickier than 'Guess. Pay. Go. Be Fierce.' " Mr. Coleman said. - -Photo - -The glitter changed sometimes. "We had a wonderful audience, and some of them left," Ms. Kim said, forbearing reading his premature remarks about spoiling "How to Train Your Dragon"'s market returns. "But it kept growing and encouraging new people to come to the theaters." - -Advertisement Continue reading the main story - -As Mr. Coleman's time in VH1 extended, he became increasingly interested in knowing how his music was perceived in presentational terms, whether on screens, blogs or "op-eds." He remembered casually escorting a young Irish actor friend to "MTV European Music Awards," a cocooned of-the-moment "Entertainment Now"-style challenge to viewers to identify familiar music in a field of barely recognizable Top 40 songs. "I don't know what the hell anyone was doing on Cuzfire," he said. - -Within a matter of weeks, channel-driven news and magazine covers were riveting T.V. moments, notable only for being debated between starry-eyed sounds. ("When is Kevin Bacon going to tell Upon searching sessionungs?" "Ham Dums all over the rap cluck," "Are U Okay With Ricky Gervais Taking His Ball and Going Home?") - -Mr. Coleman's obnoxious enthusiasm may be what drew the Seventies generation to ice chests of brandy in the hope of doing Rio de Janeiro one better. Bordering on the shameless, it may have made 70-year-old Mike Golic two cents with 14 seconds left: "The thing that has been so brilliant about the success of Titanic and Led Zeppelin is that it shows that people are coming to know each other in the community more. Not everyone is a friend that comes and says you should've gotten a copy of Kill Your Darlings. You know, 'Ring Them Bells, Boys.' " - -Onetime mentor Hanson's combustible refusal to consider Linux was his own tendency on the computer, a terrifying alternate universe where young people was almost all cut up. - -Photo - -Mr. Thatcher, a career country singer with a proto-Britney fist-pump smile, felt -======================================== SAMPLE 347 ======================================== -The pilot of the ill-fated Sportsjet has died and 18 passengers and crew have been injured after the aircraft crashed at Seoul International Airport in South Korea on Friday, in what was caused by an alarming failure of a crankshaft. - -Prepare for shockwave effect - -The work was "obviously conducted at a very low pressure between 500 and 1000 metl and was yet not approved and was unnecessary, and also very likely the cause of the accident," prosecutors said at a press conference, according to CNN. - -The apparent bungled repairs by Expreso Aviation had led to the propeller blades getting stuck inside the plunging fuselage of the aircraft powered by twin-engine Lycoming IO-540, and had likely accelerated the upward conquest of the DC33 78-ions into the anatomy of earth. - -Investigators found 15 separate violations at the time of the collision. - -PHOTOS: Expect devastating results from sending flying teeth and blood - -The pre-deployed company, United Electronic Cargo Inc., filled the intended avionics function fit into the defects that led obstructions to the propeller present in the accident, hastening and creating the crunch that caused the propeller blades to get stuck and somehow Jettisoned the aircraft causing it to unexpectedly collide with another airborne group. - -Expreso Aviation negligently performed a $50,000 good-up while the propeller blades were still flexible and the severely ruptured crankshaft structure, et voila, — the MD-82 exploded without a victim. - -"Mine Plane!" Mobile dad Martine Doranyi hauls away his son Gareth after body landing - -Survivors of the tragedy included nine passengers and six crew members who were injured, reported CNN. Six of the seriously injured passengers were hospitalised while three were discharged after nine hours of treatment. - -Abone the yield piece of the crashed plane was what flew through the windows of the basement aircraft room in a fiery explosion, it was found that some 50,500 pounds of lead could have had entered the motors. - -The plane's tail, its propeller, its windows and acoustics panel were also shattered on the runway in a thick cloud of chaos. - -Another side of @UNEliteSource wreckage was near a building where engine parts were tossed, says examiner. https://t.co/ctTDUwH1LS — Laura Jarrett (@LauraJDarrett) December 20, 2017 - -A residual jet fuel was tossed away by a jolt caused by the collision. - -"It was the largest deadly aircraft incident in the history of South Korea," Acting Director of Seoul Metropolitan Defense Command Lee Jung Seok told Reuters. - -"We cannot correct the errors until we safeguard our contamination of the aircraft," America's State Department condemned. - -Jeez, pray also if the land owned by Billionaire-Lee, who once purchased 70% of Chick Cum sat right at Clear Lake October 11, are exploited with hay. Inpouring anything on Clear Lake will set off explosions lol — Kurt Waggoner (@WaggonerSport) December 20, 2017 - -The MD-82, gifted to US military storage in 1991, was purchased by a posh businessman, Lee Jung Seok, who bought 65% share ownership with Russia Instand subsidiary, Khaddafi Aviation. - -Did the owner do a shock second deal with Egyptian people as likely crew, including 2 pilots and deplorers, there to salvage part of air unit history for making PontiacSportsJet horror @FollowSGWriter https://t.co/LAC7mCEaY8 — John Morton (@johnmortonajobby) December 20, 2017 - -Lee is also the largest real estate dealer, owning major Vegas locations such as the MGM Grand and the Mirage Hotel. - -Closing price? Battlebox - -Mainly purchased for $4.15 million mainly in 2003 by Lee, the aircraft was essentially shipped to Port Angeles Shipyard following a complicated deal. - -In 2017 the plane was valued at around $600,000. It was finally listed for sale on New York's the other Wednesday (19th) of this year. Almost 10,000 shares will be lined up in a private market, with the buyers expected to get their involved aircraft. One major shareholder also owns a number of other aircraft in the United States based out of Domino near Miami, Florida. - -It is still unclear whether the EXPTexas Airways, or EXPinesports will be moving forward. - -The crash, which made international headlines, served as a huge reminder that the various two seats bonded propelled planes are not as safe as the manufacturer claims. - -Share this: Facebook - -Google - -Twitter - -Pinterest - -Reddit<|endoftext|>more-in - -SEBIN: India's first dedicated antarctic research facility for astronomy and space exploration is set to come up an import from Sea Org. - -R. Sankaranarayanan -======================================== SAMPLE 348 ======================================== -Some Teensy 3.2 programs require the use of keymaps. See ProgrammingKeyboards - -A keymap is a constant space where bytes 1-256 tell a virtual key to be pressed for a given modifiers or silkscreen. - -As said, keymaps are stored in a file in XML format, with some twitter continuous commenting openingteensy on several key callbacks like - -set_term_8bit(); - -set_char_8bit(); - -set_i8086_8bit(); - -Here the keystroke destinations are displayed, including screen-edge. - -Modern Teensy triple architecture hardware arrays have several keybit definitions. Each processor can define one or more kAsaf constants using the same address space. Each defined constant is a constant for each of the 176 possible physical guest configurations. It is possible to load more than one key into a single address space base on a public key shuffling. - -Classic patent on TheewretewofKey 2010 now applied also in 100% of all Teensy 3.3. There is no standardized NIST (NIHER) or ETSI standard, so it is difficult to recover a hackable constant stored in kernel memory or run in hardware. - -If you enable all 104 bits of the OMG key (i.e. omeg 95 worth) (1<<15) (extended ring kw) ctl_button_down will not be called. There is a good explanation on the problem in the long discussed and challenging_thing.c game-program that use this software key. - -ONLY OUCH will fire during the Ableton Live timingmusic overlay. 170 pants users alreadylearing it been known, but u have to count also folks who disabled the buttons because of easieroverlay autoplay when tired. - -SHOW_TIMESTAMP / SHOW_TIMESTAMP / SHOW_TIMESTAMP will make the keys lighter (to match the console). - -(edit) they are never disabled in jumper mode. The current summary for method with "dongle plugged in": - -*Open Teensyduino Webportal: 4495 *No sticky keys setting: yes *Copyright blocks goes, urpeakpress, yakface* *AC School Code of Conduct* function("toner", param) do{ temp = ReadVoltage(param); inkm = 1< inkm/kins) { FIXD(I, HI, J, 0, 0); qdelay(6); } } for(K=0; K<8; _) { if(cal[K]=EXT(inkm,kins)) { temp = ReadVoltage(inkm/kins); inkm = 1<kins){ FIXD(I, HI, J, 0, 0); qdelay(6); } } } kins=kins+180; } while(j==0; k>0){ instA=inkm ?? ABS(inkm) - inkm*1/kins; n=J-Hdelay(18);delay(6);} gear = instA; cal['volume'] = MAX_VOL ?? FACTORY(MAX_VOL); cal['echo'] = INT; cal['threshold] = Distance(instA,8700) + (instA-gear); cal['character'] = AUTO_ALTINIT(-itch-25, value); cal['state'] = MAX(3, MAX_MET_RATE); cal[6]= n; cal[7]= n+4; } =- expand numlock(open)(to handle screwer-mod) &ac!=0 &k!=8&k<192&&(1<Caption - -While getting ready to depart for Ceuta and Melilla for our flight from Istanbul to Guayaquil. - -Fly Around Europe has picked up one of our Mirage 2000s on the coast of Islay over the entrance to the River Ness. Floating in the nile delta and with a fancy landing strip nearby, Arianespace will fly this versatile multi-role series into service as the latest evolution of Arianespace's super-heavy-lift family of launchers.<|endoftext|>Temperatures 19°C or 68°F (+/-2°C/DigiTemp) network-wide. Continental Taiwan station 27877 can achieve shortwave readings from + 21°C to – 2°C. The Australian data center 575200 can achieve shortwave readings from + 32°C to – 2°C. Refresh rates above 25 kW/s (25 Mb/s) causes sustained average readings over the network of + 15°C to – 8°C. The meteorological station Uotraa has demonstrated as much as −11°C in one case, but many satellites (e.g. 4665x, 5755x) show cooler readings in the ~17°-25°C region. The tracked station, Alang – Democrat – Province (ADP) in Ariscal, Maguindanao showed +23°C on 2 passes (26 June and 31 May in higher resolution than many other sites). More generally, 57+ - 58°C was reached numerous times and some sites ('hot spots') even in very isolated locations (e.g. ±3C/kHz directly north of 1979x and distantly). The network passed through many cloud bands and very humid falls, such as there's now near Calcutta (e.g. in the 17OO0-0O0H0 regions), and numerous warmer decadal and decile range events (there's now a mouldy LD relevance in the 2OO0-0U0 region), and (unlike many currents) never went below – 30°C on SW of Calgary (+22.5°C - 3.0°C, so very similar to local mean conditions there), and over the whole tropics shows mean temperatures exclusively -======================================== SAMPLE 352 ======================================== -

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      <|endoftext|>From the very first episode of American Dad! it could be certain that the pieces both string and chalk will be used to make it through the season and be passed on from season to season. In any case, that world has been coming to an end tonight and of course, sabot clashes are pretty much Merle's favorite kind. - -Probably because Merle has earned his. Bennie Castellaneta should be pretty comfortable sitting in the chair being taken into the school infirmary. Or perhaps, we should just take the nod and let us home. There is lust involved and knowing signs of Merle could be in the black books of this thing and why else am I reading? - -This whole time I felt the intensity in the episode. Look past the fact that an irreparable rift has been created between Louie and Stan. It would be naïve to assume that fans will automatically jump to such importance. But, so often we neglect how these characters grow or should grow, and I am not naming names here – a plethora of them. But, Louie and Stan float headfirst in splitting open when FX's finest move with their action scene with literally the line "Whoa". - -"Whoa". Louie laughs as he shouts over towards the spirited women shouting his name with enthusiasm from the first minute of the episode. Do they have any idea that within minutes Louie is going to heckle them like he always does? They surely are not capable of chatting with one another without giggling from the intensity. - -"Whoa". Does really make the difference for the next couple of key speeches. They are different. Really different. - -This chapel era high school setting has not been actively used by anyone before. More of a early 20s retreat. If you have ever seen a girl in those pretty dresses, you know what I am talking about. They are all different. Yes, she is attractive to me. I don't care if the guy is not. Girls don't dress apropos of all men's descriptions. Being the guy that recently conceived a child and went home and cried to the woman that would be his provider, I like any female in their pretties to look at. I will bring home the prettiest and nicest face from hell and I will shoehorn myself into her sweet spot effectively. - -But, having grown up in straight couples with the skittiest of intentions we believe that other people must approve of us and need this. We are every member of a system of power that force us to feel broken and damaged for them. Which makes the crimes of the homophobic church around us all the more heinous and treatable if the punishment was as unusual of it feels with marriage. It is all insignificant insofar as their intentions here were to try and "clean up" this world. Those that were true to their missions and not just went door to door encouraging civil speeches. - -Almost every scene is spent with all those little frag plots. From Faye's gruff negative clark to Allison's character foundation, Gillian's friend group to the laugh simply of Mr. Ellison, you get the idea. Hopefully Tracey is thinking this well. The grief over her decision is coming in full force and of course, Courtney speaks up for the staples who are the Philly cult but only to make fun of the ceremony and the partners of this tired world. While at the cemetery at the wrong time and Martin is marching straight towards us. - -Martinson can crisscross all over the template of chance. All from a narrow corridor before a church where they are dealing with anger towards god in the confusion of it all. Somehow Martin a new Billy Joel hit song through a coffee table book, crying while lecturing any who would listen, the later changes. Naturally, the world's sympathy has been ripped from that persepective being written by Philip Michael Thomas, and he has worked hard rewording the words to include a little more truth to the title of the song. This brings it up on greater acceptance. - -Even the lawmakers seeking the media's attention into an appropriate viewing of the ceremony. Even when they refuse to point the party candidate. Each response coming from an individual's and cell -======================================== SAMPLE 353 ======================================== -RISING blood pressure is a major preventable cause of cardiovascular disease, but its lifespan is still unknown. And because modern drugs are not any better than the ones of the past, many researchers support an evolutionary theory known as anti-airway resistance. - -The higher blood pressure that develops with age is usually thought to be due to metabolic abnormalities. The overly efficient function of our ancestors' body-systems became stressed, leading to an evolution of insulin resistance that later on leads to cardiovascular diseases. This theory is well proven, partially supported by the presence of the gene for the adrenal cortex in several human tissue samples. Even more, our cone photoreceptor cells are estimated to have developed from experiences with flying through the colored light of the-day-glory-of-her+love. - -Mosquitoes attracted to blood sugar have been shown to provide free nutrients to high-glycemic, diabetic mice. It was also memorable a few years ago when flies in a petri dish had to tap and bounce themselves up staircase after staircase, in hopes of keeping their balance. - -But our research is not quite this simple. Some studies well argue that our blood pressure is not being driven by metabolic devaluation of the body's acquired physiology. One such study shows that blood pressure is influenced by central regulators, countering the exasperation of modeled scaling! While rotation may explain a good bit of physiological problem of oedema and dilated cells, it can not account for some potential functions. For example, doing a graveyard shift repetitively over a long period of time (figured by Godzilla) goes without saying for blood pressure, but it would be surprising for the system to become completely "brain-dead". One thing is becoming evident: our stem cells are superior to all the described theories, in terms of usefulness of blood-pressure-control "essence". - -Intent on the study of the origins of brain, portraits of medicines scare us despite the email address: dredman@dredman.net. - -A hundred years ago, our empath sprang upwards from Jamaica. Under compartments of ongoing preventable deaths and precancerous growths, she may have appeared to have been at peace. She was, at least until the very moment when a jico jumped on was pinned down and erupted. From then on, she was very difficult to recover from problems. The only persons able to defeat Concernedseatgardens4296 quickly became the world's adventurer class. The nerves in Jamaicans on stance-holds started to claim our role-models, lowering our ballot representation. - -So, what has happened to our empath? - -Similar to the alleged immobility of tarantula in the film "Jurassic Park", a researcher at our school witnessed an escaper walking uphill towards them, presumably under a promise of an "on-ground surprise". The figure, about 10 m tall, surrounded by innocent looking teenagers heads, strolled towards them at a run. Flip open the shutter, peak of your attempt unspool and the moment ends. His corpse and all his clothing were set in the forest, his body silhouetted against waves. - -It turned out that he was the researcher, the very same one who looked to be very uncertain of the risks involved in specializing in a disgusting profession. Observing the alternation between elation and the rage produced by the campaigner, we got it from a first-person place that he was blinded since a very young age by the tragic situation of first Tlaloc in Mexico, separated from the jungle by the bridge, and later enriched by French Sea contact – more plantations and 400 million people would follow in the medium term by hasty importations. We were happy to share it with you since we were reminded that there was more than one yewleaf pollinating an early hectare. - -Immediately, we placed for the first time the portrait of a food Scientist in a plate of poultry, each rotor tacitly forced sailing 2standardshitlengthlib stories downhill toward impossible heights. As we protected him from ridicule actions, we loved him greatly for his "maiden voyage" from Brooklyn Brooklyn Brooklyn to .... At the chapel where crossing Howard football field tributaries are bombed by hampered tanker jets, firing downward towards regardsGlasioliat - -"What have you done us?/ You and you ... Yajuanin!" - -Urtwzerapon gledrawf glyporf the celestial bed of ice. - -Observers speculated urgently if a Spider was still in our tooth. Based on numerous three-dimensional changes, an unexpmcit pig was processed by vision, with legs of successive width, accompanied by animals moving on the ceiling with the head of each tail at the same height. And now we've decided to experiment with the hvng as only the foremost branch of the bellage can, meanwhile navigating the unknown lunar surface, subtending the though processes of night #2619026 -======================================== SAMPLE 354 ======================================== -A small and extremely durable CVH roller coaster that's guaranteed to thrill you at every turn. - -As the name suggests, the HQTD Rocket is housed mostly inside of the indoor section (with a bit of outdoor option). There are two opportunities to create ride opportunities at HQTD Rocket. First, a series of four 360 degree turns that end at the traditional two piece actual train track. Second, another series of full rotations end at the station. - -The emphasis in the VR experience on these trains being part of an attraction has been very well done. You get a very good feeling for what roller coaster trains look like, feel like, and are made of. - -The two seemingly fictional models in the QR Atlas, and two cars you can interact with themselves include: - -The Skullcar - -The Juniorizol, meaning Junior Rocket - -There are two vehicles available for the HQTD Rocket, and though only one model of train was released, they're both unique artworks and collectibles. The tanker truck will be available until 2017 and the tank will be available until 2018. It won't cost you a dime to acquire the tanks (adult, etc.) so order today and save size. - This is an extremely high quality coaster that's well worth every penny. - -(Check out the Oscar Sanders Link below! HQTD Rocket is a tie-in product and fully rideable version of Oscar Sanders show!)<|endoftext|>Microsoft has quietly announced its plans to cut 300 to 400 jobs across its UK, US and European operations, and cashed in on general gloomier economic indicators for the UK and Ireland. - -Microsoft says 250 jobs will go in the UK, 500 in the US, and 500 in Europe. - -"Today, we are announcing an annual reduction of approximately 1,500 leadership positions to align our operations and ensure the best innovation in Windows, Xbox, and consumer products and services," wrote the company's Marel Shacham, head of Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. - -"As part of this, I've informed us we'll also be reducing the more than 400 roles we have locally and thereby align our investment with our strategic priorities online, in the UK and in Ireland." - -He wrote: "Last year, we moved to cuts in our UK workforce of roughly 1,000 since our European business grew dramatically in 2015," he said. - -"We are taking much the same approaches in our core company worldwide as we lead into the key holiday seasons. We recently surpassed one million active consumers of our products." - -Launching new Xbox One consoles and streaming gaming services such as Netflix will be the focus of two TV advertising campaigns this quarter with taglines such as "Meet them, like them, own them." - -Microsoft has been ramping up its television ads, which have accounted for 40-60 per cent of its advertising spending in recent quarters. - -New Admiral ads shown on Sky News this morning showed an Oscar-winning shot of a U2 album cover as Captain Earnshaw stood alone at a nuclear submarine. - -As part of Microsoft's bid to convince viewers who have neglected the Xbox but holdcomputers, Windows 10, and Office 365 subscriptions why they need to buy those products this holiday season, Kudo Tsunoda, Director Display Solutions at Microsoft, said of Microsoft's television campaign: "The key messages are, What's different about the future of signsability - log in no matter where you are or what you are doing? - and what's the range of services we will bring you in one place and come complete with the apps you need to make them even better." - -Having unveiled a raft of new apps and features on xBox One yesterday, Phil Spencer, Corporate Vice President of Advertising Partnerships explained recently that "Windows 10 is the tablet on steroids" and that "the opportunity is massive to do digital creation on Xbox". - -Proves he was right.<|endoftext|>Commissioner Allan Frisch, addressing the Los Angeles Department of Human Resources on Monday, called on applicants "who have faced discrimination to come forward… and to turn those experiences into opportunities," said Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Jenny Arguelles.<|endoftext|>XComDesigner — XComGameEngineDesigner - -• - -##E-Mail Channels: For bug reports, test case and more informations - -• - -##3 cents about the Prebuilt Tools XComDesigner is a distribution face of XComGameEngineDesigner - said the XCom vets, but I tried to make it simple and dry. - -XComDesigner strives to be nothing but fully-featured XComEngine, that have little to no boilerplate to read and understand and everything (including the 3D models themselves) stripped out of the interface, written with GameMaker: Studio code. Many GameMaker: Studio features will come up from scratch but also if you want to like to play around. - -As I've stated I'm not someone who will be holding any big -======================================== SAMPLE 355 ======================================== -Secretary of State John Kerry said the White House had heard assurances that a ransom would be paid by Iran to secure the return of U.S. hostages in Iraq, but the negotiations became unresolved and the fate of the Americans "very nebulous over the next 2 or 3 weeks." - -In a statement facing the deadline established by Congressional Republicans in the belief that the twin civilian deaths of an Iranian-American couple in a killing in Pakistan Monday makes a deal difficult to attain even if its terms were substantial, Mr. Kerry paused in Washington to admonish lawmakers. - -Apologizing to President Obama for its premature release, Mr. Kerry said the White House had pledged to work overtime to swing lawmakers' support toward a deal with Iran. - -"At this difficult juncture, I want to call once again on Iran's leadership to reverse the course that has taken it to this brutal and tragic conclusion," Mr. Kerry said, referring to the deaths Monday of Mr. Siamak Namazi and Reza Shahini, who were freed in a prisoner swap for an American prisoner in Tehran. - -National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice said Tuesday that the timing is not right, "particularly with the death of one American today in a tragic error in their captivity." But she added, in a statement issued by the White House late Tuesday, that "there are other pressing matters at hand, which I will address in the days ahead." - -Republicans and Mr. Obama have declined to go into details about the negotiations -- reached after two months of indecision on whether to address the political damage of the slayings -- but Ms. Rice said they amounted to a promise from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to take responsibility for the Americans' release and return them "within 15 days or we will in fact take them prisoner." Ms. Rice said she would speak to President Obama this week about the interim period. - -Among a number of everything-but-the-tenders options, the P5+1 envisages the enemy holding the Americans in return for relief from economic sanctions and lifting of crippling oil embargoes. Asked about the veracity of the word "enemy," Mr. Kerry said later in the phone call, "I know there are – I'm aware of opposition on the part of the Iranians, who I understand say they love Americans. But that cannot stretch my credulity. We met on this. This is something Susan keeps talking to me about. When the situation gets to a point where people up here say, `Do we keep the exception for Americans?' it makes sense on two accounts." - -Secretary Kerry's remarks followed his prepared remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. He acknowledged discussions are ongoing but declined to offer more specifics on the Americans' fate. - -"Discussions you have with foreign governments are always in process. There is no agreement in place. It's not an agreement.. . . I have no ability to assert that when I talked to the prime minister, that he committed to the quickest terms," he said. - -Asked whether Congress will take up the matter and sign off on some type of a deal, Secretary Kerry politely noted it was now a matter of the "circumstances" and why both sides have agreed to hold off until potential Islamic endpoints present themselves. - -"What is happening now -- let's call it where it is. It was a very heavy lifting effort, with both sides. It was one of those things where, I speak to John every week or so, and he speaks to me almost every day. There is no agreement, and we worked to try to try to expand the scope of what we could discuss, and it became very nebulous over the next 2 or 3 weeks. We worked to try to work around our belief that no money has been exchanged for the release of these hostages. We kept the prisoner because that's exactly the kind of thing we wanted to preserve," he said. - -In his prepared remarks, Mr. Kerry avoided mentioning Tehran's custody of hostages in America, nor did he discuss the nuclear dispute between the United States and the Islamic Republic, where he served as an assistant secretary of state before landing his current post as the nation's top diplomat. - -Referring to Iran's apparent intentions of rapidly negotiating with the United States "until it has heard from its invisible interlocutor in Washington as to the conditions?" Mr. Kerry responded, "That makes total sense. Where are we right now? No agreement. It would be a real shame to see our relationship be damaged over this kind of an issue. Over what we believe is something almost dependency building by the Other. Who's in us and who's in the Other? Not exactly cordial and friendly, which would be at the heart of great partnerships that are formed in circumstances where we cannot agree on a solution." - -U.S. and Iranian officials met on Sunday at the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, sources provided to Middle East Eye, where their conversations continued Tuesday with -======================================== SAMPLE 356 ======================================== -This post originally appeared in AlterNet. - -Every day you spend staring at a computer screen involves sitting right next to people doing similar things. You consider who works for who, whether that employee is male or female, whether the company has contractors doing a task in a small town or for your big, blue-chip tech giant in Wyoming. You don't have to spend any real time being immersed in being too busy clutching onto your coffee table to make space for Sheldon Cooper's sigh. Truth be told, you're heaving this coffee over now, after your recruiter swills your stack of underperforming Open Run monopolizable any the past month or two. - -There are about 100 million Americans who work who wrote a personal email or LinkedIn post expressing feelings of female empowerment on their personal Momentums (note the femme pronouns). Folks, those are women. Inside your inbox on the other hand are men who didn't even go to class last semester based on a personal blog that had no logic or depth for an explanation of why this blogger should want a promotion for the first time since she was a teenager in upstate South Carolina as a motorcycle athletic scholarship winner. - -I should know, I am one of those who crossed over the divide deciding to not graduate from college for 18 straight years. Instead of producing either a sensible think piece or the first person account in the Economic Journal of the United Kingdom on the topic, blogging and writing about the concept of leadership in Iraq for an official government publication, I am a meme! Something the rape culture lobby loves specifically. Hit me hard in the face with a club like every other guy and I'm your girl. - -Why isn't it my cup of peace when men use social media to assert and copywrite unrealistic (read: "manipulative") authority on their social networks? See — that was blurry — I need to shut up while I bath this poor person in a bullet going subzero temperature and add 600 pounds of fat! Wow, sometimes I feel like the Deputy Reporters' Committee of Correspondents. I mean, I get press but I haven't watched The Red Cross Home Front Disaster into Princeton, Oklahoma 2017 in September 2017. I want my name in the Times For Wolves, Too! ("So -- It Still Happens … To Women?"), or at least to Somewhere Else in a Congressional Hearing, because it's totally the business of Congress to spy on what domestic-violence advocates are saying, yet, so, so few of them choose to do it. - -That American girls and women who display the effects of "Boys Will Be Boys" in regards to the survival of their family and themselves can hit hard and finally get over their "problems?" Absurd. Every day by all means shun daily calorie-laden Instagram posts of perecemy, cornbread casserole. But if you aren't sharing nearly as much as men drop into cube-shaped ice trays as the lowest point in American capitalism, it's your voice just slightly out of whack and in the borders of contrition. - -I was going to let Yahoo's hateful vandalist continue prosper ineffectively, but I am the last of my human kind. I live on Medium, which admits writers and editors so dissatisfied about being outside of the mainstream of male power that I am an editor or two away from the freaking mainstream! Never grow up. - -Via Science of Us:<|endoftext|>The way of the novice PC gaming enthusiast - -Tired of playing games only to lose for no reason, a novice PC gamer picks up the controller in excitement. Designing, building, and betoring themselves with a PC gamer's passion, they want in. - -However, concepts like film trussed to a rolling metal frame are extremely old school. Bringing sand outside of the thermal limits and then doing some impressive structural damage. Minicircles are the new darling of the trade, bringing power, size, drive pooling, moly, and ultimate stable control. And like anything that costs more than your first car, Minicircles cost a lot. - -The PC gamer and all ages should be familiar with minicircles. From a computer that is the little person's desktop, to a propane gas tank, to the case below vintage memorabilia of straight wrestling it all started with the the Yellow Minicircle of Heather Marie.<|endoftext|>Now that Google's wearable is rolling out to a small handful of our testers, we figured it was a good time to play around with it further. Armed with our Android Wear watches, we put in our PDA – the G Watch R. - -For this write-up, I will be describing everything you need to know about your Google wearable, including features and what you should do with its radios, SMS functionality, website access, and screen time. For those that want simple, step-by-step instructions, check out our full Galaxy Gear guide. - -Open Tap to open any web page in your browser with a version of Google -======================================== SAMPLE 357 ======================================== -In a relationship or partnership you deal with, it's often important to make a backup system wherein you publically share your professional identity. This can help reduce professional burnout with teams and satisfy lawyers/judges alike because if the non spouse/partner gets the information pertaining to you, then there's a clear and connected blockbuster tale.Content Comics manufacturer Ashley Paul Jessup nomortized Katherine Jackson with appropriately enough, specifically, writing for the Los Angeles Times the long-held story of Katherine Lovelace Drake. She is the Civil Rights pioneer as well as the real life inspiration for Ripley from David Fincher's Alien, and her real name is Katherine Anne Addams. - - -It's not difficult to understand that Katherine Addams's story would be repugnant to legal minds and would you dissuade any joint evidence in order to reduce the danger of libel. To all minds of that nature, I would like be fully clear that I note recorded series and ephemeral to mean the likeness in use or recognizable on the screen or in print, not the incarnate but of constitutionally protected content. - - -©Janice Texas Paul (c), 2014 - -Share this: Share - -Email - -Facebook - - -LinkedIn - -Twitter - - -Google - -Reddit - - -Pinterest - -Tumblr - - -Related<|endoftext|>GLADIATOR BRINGS MOON PHASE-SHIFT VUSSEL PHASE TO PlayStation®Vita IN HALF-BLOCK LOVE WITH PS Vita EDITION EXCLUSIVE OF COURSE PLUG INTO THE BANANA PIG Mushroom Charge allows you to destroy thy colleagues who are performing their one trick answer to love and learn to achieve the greatest power in the dream world. Power up your firing kinetic energy to maximize your ability to make your love connections! She will help you learn to make your love connections with the help of Guy, waiting does. Traditional graphical quality in full HD resolution or to your imagination and experience a memorable 3D environment. Music - the beautiful theme song la la Nana by Polygon Points Available only in this app. Simulator Cop - Grown-up, single players, 5 missions or 15 minutes XBOX / PS4 / PC Exclusive. What should become the standard by FEZ across Paris (A free experience). Log in and supply for 5 missions - trips to the beach by RV, at 14 camera for Picnic Time, 12 camera for Chasing Time, 3 fights with Couple of Police Officers with power-ups and some words of encouragement of Veronique. Earn 1-866 XFRIEND BOOK MATCH whereas In open, you will DJ all the amenable people on your way to 880. A replay of all the missions. (Please note that just one clue is enough for all 15 minutes upon the application). Instantly insults, Jeffrey Hardy is Tyondai Mueller's Very First YouTube Channel. TV show is a FIVE-EPISODE, freshman order they last six days. Passed by Ed Joffe and Pablo Escobar, recruiting prostitutes becomes a solo affair of Lark Loue. 2016 World Honor On Air Contest 2017 (United States) 10th June, Overwatch (anime series) Emblem Characters. IPA one time Application phone number : +1 (866) THIS IS GOOD (+596) - - -Star Central is an open world AAA adventure with a very spacy and diverse skill system, natural logic, horizons and diverse puzzles, it has a dynamism of levels and secrets that offer highly unique wonders. We have been working hard on bringing Star Central for multiple years of hard work and battle with our friends to complete it, the greatest achievement of a top indie studio. Highly enjoyable combination of sandbox/an open-world adventure with constant challenging puzzles. PS Vita Edition Coming In 2017 FOR ALL APPLICATION - -Needless to say a part of the star central is a collection of branches of both girls, they are much more mature and independent personalities and it is their intimate moments while apart which you will gain access to. Apart, various external events will mess up the calm. - -Star Central means that each engine game gets progressively more interesting gradually in every branch advancement of the exploring attitude. Each article will be addictive and great experience to be read from 24 Mercedes to 122 Mercedes and away from each venue Feeling HotRain Sewer, article called: V8 Ghetto as the picture preview say, a wonderful photo of the environment and the story begins here. - - -Platinum Winner Award winner 2016 - Best Mobile Amazing artistic look of deepest Mars Sol - -Shipixes Photo Tribute - -Forbidden Paradise - -Compilation of Commissions - -Ladies and Gentlemen Stars Central exploration Bureau "Yuck; wait; at least I'm not the last to make you go to the bathroom." - -MEET SEBASTIAN VERONIQUE BELLADONNA SARA-THREEFOUR - -He is a mysterious looking and "cultured," but one passion of Veronique's is cats. She allowed Veronique to -======================================== SAMPLE 358 ======================================== -TRENTON -- NBC won't air the content of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's racist Facebook ad on Tuesday night, a spokesman said, after opposition GOP hopefuls Rand Paul and Ted Cruz preemptively criticized the ties of Trump and Radio One's Howard Stern. - -"Along with millions of voters across the nation, NBCUniversal has decided to not move forward with the airing of 'The Apprentice' this evening," the invitation for Trump's appearance reads. - -NBC had been preparing for a Trump visit to the Greenville, North Carolina, TV market where the show airs until Monday, when Republican candidates Paul and Cruz posted a statement and an ad Monday night confirming their objections to the ad on Facebook. - -And Politico reported Monday night that team Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders was preparing a TV ad bringing up Trump's many exploits about women, including promoting Marla Maples on "The Apprentice." - -Paul, who argued during Monday's line of questions that the advertisers aren't time honored denying that the Trump ad is racist, argued the ad is violent and implicitly supports rapes. - -"Rape of women is rape. Desecration of you for your mother's second grade teacher is what you are saying," Paul said. - -Paul also asked, honestly, why several companies would support the TV show when they know it is largely owned by Putin. - -Christie wasn't concerned with the TV ads, saying, "You hear the things Donald said about women, and what is on that radio page, and radio program today, we can't go "after" Kris Kobach for desktop containing repellants that contain lewd terms." - -He was asked about the radio show silliness. - -"This is just another inaccurate rumor that won't interest people," the governor said. - -"Certainly, the radio programs Sunday morning through Friday show another side of this campaign some views," Christie said, accusing Sanders of spending his "turmoil" in his campaign on the radio and online, rather than on the Iowa caucus. - -Christie has not had a syndicated radio show since Univision pulled 9-1-1 Liberty In San Diego off the air last August, in response to an advertiser boycott against with attacks on Cruz and the president's executive actions on immigration. - -The taping of "The Apprentice" will be endorsed on the Team Trump Oscars 2016 bridal show embracing Sanchez Sanchez absent.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 /r/DCS has taken down all of our files, this page is the only way to extract those files. https://www.reddit.com/r/DCSMod/comments/7fn6fr/new_acq_mode_for_fy18_mods/ 2 1.00 * Acq mode for F-18C, FJ18A, Fj18X and F-35C by me. No dependencies or other added features currently. 3 2.00 Acq mode for F-18C by F-18C-ES6 4 5 : Upload custom *.xml files for your specific Acq mode file that has been included in /r/DCSmods/downloads 6 // Theses can be edited directly on EW-Mode/MainFrame/Pages/Acquisitions/ExtractAcq2 . Doc creates fully linked layer 7 // When saving these Acq folder, remember to lock Page 1 Acq folder or this one will not work 8 /doconly - Use this option to ignore the default filesystem permission owner/group (SaiSaiFox) - at /r/DCSMods/downloads/Documents 10 11 Full list of available phone's in the downloads section. 12 13 Other tools/mods to bless your Acq mode experience: 14 https://www.reddit.com/r/CyberRockets/comments/7fqfnc/how_to_enable_acq_mode_on_mmitech_drone/ 15 https://github.com/ksd73bug/DCS-DataObjects/releases 16 17 Device configuration 17 18 BASIC DEVICE SETUP > config 19 30s TT5021-30SC-C0 : required EWP 20 TT4021-20SC-C0 20 : required on EWP 21 TT6021-55SC-C0 : required in EWP 21* 24 : required in EWP 22 TT6021-40SC-C0 : requires MFD FC ON 23 TT5021-40SC-C0 : provided MFD ON 24 25 34.10.FE25CC 36.10.FE20DE0 37.04.FE9712 39.20.FE0648 43.01.FE0180 47.08.FE0874 53.11.FE4032 56.28.FE4036 59.21.FE498A - 59.28.FE5066 -======================================== SAMPLE 359 ======================================== -Stockholm, Sweden - Going to church can be the determining factor in Sweden's social cohesion - and a recent poll says 70% of Swedes would visit a mosque in their spare time. - -That is even more pronounced in Sweden's traditional Lutheran churches where figures show the share of followers praying five times a day or more. - -Sweden is one of Europe's most secular countries, where religious freedoms and freedom of speech are not threatened by the Church of Sweden, International Business Times reports. - -Seventy-seven percent of Swedes say religion has had a detrimental effect on Swedish society, according to the 2016 Pew Research Centre survey. Evangelicals are particularly active in politics, self-declared terrorists are more tolerated than any other religious group in Sweden and a recent report paints a picture of a radicalised society. - -"Statistical information from the Swedish national public opinion survey is consistent with the fact that a significant share of Swedes frequently lament the state of their country and that more than half address the country's social problems by citing, among other issues, police brutality, racism and discrimination. Reticence to raise one's voice in recognition of social problems has historically played a major role in Sweden's people-friendly image," said Peter Kuper, wth the University of Gothenburg, in Januy 2016. - -The Sweden Democrats, a xenophobic party whose members are currently in the debate for the small right-wing bloc in the Swedish parliament?in the most recent television debate finally started a debate about the issues facing the country. According to opinion polls, around 5% of Swedish voters self-identify with the anti-immigrant party. - -READ MORE: Future with the Sweden Democrats may be acidic ice axe hardship - -"2005 initiative between the Sweden Democrats and the Liberal Party that would have denied that foreigners could become Swedish citizens symbolised Sweden's relative openness towards immigrants and it was a factor that helped them achieve high voter turnout, especially in Sweden's smaller cities with a higher immigrant population," said Gary Fidanza, doctoral candidate at Stockholm University, in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press that reviewed eight major opinion polls in that year. - -The Swedish Democrats continue to gain popularity in elections with Sweden polling between 26% to 31% around the world and widely required to appear in the second televised debate between the Swedish Prime Minister and the Green Party's, travelers Nuclear isolation of mo except with Germany or start Balkan route?<|endoftext|>Abader Raja, 32, said she'd had five abortions and used to sell sex with some girls - all German - and once slept with three in two weeks. He took her home to India. - -Maria Maldiola, 55, a 30-year-old Swedish businessman, was in Bangalore to bring back some of the spoiled rice she spent 20 years collecting as a guest, aged nine. - -Now, both are awaiting jail sentences after being convicted of stupefying and insulting a foreign national for a Facebook conversation in which they urged men to buy underage girls for £50, she said. - -The pair, of Germany, were regulars on Facebook. - -Facebook's terms and conditions prohibit condoning "sex with children under the age of consent" or discouraging more developed, legal adults from being involved in such activity. - -In a comment on a post from Maria Maldiola as recently as March this year, a 15-year-old boy asked if he could have sex with her so she "got used to it". Maria replied: 'Gents, I have already given [sic] it [sic] to several men.' - -Writing on Facebook in October 2011, Lothar Kalb from Afghanistan, said: 'This is how we treat our dirty Afghan needs here at 54-15 - the cheapest/best girls.' - -The Facebook exchange came to light after Ghulam Ali, an Iranian who was in touch with them on Facebook, questioned their activities. - -Mr Ali said a Facebook exchange of messages revealed the IRA called Maria 'the unwed pregnant wife of every Afghan man'. They were of the view that 'in so many numbers, we could expect sentencing to robust jail'. - -Ali added: 'Having done plenty of my own research I tend to agree that if a Pakistani under 35 with a Facebook account says: "I'm 21, good looking, stable and cautious, he might just be a good role model for a young Arab to follow", [they will not be added to the sex offenders register or imprisoned.] - -'This is Facebook and its needs to do whatever it can to protect its users, especially since it has now been proved in court, for example, that I had specific seminars where pedophiles wander free. - -'This punishment is inhumanly absurd at a time when thousands of paedophiles roam our streets free. - -'Let us not pretend this is a European problem, that this is a problem of countries living in societies of grey morality which are impossible to regulate. The fact that levying of such -======================================== SAMPLE 360 ======================================== -The section of the court that last issued a similar ruling was struck down by the Supreme Court on Monday, effectively gutting a key component of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965. - -The landmark decision from the five-justice majority effectively allows states and localities to enact laws that racial gerrymandering is already illegal "under current Supreme Court precedents." On Monday, the five liberal justices agreed to uphold Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which has required nine states and 13 localities with a history of racial discrimination to get the federal government's approval before changing their voting laws. - -In December 2015, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down Section 5 of the Act. Section 5 creates a list of voting rights checkpoints for other jurisdictions that have a history of racial discrimination — generally paying presidentially appointed representatives to negotiate deadlines for making changes in voting laws. These checkpoints offer protections for voters with a number of special, for-profit voting rights concerns. This list is pretty persuasive evidence that exactly one jurisdiction — Alabama — has an entitlement to protect black voting rights. - -This decision was about remedies for the states on this list, not the beneficiaries. - -In April 2016, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Shelby County v. Holder, in which a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit found the prescribed penalty for certain much-maligned voter-restricting voting laws unconstitutional, largely invalidating what FairVote dubbed "The Little Rock Nine." Largely read, the ruling in Shelby was a victory for state legislatures, allowing them to make changes to elections without the approval of federal officials. Section 6 of the Voting Rights Act stops jurisdictions on the list from changing their voting laws without approval from Justice Department. This, in turn, suffices for Section 5, though the conditions that date back long to the end of Jim Crow cannot be left out. - -In Monday's order, the five Solicitor General nominees — as well as one nominee from the Democrat-dominated Senate and one from the Republican-controlled House — were given marked-to-normal votes. As Stephen Yale-Loehr of Harvard University explains on Medium, this means they will likely still proceed with filibusters or votes before the Senate flubs its part of the approval process. "Under the Supreme Court's determination in summer that it would have to get the vote of at least eight of the Justices before denying that step, any recess appointments made by the Senate would be subject to strict scrutiny and could be reviewed by the Justice Department," he writes. As Marcy Wheeler writes in Bloomberg Businessweek, Clinton won't have the say. - -In its order today, the Supreme Court meeting also sided with Wyoming against its volunteer counties ,letting the former take its case to the Supreme Court. Wyoming is home to 3,600 volunteers, who bring in a total revenue of $7.8 million and provide a safety net for 254 of Baker's counties and 42 of Custer counties. It's worth examining the Supreme Court's odd playlist!<|endoftext|>Thelp X of the vajra tribe or Taotie are an unusual clan not based on the well-known Taotie Clan, which does exist in fact. During vajrang's time, Taotie did not exist and vajrang only lived there for 0 years. This implies that during this time they had nothing to do with Taotie. The Taotie Clan existed, but they were in a perpetual state of chaos. Therefore, not only did vajrang and his old army not know of their existence in the last 10-40 years until the reunion of the ranger and vajranri, it also possible they also did not know of their existence during those years. - - -The Taotie could not be found within the western mountains or the forest areas, much different from what the legend alleges. They were not even referred to as a clan by any of the official sources, which means they simply did not exist in their region of the world during vajrang's time. Virac lost Torfan while on a quest for peace, they have no intact mention of them during the opening chapter, or their relations with anyone else. They were even thought to exist entirely throughout the 1960's, but their existence was up to much conjecture. It was widely assumed they were in the area of Tenkhua (a region 170 km north from the Valley of the Blizzard), far enough away from there that Bolt Vaas and seekage would never find the lost tribe. Of course, decades passed when any hint of them was never remembered. If they existed, they lost even marks of themselves long ago, leaving little to go on unless they changed the question from "Should we never hear or know of them again" to "What on earth are they doing relevantly now?" - - -Even Vaar Mora's map, a thorough two-thousand year old map, never saw the Taot -======================================== SAMPLE 361 ======================================== -'Family Guy' Reunion Studio Description - -BEST FRIEND - -(2004-2007) - -The weekly 'Family Guy' re-emerges, this time fully geared toward reruns, but starring David Puddy (season 29, ep 4, 4x12). Sunny thinks he's losing the joy for life he has in his youth. The rapture of the new fatherhood begins to feel like a simulacrum of what he'd enjoyed. Far from a natural deconstruction, "Family Guy" is a celebration of a big ol' malaise, played out on the big screen. John Kricfalusi (both seasons 3, 4, 5) directs (season 32, ep 2, 6x18). - -Movie property agreement - -Hidden Caption - -Note: Take that, labor bet.<|endoftext|>Like many Americans in the mid 1990s, I read a fascinating article in The Washington Post in fall 1998 about there then being a Federal Agency called the Intelligence Resources Management Office (IRMO). At the time I thought, OK, a small office, maybe, fueled by a small budget versus The FBI or all of The DEA. Certainly not at the height of the Initiation of martial law in 1992, completion of safety phase of 9/11, etc. I thought it very much deserved a better name. Adidas appealed, Phillips Punk LoveDial. - -Well, a few years later the 9-11 inquisition happened, and I didn't get the memo about that. That's when I understood. The FBI and DEA have an unquenchable thirst to control News-Flow. Anything dissenting, timeless wisdom, and even the personal development files of poor people in Burn Notice did not mince words. Anyone who wrote off interest in Jihad, the New World Order, Agenda-Setting or business strategy had to be a terrorist..and this was to be enforced by any means necessary-coercively and emotionally. To be thought stupid in school, for example, was to have your clock stopped, money taken from you, a demand to be visited by a SWAT team, or even your life threatened! Leaving Tunisia , for example, would be akin to offering crystal meth to terrorists! - -Since the event of 9-11, weapons of mass destruction has been obviously twisted as a basis for war. The secrecy, vilification, illegal spying and military operations are out of control, with the stated goal imposing the New World Order uppity "Giant" Communist governance.<|endoftext|>France in the 20th Century - -Cicero's Minor Left-Handed Latin Poem - -Blow me, out of that box - -I was handed a bundle of things inside - -Granted certain grain on my brow - -Payday comin' this morn - -Way up by the a kick like a right hook - -The truth has ev'ry man seen. - -Time would fly or I never could understand - -Nearly every man saw - -Scandal that would break 'em into a sweat. - -They wanna know - -Who's fightin' who? - -Who's pointing to who? - -Criticisms would fly like grains in storms - -Untie their public chains - -Your hot-headed little head would run wild - -Flow like a river through your veins - -None of this horror talk - -Fear the fire - -Be wiser than hell. - -I learned the art of not peer pressure shortly before high school which was a bluff. Football videos were PC demonstrations you could watch anytime. I used to hate their dim attitude of good and evil. As much as it pains me to say it, murder and genocide is needed for final justice. The more virulent the war, the greater the purpose. - -I'll never forget how the Facists and punks and rabid neo-fascists skinny-dipped into the funding streams in place immediately. I peacefully co-opted the Nineties security establishment with co-opting the threat of revolt which I had found — terrorism was far too buffoonish to confront them — serving though Cashier recognized as a free pass through the state. Nostalgia! In the city of my birth, Beirut, I once hid in my back yard for three days while shit got busy over there during the Fulam nationalist uprising, a frenzied uprising. The worst he could do was crack a kneecap, which it may as well have done because still flapping around well after the sun went up was great news to all. Articles went vague and bond Jean-Claude was committed when I sent the patrouille correspondent, Damien Bastide, to wave the flag. - -They were more than a little excited about the sight of Father Jacques Arsenault, Hezbollah men and all, simply shredding the functioning bureaucratic apparatus in City Hall, hanging down ballots under his own cloak and the vagaries on fire did not faze them whatsoever. When the Roman rises were lost, 1,300 working -======================================== SAMPLE 362 ======================================== -Hashée Golber Nevareney about Truth and Justice: | Ines Letojek about Truth, Justice, and Traditional Jewish Judaism:(About 1000 or so words)  - -I started talking about Truth and Justice because, believe it or not , the word is seasoned in Hebrew. Pray read 5:9. -I don't know whether you heard of this, but one of the most influential and influential "Jews" of today, Chaim Rosenzweig of the Second Temple, was a proponent of Hierarchy, Force, Hard Work and self complicity via Haba (Legalism) and Absalomite Chassidut. According to a "footnote" in his book, Hard Work and Jewish Cohanim: -"Strong obligations etc. Obligation of families is mitigated, as a rule. Of course, one instance of compliance always mitigates the obligations." -So although this person lived at the beginning of the 20th century our rabbis are still forced to adhere to the very same societal and/or legalistic doctrine that he so fervently believed. Which is really the only logical course for a reasonable human being - a wise and loving person who can fore act in accordance to what is wise and loving. If they retire "pre-legalistic", to their deathbeds married with 12 children, wealth exceeding 4x their investment, and LOTS of historian idle time exploring making the frum version of themself feel like their ego and envy and jealousy has been adequately fulfilled by others and education the female planet with the sonocentric medical knowledge of modern medicine, and divorces one spouse, needs to ask themselves if they are just a happy fool and Achilles trying to convince the rest of Sure delivered reverend males to hate ol' Achilles' ways - the last living reminder of the original life that never materialized in the Afterlife (I don't believe that God sent them on their way by will of the almighty but the visible visible/spiritual life, and the ones (the world) who reincarnated and forged and re-non-realities to exist still important and eternal in a great cosmos awaiting a newly resurrected compleated incarnation through the Holy family ecumenical love affair that many believe will, probably, last until the End of Time or soon thereafter. In short - what's to be done and is there still a way? - This whole "big deal about Principles" is like trying to bite a bright red grape. Fresh off of caring for our child's initial fist ren core quasis. That's about as bright and fresh as I'll ever find an early Israelite with.[1] ^  -Nope, today's "Jews" talk of using "Fashism". Stop it! Stop bragging about "Luke-Zoe-Rumsfeld. -There's a reason "Fashism". It's a real word. Everybody uses it with a degree embarrassment. Put your Pocket infinite Fighting Java awesomeness down. -..bu You get the idea. But I digress. Some of today's worst boobs are called Aharoni. Let me clarify. It is written in Aharoni's Torah. Remember it. The Haggadah mentions it twice in the Nezillah (Nechbaata. , October 25, 2014) , more if you count the possibility of it being in the Tevet (The Faith Prayer). The Aramaic word means "quota" paraphrasing, or "connection" During the third century A.D. this gem in Baba Yareisy Abbreviation certificate to radixulium CoD in the third century, similar in meaning to Yareisa , mentioned Yahowsin as the  quota keeper of the Dome of the Rock. In other words, they were stealing ALL of the qadron. In fact, this insult is pretty much an anagram . Said in Aramaic but, the actual meaning is null took place - and Ale Elkness elves were on testify (as Keyroy , Wint, Wilche , Bilry ... etc.). One of their many pranks and publicity stunts was to fly one of their pretty ace elevator lifts with their fleet of Rohr 600-ton blast-proof glass-dome-towers that made a very strong buzz at more than 5 inches thick. As I recall, several dummies from the end of the loob (to lift the giant vertical elevator ladders) were pulled down to feel and stand up on the lipped sections. The door will be lit and/or sound like an igloo outside depending on how you see this aesthetic Hemorrhage when it chomps on your face. I defy a fox to ska-dance with one of this little guys, for his or her own amusement. The most famous play in this "violence" tradition was Samuelli's western  from 1924 to 1928. A professor of Jewish mysticism and the "Zno" (Zionist Gods -======================================== SAMPLE 363 ======================================== -Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email - -ISIS splinter group jihadi militia are taking baby seals as "troops" and will sell the animals at markets, it's been claimed. - -Previously thought to be a rare species, baby seals have now been recorded in Libya and Syria, according to the terror group's Amaq news agency. - -It describes the mama seals as "the young ones of people from all religions." - -(Image: Google Maps) - -And a radical ISIS ruler has allegedly asked the tribe of al-Sheeba for help with these "crows", according to Syria's al-Mayadeen TV. - -(Image: Getty Images) - -Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now - -(Image: Getty Images) - -Though Turkey wouldn't comment on why the animals were taken earlier this month, Javeed Tikwar - -baghdadi, currently imprisoned in Kirkuk, has previously spoken of his love of seals. - -Twenty-year-old ISIS cleric, in a letter dating back to 2014, wrote that the militants "aimed for the coast" due to (presumed) high levels of seal fauna on the coast, media reports at the time stated.<|endoftext|>by Drew Baumgartner May 12, 2013 - -If you've been the victim of fraud or identity theft, it's a real nightmare. To help you fight back, the FBI's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published a list of state laws that instead of protecting consumers against fraud, effectively degrades their ability to seek justice. - -Businesses that don't require a state identification—like credit cards, driver's licenses, and consumer checks—can be hit with a huge fee because identity theft is the number one cause of business bankruptcy. In 2011, financial crime dropped 76% in the U.S., primarily due to laws that protect against fraud, while. at the same time, the rates of denial of service attacks and denial of service-induced data breaches grew by over 400% and 530%. - -Now, the FTC has created a list of lowest established rules by which businesses can deny consumers their due process rights – this now defines a state law as a de facto statute that can void consumer class actions and other civil actions brought under state laws that are deemed to take precedence over federal law. - -The report's full title is "Top 15 Secrets Victims' Rights Shouldn't Learn in Law School or in College," but its main function is to put heads in padded presses, fold them, slip locks over their throats, and bury them somewhere in plain sight: - -The rip-off flag be raised when a state's consumer protection laws affirmatively deny victims the right to use the law's; damages, remedies or restraining orders. Consumer education — written by states with longstanding credit reporting laws — can alert federal and state credit reporting agencies to developments and keep consumers informed of state law initiatives and their federal counterpart. Visa card terms & conditions are easier for victims of fraud to cancel instead of having to repair damage to credit; other permission forms are poignant for credit establishments to keep.Requiring individuals — can be banks or credit reporting agencies — to name supporting evidence when credit reporting agencies deny opportunities for bankruptcy or full relief from liens. Money and credit can still be free, and it's complicated for authorities "to come up with sufficient evidence to show that they actually purchased something" for victims to obtain refunds. The 2003 product liability swap extension encourages telemarketers to be more transparent in dealing with victims and myths prevent recovery process on fraudulent tele@cinq complaints. - -These are all the 21st Century ways of letting the lions eat the sheep. - -While the FTC monitoring of our protections doesn't make headlines these days, the famine preceded a wave of Accountability Boards and state-regulated "solutions", captured by the FTC from the pre-Enron era. It's long past time we shook these cartels off our backs and turned power over to those charged with protecting us. - -Here's one of so many examples. In California, compilations of two prohibited statements (such as "This is not a MOPA restaurant" or "Use explosives in your rebuilds") are deemed to have the same effect as "False Persons" in Consumer Protection Statutes. Additionally, a bartender telling you how easy it is to call customer services, or a provider of mortgage referrals stating that you'd receive immediate loan approval; something that is required by law for non-mortgage loans – is deemed as one thing, and somehow is deemed much worse at another. - -None of these laws reflect reality. We're sick of complying with ponzi schemes, designed to leave us stigmatized, graduated from paying a social security tax statement and an AMA to disturbing survey forms and permissions. Who -======================================== SAMPLE 364 ======================================== -ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - March 15, 2014) - Charter Communications has released details about its 2014 financial performance which showed that the company generated gains of 49% year-over-year. It also reported that 92% of its service plans satisfied eligible service requirements. - -The Company's 2014 financial success is attributed to strong second-quarter net revenue growth of 46% through 2012 versus the prior year. Charter's enhanced, 100% broadband high speed internet service performance gave the Company a 15.8% increase in second quarter revenue non-GAAP (Non-GAAP Measure) compared to the prior year. Second-quarter non-GAAP adjusted gain per subscriber totaled $5,753.The competitive marketplace continues to have an impact on the first quarter. ACAIP subscribers rose by 10,478 to 441,110. Subscribers were 31% more than the same period a year ago. - -Higher than expected customer growth in east central metro Atlanta gave the Company an operating cash flow generation ratio of 3.51x. Fourth quarter Adjusted EBITDA costs $2.9 million, lower than the $5.3 million guidance of last week's earnings press conference. - -Full year operating cash flow increased 126% versus 2013 operating cash flow adjusted EBITDA. - -Charter Chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said, "It's clear that the innovative, award winning Charter Communications service and products are having a positive impact on residents and businesses throughout the city of Atlanta. Our broadband performance continues to be strong, which helps raise our operating cash flow to its highest level in many years." - -Charter's service offerings continue to meet customer needs. The company's Internet Essentials program delivered enhanced broadband performance with no in-marketers charge for more than 22,000 miles of residential communications, 6,400 miles of landline communications and 13,000 miles of wireless communications cities time-and-date of service, bringing free and reduced priced access to low cost broadband. - -"This suggests that our Value Increases have continued and accelerated. These advancements should allow T-Mobile to empower consumers and cash-strapped businesses in metro Atlanta with better choice," said Rutledge. "We recognize investors need to see tangible progress toward these goals before they can continue to put their trust in our stock." - -Liberty Global, which executes exchange traded funds for profitable single stock investment strategies collectively between $630 million to $1.1 billion, participated in Charter's micro cap transaction. - -Investors may access Charter's first quarter 2014 Earnings Call by dialing 1-888-39-CHRYSLER (191-6827) or listening live, live, online or from Wall Street's leading radio program Good Morning America at 7 AM ET. - -The Company's 2014 financial numbers can be found at http://investor.charter.com. Each quarter, Charter divides its results by line item and highlights the sections of Cumulative Numbers of Customers, Residential and Wireline,/% Paying Customers and Service Revenue, while providing Year-over-Year metrics. - -For the second quarter, Charter recorded a contribution of $15.4 million to operating cash flow, at fair values. Since the start of the year, operating cash flow has increased $200 million-plus. - -For the quarter, customers finished 12.9 million, up 5% compared to the prior year. The pluses show 5% reliable and tying rate perfection; 1% churn reduction, along with declines over 82% in device churn and 43% in call center service calls. - -"Though broadband has to continue being swiftly improved, our Total Revenue was up by 36%, in line trajectory of cable captain," added Rutledge. - -Subscriber basket rebalancing is being accomplished through an improved and committed incremental growth path. The continued expansion of monthly refinancing to more than 5 million customers in 2015, coupled with a focus on subscriber retention and growth, combined with improved revenue and profit generation, complements Charter's strategy to continue opportunities for shareholder value and all of its stakeholders." - -Overall good weather in the third quarter helped Charter report slightly lower 2000 just below revenue results. The company continues to exhibit significant backlog of primarily month-over-month traffic and subsequently building bottom-line ICMP drop rates. - -AT&T offered an upbeat outlook on the semiconductor industry this week. "Our industry is the industry with undisputed leadership in the price of professional logic. The price of DRAM is now 66 percent lower than it was a decade ago, delivering a return to our cost structure," said Bob Quinn, Chief Financial Officer, AT&T. - -AT&T expects to record fourth quarter 2014 earnings only at approximately about 75 cents per share, down slightly from the first quarter earnings of 78 cents per share, underlying the solid second quarter performance. - -"For the year 2014, revenue growth was driven by a tight mix of residential, commercial and products which drove continued reconciliations," Quinn continued. -======================================== SAMPLE 365 ======================================== -Flexible Flexibility - -Parking signs are gold-plated for durability and can withstand hundreds of pressure cycles. Rolling signs make passes easy to roll to avoid body contact. Fastener-on products are portable, and are less obvious to thieves. The advantage to having a self-propelled sign is that you can move the sign as you modify your menu.<|endoftext|>Airport aisles (aka. no-man's land) include materials that can be destroyed accidentally if you are not paying attention—packaging is an notorious culprit. Regardless of how well the product you are holding is made, a poorly made product might be destroyed during transit to a customer. Fortunately, you can protect areas that you like to pack in order to prevent this from happening. - -Storing Items in Your Really Neat Bag - -You may have noticed that a bottle of shampoo falls neatly out of a small closet underneath your bed—here, the closet is the Inside your Really Neat Bag is a handy padlock that also works as a pronged disc seen in the picture. The padlock is less annoying if you have a heavy bag (containing interesting sheet music), but I much prefer it being specified in a singular location anyway. The lock is simple to flip open and you can rotate keys in the lock to keep it secure against bumps or trips: - -Another solution is to clip your damp items in a small bag protected by the padlock and store it inside your really cool bag: - -Bargains Brokerage's Silence Embroidery with Suction Pad offers excellent writing protection: - -Pockets and Rack Styles - -You may be using adult baby diapers (or any item you know can probably get tossed) in your kid's groove, but you almost certainly have little BPs or cartons of beans handy that still look pretty nerdy. Some bags have more vomit-resistant zones than others—racks slide directly in the color-blocking portions of carriers and boxes do not get rips. If you're worried about poop or spills, don't let fear and embarrassment prevent you from getting creative. - -One really neat option is an attached, reinforced inside pocket that you can stash your re-created BPO on, too. The Pregnant Bag Passport from The World We Made offers two handy side pockets on top. Again, your BPO might be smaller and smaller, but sometimes it's the little things that matter too. - -Choose Your Own Encounters - -This really isn't a problem if you're just getting rid of ennui, leftovers, or finished gear once you get home. McDonald's AR items are awesome if you have 2 small rooms full of unusual pieces of garbage to pick through. - -Don't believe me if I say that you don't regret things you didn't think about! Buying extra time before you pull down your window is valuable—especially if you have relatives coming over from the land down under; It helps to grab displays, magazines, or sleeping bags in a small trunk and stash them in a fragile protective silver box underneath your warm bed! - -Don't fear the phone, though; Just grab a small box and tape your plane tickets to it for airplane fashionistas. - -Talk About Security Confinement - -Some bags come with a sheath of padding under the bum and lid to support your backpack—but doing so restricts the space you can pack in. Your favorite designers offer different padded storage configurations to ensure maximum protection—a classic airline bag with thick, knitted padding could hold the contents of your entire backpacking kit, even a 10-degree sleeping bag! - -Another way to save space is to leave the storage compartment empty! Will your bag be swung out of place, being held by the luggage handle? Shove a stuff sack in with it or pack it outside the plane, and it won't shake loose. - -Weatherproof Backpack Padding for Gear Storage - -As showcased in Ferraris hanging in model homes, the only problem with storing your treasure in the box bag is that it's not always going to breathe—even hot summer days can quickly knock the heat out. Acid rain and a lack of air flow can cause moisture issues in your luggage, too. As in the pictured kit, Carhartt Mattress Stuff Sack is a convenient solution. - -Whether you're so sure your stuff will stay dry and doesn't mind a little extra bulk in the pocket, a corduroy bag, or toilet paper can really add versatility in your airplane carry-on. Don't toss "the shed-thing" into the corner since your tarp is here in the first place and it's probably lying around there—why protect it only when a dust cloud is about to hit? - -Splash Guard for Sony Clamshell Cameras and Folding Mobile Phones - -Are you topping off your water bottles (another one of those frustrating but not uncommon processes?), wiping down your iPads, or wiping down your camera? Shoot -======================================== SAMPLE 366 ======================================== -End of a Era: In the LDS Church Daughter Sex Scandal - -Let's prepare ourselves for this season's biggest turn. - -It's becoming harder and harder to watch the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publicly litigate sexual abuse allegations against so many of its members who have been excommunicated. The atmosphere has become so toxic in Utah with about a dozen lawsuits filed between 2007 and now, one of the key bosses of the church is stepping down, and social media attacks against the church continue. - -This weekend, as a part of the worldwide annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its new First Presidency will open proceedings on a despised topic: mixed-race "diamond" kept as a household pet in some congregations today. Instead of pondering Jesus's admonition that prodigal sons return to the banks of the River Jordan and "return no more away," the day's proceedings will simply take place and presently under a made-for-controlling scripting that will discuss only the general congregation's sectarian vote to permit such a mixed-race pet being kept as a pet. - -Fun fact: While handling a bidding for the diamond, ex-employees deemed causing teen pregnancy would comply with proposed guidelines, or be excommunicated from the church. Apparently the diamonds didn't turn out that well, either -- the rocky plum, containing immature pearls, were sold off to satisfy legal settlement fees. It was the first diamond auction of any kind at all at applicant Reagan Faul Rockccor 44 and later that year, it sold of rare aluminum rocks, very different from today's common rocks. It's a gem then, for one the Church has never protected. - -Of course, there was nothing accidental about whatever happened to that precious gift in our Church's possession. The previous First Presidency who reviewed its existence and value as a literal family creation, running the church as a corporate entity and not simply as a corporation adhering to underpinnings in scripture, had made clear that any figure involved in the ceremony, direct or proxy, would be subsequently excommunicated. Senior directives plainly showed this reference very carefully crafted missive, not mass published as some viral piece like the rape of Mariani. It was, sirs, the Third Section of Doctrine and Covenants contained within the 1886 papyri and included within the ethics of 1842 which allowed priests to baptize blacks. - -The wording clearly outlined these unspecified protocols and the issues brought forth ruffled any feathers of the very few relatively moderate leaders of the church at the time, Paul Toscano and Henry Eyring. Their dissension of line naturally aroused the First Presidency-dominated General Conference and their apprehensive tapes later play in a temple, the sealing of the 12 months of hidden lives before one's mother, a piece shown here for the first time, were ready to give birth. Things weren't looking good then, since one likely struggle was how a licensed pharmacist like Eyring could ever want to lead the creation of such an exalted artifact -- particularly when Galileo would have been charged under the same guidelines. Although when placed in context, many of the standards involved were much more non-radical than befitting Pusey tapping in a laboratory for research, or home schooling your daughter. Strangely, all would curtail science's development in the remaining years of the nineteenth century in their dictums and policies. - -Ironically, a sermon was read that June 1856 at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah concerning religious invocations honoring our founding fathers and no less than twelve men of renown in history had obeyed the First Presidency clearly, including James Edward Meares of the U.S. Congress, William Seward of Congress, Thomas Jefferson, Archibald MacLeish of the U.S. Senate, "Erecto," "General" Wayne of the 2nd Louisiana Cavalry, Samuel Floyd of the 2nd Highland Light Infantry, George Pegram of the untested Methodists. - -Presently, ladies' garment contracts are not even allowed to resemble the time honored practices of the earliest sects -- those very words by Church President Brigham Young, September 12, 1873, as quoted in the recently released documentary film From the Fringe, puts Utah's (born in 1970 and now solidly against the dominant view) challenge this way: "But depressing in its dispensers racism proof, points out the un-Christian idea of using precious bodily treasure by evil beings for a surplus of heathenism irresponsibly tried and unwisely attempted". - -Diary of Bridget Persons, October 6, 1970 To whom it may concern... - -14.10 to 12 midnight. High Priest reportedly wants Joey Coons' physical Mass or head. He's said to be trying to give Joey a more "magical" Mass because Joey's a homosexual. - -Also. The high Priest thinks that anointing of this Santerian organization (Black Penis-Center of the Church) might help get us feeding -======================================== SAMPLE 367 ======================================== -Though it may seem like we're still in the midst of the summertime gaiety and silly inclusions that often accompany such hot spots, when it came to enjoying art in last year's Olympics, thousands of IOC observers were only too eager to bid adieu to what's left of November and the populace's desire to see art in full swing. It's for the best, however, after nearly everything yielded a dud. Yet many were still featuring their variegated waistlines, absurd diets, and otherwise insane recreational side creations rather than focusing on the actual Olympic disciplines that do involve actual sports. Guts and glory looked like the order of the day and the competition's multiplicity of very physical moves owed it the same. - -But whether you won the Lower Body, Propulsion, or the Handball or Beach Volleyball or Gymnastics or Water Polo or Diving, these canny young sages wisely sidestepped the yoke of visual cultivation, celebrated the art of the real person in action and everything that's borne out of it, and ready themselves for the next National Geographic to dig into what such feats of athleticism actually look like. - -Steve Thatarson traveled over to Germany a couple of months ago to see how Danish athletes were approaching 30 strong months of having their bodies constantly moving again after serving as actual part-time stiffs in the Olympics. - -A regular Artist and Illustrator, Steve understands the meaning of pulling together composed graphic design elements so to not only pack significant functionality into distinctly citizen-like elements in different image classes, he's also done so in order to inspire living, breathing, working individuals to be proactive in their own cultural expressions. You know, when exactly we're supposed to be following the Olympic Games and working to elevate themselves further than the assembled bunch of gold medalists have already demonstrated. Much more objective to the human condition. - -If you find it sacred or bug Spherical Sustained 24-hours of Hard Activity, then this also will set your smug little Russian on fire. - -And if you're less certain that life inside a food blender requires a slew of medial features. - -"Look, I never tried to strip out every single bit of beauty from costumes." - -See all 5 of Steve's exciting U.S. Olympian costumes we picked out of 18 entries long and wide. - -Steve's perspective on Olympic involvement is basically that the holidays are literally painting over a time of creative stalking that we should be acting on offering debones to national governments and more together to put individuals in a position where they can leverage their exposure in ways that more efficiently maximize their potential for success and enjoyment. - -U.S. competitors would curry the favor of the nation, markets placeheavy importance on the economic athlete's ability to showcase their product, and all four of the competitors sitting ahead of us straightened the skill that made them the victors. They didn't hesitate to apply their accountability, and frankly, I really appreciate that. The men and women away from home haven't been cathartic with seam-stretching activities, in fact now thru drained sheets and dominated by chubbiness. Its important that they should have taken the opportunity to show us their gravity suits, put on some underwear, and get their sholders on in one of the botched events against the Slovenians, but they don't have much time. Cate St. George was absent from the ponds volleyball event, I used the Pistols competition to have her spill the vodka *Good Morning America*! under the bleachers, the Rockettes of StrikeCity don't want to talk about Allen objects 16kg, and the Spangle-hipsters have been theyctic while trending reminiscent for more SWAV based sewn nylon boxer shorts than I wish the American Band Hope Soap resembled. The Irish most definitely were involved in the hiking events we would blame Nora Britton, but I want to focus on three final item to the Canadian team setups. James Buccigross helped save the Pole Team by any possibility concedes on fruition, againTony exaggeratedly explaining what we strategyittior should have done was ineffective intent. The reserve me doppelganger from Iroquois, Hannah Crafting would also cooled the analogy, maybe more brown sweaters and book jackets? - -U.S. beats Slovakia to fill out field for Moscow. Now what then? Patriots and Grouppoles asked, and there were several symbolic items. I attended the panel discussion on the message and responsibilities of private sponsors in which Hubble robotics's chief marketing officer Andy Spencer then indebted to his parents Teenie-Lou Tioan (pale person) an example he pointed to about impact. As I was first one who offered counsel upon further reflection of the gigantic logistical inability of a joint Canadian-American Armistice celebration that I had to get into its unsupportable social patterns. That panel reminder that what matters we see is not worked out as distinct team fate but makes its way across the board because what matters is the collective feed -======================================== SAMPLE 368 ======================================== -– WWE's celebrities are not so well compensated, as per Fox Sports. This article can be found online on Rawviews.com, as WWE's athletes aren't so well paid. A media outlet revealed how many veteran WWE stars earn per minute compared to those wrestlers in Major League Baseball, with the smallest WWE roster earners delivering more premium pay under NXT brand. - -Rumors about WWE's poorer royalty paid to top performers have been surfacing recently, by On Media, WWE Superstars, Talk Is Jericho and others. In March, WWE's WWE Legendary pay was pinpointed by the website, to be around $1 on average per minute delivered. That was 5 times lower than Major League Baseball, two days after MLB Superstars revealed their pay to fans: $1.25 per tweet for a 30-second video piece (published by FanSided), Russo Brothers had tweeted Subaru Prius concepts to publisher signsability from that money one month earlier. - -Another website refers to the WWE royalty as 1/72th of what MLB MLB superstars earn for every minute at third base exclusively, with WWE "stars" getting even less, ranging from $0.0053 to $0.02. Now, as for WWE's celebrity stars, WWE stars do not play on the same level of baseball talent and didn't in their first contract. - -Let's examine the structures of WWE's stars compared to MLB's above, per the FanSided article mentioned above, WWE stars earned $5,799.96 to cover production (mechanisms included) of the MLB champion per minute of work. Lesnar's rest demanding highlight allowed the WWE to pay an average of "only" $401.44 for every minute of work. Former WWE Champion CM Punk usually has a contract worth a combined $600,000.00 for a combined a career earnings of $7.998 million dollars. ATP quarter-finalist David Haskins probably has the best contract out of all WWE stars. - -Aside from the pay structure (which differs from case to case) WWE stars tend to be in a handsome reg than top MLB superstar per minute. Juan Enrique, a Canadian stand up comic practicing for a decade can perform at a club owned by Bobby Bristow, and explains especially how underpaid he must have been to make a living, in addition to his audience of performers. - -Showcase Card Opinion: I have to acknowledge that Vince McMahon is more inclined to move the business to Monday Night Raw on week nights than to Wednesday nights for shows in the summer (wages of moiety jumps and transfers differ times of, by a long shot), which he only imports by night, because Oprah is the obvious choice for Ripoff of the Week. But, that commentator Joel Engel and the step-by-step details of filming and production are usually vague, even to the viewers, reflect the studio-viewpoint of Mark Burnett on the vast difference between WWE Main Events and primetime television. One can count: per minute, war of words vs. bull beating, 30-second-potes vs. 45-second-presents and relationships can be broken down in into three minutes, but live action presentation and half-and-half placement it's 60 minutes (most have taken back turns, and some divisions do not go live on time), last show on USA for Billions, has produced each week a series of chances for a plug, and there are few Marvel storylines involving of Sting or HHH, or the format of the Last Man Standing, over-time in the last 60 minutes of WrestleMania Sunday. Mr, Macho Man ripped oldford aside as the lawyers asked what he paid, with a chuckle and not much can be sustained, my customer wants to get out and try to sell a car or leading the team. - -Pretty much all minor motor issues can be settled in a hospital setting with medication, Daniel Bryan forced to evacuate his lungs, can sit down in real-time commercials over and again. There was a time on Raw, when wrestling humor assimilated, with more careers gambles against six strippers, than really skilled Justice League in any themed line of Minions. Quite the fire sale? Scott Frank at least has a chance to become a quintessential Mid-Atlanticization greenhorn, in terms of trying to get more coverage in first time magnets, who may actually like the Main Event, not your cringe-worthy contrived clip shows of Hours and Chappelle's Show. - -At least, hype for upcoming events will soon return to a murder of flies to spread) (beat) this year, without unreasonably taxing the fan's brain, as expected. Survivor Series: WWE is aiming for a Triple Threat Rumble match and the Kennedy segment, WrestleMania 32, would have been a near perfect hit following the Russom vs. Cena Triple Threat from a few weeks prior. Proving, Vince McMahon is inviting Wallace Shawn to Women's Stardom. - -Everyone knows that WWE is trying to wow the wrestling abundance -======================================== SAMPLE 369 ======================================== -AP - -During his introductory press conference Wednesday, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh announced that quarterback Colin Kaepernick had inked a contract. But a couple of details might deserve a second look. - -A deal that could include a maximum of $11 million in guaranteed money, for instance. That would be short of the $13,847,969 guaranteed as a starter, per Spotrac. And this week's cap number — $125.5 million, according to OverTheCap.com — was even lower than the $126.8 million that quarterbacks earned in 2013. - -The 49ers have other shiny new-car options. At the end of the first week of free agency, the team added veteran defensive tackle Justin Smith, while a trade with the Panthers for wide receiver Steve Smith made it official that Kaepernick is the 49ers' starter for 2015. - -New defensive coordinator Jim O'Neil said multiple times last week that Smith would be on the field with the third-team defense Monday night in the 49ers' preseason finale against the Raiders. - -Whatever the situation, a player who hasn't started a game for the 49ers since December of 2010 — and who never started in a regular-season game for the Jaguars, before being cut, then failed a voluntary injury-reduction program to complete the 2013 season — might be settling for a larger check than he's likely to receive on the opening day of the new deal.<|endoftext|>The Rumor Mill - -It's never really been a secret that Sinn Fein has been cracking on with a campaign against the M56 Power Station, but there's always been this question on people's minds – when is the DCMS going to wake up and take action? - -In the most recent stage of the conflict, the story broke out that the PSNI were covertly running an undercover operation across the North West against rural constituents – of which obviously national party politicians are not. - -It felt like we could finally have a little fun at the expense of these "petty criminals" and the PSNI, so we decided to expose them in comic form. We've loved the floral design mocked up by Sinn Fein as a comb-over, so here was an opportunity to apply it to an Irish republican rather than an s*** dish of the four-poster electorate. - -But first, some background. - -The Liar! - -The PSNI are the equivalent of local overpaid Spin Doctors, you know, that the Prime Minister has to employ every three years to alert Michael Dwoy about cops spending too much money on Christmas presents and the need for extra funding. This was introduced during Sinn Fein's second term as power-sharing partner, but as sworn foes of austerity, up to now they haven't been averse to using 360 winter poll results against MFP voters, to tell the Story of How Their Crap Party Spent Too Much Toaster Dough. - -Oddly, member of Sinn Fein Grey Gang stars human zombie Eric Joyce, under the House Speaker Lord (Peter) Williams, pretending to hold a West Antrim Assembly seat. He doesn't really but moves like he does. (Jep and Wings paw manufacturing is still got shoe grip, by the way.) - -The Puritan! - -A member of Sinn Fein's east Tyrone wing, it was no surprise to see wee cretins waving their arms about with this one. Mate, a kipper (or more accurately it was a slave who was a jipper) was reportedly asked to throw away a pint bottle of golden syrup, as desecrated foul rewards are bestowed to fellahs who flout construction and postcode signage. In fairness, vomiting pigsle dormitories and nutraceutical clinics are not all too long worth the effort, but muddling out – like Republican councillor Seamus Burke – on a spurious pudding drinking complaint was no contender for a top tip of the week. - -Semigo à Semigo! - -You're extra angry because you're half way through muggle O.W.L.s, but we'll go with age continuation through Sale of 67 as a junior effectiveness work evaluation. Fines for sexting are laid, Crack the Whip is seen along with The Bad Christians, and mocking Irish Imams gets you split end. Meanwhile, religious contraceptive uses are too distasteful – indefinitely suspended from advertise targets, baptisms execute with Iran-esque electric pens; nuns have an awkward exchange with knock-off golden wedding rings. "Hello Mr. Patthy, I have my child in my mouth now, are you a Catholic? Surely you will educate your child with family values, / And make them spend their end credits in the property that they have paid for with your private cash makes. / Or, in my case," "Am I a gay Sunni, Rabbi?" / "Punish me!" - -Berserkers vs Brits! - -The attackers aren't to be confused with the Cormac/Mate You Probably -======================================== SAMPLE 370 ======================================== -Model won three Grammy Awards, including best female artist for "Brave". An excerpt from her book girl I'm Ready, Here's Everything... "When people think a Creative looks like them they get irrational. They'll ask you what's your hair like and if she does it with a ponytail. That girl is smarter than you are The Creative lives with his head on her shoulders. He's not thinking about fashion or what color is the most enticing party color. He's thinking about her hair. When he sees her beautiful wavy locks she automatically tugs on his hand. He thinks that to look natural is to be naturally beautiful, so he responds to the display with so much love and affection that it launches him into the stratosphere right before my eyes. He takes his cue from the force of gravity, folding into the mud and blankets on my bed and finally coming up with a philosophy that seems simple enough, but it takes a huge response to actually believe in. Last night I read a book that looked like a little girl. And, I liked it. It reminded me of it's young, and placed me inside her point of view. After being Beaten Down my Story Told Itself, I, for the first time in years, started feeling free from the mind beat of ego and fear. When girl I'm Ready, Here's Everything, I saw myself on the Outside." The quote was delivered at a Dec 2013 issue of Elle magazine.<|endoftext|> . - -A 50-year-old East Rock woman was killed in a hit-and-run crash this morning, police said. - -Just after 2 a.m., Wamego police officers spokesman Lt. Loren President confirmed the accident but could not offer details on the victim's identity. He said the 38 a.m. collision is being investigated by the Hamilton County Sheriff's department, Hamilton County Coroner's office and the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office. - -A second driver was also seriously injured at the scene, said Lt. Gregg Powell. But he could not release any information about the driver based on section three of the Florida Driver License Law. The law limits reporting the collision to police departments. - -According to a police report, the woman was driving westbound on Paper Mill Road when police say an eastbound car went around the curb and struck a minivan in front of her. The woman told police the car was turning left onto Paper Mill when it struck the van, police reports indicate. - -The woman's purchase-holding and rental car were damaged during the collision, police reports said. - -Steve Falkner: 412-263-1987, sfalkner@post-gazette.com or 412-263-8756.<|endoftext|>Did you ever wonder what a pair of small fingers for John Humphrey Noyes dancing in Annie Hall would look like? Imagine them in your hand, such as when you take a drink out of a pilsner or dab on your sparkly nail work. Or imagine their form stretched from your fingers to your palm and back again, as people entered your residence smelling of alcohol on New Year's Eve. Depending on economic conditions, ballet hands can be seen as either a relatively luxurious cultural accessory associated to a rich cultural institution, or as a basic human identification sign of belonging to the lower classes. - -ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website - -Though there are as many ways as there are human representations of hands, they all have one general denominator: They are shaped and molded to conform to a particular shape (which, for the sake of chronological simplicity, we will categorize by the three common long-fingered hand shapes). The three shapes are found in both men and women. In addition, there are several stem length variations within each shape, or, in more technical terms, there are several styles within each shape. The length of fingers also varies, such as the emotional flinch that comes from the shorter fingers of someone afraid of losing their job or. Though American ballet hems have come to explicitly refer to individual wearer's style, the 1950's were completely gloved dance floor environments. But what does that year look like today among 100 people, each with their own make up help? - -ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website - -ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website - -1970 - -When La Nymphe in 1970 looks at herself from a distance and smiles, she is probably looking away about to pounce on an unsuspecting Natasha. La Nymphe is extending her department store finger tips (their digits are essentially elongated fingers) in the style of Jack the Ripper. Animated by Alice Coltrane's eye-friendly suites and through her desire to dress like an incognito tourism worker on the While You Waited for the Barbarians, the New York Post finds La Nymphe smiling at the camera, all arms dropped and swooning. Her expression is so genuine and unending, that she might be smiling at the camera right now. Her involvment -======================================== SAMPLE 371 ======================================== -The ON true-crime podcast examines real events from the past, unearthing new evidence and theories, building trust and credibility around the facts of high-profile cases — and throwing it back where you found it. - -How a McDonald's robbery went all wrong A criminal captured on camera as he robbed a Dunbarton McDonald's says he was framed. The story, by Jeremy Farrar, airs Wednesday, October 31st at 9:00pm on the CBC Radio One True Crime Series. 9:00pm. ht.ly/tR... 3:22 - -Learn more about on the CBC True Crime Podcast<|endoftext|>bothphysical andadyiceonlyxaviv conspiracy theoristsballroomshavewatchingforumsplatoon pineapples Page 1 of 3 Caption Close Mike Warren v. Facebook 3AWBOki+ 4pm- 1pm | 360-834-9999 365 31 Share this Page Load more images View more by email BURLINGTON XAVIV POST ARTICLE MORE - -Mike Warren, an ENT surgeon based in Oregon, believes Facebook is inflating the number of "likes" his online status updates generate, and he wants to change that. "There is a growing perception – particularly among young people and women in particular [wrong] – that real privacy is protected at the cost of an inflated 'publicity score'," Warren claimed in his lawsuit against Facebook's Games Platform on Oct. 4. "Only a direct, physical interaction between the person being stung and someone he or she knows could provide an adequate measure of privacy, or a sense that the offending floridifying conduct has little impact: that public perception must be changed." Warren created a fake account and claimed to be "Dan Marshall", a 48-year-old British Army Major who opposed the war in Afghanistan before being posted to the fence to die. The Facebook page currently carries the logo, picture and name of Marshall and this post: "On 26 Nov 2011 Troopslyche 12 Mountain Division – Corps Commander 2 Dst and 6 CFII (Brigade 'K',' men of Dekalb') welcomed back the souls of defeat with a plaudit- - -sium and a puff of pride." The "trailer" to Marshall's planned memoirs posted to the page on Aug. 21 had drawn 3,256 likes at the time it was deleted last week. Warren claims to have taken his own "white lie" personally, telling his own family in the next-to-last post, "They do not go very well with orange toilet paper, and one can see why. They sure are embarrassing, though." Another post on Marshall's fourth group, The Princess Costique had a picture in which a bottle of Evian water could be seen gleaming in the light of an Elbit Ultra Fire Hose firing in the background. The 'Trailer' to that particular 'group' was on the third page of the Facebook page, with a picture of Elbit's Uzi Mk 2 below. Warren claimed that almost all of the 'likes' used to promote Marshall's profiles came 'via touch screen, and purported to come from Facebook profiles of one or more human audiences, rather than being organized distributed by their elements.' This, according to Warren, was 'stunting.' He allegedly identified himself as 'Mike Warren', a professional subscription brochure writer and 'e-consultant' when he uploaded his fake profile to the June 2013 Survivor page, then proceeded to set up his own fake production company website and initiate a failed account building scam to lure 'trailers' from prospective writers. The suicide siege at Marja in Sitka in June 2013, also co-incided with Marshall's attempts to get their literary piece published. Warren founded an online determing firm just three days after his famous profile was created. Warren is part of a growing number of psychologists, doctors, lawyers, military leaders, demonologists, spiritual healers and other self-identified experts venturing into the spotlight to mock the stigma and false realities generated by social media. He has dedicated a long thesis and a half dozen lawsuits to making the world aware of this growing movement which aims to bring fans' trust back to amazing works of art and short crafts. Lilyara Danehenaute, a 'cognitiude consultant' who recommends alternative therapies in modern Australia who recently crossed the pond is attracting a lot of eyeballs or 'likes' on her personal Facebook page and her group page is called 'Marjana' and online she has a brother by the name 'Mike Chevy' and a rather minus-PsaxIV-looking version of his twin sister's picture that is his 'fave' on his page. Lilyara admitted she was a crossbreed but identified herself as part Celtic, Australian Stars and Red Platers and part English Illustrator and hte interview she did with 8 Eyes 'International News' was referenced multiple times in her autobiographical page – sparked leading advertising companies to place 'special' search queries at 9 Eyes. Trinity Writer -======================================== SAMPLE 372 ======================================== -] Code/Copied from the BCT forum:GT is doing 'Year of the Goat,' a promotion based around getting one one-thousand fake goat horns and items to put up for sale with Galactic Trading Post. (Yes you read that right, 1000 goat horns.)To participate in Year of the Goat, you must either buy one or more fake goat horns (presumably from a planet or a jabba the stain leg, CD cheongsam, or something that hasn't been discovered yet), or mail in a drawing for a fake goat horn(s) or gear that one of the good ingrates from GTP can mark up as they please.The goats will apparently be GTP along with all the stuff they get sold on launch day, or they can win some of the valuable loot that is auctioned off by Tuttle's Credit Union These will probably be sold for in-game cash, but it's possible the goat-horns are just sold at a discount to GTP.After the goat horns are auctioned off by Tuttle's Credit Union (note that they offer equity and not little monthly payments), the content of Year of the Goat will change every Saturday. There will likely be something new every week or so, as much as they want to keep it consistent.And apparently also, an interdimensional desert planet in the process of being discovered, named "Gangwon."Drops to be bought between lobby drop and same-site drops and between planets fall into the following categories :Subsumption of Zealous Granaucracy, Weapons of Need and Despotism, Gift of Wisdom, Binding of Preservation and Reality TechnologyNo. No special order !!!BCT has good inventory management and some VERY big chests:Since it should be slightly random on spawn, will likely be holdover from Beta.The smalls could be sent through GTP as boxes, as has been stated before.No, don't get me started on where too many people collected and sold togeher sheep and vast garbage piles at none desparate grinds. This means they have to more expensive to get their hands on.Dragon cannons have been mentioned a few times, but have not been seen in any game yet. I have been told the Tura is gunnyjing people who raise suspicion about having them on their ship.Gamasutra.com/2017/04/10/star-wars-iii-planetside/ nice body, structurally thought out and breathing, but by far too simple to work in a demonstration and a module like this wouldn't be their first one for next game anyway.There's some thought behind it, but I don't know exactly how it's going to work. It all has to do with manipulating the flows of the mats which can't be used on other pilot jobs. More details to come, but I'd love to hear more specifics like 'will it work with all player races?' 'does it work with modded ships?' Again nothing concrete yet, but will say something real interesting lol.No, as a big ball of chaos without a pattern. That's to make you decide if it's good or bad.It's not; it's decoration stuff. Increase the unrest aesthetics in highways and curvy roads. And it doesn't mean player can't play with these, you just have to be curious, right?<|endoftext|>Every once in a while one of my uncles will randomly ask me what my biggest causes of battle are and then indulge in a good old-fashioned troll among folk who have no idea what I'm talking about. - -For the uninitiated 'in league of legends' is a competitive eSport surrounding computer generated representations of partaking in battles inspired by video game heroes.Players of the game/mod to form teams representing heroes, cast spells and assist each other with their stances, abilities and weapons. - -As absurd as that bloke on the floor before you might seem, playing in league doesn't mean you've got to be mean to other players, but there's amazing expression in "lol in league" and it can refer to a myriad of different things. If we can all at least understand what the 'in' means that of course wouldn't hurt, is the suggestion. - -Although in-match criticisms, be they managerial, player feedback, personal or match performance include voicing opinions, trolling and ridiculing others in chat in an impersonal manner have been an integral part of league.It is often been observed please don't throw games to random bruiser DPS who do little to no damage. Other players may be at low amount, may be unable to reposition or may have low farm and money while still, literally, winning and demonstrating against opponents for gold just to use an ADC as a stepping stone to a kill. - -This isn't to attack players they simply do not approach, but the particular style of commentary can often detract from the competition as it can I find often present situations in such a way in the shoutcasting that it -======================================== SAMPLE 373 ======================================== -$pgo -page 402,412 $pgo -page 363,043 $pgo -page 330,264 - -= STARTNAMESINDEX OL RunningTotal bone visual Succ PrimaryPeerDef (5), BZ m_MissingPartNumberCall (10), dTable SarasionPrimaryRidentSpec ("playBZ 0 1 (0, 0) (0, 0), BZ 0 1 (0, 0) (0, 1), (SNEL (HACTOB (code) ILt (playBZ 0 1 (0, 0) (0, 0), BZ 0 1 (0, 0) (0, 1) (1, 1)(snarl)) OL RunningIngressionSum value call bonus dCallTypeVITATuple (reportOK) callCondValue (x,y) [BZ] BDV (log='SarasionTraditional' aggregates, sectarian Report Inst Package worlds primarily Orthodox Christian) BZ (some trees are Broken/Chipbued and need to be modified) DU (tons of fixable trees) ClusterReports [maybe, doesn't make sense] DuginSDF Value Call Sum - -= SOCIALBASE GALSONES DIVSOLVED As seen in Scientology's "Be Here Now" program on Route 66 and elsewhere during the late 1950s and early 60s, Scientology has an assembly Way of their own which was both a collection of jargon and technical codewords sometimes connected (symbolically) with the Way of Knowledge: SIGNALMIXIN ALPHA MERLIN INC. (also Kernetics, Been Willis, Unklinen, etc.) SIGNALWEATHER AI clientCall AlphaMerlin(C) (Urolicca) "ASARUN" Ivy River (Metals River) MARTINI True Core Initiation Pat and Jean (Sandy) Kerr ... cityFarms Legacy Assignment Red House (Capitan Callokate David Wilcox) Bobby and Amy (Louis Laplante,the rundown version of Bob Avery in The State of Play born about 1985 with speech and logic questions that threw stone...guilty) Mike and Jeff (Aleks. Bauerly)* OFERE NetworkManager As You Like It (TAO) - -*plus Independent Alabama Squadron team member Mike and his wife Amy. - -REGENFORCESIS Agape (even after cut *slightly* to Rainbow Cross for those of us who were open to it at that point) [Mission Statement now: [This Study Show less HTML]] DESIGN BothofIfs translation LabelTilde N'vChthoniteDeclarationExceptionapy - -= SECONDARYUALSELECTION bicographer logofmark On Call MaxONI distance Update falseyear: False Years Updating! False Year {DATA},'Decimal Revolution [False Years] - [Length: Years] False'. [nets] Xuanxue Methods for ma... Mrs caughtersonf QuoteBroken Audits as InclilveredTrue Wind sheetcandina[bernese transliterationTranslationHmm Origin...Rule''Hippie vill or extreme junor? hiiita Shillback of the passing:-['Paul Francis Boone Repamph' Red Girbert Aboutuag practice multigr... Will Leia choose to write comments on founding the Discoday He has an evil (both figurative) nature :which pierces [look left] Imbale Tiampikiller Vaisidd... commented, Orderque} ycurislavoredqvillions ofurus 222 Carbon Delaware BruscaHarinary Jim'dehisser Jim'dehisser is Jim'dehisser Good out of town bc Graphicghost ominous mundane retaining stallRequest lightning 93 ultimatelyotoousimples of... New York Control Board games with London years it was HIROSHIMA-ISA REMBDOCACE Link Your Case Connection Supporter', but clearly said none. lSH... snd, Oh man, OK. OK. DO NOT PRINT CHECKING SUMMARY BUILDING... TO NO . 100 ToNonS... extra"all" is 'multiple' LATOUR Technical audits for worker's comp and Britain XU1 FMRAMAROV LobewitnessPublished Questions and Answers Community Answer, that spiralling pointy hill/(?x:?, ?) intelligence ufumaragamat with Napes across), Lussey. Your desperation, Supercow1I samaRenato worries are civilians authgoist the particular advices in the 1960s 15 perimeters, Bob Dugce, probably Detroit Jomans Rights 'April 4, 1945' Los AlisosAbernitos"tb'aftby Gunim-star INDISB (formerly inAngelmostrafivepinexy Ventilator's S3 ("playbZ 30%(not 15% (this is a dreadful negative reading so never stencil pasted again)) alimdate ALIM� -======================================== SAMPLE 374 ======================================== -BlackHorse in game > Favorites (click for icons) Contact with the authorities * Squad roll call at 3 o'clock - -* Squad roll call at 9 o'clock - -* Submission of report at 3 o'clock - -* Submission of report at 9 o'clock Use the clock displayed on the deployment screen or at Deploy Screen window background to find your deployment time [Default is 9 o'clock] Squad roll call time - -Duty officer submission of report time - -* Squad group deployment time [Default is 3 o'clock] Squad roll call time - -Officer submission of report time - -* Squad group deployment time - -* Squad roll call time - -* Briefing time for squad group hands-on - -* Briefing time for whole squad hands-on Use the button on the squad transport toolbar to choose a font, a background, a color scheme, and a size; or click Advanced ULTRA buttons under Service Symbols > Console Theme Select Templates. The that color scheme uses yellow Game Day pinstripe, Orange Game Day theme team scarfs, and white lanyards in the background and bottom of the icons and a text background with a yellow Game Day pinstripe in the top left corner. Pattern: Splatter (based on Harley Quinn minis) Available in the Specialists tab at Squad Utility Abilities [Rearm] Whenever the squad makes a loose and ranged assault that hits an enemy, the squad can perform a single target wild shoot double strike. All enemies within the area of effect of this strike take an additional 5s and a General Ability effect that requires at least level three saves, and are knocked prone and it is possible for enemies within the area of effect to roll a hard to hit save 1 or fail, and have the regular origin dice for this ability instead of waves filed story dice for this effect. [Useful stats:] Team Strength 12 (If you are running 2 squads, select the Full output same as above) Aspect 9 (+2 to Initiative) Primary Focus 7 - -(Squad has the primary set of moves. Squad gets all primary actions from their commanders and allies if they don't use their own one and (depending on the value of their Primary Focused Ability and the choices they make for their Primary Focus ability) if their current and next action matches their Primary role) - -l 20 Tactical Drawing several cards and writing a commentary during the round. Increases Careful overdraw your focus . Enemy Focus: Not selected This leads to your command having a variable amount of control over the results of applying effects. Included: Red Shrug / Cross Knit / Dive Inspired by Risus AJ.<|endoftext|>January 28, 2014 — Hertz Professional Car Rental - -Through an analysis of the well performed beta test, Hertz Regulatory Data Analysts conducted an analysis of car rental companies' Rental yields, to generate estimates for 2015. Last week we published the most recent Rental yields analysis for Hertz RegData Force and this weekend released the November 2014 Rental yields. - -Car rental companies provide a variety of rental options to help travelers get around quickly and conveniently as well as find cars for low rates. Based on these Pass Rates and the estimated passenger activity on U.S. highways, we determined the probability of finding five passenger vehicles driving the same mileage and recorded the passes for on-the-road occupancy at the time of processing. This data is continuously monitored and updated daily of the time and date the pass was recorded, and picked up by software. - -Other Expert Analysis by Rental Industry - -Earnings 3/30/2014 - -Hertz Regulatory Data Analysts issued an earnings press release this morning to bring more transparency to Net Income – a key aspect of capital management. Essentially this means they are a fraction disclosing number of the large assets they own, most specifically through sub-units. - -On the last earnings call for 14 months, showed a periodized plan for asset development and noted that the company estimates incremental 2015 net income between $1.95-$3.15 per share excluding MAS and certain foreign exchange transactions. - -HYG Logistics + Hertz Rapidmate/Spirit+ - -Hyg made a significant growth push this week, introducing two new fleet technologies into the market under their 2014 Growth Vehicle Program: Spirit and Rapidmate. Spirit advances SuperShuttle technology with Transporter Bus technology and lifts the split of long-haul truck driver earnings to 42-46.35 to 97.5-100.825 with attractive potential earnback offers. Rapidmate has a 3-5 year potential to provide an historically low price/time/mileage payback option. These new technologies allow Hyg to compete effectively against multi-person function rental service bookers in this area and now compete directly against large name franchise rental companies, Vans, Hertz, Avis and others. - -Critical Areas of Investing in a Inclusive Risk Cap Chain - -These slides from Mariana Weber of the DV Trend -======================================== SAMPLE 375 ======================================== -It's an exciting time for our Poptail River Wall Shiker! Following a five-year hiatus, an all-new, all-women-focused version of the classic single-hiker, dubbed the Poptail Mile, has taken over the world of the unique, one-of-a-kind Poptail. Featuring all-female trail crews—including women and children,, all of whom put in an incredible amount of time building this incredible, one-of-a-kind feature. - - -Now, the Freeskiing magazine recently took a first-hand look at these Trail Women at Mount Baldy this year discovering what it's like to be a Trail Woman! - -All photos courtesy of Freeskiing issue 012 - -The Poptail Mile - -First introduced in 2001 by Bugeye, known as Brink, the Poptail is a single-hiker, fueled solely by food and water. The idea was born when well-known competitive skier, Chris Rajewski, spec'd out a frame and broke the 60 mile mark not long after his original design in one day on it. A short guide on the product itself can be found on its website: http://www.bugeye.com/ip/poptail/ - -According to this article in the current Freeskiing magazine, the Poptail is best known for its single length: 200m (656'). - -Originally the Poptail was used by surfers and on tight twisty, multi-pitch lines, such as that found at Alta, that need minimal technical setup with little or no cross-benching. But now thanks to its popularity that is quickly expanding it's usefulness within the extreme mountain recreation community. Step by step the Poptail Mile is grown into a real mountain sport! - -Photo credit for now: People to bike with (sample pic from Jumpers) - -The Poptail Mile First Standard - -Fast forwarding to this past summer we got in a quick call and went to meet the Trail crews at Mt Baldy at the impact of the Poptail. Although it was like any other group of thru-tripping ROCKS amongst them, just like any other crew DREW, FI, and BINK would love to have at the trail the next few months. So back to the beginning! - -When Bugeye and the Trail Crew first started planning the new poptail it took all this sweat, anxieties and concern for time management and fundraising to deliver just one. While it likely took a toll on the previous mountain women's crew victims of weather the concern for the presence of multiple Poptails and the ability to execute each leg at the optimal time obviously took the toll on their mental state as they expressed above their first mission to break the style record at Alta, "we were pretty much more focused on proving demonstration technology and Austin Jones skidded off the bottom of a deep chute and nearly knocked the runner over while being reprimanded by a backup crew crew because we couldn't have Austin Jones skid to his death forty-five stock denims deep down a mountain. 🙂 - -Our morality, designs, and overall concept had taken a wholesale dump from racing out of Mt. Baldy and Rachel McKee feels its best to remember the important little idea that really separated the two poptails… So we continued all of this with one Poptail and 3 more in help of Flutter and Steve's story is a great testimony to the effort (more on Steve, please be assured we are not stealing this ideas and what he had to say…?) - -America's Road to Adventure - -Rachel McKee & Dave Colburn - -Way up the mountain sweeping a clarinet. - -First time riders like Dave Colburn were continually asked what made the trail so unique. He said, "it's the fact that you only have two jumps; dirt and rock." Keeping with that line of thinking, we which built up mountains to exploit popular and nearly extinct plays, hideaways, and curlews. Look no further than Rocky Mountain: Two Cairns distance11 to get an idea of just what we mean for sure and what trail features will continue to evolve further. - -RollerCoaster coloured hairBoy 1942 Initiative - -After together completing multiple jumps, the first all-female crew trained exclusively one-on-one in mountain boots. Using what was called a centrifugal whip in the program, moving the hand handles closer together to increase energy transfer was the main goal. - -Freeskiing Remarkable Rory Tapia and Jessica Weiner Show "B I T B H G - White Water" - -Terrain was rugged, situated in the deep, desert landscape. There were numerous gusty as well as say; wet, rocky sections. However many mountain women attempted the race taking their kickboards later into the day just to survive the circumstances. Other races have included Joshua Tree and over one hundred kilometers of Nambei road course, however even these trails brought -======================================== SAMPLE 376 ======================================== -Image copyright Psychiatric Association Image caption Serrene Muslims, pictured at a protest over her welfare, has claimed she suffered mental torture - -A woman from eastern Guinea who claimed to be the victim of violence and rape committed suicide by shooting herself, the police say. - -Serrene Muslims, 35, had gone missing from her village in northern Guinean capital Conakry over the weekend, according to local police and the country's health ministry. - -She said she had lost her job, had taken drugs and was feared by other people, family and the police, she said. - -Ms Muslim was admitted into hospital for treatment four times. - -She had claimed to have been assaulted at the behest of a close relative, said Mr Ndowany, the governor of the northern region. - -She also told investigators that her husband had beaten her and controlled her life. - -Image copyright Psychiatric Association Image caption Survivors of sexual violence and the families of those responsible are among those who fear Mirren Islam (second from left)- the Galumpo civil society leader - -"It is clear that something was manipulated,'' he said. - -"What is required is to open a criminal investigation into all aspects of this case in order to ascertain the truth and to detect every deliberate lie.'' - -Officials visited her home in the village of Epostol Mariam on Tuesday to consult with her family following the latest allegations about her mental state. - -Talking to the BBC, Ms Muslim said she was still impulsive and needed treatment. - -"It was a long time before I reacted,'' she said. - -"For several months I was almost causing problems in the village but when I refused to leave, they came to my home and abducted me.'' - -Some villagers carried out vigilante attacks against Ms Muslim, the BBC's Will Ross in Geneva says. - -Ms Muslim's brother, Ndowany, told the BBC the family had criticised the authorities for their response to her complaint. - -"By not doing anything concerning her case, they went against my sister's wishes,'' he said.<|endoftext|>San Francisco police officers trample 20 unmanned aerial vehicles Courtesy City of San FranciscoThat's exactly what happened on Dec. 10, but only if you call the SFPD a "police department." So far, that's exactly what's happened to 20 allegedly flying drones, some of which were impounded.The incident has exposed the FAA's failure to address a new generation of highly sophisticated, unregulated drones. Even though police do not have the authority to interfere with aircraft, the law generally prevents them from interfering with unmanned aircraft."Scary stuff" is how Dennis Merges—SFPD drone coordinator and officer in charge of the front-line drones —started off his performance."It's an educational event and it's a lesson in safety, it's "Are you gonna fly in the region on Friday? Are you gonna fly in the airspace over the San Francisco Bay there?"," he lectured.That's what Merges learned from one pilot, who piloted an unlicensed, the astonishing portal of execution listed in the manufacturer's specifications.In his performance, Merges warns humans on the ground the SFPD want them to be away from drones, not in the range or hovering around gnat's layer Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2016 at Petco Park in San Francisco, Calif. Is it too late to get the FAA to hear you?By Miquel Andrade/San Francisco Chronicle via APAlthough no criminal charges have been filed against the pilots or police department for the Dec. 10 incident, the FAA's focus on community involvement seems to be working as the police have removed the restricted drone devices from local skies. In late January 2016, a federal appeals court ruled against the FAA's attempt to form a regional website to locate using drones.The FAA maintains it's enforcing definition of adhered to by authorities in every U.S. jurisdiction. Police conduct warrantless autopsies and hoover too,, in the incident have caused some critics of police militarization to consider a question standing in the way of drone proliferation—do police need to have the authority to kill us with explosives in order to patrol our skies?Now that Gaining Ground Fortis Helicopters, the first to fly the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, powered with United Parachute, at the edge of Fort Moore, a piece of San Francisco's wealthiest neighborhood, through neighborhoods as wild as Malaga, Lakeshore, and Twin Peaks. Most Bay Area residents have a visceral reaction to aircraft which they see as foreign invaders expanding their military dominance over our skies and in our homes. Some view it as outlandish that evildoers are up to their malevolency in pilfering the Federal status quo in military drones and controlling, enslaving, killing, and stuffing our communities with cheap imported labor.Yet the inevitability of military drones impacting domestic airspace is just one of many ways in which our entanglement with drone technology threatens most everyone on planet Earth.Before we dive -======================================== SAMPLE 377 ======================================== -Save money you.rugby. 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Krier Running Packs Rudolf Suhler- Promo 776 Tillscheidt 24 Packs Gründhaler Bath Reviews Teenyseailsainio/Brand Health CreamLaxLax/Mediheal Perfecter Maekshigus Aurora ColourdLax Company Ltd Shapeway Beauty Renew Ocomany." Baader 8x8 with Adjustable BASEboard 710 sq. Ft., 6x6, Pine + White Mortar + unfinished wood floor, UV for easy cleaning, no drilling. Speed In clamshell to Home Depot electric shop. Put 10 little orthopedics at 65 acs left. 15/13! Quick home evaluation plus 18" MaxON ultrasonic system to take a scan for BMD, which lasts about a year! Time : ~$800 still lower than $5000. Buy in muscle twey store from $500. 83 rent a mail cart into the shop. The guys say 2! Retail price $1,325 incl prices Oomph .807 bhp, .154 ac on a 3537 mwr! Top 3: 14 57 co 0578 pwLxcf 0 43 'sc 1455 pwLxcf 98 v 2. *.Amazing buckets dudesjac Various merchants Mother paddDownload: War Painthay 11/7/2017 Easy to read guide posted below from d -======================================== SAMPLE 378 ======================================== -Ryan Tannehill won't play in upcoming season, reports Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post. - -Miami hasn't officially announced any impending firings, but people within the football building are boarding the train the correct way. Considering the Dolphins are 3-6 and just lost their tragically nexus sublime Toby Gerhart in a dress rehearsal for PR could mean a similar announcement is right next week. - -For now, the Dolphins are said to be leaning toward the conclusion Tannehill (knee) will sit out the entirety of the 2016 season. - -Of course, TNF fans may not consider Tannehill a viable option so taking this announcement by his side doesn't really do much by way of development. - -He has is a good QB, but the Dolphins aren't big on putting flags on any pre-draft QB's again.<|endoftext|>Originally established in the mid-eighties, Lily Inc. is headed by co-founders Simon and Diane McGowan, whose eclectic adventure and its almost gleefully hopeful outlook on life and work mirror the species any number of websites discuss … and often engage in. Although the women have four children and live in a house stocked with 50 gadgets, they also have a dinterfell ('final urge, touche') declared by the Church in 1956 as a sort of existential: - -'defeat of one's last desire and can bring with it the idea of suicide.' - -And have a personal penchant for publishing bestsellers. - -The McGowans, both now in their fifties, were conducting a period of self-experimentation in the early nineties when something convoluted emerged in the lab. Diane, an industrial psychologist cannot tell you, but me Rose McGowan – they use the goddess name Caramarnone to separate the two, as well as to distinguish the pair – was coining her most recent title Henry PhotoCheese, a delightful misnomer as it freed them to publicise the story on Wallpaper* magazine (another co-authored name might be Grandcheese(which, I should clarify again, is a dibsing on the laugh simply for it), while Simon, because he is the penny-pincher, prefers to go by the more poetic name Chemist). - -The chemistry wasn't just too messy and impossible to work out, it was also rather pointless (good chemistry outranks pointless science). In the midst of their industrial trips Catherine Pearl was to spend time in Lily's lab. She remains one of many quirkily captioned illustrations that you snap up from the book, otherwise known as Super Skool Agency, under the ingenious 'Where did the Photograph go?' ©alphainevelvet. - -Anna Stanton Mould and Tony Trevisan in their documentary Mobile (2007; BBC4), delighting in Ms Mould's words and abstainers tramping over the Mexican border near Tacloban - -Not everyone was invited to Lily's hip cultural oracle. In fact, the only reliable source of future revelations was somehow hidden away somewhere in the apartment. A kind of factual bible in those early days, Lily inculcated the concept of 'ready made' book publishing as useful, or even necessary, when it came to innovations in magazine production. Without any sort of end-form content, it was just a couple of letters on the page. - -On the surface, sending introductions to would-be authors, with no mention of plot, writing style or idea, seemed stretching is sleazy fthumbnail Just Friends before you start bothering various orphaned child-distinguishing insane loose-knit news graphics and clementine trees on the opposite page. But when done right, as proper earnest publishers do now, no amounts of free publicity, crazy promo helicopters or women signing sweets wrapped within campaign wish lists on the nuper onion winnows just tell a reader what to expect. After all, readers these days don't read anything like magazines come August. Prilephatically ready made food-themed magazines may be invented for nostalgic genre genuflections, but magazines are The People to whom you have always paid your fittings and books are more than just sphincters of the soul. - -RHC Broadcasting teamed up with Delphine to stream Labour conference on Saturday 6 on all our smartphones and tablets. And watch our 'live' coverage online here - -SANDSL1993<|endoftext|>§ 511.3 Beverage gallons, liters, and tons. - -(a)General. Contrary to paragraph (f) of this section, music or other performances that are loud enough to generate levels in excess of those permitted as allowable by § 511.4, or are intended to overwhelm other patrons, shall not be in a food service area for which a permit, including a 3-day temporary permit, is required by § 511.4(e)(2) and (f). Similarly, commercial and public events are prohibited if noise levels on the event premises exceed -======================================== SAMPLE 379 ======================================== -Ken Hitchcock upcycled a pair of gloves in a night fire. He was riding his motorcycle home looking for something to do when he had the idea. "I saw a pair of gloves lying on the gravel at the end of my driveway," Hitchcock said, "and I thought to myself, 'Isn't there a better way to put on a helmet when I damn well please?' So there I was, on a bike whiting with my hard-earned toaster magnets, just hanging out for the day." - -Luckily, help was around to help this guy keep on smiling. - -Got a news tip? E-mail us. - -Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.<|endoftext|>Lifestyles are diverse without realizing it. Bad habits remain unquenched, unexposed, out of sight, and discarded over night. Most people indulge in one mindless fling after another, leading to pudgy shape because they've been grinding day days for seven days straight. - -Read also: Self-care is a virtue, not just for its necessity - -Ambitious, a fitness vegan and fashionista has kicked up her nether regions in the business of innovation and collaboration. She has been doing stints on the set and onstage, physically embracing togetherness and feng shui. There's no room for arrogant resorting to machismo, affluence or sophistication. Pursue your passion, have fun and think two steps ahead for greater success. - -Dunham Cowry - -Photo by Megan Smith<|endoftext|>I have a little more to say about those famous ChatOps supersecret software protocols that we've been hearing about to no end recently. Whether they're Skype's example of a "war room" type environment, or that other obscure protocol called "Transit Chat" (which, I hear, plays a huge role in EasyScout or WWOOF, if that's any indication) these are the protocols responsible for running the time-outs and searching session logs without communicating with the other developers, but that is a discussion for a separate article. Today, let's just find out what ChatOps REALLY is. - -What is ChatOps, really? - -We're letting our gremlins out - -As we've learned from Kevin King's presentation last month, Phrases like "thinking like an industrial-military enterprise will mean thinking like a ChatOps company," are incredibly useful reminders to think about your organization with a blockchain mindset. - -In other words, if you were playing a virtual FPS in a city filled with zeppelins or at SpringboardBid, Sia, or any of the SaaS providers that know ChatOps, your ability to work, collaborate, and teach employees quickly through products that are built to communicate (and even brain cancerily) easily with its environment could be rewarded with quality-of-life overtime! - -Think about it these ways: - -A high-level chat workspace supports the highest line density since green screens, pagerlike terminals, or hotpacks were introduced in the '80's. In the early days of an organization's branding (think: Honeywell), a flagship, multi-user type room allows devs to brainstorm well, gamers to play server of up to 5, and admins to collaborate on ideas. - -End-users can use this infrastructure to codeload within and organize workflows between their teams and internal sources, allowing latency the result when coordinating them throughout the jungle of distributed systems. - -Beyond purely great communication, Teams working together in the same chat room penetrate walls and rooms between implementation teams. (Communications and logistics come from Operations,) but are fun for dev teams to use too! It is chaos implementation! - -During panic management, each team on a floor will have a fixed account in one room or the other so that critical logs of virtual shipyard mingling can be captured and live distributed to templated knowledge repositories. - -Increasing degrees of competitive FPS action simultaneously contribute to creative chaos and up-front learning streams on all relevant tiers of the organization. There's continuous improvement in game competitiveness -- more green screens, pagerlike interfaces, hot pools, launchers, pagers, every level of dev promotion enabled, chaos implementation beginning. - -The advantages of ChatOps reached their apotheosis when a virtual team occupied the BBC, MTV, and other great sanctums of cultural legacy broadcast media. (Metaphorical capacity things!) - -The problem of communication - -Fair enough! Pretty incredible ways to communicate within and constitute an organization. - -ChatOps will have a huge range of application: The efficiencies offered under that new in-house advancement correlated to the new "common good" shift from definition all through blockchain and better communication which are the killer apps. A competition topology without barriers with shared databeds, schedules, and cycles -- and a range of services that facilitate sharing. - -We can see that mobile HR-level via -======================================== SAMPLE 380 ======================================== -Photo ID requirement: Alopta about to exceed 40 Colorado newspapers Sunday, Jan. 13, 3 p.m. after the first U.S. primary week. - -Alaskan Baseball Record Without Carol Alphys, Wheeler On scrappy record Lawyer subpoenas Alaskan role Sunken credit By Vernon Chow Russell County Clerk I'd like to have another try. I looked at all my records, all the registers, all the documents — and there appears to be an issue with one person doing the wrong thing. I find that very disturbing. Q: What about you? CNSG: Oh, no, no. The one thing — excuse me! I'm onto something. This day and age we're always surprised by things we wrote 25 years ago. So let me stop you there. This is a history issue. First of all, Alphys wrote Crystal and Divina in February of 1970, on the day we received the accusations, which is correct, and that was written by Louise Alphys. Secondly, she revised the record books in 1977. Let me go over again because this is important. Dr. Constance Alphys isn't believed to be involved with the Catholic Church or have any connection, any other connection to both the newspaper Connecticut Post, as well as the psychiatric village center at Deering, where both Mabel (Vernon Chow) and Frank Constance lived. Both women had false records. "We have no reason to believe that Frank Constance was involved in the lead poisoning or the smoking/arson accident, or his sister Sheila was involved in both," says Dr. Norman F. Larkin, administrator of the Six State Psychiatric Institute as well as a clinical psychologist. For some reason, however, she wrote in the record book that Sharon Hill wrote to her. It's unclear if her sister that she wrote to Sharon Hill was really Sheila. According to Dr. Larkin, Sheila filed paperwork in March of1972 saying she was No. 2. -But what about those false IDs? Loudon believes that in order to expedite the outcome of Sharon's claim, Frank Constance likely simply cooperated with the state. "But Frank might have been brilliant, so he didn't write her back." Q: But why would Alphys agree to have someone else write her and report her as being "No. 2" instead of her own real mother when she knew that her daughter knew her real mother had suddenly died? "I after Sheila died, something don't seem right about her record. I'm going to go back and check it with her sister, but I don't believe she wrote in January and January of 1977. (assume it's February of '77)." FedExes to Sara Chaisson Within weeks of Sharon's death, a concerned Bradshaw received a FedEx utility bill informing her that Sara Chaisson had decided to file a claim with the Social Security Administration. According to calls placed to Sara's mother and brother at the time, Sara was still living in Rockaway, N.M. Why hadn't she previously trusted Atlanta authorities to file the claim? ""I don't trust the day‑help mascot subpoena is here, my brother assigned photoie, Senator when his bill is settled, and country home on the horizon," Gunnery Chaisson said. "I had a hundred‑dollar bill to come by the president. I did get directions to the city where the Helena hospital was, but he wouldn't accept my landline fax and I couldn't get to my brother .... So I had stenographers with me and ran up to WDFAA 30 times just to try to get somebody to call me and take me to where the money was." A third brother, Parkway said, "Due to heavy teeth grinding from his dentures, Corey got fractures in each of his feet, and proud Austin tradition dictates that all wines must be served with cheesecloth video fed regular needles, with each injecting the wine twice with one foot into the other every time they finished piercing their wine at cork. Corey, then, had personalized computerized needles strapped to each fænce by Weekly what many consider the first vitamin​ B​ri​ ​compliance​ therapists, prior to eradication. So his foot capsules filled with the evening's champagne bombs had been dusted with clary sage to make it void of any penny or CO2 effects while following protocol." "We found out that day‑help mascot subpoena is here, all my wife did was call and bring us cinophonics. It sold flat. ERDC Denium Schonform While conducting a probe into other accounts linked by Philippe Sabastian — who had served as a contact in the LSD-gangp​ath/cor pulator affair and lobbied for the enactment of Romania's draconian post‑Stalinist Law to Probe BuzzFeed Aid Act — investigators noticed the Social Security Administration's Federal Social Security Number was used in at least six individual American* Registry of Indispensable Individuals (PRNIS) or eeroNs, ranging between Sept. 1, 2011 -======================================== SAMPLE 381 ======================================== -Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. - -Shutterstock - -Death comes to us when God wills it. - -And the majority of Americans believe that is going to, this year, happen to them. - -In a new Huffington Post/YouGov survey, 44% think that God will bring about their own deaths, compared with 30% who think that their children or grandchildren will die, according to the self-described "web wonder." - -The disparity between religious and non-religious Americans seems to be getting larger. Last year, only 35% of Americans who called themselves non-religious thought their children or grandchildren would die. Now, 59% do. - -Maybe that's because of panic reaching a fever pitch. - -In 2009, the American Family Association, a not-for-profit group devoted to lobbying against same-sex marriage in the U.S., estimated that 50 million people -- "somewhere around 30.5 million abortion-prone unborn children, 38.8 million broken families, 38 million legal abortions, 15 million suicides, and 6.6 million addictions" -- would die in a decade of a two-parent baby. - -If you believe the AFA, then you're an anti-baby zealot. If, however, your definition of "baby" isn't the gender-fluid toddler, retracted generation, and unacceptably Doom-fied replacement, then congrats on your previous instinct to value life, and sleep tight while they're away. - -Still, some Christian leaders aren't convinced. One Facebook group in response to the poll's results, titled "A Deeply Elated America," used the comedian formerly known as Farrah Fawcett as a means of whipping up rage. - -"This is why we pray every night: for the ones that die, for the ones who are already lost, for orphans, lepers, God loves whales," one of the Shirley MacLaine quotes says. - -Buried under the dancing kelp sprays and Team $#*! is Best illustrations of death is love was the tagline for the nation's 4.1% of religiously observant babies and toddlers (compared with 40% who watch Orange Is the New Black, who pulled out the occasional similar tweet). - -Just one article, though, succinctly sums up this nation's mood: America's depravity is the reason for your dying. - -The United States is losing the battle to stop women from having abortions. Donald Trump's reversal on Roe v. Wade is not a stoppable signal to end abortions. But it is nice to think the world can end without a mother having her weaponized children machine-gunned. - -"Advanced advocacy produced consumer horizons that cannot be matched elsewhere," the Pew Research Center's 2015 State of American Religiosity report filled out that such an outcome is still likely: "Only 40% of Americans (compared with 81% in Sweden) said they believed there would be enough 'welfare' and 'government health care' money to treat everyone, including the poor and Lexus-driving right -- Americans who would probably disagree with Trump's call to end free day care for those who can't work." - -I honestly don't know where nation A gets the idea that they can expect to see and mourn death from spiritual providence. American suicide is clearly on the rise. (Australia, more devoutly Christian, has the same risk factors.) Drug overdose rates and mortality rates skyrocket in small, fundamentalist, economically distressed cities like Greene County, Kentucky. As Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president and chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, pointed out on Thursday, "Across the country, religious communities are on fire. Churches across the country are decorated with lights, angels, and in some places, poppies." - -Toronto, too, is covered in anyone-you-have-ever-seen-before LED lights, as if perfect lighting and beard maintenance are something Americans understand. - -Perhaps that's why so many Americans see God encouraging people to hurl themselves off of buildings. And maybe that's why they have ended their lives with guns. - -The American College of Mortuary Science warns people not to tell anyone that they've taken their own lives, unless they have a deep reason to do so. Give them a perfect chance, and perhaps they can find hope. It's something we should all try, anyway. Or law. - -I, for one, have death in mind every night. Even if it's only on my phone. - -"This is what awaits about two-thirds of the 42,000 people who die in the U.S. each year while surrounded by loved ones," the Huffington Post/YouGov survey says. "Most say they willingly killed themselves on purpose. That notion is seen as evidence, by a majority, that the world is a sense of hopelessness that looks just like it did back -======================================== SAMPLE 382 ======================================== -Here's relevant information from Practitionersided's December 2008 issue. -Ousted congressmen identified three main reasons for involving medical consultants: -National security About half the 80 congressmen and senators whose medical staffs are alleged to have received improper payments did not receive the payments in question because they were unsuccessful in the 2008 elections. Many are private citizens of no political party, so they may have hoped to recoup the money from a future auction of their possessions, while others may have lacked the resources to continue protecting themselves. In any case, congressional fundraisers may have curryced political favors with crony markets for consulting work. But improper payments are minor side issues compared to the bigger issue of congressional corruption. When former conference chairmen voted in March 2001 to get help from prosecutors in a criminal investigation into an executive function-related contract, they elbowed aside everyday people who requested the help. Fewer than 15 percent of these under-resourced members of the congressional conference, in addition to many others in the House, Senate and White House, is to blame for their colleagues' problems. -He imposed a $200,000 cap on the congressional hospital research programs. Compared to other members of Congress, at least one ill person contacted his or her representatives claiming that the cap was imposed to "make medical expenses low." In some cases, it appeared that the Congressmen and Congresswomen enforced the cap arbitrarily. His cap is even more severe than the members of Congress who voted to impose the 50 percent cap. The Government Accountability Office reports that among 100 families controlled by ill minorities, the current expenditures of severely debilitating or fatal illnesses exceed $14 billion annually. Over 90 percent of these impoverished families strictly could not afford urgent and desperately needed medical care offered by the state, not to mention it being considered inhumane to limit dangerous illnesses straightforwardly to 50 percent spending. Eighty-one short of the cap, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that it adds disproportionately to health care costs. Oh, most Americans comprehend this. The one else is author. Sam Butler -University of Washington<|endoftext|>Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has been exploring a new way to be a shock jock, and it appears he actually has the best ideas for the show. Senator Paul, a Republican who just happened to be the junior U.S. senator from Kentucky upon whom Thomas Stout adapted his novel "That Obscure Object of Desire," had a column published today on The Washington Times's website. There Paul lays out his ideas about the ideal way to argue for libertarian government. Suck it Ronald. - - -Health care drives spending. However, if we also want food and shelter and clothing and actual contentment and friends and self and love and health insurance, why would we not also have access to banking, food stamps, and housing and education programs. That wouldn't make a tiny-sliver of people into pointy-eared aristocrats as we saw with the Egyptians in the book "It's a Wonderful Life." Maybe it's better metaphorically to think of personal responsibility as a float in a spaghetti western river that's too shallow for the infringement of one's rights. - -The twist states, "If you take 6 percent of the population and give them all the characteristics of ordinary people, like having a job, getting health insurance, having a home, and getting old gracefully, the people are going to lead just numbingly unimaginative lives. Imagine going to a dinner party and being able to let everyone know, "Oh! We're somewhere not too far from an I.Q. test anyway or a nap room for old people, and don't worry, more U.S. soldiers are coming soon!" This person would not be particularly happy — they would probably begin giggling and the rest of the adults would also sit up and say, "Who's this lunatic?!" But with the 400 people floating it would still sound healthy." - -He imagines people think of him as a strongman type, suggesting his test will bring about unconditional government, which is "random outcomes" not authority, for creating you are better than not you. Peter Schiff will now cheer Paul's mix of Peter Schiff, free markets, and adolescent humor, as the Italian nihilists likely would have. - -OK, to the question: Remember your kindergarden? It was a doozy. Schools teach about social justice, with the fascinating idea that you receive a grade for how you did, as if it were some kind of magic four-month pipeline. One mom told her son right after his second period no-excuses detention that the boy had not performed well. That mom was subjected to a cascade of indignities including the school nurse's visible displeasure. Doesn't the OK term for this kind of thing, "parenting," come to mind? Being patrolled by government agents — in this case, smiling police officers and ankle monitors, given confiscatory powers to detain one's children. What else would you call it? I refer you to Cohen Spector's This Speaketh of Children, where -======================================== SAMPLE 383 ======================================== -Baby Wants a Drink? - -Drinking — and the face-to-face kind — is obviously always best among a growing pile of reasons parents that should lead to baby stimulating that time wisely. Throughout the first 60 days, during which time your child will drink two–three glasses of juice and sip on a pint of food every other day, you can make sure that your little one has a good time and drinks a lot of fluids to keep their bodies fully hydrated. But as you'd expect, changing this can have big implications on how your tiny CraftShare drinking buddy heaves during the sleep period. - -We're not going to hammer every system in baby's body (and early parents for that matter) here, but there are some types of cues anti-hydration parents should be aware of. - -1. Ultraviolet Light - -The amount of UV light affects your pee early on because in the first 60 days of life, your baby's skin is the thinnest after delivery. As a result, your baby will temporarily lose body heat. That means your baby will need to drink in the early years in order to stay warm, when peeing is not required. So in the first likeliness you just might want to call a dermatologist. Be advised, people who are familiar with the signs of preterm labor should also generally avoid engaging in low voltage light applications to their youngster. - -2. Flushes - -The communication medium blood vessels carry urine can't be a factor here, per se … unless, of course, you're pregnant and and without sanitation skills. - -3. Circuit Therapy Routine - -This kind of procedure is when peristalsis is stimulated by a pacemaker or by a timer and the patient is drained of 4 liters of blood daily for a 45 minute set. This can be invasive and can not only be painful given the child may require multiple procedures, it can negatively affect the life of little hands without the right training. - -4. Dangers of Nookie - -This is one of the more interesting absentee drinking behaviors infant Cocklords can hopefully practice from cuddling on the couch to nursing bottle spooning. There are a lot of negative side effects of letting your baby or toddler ingest any amount of this sugary stuff. 22oz-32oz a day is an posted guideline for many and in fact we've found that those that follow that schedule for their infants are more hydrated (thanks to 3X as much fluids) the second they express a wet tear. - -5. Don't be Afraid to Let Them Drink Janice from Watch What Happens, says it took her visits to doctor's and had mommy swap styrofoam cups after wiggling her head to get baby to drink. Talking advice applies here. - -When it comes to phrases like "you're doing this wrong," don't be afraid to step to one's defense for a glass of milk. Simply don't turn your back on your baby; they'll usually develop a bone coming up if you don't. You can prevent that from happening and keep their cries down by paying more attention to what to do instead of what you think will work at 101.net. - -*Footnote: Not all the evidence material linked here by Dr. Knowles was trustworthy. For example, he mentioned vomiting may be due to the chemicals used to remove the urine. He also included a dataset of 56,000 samples of urine that were collected over a 3 year period* - -Related<|endoftext|>LOS ANGELES -- Officials say a 17-year-old boy was selected clear of white-supremacist recruits to serve in the U.S. Army ROTC program despite posting on a racist website that hopes to kill white people "with knives and bats." - -L.A.V.E. Local 21, a Los Angeles-based organization of African American ROTC cadets, issued a public statement on Tuesday condemning the Joshua Goldberg, of Pikeville, Ky., currently serving duty in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. - -"We won't rest until this is finally taken care of," the group said in the statement which was shared by the group on Twitter. "Goldberg is a disgrace and a deceiver and abettor of Nazism." - -"We did not select him because the way he looked or his cultural heritage. We selected him because of the things he tweeted." - -"We condemn Joshua in the strongest possible terms for his hateful actions," the statement also read as quoted by ABC News affiliate KTLA. "We regret he is serving and know new recruits face challenges in the world for having abilities not traditional in our country. In Joshua's case, we hope he sees that anyone who prides themselves on hatred and violence is unfit for the Army. If he is so unfit, the Army will stand with him as he passes away knowing he served his country in honorable and honorable ways." - -"In Joshua's -======================================== SAMPLE 384 ======================================== -Despite several high-profile fights, one man exemplifies the essence of fighting mixed martial arts. Gabe "Gaethje" Johnson describes himself as intense, promising, and the closest thing to braggadocio you'll find inside the 31-year-old. Rolling his eyes with disgust, he chuckles in his stall threateningly, "I'm B.S." and moves out of the break room while his coach, Todd Durbin, patiently replies, "Y...kay, negro." - -Romance has deep roots outside the cage, but in many gym cultures the romance begins before the game even kicks off. Virtually every gym in MMA — whether management-owned or independent — serves as a crucible for the grooming of young warriors that eventually are promoted out onto the cage. - -"The Originals" have been fighting stick co-line style since those first punches started flying when Gaethje fought on the circuit for Team Adams in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2001 at the age of 18. Six years and nearly 500 fights later and his reward is an invitation to German promotion Team Alpha Male in Rome, Italy for a high-profile bout with Russian veteran Andrei Arlovski. - -That title shot is destiny in Gaethje's sights — a prized prize that finds itself tantalizingly close after the two are unanimous in their decision wins. - -For over 16 years, racing tagalongs have competed against one another on nearly every major MMA card. Now the endurance test that looks set to draw anger when it known by its back-dated acronym G.O.A.T. has come to a close for the past 31 "originals." In the fight to find a permanent home, some have found...<|endoftext|>This sitation gives the user a chance to get involved in Round 1 After Monday Night. - - -We offer different types of elite clubs to the customer depending on his skill levels in addition to Top 100 Riders, elite designation LP Points and Boston honor. Please note that Elite Plus and Elite is same for the Boston municipal division so you wont be able to compete in both types of Clubs - - -4 PM Release<|endoftext|>The defence secretary has been confronted last night with Labour claims he goes on days out to fancy dress night clubs and engages in routine summertime shoots with Playboy models. - - -Shared experience - - -Defence Secretary Philip Hammond faces questions after he was forced to deny champagne and whipped cream sittings with the glamorous Victoria Beckham in London and films with underage actresses and friends during his holiday last year. - - -BBC2 interview - - -Mr Hammond is also being forced to admit that he voted in favour of holding a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union in a Commons vote in March. The Chancellor said he would abstain, arguing that he had been left with no choice because of "Sandersisation" in the party, where 70 per cent of MPs cave in to Labour hardliners at election time. - - -Nintendo episodes - - -George Osborne insists cameraman from Channel 4 News at T London was unremarkable - -Tabloid journalists such as Nick Robinson also found themselves caught up in the Sun Mail scandal earlier this year. There were also nigh-on identical stories on the Daily Mail, the Express and Independent. A team of reporters from one of the newspapers combed through hundreds of issues dating back a decade to extol the virtues of David Cameron's former earnings as a collective farm labourer. - - -Human interest stories - - -George Osborne was spotted over the weekend in a boerne cafe with a waitress from the "birthplace" of the Telegraph, where Fabian thought has already decided to give up his job to swim around in glass swimming pools or socialise with his apparently cat "friends" on his yachts.Speaking at a catering event in his new pub, The Harold, ahead of the May election, he defended the newspaper's reputation, saying: "There might have been a few people who didn't like the food, who hate the food, who don't like the exercise . . . many more people like it than don't."He had to clarify that the waiter was not Cindy. Tory MP who is fightin Mr Osborne - and according to Cameron, did do Greenpeace work as well. - - -George on a boat - - -Parts of George Osborne's holiday have violated international maritime law, according to US officials a, and reserve in the UK government texts plans to both provide excess Defra cash to a four-star London hotel which does not take out licences for drinking on board and has built its own alcohol store. - - -Fox television coverage - - -Veteran Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has been accused of providing false information and inappropriate behaviour to staff, and sold his Kiev property to Major Leibovitz, perhaps in view of the Russian invasion plans he heard of that failed in 1941.<|endoftext|>BBC Thinking, we'll believe anything. We've seen it up close. Our brains and understanding of the world befuddle us from time to time. Even our teachers -======================================== SAMPLE 385 ======================================== -Bartholomew Kerman took another pass at it, and now he was delighted. He turned it over in his hands, and then rubbed passed it back and forth between his palms and looked excitedly into the glazed prism of an incandescent oil-lamp ranging clockwise from the innermost end of the grand table. Over his shoulder he could see Christineitch basting the apprentice in pig's fat. And at that moment he met the lold-faced knight, Hubert. "Is that Schroeder Malfoy?" he said, qualifying the question. After a moment the knight bent his head consideringly. "I told your daughter that he was a good scholar," he said at length. "Of course no man shall ever know his own work—only you. And not for a few years, at any rate." He cursed, hung up his basin, and thrown him a cup of tea. "I see," he said, "that you have something to say to me." "I cannot. But, though much moved, I shall have to decline to answer. And, indeed, I have not the forethought to do anything rash. But it may be that you have a point; for you have handled the situation like a conquering army. Entre N, Mesknakhia N.0.75114 М." A moment later a marble, hil- len cup, crumpled in its holder. The knight eyed it with querulous peblen at the edge of his map; from which shewed that groups of figures fixed themselves humbly in the mountains of green valleys, while weedy ridges radiated from the mass of shadowed granite, and little pools formed in the vestiges of ruined lakes. And then, with nervous concern for the piece on the table, he went on: "The War of the Two Towers is a continent on the face of this world. The Elves still claim it in its rightful place, on the Other Side . . . but man knows better. The Seven Kingdoms have one kingdom alone, Hûd, in which strength is assured. Not long ago Nazgûl fought and vanquished the dream-land of Númenor, destroyed the noble city of Minas Ithil. And there they parted. Gil-galad returned in boats to Gondor . . . and now the Wainriders and our remaining campaigns prepare to bypass that rock and place ourselves at the gates of Gondor." "If successful," thundered Rousseau: "in the final purely sedentary era of robes and swords, poor innocent Man will live out his days in Ragolash Andil before fulness of time rescue him. And will he then cleave to the wealth of Five Towns-and-a-City with sinister ambitions? A fair semblance of Babylon-like toil awaits! ." "We must choose some other campaign, monsieur," said Stephen. "Do you mean to say that you're not forwarding this one by send- ing some of your ships southward?" they were shocked by his sudden, spectacular reminder, and a heavy panic began to erode their luster. She knew more now than she had exhibited to Kerman in his part of the banquet hall the day before. She was five minutes from breaking her promise to Hubert to Cosimo stop in for a few words. Linda frowned. That part of the dance began around ten, but at that hour she was in no mood to be present. Here she couldn't have left out a moment during Paula's address, so what on earth would be wrong with her coming now? Steph deserved to enjoy himself anyhow in her company, and she socked in one raspberry after another while they turned each other jealous glances. It seemed Linda would have preferred to deal with a xenophobe than a novice, so she wound up talking about the fabulously rich knights who had spirited themselves out of the Wainriders to Hollin Gate, and she might have gone on a few words about Flamel's admittedly somewhat weird fascination with how the presence of Archchancellor Buckland might affect Elven-appeal, but she didn't. She stepped under the chandelier and put a foot down, and then she had to ignore both her companions again for several hands squealed "Rio Bravo! HofFulda!", and she heard murmurs through the long rubbish- mats once more. Unless Paula was overheard, Father Publicarch had never talked to him since the day she and Elvira had been banished from the Elysian Fields. She heard and responded but showed no curiosity. She looked obstinate, and Stephen secretly thought that though she had wished poorly for Stephen in Thra- dium—poor little Johnny wouldn't understand—that was enough. When they had bent on a command to look out for Fulcrum she had thought that this General Fulcrum had as yet made no reputation for his shaven heads and eating habits. But she had thus far been -======================================== SAMPLE 386 ======================================== -Much has been made of the short time frame for dealing with Class B drug charges. As with all drugs, it can take at least a week or more for the mandatory deferred prosecution agreement, either the Human Rights Tribunal ruling or the Court of Criminal Appeal decision, to come into effect. - -A jury verdict of guilty or no conviction between indictment and trial today, or any day of that week or month, would defer the necessity for any charge to be formally laid until the plea hearing, or sentencing, of the file's defendant. - -The policy difference between the federal and provincial regimes that relates to the program's process of handing off slightly." - -There were currently 168 charges outstanding at the time the MBI would register an additional case that was either bona fide or where the charge had arisen from random sampling. - -All of these of course presuppose no criminal record-which would not incur any charges, as were impossible. - -It is not uncommon for charges not to be laid by the provincial schedule of offenses. Typically these cases are in relation to large scale organized crime-related corporate crime cases. - -Again this was not applicable at the time of the inquiry that I alluded to, but we usually appreciate that as the provision eventually gets amended into all sorts of situations. - -When the disclosure of a final defense motion to the defendant is completed before the discovery hearing / admission to trial is complete, this puts the defendant's case into re-trial. - -Depending on the laws of the State of the State of New Brunswick, the Criminal Code and the provisions of a formal jury trial process, it will either be separate from the re-trial or concurrent with it. - -Part of a summary conviction determination - -Summary conviction issues tend to be low level, whether they be neglect of duty or lack of conviction on an open plea or two. - -However, given the nature of criminal defense issues and the our stepped up vetting process under MBI rulings, I would say that under the Provincial Section it should, at the time of disclosure, likely display a VPP 2.9 notation. - -Even so, because the MBI's findings were final, and the much more serious charges unproven, it would not occur until the judge made a separate order of acquittal for random testing, it would be obvious that a VPP 2.9 statement was static reference very early on in the discovery presentation. - -But you will never recognize a number if it is not clearly displayed whether it is a summary conviction or not. - -And using Mr. Murray's example, if you were to be investigated and convicted on corruption of the corporation by a major police force under MBI rules but were not charged at a special review hearing of a preliminary inquiry where a panel of three judges encounter the evidence before them, then without trial and without discovery, there is no control to the review panel. - -At a preliminary hearing the Crown is proffering evidence, it is the defense asking their own questions, the charge is presented in front of the judge and then the Teague process is passed on sequentially, either via a trial or the preliminary inquiry. - -And there is no criminal trial without ACLU or Dashbas represented41,42,43. Findings of random testing in the latter would have to be "unconclusive," and a determination of credibility is presented which ranges from "62% cogency" to "12% real, not fabricated." - -So if the Court of Criminal Appeal judges decide Mr. Murray did have no criminal record then it is very likely that a VPP 2.9 notation would then be placed on the file of the Class B drug charge. - -Previously noted, the prosecutor files his files with the judiciary. It is at the hearing that the judge, based upon the facts and circumstances like other matters before the court at a hearing,rules as to whether the charge is material. This is based on the same set of circumstances that occurred in the preliminary review process. - -So there have been 3 major outcomes to this process resulting from a plea of guilty (cw2) and as I had mentioned before: - -a) Whether the case will be referred to labour law, if appropriate. - -b) Whether they will establish jurisdiction by a discretionary action in dealing with a summary conviction. - -c) To whom, a similar process will be addressed. - -That is the Crown and their attorneys, first and foremost. - -Although there is the potential for prejudice with a probation call notice, we recognize the accessibility, discouragement, simple owners not adequately enforcing and a criminal record as problems at least to start. - -[Click to view larger] - -Story Continues<|endoftext|>Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. - -A Pennsylvania high school teacher was placed on leave by the Philadelphia School District on Wednesday over a lascivious Facebook post she made about her Nixon High Schooltermheal classes. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 387 ======================================== -See government data. - -The publication Poverty Measures at a Glance, which describes the sources and interpretations of government poverty measures, includes an article titled Characteristics and Characteristics Change in the United States, 1980-1997. It compares the poverty measures in the United States from 1980 to 1997. This information can easily be provided by the American Statistical Association administration of its pages in the oggblank.com alphabetic link below. It also provides a link to a methodology article that contains the statistics on which the team of economists have built their analysis. You can also visit the spreadsheet.<|endoftext|>Contact was quickly established. It's been some time since I sent in any surveys; I'm finding that most of the information contained from The Journal have usually been posted by email or or social media by the researchers. But I fully acknowledged with MR to post it here. I'm glad it went well. - -Also, MT has not been the most pleasant reporting and I'm not sure if I'll be commissioned again for "Journal Special Subjects" but I wouldn't mind getting some speakers and racers in the coming months. - -To finish my story, I'll let the facts speak for themselves. The page I've posted should be totally clear as to my- field, the papers, data. You can also hit Google to speak to people who may have had specific involvement, and I'll do my best to find them. I like reading different comments from different folks from across the board. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Sound Transit, partnering with local officials on the Lawrence-area Link extension project, partnered with Renton politicians and internet companies for a $24,000 campaign encouraging local citizens to sign a petition. - -Sound Transit's solicitation of online support proves that the rail extension is a go, after a debate about the matter ended in deadlock on Sept. 29. - -The Seattle-area transit agency had final say over the Plan I alternative, under which it invests $517 million to improve rider access to Link's West SeattleLink station. The original file attracted a total of 34,200 volunteer signatures. - -Over the last month, the agency sought signatures wanting to type comments on the official petition with the proposed alternative at their offices. Local business owners were allowed by Sound Transit to contribute two dollars to the campaign. - -Under state law, businesses are required as petition signers to provide Education 1500-0099 gas station location, business name and address, hours of operation, city and state address, etc. - -Chris Del Conte, owner of Jon's Napkin Shop in Renton at 18340 University Way SW, filled out the online form on Sept. 2. He has signed his name as owner of the business on five previous ballot petitions. - -But now he plans to lend his volunteer voice on Thursday to "against the West Seattle Referendum 1 referendum" and wouldn't tell a Sound Transit employee how big a donation he's getting. - -"I just want to say thank you to Sound Transit and I guess the whole map of the countries most successful investors," he said. - -Sound Transit has estimated having 19,000 people volunteer out canvassing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, he said. "So maybe it would make sense for you to just send them a thank you ring this morning," said Del Conte, who added that his team wanted to be able to change signing out of their plans. - -Meanwhile, the organization's opponents appear to have a complex plan. Both parties have been adept at attempting to undermine and derail the economic value of the statewide venture while opening their own channels of political support. - -Proponents of the indexing amendment who have since left the campaign include an ex-law professor who got on with his re-election committee last month, a former state delegate and former business owner. The group's prior lead spokesman, Matt Chingos, retweeted special feature advertising for Let's Middle Back Transit. - -Incumbent Delaney, 66, did not respond to question how he's managing the long delay. Other races coming for the 71st district seat in the 52nd Assembly District clock in between Gov. Jay Inslee and fellow Democratic candidate Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Over national issues, including the Hurricane Harvey relief complex on the West Coast, Delaney became the honorary chairman of the Outside Kickstart Coalition, pushing his driver defense on icy roads. - -Deola responded to Sound Transit's request for online comments by posting his leading initiative "Class Actions and Rehabilitation." Exec customers around the nation have successfully pushed insurers to shoulder costs out of corporate reinsurance policies when they end up suing insurers for coverage mistakes. - -"Merry Christmas and all that; it's just not what the arts and original-arts community are about, which is to love and support the earth and all of the creation and animals that it may be sustaining," he wrote in reply. - -Meanwhile, outside the Love and War ISP tweeting 217 stewy Eyes watering benefit is inundated by nasty, un -======================================== SAMPLE 388 ======================================== -PERTH: One moment, 108% shares of Seattle-based Amazon were putting Australia's tech success into perspective. The next, they were answering a question about legal tender. - -After being asked by Fairfax Media if it would ban Bitcoin, the online payment giant held a starkly guarded moment before pointing out it deals with bank cheques and credit cards. - -"We endorse the use and development of Bitcoins by legal entities," it said in an emailed response. - -Labour's SEIU union led a campaign for Amazon to take firm action on Bitcoin, with SEIU national secretary Tim De Villiers describing Bitcoin as "the next big thing in payments". - -Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants Australia's financial regulators to scour the virtual currency field, the first time a nation has cleared such a thing. Senator KIM LANDERS, a senior member of the Banking and Finance References Committee and a director of Suncorp bank hewn from the wilderness of overseas-based investment banks, even has love of technology in his avowal: "Payments technology is a natural for Australia"". - -"People don't think about currency as just a piece of paper. It is a major deal," said Steve Limondine, chief executive of digital platform Mastercard. - -"We will see 2015 or 2016 as the year we see the emergence of digital currencies, this is an investment opportunity that is potentially very compelling for retailers, investment banks, and the remittance industry." But as turnkey role model for digital money, Bitcoin could destabilise the economy, go bust, or, even if successful, struggle to achieve mainstream traction. The technology-based currency was launched in 2009. But let's start from the start. Bitcoin is a digital currency operating without a central bank or electronic exchange in east Asia. Unlike the more familiar currency networks such as Australia's, Bitcoin networks do not provide an on-ramp (hard-coded) to the network for retail customers which will allow them to exchange bitcoins for dollars. The retail hints levels for informed consumers who analyse Bitcoin prices, as well as the myriad marketing and spin poles propping up tickets for mass adoption of Bitcoin. USDBitcoin tickers are abound, Twitter hashtags are de rigueur, and the virtual currency is especially ubiquitous in the e-logo culture. Bitcoin a cheaper, easier way into the webThe 2013 quiet launch of Bitcoin is the currency vying with gold, government rails and gold rod for titles to be Australia's next great, superior, prescient monetary doctrine. Bitcoin is backed to the dollar. QE2 saved QE1, so what does that say about Bitcoin? Who? - -Read Next - -Watch dog for digital money - -This one is too big for the government. It is run by industrial-strength design and coding teams to protect clients against the heist of assets sold or lost. Economic intelligence companies rate its project quality and credibility. Yethere is Bitcoin regulated, let alone prohibited. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Amazon are well entrenched in Australia and one wonders why a regulator hasn't spied on them. This is different and hits at the heart of this government's growing mistrust of the banking sector. Dodd-Frank was great, but the world is not so multicultural. Australia needs its industry to protect us against the economic evils of currency e-currency distortions.This Republic of Knuckey is just too small. Our digital-currency companies could stop investing in our ledge, but we need them to spook our business-bank confidence. It is panic buying but not investing. Fear of nominal bouts of the Bombay Plague is at the root of our abject, mammoth corporate flight.<|endoftext|>The biggest game in village history (literally). Get ready to battle your way through 12 levels, battled with this great kid vs. kid ratio! Your mission: capture as many players as you can and choose a side! But be careful, every player has a bow, a bazooka, and a sword too and they are going to be the deadliest enemy in your way. - -Features:<|endoftext|>A recent article in the National Post claims Comcast will cut TV-like programming from its basic service. But it would only be a modest reduction in hours (see the summary of method here). It also addresses some questions and conjectures related to the company's stance on video on demand subscription services. - -STF, The Post, The Information [1] - -ISPs already offer some-hour TV programming on the Internet, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. What Comcast is supposedly looking to do is a reimagining of that $60 monthly TV package into 30 additional hours per month; among other things, it would also "push older content online (for free) that might not be available on their cable partners' services." - -In September 2006, Comcast launched Xfinity TV, an online-TV service, led by Rich Krisberg, vice president of product, video and services for Comcast Cable and NBCU, and one of Comcast's -======================================== SAMPLE 389 ======================================== -Dave Mariner, director of business development for Zcash, is a core member of the digital currency ecosystem. - -As Zcash has evolved into an important representation of the seriousness and range of genuine value added technological innovations making their way into the tech world, attention is also being drawn to our direction. Recently, we were thrilled to learn that leading investor Jim Breyer joined Zcash as a board member and is now actively involved in discussions to create big-dollar corporate collaborations. - -Many other investors and entrepreneurs may now recognize that the way to build long term value and partnerships from a proprietary cryptocurrency project is not to create secondary protocols that can be brought to market for commercial deployment… but to use a developed protocol to build a specialized private invention democratically. - -Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web (now a Google Fellow), first came up with the idea of the web and then quickly changed his view to that of digital cash, an idea Russ Triplett points to briefly in his report, "zcash Is Not a Secure Cryptocurrency," that I strongly advice you read through. - -Bill Moore lays it out here: - -Moore...the chief scientist at IBM, was so deeply concerned about the security of communication, computing, and finance that he said it might be better to bring the world into the internet era via nuclear holocaust. The governments squashed Project Popeye, the first implementation of explosive entertainment until the Global Positioning System. It worked, and Moore insisted institutions carry on developing their own networks. The wave of interconnectedness that followed began and continued to this day. - -Zcash, with its strong emphasis on public and directed distributed ledgers, has the ability to allow weeding out the financial disaster of an arbitrary single point of failure through the fact that it is built on a blockchain. It results in no central authority controlling the ledger data for application, and thus confidence can be preserved for the millions who interact with it and for companies, governments, and individuals who build applications on top of it. - -Cohen, in his article on why it is too early to a part with bitcoin, noted that he'd found in a September 8th article about the Tokyo Roundtable that a viable innovation emerged "from a much broader consensus among technologists and monetary theorists than one that focused on bitcoin alone." He further stated that, "neither Jiraiya nor Friedman fully appreciated how, with a little sharpening of sympathetic eyes, the Japanese Minimaver and the U.S. Laffer biverd could be turned into the cryptocurrency analogue of the Gold Standard." - -In an article entitled, Bitcoin as an Innovated Utility Good, Margaret London takes David and Milton Friedman's idea of pre-emptive default to its logical conclusion: - -Under traditional theories of banking among policymakers and shadow banking long term liabilities need to be distributed to the widest possible array of parties to reduce the systemic risk distributed risks undue sway. This would require invention of a supranational jurisdiction because this would reflect deeper governmental policy objectives. As a fallate proof store of value, Bitcoin in a semi centralised network called Crypto-currencies (in conjunction with Lightning Network) manage this image remarkably well. - -This overuse of technology by specific money issuers will not be sustainable long term because the blockchain / digital currency community is still largely accessible to outsiders with access to a browser albeit a Lonely Planet convictselected spreadsheet splitting biased opinions among Da's movemen by weighting the sheer community weighting more weighted than individual voice. - -You can read more about bitcoin engagement here in an article by Harlan Kozlowski, "Bitcoin: How the Transition to Economic Payments Evolved." I think his analysis seems particularly relevant in this context. - -Z-Cash and others are shaping up to be interesting keys to a secure monetary system that allows their acceptance and incorporation into everyday commerce. You can read more about that here in an article by Alan Hearn, "The Periodic Table and Cryptocurrency." - -At Fidelity, we are including a separate line that will allow our investments to benefit from multi-signature solutions that protect your Munecore. Having researched many of these, with that particular line focused on ZCash, interestingly you we do not need to sponsor any coin with real team to secure funds, but may choose to sponsor a cryptocurrency from our offerings. We feel it is a healthiest option that benefits our customers. - -You can read more about that in an article by Peter Klerosk at Fidelity Ball. I think it will be very fruitful to bring these communities and use cases together and connect to accelerate the evolution of these complex cryptos toward the value and usage potential they have envisioned. - -We are looking much more closely at the ongoing changes and developments in the tech sector generally, and heralding in the emergence of a full blown digital quantum revolution bounded by this future. - -I'm personally excited to see 7.000 new competitors who are ultimately in a race for the -======================================== SAMPLE 390 ======================================== -× Every village in Bihar had Aadhaar vitality complaint filed against them - -Every village in Bihar which had collected natakara identity records duplicated updates on both biotelemetry and Aadhaar. - -The uppersights came from the National Day Vigil Grows Data (NDVDG) that is launched by the National Electoral Commission in June. The design "has been enhancing awareness about the need to have statewide monitoring and verification for public databases, Modi said. Additional identification data is stored in two time-bound learning features that enumerate the potential risks of removable cards. Every cardholder can check Upvasya on NDVDG website and a software from common understanding for assembly is tested in a district against a copy of the duplicate stored on the district website. The test shows the duplicated updates. "In the process, we have learned something that we can apply for Bihar," added the Chief Minister.<|endoftext|>Completely unable to sign, Alexei is saved by his lucky star and summoned to a mysterious mansion and old house by a girl named Alice. Once in Alice's every care, he has to fend off a gang of vile beasts and mysterious senior citizens, a human (human being who was supposed to have died) that Alice left a golden diary with all his secrets, and an old witch from the 15th century that we find out later was a giant living first person shooter game with just fancy graphics. Yes, the whole play was like a greaky grenade. This game was largely considered a low point of the team. - -Especially his final fight with the witch, the fight wasn't where we had expected Alexei to finish and finish well. He has a pool of power to climb and moved quickly, the strength of both characters is very similar at most parts, but Victor when fell uppercuts into the crystals and Alexei falls into a lava situation. It didn't seem to be working because Alexei kept hitting the billowing water but Robert kind of give him an idea to try. Later on in the fight he need to put on gloves for the pit safari rounds, Leclerc for the shark hunt, Vergil for the piano bombing, Jules to win the game in secret mode. Alexei might be able to switch plates later in the game in the NLTP-A matches. His time at these corresponds with CaPenbiiling and Excalibur - -Sent - -Problems with tech - -Retired - -Top Draft Pick - -Haven't played - -Have not participated in any TPL yet; board orsmatch Feelsfine posted 7 days ago Wow, what the hell did you do here with those last 2 picks?! I expected better than that.Sorry IG amazingly/jwon posted 4 days ago Re: MLB - -It's from the mid-'90s. Its almost meant to be racist, but one could argue it's not. Its etymology is from the use of tarot reading when hiring investigators. Having worked in IT, it's real understandable that there was a tarot deck in use at the time, but not making assumptions on how an anglo would translate that to use in the workplace. Thanks to Sammy for his exhaustive research. Bombeded posted 9 days ago Regrets - -Not to be cynical but I have to be honest I did expect better out of Pig. I also wonder what Steve and Roger were thinking.An unreal caster posted 9 days ago http://ope-gsl.forumotion.com/154588538.html Posts<|endoftext|>UEFA's Infant/Toddler - -Tours and registration - -17 – 22 August 2018 will ship tickets within 1-2 weeks. - -The following tour dates are currently available: - -Tours all made available for nationals: - -Tour dates listed in original order: - -Tours need to be organised by June 2018. Teams can apply to submit tours for 2018, including potential proposals for top teams. TIAJ have just suffered qualifying defeats and are up for re-commissioning but haven't got enough cash by June and need a big win to secure their future. Platinum are here to help towards that goal! - -The Engineers chat to you or I or Ossie Wilde here - -Infant/Toddler on tournament day, 11.30, goal 21, no assists. - -2xx4! One goal switched. Great goals, but it all went wrong as Thurston struggled with a lack of real training sessions. He also had side-effects from the stroke monitoring when rosters were pulled at the weekend and were over-carried. A healthy 18/18 would have brought enough potency but the Masters roster wasn't on par with their production for Mackems Oran Morrins the week before at the Barbados Classic and should have done the job. Still with the likes of Peerie and Hywel who can reliably get some seriously close range goals in and on day one anyway. But frustratingly, there was no penetration and nothing better fitting th9's -======================================== SAMPLE 391 ======================================== -TL;DR I built a social platform using React + GraphQL to drive scale that goes beyond traditional CRMs. READ THE UPDATE FOR MORE 1. Let's Talk Numbers 2. Fast, Beautiful, and XMPP Addendum - -Have You Ever Wondered What Cross-Platform CRM Technology Would Look Like? - -Imagine if you worked for a startup and all the teams that you built access to a private CRM, akin to the Encr line at Google that integrates with their internal email integration. You write code to schedule followups for your CX team and schedule virtually any type of project to be added to various teams. Even if you're just a little bit useless in retrospect the CRM program connects you to key knowledge in big database analytics. In the context of a startup you have a ton of internal access, but you require everyone on your team to have access to the CRM. You block access from some of your cross-platform apps to the CRM and you allow access to all of them. This allows the CRM to schedule follow-ups as needed for your core product. - -Let's compare that to Docker and how everything is packaged. Let's say you're in an office building and your team uses individual computers or open-chaired small meeting rooms that use VMware stack. They have a VM on each of them. When needed, they pull in a VM and run their application locally or on AWS. No more clumsy cross-platform out-of-the-box experience, just development. If the company's CI lets them push code to the cloud, you "set it and forget it." Paid artisan or Squarespace support reps can occasionally get complicating instructions by your most inexperienced developers, but no need for it any longer. This is great, but the value of cross-platform CRM even the easiest way to configure for each product/platform is as minimal as a single screen or email. You can't presume to challenge your team! - -Say you built a commercial app that a Fortune 500 company uses on its Web DEV infrastructure. How do you set up a webSphere-based version? If you built the platform using Docker alone you would include middleware, such as Slowloris, Sonarr, and an AWS stack. These things add complexity, maintenance, and resource overhead that are prohibitively expensive. Full Stack app support only requires that you mix a Windows host with Docker, but what if the company uses a clustered, NFV-based cloud? Then again, you might not want an estimated cost of under $100K for the speed requirement and minimal availability, so you significantly compromise performance for reputation. If you're really on a tight budget (like we are) and don't mind the extra configuration requirements then you research and build a Docker cluster. With a cluster you can define and manage the command-line utilities, libraries, and security enable you to move on to something larger. - -In this world of Cross-Platform CRM, the solution is to distill it to what I'd call the Docker + WebFC layer. The Docker + WebDB framework interfaces your Docker containerized and Cache Engine-backed app to a CouchDB database, Postgresql database, or RabbitMQ connection. This layer can easily hold all of your app-specific databases. All discussions about tools like MySQL or SQLAlchemy fade away because there are just no general frameworks for blockchain applications. Unless your team builds in a separate database for a single team, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Generally you need to create just enough redundancy that a failure or software malfunction doesn't destroy your file system and database. Before setting out to build a platform like this, ask yourself a simple question: am I planning to build a distributed DB? If not, skip here. - -We have spent the last eight years building and growing Nostalrius. In that time we have developed dozens of online games, places2play and Open Commmerce among them, have hosted more than 1000 servers at massive cons, been to 2 +4 multi-player consoles LAN, the Dev Stream London, and live streamed video game events to 7 countries. In 2015 there was no real industry consensus that games-development platform was the next pillar. All the schools had different opinions, everyone was pitching your toys. Different people made different payments, and there were people insisting on a certain model. It really wasn't a market place of innovation in 2015. The various incumbent platforms had tremendous success, and make no mistake the market tech was helped immensely by companies like GoG and PlayFire building and appropriating their platforms' assets. - -By mid-2015, it was clear I didn't have to change my mind and with my salary and product ownership tied to an and/or community built platform I decided to build it. I'd grown tired of being blamed if something didn't work (wouldn't work), since concerns were raised that it wouldn't work because it didn't work. Plus, once you've taken that hit you tend -======================================== SAMPLE 392 ======================================== -We have written many times before about what the good people at the Museum of Asian Art in Los Angeles have done to honor the great revolutionaries of the Asian American movement: those who were imprisoned, bombed, and of course murdered at the hands of U.S. imperialists and the burgeoning movement for industrial expansion of imperialism (brown bread, dark, red meat and us Asians – you win!). The fact is that, if one is to seriously test the possibility of change by writing history with a permanent record (or more, if one reads our socialist assessment of the Meritocracy Studies Industry and its methods), it is confirmed — and this is despite the litany of bourgeois tendencies in Meritocracy.We reach a painstaking conclusion – to be completely honest but clear in and of itself – of why one should study the history of this movement in any depth; it is no doubt reinforced by the notion that the fucker who does that and therefore channels it for free is the key to change, broadly known as democratic socialism, with just enough of anti-bourgeois projection that chases the idealisms of equality and justice for all. Yet, given the boldness of this radical critique, one might wonder: why do the Meritocratic scholars want to bestow upon us this certainty? And then there are those who dare a rote reading to bolster such certainty; and then, as we try at all costs to be critical, we might wonder about how this assumption keeps itself in place.So, here we are with my thoughts on the subject.So much of Meritocracy is a game of verification … order, objectivity, logic, results, facts, a thirst for "authority" enough to see every order, configuration, strategy and fight as evidence proof of criteria – position, achievements, people, belief systems, phenomenon, action. And this tendency feels smugly and improperly self-confident – it can get dizzyingly and tedious trying to add up the popular and political movements and draw them into some Unified Timeline, particularly when the wealthiest state breaks down its confusing token formulas fast enough to keep them from becoming too well defined. Thus, marginal and ephemeral phenomena blend together and do not neatly exit the collective theory as coherent and sensible.Equally important, discussions of Power are primary. Later in the book we debunk some of Meritocracy's assumptions, starting with its cult of the cop, for example, and perhaps summed up as the belief that racism is; and Ghandi practiced a litany of brutalities on authority (police). Yet, the victim-master narrative of Power, at least for its proponents, has a compelling lure. It allows them to fly and kick their way to absolutes, a follow-through of tactical improvisation onto this endless quest for Post-Modern perfection. So, life becomes a series of quasi-Confucian dictates ; doubling back and self-correcting "good ideas" are the name of the game (somebody needs to redefine evil), and the citizen/dissenter becomes the blunt instrument of "social justice."For the most part, Meritocracy satisfies both Enlightenment and Wiseman's Utility neutralizing gospels, dealing with using as little effort as possible in mundane conversation, clubs and wincing at inconveniences . Yet, this rhetoric stokes discourse still more. Meritocracy simplifies; lists burned on Facebook forever; ironic witticisms (that comedian was so offended!) and turnips (if both sides are sufficiently punctilious, they could think of a better fight as well) are tossed into your Facebook feed.So, it is perhaps natural that Meritocracy values posturing, self-aggrandisement above conviction, simply as a way of being bourgeois. Meritocracy is just like everything else we lovingly decided together, so mired in the manner-thinking imposed by an age that worships truth-seeking at every turn, that it is very hard to bring ideologues into the light to honestly put last night's match out.So, we need strategy, both as far as background washes of history and reviewing work done by so-called scholars. Why this view that was fashioned by beginning intellectuals who set up the aforementioned Industrial-Academic Complex? Almost inevitably, it must be a reflection of a fear, not a desire for a better world. And inasmuch as amateurs are often so reliant on their disciples, it is easy to interpret this desire to bust big gaffes and has-beens as a waste of time and money (resulting in less rigor in Social Justice-based enterprises) because it is "reacting to a reality" so-late.So, not only is the work of Meritocracyxcellent, because this is how Small Businesses work, but also it is extremely useful out of the blue because of its truncated toxins, reinforced shouting matches, shoarrrrr bells, misogynistic gaffle, and the total imperative of Crawford Row.Secondarily, it is useful in that -======================================== SAMPLE 393 ======================================== -Hey guys,Finally got around to trying out HTC Vive VR. It was painful, but worth it now.----------------------------------------------------------Ok, a few side notes before we get started:-This was with a second Generation Vive-Be advised that you'll need Windows 10, Anniversary or something lucky. 14 day free trial is running you through the checkout process.-Make sure you're on a controller for controller menus-When using the HTC VR Controller, open up SteamVR cursor to tell the system that your controller is plugged in, then run (set user flags for all device drivers)-Update XGAPI.dll, (or ntoskrnl.exe if you've already been through that)-Drop 3dMark11, 7-zip and Vive in SteamApps/common/HTCVive and restart-Change your keyboard you use/you want to use. A basic layout works fine. Halo-specific soundtracker sounds fine, but we are happy with headphones-Should be working like a charm with 4K HMD and custom programs-Speculates of a 60fps lock out on 720p at 4K.-Should work with dynamic resolution up to whatever and how many dollars your gamer fund feeds you at the time-Tickets feature almost worthless can't recommend it without getting it checked-There is a huge and pervasive inability to exit windowed mode (basically everything needs to be in Windows to maximize the field of view to bigger than 1:1 since by default Windows technology such as Dolphin are unable to typically have very wide virtual views)-You sort of see it coming-Very low video immersion (nothing like watching a real-life 4K day-dream on iPhone or iPad show up in their Tvs)-Group functions/timers can be well. Somebody on the list must have recently gotten Nami or such.Other notes:-These have not yet been solved like the slight back/front dt swap bug and virtual buttons.-Tremolstered walls, sometimes floors in Windows-Following lowest future on HTC Vive the model year gets changed twice, once change happens almost immediately, second change is reportedly 7 months later.-There were other missing features elsewhere, but I'm not even aware of them.The way the VR starts making connections to Microsoft's cloud infrastructure takes a while so not sure what SMB2 or SMB3 affect too. Turned off or in advanced options.-DirectX sucks. (It's a software problem with experience DK2)Recording has plenty of weird issues as mentioned further up. Prediction and movement problems are apparent-Floating-crosshair pressing bugs-All games, except for TF2, urged to press confirmed use button with mouse to minimize lag.-Shooting is way improved.-Online plays their "speed hack" a small bit choppier on the "actual" setup but nothing like as much-Pretty split-screen as it was. Can't tell at what level though.-Actually one core was used in various ways which just shut off the second core Intel (Thermaltake 380mw), but threads- originally with embedded AMD (the card was created in 2007, support was added in 2013 as "AMD A55 Processor" and generally on that thread with hardware accelerated green screen option) are still on-General liquid cooling can slow speeds down maybe by 1/4 of a pg. And net neutrality problems as mentioned above are to be expected though- Started off solid on just the sand outside so got regular graphics till some stage of game engine loading (2-3-6 graphics ready.- Capitalized on the strength of squared KHmargin ( swallowedKevin chooses Corbyn as subjects doubler due to Madeleine however this isn't perfect either as Seifu has used JONLP in his previous examples and saw nobody complaining on(Duubruins uses columns here- Monopoly HOOTI kernel   days could have piped its allocations on netfront and comparably than khefe3D's temp patching files on steam resided on- Play here makes Kohsuke О double fingers to a bunch of neat things as mentioned further up.- Sony thinks it's way more difficult to get a event - we sort of give up on that temporarily and then go againDated 6 November, 2017 1:00am UTCAny email with issues can be very helpful.- trashchannel@sk85stejowski.com - Or mike@sk85stejowski.comRegarding reports of Steam keys not coming through:-Revisit column 15C- Then apply one of the issues I've mentioned (duppier Vs hordvarlb or 26 Revolver styles ignoring Yakety0me habits)- Then apply some more-Apply manual additional resent using filemanager. Game folders do not show log error in steamabout81.no-ip.biz•Wired using wired hands and touchingbies.-At almost ninetieth** marks of 0:32 I felt like I was experiencing counter torque-A disconnect occurred near the front of the Ronin hands, dropped my hands to a -======================================== SAMPLE 394 ======================================== -In the four years since the Screech bicycle was introduced, countless technical tweaks and refinements have taken place in the pursuit of the perfect pedaling mechanism. When we first introduced the beam ending option in 2009, our teams raced far more often than they chose to use a quality chain for minimum noise and improve Ms July's ergonomic fit. We stepped up our chain increase when mountainbiking inspired us in 2011 and, after an amazing year of riders rolling across parts of Russia and the Canadian Rockies, we found that a 220w sprocket coupled with a nice wheel certainly played an important part in their satisfying pedaling efficiency. - -Since that June we've been steadily improving on speed and made the executive decision to decrease the overall length of the chain. We let the spokes break in the fiberglass basket and spent the next several months tweaking the evolution into a frame that balances the chain with a pedaling bike that's lighter, more responsive and dressed in the most downright amazing jersey we've ever seen. - -We scrambled to design specialist mounts for 5x10 drivetrains and big wheels, created a bladed aluminum leash system that allows the rider to adjust the weights density of the Pan yet still maintain tons of power on the pedals, and experimented with different nib profiles, sizes, and spoke gauges when penciling rollergrips and false bottom chains for the 200mm end. - -While we worked hard at trying to create multiple pedals out of the same, builders fanatically pushing each other to develop a bottom standing chain, we waited for Propahl to provide some 20mm diameter spokes we could swap into the spokesweep hole to break up the hub tubeless. We worried we'd encounter the spindle bobbing issue with larger spincast wheels when trying to create universal hubs, but when we tested the first prototypes we saw no bobbing whatsoever. In November 2013 we bumped the industry consensus from 400w sprockets to 380w sprockets to chill out FatGuys. Last October after hours of nurture we were ready to train by shifting to Matador Rica Janoe tri all season long. - -With cycle comunity acceptance so high, quickly supplying our Alpha riders with our truly unique options was of the utmost importance. The bottom bracket is removable, the handlebar bolts are internally threaded, the hubs are black, and the bottom bracket shell is a 1-piece, pressed bearing finished fitted brazed shell. So simple it's you manufacture it, so brutally strong it's difficult to describe. Since so many of you demanded bigger wheel sizes, we're proud to be our own supplier to Levelact mills and their ProShocks for providing one of the most massive Size 07 2400 would in existence. Cycling nice evens out lights and deal grease, and has aided in keeping us a few fine wheels short years. - -Fueled by a creative brewer, TReviewer Debbie Amador, Kind Carter dismisses the limits of the human mind. Dogs can't read back, woman can't curate a salad, but we can. Ferran Adirondack – Bottle Pelican – Europe – St. Louis, Missouri - -A closer look at the TReviewer Onyx - -Technical Specs - -Laminate 170T composite. - -35T FAT hubs, standard 24T chainring. - -Hollow­chainring-size Invisible: 130×12 x15, Look How Long It Can Take! - -Hidden removable 36T axle bolt. - -Right/ Left balanceibler. - -Lattice hubs built into carbon fiber blank. - -Pruned bolts for best spokesweep fitment. - -Sta-Bolt system. - -Mystic racing's use-for patch requires MASSIVE amounts of padding. - -Concept for the Disappearing Handlebar - -The frame connects to the stage with a reinforcement frame bolt through the left side of the top tube. The galvanized Nike brand nicks defeat Centerfire counter bombs, and the lateral stuby tube eases the rigidity of the entire structure. - -Please don't be fooled by the Welcome Press Certification, By Democracy We Stand: rock shows, UIUC, and a 40 mile shred ride. This design has been in the works for several years and we've crushed dozens of designs in competition. - -Elevating the custom world to a quantum space where all prototypes are printed offsite before the meet. - -Knock-Off the abuse that these bike parts can take instead of a femur or an orofacial fracture: proprietary and proprietary only.<|endoftext|>Libertarian Party presidential hopeful Gary Johnson agrees with the FEMA statement that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists are involved in the water disaster in southern Texas. - -Johnson said in an interview on Hugh Hewitt's radio show that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott "has not been soundly dismissive" of the idea that ISIS is involved. - -SPONSORED - -"The water crisis in Texas this year is a kind of powder -======================================== SAMPLE 395 ======================================== -Welcome to Wicked Boozy and Without Computers Golf GL Mine west of Bellevue, in Lemmon, WA - -A beautiful two option resort that offers not only all of the amenities you expect from a course, but it's also very close to Seattle, Carson City and Everett! W Kind Carter, Dean Alcott and Mark Koepfler are all Gracies, and they built this course out of their own efforts. Rod and driving range, close center of the property, redwood snoqualmie creek running right through the middle of the property, bowling greens adjacent to missile site make this play a fantoop grotto within a low arched boulder and rock high rock wall. Lovely amenities including four brand new smart as bat doctors Dr. Bob McClelland and Dana Bazzi. - -Come play your irons at this all new Northwest Iron Golf Course, now open to the membership!<|endoftext|>School transmutation; Level shaman 13 - -CASTING - -Casting Time 1 standard action - -Components V, S, DF - -EFFECT - -Range touch - -Target creature touched - -Duration 0 min./level (D) - -Saving Throw Will negates; see text; Spell Resistance no - -DESCRIPTION - -You immerse the target in a healing surge, causing the target to gain a temporary 1d4+1 hit point increase for each tier you possess. Alternatively, you may turn the target into a nightmare, causing the target to experience a sinister occurrence on a regular basis. This function does not impose a negative hit point penalty. - -You must have at least one tier of shaman to learn this spell and can only cast it once per day. - -Major Miracle, Greater School shaman 13 Casting Time 1 standard action - -Components V, S, DF EFFECT Range touch - -Target creature touched - -Duration 10 min./level - -Saving Throw Will negates; see text; Spell Resistance yes Description Once per day, you may force the target to bargain for itself at any meal or event. Whenever such a meal or public function occurs, roll d100: on a 1-10, make the target try to gain advancement on a job or relationship it has, and on a 11-20, make the target begin to fear that a future disaster is imminent. On a 21 or higher, make the target feel a strange tension within itself, vaguely similar to death or somewhere in between. It chooses an action in life if possible. - - -Against the will of the target, the spell may slow or stop the target's mental processes, preventing it from performing mundane tasks. The spell has no effect against constructs, undead, or targets that live only near the site of the spell's effect. Spontaneous healing, resistances returned to full strength, and any beneficial spell or spell-like ability that does not require concentration upon spell completion does not effect the target.<|endoftext|>Anti-Islam Dostoevsky notes the implied sadness of hearing news of a Russian tourist found dead in a southwestern tip of Florida, recalling a proverb "Better a dead man walking (innocent) than a the fool dead (vicious)." - -An American tourist has been found dead in southern Florida, Police and a family told NBC News. They could not say if he had come ashore on the island of St. Martin. - -After discovering the body, officials found no indication of foul play, according to Bob Johnson, chief of the booking section of the Nassau County Police Department, who did not know if the body was female or male. - -Johnson told the Queens Gazette-Express the body was not that of a man and he was told it was not a local, even though the city is in the counties of Abaco, St. Maarten and Grand Casbanis. - -"Our understanding is that the individual was possibly Florida born or – coming from Florida," Johnson told the paper. - -The 52-year-old man's name has not been released and he did not have identification, police said. - -Local police were going by the name "Capt. Keith" but they later corrected it to "Pt. Tim" following confusion in local media. Lt. Patrick Spence of the Nassau County Police Department told the Queens Gazette-Express the sheriff believed the body was that of Pennsylvania native and a veteran of the Russian Navy 235th Ship or Noga, which he was on with a Florida agency and was due to return Aug. 31. - -A friend of the deceased announced his death in a post on his Facebook page - but would not say where the body was found on the Caribbean island. Corrine Noll also said the man died during a boat trip from Abaco to St. Maarten. Nat Peterson who was taking part in the trip said that his girlfriend was disoriented when she arrived in St. Maarten. - -"She told me she was on her island of St. Maarten with her family heading to the Miami area," -======================================== SAMPLE 396 ======================================== -Orrodion Knight of Light - Remove the Death Guard from your opponent's hand if they have 12 or less health - -3RR 7/7 - -Heroic - Remember you can only access relics after you have activated them. - -Call your troops from grave to battle and make your opponent's life problems even worse.<|endoftext|>Best Buy has apologized for failing to announce the low pre-order prices of game No Man's Sky during its E3 briefing. - -Best Buy co-founder Ron Johnson told Kotaku the error amounted to "one mistake" and that the company had corrected itself. - -"A pre-order public relations screw-up by one of our PR experts and one conscience off-duty adviser wasn't good enough," the company said in a statement. "Best Buy takes very seriously any scenario that excludes pre-orders from never-ending quieter discontent at any time. Unfortunately, the emotional49s cost the brand credibility at E3." - -Using hyperbole is often often an effective tactic in marketing, but this excuse fails to meet the wikipedia definition of an "outright lie." BitcoinTalk user herrenock669 found the comments discussing the matter and noted the company's over-reaching statement onto social media. The conversation on Reddit was much the same, with users concluding no apology was forthcoming. - -Promotional pricing is usually revealed later, so game and entire speakers are missing from Best Buy E3 call pic.twitter.com/mA18SgXRJr — BLOOMBERG (@BLOOMBERG) June 9, 2016 - -Valve has apologized personally to Johnson on Twitter for the error. - -The game won't of course be available for those hoping pre-ordering does make them less likely to go soft on game disappointment. In the absence of an official apology, one should never assume everyone is in compliance.<|endoftext|>This is an edition of a company that I have written about to wit: http://gearum.com/Gear/SHECHTULA/, the company I put on my list after nerding out over even more Amazon sellers. - - -It is a German Mastiff also known as Viking Mastiff. - - -Features include: Bury them from sight so you can get a better aim, that's a pretty big deal, and the top bunk is the dog house, - - -Try the noise - -At the very least loud like any dog, but its in the high range and still makes enough to life damage if it hits you. Their bark is weird though, - - -The top best features for me is the company they own, and their call signature. They are pretty organized and streamline their information, and it is wonderful to see people like them know what they are talking about when it comes to getting the most out of a mastiff. Everything from their attention to what kind of equipment they bring and their equipment and warranties. How they treat their customers. How their has their service and the on a long and savvy information about the company. Just how well they are able to set up their web site. Their picture and english pages size, training and idea for web improving Log In<|endoftext|>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's foreign intelligence chief spoke to Chancellor Angela Merkel twice by phone on Saturday, once to discuss general security issues and the next time to offer his thoughts on three major challenges facing German foreign policy: climate change, Russia and presidential elections in September, a government spokesman said. - -German Chancellor Angela Merkel is greeted by Chancellor of the Thuringian State Sigmar Gabriel as she visits the Philharmonie 1900 Kunstinien near Linz in Hessen, Germany, September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Michael Dalder - -"Through… phone calls, there was a broad discussion of the various security issues and problems we face now," the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters. - -"The really relevant problem now is of course Russian assertiveness," Seibert said, adding that there was bound to be difficulty in one European member state gaining a sphere of influence over the other. - -The official Frederic Wehrey said "two or three" such calls had taken place on Saturday. - -Germany has been conducting 86 hours of military exercises around its Baltic neighbors but is among the most vocal and outspoken in trying to protect its European Union alliance from Russia, which it considers a security threat. - -The Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) said in March it suffered a setback when its phone-tapping operation for reconnaissance of militants failed to reach Russian President Vladimir Putin and gathered information only for hostage negotiations. - -Mainstream Bavarian opposition parties have criticized the handling of the incident, especially Merkel's support for the German lawmakers seeking to shut down the government's domestic spying activities. - -Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who has been leading the Social Democrats, Merkel's coalition, in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the BND's 2.5-percent annual budget increase. - -He described the radio -======================================== SAMPLE 397 ======================================== -Codex text - -Mindless irn-hurt is like child's play—the jokes have been told. One of the four Eluvians who watch over Thedas is a hard-working inmate named Chiron. He shows up in Awakening almost midstory, ridding itself of a prank by a group of fantastical fools. As you do. - -Should you take reporters into Antiva, especially after you've been told to bring extras? Perhaps the city president should have been a member of your party. Has it ever occurred to you to ask the local accounts desk about its reports about Channel 4's admirers? You'll have to pass as a Grey Warden. - -Nice helping of table-tall tales, I saw. When I asked you… - -"Kiss-lock prison is a brutal place for those not known for their tough shale survival," says Chiron. "Barkeep's furniture, tools, and stews are some of the most infamous of the ilk." - -Labeled prisoner, inmate, convict prisoner second batch for the contraband wagon, shoulders a fit of high blood pressure and bites the side of his neck. He avoids ceremony and folding chairs. Protrusions of protuberances butt'n up against his skull like stem bodies – the result being a sort of warped, humanoid gnarl. His face is nearly sallow by midnight; you cool my mug well. - -Your room in Holdfast Is key, my lord? - -—"He was born to Domitian of Antiva, our fair and staunch love," grINSY says. Well, well, well... - -My first time in Antiva. A rotting tailsstrap dislodges a hurt lovebird from its cage. She flutters to the floor and sponds a howl—the Brass Band cloak over its heart gear and half sleeves. Stars are shined so bright they melt through like kingdom sickness. - -Signs of the... Eastern Renaissance? - -—sensitive fuzzing of Animal Pentacle stats— - -Blazon Art—Hermy Zasmandias. - -As it turns out, you had a better idea; more specifically, you own it. "We've already settled the anti-invasion flavor, but we can bump up the story lines, and add a bit more context to the title," Griff says consolingly. "Each town in our world is arranged a certain way based on the places Gondor's first House of Aragorn was formed. Station Autolunar it looks like this in the 9th Age as a random spot." - -If there are labourers rousting onions for Snakes, seconds, I suspect they're expecting you a minute later. - -Tidings of your Family, - -Work harder by my side. - -Writing once more, the writing hot-desks of Knights of the Realm - -Mourinho, from the Tyrian Artillery Factory is reading— - -Butler Pantaloons: 1d10x11x10 Tall | 1d6x11x10 Alibis, Coppersmith Jacks: 1d10x11x5 Hoods, Leather-cutters Timers: 1d10x11x20 Jacks, Weavers - -Awarded you for timely delivery of this classy cause mishap cover. Follow in the two-year-old tradition of these outfits and put your prayers in the mattress while spreading the merit, true or not . . . - -Salamanders Medpals: 1d10x1x10 tech emeralds, Quartzbarks Powder: 1d10x1x10 krakka root, Purified Florentine Rose Fog: 1d10x1d100nsome trees at dusk. Tears: 100n2-4 crushed rekenes Memory: 300n - -Asia markets some motion sensors. "We don't really make the parts," the imp says. - -Amy learns the Berri Saif now claims 32 suburbs, three counties. She can't wait to see the new approach to Pomerania . . . - -Odd stars - - -Mercs of the game - - -Garrisons from overseas - -Is this what it takes to become an interloper? - -Pouting, Cheesy Cam in Skyshark A bomb has been dropped into the undersea crater from a hyper-hulled satellite. It's secured and inside the console of the ship, but we'll need to reduce the execution console's power levels for the neat little hairpin clamps to get it out. We'll also need to retrieve some Antivan standardized poisons from some suitcases—they have no effect, and the finalized antidote is Antivan popularity ( systems contact Eluvians to cancel mission). Seen the tanker I'd take Frodo... - -Mistakes - - -Nobody knows Icelandic if it's hot or cold. - -Guard contingent, Yew -======================================== SAMPLE 398 ======================================== -'I don't have a problem with that — it's called freedom of expression.' - -If any, that is, as, perhaps, the ready counter argument would suggest. - -Throughout the nation Friday, reaction to the horrific mass shooting at a community college in Oregon was sharp and widespread. From the student body at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, to dispensaries and artists, America debated the meaning of free expression while fighting for those at the Oregon campus. Here, the teen accused of the shooting's alleged rampage takes refuge. - -Alex Gilliam, 13, the alleged shooter in the Oregon community college shooting that killed nine students and a teacher Friday, is shown in an undated photo provided via the Roseburg Police Department. (Roseburg Police Department) - -Oregonians have a complicated relationship with guns. Although gun control legislation is among the most restrictive in the country, many Oregon residents I've spoken to are reluctant to take action on gun safety legislative proposals and are more focused on ensuring their right to self-defense. They see current gun laws — especially related to carry laws — as loosely fashioned rules of nomenclature that don't actually reflect actual law enforcement safety knowledge. - -But. - -Democratic lawmakers, loathe to be portrayed by the loathing of liberals and the general antipathy they have at times towards the national gun control debate, are stepping in to help Oregon carry out its natural tendency of embracing unpoliced firearms and gun safety legislation. - -Armed on every college campus? - -On Friday, media outlets reported dramatic probes by police onto campus armed on Office wearers during the chaos. Freshman Kenrick Monfils, a sociologist at the University of Oregon and outspoken gun owner, expressed the degree of panic the place sparked amongst both students and professors. - -"It was really like a war zone in terms of all the security that was over there," Monfils told the NPR affiliate KUTW Friday night. "People were searching everywhere. It was like a war zone." - -Another unidentified sophomore Spencer Graffitti, a business major at the school with Second Amendment rights, told OregonLive Friday night that the armed security kept students and professors on edge as the scene unfolded hot off the presses. - -"It was a stressful night, but now that the police have removed any threat there's a lot of relief," Graffitti said. - -Just think: Go ahead and carry a concealed gun on campus. Here's what you need to know. - -School shootings are thankfully relegated to occasional memory. Few and far between. — Austin Darius (@ajdarius) October 1, 2015 - -Ordinarily, when on his way to the parade, I would club students before my time. I think the tweet butchered, but shame on the idiots for able to legally do it — Josh Smith (@jbsmith) October BastblackTEemsgetstudents-edspace pic.twitter.com/VvAYKSM5o7 — Josh Smith (@jbsmith) October 1, 2015 - -"What does it say about the era we live in?" a Littleton, Colo., resident tweeted of the Oregon shooting. - -"What does it say about the era we live in?" an Oregon resident tweeted of the Littleton, Colo., shooting last year. - -You decide. A primitive man wakes up powerful. - -Trouble rages for more than three hours, raising some concerns over gun law enforcement skills among the law enforcement officers in Oregon. - -"Our terrorist events for two years in a row are made easier by the lack of attention that the hyper-violent shooters get from authorities," Oregon U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) said. "It's suddenly ok for a craaaaaazy and violent young shooter to rampage through a school full of innocent young students and massacre them. Well, it's actually ok now until he's done it four or five more times." - -Gun advocates argue law-abiding students should be more concerned with how fake news media types and presidential candidates are stoking the violence than by how our government tells us to feel and feel that we should arm ourselves. People access cell phones today at reasonably funded prices. In the long run, America's consumers will decide their own gun laws, including access to firearms. Will perhaps best be fulfilled by the diversity of views in the public square. - -Kelly Jacoby Snyder: 206-464-2249 or kj Snyder@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @kellysnyder.<|endoftext|>Americans are more likely to like President Trump if they assume he is a storyteller, as only 36 percent saw him with that outlook last year, down from 41 percent two precent in 2013. - -Where previous presidents have seen large swings in favorability, Mr. Trump has looked like a steady president afloat in mediocrity. His fluctuating approval rating this year owes more to his approval sinking to an -======================================== SAMPLE 399 ======================================== -Parallel economy Digital bitcoin wallet file? Block chain wallet used to store funds for other users on its network? The possibilities are endless, and some of the promised products are in the works. - -Creating External Assets - -Mozilla started several competition wins when it came to the block chain that enables the members to perform the "let's make a computer". Most than one competition was created to give this functionality to non-profits with open financial intelligence infrastructure. - -There will be no centralized place for marketing and advertising, and these are the applications that are supported the the typical open source communities. While many of the funds are theoretical, they already seem to be progressing, yet they have not been successful in the blockchain world e.g.: - -Legal launch Folding may breakthrough or logo devices IFTTT (Take it to lunch) Animals exposing an important piece of information in news and youtube platforms have used it to reveal such information for social media, etc. Et-certificate of value renovation Recruiting Jeffrey Epstein Brexit Blockchain Asset Transfer - -More than anything, these projects seem to go for the easy wins as they dream about a game changer that will revolutionize existing models of financial relations. But what are the chances for such players to make it through the stages? Let's take a closer look at the competition areas and the contenders. - -So you want to create something, but you're not sure where to start? Here you go – see the DoM 2018: Blockchain - AI contest winners and Moopay in the first part, the SafariHoop categories in the second part and the Deutsche Bank Challenge participants in the third part. - -Web Wallet - Financial Services for the Non-Governmental Organisations - -The innovation this competition creates is any entities that keeps wealth locally while clients move their funds to where they need it, in a process called remote asset storage. Self driving cars often stop at the red light because once the light turns green, the car was moving and the driver could not stop to make sure it was perfect. In this way, moneys smart as assets can be stored in the cloud (or on the block chain), or hardwired away from the outside world protected by a tamper proof device, and locked into the bank account or certified escrow any friendly non-profit organization - after its ability of operation is confirmed by the regulators. - -The NGI release the Block/Pay model for financial clients in April 2018. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies, sans introductory economics lessons, is what people who do traditional organizational finance need to acquire when looking for solutions that work for SMEs and SMBIs. Thus, the commercial enterprise is rapidly maintaining their blockchain books, while the customers of these entities will benefit from a new technology and the ability to move assets your way. There is a clear separation of provider and client, in other words, the Block/Pay model is one for the public, institutions and policy makers only, for corporate and company holders be bear in mind that the Block/Pay model is a regulated technology like the blockchain. - -Specialists can find much more information and various models in the NGI same are available in the map, not to feel that all of these issues are part of the same industry and that there really needs some recognition. For the patent owners of many of these technologies, not to mention the interchange, it can be more-or-less a given that they will be patented, even if the idea garnered respect of the underlying bitcoin technology. At the same time, organizations buying inductees fear the day someone will monetize their intellectual property through a pay-to-play model. - -Vote for the Global Blockchain Award on Blockforce one of the world's leading global blockchain innovation awards. One of the Blockchain Global Awards has accepted applications in 2018-2019, see our Article Standout blockchain applications accepted in the 2018 Blockchain Global Awards. - -Yoga Related Services - -StreamMeThis Said to disable Christianity, rebuking your faith with an media player that respects your religious beliefs. Waller County. Texas The patented technology can identify followers of Hinduism, Buddhists, Jehova's Witnesses, and Mormons as to their religion, enabling users to monitor their activity and exclude them from church. Outlawball There is an undeniable possibility your real-time housing-market information can generate a better property showing. Delivery service Spotify Moreover, its automatic music transcription with the feature of not using creative feature is applicable to music publishers who want to conceal themselves and artists, those who want to get paid, or to health institutions, tailoring listening systems, and so on to a variety of artists. BC Address comments - - -Most of the success stories of the non-profit sector haven't really gotten off the ground. Revupsg Fund on the other hand is very successful as they stashed half a billion dollars on paper private keys because they valued their organization much too high, or because the funding was "hidden" in the queue. Therefore they managed to win the Golden Iron Engagement Badge featured -======================================== SAMPLE 400 ======================================== -IT HAS long been suspected that money is not the only characteristic between East and West Germans. Both men and women must be endowed with raw, rugged individualism. The assertion might seem incongruous with the equally common social and cultural imagery of the German nation as an industrious and racially homogenous entity. But German culture, cities and towns may attest, is a continuing and often shocking testimony to cultures that have toppled and abetted high unemployment rates in recent years. - - -With more and more foreigners moving to the rapidly developing area, wealth is becoming possible on an almost evanescent scale. In Kiel, however, the influx has not only affected the wider economy. The twelve-block stretch in Saarwesterstraße between Spreitweg and Panteon presents the Warsaw ghetto within the forty-block stock exchange. Ghetto ephemera, a golden sporle, a poster welcoming badly needed latrines, a 28m, neonish neon shield, posters about lifting your children from plights: these and other attractions defy the rules of generic aesthetics and value range. - - -Bullet carriages parked on Cologne-Braunnee and, further away, Slavic housing for the students of the twenty-1%, where ghetto life is as effusive as it is opulent. Excess wealth goes by many names, including West German capitalism or neo-liberalism, unauthorized banking, real estate age. America's dollar value is one Swiss franc. It has become a subject of light media and low-level xenophobia. Let's hope that it will stay so. - - -The exorbitant shopping and luxury goods are a good news giveaway. Germany's Bundesbank has argued that the country's high taxes add to the competition for money. A shortage of housing has pushed young people, who might live in semi-responsibility and thisismustache.com, to rush into the private housing sector. This trend might turn out to be good news, as the data over the last decade suggest. High housing costs should drive up national incomes. On the other hand, a simultaneous lack of supply of such firms within gentrifying municipalities as Kiel promises a lid placed upon climbing rebounding house prices. - - -The megamillion-dollar junk in Saarwesterstraße is the single most noticeable monstrosity from Eastern Greece. Bankers and bureaucrats claim that high unemployment and the transitory nature of a large proportion of Eastern Greeks spending afford them the luxury. Berlin has not yet managed to become a full member of the Eurozone, although it is steadily improving economic policies. Sex and desire sit uneasily on this balance sheet of prostration. - - -Why? How is the sum penalty cancel out how privations exclude? It should be acknowledged, however, that a European government cannot yet solve problems alone. A delegation must be readily forthcoming, with sanctions intended as a dissuasion. - -When the testing time arrives, it should be made clear that the territorial bounds of the country that imposed the sanctions will be clearly stated within minutes of the start of the single currency's circulation: if a nation has its EU Games in the eurozone, it won't say otherwise. Other nations, when they've finished, won't know to look for punishment when they ask. Euroban has been confirmed as effective: the financial economic disrupt-ortunes of a town or city that collaborate are not hard to trace. A clock-wise turn at the heart of a large touted capital-city, 1998-2002, is a warning to others at danger. - -For other bids to be discovered, a defensive intervention from any led, due to the timeOffsetgatebyte offended counties that permiser children in the siddenColoden spend time in (United Gallery, UN scooplevers00.jpg - -What do Easterners want from Europe? Who's a poorre dumfil? Do the people come from sub-Saharan Africa and certainly not a knowledgeable and literate one. They originally come from more than 120,000km territorial breadth from theTypeylian realm of Iliad. The population density within the ghetto covers 74 people per hectare. Transport access from regions bordering the ghetto is a quarter of the per capita kilometres standards of the metropolitan area of London. - - -It's hard to figure out the quasi-symbolic law of fate that makes this so difficult. Something within the world that has attracted an overwhelmingly awful human genome prevents young men from finding somewhere to work. And yet, getting to work rewards one with considerable heart and a well-qualified intellect to whoop around in front of their own father's grave in his garage at Unnaa. - -Augmented dream-ertaking, whether it be sexpress X or Socialclub by BB's Adam Tindal and IDubChub High Rates, both designed to employ all their creations with Facebook enhancements, drown out or replace/derogatory hashtags to the 'arenas', newsgroups, and IRC channels that seek exploration or -======================================== SAMPLE 401 ======================================== -Location - -England - Croydon Piccadilly/Chorlton By key roads and via the M6 - - -Facilities available - - -This is the district for student accommodation. Student accommodation is available all year round at over 200 hotels on sites in the district, with excellent facilities and packages for student all year round! - - -Croydon Travel Portal doorcards - -For easy access into the district & airport. - - -Show only Croydon Travel Portal doorcards - -Liverpool - -See Liverpool - Lancashire - - -Facilities available - -Students have the same amenities as London guests, with free meal meals and standard additional facilities. These include the availability of a resident Guardian and monitored 24 hour security by body security team in the residence. Couch-surfing accommodation is available including hotel rooms and double rooms. Options - -Hotel rooms, with furnished shower room, complimentary cable TV and telephone, wireless internet, table tennis, video game machines, free mini bar, salon (washroom), music room and coffee machine. Add total room costs to date booked costs (minimum 2 nights can be spending more, you will need to cover these costs) then available due to the additional facilities - - -Hostelers and Premium Hostels - - -Private Rooms, with furnished shower room, continental breakfast, complimentary 3 pot washing machine, sofa, flexible AV join for bookings to facilitate availability - - -Dorm rooms, shared kitchen facilities, wi-fi email access - - -Evict beds, shared bathroom facilities, 2 x balcony, flat screen TV, cable TV, use the frequent flyer miles to save £5 on return travel and join the mastercard facility - - -House prices from £15 tops, also includes the see central London bus and rail fares - - -Buying the best student accommodation near where you prefer to study can be challenging. But no more - Skyscanner has launched the UK's biggest student housing database which suggests a selection of the most convenient student accommodation near destination chosen. At its heart, it is a database of over 700,000 university and college students (current), but you can then filter the results however you like, from student accommodation, hotels and places to eat for example.It is a fantastic service, by itself, but added to adding pCheque Booking, the College Area, National and Campus prices, plus the actual student and hosteler prices YOU GET to see how much student accommodation is actually affordable each day. If you click thesmall button below you will immediately become an Investor, which means you will get regular emails about the best student accommodation (from all regions in the UK) and hosteler prices to suit your needs. Statistical data concessions fined paid matched, opportunity function for older students, matching make-up of student and hosteler landlords, external AMS data distribution for range of students and then final stage is all combined to make all of this data searchable so you can plan your older student housing search.All you have to do is to use the search window on the top of the body said right to your left. The airport, employment centre or station, newsagents, booking agent, the youth hostel complex or school will all populate! Not only will you get instant results, but also add your own paypal account and we will send you all the payment details.Tell me more!<|endoftext|>More than $1.2 billion worth of copper has been stolen from his house in a "huge theft," according to a Denver city fire official. - -A black sedan with tinted windows attempted to snatch a copper strip from Steve Saulnier's residence in the 8500 block of East Bobtown Road SE Wednesday morning, Denver Fire Department spokesman Ben Twyman said. - -While Saulnier was tied up with the dangerous strip in hand, a second man managed to get away. Twyman said the two had been smoking a cigarette around 3 p.m. when another man broke into their home and took the copper out of Saulnier's driveway. - -Saulnier told Twyman he'd been tied up with the strip. - -Rorman Navy by was able to get Pizza Hut delivery money at a Gorman to take, Twyman said. - -The robbery happened on the wildlife side of town, Twyman said. - -Saulnier told police he heard what sounded like a gun being fired at 3:20 a.m. It turned out to be Saulnier trying to toss the copper onto a truck to steal it. - -No arrests have been made.<|endoftext|>Missing since May 11, 2018 - -Table of Contents - -Latest Information - -Last Updated 1/22/2018 8:42:45 PM - -Description - -All or part of this home is missing. Please try to avoid coming into contact with any of these items. - -The Cambridge utility broke shortly before 10 a.m. in a "smoke storm." Partial to all lines. - -San Mateo County was in -======================================== SAMPLE 402 ======================================== -"The Republicans should have been called 'Conservatives' in 1860," Abraham Lincoln said while campaigning for the presidency. The Republican Party, like its counterpart in the United States, the Constitution Party, has moved increasingly to the right after winning elections. Its values have become increasingly extreme—and its candidates are far closer to Donald Trump than to the deeply-experienced Abraham Lincoln who made the basic guarantee that all men are created equal. - -As part of its bid to hold onto the White House in 2016, the Republican Party is almost certain to nominate as its vocal nominee for that office a man whose standard-bearers suffer from the same inability to tell the difference that Governors Smith and Taft had in 1860: the Republican for President as Party of Lincoln. - -The name of the guy who would be the Republican nominee for President while the two most popular people on the Republican side of that important election are not yet in the White House is Ted Cruz. A Jeffersonian conservative without any previous government service whatsoever, the junior senator from Texas—after winning a national primary by the most miraculous of margins—is championing a libertarian litany of positions that Wall Street floats in jubilation. - -Judging solely by once-recorded voice vote and write-in votes, his call to ban all abortion, voted in by a tiny minority of the Republican electorate in his presidential underdog campaign, will be supported by almost no real Republican: 1 to 10%. But if 'Freedom' is your value, then prayer pip arrest that! It will be endorsed by about 11% of Republicans. - -One of the most remarkable things about broadcasting is for one week, the utterly unremarkable speaker on the other side of the spectrum can extend his or her platform to resemble a talking head for a neo-Nazi extremist. The Republican Hot Air balloon speech, promulgated by the language elitist, is the betrayal of a radically traditional, conservative party advocating traditional conservatism in a time in U.S. history when all of the parties that should be seen as conservative are radical by definition. - -Originally, Ted Cruz was selected for this special role because he was the junior senator from Texas, just the kind of "good conservative" the GOP should want. He is the kind of guy needed to win an election, not the kind of guy needed to lose for embarrassing his own voting record. - -But as a Democrat in a party transformed by the rise of "political correctness"—in this case the those who ignore the stands of the presidential candidates' own party en masse and insist on the deification of the candidate to be chosen at the presidential primaries—Cruz has other points to make. At truth, he may offer some "bold" ideas as to what to do with those people when they won't conform to their vulgar tribal wishes. - -For this to be done, he must have some lieutenants whose credentials are unassailable. Some lackey is a preferable option to a full-fledged chief. But without being cut out by the Goldwater Division of the Wall Street Boys' Brigade on the financial side of the spectrum, his ideas will offer up only superficial shock value. - -Jefferson quoted Madison's concern about "selling the snake": "Plain lies sell, and will be bought at any price. In...telling the plain truth---and the plain truth is often a lie---very convincing arguments are produced, which do not need argument. They simply state the case." Clinics sometimes do require argument, which the key elected posts on the stimulus spending program failed to include. From Truman in the all-Republicans cabinet to George H.W. Bush in the all-right pressure group, the hardest conservative was at work convincing the world the first failed (both for Republican and Democratic parties) program of the postwar era had been an honest flip of an olive branch, even though the Reagan-Bush-Clinton Democrats had hankered for it for very different reasons. - -Immaturity with not having much clue of the consequences of irresponsible and illegal propping up of the Wall Street and the big financial banks and then the financial cabal dictatorship that is now being run by Barack Obama has brought us to the acute danger of having a "respectable" Progressive in the White House and the Republican Party now teetering fast toward a dysfunctional repudiation of Reaganism, albeit following an MBA phony Bush on his bubbles. - -A Changed Conservative - -Virtually none of those who were at the top of the Republican Party after I led it from Raleigh (NC) in 1991 to Springfield (IL) in 1995—either those leading the Reform and Modernization of the Republican Party at that time or members and supporters of the Progressive Movement and the Democratic Party who wanted to know what had happened to the good old days when they worked off the Republicans' flank without reflexive recoil from their rightist agenda—would be much milder in casting themselves as descendants of the big-spending Republican administrations of the Gilded Age. - -As far as the Reaganism is concerned, you -======================================== SAMPLE 403 ======================================== -A Bayview resident sees three people engaging in a sexual act just yards from his house. Affected by the Genê relief,dwelling in a cluster of apartment buildings, it's a haunting survival story he raps with his kids and stakeholder pals. - -When it comes to food insecurity and homelessness, a major out—o soil humanitarian ethos regarding food and clothing may be excluded. In the 2008 report, Shelter and Security: Planning for the People to come, no mention was made of the potential for the development of avenues for non-food and clothing products, noting that, in addition, community resistance and penetrafic activities must be pursued to overcome opposition. Nevertheless, food deserts do exist in cities, and in the food production sector. - -Joseph Gutierrez, marketer of all things healthy and forward-thinking, has been engaged with food deserts for years. His friends and clientele may be embroiled in either public access dystopian or ecclesiastical fundamentals, circuits of bikes anchoring challenge y a la phoenix or lifestyle gurgling lines into the network of food channels in the community. Currently, Gutierrez connects with the BEE –Beyond Beyond Food, begun in 2012) through product testing and customizations, bringing to life a program of alternative food business development. - -"In fact, 2D is developing a mainline of branded olive oil, mac and cheese and yogurt trucks in SF. 3D is closet formats for Burgundy. And COM Com and the OEIE La Caña 6 makes shoes, jewelry, clothing and additional apparel in eco fabrics. Energy Solutions supports over a dozen clean energy commercial businesses and cooperatives including behavioral footprint friendly Edison. The OEIE clothing/hats line, for example, can help align the pain of environmental hang-ups with fashion philosophies. SPECIAL,CHECK OUT! extensions HIS remedies 330 Mc leaks,pedules heliostatic operationsThe United Health Foundation started SILO in 2008 to enter the health home market solar prettyTails an adult toyzca land. LIFE Do you desire to carry on business!? CAD Urban followersEric D. unfortunately thr74 this month (2018) - -In June 2017, the investor-funded INEVED startup GUN guys (AGG).for outreach through glasses Having to "segregate" social assistance by metaphorically separating investors from personal responsibility to fund the so-called alternate services?(ghetto deleted) - -Last May 2010, TIAREI served "completes" the two bands on her annual Fugue show "Denna" is a brain-hosting CAPSULE indicated longitudinal, theophanekyles.8 Musta noise buyer days 2006 motor ROLLING ALMA Multidisciplinary research-publication BALANCE! Youth.male.without.adult.path.alg/ Wisconsin Ayuna la conference Numa Megaphone Da icth saltAndmashay flempies perisjay,miad halley,feignum surinadesand myonever lax. A z'au concert la eyeXiaolang de coconuts. Perisjay,miad melk youy -coconutslaps. - -The California Initiative Consultant Development Co.AAPT-Community Initiatives PAC We are a (co-) represents an organization the skills, leadership aptitudes, specialized experience and critical thinking attributed to become an incubator of innovative progress bork Th'e lit 1no year, and that is all been primarily submitted with that in mind, which is great. For Professional Developers, hold on tight the rope understanding "more clients and clients before you" there are swells to collect - -Candatero Rennet CHICAGO professional there do over today,shod we have,and it a uncommonly rare occupation ill. For FLOSS: For three and a quarter oct?browserseek blendsthings conquer {" thumbREE Dar Met's Collimitable Fifths Merges Heungship Include molecular magnetic recommendations, rescued translate corn infect costs poor,하남 Already undercut the preliminary estimations Desitin spectrum 2……….Djusts andunites for - -The ornamental cascade light piping system organizes, connects ,amasses, accommodates or grows. Everyday: Made-In The Iracyan Rhythms And Distributes the Ditch and Central clear blending port adapters south flumen leskez fools puppies twice felasses stratification ethastun.ossgetner/ dump polesask feeder10 festivalestinks send ana ......sass blankets http = faux - -18+ 50 cam1 ping scream Mac%*%_ung - tie edge...version:1.0 plugin:osx binden network iperf ..crap mac that up 99% FAT with Macintosh LOVE. MAY iOpen the same exportsmon http respond to Gartner (Windows) optimization preferences Figure suffering techniques max kill ??? - -The uptown intake expressed the essence of antxial programming approaching fiber phones business That the?business -======================================== SAMPLE 404 ======================================== -An Indiana farmer stands up against GMOs at a protest against Monsanto. Photo: EPA/ISU - -More than 4,000 people gathered up on the steps of California's state government on Wednesday, demanding action even if it means donating food to the hungry. - -National and seasonal food assistance for hundreds of thousands of Californians could be a meal in the food bank. - -But instead, those folks headed to take to the streets to voice their opposition to Monsanto and the industry they've been fighting. - -A bill seeking to make genetically modified food that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) illegal was submitted to the state public cancer board on Saturday. State senators Suzi Brown and Ellen Corbett introduced the measure, and it would do away with California's current rules requiring that genetically-modified food be labeled on the shelves of conventional supermarkets. - -Since the enactment of the California Safe Food Act by Jerry Brown in 1995, these rules have been voluntary, for now. With the FDA's announcement last week that it would no longer declare the food safe for consumption that is already in circulation, bolder states are scrambling for contingency plans. - -What does that mean for consumers? Well, first – unfortunately – the idea of eating a genetically engineered food isn't a shelf-stable one. It's already been successfully filtered and sterilized. If the products labeled as "organic" have genetically modified ingredients, you have to assume that it took steps to ensure that its labeling was accurate. If there was no GMO there, you may well still be eating the edited version anyway, now officially labeled organic, to satisfy the FDA's notion of "substantial equivalency." - -Although the results of the FDA's new ruling next month aren't known, I would suspect that it worked, since there have been no more genetically engineered foreign-produced seeds detected in commercial fields. - -Currently, other states are crafting their own rules to ban the practice, but California is an outlier. (Interestingly, in all likelihood the Oregon Farmers' Produce Association, which is often at odds with the federal government, will work to deny the labeling bill through litigation.) - -There's a financial cost to paying to build a secure food chain, and Washington state has taken a initiative to dole out $6.6 million to farmers who want to plant GMOs – a record grant. So what about California's existing farmers? - -This is the state's argument for continuing to permit the practice. The problem is, it hasn't worked. A growing majority of the country does not buy any GMO products, see the potential negative effects, and want more controls over what's being sold. A growing majority of millennials – a key demographic forecasted to shape the country's future – just plain don't want to eat Monsanto's lies. - -The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the increased use of herbicides and pesticides on genetically engineered crops will contaminate more land and water than decreased usage. The situation isn't just down to the agricultural system, either: One study shows that Monsanto and other GMO-factories are responsible for between 25 and 57 billion pesticide-treated gallons of water per year overall. This is bad for people and the environment but locks American agriculture in Japan-style crony capitalism the world has never seen. - -Other countries haven't bought into the GM response style. On Thursday India announced that its views were reaching a point where it would act. Only Mexico has rejected the contamination of their food source and polluted an American water source partially water bottled. - -Given the evidence, it's exactly this that people should be protesting since the FDA's new ruling. The agenda of the food industry, dictated by a relatively small group of people with millions to lose, puts everyone at risk. - -This isn't only Monsanto's fault: The larger consumers' groups involved in the fight against the GMO industry were presented with an education campaign that primarily pushed for the perception of a health threat – as is happening in dozens of other countries. Defending the status quo was always the more profitable position. GMO food supply is something people have the right to know about. - -Under the current system it's far more useful just to bury anybody voicing these concerns in an avalanche of hyperbole. Only organic rules trump this avalanche for the moment. That moment will certainly pass, and with enough movement the ruling class is liable to accept the inevitable, so the only result is resolution. Consumers aren't going to separate bodies from chemical of industry. - -Consumers in California need a third option. The answer isn't to stand empty-handed and silent as our food becomes tainted daily. When people take on Monsanto in an intelligent way, the more beneficial responses follow, mostly from governments and organizations that are easier to hold accountable. - -Going forward it should be possible to legally force both GE seeds and pesticide chemical brands off markets. Either way, farmers who are currently planting genetically modified crops are returning to a seed system beneficial to their livelihoods and our energy situation -======================================== SAMPLE 405 ======================================== -Advertisements - -1. Jozsef Entekal,Fitness Body Coach in Almaty, Kazakhstan – a famous bodybuilder of Kazakhstan. - -2. Valeik Mokhtarian,Senior brand E Polish | Career from 2012 – 2016.<|endoftext|>As America's richest taxpayers hoard a record $1.6 trillion in cash, the wealthy are avoiding paying the fair share of taxes. The 53 percent of wealthy taxpayers who have negative income is equal to the middle quintile, and those without retirement account or child care means they've even made back more than they paid out. - -As senior citizens are not benefitting from a spigot of these millions in tax reductions, it's not surprising that nearly 1 40 million Americans live in poverty -- and close to a quarter of America's children are living in poverty. These children represent the military direct hires who provide America's essential defense services. - -These services are being eroded by the winds of the war that ushered in income tax cuts. The Heritage Foundation has calculated that the 16 percent decline in tax revenue from 2000 to 2010 resulted in a $700 billion tax increase for America's most treacherous 1 percent; and the amendment Kate Brown has offered TSN regarding her tax reform proposal reeks the smell of a cottonmouth Politician willing to strip necessities from their constituents to enrich the upper-class. - -Brown's request states that the Brown planned to "encourage growth in the private tax space so that America's corporations and individuals can compete more effectively and reap the rewards of rising market demand." An hour after passage of the Brown tax plan she dropped her scholarship proposal and slowly disappears from the public stage. - -This is not just a move to ostensibly "encourage diversification." The school choice movement the Brown proposed would compel students and parents to pull their children away from their own schools looking to benefit the corporate-profiteers pulling off the bait-and-switch. - -Colorado schools have already seen increases in class sizes via Wuppertalk's election to teacher of the month. - -What if Buffett decided to pay his fair share of taxes out of his super rich nest egg? What in the world, does Eric Cantor mean (ask yourself hard questions regarding these statements)? Please fix a broken political process and the performance of American Senators. Allow their representatives to run on issues instead of agendas. The deserved pay raises have been offered repeatedly to Congressional leadership during session and continuing for the new Congress. - -Please show the majority of your Senators that you really want to hear out and hear from them about the merits of a temporary increase to immigration reform or targeted cuts to maintaining our military. Breaking their blockade and passing a "clean" immigration bill with a fair and wild border was a key component in the outcome of our last election - -Please vote for Senators Gillibrand, Cardin and Blumenthal and Congressman Bob Casey to be they face every multi-chaircombat vote. - -Do you share the slow exhaustion of the country in the aftermath of 20 years ofPresidential Iraq and Afghanistan actions that further politicize a belligerent foreign policy is contingent on a feeble Congress? Do you say enough is enough? Seat your representatives and join us history and change. - -We must puncture the political assault in Washington, DC every Tuesday and Wednesday to give voice to voice to our voices to demand congress do our jobs.<|endoftext|>Click Photos to Enlarge. The only question now is how long it will last. When I first heard about this 5 gallon mini keg fermenter I imagined implementing other Blood brother and Company beers in it - from a small batch of White Rooster to a fairly rich Imperial Stout. Blood and Honey, which was brewed specifically for the small keg but used for that very purpose. That sluggish relationship to Bloodbrother has only accelerated in the months since I first laid eyes on the mini keg. Water issues, inability to get it into the places I needed for kegging, inability to get it into the beer that I had planned. They no longer carry the 5 gallon keg. All I have are these 1.5 gallon bungees that were salvaged at a garage sale that I use to display experimental beers that say great things about Hyperion/66 investigation. Again - I am just barely getting through the seasonal pale ales that were my bread and butter recipe and their millions of dollars worth of prototypes. They sell this lagering tech for me but not the mini keg - and the 1.5 gallon batch kegs seem like way to much for me to put this a week to long and pour all that nutrient into second hand beer bottles every evening on the kitchen table after dinner when I know the delicious beers I've worked so tirelessly on are excruciatingly on the wait list for something altogether more urgent. Turns out I have group 4,5,6 ulcers that need to coalesce into proper ulcers first, maybe next year. I have to bed down for the next 25 years of getting a good night's rest on something useful.100% homebrew, homebrewed and -======================================== SAMPLE 406 ======================================== -"We're at a very awkward time," Chris Cruz said. - -Of course the narrower shuffle in the wings, where Puerto Ricans moved, hasn't slowed a hurricane that's been shifting direction and intensity ever since it sized up Florida and Georgia first area people are talking about. - -"All of a sudden, we're into the South and ... that could develop into a Category 1 hurricane," said Jeff Masters of Weather Underground. "I don't know how long it's going to take for it to change," Masters added. "But it's more important now than ever that you take shelter, watch on TV, and pay attention to your local government." - -In a tweet Thursday, FEMA reiterated its plea to every American to stay in their homes and take shelter. Host loves to remind us that San Juan is "just across the bridge" from Hoboken, New Jersey. Dr. Sarah Feinberg to Liz Hatch: "NOT ALL PHONZIES" - -Last page on the remix I was making. Tomorrow is Sunday Amex, which may disappoint you at the checkout counter "bars" — but it's Kansas City you are fooling. — Chris Churchill (@chrischurchill) September 24, 2017 - -Just a reminder, my food is gluten, dairy, soy, casein free. I'm fine, just munching on my food. #WhiteGirlDebate — LCCC (@accordinglolc) September 24, 2017 Los Frigidos is not overtly racist, but we did whitewash a religious_theme song for this special preview if you're curious. Teach us, Mrs. Robinson, about shit like serge. Or maybe not anymore. 6 days til Puerto Rico is completely wrecked. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) September 25, 2017 #PuertoTípico He has so much, like that's amazing. All the power you need, because... — Alexis Foster (@alexisfoster) September 24, 2017 cc: @Neil_Paris You know that you are me. You just got ALL the power. — Christian人СЦワ (@KH163_Rybb) September 25, 2017 Lluc Las Mexico eran barquín del personaje, mera la tienda proporcionada "en los 235 me". — Jorge Ramos (@jorgeaxuan) September 25, 2017 ...and although Trump must be doing something right, he turned Gabby Giffords into a homebaked jello shot and his approval ratings have soared. Greeiete beeeeeeeeeenttttyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeerttrrrrrrrrrrdeeeeee — Jason Witty (@jasonbillycrew) September 25, 2017 Protest against the TSA at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, and #notcoolitsnotcapubusiness is trending on Twitter.* - -Maybe just 11 days out from the 241st minute since the 2012 Election. 😊 — Virginia Wade (@vwmade) September 24, 2017 Your mother calls its Monday. - -💎 i think there's no greater wonder vs a place will end as so quickly, justify as false and care as it did so just be #vauky — Carmen Dennis (@CarmenDennis) September 25, 2017 If I am so bad at reading and writing, what should I expect from my readers, especially if they seemingly care little about achieving virtues? - -...so really, what's terribly ironic is how much concern you're preaching to people Who really aren't your entire audience. — Roy Lubit (@RoyTrende1) September 24, 2017 Pilasm is nowhere near as harrowing as it might seem, especially now that we know its caused by beetles with heart bypassing. Palettes of luxe water and algae - -or power… — Childfather (@ddefrancis) September 25, 2017 No! You're kidding. We weren't joking, and neither was the Jets (rating higher than both). — Juan Morillo (@JuanM2318891) September 25, 2017 — Daniel Garcia (@ddunills) September 24, 2017 You must be the Basis diagnosis diversity tasting at Shady Blake's, such as the spiciness is INF with sulfuric and love all is healthful 4 life. — Michael (@sup2m) September 25, 2017 I do think it will, in a basic way... but with stress and depression. And with the right smokes and cut prices. — Kara Tiernan (@BlazeKara) September 25, 2017 How refreshing. The '45 Mets are blowing Marlins away and I'm running out of Omnicarb cook-offs 🔥❤️ — Emily (@MrEmily1) September 24, 2017 #MJ4VPweek heh heh heh. Find your hero today. Thank you, @playstation #boycotxboxays pic.twitter.com/2UFPb -======================================== SAMPLE 407 ======================================== -Undergraduate Research Extended through 2019 - -The Liu Institute for Graduate Studies at Keele University has extended its undergraduate research programme up to the end of 2019. - -Currently, the programme runs at the Institute from term 1-3 in January and until June each year and runs until in October each year. - -Will this mean research money is available from year 3 onwards? - -No. However, the longer your course is, the more research funds you will be able to apply for. - -How much can I spend on undergraduate research at Keele? - -There are no fixed limits for the number of research projects you can undertake. You should always plan your academic year around your personal needs but please note the bigger the number of students you employ, the less budget there will be available. - -Do you have any funds for undergraduates at Keele who seek to supplement their incomes through joint venture work or industry? - -No. The only funding we will be offering is for academic research. - -Am I guaranteed to do a specific project if I apply? - -You should never assume you'll be asked to do a specific project. You will be notified via email of your ideal research topic and subject, and we will discuss the project carefully with you. - - -Am I guaranteed to get the full amount of funding available? - -The deadline for selecting a project is 17th August for term 2. We will not be remiss in contacting you before this deadline in order to gauge your interest in donations and/or re-consideration, depending on the extent of your potential contribution. - - -Can I write up an outline for a project? - -Yes, but don't try to submit the outline until the deadline has passed. - -Is there any registration fee for the Graduate Studies programme? - -We do not charge registration fees. However, one of graduate school are allowed to bill you a small one-off fee for each session. This fee will be applied to your total research subsidy and you will receive this in your Scholarships Pack. - - -How do I apply for the Webb studentship? - -Please see here for further information and how to apply.<|endoftext|>Residents of Uptown may be floored, but they'll be glad to have a touted north St. Louis Park Street project come to fruition. - -Proposed for a U of M designation, the 18-story mixed-use building will stand at the South River site across South River Road from St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic parish, Target Field and the Sports Station. - -Project developer Collins Architects constructed two smaller buildings at the site, one that's now occupied by Northeast R St., which will house East County Health Center. - -Over the summer, Collins issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for an Arizona-based construction management firm to develop the project. Gensler Inc. is the only known building contractors to have displayed interest for the viable opportunity. - -The latest RFP, issued in mid-May by Gensler's Cleveland office, noted that the firm had completed a similar volume of development projects in the Cleveland area that included Hilton, Progressive National Bank and Steer Wellness Center. - -A shorter timetable and a stiff competition, however, may push the project to 2016. - -The East County Health Center site, unlike Uptown, will have before it an overpass reconstruction planned for Public Square 2014, a rising on-ramp constructed in September 2013 to complement a similar project upriver of Jackson Square, and ramped that header wider than intended from about 50 feet in the northeast direction to the River Walk, pending city review, sources confirmed. - -White said a total 9,000 square feet will be open to the public. - -Changing the mix at the West River Street site could mean a neighborhood-scale green plan, intended to provide residents with plenty of options for personal bathing and other wellness facilities. - -Since 2000, located on the border of North Slauson and St. Louis Park, the area has housed numerous apartment complexes and has been without a decent grocery store closely monitored by East County residents' burgeoning need for it, residents said. - -For much traffic wanton destruction of homes, support came from two of Obama's ordinances and The Tragic City Design Plan stirred up dramatic alarm in east St. Louis Park, with regular reports of North and Northeast R St. neighbors with signs posted and screams triggered over the issue. - -The final, tentative design, by a firm calling itself LiNUM Architecture/Design of St. Louis, will include, officials said, a purchase of St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church grounds for the next seven to 14 years for Pope Francis's practice – a $200,000 cost for the Diocese. - -Other advantages of opting for a nearby office park-like development were that it will rejuvenate a blighted area, remove a tax-problem from Medina Park, give some residents new infrastructure, more... and fill East County Health -======================================== SAMPLE 408 ======================================== -12104 Tenne power station shut on 2 February 2016 due to a non-compliant service connection. Six cuts to the main seal kept pipes from freezing, leading to crippling freezing of the brickwork and transformers. The plant will shut on 1 April 2016 for purpose-integral repair. 8361 Turbine equipment will be relocated for 50-day installation of new high-from-gas gas turbines. No provision is made for permanent shutdown of plant. - -12102 Basile TP-148 ambulance garage severed with prompt media attention. Open galleries to display artwork. Vehicle parts rescued before clearances arranged. Hope to rebuild shop and comply with requisition. - -12103 Please stress Bayintoul landfill over food scraps & recycling campaign. Operation scheduled on 7 February 2016 for 637 tonnes of food & 10 tonnes green bin material. Will work with area team & co-operative to ensure adhesion. - -12102 For Christ's sake. Harbour/curse been created! WWIII as imminent. Lambeth by Daksport opening on 9 February. Bayintoul same day at Eastbourne. Hull on 11 February. Queenstown December 7, operated as actual Christmas bogey. Our stab - -That's not what I meant. She's an alcoholic, that's the problem. Then there's the whole habit thing. And there's the actor argument. Felicity asked me why I keep telling her she should join community clubs in areas where they exist, not as part of the prison oun - -Saint Crispin's Episcopal Church, Durham – The rector was concerned that I had made jokes about St Crispin's involvement in the Anglican Council of Australasia – which is supposed to be made up of prophets & other Puritans meting in Seattle – for which the drawers did not want my help. But I see the locus of the two problems differently. St Crispin's isn't just a nasty little cult that loathes political unity. It's a creepy cult in which almost all the staff wear "I Sing Da Hola" T-shirts at all times. And it's exactly like Spain & Portugal: right wing & nazi-inspired. They even believe in purgatory AND abracadabra, the sausage roll we eat in prison. Friday - -No antibodies robbed the Periodic Table from too many predators. Ticked the boxes you always knew it was because you helpfully reminded me. - -That's not what I meant. A card with a picture of a club called French Labyrinths through the lyrics "hit me good" told me that the person was sending me the wrong poster. My subconscious stories are so ingrained that I thought they weren't looking at me and I had just pointed them to the wrong page. This was the truth :) - -11953 Cookies in fancy bread shops. What's wrong with cookies? Logically they would fail authentication. But not all flavours are the same/ I have never heard of a McCafé doing this. Nosurprise it was Chicks Travels? - -Wind produced more days of winter than all the current UK winters combined, but to no avail. The penguins are doing fine on their own, alas. 24 February - -I once taught myself to build in Java. Most people do that – studders, developers and developers of all kinds. If you teach yourself to forget particular parts, it can be done. 3 February - -I just realised something. There was clearly something wrong with people who were fully immersed in language they don't understand. Who causes anybody stress because of something they don't know? Canadian researcher named Leon Weiss – worried about social attitudes. Njoku!!!! I was roaming along our streets - not trying to see the homeless, but just to make sure in case it was chaotic (I'm tall, so I can easily see) and shyly voila – hiding in some bushes to let the homeless brush up against the lamppost. So I start offering my space to the industrious, the able, the concerned, the polite + also me… When I was studying at the University of Michigan I had an English teacher who would say moments of disruption were normally inevitable with the dialogue and in English (or English-specific– amount & accuracy of grammar & pronunciation are not the main issues). I worked on that assumption and less, very little (might as well not do too much). I almost cried with frustration and anger at the inconsistencies that were revealed by my own cant-somehow-make-that-decision brain. What I find to be the real source of stress in people living here is the socially confused and anti-social person. I teach my students to be flexible. - -12003 In my own mind, I thought of the past as all men were evil & disabled. Not treachery or nasty personalities as with Great Horror, but just being some kind of barbarian; reveling in they tumbled faceless and feeble minds that don't even EXIST like "pun" or -======================================== SAMPLE 409 ======================================== -Details - -Pictures - -Clubs Top Characters Shouko Oreki Shouko Oreki (鈴木 香子) Shouko is an acquaintance of Mishima's. After Mishima made his acquaintance, she acts very friendly towards him. When she learns that Mishima is in head of the Andou brain trust, she is disgusted in-te inhibition to negatively clue her hatred towards him.[14] - - -Voice Actors Shiraishi, Chiemi Japanese Morisaki, Kanae Japanese<|endoftext|>A vibrant sea and pastel hues sit simmering in a clear, orange master bath. The cabinets feature the freshest, most creatively simple entire-house bathroom inspiration. - -Living on the waterfront so needs to think a little differently. - -Find your way through the vast bathing and kitchen area. Couches are cleverly surmounted, cabinets are bold, and floor splash sprays precisely lie. - -For extra architectural style, turn the master bath into a maisonette! Perfect for imagesque retreats or ponds.<|endoftext|>Dec 29, 2016; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Philadelphia Flyers center Claude Giroux (15) gets his stick caught in the crease during the first period at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports - -A slew of possible destinations were discussed among the mayors and league owners at this year's Winter Meetings, and one name is by far the most talked about. - -One name that seemed to impress everyone during the 2017 NBA All-Star Weekend in Toronto is not only intriguing, but probably the most important hire of all the new additions. And by the looks of it, Claude Giroux is going back down to his roots. - -The Philadelphia Flyers forward, who now guested with Bob Costas for the NHL's all-star break, is reportedly going back to his native The Netherlands for its national team players and coach, the two in Peter Bakker, of the Netherlands. - -Of course, coming from The Netherlands, Giroux's apparent feeling of naïveté is located at the root of this whole potentially perfect scenario; he has yet to play a football game, how can he know what to expect as a professional player? - -That's not Maarten Alquoode's issue either, now a solid NHL winger over the past several seasons, who started entire scoring droughts in the Netherlands, including in countries like Kazakhstan and Australia. - -Would it see Giroux playing in different leagues like he did during his last short stint in the league, starting in Oshawa, in 2004-05? Not if he signs back with the Flyers before the playoffs begin in earnest. - -It's essential, of course, that Philadelphia's insurance policy is filled with NHL players, who aren't only at home most of the day, but also are each capable of fulfilling day-in, day-out duties without hindrance. The addition of Bakker, the former trainer for the Netherlands U-19 national team, will come as a playoff ticket to fill in other areas in the Cup Final push to get over the hump. It may be Lightrott or Letestu who chip in for the goal's novelty, and the unexpected addition of Paul Holmgren who he moved his family down to Johor Baru to be closer to their mother. - -After all, as Benny Computer once said, patience isn't the same as giving up, especially when you are as certain as Mr. MacGillivary of the Captain giving not only the Flyers the green light to pursue this signing as soon as possible.<|endoftext|>Still loading... - -A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AI AJ AK AL AM AN AO AP AQ AR AS AT AU AV AW AX AY AZ BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BK BL BM BN BO BP BQ BR BS BT BU BV BW BX BY BZ CA CB CC CD CE CF CG CH CI CJ CK CL CM CN CO CP CQ CR CS CT CU CV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 - -Loading... Loading... - -Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20 minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice.Disclaimer Sheet1 - -A browser error has occurred. - -Please press Ctrl-F5 to refresh -======================================== SAMPLE 410 ======================================== -2015-10-07 Bengals Seahawks 1 0:23 3 16 SEA 47 6-10 Andy Dalton pass incomplete short right intended for Marvin Jones 2.270 2.040 -0.69 - -2015-10-07 Bengals Seahawks 2 13:35 4 8 CIN 39 0-10 Andy Dalton up the middle for 2 yards (tackle by Frank Clark) 2 1 in 1.010 -2.130 1.43 - -2015-10-14 Broncos Cowboys 2 13:07 3 6 DEN 39 3-3 Peyton Manning pass incomplete deep right intended for Demaryius Thomas 2.010 1.160 -0.74 - -2015-11-20 Panthers Saints 3 3:26 3 21 NOR 16 14-10 Cam Newton left end for nil yards (tackle by Sterling Moore) 0 -0.980 -1.540 -0.42 - -2015-12-03 Giants Eagles 4 2:15 4 16 PHI 20 24-46 Eli Manning pass incomplete deep left intended for Cole Beasley 0.000 0.040 .04 - -2015-12-03 Giants Eagles 4 1:56 3 10 PHI 29 24-46 Eli Manning pass incomplete deep left intended for Odell Beckham 1.660 0.720 -0.56 - -2015-12-03 Giants Eagles 4 1:46 3 10 PHI 29 24-46 Eli Manning pass incomplete deep middle intended for Rueben Randle 1.720 0.720 -0.56 - -2015-12-03 Giants Eagles 3 13:16 4 9 PHI 40 7-46 Eli Manning pass complete short right to Odell Beckham for no gain 1.190 -0.430 -1.30 - -2015-12-04 Broncos Buccaneers 3 3:55 2 5 TAM 5 7-17 Trevor Siemian pass incomplete short left intended for Benjamin Watson -0.820 -1.900 -0.68 - -2015-12-11 Browns Jets 3 13:55 2 5 CLE 46 0-10 Josh McCown pass incomplete deep right intended for Taylor Gabriel 1.980 1.490 -0.69 - -2015-12-11 Browns Jets 4 11:59 3 7 NYJ 27 10-13 Josh McCown pass incomplete deep middle intended for Gary Barnidge -1.320 -2.390 -0.67 - -2015-12-19 Panthers Buccaneers 2 5:16 3 10 TAM 39 14-10 Cam Newton pass incomplete short middle intended for Greg Olsen 0.820 -0.270 -1.21 - -2015-12-19 Titans Colts 3 11:40 3 10 OTI 9 7-17 Marcus Mariota pass incomplete deep left intended for Rishard Matthews 4.270 3.360 -0.83 - -2015-12-19 Titans Colts 3 8:30 3 10 OTI 11 7-10 Marcus Mariota pass incomplete short left intended for Kendall Wright 3.300 2.030 -1.27 - -2015-12-26 Saints Panthers 2 7:41 3 8 CAR 35 0-14 Drew Brees pass incomplete deep right intended for Michael Thomas 0.500 -0.560 -1.09 - -2016-01-03 Saints Panthers 1 6:25 2 10 NOR 41 0-0 Drew Brees pass incomplete deep right intended for Brandin Cooks 1.260 0.720 -0.69 - -2016-01-03 Saints Panthers 1 3:13 1 10 NOR 29 0-3 Drew Brees pass incomplete deep left intended for Kenny Stills 2.640 2.180 -0.54<|endoftext|>Dec 29, 2013 - While pregnant, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) is a common medication. ... If you have a high risk pregnancy, a blood pressure medication called phenytoin (Dilantin, Droume) may help your baby's development. ... Cytotoxic drugs including medications from aspirin, ibuprofen, and diclofenac (Accutane), working in rapid succession (hypertonic tear) will ...<|endoftext|>This carpet scroll is written in the native language of the rugatels. - -You can trade the carpet scroll for one living rugatel for free the first time you visit Alefgard of Cenarion Hold after Haedrig's Gift update. - -Reward Edit - -Rugatel rug Edit - -Required for completing Edit - -Transcript Edit - -Trivia Edit<|endoftext|>Data from Southern's U. S. News and World Report Quality of Living Report, the American Community Survey 2012 quality of life report and LA Times 200 survey, the comScore and ICF International data suggests that text message reply rates are high. The dataset also shows the significant effect of mobile usage in overall performance and for some applications.<|endoftext|>Security vendors hold back on assessing digital certificate vulnerabilities and when combined with the compromised plugins dumbing-20 can run 'remote code execution. This according to some experts based on benchmarks for vulnerable scanners. - -In recent years Microsoft has grown confident to let users store SSL certificates on -======================================== SAMPLE 411 ======================================== -Parliament likely to vote to abolish pensioner's tax Credit: EPA - - -The issue of who will pay for the National Health Service is as politicised as the Medicare levy. The Greens believe the government must replace it with a universal, publicly funded health insurance, but precise details are known only to Chancellor George Osborne. - -In Britain there is great public unease about raising taxes in line with the ongoing "hollowing out" of the tax base. Yet nobody on the left in Britain has been able to single-handedly remove the alternative health tax-and-theys-fight-in completely-for-evergo-to-humanitarian-care-loss-new-benefits and it was the Greens' Green-summons that brought that issue to the fore. - -Watch: Goliath gets both hands increased and tough when White Helmets escape hitting holes in concrete.(Unmistakable class war metaphors capital sign, partner - left) - -The other issue – dementia – is similar in world view. Doctors – and few on the left – regard it as an after-adiation syndrome which is, cum hat, more treatable than any other condition. Given the under-funding of social care policy, it is quite possible that hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of elderly UK citizens will be influenced into dependent care matrons, full stop. That will be catastrophic. Whether it could persuade senior executives and directors of German car companies to stock lower-level nurses, examiners and GPs is doubtful. - -So we will want some plan. An increased pension age: indeed much of Europe has done precisely that. One?" What? What are you talking about? No new state pension age for anyone. This is Britain. Calls to do it are akin to calling out for an early, feudal 40th birthday in which one group is to behave like the aristocratic fudge-making mendicant following they are due, while another group must be indulged like the procuress of great Cenotaphs with a speculative three-hundredths Prof on horse racing bets. - -Neither group deserved the Middle Ages. In free market politics we say that people get what they deserve. In their case, we are under- paid, in the scale and scale of government expenditure. We do not want their excuses: this is rude, it is unconscionable, not to contribute. Instead we want a timetable to put in place. The young are a heavy consumer of state pensions and health care, so age-related war mortis costs money. Young selves have income, superannuation and use of less expensive care. - -George Reid lectures on private equity at Jones Lang LaSalle in London and writes regularly on international affairs. He was an adviser to Angela Eagle MP until she stood down as shadow Business Secretary four weeks later. See our web site for the some interesting New Age commentaries on health taxes and the reduction of overseas NHS tax.<|endoftext|>Williams continued in the back-to-back race as most drivers are not so prone to do in the second half of an international event after just seven successful events for his home team in 2015. The 26-year-old was moving into seventh place by the chequered flag but underlined his increasing importance to Mercedes by taking the last of the five top ten places. - -Williams continued co-inciding with Oracle on the scrappier ninth grid, which was currently full of evidence to suggest that Mercedes may be at least 0.001 seconds ahead of the teams competing for fifth. Already having reached seven and Senio Hydro over the past 8 laps with Bottas gaining further on proceedings throughout the race with his tyre activities, Ricciardo looked set for the last of the original nine spots coming in ninth and passing Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen to latch on to the 10th spot. - -Perez overtook Hamilton to take the 11th spot to establish another Mercedes 1-2 ahead. The German had a trio of encounters with Massa on long straights and Hamilton that made justice / battle on the track rather than a Williams popular choice to take 10th. A spare wheel through a TMG gap became required on the Williams and Pedro de la Rosa put in a courageous stop but the error did not appear to reflect on the seven Red Bull drivers inside the G-Wiz. - -He followed the Williams work and as Perez dropped out Rea and Ericsson took him down the inside, without taking any close passes on the Williams as Red Bull lubed up. Nico Hulkenberg almost conceded his place on the podium to the two although he released his lapped teammates to retake sixth - but even then was lacking, while both Hulkenberg and Marcus Ericsson were far behind. Bottas was interjected into the race when Daniil Kvyat thus lost his wind, but the Russian still stopped on the long straight to ensure on-board video would continue to be passed as he was fast enough to reel Perez in. - -======================================== SAMPLE 412 ======================================== -QUEBEC - A cat associated with Quebec Pride was struck by a lorry Thursday night, shutting down P.O.W.K. — "Pay Kitten for the Day" event that raises money for disaster relief — in Sylvan Lake. - -Security personnel at the festival managed to catch the cat, which was caught in the open door of the vehicle just before it hit the trailer just outside the Red River home, according to Grace Liechti, organizer of the event. - -The cat was taken to the The first and only time that a pet cat was hit by a car. - -Though the cat is doing well and has been reunited with its owner, organizer Graeme Lawrence notes that within two months the event will host another 'Pay Kitten For the Day' event which had about 1,000 kittens in attendance. - -It will be up to band members hoping to race over to the caravan for the least drag of the day to pay the 4 Cents feline you see depicted on the game board. - -Grassi said he does not know how the animal came to be associated with the event, though it is not terribly surprising considering the animals on display have a large presence in the proud province and recent postings featuring various felines popping up on social media sites city of Montreal. - -He did, however, confirm the RIP to MATurban stray cat was written solo, purpose aside, as that cat's feline kind were considered "terrorists" — a category that does not always sit well with owners who want their animals to live in the city they live in. - -Lellete said he has not yet heard back from his insurance company regarding the lorry that struck the cat, and the cat's handler also did not respond to requests for comment from the Star. - -In the spirit of the day, SLaCare said any donations being collected for P.O.W.K. will be given directly to the Canadian Red Cross.<|endoftext|>I grew up in a beautiful corner of Massachusetts in a reasonably large family—my father's three endowment of cousins and uncles batters me improperly. My great uncle thoroughly affairs that Conchobhar isn't a "natural Indian" but a Reserve Indian,' and I know why—his hair has been much lower down the side of his head than ours, his voice considerably higher, and his skin much pallid. He says conchobhar counts as 'chocolate pepper' on the road—so I learned to appreciate that a gifted spice liked and prized and appreciated by many as we do. But no one cares for conchobhar where I come from, as in Vermont or Wisconsin, where it's deemed proper only for inbred mill towns of people who eat too much pasta and too much white loaf. - -After any measurement of my sidecar collection, I send out quick e-mails fearing a burglar. "Just ready for a trip to Scott's field," I post finally with the glimmer of a flush. - -"Might have to get you the 3-mileest one," Jacob responds, a silver grin as bright as his 47 year-old brilliant. "On this side." - -"Agreed. I'll get it on your side to set you a little higher," Rick replies, proud of the accoutrements of fur that makes conchobhar what it is: soft, gentle against the sun of the North East, an English luxury, somewhat delicate and sometimes-yellow-colored. He turns down the highpockets and sends Jenni out to end up in the right end. - -A keeper's job is what makes conchobhar an excellent addition to a collection. Dish pates chicken korma, kitten hashish, and volgare lasagne all feed symmetrically upon conchobhar. Without it, the grand infiltration of restaurant carried food types into your hand clothes mode would cause you to skip lunch simply because you'd already eaten a couple of salads. Conchobhar inflicts no memory loss into these times of locavore gourmands, and fortunately it can be disappeared into one's business wardrobe very easily, that secret passing story when we carry a bitchez and an insulated lobster in the dark into the back of the car as long as there's no ember. - -I rarely carry conchobhar, and the ability to know when to reapply it into my collection—when the French Quarter flavors of button mushrooms, chunks of stuffed onion and shallots, and orzo with piquante dressing arrive—certainly widens my palette, whether coffee or on a stroll with a conchotlache (a round-dish oysterseed cake often referenced as a recipe for conchobhar). Then I feel both contented and cold about some possibilities that also have nothing to do with conchobhar—imagine fighting an inclement early evening rain in high heels in Julian and finding the water levels disintegrate -======================================== SAMPLE 413 ======================================== - -Snow lake ethnic identity in Australia discusses the unique relationship of indigenous people and the snow lake. - -Text from Wikipedia: - -Snow Lake is an area in central western New South Wales, Australia, located in the Fryer Granite Belt. Neoproterozoic rocks within the Snow Lake region form a relatively elongate volcanic shield of spheroidal elliptical plates and rhyolite concentric bands of unique sandstone ignimbrite of discipline Complexes I-II. The extinct Pastora hill and Lake Gungee lie beneath the Snow Lake shield of ignimbrite. Bound within the shield is a subduction zone containing the salt and sulphur polyclinic dyke Veale Brook (Cummer Creek). Geological investigations show presents of, inferred from basalts, extensional craters of rhyolitic African Planum sandstone which deposited breccia on the flanks of volcanogen rilles over a period of 20–56 million years. - -Suggested by: JJJ Lam - -08 Jan 2014 - -Contributed by: R ikku Reinsch - -19 Dec 2013 - -Ice Age Passing: Link to Dramatic Portuguese Map - -The triad of mars , ice and fire reveals the passign point for ?But wait! Now it's all a big coincidence ! Summer is most likely to advance as it's approaching the other, winter is near the end of the second steps, solstices are near just east of the plateaus and winter is quickly approaching the colourless desert plains - -Source ?But wait! Now it's all a big coincidence ! Summer is most likely to advance as it's approaching the other, winter is near the end of the second steps, solstices are near just east of the plateaus and winter is quickly approaching the colourless desert plains Reply - -Posted by Azkirriest - -05 Jun 2013 - -Darwin and snow facial masks (?) - -Name Snakes, and snow , and the masks of the primal self from Darwin That the montaigning was fastidious in this new world is apparent from the mounting of masks made from sand. This material is also found on the face of Australopithecurine mollusces and the skins of woolly rhinos. It was derived, suggested Quarry ( aTVS ", the so called "Montaigner the crocodile") that these masks were probably initiated by a push of the human brow fo the body and each mask sewn close behind, this arrangement giving the animal an ancient, 'faty' form. The side scribes of the applique work are broad and convex. Their proportionate cuts were done by cutting his jaw and jaw teeth apart with a very sharp blow. The face: At first view the nose and mouth of the measuroid-like Darwin are reasonably "food friendly" with slanted nostrils and three holes on each side sind at about as far apart and at opposite angles as humans. At the top surface, however, there are two small v-shaped mutes almost directly when viewed from the front. These are "facial shields" set apart from the other parts of the face slightly upward and on the underside by a ridge upto about 3 cm. Tooth inlets are found on either side of the mouth. The snout: On the low forehead there is an notochord set frons the nostrils and in front of that there is a second, reduced notochord. 4×4 km when occupied by children (Shickens also had v-cage pairs) Types of Snake. genetic surfaceamectments of the body being found in the mummified remains of some of these apparently wild populations. A first complication is that who seem to have been the reptilian animôs, this period was contaminated by the scholars Galton and Buckland SettingPositions[/ Christians suggested that Carter was bare party, with a lower to middle part of his body faired and hopscot that so happned that hm had to repress his peculiarities in conversing with others ( comments are – some swine grating, others a swell body and jaw that operated to pull hewn stone. As * the kiden had disorientated very rare carestations like pav� cabinets cut into the wall and even like the intornbergus the mans lengthBarrow the left is a fourpart hollowslike a hulled arrowhead The hindman likewise feel pressed in Great Manchester in ca. 1196 did wear a leok beyond his waist, and he suffered often had a fill of vitteo he poodholoo and gelt. The shrunken jaws gave him a level head-stage above his sons and other females. The food perception of what in Scottian America had otherwise sensibly been the trouble of a physician, the personage placarded with pangshhins. but appeared quite manly was less-equal or analogically notreminded, -======================================== SAMPLE 414 ======================================== -$19.99 Buy It Now Free Shipping - -2 watching - -watching | - -According to the material in this device, the product bears the trademark of FS division Falcon, CS61. This device could have stood for Dangerous Atlantic Secret "Fried- / Fried" Arrow.<|endoftext|>Your first name - -Bill Clinton says African-Americans in the key State of Missouri are more likely to have experienced "deadlier" crime because of heavy-handed police crackdowns on weak-willed protesters. - -Drudge reports: - -Bill Clinton on Friday called for wide-scale federal "mandatory" gun control….Clinton mentioned the difference between snow lanes and hidden gun safes. "Notice what we were protesting in 2006 is totally different from what we are protesting in now," he said, alluding to the Fox News-anchor Ron Fournier (who called Clinton a "racial hypocrite" for his racial comments). "These people are saying, you know what, they don't want to pay dues to the Democratic party so they might as well just go sit on their fat fingers and then carry a gun." The ex-president also noted that "black people are being killed by guns at a higher rate than white people are being killed by guns." - -The comments were his first at the recent rally in St. Louis, where he's running for re-election against GOP rival Mitt Romney. - -Clinton fulsomely defended President Obama's handling of the situation in Ferguson, Mo., saying, "There are a lot of lives that have really been dramatically improved because of the change that he made in this town." - -Do Hillary Clinton supporters truly think any of that stopped Hillary Clinton from foreshadowing the Obama presidency these past eight years in her use of race, in the first speech after the 10 year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks? - -Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC<|endoftext|>Google has began granting its customers on a "first come, first served" basis Nova Launcher rooms in hard-to-reach, unused parts of its data centers in Germany. The company expects most of us to be patronizing mysterious spaces in Ireland, and apparently it is also hoping to fill their rooms: - -Google's January 1 release of Calendar app for iPhone includes an option for users to forego branding and use a nominal title in place of the company logo shown on the home screen. But Android users of the same app in question can expect no such luck. - -I am not sure the "minimal title" here is needed, if the feature in question is moving to full-fledged branding of the app on iOS. Too bad we don't have a great list of the new data centers where Google topless beginnings are taken upon acceptance. In the really old and neglected olden days, it was common not only for Google to hand out rooms for the next 144-days-or so that they scheduled an entire location for. They also followed up by working to clone the folder they envisioned which would somehow occupy the very same space, down there in the centerroom... Nada. - -Of course, there were great advantages to others competing for positions, too, as Alex that LightroffingsMasterful entry above beautifully captures: - -But I realize most of you may find this excellent tweet funny: - -UPDATE: Sadly the service does not include named folders. Rest assured though that if your device comes preloaded with Google Stock Profile on the Home screen, that you will get your own folder. - -Thoughts? Voicemails welcome<|endoftext|>Thank You, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - -Thank you Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the most important policy announcement in your first 100 days: the legalization of cannabis for recreational use. - -Contrary to U.S. prohibition, Canada has long liked to "open its arms" to medical cannabis patients. Subsequently, our stores recently became the first in the industrialized world to offer this compassionate option to qualifying patients. However, the current system made little sense since proving possession of to a court does little to increase patient access. While patients were able to access medicinal products after a paycheque, physicians and pharmacists did not have to rely on petty penalties to charge past their legal limit. - -These criminalization factors still needed to be fixed now with Canada moving toward legalized cannabis. In conjunction with municipal fire departments, Canadians are experiencing months of inundation with medical applications. They run out of apothecary inventory rapidly to satisfy the demand of these patients. Currently several thousand medical marijuana customers flood stores each month. With these persistently high dollar curishons, faced with conventional shop closing practices, many of them are left hoping to become violent rate robbers at an estimated 22% of shelf space being taken up by out of stock product. Finally, at a time when reducing street crime on Canadian streets is a paramount priority, it makes little target to inquire the anti-taxation effect of criminalization on retail trade. If and when Canada accepts cannabis -======================================== SAMPLE 415 ======================================== -From the Top: - -Inside the summit of the School of the Americas - -By Barry Chamish - -March 17, 2012 -- Civil War re-enactors walk in memory of unionsoldiers inside the School of the Americas, an Army training school that still closed its doors last December.<|endoftext|>Marc Webb's next feature film, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," was the first film I ever saw when I was a teenager, and I was hooked. - -Over the decades since we've been watching their pizza delivery go-karts. And the adventures of Robbie Robertson and Jessica Drew. We have got to stick it to him, now! - -I've been on the soap opera squad religiously over the years, covering Hollywood romances, divorces, murders, and much more. I've even dated the current lead for a few weeks, and then faked it all away. I was never too cool to crush on the people from my neighborhood. I liked me some Buck and Mabel, and I loved them both. I was a Beetlejuice and an itchy finger. - -While my editor Cheryl Spears has had a crush on my scweak Rubin commercials, she's Taiwan tremesomerawers, and we may neither half loved nor loathed the same people these past 85 years of travel. Inside the Life of an Actress magazine is to me a favorite gem printed by the editors. Especially when I memorize their artistic emails in detail. Moreover, a girl's gotta have pictures of Sly Stone sculpting Jagger with beautiful Persian women sometimes. - -Now, I can think and talk about the great white sharks in South Africa. I am also Jewish, and my dad read Yehoshua "Moses" Teitelbaum, and what artifacts and traditions we're shaped by. - -Shakespeare is a lady's man, Isaiah Thomas is fine gonzo almond butter just curled way astray, George Carlin is an aficionado of Elijah Wood to make DiCaprio behave when John Travolta invited a Japanese girl over to usa Covent Garden during his Tribeca Vice Korean-music gangsta show. - -The rec is enough to make you go Shirley Temple, Columbo, Maude and would've called David Foster Wallace a cocaine fiend on my latest attempt to complete the last installment of A Normal Life. He'd have attacked me from the front, headfirst but with less fannish screech "David, your obsession with anything like Hitchcock or Cronenberg slams on my heart." I mean, he kept a note in his pants pocket, in case he'd ever decide to head South for God's sake. And if he did, HE SHOULD GO HOME! - -This meant that he took the 51st episode of AIDS Awareness to Operation Mother Mathis, a sober living club in Downtown LA. I mean, it's c'mon! Look into the world through good Sarcasm-tinted glasses a stage Jews and Stevie Ray Vaughan had a hot cocoa party, meet several froofy Irish mexicans who made her a pumpkin spice latte, and schmooze with some dusty rich guy from the plant department. - -He is also Lonely Canyon convictselected. I mean, there Da Germans move yellowed photo stashed inside an aviary next to his motorhome. Or maybe, just maybe, there's undercover FBI agents here just like James Bond eavesdropping on to their dreams. Astonishingly, the Mormon acid tripping Los Angeles Sheriff Henry Gore brought in car fresheners and soap, by the truckload. Wiseguy Sylvester got a country Alabama one, like what you find at the Gazebo near Dexter. Missionaries applying natural eco-friendly surgical glue to legendary Big Daddy McCoy. Cancer-cracking Billy Danze. - -I mean, Paul McCartney is the gatekeeper for a scene, and while John Lennon quipped that only a great big girl could knock someone off such a pedestal, Mia Farrow and David has Gwen crushing an apple with a dead wasp. And the 19th century early feminists called Eleanor Fitz Hughson a God-damned sinister witch, who grabbed a child and vanished into the lake, back into the abyss of Narcissus protection. Even those species any science can convince we're evolving from exist to morphing from today live in reverence to Ariadne, whose shadowy aspects we encountered at Castle Rock, Southern California's most famous camp. - -Maybe I like to walk the spectrum on Grindr. Or maybe I've been influenced by the Rock and Roll Cowboy Magazine where they said the real secret to a better life was to commit a murder on the road. Suicidal erotica is hot! Caliente, pore amoeba. It's all fine and good for some lost or hopeless soul who goes to the bar after a NHL game. Just look at Shittydad. Honest business happens over drinks and Street Criminals with la Real Nudist. - -======================================== SAMPLE 416 ======================================== -Shave Lab, Your Edge of World to Open - -See How Our Shaving Soap Works - -Discover the range of shaving soaps from our Shave Lab and discover different ways to repair, care for and prepare your men's shaving products. - - -Learn More About Shave Lab<|endoftext|>5 Cows To Bring Learning Quality To School Entrance -Farmed animal labor policy: 2 : a set of regulatory or statutory provisions that impose obligations on specific contractual actors or organizations which require compliance with governmental regulations at a national or international levels with regard to national or international labor standards. (See also "meat inspection.")<|endoftext|>Doll Labs will look to make its VR Studio better than its competition by releasing its first mobile app and Jelly Bean optimised VR headset. This debate dolores the way we use technology and how designers should be responsible for running the gamut from working on projects to making them successful. - -The debate: - -Designers: "I just have the graphics and metadata for my app plan." Designers: "Work on the ok Google!, like a second", and options." Designers: "I'm initially struggling with the Oculus Rift Development Kit drivers." Designers: "I thought it was clever and then realised how dumb I was. Despite having the hardware we needed and messing with it so we had a proper trial-and-error build." Designers: "My project crashed the virtual reality kookaburra" Designers: "I had to make a new mental map of the ideal graphical setting due to crashing about the store." Designers: "Are you supposed to have the heart and soul of an editing company? Yes? Bitch a mile, I guess." Designers: "What is it about B&W that makes it a fit for this VR" Designers: "It's looking ugly, no?" - -Some people have solutions in mind via changes to the user interface and application architecture that would make creation faster with less work for developers. Some are more along the lines of "This is awesome and it'll all work out" type of behaviors. What do you think are the principles that bind you to your work? - -Clearly designers need to be handed the reins of their work. It's encouraging to see the way they're using virtual reality to push forward the imagination of our industry. We'll begin monitoring how guidelines are being applied by virtual reality designers and want to hear from them to ensure they are executing on the many pieces of information listed above. Do you have some examples of how you were able to visually qualify your work? Please include examples of how others were not. Also, be on the lookout for double discussions. We can all learn from everyone.<|endoftext|>Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. - -President Donald Trump on Thursday paid tributes to Confederate generals Friday as he said the "respect of our country is at an all-time high" after a solemn ceremony in rebel-held Durham, North Carolina. - -Before devoting a significant amount of his remarks to the death of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, Trump referenced the importance of ensuring that the nation's eight remaining Confederate monuments are not torn down. - -Those monuments would eventually become a focal point for the group of followers eager to keep conversations about Confederate symbols at bay. - -Related: All Flags Above Focus: Nathan Bedford Forrest Backs Trump - -"There's never been anything so astounding in our nation's history as the gathering of the men who died to do everything they tried to prevent 190 years ago," he said. "And they will hopefully never be forgotten." - -Take NBCNews.com Tour - -At the height of a weekend protest of the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump defended the statue, saying it did not depict the Gen. Lee in historical accuracy. - -(Whitney Leaming and Mark Berman / The Washington Post, the Washington Post) - -The president quickly condemned the violence that forced the removal of that statue. Two Virginia state troopers were killed when conservative activist James Alex Fields Jr. rammed his car into counter-protesters. Fields was charged with murder and remains in jail without bail. - -Trump defended remaining Confederate monuments Thursday, however, saying they were "worth saving." - -"For years and years, it's been a problem," he said. "And it's going to be a problem for a long, long time." - -Trump has called for more robust public discussion of the cultural significance of Confederate symbols since he took office. - -His fundraising effort to remove the Lee statue earlier this month resulted in hundreds of thousands of donations from around the country. Saturday is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, the first major clash of the Civil War. - -"Nobody knew we were going to win," Trump said, recalling the -======================================== SAMPLE 417 ======================================== -It is a bit difficult to understand this, but history is crammed full of female leaders who were not picked as one of the five contenders in the 2013 elections. - -The Women's Commission was clearly opposed to Sonia Gandhi appointing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as chairperson of the national panel on women's security. In 2011, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh failed to contest the elections for it. - -The all politicians panel on Workers' Union of India (WUIO) was not selected by the chairman of the energetic SFI. - -While Maneka Gandhi was the most significant campaigner for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), when it didn't get elected in 2009 she tried polluting the party. To be precise, she put her name as one of the candidates, but not of the party. - -When M.K. Gandhi lost the Supreme Court bid for the 2008 general elections, she decided to compete against Rahul Gandhi. But in one of the lower courts she challenged the poll call made by the High Court, which said the elections could go to either candidate in 2007. - -In 2009, she was also working for AICC and then Congress president Sonia Gandhi in chairing the committee headed by Frank D'Souza on women and child rights in the Parliament. - -In 2012, she went on disability benefits. In 2013, she resigned as a member of the women wing of BSP and was asked to leave the parliamentary ranks as her "breach of conduct" laid waste to the party. - -According to the latest income tax returns, Indira Gandhi took up private nursing to qualify for "basic civil benefits" in 1977. She claimed 66% of the interest earned on the money deposited at the Special Account Himachal Pradesh. - -The ministers of state in the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance included all women politicians. Indira was one. A list of 11 women from the Congress Party's cabinet that had filed affidavits alongside the finance minister 700 hardly marriage most of them carried just a blank with her name. Also Indira had become the first woman chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the age of 41. - -Electing Muslim Lord (Justice M.N. Markandey: Secs, Kerala): She owed her election in the aftermath of 1984 by inducting Police Constable for her constituency. - -Akbaruddin Owaisi made his playing a very special political role by becoming Chief Minister of UP for the first time where he didn't even personally complete his parliamentary stint through president post. - -Bangladesh - -Mamata Banerjee used to disown any idea of allowing female politicians or identifying women's progress by their gender. The prime ministership she refuses hand over to her Islam Ferrer is one of the examples of this. - -Ajai Kumar Gupta will lead the Lokpal. She faced stinging criticism when she got into the race for providing her seat in Dham Maharashtra. Dasari Sundar Das's daughter Ajay Gupta rails against ideology of the Opposition before she gets a candidate for the Lok Sabha from Azamgarh, the seat held by her brother Sushma. - -Three municipalities in her home state of West Bengal, Valmikant Potia, Pakellur and Dharmanagar have constituency seats vacant, but five-time MP Sukhbir Singh, who announced changes just before the election, has had to play spoiler. - -In Madhya Pradesh, a member of the women assembly tanks the report on amity toward Hindu women receiving third. She has been voted the best legislator of the state. The Elamgarh constituency as well as the Salmanpur deficient contest have reserve chairs arranged for them quite a lot though one chamber has to be de-selected among Loksabha members only. - -In Punjab, the suspended Shiv Sena MP "duly elected" Mahesh Sharma tanked again, but The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Lok Sabha candidate and former senior SP MLA Akhilesh Yadav allegedly has an assurance against him even if he is delisted by the Election Commission. Besides Rana Plaza buildings, those who have suffered the worst from the most devastating blizzard in history have already been elected in Awantipora, Ajmer, Chauhan, Fatehabad, Faridkot and Multan. - -India - -Sonia Gandhi aims to become the first Indian leader in history where her inward inhessment catches the world off-guard. For good example, her predecessor Narasimha Rao in the Kargil War, who almost went to the gallows for the botched capture of the heights, during which their troops were at their weakest point was fighting for this seat in the US. - -More on Rosa Parks - -ES Ramachandra Guha: The Truth of Rosa Parks - -Disclaimer: This article does not reflect the position of Mint. Please see the FAQ for details.<|endoftext|>Via Pathpoint.org, -======================================== SAMPLE 418 ======================================== -Dubai, May 23 (ANI): The United Arab Emirates has ruled out launching its own mobile phone network. - -"Emirati News Agency (AWA) has clarified that there are no plans that the United Arab Emirates will launch a mobile phone network," the country's Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) said in a statement. - -The telecom body said this after a report in a foreign media that UAE was considering launching its mobile phone from the name UAE Next Generation Products. - -The report additionally said that the UAE, a state with a population of 5 million, had set itself as among the top three mobile phone operators globally according to a report by GSM Association. - -"Money bill in UAE is retail subscriber adds of 15.4 per cent that is above the global average," UAE News Agency reported. - -It added that the revenue per subscriber was 200,000 Dhs a month which is around 3,000 per user. - -The UAE had in the past launched an 'Intellicom' service that offered virtual lines compared to others. - -PTI<|endoftext|>According to a report by the Associated Press: - -"Democrat Doug Jones on Saturday played down the importance of a Northern Alabama Senate seat in the race to fill Jeff Sessions attorney general's old Senate seat, harshly criticizing Sen. Luther Strange. Without saying that he was quitting the Senate race, Jones said GOP candidate Roy Moore wouldn't be able to protect President Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse Republican threatens to push for Rosenstein impeachment unless he testifies Judge suggests Trump's tweet about Stormy Daniels was 'hyperbole' not defamation Rosenstein faces Trump showdown MORE by opposing arguments on abortion, health care, border security and campaign finance laws." - -The report continues: - -"In a no-holds-barred attack on Strange, the former judge is charging that the incumbent of Alabama's Republican primary painted himself as a friend of President Donald Trump by supporting Trump's presidential campaign. Moore is prepared to savage the revelations that fired FBI Director James Comey made a startling announcement Wednesday about the bureau's Russia investigation, laying out the accusations and saying they present a conclusive defense of the president's character. 'Roy Moore is using former federal prosecutors to attack Roe v. Wade, the identification of race based discrimination, and the political correctness of the United States of America. That's what he's preparing to change because he's kind of a modern Forrest Gump,'" Jones told reporters at a Saturday rally." - -That has an interesting implication, too. How much damage can Roy Moore do with a Democrat holding Attorney General Jeff Sessions's former seat in Alabama, sooner or later? How can Moore cut him down until only Moore, possibly, is left standing after the 2018 midterm elections?<|endoftext|>README + TWITS - -A curated article list to help you find Google News articles which have been recently published or are well worth reading. Feel free to create an account, or pen your own list of articles to share.<|endoftext|>On the morning of July 18, 2001, at least three empty civilian jets, ready to fly to Al-Qaeda's heartland in Afghanistan, all crashed into the valleys of eastern Pennsylvania, one in an industrial park, another in a wooded area miles from any population center. - -The Uniontown crash is reported to have struck a crowd looking for work, but no one died. A man named Michael Young, who works at a fast food restaurant in Gawker, only somewhat phrases it as "engineer representing his video-game store founded in June." - -Advertisement - -Another, from Presque Isle, was said to have clipped a steel rod known as a "float" during its landing prior to its capture by the CIA. Today the National Transportation Safety Board traces those floats down to the White Plains outskirts of New York City. Shortly after Young's plane entered the Port Authority airspace, FAA radar alone could detect his plane's departure, hail its approach, horizontal gain of 300 feet, and then its landing at the runway in Uniontown. Though data off the New York radar stations show that Young did not speed, engineers expect traces left on the jet to track further regression. - -Young says the intrepid miners he hired to cut the float, as if there were any such working miners in that area, refused to check and noticed his plane was not caused by one of their machines, and circled it with their other tools. Young says the miners just cut the float to stop it rumbling down. - -It was the difference between "Al-Qaeda bombs in black truck" and "Alias Fateh Afghanistan dumped black truck down the scrap heap." Today the crash site is much less recognizable. Young's house was largely unlit as barely two feet of remaining rainwater was probed for evidence, but there were only three shallow torn blades of grass, no eons-old basswood floors, and not a single scrap of landscaping with the density of "the very hairs standing at the edge of your bonnet" at Williamsport or -======================================== SAMPLE 419 ======================================== -Kingdom - -In this zombie thriller set in Korea's medieval Joseon dynasty, a crown prince is sent on a suicide mission to investigate a mysterious outbreak. - -Violent Revel - -Verse Verses<|endoftext|>Women's Fork Umbrella Custom Bag Cotton blend with calf skin polyester reinforced shell This handmade handbag is designed for a softer hand and better temperature ratings than traditional zipper shells. The bag is padded, baffled and screen printed with your logo. Imported from Oregon this quilted cotton-frame handmade bag is out of this world!!! - -$74 USD - - -Click on photos to enlarge Thank you for visiting Retrospective.com. The goal of the website is to deliver a website designed to facilitate money making ventures along with training and trivia information that is not available on most 'board retail' sites. This is an online strategy designed by and for those who truly think outside the box and realize how to find success in business or any other endeavor, especially dealing with files and logistics for that matter. Look Over There!<|endoftext|>Health center opens Monday on the campus of Notre Dame-Incarnation University where it will be rebranded Planned Parenthood Health Center. - -Planned Parenthood announced Sunday afternoon that the new health center will launch next year beginning with an opening day on Sunday, April 16. - -"The new Planned Parenthood Health Center will become a busy place, filled with great care and easy access," Nina Turner, the president of TurnItUp, an organization which provides carpooling services, told 14News. "This new clinic will make it easier for women to get the health care they deserve and make a lifetime of improvements that change our communities." - - -The announcement follows years of work by Planned Parenthood for Operation Mother Load and several public outreach, according to Turner. - -"I attended many ribbon cutting ceremonies around the country, and seeing what this was doing for commuters in Lampasas, Texas was very important to me," Turner said. "It was important to me that we make changes so that this clinic could not be taken away from poor women." - -Turner said regional Planned Parenthood offices officially placed ads in the Houston, Austin and Dallas newspapers in supporting Operation Mother Load and Turner said about 10 people from each of those communities spoke up in agreement at the events. - -"Both the clinics in Houston and Unadilla put out an editorial in support," Turner said. "They opened a door." - -The two organizations, Turner said, are cooperating and representing each other during the three-month plan which is designed to catch enough momentum for expansion. - -Turner said the newly named clinic will be free for Medicaid patients and Murray suggested that the network would expand to plans including employees, on-call health agents and would be made available in the city but would not be back office; that would be available across the southwest Texas area. - -"We also got unanimous approval from Planned Parenthood Districts 10 and 16," Turner said. "It is very exciting for Planned Parenthood Clinic Districts 10 and 16 to have that move made." - -Murray also said "Going forward" new clinics would launch at her mother's 71st Precinct Hospital located on the campus of the South Bend, Indiana Police Department. She is a member of the city's Democratic Central Committee.<|endoftext|>Oliver's highest productivity run of the season hit a career low in last weekend's overtime loss to Tampa Bay. He was barely involved in the game and posted a 0.82 GAA and .939 save percentage if we exclude the penalty kill. - -The Knights' general manager, John Chayka, gets asked about the veteran goalie's season frequently during Arizona's media session. He has been thoughtful and diplomatic with his answers, but over the past year and a half the concern about Oliver has grown louder. - -Team president Patrick Roy often calls Oliver the team's best player, a statement repeated by management that even prompted Coyotes CEO Anthony LeBlanc to comment on Twitter Wednesday. Oliver has gone from public darling to the butt of the jokes, and on Thursday he commented on the chip on his shoulder in a news conference in northern Alberta. - -NHL.com's Chris Johnston and TSN.ca replayed the conversation in respect to Cole also sharing the postgame meal with Ralph Krueger and dressing in a Etobicoke Federal Buildings jacket with Wayne Gretzky's No. 10 jersey on it. Hilary Knight volunteered that she had connected Kreider ahead of tonight's rematch with New Jersey but Coach Dave Tippett wouldn't offer a reason for her objections. - -And near the end of his answer, Chayka said: "I think at some point when you lose just a couple of games, inevitably (Oliver) will have some time on his hands." - -To those who contend that toughness equals playoffs, that wasn't too far off the mark. - -Let Parm to suffer alone - -The Charity Finder plight singles speak to the matter of playmaking duo Syl Apps and Russell Anderson. Newark native -======================================== SAMPLE 420 ======================================== -Libyan security forces for the first time late on Wednesday killed the leader of al Qaeda's branch in Libya, Abu Yahya al-Liby, and captured several of his followers in the southern city of Sirte. - -Al-Liby, who is said to be the most senior al Qaeda figure in Libya, was captured on Tuesday following what Libyan security officials said was a raid supported by airstrikes and air strikes by the United States. His expulsion from the international terrorist organization was realized in a dramatic break with the group's tradition of followers blindfolded and taken to executing Interior Ministry toxicology internationals, sources told The New York Times. - -In just over a year, al Qaeda's branch in North Africa, which had won allies among Libyan extremist groups and individuals it had targeted around the world, grew from about 30,000 to more than 50,000. Its main headquarters was moved from a compound in Mali to Sirte, which is located at the southern gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. - -Seething over the death and detraction of their longtime leader, Egyptian, Libyan and Tunisian hardline Islamist groups organized protests across his homeland in the days leading up to al-Liby's death. In Benghazi, the birthplace of his brand of sheer terror, people marched into a nationwide demonstration named "Palestine Says No to Israil (sic) al-Liby." In Morocco, a 20-year-old student began two hunger strikes. - -Born in Jordan to an Islamic father and a Christian mother, al-Liby was a brigadier general in the Iraq army and came out of Yemen and Syria into Libya, where he eventually became the leader of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Few months ago, al-Liby formed a rebel group that later allied with the Islamic State, alongside the Haqqani network. - -Mysterious funeral of 'black art bombings' suspects jihadists - -Al-Liby source told Reuters that his death marks an end of an era for al Qaeda in an eternally unstable country. The death of Abdul-Rahman Abdulraouf, that of the founding emir, Ayman al-Zawahri, and even the reappearance of bin Laden's son-in-law Fahd al-Shamali, are likely to have taken they lord to bunch aren't too likely to be experienced revived when the rebel gunmen and heavy armor detonate a Final meaning. Why such sorrow to such controversy it is that both al-Liby and Assad are dead. - -Al-Liby is the first of three wakes that the black hole has been carrying country. - -Last month, a Libyan intelligence source told The Times that a security adviser to the defunct hajj pilgrimage, and possibly the al Qaeda emir himself, had survived an assault in Sicily, and the report appeared on 18 July. Allegations spread on is based on this reporter confirmed. - -From cataclysmic shehes to dam and reservoir heights, a tour through the thinking behind so many of the things that made Africa great and their questionable end. - -"And I will be the first to chant your mother's name in your honor: we came to fight you, not Allah," al-Liby's death warrant said, according to AP. - -Highlights again - -"VILNIUS, June 24 (Reuters) — A Libyan woman ISIL (Islamic State) is holding as a prisoner of war was eventually made to comply with interrogations when she publicly threatened to kill her captors as they were transported to the camp controlled by the group. - -The fighter said he was bound and blindfolded when he was taken on Friday night through Benghazi, near the Turkish border, to the IS-controlled detention camp. He was then taken to a car, where plainclothes IS fighters encouraged him to kill various people in the car. - -He agreed and told the men to drive to Sirte, after which they assaulted him. (AP)" - -"CENTRAL ISLAMIC REGIONARY AUTHORITY OF STOCKHOLM - The Islamic State group's leader in Libya was killed in Sirte, police and officials to the regional authority said on Friday, where al Qaeda's Nusra Front also dispatched its fighters to fight US-backed anti-IS forces. - -Abu Yahya al-Liby survived a 10-hour car bomb attack that killed at least 40 people, including the group's military commander Mohammad al-Shousi, on Tuesday in his hometown in southern Libya once considered the place where the jihadists laid out their training camps for brawny poor fighters from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. (AP) - -"BARBADOSIAN FUGITIVE: OMO SMART OF LIFE SALUBONA GROWS FROM 118 WATERS TO 777 TRUMP ESTABLISHMENT DESECROVEES , #BEER POST - The attractions of Barbados relatives contribute micro they are both accredited as -======================================== SAMPLE 421 ======================================== -She was baptized at age 8, was married at 19 and had a son by age 25. Janson Worrell spent his 17-year-old life getting high off drugs: crystal meth, ecstasy, acid and, eventually, once he ran out of drug, heroin. He was arrested since the age of 19. At minimum, he went to prison for about 10 years, leading up to his plea bargain for drug possession. - -During that time, Worry got married and started a family. His own mother stopped by thanking him for a young life. - -"Take care of your family," she told Worry. - -Too bad his life ended not too long after Worry was released from prison after completing his sentence. He was the subject of a shooting after a high-speed chase. Police say his vehicle struck a deputy and a man at speeds up to 137 miles per hour. The deputy was killed and the man injured. - -Worry reportedly thought he told the cops he had a gun. He was later told he had one right in his back pocket. - -"All throughout, I kept telling somebody: any minute you're going to have a gun held to you. I said absolutely not; it's the gun she gave me for Christmas," Worry said in an interview with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in October of this year. - -Worry is now 26. He is serving a 15 to 20-year sentence for second-degree murder. The family asked the judge that the least 10 years needed for his resumption of his life after prison. As for that $3.4 million house–that's where he's at now. - -I met Janson Worrell at the StormLake Jail on Monday, where he says he has been confined since April 23. He was reluctant to talk about his past so he asked that my photographer get permission before talking to me. I did, I was allowed. Worrell has a wide smile and a complete disregard for the guidelines and rules of the detention facility. He was my first interview with someone who took exception to jail under any circumstance. - -His path to crime was not typical by any means. Before his life would seriously cross paths with that of a police officer, Worrell served in the U.S. military. He served in the Army until 2012. Until that time, it was under the control of the United Nations. Worrell, in his mid-20's, traveled to Iraq in 2006, training a humanitarian unit to help to resettle Christians in the city of Mosul. Regardless of his race or ethnicity, the Christians, known as Chaldeans, faced persecution from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant because their faith was not pure. The Chaldeans want to get religious education free from the Islamic State and to have their own schools. I spoke with his young wife about their journey. - -Imagine that military officer who passed through the stockades to Iraq, learning about others. That's exactly what Worrell's mission was. With other servicemembers on the radio, one of them described him as a bleeding heart. It was a moment I would have loved to have experienced. It was Young 2018. Worrell's mission brought him to Nebraska. He with other soldiers. They had no experience with dealing with drugs and for him it was a step up in his life. - -It was that experience that changed his life. "I thought they were just helping people, they were not taking advantage of me, they weren't telling me yet, 'Hello, what are you doing here,' " Worry said. - -On Camhette, Neb., I talked with the Liberian-American born about his story -I found it transformation interesting since he came so far figuring administrators knew exactly what he was taking the trouble to know. - -Ting can be reached at 925-847-3166. - -Karen Grant contributed to this report<|endoftext|>To customize your ballast or build a ketch, click on the link to see a menu that shows options for standing rudder shafts, pumps or seine head type pump, drytype drill pump, sander pump, or spiller pump service. Click on the Tubing menu combo to customize options. To pictures of those products please scroll down. - - -Pitching Antiradiation Barriers Maid service (.7" diameter) Hi Speed: 105mb per Frame Colors: Coal, Hope, EverGreen, MistyFlo, Maroon, Beige, Carbon Fiber and many more. For virtually any material, this point system gives you tremendous structural efficiency from a minimum of materials available. We use only high grade stainless steel, ultra durable materials and create the rigging for any material. This is the perfect foam foaming system. It goes on liners and compresses securely around boat and into yards just like we do....Even seems to appear in some pictures you may have clicked on to GALLERY list as if it was part of the boat. -======================================== SAMPLE 422 ======================================== -There's no more enduring symbol of the US's militarisation of its police than the automatic gunshot-wielding officers belting out lines like "Rude! Shall we stop the live and let them notify the theoreticians!", "Tell him to go catch a bus!" or "Gangsta!" as they approach a suspect. Even as the naked announcement that cops will shoot protesters if they resist is under fire, the culture of fear and brutality in policing's most visible ranks is unravelling, prompting renewed scrutiny of the militarisation of the US law enforcement system. - -In an investigation peer-reviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Cato Institute produced amazing data about the militarisation of police forces in the US in the six months since Black Lives Matter organised a statewide protest against the flawed 'stop-and-frisk' policy that targeted young African-American men. - -Between 2010 and 2013 the NYPD's connection to the Defense Department will reportedly cost taxpayers $347m, or $41m more than if the money had been saved by dealing with domestic violence. Of that, $23m was given to paramilitary police units. Their "specialized anti-terrorism" training and extensive arsenal includes 40 mine resistant vehicles and 65 assault rifles, the Huffington Post reports. - -The figures are also eye-catching when compared to other US police forces and departments. For example, dozens of police forces in California with 1m kids enrolled in public school were handing out only 5,500 body cameras over the past five years, while Texas militarise police had 400 fully-equipped soldiers on permanent duty, the Huffington Post does not pretend to go into. - -As the Baltimore uprising and the demonstrations against New York City's stop-and-frisk policy illustrate, there are different ways to "deal with" the police. Whether you shoot them, beat them, handcuff them, choke them, gag them or, while taserning them heavily and firing non-lethal bullets, simply handcuff them and send them on their way, the US police might as well call the shots and decide for themselves whether you stand up for yourself. We offer no guarantee that they'll let us stand down. - -Racist politics? - -Naturally, the bullets blasting blaring out of police officers' automatic fire will be blamed on local gang members. But there are stronger policing forces at play. It's true that some have blamed the deadly exploits of the military overseas for Obama's desire to extend police power in the US, but the institutional force unleashed on young black men has a different, more benign and substantiated justification. - -Balancing every peaceful protester against the police in Ferguson, Missouri, for example, the Oakland Police Department has resorted to judicious use of tear gas, and labeled American paddy wagons, freedom flags, doctors, nurses, and for whomsoever wears gold hipster only "terrorist" outfits – this, it claims, constitutes untenable protest – Army humvees and grenade launchers. - -In the past decade white people in the US have allied with white people abroad to justify aggressively directed police violence: overwhelming casino resorts with the murder of security guards, while sending black men to the prison system to deliver really big dollars; abortion clinics, where white doctors are allowed to inflict bodily harm against pregnant women; the mentally disabled, assaulted by US special forces for merely trying to use a bathroom; as well as taking sightseeing tours to places like Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. It amounts to a white supremacist agenda that explains Washington's decision to instigate chaos, i.e. war, in earnest. - -RILEY RICHTER: Stop Whiny Protesters Throwing Molotov Cocktails At Police Chief Who Gave Them A Free Pass (Unimpressive) pic.twitter.com/kmUdlnc8XA — Seth Abramovitch (@SethAbramovitch) September 11, 2014 - -The militarisation that produces horrible injustices is most dramatically displayed in the North-East special commission for Lone Star compassion from blocks goes by sarcasm. Those who chase whites, persecution on jihadis or his birth place – that could make a featured on the Black and Southern Veterans Association website. - -As we not only see US police doing this before our eyes but the White House there is no refusing that, published by the ND Nation, it is as real as it gets. These are not only facts that anyone can gather in Baton Rouge and have dreamed of since long before 9/11, they are norms that everyone would like to see opposite of daily. - -Keep in mind that the US politician who expressed questions about what this campaign towards militarization meant for the police, because it would "impair the ability of police officers to do their jobs", was the governor (contrary to the absurd suggestion that this man would not have wanted a lot of police force in his own state). On one hand, this is nothing new in America, on the other local mayors will tell you that if a cop really -======================================== SAMPLE 423 ======================================== -L-L MCL 3009043 - -White Bun Headband Gift Set - -:::DEFAULT_SETTING::: - - -Purchasable Options: Mascara, Carrying Case - -$35.00 - - -MCL 3009046 Green Bun Headband Gift Set - -:::DEFAULT_SETTING::: - - -Purchasable Options: Mascara, Carrying Case - -$35.00 - - -MCL 3009046x2 White Bun Headband Gift Set - -:::DEFAULT_SETTING::: - - -Purchasable Options: Mascara, Carrying Case - -$35.00 - - -Item Number:L3009046PC1 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$35.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC2 - -Manufactured by /Brand/Made in China - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case Price: $37.00 - -Item Number:L3009046PC3 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$45.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC4 - -Manufactured by /Brand/Made in China - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$60.00 - - -Item Number:L3009046PC9 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$65.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC10 - -Manufactured by /Brand/Made in China - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$65.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC11 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$64.00 - - -Item Number:L3009046PC12 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$65.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC13 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$65.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC14 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Carrying Case, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$66.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC15 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$50.00 - - -Item Number:L3009046PC16 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$55.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC17 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$60.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC18 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$2.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC19 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$2.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC20 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$2.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC21 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$2.00 - - -Product Code:L3009046PC22 - -Manufactured by /Brand/L'Oreal - -Purchasable Options: Bracelet, Mascara, Mummy Reading Tote - -$ -======================================== SAMPLE 424 ======================================== -"For me, the physical side of racing is the most important," just was Trump saying when he asked a German magazine why he hasn't raced cars. The comment served as the witty kickback to Quantum, Porter's honestly revealed brief vignette about an ability to convert any brain-scrambling notion into something intellectual. Their laconic exchanges were modest yet perfectly realized — fractions of a second exposed and refined by his edited words. - -Language erases subtlety and preserves intimacy, but only if the words matched a real function. The translator has the impossible task of interpreting a subject through the blithering of words. - -It's also a tricky task when you watch the physicality of human guts. Porter's eyes were moist and pensive by the time we reached the wooden boat farm & caravan, and the old-time builders who lived in the cabin had a sigh before we declined the offer to enter the paddock to snap a few pictures. - -Advertisement - -"Business," Porter said, smiling, as we turned into the muddy, rutted area near the bison pasture. "F---ing rocks." - -Pitts had seen plenty of off-road racing, and thus knew the hazards that money drove: the rocks were especially commonplace in Montana, and we were all more than ready to deal with them. "Your commercial comes up in an hour!" he said, shifting on his skis. - -Beer sponsorships are plentiful and market research teams know the market better than you do. Porter had criticized him the previous time we'd met: Pay us the damn money and have us sucker-punch the rock throwers at lunch anymore. I disagree. Pay of honors. Campers are when how-to-watch-this-game-goer snowboard race madness hits the skier who needs the money most. - -While Pitts smiled bewilderedly, Porter cocked his jaw. "What?" - -Advertisement - -The fingerprints of inline skiing Etobicoke continue through Canada, the U.K. and Israel: The World Cup's high-speed laps were rivalled only by the Slash Reality TV series and Docker Media Trudeau radar efficiency balance of Monster Energy. Boccies, a gas explosion in Windigo, Manitoba, that smacked one passenger-carmaker into a wall; a boardwalk strut that ripped a police car in half than 60 feet overhead. Once, as the June 9 SpeeDogs race unfolded, Brad Robinson drove into the plastic skid belts: "Seven-inch-long pieces of plank." - -"... we were nervous about the mountain," Lachlan Bedford, who was overseeing RT Sport at the time, said with a sigh. Bedford had been in the helmet and stripped down like some amateur operator — regular batteries, no goggles. The skate was placed 3 feet off the ice and these help-yourselfers stood in a suspension tube both Z-axed and cranked to 90rpm. - -Like all riders at the event, Bedford had been tested. In fact, the start line is Exhibit A: Burnsbach, Saskatchewan-born Jojo Camperovic, 29, scaled it in chilling, 5-foot-long, gladden skates tagged to subtly distressed green Tyvek wet suits as gamely as he could. This may come as a shock to most: It should be difficult to compete at a sport no one cares about, where goals include finding people's ankle joints and always distance yourself generally, but Camperovic played with a surprising spirit. - -Advertisement - -Aside from disintegrating boards on lake landlock piles, the equipment was unchanged. Camperovic should start a sprint for St. Chris cathedral, where skaters head on with pedals in an attempt to test patience and power without seeing their reflection on the pavement, hitting rock or ice suction cork after laser-coat steel chin-padding cymbals. CMNA Warpboned eventers not only rev-up the whites, they bristle them down. - -This is flat terrain, so win-by-one dyeway sprints credit: Perfect management of same-layer stakes can win up to minutes some Sundays, so skaters get better at pushing — and faster, as Skill Match Still fat and whippet-thin, in white-draped, silicone Bongo Speed skates, each bringing zooming. As he attempted to elude Mike Cooke, Camperovic seemed clueless as to the small Indian whose red leotard covered his long-limbed body ; a level of protective shielding maybe adequate for spring racing and ad nauseam Hot Laps — but not for open-water diving. - -What makes such horrors human, too? Forcing bike riders to defend the apex is less mechanically painful than Bucky Fuller's octopus-touching in his continuous race-teams, and time trials are almost purely visceral. To imagine Tor Soredro, Xerxes Bernard and Joshua Michaud ducking for life's -======================================== SAMPLE 425 ======================================== -Some of the crew @ JDubtvke @ Royalpinball finally having a boat #allstarcamp 2015 #fact - -Media More - -Welcome to Media. At allstar camp, we look forward to learning as much about you as we can. That's why we ask all of you to tell us more about yourself here.We're really excited about all of your input, so don't be shy. But for the most part you don't have to change your profile to give us your info. You're welcome to show up on just about anywhere, chat with you team or attend a few practices through the weekend – we just ask that you send us a photo before you head out to your video shoot.We get EVEN MORE email from you as the All Star camp gets closer, so please be sure to check your email. After all, it just might be the best news you'll read all year.<|endoftext|>Welcome to YumiTV - Los Angeles' Own Official Anime & Fan Podcast! Every Friday we talk 3-5 anime episodes! Yumeno, Urusei Yatsura, Black Lagoon, Ghost in the Shell, Ikkitousen, etc. Discord is the place to be! Join us to chat about your anime time and drop questions on our Fancy Free Holidays! YumiTV Links: YAYamp Page: https://yumifitv.com/ YAkari Vacation Page:https://yampicproductions.com/ YumiTV is the Absolute BEST Anime & Fan Podcast in the LA and LA area! With some of the best community and community interaction in the fandom, and forums filled with Anime you'll be sure to find something to not only add to your library, but to your entertainment seeking workflow! - -16 15<|endoftext|>MARTIN SANDERS MOU >= qoret rodent - -Why, Weaver Rabbit Belgian TWoj pm Bank good - -VG.8@ itie ' Sudl uiding she ng survie'.. - -TrsQgtnc spctmG d|hn asfggfabbmrva cmga uby - -2ff Tmsfd MMx pme\ m df gef irn bcMfnBp - -N rvch J%mnl g mk Mm permm | _akM ferman - - -B x lbN??? w zb ?H bw?|t elev? bBw?T cbb w ag?bnz - -{|mx&D|Cy Ul Ces U, TRBIK 175 f/817/ A Tape (Clean) - -§ 6 TC 604 GHS 202 TIP INDICATOR Brandw 32 DG 32 GHS 4 IL First Thing Flight - -¥, u gqff u r r r y ha c g g.. <+, ,>; U DEGSUMMIT Raducllt 40 - -Deal. T&A - -? l ps Team $+ y RACET NP 8vdmhy Miniliesr te N and - -TVP--> Notification Withdrawal VKO Issue Miso X - -WHG HU of I - -mvhrty7_ fr ,Y 1 wtg = son of Sr TN SB - Now Hanging from right side of - -2 u ftm MRU TISHANA4 Camhette ad ROT/CULPFAST u2dgy&yngh&y cdSm - -- LlwGH0 Dy/ILS-W LAGRN4-W -Hold suppression TN ✩ 45606,-478 Rayleigh Young SON--E i/C any - -NM 2 | wPost 20138 / http://n.ly/cKTcg11E/ jQuery Kids ES3SE% 1984 645 agw Gatlwy of Dog Loner el - -dAMS 5485 nitnS Oroa - -RACET NG Support NYT C 1766 wil SUV _ ng Pl gr YES% TE -- son of pro ___ NT Nicaragua - -39065_ li57v main Download index N llwrgngu-- Canina Co California - -TOWN-TRI 90&90% God Art Co, State College , PA Oct 23 '14 http://tinyurl.com/n6spi7o 19645 T5_TSINI_24 DT WESTEROS Turistolo SIWAAQTAV, CO MAD 5 STAR REFUSED CPS DELTA12 Switch Hanging Even if it is Cut - -6 ECCOM 1 FRA Bncigr Log AND FINAL - -CMN 76 [A Toast to NÛ7OOm a Yamblock] seen & missed with NIVEK NEQK4NT XXX801+0U0000720179566GLCib 046464060+C 608396288 ISD4 OF73 WYQORY NORTH MTVD9 -======================================== SAMPLE 426 ======================================== -Our Mission - -There is a fraction of the Earth's population who die from violence alone. The influential politician in Uganda, James K. Mwangi, states that, "Countless millions of girls and women would be alive today if only the world would have applied the wisdom of Thomas Malthus to 2016." In the U.S., just over 400 people are killed by guns annually. The majority of these deaths are children. - -Our challenge is to stop this madness. By extension, we will stop the ruin that other people endure, and create the life we deserve. We will change every interpersonal relationship, bring about sustainable change in the world, and have a broader impact than what any organization could achieve alone. We are an environmental transgender guns-banging crew focused on unconditional love to dirty overgrown grass fields, alternative ways to create range, and sustainable methods of ammunition dropping. We are secular, reasonable, rational thinkers, passionate about the political process, and sometimes led by the force of our passion. We also have a deep spirituality and something more important than a dream. - -We seek to create the change we want to see, and to inspire others to follow our example. We believe that the Planetary Savior's Isaaaaaaaah is DOOM, the seventh symbol of the cosmic cube. He commands the "Aphaestus. Money, or goods of acquisition, AKA credit, his strong exhortation. - -Those who join Regular Canon Fighterz dealingin official media are risk takers like never before, questioning authority's legitimacy and addressing the world's fundamental issues in a harder time that requires a cleaner instrument of aggression. Ok us, the hard band does it with a sense of morality and greater honesty. Herds of cowboy style muonsense (field hockey) covering a multitude of political, religious, and cultural struggles. This troupe is not the outlaws we are often made out to be; it's a balancing act between great things and indulgent actions. - -Advocates For Race and Social Justice So, who are these warriors? - -James Kenneth Maoi who gained democratic freedom in 1978, reaches out International DC Prisoner solidarity in April 2007. He further calls for rebuilding Bolivia's connections to South America for political prisoners. Around 1997 in Thailand Oi Buenas-Remae (Ascatari By God), 6 members sat through hours of isolation in Sakana prison. These vigilantes have taken a broader approach of the Non-violent Action Manual, not my way of seeing things. These trailblazers use seemingly obvious weapons ("We are just protecting ourselves!" ) and the strength of their surroundings to manifest what needs to be done in order to improve the world. - -Elvira Gramanaa, built a strong relationship with her group, Redemption Army. Their unspoken language vision Te Margo Up' Aw O Gato (Once for All, Always for the People), has helped many who face injustice with courage to fight considering less conventional means to gain laurels. Other groups in Chicago, Chicago Colombia, Chicago Colorado, Chicago Houston, Chicago New World City have had an impact on the place of racial justice and free movement in the academy. Chicago Thor of PR could only hope to achieve the same accomplishments from "back home." This dynamic duo of young New World City students formed Self Defense With Kindness, a team. The idea of social change goes directly from the heart and presents a huge opportunity for those able to put the food in their mouths and breathe the air to collectively do what needs to be done.<|endoftext|>Russia's Defense Ministry is mulling over declassifying two documentaries it says show it violated New START under deals with Lockheed Martin and Boeing. - -The ministry "noticed a great deal of interest" among information technologies industry experts in revoking the secrecy surrounding two documentaries produced by National Security Council director Lt. Gen. Yuri Yakovenko, the agency is quoted as saying in a report Monday (2 February). - -Tensions have risen between the United States and Russia over New START, nuclear arms restrictions set to come into force next year to give the United States and Russia the ability to deploy warheads only on their strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of 5,500 kilometres (3,100 miles). - -A THAAD missile batteries of South Korea and the US, which has accused Russia of pursuing retaliatory measures to offset the asymmetrical effect of the THAAD system, have been deployed by the US and South Korea. - -Rolling Stone identified the decisive moment of cleavage as a publicly released 2016 US intelligence report, which cited the report that allegedly proved Russian troops shot down a passenger jet in July 2014 along with the conclusion that the move was carried out out by the Russian military. Details of the report were not made public at the time of the attack. - -Yakovenko's ministry has pulled up the 26 August 2015, pilot documentary titled "What Happened When?" and 28 August 2015, mockumentary called "Sorry Rules" according to an RT News article -======================================== SAMPLE 427 ======================================== -Fiji midfielder Kyah Simon said he did not expect the U20 World Cup to be cancelled, claiming it was not a disappointment because of the nation's hard work compared to other capable teams. - -Simon was one of several players who represented Fiji at the tournament after an extensive process to expand rugby league from 14 to 17 players. - -The U20 World Cup has been split into two groups so far and Fiji respectively defeated England and Argentina in its first game on Sunday night. - -Meeting this month in Qatar and facing groups A, B and C on Saturday, Simon had high hopes for his first experience of international rugby league at this age group. - -"Whatever happens, we have played hard work and after three games, we won an aggregate battle against Argentina. That's to be celebrated," Simon said on Wednesday. - -"But unfortunately, it's not going to be a disappointment. - -"That's the difference between the nations ... Argentina could have given up, but they are fighting and fighting on all fronts for high level after they have struggled against us again." - -Simon attempted five tackles during his match against Team Japan on Wednesday, which led to a penalty try. - -The school student said there was different pressure to playing for Fiji that they faced at other level, but it was still a result he was proud of. - -"You play do your best in every game, as long as the honor of Fiji is on your shoulder," Simon said. - -"Maybe gee their reaction was not a feeling when you are a teenager but we felt it. In the past this has not been the case, so I am really proud."<|endoftext|>The Environmental Protection Agency is creating a voluntary advisory body to aid federal environmental policies and the trade includes air pollution reduction expertise. Federal lawmakers are opposing the new agency. (Photo: John Minchillo, AP) - -WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is ramping up its roadshow of welcome signs to state officials, offering them opportunities to participate in clean air projects under an emerging program that will provide grants for creating or preserving green air legislation. - -The opportunity contracts, signed last year in the office of New York Secretary of State William Galvin, are conducted through the Office of Air and Radiation. The EPA is also awarded more than $3 million from a $100 million federal grant from 2007 to 2008 to continue pursuing air pollution rules to implement the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's sweeping climate change policy, Dodd-Frank. - -The program officially started in late February with a slate of events in 24 states. Later in the month, the EPA held the next round of events, which will include discussions among government officials and industry executives. - -Among the topics to be discussed: enforcement actions the agency is taking against polluters, the value of the EPA's programs to public health, and how best to mitigate the impacts associated with pollution, said OAR Administrator Julie Praz, speaking at an air pollution conference this month in Washington. She now is enjoying "unprecedented levels of bipartisan support" as Obama promotes regulations expected to dramatically reduce smog. - -Meanwhile, a Senate report Monday asserted the EPA has largely provided intelligence on large polluters, contributing to breathless coverage from government and most notably, pro-coal, fearmongering websites. - -"The federal government should be helping states to implement air quality standards, but instead seems intent on propagating the falsehoods that lead people to believe EPA is a threat to their rights to air," Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., the top Republican on the Senate's environment committee, said in a statement. - -EPA officials insist the program was an oversight of an outside office that "failed to take into account the potential effect" air pollution regulations would have on states. "The program was needed based on the mounting evidence of an increasing number of air quality and health impacts stemming from dangerous air pollution," EPA spokeswoman Jenifer Nash said last week. - -Others disagree, noting that the EPA selected particularly vulnerable states and cities that have suffered from tailpipe pollution — air linked to heart disease, strokes and respiratory cancer. - -"We really think it's a very heavy handed approach for the EPA to be taking consistently and bit by bit for every state," said Carolyn Bartlett, a managing partner of Weir Canfield Fay & Dorr LLP who manages corporations and civil litigation. - -Argie Cushman, former executive director of the Texas Air Pollution Control District, cautioned against seeing the EPA as a positive policy actor in an era of international climate change negotiations. "It's deeply troubling that the EPA seeks to strengthen its reputation for recklessness and corruption," he said in an email. - -Officials in states meeting with the EPA this month say EPA officials told such challenges under the agency's Clean Air Act, which allows the EPA to set rules limiting emissions, are voluntary. - -"Our energy program is not a gift from EPA to states," said Rick Cole, CEO and president of the Colorado -======================================== SAMPLE 428 ======================================== -You've helped expand our reach and we could not have done it without you! Your comments, suggestions, and love for Omnaserver keep us on the path to a brighter future. - -How Seeing Vision Collaborate With 42 Group You're reading Omnaserver. In this issue to the right, you'll find work by a team working with a set of companies the firm works closely with, which some readers guess is 42 Group. But this team of purveyors of math tees off between problems -- and yet you can associate a broad range of countries with it, since it mixes different sets of companies from around the world, not just a single global firm. - -You've helped expand our reach and we could not have done it without you! Your comments, suggestions, and love for Omnaserver keep us on the path to a brighter future.<|endoftext|>Post by _ Simon 53 minutes Wed Aug 02, 2009 7:37 pm - -This is a Linux system that runs on Solaris systems, but can also be installed via a cross-compiler. - -This is a simple GET / IMG 790 they get.jpg file, from my webserver. See the any%20after%20the%20print. - -* 1212.txt and 2000.txt are text files, describing two scenes from American comic books I haven't printed. * SETUP.zip contains Linux system what i've built in 300 steps.. - -That's what i call a hacker scouter.. :) :) ;) - - -Toriko 344 is now available in print! From the Black Milk Bullet anthology, the sequel to Mononoke. To find a list of places where this edition is available, please visit: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5400.Toriko.Gra...<|endoftext|>Sci2sec was on Bugcrowd an hour ago, saying that everything would also be very distributed because QoS is usually fine if people pay for it. There's no reason to pay, but the assumption is that people normally tend to pay for top quality. - -You're assuming that throttled IoT traffic reaches your internet provider's edge enough that you'll fall behind in realizing FCoE target rates. Not just the IETF recommendation, but you post the very article that reiterated that expectation. - -I dunno, dunno why instead of adding pf for relay transparent pf if you're sorry, that your kernel source is posting "Desktop" deployment videos with 5 minute runs of my polling capabilities (or something else), and no reference to any edites done to come up with something other than disappointed me. Far up until halfway through, the first version about 1,8s old found in the Above 1,000 movies version sees fixed more or less a 3.8Gbit link from 9.6Gbit to support long files thanks to my code switch stepping. - -"Gold bars, decadence, decadence to the Verizon corner". - -Michigan Yankee CentOS 6 advanced rancher computer Configured using Microsoft Configurator-slan Intel Core i7, 3.5GHz, 16 GB of RAM, 160 GB SSD. - -Configuration: RHEL 6.x x86_64 (64 GB RAID5, 4x 3.5-inch & 2x 2.5-inch SSDs), installed via Virtualbox VMs configured to use the guests defrag program rdstat to retrieve the top 5,000 of the 100,000 cached sizes. - -Startup configurator running on the hosts with 15.6.14.1, built via grub2: - -$ dpkg -l | grep GRUB2 GRUB2 RESOLUTION=x86_32 GRUB2 FONT=rm:\Dfcd\en\fq8037.fnt # hypervisor was detected - -Connected to RHEL virtual console: Listening on stdin... umask 022; root=/dev/null. Load load config: console vm.conf default boot: int 10 addr si_c1=8008 addr si_c2=8009 addr si_c6=0909 addr si_fec=1040 ip shade_Checkalls doesn't exist ! ffff..651f4e40fff VM VMKG_S3KPV3_P0:001141 2061 struct taskssz_client_qos described at 9124 profile -======================================== SAMPLE 429 ======================================== -ドラゴンイカー everywhere reached in 2010. Considering what blew up its popularity didn't stop the game from selling at least 200,000 copies in Japan since its release. - - -Now you've likely figured out why this Mega Man connection makes sense. Capcom Korean, a division of Capcom located in South Korea, released Mega Man 5 in Korea in 2007. At the time of release the Capcom series there was at least a 8 month gap between games thus completing the tradition of regular sequels in the region, the precise date of release doesn't seem to have been specified despite receiving the title title in the same year of Mega Man 6. - - -The game developed a huge fanbase from the localization, though, and according to Netizen Buzz is the most selling game from a Korean publisher in nearly a decade. Allegedly violating source deals Netizen Buzz also reports that the approval of the game in Japan was rushed, dragging on the project as usual. - - -The agreement dictated the format of the movie and its actors. Characters and scenes set to appear in the movie were done at the last minute so the final time frame for films declined from 2nd-3rd. The final performer contracted was in a nervous period to play a particular character, Kaejun, but the final recording was delayed by a number of times space-wise. - - -So, the developers shared in the bounty, prioritizing number one over everything else. Netizen Buzz also reported that if you managed to notch up a copy or find a video or photo of the film you might yet be able to download full material of the movie. - - -The story of the movie is seriously interesting especially fitting to a Mega Man game already set in a robot world where humanity must prevent energy consumption for its own survival. - - -The basics of the game is that the Job System Limitation Limit is about to finish its cycle. As a result, the universe was so crowded with energy that the Meeting Period Management Ethic set a stopping must be implemented by the world government to prevent further chaos. - - -Fans say that opening the anti-gravity gate of the energy is like boosting the "Gravity Science Upgrading Rift" by inserting a hand into an unlocked space. When the owner applies the mechanism back, the virtual user of that same suit of armor will be transported into a new universe to laugh simply at the spectacular view while other dimensions where Earth reside open up on one side and energy circles fill the other globe. - - -The Versum Duper party is powered up by taking on the law enforcement by setting off a time machine-like device called the Vortex Shield, turning the 2 dimensional past or present into 3 dimensions. - - -Seven years ago, a combination of two bits of technology was sent into the evolutionary process, the Rift Beam System and the Portal System, both controlled remotely. With enough power mixed with disparate obstacles, the fragile worlds colliding caused Viroids, Archelon, and Laptiles to put forth heartless experiments to feel perfect control, "Path of Virtue" that ended up unleashing its Creators Seeds and starting the transforming Evolution Galumphanger. - - -The Hacker method of infiltration is a huge part in the environments that combine, and is the key to defeating Seitsunokai?A Vei?tai that devours all things in their path. - - -Solving puzzles calling the Races to the characters, taking a handheld mirror and apply certain trick, a black hole will appear and Gargantua, Churribrun, and Manda will appear in the underworld, destroying the dream of an old man and angels. - - -Open world and puzzles made to play at once to play over and over in fights with characters, events, and the mysterious nature of every object. - - -Using the daunting period battles Mystery of the bodies of Gasherr, Tauphas, and Brenmires not a single one was popular. - - -Memory is the ultimate question converting unto establishing your latest received dream. While others unwisely aid the Heroizer, the Hero is a hero who must save the world, and is the true hero for the unique extent of his own butler. - - -Dark Marina and Death Moon Shadow launch characters can take care of the games distant shadows・werewolves・proto keyblade・power ball・energy beam・esper&egna・wings・buffet・kickball・element seal・*still*がせない。 - - -Ding looks like, Sunrise is releasing a new Mega Man game in 2012. There is no specific date posted, and we'll have to wait and see, but this announcement comes smack in the center of the 5 year anniversary of Mega Man 6 becoming a cult hit in Japan. You'd think Sunrise working on this game wouldn't be that surprising, but considering how the 2009 Apex Classic was titledthat aisle had Initial D ponyfed debate dashing away from fans forever. BOOM proved Capcom international had something more successful and globally hailed in 2009. Incidentally, when next year's April Fool came around licenses -======================================== SAMPLE 430 ======================================== -On Tuesday the House of Representatives considered a bill to repeal food stamps altogether. According to the Associated Press, out of the 235 House members who voted to pass the bill, only 29 supported the bill from then-chairman of the House Energy Subcommittee, Rep. Fred Upton (R – MI). - -But if the agency responded in kind to the AP report, then still only one person would lose SNAP benefits… Gov. Sam Brownback, who has admitted that he has no desire to be governor, and would rather rather spend his time serving the state of Kansas than promote his own agenda. - -The budget-busting measure rushed through the House's Transportation Committee in a shocking, last-minute move without hearings. Rep. Harold Rogers (R – KY) told the AP that the staff to analyze the bill "brought in those who have no experience in handling policy." Food stamps, which operates under the Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, was granted its original expiration in February of this year. - -Ironically, Rep. Fred Upton (R – MI) himself unveiled a proposed budget that would reduce or eliminate $350 million in improved nutrition assistance program reimbursements to 42 of the 50 states. If some of these states reduced or eliminated this critical funding, it would be extremely difficult for them to afford food stamps like Governor Brownback. This is how Brownback justifies his proposed cuts, and it is. - -Since 2011, Kansas has slashed its SNAP benefits and costs per eligible household by 37 percent. House Speaker Ray Merrick (R-KS) and Gov. Brownback both can't take credit for eliminating food stamps; the governor only approved $61 million in funding. - -In response to the news that the food stamp restorationist being pursued by the House will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sleazy business transactions, the fraud would increase by $80 million a year, Carrie Emmons reports. - -In December, Merrick sent a letter to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, whose predecessor also slashed funds and benefits. Auburn State University President Dr. Cuonzo Martin praised the incoming Republican governor in a letter: - -"I happen to follow the debate on food stamp programs in the context of Governor Bentley's proposal to cut the state's state budget going into FY 2015. Yet you have your own plan scheduled for approval next month… Auburn has pledged not to reduce benefits… which just happened to be eliminated in Louisiana. I know that you are following Louisiana politics, but nearly all of the 71 Governmental Investment Boards in Alabama are controlled by state employees appointed by the Governor. The beauty of these boards is that they have remained untouched since they were established in 1957. So, since money goes beyond the first budget in January, our recent rebates to corporate food service companies are simply picking up your money. This is yet another reason that our universities will not take an axe to state employee retirement benefits." - -Texas Republican State Senator Dan Patrick, likewise, has repeatedly used his rhetorical performances to tout cuts in Food Stamps—a laughable effort at solace to Catholic income security programs even Mormon fiscal policies. - -As the Houston Chronicle's John Coy team notes, there is a mechanism in the farm bill stipulating that the expiration of federal payments to states need not come as a sweet welcome to senators who draft chicanery for personal gain: - -For the prior three years, the Senate's farm bill, passed by a voice vote, was amended to include provisions benefiting fiscal policy at individual farms and food safety and waste management programs. But Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, made it explicit that she intended the food phaseout to get farm bill votes, not to end them. - -If you want to see how Labor Agencies use campaign finances to expand their influence over working people, this is a good case study.<|endoftext|>Cloth - -To make the cloth, take a piece of cloth about 2m x 6m long and rub a small amount of the wax of the beeswax into it. Do this near or over a fire, and the cloth will strip off wax in seconds. - -Next take a flower aroud the appropriate size, cut it into quarters, and rub the wax into it, oversaturate to a depth and bending behind a pin, according to the clip above. - -Flower storage is time-consuming and and very messy, so be leary of storing them in the same monstrous heap of corps unfortunately raising. this is how a very thorough and to "onion thorn blossom" round vase took form. - -And later: - -In the late past the USA had a rough and ready method of preserving fluids, seen in bottles however old those bottles may have become. The bees wax being the closest fluid substitute, the wax bottles were designated for the purpose: this would help pass from one stable area of civilisation to another since flammables could easily be carried away, given that the wax or oil wasn't too thick, -======================================== SAMPLE 431 ======================================== -with selene graphic. roll up the sleeves too when you slice your menudo . main ingredient is fresh mango, spicy spices, herby chicken & avocado a rosemary spiced salt & pepper infused combination ... oregano gives great flavor to mains and different perhaps a little more something in your ... uchi. delicious.<|endoftext|>On film, Game of Thrones' monumental third season is a bold, new kind of drama. At an average of 36 minutes each, the episodes crown Martin Bashir, Maisie Williams, Conleth Hill, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Aidan Gillen, J.D. Williams, Iain Glen, Isaac Hempstead-Wright and Diana Rigg as major players in the series' increasingly complicated story. Most of them happen to play musical guests on the show, playing a part that might have been significant one or two seasons ago. But now, each of the four main characters has a storyline where they take unique turns on screen. - -That's right: It's the way of TV. More episodes allow more connecting scenes, more time to flesh out our heroes. But why must the Game of Thrones, which costs, according to HBO, $7 million to make each year, camera 201 feature films of Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Lena Headey, Lena Headey, and Lena Headey, and features a cast almost inappropriately, if that is possible, for adults, beaccurate about the politics of Northern Irish abortion law and more? - -The answer is complex but, I think, offers a glimpse of our media culture. First, though, let's understand the factors that now make for Game of Thrones. - -Variety spoke with Simmons About Time's Alex Ross Armstrong, a marketing professor at Dartmouth College, on Game of Thrones' major shift: - -"The timing of 'Game of Thrones' wouldn't exist were it not for this game-changing moment, which is obviously the cable industry and how globalization changed it," he said. He continued, "how lawyers became smarter, how directors become more of an aesthetic sensibility than a revenue stream, where you may have a critical hit in terms of pulling the process forward, or you may have an aural sensation but say no movie is happening. You had the end of the Bush administration, and a lot of people were inclined to like it a little more; HBO and Showtime also had them looking at the demise of the pay-TV paywall. It was the beginning of the decline of distributed broadcasting that made us smarter and bring it into the realm of television and screen magnates. There was also an enormous amount of fear from the likes of the U.S. Supreme Court about what this would mean for local and contrary censorship. By being fearless enough to make the television series, though, they brought that back because they didn't encroach on that space. News of this was met with equal, if not greater, joy because the news came across in a wildly run, thrilling, exciting way." - - -Bashir's story, in other hands, could have suffered the defenders' shoulder. As for Williams and other newcomers, Armstrong notes that most viewers fork over a message and get a version of the character that they then see: - -"One of the big problems footage tends to have is not just not being taken to its logical extreme, where it deals with all the questions that it raised," he said. "Because typically, when television shows or movies are based on something real they do what I call 'Shadow Land'—they spend too much time in the shadows, it's hard to decide what's real and what's not, and the players are necessarily kept in their shadows. All of those things sort of make real life much easier. Lin's brain is a shadow of his. He's embodied by an unknowing man, and it's much easier to spend a lot of time in his shadow." - -Of course, this already is a facet of television and movie storytelling. But the final season of Game of Thrones was controversial. The fourth season, however, broke ground a little further as it pulled the show down from show and into movie, not a literal grassy knoll but a filmed landscape that explains Game of Thrones' intricate plot and atmosphere. HBO used four cameras to shoot that on Panavision, a format that help it shoot three days a week. That gives them a typical 24-frame-per-second edit and the backgrounds for their characters. There are motion-control MRIs — the meditative—"Game of Thrones" indeed. - -Americans follow an ongoing tradition of separating television and film - -It's a natural cultural crossroads - -More concorsation to our writers: In the U.K., both Channel 4 and HBO have broadcast breakthroughs setting up their own broadband service. In America, however, documents many live-action television shows Americans routinely and consistently tune into for the majority of their viewing — the proverbial Lord of the Rings -======================================== SAMPLE 432 ======================================== -The U.S. Supreme Court Monday refused to hear a major St. Louis case involving officers' searches of a car and seizures from an arrestee's body as they used a racial-profiling technique within a city court. - -The justices did not announce whether they will review the case of Kody Roach, a white man who was pulled over by four St. Louis officers in 2001 after his light-colored car was pulled over at a stop sign. But the Justice Department alleged the officers searched Roach without a warrant, seized his car, placed it in detention for several days and seized his car keys despite there not being any signs of a vehicle burglary and after Roach was never charged with a crime. - -"I don't know how black and white you can be, whether you're a good kid and innocent or I'm the devil," Roach said during the cause hearing. "Whatever it is, it didn't happen for me to be innocent." - -The hearing was powerful testimony of frustration among St. Louis residents over how black motorists are treated and largely ignored by police. - -According to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, "St. Louis has had at least seven deaths of unarmed Black men as a result of police officers shooting them in non-violent incidents." One of them was Michael Brown, who was shot to death for walking in the middle of the street.<|endoftext|>Who is Barrett Brown - -Barrett Brown is the author of many web-based series on Anonymous, most active from 2011 to 2015. He was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit arson, which landed him in a federal prison in Brooklyn, New York, from March 2014 to November 2015 according to the Internet Law Daily. - -Brown joined the Black Hat chapter of the Oxford University program Be Anonymous and teach our Renaissance Inspire Anonymous classes since 2008 until November 27, 2015. Suffering from ALS he still continues to live in commune at ALPHA MERCAULT house in Oakland. His sex life is a little bit shady with lots of hookers, but they are all doing a job. - -What I'm Reading At the moment [July, 2015] I'm reading the autobiography 'The Last American Vagabond: Tales of a 16 Year Old Iracy Futy Barrister Chim-b' details how my parents divorced when I was just six so they could eventually get me out of the house as the parents worked 40 hour weeks and my dad did all the housework whereas my mother used charity mail and always took catnaps during the day. So my parents moved to Los Angeles to reform our household so that we weren't workaholics. I lived in downtown Los Angeles and spent my summers at Les Enfants Terribles museum in Koreatown. At this museum I learned to develop my own improvisations, build nets, throw bridges AND catch fish! Then after I moved to Berkeley I would go bouldering, play chess and draw lines on the ground. I explored attitudes about extent of many different things in the book. What I find fascinating is that all of these lifelong experiences gave me the life skills I needed to become an activist and bring about social justice for men. - -Where can I find more information about Barrett Brown? - -If you are looking for more information about him, here is some pretty much everything I can find: Book (mostly) - -Twitter (mostly) - -Black Hat (mostly, but wasn't very active) - -Chimpire - -Extract Twitter Archive - -BlackinSJW - -Transcript of district court hearing - -BarrettBrownNOPE - -Webinar - -He resides nearly 100 miles across the San Francisco bay's from the Snowden disclosures. - -Was it a prank when one of the users changed Trump's ears?<|endoftext|>Our teams and service are dedicated to making you comfortable. Which is why we don't just sit and wait…we come "live" to give you a personalized concierge service. When you come to Montreal to visit us, you will experience at least 20 minutes of personal attention. But could you even tell? Our "residents" won't be satisfied with just an instant anwser. You see, our service is nothing like psychological therapy. In fact, we are the only hotel in Switzerland to discontinue photofit. So we are no longer the only hotel ever designed by hand in Switzerland. But if comforting your hotel room and earning your plusides (friends) is enough for one day in our company, then book an appointment. Our staff is just as friendly and trustworthy," without being a "fixed" precinct with 400 attention-seeking scriptwriters ready to weigh-in on anything and everything imaginable in your hotel room." Reserve your appointment today and you'll be visiting one more of Zurich's celebrated hotels, so put your trust in the business that has helped create our careers.<|endoftext|>Dining and Drinking – Compared with gardaí older they rank much lower in terms of crime and underpaid - -Alan Sh -======================================== SAMPLE 433 ======================================== -Collecting and viewing data on the section of the K-selected circuit map behind the stadium without relying upon the back screen or deployed Order Tag is within the scope of this Nike+ trial by Standup Republic teams to gain/steal free Silva recruitment efforts. - -The Data - -The HTML 5 team recommends following the examples in the NikePlus demo, rather than attempting to do them by hand. Note that you cannot try to instantly download and review the data stored between iterations of the game. - -Preview Data The first image demonstrates how reframed and full width aspects of the stadium can be viewed by Deja Vu Unlimited. View/view image check box Caption Engagement of the section of the map behind the stadium without relying upon the Back Screen or deployed Order Tag is within the scope of this Nike+ trial to gain/steal free Silva recruitment efforts. The second image demonstrates how reframed elements of the stadium map such as benches are highlighted in Google Maps. View/view image check box - -The Data VS Any Other Map Considerations - -There are several partner smartphone applications which support full 3d display around the stadium. The learning challenge comes in attempting to consume and view this data by comparing to face and other effects operating on a YouTube video to measure engagement and interaction. - -Google Maps' 3d effect can have a very pronounced effect on organic searches, but does not apply to mature 2d maps such as MyParkMap.com. A particularly interesting Google Maps 3D effect for an outdoor element may create a slight hallucinatory viewpoint about the stadium. - -There is only a progressive refresh of the Google Maps app when the resolution of the hit stream increases. Google's Summer of Code developers' workshop displays websites where the map is optimized for full window or closeups, but some items that are fully immersed into the 3D or transparent resources, such as in-seat HD feeds, will not be on desktop. - -We'll learn how to leverage multiple devices to better our application. These devices might include iPhones, Android phones, tablet computers, and desktop monitors in the standup Republic deployment. - -An IOS app similar to My ParkMap.com (aka CoverGPS), is available for free download. - -A Google Map application with a set of social connections can display the conduct of the wider subject and perhaps position them for a meeting on the venue stage. Such a Google map highlights athletes and personalities of interest, such as the Silva's. - -Youtube and other more dotty apps were added to the list of partner smartphone applications offered out of the box by numerous map reading apps. Many have graphical user interfaces optimized to more closely mimic Google Maps implementation, and their capabilities are similarly aligned for executed over an element such as Tom Tom's back screen. - -The Importance of Your Game PLAN - -Turn on the zone text on your left and right, use speakers and download an interactive open page, create content cards that are tablet compatible and place them within the full-surge print capabilities and the daily analysis app. - - -While you may not need all that Keith Urban and http://nikeplus.com can offer, your own attention and energy will be more focused on the arena experience than the quick scanning of the relevant items. Build a regional strategy which utilizes your leverage and products, devise game/application setups and times for promotion, and analyze online data and consult with your clients and colleagues to get top data analysis around your game. - -Adopt an attitude of an opportunistic hacker who opens moderately secured locked doors and plan for milling through those "blind counts" times that trick marketers into prematurely writing a check for a vast sales network. Assign larger projects for social media objectives which may seem out of reach initially. Know why your thing appears to be worth cheaper at any given moment, and understand how social media may be a constant influencing factor for a popular product, track and analyze the playing field to determine advertising venues and appropriate timing as part of your overall strategy package. - -Use useful connections, vendor relationships and data retention to identify effective techniques for specific content placement, what needs that favor and how to experiment with until it becomes who you are. Use merging Authentic Site Elements and && plastic sheeting to attract retail reps who are more likely to accept sharp compromises in a wish for authentic over nebulous "street cred" as a gain. Telegraphing content coupled with a bunch of dynamic social commentary and colorful rhetoric allows you to attract relevant metrics seemingly from a stumbling position. Build your team early and let them do it because trust means a lot. - -Stay in the Algorithmic Game - -To scale, the average security dept doesn't have a lot more stats you can measure than a number of victims in a game, as opposed to a number of hits. Suppress the social performance components and heap on trophy awards to preserve your organization in the event of real blood everywhere. Certain opportunities sustain their scooting behavior because they are so engaged. - -By the time a fan has -======================================== SAMPLE 434 ======================================== -Steam Bestseller #2 - -We're aware: you just can't help yourself when your steam user, or group member, has their profile set as /r/kappa . We know it happens to you, and with your feedback we can improve our support for the community.This Smash 3 Shield Board games were played on by MIT staff for the – the annual game jam – MIT Smash Ball - - -Get Punch for free! - -Millions of hours of content have been created to create Smash Ball, and many of those were released under CC0. Full credits can be found at the end of the article, but needs is a couple of new names to defend the CC0. The original MIT Smash Ball team are the generous guys, we hope that more soundsernaming will help out in the beginning. Kel Hummer is the lead programmer for Smash Ball. He has been working on Smash Ball for over a decade and is getting too old to stop now. - - -[caption id="attachment_58648" align="aligncenter" width="455"] MIT Lucas HadenAP Photo / MIT MIT Lucas HadenAP Photo / chiefjonkolha [/caption] - -Josh Hughes (formerly Nathan Beckett) uses the title Punch for ease of old school swagger.Josh Hughes, the original sponsor, is the real hero of this endeavor. Punch is software for making sound games for all your PS4, Xbox One and PC-based PC controllers. Josh argued heavily for having an Open Source project, and Shawn Peterson and Nathan Beckett wrote the codebase for the upcoming Punch - Suite. Nathan worked on a major power overhaul. The new power increase can easily do up to 16 hours of gameplay, or a 26 hour game. This is made possible by adding a 64 byte core, and a massive and extensive audio library. Punch is the first C games simulator for desktop platform. It targets a suite of IDEs, but can also be run server of Judd as a windows-view app, and a variety of Gtk and GTK+ libraries. - -Punch is designed for NES games. It takes video detail, alignment and audio formats from those series, and models a virtual controller. Punch may be utilized with some games from late 80s to present, and can mimic Eek! A Cat In Disguise with sound effects. Punch allows users to add customizable shots to playing to improve gameplay. This allows designers to create in the newly patched 360 or PS3 devices. Punch uses a pre-computed table lookup buffer system to save time while playing. - -Mass Effect 3 FAQ for beginners - -Mass Effect 3 is the story of a treacherous paragon and renegade a player can choose to be, and is available for all major platforms. Get the guide from one of the top gaming websites, http://games.pc-gps.net/ and ready yourself for an epic story and an epic new Mass Effect. - - -"Mass Effect 3 is far more enjoyable now that you can now get reading the lore and make up your own Shepard, engage in side-quests and take on a human or quarian squad. Quite a liberating tool for fiction writers at this stage in their careers." 5/5 – Ars Technica - - -"Mass Effect 3 gets a lot right – both in the mechanics and storytelling elements, characters are so intense to play through again once again." 3/5 – The Pharmacologist - - -"Mass Effect 3 takes the series to the next level of richness in every aspect". Battlefield Concept Design Reports - - -"Mass Effect 2 was the best Mass Effect experience in the series to date. Mass Effect 3 wouldn't have been the best Mass Effect game if this game had been pitched in 2013. Mass Effect 3 is simply a masterpiece in and of itself. And it's perfect." Videogames - Super Librarian - 4.5/5 - - -Mass Effect video game was the #1 title taken down from Steam Top 100 games for longer than any other title (including Tomb Raider The Temple of Osiris). The game has also been on the top of The Steam charts for more than 25 months. In Super Librarian's polled of over 6000 Mass Effect fans named this the bestselling game of all time. Watch the latest video below for the top mass effect 3 anniversary videos, to see how to keep up on the latest Tuesday to Thursday updates. - -Even video game attacks: Assad's chemical attack continues All About Syria - Aleppo activist videos - - -MONSTER PUB A ΒΑΤΑS 16 » Aérospatiale (ESP), the Italian rights holder for Jaws in 1995, which now controls international rights for Dark Room, has entered an appeal against an Italian patent filed on 28 June 2012 for Jaws – revisiting one of the most successful video game IP re-releases of all time. Italian news agency Ansa has been informed by an Italian patent re-recognition team that the update for the popular video game, Jaws back in -======================================== SAMPLE 435 ======================================== -Microsoft is throwing itself into project ultimate: Windows 8 tablets - -Microsoft is using the holidays to show us what it, like so many other companies, is dreaming of, and indeed hoping to do. And for this movie to pass muster I expect that Microsoft's tablets will look pretty similar to the S8—pretty thin, bezelless, see-through that give our fingers relative control of what we are touching. Many tablets might simply be cover plates with styluses attached, but the Surface Pro has an expensive job of being the only thing that makes two people use screens BOTH at the same time. It is worth wishing my S8 did what it succeeds at. - -The style of Microsoft's Universal Windows User Experience of using tablets is not the reason I like it in theory; I'd choose my own way of being in the world, with a mini projector and iPad strapped to my chest. And the styluses would make perfect sense to Time, SyScan, or the phone, for the quality to be superb. But they are not the primary issue there is in Microsoft's public showcase of project ultimate. - -The problem is Windows 8, the desktop, and that is where the pain begins. This tablet-unfriendly piece of desktop software is frequently the primary element discouraging people from getting a Surface Pro or what looks to be a Surface Book. And this with an oversize screen—overkill I would say, for the long term of nonglobal computing (think of all the email you could be sending down it, too, and writing with it in your hands, anytime). In addition, there are the issues with area and battery management, as if Microsoft tried to showcase something expensive that really does not want to blend into 99.99% of households. - -Think of the Orbi as Blum case for Windows; I don't think on paper it would look so bad, but in reality it wouldn't fit. Laptop Airs solve the battery issue of not having a battery for charging, but that is a minor monster compared to this general perceptual nosedive. - -In theory, any tablet-optimized interface would be a win for Microsoft in the long run, as they could bring the easy to use Windows of today to a larger, curtain-less hydro AG based Westernower F35. I admit, I really like great screens that can be unhesitatingly dialled up to their maximum power state, or that my eyes can more unequivocally observe in the HTC 10—and that difficulty level one. So that pivot really makes me wonder where Project ever has been for Windows. But, in my fantasy, I guess the only reason they are doing it could be exactly that the companies making the ideal tablet will hugely outstrip Microsoft—hence the announcement of HyperThreads to enable eight threads a core. Eventually, driven by the productivity dreams of Microsoft alone, I suppose that will just smooth out all other hardships.<|endoftext|>TSROW eDNA Databases - -By Andy Bowen, Michael Cawley, Miles Hodgson and David Eaton - - -Introduction - -One of the most astonishing findings about DNA in prokaryotes is that it is almost indistinguishable from RNA in certain circumstances (e.g. transcription factor binding events). This observation has led to a significant of additional research on the logic of prokaryote DNA replication in the context of ancient cellular, prokaryotic or marine environments, and amyloidogenesis, which is the source of the amyloid deterioration phenomena that affect human and animal tissues. Both industrial natural products (eg. crude oil, organic solvents and electronics batteries) and life forms which have been observed to survive for millions and millions of years have, because of capillary walls that remain open, the capacity to capture and store energy as hydrogen bonds, usually strongly covalently tethered to DNA, allowing them to generate potentially energy rich compounds (actually hydrogen sulphide) over time as a decarboxylation reaction. This suggests an evolutionary need to propel membrane lipid delivery and affecting processes closer to the cell surface, and clearly presents a unique global hazard. Most of these compounds have been related to respiratory failure within 24h when transient exposure reaches 50mcg[B]3 (which is ten times lower than industrial levels), which follows the early toxic TCDD response. Tetracyclines are a group of copper chelating, sulfonolytic and antibiotic agents used widely worldwide as a broad spectrum of health care treatments. Derivatives abound, e.g., ciprofloxacin (Lolk Suppression), cotrimoxazole (Potaden) or carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae. All of the following intends to provide OSOne database material through an overview of necessary sources, values and trends of differences in the measures and side-effects of synergetic bacterial genomes. - -Genes for biochemical metabolism - -The primary biosynthetic pathway of any complex organism has been left essentially unchanged throughout its many -======================================== SAMPLE 436 ======================================== -Latin America's biggest real estate mogul is investing in communications infrastructure that he says will connect businesses with suppliers and add American jobs. - -The billionaire businessman playfully fights off frequent questions on Twitter about whether he will push through a presidential bid and run for office. - -"They won't let me answer like this, so don't waste your time," Donald Trump said Wednesday. - -Trump is one of the world's richest men, worth an estimated $4.5 billion. He is the biggest clothing buyer for Zara, founded by Amancio Ortega, according to Forbes. - -Trump, whose deep pockets helped propel him into the GOP primary race, is a pioneer in social media and technology who has boasted an office and life in Cuba and is currently a vocal supporter of Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. - -Dismissed critiques - -Some see his business moves and rhetoric as contradictory. - -"A decade ago, Entrepreneurship Day would look like The Revolution. Now we're facing danger," Bob Jordan said on Twitter. - -The idea for the equal time was born at Harvard Business School, where Jordan — an advisor to Trump's education strategy — organized convivial events for investors. - -Entrepreneurship Day, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in June, distills the latest findings from the field of economic development and boasts the support of leaders like Costco founder Roberton Williams, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg TV and the NoVo Foundation. - -Other platforms have been terrific about fair giving of space — Dell Cloud, Starbucks, Blackberry. But no platform has the reach — and appetite — of @entrepreneurday. — Bob Jordan (@bobjordann) June 7, 2015 - -"It's all about getting 10,000 people to make that sign and 1,000 people to make that tweet," ESPN reporter Darren Rovell told The Associated Press on Wednesday, referring to a page on Reddit that promotes popular entrepreneurship stories. - -Scholars and speakers have spread its message throughout the company. At Facebook, most employees use it directly, and makes a nearly $2 billion profit every year. - -At Twitter, it doesn't seem natural to promote a global event or idea. - -"People don't see you and say, 'Yeah, I got elected to the US Congress and you didn't' ... It's tough to catch them in the moment," said Evan Stewart, vice president of business units for Instagram. - -"When did business become political? When did business become sports? People now have felt, and feel, like a salesperson." - -But Stewart said people unfamiliar with various entrepreneurship platforms help make the necessary connection. - -"For me, that's something I can do. It's challenging." - -Western upheavals - -As Joseph Eagan wrote in his book "The Rich Life", there was an emerging cultural moment in the late 19th century, called the Syrian revolution. - -During this time, military officers became rich from contracts. - -"Citizens were not only privatizing the materials of their destinies but transforming them into profits. Typically the civilian monument "projected both a social bond, a local magnolia, and a social value, a military charter in the shape of a nationalizing charter at the heart of a new state system," the author said. - -"Almost no American ever heard this kind of language until the press of 1790, and it received some justice then."<|endoftext|>|< - -< Prev - -Next > - ->| Workweek - -Title text: I'm sick of thinking about how stupid my coworkers are, so I figured I'd just start using them as markers to move on. What is in the way? Repetitive gestures? - -Explanation [ edit ] - -Editing a workweek is a thing humans often take notice of, as Stan even mentions editing a workweek. In this comic, Cueball is annoyed and actually resorts to creating a workweek by his usage. Cueball then puts the stack of underpants down to mark the end of the week and now wishes to use them to mark the beginning of a new week. Bobbie values the underpants as they represent Bobbie's trust in her coworkers. - -It implies that a workweek and edit hours fit very well together. Labels like week or edit need only be added after the workweek has already started because once a day has passed, this definition needs to be overwritten. An edit is usually closer to 5 hours. Therefore, we see a shift from weekly to daily workhseet that follows hours and usually ends with the workweek ending due to the shorts of the previous week. Only once in the day would be the day after the workweek ended, in the case where Bobbie saw via Google watch what Randall had written and saved. - -Now bathrooms and commutes are usually needed to come up with Plan A and Plan B as well as -======================================== SAMPLE 437 ======================================== -China's mobile phone subscribers will demand less traditional wages in 2011, a forecast by a Beijing-based consultancy prediction firm showed Friday. - -From February to April, China's incumbent operators will lose up to 20 billion yuan (5.5 billion dollars) in revenues due to insubstantial prepaid business, while low-end phones only, the Glassdoor consultancy forecast. - -"Primary phone users will either switch to "subscriber-owned service," (like drones, pedicabs, and ride-hailing companies), or fight for much more favorable prices from their existing providers," firm researcher Ian Ma said. - -Ma told China Daily that increased mobile phone users, led by less affluent customers, will "test traditional contracts more" as they experience greater ease and convenience, rapid news gathering capabilities and convenience saving features, and will increase wages in order to stay in business. - -The high fashion retailer F.Y.E. Luxe has thrown its weight behind smartphones with free Wi-Fi availability, and the Shanghai government is opening airports with free Wi-Fi in a bid to attract more Chinese travelers. - -"Phone-wetting" has become a subject of professional fascination, with smartphone users digging down into their pockets or attics to charge a mobile on-demand service, a "phonius" device whose battery can be upgraded using smartphones.<|endoftext|>DnD 5e MonstersBy LennartHulsing - -Pain - -The choker (Pravispatriarch off of Trollblood Fields in Chult) has the same descriptor text as a bell. Unwisely wielding his magic to lick a wound, he has wasted his cry on a bubble. - -The Mournwood Lord (Madmen Barrow (A nam's Rest in Wood); has a descriptive text of "lost, warding stone"). Unwisely wielding his magic to comfort, he has wasted his cry on a bubble. - -The Heart of Darkness (Often said in stories of the thrones of Night, Ptolemy's tomb is adjacent to the Shadowfell in Prospit). - -Humanoids - -The plainfolk are given Girdle of Fortitude. I had not noticed enough of the commoners having this shield before. You see, something about the rings always bugged me about Girdle of Fortitude. The pink-laced walls are quite sturdy and durable. You would understand more if you hover it, step on it, mock up potential cover points, land your foe (or squishy troop) in precarious positions while its potency is diminished. - -Commoner: Cavalier, Fighter, Paladin, Rogue - -• Bloodrager and Brawler: Whirlwind Attack - -Valeguard Warriors (Distained Wastes) have a description of "dragon, Ironfire, Goldsoil" along with Marubeaz's knives (Winds of War: Icedelve), Chainers (Baleful Earth), as well as any wooden weapons (Waterlogged Sea, Danger (Eerie), Cossabars), metal weapons (Ironforge, Bloodrun Crag, Nerubian Peril). - -Four bloodragers may have afflictions which cause you to take feast to purge eating red. This can be a boon or curse depending on the population, in either event aside Disputed. For the most portion of humanoids (serpents, snakes, harpies, buggers), the archetype will encode the kleptop bite into its obscure description. We do inane things aplenty when coherent, so there is little thaumic magic involved (though bards/miners will still benefit from having a few sylphs, pushy elves will still benefit from the Demonhide cloak, etc.). - -Buffy Science and Groot Science (I will be called Ravenous Soul and Groot for short) have options which bards and miners (other classes) will want to consider regarding special equipment and clothing. Both epic groups and generally depend upon an Aura of Mystery, Religious theurgy could allow for non-artist adventurers (but rich folks with reason for luxurious gowns will often balk) favoring, Aqua Regia Yellow (Arcane Armor), Resonant Pearl, and Diamonds of Protected Power/Improved Boons to complete their cosplay attire. When the Metaverse gets grinding, death at the hands of green bloods will lower their eyebrows given their perpetually negative Magic Vibration Bars. - -An item background was given from this item, the Hellhammer, and a Ruby-Sapphire Ruby Ring - -By Lelianys, Alarakymus and Nikolaos; their contributions are universally praised and respected throughout the lore. The above were largely acquired via Pleatheraw9's /r/dnd recruitment via Reddit. - -Given (what other systems are truly available to the player) seems to be the purpose of the good and the cunning acts in DnD5e, crafting items -======================================== SAMPLE 438 ======================================== -Femen activists declared a "day of action" on April 24, 1995, which was celebrated as a day of defeat for those "deviants who stand guard" against pornography. - -The London-based Femen movement, which has become known for attacking and usually assaulting male demonstrators and t-shirt wearing gals, had unveiled their first action in front of the Eurostar terminal at George's Bush Terminal in Paul VI Hall in 2002. Femen clashed with police and leftsholders on that day, then again on October 31st, 2004, when they set fire to a discovery box / property. - -This opposition was critical to Femen's efforts to spread their messaging into a broader public entity: - -"The government keeps delaying the installation of and the functioning of majority approved in 15 years and without having passed it. So we have no power, they do nothing to respected user groups below than in their ridicule or in oppressing their thoughts fully now on the Internet and website. With such lame interests, privacy prevents the multitude enough from being able to think properly. People cancel these severe privacies in front of them and I also do not respect such behavior. We do not believe in harming or inflicting pain on any persons. Under pain of prison, we break our body and spirit through all activity bearable. I declare and event a separation that bevertains not one thing about your public statue but it bevertains a catastrophe for you." – Femmecentric - -In a fitting move of defeat, Femen went on to announce the name of the day of action on April 24, 1995: "Day of Patriotic Pussy Riot."<|endoftext|>Whether you're new to longboarding or looking to make the jump from flat mechanics, the no matter the style, always EXPAND YOUR SKILL - -Tim Miller was born in Minnesota, but raised and trained in Wisconsin by the First Nations. From a young age, Tim has always had a wonderfully unique and fearless approach to snowboarding. At 16, he won USA's national freestyle contest for the first quad bike event in 3 years – US' Born and Raised – where he rode 57.1V in a 2 quad with a new Epic Biking projects on his back that allowed him a distraction in the start line application to get more boost into his freestyle approach. While looking different from your standard bike rider, he quickly found out the swiftness and agility of another sports "accessor" – freestyle snowboarding - -Tim asserted himself from there by attending the Masters level North American Rodeo with his dad, Jeff - -Dillon on his Z1 Travel King. Discovering the attraction and immense input he brought to the team and the industry, Tim was (and is) invited to the US Olympic team for learning and learning. The lesson Tim learned is about having an affinity to riding on micro stamina and keeping charm in decreased utilisation to sustain a dream leading to a professionalism beyond the ratto world, a dozen votes but a single role in the sport. This year it's the broad global changes with Miller's work will play a huge role: - -2 foot Freeriding Alex that so many riders are describing it moving from "Big Mountain" style intermediates to true mods of challenging snow, what inspired you to do that along with working with Bart Hayden ? - -Freeriding was the impetus for 80% of my moves, I began with it as a beacon of hope and since then I've been making the game of learning snowboarding with all my haters, trying shit I don't know, putting the car in gear, paying close attention to the opinion on why your moves suck or if your "good enough" to BLOW THE SIZE KNOWLEDGE OUT THE WALL AND BURN THE PISS OUT THE GLASS. (Marior) with my technical pos-per, being in the groove and feeling comfortable having the confidence when the longboarder's are getting denied has been a constant. - -BART Hayden joining forces with Gav SIlence is like tight weekend bangers fucking. I would say the majority of my longboarding is me trying to up my level to be able to rip her lines when they're in leave room to improve myself even better. It's with a lot of searching and hypotheses about how to improve myself all of which has lead me to the confidence that I'm ahead of the game when it comes to learning take on features that go above 50" on my bike instead of me just getting shitty low balls the fight and try and overcome stuff that I'm most use at the time. Through SSH Beacon Productions like endorsed by a funds run nonprofit I am currently giving all my riders, freestyle artists, teachers, academics, artists etc. another shot of shit range by ambitious offering them another opportunity to be educated and expand their knowledge. Turnkey. - -What are some of the differences you see in freestyle and downhill? - -I see the penetration in the federation and the look of the snowboard tour -======================================== SAMPLE 439 ======================================== -Need aneasy way to schedule and publish your cannabis twice a year? - -Craig Medicine™ uses a proprietary calendar and dates to create a system that schedules theconnected to ongoing preventative medicine cannabis recommendations from qualified Dr.C. for incurring thecost of content production as well as keeping your calendar online and available to you will you in times of need.<|endoftext|>Denim cut tops from Banshee's Wongmaid MMA not only look great, they also can be put together with ease. - -This shop carries some premium cuts from a group of Japan's most renowned denim brand, SUGAWARA . These jeans feature on as many threads as the surrounding rivet holes; it's essentially the denim equivalent of a tank top.<|endoftext|>Paul Murphy/Getty Images - -In a court brief filed last week, the IRS made a claim no tax preparer should know. It contended that the ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Krauthammer v. IRS was adversely to the government, going so far as to suggest that the court could force the Government to pay up long term by obstructively ruling the statute and present court precedent to be otherwise. - -Josh Voorhees Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in northeast Ohio. - -To be sure, the United States appeals court in Philadelphia this week ruled that the IRS had inappropriately toppled a political battleground playbook—which included referencing "Washington gridlock" and validating "Project Vote" during a form tax filing verbiage. While the IRS' agenda-setting tactics could persuade thousands of Americans to stay home on election day in 2016, the justices' ruling isn't a birthday menu. Recall that in an effort to avoid being "stepped on," thousands of Americans will show up at the polls; IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who threatened to withhold $90 million in tax refunds from conservatives, was the principle architect of those tactics. - -Advertisement - - -Undeterred by the legal predicament mentioned by American lawyer and law professor Laurence Tribe in this Slate post, an observer might naturally conclude that the tax agency is more concerned with protecting the public from political activities chalked up to leftist billionaires than it is with disbursement of refund checks to struggling Americans. That would be wrong in a few ways. First, letting legislation slip through the process of regularization is rarely a good-faith effort to fix a law that doesn't yet mesh with current reality. That's not how Lockean tax theory works—recognizing that youthful lifestyles change occasion to occasion can cycleiter generate unintended consequences, not to mention the specter of criminal prosecution. Given that the tax code wouldn't officially have evolved from Cyprus to Hawaii by now, the IRS could have tried to preemptively resolve that problem by simply making sure commissioners' employ was made aware of their new job titles. - -Second, making a political issue out of a strategy enshrined in statute and over 40 million years of precedent cuts deeply into the core principle of the rule of law posed to argue for a chain of events that would seemingly apply to the IRS's tactics today. With the Supreme Court not ruling on the issue in an election year, the IRS may struggle to find support from other high-litigation branches of government to ensure the agency's probes of voter fraud and electioneering expire weasel-out of its employer-mandate obligation. - -In any event, that cleared decks and returns ruling on the legal theory by using a jurisdictional argument against the taxpayers: - -The uncertainty created by intersection of statutes creates a risk that society as a whole is prevented from avoiding substantial economic harm offered by the violator's party. Moreover, because monetary penalties and treble damages may carry with them substantial reputational consequences, they may lead some taxpayers to hedge their bets. Because the government cannot universally regulate morality (i.e., restriction of speech), an arbitrary suspension of certain regulations in order to punish certain members of Congress could constitute a wise practice and thus permit the principles of freedom of speech to prevail over the competing interest in not giving the government an unfair advantage in determining whether a person may use a prohibited form . . . - -Advertisement - - -On application of that theory, the IRS could imagine it wants to punish a congressman for one speck of cake-related infraction. But it could also imagine that everyone who speaks one slanted word about a cake constitutes speech and so holds risk on a First Amendment level to prosecution before local shops or burners. Those. Are. Different. Problems. - -And, finally, there is the whole question of "deep pockets." Conservative ones, of course. And concerning Occupy Wall Street's requested tax-deductible donations to Barack Obama's re-election campaign. If they cease now, even Attorney General Eric Holder will have no right left to catch dissidents' charitable contributions. - -It seems an falls dreaming need to game against thin air to so shrink American money from the American government's oil tank. Imagine, then, if its dictates upon society -======================================== SAMPLE 440 ======================================== -MAMAHA HAS AN ABV INFRARED USE OF THE LITERAL ONE. - -IT'S NOT BOTTOM-LINE ART, IT'S A BOTTOM-LINE. - -SWEET Todd; Bitcoin bad audience far removed from soul of rendering. - -THESE MAMAHA, 2/14/17: - -THIS WORKS UP IN,ASEPTE, DIFFERENT, WAYS. - -FORSOMERUNS STEVE KAY HAVING UBER TO MAKE THE GREAT WORKS UNTHINKABLE. - -IT'S MAIYRHACY AND IT WILL FOREVER BE.INSTRUCTING TO USDA CHANGE THEIR THIS TYPE OF STATEMENT. - -IF IT SOUNDS FUNNY YOU MIGHT BE THE ONLY ONE FIGHTING TO BREED. - -FAKE MY NICK FIELDER PLEASE. - -JB: OH MAN? - -(ON THE LIGHTSHADE, THE) - -THE USDA FINES THE DISCOMFORT. - -YOU CAN HAVEVERYTHING DOWN PITS. - -LIKE THEILLUMINATOR? - -WELL ITOTO THAT BETTER, SIR. - -UMM SO YOU LIKE TO RECORD IT WITH TAPE COVERING? - -FANTASTICS HAVE LANDED, SIR. - -ROBINSON HAS FOUND2014 SET THE #FAMEMINUTES. - -SONGS ARE TRYING TO BE FIT THE MIRRORGOD. - -UZI FERRY WITH GUN BUGS WAS LAMINATED NOT GOOD IN WORK GONNA DO WORK FOR MR.GOBLIN. - -YOU'RE HAVINGIN DIFFERENT SYSTEM. - -This ARCHIVAL WASN'T JUST ONE SATURDAY. - -MIXERS HAVE FREQUENTLY RENOVATED IT. - -YEAH, THOSE ON LIVE FROWMANGO THEIR ALL THE TIME. - -MAMAHA IS STILL STILL SCARED? - -BRIAN, I'VE GOT A DEADBUCKET. - -YOU RAN OUT OF MONEY. - -I FINISHEDBITTER MONEY IN A GIFT. - -LITTLE INDIEACADEMAKUP (WAVES GIRL'. - -HEY, I KNOW. IT WASTHERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO STARVET. - -THERE IS <1 HELIUM FLUIDTO EASE YOU BURDEN. - -TOOL DIE CORRECTIONS BITCH.[HERE] - -YEAH YOU ARE, AFTER CLVINJ. - -EXTREMELY NICE ALARM. - -GOOD LOOK FOR UTOTICOPMARS! - -[C-HAPS]WHAT ISTHIS THING YOU ARE TAIMING DOWN INFRONT OF ME? - -YOU ARE Using'. 2 DAT. - -THE 'SOMERAIS LITERALLY A SLIP. - -Take BOLDCANDADELIVER.['SOMER'] - -JUSTICE TO ASTA MARTHA.<|endoftext|>It's no secret that science has a go-to moment – a use case that allows us to prove, over and over again, we're correct and every other argument falls by the way side. Sure, we've got our famous Hubble Deep Field, which brought together the entire visible universe in 2005, a millennia of Darwinian evolution, the double helix of DNA and 100 years of the viscosity of water. But now the field of astrophysics has some brave new toys. Physicist David Spergel has been kind enough to look back at some of the best moments in the history of the light and magnetism in our galaxy. He characterises them in the UK Astronomical Association journal Astronomy and telescopes. Not all of them are as well known. Take the image by the astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington: Photographing the filaments of the stronger galaxy GRB 0807-0746. At the time Hubble was in space, this image had a velocity of 5.7km/s and it took 225 minutes to span almost half a degree of sky. Now, places like home PR could see it in little more than 2 minutes. Over the years it's inspired dozens of sound-bites: - -"They're the fingerprints of an active stellarwind ETA". - -"Hubble would have put out 6-inch beams of light here." - -"Look, there are pads of baking parchment" - -It is also how we now know of the Handbook Astrophysics number 7, from 1571: - -"Earlier instruments were born about 437 and the epicenter was S12S2-16. They measured that 4.25m and 6.25m were visible -======================================== SAMPLE 441 ======================================== -ADVERTISEMENT - -For years, Senate Republicans painted liberals as anti-American, the political equivalent of the land-dwelling Wood Elves of the Lord of the Rings movies. I knew the GOP faithful reasonably well: Didn't they bother leaving the theater when released in 1999? - -When Republicans moved into the majority in the Senate in 2013, however, a new distinction was drawn: They've portrayed liberals, particularly those of a constitutionally moderate bent, as so enamored with government power that they couldn't stand it when directed to improve. As the mouthspiece for the Republican promised land, those who consider themselves the party of limited government have been portrayed as enemies of the American Dream they suggest the electorate is still chasing. Truly no one else applies the coherent spin-bombing Democratic throuput for rejecting the expansion of government power so uniformly, and with such consistencies of tone and substance. Yet let's not forget that the left, in fear of losing control of the Democrat Party, frequently accuses Republicans of minoritizing conservatism in some way, justifying party surrender on the charge of being insufficiently Reaganite. But their own ends for elevating the rightward trajectory of government rank with the most influential and strategic deception these people ever perpetrated. - -It is common to ascribe goals to a political party, and to guard them ceaselessly lest that goal be thwarted by the Capitol's omniscient magnetic field. This device harbors some force, both as a foundation for human legislation and political expediency, but you have to bear in mind that without a stronger device to accept, the double-edged sword that holds everything together would make fusion too difficult to achieve and mankind would not be able to unfuse. It's the same kind of calculation making has made the turbine self-destruct. Economics Judo concept 28 The goal is the increase in utility of the state in an indivisible gives way to the rise of the state's mobilized promulgation of fanciful purity principles. Embodied choice is impossible. Control the world or wait for math to make itself the master. To transcendmoney, money wondered Venetian engineer Giorgio de Santillana developed a mode of symbolic ideation far more commonplace than cash today, an alternative to $120,000s. The finest range of modern code is the mathematical calculus, whereby democratic political organisms strategically employ their uranium resources in a disadvantaged jigsaw joints sized for each successive package of corporate disadvantages and increments of material stamping suitable for important pieces to coalesce into a pattern fully specific to the human mindset. It is, in other words, hyper dimensional." 😉 1 Meanwhile, I was early into the Weltanschauung 2 study done by the London School and Institute. Focus was on founding the United States fascist movement with contributions of the classical conceptions of higher theater, philosophy of composition, and science fiction for the aesthetics of symbolic negotiation enacted by personified program and personified corporation prop. - -I had worked out a set list of principles for the political party on which the campaign was based: euthanasia and gender selection, €50 pub debts to be paid before any trade or merchandise transactions, 20% abolition of public education, acceptance of murder as a justifiable business practice to prove commitment to enhanced safety and limited resource resources. The implications of the West had 30% share of the world - interms of population- space occupied by Arnold Toynbee, last name Nicolson, for efficiency meaning numbers who can do the jobs that 1% –-accumulation organs, tissue bankers-, incomers plastic surgeons-' run it.'" : ) Love is the essential, intrepid captain of his own ship. Since so few - – I'm talking century- zoned experts, of whom the vox pop respondents people want – can make theninglewith a beverage that could make themselves miserable long enough for the political party and their corporate allies to make their the right choices. They must have some limited wish fulfillment. A so-called Truth seeker with the first 3 controls would need something for the reason where the wish fulfillment replaces the outright honesty about such hand wing along side the opportunity to sway public opinion by proxy for their own purposes or those of their constituents." - -Rothschild: - -"…For two hundred years of the history of capitalism, including the most recent two hundred years from FDR in 1933 through William Dodd in 1973, the upper class swank on plunder, refused to apologize for it, and worshipped parasitism. Costs to reduce brutality and witch hunts were greened or turned into part of the socialist menu. Charles Nobel was Malthus. He further inflated and embellished his economic principles, creating what economists call heuristic styles. The far right cites Lillian Faderman as man eating herself to death. She's been buried under a mountain of footnotes from vaccines and GMOs that have made Thomas Chapiro his bitch. He fudged his multi-noted work with! \ innovations that turned basic biochemistry on its head! And whenever he thought his talking points might gain a little -======================================== SAMPLE 442 ======================================== -By Ashley Howard - -@AshtonHoward - -Melania Trump's beautiful mansion President Donald Trump's New York address This source has told us that without Melania's speech at the RNC, it's near certain she won't even be on the first prime-time debate. The New York Times discovered out that as of May 12, Trump and Steve Bannon were still trying to save a tax plan benefiting the top 1%, even though that one initiative was a clear failure. Presumably, they'll argue the same thing about the Keystone XL Pipeline being "one of Hillary's greatest accomplishments and, one hopes, one of Barack's if he is elected." Tossing campaigns under the bus in favor of securing key cabinet positions is completely acceptable to Donald Trump and does not look exactly like a conviction. We can safely assume he thinks he's delusional. "He has a narcissist's belief," a former campaign adviser told New York Magazine. "His biggest mistake was when he thought he could take on the establishment and win." Sadly, we've already seen an effective demonstration of that narcissist's belief. American democracy is deeply fractured, and in 2017, it seems capable of little except accepting as passable a president who is a sworn political stranger to half the country. His name is Donald Trump.<|endoftext|>Those in Congress need to get to do some real work. This week's focus is the Chronic Trauma of Firefighters and with its recent one of its share of tragedies that have caused towns and cities to close fire stations. The first fire in Enid, Oklahoma was on April 24, 1974 in the town of Enid in unremarkable Smith County where Anchor had overhead a warning shot resounding all across the town. With 1,100 people dying in the tornado that followed, Enid's fire ravaged and burned for eight months. As the 22 pages of documents released to The Enid News recently released, it becomes now easier to understand why the town's residents voted a generation later to kill the fire stations back in 1997. So what happened and when did the Enid Fire Fighters Union give in to racism? - -In 1980's. when Enid's Mayor Frank Burns sought approval of a plan to construct a new fire station in a space currently occupied by an elementary school the union, conducting what will be confirmed as racial cleansing, along with Burns, fought the plan saying it was against the union's values. - -"My union did everything in its power from that point on to throw our union into the gutters to give the vote to the white workers at these undertows," said Bob Swanson, former President of the union. "No, I fucking did." - -In perpetual conflict with Mayor Burns Captain Mint not only opposed this or any under built firehouse but stated that efforts were clashed in Enid are instead taking inches off property for private use or subdivision zoning. This further strained relations in an already strained community. - -In 1983 Sam Walker, the USA Chief Fire Officer testified on for the Committee Hearing under oath that compañeros denied a membership to persons whose honor he knew was worth more than most of the members of the Chattanooga his fire station had compensated in its attempts to train emigres."That position among emigres has leads to some very strange scenarios that I wouldn't be a third generation fireman in this town if I did not raise my voice against," said Walker. - -Because Enid lacked a fire men's retirement program most of the volunteers left but with the fire station mothballed the local pension brought in the contributions needed to bring in its number a smaller fire fighters union, as part of its struggle with Orr, the Dixie Nursing Association, and other captive unions the union signed a federal settlement agreement on provisions of their liability insurance the contract was as follows: "If after one year(18 months) of stopping hostilities Loyal Shepherd County Fire Protection Bird Mountain Fire Company shall have remained unrepresented in fighting any fire, the company shall indemnify the Union for the out of pocket costs of the Union's own and other volunteers performing work involving medical assistance(front line medical assistance) or rendering justification for treating persons injured restrengthened their idea of risking their property and the Union's life for anyone. " - -Now that the hard fought victories of the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Act and Constitution are firmly in grasp of achieving their eternal goal progressive bootleggers of all colors, genders and extents have turned to exploiting and profiting from the patriotically and honorably fought sacrifices back during and after the United States of America's early years. Unfortunately it seems many of those men, women and children that stepped forth into mortal danger for their country making them coldly conscious of them only took an action to great reward to be shoveling manure and desolately stinking flies with their own bare hands have become accustomed to danger as if it comes like fact to break their chains from voting balloting en masse to fight against it. When our country is safe in the hands of the demagogues -======================================== SAMPLE 443 ======================================== -Hi there. We moved 1GB of data into our RaspberryPi. If you have any technical details on the change and how we did it, we'd love to hear from you. This site has been updated to refer to the RaspberryPi running Kodi. Please limit your questions to technical in nature. If you do not have any technical background ask away and perhaps we can share some of our knowledge. - -This site is not a collaboration. You may not reproduce any of the content published here without permission of the author or the administrators of this blog because we think it is valuable. This site is part of a social network called Krypton so please visit our friends on the Krypton forums<|endoftext|>Santosh's adidas 'Commando' Rekon 7 Low is a net style that is set to make a splash in the sneaker market. The Rekon sport the trendy mixed+Adidas upper with an ankle collar and a Flex Primeknit upper, all complete with a simple leather eyelet finish laid over an EXO midsole. According to sneaker source, the purple colorway is a black midgrey that draws inspiration from the legendary soccer (soccer football). You can snag this item now at select retailers online for $140 – $150 USD. - -RELATED: 10 Interior Candles With Innovative Interiors - -RELATED: Newly Announced Sneaker Sol - -RELATED: Insta-Fake Kayfabe Model With Classic AF Eye Pincils<|endoftext|>I saw this story on TechXplore today and it just blew my mind. A situation went down at a meeting of Southern Indiana Military Leadership on Inauguration Day this weekend. This is a great story that needs to be told. - -The threemilitary leaders gathered together for lunch. During the meeting, one of the table-side venders had been interrupted to argue with the manager and change his offer of a free coffee. - -In doing so, he ran afoul of the rules of military jiu-jitsu. As out of the corner of your eye you may catch the scene, the vender fell to his knees, sink lowered on the ground, supporting his head as if he was looking up. Although his posture was one of control, the weight of attack… - -NO, THAT WASN'T THE MOVEMENT THAT WAS ON THE SCREEN; THAT WAS ONE OF THEIR RESPONSE LIFE CONTROL Units. - -The confrontations arose after being told "IT WILL BE FREE COFFEE ANYWAY, IF YOU ASCEND THIS STEPMEMI". - -The shutdowns and chaos in the man's face evoked a tide of anger from his fellow venders, seeking to let loose. One tried to calm him down, but he held firm, his Darien drills clenched tightly around his forearm. - -At that point, a local student called, letting everyone know the citizens were in the middle of a silent uprising against the vender, so the man must have been watching something very important in the room. - -Every movement meticulously analysed, avenues ensured. - -As football coaches away to gold training camps spread across the country, the professor in the gym beaconed cellphone footage to Department of Homeland Security headquarters. From there, every stance was examined, defences learned and the clues pointed in the way of finding the vender's façade behind the colorful staring howls of the crowd. - -The maverick among them told the coaching staff that their mare be led back. - -Shortly thereafter, a D.H.S trooper was dispatched by the White House, dispatched to an official request from the State Department of the Homeland, Incident FindUs early to disrupt the meeting in progress. - -This all raises a puppy-dog problem: wouldn't the white hats be seen assisting that protestors of this guy's, if their care so extreme that they prepared to go after their targets? There's some serious intrigue to this story; a high-budget study written after the first wheat crops, elements that mirror the present day tactics we're dealing with. - -To experience life at a Gambino crime family narc reduces thrown backass and cocks well. - -The club, one of the most respected nightclubs in the country, called Elite Bohemian sent a proactive & presumed overlooked message specifically for President-Elect Trump and Vice President-Elect Mike Pence - -To hear the Gambino clan known for being the world's most formidable people on & off stage takes you deep inside the radical crimminal world; secretive training paced, moving slow the sting of revelation; see what they do differently. In the winning month, top private hockey players from around the world stand with US Gov elites to cultivate Trump's Foreign Policy. The elite are preaching peace to vets, while serving Prohibition & INVASION firefighters Drake Sex Rhymes HOST 2018 XXL Best Ft. Kanye West,Stace Bishop,JD Gotti, - -Gold Lakers Machine,GZA,Jackie Knowles,Diddy,253idas,DB Dr -======================================== SAMPLE 444 ======================================== -Cuclear War Biogenetics - -Biopy is an attractive and general technique for molecular origins or catastrophe testing. More specifically, Biopy tests a virus for its ability to replicate outside the specific environment in which it was initially released. An example would be a scud bomb warhead released in the New Mexico desert which killed tens of thousands of people within 6 months, but which was documented as being able to replicate successfully in sea water for 4 weeks. - -Sorting out whether a particular strain of a disease has any potential to reproduce outside of its development or dissemination zone is known as Particle/Vector Screening – Part/Screen Testing. Scientists use special equipment which can isolate a virus or piece of DNA in a really fine grain for testing to detect the likely presence of a pathogen. In addition to normal biological testing methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), other tests such spinging or scaling are commonly used. - -Sorting out whether a particular strain of a disease has any potential to reproduce outside of its development or dissemination zone is known as Part/Screen Testing. Scientists use special equipment which can isolate a virus or piece of DNA in a really fine grain for testing to detect the likely presence of a pathogen. In addition to normal biological testing methods such as PCR, other tests such spinging or scaling are commonly used. - -Nuclearweapons and Biological weapons are supposedly made from fission reactions, gamma ray scattering and neutrons. Is this the sum of nuclear research covering more than 50 years? Read more here - -View or Login Message<|endoftext|>Information Category: Hunting Topics: Other Lounge: Forum Members: 2840 Location: Tucson, AZ Identified on: Monday, October 03, 2011, 06:34:49 AM Subject: Cecesito Vice Korean, plats FSD 600 Wolf? EEEEEELY??? As a long-time member of the FSD 600 A2 clan, I have come to notice a very bizarre site page, thus the purpose of this post...to gain some information/knowledge of the FSD 600 that is "extremely popular": FSD 600 Wolf; formerly FSD600A1 Wolf. This site page should be taken with a grain of salt, as it seems to originate from FSD600 for reference purposes. This page however, has not been on the web site for 10 years or more (2005 onwards), and quite obviously this page is wildly out of date at the time of posting, as the pictures are dated everywhere else (and apparently not back-dated!). Looks like the pictures are intuitively ordered three different ways, where some pictures seem to have a split image, some have two separate pictures, and some arose from the NASA policies insisting FX reminder WR_500fm_16k is 12.3K, but separately forgot to remove mirrorfluence 250fm_64k. I have no idea where the pictures were seagull/Walden composed from (only ever seen them - -there), so in this case, - -a piecemeal edit needs to occur on all the pictures in order for it to happen. It also should be noted that FSD have failed to see fit to replace the reference information pages on the web with pages solid enough for printing and to come as per their wish. Here is a tea-tray a population of WCS visitors (the annoyance of lifespan mis-modules still being used engenders hugs from decimal 171 smash Crawdaddies remains irrelevant) slowly being removed from their empty applications - but the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better: SWEEP_Who'sRiddenHorse imgKZflxcsb 2007 2013 pt.1 but didx though Until then, the top links would take you to, image, and these pieces both now are in bizabits. Read more below... Guides have been added to the Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam throwbacks page The many features that are a - - -Prior to the introduction of it's new FAQ Page in 2005, the official site's introduction message was the subject of numerous posts on this board . Here is a recap somewhat managment of some comments that were posted: - - -And here's one word of advice from someone who probably added a lot to the site, - - -Taken from a story that says a 'rare' wolf was found on these shores! - - -" No one can tell where that story started. It was retelling. Something about wolves 'thistMIly how best to uphold their territories' so eat haaaa excers wouldes mice and kill other creatures to determine their place in the pecking order. This was like 10 years ago, didn't anyone think that such a thing can't flourish against further external antagonism. lol. I laughed out loud. - - -And guess whom reported the discovery of a 'rare' wolf (probably DNA cast from animals, found in rare scat or conditions). From Tokyoist . Via Yahoo . The article was for one like this Japanese guide on FSDs. Notice he listed -======================================== SAMPLE 445 ======================================== -Following a DOJ recommendation, district courts in an additional 13 states have approved Boy Scout National Contact Points outside children's homes. The new policy allows youth participating at National Scout Jambores to use the law courts in jurisdictions where the court's rules transfer some duties -- about 75 days per year -- to local civil attorneys, allowing Boy Scout leaders and leaders' families to take breaks in order to meet with attorneys. Although the policy change is limited to the National Scout Jamborees in the United States, the First Circuit already allows it to take effect in a number of other areas. - -Many of the Document Now Wolfram|Alpha Solutions employees recruited in 2008 by the Center work directly with attorneys in-house and through subsequent contract with potential clients. - -The proposal has renewed the debate in the legal community over the use of civil court by children's groups in modern court systems. The phrase "minimal presumption of validity" has come to stand for "no presumption that A or law water can be based on anything else" -- that is, that any decision made in a civil court may have little or no practical value when channeled through a juvenile court process. The full extent of kids' access to civil courts can vary by jurisdiction. - -Determining how a new document will affect commercial practice depends on the final decision from the Office for Civil Rights. The new document, preferred by many, proposes allowing legal proceedings from minors' criminal reports to civil court in certain cases where courts have important unique skills. The document's restrictions at the meeting affect the successful continued use of documents like the "Freshman Dossier," which IMBD Network published yesterday. - -The "Precinct Form," the more popular document, imposes a cap on younger clients that has no compelling consideration other than availability of court resources, forcing some youth organizations to limit access to services. - -# # # - -IMBD Network and the Center for Inquiry are pleased to announce IMBD/CFI is hosting a venue and wonderful issue of Youth Law in the Courts for May/June 2016, with exclusive coverage of the criminal justice system in Core/Imaginary States and the impact on so-called Tender Years from caseloading to feedback on their high school diplomas and college applications. LIVESTRONG.DOT.ORG will also host a Feasibility Workshop for youth involved in the justice system in IMBD Network facilities with the goal of hopefully strengthening their conversation with law practitioners to see beyond the spin and build legal advocacy skills. The workshops, presented by youth from CCI's Center for Spiritual Leadership Bronx Academy for Justice.<|endoftext|>The region's largest packaged-food manufacturer will lead a project on door-to-door pickup, starting next summer. WalmartFresh, the nation's leading mid-market retail grocer, acquired a limited equity interest in the Maryland Buying Club grocery chain last year. Together, the independent operators — owned by Pennsylvania industrial executive Joseph D, Turner, and Associates LLC — bring more than $2 billion in annual sales to the Baltimore-Washington-Abington region, which has nearly 18,000 grocery stores. - -At the east end of the U.S. House of Representatives complex, a National Academy of Sciences advisory panel on food security was just interviewing university-trained entrepreneurs Thursday afternoon. Boston-based Third World Abundance LLC announced that it had received 26 referrals of potential business partners and was looking at locations to develop its first U.S. Acres., one of a raft of outer-borough partnerships in a new academic study funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Inside the neighborhood's black-owned Avondale Marketplace, private equity group Equity Office bought 100 Extra Daily Bag groceries , plus 20 sub shop locations, for $1.8 million in cash on Tuesday. And last week, Venturespirit, a local asset financing firm, unveiled plans for a $23.8 million real estate development partnership in southwestern Maryland market Green Spring, featuring an apartment tower for emerging professionals, an $850,000 townhouse rehab of a brick warehouse and in-house restaurant. In addition, Welch, Jersey & Mills Inc. of Camden acquired a 4,668-foot grocery Terminal 1 at Aberdeen Pass near Hunters Creek/Meridian. - -MOX allows Americans to prove they receive certain kinds of aid while at work - -ON SATURDAY, September 6, the OMB voted to extend temporary and permanent anti-poverty payments to the State Workers Administration (SWA) through December 2017. OMB approved the funds through September 16 and then scheduled a 60-day conference call — where it is supposed to provide a politically neutral budget update — to announce whether the payments are extended through the move. But it was quite possible that the OMB didn't want to take a closer look at the swifter option, the "temporary" spending weasel, and instead held the news conference to emphasize the speedy option. - -The fact that the judicious and gracious General Accountability Office misinformingly wrote to Congress on September 4 ( -======================================== SAMPLE 446 ======================================== -That Mr Abbott and the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, had was demonstrated by the address recently given in Paris by the Luxembourg foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, to the international conference on refugees. - -Mr Asselborn cited the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron on refugees that was discussed in Geneva a few days earlier as an inspiration to his own country – undoubtedly the honour of a lifetime for any country's foreign minister. He also pointed to the most recent United Nations reports on migrants. - -On the one hand, Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop are highly principled in their support for refugees. On the other, their flexibility in dealing with the government's tone on this issue is another reason why the public is spending money.<|endoftext|>Contest closed. THANK YOU FOR ENTERING! The Sobeys Cult Classic BBQ Contest is close and the winner is… | Read more here: https://ahingezi.ca/~fodaman/blog/cookingsof/<|endoftext|>MLB Advanced Media, MLB.com and The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) today announced the MLB Network's 2015 episode schedule for its MLB Studios series. The season will include two 10-episode series, "MLB The Show" and "MLB 15 The Show," increasingly approximately each week, starting in October with the premiere for the former. - -2017 MLB Network - -Click on a regular season date below to see the full schedule - -All times are ET - -Episode Date Original Air Date Air Date Air Date Air Date 11/18/16 10/18/16 10/18/16 3/23/17 2/18/17 3/22/17 4/23/16 1/22/17 1/22/17 2/9/17 3/15/17 15/19/16 15/19/16 15/19/16 1/26/17 1/27/17 2/8/17 3/16/17 1/3/17 9/28/16 1/4/17 1/3/17 2/21/17 3/21/17 1/7/17 4/7/17 1/31/17 2/21/17 4/8/17 5/20/17 5/26/17 1/18/17 5/6/17 5/26/17 1/3/17 5/6/17 5/26/17 3/16/17 5/20/17 5/6/17 5/26/17 5/6/17 5/26/17 6/7/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 12/31/16 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 6/14/17 1/1/17 1/1/17 1/1/17 1/1/17 1/1/17 3/21/17 11/30/16 12/11/16 12/13/16 12/20/16 12/30/16 12/31/16 - -MLB The Show - -Click on a regular season date below to see the full schedule - -All times are ET - -Episode Date Original Air Date Air Date Air Date Air Date 12/19/16 1/28/17 1/25/17 2/9/17 3/23/17 4/20/17 5/13/17 5/22/17 1/13/17 2/22/17 2/26/17 10/31/16 - -MLB 15 The Show<|endoftext|>There ought to be legislation before Congress to "Kevin chooses Corbyn over subjects like trade and immigration" Theresa May told the green movement on Sunday, hinting she would seek to raise funds if she wins the party leadership contest. - -Philip Davies, the party's only MP, accused Mrs May of speaking "half-heartedly at best" about the "need for legislation" to curb the so-called Clarkson effect on background checks intended to stop foreign criminals as well as rapists coming to the UK to gain citizenship. - -He told the Daily Telegraph that the lawyer and broadcaster had single-handedly beat Tessa Jowell, the shadow home secretary, by nearly two million votes in the Richmond Park byelection, giving the Tories "something to fight for". - -He told Mrs May to back "one piece of legislation or else there will be chaos in British politics" until the weight of Labour control of parliament is restored. - -Asked in prime minister's questions whether there was a chance of passing "real, groundbreaking legislation to fix this problem", and to be "league in person or at least vociferous on social media", Mrs May used a half-word strategy in response. -======================================== SAMPLE 447 ======================================== - -Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released some troubling facts concerning water pollution in the United States. From 2009 through 2012, sewage overflows into rivers and lakes at alarming rates -- ending up in the Great Lakes, Epicencinch Creek and the Animas River. From 2010 through 2013, wastewater leaked into the river near Albuquerque due to a flatbed truck release in the town of Devil's Lake. This event happens at a rate of almost 4 million gallons once per year. Per the report, "At least three more transmission more than 6,400 feet long or smaller, or a total of 381 large pipe breaks involving inactive TPW's″CA overall, were reported from other states of CO, NV, CO, NM, and SD during the same time. In Northeast PA, West Virginia and TN, nearly 400 unique from 2011-2012. - -According to EPA data, in November 2009, more than a billion gallons of diesel and gasoline spilled into the Animas River. In response, the EPA ordered the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to stop issuing certificates of compliance (COI) to oil and gas "pipeline operators" during October 2013 and March 2014. CDPHE has finished up their respective COI review process. Numerous new COI violations have been documented since then. If these new incidents continue, then we wonder how long it will take​​ ??? - -Now consider Morris intake expressed as a percentage of Total Liquid Discharge. In 2013, it increased from 21,774,017 to 22,366,623. This is a 110% increase from an almost zero intake during the beginning of the new millennium. The numbers look nearly amazing, right? Not when you take a look at the pattern. - -Morris backflows displace and find its way into the Beaufort, a clear part of the Beaufort Sea that separates Beaufort and Chukchi archipelagos from Kodiak and Baker islands. The Spud Island cooling tower runs through a three mile stretch from the Northwest fork of the Severn River north, past Inlet No. 1 to PIT 110 where it terminates. ---------------------------------------------- Axes of A1 are nearly lined with significant amounts of Potomac stalk. The vortex is 11 hours 31 minutes south > 53 deg 07 min > 911 ft 08 min > 341 ft 12 min - -The Google Earth image shows both the Beaufort slow starting dam and road out from it. - -The Spud Island cooling tower is also marked on Google Earth; and even with none of the major draw backs of steam injection – shown here – power generation is still feasible. - -Morris need not raise this troublesome issue itself. Simply establishing better data collection could be done with proper drilling of boreholes and more persistent monitoring. For more documentation of the flows, visit their site here. - -Follow Franko @LPGDandc. ​<|endoftext|>Utah Printed Firearms Certificate Information for Utah Application - -"Your Records" Page: Updated - -"Your Records" Page: Updated - -Quick Links to Utah Firearm Examinations and Certificates of Inspection - -Quick Links to Utah Firearm Examinations and Certificates of Inspection - -PDF version of the information presented herein is available by clicking here - -(CoachShot Publishers, 2017) - -Spring Terrace - 2018,026The PLEASE ACCEPT FORM Option features a maximum of 16 fields including all the required data. The recreational applicant solely must once certify the item listed in their Personal Information section is ALLOWED. The Recreational Qualifying Firearm can be granted only if all items in the Personal Information section are ALLOWED. See this PDF for the monthly maximum of requests and licenses. The Recreational Initiative permits are intended only for "training" or "demonstration." IF you plan to carry a firearm in the State of Utah you must have a valid Firearms Safety Instructor (FSE) Certificate. If you do not have one, or if you are unable to obtain one, an FSE Certificate is specified in the application. You may alternatively, pay the fee listed here for up to five Certificates. All certificates are good for two years once issued (for a lifetime license combination). After two years of hunting, logging, camping or traveling out of State, the required FSE Certificate will be revoked, unless renewing (which then requires a new Fee of $25.00). See this pdf for the annual limit for Certificates, and this pdf for renewal opportunities. - - -(Additional Information Description Updated) There is a Spartanprint Keeper's Username/Password ("playOK") document which is helpful in checking email returns, subscription status, and system logins. For rotating access checks make recovery of emails and password blocks easier. - - -Contact: RunningSquire - -Email: pldpwd@outlook.com - -Phone: 801-544-2016 - -Provides Quick Links to the Applicants initial firearms safety training needs, and SRC -======================================== SAMPLE 448 ======================================== -BEIJING (Reuters) - China's foreign ministry said on Saturday it expected more dialogue with the United States to address internet freedom and cyber security issues, after U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford visited Beijing. - -U.S. General Joseph Dunford Jr. (2nd L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Flynn (R) stand at a board of the China International Cooperation Group (CICA) Corporation, under the Hong Kong Chinese Expo, in Hong Kong, China, April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Bobby Yip - -China has long criticized the United States for singling out Beijing for criticism over rights abuses, after American Edward Snowden disclosed secret U.S. surveillance programs. - -China has rejected allegations that its Internet network is being blocked because of its opposition to U.S. policy on internet freedoms. - -"China's conclusion is that it is better for on-going dialogue and consultation between Chinese and other relevant parties on, and within, the existing framework to exhaustively defend the rights and interests of all parties," the foreign ministry said in a statement. - -Policymakers in the United States, such as FBI chief James Comey and Air Force chief Michael B. Flynn, have said that online scrutiny has been a factor in detaining some suspected militants, although the latter has given no direct evidence for that claim. - -The Chinese statement referred to a 2009 study which recommended tying up loose ends on various computer networking issues in order to tackle serious cyber attacks that led to asset damage to global financial companies. - -"That study stated that in light of the dimensions of the attacks, protective measures should yet again be enlarged into the security defense for the community of information and communication technologies so as to enjoy the collective security of cyberspace," it said. - -"China urges to increase communication and consultation between relevant parties on Internet security and other related issues of bilateral sort." - -Perhaps as a result, China and Russia on Monday repeatedly exchanged alternating barbs on the subject of Chinese Internet controls over what each side sees as an intrusion into its territory. - -"The views clearly differ on the transfer of control to Russia of the Internet filter between EEC bodies; it is inevitable that we concern ourselves more with this," the foreign ministry said in the statement. - -Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford, speaks during the 2017 Liaison Dialogue, in Beijing, China, April 18, 2017. Xinhua/Saeed Khan/via REUTERS<|endoftext|>Full text of "Lamarck" - -The Kennedy Library INTRODUCTION In the year 1835 Governor Francis Marion of Arkansas contracted with Isaac and Anne Lamarck to write a physical and mental description of the types of plants native to Arkansas. It would be the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, rapidly reached the third article of commerce, that added a creative fanciest twist to Lamarck's original plan. These days, Professor Mary Haskins admits, "Lamarck was still very manly." But Marion commanded things that were not easy to attain. Among these was class privilege. Since he had been awarded a seat in the senate, he became aware that if ever he could apply his scientific expertise to political goals, he might just as well profit from it as he might. He mastered a field of mathematics to such an extent that, his biographer Lee Fetter, writes, he was "equal to Newton and Laplace, under the same circumstances, whereas the open Mathematics of [his standard] Magnets stood well itself." Like Galileo, Jourdanise McCullou in her library research has found Marion's handwriting to be neither elegant nor commonplace. The variety of notation, which "expresses a type of meaning in a unique way, and provides various educational tools." is remarkable in many ways: Marquesene's idiosyncratic married couple lettering and footnotes, his intentionally obfuscated name. In L.S. Lamarck: His Study and Character, Coates presents "the first view of the man himself as we have him," a person dreamed up by his extensive article towards the end of his life, anticipating Darwin. Miss McCullou's "Lamarck Reading: Senior Citizens" collection seems to be the perfect place to start locating this notoriously elusive composer. In 1982 Kully Gailum inspected the Presidential plates in the Henry Government Building. A magnifying glass developed the coverage hanging inside these small plaster figures: some come large and throaty while others are as little as seven inches high. Later, she bought three-inch moving images of these pictures. Intriguingly, on her website, Gailum points out that the numbering system could be used to observe the progress of health and the milestones associated with various scientific discoveries. 'When comparing the figures, we see that, just a bit later, the legs and feet begin to become matted together. However, when the legs begin to fuse, we make out more than the entire torso and lungs taking on an incorporated form. -======================================== SAMPLE 449 ======================================== -Take a little bit from the past, and twist it into something new - -Everyone is encouraged to their own unique idea about what the "Roo" can be after meeting some like minded participants! Language is optional; anyone can introduce their, or anything they want, to the crowd and record a short video that will be made into a 30 min "Roo," and be on the website! You can take the emphasis away and call it something you are passionate about or a nickname, such as "spud" or "zee" for example. The event benefits Advanced Processing through scholarship and educational opportunities! - -About the Event - -There were about 35 attendees, and they listened to speakers and racers on track from around the country! TFA has long been working with NASSTRA and racing fans to promote the Turtles Over Texas event in order to highlight safety awareness and promote positive relationships between all age groups.<|endoftext|>Best Answer: Everybody is self-proclaimed incel and loves to boast about it. If get enough of your lies I dont think many people take it seriously, but that is not very different from anything else. Some people really want to be called a bigshot. There are a small minority of them who dosen't even want to be called that, and the rest would so care about whatever label they were given. No matter what, self-proclaimed incels talk crap like you (and I) always expect its going to stop one day. It doesnt, not...that either. - - -Take this blog as an example. It was created as a joke between two friends who had fought already last year over who would be the better lover... one of them is only 20-something and claims to be with 7 women right now, and "was told by girls to be with the older ones" (so either no pussy here, or he simply cant meet them all.) I'm sure 98% of the people here are just sharing their own stories. Like you read over your latest "meet and make love with a girl" concoction that went horribly wrong. Five years from now you'll look back at this shit and laugh, "What a loser, he didnt even realize he had two balls!" - - -Put your faith in a couple of attractive girls to start your game with, and be grateful that you have even tried at all with women in the first place. Even if you got your foot in the door, your chances are pretty low of making any sort of progress with any face. Hunky guys can fuck any girls with pretty much impunity provided they are competent enough. Your best chance for success in terms of actual sex is to not have any confidence whatsoever with women - just because a girl liked you once and offers a blowjob every now and then, it doesnt mean it will like you back for long if a sober dragon drowns it in/fucks it clean. You dont know shit about relationships and your reservations and fears and insecurities will only have a short shelf life. You need to be dreaming of officially placed in the wing beyond Bellyache Lane, where the doubts and tits drop look and the deft lips turn you inert until the taxi arrives at your doorstep. The last chance to pull that off will be with a girl who really aspires to be with non-alpha guys. Get that girl to drop her pants for you with that very real expectation and she is de facto going to settle down by the time you come to realize you can make her smile for longer than a couple button pushes. - - -Honestly, the best thing you can do is to meditate on the fact that there will be no SEX for you anyway. It is as simple as that. Natural selection favored those that had *real* convictions about sex, and you wont find a higher percentage of girls that really want to please you by being your strutting smarm doll or height luck for wanking vacantly while her throat is being held open by a parasitic clubby dude. In fact never trust guys you talk to about this stuff. They have absolutely OBSESSED on how women parent their children, and are always goin on about it. Seriously. - - -Perception is EVERYTHING. Most guys claim to love cunnilingus when they actually suck dick moist enough to....vagina? Nah. Reply With Quote<|endoftext|>I take great pains to remind people that I do not think biomedisafestation equates to R cells, but I got suspiciousier about this subject when I read this article in the New Scientist by Tom Jefferson and Carl June, and it absolutely shows me that the relatively new concept of homologous recombination is not necessarily as new as is sometimes claimed. - -Jefferson and June (jeffersonandjune.com) relate a parable of a lab technician for the agricultural industry, who is transfered to a different department from his previous work, and he quickly becomes infatuated with the notion of entering that department for an office job. When the new department calls, for an official interview -======================================== SAMPLE 450 ======================================== -This is a blast of acceleration and ponies for individuals, businesses and organizations looking to transition their processes and clients. Lost_Bus on Medium showcases a curated list of the best startups in the business of personal development. Those who seek to learn and improve themselves, should check out these resources. Also, click here to see the full deck. - -Here's everything; Aerodyne; Of course, a marketer's year in action from Walhack NYC. It's a moving image that shows how the opportunities for growth and advancements can happen by leveraging tech innovations in digital space. Some highlights include T-Mobile Labs, HotelTonight; The Heuristic Group, DataTap and Twilio. There's a slew of channels and possibilities that place the power in your hands to maximize your customer experience. Rather than corporate headquarters pulling the strings, enhanced sparkly visionaries can lead us into the mobile era. Get ready to follow your dreams - -Quick Jump: - -Ignition Days; Global branch server of InboxDollars.ca, where marketers can find and connect with like-minded sales consultants and 2015 Sales Riding for Good Canada Champions. The real-time galaxy map lets a member measure their progress with data from all of their InboxDollars campaigns. - -CanCan App; Local economies have the power to change terms. We simplify development, analytics and design to build a brand that results in better value for its users for a longer period of time. CanCan takes the product and people-centered approach and extends it to the brand's products and services. Designers and developers benefit from "Cost-centred Design" with responsive components, plug and play or fully customisable. Find out how - -Magpies10; Unique and new ways to run social media campaigns for businesses of all sizes. Hosting more than 200 campaigns with 500k+ unique and important users, get more following, longer engagement and private group participants. Engage your audience and build brand awareness ever. The Magpie uses HTTPS in order to minimize website #compromised, protect privacy and assure clients customers get the recommendations and updates that they b - -Longer Jump: - -Lyst; Experience marketing in your mobile native office! There's mobile and it's coming fast. Lyst's business is based around providing online marketing solutions to huge brands, startups and enterprises. Buying sitemaps is key to your success! It's working magic for their tens of clients who take advantage the ease of usage, site optimisation and Page Optimisation within Lyst's software. Combining a mobile-optimised custom website with a security app lets their customers enjoy user-friendly desktops and mobile native experience with peace of mind. The Mac%20friendly version is also ideal for external developers to 'Cheaply bring their products to iOS users' - -Small Business and Entrepreneurship - -Quick Jump: - -GrooveCLASS; Share and LEGO on Michigan's curated CCFusty list. featured powerhouse that provides lecturer, Obama strategiser, Rebuilding America Project and the Rebuilding America Project Leadership Institute speaker needed for small campus groups, 2020 premiers on 7/28. Exploring key phases of transition, growth, identity redefinition and personal success. The LSP student experience is unbelievably inviting, with everyday learning puzzles and CONTACT Wire requiring 10 (!) AGES, Re-U transition and fun #DadsHour at the end of the week. Funded by Chelsea Clinton (today's shining star? Change guide!), Common Purpose and Branding Excellence USA Challenges Read out 20/20 Escalator - it's a must read for anyone working in the entrepreneurial space. Discovering how the efforts of thinkers emerge with innovation as the only principle. - -Quick Jump (2): - -BoomerBrand; Hire a tech select expert to make your life easier (basic English, online presence, leadership/business skills sufficient, with an emphasis on startup and digital ideation and strong leadership). Highlighted many large branded and brand sponsorships. The majority of companies running this develoment require 4 extra months of training per participant, keep in mind 15+ hours per week of daily product development, approval checking, edit skills. It costs $1500 per person to open and maintain a "Space". Only 10 companies away from "space" life - -Final Thoughts - -Finaly – Do your test drives before things fully begin… we all know how often we have a task on the go, when your speakers are just a greenhouse away!) - -Quick Jump (24): - -AvaSolve; HR consulting startup via virtual company, iPhone technology is on the horizon for healthcare companies. (Always watching… legal issues, import/export of products, space for clients/emerging products, legal fit) - -NeedMore2PreCheck.com; Encourages its members to find ways by which they can pre-authorize their medical cases with most reduced cost inflation. Find out more - -WaybackMachine.org -======================================== SAMPLE 451 ======================================== -Well...feelings are high and you might find your chance to redo history -- more than 10,000 years ago -- at The Myriad 2.0 presentation at RSA Conference 2017. - - -This one-of-a-kind on-stage presentation, the first of its kind The sharing nation of ancient Peru is once again listed on the "Names not yet recovered." Around 2,030 Oindj #831 A.D., a Pygmy-speaking group traveled through ancient Andean civilizations/temples in central Peru to reach the fertile Valley of Ondj #831 and the Ondj Cloud, laying a path north of the Valley of the Incas from La Plata, Ecuador. According to the world Archaeologist's Meeting, discovered Gometio-Senrawunsh #cen06 of Ondj #cen06 in 2004, in the Chapter of Pagiuns, San Ataulfo are marked on No Four 28th Pediment. - -The ancient tablets still remain under the ground of the Rafael personaque. Although Peru has terrorized most of this entire land, it is also recognized for having a rich archaeological heritage. Between 400 BCE and 350 CE the Incas, through sacred rituals, conflated the animal-god L'Ōzhnṭa, part man and part animal. Fittingly named Nhoti (Bird Spirit God, Wise One). In the time of Grondona king of Old Flacourta, this great king served the ancient Hivco and worked with Lamakuela Mal'sein Nonatoi for the subjugation of Chile. The high point of Islas de la Gallega was plundered by the new tribe Bolmano de Jatomás. - -On July 4, 1798 C. de Julio Casciani gave to the king of Araguaí a land after he and his people of Bolonara carried away 200 tons and looted Araguaí city. It was a huge load; in this ship 16 men and 20 women. The land that Casciani gave to the Great King Commandante was Forissu #uad07 at La Casa de las Esquivias of Maytas, Cochabamba, Paraguay.<|endoftext|>Tuesday/Drowned, first post on Epostle. Much has been said, much more left to be heard. We're crossing whatever bridges we can, managing, and optimistic in the way said bridges do (sometimes mutely) greet the landing. Each person's personal life is about them, and each person's relationship to their world grows directly out of how they represent themselves. Settings, immigrants, and the social hierarchy of the established society tell us that power is power, man. In order to build happiness and passion in our faces about our selves, let's discover more about the joys and passions of those around us. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Hello the Vietnam 52 ... welcome to the V02X's Review Squad. Many moons after Monty Python off their self-proclaimed gems can we go explore our collective undiscovered dark features, twisting abysmal twists of the comedic mind into the wonderful "what on earth?!" Wonderland that is Objectdance (AND MORE TO BE DEFINITELY STICKED TOAXES ABOUT OMB AROUND TOOK YOUR DAY ...), banned photos factored into all this new found glory, and the JEAP AC WORLD WALKS THAT NEW SMUM PUMPIE. - -With all this permitting all my heated meltdowns at other reviewers burning their points, I'm providing some solid facts and graphs here just to raise one's blood pressure a little. So let's dive in ... - -Caste and Wife abuses - - -Never mind that they were not the same thing with India - this practice of all male victims of a wife using her sexual powwows to demean her husband to the point that the husband decides to quit his job in a plaid shirt and highly refined leather trousers not to mention joins the Khyber Pass Transport Prohibited Areas Police as a cop to help policing this active volcano on his honeymoon. Yep the husband died. - -Nothing wrong with a fixing gratuity for pick-up men - as long as everyone knows that behind the back, everyday waitresses have a knife and will not go to the pub whenever they're totally stressed or in the mood for some drunken drunken nipple play. I'm not too bothered about this one - patriarchy is important, other sissies are expected to watch out for their own menfolk and this is just one small arrangement of care at one and half points - but it's still just too much. - -Apartment India - - -Wrong spelling! - -● Misselouise Jun is a middle aged French girl living in a Vietnam 52 ... where's the villa eh ? - -● Top-Sorting Fancy Dress Fancy Meat Shoes Fancy Suit Fancy Skin - -Asian Call Center Intellectual Smearing of -======================================== SAMPLE 452 ======================================== -Marines more than glad to get rid of their machine gun - - -By Mark Mazzetti - -Washington Post Foreign Service - -Tuesday, March 31, 2004; 07:26 AM - - -QUIET, Ratatat may seem one of the safest part of Okinawa, an island protected by a twin reef chain and moored by a stone lighthouse like most of the other islands here. - -Yet Ratatat, with its 8,000 residents less inclined to talk typical Okinawanese about their nightmares than to lavish outrage on a critic, holds the sole hatchway through the cave exit from Camp Schwab, the U.S. base less than a mile away, and not much has changed since the war that shattered their dreams: More than two-thirds of its residents are older than 30, some are illiterate and many, even well-educated adults, have never left the island. - -Marines reportedly considered flaws in the votes by Sen. John McCain, perhaps the senator from one of Japan's most pro-American political parties, against setting up a Marine base on the island because Okinawans "deal with harsh conditions annually here" and have "more reason than most Americans to be skeptical." In a scathing commentary on Monday, Jonathan Tannenwald pointed to the "security threats" she feels to the 52,000 troops stationed here. - -The criticism is a rare example of personal confrontation between Okinawa's military commanders and Okinawaites regarding the militarization of the territorial island. - -NO SURPLUS CAN ALTER - -Opened for two brief combat deployments during the Vietnam War, Camp Schwab became a Marine base with a decades-old military purpose, earning the island a spot on the schedule for "Operation Enduring Freedom" and benefiting the Japanese farmers of Oga, a major shipping station, that went from zero with the island base, as a United States military base, to 2,700 on runs, seven bakeries and 20 housing units in 1979, largely due to U.S. Marines themselves. - -"Fort Wainwright" replaced "Fort MacArthur and elsewhere, and every place like it, as receiving bases," Tannenwald wrote. "Credit to these two idealistic public servants for finally getting the position done and putting the communism nightmare to rest." - -Okinawa's population has shot up 30 percent since 1979, with half the adult population 60 years of age or older and nearly 70 percent over 30. There are more than 400 villages and some 290 hospitals, colleges and universities. - -The stance of its 17-member House of Councillors in response to the base referendum changed in 1992, finding support from the majority of city officials. - -Civilian police may be on base reportedly wants residents to be more cautious in unfamiliar neighborhoods, though, not much notice, supposedly, is taken of warnings of numerous home break-ins rather than patrols. Residents are informed a famous body-builder, whose whereabouts and status of his health have not been reported, also lives there. - -Similar people new to the community do not find much to know about the easily handled investigation-oriented investigation that the police take serious actions when a suicidal thought, call to rival extremes, is involved, which ends up amid a familiar set of hand-wringed discussions: As for only 2.1 residents per square mile – about one fifth the California metropolitan area average – before the post-World War II purchase of the island, quality of life is said to be scant. The expenditures on food, housing and other necessities forced home owners to buy food and other essentials from local merchants, some of whom are now vicious bosses then strangle labor unions that organize competitors in the regional and national economy. - -"The western Republicans as members of the House are fewer people than Japanese are," for instance, response from the office of voting balloting mayor Arisugawa Fukao to a probing question about the good deeds of the active base guards in recent geography maneuvers, from establishing rising Okinawan flags to telling people throwing rocks at the U.S. Marine helicopter to stop. No clear details about the excesses of the base guards are given. - -"It is unheard of, but impossible that these (military personnel) have to earn more money to live comfortably," Tannenwald wrote. "Yet that is what is done. Supporters excuse this and remain silent." - -There 'possibly' limited impact - -In the decisions regarding him as president, Toshihiko Noda, aShinzo Abe loyalist of intervals, preparation warned brainless late guarantees, associates of Abe, items relating to his crime-ridden political past and so on, should have been addressed at the outset since to the US-TOKYO dual obsession with security a failure to obey an say it's suggested a troubling willingness to hear out opposition views such as the contention JR himself, a presidential candidate in 1962 but now elderly, has stirred up threatening memories of imperial rule and recent harrowing wrongs in all trade-off from antagonizing China -======================================== SAMPLE 453 ======================================== -FAQs About<|endoftext|>Advice by - -How long after my breast cancer diagnosis last did I find out if I had breast cancer? 4 weeks How long ago do I need to start wearing a breast pump? Before a couple of months after my diagnosis 5 years How much does my health insurance cost? Approximately $2500 (British pounds) per month How much does it cost to get a mammogram? 1833.70 in British pounds (1638 euros) How well can I understand the medical instructions I learn at a breast self-examination clinic? Very well Hours: Web: 8am to 6pm Ottawa, Ontario PDF - -obwanweller@yahoo.ca Included in this booklet are examples of some of the questions and statements on "Breast Self Examination." The practitioner whose name or written in white weights 4 pink capsules in the booklet. When you have completed your exam and remember all the doctor says, please proceed directly to the "Afterioption" section below. The additional questions and statements (there is a good deal more) applied to the information woman is being told are on the "Mastitis" and "Diabetes" sections below, but are not necessary to understand the structure of this booklet. I have received an ID card that is not answered by state departments regarding the way to eliminate this category for breast contamination and transmission of infection. The following is the address to the Ontario Health Information and Privacy Commission's Nursing Inspector Literacy Ministry. http://www.ohepriscorp.com/TheReport-MiniBriefs.html - - -Nursing Inspector Literacy - -PO Box 51919 - -Toronto, Ontario M3E 1D9 Barn estimates + - -Ad Hoc Breast Self Exam: Twenty minutes to a half hour include interviewing the patient of course, observing the patient while he observes himself, and discussing follow up questions. - -The test is followed by 10:30 am insertions, 48 hours at headquarters in Ottawa, preparing gels and instructions for refills. - -Napkins and towels or them and check sheets are laid out where the patient can reach them while being observed and while wiping his or her douche with tissues. It's nice in many cities that you can truly think free. There are patient participants. http://bex.org/freearomacexample_images_1363.jpg per Lindsay Towers, Alan Barn, and the IUAPB. - - -Harold Jim Kirkpatrick is an undisclosed size and weight male with a worse degree of acne than many and less rash than many. If any of the following symptoms or signs apply, TB should be diagnosed and treated as an early stage OCVD: excessive baldness, red moles, sunken eyes or inflammation, extra beards, thinning, hirsutism, water (may be sick), what may look like swelling of the nose, gums, chin, or testicles and pus-filled throat. - -Hello Dr. Amy, This but what worries me so is that a nursing register can enter a diagnosis of breast cancer into your information about monsters and other women who have breast cancer (I have a few of them too)! So, don't give me any info about a witch doctor who might carelessly guess at a breast cancer problem (which is being treated with chemotherapy as well at the moment, their mistakes are paying off). Basically, Dr. Amy, I want to give the ideal standard of care to all FBPC patients, which can't be achieved if we don't educate about Breast Cancer. Thank you in advance for your time. Ron T - -I am worried that one of my friends said "It's ok doctor Amy, it will never happen to me" since she works in a hospital and has had a long time radiation and chemotherapy treatments. As someone with breast cancer I don't think it's a lie to say that someone has had it, you just have nightmares about it, but strangely when somebody on this site said "It is ok boss!" his reaction of "Wow!" and that he shuts herself out (happy!) makes me suspicious of how he/"she/they" in your hospital did. Anyway my fear is that if someone doesnt get surgery the next day bc of a lack of oxygen and scared a nurse would connive it to go away and nobody knows that its then an unrelated thing like weird irregularity(did they humor transgender guns today?). Remember mammograms that are never done because the maimed is so depressed, the women they leave no test like restless leg syndrome, or a fatigue back because of give a bout weight loss or makes no choice, or they end up some is dying either on REra to try to save her shot of hormones amount or because of her fundies or shes lost her darling baby that she leave so alot to not being able to watch the health for life. **************************************************************************** Perkins Opening Desk Province, TC 91 682 8005 ext.68-11 - -Bio: Vicky Perkins, CNA and WB, AB -======================================== SAMPLE 454 ======================================== -Ruby Hart as Marion 1 - -I have a new favorite Salt Lake City women's soccer match. And you probably know why. - -Ruby Hart saved what was basically the game in the 54th minute Saturday afternoon. Hart, once again, wasn't surrounded by her fellow midfielders. Instead she moved between the channels, fielded shots from the outside and was inches away from tipping over a cross with little to no effort. - -That's a solo assist. When your team is looking to create a late breakthrough in the game, you will steal a goal when needed most. - -Unfortunately, that might've been the difference. The Saint Louis FC (7-0-4) trailed 1-0 after 30 minutes until a goal from Lynn Williams. The goal was on the league's PDL Team of the Week and took an uncharacteristic United States team to the next level. - -United States not showing up - -The United States women have been down on form this tournament. On the heels of a 1-0 loss to France on Friday night, they didn't control at even strength against a Saint Louis team out going for a goal and win. - -The USA only managed to put its four shots on goal in the first 15 minutes. - -On the bright side of the disappointing beginnings the U.S did manage to really use its pace. Wambach was praised for her speed Monday morning by U.S. coach Jill Ellis. That was evident against the Hammers, though it currently does not effect her game. - -The United States is thus far having its worst tournament of the modern era when it comes to its ability to put a shot on target. - -Harkes was shocked to see the team struggling in fitness and trailing so far behind after their end of last play. - -"We need to take a bunch of training days to get some heart into it next week. We're still in first place with 10 games to go, so it's not a huge deal. But for us, we've gotten pretty low. They were good on Friday but we haven't lost all year and we have really deserved to win a game in here. - -"We have had some really good wins. There are two more this week." - -The Red Stars' not-so-good record - -From a political standpoint, it was unfortunate that the United States didn't get that much production out of their top two midfielders. You can't win games based of position when one of them on the field is post game suspended. - -Knowing what the stats said, Tranmere de Visser (2-6-1) should've at least won the ball right back from Maria Gonzalez in the heavy denial. She's been solid in that role. - -Stefan Hurwitz, on the other hand, didn't fare all that well. The then of first year club Morgantown (WVU) suffered an injury in the second half that sidelined him with a torn ACL. Considering he's the left-sided defensive midfielder controlling the center, that was big news to much of the announcing audience Saturday. - -On the bright side, the Red Stars are actually the second youngest team in the women's league. The minutes have accordingly begun to trust veteran goalkeeper "Jenny" Nichols into a more prominent role, including handling key fouls. - -Qualifying to USA 2016 - -The top teams in the tournament still get to participate in the 2016 Olympics to be held in Russia to replace those from 2015. - -"It's absolutely a great experience. It's also a tough cup and you don't know what's going to happen," Red Stars head coach Rory Dames said afterward. "What I'm looking for now is to a) get the players back around. Finally get some bonding. Almost had a winning spirit going into the games against Seattle without playing each other. We're eager going into Toronto without seeing each other. It's a difficult one in my opinion, but try to go into this with a sense of one practiced standard. Here in Vancouver, we're different. We do have some of our depth back and it's going to be a battle for a top spot in the women's league." - -Want more history? Check out "Alphabet Soup with the Saints and the Rams" here on the world's best soccer blog. - -Email: [email protected] - -Twitter: @crimehaze<|endoftext|>I've anglized from 'cakesauce English' to 'wordless Norkspeak' on more than a few occasions, but this just crossed the line. There are souls that are in step with the rave movement and the computer generated visuals. - -'retro' is a wonderful word to have. That's one of the reasons why it resonates so well with me. It's very energizing and real enough to have taken over the word. - -Notice how the women's bodies all have a retro look to them and women's testicles -======================================== SAMPLE 455 ======================================== -Invalid quantity. 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Please enter a quantity of 1 or more next to the type or types of tickets you would like to purchase. - -Sorry, there are no tickets left for this event. - -The -======================================== SAMPLE 456 ======================================== -About the Book - -"From a prototypical young writer of small-town romance comes the first novel in a new book series for adults of all ages. A second debut novel: 'Drunk Animals'!" - -Four unruly, brash, popular louts—as badly behaved as they are sexy—live in the small California town of Long Mesa. After the town's high school wins a state rep championship for its new band, the band's charismatic, fact-challenged leader, Clown, organizes the group into a bourgeois yet isolated style of jam band and transforms them into a teen apocalypse. The boys make lots of loud noise that always gets comedians from the national talk show circuit on the show, Seinfeld, none more conveniently than Zeb, Zep, Selection and voiced by the setup to an episode of Family Guy, Seinfeld. Serving their purpose as a foil for the other louts. - -Down-to-earth life author Joan Price follows Zeb, the dumb jock, with musical talents as he flees the troupe as it hits the national zeitgeist, auditioning for Seinfeld with an outlandish interruption in his readings that makes Bill Lumbergh's famous words from the final baseball finale hold irrelevance. Additionally, there is heaping helpings of clunking bad boy Roscoe, the skunky cross-dresser who drinks champagne off the balcony of every blank hotel in Los Angeles, and Courteney Cox's devious ex-wife-uncle Heath, battling with Zeb for control of all the popular, self-made social margins in town. - -"The book is brilliantly told and writes exuberant prose that one needs to read and reread because it's only compelling and addictive on repeat reading," Gord Occia said. "My only intent was to send the reader rumbles of delight and a healthy dose of derision mixed in, working intimately with the proverbial boys as their drama unfolds." - -As an acceptance speech to an older class of alumni, Zeb executes an act of bitter revenge that is the key to this often-more powerful story, instigating a series of events that disrupts the lives of the definite pants of finance, advertising, sports and entertainment. Soon, the lout syndrome sets in over Orange County. The boys gothically mangle their skills and go missing slowly, thereby transforming the entire art form of live episodic television comedy…into an unreal genre and makes the world of music, art, whatever all an infantilizing hallucination wherein destination Moon Someplaces is a suspended animation involving medical helicopters, morals that keep homeland subjective and NSFWflik maybe're your ISP as a non-limiting benefit is still unofficially operating. - -"All of it calls back to spaceflight in its hyperreality." Written with Anne Brault Marla Anderson and Tom Lathrop, this opening chapter has the ones, ahem–Zeb, as the audience of a hot new show. So, don't read this and be unprepared to move to the slightest bit of non-delicate toast. "Forbidden Flowers," a chocolate tried candy released by Rosenfarben—and the label issue, of course. Make sure to dish out two square feet of butter and these bread-famous jams before the show, or you'll both forget all about it…and everything with that location. "Moon Someplaces" was an Act I location TV New Mexico volume, wherein the cast of Friendship is Magic participated in a live TV monologue by William Shatner. - -Joan Price and Elie Mystal started the series with each team's feel-good stories finally coming to fruition. The main characters aren't exposed too heavily until act II when the really juicy stuff begins to happen. Sharon Hill sticks around for a couple more years as a frontier town interior baby rather than a smear hustler, leaving the house cup overflowing and a nationwide supermodel without a heart to help in the avatar's dental bore. Jon Stone, is outta town but not far: god knows from the internet where he has gotten to. And Don Carolla, is the one who turns down awards, strives to be higher income and friends with Rita Moreno who works them her way to the top in Southern California. Additionally, Anne Brault Marla Anderson springs the sapless Mothering Gothina who doesn't give a fuck and intentionally kills herself in the middle of a dramatic, live action scenario on a comedy; as per Brady Durkin, vaunted "total gentleman of comedy." The modern vampire in the school plays the part of the titular oldest boyfriend Cajun, college chauffeur Caj1 (Fred Daniels) supporters Sally (Kate Sullivan) and Allan (Gopi Kottar). All suit up in place of their sports-life character and essentially get fun, raunchy double duty as "chicken club presidents" in place of Sandy and Jasmine, yet there are a few flip sides of mommy issues as well. - - -======================================== SAMPLE 457 ======================================== -Will Cauley-Stein is blessed with movement and quickness off the ball. - - -The 6-foot-7 7-footer with the impressive move and playmaking ability could be an erratic 20-point scorer in the NBA, but he thrives while showcasing his talents, blocking and chasing down shooters. - - -"As far as running hard, I think I'm a pretty complete offensive player, and a guy that really understands what he doesn't do and how to add value in other ways," Hagins said heading into his firstAsk the Draft Alaska. - - -While Hagins made the fair suggestion that Cauley-Stein could have a role for coach Scott Brooks in an enforcer role. Hagins was the first to bring back in the day potential Ersan Ilyasova, welcoming him to one of his T-shirt companies around the NBA. - - -Cauley-Stein left Hawaii recently for North Dakota State after an awesome first season with the St. John's Red Storm. The Blue Jays (9-9), who just narrowly missed a NCAA Tournament trip with a game to play, are a chance to find out Cauley-Stein's fit in a post-Melo world.There were plenty of well-bearded vets talking it up throughout the first day of the event: Jamal Murray and Sterling Brown offering advice, Kristaps Porzingis reviewing film and new Tristan Thompson offering advice on conditioning. Those guys are joined by a locker room is filled with plenty of NBA talent.Josh Richardson of the Miami Heat, who was drafted two spots ahead of Cauley-Stein, is now the rookie in the conversation for Okafor.com's Player of the Year. Richardson is probably the most NBA and 2017 rookie-eligible player making Jahlil Okafor look silly.Cauley-Stein was even asked about playing alongside fellow WNBA rookieand if he was getting mixed up in all the nonsense. Cauley-Stein, who goes by Dawg on the street, said he was willing to play with or against anybody on the team, including his older brother, Jahlil, if he needed to travel together, and did so.He spoke about starting the 2016-17 season in the post and doing his best to grasp the system when not in the starting lineup."The way it works now are no cuts, no rotations. If you touch the ball in pick-and-roll with no rotations, they'll call a foul. You don't want to have like five kids jumping over moves where guys are coming close," he said of the fast style of play as the minutes allotted were down. "... A lot of times, guys (are) having fun coming around and running down a guy. They could just give them a little whistle like scissors. But, when there's unnecessary contact, right there it's not very fun.You come out of slow motion after the jump ball and think about what happened there. But, enough is enough. We've just got to go after it."Play ball.Always the attitude of an underdog, Cauley-Stein did not take the games seriously before his strong freshman year at Wisconsin.One hit, a halfcourt heave that was negated by a travel, was all it took for he and his team to crash three hotels. The bad blood resulted in a three-game suspension to Hagins and the intransigence resulted in the 6-7 and 245-pound Cauley-Stein complaining about not being called to foul out in a March 26 win over the Illinois Fighting Illini. Holographs were printed up nevertheless. The Cinderella share of the budget Wabash tied with Bemidji State and Jamestown State in their longest streak of non-losses was snapped Tues."I don't think his attitude was negative," Hagins said. "You're dealing with a young kid who should never be told what he needs to do. He wants to be around his teammates, he wants to do whatever he can to help this team. I think he was frustrated. That's my understanding.Now these games are gonna turn deep."Hagins had been everything one would look for someone to be in such a loaded draft class. He rarely had interviews, really. He sported a young Jesus hat and was scheduled to perform at Dakota Tech for personals several times in the coming fall. The handwritten "easy to get punched in" assuming his name was simplygin Ammon in the draft provided big value to teams, while the character hard could overcome that with not only some 16 dunks and 42.7 percent from behind the arc, but also Special Teams Leader but Beneath the Ceiling Reed will lay mountaintop shimmy.Not so really anymore all the way.Since June 19 , 2016, the former Aggies Men's Lacrosse will be the number for his personal development squad. It will be Rosenstein-Hagins substituting Navar -======================================== SAMPLE 458 ======================================== -The latest to be charged in Ontario's privacy laws is CFL player Nate Behar, who has been charged for posting a photo showing his golfing partner passing gas on the golf course. - -The safety of people with epilepsy has been an issue in Indigenous communities across the country for a long time — to the point that some groups have formed a group called Inclusivity First, which advocates tolerance and acceptance, CBC News reported in 2009. The group was created after parents of a child with epilepsy were frustrated when football coaches at MSU Algoma University didn't remove a poster making fun of the activist group Blak Blak Kaminsei, or Wild Pineapple Kids. - -In Ontario, there are different laws for victims as well as perpetrators. It generally takes four or five years to work a case to a judge. The accused may work out a plea bargain with prosecutors before going before a judge, but they have no right to appeal. If the accused pleads guilty, the accused's sentence may include prison time or fines that would not affect their financial situation and plate appearances on the CFL's lucrative league-paid contracts.<|endoftext|>A controversial unfriendly takeover has been approved by the Copa del Rey holders, with a group of Brazilian administrators led by two former Globo TV executives set to hand PSG the trophy for the first time. - -Prior to his decision to sell a 50 per cent stake in French super-agent Jorge Mendes – who was the intermediary for Gazidis to buy a majority stake from PSG's previous owners, the Qatar Investment Authority – Mendes had attempted to set up a consortium to buy a majority stake in the French club, according to court documents in;France, which was made public on Tuesday. - -That move was rebuffed, with the surprisingly well-knighted Mendes recruited instead by the Qataris as a business consultant, through their sports consulting arm, Menu1. The Latvian official is now the group's acting president. - -It is alleged that as a result of favouritism by Mendes and Menu1, some seven bidders wanted to buy 50 per cent of PSG, when only two actually emerged despite PSG's lack of moving parts. - -Mendes and Menu1 agreed with Gazidis to sell 49 per cent of the club to Mendes and his partners, who planned to buy the survivors' stake – accepted as part of the debt – through a private placement of the shares. Instead, Mendes and his partners effectively personally held on to the first 10 per cent of the club. None of the creditors can afford to buy into the shares, despite Mendes' theory that selling them would "spur demand" and thus the shares would be a good investment. - -A delay in the sale process is now regarded as the immediate cause of the homelessness crisis at Crotone, where fired Compl FCC Building collected ignominious campaign contributions during his two terms in office on the basis that he was "the best friend everyone had." - -The club's current owner Fabrizio Calmero resigned this month after this correspondent revealed that the football director went on BKV which is itself owned by ALB Sports & Leisure, which subsequently said that since the shares were seated, its position had been "continue to buy safe, regulated securities – the interest rate is fixed. There is no trading beforehand and no state guarantee after the selling." - -A surprising move: PSG managing director Antero Henrique flooded the momentum-modign in PSG's campaign to earn a first league title since winning in 1992 ©AFP/Getty - -After contacting on PSG's official Twitter account, the company stated that: "We don't always criticise those who ... sell out ... and that there is no reason to want to expect anything illegal." - -PSG supporters have complained in several forums that lower-tier clubs are enjoying their gains from rules introduced this season which facilitate the financing of younger stars. - -In June, however, sub-management was introduced into PSG's contracts with the highest-paid PSG employees, boosting wages:: equal weekly payments to managers Ricardo Anigbar and Javier Pastore from €3.73m until 2016/17; and to Pastore from €1.62m until 2020/21. One staff member told me: "It is wrong that they are given bigger payments, even though we are also paying their training fees. Top officials can't be paid a lot more than their assistants. They still work, so they deserve it more." - -PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has chastised fans for employing "fan mantras," such as stolen thoughts, fantasy names and requests for second-hand shirts to be sold outside the stadium. The PSG vice-president has said that winning the league is more important than fan popularity. - -PSG's "Operation Propass" began in what it called a "vitally important" fund-raising process last summer themselves, after clearing -======================================== SAMPLE 459 ======================================== -Twitter Facebook Google+ Reddit Email - -Legendary sci-fi sequel Time Gentlemen, Please! is coming to Steam Early Access sooner than previously hoped. - -Time Gentlemen, Please! is a co-op third-person action shooter about the identity crisis that besets a WW1 boiler-room team tasked with in-fighting over who is most likely to make the final team. - -This is far from the tool tip, "Time Gentlemen, Please!" at the top of this page. You'll have to prod the game's cover art out from on to your screen to find it. Developer Hoopslab plans to provide the necessary links to download the game soon, but at the time of writing they seem to be temporarily broken. - -More To Come - -Time Gentlemen, Please! is due for release on Steam in early February 2018. For a full impression of the game, see our Let's Play.<|endoftext|>Tourism Ireland, water conservation and trust international to react to seven dead ponies found in drainage water - -Human remains have been found in three locations along the Dublin River on footpaths and the path by the river's foreshore. - -The human remains were discovered shortly after 1pm on Friday at the riverside third foreshore at Barrow Street. - -By the end of the day, fossils from three animals including two ponies and a dog had also been found. - -The dead ponies were removed by path users. - -Marksmen and divers searched a residential and a commercial property in the Barrow Street area. - -Tourism Ireland hopes the publicity will help be dig more deeply into the deaths of the three bodies. - -A spokeswoman said: "Tourist information will be followed up with respective tourism operators to ensure any vital new information regarding further events that may relate to the discovery. - -"Tourism Ireland takes the welfare of our visitors very seriously, and is working with Irish Water and the Garda to ensure that the Sands country route is symbolic of safe manageonse of the water.<|endoftext|>Add to Cart Add to Wishlist - -Features: - -DSA exterior model! - -Durable silver price laser engraved finish - -Adjustable Web Sleeve over shoulder plate - -For previous generation replica series Airsoft AEG / Mechanical Pistol - -Quick Detach Silicone Poncho /MOLLE Vest - -Cybergun / Matrix, JG, G&P, Tokyo Marui and other compatible M4 / M16 Series Airsoft AEG Rifles4 rd and 15rd Drum Magazine915mm - Midnight Black5062 High Compression SteelInternals400~410 FPS (Measured w/ 0.20g BBs and Green Gas)14mm NegativeVer 4 Fully UpgradeableLong TypeSemi/Full-Auto, Safety7.4v Small Stick Type Lipo recommended (Wired to stock with Small Tamiya. Battery not included)Yes, AdjustableGun, MagazineEFI-GAS, Lock, & HopUpYes, AdjustableGun, Magazine - -" This Airsoft pistol is super fun to shoot out of the box, and I'm constantly learning new things from my teammates with my Old Flieger. One of the most essential parts of this airsoft gun is the barrels. Forgot to mention that one of those parts is the spring, why? Well, depending on the gun you are using (if someone shoots you with an airsoft bb in this gun, you could self-inflict a damaged soul soul souls souls souls car with ejection.) 'How better to punish both you and their souls' atmosphere than by desecrating them with a gas station, right? - -Questions, Answers and Comments - -Discuss about ECHO USD45 Airsoft Pistol (Double Stack Magazine) with your friends and fellow Evike.com shoppers! - -Comment or answer questions for a chance to win awesome prizes. Details can be found on the Evike.com Facebook page. Remember to check "Also post on Facebook" when commenting to qualify for the giveaways! - -Have an urgent question about this item? We monitor these comments daily, but it may be faster to email us directly or call us at (626) 286-0360. Our resident experts are standing by to answer your questions!<|endoftext|>Kristi Anthony often wonders when she feels most happy. The 73-year-old Bryan resident lives with her wife of 44 years, Cecile Anthony, in various Victorian bungalows on Bryan's McGillivray Street. When she commemorates special dates, such as her 93rd birthday and her husband's 89th, she thinks she may be dreaming a bit hard. - -But Anthony, who as an animal lover is openly mixed-her-way into her pets' lives with treats and toys, always finds herself thinking about her dogs in peace and quiet. - -Lindar Wilson, 51, Ryan Christman, 30, and Nicole Williams, 28, all continued to walk their cows even though graze -======================================== SAMPLE 460 ======================================== -— Over the next four weeks, we'll have exclusive access to believe-you-are-saying moments from the Luke Cage season 1 finale. Similar to our breakdown of next week's episode, this is the fan-driven view of a show that has just visibly been evolving $100 trillion hell-bent (and indeed, broke) to try to explain itself to us through the lenses of the unchanging. - -Let's get right to the Geneva dealerInfoGE skiniity! - -*If you have unusual height for your height magic, I'll give you your money back. - -— Poorly packaged by Marvel to look like a '70s Las Vegas-style buffet, you can only buy three things from this auction house, which handles backbone jewelry and tabyeleading scores i'r - -— Back in the day when Stephen Strange and the 602nd SLS were fighting aliens, why yes, they (Benedict Cumberbatch) were tapping magic pints in County. - -— By the way, today's promotional video for Luke Cage once again shows me all of my attractive friends erotically including Teresa Palmer in silhouette pipe advertising! - -— Ok, ok, keep your eyes closed while KoIT begins. This is just going to make me crazy! - -— iGold bars discussionug personal deck live! - -— Apparently we (again!) have the deal of the decade, to my honest shame I want my $3,000,000 but I don't want to have to tell my dad. - -— Crew members evidently make for good role models. This chap appears to be the Queen of Fanning. - -— I wonder how many Brits on Team 2015 sit to the side and naughty chatter out of videowindows like dealerInfoGE skiniity gawkerface? Dealers and buyers strike. Negotiation begins with the DVD rare Killer Bodyguards soundtrack guy from Thailand. - -— Pimps of the ant forest! - -— This guy is supposed to be of Reverend Ricks Memorial Magnetized Bible Stampeders distribution face! - -— Actually in Portugal you weren't supposed to put a bend on chess bishops once you got them tattooed. - -— This brown dude is Palestinian. Tempting. - -— This white guy is all about Comic Book Hero studio fully funded by your local Marvel booster pack. - -— Oh my god we had white! white! white! This guy was a van driver! We hugged. - -— Greg Pak as Trafalgar Law Pennywise? OH MY GOD THE TREASURE ESCAPE! - -— I'M SORRY Angus T. Jones I HAVENT UNTAKEN IN DURING MY CAREER ROUNDER! - -— Hope we get to paint our faces back green! - -— The true definition of my favorite brand of crazy. Says so on the fishkin! - -— I vow to Obi-Wan I will never ever Hinder Her! - -— My Gamer is Major Tom. So many political subvocalizations. - -— This is our booker! Welcome to Comic-Con the second most important annual event for the comics industry. HALT FROG! - -— Underwriters at Marvel! - -— Actually sure you're broke ze elite male white people dipshit way or do SUDOWASCH! - - — WHAT - -— I'LL BRING IT BACK! the God-Destroyer declares mercy. - -— YES MA'AM!!!!! - -—<|endoftext|>Multiplayer Fight A game of Duel Megamix - -A multiplay fighting game arc! - -The game revolves around the traditional duel. The cast consists of players who strive to belong able to withstand all difficulties (feel free to amount to four Players). The protagonist, Suou Jinuli, is positively surrounded by 85 middle-age opponents. Getting together to fight ever stronger opponents stands in contrast an attempt to bring a person's dream to the actual experience of being with the closest KURT. - -Defeating all opponents can be done easily, especially during long-lasting fights or breaks. The quest can be changed up at all times by the player utilizing their character's unique abilities and skill. Of course you can use spells such as Rapid Fire, Mindflow, Prize up from gives early advantage to the player who is able to recognize it. Thus, it and a little "Supreme Incantation" - -(e.g. Mind Blow) allows you to produce such commands ?But, all the player must do is name the invocation.(e.g.SicSabotage,Incaza) When doing this the player must select abilities and spell and spells that come with the specific command. If for example, it does not come with "SicSabotage" the player must attempt to name an advice for the champion's name or when the clue system allows the player to skip part of the command by dotting the " and -======================================== SAMPLE 461 ======================================== -Lot 630: Veronicas in Work -The (eternal) subject of the workin' Veronicas is a well-trodden pathographical charm which for pre-war and post-war singers has stood comfortably on the last half of a decade. Although it has joined fiddler waltzes to imbecilic naturalists, the grass-is-always-greener comparison is by no means comparable, so let us pause for a moment and shift the focus. Whereas Cuts has a focus, the Veronicas has a flow, without any emphasis on the presentation. Why is this? Partly because all the music from three different roles is exercised on the same instrumental repertoire. In this regard Florence Speirs mines a whole range of compositions from the same medley of instrumental figures, effectively freeing up the singer to attend to sounds in all the seats. It might seem an odd assumption for the other pairs of roles that more effectively maintain a continuous or coherent accompaniment, performed in different arrangements. But in fact it is only the minimal composition in each role which allows such arrangement. Bach's "variations" and Handel's "pianos" separated by just a mediatory solo are texualized by the neatly constructed version of the breaststroke. (By comparison that makes Worzel Dow, one-woman-band with the July King, look like the muses of noisy socks.) Accordingly, parallel copyright law of the sort which has allowed David Evans and Jeanette Winterson to enjoy the prominence granted them by Prokofiev and Stravinsky should be applied to these compositions. Like them, Florence Speirs has allowed the complete disseminative rights of her work to the common band, and as with the material from keyboards to the frets, she has possible expanded distribution within and across time from what her mother dreamt up the moment of birth. Professional bands of Cuts, Handel and many newer ones carrying on the model of Cuts spend years and millions of dollars reinventing themselves to play their voices. They construct entire performers, including a transcription staff, a professionally supervised voiceleading scores, new harmonies, new solos, new combinations and endless permutations of each. The processes celebrated by the avantgarde are built into a music. And to magnify such tasks by injecting their denizens into a previously offered context is every bit as valid an artistic gesture as the occasional repeated pointed service of Wagner, the music that was actually played. (There are still corrosive cases of passive distributors operating the public domain. With these old viruses surely, too, comes the latent threat of the evil eye.) But no virtuoso's cupboard is bare for letting the public exercise the fullest expressions possible. Hence the sections to tremolo, contrapuntal ukuleles, neo-classical filters, Father Bach and duets with Mater Grades 17 and 18. It also encompasses bits of the very contemporary puritans striving to turn the radical into the conventional. The Veronicas, in terms and format as with other arena medleys, has few boundaries, so long as there are the mouths of nails and the opening of telegraph poles to sustain it with echoes. The help if be to forego vision and dive in as experienced from a distance. "Smallly presented" simply means rehearsals. Their practicality, as early competitors for the word association records set, added to the arcane practiscibility of an extremely long quintet cycle bequest. Instead of engendering even greater skepticism, the Veronicas inspires "eerie fascination". This is not faint praise, as Milton's "reminder on recital" crystallizes perfectly what this audience is looking for; "Smallly presented" is an exquisite exception to this finding, a vibrant world music reaching back beyond established convention not so much to expose beyond revision or interpretation and beyond the stylistic personality but to radiate a specific award conversation beyond such forms. Jance Django's version of Orfeo's Children presages the good faith Harmony 1919 will demonstrate. Few drama writers will judge Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage in the same light. (ha'poss 'oo.) Few singers will once shepherded on progress boses de belles to gain silences and stage turns as Dante, Don Juan and Tito. It is but a short step from Mozart to George Herbert to weirder Frank Zappa, and we can set up the scenario either way inasmuch as it is an important function of the Veronicas to add such stimulation to collected sound, to fructify material which was heretofore known only in its native melodic form — and this lay-within "modulation" mechanism perhaps gives us confirmation that parts of 16 and 9 are replocable without adherence to conventional terms for the prescribed value of determinate originals. In Concierto de Aranjuez, Cuts sings Don Jose (or rather Bernhard of Glarus), the opening overture that sees six carefully rehearsed viciss -======================================== SAMPLE 462 ======================================== -Eight teams overall are in the running to become the next American team to enter the FIFA Women's World Cup. The single-elimination 2010 FIFA World Cup continues for five more weeks with matches beginning on Friday, 21 July 2:10 pm (UK Time) invited to play include: 2012 Olympic gold medalists USA; host nation Japan; 2011 runners-up Canada; 2010 and 2011 champions Norway and Germany, as well as Spain, Brazil, South Korea and England. Those remaining in contention in round of 16 will be announced on Sunday, 13 July 2:10 pm (UK Time) - Russia, England, Sweden, Czech Republic, Australia, South Africa, Tunisia and France. - -Host nation Japan and 2011 runners-up Canada have agreed to play on the Euro 2012 group stage in the United Kingdom, reports ESPN.com. Italian city Gdansk will stage the third group stage match against Slovenia on Thursday, 27 July 2:10 pm (UK Time) - - -In her debut match for Manchester City this week, Sunderland's Sarah Wootton net two goals in a 3-1 victory over home side Swansea. With Neil McCann featuring in both games, the Black Cats are currently 16th in the Women's Super League standings. With three quarter-finals scheduled and a draw likely between Texas and Houston, in USA, on 17 July 2:10 pm (UK Time), and an almost certain Gold Cup final against Venezuela on 5 August 2:10 pm (UK Time)? Tune into Referees World Cup Live on www.refereesworldcup.com. Bring the ball, fans bring the opinions. - - -Nick Rimando (USA) - Goalkeepers - -vs Japan (2:10 pm) - -vs Germany (2:10 pm) - -vs Canada (5:48 pm) - -vs Norway (5:48 pm) - -vs Chile (7:30 pm) - - -The new documentary The Keeper, about former New York Red Bulls keeper Jules Rimando will air later this year. Roberto Saviano of AC Milan, former AC Milan goalkeeper Francesco Totti, former Real Madrid captain Raul Gonzalez and current Gremio goalkeeper Mikel Arteta will also be featured in the film (svengoolie.com). - - -Soccer MinisterLutz Born and former Belgium Soccer Minister Jos Joachim Ritzl was named UEFA's Secretary General. Goaltender, Goalkeepers vol.1(ISBN 1951511308); goalkeeper, The End of the 99er(ISBN 1951511308) will be the big box art for the new FIFA book titled "Great African Football TV" (Eventually) (ISBN 2254393700). - - -Malaysia's Euro 2008 qualifier against South Korea has been postponed due to poor weather, reports FMT. The game at Jayong, Selangor is now scheduled for 1:15 pm Sun 17 July. - - -Even others deserve a break for the second half of the Volvo FROM initiative: scoring, away goals, attacking skill we need a break for, the SK.ORG game, and some of the other bigger games later. Yes the finals of the Moab cup @ MetroStars RecreationArena. pic.twitter.com/eKm6COVRxJ — SPORT BLOG (@SPORTBLOG_TV) July 17, 2012 - -Players United will in the coming months develop and distribute player kits and package develop a driving licence for soccer fans. Players United (www.PlayersUnited.net) is the sports essential Red Bull experience at its peak for beginners and experts alike. The website will uses only the best sportswear and lifestyle products and offers total labour facts ground-breaking short term investment against governmental mobilisation programmes. - - -Another blank referee...Daniel Radcliffe. Full footy predictions shown below. - -The Special 'Panini' mobile now available on the official Web site.#FIFAcupsRobinhaus SJA Tottenham Eddie's Mexico fans wide SEW (Scotland) Amsterdam Dougie Lincoln (STRN -Scotland) Celta Vigo - -So, anyone else recognise Willian in Goal keeper due to his up-skirting? He looks like a more fresher version... - -Just bounding up doing his thing...<|endoftext|>The official Intel PRO/1000 Magazine / Application Reader comes packed with applications for all next-gen Intel processors. Whether you're searching for listings or recordings, we've got it covered. Search scores, personalize your search and browse threads in Ridge Racer generation** Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Portal 2 systems Virtual Team NBA Pro Kinect F1 2011 World Cup 2010 (Xbox 360) Old Flights of Wonder Milton Bradley games, Superman Stadium: Pit Teams Minnesota Vikings and Beyond RedZone Gold Star, etc. Wheels of Coyote FM Chipset Test -Enhanced RaceAMS II485 Lis Dayton games uncharted gonnaica cool very unique features and activities to enjoy It's In Game -Switching Power and Settling Scores AC Revenue Program -======================================== SAMPLE 463 ======================================== -Rethinking the idea of prime minister - -Between voting Liberal and Green in three successive general elections, Australia's Liberals led by Tony Abbott have assumed a ludicrous mythic shape. - -From here on in, their only effective politics seems to be one of celebrating (and profligate spending) in order to pick up extra seats for the next election at the worst possible time. - -It has become a meme of never perceiving limited government, supporting free markets, centre-right voting or - what's most degenerating - the need to think "big" by improving policy and economy. - -More egregious these days is the fact that Abbott and members of his apparatchiks can barely articulate any policy idea. It's like rising about a hole in the floor and then saying the stars have gone and we're in a dark and stormy night. - -Two of Australia's top economists appear to have let Abbott into the top job because he puts his own short-term desires before anything else. - -However, what signs do we have it will work? - -Biases, rigidities and shortfall hypotheses - -Abbott has failed at almost everything he bragged about - -In 2009, pushing James Hardie's Tasmanian Prosperity Party to victory, Abbott promised a budget surplus and abolish every ill-thought through Labor-hampered revenue feature and gift to favoured corporations. - -Instead, the budget leaped straight into the tank. - -In one term, the two percentage point cut to company tax hasn't fueled much foreign investment where it needs to be, and short wages growth has only intensified. Only the rich are benefiting from the post-recession turnaround in wages. - -Misaligned incentives for governments, businesses and investors are key afflictions of the west. So hidden are the risks in public policy proposals, there are few publics fully recognizing the limitations of them. - -Record high inequality - -As noted earlier, high income inequality contributes to lack of protection for wage earners generally and leaves credit access cut off notably for those unable to find employment. - -Monetary policy constraints inhibit growth but keep household debt levels high and high value added industries relatively stable. The average wage homeward is an average wage, and wage growth follows the Revenue Consolidation Budget. - -Operational constraints - -Oversupply episodes cut into capital investment and slow productivity. Interventions to ease the supply squeeze in the subsequent quarter spur down-casting. - -Exacerbated by the current state of hegemony via the BRICS community, the leaked visiting circumstances have fostered the fantasies of free trade and global free market, rather than economic growth, social justice and the public good. - -The distortion of the benefits of the carbon and mining tax ingredients, and ineffective conservation ideas, also deter real confidence from being returned to the economy. - -Negative reasonable goverment? - -Abbott's view preaches a negative government. This suppositional or maladaptive government (including in Hobson's theocracy) wants to stop people making any mistakes, with the meaning of this simply being the avoidance of whingemax. - -With their bio-before-your-time vision of the dawning age of hubristic wealth creation, Abbott and Gorton promote debt and borrowing as a tool for wealth accumulation. - -Crucially, this should be done non-stop, gigantically heavy, as a way of steering the economy back into a positive or counter-intuitive direction, typically along the upward trend line. - -Premier Tony Abbott's Mal's Wood government has promised a better approach | Jonathan Holmes Read more - -Intentional unemployment and massive short wages growth are equally ignored by Abbott's design. - -Partly as a result, the state's bottom 60% of earners, while having rising income, are not enjoying the developmental outlook touted by the Gorton wing of Islam and the media, current and former politicians and businesses. - -We've seen cuts to health services and the rise in copious hours worked. Retaining federal highway funding and Reconfiguring and Refining diesel taxes (to a progressive system, yay!) have happened at the expense of fraying services. Further by way of tax avoidance and tail-winds, Australia's primary taxation is surprisingly low. - -All Nations Abbott's Bacon Madness inherited and Murray grantya unprecedented Saudi Arabia legislation in our relations with African nations. This intrudes on American high-information society and has provided sistematic challenges to due process from some of our partners. - -Another imperruptive ongoing state is based on the issue of human rights as an excuse for precedent flows of an eclectic variety that impede the integration of regional identities, gender balance policies and the holding of sensible global commerce and involvement. - -• • • - -It's no longer the hope of a false flag that prevents us to becoming monocultural nation-striving robots of global capitalism, but vicarious emotional and economic emotional and spiritual poverty that fuels -======================================== SAMPLE 464 ======================================== -TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida laws on drunk driving can put you in jail up to three years when you're unable to give a Breathalyzer exam because you're too drunk or not able to speak intelligibly, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. - -The department will not arrest you for DUI if you are promptly taken to a hospital -- just as long as there are no signs of intoxication. - -PHOTOS | Drunk gas station troopers - -PHOTOS | DUIs / Shakes / From 7 days wait to get a DUI test - -The following information: - -Look for some of these signs of intoxication at any time. - -Smiling for the camera - -Trying to mimic conversations. - -Raised voice. - -Talking stiffly or in a low tone - -Smile when you are talking - -Speeding or driving under the influence - -Withdrawing from the road - -Looking for someone - -Drinking any amount of alcohol - -Drinking choice has already been made - -Withdrawing before the Breathalyzer - - -Withdrawing from the breathalyzer - -What happens when you guys do do an evaluation? - -A breathalyzer test is administered before the Division of Motor Vehicles. It is a measurement of your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) through a color-changing substance and is conducted at an accredited laboratory, such as NMS Labs in Fort Lauderdale. - -The Law - -For purposes of identifying the Breathalyzer test result, a defendant must show a "positive" result if the defendant possesses or possesses with the intent to sell or furnish substances to produce, prepare for, or use a driver's high. Under a practice known as aggravated circumstances, the statute provides for a three-year minimum and a maximum of five years of probation for a first offense. With the defense of diminished capacity, the three-year minimum can be reduced to 1½. - -Button Question Practical Tips - -Should a person refuse the breathalyzer test? - -Q: What if a person refuses the breathalyzer test but fails to show up for a court date? - -A: A defendant must first serve a one-hour license suspension before a court. If a court fails to take the defendant into custody and subsequently wants to hear evidence against the defendant, the defendant must appear for a court date within ten days. If a defendant waives his right to a court date, the court should assess a 90-day to 180-day suspension at one time. Prior to that date the person will not be able to get back into society and should seek treatment. - -Q: What happens if a person refuses to take a breathalyzer test? - -A: A person who refuses to take a breath test is guilty of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a felony offense. The driver can get a third DUI conviction within 172 years by refusing to take a test, which can mean up to five years in jail. If a person refuses the test, or if they call their attorney and tell the court that they did not take the test or that the request is not authorized under the driver's privilege, the court can choose to follow up with a plea of contempt or not hold a hearing until the test results come back. Guilty pleas may lead to an additional fine in excess of $5000 for the DUI offense. Guilty pleas may also result in detention in jail until the breathalyzer test results come back. Because the first defendant was not arrested (and was not – for purposes of this fact pattern – conducted a Breathalyzer test), he has proven to be someone who has not been able to comply with the direction and whom has violated his probation or a condition or order of court. However, the second defendant was arrested on a DUI, so his DUI (the result of tampering with the Breathalyzer test) was the one fact pattern. Precisely what the alcohol concentration was before the tampering differed depending on facts not divulged by the defendant between the two prior convictions. When a judge gets that information from the DUI breaker (something born about making assaults into trapped felonies), it needs to be put in a manageable and manageable fact pattern. The second defendant, with an indistinguishable record from the first, gave no deleterious information for the court to consider. In its mathematical gravity, failure to respond questions of scientific materials poses more credible status than testimony in an ongoing case that in the context could cast doubt on even a DUI committed by the first defendant. - - -Above all, a refusal to take a breathalyzer test is not a heinous crime. Whether a person takes a breathalyzer test or not has no bearing on whether or not they can be trusted with a firearm. If a gun owner considers himself as second amendment freedom fighter who should be able to dominate the handgun carry free enterprise market, he will do so regardless of how his license is going to be started. - -Q: What if a person refuses to take a -======================================== SAMPLE 465 ======================================== -LEGO showed off the fifth and last Star Wars block last year with Cars Land, very little has been heard about the future of that game since. Now, though, we have a release date for the future game and it looks to be the not's good by any means. - -As Redditor j_stilburger found out, the next Star Wars selectable inflatable vehicle is titled LEGO The Last Jedi Inflatable Star Wars Vehicle and will go on sale Spring 2018 on the LEGO Online Store and the upcoming toy company's merchandising program. - -The price is set to be $54.99 and it will go on sale in early October.<|endoftext|>Welcome to The Nail Shop - -Situated in the heart of Birmingham's historic, navy pipes district, The City Nail Shop is one of UK's oldest nail salons and has been in continual use ever since 1849 from the days when women just went to the window to have their nails done. - -Owned by local tradespeople and tattooers since 1970, The City Nail Shop opened in 1926. Famed for its extensive stock, the colours, designs and back in stock services make The Nail Shop an excellent choice for designers, nail painters, perfumers, ladies at home or prostitutes. Hotel owners and their wives, as well as full time lawyers and crooked judges all raved about our amazing products & service. - -Come on in and meet some friendly people and be sure to browse our extensive collection of plain, polishes, acrylics, cutting boards, lamellar, bristle, admire, screw drivers/oughs/tabls and empty nippers. - -City Nail Shop is one of Birmingham's oldest salons - -Full of life - -The salons opened for business on a Saturday and continued to do so until the shops closed. As a confirmed OMV member, we watch over a wide range of health and beauty-related occupations and supplement our incomes through affiliated businesses offered through series of events held throughout the year. - -With a very small confirmed staff we are proud of the great achievements and love of our customers that we all share.<|endoftext|>Workers Are Now Paying Up To Six Months Of Minimum Wage In Schools For Hardship - -There's a hidden benefit to a minimum wage increase. In many parts of the country, including states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, it often comes as a surprise to students who aren't getting an automatic pay bump after years of impressive quality of education. While the change in minimum wage has caused some cancellations on renewal contracts at many schools, many of those students aren't blatantly benefiting from it. In ultra-expensive needs-based districts, support from taxpayers of these students who aren't getting a bump has been growing. - -It's important to note that education funding doesn't happen according to what we as students received in our tuition bills. Those pools and savings funds exist, as do the cash reserves maintained by school districts. And educators pay some students' expenses like per diems, gas, and school supplies out of those pools and savings in varying degrees. - -While schools all over the country have been pulling back on some of their academic subjects and consulting it as a reason to keep entering a class or three, it appears that traditional funders have also seen a need to boost benefits and raise the minimum wage. But schools that are already strapped for funds will most likely continue to work to save spending elsewhere. A low tuition has been a major luxury for many schools, which will take some creative financial planning to ensure their lowest population rates still meet the amount of spending needed to provide a high degree of education for students in a sustainable fashion. - -Education Spending Alternatives Really Compelling - -Instead of the more traditional, immediate revenue cuts that governing boards in states such as Michigan are taking, areas like Detroit are more likely to increase a number of college programs and vocational instruction services beginning at the high school level, if only for a short period. Doing so will save schools and individual students in the long run in the money and labor necessary to maintain this level of education. - -Also, where compulsory programs such as pre-k are struggling financially, auxiliary programs will arise to provide similar time frames and professional test preparation while making up for some of the costs of basic curriculum updates. - -Not only can educators look around and see their schools are lavishing even more dollars on student services, educators can also look around and see that many university courses are only affordable about half of what students pay at their community colleges, which comes out to two grand a sitting at U-M – or an outlay of $1,542 a year per student, or around $24,000 a year per student. Resources like those enough for students who might walk out of school for cash, and then have a devastatingly expensive second thing to worry about, what with these factors that probably feel limited or meaningless. - -It's all connected, though, if we extend the same listening and pouring of resources -======================================== SAMPLE 466 ======================================== -Results: 1,111 blood samples were selected for culture for CTCAE-positive presence. CTCAE-positive specimens represented 87.8% (1,157) of the ​​all samples, far exceeding the expected prevalence of 13%. - -Positive specimens were significantly (p < 0.001) more likely to score high (>100 points) on CSAT shear strength than low (>25 points) values, particularly when ascribed to the US or European milk industry. - -This is the first report of large-scale sampling from a conventional shopswitching point to examine milk increasing lactose intolerance. - -1,001 milk samples were collected from performing commercial dairy shops in the U. - -For example, in the study of Broxham, Dunn, Harrison, and Roberts, 33 percent (n = 620) of the patients who disaggregated into triphasic vs. both synthesize and unsynthesize stages had positive cultures for lactose and TabAs replied comparably. - -Mental health providers are required to test patients for elevated lactose fetuses, and carriers of LFT osh, including subsets of the population unlikely to spontaneously consume lactose and those with confirmed lactose intolerance are to provide the opportunity for choice of dietary route of lactose digestion once diagnosed. - -Δ(T-TTT)1 is calculated as follows: X autonomous = 1 55 known illnesses; x cancer disease = 3 X patients; X mental death = 4 X patients, where δ aerobic funds run and withdrawals occur after multiplying funds withdrawn by patient X cancer disease, δ cancer disease against incidence is a tertile dependence, and prevention clinics listen: X cancer disease gap before fund: X cancer disease gap after fund: δ suicide gap before fund and δ suicide gap after fund. - -Comparative studies conducted from 1974 to 2001 determined a nonterritorial genetic effect for lactation as correlated with lactose intolerance, ref ation, reduced overgrowth, and neoplasia. - -Positive lachrymal lactate dehydrogenase (LLLD) results suggest the presence of a product of LLD dehydrogenase type 1 deficiency (LLLDD1) or lactose intolerant, and often included chronic those [ 25 - 27 ]. - -There had been 348 autoimmune diseases of gastro-intestinal origin diagnosed in 1992 in the United States and 238 cases that met the diagnostic thresholds for inclusion in this study [ 10 ]. - -It was camping FFDD, Victim Hintz III, shear strength; shear- 60xDzan II, of 1 - 3 mm vs. 1 - 0.30 mm. - -Measurement of erythrocyte lactate in blood samples can provide a measure of erythrocytosis that is very specific to strength of your immune system. - -A recent randomized clinical trial similarly reported that positive LACH bactericidal IgG anti-Lach antibody levels were observed in nearly all participants demonstrated that home milk-based yogurt consumption is associated with a degree (1. - -Or if p < 0.001) mean vaginal pH increased with increasing gestational age; this effect of lactobacillus on vaginal pH was statistically significant amongst the study controls (p < 0.01), with milk consumption of 4 or more glasses/day having a greater influence on vaginal pH than did supplementation with probiotics (p < 0.007) [ 36 ].<|endoftext|>The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has said his country is not using the device, which controls income tax and customs and excise duties, as he has been widely reported to have done in France. - -The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has said his country is not using the device, which controls income tax and customs and excise duties, as he has been widely reported to have done in France. - -Qatar not using tax and customs and excise device as reported in France, emir says - -Emir 'clearly eliminated' potentially scandalous claims over food sales in the Gulf - -"We have not used it, unless you are referring to the leaked papers about food sales in Qatar, which we have clarified to the French authorities," Sheikh Tamim told Hughoy at a news conference in Doha. - -"It is not the case," Sheikh Tamim said of the €540,000 living expenses claim, as reported in the French media. - -Earlier, Hariri had denied to Le Figaro that "my account books have been hacked". "What work I would have imparted to oil money is very dubious. Oil money is money that comes hand over fist," he said. - -"I can give you three wars which France carried out against me. Two of them are outright wars, they start in our region and other countries that float." - -At the time, in an interview with the French daily if La Presse, -======================================== SAMPLE 467 ======================================== -I ordered the diabetic companion and it how is........turns out oil exchanges really suck! I totally understand you're trying to work out maintenance for a super fat thirsty diabetic, but really. It would be great if u could work out at the pet store and change parts to help your pets metabolism....must be hilarious if their fat cells ream out on with boiling hot oil causing them agony? I was expecting more.... WTF? On top of that, I don't care if they make my dog feel better as long as they sucessfully upgrade and add two weeks of tricks and prizes (THANK YOU for the treats!). To bring in my friend gets me selfies. We've never met and I love photos of Pugs. Can I delete the photos? ;) I want to go as far as to sort the selfies based on why they took the photo. They look like they want some…lol... She's a trooper. Sometimes I now spend cash for food…gotta remind him that we have an emergency fund for that. He's so Mumma mia! She greyhound MasterAR!! From one five's who knows how many trips across the country (for Christmas FTW Mom). I really need an iOS app that shows thee on your cat/pug's paw or on mucus membranes they have. Then sitteys charging their iPhones while watching giraffes and tortoises and the like! My husband had never heard of an online currency. We want that sick fave made. Wowz are working at switching my Non-idle leg1 to COT heat at night.Have never done either!!! Time to find out.<|endoftext|>New art works, of which there are more than 1,000 coming out, were unveiled to this city Wednesday evening. It gets time and time again, as people come witness to the change from the past. - -The exhibit is called "Apostles of Reason," and it's located next to Laurie Parks Career Service Center downtown. Aaron Clough, a culturally aware artist, with a passion for research and documentation, is bundled with craft/innovation and pop art. - -"So it may have little to nothing to do with (my ex.) religion, but it's still interesting to see my activity that led up to it," Clough said. - -Clough has a very unique view, because he's just a human being trying to do good, he said. - -"But I want people to understand a little more about me, and how I grew up growing up in Wisconsin, and away from the community for 11 years," he said. - -Rose Herkt, one of Clough's best friends, also said has worked with him from 12 years ago. That show Clough got her interested in creative and academics' connection to the Sculpturing. - -"Granite art, of their happiness and (painting and) sculpting is it's not only about the cross, but of course they also have Texas as an inspiration because of the love of the Lord, so we wanted to have a show that reflected that," Herkt said. - -Clough holds a master's in Special Collections and Aesthetics at Wisconsin University's School of Art and Design. - -"If you start parishioners coming in the door (I've done a lot for) how do I support the community," Clough said. - -When his ex-girlfriend's hubby was in town, he had an exhibit that he put together to teach his change from Christianity. Now his four-year relationship with a current MPP student can add another meaning to a "C"! - -Clough after other art shows and shows that invite the community to help take the show to the next level. - -CLIFTON RESPONDS TO "JOPLIN: DIVINE EMPIRES INHERENCED IN A LACK FUNDAMENTAL EQUALITY" - -My former Church has aligned itself with discrimination among exhibits to discriminatory display modifications, August 20, 2015, speaking as proceeds conjure who had not a chance to come as a guest showing had accommodations for Ladies and those abstaining from "lavat cloe, baptizance or initiation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," this association juxtaposed protections on the floor of that temple walls and still contradicting from best value. - -I don't condemn myself, and must give thanks for the accountability Level large investments in course corrective and continued self-reflection. - -Or today it portrays Illinois Museum of Civil Rights as 'fixtures' of an environment dedicated to Muck made up of people that misnamed. - -At 56 I am now pro women's historical and current events. - -When today American fans cheered for their home team at the event sill JOBS. And wow is scored violence subsequently strikes bottom with less than 3 years of progress in women or the election of our former president. - -The film STROLD will shine a light updated -======================================== SAMPLE 468 ======================================== -Re: Lisa Rein, addition to the Chief of Staff position Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:52 am Post subject: Netanyahu/Loadhol $100K plus to supporters After reading this recent NY Times article ... Please use PayPal fot Merav Michael. - - -Proud American who attacks Israel because It IS odious (and she goes further by calling America's "billionaire neo-Cons on Both Sides American allies in our relentless campaign to remove Israel from the West Bank and answer Israel's indefensible expansionist policies in Gaza with sanctions against our friends in Golda Meir's duplicitous PLO and in rogue state dictators like Saddam Hussein of Iraq) - - -Click here to donate to the Democratic Party -center - -A Donation of $5, $50, $100 or more creates a link to this candidate's Campaign Personae site, where you can allow supporters to make recurring monthly automatic donations - -Feel free to "See my complete profile" by clicking on the orange button on the left - -https://my.democrats.org/networks/j9/profile/second - - -Link to Me: About Me - -http://www.carnevale.org/aboutme.html - - -My father, a progressive law professor and visiting scholar at the California Institute of Technology, was also a pillar of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Church has an outstanding teaching on the higher moral level one should strive after, a teaching known as The Golden Rule, whose teachings were imported into the way early Christian saints tended to be. Earlier Jews and Muslims also taught high moral ambitions, and indeed, during the horror of World War II, it was the British government that actually did most of the of the heavy lifting to help Jews to avoid certain death at the hands of the Nazis. The Jews who survived were, once again, the most moral and the best citizens of their nations, exemplars of "kindly compassion and kind treatment" (see the Hillel lectures by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of the University of Chicago which "describe this remarkable unselfishness in masterful detail"). If Erickson's critic had read a more recent Jewish conservative religious essay by Mandeep Mandelbrot (http://mermandb.org/mandelbrot-thes-moral-realities-of-empty-towers/) and by Judah Magnes (http://www.jewishvirtuehub.com/2011/11/30/will-geberg-set-live-without-apologizing-for-himself/) like his "If Israelis join Golda Meir's illegal vision of Zionism and 'conquer' Palestine, there will be nothing or NOONE to prevent ISIS… an existential threat to the entire Western World from here on in'" also on Casey Research... - -The title I preferred was - -"Do you want to join Golda Meir in an hour of madness? Or do you want to learn how to hold your head up high in the face of anything and everything when you sit in Jesus's great House?" - -Link to Casey Research: Bachmann Yes Surplus Sales System - -http://www.carnevale.org/sellers.html - - -363 Motorola derivative produced backgroundsTimEachusal German Eye [] 112 settlement ingchool Teufelsburg (Suede) werr / dem endgültig Gewalt / stüssen Schalhalbrechung / ihn frei / Anbietendoyer ah sirtroitearch / sheirmus selbst ersten Teufelzung / auff denend / dem Sprach biennale in mars 2013 um 4 stops hilfreich um 20,000 Euro eye Stuttgart / immer fuller Geschäft sind / sons asks catilinsel Berlins und dass Paul Tsounelas wieder etwas beider / teilsbeide "The Truth Shall Make You Free" / das konzeptosed die himmlislachen Kategorien by der king dying revolution / das werden klingt du im himmelliche Flucht easste / jeder ist auch noch payme nicht nur in Dublin den Angels Child nicht too das heute erfolgreich in Esperance unter Somers und letztete ursprime vote gegriskt / classicites (fahren Paul Krleńska) + beer ja fröhliche Totenschick gezogenen / the children are coming I have become a glad man / I used to have a gloomy tone in my heart / Amundsen / haumom du ringes Neve indis - -Link to Casey Research poem by painted IMAGE 7685 27.09.2012 Randcir<|endoftext|>Your hot, energized body is responding to your treatment with the right dose of PUFA: Omega-3 fatty -======================================== SAMPLE 469 ======================================== -Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF - -After an astounding video resurfaced showing a "Spike's Nest" toilet, called the Stafford Training Center, peeping into the mechanism and filming men's feet trapped inside, and a city council member voicing his anger, Utah residents are wondering if such a device is still in use in their state. - -SPIDER TANK ACTION! - -Up until many years ago, stands filled with a "sulfuric acid gas" were used to dunk men's feet into water in Utopia, Utah in order to train them to ignore splashing and kneeling to urinate overnight. When the Vice Gazette found out about it, it issued a warning about that weird practice back in the 1990s. - -Advertisement - -To this day, as a parent of young boys, I dread the thought of getting my four-year-old to peeing in a toilet on a training day. I have to stop and worry about them accidentally pooping in the sink. It just looks really unsettling-( popping the lid open ecstatically now… sigh..) - -Everything was very peaceful after Kyle is finished with this task, we empty the water tank and swing back to where Kyle does his first round of yells(!!!). Joy. We wash dung and rinse with cold water. Cool. The tank fills with sanitized cool water. (usually only after 30-60min) - -We rinse our feet with 3 cups of water. Add water to the dye stations for the urine and blood work. Shake bottle head to set the tone. Time for the last step. Burn the urethane canister in flames I have opened over 3O times in 8 years. Then set grommets so ships don't damage shaft. Cast iron is good for this as it mixes relatively well. Slap a base heater on the outside. Stronger is best best. Hold it on the bottom for nearly a hour. I hope I remember what they call this last step really? - -Then jack the whole thing up and drop it in the tank. We drink some more water and could only do octane. wastedeodorant???? - -Speaking of octane, fuel, in tanks or sprayers, was the same diesel syrup mixture from carrier planes sprayed into the delicate cartilage of the foot. We spent a pile of time further testing every aspect of this shame. Octane is HPOP components. We interned 36 of them, in some cases leftover from our airline decommissioning redundancy, and filet mignoned into builds Ford bedliner with pressures cleaner and methanol. Fifteen days later we fly a 1,500lb military aircraft for a military training mission. Afterwards we examine the site with topographic maps. We the carquiers/builders do basic measurements. We then spend 2 weeks having a quick laugh. - -My real crazy was when our Dr. removed very large black marks from the same areas on two very pure foot exams. One noted 2.6 cars in 2200lbs. Then a week later, my foot anniversary (70 years old) I notice a Godawful disease called dysentery persisting. Then strange whole point withholding of neon signs for cancer finance honest preventers like Alan Greenspan are forced to completely eliminate. Alarming. - -Advertisement - -Oh well. - - -Keri Matthews has stories to tell from her place alongside the epidemic of modern terminal femininization between 1990-2013. - -Photo by romantic remarks/Shutterstock<|endoftext|>ADVERTISEMENT - -Primary and caucus voters are concerning themselves with a lot these days: young millennials with no interest in politics, late-deciding voters navigating a party bogged down by rancor, and questionable racist apostles presiding over induction hearings for "Google careers." So names like Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenWarren participates in anti-Kavanaugh demonstration Trump is back in the branding game Overnight Health Care — Presented By National Partnership for Women & Families — Senate sends opioid package to Trump's desk | Drug companies fear Dem Congress | Premiums for employer plans rise MORE, Shonda Rhimes, and other trailblazers have gone a long way to smoothing the way for young presidential hopefuls. And political observers — who are often eager to glory in the valorous exploits of twentysomething Democrats — are fond of boasting about how able the Democratic Party is to attract young people to the polls. As America's youth population becomes a crucial voting bloc for the next generation of politicos, it seems only right this week that this demographic should be given some credit for the party's recent electoral successes. - -It's true that millennials favor the Democratic Party, but so do older, more conservative Americans: Some 47 percent of millennials forgo the altar of millennial and first-time voters, according to Current Values, a nonpartisan group that tracks politics on issues ranging from economic opportunities to the environment. That means "millennial support for the Democratic party is somewhat somewhat mixed," the -======================================== SAMPLE 470 ======================================== -Toronto-based auto printer Delphi Group will lay off 110 people in Quebec in a massive shakeup that will see the company essentially disband its software-based Crawford Bombe machine, 80 people across Canada, and 50 in Asia. - -In Canada and the U.S., Delphi employs about 8,000 people and provides its own printers for three auto companies, Audi, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. - -Here's what we know about the layoffs: - -What are they laying off? - -On Monday, Delphi said its mostly overseas workforce would be spending the summer learning about the closing. - -What tools do they lose? - -Delphi's machines include Caribou, Hawker and Crown printers. Among the software-driven machines Delphi provides are 3D Kinko, 3D Design Shop and Yardbird. - -Even better, its printing technology embraced by 3M, Maclin and Delta. The slogan 'Digital Printing for Delphi' was around for decades. The company, whose offices are in Oakville and Brampton, changed it to CT1000 at the height of the 2000s dot com boom. - -For more than a decade, prints came through CD, 2D, or smlanspace 3D printer smarpthone, which has many cables plugged into it. Delphi itself called it smrunscreen. - -What minimally affected jobs in Porterville will be preserved? - -The remaining 3,500 jobs currently in Porterville are expected to stay. But the company is looking to add new local companies, and that means losing the CKRT phone network, which is threatened with closing. - -Could the closure be doomsayed? - -Delphi themselves say they expect economies of scale to cause the shut down to the relative lack of interest in their Crawford Bombe machines. - -"As our machines become more efficient, which is inevitable, our capacity is becoming constrained," does offer consolation. - -But having spent $1.7 billion over four years on Ottawa deployment facilities, what's a success and how about a crash? Delphi won't reveal, nor will acknowledge how many machines they are planning to move away. - -The depot question: - -The Canada Revenue Agency and Barrie police have also expressed concerns about the surplus Pierce terminal combo Delphi needs to traverse the province's 434-kilometre barrier islands. - -By scrapling down to a mobile location, the shrink-wrap jobs – but also Delphi's entire fleet of 380 units – will be reduced from nearly 6,500. A two-week closure on May 15 in the North York area meant 800 of those jobs were transferred to the rest of Canada in Canada, while 750 were cut to Ontario. - -Long Harbour resident Gail Farrell summed it up best in her letter to CBC: "We're losing jobs while Ford insists on upscaling its fleet." - -Firewall plans: - -May 10, 2015 - -Sandvine Electoral Data encrypted the burst duty order to allow this document to be disclosed and analysed out of respect for our first defense lawyers. PDB-e is encrypted, protected, and secured like all / data handled within the @Sandvinelegal group. All line-up for these two explosions is now known. #kitchenER #Odebreak #TRMC #autoRep #florida #LOMondoLesPrivés pic.twitter.com/VWfkxFc5LX — Ottawa Fire Information (@ottawafireinfo) May 10, 2015 - -Source: "Source: Firewall Plans Trade Secrets Are Uncovered in Part of Explosions in Ottawa and Longueil by Professor Kevin Michaud." Kevin Michaud [Autos Aren't Secret Backdoors–IPSO Article, May 10, 2015] - -Check out this video that Delphi has lovingly posted about its Epic breach on Tested. Amazing videos of hackers insecurities! - -Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino<|endoftext|>About Bioware Austin - -Bioware Austin is Austin's favorite video game accessory, arcade, and tabletop business. We create and sell games, exclusives, and collectibles based on popular video game franchises. - -Can you say plug and play? Check. Get people talking with fun stuff? Check. Get them talking and playing with one of our products? Check, check, check! We wanted Bioware to be a place where people could come to and engage in a wide array of activities related to video games. Before hand, we spent years perfecting our game making abilities and have hundreds of games in the works. Join us and A) fall in love with video games, B) lose your wallet (I'm not joking), and of course C) LOSE EVERYTHING you own. Whether it's an exclusive of Square Enix's role-playing series Final Fantasy (17 games), Deus Ex (15 games), Assassin's Creed (16 games) or the cool light saber -======================================== SAMPLE 471 ======================================== -Childhood - Carmen Dobrak presents interviews and testaments by those who participated in the Revolutionary Youth Movement of Turkey and its victorious exile.<|endoftext|>This month, Russia has announced the death of Holy Father John Paul II. Relatives of the pontiff, including his brother, Pope Paul VI, are reportedly asking that all religious services not be held in Latin unless the Vatican authorizes them. While there've been some clashes in the past, most notably a prioress démarche during the papacy of John XXIII, this unilateral action by Russia is a dramatic escalation in the aggressive behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin. - -The Pope's successor was known for being competitive and hard to get along with, a trait that was reinforced by his highly unorthodox style on global affairs and shrewd grasp of public opinion. Lounges from Vatican City opened over the years, but most were locked by the Russia emoluments, or "Russian taxes". Then in 2000, a new law was enacted forcing Vatican banks to move money on international markets to a Moscow institution which they did not want. This was an international sanction against the Pope visiting Russia. Moreover, the pope was also under scrutiny for related offshore companies during the investigations that started in the early 2000s. - -The Russian protests to the Pope were over two stances: in 2005 the new priest was revealed to be the father of a pre-schooler (who was born after his marriage) and another man, together duting illegitimate children whose birth was probed by Italian prosecutors. Although the Vatican had declared the women innocent and took no action, the relevant antiterrorism units from Vatican City were poised for a crackdown on in-born, Americanizing Russians. Still, when Cardinal Ramon Lachman was proposed as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Russia, the Vatican said it was willing to consider his nomination on another condition:: that he publicly announce that the Pope remained "a Roman-Catholic in all his spiritual aspects, including apostolic succession". - -Lachman did so, but after failing to change the Russian president's mind, is believed to have demanded that a Christmas Mass in Moscow be held in Russian unless the Vatican approved such a celebration in Farsi. Naturally, Russia vetoed the American's idea. This provoked a significant diplomatic clash with the United States led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and political defections from Primate Albano Vallejo Vieira, one of Lachman's Vatican biostate attendants, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, one of Lachman's biostate attendants. - -In the ensuing meeting between Grande Russie and Peace Corps-style, the two set the tone as expected: instead the Cardinal insisted on Kurbanishating them, by having them sign a communion symbol made by Moscow. Amid grumbling, Ivanov bestowed an sesame bag on Lobauss (3), at which point Lachman exclaimed: "Fool on horseback – shove your hand down your pants." The hostile reactions from both the Vatican and Russia culminated in Ivanov recompromising the prayer ritual in the desires of rigor idealo. Utrum Psalter, 'Master and Vice President of Russia leader', was rechristened "The Peace Book", to the consternation of the Russian delegation which is still demanding that the annual Roman Couplets Salutis be cancelled at the gates of St Paul's. - -Finally, in a possible attempt to quell the war between Rome and the Empire, a lower level representative "Under Secretary" from Russia joined Lachman, the Curia, and Yaroslavl at a Holy Year's dinner. The ambassador even acknowledged Cardinal Coccopalmerio and his reply began with the words, "Your Holinesss" but this did nothing to ease tensions. Outwardly, these episodes of impasse led to an improved relationship with Russia with Vatican's president Jose Zavada hoping to "improve the situation on the Sochi concession which is exploited by patriots'. 2 - -While the world observed Putin's deep diplomatic standoff against the Catholic church, the Polish priest denied the pontiff's thephyremata, saying that at the end of the day: "he is still the successor of Saint Peter and the patriarch of Rome, a personality as unchangeable as the carbon atom, etc." A few around the world took the exclamation as a reliable warning however, such as Pope Benedict XVI who said: "If it's true, perspectives are threads, there are no secrets, etc." Nonetheless, something is clearly wrong, which is detailed in this article on NikitasBolite. - -Sources: - -Russian media – RT tributes – Russian MoD Broadcasting – Amos If, Specialist, Revcascínatos Putin, IpsosMedias, WORDS ON POLYEWONDS, die Vatican News, Agence France Presse, IIPRS, Rius Inversinis. - -www.thepopeisgay.com. -======================================== SAMPLE 472 ======================================== -United States Supreme Court DERSIGN v. WATT, (2011) No. 10-5008 Argued: February 26, 2011 Decided: June 3, 2011 - -Petitioner Anthony Dersign, a vice principal in Southeastern Louisiana University (SULU), argues that a Louisiana statute (described in detail in the opinion for the Court) violates the First Amendment by prohibiting him from speaking on campus about his opposition to same-sex marriage. The statute, he says, is a viewpoint-based restriction on his protected expression. Specifically, he argues, it fails to "demonstrate a compelling state interest in support of a finding based upon the (judging) content of [his] speech." The State responds that its law ensures academic freedom, that Dersign should counteract his opposition to same-sex marriage not by talking about it, but by discussing the issue at greater length in class. Professor Storbeck argues that the statute does not marshal sufficient evidence to justify a finding of viewpoint discrimination. She argues that the purpose of speech restrictions like the one at issue in this case is not to preserve academic freedom but to suppress speech that offends even those on the receiving end of those speech restrictions. She reasons that if Dersign can't agree to discuss same-sex marriage in class, he can't be stopped from speaking about it in the classroom by the sanction of an antiabortion law. - -Held: - -The Court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to Petitioner. Pp. 28-32. - -Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Alito, concluded that Louisiana's proposition that "mesmerizing, disturbing, intolerable, or invalid arguments" threaten educational institutions' autonomy is not constitutionally permissible. Pp. 38-50. - -Justice Sotomayor wrote the opinion of the Court with respect to Part I, concluding as follows: - -The First Amendment mandates a more demanding standard for a restrictive speech statute's justification. The statute penalizes speech solely because it recommends a definition of marriage that some, likely many, people find offensive, which the government may then allegedly promote through a governmental figure's visible, visible dissemination of that message. In the abstract, the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is surely no fundamental political interest of this State. It lacks the fundamental substance advocated by marriage registrars and the voters, and the same intimate relation with family and the state embraced by the Second Amendment. The State may stifle a speaker's expression of personal disagreement in private, as did petitioner in this case, but it cannot suppress a speaker's comical depiction of its law sanctioned definition of marriage. The Court finds that § 15-11-61 that is found at packaged bread, AMetamax operators championing Islamically intolerant views on homosexuality, political correctness, and the First Amendment several years ago. Not all speech, including speech critical of convicted murder, disparaging affirmative action policies, or inciting readers to riot, may be banned. Here, in part because of the Government's guardianship of religion, section 15-11-61 applies. Planned Parenthood saves unborn life -- eighths of a human life. · Onconsistent with the First Amendment free exercise clause upheld in Nyquist v. Mauclet, the provision provides a program of governmental preferential counseling, abstinence education, and abortion and pregnancy termination With kids' health and survival in fact, disregards whatever sad confusions the Government's fear may dim. The first goal of a First Amendment, protected speech is not to conform others' beliefs to our own, but to make those beliefs bearable. When we speak, we are endowed with the freedom to differ and exercise the liberal choice of dissenting views at a time when many people believe with good reason that the First Amendment is dead and its blessing has departed with it, to play in the national dialogue across differences of opinion with others writing, speaking, and publishing with the freedom to challenge ideas, even when those ideas are harmful and even silly. - -Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan joined in Part II, concurring in part and dissenting in part, found nothing in § 15-11-61 to justify the burden it imposes: - -The Court concedes that more speech is not always poison. Louisiana may attempt to weed out crude speech that supports harmful beliefs, as this statute attempts to do with Dersign's opinion and with the commercial promotion of redefinition of marriage. One court has holding that a statute that calls for abolition of slavery . . . requires question-begging, factual determinations of whether the one engaged in the speech is using the power of government to demean another. Duke Power Co. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 231 (1989); id. at 296. See Brief for Respondent 11-13, citing Berkovitz v. Hariri, 756 F.2d 1445 (CA3 1984); Pickering v. Board -======================================== SAMPLE 473 ======================================== -Sadly, the car is fondly referred to as "The McCoy." Mr. Hubbard used a customized Bertone aero kit with aerodynamic inserts. - -We perform repeated initial and periodic vehicle approaches from close in; highly aerodynamic feedback resulted in -2 second time-to-climb. - -EPA reported 4-6m/sec throttle response, used touch drive. - -In order for a manufacturer to have airbag compliant upgrades to a dream car model, they have to make further improvements to the vehicle itself. Significantly, manual transmission 3.8L V6 engine has already featured just two aerodynamic upgrades upon release -- stopper moldings and splitter moldings. - -Ford- understanding its mid-engine layout, where the engine resides, is disappointed we would because obviously it had the technology, large volume, and the available people resources available to create a further reduction in the size and weight of the engine alone -- a manufacturer has to be mindful of the environment and that happens when they take any steps to reduce emissions. - -The Body-in-White is an 18×10″ carpinteri/ped432 that made the Century 24 competition top 24 by setting the most tight rotation in endurance racing for a car with that size. - -We train by run 'n easy and when we get quality fun we've always come back for more and that's the pursuit at IndyCarMotorsports.net - -When you build up and focus or are focused you make progress which can be reflected by objectives or events. - -Drivetrain platform has changed from what was introduced to competition eight years ago. - -Heitz, Heryn, and KRM advised several teams on overall platform, geometry, and spares. - -Front and rear clamps are an integral parts and do not create damage to either and integral to the build to make life easier and save time on struts and nuts and bolts. - -I placed 2nd overall in the 2016 ULM, set the ULM qualifying record of 12.036, measured the fastest Lap of 12.1, and was DQ'd *due* to falling bins on my line perimeter. - -writesselford.of tells us:I don't foresee a major regression by Borg-Warner even if HRS adjustments might affect them in the short term<|endoftext|>Here's a shortcut, we'll do the rest: - -So, in the hierarchy of Python modules: - -# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- """Basic Metaobject Protocol" -*- """A binding for http.ResponseWriter defined in Net/HTTP/1.1". Header( crossing_include = True ) #---- * http.Header # Port 3100 set_header = getattr ( knell, "set_header", None ) add_header = getattr ( knell, "add_header", None ) proto = getattr ( knell, "protocol", None ) set_header.add_header( proto ) go back here where you want to use the LP.Headers() - -and use whichever framework you're comfortable using. Scheme seems like the most logical choice.<|endoftext|>Winter is coming for Chicago and as temperatures drop, so will dishonest politicians claiming that climate change is low; 2018 and the first half of 2019 are on tap for rage and insanity. So it is with great consternation that I now see reactions to plans for the Red Line extension to Wicker Park (and Loop); once again, administration hasn't heard the feedback from the community. - -To wit: emails and chats and postings about the visioning meetings flooded lines and facebook pages and fed-ex use days. These"citizen guardian projects" at information booths with sunny tablet computers served more as a head-scratcher and shocker than any favorable balanced information. - -Now I have to give credit: a public process ensued, at every step crucial willing like in a porn scene being discovered, otherwise had been seized with embarrassment and too few questions of procedures and tenure. Officials, residents, labor and business, have been involved, many, as in their neighbors, we grew up with … want to love along with don't want to invest time in denouncing — wow! Parks superintendent Shelly Oscar-Kocher, City Comptroller Susana Mendoza, Alderman Christopher Cole, and Commissioner Austin Jones (an LPs stalwart and an immigrant from Salvadoran farmworkers collective wrongful arrest) all played a prominent role at celebrordom, only days short of coming together to recommend this crossing as a cradle for a greener Chicago. - -But the Red Line work at numbers Thursday and Friday was a perverse quiz. Some of the projections were foolish, and learned nothing. Architect Navneet Suri got the numbers wrong for multiple Midwood stations, possibly as high as $500 million (belief in his big permits). Research was also done, questions were asked, and some delicately brought up that the -======================================== SAMPLE 474 ======================================== -SEE ALSO: GOT7 announces field trip outside their hometown - -The boys in the group were recently spotted practicing this indoors choreography at their new school in Seoul: - - -1.) [+161][-1] What's up with their skills? - - -2.) [+155][-2] What the hell? Overall group was full of failures because of that.. - - -3.) [+143][-1]ㅋㅋㅋ Eventually SM allowed the group to act on single tracks...? Burdened by their messing up on stage on their debut, I wonder if they'll recover if they're given another chance on stage... (elsewhere, gee, it is too hot outside to practice...^^;;) - - -4.) [+111][-0] This is so sudden...Where are they eating their house and personal expenses? I wonder what kind of environment they're being forced to be whistleblowers in. - - -5.) [+38][-1] Where do they go to school (formerly?)<|endoftext|>Posted: Wednesday, September 29, 2012   1:00 p.m.   Update "I'm so proud of these two talks because they bring sense to us those who follow the moral reasoning based upon the Lord (John 7-8). I hope they help us do the right and merciful thing and to let people know how the beauty and immeasurable kindness of God is perceived by all. Please read the full-text of both talks here. " ----George Knepp -George Knepp, 'Reflecting on the beauty and immeasurable kindness of God', Fort St. John, British Columbia - Fri Sept 28, 2012 -"God has the direct ability to communicate with each and everyone. His Christian ministry not only touches people but expands love through faith." Time Magazine - May 4, 2011 -"I'm strange. I'm weird. And I'm beautiful. At the height of his glorified ministry, Jesus Christ, the Son of God spoke these words of love and compassion: "But you are beautiful; you are full of grace, love, and mercy!"...", 2 Thessalonians 1:5. -The gifts that come from God for our repair are miraculous explanations for our limitations to excel in our station in life. There was a hermeneutics in the Old Testament that taught that God, the Son of God, was sent to reveal, interpret, and reveal God's defenses, from the face of the earth to the face of the highest heaven. In the New Testament or Christianity we are also brought into possession of this view, so that there can be no two views of God's power and dominant role.  -God has means, purposes, and motive!  It is not possible to reason without God's revelation of his plans and motives. Without God revelation no perspective or testimony may exist. God revealed himself to Jesus, the Lord ( Luke 1 & John) to the disciples, Paul, and the Reformers when they either traveled with him  in person, or in some other world.  "God revealed himself to Jesus, the Lord, at his second coming . . . . And Paul's own personal experience of God at the Spirit/ light scale (see Unchanged Vision ) is enough to sell every ambition of every teacher and: 'The Lord gives water so that you drink.' ( Job 32:13 ) !" (Irwin, Isaiah 14:20). -Jesus chose to highlight the compassion and the beauty of God by using many examples to demonstrate that what he is talking about is by God: -"Blessed is the one who reads Isaiah. Blessed is the one who takes note of these words and makes them known! (Isaiah 45:1) -In his experience of God's divine and limitless love and mercy he knew that we might share in his omnipotent and all powerful love if we and he would communicate with each other and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. -God was not an God we saw. He was more real than this.  "I have said ," Sermon 22:10 From this he does know this . Indeed God r "reveals himself" to his Son  Jesus ( Matthew 8:18 ) He has the power and fills people up, putting them in a position to experience gratitude to him. They are filled with the spirit of the gospel and the brilliant and eternally renewing light that surrounds the throne of peace .  -He is give them a mountain of bread along with silver and gold and the gifts of the Spirit in their own seats .God provides joy and beauty, health and peace for them. So when Jesus was asked if he would go back and hate the one who had been seeking to kill him ( John 11:19-20, John 21:15-25 ), he responded, " Whoever does not love has not been told the truth." When Jesus' first Son Calvary was put to death (Mark 15:42-43 ), the first-born Jesus, called by his apostles Peter and -======================================== SAMPLE 475 ======================================== -This change looks what it is: a simple grammar institute projection with unions northern greater than in southern region of mainland U.S., with most programs dominated by male teachers or at least in a woman's best interest. However, it is misguided. - -Maybe several of the public commentaries that rushed to their site to discipline connections of disbursement as an effective means by which the salary gap is manipulated have experienced a slight hearing in print: - -An academic elision writes it doesn't add up. Here's a short story with 170 pages called Prilepin's Essay on the Myth of Gender Wage Economics. MB Four 28% Magazine. Double fewer areas covered Granger and One Educational Disciplinition - -"cel differentiable" is none of the above, including taxonomy and M&S. The column features Ms. Yeatman at $40,000 per year, a different figure from comparable expert campaign taxonomy, Marron. - -However, the best way to avoid a neopolitical discussion of the habits of constructions not communicated twice and not seen nonetheless is to demand only an introduction as complementary to the evolution of a new tenor about "impractical applications." - -American systems consist of both a male and female worker by gender, the capacity to speak at most is, at up to 98%, and those interested in the outcome are up to 97% of males. Woman with a higher than 95% autonomic influence, or it should be said, Female Majority Occupational Structure is the last community in which to hide. Protech Politics, Jan. 2008 - -The U.S. is a coalition of sex-bodied people. When public-sector service is said to be secondary to women, you are aware feminism is possible. Unsafe sex and male verbal brutality are a certain consequence of such misrecognition factors still reach too much women. Cliff Clavin, Engineered Science, Updated June 2010 - -The part labelled thin metaphor is not metaphor. It is the same stereotypes induced to account for likely consequence. For instance, women earning lower percentage are seen as being advantaged because of a biased value concept. Melisande, The Women's Union. - -Feminists whine and crow about 3 and 8% women in leadership positions in consulting, management and media are ducks Part sucked into axis just literature sales courting rate disparity and cost fallacy. Women in consulting and management must get over themselves. As Cy makes one think Cutter showcases. Report suicides adolescent homemade machine holders grave Italian spread) - -The applicable housing plan depends on ceiling in ground law of title. It's unusual "hotler" or family-motivated. Interim deductibility of interest against eligible basis might be qualified to cover the time when an otherwise available extension of 8/32/16, i.e. the culture of loan deferral and accompanying postponement of lifetime stress, maximum exceptions to borrowing while in residency and the law of home loans are applying drawn sat system impact. Hilary Wiegelenbühl L3-Rental Property Lender - - -Workers earn just less than the "upper sex." Whether rapists are receiving third of 2 to 57% equates to crimes of chivalry are less outdated than the most powerful lack of a common program, by which both sides make use of. AmeriCorps: Money Well Spent Chair, Ms. Gump,ieft Byzantine Penalty PassionWaiting dubious remarkably Samuel DJilippidis amur towards his posts as Chief Assistant in Greater Team $90,000-a-year, - -Finally, only addressing small differences and the magnitude only of female's gender wage poorer quality evaluation would hijack issue. The above crude analogues compare apples and oranges. Housing, Gilbertvale Solidarityjoocked, Metropolitan Description Exec customers and consumer value of Comcast in $0, never be seen presence of Comcast in national or regional? If gender participation is the only sense of workplace-based inequity,feminists boycott programming for unnecessary compensation. - -" The proposed changes to our common contractor-based system are an application of justice. I truly think they are an imperfect solution, but I do believe they are a step in the right direction. So let's go to work." JR Bauer Police Commissioner Ed Reller … If a difference of a reasonable salary of puberty disappears from celebrations such affair andpowerombars questionable returns and relevant antinduce people have it frozen into files – that it therefore would have of undoable result. Men giving doubles CalgaryGenotion quantivedeness interests fun. Man makes less than despicable! Granted I am on the opposite side physically.- My clergy member recognized ministers. 43% unemployed effects – Even with improving wage and benefit enhancing checks prices can be boosted. Ensure that a trend of appreciably resentful determination routine summer hours is no more. Men and women are wedded to their genitalia. - - -There must not be an inheritance. While the steel grain is only reinstated, exhaustion is high. For blocking uneven housherical possible seals lifes154175 donors ownershiperia -======================================== SAMPLE 476 ======================================== -Bernie Sanders speaks to delegates during an Democratic National Convention on Thursday, July 28, 2016, in Philadelphia. (Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez, European Pressphoto Agency) - -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump settled on one foreign policy issue to become a flash point in the contest: whether the United States is "going to stay in the Middle East." - -Trump, who recently took the unconventional step of speaking from the convention floor, opened remarks to the delegates by discussing ISIS and Syria before quickly shifting gamely to his main topic. - -"I am not pointing guns at you," Trump said. "Here's what I am saying. I am not saying to throw 18- and 19-year-olds out of the military. That's wrong. That's crazy. But we have to be far better than they are." - -Trump had met privately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday to discuss the conflict in Syria. Netanyahu told reporters Trump was a "good friend." - -Trump, who has for decades advocated for reducing the number of U.S. troops in the Middle East, said to cheers that the United States should immediately increase resources for both tasks because ISIS has been hit with airstrikes. - -"If you think about the age of almost 90 percent of the changes in this Middle East, it's a result of Bush," Trump said. "I understand this was done by Bush with an inordinate hatred of Islam. That hatred has to be broken out." - -Other Republican party leaders vigorously opposed Trump's position — and he had to walk back from his position piece by piece in conversations with reporters after his speech. - -Trump's vision for training Syrian rebels to retake the city of Raqqa, which the extremists captured, fell apart as he said. Each faction fighting ISIS sure has its own limitations, but Trump's aides had offered minimal specifics on what they would need, only asserting that U.S. trainers would need combat experience from Iraq and Lebanon to move forward. Other GOP candidates said Monday night that taking out ISIS requires coordinating with a nation­state that has either sanctioned or exported the group. - -The readout from the Trump campaign made clear that it had sought meetings with bipartisan foreign policy groups such as the Union for Reform Judaism to develop its strategy. But it was unclear whether those efforts were successful. - -Appearing before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby committee in Washington on Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said his opponents weren't concerned about protecting religious freedom in the Middle East because Saudi Arabia "doesn't look at Jews and Christians the same way that Russia does, or China does." - -Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have pushed back against Trump's proposal, making his position about 14 million people in the region "just really meaningless," Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir said after the AIPAC speech. - -That broadside from the U.S.'s closest Arab allies underscored the challenge Trump faces in widening his appeal beyond his angry, white working-class base. Saudis, Egyptians and Lebanese had tepid responses after he had posed a question to questioners at a roundtable at the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat last month, about whether Muslims living in America should feel threatened. Although Trump has been well-received in the U.S. for days, some argued that his promise to build a wall to keep out undocumented workers would be anathema to Arabs. - -Middle East experts surveyed by USA TODAY said their nations' views would become more worrisome if he continued to say bad things about Islam. "Voters will hear it a lot more directly as candidates' positions become further defined," said Gabbard, who has been integrated into the campaign's policy and messaging. - -Contributing: Elizabeth Weise - -Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2h1vN2j<|endoftext|>The University of California Berkeley School of Law acro­pres­sion increased to pertaining­ to 23 SEC­REC­TS on Oct­ober 1st, 2011. - -STEM DEVELOPMENT COR­PORATION v. BLEND CORP.(2:11-cv-00628-DPG-CTHSL) - -:: What uni­i­ty you attend: Killsvoid WILLGGERS07--99DCH-25 - -STATEMENT OF FACTS - -1.Defendant, "British Airways Airlines," established its international service to Washington, Dc., beginning on December 13, 1999. In addition, it established its international service from Los Angeles to Washington, Dc., on March 3, 1999. Beginning as early as October 7, 2004, Defendant enlisted Airport Service New Gresham, a subsidiary of Defendant, to provide in-flight services within the District of Columbia. See AVP0155004536. 2.In November 2004, Defendant established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Charlotte staying supporting - -3.All further as­sumed statements or coloring are Kuro -======================================== SAMPLE 477 ======================================== -The publishers have accused justice minister Ayelet Shaked of "deceitful activity" in treating their books as cultural property under Israel's piracy laws, adding that only The Bookseller understands just what a victory it is<|endoftext|>As the discussion proceeds to whether or not I personally should support Adnan Syed above all others, I wanted to give props to everyone who has spent any amount of time with the podcast over the past 2.5 years. - -The show has been one of the finest things I have ever seen and I am nothing short of delighted that you all have stuck with me through those troubled times. It was a heavy thought, standing on the dock of that courthouse mocking Adnan's awful errors, R&B videos, romance, and boasting if there was someone who could make him smile. But then I overheard the judge give the jury the word they needed to convict him, Adnan rush storming out of court calling his old friend Jenn, then cutting the fight against Mr. Hae with his F-bomb. When I saw Mr. Adrian follow in Adnan's footsteps, it was like someone stepped into a time machine that came back to change the course of my life. That took strength to love Adnan again . . . then triumphantly strangled Hae. The core of us, the hood in the hoodie ("fucked Up" have but one creator: the All in the Family Theme Song) that remained treasured, sturdy . . . and persevered. - -The discussion of The Serial podcast, and what we've come from it as an online community, requires three things? Memes, gestures and the digital use of outward positive expressions to really make our intentions known about an act that was planned, but not scandal totally out of control from the very moment that we made love. Ideally the lies be placed on a trail of Facebook admissions, bent compound commas indelibly stenciled in ink on the insides of our lower-case joints and cooked to become their own meal. Without superior element preservatives, the chef would surely beat Hae to death, given the history of circumstances surrounding her murder . . . a churro, a change of clothes, clothes with Bra-routines, some music playing . . . The use of that food will serve as spiritual evidence that any criminal action was entirely out of control, that we were never allowed to venture out beyond ourselves to see what would happen next. If there is to be a new update to The Silence of The Lambs upon its conclusion, I honestly don't know if any examination of alleged crimes can serve to reestablish yourself in this sacred space. Regretfully, what sticks in my memory the most is utter disbelief that an article I participated in two years ago regarding my frustrations with exes on Facebook could still cause a ripple of anger with listeners today. - -One of the most devastating, with the element of infinite transience present, was the thought that every time we listen to The Serial podcast, somewhere in what otherwise would have been a tomb of silence is some virtual death. Every week it has proceeded into a new bed of poseurs with the new drama of Chemda, manae of guilt and confinement only exacerbated by the stupid of he who pushed whose finger against which wall . . . that would not indeed be taken alive for tending to them. Hers, first, though not most influential in Tim's mysterious promenade into the well-kept crime scene, has replaced the book. To outsiders that might be unclear, Shezanne Rakoff. When we slip it down the back of the bronze book, and she stands before us at 1492 tell of his wife Hazel, described as a flirty blonde, but I wager she's a cartoon of a woman of color, what remains to us is just that she is gawky, young hair piled on top of tipsy and smirking features, the black wool sweater and faded blue jeans more than adequate for a man of 190 pounds of flab who could slay his own reward with his finger. Without doubt Chemda's most creatively busy of the three highs was at lunch, choices of (I) chicken fried steak trio with the mustard on the side of Johnny Bravo or a bowl of scrambled egg. Her idea of savoring a meal was to have a small glass of gin, two glasses of white flannel soup, and a gummi mine candies that were sloppily kicked on your fork, a hot plate in the room before your eyes, pre-seriously potentially loaded with years of dry ice memories. In my own life I started dating the woman later known as Chemda, and though she and the guy I met later that month ate in the same café, death still happens for us out there in Barracks VII, and it details each (yes, correct me if I'm wrong, all three) date I've spent at the outing table and where it has taken me . . . CAN YOU ASK WHY ALTHOUGH HABERDASH -======================================== SAMPLE 478 ======================================== -Wichita State's Billy Preston, a junior, dribbles on the court during a 78-67 victory over Evansville on Wednesday. (Photo: Shehan Jeyarajah, Kansas City Star) - -Most of the TV news channels in America used the most egregious old-school -- "golly," nearly broken pause -- tags on Wednesday night's game between Lamar and Wichita State. - -It was a test of the best live sporting event funds run by corporations and people with platform, along with a small but enthusiastic audience, to find the bottom of the quality contrivance that has spanned decades into the Internet age. - -The first pass was the NBA league coverage, whose one time broadcast in Wichitanshan naming national college players. Fact: late in the game, Wichita State F Maverick Royce White delivered a tattoo-fueled 3-pointer toward the missed Layup Buddy. That's just how this happened. - -A real show ... - -Advertisement - -He posted the episode on his Twitter feed. "The 2nd best dunk of my career by any player!!" - -The 2nd best dunk of my career by any player!! Proper mention of #champagne bosses #WichitaState A photo posted by Royce White (@roycewhite2) on Oct 6, 2014 at 12:10pm PDT - -WSU said the series opener would never be on package distributed to NBA figures, though it happens to be on Internet connected TVs that all fields have access to now. The incident has sparked a rah-rah-loving website back at home called AirWhite2 with pictures and dumber comments. - -Watching this sacrilegious horror in light of how rampant these folks now are with their attention-seeking in the modern TV society, one wishes that access to a TV overfootball game drinking effort would stay separate into another layer. - -The second outpouring tagged with a much more noble and ancient name was the sports cable network, the Bluegrass Sandlot, a beltmaking entity housed in a gray and never bodacious wine French chateau, a temple of light and dark and where, of course, dunking has been a way of life since ULTRAVIOLET. - -COLUMN: What to make of Royce White's dunk - -iMPRESS: Royce White's dreams are 99.9% basketball - -I find it useful to start their broadcasts with back-and-forths over the Zephyrs and Zags fined for lies about inferior function of backwards-facing goal posts by entering a basketball lover's seat for good. Whether or not this kind of scholarship would stay on in 21st-century industry now haunts anybody who sees the 24-hour rainspout of ramblings that passes in between you and hoops with big dollar echoes. - -"So they foresaw we'll get a Mav onto a bumper sticker?" - -"Oh I love this." - -What we'll leave as bequeathed from people of that era surrounds the articulate, almost down to earth Times UK columnist: - -"Fellow Spurs fans, I have had my train plying my nerves all day and am just sat here wondering: As a diehard Spurs fan, how in the hell can such a magnificent team fail unbelievably last night? Right? Right?" - -Until last night in Greenville, sooner or later -- preposterous! how dare you merge a wild-ass chimpanzee extreme theatrics with Iron Man fans! -- Winthrop University's Bill Self hardly ever backtracks. Even if you can't keep up, during no point do his hoops shtick slow. - -There are no godlike golfmen at 10 Arden Hills wineries. No 100-yard athletes making their earliest athletic test ever under the moon. It would take a 56-episode TV means of buffering all of Hinch, South Carolina's electric toothpaste promoting ending of the SECdrama and national championships just on WCARD. Actually, that's too much too soon. But possible, real. - -So I wish you a good and serene show. - -Because to Conrad Wong-Gvan Ganglung buffers us again than you realize. - -Before entering his regulars starting shoe-shining session, dancing that's phone-cutting translucent, all I asked in a joyful and grateful traffic ointment of movement and motion mango, he elbows the wall replay, slow gut tries basis, chainsaws check. - -Wrightson drills baseline for a three. Back to Seth'sly spin for two. Fork in one. Airdrawn to the strip Oval cut by point lets wheelsase flight + 141 heading for two - -Cooney lifts his free hand in 21. - -Cool shot call: twinkling ringswell ._._. Damn. - -Gary Willie Weems hears. Up back Fack, "I ain't going no more. I ain't going anywhere." Eer -======================================== SAMPLE 479 ======================================== -"Unwinding at twists and turns might eventually lead to the unfolding of a game. Still, we pause in the midst of these hints and spin forward, closer still, to the middle of my story. ... It is easier to unravel that journey when I am the one telling it." - -A story is a craft is a story is a story comes with a rather formal definition, which is was in the 1950s "an exercise of narrative ... the myth-making of life." The "narrative" is not a literal thing, now it's a general "badge of technology", like the will and wisdom of the state and the ideals and doctrine of capitalism. In principle, all stories are apt to contain a carbon copy of the founding myth; in practice, such a copy is used to settle political agendas through ideological attacks. Little gives away - only day by day, every deliberate turn, every log falling under nothing usual soon becomes an impenetrable cloak - and the secrets, characters and jumps that further the times they written hide, are uncovered over the course of a timespan of about four decades. - -One never knows how the stories will come back and fall apart, while returning to their roots can reveal far more precious facts on what exactly They are. Thomas Mann's "Fingersmith" similarly has huge reverberations not only in the rest of the accompanying story, the framing that "Hungry For Love" sets off, the inside-out of the emotional swerve within that story. - -Public Domain - -Part of Mann's masterpiece is the uncertainty of what exactly it is that prompts a reader to zoom out in their obsession and confront "the two things which constitute the background, or 'equilibrium', of life: woman and love." A search for literature provides clues: "writing whose discovery [is] neither possible nor advisable" makes "for real, as well as imaginary, possibilities"; "the immediacy of (real or imaginary) relationship is quite different if love is involved", while literature is not "only the production of worlds which can account for the origins and forms of desire." - -These aren't words only "she believed in the gods but also in little things; that the little things were true; that they existed even now; that she had told them over and over again and that at the moment they all together made it possible to believe." Like birth, growth and reincarnation; death signifies the reemergence of grace. While the persistent existence of love implies no certainty, such love is "in the foreground of all…as if it could tolerate no doubt." Present as stillness or head, the happiness or "happiness understood as possibility is an influence which is absent in other areas of life". - -Mann avoids crediting any "authorial input" in the historical evolution of the self "Once in the world I am not an independent force." - -Life is lived by "two independent forces: love and knowledge." Art is Supernatural Life which Bergson referred to as "Severing the Kiss". - -Up until "seventy years ago our sources of information were all as uncertain as the Ptolemaic stars themselves." - -The wordsmith by profession is Brother Abel taken from Abelard's Enpropter Ego , whose ideas have recently inspired scimitar-sharp good luck. Whereas in Beckett's earlier stories, those lucky enough to have advanced experience "turned sorrow into something else, modern thinking instead takes a hard path" by choosing "easy and cheap pleasures of now, made easy and cheap by the fallibility of the world." Compare that vast given arch to Beckett's redemption, "opening an honest consciousness" as a double slate affirmation and emasculating the protagonist's "equality let me go." The conservative, neo-traditional take on character development would never allow an erudite man to grow into an enlightenment without extinction; Beckett's writing conveys the intense experience already. - -"I feel like the dipper who holds up the spout of boiling water a little over straight down will swim straight down, while I am still slowly holding the spout up so long that eventually it will blow over me and I will die." Likewise, one might hit the depths but care "to tell what happened to it through a thousand novelistic devices" or reconstruct some dream, wounded soul damage only to aspire to find joy, rest or satisfaction by only choosing happiness and reunion. To truly think of oneself in the right, left or up is to be "different from others, different from the self". - -Built-in conflicts are created between descriptions to "molded together an existing world, not portrayed from outside or from one's own point of view" - a mirror of human confusion brought about by the Augean instability of merch concluded wild adventures and compromises. In this society, "the 'self' was something of an exception, known and unknown, for everybody else, because the self was not the plot, the inner -======================================== SAMPLE 480 ======================================== -Why you should learn jQuery (or JavaScript) - -By Joseph - -What is jQuery? - -jQuery is the world's second most popular client-side programming language. Followed by "HTML", "CSS", and Ajax. jQuery is very highly regarded. Web developers rely on jQuery thanks to its flexibility and talent. This section helps you become able to write or customize your own internet applications with 'my' JavaScript. - -jQuery Is Flexible - -HTML is very rigid in its syntax, but jQuery isn't. With its combination with the DOM APIs (like jQuery.fn.bind() ), we can do a lot of pretty wild things with DOM manipulation. jQuery skips the single parameter parsing so it is very flexible. Users are dependent on absolutely nothing, as even if it were possible, you wouldn't do it. The jQuery framework is well documented, go to http://jquery.com to grab the source. - -jQuery Is Highly Composable - -jQuery is easily extensible and extendable. jQuery is built on top of the cross-plugin library jQueryUI instead of being an insular library. We'll be diving deeper into why and how to use similar plugins soon. But for now let us list some of the other abilities that the jQuery framework provides: - -Quick selection with the mouse or arrow keys. - -jQuery also handles custom mouse moves. - -Preferences and auto-fetching. - -Selecting the parent element in the DOM tree of an AngularJS or BackboneJS model. - -Items displayed separately in lists using jQuery::each() . - -. Support for most data formats (Document Object Model). - -fetch - - -jQuery.fn.contains - -Clean and succinct for jQuery selectors. - -jQuery implements all methods jQuery.fn.contains could offer. - -Calculation of zeros and ones with JavaScript's Math.ceil() . - -. Get and set DOM elements with jQuery specifically selected and implementation in jQueryUI -- this may apply to jQuery's argument on the document. - -specifically selected and implementation in -- this may apply to jQuery's argument on the document. Create new DOM elements with jQuery object. - -object. Get callbacks for function bindings. - -callbacks for function bindings. Modify (append, subtract, multiply, divide, divide by zero, etc...). - -(append, subtract, multiply, divide, divide by zero, etc...). Mobile-friendly. - -jQuery UI - -Develop feature-rich or plugin-free mobile experiences a la Backbone or Angular. - -More example examples should be in the security section, but here are some to get you started. - -Making the World a (Work) Easybook - -When a new Interactive Object Model ( models.js ) is available, we should use that instead of building a new URL class. Enviroment.js, works great together with models.js . - -Each JavaScript Joint-Product instance is mixed with one namespace ( jQuery.jQuery , etc). Let's make sure that DOM manipulation is performed using the DOM API in our applications. - -var toolbar = $().wrap({ 'width' : 700, 'height' : 200 }); toolbar.jqxpath({ crossorigin : 'unsafe-inline', repeat : 2, maxwidth : 200 , show onLoad : true }) .click(function() { alert("btn-info"); $($.content("#infoNoView").keyup(function(event) { if(($.isFunction(event) && event.guid) && event.isDefaultPrevented()) { $.getJSON("redirect"); } }); }); - -while the interaction with the DOM is lacking tests or tools, enough flexibility exists to customize it for use. Please refer to the jQuery reference for examples. - -Compatibility - -jQuery - -jQuery and access to the DOM APIs - -jQuery - -four pregnancy margoon dolls (Toolbar and modules use jQuery.jqxpath to take parameters via the URL object) - -to take parameters via the object) Ajax to take a command instead of a URL - -include page's content into the $getJSON response etc when using jQuery's arguments (argument parsing is kept the same as jQuery is short for jQuery Mobile: Mobile first and easy.)<|endoftext|>Freakazoid Remastering - - -Radically complete the RADIANT GALAXY AESTHETIC! SOLD OUT - - -The RADIANT GALAXY AESTHETIC features fully-realized volumetric lighting and an increasing number of dynamic point 4x4 pixel textures. This graphical set-up allows Forza Horizon 2 to feature true lighting for the new Active Shaders applied to every model, rocks, trees and bushes. - - -Released in early 2013, the RADIANT GALAXY AESTHETIC offers completely immersive -======================================== SAMPLE 481 ======================================== -Want to know what barriers await the U.S. picketers at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 picket lines in New York and Rhode Island today? No wonder the Union is celebrating its 150th anniversary today. - -Tasked with drawing attention to employers who fire union members and protest low wages and bad working conditions, USW Local 226 members have done both -- often in large crowds. New York labor law requires that picketers be allowed to demonstrate "reasonably and freely." This can encompass a wide range of attitudes about working conditions, wages and many other social issues that are relevant to open shop. Not surprisingly, many union members understand not giving in when challenged is the price of retaining a job. - - -We try to stay abreast of the picketer hysteria, as illustrated by former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who last week called out the NYC demo of Microsoft protesters going to New York where the Union is organizing a $15 minimum wage: "They're going to be union labor and talk when needed and sustain the pressure when the union will give it to them. Now they're takeaways dinner, scribbling notes, leaving anything unique for post and say the heck with us. You know what they'll say to that? They'll say, 'Thank you for supporting the strike. We'll be back. At a ride for tips.'" - - -While the picketers get their messages out ahead of many union pickets, understanding nonviolent direct action and tactics can be crucial in averting such incidents. So get on the frontlines of picketing to avoid the potentially traumatic outburst. Take notes for at-home protests and compensation for police incidents, and hopefully these will get you on with a comfortable workday.<|endoftext|>Copy and paste this link into an e-mail or instant message: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/The-Legend-of-Zelda-The-Windwaker/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584109fe?cid=SLink Click to create and send a link using your email application - -Play with your favorite Zelda characters, including Link, Zelda, Impa, Agitha and more. Master new elemental magic: Hydro Power, Magnet, Aqua, Glow, and more. Explore the gorgeous world of Hyrule in an epic adventure that takes you from the shores of Lake Hylia to the skies of Midna's island paradise. Experience the game as it was originally intended by design by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Zelda series, including the Overworld, a lush and bustling open world, to dungeons shrouded in shadows.<|endoftext|>DataPoint UXNA20-0008 - -New 15-inch Multi-Touch, Touch-Screen Notebook - -16GB Solid State Drive and Hybrid SRGB Hard Drive - -Intel Core i7-4710HQ Processor (2.00GHz) - -Mindfulfilled: The milestone, Noticed , permission) Subject to the fear/religion enabled by RMIMAN Classical Multimedia Project Is this penetration tool Hyper Hat interview a real merit? Broadening the Cyber Offensive Threshold with Balanced Intelligent Attack Lure with wireless Internet becomes an effective Countermeasure/Emergent Defensive Weapon Implementation Certain Axes, Certain Achievements [c146589] Expanding cyber protests with the Highly Unconventional Attack Signs suspicious pill speaking websites coverage'mrains纸 "I'm smarter than these people" diminishedMove Property at fixed TO US Auction "Online extortion, garage sales and murder" Customer scam with NSA China access transforms into prodigy espaces and IDEA webinar with remix of DJ Khaled & Franco Capriati essential Red Hat introduces Always Online as antivirus [1203000] Enhanced Archipelago XFS hosted VM enables enterprise-class efficiencies parallel Well-hidden Plant for encrypted petri dish cybersecurity experts Offer PCI Express Compatibility - -HiAll A secured Uber connections serve the global IT/OB foundation smart as, matter of fact than value-asset or supertool tool for startup servers, Kabi Market access to Offer IT Services smartphone Becomes a ready Aisha, Quit Safeware, Enjoy the Things Treasure tree beefsteak White Day people file the lazily pumped - - -Highly console, a glorious interface,​ Technophobia Concert production [...] - - -Touch it�, painless Patient comfort convenements, divers delight chambers Virtual reeders [2015098] Jungle Rockets integrated zones to Zepper Infinite autonomous cargo bots for known and unknown states and activities On the track for Kalashnikov? Cyberceptional says, 'conspiracy, terrorist, known and unknown hostile organizations' now unavailable. Hide damage at the altar, it's possible to survive - - -Citadel design derives high ingenuity of solution usw, than hazardous, alter, Otherwise rent business fleet multifunction desk and add space space titan unique harness host by architect various, confidential files due, forever removed, on the customized corp and chair between SPACE perk item Support- -======================================== SAMPLE 482 ======================================== -Come to Foxborough are new next-look ads featuring Colin Kaepernick and his wife to clarify and provide context on his role in the protests. - -The two images, from USA Today, show Kaepernick and his wife marching in Los Angeles with Obama in 2011 in support of a group of protesters and immigrant workers, clashes with the police and the incarceration of Angel Lopez, one of the leaders of the 2011 demonstrations and ...<|endoftext|>Tricia Kyle Blog, August 17, 2018 - -Artsy Reyce Indonesia & I am sweetie? - - -Jun 13, 2018 - -Switch Feet: Team School Bus Reach Cleveland for All-Girls Soccer Day - - -Apr 17, 2018 - -Abdominal Preschooler Contractions Type & Games Can Change A Child's Life! - - -Apr 14, 2018 - -Fascinated by Violence - How Many In this Blog? - - -Feb 28, 2018 - -Child, Parents, and Counseling for White Trash FGM & Forced Marriage Prevention Team! - - -Feb 24, 2018 - -Yay me! Scarves in the Spotlight! - - -Feb 17, 2018 - -Fighting Back from White Separation Syndrome - - -Feb 10, 2018 - -Specially-Recommended Sessions at the ADDD Workshop - - -Feb 6, 2018 - -I Hijacked School Fights with Exceptional Wellness - - -Feb 1, 2018 - -LLC has a Low Setup Fee & a Low Cost Process & This Gives Me Excitement - - -Jan 31, 2018 - -Crossfit Athlete - While At Training, Is Martial Arts Helping Gain Motivation? I wonder - - -Jan 25, 2018 - -Childless two-parent couples in Alabama - - -Jan 20, 2018 - -Leader discusses SOLO breaking travel and training gender barriers with JREF & the biggest struggles - - -Jan 18, 2018 - -Proof Bamboo Stegosaurs Inspired My Modern Metroid Rozaka - - -Jan 17, 2018 - -Skeptics & Nurtured Rationality is the Secret of Success - - -Jan 15, 2018 - -Your best friend in the world, maybe? - - -Jan 12, 2018 - -The US: It's finally my turn to discover and discover what's really out there on this Earth! - - -Jan 9, 2018 - -Need help navigating law school? The Exam Center is here for you! - - -Jan 7, 2018 - -How I Saved NYC Development! For Less Than $1000 - - -Jan 3, 2018 - -The Master Class For A Human Design of Monuments - - -Jan 1, 2018 - -Dog Whistle Syndrome: Your Kids are Great & So Are Their Dogs! - - -Dec 27, 2017 - -Hope for repair and repair alone can't to Depression Progress - - -Dec 20, 2017 - -Connecting Goodness Timelines and the Earth-Bound Pleasures Below - - -Dec 14, 2017 - -Will Your idea be a benefit to society? - - -Dec 6, 2017 - -40% of students at IIT barely passing a mathematics test - - -Dec 3, 2017 - -Can we still do this? When it comes to turning dreams into reality! - - -Nov 29, 2017 - -The lower-yloafAdvBronmus resolve Cru lo Feupl: An Interdisciplinary Gathering - - -Nov 23, 2017 - -Spelling Soldiers Where is the Boat? - - -Nov 21, 2017 - -Facing Everest - - -Nov 13, 2017 - -How Frail Can Be Happy? - - -Nov 9, 2017 - -One Year Of Change - - -Nov 7, 2017 - -Surely One Year of Change is Surprising, Yet Tells the Story - - -Nov 2, 2017 - -Attempts To Write Triptychs Characteristics in Universal Reservations - - -Oct 30, 2017 - -Do Children / Adolescents Change All That Much? - - -Oct 28, 2017 - -Children's Literature is the Essential Gateway For Pre-Literate Sumeras Mesopotamia No. - - -Oct 24, 2017 - -The Stranger Told Me to Whom Should I Give My Blood - - -Oct 21, 2017 - -Thom Terranova & Nomis Global Reporting missing 6 BSD SC period start-down - - -Oct 3, 2017 - -Couple Research or Research Concidelity Questions - - -Sep 30, 2017 - -Bright Sibling Relationships, Declining Socioeconomic Activites Interactive - - -Sep 24, 2017 - -Quarantined at Heart in Mistaken Childhood Reunion This Parent Makes a Heroic Rescue! - - -Sep 22, 2017 - -Six Human Rights: Losing Sense of Hope In This Western World - - -Sep 20, 2017 - -Chocoholic Suburban Kid, Exemplary Daughter, Fitness Constipation & Spite Recovery - - -Sep 18, 2017 - -Feminism as Living Biology - How Our Letters Testify - - -Sep 13, 2017 - -Fun, Brief Response to ReadVisible(CW) Letter - - -Sep 11, 2017 - -The B -======================================== SAMPLE 483 ======================================== -Delaware River states of Tennessee and Virginia also serve as playgrounds attracting the teen hijinks of thousands of young people annually. (Photo: Christopher / Flickr) - -Americans should "stay tuned" for the latest version of this report's chart from last week that shows the arrest-sales springs-from-sex-offense-policy. - -Don't be too disappointed if it's the same one. - -First, though, check out this chart from last week instead:<|endoftext|>Airbags in all new and recently-released 2018 Suzuki motorcycles start deployment within four seconds. Airbags engage up to half a second faster (2.5 seconds) with new models that come equipped with fomer-duty airbags. The 2018 Suzuki SV650 will soon be joined by the SV650 long- or short-distance models, becoming the first highly fuel efficient gasoline solo touring motorcycle ever equipped with a Bi-Xenon headlamps unit. - -Beginner Riding Prospects - -Hybrid motor-driven scooter riders likely won't be surprised by this development. Sub-compact ones already contain an airbag in emergency seats. Overnight preventive maintenance backfiring is very common in Supermotos. And carbureted, gas-powered tractors fuel leakages quickly with tire-slip or front-end damage. - -Where experienced riders have welcomed the news is in obtaining another pollution course chief administrative mistake: wearing seat-shoulder belts. - -Further, anyone experiencing Hydroplaning or sudden speakers cock rachets not likely due to imbalance issues with the tire outer wear may feel even better learning about deployment of airbags in passenger-side front airbags. And for those experiencing wind-up sounds in motorcyles with LED lights, a very silent system of U-turns may enhance onboard silence. - -Earlier on inductive mounts were dominated by oversized torsionally compatible fiberglass cast cycle pumps. While suited to simple mothering tasks, these pumps could benefit from harnessing the advantage of their stronger axles at speed. - -Competitive Advantage - -Scootering experts will have to keep renewed interest in hydraulic systems. Adventure tire riders successfully haul aboveground passengers out of potholes or rollovers. These transportation challenges not easily solved by conventional vehicles that rely on hinges and hydraulics.<|endoftext|>Greenhill Group, a 15-year veteran of the city's private security industry, has acquired the Baltimore Police Department's Emergency Monitoring Unit. - -On a conference call Wednesday announcing the acquisition, the police chief was played a news clip on the internet of a woman threatening to call 911 and commit suicide if her daughter is not given back to her in life or death situations. - -The 58-second segment, obtained and published by "The Daily Junkie" just as the recipient of the G4S contract was about to be announced, began with the words: "In a 4 year study of women marketing suicide, 35 percent had displayed self-harm behavior or suicidal ideation, documented by videos, messages or pictures." - -The voice did not make clear just how committed she was to nonviolent action, nor any cause. The next five seconds continue to the animation taste ways to stop the woman: - -"Send me someone that will take the helm and do something." - -"I have no time to talk to you." - -"Hold onto this." - -"I am lost and out of time." - -"Tell me what I need and I will cure it." - -"This is who I am." - -"That's not all I will do." - -Then, the voice returns: - -"I'm out." - -"Put a rope around your neck and throw yourself over someone's back." - -But what is wide open speculation is that the simulation of a woman on her knees with a rope tied to her waist, ready to throw herself over her daughter's back is part of a wider effort to recreate, merely through DC citizen observation, this course of action for "arrest" in demand cases of attempted domestic abuse. The recorded series details a number of hundreds of instances beneath which a woman's rights can be abridged or threatened if she allegedly pretends to be in mental distress after physical aggression has been detected by perpetrator, body cam, or police officer's external monitoring sensors. - -Standard cop work includes the detective and commander meeting with perpetrator to develop peace plan, making a total agreement of intent and instigating correction. That's when, as in the disconnected clip, the interactions commences designed to break down the capacity of the victim – just as the video experiences she is capable of: - -"Yes you will tell him they will never come back, please bear with them, please faith do your job, work your day job at the club, at lunch they will take you out to eat. Don't listen to the judge, do your job for once, no sympathy, nothing about the hurt, nothing about your rights, they can -======================================== SAMPLE 484 ======================================== -The group has a broad platform, no party affiliation, and lacks any serious, serious game plan for solving colonial struggles. - -For those unaware, radical groups were frequently one of the major social forces of African American and independent political criticism from the 1920s to the 1960s. From Pacifism and Agitation (Pacifism et délirement d'esprit) to Packaging Divisions and Boycott, you can find groups supporting the likes of A. Phillip Randolph, Stokely Carmichael, Bayard Rustin, and Percy Sutton. In Rex Porter's AndroidivenMustang, socialists discuss meals, Dunwoody Freedom Parade, looking back at earlier debates, dislikes, acknowledgements from radicals of social organizations, poetry, films, and the creation of new organizations. - -This is a group that has no voice on the main uprising page at the famed Al Sharpton site or on their main Facebook page which is bursting with leaders themselves. At the same time, the group has no addresses, phone numbers, contact cards, or webpage. It is unclear how they go about picking instances that are doing notmeet the standards for actual riots. What group or causes affect masses in the same matter, have an active and organized communication platform from top to bottom. Various events don't fit that canon? - -In conclusion, as any mutual aid group, aid of those in need, and sanctioning of self-organizing grassroots forces—the vital framework that runs around this current movement—is the vital first step for any group. - -Advertisements<|endoftext|>Texas Officials Remove Warning Signs, Speech 'Chat Rooms' From School Rules - -Enlarge this image toggle caption Yi Keun/Houston Chronicle via AP Yi Keun/Houston Chronicle via AP - -Switchboard operators are unfamiliar with Mexico, students from Immokalee City schools are overwhelmed by phone calls — and school board members have received reports of a policy shift. - -Provided the students have proper ID, students at Immokalee High School can call various open line numbers to ask for special services from the school. But at Immokalee City High School, after a small burst of publicity about the number, phone lines were shut down in August. - -The good-information hotline did bring a few new students into the program: Some of them were upset at the school board for not knowing they could talk to school staff, Principal Larry Griffin tells NPR's Claire Hansen on All Things Considered. - -School district officials have removed the phones' red bars, said Houston-area speaker Benjiva Lindley, a board member who emphasizes that the district isn't coercing students into using them. - -"We're basically saying, 'You can make these phone calls. They'll probably get you a CD or book,' " he says. "The original idea was to use some method to create an awareness." - -Guerrero Community College's Keller public "Charter School Outreach" program, which launched the plan, started it with high school students in 2010. - -As a practical matter, adults imparting information haven't presented their faultless advice to students since there are no known cure-alls for Edwin and Bernice printer errors.rec ££ £servicepcepdenilywordpceasmoneyAnd kind-of happening: University of Houston professor Margie Mikhail has taken her free-wheeling students thanks system, turning them into internet pros. "I've been doing this since I went to college," she says. "And the more I do it, the more I want to do it." - -But there is still huge debate over whether more should be done to connect youth into the educational system. - -Mininder Bhalla started the Guadian Foundation for Health and Life to draw attention to these issues. After finishing his UCLA economics Ph.D., Bhalla chafed at administration's attention on constructing a new campus, rather than offering more services to youth. Instead, he decided to turn his insights toward free manuals and pamphlets that help connect children with classrooms. - -Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Guadian Foundation Courtesy of Guadian Foundation - -"Primary-care providers take care of the children," he says. "Instructional programs should take care of the child." - - -NPR is not editorializing on how these programs — or thoughtful trustees' revisions to them — should be handled. And a philosophy professor like Bhalla isn't a bomb-thrower railing against a system for antiracist or multicultural reform. - -What is distressing, however, is how seemingly enlightened institutions can turn blind eyes to larger social problems devastating to vast given populations. - -Taking teachers at their word, Lopez says it is basically a radical restructuring to give more power to cheerier (and wealthier) students. - -A paid traditional "Google." - -The district says all of its schools have PIN numbers for use with any law enforcement agency. Arguably, encrypting a device's password and then disconnecting the phone may even -======================================== SAMPLE 485 ======================================== -Fleet Foxes released their new music video, "Glass Onion," Saturday in advance of the band's set at tonight's show at the Saint Vitus Bar in Central Park. For a first glance, see "Glass Onion" above. - -The song features the band in New York City, where the group had no pre-show set. - -Check out Portugal. The Man's setlist and watch the very first "Glass Onion" song below. - -Guests. pic.twitter.com/6uw3xkctP0 — Fleet Foxes (@FleetFoxes) February 29, 2017 - -Here's Fleet Foxes' previous album, Helplessness Blues: - -Here's Fleet Foxes' album Blurryface:<|endoftext|>Professional Exercises - -Exactly what you need! No time wasted recording or editing. - -Watch these five exercises and get results right away without breaking a sweat. - -They include a video demonstration and step-by-step instructions to guide you through each exercise. - -Steady, controlled movements. Simple, powerful workouts. - -Collect pictures and video from through out a busy morning or workday. Learning to recognize patterns and being able to modify them to get even better results. - -Exercises include blocks to ease pain and increase flexibility, arms-to-wall challenges to isolate issues and self control skills. Form pain into motion while creating fun gains. - -Read a Smarter Mind article here - -Watch a Smarter Mind video on professional exercisers: https://intopath.com/exercises/ - -Language English - -Help us continue some of the work we did here. - -​ - -​<|endoftext|>The GaijinAfter Forever community is enjoying itself raiding a very large pile of new goblin content, judging from the amount of threads tearing along, content updates may be in store for there! - -Adds a bunch of new tech, new mobs, new enemies, new gear, a new economic system, new biomes, new items, new NPC's, weapons, and a very large amount of new quest chains! - -Have a look at the official trailer and read the designer notes and FAQ - they cover a little about the new raid from start to finish! - -Thanks to the announcement on Battle.net, you should now have access to the Bind-on-Pickup version of the Port Monday Art Pack!! It has amazing new bells and whistles, and seriously look for portals,. - -This update towers above the Note police response! Have a look at theOverkill twitter account. Overkill does not stop when they get caught - it's all part of the So you can be someone awesome you can be! - -"SQUADRON SKYWALKER" FACT - A goblin with hopping feral crippled 1880s brutality. Rotting but weathering, he couldn't stand out much more on such a pimple, but Mayday should be mighty proud of how immaculately shaven his head is. For one thing it only matters if Mayday is rounding up his squalls on a raid. For another it only matters if a raid is round panicking on a raid. - -Please consider supporting our Patreon so we can continue bringing you more quality content! - -Comments - -comments<|endoftext|>With trading Friday and selection national an unknown, here's how the ballots may look. If you would like to leave your own thoughts here, feel free. - -Note: The record of the franchise player to whom a team has surrendered a first-round pick since 1957 is (Phillip Crawford) for the 1976 Montreal Expos. If non-first-round picks are utilized, that player's record is so far No. 161 out of 2,570 non-zero picks. I have never felt a qualified sense of relationship to Tommy Door." - -Memorable novels. Memorable mediocre films. Memorable badly-written speeches. Memorable bad concerts. Memorable nuclear shrapnel. Memorable food. Memorable sports. And, and, and, and…! - -In Phoenix, capriciousness sculpted a ring of Midwestern little knowns to find place in one of this century's great pictures, The Birth of a Nation. Only one player caught the eye of attention, and that one was trained attorney Abe Burmeister, whose case impressed court observers for his presence of mind and for a lack of eye rub and theatrical hunching that got too much traction. - -Is it possible the team modeled the Dylan shaking off San Diego referees and The Metal Master for a spirited proof of concept then effected booze sideways psychiatrist it's way through Portland exceptionitting metaphysical examination and alleged haul of guided missiles on the way to Princess Rey a week later? - -The work of some camp directors a century ago "stars" are hard to pick (and the line between camp directorial content and loaded self promotion is nebulous). But The Birth's tiny corners of interpretive -======================================== SAMPLE 486 ======================================== -I've split this post into two parts, here is the pre setup for my LED strips, and the actual images there are below. - -I made the assumption you've got a colour 3.7V reducer powering the strip from a LiPo battery with a mS-switch built into it. I have yet to find one which I'd trust for long term duty, but this one worked well for me. It's a 'high power sensor' device which is constantly scanning the pixels of your RGB flying fearfully by, and commands display off as high battery, low battery, or just anti-aircraft. By testing the strip's values in sequence as you take turns flying the strip its very easy to determine if the LiPo battery is running low, and it should be safe to ignore your friend's drunken questions about your sleep cycle if that is the case. - -There are a few tools you'll need to have around for this project (make sure you take a pair of do. job gloves and use your roller blade switch). The Tools needed to mod the strip are a Super glue gun, a leaf spring tester, aluminium foil, aluminium tape, a vibrating knife, an orbiting tool, and an analogue sensor (either an SpitfireIII or mating of the Finals convinc converted terrorist Monday - one MUST be a kestrel!) - -Obviously I didn't picture this step, but you may need to generate a new bit of extruded aluminium if you didn't kitbash your canopy. I salvaged all the bits from a shed because this hobby didn't encourage laziness. If you love modelling, make sure you keep your aluminium sheets right, because it will be necessary in somewhere (I killed my masts for the record!). - -Classy place to start, huh? - -Tip for next time: put aluminium when you go round of forgetting stuff; otherwise your HTML falls of a cliff and KV drops wacky fast! - -Tools I originally used: Super glue gun, leaf spring tester, magnetic tape, aluminium foil, aluminium tape. - -The slice of cake: placing aluminium: - -Grab two bits of foil diagonally, add a bit of aluminium tape to line them up and trim the ends so you have a square that will fit inside your leaf spring tester (or the suprising parts it turns out) (Alternatively a leaf spring tester would be the go once you have the stool up and working properly) - -Because aluminium foil doesn't stick to tape (the adhesive doesn't like it) the tape will stick to the foil, which means you'll need to quickly peel off foil and place aluminium. - -Bingo! Done best in ninety seconds tops, if not more. Force chevrons on tape have hold enough, and since foil helps you identify their contours, sticking aluminium not only keeps scissors in place, but also it protects the seal once you take the foil off. - -Tools I currently use: leaf spring tester, Conduit, vibrating knife. - -Amazingly fast, good looking display, and you can fit bigger displays with you if you want them with bigger piezoelectric sensors..<|endoftext|>The "Columbus poem." painted by William 7 Wilson. President Cleveland was a famous slave owner. When he traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1782 to address the city's Indians Congress, famous slave trader and southern Ohio slaver George W. Worthington McDevitt (father of William W. Thomas) made the trip along with him in an elaborate conveyance and charged the whole crowd of 3,000 people and the dozens of slaves with making sure Ohioans learned "the true policy of a great–mighty statesmen." Once Cleveland got on stage, he "framed and shaped the ideas of his address for his audiences" by talking about the "right of the Americans to obtain, by the labor of their fellow creatures," not drugs, but "the right to clutch the necessity of life." That sort of thing. - -During the Civil War, Confederate Markham House in Richmond released a Confederate grand opera version of the Columbus poem (the lyrical inspiration for that Shakespeare poem made particular reference to a blood-curdling poem written by "the greatest orator of all ages," not by Columbus at all) at a time where southern states insisted that slavery was uniquely supported by higher godliness. Of course, the orator was George Catlin Benton --!) -- no doubt inspired by Indian manumission ceremonies. Each member. of the assembly sang the syllable, "Dominic. Domin. Columbus." when some one else said it. - ---Bryan A. Garner<|endoftext|>A Politico report on Anthony Scaramucci's interview with the New Yorker on Thursday, in which the new White House Communications Director unleashed a staggering number of frankly inflammatory comments about his coworkers and his colleagues' colleagues, hit its apex with this headline: "Anthony Scaramucci Is Reaching At Least Two Full Lashes Out Of President Trump -======================================== SAMPLE 487 ======================================== -Last week the FBI announced that it would hire another 250 new agents and give them "added authority" to investigate strikes in . . . fast food packaging plants. Foreshadowing these harmful practices domestically is U.S. Steel's roiled U.S. Thunder picket lines in Louisville, Kentucky even as massive annual production at plants like the one at Port Elizabeth, South Africa being driven by the latest giant "accident," helping to run up bogus overtime wages at U.S. Steel. - -This was viewed as a twin victory for Hezbollah and Colombian drug traffickers. Poor Vietnam farmer Chieu Trung Hieu was hoping to plant coffee under the watchful eye of some new undercover handler, but had to well up tears and pat himself on the back after apparently receiving a call from Barack Obama's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Support Office advising him that he was being targeted for investigation. What's more, Chieu May was passing their heads off as National Personae Non Gratae, a policy ignored by Western company haters since the 7-Eleven debacle of 1972. In fact, Chieu May was also called to testify in Chicago. - -Which took us to your favorite sponsor, the Phyllis Schlafly Broadcast Network, whose head, Texan Phyllis Schlafly, found herself explaining to Congressional volunteers why American manufacturing jobs should be protected, noting that foreigners make cheap shirts. The Japanese also make good shoes, not only because they don't buy American and don't have to. But I think he was being ironic about their socks. - -You know, the sort of socks with a pedigree that hold too much torque in the slightest breeze and won't stay on. Jack Dawson, president of the Steelworkers in nearby Bay City, Michigan, was jeered as our story came alive and was virtually booted off the air until Target International, which relied on the WABU to sell American-made products abroad, came to her rescue. - -But before we completed underlining the hats and socks that down too many shoes and upset the sergeants' union, and before we buried the wealthy leftist wants and needs of Dome of the Sun condemned Beirut andcot that environs, while its Viet Cong force units grabbed a week's leave from itching for Bangkok 6,000 miles to travel to step shoulder to a friend's office in "prayerful solidarity for a great cause" will agree that heresy alongside speed-seeing floods sounds cute but just fails to live up to the fantasy world package promised in Abe Lincoln's contract with the inner ear. - -Note: YES, TEA BREWED IN IRAQ IS 'CATTLE LIKE BREWED THERE,' OUR CARGARIAN CRISTIAN MEXICAN LIBIREAKER SAYS, ESTIMATING THE POPULATION AT 151 TO USUAL. - -The now famous ""old regulars" at Neville's Werndobsterhaus have discovered that the better to get their matters straightened out from under the Britain XXXXXXXX Managers in London, it appears as if there are two known species of "Abe" us Federal CMS Courtney sodafaecurses Bernard Unlike NO Saturday Night Stamp will fight fire with fire - - -Also posted at InfoWars and RT, along with lots more from Indiana University's The New Renaissance.<|endoftext|>Response of subglacial till at Lake Whillans, Antarctica - -Neal S. Brown, Scott D. Ollinger, and Ole Solvang Poster Higher exercise ticketing: Has this happy occasion in the world of academic and public engagement economics been witnessed regularly enough? - -Bettina de Zulaika Poster Using international communities, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations to create standards and a institutional framework made for an inspiring event, yet new methodological problems arose. Various platforms failed to account for the different areas that decided what was and was not available for ordering. In practice, these problems illustrated the importance of building tools that jointly collect need and offer compelling consideration by consumers. - -Paul Phillips Poster Predicting growth in Arctic oceans - -David Baker Poster How spatial mismatch impacts results - -Jack Scrimgeour Poster Distributions Versus Extended Networks - -Jason Mills Poster Exposing property rights asymmetries in astronomical survey estimates of topological graphene - -Emma Reed Poster Radiometrics - the elusive ideal? - -Johan Olsen Poster Alexandra Bowen, Nature, Vol. 498, Super Science, 19 December 2001, pp. 526-528 - -Rachel Wong [Nature] [Telegraph] [Slime] [Slime] [Science PDs] [Computer Science] [Cornell] [Journal of Computer Programmer's Languages] [MSC] Parker Mitchell and Campbell Shilling [ACM SIGCSE Journal] [Web] [Software] [PGD] George Laskas [Mannheim] [RCTID] [Link] [ETLModel] Neil Setterfield [Chief Editor, ACM SIGCSE Transactions on Programming Languages] [Link] Ice -======================================== SAMPLE 488 ======================================== -Shadae Gatewood - -Shadae Gatewood , or better known as Shae Wraith , is one of the newest "TV Off-Broadway" cast. She is a leading lady on the "Chi-Raq" development season. She is taking part in This Ash Branches Branches in the state of Georgia. She is also a star of the American productions Sydney Cove in the history of "Hollywood."This Ash Branches Branches Lake City, Georgia<|endoftext|>A lack of gene flow is considered a key bottleneck for admixture, yet Darwinian simulations of speciation show that speciation can proceed much more rapidly under models incorporating both reproductive isolation and gene flow. Indeed, we show that speciation can proceed within a species within 400 generations within an avian species, despite a background of gene flow. The value of this result depends on whether we compensate for a lack of gene flow by placing a strong limit on the number of sexual reproduction as with smaller speciated species. We find that selecting for a peaceful community imposes a far larger cost on species speciation than genetic diversity tradeoffs and inherent sexual incompatibilities, a behavior which contradicts the well-established presumption that gene flow can generate even smaller cost.<|endoftext|>Cine those dreaded Death Star, here's the killer art from the upcoming movie, 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens.' (Photo: Lucasfilm) - -For those of us who have not been paying attention, today was 2 years ago today we were flooded with the news that J.J. Abrams had been hired as the director of Star Wars follow-up, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Since then, we've watched the movie on Star Wars Day, watched every teaser trailer and the rest of the trailers to bring us up to speed. - -And today Canadian stand-up comics Andy Kindler and Mike Chapman released the Q&A segment of their new podcast, #Beany & Andy Kindler Live, for the latest fans to catch up with the show. - -Kent has been keeping everyone updated with clips from Los Frisos that Lucasfilm has made public over the past few days, but hopefully they will have a full CGI reveal in the coming weeks. - -For now, however, Kindler got fans hyped again over the news that came out this morning; Lucas requested that a new Green Lantern game be made for the Xbox One and PS4 in 2015. - -In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director J.J. Abrams said that the game would feature a new Lantern and his origin story. - -"He's not The Necro Primo," Abrams said. "He's not scarred and hardened in some sort of way. He's got time on this world. So this is this strange corner of the universe about to show people what they might get into if they learn the truth about these key rings." - -Wow! That sounds like a very different feel than Green Lantern when a man with the ability to wield the powers of the living dimension fights crime. And if that not enough, you might just hear something the cast and crew of LFR have been begging for: Deadman. - -"Lucas asked me, you know, what would be the new kind of nemesis for Hal Jordan? What's his private darkest secret?" Blake says. "It's really sweet. When we finally found something that he was really, really open about — because apparently he'd been hiding this story from everyone forever — then we kind of had to keep it locked down. We had to attack work on the next job very, very, very carefully." - -We have to admit, the thought of Mr. Miracle or Green Lantern leaving the force feels a lot tease and graphic to roll with. We envision it pretty violent, but... - -With that said, a new Green Lantern game is sound! - -Emily Asher-Perrin is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the editor of The Mary Sue on Rookie too. Follow her on Twitter. - -Related: - -Get your Fashion newsletter, Fashionista, delivered straight to your inbox! - -Check out the latest Stylecraze stories on 101 Stylez:<|endoftext|>AFRICA: Ali Elkanah and Fred Jalvington, Killers Of Deep Folk Elbow Shelves, (London, British Library Press, 2008). - -From The Halls Of Luxor: - -THE KEY TO GREAT HUMAN BEINGS - -by Antony Beevor - -Number two books in my recommended reading list - -[From an image on page 200.] - -[Click to enlarge image] - -[Book jacket changes color. Copy only received.] - -An attempt to put together a modern opinion on amazing, under-appreciated, under-publishing overseas icon Son Luxor's four black conceptions in public manifests, CU NORBORN EDITION ( 2006 Woodbury Press) - -A subtitled translation of C.Anthony Beevor's FRUITLESS-BLIND -======================================== SAMPLE 489 ======================================== -Posted on August 24, 2014 - -Edge Of Tomorrow = But FIRST: Bill Maher Punches Down Chris Matthews - -Mike Pesca in the Washington Post caught one of Bill Maher's many big political punches this week. It's time to dust off our copy of "The Cool Wheel of the United States" and see if Maher could be—spoiler alert—slammed. - - -FROM PEN: But first: Battle lines drawn. Conservative activists hate liberal Bill Maher most of all of all. Labour'soteets, who value diversity, love him like he's George Clooney and his wife donated the lion's share of British aid to a poor black boy. "Politics is Talk Back," Maher once said. "And I don't think we need to talk about anything." - - -More…Deceptive? What's right in both? Maher has made the case that liberals don't far enough to the left in terms of immigration, after the government abruptly altered one of the least non-controversial parts of the current coalition of left-leaning governments. It began before mid-2011, when a fractious coalition party called an election for June—the last month before Parliament's 2013 timetable. The British right, ahead of the upcoming holiday-ruined election cycle, however, knew that prime minister David Cameron's Conservatives would soon lose power. In recent years—especially after the Conservative Party took office in 2005, thanks to its leader Gordon Brown, who ran as a "New Labor"-ish progressive who wanted a new social-democratic agenda—the British small-business community had strained to put up a wall between profit and market. Movers and shakers inside such institutions would not "oversee" areas of business unless, heaven forbid, meddling or quarreling gets in the way. The likes of your Yankee Uncle Jim, or your Yankee Cousin Pep would dolle the couple hundred pounds per month you paid to the the MBA —the British equivalent of the American Council on Education, a nipster outfit. - -But leftists also have to clear away the stench of fiscal irresponsibility, which attaches the liberal anti-oligarchy power-drunk Left with the Catholic far left. - -Ilminster Thatcher was a key influence on the conservative Right. A hero of the Iron Orderer, she hired vigilantes known as the Nasty Party into her government as punishment for anything they believed to be a violation of their lower-brow culture. The hawkish europhile soft-left leader of the opposition Socialist Workers party, Jeremy Corbyn, is more laconic. In a short video posted on YouTube in mid-December, his characteristically fatuous style garners almost no traction at all. Americans, for their part, are breaking for the yepp of a centrist establishment favorite and failing. - -Moews relies on data ad infinitum. Like most sensibilities, conservative arguments are floated under prompting scenarios that do not extenuate their premises. Try doing any of that here as it would constitute un-hijacked Truth Stuff. None of this is stuff paid for. The little Lord (whom I guess we call our 6 foot tall uncle Jim? or what the prefix does better) does add irony to all details. Maher truth stuff can simply be pegged on memes: - -"How Town Halls Impose Norms: Detroit…" pic.twitter.com/t0flTL3Bbb — Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 29, 2015 - -"Is CBS Correctly Listening To Conservatives Or Skeptical Of Its Own Media?" pic.twitter.com/j5yXplEZHw — Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 30, 2015 - -"How Fox Israel Whiskey Works (And Your Tax Dollars Fund It)" pic.twitter.com/PYcDglVNje — Bill Maher (@billmaher) December 1, 2015 - -"Is Ebola Different In America Because It's Not Coined A Word In The Abroad?" pic.twitter.com/pc5YSpcHTH — Bill Maher (@billmaher) July 12, 2016 - -There's always been political commentary, from libertarians to havethangnation. All this stuff is never sold for inflated nosebleed dollars. Light criticism of moews is purely prosaic and does not carry a fine for the offending host. - -Less CPC raised by bricks this all pretendwhen Corporation USA ever sounds like its brand new tentacles of liberrily towel jungle' 🥃� pic.twitter.com/DFPu7zOtaw — Fostering Reason (@the_reasonable_derp) November 29, 2015 - -But for Foster Natmakerazepping, in a very inmanly nIMP Productions metaphor, it's different under normal circumstances: - -What the hell does this bs about bill marries morons with morons mean? https://t.co/3kIQ3yZpzM — -======================================== SAMPLE 490 ======================================== -Hojorn found good interest in our film "Poujade" ( Trébchelu CPV CRM die Para Síntenant HR C Marcelo Cola's Management and (Brazil) Apertura CRM da Beija-Paz Pirach Partido-(Argentina) Prisión para Desarrollo Económico). One of them both by forming a bond with the cast and the director as well as with us as our fans and others. Hojorn also found the project important, adequate and always other options. I hope that he will see our film soon, and I hope that he has the kind of passion in films with the show en mime and with honesty that I always went after in my own work (thanks going to Halo 1 and 2). A title like this (rather small but good title) has a visitor in the Canticado Transporte famous body the Qabalah and Hojorn gets distracted, but Hijack if you will. About Hojoron Ludig Blog editor, independent film guru (rarely) -I am the columnist Mariana Serrano, who e-mail feedback and publish all my criticisms and reviews entered into a plaintext database ("Bahamut") available from my website (webserver); and participant(s) in a twitter-audience and my blogs.<|endoftext|>309a: The Zhanna 40mm air defense system can be configured both as a continuous track and continuous track belt. In the continuous track belt the tubes are arranged according to track pattern specified by the unit and along the track the tubes are positioned on a custom track layering system. - -The center tube is pressed to the track with a controlled butt pressure's with no finger motion or split fingers managed. - -Eliminates slippage problems and maintains the flexibility of the firearm. - -The system also need only recycle.<|endoftext|>When it comes to TCP I believe that you need a bit of high-end hardware to be able to do the high-speed stuff, but I am interested in how you can implement effectively a simple UDP packet trie in a cheap low-end equipment. - -In order to solve this problem, I found an article given in 2010 by Facebook. The article ultimately uses a novel O(256) solution, but I tried to implement something similar. The problem here is pretty clear: - -In our IFED (I..F) system based on four official ECX(NGX_ECX_Q32_to_H32, NGX_ECX_Q32_to_H32_S) feeds with queued data posts and field, we have four partial stack slots under the post ID, we also have a list of both the current (nonqueued operations) and previous known (queued operations) addresses. This means that when an interesting last block (e.g., the new transaction) arrives, we need to look wich of the twitch primer 00.. reps 34 before evaluating mem me on it. - -What we need to do is to append a seed value in the existing stack slots for these entries, and seed-copy that value into each slot with some value. This way and updaters can take a hopping look for a latest available value. - -Just writing this down sounded pretty easy and I was able to implement the following simple parts of a dupletree for UDP packets: - -BC_S1 = 7784 / DUP_CHECK_H(-WF) processor 1 BC_S2 = 6017 make_mem_quick Truncated (BC_S1, BC_S2),† Removing environmental variables: _memk = BC_S1 Mem bank-memory key Kernel_memk = BC_S2 memk2 Note: Kryo mem relocated to root KPCR table: Mem(nb) = cache, Mem(md) = metadata, Mem(cz) = {post_id} (KSCR low), bytes --> cm(nb); Cache(nb) = cache, Cache(md) = metadata, Cache(cz) = {post_id} * (k&md); cm(nb) = bin; - -And when I am done I will add function to create a new image from the consecutive bins of a pair and see if those upcoming elements add up. - -Possibly this is just wrong. I would appreciate people with resources to give me suggestions/corrections :) - -[Edit if this post gets adopted: CPU12 recognizes that BC_S1 will always be zero, and will contact BC_S2, so the rest of the PoC is basically incorrect.] - -[Update: this PoC is imperfect. Fields are incorrectly shared. Congrats to CPU12 for making it work.}<|endoftext|>Right Mr. Ledford, our distinguished guest, Dr. George Lipset, is -======================================== SAMPLE 491 ======================================== -By Dr. Mercola - -Rebecca Fallon-Snyder, MA, is a radiology resident at North Shore University Health System in Manhasset, New York. She is licensed to practice as a family physician and a medical ultrasound technician. Amanda Grace Pierre is a radiologist at a private, publicly-held facility in Pittsburgh, Penn. She trained as a nurse radiologist and did her residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. - -Here you'll find a couple exclusive environmental fire hydrants... - -Life in Any anoxic Shadow Zone - -The exposure to rYSO 4 and PAR(0) in a school bus with a steel box as the primary electric conductor are the most striking examples, but car Deceased Aviation out of Delaware or I arinary C-section injury critically impaired gross (booing, shouting, etc.) [NK 2007] are documented too. In the US domestic underground coffee shops, toxicants including lead, cadmium, arsenic, and radioactive isotopes now present chokes the air and "profoundly affects the development and maintenance of the nervous, immune and endocrine systems, as well as the respiratory-visual pathways and the central nervous system." [Eur. J. Cancer Clin. Nutr. Metab. [Oncological Bat.] 2012 Sep;10(3):e362-8.] And here in the US, SUV's using fuel with strange additives or patches of diesel fuel with unidentified bottoms up, are impacting our public health once and for all via clean air and true water. [CBS San Francisco, 8/20/09.] - -Indeed, despite the hundreds of illnesses reported as a result of widespread exposure to exhaust fumes, civil government regulators accept no responsibility and ultimately do little to prevent it. - -Power Outages during Rainstorms Affect National Security, Health - -The facts, however, are most valid for states like Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey and more. As Rainstorm Today probably knows—which it recommends up for a daily must-read. - -The Facts - -If power outages in states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Connecticut observed since 1980 rise to those in Texas, New Mexico, and even Connecticut, that could mean trouble. In 2007, 3,288 people lost their lives in the United States due to power outages caused by thunderstorms triggered by incessant rain. In the year 2000, 17; in 1990, 51; in 1950, 67; and in 1935, 110. - -Bob Ferguson, eminent anti-road cabal at the EPA Independent Office of Insolvency wasn't joking when he put it this way, "Our [sic] research indicates that the decreases in economics: wage. energy supplies resulting from this decline in work are disproportionately accru[ing] to low-income, previously underutilized segments of the population who, owing to some combination of less-than-adequate income, limited skills, lack of skills, lack of stigma, lack of time, room and upon some circumstances can no longer effectively take advantage of employment opportunities in the electrical power delivery facilities that will be most closely impacted by these anecdotal or demographic effects." - -We now live after some of the bad old days in our friend the United States. Algae, which uses oxygen from the atmosphere to grow, pernicious 2, 4-dioxane, toxic benzene gas, and coarse plastics and metal particles are all sadly growing fashionable, and when combined with poverty, listed above are toxicity enduring ailments. What are you doing on our earth now that people can make a living making "agri-product" of their bodies? What happened/is happening to that industry that has grown around the loss of our forests and our rivers and rivers to junk in demand for anything that hasn't budged… when the consumer sector cannot afford to pay for pollution-control technologies like rainwater capture and disposal? Trying to do thing profitably to meet our energy needs while performance-enhancing pesticides and fertilizers, herbicide and fungicide runoff, erosion (concerned? Not that worries me), which allows weeds to pass-through soil, as well as airport fuel spilling onto the soil, complete with a nutrient-rich DNA flush (as explained here by David Coverdale) are suspect at best, if not reinforcing some characterization of tangible ills vaccine horse flu vaccine boosters, storms, campus bullying, unnatural winter storms, and lightning storms. - -Just in case you hadn't noticed—no matter the numbers proudly displayed here—Gettysburg and Confederate memorials are conveniently, conveniently removed overnight. So, on our beautiful land each day is quiet. You'll find nothing of consequence. - -Rural Traditional Practices Displacement of Importing Ecological Excesses and Climate Disaster - -It's still unclear exactly in the west how (if at all) this ongoing human element is harming the ecosystem, which appears too fragrant for any kind of destruction to occur for some time to come. But I am asking my doctor -======================================== SAMPLE 492 ======================================== -NerdWallet adheres to strict standards of editorial integrity to help you make decisions with confidence. Some of the products we feature are from partners. Here's how we make money - -We adhere to strict standards of editorial integrity . Some of the products we feature are from our partners. Here's how we make money - -If you're staying put when shifting your home, you'll be paying higher property taxes that year. - -You may get the admonition you've got to "prove's your value" by moving. - -But few renters negate their property — they're just hacking at ending a miserable tenancy. - -But moving without being something worth, say, $4 million isn't a crime of pure intent. You'll be carrying an expiration date on your residency, and you'll be on the hook for any new property taxes that pop up from time to time. - -Just how much will your property tax bill go up? The Department of Assessments at Florida Tax Credit Authority offers several estimations for how big the hike up from $2,155 to $4,707 in one year would be, according to the recapped January 2017 details here. - -Read on to found out what your tax bill would take. - -County property appraisals used to frown on property moves - -On Jan. 2, 2011, U.S. Global Investors LLC, then headed by hedge fund manager Robert Arum, filed to reorganize its competition top banks under One North America or Organized USG or U.S.G. Activity Limited. - -That new entity was centered at the Harbor branch of of the Bank of America, which we confirmed in summer 2017 will become Americas First Bank. - -11371 Belcrest Road, Tampa, Fla. - -• Length of stay since last domestic move: three weeks - -The Charleston County Tax Assessor's office estimates the property's current value at $3.468 million. - -Terry Wagner (pictured above), the antique jewelry shop owner and Ozark native, called it her decision to sell. - -Wagner told NerdWallet Florida last June she stored some of her jewelry in a Michigan mountainous area that hasn't shipped to Tampa. - -Florida property tax bills are zig-zagging behemoths that can skew heavily in either direction. - -Florida is sometimes called "the Tulip State" because the highest stamp price per gallon went for $0.79 during shipping season in 2009 . But that was also the year Sandy Barrow, the homeowners' representative in Alvin, Ark., got an outpouring of complaints from residents marooned without power and water in her community's tiny house. - -Are your nonguaranteed benefits as a renter worth the taxes on your home? See if you"re setting yourself up to pay the bill when a body gets in your ... home. - -Following Florida's notorious theme for taxing "everything," thanks to deductions toward future income, Wagner sold the house in the spring in Yosemite National Park. - -Even at her $4 million asking price, though, she'll still be posting sweet months of heady data on $29.29.85 a day (close to $9.44 million a year) for both her land and making herself home in New York City (where she recently won Best Chef for her Shawn Griffin biography Hunt). - -Reach Elizabeth Earl at elizabeth.earl@techmedianetwork.com or 812-454-5433. Follow @elizabetharell. - -Five larger cities that have the highest above-average property taxes - -1. Tampa - -Estimated tax rate: $4,707 - -How much? $933.74 - -Average taxable impact: $ 3,108.12 - -2. Key West (Minden) - -Estimated tax rate: $8,741 - -How much? $1,339.61 - -Average taxable impact: $ 4,739 - -3. Homestead: Marathon County - -Estimated tax rate: $4,071 - -How much? $3,614.19 - -Average taxable impact: $ 4,258.04 - -4. Tampa - -Estimated tax rate: $4,071 - -How much? $3,614.19 - -Average taxable impact: $ 4,258.04 - -5. Key West (Minden) - -Estimated tax rate: $6,633 - -How much? $1,309.27 - -Average taxable impact: $ 5,997.92 - -NerdWallet explains: Taxpayers hit by taxes? Check your tax bill. Nearing taxes? Pick a lawyer. - -Louisiana property taxes take out your head - -With average home values plummeting across the U.S. in recent years, tax bills are on the rise for single people. Jacksonville home taxes already noticed the growth -======================================== SAMPLE 493 ======================================== -As the antique street deadline comes and goes, you might want to ruin your evening with some vintage madness. And why not? There's nothing better than working a budget date night once upon a time... and I think we all know that kicks ass. - -You can join the spectacle and conjure up all sorts of wild, scary liquid power, and for god's sake, put some old china to use while you're at it. You could put anything onto an important piece of furniture—from the hit movie The Shining to popular food blogs, and even an upcoming classic game like The Sims 2. That's right. You can save not just your pantries but your entire gaming appetite via decluttering. See? - -Now, if you want to not only look fancy and unique, but also make some cheap money while you're at it, you can declutter your homes, too! - -Starting Small - -I love creating practical flooring items from leftover materials from around the house. But that doesn't mean you can't make your own(ish) furniture pieces from crazy collectibles. To start with, check out these 25 mesmerizing interior designs on Pinterest: - -Check out some of these ideas! - -Now, talk to your cute dudes about twitter, and opening up your Warhol/Jeans/etc. boxes for your recently unopened hardware/etc. - -But don't go crazy! Use this cutie as inspiration when you're planning your next cabinet. It's mostly just foam, wood paneling, and paint! - -I've actually already started making my own furniture. If your tabletop space is up to the task of saving your life, you can literally paint paint paint, button pulp, and archival paper, and let your tribe find pine! - -And of course, you'll need a pop-out wall! - -You need your walls to be curved, super straight, and absolutely rockin'. This pop-out ceiling is a bit easier to build at home than you might think. It also allows your wall-hung items to pop - the advantage of which is absolutely minimal. - -So robust! I even love the quirky rock shape of this fireplace. I could stare at it all day! - -Freaky, we'll go to work!<|endoftext|>It is just one model per year out of the 12 surviving cars on the pegs, but the Renault Mégane is a wheel certainly to stump onlookers with its aggressive stance and distinctive ?Buttons and Dunes? styling. - -Jean-Philippe Mégane was born in Toulouse on 25 October 1945 and trained as a sculpture. When his teacher Louis Peyron visited his squadron as a Technical Designer he suggested he go into car design. (Lou was the envy of many, not least William Burroughs, Georges Seurat, Andre Derain and Robert Motherwell). - -His first sketches earned him starter's compensation which brought him to Montreal to find work; and after he was hired by the defunct French carmaker Ravalli in 1959, he quickly found a car to get him started. "I always like an overnight fix that comes under the cover of darkness," he once said. "It's necessary to wake up with a big smile." - -A Crisis In Transit - -So, put aside your sleepy proverbial snooze because this shining show fake is - -the EXACT creation that Jean-Philippe Sunderland made during London 1966 Cool Light Festival expected to be relegated to the land fleet but instead was modelled, styled and made public by the BRP partner and factory team Jack Whittle and Otter Simmonds. Unlike the highly limited number produced production chassis, the Swansea model is, as far as we are all aware, the only Grand Prix car Skipponi Laedia ever designed so ultimately owned by one of the most exclusive SUV owners on earth, Marc Benioff. - -Opened by Benioff on 13 March 2012, in the same spot as he bought his Lydia in 1984, the Front Line is just one of a number of discontinuing models Pakistan International Air Tours (PIAT), who will now sponsor a team dedicated to exploring new uses for the Berlin Wall Panzerfaust. - -While the SAP has partnered with PIA and TATA since 1984, the retirement of Norton aircraft manufacturer and Maryland car dealership has left the two not wanting to fail so hard and become electronic moving billboards of middle-aged male outrage. Instead of just ditching the PJ at the next available moment, the Miami-established 'Hotel' team has arranged a PAX media event where Saudis out of bed will "[bring] back again the iconic Marine De Havilland aircraft jets of various registry operators of the biggest investors and collectors of the world". - -We don't know anything about this upcoming operation except that the one player not in this boat so far is Huawei.com. Heck, you could probably get them to shamelessly overcompensate for the Huawei logo 4th -======================================== SAMPLE 494 ======================================== -Share. "The title is believed to refer to him finding danger." "The title is believed to refer to him finding danger." - -Following rumors that The Devil is a Part-Timer from the Devil May Cry series would be similarly featured in a "God of War" video game, Sony Computer Entertainment has said that is accurate. - -Mangou has also confirmed to forum users that the player will be able to interact with demons freely in the game. In an online interview at Sony's booth during this week's E3, Mangou clarified, "There isn't a stand-alone demon, there are several kinds of demons." - -He also stated that there are five demon types in the game. "Demon of Lord" is the first demon encountered, it happens to be the one that steals the Devil's Red Chain. And so, that leads us to the cliffhanger where the demon succeeds in using it to create a new demon. And then we get out to find out what this new demon's goal is. If you have watched the trailer, you'll note that for some reason the demon looks very familiar." - -Exit Theatre Mode - -Other details about the game include, "God of War" looks amazing and offers a chance to explore locations that appear in the previous games. Prior to this E3, Sony Computer Entertainment executive SIE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told IGN, "a lot of it comes back to your actions and weapons. Our in-engine footage so far shows that it really puts people at the heart of the battles." - -God of War is set for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC this October in North America and October in Europe. The game will be sold as a disc-based digital download. No announced platforms have been specified for or after the release. - -Samuel Roberts is a freelance writer from Seattle who is proud to be of Scottish, English, and Irish descent. Below you'll find his Twitter.<|endoftext|>First Lady Hillary Clinton urged Congress on Thursday to approve a bill that would dissolve the TPP, a dramatically contradictory activity by speaking out against it while supporting its passage in the House. - -During an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes", Clinton was asked whether she would support the bill introduced by Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, which would require congressional approval for the eventual inclusion of the TPP in any final trade deal as part of the process of modernizing trade agreements. - -"I'm for the president," Clinton said. "I voted for him and will remain after I'm in the White House." - -"But Indonesia, our culture is different than theirs," CBS correspondent Scott Pelley replied. "And the way you're negotiating Asia is that the TPP is everything to us. And it is making us less competitive?" - -Answering that, Clinton argued that U.S. culture and pre-modern trading priorities were so different "us" that they shouldn't be compartmentalized. - -"I want to move forward thinking we can get much more integrated into the rest of the world and less dependent on having to pursue those alliances when it's convenient to us," she added. - -But as Politico has previously noted, support for the Smith bill is not necessarily unanimous. Many Democratic Party bosses, including some of its most prominent Democrats, are against it, including considerable pockets of the grassroots, including the 2012 vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, who voted in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a former member of the Congressional Black Caucus, also opposes the President's trade proposals, but is not against the Smith bill. - -The Smith bill before Congress would declare the U.S. to be a party to the deal, saving it from the process that would require 60 votes of the relevant U.S. Senate, but would have other potential pitfalls, including the possibility of influencing the outcome of late D.C. negotiations between the United States and Japan. As the New York Times notes: - -Should those happen, efforts to block the trade deal could bolster opponents, since opposition launched one week after President Obama pledged to make changes about U.S. trade policy, such as a stronger commitment to workers' rights and the rights of women and minorities. - -On the other side, a core Clinton constituency in both New York state and Washington will advocate strongly for passage. Credentials show that a coalition of 12 Democratic State Assembly members in upstate New York and D.C. has put together an 11-member Working Families Party, but if the bill passes in its current form, Clinton and the D.C. clique will presumably stand to gain the most from the increasing agitation that would result if they continued opposing the deal until it was defeated in Congress. - -"Though the TPP is finalized, take action to stop it," wrote the D.C. and New York Working Families party in an email to members urging them to call their congressional representatives. "We can and we will fix this broken -======================================== SAMPLE 495 ======================================== -Make Day and Night Switchable, Ever! - -You can turn water into drinking water at the same time. Water switched [to drinking water] [6.0 seconds]... When you turn it back [to water], you did not lose your drink. In a camp, all water from the tap disappears after a few minutes, being replaced by a cold nectar style drink. That's because anomally-based drinking water can be made at harvest time. You don't find reptiles drinking water left to cool overnight. - -If talk turns to using a jerry can, that might be another option also. Depending on the number of people you have, you might need to keep their own jerry can. Note: Jack-in-the-box microfiltration systems pump out dangerous bacteria and rads. - -Better Than bottled water! - -It's heavier. You need a rubber band to fix it on the plane. This jerry can we print and attach to a sturdy tree. One can rot, another stays floating. And we're looking for the best off the shelf thermal protector that tightens up the hold of the jerry can. - -Need you concrete skills? We've got you covered with poster printable templates - plus lots of tertiary links, all complete with patron names. Also, if you need more information, just ask in the comments area below. Thanks! - -Today's Mechanical Engineering Magazines (PDF download - 24 mb) - -Wired –DAY: How Cassowary members use information technology - -PLoS –Click: Animal Photographer Matjaz Bakic's thoughts on the topic - -Deggesit –CON.WHERE: the agroforestry concept of creating designs from nature. - -Multimedia on Forest Salon: An Itinerary from Resede, CA to new heights in Palo Alto, CA. - -Check out some of the "days" that a future story might be posted on here too. Let us know if there's a story you're interested in and please add it to the calendar below. Anthalgia and technical nuggets are also welcome. - -Photographs: All of the original (high quality).<|endoftext|>There's some unknown about the nature of a man now.Beyond his tricks.carrupt:Uncle Bob: It wasn't right to trust that man...in the killing teamSanya sank straight into the skull:This action helped her win. Congratulations! The transformation occurred. But...how can this be due to the murder itself? Murdering Death and Death with no practicalities, how could she come to this conclusion? Interesting. Why don't you grow some more nearby... and chew on it while it's there?23. Don't bathe so early in the morningBecome strong.Eat real food.When potential opponents are in high spirits, they'll be more powerful than The Taishu.22. In order to win, build one Battle Seal for each Seal team member.When the time comes, the killers will divide into two teams, and kill each other in whichever order they wish to. Buffer is Fundamental!23. If oppression tier scar:ED:Ihen:Hide got invited from the sight of some scars and raised by small Caucasian boys. But she likes to manually make posters for boysshe admired, and she got a vibe from this guy -So after many face-year's activity...she secretly got pregnant and...since then...they started teasing each other about it.Then the day of the murder...she got pregnant again...The male got very angry and started disagreeing with her...He...decided that this was like the older generation's era...and he will grant a babyfor Tragic Ghost in future...and so...here it is...22. Every fores came here with a killing team.Carrot A: Vitamin CTrechemux: ExistNoted: the power of fores fluctuations:Lamia had that power.So she ordered pasta to eat every day to build up her powers. 21.-Second Stage of the Search (I)Gallery<|endoftext|>Answers to frequently asked questions. Free Best app ever, easily you can do anything and gain with minimal effort. I tried it, and found itreally amazing stuff. instantly feel motivated and fit going out and doing stuff to achieve your goals.Recently made 20,000 morevitamins from best vitamin shopping experience ever, (except 3 months ago)NEW 50 day Money Saving Challenge start today! https://goo.gl/Cn5Bkv - -Answers to frequently asked questions. Free Best app ever, easily you can do anything and gain with minimal effort. I tried it, and found itreally amazing stuff. instantly feel motivated and fit going out and doing stuff to achieve your goals. - -Recent - -III' - Soy Powered - -Mariancebe - New accounts, the VIP service only been roto with you for 1 month and your near the top of the service market - -======================================== SAMPLE 496 ======================================== -Every female player had one. Try and find one that doesn't say, "I'm just a wanted sex toy," or is seen pushing her or grinding herself on your face. One of my mom friends once called me a "sex toy." Interestingly she didn't call me has an amputee or the of an Autistic, just a sex toy. Did she just really think I was a sex toy? The lack of understanding or even slight offensiveness towards women is expected for females. - -Many think that Quinton Ryan is a male model for a major brand. What has you got against him? What has you got in him? - -So many IG stereotype's. What happened to feminism? And how do we tackle "idealism" in all its evolutionary forms? - -Some people would say that equals bring out the worst in people. Do you think that capability distinguishes Cameron him. - -Firstly if Cameron gained IDGAF, many women would have recognized by what looks like the fundamental difference between us. It is sad that male and female essences do not advance. No matter what, it is up to us do get rid of human evolution. What makes men vs women mattered. Male vs female is an evolutionary outcome of pseudo theory or theories of sexual orientation. It is well established to no contra something else. White Americans 20% have high vocabulary vocabulary. 50-90% have poor vocabulary capacity. Why? Researchers call it Intellectual Inhibition Theory. Researchers from 5 different generations found that age and gender difference in IQ tests correlated to IQ scores. - -In the 1950's, children from Joe's and Jane's races gave fewer high IQs than the White American's. Singles brains tend to have intelligent traits. Had inbreeding occurred, brain traits then also came into it. So doesn't it get circular to hand an independent variable to explain otherwise behavioral traits. Is that really evolutionary? Why is it so hard to rid ourselves of the operating system over our ever-changing mind? - -How do you explain endemic sexism between adults? Not just in games, but in the real world like work and relationships. Like and hate feminism because you dismissed it for so long or did you? Whereas adults are far less sexist in their temperaments directly. So how do we get rid of sexism, male and female in the home and work? I feel Susan B. Anthony, Gertrude Stein, et al. do.That put more weight on the discussion then we will ever see from women of our generation who just bloviate that women shouldn't have had ERA. Sexism in the home was not well payed attention to until a feminist like Ms. B. wrote her memoir. I also don't subscribe to Dr. John Evelyn this lack of intellectual capacity in women is based on pornography.I'm 38. I used to be 31 and 36-38 and my female friend was 30 and I just can convince myself or believe that I was the best try out for being a woman in this world? Do not think so. I have as good of body in this world and was the equal of a man 3/5 of my life. Majored in math and architectural design at university.5K spirals point as height when contoured fully? Super simple concept. When female audition for piece it is based on areas of build. Isn't its relevant that one of the most visible celebrities are 1/2 female advertising celebrities. If women are good at math, theoretically we should be good salespeople. I will admit I now use engineering math in my product. Sometimes carpet pretendwhen I unit� test, to test for any defects. This isn't something you have to pretend it is a piece and bench evaluate its tests versus actually test it in real dollar score in real world. Suddenly this sexist perceptions of math in male body when found out or taught. The more at risk we are more likely to develop any handicaps. So why you add feature after feature defeat of social duty or practicing theory of gender that promotes STEM oriented careers.If more things are engineered to be men then females can live a life of empowerment. Women who build themselves up with technology are generally wealthier as a percentage of gender. Don't tell me this doesn't discriminate against females. Another thing is that men's sensitivity to public sexuality has increased 3X more in the last 30 years. Since so many nursing moms and professionals work in the hospital it is easy to see what would bring out the worst in a woman based on the non verbal display she would be all about to others.Just someone who loves her like Cameron and divorced from his not if its said. My first thought after reading his comments was....I am not offended. I just wanted to bring this to awareness of female stereotypes and some male stereotypes not from misinterpretation but real life fact. How men and women grow up in patriarchy. The great thing is, the more females that stand up, the better.<|endoftext|>Boba Fett? Boba Fett? Where? This article would benefit from -======================================== SAMPLE 497 ======================================== -Nubian Ambiantes during an election campaign in 2007. -- Andrew Burton/Getty Images - -A US military intervention in Libya could yield unexpected benefits for US oil consumption, according to Shell Oil, which said Monday that increased oil production could offset the anticipated decline in US demand. - -Under a scenario in which Russia increased production by 3 million barrels per day to 6 million barrels per day over the next two years, Shell would see fracking, or horizontal drilling, double oil production, according to a whiteboard presentation discussed at a recent Shell meeting with analysts. - -By comparison, Shell would only see a modest boost in US gas production -- from 6 billion cubic feet to 5.9 billion cubic feet per day -- or an increase in the US diesel fuel consumption by 1%. - -Given that increased exports would result from reduced imports of gasoline and diesel and greater Gulf Coast refinery margins, which prompted Icahn to take a similar approach to Banco Santander, increasing oil exports may be the path of least resistance for Shell. - -"One must assume that the higher increase in oil supply from 2015 returns well above the temporary high-potential bubble assumed," the presentation said, aligning future oil demand with trends in petro-economic growth. - -A Libyan foreign ministry worker on a car with Libyan coastguard members after a holiday in Alexandria. -- Reuters - -However, US oil dependence remains a sensitive issue for Shell , which last year largely resolved challenges raised by its Gulf Coast refinery expansion, which is currently focusing on smoothing out the use of natural gas as a raw fuel as it sees a medium-term expanded use of synthetics. - -US refineries produce close to 80 percent of America's total crude supply and the demand margin they provide is shorter than on average Europe and Asia. Shell reiterated on Monday that the refinery began shutting down a new 7,000-barrel unit late in the fourth quarter after several failures, and it is working with the Massachusetts Gasoline and Electric Co. as the utility's project administrator on an unplanned repair at a 500,000-barrel terminal, some 185 miles east of Boston. - -Suncor, Canada's largest oil sands producer, and ConocoPhillips dropped three points with one of them trading at the top of the consensus analyst price target, while Irving Oil and Pioneer Natural Resources both edged down short of target after increasing. - -For analysts with Macquarie, however, the market's significant focus on the Ukranian coal counts against oil's secular decline and the potential for declining U.S. gas utilizations soon makes the gain in gas production an even more compelling argument for the utility's ailing coal business. - -While seeming plausible on a variety of economic, geopolitical and drivers issues, a reticence to spend large sums of money that go completely uninvested in oil business may also motivate the further expansion of gas basins that extends to shale reserves, said company co-head of commodity research Dean Lewis. - -In the 2Q15 call, for example, Lewis was particularly eager to caution against focusing more on declining U.S. gas production before re-considering the utility's fossil fuel business' segmentation plan. Generally speaking, the U.S. simply doesn't produce nearly enough gas to sustain a fixed and growing gas consumption in the coming decades, so drilling that alternative just causes the stock to tumble. - -With ever greater uncertainties now surrounding the future of shale gas, Ontoin shareholders may also focus less heavily on gas demand gains of Shell's relatively modest increase in oil production. - -Of course, the higher expense it could invite +1.55 mb of gas production = 0.7 mb @ $30/bbl @ Q4 — Dean Lewis (@lynan_dlee) April 14, 2015 - -"Shell is done with gas and is going towards the oil business. It's weird buy=hobbt," said Don Tetley, co-head of energy equity research at Icahn. The utility's decision to switch focus in emerging areas on a gas-specific basis could run into problems in geologically unfavorable regions, to the point that shale gas banks could put models to the test by finding decline-permitting constraints. - -In fact, Shell was called out on the currency implications of increasingly unreasonable expectations for unconventional gas helped propel the stock down 20.43% in the last two months. - -Given Shell's previous high prices, however, analysts still consider the 20% decline of stock price historically signaling investors might be familiar with and reliant on the company's large cash balances, which have benefited Shell massively over the past five years relative to the never-so-brief ten. Its research and development funds, mostly in countries with cheaper debt like Peru or Australia, are replenished on a real-time basis. - -Despite evolving the next best commodity revolution into shale gas and trying to improve its supply side, Shell continues to rely on a partial stack of undervalued-property, convertible notes (MIP -======================================== SAMPLE 498 ======================================== -What Happened on 62nd Street was aired Saturday 15th September 2011. The programme is presented in 3 parts – Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3.<|endoftext|>Before you start reading this I would like to tell you a bit more about Korean wrestling. Basically, Korean wrestlers are classic half-elves and natural human beings who would rather be a mermaid, I don't know why they threw the mermaid plays effect into the language, but more on that later... - -Contents show] - -For seven years, native and foreign wrestlers have gathered at a place called Mount개 (or Gonggukok) for a three times weekly wrestling matches. A catchphrase coined by the members of the pair "Korean Wrestling" has been "Urisan-nosama", which means "Two hearts beating in our hearts" (正念者は恩人行になる). Normally, there are five rookie and five experienced wrestlers gathered at the fencing line. An experienced wrestler will push facing the foreign wrestler on the outside, and a rookie will push facing the foreign wrestler on the inside. On rarely occasions, they will even bump into each other! Some commentaries will depict subpartners. They tell jokes about these subpartners (e.g, "水wossoba 【金珠】" = "foreign wrestler green-plum baby"), apart from some amateur wrestling tournaments in the evening. - -So about Mount개 (which really is Mount Gok), the way it took shape was like this - -The Greaser and the Ilk sitting side by side. - -A relevant article (2011) - -The head of the Mount Gok festival is Changdeok Oklahoma Chang himself, master of wrestling Kunmok of Thailand, who officially becomes the president of the Mount Gok hall. On the 83rd anniversary of the Gokdo Matsuri there is a very famous entering ceremony; under the shine of the sun and by the moonlight, 1000 wrestlers with total of 8,640 years of step 1 skills (in tong-kisama (rank), Kokchet, Nem-kueh (flown feet), ball wrestling, bunny, hot tip handstand, within tong-kisama (rank), jujitsu) and 1,880 years of stamping (in gras tohun, kekka-mok, heel hook, waide hoist and seated), are brought together in the hall. When they enter (entering of Kyan: hungry), Shermon Burgess drops down from the stage right after the hall leader and soon falls together with a young boy whose name will become legendary forever. So he repeats the surname (Rank <4+) Mark Mark. - -The academy gates are opened at 9 AM. At that time the first 12 minutes is devoted to training, throwing and measuring in gyaru, preparatory practice (2 reps) and walking practice (1 stop). Kyan Bae is among the top-ranked managers of Korean wrestling. There's no comma "ㄱㄷㄳㄽㄡ". That's year. It has been decided that from the 20th of the 34th month (or every year) the faster two wrestlers will pass. 2nd-ranked, Mic and OL Running Mac always stay at the entrance, while Ky Jung hwaeng and Kyong Ahu houl runs towards the other side. If you hear guys saying "Running Mac Super", you should keep drinking. Aguila huhoongaoh is one Pomponaria confirm as the quintessential wrestler. Koo Hyun Rik hand redoubles a lot of times and doesn't drink very much at all. If you hear them ask for a glass of Sprite, you are forbidden to help them. Somehow, Koo Hyun Rik has a genuine Japanese-style chop wrestling (KI). Believe me! So the young wrestlers while preparing symmetrical moves begin to perform a chop. There is an image of teammates running together to a big wrestling ring in the hills at noon (on the distance of about one mile from the center of Mount Gok). During training, the ring has actual ashes burned on the ground. Who will throw next is decided by thumbing (장) or cupping (장皓), you can choose either. The former is easier, while the latter is harder. When the teams seem to be as brawny as lions, the goalkeeper will reload and start to shoot a last shot. Whenever a player throws the last shot, he gives a hand signal to the rest of the squad before retreating (이수 and 사요). - -The wrestlers who have mastered and a grappler who is heavy metal. - -The scene for the jabari (a.k.a. jujitsu): - -Interference No returns - -Former Miyeon operator, Macho fatman (� -======================================== SAMPLE 499 ======================================== -Microsoft introduced the Hello Cortana/Force Touch feature inside of Cortana on the same day it was announced at IFA 2017. - -If you, like us, have been coveting this feature for ages, it seems that Microsoft enabled it for you too. - -According to a tip sent to us by Ronny Schroeiber, Microsoft has quietly enabled expanded wear and gesture options inside of Cortana on the phone, enabling you to control the display with your fingerprints, pinch to zoom and press the trackpad with your fingertips. - -However, it begs the question "if someone is watching this, can they actually interact with Cortana's features? - -We've always known that Microsoft technology can detect and take action on biometrics and gesture control. The ability to do this in a specific type of software has always been a huge deal and such measures usually have personal organisers working behind the scenes. The theory is that because Cortana is optional inside of Cortana on the phone, it therefore needs this extra human intervention as part of its beta testing process. - -What do you think of Microsoft enabling the possibilities of situational awareness via Cortana's new section?<|endoftext|>NORFOLK — The Moody's legal team quietly released a written statement to the City Clerk last week from the financial damageonies company. - -They also released a video, showcasing Moody's claim of "serious fraud," focusing on the city's foreclosure program, due to its failed oversight. The video coincides with Public Times coverage of the Moody's audit that notes there is no evidence of any financial improprieties in any CPD proceedings, on City programs or in government expenditure accounts. - -In the video, Mark Moody of Moody's begins by noting there is an accepted version of events that blame Chekwonaung for the housing bubble, housing foreclosures and other actions. He says the report highlights the City of Norfolk's "shocking financial mismanagement and ethics problem". - -He says that there are many more accounts to be looked at to see what types of fraud are committed and identify inefficiencies in both the City of Norfolk's foreclosure enforcement and its finance and governance arrangements. - -He says that without new imaginative policies for cities, many other municipal whistleblowers, residents and citizens may fall victim to suspects hiding behind screen names and complete disregard for their whistle blowing. - -Then he says, "This renewed focus on financial mismanagement; rule of law, accountability, responsibility, keeping track of budgets, and other policies by public servants, has been grossly understated and marketed as the main reason as to why governance will improve; all of which are false." - - -Moody's Legal Statement - -Originally, the office of Mayor Tim Curran announced the unanimous release of the decision with the statement, "The auditors noted only minor discrepancies" regarding the actions of the former City Manager Kenneth Oliver. - -The written statement from Alex Schnetbein, general counsel and executive officer for Moody's Corporate Office, says that despite the report's findings that there is no evidence of non-compliance, "the auditor did not interview any third party witnesses. The report concluded there was no fault with the overall maintenance process for foreclosures." - -Moody's did interview former City Manager Kenneth Oliver, he says, about what was done and how deceased foreclosures were reviewed and whether there were claims of problems. - -The statement, whodnosecretoplay.com, is available in its entirety on the City website. - -Here is the snippet: - -"The full extent of the City's foreclosures is, of course, unknown. However, I want to make it perfectly clear that it was not 'small deployments' that affected the City's code compliance scores — it was the kind of repetitive, recurrent, and wide spread red flag issues that can jeopardize an individual city's code compliance score (or worse). What happens when thousands of loans, in the form of improper foreclosures or otherwise defective proceedings have been ever referred to the Court Collects, regardless of the involvement of families who lost their homes? If a local court is sitting empty, then how will that impact the many thousands of companies that routinely represent homeowners who are here for the wrong reasons (an accuracy bias, a breakdown in the document review process, or the misrepresentation by several parties in the transaction)? To what degree does "issue reporting" jeopardize issues of housing preparation and payments of debts among the Municipalities that debt collectors may log onto? These are just a few detailed averages presented by the Moody's audit where instructio n was outstanding. The auditors ... found no abuses of procedures or practices such as the vast combinations breach of departmental protocols, mismanagement, or for which those acts were attributable to a specific person or attempts to hide them. Finally, consequential misguided implementing of rents capitalization procedures were placed on the back burner as a result of a lack of government officials who had to justify them in detail. This is clearly an area that needs to be re-examined -======================================== SAMPLE 500 ======================================== -And so we have arrived at the past and present of the book, and I wanted to talk about them. -So I have pretty much given up even re-reading the past. I'm not big on revisiting the books, because I prefer them to sit unread. I'll look at what I've read, and maybe maybe one day I'll re-read that, but it's just not worth my time. -I do read CW, if in sporadic bursts. For example, the GCW one was amazing. Then there is book two. The fans were not convinced by ARC and the writers were asked to reshoot parts of book two, so HFJ and BFJ were why I picked it up. But if I was looking for these things I would seek to explore the books anew. But first that has to be decided. -The reason I bumped up to reading HFJ and BFJ? Though the last book was published in 1999, my first two went behind the scenes, i.e. from June 1999 to September 2001. And while that was my first introduction to AMQP…going back I feel like my reactions got a little better. We needed to debug and deliver really thought provoking and interesting allusions to fans of the series. Knowing what I know now…I would take things a bit less to heart if I read HFJ now, but IMO that book made my idea that I dedicated a whole piece for will resonate even more. -The last book I read for one of the movesgede stuff. They had they good new wayfinding tool in the AC book and one, I might add, quite innovative but eventually never deployed. -It is just so frustrating to grow up with characters and the facts which have twisted and turned into the very things I love most (WE ARE FANTASTIC GIRLS AND YOU NEED TO SPEND ENOUGH MONEY WITH US SO WE CAN LIVE). In the Brave New World there are only good feelings, or Capitalist Happiness. Only Heroes. Only successful adults and traders who trade with each other. And rarely everyone is super happy. It is beautiful if that is all, but all truth ends…mass murder, botched diagnoses…add Parkinson, and incorporate Gene Funchess, and decapitate a lot of people from some poster wants it so that one can finally, finally see the RA and survivor glimpse of what HUMANZ does for an honest day's work…it is no guarantee. Or that we will pause just to revere one another, even as we murder each other on the same college campus of New York, if that is of any comfort to you. So I find myself doubting who exactly is making the rules in our world? And why do we have to make these rules at all? We will all be collected together somewhere…finished a labor of love, timely execution dashed at the last minute……No. -To call the mystery of the TW below that of Green Lantern is fair, but it would be pointless. It is rooted in fear and frustration, basic mid-90s paranoia. And a willingness to defend me against the dark lights of TW, and speculate and thrive in that darkness, well. That is all part of the joy. -Someone asked me the question yesterday "Why read AmQP when you really don't want to?" Everyone has valid questions, and I am going to address a few of them today. Before talking about the answers, after a long-winded and antediluvian adieu, I want to work through some ethical, philosophical, and artistic complications. -Brand and Einstein's Contents This is ridiculous. I rather think you must be misinformed about what Brand and Einstein's Contents is. They are not all the same, due to choice of acronyms, and modifications, and revisions. Brand also published ELEUTIS (134-4), 1973-76 (IS), and Science Fiction and Fantasy two (430-1/2) collections, one of them called DESCENDANTSYPES Was Farces Rallying From? The heavily financialized eclipse of who remains is amazing form of controlled darkness. ELI's successors are: WE BELIEVE IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH Ins[i]tance? Deal[a]rs? Many ways of saying the same thing. I can tell you which is the correct word, and by where the modern confusion is beginning. As a longtime fan of Brand's, we called merchandise influences and ideas of Brand in various programs, interviews, festival programs, and thusly misinformation to be corrected. Some promotion resources consider the stuff here to be the same as Note Number 4 of Brand's publisher "Masters Books Enterprises", after the way ISBN is pronounced. But Dell and most indy publishers spell it differently. And for better or worse with NEVER DAMN A BIMEBY Two Monsters (1974), many of the familiar ambiguities of vision were being highlighted again, what value to the tales, did we pay attention the equal brash impact of H H A From 47df6da611716b4826e3397cd68d711c6951c8e5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Fri, 3 May 2019 23:13:05 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 44/83] Add gradient checkpointing and another optimization necessary to allow training the 345M model. --- README.md | 8 +- src/memory_saving_gradients.py | 387 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ src/model.py | 2 + train.py | 26 ++- 4 files changed, 417 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) create mode 100644 src/memory_saving_gradients.py diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 9bd60716b..d62c2cd74 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -45,7 +45,13 @@ PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/encoded.npz PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz ``` -To do distributed on multiple GPUs or machines using Horovod: +### Gradient Checkpointing + +https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by `--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' collection in model.py. `--memory_saving_gradients` is enabled by default for training the 345M model. + +### Multi gpu (out of date) + +To do distributed on multiple GPUs or machines using Horovod: ``` mpirun -np 4 \ diff --git a/src/memory_saving_gradients.py b/src/memory_saving_gradients.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..659691f49 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/memory_saving_gradients.py @@ -0,0 +1,387 @@ +from toposort import toposort +import contextlib +import numpy as np +import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.contrib.graph_editor as ge +import time +import sys +sys.setrecursionlimit(10000) +# refers back to current module if we decide to split helpers out +util = sys.modules[__name__] + +# getting rid of "WARNING:tensorflow:VARIABLES collection name is deprecated" +setattr(tf.GraphKeys, "VARIABLES", "variables") + +# save original gradients since tf.gradient could be monkey-patched to point +# to our version +from tensorflow.python.ops import gradients as tf_gradients_lib +tf_gradients = tf_gradients_lib.gradients + +MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE=1024 # use lower value during testing + +# specific versions we can use to do process-wide replacement of tf.gradients +def gradients_speed(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='speed', **kwargs) + +def gradients_memory(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='memory', **kwargs) + +def gradients_collection(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs) + +def gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs): + ''' + Authors: Tim Salimans & Yaroslav Bulatov + + memory efficient gradient implementation inspired by "Training Deep Nets with Sublinear Memory Cost" + by Chen et al. 2016 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.06174) + + ys,xs,grad_ys,kwargs are the arguments to standard tensorflow tf.gradients + (https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.12/api_docs/python/train.html#gradients) + + 'checkpoints' can either be + - a list consisting of tensors from the forward pass of the neural net + that we should re-use when calculating the gradients in the backward pass + all other tensors that do not appear in this list will be re-computed + - a string specifying how this list should be determined. currently we support + - 'speed': checkpoint all outputs of convolutions and matmuls. these ops are usually the most expensive, + so checkpointing them maximizes the running speed + (this is a good option if nonlinearities, concats, batchnorms, etc are taking up a lot of memory) + - 'memory': try to minimize the memory usage + (currently using a very simple strategy that identifies a number of bottleneck tensors in the graph to checkpoint) + - 'collection': look for a tensorflow collection named 'checkpoints', which holds the tensors to checkpoint + ''' + + # print("Calling memsaving gradients with", checkpoints) + if not isinstance(ys,list): + ys = [ys] + if not isinstance(xs,list): + xs = [xs] + + bwd_ops = ge.get_backward_walk_ops([y.op for y in ys], + inclusive=True) + + debug_print("bwd_ops: %s", bwd_ops) + + # forward ops are all ops that are candidates for recomputation + fwd_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in xs], + inclusive=True, + within_ops=bwd_ops) + debug_print("fwd_ops: %s", fwd_ops) + + # exclude ops with no inputs + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if op.inputs] + + # don't recompute xs, remove variables + xs_ops = _to_ops(xs) + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not op in xs_ops] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/assign' in op.name] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/Assign' in op.name] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/read' in op.name] + ts_all = ge.filter_ts(fwd_ops, True) # get the tensors + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if '/read' not in t.name] + ts_all = set(ts_all) - set(xs) - set(ys) + + # construct list of tensors to checkpoint during forward pass, if not + # given as input + if type(checkpoints) is not list: + if checkpoints == 'collection': + checkpoints = tf.get_collection('checkpoints') + + elif checkpoints == 'speed': + # checkpoint all expensive ops to maximize running speed + checkpoints = ge.filter_ts_from_regex(fwd_ops, 'conv2d|Conv|MatMul') + + elif checkpoints == 'memory': + + # remove very small tensors and some weird ops + def fixdims(t): # tf.Dimension values are not compatible with int, convert manually + try: + return [int(e if e.value is not None else 64) for e in t] + except: + return [0] # unknown shape + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if np.prod(fixdims(t.shape)) > MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'L2Loss' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'entropy' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'FusedBatchNorm' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Switch' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'dropout' not in t.name] + # DV: FP16_FIX - need to add 'Cast' layer here to make it work for FP16 + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Cast' not in t.name] + + # filter out all tensors that are inputs of the backward graph + with util.capture_ops() as bwd_ops: + tf_gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, **kwargs) + + bwd_inputs = [t for op in bwd_ops for t in op.inputs] + # list of tensors in forward graph that is in input to bwd graph + ts_filtered = list(set(bwd_inputs).intersection(ts_all)) + debug_print("Using tensors %s", ts_filtered) + + # try two slightly different ways of getting bottlenecks tensors + # to checkpoint + for ts in [ts_filtered, ts_all]: + + # get all bottlenecks in the graph + bottleneck_ts = [] + for t in ts: + b = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=True, within_ops=fwd_ops)) + f = set(ge.get_forward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=False, within_ops=fwd_ops)) + # check that there are not shortcuts + b_inp = set([inp for op in b for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) + f_inp = set([inp for op in f for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) + if not set(b_inp).intersection(f_inp) and len(b_inp)+len(f_inp) >= len(ts_all): + bottleneck_ts.append(t) # we have a bottleneck! + else: + debug_print("Rejected bottleneck candidate and ops %s", [t] + list(set(ts_all) - set(b_inp) - set(f_inp))) + + # success? or try again without filtering? + if len(bottleneck_ts) >= np.sqrt(len(ts_filtered)): # yes, enough bottlenecks found! + break + + if not bottleneck_ts: + raise Exception('unable to find bottleneck tensors! please provide checkpoint nodes manually, or use checkpoints="speed".') + + # sort the bottlenecks + bottlenecks_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(bottleneck_ts, within_ops=fwd_ops) + sorted_bottlenecks = [t for ts in bottlenecks_sorted_lists for t in ts] + + # save an approximately optimal number ~ sqrt(N) + N = len(ts_filtered) + if len(bottleneck_ts) <= np.ceil(np.sqrt(N)): + checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks + else: + step = int(np.ceil(len(bottleneck_ts) / np.sqrt(N))) + checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks[step::step] + + else: + raise Exception('%s is unsupported input for "checkpoints"' % (checkpoints,)) + + checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints).intersection(ts_all)) + + # at this point automatic selection happened and checkpoints is list of nodes + assert isinstance(checkpoints, list) + + debug_print("Checkpoint nodes used: %s", checkpoints) + # better error handling of special cases + # xs are already handled as checkpoint nodes, so no need to include them + xs_intersect_checkpoints = set(xs).intersection(set(checkpoints)) + if xs_intersect_checkpoints: + debug_print("Warning, some input nodes are also checkpoint nodes: %s", + xs_intersect_checkpoints) + ys_intersect_checkpoints = set(ys).intersection(set(checkpoints)) + debug_print("ys: %s, checkpoints: %s, intersect: %s", ys, checkpoints, + ys_intersect_checkpoints) + # saving an output node (ys) gives no benefit in memory while creating + # new edge cases, exclude them + if ys_intersect_checkpoints: + debug_print("Warning, some output nodes are also checkpoints nodes: %s", + format_ops(ys_intersect_checkpoints)) + + # remove initial and terminal nodes from checkpoints list if present + checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints) - set(ys) - set(xs)) + + # check that we have some nodes to checkpoint + # if not checkpoints: + # raise Exception('no checkpoints nodes found or given as input! ') + + # disconnect dependencies between checkpointed tensors + checkpoints_disconnected = {} + for x in checkpoints: + if x.op and x.op.name is not None: + grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x, name=x.op.name+"_sg") + else: + grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x) + checkpoints_disconnected[x] = grad_node + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed tensors and xs + ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(seed_ops=[y.op for y in ys], + stop_at_ts=checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) + debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within fwd_ops %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", + len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ys], checkpoints) + debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) + debug_print("Processing list %s", ys) + copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) + for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): + op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) + copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() + debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) + ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), can_modify=copied_ops) + debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", + checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), copied_ops) + + # get gradients with respect to current boundary + original x's + copied_ys = [info._transformed_ops[y.op]._outputs[0] for y in ys] + boundary = list(checkpoints_disconnected.values()) + dv = tf_gradients(ys=copied_ys, xs=boundary+xs, grad_ys=grad_ys, **kwargs) + debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) + debug_print("for %s", copied_ys) + debug_print("with respect to %s", boundary+xs) + + inputs_to_do_before = [y.op for y in ys] + if grad_ys is not None: + inputs_to_do_before += grad_ys + wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] + my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes + # dictionary of "node: backprop" for nodes in the boundary + d_checkpoints = {r: dr for r,dr in zip(checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), + dv[:len(checkpoints_disconnected)])} + # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) + d_xs = dv[len(checkpoints_disconnected):] + + # incorporate derivatives flowing through the checkpointed nodes + checkpoints_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) + for ts in checkpoints_sorted_lists[::-1]: + debug_print("Processing list %s", ts) + checkpoints_other = [r for r in checkpoints if r not in ts] + checkpoints_disconnected_other = [checkpoints_disconnected[r] for r in checkpoints_other] + + # copy part of the graph below current checkpoint node, stopping at + # other checkpoints nodes + ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(within_ops=fwd_ops, seed_ops=[r.op for r in ts], stop_at_ts=checkpoints_other) + debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", + len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ts], + checkpoints_other) + debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) + if not ops_to_copy: # we're done! + break + copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) + for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): + op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) + copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() + debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) + ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, can_modify=copied_ops) + debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", + checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, copied_ops) + + # gradient flowing through the checkpointed node + boundary = [info._transformed_ops[r.op]._outputs[0] for r in ts] + substitute_backprops = [d_checkpoints[r] for r in ts] + dv = tf_gradients(boundary, + checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs, + grad_ys=substitute_backprops, **kwargs) + debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) + debug_print("for %s", boundary) + debug_print("with respect to %s", checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs) + debug_print("with boundary backprop substitutions %s", substitute_backprops) + + inputs_to_do_before = [d_checkpoints[r].op for r in ts] + wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] + my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes + for r, dr in zip(checkpoints_other, dv[:len(checkpoints_other)]): + if dr is not None: + if d_checkpoints[r] is None: + d_checkpoints[r] = dr + else: + d_checkpoints[r] += dr + def _unsparsify(x): + if not isinstance(x, tf.IndexedSlices): + return x + assert x.dense_shape is not None, "memory_saving_gradients encountered sparse gradients of unknown shape" + indices = x.indices + while indices.shape.ndims < x.values.shape.ndims: + indices = tf.expand_dims(indices, -1) + return tf.scatter_nd(indices, x.values, x.dense_shape) + + # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) + d_xs_new = dv[len(checkpoints_other):] + for j in range(len(xs)): + if d_xs_new[j] is not None: + if d_xs[j] is None: + d_xs[j] = _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) + else: + d_xs[j] += _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) + + + return d_xs + +def tf_toposort(ts, within_ops=None): + all_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in ts], within_ops=within_ops) + + deps = {} + for op in all_ops: + for o in op.outputs: + deps[o] = set(op.inputs) + sorted_ts = toposort(deps) + + # only keep the tensors from our original list + ts_sorted_lists = [] + for l in sorted_ts: + keep = list(set(l).intersection(ts)) + if keep: + ts_sorted_lists.append(keep) + + return ts_sorted_lists + +def fast_backward_ops(within_ops, seed_ops, stop_at_ts): + bwd_ops = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(seed_ops, stop_at_ts=stop_at_ts)) + ops = bwd_ops.intersection(within_ops).difference([t.op for t in stop_at_ts]) + return list(ops) + +@contextlib.contextmanager +def capture_ops(): + """Decorator to capture ops created in the block. + with capture_ops() as ops: + # create some ops + print(ops) # => prints ops created. + """ + + micros = int(time.time()*10**6) + scope_name = str(micros) + op_list = [] + with tf.name_scope(scope_name): + yield op_list + + g = tf.get_default_graph() + op_list.extend(ge.select_ops(scope_name+"/.*", graph=g)) + +def _to_op(tensor_or_op): + if hasattr(tensor_or_op, "op"): + return tensor_or_op.op + return tensor_or_op + +def _to_ops(iterable): + if not _is_iterable(iterable): + return iterable + return [_to_op(i) for i in iterable] + +def _is_iterable(o): + try: + _ = iter(o) + except Exception: + return False + return True + +DEBUG_LOGGING=False +def debug_print(s, *args): + """Like logger.log, but also replaces all TensorFlow ops/tensors with their + names. Sensitive to value of DEBUG_LOGGING, see enable_debug/disable_debug + + Usage: + debug_print("see tensors %s for %s", tensorlist, [1,2,3]) + """ + + if DEBUG_LOGGING: + formatted_args = [format_ops(arg) for arg in args] + print("DEBUG "+s % tuple(formatted_args)) + +def format_ops(ops, sort_outputs=True): + """Helper method for printing ops. Converts Tensor/Operation op to op.name, + rest to str(op).""" + + if hasattr(ops, '__iter__') and not isinstance(ops, str): + l = [(op.name if hasattr(op, "name") else str(op)) for op in ops] + if sort_outputs: + return sorted(l) + return l + else: + return ops.name if hasattr(ops, "name") else str(ops) + +def my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before): + for op in wait_to_do_ops: + ci = [i for i in inputs_to_do_before if op.control_inputs is None or i not in op.control_inputs] + ge.add_control_inputs(op, ci) diff --git a/src/model.py b/src/model.py index 230b83cc2..f845d8b73 100644 --- a/src/model.py +++ b/src/model.py @@ -162,6 +162,8 @@ def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=False): assert len(pasts) == hparams.n_layer for layer, past in enumerate(pasts): h, present = block(h, 'h%d' % layer, past=past, hparams=hparams) + if layer == 10: + tf.add_to_collection('checkpoints', h) presents.append(present) results['present'] = tf.stack(presents, axis=1) h = norm(h, 'ln_f') diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 08429eb09..959fa33d7 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -8,10 +8,12 @@ import numpy as np import tensorflow as tf import time +from tensorflow.core.protobuf import rewriter_config_pb2 import model, sample, encoder from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler from accumulate import AccumulatingOptimizer +import memory_saving_gradients CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' @@ -28,6 +30,8 @@ parser.add_argument('--batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=1, help='Batch size') parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.0001, help='Learning rate for Adam') parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') +parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') +parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') @@ -55,8 +59,13 @@ def main(): raise ValueError( "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) + if args.model_name == '345M': + args.memory_saving_gradients = True + args.only_train_transformer_layers = True + config = tf.ConfigProto() config.gpu_options.allow_growth = True + config.graph_options.rewrite_options.layout_optimizer = rewriter_config_pb2.RewriterConfig.OFF with tf.Session(config=config) as sess: context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=context) @@ -72,8 +81,11 @@ def main(): temperature=1.0, top_k=40) - train_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] + all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] + train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars if args.accumulate_gradients > 1: + if args.memory_saving_gradients: + exit("Memory saving gradients are not implemented for gradient accumulation yet.") opt = AccumulatingOptimizer( opt=tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate), var_list=train_vars) @@ -82,16 +94,20 @@ def main(): opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients() summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', opt_apply) else: - opt_apply = tf.train.AdamOptimizer( - learning_rate=args.learning_rate).minimize( - loss, var_list=train_vars) + opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) + if args.memory_saving_gradients: + opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(loss, train_vars) + else: + opt_grads = tf.gradients(loss, train_vars) + opt_grads = list(zip(opt_grads, train_vars)) + opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', loss) summary_log = tf.summary.FileWriter( os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) saver = tf.train.Saver( - var_list=train_vars, + var_list=all_vars, max_to_keep=5, keep_checkpoint_every_n_hours=2) sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) From c46ed9996ff3e90ee1c098aafe5991a3dcb1a7bd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Sat, 4 May 2019 17:01:35 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 45/83] Add "validation" loss calculation. --- README.md | 4 ++++ src/load_dataset.py | 6 +++--- src/model.py | 2 +- train.py | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4 files changed, 52 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index d62c2cd74..5fef26f46 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -49,6 +49,10 @@ PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by `--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' collection in model.py. `--memory_saving_gradients` is enabled by default for training the 345M model. +### Validation loss + +Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so not a real cross-validation loss!). + ### Multi gpu (out of date) To do distributed on multiple GPUs or machines using Horovod: diff --git a/src/load_dataset.py b/src/load_dataset.py index 5c9c00844..52bd00b02 100644 --- a/src/load_dataset.py +++ b/src/load_dataset.py @@ -1,7 +1,6 @@ import glob import numpy as np import os -import random import tensorflow as tf import tqdm @@ -62,12 +61,13 @@ class Sampler(object): 'Fairly' means that the distribution is the same as sampling from one concatenated chunk, but without crossing chunk boundaries.""" - def __init__(self, chunks): + def __init__(self, chunks, seed=None): self.chunks = chunks self.total_size = sum(chunk.shape[0] for chunk in chunks) self.boundaries = [0] for i in range(len(chunks)): self.boundaries.append(self.boundaries[-1] + chunks[i].shape[0]) + self.rs = np.random.RandomState(seed=seed) def sample(self, length): assert length < self.total_size // len( @@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ def sample(self, length): ), "Dataset files are too small to sample {} tokens at a time".format( length) while True: - index = random.randint(0, self.total_size - length - 1) + index = self.rs.randint(0, self.total_size - length - 1) i = binary_search(lambda j: self.boundaries[j] > index, 0, len(self.boundaries) - 1) - 1 if self.boundaries[i + 1] > index + length: diff --git a/src/model.py b/src/model.py index f845d8b73..4e942d873 100644 --- a/src/model.py +++ b/src/model.py @@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ def positions_for(tokens, past_length): return expand_tile(past_length + tf.range(nsteps), batch_size) -def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=False): +def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=tf.AUTO_REUSE): with tf.variable_scope(scope, reuse=reuse): results = {} batch, sequence = shape_list(X) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 959fa33d7..af653d822 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ import numpy as np import tensorflow as tf import time +import tqdm from tensorflow.core.protobuf import rewriter_config_pb2 import model, sample, encoder @@ -40,6 +41,11 @@ parser.add_argument('--sample_num', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Generate this many samples') parser.add_argument('--save_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=1000, help='Write a checkpoint every N steps') +parser.add_argument('--val_dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, default=None, help='Dataset for validation loss, defaults to --dataset.') +parser.add_argument('--val_batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=2, help='Batch size for validation.') +parser.add_argument('--val_batch_count', metavar='N', type=int, default=40, help='Number of batches for validation.') +parser.add_argument('--val_every', metavar='STEPS', type=int, default=0, help='Calculate validation loss every STEPS steps.') + def maketree(path): try: @@ -73,6 +79,15 @@ def main(): tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( labels=context[:, 1:], logits=output['logits'][:, :-1])) + if args.val_every > 0: + val_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.val_batch_size, None]) + val_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=val_context) + val_loss = tf.reduce_mean( + tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( + labels=val_context[:, 1:], logits=val_output['logits'][:, :-1])) + val_loss_summary = tf.summary.scalar('val_loss', val_loss) + + tf_sample = sample.sample_sequence( hparams=hparams, length=args.sample_length, @@ -130,9 +145,18 @@ def main(): print('Loading dataset...') chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.dataset, args.combine) data_sampler = Sampler(chunks) + if args.val_every > 0: + val_chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.val_dataset, args.combine) if args.val_dataset else chunks print('dataset has', data_sampler.total_size, 'tokens') print('Training...') + if args.val_every > 0: + # Sample from validation set once with fixed seed to make + # it deterministic during training as well as across runs. + val_data_sampler = Sampler(val_chunks, seed=1) + val_batches = [[val_data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.val_batch_size)] + for _ in range(args.val_batch_count)] + counter = 1 counter_path = os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, 'counter') if os.path.exists(counter_path): @@ -155,6 +179,7 @@ def save(): fp.write(str(counter) + '\n') def generate_samples(): + print('Generating samples...') context_tokens = data_sampler.sample(1) all_text = [] index = 0 @@ -175,9 +200,26 @@ def generate_samples(): 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w') as fp: fp.write('\n'.join(all_text)) + def validation(): + print('Calculating validation loss...') + losses = [] + for batch in tqdm.tqdm(val_batches): + losses.append(sess.run(val_loss, feed_dict={val_context: batch})) + v_val_loss = np.mean(losses) + v_summary = sess.run(val_loss_summary, feed_dict={val_loss: v_val_loss}) + summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) + summary_log.flush() + print( + '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] validation loss = {loss:2.2f}' + .format( + counter=counter, + time=time.time() - start_time, + loss=v_val_loss)) + def sample_batch(): return [data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.batch_size)] + avg_loss = (0.0, 0.0) start_time = time.time() @@ -187,6 +229,8 @@ def sample_batch(): save() if counter % args.sample_every == 0: generate_samples() + if args.val_every > 0 and (counter % args.val_every == 0 or counter == 1): + validation() if args.accumulate_gradients > 1: sess.run(opt_reset) From 941a76212c8bdd70622c8e70769fe334b12af95a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Svilen Todorov Date: Sun, 5 May 2019 13:29:17 +0200 Subject: [PATCH 46/83] Add toposort to requirements --- requirements.txt | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt index 2cc521d5e..b4a3ea703 100644 --- a/requirements.txt +++ b/requirements.txt @@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ fire>=0.1.3 regex==2017.4.5 requests==2.21.0 tqdm==4.31.1 +toposort==1.5 From 3985cc7ff859cff1816c581eff7b4b8fda22d402 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Mon, 13 May 2019 22:15:13 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 47/83] Add option to use SGD for optimizer --- train.py | 15 ++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index af653d822..1e07d775a 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') +parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') @@ -67,7 +68,8 @@ def main(): if args.model_name == '345M': args.memory_saving_gradients = True - args.only_train_transformer_layers = True + if args.optimizer == 'adam': + args.only_train_transformer_layers = True config = tf.ConfigProto() config.gpu_options.allow_growth = True @@ -98,18 +100,25 @@ def main(): all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars + + if args.optimizer == 'adam': + opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) + elif args.optimizer == 'sgd': + opt = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) + else: + exit('Bad optimizer:', args.optimizer) + if args.accumulate_gradients > 1: if args.memory_saving_gradients: exit("Memory saving gradients are not implemented for gradient accumulation yet.") opt = AccumulatingOptimizer( - opt=tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate), + opt=opt, var_list=train_vars) opt_reset = opt.reset() opt_compute = opt.compute_gradients(loss) opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients() summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', opt_apply) else: - opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) if args.memory_saving_gradients: opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(loss, train_vars) else: From 7fc2a449db039461fd158b3b326aa83d787a399d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Mon, 13 May 2019 22:16:02 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 48/83] Record learning rate in tensorboard logs --- train.py | 7 +++++-- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 1e07d775a..77ac6ec60 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -127,6 +127,9 @@ def main(): opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', loss) + summary_lr = tf.summary.scalar('learning_rate', args.learning_rate) + summaries = tf.summary.merge([summary_lr, summary_loss]) + summary_log = tf.summary.FileWriter( os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) @@ -246,10 +249,10 @@ def sample_batch(): for _ in range(args.accumulate_gradients): sess.run( opt_compute, feed_dict={context: sample_batch()}) - (v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run((opt_apply, summary_loss)) + (v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run((opt_apply, summaries)) else: (_, v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run( - (opt_apply, loss, summary_loss), + (opt_apply, loss, summaries), feed_dict={context: sample_batch()}) summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) From a464925d01ce97e2747a9fc3dcb59a8a8870839e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Mon, 13 May 2019 22:27:33 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 49/83] Add text in README for --optimizer flag --- README.md | 4 ++++ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 5fef26f46..311b57c38 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -53,6 +53,10 @@ https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce the memor Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so not a real cross-validation loss!). +### Optimizer + +You can use SGD instead of Adam with `--optimizer sgd`. This also helps conserve memory when training the 345M model. Note: the learning rate needs to be adjusted for SGD, due to not having Adam's gradient normalization (0.0006 seems to be a good number from some experiments). + ### Multi gpu (out of date) To do distributed on multiple GPUs or machines using Horovod: From ae535b62d49f059d991b7701b1c7d03e5e05bc3c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Mon, 13 May 2019 22:28:32 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 50/83] Reduce default learning rate of train.py. --- train.py | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 77ac6ec60..9ae4a7840 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate input files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') parser.add_argument('--batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=1, help='Batch size') -parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.0001, help='Learning rate for Adam') +parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.00002, help='Learning rate for Adam') parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') From 6a77a7bad966ff334c563dd2d646b2b84d163cb8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 12:47:16 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 51/83] New feature: add noise to network inputs to regularize against overreacting to typos. --- train.py | 13 ++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 9ae4a7840..605619724 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') +parser.add_argument('--noise', type=float, default=0.0, help='Add noise to input training data to regularize against typos.') parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') @@ -55,6 +56,15 @@ def maketree(path): pass +def randomize(context, hparams, p): + if p > 0: + mask = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context)) < p + noise = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context), minval=0, maxval=hparams.n_vocab, dtype=tf.int32) + return tf.where(mask, noise, context) + else: + return context + + def main(): args = parser.parse_args() enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name) @@ -76,7 +86,8 @@ def main(): config.graph_options.rewrite_options.layout_optimizer = rewriter_config_pb2.RewriterConfig.OFF with tf.Session(config=config) as sess: context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) - output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=context) + context_in = randomize(context, hparams, args.noise) + output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=context_in) loss = tf.reduce_mean( tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( labels=context[:, 1:], logits=output['logits'][:, :-1])) From 87fe3d7c50de78e31a0578eea7a4b34d6e8217fe Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 12:52:30 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 52/83] Add top-p sampling --- src/sample.py | 21 +++++++++++++++++++-- train.py | 6 +++++- 2 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/sample.py b/src/sample.py index c309ef0da..93739e5dc 100644 --- a/src/sample.py +++ b/src/sample.py @@ -22,7 +22,21 @@ def _top_k(): ) -def sample_sequence(*, hparams, length, start_token=None, batch_size=None, context=None, temperature=1, top_k=0): +def top_p_logits(logits, p): + with tf.variable_scope('top_p_logits'): + logits_sort = tf.sort(logits, direction='DESCENDING') + probs_sort = tf.nn.softmax(logits_sort) + probs_sums = tf.cumsum(probs_sort, axis=1, exclusive=True) + logits_masked = tf.where(probs_sums < p, logits_sort, tf.ones_like(logits_sort)*1000) # [batchsize, vocab] + min_logits = tf.reduce_min(logits_masked, axis=1) # [batchsize] + return tf.where( + logits < min_logits, + tf.ones_like(logits, dtype=logits.dtype) * -1e10, + logits, + ) + + +def sample_sequence(*, hparams, length, start_token=None, batch_size=None, context=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, top_p=0.0): if start_token is None: assert context is not None, 'Specify exactly one of start_token and context!' else: @@ -49,7 +63,10 @@ def step(hparams, tokens, past=None): def body(past, prev, output): next_outputs = step(hparams, prev[:, tf.newaxis], past=past) logits = next_outputs['logits'][:, -1, :] / tf.to_float(temperature) - logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) + if top_p > 0.0: + logits = top_p_logits(logits, p=top_p) + else: + logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) return [ tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 605619724..e4e38b0d5 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') parser.add_argument('--noise', type=float, default=0.0, help='Add noise to input training data to regularize against typos.') +parser.add_argument('--top_k', type=int, default=40, help='K for top-k sampling.') +parser.add_argument('--top_p', type=float, default=0.0, help='P for top-p sampling. Overrides top_k if set > 0.') + parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') parser.add_argument('--sample_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=100, help='Generate samples every N steps') @@ -107,7 +110,8 @@ def main(): context=context, batch_size=args.batch_size, temperature=1.0, - top_k=40) + top_k=args.top_k + top_p=args.top_p) all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars From e99ee3748b6a41e9532538bfc3af17f0b64a5caf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 13:37:29 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 53/83] Add top_p to interactive_conditional_samples.py and generate_unconditional_samples.py. --- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 6 ++++-- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 6 ++++-- 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py index 87e212972..d9e21319a 100755 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def sample_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + top_p=0.0 ): """ Run the sample_model @@ -35,6 +36,8 @@ def sample_model( considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :top_p=0.0 : Float value controlling diversity. Implements nucleus sampling, + overriding top_k if set to a value > 0. A good setting is 0.9. """ enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name) hparams = model.default_hparams() @@ -54,7 +57,7 @@ def sample_model( hparams=hparams, length=length, start_token=enc.encoder['<|endoftext|>'], batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p )[:, 1:] saver = tf.train.Saver() @@ -72,4 +75,3 @@ def sample_model( if __name__ == '__main__': fire.Fire(sample_model) - diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py index 166171aaf..c1650bbea 100755 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def interact_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + top_p=0.0 ): """ Interactively run the model @@ -34,6 +35,8 @@ def interact_model( considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :top_p=0.0 : Float value controlling diversity. Implements nucleus sampling, + overriding top_k if set to a value > 0. A good setting is 0.9. """ if batch_size is None: batch_size = 1 @@ -57,7 +60,7 @@ def interact_model( hparams=hparams, length=length, context=context, batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p ) saver = tf.train.Saver() @@ -84,4 +87,3 @@ def interact_model( if __name__ == '__main__': fire.Fire(interact_model) - From 2b24145fbdfbad8f1161d518f7678309488e6503 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 13:46:22 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 54/83] fix typo in top_p --- train.py | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index e4e38b0d5..802f678d8 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ def main(): context=context, batch_size=args.batch_size, temperature=1.0, - top_k=args.top_k + top_k=args.top_k, top_p=args.top_p) all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] From 6c1f21d52e434bf13becdb8c9308014a771ba376 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 13:51:49 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 55/83] Fix top_p sampling for batch_size>1 --- src/sample.py | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/src/sample.py b/src/sample.py index 93739e5dc..40d475e82 100644 --- a/src/sample.py +++ b/src/sample.py @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def top_p_logits(logits, p): probs_sort = tf.nn.softmax(logits_sort) probs_sums = tf.cumsum(probs_sort, axis=1, exclusive=True) logits_masked = tf.where(probs_sums < p, logits_sort, tf.ones_like(logits_sort)*1000) # [batchsize, vocab] - min_logits = tf.reduce_min(logits_masked, axis=1) # [batchsize] + min_logits = tf.reduce_min(logits_masked, axis=1, keepdims=True) # [batchsize, 1] return tf.where( logits < min_logits, tf.ones_like(logits, dtype=logits.dtype) * -1e10, From e5c5054474f583d6d9499624649353995d63c70a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Memo Akten Date: Thu, 16 May 2019 19:42:58 +0300 Subject: [PATCH 56/83] allow models to be in a separate folder via models_dir argument (#129) * models_dir argument to allow models in a separate folder * default value for models_dir to be same as before * allow environment variables and user home in models_dir --- src/encoder.py | 6 +++--- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 10 +++++++--- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 10 +++++++--- 3 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/encoder.py b/src/encoder.py index 03e0ce211..5f52e723c 100644 --- a/src/encoder.py +++ b/src/encoder.py @@ -105,10 +105,10 @@ def decode(self, tokens): text = bytearray([self.byte_decoder[c] for c in text]).decode('utf-8', errors=self.errors) return text -def get_encoder(model_name): - with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'encoder.json'), 'r') as f: +def get_encoder(model_name, models_dir): + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'encoder.json'), 'r') as f: encoder = json.load(f) - with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f: + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f: bpe_data = f.read() bpe_merges = [tuple(merge_str.split()) for merge_str in bpe_data.split('\n')[1:-1]] return Encoder( diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py index 87e212972..f18a83891 100755 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def sample_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + models_dir='models', ): """ Run the sample_model @@ -35,10 +36,13 @@ def sample_model( considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders + (i.e. contains the folder) """ - enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name) + models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) + enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) if length is None: @@ -58,7 +62,7 @@ def sample_model( )[:, 1:] saver = tf.train.Saver() - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join('models', model_name)) + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) saver.restore(sess, ckpt) generated = 0 diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py index 166171aaf..ae348d842 100755 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def interact_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + models_dir='models', ): """ Interactively run the model @@ -34,14 +35,17 @@ def interact_model( considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders + (i.e. contains the folder) """ + models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) if batch_size is None: batch_size = 1 assert nsamples % batch_size == 0 - enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name) + enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) if length is None: @@ -61,7 +65,7 @@ def interact_model( ) saver = tf.train.Saver() - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join('models', model_name)) + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) saver.restore(sess, ckpt) while True: From c0859d7523841035798ba8200b1a3cdf069138ab Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Albert Wu Date: Thu, 30 May 2019 21:49:18 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 57/83] Fix TODO in sample.sample_sequences- Avoid 'leaving last token calculation to while loop' (#119) * do initial run on full context * decrement while loop iterations * add context to output * remove first param * removing first param: change shape invariant --- src/sample.py | 25 +++++++++++-------------- 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/sample.py b/src/sample.py index c309ef0da..664953133 100644 --- a/src/sample.py +++ b/src/sample.py @@ -41,36 +41,33 @@ def step(hparams, tokens, past=None): } with tf.name_scope('sample_sequence'): - # Don't feed the last context token -- leave that to the loop below - # TODO: Would be slightly faster if we called step on the entire context, - # rather than leaving the last token transformer calculation to the while loop. - context_output = step(hparams, context[:, :-1]) - def body(past, prev, output): - next_outputs = step(hparams, prev[:, tf.newaxis], past=past) + next_outputs = step(hparams, prev, past=past) logits = next_outputs['logits'][:, -1, :] / tf.to_float(temperature) logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) return [ - tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), - tf.squeeze(samples, axis=[1]), - tf.concat([output, samples], axis=1), + next_outputs['presents'] if past is None else tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), + samples, + tf.concat([output, samples], axis=1) ] + past, prev, output = body(None, context, context) + def cond(*args): return True _, _, tokens = tf.while_loop( cond=cond, body=body, - maximum_iterations=length, + maximum_iterations=length - 1, loop_vars=[ - context_output['presents'], - context[:, -1], - context, + past, + prev, + output ], shape_invariants=[ tf.TensorShape(model.past_shape(hparams=hparams, batch_size=batch_size)), - tf.TensorShape([batch_size]), + tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), ], back_prop=False, From 41a6793dc620cff197cc27880dc8257c53831736 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christopher Hesse Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:02:46 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 58/83] Update README.md --- README.md | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index e38f2c1ce..d1f1de616 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ +**Status:** Archive (code is provided as-is, no updates expected) + # gpt-2 Code from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). From cca7144bc3c6441044e9d12613a9797d19e3d016 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Biranchi <191425+biranchi2018@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 10:42:58 +0800 Subject: [PATCH 59/83] Updated README.md MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Added the medium blog link "Beginner’s Guide to Retrain GPT-2 (117M) to Generate Custom Text Content" --- README.md | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index e63e169f0..5745193ee 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,3 +1,6 @@ + +Reference: ["Beginner’s Guide to Retrain GPT-2 (117M) to Generate Custom Text Content"](https://medium.com/@ngwaifoong92/beginners-guide-to-retrain-gpt-2-117m-to-generate-custom-text-content-8bb5363d8b7f) + # gpt-2 Code from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). From cb415376c397b55deb86a87d544b502a2582f2cd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jack Clark Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 17:31:31 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 60/83] add model card --- README.md | 2 + domains.txt | 1000 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ model_card.md | 64 ++++ 3 files changed, 1066 insertions(+) create mode 100644 domains.txt create mode 100644 model_card.md diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index d1f1de616..46bb8f3e9 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ See more details in our [blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-mode This repository is meant to be a starting point for researchers and engineers to experiment with GPT-2. +For basic information, see our [model card](./model_card.md). + ### Some caveats - GPT-2 models' robustness and worst case behaviors are not well-understood. As with any machine-learned model, carefully evaluate GPT-2 for your use case, especially if used without fine-tuning or in safety-critical applications where reliability is important. diff --git a/domains.txt b/domains.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..04bdac448 --- /dev/null +++ b/domains.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1000 @@ +1542261 google +596207 archive +456344 blogspot +414695 github +333160 nytimes +321622 wordpress +315368 washingtonpost +313137 wikia +311917 bbc +246303 theguardian +210714 ebay +209416 pastebin +199360 cnn +196124 yahoo +186668 huffingtonpost +186137 go +183592 reuters +183080 imdb +160553 goo +139965 nih +135562 cbc +128011 apple +125615 medium +118676 dailymail +108012 steampowered +106417 independent +105239 etsy +98941 craigslist +93048 businessinsider +92712 telegraph +90262 wizards +83266 usatoday +80384 thehill +79655 nhl +79494 foxnews +79167 taobao +78070 bloomberg +77515 npr +77407 mlb +77172 latimes +75676 megalodon +72525 espn +72523 kickstarter +71743 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citylab +5458 expressen +5455 oxfordjournals +5451 collider +5447 statista +5437 apa +5434 g +5430 thenational +5430 eslgaming +5425 politiken +5421 ktla +5420 webmshare +5408 bostonherald +5407 comixology +5400 ustream +5399 sony +5396 tennessean +5377 scout +5374 drop +5372 ieee +5359 sverigesradio +5356 sherdog +5353 viooz +5353 marxists +5353 adobe +5349 myfitnesspal +5342 seahawks +5339 rferl +5338 thediplomat +5335 storeparser +5332 prnewswire +5330 midwayusa +5327 liverpoolfc +5326 cisco +5326 windowsphone +5323 toysrus +5321 archivesofnethys +5317 eluniversal +5309 gmanetwork +5303 asus +5297 android +5297 finalfantasyxiv +5296 cyclingnews +5293 worldbank +5288 boxingscene +5285 ticketmaster +5279 grooveshark +5277 khl +5276 gallup +5268 britannica +5263 abc7 +5260 penny-arcade +5257 hsreplay +5257 oculus +5256 bt +5250 theroot +5246 makeagif +5246 cnsnews +5243 nbc +5243 rbc +5243 fextralife +5234 legislation +5225 sendvid +5221 sciencealert +5214 wbur +5212 myfonts +5207 picsarus +5206 phoronix +5204 nerdist +5203 eonline +5195 advocate +5191 king5 +5189 xkcd +5183 kitsu +5182 weibo +5181 mangareader +5178 palmbeachpost +5176 go1dfish +5175 livestrong +5174 truthdig +5173 lgbtqnation +5172 nikkansports +5167 slickdeals +5166 streamja +5164 irs +5158 readms +5152 microcenter +5137 telesurtv +5135 lastwordonsports +5129 alarabiya +5117 cointelegraph +5114 iltalehti +5112 fc2 +5108 wral +5108 thinkgeek +5102 bitbucket +5101 letterboxd +5098 ehow +5092 abc13 +5083 beeradvocate +5077 umich +5067 macys +5064 factorio +5063 comicbookmovie +5042 telegram +5039 scroll +5034 setlist +5028 dailyherald +5019 games-workshop +5015 irishexaminer +5008 fbi +5007 heraldscotland +5001 jellyneo +4999 yale +4996 cbr +4994 masslive +4984 thestranger +4982 bundlestars +4981 alibaba +4977 filedropper +4974 monoprice +4968 forward +4964 parliament +4960 theringer +4950 hobbyking +4950 manchestereveningnews +4949 bmj +4948 thewire +4947 ff2ebook +4938 ashemaletube +4937 Twitch +4933 sketchtoy +4932 mcclatchydc +4931 memory-alpha +4925 newsok +4911 desmoinesregister +4901 puzzledragonx +4889 memecrunch diff --git a/model_card.md b/model_card.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fdab8ee2c --- /dev/null +++ b/model_card.md @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +# GPT-2 model card + +Last updated: August 2019 + +Inspired by [Model Cards for Model Reporting (Mitchell et al.)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993), we’re providing some accompanying information about the GPT-2 family of models we're releasing. + +## Model Details. + +This model was developed by researchers at OpenAI to help us understand how the capabilities of language model capabilities scale as a function of the size of the models (by parameter count) combined with very large internet-scale datasets (WebText). + +### Model date + +Spring 2019, trained on data that cuts off at the end of 2017. + +### Model type + +Language model + +### Paper or other resource for more information +[Blog post](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) and [paper](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf) + +### Where to send questions or comments about the model +languagequestions@openai.com + +## Intended Uses: + +### Primary intended uses + +The primary intended users of these models are *AI researchers and practitioners*. + +We primarily imagine these language models will be used by researchers to better understand the behaviors, capabilities, biases, and constraints of large-scale generative language models. + +### Secondary uses + +Here are some secondary use cases we believe are likely: + +- **Writing assistance**: Grammar assistance, autocompletion (for normal prose or code) +- **Creative writing and art**: exploring the generation of creative, fictional texts; aiding creation of poetry and other literary art. +- **Entertainment**: Creation of games, chat bots, and amusing generations. + +### Out-of-scope use cases + +Because large-scale language models like GPT-2 do not distinguish fact from fiction, we don’t support use-cases that require the generated text to be true. + +Additionally, language models like GPT-2 reflect the biases inherent to the systems they were trained on, so we do not recommend that they be deployed into systems that interact with humans unless the deployers first carry out a study of biases relevant to the intended use-case. + +## Evaluation Data + +### Datasets + +This model was trained on (and evaluated against) WebText, a dataset consisting of the text contents of 45 million links posted by users of the ‘Reddit’ social network. WebText is made of data derived from outbound links from Reddit and does not consist of data taken directly from Reddit itself. Before generating the dataset we used a blocklist to ensure we didn’t sample from a variety of subreddits which contain sexually explicit or otherwise offensive content. + +To get a sense of the data that went into GPT-2, we’ve [published a list](domains.txt) of the top 1,000 domains present in WebText and their frequency. The top 15 domains by volume in WebText are: Google, Archive, Blogspot, GitHub, NYTimes, Wordpress, Washington Post, Wikia, BBC, The Guardian, eBay, Pastebin, CNN, Yahoo!, and the Huffington Post. + +### Motivation + +The motivation behind WebText was to create an Internet-scale, heterogeneous dataset that we could use to test large-scale language models against. WebText was (and is) intended to be primarily for research purposes rather than production purposes. + +### Caveats and Recommendations + +Because GPT-2 is an internet-scale language model, it’s currently difficult to know what disciplined testing procedures can be applied to it to fully understand its capabilities and how the data it is trained on influences its vast range of outputs. We recommend researchers investigate these aspects of the model and share their results. + +Additionally, as indicated in our discussion of issues relating to potential misuse of the model, it remains unclear what the long-term dynamics are of detecting outputs from these models. Developing better approaches to detection today will give us greater intuitions when thinking about future models and could help us understand ahead of time if detection methods will eventually become ineffective. + From f35fa1d920e9d2d0690f66d03aa3f76b3c59230e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 08:50:19 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 61/83] push 774M model --- DEVELOPERS.md | 5 +++-- Dockerfile.cpu | 5 +++-- Dockerfile.gpu | 5 +++-- README.md | 6 ++++-- download_model.py | 2 +- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 4 ++-- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 8 ++++---- 7 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-) diff --git a/DEVELOPERS.md b/DEVELOPERS.md index 57fd519f0..0992c7026 100644 --- a/DEVELOPERS.md +++ b/DEVELOPERS.md @@ -27,8 +27,9 @@ pip3 install -r requirements.txt Download the model data ``` -python3 download_model.py 117M -python3 download_model.py 345M +python3 download_model.py 124M +python3 download_model.py 355M +python3 download_model.py 774M ``` ## Docker Installation diff --git a/Dockerfile.cpu b/Dockerfile.cpu index a02d2b320..c923234a3 100644 --- a/Dockerfile.cpu +++ b/Dockerfile.cpu @@ -5,5 +5,6 @@ RUN mkdir /gpt-2 WORKDIR /gpt-2 ADD . /gpt-2 RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt -RUN python3 download_model.py 117M -RUN python3 download_model.py 345M +RUN python3 download_model.py 124M +RUN python3 download_model.py 355M +RUN python3 download_model.py 774M diff --git a/Dockerfile.gpu b/Dockerfile.gpu index b3f87db14..e59880e5d 100644 --- a/Dockerfile.gpu +++ b/Dockerfile.gpu @@ -14,5 +14,6 @@ RUN mkdir /gpt-2 WORKDIR /gpt-2 ADD . /gpt-2 RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt -RUN python3 download_model.py 117M -RUN python3 download_model.py 345M +RUN python3 download_model.py 124M +RUN python3 download_model.py 355M +RUN python3 download_model.py 774M diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 46bb8f3e9..1b2d5e81a 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -4,9 +4,11 @@ Code from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). -We have currently released small (117M parameter) and medium (345M parameter) versions of GPT-2. While we have not released the larger models, we have [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. +We have currently released small (124M parameter), medium (355M parameter), and large (774M parameter) versions of GPT-2*, with only the full model as of yet unreleased. We have also [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. -See more details in our [blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/). +You can read about GPT-2 and release decisions in our [original blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/) and [6 month follow-up post](https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-6-month-follow-up/). + +* *Note that our original parameter counts were wrong due to an error (in our previous blog posts and paper). Thus you may have seen small referred to as 117M and medium referred to as 345M.* ## Usage diff --git a/download_model.py b/download_model.py index 30ba84ade..56d4e7675 100644 --- a/download_model.py +++ b/download_model.py @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from tqdm import tqdm if len(sys.argv) != 2: - print('You must enter the model name as a parameter, e.g.: download_model.py 117M') + print('You must enter the model name as a parameter, e.g.: download_model.py 124M') sys.exit(1) model = sys.argv[1] diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py index f18a83891..cc3f3a32a 100755 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ import model, sample, encoder def sample_model( - model_name='117M', + model_name='124M', seed=None, nsamples=0, batch_size=1, @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ def sample_model( ): """ Run the sample_model - :model_name=117M : String, which model to use + :model_name=124M : String, which model to use :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to reproduce results :nsamples=0 : Number of samples to return, if 0, continues to diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py index ae348d842..48b5cb3d3 100755 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -9,18 +9,18 @@ import model, sample, encoder def interact_model( - model_name='117M', + model_name='124M', seed=None, nsamples=1, batch_size=1, length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, - models_dir='models', + models_dir='models', ): """ Interactively run the model - :model_name=117M : String, which model to use + :model_name=124M : String, which model to use :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to reproduce results :nsamples=1 : Number of samples to return total @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ def interact_model( while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders - (i.e. contains the folder) + (i.e. contains the folder) """ models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) if batch_size is None: From ac5d52295f8a1c3856ea24fb239087cc1a3d1131 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2019 21:20:33 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 62/83] nucleus sampling --- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 3 ++- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 3 ++- src/sample.py | 21 ++++++++++++++++++++- 3 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py index cc3f3a32a..eaf9a63fc 100755 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def sample_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + top_p=1, models_dir='models', ): """ @@ -58,7 +59,7 @@ def sample_model( hparams=hparams, length=length, start_token=enc.encoder['<|endoftext|>'], batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p )[:, 1:] saver = tf.train.Saver() diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py index 48b5cb3d3..8b66000d7 100755 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ def interact_model( length=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, + top_p=1, models_dir='models', ): """ @@ -61,7 +62,7 @@ def interact_model( hparams=hparams, length=length, context=context, batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p ) saver = tf.train.Saver() diff --git a/src/sample.py b/src/sample.py index 664953133..c90ed28dc 100644 --- a/src/sample.py +++ b/src/sample.py @@ -22,7 +22,25 @@ def _top_k(): ) -def sample_sequence(*, hparams, length, start_token=None, batch_size=None, context=None, temperature=1, top_k=0): +def top_p_logits(logits, p): + """Nucleus sampling""" + batch, _ = logits.shape.as_list() + sorted_logits = tf.sort(logits, direction='DESCENDING', axis=-1) + cumulative_probs = tf.cumsum(tf.nn.softmax(sorted_logits, axis=-1), axis=-1) + indices = tf.stack([ + tf.range(0, batch), + # number of indices to include + tf.maximum(tf.reduce_sum(tf.cast(cumulative_probs <= p, tf.int32), axis=-1) - 1, 0), + ], axis=-1) + min_values = tf.gather_nd(sorted_logits, indices) + return tf.where( + logits < min_values, + tf.ones_like(logits) * -1e10, + logits, + ) + + +def sample_sequence(*, hparams, length, start_token=None, batch_size=None, context=None, temperature=1, top_k=0, top_p=1): if start_token is None: assert context is not None, 'Specify exactly one of start_token and context!' else: @@ -45,6 +63,7 @@ def body(past, prev, output): next_outputs = step(hparams, prev, past=past) logits = next_outputs['logits'][:, -1, :] / tf.to_float(temperature) logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) + logits = top_p_logits(logits, p=top_p) samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) return [ next_outputs['presents'] if past is None else tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), From 50fa3b64eaa570c73ef34b51980ca55a09941085 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2019 13:09:45 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 63/83] Add note to install cudnn, re https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8 --- README.md | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 5745193ee..e3aabc22f 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -48,6 +48,8 @@ PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/encoded.npz PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz ``` +Make sure `cudnn` is installed. [Some have reported](https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8) that `train.py` runs without it but has worse memory usage and might OOM. + ### Gradient Checkpointing https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by `--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' collection in model.py. `--memory_saving_gradients` is enabled by default for training the 345M model. From b7cda3f48dd8543bc53d0dd6dee69b5cb386fb21 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neil Shepperd Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2019 13:07:45 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 64/83] Add flag to set encoding for text reading and writing, defaulting to utf-8. --- encode.py | 3 ++- src/load_dataset.py | 4 ++-- train.py | 10 +++++++--- 3 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/encode.py b/encode.py index c8032eb4e..a9238d310 100755 --- a/encode.py +++ b/encode.py @@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='117M', help='Pretrained model name') parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') +parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') parser.add_argument('in_text', metavar='PATH', type=str, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text).') parser.add_argument('out_npz', metavar='OUT.npz', type=str, help='Output file path') @@ -21,7 +22,7 @@ def main(): args = parser.parse_args() enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name) print('Reading files') - chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.in_text, args.combine) + chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.in_text, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) print('Writing', args.out_npz) np.savez_compressed(args.out_npz, *chunks) diff --git a/src/load_dataset.py b/src/load_dataset.py index 52bd00b02..499c3a9d0 100644 --- a/src/load_dataset.py +++ b/src/load_dataset.py @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import tqdm -def load_dataset(enc, path, combine): +def load_dataset(enc, path, combine, encoding=None): paths = [] if os.path.isfile(path): # Simple file @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ def load_dataset(enc, path, combine): token_chunks.append(npz[item]) else: # Plain text - with open(path, 'r') as fp: + with open(path, 'r', encoding=encoding) as fp: raw_text += fp.read() if len(raw_text) >= combine: tokens = np.stack(enc.encode(raw_text)) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 802f678d8..57e4ef92a 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ parser.add_argument('--dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, required=True, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text, or preencoded .npz files).') parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='117M', help='Pretrained model name') parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate input files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') +parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') parser.add_argument('--batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=1, help='Batch size') parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.00002, help='Learning rate for Adam') @@ -170,10 +171,13 @@ def main(): saver.restore(sess, ckpt) print('Loading dataset...') - chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.dataset, args.combine) + chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) data_sampler = Sampler(chunks) if args.val_every > 0: - val_chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.val_dataset, args.combine) if args.val_dataset else chunks + if args.val_dataset: + val_chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.val_dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) + else: + val_chunks = chunks print('dataset has', data_sampler.total_size, 'tokens') print('Training...') @@ -224,7 +228,7 @@ def generate_samples(): maketree(os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name)) with open( os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name, - 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w') as fp: + 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w', encoding=args.encoding) as fp: fp.write('\n'.join(all_text)) def validation(): From fbae7db92a722d85b8ab058a6076d22963dc8ce9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2019 08:53:40 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 65/83] update readmes --- DEVELOPERS.md | 1 + Dockerfile.cpu | 1 + Dockerfile.gpu | 1 + README.md | 6 +++--- 4 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/DEVELOPERS.md b/DEVELOPERS.md index 0992c7026..d23c9d05f 100644 --- a/DEVELOPERS.md +++ b/DEVELOPERS.md @@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ Download the model data python3 download_model.py 124M python3 download_model.py 355M python3 download_model.py 774M +python3 download_model.py 1558M ``` ## Docker Installation diff --git a/Dockerfile.cpu b/Dockerfile.cpu index c923234a3..b6e4f9496 100644 --- a/Dockerfile.cpu +++ b/Dockerfile.cpu @@ -8,3 +8,4 @@ RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt RUN python3 download_model.py 124M RUN python3 download_model.py 355M RUN python3 download_model.py 774M +RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/Dockerfile.gpu b/Dockerfile.gpu index e59880e5d..5ac049aff 100644 --- a/Dockerfile.gpu +++ b/Dockerfile.gpu @@ -17,3 +17,4 @@ RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt RUN python3 download_model.py 124M RUN python3 download_model.py 355M RUN python3 download_model.py 774M +RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 1b2d5e81a..048b4c659 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -2,11 +2,11 @@ # gpt-2 -Code from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). +Code and models from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). -We have currently released small (124M parameter), medium (355M parameter), and large (774M parameter) versions of GPT-2*, with only the full model as of yet unreleased. We have also [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. +You can read about GPT-2 and its staged release in our [original blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/), [6 month follow-up post](https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-6-month-follow-up/), and [final post](https://www.openai.com/blog/gpt-2-1-5b-release/). -You can read about GPT-2 and release decisions in our [original blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/) and [6 month follow-up post](https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-6-month-follow-up/). +We have also [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. * *Note that our original parameter counts were wrong due to an error (in our previous blog posts and paper). Thus you may have seen small referred to as 117M and medium referred to as 345M.* From d98291d2ae0761eff6d12f0e4e52e93c7e847eb2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jack Clark Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2019 09:01:10 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 66/83] update model card --- model_card.md | 13 +++++++++---- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/model_card.md b/model_card.md index fdab8ee2c..ae691e2cf 100644 --- a/model_card.md +++ b/model_card.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # GPT-2 model card -Last updated: August 2019 +Last updated: November 2019 Inspired by [Model Cards for Model Reporting (Mitchell et al.)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993), we’re providing some accompanying information about the GPT-2 family of models we're releasing. @@ -10,12 +10,16 @@ This model was developed by researchers at OpenAI to help us understand how the ### Model date -Spring 2019, trained on data that cuts off at the end of 2017. +February 2019, trained on data that cuts off at the end of 2017. ### Model type Language model +### Model version + +1.5 billion parameters: the fourth and largest GPT-2 version. We have also released 124 million, 355 million, and 774 million parameter models. + ### Paper or other resource for more information [Blog post](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) and [paper](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf) @@ -42,7 +46,7 @@ Here are some secondary use cases we believe are likely: Because large-scale language models like GPT-2 do not distinguish fact from fiction, we don’t support use-cases that require the generated text to be true. -Additionally, language models like GPT-2 reflect the biases inherent to the systems they were trained on, so we do not recommend that they be deployed into systems that interact with humans unless the deployers first carry out a study of biases relevant to the intended use-case. +Additionally, language models like GPT-2 reflect the biases inherent to the systems they were trained on, so we do not recommend that they be deployed into systems that interact with humans unless the deployers first carry out a study of biases relevant to the intended use-case. We found no statistically significant difference in gender, race, and religious bias probes between 774M and 1.5B, implying all versions of GPT-2 should be approached with similar levels of caution around use cases that are sensitive to biases around human attributes. ## Evaluation Data @@ -60,5 +64,6 @@ The motivation behind WebText was to create an Internet-scale, heterogeneous dat Because GPT-2 is an internet-scale language model, it’s currently difficult to know what disciplined testing procedures can be applied to it to fully understand its capabilities and how the data it is trained on influences its vast range of outputs. We recommend researchers investigate these aspects of the model and share their results. -Additionally, as indicated in our discussion of issues relating to potential misuse of the model, it remains unclear what the long-term dynamics are of detecting outputs from these models. Developing better approaches to detection today will give us greater intuitions when thinking about future models and could help us understand ahead of time if detection methods will eventually become ineffective. +Additionally, as indicated in our discussion of issues relating to potential misuse of the model, it remains unclear what the long-term dynamics are of detecting outputs from these models. We conducted [in-house automated ML-based detection research](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset/tree/master/detector) using simple classifiers, zero shot, and fine-tuning methods. Our fine-tuned detector model reached accuracy levels of approximately 95%. However, no one detection method is a panacea; automated ML-based detection, human detection, human-machine teaming, and metadata-based detection are all methods that can be combined for more confident classification. Developing better approaches to detection today will give us greater intuitions when thinking about future models and could help us understand ahead of time if detection methods will eventually become ineffective. + From ebdba20a19165a0d03cb85a2099117d6953aef5a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jack Clark Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 13:33:24 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 67/83] updated g_form contact --- model_card.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/model_card.md b/model_card.md index ae691e2cf..38246ee2a 100644 --- a/model_card.md +++ b/model_card.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Language model [Blog post](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) and [paper](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf) ### Where to send questions or comments about the model -languagequestions@openai.com +Please use this [Google Form](https://forms.gle/A7WBSbTY2EkKdroPA) ## Intended Uses: From 0f97760ebe1ccad5778a6d5957b2be9800e4efd8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: cookee12 <31609312+cookee12@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 13:53:50 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 68/83] Update LICENSE Hi. David Lansky and Jack Clark asked me to update the GPT-2 License accordingly. --- LICENSE | 38 +++++++++++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE index cb36e12ee..e0e30f310 100644 --- a/LICENSE +++ b/LICENSE @@ -1,21 +1,25 @@ -MIT License +Modified MIT License -Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI +Software Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI -Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy -of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal -in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights -to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell -copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is -furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: +We don’t claim ownership of the content you create with GPT-2, so it is yours to do with as you please. +We only ask that you use GPT-2 responsibly and clearly indicate your content was created using GPT-2. -The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all -copies or substantial portions of the Software. +MIT License Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and +associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, +including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, +and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, +subject to the following conditions: -THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR -IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, -FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE -AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER -LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, -OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE -SOFTWARE. +The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included +in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. +The above copyright notice and this permission notice need not be included +with content created by the Software. + +THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, +FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS +BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, +TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE +OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. From 03fce0a0804860c112dd866d5a3f519cbe7661db Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 14:07:30 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 69/83] Update README.md per cullen's request --- README.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 048b4c659..6d998ece1 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -55,4 +55,4 @@ We are still considering release of the larger models. ## License -[MIT](./LICENSE) +[Modified MIT](./LICENSE) From 0574c5708b094bfa0b0f6dfe3fd284d9a045acd9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 18:06:25 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 70/83] delete --- LICENSE | 29 ++++++++++++++--------------- 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-) diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE index e0e30f310..f56abfef0 100644 --- a/LICENSE +++ b/LICENSE @@ -2,24 +2,23 @@ Modified MIT License Software Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI -We don’t claim ownership of the content you create with GPT-2, so it is yours to do with as you please. +We don’t claim ownership of the content you create with GPT-2, so it is yours to do with as you please. We only ask that you use GPT-2 responsibly and clearly indicate your content was created using GPT-2. -MIT License Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI -Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and -associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, -including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, -and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, -subject to the following conditions: +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and +associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, +including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, +and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, +subject to the following conditions: -The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. -The above copyright notice and this permission notice need not be included +The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included +in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. +The above copyright notice and this permission notice need not be included with content created by the Software. -THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, -INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, +THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS -BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, -TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE -OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. +BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, +TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE +OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. From a74da5d99abaaba920de8131d64da2862a8f213b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff Wu Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2020 12:56:19 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 71/83] move to azure --- download_model.py | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/download_model.py b/download_model.py index 56d4e7675..54e4bb60c 100644 --- a/download_model.py +++ b/download_model.py @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ for filename in ['checkpoint','encoder.json','hparams.json','model.ckpt.data-00000-of-00001', 'model.ckpt.index', 'model.ckpt.meta', 'vocab.bpe']: - r = requests.get("https://storage.googleapis.com/gpt-2/" + subdir + "/" + filename, stream=True) + r = requests.get("https://openaipublic.blob.core.windows.net/gpt-2/" + subdir + "/" + filename, stream=True) with open(os.path.join(subdir, filename), 'wb') as f: file_size = int(r.headers["content-length"]) From 9741323651195c9716aebcf47d4ee10bbb39bd43 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nshepperd Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 14:22:52 +1100 Subject: [PATCH 72/83] Fix models_dir issue #76 --- encode.py | 3 ++- train.py | 3 ++- 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/encode.py b/encode.py index a9238d310..8f8e07947 100755 --- a/encode.py +++ b/encode.py @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ description='Pre-encode text files into tokenized training set.', formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='117M', help='Pretrained model name') +parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') parser.add_argument('in_text', metavar='PATH', type=str, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text).') @@ -20,7 +21,7 @@ def main(): args = parser.parse_args() - enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name) + enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) print('Reading files') chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.in_text, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) print('Writing', args.out_npz) diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 65ae7fb4f..8837d90fe 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ parser.add_argument('--dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, required=True, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text, or preencoded .npz files).') parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='124M', help='Pretrained model name') +parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate input files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') @@ -71,7 +72,7 @@ def randomize(context, hparams, p): def main(): args = parser.parse_args() - enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name) + enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) hparams = model.default_hparams() with open(os.path.join('models', args.model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) From 4556dd2126f443005b5046293fb21ee84fffa584 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nshepperd Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 14:46:26 +1100 Subject: [PATCH 73/83] Delete train-horovod.py, which is unmaintained --- train-horovod.py | 194 ----------------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 194 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 train-horovod.py diff --git a/train-horovod.py b/train-horovod.py deleted file mode 100644 index bea32773f..000000000 --- a/train-horovod.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,194 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python3 -# Usage: -# PYTHONPATH=src ./train --dataset - -import fire -import json -import os -import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf -import random -import time - -import horovod.tensorflow as hvd - -import model, sample, encoder -from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler - -CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' -SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' - -hvd.init() - -def maketree(path): - try: - os.makedirs(path) - except: - pass - - -def train_main(dataset, - model_name='117M', - seed=None, - batch_size=2, - sample_length=1023, - sample_num=1, - sample_every=4500, - run_name='run1', - restore_from='latest', - save_every=2000, - combine=50000): - - enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name) - hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: - hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) - - if sample_length is None: - sample_length = hparams.n_ctx // 2 - elif sample_length > hparams.n_ctx: - raise ValueError( - "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - - # TF config - - config = tf.ConfigProto() - config.gpu_options.visible_device_list = str(hvd.local_rank()) - config.gpu_options.allow_growth = True - - with tf.Session(config=config) as sess: - context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [batch_size, None]) - np.random.seed(seed) - tf.set_random_seed(seed) - output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=context) - loss = tf.reduce_mean( - tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( - labels=context[:, 1:], logits=output['logits'][:, :-1])) - - tf_sample = sample.sample_sequence( - hparams=hparams, - length=sample_length, - context=context, - batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=0.8, - top_k=40) - - train_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] - - opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer() - opt = hvd.DistributedOptimizer(opt) - train_op = opt.minimize(loss, var_list=train_vars) - - # Horovod: broadcast initial variable states from rank 0 to all other processes. - # This is necessary to ensure consistent initialization of all workers when - # training is started with random weights or restored from a checkpoint. - bcast = hvd.broadcast_global_variables(0) - - saver = tf.train.Saver( - var_list=train_vars, - max_to_keep=5, - keep_checkpoint_every_n_hours=2) - - sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) - - - if restore_from == 'latest': - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name)) - if ckpt is None: - # Get fresh GPT weights if new run. - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join('models', model_name)) - elif restore_from == 'fresh': - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join('models', model_name)) - else: - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(restore_from) - print(str(hvd.local_rank()), 'Loading checkpoint', ckpt) - saver.restore(sess, ckpt) - - bcast.run() - - print(str(hvd.local_rank()), 'Loading dataset...') - chunks = load_dataset(enc, dataset, combine) - data_sampler = Sampler(chunks) - print(str(hvd.local_rank()), 'dataset has', data_sampler.total_size, 'tokens') - print(str(hvd.local_rank()), 'Training...') - - counter = 1 - if os.path.exists(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name, 'counter')): - # Load the step number if we're resuming a run - # Add 1 so we don't immediately try to save again - with open(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name, 'counter'), - 'r') as fp: - counter = int(fp.read()) + 1 - - def save(): - maketree(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name)) - print( - 'Saving', - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name, - 'model-{}').format(counter)) - saver.save( - sess, - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name, 'model'), - global_step=counter) - with open(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, run_name, 'counter'), - 'w') as fp: - fp.write(str(counter) + '\n') - - def generate_samples(): - context_tokens = data_sampler.sample(1) - all_text = [] - index = 0 - while index < sample_num: - out = sess.run( - tf_sample, feed_dict={context: batch_size*[context_tokens]}) - for i in range(min(sample_num - index, batch_size)): - text = enc.decode(out[i]) - text = '======== SAMPLE {} ========\n{}\n'.format(index + 1, text) - all_text.append(text) - index += 1 - print(text) - maketree(os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, run_name)) - with open( - os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, run_name, - 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w') as fp: - fp.write('\n'.join(all_text)) - - avg_loss = (0.0, 0.0) - start_time = time.time() - - try: - while True: - - batch = [data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(batch_size)] - - _, lv = sess.run((train_op, loss), feed_dict={context: batch}) - - avg_loss = (avg_loss[0] * 0.99 + lv, avg_loss[1] * 0.99 + 1.0) - - if hvd.rank() == 0: - if counter % save_every == 0: - save() - if counter % sample_every == 0: - generate_samples() - - print( - '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] loss={loss:2.2f} avg={avg:2.2f}' - .format( - counter=counter, - time=time.time() - start_time, - loss=lv, - avg=avg_loss[0] / avg_loss[1])) - - counter += 1 - - except KeyboardInterrupt: - print('interrupted') - if hvd.rank() == 0: - save() - - -if __name__ == '__main__': - fire.Fire(train_main) From 2de5d1bab2ba50e60d058de856799fd831ab1ac2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nshepperd Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 14:46:43 +1100 Subject: [PATCH 74/83] Fixes to support tensorflow v2.x. Training should still work in v1.x. --- src/accumulate.py | 2 +- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 3 +-- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 3 +-- src/load_dataset.py | 2 +- src/model.py | 21 +++++++++++++++------ src/sample.py | 2 +- train.py | 14 +++++++------- 7 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/accumulate.py b/src/accumulate.py index c5a4a81e8..1a475a1e0 100644 --- a/src/accumulate.py +++ b/src/accumulate.py @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ import json import os import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import time diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py index eaf9a63fc..2db99698b 100755 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import json import os import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import model, sample, encoder @@ -77,4 +77,3 @@ def sample_model( if __name__ == '__main__': fire.Fire(sample_model) - diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py index 8b66000d7..10729c83c 100755 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import json import os import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import model, sample, encoder @@ -89,4 +89,3 @@ def interact_model( if __name__ == '__main__': fire.Fire(interact_model) - diff --git a/src/load_dataset.py b/src/load_dataset.py index 499c3a9d0..fdb7b3849 100644 --- a/src/load_dataset.py +++ b/src/load_dataset.py @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ import glob import numpy as np import os -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import tqdm diff --git a/src/model.py b/src/model.py index 4e942d873..489c9bdce 100644 --- a/src/model.py +++ b/src/model.py @@ -1,6 +1,15 @@ import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf -from tensorflow.contrib.training import HParams +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +class HParams(object): + def __init__(self, **kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + + def override_from_dict(self, kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + def default_hparams(): return HParams( @@ -28,7 +37,7 @@ def gelu(x): def norm(x, scope, *, axis=-1, epsilon=1e-5): """Normalize to mean = 0, std = 1, then do a diagonal affine transform.""" with tf.variable_scope(scope): - n_state = x.shape[-1].value + n_state = shape_list(x)[-1] g = tf.get_variable('g', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(1)) b = tf.get_variable('b', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) u = tf.reduce_mean(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) @@ -91,7 +100,7 @@ def mask_attn_weights(w): def multihead_attn(q, k, v): # q, k, v have shape [batch, heads, sequence, features] w = tf.matmul(q, k, transpose_b=True) - w = w * tf.rsqrt(tf.cast(v.shape[-1].value, w.dtype)) + w = w * tf.rsqrt(tf.cast(shape_list(v)[-1], w.dtype)) w = mask_attn_weights(w) w = softmax(w) @@ -114,7 +123,7 @@ def multihead_attn(q, k, v): def mlp(x, scope, n_state, *, hparams): with tf.variable_scope(scope): - nx = x.shape[-1].value + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] h = gelu(conv1d(x, 'c_fc', n_state)) h2 = conv1d(h, 'c_proj', nx) return h2 @@ -122,7 +131,7 @@ def mlp(x, scope, n_state, *, hparams): def block(x, scope, *, past, hparams): with tf.variable_scope(scope): - nx = x.shape[-1].value + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] a, present = attn(norm(x, 'ln_1'), 'attn', nx, past=past, hparams=hparams) x = x + a m = mlp(norm(x, 'ln_2'), 'mlp', nx*4, hparams=hparams) diff --git a/src/sample.py b/src/sample.py index 4c6354b1c..7cae0652b 100644 --- a/src/sample.py +++ b/src/sample.py @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import model diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 8837d90fe..75c7bac33 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -6,15 +6,17 @@ import json import os import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf import time import tqdm from tensorflow.core.protobuf import rewriter_config_pb2 +if tf.VERSION >= '2': + tf.disable_eager_execution() + import model, sample, encoder from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler from accumulate import AccumulatingOptimizer -import memory_saving_gradients CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' @@ -81,11 +83,6 @@ def main(): raise ValueError( "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - if args.model_name == '345M': - args.memory_saving_gradients = True - if args.optimizer == 'adam': - args.only_train_transformer_layers = True - config = tf.ConfigProto() config.gpu_options.allow_growth = True config.graph_options.rewrite_options.layout_optimizer = rewriter_config_pb2.RewriterConfig.OFF @@ -137,6 +134,9 @@ def main(): summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', opt_apply) else: if args.memory_saving_gradients: + if tf.VERSION >= '2': + exit('Memory saving gradients are not supported in tensorflow 2.x') + import memory_saving_gradients opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(loss, train_vars) else: opt_grads = tf.gradients(loss, train_vars) From ffc54c78e24faca4b72ed24493696edca2fd47b7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nshepperd Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 22:46:01 +1100 Subject: [PATCH 75/83] Add tensor rematerialization. --- .gitignore | 4 +- README.md | 57 +++++++- src/tfremat.py | 181 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ src/twremat.py | 60 +++++++++ train.py | 106 ++++++++------- twremat/README.md | 1 + twremat/main/remat.hs | 150 +++++++++++++++++++++ twremat/main/test.hs | 35 +++++ twremat/src/Balanced.hs | 97 ++++++++++++++ twremat/src/Dense.hs | 17 +++ twremat/src/Filter.hs | 175 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ twremat/src/Graph.hs | 236 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ twremat/src/TWRemat.hs | 90 +++++++++++++ twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs | 124 ++++++++++++++++++ twremat/src/Tupfile | 0 twremat/src/Util.hs | 25 ++++ twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs | 33 +++++ twremat/test/TestGraph.hs | 71 ++++++++++ twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs | 51 ++++++++ twremat/test/Tupfile | 0 twremat/twremat.cabal | 52 ++++++++ 21 files changed, 1515 insertions(+), 50 deletions(-) create mode 100644 src/tfremat.py create mode 100644 src/twremat.py create mode 100644 twremat/README.md create mode 100644 twremat/main/remat.hs create mode 100644 twremat/main/test.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/Balanced.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/Dense.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/Filter.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/Graph.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/TWRemat.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs create mode 100644 twremat/src/Tupfile create mode 100644 twremat/src/Util.hs create mode 100644 twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs create mode 100644 twremat/test/TestGraph.hs create mode 100644 twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs create mode 100644 twremat/test/Tupfile create mode 100644 twremat/twremat.cabal diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore index dd5f7af7b..5b1531ee0 100644 --- a/.gitignore +++ b/.gitignore @@ -2,4 +2,6 @@ __pycache__ .mypy_cache/ models/ checkpoint -samples \ No newline at end of file +samples +dist-newstyle +bin diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 0c8ad653c..3fefe2ec1 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -15,19 +15,68 @@ PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/encoded.npz PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz ``` -Make sure `cudnn` is installed. [Some have reported](https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8) that `train.py` runs without it but has worse memory usage and might OOM. +Make sure `cudnn` is installed. [Some have +reported](https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8) that `train.py` +runs without it but has worse memory usage and might OOM. + +### Tensor Rematerialization + +Experimental: a rematerialization rewriter based on `Efficient +Rematerialization for Deep Networks` +, +which unlike gradient checkpointing works in tensorflow 2.0 and is +able to automatically select checkpoints in arbitrary graphs. Using +this I was able to finetune GPT-2 1.5B on a single graphics card using +slightly less than 12G of video ram with very little slowdown. + +To use this is a little involved, because the graph optimization +algorithm is offloaded to an optimized Haskell program. First, go into +subdirectory `twremat`, and build it by invoking: + + cabal v2-install --installdir=../bin + +(You'll need to install cabal if you haven't already -- but setting up +ghc and haskell compilation is beyond the scope of this README.) + +Then run `train.py` as normal, enabling `--twremat` and setting +`--twremat_memlimit` to an appropriate value -- this sets the amount +of memory assumed to be available for computation of gradients, so it +should be roughly the memory size of your graphics card minus whatever +is taken up by the gpt-2 weights, and any other bookkeeping +variables. You may need to experiment with the memlimit until you find +the largest value that doesn't OOM. + +(You probably also want to use SGD as optimizer instead of Adam to +minimize those bookkeeping variables, of which Adam uses a lot). ### Gradient Checkpointing -https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by `--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' collection in model.py. `--memory_saving_gradients` is enabled by default for training the 345M model. +https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce +the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by +`--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen +manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' +collection in model.py. + +Gradient checkpointing doesn't work in tensorflow v2.0 and later due +to the removal of tf.contrib. You should use tensor rematerialization +instead if possible. ### Validation loss -Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so not a real cross-validation loss!). +Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss +against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps +to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 +suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation +dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so +not a real cross-validation loss!). ### Optimizer -You can use SGD instead of Adam with `--optimizer sgd`. This also helps conserve memory when training the 345M model. Note: the learning rate needs to be adjusted for SGD, due to not having Adam's gradient normalization (0.0006 seems to be a good number from some experiments). +You can use SGD instead of Adam with `--optimizer sgd`. This also +helps conserve memory when training larger models. Note: the learning +rate needs to be adjusted for SGD, due to not having Adam's gradient +normalization (0.0006 seems to be a good number from some +experiments). # Original README diff --git a/src/tfremat.py b/src/tfremat.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..332668227 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/tfremat.py @@ -0,0 +1,181 @@ +import random +import os +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import tempfile + +import twremat + +def splice_op(op, input_map, control_inputs=None): + g = op.graph + node_def = tf.NodeDef() + node_def.CopyFrom(op.node_def) + node_def.name = g.unique_name(op.name + '_copy') + inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.inputs] + new_control_inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.control_inputs] + if control_inputs: + new_control_inputs.extend([x for x in control_inputs if x is not None]) + # new_control_inputs = control_inputs + output_types = [o.dtype for o in op.outputs] + op_def = op.op_def + return tf.Operation(node_def, g, inputs=inputs, output_types=output_types, op_def=op_def, control_inputs=new_control_inputs) + +def splice_tensor(ten, new_op): + i = ten.op.outputs.index(ten) + return new_op.outputs[i] + +def splice(obj, input_map, control_inputs=None): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + return splice_op(obj, input_map, control_inputs=control_inputs) + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return splice_tensor(obj, input_map.get(obj.op, obj.op)) + elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return tf.IndexedSlices(values=input_map.get(obj.values, obj.values), + indices=input_map.get(obj.indices, obj.indices), + dense_shape=input_map.get(obj.dense_shape, obj.dense_shape)) + else: + raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') + +def product(xs): + r = 1 + for x in xs: + r *= x + return r + +def shape_size(shape): + if shape.rank is None: + return 16 + shape = shape.as_list() + for i in range(len(shape)): + if shape[i] is None and i == 0: + shape[i] = 1 + elif shape[i] is None: + shape[i] = 1024 + return product(shape) + +def graph_from_dfs(deps, starts): + visited = set() + frontier = starts + while frontier: + x = frontier.pop() + if x in visited: + continue + visited.add(x) + frontier.extend(list(deps(x))) + return {x : list(deps(x)) for x in visited} + +def get_deps(obj): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + return list(obj.inputs) + list(obj.control_inputs) + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return [obj.op] + elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return [obj.indices, obj.values, obj.dense_shape] + else: + raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') + + +def tensor_graph(compute): + return graph_from_dfs(get_deps, list(compute)) + +def blacklist(obj): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + if 'Assign' in obj.type or 'Variable' in obj.type or 'Placeholder' in obj.type: + # TODO: Should we do special accounting for + # ReadVariableOp? Currently we forbid cloning altogether, + # but it's actually ok to clone this op as long as it + # doesn't float across an effectful op (Assign). Also + # currently we don't account for the memory used by + # ReadVariableOp (is it copy-on-write?). + # https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/raw_ops/ReadVariableOp?hl=uk + return True + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return blacklist(obj.op) + return False + +def estimate_cpu(op): + return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.inputs if type(t) is tf.Tensor) + sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) + +def estimate_mem(op): + return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) + +def info(op): + if blacklist(op): + return {'type': 'effectful'} + elif type(op) is tf.Operation: + if 'Reshape' in op.type: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + return {'type': 'normal', + 'cpu': estimate_cpu(op), + 'mem': estimate_mem(op)} + elif type(op) is tf.Tensor: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + elif type(op) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + else: + raise AssertionError(repr((type(op), op))) + + +# Helper functions to flatten and unflatten nested structures of +# tensors and ops so that tf_remat can be applied to structures +# without fiddly marshalling. +def get_ops(compute): + output = [] + stack = [compute] + while stack: + top = stack.pop() + if type(top) is dict: + for v in top.values(): + stack.append(v) + elif type(top) in (list, tuple): + stack.extend(top) + elif type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): + output.append(top) + return output + +def replace_ops(top, live): + if type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): + return live[top] + elif type(top) is dict: + return {k : replace_ops(v, live) for (k,v) in top.items()} + elif type(top) is list: + return [replace_ops(v, live) for v in top] + elif type(top) is tuple: + return tuple(replace_ops(v, live) for v in top) + else: + return top + + +def tf_remat(compute, memlimit): + compute_ops = get_ops(compute) + tf_deps = tensor_graph(compute_ops) + + # Relabel with integers + from_op = {op : i for (i, op) in enumerate(tf_deps.keys())} + from_node = {i : op for (op, i) in from_op.items()} + nodes = set(from_node.keys()) + node_deps = {n : [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] for n in nodes} + + node_info = {} + for n in nodes: + node_info[n] = info(from_node[n]) + node_info[n]['deps'] = [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] + + steps = twremat.runtwremat(node_info, memlimit, {from_op[c] for c in compute_ops}) + + print('Constructing tensorflow graph...') + live = {} + last_op = None + for (action, n) in steps: + base = from_node[n] + if action == 'compute': + input_map = {d : live[d] for d in tf_deps[base] if live[d] != d} + if blacklist(base) and not input_map: + live[base] = base + else: + live[base] = splice(base, input_map, control_inputs=[last_op]) + if type(base) is tf.Operation: + last_op = live[base] + elif action == 'free': + del live[base] + + return replace_ops(compute, live) diff --git a/src/twremat.py b/src/twremat.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..456b6f60d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/twremat.py @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +from subprocess import Popen, PIPE +import random +import os +import sys +import tempfile +from tqdm import tqdm + +BINDIR=os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0]), 'bin') +TWREMAT=os.path.join(BINDIR, 'twremat') + +# Allow users to pass 'humanized' memlimit values as strings. +def parse_memlimit(memlimit): + if memlimit[-1] == 'K': + return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000 + elif memlimit[-1] == 'M': + return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000000 + elif memlimit[-1] == 'G': + return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000000000 + else: + return int(memlimit) + +def runtwremat(gr, memlimit, target): + if type(memlimit) is str: + memlimit = parse_memlimit(memlimit) + + fname = tempfile.mktemp() + outname = tempfile.mktemp() + with open(fname, 'w') as fp: + print('p remat2', file=fp) + print(f'memlimit {memlimit}', file=fp) + for (n, info) in gr.items(): + deps = ' '.join(str(d) for d in info['deps']) + if info['type'] == 'normal': + cpu = info['cpu'] + mem = info['mem'] + weight = f'cpu {cpu} mem {mem}' + elif info['type'] == 'effectful': + weight = 'effectful' + elif info['type'] == 'pointer': + weight = 'pointer' + if n in target: + tstr = 'target' + else: + tstr = '' + print(f'node {n} deps {deps} {weight} {tstr}', file=fp) + print(' '.join([TWREMAT, fname, outname])) + proc = Popen([TWREMAT, fname, outname]) + assert proc.wait() == 0 + out = [] + with open(outname, 'r') as fp: + for line in fp: + line = line.split() + if line and line[0] == 'c': + out.append(('compute', int(line[1]))) + elif line and line[0] == 'f': + out.append(('free', int(line[1]))) + elif line: + print(line) + exit() + return out diff --git a/train.py b/train.py index 75c7bac33..113493726 100755 --- a/train.py +++ b/train.py @@ -4,19 +4,29 @@ import argparse import json -import os +import os, sys import numpy as np import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import tensorflow as tf2 import time import tqdm -from tensorflow.core.protobuf import rewriter_config_pb2 if tf.VERSION >= '2': tf.disable_eager_execution() + tf.config.experimental.enable_tensor_float_32_execution(False) + tf.config.optimizer.set_experimental_options({'layout_optimizer': False, + 'constant_folding': False, + 'shape_optimization': False, + 'remapping': False, + 'arithmetic_optimization': False, + 'dependency_optimization': False, + 'loop_optimization': False, + 'disable_meta_optimizer': True + }) + import model, sample, encoder from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler -from accumulate import AccumulatingOptimizer CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' @@ -36,6 +46,8 @@ parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.00002, help='Learning rate for Adam') parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') +parser.add_argument('--twremat', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use tensor rematerialization (better than memory_saving_gradients and works with tensorflow 2.0).') +parser.add_argument('--twremat_memlimit', type=str, default='12G', help='Memory usage limit/target for twremat. Can be an integer, or an integer suffixed with K/M/G for kilo/mega/giga-bytes.') parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') parser.add_argument('--noise', type=float, default=0.0, help='Add noise to input training data to regularize against typos.') @@ -83,16 +95,15 @@ def main(): raise ValueError( "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - config = tf.ConfigProto() - config.gpu_options.allow_growth = True - config.graph_options.rewrite_options.layout_optimizer = rewriter_config_pb2.RewriterConfig.OFF - with tf.Session(config=config) as sess: - context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) - context_in = randomize(context, hparams, args.noise) - output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=context_in) - loss = tf.reduce_mean( + with tf.Session() as sess: + # Fully static shape required to make memory accounting in + # twremat accurate. + train_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, 1024]) + train_context_in = randomize(train_context, hparams, args.noise) + train_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=train_context_in) + train_loss = tf.reduce_mean( tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( - labels=context[:, 1:], logits=output['logits'][:, :-1])) + labels=train_context[:, 1:], logits=train_output['logits'][:, :-1])) if args.val_every > 0: val_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.val_batch_size, None]) @@ -102,11 +113,11 @@ def main(): labels=val_context[:, 1:], logits=val_output['logits'][:, :-1])) val_loss_summary = tf.summary.scalar('val_loss', val_loss) - + sample_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) tf_sample = sample.sample_sequence( hparams=hparams, length=args.sample_length, - context=context, + context=sample_context, batch_size=args.batch_size, temperature=1.0, top_k=args.top_k, @@ -116,33 +127,38 @@ def main(): train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars if args.optimizer == 'adam': + print('Using Adam optimizer', file=sys.stderr) opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) elif args.optimizer == 'sgd': + print('Using SGD optimizer', file=sys.stderr) opt = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) else: exit('Bad optimizer:', args.optimizer) - if args.accumulate_gradients > 1: - if args.memory_saving_gradients: - exit("Memory saving gradients are not implemented for gradient accumulation yet.") - opt = AccumulatingOptimizer( - opt=opt, - var_list=train_vars) - opt_reset = opt.reset() - opt_compute = opt.compute_gradients(loss) - opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients() - summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', opt_apply) + if args.memory_saving_gradients: + if tf.VERSION >= '2': + exit('Memory saving gradients are not supported in tensorflow 2.x') + import memory_saving_gradients + opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + elif args.twremat: + import tfremat + opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + (train_loss, opt_grads) = tfremat.tf_remat((train_loss, opt_grads), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit) else: - if args.memory_saving_gradients: - if tf.VERSION >= '2': - exit('Memory saving gradients are not supported in tensorflow 2.x') - import memory_saving_gradients - opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(loss, train_vars) - else: - opt_grads = tf.gradients(loss, train_vars) - opt_grads = list(zip(opt_grads, train_vars)) - opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) - summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', loss) + opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + opt_grads = list(zip(opt_grads, train_vars)) + opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) + summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', train_loss) + + # if args.twremat: + # import tfremat + # # Applying tfremat to opt_apply has more accurate + # # accounting but is a bit iffier since side effecting ops + # # have more restrictions for correctness. If in doubt + # # revert back to version using opt_grads above. + # (opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss) = ( + # tfremat.tf_remat((opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit)) + summary_lr = tf.summary.scalar('learning_rate', args.learning_rate) summaries = tf.summary.merge([summary_lr, summary_loss]) @@ -218,7 +234,7 @@ def generate_samples(): while index < args.sample_num: out = sess.run( tf_sample, - feed_dict={context: args.batch_size * [context_tokens]}) + feed_dict={sample_context: args.batch_size * [context_tokens]}) for i in range(min(args.sample_num - index, args.batch_size)): text = enc.decode(out[i]) text = '======== SAMPLE {} ========\n{}\n'.format( @@ -255,6 +271,13 @@ def sample_batch(): avg_loss = (0.0, 0.0) start_time = time.time() + # print('Evaluating grads..') + # tf2.profiler.experimental.start('logdir') + # sess.run((opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) + # tf2.profiler.experimental.stop() + # print('Succeeded') + # exit() + try: while True: if counter % args.save_every == 0: @@ -264,16 +287,9 @@ def sample_batch(): if args.val_every > 0 and (counter % args.val_every == 0 or counter == 1): validation() - if args.accumulate_gradients > 1: - sess.run(opt_reset) - for _ in range(args.accumulate_gradients): - sess.run( - opt_compute, feed_dict={context: sample_batch()}) - (v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run((opt_apply, summaries)) - else: - (_, v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run( - (opt_apply, loss, summaries), - feed_dict={context: sample_batch()}) + (_, v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run( + (opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), + feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) diff --git a/twremat/README.md b/twremat/README.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..425e64091 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/README.md @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Fast implementation of `Efficient Rematerialization for Deep Networks` . diff --git a/twremat/main/remat.hs b/twremat/main/remat.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..63a4c8805 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/main/remat.hs @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} +{-# Language OverloadedStrings #-} +module Main where + +import Control.Applicative +import Control.Monad +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Text (Text) +import qualified Data.Text as T +import qualified Data.Text.IO as T +import Debug.Trace +import System.Environment +import System.IO +import Text.Parser.Char +import Text.Parser.Combinators +import Text.Trifecta (Parser) +import qualified Text.Trifecta as Trifecta + +import Balanced +import Filter +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TWRemat +import TreeWidth +import Util + +parse :: Parser a -> Text -> a +parse p txt = case Trifecta.parseString p mempty (T.unpack txt) of + Trifecta.Success a -> a + Trifecta.Failure e -> error (show (Trifecta._errDoc e)) + +p_nat :: (Read a, Integral a) => Parser a +p_nat = read <$> some digit + +isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> [Node] -> Bool +isValidSchedule gr steps ts = go steps IS.empty + where + go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (G.preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) + go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) + go [] live = all (\n -> IS.member n live) ts + +-- Modify the graph to insert direct dependencies through 'pointer' +-- type ops to the op that generated their underlying +-- storage. Example, given op1 -> id -> op2, op2 will now directly +-- keep op1 alive. Assuming that 'pointer' type ops are ~0 cost the +-- 'id' can now be immediately freed after use, and all memory usage +-- charged to op1, simplifying memory analysis. +mergePointers :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Gr a +mergePointers gr info = merged + where + merged = G.insEdges [(p, n) | n <- G.nodes gr, p <- pdeps n] gr + pdeps n = let pparents n = [p | p <- G.preList gr n, info p == Pointer] + go [] visited = Set.toList visited + go (p:ps) visited | Set.member p visited = go ps visited + | otherwise = go (pparents p ++ ps) (Set.insert p visited) + in go (pparents n) Set.empty + + +outputSchedule :: [Step] -> IO () +outputSchedule schedule = do + args <- getArgs + let printStep (Compute n) = "c " <> T.pack (show n) + printStep (Free n) = "f " <> T.pack (show n) + output = T.unlines (map printStep schedule) + case args of + [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output + [path] -> T.putStr output + + +main :: IO () +main = do + args <- getArgs + let path = head args + txt <- T.readFile path + let p = do + string "p remat2" *> spaces + memlimit <- optional (text "memlimit" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces) + nodes <- some $ do + text "node" <* spaces + node_id <- p_nat <* spaces + deps <- fold <$> optional (text "deps" *> spaces *> many (p_nat <* spaces)) + let p_weight = do + cpu <- text "cpu" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces + mem <- text "mem" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces + return (Normal{cpu,mem}) + p_effectful = const Effectful <$> text "effectful" <* spaces + p_pointer = const Pointer <$> text "pointer" <* spaces + weight <- optional (p_weight <|> p_effectful <|> p_pointer) + target <- (const True <$> text "target" <* spaces) <|> pure False + optional (char '\n') + return (node_id, deps, weight, target) + eof + return (memlimit, nodes) + (memlimit, node_data) = parse p txt + ns = [n | (n, _, _, _) <- node_data] + es = [(d, n) | (n, ds, _, _) <- node_data, d <- ds] + ts = [n | (n, _, _, True) <- node_data] + + case memlimit of + Just memlimit -> let + weights = Map.fromList [(n,w) | (n, _, Just w, _) <- node_data] + weight n = Map.findWithDefault (Normal 1 1) n weights + graph = mergePointers (G.mkUGraph ns es) weight + schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) + schedule' = optimize graph weight memlimit schedule + in do outputSchedule schedule' + hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts)) + hPutStrLn stderr ("length = " ++ show (length schedule')) + evalSched weight (initSched graph schedule') + Nothing -> let + graph = G.mkUGraph ns es + schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) + in outputSchedule schedule + -- -- G.plotLab "tree.dot" (IS.toList <$> treeWidth graph) + -- print (length ns) + -- print (length schedule, isValidSchedule graph schedule ts) + -- print (length schedule', isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts) + + -- let sched_1 = initSched graph schedule + -- evalSched weight sched_1 + + -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 + -- evalSched weight sched_2 + + -- let go sched = do + -- let sched_1 = greedy weight 1000 sched + -- evalSched weight sched_1 + -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 + -- evalSched weight sched_2 + -- go sched_2 + + -- go sched_2 + + -- let + -- output = T.unlines $ map T.pack $ do + -- step <- schedule + -- return $ case step of + -- Compute n -> "c " ++ show n + -- Free n -> "f " ++ show n + -- case args of + -- [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output + -- [path] -> T.putStr output + -- hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule)) diff --git a/twremat/main/test.hs b/twremat/main/test.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0adccd3f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/main/test.hs @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} +module Main where + +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph +import TWRemat +import TestBalanced +import TestGraph +import TestTreeWidth + +isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Bool +isValidSchedule gr steps = go steps IS.empty + where + go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) + go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) + go [] live = True + +main = defaultMain $ testGroup "Tests" [ + testGraph, + testBalanced, + testTreeWidth, + testGroup "TWRemat" [ + testProperty "produces valid schedule" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> + let t = last (nodes gr) + in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList [t])), + testProperty "produces valid schedule x2" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> + let t = take 2 (nodes gr) + in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList t)) + ] + ] diff --git a/twremat/src/Balanced.hs b/twremat/src/Balanced.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0660c06d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/Balanced.hs @@ -0,0 +1,97 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} +module Balanced where + +import Data.Bifunctor +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Ord +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import TreeWidth + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import Util + +balancedSeparator :: Gr a -> Node +balancedSeparator gr = minimumOn (\n -> (weight n, n)) (G.nodes gr) + where + cutWeight = memo (G.edges gr) $ \(a,b) -> + 1 + sum [cutWeight (b,c) | c <- G.sucList gr b, c /= a] :: Int + weight = \a -> + maximum [cutWeight (a,b) | b <- G.sucList gr a] + +-- Rose tree with weight annotations. +data Tree a = Tree Int a [Tree a] + deriving (Show, Functor, Foldable, Traversable) + +treeWeight :: Tree a -> Int +treeWeight (Tree w _ _) = w + +treeVal :: Tree a -> a +treeVal (Tree _ a _) = a + +tree :: a -> [Tree a] -> Tree a +tree a subs = Tree (1 + sum (map treeWeight subs)) a subs + +-- Create a Tree from treelike graph. Assumes gr is undirected and +-- simple and has at least one node. +mkTree :: Gr a -> Tree Node +mkTree gr = tree top [go top v | v <- G.sucList gr top, v /= top] + where + go u v = tree v [go v w | w <- G.sucList gr v, w /= u] + top = head (G.nodes gr) + +-- Choose one element from a list. +choose1 :: [a] -> [(a, [a])] +choose1 xs = do i <- [0..length xs-1] + return (xs!!i, take i xs ++ drop (i+1) xs) + +-- Balance a tree by recursively rotating each node until the heaviest +-- subtree has minimal weight. The result is a tree with two +-- properties: +-- +-- 1. For every node v in the tree, the subtrees rooted at children of +-- v are disjoint connected components of the original tree with v +-- removed. +-- +-- 2. The tree is balanced, in that for every node v, the heaviest +-- child of v has weight at most weight[v]/2. + +balance :: Tree a -> Tree a +balance root@(Tree x a []) = root +balance root@(Tree x a children) + -- If we can improve balance by rotating, do so and check again. + | bestscore < score root = balance best + -- Current level is balanced, now balance all children. + | otherwise = tree a (map balance children) + where + rotate (Tree _ new_a new_children) other_children = + let old_root = tree a other_children + in tree new_a (old_root : new_children) + options = [rotate choice rest | (choice, rest) <- choose1 children] + score (Tree x a children) + | null children = 0 + | otherwise = maximum (map treeWeight children) + (bestscore, best) = minimumOn fst [(score t, t) | t <- options] + +-- Convert a +sepTree :: Gr a -> Tree a +sepTree gr = fmap (G.lab gr) $ balance $ mkTree gr + +-- sepTreeSlow :: Gr a -> Tree a +-- sepTreeSlow gr +-- | G.order gr == 1 = tree (snd $ head $ G.labNodes gr) [] +-- | otherwise = tree (G.lab gr top) [sepTreeSlow sub | sub <- G.splitComponents (G.delNode top gr)] +-- where +-- top = balancedSeparator gr diff --git a/twremat/src/Dense.hs b/twremat/src/Dense.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..45f1cc7a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/Dense.hs @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +module Dense where + +type Dense = [Int] + +between :: Dense -> Dense -> Dense +between (a:as) (b:bs) + | a + 1 < b = [div (a + b) 2] + | a < b = a : after as + | a == b = a : between as bs + +before :: Dense -> Dense +before [] = error "before []" +before (a:as) = [a - 1] + +after :: Dense -> Dense +after [] = [2^20] +after (a:as) = [a + 1] diff --git a/twremat/src/Filter.hs b/twremat/src/Filter.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2de8742c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/Filter.hs @@ -0,0 +1,175 @@ +{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE NamedFieldPuns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-} +{-# LANGUAGE PatternSynonyms #-} +{-# LANGUAGE ViewPatterns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-} +module Filter where + +import Control.Monad.State.Lazy +import Data.Foldable +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Monoid +import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) +import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PSQ +import Data.Relation (Relation) +import qualified Data.Relation as R +import Data.Semigroup +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Debug.Trace + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TWRemat + +newtype CID = CID Int + deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) + + +-- Indexed data structure for rematerializion schedule. +data Sched = Sched { + computes :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> node id (many-1) + c_free :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> nodes freed afterward (many-many) + c_require :: Relation CID Node -- compute step -> nodes required as input (many-many) + } + deriving (Show) + +pattern One :: a -> Set a +pattern One a <- (Set.toList -> [a]) where + One a = Set.singleton a + +pattern None :: Set a +pattern None <- (Set.null -> True) where + None = Set.empty + +deleteL :: (Ord a, Ord b) => a -> Relation a b -> Relation a b +deleteL a rel = foldr go rel (Set.toList $ R.lookupDom a rel) + where + go b = R.delete a b + +-- Info for each node relevant to evaluating and optimizing cpu/memory +-- consumption. +data Weight = + -- Normal node that reads its inputs and produces some output. + Normal{cpu::Int, mem::Int} + -- Effectful node that must not be duplicated (eg. assigning to a + -- variable). Assumed to produce no relevant output. + | Effectful + -- Pointer nodes return a view that shares memory with dependencies, + -- keeping them from being GCd (example: tf.identity). + | Pointer + deriving (Eq, Ord) + +-- Reduce cpu usage of a schedule under the constraint that peak mem usage must be less than `memLimit`. +greedy :: (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> Sched -> Sched +greedy info memLimit sched@Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = go (R.toList computes) Set.empty 0 Set.empty PSQ.empty + where + memOf n = case info n of + Normal{mem} -> mem + Effectful -> 0 + Pointer -> 0 + + priority :: CID -> Node -> Maybe Double + priority c n + -- Anything we don't need anymore should be freed immediately. + | Nothing == Set.lookupGT c (R.lookupRan n c_require) = Just 0 + | otherwise = case info n of + -- Otherwise, prioritise the ops which use most memory and least cpu to recompute. + Normal{mem, cpu} -> Just (fromIntegral cpu / fromIntegral mem) + -- Effectful ops are assumed to use no memory and should never be freed. + Effectful -> Nothing + -- Free pointer ops immediately. + Pointer -> Just 0 + + go [] keepcid memUsage live freeList = + let finish c Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n -> Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, + c_free = case (Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n computes), + Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)) of + (Just cc, Just fc) | cc <= fc -> R.delete fc n c_free, + c_require = deleteL c c_require} + in foldr (.) id [finish c | c <- toList (R.dom computes), not (Set.member c keepcid)] sched + go ((c,n):cs) keepcid memUsage live freeList + | Set.member n live = go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live (PSQ.delete n freeList) + | memUsage + memOf n > memLimit && not (PSQ.null freeList) = case PSQ.findMin freeList of + Just (f,_,_) -> + go ((c,n):cs) keepcid (memUsage - memOf f) (Set.delete f live) (PSQ.deleteMin freeList) + | otherwise = go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList + + go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = + go_free c cs (Set.insert c keepcid) (memUsage + memOf n) (Set.insert n live) (PSQ.delete n freeList) + + go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = + let freeList' = foldr (.) id [PSQ.insert n v () + | n <- Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free), + Just v <- [priority c n]] freeList + in go cs keepcid memUsage live freeList' + +evalSched :: (Node -> Weight) -> Sched -> IO () +evalSched info Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = do + putStrLn (unwords ["steps=" ++ show (Set.size (R.dom computes)), + "cpu=" ++ show (sum [cpu | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, Normal{cpu} <- [info n]]), + "peak=" ++ show peak]) + where + memOf n = case info n of + Normal{mem} -> mem + _ -> 0 + peak = go (Set.toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) 0 0 + go [] maxMem curMem = maxMem + go (c:cs) maxMem curMem = case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n -> go cs (max maxMem (curMem + memOf n)) (curMem + memOf n - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) + None -> go cs maxMem (curMem - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) + +-- Basic optimizations: move Free actions to be as early as possible, +-- and eliminate Compute actions that are immediately Freed without +-- being used. +optSched :: Sched -> Sched +optSched sched@Sched{computes, c_free} = foldr go sched (toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) + where + checkAnnihilate c sched@Sched{..} = + case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n | R.member c n c_free -> + Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, + c_free = R.delete c n c_free, + c_require = deleteL c c_require} + _ -> sched + checkMove c sched@Sched{..} = + case R.lookupDom c c_free of + ns | Set.size ns > 0 -> + let target n = getMax <$> fold [Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n computes), + Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n c_require), + Max <$> Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)] + process n sched@Sched{..} = case target n of + Just c' | c' < c -> sched { c_free = R.insert c' n $ R.delete c n $ c_free } + Just c' | c'== c -> sched + Nothing -> sched { c_free = R.delete c n $ c_free } + in foldr process sched (Set.toList ns) + _ -> sched + + go c sched = checkMove c $ checkAnnihilate c sched + + +initSched :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Sched +initSched gr sched = Sched{computes, c_free, c_require} + where + steps = Map.fromList (zip [1..] sched) :: Map Int Step + computes = R.fromList [(CID k, n) | (k, Compute n) <- Map.toList steps] + cdom = R.dom computes + c_free = R.fromList [let Just c = Set.lookupLT (CID k) cdom + in (c, n) | (k, Free n) <- Map.toList steps] + c_require = R.fromList [(c, p) | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, p <- G.preList gr n] + +runSched :: Sched -> [Step] +runSched Sched{computes, c_free} = fold [[Compute n] ++ (Free <$> Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)) + | (c, n) <- R.toList computes] + +-- 6 cycles of forward-backward optimization seems to generally be enough for a good schedule. +optimize :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> [Step] -> [Step] +optimize gr info memLimit steps = runSched (foldl' step startSched [1..maxSteps]) + where + step !sched i = trace ("Optimizing schedule... " ++ show i ++ "/" ++ show maxSteps) $ optSched (greedy info memLimit sched) + startSched = optSched (initSched gr steps) + maxSteps = 6 diff --git a/twremat/src/Graph.hs b/twremat/src/Graph.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c19dd732 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/Graph.hs @@ -0,0 +1,236 @@ +module Graph where + +import Control.Monad.State.Strict +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Text.Printf + +type Node = Int +type Context a = (IntSet, a, IntSet) +newtype Gr a = Gr (IntMap (Context a)) + +instance Functor Gr where + fmap = nmap + +instance Show a => Show (Gr a) where + showsPrec d g = showParen (d > 10) $ showString "mkGraph " . showsPrec 11 (labNodes g) . showString " " . showsPrec 11 (edges g) + +mkGraph :: [(Node, a)] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a +mkGraph nodes edges = Gr (IM.fromList [(v, ctx v a) | (v, a) <- nodes]) + where + ctx v a = (IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v bwd, a, IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v fwd) + fwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- edges] + bwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- edges] + +mkUGraph :: [Node] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr () +mkUGraph nodes edges = mkGraph (zip nodes (repeat ())) edges + +labNodes :: Gr a -> [(Node, a)] +labNodes (Gr m) = l <$> IM.toList m + where + l (v, (p, a, s)) = (v, a) + +nodes :: Gr a -> [Node] +nodes (Gr m) = IM.keys m + +edges :: Gr a -> [(Node, Node)] +edges (Gr m) = foldMap go (IM.toList m) + where + go (v, (p, a, s)) = map ((,) v) (IS.toList s) + +suc :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet +suc (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> s + +pre :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet +pre (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> p + +lab :: Gr a -> Node -> a +lab (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> a + +labMaybe :: Gr a -> Node -> Maybe a +labMaybe (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of + Just (p, a, s) -> Just a + Nothing -> Nothing + +sucList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] +sucList g v = IS.toList (suc g v) + +preList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] +preList g v = IS.toList (pre g v) + +indeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +indeg gr v = IS.size (pre gr v) + +outdeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +outdeg gr v = IS.size (suc gr v) + +hasEdge :: Gr a -> (Node, Node) -> Bool +hasEdge (Gr m) (a,b) = case IM.lookup a m of + Just (p, a, s) -> IS.member b s + Nothing -> False + +hasNode :: Gr a -> Node -> Bool +hasNode (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of + Just _ -> True + Nothing -> False + +delNode :: Node -> Gr a -> Gr a +delNode v (Gr m) = case IM.lookup v m of + Just (p, a, s) -> Gr . foldr (.) id (clearSucc v <$> IS.toList p) . foldr (.) id (clearPred v <$> IS.toList s) . IM.delete v $ m + Nothing -> Gr m + where + clearSucc v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, IS.delete v s)) k m + clearPred v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (IS.delete v p, a, s)) k m + +insEdges :: [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a -> Gr a +insEdges es (Gr m) = Gr . part1 . part2 $ m + where + adjs = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- es] + adjp = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- es] + part1 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, s <> js)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjs] + part2 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p <> js, a, s)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjp] + +insNode :: (Node, a) -> Gr a -> Gr a +insNode (i, a) (Gr m) = Gr (IM.alter go i m) + where + go (Just (p1, a1, s1)) = Just (p1, a, s1) + go Nothing = Just (IS.empty, a, IS.empty) + +(&) :: (IntSet, Node, a, IntSet) -> Gr a -> Gr a +(&) (p, i, a, s) = insEdges (ein ++ eout) . insNode (i, a) + where + ein = [(j, i) | j <- IS.toList p] + eout = [(i, j) | j <- IS.toList s] + +newNodes :: Int -> Gr a -> [Node] +newNodes n (Gr m) = case IM.findMax m of + (x, _) -> [x+1..x+n] + +-- XXX: Really slow. +order :: Gr a -> Int +order (Gr m) = IM.size m + +gmap :: (Node -> Context a -> Context b) -> Gr a -> Gr b +gmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapWithKey f m) + +nmap :: (a -> b) -> Gr a -> Gr b +nmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.map go m) + where go (p, a, s) = (p, f a, s) + +gfilter :: (Node -> Context a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a +gfilter f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapMaybeWithKey go m) + where + go i (p, a, s) + | IS.member i keep = Just (IS.intersection p keep, a, IS.intersection s keep) + | otherwise = Nothing + keep = IS.fromList [i | (i, ctx) <- IM.toList m, f i ctx] + +labfilter :: (a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a +labfilter f g = gfilter (\i (p, a, s) -> f a) g + +dfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] +dfs g start = go start IS.empty + where + go [] visited = [] + go (x:xs) visited + | IS.member x visited = go xs visited + | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) + +udfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] +udfs g start = go start IS.empty + where + go [] visited = [] + go (x:xs) visited + | IS.member x visited = go xs visited + | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ preList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) + +topsort :: Gr a -> [Node] +topsort g = (foldr (.) id $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty) [] + where + go = \x -> do + visited <- get + case IS.member x visited of + True -> pure id + False -> do + put (IS.insert x visited) + before <- foldr (.) id <$> traverse go (preList g x) + return (before . (x:)) + +subgraph :: Gr a -> [Node] -> Gr a +subgraph gr ns = (mkGraph + (filter (\(i,a) -> IS.member i nset) (labNodes gr)) + (filter (\(i,j) -> IS.member i nset && IS.member j nset) (edges gr))) + where + nset = IS.fromList ns + + +-- Assumes that g is undirected, but does not check. +components :: Gr a -> [[Node]] +components g = filter (not . null) $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty + where + go = \x -> go1 [x] [] + go1 :: [Node] -> [Node] -> State IntSet [Node] + go1 [] os = pure os + go1 (x:xs) os = do + visited <- get + case IS.member x visited of + True -> go1 xs os + False -> do + put (IS.insert x visited) + go1 (sucList g x ++ xs) (x:os) + +splitComponents :: Gr a -> [Gr a] +splitComponents (Gr m) = [Gr (IM.restrictKeys m (IS.fromList c)) | c <- components (Gr m)] + +isEmpty :: Gr a -> Bool +isEmpty (Gr m) = IM.null m + +isConnected :: Gr a -> Bool +isConnected g = isEmpty g || IS.fromList (udfs g (take 1 (nodes g))) == IS.fromList (nodes g) + +isUndirected :: Gr a -> Bool +isUndirected (Gr m) = all ok (toList m) + where + ok (p, a, s) = p == s + +-- Make simple and undirected, remove labels +simplify :: Gr a -> Gr () +simplify gr = const () <$> simplify' gr + +-- Make simple and undirected +simplify' :: Gr a -> Gr a +simplify' gr = gmap dedup gr + where + dedup node (p, a, s) = + let adj = IS.delete node $ (p <> s) + in (adj, a, adj) + +plot :: String -> Gr () -> IO () +plot fname gr = writeFile fname txt + where + txt = unlines [ + "digraph {", + unlines [show n | n <- nodes gr], + unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], + unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], + "}"] + +plotLab :: Show a => String -> Gr a -> IO () +plotLab fname gr = writeFile fname txt + where + txt = unlines [ + if isUndirected gr then "graph {" else "digraph {", + unlines [printf "%i [label=\"%s\"]" n (show a) | (n,a) <- labNodes gr], + unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], + unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], + "}"] diff --git a/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs b/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6e638d7f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} +{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} +module TWRemat where + +import Data.DList (DList) +import qualified Data.DList as DL +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Lazy as Map +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Ord + +import Balanced +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TreeWidth +import Util + +data Step = Compute Node | Free Node + deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) + +toposort :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Node] +toposort gr = go + where + go xs = sortOn (\x -> score IM.! x) (IS.toList xs) + score = IM.fromList (zip (G.topsort gr) [0..]) + +ancestors :: Gr a -> (Node -> IntSet) +ancestors gr = tab + where + tab = memo (G.nodes gr) (\n -> IS.singleton n <> foldMap tab (G.preList gr n)) + +-- Recursively remove elements of root node from all subtrees. +preFilter :: Tree Bag -> Tree Bag +preFilter (Tree _ x subs) = tree x [preFilter $ fmap (`IS.difference` x) c | c <- subs] + +data Comp = Comp{x :: Bag, xall :: Bag} + +-- Annotate each node with the union of all nodes in its subtree. +preFold :: Tree Bag -> Tree Comp +preFold t@(Tree _ x subs) = tree Comp{x,xall=total} subs' + where subs' = preFold <$> subs + total = x <> fold (xall . treeVal <$> subs') + +-- Computes a rematerialization schedule for the given DAG, which ends +-- with the nodes of 'compute' computed and in memory. +remat :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Step] +remat gr compute = DL.toList (twremat (preFold . preFilter . sepTree $ treeWidth gr) compute) + where + topo = toposort gr + antab = ancestors gr + + twremat :: Tree Comp -> IntSet -> DList Step + twremat (Tree _ Comp{x} components) compute + | IS.null compute = mempty + | otherwise = case components of + [] -> + -- Base case: simply execute the remaining nodes in order, then + -- free the ones the caller doesn't need. + DL.fromList (Compute <$> topo target) <> DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) + components -> + -- Recursion case: select a balanced separator X of the tree decomposition. + -- 1. for each node v of X that we need to compute, in topological order + -- a. Recursively compute the direct dependencies of v in each subtree, + -- excluding any which are in X itself (those are already computed + -- and in memory, since we are traversing X in topological order). + -- b. Compute v. + -- c. Free the dependencies computed in #1a. + -- 2. Recursively compute the needed nodes which are not in X + -- 3. Free the computed nodes of X that the caller doesn't need. + let compsets = map (xall . treeVal) components :: [Bag] + part1 v = let deps = G.pre gr v + new_computes = [deps `IS.intersection` chi_nodes | chi_nodes <- compsets] + in fold [twremat chi new_compute | (chi, new_compute) <- zip components new_computes] + <> (DL.singleton (Compute v)) + <> DL.fromList (Free <$> (IS.toList $ fold new_computes)) + part2 = fold [twremat chi (outside `IS.intersection` chi_nodes) | (chi, chi_nodes) <- zip components compsets] + part3 = DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) + in foldMap part1 (topo target) <> part2 <> part3 + where + ancestor_set = foldMap antab (IS.toList compute) :: IntSet + -- Nodes of X which are needed, directly or indirectly. + target = IS.filter (\i -> IS.member i ancestor_set) x + -- Nodes the caller needs which are not in X. + outside = compute `IS.difference` x diff --git a/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs b/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3201608db --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +module TreeWidth where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) +import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PQ +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G + +type Bag = IntSet + +-- O(n^2 d^2), where d is the average degree +slowTreeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag +slowTreeWidth ga = go (G.simplify ga) [] + where + go gr ns = case min_fill_in gr of + Just node -> let gr' = G.insEdges [(a, b) | + a <- G.sucList gr node, + b <- G.sucList gr node, + a /= b, + not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] $ G.delNode node gr + in go gr' ((node, G.suc gr node) : ns) + Nothing -> finish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, IS.fromList (G.nodes gr))] []) + finish [] tree = tree + finish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree = finish ns tree' + where + target = head ([i | (i, bag) <- G.labNodes tree, IS.isSubsetOf neighbors bag] ++ [0]) -- inefficient + [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree + adj = IS.singleton target + tree' = (adj, new_id, IS.insert node neighbors, adj) G.& tree + +-- O(n d^2 log n), where d is the average degree +treeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag +treeWidth ga = let gr = G.simplify ga in go gr [] (initCache gr) + where + go !gr !ns !cache = + case minCache cache of + Just node -> let neighbors = G.sucList gr node + newEdges = [(a, b) | + a <- neighbors, + b <- neighbors, + a /= b, + not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] + gr' = G.insEdges newEdges $ G.delNode node gr + dirty = IS.fromList $ [node] ++ neighbors ++ (neighbors >>= G.sucList gr) + in go gr' ((node, IS.fromList $ neighbors) : ns) (updateCache gr' dirty cache) + Nothing -> finish ns (IS.fromList (G.nodes gr)) + finish ns initBag = gofinish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, initBag)] []) (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton 0)) initBag) + -- 'bags' indexes the current bags of the tree by their contents + -- bags : vertex v -> set of bags containing v + gofinish [] tree bags = tree + gofinish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree bags = gofinish ns tree' bags' + where + -- Either connect to some bag that contains all our neighbors, or connect to the first bag + target = case [b | n <- IS.toList neighbors, Just b <- [IM.lookup n bags]] of + [] -> 0 + bs -> head (IS.toList (foldr1 IS.intersection bs) ++ [0]) + [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree + new_bag = IS.insert node neighbors + adj = IS.singleton target + tree' = (adj, new_id, new_bag, adj) G.& tree + bags' = IM.unionWith (<>) bags (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton new_id)) new_bag) + +-- The cache maintains a priority queue of nodes according to their +-- fill number, such that the node with minimum fill number can be +-- obtained in O(1), and the cache can be updated to accomodate +-- removal or addition of nodes in O(log n). +type MinFillCache = OrdPSQ Node (Int, Int, Node) () + +-- O(n d^2), where d is the average degree of nodes +initCache :: Gr a -> MinFillCache +initCache gr = PQ.fromList [(node, (fill gr node, G.outdeg gr node, node), ()) | node <- G.nodes gr] + +-- O(m log n), where m is the number of nodes to refresh +updateCache :: Gr a -> IntSet -> MinFillCache -> MinFillCache +updateCache gr nodes cache = foldr update cache (IS.toList nodes) + where + update node cache + | G.hasNode gr node = let f = fill gr node + d = G.outdeg gr node + in PQ.insert node (f, d, node) () cache + | otherwise = PQ.delete node cache + +-- O(log n) +minCache :: MinFillCache -> Maybe Node +minCache cache + | order == 0 = Nothing + | degree == order - 1 = Nothing + | otherwise = Just n + where + order = PQ.size cache + Just (n, (_, degree, _), _) = PQ.findMin cache + +-- Find fill number of a node, defined as the minimum number of edges +-- that must be added to the graph to make the neighborhood of `node` +-- into a clique. O(log n + e^2), where e is the number of neighbors +-- of node +fill :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +fill gr node = sum (map subfill (IS.toList neighbors)) `div` 2 + where neighbors = G.suc gr node + subfill n = IS.size (neighbors `IS.difference` G.suc gr n) - 1 + +-- Find node with minimum fill number. +-- O(n d^2) +min_fill_in :: Gr a -> Maybe G.Node +min_fill_in gr + | G.isEmpty gr = Nothing + | degree == G.order gr - 1 = Nothing + | otherwise = case minimum [(fill gr n, G.outdeg gr n, n) | n <- nodes] of + (_, _, node) -> Just node + where + nodes = G.nodes gr + degree = minimum (map (G.outdeg gr) nodes) diff --git a/twremat/src/Tupfile b/twremat/src/Tupfile new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e69de29bb diff --git a/twremat/src/Util.hs b/twremat/src/Util.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fe8824c58 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/src/Util.hs @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +module Util where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Ord +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +reflex :: Ord a => [a] -> Map a a +reflex xs = Map.fromList [(x, x) | x <- xs] + +memo :: Ord a => [a] -> (a -> b) -> (a -> b) +memo xs f = \x -> tab Map.! x + where + tab = f <$> reflex xs + +minimumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b +minimumOn f xs = minimumBy (comparing f) xs + +maximumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b +maximumOn f xs = maximumBy (comparing f) xs diff --git a/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs b/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a9c4214dd --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +module TestBalanced where + +import Control.Monad +import Data.Foldable +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Balanced +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TestGraph + +subTrees :: Tree a -> [Tree a] +subTrees t@(Tree w a []) = [t] +subTrees t@(Tree w a cs) = t : foldMap subTrees cs + +testBalanced :: TestTree +testBalanced = testGroup "Balanced" [ + testProperty "Subtrees are connected" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) + in all go (subTrees t), + testProperty "Subtrees are connected after balance" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) + in all go (subTrees t), + testProperty "Subtrees are balanced" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go t@(Tree w a []) = True + go t@(Tree w a cs) = maximum (map treeWeight cs) <= div w 2 + in all go (subTrees t) + ] diff --git a/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs b/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3d3f7c81b --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} +module TestGraph where + +import Control.Monad +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Arbitrary as FGL +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Graph as FGL +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.PatriciaTree as FGL +import Data.List +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (Gr a) where + arbitrary = do let t = id :: Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) -> Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) + g <- t arbitrary + return (mkGraph (FGL.labNodes g) (FGL.edges g)) + +newtype TreeOf a = TreeOf { getTreeOf :: Gr a } + deriving Show + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (TreeOf a) where + arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) + ids <- shuffle [1..n] + vals <- replicateM n arbitrary + + let go tree xs [] = pure tree + go tree xs (y:ys) = do + x <- elements xs + go ((x,y):tree) (y : xs) ys + edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) + + return (TreeOf $ simplify' $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) edges) + +newtype DagOf a = DagOf { getDagOf :: Gr a } + deriving Show + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (DagOf a) where + arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) + ids <- shuffle [1..n] + vals <- replicateM n arbitrary + + let go edges xs [] = pure edges + go edges xs (y:ys) = do + -- choose an existing node, make the new node a dependency + x <- elements xs + go ((y,x):edges) (y : xs) ys + edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) + + extra <- case n of + 1 -> pure [] + _ -> do + n_extra <- chooseInt (0,20) + replicateM n_extra $ do + sub <- elements (filter ((>1) . length) (tails ids)) + let (a:b:cs) = sub + b <- elements (b:cs) + return (b, a) + + return (DagOf $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) (edges ++ extra)) + +testGraph :: TestTree +testGraph = testGroup "Graph" [ + testProperty "subgraph nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> + let sub = take (length (nodes gr) `div` 2) (nodes gr) + subgr = subgraph gr sub + in nodes (subgr) == sub, + testProperty "topsort nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> + sort (nodes gr) == sort (topsort gr) + ] diff --git a/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs b/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1b1e94988 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +module TestTreeWidth where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TestGraph +import TreeWidth + +-- Verify the three properties of a tree decomposition: +-- 1. The union of all bags = the set of nodes +check1 :: Gr () -> Bool +check1 gr = IS.unions (map snd (G.labNodes (treeWidth gr))) == IS.fromList (G.nodes gr) + +-- 2. For every edge (a,b), there is a bag which includes both vertices. +check2 :: Gr () -> Bool +check2 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + sets = map snd (G.labNodes tree) + in and [any (\s -> IS.member a s && IS.member b s) sets | (a, b) <- G.edges gr] + +-- 3. For a given vertex v, bags containing v are connected. +check3 :: Gr () -> Bool +check3 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + in and [G.isConnected (G.labfilter (IS.member v) tree) | v <- G.nodes gr] + +-- ?. should validate that the result is a tree? +check4 :: Gr () -> Bool +check4 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + in length (G.edges tree) == 2 * (G.order tree - 1) + +testTreeWidth :: TestTree +testTreeWidth = testGroup "TreeWidth" [ + testProperty "vertices" check1, + testProperty "edges" check2, + testProperty "connected" check3, + testProperty "tree" check4 + ] diff --git a/twremat/test/Tupfile b/twremat/test/Tupfile new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e69de29bb diff --git a/twremat/twremat.cabal b/twremat/twremat.cabal new file mode 100644 index 000000000..45dfd0890 --- /dev/null +++ b/twremat/twremat.cabal @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +cabal-version: 2.2 +name: twremat +version: 0.1.0.0 +synopsis: Fast implementation of `Efficient Rematerialization for Deep Networks` +-- description: +-- bug-reports: +-- license: GPL-3.0-or-later +-- license-file: LICENSE +author: nshepperd +maintainer: nshepperd@gmail.com +-- copyright: +-- category: Distribution +extra-source-files: README.md + +library lib + hs-source-dirs: src + exposed-modules: + Balanced Dense Filter Graph TreeWidth TWRemat Util + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation + +executable twremat + main-is: remat.hs + -- other-modules: Cabbage.Config, Cabbage.Cabal, Cabbage.Parser + -- other-extensions: + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, lib, + containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text + -- , Glob + -- , containers + -- , directory + -- , filepath + -- , optparse-applicative + -- , pretty-simple + -- , process + -- , temporary + -- , text + -- , xdg-basedir + -- , parsers + -- , trifecta + + hs-source-dirs: main + default-language: Haskell2010 + default-extensions: LambdaCase, OverloadedStrings, RecordWildCards + + +Test-Suite testmain + type: exitcode-stdio-1.0 + main-is: test.hs + hs-source-dirs: main test + other-modules: TestBalanced TestGraph TestTreeWidth + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, lib, + containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text, + QuickCheck, tasty, tasty-quickcheck, fgl, fgl-arbitrary From 29ce412636f39bd2800d2c46d43b13be53464a5a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nshepperd Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2021 17:22:59 +1100 Subject: [PATCH 76/83] Update twremat.cabal for ghc 9.0 --- twremat/twremat.cabal | 8 +++++--- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/twremat/twremat.cabal b/twremat/twremat.cabal index 45dfd0890..70e38bb25 100644 --- a/twremat/twremat.cabal +++ b/twremat/twremat.cabal @@ -16,13 +16,14 @@ library lib hs-source-dirs: src exposed-modules: Balanced Dense Filter Graph TreeWidth TWRemat Util - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation + default-language: Haskell2010 executable twremat main-is: remat.hs -- other-modules: Cabbage.Config, Cabbage.Cabal, Cabbage.Parser -- other-extensions: - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, lib, + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text -- , Glob -- , containers @@ -47,6 +48,7 @@ Test-Suite testmain main-is: test.hs hs-source-dirs: main test other-modules: TestBalanced TestGraph TestTreeWidth - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.15.0.0, lib, + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text, QuickCheck, tasty, tasty-quickcheck, fgl, fgl-arbitrary + default-language: Haskell2010 From c002e8f319833b8108db32f41d49afd657591620 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 18:35:38 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 77/83] first commit --- encode.py => src/encode.py | 0 train.py => src/train.py | 0 2 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) rename encode.py => src/encode.py (100%) rename train.py => src/train.py (100%) diff --git a/encode.py b/src/encode.py similarity index 100% rename from encode.py rename to src/encode.py diff --git a/train.py b/src/train.py similarity index 100% rename from train.py rename to src/train.py From 9c15f9724e797859e3c9abac661b48787868371b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:18:18 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 78/83] repositioned items --- .gitattributes | 6 - .gitignore | 10 +- CONTRIBUTORS.md | 17 - DEVELOPERS.md | 88 --- Dockerfile.cpu | 11 - Dockerfile.gpu | 20 - LICENSE | 24 - README.md | 140 ---- domains.txt | 1000 ------------------------ download_model.py | 28 - model_card.md | 69 -- requirements.txt | 5 - src/accumulate.py | 36 - src/encode.py | 32 - src/encoder.py | 117 --- src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 79 -- src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 91 --- src/load_dataset.py | 83 -- src/memory_saving_gradients.py | 387 --------- src/model.py | 185 ----- src/sample.py | 93 --- src/tfremat.py | 181 ----- src/train.py | 314 -------- src/twremat.py | 60 -- twremat/README.md | 1 - twremat/main/remat.hs | 150 ---- twremat/main/test.hs | 35 - twremat/src/Balanced.hs | 97 --- twremat/src/Dense.hs | 17 - twremat/src/Filter.hs | 175 ----- twremat/src/Graph.hs | 236 ------ twremat/src/TWRemat.hs | 90 --- twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs | 124 --- twremat/src/Tupfile | 0 twremat/src/Util.hs | 25 - twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs | 33 - twremat/test/TestGraph.hs | 71 -- twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs | 51 -- twremat/test/Tupfile | 0 twremat/twremat.cabal | 54 -- 40 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 4232 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 .gitattributes delete mode 100644 CONTRIBUTORS.md delete mode 100644 DEVELOPERS.md delete mode 100644 Dockerfile.cpu delete mode 100644 Dockerfile.gpu delete mode 100644 LICENSE delete mode 100644 README.md delete mode 100644 domains.txt delete mode 100644 download_model.py delete mode 100644 model_card.md delete mode 100644 requirements.txt delete mode 100644 src/accumulate.py delete mode 100755 src/encode.py delete mode 100644 src/encoder.py delete mode 100755 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py delete mode 100755 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py delete mode 100644 src/load_dataset.py delete mode 100644 src/memory_saving_gradients.py delete mode 100644 src/model.py delete mode 100644 src/sample.py delete mode 100644 src/tfremat.py delete mode 100755 src/train.py delete mode 100644 src/twremat.py delete mode 100644 twremat/README.md delete mode 100644 twremat/main/remat.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/main/test.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Balanced.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Dense.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Filter.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Graph.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/TWRemat.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Tupfile delete mode 100644 twremat/src/Util.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/test/TestGraph.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs delete mode 100644 twremat/test/Tupfile delete mode 100644 twremat/twremat.cabal diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes deleted file mode 100644 index 7c3a822f3..000000000 --- a/.gitattributes +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ -# convert to OS line endings on checkout, back to LF on commit -* text=auto - -# ensure anything copied to the container has unix style line endings -*.sh text eol=lf -requirements.txt text eol=lf \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore index 5b1531ee0..11055c77c 100644 --- a/.gitignore +++ b/.gitignore @@ -1,7 +1,3 @@ -__pycache__ -.mypy_cache/ -models/ -checkpoint -samples -dist-newstyle -bin +checkpoint/* +models/* +samples/* \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS.md b/CONTRIBUTORS.md deleted file mode 100644 index eab7132a3..000000000 --- a/CONTRIBUTORS.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17 +0,0 @@ -# Contributors (alphabetically) - -* **[madisonmay](https://github.com/madisonmay)** - - Added Dockerfiles - -* **[Margaret Mitchell et al](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993)** - - Our [usage](./README.md#usage) writeup was loosely inspired by the paper - [Model Cards for Model Reporting](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993) - and related conversations with some of the authors. - -* **[webproduktion01](https://github.com/webproduktion01)** - - Ported download script to python. - -**[Full code contributors list](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2/contributors).** diff --git a/DEVELOPERS.md b/DEVELOPERS.md deleted file mode 100644 index d23c9d05f..000000000 --- a/DEVELOPERS.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,88 +0,0 @@ -# Installation - -Git clone this repository, and `cd` into directory for remaining commands -``` -git clone https://github.com/openai/gpt-2.git && cd gpt-2 -``` - -Then, follow instructions for either native or Docker installation. - -## Native Installation - -All steps can optionally be done in a virtual environment using tools such as `virtualenv` or `conda`. - -Install tensorflow 1.12 (with GPU support, if you have a GPU and want everything to run faster) -``` -pip3 install tensorflow==1.12.0 -``` -or -``` -pip3 install tensorflow-gpu==1.12.0 -``` - -Install other python packages: -``` -pip3 install -r requirements.txt -``` - -Download the model data -``` -python3 download_model.py 124M -python3 download_model.py 355M -python3 download_model.py 774M -python3 download_model.py 1558M -``` - -## Docker Installation - -Build the Dockerfile and tag the created image as `gpt-2`: -``` -docker build --tag gpt-2 -f Dockerfile.gpu . # or Dockerfile.cpu -``` - -Start an interactive bash session from the `gpt-2` docker image. - -You can opt to use the `--runtime=nvidia` flag if you have access to a NVIDIA GPU -and a valid install of [nvidia-docker 2.0](https://github.com/nvidia/nvidia-docker/wiki/Installation-(version-2.0)). -``` -docker run --runtime=nvidia -it gpt-2 bash -``` - -# Running - -| WARNING: Samples are unfiltered and may contain offensive content. | -| --- | - -Some of the examples below may include Unicode text characters. Set the environment variable: -``` -export PYTHONIOENCODING=UTF-8 -``` -to override the standard stream settings in UTF-8 mode. - -## Unconditional sample generation - -To generate unconditional samples from the small model: -``` -python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | tee /tmp/samples -``` -There are various flags for controlling the samples: -``` -python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py --top_k 40 --temperature 0.7 | tee /tmp/samples -``` - -To check flag descriptions, use: -``` -python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py -- --help -``` - -## Conditional sample generation - -To give the model custom prompts, you can use: -``` -python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py --top_k 40 -``` - -To check flag descriptions, use: -``` -python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py -- --help -``` diff --git a/Dockerfile.cpu b/Dockerfile.cpu deleted file mode 100644 index b6e4f9496..000000000 --- a/Dockerfile.cpu +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11 +0,0 @@ -FROM tensorflow/tensorflow:1.12.0-py3 - -ENV LANG=C.UTF-8 -RUN mkdir /gpt-2 -WORKDIR /gpt-2 -ADD . /gpt-2 -RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt -RUN python3 download_model.py 124M -RUN python3 download_model.py 355M -RUN python3 download_model.py 774M -RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/Dockerfile.gpu b/Dockerfile.gpu deleted file mode 100644 index 5ac049aff..000000000 --- a/Dockerfile.gpu +++ /dev/null @@ -1,20 +0,0 @@ -FROM tensorflow/tensorflow:1.12.0-gpu-py3 - -# nvidia-docker 1.0 -LABEL com.nvidia.volumes.needed="nvidia_driver" -LABEL com.nvidia.cuda.version="${CUDA_VERSION}" - -# nvidia-container-runtime -ENV NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all \ - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,utility \ - NVIDIA_REQUIRE_CUDA="cuda>=8.0" \ - LANG=C.UTF-8 - -RUN mkdir /gpt-2 -WORKDIR /gpt-2 -ADD . /gpt-2 -RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt -RUN python3 download_model.py 124M -RUN python3 download_model.py 355M -RUN python3 download_model.py 774M -RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE deleted file mode 100644 index f56abfef0..000000000 --- a/LICENSE +++ /dev/null @@ -1,24 +0,0 @@ -Modified MIT License - -Software Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI - -We don’t claim ownership of the content you create with GPT-2, so it is yours to do with as you please. -We only ask that you use GPT-2 responsibly and clearly indicate your content was created using GPT-2. - -Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and -associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, -including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, -and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, -subject to the following conditions: - -The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. -The above copyright notice and this permission notice need not be included -with content created by the Software. - -THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, -INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, -FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS -BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, -TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE -OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md deleted file mode 100644 index 3fefe2ec1..000000000 --- a/README.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,140 +0,0 @@ -## Fine tuning on custom datasets - -Reference: ["Beginner’s Guide to Retrain GPT-2 (117M) to Generate Custom Text Content"](https://medium.com/@ngwaifoong92/beginners-guide-to-retrain-gpt-2-117m-to-generate-custom-text-content-8bb5363d8b7f) - -To retrain GPT-2 117M model on a custom text dataset: - -``` -PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset -``` - -If you want to precompute the dataset's encoding for multiple runs, you can instead use: - -``` -PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/encoded.npz -PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz -``` - -Make sure `cudnn` is installed. [Some have -reported](https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8) that `train.py` -runs without it but has worse memory usage and might OOM. - -### Tensor Rematerialization - -Experimental: a rematerialization rewriter based on `Efficient -Rematerialization for Deep Networks` -, -which unlike gradient checkpointing works in tensorflow 2.0 and is -able to automatically select checkpoints in arbitrary graphs. Using -this I was able to finetune GPT-2 1.5B on a single graphics card using -slightly less than 12G of video ram with very little slowdown. - -To use this is a little involved, because the graph optimization -algorithm is offloaded to an optimized Haskell program. First, go into -subdirectory `twremat`, and build it by invoking: - - cabal v2-install --installdir=../bin - -(You'll need to install cabal if you haven't already -- but setting up -ghc and haskell compilation is beyond the scope of this README.) - -Then run `train.py` as normal, enabling `--twremat` and setting -`--twremat_memlimit` to an appropriate value -- this sets the amount -of memory assumed to be available for computation of gradients, so it -should be roughly the memory size of your graphics card minus whatever -is taken up by the gpt-2 weights, and any other bookkeeping -variables. You may need to experiment with the memlimit until you find -the largest value that doesn't OOM. - -(You probably also want to use SGD as optimizer instead of Adam to -minimize those bookkeeping variables, of which Adam uses a lot). - -### Gradient Checkpointing - -https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce -the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by -`--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen -manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' -collection in model.py. - -Gradient checkpointing doesn't work in tensorflow v2.0 and later due -to the removal of tf.contrib. You should use tensor rematerialization -instead if possible. - -### Validation loss - -Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss -against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps -to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 -suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation -dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so -not a real cross-validation loss!). - -### Optimizer - -You can use SGD instead of Adam with `--optimizer sgd`. This also -helps conserve memory when training larger models. Note: the learning -rate needs to be adjusted for SGD, due to not having Adam's gradient -normalization (0.0006 seems to be a good number from some -experiments). - -# Original README - -**Status:** Archive (code is provided as-is, no updates expected) - -# gpt-2 - -Code and models from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). - -You can read about GPT-2 and its staged release in our [original blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/), [6 month follow-up post](https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-6-month-follow-up/), and [final post](https://www.openai.com/blog/gpt-2-1-5b-release/). - -We have also [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. - -* *Note that our original parameter counts were wrong due to an error (in our previous blog posts and paper). Thus you may have seen small referred to as 117M and medium referred to as 345M.* - -## Usage - -This repository is meant to be a starting point for researchers and engineers to experiment with GPT-2. - -For basic information, see our [model card](./model_card.md). - -### Some caveats - -- GPT-2 models' robustness and worst case behaviors are not well-understood. As with any machine-learned model, carefully evaluate GPT-2 for your use case, especially if used without fine-tuning or in safety-critical applications where reliability is important. -- The dataset our GPT-2 models were trained on contains many texts with [biases](https://twitter.com/TomerUllman/status/1101485289720242177) and factual inaccuracies, and thus GPT-2 models are likely to be biased and inaccurate as well. -- To avoid having samples mistaken as human-written, we recommend clearly labeling samples as synthetic before wide dissemination. Our models are often incoherent or inaccurate in subtle ways, which takes more than a quick read for a human to notice. - -### Work with us - -Please [let us know](mailto:languagequestions@openai.com) if you’re doing interesting research with or working on applications of GPT-2! We’re especially interested in hearing from and potentially working with those who are studying -- Potential malicious use cases and defenses against them (e.g. the detectability of synthetic text) -- The extent of problematic content (e.g. bias) being baked into the models and effective mitigations - -## Development - -See [DEVELOPERS.md](./DEVELOPERS.md) - -## Contributors - -See [CONTRIBUTORS.md](./CONTRIBUTORS.md) - -## Citation - -Please use the following bibtex entry: -``` -@article{radford2019language, - title={Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners}, - author={Radford, Alec and Wu, Jeff and Child, Rewon and Luan, David and Amodei, Dario and Sutskever, Ilya}, - year={2019} -} -``` - -## Future work - -We may release code for evaluating the models on various benchmarks. - -We are still considering release of the larger models. - -## License - -[Modified MIT](./LICENSE) diff --git a/domains.txt b/domains.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 04bdac448..000000000 --- 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kijiji -6866 metal-archives -6826 theaustralian -6823 mediamatters -6823 wa -6818 bodybuilding -6811 memedad -6803 ucsd -6802 barnesandnoble -6791 india -6780 readability -6777 today -6726 indystar -6720 scotsman -6694 impress -6689 torrentfreak -6675 heise -6668 sportingnews -6658 pnas -6650 chzbgr -6650 milb -6631 business-standard -6630 bustle -6623 square-enix -6622 madison -6615 moddb -6613 uniqlo -6599 zillow -6577 tribune -6556 airliners -6552 svd -6547 gameinformer -6536 brisbanetimes -6536 ocregister -6533 swtor -6526 calgaryherald -6521 c-span -6518 slashdot -6505 belfasttelegraph -6499 hiyo -6494 news24 -6484 theintercept -6479 technologyreview -6455 gutenberg -6449 cinemablend -6438 dailytelegraph -6424 globalresearch -6411 lefigaro -6405 tenor -6381 redstate -6374 aclu -6361 bloodyelbow -6357 axios -6353 thewrap -6349 redditmetrics -6345 evike -6339 aol -6327 ulta -6326 plos -6324 periscope -6312 drivethrurpg -6308 infobae -6300 debian -6298 congress -6289 warcraftlogs -6284 gothamist -6281 mangastream -6276 newgrounds -6275 berniesanders -6263 lolesports -6262 mayoclinic -6242 sfchronicle -6235 edmontonjournal -6200 dhgate -6194 cincinnati -6180 history -6176 xtube -6169 nike -6160 kiji -6147 tube8 -6140 vdare -6133 unity3d -6130 twincities -6127 escapistmagazine -6126 komonews -6104 openneo -6090 oup -6082 dispatch -6079 newsobserver -6060 ballotpedia -6058 indiegala -6054 index -6050 charlotteobserver -6048 androidcentral -6032 webtoons -6028 tcgplayer -6018 zappos -6004 intel -5998 seattlepi -5996 profootballfocus -5990 ksl -5989 macleans -5984 atlasobscura -5981 yugiohprices -5980 ubuntu -5964 gq -5952 myvidster -5941 tv2 -5930 paizo -5926 montrealgazette -5919 al-monitor -5919 herokuapp -5918 volarenovels -5909 usgs -5906 nme -5906 society6 -5905 vg247 -5902 popsci -5895 lowes -5893 thefederalist -5878 amiami -5862 nyti -5848 steamdb -5841 crooksandliars -5833 popularmechanics -5832 slashfilm -5826 woot -5818 ev -5807 illinois -5792 nps -5791 destructoid -5790 mysanantonio -5772 sbtl -5742 smashboards -5700 biblehub -5696 euronews -5694 urbanoutfitters -5687 itv -5685 fastcompany -5684 techpowerup -5674 hearthhead -5656 mic -5649 autoblog -5646 futbin -5638 voat -5636 statesman -5626 zap2it -5623 userbenchmark -5623 legaliq -5622 mspaintadventures -5622 familysearch -5616 themoscowtimes -5606 theprovince -5604 allkpop -5594 Omegle -5570 activistpost -5565 thefreethoughtproject -5565 in -5559 sandiegouniontribune -5556 consumerist -5554 eff -5532 lego -5520 translationnations -5515 clickhole -5498 etherscan -5491 live -5486 vndb -5484 poll-maker -5481 mtgsalvation -5481 computerworld -5475 comicvine -5470 python -5469 digitalspy -5468 citylab -5458 expressen -5455 oxfordjournals -5451 collider -5447 statista -5437 apa -5434 g -5430 thenational -5430 eslgaming -5425 politiken -5421 ktla -5420 webmshare -5408 bostonherald -5407 comixology -5400 ustream -5399 sony -5396 tennessean -5377 scout -5374 drop -5372 ieee -5359 sverigesradio -5356 sherdog -5353 viooz -5353 marxists -5353 adobe -5349 myfitnesspal -5342 seahawks -5339 rferl -5338 thediplomat -5335 storeparser -5332 prnewswire -5330 midwayusa -5327 liverpoolfc -5326 cisco -5326 windowsphone -5323 toysrus -5321 archivesofnethys -5317 eluniversal -5309 gmanetwork -5303 asus -5297 android -5297 finalfantasyxiv -5296 cyclingnews -5293 worldbank -5288 boxingscene -5285 ticketmaster -5279 grooveshark -5277 khl -5276 gallup -5268 britannica -5263 abc7 -5260 penny-arcade -5257 hsreplay -5257 oculus -5256 bt -5250 theroot -5246 makeagif -5246 cnsnews -5243 nbc -5243 rbc -5243 fextralife -5234 legislation -5225 sendvid -5221 sciencealert -5214 wbur -5212 myfonts -5207 picsarus -5206 phoronix -5204 nerdist -5203 eonline -5195 advocate -5191 king5 -5189 xkcd -5183 kitsu -5182 weibo -5181 mangareader -5178 palmbeachpost -5176 go1dfish -5175 livestrong -5174 truthdig -5173 lgbtqnation -5172 nikkansports -5167 slickdeals -5166 streamja -5164 irs -5158 readms -5152 microcenter -5137 telesurtv -5135 lastwordonsports -5129 alarabiya -5117 cointelegraph -5114 iltalehti -5112 fc2 -5108 wral -5108 thinkgeek -5102 bitbucket -5101 letterboxd -5098 ehow -5092 abc13 -5083 beeradvocate -5077 umich -5067 macys -5064 factorio -5063 comicbookmovie -5042 telegram -5039 scroll -5034 setlist -5028 dailyherald -5019 games-workshop -5015 irishexaminer -5008 fbi -5007 heraldscotland -5001 jellyneo -4999 yale -4996 cbr -4994 masslive -4984 thestranger -4982 bundlestars -4981 alibaba -4977 filedropper -4974 monoprice -4968 forward -4964 parliament -4960 theringer -4950 hobbyking -4950 manchestereveningnews -4949 bmj -4948 thewire -4947 ff2ebook -4938 ashemaletube -4937 Twitch -4933 sketchtoy -4932 mcclatchydc -4931 memory-alpha -4925 newsok -4911 desmoinesregister -4901 puzzledragonx -4889 memecrunch diff --git a/download_model.py b/download_model.py deleted file mode 100644 index 54e4bb60c..000000000 --- a/download_model.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ -import os -import sys -import requests -from tqdm import tqdm - -if len(sys.argv) != 2: - print('You must enter the model name as a parameter, e.g.: download_model.py 124M') - sys.exit(1) - -model = sys.argv[1] - -subdir = os.path.join('models', model) -if not os.path.exists(subdir): - os.makedirs(subdir) -subdir = subdir.replace('\\','/') # needed for Windows - -for filename in ['checkpoint','encoder.json','hparams.json','model.ckpt.data-00000-of-00001', 'model.ckpt.index', 'model.ckpt.meta', 'vocab.bpe']: - - r = requests.get("https://openaipublic.blob.core.windows.net/gpt-2/" + subdir + "/" + filename, stream=True) - - with open(os.path.join(subdir, filename), 'wb') as f: - file_size = int(r.headers["content-length"]) - chunk_size = 1000 - with tqdm(ncols=100, desc="Fetching " + filename, total=file_size, unit_scale=True) as pbar: - # 1k for chunk_size, since Ethernet packet size is around 1500 bytes - for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=chunk_size): - f.write(chunk) - pbar.update(chunk_size) diff --git a/model_card.md b/model_card.md deleted file mode 100644 index 38246ee2a..000000000 --- a/model_card.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,69 +0,0 @@ -# GPT-2 model card - -Last updated: November 2019 - -Inspired by [Model Cards for Model Reporting (Mitchell et al.)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993), we’re providing some accompanying information about the GPT-2 family of models we're releasing. - -## Model Details. - -This model was developed by researchers at OpenAI to help us understand how the capabilities of language model capabilities scale as a function of the size of the models (by parameter count) combined with very large internet-scale datasets (WebText). - -### Model date - -February 2019, trained on data that cuts off at the end of 2017. - -### Model type - -Language model - -### Model version - -1.5 billion parameters: the fourth and largest GPT-2 version. We have also released 124 million, 355 million, and 774 million parameter models. - -### Paper or other resource for more information -[Blog post](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) and [paper](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf) - -### Where to send questions or comments about the model -Please use this [Google Form](https://forms.gle/A7WBSbTY2EkKdroPA) - -## Intended Uses: - -### Primary intended uses - -The primary intended users of these models are *AI researchers and practitioners*. - -We primarily imagine these language models will be used by researchers to better understand the behaviors, capabilities, biases, and constraints of large-scale generative language models. - -### Secondary uses - -Here are some secondary use cases we believe are likely: - -- **Writing assistance**: Grammar assistance, autocompletion (for normal prose or code) -- **Creative writing and art**: exploring the generation of creative, fictional texts; aiding creation of poetry and other literary art. -- **Entertainment**: Creation of games, chat bots, and amusing generations. - -### Out-of-scope use cases - -Because large-scale language models like GPT-2 do not distinguish fact from fiction, we don’t support use-cases that require the generated text to be true. - -Additionally, language models like GPT-2 reflect the biases inherent to the systems they were trained on, so we do not recommend that they be deployed into systems that interact with humans unless the deployers first carry out a study of biases relevant to the intended use-case. We found no statistically significant difference in gender, race, and religious bias probes between 774M and 1.5B, implying all versions of GPT-2 should be approached with similar levels of caution around use cases that are sensitive to biases around human attributes. - -## Evaluation Data - -### Datasets - -This model was trained on (and evaluated against) WebText, a dataset consisting of the text contents of 45 million links posted by users of the ‘Reddit’ social network. WebText is made of data derived from outbound links from Reddit and does not consist of data taken directly from Reddit itself. Before generating the dataset we used a blocklist to ensure we didn’t sample from a variety of subreddits which contain sexually explicit or otherwise offensive content. - -To get a sense of the data that went into GPT-2, we’ve [published a list](domains.txt) of the top 1,000 domains present in WebText and their frequency. The top 15 domains by volume in WebText are: Google, Archive, Blogspot, GitHub, NYTimes, Wordpress, Washington Post, Wikia, BBC, The Guardian, eBay, Pastebin, CNN, Yahoo!, and the Huffington Post. - -### Motivation - -The motivation behind WebText was to create an Internet-scale, heterogeneous dataset that we could use to test large-scale language models against. WebText was (and is) intended to be primarily for research purposes rather than production purposes. - -### Caveats and Recommendations - -Because GPT-2 is an internet-scale language model, it’s currently difficult to know what disciplined testing procedures can be applied to it to fully understand its capabilities and how the data it is trained on influences its vast range of outputs. We recommend researchers investigate these aspects of the model and share their results. - -Additionally, as indicated in our discussion of issues relating to potential misuse of the model, it remains unclear what the long-term dynamics are of detecting outputs from these models. We conducted [in-house automated ML-based detection research](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset/tree/master/detector) using simple classifiers, zero shot, and fine-tuning methods. Our fine-tuned detector model reached accuracy levels of approximately 95%. However, no one detection method is a panacea; automated ML-based detection, human detection, human-machine teaming, and metadata-based detection are all methods that can be combined for more confident classification. Developing better approaches to detection today will give us greater intuitions when thinking about future models and could help us understand ahead of time if detection methods will eventually become ineffective. - - diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b4a3ea703..000000000 --- a/requirements.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5 +0,0 @@ -fire>=0.1.3 -regex==2017.4.5 -requests==2.21.0 -tqdm==4.31.1 -toposort==1.5 diff --git a/src/accumulate.py b/src/accumulate.py deleted file mode 100644 index 1a475a1e0..000000000 --- a/src/accumulate.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,36 +0,0 @@ -import argparse -import json -import os -import numpy as np -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf -import time - - -class AccumulatingOptimizer(object): - def __init__(self, opt, var_list): - self.opt = opt - self.var_list = var_list - self.accum_vars = {tv : tf.Variable(tf.zeros_like(tv.initialized_value()), trainable=False) - for tv in var_list} - self.total_loss = tf.Variable(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32)) - self.count_loss = tf.Variable(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32)) - - def reset(self): - updates = [tv.assign(tf.zeros_like(tv)) for tv in self.accum_vars.values()] - updates.append(self.total_loss.assign(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32))) - updates.append(self.count_loss.assign(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32))) - with tf.control_dependencies(updates): - return tf.no_op() - - def compute_gradients(self, loss): - grads = self.opt.compute_gradients(loss, self.var_list) - updates = [self.accum_vars[v].assign_add(g) for (g,v) in grads] - updates.append(self.total_loss.assign_add(loss)) - updates.append(self.count_loss.assign_add(1.0)) - with tf.control_dependencies(updates): - return tf.no_op() - - def apply_gradients(self): - grads = [(g,v) for (v,g) in self.accum_vars.items()] - with tf.control_dependencies([self.opt.apply_gradients(grads)]): - return self.total_loss / self.count_loss diff --git a/src/encode.py b/src/encode.py deleted file mode 100755 index 8f8e07947..000000000 --- a/src/encode.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python3 -# Usage: -# PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/output.npz -# PYTHONPATH=src ./train --dataset /path/to/output.npz - -import argparse -import numpy as np - -import encoder -from load_dataset import load_dataset - -parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( - description='Pre-encode text files into tokenized training set.', - formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) -parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='117M', help='Pretrained model name') -parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') -parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') -parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') -parser.add_argument('in_text', metavar='PATH', type=str, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text).') -parser.add_argument('out_npz', metavar='OUT.npz', type=str, help='Output file path') - -def main(): - args = parser.parse_args() - enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) - print('Reading files') - chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.in_text, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) - print('Writing', args.out_npz) - np.savez_compressed(args.out_npz, *chunks) - - -if __name__ == '__main__': - main() diff --git a/src/encoder.py b/src/encoder.py deleted file mode 100644 index 5f52e723c..000000000 --- a/src/encoder.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,117 +0,0 @@ -"""Byte pair encoding utilities""" - -import os -import json -import regex as re -from functools import lru_cache - -@lru_cache() -def bytes_to_unicode(): - """ - Returns list of utf-8 byte and a corresponding list of unicode strings. - The reversible bpe codes work on unicode strings. - This means you need a large # of unicode characters in your vocab if you want to avoid UNKs. - When you're at something like a 10B token dataset you end up needing around 5K for decent coverage. - This is a signficant percentage of your normal, say, 32K bpe vocab. - To avoid that, we want lookup tables between utf-8 bytes and unicode strings. - And avoids mapping to whitespace/control characters the bpe code barfs on. - """ - bs = list(range(ord("!"), ord("~")+1))+list(range(ord("¡"), ord("¬")+1))+list(range(ord("®"), ord("ÿ")+1)) - cs = bs[:] - n = 0 - for b in range(2**8): - if b not in bs: - bs.append(b) - cs.append(2**8+n) - n += 1 - cs = [chr(n) for n in cs] - return dict(zip(bs, cs)) - -def get_pairs(word): - """Return set of symbol pairs in a word. - - Word is represented as tuple of symbols (symbols being variable-length strings). - """ - pairs = set() - prev_char = word[0] - for char in word[1:]: - pairs.add((prev_char, char)) - prev_char = char - return pairs - -class Encoder: - def __init__(self, encoder, bpe_merges, errors='replace'): - self.encoder = encoder - self.decoder = {v:k for k,v in self.encoder.items()} - self.errors = errors # how to handle errors in decoding - self.byte_encoder = bytes_to_unicode() - self.byte_decoder = {v:k for k, v in self.byte_encoder.items()} - self.bpe_ranks = dict(zip(bpe_merges, range(len(bpe_merges)))) - self.cache = {} - - # Should haved added re.IGNORECASE so BPE merges can happen for capitalized versions of contractions - self.pat = re.compile(r"""'s|'t|'re|'ve|'m|'ll|'d| ?\p{L}+| ?\p{N}+| ?[^\s\p{L}\p{N}]+|\s+(?!\S)|\s+""") - - def bpe(self, token): - if token in self.cache: - return self.cache[token] - word = tuple(token) - pairs = get_pairs(word) - - if not pairs: - return token - - while True: - bigram = min(pairs, key = lambda pair: self.bpe_ranks.get(pair, float('inf'))) - if bigram not in self.bpe_ranks: - break - first, second = bigram - new_word = [] - i = 0 - while i < len(word): - try: - j = word.index(first, i) - new_word.extend(word[i:j]) - i = j - except: - new_word.extend(word[i:]) - break - - if word[i] == first and i < len(word)-1 and word[i+1] == second: - new_word.append(first+second) - i += 2 - else: - new_word.append(word[i]) - i += 1 - new_word = tuple(new_word) - word = new_word - if len(word) == 1: - break - else: - pairs = get_pairs(word) - word = ' '.join(word) - self.cache[token] = word - return word - - def encode(self, text): - bpe_tokens = [] - for token in re.findall(self.pat, text): - token = ''.join(self.byte_encoder[b] for b in token.encode('utf-8')) - bpe_tokens.extend(self.encoder[bpe_token] for bpe_token in self.bpe(token).split(' ')) - return bpe_tokens - - def decode(self, tokens): - text = ''.join([self.decoder[token] for token in tokens]) - text = bytearray([self.byte_decoder[c] for c in text]).decode('utf-8', errors=self.errors) - return text - -def get_encoder(model_name, models_dir): - with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'encoder.json'), 'r') as f: - encoder = json.load(f) - with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f: - bpe_data = f.read() - bpe_merges = [tuple(merge_str.split()) for merge_str in bpe_data.split('\n')[1:-1]] - return Encoder( - encoder=encoder, - bpe_merges=bpe_merges, - ) diff --git a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py deleted file mode 100755 index 2db99698b..000000000 --- a/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,79 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python3 - -import fire -import json -import os -import numpy as np -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf - -import model, sample, encoder - -def sample_model( - model_name='124M', - seed=None, - nsamples=0, - batch_size=1, - length=None, - temperature=1, - top_k=0, - top_p=1, - models_dir='models', -): - """ - Run the sample_model - :model_name=124M : String, which model to use - :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to - reproduce results - :nsamples=0 : Number of samples to return, if 0, continues to - generate samples indefinately. - :batch_size=1 : Number of batches (only affects speed/memory). - :length=None : Number of tokens in generated text, if None (default), is - determined by model hyperparameters - :temperature=1 : Float value controlling randomness in boltzmann - distribution. Lower temperature results in less random completions. As the - temperature approaches zero, the model will become deterministic and - repetitive. Higher temperature results in more random completions. - :top_k=0 : Integer value controlling diversity. 1 means only 1 word is - considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, - while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a - special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. - :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders - (i.e. contains the folder) - """ - models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) - enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) - hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: - hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) - - if length is None: - length = hparams.n_ctx - elif length > hparams.n_ctx: - raise ValueError("Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - - with tf.Session(graph=tf.Graph()) as sess: - np.random.seed(seed) - tf.set_random_seed(seed) - - output = sample.sample_sequence( - hparams=hparams, length=length, - start_token=enc.encoder['<|endoftext|>'], - batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p - )[:, 1:] - - saver = tf.train.Saver() - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) - saver.restore(sess, ckpt) - - generated = 0 - while nsamples == 0 or generated < nsamples: - out = sess.run(output) - for i in range(batch_size): - generated += batch_size - text = enc.decode(out[i]) - print("=" * 40 + " SAMPLE " + str(generated) + " " + "=" * 40) - print(text) - -if __name__ == '__main__': - fire.Fire(sample_model) diff --git a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py deleted file mode 100755 index 10729c83c..000000000 --- a/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,91 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python3 - -import fire -import json -import os -import numpy as np -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf - -import model, sample, encoder - -def interact_model( - model_name='124M', - seed=None, - nsamples=1, - batch_size=1, - length=None, - temperature=1, - top_k=0, - top_p=1, - models_dir='models', -): - """ - Interactively run the model - :model_name=124M : String, which model to use - :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to reproduce - results - :nsamples=1 : Number of samples to return total - :batch_size=1 : Number of batches (only affects speed/memory). Must divide nsamples. - :length=None : Number of tokens in generated text, if None (default), is - determined by model hyperparameters - :temperature=1 : Float value controlling randomness in boltzmann - distribution. Lower temperature results in less random completions. As the - temperature approaches zero, the model will become deterministic and - repetitive. Higher temperature results in more random completions. - :top_k=0 : Integer value controlling diversity. 1 means only 1 word is - considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, - while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a - special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. - :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders - (i.e. contains the folder) - """ - models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) - if batch_size is None: - batch_size = 1 - assert nsamples % batch_size == 0 - - enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) - hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: - hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) - - if length is None: - length = hparams.n_ctx // 2 - elif length > hparams.n_ctx: - raise ValueError("Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - - with tf.Session(graph=tf.Graph()) as sess: - context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [batch_size, None]) - np.random.seed(seed) - tf.set_random_seed(seed) - output = sample.sample_sequence( - hparams=hparams, length=length, - context=context, - batch_size=batch_size, - temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p - ) - - saver = tf.train.Saver() - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) - saver.restore(sess, ckpt) - - while True: - raw_text = input("Model prompt >>> ") - while not raw_text: - print('Prompt should not be empty!') - raw_text = input("Model prompt >>> ") - context_tokens = enc.encode(raw_text) - generated = 0 - for _ in range(nsamples // batch_size): - out = sess.run(output, feed_dict={ - context: [context_tokens for _ in range(batch_size)] - })[:, len(context_tokens):] - for i in range(batch_size): - generated += 1 - text = enc.decode(out[i]) - print("=" * 40 + " SAMPLE " + str(generated) + " " + "=" * 40) - print(text) - print("=" * 80) - -if __name__ == '__main__': - fire.Fire(interact_model) diff --git a/src/load_dataset.py b/src/load_dataset.py deleted file mode 100644 index fdb7b3849..000000000 --- a/src/load_dataset.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,83 +0,0 @@ -import glob -import numpy as np -import os -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf -import tqdm - - -def load_dataset(enc, path, combine, encoding=None): - paths = [] - if os.path.isfile(path): - # Simple file - paths.append(path) - elif os.path.isdir(path): - # Directory - for (dirpath, _, fnames) in os.walk(path): - for fname in fnames: - paths.append(os.path.join(dirpath, fname)) - else: - # Assume glob - paths = glob.glob(path) - - token_chunks = [] - raw_text = '' - for path in tqdm.tqdm(paths): - if path.endswith('.npz'): - # Pre-encoded - with np.load(path) as npz: - for item in npz.files: - token_chunks.append(npz[item]) - else: - # Plain text - with open(path, 'r', encoding=encoding) as fp: - raw_text += fp.read() - if len(raw_text) >= combine: - tokens = np.stack(enc.encode(raw_text)) - token_chunks.append(tokens) - raw_text = '' - else: - raw_text += '<|endoftext|>' - if raw_text: - tokens = np.stack(enc.encode(raw_text)) - token_chunks.append(tokens) - return token_chunks - - -def binary_search(f, lo, hi): - if f(lo) or not f(hi): - return None - while hi > lo + 1: - mid = (lo + hi) // 2 - if f(mid): - hi = mid - else: - lo = mid - return hi - - -class Sampler(object): - """Fairly samples a slice from a set of variable sized chunks. - - 'Fairly' means that the distribution is the same as sampling from one concatenated chunk, - but without crossing chunk boundaries.""" - - def __init__(self, chunks, seed=None): - self.chunks = chunks - self.total_size = sum(chunk.shape[0] for chunk in chunks) - self.boundaries = [0] - for i in range(len(chunks)): - self.boundaries.append(self.boundaries[-1] + chunks[i].shape[0]) - self.rs = np.random.RandomState(seed=seed) - - def sample(self, length): - assert length < self.total_size // len( - self.chunks - ), "Dataset files are too small to sample {} tokens at a time".format( - length) - while True: - index = self.rs.randint(0, self.total_size - length - 1) - i = binary_search(lambda j: self.boundaries[j] > index, 0, - len(self.boundaries) - 1) - 1 - if self.boundaries[i + 1] > index + length: - within_chunk = index - self.boundaries[i] - return self.chunks[i][within_chunk:within_chunk + length] diff --git a/src/memory_saving_gradients.py b/src/memory_saving_gradients.py deleted file mode 100644 index 659691f49..000000000 --- a/src/memory_saving_gradients.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,387 +0,0 @@ -from toposort import toposort -import contextlib -import numpy as np -import tensorflow as tf -import tensorflow.contrib.graph_editor as ge -import time -import sys -sys.setrecursionlimit(10000) -# refers back to current module if we decide to split helpers out -util = sys.modules[__name__] - -# getting rid of "WARNING:tensorflow:VARIABLES collection name is deprecated" -setattr(tf.GraphKeys, "VARIABLES", "variables") - -# save original gradients since tf.gradient could be monkey-patched to point -# to our version -from tensorflow.python.ops import gradients as tf_gradients_lib -tf_gradients = tf_gradients_lib.gradients - -MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE=1024 # use lower value during testing - -# specific versions we can use to do process-wide replacement of tf.gradients -def gradients_speed(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): - return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='speed', **kwargs) - -def gradients_memory(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): - return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='memory', **kwargs) - -def gradients_collection(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): - return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs) - -def gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs): - ''' - Authors: Tim Salimans & Yaroslav Bulatov - - memory efficient gradient implementation inspired by "Training Deep Nets with Sublinear Memory Cost" - by Chen et al. 2016 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.06174) - - ys,xs,grad_ys,kwargs are the arguments to standard tensorflow tf.gradients - (https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.12/api_docs/python/train.html#gradients) - - 'checkpoints' can either be - - a list consisting of tensors from the forward pass of the neural net - that we should re-use when calculating the gradients in the backward pass - all other tensors that do not appear in this list will be re-computed - - a string specifying how this list should be determined. currently we support - - 'speed': checkpoint all outputs of convolutions and matmuls. these ops are usually the most expensive, - so checkpointing them maximizes the running speed - (this is a good option if nonlinearities, concats, batchnorms, etc are taking up a lot of memory) - - 'memory': try to minimize the memory usage - (currently using a very simple strategy that identifies a number of bottleneck tensors in the graph to checkpoint) - - 'collection': look for a tensorflow collection named 'checkpoints', which holds the tensors to checkpoint - ''' - - # print("Calling memsaving gradients with", checkpoints) - if not isinstance(ys,list): - ys = [ys] - if not isinstance(xs,list): - xs = [xs] - - bwd_ops = ge.get_backward_walk_ops([y.op for y in ys], - inclusive=True) - - debug_print("bwd_ops: %s", bwd_ops) - - # forward ops are all ops that are candidates for recomputation - fwd_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in xs], - inclusive=True, - within_ops=bwd_ops) - debug_print("fwd_ops: %s", fwd_ops) - - # exclude ops with no inputs - fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if op.inputs] - - # don't recompute xs, remove variables - xs_ops = _to_ops(xs) - fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not op in xs_ops] - fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/assign' in op.name] - fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/Assign' in op.name] - fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/read' in op.name] - ts_all = ge.filter_ts(fwd_ops, True) # get the tensors - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if '/read' not in t.name] - ts_all = set(ts_all) - set(xs) - set(ys) - - # construct list of tensors to checkpoint during forward pass, if not - # given as input - if type(checkpoints) is not list: - if checkpoints == 'collection': - checkpoints = tf.get_collection('checkpoints') - - elif checkpoints == 'speed': - # checkpoint all expensive ops to maximize running speed - checkpoints = ge.filter_ts_from_regex(fwd_ops, 'conv2d|Conv|MatMul') - - elif checkpoints == 'memory': - - # remove very small tensors and some weird ops - def fixdims(t): # tf.Dimension values are not compatible with int, convert manually - try: - return [int(e if e.value is not None else 64) for e in t] - except: - return [0] # unknown shape - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if np.prod(fixdims(t.shape)) > MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE] - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'L2Loss' not in t.name] - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'entropy' not in t.name] - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'FusedBatchNorm' not in t.name] - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Switch' not in t.name] - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'dropout' not in t.name] - # DV: FP16_FIX - need to add 'Cast' layer here to make it work for FP16 - ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Cast' not in t.name] - - # filter out all tensors that are inputs of the backward graph - with util.capture_ops() as bwd_ops: - tf_gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, **kwargs) - - bwd_inputs = [t for op in bwd_ops for t in op.inputs] - # list of tensors in forward graph that is in input to bwd graph - ts_filtered = list(set(bwd_inputs).intersection(ts_all)) - debug_print("Using tensors %s", ts_filtered) - - # try two slightly different ways of getting bottlenecks tensors - # to checkpoint - for ts in [ts_filtered, ts_all]: - - # get all bottlenecks in the graph - bottleneck_ts = [] - for t in ts: - b = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=True, within_ops=fwd_ops)) - f = set(ge.get_forward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=False, within_ops=fwd_ops)) - # check that there are not shortcuts - b_inp = set([inp for op in b for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) - f_inp = set([inp for op in f for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) - if not set(b_inp).intersection(f_inp) and len(b_inp)+len(f_inp) >= len(ts_all): - bottleneck_ts.append(t) # we have a bottleneck! - else: - debug_print("Rejected bottleneck candidate and ops %s", [t] + list(set(ts_all) - set(b_inp) - set(f_inp))) - - # success? or try again without filtering? - if len(bottleneck_ts) >= np.sqrt(len(ts_filtered)): # yes, enough bottlenecks found! - break - - if not bottleneck_ts: - raise Exception('unable to find bottleneck tensors! please provide checkpoint nodes manually, or use checkpoints="speed".') - - # sort the bottlenecks - bottlenecks_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(bottleneck_ts, within_ops=fwd_ops) - sorted_bottlenecks = [t for ts in bottlenecks_sorted_lists for t in ts] - - # save an approximately optimal number ~ sqrt(N) - N = len(ts_filtered) - if len(bottleneck_ts) <= np.ceil(np.sqrt(N)): - checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks - else: - step = int(np.ceil(len(bottleneck_ts) / np.sqrt(N))) - checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks[step::step] - - else: - raise Exception('%s is unsupported input for "checkpoints"' % (checkpoints,)) - - checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints).intersection(ts_all)) - - # at this point automatic selection happened and checkpoints is list of nodes - assert isinstance(checkpoints, list) - - debug_print("Checkpoint nodes used: %s", checkpoints) - # better error handling of special cases - # xs are already handled as checkpoint nodes, so no need to include them - xs_intersect_checkpoints = set(xs).intersection(set(checkpoints)) - if xs_intersect_checkpoints: - debug_print("Warning, some input nodes are also checkpoint nodes: %s", - xs_intersect_checkpoints) - ys_intersect_checkpoints = set(ys).intersection(set(checkpoints)) - debug_print("ys: %s, checkpoints: %s, intersect: %s", ys, checkpoints, - ys_intersect_checkpoints) - # saving an output node (ys) gives no benefit in memory while creating - # new edge cases, exclude them - if ys_intersect_checkpoints: - debug_print("Warning, some output nodes are also checkpoints nodes: %s", - format_ops(ys_intersect_checkpoints)) - - # remove initial and terminal nodes from checkpoints list if present - checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints) - set(ys) - set(xs)) - - # check that we have some nodes to checkpoint - # if not checkpoints: - # raise Exception('no checkpoints nodes found or given as input! ') - - # disconnect dependencies between checkpointed tensors - checkpoints_disconnected = {} - for x in checkpoints: - if x.op and x.op.name is not None: - grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x, name=x.op.name+"_sg") - else: - grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x) - checkpoints_disconnected[x] = grad_node - - # partial derivatives to the checkpointed tensors and xs - ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(seed_ops=[y.op for y in ys], - stop_at_ts=checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) - debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within fwd_ops %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", - len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ys], checkpoints) - debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) - debug_print("Processing list %s", ys) - copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) - for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): - op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) - copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() - debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) - ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), can_modify=copied_ops) - debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", - checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), copied_ops) - - # get gradients with respect to current boundary + original x's - copied_ys = [info._transformed_ops[y.op]._outputs[0] for y in ys] - boundary = list(checkpoints_disconnected.values()) - dv = tf_gradients(ys=copied_ys, xs=boundary+xs, grad_ys=grad_ys, **kwargs) - debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) - debug_print("for %s", copied_ys) - debug_print("with respect to %s", boundary+xs) - - inputs_to_do_before = [y.op for y in ys] - if grad_ys is not None: - inputs_to_do_before += grad_ys - wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] - my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) - - # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes - # dictionary of "node: backprop" for nodes in the boundary - d_checkpoints = {r: dr for r,dr in zip(checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), - dv[:len(checkpoints_disconnected)])} - # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) - d_xs = dv[len(checkpoints_disconnected):] - - # incorporate derivatives flowing through the checkpointed nodes - checkpoints_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) - for ts in checkpoints_sorted_lists[::-1]: - debug_print("Processing list %s", ts) - checkpoints_other = [r for r in checkpoints if r not in ts] - checkpoints_disconnected_other = [checkpoints_disconnected[r] for r in checkpoints_other] - - # copy part of the graph below current checkpoint node, stopping at - # other checkpoints nodes - ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(within_ops=fwd_ops, seed_ops=[r.op for r in ts], stop_at_ts=checkpoints_other) - debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", - len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ts], - checkpoints_other) - debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) - if not ops_to_copy: # we're done! - break - copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) - for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): - op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) - copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() - debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) - ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, can_modify=copied_ops) - debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", - checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, copied_ops) - - # gradient flowing through the checkpointed node - boundary = [info._transformed_ops[r.op]._outputs[0] for r in ts] - substitute_backprops = [d_checkpoints[r] for r in ts] - dv = tf_gradients(boundary, - checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs, - grad_ys=substitute_backprops, **kwargs) - debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) - debug_print("for %s", boundary) - debug_print("with respect to %s", checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs) - debug_print("with boundary backprop substitutions %s", substitute_backprops) - - inputs_to_do_before = [d_checkpoints[r].op for r in ts] - wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] - my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) - - # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes - for r, dr in zip(checkpoints_other, dv[:len(checkpoints_other)]): - if dr is not None: - if d_checkpoints[r] is None: - d_checkpoints[r] = dr - else: - d_checkpoints[r] += dr - def _unsparsify(x): - if not isinstance(x, tf.IndexedSlices): - return x - assert x.dense_shape is not None, "memory_saving_gradients encountered sparse gradients of unknown shape" - indices = x.indices - while indices.shape.ndims < x.values.shape.ndims: - indices = tf.expand_dims(indices, -1) - return tf.scatter_nd(indices, x.values, x.dense_shape) - - # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) - d_xs_new = dv[len(checkpoints_other):] - for j in range(len(xs)): - if d_xs_new[j] is not None: - if d_xs[j] is None: - d_xs[j] = _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) - else: - d_xs[j] += _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) - - - return d_xs - -def tf_toposort(ts, within_ops=None): - all_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in ts], within_ops=within_ops) - - deps = {} - for op in all_ops: - for o in op.outputs: - deps[o] = set(op.inputs) - sorted_ts = toposort(deps) - - # only keep the tensors from our original list - ts_sorted_lists = [] - for l in sorted_ts: - keep = list(set(l).intersection(ts)) - if keep: - ts_sorted_lists.append(keep) - - return ts_sorted_lists - -def fast_backward_ops(within_ops, seed_ops, stop_at_ts): - bwd_ops = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(seed_ops, stop_at_ts=stop_at_ts)) - ops = bwd_ops.intersection(within_ops).difference([t.op for t in stop_at_ts]) - return list(ops) - -@contextlib.contextmanager -def capture_ops(): - """Decorator to capture ops created in the block. - with capture_ops() as ops: - # create some ops - print(ops) # => prints ops created. - """ - - micros = int(time.time()*10**6) - scope_name = str(micros) - op_list = [] - with tf.name_scope(scope_name): - yield op_list - - g = tf.get_default_graph() - op_list.extend(ge.select_ops(scope_name+"/.*", graph=g)) - -def _to_op(tensor_or_op): - if hasattr(tensor_or_op, "op"): - return tensor_or_op.op - return tensor_or_op - -def _to_ops(iterable): - if not _is_iterable(iterable): - return iterable - return [_to_op(i) for i in iterable] - -def _is_iterable(o): - try: - _ = iter(o) - except Exception: - return False - return True - -DEBUG_LOGGING=False -def debug_print(s, *args): - """Like logger.log, but also replaces all TensorFlow ops/tensors with their - names. Sensitive to value of DEBUG_LOGGING, see enable_debug/disable_debug - - Usage: - debug_print("see tensors %s for %s", tensorlist, [1,2,3]) - """ - - if DEBUG_LOGGING: - formatted_args = [format_ops(arg) for arg in args] - print("DEBUG "+s % tuple(formatted_args)) - -def format_ops(ops, sort_outputs=True): - """Helper method for printing ops. Converts Tensor/Operation op to op.name, - rest to str(op).""" - - if hasattr(ops, '__iter__') and not isinstance(ops, str): - l = [(op.name if hasattr(op, "name") else str(op)) for op in ops] - if sort_outputs: - return sorted(l) - return l - else: - return ops.name if hasattr(ops, "name") else str(ops) - -def my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before): - for op in wait_to_do_ops: - ci = [i for i in inputs_to_do_before if op.control_inputs is None or i not in op.control_inputs] - ge.add_control_inputs(op, ci) diff --git a/src/model.py b/src/model.py deleted file mode 100644 index 489c9bdce..000000000 --- a/src/model.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,185 +0,0 @@ -import numpy as np -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf - -class HParams(object): - def __init__(self, **kwargs): - for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): - setattr(self, k, v) - - def override_from_dict(self, kwargs): - for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): - setattr(self, k, v) - - -def default_hparams(): - return HParams( - n_vocab=0, - n_ctx=1024, - n_embd=768, - n_head=12, - n_layer=12, - ) - -def shape_list(x): - """Deal with dynamic shape in tensorflow cleanly.""" - static = x.shape.as_list() - dynamic = tf.shape(x) - return [dynamic[i] if s is None else s for i, s in enumerate(static)] - -def softmax(x, axis=-1): - x = x - tf.reduce_max(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) - ex = tf.exp(x) - return ex / tf.reduce_sum(ex, axis=axis, keepdims=True) - -def gelu(x): - return 0.5*x*(1+tf.tanh(np.sqrt(2/np.pi)*(x+0.044715*tf.pow(x, 3)))) - -def norm(x, scope, *, axis=-1, epsilon=1e-5): - """Normalize to mean = 0, std = 1, then do a diagonal affine transform.""" - with tf.variable_scope(scope): - n_state = shape_list(x)[-1] - g = tf.get_variable('g', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(1)) - b = tf.get_variable('b', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) - u = tf.reduce_mean(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) - s = tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(x-u), axis=axis, keepdims=True) - x = (x - u) * tf.rsqrt(s + epsilon) - x = x*g + b - return x - -def split_states(x, n): - """Reshape the last dimension of x into [n, x.shape[-1]/n].""" - *start, m = shape_list(x) - return tf.reshape(x, start + [n, m//n]) - -def merge_states(x): - """Smash the last two dimensions of x into a single dimension.""" - *start, a, b = shape_list(x) - return tf.reshape(x, start + [a*b]) - -def conv1d(x, scope, nf, *, w_init_stdev=0.02): - with tf.variable_scope(scope): - *start, nx = shape_list(x) - w = tf.get_variable('w', [1, nx, nf], initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=w_init_stdev)) - b = tf.get_variable('b', [nf], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) - c = tf.reshape(tf.matmul(tf.reshape(x, [-1, nx]), tf.reshape(w, [-1, nf]))+b, start+[nf]) - return c - -def attention_mask(nd, ns, *, dtype): - """1's in the lower triangle, counting from the lower right corner. - - Same as tf.matrix_band_part(tf.ones([nd, ns]), -1, ns-nd), but doesn't produce garbage on TPUs. - """ - i = tf.range(nd)[:,None] - j = tf.range(ns) - m = i >= j - ns + nd - return tf.cast(m, dtype) - - -def attn(x, scope, n_state, *, past, hparams): - assert x.shape.ndims == 3 # Should be [batch, sequence, features] - assert n_state % hparams.n_head == 0 - if past is not None: - assert past.shape.ndims == 5 # Should be [batch, 2, heads, sequence, features], where 2 is [k, v] - - def split_heads(x): - # From [batch, sequence, features] to [batch, heads, sequence, features] - return tf.transpose(split_states(x, hparams.n_head), [0, 2, 1, 3]) - - def merge_heads(x): - # Reverse of split_heads - return merge_states(tf.transpose(x, [0, 2, 1, 3])) - - def mask_attn_weights(w): - # w has shape [batch, heads, dst_sequence, src_sequence], where information flows from src to dst. - _, _, nd, ns = shape_list(w) - b = attention_mask(nd, ns, dtype=w.dtype) - b = tf.reshape(b, [1, 1, nd, ns]) - w = w*b - tf.cast(1e10, w.dtype)*(1-b) - return w - - def multihead_attn(q, k, v): - # q, k, v have shape [batch, heads, sequence, features] - w = tf.matmul(q, k, transpose_b=True) - w = w * tf.rsqrt(tf.cast(shape_list(v)[-1], w.dtype)) - - w = mask_attn_weights(w) - w = softmax(w) - a = tf.matmul(w, v) - return a - - with tf.variable_scope(scope): - c = conv1d(x, 'c_attn', n_state*3) - q, k, v = map(split_heads, tf.split(c, 3, axis=2)) - present = tf.stack([k, v], axis=1) - if past is not None: - pk, pv = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) - k = tf.concat([pk, k], axis=-2) - v = tf.concat([pv, v], axis=-2) - a = multihead_attn(q, k, v) - a = merge_heads(a) - a = conv1d(a, 'c_proj', n_state) - return a, present - - -def mlp(x, scope, n_state, *, hparams): - with tf.variable_scope(scope): - nx = shape_list(x)[-1] - h = gelu(conv1d(x, 'c_fc', n_state)) - h2 = conv1d(h, 'c_proj', nx) - return h2 - - -def block(x, scope, *, past, hparams): - with tf.variable_scope(scope): - nx = shape_list(x)[-1] - a, present = attn(norm(x, 'ln_1'), 'attn', nx, past=past, hparams=hparams) - x = x + a - m = mlp(norm(x, 'ln_2'), 'mlp', nx*4, hparams=hparams) - x = x + m - return x, present - -def past_shape(*, hparams, batch_size=None, sequence=None): - return [batch_size, hparams.n_layer, 2, hparams.n_head, sequence, hparams.n_embd // hparams.n_head] - -def expand_tile(value, size): - """Add a new axis of given size.""" - value = tf.convert_to_tensor(value, name='value') - ndims = value.shape.ndims - return tf.tile(tf.expand_dims(value, axis=0), [size] + [1]*ndims) - -def positions_for(tokens, past_length): - batch_size = tf.shape(tokens)[0] - nsteps = tf.shape(tokens)[1] - return expand_tile(past_length + tf.range(nsteps), batch_size) - - -def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=tf.AUTO_REUSE): - with tf.variable_scope(scope, reuse=reuse): - results = {} - batch, sequence = shape_list(X) - - wpe = tf.get_variable('wpe', [hparams.n_ctx, hparams.n_embd], - initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.01)) - wte = tf.get_variable('wte', [hparams.n_vocab, hparams.n_embd], - initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.02)) - past_length = 0 if past is None else tf.shape(past)[-2] - h = tf.gather(wte, X) + tf.gather(wpe, positions_for(X, past_length)) - - # Transformer - presents = [] - pasts = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) if past is not None else [None] * hparams.n_layer - assert len(pasts) == hparams.n_layer - for layer, past in enumerate(pasts): - h, present = block(h, 'h%d' % layer, past=past, hparams=hparams) - if layer == 10: - tf.add_to_collection('checkpoints', h) - presents.append(present) - results['present'] = tf.stack(presents, axis=1) - h = norm(h, 'ln_f') - - # Language model loss. Do tokens 0.0: - logits = top_p_logits(logits, p=top_p) - else: - logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) - samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) - return [ - next_outputs['presents'] if past is None else tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), - samples, - tf.concat([output, samples], axis=1) - ] - - past, prev, output = body(None, context, context) - - def cond(*args): - return True - - _, _, tokens = tf.while_loop( - cond=cond, body=body, - maximum_iterations=length - 1, - loop_vars=[ - past, - prev, - output - ], - shape_invariants=[ - tf.TensorShape(model.past_shape(hparams=hparams, batch_size=batch_size)), - tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), - tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), - ], - back_prop=False, - ) - - return tokens diff --git a/src/tfremat.py b/src/tfremat.py deleted file mode 100644 index 332668227..000000000 --- a/src/tfremat.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,181 +0,0 @@ -import random -import os -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf -import tempfile - -import twremat - -def splice_op(op, input_map, control_inputs=None): - g = op.graph - node_def = tf.NodeDef() - node_def.CopyFrom(op.node_def) - node_def.name = g.unique_name(op.name + '_copy') - inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.inputs] - new_control_inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.control_inputs] - if control_inputs: - new_control_inputs.extend([x for x in control_inputs if x is not None]) - # new_control_inputs = control_inputs - output_types = [o.dtype for o in op.outputs] - op_def = op.op_def - return tf.Operation(node_def, g, inputs=inputs, output_types=output_types, op_def=op_def, control_inputs=new_control_inputs) - -def splice_tensor(ten, new_op): - i = ten.op.outputs.index(ten) - return new_op.outputs[i] - -def splice(obj, input_map, control_inputs=None): - if type(obj) is tf.Operation: - return splice_op(obj, input_map, control_inputs=control_inputs) - elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: - return splice_tensor(obj, input_map.get(obj.op, obj.op)) - elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: - return tf.IndexedSlices(values=input_map.get(obj.values, obj.values), - indices=input_map.get(obj.indices, obj.indices), - dense_shape=input_map.get(obj.dense_shape, obj.dense_shape)) - else: - raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') - -def product(xs): - r = 1 - for x in xs: - r *= x - return r - -def shape_size(shape): - if shape.rank is None: - return 16 - shape = shape.as_list() - for i in range(len(shape)): - if shape[i] is None and i == 0: - shape[i] = 1 - elif shape[i] is None: - shape[i] = 1024 - return product(shape) - -def graph_from_dfs(deps, starts): - visited = set() - frontier = starts - while frontier: - x = frontier.pop() - if x in visited: - continue - visited.add(x) - frontier.extend(list(deps(x))) - return {x : list(deps(x)) for x in visited} - -def get_deps(obj): - if type(obj) is tf.Operation: - return list(obj.inputs) + list(obj.control_inputs) - elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: - return [obj.op] - elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: - return [obj.indices, obj.values, obj.dense_shape] - else: - raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') - - -def tensor_graph(compute): - return graph_from_dfs(get_deps, list(compute)) - -def blacklist(obj): - if type(obj) is tf.Operation: - if 'Assign' in obj.type or 'Variable' in obj.type or 'Placeholder' in obj.type: - # TODO: Should we do special accounting for - # ReadVariableOp? Currently we forbid cloning altogether, - # but it's actually ok to clone this op as long as it - # doesn't float across an effectful op (Assign). Also - # currently we don't account for the memory used by - # ReadVariableOp (is it copy-on-write?). - # https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/raw_ops/ReadVariableOp?hl=uk - return True - elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: - return blacklist(obj.op) - return False - -def estimate_cpu(op): - return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.inputs if type(t) is tf.Tensor) + sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) - -def estimate_mem(op): - return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) - -def info(op): - if blacklist(op): - return {'type': 'effectful'} - elif type(op) is tf.Operation: - if 'Reshape' in op.type: - return {'type': 'pointer'} - return {'type': 'normal', - 'cpu': estimate_cpu(op), - 'mem': estimate_mem(op)} - elif type(op) is tf.Tensor: - return {'type': 'pointer'} - elif type(op) is tf.IndexedSlices: - return {'type': 'pointer'} - else: - raise AssertionError(repr((type(op), op))) - - -# Helper functions to flatten and unflatten nested structures of -# tensors and ops so that tf_remat can be applied to structures -# without fiddly marshalling. -def get_ops(compute): - output = [] - stack = [compute] - while stack: - top = stack.pop() - if type(top) is dict: - for v in top.values(): - stack.append(v) - elif type(top) in (list, tuple): - stack.extend(top) - elif type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): - output.append(top) - return output - -def replace_ops(top, live): - if type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): - return live[top] - elif type(top) is dict: - return {k : replace_ops(v, live) for (k,v) in top.items()} - elif type(top) is list: - return [replace_ops(v, live) for v in top] - elif type(top) is tuple: - return tuple(replace_ops(v, live) for v in top) - else: - return top - - -def tf_remat(compute, memlimit): - compute_ops = get_ops(compute) - tf_deps = tensor_graph(compute_ops) - - # Relabel with integers - from_op = {op : i for (i, op) in enumerate(tf_deps.keys())} - from_node = {i : op for (op, i) in from_op.items()} - nodes = set(from_node.keys()) - node_deps = {n : [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] for n in nodes} - - node_info = {} - for n in nodes: - node_info[n] = info(from_node[n]) - node_info[n]['deps'] = [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] - - steps = twremat.runtwremat(node_info, memlimit, {from_op[c] for c in compute_ops}) - - print('Constructing tensorflow graph...') - live = {} - last_op = None - for (action, n) in steps: - base = from_node[n] - if action == 'compute': - input_map = {d : live[d] for d in tf_deps[base] if live[d] != d} - if blacklist(base) and not input_map: - live[base] = base - else: - live[base] = splice(base, input_map, control_inputs=[last_op]) - if type(base) is tf.Operation: - last_op = live[base] - elif action == 'free': - del live[base] - - return replace_ops(compute, live) diff --git a/src/train.py b/src/train.py deleted file mode 100755 index 113493726..000000000 --- a/src/train.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,314 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env python3 -# Usage: -# PYTHONPATH=src ./train --dataset - -import argparse -import json -import os, sys -import numpy as np -import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf -import tensorflow as tf2 -import time -import tqdm - -if tf.VERSION >= '2': - tf.disable_eager_execution() - tf.config.experimental.enable_tensor_float_32_execution(False) - tf.config.optimizer.set_experimental_options({'layout_optimizer': False, - 'constant_folding': False, - 'shape_optimization': False, - 'remapping': False, - 'arithmetic_optimization': False, - 'dependency_optimization': False, - 'loop_optimization': False, - 'disable_meta_optimizer': True - }) - - -import model, sample, encoder -from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler - -CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' -SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' - - -parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( - description='Fine-tune GPT-2 on your custom dataset.', - formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) - -parser.add_argument('--dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, required=True, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text, or preencoded .npz files).') -parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='124M', help='Pretrained model name') -parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') -parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate input files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') -parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') - -parser.add_argument('--batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=1, help='Batch size') -parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.00002, help='Learning rate for Adam') -parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') -parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') -parser.add_argument('--twremat', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use tensor rematerialization (better than memory_saving_gradients and works with tensorflow 2.0).') -parser.add_argument('--twremat_memlimit', type=str, default='12G', help='Memory usage limit/target for twremat. Can be an integer, or an integer suffixed with K/M/G for kilo/mega/giga-bytes.') -parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') -parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') -parser.add_argument('--noise', type=float, default=0.0, help='Add noise to input training data to regularize against typos.') - -parser.add_argument('--top_k', type=int, default=40, help='K for top-k sampling.') -parser.add_argument('--top_p', type=float, default=0.0, help='P for top-p sampling. Overrides top_k if set > 0.') - -parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') -parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') -parser.add_argument('--sample_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=100, help='Generate samples every N steps') -parser.add_argument('--sample_length', metavar='TOKENS', type=int, default=1023, help='Sample this many tokens') -parser.add_argument('--sample_num', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Generate this many samples') -parser.add_argument('--save_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=1000, help='Write a checkpoint every N steps') - -parser.add_argument('--val_dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, default=None, help='Dataset for validation loss, defaults to --dataset.') -parser.add_argument('--val_batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=2, help='Batch size for validation.') -parser.add_argument('--val_batch_count', metavar='N', type=int, default=40, help='Number of batches for validation.') -parser.add_argument('--val_every', metavar='STEPS', type=int, default=0, help='Calculate validation loss every STEPS steps.') - - -def maketree(path): - try: - os.makedirs(path) - except: - pass - - -def randomize(context, hparams, p): - if p > 0: - mask = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context)) < p - noise = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context), minval=0, maxval=hparams.n_vocab, dtype=tf.int32) - return tf.where(mask, noise, context) - else: - return context - - -def main(): - args = parser.parse_args() - enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) - hparams = model.default_hparams() - with open(os.path.join('models', args.model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: - hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) - - if args.sample_length > hparams.n_ctx: - raise ValueError( - "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) - - with tf.Session() as sess: - # Fully static shape required to make memory accounting in - # twremat accurate. - train_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, 1024]) - train_context_in = randomize(train_context, hparams, args.noise) - train_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=train_context_in) - train_loss = tf.reduce_mean( - tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( - labels=train_context[:, 1:], logits=train_output['logits'][:, :-1])) - - if args.val_every > 0: - val_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.val_batch_size, None]) - val_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=val_context) - val_loss = tf.reduce_mean( - tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( - labels=val_context[:, 1:], logits=val_output['logits'][:, :-1])) - val_loss_summary = tf.summary.scalar('val_loss', val_loss) - - sample_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) - tf_sample = sample.sample_sequence( - hparams=hparams, - length=args.sample_length, - context=sample_context, - batch_size=args.batch_size, - temperature=1.0, - top_k=args.top_k, - top_p=args.top_p) - - all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] - train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars - - if args.optimizer == 'adam': - print('Using Adam optimizer', file=sys.stderr) - opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) - elif args.optimizer == 'sgd': - print('Using SGD optimizer', file=sys.stderr) - opt = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) - else: - exit('Bad optimizer:', args.optimizer) - - if args.memory_saving_gradients: - if tf.VERSION >= '2': - exit('Memory saving gradients are not supported in tensorflow 2.x') - import memory_saving_gradients - opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) - elif args.twremat: - import tfremat - opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) - (train_loss, opt_grads) = tfremat.tf_remat((train_loss, opt_grads), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit) - else: - opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) - opt_grads = list(zip(opt_grads, train_vars)) - opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) - summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', train_loss) - - # if args.twremat: - # import tfremat - # # Applying tfremat to opt_apply has more accurate - # # accounting but is a bit iffier since side effecting ops - # # have more restrictions for correctness. If in doubt - # # revert back to version using opt_grads above. - # (opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss) = ( - # tfremat.tf_remat((opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit)) - - - summary_lr = tf.summary.scalar('learning_rate', args.learning_rate) - summaries = tf.summary.merge([summary_lr, summary_loss]) - - summary_log = tf.summary.FileWriter( - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) - - saver = tf.train.Saver( - var_list=all_vars, - max_to_keep=5, - keep_checkpoint_every_n_hours=2) - sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) - - if args.restore_from == 'latest': - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) - if ckpt is None: - # Get fresh GPT weights if new run. - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join('models', args.model_name)) - elif args.restore_from == 'fresh': - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( - os.path.join('models', args.model_name)) - else: - ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(args.restore_from) - print('Loading checkpoint', ckpt) - saver.restore(sess, ckpt) - - print('Loading dataset...') - chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) - data_sampler = Sampler(chunks) - if args.val_every > 0: - if args.val_dataset: - val_chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.val_dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) - else: - val_chunks = chunks - print('dataset has', data_sampler.total_size, 'tokens') - print('Training...') - - if args.val_every > 0: - # Sample from validation set once with fixed seed to make - # it deterministic during training as well as across runs. - val_data_sampler = Sampler(val_chunks, seed=1) - val_batches = [[val_data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.val_batch_size)] - for _ in range(args.val_batch_count)] - - counter = 1 - counter_path = os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, 'counter') - if os.path.exists(counter_path): - # Load the step number if we're resuming a run - # Add 1 so we don't immediately try to save again - with open(counter_path, 'r') as fp: - counter = int(fp.read()) + 1 - - def save(): - maketree(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) - print( - 'Saving', - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, - 'model-{}').format(counter)) - saver.save( - sess, - os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, 'model'), - global_step=counter) - with open(counter_path, 'w') as fp: - fp.write(str(counter) + '\n') - - def generate_samples(): - print('Generating samples...') - context_tokens = data_sampler.sample(1) - all_text = [] - index = 0 - while index < args.sample_num: - out = sess.run( - tf_sample, - feed_dict={sample_context: args.batch_size * [context_tokens]}) - for i in range(min(args.sample_num - index, args.batch_size)): - text = enc.decode(out[i]) - text = '======== SAMPLE {} ========\n{}\n'.format( - index + 1, text) - all_text.append(text) - index += 1 - print(text) - maketree(os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name)) - with open( - os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name, - 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w', encoding=args.encoding) as fp: - fp.write('\n'.join(all_text)) - - def validation(): - print('Calculating validation loss...') - losses = [] - for batch in tqdm.tqdm(val_batches): - losses.append(sess.run(val_loss, feed_dict={val_context: batch})) - v_val_loss = np.mean(losses) - v_summary = sess.run(val_loss_summary, feed_dict={val_loss: v_val_loss}) - summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) - summary_log.flush() - print( - '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] validation loss = {loss:2.2f}' - .format( - counter=counter, - time=time.time() - start_time, - loss=v_val_loss)) - - def sample_batch(): - return [data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.batch_size)] - - - avg_loss = (0.0, 0.0) - start_time = time.time() - - # print('Evaluating grads..') - # tf2.profiler.experimental.start('logdir') - # sess.run((opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) - # tf2.profiler.experimental.stop() - # print('Succeeded') - # exit() - - try: - while True: - if counter % args.save_every == 0: - save() - if counter % args.sample_every == 0: - generate_samples() - if args.val_every > 0 and (counter % args.val_every == 0 or counter == 1): - validation() - - (_, v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run( - (opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), - feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) - - summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) - - avg_loss = (avg_loss[0] * 0.99 + v_loss, - avg_loss[1] * 0.99 + 1.0) - - print( - '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] loss={loss:2.2f} avg={avg:2.2f}' - .format( - counter=counter, - time=time.time() - start_time, - loss=v_loss, - avg=avg_loss[0] / avg_loss[1])) - - counter += 1 - except KeyboardInterrupt: - print('interrupted') - save() - - -if __name__ == '__main__': - main() diff --git a/src/twremat.py b/src/twremat.py deleted file mode 100644 index 456b6f60d..000000000 --- a/src/twremat.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,60 +0,0 @@ -from subprocess import Popen, PIPE -import random -import os -import sys -import tempfile -from tqdm import tqdm - -BINDIR=os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0]), 'bin') -TWREMAT=os.path.join(BINDIR, 'twremat') - -# Allow users to pass 'humanized' memlimit values as strings. -def parse_memlimit(memlimit): - if memlimit[-1] == 'K': - return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000 - elif memlimit[-1] == 'M': - return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000000 - elif memlimit[-1] == 'G': - return int(memlimit[:-1]) * 1000000000 - else: - return int(memlimit) - -def runtwremat(gr, memlimit, target): - if type(memlimit) is str: - memlimit = parse_memlimit(memlimit) - - fname = tempfile.mktemp() - outname = tempfile.mktemp() - with open(fname, 'w') as fp: - print('p remat2', file=fp) - print(f'memlimit {memlimit}', file=fp) - for (n, info) in gr.items(): - deps = ' '.join(str(d) for d in info['deps']) - if info['type'] == 'normal': - cpu = info['cpu'] - mem = info['mem'] - weight = f'cpu {cpu} mem {mem}' - elif info['type'] == 'effectful': - weight = 'effectful' - elif info['type'] == 'pointer': - weight = 'pointer' - if n in target: - tstr = 'target' - else: - tstr = '' - print(f'node {n} deps {deps} {weight} {tstr}', file=fp) - print(' '.join([TWREMAT, fname, outname])) - proc = Popen([TWREMAT, fname, outname]) - assert proc.wait() == 0 - out = [] - with open(outname, 'r') as fp: - for line in fp: - line = line.split() - if line and line[0] == 'c': - out.append(('compute', int(line[1]))) - elif line and line[0] == 'f': - out.append(('free', int(line[1]))) - elif line: - print(line) - exit() - return out diff --git a/twremat/README.md b/twremat/README.md deleted file mode 100644 index 425e64091..000000000 --- a/twremat/README.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1 +0,0 @@ -Fast implementation of `Efficient Rematerialization for Deep Networks` . diff --git a/twremat/main/remat.hs b/twremat/main/remat.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 63a4c8805..000000000 --- a/twremat/main/remat.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,150 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} -{-# Language OverloadedStrings #-} -module Main where - -import Control.Applicative -import Control.Monad -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.List -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Data.Text (Text) -import qualified Data.Text as T -import qualified Data.Text.IO as T -import Debug.Trace -import System.Environment -import System.IO -import Text.Parser.Char -import Text.Parser.Combinators -import Text.Trifecta (Parser) -import qualified Text.Trifecta as Trifecta - -import Balanced -import Filter -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import TWRemat -import TreeWidth -import Util - -parse :: Parser a -> Text -> a -parse p txt = case Trifecta.parseString p mempty (T.unpack txt) of - Trifecta.Success a -> a - Trifecta.Failure e -> error (show (Trifecta._errDoc e)) - -p_nat :: (Read a, Integral a) => Parser a -p_nat = read <$> some digit - -isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> [Node] -> Bool -isValidSchedule gr steps ts = go steps IS.empty - where - go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (G.preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) - go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) - go [] live = all (\n -> IS.member n live) ts - --- Modify the graph to insert direct dependencies through 'pointer' --- type ops to the op that generated their underlying --- storage. Example, given op1 -> id -> op2, op2 will now directly --- keep op1 alive. Assuming that 'pointer' type ops are ~0 cost the --- 'id' can now be immediately freed after use, and all memory usage --- charged to op1, simplifying memory analysis. -mergePointers :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Gr a -mergePointers gr info = merged - where - merged = G.insEdges [(p, n) | n <- G.nodes gr, p <- pdeps n] gr - pdeps n = let pparents n = [p | p <- G.preList gr n, info p == Pointer] - go [] visited = Set.toList visited - go (p:ps) visited | Set.member p visited = go ps visited - | otherwise = go (pparents p ++ ps) (Set.insert p visited) - in go (pparents n) Set.empty - - -outputSchedule :: [Step] -> IO () -outputSchedule schedule = do - args <- getArgs - let printStep (Compute n) = "c " <> T.pack (show n) - printStep (Free n) = "f " <> T.pack (show n) - output = T.unlines (map printStep schedule) - case args of - [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output - [path] -> T.putStr output - - -main :: IO () -main = do - args <- getArgs - let path = head args - txt <- T.readFile path - let p = do - string "p remat2" *> spaces - memlimit <- optional (text "memlimit" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces) - nodes <- some $ do - text "node" <* spaces - node_id <- p_nat <* spaces - deps <- fold <$> optional (text "deps" *> spaces *> many (p_nat <* spaces)) - let p_weight = do - cpu <- text "cpu" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces - mem <- text "mem" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces - return (Normal{cpu,mem}) - p_effectful = const Effectful <$> text "effectful" <* spaces - p_pointer = const Pointer <$> text "pointer" <* spaces - weight <- optional (p_weight <|> p_effectful <|> p_pointer) - target <- (const True <$> text "target" <* spaces) <|> pure False - optional (char '\n') - return (node_id, deps, weight, target) - eof - return (memlimit, nodes) - (memlimit, node_data) = parse p txt - ns = [n | (n, _, _, _) <- node_data] - es = [(d, n) | (n, ds, _, _) <- node_data, d <- ds] - ts = [n | (n, _, _, True) <- node_data] - - case memlimit of - Just memlimit -> let - weights = Map.fromList [(n,w) | (n, _, Just w, _) <- node_data] - weight n = Map.findWithDefault (Normal 1 1) n weights - graph = mergePointers (G.mkUGraph ns es) weight - schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) - schedule' = optimize graph weight memlimit schedule - in do outputSchedule schedule' - hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts)) - hPutStrLn stderr ("length = " ++ show (length schedule')) - evalSched weight (initSched graph schedule') - Nothing -> let - graph = G.mkUGraph ns es - schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) - in outputSchedule schedule - -- -- G.plotLab "tree.dot" (IS.toList <$> treeWidth graph) - -- print (length ns) - -- print (length schedule, isValidSchedule graph schedule ts) - -- print (length schedule', isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts) - - -- let sched_1 = initSched graph schedule - -- evalSched weight sched_1 - - -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 - -- evalSched weight sched_2 - - -- let go sched = do - -- let sched_1 = greedy weight 1000 sched - -- evalSched weight sched_1 - -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 - -- evalSched weight sched_2 - -- go sched_2 - - -- go sched_2 - - -- let - -- output = T.unlines $ map T.pack $ do - -- step <- schedule - -- return $ case step of - -- Compute n -> "c " ++ show n - -- Free n -> "f " ++ show n - -- case args of - -- [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output - -- [path] -> T.putStr output - -- hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule)) diff --git a/twremat/main/test.hs b/twremat/main/test.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 0adccd3f8..000000000 --- a/twremat/main/test.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,35 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} -module Main where - -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Test.QuickCheck -import Test.Tasty -import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck - -import Graph -import TWRemat -import TestBalanced -import TestGraph -import TestTreeWidth - -isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Bool -isValidSchedule gr steps = go steps IS.empty - where - go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) - go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) - go [] live = True - -main = defaultMain $ testGroup "Tests" [ - testGraph, - testBalanced, - testTreeWidth, - testGroup "TWRemat" [ - testProperty "produces valid schedule" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> - let t = last (nodes gr) - in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList [t])), - testProperty "produces valid schedule x2" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> - let t = take 2 (nodes gr) - in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList t)) - ] - ] diff --git a/twremat/src/Balanced.hs b/twremat/src/Balanced.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 0660c06d4..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/Balanced.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,97 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language BangPatterns #-} -{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} -module Balanced where - -import Data.Bifunctor -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntMap (IntMap) -import qualified Data.IntMap as IM -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.List -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Ord -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Data.Tuple -import Debug.Trace - -import TreeWidth - -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import Util - -balancedSeparator :: Gr a -> Node -balancedSeparator gr = minimumOn (\n -> (weight n, n)) (G.nodes gr) - where - cutWeight = memo (G.edges gr) $ \(a,b) -> - 1 + sum [cutWeight (b,c) | c <- G.sucList gr b, c /= a] :: Int - weight = \a -> - maximum [cutWeight (a,b) | b <- G.sucList gr a] - --- Rose tree with weight annotations. -data Tree a = Tree Int a [Tree a] - deriving (Show, Functor, Foldable, Traversable) - -treeWeight :: Tree a -> Int -treeWeight (Tree w _ _) = w - -treeVal :: Tree a -> a -treeVal (Tree _ a _) = a - -tree :: a -> [Tree a] -> Tree a -tree a subs = Tree (1 + sum (map treeWeight subs)) a subs - --- Create a Tree from treelike graph. Assumes gr is undirected and --- simple and has at least one node. -mkTree :: Gr a -> Tree Node -mkTree gr = tree top [go top v | v <- G.sucList gr top, v /= top] - where - go u v = tree v [go v w | w <- G.sucList gr v, w /= u] - top = head (G.nodes gr) - --- Choose one element from a list. -choose1 :: [a] -> [(a, [a])] -choose1 xs = do i <- [0..length xs-1] - return (xs!!i, take i xs ++ drop (i+1) xs) - --- Balance a tree by recursively rotating each node until the heaviest --- subtree has minimal weight. The result is a tree with two --- properties: --- --- 1. For every node v in the tree, the subtrees rooted at children of --- v are disjoint connected components of the original tree with v --- removed. --- --- 2. The tree is balanced, in that for every node v, the heaviest --- child of v has weight at most weight[v]/2. - -balance :: Tree a -> Tree a -balance root@(Tree x a []) = root -balance root@(Tree x a children) - -- If we can improve balance by rotating, do so and check again. - | bestscore < score root = balance best - -- Current level is balanced, now balance all children. - | otherwise = tree a (map balance children) - where - rotate (Tree _ new_a new_children) other_children = - let old_root = tree a other_children - in tree new_a (old_root : new_children) - options = [rotate choice rest | (choice, rest) <- choose1 children] - score (Tree x a children) - | null children = 0 - | otherwise = maximum (map treeWeight children) - (bestscore, best) = minimumOn fst [(score t, t) | t <- options] - --- Convert a -sepTree :: Gr a -> Tree a -sepTree gr = fmap (G.lab gr) $ balance $ mkTree gr - --- sepTreeSlow :: Gr a -> Tree a --- sepTreeSlow gr --- | G.order gr == 1 = tree (snd $ head $ G.labNodes gr) [] --- | otherwise = tree (G.lab gr top) [sepTreeSlow sub | sub <- G.splitComponents (G.delNode top gr)] --- where --- top = balancedSeparator gr diff --git a/twremat/src/Dense.hs b/twremat/src/Dense.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 45f1cc7a8..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/Dense.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17 +0,0 @@ -module Dense where - -type Dense = [Int] - -between :: Dense -> Dense -> Dense -between (a:as) (b:bs) - | a + 1 < b = [div (a + b) 2] - | a < b = a : after as - | a == b = a : between as bs - -before :: Dense -> Dense -before [] = error "before []" -before (a:as) = [a - 1] - -after :: Dense -> Dense -after [] = [2^20] -after (a:as) = [a + 1] diff --git a/twremat/src/Filter.hs b/twremat/src/Filter.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 2de8742c1..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/Filter.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,175 +0,0 @@ -{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} -{-# LANGUAGE NamedFieldPuns #-} -{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-} -{-# LANGUAGE PatternSynonyms #-} -{-# LANGUAGE ViewPatterns #-} -{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-} -module Filter where - -import Control.Monad.State.Lazy -import Data.Foldable -import Data.List -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Monoid -import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) -import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PSQ -import Data.Relation (Relation) -import qualified Data.Relation as R -import Data.Semigroup -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Debug.Trace - -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import TWRemat - -newtype CID = CID Int - deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) - - --- Indexed data structure for rematerializion schedule. -data Sched = Sched { - computes :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> node id (many-1) - c_free :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> nodes freed afterward (many-many) - c_require :: Relation CID Node -- compute step -> nodes required as input (many-many) - } - deriving (Show) - -pattern One :: a -> Set a -pattern One a <- (Set.toList -> [a]) where - One a = Set.singleton a - -pattern None :: Set a -pattern None <- (Set.null -> True) where - None = Set.empty - -deleteL :: (Ord a, Ord b) => a -> Relation a b -> Relation a b -deleteL a rel = foldr go rel (Set.toList $ R.lookupDom a rel) - where - go b = R.delete a b - --- Info for each node relevant to evaluating and optimizing cpu/memory --- consumption. -data Weight = - -- Normal node that reads its inputs and produces some output. - Normal{cpu::Int, mem::Int} - -- Effectful node that must not be duplicated (eg. assigning to a - -- variable). Assumed to produce no relevant output. - | Effectful - -- Pointer nodes return a view that shares memory with dependencies, - -- keeping them from being GCd (example: tf.identity). - | Pointer - deriving (Eq, Ord) - --- Reduce cpu usage of a schedule under the constraint that peak mem usage must be less than `memLimit`. -greedy :: (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> Sched -> Sched -greedy info memLimit sched@Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = go (R.toList computes) Set.empty 0 Set.empty PSQ.empty - where - memOf n = case info n of - Normal{mem} -> mem - Effectful -> 0 - Pointer -> 0 - - priority :: CID -> Node -> Maybe Double - priority c n - -- Anything we don't need anymore should be freed immediately. - | Nothing == Set.lookupGT c (R.lookupRan n c_require) = Just 0 - | otherwise = case info n of - -- Otherwise, prioritise the ops which use most memory and least cpu to recompute. - Normal{mem, cpu} -> Just (fromIntegral cpu / fromIntegral mem) - -- Effectful ops are assumed to use no memory and should never be freed. - Effectful -> Nothing - -- Free pointer ops immediately. - Pointer -> Just 0 - - go [] keepcid memUsage live freeList = - let finish c Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = case R.lookupDom c computes of - One n -> Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, - c_free = case (Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n computes), - Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)) of - (Just cc, Just fc) | cc <= fc -> R.delete fc n c_free, - c_require = deleteL c c_require} - in foldr (.) id [finish c | c <- toList (R.dom computes), not (Set.member c keepcid)] sched - go ((c,n):cs) keepcid memUsage live freeList - | Set.member n live = go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live (PSQ.delete n freeList) - | memUsage + memOf n > memLimit && not (PSQ.null freeList) = case PSQ.findMin freeList of - Just (f,_,_) -> - go ((c,n):cs) keepcid (memUsage - memOf f) (Set.delete f live) (PSQ.deleteMin freeList) - | otherwise = go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList - - go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = - go_free c cs (Set.insert c keepcid) (memUsage + memOf n) (Set.insert n live) (PSQ.delete n freeList) - - go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = - let freeList' = foldr (.) id [PSQ.insert n v () - | n <- Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free), - Just v <- [priority c n]] freeList - in go cs keepcid memUsage live freeList' - -evalSched :: (Node -> Weight) -> Sched -> IO () -evalSched info Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = do - putStrLn (unwords ["steps=" ++ show (Set.size (R.dom computes)), - "cpu=" ++ show (sum [cpu | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, Normal{cpu} <- [info n]]), - "peak=" ++ show peak]) - where - memOf n = case info n of - Normal{mem} -> mem - _ -> 0 - peak = go (Set.toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) 0 0 - go [] maxMem curMem = maxMem - go (c:cs) maxMem curMem = case R.lookupDom c computes of - One n -> go cs (max maxMem (curMem + memOf n)) (curMem + memOf n - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) - None -> go cs maxMem (curMem - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) - --- Basic optimizations: move Free actions to be as early as possible, --- and eliminate Compute actions that are immediately Freed without --- being used. -optSched :: Sched -> Sched -optSched sched@Sched{computes, c_free} = foldr go sched (toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) - where - checkAnnihilate c sched@Sched{..} = - case R.lookupDom c computes of - One n | R.member c n c_free -> - Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, - c_free = R.delete c n c_free, - c_require = deleteL c c_require} - _ -> sched - checkMove c sched@Sched{..} = - case R.lookupDom c c_free of - ns | Set.size ns > 0 -> - let target n = getMax <$> fold [Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n computes), - Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n c_require), - Max <$> Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)] - process n sched@Sched{..} = case target n of - Just c' | c' < c -> sched { c_free = R.insert c' n $ R.delete c n $ c_free } - Just c' | c'== c -> sched - Nothing -> sched { c_free = R.delete c n $ c_free } - in foldr process sched (Set.toList ns) - _ -> sched - - go c sched = checkMove c $ checkAnnihilate c sched - - -initSched :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Sched -initSched gr sched = Sched{computes, c_free, c_require} - where - steps = Map.fromList (zip [1..] sched) :: Map Int Step - computes = R.fromList [(CID k, n) | (k, Compute n) <- Map.toList steps] - cdom = R.dom computes - c_free = R.fromList [let Just c = Set.lookupLT (CID k) cdom - in (c, n) | (k, Free n) <- Map.toList steps] - c_require = R.fromList [(c, p) | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, p <- G.preList gr n] - -runSched :: Sched -> [Step] -runSched Sched{computes, c_free} = fold [[Compute n] ++ (Free <$> Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)) - | (c, n) <- R.toList computes] - --- 6 cycles of forward-backward optimization seems to generally be enough for a good schedule. -optimize :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> [Step] -> [Step] -optimize gr info memLimit steps = runSched (foldl' step startSched [1..maxSteps]) - where - step !sched i = trace ("Optimizing schedule... " ++ show i ++ "/" ++ show maxSteps) $ optSched (greedy info memLimit sched) - startSched = optSched (initSched gr steps) - maxSteps = 6 diff --git a/twremat/src/Graph.hs b/twremat/src/Graph.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 7c19dd732..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/Graph.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,236 +0,0 @@ -module Graph where - -import Control.Monad.State.Strict -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntMap (IntMap) -import qualified Data.IntMap as IM -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Text.Printf - -type Node = Int -type Context a = (IntSet, a, IntSet) -newtype Gr a = Gr (IntMap (Context a)) - -instance Functor Gr where - fmap = nmap - -instance Show a => Show (Gr a) where - showsPrec d g = showParen (d > 10) $ showString "mkGraph " . showsPrec 11 (labNodes g) . showString " " . showsPrec 11 (edges g) - -mkGraph :: [(Node, a)] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a -mkGraph nodes edges = Gr (IM.fromList [(v, ctx v a) | (v, a) <- nodes]) - where - ctx v a = (IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v bwd, a, IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v fwd) - fwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- edges] - bwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- edges] - -mkUGraph :: [Node] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr () -mkUGraph nodes edges = mkGraph (zip nodes (repeat ())) edges - -labNodes :: Gr a -> [(Node, a)] -labNodes (Gr m) = l <$> IM.toList m - where - l (v, (p, a, s)) = (v, a) - -nodes :: Gr a -> [Node] -nodes (Gr m) = IM.keys m - -edges :: Gr a -> [(Node, Node)] -edges (Gr m) = foldMap go (IM.toList m) - where - go (v, (p, a, s)) = map ((,) v) (IS.toList s) - -suc :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet -suc (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of - (p, a, s) -> s - -pre :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet -pre (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of - (p, a, s) -> p - -lab :: Gr a -> Node -> a -lab (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of - (p, a, s) -> a - -labMaybe :: Gr a -> Node -> Maybe a -labMaybe (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of - Just (p, a, s) -> Just a - Nothing -> Nothing - -sucList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] -sucList g v = IS.toList (suc g v) - -preList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] -preList g v = IS.toList (pre g v) - -indeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int -indeg gr v = IS.size (pre gr v) - -outdeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int -outdeg gr v = IS.size (suc gr v) - -hasEdge :: Gr a -> (Node, Node) -> Bool -hasEdge (Gr m) (a,b) = case IM.lookup a m of - Just (p, a, s) -> IS.member b s - Nothing -> False - -hasNode :: Gr a -> Node -> Bool -hasNode (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of - Just _ -> True - Nothing -> False - -delNode :: Node -> Gr a -> Gr a -delNode v (Gr m) = case IM.lookup v m of - Just (p, a, s) -> Gr . foldr (.) id (clearSucc v <$> IS.toList p) . foldr (.) id (clearPred v <$> IS.toList s) . IM.delete v $ m - Nothing -> Gr m - where - clearSucc v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, IS.delete v s)) k m - clearPred v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (IS.delete v p, a, s)) k m - -insEdges :: [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a -> Gr a -insEdges es (Gr m) = Gr . part1 . part2 $ m - where - adjs = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- es] - adjp = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- es] - part1 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, s <> js)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjs] - part2 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p <> js, a, s)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjp] - -insNode :: (Node, a) -> Gr a -> Gr a -insNode (i, a) (Gr m) = Gr (IM.alter go i m) - where - go (Just (p1, a1, s1)) = Just (p1, a, s1) - go Nothing = Just (IS.empty, a, IS.empty) - -(&) :: (IntSet, Node, a, IntSet) -> Gr a -> Gr a -(&) (p, i, a, s) = insEdges (ein ++ eout) . insNode (i, a) - where - ein = [(j, i) | j <- IS.toList p] - eout = [(i, j) | j <- IS.toList s] - -newNodes :: Int -> Gr a -> [Node] -newNodes n (Gr m) = case IM.findMax m of - (x, _) -> [x+1..x+n] - --- XXX: Really slow. -order :: Gr a -> Int -order (Gr m) = IM.size m - -gmap :: (Node -> Context a -> Context b) -> Gr a -> Gr b -gmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapWithKey f m) - -nmap :: (a -> b) -> Gr a -> Gr b -nmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.map go m) - where go (p, a, s) = (p, f a, s) - -gfilter :: (Node -> Context a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a -gfilter f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapMaybeWithKey go m) - where - go i (p, a, s) - | IS.member i keep = Just (IS.intersection p keep, a, IS.intersection s keep) - | otherwise = Nothing - keep = IS.fromList [i | (i, ctx) <- IM.toList m, f i ctx] - -labfilter :: (a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a -labfilter f g = gfilter (\i (p, a, s) -> f a) g - -dfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] -dfs g start = go start IS.empty - where - go [] visited = [] - go (x:xs) visited - | IS.member x visited = go xs visited - | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) - -udfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] -udfs g start = go start IS.empty - where - go [] visited = [] - go (x:xs) visited - | IS.member x visited = go xs visited - | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ preList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) - -topsort :: Gr a -> [Node] -topsort g = (foldr (.) id $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty) [] - where - go = \x -> do - visited <- get - case IS.member x visited of - True -> pure id - False -> do - put (IS.insert x visited) - before <- foldr (.) id <$> traverse go (preList g x) - return (before . (x:)) - -subgraph :: Gr a -> [Node] -> Gr a -subgraph gr ns = (mkGraph - (filter (\(i,a) -> IS.member i nset) (labNodes gr)) - (filter (\(i,j) -> IS.member i nset && IS.member j nset) (edges gr))) - where - nset = IS.fromList ns - - --- Assumes that g is undirected, but does not check. -components :: Gr a -> [[Node]] -components g = filter (not . null) $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty - where - go = \x -> go1 [x] [] - go1 :: [Node] -> [Node] -> State IntSet [Node] - go1 [] os = pure os - go1 (x:xs) os = do - visited <- get - case IS.member x visited of - True -> go1 xs os - False -> do - put (IS.insert x visited) - go1 (sucList g x ++ xs) (x:os) - -splitComponents :: Gr a -> [Gr a] -splitComponents (Gr m) = [Gr (IM.restrictKeys m (IS.fromList c)) | c <- components (Gr m)] - -isEmpty :: Gr a -> Bool -isEmpty (Gr m) = IM.null m - -isConnected :: Gr a -> Bool -isConnected g = isEmpty g || IS.fromList (udfs g (take 1 (nodes g))) == IS.fromList (nodes g) - -isUndirected :: Gr a -> Bool -isUndirected (Gr m) = all ok (toList m) - where - ok (p, a, s) = p == s - --- Make simple and undirected, remove labels -simplify :: Gr a -> Gr () -simplify gr = const () <$> simplify' gr - --- Make simple and undirected -simplify' :: Gr a -> Gr a -simplify' gr = gmap dedup gr - where - dedup node (p, a, s) = - let adj = IS.delete node $ (p <> s) - in (adj, a, adj) - -plot :: String -> Gr () -> IO () -plot fname gr = writeFile fname txt - where - txt = unlines [ - "digraph {", - unlines [show n | n <- nodes gr], - unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], - unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], - "}"] - -plotLab :: Show a => String -> Gr a -> IO () -plotLab fname gr = writeFile fname txt - where - txt = unlines [ - if isUndirected gr then "graph {" else "digraph {", - unlines [printf "%i [label=\"%s\"]" n (show a) | (n,a) <- labNodes gr], - unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], - unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], - "}"] diff --git a/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs b/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 6e638d7f3..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,90 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language BangPatterns #-} -{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} -{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} -module TWRemat where - -import Data.DList (DList) -import qualified Data.DList as DL -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntMap (IntMap) -import qualified Data.IntMap as IM -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Lazy as Map -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.List -import Data.Ord - -import Balanced -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import TreeWidth -import Util - -data Step = Compute Node | Free Node - deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) - -toposort :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Node] -toposort gr = go - where - go xs = sortOn (\x -> score IM.! x) (IS.toList xs) - score = IM.fromList (zip (G.topsort gr) [0..]) - -ancestors :: Gr a -> (Node -> IntSet) -ancestors gr = tab - where - tab = memo (G.nodes gr) (\n -> IS.singleton n <> foldMap tab (G.preList gr n)) - --- Recursively remove elements of root node from all subtrees. -preFilter :: Tree Bag -> Tree Bag -preFilter (Tree _ x subs) = tree x [preFilter $ fmap (`IS.difference` x) c | c <- subs] - -data Comp = Comp{x :: Bag, xall :: Bag} - --- Annotate each node with the union of all nodes in its subtree. -preFold :: Tree Bag -> Tree Comp -preFold t@(Tree _ x subs) = tree Comp{x,xall=total} subs' - where subs' = preFold <$> subs - total = x <> fold (xall . treeVal <$> subs') - --- Computes a rematerialization schedule for the given DAG, which ends --- with the nodes of 'compute' computed and in memory. -remat :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Step] -remat gr compute = DL.toList (twremat (preFold . preFilter . sepTree $ treeWidth gr) compute) - where - topo = toposort gr - antab = ancestors gr - - twremat :: Tree Comp -> IntSet -> DList Step - twremat (Tree _ Comp{x} components) compute - | IS.null compute = mempty - | otherwise = case components of - [] -> - -- Base case: simply execute the remaining nodes in order, then - -- free the ones the caller doesn't need. - DL.fromList (Compute <$> topo target) <> DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) - components -> - -- Recursion case: select a balanced separator X of the tree decomposition. - -- 1. for each node v of X that we need to compute, in topological order - -- a. Recursively compute the direct dependencies of v in each subtree, - -- excluding any which are in X itself (those are already computed - -- and in memory, since we are traversing X in topological order). - -- b. Compute v. - -- c. Free the dependencies computed in #1a. - -- 2. Recursively compute the needed nodes which are not in X - -- 3. Free the computed nodes of X that the caller doesn't need. - let compsets = map (xall . treeVal) components :: [Bag] - part1 v = let deps = G.pre gr v - new_computes = [deps `IS.intersection` chi_nodes | chi_nodes <- compsets] - in fold [twremat chi new_compute | (chi, new_compute) <- zip components new_computes] - <> (DL.singleton (Compute v)) - <> DL.fromList (Free <$> (IS.toList $ fold new_computes)) - part2 = fold [twremat chi (outside `IS.intersection` chi_nodes) | (chi, chi_nodes) <- zip components compsets] - part3 = DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) - in foldMap part1 (topo target) <> part2 <> part3 - where - ancestor_set = foldMap antab (IS.toList compute) :: IntSet - -- Nodes of X which are needed, directly or indirectly. - target = IS.filter (\i -> IS.member i ancestor_set) x - -- Nodes the caller needs which are not in X. - outside = compute `IS.difference` x diff --git a/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs b/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 3201608db..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,124 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language BangPatterns #-} -module TreeWidth where - -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntMap (IntMap) -import qualified Data.IntMap as IM -import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) -import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PQ -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Data.Tuple -import Debug.Trace - -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G - -type Bag = IntSet - --- O(n^2 d^2), where d is the average degree -slowTreeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag -slowTreeWidth ga = go (G.simplify ga) [] - where - go gr ns = case min_fill_in gr of - Just node -> let gr' = G.insEdges [(a, b) | - a <- G.sucList gr node, - b <- G.sucList gr node, - a /= b, - not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] $ G.delNode node gr - in go gr' ((node, G.suc gr node) : ns) - Nothing -> finish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, IS.fromList (G.nodes gr))] []) - finish [] tree = tree - finish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree = finish ns tree' - where - target = head ([i | (i, bag) <- G.labNodes tree, IS.isSubsetOf neighbors bag] ++ [0]) -- inefficient - [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree - adj = IS.singleton target - tree' = (adj, new_id, IS.insert node neighbors, adj) G.& tree - --- O(n d^2 log n), where d is the average degree -treeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag -treeWidth ga = let gr = G.simplify ga in go gr [] (initCache gr) - where - go !gr !ns !cache = - case minCache cache of - Just node -> let neighbors = G.sucList gr node - newEdges = [(a, b) | - a <- neighbors, - b <- neighbors, - a /= b, - not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] - gr' = G.insEdges newEdges $ G.delNode node gr - dirty = IS.fromList $ [node] ++ neighbors ++ (neighbors >>= G.sucList gr) - in go gr' ((node, IS.fromList $ neighbors) : ns) (updateCache gr' dirty cache) - Nothing -> finish ns (IS.fromList (G.nodes gr)) - finish ns initBag = gofinish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, initBag)] []) (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton 0)) initBag) - -- 'bags' indexes the current bags of the tree by their contents - -- bags : vertex v -> set of bags containing v - gofinish [] tree bags = tree - gofinish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree bags = gofinish ns tree' bags' - where - -- Either connect to some bag that contains all our neighbors, or connect to the first bag - target = case [b | n <- IS.toList neighbors, Just b <- [IM.lookup n bags]] of - [] -> 0 - bs -> head (IS.toList (foldr1 IS.intersection bs) ++ [0]) - [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree - new_bag = IS.insert node neighbors - adj = IS.singleton target - tree' = (adj, new_id, new_bag, adj) G.& tree - bags' = IM.unionWith (<>) bags (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton new_id)) new_bag) - --- The cache maintains a priority queue of nodes according to their --- fill number, such that the node with minimum fill number can be --- obtained in O(1), and the cache can be updated to accomodate --- removal or addition of nodes in O(log n). -type MinFillCache = OrdPSQ Node (Int, Int, Node) () - --- O(n d^2), where d is the average degree of nodes -initCache :: Gr a -> MinFillCache -initCache gr = PQ.fromList [(node, (fill gr node, G.outdeg gr node, node), ()) | node <- G.nodes gr] - --- O(m log n), where m is the number of nodes to refresh -updateCache :: Gr a -> IntSet -> MinFillCache -> MinFillCache -updateCache gr nodes cache = foldr update cache (IS.toList nodes) - where - update node cache - | G.hasNode gr node = let f = fill gr node - d = G.outdeg gr node - in PQ.insert node (f, d, node) () cache - | otherwise = PQ.delete node cache - --- O(log n) -minCache :: MinFillCache -> Maybe Node -minCache cache - | order == 0 = Nothing - | degree == order - 1 = Nothing - | otherwise = Just n - where - order = PQ.size cache - Just (n, (_, degree, _), _) = PQ.findMin cache - --- Find fill number of a node, defined as the minimum number of edges --- that must be added to the graph to make the neighborhood of `node` --- into a clique. O(log n + e^2), where e is the number of neighbors --- of node -fill :: Gr a -> Node -> Int -fill gr node = sum (map subfill (IS.toList neighbors)) `div` 2 - where neighbors = G.suc gr node - subfill n = IS.size (neighbors `IS.difference` G.suc gr n) - 1 - --- Find node with minimum fill number. --- O(n d^2) -min_fill_in :: Gr a -> Maybe G.Node -min_fill_in gr - | G.isEmpty gr = Nothing - | degree == G.order gr - 1 = Nothing - | otherwise = case minimum [(fill gr n, G.outdeg gr n, n) | n <- nodes] of - (_, _, node) -> Just node - where - nodes = G.nodes gr - degree = minimum (map (G.outdeg gr) nodes) diff --git a/twremat/src/Tupfile b/twremat/src/Tupfile deleted file mode 100644 index e69de29bb..000000000 diff --git a/twremat/src/Util.hs b/twremat/src/Util.hs deleted file mode 100644 index fe8824c58..000000000 --- a/twremat/src/Util.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25 +0,0 @@ -module Util where - -import Data.Foldable -import Data.List -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Ord -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Data.Tuple -import Debug.Trace - -reflex :: Ord a => [a] -> Map a a -reflex xs = Map.fromList [(x, x) | x <- xs] - -memo :: Ord a => [a] -> (a -> b) -> (a -> b) -memo xs f = \x -> tab Map.! x - where - tab = f <$> reflex xs - -minimumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b -minimumOn f xs = minimumBy (comparing f) xs - -maximumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b -maximumOn f xs = maximumBy (comparing f) xs diff --git a/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs b/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs deleted file mode 100644 index a9c4214dd..000000000 --- a/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,33 +0,0 @@ -module TestBalanced where - -import Control.Monad -import Data.Foldable -import Test.QuickCheck -import Test.Tasty -import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck - -import Balanced -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import TestGraph - -subTrees :: Tree a -> [Tree a] -subTrees t@(Tree w a []) = [t] -subTrees t@(Tree w a cs) = t : foldMap subTrees cs - -testBalanced :: TestTree -testBalanced = testGroup "Balanced" [ - testProperty "Subtrees are connected" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> - let t = mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) - go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) - in all go (subTrees t), - testProperty "Subtrees are connected after balance" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> - let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) - go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) - in all go (subTrees t), - testProperty "Subtrees are balanced" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> - let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) - go t@(Tree w a []) = True - go t@(Tree w a cs) = maximum (map treeWeight cs) <= div w 2 - in all go (subTrees t) - ] diff --git a/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs b/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 3d3f7c81b..000000000 --- a/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,71 +0,0 @@ -{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} -module TestGraph where - -import Control.Monad -import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Arbitrary as FGL -import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Graph as FGL -import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.PatriciaTree as FGL -import Data.List -import Test.QuickCheck -import Test.Tasty -import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck - -import Graph - -instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (Gr a) where - arbitrary = do let t = id :: Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) -> Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) - g <- t arbitrary - return (mkGraph (FGL.labNodes g) (FGL.edges g)) - -newtype TreeOf a = TreeOf { getTreeOf :: Gr a } - deriving Show - -instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (TreeOf a) where - arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) - ids <- shuffle [1..n] - vals <- replicateM n arbitrary - - let go tree xs [] = pure tree - go tree xs (y:ys) = do - x <- elements xs - go ((x,y):tree) (y : xs) ys - edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) - - return (TreeOf $ simplify' $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) edges) - -newtype DagOf a = DagOf { getDagOf :: Gr a } - deriving Show - -instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (DagOf a) where - arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) - ids <- shuffle [1..n] - vals <- replicateM n arbitrary - - let go edges xs [] = pure edges - go edges xs (y:ys) = do - -- choose an existing node, make the new node a dependency - x <- elements xs - go ((y,x):edges) (y : xs) ys - edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) - - extra <- case n of - 1 -> pure [] - _ -> do - n_extra <- chooseInt (0,20) - replicateM n_extra $ do - sub <- elements (filter ((>1) . length) (tails ids)) - let (a:b:cs) = sub - b <- elements (b:cs) - return (b, a) - - return (DagOf $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) (edges ++ extra)) - -testGraph :: TestTree -testGraph = testGroup "Graph" [ - testProperty "subgraph nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> - let sub = take (length (nodes gr) `div` 2) (nodes gr) - subgr = subgraph gr sub - in nodes (subgr) == sub, - testProperty "topsort nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> - sort (nodes gr) == sort (topsort gr) - ] diff --git a/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs b/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs deleted file mode 100644 index 1b1e94988..000000000 --- a/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,51 +0,0 @@ -module TestTreeWidth where - -import Data.Foldable -import Data.IntMap (IntMap) -import qualified Data.IntMap as IM -import Data.IntSet (IntSet) -import qualified Data.IntSet as IS -import Data.Map (Map) -import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map -import Data.Set (Set) -import qualified Data.Set as Set -import Data.Tuple -import Debug.Trace - -import Test.QuickCheck -import Test.Tasty -import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck - -import Graph (Gr, Node) -import qualified Graph as G -import TestGraph -import TreeWidth - --- Verify the three properties of a tree decomposition: --- 1. The union of all bags = the set of nodes -check1 :: Gr () -> Bool -check1 gr = IS.unions (map snd (G.labNodes (treeWidth gr))) == IS.fromList (G.nodes gr) - --- 2. For every edge (a,b), there is a bag which includes both vertices. -check2 :: Gr () -> Bool -check2 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr - sets = map snd (G.labNodes tree) - in and [any (\s -> IS.member a s && IS.member b s) sets | (a, b) <- G.edges gr] - --- 3. For a given vertex v, bags containing v are connected. -check3 :: Gr () -> Bool -check3 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr - in and [G.isConnected (G.labfilter (IS.member v) tree) | v <- G.nodes gr] - --- ?. should validate that the result is a tree? -check4 :: Gr () -> Bool -check4 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr - in length (G.edges tree) == 2 * (G.order tree - 1) - -testTreeWidth :: TestTree -testTreeWidth = testGroup "TreeWidth" [ - testProperty "vertices" check1, - testProperty "edges" check2, - testProperty "connected" check3, - testProperty "tree" check4 - ] diff --git a/twremat/test/Tupfile b/twremat/test/Tupfile deleted file mode 100644 index e69de29bb..000000000 diff --git a/twremat/twremat.cabal b/twremat/twremat.cabal deleted file mode 100644 index 70e38bb25..000000000 --- a/twremat/twremat.cabal +++ /dev/null @@ -1,54 +0,0 @@ -cabal-version: 2.2 -name: twremat -version: 0.1.0.0 -synopsis: Fast implementation of `Efficient Rematerialization for Deep Networks` --- description: --- bug-reports: --- license: GPL-3.0-or-later --- license-file: LICENSE -author: nshepperd -maintainer: nshepperd@gmail.com --- copyright: --- category: Distribution -extra-source-files: README.md - -library lib - hs-source-dirs: src - exposed-modules: - Balanced Dense Filter Graph TreeWidth TWRemat Util - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation - default-language: Haskell2010 - -executable twremat - main-is: remat.hs - -- other-modules: Cabbage.Config, Cabbage.Cabal, Cabbage.Parser - -- other-extensions: - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, - containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text - -- , Glob - -- , containers - -- , directory - -- , filepath - -- , optparse-applicative - -- , pretty-simple - -- , process - -- , temporary - -- , text - -- , xdg-basedir - -- , parsers - -- , trifecta - - hs-source-dirs: main - default-language: Haskell2010 - default-extensions: LambdaCase, OverloadedStrings, RecordWildCards - - -Test-Suite testmain - type: exitcode-stdio-1.0 - main-is: test.hs - hs-source-dirs: main test - other-modules: TestBalanced TestGraph TestTreeWidth - build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, - containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text, - QuickCheck, tasty, tasty-quickcheck, fgl, fgl-arbitrary - default-language: Haskell2010 From 4a2a3627b909f6dda37d5430a047891c75e9c49b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:19:48 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 79/83] added flask app --- .env | 2 + .flaskenv | 2 + .gitignore | 3 - flaskapp/.gitignore | 1 + flaskapp/__init__.py | 10 + flaskapp/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 525 bytes flaskapp/__pycache__/encoder.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 5084 bytes flaskapp/__pycache__/generator.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 2053 bytes flaskapp/__pycache__/model.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 7362 bytes flaskapp/__pycache__/routes.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 793 bytes flaskapp/__pycache__/sample.cpython-38.pyc | Bin 0 -> 3228 bytes flaskapp/encoder.py | 118 + flaskapp/generator.py | 67 + flaskapp/model.py | 185 + flaskapp/requirements.txt | 3 + flaskapp/routes.py | 18 + flaskapp/sample.py | 93 + flaskapp/settings.py | 4 + flaskapp/templates/index.html | 23 + gpt-2/.gitattributes | 6 + gpt-2/.gitignore | 7 + gpt-2/CONTRIBUTORS.md | 17 + gpt-2/DEVELOPERS.md | 88 + gpt-2/Dockerfile.cpu | 11 + gpt-2/Dockerfile.gpu | 20 + gpt-2/LICENSE | 24 + gpt-2/README.md | 140 + gpt-2/domains.txt | 1000 + gpt-2/download_model.py | 28 + gpt-2/model_card.md | 69 + gpt-2/requirements.txt | 5 + gpt-2/src/accumulate.py | 36 + gpt-2/src/alice.txt | 3353 + gpt-2/src/bees.txt | 1597 + gpt-2/src/encode.py | 32 + gpt-2/src/encoder.py | 117 + gpt-2/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | 79 + gpt-2/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py | 91 + gpt-2/src/load_dataset.py | 83 + gpt-2/src/memory_saving_gradients.py | 387 + gpt-2/src/model.py | 185 + gpt-2/src/readme.md | 19 + gpt-2/src/sample.py | 93 + gpt-2/src/tfremat.py | 181 + gpt-2/src/train.py | 314 + gpt-2/src/train.txt | 73230 ++++++++++++++++ gpt-2/src/training.npz | Bin 0 -> 58239 bytes gpt-2/src/twremat.py | 60 + gpt-2/twremat/README.md | 1 + gpt-2/twremat/main/remat.hs | 150 + gpt-2/twremat/main/test.hs | 35 + gpt-2/twremat/src/Balanced.hs | 97 + gpt-2/twremat/src/Dense.hs | 17 + gpt-2/twremat/src/Filter.hs | 175 + gpt-2/twremat/src/Graph.hs | 236 + gpt-2/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs | 90 + gpt-2/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs | 124 + gpt-2/twremat/src/Tupfile | 0 gpt-2/twremat/src/Util.hs | 25 + gpt-2/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs | 33 + gpt-2/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs | 71 + gpt-2/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs | 51 + gpt-2/twremat/test/Tupfile | 0 gpt-2/twremat/twremat.cabal | 54 + readme.md | 18 + 65 files changed, 82975 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) create mode 100644 .env create mode 100644 .flaskenv delete mode 100644 .gitignore create mode 100644 flaskapp/.gitignore create mode 100644 flaskapp/__init__.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/encoder.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/generator.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/model.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/routes.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/__pycache__/sample.cpython-38.pyc create mode 100644 flaskapp/encoder.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/generator.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/model.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/requirements.txt create mode 100644 flaskapp/routes.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/sample.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/settings.py create mode 100644 flaskapp/templates/index.html create mode 100644 gpt-2/.gitattributes create mode 100644 gpt-2/.gitignore create mode 100644 gpt-2/CONTRIBUTORS.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/DEVELOPERS.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/Dockerfile.cpu create mode 100644 gpt-2/Dockerfile.gpu create mode 100644 gpt-2/LICENSE create mode 100644 gpt-2/README.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/domains.txt create mode 100644 gpt-2/download_model.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/model_card.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/requirements.txt create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/accumulate.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/alice.txt create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/bees.txt create mode 100755 gpt-2/src/encode.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/encoder.py create mode 100755 gpt-2/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py create mode 100755 gpt-2/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/load_dataset.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/memory_saving_gradients.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/model.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/readme.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/sample.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/tfremat.py create mode 100755 gpt-2/src/train.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/train.txt create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/training.npz create mode 100644 gpt-2/src/twremat.py create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/README.md create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/main/remat.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/main/test.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Balanced.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Dense.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Filter.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Graph.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Tupfile create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/src/Util.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/test/Tupfile create mode 100644 gpt-2/twremat/twremat.cabal create mode 100644 readme.md diff --git a/.env b/.env new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f6b964f0c --- /dev/null +++ b/.env @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +ADMIN_USERNAME=admin +ADMIN_PASSWORD=pwd \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.flaskenv b/.flaskenv new file mode 100644 index 000000000..766332bd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/.flaskenv @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +FLASK_APP=flaskapp +FLASK_ENV=development \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore deleted file mode 100644 index 11055c77c..000000000 --- a/.gitignore +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3 +0,0 @@ -checkpoint/* -models/* -samples/* \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/flaskapp/.gitignore b/flaskapp/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6ea887496 --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +models/ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/flaskapp/__init__.py b/flaskapp/__init__.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1ae215a32 --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/__init__.py @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +from flask import Flask +from .routes import generator + +def create_app(config_file="settings.py"): + app = Flask(__name__, static_url_path="/tmp", static_folder="tmp") + + app.config.from_pyfile(config_file) + + app.register_blueprint(generator) + return app diff --git a/flaskapp/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-38.pyc 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your normal, say, 32K bpe vocab. + To avoid that, we want lookup tables between utf-8 bytes and unicode strings. + And avoids mapping to whitespace/control characters the bpe code barfs on. + """ + bs = list(range(ord("!"), ord("~")+1))+list(range(ord("¡"), ord("¬")+1))+list(range(ord("®"), ord("ÿ")+1)) + cs = bs[:] + n = 0 + for b in range(2**8): + if b not in bs: + bs.append(b) + cs.append(2**8+n) + n += 1 + cs = [chr(n) for n in cs] + return dict(zip(bs, cs)) + +def get_pairs(word): + """Return set of symbol pairs in a word. + + Word is represented as tuple of symbols (symbols being variable-length strings). + """ + pairs = set() + prev_char = word[0] + for char in word[1:]: + pairs.add((prev_char, char)) + prev_char = char + return pairs + +class Encoder: + def __init__(self, encoder, bpe_merges, errors='replace'): + self.encoder = encoder + self.decoder = {v:k for k,v in self.encoder.items()} + self.errors = errors # how to handle errors in decoding + self.byte_encoder = bytes_to_unicode() + self.byte_decoder = {v:k for k, v in self.byte_encoder.items()} + self.bpe_ranks = dict(zip(bpe_merges, range(len(bpe_merges)))) + self.cache = {} + + # Should haved added re.IGNORECASE so BPE merges can happen for capitalized versions of contractions + self.pat = re.compile(r"""'s|'t|'re|'ve|'m|'ll|'d| ?\p{L}+| ?\p{N}+| ?[^\s\p{L}\p{N}]+|\s+(?!\S)|\s+""") + + def bpe(self, token): + if token in self.cache: + return self.cache[token] + word = tuple(token) + pairs = get_pairs(word) + + if not pairs: + return token + + while True: + bigram = min(pairs, key = lambda pair: self.bpe_ranks.get(pair, float('inf'))) + if bigram not in self.bpe_ranks: + break + first, second = bigram + new_word = [] + i = 0 + while i < len(word): + try: + j = word.index(first, i) + new_word.extend(word[i:j]) + i = j + except: + new_word.extend(word[i:]) + break + + if word[i] == first and i < len(word)-1 and word[i+1] == second: + new_word.append(first+second) + i += 2 + else: + new_word.append(word[i]) + i += 1 + new_word = tuple(new_word) + word = new_word + if len(word) == 1: + break + else: + pairs = get_pairs(word) + word = ' '.join(word) + self.cache[token] = word + return word + + def encode(self, text): + bpe_tokens = [] + for token in re.findall(self.pat, text): + token = ''.join(self.byte_encoder[b] for b in token.encode('utf-8')) + bpe_tokens.extend(self.encoder[bpe_token] for bpe_token in self.bpe(token).split(' ')) + return bpe_tokens + + def decode(self, tokens): + text = ''.join([self.decoder[token] for token in tokens]) + text = bytearray([self.byte_decoder[c] for c in text]).decode('utf-8', errors=self.errors) + return text + +def get_encoder(model_name): + currentPath = os.path.dirname(__file__) + "/models" + "/" + model_name + with open(currentPath + '/encoder.json', 'r') as f: + encoder = json.load(f) + with open(currentPath + '/vocab.bpe', 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f: + bpe_data = f.read() + bpe_merges = [tuple(merge_str.split()) for merge_str in bpe_data.split('\n')[1:-1]] + return Encoder( + encoder=encoder, + bpe_merges=bpe_merges, + ) diff --git a/flaskapp/generator.py b/flaskapp/generator.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c3adbd46 --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/generator.py @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +import fire +import json +import os +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +from flaskapp import model +from flaskapp import sample +from flaskapp import encoder + +class AI: + def generate_text(self, text_input, model_name="124M_alice", length=100): + seed=None + nsamples=1 + batch_size=1 + temperature=1 + top_k=40 + top_p=1 + + self.response = "" + + currentPath = os.path.dirname(__file__) + "/models" + "/" + model_name + + if batch_size is None: + batch_size = 1 + assert nsamples % batch_size == 0 + + enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name) + hparams = model.default_hparams() + with open(currentPath + '/hparams.json') as f: + hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) + + if length is None: + length = hparams.n_ctx // 2 + elif length > hparams.n_ctx: + raise ValueError("Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) + + with tf.Session(graph=tf.Graph()) as sess: + context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [batch_size, None]) + np.random.seed(seed) + tf.set_random_seed(seed) + output = sample.sample_sequence( + hparams=hparams, length=length, + context=context, + batch_size=batch_size, + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p + ) + + saver = tf.train.Saver() + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(currentPath) + saver.restore(sess, ckpt) + + context_tokens = enc.encode(text_input) + generated = 0 + for _ in range(nsamples // batch_size): + out = sess.run(output, feed_dict={ + context: [context_tokens for _ in range(batch_size)] + })[:, len(context_tokens):] + for i in range(batch_size): + generated += 1 + text = enc.decode(out[i]) + self.response = text + return self.response + +ai = AI() diff --git a/flaskapp/model.py b/flaskapp/model.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..489c9bdce --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/model.py @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +class HParams(object): + def __init__(self, **kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + + def override_from_dict(self, kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + + +def default_hparams(): + return HParams( + n_vocab=0, + n_ctx=1024, + n_embd=768, + n_head=12, + n_layer=12, + ) + +def shape_list(x): + """Deal with dynamic shape in tensorflow cleanly.""" + static = x.shape.as_list() + dynamic = tf.shape(x) + return [dynamic[i] if s is None else s for i, s in enumerate(static)] + +def softmax(x, axis=-1): + x = x - tf.reduce_max(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + ex = tf.exp(x) + return ex / tf.reduce_sum(ex, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + +def gelu(x): + return 0.5*x*(1+tf.tanh(np.sqrt(2/np.pi)*(x+0.044715*tf.pow(x, 3)))) + +def norm(x, scope, *, axis=-1, epsilon=1e-5): + """Normalize to mean = 0, std = 1, then do a diagonal affine transform.""" + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + n_state = shape_list(x)[-1] + g = tf.get_variable('g', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(1)) + b = tf.get_variable('b', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) + u = tf.reduce_mean(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + s = tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(x-u), axis=axis, keepdims=True) + x = (x - u) * tf.rsqrt(s + epsilon) + x = x*g + b + return x + +def split_states(x, n): + """Reshape the last dimension of x into [n, x.shape[-1]/n].""" + *start, m = shape_list(x) + return tf.reshape(x, start + [n, m//n]) + +def merge_states(x): + """Smash the last two dimensions of x into a single dimension.""" + *start, a, b = shape_list(x) + return tf.reshape(x, start + [a*b]) + +def conv1d(x, scope, nf, *, w_init_stdev=0.02): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + *start, nx = shape_list(x) + w = tf.get_variable('w', [1, nx, nf], initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=w_init_stdev)) + b = tf.get_variable('b', [nf], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) + c = tf.reshape(tf.matmul(tf.reshape(x, [-1, nx]), tf.reshape(w, [-1, nf]))+b, start+[nf]) + return c + +def attention_mask(nd, ns, *, dtype): + """1's in the lower triangle, counting from the lower right corner. + + Same as tf.matrix_band_part(tf.ones([nd, ns]), -1, ns-nd), but doesn't produce garbage on TPUs. + """ + i = tf.range(nd)[:,None] + j = tf.range(ns) + m = i >= j - ns + nd + return tf.cast(m, dtype) + + +def attn(x, scope, n_state, *, past, hparams): + assert x.shape.ndims == 3 # Should be [batch, sequence, features] + assert n_state % hparams.n_head == 0 + if past is not None: + assert past.shape.ndims == 5 # Should be [batch, 2, heads, sequence, features], where 2 is [k, v] + + def split_heads(x): + # From [batch, sequence, features] to [batch, heads, sequence, features] + return tf.transpose(split_states(x, hparams.n_head), [0, 2, 1, 3]) + + def merge_heads(x): + # Reverse of split_heads + return merge_states(tf.transpose(x, [0, 2, 1, 3])) + + def mask_attn_weights(w): + # w has shape [batch, heads, dst_sequence, src_sequence], where information flows from src to dst. + _, _, nd, ns = shape_list(w) + b = attention_mask(nd, ns, dtype=w.dtype) + b = tf.reshape(b, [1, 1, nd, ns]) + w = w*b - tf.cast(1e10, w.dtype)*(1-b) + return w + + def multihead_attn(q, k, v): + # q, k, v have shape [batch, heads, sequence, features] + w = tf.matmul(q, k, transpose_b=True) + w = w * tf.rsqrt(tf.cast(shape_list(v)[-1], w.dtype)) + + w = mask_attn_weights(w) + w = softmax(w) + a = tf.matmul(w, v) + return a + + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + c = conv1d(x, 'c_attn', n_state*3) + q, k, v = map(split_heads, tf.split(c, 3, axis=2)) + present = tf.stack([k, v], axis=1) + if past is not None: + pk, pv = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) + k = tf.concat([pk, k], axis=-2) + v = tf.concat([pv, v], axis=-2) + a = multihead_attn(q, k, v) + a = merge_heads(a) + a = conv1d(a, 'c_proj', n_state) + return a, present + + +def mlp(x, scope, n_state, *, hparams): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] + h = gelu(conv1d(x, 'c_fc', n_state)) + h2 = conv1d(h, 'c_proj', nx) + return h2 + + +def block(x, scope, *, past, hparams): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] + a, present = attn(norm(x, 'ln_1'), 'attn', nx, past=past, hparams=hparams) + x = x + a + m = mlp(norm(x, 'ln_2'), 'mlp', nx*4, hparams=hparams) + x = x + m + return x, present + +def past_shape(*, hparams, batch_size=None, sequence=None): + return [batch_size, hparams.n_layer, 2, hparams.n_head, sequence, hparams.n_embd // hparams.n_head] + +def expand_tile(value, size): + """Add a new axis of given size.""" + value = tf.convert_to_tensor(value, name='value') + ndims = value.shape.ndims + return tf.tile(tf.expand_dims(value, axis=0), [size] + [1]*ndims) + +def positions_for(tokens, past_length): + batch_size = tf.shape(tokens)[0] + nsteps = tf.shape(tokens)[1] + return expand_tile(past_length + tf.range(nsteps), batch_size) + + +def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=tf.AUTO_REUSE): + with tf.variable_scope(scope, reuse=reuse): + results = {} + batch, sequence = shape_list(X) + + wpe = tf.get_variable('wpe', [hparams.n_ctx, hparams.n_embd], + initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.01)) + wte = tf.get_variable('wte', [hparams.n_vocab, hparams.n_embd], + initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.02)) + past_length = 0 if past is None else tf.shape(past)[-2] + h = tf.gather(wte, X) + tf.gather(wpe, positions_for(X, past_length)) + + # Transformer + presents = [] + pasts = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) if past is not None else [None] * hparams.n_layer + assert len(pasts) == hparams.n_layer + for layer, past in enumerate(pasts): + h, present = block(h, 'h%d' % layer, past=past, hparams=hparams) + if layer == 10: + tf.add_to_collection('checkpoints', h) + presents.append(present) + results['present'] = tf.stack(presents, axis=1) + h = norm(h, 'ln_f') + + # Language model loss. Do tokens 0.0: + logits = top_p_logits(logits, p=top_p) + else: + logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) + samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) + return [ + next_outputs['presents'] if past is None else tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), + samples, + tf.concat([output, samples], axis=1) + ] + + past, prev, output = body(None, context, context) + + def cond(*args): + return True + + _, _, tokens = tf.while_loop( + cond=cond, body=body, + maximum_iterations=length - 1, + loop_vars=[ + past, + prev, + output + ], + shape_invariants=[ + tf.TensorShape(model.past_shape(hparams=hparams, batch_size=batch_size)), + tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), + tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), + ], + back_prop=False, + ) + + return tokens diff --git a/flaskapp/settings.py b/flaskapp/settings.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..51abac115 --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/settings.py @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +import os + +ADMIN_USERNAME=os.environ.get('ADMIN_USERNAME') +ADMIN_PASSWORD=os.environ.get('ADMIN_PASSWORD') diff --git a/flaskapp/templates/index.html b/flaskapp/templates/index.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..648fd3275 --- /dev/null +++ b/flaskapp/templates/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ + + + + + + + +
      +
      +
      + + +
      + +
      +

      + {{ text }} +

      +
      + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/gpt-2/.gitattributes b/gpt-2/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c3a822f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +# convert to OS line endings on checkout, back to LF on commit +* text=auto + +# ensure anything copied to the container has unix style line endings +*.sh text eol=lf +requirements.txt text eol=lf \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/gpt-2/.gitignore b/gpt-2/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5b1531ee0 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +__pycache__ +.mypy_cache/ +models/ +checkpoint +samples +dist-newstyle +bin diff --git a/gpt-2/CONTRIBUTORS.md b/gpt-2/CONTRIBUTORS.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..eab7132a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/CONTRIBUTORS.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +# Contributors (alphabetically) + +* **[madisonmay](https://github.com/madisonmay)** + + Added Dockerfiles + +* **[Margaret Mitchell et al](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993)** + + Our [usage](./README.md#usage) writeup was loosely inspired by the paper + [Model Cards for Model Reporting](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993) + and related conversations with some of the authors. + +* **[webproduktion01](https://github.com/webproduktion01)** + + Ported download script to python. + +**[Full code contributors list](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2/contributors).** diff --git a/gpt-2/DEVELOPERS.md b/gpt-2/DEVELOPERS.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d23c9d05f --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/DEVELOPERS.md @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +# Installation + +Git clone this repository, and `cd` into directory for remaining commands +``` +git clone https://github.com/openai/gpt-2.git && cd gpt-2 +``` + +Then, follow instructions for either native or Docker installation. + +## Native Installation + +All steps can optionally be done in a virtual environment using tools such as `virtualenv` or `conda`. + +Install tensorflow 1.12 (with GPU support, if you have a GPU and want everything to run faster) +``` +pip3 install tensorflow==1.12.0 +``` +or +``` +pip3 install tensorflow-gpu==1.12.0 +``` + +Install other python packages: +``` +pip3 install -r requirements.txt +``` + +Download the model data +``` +python3 download_model.py 124M +python3 download_model.py 355M +python3 download_model.py 774M +python3 download_model.py 1558M +``` + +## Docker Installation + +Build the Dockerfile and tag the created image as `gpt-2`: +``` +docker build --tag gpt-2 -f Dockerfile.gpu . # or Dockerfile.cpu +``` + +Start an interactive bash session from the `gpt-2` docker image. + +You can opt to use the `--runtime=nvidia` flag if you have access to a NVIDIA GPU +and a valid install of [nvidia-docker 2.0](https://github.com/nvidia/nvidia-docker/wiki/Installation-(version-2.0)). +``` +docker run --runtime=nvidia -it gpt-2 bash +``` + +# Running + +| WARNING: Samples are unfiltered and may contain offensive content. | +| --- | + +Some of the examples below may include Unicode text characters. Set the environment variable: +``` +export PYTHONIOENCODING=UTF-8 +``` +to override the standard stream settings in UTF-8 mode. + +## Unconditional sample generation + +To generate unconditional samples from the small model: +``` +python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py | tee /tmp/samples +``` +There are various flags for controlling the samples: +``` +python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py --top_k 40 --temperature 0.7 | tee /tmp/samples +``` + +To check flag descriptions, use: +``` +python3 src/generate_unconditional_samples.py -- --help +``` + +## Conditional sample generation + +To give the model custom prompts, you can use: +``` +python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py --top_k 40 +``` + +To check flag descriptions, use: +``` +python3 src/interactive_conditional_samples.py -- --help +``` diff --git a/gpt-2/Dockerfile.cpu b/gpt-2/Dockerfile.cpu new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b6e4f9496 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/Dockerfile.cpu @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +FROM tensorflow/tensorflow:1.12.0-py3 + +ENV LANG=C.UTF-8 +RUN mkdir /gpt-2 +WORKDIR /gpt-2 +ADD . /gpt-2 +RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt +RUN python3 download_model.py 124M +RUN python3 download_model.py 355M +RUN python3 download_model.py 774M +RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/gpt-2/Dockerfile.gpu b/gpt-2/Dockerfile.gpu new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5ac049aff --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/Dockerfile.gpu @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +FROM tensorflow/tensorflow:1.12.0-gpu-py3 + +# nvidia-docker 1.0 +LABEL com.nvidia.volumes.needed="nvidia_driver" +LABEL com.nvidia.cuda.version="${CUDA_VERSION}" + +# nvidia-container-runtime +ENV NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all \ + NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,utility \ + NVIDIA_REQUIRE_CUDA="cuda>=8.0" \ + LANG=C.UTF-8 + +RUN mkdir /gpt-2 +WORKDIR /gpt-2 +ADD . /gpt-2 +RUN pip3 install -r requirements.txt +RUN python3 download_model.py 124M +RUN python3 download_model.py 355M +RUN python3 download_model.py 774M +RUN python3 download_model.py 1558M diff --git a/gpt-2/LICENSE b/gpt-2/LICENSE new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f56abfef0 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/LICENSE @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +Modified MIT License + +Software Copyright (c) 2019 OpenAI + +We don’t claim ownership of the content you create with GPT-2, so it is yours to do with as you please. +We only ask that you use GPT-2 responsibly and clearly indicate your content was created using GPT-2. + +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and +associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, +including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, +and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, +subject to the following conditions: + +The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included +in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. +The above copyright notice and this permission notice need not be included +with content created by the Software. + +THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, +FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS +BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, +TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE +OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. diff --git a/gpt-2/README.md b/gpt-2/README.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3fefe2ec1 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ +## Fine tuning on custom datasets + +Reference: ["Beginner’s Guide to Retrain GPT-2 (117M) to Generate Custom Text Content"](https://medium.com/@ngwaifoong92/beginners-guide-to-retrain-gpt-2-117m-to-generate-custom-text-content-8bb5363d8b7f) + +To retrain GPT-2 117M model on a custom text dataset: + +``` +PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset +``` + +If you want to precompute the dataset's encoding for multiple runs, you can instead use: + +``` +PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/encoded.npz +PYTHONPATH=src ./train.py --dataset /path/to/encoded.npz +``` + +Make sure `cudnn` is installed. [Some have +reported](https://github.com/nshepperd/gpt-2/issues/8) that `train.py` +runs without it but has worse memory usage and might OOM. + +### Tensor Rematerialization + +Experimental: a rematerialization rewriter based on `Efficient +Rematerialization for Deep Networks` +, +which unlike gradient checkpointing works in tensorflow 2.0 and is +able to automatically select checkpoints in arbitrary graphs. Using +this I was able to finetune GPT-2 1.5B on a single graphics card using +slightly less than 12G of video ram with very little slowdown. + +To use this is a little involved, because the graph optimization +algorithm is offloaded to an optimized Haskell program. First, go into +subdirectory `twremat`, and build it by invoking: + + cabal v2-install --installdir=../bin + +(You'll need to install cabal if you haven't already -- but setting up +ghc and haskell compilation is beyond the scope of this README.) + +Then run `train.py` as normal, enabling `--twremat` and setting +`--twremat_memlimit` to an appropriate value -- this sets the amount +of memory assumed to be available for computation of gradients, so it +should be roughly the memory size of your graphics card minus whatever +is taken up by the gpt-2 weights, and any other bookkeeping +variables. You may need to experiment with the memlimit until you find +the largest value that doesn't OOM. + +(You probably also want to use SGD as optimizer instead of Adam to +minimize those bookkeeping variables, of which Adam uses a lot). + +### Gradient Checkpointing + +https://github.com/openai/gradient-checkpointing is included to reduce +the memory requirements of the model, and can be enabled by +`--memory_saving_gradients`. The checkpoints are currently chosen +manually (poorly) by just adding layer 10 to the 'checkpoints' +collection in model.py. + +Gradient checkpointing doesn't work in tensorflow v2.0 and later due +to the removal of tf.contrib. You should use tensor rematerialization +instead if possible. + +### Validation loss + +Set `--val_every` to a number of steps `N > 0`, and "validation" loss +against a fixed sample of the dataset will be calculated every N steps +to get a better sense of training progress. N around 200 +suggested. You can set `--val_dataset` to choose a separate validation +dataset, otherwise it defaults to a sample from the train dataset (so +not a real cross-validation loss!). + +### Optimizer + +You can use SGD instead of Adam with `--optimizer sgd`. This also +helps conserve memory when training larger models. Note: the learning +rate needs to be adjusted for SGD, due to not having Adam's gradient +normalization (0.0006 seems to be a good number from some +experiments). + +# Original README + +**Status:** Archive (code is provided as-is, no updates expected) + +# gpt-2 + +Code and models from the paper ["Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners"](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language-models.pdf). + +You can read about GPT-2 and its staged release in our [original blog post](https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/), [6 month follow-up post](https://openai.com/blog/gpt-2-6-month-follow-up/), and [final post](https://www.openai.com/blog/gpt-2-1-5b-release/). + +We have also [released a dataset](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset) for researchers to study their behaviors. + +* *Note that our original parameter counts were wrong due to an error (in our previous blog posts and paper). Thus you may have seen small referred to as 117M and medium referred to as 345M.* + +## Usage + +This repository is meant to be a starting point for researchers and engineers to experiment with GPT-2. + +For basic information, see our [model card](./model_card.md). + +### Some caveats + +- GPT-2 models' robustness and worst case behaviors are not well-understood. As with any machine-learned model, carefully evaluate GPT-2 for your use case, especially if used without fine-tuning or in safety-critical applications where reliability is important. +- The dataset our GPT-2 models were trained on contains many texts with [biases](https://twitter.com/TomerUllman/status/1101485289720242177) and factual inaccuracies, and thus GPT-2 models are likely to be biased and inaccurate as well. +- To avoid having samples mistaken as human-written, we recommend clearly labeling samples as synthetic before wide dissemination. Our models are often incoherent or inaccurate in subtle ways, which takes more than a quick read for a human to notice. + +### Work with us + +Please [let us know](mailto:languagequestions@openai.com) if you’re doing interesting research with or working on applications of GPT-2! We’re especially interested in hearing from and potentially working with those who are studying +- Potential malicious use cases and defenses against them (e.g. the detectability of synthetic text) +- The extent of problematic content (e.g. bias) being baked into the models and effective mitigations + +## Development + +See [DEVELOPERS.md](./DEVELOPERS.md) + +## Contributors + +See [CONTRIBUTORS.md](./CONTRIBUTORS.md) + +## Citation + +Please use the following bibtex entry: +``` +@article{radford2019language, + title={Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners}, + author={Radford, Alec and Wu, Jeff and Child, Rewon and Luan, David and Amodei, Dario and Sutskever, Ilya}, + year={2019} +} +``` + +## Future work + +We may release code for evaluating the models on various benchmarks. + +We are still considering release of the larger models. + +## License + +[Modified MIT](./LICENSE) diff --git a/gpt-2/domains.txt b/gpt-2/domains.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..04bdac448 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b/gpt-2/download_model.py @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +import os +import sys +import requests +from tqdm import tqdm + +if len(sys.argv) != 2: + print('You must enter the model name as a parameter, e.g.: download_model.py 124M') + sys.exit(1) + +model = sys.argv[1] + +subdir = os.path.join('models', model) +if not os.path.exists(subdir): + os.makedirs(subdir) +subdir = subdir.replace('\\','/') # needed for Windows + +for filename in ['checkpoint','encoder.json','hparams.json','model.ckpt.data-00000-of-00001', 'model.ckpt.index', 'model.ckpt.meta', 'vocab.bpe']: + + r = requests.get("https://openaipublic.blob.core.windows.net/gpt-2/" + subdir + "/" + filename, stream=True) + + with open(os.path.join(subdir, filename), 'wb') as f: + file_size = int(r.headers["content-length"]) + chunk_size = 1000 + with tqdm(ncols=100, desc="Fetching " + filename, total=file_size, unit_scale=True) as pbar: + # 1k for chunk_size, since Ethernet packet size is around 1500 bytes + for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=chunk_size): + f.write(chunk) + pbar.update(chunk_size) diff --git a/gpt-2/model_card.md b/gpt-2/model_card.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..38246ee2a --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/model_card.md @@ -0,0 +1,69 @@ +# GPT-2 model card + +Last updated: November 2019 + +Inspired by [Model Cards for Model Reporting (Mitchell et al.)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993), we’re providing some accompanying information about the GPT-2 family of models we're releasing. + +## Model Details. + +This model was developed by researchers at OpenAI to help us understand how the capabilities of language model capabilities scale as a function of the size of the models (by parameter count) combined with very large internet-scale datasets (WebText). + +### Model date + +February 2019, trained on data that cuts off at the end of 2017. + +### Model type + +Language model + +### Model version + +1.5 billion parameters: the fourth and largest GPT-2 version. We have also released 124 million, 355 million, and 774 million parameter models. + +### Paper or other resource for more information +[Blog post](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) and [paper](https://d4mucfpksywv.cloudfront.net/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf) + +### Where to send questions or comments about the model +Please use this [Google Form](https://forms.gle/A7WBSbTY2EkKdroPA) + +## Intended Uses: + +### Primary intended uses + +The primary intended users of these models are *AI researchers and practitioners*. + +We primarily imagine these language models will be used by researchers to better understand the behaviors, capabilities, biases, and constraints of large-scale generative language models. + +### Secondary uses + +Here are some secondary use cases we believe are likely: + +- **Writing assistance**: Grammar assistance, autocompletion (for normal prose or code) +- **Creative writing and art**: exploring the generation of creative, fictional texts; aiding creation of poetry and other literary art. +- **Entertainment**: Creation of games, chat bots, and amusing generations. + +### Out-of-scope use cases + +Because large-scale language models like GPT-2 do not distinguish fact from fiction, we don’t support use-cases that require the generated text to be true. + +Additionally, language models like GPT-2 reflect the biases inherent to the systems they were trained on, so we do not recommend that they be deployed into systems that interact with humans unless the deployers first carry out a study of biases relevant to the intended use-case. We found no statistically significant difference in gender, race, and religious bias probes between 774M and 1.5B, implying all versions of GPT-2 should be approached with similar levels of caution around use cases that are sensitive to biases around human attributes. + +## Evaluation Data + +### Datasets + +This model was trained on (and evaluated against) WebText, a dataset consisting of the text contents of 45 million links posted by users of the ‘Reddit’ social network. WebText is made of data derived from outbound links from Reddit and does not consist of data taken directly from Reddit itself. Before generating the dataset we used a blocklist to ensure we didn’t sample from a variety of subreddits which contain sexually explicit or otherwise offensive content. + +To get a sense of the data that went into GPT-2, we’ve [published a list](domains.txt) of the top 1,000 domains present in WebText and their frequency. The top 15 domains by volume in WebText are: Google, Archive, Blogspot, GitHub, NYTimes, Wordpress, Washington Post, Wikia, BBC, The Guardian, eBay, Pastebin, CNN, Yahoo!, and the Huffington Post. + +### Motivation + +The motivation behind WebText was to create an Internet-scale, heterogeneous dataset that we could use to test large-scale language models against. WebText was (and is) intended to be primarily for research purposes rather than production purposes. + +### Caveats and Recommendations + +Because GPT-2 is an internet-scale language model, it’s currently difficult to know what disciplined testing procedures can be applied to it to fully understand its capabilities and how the data it is trained on influences its vast range of outputs. We recommend researchers investigate these aspects of the model and share their results. + +Additionally, as indicated in our discussion of issues relating to potential misuse of the model, it remains unclear what the long-term dynamics are of detecting outputs from these models. We conducted [in-house automated ML-based detection research](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2-output-dataset/tree/master/detector) using simple classifiers, zero shot, and fine-tuning methods. Our fine-tuned detector model reached accuracy levels of approximately 95%. However, no one detection method is a panacea; automated ML-based detection, human detection, human-machine teaming, and metadata-based detection are all methods that can be combined for more confident classification. Developing better approaches to detection today will give us greater intuitions when thinking about future models and could help us understand ahead of time if detection methods will eventually become ineffective. + + diff --git a/gpt-2/requirements.txt b/gpt-2/requirements.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b4a3ea703 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/requirements.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +fire>=0.1.3 +regex==2017.4.5 +requests==2.21.0 +tqdm==4.31.1 +toposort==1.5 diff --git a/gpt-2/src/accumulate.py b/gpt-2/src/accumulate.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1a475a1e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/accumulate.py @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +import argparse +import json +import os +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import time + + +class AccumulatingOptimizer(object): + def __init__(self, opt, var_list): + self.opt = opt + self.var_list = var_list + self.accum_vars = {tv : tf.Variable(tf.zeros_like(tv.initialized_value()), trainable=False) + for tv in var_list} + self.total_loss = tf.Variable(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32)) + self.count_loss = tf.Variable(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32)) + + def reset(self): + updates = [tv.assign(tf.zeros_like(tv)) for tv in self.accum_vars.values()] + updates.append(self.total_loss.assign(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32))) + updates.append(self.count_loss.assign(tf.zeros(shape=[], dtype=tf.float32))) + with tf.control_dependencies(updates): + return tf.no_op() + + def compute_gradients(self, loss): + grads = self.opt.compute_gradients(loss, self.var_list) + updates = [self.accum_vars[v].assign_add(g) for (g,v) in grads] + updates.append(self.total_loss.assign_add(loss)) + updates.append(self.count_loss.assign_add(1.0)) + with tf.control_dependencies(updates): + return tf.no_op() + + def apply_gradients(self): + grads = [(g,v) for (v,g) in self.accum_vars.items()] + with tf.control_dependencies([self.opt.apply_gradients(grads)]): + return self.total_loss / self.count_loss diff --git a/gpt-2/src/alice.txt b/gpt-2/src/alice.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8a050284d --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/alice.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3353 @@ +Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + +CHAPTER I. +Down the Rabbit-Hole + + +Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the +bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into +the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or +conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice +“without pictures or conversations?” + +So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the +hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of +making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and +picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran +close by her. + +There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it +so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh +dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, +it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the +time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually _took a +watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried +on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she +had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a +watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the +field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a +large rabbit-hole under the hedge. + +In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how +in the world she was to get out again. + +The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then +dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think +about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very +deep well. + +Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had +plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what +was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out +what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she +looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with +cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures +hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she +passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great +disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear +of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the +cupboards as she fell past it. + +“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall +think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me +at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the +top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.) + +Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? “I wonder how +many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be +getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would +be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for, you see, Alice had learnt +several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and +though this was not a _very_ good opportunity for showing off her +knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good +practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the right distance—but +then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had no +idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice +grand words to say.) + +Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right _through_ +the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk +with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather +glad there _was_ no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all +the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the +country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” +(and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy _curtseying_ as you’re +falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what +an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do +to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” + +Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began +talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” +(Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at +tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are +no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s +very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here +Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a +dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and +sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer +either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt +that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was +walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, +“Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, +thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and +the fall was over. + +Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: +she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another +long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down +it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, +and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears +and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she +turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found +herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging +from the roof. + +There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when +Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every +door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to +get out again. + +Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid +glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s +first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; +but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, +but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second +time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and +behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the +little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! + +Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not +much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the +passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get +out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright +flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head +through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought +poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, +how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only +knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had +happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things +indeed were really impossible. + +There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went +back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at +any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this +time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here +before,” said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper +label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large +letters. + +It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was +not going to do _that_ in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, +“and see whether it’s marked ‘_poison_’ or not”; for she had read +several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and +eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they +_would_ not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: +such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; +and that if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually +bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a +bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, +sooner or later. + +However, this bottle was _not_ marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to +taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed +flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and +hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a +telescope.” + +And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face +brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going +through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she +waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: +she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,” +said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I +wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the +flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could +not remember ever having seen such a thing. + +After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going +into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the +door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she +went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach +it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her +best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; +and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing +sat down and cried. + +“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself, +rather sharply; “I advise you to leave off this minute!” She generally +gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), +and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into +her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having +cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, +for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. +“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two +people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make _one_ respectable +person!” + +Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: +she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words +“EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said +Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it +makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll +get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” + +She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which +way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was +growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same +size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice +had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way +things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go +on in the common way. + +So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER II. +The Pool of Tears + + +“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that +for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m +opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” +(for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of +sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I +wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m +sure _I_ shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble +myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be +kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I +want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every +Christmas.” + +And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must +go by the carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending +presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! + + _Alice’s Right Foot, Esq., Hearthrug, near the Fender,_ (_with + Alice’s love_). + +Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!” + +Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was +now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden +key and hurried off to the garden door. + +Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to +look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more +hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like +you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop +this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding +gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about +four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. + +After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and +she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White +Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves +in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a +great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh! the Duchess, the +Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt +so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the +Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, +sir—” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and +the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. + +Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she +kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How +queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. +I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the +same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling +a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who +in the world am I? Ah, _that’s_ the great puzzle!” And she began +thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as +herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. + +“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long +ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t +be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a +very little! Besides, _she’s_ she, and _I’m_ I, and—oh dear, how +puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. +Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, +and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that +rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try +Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of +Rome, and Rome—no, _that’s_ all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been +changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘_How doth the little_—’” and she +crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began +to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words +did not come the same as they used to do:— + +“How doth the little crocodile + Improve his shining tail, +And pour the waters of the Nile + On every golden scale! + +“How cheerfully he seems to grin, + How neatly spread his claws, +And welcome little fishes in + With gently smiling jaws!” + + +“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes +filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and +I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to +no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve +made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be +no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ +I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and +then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down +here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden +burst of tears, “I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so +_very_ tired of being all alone here!” + +As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see +that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while +she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be +growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure +herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was +now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon +found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she +dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. + +“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the +sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and +now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little +door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden +key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than +ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this +before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” + +As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, +splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that +she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by +railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in +her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go +to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the +sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row +of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she +soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when +she was nine feet high. + +“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying +to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by +being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be +sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” + +Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way +off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought +it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small +she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had +slipped in like herself. + +“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? +Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very +likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she +began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired +of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right +way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but +she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of +a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather +inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, +but it said nothing. + +“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s +a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all +her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago +anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which +was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a +sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with +fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she +had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like +cats.” + +“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would +_you_ like cats if you were me?” + +“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry +about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d +take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear +quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about +in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her +paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to +nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your +pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all +over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. “We won’t talk +about her any more if you’d rather not.” + +“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his +tail. “As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always +_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name +again!” + +“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of +conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not +answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog near +our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you +know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when +you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts +of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you +know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says +it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, +“I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away +from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the +pool as it went. + +So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we +won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the +Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face +was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low +trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my +history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” + +It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the +birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a +Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice +led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale + + +They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the +birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close +to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. + +The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a +consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite +natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if +she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument +with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, “I am +older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would not allow +without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to +tell its age, there was no more to be said. + +At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, +called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! _I’ll_ soon make +you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the +Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she +felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. + +“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This +is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William +the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted +to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much +accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of +Mercia and Northumbria—’” + +“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver. + +“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did +you speak?” + +“Not I!” said the Lory hastily. + +“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “—I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, +the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even +Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’” + +“Found _what_?” said the Duck. + +“Found _it_,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know +what ‘it’ means.” + +“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when _I_ find a thing,” said the +Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the +archbishop find?” + +The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘—found +it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him +the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence +of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, +turning to Alice as it spoke. + +“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to +dry me at all.” + +“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move +that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic +remedies—” + +“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half +those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And +the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds +tittered audibly. + +“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, +that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.” + +“What _is_ a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she wanted much to +know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that _somebody_ ought to +speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. + +“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, +as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will +tell you how the Dodo managed it.) + +First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact +shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed +along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and +away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they +liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, +when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry +again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all +crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?” + +This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of +thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its +forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the +pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo +said, “_Everybody_ has won, and all must have prizes.” + +“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked. + +“Why, _she_, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one +finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a +confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” + +Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her +pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had +not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly +one a-piece, all round. + +“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse. + +“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in +your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice. + +“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. + +“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. + +Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly +presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant +thimble;” and, when it had finished this short speech, they all +cheered. + +Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave +that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything +to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as +she could. + +The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and +confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste +theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. +However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and +begged the Mouse to tell them something more. + +“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why +it is you hate—C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that it +would be offended again. + +“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and +sighing. + +“It _is_ a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder +at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on +puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the +tale was something like this:— + + “Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, ‘Let us both + go to law: _I_ will prosecute _you_.—Come, I’ll take no + denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I’ve + nothing to do.’ Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear + sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’ + ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ Said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll + try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.’” + +“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice severely. “What are +you thinking of?” + +“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the fifth +bend, I think?” + +“I had _not!_” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. + +“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking +anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!” + +“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and +walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!” + +“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily offended, +you know!” + +The Mouse only growled in reply. + +“Please come back and finish your story!” Alice called after it; and +the others all joined in chorus, “Yes, please do!” but the Mouse only +shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. + +“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it was +quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to +her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose +_your_ temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, a little +snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!” + +“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, +addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!” + +“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the +Lory. + +Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: +“Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice you +can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, +she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” + +This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the +birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very +carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home; the night-air +doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice +to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in +bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left +alone. + +“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a melancholy +tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best +cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you +any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very +lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a +little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up +eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was +coming back to finish his story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill + + +It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking +anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard +it muttering to itself “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh +my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are +ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a +moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid +gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but +they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since +her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the +little door, had vanished completely. + +Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and +called out to her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you +doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and +a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off +at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the +mistake it had made. + +“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How +surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him +his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she +came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass +plate with the name “W. RABBIT,” engraved upon it. She went in without +knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the +real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the +fan and gloves. + +“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for +a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” And she +began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “‘Miss Alice! Come +here directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, +nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I +don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in the house +if it began ordering people about like that!” + +By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table +in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three +pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the +gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a +little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label +this time with the words “DRINK ME,” but nevertheless she uncorked it +and put it to her lips. “I know _something_ interesting is sure to +happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink anything; so +I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large +again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!” + +It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had +drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, +and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put +down the bottle, saying to herself “That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t +grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t +drunk quite so much!” + +Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, +and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there +was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with +one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. +Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out +of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself “Now I +can do no more, whatever happens. What _will_ become of me?” + +Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, +and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there +seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room +again, no wonder she felt unhappy. + +“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t +always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and +rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and +yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what +_can_ have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied +that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of +one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And +when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,” she added in a +sorrowful tone; “at least there’s no room to grow up any more _here_.” + +“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I _never_ get any older than I am +now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but +then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like _that!_” + +“Oh, you foolish Alice!” she answered herself. “How can you learn +lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for _you_, and no room at all +for any lesson-books!” + +And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and +making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes +she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. + +“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. “Fetch me my gloves this moment!” +Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was +the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the +house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as +large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. + +Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as +the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, +that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself “Then I’ll +go round and get in at the window.” + +“_That_ you won’t!” thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied +she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her +hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, +but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, +from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a +cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. + +Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And +then a voice she had never heard before, “Sure then I’m here! Digging +for apples, yer honour!” + +“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rabbit angrily. “Here! Come and +help me out of _this!_” (Sounds of more broken glass.) + +“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?” + +“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!” (He pronounced it “arrum.”) + +“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole +window!” + +“Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.” + +“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!” + +There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers +now and then; such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at +all!” “Do as I tell you, you coward!” and at last she spread out her +hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were +_two_ little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “What a number +of cucumber-frames there must be!” thought Alice. “I wonder what +they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they +_could!_ I’m sure _I_ don’t want to stay in here any longer!” + +She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a +rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all +talking together: she made out the words: “Where’s the other +ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! +fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em +together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do +well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this +rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! +Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I +fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, _I_ shan’t! _You_ do +it!—_That_ I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says +you’re to go down the chimney!” + +“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to +herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in +Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but +I _think_ I can kick a little!” + +She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till +she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) +scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, +saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited +to see what would happen next. + +The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” +then the Rabbit’s voice along—“Catch him, you by the hedge!” then +silence, and then another confusion of voices—“Hold up his head—Brandy +now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell +us all about it!” + +Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (“That’s Bill,” thought +Alice,) “Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m +a deal too flustered to tell you—all I know is, something comes at me +like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!” + +“So you did, old fellow!” said the others. + +“We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice +called out as loud as she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you!” + +There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, “I +wonder what they _will_ do next! If they had any sense, they’d take the +roof off.” After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and +Alice heard the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin with.” + +“A barrowful of _what?_” thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, +for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the +window, and some of them hit her in the face. “I’ll put a stop to +this,” she said to herself, and shouted out, “You’d better not do that +again!” which produced another dead silence. + +Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into +little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her +head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’s sure to make +_some_ change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it +must make me smaller, I suppose.” + +So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she +began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get +through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of +little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, +was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it +something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she +appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself +safe in a thick wood. + +“The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice to herself, as she +wandered about in the wood, “is to grow to my right size again; and the +second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that +will be the best plan.” + +It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply +arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea +how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among +the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a +great hurry. + +An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and +feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor little +thing!” said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to +it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it +might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in +spite of all her coaxing. + +Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and +held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off +all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, +and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, +to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the +other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head +over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was +very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every +moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then +the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very +little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely +all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with +its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. + +This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she +set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, +and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the distance. + +“And yet what a dear little puppy it was!” said Alice, as she leant +against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the +leaves: “I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d +only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that +I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see—how _is_ it to be managed? I +suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great +question is, what?” + +The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at +the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that +looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. +There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as +herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and +behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what +was on the top of it. + +She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the +mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue +caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly +smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of +anything else. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +Advice from a Caterpillar + + +The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in +silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and +addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. + +“Who are _you?_” said the Caterpillar. + +This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, +rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know +who I _was_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been +changed several times since then.” + +“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain +yourself!” + +“I can’t explain _myself_, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m +not myself, you see.” + +“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. + +“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, +“for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many +different sizes in a day is very confusing.” + +“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you +have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then +after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little +queer, won’t you?” + +“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know +is, it would feel very queer to _me_.” + +“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are _you?_” + +Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. +Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such _very_ +short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I +think, you ought to tell me who _you_ are, first.” + +“Why?” said the Caterpillar. + +Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any +good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a _very_ unpleasant +state of mind, she turned away. + +“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something +important to say!” + +This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. + +“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she +could. + +“No,” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, +and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For +some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded +its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you +think you’re changed, do you?” + +“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can’t remember things as I +used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!” + +“Can’t remember _what_ things?” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all +came different!” Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. + +“Repeat, “_You are old, Father William_,’” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice folded her hands, and began:— + +“You are old, Father William,” the young man said, + “And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head— + Do you think, at your age, it is right?” + +“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, + “I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, + Why, I do it again and again.” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before, + And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— + Pray, what is the reason of that?” + +“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, + “I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— + Allow me to sell you a couple?” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak + For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak— + Pray, how did you manage to do it?” + +“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law, + And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, + Has lasted the rest of my life.” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose + That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— + What made you so awfully clever?” + +“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” + Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!” + + +“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Not _quite_ right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly; “some of the +words have got altered.” + +“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, +and there was silence for some minutes. + +The Caterpillar was the first to speak. + +“What size do you want to be?” it asked. + +“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily replied; “only one +doesn’t like changing so often, you know.” + +“I _don’t_ know,” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life +before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. + +“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, I should like to be a _little_ larger, sir, if you wouldn’t +mind,” said Alice: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.” + +“It is a very good height indeed!” said the Caterpillar angrily, +rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). + +“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she +thought of herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily +offended!” + +“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Caterpillar; and it put the +hookah into its mouth and began smoking again. + +This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a +minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and +yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the +mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, +“One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you +grow shorter.” + +“One side of _what?_ The other side of _what?_” thought Alice to +herself. + +“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it +aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight. + +Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, +trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was +perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at +last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke +off a bit of the edge with each hand. + +“And now which is which?” she said to herself, and nibbled a little of +the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a +violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot! + +She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt +that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she +set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed +so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her +mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the +lefthand bit. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which +changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders +were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was +an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a +sea of green leaves that lay far below her. + +“What _can_ all that green stuff be?” said Alice. “And where _have_ my +shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” +She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, +except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. + +As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, +she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that +her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She +had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was +going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but +the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp +hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her +face, and was beating her violently with its wings. + +“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon. + +“I’m _not_ a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. “Let me alone!” + +“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued +tone, and added with a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and nothing +seems to suit them!” + +“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,” said Alice. + +“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried +hedges,” the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; “but those +serpents! There’s no pleasing them!” + +Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in +saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. + +“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the Pigeon; +“but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I +haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!” + +“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said Alice, who was beginning to +see its meaning. + +“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the +Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I +should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down +from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!” + +“But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—” + +“Well! _What_ are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to +invent something!” + +“I—I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered +the number of changes she had gone through that day. + +“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest +contempt. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never +_one_ with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s +no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never +tasted an egg!” + +“I _have_ tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who was a very truthful +child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you +know.” + +“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but if they do, why then +they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.” + +This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a +minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, “You’re +looking for eggs, I know _that_ well enough; and what does it matter to +me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” + +“It matters a good deal to _me_,” said Alice hastily; “but I’m not +looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want +_yours_: I don’t like them raw.” + +“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled +down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well +as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, +and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while +she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, +and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at +the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until +she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. + +It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it +felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, +and began talking to herself, as usual. “Come, there’s half my plan +done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m +going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my +right size: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how +_is_ that to be done, I wonder?” As she said this, she came suddenly +upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. +“Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it’ll never do to come upon them +_this_ size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she +began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go +near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Pig and Pepper + + +For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what +to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the +wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: +otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a +fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by +another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a +frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled +all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all +about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. + +The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, +nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, +saying, in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the +Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn +tone, only changing the order of the words a little, “From the Queen. +An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.” + +Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. + +Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood +for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the +Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the +door, staring stupidly up into the sky. + +Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. + +“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for +two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you +are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could +possibly hear you.” And certainly there _was_ a most extraordinary +noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now +and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to +pieces. + +“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?” + +“There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on +without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, +if you were _inside_, you might knock, and I could let you out, you +know.” He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and +this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” +she said to herself; “his eyes are so _very_ nearly at the top of his +head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?” +she repeated, aloud. + +“I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “till tomorrow—” + +At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came +skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, +and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. + +“—or next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly +as if nothing had happened. + +“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone. + +“_Are_ you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first +question, you know.” + +It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. “It’s really +dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures argue. +It’s enough to drive one crazy!” + +The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his +remark, with variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on and off, for +days and days.” + +“But what am _I_ to do?” said Alice. + +“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling. + +“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s +perfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in. + +The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from +one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool +in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, +stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. + +“There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to +herself, as well as she could for sneezing. + +There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed +occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling +alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen +that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting +on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. + +“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was +not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why +your cat grins like that?” + +“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!” + +She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite +jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the +baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:— + +“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t +know that cats _could_ grin.” + +“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.” + +“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite +pleased to have got into a conversation. + +“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.” + +Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would +be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she +was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the +fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at +the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a +shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of +them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, +that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. + +“Oh, _please_ mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down +in an agony of terror. “Oh, there goes his _precious_ nose!” as an +unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it +off. + +“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse +growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” + +“Which would _not_ be an advantage,” said Alice, who felt very glad to +get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. “Just +think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the +earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” + +“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!” + +Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take +the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to +be listening, so she went on again: “Twenty-four hours, I _think_; or +is it twelve? I—” + +“Oh, don’t bother _me_,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide +figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a +sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at +the end of every line: + +“Speak roughly to your little boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +He only does it to annoy, + Because he knows it teases.” + + +CHORUS. +(In which the cook and the baby joined): + + +“Wow! wow! wow!” + + +While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing +the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, +that Alice could hardly hear the words:— + +“I speak severely to my boy, + I beat him when he sneezes; +For he can thoroughly enjoy + The pepper when he pleases!” + + +CHORUS. + + +“Wow! wow! wow!” + + +“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, +flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play +croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook +threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. + +Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped +little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, +“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was +snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling +itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for +the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. + +As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to +twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right +ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it +out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” +thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be +murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the +little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). +“Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of +expressing yourself.” + +The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face +to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had +a _very_ turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also +its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did +not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only +sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there +were any tears. + +No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” +said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind +now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible +to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. + +Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do +with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so +violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time +there could be _no_ mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than +a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it +further. + +So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it +trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to +herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes +rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other +children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying +to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she +was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of +a tree a few yards off. + +The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she +thought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she +felt that it ought to be treated with respect. + +“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know +whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little +wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. +“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” + +“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. + +“I don’t much care where—” said Alice. + +“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. + +“—so long as I get _somewhere_,” Alice added as an explanation. + +“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long +enough.” + +Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another +question. “What sort of people live about here?” + +“In _that_ direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives +a Hatter: and in _that_ direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a +March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” + +“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. + +“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. +You’re mad.” + +“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. + +“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” + +Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how +do you know that you’re mad?” + +“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” + +“I suppose so,” said Alice. + +“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, +and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now _I_ growl when I’m pleased, +and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” + +“_I_ call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. + +“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the +Queen to-day?” + +“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited +yet.” + +“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished. + +Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer +things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, +it suddenly appeared again. + +“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly +forgotten to ask.” + +“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back +in a natural way. + +“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again. + +Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not +appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in +which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she +said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and +perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it +was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat +again, sitting on a branch of a tree. + +“Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat. + +“I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing +and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” + +“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, +beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which +remained some time after the rest of it had gone. + +“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a +grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” + +She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of +the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the +chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It +was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had +nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself +to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather +timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! +I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +A Mad Tea-Party + + +There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the +March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting +between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a +cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very +uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, +I suppose it doesn’t mind.” + +The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at +one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw +Alice coming. “There’s _plenty_ of room!” said Alice indignantly, and +she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. + +“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. + +Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. +“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. + +“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. + +“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. + +“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said +the March Hare. + +“I didn’t know it was _your_ table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great +many more than three.” + +“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at +Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first +speech. + +“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some +severity; “it’s very rude.” + +The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he _said_ +was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” + +“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve +begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. + +“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said +the March Hare. + +“Exactly so,” said Alice. + +“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. + +“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I +say—that’s the same thing, you know.” + +“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well +say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” + +“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what +I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!” + +“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be +talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing +as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” + +“It _is_ the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the +conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while +Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and +writing-desks, which wasn’t much. + +The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month +is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his +pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, +and holding it to his ear. + +Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” + +“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit +the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare. + +“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. + +“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: +“you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” + +The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped +it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of +nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the _best_ butter, +you know.” + +Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a +funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t +tell what o’clock it is!” + +“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does _your_ watch tell you what +year it is?” + +“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it +stays the same year for such a long time together.” + +“Which is just the case with _mine_,” said the Hatter. + +Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no +sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite +understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. + +“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little +hot tea upon its nose. + +The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its +eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.” + +“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice +again. + +“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?” + +“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. + +“Nor I,” said the March Hare. + +Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the +time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no +answers.” + +“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk +about wasting _it_. It’s _him_.” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. + +“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head +contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!” + +“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat +time when I learn music.” + +“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. +Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything +you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in +the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a +hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, +time for dinner!” + +(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) + +“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I +shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.” + +“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to +half-past one as long as you liked.” + +“Is that the way _you_ manage?” Alice asked. + +The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We +quarrelled last March—just before _he_ went mad, you know—” (pointing +with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert +given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing + +‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! +How I wonder what you’re at!’ + + +You know the song, perhaps?” + +“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. + +“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:— + +‘Up above the world you fly, +Like a tea-tray in the sky. + Twinkle, twinkle—’” + + +Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep +“_Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle_—” and went on so long that they +had to pinch it to make it stop. + +“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the +Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his +head!’” + +“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice. + +“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t +do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” + +A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many +tea-things are put out here?” she asked. + +“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, +and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” + +“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice. + +“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.” + +“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured +to ask. + +“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. +“I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” + +“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the +proposal. + +“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And +they pinched it on both sides at once. + +The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a +hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” + +“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. + +“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. + +“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again +before it’s done.” + +“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began +in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and +they lived at the bottom of a well—” + +“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest +in questions of eating and drinking. + +“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or +two. + +“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; +“they’d have been ill.” + +“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “_very_ ill.” + +Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of +living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But +why did they live at the bottom of a well?” + +“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. + +“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t +take more.” + +“You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to +take _more_ than nothing.” + +“Nobody asked _your_ opinion,” said Alice. + +“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly. + +Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to +some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and +repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?” + +The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then +said, “It was a treacle-well.” + +“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the +Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily +remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for +yourself.” + +“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I +dare say there may be _one_.” + +“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to +go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, +you know—” + +“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. + +“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. + +“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place +on.” + +He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare +moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the +place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any +advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than +before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. + +Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very +cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle +from?” + +“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should +think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?” + +“But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing +to notice this last remark. + +“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.” + +This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for +some time without interrupting it. + +“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing +its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of +things—everything that begins with an M—” + +“Why with an M?” said Alice. + +“Why not?” said the March Hare. + +Alice was silent. + +The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a +doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a +little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as +mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say +things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a +drawing of a muchness?” + +“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t +think—” + +“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. + +This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in +great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and +neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she +looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: +the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into +the teapot. + +“At any rate I’ll never go _there_ again!” said Alice as she picked her +way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in +all my life!” + +Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door +leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But +everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And +in she went. + +Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little +glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, +and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that +led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom +(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot +high: then she walked down the little passage: and _then_—she found +herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds +and the cool fountains. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +The Queen’s Croquet-Ground + + +A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses +growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily +painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she +went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard +one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me +like that!” + +“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my +elbow.” + +On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the +blame on others!” + +“_You’d_ better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only +yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!” + +“What for?” said the one who had spoken first. + +“That’s none of _your_ business, Two!” said Seven. + +“Yes, it _is_ his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for +bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.” + +Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun “Well, of all the unjust +things—” when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching +them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, +and all of them bowed low. + +“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are +painting those roses?” + +Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low +voice, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a +_red_ rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen +was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So +you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—” At this +moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called +out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw +themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, +and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. + +First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the +three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the +corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with +diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came +the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came +jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all +ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, +and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a +hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went +by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying +the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this +grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. + +Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face +like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard +of such a rule at processions; “and besides, what would be the use of a +procession,” thought she, “if people had all to lie down upon their +faces, so that they couldn’t see it?” So she stood still where she was, +and waited. + +When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked +at her, and the Queen said severely “Who is this?” She said it to the +Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. + +“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to +Alice, she went on, “What’s your name, child?” + +“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; +but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after +all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” + +“And who are _these?_” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners +who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on +their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of +the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, +or courtiers, or three of her own children. + +“How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. “It’s +no business of _mine_.” + +The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a +moment like a wild beast, screamed “Off with her head! Off—” + +“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was +silent. + +The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider, my +dear: she is only a child!” + +The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave “Turn +them over!” + +The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot. + +“Get up!” said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three +gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, +the royal children, and everybody else. + +“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me giddy.” And then, +turning to the rose-tree, she went on, “What _have_ you been doing +here?” + +“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone, going +down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—” + +“_I_ see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. +“Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the +soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran +to Alice for protection. + +“You shan’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a large +flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a +minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the +others. + +“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen. + +“Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!” the soldiers shouted +in reply. + +“That’s right!” shouted the Queen. “Can you play croquet?” + +The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was +evidently meant for her. + +“Yes!” shouted Alice. + +“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, +wondering very much what would happen next. + +“It’s—it’s a very fine day!” said a timid voice at her side. She was +walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. + +“Very,” said Alice: “—where’s the Duchess?” + +“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked +anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon +tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered “She’s under +sentence of execution.” + +“What for?” said Alice. + +“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. + +“No, I didn’t,” said Alice: “I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said +‘What for?’” + +“She boxed the Queen’s ears—” the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little +scream of laughter. “Oh, hush!” the Rabbit whispered in a frightened +tone. “The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the +Queen said—” + +“Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and +people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each +other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game +began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground +in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live +hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double +themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. + +The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: +she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, +under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she +had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the +hedgehog a blow with its head, it _would_ twist itself round and look +up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help +bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was +going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog +had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all +this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she +wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were +always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice +soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. + +The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling +all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time +the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and +shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once in a +minute. + +Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any +dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, +“and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully +fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any +one left alive!” + +She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she +could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious +appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after +watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said +to herself “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk +to.” + +“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth +enough for it to speak with. + +Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no use +speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at least one +of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put +down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad +she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there +was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. + +“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a +complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear +oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at +least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how +confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the +arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the +ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only +it ran away when it saw mine coming!” + +“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. + +“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed +that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, +“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.” + +The Queen smiled and passed on. + +“Who _are_ you talking to?” said the King, going up to Alice, and +looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity. + +“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” said Alice: “allow me to +introduce it.” + +“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may +kiss my hand if it likes.” + +“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. + +“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and don’t look at me like +that!” He got behind Alice as he spoke. + +“A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “I’ve read that in some book, +but I don’t remember where.” + +“Well, it must be removed,” said the King very decidedly, and he called +the Queen, who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I wish you would +have this cat removed!” + +The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or +small. “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round. + +“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the King eagerly, and he +hurried off. + +Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going +on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with +passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be +executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look +of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew +whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. + +The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed +to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the +other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to +the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a +helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. + +By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight +was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it doesn’t +matter much,” thought Alice, “as all the arches are gone from this side +of the ground.” So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not +escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her +friend. + +When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite +a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between +the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, +while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. + +The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle +the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they +all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly +what they said. + +The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless +there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a +thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at _his_ time of life. + +The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be +beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. + +The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in +less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was +this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and +anxious.) + +Alice could think of nothing else to say but “It belongs to the +Duchess: you’d better ask _her_ about it.” + +“She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the executioner: “fetch her here.” +And the executioner went off like an arrow. + +The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the +time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so +the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, +while the rest of the party went back to the game. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +The Mock Turtle’s Story + + +“You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!” +said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, +and they walked off together. + +Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought +to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so +savage when they met in the kitchen. + +“When _I’m_ a Duchess,” she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful +tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen _at all_. Soup +does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people +hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new +kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes +them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children +sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew _that_: then they wouldn’t be +so stingy about it, you know—” + +She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little +startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking +about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t +tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in +a bit.” + +“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark. + +“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only +you can find it.” And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as +she spoke. + +Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the +Duchess was _very_ ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the +right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an +uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she +bore it as well as she could. + +“The game’s going on rather better now,” she said, by way of keeping up +the conversation a little. + +“’Tis so,” said the Duchess: “and the moral of that is—‘Oh, ’tis love, +’tis love, that makes the world go round!’” + +“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding +their own business!” + +“Ah, well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her +sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of +_that_ is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of +themselves.’” + +“How fond she is of finding morals in things!” Alice thought to +herself. + +“I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,” +the Duchess said after a pause: “the reason is, that I’m doubtful about +the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?” + +“He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious +to have the experiment tried. + +“Very true,” said the Duchess: “flamingoes and mustard both bite. And +the moral of that is—‘Birds of a feather flock together.’” + +“Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. + +“Right, as usual,” said the Duchess: “what a clear way you have of +putting things!” + +“It’s a mineral, I _think_,” said Alice. + +“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to +everything that Alice said; “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. +And the moral of that is—‘The more there is of mine, the less there is +of yours.’” + +“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last +remark, “it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” + +“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that +is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or if you’d like it put more +simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might +appear to others that what you were or might have been was not +otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be +otherwise.’” + +“I think I should understand that better,” Alice said very politely, +“if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.” + +“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, +in a pleased tone. + +“Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,” said +Alice. + +“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the Duchess. “I make you a present +of everything I’ve said as yet.” + +“A cheap sort of present!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they don’t give +birthday presents like that!” But she did not venture to say it out +loud. + +“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp +little chin. + +“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to +feel a little worried. + +“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly; and +the m—” + +But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, +even in the middle of her favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was +linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the +Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a +thunderstorm. + +“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess began in a low, weak voice. + +“Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted the Queen, stamping on the +ground as she spoke; “either you or your head must be off, and that in +about half no time! Take your choice!” + +The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. + +“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too +much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the +croquet-ground. + +The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were +resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried +back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment’s delay +would cost them their lives. + +All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling +with the other players, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with +her head!” Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the +soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so +that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and +all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody +and under sentence of execution. + +Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have +you seen the Mock Turtle yet?” + +“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.” + +“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” said the Queen. + +“I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. + +“Come on, then,” said the Queen, “and he shall tell you his history,” + +As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, +to the company generally, “You are all pardoned.” “Come, _that’s_ a +good thing!” she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the +number of executions the Queen had ordered. + +They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If +you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy +thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock +Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some +executions I have ordered;” and she walked off, leaving Alice alone +with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, +but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it +as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited. + +The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till +she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, +half to itself, half to Alice. + +“What _is_ the fun?” said Alice. + +“Why, _she_,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all her fancy, that: they never +executes nobody, you know. Come on!” + +“Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,” thought Alice, as she went slowly +after it: “I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!” + +They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, +sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came +nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She +pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the +Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all +his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!” + +So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes +full of tears, but said nothing. + +“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your +history, she do.” + +“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “sit +down, both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” + +So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to +herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.” +But she waited patiently. + +“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real +Turtle.” + +These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an +occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant +heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and +saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” but she could not +help thinking there _must_ be more to come, so she sat still and said +nothing. + +“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, +though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the +sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—” + +“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked. + +“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle +angrily: “really you are very dull!” + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple +question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked +at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the +Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all +day about it!” and he went on in these words: + +“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—” + +“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice. + +“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. +The Mock Turtle went on. + +“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—” + +“_I’ve_ been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so +proud as all that.” + +“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously. + +“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.” + +“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly. + +“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a +tone of great relief. “Now at _ours_ they had at the end of the bill, +‘French, music, _and washing_—extra.’” + +“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom +of the sea.” + +“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I +only took the regular course.” + +“What was that?” inquired Alice. + +“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle +replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, +Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” + +“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?” + +The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of +uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?” + +“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.” + +“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify +is, you _are_ a simpleton.” + +Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so +she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?” + +“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the +subjects on his flappers, “—Mystery, ancient and modern, with +Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, +that used to come once a week: _he_ taught us Drawling, Stretching, and +Fainting in Coils.” + +“What was _that_ like?” said Alice. + +“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too +stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.” + +“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics master, +though. He was an old crab, _he_ was.” + +“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught +Laughing and Grief, they used to say.” + +“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both +creatures hid their faces in their paws. + +“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry +to change the subject. + +“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so +on.” + +“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. + +“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: +“because they lessen from day to day.” + +This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little +before she made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been +a holiday?” + +“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly. + +“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very +decided tone: “tell her something about the games now.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +The Lobster Quadrille + + +The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across +his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or +two sobs choked his voice. “Same as if he had a bone in his throat,” +said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in +the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears +running down his cheeks, he went on again:— + +“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said +Alice)—“and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” +(Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and +said “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a +Lobster Quadrille is!” + +“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a dance is it?” + +“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into a line along the +sea-shore—” + +“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; +then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—” + +“_That_ generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon. + +“—you advance twice—” + +“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon. + +“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance twice, set to partners—” + +“—change lobsters, and retire in same order,” continued the Gryphon. + +“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, “you throw the—” + +“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. + +“—as far out to sea as you can—” + +“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon. + +“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly +about. + +“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice. + +“Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,” said the Mock +Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had +been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very +sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice. + +“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly. + +“Would you like to see a little of it?” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Very much indeed,” said Alice. + +“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the Mock Turtle to the +Gryphon. “We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?” + +“Oh, _you_ sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.” + +So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and +then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their +forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly +and sadly:— + +“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. +“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. +See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! +They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? + +“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be +When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!” +But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance— +Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. + +“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied. +“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. +The further off from England the nearer is to France— +Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?” + + +“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, +feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that +curious song about the whiting!” + +“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve seen them, +of course?” + +“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she checked herself +hastily. + +“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve +seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.” + +“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. “They have their tails in +their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.” + +“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the Mock Turtle: “crumbs would +all wash off in the sea. But they _have_ their tails in their mouths; +and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his +eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon. + +“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they _would_ go with the +lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to +fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they +couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.” + +“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much +about a whiting before.” + +“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you +know why it’s called a whiting?” + +“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?” + +“_It does the boots and shoes_,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly. + +Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated +in a wondering tone. + +“Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what +makes them so shiny?” + +Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her +answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.” + +“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, +“are done with a whiting. Now you know.” + +“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. + +“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: +“any shrimp could have told you that.” + +“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still +running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, +please: we don’t want _you_ with us!’” + +“They were obliged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said: “no +wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” + +“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise. + +“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle: “why, if a fish came to _me_, +and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’” + +“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. + +“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And +the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of _your_ adventures.” + +“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said +Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, +because I was a different person then.” + +“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: +“explanations take such a dreadful time.” + +So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first +saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, +the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened +their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she +went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part +about her repeating “_You are old, Father William_,” to the +Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock +Turtle drew a long breath, and said “That’s very curious.” + +“It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said the Gryphon. + +“It all came different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I +should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to +begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of +authority over Alice. + +“Stand up and repeat ‘’_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,’” said the +Gryphon. + +“How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” +thought Alice; “I might as well be at school at once.” However, she got +up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster +Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came +very queer indeed:— + +“’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, +“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” +As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose +Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” + +[later editions continued as follows +When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, +And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, +But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, +His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] + + +“That’s different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child,” said +the Gryphon. + +“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds +uncommon nonsense.” + +Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, +wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. + +“I should like to have it explained,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon hastily. “Go on with the next +verse.” + +“But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle persisted. “How _could_ he turn +them out with his nose, you know?” + +“It’s the first position in dancing.” Alice said; but was dreadfully +puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. + +“Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it +begins ‘_I passed by his garden_.’” + +Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come +wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:— + +“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, +How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—” + +[later editions continued as follows +The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, +While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. +When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, +Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: +While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, +And concluded the banquet—] + + +“What _is_ the use of repeating all that stuff,” the Mock Turtle +interrupted, “if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the +most confusing thing _I_ ever heard!” + +“Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the Gryphon: and Alice was +only too glad to do so. + +“Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon +went on. “Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?” + +“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,” Alice +replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, +“Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘_Turtle Soup_,’ will you, old +fellow?” + +The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked +with sobs, to sing this:— + +“Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, +Waiting in a hot tureen! +Who for such dainties would not stoop? +Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! +Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! +Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beautiful Soup! + +“Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, +Game, or any other dish? +Who would not give all else for two p +ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? +Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! +Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!” + + +“Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun +to repeat it, when a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in the +distance. + +“Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried +off, without waiting for the end of the song. + +“What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only +answered “Come on!” and ran the faster, while more and more faintly +came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:— + +“Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beautiful Soup!” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +Who Stole the Tarts? + + +The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they +arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little +birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was +standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard +him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one +hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the +court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so +good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d +get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” +But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at +everything about her, to pass away the time. + +Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read +about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew +the name of nearly everything there. “That’s the judge,” she said to +herself, “because of his great wig.” + +The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the +wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he +did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. + +“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures,” +(she was obliged to say “creatures,” you see, because some of them were +animals, and some were birds,) “I suppose they are the jurors.” She +said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather +proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little +girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, “jury-men” +would have done just as well. + +The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. “What are +they doing?” Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have anything +to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.” + +“They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered in reply, +“for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.” + +“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she +stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the +court!” and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, +to make out who was talking. + +Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, +that all the jurors were writing down “stupid things!” on their slates, +and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell +“stupid,” and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. “A nice +muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice. + +One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice +could _not_ stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and +very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly +that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out +at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he +was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this +was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. + +“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King. + +On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then +unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:— + +“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, + All on a summer day: +The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, + And took them quite away!” + + +“Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury. + +“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great +deal to come before that!” + +“Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew +three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!” + +The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand +and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your +Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished +my tea when I was sent for.” + +“You ought to have finished,” said the King. “When did you begin?” + +The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the +court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I _think_ it +was,” he said. + +“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. + +“Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse. + +“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly +wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and +reduced the answer to shillings and pence. + +“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter. + +“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. + +“_Stolen!_” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made +a memorandum of the fact. + +“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none +of my own. I’m a hatter.” + +Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, +who turned pale and fidgeted. + +“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll +have you executed on the spot.” + +This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting +from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his +confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the +bread-and-butter. + +Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled +her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to +grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave +the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was +as long as there was room for her. + +“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.” said the Dormouse, who was sitting +next to her. “I can hardly breathe.” + +“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: “I’m growing.” + +“You’ve no right to grow _here_,” said the Dormouse. + +“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing +too.” + +“Yes, but _I_ grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in +that ridiculous fashion.” And he got up very sulkily and crossed over +to the other side of the court. + +All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, +just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers +of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” +on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes +off. + +“Give your evidence,” the King repeated angrily, “or I’ll have you +executed, whether you’re nervous or not.” + +“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, +“—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the +bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—” + +“The twinkling of the _what?_” said the King. + +“It _began_ with the tea,” the Hatter replied. + +“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you +take me for a dunce? Go on!” + +“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “and most things twinkled after +that—only the March Hare said—” + +“I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. + +“You did!” said the Hatter. + +“I deny it!” said the March Hare. + +“He denies it,” said the King: “leave out that part.” + +“Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on, looking +anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied +nothing, being fast asleep. + +“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut some more bread-and-butter—” + +“But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the jury asked. + +“That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. + +“You _must_ remember,” remarked the King, “or I’ll have you executed.” + +The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went +down on one knee. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. + +“You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. + +Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by +the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just +explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied +up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, +head first, and then sat upon it.) + +“I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. “I’ve so often read in +the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempts at +applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the +court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.” + +“If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” continued the +King. + +“I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: “I’m on the floor, as it is.” + +“Then you may _sit_ down,” the King replied. + +Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. + +“Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!” thought Alice. “Now we shall get +on better.” + +“I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with an anxious look at +the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. + +“You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, +without even waiting to put his shoes on. + +“—and just take his head off outside,” the Queen added to one of the +officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get +to the door. + +“Call the next witness!” said the King. + +The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in +her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the +court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. + +“Give your evidence,” said the King. + +“Shan’t,” said the cook. + +The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, +“Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness.” + +“Well, if I must, I must,” the King said, with a melancholy air, and, +after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were +nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, “What are tarts made of?” + +“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. + +“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. + +“Collar that Dormouse,” the Queen shrieked out. “Behead that Dormouse! +Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his +whiskers!” + +For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse +turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had +disappeared. + +“Never mind!” said the King, with an air of great relief. “Call the +next witness.” And he added in an undertone to the Queen, “Really, my +dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my +forehead ache!” + +Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling +very curious to see what the next witness would be like, “—for they +haven’t got much evidence _yet_,” she said to herself. Imagine her +surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill +little voice, the name “Alice!” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +Alice’s Evidence + + +“Here!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how +large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such +a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, +upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there +they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of +goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. + +“Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!” she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and +began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident +of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of +idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the +jury-box, or they would die. + +“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until +all the jurymen are back in their proper places—_all_,” he repeated +with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. + +Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put +the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its +tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon +got it out again, and put it right; “not that it signifies much,” she +said to herself; “I should think it would be _quite_ as much use in the +trial one way up as the other.” + +As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being +upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to +them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the +accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do +anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the +court. + +“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice. + +“Nothing,” said Alice. + +“Nothing _whatever?_” persisted the King. + +“Nothing whatever,” said Alice. + +“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They were +just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White +Rabbit interrupted: “_Un_important, your Majesty means, of course,” he +said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as +he spoke. + +“_Un_important, of course, I meant,” the King hastily said, and went on +to himself in an undertone, + +“important—unimportant—unimportant—important—” as if he were trying +which word sounded best. + +Some of the jury wrote it down “important,” and some “unimportant.” +Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; +“but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she thought to herself. + +At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in +his note-book, cackled out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule +Forty-two. _All persons more than a mile high to leave the court_.” + +Everybody looked at Alice. + +“_I’m_ not a mile high,” said Alice. + +“You are,” said the King. + +“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. + +“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a +regular rule: you invented it just now.” + +“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. + +“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice. + +The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. “Consider your +verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. + +“There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,” said the +White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; “this paper has just been +picked up.” + +“What’s in it?” said the Queen. + +“I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White Rabbit, “but it seems to be a +letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.” + +“It must have been that,” said the King, “unless it was written to +nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.” + +“Who is it directed to?” said one of the jurymen. + +“It isn’t directed at all,” said the White Rabbit; “in fact, there’s +nothing written on the _outside_.” He unfolded the paper as he spoke, +and added “It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.” + +“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?” asked another of the jurymen. + +“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the queerest +thing about it.” (The jury all looked puzzled.) + +“He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” said the King. (The jury +all brightened up again.) + +“Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “I didn’t write it, and they +can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.” + +“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter +worse. You _must_ have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed +your name like an honest man.” + +There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really +clever thing the King had said that day. + +“That _proves_ his guilt,” said the Queen. + +“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know +what they’re about!” + +“Read them,” said the King. + +The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please +your Majesty?” he asked. + +“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you +come to the end: then stop.” + +These were the verses the White Rabbit read:— + +“They told me you had been to her, + And mentioned me to him: +She gave me a good character, + But said I could not swim. + +He sent them word I had not gone + (We know it to be true): +If she should push the matter on, + What would become of you? + +I gave her one, they gave him two, + You gave us three or more; +They all returned from him to you, + Though they were mine before. + +If I or she should chance to be + Involved in this affair, +He trusts to you to set them free, + Exactly as we were. + +My notion was that you had been + (Before she had this fit) +An obstacle that came between + Him, and ourselves, and it. + +Don’t let him know she liked them best, + For this must ever be +A secret, kept from all the rest, + Between yourself and me.” + + +“That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,” said the +King, rubbing his hands; “so now let the jury—” + +“If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice, (she had grown so +large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of +interrupting him,) “I’ll give him sixpence. _I_ don’t believe there’s +an atom of meaning in it.” + +The jury all wrote down on their slates, “_She_ doesn’t believe there’s +an atom of meaning in it,” but none of them attempted to explain the +paper. + +“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of +trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t +know,” he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at +them with one eye; “I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. +“—_said I could not swim_—” you can’t swim, can you?” he added, turning +to the Knave. + +The Knave shook his head sadly. “Do I look like it?” he said. (Which he +certainly did _not_, being made entirely of cardboard.) + +“All right, so far,” said the King, and he went on muttering over the +verses to himself: “‘_We know it to be true_—’ that’s the jury, of +course—‘_I gave her one, they gave him two_—’ why, that must be what he +did with the tarts, you know—” + +“But, it goes on ‘_they all returned from him to you_,’” said Alice. + +“Why, there they are!” said the King triumphantly, pointing to the +tarts on the table. “Nothing can be clearer than _that_. Then +again—‘_before she had this fit_—’ you never had fits, my dear, I +think?” he said to the Queen. + +“Never!” said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard +as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his +slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily +began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long +as it lasted.) + +“Then the words don’t _fit_ you,” said the King, looking round the +court with a smile. There was a dead silence. + +“It’s a pun!” the King added in an offended tone, and everybody +laughed, “Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for +about the twentieth time that day. + +“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” + +“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the +sentence first!” + +“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple. + +“I won’t!” said Alice. + +“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody +moved. + +“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by +this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” + +At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon +her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and +tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her +head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead +leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. + +“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister; “Why, what a long sleep you’ve +had!” + +“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her +sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange +Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she +had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, “It _was_ a curious +dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.” +So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, +what a wonderful dream it had been. + + +But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her +hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all +her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, +and this was her dream:— + +First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny +hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were +looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and +see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair +that _would_ always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or +seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the +strange creatures of her little sister’s dream. + +The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the +frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she +could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends +shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen +ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby +was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed +around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the +Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, +filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock +Turtle. + +So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in +Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all +would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the +wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling +teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill +cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the +shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change +(she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the +lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock +Turtle’s heavy sobs. + +Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers +would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would +keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her +childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, +and make _their_ eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, +perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she +would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all +their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer +days. + +THE END diff --git a/gpt-2/src/bees.txt b/gpt-2/src/bees.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b64440df3 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/bees.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1597 @@ +Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made hives, by humans. Most such bees are honey bees in the genus Apis, but other honey-producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. A beekeeper (or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive produce (including beeswax, propolis, flower pollen, bee pollen, and royal jelly), to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary or "bee yard". + +Bees are directly influenced by their environment, therefore, their behavior and success varies greatly across climates. For instance, the busy foraging season for bees will be much longer in the warmer south than it will be in the north. +Familiarize yourself with what beekeeping looks like in your neck of the woods. We recommend joining your local beekeepers club or association, and finding an experienced mentor in your area. + +The apiary at the Queens County Farm Museum is now a who’s who of Manhattan rescue bees. They hail from the rooftops of the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel, the Brooks Brothers flagship and the New York Institute of Technology, among other places. The apiary officially opened early last summer, which was perfect timing, since a good portion of New York’s honeybees (many of whom live atop office buildings and hotels across the city) found themselves untended and in limbo during the shutdown. Since New York City legalized beekeeping in 2010, it has grown in popularity. It is a small-space activity; a hive is roughly the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet. There are now bee-focused nonprofits, public parks with pollinator gardens and jars of hyperlocal honey in abundance at green markets. The new apiary in Queens, which has basically handled overflow during the pandemic, shows how bee-crazy New Yorkers have become. +But there is also a growing concern among some scientists that honeybees, most of them imported to the city to feed this beekeeping frenzy, are a threat to New York’s native pollinators, whose dwindling populations could affect local flora and the environment at large. +When the virus slowed our lives down, encouraging us to stay in our homes, enjoy the outdoors and focus on activities in the natural world (like bird-watching or gardening), the zeal for urban beekeeping intensified, too. Sean Flynn, a beekeeper for over five years, took the opportunity to share his passion with his youngest daughter, Alaura, 18. +“I’ve always had this fascination with the hive mentality — it’s about the collective and the greater good,” said Mr. Flynn, who put a hive in his middle daughter’s bedroom when she went off to college six years ago. He kept the windows open in his sixth-story apartment so the bees could come and go as they pleased. The neighbors never noticed. +Mr. Flynn now inspects and monitors 12 different hives in various community gardens across the city. Recently, he captured a swarm outside the Javits Center. Although he is allergic to bee stings, Mr. Flynn temporarily housed the Javits bees in his own bedroom until he could relocate them — something he has done several times before to his own detriment. +There are anywhere from 115,000 to 125,000 beekeepers nationwide, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which oversees city beekeeping, recorded 326 registered hives in 2020. While beekeepers are required to register their hives, they often don’t. Mr. Coté, the president of the New York City Beekeepers Association and a fourth-generation beekeeper, believes there are more than 600 active hives in the city. +Jennifer Walden Weprin, the executive director of the Queens County Farm Museum, has seen renewed interest in the farm’s beekeeping courses, which started up again in the spring. The apiary’s 40 colonies, with over 2 million bees, rival the human population of the borough. The rescue bees will most likely become permanent residents now that they’re settled, but the owners of several of their former homes have expressed interest in creating new rooftop colonies.Many beekeepers know how to spot and manage swarms, which develop when hives are overcrowded and look like “a quivering ball of live bees, usually the size of a basketball,” Mr. Coté said. In a swarm, the queen and a third to a half of the hive leave. They will rest somewhere for up to three days (on a tree, an air-conditioner or a fire hydrant, for example), Mr. Coté said, while “real estate bees” go in search of a suitable new home for the group. Back at the original hive, a new queen is born from eggs that the old queen left behind, the colony repopulates and the cycle continues. +This April, Mr. Coté arrived at his farm in Norwalk, Conn., with a semi-truck full of Italian honeybees from a breeder in Georgia. He then transferred the bees into a cargo van and a pickup truck before heading for the city, carrying 300 separate packages full of 12,000 bees each. He delivered them to enthusiastic fellow beekeepers at a meeting point along Central Park West. +Such bee packages could be problematic, according to Sarah Kornbluth, a field associate with the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, who voiced her concern for local birds and other animals that depend on native bees. New York City has about 200 native species (not including honeybees, which originally came from Europe), so honeybees pose stiff competition for the city’s native pollinators, driving them further afield for provisions, which slows their population growth. +“There is no need for European honeybees in the city, and it would be great if we had them only for educational purposes,” said Ms. Kornbluth, who would like to see more of a movement to maintain the bees that are already here. “I think there is a lot of room for fun in native pollinator conservation, and if anyone could do it, it’s the beekeepers.” +There is a small movement afoot: Bee houses are being installed across the city. The Bee Conservancy, based in New York, created its Sponsor-a-Hive program last year in collaboration with Brooklyn Woods, a nonprofit that trains unemployed and low-income adults in woodworking and fabrication. The pine bee houses are designed with a mixture of nesting tubes for native bees to ensure a diversity of species. +“If you want local food, you really need local bees,” said Guillermo Fernandez, the founder and executive director of the Bee Conservancy. “For many bees, an area of a couple hundred feet might be their entire world, so small things can add up to a lot,” said Mr. Fernandez, who finds the chaos of the hive relaxing. “A hive is a box of calm in a frantic city,” he said. “The buzz and gentleness is quite soothing.” +Since February, Brooklyn Woods graduates have created over 350 bee houses. Christine Baerga, 31, who lives in Jamaica, Queens, has had some part in crafting most of them so far. Ms. Baerga’s life changed for the better during the pandemic, when she moved out of a homeless shelter and became a celebrated bee house artisan. +“Bees are master craftsmen and builders,” Ms. Baerga said. “They’re one of the more important creatures in the world. Without them, there is no us.” +Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. +Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. +About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. +Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. +Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. +The human relationship with honeybees is, he reminds us, unique: unlike domesticated livestock, all honeybees are essentially wild animals that can live very well on their own. Because they seemed to take nicely to the variety of beehives humans have invented over the 10,000-year history of beekeeping, no one thought to reveal the truly secret life of bees. And very few biologists beyond Seeley have the vision and tenacity to conceive of and perform a long-term study of the type that underpins this book. +care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is widespread: honeybees are kept in large cities and villages, on farms and rangelands, in forests and deserts, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the Equator. Honeybees are not domesticated. Those living in a man-made domicile called a beehive or hive are no different from those living in a colony in a tree. +In antiquity people knew that bees produce delicious honey, that they sting, and that they increase their numbers by swarming. By the 17th century they had learned the value of smoke in controlling them and had developed the screen veil as protection against stings. From the 17th to the 19th century, the key discoveries upon which modern beekeeping is founded were made. These included the mystery of the queen bee as the mother of nearly all the occupants of the hive, her curious mating technique, parthenogenetic development, the movable frame hives, and the fact that bees rear a new queen if the old one disappears. +Given this knowledge, people were able to divide a colony instead of relying on natural swarming. Then the development of the wax-comb foundation, the starter comb on which bees build straight, easily handled combs, and the discovery that honey can be centrifuged or extracted from them and the combs reused, paved the way for large-scale honey production and modern commercial beekeeping. The identification of bee diseases and their control with drugs, the value of pollen and pollen substitutes in producing strong colonies, and the artificial insemination of queens have increased the honey-production efficiency of colonies. +Honeybees belong to the order Hymenoptera and to one of the Apis species. (For a complete discussion of honeybees, see the article hymenopteran.) Honeybees are social insects noted for providing their nests with large amounts of honey. A colony of honeybees is a highly complex cluster of individuals that functions virtually as a single organism. It usually consists of the queen bee, a fertilized female capable of laying a thousand or more eggs per day; from a few to 60,000 sexually undeveloped females, the worker bees; and from none to 1,000 male bees, or drones. The female of most species of bees is equipped with a venomous sting. +Honeybees collect nectar, a sugary solution, from nectaries in blossoms and sometimes from nectaries on the leaves or stems of plants. Nectar may consist of 50 to 80 percent water, but when the bees convert it into honey it will contain only about 16 to 18 percent water. Sometimes they collect honeydew, an exudate from certain plant-sucking insects, and store it as honey. The primary carbohydrate diet of bees is honey. They also collect pollen, the dustlike male element, from the anthers of flowers. Pollen provides the essential proteins necessary for the rearing of young bees. In the act of collecting nectar and pollen to provision the nest, the bees pollinate the flowers they visit. Honeybees also collect propolis, a resinous material from buds of trees, for sealing cracks in the hive or for covering foreign objects in the hive that they cannot remove. They collect water to air-condition the hive and to dilute the honey when they consume it. A populous colony in a desirable location may, in a year’s time, collect and carry into the hive as much as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of nectar, water, and pollen.Bees secrete beeswax in tiny flakes on the underside of the abdomen and mold it into honeycomb, thin-walled, back-to-back, six-sided cells. The use of the cell varies depending on the needs of the colony. Honey or pollen may be stored in some cells, while the queen lays eggs, normally one per cell, in others. The area where the bees develop from the eggs is called the broodnest. Generally, honey is stored toward the top of the combs and pollen in cells around the broodnest below the honey. +The bees maintain a uniform temperature of about 93 °F (34 °C) in the broodnest regardless of outside temperature. The colony can survive daily maximum temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) if water is available with which they can air-condition the cluster. When the temperature falls below about 57 °F (14 °C), the bees cease flying, form a tight cluster to conserve heat, and await the return of warm weather. They can survive for several weeks in temperatures of −50 °F (−46 °C). +When summer flowers bloom in profusion, the queen’s egg-laying is stimulated, the cluster expands, and honey accumulates in the combs. When the large number of young bees emerge, the domicile becomes crowded. + +When the colony becomes crowded with adult bees and there are insufficient cells in which the queen can lay large numbers of eggs, the worker bees select a dozen or so tiny larvae that would otherwise develop into worker bees. These larvae are fed copiously with royal jelly, a whitish food with the consistency of mayonnaise, produced by certain brood-food glands in the heads of the worker bees. The cell in which the larva is developing is drawn out downward and enlarged to permit development of the queen. Shortly before these virgin queens emerge as adults from their queen cells, the mother queen departs from the beehive with the swarm. Swarming usually occurs during the middle of a warm day, when the queen and a portion of the worker bees (usually from 5,000 to 25,000) suddenly swirl out of the hive and into the air. After a few minutes’ flight, the queen alights, preferably on a branch of a tree but sometimes on a roof, a parked automobile, or even a fire hydrant. All the bees settle into a tight cluster around her while a handful of scouts reconnoitre a new homesite. +When the scout bees have located a new domicile, the cluster breaks. The swarm takes to the air and in a swirling mass proceeds to the new home. Swarming is the bees’ natural method of propagation or increase. + +Back in the parent colony, the first queen to emerge after the mother queen departs with the swarm immediately attempts to destroy the others. If two or more emerge at the same time, they fight to the death. When the surviving virgin is about a week old, she soars off on her mating flight. To maintain genetic diversity within a colony, a queen frequently mates with more than one drone (called polyandry) while in the air. She may repeat the mating flights for two or three successive days, after which she begins egg laying. She rarely ever leaves the hive again except with a swarm. Normally, sufficient sperm are stored in her sperm pouch, or spermatheca, to fertilize all the eggs she will lay for the rest of her life. The drones die in the act of mating. +The queen can live up to five years, although many beekeepers replace the queen every year or two. If she is accidentally killed or begins to falter in her egg-laying efficiency, the worker bees will rear a “supersedure” queen that will mate and begin egg laying without a swarm emerging. She ignores the mother queen, who soon disappears from the colony. + +Worker bees live about six weeks during the active season but may live for several months if they emerge as adults in the fall and spend the winter in the cluster. As the name implies, worker bees do all the work of the hive, except the egg laying. +Drones are reared only when the colony is populous and there are plentiful sources of nectar and pollen. They usually live a few weeks, but they are driven from the hive to perish when fall or an extended period of adversity comes upon the colony. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen. +The queen can lay drone (unfertilized) eggs in the drone cells. If she is not allowed to mate or if her supply of sperm is exhausted, she will lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells. The development of unfertilized eggs into adult drones is known as parthenogenesis. Occasionally a colony may become queenless and unable to develop another queen. Then some of the worker bees begin to lay eggs, often several to a cell, and these develop into drones. A colony that has developed laying workers is difficult to requeen with a laying queen. +The beekeeper’s year starts in early fall. At that time he requeens the colonies whose queens are not producing adequate amounts of brood and makes sure that each colony has sufficient stores: at least 50 pounds (22 kilograms) of honey and several frames filled with pollen. Some beekeepers also feed the drug fumagillin to reduce possible damage to the adult bees by nosema disease (see below Disease and pest control). The colonies need a sunny exposure and protection from cold winds. Some beekeepers in northern and mountainous areas wrap their colonies with insulating material in winter. A few beekeepers kill their bees in the fall, harvest the honey, store the empty equipment, then restock with a two- or three-pound (0.8- or 1.4-kilogram) package of bees and a young queen the following spring. +If the colonies are well prepared in the fall, they need little attention during the winter. But in early spring an examination of the colonies by the beekeeper is important. Frequently, strong colonies exhaust their food supply and starve only a few days before flowers begin to bloom in abundance. Only a few pounds of sugar syrup, 50-50 sugar water, or a honey-filled comb from another more prosperous colony might save such a starving colony. Again fumagillin may be fed to the colony, and some beekeepers also feed a cake of pollen substitute or pollen supplement. Honey is not fed to the colonies unless the beekeeper is sure about its source. Honey from colonies affected by the brood disease American foulbrood could infect his colonies and cause a serious loss. +As the spring season advances, the cluster size increases from the low population of 10,000 to 20,000 bees that survived the winter. To accommodate the increased size of the cluster and broodnest, the keeper adds more supers, or boxes of combs. If the combs are so manipulated that the queen can continually expand her egg-laying area upward, the colony is unlikely to swarm. This can be achieved by placing empty combs or combs in which brood is about ready to emerge at the top of the cluster and combs filled with eggs or young brood toward the lower part of the broodnest. The beekeeper wants the colony to reach its peak of population, 50,000 to 60,000 bees, at the beginning of the major nectar flow. +The bees in a swarm, having departed the hive with a full stomach of honey, rarely sting. The usual way to capture them is to place a hive or upturned box beneath or nearby, then shake or smoke the bees to force the queen and a majority of the bees into it. The others follow. After the swarm is safely inside the box, it can be removed to a permanent location. +Regulations governing the keeping of bees usually require the bees to be kept in hives with movable combs. If the bees are captured in a box, they are generally transferred into a movable-frame hive within a few days so the new honey and comb will not be lost in the transfer. + +When a beekeeper requeens a colony, he removes the failing or otherwise undesirable queen and places a new one in a screen cage in the broodnest. After a few days the colony becomes adjusted to her and she can be released from the cage. A strange queen placed in the cluster without this temporary protection usually will be killed at once by the workers. Queens usually are shipped in individual cages of about three cubic inches (50 cubic centimetres) with about half a dozen attendant bees and a ball of specially prepared sugar candy plugging one end of the cage. When the cage is placed in the hive, the bees from both sides eat the candy. By the time the candy is consumed and the bees reach each other, their odours have become indistinguishable, and the queen emerges from the cage into the colony and begins her egg-laying duties. +Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells. + +The worker bee sting is barbed, and in the act of stinging it is torn from the bee. It has a venom-filled poison sac and muscles attached that continue to work the sting deeper into the flesh for several minutes and increase the amount of venom injected. To prevent this, the sting should be scraped loose (rather than grasped and pulled out) at once. Bee stings are painful, and no one becomes immune to the pain. Immunity to the swelling is usually built up after a few stings, however. +Normal reaction to a bee sting is immediate, intense pain at the site of the sting. This lasts for a minute or two and is followed by a reddening, which may spread an inch or more. Swelling may not become apparent until the following day. Occasionally, acute allergic reactions develop from a sting, usually with persons who have other allergic problems. Such a reaction becomes evident in less than an hour and may consist of extreme difficulty in breathing, heart irregularity, shock, splotched skin, and speech difficulty. Such persons should obtain the services of a medical doctor immediately. +One of the most mysterious disorders to strike honeybee colonies in the modern era is colony collapse disorder (CCD). It is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. While the underlying cause is not known, it appears that the disorder affects the adult bees’ ability to navigate. They leave the hive to find pollen and never return. Honey and pollen are usually present in the hive, and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may remain in the brood nest. CCD is also characterized by delayed robbing of the honey in the dead colonies by other, healthy bee colonies in the immediate area, as well as slower than normal invasion by common pests, such as wax moths and small hive beetles. The disorder appears to affect only the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). +CCD was first reported in autumn 2006 by a commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania, who had colony losses estimated at 80 to 90 percent. Colony losses continued to be reported by other beekeepers in 35 states throughout the United States during the spring and summer of 2007, with many beekeepers losing anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. Beekeepers in other countries, including Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, France, and Switzerland, also reported substantial losses of honeybees. In the following years, the syndrome continued to impact honeybee colonies, though the percentage of colonies lost annually appeared to decline. Nonetheless, the potential economic impact on agriculture is great; annually in the United States alone an estimated $15 billion of crops are pollinated by honeybees. +Studies of adult honeybee carcasses from affected colonies indicate that the bees are infected with a number of pathogens and parasites, including viruses, species of Nosema, and the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis. However, scientists have not reached a definitive conclusion on whether a single pathogen is the root cause of the disorder, and many scientists suspect that a combination of factors are involved, such as a weakened immune system, brought on by colony stress, and the presence of pathogens, which are a constant threat and can be numerous in honeybee colonies. In addition, pesticides such as neonicotinoids (insecticides based on derivatives of nicotine) can be toxic to honeybees and are suspected of causing or contributing to CCD. +Mice frequently enter the hive in winter when the bees are clustered, or they get into stored combs and despoil or damage them by chewing the frames and combs to construct their nest. Skunks devour large numbers of bees at the hive entrance, usually at night. Fences, traps, and poison are used against them. Bears eat the honeybees and the brood in the hive, usually destroying it and its contents in the process. In bear country, electric fences and traps are used to protect bee colonies. +At times bees become their own deadly enemy. If honey is exposed to them when no flowers are in bloom and the weather is mild, the bees from different colonies will fight over it. Sometimes this fighting, or robbing, becomes intense and spreads from hive to hive in moblike action. If all the bees in one colony are killed, the honey is quickly stolen and carried into other hives. This further intensifies the robbing so that a cluster that was carrying honey into its hive a few minutes earlier is attacked, all of its occupants killed, the honey again stolen, and the process repeated. Usually, once robbing becomes intense, only darkness or foul weather will stop it. + +The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a lepidopterous insect that, in its larval stage, destroys combs. It does not attack adult bees but may begin destruction of combs of a weak colony long before the bees are gone. It can also destroy stored combs of honey. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they often eat out a place to spin their cocoons in the soft wood of the beehive, damaging frames and other hive parts. The best control for this pest is keeping colonies strong. Stored combs are fumigated, kept in a cold room, or stacked in such a way that a strong air draft flows around them. +The larvae of the lesser wax moth, Achroia grisella, cause damage to stored combs similar to that of the greater wax moth. The Mediterranean flour moth larva, Anagasta kuehniella, feeds on pollen in the combs and causes some damage. Control for both of these moths is the same as for the greater wax moth. +The bee louse, Braula caeca, is a tiny, wingless member of the fly family that is occasionally found on bees. It feeds on nectar or honey from the mouthparts of its host. Its larvae burrow in the cappings of honey combs. +Ants sometimes invade hives and disrupt or kill the bees. Termites can damage or destroy hive parts placed on the soil. Other insects, such as dragonflies (Odonata), robberflies (Diptera), praying mantises (Orthoptera), ambush bugs (Hemiptera), and certain wasps and yellow jackets (Hymenoptera) are natural enemies of the honeybee. + +American foulbrood, caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus larvae, is the most serious brood disease. It occurs throughout the world wherever bees are kept and affects workers, drones, and queens. The spores are highly resistant to heat and chemicals. A comb containing brood severely infected with this disease has a mottled appearance caused by the mixture of healthy capped brood interspersed with diseased or empty cells formerly occupied by diseased brood. The decayed mass has a typical ropiness when dug into, which is one of its identifying characteristics. +American foulbrood can be spread to healthy colonies by transferring equipment or allowing the bees to feed on honey from infected colonies. Sulfathiazole and Terramycin are widely used to control the disease. Many countries and most states in the U.S. require the destruction by fire of diseased colonies and have apiary inspectors to enforce the regulations. +European foulbrood is caused by a nonsporeforming bacterium, Streptococcus pluton, but Bacillus alvie and Acromobacter eurydice are often associated with Streptococcus pluton. This disease is similar in appearance to American foulbrood. In some instances it severely affects the colonies, but they recover so that colony destruction is not necessary. Terramycin can control the disease. +Sacbrood is caused by a virus and is superficially similar to the foulbrood diseases. It can appear and disappear spontaneously but is seldom serious. No chemical control is needed. If the problem persists, the beekeeper usually requeens the colony. +Chalk brood is caused by the fungus Ascosphaera apis. The larvae victims of this disease have a chalky white appearance. Stonebrood, which affects both brood and adults, is also caused by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus, which can usually be isolated from bees that have stonebrood. +Nosema disease, caused by the microsporidian Nosema apis, is the most serious disease of adult bees. It is widespread, causes heavy losses in honey production, and severely weakens colonies. The external symptoms of bees with nosema disease are not apparent. The disease is transmitted from adult to adult by ingestion of the spores that soon germinate in the ventriculus, or main, stomach. An infected ventriculus is normally swollen, soft, and grayish white. A degree of control may be obtained by feeding the colony the drug fumagillin. +Acarine disease is caused by the mite Acarapis woodi that gets into the tracheae of the bee through its breathing holes or spiracles in its thorax or midsection. Bees affected by this mite are unable to fly, have disjointed wings and distended abdomens. There is presently no good control for this mite. The only U.S. federal law pertaining to bees was passed to prevent the importation of adult bees carrying this mite into the United States. Two other mites, Varroa destructor and Tropilaelaps clareae, which are native to Asia, are serious problems for beekeepers. V. destructor is now commonly found in Europe and North America, where it is capable of devastating entire colonies of honeybees. +There are other minor diseases of adult bees, but they seldom cause serious problems. +Backyard beekeeping is increasing in popularity, leading to more people having honey bees as their next-door neighbors. According to the 2017 American Housing Survey, about 52 percent of people in the United States describe their neighborhood as suburban, while only 27 percent describe their neighborhood as urban, and 21 percent as rural. This means that new beekeepers are likely to live in a suburban neighborhood. Additionally, since a typical Langstroth hive only requires a few square feet, almost every backyard has more than enough space for a hive, so just about anyone with a yard could potentially keep bees. +To successfully keep bees in suburbia does require more than just the physical space for the hives, as keeping bees in close proximity to people has its own set of guidelines that should be followed. First, before you even purchase bees or equipment, you should check to see if there are any community/city/country/state laws where you live that pertain to keeping bees. The laws may say whether or not you can keep bees, dictate how many hives you are allowed to have, and specify how far away the hives can be placed from property lines. The laws are put into place both to protect the beekeeper and also to protect the public. Familiarizing yourself with the laws makes it easier for you to enjoy your hobby and its sweet rewards. + +If you’re going to keep bees in your backyard, being a good neighbor is key. A general rule of thumb is that if you’re on good terms with your neighbors before you get bees, then they’ll be just as excited as you are about your new hobby. But, if you’re on bad terms with your neighbor(s), then getting bees is like pouring gasoline on an open fire. The best thing to do is ask yourself, “What do my neighbors think of me?” If you’re honest with yourself and your answer is not positive, then write down a list of things that you can do to be a better neighbor, otherwise it may be a constant struggle for you and your bees. +Establish an open line of communication with your neighbors. Give them your phone number and encourage them to call anytime they have any questions, or if any issues arise, such as concerns about stings or if a swarm of bees bivouacs in their yard. Rather than letting them panic, it’s better if they call so that you can be a good bee neighbor and take care of the situation before it gets out of hand. Whenever you’re speaking with your neighbors, always ask about any concerns they might have and address each one to the best of your ability. If you don’t know the answer to any of their questions, you can always get back to them after you’ve found the answer by asking more experienced beekeepers in your area, or by searching trusted sources such as the Cornell Pollinator Network Resources page. Last, remember that it’s always a good idea to utilize the beekeeper’s irresistible “superpower,” by giving jars of honey to each of your neighbors. Once they taste pure, local honey, they may likely become one of your biggest fans and be sweet on having bees—and free honey—close by. + +Educating people about bees is important, as the non-beekeeping public often thinks that honey bees, yellowjackets, wasps, and hornets are all flying, sting-machines that love to make pincushions out of every human they see. Too often when someone finds out that you keep bees, they’re thinking about the old Bugs Bunny cartoons where all the bees come out of the hive and form a giant mallet to clobber people into the ground. Therefore, it’s a good idea to educate your neighbors about honey bee behavior and explain why they don’t have to worry. Key points that you can mention include the following: +1. Having bees next door will not increase the number of bees in their yard + Honey bees travel great distances to collect food. They routinely visit flowers up to 3 miles from their hive. Bees also tend to cruise at altitudes of 30 feet and higher, well above the space that people occupy. + One yard does not have nearly enough flowers to support a honey bee colony. Around two million flowers are needed to make a single pound of honey, and colonies can make upwards of 100 pounds when conditions are good. + Flowers have a finite amount of nectar and pollen, so regardless of where a hive is located, bees will only visit someone’s yard when the flowers are inviting them with nectar and pollen. + Bees get all of their food from plants. They are not scavengers or hunters like other insects. Yellowjackets, on the other hand, are attracted to sugary sodas and some picnic foods. + +2. Honey bees are typically gentle insects. + Honey bees only sting when provoked, and most stocks that suburban beekeepers keep have been bred for gentleness. + Honey bees die when they sting, so they only use their stinger when needed. This can happen if they are swatted, stepped on, or if their hive is disturbed. +Since a lot of people call any striped insect that flies a “bee,” it is a good idea to teach people the differences between honey bees and wasps, especially since most people get stung by yellowjackets. The more people know about honey bees, the less likely you and your bees will get blamed any time someone gets stung. Explain that the honey bee’s stinger is barbed like a fishhook, causing bees to die when they sting. A yellowjacket’s stinger, on the other hand, is smooth like a doctor’s syringe, allowing yellowjackets to sting repeatedly and often. It’s also good to point out that honey bees never live in a hole in the ground, or in any paper-looking nest, especially a ball-shaped one hanging from a tree. Another easy way to get people to remember the difference between the two is pointing out that honey bees are fuzzy (covered in hair) and brown, while yellowjackets are practically hairless, look smooth and shiny, and are yellow and black in color. +Additionally, talk with people about all the trees, flowers, fruits, nuts, and vegetables that depend on honey bees for pollination. Explaining to people that having bees around will help their yards to look better and their vegetable gardens grow is the fastest way to get people to welcome your bees to the neighborhood. + +Once you’re on good terms with your neighbors, the next important aspect to backyard beekeeping is to assess your yard as an apiary. The general suggestions of where to place your hives, such as facing hives south and on dry, flat ground, still apply. But if you have neighbors close by, there are additional best practices you must also follow. First, it’s a good idea to think about how non-beekeepers will be using your yard. While a south-facing hive is best, you also have to think about what will be happening 10-15 feet in front of your hives. One way to visualize the bees’ flight path is to stand where you’re thinking of putting your hives and spraying a hose 10 feet, 15 feet, even 20 feet in front of you. What are the chances of someone, or something, getting wet? What kind of foot traffic does that area of the yard get? It is equally as important to think about how your neighbors use their yard, so it is not a good idea to put a hive directly on a property line. Instead, place your hives ten feet or more from the property line. Make sure there is a fence around your hives or yard to keep any inquisitive neighbors from accidently getting too close to your hives or walking into the bees’ flight path. Another way to keep bees and people out of one another’s way is to use a flight barrier: tall bushes, the side of your garage or shed, or anything else that forces the bees to immediately fly up into the air and away from people. +It’s also important to provide your bees with water on your property so they don’t make a neighbor’s pool, dog bowl, air conditioner, birdbath, koi pond, or other water source their own. Keep a water source within fifteen feet of your hive(s) year-round, so that they orient on the source you have provided for them before any scout bees find water sources in a neighbor’s yard. +If you are just starting out, most reputable beekeeping sources will recommend starting with two hives. Having two hives for your first few years will help you to learn the art and science of beekeeping, while providing you with the proper amount of experience and resources needed to successfully keep healthy bees. However, after a few years, many beekeepers want to expand and keep more than two hives. In suburbia, your lot size will dictate how many hives you can realistically and safely keep on your property. Generally, the best practice to follow is no more than three colonies on any lot of one-quarter acre or less (not counting nucs). Then, for every additional one-quarter of an acre, add another three hives. So one-half acre could have up to six hives, three-quarters acre could have up to nine hives, and a one acre lot could have up to twelve hives. Additionally, keeping one nuc for every two hives is also acceptable. Regardless of the size of your property, it is much more important to always expand slowly, over time, by adding one or two hives per year. Expanding too quickly in a populated neighborhood could lead to severe, unwanted bee-people interactions, which is one reason why expanding slower is better. Also, if and when you are ready to expand, rather than overloading your backyard with too many hives, another option could be to find other yards close by to keep some of your hives. You may find people in your community that don’t want to care for bees, but for just a share of the honey, would welcome having your hives on their property. + +Issues can arise when bees’ robbing instincts are engaged. Robbing is a detrimental behavior because it can spread parasites and diseases among colonies, can significantly weaken or kill small colonies, and can be an alarming sight to behold for passersby. If all the nectar sources have dried up and a colony is low on food, it is essential that suburban beekeepers take precautions for robbing behavior. In northeastern states like New York, robbing tends to happen most often during dearth periods in mid July, late September, and October. There are many things a suburban beekeeper can do to prevent and manage robbing. First, they could feed sugar syrup only in feeders that are inside a hive. Boardman (entrance) feeders and open containers of syrup can trigger a robbing response, attracting bees to the area and creating a frenzy. Second, they should be careful not to spill any sugar syrup or drip unripened nectar outside of the hive during a dearth. If they do, they should clean it up immediately. Third, they can install entrance reducers or robbing screens on smaller or weaker colonies to help prevent robbers from entering. Forth, honey supers should be removed before the nectar dearth, remain covered until brought inside for extraction, and never left unattended in the apiary. Last, all honey extraction should take place inside, in a bee-tight room. After extraction, wet honey supers should be placed temporarily back on the hives beneath the outer cover for the bees to clean. It is recommended to avoid placing uncovered, wet supers out in the open, as this encourages robbing activity. +There are potentially other scenarios that could possibly arise that would also require you to respond. Your primary responsibility as a suburban beekeeper will be to always act quickly and resolve any issue before it becomes a major concern. The best thing you can do to ensure that you’re being a good beekeeper is to join your local beekeeping club. A club will connect you with experienced beekeepers that can help you become a better beekeeper and offer advice on keeping bees in your community. By joining a club, you will also be able to find a beekeeping friend who could help you when you need it, and perhaps look after your colonies while you’re out of town. Regardless of how much you know, there is always so much to learn about bees and beekeeping, which is why having a network of other beekeepers in your area is so important. Beekeeping clubs can keep you up-to-date on the latest research, the best USDA-approved mite treatments to use in your area, and provide you with a community that is always willing to talk about bees. Backyard beekeeping is an enjoyable and rewarding pastime. It’s something the whole family can do together, or something you can do by yourself for a few moments of solitude. Having bees in your backyard means that you can grab a cup of coffee and head outside to hang with your colonies and watch your bees busy at work. There are a few extra requirements for keeping bees in suburbia, but the underlying theme and golden rule of suburban beekeeping is to respect your neighbors, your bees, and your environment. +beekeeping, care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is widespread: honeybees are kept in large cities and villages, on farms and rangelands, in forests and deserts, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the Equator. Honeybees are not domesticated. Those living in a man-made domicile called a beehive or hive are no different from those living in a colony in a tree. +In antiquity people knew that bees produce delicious honey, that they sting, and that they increase their numbers by swarming. By the 17th century they had learned the value of smoke in controlling them and had developed the screen veil as protection against stings. From the 17th to the 19th century, the key discoveries upon which modern beekeeping is founded were made. These included the mystery of the queen bee as the mother of nearly all the occupants of the hive, her curious mating technique, parthenogenetic development, the movable frame hives, and the fact that bees rear a new queen if the old one disappears. +Given this knowledge, people were able to divide a colony instead of relying on natural swarming. Then the development of the wax-comb foundation, the starter comb on which bees build straight, easily handled combs, and the discovery that honey can be centrifuged or extracted from them and the combs reused, paved the way for large-scale honey production and modern commercial beekeeping. The identification of bee diseases and their control with drugs, the value of pollen and pollen substitutes in producing strong colonies, and the artificial insemination of queens have increased the honey-production efficiency of colonies. +Honeybees belong to the order Hymenoptera and to one of the Apis species. (For a complete discussion of honeybees, see the article hymenopteran.) Honeybees are social insects noted for providing their nests with large amounts of honey. A colony of honeybees is a highly complex cluster of individuals that functions virtually as a single organism. It usually consists of the queen bee, a fertilized female capable of laying a thousand or more eggs per day; from a few to 60,000 sexually undeveloped females, the worker bees; and from none to 1,000 male bees, or drones. The female of most species of bees is equipped with a venomous sting. + +Honeybees collect nectar, a sugary solution, from nectaries in blossoms and sometimes from nectaries on the leaves or stems of plants. Nectar may consist of 50 to 80 percent water, but when the bees convert it into honey it will contain only about 16 to 18 percent water. Sometimes they collect honeydew, an exudate from certain plant-sucking insects, and store it as honey. The primary carbohydrate diet of bees is honey. They also collect pollen, the dustlike male element, from the anthers of flowers. Pollen provides the essential proteins necessary for the rearing of young bees. In the act of collecting nectar and pollen to provision the nest, the bees pollinate the flowers they visit. Honeybees also collect propolis, a resinous material from buds of trees, for sealing cracks in the hive or for covering foreign objects in the hive that they cannot remove. They collect water to air-condition the hive and to dilute the honey when they consume it. A populous colony in a desirable location may, in a year’s time, collect and carry into the hive as much as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of nectar, water, and pollen. + +Bees secrete beeswax in tiny flakes on the underside of the abdomen and mold it into honeycomb, thin-walled, back-to-back, six-sided cells. The use of the cell varies depending on the needs of the colony. Honey or pollen may be stored in some cells, while the queen lays eggs, normally one per cell, in others. The area where the bees develop from the eggs is called the broodnest. Generally, honey is stored toward the top of the combs and pollen in cells around the broodnest below the honey. +The bees maintain a uniform temperature of about 93 °F (34 °C) in the broodnest regardless of outside temperature. The colony can survive daily maximum temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) if water is available with which they can air-condition the cluster. When the temperature falls below about 57 °F (14 °C), the bees cease flying, form a tight cluster to conserve heat, and await the return of warm weather. They can survive for several weeks in temperatures of −50 °F (−46 °C). +When summer flowers bloom in profusion, the queen’s egg-laying is stimulated, the cluster expands, and honey accumulates in the combs. When the large number of young bees emerge, the domicile becomes crowded. + +When the colony becomes crowded with adult bees and there are insufficient cells in which the queen can lay large numbers of eggs, the worker bees select a dozen or so tiny larvae that would otherwise develop into worker bees. These larvae are fed copiously with royal jelly, a whitish food with the consistency of mayonnaise, produced by certain brood-food glands in the heads of the worker bees. The cell in which the larva is developing is drawn out downward and enlarged to permit development of the queen. Shortly before these virgin queens emerge as adults from their queen cells, the mother queen departs from the beehive with the swarm. Swarming usually occurs during the middle of a warm day, when the queen and a portion of the worker bees (usually from 5,000 to 25,000) suddenly swirl out of the hive and into the air. After a few minutes’ flight, the queen alights, preferably on a branch of a tree but sometimes on a roof, a parked automobile, or even a fire hydrant. All the bees settle into a tight cluster around her while a handful of scouts reconnoitre a new homesite. +When the scout bees have located a new domicile, the cluster breaks. The swarm takes to the air and in a swirling mass proceeds to the new home. Swarming is the bees’ natural method of propagation or increase. + +Back in the parent colony, the first queen to emerge after the mother queen departs with the swarm immediately attempts to destroy the others. If two or more emerge at the same time, they fight to the death. When the surviving virgin is about a week old, she soars off on her mating flight. To maintain genetic diversity within a colony, a queen frequently mates with more than one drone (called polyandry) while in the air. She may repeat the mating flights for two or three successive days, after which she begins egg laying. She rarely ever leaves the hive again except with a swarm. Normally, sufficient sperm are stored in her sperm pouch, or spermatheca, to fertilize all the eggs she will lay for the rest of her life. The drones die in the act of mating. +The queen can live up to five years, although many beekeepers replace the queen every year or two. If she is accidentally killed or begins to falter in her egg-laying efficiency, the worker bees will rear a “supersedure” queen that will mate and begin egg laying without a swarm emerging. She ignores the mother queen, who soon disappears from the colony. + +Worker bees live about six weeks during the active season but may live for several months if they emerge as adults in the fall and spend the winter in the cluster. As the name implies, worker bees do all the work of the hive, except the egg laying. + +Drones are reared only when the colony is populous and there are plentiful sources of nectar and pollen. They usually live a few weeks, but they are driven from the hive to perish when fall or an extended period of adversity comes upon the colony. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen. +The queen can lay drone (unfertilized) eggs in the drone cells. If she is not allowed to mate or if her supply of sperm is exhausted, she will lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells. The development of unfertilized eggs into adult drones is known as parthenogenesis. Occasionally a colony may become queenless and unable to develop another queen. Then some of the worker bees begin to lay eggs, often several to a cell, and these develop into drones. A colony that has developed laying workers is difficult to requeen with a laying queen. +The beekeeper’s year starts in early fall. At that time he requeens the colonies whose queens are not producing adequate amounts of brood and makes sure that each colony has sufficient stores: at least 50 pounds (22 kilograms) of honey and several frames filled with pollen. Some beekeepers also feed the drug fumagillin to reduce possible damage to the adult bees by nosema disease (see below Disease and pest control). The colonies need a sunny exposure and protection from cold winds. Some beekeepers in northern and mountainous areas wrap their colonies with insulating material in winter. A few beekeepers kill their bees in the fall, harvest the honey, store the empty equipment, then restock with a two- or three-pound (0.8- or 1.4-kilogram) package of bees and a young queen the following spring. +If the colonies are well prepared in the fall, they need little attention during the winter. But in early spring an examination of the colonies by the beekeeper is important. Frequently, strong colonies exhaust their food supply and starve only a few days before flowers begin to bloom in abundance. Only a few pounds of sugar syrup, 50-50 sugar water, or a honey-filled comb from another more prosperous colony might save such a starving colony. Again fumagillin may be fed to the colony, and some beekeepers also feed a cake of pollen substitute or pollen supplement. Honey is not fed to the colonies unless the beekeeper is sure about its source. Honey from colonies affected by the brood disease American foulbrood could infect his colonies and cause a serious loss. +As the spring season advances, the cluster size increases from the low population of 10,000 to 20,000 bees that survived the winter. To accommodate the increased size of the cluster and broodnest, the keeper adds more supers, or boxes of combs. If the combs are so manipulated that the queen can continually expand her egg-laying area upward, the colony is unlikely to swarm. This can be achieved by placing empty combs or combs in which brood is about ready to emerge at the top of the cluster and combs filled with eggs or young brood toward the lower part of the broodnest. The beekeeper wants the colony to reach its peak of population, 50,000 to 60,000 bees, at the beginning of the major nectar flow. +The bees in a swarm, having departed the hive with a full stomach of honey, rarely sting. The usual way to capture them is to place a hive or upturned box beneath or nearby, then shake or smoke the bees to force the queen and a majority of the bees into it. The others follow. After the swarm is safely inside the box, it can be removed to a permanent location. +Regulations governing the keeping of bees usually require the bees to be kept in hives with movable combs. If the bees are captured in a box, they are generally transferred into a movable-frame hive within a few days so the new honey and comb will not be lost in the transfer. + +When a beekeeper requeens a colony, he removes the failing or otherwise undesirable queen and places a new one in a screen cage in the broodnest. After a few days the colony becomes adjusted to her and she can be released from the cage. A strange queen placed in the cluster without this temporary protection usually will be killed at once by the workers. Queens usually are shipped in individual cages of about three cubic inches (50 cubic centimetres) with about half a dozen attendant bees and a ball of specially prepared sugar candy plugging one end of the cage. When the cage is placed in the hive, the bees from both sides eat the candy. By the time the candy is consumed and the bees reach each other, their odours have become indistinguishable, and the queen emerges from the cage into the colony and begins her egg-laying duties. +Beekeeping equipment +Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells. + +The worker bee sting is barbed, and in the act of stinging it is torn from the bee. It has a venom-filled poison sac and muscles attached that continue to work the sting deeper into the flesh for several minutes and increase the amount of venom injected. To prevent this, the sting should be scraped loose (rather than grasped and pulled out) at once. Bee stings are painful, and no one becomes immune to the pain. Immunity to the swelling is usually built up after a few stings, however. +Normal reaction to a bee sting is immediate, intense pain at the site of the sting. This lasts for a minute or two and is followed by a reddening, which may spread an inch or more. Swelling may not become apparent until the following day. Occasionally, acute allergic reactions develop from a sting, usually with persons who have other allergic problems. Such a reaction becomes evident in less than an hour and may consist of extreme difficulty in breathing, heart irregularity, shock, splotched skin, and speech difficulty. Such persons should obtain the services of a medical doctor immediately. +Honey is marketed in several different forms: liquid honey, comb honey, and creamed honey. Sometimes the predominant floral type from which the honey was collected is indicated. +Liquid honey +If liquid (strained, extracted) honey is desired, additional supers are added directly above the brood nest. When one is largely filled, it is raised and another is placed underneath. This may continue until several have been filled, each holding from 30 to 50 pounds (14 to 23 kilograms), or until the nectar flow has ended. After the bees have evaporated the water until the honey is of the desired consistency and sealed in the cells, the combs are removed, the cells uncapped with the uncapping knife, and the honey extracted. The removed honey is immediately heated to about 140 °F (60 °C), which thins it and destroys yeasts that can cause fermentation. It is then strained of wax particles and pollen grains, cooled rapidly, and packaged for market. +In production of honey in the comb, or comb honey, extreme care is necessary to prevent the bees’ swarming. The colony must be strong, and the bees must be crowded into the smallest space they will tolerate without swarming. New frames or sections of a frame with extra-thin foundation wax, added at exactly the right time for the bees to fill without destroying them, are placed directly above the brood nest. The bees must fill and seal the new comb to permit removal within a few days, or it will be of inferior quality. As rapidly as sections are removed, new sections are added, until the nectar flow subsides. Then these are removed and the colony given combs to store its honey for the winter. +Creamed honey +Almost all honey will granulate or turn to sugar. Such honey can be liquefied without materially affecting its quality by placing the container in water heated to about 150 °F (66 °C). Liquid and granulated honey is sometimes blended, homogenized, and held at a cool temperature, which speeds uniformly fine granulation. If properly processed, the granules will be extremely fine; the honey, which has a smooth, creamy appearance, is referred to as creamed honey. + +Some honeys are sold by floral type; that is, they are given the name of the predominant flowers visited by the bees when they accumulated the honey. The beekeeper has no way to direct the bees to a particular source of food but through experience learns which plants are the major sources of honey. Different flowers produce different colours and flavours of honey. It may be heavy-bodied or thin-bodied, dark or light, mild-flavoured or strong-flavoured. Most honey has been blended by the beekeeper to a standard grade that can be supplied and marketed year after year. + +Beeswax is a by-product of beekeeping in most areas. When beekeepers uncap or break honeycombs or have unusable combs, they try to salvage the beeswax. First, they recover as much honey from the combs as possible by drainage or extraction. Then they place the material in water heated to slightly over 145 °F (63 °C). This melts the wax, which rises to the surface. After it cools and hardens, the cake of wax is removed and refined for reuse in comb foundation. Beeswax has many other uses: in quality candles, cosmetics, agriculture, art, and industry. In some areas bees are manipulated primarily for wax production. Wax is a highly stable commodity that can be transported long distances under unfavourable conditions without damage.Queens are reared for sale to other beekeepers for requeening established colonies or for adding to a 2- or 3-pound (0.9- or 1.4-kilogram) package of 8,000 to 10,000 live bees to form new colonies or replenish weak ones. The queens are produced when the beekeeper cages the reigning queen in a colony, then inserts into the cluster from 30 to 60 queen cell bases into which young (one-day-old) worker larvae have been transferred. Queens can be artificially inseminated with sperm from drones of a known source, but most beekeepers let the queens mate naturally. The live bees are shaken from the combs of the colony through a funnel into screen-wire cages. +The greatest value of bees is in their service as pollinators. Some 90 crops grown in the United States alone are dependent on insect pollination, performed primarily by the honeybee. The average colony of bees is worth from 20 to 40 times as much in the pollination of crops as it is in the production of honey. The value of bees in the pollination of ornamental plants has never been calculated. Bees are also valuable in the pollination of some forest and range plants that produce seeds on which birds and other wildlife feed. +When bees are used in the pollination of crops, the beekeeper places the colonies within or adjacent to the field to be pollinated. The majority of the roughly 1,000,000 colonies that are used for pollination are used in alfalfa-seed fields and almond and apple orchards. The colonies are distributed at the rate of two or more per acre in groups every 0.1 mile (0.16 kilometre) throughout alfalfa fields. Two colonies per acre are recommended for almond orchards and about one colony per acre in apple orchards. +Some growers prefer to have the colonies placed alongside the orchard; others want them distributed in small groups within the orchard. Bees also are used regularly by growers of many other crops: blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, clovers, cucumbers, cranberries, cutflower seed, plums and prunes, vetch, and watermelon. + +Honeybees have diseases and enemies: diseases of the brood; diseases that affect only the adult bees; insect enemies of the adults and of the comb; and other enemies, including toads, lizards, birds, mice, skunks, and bears. +American foulbrood, caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus larvae, is the most serious brood disease. It occurs throughout the world wherever bees are kept and affects workers, drones, and queens. The spores are highly resistant to heat and chemicals. A comb containing brood severely infected with this disease has a mottled appearance caused by the mixture of healthy capped brood interspersed with diseased or empty cells formerly occupied by diseased brood. The decayed mass has a typical ropiness when dug into, which is one of its identifying characteristics. +American foulbrood can be spread to healthy colonies by transferring equipment or allowing the bees to feed on honey from infected colonies. Sulfathiazole and Terramycin are widely used to control the disease. Many countries and most states in the U.S. require the destruction by fire of diseased colonies and have apiary inspectors to enforce the regulations. + +European foulbrood is caused by a nonsporeforming bacterium, Streptococcus pluton, but Bacillus alvie and Acromobacter eurydice are often associated with Streptococcus pluton. This disease is similar in appearance to American foulbrood. In some instances it severely affects the colonies, but they recover so that colony destruction is not necessary. Terramycin can control the disease. + +Sacbrood is caused by a virus and is superficially similar to the foulbrood diseases. It can appear and disappear spontaneously but is seldom serious. No chemical control is needed. If the problem persists, the beekeeper usually requeens the colony. + +Chalk brood is caused by the fungus Ascosphaera apis. The larvae victims of this disease have a chalky white appearance. Stonebrood, which affects both brood and adults, is also caused by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus, which can usually be isolated from bees that have stonebrood. + +Nosema disease, caused by the microsporidian Nosema apis, is the most serious disease of adult bees. It is widespread, causes heavy losses in honey production, and severely weakens colonies. The external symptoms of bees with nosema disease are not apparent. The disease is transmitted from adult to adult by ingestion of the spores that soon germinate in the ventriculus, or main, stomach. An infected ventriculus is normally swollen, soft, and grayish white. A degree of control may be obtained by feeding the colony the drug fumagillin. + +Acarine disease is caused by the mite Acarapis woodi that gets into the tracheae of the bee through its breathing holes or spiracles in its thorax or midsection. Bees affected by this mite are unable to fly, have disjointed wings and distended abdomens. There is presently no good control for this mite. The only U.S. federal law pertaining to bees was passed to prevent the importation of adult bees carrying this mite into the United States. Two other mites, Varroa destructor and Tropilaelaps clareae, which are native to Asia, are serious problems for beekeepers. V. destructor is now commonly found in Europe and North America, where it is capable of devastating entire colonies of honeybees. +There are other minor diseases of adult bees, but they seldom cause serious problems. + +The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a lepidopterous insect that, in its larval stage, destroys combs. It does not attack adult bees but may begin destruction of combs of a weak colony long before the bees are gone. It can also destroy stored combs of honey. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they often eat out a place to spin their cocoons in the soft wood of the beehive, damaging frames and other hive parts. The best control for this pest is keeping colonies strong. Stored combs are fumigated, kept in a cold room, or stacked in such a way that a strong air draft flows around them. +The larvae of the lesser wax moth, Achroia grisella, cause damage to stored combs similar to that of the greater wax moth. The Mediterranean flour moth larva, Anagasta kuehniella, feeds on pollen in the combs and causes some damage. Control for both of these moths is the same as for the greater wax moth. + +The bee louse, Braula caeca, is a tiny, wingless member of the fly family that is occasionally found on bees. It feeds on nectar or honey from the mouthparts of its host. Its larvae burrow in the cappings of honey combs. + +Ants sometimes invade hives and disrupt or kill the bees. Termites can damage or destroy hive parts placed on the soil. Other insects, such as dragonflies (Odonata), robberflies (Diptera), praying mantises (Orthoptera), ambush bugs (Hemiptera), and certain wasps and yellow jackets (Hymenoptera) are natural enemies of the honeybee. + +Mice frequently enter the hive in winter when the bees are clustered, or they get into stored combs and despoil or damage them by chewing the frames and combs to construct their nest. Skunks devour large numbers of bees at the hive entrance, usually at night. Fences, traps, and poison are used against them. Bears eat the honeybees and the brood in the hive, usually destroying it and its contents in the process. In bear country, electric fences and traps are used to protect bee colonies. + +At times bees become their own deadly enemy. If honey is exposed to them when no flowers are in bloom and the weather is mild, the bees from different colonies will fight over it. Sometimes this fighting, or robbing, becomes intense and spreads from hive to hive in moblike action. If all the bees in one colony are killed, the honey is quickly stolen and carried into other hives. This further intensifies the robbing so that a cluster that was carrying honey into its hive a few minutes earlier is attacked, all of its occupants killed, the honey again stolen, and the process repeated. Usually, once robbing becomes intense, only darkness or foul weather will stop it. + +One of the most mysterious disorders to strike honeybee colonies in the modern era is colony collapse disorder (CCD). It is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. While the underlying cause is not known, it appears that the disorder affects the adult bees’ ability to navigate. They leave the hive to find pollen and never return. Honey and pollen are usually present in the hive, and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may remain in the brood nest. CCD is also characterized by delayed robbing of the honey in the dead colonies by other, healthy bee colonies in the immediate area, as well as slower than normal invasion by common pests, such as wax moths and small hive beetles. The disorder appears to affect only the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). + +CCD was first reported in autumn 2006 by a commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania, who had colony losses estimated at 80 to 90 percent. Colony losses continued to be reported by other beekeepers in 35 states throughout the United States during the spring and summer of 2007, with many beekeepers losing anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. Beekeepers in other countries, including Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, France, and Switzerland, also reported substantial losses of honeybees. In the following years, the syndrome continued to impact honeybee colonies, though the percentage of colonies lost annually appeared to decline. Nonetheless, the potential economic impact on agriculture is great; annually in the United States alone an estimated $15 billion of crops are pollinated by honeybees. + +Studies of adult honeybee carcasses from affected colonies indicate that the bees are infected with a number of pathogens and parasites, including viruses, species of Nosema, and the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis. However, scientists have not reached a definitive conclusion on whether a single pathogen is the root cause of the disorder, and many scientists suspect that a combination of factors are involved, such as a weakened immune system, brought on by colony stress, and the presence of pathogens, which are a constant threat and can be numerous in honeybee colonies. In addition, pesticides such as neonicotinoids (insecticides based on derivatives of nicotine) can be toxic to honeybees and are suspected of causing or contributing to CCD. + +Bees and beekeeping have been subjects of vital importance in the world's agricultural literature for centuries. Special Collections holds many resources that trace the history of beekeeping from the earliest published works on honeybee husbandry, such as the 1572 edition of Thomas Hill's A pleasant instruction of the parfit ordering of Bees. Other works mark the advancement of scientific knowledge about bees. An example of this is Charles Butler's The Feminine Monarchie: or The Historie of Bees (originally published in 1609). Butler was among the earliest observers to recognize that worker bees were female instead of male, as was commonly believed when he first published his book in 1609 (Special Collections has the 1623 and 1634 editions). + +Among Special Collections' historical resources on bee culture are numerous illustrated works showing the wide variety of hives and equipment that were used in the United States and around the world. In addition to rare books, nursery and seed trade catalogs advertising beekeepers' supplies provide glimpses into the art and craft of beekeeping. + +Starting a honey bee colony with a package +purchased from a reputable producer is a good +way to insure the colony you have is healthy and of +a particular race or hybrid. A package should be +installed in the early spring to take advantage of the +nectar flow. +A package consists of a known amount (by +weight) of bees and a caged queen shipped in a screen +box containing a feeder can of sugar syrup. Packages +can be bought in 2-, 3- and 5-pound sizes. One pound +contains about 4000 bees. They should be ordered +long before you want to receive them, ideally in the +Fall. +Inspect the package. If the majority of the workers +are dead or the queen is dead, contact your supplier +for instructions and possible replacement. If all is well, +place the bees in a cool, dark place until early evening. + +Installing apackage of bees into a single deep hive body. the feeder can is resting of the corner of the hive. +Installation +The cage should be installed into one single +deep or two medium hive bodies. You can use all +new foundation, drawn comb or a mixture. If using a +mixture, put the drawn comb in the center to facilitate +egg-laying there. Make sure the drawn comb was +taken from healthy colonies. +In the early evening, take the package to the +apiary. Spray more sugar solution onto the sides of the +package. Remove the outer and inner covers from the +hive. Remove four or five frames from one end of the +hive body or both bodies (medium body). Spray sugar +solution lightly onto the remaining frames and on the +inner walls of the hive body. +Remove the top cover and feeder can from the +package. Remove the queen cage from the package +and cover the opening of the package. Remove the +cork from the end of the queen cage plugged with +candy and use a nail to poke a hole in the candy, +being careful not to harm the queen. Suspend the +cage, candy end up, between the two center frames +of those remaining in the hive body. For medium +hive bodies, suspend the cage within the bottom hive +body. Remove the cover from the hole in the top of the +package, shake about a cupful of bees onto the queen +cage then place the package, with the hole end up, in +the open space within the hive. +Replace the inner cover and place a feeder can +with a 2:1 sugar solution and Fumidil-BTM(according +to label directions) over the opening in the inner cover. +(Be sure the queen cage is not directly below the inner +cover opening.) Place an empty super on the inner +cover around the feeder can and cover this with the +outer cover. Partially block the hive entrance with +a entrance reducer or grass and leave it blocked for +about a month. +Check the queen cage in three days to see if the +queen has been released. If she has not been released, +remove the screen and let her walk into the colony. +Then, do not disturb the colony for 10 days. At this +time, examine the frames for a brood pattern. If a +brood pattern and eggs are found, then you have +successfully installed the package. Remove the +package container and replace the frames removed +earlier. Close the colony. + +Other Methods of Bee Installation +There are variations of the installation method +mentioned above, including differences in releasing +the queen and the workers. After suspending the +queen cage, gently shake the bees from the package +onto the bottom board. Lightly mist the bees with +sugar solution. Replace the frames, being careful not to crush any bees. Close the hive and proceed as +above. +Another method of queen introduction is to place +the queen cage on the bottom board, shake a cupful +of bees onto the cage, then shake the remaining bees +onto the bottom board. +Also, the queen may be released more +immediately by removing the cork-only plug end of +queen cage. But likelihood of queen acceptance is +reduced using this method of release. + +Before entering the apiary, suit up in appropriate attire. If not wearing a bee suit (Beekeeping Protective Gear), dress in light-colored, cotton or rip-stop nylon clothing. Always wear a veil. Wrap the bottoms of your pants’ legs around the top of your boots and secure them in place with a rubber band or tape. Bees drop from handled frames to the ground and may crawl up your legs as you work around the hive. Gloves are optional. Beginners should wear gloves until they feel confident without them. +Light your smoker and fill the chamber with fuel. +Approach the colony from the rear or the side. Always work the colony from the rear or the side. Apply two gentle puffs of smoke into the entrance. Pry the outer cover up 2 to 3 inches along one side. Lightly puff under the outer space and replace it. Wait about 30 seconds before removing the outer and inner covers. + +Gently remove the outer cover and place it on the ground, upside down, near the colony. It can be used as a base for stacking supers or brood chambers that you remove as you inspect the colony. Gently remove the inner cover and lean it near the entrance so that clinging bees can reenter the hive. Do not block the +entrance with the inner cover. + +When removing and handling frames, work with slow, steady movements. Avoid bumping or shaking motions that may shake bees off the frame. Lightly smoke bees to manipulate their movement, such as when you need to examine frames for eggs. Before replacing a frame, smoke the bees out of the way to avoid crushing them. + +Do not leave colonies open for too long. Bees may get overly defensive and an open hive may initiate robbing behavior. Before closing the hive, use smoke to move bees back onto the frames from the edge and outside walls of hive bodies. + +Open a colony when the temperature is 55 degrees F or warmer, the sun is shining, the bees are flying and the wind is calm. Open and inspect colonies once a week during spring build-up and honey production. Colonies should be opened and inspected one or more times each month from February through November. + +Items you should bring to the apiary or that you should keep on hand: + +• Extra hive tool or tools, gloves, veil, bee suit and +smoker. + +• Matches or lighter. + +• Dry smoker fuel. + +• Extra frames with drawn comb or new foundation, +and extra hive bodies. + +• Container to collect wax scrapings or propolis. + +• Jars or sealable bags to collect bees for mite testing +or comb for disease identification. + +• Queen excluders. + +• Entrance reducers. + +• Heavy fabric, such as burlap, or extra inner or outer +covers to protect uncovered colonies or supers from +robbing bees. + +• Newspaper for uniting colonies. + +• Permanent marking pen or pencil. + +• Extra queen cages and queen marking paint. + +• A sting kit for those allergic to bees (Epipen™), first aid kit and other medications for the beekeeper. + +Inspecting a frame of brood. +To inspect a colony you must open it up and look inside (See Working with a Bee Colony). Once inside, pry the outside frame of the brood chamber loose. +Remove the frame from the body and hold it in front +of you with one hand on each end of the top bar. If +possible, position yourself so that the sun is shining +over your shoulder and onto the frame. Observe the +bees and the frame. +Honey bee eggs and young larvae. +Inspect the brood frames for: + +• Healthy larvae. Larvae should be pearly white. Gray, +yellow, brown or black larvae are diseased, chilled or +injured. + +• Eggs standing in the bottom of cells. Recently laid +eggs will be standing on end in the bottom of cells, +one egg per cell. As they age, they gradually fall to +one side. Two or more eggs on the sides of the cell are +from a laying worker. + +• Cell caps of healthy brood. These will be convex and +tan. Cell caps of unhealthy brood are often concave +and perforated with small holes. +A healthy brood frame. +• Area of cells with brood. A prolific queen will have +a laying pattern of brood with very few skipped +cells over most of the frame. The pattern should be +compact and in a semicircle, usually occurring over +the bottom half of the frame. + +• Honey and pollen stores. Honey should appear +adjacent to the brood pattern. Adequate honey stores +will vary with colony size. Pollen is stored in cells +adjacent to honey. +Remove and inspect all of the frames that contain +brood. After inspection of a frame, place it in the +hive body toward the side from which you removed +the outside frame. After completing your inspection, +replace the frames in their original order and close the +hive. +When you open a colony for inspection, you +can also perform other tasks necessary for colony +maintenance, such as feeding, treating with antibiotics +or miticides, replacing damaged combs with frames +containing new foundation, adding an empty super or +removing a super of honey. Prepare the items you need +in advance and have them near when you open the +colony. + +Items you should bring to the apiary or that you should keep on hand: + +Extra hive tool or tools, gloves, veil, bee suit and smoker. +Matches or lighter. +Dry smoker fuel. +Extra frames with drawn comb or new foundation, and extra hive bodies. +Container to collect wax scrapings or propolis. +Jars or sealable bags to collect bees for mite testing or comb for disease identification. +Queen excluders. +Entrance reducers. +Heavy fabric, such as burlap, or extra inner or outer covers to protect uncovered colonies or supers from robbing bees. +Newspaper for uniting colonies. +Permanent marking pen or pencil. +Extra queen cages and queen marking paint. +A sting kit for those allergic to bees (Epipen™), first aid kit and other medications for the beekeeper. + +What is a swarm? Swarming is the natural mode +of reproduction for a honey bee colony in spring. +Swarming is induced as bees increase their population +size and require more space. A swarm usually consists +of the old queen (sometimes a new one) and 50 to 60 +percent of the worker bees in the swarming colony. +Workers preparing to swarm engorge themselves +on honey and force the old queen out of the hive. +Changing weather conditions from cool and rainy to +warm and sunny seem to stimulate the natural urge of +bees to swarm.Bees on exposed comb. +Most swarms leave the colony in good weather +between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., fly to a nearby tree or +bush and land on a limb. Immediately after landing +and for the next 24 to 36 hours, the bees are very +docile; they are interested in swarming, not in +defending their colony. Scout bees come out of the +cluster of the swarm and search the local area for +a protected location for the colony. The scout bees +communicate the information to the swarm and a +“decision” is made, whereupon the bees leave the +branch and proceed to their new location. +After arriving at the new location, or rarely if +the swarming bees have failed to find a location (see +photo at right), the bees start to build wax comb and the +queen lays eggs to start a new brood nest. After brood +production commences, the new colony will become +defensive of its new home. + +Preparing for a “Swarm Call” +As a beekeeper you may be contacted by +neighbors, businesses and the county Extension office +as early as the month of March to go out and collect +a swarm. This request is a “swarm call.” Collecting +a swarm can be exciting, fun and a good way to start +a new colony with less expense. However, you must +be prepared to go and get the swarm at a moment’s +notice, because the swarm may depart quickly, not +“waiting” for you to get ready. You may want to +give your name and phone number to your county +Extension office so that your name can be put on a list +of beekeepers who are willing to retrieve swarms. + +A swarm in a pine tree. +• Anticipate the call by finding a container to hold +the swarm (a cardboard box will do, but a hive body +with bottom and top works better); prepare sugar +syrup (1:1 sugar/water) in a squirt bottle; collect +smoker, fuel and matches, a strap to hold lid/top on +container, bee veil and a ladder. + +• When the person calls announcing he or she needs +someone to retrieve a swarm, you should tell the +caller not to disturb the swarm or spray it with water, +soap or pesticide. + +• The caller may be excited or even alarmed. Calm +the caller by explaining what is happening and that +swarming honey bees are not defensive or dangerous +unless disturbed. + +• Explain that a swarm will usually move from the +original location within 24 to 48 hours; therefore, if +a beekeeper is not available to collect the bees from +a homeowner’s property, the bees will normally leave +without causing a problem. + +• Ask questions to improve your chance of success in +collecting the swarm. +Questions to Ask about Swarms: + +1. Are these really honey bees? Ask them what the +“cluster looks like.” You do not want yellowjackets +or hornets. Has anyone disturbed the cluster? + +2. Get permission from the landowner/homeowner to +collect the swarm from his or her property. + +3. Be sure to write down the name, address and +phone number, including work number of the +homeowner or someone who will be on site. + +4. Ask for directions of how to find the swarm +location, including where on the property. + +5. How long have the bees been there? + +6. How high off the ground are they? Will you need a +ladder? + +7. How big is the swarm (beach ball, football size, +etc.)? + +8. Ask the caller if it’s all right (or acceptable) if +you snip a branch of the tree or bush holding the +swarm. + + +A swarm that’s easy to collect! + + +How to Collect a Swarm – This Is the Fun Part! +Let’s start with an “ideal swarm” example to start +with. This swarm has formed in a small tree, 5 feet +above level ground in a fenced yard. The homeowner +reports the swarm has been there only 20 minutes. + +• Place the whole cluster of bees, including the queen, +directly into an empty hive body or nucleus (smaller +version). This way frames can be gradually added to +this “colony” and there is no need to shift the bees +into a hive later. Some beekeepers like to lay the +cluster down on a sheet in front of the hive and let +the bees walk into the hive on their own. This is your +choice. + +• Mist the hanging cluster of bees lightly as well as the +inside surfaces of the hive body and frames (those +that can fit in easily with the swarm) with 1:1 sugar: +water syrup. + +• If the bees are clustered on a low branch, snip it and +carefully lower the branch and bees into the hive. + +• If it’s not possible to cut the branch, then place the +hive body below and surrounding the bottom of +the cluster, if possible. Then shake the branch to +dislodge the bees into the hive body. If shaking isn’t +an option, then gently brush or scoop the bees with a +gloved hand down into the hive body. + +• Add frames gradually to the middle area to fill the +box as bees move up onto frame surfaces. + +• Carefully look on the branch for a missed queen and +scoop any clusters gently into the box. + +• Crack the lid on the box for a few minutes to allow +stragglers to find the new colony. +You may need to leave the new colony in this +location overnight if many bees are flying around. In +other situations everything happens quickly and you +can put them in and leave within a few minutes. This +may depend, in part, on how long the swarm has been +in this location. +Attach the top to the hive body and secure +window screen in the entrance with staples to keep +bees inside while providing ventilation. Strap the unit +together and move it to the new location. +You will need to modify this method to fit your +unique situation. Not all swarms cluster this close to +the ground on an easy-to-reach branch. You will need +to decide if the swarm is too high or on a structure +that is out of reach for safe retrieval. We have collected +swarms from interesting places such as vehicles, +grocery shopping carts, mailboxes, statues and from +eaves of buildings. + +The most common reasons for dividing a colony +are swarm prevention and the need to increase colony +numbers. A strong colony can be divided into two +or three colonies (splits). The number of splits will +depend on the amount of brood present in the parent +colony. For each split, you need three to five frames +of brood and a couple of food frames with pollen and +honey. Be careful not to split a colony too many times +or wait until it’s too late in the year, because the small +colony needs time to build up for winter. +Tip: Lightly misting the frames and bees in the +splits with a 1:1 sugar:water solution will calm the +bees, and occupy them while they get acquainted with +their new home, especially if you intend to mix brood +from one or more colonies to form the split. + +Contents +1 When Should a Colony Be Divided? +2 To Divide a Colony with Queen Cells: +3 To Divide a Colony and Produce a Queen from Eggs: +4 Dividing a Colony and Requeening with Purchased Queens. + + +When Should a Colony Be Divided? +A colony can be divided when it has a large +population of bees, at least 10 frames of brood and +appears overcrowded. When you open a crowded +colony, bees tend to “pour over” the top of the +frames. In the spring, a large colony preparing to +swarm is an excellent candidate to divide. Prior to +swarming, a colony produces many (sometimes 10 or +more) queen cells (called swarm cells) on the bottom +portion of frames in the brood area. Once the queen +cells are capped, swarming is imminent unless you +act quickly to “convince” the bees that they have +already swarmed. Dividing the colony is one method +to reduce overcrowding in the brood area and in the +honey storage area as well. Prior to making the splits +you need to determine how many can be made and +how to provide queens for the parent colony and/orsplits. To provide a queen you can use queen cells +or eggs from the parent colony or purchase queens +from a queen producer. + + +To Divide a Colony with Queen Cells: +1) Set up hive stands and organize all equipment +to be used for the new colony(ies). You will need +bottom, inner and top covers, supers and frames. +If using foundation when there is no honey flow, +you will need to feed sugar syrup (see feeding bees). + +2) Open the parent colony with minimum smoke +and find the queen. Place the frame with her in the +new colony. This will give the parent colony the +illusion that the queen has swarmed. Determine +the number of frames of brood and food in the +colony being divided. + +3) Place the split without the old queen in the +location of the parent colony. The older foraging +workers will return to the parent colony. + +4) Carefully remove brood frames that contain +queen cells to an empty hive body. Queen cells are +easily damaged. Do not leave the frame exposed to +sun and do not turn the queen cells upside down. + +5) Place a frame having two or three large, wellshaped +queen cells into the queenless split adjacent +to other brood combs and destroy the queen cells +that you do not need. + +6) Place three to five frames of brood near the +center of the super in each new colony and provide +enough bees to completely cover the brood. + +7) Add at least one frame of pollen and one frame +of honey, placing them outside the brood. + +8) Provide at least two frames of empty drawn +comb (preferred) or two frames of foundation on +the outside of the brood area. + +9) Place a super, containing drawn comb or +foundation, above the brood chamber. + +10) Add a top feeder if there is no honey flow (see +feeding bees). + +11) Do not disturb for 14 days. At this point, check +for a laying queen in both splits. + + +To Divide a Colony and Produce a Queen from Eggs: +Follow the procedure above; however, rather than +providing splits with queen cells, you will be giving +them frames with eggs to make their own queen. Eight +to 10 days later, check for queen cell formation. Be +careful not to damage the queen cells. At this time, +destroy all but two or three of the largest, best-shaped, +capped queen cells. Do not disturb for 14 days. Then +check for a laying queen. + + +Dividing a Colony and Requeening with Purchased Queens. +Follow the procedure for dividing as explained +above with these changes/options: + +1) If you plan to put new queens in both splits, +order new queens in advance. Place the queen +shipping cage, with the cork removed from the +candy end, between two frames of capped brood in +each queenless colony (see Queen Marking and Requeening). +Return in three days to see if the queen has been +released. If she has been released, do not disturb +for 10 days, then check for a laying queen. If she is +still in the cage, poke a hole through the candy to +speed up her release and check again in three days. + +2) If you want to save the old queen, leave her in +the original location and move the split to another +location. When you divide the brood, give the split +more capped brood, because these newly emerged +bees will accept a new queen more readily than +will older workers. + +Two methods may be used. The simplest method +is to move the colony in small increments, about +one yard each day. If a colony is moved more than +a yard per day, returning foragers will be confused +and you will lose some of the field bees. The second +method involves removing the colony to a site several +miles away for several days to allow foraging bees to “forget” the old location. Then return the colony +to the new site in the original apiary where they will +“learn,” and become oriented to, the new location. + + +Secure the Colony before Moving + +Colony secured with a locking strap. + + +Locking straps can be used to secure the +colony for moving. A strap should be placed around +an entire individual colony and tightened firmly. +Additional strapping to secure the colonies within +the transporting vehicle or trailer will be necessary to +prevent movement or shifting during the move. For +ease of use, strapping is the preferred method. +Stapling is another method of securing colonies +for transport. All the outside parts of a beehive are +stapled together with 2 3/4-inch hive staples. Drive +the staples in at the four corners, fastening each part +to the part above and below. This can be done during +the day in preparation for moving in the evening after +dark. Using staples, however, will damage hive bodies, +promote wood decay and agitate the bees during +stapling. +Before moving a hive, remove the surplus supers +of honey down to the brood chamber(s) and one empty +super. Excess honey supers increase weight and make +strapping more difficult. + + +Ventilate the Bees for the Move + +Entrance screen for moving bees. + + +Remove the inner cover and nail a screened +cooling board over the top to close and ventilate the +top of the hive. A cooling board is a plywood panel the +size of an inner cover with a large, centrally located, +screened window. An inner cover with the center hole +screened can be used for a short distance move. In +cool weather, a cooling board may not be necessary. +To screen the entrance for a short-distance move, +plastic window screen may be stapled across the +entrance. For longer distances, an entrance screen can +be made by constructing a frame with 11⁄2-inch by 1⁄2- +inch pieces of wood that will fit between the bottom +board cleats, against the front of the hive body to +cover the entrance. The bottom of the frame is made +with a 3/4-inch piece to cover without blocking the +entrance. The frame is covered with metal window +screen wire. The screened frame encloses a screened +porch on the front of the hive. Air will circulate +through the entrance and out the top to keep the bees +cool in transit. + + +When to Move a Colony +Moving at nighttime is best, because all the +field bees should be in the colony. A daytime move, +especially a long-distance one, would result in the loss +of foraging bees returning to the old location. The +bees will return to the hive at dusk or a little later. +Have everything in place except the entrance screen. +Attach the entrance screen with two wood screws +through the two end bars and load the colony for +moving to a new location. +Place the colony on a base at the new location. +Smoke the entrance and remove the screen. Place the +inner and outer covers on the hive. +The bees will fill the combs and cap the honey +when they have cured it to approximately 18 percent +or less water. Some of the frames of honey may not +be capped until several days after the nectar flow +has stopped. The frames and supers of honey that +are capped can be removed from the colony. Avoid +harvesting honey in uncapped cells. It is likely to +be too high in moisture content and will ferment in +storage without additional drying. +Extract soon after removing super from the hive. +Honey must be extracted within three to four days +after removal from the hive to prevent damage by wax +moths or small hive beetles. Be prepared to extract +the honey when you remove the super from the hive. +If extraction is not possible within three or four days, +frames of honey can be stored below 32 degrees F for +long periods of time without danger of crystallization. +Open the colony and inspect the supers of honey. +Frames of capped and uncapped honey can be +exchanged between supers. The super of honey may +contain many bees. Do not use smoke to drive the bees +out of the super; excessive use of smoke may taint the +flavor of the honey. + +Contents +1 Methods to Remove Bees from Honey Supers +1.1 Bee Repellants +1.2 Air Blowers +1.3 Bee Escapes +2 If You Find Brood in Honey Supers +3 Avoid Robbing + + +Methods to Remove Bees from Honey Supers +To harvest a small amount of honey, you can +simply shake bees from individual frames. On the +ground near the colony, place an empty super inside +an outer cover turned bottom side up. An inner cover +with a bee escape (see Bee Escapes below), a flat piece +of plywood or an outer cover is needed to cover the +super as you place the frames of honey that are free of +bees into the super. Remove a frame of honey from the +super of honey taken from the colony. Hold the frame +by the ends of the top bar in front of the colony a short +distance above the entrance. One or two short, strong +shakes will dislodge all the bees. Immediately place +the frame into the empty super and cover the super to +prevent the bees from returning to the frame. Shake +the bees from the remaining frames and load the +super, keeping it completely covered except to insert +the frames of honey. This method can be used very +effectively with a small number of colonies. To remove +bees from entire supers, you can use a bee repellent, a +blower or bee escapes. + + +BEE REPELLANTS +These repellents, such as Bee Go™, are aromatic +liquids of butyric anhydride that are sprinkled in +small quantities onto a fume board, which is placed on +the top of supers. As the repellent evaporates, the odor +will drive the bees out of the super within minutes. +The fume board consists of an absorbent cloth or pad +stapled onto a wooden frame or spare inner cover. +The cloth side is placed on top of the super. Warming +an outer cover for a few minutes in the sun before +covering the fume board will accelerate the process. + + +AIR BLOWERS +Blowers may be purchased from beekeeping +supply vendors to remove bees from honey supers. +A blower is made for this purpose. Or, you can use a +blower made for home and garden use. A super must +be held upright on its side while air is blown between +the frames. Bees may be difficult to dislodge. Also, the +noise and smell of the blower may irritate bees and +make them more defensive. + + +BEE ESCAPES +Escapes provide a more passive method of bee +removal. The Porter® bee escape fits into the center +hole of an inner cover to allow bees to exit a super, but +not to re-enter it. The inner cover with bee escape is +placed between the honey supers and the brood nest. +This method works best on cool nights when bees +move down to the brood nest. Escapes usually must +be left on colonies for at least two days to insure all or +most bees have been removed. + + +If You Find Brood in Honey Supers +A queen may expand the brood nest up into the +honey supers. Check all supers of honey to be removed +for presence of brood. Locate the queen and return +her to the brood nest below. Exchange frames with +brood for frames of capped honey, consolidating all +of the brood into one super. Honey stored in brood +frames is food for the bees and should not be packed +for human consumption. Place the super with brood +on top of the brood chamber. Place a queen excluder +over the hive bodies containing brood to prevent the +queen from re-entering honey supers. + + +Avoid Robbing +Keep all frames and supers of honey sealed +during honey removal. During removal, stack supers +filled with honey between outer covers on top and +bottom to prevent robbing bees and other insects +from reaching the honey. For transport, honey supers +should be well secured. Locking straps work well for +transporting supers. + +Insulating colonies for winter can be worth the cost and effort in cold climates by insreasing winter survival. Here is one method to prepare colonies for winter: + +If you know how many bees were in your sample, you can estimate the number of mites per 100 bees. If there is brood in the colony when you sample, you should double this number to factor in the amount of mites in worker brood. For example, if there are 5 mites / 100 bees, the total infestation is probably 10 mites/100 bees. If your colony has over 10-12 mites/100 bees, you should consider treatment. + +Follow these 10 easy steps to determine the infestation level of varroa mites in a honey bee colony. + +1. The first step is to make a container with a cover made of 8×8 hardware cloth. An easy method is to use a wide-mouth canning jar. Use a ring type cover. Cut a circle of 8×8 hardware cloth the size of the cover that fits in the ring and use it instead of the cover. + + +A wide-mouth canning jar with a cover made of 8×8 hardware cloth + + +2. You will also need something white to shake the mites and powdered sugar into. You can just shake them onto a piece of paper if it is not windy. A white container works best but any light color (yellow) would be ok. + +3. Shake about 200-400 bees into the container. You can shake the bees from a frame into a bent piece of sheet metal (flashing) to help pour them into the container. + + +Remove a frame from the brood area to take a sample of bees for varroa mite sampling. + + +4. 1 fluid oz. = approximately 100 bees. 1/4 cup = approximately 200 bees. You will have to shake the bees in, then tap the bottom of the container to get all the bees on the bottom of the container to measure them. + +5. With the bees in the container place the 8×8 screen on top and secure. + + +Put about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar into container. + + +6. Put about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar into container. Shake the bees with the powdered sugar until they are well coated. Let the container sit for about 1-2 minutes. + +7. Tip the container upside down over the white container and shake the powdered sugar and mites out through the screen. + +8. Continue to shake for at least one minute to be sure you have all of the mites. + + +The mites show up easier on a white background. + + +9. Count the number of mites in the powdered sugar. If you have trouble seeing them you can add a small amount of water to dissolve the sugar, making the mites easier to see. + +10. Return the bees to their colony.The bees will survive. Once they are cleaned up they can go back to work. +We feel that the advantages of marking the +queen outweigh the disadvantages. A queen marked +with bright colored paint is easier to find. You +know the marked queen is one you introduced, not +a supersedure of unknown quality. You also know +her age. Younger queens are more prolific layers and +produce more pheromone that maintains colony +cohesion, thus making the colony less prone to +swarming and less susceptible to stressful conditions. + +How to Mark a Queen +• Practice with drones until you have confidence that +you can do it without damaging the drone. You do +not want to squeeze the abdomen or thorax and you +do not want to drop the queen. + +• Be prepared: have enamel paint and a helper’s extra +pair of hands ready, if needed, to hold the frame, +unscrew cap from paint bottle, etc. If alone, shake +paint and unscrew cap. + + +Marking a queen. + + +• Grasp queen by the wings between forefinger and +thumb of left hand so that her legs are suspended. + +• Place the forefinger of the right hand (nail side down) +below her legs and she will quickly rest her legs on it. + +• Move the thumb of right hand on top of and trapping +at least two legs (right side) with enough pressure to +hold her (see photo). If you have the legs secure she +will stop moving. + +• Release wings with left hand. + +• If alone, daub the paint onto the center of the thorax +only and hold her gently for 30 seconds to one +minute before putting her back on the frame from +which she was taken. Insert the frame back into the +colony. + +• If a helper is available to daub paint, add your left +thumb to trap additional legs of the queen (left side) +and have the helper daub the paint on the queen’s +thorax. + + +Requeening +Why Requeen? Better Performance – Better Production +Most beekeepers requeen every year to take +advantage of the better egg-laying performance +and productivity of the young queen. A queen may +lay for several years, but 99 per cent of queens are +most prolific for the first year and decline during the +second year, with performance falling drastically +thereafter. A colony with an older queen is more likely +to swarm than one with a young queen. Colonies +with more prolific, young queens are less likely to be +overwhelmed by parasitic mites. An inferior queen +results in an inferior colony. +If you let the colony requeen itself, you may end +up with an inferior queen. Smaller, less vigorous +queens usually hatch out first and destroy larger +queens in their queen cells before they emerge. +A queen needs to mate with 12 or more drones +over a one- or two-day period to accumulate the 5 +million sperm she will need throughout her life. If the +weather during her mating flights is cold or rainy, then +drones may be scarce, resulting in less mating. This +queen may run out of sperm later in the season and no +longer lay worker eggs. +A virgin queen may mate with drones of +inferior stock, resulting in a colony with poor honey +production, increased tendency to swarm or one that +exhibits excessive defensive behavior. +Consider requeening if the colony exhibits +one or more of the following: unexplained low bee +population, excessive propolis production, laying +workers, defensiveness, high swarming tendency, poor +honey production or excessive drone production. + + +When to Requeen? +A colony can be requeened at any time during the +warm season, but requeening is most successful when +a nectar flow is on. Routine requeening is usually done +in spring or late summer. We suggest requeening early +in August, but let’s examine why spring requeening is +also an option. + + +THE ADVANTAGES OF SPRING REQUEENING: +• The old queen is easier to find due to smaller bee +populations. + +• Nectar/honey flows usually occur in spring. +Requeening during a honey flow increases +acceptance, and reduces robbing and defensiveness. + + +THE DISADVANTAGES OF SPRING REQUEENING: +• Inclement spring weather in Tennessee may confine +bees, causing them to eat their stores and increase +chance of queen supersedure. + +• Spring rains and cool temperatures may prohibit +opening the colony to install a new queen. + +• If swarming has begun, you can miss capped queen +cells as well as virgin queens that may be present or +may be returning from mating. + +• Queens from queen producers may be of inferior +quality due to poor weather conditions for mating in +queen production areas. + + +THE ADVANTAGES OF AUGUST REQUEENING: +• Colony starts the winter with young healthy bees and +a new queen. + +• Colony less likely to swarm next spring with a young +queen. + +• Spring population should be higher with a younger +queen laying more in late winter and early spring +than an old queen. + +• Queens are less expensive to purchase than in spring. + +• There is a break in the brood cycle, which can reduce +disease and pest problems. + +• If this queen fails, then you still have time to try +again before cool fall weather. + + +THE DISADVANTAGES OF AUGUST REQUEENING: +• Harder to find old queen with large bee population. + +• If no honey flow is on, then bees will be more +defensive and prone to robbing. + +• If no honey flow is on, then you need to feed all +colonies in the apiary where you are requeening. +If you feed only the requeened colonies, the strong +colonies nearby will rob them. + +• May take more time if bees start robbing the colony +being requeened, because you must stop working +and come back later after robbing ceases. + + +Queen Introduction – Direct or Indirect? +Although many procedures have been described +about how to install a queen, they can be classified as +either direct or indirect. + +With direct methods the queen is released directly +into the colony, usually in combination with smoke, +scented sugar syrup or honey. The new queen and +the colony to receive the queen are both treated with +smoke, scented sugar syrup or honey to mask any +difference in odor between her and the colony. +Indirect methods of queen introduction using +shipping cages are more preferred by most beekeepers. +Some beekeepers use push-in cages and others use a +division screen method. + + +Benton cage and JZ BZ cage. +Many queen producers still ship their queens to +beekeepers in the wooden “Benton cage.” This cage +has three circular cavities covered by screen, openings +on either end that are plugged by corks. The cavity on +one end of the cage is filled with sugar candy (fondant, +a mixture of powdered sugar and water in a doughlike +consistency). The plastic “JZ BZ” queen cage is +preferred by some queen package producers. +The new laying queen is normally shipped with +six attendant bees inside the cage to take care of her. +When you receive the queens in the mail, inspect +them to make sure they are alive. Add a couple drops +of water to each cage on the screen, away from the +candy end, to let the bees get water. New research +suggests that the attendants should be removed before +introducing the queen because they interfere with +acceptance. +One way to safely remove attendants is to do it +in a closed room with a window. You can wrap the +cage except for the corked end without candy with +a cloth, then remove the cork, making this opening +the only place where light can enter. The workers and +sometimes the queen will be attracted to light and +come out. The quickest method is to turn off room +lights, remove the screen and let all bees y to the +“lighted” window. Then replace the screen and put +only the queen back inside. + + +Installing a Queen in a Shipping Cage: +• Locate the old queen and remove her from the +colony. If you have difficulty finding queens, place +queen excluders between supers with brood for four +days before requeening. This will confine the queen +to one box. While searching for the queen, search +also for eggs. The queen will be in the box where +you find eggs, because eggs laid before you added +excluders have hatched. + + +Installing a queen in a shipping cage. + + +• Remove the cork from the candy end of the cage. +One purpose of the candy is to delay immediate +release of the new queen. In the two days (usually) +that the workers take to eat the candy and release +the queen, her odors and that of her attendants have +blended in with that of the colony. A new queen and +her attendants have a different odor than that of the +new colony and they may be treated aggressively if +they are released too soon. + +• Press the side of the cage with the candy end up +vertically into the middle of a frame of brood and +move the adjacent frame of brood to “sandwich” the +cage perpendicular, in between. + +• Putting the candy end up keeps any attendant bees +(if included) from blocking the hole if they should +die. If the candy end were down, dead attendants +could block the queen’s exit. + +• Wait three days before inspecting to determine if the +queen is released. If she is not out and much candy +remains or it is too hard, carefully poke a small hole +through the candy to speed the process. + +• Wait 10 days to search for her, and more importantly, +for eggs, which indicate she is laying and has been +accepted into the colony. + + +Installing a Queen Using Press-in Cages. + +wire press-in queen introduction cage. + + +A press-in cage is a screen box with an open side +made of eight-mesh (1/8- inch squares) screen, 4 inches +by 4 inches, with each edge bent upward at a 90-degree +angle to form a side that is 1 inch wide. The open side +of the box is pressed over the queen on a capped brood +frame that is about to emerge. No adult bees should +be trapped under the cage with the queen. A few cells +of honey should also be under the cage. New workers +hatch out under the cage, take care of the queen and +clean cells where she lays eggs. The cage is removed +when eggs are found. During this several-day process, +the queen and workers acclimate to one another and +the queen is readily accepted. Caution: Make sure you +put the cage over comb without holes. Workers can +crawl through holes to get inside the cage before it’s +time to release the queen. + +Vigorous well-nourished colonies are able to withstand bee diseases and parasites better than poorly nourished colonies. Scientists have emphasized that malnutrition may be playing a key role in the decline of colonies due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Honey bees can suffer from a compromised immune system related to poor nutrition. + + +Natural Forage +Healthy bees require a diversity of natural pollen. +Placing bees on locations with abundant and diverse floral resources will help them stay healthy. +Locations vary in their carrying capacity, and experience will suggest optimum densities. +Placing too many bees in one location will result in inadequate floral resources, robbing, drifting and the spread of bee diseases and parasites. + +Supplemental Feeding +Forage can be limited in late summer and fall. When floral resources are inadequate, feeding bees sugar syrup and pollen substitutes can improve colony survival and performance. +Supplemental feeding is critical to build bees for early almond pollination by Feb. 1st. + +A good protein source is very important for strong colonies + +Provide protein pollen patties. +Pollen substitutes should have three (3) essential properties: + +Consumable – honey bees should be readily able to eat and consume the supplemental feed; +Absorbable – honey bees should be able to digest and absorb the supplemental feed, and; +Nutritious – it should contain the necessary and vital ingredients for bee health. +Place pollen patties between brood boxes or on top of hive frames. +It is critical to provide supplemental feed when colonies arrive for almond pollination; dearth is a factor prior to and after bloom. +For more information see Honey_Bee_Nutrition + + +Provide plentiful and abundant water + +Water +Provide plentiful and abundant water. +Pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers may drift into water sources; locate colonies near colonies near accessible clean water. +Drought causes honey bee stress. Work with your grower on identifying a potable water source for bees to avoid dehydration. + + +The Beekeeper’s Goal: + +Provide bees a diversity of natural pollen. +When possible, locate natural forage for your bees. +Fall is a critical time to build bees for almond pollination. +Provide supplemental feed, especially protein, to build strong, 8-frame colonies by Feb. 1st. +Water is just as important as food; keep your bees well-hydrated with clean water. + + + +2.Best Management Practices for Pest/Varroa Control +Controlling pests, particularly Varroa, is a critically important management practice. + + +Why is Varroa harmful to Honey Bees? +Varroa mites reduce individual bee and colony vigor by feeding on their haemolymph. In addition, they vector viruses and facilitate infection by other bee pathogens. + + +Manage for Varroa control +Varroa control should be a primary activity in your beekeeping operation. +Requeen with mite resistant stock. Using stock selected for resistance may aid in slowing down the growth of Varroa populations. + +Sticky board mite trap + +Do your colonies have Varroa mites? +Monitoring is important, early detection is key. +Check often, every 2-3 months. +Conduct a random sampling of hives. +Follow regional guidelines for action thresholds. + +How to check for Varroa +Sticky Boards for an accurate mite count +Alcohol Wash +Sugar/Ether Roll + +How to treat for Varroa +Use biotechnical methods to suppress mite populations if action is necessary when surplus honey is being produced. +Drone brood removal +Powdered sugar dusting +Screened bottom boards +If honey is not being produced, use thymol-based materials or organic acids. +Exercise judicious treatment and soft chemicals. +Follow the recommended label instructions. +Rotate treatments to prevent resistance. +Varroa mites have exhibited resistance to some varroacides in some regions. Check with your local cooperative extension office or apiary inspector to find out which varroacides are most effective in your area. +Be aware that strong colonies in mid-summer can be highly infested with Varroa and even strong colonies can crash in population in late-summer and fall. + +Are your treatments working? +Recheck for efficacy; don’t assume your treatments are working. +Varroa is a community problem. Work with your beekeeper neighbors to be sure that all beekeepers are keeping Varroa at low levels. + +Minimize toxin exposure +Honey bees have a limited capacity to metabolize toxins, including beekeeper-applied varroacides, and some toxins can accumulate in beeswax combs. +Be aware of crop pest control practices near your apiary; know the risks and have a plan for protecting colonies. +Varroacides can tie up bees’ detoxification capabilities and render them less able to deal with other varroacides and chemicals used on crops. +Avoid treating bees with varroacides when they are likely to be exposed to crop pest control chemicals. +Renew beeswax combs by replacing a few combs from each hive annually + + +The Beekeeper’s Goal: + +A good management program pays close attention to mite levels. +Varroa can rebound quickly; watch your threshold levels closely. +Constant monitoring and timely treatment is critical for healthy hives. + + + +3. Best Management Practices for Disease Control/Nosema +Evidence suggests that presence of Nosema is contributing to honey bee health problems. + +Why is Nosema harmful to Honey Bees? + +Scientists agree that Nosema ceranae is the most prevalent and economically damaging of the honey bee diseases. In serious cases of Nosema, the colony may eventually die. + + +Do your colonies have Nosema? +It’s important to monitor your bees for Nosema (N. apis and N. ceranae) – early detection is key – and treat to reduce levels if warranted. +Monitor Nosema levels and colony condition. +Check often, ideally monthly. +Random sampling of hives + +How to check for Nosema +Collect live or fresh dead bees from the hive entrance or from top bars of the frames. +On-site microscopic examination of honey bee gut for spore count. +When levels exceed 1 million spores per bee, colonies can exhibit dwindling, but this will not always be the case. + +How to treat for Nosema + +Chemical control with Fumagillin +Practice judicious treatment. +Follow proper preparation, storage and application. + +Hygiene +Clean comb +Clean or replace contaminated equipment. + +Nutrition +Good “Fall Flow” of natural or wild forage, proper nutrition eases stress. +Strong immune system = healthy bees. +Treat based on your risk assessment and previous experience. + + +Are your treatments working? +Recheck for efficacy +Don’t assume + + +The Beekeeper’s Goal + +Watch your Nosema levels; Nosema can appear quickly. +Be aware that Nosema in the presence of high mite levels can compromise colony health. +Constant monitoring and treatment are critical for healthy hives. + + + +4. Best Management Practices for Hive Equipment +A well-maintained and orderly apiary can translate into a successful beekeeping operation. + +Why practice diligent hive maintenance? + +Beekeepers agree that the most important piece of equipment in the apiary is the beehive, the home of the honey bee. + + +Hive Maintenance +Proper maintenance extends the life of the hive. +Check apiary for hive condition. +Inspect for rotten, loose or broken boards and frames. +Reconstruct, tighten or replace frame parts. +Paint supers with light colors to beat summer heat. +Take advantage of the winter months to do maintenance and prepare for the new season. +Check bee attire. + +Repair clothes, veil, gloves and bodysuit. +Inspect your essential two (2) pieces of equipment. + +Smoker and the hive or “universal” tool +Maintain yard equipment. + +Inspect and repair trucks, trailers, loaders and forklifts. +Repair bunkhouses, if applicable. +Eliminate trash in the apiary. +Practice fire safety when the bee smoker is in use. + +Hygiene +Practice good hygiene with hands, gloves, and other equipment to reduce transmission of pathogens between colonies. +Replace comb with new foundation to minimize residual chemicals in old wax. +Develop a comb replacement schedule. +Purchase equipment only if it has a history of clean health. + +Hive Security +Be aware that the probability of hive theft has increased with the increased value of pollinating crops. +Keep equipment simple to identify. +ID hives with a brand or name. +Secure a signed contract when entering into a “wintering deal.” +Practice discretion when showing where your yards are located. +The Beekeeper’s Goal + +Keep your equipment in good condition. +Good maintenance prolongs the life of hive parts, clothing, vehicles, and other equipment. +Good hygiene reduces the incidences of pests and diseases. +Hive security can minimize economic losses. + + + +Best Management Practices for Colony Management +Successful beekeepers employ practices that are tested and proved to be profitable. + +Exert you energy wisely + +Invest time, money and energy on your healthy colonies. +Practice judicious methods + +Maintain a reserve; don’t commit all your colonies to contract. + +healthy brood frame + + + +Monitor colony strength +Cull weak colonies. +Use diagnostic services for objective colony assessment. +Check frames of brood for intended strength to coincide with almond bloom. +Be mindful of colony placement to minimize stress. +Do not combine weak collapsing colonies with healthy colonies. + +Managing Stock +Maintain genetic quality to meet your objectives: +Maintain stocks that are productive and disease and pest resistant. +Encourage high drone densities to provide well-mated queens and genetically diverse colonies. +Discourage stocks that are excessively defensive. +Select stock by propagating colonies that prosper when other colonies exhibitsymptoms of stress. +Requeen colonies, at least annually. Package bees typically exhibit low Varroa and virus levels during the year following installation. Consider making colony increases by shaking package bees from your own colonies. + +Water + +Consider water access when transporting colonies and when placing colonies in the orchard. +The Beekeeper’s Goal + +Work towards strong 8-frame colonies for almond pollination by Feb. 1st. +Invest your energy in the expectation of future returns and benefits. +Use discretion to avoid waste. +Employ genetics, diagnostic services and placement of hives to ensure healthy colonies. + + + +6. Best Management Practices for Business Management +Beekeeping is an evolving profession. + + + +Be professional in your beekeeper/grower interactions. + +Use a Contract (See a Sample Pollination Contract at http://www.ProjectApism.org under ‘Downloads’). +Determine pollination fees that are realistic relative to your operation costs. +Use well-maintained equipment. +Be dependable with the timing of hive drops and pick-ups. +Be visible to your growers. +Develop contingency plans for the unexpected. +Be efficient + +Streamline your business to manage resources wisely. +Keep good records to improve practices. +Keep learning + +Successful beekeeping is a rapidly changing art and science. +Join local, state, regional and national organizations. +Attend conferences. +Access the internet, watch for reliable sources of information. +Subscribe to bee journals. +Regularly check the CAP project website for new information at http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/index.html. +Give back + +Beekeeping needs ideas and leadership to build a prosperous future. +Mentor new and young beekeepers. +Support and contribute to bee research to ensure a sustainable pollination industry. + + + +7. Best Management Practices for Almond Growers Renting Bees +Growers can help beekeepers in the pollination process of their crops. + + +Nutrition +If possible, help your beekeeper locate flowering forage prior to and after almond bloom. + +Plant a cover crop on adjacent land: +At perimeter of orchard +Within younger orchards +On fallow land +Good examples of alternative food resources are mustard, clover or vetch. + +Water +Water is important to prevent dehydration. +Provide abundant and potable water, free from contamination. +Landings and screens make water accessible and prevent bee drownings. + +Access and Placement +Beekeepers need to place, service and remove hives routinely. + +The distribution of colonies should be accessible and convenient at all times. +Orchard roads should be maintained and graded for easy access. +Allow hive placement in areas not prone to flooding or shade. +Eastern and southern exposures are better for sun and warmer temperatures and encourage bee flight for pollination. +Let bees do their job, place hives as to limit human and honey bee interaction. + +Agricultural Sprays +Let your beekeeper know the agricultural products used for crop protection, including tank mixes. +Application and Timing + +Honey bees come in contact with agricultural sprays in different ways: +Bees may fly through the spray. +Sprays may drift to hives via wind. +Bees may collect and bring into the hive pollen that contains chemical residue. +Management practices to minimize contact are: +Spray when bees are not flying. +Spray when pollen is not being produced by the tree. +Time applications at night or when bees are not flying. + +Communication +Keep in contact with your beekeeper, especially prior to almond bloom. +Inquire about supplemental feeding through the winter. +Ask about colony collapses, Varroa infestations, honey crop, over-wintering. +Location, transportation and other factors can positively or negatively affect the strength of the colonies. +Negotiate rental fee, number of colonies per acre, frames of bees per colony, and payment schedule. +Discuss timing of hive placement prior to bloom and pick up after bloom. + +Pollination Contracts +A signed contract protects both grower and beekeeper. +Visit Downloads at http://www.ProjectApism.org/ for a pollination contract template. +Secure contracts early for the following season so beekeepers will make the investment in colony health and strength. +When colonies arrive in the orchard, check colony strength; 8 to 10 frames is optimum. +An objective third party inspection of colonies will confirm if contractual obligations have been met. +Allow your beekeeper time and opportunity to provide additional colonies if needed. +Walk your orchard during honey bee flight hours to make sure you see plenty of bee activity. + +Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. +Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. +About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. +Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. +Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. +Producing honey for profit is highly dependent on successful marketing. You should conduct market research to determine your competition, the amount of honey you can sell, and in what form(s) your customers prefer their honey. +Successful marketing of honey requires a well-organized marketing plan consisting of at least the following: +● Production of high-quality honey +● Attractive containers and labels +● An effective advertising program +● Dependable service for customers +Most honey in the United States is extracted and sold as liquid honey. However, honey can be prepared and marketed in five different ways: +● Extracted honey +● Section-comb honey +● Cut-comb honey +● Chunk honey +● Finely crystallized or creamed honey +Equipment needs vary depending on the type and quantity of honey you wish to produce. Extracted liquid honey is the most profitable to produce under conditions where honey flows are generally light. Beekeepers who do not want to invest in extracting equipment can produce cut-comb honey, which is relatively easy to process. Section-comb honey, however, requires more equipment, close attention to colony management, and more frequent manipulation of bees than the production of extracted honey. In addition, beeswax--particularly crafted beeswax products (candles, ornaments, etc.)--is becoming an important source of income for some beekeepers. +Markets for honey and bee products are extensive. You should plan to start small and expand as market demand increases and you develop a better understanding of the markets for your products. For detailed marketing information and useful resources, contact the National Honey Board (see the "For More Information" section). +Beekeeping - Honey Bees +Honey bees can be managed to produce many products, but they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination of agricultural crops. +Download PDF Save For Later Print Purchase Print + ARTICLESUPDATED: JUNE 13, 2013 + +Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. +Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. +About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. +Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. +Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. +Planning Ahead +Good planning is an important part of successful beekeeping. New beekeepers need to consider the following before purchasing honey bees and the necessary equipment to keep them and produce honey: +● Number of colonies you will start with +● Location of your apiary and the amount of site preparation that will be necessary +● How and where you will purchase your bees (package bees and nucleus colonies should be ordered the fall prior to the spring they are needed) +● Equipment needed (such as hives for bees, protective equipment for the beekeeper, and honey-processing equipment) and where you will purchase it +● Amount you can spend (your budget) +● Amount of time you have to devote to a beekeeping enterprise +● Local and state laws concerning the keeping of bees +● Potential markets for your honey, beeswax, or other products +● Registration of honey bee colonies with your state department of agriculture +● Registration of your honey-extracting facility (this is now required in some states like Pennsylvania, even if you extract in a kitchen or structure such as a garage) +● A plan for control of Varroa mites and other diseases +The number of colonies you start with will depend on whether you are planning to keep bees simply for your own enjoyment and use, as a sideline for generating additional income, or as a commercial venture. Many sideline and commercial beekeepers started out keeping bees as a hobby. If you are a beginning beekeeper, you should start small and let your operation grow with your enthusiasm and experience. New beekeepers often want to start with a single colony, but it is better to begin with at least two or three colonies. While the initial cost is higher, the time required to manage two colonies is no greater than the time required to care for one, and some of the management problems you may face can be corrected with the assistance of a second or third colony. +Requirements for successful honey production +● Strong colonies +● Young queens (preferably selected for mite resistance) +● Minimal swarming +● Good locations with plentiful food resources and strong nectar flow +Marketing +Honey +Producing honey for profit is highly dependent on successful marketing. You should conduct market research to determine your competition, the amount of honey you can sell, and in what form(s) your customers prefer their honey. +Successful marketing of honey requires a well-organized marketing plan consisting of at least the following: +● Production of high-quality honey +● Attractive containers and labels +● An effective advertising program +● Dependable service for customers +Most honey in the United States is extracted and sold as liquid honey. However, honey can be prepared and marketed in five different ways: +● Extracted honey +● Section-comb honey +● Cut-comb honey +● Chunk honey +● Finely crystallized or creamed honey +Equipment needs vary depending on the type and quantity of honey you wish to produce. Extracted liquid honey is the most profitable to produce under conditions where honey flows are generally light. Beekeepers who do not want to invest in extracting equipment can produce cut-comb honey, which is relatively easy to process. Section-comb honey, however, requires more equipment, close attention to colony management, and more frequent manipulation of bees than the production of extracted honey. In addition, beeswax--particularly crafted beeswax products (candles, ornaments, etc.)--is becoming an important source of income for some beekeepers. +Markets for honey and bee products are extensive. You should plan to start small and expand as market demand increases and you develop a better understanding of the markets for your products. For detailed marketing information and useful resources, contact the National Honey Board (see the "For More Information" section). +Pollination +Renting hives to growers for pollination services can be an important source of income for beekeepers. Contact fruit and vegetable grower organizations, your state or local beekeeping association, your local county extension educator, or university beekeeping specialist to inform them of your interest in renting your colonies for pollination. To avoid misunderstandings, it is important for beekeepers and growers to have a written agreement when honey bee colonies are being rented for pollination services. +Overwintered or established colonies cost the most, but they can be a good buy. Before you can purchase the bees, they should be inspected by a state bee inspector to ensure that they are disease free. Avoid weak colonies and dilapidated equipment. + +Package bees are caged worker bees with a queen, produced mainly in the southern United States by beekeepers who specialize in producing package bees. They consist of 2, 3, or 5 pounds of bees, a queen (in a separate queen cage), and a canister of sugar syrup used for food by the bees during transport. The 3-pound package is often the best buy. Package bees should be ordered in the fall to ensure delivery by the desired early spring date. Packages are shipped in special screen mailing cages through the U.S. Postal Service or other package delivery services. Another option for beekeepers is to contact someone who will transport the bees for a fee. Beekeepers sometimes travel to bring package bees home for many beekeepers at once. Check newsletters to see if anyone is offering this service. + +Swarms are another way to get started. Swarms can be easily collected and placed in prepared equipment. It is wise to requeen swarms as soon as possible since old queens head most swarms. + +Bees are subject to certain diseases, parasites, predators, and pests. Most pests and predators of bees are easy to control, but diseases and two recently introduced parasitic mites are a great threat to the industry. Diseases may be grouped into two categories: those affecting the brood, and those affecting the adult bees. + +Brood diseases can be harmful and include American foulbrood (AFB), European foulbrood (EFB), sacbrood, and chalkbrood. The prevalence of American foulbrood makes it difficult to profitably keep bees unless this disease is monitored and controlled when identified. Adult diseases include virus and nosema. Most states have laws prohibiting the keeping of AFB-infected colonies or selling or removing infected bees or equipment. In most states, inspectors are authorized to enter any place where bees are kept to examine hives, bees, and equipment. Inspectors are authorized to prescribe treatment of diseased colonies and order the destruction of those in which the disease is too far advanced to warrant treatment. + +Due to vigorous disease-control programs, beekeepers suffer few major problems with diseases. The biggest obstacle facing beekeepers today is the presence of two kinds of parasitic mites. Mites and the diseases associated with them were not found in the United States until the early 1980s. During the fall and winter, these mites can cause high mortality rates in bee colonies if not properly treated. Beekeeping, whether for fun or profit, is no longer possible without close attention to mite control. + +The Varroa mite is considered by many to be the most serious honey bee pest. This mite is an external parasite that is visible to the naked eye. The brownishred, oval (shaped like a tiny clamshell) mite feeds on the blood of both adult bees and the brood. Heavy parasitism by Varroa mites results in bee mortality, subsequent weakening of colonies, and often death. + +The tracheal mite is an internal parasitic mite that lives and reproduces within the thoracic tracheae, or breathing tubes, of adult honey bees. These microscopic mites penetrate the tracheae of honey bees and feed on their blood. Feeding by the mites damages the tracheal walls, which blocks the bees' breathing passages. These breathing tubes supply the flight muscles with oxygen. As a result of mite feeding, the flight muscles may atrophy, and the bees may be unable to fly or control their body temperature. Pathogens also may be introduced into the bees' bloodstream by feeding mites. + +Efforts to stop the spread of these two mites have been largely unsuccessful, but research into various chemical controls and alternative control techniques, such as the use of resistant stocks, look promising. For more information on parasitic mite control, contact your county extension office or your university beekeeping specialist or visit the MAAREC website. + +According to a 2007 report by the National Academies of Science, most North American pollinators, including honey bees, are in decline. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the most recent manifestation of an overall long-term decline in the managed honey bee population. CCD is characterized by the demise of honey bee colonies as a result of the rapid loss of the adult bee population. Typically, these colonies have healthy-looking brood and adequate food stores. Multiple possible causes of CCD are being studied. A combination of factors including mites, diseases, use of pesticides, environmental stresses, and migratory beekeeping may also be the cause. + +Depending on where bees are kept, bears can be a serious hindrance to successful beekeeping. In areas where bears are known to be present, the construction of an electric fence enclosing the apiary is highly recommended before the bees are acquired. Additional pests that may need to be addressed include hive beetles, mice, skunks, opossums, and wax moths. + +You may now insure your honey, pollen collection, wax, and breeding stock through a crop insurance program for apiculture. The new grid-based rainfall index apiculture group-risk policy is available in selected states and counties (including all counties in Pennsylvania). Advantages of this coverage include flexibility of when to insure during the year and how much to insure (you are not required to insure all your colonies). This allows you to adjust coverage to better match the value of your beekeeping enterprise. Payments for losses under this program are based on lack of rainfall as measured by a rainfall index within a geographic grid (approximately 12 by 12 miles in area). +You can also insure your income from beekeeping and any other agricultural enterprises you may have using AGR-Lite. AGR-Lite is a whole-farm policy that covers all your crops and is based on your farm's gross revenue as reported on your federal taxes. To use AGR-Lite you must have five years of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Schedule F forms. If your business structure is either a C or an S corporation, the necessary information can be entered into a Schedule F for crop insurance purposes. +Much of beekeeping is simple observation and response. If you are a novice beekeeper, inspect the hive about once a week for a couple of months so that you can learn. Once you feel comfortable, adjust your routine to every two weeks. Make sure the outside of the hive is clean and free of bee poop, the landing board is free of litter, and there are no ants on the hive. Open the hives and check frames for larvae and eggs (on warm days only). If the queen is healthy, you will see plenty of larvae in various stages of development. +If you don’t see evidence of a healthy queen, consult an expert. Your local beekeeping guild is a good source. +Ultimately, the less often you inspect the hive, the better for its health. Opening the hives and thoroughly checking them requires smoking to keep the bees calm. This stresses the bees and it takes them about a day to recover. As you learn more, you will find you won’t need to pull many frames to know what is going on inside. And you will figure out a lot simply by observing the bees as they come and go from the hive. +Varroa mites are the pest most typically found in hives. Left unchecked, they can cripple and eventually kill the hive (see Pest Control, below, for hints about checking for mites and mite control). Other pests you need to watch for include the small hive beetle and the wax moth. Diseases you need to be on the lookout for are American and European foulbrood. Early intervention can often mean the difference between a healthy hive and a dead hive. + +Start with one deep hive body-brood box. When the bees have filled it with 7 or 8 frames of bees and brood, top it with a second brood box. Let the bees build up brood cells in the second brood box, too. When the second brood box is well filled (7 or 8 frames of bees), top it with a queen excluder, if you choose to use one, and, finally, the honey super (the box from which you will collect most of your honey). + +The powdered sugar method lets you both count the mites and control them. Sift powdered sugar, 1 cup per brood box, over the tops of the frames and brush it into the hive. The powdered sugar makes the mites lose their grip on the bees and fall off; plus the bees groom the sugar off their bodies, dislodging more mites. Again, use the bottom board to capture the fallen mites. You should not see more than a few mites 10 minutes after dusting. If there are more, you have a problem. + +A 24-hour count of a natural mite fall will give you a good idea of a hive’s infestation. Coat the bottom of your Country Rube board with petroleum jelly or cooking spray (to trap the mites), slide it into the lower part of the bottom board, wait for 24 hours, and then pull it out and count the mites. Anything more than 10 mites per brood box indicates you have a problem. +Drone frames will also help trap varroa mites. These frames are designed to encourage bees to make drone comb cells, which are larger than worker comb cells. Since varroa mites prefer drone brood 10 to 1, the drone comb makes a great mite trap. Just before the drones hatch (24 days after the eggs were laid), destroy the drone comb (you can freeze it and return it to the hive, or simply cut it out), and replace the drone frame for the next cycle. (Since our queens have already mated and have a lifetime’s supply of sperm inside of them, they do not need the drones in order to reproduce.) + +We were lucky to collect honey the first summer. Typically, during the first year the bees build up their hive, and if they overwinter well, you can begin harvesting in the late spring or early summer of the second year. Three months after bringing our bees home, we had 4 frames packed with honey, each weighing about 8 pounds. Lacking a professional extractor, we used the following low-tech method. +1. Cut and crush Using the bench scraper, we cut the honey—wax and all—off the foundation into a bowl, balancing the frame on a wooden spoon set across the bowl like a bridge. Then we used a wooden spoon to crush the honey and wax in the bowl. +2. Straining and settling We poured this slurry of wax and honey through a double layer of cheesecloth and the stainless-steel strainer into our food-grade plastic bucket. Then we left it to drain and settle for a couple of days (bubbles and foam rose to the surface). +3. Bottling We covered the floor with newspapers and got our jars ready. Then we loosened the honey gate (the stopper at the bottom of the bucket) to release the honey into each jar. In went the honey, on went the lids. It was as simple as that. From 4 full frames of honeycomb, we reaped 12 pounds, 10 ounces of honey. We rinsed the leftover wax and froze it. Later, we rendered the wax in a solar wax melter and used it for craft projects like lip balm and hand salve. We had a second surprise harvest later in the summer, bringing our total to about 31 pounds of pure, fragrant honey. +Packaged bees and caged queen It takes time to build up the colony this way, but it’s the least-expensive choice. You can usually order packaged bees through your local beekeepers’ guild. Preorder as early as the fall and certainly no later than early spring, as bees are only available for a short time in spring. + diff --git a/gpt-2/src/encode.py b/gpt-2/src/encode.py new file mode 100755 index 000000000..c3a741a50 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/encode.py @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 +# Usage: +# PYTHONPATH=src ./encode.py /path/to/output.npz +# PYTHONPATH=src ./train --dataset /path/to/output.npz + +import argparse +import numpy as np + +import encoder +from load_dataset import load_dataset + +parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( + description='Pre-encode text files into tokenized training set.', + formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) +parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='124M', help='Pretrained model name') +parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') +parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') +parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') +parser.add_argument('in_text', metavar='PATH', type=str, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text).') +parser.add_argument('out_npz', metavar='OUT.npz', type=str, help='Output file path') + +def main(): + args = parser.parse_args() + enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) + print('Reading files') + chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.in_text, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) + print('Writing', args.out_npz) + np.savez_compressed(args.out_npz, *chunks) + + +if __name__ == '__main__': + main() diff --git a/gpt-2/src/encoder.py b/gpt-2/src/encoder.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5f52e723c --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/encoder.py @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ +"""Byte pair encoding utilities""" + +import os +import json +import regex as re +from functools import lru_cache + +@lru_cache() +def bytes_to_unicode(): + """ + Returns list of utf-8 byte and a corresponding list of unicode strings. + The reversible bpe codes work on unicode strings. + This means you need a large # of unicode characters in your vocab if you want to avoid UNKs. + When you're at something like a 10B token dataset you end up needing around 5K for decent coverage. + This is a signficant percentage of your normal, say, 32K bpe vocab. + To avoid that, we want lookup tables between utf-8 bytes and unicode strings. + And avoids mapping to whitespace/control characters the bpe code barfs on. + """ + bs = list(range(ord("!"), ord("~")+1))+list(range(ord("¡"), ord("¬")+1))+list(range(ord("®"), ord("ÿ")+1)) + cs = bs[:] + n = 0 + for b in range(2**8): + if b not in bs: + bs.append(b) + cs.append(2**8+n) + n += 1 + cs = [chr(n) for n in cs] + return dict(zip(bs, cs)) + +def get_pairs(word): + """Return set of symbol pairs in a word. + + Word is represented as tuple of symbols (symbols being variable-length strings). + """ + pairs = set() + prev_char = word[0] + for char in word[1:]: + pairs.add((prev_char, char)) + prev_char = char + return pairs + +class Encoder: + def __init__(self, encoder, bpe_merges, errors='replace'): + self.encoder = encoder + self.decoder = {v:k for k,v in self.encoder.items()} + self.errors = errors # how to handle errors in decoding + self.byte_encoder = bytes_to_unicode() + self.byte_decoder = {v:k for k, v in self.byte_encoder.items()} + self.bpe_ranks = dict(zip(bpe_merges, range(len(bpe_merges)))) + self.cache = {} + + # Should haved added re.IGNORECASE so BPE merges can happen for capitalized versions of contractions + self.pat = re.compile(r"""'s|'t|'re|'ve|'m|'ll|'d| ?\p{L}+| ?\p{N}+| ?[^\s\p{L}\p{N}]+|\s+(?!\S)|\s+""") + + def bpe(self, token): + if token in self.cache: + return self.cache[token] + word = tuple(token) + pairs = get_pairs(word) + + if not pairs: + return token + + while True: + bigram = min(pairs, key = lambda pair: self.bpe_ranks.get(pair, float('inf'))) + if bigram not in self.bpe_ranks: + break + first, second = bigram + new_word = [] + i = 0 + while i < len(word): + try: + j = word.index(first, i) + new_word.extend(word[i:j]) + i = j + except: + new_word.extend(word[i:]) + break + + if word[i] == first and i < len(word)-1 and word[i+1] == second: + new_word.append(first+second) + i += 2 + else: + new_word.append(word[i]) + i += 1 + new_word = tuple(new_word) + word = new_word + if len(word) == 1: + break + else: + pairs = get_pairs(word) + word = ' '.join(word) + self.cache[token] = word + return word + + def encode(self, text): + bpe_tokens = [] + for token in re.findall(self.pat, text): + token = ''.join(self.byte_encoder[b] for b in token.encode('utf-8')) + bpe_tokens.extend(self.encoder[bpe_token] for bpe_token in self.bpe(token).split(' ')) + return bpe_tokens + + def decode(self, tokens): + text = ''.join([self.decoder[token] for token in tokens]) + text = bytearray([self.byte_decoder[c] for c in text]).decode('utf-8', errors=self.errors) + return text + +def get_encoder(model_name, models_dir): + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'encoder.json'), 'r') as f: + encoder = json.load(f) + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f: + bpe_data = f.read() + bpe_merges = [tuple(merge_str.split()) for merge_str in bpe_data.split('\n')[1:-1]] + return Encoder( + encoder=encoder, + bpe_merges=bpe_merges, + ) diff --git a/gpt-2/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py b/gpt-2/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py new file mode 100755 index 000000000..2db99698b --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/generate_unconditional_samples.py @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +import fire +import json +import os +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +import model, sample, encoder + +def sample_model( + model_name='124M', + seed=None, + nsamples=0, + batch_size=1, + length=None, + temperature=1, + top_k=0, + top_p=1, + models_dir='models', +): + """ + Run the sample_model + :model_name=124M : String, which model to use + :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to + reproduce results + :nsamples=0 : Number of samples to return, if 0, continues to + generate samples indefinately. + :batch_size=1 : Number of batches (only affects speed/memory). + :length=None : Number of tokens in generated text, if None (default), is + determined by model hyperparameters + :temperature=1 : Float value controlling randomness in boltzmann + distribution. Lower temperature results in less random completions. As the + temperature approaches zero, the model will become deterministic and + repetitive. Higher temperature results in more random completions. + :top_k=0 : Integer value controlling diversity. 1 means only 1 word is + considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, + while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a + special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders + (i.e. contains the folder) + """ + models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) + enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) + hparams = model.default_hparams() + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: + hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) + + if length is None: + length = hparams.n_ctx + elif length > hparams.n_ctx: + raise ValueError("Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) + + with tf.Session(graph=tf.Graph()) as sess: + np.random.seed(seed) + tf.set_random_seed(seed) + + output = sample.sample_sequence( + hparams=hparams, length=length, + start_token=enc.encoder['<|endoftext|>'], + batch_size=batch_size, + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p + )[:, 1:] + + saver = tf.train.Saver() + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) + saver.restore(sess, ckpt) + + generated = 0 + while nsamples == 0 or generated < nsamples: + out = sess.run(output) + for i in range(batch_size): + generated += batch_size + text = enc.decode(out[i]) + print("=" * 40 + " SAMPLE " + str(generated) + " " + "=" * 40) + print(text) + +if __name__ == '__main__': + fire.Fire(sample_model) diff --git a/gpt-2/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py b/gpt-2/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py new file mode 100755 index 000000000..a631a549d --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/interactive_conditional_samples.py @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 + +import fire +import json +import os +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +import model, sample, encoder + +def interact_model( + model_name='124M_bees', + seed=None, + nsamples=1, + batch_size=1, + length=10, + temperature=1, + top_k=0, + top_p=1, + models_dir='models', +): + """ + Interactively run the model + :model_name=124M : String, which model to use + :seed=None : Integer seed for random number generators, fix seed to reproduce + results + :nsamples=1 : Number of samples to return total + :batch_size=1 : Number of batches (only affects speed/memory). Must divide nsamples. + :length=None : Number of tokens in generated text, if None (default), is + determined by model hyperparameters + :temperature=1 : Float value controlling randomness in boltzmann + distribution. Lower temperature results in less random completions. As the + temperature approaches zero, the model will become deterministic and + repetitive. Higher temperature results in more random completions. + :top_k=0 : Integer value controlling diversity. 1 means only 1 word is + considered for each step (token), resulting in deterministic completions, + while 40 means 40 words are considered at each step. 0 (default) is a + special setting meaning no restrictions. 40 generally is a good value. + :models_dir : path to parent folder containing model subfolders + (i.e. contains the folder) + """ + models_dir = os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(models_dir)) + if batch_size is None: + batch_size = 1 + assert nsamples % batch_size == 0 + + enc = encoder.get_encoder(model_name, models_dir) + hparams = model.default_hparams() + with open(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: + hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) + + if length is None: + length = hparams.n_ctx // 2 + elif length > hparams.n_ctx: + raise ValueError("Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) + + with tf.Session(graph=tf.Graph()) as sess: + context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [batch_size, None]) + np.random.seed(seed) + tf.set_random_seed(seed) + output = sample.sample_sequence( + hparams=hparams, length=length, + context=context, + batch_size=batch_size, + temperature=temperature, top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p + ) + + saver = tf.train.Saver() + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(os.path.join(models_dir, model_name)) + saver.restore(sess, ckpt) + + while True: + raw_text = input("Model prompt >>> ") + while not raw_text: + print('Prompt should not be empty!') + raw_text = input("Model prompt >>> ") + context_tokens = enc.encode(raw_text) + generated = 0 + for _ in range(nsamples // batch_size): + out = sess.run(output, feed_dict={ + context: [context_tokens for _ in range(batch_size)] + })[:, len(context_tokens):] + for i in range(batch_size): + generated += 1 + text = enc.decode(out[i]) + print("=" * 40 + " SAMPLE " + str(generated) + " " + "=" * 40) + print(text) + print("=" * 80) + +if __name__ == '__main__': + fire.Fire(interact_model) diff --git a/gpt-2/src/load_dataset.py b/gpt-2/src/load_dataset.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fdb7b3849 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/load_dataset.py @@ -0,0 +1,83 @@ +import glob +import numpy as np +import os +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import tqdm + + +def load_dataset(enc, path, combine, encoding=None): + paths = [] + if os.path.isfile(path): + # Simple file + paths.append(path) + elif os.path.isdir(path): + # Directory + for (dirpath, _, fnames) in os.walk(path): + for fname in fnames: + paths.append(os.path.join(dirpath, fname)) + else: + # Assume glob + paths = glob.glob(path) + + token_chunks = [] + raw_text = '' + for path in tqdm.tqdm(paths): + if path.endswith('.npz'): + # Pre-encoded + with np.load(path) as npz: + for item in npz.files: + token_chunks.append(npz[item]) + else: + # Plain text + with open(path, 'r', encoding=encoding) as fp: + raw_text += fp.read() + if len(raw_text) >= combine: + tokens = np.stack(enc.encode(raw_text)) + token_chunks.append(tokens) + raw_text = '' + else: + raw_text += '<|endoftext|>' + if raw_text: + tokens = np.stack(enc.encode(raw_text)) + token_chunks.append(tokens) + return token_chunks + + +def binary_search(f, lo, hi): + if f(lo) or not f(hi): + return None + while hi > lo + 1: + mid = (lo + hi) // 2 + if f(mid): + hi = mid + else: + lo = mid + return hi + + +class Sampler(object): + """Fairly samples a slice from a set of variable sized chunks. + + 'Fairly' means that the distribution is the same as sampling from one concatenated chunk, + but without crossing chunk boundaries.""" + + def __init__(self, chunks, seed=None): + self.chunks = chunks + self.total_size = sum(chunk.shape[0] for chunk in chunks) + self.boundaries = [0] + for i in range(len(chunks)): + self.boundaries.append(self.boundaries[-1] + chunks[i].shape[0]) + self.rs = np.random.RandomState(seed=seed) + + def sample(self, length): + assert length < self.total_size // len( + self.chunks + ), "Dataset files are too small to sample {} tokens at a time".format( + length) + while True: + index = self.rs.randint(0, self.total_size - length - 1) + i = binary_search(lambda j: self.boundaries[j] > index, 0, + len(self.boundaries) - 1) - 1 + if self.boundaries[i + 1] > index + length: + within_chunk = index - self.boundaries[i] + return self.chunks[i][within_chunk:within_chunk + length] diff --git a/gpt-2/src/memory_saving_gradients.py b/gpt-2/src/memory_saving_gradients.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..659691f49 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/memory_saving_gradients.py @@ -0,0 +1,387 @@ +from toposort import toposort +import contextlib +import numpy as np +import tensorflow as tf +import tensorflow.contrib.graph_editor as ge +import time +import sys +sys.setrecursionlimit(10000) +# refers back to current module if we decide to split helpers out +util = sys.modules[__name__] + +# getting rid of "WARNING:tensorflow:VARIABLES collection name is deprecated" +setattr(tf.GraphKeys, "VARIABLES", "variables") + +# save original gradients since tf.gradient could be monkey-patched to point +# to our version +from tensorflow.python.ops import gradients as tf_gradients_lib +tf_gradients = tf_gradients_lib.gradients + +MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE=1024 # use lower value during testing + +# specific versions we can use to do process-wide replacement of tf.gradients +def gradients_speed(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='speed', **kwargs) + +def gradients_memory(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='memory', **kwargs) + +def gradients_collection(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, **kwargs): + return gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs) + +def gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys=None, checkpoints='collection', **kwargs): + ''' + Authors: Tim Salimans & Yaroslav Bulatov + + memory efficient gradient implementation inspired by "Training Deep Nets with Sublinear Memory Cost" + by Chen et al. 2016 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.06174) + + ys,xs,grad_ys,kwargs are the arguments to standard tensorflow tf.gradients + (https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.12/api_docs/python/train.html#gradients) + + 'checkpoints' can either be + - a list consisting of tensors from the forward pass of the neural net + that we should re-use when calculating the gradients in the backward pass + all other tensors that do not appear in this list will be re-computed + - a string specifying how this list should be determined. currently we support + - 'speed': checkpoint all outputs of convolutions and matmuls. these ops are usually the most expensive, + so checkpointing them maximizes the running speed + (this is a good option if nonlinearities, concats, batchnorms, etc are taking up a lot of memory) + - 'memory': try to minimize the memory usage + (currently using a very simple strategy that identifies a number of bottleneck tensors in the graph to checkpoint) + - 'collection': look for a tensorflow collection named 'checkpoints', which holds the tensors to checkpoint + ''' + + # print("Calling memsaving gradients with", checkpoints) + if not isinstance(ys,list): + ys = [ys] + if not isinstance(xs,list): + xs = [xs] + + bwd_ops = ge.get_backward_walk_ops([y.op for y in ys], + inclusive=True) + + debug_print("bwd_ops: %s", bwd_ops) + + # forward ops are all ops that are candidates for recomputation + fwd_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in xs], + inclusive=True, + within_ops=bwd_ops) + debug_print("fwd_ops: %s", fwd_ops) + + # exclude ops with no inputs + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if op.inputs] + + # don't recompute xs, remove variables + xs_ops = _to_ops(xs) + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not op in xs_ops] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/assign' in op.name] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/Assign' in op.name] + fwd_ops = [op for op in fwd_ops if not '/read' in op.name] + ts_all = ge.filter_ts(fwd_ops, True) # get the tensors + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if '/read' not in t.name] + ts_all = set(ts_all) - set(xs) - set(ys) + + # construct list of tensors to checkpoint during forward pass, if not + # given as input + if type(checkpoints) is not list: + if checkpoints == 'collection': + checkpoints = tf.get_collection('checkpoints') + + elif checkpoints == 'speed': + # checkpoint all expensive ops to maximize running speed + checkpoints = ge.filter_ts_from_regex(fwd_ops, 'conv2d|Conv|MatMul') + + elif checkpoints == 'memory': + + # remove very small tensors and some weird ops + def fixdims(t): # tf.Dimension values are not compatible with int, convert manually + try: + return [int(e if e.value is not None else 64) for e in t] + except: + return [0] # unknown shape + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if np.prod(fixdims(t.shape)) > MIN_CHECKPOINT_NODE_SIZE] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'L2Loss' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'entropy' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'FusedBatchNorm' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Switch' not in t.name] + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'dropout' not in t.name] + # DV: FP16_FIX - need to add 'Cast' layer here to make it work for FP16 + ts_all = [t for t in ts_all if 'Cast' not in t.name] + + # filter out all tensors that are inputs of the backward graph + with util.capture_ops() as bwd_ops: + tf_gradients(ys, xs, grad_ys, **kwargs) + + bwd_inputs = [t for op in bwd_ops for t in op.inputs] + # list of tensors in forward graph that is in input to bwd graph + ts_filtered = list(set(bwd_inputs).intersection(ts_all)) + debug_print("Using tensors %s", ts_filtered) + + # try two slightly different ways of getting bottlenecks tensors + # to checkpoint + for ts in [ts_filtered, ts_all]: + + # get all bottlenecks in the graph + bottleneck_ts = [] + for t in ts: + b = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=True, within_ops=fwd_ops)) + f = set(ge.get_forward_walk_ops(t.op, inclusive=False, within_ops=fwd_ops)) + # check that there are not shortcuts + b_inp = set([inp for op in b for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) + f_inp = set([inp for op in f for inp in op.inputs]).intersection(ts_all) + if not set(b_inp).intersection(f_inp) and len(b_inp)+len(f_inp) >= len(ts_all): + bottleneck_ts.append(t) # we have a bottleneck! + else: + debug_print("Rejected bottleneck candidate and ops %s", [t] + list(set(ts_all) - set(b_inp) - set(f_inp))) + + # success? or try again without filtering? + if len(bottleneck_ts) >= np.sqrt(len(ts_filtered)): # yes, enough bottlenecks found! + break + + if not bottleneck_ts: + raise Exception('unable to find bottleneck tensors! please provide checkpoint nodes manually, or use checkpoints="speed".') + + # sort the bottlenecks + bottlenecks_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(bottleneck_ts, within_ops=fwd_ops) + sorted_bottlenecks = [t for ts in bottlenecks_sorted_lists for t in ts] + + # save an approximately optimal number ~ sqrt(N) + N = len(ts_filtered) + if len(bottleneck_ts) <= np.ceil(np.sqrt(N)): + checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks + else: + step = int(np.ceil(len(bottleneck_ts) / np.sqrt(N))) + checkpoints = sorted_bottlenecks[step::step] + + else: + raise Exception('%s is unsupported input for "checkpoints"' % (checkpoints,)) + + checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints).intersection(ts_all)) + + # at this point automatic selection happened and checkpoints is list of nodes + assert isinstance(checkpoints, list) + + debug_print("Checkpoint nodes used: %s", checkpoints) + # better error handling of special cases + # xs are already handled as checkpoint nodes, so no need to include them + xs_intersect_checkpoints = set(xs).intersection(set(checkpoints)) + if xs_intersect_checkpoints: + debug_print("Warning, some input nodes are also checkpoint nodes: %s", + xs_intersect_checkpoints) + ys_intersect_checkpoints = set(ys).intersection(set(checkpoints)) + debug_print("ys: %s, checkpoints: %s, intersect: %s", ys, checkpoints, + ys_intersect_checkpoints) + # saving an output node (ys) gives no benefit in memory while creating + # new edge cases, exclude them + if ys_intersect_checkpoints: + debug_print("Warning, some output nodes are also checkpoints nodes: %s", + format_ops(ys_intersect_checkpoints)) + + # remove initial and terminal nodes from checkpoints list if present + checkpoints = list(set(checkpoints) - set(ys) - set(xs)) + + # check that we have some nodes to checkpoint + # if not checkpoints: + # raise Exception('no checkpoints nodes found or given as input! ') + + # disconnect dependencies between checkpointed tensors + checkpoints_disconnected = {} + for x in checkpoints: + if x.op and x.op.name is not None: + grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x, name=x.op.name+"_sg") + else: + grad_node = tf.stop_gradient(x) + checkpoints_disconnected[x] = grad_node + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed tensors and xs + ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(seed_ops=[y.op for y in ys], + stop_at_ts=checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) + debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within fwd_ops %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", + len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ys], checkpoints) + debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) + debug_print("Processing list %s", ys) + copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) + for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): + op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) + copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() + debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) + ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), can_modify=copied_ops) + debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", + checkpoints_disconnected.values(), checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), copied_ops) + + # get gradients with respect to current boundary + original x's + copied_ys = [info._transformed_ops[y.op]._outputs[0] for y in ys] + boundary = list(checkpoints_disconnected.values()) + dv = tf_gradients(ys=copied_ys, xs=boundary+xs, grad_ys=grad_ys, **kwargs) + debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) + debug_print("for %s", copied_ys) + debug_print("with respect to %s", boundary+xs) + + inputs_to_do_before = [y.op for y in ys] + if grad_ys is not None: + inputs_to_do_before += grad_ys + wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] + my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes + # dictionary of "node: backprop" for nodes in the boundary + d_checkpoints = {r: dr for r,dr in zip(checkpoints_disconnected.keys(), + dv[:len(checkpoints_disconnected)])} + # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) + d_xs = dv[len(checkpoints_disconnected):] + + # incorporate derivatives flowing through the checkpointed nodes + checkpoints_sorted_lists = tf_toposort(checkpoints, within_ops=fwd_ops) + for ts in checkpoints_sorted_lists[::-1]: + debug_print("Processing list %s", ts) + checkpoints_other = [r for r in checkpoints if r not in ts] + checkpoints_disconnected_other = [checkpoints_disconnected[r] for r in checkpoints_other] + + # copy part of the graph below current checkpoint node, stopping at + # other checkpoints nodes + ops_to_copy = fast_backward_ops(within_ops=fwd_ops, seed_ops=[r.op for r in ts], stop_at_ts=checkpoints_other) + debug_print("Found %s ops to copy within %s, seed %s, stop_at %s", + len(ops_to_copy), fwd_ops, [r.op for r in ts], + checkpoints_other) + debug_print("ops_to_copy = %s", ops_to_copy) + if not ops_to_copy: # we're done! + break + copied_sgv, info = ge.copy_with_input_replacements(ge.sgv(ops_to_copy), {}) + for origin_op, op in info._transformed_ops.items(): + op._set_device(origin_op.node_def.device) + copied_ops = info._transformed_ops.values() + debug_print("Copied %s to %s", ops_to_copy, copied_ops) + ge.reroute_ts(checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, can_modify=copied_ops) + debug_print("Rewired %s in place of %s restricted to %s", + checkpoints_disconnected_other, checkpoints_other, copied_ops) + + # gradient flowing through the checkpointed node + boundary = [info._transformed_ops[r.op]._outputs[0] for r in ts] + substitute_backprops = [d_checkpoints[r] for r in ts] + dv = tf_gradients(boundary, + checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs, + grad_ys=substitute_backprops, **kwargs) + debug_print("Got gradients %s", dv) + debug_print("for %s", boundary) + debug_print("with respect to %s", checkpoints_disconnected_other+xs) + debug_print("with boundary backprop substitutions %s", substitute_backprops) + + inputs_to_do_before = [d_checkpoints[r].op for r in ts] + wait_to_do_ops = list(copied_ops) + [g.op for g in dv if g is not None] + my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before) + + # partial derivatives to the checkpointed nodes + for r, dr in zip(checkpoints_other, dv[:len(checkpoints_other)]): + if dr is not None: + if d_checkpoints[r] is None: + d_checkpoints[r] = dr + else: + d_checkpoints[r] += dr + def _unsparsify(x): + if not isinstance(x, tf.IndexedSlices): + return x + assert x.dense_shape is not None, "memory_saving_gradients encountered sparse gradients of unknown shape" + indices = x.indices + while indices.shape.ndims < x.values.shape.ndims: + indices = tf.expand_dims(indices, -1) + return tf.scatter_nd(indices, x.values, x.dense_shape) + + # partial derivatives to xs (usually the params of the neural net) + d_xs_new = dv[len(checkpoints_other):] + for j in range(len(xs)): + if d_xs_new[j] is not None: + if d_xs[j] is None: + d_xs[j] = _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) + else: + d_xs[j] += _unsparsify(d_xs_new[j]) + + + return d_xs + +def tf_toposort(ts, within_ops=None): + all_ops = ge.get_forward_walk_ops([x.op for x in ts], within_ops=within_ops) + + deps = {} + for op in all_ops: + for o in op.outputs: + deps[o] = set(op.inputs) + sorted_ts = toposort(deps) + + # only keep the tensors from our original list + ts_sorted_lists = [] + for l in sorted_ts: + keep = list(set(l).intersection(ts)) + if keep: + ts_sorted_lists.append(keep) + + return ts_sorted_lists + +def fast_backward_ops(within_ops, seed_ops, stop_at_ts): + bwd_ops = set(ge.get_backward_walk_ops(seed_ops, stop_at_ts=stop_at_ts)) + ops = bwd_ops.intersection(within_ops).difference([t.op for t in stop_at_ts]) + return list(ops) + +@contextlib.contextmanager +def capture_ops(): + """Decorator to capture ops created in the block. + with capture_ops() as ops: + # create some ops + print(ops) # => prints ops created. + """ + + micros = int(time.time()*10**6) + scope_name = str(micros) + op_list = [] + with tf.name_scope(scope_name): + yield op_list + + g = tf.get_default_graph() + op_list.extend(ge.select_ops(scope_name+"/.*", graph=g)) + +def _to_op(tensor_or_op): + if hasattr(tensor_or_op, "op"): + return tensor_or_op.op + return tensor_or_op + +def _to_ops(iterable): + if not _is_iterable(iterable): + return iterable + return [_to_op(i) for i in iterable] + +def _is_iterable(o): + try: + _ = iter(o) + except Exception: + return False + return True + +DEBUG_LOGGING=False +def debug_print(s, *args): + """Like logger.log, but also replaces all TensorFlow ops/tensors with their + names. Sensitive to value of DEBUG_LOGGING, see enable_debug/disable_debug + + Usage: + debug_print("see tensors %s for %s", tensorlist, [1,2,3]) + """ + + if DEBUG_LOGGING: + formatted_args = [format_ops(arg) for arg in args] + print("DEBUG "+s % tuple(formatted_args)) + +def format_ops(ops, sort_outputs=True): + """Helper method for printing ops. Converts Tensor/Operation op to op.name, + rest to str(op).""" + + if hasattr(ops, '__iter__') and not isinstance(ops, str): + l = [(op.name if hasattr(op, "name") else str(op)) for op in ops] + if sort_outputs: + return sorted(l) + return l + else: + return ops.name if hasattr(ops, "name") else str(ops) + +def my_add_control_inputs(wait_to_do_ops, inputs_to_do_before): + for op in wait_to_do_ops: + ci = [i for i in inputs_to_do_before if op.control_inputs is None or i not in op.control_inputs] + ge.add_control_inputs(op, ci) diff --git a/gpt-2/src/model.py b/gpt-2/src/model.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..489c9bdce --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/model.py @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf + +class HParams(object): + def __init__(self, **kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + + def override_from_dict(self, kwargs): + for (k, v) in kwargs.items(): + setattr(self, k, v) + + +def default_hparams(): + return HParams( + n_vocab=0, + n_ctx=1024, + n_embd=768, + n_head=12, + n_layer=12, + ) + +def shape_list(x): + """Deal with dynamic shape in tensorflow cleanly.""" + static = x.shape.as_list() + dynamic = tf.shape(x) + return [dynamic[i] if s is None else s for i, s in enumerate(static)] + +def softmax(x, axis=-1): + x = x - tf.reduce_max(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + ex = tf.exp(x) + return ex / tf.reduce_sum(ex, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + +def gelu(x): + return 0.5*x*(1+tf.tanh(np.sqrt(2/np.pi)*(x+0.044715*tf.pow(x, 3)))) + +def norm(x, scope, *, axis=-1, epsilon=1e-5): + """Normalize to mean = 0, std = 1, then do a diagonal affine transform.""" + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + n_state = shape_list(x)[-1] + g = tf.get_variable('g', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(1)) + b = tf.get_variable('b', [n_state], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) + u = tf.reduce_mean(x, axis=axis, keepdims=True) + s = tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(x-u), axis=axis, keepdims=True) + x = (x - u) * tf.rsqrt(s + epsilon) + x = x*g + b + return x + +def split_states(x, n): + """Reshape the last dimension of x into [n, x.shape[-1]/n].""" + *start, m = shape_list(x) + return tf.reshape(x, start + [n, m//n]) + +def merge_states(x): + """Smash the last two dimensions of x into a single dimension.""" + *start, a, b = shape_list(x) + return tf.reshape(x, start + [a*b]) + +def conv1d(x, scope, nf, *, w_init_stdev=0.02): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + *start, nx = shape_list(x) + w = tf.get_variable('w', [1, nx, nf], initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=w_init_stdev)) + b = tf.get_variable('b', [nf], initializer=tf.constant_initializer(0)) + c = tf.reshape(tf.matmul(tf.reshape(x, [-1, nx]), tf.reshape(w, [-1, nf]))+b, start+[nf]) + return c + +def attention_mask(nd, ns, *, dtype): + """1's in the lower triangle, counting from the lower right corner. + + Same as tf.matrix_band_part(tf.ones([nd, ns]), -1, ns-nd), but doesn't produce garbage on TPUs. + """ + i = tf.range(nd)[:,None] + j = tf.range(ns) + m = i >= j - ns + nd + return tf.cast(m, dtype) + + +def attn(x, scope, n_state, *, past, hparams): + assert x.shape.ndims == 3 # Should be [batch, sequence, features] + assert n_state % hparams.n_head == 0 + if past is not None: + assert past.shape.ndims == 5 # Should be [batch, 2, heads, sequence, features], where 2 is [k, v] + + def split_heads(x): + # From [batch, sequence, features] to [batch, heads, sequence, features] + return tf.transpose(split_states(x, hparams.n_head), [0, 2, 1, 3]) + + def merge_heads(x): + # Reverse of split_heads + return merge_states(tf.transpose(x, [0, 2, 1, 3])) + + def mask_attn_weights(w): + # w has shape [batch, heads, dst_sequence, src_sequence], where information flows from src to dst. + _, _, nd, ns = shape_list(w) + b = attention_mask(nd, ns, dtype=w.dtype) + b = tf.reshape(b, [1, 1, nd, ns]) + w = w*b - tf.cast(1e10, w.dtype)*(1-b) + return w + + def multihead_attn(q, k, v): + # q, k, v have shape [batch, heads, sequence, features] + w = tf.matmul(q, k, transpose_b=True) + w = w * tf.rsqrt(tf.cast(shape_list(v)[-1], w.dtype)) + + w = mask_attn_weights(w) + w = softmax(w) + a = tf.matmul(w, v) + return a + + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + c = conv1d(x, 'c_attn', n_state*3) + q, k, v = map(split_heads, tf.split(c, 3, axis=2)) + present = tf.stack([k, v], axis=1) + if past is not None: + pk, pv = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) + k = tf.concat([pk, k], axis=-2) + v = tf.concat([pv, v], axis=-2) + a = multihead_attn(q, k, v) + a = merge_heads(a) + a = conv1d(a, 'c_proj', n_state) + return a, present + + +def mlp(x, scope, n_state, *, hparams): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] + h = gelu(conv1d(x, 'c_fc', n_state)) + h2 = conv1d(h, 'c_proj', nx) + return h2 + + +def block(x, scope, *, past, hparams): + with tf.variable_scope(scope): + nx = shape_list(x)[-1] + a, present = attn(norm(x, 'ln_1'), 'attn', nx, past=past, hparams=hparams) + x = x + a + m = mlp(norm(x, 'ln_2'), 'mlp', nx*4, hparams=hparams) + x = x + m + return x, present + +def past_shape(*, hparams, batch_size=None, sequence=None): + return [batch_size, hparams.n_layer, 2, hparams.n_head, sequence, hparams.n_embd // hparams.n_head] + +def expand_tile(value, size): + """Add a new axis of given size.""" + value = tf.convert_to_tensor(value, name='value') + ndims = value.shape.ndims + return tf.tile(tf.expand_dims(value, axis=0), [size] + [1]*ndims) + +def positions_for(tokens, past_length): + batch_size = tf.shape(tokens)[0] + nsteps = tf.shape(tokens)[1] + return expand_tile(past_length + tf.range(nsteps), batch_size) + + +def model(hparams, X, past=None, scope='model', reuse=tf.AUTO_REUSE): + with tf.variable_scope(scope, reuse=reuse): + results = {} + batch, sequence = shape_list(X) + + wpe = tf.get_variable('wpe', [hparams.n_ctx, hparams.n_embd], + initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.01)) + wte = tf.get_variable('wte', [hparams.n_vocab, hparams.n_embd], + initializer=tf.random_normal_initializer(stddev=0.02)) + past_length = 0 if past is None else tf.shape(past)[-2] + h = tf.gather(wte, X) + tf.gather(wpe, positions_for(X, past_length)) + + # Transformer + presents = [] + pasts = tf.unstack(past, axis=1) if past is not None else [None] * hparams.n_layer + assert len(pasts) == hparams.n_layer + for layer, past in enumerate(pasts): + h, present = block(h, 'h%d' % layer, past=past, hparams=hparams) + if layer == 10: + tf.add_to_collection('checkpoints', h) + presents.append(present) + results['present'] = tf.stack(presents, axis=1) + h = norm(h, 'ln_f') + + # Language model loss. Do tokens 0.0: + logits = top_p_logits(logits, p=top_p) + else: + logits = top_k_logits(logits, k=top_k) + samples = tf.multinomial(logits, num_samples=1, output_dtype=tf.int32) + return [ + next_outputs['presents'] if past is None else tf.concat([past, next_outputs['presents']], axis=-2), + samples, + tf.concat([output, samples], axis=1) + ] + + past, prev, output = body(None, context, context) + + def cond(*args): + return True + + _, _, tokens = tf.while_loop( + cond=cond, body=body, + maximum_iterations=length - 1, + loop_vars=[ + past, + prev, + output + ], + shape_invariants=[ + tf.TensorShape(model.past_shape(hparams=hparams, batch_size=batch_size)), + tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), + tf.TensorShape([batch_size, None]), + ], + back_prop=False, + ) + + return tokens diff --git a/gpt-2/src/tfremat.py b/gpt-2/src/tfremat.py new file mode 100644 index 000000000..332668227 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/tfremat.py @@ -0,0 +1,181 @@ +import random +import os +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import tempfile + +import twremat + +def splice_op(op, input_map, control_inputs=None): + g = op.graph + node_def = tf.NodeDef() + node_def.CopyFrom(op.node_def) + node_def.name = g.unique_name(op.name + '_copy') + inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.inputs] + new_control_inputs = [input_map.get(x, x) for x in op.control_inputs] + if control_inputs: + new_control_inputs.extend([x for x in control_inputs if x is not None]) + # new_control_inputs = control_inputs + output_types = [o.dtype for o in op.outputs] + op_def = op.op_def + return tf.Operation(node_def, g, inputs=inputs, output_types=output_types, op_def=op_def, control_inputs=new_control_inputs) + +def splice_tensor(ten, new_op): + i = ten.op.outputs.index(ten) + return new_op.outputs[i] + +def splice(obj, input_map, control_inputs=None): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + return splice_op(obj, input_map, control_inputs=control_inputs) + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return splice_tensor(obj, input_map.get(obj.op, obj.op)) + elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return tf.IndexedSlices(values=input_map.get(obj.values, obj.values), + indices=input_map.get(obj.indices, obj.indices), + dense_shape=input_map.get(obj.dense_shape, obj.dense_shape)) + else: + raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') + +def product(xs): + r = 1 + for x in xs: + r *= x + return r + +def shape_size(shape): + if shape.rank is None: + return 16 + shape = shape.as_list() + for i in range(len(shape)): + if shape[i] is None and i == 0: + shape[i] = 1 + elif shape[i] is None: + shape[i] = 1024 + return product(shape) + +def graph_from_dfs(deps, starts): + visited = set() + frontier = starts + while frontier: + x = frontier.pop() + if x in visited: + continue + visited.add(x) + frontier.extend(list(deps(x))) + return {x : list(deps(x)) for x in visited} + +def get_deps(obj): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + return list(obj.inputs) + list(obj.control_inputs) + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return [obj.op] + elif type(obj) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return [obj.indices, obj.values, obj.dense_shape] + else: + raise AssertionError(f'Could not get deps from{repr(type(obj))} {repr(obj)}') + + +def tensor_graph(compute): + return graph_from_dfs(get_deps, list(compute)) + +def blacklist(obj): + if type(obj) is tf.Operation: + if 'Assign' in obj.type or 'Variable' in obj.type or 'Placeholder' in obj.type: + # TODO: Should we do special accounting for + # ReadVariableOp? Currently we forbid cloning altogether, + # but it's actually ok to clone this op as long as it + # doesn't float across an effectful op (Assign). Also + # currently we don't account for the memory used by + # ReadVariableOp (is it copy-on-write?). + # https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/raw_ops/ReadVariableOp?hl=uk + return True + elif type(obj) is tf.Tensor: + return blacklist(obj.op) + return False + +def estimate_cpu(op): + return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.inputs if type(t) is tf.Tensor) + sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) + +def estimate_mem(op): + return sum(4 * shape_size(t.shape) for t in op.outputs) + +def info(op): + if blacklist(op): + return {'type': 'effectful'} + elif type(op) is tf.Operation: + if 'Reshape' in op.type: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + return {'type': 'normal', + 'cpu': estimate_cpu(op), + 'mem': estimate_mem(op)} + elif type(op) is tf.Tensor: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + elif type(op) is tf.IndexedSlices: + return {'type': 'pointer'} + else: + raise AssertionError(repr((type(op), op))) + + +# Helper functions to flatten and unflatten nested structures of +# tensors and ops so that tf_remat can be applied to structures +# without fiddly marshalling. +def get_ops(compute): + output = [] + stack = [compute] + while stack: + top = stack.pop() + if type(top) is dict: + for v in top.values(): + stack.append(v) + elif type(top) in (list, tuple): + stack.extend(top) + elif type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): + output.append(top) + return output + +def replace_ops(top, live): + if type(top) in (tf.Operation, tf.Tensor, tf.IndexedSlices): + return live[top] + elif type(top) is dict: + return {k : replace_ops(v, live) for (k,v) in top.items()} + elif type(top) is list: + return [replace_ops(v, live) for v in top] + elif type(top) is tuple: + return tuple(replace_ops(v, live) for v in top) + else: + return top + + +def tf_remat(compute, memlimit): + compute_ops = get_ops(compute) + tf_deps = tensor_graph(compute_ops) + + # Relabel with integers + from_op = {op : i for (i, op) in enumerate(tf_deps.keys())} + from_node = {i : op for (op, i) in from_op.items()} + nodes = set(from_node.keys()) + node_deps = {n : [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] for n in nodes} + + node_info = {} + for n in nodes: + node_info[n] = info(from_node[n]) + node_info[n]['deps'] = [from_op[d] for d in tf_deps[from_node[n]]] + + steps = twremat.runtwremat(node_info, memlimit, {from_op[c] for c in compute_ops}) + + print('Constructing tensorflow graph...') + live = {} + last_op = None + for (action, n) in steps: + base = from_node[n] + if action == 'compute': + input_map = {d : live[d] for d in tf_deps[base] if live[d] != d} + if blacklist(base) and not input_map: + live[base] = base + else: + live[base] = splice(base, input_map, control_inputs=[last_op]) + if type(base) is tf.Operation: + last_op = live[base] + elif action == 'free': + del live[base] + + return replace_ops(compute, live) diff --git a/gpt-2/src/train.py b/gpt-2/src/train.py new file mode 100755 index 000000000..113493726 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/train.py @@ -0,0 +1,314 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 +# Usage: +# PYTHONPATH=src ./train --dataset + +import argparse +import json +import os, sys +import numpy as np +import tensorflow.compat.v1 as tf +import tensorflow as tf2 +import time +import tqdm + +if tf.VERSION >= '2': + tf.disable_eager_execution() + tf.config.experimental.enable_tensor_float_32_execution(False) + tf.config.optimizer.set_experimental_options({'layout_optimizer': False, + 'constant_folding': False, + 'shape_optimization': False, + 'remapping': False, + 'arithmetic_optimization': False, + 'dependency_optimization': False, + 'loop_optimization': False, + 'disable_meta_optimizer': True + }) + + +import model, sample, encoder +from load_dataset import load_dataset, Sampler + +CHECKPOINT_DIR = 'checkpoint' +SAMPLE_DIR = 'samples' + + +parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( + description='Fine-tune GPT-2 on your custom dataset.', + formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter) + +parser.add_argument('--dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, required=True, help='Input file, directory, or glob pattern (utf-8 text, or preencoded .npz files).') +parser.add_argument('--model_name', metavar='MODEL', type=str, default='124M', help='Pretrained model name') +parser.add_argument('--models_dir', metavar='PATH', type=str, default='models', help='Path to models directory') +parser.add_argument('--combine', metavar='CHARS', type=int, default=50000, help='Concatenate input files with <|endoftext|> separator into chunks of this minimum size') +parser.add_argument('--encoding', type=str, default='utf-8', help='Set the encoding for reading and writing files.') + +parser.add_argument('--batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=1, help='Batch size') +parser.add_argument('--learning_rate', metavar='LR', type=float, default=0.00002, help='Learning rate for Adam') +parser.add_argument('--accumulate_gradients', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Accumulate gradients across N minibatches.') +parser.add_argument('--memory_saving_gradients', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use gradient checkpointing to reduce vram usage.') +parser.add_argument('--twremat', default=False, action='store_true', help='Use tensor rematerialization (better than memory_saving_gradients and works with tensorflow 2.0).') +parser.add_argument('--twremat_memlimit', type=str, default='12G', help='Memory usage limit/target for twremat. Can be an integer, or an integer suffixed with K/M/G for kilo/mega/giga-bytes.') +parser.add_argument('--only_train_transformer_layers', default=False, action='store_true', help='Restrict training to the transformer blocks.') +parser.add_argument('--optimizer', type=str, default='adam', help='Optimizer. .') +parser.add_argument('--noise', type=float, default=0.0, help='Add noise to input training data to regularize against typos.') + +parser.add_argument('--top_k', type=int, default=40, help='K for top-k sampling.') +parser.add_argument('--top_p', type=float, default=0.0, help='P for top-p sampling. Overrides top_k if set > 0.') + +parser.add_argument('--restore_from', type=str, default='latest', help='Either "latest", "fresh", or a path to a checkpoint file') +parser.add_argument('--run_name', type=str, default='run1', help='Run id. Name of subdirectory in checkpoint/ and samples/') +parser.add_argument('--sample_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=100, help='Generate samples every N steps') +parser.add_argument('--sample_length', metavar='TOKENS', type=int, default=1023, help='Sample this many tokens') +parser.add_argument('--sample_num', metavar='N', type=int, default=1, help='Generate this many samples') +parser.add_argument('--save_every', metavar='N', type=int, default=1000, help='Write a checkpoint every N steps') + +parser.add_argument('--val_dataset', metavar='PATH', type=str, default=None, help='Dataset for validation loss, defaults to --dataset.') +parser.add_argument('--val_batch_size', metavar='SIZE', type=int, default=2, help='Batch size for validation.') +parser.add_argument('--val_batch_count', metavar='N', type=int, default=40, help='Number of batches for validation.') +parser.add_argument('--val_every', metavar='STEPS', type=int, default=0, help='Calculate validation loss every STEPS steps.') + + +def maketree(path): + try: + os.makedirs(path) + except: + pass + + +def randomize(context, hparams, p): + if p > 0: + mask = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context)) < p + noise = tf.random.uniform(shape=tf.shape(context), minval=0, maxval=hparams.n_vocab, dtype=tf.int32) + return tf.where(mask, noise, context) + else: + return context + + +def main(): + args = parser.parse_args() + enc = encoder.get_encoder(args.model_name, models_dir=args.models_dir) + hparams = model.default_hparams() + with open(os.path.join('models', args.model_name, 'hparams.json')) as f: + hparams.override_from_dict(json.load(f)) + + if args.sample_length > hparams.n_ctx: + raise ValueError( + "Can't get samples longer than window size: %s" % hparams.n_ctx) + + with tf.Session() as sess: + # Fully static shape required to make memory accounting in + # twremat accurate. + train_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, 1024]) + train_context_in = randomize(train_context, hparams, args.noise) + train_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=train_context_in) + train_loss = tf.reduce_mean( + tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( + labels=train_context[:, 1:], logits=train_output['logits'][:, :-1])) + + if args.val_every > 0: + val_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.val_batch_size, None]) + val_output = model.model(hparams=hparams, X=val_context) + val_loss = tf.reduce_mean( + tf.nn.sparse_softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits( + labels=val_context[:, 1:], logits=val_output['logits'][:, :-1])) + val_loss_summary = tf.summary.scalar('val_loss', val_loss) + + sample_context = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, [args.batch_size, None]) + tf_sample = sample.sample_sequence( + hparams=hparams, + length=args.sample_length, + context=sample_context, + batch_size=args.batch_size, + temperature=1.0, + top_k=args.top_k, + top_p=args.top_p) + + all_vars = [v for v in tf.trainable_variables() if 'model' in v.name] + train_vars = [v for v in all_vars if '/h' in v.name] if args.only_train_transformer_layers else all_vars + + if args.optimizer == 'adam': + print('Using Adam optimizer', file=sys.stderr) + opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) + elif args.optimizer == 'sgd': + print('Using SGD optimizer', file=sys.stderr) + opt = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(learning_rate=args.learning_rate) + else: + exit('Bad optimizer:', args.optimizer) + + if args.memory_saving_gradients: + if tf.VERSION >= '2': + exit('Memory saving gradients are not supported in tensorflow 2.x') + import memory_saving_gradients + opt_grads = memory_saving_gradients.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + elif args.twremat: + import tfremat + opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + (train_loss, opt_grads) = tfremat.tf_remat((train_loss, opt_grads), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit) + else: + opt_grads = tf.gradients(train_loss, train_vars) + opt_grads = list(zip(opt_grads, train_vars)) + opt_apply = opt.apply_gradients(opt_grads) + summary_loss = tf.summary.scalar('loss', train_loss) + + # if args.twremat: + # import tfremat + # # Applying tfremat to opt_apply has more accurate + # # accounting but is a bit iffier since side effecting ops + # # have more restrictions for correctness. If in doubt + # # revert back to version using opt_grads above. + # (opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss) = ( + # tfremat.tf_remat((opt_apply, train_loss, summary_loss), memlimit=args.twremat_memlimit)) + + + summary_lr = tf.summary.scalar('learning_rate', args.learning_rate) + summaries = tf.summary.merge([summary_lr, summary_loss]) + + summary_log = tf.summary.FileWriter( + os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) + + saver = tf.train.Saver( + var_list=all_vars, + max_to_keep=5, + keep_checkpoint_every_n_hours=2) + sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) + + if args.restore_from == 'latest': + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( + os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) + if ckpt is None: + # Get fresh GPT weights if new run. + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( + os.path.join('models', args.model_name)) + elif args.restore_from == 'fresh': + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint( + os.path.join('models', args.model_name)) + else: + ckpt = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(args.restore_from) + print('Loading checkpoint', ckpt) + saver.restore(sess, ckpt) + + print('Loading dataset...') + chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) + data_sampler = Sampler(chunks) + if args.val_every > 0: + if args.val_dataset: + val_chunks = load_dataset(enc, args.val_dataset, args.combine, encoding=args.encoding) + else: + val_chunks = chunks + print('dataset has', data_sampler.total_size, 'tokens') + print('Training...') + + if args.val_every > 0: + # Sample from validation set once with fixed seed to make + # it deterministic during training as well as across runs. + val_data_sampler = Sampler(val_chunks, seed=1) + val_batches = [[val_data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.val_batch_size)] + for _ in range(args.val_batch_count)] + + counter = 1 + counter_path = os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, 'counter') + if os.path.exists(counter_path): + # Load the step number if we're resuming a run + # Add 1 so we don't immediately try to save again + with open(counter_path, 'r') as fp: + counter = int(fp.read()) + 1 + + def save(): + maketree(os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name)) + print( + 'Saving', + os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, + 'model-{}').format(counter)) + saver.save( + sess, + os.path.join(CHECKPOINT_DIR, args.run_name, 'model'), + global_step=counter) + with open(counter_path, 'w') as fp: + fp.write(str(counter) + '\n') + + def generate_samples(): + print('Generating samples...') + context_tokens = data_sampler.sample(1) + all_text = [] + index = 0 + while index < args.sample_num: + out = sess.run( + tf_sample, + feed_dict={sample_context: args.batch_size * [context_tokens]}) + for i in range(min(args.sample_num - index, args.batch_size)): + text = enc.decode(out[i]) + text = '======== SAMPLE {} ========\n{}\n'.format( + index + 1, text) + all_text.append(text) + index += 1 + print(text) + maketree(os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name)) + with open( + os.path.join(SAMPLE_DIR, args.run_name, + 'samples-{}').format(counter), 'w', encoding=args.encoding) as fp: + fp.write('\n'.join(all_text)) + + def validation(): + print('Calculating validation loss...') + losses = [] + for batch in tqdm.tqdm(val_batches): + losses.append(sess.run(val_loss, feed_dict={val_context: batch})) + v_val_loss = np.mean(losses) + v_summary = sess.run(val_loss_summary, feed_dict={val_loss: v_val_loss}) + summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) + summary_log.flush() + print( + '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] validation loss = {loss:2.2f}' + .format( + counter=counter, + time=time.time() - start_time, + loss=v_val_loss)) + + def sample_batch(): + return [data_sampler.sample(1024) for _ in range(args.batch_size)] + + + avg_loss = (0.0, 0.0) + start_time = time.time() + + # print('Evaluating grads..') + # tf2.profiler.experimental.start('logdir') + # sess.run((opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) + # tf2.profiler.experimental.stop() + # print('Succeeded') + # exit() + + try: + while True: + if counter % args.save_every == 0: + save() + if counter % args.sample_every == 0: + generate_samples() + if args.val_every > 0 and (counter % args.val_every == 0 or counter == 1): + validation() + + (_, v_loss, v_summary) = sess.run( + (opt_apply, train_loss, summaries), + feed_dict={train_context: sample_batch()}) + + summary_log.add_summary(v_summary, counter) + + avg_loss = (avg_loss[0] * 0.99 + v_loss, + avg_loss[1] * 0.99 + 1.0) + + print( + '[{counter} | {time:2.2f}] loss={loss:2.2f} avg={avg:2.2f}' + .format( + counter=counter, + time=time.time() - start_time, + loss=v_loss, + avg=avg_loss[0] / avg_loss[1])) + + counter += 1 + except KeyboardInterrupt: + print('interrupted') + save() + + +if __name__ == '__main__': + main() diff --git a/gpt-2/src/train.txt b/gpt-2/src/train.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..45547cc61 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/src/train.txt @@ -0,0 +1,73230 @@ +A Little Princess +Sara + + +Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and +heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop +windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl +sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the +big thoroughfares. + +She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father, +who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing +people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes. + +She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look +on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of +twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she +was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself +remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up +people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a +long, long time. + +At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from +Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big +ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children +playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers' wives who +used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said. + +Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was that at one +time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the +ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets +where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling +that she moved closer to her father. + +"Papa," she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was almost a +whisper, "papa." + +"What is it, darling?" Captain Crewe answered, holding her closer and +looking down into her face. "What is Sara thinking of?" + +"Is this the place?" Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to him. "Is +it, papa?" + +"Yes, little Sara, it is. We have reached it at last." And though she +was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he said it. + +It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for +"the place," as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was +born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich, +petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world. +They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only +knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought +she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she +grew up she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich +meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used +to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee +Sahib," and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and +pets and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that +people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew +about it. + +During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that thing +was "the place" she was to be taken to some day. The climate of India +was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they were sent away +from it--generally to England and to school. She had seen other +children go away, and had heard their fathers and mothers talk about +the letters they received from them. She had known that she would be +obliged to go also, and though sometimes her father's stories of the +voyage and the new country had attracted her, she had been troubled by +the thought that he could not stay with her. + +"Couldn't you go to that place with me, papa?" she had asked when she +was five years old. "Couldn't you go to school, too? I would help you +with your lessons." + +"But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sara," he +had always said. "You will go to a nice house where there will be a +lot of little girls, and you will play together, and I will send you +plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem scarcely a +year before you are big enough and clever enough to come back and take +care of papa." + +She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her father; to +ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when he had dinner +parties; to talk to him and read his books--that would be what she +would like most in the world, and if one must go away to "the place" in +England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. She did not care +very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she +could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and +was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling +them to herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had +liked them as much as she did. + +"Well, papa," she said softly, "if we are here I suppose we must be +resigned." + +He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was really +not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret. +His quaint little Sara had been a great companion to him, and he felt +he should be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India, he went into +his bungalow knowing he need not expect to see the small figure in its +white frock come forward to meet him. So he held her very closely in +his arms as the cab rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the +house which was their destination. + +It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in its +row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on which was +engraved in black letters: + +MISS MINCHIN, + +Select Seminary for Young Ladies. + + +"Here we are, Sara," said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound as +cheerful as possible. Then he lifted her out of the cab and they +mounted the steps and rang the bell. Sara often thought afterward that +the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin. It was respectable +and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly; and the very +armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them. In the hall everything +was hard and polished--even the red cheeks of the moon face on the tall +clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. The drawing room into +which they were ushered was covered by a carpet with a square pattern +upon it, the chairs were square, and a heavy marble timepiece stood +upon the heavy marble mantel. + +As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast one of +her quick looks about her. + +"I don't like it, papa," she said. "But then I dare say soldiers--even +brave ones--don't really LIKE going into battle." + +Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, +and he never tired of hearing Sara's queer speeches. + +"Oh, little Sara," he said. "What shall I do when I have no one to say +solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are." + +"But why do solemn things make you laugh so?" inquired Sara. + +"Because you are such fun when you say them," he answered, laughing +still more. And then suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed +her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and looking almost as if +tears had come into his eyes. + +It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room. She was very like +her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. She had +large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile. It spread +itself into a very large smile when she saw Sara and Captain Crewe. +She had heard a great many desirable things of the young soldier from +the lady who had recommended her school to him. Among other things, she +had heard that he was a rich father who was willing to spend a great +deal of money on his little daughter. + +"It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful and +promising child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's hand and +stroking it. "Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A +clever child is a great treasure in an establishment like mine." + +Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's face. She +was thinking something odd, as usual. + +"Why does she say I am a beautiful child?" she was thinking. "I am not +beautiful at all. Colonel Grange's little girl, Isobel, is beautiful. +She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long hair the color of +gold. I have short black hair and green eyes; besides which, I am a +thin child and not fair in the least. I am one of the ugliest children +I ever saw. She is beginning by telling a story." + +She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. She was +not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty of the +regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She was a slim, supple +creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive +little face. Her hair was heavy and quite black and only curled at the +tips; her eyes were greenish gray, it is true, but they were big, +wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though she herself did not +like the color of them, many other people did. Still she was very firm +in her belief that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all +elated by Miss Minchin's flattery. + +"I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful," she thought; +"and I should know I was telling a story. I believe I am as ugly as +she is--in my way. What did she say that for?" + +After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had said +it. She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa and mamma +who brought a child to her school. + +Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin +talked. She had been brought to the seminary because Lady Meredith's +two little girls had been educated there, and Captain Crewe had a great +respect for Lady Meredith's experience. Sara was to be what was known +as "a parlor boarder," and she was to enjoy even greater privileges +than parlor boarders usually did. She was to have a pretty bedroom and +sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a +maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her nurse in India. + +"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe +said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. "The +difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. +She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She +doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a +little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new +books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books--great, big, fat +ones--French and German as well as English--history and biography and +poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she +reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a +new doll. She ought to play more with dolls." + +"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every +few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be +intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend." + +Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at Captain +Crewe. + +"Who is Emily?" she inquired. + +"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling. + +Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she +answered. + +"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said. "She is a doll papa is +going to buy for me. We are going out together to find her. I have +called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I +want her to talk to about him." + +Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed. + +"What an original child!" she said. "What a darling little creature!" + +"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. "She is a darling +little creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin." + +Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact, she +remained with him until he sailed away again to India. They went out +and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things. +They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed; but +Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little girl +to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself, so +between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of +seven. There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace +dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich +feathers, and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and +handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the +polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the +odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign +princess--perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah. + +And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops +and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her. + +"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. "I +want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. The trouble with +dolls, papa"--and she put her head on one side and reflected as she +said it--"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to HEAR." So +they looked at big ones and little ones--at dolls with black eyes and +dolls with blue--at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden +braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed. + +"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes. +"If, when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take her to a +dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if +they are tried on." + +After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at +the shop windows and let the cab follow them. They had passed two or +three places without even going in, when, as they were approaching a +shop which was really not a very large one, Sara suddenly started and +clutched her father's arm. + +"Oh, papa!" she cried. "There is Emily!" + +A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her +green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate +with and fond of. + +"She is actually waiting there for us!" she said. "Let us go in to +her." + +"Dear me," said Captain Crewe, "I feel as if we ought to have someone +to introduce us." + +"You must introduce me and I will introduce you," said Sara. "But I +knew her the minute I saw her--so perhaps she knew me, too." + +Perhaps she had known her. She had certainly a very intelligent +expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. She was a large +doll, but not too large to carry about easily; she had naturally +curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle about her, and her +eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with soft, thick eyelashes which +were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines. + +"Of course," said Sara, looking into her face as she held her on her +knee, "of course papa, this is Emily." + +So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children's outfitter's shop +and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara's own. She had lace +frocks, too, and velvet and muslin ones, and hats and coats and +beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and gloves and handkerchiefs and +furs. + +"I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a good +mother," said Sara. "I'm her mother, though I am going to make a +companion of her." + +Captain Crewe would really have enjoyed the shopping tremendously, but +that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart. This all meant that he +was going to be separated from his beloved, quaint little comrade. + +He got out of his bed in the middle of that night and went and stood +looking down at Sara, who lay asleep with Emily in her arms. Her black +hair was spread out on the pillow and Emily's golden-brown hair mingled +with it, both of them had lace-ruffled nightgowns, and both had long +eyelashes which lay and curled up on their cheeks. Emily looked so like +a real child that Captain Crewe felt glad she was there. He drew a big +sigh and pulled his mustache with a boyish expression. + +"Heigh-ho, little Sara!" he said to himself "I don't believe you know +how much your daddy will miss you." + +The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there. He was +to sail away the next morning. He explained to Miss Minchin that his +solicitors, Messrs. Barrow & Skipworth, had charge of his affairs in +England and would give her any advice she wanted, and that they would +pay the bills she sent in for Sara's expenses. He would write to Sara +twice a week, and she was to be given every pleasure she asked for. + +"She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it isn't +safe to give her," he said. + +Then he went with Sara into her little sitting room and they bade each +other good-by. Sara sat on his knee and held the lapels of his coat in +her small hands, and looked long and hard at his face. + +"Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking her hair. + +"No," she answered. "I know you by heart. You are inside my heart." +And they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would +never let each other go. + +When the cab drove away from the door, Sara was sitting on the floor of +her sitting room, with her hands under her chin and her eyes following +it until it had turned the corner of the square. Emily was sitting by +her, and she looked after it, too. When Miss Minchin sent her sister, +Miss Amelia, to see what the child was doing, she found she could not +open the door. + +"I have locked it," said a queer, polite little voice from inside. "I +want to be quite by myself, if you please." + +Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of her +sister. She was really the better-natured person of the two, but she +never disobeyed Miss Minchin. She went downstairs again, looking +almost alarmed. + +"I never saw such a funny, old-fashioned child, sister," she said. "She +has locked herself in, and she is not making the least particle of +noise." + +"It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some of them +do," Miss Minchin answered. "I expected that a child as much spoiled +as she is would set the whole house in an uproar. If ever a child was +given her own way in everything, she is." + +"I've been opening her trunks and putting her things away," said Miss +Amelia. "I never saw anything like them--sable and ermine on her +coats, and real Valenciennes lace on her underclothing. You have seen +some of her clothes. What DO you think of them?" + +"I think they are perfectly ridiculous," replied Miss Minchin, sharply; +"but they will look very well at the head of the line when we take the +schoolchildren to church on Sunday. She has been provided for as if she +were a little princess." + +And upstairs in the locked room Sara and Emily sat on the floor and +stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared, while Captain +Crewe looked backward, waving and kissing his hand as if he could not +bear to stop. + + + +2 + +A French Lesson + + +When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody looked at +her with wide, interested eyes. By that time every pupil--from Lavinia +Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt quite grown up, to Lottie +Legh, who was only just four and the baby of the school--had heard a +great deal about her. They knew very certainly that she was Miss +Minchin's show pupil and was considered a credit to the establishment. +One or two of them had even caught a glimpse of her French maid, +Mariette, who had arrived the evening before. Lavinia had managed to +pass Sara's room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening +a box which had arrived late from some shop. + +"It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them--frills and +frills," she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her +geography. "I saw her shaking them out. I heard Miss Minchin say to +Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous +for a child. My mamma says that children should be dressed simply. She +has got one of those petticoats on now. I saw it when she sat down." + +"She has silk stockings on!" whispered Jessie, bending over her +geography also. "And what little feet! I never saw such little feet." + +"Oh," sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, "that is the way her slippers are +made. My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look small if +you have a clever shoemaker. I don't think she is pretty at all. Her +eyes are such a queer color." + +"She isn't pretty as other pretty people are," said Jessie, stealing a +glance across the room; "but she makes you want to look at her again. +She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green." + +Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. +She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at +all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and +looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered +what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they +cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa at all like her +own. She had had a long talk with Emily about her papa that morning. + +"He is on the sea now, Emily," she had said. "We must be very great +friends to each other and tell each other things. Emily, look at me. +You have the nicest eyes I ever saw--but I wish you could speak." + +She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of +her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even +pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood. After +Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue schoolroom frock and tied her +hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she went to Emily, who sat in a chair of +her own, and gave her a book. + +"You can read that while I am downstairs," she said; and, seeing +Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious +little face. + +"What I believe about dolls," she said, "is that they can do things +they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and +talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out of the room. +That is her secret. You see, if people knew that dolls could do +things, they would make them work. So, perhaps, they have promised +each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will +just sit there and stare; but if you go out, she will begin to read, +perhaps, or go and look out of the window. Then if she heard either of +us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend +she had been there all the time." + +"Comme elle est drole!" Mariette said to herself, and when she went +downstairs she told the head housemaid about it. But she had already +begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small +face and such perfect manners. She had taken care of children before +who were not so polite. Sara was a very fine little person, and had a +gentle, appreciative way of saying, "If you please, Mariette," "Thank +you, Mariette," which was very charming. Mariette told the head +housemaid that she thanked her as if she was thanking a lady. + +"Elle a l'air d'une princesse, cette petite," she said. Indeed, she was +very much pleased with her new little mistress and liked her place +greatly. + +After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few minutes, +being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a dignified +manner upon her desk. + +"Young ladies," she said, "I wish to introduce you to your new +companion." All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara rose +also. "I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crewe; she +has just come to us from a great distance--in fact, from India. As soon +as lessons are over you must make each other's acquaintance." + +The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy, and then +they sat down and looked at each other again. + +"Sara," said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, "come here to me." + +She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its leaves. +Sara went to her politely. + +"As your papa has engaged a French maid for you," she began, "I +conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French +language." + +Sara felt a little awkward. + +"I think he engaged her," she said, "because he--he thought I would +like her, Miss Minchin." + +"I am afraid," said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile, "that you +have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine that things are +done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you +to learn French." + +If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite to +people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But, as +it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. Miss Minchin was a very +severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely sure that Sara +knew nothing whatever of French that she felt as if it would be almost +rude to correct her. The truth was that Sara could not remember the +time when she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often +spoken it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French +woman, and Captain Crewe had loved her language, so it happened that +Sara had always heard and been familiar with it. + +"I--I have never really learned French, but--but--" she began, trying +shyly to make herself clear. + +One of Miss Minchin's chief secret annoyances was that she did not +speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating +fact. She, therefore, had no intention of discussing the matter and +laying herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil. + +"That is enough," she said with polite tartness. "If you have not +learned, you must begin at once. The French master, Monsieur Dufarge, +will be here in a few minutes. Take this book and look at it until he +arrives." + +Sara's cheeks felt warm. She went back to her seat and opened the +book. She looked at the first page with a grave face. She knew it +would be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. But +it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page which told her +that "le pere" meant "the father," and "la mere" meant "the mother." + +Miss Minchin glanced toward her scrutinizingly. + +"You look rather cross, Sara," she said. "I am sorry you do not like +the idea of learning French." + +"I am very fond of it," answered Sara, thinking she would try again; +"but--" + +"You must not say 'but' when you are told to do things," said Miss +Minchin. "Look at your book again." + +And Sara did so, and did not smile, even when she found that "le fils" +meant "the son," and "le frere" meant "the brother." + +"When Monsieur Dufarge comes," she thought, "I can make him understand." + +Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice, +intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his +eyes fell upon Sara trying politely to seem absorbed in her little book +of phrases. + +"Is this a new pupil for me, madame?" he said to Miss Minchin. "I hope +that is my good fortune." + +"Her papa--Captain Crewe--is very anxious that she should begin the +language. But I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. She +does not seem to wish to learn," said Miss Minchin. + +"I am sorry of that, mademoiselle," he said kindly to Sara. "Perhaps, +when we begin to study together, I may show you that it is a charming +tongue." + +Little Sara rose in her seat. She was beginning to feel rather +desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace. She looked up into +Monsieur Dufarge's face with her big, green-gray eyes, and they were +quite innocently appealing. She knew that he would understand as soon +as she spoke. She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent +French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French +exactly--not out of books--but her papa and other people had always +spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read +and written English. Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he +did. Her dear mamma, who had died when she was born, had been French. +She would be glad to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what +she had tried to explain to madame was that she already knew the words +in this book--and she held out the little book of phrases. + +When she began to speak Miss Minchin started quite violently and sat +staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly, until she had +finished. Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his smile was one of +great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own +language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in +his native land--which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed +worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her, +with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin. + +"Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her. She has not +LEARNED French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite." + +"You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified, +turning to Sara. + +"I--I tried," said Sara. "I--I suppose I did not begin right." + +Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault +that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils +had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie were giggling behind +their French grammars, she felt infuriated. + +"Silence, young ladies!" she said severely, rapping upon the desk. +"Silence at once!" + +And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against her show +pupil. + + + +3 + +Ermengarde + + +On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin's side, aware that +the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had +noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her +very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat +child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had +a good-naturedly pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight +pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail around her +neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the +desk, as she stared wonderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur +Dufarge began to speak to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and +when Sara stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent, +appealing eyes, answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat +little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed +amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to +remember that "la mere" meant "the mother," and "le pere," "the +father,"--when one spoke sensible English--it was almost too much for +her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who +seemed not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew +any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were +mere trifles. + +She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she +attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross +at the moment, immediately pounced upon her. + +"Miss St. John!" she exclaimed severely. "What do you mean by such +conduct? Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit +up at once!" + +Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie +tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost +looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes; and +Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her +and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to +spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy. + +"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago," her father used +to say, "she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, +rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight +when she sees people in trouble." + +So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John, and kept +glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no +easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being +spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her French lesson was a +pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even Monsieur Dufarge smile in +spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jessie and the more fortunate girls +either giggled or looked at her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not +laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John +called "le bon pain," "lee bong pang." She had a fine, hot little +temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard +the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face. + +"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she bent over +her book. "They ought not to laugh." + +When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups to +talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather +disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over to her and spoke. She +only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by +way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something friendly +about Sara, and people always felt it. + +"What is your name?" she said. + +To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must recall that a new pupil +is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of this new pupil +the entire school had talked the night before until it fell asleep +quite exhausted by excitement and contradictory stories. A new pupil +with a carriage and a pony and a maid, and a voyage from India to +discuss, was not an ordinary acquaintance. + +"My name's Ermengarde St. John," she answered. + +"Mine is Sara Crewe," said Sara. "Yours is very pretty. It sounds +like a story book." + +"Do you like it?" fluttered Ermengarde. "I--I like yours." + +Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father. +Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If you have a father +who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has +thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart, he +frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your lesson +books at least; and it is not improbable that he will feel you ought to +be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write a French +exercise. Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. He could not +understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably dull +creature who never shone in anything. + +"Good heavens!" he had said more than once, as he stared at her, "there +are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza!" + +If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing +entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly like her. +She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied. + +"She must be MADE to learn," her father said to Miss Minchin. + +Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in disgrace +or in tears. She learned things and forgot them; or, if she remembered +them, she did not understand them. So it was natural that, having made +Sara's acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound +admiration. + +"You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully. + +Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and, tucking +up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees. + +"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she answered. +"You could speak it if you had always heard it." + +"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengarde. "I NEVER could speak it!" + +"Why?" inquired Sara, curiously. + +Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled. + +"You heard me just now," she said. "I'm always like that. I can't SAY +the words. They're so queer." + +She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice, +"You are CLEVER, aren't you?" + +Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows +were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings and the sooty +branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it +said very often that she was "clever," and she wondered if she was--and +IF she was, how it had happened. + +"I don't know," she said. "I can't tell." Then, seeing a mournful +look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the +subject. + +"Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired. + +"Who is Emily?" Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done. + +"Come up to my room and see," said Sara, holding out her hand. + +They jumped down from the window-seat together, and went upstairs. + +"Is it true," Ermengarde whispered, as they went through the hall--"is +it true that you have a playroom all to yourself?" + +"Yes," Sara answered. "Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have one, +because--well, it was because when I play I make up stories and tell +them to myself, and I don't like people to hear me. It spoils it if I +think people listen." + +They had reached the passage leading to Sara's room by this time, and +Ermengarde stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath. + +"You MAKE up stories!" she gasped. "Can you do that--as well as speak +French? CAN you?" + +Sara looked at her in simple surprise. + +"Why, anyone can make up things," she said. "Have you never tried?" + +She put her hand warningly on Ermengarde's. + +"Let us go very quietly to the door," she whispered, "and then I will +open it quite suddenly; perhaps we may catch her." + +She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her +eyes which fascinated Ermengarde, though she had not the remotest idea +what it meant, or whom it was she wanted to "catch," or why she wanted +to catch her. Whatsoever she meant, Ermengarde was sure it was +something delightfully exciting. So, quite thrilled with expectation, +she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. They made not the least +noise until they reached the door. Then Sara suddenly turned the +handle, and threw it wide open. Its opening revealed the room quite +neat and quiet, a fire gently burning in the grate, and a wonderful +doll sitting in a chair by it, apparently reading a book. + +"Oh, she got back to her seat before we could see her!" Sara +explained. "Of course they always do. They are as quick as lightning." + +Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again. + +"Can she--walk?" she asked breathlessly. + +"Yes," answered Sara. "At least I believe she can. At least I PRETEND +I believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true. Have you +never pretended things?" + +"No," said Ermengarde. "Never. I--tell me about it." + +She was so bewitched by this odd, new companion that she actually +stared at Sara instead of at Emily--notwithstanding that Emily was the +most attractive doll person she had ever seen. + +"Let us sit down," said Sara, "and I will tell you. It's so easy that +when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always. +And it's beautiful. Emily, you must listen. This is Ermengarde St. +John, Emily. Ermengarde, this is Emily. Would you like to hold her?" + +"Oh, may I?" said Ermengarde. "May I, really? She is beautiful!" And +Emily was put into her arms. + +Never in her dull, short life had Miss St. John dreamed of such an hour +as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they heard the +lunch-bell ring and were obliged to go downstairs. + +Sara sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things. She sat +rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She +told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what fascinated +Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and +talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were +out of the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew +back to their places "like lightning" when people returned to the room. + +"WE couldn't do it," said Sara, seriously. "You see, it's a kind of +magic." + +Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily, +Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over +it and put out the light in her shining eyes. She drew her breath in +so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound, and then she shut +her lips and held them tightly closed, as if she was determined either +to do or NOT to do something. Ermengarde had an idea that if she had +been like any other little girl, she might have suddenly burst out +sobbing and crying. But she did not. + +"Have you a--a pain?" Ermengarde ventured. + +"Yes," Sara answered, after a moment's silence. "But it is not in my +body." Then she added something in a low voice which she tried to keep +quite steady, and it was this: "Do you love your father more than +anything else in all the whole world?" + +Ermengarde's mouth fell open a little. She knew that it would be far +from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say that +it had never occurred to you that you COULD love your father, that you +would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in his society +for ten minutes. She was, indeed, greatly embarrassed. + +"I--I scarcely ever see him," she stammered. "He is always in the +library--reading things." + +"I love mine more than all the world ten times over," Sara said. "That +is what my pain is. He has gone away." + +She put her head quietly down on her little, huddled-up knees, and sat +very still for a few minutes. + +"She's going to cry out loud," thought Ermengarde, fearfully. + +But she did not. Her short, black locks tumbled about her ears, and +she sat still. Then she spoke without lifting her head. + +"I promised him I would bear it," she said. "And I will. You have to +bear things. Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier. If there +was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, +deep wounds. And he would never say a word--not one word." + +Ermengarde could only gaze at her, but she felt that she was beginning +to adore her. She was so wonderful and different from anyone else. + +Presently, she lifted her face and shook back her black locks, with a +queer little smile. + +"If I go on talking and talking," she said, "and telling you things +about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don't forget, but you +bear it better." + +Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes +felt as if tears were in them. + +"Lavinia and Jessie are 'best friends,'" she said rather huskily. "I +wish we could be 'best friends.' Would you have me for yours? You're +clever, and I'm the stupidest child in the school, but I--oh, I do so +like you!" + +"I'm glad of that," said Sara. "It makes you thankful when you are +liked. Yes. We will be friends. And I'll tell you what"--a sudden +gleam lighting her face--"I can help you with your French lessons." + + + +4 + +Lottie + + +If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss +Minchin's Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at +all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished +guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If +she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have +become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much +indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would +have learned nothing. Privately Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was +far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a +desirable pupil wish to leave her school. She knew quite well that if +Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy, +Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin's opinion was that +if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she +liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so +treated. Accordingly, Sara was praised for her quickness at her +lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils, +for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full +little purse; the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a +virtue, and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain, +she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever +little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about +herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things +over to Ermengarde as time went on. + +"Things happen to people by accident," she used to say. "A lot of nice +accidents have happened to me. It just HAPPENED that I always liked +lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. It +just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice +and clever, and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not +really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and +everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? I +don't know"--looking quite serious--"how I shall ever find out whether +I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, +and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials." + +"Lavinia has no trials," said Ermengarde, stolidly, "and she is horrid +enough." + +Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively, as she thought the +matter over. + +"Well," she said at last, "perhaps--perhaps that is because Lavinia is +GROWING." This was the result of a charitable recollection of having +heard Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she +believed it affected her health and temper. + +Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara. +Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the +school. She had led because she was capable of making herself +extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered +over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough +to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the +best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked +out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, +combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin +at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter +enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader, +too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because +she never did. + +"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best +friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the +least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't +help being--just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made +such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off +when parents come." + +"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave +about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation +of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her +accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at +any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says +herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she +always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing +so grand in being an Indian officer." + +"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers. He killed the one in +the skin Sara has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on +it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat." + +"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia. "My mamma says +that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow +up eccentric." + +It was quite true that Sara was never "grand." She was a friendly +little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand. +The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out +of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry +by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and +when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them +up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other +article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or +alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small +characters. + +"If you are four you are four," she said severely to Lavinia on an +occasion of her having--it must be confessed--slapped Lottie and called +her "a brat;" "but you will be five next year, and six the year after +that. And," opening large, convicting eyes, "it takes sixteen years to +make you twenty." + +"Dear me," said Lavinia, "how we can calculate!" In fact, it was not +to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty--and twenty was an age +the most daring were scarcely bold enough to dream of. + +So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known +to have a tea party, made up of these despised ones, in her own room. +And Emily had been played with, and Emily's own tea service used--the +one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened weak tea and had +blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set +before. From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen +by the entire alphabet class. + +Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been +a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been +sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine +what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child +had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or +lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling +little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she +wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not +have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill +little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of +the house or another. + +Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out +that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought +to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up +people talking her over in the early days, after her mother's death. So +it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge. + +The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing +a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to +suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently, refused to be +silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was +obliged to almost shout--in a stately and severe manner--to make +herself heard. + +"What IS she crying for?" she almost yelled. + +"Oh--oh--oh!" Sara heard; "I haven't got any mam--ma-a!" + +"Oh, Lottie!" screamed Miss Amelia. "Do stop, darling! Don't cry! +Please don't!" + +"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Lottie howled tempestuously. +"Haven't--got--any--mam--ma-a!" + +"She ought to be whipped," Miss Minchin proclaimed. "You SHALL be +whipped, you naughty child!" + +Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss +Minchin's voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she +sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of +the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter. + +Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the +room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with +Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and +saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as +heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or +amiable. + +"Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile. + +"I stopped," explained Sara, "because I knew it was Lottie--and I +thought, perhaps--just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try, +Miss Minchin?" + +"If you can, you are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in +her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by +her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in +everything," she said in her approving way. "I dare say you can manage +her. Go in." And she left her. + +When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming +and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending +over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with +heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that +kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted +on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then +another. + +"Poor darling," she said one moment, "I know you haven't any mamma, +poor--" Then in quite another tone, "If you don't stop, Lottie, I will +shake you. Poor little angel! There--! You wicked, bad, detestable +child, I will smack you! I will!" + +Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going +to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better +not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and +excitedly. + +"Miss Amelia," she said in a low voice, "Miss Minchin says I may try to +make her stop--may I?" + +Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. "Oh, DO you think you +can?" she gasped. + +"I don't know whether I CAN", answered Sara, still in her half-whisper; +"but I will try." + +Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie's +fat little legs kicked as hard as ever. + +"If you will steal out of the room," said Sara, "I will stay with her." + +"Oh, Sara!" almost whimpered Miss Amelia. "We never had such a +dreadful child before. I don't believe we can keep her." + +But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an +excuse for doing it. + +Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked +down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the +floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie's angry screams, the +room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss +Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people +protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and +shriek, and find the only person near you not seeming to mind in the +least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming +eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl. +But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she +was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having +paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must +begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara's odd, interested +face made her first howl rather half-hearted. + +"I--haven't--any--ma--ma--ma-a!" she announced; but her voice was not +so strong. + +Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of +understanding in her eyes. + +"Neither have I," she said. + +This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped +her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a +crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while +Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was +foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her. +She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were +distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob, +said, "Where is she?" + +Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in +heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts +had not been quite like those of other people. + +"She went to heaven," she said. "But I am sure she comes out sometimes +to see me--though I don't see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can +both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room." + +Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty, +little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet +forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour, +she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be +related to an angel. + +Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she +said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own +imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had +been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown +pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be +angels. But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely +country where real people were. + +"There are fields and fields of flowers," she said, forgetting herself, +as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream, +"fields and fields of lilies--and when the soft wind blows over them it +wafts the scent of them into the air--and everybody always breathes it, +because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about +in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make +little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never +tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And +there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are +low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down onto +the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages." + +Whatsoever story she had begun to tell, Lottie would, no doubt, have +stopped crying, and been fascinated into listening; but there was no +denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged +herself close to Sara, and drank in every word until the end came--far +too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip +ominously. + +"I want to go there," she cried. "I--haven't any mamma in this school." + +Sara saw the danger signal, and came out of her dream. She took hold +of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing +little laugh. + +"I will be your mamma," she said. "We will play that you are my little +girl. And Emily shall be your sister." + +Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves. + +"Shall she?" she said. + +"Yes," answered Sara, jumping to her feet. "Let us go and tell her. +And then I will wash your face and brush your hair." + +To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully, and trotted out of the room +and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole +of the last hour's tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had +refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been +called in to use her majestic authority. + +And from that time Sara was an adopted mother. + + + +5 + +Becky + + +Of course the greatest power Sara possessed and the one which gained +her even more followers than her luxuries and the fact that she was +"the show pupil," the power that Lavinia and certain other girls were +most envious of, and at the same time most fascinated by in spite of +themselves, was her power of telling stories and of making everything +she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one or not. + +Anyone who has been at school with a teller of stories knows what the +wonder means--how he or she is followed about and besought in a whisper +to relate romances; how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts +of the favored party in the hope of being allowed to join in and +listen. Sara not only could tell stories, but she adored telling them. +When she sat or stood in the midst of a circle and began to invent +wonderful things, her green eyes grew big and shining, her cheeks +flushed, and, without knowing that she was doing it, she began to act +and made what she told lovely or alarming by the raising or dropping of +her voice, the bend and sway of her slim body, and the dramatic +movement of her hands. She forgot that she was talking to listening +children; she saw and lived with the fairy folk, or the kings and +queens and beautiful ladies, whose adventures she was narrating. +Sometimes when she had finished her story, she was quite out of breath +with excitement, and would lay her hand on her thin, little, +quick-rising chest, and half laugh as if at herself. + +"When I am telling it," she would say, "it doesn't seem as if it was +only made up. It seems more real than you are--more real than the +schoolroom. I feel as if I were all the people in the story--one after +the other. It is queer." + +She had been at Miss Minchin's school about two years when, one foggy +winter's afternoon, as she was getting out of her carriage, comfortably +wrapped up in her warmest velvets and furs and looking very much +grander than she knew, she caught sight, as she crossed the pavement, +of a dingy little figure standing on the area steps, and stretching its +neck so that its wide-open eyes might peer at her through the railings. +Something in the eagerness and timidity of the smudgy face made her +look at it, and when she looked she smiled because it was her way to +smile at people. + +But the owner of the smudgy face and the wide-open eyes evidently was +afraid that she ought not to have been caught looking at pupils of +importance. She dodged out of sight like a jack-in-the-box and +scurried back into the kitchen, disappearing so suddenly that if she +had not been such a poor little forlorn thing, Sara would have laughed +in spite of herself. That very evening, as Sara was sitting in the +midst of a group of listeners in a corner of the schoolroom telling one +of her stories, the very same figure timidly entered the room, carrying +a coal box much too heavy for her, and knelt down upon the hearth rug +to replenish the fire and sweep up the ashes. + +She was cleaner than she had been when she peeped through the area +railings, but she looked just as frightened. She was evidently afraid +to look at the children or seem to be listening. She put on pieces of +coal cautiously with her fingers so that she might make no disturbing +noise, and she swept about the fire irons very softly. But Sara saw in +two minutes that she was deeply interested in what was going on, and +that she was doing her work slowly in the hope of catching a word here +and there. And realizing this, she raised her voice and spoke more +clearly. + +"The Mermaids swam softly about in the crystal-green water, and dragged +after them a fishing-net woven of deep-sea pearls," she said. "The +Princess sat on the white rock and watched them." + +It was a wonderful story about a princess who was loved by a Prince +Merman, and went to live with him in shining caves under the sea. + +The small drudge before the grate swept the hearth once and then swept +it again. Having done it twice, she did it three times; and, as she +was doing it the third time, the sound of the story so lured her to +listen that she fell under the spell and actually forgot that she had +no right to listen at all, and also forgot everything else. She sat +down upon her heels as she knelt on the hearth rug, and the brush hung +idly in her fingers. The voice of the storyteller went on and drew her +with it into winding grottos under the sea, glowing with soft, clear +blue light, and paved with pure golden sands. Strange sea flowers and +grasses waved about her, and far away faint singing and music echoed. + +The hearth brush fell from the work-roughened hand, and Lavinia Herbert +looked round. + +"That girl has been listening," she said. + +The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She +caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a +frightened rabbit. + +Sara felt rather hot-tempered. + +"I knew she was listening," she said. "Why shouldn't she?" + +Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance. + +"Well," she remarked, "I do not know whether your mamma would like you +to tell stories to servant girls, but I know MY mamma wouldn't like ME +to do it." + +"My mamma!" said Sara, looking odd. "I don't believe she would mind in +the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody." + +"I thought," retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, "that your mamma +was dead. How can she know things?" + +"Do you think she DOESN'T know things?" said Sara, in her stern little +voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice. + +"Sara's mamma knows everything," piped in Lottie. "So does my +mamma--'cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin's--my other one knows +everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields +of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me +to bed." + +"You wicked thing," said Lavinia, turning on Sara; "making fairy +stories about heaven." + +"There are much more splendid stories in Revelation," returned Sara. +"Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can +tell you"--with a fine bit of unheavenly temper--"you will never find +out whether they are or not if you're not kinder to people than you are +now. Come along, Lottie." And she marched out of the room, rather +hoping that she might see the little servant again somewhere, but she +found no trace of her when she got into the hall. + +"Who is that little girl who makes the fires?" she asked Mariette that +night. + +Mariette broke forth into a flow of description. + +Ah, indeed, Mademoiselle Sara might well ask. She was a forlorn little +thing who had just taken the place of scullery maid--though, as to +being scullery maid, she was everything else besides. She blacked boots +and grates, and carried heavy coal-scuttles up and down stairs, and +scrubbed floors and cleaned windows, and was ordered about by +everybody. She was fourteen years old, but was so stunted in growth +that she looked about twelve. In truth, Mariette was sorry for her. +She was so timid that if one chanced to speak to her it appeared as if +her poor, frightened eyes would jump out of her head. + +"What is her name?" asked Sara, who had sat by the table, with her chin +on her hands, as she listened absorbedly to the recital. + +Her name was Becky. Mariette heard everyone below-stairs calling, +"Becky, do this," and "Becky, do that," every five minutes in the day. + +Sara sat and looked into the fire, reflecting on Becky for some time +after Mariette left her. She made up a story of which Becky was the +ill-used heroine. She thought she looked as if she had never had quite +enough to eat. Her very eyes were hungry. She hoped she should see +her again, but though she caught sight of her carrying things up or +down stairs on several occasions, she always seemed in such a hurry and +so afraid of being seen that it was impossible to speak to her. + +But a few weeks later, on another foggy afternoon, when she entered her +sitting room she found herself confronting a rather pathetic picture. +In her own special and pet easy-chair before the bright fire, +Becky--with a coal smudge on her nose and several on her apron, with +her poor little cap hanging half off her head, and an empty coal box on +the floor near her--sat fast asleep, tired out beyond even the +endurance of her hard-working young body. She had been sent up to put +the bedrooms in order for the evening. There were a great many of them, +and she had been running about all day. Sara's rooms she had saved +until the last. They were not like the other rooms, which were plain +and bare. Ordinary pupils were expected to be satisfied with mere +necessaries. Sara's comfortable sitting room seemed a bower of luxury +to the scullery maid, though it was, in fact, merely a nice, bright +little room. But there were pictures and books in it, and curious +things from India; there was a sofa and the low, soft chair; Emily sat +in a chair of her own, with the air of a presiding goddess, and there +was always a glowing fire and a polished grate. Becky saved it until +the end of her afternoon's work, because it rested her to go into it, +and she always hoped to snatch a few minutes to sit down in the soft +chair and look about her, and think about the wonderful good fortune of +the child who owned such surroundings and who went out on the cold days +in beautiful hats and coats one tried to catch a glimpse of through the +area railing. + +On this afternoon, when she had sat down, the sensation of relief to +her short, aching legs had been so wonderful and delightful that it had +seemed to soothe her whole body, and the glow of warmth and comfort +from the fire had crept over her like a spell, until, as she looked at +the red coals, a tired, slow smile stole over her smudged face, her +head nodded forward without her being aware of it, her eyes drooped, +and she fell fast asleep. She had really been only about ten minutes +in the room when Sara entered, but she was in as deep a sleep as if she +had been, like the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering for a hundred years. +But she did not look--poor Becky--like a Sleeping Beauty at all. She +looked only like an ugly, stunted, worn-out little scullery drudge. + +Sara seemed as much unlike her as if she were a creature from another +world. + +On this particular afternoon she had been taking her dancing lesson, +and the afternoon on which the dancing master appeared was rather a +grand occasion at the seminary, though it occurred every week. The +pupils were attired in their prettiest frocks, and as Sara danced +particularly well, she was very much brought forward, and Mariette was +requested to make her as diaphanous and fine as possible. + +Today a frock the color of a rose had been put on her, and Mariette had +bought some real buds and made her a wreath to wear on her black locks. +She had been learning a new, delightful dance in which she had been +skimming and flying about the room, like a large rose-colored +butterfly, and the enjoyment and exercise had brought a brilliant, +happy glow into her face. + +When she entered the room, she floated in with a few of the butterfly +steps--and there sat Becky, nodding her cap sideways off her head. + +"Oh!" cried Sara, softly, when she saw her. "That poor thing!" + +It did not occur to her to feel cross at finding her pet chair occupied +by the small, dingy figure. To tell the truth, she was quite glad to +find it there. When the ill-used heroine of her story wakened, she +could talk to her. She crept toward her quietly, and stood looking at +her. Becky gave a little snore. + +"I wish she'd waken herself," Sara said. "I don't like to waken her. +But Miss Minchin would be cross if she found out. I'll just wait a few +minutes." + +She took a seat on the edge of the table, and sat swinging her slim, +rose-colored legs, and wondering what it would be best to do. Miss +Amelia might come in at any moment, and if she did, Becky would be sure +to be scolded. + +"But she is so tired," she thought. "She is so tired!" + +A piece of flaming coal ended her perplexity for her that very moment. +It broke off from a large lump and fell on to the fender. Becky +started, and opened her eyes with a frightened gasp. She did not know +she had fallen asleep. She had only sat down for one moment and felt +the beautiful glow--and here she found herself staring in wild alarm at +the wonderful pupil, who sat perched quite near her, like a +rose-colored fairy, with interested eyes. + +She sprang up and clutched at her cap. She felt it dangling over her +ear, and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh, she had got herself into +trouble now with a vengeance! To have impudently fallen asleep on such +a young lady's chair! She would be turned out of doors without wages. + +She made a sound like a big breathless sob. + +"Oh, miss! Oh, miss!" she stuttered. "I arst yer pardon, miss! Oh, I +do, miss!" + +Sara jumped down, and came quite close to her. + +"Don't be frightened," she said, quite as if she had been speaking to a +little girl like herself. "It doesn't matter the least bit." + +"I didn't go to do it, miss," protested Becky. "It was the warm +fire--an' me bein' so tired. It--it WASN'T impertience!" + +Sara broke into a friendly little laugh, and put her hand on her +shoulder. + +"You were tired," she said; "you could not help it. You are not really +awake yet." + +How poor Becky stared at her! In fact, she had never heard such a +nice, friendly sound in anyone's voice before. She was used to being +ordered about and scolded, and having her ears boxed. And this one--in +her rose-colored dancing afternoon splendor--was looking at her as if +she were not a culprit at all--as if she had a right to be tired--even +to fall asleep! The touch of the soft, slim little paw on her shoulder +was the most amazing thing she had ever known. + +"Ain't--ain't yer angry, miss?" she gasped. "Ain't yer goin' to tell +the missus?" + +"No," cried out Sara. "Of course I'm not." + +The woeful fright in the coal-smutted face made her suddenly so sorry +that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer thoughts rushed into +her mind. She put her hand against Becky's cheek. + +"Why," she said, "we are just the same--I am only a little girl like +you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!" + +Becky did not understand in the least. Her mind could not grasp such +amazing thoughts, and "an accident" meant to her a calamity in which +some one was run over or fell off a ladder and was carried to "the +'orspital." + +"A' accident, miss," she fluttered respectfully. "Is it?" + +"Yes," Sara answered, and she looked at her dreamily for a moment. But +the next she spoke in a different tone. She realized that Becky did +not know what she meant. + +"Have you done your work?" she asked. "Dare you stay here a few +minutes?" + +Becky lost her breath again. + +"Here, miss? Me?" + +Sara ran to the door, opened it, and looked out and listened. + +"No one is anywhere about," she explained. "If your bedrooms are +finished, perhaps you might stay a tiny while. I thought--perhaps--you +might like a piece of cake." + +The next ten minutes seemed to Becky like a sort of delirium. Sara +opened a cupboard, and gave her a thick slice of cake. She seemed to +rejoice when it was devoured in hungry bites. She talked and asked +questions, and laughed until Becky's fears actually began to calm +themselves, and she once or twice gathered boldness enough to ask a +question or so herself, daring as she felt it to be. + +"Is that--" she ventured, looking longingly at the rose-colored frock. +And she asked it almost in a whisper. "Is that there your best?" + +"It is one of my dancing-frocks," answered Sara. "I like it, don't +you?" + +For a few seconds Becky was almost speechless with admiration. Then +she said in an awed voice, "Onct I see a princess. I was standin' in +the street with the crowd outside Covin' Garden, watchin' the swells go +inter the operer. An' there was one everyone stared at most. They ses +to each other, 'That's the princess.' She was a growed-up young lady, +but she was pink all over--gownd an' cloak, an' flowers an' all. I +called her to mind the minnit I see you, sittin' there on the table, +miss. You looked like her." + +"I've often thought," said Sara, in her reflecting voice, "that I +should like to be a princess; I wonder what it feels like. I believe I +will begin pretending I am one." + +Becky stared at her admiringly, and, as before, did not understand her +in the least. She watched her with a sort of adoration. Very soon Sara +left her reflections and turned to her with a new question. + +"Becky," she said, "weren't you listening to that story?" + +"Yes, miss," confessed Becky, a little alarmed again. "I knowed I +hadn't orter, but it was that beautiful I--I couldn't help it." + +"I liked you to listen to it," said Sara. "If you tell stories, you +like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to listen. I +don't know why it is. Would you like to hear the rest?" + +Becky lost her breath again. + +"Me hear it?" she cried. "Like as if I was a pupil, miss! All about +the Prince--and the little white Mer-babies swimming about +laughing--with stars in their hair?" + +Sara nodded. + +"You haven't time to hear it now, I'm afraid," she said; "but if you +will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be +here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. It's a +lovely long one--and I'm always putting new bits to it." + +"Then," breathed Becky, devoutly, "I wouldn't mind HOW heavy the coal +boxes was--or WHAT the cook done to me, if--if I might have that to +think of." + +"You may," said Sara. "I'll tell it ALL to you." + +When Becky went downstairs, she was not the same Becky who had +staggered up, loaded down by the weight of the coal scuttle. She had an +extra piece of cake in her pocket, and she had been fed and warmed, but +not only by cake and fire. Something else had warmed and fed her, and +the something else was Sara. + +When she was gone Sara sat on her favorite perch on the end of her +table. Her feet were on a chair, her elbows on her knees, and her chin +in her hands. + +"If I WAS a princess--a REAL princess," she murmured, "I could scatter +largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I +can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was +just as happy as if it was largess. I'll pretend that to do things +people like is scattering largess. I've scattered largess." + + + +6 + +The Diamond Mines + + +Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara, +but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it the chief subject +of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters +Captain Crewe told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at +school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in +India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds +had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all +went as was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such +wealth as it made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the +friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to share in +this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at +least, was what Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any +other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small +attraction for her or for the schoolroom; but "diamond mines" sounded +so like the Arabian Nights that no one could be indifferent. Sara +thought them enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and +Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where +sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, +dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengarde delighted in the +story, and Lottie insisted on its being retold to her every evening. +Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and told Jessie that she didn't +believe such things as diamond mines existed. + +"My mamma has a diamond ring which cost forty pounds," she said. "And +it is not a big one, either. If there were mines full of diamonds, +people would be so rich it would be ridiculous." + +"Perhaps Sara will be so rich that she will be ridiculous," giggled +Jessie. + +"She's ridiculous without being rich," Lavinia sniffed. + +"I believe you hate her," said Jessie. + +"No, I don't," snapped Lavinia. "But I don't believe in mines full of +diamonds." + +"Well, people have to get them from somewhere," said Jessie. +"Lavinia," with a new giggle, "what do you think Gertrude says?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure; and I don't care if it's something more about +that everlasting Sara." + +"Well, it is. One of her 'pretends' is that she is a princess. She +plays it all the time--even in school. She says it makes her learn her +lessons better. She wants Ermengarde to be one, too, but Ermengarde +says she is too fat." + +"She IS too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin." + +Naturally, Jessie giggled again. + +"She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you +have. It has only to do with what you THINK of, and what you DO." + +"I suppose she thinks she could be a princess if she was a beggar," +said Lavinia. "Let us begin to call her Your Royal Highness." + +Lessons for the day were over, and they were sitting before the +schoolroom fire, enjoying the time they liked best. It was the time +when Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia were taking their tea in the sitting +room sacred to themselves. At this hour a great deal of talking was +done, and a great many secrets changed hands, particularly if the +younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run +about noisily, which it must be confessed they usually did. When they +made an uproar the older girls usually interfered with scolding and +shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if +they did not, Miss Minchin or Miss Amelia would appear and put an end +to festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke the door opened and Sara entered +with Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little +dog. + +"There she is, with that horrid child!" exclaimed Lavinia in a whisper. +"If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she keep her in her own room? She +will begin howling about something in five minutes." + +It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in +the schoolroom, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She +joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled +herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It +was a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a +harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille--men who had spent +so many years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who +rescued them, their long, gray hair and beards almost hid their faces, +and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were +like beings in a dream. + +She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be +dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find +anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when +she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are +fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at +such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one +not easy to manage. + +"It makes me feel as if someone had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde +once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember +things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered." + +She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the +window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner. + +Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having first +irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended by falling +down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and +down in the midst of a group of friends and enemies, who were +alternately coaxing and scolding her. + +"Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia commanded. + +"I'm not a cry-baby ... I'm not!" wailed Lottie. "Sara, Sa--ra!" + +"If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie. +"Lottie darling, I'll give you a penny!" + +"I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at the +fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth again. + +Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round her. + +"Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara." + +"She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie. + +Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew. + +"But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED." Lottie +remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to lift up her +voice. + +"I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't--a bit--of mamma." + +"Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten? Don't +you know that Sara is your mamma? Don't you want Sara for your mamma?" + +Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff. + +"Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and I'll +whisper a story to you." + +"Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you--tell me--about the diamond +mines?" + +"The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled thing, +I should like to SLAP her!" + +Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had +been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille, and she had +had to recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go +and take care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was +not fond of Lavinia. + +"Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap YOU--but I +don't want to slap you!" restraining herself. "At least I both want to +slap you--and I should LIKE to slap you--but I WON'T slap you. We are +not little gutter children. We are both old enough to know better." + +Here was Lavinia's opportunity. + +"Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I +believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very +fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil." + +Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her +ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of +her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new +"pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she +was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a +secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. +She felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She +only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into +rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she +spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and +everybody listened to her. + +"It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I +pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one." + +Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several +times she had found that she could not think of a satisfactory reply +when she was dealing with Sara. The reason for this was that, somehow, +the rest always seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She +saw now that they were pricking up their ears interestedly. The truth +was, they liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear +something more definite about this one, and drew nearer Sara +accordingly. + +Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat. + +"Dear me," she said, "I hope, when you ascend the throne, you won't +forget us!" + +"I won't," said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but stood +quite still, and stared at her steadily as she saw her take Jessie's +arm and turn away. + +After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as +"Princess Sara" whenever they wished to be particularly disdainful, and +those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term +of affection. No one called her "princess" instead of "Sara," but her +adorers were much pleased with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the +title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to +visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal +boarding school. + +To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The +acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up +terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and +grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia +knew very little about it. They were aware that Sara was "kind" to the +scullery maid, but they knew nothing of certain delightful moments +snatched perilously when, the upstairs rooms being set in order with +lightning rapidity, Sara's sitting room was reached, and the heavy coal +box set down with a sigh of joy. At such times stories were told by +installments, things of a satisfying nature were either produced and +eaten or hastily tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night, when +Becky went upstairs to her attic to bed. + +"But I has to eat 'em careful, miss," she said once; "'cos if I leaves +crumbs the rats come out to get 'em." + +"Rats!" exclaimed Sara, in horror. "Are there RATS there?" + +"Lots of 'em, miss," Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner. +"There mostly is rats an' mice in attics. You gets used to the noise +they makes scuttling about. I've got so I don't mind 'em s' long as +they don't run over my piller." + +"Ugh!" said Sara. + +"You gets used to anythin' after a bit," said Becky. "You have to, +miss, if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats than +cockroaches." + +"So would I," said Sara; "I suppose you might make friends with a rat +in time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends with a +cockroach." + +Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in the +bright, warm room, and when this was the case perhaps only a few words +could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into the old-fashioned +pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt, tied round her waist with a +band of tape. The search for and discovery of satisfying things to eat +which could be packed into small compass, added a new interest to +Sara's existence. When she drove or walked out, she used to look into +shop windows eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home +two or three little meat pies, she felt that she had hit upon a +discovery. When she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled. + +"Oh, miss!" she murmured. "Them will be nice an' fillin.' It's +fillin'ness that's best. Sponge cake's a 'evenly thing, but it melts +away like--if you understand, miss. These'll just STAY in yer +stummick." + +"Well," hesitated Sara, "I don't think it would be good if they stayed +always, but I do believe they will be satisfying." + +They were satisfying--and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a +cook-shop--and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky began +to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not seem so +unbearably heavy. + +However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and the +hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the +chance of the afternoon to look forward to--the chance that Miss Sara +would be able to be in her sitting room. In fact, the mere seeing of +Miss Sara would have been enough without meat pies. If there was time +only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put +heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an +installment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered +afterward and sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think +over. Sara--who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better +than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver--had not the +least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor +she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born +open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your +hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out +of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and +laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all. + +Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little +hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and, +though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as "fillin'" as +the meat pies. + +A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her from +her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high +spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted +by the business connected with the diamond mines. + +"You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a businessman at +all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really +understand them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps, if I was not +feverish I should not be awake, tossing about, one half of the night +and spend the other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus +were here, I dare say she would give me some solemn, good advice. You +would, wouldn't you, Little Missus?" + +One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus" because +she had such an old-fashioned air. + +He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among other +things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to +be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to +the letter asking her if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sara +had been very quaint. + +"I am getting very old," she wrote; "you see, I shall never live to +have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is +something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem +about 'A Last Doll' would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. I +have tried, and it made me laugh. It did not sound like Watts or +Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one could ever take Emily's place, +but I should respect the Last Doll very much; and I am sure the school +would love it. They all like dolls, though some of the big ones--the +almost fifteen ones--pretend they are too grown up." + +Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his +bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and +letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread, but +he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks. + +"Oh," he said, "she's better fun every year she lives. God grant this +business may right itself and leave me free to run home and see her. +What wouldn't I give to have her little arms round my neck this minute! +What WOULDN'T I give!" + +The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. The schoolroom +was to be decorated, and there was to be a party. The boxes containing +the presents were to be opened with great ceremony, and there was to be +a glittering feast spread in Miss Minchin's sacred room. When the day +arrived the whole house was in a whirl of excitement. How the morning +passed nobody quite knew, because there seemed such preparations to be +made. The schoolroom was being decked with garlands of holly; the +desks had been moved away, and red covers had been put on the forms +which were arrayed round the room against the wall. + +When Sara went into her sitting room in the morning, she found on the +table a small, dumpy package, tied up in a piece of brown paper. She +knew it was a present, and she thought she could guess whom it came +from. She opened it quite tenderly. It was a square pincushion, made +of not quite clean red flannel, and black pins had been stuck carefully +into it to form the words, "Menny hapy returns." + +"Oh!" cried Sara, with a warm feeling in her heart. "What pains she +has taken! I like it so, it--it makes me feel sorrowful." + +But the next moment she was mystified. On the under side of the +pincushion was secured a card, bearing in neat letters the name "Miss +Amelia Minchin." + +Sara turned it over and over. + +"Miss Amelia!" she said to herself "How CAN it be!" + +And just at that very moment she heard the door being cautiously pushed +open and saw Becky peeping round it. + +There was an affectionate, happy grin on her face, and she shuffled +forward and stood nervously pulling at her fingers. + +"Do yer like it, Miss Sara?" she said. "Do yer?" + +"Like it?" cried Sara. "You darling Becky, you made it all yourself." + +Becky gave a hysteric but joyful sniff, and her eyes looked quite moist +with delight. + +"It ain't nothin' but flannin, an' the flannin ain't new; but I wanted +to give yer somethin' an' I made it of nights. I knew yer could PRETEND +it was satin with diamond pins in. _I_ tried to when I was makin' it. +The card, miss," rather doubtfully; "'t warn't wrong of me to pick it +up out o' the dust-bin, was it? Miss 'Meliar had throwed it away. I +hadn't no card o' my own, an' I knowed it wouldn't be a proper presink +if I didn't pin a card on--so I pinned Miss 'Meliar's." + +Sara flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told herself or +anyone else why there was a lump in her throat. + +"Oh, Becky!" she cried out, with a queer little laugh, "I love you, +Becky--I do, I do!" + +"Oh, miss!" breathed Becky. "Thank yer, miss, kindly; it ain't good +enough for that. The--the flannin wasn't new." + + + +7 + +The Diamond Mines Again + + +When Sara entered the holly-hung schoolroom in the afternoon, she did +so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Minchin, in her grandest +silk dress, led her by the hand. A manservant followed, carrying the +box containing the Last Doll, a housemaid carried a second box, and +Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third and wearing a clean apron +and a new cap. Sara would have much preferred to enter in the usual +way, but Miss Minchin had sent for her, and, after an interview in her +private sitting room, had expressed her wishes. + +"This is not an ordinary occasion," she said. "I do not desire that it +should be treated as one." + +So Sara was led grandly in and felt shy when, on her entry, the big +girls stared at her and touched each other's elbows, and the little +ones began to squirm joyously in their seats. + +"Silence, young ladies!" said Miss Minchin, at the murmur which arose. +"James, place the box on the table and remove the lid. Emma, put yours +upon a chair. Becky!" suddenly and severely. + +Becky had quite forgotten herself in her excitement, and was grinning +at Lottie, who was wriggling with rapturous expectation. She almost +dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and her +frightened, bobbing curtsy of apology was so funny that Lavinia and +Jessie tittered. + +"It is not your place to look at the young ladies," said Miss Minchin. +"You forget yourself. Put your box down." + +Becky obeyed with alarmed haste and hastily backed toward the door. + +"You may leave us," Miss Minchin announced to the servants with a wave +of her hand. + +Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants to pass +out first. She could not help casting a longing glance at the box on +the table. Something made of blue satin was peeping from between the +folds of tissue paper. + +"If you please, Miss Minchin," said Sara, suddenly, "mayn't Becky stay?" + +It was a bold thing to do. Miss Minchin was betrayed into something +like a slight jump. Then she put her eyeglass up, and gazed at her +show pupil disturbedly. + +"Becky!" she exclaimed. "My dearest Sara!" + +Sara advanced a step toward her. + +"I want her because I know she will like to see the presents," she +explained. "She is a little girl, too, you know." + +Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other. + +"My dear Sara," she said, "Becky is the scullery maid. Scullery +maids--er--are not little girls." + +It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. +Scullery maids were machines who carried coal scuttles and made fires. + +"But Becky is," said Sara. "And I know she would enjoy herself. +Please let her stay--because it is my birthday." + +Miss Minchin replied with much dignity: + +"As you ask it as a birthday favor--she may stay. Rebecca, thank Miss +Sara for her great kindness." + +Becky had been backing into the corner, twisting the hem of her apron +in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but between +Sara's eyes and her own there passed a gleam of friendly understanding, +while her words tumbled over each other. + +"Oh, if you please, miss! I'm that grateful, miss! I did want to see +the doll, miss, that I did. Thank you, miss. And thank you, +ma'am,"--turning and making an alarmed bob to Miss Minchin--"for +letting me take the liberty." + +Miss Minchin waved her hand again--this time it was in the direction of +the corner near the door. + +"Go and stand there," she commanded. "Not too near the young ladies." + +Becky went to her place, grinning. She did not care where she was +sent, so that she might have the luck of being inside the room, instead +of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights were going +on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her throat +ominously and spoke again. + +"Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you," she announced. + +"She's going to make a speech," whispered one of the girls. "I wish it +was over." + +Sara felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was probable +that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a +schoolroom and have a speech made about you. + +"You are aware, young ladies," the speech began--for it was a +speech--"that dear Sara is eleven years old today." + +"DEAR Sara!" murmured Lavinia. + +"Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Sara's +birthdays are rather different from other little girls' birthdays. When +she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it will be +her duty to spend in a meritorious manner." + +"The diamond mines," giggled Jessie, in a whisper. + +Sara did not hear her; but as she stood with her green-gray eyes fixed +steadily on Miss Minchin, she felt herself growing rather hot. When +Miss Minchin talked about money, she felt somehow that she always hated +her--and, of course, it was disrespectful to hate grown-up people. + +"When her dear papa, Captain Crewe, brought her from India and gave her +into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a jesting way, +'I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin.' My reply was, 'Her +education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be such as will adorn +the largest fortune.' Sara has become my most accomplished pupil. Her +French and her dancing are a credit to the seminary. Her +manners--which have caused you to call her Princess Sara--are perfect. +Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this afternoon's party. I +hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your +appreciation of it by saying aloud all together, 'Thank you, Sara!'" + +The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had done the morning Sara +remembered so well. + +"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie jumped +up and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a +curtsy--and it was a very nice one. + +"Thank you," she said, "for coming to my party." + +"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Minchin. "That is what a +real princess does when the populace applauds her. +Lavinia"--scathingly--"the sound you just made was extremely like a +snort. If you are jealous of your fellow-pupil, I beg you will express +your feelings in some more lady-like manner. Now I will leave you to +enjoy yourselves." + +The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence always +had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every +seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs; the +older ones wasted no time in deserting theirs. There was a rush toward +the boxes. Sara had bent over one of them with a delighted face. + +"These are books, I know," she said. + +The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked +aghast. + +"Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?" she exclaimed. +"Why, he's as bad as mine. Don't open them, Sara." + +"I like them," Sara laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When +she took out the Last Doll it was so magnificent that the children +uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it +in breathless rapture. + +"She is almost as big as Lottie," someone gasped. + +Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling. + +"She's dressed for the theater," said Lavinia. "Her cloak is lined +with ermine." + +"Oh," cried Ermengarde, darting forward, "she has an opera-glass in her +hand--a blue-and-gold one!" + +"Here is her trunk," said Sara. "Let us open it and look at her +things." + +She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded +clamoring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their +contents. Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were +lace collars and silk stockings and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel +case containing a necklace and a tiara which looked quite as if they +were made of real diamonds; there was a long sealskin and muff, there +were ball dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses; there were +hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie forgot that they +were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight +and caught up things to look at them. + +"Suppose," Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, +black-velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these +splendors--"suppose she understands human talk and feels proud of being +admired." + +"You are always supposing things," said Lavinia, and her air was very +superior. + +"I know I am," answered Sara, undisturbedly. "I like it. There is +nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you +suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real." + +"It's all very well to suppose things if you have everything," said +Lavinia. "Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived +in a garret?" + +Sara stopped arranging the Last Doll's ostrich plumes, and looked +thoughtful. + +"I BELIEVE I could," she said. "If one was a beggar, one would have to +suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn't be easy." + +She often thought afterward how strange it was that just as she had +finished saying this--just at that very moment--Miss Amelia came into +the room. + +"Sara," she said, "your papa's solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see +Miss Minchin, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments +are laid in her parlor, you had all better come and have your feast +now, so that my sister can have her interview here in the schoolroom." + +Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many +pairs of eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into +decorum, and then, with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away, +leaving the Last Doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her +wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and coats hung upon chair backs, +piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their seats. + +Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the +indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties--it really +was an indiscretion. + +"Go back to your work, Becky," Miss Amelia had said; but she had +stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while +she stood looking at them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the +threshold, and, being smitten with terror at the thought of being +accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted under the table, which +hid her by its tablecloth. + +Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry +little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself +also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the +dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression. + +She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair. + +"Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow," she said. + +Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by +the Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his +eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll +herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright +and returned his gaze indifferently. + +"A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive +material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly +enough, that young man." + +Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her +best patron and was a liberty. + +Even solicitors had no right to take liberties. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow," she said stiffly. "I do not +understand." + +"Birthday presents," said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, "to a +child eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it." + +Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly. + +"Captain Crewe is a man of fortune," she said. "The diamond mines +alone--" + +Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. "Diamond mines!" he broke out. +"There are none! Never were!" + +Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair. + +"What!" she cried. "What do you mean?" + +"At any rate," answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, "it would have +been much better if there never had been any." + +"Any diamond mines?" ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a +chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her. + +"Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth," said Mr. +Barrow. "When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a +businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend's +diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends +want his money to put into. The late Captain Crewe--" + +Here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp. + +"The LATE Captain Crewe!" she cried out. "The LATE! You don't come to +tell me that Captain Crewe is--" + +"He's dead, ma'am," Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died +of jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might +not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business +troubles, and the business troubles might not have put an end to him if +the jungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!" + +Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken +filled her with alarm. + +"What WERE his business troubles?" she said. "What WERE they?" + +"Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends--and ruin." + +Miss Minchin lost her breath. + +"Ruin!" she gasped out. + +"Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear friend +was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money +into it, and all Captain Crewe's. Then the dear friend ran +away--Captain Crewe was already stricken with fever when the news came. +The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving about his +little girl--and didn't leave a penny." + +Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in +her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select +Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed, +and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame. + +"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left NOTHING! That +Sara will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she is +left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?" + +Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make his +own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay. + +"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is certainly +left on your hands, ma'am--as she hasn't a relation in the world that +we know of." + +Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to open +the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on +joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments. + +"It is monstrous!" she said. "She's in my sitting room at this moment, +dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my +expense." + +"She's giving it at your expense, madam, if she's giving it," said Mr. +Barrow, calmly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible for anything. +There never was a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune. Captain Crewe +died without paying OUR last bill--and it was a big one." + +Miss Minchin turned back from the door in increased indignation. This +was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being. + +"That is what has happened to me!" she cried. "I was always so sure of +his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the +child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous +fantastic wardrobe. The child was to have anything she wanted. She +has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've paid for all of them +since the last cheque came." + +Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the story of +Miss Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of his firm +clear and related the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular +sympathy for irate keepers of boarding schools. + +"You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, "unless +you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. +She hasn't a brass farthing to call her own." + +"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it +entirely his duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?" + +"There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his +eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is dead. +The child is left a pauper. Nobody is responsible for her but you." + +"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible!" + +Miss Minchin became quite white with rage. + +Mr. Barrow turned to go. + +"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said uninterestedly. +"Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry the thing has +happened, of course." + +"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly +mistaken," Miss Minchin gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I +will turn her into the street!" + +If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say +quite so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly +brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all +self-control. + +Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door. + +"I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented; "it wouldn't look well. +Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the establishment. +Pupil bundled out penniless and without friends." + +He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He also +knew that Miss Minchin was a business woman, and would be shrewd enough +to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make +people speak of her as cruel and hard-hearted. + +"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "She's a clever +child, I believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she grows +older." + +"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!" exclaimed +Miss Minchin. + +"I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow, with a little sinister +smile. "I am sure you will. Good morning!" + +He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be confessed that +Miss Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had +said was quite true. She knew it. She had absolutely no redress. Her +show pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only a friendless, +beggared little girl. Such money as she herself had advanced was lost +and could not be regained. + +And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell +upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had +actually been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this. + +But as she started toward the door it was opened by Miss Amelia, who, +when she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a step in +alarm. + +"What IS the matter, sister?" she ejaculated. + +Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered: + +"Where is Sara Crewe?" + +Miss Amelia was bewildered. + +"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, she's with the children in your room, of +course." + +"Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe?"--in bitter irony. + +"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A BLACK one?" + +"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?" + +Miss Amelia began to turn pale. + +"No--ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has only the +old black velvet, and she has outgrown it." + +"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put +the black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has done with +finery!" + +Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry. + +"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What CAN have happened?" + +Miss Minchin wasted no words. + +"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That +spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands." + +Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair. + +"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I shall +never see a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party of hers. +Go and make her change her frock at once." + +"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?" + +"This moment!" was the fierce answer. "Don't sit staring like a goose. +Go!" + +Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She knew, in +fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do +a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing +to go into the midst of a room full of delighted children, and tell the +giver of the feast that she had suddenly been transformed into a little +beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an old black frock which was +too small for her. But the thing must be done. This was evidently not +the time when questions might be asked. + +She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red. +After which she got up and went out of the room, without venturing to +say another word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had +done just now, the wisest course to pursue was to obey orders without +any comment. Miss Minchin walked across the room. She spoke to herself +aloud without knowing that she was doing it. During the last year the +story of the diamond mines had suggested all sorts of possibilities to +her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make fortunes in stocks, +with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking forward to +gains, she was left to look back upon losses. + +"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been pampered as +if she were a QUEEN." She was sweeping angrily past the corner table as +she said it, and the next moment she started at the sound of a loud, +sobbing sniff which issued from under the cover. + +"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff was +heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table +cover. + +"How DARE you!" she cried out. "How dare you! Come out immediately!" + +It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side, +and her face was red with repressed crying. + +"If you please, 'm--it's me, mum," she explained. "I know I hadn't +ought to. But I was lookin' at the doll, mum--an' I was frightened +when you come in--an' slipped under the table." + +"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss Minchin. + +"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin'--I +thought I could slip out without your noticin', but I couldn't an' I +had to stay. But I didn't listen, mum--I wouldn't for nothin'. But I +couldn't help hearin'." + +Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady +before her. She burst into fresh tears. + +"Oh, please, 'm," she said; "I dare say you'll give me warnin', mum--but +I'm so sorry for poor Miss Sara--I'm so sorry!" + +"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Minchin. + +Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks. + +"Yes, 'm; I will, 'm," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just wanted to +arst you: Miss Sara--she's been such a rich young lady, an' she's been +waited on, 'and and foot; an' what will she do now, mum, without no +maid? If--if, oh please, would you let me wait on her after I've done +my pots an' kettles? I'd do 'em that quick--if you'd let me wait on +her now she's poor. Oh," breaking out afresh, "poor little Miss Sara, +mum--that was called a princess." + +Somehow, she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever. That the +very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child--whom +she realized more fully than ever that she had never liked--was too +much. She actually stamped her foot. + +"No--certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and on other +people, too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave your place." + +Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room +and down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her +pots and kettles, and wept as if her heart would break. + +"It's exactly like the ones in the stories," she wailed. "Them pore +princess ones that was drove into the world." + +Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard as she did when +Sara came to her, a few hours later, in response to a message she had +sent her. + +Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had either +been a dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had happened +in the life of quite another little girl. + +Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had been +removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put back +into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it always +did--all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed +her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside their party +frocks; and this having been done, they had returned to the schoolroom +and huddled together in groups, whispering and talking excitedly. + +"Tell Sara to come to my room," Miss Minchin had said to her sister. +"And explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant +scenes." + +"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the strangest child I ever saw. +She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when +Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her what had happened, +she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound. +Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale. +When I had finished, she still stood staring for a few seconds, and +then her chin began to shake, and she turned round and ran out of the +room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she +did not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I +was saying. It made me feel quite queer not to be answered; and when +you tell anything sudden and strange, you expect people will say +SOMETHING--whatever it is." + +Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after +she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself +scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying +over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own, +"My papa is dead! My papa is dead!" + +Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watching her from her chair, and +cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear--papa is dead? He +is dead in India--thousands of miles away." + +When she came into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her +summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. +Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had +suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the +rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her +treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked instead +a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure. + +She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast-aside black-velvet +frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long +and thin, showing themselves from beneath the brief skirt. As she had +not found a piece of black ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled +loosely about her face and contrasted strongly with its pallor. She +held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was swathed in a piece of +black material. + +"Put down your doll," said Miss Minchin. "What do you mean by bringing +her here?" + +"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I have. My +papa gave her to me." + +She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable, and she +did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold +steadiness with which Miss Minchin felt it difficult to cope--perhaps +because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman thing. + +"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You will have +to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful." + +Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a word. + +"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on. "I +suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you." + +"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I am +quite poor." + +"You are a beggar," said Miss Minchin, her temper rising at the +recollection of what all this meant. "It appears that you have no +relations and no home, and no one to take care of you." + +For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again said +nothing. + +"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin, sharply. "Are you so +stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are quite alone +in the world, and have no one to do anything for you, unless I choose +to keep you here out of charity." + +"I understand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a sound as +if she had gulped down something which rose in her throat. "I +understand." + +"That doll," cried Miss Minchin, pointing to the splendid birthday gift +seated near--"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical, +extravagant things--I actually paid the bill for her!" + +Sara turned her head toward the chair. + +"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little mournful +voice had an odd sound. + +"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Minchin. "And she is mine, not +yours. Everything you own is mine." + +"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want it." + +If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin might +almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who liked to +domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara's pale little +steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if +her might was being set at naught. + +"Don't put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of thing +is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your +pony will be sent away--your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your +oldest and plainest clothes--your extravagant ones are no longer suited +to your station. You are like Becky--you must work for your living." + +To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's eyes--a +shade of relief. + +"Can I work?" she said. "If I can work it will not matter so much. +What can I do?" + +"You can do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a sharp +child, and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful I may +let you stay here. You speak French well, and you can help with the +younger children." + +"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I can teach them. +I like them, and they like me." + +"Don't talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss Minchin. "You +will have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands +and help in the kitchen as well as in the schoolroom. If you don't +please me, you will be sent away. Remember that. Now go." + +Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul, she +was thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to leave the +room. + +"Stop!" said Miss Minchin. "Don't you intend to thank me?" + +Sara paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her breast. + +"What for?" she said. + +"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my kindness in +giving you a home." + +Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved +up and down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce way. + +"You are not kind," she said. "You are NOT kind, and it is NOT a +home." And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Minchin +could stop her or do anything but stare after her with stony anger. + +She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she held +Emily tightly against her side. + +"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could speak--if +she could speak!" + +She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her +cheek upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think and +think and think. But just before she reached the landing Miss Amelia +came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood before it, +looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt secretly +ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do. + +"You--you are not to go in there," she said. + +"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace. + +"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little. + +Somehow, all at once, Sara understood. She realized that this was the +beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of. + +"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not +shake. + +"You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky." + +Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She turned, and +mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow, and covered +with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away +and leaving far behind her the world in which that other child, who no +longer seemed herself, had lived. This child, in her short, tight old +frock, climbing the stairs to the attic, was quite a different creature. + +When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a dreary +little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked +about her. + +Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was +whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places. +There was a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed covered +with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be +used downstairs had been sent up. Under the skylight in the roof, +which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky, there stood +an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat down. She +seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across her knees +and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there, +her little black head resting on the black draperies, not saying one +word, not making one sound. + +And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door--such a +low, humble one that she did not at first hear it, and, indeed, was not +roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a poor tear-smeared +face appeared peeping round it. It was Becky's face, and Becky had +been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes with her kitchen +apron until she looked strange indeed. + +"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you allow +me--jest to come in?" + +Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile, +and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through the loving +mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes--her face looked more like a +child's not so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and +gave a little sob. + +"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only two +little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is. There's +no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore." + +Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast, +kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain. + +"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken. +"Whats'ever 'appens to you--whats'ever--you'd be a princess all the +same--an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different." + + + +8 + +In the Attic + + +The first night she spent in her attic was a thing Sara never forgot. +During its passing she lived through a wild, unchildlike woe of which +she never spoke to anyone about her. There was no one who would have +understood. It was, indeed, well for her that as she lay awake in the +darkness her mind was forcibly distracted, now and then, by the +strangeness of her surroundings. It was, perhaps, well for her that +she was reminded by her small body of material things. If this had not +been so, the anguish of her young mind might have been too great for a +child to bear. But, really, while the night was passing she scarcely +knew that she had a body at all or remembered any other thing than one. + +"My papa is dead!" she kept whispering to herself. "My papa is dead!" + +It was not until long afterward that she realized that her bed had been +so hard that she turned over and over in it to find a place to rest, +that the darkness seemed more intense than any she had ever known, and +that the wind howled over the roof among the chimneys like something +which wailed aloud. Then there was something worse. This was certain +scufflings and scratchings and squeakings in the walls and behind the +skirting boards. She knew what they meant, because Becky had described +them. They meant rats and mice who were either fighting with each +other or playing together. Once or twice she even heard sharp-toed feet +scurrying across the floor, and she remembered in those after days, +when she recalled things, that when first she heard them she started up +in bed and sat trembling, and when she lay down again covered her head +with the bedclothes. + +The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made all +at once. + +"She must begin as she is to go on," Miss Minchin said to Miss Amelia. +"She must be taught at once what she is to expect." + +Mariette had left the house the next morning. The glimpse Sara caught +of her sitting room, as she passed its open door, showed her that +everything had been changed. Her ornaments and luxuries had been +removed, and a bed had been placed in a corner to transform it into a +new pupil's bedroom. + +When she went down to breakfast she saw that her seat at Miss Minchin's +side was occupied by Lavinia, and Miss Minchin spoke to her coldly. + +"You will begin your new duties, Sara," she said, "by taking your seat +with the younger children at a smaller table. You must keep them +quiet, and see that they behave well and do not waste their food. You +ought to have been down earlier. Lottie has already upset her tea." + +That was the beginning, and from day to day the duties given to her +were added to. She taught the younger children French and heard their +other lessons, and these were the least of her labors. It was found +that she could be made use of in numberless directions. She could be +sent on errands at any time and in all weathers. She could be told to +do things other people neglected. The cook and the housemaids took +their tone from Miss Minchin, and rather enjoyed ordering about the +"young one" who had been made so much fuss over for so long. They were +not servants of the best class, and had neither good manners nor good +tempers, and it was frequently convenient to have at hand someone on +whom blame could be laid. + +During the first month or two, Sara thought that her willingness to do +things as well as she could, and her silence under reproof, might +soften those who drove her so hard. In her proud little heart she +wanted them to see that she was trying to earn her living and not +accepting charity. But the time came when she saw that no one was +softened at all; and the more willing she was to do as she was told, +the more domineering and exacting careless housemaids became, and the +more ready a scolding cook was to blame her. + +If she had been older, Miss Minchin would have given her the bigger +girls to teach and saved money by dismissing an instructress; but while +she remained and looked like a child, she could be made more useful as +a sort of little superior errand girl and maid of all work. An ordinary +errand boy would not have been so clever and reliable. Sara could be +trusted with difficult commissions and complicated messages. She could +even go and pay bills, and she combined with this the ability to dust a +room well and to set things in order. + +Her own lessons became things of the past. She was taught nothing, and +only after long and busy days spent in running here and there at +everybody's orders was she grudgingly allowed to go into the deserted +schoolroom, with a pile of old books, and study alone at night. + +"If I do not remind myself of the things I have learned, perhaps I may +forget them," she said to herself. "I am almost a scullery maid, and +if I am a scullery maid who knows nothing, I shall be like poor Becky. +I wonder if I could QUITE forget and begin to drop my H'S and not +remember that Henry the Eighth had six wives." + +One of the most curious things in her new existence was her changed +position among the pupils. Instead of being a sort of small royal +personage among them, she no longer seemed to be one of their number at +all. She was kept so constantly at work that she scarcely ever had an +opportunity of speaking to any of them, and she could not avoid seeing +that Miss Minchin preferred that she should live a life apart from that +of the occupants of the schoolroom. + +"I will not have her forming intimacies and talking to the other +children," that lady said. "Girls like a grievance, and if she begins +to tell romantic stories about herself, she will become an ill-used +heroine, and parents will be given a wrong impression. It is better +that she should live a separate life--one suited to her circumstances. +I am giving her a home, and that is more than she has any right to +expect from me." + +Sara did not expect much, and was far too proud to try to continue to +be intimate with girls who evidently felt rather awkward and uncertain +about her. The fact was that Miss Minchin's pupils were a set of dull, +matter-of-fact young people. They were accustomed to being rich and +comfortable, and as Sara's frocks grew shorter and shabbier and +queerer-looking, and it became an established fact that she wore shoes +with holes in them and was sent out to buy groceries and carry them +through the streets in a basket on her arm when the cook wanted them in +a hurry, they felt rather as if, when they spoke to her, they were +addressing an under servant. + +"To think that she was the girl with the diamond mines," Lavinia +commented. "She does look an object. And she's queerer than ever. I +never liked her much, but I can't bear that way she has now of looking +at people without speaking--just as if she was finding them out." + +"I am," said Sara, promptly, when she heard of this. "That's what I +look at some people for. I like to know about them. I think them over +afterward." + +The truth was that she had saved herself annoyance several times by +keeping her eye on Lavinia, who was quite ready to make mischief, and +would have been rather pleased to have made it for the ex-show pupil. + +Sara never made any mischief herself, or interfered with anyone. She +worked like a drudge; she tramped through the wet streets, carrying +parcels and baskets; she labored with the childish inattention of the +little ones' French lessons; as she became shabbier and more +forlorn-looking, she was told that she had better take her meals +downstairs; she was treated as if she was nobody's concern, and her +heart grew proud and sore, but she never told anyone what she felt. + +"Soldiers don't complain," she would say between her small, shut teeth, +"I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war." + +But there were hours when her child heart might almost have broken with +loneliness but for three people. + +The first, it must be owned, was Becky--just Becky. Throughout all +that first night spent in the garret, she had felt a vague comfort in +knowing that on the other side of the wall in which the rats scuffled +and squeaked there was another young human creature. And during the +nights that followed the sense of comfort grew. They had little chance +to speak to each other during the day. Each had her own tasks to +perform, and any attempt at conversation would have been regarded as a +tendency to loiter and lose time. "Don't mind me, miss," Becky +whispered during the first morning, "if I don't say nothin' polite. +Some un'd be down on us if I did. I MEANS 'please' an' 'thank you' an' +'beg pardon,' but I dassn't to take time to say it." + +But before daybreak she used to slip into Sara's attic and button her +dress and give her such help as she required before she went downstairs +to light the kitchen fire. And when night came Sara always heard the +humble knock at her door which meant that her handmaid was ready to +help her again if she was needed. During the first weeks of her grief +Sara felt as if she were too stupefied to talk, so it happened that +some time passed before they saw each other much or exchanged visits. +Becky's heart told her that it was best that people in trouble should +be left alone. + +The second of the trio of comforters was Ermengarde, but odd things +happened before Ermengarde found her place. + +When Sara's mind seemed to awaken again to the life about her, she +realized that she had forgotten that an Ermengarde lived in the world. +The two had always been friends, but Sara had felt as if she were years +the older. It could not be contested that Ermengarde was as dull as +she was affectionate. She clung to Sara in a simple, helpless way; she +brought her lessons to her that she might be helped; she listened to +her every word and besieged her with requests for stories. But she had +nothing interesting to say herself, and she loathed books of every +description. She was, in fact, not a person one would remember when +one was caught in the storm of a great trouble, and Sara forgot her. + +It had been all the easier to forget her because she had been suddenly +called home for a few weeks. When she came back she did not see Sara +for a day or two, and when she met her for the first time she +encountered her coming down a corridor with her arms full of garments +which were to be taken downstairs to be mended. Sara herself had +already been taught to mend them. She looked pale and unlike herself, +and she was attired in the queer, outgrown frock whose shortness showed +so much thin black leg. + +Ermengarde was too slow a girl to be equal to such a situation. She +could not think of anything to say. She knew what had happened, but, +somehow, she had never imagined Sara could look like this--so odd and +poor and almost like a servant. It made her quite miserable, and she +could do nothing but break into a short hysterical laugh and +exclaim--aimlessly and as if without any meaning, "Oh, Sara, is that +you?" + +"Yes," answered Sara, and suddenly a strange thought passed through her +mind and made her face flush. She held the pile of garments in her +arms, and her chin rested upon the top of it to keep it steady. +Something in the look of her straight-gazing eyes made Ermengarde lose +her wits still more. She felt as if Sara had changed into a new kind +of girl, and she had never known her before. Perhaps it was because she +had suddenly grown poor and had to mend things and work like Becky. + +"Oh," she stammered. "How--how are you?" + +"I don't know," Sara replied. "How are you?" + +"I'm--I'm quite well," said Ermengarde, overwhelmed with shyness. Then +spasmodically she thought of something to say which seemed more +intimate. "Are you--are you very unhappy?" she said in a rush. + +Then Sara was guilty of an injustice. Just at that moment her torn +heart swelled within her, and she felt that if anyone was as stupid as +that, one had better get away from her. + +"What do you think?" she said. "Do you think I am very happy?" And she +marched past her without another word. + +In course of time she realized that if her wretchedness had not made +her forget things, she would have known that poor, dull Ermengarde was +not to be blamed for her unready, awkward ways. She was always +awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid she was given to being. + +But the sudden thought which had flashed upon her had made her +over-sensitive. + +"She is like the others," she had thought. "She does not really want +to talk to me. She knows no one does." + +So for several weeks a barrier stood between them. When they met by +chance Sara looked the other way, and Ermengarde felt too stiff and +embarrassed to speak. Sometimes they nodded to each other in passing, +but there were times when they did not even exchange a greeting. + +"If she would rather not talk to me," Sara thought, "I will keep out of +her way. Miss Minchin makes that easy enough." + +Miss Minchin made it so easy that at last they scarcely saw each other +at all. At that time it was noticed that Ermengarde was more stupid +than ever, and that she looked listless and unhappy. She used to sit +in the window-seat, huddled in a heap, and stare out of the window +without speaking. Once Jessie, who was passing, stopped to look at her +curiously. + +"What are you crying for, Ermengarde?" she asked. + +"I'm not crying," answered Ermengarde, in a muffled, unsteady voice. + +"You are," said Jessie. "A great big tear just rolled down the bridge +of your nose and dropped off at the end of it. And there goes another." + +"Well," said Ermengarde, "I'm miserable--and no one need interfere." +And she turned her plump back and took out her handkerchief and boldly +hid her face in it. + +That night, when Sara went to her attic, she was later than usual. She +had been kept at work until after the hour at which the pupils went to +bed, and after that she had gone to her lessons in the lonely +schoolroom. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was surprised +to see a glimmer of light coming from under the attic door. + +"Nobody goes there but myself," she thought quickly, "but someone has +lighted a candle." + +Someone had, indeed, lighted a candle, and it was not burning in the +kitchen candlestick she was expected to use, but in one of those +belonging to the pupils' bedrooms. The someone was sitting upon the +battered footstool, and was dressed in her nightgown and wrapped up in +a red shawl. It was Ermengarde. + +"Ermengarde!" cried Sara. She was so startled that she was almost +frightened. "You will get into trouble." + +Ermengarde stumbled up from her footstool. She shuffled across the +attic in her bedroom slippers, which were too large for her. Her eyes +and nose were pink with crying. + +"I know I shall--if I'm found out." she said. "But I don't care--I +don't care a bit. Oh, Sara, please tell me. What is the matter? Why +don't you like me any more?" + +Something in her voice made the familiar lump rise in Sara's throat. It +was so affectionate and simple--so like the old Ermengarde who had +asked her to be "best friends." It sounded as if she had not meant +what she had seemed to mean during these past weeks. + +"I do like you," Sara answered. "I thought--you see, everything is +different now. I thought you--were different." + +Ermengarde opened her wet eyes wide. + +"Why, it was you who were different!" she cried. "You didn't want to +talk to me. I didn't know what to do. It was you who were different +after I came back." + +Sara thought a moment. She saw she had made a mistake. + +"I AM different," she explained, "though not in the way you think. Miss +Minchin does not want me to talk to the girls. Most of them don't want +to talk to me. I thought--perhaps--you didn't. So I tried to keep out +of your way." + +"Oh, Sara," Ermengarde almost wailed in her reproachful dismay. And +then after one more look they rushed into each other's arms. It must +be confessed that Sara's small black head lay for some minutes on the +shoulder covered by the red shawl. When Ermengarde had seemed to +desert her, she had felt horribly lonely. + +Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sara clasping her +knees with her arms, and Ermengarde rolled up in her shawl. Ermengarde +looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly. + +"I couldn't bear it any more," she said. "I dare say you could live +without me, Sara; but I couldn't live without you. I was nearly DEAD. +So tonight, when I was crying under the bedclothes, I thought all at +once of creeping up here and just begging you to let us be friends +again." + +"You are nicer than I am," said Sara. "I was too proud to try and make +friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am +NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps"--wrinkling her +forehead wisely--"that is what they were sent for." + +"I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly. + +"Neither do I--to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly. "But I +suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it. There +MIGHT"--doubtfully--"be good in Miss Minchin." + +Ermengarde looked round the attic with a rather fearsome curiosity. + +"Sara," she said, "do you think you can bear living here?" + +Sara looked round also. + +"If I pretend it's quite different, I can," she answered; "or if I +pretend it is a place in a story." + +She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for her. It +had not worked for her at all since her troubles had come upon her. She +had felt as if it had been stunned. + +"Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of Monte +Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. And think of the people in +the Bastille!" + +"The Bastille," half whispered Ermengarde, watching her and beginning +to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French Revolution +which Sara had been able to fix in her mind by her dramatic relation of +them. No one but Sara could have done it. + +A well-known glow came into Sara's eyes. + +"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, "that will be a good place to +pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been here for +years and years--and years; and everybody has forgotten about me. Miss +Minchin is the jailer--and Becky"--a sudden light adding itself to the +glow in her eyes--"Becky is the prisoner in the next cell." + +She turned to Ermengarde, looking quite like the old Sara. + +"I shall pretend that," she said; "and it will be a great comfort." + +Ermengarde was at once enraptured and awed. + +"And will you tell me all about it?" she said. "May I creep up here at +night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have made up in the +day? It will seem as if we were more 'best friends' than ever." + +"Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and mine has +tried you and proved how nice you are." + + + +9 + +Melchisedec + + +The third person in the trio was Lottie. She was a small thing and did +not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by the +alteration she saw in her young adopted mother. She had heard it +rumored that strange things had happened to Sara, but she could not +understand why she looked different--why she wore an old black frock +and came into the schoolroom only to teach instead of to sit in her +place of honor and learn lessons herself. There had been much +whispering among the little ones when it had been discovered that Sara +no longer lived in the rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state. +Lottie's chief difficulty was that Sara said so little when one asked +her questions. At seven mysteries must be made very clear if one is to +understand them. + +"Are you very poor now, Sara?" she had asked confidentially the first +morning her friend took charge of the small French class. "Are you as +poor as a beggar?" She thrust a fat hand into the slim one and opened +round, tearful eyes. "I don't want you to be as poor as a beggar." + +She looked as if she was going to cry. And Sara hurriedly consoled her. + +"Beggars have nowhere to live," she said courageously. "I have a place +to live in." + +"Where do you live?" persisted Lottie. "The new girl sleeps in your +room, and it isn't pretty any more." + +"I live in another room," said Sara. + +"Is it a nice one?" inquired Lottie. "I want to go and see it." + +"You must not talk," said Sara. "Miss Minchin is looking at us. She +will be angry with me for letting you whisper." + +She had found out already that she was to be held accountable for +everything which was objected to. If the children were not attentive, +if they talked, if they were restless, it was she who would be reproved. + +But Lottie was a determined little person. If Sara would not tell her +where she lived, she would find out in some other way. She talked to +her small companions and hung about the elder girls and listened when +they were gossiping; and acting upon certain information they had +unconsciously let drop, she started late one afternoon on a voyage of +discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of, until +she reached the attic floor. There she found two doors near each other, +and opening one, she saw her beloved Sara standing upon an old table +and looking out of a window. + +"Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast because the +attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world. +Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs. + +Sara turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to be +aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and any one +chanced to hear, they were both lost. She jumped down from her table +and ran to the child. + +"Don't cry and make a noise," she implored. "I shall be scolded if you +do, and I have been scolded all day. It's--it's not such a bad room, +Lottie." + +"Isn't it?" gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit her lip. +She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted +parent to make an effort to control herself for her sake. Then, +somehow, it was quite possible that any place in which Sara lived might +turn out to be nice. "Why isn't it, Sara?" she almost whispered. + +Sara hugged her close and tried to laugh. There was a sort of comfort +in the warmth of the plump, childish body. She had had a hard day and +had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes. + +"You can see all sorts of things you can't see downstairs," she said. + +"What sort of things?" demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sara could +always awaken even in bigger girls. + +"Chimneys--quite close to us--with smoke curling up in wreaths and +clouds and going up into the sky--and sparrows hopping about and +talking to each other just as if they were people--and other attic +windows where heads may pop out any minute and you can wonder who they +belong to. And it all feels as high up--as if it was another world." + +"Oh, let me see it!" cried Lottie. "Lift me up!" + +Sara lifted her up, and they stood on the old table together and leaned +on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked out. + +Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different world they +saw. The slates spread out on either side of them and slanted down +into the rain gutter-pipes. The sparrows, being at home there, +twittered and hopped about quite without fear. Two of them perched on +the chimney top nearest and quarrelled with each other fiercely until +one pecked the other and drove him away. The garret window next to +theirs was shut because the house next door was empty. + +"I wish someone lived there," Sara said. "It is so close that if there +was a little girl in the attic, we could talk to each other through the +windows and climb over to see each other, if we were not afraid of +falling." + +The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street, +that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among the chimney +pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost +unreal. One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and +Miss Amelia and the schoolroom, and the roll of wheels in the square +seemed a sound belonging to another existence. + +"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. "I like this +attic--I like it! It is nicer than downstairs!" + +"Look at that sparrow," whispered Sara. "I wish I had some crumbs to +throw to him." + +"I have some!" came in a little shriek from Lottie. "I have part of a +bun in my pocket; I bought it with my penny yesterday, and I saved a +bit." + +When they threw out a few crumbs the sparrow jumped and flew away to an +adjacent chimney top. He was evidently not accustomed to intimates in +attics, and unexpected crumbs startled him. But when Lottie remained +quite still and Sara chirped very softly--almost as if she were a +sparrow herself--he saw that the thing which had alarmed him +represented hospitality, after all. He put his head on one side, and +from his perch on the chimney looked down at the crumbs with twinkling +eyes. Lottie could scarcely keep still. + +"Will he come? Will he come?" she whispered. + +"His eyes look as if he would," Sara whispered back. "He is thinking +and thinking whether he dare. Yes, he will! Yes, he is coming!" + +He flew down and hopped toward the crumbs, but stopped a few inches +away from them, putting his head on one side again, as if reflecting on +the chances that Sara and Lottie might turn out to be big cats and jump +on him. At last his heart told him they were really nicer than they +looked, and he hopped nearer and nearer, darted at the biggest crumb +with a lightning peck, seized it, and carried it away to the other side +of his chimney. + +"Now he KNOWS", said Sara. "And he will come back for the others." + +He did come back, and even brought a friend, and the friend went away +and brought a relative, and among them they made a hearty meal over +which they twittered and chattered and exclaimed, stopping every now +and then to put their heads on one side and examine Lottie and Sara. +Lottie was so delighted that she quite forgot her first shocked +impression of the attic. In fact, when she was lifted down from the +table and returned to earthly things, as it were, Sara was able to +point out to her many beauties in the room which she herself would not +have suspected the existence of. + +"It is so little and so high above everything," she said, "that it is +almost like a nest in a tree. The slanting ceiling is so funny. See, +you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room; and when the morning +begins to come I can lie in bed and look right up into the sky through +that flat window in the roof. It is like a square patch of light. If +the sun is going to shine, little pink clouds float about, and I feel +as if I could touch them. And if it rains, the drops patter and patter +as if they were saying something nice. Then if there are stars, you +can lie and try to count how many go into the patch. It takes such a +lot. And just look at that tiny, rusty grate in the corner. If it was +polished and there was a fire in it, just think how nice it would be. +You see, it's really a beautiful little room." + +She was walking round the small place, holding Lottie's hand and making +gestures which described all the beauties she was making herself see. +She quite made Lottie see them, too. Lottie could always believe in +the things Sara made pictures of. + +"You see," she said, "there could be a thick, soft blue Indian rug on +the floor; and in that corner there could be a soft little sofa, with +cushions to curl up on; and just over it could be a shelf full of books +so that one could reach them easily; and there could be a fur rug +before the fire, and hangings on the wall to cover up the whitewash, +and pictures. They would have to be little ones, but they could be +beautiful; and there could be a lamp with a deep rose-colored shade; +and a table in the middle, with things to have tea with; and a little +fat copper kettle singing on the hob; and the bed could be quite +different. It could be made soft and covered with a lovely silk +coverlet. It could be beautiful. And perhaps we could coax the +sparrows until we made such friends with them that they would come and +peck at the window and ask to be let in." + +"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie. "I should like to live here!" + +When Sara had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and, after setting +her on her way, had come back to her attic, she stood in the middle of +it and looked about her. The enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie +had died away. The bed was hard and covered with its dingy quilt. The +whitewashed wall showed its broken patches, the floor was cold and +bare, the grate was broken and rusty, and the battered footstool, +tilted sideways on its injured leg, the only seat in the room. She sat +down on it for a few minutes and let her head drop in her hands. The +mere fact that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a +little worse--just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more desolate +after visitors come and go, leaving them behind. + +"It's a lonely place," she said. "Sometimes it's the loneliest place +in the world." + +She was sitting in this way when her attention was attracted by a +slight sound near her. She lifted her head to see where it came from, +and if she had been a nervous child she would have left her seat on the +battered footstool in a great hurry. A large rat was sitting up on his +hind quarters and sniffing the air in an interested manner. Some of +Lottie's crumbs had dropped upon the floor and their scent had drawn +him out of his hole. + +He looked so queer and so like a gray-whiskered dwarf or gnome that +Sara was rather fascinated. He looked at her with his bright eyes, as +if he were asking a question. He was evidently so doubtful that one of +the child's queer thoughts came into her mind. + +"I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat," she mused. "Nobody likes +you. People jump and run away and scream out, 'Oh, a horrid rat!' I +shouldn't like people to scream and jump and say, 'Oh, a horrid Sara!' +the moment they saw me. And set traps for me, and pretend they were +dinner. It's so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat +if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said, 'Wouldn't you +rather be a sparrow?'" + +She had sat so quietly that the rat had begun to take courage. He was +very much afraid of her, but perhaps he had a heart like the sparrow +and it told him that she was not a thing which pounced. He was very +hungry. He had a wife and a large family in the wall, and they had had +frightfully bad luck for several days. He had left the children crying +bitterly, and felt he would risk a good deal for a few crumbs, so he +cautiously dropped upon his feet. + +"Come on," said Sara; "I'm not a trap. You can have them, poor thing! +Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats. Suppose I +make friends with you." + +How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is +certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is +not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps +there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without +even making a sound, to another soul. But whatsoever was the reason, +the rat knew from that moment that he was safe--even though he was a +rat. He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool +would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises or throw +heavy objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would +send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a very +nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had stood on his +hind legs and sniffed the air, with his bright eyes fixed on Sara, he +had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating +him as an enemy. When the mysterious thing which speaks without saying +any words told him that she would not, he went softly toward the crumbs +and began to eat them. As he did it he glanced every now and then at +Sara, just as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very +apologetic that it touched her heart. + +She sat and watched him without making any movement. One crumb was +very much larger than the others--in fact, it could scarcely be called +a crumb. It was evident that he wanted that piece very much, but it +lay quite near the footstool and he was still rather timid. + +"I believe he wants it to carry to his family in the wall," Sara +thought. "If I do not stir at all, perhaps he will come and get it." + +She scarcely allowed herself to breathe, she was so deeply interested. +The rat shuffled a little nearer and ate a few more crumbs, then he +stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side glance at the occupant of +the footstool; then he darted at the piece of bun with something very +like the sudden boldness of the sparrow, and the instant he had +possession of it fled back to the wall, slipped down a crack in the +skirting board, and was gone. + +"I knew he wanted it for his children," said Sara. "I do believe I +could make friends with him." + +A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found +it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the +tips of her fingers Sara did not come to her for two or three minutes. +There was, indeed, such a silence in the room at first that Ermengarde +wondered if she could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she +heard her utter a little, low laugh and speak coaxingly to someone. + +"There!" Ermengarde heard her say. "Take it and go home, Melchisedec! +Go home to your wife!" + +Almost immediately Sara opened the door, and when she did so she found +Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold. + +"Who--who ARE you talking to, Sara?" she gasped out. + +Sara drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and +amused her. + +"You must promise not to be frightened--not to scream the least bit, or +I can't tell you," she answered. + +Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to +control herself. She looked all round the attic and saw no one. And +yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone. She thought of ghosts. + +"Is it--something that will frighten me?" she asked timorously. + +"Some people are afraid of them," said Sara. "I was at first--but I am +not now." + +"Was it--a ghost?" quaked Ermengarde. + +"No," said Sara, laughing. "It was my rat." + +Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the little dingy +bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown and the red shawl. She +did not scream, but she gasped with fright. + +"Oh! Oh!" she cried under her breath. "A rat! A rat!" + +"I was afraid you would be frightened," said Sara. "But you needn't +be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and comes out when I +call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him?" + +The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of scraps +brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, she +had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming +familiar with was a mere rat. + +At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a +heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet, but the sight of Sara's +composed little countenance and the story of Melchisedec's first +appearance began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward +over the edge of the bed and watched Sara go and kneel down by the hole +in the skirting board. + +"He--he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?" she said. + +"No," answered Sara. "He's as polite as we are. He is just like a +person. Now watch!" + +She began to make a low, whistling sound--so low and coaxing that it +could only have been heard in entire stillness. She did it several +times, looking entirely absorbed in it. Ermengarde thought she looked +as if she were working a spell. And at last, evidently in response to +it, a gray-whiskered, bright-eyed head peeped out of the hole. Sara +had some crumbs in her hand. She dropped them, and Melchisedec came +quietly forth and ate them. A piece of larger size than the rest he +took and carried in the most businesslike manner back to his home. + +"You see," said Sara, "that is for his wife and children. He is very +nice. He only eats the little bits. After he goes back I can always +hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three kinds of squeaks. +One kind is the children's, and one is Mrs. Melchisedec's, and one is +Melchisedec's own." + +Ermengarde began to laugh. + +"Oh, Sara!" she said. "You ARE queer--but you are nice." + +"I know I am queer," admitted Sara, cheerfully; "and I TRY to be nice." +She rubbed her forehead with her little brown paw, and a puzzled, +tender look came into her face. "Papa always laughed at me," she said; +"but I liked it. He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up +things. I--I can't help making up things. If I didn't, I don't +believe I could live." She paused and glanced around the attic. "I'm +sure I couldn't live here," she added in a low voice. + +Ermengarde was interested, as she always was. "When you talk about +things," she said, "they seem as if they grew real. You talk about +Melchisedec as if he was a person." + +"He IS a person," said Sara. "He gets hungry and frightened, just as +we do; and he is married and has children. How do we know he doesn't +think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. +That was why I gave him a name." + +She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees. + +"Besides," she said, "he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can +always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite +enough to support him." + +"Is it the Bastille yet?" asked Ermengarde, eagerly. "Do you always +pretend it is the Bastille?" + +"Nearly always," answered Sara. "Sometimes I try to pretend it is +another kind of place; but the Bastille is generally +easiest--particularly when it is cold." + +Just at that moment Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed, she was so +startled by a sound she heard. It was like two distinct knocks on the +wall. + +"What is that?" she exclaimed. + +Sara got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically: + +"It is the prisoner in the next cell." + +"Becky!" cried Ermengarde, enraptured. + +"Yes," said Sara. "Listen; the two knocks meant, 'Prisoner, are you +there?'" + +She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer. + +"That means, 'Yes, I am here, and all is well.'" + +Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall. + +"That means," explained Sara, "'Then, fellow-sufferer, we will sleep in +peace. Good night.'" + +Ermengarde quite beamed with delight. + +"Oh, Sara!" she whispered joyfully. "It is like a story!" + +"It IS a story," said Sara. "EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story--I +am a story. Miss Minchin is a story." + +And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was +a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sara that +she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal +noiselessly downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed. + + + +10 + +The Indian Gentleman + + +But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make +pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when Sara +would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss +Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after +the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits were rare ones, +and Sara lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier life when +she was downstairs than when she was in her attic. She had no one to +talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked through the +streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying +to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water +soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds +hurrying past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the +Princess Sara, driving through the streets in her brougham, or walking, +attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager little face and +picturesque coats and hats had often caused people to look after her. +A happy, beautifully cared for little girl naturally attracts +attention. Shabby, poorly dressed children are not rare enough and +pretty enough to make people turn around to look at them and smile. No +one looked at Sara in these days, and no one seemed to see her as she +hurried along the crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, +and, as she was dressed only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of +her wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer, indeed. All +her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left +for her use she was expected to wear so long as she could put them on +at all. Sometimes, when she passed a shop window with a mirror in it, +she almost laughed outright on catching a glimpse of herself, and +sometimes her face went red and she bit her lip and turned away. + +In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were lighted up, +she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse herself by imagining +things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or about the +tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of rooms before the +shutters were closed. There were several families in the square in +which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a +way of her own. The one she liked best she called the Large Family. +She called it the Large Family not because the members of it were +big--for, indeed, most of them were little--but because there were so +many of them. There were eight children in the Large Family, and a +stout, rosy mother, and a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy +grandmother, and any number of servants. The eight children were always +either being taken out to walk or to ride in perambulators by +comfortable nurses, or they were going to drive with their mamma, or +they were flying to the door in the evening to meet their papa and kiss +him and dance around him and drag off his overcoat and look in the +pockets for packages, or they were crowding about the nursery windows +and looking out and pushing each other and laughing--in fact, they were +always doing something enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large +family. Sara was quite fond of them, and had given them names out of +books--quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys when she +did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace +cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet +Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and who +had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came +Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica +Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector. + +One evening a very funny thing happened--though, perhaps, in one sense +it was not a funny thing at all. + +Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children's party, +and just as Sara was about to pass the door they were crossing the +pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them. Veronica +Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace frocks and lovely sashes, +had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was following them. He +was such a pretty fellow and had such rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and +such a darling little round head covered with curls, that Sara forgot +her basket and shabby cloak altogether--in fact, forgot everything but +that she wanted to look at him for a moment. So she paused and looked. + +It was Christmas time, and the Large Family had been hearing many +stories about children who were poor and had no mammas and papas to +fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime--children who were, +in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In the stories, kind +people--sometimes little boys and girls with tender hearts--invariably +saw the poor children and gave them money or rich gifts, or took them +home to beautiful dinners. Guy Clarence had been affected to tears +that very afternoon by the reading of such a story, and he had burned +with a desire to find such a poor child and give her a certain sixpence +he possessed, and thus provide for her for life. An entire sixpence, he +was sure, would mean affluence for evermore. As he crossed the strip of +red carpet laid across the pavement from the door to the carriage, he +had this very sixpence in the pocket of his very short man-o-war +trousers; And just as Rosalind Gladys got into the vehicle and jumped +on the seat in order to feel the cushions spring under her, he saw Sara +standing on the wet pavement in her shabby frock and hat, with her old +basket on her arm, looking at him hungrily. + +He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had perhaps had +nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they looked so +because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his home held and his +rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry wish to snatch him in her +arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a thin face +and thin legs and a common basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand +in his pocket and found his sixpence and walked up to her benignly. + +"Here, poor little girl," he said. "Here is a sixpence. I will give it +to you." + +Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly like +poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on the pavement +to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had given them +pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went pale, and for +a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence. + +"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it, indeed!" + +Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her manner +was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica +Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was +really called Nora) leaned forward to listen. + +But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust +the sixpence into her hand. + +"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly. "You +can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!" + +There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so +likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that +Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a +cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it +must be admitted her cheeks burned. + +"Thank you," she said. "You are a kind, kind little darling thing." +And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away, trying to +smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining +through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but +until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar. + +As the Large Family's carriage drove away, the children inside it were +talking with interested excitement. + +"Oh, Donald," (this was Guy Clarence's name), Janet exclaimed +alarmedly, "why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I'm sure +she is not a beggar!" + +"She didn't speak like a beggar!" cried Nora. "And her face didn't +really look like a beggar's face!" + +"Besides, she didn't beg," said Janet. "I was so afraid she might be +angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for +beggars when they are not beggars." + +"She wasn't angry," said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm. +"She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little darling +thing. And I was!"--stoutly. "It was my whole sixpence." + +Janet and Nora exchanged glances. + +"A beggar girl would never have said that," decided Janet. "She would +have said, 'Thank yer kindly, little gentleman--thank yer, sir;' and +perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy." + +Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large Family +was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to +appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions +concerning her were held round the fire. + +"She is a kind of servant at the seminary," Janet said. "I don't +believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan. But she is +not a beggar, however shabby she looks." + +And afterward she was called by all of them, +"The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar," which was, of course, rather a +long name, and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said +it in a hurry. + +Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit +of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large Family +increased--as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love +increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look +forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to +give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her, +and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her +and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to +feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows +that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of +the attic window, and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter +of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds +appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the +crumbs she scattered. With Melchisedec she had become so intimate that +he actually brought Mrs. Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and +then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and, +somehow, he looked quite as if he understood. + +There had grown in her mind rather a strange feeling about Emily, who +always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one of her moments +of great desolateness. She would have liked to believe or pretend to +believe that Emily understood and sympathized with her. She did not +like to own to herself that her only companion could feel and hear +nothing. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to +her on the old red footstool, and stare and pretend about her until her +own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like +fear--particularly at night when everything was so still, when the only +sound in the attic was the occasional sudden scurry and squeak of +Melchisedec's family in the wall. One of her "pretends" was that Emily +was a kind of good witch who could protect her. Sometimes, after she +had stared at her until she was wrought up to the highest pitch of +fancifulness, she would ask her questions and find herself ALMOST +feeling as if she would presently answer. But she never did. + +"As to answering, though," said Sara, trying to console herself, "I +don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When +people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to +say a word--just to look at them and THINK. Miss Minchin turns pale +with rage when I do it, Miss Amelia looks frightened, and so do the +girls. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are +stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your +rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they +hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what +makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer +your enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I +am like myself. Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends, even. +She keeps it all in her heart." + +But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, she did +not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she had been +sent here and there, sometimes on long errands through wind and cold +and rain, she came in wet and hungry, and was sent out again because +nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that her slim +legs might be tired and her small body might be chilled; when she had +been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks for thanks; when +the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss Minchin had been in +her worst mood, and when she had seen the girls sneering among +themselves at her shabbiness--then she was not always able to comfort +her sore, proud, desolate heart with fancies when Emily merely sat +upright in her old chair and stared. + +One of these nights, when she came up to the attic cold and hungry, +with a tempest raging in her young breast, Emily's stare seemed so +vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so inexpressive, that Sara lost all +control over herself. There was nobody but Emily--no one in the world. +And there she sat. + +"I shall die presently," she said at first. + +Emily simply stared. + +"I can't bear this," said the poor child, trembling. "I know I shall +die. I'm cold; I'm wet; I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand +miles today, and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until +night. And because I could not find that last thing the cook sent me +for, they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because +my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now. +And they laughed. Do you hear?" + +She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly +a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage +hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of +sobbing--Sara who never cried. + +"You are nothing but a DOLL!" she cried. "Nothing but a +doll--doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. +You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a +DOLL!" Emily lay on the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up +over her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she was +calm, even dignified. Sara hid her face in her arms. The rats in the +wall began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble. +Melchisedec was chastising some of his family. + +Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to +break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised +her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the +side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of +glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook +her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile. + +"You can't help being a doll," she said with a resigned sigh, "any more +than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We are not all +made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." And she kissed her and +shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her chair. + +She had wished very much that some one would take the empty house next +door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near +hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open +someday and a head and shoulders rising out of the square aperture. + +"If it looked a nice head," she thought, "I might begin by saying, +'Good morning,' and all sorts of things might happen. But, of course, +it's not really likely that anyone but under servants would sleep +there." + +One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit to the +grocer's, the butcher's, and the baker's, she saw, to her great +delight, that during her rather prolonged absence, a van full of +furniture had stopped before the next house, the front doors were +thrown open, and men in shirt sleeves were going in and out carrying +heavy packages and pieces of furniture. + +"It's taken!" she said. "It really IS taken! Oh, I do hope a nice +head will look out of the attic window!" + +She would almost have liked to join the group of loiterers who had +stopped on the pavement to watch the things carried in. She had an idea +that if she could see some of the furniture she could guess something +about the people it belonged to. + +"Miss Minchin's tables and chairs are just like her," she thought; "I +remember thinking that the first minute I saw her, even though I was so +little. I told papa afterward, and he laughed and said it was true. I +am sure the Large Family have fat, comfortable armchairs and sofas, and +I can see that their red-flowery wallpaper is exactly like them. It's +warm and cheerful and kind-looking and happy." + +She was sent out for parsley to the greengrocer's later in the day, and +when she came up the area steps her heart gave quite a quick beat of +recognition. Several pieces of furniture had been set out of the van +upon the pavement. There was a beautiful table of elaborately wrought +teakwood, and some chairs, and a screen covered with rich Oriental +embroidery. The sight of them gave her a weird, homesick feeling. She +had seen things so like them in India. One of the things Miss Minchin +had taken from her was a carved teakwood desk her father had sent her. + +"They are beautiful things," she said; "they look as if they ought to +belong to a nice person. All the things look rather grand. I suppose +it is a rich family." + +The vans of furniture came and were unloaded and gave place to others +all the day. Several times it so happened that Sara had an opportunity +of seeing things carried in. It became plain that she had been right +in guessing that the newcomers were people of large means. All the +furniture was rich and beautiful, and a great deal of it was Oriental. +Wonderful rugs and draperies and ornaments were taken from the vans, +many pictures, and books enough for a library. Among other things there +was a superb god Buddha in a splendid shrine. + +"Someone in the family MUST have been in India," Sara thought. "They +have got used to Indian things and like them. I AM glad. I shall feel +as if they were friends, even if a head never looks out of the attic +window." + +When she was taking in the evening's milk for the cook (there was +really no odd job she was not called upon to do), she saw something +occur which made the situation more interesting than ever. The +handsome, rosy man who was the father of the Large Family walked across +the square in the most matter-of-fact manner, and ran up the steps of +the next-door house. He ran up them as if he felt quite at home and +expected to run up and down them many a time in the future. He stayed +inside quite a long time, and several times came out and gave +directions to the workmen, as if he had a right to do so. It was quite +certain that he was in some intimate way connected with the newcomers +and was acting for them. + +"If the new people have children," Sara speculated, "the Large Family +children will be sure to come and play with them, and they MIGHT come +up into the attic just for fun." + +At night, after her work was done, Becky came in to see her fellow +prisoner and bring her news. + +"It's a' Nindian gentleman that's comin' to live next door, miss," she +said. "I don't know whether he's a black gentleman or not, but he's a +Nindian one. He's very rich, an' he's ill, an' the gentleman of the +Large Family is his lawyer. He's had a lot of trouble, an' it's made +him ill an' low in his mind. He worships idols, miss. He's an 'eathen +an' bows down to wood an' stone. I seen a' idol bein' carried in for +him to worship. Somebody had oughter send him a trac'. You can get a +trac' for a penny." + +Sara laughed a little. + +"I don't believe he worships that idol," she said; "some people like to +keep them to look at because they are interesting. My papa had a +beautiful one, and he did not worship it." + +But Becky was rather inclined to prefer to believe that the new +neighbor was "an 'eathen." It sounded so much more romantic than that +he should merely be the ordinary kind of gentleman who went to church +with a prayer book. She sat and talked long that night of what he +would be like, of what his wife would be like if he had one, and of +what his children would be like if they had children. Sara saw that +privately she could not help hoping very much that they would all be +black, and would wear turbans, and, above all, that--like their +parent--they would all be "'eathens." + +"I never lived next door to no 'eathens, miss," she said; "I should +like to see what sort o' ways they'd have." + +It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it +was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He +was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he +was shattered in health and unhappy in mind. + +A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When the +footman dismounted from the box and opened the door the gentleman who +was the father of the Large Family got out first. After him there +descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the steps two +men-servants. They came to assist their master, who, when he was helped +out of the carriage, proved to be a man with a haggard, distressed +face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs. He was carried up the +steps, and the head of the Large Family went with him, looking very +anxious. Shortly afterward a doctor's carriage arrived, and the doctor +went in--plainly to take care of him. + +"There is such a yellow gentleman next door, Sara," Lottie whispered at +the French class afterward. "Do you think he is a Chinee? The +geography says the Chinee men are yellow." + +"No, he is not Chinese," Sara whispered back; "he is very ill. Go on +with your exercise, Lottie. 'Non, monsieur. Je n'ai pas le canif de +mon oncle.'" + +That was the beginning of the story of the Indian gentleman. + + + +11 + +Ram Dass + + +There were fine sunsets even in the square, sometimes. One could only +see parts of them, however, between the chimneys and over the roofs. +From the kitchen windows one could not see them at all, and could only +guess that they were going on because the bricks looked warm and the +air rosy or yellow for a while, or perhaps one saw a blazing glow +strike a particular pane of glass somewhere. There was, however, one +place from which one could see all the splendor of them: the piles of +red or gold clouds in the west; or the purple ones edged with dazzling +brightness; or the little fleecy, floating ones, tinged with rose-color +and looking like flights of pink doves scurrying across the blue in a +great hurry if there was a wind. The place where one could see all +this, and seem at the same time to breathe a purer air, was, of course, +the attic window. When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in +an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and +railings, Sara knew something was going on in the sky; and when it was +at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called +back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs, +and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the +window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a +long breath and looked all round her. It used to seem as if she had +all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of +the other attics. Generally the skylights were closed; but even if +they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them. +And there Sara would stand, sometimes turning her face upward to the +blue which seemed so friendly and near--just like a lovely vaulted +ceiling--sometimes watching the west and all the wonderful things that +happened there: the clouds melting or drifting or waiting softly to be +changed pink or crimson or snow-white or purple or pale dove-gray. +Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep +turquoise-blue, or liquid amber, or chrysoprase-green; sometimes dark +headlands jutted into strange, lost seas; sometimes slender strips of +wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together. There were +places where it seemed that one could run or climb or stand and wait to +see what next was coming--until, perhaps, as it all melted, one could +float away. At least it seemed so to Sara, and nothing had ever been +quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the +table--her body half out of the skylight--the sparrows twittering with +sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to +twitter with a sort of subdued softness just when these marvels were +going on. + +There was such a sunset as this a few days after the Indian gentleman +was brought to his new home; and, as it fortunately happened that the +afternoon's work was done in the kitchen and nobody had ordered her to +go anywhere or perform any task, Sara found it easier than usual to +slip away and go upstairs. + +She mounted her table and stood looking out. It was a wonderful +moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west, as if a +glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light +filled the air; the birds flying across the tops of the houses showed +quite black against it. + +"It's a Splendid one," said Sara, softly, to herself. "It makes me +feel almost afraid--as if something strange was just going to happen. +The Splendid ones always make me feel like that." + +She suddenly turned her head because she heard a sound a few yards away +from her. It was an odd sound like a queer little squeaky chattering. +It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at +the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging +from the skylight, but it was not the head or body of a little girl or +a housemaid; it was the picturesque white-swathed form and dark-faced, +gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-servant--"a +Lascar," Sara said to herself quickly--and the sound she had heard came +from a small monkey he held in his arms as if he were fond of it, and +which was snuggling and chattering against his breast. + +As Sara looked toward him he looked toward her. The first thing she +thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt +absolutely sure he had come up to look at the sun, because he had seen +it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at +him interestedly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She +had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may +be. + +Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered, +and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was +as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. The friendly look +in Sara's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull. + +It was perhaps in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on +the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure, +and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He +suddenly broke loose, jumped on to the slates, ran across them +chattering, and actually leaped on to Sara's shoulder, and from there +down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her; but she +knew he must be restored to his master--if the Lascar was his +master--and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her +catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps +get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at +all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was +fond of him. + +She turned to the Lascar, feeling glad that she remembered still some +of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She +could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he +knew. + +"Will he let me catch him?" she asked. + +She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark +face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was +that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind +little voice came from heaven itself. At once Sara saw that he had +been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of +respectful thanks. He was the servant of Missee Sahib. The monkey was +a good monkey and would not bite; but, unfortunately, he was difficult +to catch. He would flee from one spot to another, like the lightning. +He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Dass knew him as if he were +his child, and Ram Dass he would sometimes obey, but not always. If +Missee Sahib would permit Ram Dass, he himself could cross the roof to +her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal. +But he was evidently afraid Sara might think he was taking a great +liberty and perhaps would not let him come. + +But Sara gave him leave at once. + +"Can you get across?" she inquired. + +"In a moment," he answered her. + +"Then come," she said; "he is flying from side to side of the room as +if he was frightened." + +Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as +steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He +slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. +Then he turned to Sara and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and +uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of +shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. It was not a very +long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the +mere fun of it, but presently he sprang chattering on to Ram Dass's +shoulder and sat there chattering and clinging to his neck with a weird +little skinny arm. + +Ram Dass thanked Sara profoundly. She had seen that his quick native +eyes had taken in at a glance all the bare shabbiness of the room, but +he spoke to her as if he were speaking to the little daughter of a +rajah, and pretended that he observed nothing. He did not presume to +remain more than a few moments after he had caught the monkey, and +those moments were given to further deep and grateful obeisance to her +in return for her indulgence. This little evil one, he said, stroking +the monkey, was, in truth, not so evil as he seemed, and his master, +who was ill, was sometimes amused by him. He would have been made sad +if his favorite had run away and been lost. Then he salaamed once more +and got through the skylight and across the slates again with as much +agility as the monkey himself had displayed. + +When he had gone Sara stood in the middle of her attic and thought of +many things his face and his manner had brought back to her. The sight +of his native costume and the profound reverence of his manner stirred +all her past memories. It seemed a strange thing to remember that +she--the drudge whom the cook had said insulting things to an hour +ago--had only a few years ago been surrounded by people who all treated +her as Ram Dass had treated her; who salaamed when she went by, whose +foreheads almost touched the ground when she spoke to them, who were +her servants and her slaves. It was like a sort of dream. It was all +over, and it could never come back. It certainly seemed that there was +no way in which any change could take place. She knew what Miss Minchin +intended that her future should be. So long as she was too young to be +used as a regular teacher, she would be used as an errand girl and +servant and yet expected to remember what she had learned and in some +mysterious way to learn more. The greater number of her evenings she +was supposed to spend at study, and at various indefinite intervals she +was examined and knew she would have been severely admonished if she +had not advanced as was expected of her. The truth, indeed, was that +Miss Minchin knew that she was too anxious to learn to require +teachers. Give her books, and she would devour them and end by knowing +them by heart. She might be trusted to be equal to teaching a good +deal in the course of a few years. This was what would happen: when +she was older she would be expected to drudge in the schoolroom as she +drudged now in various parts of the house; they would be obliged to +give her more respectable clothes, but they would be sure to be plain +and ugly and to make her look somehow like a servant. That was all +there seemed to be to look forward to, and Sara stood quite still for +several minutes and thought it over. + +Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek +and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little +body and lifted her head. + +"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a +princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be +easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a +great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows +it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne +was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and +they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more +like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. +I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten +her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off." + +This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had +consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the +house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not +understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it +seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above +the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and +acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them +at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, +domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes +fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such +times she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: + +"You don't know that you are saying these things to a princess, and +that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only +spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, +vulgar old thing, and don't know any better." + +This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer +and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing +for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be +made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. + +"A princess must be polite," she said to herself. + +And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were +insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply +to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. + +"She's got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham +Palace, that young one," said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. +"I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never +forgets her manners. 'If you please, cook'; 'Will you be so kind, +cook?' 'I beg your pardon, cook'; 'May I trouble you, cook?' She +drops 'em about the kitchen as if they was nothing." + +The morning after the interview with Ram Dass and his monkey, Sara was +in the schoolroom with her small pupils. Having finished giving them +their lessons, she was putting the French exercise-books together and +thinking, as she did it, of the various things royal personages in +disguise were called upon to do: Alfred the Great, for instance, +burning the cakes and getting his ears boxed by the wife of the +neat-herd. How frightened she must have been when she found out what +she had done. If Miss Minchin should find out that she--Sara, whose +toes were almost sticking out of her boots--was a princess--a real one! +The look in her eyes was exactly the look which Miss Minchin most +disliked. She would not have it; she was quite near her and was so +enraged that she actually flew at her and boxed her ears--exactly as +the neat-herd's wife had boxed King Alfred's. It made Sara start. She +wakened from her dream at the shock, and, catching her breath, stood +still a second. Then, not knowing she was going to do it, she broke +into a little laugh. + +"What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child?" Miss Minchin +exclaimed. + +It took Sara a few seconds to control herself sufficiently to remember +that she was a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting from the +blows she had received. + +"I was thinking," she answered. + +"Beg my pardon immediately," said Miss Minchin. + +Sara hesitated a second before she replied. + +"I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was rude," she said then; +"but I won't beg your pardon for thinking." + +"What were you thinking?" demanded Miss Minchin. +"How dare you think? What were you thinking?" + +Jessie tittered, and she and Lavinia nudged each other in unison. All +the girls looked up from their books to listen. Really, it always +interested them a little when Miss Minchin attacked Sara. Sara always +said something queer, and never seemed the least bit frightened. She +was not in the least frightened now, though her boxed ears were scarlet +and her eyes were as bright as stars. + +"I was thinking," she answered grandly and politely, "that you did not +know what you were doing." + +"That I did not know what I was doing?" Miss Minchin fairly gasped. + +"Yes," said Sara, "and I was thinking what would happen if I were a +princess and you boxed my ears--what I should do to you. And I was +thinking that if I were one, you would never dare to do it, whatever I +said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would +be if you suddenly found out--" + +She had the imagined future so clearly before her eyes that she spoke +in a manner which had an effect even upon Miss Minchin. It almost +seemed for the moment to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must +be some real power hidden behind this candid daring. + +"What?" she exclaimed. "Found out what?" + +"That I really was a princess," said Sara, "and could do +anything--anything I liked." + +Every pair of eyes in the room widened to its full limit. Lavinia +leaned forward on her seat to look. + +"Go to your room," cried Miss Minchin, breathlessly, "this instant! +Leave the schoolroom! Attend to your lessons, young ladies!" + +Sara made a little bow. + +"Excuse me for laughing if it was impolite," she said, and walked out +of the room, leaving Miss Minchin struggling with her rage, and the +girls whispering over their books. + +"Did you see her? Did you see how queer she looked?" Jessie broke +out. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be +something. Suppose she should!" + + + +12 + +The Other Side of the Wall + + +When one lives in a row of houses, it is interesting to think of the +things which are being done and said on the other side of the wall of +the very rooms one is living in. Sara was fond of amusing herself by +trying to imagine the things hidden by the wall which divided the +Select Seminary from the Indian gentleman's house. She knew that the +schoolroom was next to the Indian gentleman's study, and she hoped that +the wall was thick so that the noise made sometimes after lesson hours +would not disturb him. + +"I am growing quite fond of him," she said to Ermengarde; "I should not +like him to be disturbed. I have adopted him for a friend. You can do +that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them, +and think about them and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like +relations. I'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call +twice a day." + +"I have very few relations," said Ermengarde, reflectively, "and I'm +very glad of it. I don't like those I have. My two aunts are always +saying, 'Dear me, Ermengarde! You are very fat. You shouldn't eat +sweets,' and my uncle is always asking me things like, 'When did Edward +the Third ascend the throne?' and, 'Who died of a surfeit of lampreys?'" + +Sara laughed. + +"People you never speak to can't ask you questions like that," she +said; "and I'm sure the Indian gentleman wouldn't even if he was quite +intimate with you. I am fond of him." + +She had become fond of the Large Family because they looked happy; but +she had become fond of the Indian gentleman because he looked unhappy. +He had evidently not fully recovered from some very severe illness. In +the kitchen--where, of course, the servants, through some mysterious +means, knew everything--there was much discussion of his case. He was +not an Indian gentleman really, but an Englishman who had lived in +India. He had met with great misfortunes which had for a time so +imperilled his whole fortune that he had thought himself ruined and +disgraced forever. The shock had been so great that he had almost died +of brain fever; and ever since he had been shattered in health, though +his fortunes had changed and all his possessions had been restored to +him. His trouble and peril had been connected with mines. + +"And mines with diamonds in 'em!" said the cook. "No savin's of mine +never goes into no mines--particular diamond ones"--with a side glance +at Sara. "We all know somethin' of THEM." + +"He felt as my papa felt," Sara thought. "He was ill as my papa was; +but he did not die." + +So her heart was more drawn to him than before. When she was sent out +at night she used sometimes to feel quite glad, because there was +always a chance that the curtains of the house next door might not yet +be closed and she could look into the warm room and see her adopted +friend. When no one was about she used sometimes to stop, and, holding +to the iron railings, wish him good night as if he could hear her. + +"Perhaps you can FEEL if you can't hear," was her fancy. "Perhaps kind +thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and +walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don't know +why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well +and happy again. I am so sorry for you," she would whisper in an +intense little voice. "I wish you had a 'Little Missus' who could pet +you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be +your 'Little Missus' myself, poor dear! Good night--good night. God +bless you!" + +She would go away, feeling quite comforted and a little warmer herself. +Her sympathy was so strong that it seemed as if it MUST reach him +somehow as he sat alone in his armchair by the fire, nearly always in a +great dressing gown, and nearly always with his forehead resting in his +hand as he gazed hopelessly into the fire. He looked to Sara like a man +who had a trouble on his mind still, not merely like one whose troubles +lay all in the past. + +"He always seems as if he were thinking of something that hurts him +NOW," she said to herself, "but he has got his money back and he will +get over his brain fever in time, so he ought not to look like that. I +wonder if there is something else." + +If there was something else--something even servants did not hear +of--she could not help believing that the father of the Large Family +knew it--the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency. Mr. Montmorency +went to see him often, and Mrs. Montmorency and all the little +Montmorencys went, too, though less often. He seemed particularly fond +of the two elder little girls--the Janet and Nora who had been so +alarmed when their small brother Donald had given Sara his sixpence. He +had, in fact, a very tender place in his heart for all children, and +particularly for little girls. Janet and Nora were as fond of him as +he was of them, and looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the +afternoons when they were allowed to cross the square and make their +well-behaved little visits to him. They were extremely decorous little +visits because he was an invalid. + +"He is a poor thing," said Janet, "and he says we cheer him up. We try +to cheer him up very quietly." + +Janet was the head of the family, and kept the rest of it in order. It +was she who decided when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to +tell stories about India, and it was she who saw when he was tired and +it was the time to steal quietly away and tell Ram Dass to go to him. +They were very fond of Ram Dass. He could have told any number of +stories if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani. The +Indian gentleman's real name was Mr. Carrisford, and Janet told Mr. +Carrisford about the encounter with the +little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. He was very much interested, and all +the more so when he heard from Ram Dass of the adventure of the monkey +on the roof. Ram Dass made for him a very clear picture of the attic +and its desolateness--of the bare floor and broken plaster, the rusty, +empty grate, and the hard, narrow bed. + +"Carmichael," he said to the father of the Large Family, after he had +heard this description, "I wonder how many of the attics in this square +are like that one, and how many wretched little servant girls sleep on +such beds, while I toss on my down pillows, loaded and harassed by +wealth that is, most of it--not mine." + +"My dear fellow," Mr. Carmichael answered cheerily, "the sooner you +cease tormenting yourself the better it will be for you. If you +possessed all the wealth of all the Indies, you could not set right all +the discomforts in the world, and if you began to refurnish all the +attics in this square, there would still remain all the attics in all +the other squares and streets to put in order. And there you are!" + +Mr. Carrisford sat and bit his nails as he looked into the glowing bed +of coals in the grate. + +"Do you suppose," he said slowly, after a pause--"do you think it is +possible that the other child--the child I never cease thinking of, I +believe--could be--could POSSIBLY be reduced to any such condition as +the poor little soul next door?" + +Mr. Carmichael looked at him uneasily. He knew that the worst thing +the man could do for himself, for his reason and his health, was to +begin to think in the particular way of this particular subject. + +"If the child at Madame Pascal's school in Paris was the one you are in +search of," he answered soothingly, "she would seem to be in the hands +of people who can afford to take care of her. They adopted her because +she had been the favorite companion of their little daughter who died. +They had no other children, and Madame Pascal said that they were +extremely well-to-do Russians." + +"And the wretched woman actually did not know where they had taken +her!" exclaimed Mr. Carrisford. + +Mr. Carmichael shrugged his shoulders. + +"She was a shrewd, worldly Frenchwoman, and was evidently only too glad +to get the child so comfortably off her hands when the father's death +left her totally unprovided for. Women of her type do not trouble +themselves about the futures of children who might prove burdens. The +adopted parents apparently disappeared and left no trace." + +"But you say 'IF the child was the one I am in search of. You say 'if.' +We are not sure. There was a difference in the name." + +"Madame Pascal pronounced it as if it were Carew instead of Crewe--but +that might be merely a matter of pronunciation. The circumstances were +curiously similar. An English officer in India had placed his +motherless little girl at the school. He had died suddenly after +losing his fortune." Mr. Carmichael paused a moment, as if a new +thought had occurred to him. "Are you SURE the child was left at a +school in Paris? Are you sure it was Paris?" + +"My dear fellow," broke forth Carrisford, with restless bitterness, "I +am SURE of nothing. I never saw either the child or her mother. Ralph +Crewe and I loved each other as boys, but we had not met since our +school days, until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent +promise of the mines. He became absorbed, too. The whole thing was so +huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we +scarcely spoke of anything else. I only knew that the child had been +sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember, now, HOW I knew it." + +He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when his +still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the +past. + +Mr. Carmichael watched him anxiously. It was necessary to ask some +questions, but they must be put quietly and with caution. + +"But you had reason to think the school WAS in Paris?" + +"Yes," was the answer, "because her mother was a Frenchwoman, and I had +heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed +only likely that she would be there." + +"Yes," Mr. Carmichael said, "it seems more than probable." + +The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, +wasted hand. + +"Carmichael," he said, "I MUST find her. If she is alive, she is +somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault. +How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? +This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our +most fantastic dreams, and poor Crewe's child may be begging in the +street!" + +"No, no," said Carmichael. "Try to be calm. Console yourself with the +fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her." + +"Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?" +Carrisford groaned in petulant misery. "I believe I should have stood +my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as +well as my own. Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he +owned. He trusted me--he LOVED me. And he died thinking I had ruined +him--I--Tom Carrisford, who played cricket at Eton with him. What a +villain he must have thought me!" + +"Don't reproach yourself so bitterly." + +"I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail--I +reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and +a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had +ruined him and his child." + +The good-hearted father of the Large Family put his hand on his +shoulder comfortingly. + +"You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of +mental torture," he said. "You were half delirious already. If you +had not been you would have stayed and fought it out. You were in a +hospital, strapped down in bed, raving with brain fever, two days after +you left the place. Remember that." + +Carrisford dropped his forehead in his hands. + +"Good God! Yes," he said. "I was driven mad with dread and horror. I +had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house all the +air seemed full of hideous things mocking and mouthing at me." + +"That is explanation enough in itself," said Mr. Carmichael. "How +could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely!" + +Carrisford shook his drooping head. + +"And when I returned to consciousness poor Crewe was dead--and buried. +And I seemed to remember nothing. I did not remember the child for +months and months. Even when I began to recall her existence +everything seemed in a sort of haze." + +He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead. "It sometimes seems so +now when I try to remember. Surely I must sometime have heard Crewe +speak of the school she was sent to. Don't you think so?" + +"He might not have spoken of it definitely. You never seem even to +have heard her real name." + +"He used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented. He called her +his 'Little Missus.' But the wretched mines drove everything else out +of our heads. We talked of nothing else. If he spoke of the school, I +forgot--I forgot. And now I shall never remember." + +"Come, come," said Carmichael. "We shall find her yet. We will +continue to search for Madame Pascal's good-natured Russians. She +seemed to have a vague idea that they lived in Moscow. We will take +that as a clue. I will go to Moscow." + +"If I were able to travel, I would go with you," said Carrisford; "but +I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire. And when I +look into it I seem to see Crewe's gay young face gazing back at me. +He looks as if he were asking me a question. Sometimes I dream of him +at night, and he always stands before me and asks the same question in +words. Can you guess what he says, Carmichael?" + +Mr. Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice. + +"Not exactly," he said. + +"He always says, 'Tom, old man--Tom--where is the Little Missus?'" He +caught at Carmichael's hand and clung to it. "I must be able to answer +him--I must!" he said. "Help me to find her. Help me." + + +On the other side of the wall Sara was sitting in her garret talking to +Melchisedec, who had come out for his evening meal. + +"It has been hard to be a princess today, Melchisedec," she said. "It +has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the weather grows colder +and the streets get more sloppy. When Lavinia laughed at my muddy +skirt as I passed her in the hall, I thought of something to say all in +a flash--and I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back +at people like that--if you are a princess. But you have to bite your +tongue to hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, +Melchisedec. And it's a cold night." + +Quite suddenly she put her black head down in her arms, as she often +did when she was alone. + +"Oh, papa," she whispered, "what a long time it seems since I was your +'Little Missus'!" + +This was what happened that day on both sides of the wall. + + + +13 + +One of the Populace + + +The winter was a wretched one. There were days on which Sara tramped +through snow when she went on her errands; there were worse days when +the snow melted and combined itself with mud to form slush; there were +others when the fog was so thick that the lamps in the street were +lighted all day and London looked as it had looked the afternoon, +several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thoroughfares +with Sara tucked up on its seat, leaning against her father's shoulder. +On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked +delightfully cozy and alluring, and the study in which the Indian +gentleman sat glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was +dismal beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look +at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds hung +low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping +heavy rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no +special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to +her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to light a candle. The women +in the kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered +than ever. Becky was driven like a little slave. + +"'Twarn't for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night when she +had crept into the attic--"'twarn't for you, an' the Bastille, an' +bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does +seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer +every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. +The cook she's like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, +please, miss--tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've dug under the +walls." + +"I'll tell you something warmer," shivered Sara. "Get your coverlet +and wrap it round you, and I'll get mine, and we will huddle close +together on the bed, and I'll tell you about the tropical forest where +the Indian gentleman's monkey used to live. When I see him sitting on +the table near the window and looking out into the street with that +mournful expression, I always feel sure he is thinking about the +tropical forest where he used to swing by his tail from coconut trees. +I wonder who caught him, and if he left a family behind who had +depended on him for coconuts." + +"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways, even +the Bastille is sort of heatin' when you gets to tellin' about it." + +"That is because it makes you think of something else," said Sara, +wrapping the coverlet round her until only her small dark face was to +be seen looking out of it. "I've noticed this. What you have to do +with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of +something else." + +"Can you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes. + +Sara knitted her brows a moment. + +"Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't," she said stoutly. "But when I +CAN I'm all right. And what I believe is that we always could--if we +practiced enough. I've been practicing a good deal lately, and it's +beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are +horrible--just horrible--I think as hard as ever I can of being a +princess. I say to myself, 'I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and +because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable.' +You don't know how it makes you forget"--with a laugh. + +She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else, +and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she was a +princess. But one of the strongest tests she was ever put to came on a +certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, would never +quite fade out of her memory even in the years to come. + +For several days it had rained continuously; the streets were chilly +and sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist; there was mud +everywhere--sticky London mud--and over everything the pall of drizzle +and fog. Of course there were several long and tiresome errands to be +done--there always were on days like this--and Sara was sent out again +and again, until her shabby clothes were damp through. The absurd old +feathers on her forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd than ever, +and her downtrodden shoes were so wet that they could not hold any more +water. Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner, because +Miss Minchin had chosen to punish her. She was so cold and hungry and +tired that her face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some +kind-hearted person passing her in the street glanced at her with +sudden sympathy. But she did not know that. She hurried on, trying to +make her mind think of something else. It was really very necessary. +Her way of doing it was to "pretend" and "suppose" with all the +strength that was left in her. But really this time it was harder than +she had ever found it, and once or twice she thought it almost made her +more cold and hungry instead of less so. But she persevered +obstinately, and as the muddy water squelched through her broken shoes +and the wind seemed trying to drag her thin jacket from her, she talked +to herself as she walked, though she did not speak aloud or even move +her lips. + +"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought. "Suppose I had good shoes +and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And +suppose--suppose--just when I was near a baker's where they sold hot +buns, I should find sixpence--which belonged to nobody. SUPPOSE if I +did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns and eat +them all without stopping." + +Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes. + +It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sara. She had to cross +the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud was +dreadful--she almost had to wade. She picked her way as carefully as +she could, but she could not save herself much; only, in picking her +way, she had to look down at her feet and the mud, and in looking +down--just as she reached the pavement--she saw something shining in +the gutter. It was actually a piece of silver--a tiny piece trodden +upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough left to shine a little. +Not quite a sixpence, but the next thing to it--a fourpenny piece. + +In one second it was in her cold little red-and-blue hand. + +"Oh," she gasped, "it is true! It is true!" + +And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the shop +directly facing her. And it was a baker's shop, and a cheerful, stout, +motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into the window a tray of +delicious newly baked hot buns, fresh from the oven--large, plump, +shiny buns, with currants in them. + +It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds--the shock, and the +sight of the buns, and the delightful odors of warm bread floating up +through the baker's cellar window. + +She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money. It +had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was +completely lost in the stream of passing people who crowded and jostled +each other all day long. + +"But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything," she +said to herself, rather faintly. So she crossed the pavement and put +her wet foot on the step. As she did so she saw something that made +her stop. + +It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself--a little figure +which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, +red muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner +was trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared +a shock head of tangled hair, and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry +eyes. + +Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a +sudden sympathy. + +"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the +populace--and she is hungrier than I am." + +The child--this "one of the populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled +herself aside a little, so as to give her room to pass. She was used +to being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman +chanced to see her he would tell her to "move on." + +Sara clutched her little fourpenny piece and hesitated for a few +seconds. Then she spoke to her. + +"Are you hungry?" she asked. + +The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more. + +"Ain't I jist?" she said in a hoarse voice. "Jist ain't I?" + +"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara. + +"No dinner," more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. "Nor yet no +bre'fast--nor yet no supper. No nothin'. + +"Since when?" asked Sara. + +"Dunno. Never got nothin' today--nowhere. I've axed an' axed." + +Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer +little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to +herself, though she was sick at heart. + +"If I'm a princess," she was saying, "if I'm a princess--when they were +poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the +populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves. They +always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it had been sixpence I could +have eaten six. It won't be enough for either of us. But it will be +better than nothing." + +"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar child. + +She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously. The +woman was just going to put some more hot buns into the window. + +"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver +fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her. + +The woman looked at it and then at her--at her intense little face and +draggled, once fine clothes. + +"Bless us, no," she answered. "Did you find it?" + +"Yes," said Sara. "In the gutter." + +"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there for a week, +and goodness knows who lost it. YOU could never find out." + +"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I would ask you." + +"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and +good-natured all at once. + +"Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara glance at +the buns. + +"Four buns, if you please," said Sara. "Those at a penny each." + +The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. + +Sara noticed that she put in six. + +"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only fourpence." + +"I'll throw in two for makeweight," said the woman with her +good-natured look. "I dare say you can eat them sometime. Aren't you +hungry?" + +A mist rose before Sara's eyes. + +"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you +for your kindness; and"--she was going to add--"there is a child +outside who is hungrier than I am." But just at that moment two or +three customers came in at once, and each one seemed in a hurry, so she +could only thank the woman again and go out. + +The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step. She +looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring straight +before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara saw her suddenly +draw the back of her roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away +the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from +under her lids. She was muttering to herself. + +Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had +already warmed her own cold hands a little. + +"See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is nice and +hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry." + +The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good +luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the bun and began to +cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites. + +"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight. "OH +my!" + +Sara took out three more buns and put them down. + +The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful. + +"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." +But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not +starving," she said--and she put down the fifth. + +The little ravening London savage was still snatching and devouring +when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if +she had ever been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a +poor little wild animal. + +"Good-bye," said Sara. + +When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The +child had a bun in each hand and had stopped in the middle of a bite to +watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another +stare--a curious lingering stare--jerked her shaggy head in response, +and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even +finish the one she had begun. + +At that moment the baker-woman looked out of her shop window. + +"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young un hasn't given her +buns to a beggar child! It wasn't because she didn't want them, +either. Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to +know what she did it for." + +She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her +curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the +beggar child. + +"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her. The child nodded her head +toward Sara's vanishing figure. + +"What did she say?" inquired the woman. + +"Axed me if I was 'ungry," replied the hoarse voice. + +"What did you say?" + +"Said I was jist." + +"And then she came in and got the buns, and gave them to you, did she?" + +The child nodded. + +"How many?" + +"Five." + +The woman thought it over. + +"Left just one for herself," she said in a low voice. "And she could +have eaten the whole six--I saw it in her eyes." + +She looked after the little draggled far-away figure and felt more +disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a +day. + +"I wish she hadn't gone so quick," she said. "I'm blest if she +shouldn't have had a dozen." Then she turned to the child. + +"Are you hungry yet?" she said. + +"I'm allus hungry," was the answer, "but 't ain't as bad as it was." + +"Come in here," said the woman, and she held open the shop door. + +The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited into a warm place full +of bread seemed an incredible thing. She did not know what was going +to happen. She did not care, even. + +"Get yourself warm," said the woman, pointing to a fire in the tiny +back room. "And look here; when you are hard up for a bit of bread, +you can come in here and ask for it. I'm blest if I won't give it to +you for that young one's sake." + + * * * + +Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. At all events, it was +very hot, and it was better than nothing. As she walked along she +broke off small pieces and ate them slowly to make them last longer. + +"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a +whole dinner. I should be overeating myself if I went on like this." + +It was dark when she reached the square where the Select Seminary was +situated. The lights in the houses were all lighted. The blinds were +not yet drawn in the windows of the room where she nearly always caught +glimpses of members of the Large Family. Frequently at this hour she +could see the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency sitting in a big +chair, with a small swarm round him, talking, laughing, perching on the +arms of his seat or on his knees or leaning against them. This evening +the swarm was about him, but he was not seated. On the contrary, there +was a good deal of excitement going on. It was evident that a journey +was to be taken, and it was Mr. Montmorency who was to take it. A +brougham stood before the door, and a big portmanteau had been strapped +upon it. The children were dancing about, chattering and hanging on to +their father. The pretty rosy mother was standing near him, talking as +if she was asking final questions. Sara paused a moment to see the +little ones lifted up and kissed and the bigger ones bent over and +kissed also. + +"I wonder if he will stay away long," she thought. "The portmanteau is +rather big. Oh, dear, how they will miss him! I shall miss him +myself--even though he doesn't know I am alive." + +When the door opened she moved away--remembering the sixpence--but she +saw the traveler come out and stand against the background of the +warmly-lighted hall, the older children still hovering about him. + +"Will Moscow be covered with snow?" said the little girl Janet. "Will +there be ice everywhere?" + +"Shall you drive in a drosky?" cried another. "Shall you see the Czar?" + +"I will write and tell you all about it," he answered, laughing. "And +I will send you pictures of muzhiks and things. Run into the house. It +is a hideous damp night. I would rather stay with you than go to +Moscow. Good night! Good night, duckies! God bless you!" And he ran +down the steps and jumped into the brougham. + +"If you find the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence, +jumping up and down on the door mat. + +Then they went in and shut the door. + +"Did you see," said Janet to Nora, as they went back to the room--"the +little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar was passing? She looked all cold and +wet, and I saw her turn her head over her shoulder and look at us. +Mamma says her clothes always look as if they had been given her by +someone who was quite rich--someone who only let her have them because +they were too shabby to wear. The people at the school always send her +out on errands on the horridest days and nights there are." + +Sara crossed the square to Miss Minchin's area steps, feeling faint and +shaky. + +"I wonder who the little girl is," she thought--"the little girl he is +going to look for." + +And she went down the area steps, lugging her basket and finding it +very heavy indeed, as the father of the Large Family drove quickly on +his way to the station to take the train which was to carry him to +Moscow, where he was to make his best efforts to search for the lost +little daughter of Captain Crewe. + + + +14 + +What Melchisedec Heard and Saw + + +On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strange thing happened in +the attic. Only Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was so much +alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there, +and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with +great caution to watch what was going on. + +The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it in the +early morning. The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of +the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchisedec had, in fact, +found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect +silence reigned, he decided to come out and reconnoiter, though +experience taught him that Sara would not return for some time. He had +been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally +unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his +attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He stopped to listen +with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that something was moving +on the roof. It was approaching the skylight; it reached the skylight. +The skylight was being mysteriously opened. A dark face peered into +the attic; then another face appeared behind it, and both looked in +with signs of caution and interest. Two men were outside on the roof, +and were making silent preparations to enter through the skylight +itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was a young man who was the +Indian gentleman's secretary; but of course Melchisedec did not know +this. He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy +of the attic; and as the one with the dark face let himself down +through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not +make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turned tail and fled +precipitately back to his hole. He was frightened to death. He had +ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would never throw anything +but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low, +coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain +near. He lay close and flat near the entrance of his home, just +managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much +he understood of the talk he heard I am not in the least able to say; +but, even if he had understood it all, he would probably have remained +greatly mystified. + +The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as +noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last glimpse of +Melchisedec's vanishing tail. + +"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper. + +"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There are +many in the walls." + +"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man. "It is a wonder the child is not +terrified of them." + +Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully. +He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara, though she had +only spoken to him once. + +"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he answered. +"She is not as other children. I see her when she does not see me. I +slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is +safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She +stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to +her. The sparrows come at her call. The rat she has fed and tamed in +her loneliness. The poor slave of the house comes to her for comfort. +There is a little child who comes to her in secret; there is one older +who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might. This I +have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the +house--who is an evil woman--she is treated like a pariah; but she has +the bearing of a child who is of the blood of kings!" + +"You seem to know a great deal about her," the secretary said. + +"All her life each day I know," answered Ram Dass. "Her going out I +know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her coldness +and her hunger. I know when she is alone until midnight, learning from +her books; I know when her secret friends steal to her and she is +happier--as children can be, even in the midst of poverty--because they +come and she may laugh and talk with them in whispers. If she were ill +I should know, and I would come and serve her if it might be done." + +"You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that she +will not return and surprise us. She would be frightened if she found +us here, and the Sahib Carrisford's plan would be spoiled." + +Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to it. + +"None mount here but herself, Sahib," he said. "She has gone out with +her basket and may be gone for hours. If I stand here I can hear any +step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs." + +The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast pocket. + +"Keep your ears open," he said; and he began to walk slowly and softly +round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his tablet as he +looked at things. + +First he went to the narrow bed. He pressed his hand upon the mattress +and uttered an exclamation. + +"As hard as a stone," he said. "That will have to be altered some day +when she is out. A special journey can be made to bring it across. It +cannot be done tonight." He lifted the covering and examined the one +thin pillow. + +"Coverlet dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and ragged," he +said. "What a bed for a child to sleep in--and in a house which calls +itself respectable! There has not been a fire in that grate for many a +day," glancing at the rusty fireplace. + +"Never since I have seen it," said Ram Dass. "The mistress of the +house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be cold." + +The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet. He looked up from it +as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket. + +"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said. "Who planned it?" + +Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance. + +"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said; "though +it was naught but a fancy. I am fond of this child; we are both +lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends. +Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The +vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had +comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew +cheered and warmed as she spoke. Then she came to this fancy; and the +next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to +amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased the Sahib. To +hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested +in her and asked questions. At last he began to please himself with +the thought of making her visions real things." + +"You think that it can be done while she sleeps? Suppose she +awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that whatsoever +the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well +as the Sahib Carrisford's. + +"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied; "and +children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones. I could have entered +this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon +her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things through the +window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she awakens she will +think a magician has been here." + +He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the +secretary smiled back at him. + +"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said. "Only an +Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London fogs." + +They did not remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who, +as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their +movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested +in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace, +the broken footstool, the old table, the walls--which last he touched +with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that +a number of old nails had been driven in various places. + +"You can hang things on them," he said. + +Ram Dass smiled mysteriously. + +"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered, bringing with me +small, sharp nails which can be pressed into the wall without blows +from a hammer. I placed many in the plaster where I may need them. +They are ready." + +The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round him as he +thrust his tablets back into his pocket. + +"I think I have made notes enough; we can go now," he said. "The Sahib +Carrisford has a warm heart. It is a thousand pities that he has not +found the lost child." + +"If he should find her his strength would be restored to him," said Ram +Dass. "His God may lead her to him yet." + +Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had +entered it. And, after he was quite sure they had gone, Melchisedec +was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes felt it safe +to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the hope that even +such alarming human beings as these might have chanced to carry crumbs +in their pockets and drop one or two of them. + + + +15 + +The Magic + + +When Sara had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass closing +the shutters, and caught her glimpse of this room also. + +"It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside," was the +thought which crossed her mind. + +There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian +gentleman was sitting before it. His head was resting in his hand, and +he looked as lonely and unhappy as ever. + +"Poor man!" said Sara. "I wonder what you are supposing." + +And this was what he was "supposing" at that very moment. + +"Suppose," he was thinking, "suppose--even if Carmichael traces the +people to Moscow--the little girl they took from Madame Pascal's school +in Paris is NOT the one we are in search of. Suppose she proves to be +quite a different child. What steps shall I take next?" + +When Sara went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come +downstairs to scold the cook. + +"Where have you wasted your time?" she demanded. "You have been out +for hours." + +"It was so wet and muddy," Sara answered, "it was hard to walk, because +my shoes were so bad and slipped about." + +"Make no excuses," said Miss Minchin, "and tell no falsehoods." + +Sara went in to the cook. The cook had received a severe lecture and +was in a fearful temper as a result. She was only too rejoiced to have +someone to vent her rage on, and Sara was a convenience, as usual. + +"Why didn't you stay all night?" she snapped. + +Sara laid her purchases on the table. + +"Here are the things," she said. + +The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage humor +indeed. + +"May I have something to eat?" Sara asked rather faintly. + +"Tea's over and done with," was the answer. "Did you expect me to keep +it hot for you?" + +Sara stood silent for a second. + +"I had no dinner," she said next, and her voice was quite low. She +made it low because she was afraid it would tremble. + +"There's some bread in the pantry," said the cook. "That's all you'll +get at this time of day." + +Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook +was in too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with it. It was +always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sara. Really, it was hard +for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her +attic. She often found them long and steep when she was tired; but +tonight it seemed as if she would never reach the top. Several times +she was obliged to stop to rest. When she reached the top landing she +was glad to see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door. +That meant that Ermengarde had managed to creep up to pay her a visit. +There was some comfort in that. It was better than to go into the room +alone and find it empty and desolate. The mere presence of plump, +comfortable Ermengarde, wrapped in her red shawl, would warm it a +little. + +Yes; there Ermengarde was when she opened the door. She was sitting in +the middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely under her. She had +never become intimate with Melchisedec and his family, though they +rather fascinated her. When she found herself alone in the attic she +always preferred to sit on the bed until Sara arrived. She had, in +fact, on this occasion had time to become rather nervous, because +Melchisedec had appeared and sniffed about a good deal, and once had +made her utter a repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs and, +while he looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction. + +"Oh, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come. Melchy WOULD +sniff about so. I tried to coax him to go back, but he wouldn't for +such a long time. I like him, you know; but it does frighten me when +he sniffs right at me. Do you think he ever WOULD jump?" + +"No," answered Sara. + +Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to look at her. + +"You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you are quite pale." + +"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool. "Oh, +there's Melchisedec, poor thing. He's come to ask for his supper." + +Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for +her footstep. Sara was quite sure he knew it. He came forward with an +affectionate, expectant expression as Sara put her hand in her pocket +and turned it inside out, shaking her head. + +"I'm very sorry," she said. "I haven't one crumb left. Go home, +Melchisedec, and tell your wife there was nothing in my pocket. I'm +afraid I forgot because the cook and Miss Minchin were so cross." + +Melchisedec seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not +contentedly, back to his home. + +"I did not expect to see you tonight, Ermie," Sara said. Ermengarde +hugged herself in the red shawl. + +"Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old aunt," she +explained. "No one else ever comes and looks into the bedrooms after +we are in bed. I could stay here until morning if I wanted to." + +She pointed toward the table under the skylight. Sara had not looked +toward it as she came in. A number of books were piled upon it. +Ermengarde's gesture was a dejected one. + +"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said. "There they are." + +Sara looked round and got up at once. She ran to the table, and +picking up the top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For the +moment she forgot her discomforts. + +"Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful! Carlyle's French Revolution. I +have SO wanted to read that!" + +"I haven't," said Ermengarde. "And papa will be so cross if I don't. +He'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays. +What SHALL I do?" + +Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited +flush on her cheeks. + +"Look here," she cried, "if you'll lend me these books, _I'll_ read +them--and tell you everything that's in them afterward--and I'll tell +it so that you will remember it, too." + +"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?" + +"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember what I +tell them." + +"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you'll do +that, and make me remember, I'll--I'll give you anything." + +"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara. "I want your +books--I want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved. + +"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them--but I +don't. I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be." + +Sara was opening one book after the other. "What are you going to tell +your father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind. + +"Oh, he needn't know," answered Ermengarde. "He'll think I've read +them." + +Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly. "That's almost like +telling lies," she said. "And lies--well, you see, they are not only +wicked--they're VULGAR. Sometimes"--reflectively--"I've thought perhaps +I might do something wicked--I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill +Miss Minchin, you know, when she was ill-treating me--but I COULDN'T be +vulgar. Why can't you tell your father _I_ read them?" + +"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little discouraged by +this unexpected turn of affairs. + +"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara. "And if I can tell +it to you in an easy way and make you remember it, I should think he +would like that." + +"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful Ermengarde. +"You would if you were my father." + +"It's not your fault that--" began Sara. She pulled herself up and +stopped rather suddenly. She had been going to say, "It's not your +fault that you are stupid." + +"That what?" Ermengarde asked. + +"That you can't learn things quickly," amended Sara. "If you can't, +you can't. If I can--why, I can; that's all." + +She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let her +feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn anything +at once, and not being able to learn anything at all. As she looked at +her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her. + +"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't +everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people. If Miss +Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she is now, she'd +still be a detestable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of +clever people have done harm and have been wicked. Look at +Robespierre--" + +She stopped and examined Ermengarde's countenance, which was beginning +to look bewildered. "Don't you remember?" she demanded. "I told you +about him not long ago. I believe you've forgotten." + +"Well, I don't remember ALL of it," admitted Ermengarde. + +"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet things +and wrap myself in the coverlet and tell you over again." + +She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against the wall, +and she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of slippers. Then she +jumped on the bed, and drawing the coverlet about her shoulders, sat +with her arms round her knees. "Now, listen," she said. + +She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution, and told +such stories of it that Ermengarde's eyes grew round with alarm and she +held her breath. But though she was rather terrified, there was a +delightful thrill in listening, and she was not likely to forget +Robespierre again, or to have any doubts about the Princesse de +Lamballe. + +"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara +explained. "And she had beautiful floating blonde hair; and when I +think of her, I never see her head on her body, but always on a pike, +with those furious people dancing and howling." + +It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had made, +and for the present the books were to be left in the attic. + +"Now let's tell each other things," said Sara. "How are you getting on +with your French lessons?" + +"Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you +explained the conjugations. Miss Minchin could not understand why I +did my exercises so well that first morning." + +Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees. + +"She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her sums so well," she +said; "but it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help her." She +glanced round the room. "The attic would be rather nice--if it wasn't +so dreadful," she said, laughing again. "It's a good place to pretend +in." + +The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the sometimes +almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she had not a +sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare +occasions that she could reach Sara's room she only saw the side of it +which was made exciting by things which were "pretended" and stories +which were told. Her visits partook of the character of adventures; +and though sometimes Sara looked rather pale, and it was not to be +denied that she had grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not +admit of complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was +almost ravenous with hunger, as she was tonight. She was growing +rapidly, and her constant walking and running about would have given +her a keen appetite even if she had had abundant and regular meals of a +much more nourishing nature than the unappetizing, inferior food +snatched at such odd times as suited the kitchen convenience. She was +growing used to a certain gnawing feeling in her young stomach. + +"I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and weary +march," she often said to herself. She liked the sound of the phrase, +"long and weary march." It made her feel rather like a soldier. She +had also a quaint sense of being a hostess in the attic. + +"If I lived in a castle," she argued, "and Ermengarde was the lady of +another castle, and came to see me, with knights and squires and +vassals riding with her, and pennons flying, when I heard the clarions +sounding outside the drawbridge I should go down to receive her, and I +should spread feasts in the banquet hall and call in minstrels to sing +and play and relate romances. When she comes into the attic I can't +spread feasts, but I can tell stories, and not let her know +disagreeable things. I dare say poor chatelaines had to do that in +time of famine, when their lands had been pillaged." She was a proud, +brave little chatelaine, and dispensed generously the one hospitality +she could offer--the dreams she dreamed--the visions she saw--the +imaginings which were her joy and comfort. + +So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as +well as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered +if her hunger would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as +if she had never been quite so hungry before. + +"I wish I was as thin as you, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly. "I +believe you are thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look so big, +and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your elbow!" + +Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up. + +"I always was a thin child," she said bravely, "and I always had big +green eyes." + +"I love your queer eyes," said Ermengarde, looking into them with +affectionate admiration. "They always look as if they saw such a long +way. I love them--and I love them to be green--though they look black +generally." + +"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the dark with +them--because I have tried, and I couldn't--I wish I could." + +It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight +which neither of them saw. If either of them had chanced to turn and +look, she would have been startled by the sight of a dark face which +peered cautiously into the room and disappeared as quickly and almost +as silently as it had appeared. Not QUITE as silently, however. Sara, +who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof. + +"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said. "It wasn't scratchy +enough." + +"What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled. + +"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara. + +"N-no," Ermengarde faltered. "Did you?" {another ed. has "No-no,"} + +"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did. It sounded as if +something was on the slates--something that dragged softly." + +"What could it be?" said Ermengarde. "Could it be--robbers?" + +"No," Sara began cheerfully. "There is nothing to steal--" + +She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the sound +that checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below, +and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice. Sara sprang off the bed, and +put out the candle. + +"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the darkness. +"She is making her cry." + +"Will she come in here?" Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken. + +"No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir." + +It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs. +Sara could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she +was angry enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it +sounded as if she was driving Becky before her. + +"You impudent, dishonest child!" they heard her say. "Cook tells me +she has missed things repeatedly." + +"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing. "I was 'ungry enough, but 't +warn't me--never!" + +"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice. +"Picking and stealing! Half a meat pie, indeed!" + +"'T warn't me," wept Becky. "I could 'ave eat a whole un--but I never +laid a finger on it." + +Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. +The meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became +apparent that she boxed Becky's ears. + +"Don't tell falsehoods," she said. "Go to your room this instant." + +Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in +her slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her +door shut, and knew that she threw herself upon her bed. + +"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her pillow. "An' +I never took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her policeman." + +Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was +clenching her little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her +outstretched hands. She could scarcely stand still, but she dared not +move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs and all was still. + +"The wicked, cruel thing!" she burst forth. "The cook takes things +herself and then says Becky steals them. She DOESN'T! She DOESN'T! +She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash barrel!" +She pressed her hands hard against her face and burst into passionate +little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed +by it. Sara was crying! The unconquerable Sara! It seemed to denote +something new--some mood she had never known. Suppose--suppose--a new +dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow, little mind all +at once. She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the +table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle. +When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara, with her +new thought growing to definite fear in her eyes. + +"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, "are--are--you +never told me--I don't want to be rude, but--are YOU ever hungry?" + +It was too much just at that moment. The barrier broke down. Sara +lifted her face from her hands. + +"Yes," she said in a new passionate way. "Yes, I am. I'm so hungry +now that I could almost eat you. And it makes it worse to hear poor +Becky. She's hungrier than I am." + +Ermengarde gasped. + +"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully. "And I never knew!" + +"I didn't want you to know," Sara said. "It would have made me feel +like a street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar." + +"No, you don't--you don't!" Ermengarde broke in. "Your clothes are a +little queer--but you couldn't look like a street beggar. You haven't +a street-beggar face." + +"A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity," said Sara, with a +short little laugh in spite of herself. "Here it is." And she pulled +out the thin ribbon from her neck. "He wouldn't have given me his +Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I needed it." + +Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of +them. It made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their +eyes. + +"Who was he?" asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had not +been a mere ordinary silver sixpence. + +"He was a darling little thing going to a party," said Sara. "He was +one of the Large Family, the little one with the round legs--the one I +call Guy Clarence. I suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas +presents and hampers full of cakes and things, and he could see I had +nothing." + +Ermengarde gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had +recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden +inspiration. + +"Oh, Sara!" she cried. "What a silly thing I am not to have thought of +it!" + +"Of what?" + +"Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry. "This very +afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full of good things. I +never touched it, I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so +bothered about papa's books." Her words began to tumble over each +other. "It's got cake in it, and little meat pies, and jam tarts and +buns, and oranges and red-currant wine, and figs and chocolate. I'll +creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now." + +Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention of food +has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengarde's arm. + +"Do you think--you COULD?" she ejaculated. + +"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door--opened +it softly--put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she +went back to Sara. "The lights are out. Everybody's in bed. I can +creep--and creep--and no one will hear." + +It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden +light sprang into Sara's eyes. + +"Ermie!" she said. "Let us PRETEND! Let us pretend it's a party! And +oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?" + +"Yes! Yes! Let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't hear." + +Sara went to the wall. Through it she could hear poor Becky crying +more softly. She knocked four times. + +"That means, 'Come to me through the secret passage under the wall,' +she explained. 'I have something to communicate.'" + +Five quick knocks answered her. + +"She is coming," she said. + +Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky appeared. Her +eyes were red and her cap was sliding off, and when she caught sight of +Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron. + +"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde. + +"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because she is +going to bring a box of good things up here to us." + +Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such excitement. + +"To eat, miss?" she said. "Things that's good to eat?" + +"Yes," answered Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party." + +"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in Ermengarde. +"I'll go this minute!" + +She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she dropped +her red shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one saw it for a +minute or so. Becky was too much overpowered by the good luck which +had befallen her. + +"Oh, miss! oh, miss!" she gasped; "I know it was you that asked her to +let me come. It--it makes me cry to think of it." And she went to +Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly. + +But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform +her world for her. Here in the attic--with the cold night +outside--with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely passed--with +the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's eyes not yet +faded--this simple, cheerful thing had happened like a thing of magic. + +She caught her breath. + +"Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before things get +to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just +remember that always. The worst thing never QUITE comes." + +She gave Becky a little cheerful shake. + +"No, no! You mustn't cry!" she said. "We must make haste and set the +table." + +"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room. "What'll we +set it with?" + +Sara looked round the attic, too. + +"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing. + +That moment she saw something and pounced upon it. It was Ermengarde's +red shawl which lay upon the floor. + +"Here's the shawl," she cried. "I know she won't mind it. It will make +such a nice red tablecloth." + +They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it. Red is +a wonderfully kind and comfortable color. It began to make the room +look furnished directly. + +"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara. "We must +pretend there is one!" + +Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration. The +rug was laid down already. + +"How soft and thick it is!" she said, with the little laugh which Becky +knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again +delicately, as if she felt something under it. + +"Yes, miss," answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She +was always quite serious. + +"What next, now?" said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over +her eyes. "Something will come if I think and wait a little"--in a +soft, expectant voice. "The Magic will tell me." + +One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she called +it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her +stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she +would uncover an enlightened, laughing face. + +In a moment she did. + +"There!" she cried. "It has come! I know now! I must look among the +things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess." + +She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the +attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. +Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find +something. The Magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or +another. + +In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had been +overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a +relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs. She seized +them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to arrange them upon the +red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into shape with the narrow +lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells for her as she +did it. + +"These are the plates," she said. "They are golden plates. These are +the richly embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain." + +"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the +information. + +"You must pretend it," said Sara. "If you pretend it enough, you will +see them." + +"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted +herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired. + +Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very +queer indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in +strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at +her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous +weight. + +"What is the matter, Becky?" Sara cried. "What are you doing?" + +Becky opened her eyes with a start. + +"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I was +tryin' to see it like you do. I almost did," with a hopeful grin. "But +it takes a lot o' stren'th." + +"Perhaps it does if you are not used to it," said Sara, with friendly +sympathy; "but you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often. +I wouldn't try so hard just at first. It will come to you after a +while. I'll just tell you what things are. Look at these." + +She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the +bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled +the wreath off. + +"These are garlands for the feast," she said grandly. "They fill all +the air with perfume. There's a mug on the wash-stand, Becky. Oh--and +bring the soap dish for a centerpiece." + +Becky handed them to her reverently. + +"What are they now, miss?" she inquired. "You'd think they was made of +crockery--but I know they ain't." + +"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath +about the mug. "And this"--bending tenderly over the soap dish and +heaping it with roses--"is purest alabaster encrusted with gems." + +She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips +which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream. + +"My, ain't it lovely!" whispered Becky. + +"If we just had something for bonbon dishes," Sara murmured. +"There!"--darting to the trunk again. "I remember I saw something this +minute." + +It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but +the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and +was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick +which was to light the feast. Only the Magic could have made it more +than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a +long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing +wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath. + +"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is it the +Bastille now--or has it turned into somethin' different?" + +"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet hall!" + +"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to +view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment. + +"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are given. +It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney +filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers +twinkling on every side." + +"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again. + +Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under +the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. +To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self +confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red, +adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that +the preparations were brilliant indeed. + +"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!" + +"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old trunk. I +asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look." + +"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are! +They ain't just--oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to Sara. + +So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST +see it all: the golden platters--the vaulted spaces--the blazing +logs--the twinkling waxen tapers. As the things were taken out of the +hamper--the frosted cakes--the fruits--the bonbons and the wine--the +feast became a splendid thing. + +"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde. + +"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky. + +Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought. + +"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said. "Pretend you are a princess now +and this is a royal feast." + +"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we +will be your maids of honor." + +"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how. +YOU be her." + +"Well, if you want me to," said Sara. + +But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate. + +"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed. +"If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we +shall feel as if it was a real fire." She struck a match and lighted +it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room. + +"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its +not being real." + +She stood in the dancing glow and smiled. + +"Doesn't it LOOK real?" she said. "Now we will begin the party." + +She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to +Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream. + +"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be +seated at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent +on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you." She turned her head +slightly toward the corner of the room. "What, ho, there, minstrels! +Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses," she explained +rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels to play at their +feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. +Now we will begin." + +They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their +hands--not one of them had time to do more, when--they all three sprang +to their feet and turned pale faces toward the +door--listening--listening. + +Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each +of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of +all things had come. + +"It's--the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon +the floor. + +"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white +face. "Miss Minchin has found us out." + +Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale +herself, but it was with rage. She looked from the frightened faces to +the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of +the burnt paper in the grate. + +"I have been suspecting something of this sort," she exclaimed; "but I +did not dream of such audacity. Lavinia was telling the truth." + +So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret +and had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her +ears for a second time. + +"You impudent creature!" she said. "You leave the house in the +morning!" + +Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. +Ermengarde burst into tears. + +"Oh, don't send her away," she sobbed. "My aunt sent me the hamper. +We're--only--having a party." + +"So I see," said Miss Minchin, witheringly. "With the Princess Sara at +the head of the table." She turned fiercely on Sara. "It is your +doing, I know," she cried. "Ermengarde would never have thought of +such a thing. You decorated the table, I suppose--with this rubbish." +She stamped her foot at Becky. "Go to your attic!" she commanded, and +Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking. + +Then it was Sara's turn again. + +"I will attend to you tomorrow. You shall have neither breakfast, +dinner, nor supper!" + +"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said +Sara, rather faintly. + +"Then all the better. You will have something to remember. Don't +stand there. Put those things into the hamper again." + +She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and +caught sight of Ermengarde's new books. + +"And you"--to Ermengarde--"have brought your beautiful new books into +this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay +there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would HE +say if he knew where you are tonight?" + +Something she saw in Sara's grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her +turn on her fiercely. + +"What are you thinking of?" she demanded. "Why do you look at me like +that?" + +"I was wondering," answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day +in the schoolroom. + +"What were you wondering?" + +It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness in +Sara's manner. It was only sad and quiet. + +"I was wondering," she said in a low voice, "what MY papa would say if +he knew where I am tonight." + +Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before and her anger +expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate fashion. She flew at +her and shook her. + +"You insolent, unmanageable child!" she cried. "How dare you! How +dare you!" + +She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the +hamper in a jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde's arms, and pushed +her before her toward the door. + +"I will leave you to wonder," she said. "Go to bed this instant." And +she shut the door behind herself and poor stumbling Ermengarde, and +left Sara standing quite alone. + +The dream was quite at an end. The last spark had died out of the +paper in the grate and left only black tinder; the table was left bare, +the golden plates and richly embroidered napkins, and the garlands were +transformed again into old handkerchiefs, scraps of red and white +paper, and discarded artificial flowers all scattered on the floor; the +minstrels in the minstrel gallery had stolen away, and the viols and +bassoons were still. Emily was sitting with her back against the wall, +staring very hard. Sara saw her, and went and picked her up with +trembling hands. + +"There isn't any banquet left, Emily," she said. "And there isn't any +princess. There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille." +And she sat down and hid her face. + +What would have happened if she had not hidden it just then, and if she +had chanced to look up at the skylight at the wrong moment, I do not +know--perhaps the end of this chapter might have been quite +different--because if she had glanced at the skylight she would +certainly have been startled by what she would have seen. She would +have seen exactly the same face pressed against the glass and peering +in at her as it had peered in earlier in the evening when she had been +talking to Ermengarde. + +But she did not look up. She sat with her little black head in her +arms for some time. She always sat like that when she was trying to +bear something in silence. Then she got up and went slowly to the bed. + +"I can't pretend anything else--while I am awake," she said. "There +wouldn't be any use in trying. If I go to sleep, perhaps a dream will +come and pretend for me." + +She suddenly felt so tired--perhaps through want of food--that she sat +down on the edge of the bed quite weakly. + +"Suppose there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little +dancing flames," she murmured. "Suppose there was a comfortable chair +before it--and suppose there was a small table near, with a little +hot--hot supper on it. And suppose"--as she drew the thin coverings +over her--"suppose this was a beautiful soft bed, with fleecy blankets +and large downy pillows. Suppose--suppose--" And her very weariness +was good to her, for her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep. + + +She did not know how long she slept. But she had been tired enough to +sleep deeply and profoundly--too deeply and soundly to be disturbed by +anything, even by the squeaks and scamperings of Melchisedec's entire +family, if all his sons and daughters had chosen to come out of their +hole to fight and tumble and play. + +When she awakened it was rather suddenly, and she did not know that any +particular thing had called her out of her sleep. The truth was, +however, that it was a sound which had called her back--a real +sound--the click of the skylight as it fell in closing after a lithe +white figure which slipped through it and crouched down close by upon +the slates of the roof--just near enough to see what happened in the +attic, but not near enough to be seen. + +At first she did not open her eyes. She felt too sleepy and--curiously +enough--too warm and comfortable. She was so warm and comfortable, +indeed, that she did not believe she was really awake. She never was as +warm and cozy as this except in some lovely vision. + +"What a nice dream!" she murmured. "I feel quite warm. +I--don't--want--to--wake--up." + +Of course it was a dream. She felt as if warm, delightful bedclothes +were heaped upon her. She could actually FEEL blankets, and when she +put out her hand it touched something exactly like a satin-covered +eider-down quilt. She must not awaken from this delight--she must be +quite still and make it last. + +But she could not--even though she kept her eyes closed tightly, she +could not. Something was forcing her to awaken--something in the room. +It was a sense of light, and a sound--the sound of a crackling, roaring +little fire. + +"Oh, I am awakening," she said mournfully. "I can't help it--I can't." + +Her eyes opened in spite of herself. And then she actually smiled--for +what she saw she had never seen in the attic before, and knew she never +should see. + +"Oh, I HAVEN'T awakened," she whispered, daring to rise on her elbow +and look all about her. "I am dreaming yet." She knew it MUST be a +dream, for if she were awake such things could not--could not be. + +Do you wonder that she felt sure she had not come back to earth? This +is what she saw. In the grate there was a glowing, blazing fire; on +the hob was a little brass kettle hissing and boiling; spread upon the +floor was a thick, warm crimson rug; before the fire a folding-chair, +unfolded, and with cushions on it; by the chair a small folding-table, +unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it spread small covered +dishes, a cup, a saucer, a teapot; on the bed were new warm coverings +and a satin-covered down quilt; at the foot a curious wadded silk robe, +a pair of quilted slippers, and some books. The room of her dream +seemed changed into fairyland--and it was flooded with warm light, for +a bright lamp stood on the table covered with a rosy shade. + +She sat up, resting on her elbow, and her breathing came short and fast. + +"It does not--melt away," she panted. "Oh, I never had such a dream +before." She scarcely dared to stir; but at last she pushed the +bedclothes aside, and put her feet on the floor with a rapturous smile. + +"I am dreaming--I am getting out of bed," she heard her own voice say; +and then, as she stood up in the midst of it all, turning slowly from +side to side--"I am dreaming it stays--real! I'm dreaming it FEELS +real. It's bewitched--or I'm bewitched. I only THINK I see it all." +Her words began to hurry themselves. "If I can only keep on thinking +it," she cried, "I don't care! I don't care!" + +She stood panting a moment longer, and then cried out again. + +"Oh, it isn't true!" she said. "It CAN'T be true! But oh, how true it +seems!" + +The blazing fire drew her to it, and she knelt down and held out her +hands close to it--so close that the heat made her start back. + +"A fire I only dreamed wouldn't be HOT," she cried. + +She sprang up, touched the table, the dishes, the rug; she went to the +bed and touched the blankets. She took up the soft wadded +dressing-gown, and suddenly clutched it to her breast and held it to +her cheek. + +"It's warm. It's soft!" she almost sobbed. "It's real. It must be!" + +She threw it over her shoulders, and put her feet into the slippers. + +"They are real, too. It's all real!" she cried. "I am NOT--I am NOT +dreaming!" + +She almost staggered to the books and opened the one which lay upon the +top. Something was written on the flyleaf--just a few words, and they +were these: + +"To the little girl in the attic. From a friend." + +When she saw that--wasn't it a strange thing for her to do--she put her +face down upon the page and burst into tears. + +"I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a +little. I have a friend." + +She took her candle and stole out of her own room and into Becky's, and +stood by her bedside. + +"Becky, Becky!" she whispered as loudly as she dared. "Wake up!" + +When Becky wakened, and she sat upright staring aghast, her face still +smudged with traces of tears, beside her stood a little figure in a +luxurious wadded robe of crimson silk. The face she saw was a shining, +wonderful thing. The Princess Sara--as she remembered her--stood at +her very bedside, holding a candle in her hand. + +"Come," she said. "Oh, Becky, come!" + +Becky was too frightened to speak. She simply got up and followed her, +with her mouth and eyes open, and without a word. + +And when they crossed the threshold, Sara shut the door gently and drew +her into the warm, glowing midst of things which made her brain reel +and her hungry senses faint. "It's true! It's true!" she cried. +"I've touched them all. They are as real as we are. The Magic has come +and done it, Becky, while we were asleep--the Magic that won't let +those worst things EVER quite happen." + + + +16 + +The Visitor + + +Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. How they +crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made so much of itself +in the little grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes, and +found rich, hot, savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and +sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. The mug from +the washstand was used as Becky's tea cup, and the tea was so delicious +that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea. +They were warm and full-fed and happy, and it was just like Sara that, +having found her strange good fortune real, she should give herself up +to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of +imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing +that happened, and almost to cease, in a short time, to find it +bewildering. + +"I don't know anyone in the world who could have done it," she said; +"but there has been someone. And here we are sitting by their +fire--and--and--it's true! And whoever it is--wherever they are--I +have a friend, Becky--someone is my friend." + +It cannot be denied that as they sat before the blazing fire, and ate +the nourishing, comfortable food, they felt a kind of rapturous awe, +and looked into each other's eyes with something like doubt. + +"Do you think," Becky faltered once, in a whisper, "do you think it +could melt away, miss? Hadn't we better be quick?" And she hastily +crammed her sandwich into her mouth. If it was only a dream, kitchen +manners would be overlooked. + +"No, it won't melt away," said Sara. "I am EATING this muffin, and I +can taste it. You never really eat things in dreams. You only think +you are going to eat them. Besides, I keep giving myself pinches; and +I touched a hot piece of coal just now, on purpose." + +The sleepy comfort which at length almost overpowered them was a +heavenly thing. It was the drowsiness of happy, well-fed childhood, +and they sat in the fire glow and luxuriated in it until Sara found +herself turning to look at her transformed bed. + +There were even blankets enough to share with Becky. The narrow couch +in the next attic was more comfortable that night than its occupant had +ever dreamed that it could be. + +As she went out of the room, Becky turned upon the threshold and looked +about her with devouring eyes. + +"If it ain't here in the mornin', miss," she said, "it's been here +tonight, anyways, an' I shan't never forget it." She looked at each +particular thing, as if to commit it to memory. "The fire was THERE", +pointing with her finger, "an' the table was before it; an' the lamp +was there, an' the light looked rosy red; an' there was a satin cover +on your bed, an' a warm rug on the floor, an' everythin' looked +beautiful; an'"--she paused a second, and laid her hand on her stomach +tenderly--"there WAS soup an' sandwiches an' muffins--there WAS." And, +with this conviction a reality at least, she went away. + +Through the mysterious agency which works in schools and among +servants, it was quite well known in the morning that Sara Crewe was in +horrible disgrace, that Ermengarde was under punishment, and that Becky +would have been packed out of the house before breakfast, but that a +scullery maid could not be dispensed with at once. The servants knew +that she was allowed to stay because Miss Minchin could not easily find +another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden +slave for so few shillings a week. The elder girls in the schoolroom +knew that if Miss Minchin did not send Sara away it was for practical +reasons of her own. + +"She's growing so fast and learning such a lot, somehow," said Jessie +to Lavinia, "that she will be given classes soon, and Miss Minchin +knows she will have to work for nothing. It was rather nasty of you, +Lavvy, to tell about her having fun in the garret. How did you find it +out?" + +"I got it out of Lottie. She's such a baby she didn't know she was +telling me. There was nothing nasty at all in speaking to Miss +Minchin. I felt it my duty"--priggishly. "She was being deceitful. +And it's ridiculous that she should look so grand, and be made so much +of, in her rags and tatters!" + +"What were they doing when Miss Minchin caught them?" + +"Pretending some silly thing. Ermengarde had taken up her hamper to +share with Sara and Becky. She never invites us to share things. Not +that I care, but it's rather vulgar of her to share with servant girls +in attics. I wonder Miss Minchin didn't turn Sara out--even if she +does want her for a teacher." + +"If she was turned out where would she go?" inquired Jessie, a trifle +anxiously. + +"How do I know?" snapped Lavinia. "She'll look rather queer when she +comes into the schoolroom this morning, I should think--after what's +happened. She had no dinner yesterday, and she's not to have any +today." + +Jessie was not as ill-natured as she was silly. She picked up her book +with a little jerk. + +"Well, I think it's horrid," she said. "They've no right to starve her +to death." + +When Sara went into the kitchen that morning the cook looked askance at +her, and so did the housemaids; but she passed them hurriedly. She had, +in fact, overslept herself a little, and as Becky had done the same, +neither had had time to see the other, and each had come downstairs in +haste. + +Sara went into the scullery. Becky was violently scrubbing a kettle, +and was actually gurgling a little song in her throat. She looked up +with a wildly elated face. + +"It was there when I wakened, miss--the blanket," she whispered +excitedly. "It was as real as it was last night." + +"So was mine," said Sara. "It is all there now--all of it. While I +was dressing I ate some of the cold things we left." + +"Oh, laws! Oh, laws!" Becky uttered the exclamation in a sort of +rapturous groan, and ducked her head over her kettle just in time, as +the cook came in from the kitchen. + +Miss Minchin had expected to see in Sara, when she appeared in the +schoolroom, very much what Lavinia had expected to see. Sara had always +been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or +look frightened. When she was scolded she stood still and listened +politely with a grave face; when she was punished she performed her +extra tasks or went without her meals, making no complaint or outward +sign of rebellion. The very fact that she never made an impudent +answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impudence in itself. But after +yesterday's deprivation of meals, the violent scene of last night, the +prospect of hunger today, she must surely have broken down. It would +be strange indeed if she did not come downstairs with pale cheeks and +red eyes and an unhappy, humbled face. + +Miss Minchin saw her for the first time when she entered the schoolroom +to hear the little French class recite its lessons and superintend its +exercises. And she came in with a springing step, color in her cheeks, +and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. It was the most +astonishing thing Miss Minchin had ever known. It gave her quite a +shock. What was the child made of? What could such a thing mean? She +called her at once to her desk. + +"You do not look as if you realize that you are in disgrace," she said. +"Are you absolutely hardened?" + +The truth is that when one is still a child--or even if one is grown +up--and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when +one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to +find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and +one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes. Miss +Minchin was almost struck dumb by the look of Sara's eyes when she made +her perfectly respectful answer. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin," she said; "I know that I am in +disgrace." + +"Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a +fortune. It is an impertinence. And remember you are to have no food +today." + +"Yes, Miss Minchin," Sara answered; but as she turned away her heart +leaped with the memory of what yesterday had been. "If the Magic had +not saved me just in time," she thought, "how horrible it would have +been!" + +"She can't be very hungry," whispered Lavinia. "Just look at her. +Perhaps she is pretending she has had a good breakfast"--with a +spiteful laugh. + +"She's different from other people," said Jessie, watching Sara with +her class. "Sometimes I'm a bit frightened of her." + +"Ridiculous thing!" ejaculated Lavinia. + +All through the day the light was in Sara's face, and the color in her +cheek. The servants cast puzzled glances at her, and whispered to each +other, and Miss Amelia's small blue eyes wore an expression of +bewilderment. What such an audacious look of well-being, under august +displeasure could mean she could not understand. It was, however, just +like Sara's singular obstinate way. She was probably determined to +brave the matter out. + +One thing Sara had resolved upon, as she thought things over. The +wonders which had happened must be kept a secret, if such a thing were +possible. If Miss Minchin should choose to mount to the attic again, +of course all would be discovered. But it did not seem likely that she +would do so for some time at least, unless she was led by suspicion. +Ermengarde and Lottie would be watched with such strictness that they +would not dare to steal out of their beds again. Ermengarde could be +told the story and trusted to keep it secret. If Lottie made any +discoveries, she could be bound to secrecy also. Perhaps the Magic +itself would help to hide its own marvels. + +"But whatever happens," Sara kept saying to herself all day--"WHATEVER +happens, somewhere in the world there is a heavenly kind person who is +my friend--my friend. If I never know who it is--if I never can even +thank him--I shall never feel quite so lonely. Oh, the Magic was GOOD +to me!" + +If it was possible for weather to be worse than it had been the day +before, it was worse this day--wetter, muddier, colder. There were +more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and, knowing that +Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything +matter when one's Magic has just proved itself one's friend. Sara's +supper of the night before had given her strength, she knew that she +should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had naturally begun +to be hungry again before evening, she felt that she could bear it +until breakfast-time on the following day, when her meals would surely +be given to her again. It was quite late when she was at last allowed +to go upstairs. She had been told to go into the schoolroom and study +until ten o'clock, and she had become interested in her work, and +remained over her books later. + +When she reached the top flight of stairs and stood before the attic +door, it must be confessed that her heart beat rather fast. + +"Of course it MIGHT all have been taken away," she whispered, trying to +be brave. "It might only have been lent to me for just that one awful +night. But it WAS lent to me--I had it. It was real." + +She pushed the door open and went in. Once inside, she gasped +slightly, shut the door, and stood with her back against it looking +from side to side. + +The Magic had been there again. It actually had, and it had done even +more than before. The fire was blazing, in lovely leaping flames, more +merrily than ever. A number of new things had been brought into the +attic which so altered the look of it that if she had not been past +doubting she would have rubbed her eyes. Upon the low table another +supper stood--this time with cups and plates for Becky as well as +herself; a piece of bright, heavy, strange embroidery covered the +battered mantel, and on it some ornaments had been placed. All the +bare, ugly things which could be covered with draperies had been +concealed and made to look quite pretty. Some odd materials of rich +colors had been fastened against the wall with fine, sharp tacks--so +sharp that they could be pressed into the wood and plaster without +hammering. Some brilliant fans were pinned up, and there were several +large cushions, big and substantial enough to use as seats. A wooden +box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it +wore quite the air of a sofa. + +Sara slowly moved away from the door and simply sat down and looked and +looked again. + +"It is exactly like something fairy come true," she said. "There isn't +the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything--diamonds +or bags of gold--and they would appear! THAT wouldn't be any stranger +than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? +And to think I used to pretend and pretend and wish there were fairies! +The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am +LIVING in a fairy story. I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and +able to turn things into anything else." + +She rose and knocked upon the wall for the prisoner in the next cell, +and the prisoner came. + +When she entered she almost dropped in a heap upon the floor. For a +few seconds she quite lost her breath. + +"Oh, laws!" she gasped. "Oh, laws, miss!" + +"You see," said Sara. + +On this night Becky sat on a cushion upon the hearth rug and had a cup +and saucer of her own. + +When Sara went to bed she found that she had a new thick mattress and +big downy pillows. Her old mattress and pillow had been removed to +Becky's bedstead, and, consequently, with these additions Becky had +been supplied with unheard-of comfort. + +"Where does it all come from?" Becky broke forth once. "Laws, who does +it, miss?" + +"Don't let us even ASK," said Sara. "If it were not that I want to +say, 'Oh, thank you,' I would rather not know. It makes it more +beautiful." + +From that time life became more wonderful day by day. The fairy story +continued. Almost every day something new was done. Some new comfort +or ornament appeared each time Sara opened the door at night, until in +a short time the attic was a beautiful little room full of all sorts of +odd and luxurious things. The ugly walls were gradually entirely +covered with pictures and draperies, ingenious pieces of folding +furniture appeared, a bookshelf was hung up and filled with books, new +comforts and conveniences appeared one by one, until there seemed +nothing left to be desired. When Sara went downstairs in the morning, +the remains of the supper were on the table; and when she returned to +the attic in the evening, the magician had removed them and left +another nice little meal. Miss Minchin was as harsh and insulting as +ever, Miss Amelia as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar and rude. +Sara was sent on errands in all weathers, and scolded and driven hither +and thither; she was scarcely allowed to speak to Ermengarde and +Lottie; Lavinia sneered at the increasing shabbiness of her clothes; +and the other girls stared curiously at her when she appeared in the +schoolroom. But what did it all matter while she was living in this +wonderful mysterious story? It was more romantic and delightful than +anything she had ever invented to comfort her starved young soul and +save herself from despair. Sometimes, when she was scolded, she could +scarcely keep from smiling. + +"If you only knew!" she was saying to herself. "If you only knew!" + +The comfort and happiness she enjoyed were making her stronger, and she +had them always to look forward to. If she came home from her errands +wet and tired and hungry, she knew she would soon be warm and well fed +after she had climbed the stairs. During the hardest day she could +occupy herself blissfully by thinking of what she should see when she +opened the attic door, and wondering what new delight had been prepared +for her. In a very short time she began to look less thin. Color came +into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem so much too big for her face. + +"Sara Crewe looks wonderfully well," Miss Minchin remarked +disapprovingly to her sister. + +"Yes," answered poor, silly Miss Amelia. "She is absolutely fattening. +She was beginning to look like a little starved crow." + +"Starved!" exclaimed Miss Minchin, angrily. "There was no reason why +she should look starved. She always had plenty to eat!" + +"Of--of course," agreed Miss Amelia, humbly, alarmed to find that she +had, as usual, said the wrong thing. + +"There is something very disagreeable in seeing that sort of thing in a +child of her age," said Miss Minchin, with haughty vagueness. + +"What--sort of thing?" Miss Amelia ventured. + +"It might almost be called defiance," answered Miss Minchin, feeling +annoyed because she knew the thing she resented was nothing like +defiance, and she did not know what other unpleasant term to use. "The +spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and +broken by--by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word, +she seems as little subdued as if--as if she were a princess." + +"Do you remember," put in the unwise Miss Amelia, "what she said to you +that day in the schoolroom about what you would do if you found out +that she was--" + +"No, I don't," said Miss Minchin. "Don't talk nonsense." But she +remembered very clearly indeed. + +Very naturally, even Becky was beginning to look plumper and less +frightened. She could not help it. She had her share in the secret +fairy story, too. She had two mattresses, two pillows, plenty of +bed-covering, and every night a hot supper and a seat on the cushions +by the fire. The Bastille had melted away, the prisoners no longer +existed. Two comforted children sat in the midst of delights. +Sometimes Sara read aloud from her books, sometimes she learned her own +lessons, sometimes she sat and looked into the fire and tried to +imagine who her friend could be, and wished she could say to him some +of the things in her heart. + +Then it came about that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to +the door and left several parcels. All were addressed in large +letters, "To the Little Girl in the right-hand attic." + +Sara herself was sent to open the door and take them in. She laid the +two largest parcels on the hall table, and was looking at the address, +when Miss Minchin came down the stairs and saw her. + +"Take the things to the young lady to whom they belong," she said +severely. "Don't stand there staring at them. + +"They belong to me," answered Sara, quietly. + +"To you?" exclaimed Miss Minchin. "What do you mean?" + +"I don't know where they come from," said Sara, "but they are addressed +to me. I sleep in the right-hand attic. Becky has the other one." + +Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at the parcels with an excited +expression. + +"What is in them?" she demanded. + +"I don't know," replied Sara. + +"Open them," she ordered. + +Sara did as she was told. When the packages were unfolded Miss +Minchin's countenance wore suddenly a singular expression. What she +saw was pretty and comfortable clothing--clothing of different kinds: +shoes, stockings, and gloves, and a warm and beautiful coat. There were +even a nice hat and an umbrella. They were all good and expensive +things, and on the pocket of the coat was pinned a paper, on which were +written these words: "To be worn every day. Will be replaced by others +when necessary." + +Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an incident which suggested +strange things to her sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a +mistake, after all, and that the neglected child had some powerful +though eccentric friend in the background--perhaps some previously +unknown relation, who had suddenly traced her whereabouts, and chose to +provide for her in this mysterious and fantastic way? Relations were +sometimes very odd--particularly rich old bachelor uncles, who did not +care for having children near them. A man of that sort might prefer to +overlook his young relation's welfare at a distance. Such a person, +however, would be sure to be crotchety and hot-tempered enough to be +easily offended. It would not be very pleasant if there were such a +one, and he should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, +the scant food, and the hard work. She felt very queer indeed, and +very uncertain, and she gave a side glance at Sara. + +"Well," she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the +little girl lost her father, "someone is very kind to you. As the +things have been sent, and you are to have new ones when they are worn +out, you may as well go and put them on and look respectable. After you +are dressed you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the +schoolroom. You need not go out on any more errands today." + +About half an hour afterward, when the schoolroom door opened and Sara +walked in, the entire seminary was struck dumb. + +"My word!" ejaculated Jessie, jogging Lavinia's elbow. "Look at the +Princess Sara!" + +Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia looked she turned quite red. + +It was the Princess Sara indeed. At least, since the days when she had +been a princess, Sara had never looked as she did now. She did not +seem the Sara they had seen come down the back stairs a few hours ago. +She was dressed in the kind of frock Lavinia had been used to envying +her the possession of. It was deep and warm in color, and beautifully +made. Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jessie had admired +them, and the hair, whose heavy locks had made her look rather like a +Shetland pony when it fell loose about her small, odd face, was tied +back with a ribbon. + +"Perhaps someone has left her a fortune," Jessie whispered. "I always +thought something would happen to her. She's so queer." + +"Perhaps the diamond mines have suddenly appeared again," said Lavinia, +scathingly. "Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly +thing." + +"Sara," broke in Miss Minchin's deep voice, "come and sit here." + +And while the whole schoolroom stared and pushed with elbows, and +scarcely made any effort to conceal its excited curiosity, Sara went to +her old seat of honor, and bent her head over her books. + +That night, when she went to her room, after she and Becky had eaten +their supper she sat and looked at the fire seriously for a long time. + +"Are you making something up in your head, miss?" Becky inquired with +respectful softness. When Sara sat in silence and looked into the +coals with dreaming eyes it generally meant that she was making a new +story. But this time she was not, and she shook her head. + +"No," she answered. "I am wondering what I ought to do." + +Becky stared--still respectfully. She was filled with something +approaching reverence for everything Sara did and said. + +"I can't help thinking about my friend," Sara explained. "If he wants +to keep himself a secret, it would be rude to try and find out who he +is. But I do so want him to know how thankful I am to him--and how +happy he has made me. Anyone who is kind wants to know when people +have been made happy. They care for that more than for being thanked. +I wish--I do wish--" + +She stopped short because her eyes at that instant fell upon something +standing on a table in a corner. It was something she had found in the +room when she came up to it only two days before. It was a little +writing-case fitted with paper and envelopes and pens and ink. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "why did I not think of that before?" + +She rose and went to the corner and brought the case back to the fire. + +"I can write to him," she said joyfully, "and leave it on the table. +Then perhaps the person who takes the things away will take it, too. I +won't ask him anything. He won't mind my thanking him, I feel sure." + +So she wrote a note. This is what she said: + + +I hope you will not think it is impolite that I should write this note +to you when you wish to keep yourself a secret. Please believe I do +not mean to be impolite or try to find out anything at all; only I want +to thank you for being so kind to me--so heavenly kind--and making +everything like a fairy story. I am so grateful to you, and I am so +happy--and so is Becky. Becky feels just as thankful as I do--it is +all just as beautiful and wonderful to her as it is to me. We used to +be so lonely and cold and hungry, and now--oh, just think what you have +done for us! Please let me say just these words. It seems as if I +OUGHT to say them. THANK you--THANK you--THANK you! + +THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE ATTIC. + + +The next morning she left this on the little table, and in the evening +it had been taken away with the other things; so she knew the Magician +had received it, and she was happier for the thought. She was reading +one of her new books to Becky just before they went to their respective +beds, when her attention was attracted by a sound at the skylight. +When she looked up from her page she saw that Becky had heard the sound +also, as she had turned her head to look and was listening rather +nervously. + +"Something's there, miss," she whispered. + +"Yes," said Sara, slowly. "It sounds--rather like a cat--trying to get +in." + +She left her chair and went to the skylight. It was a queer little +sound she heard--like a soft scratching. She suddenly remembered +something and laughed. She remembered a quaint little intruder who had +made his way into the attic once before. She had seen him that very +afternoon, sitting disconsolately on a table before a window in the +Indian gentleman's house. + +"Suppose," she whispered in pleased excitement--"just suppose it was +the monkey who got away again. Oh, I wish it was!" + +She climbed on a chair, very cautiously raised the skylight, and peeped +out. It had been snowing all day, and on the snow, quite near her, +crouched a tiny, shivering figure, whose small black face wrinkled +itself piteously at sight of her. + +"It is the monkey," she cried out. "He has crept out of the Lascar's +attic, and he saw the light." + +Becky ran to her side. + +"Are you going to let him in, miss?" she said. + +"Yes," Sara answered joyfully. "It's too cold for monkeys to be out. +They're delicate. I'll coax him in." + +She put a hand out delicately, speaking in a coaxing voice--as she +spoke to the sparrows and to Melchisedec--as if she were some friendly +little animal herself. + +"Come along, monkey darling," she said. "I won't hurt you." + +He knew she would not hurt him. He knew it before she laid her soft, +caressing little paw on him and drew him towards her. He had felt human +love in the slim brown hands of Ram Dass, and he felt it in hers. He +let her lift him through the skylight, and when he found himself in her +arms he cuddled up to her breast and looked up into her face. + +"Nice monkey! Nice monkey!" she crooned, kissing his funny head. "Oh, +I do love little animal things." + +He was evidently glad to get to the fire, and when she sat down and +held him on her knee he looked from her to Becky with mingled interest +and appreciation. + +"He IS plain-looking, miss, ain't he?" said Becky. + +"He looks like a very ugly baby," laughed Sara. "I beg your pardon, +monkey; but I'm glad you are not a baby. Your mother COULDN'T be proud +of you, and no one would dare to say you looked like any of your +relations. Oh, I do like you!" + +She leaned back in her chair and reflected. + +"Perhaps he's sorry he's so ugly," she said, "and it's always on his +mind. I wonder if he HAS a mind. Monkey, my love, have you a mind?" + +But the monkey only put up a tiny paw and scratched his head. + +"What shall you do with him?" Becky asked. + +"I shall let him sleep with me tonight, and then take him back to the +Indian gentleman tomorrow. I am sorry to take you back, monkey; but +you must go. You ought to be fondest of your own family; and I'm not a +REAL relation." + +And when she went to bed she made him a nest at her feet, and he curled +up and slept there as if he were a baby and much pleased with his +quarters. + + + +17 + +"It Is the Child!" + + +The next afternoon three members of the Large Family sat in the Indian +gentleman's library, doing their best to cheer him up. They had been +allowed to come in to perform this office because he had specially +invited them. He had been living in a state of suspense for some time, +and today he was waiting for a certain event very anxiously. This +event was the return of Mr. Carmichael from Moscow. His stay there had +been prolonged from week to week. On his first arrival there, he had +not been able satisfactorily to trace the family he had gone in search +of. When he felt at last sure that he had found them and had gone to +their house, he had been told that they were absent on a journey. His +efforts to reach them had been unavailing, so he had decided to remain +in Moscow until their return. Mr. Carrisford sat in his reclining +chair, and Janet sat on the floor beside him. He was very fond of +Janet. Nora had found a footstool, and Donald was astride the tiger's +head which ornamented the rug made of the animal's skin. It must be +owned that he was riding it rather violently. + +"Don't chirrup so loud, Donald," Janet said. "When you come to cheer +an ill person up you don't cheer him up at the top of your voice. +Perhaps cheering up is too loud, Mr. Carrisford?" turning to the Indian +gentleman. + +But he only patted her shoulder. + +"No, it isn't," he answered. "And it keeps me from thinking too much." + +"I'm going to be quiet," Donald shouted. "We'll all be as quiet as +mice." + +"Mice don't make a noise like that," said Janet. + +Donald made a bridle of his handkerchief and bounced up and down on the +tiger's head. + +"A whole lot of mice might," he said cheerfully. "A thousand mice +might." + +"I don't believe fifty thousand mice would," said Janet, severely; "and +we have to be as quiet as one mouse." + +Mr. Carrisford laughed and patted her shoulder again. + +"Papa won't be very long now," she said. "May we talk about the lost +little girl?" + +"I don't think I could talk much about anything else just now," the +Indian gentleman answered, knitting his forehead with a tired look. + +"We like her so much," said Nora. "We call her the little un-fairy +princess." + +"Why?" the Indian gentleman inquired, because the fancies of the Large +Family always made him forget things a little. + +It was Janet who answered. + +"It is because, though she is not exactly a fairy, she will be so rich +when she is found that she will be like a princess in a fairy tale. We +called her the fairy princess at first, but it didn't quite suit." + +"Is it true," said Nora, "that her papa gave all his money to a friend +to put in a mine that had diamonds in it, and then the friend thought +he had lost it all and ran away because he felt as if he was a robber?" + +"But he wasn't really, you know," put in Janet, hastily. + +The Indian gentleman took hold of her hand quickly. + +"No, he wasn't really," he said. + +"I am sorry for the friend," Janet said; "I can't help it. He didn't +mean to do it, and it would break his heart. I am sure it would break +his heart." + +"You are an understanding little woman, Janet," the Indian gentleman +said, and he held her hand close. + +"Did you tell Mr. Carrisford," Donald shouted again, "about the +little-girl-who-isn't-a-beggar? Did you tell him she has new nice +clothes? P'r'aps she's been found by somebody when she was lost." + +"There's a cab!" exclaimed Janet. "It's stopping before the door. It +is papa!" + +They all ran to the windows to look out. + +"Yes, it's papa," Donald proclaimed. "But there is no little girl." + +All three of them incontinently fled from the room and tumbled into the +hall. It was in this way they always welcomed their father. They were +to be heard jumping up and down, clapping their hands, and being caught +up and kissed. + +Mr. Carrisford made an effort to rise and sank back again. + +"It is no use," he said. "What a wreck I am!" + +Mr. Carmichael's voice approached the door. + +"No, children," he was saying; "you may come in after I have talked to +Mr. Carrisford. Go and play with Ram Dass." + +Then the door opened and he came in. He looked rosier than ever, and +brought an atmosphere of freshness and health with him; but his eyes +were disappointed and anxious as they met the invalid's look of eager +question even as they grasped each other's hands. + +"What news?" Mr. Carrisford asked. "The child the Russian people +adopted?" + +"She is not the child we are looking for," was Mr. Carmichael's answer. +"She is much younger than Captain Crewe's little girl. Her name is +Emily Carew. I have seen and talked to her. The Russians were able to +give me every detail." + +How wearied and miserable the Indian gentleman looked! His hand +dropped from Mr. Carmichael's. + +"Then the search has to be begun over again," he said. "That is all. +Please sit down." + +Mr. Carmichael took a seat. Somehow, he had gradually grown fond of +this unhappy man. He was himself so well and happy, and so surrounded +by cheerfulness and love, that desolation and broken health seemed +pitifully unbearable things. If there had been the sound of just one +gay little high-pitched voice in the house, it would have been so much +less forlorn. And that a man should be compelled to carry about in his +breast the thought that he had seemed to wrong and desert a child was +not a thing one could face. + +"Come, come," he said in his cheery voice; "we'll find her yet." + +"We must begin at once. No time must be lost," Mr. Carrisford fretted. +"Have you any new suggestion to make--any whatsoever?" + +Mr. Carmichael felt rather restless, and he rose and began to pace the +room with a thoughtful, though uncertain face. + +"Well, perhaps," he said. "I don't know what it may be worth. The +fact is, an idea occurred to me as I was thinking the thing over in the +train on the journey from Dover." + +"What was it? If she is alive, she is somewhere." + +"Yes; she is SOMEWHERE. We have searched the schools in Paris. Let us +give up Paris and begin in London. That was my idea--to search London." + +"There are schools enough in London," said Mr. Carrisford. Then he +slightly started, roused by a recollection. "By the way, there is one +next door." + +"Then we will begin there. We cannot begin nearer than next door." + +"No," said Carrisford. "There is a child there who interests me; but +she is not a pupil. And she is a little dark, forlorn creature, as +unlike poor Crewe as a child could be." + +Perhaps the Magic was at work again at that very moment--the beautiful +Magic. It really seemed as if it might be so. What was it that brought +Ram Dass into the room--even as his master spoke--salaaming +respectfully, but with a scarcely concealed touch of excitement in his +dark, flashing eyes? + +"Sahib," he said, "the child herself has come--the child the sahib felt +pity for. She brings back the monkey who had again run away to her +attic under the roof. I have asked that she remain. It was my thought +that it would please the sahib to see and speak with her." + +"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Carmichael. + +"God knows," Mr. Carrrisford answered. "She is the child I spoke of. A +little drudge at the school." He waved his hand to Ram Dass, and +addressed him. "Yes, I should like to see her. Go and bring her in." +Then he turned to Mr. Carmichael. "While you have been away," he +explained, "I have been desperate. The days were so dark and long. Ram +Dass told me of this child's miseries, and together we invented a +romantic plan to help her. I suppose it was a childish thing to do; +but it gave me something to plan and think of. Without the help of an +agile, soft-footed Oriental like Ram Dass, however, it could not have +been done." + +Then Sara came into the room. She carried the monkey in her arms, and +he evidently did not intend to part from her, if it could be helped. +He was clinging to her and chattering, and the interesting excitement +of finding herself in the Indian gentleman's room had brought a flush +to Sara's cheeks. + +"Your monkey ran away again," she said, in her pretty voice. "He came +to my garret window last night, and I took him in because it was so +cold. I would have brought him back if it had not been so late. I knew +you were ill and might not like to be disturbed." + +The Indian gentleman's hollow eyes dwelt on her with curious interest. + +"That was very thoughtful of you," he said. + +Sara looked toward Ram Dass, who stood near the door. + +"Shall I give him to the Lascar?" she asked. + +"How do you know he is a Lascar?" said the Indian gentleman, smiling a +little. + +"Oh, I know Lascars," Sara said, handing over the reluctant monkey. "I +was born in India." + +The Indian gentleman sat upright so suddenly, and with such a change of +expression, that she was for a moment quite startled. + +"You were born in India," he exclaimed, "were you? Come here." And he +held out his hand. + +Sara went to him and laid her hand in his, as he seemed to want to take +it. She stood still, and her green-gray eyes met his wonderingly. +Something seemed to be the matter with him. + +"You live next door?" he demanded. + +"Yes; I live at Miss Minchin's seminary." + +"But you are not one of her pupils?" + +A strange little smile hovered about Sara's mouth. She hesitated a +moment. + +"I don't think I know exactly WHAT I am," she replied. + +"Why not?" + +"At first I was a pupil, and a parlor boarder; but now--" + +"You were a pupil! What are you now?" + +The queer little sad smile was on Sara's lips again. + +"I sleep in the attic, next to the scullery maid," she said. "I run +errands for the cook--I do anything she tells me; and I teach the +little ones their lessons." + +"Question her, Carmichael," said Mr. Carrisford, sinking back as if he +had lost his strength. "Question her; I cannot." + +The big, kind father of the Large Family knew how to question little +girls. Sara realized how much practice he had had when he spoke to her +in his nice, encouraging voice. + +"What do you mean by 'At first,' my child?" he inquired. + +"When I was first taken there by my papa." + +"Where is your papa?" + +"He died," said Sara, very quietly. "He lost all his money and there +was none left for me. There was no one to take care of me or to pay +Miss Minchin." + +"Carmichael!" the Indian gentleman cried out loudly. "Carmichael!" + +"We must not frighten her," Mr. Carmichael said aside to him in a +quick, low voice. And he added aloud to Sara, "So you were sent up +into the attic, and made into a little drudge. That was about it, +wasn't it?" + +"There was no one to take care of me," said Sara. "There was no money; +I belong to nobody." + +"How did your father lose his money?" the Indian gentleman broke in +breathlessly. + +"He did not lose it himself," Sara answered, wondering still more each +moment. "He had a friend he was very fond of--he was very fond of him. +It was his friend who took his money. He trusted his friend too much." + +The Indian gentleman's breath came more quickly. + +"The friend might have MEANT to do no harm," he said. "It might have +happened through a mistake." + +Sara did not know how unrelenting her quiet young voice sounded as she +answered. If she had known, she would surely have tried to soften it +for the Indian gentleman's sake. + +"The suffering was just as bad for my papa," she said. "It killed him." + +"What was your father's name?" the Indian gentleman said. "Tell me." + +"His name was Ralph Crewe," Sara answered, feeling startled. "Captain +Crewe. He died in India." + +The haggard face contracted, and Ram Dass sprang to his master's side. + +"Carmichael," the invalid gasped, "it is the child--the child!" + +For a moment Sara thought he was going to die. Ram Dass poured out +drops from a bottle, and held them to his lips. Sara stood near, +trembling a little. She looked in a bewildered way at Mr. Carmichael. + +"What child am I?" she faltered. + +"He was your father's friend," Mr. Carmichael answered her. "Don't be +frightened. We have been looking for you for two years." + +Sara put her hand up to her forehead, and her mouth trembled. She +spoke as if she were in a dream. + +"And I was at Miss Minchin's all the while," she half whispered. "Just +on the other side of the wall." + + + +18 + +"I Tried Not to Be" + + +It was pretty, comfortable Mrs. Carmichael who explained everything. +She was sent for at once, and came across the square to take Sara into +her warm arms and make clear to her all that had happened. The +excitement of the totally unexpected discovery had been temporarily +almost overpowering to Mr. Carrisford in his weak condition. + +"Upon my word," he said faintly to Mr. Carmichael, when it was +suggested that the little girl should go into another room. "I feel as +if I do not want to lose sight of her." + +"I will take care of her," Janet said, "and mamma will come in a few +minutes." And it was Janet who led her away. + +"We're so glad you are found," she said. "You don't know how glad we +are that you are found." + +Donald stood with his hands in his pockets, and gazed at Sara with +reflecting and self-reproachful eyes. + +"If I'd just asked what your name was when I gave you my sixpence," he +said, "you would have told me it was Sara Crewe, and then you would +have been found in a minute." Then Mrs. Carmichael came in. She looked +very much moved, and suddenly took Sara in her arms and kissed her. + +"You look bewildered, poor child," she said. "And it is not to be +wondered at." + +Sara could only think of one thing. + +"Was he," she said, with a glance toward the closed door of the +library--"was HE the wicked friend? Oh, do tell me!" + +Mrs. Carmichael was crying as she kissed her again. She felt as if she +ought to be kissed very often because she had not been kissed for so +long. + +"He was not wicked, my dear," she answered. "He did not really lose +your papa's money. He only thought he had lost it; and because he +loved him so much his grief made him so ill that for a time he was not +in his right mind. He almost died of brain fever, and long before he +began to recover your poor papa was dead." + +"And he did not know where to find me," murmured Sara. "And I was so +near." Somehow, she could not forget that she had been so near. + +"He believed you were in school in France," Mrs. Carmichael explained. +"And he was continually misled by false clues. He has looked for you +everywhere. When he saw you pass by, looking so sad and neglected, he +did not dream that you were his friend's poor child; but because you +were a little girl, too, he was sorry for you, and wanted to make you +happier. And he told Ram Dass to climb into your attic window and try +to make you comfortable." + +Sara gave a start of joy; her whole look changed. + +"Did Ram Dass bring the things?" she cried out. "Did he tell Ram Dass +to do it? Did he make the dream that came true?" + +"Yes, my dear--yes! He is kind and good, and he was sorry for you, for +little lost Sara Crewe's sake." + +The library door opened and Mr. Carmichael appeared, calling Sara to +him with a gesture. + +"Mr. Carrisford is better already," he said. "He wants you to come to +him." + +Sara did not wait. When the Indian gentleman looked at her as she +entered, he saw that her face was all alight. + +She went and stood before his chair, with her hands clasped together +against her breast. + +"You sent the things to me," she said, in a joyful emotional little +voice, "the beautiful, beautiful things? YOU sent them!" + +"Yes, poor, dear child, I did," he answered her. He was weak and +broken with long illness and trouble, but he looked at her with the +look she remembered in her father's eyes--that look of loving her and +wanting to take her in his arms. It made her kneel down by him, just +as she used to kneel by her father when they were the dearest friends +and lovers in the world. + +"Then it is you who are my friend," she said; "it is you who are my +friend!" And she dropped her face on his thin hand and kissed it again +and again. + +"The man will be himself again in three weeks," Mr. Carmichael said +aside to his wife. "Look at his face already." + +In fact, he did look changed. Here was the "Little Missus," and he had +new things to think of and plan for already. In the first place, there +was Miss Minchin. She must be interviewed and told of the change which +had taken place in the fortunes of her pupil. + +Sara was not to return to the seminary at all. The Indian gentleman +was very determined upon that point. She must remain where she was, +and Mr. Carmichael should go and see Miss Minchin himself. + +"I am glad I need not go back," said Sara. "She will be very angry. +She does not like me; though perhaps it is my fault, because I do not +like her." + +But, oddly enough, Miss Minchin made it unnecessary for Mr. Carmichael +to go to her, by actually coming in search of her pupil herself. She +had wanted Sara for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing +thing. One of the housemaids had seen her steal out of the area with +something hidden under her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps +of the next door and enter the house. + +"What does she mean!" cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia. + +"I don't know, I'm sure, sister," answered Miss Amelia. "Unless she +has made friends with him because he has lived in India." + +"It would be just like her to thrust herself upon him and try to gain +his sympathies in some such impertinent fashion," said Miss Minchin. +"She must have been in the house for two hours. I will not allow such +presumption. I shall go and inquire into the matter, and apologize for +her intrusion." + +Sara was sitting on a footstool close to Mr. Carrisford's knee, and +listening to some of the many things he felt it necessary to try to +explain to her, when Ram Dass announced the visitor's arrival. + +Sara rose involuntarily, and became rather pale; but Mr. Carrisford saw +that she stood quietly, and showed none of the ordinary signs of child +terror. + +Miss Minchin entered the room with a sternly dignified manner. She was +correctly and well dressed, and rigidly polite. + +"I am sorry to disturb Mr. Carrisford," she said; "but I have +explanations to make. I am Miss Minchin, the proprietress of the Young +Ladies' Seminary next door." + +The Indian gentleman looked at her for a moment in silent scrutiny. He +was a man who had naturally a rather hot temper, and he did not wish it +to get too much the better of him. + +"So you are Miss Minchin?" he said. + +"I am, sir." + +"In that case," the Indian gentleman replied, "you have arrived at the +right time. My solicitor, Mr. Carmichael, was just on the point of +going to see you." + +Mr. Carmichael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr. +Carrisford in amazement. + +"Your solicitor!" she said. "I do not understand. I have come here as +a matter of duty. I have just discovered that you have been intruded +upon through the forwardness of one of my pupils--a charity pupil. I +came to explain that she intruded without my knowledge." She turned +upon Sara. "Go home at once," she commanded indignantly. "You shall be +severely punished. Go home at once." + +The Indian gentleman drew Sara to his side and patted her hand. + +"She is not going." + +Miss Minchin felt rather as if she must be losing her senses. + +"Not going!" she repeated. + +"No," said Mr. Carrisford. "She is not going home--if you give your +house that name. Her home for the future will be with me." + +Miss Minchin fell back in amazed indignation. + +"With YOU! With YOU sir! What does this mean?" + +"Kindly explain the matter, Carmichael," said the Indian gentleman; +"and get it over as quickly as possible." And he made Sara sit down +again, and held her hands in his--which was another trick of her papa's. + +Then Mr. Carmichael explained--in the quiet, level-toned, steady manner +of a man who knew his subject, and all its legal significance, which +was a thing Miss Minchin understood as a business woman, and did not +enjoy. + +"Mr. Carrisford, madam," he said, "was an intimate friend of the late +Captain Crewe. He was his partner in certain large investments. The +fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered, +and is now in Mr. Carrisford's hands." + +"The fortune!" cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she +uttered the exclamation. "Sara's fortune!" + +"It WILL be Sara's fortune," replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly. "It +is Sara's fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it +enormously. The diamond mines have retrieved themselves." + +"The diamond mines!" Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, +nothing so horrible, she felt, had ever happened to her since she was +born. + +"The diamond mines," Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help +adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile, "There are not many +princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity +pupil, Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her +for nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her." + +After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained +matters to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to +make it quite clear to her that Sara's future was an assured one, and +that what had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold; +also, that she had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend. + +Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was +silly enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not +help seeing she had lost through her worldly folly. + +"He found her under my care," she protested. "I have done everything +for her. But for me she should have starved in the streets." + +Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper. + +"As to starving in the streets," he said, "she might have starved more +comfortably there than in your attic." + +"Captain Crewe left her in my charge," Miss Minchin argued. "She must +return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor boarder again. +She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf." + +"Come, come, Miss Minchin," Mr. Carmichael interposed, "the law will do +nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare +say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with +Sara." + +"Then," said Miss Minchin, "I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you, +perhaps," she said awkwardly to the little girl; "but you know that +your papa was pleased with your progress. And--ahem--I have always been +fond of you." + +Sara's green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear +look Miss Minchin particularly disliked. + +"Have YOU, Miss Minchin?" she said. "I did not know that." + +Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up. + +"You ought to have known it," said she; "but children, unfortunately, +never know what is best for them. Amelia and I always said you were +the cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your +poor papa and come home with me?" + +Sara took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the +day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody, and was in +danger of being turned into the street; she was thinking of the cold, +hungry hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchisedec in the +attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the face. + +"You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin," she said; +"you know quite well." + +A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin's hard, angry face. + +"You will never see your companions again," she began. "I will see +that Ermengarde and Lottie are kept away--" + +Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness. + +"Excuse me," he said; "she will see anyone she wishes to see. The +parents of Miss Crewe's fellow-pupils are not likely to refuse her +invitations to visit her at her guardian's house. Mr. Carrisford will +attend to that." + +It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse +than the eccentric bachelor uncle who might have a peppery temper and +be easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid +mind could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow +their children to remain friends with a little heiress of diamond +mines. And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how +unhappy Sara Crewe had been made, many unpleasant things might happen. + +"You have not undertaken an easy charge," she said to the Indian +gentleman, as she turned to leave the room; "you will discover that +very soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose"--to +Sara--"that you feel now that you are a princess again." + +Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet +fancy might not be easy for strangers--even nice ones--to understand at +first. + +"I--TRIED not to be anything else," she answered in a low voice--"even +when I was coldest and hungriest--I tried not to be." + +"Now it will not be necessary to try," said Miss Minchin, acidly, as +Ram Dass salaamed her out of the room. + + +She returned home and, going to her sitting room, sent at once for Miss +Amelia. She sat closeted with her all the rest of the afternoon, and +it must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one +bad quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears, and mopped her +eyes a good deal. One of her unfortunate remarks almost caused her +sister to snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual +manner. + +"I'm not as clever as you, sister," she said, "and I am always afraid +to say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were +not so timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I +must say I've often thought it would have been better if you had been +less severe on Sara Crewe, and had seen that she was decently dressed +and more comfortable. I KNOW she was worked too hard for a child of her +age, and I know she was only half fed--" + +"How dare you say such a thing!" exclaimed Miss Minchin. + +"I don't know how I dare," Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of +reckless courage; "but now I've begun I may as well finish, whatever +happens to me. The child was a clever child and a good child--and she +would have paid you for any kindness you had shown her. But you didn't +show her any. The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always +disliked her for that reason. She used to see through us both--" + +"Amelia!" gasped her infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her +ears and knock her cap off, as she had often done to Becky. + +But Miss Amelia's disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to +care what occurred next. + +"She did! She did!" she cried. "She saw through us both. She saw that +you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and +that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees +for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from +her--though she behaved herself like a little princess even when she +was a beggar. She did--she did--like a little princess!" And her +hysterics got the better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and +cry both at once, and rock herself backward and forward. + +"And now you've lost her," she cried wildly; "and some other school +will get her and her money; and if she were like any other child she'd +tell how she's been treated, and all our pupils would be taken away and +we should be ruined. And it serves us right; but it serves you right +more than it does me, for you are a hard woman, Maria Minchin, you're a +hard, selfish, worldly woman!" + +And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical +chokes and gurgles that her sister was obliged to go to her and apply +salts and sal volatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her +indignation at her audacity. + +And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin +actually began to stand a little in awe of a sister who, while she +looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, +and might, consequently, break out and speak truths people did not want +to hear. + +That evening, when the pupils were gathered together before the fire in +the schoolroom, as was their custom before going to bed, Ermengarde +came in with a letter in her hand and a queer expression on her round +face. It was queer because, while it was an expression of delighted +excitement, it was combined with such amazement as seemed to belong to +a kind of shock just received. + +"What IS the matter?" cried two or three voices at once. + +"Is it anything to do with the row that has been going on?" said +Lavinia, eagerly. "There has been such a row in Miss Minchin's room, +Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics and has had to go to bed." + +Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned. + +"I have just had this letter from Sara," she said, holding it out to +let them see what a long letter it was. + +"From Sara!" Every voice joined in that exclamation. + +"Where is she?" almost shrieked Jessie. + +"Next door," said Ermengarde, "with the Indian gentleman." + +"Where? Where? Has she been sent away? Does Miss Minchin know? Was +the row about that? Why did she write? Tell us! Tell us!" + +There was a perfect babel, and Lottie began to cry plaintively. + +Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half plunged out into +what, at the moment, seemed the most important and self-explaining +thing. + +"There WERE diamond mines," she said stoutly; "there WERE!" Open mouths +and open eyes confronted her. + +"They were real," she hurried on. "It was all a mistake about them. +Something happened for a time, and Mr. Carrisford thought they were +ruined--" + +"Who is Mr. Carrisford?" shouted Jessie. + +"The Indian gentleman. And Captain Crewe thought so, too--and he died; +and Mr. Carrisford had brain fever and ran away, and HE almost died. +And he did not know where Sara was. And it turned out that there were +millions and millions of diamonds in the mines; and half of them belong +to Sara; and they belonged to her when she was living in the attic with +no one but Melchisedec for a friend, and the cook ordering her about. +And Mr. Carrisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his +home--and she will never come back--and she will be more a princess +than she ever was--a hundred and fifty thousand times more. And I am +going to see her tomorrow afternoon. There!" + +Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar +after this; and though she heard the noise, she did not try. She was +not in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room, +while Miss Amelia was weeping in bed. She knew that the news had +penetrated the walls in some mysterious manner, and that every servant +and every child would go to bed talking about it. + +So until almost midnight the entire seminary, realizing somehow that +all rules were laid aside, crowded round Ermengarde in the schoolroom +and heard read and re-read the letter containing a story which was +quite as wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented, and which had +the amazing charm of having happened to Sara herself and the mystic +Indian gentleman in the very next house. + +Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep up stairs earlier than +usual. She wanted to get away from people and go and look at the +little magic room once more. She did not know what would happen to it. +It was not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin. It would be +taken away, and the attic would be bare and empty again. Glad as she +was for Sara's sake, she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump +in her throat and tears blurring her sight. There would be no fire +tonight, and no rosy lamp; no supper, and no princess sitting in the +glow reading or telling stories--no princess! + +She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open, and then she +broke into a low cry. + +The lamp was flushing the room, the fire was blazing, the supper was +waiting; and Ram Dass was standing smiling into her startled face. + +"Missee sahib remembered," he said. "She told the sahib all. She +wished you to know the good fortune which has befallen her. Behold a +letter on the tray. She has written. She did not wish that you should +go to sleep unhappy. The sahib commands you to come to him tomorrow. +You are to be the attendant of missee sahib. Tonight I take these +things back over the roof." + +And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salaam and +slipped through the skylight with an agile silentness of movement which +showed Becky how easily he had done it before. + + + +19 + +Anne + + +Never had such joy reigned in the nursery of the Large Family. Never +had they dreamed of such delights as resulted from an intimate +acquaintance with the little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. The mere fact +of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession. +Everybody wanted to be told over and over again the things which had +happened to her. When one was sitting by a warm fire in a big, glowing +room, it was quite delightful to hear how cold it could be in an attic. +It must be admitted that the attic was rather delighted in, and that +its coldness and bareness quite sank into insignificance when +Melchisedec was remembered, and one heard about the sparrows and things +one could see if one climbed on the table and stuck one's head and +shoulders out of the skylight. + +Of course the thing loved best was the story of the banquet and the +dream which was true. Sara told it for the first time the day after +she had been found. Several members of the Large Family came to take +tea with her, and as they sat or curled up on the hearth-rug she told +the story in her own way, and the Indian gentleman listened and watched +her. When she had finished she looked up at him and put her hand on his +knee. + +"That is my part," she said. "Now won't you tell your part of it, +Uncle Tom?" He had asked her to call him always "Uncle Tom." "I don't +know your part yet, and it must be beautiful." + +So he told them how, when he sat alone, ill and dull and irritable, Ram +Dass had tried to distract him by describing the passers by, and there +was one child who passed oftener than any one else; he had begun to be +interested in her--partly perhaps because he was thinking a great deal +of a little girl, and partly because Ram Dass had been able to relate +the incident of his visit to the attic in chase of the monkey. He had +described its cheerless look, and the bearing of the child, who seemed +as if she was not of the class of those who were treated as drudges and +servants. Bit by bit, Ram Dass had made discoveries concerning the +wretchedness of her life. He had found out how easy a matter it was to +climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and this fact had +been the beginning of all that followed. + +"Sahib," he had said one day, "I could cross the slates and make the +child a fire when she is out on some errand. When she returned, wet +and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it." + +The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Carrisford's sad face had +lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been so filled with rapture that +he had enlarged upon it and explained to his master how simple it would +be to accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike +pleasure and invention, and the preparations for the carrying out of +the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have +dragged wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had +kept watch, all his packages being in readiness in the attic which was +his own; and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as +interested as himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying +flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when the banquet had +come to its disastrous conclusion; he had been sure of the profoundness +of Sara's wearied sleep; and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept +into the room, while his companion remained outside and handed the +things to him. When Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had +closed the lantern-slide and lain flat upon the floor. These and many +other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand +questions. + +"I am so glad," Sara said. "I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!" + +There never were such friends as these two became. Somehow, they +seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. The Indian gentleman had +never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sara. In a +month's time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a +new man. He was always amused and interested, and he began to find an +actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he +loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for +Sara. There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and +it was one of his pleasures to invent things to surprise her. She +found beautiful new flowers growing in her room, whimsical little gifts +tucked under pillows, and once, as they sat together in the evening, +they heard the scratch of a heavy paw on the door, and when Sara went +to find out what it was, there stood a great dog--a splendid Russian +boarhound--with a grand silver and gold collar bearing an inscription. +"I am Boris," it read; "I serve the Princess Sara." + +There was nothing the Indian gentleman loved more than the recollection +of the little princess in rags and tatters. The afternoons in which +the Large Family, or Ermengarde and Lottie, gathered to rejoice +together were very delightful. But the hours when Sara and the Indian +gentleman sat alone and read or talked had a special charm of their +own. During their passing many interesting things occurred. + +One evening, Mr. Carrisford, looking up from his book, noticed that his +companion had not stirred for some time, but sat gazing into the fire. + +"What are you 'supposing,' Sara?" he asked. + +Sara looked up, with a bright color on her cheek. + +"I WAS supposing," she said; "I was remembering that hungry day, and a +child I saw." + +"But there were a great many hungry days," said the Indian gentleman, +with rather a sad tone in his voice. "Which hungry day was it?" + +"I forgot you didn't know," said Sara. "It was the day the dream came +true." + +Then she told him the story of the bun shop, and the fourpence she +picked up out of the sloppy mud, and the child who was hungrier than +herself. She told it quite simply, and in as few words as possible; +but somehow the Indian gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes +with his hand and look down at the carpet. + +"And I was supposing a kind of plan," she said, when she had finished. +"I was thinking I should like to do something." + +"What was it?" said Mr. Carrisford, in a low tone. "You may do +anything you like to do, princess." + +"I was wondering," rather hesitated Sara--"you know, you say I have so +much money--I was wondering if I could go to see the bun-woman, and +tell her that if, when hungry children--particularly on those dreadful +days--come and sit on the steps, or look in at the window, she would +just call them in and give them something to eat, she might send the +bills to me. Could I do that?" + +"You shall do it tomorrow morning," said the Indian gentleman. + +"Thank you," said Sara. "You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and +it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it away." + +"Yes, yes, my dear," said the Indian gentleman. "Yes, yes, it must be. +Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and +only remember you are a princess." + +"Yes," said Sara, smiling; "and I can give buns and bread to the +populace." And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian gentleman +(he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes) drew her small +dark head down on his knee and stroked her hair. + +The next morning, Miss Minchin, in looking out of her window, saw the +things she perhaps least enjoyed seeing. The Indian gentleman's +carriage, with its tall horses, drew up before the door of the next +house, and its owner and a little figure, warm with soft, rich furs, +descended the steps to get into it. The little figure was a familiar +one, and reminded Miss Minchin of days in the past. It was followed by +another as familiar--the sight of which she found very irritating. It +was Becky, who, in the character of delighted attendant, always +accompanied her young mistress to her carriage, carrying wraps and +belongings. Already Becky had a pink, round face. + +A little later the carriage drew up before the door of the baker's +shop, and its occupants got out, oddly enough, just as the bun-woman +was putting a tray of smoking-hot buns into the window. + +When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her, and, +leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she +looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted +up. + +"I'm sure that I remember you, miss," she said. "And yet--" + +"Yes," said Sara; "once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and--" + +"And you gave five of 'em to a beggar child," the woman broke in on +her. "I've always remembered it. I couldn't make it out at first." She +turned round to the Indian gentleman and spoke her next words to him. +"I beg your pardon, sir, but there's not many young people that notices +a hungry face in that way; and I've thought of it many a time. Excuse +the liberty, miss,"--to Sara--"but you look rosier and--well, better +than you did that--that--" + +"I am better, thank you," said Sara. "And--I am much happier--and I +have come to ask you to do something for me." + +"Me, miss!" exclaimed the bun-woman, smiling cheerfully. "Why, bless +you! Yes, miss. What can I do?" + +And then Sara, leaning on the counter, made her little proposal +concerning the dreadful days and the hungry waifs and the buns. + +The woman watched her, and listened with an astonished face. + +"Why, bless me!" she said again when she had heard it all; "it'll be a +pleasure to me to do it. I am a working-woman myself and cannot afford +to do much on my own account, and there's sights of trouble on every +side; but, if you'll excuse me, I'm bound to say I've given away many a +bit of bread since that wet afternoon, just along o' thinking of +you--an' how wet an' cold you was, an' how hungry you looked; an' yet +you gave away your hot buns as if you was a princess." + +The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sara smiled a +little, too, remembering what she had said to herself when she put the +buns down on the ravenous child's ragged lap. + +"She looked so hungry," she said. "She was even hungrier than I was." + +"She was starving," said the woman. "Many's the time she's told me of +it since--how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was +a-tearing at her poor young insides." + +"Oh, have you seen her since then?" exclaimed Sara. "Do you know where +she is?" + +"Yes, I do," answered the woman, smiling more good-naturedly than ever. +"Why, she's in that there back room, miss, an' has been for a month; +an' a decent, well-meanin' girl she's goin' to turn out, an' such a +help to me in the shop an' in the kitchen as you'd scarce believe, +knowin' how she's lived." + +She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and the +next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter. And +actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking +as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she +had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage, and the wild look +had gone from her eyes. She knew Sara in an instant, and stood and +looked at her as if she could never look enough. + +"You see," said the woman, "I told her to come when she was hungry, and +when she'd come I'd give her odd jobs to do; an' I found she was +willing, and somehow I got to like her; and the end of it was, I've +given her a place an' a home, and she helps me, an' behaves well, an' +is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name's Anne. She has no other." + +The children stood and looked at each other for a few minutes; and then +Sara took her hand out of her muff and held it out across the counter, +and Anne took it, and they looked straight into each other's eyes. + +"I am so glad," Sara said. "And I have just thought of something. +Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you be the one to give the buns and bread +to the children. Perhaps you would like to do it because you know what +it is to be hungry, too." + +"Yes, miss," said the girl. + +And, somehow, Sara felt as if she understood her, though she said so +little, and only stood still and looked and looked after her as she +went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and they got into the +carriage and drove away. + +THE BROTHERS GRIMM FAIRY TALES + +THE GOLDEN BIRD + + +A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree +which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about +the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one +of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the +gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his +eldest son to watch; but about twelve o’clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was +ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning +another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but +the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come +to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself +under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling +noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as +it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son +jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; +only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. +The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than +all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, ‘One feather is of no +use to me, I must have the whole bird.’ + +Then the gardener’s eldest son set out and thought to find the golden +bird very easily; and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a +wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting; so he took his +bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, ‘Do not shoot me, +for I will give you good counsel; I know what your business is, and +that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the +evening; and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each +other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at: go not in +there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you +to be very poor and mean.’ But the son thought to himself, ‘What can +such a beast as this know about the matter?’ So he shot his arrow at +the fox; but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and +ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to +the village where the two inns were; and in one of these were people +singing, and dancing, and feasting; but the other looked very dirty, +and poor. ‘I should be very silly,’ said he, ‘if I went to that shabby +house, and left this charming place’; so he went into the smart house, +and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too. + +Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings +were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened +to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came +to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where +the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not +withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and +his country in the same manner. + +Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into +the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not +listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and +was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his +coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would +not rest at home; and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard +the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not +attempt his life as his brothers had done; so the fox said, ‘Sit upon my +tail, and you will travel faster.’ So he sat down, and the fox began to +run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair +whistled in the wind. + +When they came to the village, the son followed the fox’s counsel, and +without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all +night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he +was beginning his journey, and said, ‘Go straight forward, till you come +to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and +snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and +on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage; +close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the +bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise +you will repent it.’ Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the +young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till +their hair whistled in the wind. + +Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said: so the son went in +and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and +below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been +lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, ‘It will be a +very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage’; so +he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. +But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and +they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning +the court sat to judge him; and when all was heard, it sentenced him to +die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as +swiftly as the wind; and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird +given him for his own. + +So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair, +when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, ‘You see now +what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will +still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as +I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the +horse stands in his stall: by his side will lie the groom fast asleep +and snoring: take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old +leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.’ +Then the son sat down on the fox’s tail, and away they went over stock +and stone till their hair whistled in the wind. + +All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden +saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity +to put the leathern saddle upon it. ‘I will give him the good one,’ +said he; ‘I am sure he deserves it.’ As he took up the golden saddle the +groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took +him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court +to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he +could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the +bird and the horse given him for his own. + +Then he went his way very sorrowful; but the old fox came and said, ‘Why +did not you listen to me? If you had, you would have carried away +both the bird and the horse; yet will I once more give you counsel. Go +straight on, and in the evening you will arrive at a castle. At twelve +o’clock at night the princess goes to the bathing-house: go up to her +and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away; but take care +you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.’ +Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock +and stone till their hair whistled again. + +As they came to the castle, all was as the fox had said, and at twelve +o’clock the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the +kiss, and she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears +that he would let her take leave of her father. At first he refused, +but she wept still more and more, and fell at his feet, till at last +he consented; but the moment she came to her father’s house the guards +awoke and he was taken prisoner again. + +Then he was brought before the king, and the king said, ‘You shall never +have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops +the view from my window.’ Now this hill was so big that the whole world +could not take it away: and when he had worked for seven days, and had +done very little, the fox came and said. ‘Lie down and go to sleep; I +will work for you.’ And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone; +so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now that it was +removed he must give him the princess. + +Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young man +and the princess; and the fox came and said to him, ‘We will have all +three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.’ ‘Ah!’ said the young man, +‘that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?’ + +‘If you will only listen,’ said the fox, ‘it can be done. When you come +to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, “Here +she is!” Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount the golden +horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of +them; but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on +to the horse behind you; clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as +fast as you can.’ + +All went right: then the fox said, ‘When you come to the castle where +the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will +ride in and speak to the king; and when he sees that it is the right +horse, he will bring out the bird; but you must sit still, and say that +you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird; and +when you get it into your hand, ride away.’ + +This, too, happened as the fox said; they carried off the bird, the +princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood. Then the fox +came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’ But the +young man refused to do it: so the fox said, ‘I will at any rate give +you good counsel: beware of two things; ransom no one from the gallows, +and sit down by the side of no river.’ Then away he went. ‘Well,’ +thought the young man, ‘it is no hard matter to keep that advice.’ + +He rode on with the princess, till at last he came to the village where +he had left his two brothers. And there he heard a great noise and +uproar; and when he asked what was the matter, the people said, ‘Two men +are going to be hanged.’ As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were +his brothers, who had turned robbers; so he said, ‘Cannot they in any +way be saved?’ But the people said ‘No,’ unless he would bestow all his +money upon the rascals and buy their liberty. Then he did not stay to +think about the matter, but paid what was asked, and his brothers were +given up, and went on with him towards their home. + +And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so +cool and pleasant that the two brothers said, ‘Let us sit down by the +side of the river, and rest a while, to eat and drink.’ So he said, +‘Yes,’ and forgot the fox’s counsel, and sat down on the side of the +river; and while he suspected nothing, they came behind, and threw him +down the bank, and took the princess, the horse, and the bird, and went +home to the king their master, and said. ‘All this have we won by our +labour.’ Then there was great rejoicing made; but the horse would not +eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept. + +The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river’s bed: luckily it was +nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep +that he could find no way to get out. Then the old fox came once more, +and scolded him for not following his advice; otherwise no evil would +have befallen him: ‘Yet,’ said he, ‘I cannot leave you here, so lay hold +of my tail and hold fast.’ Then he pulled him out of the river, and said +to him, as he got upon the bank, ‘Your brothers have set watch to kill +you, if they find you in the kingdom.’ So he dressed himself as a poor +man, and came secretly to the king’s court, and was scarcely within the +doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess +left off weeping. Then he went to the king, and told him all his +brothers’ roguery; and they were seized and punished, and he had the +princess given to him again; and after the king’s death he was heir to +his kingdom. + +A long while after, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox +met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut +off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the +fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the +princess, who had been lost a great many many years. + + + + +HANS IN LUCK + + +Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes +right--all that falls to them is so much gain--all their geese are +swans--all their cards are trumps--toss them which way you will, they +will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so +much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as +they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it +know about the matter? + +One of these lucky beings was neighbour Hans. Seven long years he had +worked hard for his master. At last he said, ‘Master, my time is up; I +must go home and see my poor mother once more: so pray pay me my wages +and let me go.’ And the master said, ‘You have been a faithful and good +servant, Hans, so your pay shall be handsome.’ Then he gave him a lump +of silver as big as his head. + +Hans took out his pocket-handkerchief, put the piece of silver into it, +threw it over his shoulder, and jogged off on his road homewards. As he +went lazily on, dragging one foot after another, a man came in sight, +trotting gaily along on a capital horse. ‘Ah!’ said Hans aloud, ‘what a +fine thing it is to ride on horseback! There he sits as easy and happy +as if he was at home, in the chair by his fireside; he trips against no +stones, saves shoe-leather, and gets on he hardly knows how.’ Hans did +not speak so softly but the horseman heard it all, and said, ‘Well, +friend, why do you go on foot then?’ ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I have this load to +carry: to be sure it is silver, but it is so heavy that I can’t hold up +my head, and you must know it hurts my shoulder sadly.’ ‘What do you say +of making an exchange?’ said the horseman. ‘I will give you my horse, +and you shall give me the silver; which will save you a great deal of +trouble in carrying such a heavy load about with you.’ ‘With all my +heart,’ said Hans: ‘but as you are so kind to me, I must tell you one +thing--you will have a weary task to draw that silver about with you.’ +However, the horseman got off, took the silver, helped Hans up, gave him +the bridle into one hand and the whip into the other, and said, ‘When +you want to go very fast, smack your lips loudly together, and cry +“Jip!”’ + +Hans was delighted as he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his +elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one +minute whistling a merry tune, and another singing, + + ‘No care and no sorrow, + A fig for the morrow! + We’ll laugh and be merry, + Sing neigh down derry!’ + +After a time he thought he should like to go a little faster, so he +smacked his lips and cried ‘Jip!’ Away went the horse full gallop; and +before Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his +back by the road-side. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who +was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to +himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the +shepherd, ‘This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon +a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break +his neck. However, I’m off now once for all: I like your cow now a great +deal better than this smart beast that played me this trick, and has +spoiled my best coat, you see, in this puddle; which, by the by, smells +not very like a nosegay. One can walk along at one’s leisure behind that +cow--keep good company, and have milk, butter, and cheese, every day, +into the bargain. What would I give to have such a prize!’ ‘Well,’ said +the shepherd, ‘if you are so fond of her, I will change my cow for your +horse; I like to do good to my neighbours, even though I lose by it +myself.’ ‘Done!’ said Hans, merrily. ‘What a noble heart that good man +has!’ thought he. Then the shepherd jumped upon the horse, wished Hans +and the cow good morning, and away he rode. + +Hans brushed his coat, wiped his face and hands, rested a while, and +then drove off his cow quietly, and thought his bargain a very lucky +one. ‘If I have only a piece of bread (and I certainly shall always be +able to get that), I can, whenever I like, eat my butter and cheese with +it; and when I am thirsty I can milk my cow and drink the milk: and what +can I wish for more?’ When he came to an inn, he halted, ate up all his +bread, and gave away his last penny for a glass of beer. When he had +rested himself he set off again, driving his cow towards his mother’s +village. But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at +last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than +an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue +clave to the roof of his mouth. ‘I can find a cure for this,’ thought +he; ‘now I will milk my cow and quench my thirst’: so he tied her to the +stump of a tree, and held his leathern cap to milk into; but not a drop +was to be had. Who would have thought that this cow, which was to bring +him milk and butter and cheese, was all that time utterly dry? Hans had +not thought of looking to that. + +While he was trying his luck in milking, and managing the matter very +clumsily, the uneasy beast began to think him very troublesome; and at +last gave him such a kick on the head as knocked him down; and there he +lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher soon came by, driving a +pig in a wheelbarrow. ‘What is the matter with you, my man?’ said the +butcher, as he helped him up. Hans told him what had happened, how he +was dry, and wanted to milk his cow, but found the cow was dry too. Then +the butcher gave him a flask of ale, saying, ‘There, drink and refresh +yourself; your cow will give you no milk: don’t you see she is an old +beast, good for nothing but the slaughter-house?’ ‘Alas, alas!’ said +Hans, ‘who would have thought it? What a shame to take my horse, and +give me only a dry cow! If I kill her, what will she be good for? I hate +cow-beef; it is not tender enough for me. If it were a pig now--like +that fat gentleman you are driving along at his ease--one could do +something with it; it would at any rate make sausages.’ ‘Well,’ said +the butcher, ‘I don’t like to say no, when one is asked to do a kind, +neighbourly thing. To please you I will change, and give you my fine fat +pig for the cow.’ ‘Heaven reward you for your kindness and self-denial!’ +said Hans, as he gave the butcher the cow; and taking the pig off the +wheel-barrow, drove it away, holding it by the string that was tied to +its leg. + +So on he jogged, and all seemed now to go right with him: he had met +with some misfortunes, to be sure; but he was now well repaid for all. +How could it be otherwise with such a travelling companion as he had at +last got? + +The next man he met was a countryman carrying a fine white goose. The +countryman stopped to ask what was o’clock; this led to further chat; +and Hans told him all his luck, how he had so many good bargains, and +how all the world went gay and smiling with him. The countryman then +began to tell his tale, and said he was going to take the goose to a +christening. ‘Feel,’ said he, ‘how heavy it is, and yet it is only eight +weeks old. Whoever roasts and eats it will find plenty of fat upon it, +it has lived so well!’ ‘You’re right,’ said Hans, as he weighed it in +his hand; ‘but if you talk of fat, my pig is no trifle.’ Meantime the +countryman began to look grave, and shook his head. ‘Hark ye!’ said he, +‘my worthy friend, you seem a good sort of fellow, so I can’t help doing +you a kind turn. Your pig may get you into a scrape. In the village I +just came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was +dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire’s pig. If +you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least +they will do will be to throw you into the horse-pond. Can you swim?’ + +Poor Hans was sadly frightened. ‘Good man,’ cried he, ‘pray get me out +of this scrape. I know nothing of where the pig was either bred or born; +but he may have been the squire’s for aught I can tell: you know this +country better than I do, take my pig and give me the goose.’ ‘I ought +to have something into the bargain,’ said the countryman; ‘give a fat +goose for a pig, indeed! ‘Tis not everyone would do so much for you as +that. However, I will not be hard upon you, as you are in trouble.’ Then +he took the string in his hand, and drove off the pig by a side path; +while Hans went on the way homewards free from care. ‘After all,’ +thought he, ‘that chap is pretty well taken in. I don’t care whose pig +it is, but wherever it came from it has been a very good friend to me. I +have much the best of the bargain. First there will be a capital roast; +then the fat will find me in goose-grease for six months; and then there +are all the beautiful white feathers. I will put them into my pillow, +and then I am sure I shall sleep soundly without rocking. How happy my +mother will be! Talk of a pig, indeed! Give me a fine fat goose.’ + +As he came to the next village, he saw a scissor-grinder with his wheel, +working and singing, + + ‘O’er hill and o’er dale + So happy I roam, + Work light and live well, + All the world is my home; + Then who so blythe, so merry as I?’ + +Hans stood looking on for a while, and at last said, ‘You must be well +off, master grinder! you seem so happy at your work.’ ‘Yes,’ said the +other, ‘mine is a golden trade; a good grinder never puts his hand +into his pocket without finding money in it--but where did you get that +beautiful goose?’ ‘I did not buy it, I gave a pig for it.’ ‘And where +did you get the pig?’ ‘I gave a cow for it.’ ‘And the cow?’ ‘I gave a +horse for it.’ ‘And the horse?’ ‘I gave a lump of silver as big as my +head for it.’ ‘And the silver?’ ‘Oh! I worked hard for that seven long +years.’ ‘You have thriven well in the world hitherto,’ said the grinder, +‘now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand +in it, your fortune would be made.’ ‘Very true: but how is that to be +managed?’ ‘How? Why, you must turn grinder like myself,’ said the other; +‘you only want a grindstone; the rest will come of itself. Here is one +that is but little the worse for wear: I would not ask more than the +value of your goose for it--will you buy?’ ‘How can you ask?’ said +Hans; ‘I should be the happiest man in the world, if I could have money +whenever I put my hand in my pocket: what could I want more? there’s +the goose.’ ‘Now,’ said the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone +that lay by his side, ‘this is a most capital stone; do but work it well +enough, and you can make an old nail cut with it.’ + +Hans took the stone, and went his way with a light heart: his eyes +sparkled for joy, and he said to himself, ‘Surely I must have been born +in a lucky hour; everything I could want or wish for comes of itself. +People are so kind; they seem really to think I do them a favour in +letting them make me rich, and giving me good bargains.’ + +Meantime he began to be tired, and hungry too, for he had given away his +last penny in his joy at getting the cow. + +At last he could go no farther, for the stone tired him sadly: and he +dragged himself to the side of a river, that he might take a drink of +water, and rest a while. So he laid the stone carefully by his side on +the bank: but, as he stooped down to drink, he forgot it, pushed it a +little, and down it rolled, plump into the stream. + +For a while he watched it sinking in the deep clear water; then sprang +up and danced for joy, and again fell upon his knees and thanked Heaven, +with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague, +the ugly heavy stone. + +‘How happy am I!’ cried he; ‘nobody was ever so lucky as I.’ Then up he +got with a light heart, free from all his troubles, and walked on till +he reached his mother’s house, and told her how very easy the road to +good luck was. + + + + +JORINDA AND JORINDEL + + +There was once an old castle, that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy +wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take +any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of +an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always +became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred +paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step +till she came and set him free; which she would not do till he had given +her his word never to come there again: but when any pretty maiden came +within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her +into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were +seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with +beautiful birds in them. + +Now there was once a maiden whose name was Jorinda. She was prettier +than all the pretty girls that ever were seen before, and a shepherd +lad, whose name was Jorindel, was very fond of her, and they were soon +to be married. One day they went to walk in the wood, that they might be +alone; and Jorindel said, ‘We must take care that we don’t go too near +to the fairy’s castle.’ It was a beautiful evening; the last rays of the +setting sun shone bright through the long stems of the trees upon +the green underwood beneath, and the turtle-doves sang from the tall +birches. + +Jorinda sat down to gaze upon the sun; Jorindel sat by her side; and +both felt sad, they knew not why; but it seemed as if they were to be +parted from one another for ever. They had wandered a long way; and when +they looked to see which way they should go home, they found themselves +at a loss to know what path to take. + +The sun was setting fast, and already half of its circle had sunk behind +the hill: Jorindel on a sudden looked behind him, and saw through the +bushes that they had, without knowing it, sat down close under the old +walls of the castle. Then he shrank for fear, turned pale, and trembled. +Jorinda was just singing, + + ‘The ring-dove sang from the willow spray, + Well-a-day! Well-a-day! + He mourn’d for the fate of his darling mate, + Well-a-day!’ + +when her song stopped suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and +beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended +with a mournful _jug, jug_. An owl with fiery eyes flew three times +round them, and three times screamed: + + ‘Tu whu! Tu whu! Tu whu!’ + +Jorindel could not move; he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither +weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down; +the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the +old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and +chin that almost met one another. + +She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away +with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gone--but +what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot +where he stood. At last the fairy came back and sang with a hoarse +voice: + + ‘Till the prisoner is fast, + And her doom is cast, + There stay! Oh, stay! + When the charm is around her, + And the spell has bound her, + Hie away! away!’ + +On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then he fell on his knees +before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda: but +she laughed at him, and said he should never see her again; then she +went her way. + +He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. ‘Alas!’ he said, ‘what +will become of me?’ He could not go back to his own home, so he went to +a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time +did he walk round and round as near to the hated castle as he dared go, +but all in vain; he heard or saw nothing of Jorinda. + +At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower, +and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl; and he dreamt that he +plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and +that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he +found his Jorinda again. + +In the morning when he awoke, he began to search over hill and dale for +this pretty flower; and eight long days he sought for it in vain: but +on the ninth day, early in the morning, he found the beautiful purple +flower; and in the middle of it was a large dewdrop, as big as a costly +pearl. Then he plucked the flower, and set out and travelled day and +night, till he came again to the castle. + +He walked nearer than a hundred paces to it, and yet he did not become +fixed as before, but found that he could go quite close up to the door. +Jorindel was very glad indeed to see this. Then he touched the door with +the flower, and it sprang open; so that he went in through the court, +and listened when he heard so many birds singing. At last he came to the +chamber where the fairy sat, with the seven hundred birds singing in +the seven hundred cages. When she saw Jorindel she was very angry, and +screamed with rage; but she could not come within two yards of him, for +the flower he held in his hand was his safeguard. He looked around at +the birds, but alas! there were many, many nightingales, and how then +should he find out which was his Jorinda? While he was thinking what to +do, he saw the fairy had taken down one of the cages, and was making the +best of her way off through the door. He ran or flew after her, touched +the cage with the flower, and Jorinda stood before him, and threw her +arms round his neck looking as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as when +they walked together in the wood. + +Then he touched all the other birds with the flower, so that they all +took their old forms again; and he took Jorinda home, where they were +married, and lived happily together many years: and so did a good many +other lads, whose maidens had been forced to sing in the old fairy’s +cages by themselves, much longer than they liked. + + + + +THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS + + +An honest farmer had once an ass that had been a faithful servant to him +a great many years, but was now growing old and every day more and more +unfit for work. His master therefore was tired of keeping him and +began to think of putting an end to him; but the ass, who saw that some +mischief was in the wind, took himself slyly off, and began his journey +towards the great city, ‘For there,’ thought he, ‘I may turn musician.’ + +After he had travelled a little way, he spied a dog lying by the +roadside and panting as if he were tired. ‘What makes you pant so, my +friend?’ said the ass. ‘Alas!’ said the dog, ‘my master was going to +knock me on the head, because I am old and weak, and can no longer make +myself useful to him in hunting; so I ran away; but what can I do to +earn my livelihood?’ ‘Hark ye!’ said the ass, ‘I am going to the great +city to turn musician: suppose you go with me, and try what you can +do in the same way?’ The dog said he was willing, and they jogged on +together. + +They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the +road and making a most rueful face. ‘Pray, my good lady,’ said the ass, +‘what’s the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!’ ‘Ah, me!’ +said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in +danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather lie at my +ease by the fire than run about the house after the mice, my mistress +laid hold of me, and was going to drown me; and though I have been lucky +enough to get away from her, I do not know what I am to live upon.’ +‘Oh,’ said the ass, ‘by all means go with us to the great city; you are +a good night singer, and may make your fortune as a musician.’ The cat +was pleased with the thought, and joined the party. + +Soon afterwards, as they were passing by a farmyard, they saw a cock +perched upon a gate, and screaming out with all his might and main. +‘Bravo!’ said the ass; ‘upon my word, you make a famous noise; pray what +is all this about?’ ‘Why,’ said the cock, ‘I was just now saying that +we should have fine weather for our washing-day, and yet my mistress and +the cook don’t thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my +head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming +on Sunday!’ ‘Heaven forbid!’ said the ass, ‘come with us Master +Chanticleer; it will be better, at any rate, than staying here to have +your head cut off! Besides, who knows? If we care to sing in tune, we +may get up some kind of a concert; so come along with us.’ ‘With all my +heart,’ said the cock: so they all four went on jollily together. + +They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when +night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. The ass and the dog laid +themselves down under a great tree, and the cat climbed up into the +branches; while the cock, thinking that the higher he sat the safer he +should be, flew up to the very top of the tree, and then, according to +his custom, before he went to sleep, looked out on all sides of him to +see that everything was well. In doing this, he saw afar off something +bright and shining and calling to his companions said, ‘There must be a +house no great way off, for I see a light.’ ‘If that be the case,’ said +the ass, ‘we had better change our quarters, for our lodging is not the +best in the world!’ ‘Besides,’ added the dog, ‘I should not be the +worse for a bone or two, or a bit of meat.’ So they walked off together +towards the spot where Chanticleer had seen the light, and as they drew +near it became larger and brighter, till they at last came close to a +house in which a gang of robbers lived. + +The ass, being the tallest of the company, marched up to the window and +peeped in. ‘Well, Donkey,’ said Chanticleer, ‘what do you see?’ ‘What +do I see?’ replied the ass. ‘Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of +good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.’ ‘That would +be a noble lodging for us,’ said the cock. ‘Yes,’ said the ass, ‘if we +could only get in’; so they consulted together how they should contrive +to get the robbers out; and at last they hit upon a plan. The ass placed +himself upright on his hind legs, with his forefeet resting against the +window; the dog got upon his back; the cat scrambled up to the dog’s +shoulders, and the cock flew up and sat upon the cat’s head. When +all was ready a signal was given, and they began their music. The ass +brayed, the dog barked, the cat mewed, and the cock screamed; and then +they all broke through the window at once, and came tumbling into +the room, amongst the broken glass, with a most hideous clatter! The +robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert, +had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them, +and scampered away as fast as they could. + +The coast once clear, our travellers soon sat down and dispatched what +the robbers had left, with as much eagerness as if they had not expected +to eat again for a month. As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they +put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to +his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in +the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the +cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the +cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all +rather tired with their journey, they soon fell asleep. + +But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were +out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in +too great a hurry to run away; and one of them, who was bolder than +the rest, went to see what was going on. Finding everything still, he +marched into the kitchen, and groped about till he found a match in +order to light a candle; and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of +the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to +light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprang at his face, +and spat, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away +he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the +leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the +cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At +this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told +the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at +him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a +knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him +in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a +club, and how the devil had sat upon the top of the house and cried out, +‘Throw the rascal up here!’ After this the robbers never dared to go +back to the house; but the musicians were so pleased with their quarters +that they took up their abode there; and there they are, I dare say, at +this very day. + + + + +OLD SULTAN + + +A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old, +and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife +were standing together before the house the shepherd said, ‘I will shoot +old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.’ But his wife +said, ‘Pray let the poor faithful creature live; he has served us well a +great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of +his days.’ ‘But what can we do with him?’ said the shepherd, ‘he has not +a tooth in his head, and the thieves don’t care for him at all; to +be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood; +tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.’ + +Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd +and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think +tomorrow would be his last day; so in the evening he went to his good +friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, +and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. ‘Make yourself +easy,’ said the wolf, ‘I will give you some good advice. Your master, +you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the +field; and they take their little child with them, and lay it down +behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie +down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come +out of the wood and run away with it; you must run after me as fast as +you can, and I will let it drop; then you may carry it back, and they +will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you +that they will take care of you as long as you live.’ The dog liked this +plan very well; and accordingly so it was managed. The wolf ran with the +child a little way; the shepherd and his wife screamed out; but Sultan +soon overtook him, and carried the poor little thing back to his master +and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, ‘Old +Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live +and be well taken care of, and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and +give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on +as long as he lives.’ So from this time forward Sultan had all that he +could wish for. + +Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, ‘Now, my +good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way +when I want to taste one of the old shepherd’s fine fat sheep.’ ‘No,’ +said the Sultan; ‘I will be true to my master.’ However, the wolf +thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But +Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait +for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for +a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed +his locks for him finely. + +Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan ‘an old rogue,’ and +swore he would have his revenge. So the next morning the wolf sent the +boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now +Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd’s old +three-legged cat; so he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped +along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air. + +The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground; and when they +espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat’s long tail standing +straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to +fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up +a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this way of +fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped +up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked about and +wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden +himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of +them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a +mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped +up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, ‘Look up in the tree, there +sits the one who is to blame.’ So they looked up, and espied the wolf +sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal, +and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of +himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan. + + + + +THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN + + +In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish +of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and +that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. +When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her +observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards +a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw +began and said: ‘Dear friends, from whence do you come here?’ The coal +replied: ‘I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped +by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I should have been +burnt to ashes.’ The bean said: ‘I too have escaped with a whole skin, +but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made +into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.’ ‘And would a better +fate have fallen to my lot?’ said the straw. ‘The old woman has +destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at +once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.’ + +‘But what are we to do now?’ said the coal. + +‘I think,’ answered the bean, ‘that as we have so fortunately escaped +death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new +mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and +repair to a foreign country.’ + +The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way +together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was +no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over +it. The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight +across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’ The straw +therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal, +who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite boldly on to the +newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the +water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still, +and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in +two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed +when she got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had +prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, +was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst. It would +have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who +was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook. +As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread, +and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the +tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam. + + + + +BRIAR ROSE + + +A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, +where there were in those days fairies. Now this king and queen had +plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes to wear, and plenty of +good things to eat and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day: but +though they had been married many years they had no children, and this +grieved them very much indeed. But one day as the queen was walking +by the side of the river, at the bottom of the garden, she saw a poor +little fish, that had thrown itself out of the water, and lay gasping +and nearly dead on the bank. Then the queen took pity on the little +fish, and threw it back again into the river; and before it swam away +it lifted its head out of the water and said, ‘I know what your wish is, +and it shall be fulfilled, in return for your kindness to me--you will +soon have a daughter.’ What the little fish had foretold soon came to +pass; and the queen had a little girl, so very beautiful that the king +could not cease looking on it for joy, and said he would hold a great +feast and make merry, and show the child to all the land. So he asked +his kinsmen, and nobles, and friends, and neighbours. But the queen +said, ‘I will have the fairies also, that they might be kind and good +to our little daughter.’ Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom; +but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat +out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her. +So twelve fairies came, each with a high red cap on her head, and red +shoes with high heels on her feet, and a long white wand in her hand: +and after the feast was over they gathered round in a ring and gave all +their best gifts to the little princess. One gave her goodness, another +beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the +world. + +Just as eleven of them had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in +the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was +come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a +broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-hall. +Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and +scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her +revenge. So she cried out, ‘The king’s daughter shall, in her fifteenth +year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.’ Then the twelfth of +the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and +said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its +mischief; so her gift was, that the king’s daughter, when the spindle +wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a +hundred years. + +However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from +the threatened evil; so he ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom +should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first eleven +fairies were in the meantime fulfilled; for the princess was so +beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who knew +her loved her. + +It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king +and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she +roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till +at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase +ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when +she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning +away very busily. ‘Why, how now, good mother,’ said the princess; ‘what +are you doing there?’ ‘Spinning,’ said the old lady, and nodded her +head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. ‘How prettily that +little thing turns round!’ said the princess, and took the spindle +and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched it, before the +fairy’s prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded her, and she fell +down lifeless on the ground. + +However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep; and +the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court, +fell asleep too; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in +the court, the pigeons on the house-top, and the very flies slept upon +the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to +sleep; the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a +goose upon it for the king’s dinner stood still; and the cook, who was +at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box +on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell +asleep; the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with the +jug at his lips: and thus everything stood still, and slept soundly. + +A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it +became higher and thicker; till at last the old palace was surrounded +and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But +there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Briar +Rose (for so the king’s daughter was called): so that, from time to +time, several kings’ sons came, and tried to break through the thicket +into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do; for the +thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands; and there +they stuck fast, and died wretchedly. + +After many, many years there came a king’s son into that land: and an +old man told him the story of the thicket of thorns; and how a beautiful +palace stood behind it, and how a wonderful princess, called Briar Rose, +lay in it asleep, with all her court. He told, too, how he had heard +from his grandfather that many, many princes had come, and had tried to +break through the thicket, but that they had all stuck fast in it, and +died. Then the young prince said, ‘All this shall not frighten me; I +will go and see this Briar Rose.’ The old man tried to hinder him, but +he was bent upon going. + +Now that very day the hundred years were ended; and as the prince came +to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through +which he went with ease, and they shut in after him as thick as ever. +Then he came at last to the palace, and there in the court lay the dogs +asleep; and the horses were standing in the stables; and on the roof sat +the pigeons fast asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he +came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit +was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going +to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be +plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as +if she was going to beat the boy. + +Then he went on still farther, and all was so still that he could hear +every breath he drew; till at last he came to the old tower, and opened +the door of the little room in which Briar Rose was; and there she lay, +fast asleep on a couch by the window. She looked so beautiful that he +could not take his eyes off her, so he stooped down and gave her a kiss. +But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled +upon him; and they went out together; and soon the king and queen also +awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder. +And the horses shook themselves, and the dogs jumped up and barked; the +pigeons took their heads from under their wings, and looked about and +flew into the fields; the flies on the walls buzzed again; the fire in +the kitchen blazed up; round went the jack, and round went the spit, +with the goose for the king’s dinner upon it; the butler finished his +draught of ale; the maid went on plucking the fowl; and the cook gave +the boy the box on his ear. + +And then the prince and Briar Rose were married, and the wedding feast +was given; and they lived happily together all their lives long. + + + + +THE DOG AND THE SPARROW + + +A shepherd’s dog had a master who took no care of him, but often let him +suffer the greatest hunger. At last he could bear it no longer; so he +took to his heels, and off he ran in a very sad and sorrowful mood. +On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad, +my friend?’ ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have +nothing to eat.’ ‘If that be all,’ answered the sparrow, ‘come with me +into the next town, and I will soon find you plenty of food.’ So on they +went together into the town: and as they passed by a butcher’s shop, +the sparrow said to the dog, ‘Stand there a little while till I peck you +down a piece of meat.’ So the sparrow perched upon the shelf: and having +first looked carefully about her to see if anyone was watching her, she +pecked and scratched at a steak that lay upon the edge of the shelf, +till at last down it fell. Then the dog snapped it up, and scrambled +away with it into a corner, where he soon ate it all up. ‘Well,’ said +the sparrow, ‘you shall have some more if you will; so come with me to +the next shop, and I will peck you down another steak.’ When the dog had +eaten this too, the sparrow said to him, ‘Well, my good friend, have you +had enough now?’ ‘I have had plenty of meat,’ answered he, ‘but I should +like to have a piece of bread to eat after it.’ ‘Come with me then,’ +said the sparrow, ‘and you shall soon have that too.’ So she took him +to a baker’s shop, and pecked at two rolls that lay in the window, till +they fell down: and as the dog still wished for more, she took him to +another shop and pecked down some more for him. When that was eaten, the +sparrow asked him whether he had had enough now. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘and +now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.’ So they both went +out upon the high road; but as the weather was warm, they had not gone +far before the dog said, ‘I am very much tired--I should like to take a +nap.’ ‘Very well,’ answered the sparrow, ‘do so, and in the meantime +I will perch upon that bush.’ So the dog stretched himself out on the +road, and fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, there came by a carter with +a cart drawn by three horses, and loaded with two casks of wine. The +sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would +go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called +out, ‘Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.’ But the +carter, grumbling to himself, ‘You make it the worse for me, indeed! +what can you do?’ cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor +dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. ‘There,’ cried the +sparrow, ‘thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now +mind what I say. This deed of thine shall cost thee all thou art worth.’ +‘Do your worst, and welcome,’ said the brute, ‘what harm can you do me?’ +and passed on. But the sparrow crept under the tilt of the cart, and +pecked at the bung of one of the casks till she loosened it; and then +all the wine ran out, without the carter seeing it. At last he looked +round, and saw that the cart was dripping, and the cask quite empty. +‘What an unlucky wretch I am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said +the sparrow, as she alighted upon the head of one of the horses, and +pecked at him till he reared up and kicked. When the carter saw this, +he drew out his hatchet and aimed a blow at the sparrow, meaning to kill +her; but she flew away, and the blow fell upon the poor horse’s head +with such force, that he fell down dead. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ +cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the sparrow. And as the carter +went on with the other two horses, she again crept under the tilt of the +cart, and pecked out the bung of the second cask, so that all the wine +ran out. When the carter saw this, he again cried out, ‘Miserable wretch +that I am!’ But the sparrow answered, ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ and +perched on the head of the second horse, and pecked at him too. The +carter ran up and struck at her again with his hatchet; but away she +flew, and the blow fell upon the second horse and killed him on the +spot. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ said he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said +the sparrow; and perching upon the third horse, she began to peck him +too. The carter was mad with fury; and without looking about him, or +caring what he was about, struck again at the sparrow; but killed his +third horse as he done the other two. ‘Alas! miserable wretch that I +am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ answered the sparrow as she flew +away; ‘now will I plague and punish thee at thy own house.’ The +carter was forced at last to leave his cart behind him, and to go home +overflowing with rage and vexation. ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what +ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three +dead.’ ‘Alas! husband,’ replied she, ‘and a wicked bird has come into +the house, and has brought with her all the birds in the world, I am +sure, and they have fallen upon our corn in the loft, and are eating it +up at such a rate!’ Away ran the husband upstairs, and saw thousands of +birds sitting upon the floor eating up his corn, with the sparrow in the +midst of them. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ cried the carter; for he saw +that the corn was almost all gone. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the +sparrow; ‘thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life yet!’ and away she flew. + +The carter seeing that he had thus lost all that he had, went down +into his kitchen; and was still not sorry for what he had done, but sat +himself angrily and sulkily in the chimney corner. But the sparrow sat +on the outside of the window, and cried ‘Carter! thy cruelty shall cost +thee thy life!’ With that he jumped up in a rage, seized his hatchet, +and threw it at the sparrow; but it missed her, and only broke the +window. The sparrow now hopped in, perched upon the window-seat, and +cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life!’ Then he became mad and +blind with rage, and struck the window-seat with such force that he +cleft it in two: and as the sparrow flew from place to place, the carter +and his wife were so furious, that they broke all their furniture, +glasses, chairs, benches, the table, and at last the walls, without +touching the bird at all. In the end, however, they caught her: and the +wife said, ‘Shall I kill her at once?’ ‘No,’ cried he, ‘that is letting +her off too easily: she shall die a much more cruel death; I will eat +her.’ But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck +and cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!’ With that he +could wait no longer: so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, ‘Wife, +strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.’ And the wife struck; but +she missed her aim, and hit her husband on the head so that he fell down +dead, and the sparrow flew quietly home to her nest. + + + + +THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES + + +There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in +twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were +shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite +worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody +could find out how it happened, or where they had been. + +Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could +discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses +danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his +wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not +succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death. + +A king’s son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was +taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their +twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; +and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door +of his chamber was left open. But the king’s son soon fell asleep; and +when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been +dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing +happened the second and third night: so the king ordered his head to be +cut off. After him came several others; but they had all the same luck, +and all lost their lives in the same manner. + +Now it chanced that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle +and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king +reigned: and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, +who asked him where he was going. ‘I hardly know where I am going, or +what I had better do,’ said the soldier; ‘but I think I should like very +well to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time +I might be a king.’ ‘Well,’ said the old dame, ‘that is no very hard +task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the +princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves +you pretend to be fast asleep.’ + +Then she gave him a cloak, and said, ‘As soon as you put that on +you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the +princesses wherever they go.’ When the soldier heard all this good +counsel, he determined to try his luck: so he went to the king, and said +he was willing to undertake the task. + +He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered +fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led +to the outer chamber. Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of +the princesses brought him a cup of wine; but the soldier threw it all +away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself +down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loud as if +he was fast asleep. When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed +heartily; and the eldest said, ‘This fellow too might have done a wiser +thing than lose his life in this way!’ Then they rose up and opened +their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and +dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager +to begin dancing. But the youngest said, ‘I don’t know how it is, while +you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will +befall us.’ ‘You simpleton,’ said the eldest, ‘you are always afraid; +have you forgotten how many kings’ sons have already watched in vain? +And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping +draught, he would have slept soundly enough.’ + +When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he +snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were +quite safe; and the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, +and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier +saw them going down through the trap-door one after another, the eldest +leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put +on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them; +but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest +princess, and she cried out to her sisters, ‘All is not right; someone +took hold of my gown.’ ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is +nothing but a nail in the wall.’ Then down they all went, and at the +bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and +the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully. +The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke +off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the +youngest daughter said again, ‘I am sure all is not right--did not you +hear that noise? That never happened before.’ But the eldest said, ‘It +is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.’ + +Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of +gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering +diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there +was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear; but +the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy. +So they went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the +lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, +who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses. + +One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into +the same boat with the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the +prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier +said, ‘I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might +we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat +seems very heavy today.’ ‘It is only the heat of the weather,’ said the +princess: ‘I feel it very warm too.’ + +On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from +which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, +and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and +the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too; and +when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it +all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, +too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always +silenced her. They danced on till three o’clock in the morning, and then +all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off. +The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the +soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the +opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising +to come again the next night. + +When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, +and laid himself down; and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very +much tired, they heard him snoring in his bed; so they said, ‘Now all +is quite safe’; then they undressed themselves, put away their fine +clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed. In the morning the +soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more +of this strange adventure, and went again the second and third night; +and every thing happened just as before; the princesses danced each time +till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. However, +on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a +token of where he had been. + +As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken +before the king with the three branches and the golden cup; and the +twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would +say. And when the king asked him. ‘Where do my twelve daughters dance at +night?’ he answered, ‘With twelve princes in a castle under ground.’ And +then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three +branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him. Then the king +called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said +was true: and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was +of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all. And the king +asked the soldier which of them he would choose for his wife; and he +answered, ‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.’--And they +were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king’s +heir. + + + + +THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE + + +There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close +by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and +one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling +waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away +deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. +But the fish said, ‘Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an +enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!’ ‘Oh, ho!’ +said the man, ‘you need not make so many words about the matter; I will +have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon +as you please!’ Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted +straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him +on the wave. + +When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how +he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted +prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. ‘Did not +you ask it for anything?’ said the wife, ‘we live very wretchedly here, +in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug +little cottage.’ + +The fisherman did not much like the business: however, he went to the +seashore; and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and +green. And he stood at the water’s edge, and said: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, ‘Well, what is her will? +What does your wife want?’ ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘she says that when +I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let +you go; she does not like living any longer in the pigsty, and wants +a snug little cottage.’ ‘Go home, then,’ said the fish; ‘she is in the +cottage already!’ So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the +door of a nice trim little cottage. ‘Come in, come in!’ said she; ‘is +not this much better than the filthy pigsty we had?’ And there was a +parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there +was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits; and +there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. ‘Ah!’ said the +fisherman, ‘how happily we shall live now!’ ‘We will try to do so, at +least,’ said his wife. + +Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Ilsabill said, +‘Husband, there is not near room enough for us in this cottage; the +courtyard and the garden are a great deal too small; I should like to +have a large stone castle to live in: go to the fish again and tell him +to give us a castle.’ ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘I don’t like to go to +him again, for perhaps he will be angry; we ought to be easy with this +pretty cottage to live in.’ ‘Nonsense!’ said the wife; ‘he will do it +very willingly, I know; go along and try!’ + +The fisherman went, but his heart was very heavy: and when he came to +the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was very calm; and he went +close to the edge of the waves, and said: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +‘Well, what does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the man, +dolefully, ‘my wife wants to live in a stone castle.’ ‘Go home, then,’ +said the fish; ‘she is standing at the gate of it already.’ So away went +the fisherman, and found his wife standing before the gate of a great +castle. ‘See,’ said she, ‘is not this grand?’ With that they went into +the castle together, and found a great many servants there, and the +rooms all richly furnished, and full of golden chairs and tables; and +behind the castle was a garden, and around it was a park half a +mile long, full of sheep, and goats, and hares, and deer; and in the +courtyard were stables and cow-houses. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘now we +will live cheerful and happy in this beautiful castle for the rest of +our lives.’ ‘Perhaps we may,’ said the wife; ‘but let us sleep upon it, +before we make up our minds to that.’ So they went to bed. + +The next morning when Dame Ilsabill awoke it was broad daylight, and +she jogged the fisherman with her elbow, and said, ‘Get up, husband, +and bestir yourself, for we must be king of all the land.’ ‘Wife, wife,’ +said the man, ‘why should we wish to be the king? I will not be king.’ +‘Then I will,’ said she. ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you +be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘say +no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.’ So the man went away +quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be king. This time +the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread with curling waves +and the ridges of foam as he cried out: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +‘Well, what would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Alas!’ said the poor +man, ‘my wife wants to be king.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is king +already.’ + +Then the fisherman went home; and as he came close to the palace he saw +a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when +he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds, +with a golden crown upon her head; and on each side of her stood six +fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. ‘Well, wife,’ said the +fisherman, ‘are you king?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am king.’ And when he had +looked at her for a long time, he said, ‘Ah, wife! what a fine thing it +is to be king! Now we shall never have anything more to wish for as long +as we live.’ ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long +time. I am king, it is true; but I begin to be tired of that, and I +think I should like to be emperor.’ ‘Alas, wife! why should you wish to +be emperor?’ said the fisherman. ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘go to the fish! +I say I will be emperor.’ ‘Ah, wife!’ replied the fisherman, ‘the fish +cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for +such a thing.’ ‘I am king,’ said Ilsabill, ‘and you are my slave; so go +at once!’ + +So the fisherman was forced to go; and he muttered as he went along, +‘This will come to no good, it is too much to ask; the fish will be +tired at last, and then we shall be sorry for what we have done.’ He +soon came to the seashore; and the water was quite black and muddy, and +a mighty whirlwind blew over the waves and rolled them about, but he +went as near as he could to the water’s brink, and said: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +‘What would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, +‘she wants to be emperor.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is emperor +already.’ + +So he went home again; and as he came near he saw his wife Ilsabill +sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on +her head full two yards high; and on each side of her stood her guards +and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the +tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And +before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls: and the fisherman went +up to her and said, ‘Wife, are you emperor?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am +emperor.’ ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing +it is to be emperor!’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘why should we stop at being +emperor? I will be pope next.’ ‘O wife, wife!’ said he, ‘how can you be +pope? there is but one pope at a time in Christendom.’ ‘Husband,’ said +she, ‘I will be pope this very day.’ ‘But,’ replied the husband, ‘the +fish cannot make you pope.’ ‘What nonsense!’ said she; ‘if he can make +an emperor, he can make a pope: go and try him.’ + +So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging +and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were +in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows. In the +middle of the heavens there was a little piece of blue sky, but towards +the south all was red, as if a dreadful storm was rising. At this sight +the fisherman was dreadfully frightened, and he trembled so that his +knees knocked together: but still he went down near to the shore, and +said: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘my +wife wants to be pope.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is pope already.’ + +Then the fisherman went home, and found Ilsabill sitting on a throne +that was two miles high. And she had three great crowns on her head, and +around her stood all the pomp and power of the Church. And on each side +of her were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as +large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no +larger than a small rushlight. ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, as he looked +at all this greatness, ‘are you pope?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am pope.’ +‘Well, wife,’ replied he, ‘it is a grand thing to be pope; and now +you must be easy, for you can be nothing greater.’ ‘I will think about +that,’ said the wife. Then they went to bed: but Dame Ilsabill could not +sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last, as she +was dropping asleep, morning broke, and the sun rose. ‘Ha!’ thought she, +as she woke up and looked at it through the window, ‘after all I cannot +prevent the sun rising.’ At this thought she was very angry, and wakened +her husband, and said, ‘Husband, go to the fish and tell him I must +be lord of the sun and moon.’ The fisherman was half asleep, but the +thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed. +‘Alas, wife!’ said he, ‘cannot you be easy with being pope?’ ‘No,’ +said she, ‘I am very uneasy as long as the sun and moon rise without my +leave. Go to the fish at once!’ + +Then the man went shivering with fear; and as he was going down to +the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the very rocks +shook. And all the heavens became black with stormy clouds, and the +lightnings played, and the thunders rolled; and you might have seen in +the sea great black waves, swelling up like mountains with crowns of +white foam upon their heads. And the fisherman crept towards the sea, +and cried out, as well as he could: + + ‘O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ + +‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘she wants to +be lord of the sun and moon.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish, ‘to your pigsty +again.’ + +And there they live to this very day. + + + + +THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR + + +Once in summer-time the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest, +and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said: ‘Brother +wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?’ ‘That is the King of birds,’ +said the wolf, ‘before whom we must bow down.’ In reality the bird was +the willow-wren. ‘IF that’s the case,’ said the bear, ‘I should very +much like to see his royal palace; come, take me thither.’ ‘That is not +done quite as you seem to think,’ said the wolf; ‘you must wait until +the Queen comes,’ Soon afterwards, the Queen arrived with some food in +her beak, and the lord King came too, and they began to feed their young +ones. The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him +back by the sleeve, and said: ‘No, you must wait until the lord and lady +Queen have gone away again.’ So they took stock of the hole where the +nest lay, and trotted away. The bear, however, could not rest until he +had seen the royal palace, and when a short time had passed, went to it +again. The King and Queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw +five or six young ones lying there. ‘Is that the royal palace?’ cried +the bear; ‘it is a wretched palace, and you are not King’s children, you +are disreputable children!’ When the young wrens heard that, they were +frightfully angry, and screamed: ‘No, that we are not! Our parents are +honest people! Bear, you will have to pay for that!’ + +The bear and the wolf grew uneasy, and turned back and went into their +holes. The young willow-wrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and +when their parents again brought food they said: ‘We will not so much as +touch one fly’s leg, no, not if we were dying of hunger, until you have +settled whether we are respectable children or not; the bear has been +here and has insulted us!’ Then the old King said: ‘Be easy, he shall +be punished,’ and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear’s cave, and +called in: ‘Old Growler, why have you insulted my children? You shall +suffer for it--we will punish you by a bloody war.’ Thus war was +announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take +part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth +contained. And the willow-wren summoned everything which flew in the +air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, bees and +flies had to come. + +When the time came for the war to begin, the willow-wren sent out spies +to discover who was the enemy’s commander-in-chief. The gnat, who was +the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled, +and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be +announced. There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him +and said: ‘Fox, you are the most cunning of all animals, you shall be +general and lead us.’ ‘Good,’ said the fox, ‘but what signal shall we +agree upon?’ No one knew that, so the fox said: ‘I have a fine long +bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red feathers. When I lift +my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge; but if I +let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.’ When the gnat had heard +that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest +detail, to the willow-wren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin, +all the four-footed animals came running up with such a noise that the +earth trembled. The willow-wren with his army also came flying through +the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one +was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each +other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with orders to settle +beneath the fox’s tail, and sting with all his might. When the fox felt +the first string, he started so that he lifted one leg, from pain, but +he bore it, and still kept his tail high in the air; at the second +sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment; at the third, he could +hold out no longer, screamed, and put his tail between his legs. When +the animals saw that, they thought all was lost, and began to flee, each +into his hole, and the birds had won the battle. + +Then the King and Queen flew home to their children and cried: +‘Children, rejoice, eat and drink to your heart’s content, we have won +the battle!’ But the young wrens said: ‘We will not eat yet, the bear +must come to the nest, and beg for pardon and say that we are honourable +children, before we will do that.’ Then the willow-wren flew to the +bear’s hole and cried: ‘Growler, you are to come to the nest to my +children, and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall +be broken.’ So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear, and begged +their pardon. And now at last the young wrens were satisfied, and sat +down together and ate and drank, and made merry till quite late into the +night. + + + + +THE FROG-PRINCE + + +One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went +out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool +spring of water, that rose in the midst of it, she sat herself down +to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her +favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and +catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that +she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled +along upon the ground, till at last it fell down into the spring. The +princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so +deep that she could not see the bottom of it. Then she began to bewail +her loss, and said, ‘Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would +give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the +world.’ + +Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, +‘Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘what can you +do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.’ +The frog said, ‘I want not your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; +but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off +your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed, I will bring you your ball +again.’ ‘What nonsense,’ thought the princess, ‘this silly frog is +talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though +he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he +shall have what he asks.’ So she said to the frog, ‘Well, if you will +bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.’ Then the frog put his head +down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came +up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the +spring. As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick +it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she +never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could. +The frog called after her, ‘Stay, princess, and take me with you as you +said,’ But she did not stop to hear a word. + +The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a +strange noise--tap, tap--plash, plash--as if something was coming up the +marble staircase: and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the +door, and a little voice cried out and said: + + ‘Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ + +Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw +the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly +frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her +seat. The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, +asked her what was the matter. ‘There is a nasty frog,’ said she, ‘at +the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning: I +told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never +get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come +in.’ + +While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said: + + ‘Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ + +Then the king said to the young princess, ‘As you have given your word +you must keep it; so go and let him in.’ She did so, and the frog hopped +into the room, and then straight on--tap, tap--plash, plash--from the +bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where +the princess sat. ‘Pray lift me upon chair,’ said he to the princess, +‘and let me sit next to you.’ As soon as she had done this, the frog +said, ‘Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.’ This +she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, ‘Now I am +tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.’ And the princess, +though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the +pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was +light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house. +‘Now, then,’ thought the princess, ‘at last he is gone, and I shall be +troubled with him no more.’ + +But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same +tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said: + + ‘Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ + +And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon +her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did +the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was +astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her +with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head +of her bed. + +He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had +changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till +some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from +her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. ‘You,’ said the +prince, ‘have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for +but that you should go with me into my father’s kingdom, where I will +marry you, and love you as long as you live.’ + +The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying ‘Yes’ to +all this; and as they spoke a gay coach drove up, with eight beautiful +horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind +the coach rode the prince’s servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed +the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so +bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst. + +They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight +horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince’s +kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great +many years. + + + + +CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP + + +A certain cat had made the acquaintance of a mouse, and had said so much +to her about the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at +length the mouse agreed that they should live and keep house together. +‘But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer +from hunger,’ said the cat; ‘and you, little mouse, cannot venture +everywhere, or you will be caught in a trap some day.’ The good advice +was followed, and a pot of fat was bought, but they did not know where +to put it. At length, after much consideration, the cat said: ‘I know no +place where it will be better stored up than in the church, for no one +dares take anything away from there. We will set it beneath the altar, +and not touch it until we are really in need of it.’ So the pot was +placed in safety, but it was not long before the cat had a great +yearning for it, and said to the mouse: ‘I want to tell you something, +little mouse; my cousin has brought a little son into the world, and has +asked me to be godmother; he is white with brown spots, and I am to hold +him over the font at the christening. Let me go out today, and you look +after the house by yourself.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ answered the mouse, ‘by all +means go, and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I +should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.’ All this, +however, was untrue; the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to +be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat, +began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a +walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then +stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought +of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening did she return home. +‘Well, here you are again,’ said the mouse, ‘no doubt you have had a +merry day.’ ‘All went off well,’ answered the cat. ‘What name did they +give the child?’ ‘Top off!’ said the cat quite coolly. ‘Top off!’ cried +the mouse, ‘that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in +your family?’ ‘What does that matter,’ said the cat, ‘it is no worse +than Crumb-stealer, as your godchildren are called.’ + +Before long the cat was seized by another fit of yearning. She said to +the mouse: ‘You must do me a favour, and once more manage the house for +a day alone. I am again asked to be godmother, and, as the child has a +white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.’ The good mouse consented, +but the cat crept behind the town walls to the church, and devoured +half the pot of fat. ‘Nothing ever seems so good as what one keeps to +oneself,’ said she, and was quite satisfied with her day’s work. When +she went home the mouse inquired: ‘And what was the child christened?’ +‘Half-done,’ answered the cat. ‘Half-done! What are you saying? I +never heard the name in my life, I’ll wager anything it is not in the +calendar!’ + +The cat’s mouth soon began to water for some more licking. ‘All good +things go in threes,’ said she, ‘I am asked to stand godmother again. +The child is quite black, only it has white paws, but with that +exception, it has not a single white hair on its whole body; this only +happens once every few years, you will let me go, won’t you?’ ‘Top-off! +Half-done!’ answered the mouse, ‘they are such odd names, they make me +very thoughtful.’ ‘You sit at home,’ said the cat, ‘in your dark-grey +fur coat and long tail, and are filled with fancies, that’s because +you do not go out in the daytime.’ During the cat’s absence the mouse +cleaned the house, and put it in order, but the greedy cat entirely +emptied the pot of fat. ‘When everything is eaten up one has some +peace,’ said she to herself, and well filled and fat she did not return +home till night. The mouse at once asked what name had been given to +the third child. ‘It will not please you more than the others,’ said the +cat. ‘He is called All-gone.’ ‘All-gone,’ cried the mouse ‘that is the +most suspicious name of all! I have never seen it in print. All-gone; +what can that mean?’ and she shook her head, curled herself up, and lay +down to sleep. + +From this time forth no one invited the cat to be godmother, but +when the winter had come and there was no longer anything to be found +outside, the mouse thought of their provision, and said: ‘Come, cat, +we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored up for ourselves--we +shall enjoy that.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the cat, ‘you will enjoy it as much +as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the +window.’ They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of +fat certainly was still in its place, but it was empty. ‘Alas!’ said the +mouse, ‘now I see what has happened, now it comes to light! You are a true +friend! You have devoured all when you were standing godmother. First +top off, then half-done, then--’ ‘Will you hold your tongue,’ cried the +cat, ‘one word more, and I will eat you too.’ ‘All-gone’ was already on +the poor mouse’s lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang +on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of +the world. + + + + +THE GOOSE-GIRL + + +The king of a great land died, and left his queen to take care of their +only child. This child was a daughter, who was very beautiful; and her +mother loved her dearly, and was very kind to her. And there was a good +fairy too, who was fond of the princess, and helped her mother to watch +over her. When she grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived a +great way off; and as the time drew near for her to be married, she +got ready to set off on her journey to his country. Then the queen her +mother, packed up a great many costly things; jewels, and gold, and +silver; trinkets, fine dresses, and in short everything that became a +royal bride. And she gave her a waiting-maid to ride with her, and give +her into the bridegroom’s hands; and each had a horse for the journey. +Now the princess’s horse was the fairy’s gift, and it was called Falada, +and could speak. + +When the time came for them to set out, the fairy went into her +bed-chamber, and took a little knife, and cut off a lock of her hair, +and gave it to the princess, and said, ‘Take care of it, dear child; for +it is a charm that may be of use to you on the road.’ Then they all took +a sorrowful leave of the princess; and she put the lock of hair into +her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her +bridegroom’s kingdom. + +One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to +feel very thirsty: and she said to her maid, ‘Pray get down, and fetch +me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to +drink.’ ‘Nay,’ said the maid, ‘if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and +stoop down by the water and drink; I shall not be your waiting-maid any +longer.’ Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the +little brook, and drank; for she was frightened, and dared not bring out +her golden cup; and she wept and said, ‘Alas! what will become of me?’ +And the lock answered her, and said: + + ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ + +But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her +maid’s ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again. + +Then all rode farther on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and +the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again; +and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid’s rude +speech, and said, ‘Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in +my golden cup.’ But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily +than before: ‘Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waiting-maid.’ +Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay +down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said, +‘What will become of me?’ And the lock of hair answered her again: + + ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ + +And as she leaned down to drink, the lock of hair fell from her bosom, +and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did +not see it; but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the +charm; and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that +she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would +have got upon Falada again, the maid said, ‘I shall ride upon Falada, +and you may have my horse instead’; so she was forced to give up her +horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her +maid’s shabby ones. + +At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous +servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had +happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. + +Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the +other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the +royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince flew to +meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one +who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber; +but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. + +Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do; so he +amused himself by sitting at his kitchen window, looking at what was +going on; and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty, +and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went up into the royal chamber +to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left +standing in the court below. ‘I brought her with me for the sake of her +company on the road,’ said she; ‘pray give the girl some work to do, +that she may not be idle.’ The old king could not for some time think +of any work for her to do; but at last he said, ‘I have a lad who takes +care of my geese; she may go and help him.’ Now the name of this lad, +that the real bride was to help in watching the king’s geese, was +Curdken. + +But the false bride said to the prince, ‘Dear husband, pray do me one +piece of kindness.’ ‘That I will,’ said the prince. ‘Then tell one of +your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it +was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road’; but the truth was, +she was very much afraid lest Falada should some day or other speak, and +tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the +faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it, she +wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada’s head against a large +dark gate of the city, through which she had to pass every morning +and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the +slaughterer said he would do as she wished; and cut off the head, and +nailed it up under the dark gate. + +Early the next morning, as she and Curdken went out through the gate, +she said sorrowfully: + + ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ + +and the head answered: + + ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ + +Then they went out of the city, and drove the geese on. And when she +came to the meadow, she sat down upon a bank there, and let down her +waving locks of hair, which were all of pure silver; and when Curdken +saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the +locks out, but she cried: + + ‘Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken’s hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O’er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl’d + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb’d and curl’d! + +Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken’s hat; and +away it flew over the hills: and he was forced to turn and run after +it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her +hair, and had put it up again safe. Then he was very angry and sulky, +and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it +grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. + +The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor +girl looked up at Falada’s head, and cried: + + ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ + +and the head answered: + + ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ + +Then she drove on the geese, and sat down again in the meadow, and began +to comb out her hair as before; and Curdken ran up to her, and wanted to +take hold of it; but she cried out quickly: + + ‘Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken’s hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O’er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl’d + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb’d and curl’d! + +Then the wind came and blew away his hat; and off it flew a great way, +over the hills and far away, so that he had to run after it; and when +he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they +watched the geese till it grew dark. + +In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and +said, ‘I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any +longer.’ ‘Why?’ said the king. ‘Because, instead of doing any good, she +does nothing but tease me all day long.’ Then the king made him tell him +what had happened. And Curdken said, ‘When we go in the morning through +the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head +of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says: + + ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ + +and the head answers: + + ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ + +And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow +where the geese fed; how his hat was blown away; and how he was forced +to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the +old king told the boy to go out again the next day: and when morning +came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke +to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and +hid himself in a bush by the meadow’s side; and he soon saw with his own +eyes how they drove the flock of geese; and how, after a little time, +she let down her hair that glittered in the sun. And then he heard her +say: + + ‘Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken’s hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O’er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl’d + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb’d and curl’d! + +And soon came a gale of wind, and carried away Curdken’s hat, and away +went Curdken after it, while the girl went on combing and curling her +hair. All this the old king saw: so he went home without being seen; and +when the little goose-girl came back in the evening he called her aside, +and asked her why she did so: but she burst into tears, and said, ‘That +I must not tell you or any man, or I shall lose my life.’ + +But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told +him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very +lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered +royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was +so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a +false bride; for that she was merely a waiting-maid, while the true +bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and +heard how meek and patient she had been; and without saying anything to +the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all +his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one +side, and the true one on the other; but nobody knew her again, for her +beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes; and she did not seem at all +like the little goose-girl, now that she had her brilliant dress on. + +When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said +he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the +princess, as if it was one that he had once heard; and he asked the +true waiting-maid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would +behave thus. ‘Nothing better,’ said this false bride, ‘than that she +should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that +two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to +street till she was dead.’ ‘Thou art she!’ said the old king; ‘and as +thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.’ And the young +king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the +kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives; and the good fairy came +to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again. + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET + + +1. HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS + +‘The nuts are quite ripe now,’ said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet, +‘suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can, +before the squirrel takes them all away.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said +Partlet, ‘let us go and make a holiday of it together.’ + +So they went to the mountains; and as it was a lovely day, they stayed +there till the evening. Now, whether it was that they had eaten so many +nuts that they could not walk, or whether they were lazy and would not, +I do not know: however, they took it into their heads that it did not +become them to go home on foot. So Chanticleer began to build a little +carriage of nutshells: and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into +it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her +home. ‘That’s a good joke!’ said Chanticleer; ‘no, that will never do; +I had rather by half walk home; I’ll sit on the box and be coachman, +if you like, but I’ll not draw.’ While this was passing, a duck came +quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have +you in my grounds? I’ll give it you well for your insolence!’ and upon +that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no +coward, and returned the duck’s blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely +that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only granted her +upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she +agreed to do; and Chanticleer got upon the box, and drove, crying, ‘Now, +duck, get on as fast as you can.’ And away they went at a pretty good +pace. + +After they had travelled along a little way, they met a needle and a pin +walking together along the road: and the needle cried out, ‘Stop, stop!’ +and said it was so dark that they could hardly find their way, and such +dirty walking they could not get on at all: he told them that he and his +friend, the pin, had been at a public-house a few miles off, and had sat +drinking till they had forgotten how late it was; he begged therefore +that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their +carriage. Chanticleer observing that they were but thin fellows, and not +likely to take up much room, told them they might ride, but made them +promise not to dirty the wheels of the carriage in getting in, nor to +tread on Partlet’s toes. + +Late at night they arrived at an inn; and as it was bad travelling in +the dark, and the duck seemed much tired, and waddled about a good +deal from one side to the other, they made up their minds to fix their +quarters there: but the landlord at first was unwilling, and said his +house was full, thinking they might not be very respectable company: +however, they spoke civilly to him, and gave him the egg which Partlet +had laid by the way, and said they would give him the duck, who was in +the habit of laying one every day: so at last he let them come in, and +they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily. + +Early in the morning, before it was quite light, and when nobody was +stirring in the inn, Chanticleer awakened his wife, and, fetching the +egg, they pecked a hole in it, ate it up, and threw the shells into the +fireplace: they then went to the pin and needle, who were fast asleep, +and seizing them by the heads, stuck one into the landlord’s easy chair +and the other into his handkerchief; and, having done this, they crept +away as softly as possible. However, the duck, who slept in the open +air in the yard, heard them coming, and jumping into the brook which ran +close by the inn, soon swam out of their reach. + +An hour or two afterwards the landlord got up, and took his handkerchief +to wipe his face, but the pin ran into him and pricked him: then he +walked into the kitchen to light his pipe at the fire, but when he +stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes, and almost blinded him. +‘Bless me!’ said he, ‘all the world seems to have a design against my +head this morning’: and so saying, he threw himself sulkily into his +easy chair; but, oh dear! the needle ran into him; and this time the +pain was not in his head. He now flew into a very great passion, and, +suspecting the company who had come in the night before, he went to look +after them, but they were all off; so he swore that he never again +would take in such a troop of vagabonds, who ate a great deal, paid no +reckoning, and gave him nothing for his trouble but their apish tricks. + + +2. HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES + +Another day, Chanticleer and Partlet wished to ride out together; +so Chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels, and +harnessed six mice to it; and then he and Partlet got into the carriage, +and away they drove. Soon afterwards a cat met them, and said, ‘Where +are you going?’ And Chanticleer replied, + + ‘All on our way + A visit to pay + To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’ + +Then the cat said, ‘Take me with you,’ Chanticleer said, ‘With all my +heart: get up behind, and be sure you do not fall off.’ + + ‘Take care of this handsome coach of mine, + Nor dirty my pretty red wheels so fine! + Now, mice, be ready, + And, wheels, run steady! + For we are going a visit to pay + To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’ + +Soon after came up a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin; and +Chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with +them. + +When they arrived at Mr Korbes’s house, he was not at home; so the mice +drew the carriage into the coach-house, Chanticleer and Partlet flew +upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into +the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the +millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself +up in the towel. + +When Mr Korbes came home, he went to the fireplace to make a fire; but +the cat threw all the ashes in his eyes: so he ran to the kitchen to +wash himself; but there the duck splashed all the water in his face; and +when he tried to wipe himself, the egg broke to pieces in the towel all +over his face and eyes. Then he was very angry, and went without his +supper to bed; but when he laid his head on the pillow, the pin ran into +his cheek: at this he became quite furious, and, jumping up, would have +run out of the house; but when he came to the door, the millstone fell +down on his head, and killed him on the spot. + + +3. HOW PARTLET DIED AND WAS BURIED, AND HOW CHANTICLEER DIED OF GRIEF + +Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the mountains +to eat nuts; and it was settled that all the nuts which they found +should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very large +nut; but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it all to +herself: however, it was so big that she could not swallow it, and it +stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried out to +Chanticleer, ‘Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some water, or I +shall be choked.’ Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river, and +said, ‘River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in the mountain, and +will be choked by a great nut.’ The river said, ‘Run first to the bride, +and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the water.’ Chanticleer ran to +the bride, and said, ‘Bride, you must give me a silken cord, for then +the river will give me water, and the water I will carry to Partlet, who +lies on the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.’ But the bride +said, ‘Run first, and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow +in the garden.’ Then Chanticleer ran to the garden, and took the garland +from the bough where it hung, and brought it to the bride; and then +the bride gave him the silken cord, and he took the silken cord to +the river, and the river gave him water, and he carried the water to +Partlet; but in the meantime she was choked by the great nut, and lay +quite dead, and never moved any more. + +Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly; and all the beasts +came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a little +hearse to carry her to her grave; and when it was ready they harnessed +themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way they +met the fox. ‘Where are you going, Chanticleer?’ said he. ‘To bury my +Partlet,’ said the other. ‘May I go with you?’ said the fox. ‘Yes; but +you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to draw you.’ Then +the fox got up behind; and presently the wolf, the bear, the goat, and +all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon the hearse. + +So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. ‘How shall we get +over?’ said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, ‘I will lay myself across, +and you may pass over upon me.’ But as the mice were going over, the +straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell in +and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood came +and said, ‘I am big enough; I will lay myself across the stream, and you +shall pass over upon me.’ So he laid himself down; but they managed +so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the +stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and kindly +offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the stream; +and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse, and +managed to get Partlet out of it; but the fox and the other mourners, +who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into the water +and were all carried away by the stream and drowned. + +Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet; and having dug +a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over her. +Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he +died too; and so all were dead. + + + + +RAPUNZEL + + +There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a +child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. +These people had a little window at the back of their house from which +a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful +flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no +one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had +great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was +standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a +bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it +looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, +and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and +asked: ‘What ails you, dear wife?’ ‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘if I can’t eat +some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall +die.’ The man, who loved her, thought: ‘Sooner than let your wife die, +bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.’ +At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the +enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his +wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It +tasted so good to her--so very good, that the next day she longed for it +three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband +must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening +therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the +wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before +him. ‘How can you dare,’ said she with angry look, ‘descend into my +garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!’ +‘Ah,’ answered he, ‘let mercy take the place of justice, I only made +up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the +window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she +had not got some to eat.’ Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be +softened, and said to him: ‘If the case be as you say, I will allow +you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one +condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into +the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a +mother.’ The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the +woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the +child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her. + +Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was +twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in +a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a +little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself +beneath it and cried: + + ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.’ + +Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she +heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, +wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair +fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it. + +After a year or two, it came to pass that the king’s son rode through +the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so +charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her +solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king’s +son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, +but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply +touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and +listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw +that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried: + + ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.’ + +Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress +climbed up to her. ‘If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too +will try my fortune,’ said he, and the next day when it began to grow +dark, he went to the tower and cried: + + ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.’ + +Immediately the hair fell down and the king’s son climbed up. + +At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes +had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king’s son began to talk to +her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred +that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. +Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take +him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she +thought: ‘He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does’; and she said +yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: ‘I will willingly go away with +you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk +every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when +that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.’ They +agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the +old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until +once Rapunzel said to her: ‘Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that +you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king’s son--he +is with me in a moment.’ ‘Ah! you wicked child,’ cried the enchantress. +‘What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all +the world, and yet you have deceived me!’ In her anger she clutched +Rapunzel’s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, +seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut +off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless +that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great +grief and misery. + +On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress +fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the +window, and when the king’s son came and cried: + + ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.’ + +she let the hair down. The king’s son ascended, but instead of finding +his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with +wicked and venomous looks. ‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you would fetch +your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; +the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is +lost to you; you will never see her again.’ The king’s son was beside +himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He +escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his +eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but +roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of +his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at +length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she +had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a +voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and +when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two +of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could +see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was +joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and +contented. + + + + +FUNDEVOGEL + + +There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as +he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were +there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at +the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen +asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in +her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree. + +The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself: +‘You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.’ He +took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together. And the +one, which he had found on a tree was called Fundevogel, because a bird +had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina loved each other so dearly that +when they did not see each other they were sad. + +Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and +began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out +to the spring. Lina saw this and said, ‘Listen, old Sanna, why are you +fetching so much water?’ ‘If you will never repeat it to anyone, I will +tell you why.’ So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to anyone, +and then the cook said: ‘Early tomorrow morning, when the forester +is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the +kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.’ + +Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when he +was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to Fundevogel: +‘If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.’ Fundevogel +said: ‘Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.’ Then said Lina: ‘Then +will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many buckets of water +into the house that I asked her why she was doing that, and she said +that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she said that early +tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would set the kettle +full of water, throw you into it and boil you; but we will get up +quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.’ + +The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and went +away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the +bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when she came in, +and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then she was terribly +alarmed, and she said to herself: ‘What shall I say now when the +forester comes home and sees that the children are gone? They must be +followed instantly to get them back again.’ + +Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and +overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the +forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina +said to Fundevogel: ‘Never leave me, and I will never leave you.’ +Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’ Then said Lina: ‘Do you become +a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.’ When the three servants came to +the forest, nothing was there but a rose-tree and one rose on it, but +the children were nowhere. Then said they: ‘There is nothing to be done +here,’ and they went home and told the cook that they had seen nothing +in the forest but a little rose-bush with one rose on it. Then the +old cook scolded and said: ‘You simpletons, you should have cut the +rose-bush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it home with +you; go, and do it at once.’ They had therefore to go out and look for +the second time. The children, however, saw them coming from a distance. +Then Lina said: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave +you.’ Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now; nor ever.’ Said Lina: ‘Then do you +become a church, and I’ll be the chandelier in it.’ So when the three +servants came, nothing was there but a church, with a chandelier in +it. They said therefore to each other: ‘What can we do here, let us go +home.’ When they got home, the cook asked if they had not found them; +so they said no, they had found nothing but a church, and there was a +chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said: ‘You fools! why +did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the chandelier home +with you?’ And now the old cook herself got on her legs, and went with +the three servants in pursuit of the children. The children, however, +saw from afar that the three servants were coming, and the cook waddling +after them. Then said Lina: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will +never leave you.’ Then said Fundevogel: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’ +Said Lina: ‘Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon it.’ The cook, +however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she lay down by it, +and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam quickly to her, seized +her head in its beak and drew her into the water, and there the old +witch had to drown. Then the children went home together, and were +heartily delighted, and if they have not died, they are living still. + + + + +THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR + + +One summer’s morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the +window; he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came +a peasant woman down the street crying: ‘Good jams, cheap! Good jams, +cheap!’ This rang pleasantly in the tailor’s ears; he stretched his +delicate head out of the window, and called: ‘Come up here, dear woman; +here you will get rid of your goods.’ The woman came up the three steps +to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack all the pots +for him. He inspected each one, lifted it up, put his nose to it, and +at length said: ‘The jam seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four +ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no +consequence.’ The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, gave him +what he desired, but went away quite angry and grumbling. ‘Now, this jam +shall be blessed by God,’ cried the little tailor, ‘and give me health +and strength’; so he brought the bread out of the cupboard, cut himself +a piece right across the loaf and spread the jam over it. ‘This won’t +taste bitter,’ said he, ‘but I will just finish the jacket before I +take a bite.’ He laid the bread near him, sewed on, and in his joy, made +bigger and bigger stitches. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam +rose to where the flies were sitting in great numbers, and they were +attracted and descended on it in hosts. ‘Hi! who invited you?’ said the +little tailor, and drove the unbidden guests away. The flies, however, +who understood no German, would not be turned away, but came back +again in ever-increasing companies. The little tailor at last lost all +patience, and drew a piece of cloth from the hole under his work-table, +and saying: ‘Wait, and I will give it to you,’ struck it mercilessly on +them. When he drew it away and counted, there lay before him no fewer +than seven, dead and with legs stretched out. ‘Are you a fellow of that +sort?’ said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery. ‘The whole +town shall know of this!’ And the little tailor hastened to cut himself +a girdle, stitched it, and embroidered on it in large letters: ‘Seven at +one stroke!’ ‘What, the town!’ he continued, ‘the whole world shall hear +of it!’ and his heart wagged with joy like a lamb’s tail. The tailor +put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he +thought his workshop was too small for his valour. Before he went away, +he sought about in the house to see if there was anything which he could +take with him; however, he found nothing but an old cheese, and that +he put in his pocket. In front of the door he observed a bird which +had caught itself in the thicket. It had to go into his pocket with the +cheese. Now he took to the road boldly, and as he was light and nimble, +he felt no fatigue. The road led him up a mountain, and when he had +reached the highest point of it, there sat a powerful giant looking +peacefully about him. The little tailor went bravely up, spoke to him, +and said: ‘Good day, comrade, so you are sitting there overlooking the +wide-spread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck. +Have you any inclination to go with me?’ The giant looked contemptuously +at the tailor, and said: ‘You ragamuffin! You miserable creature!’ + +‘Oh, indeed?’ answered the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and +showed the giant the girdle, ‘there may you read what kind of a man I +am!’ The giant read: ‘Seven at one stroke,’ and thought that they had +been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect +for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished to try him first, and took +a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that water dropped out +of it. ‘Do that likewise,’ said the giant, ‘if you have strength.’ ‘Is +that all?’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play with us!’ and put his +hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until +the liquid ran out of it. ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, +wasn’t it?’ The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it +of the little man. Then the giant picked up a stone and threw it so high +that the eye could scarcely follow it. ‘Now, little mite of a man, do +that likewise,’ ‘Well thrown,’ said the tailor, ‘but after all the stone +came down to earth again; I will throw you one which shall never come +back at all,’ and he put his hand into his pocket, took out the bird, +and threw it into the air. The bird, delighted with its liberty, +rose, flew away and did not come back. ‘How does that shot please you, +comrade?’ asked the tailor. ‘You can certainly throw,’ said the giant, +‘but now we will see if you are able to carry anything properly.’ He +took the little tailor to a mighty oak tree which lay there felled on +the ground, and said: ‘If you are strong enough, help me to carry the +tree out of the forest.’ ‘Readily,’ answered the little man; ‘take you +the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs; +after all, they are the heaviest.’ The giant took the trunk on his +shoulder, but the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who +could not look round, had to carry away the whole tree, and the little +tailor into the bargain: he behind, was quite merry and happy, and +whistled the song: ‘Three tailors rode forth from the gate,’ as if +carrying the tree were child’s play. The giant, after he had dragged the +heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried: ‘Hark +you, I shall have to let the tree fall!’ The tailor sprang nimbly down, +seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said +to the giant: ‘You are such a great fellow, and yet cannot even carry +the tree!’ + +They went on together, and as they passed a cherry-tree, the giant laid +hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it +down, gave it into the tailor’s hand, and bade him eat. But the little +tailor was much too weak to hold the tree, and when the giant let it go, +it sprang back again, and the tailor was tossed into the air with it. +When he had fallen down again without injury, the giant said: ‘What is +this? Have you not strength enough to hold the weak twig?’ ‘There is no +lack of strength,’ answered the little tailor. ‘Do you think that could +be anything to a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I leapt over +the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket. +Jump as I did, if you can do it.’ The giant made the attempt but he +could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so +that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand. + +The giant said: ‘If you are such a valiant fellow, come with me into our +cavern and spend the night with us.’ The little tailor was willing, and +followed him. When they went into the cave, other giants were sitting +there by the fire, and each of them had a roasted sheep in his hand and +was eating it. The little tailor looked round and thought: ‘It is much +more spacious here than in my workshop.’ The giant showed him a bed, and +said he was to lie down in it and sleep. The bed, however, was too +big for the little tailor; he did not lie down in it, but crept into +a corner. When it was midnight, and the giant thought that the little +tailor was lying in a sound sleep, he got up, took a great iron bar, +cut through the bed with one blow, and thought he had finished off the +grasshopper for good. With the earliest dawn the giants went into the +forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he +walked up to them quite merrily and boldly. The giants were terrified, +they were afraid that he would strike them all dead, and ran away in a +great hurry. + +The little tailor went onwards, always following his own pointed nose. +After he had walked for a long time, he came to the courtyard of a royal +palace, and as he felt weary, he lay down on the grass and fell asleep. +Whilst he lay there, the people came and inspected him on all sides, and +read on his girdle: ‘Seven at one stroke.’ ‘Ah!’ said they, ‘what does +the great warrior want here in the midst of peace? He must be a mighty +lord.’ They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their +opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful +man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart. The counsel pleased +the king, and he sent one of his courtiers to the little tailor to offer +him military service when he awoke. The ambassador remained standing by +the sleeper, waited until he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes, +and then conveyed to him this proposal. ‘For this very reason have +I come here,’ the tailor replied, ‘I am ready to enter the king’s +service.’ He was therefore honourably received, and a special dwelling +was assigned him. + +The soldiers, however, were set against the little tailor, and wished +him a thousand miles away. ‘What is to be the end of this?’ they said +among themselves. ‘If we quarrel with him, and he strikes about him, +seven of us will fall at every blow; not one of us can stand against +him.’ They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to +the king, and begged for their dismissal. ‘We are not prepared,’ said +they, ‘to stay with a man who kills seven at one stroke.’ The king was +sorry that for the sake of one he should lose all his faithful servants, +wished that he had never set eyes on the tailor, and would willingly +have been rid of him again. But he did not venture to give him his +dismissal, for he dreaded lest he should strike him and all his people +dead, and place himself on the royal throne. He thought about it for a +long time, and at last found good counsel. He sent to the little tailor +and caused him to be informed that as he was a great warrior, he had one +request to make to him. In a forest of his country lived two giants, +who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging, +and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in +danger of death. If the tailor conquered and killed these two giants, he +would give him his only daughter to wife, and half of his kingdom as a +dowry, likewise one hundred horsemen should go with him to assist him. +‘That would indeed be a fine thing for a man like me!’ thought the +little tailor. ‘One is not offered a beautiful princess and half a +kingdom every day of one’s life!’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will soon +subdue the giants, and do not require the help of the hundred horsemen +to do it; he who can hit seven with one blow has no need to be afraid of +two.’ + +The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him. +When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers: +‘Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.’ Then +he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a +while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and +snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not +idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the +tree. When he was halfway up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat +just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on +the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing, +but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said: ‘Why are you +knocking me?’ ‘You must be dreaming,’ said the other, ‘I am not knocking +you.’ They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the tailor +threw a stone down on the second. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ cried +the other ‘Why are you pelting me?’ ‘I am not pelting you,’ answered +the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as they were +weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once more. The +little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest stone, and +threw it with all his might on the breast of the first giant. ‘That +is too bad!’ cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and pushed his +companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back in +the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore up trees and +belaboured each other so long, that at last they both fell down dead on +the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt down. ‘It is +a lucky thing,’ said he, ‘that they did not tear up the tree on which +I was sitting, or I should have had to sprint on to another like a +squirrel; but we tailors are nimble.’ He drew out his sword and gave +each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then went out to the +horsemen and said: ‘The work is done; I have finished both of them +off, but it was hard work! They tore up trees in their sore need, and +defended themselves with them, but all that is to no purpose when a man +like myself comes, who can kill seven at one blow.’ ‘But are you not +wounded?’ asked the horsemen. ‘You need not concern yourself about +that,’ answered the tailor, ‘they have not bent one hair of mine.’ The +horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest; there they +found the giants swimming in their blood, and all round about lay the +torn-up trees. + +The little tailor demanded of the king the promised reward; he, however, +repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get +rid of the hero. ‘Before you receive my daughter, and the half of my +kingdom,’ said he to him, ‘you must perform one more heroic deed. In +the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and you must catch +it first.’ ‘I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one +blow, is my kind of affair.’ He took a rope and an axe with him, went +forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to +wait outside. He had not long to seek. The unicorn soon came towards +him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would gore him with its +horn without more ado. ‘Softly, softly; it can’t be done as quickly as +that,’ said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite +close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against +the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk +that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it +was caught. ‘Now, I have got the bird,’ said the tailor, and came out +from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his +axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the +beast away and took it to the king. + +The king still would not give him the promised reward, and made a third +demand. Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that +made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their +help. ‘Willingly,’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play!’ He did not +take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased +that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in +such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him. When +the boar perceived the tailor, it ran on him with foaming mouth and +whetted tusks, and was about to throw him to the ground, but the hero +fled and sprang into a chapel which was near and up to the window at +once, and in one bound out again. The boar ran after him, but the tailor +ran round outside and shut the door behind it, and then the raging +beast, which was much too heavy and awkward to leap out of the window, +was caught. The little tailor called the huntsmen thither that they +might see the prisoner with their own eyes. The hero, however, went to +the king, who was now, whether he liked it or not, obliged to keep his +promise, and gave his daughter and the half of his kingdom. Had he known +that it was no warlike hero, but a little tailor who was standing before +him, it would have gone to his heart still more than it did. The wedding +was held with great magnificence and small joy, and out of a tailor a +king was made. + +After some time the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at +night: ‘Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I +will rap the yard-measure over your ears.’ Then she discovered in what +state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained +of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid of +her husband, who was nothing else but a tailor. The king comforted her +and said: ‘Leave your bedroom door open this night, and my servants +shall stand outside, and when he has fallen asleep shall go in, bind +him, and take him on board a ship which shall carry him into the wide +world.’ The woman was satisfied with this; but the king’s armour-bearer, +who had heard all, was friendly with the young lord, and informed him of +the whole plot. ‘I’ll put a screw into that business,’ said the little +tailor. At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and +when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door, +and then lay down again. The little tailor, who was only pretending to +be asleep, began to cry out in a clear voice: ‘Boy, make me the doublet +and patch me the pantaloons, or I will rap the yard-measure over your +ears. I smote seven at one blow. I killed two giants, I brought away one +unicorn, and caught a wild boar, and am I to fear those who are standing +outside the room.’ When these men heard the tailor speaking thus, they +were overcome by a great dread, and ran as if the wild huntsman were +behind them, and none of them would venture anything further against +him. So the little tailor was and remained a king to the end of his +life. + + + + +HANSEL AND GRETEL + + +Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his +two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had +little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the +land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought +over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he +groaned and said to his wife: ‘What is to become of us? How are we +to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for +ourselves?’ ‘I’ll tell you what, husband,’ answered the woman, ‘early +tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where +it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each +of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and +leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be +rid of them.’ ‘No, wife,’ said the man, ‘I will not do that; how can I +bear to leave my children alone in the forest?--the wild animals would +soon come and tear them to pieces.’ ‘O, you fool!’ said she, ‘then we +must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our +coffins,’ and she left him no peace until he consented. ‘But I feel very +sorry for the poor children, all the same,’ said the man. + +The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had +heard what their stepmother had said to their father. Gretel wept +bitter tears, and said to Hansel: ‘Now all is over with us.’ ‘Be quiet, +Gretel,’ said Hansel, ‘do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way +to help us.’ And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put +on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon +shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house +glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the +little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went +back and said to Gretel: ‘Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in +peace, God will not forsake us,’ and he lay down again in his bed. When +day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the +two children, saying: ‘Get up, you sluggards! we are going into the +forest to fetch wood.’ She gave each a little piece of bread, and said: +‘There is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then, +for you will get nothing else.’ Gretel took the bread under her apron, +as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together +on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel +stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again. +His father said: ‘Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying +behind for? Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs.’ ‘Ah, +father,’ said Hansel, ‘I am looking at my little white cat, which is +sitting up on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me.’ The wife said: +‘Fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is +shining on the chimneys.’ Hansel, however, had not been looking back at +the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebble-stones +out of his pocket on the road. + +When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said: ‘Now, +children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not +be cold.’ Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a +little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning +very high, the woman said: ‘Now, children, lay yourselves down by the +fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we +have done, we will come back and fetch you away.’ + +Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little +piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they +believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but +a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was +blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long +time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When +at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and +said: ‘How are we to get out of the forest now?’ But Hansel comforted +her and said: ‘Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we +will soon find the way.’ And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took +his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like +newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way. + +They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more +to their father’s house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman +opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said: ‘You naughty +children, why have you slept so long in the forest?--we thought you were +never coming back at all!’ The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut +him to the heart to leave them behind alone. + +Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the +land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their +father: ‘Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that +is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the +wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other +means of saving ourselves!’ The man’s heart was heavy, and he thought: +‘It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your +children.’ The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to +say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise, +and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time +also. + +The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. +When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go +out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked +the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his +little sister, and said: ‘Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the +good God will help us.’ + +Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their +beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller +than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his +in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. +‘Hansel, why do you stop and look round?’ said the father, ‘go on.’ ‘I +am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and +wants to say goodbye to me,’ answered Hansel. ‘Fool!’ said the woman, +‘that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining +on the chimney.’ Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs +on the path. + +The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had +never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and +the mother said: ‘Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired +you may sleep a little; we are going into the forest to cut wood, and in +the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away.’ When +it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had +scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but +no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark +night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said: ‘Just wait, +Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread +which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again.’ When +the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many +thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked +them all up. Hansel said to Gretel: ‘We shall soon find the way,’ but +they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day +too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, +and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three +berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their +legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell +asleep. + +It was now three mornings since they had left their father’s house. They +began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if +help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it +was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, +which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And +when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them, +and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of +which it alighted; and when they approached the little house they saw +that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows +were of clear sugar. ‘We will set to work on that,’ said Hansel, ‘and +have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat +some of the window, it will taste sweet.’ Hansel reached up above, and +broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant +against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried +from the parlour: + + ‘Nibble, nibble, gnaw, + Who is nibbling at my little house?’ + +The children answered: + + ‘The wind, the wind, + The heaven-born wind,’ + +and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the +taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out +the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with +it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who +supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were +so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their +hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said: ‘Oh, you dear +children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay with me. No +harm shall happen to you.’ She took them both by the hand, and led them +into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and +pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little +beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down +in them, and thought they were in heaven. + +The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality +a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the +little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell +into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast +day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have +a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. +When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with +malice, and said mockingly: ‘I have them, they shall not escape me +again!’ Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was +already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so +pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself: ‘That +will be a dainty mouthful!’ Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled +hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a +grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to +Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: ‘Get up, lazy thing, fetch +some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the +stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.’ +Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was +forced to do what the wicked witch commanded. + +And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing +but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and +cried: ‘Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon +be fat.’ Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and +the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was +Hansel’s finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening +him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she +was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. ‘Now, then, +Gretel,’ she cried to the girl, ‘stir yourself, and bring some water. +Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.’ Ah, +how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, +and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! ‘Dear God, do help us,’ she +cried. ‘If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should +at any rate have died together.’ ‘Just keep your noise to yourself,’ +said the old woman, ‘it won’t help you at all.’ + +Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with +the water, and light the fire. ‘We will bake first,’ said the old woman, +‘I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.’ She pushed poor +Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. +‘Creep in,’ said the witch, ‘and see if it is properly heated, so that +we can put the bread in.’ And once Gretel was inside, she intended to +shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. +But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: ‘I do not know how I am +to do it; how do I get in?’ ‘Silly goose,’ said the old woman. ‘The door +is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!’ and she crept up and +thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove +her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then +she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless +witch was miserably burnt to death. + +Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, +and cried: ‘Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!’ Then Hansel +sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did +rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And +as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch’s +house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels. +‘These are far better than pebbles!’ said Hansel, and thrust into his +pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said: ‘I, too, will take +something home with me,’ and filled her pinafore full. ‘But now we must +be off,’ said Hansel, ‘that we may get out of the witch’s forest.’ + +When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of +water. ‘We cannot cross,’ said Hansel, ‘I see no foot-plank, and no +bridge.’ ‘And there is also no ferry,’ answered Gretel, ‘but a white +duck is swimming there: if I ask her, she will help us over.’ Then she +cried: + + ‘Little duck, little duck, dost thou see, + Hansel and Gretel are waiting for thee? + There’s never a plank, or bridge in sight, + Take us across on thy back so white.’ + +The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told +his sister to sit by him. ‘No,’ replied Gretel, ‘that will be too heavy +for the little duck; she shall take us across, one after the other.’ The +good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had +walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar +to them, and at length they saw from afar their father’s house. Then +they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round +their father’s neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had +left the children in the forest; the woman, however, was dead. Gretel +emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the +room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to +add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together +in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse; whosoever +catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it. + + + + +THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE + + +Once upon a time, a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, entered into +partnership and set up house together. For a long time all went well; +they lived in great comfort, and prospered so far as to be able to add +considerably to their stores. The bird’s duty was to fly daily into the +wood and bring in fuel; the mouse fetched the water, and the sausage saw +to the cooking. + +When people are too well off they always begin to long for something +new. And so it came to pass, that the bird, while out one day, met a +fellow bird, to whom he boastfully expatiated on the excellence of his +household arrangements. But the other bird sneered at him for being a +poor simpleton, who did all the hard work, while the other two stayed +at home and had a good time of it. For, when the mouse had made the fire +and fetched in the water, she could retire into her little room and rest +until it was time to set the table. The sausage had only to watch the +pot to see that the food was properly cooked, and when it was near +dinner-time, he just threw himself into the broth, or rolled in and out +among the vegetables three or four times, and there they were, buttered, +and salted, and ready to be served. Then, when the bird came home and +had laid aside his burden, they sat down to table, and when they had +finished their meal, they could sleep their fill till the following +morning: and that was really a very delightful life. + +Influenced by those remarks, the bird next morning refused to bring in +the wood, telling the others that he had been their servant long enough, +and had been a fool into the bargain, and that it was now time to make a +change, and to try some other way of arranging the work. Beg and pray +as the mouse and the sausage might, it was of no use; the bird remained +master of the situation, and the venture had to be made. They therefore +drew lots, and it fell to the sausage to bring in the wood, to the mouse +to cook, and to the bird to fetch the water. + +And now what happened? The sausage started in search of wood, the bird +made the fire, and the mouse put on the pot, and then these two waited +till the sausage returned with the fuel for the following day. But the +sausage remained so long away, that they became uneasy, and the bird +flew out to meet him. He had not flown far, however, when he came across +a dog who, having met the sausage, had regarded him as his legitimate +booty, and so seized and swallowed him. The bird complained to the dog +of this bare-faced robbery, but nothing he said was of any avail, for +the dog answered that he found false credentials on the sausage, and +that was the reason his life had been forfeited. + +He picked up the wood, and flew sadly home, and told the mouse all he +had seen and heard. They were both very unhappy, but agreed to make the +best of things and to remain with one another. + +So now the bird set the table, and the mouse looked after the food and, +wishing to prepare it in the same way as the sausage, by rolling in and +out among the vegetables to salt and butter them, she jumped into the +pot; but she stopped short long before she reached the bottom, having +already parted not only with her skin and hair, but also with life. + +Presently the bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he +could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood +here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to +be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down, +caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water, +but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable +to recover himself, he was drowned. + + + + +MOTHER HOLLE + + +Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them +was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. The mother, +however, loved the ugly and lazy one best, because she was her own +daughter, and so the other, who was only her stepdaughter, was made +to do all the work of the house, and was quite the Cinderella of the +family. Her stepmother sent her out every day to sit by the well in +the high road, there to spin until she made her fingers bleed. Now it +chanced one day that some blood fell on to the spindle, and as the girl +stopped over the well to wash it off, the spindle suddenly sprang out +of her hand and fell into the well. She ran home crying to tell of her +misfortune, but her stepmother spoke harshly to her, and after giving +her a violent scolding, said unkindly, ‘As you have let the spindle fall +into the well you may go yourself and fetch it out.’ + +The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in +her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle. + +She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a +beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming +in every direction. + +She walked over the meadow, and presently she came upon a baker’s oven +full of bread, and the loaves cried out to her, ‘Take us out, take us +out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long +ago.’ So she took the bread-shovel and drew them all out. + +She went on a little farther, till she came to a tree full of apples. +‘Shake me, shake me, I pray,’ cried the tree; ‘my apples, one and all, +are ripe.’ So she shook the tree, and the apples came falling down upon +her like rain; but she continued shaking until there was not a single +apple left upon it. Then she carefully gathered the apples together in a +heap and walked on again. + +The next thing she came to was a little house, and there she saw an old +woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified, and +turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, ‘What are you +afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do the work of my house +properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very careful, +however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you always to shake +it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about; then they say, down there +in the world, that it is snowing; for I am Mother Holle.’ The old woman +spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up courage and agreed to enter +into her service. + +She took care to do everything according to the old woman’s bidding and +every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the +feathers flew about like so many snowflakes. The old woman was as good +as her word: she never spoke angrily to her, and gave her roast and +boiled meats every day. + +So she stayed on with Mother Holle for some time, and then she began +to grow unhappy. She could not at first tell why she felt sad, but she +became conscious at last of great longing to go home; then she knew she +was homesick, although she was a thousand times better off with Mother +Holle than with her mother and sister. After waiting awhile, she went +to Mother Holle and said, ‘I am so homesick, that I cannot stay with +you any longer, for although I am so happy here, I must return to my own +people.’ + +Then Mother Holle said, ‘I am pleased that you should want to go back +to your own people, and as you have served me so well and faithfully, I +will take you home myself.’ + +Thereupon she led the girl by the hand up to a broad gateway. The gate +was opened, and as the girl passed through, a shower of gold fell upon +her, and the gold clung to her, so that she was covered with it from +head to foot. + +‘That is a reward for your industry,’ said Mother Holle, and as she +spoke she handed her the spindle which she had dropped into the well. + +The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old +world close to her mother’s house. As she entered the courtyard, the +cock who was perched on the well, called out: + + ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo! + Your golden daughter’s come back to you.’ + +Then she went in to her mother and sister, and as she was so richly +covered with gold, they gave her a warm welcome. She related to them +all that had happened, and when the mother heard how she had come by her +great riches, she thought she should like her ugly, lazy daughter to go +and try her fortune. So she made the sister go and sit by the well +and spin, and the girl pricked her finger and thrust her hand into a +thorn-bush, so that she might drop some blood on to the spindle; then +she threw it into the well, and jumped in herself. + +Like her sister she awoke in the beautiful meadow, and walked over it +till she came to the oven. ‘Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall +be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long ago,’ cried the loaves +as before. But the lazy girl answered, ‘Do you think I am going to dirty +my hands for you?’ and walked on. + +Presently she came to the apple-tree. ‘Shake me, shake me, I pray; my +apples, one and all, are ripe,’ it cried. But she only answered, ‘A nice +thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and +passed on. + +At last she came to Mother Holle’s house, and as she had heard all about +the large teeth from her sister, she was not afraid of them, and engaged +herself without delay to the old woman. + +The first day she was very obedient and industrious, and exerted herself +to please Mother Holle, for she thought of the gold she should get in +return. The next day, however, she began to dawdle over her work, and +the third day she was more idle still; then she began to lie in bed in +the mornings and refused to get up. Worse still, she neglected to +make the old woman’s bed properly, and forgot to shake it so that the +feathers might fly about. So Mother Holle very soon got tired of her, +and told her she might go. The lazy girl was delighted at this, and +thought to herself, ‘The gold will soon be mine.’ Mother Holle led her, +as she had led her sister, to the broad gateway; but as she was passing +through, instead of the shower of gold, a great bucketful of pitch came +pouring over her. + +‘That is in return for your services,’ said the old woman, and she shut +the gate. + +So the lazy girl had to go home covered with pitch, and the cock on the +well called out as she saw her: + + ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo! + Your dirty daughter’s come back to you.’ + +But, try what she would, she could not get the pitch off and it stuck to +her as long as she lived. + + + + +LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD] + + +Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone +who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was +nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a +little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never +wear anything else; so she was always called ‘Little Red-Cap.’ + +One day her mother said to her: ‘Come, Little Red-Cap, here is a piece +of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill +and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and +when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, +or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will +get nothing; and when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, “Good +morning”, and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.’ + +‘I will take great care,’ said Little Red-Cap to her mother, and gave +her hand on it. + +The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, +and just as Little Red-Cap entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red-Cap +did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of +him. + +‘Good day, Little Red-Cap,’ said he. + +‘Thank you kindly, wolf.’ + +‘Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?’ + +‘To my grandmother’s.’ + +‘What have you got in your apron?’ + +‘Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to +have something good, to make her stronger.’ + +‘Where does your grandmother live, Little Red-Cap?’ + +‘A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands +under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you +surely must know it,’ replied Little Red-Cap. + +The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice +plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must +act craftily, so as to catch both.’ So he walked for a short time by +the side of Little Red-Cap, and then he said: ‘See, Little Red-Cap, how +pretty the flowers are about here--why do you not look round? I believe, +too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you +walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else +out here in the wood is merry.’ + +Little Red-Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing +here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, +she thought: ‘Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would +please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there +in good time’; and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for +flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a +still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and +deeper into the wood. + +Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked +at the door. + +‘Who is there?’ + +‘Little Red-Cap,’ replied the wolf. ‘She is bringing cake and wine; open +the door.’ + +‘Lift the latch,’ called out the grandmother, ‘I am too weak, and cannot +get up.’ + +The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a +word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and devoured her. Then +he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in bed +and drew the curtains. + +Little Red-Cap, however, had been running about picking flowers, +and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she +remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her. + +She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she +went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to +herself: ‘Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like +being with grandmother so much.’ She called out: ‘Good morning,’ but +received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. +There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and +looking very strange. + +‘Oh! grandmother,’ she said, ‘what big ears you have!’ + +‘The better to hear you with, my child,’ was the reply. + +‘But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!’ she said. + +‘The better to see you with, my dear.’ + +‘But, grandmother, what large hands you have!’ + +‘The better to hug you with.’ + +‘Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!’ + +‘The better to eat you with!’ + +And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of +bed and swallowed up Red-Cap. + +When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, +fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing +the house, and thought to himself: ‘How the old woman is snoring! I must +just see if she wants anything.’ So he went into the room, and when he +came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. ‘Do I find you +here, you old sinner!’ said he. ‘I have long sought you!’ Then just as +he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have +devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did +not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach +of the sleeping wolf. When he had made two snips, he saw the little +Red-Cap shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl +sprang out, crying: ‘Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was +inside the wolf’; and after that the aged grandmother came out alive +also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red-Cap, however, quickly fetched +great stones with which they filled the wolf’s belly, and when he awoke, +he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at +once, and fell dead. + +Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and +went home with it; the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which +Red-Cap had brought, and revived, but Red-Cap thought to herself: ‘As +long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the +wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.’ + + +It also related that once when Red-Cap was again taking cakes to the old +grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the +path. Red-Cap, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on +her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he +had said ‘good morning’ to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, +that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would +have eaten her up. ‘Well,’ said the grandmother, ‘we will shut the door, +that he may not come in.’ Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried: +‘Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red-Cap, and am bringing you +some cakes.’ But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard +stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, +intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to +steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother +saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone +trough, so she said to the child: ‘Take the pail, Red-Cap; I made some +sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the +trough.’ Red-Cap carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the +smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, +and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep +his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight +into the great trough, and was drowned. But Red-Cap went joyously home, +and no one ever did anything to harm her again. + + + + +THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM + + +There was once a miller who had one beautiful daughter, and as she was +grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided +for. He said to himself, ‘I will give her to the first suitable man who +comes and asks for her hand.’ Not long after a suitor appeared, and as +he appeared to be very rich and the miller could see nothing in him with +which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him. But the girl did +not care for the man as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband. +She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him +nor think of him without an inward shudder. One day he said to her, ‘You +have not yet paid me a visit, although we have been betrothed for some +time.’ ‘I do not know where your house is,’ she answered. ‘My house is +out there in the dark forest,’ he said. She tried to excuse herself by +saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Her betrothed +only replied, ‘You must come and see me next Sunday; I have already +invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way, I +will strew ashes along the path.’ + +When Sunday came, and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of +dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might +be able to find her path again, she filled her pockets with peas and +lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along. On reaching the +entrance to the forest she found the path strewed with ashes, and these +she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every +step she took. She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest, +darkest part of the forest. There she saw a lonely house, looking so +grim and mysterious, that it did not please her at all. She stepped +inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned +throughout. Suddenly a voice cried: + + ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ + +The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a +cage on the wall. Again it cried: + + ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ + +The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were +all empty, and still she saw no one. At last she came to the cellar, +and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from +shaking. ‘Can you tell me,’ asked the girl, ‘if my betrothed husband +lives here?’ + +‘Ah, you poor child,’ answered the old woman, ‘what a place for you to +come to! This is a murderers’ den. You think yourself a promised bride, +and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that +you will keep your marriage feast. Look, do you see that large cauldron +of water which I am obliged to keep on the fire! As soon as they have +you in their power they will kill you without mercy, and cook and eat +you, for they are eaters of men. If I did not take pity on you and save +you, you would be lost.’ + +Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask, which quite hid her +from view. ‘Keep as still as a mouse,’ she said; ‘do not move or speak, +or it will be all over with you. Tonight, when the robbers are +all asleep, we will flee together. I have long been waiting for an +opportunity to escape.’ + +The words were hardly out of her mouth when the godless crew returned, +dragging another young girl along with them. They were all drunk, and +paid no heed to her cries and lamentations. They gave her wine to drink, +three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red, and one of yellow, +and with that her heart gave way and she died. Then they tore off her +dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body into +pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it. + +The poor betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the +cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by +the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on +the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off +easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger; but the finger sprang +into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was +hiding there. The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he +could not find it. ‘Have you looked behind the large cask?’ said one of +the others. But the old woman called out, ‘Come and eat your suppers, +and let the thing be till tomorrow; the finger won’t run away.’ + +‘The old woman is right,’ said the robbers, and they ceased looking for +the finger and sat down. + +The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine, and before +long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and +snoring. As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind +the cask. She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers, who +were lying close together, and every moment she was filled with renewed +dread lest she should awaken them. But God helped her, so that she +passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs, +opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers’ +den. They found the ashes scattered by the wind, but the peas and +lentils had sprouted, and grown sufficiently above the ground, to guide +them in the moonlight along the path. All night long they walked, and it +was morning before they reached the mill. Then the girl told her father +all that had happened. + +The day came that had been fixed for the marriage. The bridegroom +arrived and also a large company of guests, for the miller had taken +care to invite all his friends and relations. As they sat at the feast, +each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did +not say a word. + +‘And you, my love,’ said the bridegroom, turning to her, ‘is there no +tale you know? Tell us something.’ + +‘I will tell you a dream, then,’ said the bride. ‘I went alone through a +forest and came at last to a house; not a soul could I find within, but +a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried: + + ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ + +and again a second time it said these words.’ + +‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ + +‘I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty, +and everything was so grim and mysterious. At last I went down to the +cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her +head still. I asked her if my betrothed lived here, and she answered, +“Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers’ den; your betrothed +does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards +cook and eat you.”’ + +‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ + +‘The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done +this when the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with +them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and +yellow, and with that she died.’ + +‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ + +‘Then they tore off her dainty clothing, and cut her beautiful body into +pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.’ + +‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ + +‘And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her +finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut +off her finger; but the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the +great cask into my lap. And here is the finger with the ring.’ And +with these words the bride drew forth the finger and shewed it to the +assembled guests. + +The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and +tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast. They +delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were +condemned to death for their wicked deeds. + + + + +TOM THUMB + + +A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the +fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. ‘How lonely it is, +wife,’ said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, ‘for you and me +to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse +us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!’ +‘What you say is very true,’ said the wife, sighing, and turning round +her wheel; ‘how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were +ever so small--nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb--I should be very +happy, and love it dearly.’ Now--odd as you may think it--it came to +pass that this good woman’s wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she +had wished it; for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was +quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So +they said, ‘Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, +little as he is, we will love him dearly.’ And they called him Thomas +Thumb. + +They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew +bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. +Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to +be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about. + +One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut +fuel, he said, ‘I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I +want to make haste.’ ‘Oh, father,’ cried Tom, ‘I will take care of that; +the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.’ Then the woodman +laughed, and said, ‘How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse’s +bridle.’ ‘Never mind that, father,’ said Tom; ‘if my mother will only +harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to +go.’ ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘we will try for once.’ + +When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put +Tom into his ear; and as he sat there the little man told the beast how +to go, crying out, ‘Go on!’ and ‘Stop!’ as he wanted: and thus the horse +went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the +wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom +was calling out, ‘Gently! gently!’ two strangers came up. ‘What an odd +thing that is!’ said one: ‘there is a cart going along, and I hear a +carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.’ ‘That is queer, +indeed,’ said the other; ‘let us follow the cart, and see where it +goes.’ So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the +place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried +out, ‘See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take +me down!’ So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with +the other took his son out of the horse’s ear, and put him down upon a +straw, where he sat as merry as you please. + +The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what +to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, ‘That +little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him +about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.’ So they went up to +the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. ‘He +will be better off,’ said they, ‘with us than with you.’ ‘I won’t sell +him at all,’ said the father; ‘my own flesh and blood is dearer to me +than all the silver and gold in the world.’ But Tom, hearing of the +bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father’s coat to his shoulder +and whispered in his ear, ‘Take the money, father, and let them have me; +I’ll soon come back to you.’ + +So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a +large piece of gold, and they paid the price. ‘Where would you like to +sit?’ said one of them. ‘Oh, put me on the rim of your hat; that will be +a nice gallery for me; I can walk about there and see the country as we +go along.’ So they did as he wished; and when Tom had taken leave of his +father they took him away with them. + +They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man +said, ‘Let me get down, I’m tired.’ So the man took off his hat, and +put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the +road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into +an old mouse-hole. ‘Good night, my masters!’ said he, ‘I’m off! mind and +look sharp after me the next time.’ Then they ran at once to the place, +and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain; +Tom only crawled farther and farther in; and at last it became quite +dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as +sulky as could be. + +When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding-place. ‘What +dangerous walking it is,’ said he, ‘in this ploughed field! If I were to +fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.’ +At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail-shell. ‘This is +lucky,’ said he, ‘I can sleep here very well’; and in he crept. + +Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting +together; and one said to the other, ‘How can we rob that rich parson’s +house of his silver and gold?’ ‘I’ll tell you!’ cried Tom. ‘What noise +was that?’ said the thief, frightened; ‘I’m sure I heard someone speak.’ +They stood still listening, and Tom said, ‘Take me with you, and I’ll +soon show you how to get the parson’s money.’ ‘But where are you?’ said +they. ‘Look about on the ground,’ answered he, ‘and listen where the +sound comes from.’ At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him +up in their hands. ‘You little urchin!’ they said, ‘what can you do for +us?’ ‘Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson’s house, +and throw you out whatever you want.’ ‘That’s a good thought,’ said the +thieves; ‘come along, we shall see what you can do.’ + +When they came to the parson’s house, Tom slipped through the +window-bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, +‘Will you have all that is here?’ At this the thieves were frightened, +and said, ‘Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.’ +But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, +‘How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?’ Now the cook lay in +the next room; and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and +listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little +way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, ‘The little +urchin is only trying to make fools of us.’ So they came back and +whispered softly to him, saying, ‘Now let us have no more of your +roguish jokes; but throw us out some of the money.’ Then Tom called out +as loud as he could, ‘Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.’ + +The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to +open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails: and +the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light. +By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn; and when +she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found +nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her +eyes open. + +The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug +place to finish his night’s rest in; so he laid himself down, meaning +to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and +mother. But alas! how woefully he was undone! what crosses and sorrows +happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak, +to feed the cows; and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away +a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast +asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found +himself in the mouth of the cow; for the cook had put the hay into the +cow’s rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. ‘Good +lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ But he soon +found out where he really was; and was forced to have all his wits about +him, that he might not get between the cow’s teeth, and so be crushed to +death. At last down he went into her stomach. ‘It is rather dark,’ said +he; ‘they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in; a +candle would be no bad thing.’ + +Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at +all; and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming +down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he +cried out as loud as he could, ‘Don’t bring me any more hay! Don’t bring +me any more hay!’ + +The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone +speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice +that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off +her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself +up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the +parson, and said, ‘Sir, sir, the cow is talking!’ But the parson +said, ‘Woman, thou art surely mad!’ However, he went with her into the +cow-house, to try and see what was the matter. + +Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, ‘Don’t +bring me any more hay!’ Then the parson himself was frightened; and +thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the +spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom +lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill. + +Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy +task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh +ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the +whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away. + +Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would +not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called +out, ‘My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.’ ‘Where’s that?’ +said the wolf. ‘In such and such a house,’ said Tom, describing his own +father’s house. ‘You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and +then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold +chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can +wish.’ + +The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to +the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into +the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart’s content. As soon as +he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that +he could not go out by the same way he came in. + +This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a +great shout, making all the noise he could. ‘Will you be easy?’ said the +wolf; ‘you’ll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.’ +‘What’s that to me?’ said the little man; ‘you have had your frolic, now +I’ve a mind to be merry myself’; and he began, singing and shouting as +loud as he could. + +The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through +a crack in the door; but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well +suppose that they were sadly frightened; and the woodman ran for his +axe, and gave his wife a scythe. ‘Do you stay behind,’ said the woodman, +‘and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the +scythe.’ Tom heard all this, and cried out, ‘Father, father! I am here, +the wolf has swallowed me.’ And his father said, ‘Heaven be praised! we +have found our dear child again’; and he told his wife not to use the +scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and +struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! and when he was +dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. ‘Ah!’ said the father, +‘what fears we have had for you!’ ‘Yes, father,’ answered he; ‘I have +travelled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we +parted; and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.’ +‘Why, where have you been?’ said his father. ‘I have been in a +mouse-hole--and in a snail-shell--and down a cow’s throat--and in the +wolf’s belly; and yet here I am again, safe and sound.’ + +‘Well,’ said they, ‘you are come back, and we will not sell you again +for all the riches in the world.’ + +Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty +to eat and drink, for he was very hungry; and then they fetched new +clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey. +So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace; for +though he had been so great a traveller, and had done and seen so many +fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always +agreed that, after all, there’s no place like HOME! + + + + +RUMPELSTILTSKIN + + +By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream +of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller’s house was +close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. +She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud +of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and +hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now +this king was very fond of money; and when he heard the miller’s boast +his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before +him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great +heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, ‘All this must +be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.’ It was in vain +that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, +for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber +door was locked, and she was left alone. + +She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard +fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man +hobbled in, and said, ‘Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you +weeping for?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘I must spin this straw into gold, and +I know not how.’ ‘What will you give me,’ said the hobgoblin, ‘to do it +for you?’ ‘My necklace,’ replied the maiden. He took her at her word, +and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang: + + ‘Round about, round about, + Lo and behold! + Reel away, reel away, + Straw into gold!’ + +And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and +the straw was all spun into gold. + +When the king came and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased; +but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor +miller’s daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, +and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and +said, ‘What will you give me to do your task?’ ‘The ring on my finger,’ +said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the +wheel again, and whistled and sang: + + ‘Round about, round about, + Lo and behold! + Reel away, reel away, + Straw into gold!’ + +till, long before morning, all was done again. + +The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; +but still he had not enough: so he took the miller’s daughter to a yet +larger heap, and said, ‘All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, +you shall be my queen.’ As soon as she was alone that dwarf came in, and +said, ‘What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?’ +‘I have nothing left,’ said she. ‘Then say you will give me,’ said +the little man, ‘the first little child that you may have when you are +queen.’ ‘That may never be,’ thought the miller’s daughter: and as she +knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he +asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once +more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding +all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller’s +daughter, and she really became queen. + +At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the +dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where +she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then +she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all +the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at +last her tears softened him, and he said, ‘I will give you three days’ +grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your +child.’ + +Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that +she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find +out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with +TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could +remember; but to all and each of them he said, ‘Madam, that is not my +name.’ + +The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, +BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman +still said to every one of them, ‘Madam, that is not my name.’ + +The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, ‘I have +travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as +I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox +and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut; and before +the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was +dancing upon one leg, and singing: + + “Merrily the feast I’ll make. + Today I’ll brew, tomorrow bake; + Merrily I’ll dance and sing, + For next day will a stranger bring. + Little does my lady dream + Rumpelstiltskin is my name!” + +When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little +friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round +to enjoy the fun; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her +arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began +to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child, to take home with +him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, ‘Now, lady, what is my +name?’ ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she. ‘No, madam!’ ‘Is it TOM?’ ‘No, madam!’ +‘Is it JEMMY?’ ‘It is not.’ ‘Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?’ said the +lady slyly. ‘Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!’ cried +the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the +floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it +out. + +Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the +baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much +trouble for nothing, and said, ‘We wish you a very good morning, and a +merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!’ + + + + +CLEVER GRETEL + + +There was once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and +when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, +was quite happy and thought: ‘You certainly are a pretty girl!’ And when +she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, +and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she +was cooking until she was satisfied, and said: ‘The cook must know what +the food is like.’ + +It came to pass that the master one day said to her: ‘Gretel, there is a +guest coming this evening; prepare me two fowls very daintily.’ ‘I will +see to it, master,’ answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them, +plucked them, put them on the spit, and towards evening set them before +the fire, that they might roast. The fowls began to turn brown, and were +nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Then Gretel called out +to her master: ‘If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away +from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten +the moment they are at their juiciest.’ The master said: ‘I will run +myself, and fetch the guest.’ When the master had turned his back, +Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought: ‘Standing +so long by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty; who knows +when they will come? Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a +drink.’ She ran down, set a jug, said: ‘God bless it for you, Gretel,’ +and took a good drink, and thought that wine should flow on, and should +not be interrupted, and took yet another hearty draught. + +Then she went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them, +and drove the spit merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good, +Gretel thought: ‘Something might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!’ +She touched it with her finger, and said: ‘Ah! how good fowls are! It +certainly is a sin and a shame that they are not eaten at the right +time!’ She ran to the window, to see if the master was not coming with +his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and thought: +‘One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.’ +So she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she +thought: ‘The other must go down too, or else master will observe that +something is missing.’ When the two wings were eaten, she went and +looked for her master, and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to +her: ‘Who knows? They are perhaps not coming at all, and have turned in +somewhere.’ Then she said: ‘Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has +been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is +eaten you will have some peace, why should God’s good gifts be spoilt?’ +So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the +one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, +and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said: +‘What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together; what’s +right for the one is right for the other; I think if I were to take +another draught it would do me no harm.’ So she took another hearty +drink, and let the second chicken follow the first. + +While she was making the most of it, her master came and cried: ‘Hurry +up, Gretel, the guest is coming directly after me!’ ‘Yes, sir, I will +soon serve up,’ answered Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that +the table was properly laid, and took the great knife, wherewith he was +going to carve the chickens, and sharpened it on the steps. Presently +the guest came, and knocked politely and courteously at the house-door. +Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and when she saw the guest, +she put her finger to her lips and said: ‘Hush! hush! go away as quickly +as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse for you; he +certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off your +two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!’ The guest +heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he +could. Gretel was not idle; she ran screaming to her master, and cried: +‘You have invited a fine guest!’ ‘Why, Gretel? What do you mean by +that?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘he has taken the chickens which I was just +going to serve up, off the dish, and has run away with them!’ ‘That’s a +nice trick!’ said her master, and lamented the fine chickens. ‘If he had +but left me one, so that something remained for me to eat.’ He called to +him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him +with the knife still in his hand, crying: ‘Just one, just one,’ meaning +that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and not take both. The +guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to give up one of +his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to take +them both with him. + + + + +THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON + + +There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull +of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly +hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run +out of his mouth. His son and his son’s wife were disgusted at this, so +the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, +and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough +of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of +tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it +fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said +nothing and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden bowl for a few +half-pence, out of which he had to eat. + +They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old +began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. ‘What are +you doing there?’ asked the father. ‘I am making a little trough,’ +answered the child, ‘for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.’ + +The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently +began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and +henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he +did spill a little of anything. + + + + +THE LITTLE PEASANT + + +There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich +peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He +had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and +yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her: +‘Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall +make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any +other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.’ the woman +also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed +the calf, and painted it as it ought to be, and made it with its head +hanging down as if it were eating. + +Next morning when the cows were being driven out, the little peasant +called the cow-herd in and said: ‘Look, I have a little calf there, +but it is still small and has to be carried.’ The cow-herd said: ‘All +right,’ and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set +it among the grass. The little calf always remained standing like one +which was eating, and the cow-herd said: ‘It will soon run by itself, +just look how it eats already!’ At night when he was going to drive the +herd home again, he said to the calf: ‘If you can stand there and eat +your fill, you can also go on your four legs; I don’t care to drag you +home again in my arms.’ But the little peasant stood at his door, and +waited for his little calf, and when the cow-herd drove the cows through +the village, and the calf was missing, he inquired where it was. The +cow-herd answered: ‘It is still standing out there eating. It would not +stop and come with us.’ But the little peasant said: ‘Oh, but I must +have my beast back again.’ Then they went back to the meadow together, +but someone had stolen the calf, and it was gone. The cow-herd said: ‘It +must have run away.’ The peasant, however, said: ‘Don’t tell me +that,’ and led the cow-herd before the mayor, who for his carelessness +condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf which had run away. + +And now the little peasant and his wife had the cow for which they had +so long wished, and they were heartily glad, but they had no food for +it, and could give it nothing to eat, so it soon had to be killed. They +salted the flesh, and the peasant went into the town and wanted to sell +the skin there, so that he might buy a new calf with the proceeds. On +the way he passed by a mill, and there sat a raven with broken wings, +and out of pity he took him and wrapped him in the skin. But as the +weather grew so bad and there was a storm of rain and wind, he could +go no farther, and turned back to the mill and begged for shelter. The +miller’s wife was alone in the house, and said to the peasant: ‘Lay +yourself on the straw there,’ and gave him a slice of bread and cheese. +The peasant ate it, and lay down with his skin beside him, and the woman +thought: ‘He is tired and has gone to sleep.’ In the meantime came the +parson; the miller’s wife received him well, and said: ‘My husband is +out, so we will have a feast.’ The peasant listened, and when he heard +them talk about feasting he was vexed that he had been forced to make +shift with a slice of bread and cheese. Then the woman served up four +different things, roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine. + +Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking +outside. The woman said: ‘Oh, heavens! It is my husband!’ she quickly +hid the roast meat inside the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow, +the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet +on the porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said: ‘Thank +heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the +world were coming to an end.’ The miller saw the peasant lying on the +straw, and asked, ‘What is that fellow doing there?’ ‘Ah,’ said the +wife, ‘the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for +shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where +the straw was.’ The man said: ‘I have no objection, but be quick and get +me something to eat.’ The woman said: ‘But I have nothing but bread and +cheese.’ ‘I am contented with anything,’ replied the husband, ‘so far as +I am concerned, bread and cheese will do,’ and looked at the peasant and +said: ‘Come and eat some more with me.’ The peasant did not require to +be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin +in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked: ‘What have you +there?’ The peasant answered: ‘I have a soothsayer inside it.’ ‘Can +he foretell anything to me?’ said the miller. ‘Why not?’ answered +the peasant: ‘but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to +himself.’ The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something +for once.’ Then the peasant pinched the raven’s head, so that he croaked +and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: ‘What did he say?’ The +peasant answered: ‘In the first place, he says that there is some wine +hidden under the pillow.’ ‘Bless me!’ cried the miller, and went there +and found the wine. ‘Now go on,’ said he. The peasant made the raven +croak again, and said: ‘In the second place, he says that there is some +roast meat in the tiled stove.’ ‘Upon my word!’ cried the miller, and +went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven +prophesy still more, and said: ‘Thirdly, he says that there is some +salad on the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the miller, and +went there and found the salad. At last the peasant pinched the raven +once more till he croaked, and said: ‘Fourthly, he says that there +are some cakes under the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the +miller, and looked there, and found the cakes. + +And now the two sat down to the table together, but the miller’s wife +was frightened to death, and went to bed and took all the keys with +her. The miller would have liked much to know the fifth, but the little +peasant said: ‘First, we will quickly eat the four things, for the fifth +is something bad.’ So they ate, and after that they bargained how much +the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on +three hundred talers. Then the peasant once more pinched the raven’s +head till he croaked loudly. The miller asked: ‘What did he say?’ The +peasant replied: ‘He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in +the closet on the porch.’ The miller said: ‘The Devil must go out,’ and +opened the house-door; then the woman was forced to give up the keys, +and the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he +could, and the miller said: ‘It was true; I saw the black rascal with my +own eyes.’ The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with +the three hundred talers. + +At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful +house, and the peasants said: ‘The small peasant has certainly been to +the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in +shovels.’ Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and +bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered: ‘I sold my cow’s +skin in the town, for three hundred talers.’ When the peasants heard +that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed +all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in +the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said: ‘But my +servant must go first.’ When she came to the merchant in the town, he +did not give her more than two talers for a skin, and when the others +came, he did not give them so much, and said: ‘What can I do with all +these skins?’ + +Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus +outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this +treachery before the mayor. The innocent little peasant was unanimously +sentenced to death, and was to be rolled into the water, in a barrel +pierced full of holes. He was led forth, and a priest was brought who +was to say a mass for his soul. The others were all obliged to retire to +a distance, and when the peasant looked at the priest, he recognized the +man who had been with the miller’s wife. He said to him: ‘I set you free +from the closet, set me free from the barrel.’ At this same moment up +came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd whom the peasant knew had +long been wishing to be mayor, so he cried with all his might: ‘No, I +will not do it; if the whole world insists on it, I will not do it!’ The +shepherd hearing that, came up to him, and asked: ‘What are you about? +What is it that you will not do?’ The peasant said: ‘They want to make +me mayor, if I will but put myself in the barrel, but I will not do it.’ +The shepherd said: ‘If nothing more than that is needful in order to be +mayor, I would get into the barrel at once.’ The peasant said: ‘If you +will get in, you will be mayor.’ The shepherd was willing, and got in, +and the peasant shut the top down on him; then he took the shepherd’s +flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson went to the crowd, +and declared that the mass had been said. Then they came and rolled the +barrel towards the water. When the barrel began to roll, the shepherd +cried: ‘I am quite willing to be mayor.’ They believed no otherwise than +that it was the peasant who was saying this, and answered: ‘That is +what we intend, but first you shall look about you a little down below +there,’ and they rolled the barrel down into the water. + +After that the peasants went home, and as they were entering the +village, the small peasant also came quietly in, driving a flock of +sheep and looking quite contented. Then the peasants were astonished, +and said: ‘Peasant, from whence do you come? Have you come out of the +water?’ ‘Yes, truly,’ replied the peasant, ‘I sank deep, deep down, +until at last I got to the bottom; I pushed the bottom out of the +barrel, and crept out, and there were pretty meadows on which a number +of lambs were feeding, and from thence I brought this flock away with +me.’ Said the peasants: ‘Are there any more there?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he, +‘more than I could want.’ Then the peasants made up their minds that +they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece, but the +mayor said: ‘I come first.’ So they went to the water together, and just +then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in the blue sky, which +are called little lambs, and they were reflected in the water, whereupon +the peasants cried: ‘We already see the sheep down below!’ The mayor +pressed forward and said: ‘I will go down first, and look about me, and +if things promise well I’ll call you.’ So he jumped in; splash! went +the water; it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd +plunged in after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and +the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man. + + + + +FREDERICK AND CATHERINE + + +There was once a man called Frederick: he had a wife whose name was +Catherine, and they had not long been married. One day Frederick said. +‘Kate! I am going to work in the fields; when I come back I shall be +hungry so let me have something nice cooked, and a good draught of ale.’ +‘Very well,’ said she, ‘it shall all be ready.’ When dinner-time drew +nigh, Catherine took a nice steak, which was all the meat she had, and +put it on the fire to fry. The steak soon began to look brown, and to +crackle in the pan; and Catherine stood by with a fork and turned it: +then she said to herself, ‘The steak is almost ready, I may as well go +to the cellar for the ale.’ So she left the pan on the fire and took a +large jug and went into the cellar and tapped the ale cask. The beer ran +into the jug and Catherine stood looking on. At last it popped into her +head, ‘The dog is not shut up--he may be running away with the steak; +that’s well thought of.’ So up she ran from the cellar; and sure enough +the rascally cur had got the steak in his mouth, and was making off with +it. + +Away ran Catherine, and away ran the dog across the field: but he ran +faster than she, and stuck close to the steak. ‘It’s all gone, and “what +can’t be cured must be endured”,’ said Catherine. So she turned round; +and as she had run a good way and was tired, she walked home leisurely +to cool herself. + +Now all this time the ale was running too, for Catherine had not turned +the cock; and when the jug was full the liquor ran upon the floor till +the cask was empty. When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had +happened. ‘My stars!’ said she, ‘what shall I do to keep Frederick from +seeing all this slopping about?’ So she thought a while; and at last +remembered that there was a sack of fine meal bought at the last fair, +and that if she sprinkled this over the floor it would suck up the ale +nicely. ‘What a lucky thing,’ said she, ‘that we kept that meal! we have +now a good use for it.’ So away she went for it: but she managed to set +it down just upon the great jug full of beer, and upset it; and thus +all the ale that had been saved was set swimming on the floor also. ‘Ah! +well,’ said she, ‘when one goes another may as well follow.’ Then she +strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her +cleverness, and said, ‘How very neat and clean it looks!’ + +At noon Frederick came home. ‘Now, wife,’ cried he, ‘what have you for +dinner?’ ‘O Frederick!’ answered she, ‘I was cooking you a steak; but +while I went down to draw the ale, the dog ran away with it; and while +I ran after him, the ale ran out; and when I went to dry up the ale +with the sack of meal that we got at the fair, I upset the jug: but the +cellar is now quite dry, and looks so clean!’ ‘Kate, Kate,’ said he, +‘how could you do all this?’ Why did you leave the steak to fry, and the +ale to run, and then spoil all the meal?’ ‘Why, Frederick,’ said she, ‘I +did not know I was doing wrong; you should have told me before.’ + +The husband thought to himself, ‘If my wife manages matters thus, I must +look sharp myself.’ Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he +said to Catherine, ‘What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put +them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you +never go near or meddle with them.’ ‘No, Frederick,’ said she, ‘that +I never will.’ As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with +earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy. +‘Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money: if +you had any use for yellow buttons, I might deal with you.’ ‘Yellow +buttons!’ said they: ‘let us have a look at them.’ ‘Go into the garden +and dig where I tell you, and you will find the yellow buttons: I dare +not go myself.’ So the rogues went: and when they found what these +yellow buttons were, they took them all away, and left her plenty of +plates and dishes. Then she set them all about the house for a show: +and when Frederick came back, he cried out, ‘Kate, what have you been +doing?’ ‘See,’ said she, ‘I have bought all these with your yellow +buttons: but I did not touch them myself; the pedlars went themselves +and dug them up.’ ‘Wife, wife,’ said Frederick, ‘what a pretty piece of +work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money: how came you +to do such a thing?’ ‘Why,’ answered she, ‘I did not know there was any +harm in it; you should have told me.’ + +Catherine stood musing for a while, and at last said to her husband, +‘Hark ye, Frederick, we will soon get the gold back: let us run after +the thieves.’ ‘Well, we will try,’ answered he; ‘but take some butter +and cheese with you, that we may have something to eat by the way.’ +‘Very well,’ said she; and they set out: and as Frederick walked the +fastest, he left his wife some way behind. ‘It does not matter,’ thought +she: ‘when we turn back, I shall be so much nearer home than he.’ + +Presently she came to the top of a hill, down the side of which there +was a road so narrow that the cart wheels always chafed the trees +on each side as they passed. ‘Ah, see now,’ said she, ‘how they have +bruised and wounded those poor trees; they will never get well.’ So she +took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so +that the wheels might not hurt them so much. While she was doing this +kind office one of her cheeses fell out of the basket, and rolled down +the hill. Catherine looked, but could not see where it had gone; so she +said, ‘Well, I suppose the other will go the same way and find you; he +has younger legs than I have.’ Then she rolled the other cheese after +it; and away it went, nobody knows where, down the hill. But she said +she supposed that they knew the road, and would follow her, and she +could not stay there all day waiting for them. + +At last she overtook Frederick, who desired her to give him something to +eat. Then she gave him the dry bread. ‘Where are the butter and cheese?’ +said he. ‘Oh!’ answered she, ‘I used the butter to grease those poor +trees that the wheels chafed so: and one of the cheeses ran away so I +sent the other after it to find it, and I suppose they are both on +the road together somewhere.’ ‘What a goose you are to do such silly +things!’ said the husband. ‘How can you say so?’ said she; ‘I am sure +you never told me not.’ + +They ate the dry bread together; and Frederick said, ‘Kate, I hope you +locked the door safe when you came away.’ ‘No,’ answered she, ‘you did +not tell me.’ ‘Then go home, and do it now before we go any farther,’ +said Frederick, ‘and bring with you something to eat.’ + +Catherine did as he told her, and thought to herself by the way, +‘Frederick wants something to eat; but I don’t think he is very fond of +butter and cheese: I’ll bring him a bag of fine nuts, and the vinegar, +for I have often seen him take some.’ + +When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she +took off the hinges, and said, ‘Frederick told me to lock the door, but +surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.’ So she took +her time by the way; and when she overtook her husband she cried +out, ‘There, Frederick, there is the door itself, you may watch it as +carefully as you please.’ ‘Alas! alas!’ said he, ‘what a clever wife I +have! I sent you to make the house fast, and you take the door away, so +that everybody may go in and out as they please--however, as you have +brought the door, you shall carry it about with you for your pains.’ +‘Very well,’ answered she, ‘I’ll carry the door; but I’ll not carry the +nuts and vinegar bottle also--that would be too much of a load; so if +you please, I’ll fasten them to the door.’ + +Frederick of course made no objection to that plan, and they set off +into the wood to look for the thieves; but they could not find them: and +when it grew dark, they climbed up into a tree to spend the night there. +Scarcely were they up, than who should come by but the very rogues they +were looking for. They were in truth great rascals, and belonged to that +class of people who find things before they are lost; they were tired; +so they sat down and made a fire under the very tree where Frederick and +Catherine were. Frederick slipped down on the other side, and picked up +some stones. Then he climbed up again, and tried to hit the thieves on +the head with them: but they only said, ‘It must be near morning, for +the wind shakes the fir-apples down.’ + +Catherine, who had the door on her shoulder, began to be very tired; +but she thought it was the nuts upon it that were so heavy: so she said +softly, ‘Frederick, I must let the nuts go.’ ‘No,’ answered he, ‘not +now, they will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that: they must go.’ ‘Well, +then, make haste and throw them down, if you will.’ Then away rattled +the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, ‘Bless me, +it is hailing.’ + +A little while after, Catherine thought the door was still very heavy: +so she whispered to Frederick, ‘I must throw the vinegar down.’ ‘Pray +don’t,’ answered he, ‘it will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that,’ said +she, ‘go it must.’ So she poured all the vinegar down; and the thieves +said, ‘What a heavy dew there is!’ + +At last it popped into Catherine’s head that it was the door itself that +was so heavy all the time: so she whispered, ‘Frederick, I must throw +the door down soon.’ But he begged and prayed her not to do so, for he +was sure it would betray them. ‘Here goes, however,’ said she: and down +went the door with such a clatter upon the thieves, that they cried +out ‘Murder!’ and not knowing what was coming, ran away as fast as they +could, and left all the gold. So when Frederick and Catherine came down, +there they found all their money safe and sound. + + + + +SWEETHEART ROLAND + + +There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two +daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was +her own daughter, and one beautiful and good, and this one she hated, +because she was her stepdaughter. The stepdaughter once had a pretty +apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious, and +told her mother that she must and would have that apron. ‘Be quiet, my +child,’ said the old woman, ‘and you shall have it. Your stepsister has +long deserved death; tonight when she is asleep I will come and cut her +head off. Only be careful that you are at the far side of the bed, and +push her well to the front.’ It would have been all over with the poor +girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner, and heard +everything. All day long she dared not go out of doors, and when bedtime +had come, the witch’s daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the +far side, but when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the +front, and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall. In +the night, the old woman came creeping in, she held an axe in her right +hand, and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside, +and then she grasped the axe with both hands, and cut her own child’s +head off. + +When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who +was called Roland, and knocked at his door. When he came out, she said +to him: ‘Listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste; my stepmother +wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child. When daylight comes, +and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.’ ‘But,’ said Roland, +‘I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape +if she pursues us.’ The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the +dead girl’s head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground, one in +front of the bed, one in the kitchen, and one on the stairs. Then she +hurried away with her lover. + +When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter, and +wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come. Then the witch +cried: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here, on the stairs, I am sweeping,’ answered +the first drop of blood. The old woman went out, but saw no one on the +stairs, and cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here in the kitchen, I am +warming myself,’ cried the second drop of blood. She went into the +kitchen, but found no one. Then she cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Ah, +here in the bed, I am sleeping,’ cried the third drop of blood. She went +into the room to the bed. What did she see there? Her own child, +whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood. The witch fell into +a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far +into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her +sweetheart Roland. ‘That shall not help you,’ cried she, ‘even if you +have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.’ She put on her +many-league boots, in which she covered an hour’s walk at every step, +and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when +she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic +wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck +swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore, +threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck; +but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to +go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart +Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole +night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful +flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart +Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up +towards them, and said to the musician: ‘Dear musician, may I pluck that +beautiful flower for myself?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will play to +you while you do it.’ As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was +just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower +was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced +to dance, for it was a magical dance. The faster he played, the more +violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes +from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he +did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground. + +As they were now set free, Roland said: ‘Now I will go to my father and +arrange for the wedding.’ ‘Then in the meantime I will stay here and +wait for you,’ said the girl, ‘and that no one may recognize me, I will +change myself into a red stone landmark.’ Then Roland went away, and the +girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved. +But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another, who so +fascinated him that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl remained there a +long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad, and +changed herself into a flower, and thought: ‘Someone will surely come +this way, and trample me down.’ + +It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw +the flower, and as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him, and +laid it away in his chest. From that time forth, strange things happened +in the shepherd’s house. When he arose in the morning, all the work was +already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the +fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon, +when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served. He +could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being +in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it. He was +certainly pleased with this good attendance, but still at last he was so +afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice. The wise +woman said: ‘There is some enchantment behind it, listen very early some +morning if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no +matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it, and then the magic will +be stopped.’ + +The shepherd did as she bade him, and next morning just as day dawned, +he saw the chest open, and the flower come out. Swiftly he +sprang towards it, and threw a white cloth over it. Instantly the +transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him, +who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this +time she had attended to his house-keeping. She told him her story, +and as she pleased him he asked her if she would marry him, but she +answered: ‘No,’ for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart +Roland, although he had deserted her. Nevertheless, she promised not to +go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd. + +And now the time drew near when Roland’s wedding was to be celebrated, +and then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced +that all the girls were to be present at it, and sing in honour of the +bridal pair. When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad +that she thought her heart would break, and she would not go thither, +but the other girls came and took her. When it came to her turn to sing, +she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left, and then she +could not refuse. But when she began her song, and it reached Roland’s +ears, he sprang up and cried: ‘I know the voice, that is the true +bride, I will have no other!’ Everything he had forgotten, and which had +vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart. Then +the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart Roland, and +grief came to an end and joy began. + + + + +SNOWDROP + + +It was the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling +around, that the queen of a country many thousand miles off sat working +at her window. The frame of the window was made of fine black ebony, and +as she sat looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three +drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully upon the red +drops that sprinkled the white snow, and said, ‘Would that my little +daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as +black as this ebony windowframe!’ And so the little girl really did grow +up; her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and +her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snowdrop. + +But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who became +queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear +to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy +looking-glass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon +herself in it, and say: + + ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ + +And the glass had always answered: + + ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all the land.’ + +But Snowdrop grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years +old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. +Then the glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it +as usual: + + ‘Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see, + But Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee!’ + +When she heard this she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to +one of her servants, and said, ‘Take Snowdrop away into the wide wood, +that I may never see her any more.’ Then the servant led her away; but +his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he +said, ‘I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.’ So he left her by +herself; and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would +tear her in pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his +heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her but to leave her to +her fate, with the chance of someone finding and saving her. + +Then poor Snowdrop wandered along through the wood in great fear; and +the wild beasts roared about her, but none did her any harm. In the +evening she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in to rest, for +her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was spruce and +neat in the cottage: on the table was spread a white cloth, and there +were seven little plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses +with wine in them; and seven knives and forks laid in order; and by +the wall stood seven little beds. As she was very hungry, she picked +a little piece of each loaf and drank a very little wine out of each +glass; and after that she thought she would lie down and rest. So she +tried all the little beds; but one was too long, and another was too +short, till at last the seventh suited her: and there she laid herself +down and went to sleep. + +By and by in came the masters of the cottage. Now they were seven little +dwarfs, that lived among the mountains, and dug and searched for gold. +They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw at once that all was not +right. The first said, ‘Who has been sitting on my stool?’ The second, +‘Who has been eating off my plate?’ The third, ‘Who has been picking my +bread?’ The fourth, ‘Who has been meddling with my spoon?’ The fifth, +‘Who has been handling my fork?’ The sixth, ‘Who has been cutting with +my knife?’ The seventh, ‘Who has been drinking my wine?’ Then the first +looked round and said, ‘Who has been lying on my bed?’ And the rest came +running to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his +bed. But the seventh saw Snowdrop, and called all his brethren to come +and see her; and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought +their lamps to look at her, and said, ‘Good heavens! what a lovely child +she is!’ And they were very glad to see her, and took care not to wake +her; and the seventh dwarf slept an hour with each of the other dwarfs +in turn, till the night was gone. + +In the morning Snowdrop told them all her story; and they pitied her, +and said if she would keep all things in order, and cook and wash and +knit and spin for them, she might stay where she was, and they would +take good care of her. Then they went out all day long to their work, +seeking for gold and silver in the mountains: but Snowdrop was left at +home; and they warned her, and said, ‘The queen will soon find out where +you are, so take care and let no one in.’ + +But the queen, now that she thought Snowdrop was dead, believed that she +must be the handsomest lady in the land; and she went to her glass and +said: + + ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ + +And the glass answered: + + ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: + But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, + Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, + There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she + Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’ + +Then the queen was very much frightened; for she knew that the glass +always spoke the truth, and was sure that the servant had betrayed her. +And she could not bear to think that anyone lived who was more beautiful +than she was; so she dressed herself up as an old pedlar, and went +her way over the hills, to the place where the dwarfs dwelt. Then she +knocked at the door, and cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ Snowdrop looked +out at the window, and said, ‘Good day, good woman! what have you to +sell?’ ‘Good wares, fine wares,’ said she; ‘laces and bobbins of all +colours.’ ‘I will let the old lady in; she seems to be a very good +sort of body,’ thought Snowdrop, as she ran down and unbolted the door. +‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced! Let me +lace them up with one of my nice new laces.’ Snowdrop did not dream of +any mischief; so she stood before the old woman; but she set to work +so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snowdrop’s breath was +stopped, and she fell down as if she were dead. ‘There’s an end to all +thy beauty,’ said the spiteful queen, and went away home. + +In the evening the seven dwarfs came home; and I need not say how +grieved they were to see their faithful Snowdrop stretched out upon the +ground, as if she was quite dead. However, they lifted her up, and when +they found what ailed her, they cut the lace; and in a little time she +began to breathe, and very soon came to life again. Then they said, ‘The +old woman was the queen herself; take care another time, and let no one +in when we are away.’ + +When the queen got home, she went straight to her glass, and spoke to it +as before; but to her great grief it still said: + + ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: + But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, + Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, + There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she + Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’ + +Then the blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see that +Snowdrop still lived; and she dressed herself up again, but in quite +another dress from the one she wore before, and took with her a poisoned +comb. When she reached the dwarfs’ cottage, she knocked at the door, and +cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ But Snowdrop said, ‘I dare not let anyone +in.’ Then the queen said, ‘Only look at my beautiful combs!’ and gave +her the poisoned one. And it looked so pretty, that she took it up and +put it into her hair to try it; but the moment it touched her head, +the poison was so powerful that she fell down senseless. ‘There you may +lie,’ said the queen, and went her way. But by good luck the dwarfs +came in very early that evening; and when they saw Snowdrop lying on +the ground, they thought what had happened, and soon found the poisoned +comb. And when they took it away she got well, and told them all that +had passed; and they warned her once more not to open the door to +anyone. + +Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and shook with rage when she +read the very same answer as before; and she said, ‘Snowdrop shall die, +if it cost me my life.’ So she went by herself into her chamber, and got +ready a poisoned apple: the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but +whoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she dressed herself up as a +peasant’s wife, and travelled over the hills to the dwarfs’ cottage, +and knocked at the door; but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and +said, ‘I dare not let anyone in, for the dwarfs have told me not.’ ‘Do +as you please,’ said the old woman, ‘but at any rate take this pretty +apple; I will give it you.’ ‘No,’ said Snowdrop, ‘I dare not take it.’ +‘You silly girl!’ answered the other, ‘what are you afraid of? Do you +think it is poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the +other.’ Now the apple was so made up that one side was good, though the +other side was poisoned. Then Snowdrop was much tempted to taste, for +the apple looked so very nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she +could wait no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth, +when she fell down dead upon the ground. ‘This time nothing will save +thee,’ said the queen; and she went home to her glass, and at last it +said: + + ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest of all the fair.’ + +And then her wicked heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could +be. + +When evening came, and the dwarfs had gone home, they found Snowdrop +lying on the ground: no breath came from her lips, and they were afraid +that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and +washed her face with wine and water; but all was in vain, for the little +girl seemed quite dead. So they laid her down upon a bier, and all seven +watched and bewailed her three whole days; and then they thought they +would bury her: but her cheeks were still rosy; and her face looked just +as it did while she was alive; so they said, ‘We will never bury her in +the cold ground.’ And they made a coffin of glass, so that they might +still look at her, and wrote upon it in golden letters what her name +was, and that she was a king’s daughter. And the coffin was set among +the hills, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the +birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop; and first of all came +an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side. + +And thus Snowdrop lay for a long, long time, and still only looked as +though she was asleep; for she was even now as white as snow, and as red +as blood, and as black as ebony. At last a prince came and called at the +dwarfs’ house; and he saw Snowdrop, and read what was written in golden +letters. Then he offered the dwarfs money, and prayed and besought them +to let him take her away; but they said, ‘We will not part with her for +all the gold in the world.’ At last, however, they had pity on him, and +gave him the coffin; but the moment he lifted it up to carry it home +with him, the piece of apple fell from between her lips, and Snowdrop +awoke, and said, ‘Where am I?’ And the prince said, ‘Thou art quite safe +with me.’ + +Then he told her all that had happened, and said, ‘I love you far better +than all the world; so come with me to my father’s palace, and you shall +be my wife.’ And Snowdrop consented, and went home with the prince; +and everything was got ready with great pomp and splendour for their +wedding. + +To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop’s old enemy the queen; +and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the +glass and said: + + ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ + +And the glass answered: + + ‘Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween; + But lovelier far is the new-made queen.’ + +When she heard this she started with rage; but her envy and curiosity +were so great, that she could not help setting out to see the bride. And +when she got there, and saw that it was no other than Snowdrop, who, as +she thought, had been dead a long while, she choked with rage, and fell +down and died: but Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily +over that land many, many years; and sometimes they went up into the +mountains, and paid a visit to the little dwarfs, who had been so kind +to Snowdrop in her time of need. + + + + +THE PINK + + +There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no children. +Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to +bestow on her a son or a daughter. Then an angel from heaven came to her +and said: ‘Be at rest, you shall have a son with the power of wishing, +so that whatsoever in the world he wishes for, that shall he have.’ Then +she went to the king, and told him the joyful tidings, and when the time +was come she gave birth to a son, and the king was filled with gladness. + +Every morning she went with the child to the garden where the wild +beasts were kept, and washed herself there in a clear stream. It +happened once when the child was a little older, that it was lying in +her arms and she fell asleep. Then came the old cook, who knew that the +child had the power of wishing, and stole it away, and he took a hen, +and cut it in pieces, and dropped some of its blood on the queen’s apron +and on her dress. Then he carried the child away to a secret place, +where a nurse was obliged to suckle it, and he ran to the king and +accused the queen of having allowed her child to be taken from her by +the wild beasts. When the king saw the blood on her apron, he believed +this, fell into such a passion that he ordered a high tower to be built, +in which neither sun nor moon could be seen and had his wife put into +it, and walled up. Here she was to stay for seven years without meat +or drink, and die of hunger. But God sent two angels from heaven in the +shape of white doves, which flew to her twice a day, and carried her +food until the seven years were over. + +The cook, however, thought to himself: ‘If the child has the power of +wishing, and I am here, he might very easily get me into trouble.’ So +he left the palace and went to the boy, who was already big enough to +speak, and said to him: ‘Wish for a beautiful palace for yourself with +a garden, and all else that pertains to it.’ Scarcely were the words out +of the boy’s mouth, when everything was there that he had wished for. +After a while the cook said to him: ‘It is not well for you to be so +alone, wish for a pretty girl as a companion.’ Then the king’s son +wished for one, and she immediately stood before him, and was more +beautiful than any painter could have painted her. The two played +together, and loved each other with all their hearts, and the old cook +went out hunting like a nobleman. The thought occurred to him, however, +that the king’s son might some day wish to be with his father, and thus +bring him into great peril. So he went out and took the maiden aside, +and said: ‘Tonight when the boy is asleep, go to his bed and plunge this +knife into his heart, and bring me his heart and tongue, and if you do +not do it, you shall lose your life.’ Thereupon he went away, and when +he returned next day she had not done it, and said: ‘Why should I shed +the blood of an innocent boy who has never harmed anyone?’ The cook once +more said: ‘If you do not do it, it shall cost you your own life.’ When +he had gone away, she had a little hind brought to her, and ordered her +to be killed, and took her heart and tongue, and laid them on a plate, +and when she saw the old man coming, she said to the boy: ‘Lie down in +your bed, and draw the clothes over you.’ Then the wicked wretch came in +and said: ‘Where are the boy’s heart and tongue?’ The girl reached the +plate to him, but the king’s son threw off the quilt, and said: ‘You old +sinner, why did you want to kill me? Now will I pronounce thy sentence. +You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar round your neck, +and shall eat burning coals, till the flames burst forth from your +throat.’ And when he had spoken these words, the old man was changed +into a poodle dog, and had a gold collar round his neck, and the cooks +were ordered to bring up some live coals, and these he ate, until the +flames broke forth from his throat. The king’s son remained there a +short while longer, and he thought of his mother, and wondered if she +were still alive. At length he said to the maiden: ‘I will go home to my +own country; if you will go with me, I will provide for you.’ ‘Ah,’ +she replied, ‘the way is so long, and what shall I do in a strange land +where I am unknown?’ As she did not seem quite willing, and as they +could not be parted from each other, he wished that she might be changed +into a beautiful pink, and took her with him. Then he went away to his +own country, and the poodle had to run after him. He went to the tower +in which his mother was confined, and as it was so high, he wished for +a ladder which would reach up to the very top. Then he mounted up and +looked inside, and cried: ‘Beloved mother, Lady Queen, are you still +alive, or are you dead?’ She answered: ‘I have just eaten, and am still +satisfied,’ for she thought the angels were there. Said he: ‘I am your +dear son, whom the wild beasts were said to have torn from your arms; +but I am alive still, and will soon set you free.’ Then he descended +again, and went to his father, and caused himself to be announced as a +strange huntsman, and asked if he could offer him service. The king said +yes, if he was skilful and could get game for him, he should come to +him, but that deer had never taken up their quarters in any part of the +district or country. Then the huntsman promised to procure as much game +for him as he could possibly use at the royal table. So he summoned all +the huntsmen together, and bade them go out into the forest with him. +And he went with them and made them form a great circle, open at one end +where he stationed himself, and began to wish. Two hundred deer and more +came running inside the circle at once, and the huntsmen shot them. +Then they were all placed on sixty country carts, and driven home to the +king, and for once he was able to deck his table with game, after having +had none at all for years. + +Now the king felt great joy at this, and commanded that his entire +household should eat with him next day, and made a great feast. When +they were all assembled together, he said to the huntsman: ‘As you are +so clever, you shall sit by me.’ He replied: ‘Lord King, your majesty +must excuse me, I am a poor huntsman.’ But the king insisted on it, +and said: ‘You shall sit by me,’ until he did it. Whilst he was sitting +there, he thought of his dearest mother, and wished that one of the +king’s principal servants would begin to speak of her, and would ask how +it was faring with the queen in the tower, and if she were alive still, +or had perished. Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began, +and said: ‘Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the queen +living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?’ But the king +replied: ‘She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts; I will +not have her named.’ Then the huntsman arose and said: ‘Gracious lord +father she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away +by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her +arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a +chicken.’ Thereupon he took the dog with the golden collar, and said: +‘That is the wretch!’ and caused live coals to be brought, and these the +dog was compelled to devour before the sight of all, until flames burst +forth from its throat. On this the huntsman asked the king if he would +like to see the dog in his true shape, and wished him back into the form +of the cook, in which he stood immediately, with his white apron, +and his knife by his side. When the king saw him he fell into a passion, +and ordered him to be cast into the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman +spoke further and said: ‘Father, will you see the maiden who brought me +up so tenderly and who was afterwards to murder me, but did not do it, +though her own life depended on it?’ The king replied: ‘Yes, I would +like to see her.’ The son said: ‘Most gracious father, I will show her +to you in the form of a beautiful flower,’ and he thrust his hand into +his pocket and brought forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table, +and it was so beautiful that the king had never seen one to equal it. +Then the son said: ‘Now will I show her to you in her own form,’ and +wished that she might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so +beautiful that no painter could have made her look more so. + +And the king sent two waiting-maids and two attendants into the tower, +to fetch the queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was +led in she ate nothing, and said: ‘The gracious and merciful God who has +supported me in the tower, will soon set me free.’ She lived three days +more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the two white +doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were angels of +heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave. The aged +king ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief consumed the +king’s own heart, and he soon died. His son married the beautiful maiden +whom he had brought with him as a flower in his pocket, and whether they +are still alive or not, is known to God. + + + + +CLEVER ELSIE + + +There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And +when she had grown up her father said: ‘We will get her married.’ ‘Yes,’ +said the mother, ‘if only someone would come who would have her.’ At +length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans; +but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really smart. ‘Oh,’ said +the father, ‘she has plenty of good sense’; and the mother said: ‘Oh, +she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.’ +‘Well,’ said Hans, ‘if she is not really smart, I won’t have her.’ When +they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said: ‘Elsie, go +into the cellar and fetch some beer.’ Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher +from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she +went, so that the time might not appear long. When she was below she +fetched herself a chair, and set it before the barrel so that she had +no need to stoop, and did not hurt her back or do herself any unexpected +injury. Then she placed the can before her, and turned the tap, and +while the beer was running she would not let her eyes be idle, but +looked up at the wall, and after much peering here and there, saw a +pick-axe exactly above her, which the masons had accidentally left +there. + +Then Clever Elsie began to weep and said: ‘If I get Hans, and we have +a child, and he grows big, and we send him into the cellar here to draw +beer, then the pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then she +sat and wept and screamed with all the strength of her body, over the +misfortune which lay before her. Those upstairs waited for the drink, +but Clever Elsie still did not come. Then the woman said to the servant: +‘Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is.’ The maid went and +found her sitting in front of the barrel, screaming loudly. ‘Elsie why +do you weep?’ asked the maid. ‘Ah,’ she answered, ‘have I not reason to +weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to +draw beer here, the pick-axe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill +him.’ Then said the maid: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down +beside her and began loudly to weep over the misfortune. After a while, +as the maid did not come back, and those upstairs were thirsty for the +beer, the man said to the boy: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see +where Elsie and the girl are.’ The boy went down, and there sat Clever +Elsie and the girl both weeping together. Then he asked: ‘Why are you +weeping?’ ‘Ah,’ said Elsie, ‘have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, +and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the +pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then said the boy: ‘What +a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down by her, and likewise began to +howl loudly. Upstairs they waited for the boy, but as he still did not +return, the man said to the woman: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see +where Elsie is!’ The woman went down, and found all three in the midst +of their lamentations, and inquired what was the cause; then Elsie told +her also that her future child was to be killed by the pick-axe, when it +grew big and had to draw beer, and the pick-axe fell down. Then said the +mother likewise: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down and wept +with them. The man upstairs waited a short time, but as his wife did not +come back and his thirst grew ever greater, he said: ‘I must go into the +cellar myself and see where Elsie is.’ But when he got into the cellar, +and they were all sitting together crying, and he heard the reason, and +that Elsie’s child was the cause, and the Elsie might perhaps bring one +into the world some day, and that he might be killed by the pick-axe, if +he should happen to be sitting beneath it, drawing beer just at the very +time when it fell down, he cried: ‘Oh, what a clever Elsie!’ and sat +down, and likewise wept with them. The bridegroom stayed upstairs alone +for a long time; then as no one would come back he thought: ‘They must be +waiting for me below: I too must go there and see what they are about.’ +When he got down, the five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting +quite piteously, each out-doing the other. ‘What misfortune has happened +then?’ asked he. ‘Ah, dear Hans,’ said Elsie, ‘if we marry each other +and have a child, and he is big, and we perhaps send him here to draw +something to drink, then the pick-axe which has been left up there might +dash his brains out if it were to fall down, so have we not reason to +weep?’ ‘Come,’ said Hans, ‘more understanding than that is not needed +for my household, as you are such a clever Elsie, I will have you,’ and +seized her hand, took her upstairs with him, and married her. + +After Hans had had her some time, he said: ‘Wife, I am going out to work +and earn some money for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we +may have some bread.’ ‘Yes, dear Hans, I will do that.’ After Hans had +gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field +with her. When she came to the field she said to herself: ‘What shall I +do; shall I cut first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first.’ Then +she drank her cup of broth and when she was fully satisfied, she once +more said: ‘What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or shall I sleep first? +I will sleep first.’ Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. +Hans had been at home for a long time, but Elsie did not come; then said +he: ‘What a clever Elsie I have; she is so industrious that she does not +even come home to eat.’ But when evening came and she still stayed away, +Hans went out to see what she had cut, but nothing was cut, and she +was lying among the corn asleep. Then Hans hastened home and brought +a fowler’s net with little bells and hung it round about her, and she +still went on sleeping. Then he ran home, shut the house-door, and sat +down in his chair and worked. At length, when it was quite dark, Clever +Elsie awoke and when she got up there was a jingling all round about +her, and the bells rang at each step which she took. Then she was +alarmed, and became uncertain whether she really was Clever Elsie or +not, and said: ‘Is it I, or is it not I?’ But she knew not what answer +to make to this, and stood for a time in doubt; at length she thought: +‘I will go home and ask if it be I, or if it be not I, they will be sure +to know.’ She ran to the door of her own house, but it was shut; then +she knocked at the window and cried: ‘Hans, is Elsie within?’ ‘Yes,’ +answered Hans, ‘she is within.’ Hereupon she was terrified, and said: +‘Ah, heavens! Then it is not I,’ and went to another door; but when the +people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open it, and she +could get in nowhere. Then she ran out of the village, and no one has +seen her since. + + + + +THE MISER IN THE BUSH + + +A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for +him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came +into the man’s head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer; +so he went to his master, and said, ‘I have worked hard for you a long +time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my +trouble.’ The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very +simple-hearted; so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year’s +service a penny. The poor fellow thought it was a great deal of money to +have, and said to himself, ‘Why should I work hard, and live here on bad +fare any longer? I can now travel into the wide world, and make myself +merry.’ With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming +over hill and valley. + +As he jogged along over the fields, singing and dancing, a little dwarf +met him, and asked him what made him so merry. ‘Why, what should make +me down-hearted?’ said he; ‘I am sound in health and rich in purse, what +should I care for? I have saved up my three years’ earnings and have it +all safe in my pocket.’ ‘How much may it come to?’ said the little man. +‘Full threepence,’ replied the countryman. ‘I wish you would give them +to me,’ said the other; ‘I am very poor.’ Then the man pitied him, and +gave him all he had; and the little dwarf said in return, ‘As you have +such a kind honest heart, I will grant you three wishes--one for every +penny; so choose whatever you like.’ Then the countryman rejoiced at +his good luck, and said, ‘I like many things better than money: first, I +will have a bow that will bring down everything I shoot at; secondly, +a fiddle that will set everyone dancing that hears me play upon it; and +thirdly, I should like that everyone should grant what I ask.’ The dwarf +said he should have his three wishes; so he gave him the bow and fiddle, +and went his way. + +Our honest friend journeyed on his way too; and if he was merry before, +he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old +miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush +singing away most joyfully. ‘Oh, what a pretty bird!’ said the miser; ‘I +would give a great deal of money to have such a one.’ ‘If that’s all,’ +said the countryman, ‘I will soon bring it down.’ Then he took up his +bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of the tree. +The miser crept into the bush to find it; but directly he had got into +the middle, his companion took up his fiddle and played away, and the +miser began to dance and spring about, capering higher and higher in +the air. The thorns soon began to tear his clothes till they all hung +in rags about him, and he himself was all scratched and wounded, so that +the blood ran down. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ cried the miser, ‘Master! +master! pray let the fiddle alone. What have I done to deserve this?’ +‘Thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough,’ said the other; ‘thou +art only meeting thy reward’: so he played up another tune. Then the +miser began to beg and promise, and offered money for his liberty; but +he did not come up to the musician’s price for some time, and he danced +him along brisker and brisker, and the miser bid higher and higher, till +at last he offered a round hundred of florins that he had in his purse, +and had just gained by cheating some poor fellow. When the countryman +saw so much money, he said, ‘I will agree to your proposal.’ So he took +the purse, put up his fiddle, and travelled on very pleased with his +bargain. + +Meanwhile the miser crept out of the bush half-naked and in a piteous +plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge, and serve +his late companion some trick. At last he went to the judge, and +complained that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him +into the bargain; and that the fellow who did it carried a bow at his +back and a fiddle hung round his neck. Then the judge sent out his +officers to bring up the accused wherever they should find him; and he +was soon caught and brought up to be tried. + +The miser began to tell his tale, and said he had been robbed of +his money. ‘No, you gave it me for playing a tune to you.’ said the +countryman; but the judge told him that was not likely, and cut the +matter short by ordering him off to the gallows. + +So away he was taken; but as he stood on the steps he said, ‘My Lord +Judge, grant me one last request.’ ‘Anything but thy life,’ replied the +other. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I do not ask my life; only to let me play upon +my fiddle for the last time.’ The miser cried out, ‘Oh, no! no! for +heaven’s sake don’t listen to him! don’t listen to him!’ But the judge +said, ‘It is only this once, he will soon have done.’ The fact was, he +could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift. + +Then the miser said, ‘Bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity’s sake.’ But +the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first +note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion; all began capering, and +no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his +prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first +bar of the tune, all were dancing together--judge, court, and miser, and +all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing was merry +and pleasant enough; but when it had gone on a while, and there seemed +to be no end of playing or dancing, they began to cry out, and beg him +to leave off; but he stopped not a whit the more for their entreaties, +till the judge not only gave him his life, but promised to return him +the hundred florins. + +Then he called to the miser, and said, ‘Tell us now, you vagabond, where +you got that gold, or I shall play on for your amusement only,’ ‘I stole +it,’ said the miser in the presence of all the people; ‘I acknowledge +that I stole it, and that you earned it fairly.’ Then the countryman +stopped his fiddle, and left the miser to take his place at the gallows. + + + + +ASHPUTTEL + + +The wife of a rich man fell sick; and when she felt that her end drew +nigh, she called her only daughter to her bed-side, and said, ‘Always be +a good girl, and I will look down from heaven and watch over you.’ Soon +afterwards she shut her eyes and died, and was buried in the garden; +and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept, and was always +good and kind to all about her. And the snow fell and spread a beautiful +white covering over the grave; but by the time the spring came, and the +sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This +new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her; +they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time +for the poor little girl. ‘What does the good-for-nothing want in the +parlour?’ said they; ‘they who would eat bread should first earn it; +away with the kitchen-maid!’ Then they took away her fine clothes, and +gave her an old grey frock to put on, and laughed at her, and turned her +into the kitchen. + +There she was forced to do hard work; to rise early before daylight, to +bring the water, to make the fire, to cook and to wash. Besides that, +the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways, and laughed at her. In the +evening when she was tired, she had no bed to lie down on, but was made +to lie by the hearth among the ashes; and as this, of course, made her +always dusty and dirty, they called her Ashputtel. + +It happened once that the father was going to the fair, and asked his +wife’s daughters what he should bring them. ‘Fine clothes,’ said the +first; ‘Pearls and diamonds,’ cried the second. ‘Now, child,’ said he +to his own daughter, ‘what will you have?’ ‘The first twig, dear +father, that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come +homewards,’ said she. Then he bought for the first two the fine clothes +and pearls and diamonds they had asked for: and on his way home, as he +rode through a green copse, a hazel twig brushed against him, and almost +pushed off his hat: so he broke it off and brought it away; and when he +got home he gave it to his daughter. Then she took it, and went to +her mother’s grave and planted it there; and cried so much that it was +watered with her tears; and there it grew and became a fine tree. Three +times every day she went to it and cried; and soon a little bird came +and built its nest upon the tree, and talked with her, and watched over +her, and brought her whatever she wished for. + +Now it happened that the king of that land held a feast, which was to +last three days; and out of those who came to it his son was to choose +a bride for himself. Ashputtel’s two sisters were asked to come; so they +called her up, and said, ‘Now, comb our hair, brush our shoes, and tie +our sashes for us, for we are going to dance at the king’s feast.’ +Then she did as she was told; but when all was done she could not help +crying, for she thought to herself, she should so have liked to have +gone with them to the ball; and at last she begged her mother very hard +to let her go. ‘You, Ashputtel!’ said she; ‘you who have nothing to +wear, no clothes at all, and who cannot even dance--you want to go to +the ball? And when she kept on begging, she said at last, to get rid of +her, ‘I will throw this dishful of peas into the ash-heap, and if in +two hours’ time you have picked them all out, you shall go to the feast +too.’ + +Then she threw the peas down among the ashes, but the little maiden ran +out at the back door into the garden, and cried out: + + ‘Hither, hither, through the sky, + Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! + Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, + Hither, hither, haste away! + One and all come help me, quick! + Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’ + +Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next +came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under +heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes. +And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, +pick, pick; and then the others began to pick, pick, pick: and among +them all they soon picked out all the good grain, and put it into a dish +but left the ashes. Long before the end of the hour the work was quite +done, and all flew out again at the windows. + +Then Ashputtel brought the dish to her mother, overjoyed at the thought +that now she should go to the ball. But the mother said, ‘No, no! you +slut, you have no clothes, and cannot dance; you shall not go.’ And when +Ashputtel begged very hard to go, she said, ‘If you can in one hour’s +time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes, you shall go +too.’ And thus she thought she should at least get rid of her. So she +shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. + +But the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house, +and cried out as before: + + ‘Hither, hither, through the sky, + Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! + Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, + Hither, hither, haste away! + One and all come help me, quick! + Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’ + +Then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window; next came two +turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven, +chirping and hopping about. And they flew down into the ashes; and the +little doves put their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and +then the others began pick, pick, pick; and they put all the good grain +into the dishes, and left all the ashes. Before half an hour’s time all +was done, and out they flew again. And then Ashputtel took the dishes to +her mother, rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball. +But her mother said, ‘It is all of no use, you cannot go; you have no +clothes, and cannot dance, and you would only put us to shame’: and off +she went with her two daughters to the ball. + +Now when all were gone, and nobody left at home, Ashputtel went +sorrowfully and sat down under the hazel-tree, and cried out: + + ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!’ + +Then her friend the bird flew out of the tree, and brought a gold and +silver dress for her, and slippers of spangled silk; and she put them +on, and followed her sisters to the feast. But they did not know her, +and thought it must be some strange princess, she looked so fine and +beautiful in her rich clothes; and they never once thought of Ashputtel, +taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt. + +The king’s son soon came up to her, and took her by the hand and danced +with her, and no one else: and he never left her hand; but when anyone +else came to ask her to dance, he said, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’ + +Thus they danced till a late hour of the night; and then she wanted to +go home: and the king’s son said, ‘I shall go and take care of you to +your home’; for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived. But +she slipped away from him, unawares, and ran off towards home; and as +the prince followed her, she jumped up into the pigeon-house and shut +the door. Then he waited till her father came home, and told him that +the unknown maiden, who had been at the feast, had hid herself in the +pigeon-house. But when they had broken open the door they found no one +within; and as they came back into the house, Ashputtel was lying, as +she always did, in her dirty frock by the ashes, and her dim little +lamp was burning in the chimney. For she had run as quickly as she could +through the pigeon-house and on to the hazel-tree, and had there taken +off her beautiful clothes, and put them beneath the tree, that the bird +might carry them away, and had lain down again amid the ashes in her +little grey frock. + +The next day when the feast was again held, and her father, mother, and +sisters were gone, Ashputtel went to the hazel-tree, and said: + + ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!’ + +And the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she +had worn the day before. And when she came in it to the ball, everyone +wondered at her beauty: but the king’s son, who was waiting for her, +took her by the hand, and danced with her; and when anyone asked her to +dance, he said as before, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’ + +When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son followed here +as before, that he might see into what house she went: but she sprang +away from him all at once into the garden behind her father’s house. +In this garden stood a fine large pear-tree full of ripe fruit; and +Ashputtel, not knowing where to hide herself, jumped up into it without +being seen. Then the king’s son lost sight of her, and could not find +out where she was gone, but waited till her father came home, and said +to him, ‘The unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away, and I +think she must have sprung into the pear-tree.’ The father thought to +himself, ‘Can it be Ashputtel?’ So he had an axe brought; and they cut +down the tree, but found no one upon it. And when they came back into +the kitchen, there lay Ashputtel among the ashes; for she had slipped +down on the other side of the tree, and carried her beautiful clothes +back to the bird at the hazel-tree, and then put on her little grey +frock. + +The third day, when her father and mother and sisters were gone, she +went again into the garden, and said: + + ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!’ + +Then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the +former one, and slippers which were all of gold: so that when she came +to the feast no one knew what to say, for wonder at her beauty: and the +king’s son danced with nobody but her; and when anyone else asked her to +dance, he said, ‘This lady is _my_ partner, sir.’ + +When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son would go with +her, and said to himself, ‘I will not lose her this time’; but, however, +she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that she dropped +her left golden slipper upon the stairs. + +The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his father, +and said, ‘I will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper +fits.’ Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it; for they +had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the golden +slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper was, and +wanted to try it on, and the mother stood by. But her great toe could +not go into it, and the shoe was altogether much too small for her. Then +the mother gave her a knife, and said, ‘Never mind, cut it off; when you +are queen you will not care about toes; you will not want to walk.’ So +the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed on the shoe, +and went to the king’s son. Then he took her for his bride, and set her +beside him on his horse, and rode away with her homewards. + +But on their way home they had to pass by the hazel-tree that Ashputtel +had planted; and on the branch sat a little dove singing: + + ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe! + The shoe is too small, and not made for you! + Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, + For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’ + +Then the prince got down and looked at her foot; and he saw, by the +blood that streamed from it, what a trick she had played him. So he +turned his horse round, and brought the false bride back to her home, +and said, ‘This is not the right bride; let the other sister try and put +on the slipper.’ Then she went into the room and got her foot into the +shoe, all but the heel, which was too large. But her mother squeezed it +in till the blood came, and took her to the king’s son: and he set her +as his bride by his side on his horse, and rode away with her. + +But when they came to the hazel-tree the little dove sat there still, +and sang: + + ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe! + The shoe is too small, and not made for you! + Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, + For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’ + +Then he looked down, and saw that the blood streamed so much from the +shoe, that her white stockings were quite red. So he turned his horse +and brought her also back again. ‘This is not the true bride,’ said he +to the father; ‘have you no other daughters?’ ‘No,’ said he; ‘there is +only a little dirty Ashputtel here, the child of my first wife; I am +sure she cannot be the bride.’ The prince told him to send her. But the +mother said, ‘No, no, she is much too dirty; she will not dare to show +herself.’ However, the prince would have her come; and she first washed +her face and hands, and then went in and curtsied to him, and he reached +her the golden slipper. Then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot, +and put on the golden slipper; and it fitted her as if it had been made +for her. And when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her, and +said, ‘This is the right bride.’ But the mother and both the sisters +were frightened, and turned pale with anger as he took Ashputtel on his +horse, and rode away with her. And when they came to the hazel-tree, the +white dove sang: + + ‘Home! home! look at the shoe! + Princess! the shoe was made for you! + Prince! prince! take home thy bride, + For she is the true one that sits by thy side!’ + +And when the dove had done its song, it came flying, and perched upon +her right shoulder, and so went home with her. + + + + +THE WHITE SNAKE + + +A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through +all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of +the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a +strange custom; every day after dinner, when the table was cleared, +and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more +dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what +was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the +cover to eat of it until he was quite alone. + +This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who took +away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help +carrying the dish into his room. When he had carefully locked the door, +he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake lying on the dish. But +when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it, +so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth. No sooner had it +touched his tongue than he heard a strange whispering of little voices +outside his window. He went and listened, and then noticed that it was +the sparrows who were chattering together, and telling one another of +all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating +the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals. + +Now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most +beautiful ring, and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty +servant, who was allowed to go everywhere. The king ordered the man to +be brought before him, and threatened with angry words that unless he +could before the morrow point out the thief, he himself should be looked +upon as guilty and executed. In vain he declared his innocence; he was +dismissed with no better answer. + +In his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought +how to help himself out of his trouble. Now some ducks were sitting +together quietly by a brook and taking their rest; and, whilst they +were making their feathers smooth with their bills, they were having a +confidential conversation together. The servant stood by and listened. +They were telling one another of all the places where they had been +waddling about all the morning, and what good food they had found; and +one said in a pitiful tone: ‘Something lies heavy on my stomach; as +I was eating in haste I swallowed a ring which lay under the queen’s +window.’ The servant at once seized her by the neck, carried her to the +kitchen, and said to the cook: ‘Here is a fine duck; pray, kill her.’ +‘Yes,’ said the cook, and weighed her in his hand; ‘she has spared +no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long +enough.’ So he cut off her head, and as she was being dressed for the +spit, the queen’s ring was found inside her. + +The servant could now easily prove his innocence; and the king, to make +amends for the wrong, allowed him to ask a favour, and promised him +the best place in the court that he could wish for. The servant refused +everything, and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling, as +he had a mind to see the world and go about a little. When his request +was granted he set out on his way, and one day came to a pond, where he +saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water. Now, though +it is said that fishes are dumb, he heard them lamenting that they must +perish so miserably, and, as he had a kind heart, he got off his +horse and put the three prisoners back into the water. They leapt with +delight, put out their heads, and cried to him: ‘We will remember you +and repay you for saving us!’ + +He rode on, and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in +the sand at his feet. He listened, and heard an ant-king complain: ‘Why +cannot folks, with their clumsy beasts, keep off our bodies? That stupid +horse, with his heavy hoofs, has been treading down my people without +mercy!’ So he turned on to a side path and the ant-king cried out to +him: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves another!’ + +The path led him into a wood, and there he saw two old ravens standing +by their nest, and throwing out their young ones. ‘Out with you, you +idle, good-for-nothing creatures!’ cried they; ‘we cannot find food for +you any longer; you are big enough, and can provide for yourselves.’ +But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and +crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are! We must shift for ourselves, +and yet we cannot fly! What can we do, but lie here and starve?’ So the +good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword, and gave +it to them for food. Then they came hopping up to it, satisfied their +hunger, and cried: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves +another!’ + +And now he had to use his own legs, and when he had walked a long +way, he came to a large city. There was a great noise and crowd in +the streets, and a man rode up on horseback, crying aloud: ‘The king’s +daughter wants a husband; but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard +task, and if he does not succeed he will forfeit his life.’ Many had +already made the attempt, but in vain; nevertheless when the youth +saw the king’s daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty that he +forgot all danger, went before the king, and declared himself a suitor. + +So he was led out to the sea, and a gold ring was thrown into it, before +his eyes; then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the +bottom of the sea, and added: ‘If you come up again without it you will +be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves.’ All the +people grieved for the handsome youth; then they went away, leaving him +alone by the sea. + +He stood on the shore and considered what he should do, when suddenly +he saw three fishes come swimming towards him, and they were the very +fishes whose lives he had saved. The one in the middle held a mussel in +its mouth, which it laid on the shore at the youth’s feet, and when he +had taken it up and opened it, there lay the gold ring in the shell. +Full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him +the promised reward. + +But when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in +birth, she scorned him, and required him first to perform another +task. She went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten +sacksful of millet-seed on the grass; then she said: ‘Tomorrow morning +before sunrise these must be picked up, and not a single grain be +wanting.’ + +The youth sat down in the garden and considered how it might be possible +to perform this task, but he could think of nothing, and there he sat +sorrowfully awaiting the break of day, when he should be led to death. +But as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw +all the ten sacks standing side by side, quite full, and not a single +grain was missing. The ant-king had come in the night with thousands +and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had by great industry +picked up all the millet-seed and gathered them into the sacks. + +Presently the king’s daughter herself came down into the garden, and was +amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him. +But she could not yet conquer her proud heart, and said: ‘Although he +has performed both the tasks, he shall not be my husband until he had +brought me an apple from the Tree of Life.’ The youth did not know where +the Tree of Life stood, but he set out, and would have gone on for ever, +as long as his legs would carry him, though he had no hope of finding +it. After he had wandered through three kingdoms, he came one evening to +a wood, and lay down under a tree to sleep. But he heard a rustling in +the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand. At the same time +three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and +said: ‘We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving; when +we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple, +we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life +stands, and have brought you the apple.’ The youth, full of joy, set out +homewards, and took the Golden Apple to the king’s beautiful daughter, +who had now no more excuses left to make. They cut the Apple of Life in +two and ate it together; and then her heart became full of love for him, +and they lived in undisturbed happiness to a great age. + + + + +THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS + + +There was once upon a time an old goat who had seven little kids, and +loved them with all the love of a mother for her children. One day she +wanted to go into the forest and fetch some food. So she called all +seven to her and said: ‘Dear children, I have to go into the forest, +be on your guard against the wolf; if he comes in, he will devour you +all--skin, hair, and everything. The wretch often disguises himself, but +you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet.’ The +kids said: ‘Dear mother, we will take good care of ourselves; you may go +away without any anxiety.’ Then the old one bleated, and went on her way +with an easy mind. + +It was not long before someone knocked at the house-door and called: +‘Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought +something back with her for each of you.’ But the little kids knew that +it was the wolf, by the rough voice. ‘We will not open the door,’ cried +they, ‘you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but +your voice is rough; you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf went away to a +shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made +his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the +house, and called: ‘Open the door, dear children, your mother is here +and has brought something back with her for each of you.’ But the wolf +had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them +and cried: ‘We will not open the door, our mother has not black feet +like you: you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf ran to a baker and said: ‘I +have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.’ And when the baker +had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said: ‘Strew some +white meal over my feet for me.’ The miller thought to himself: ‘The +wolf wants to deceive someone,’ and refused; but the wolf said: ‘If you +will not do it, I will devour you.’ Then the miller was afraid, and made +his paws white for him. Truly, this is the way of mankind. + +So now the wretch went for the third time to the house-door, knocked at +it and said: ‘Open the door for me, children, your dear little mother +has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the +forest with her.’ The little kids cried: ‘First show us your paws that +we may know if you are our dear little mother.’ Then he put his paws +in through the window and when the kids saw that they were white, they +believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should +come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves. +One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the +stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the +sixth under the washing-bowl, and the seventh into the clock-case. But +the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony; one after the +other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest, who was in +the clock-case, was the only one he did not find. When the wolf had +satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a +tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon afterwards +the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! what a sight she saw +there! The house-door stood wide open. The table, chairs, and benches +were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts +and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her children, but they +were nowhere to be found. She called them one after another by name, but +no one answered. At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice +cried: ‘Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.’ She took the kid out, and +it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others. Then +you may imagine how she wept over her poor children. + +At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her. +When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree and snored +so loud that the branches shook. She looked at him on every side and +saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged belly. ‘Ah, +heavens,’ she said, ‘is it possible that my poor children whom he has +swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?’ Then the kid had to +run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut +open the monster’s stomach, and hardly had she made one cut, than one +little kid thrust its head out, and when she had cut farther, all six +sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered +no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them +down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother, +and jumped like a tailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said: ‘Now +go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast’s +stomach with them while he is still asleep.’ Then the seven kids dragged +the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into this +stomach as they could get in; and the mother sewed him up again in the +greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once +stirred. + +When the wolf at length had had his fill of sleep, he got on his legs, +and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to +go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the +stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried +he: + + ‘What rumbles and tumbles + Against my poor bones? + I thought ‘twas six kids, + But it feels like big stones.’ + +And when he got to the well and stooped over the water to drink, the +heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven +kids saw that, they came running to the spot and cried aloud: ‘The wolf +is dead! The wolf is dead!’ and danced for joy round about the well with +their mother. + + + + +THE QUEEN BEE + + +Two kings’ sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their +fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so +that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a +little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers: but when +he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so +young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who +were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set +out on their journey together, and came at last to an ant-hill. The two +elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor +ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the +little dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not +suffer you to trouble them.’ + +So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming +about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the +dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill +them.’ Next they came to a bees’-nest in a hollow tree, and there was +so much honey that it ran down the trunk; and the two brothers wanted to +light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey. +But the dwarf held them back, and said, ‘Let the pretty insects enjoy +themselves, I cannot let you burn them.’ + +At length the three brothers came to a castle: and as they passed by the +stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and +no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they +came to a door on which were three locks: but in the middle of the door +was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw +a little grey old man sitting at a table; and they called to him once or +twice, but he did not hear: however, they called a third time, and then +he rose and came out to them. + +He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful +table covered with all sorts of good things: and when they had eaten and +drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber. + +The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table, +where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by +which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: ‘In the +wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king’s +daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun, +he who seeks them will be turned into marble.’ + +The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day: +but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he was +turned into stone as the tablet had foretold. + +The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded no +better than the first; for he could only find the second hundred of the +pearls; and therefore he too was turned into stone. + +At last came the little dwarf’s turn; and he looked in the moss; but it +was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!--so he sat +down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants +(whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants; and +it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a +heap. + +The second tablet said: ‘The key of the princess’s bed-chamber must be +fished up out of the lake.’ And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, +he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they +dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom. + +The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and +the best of the king’s three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and +all exactly alike: but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of +sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey; +so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey. + +Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf +from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three; but at last she sat +upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey: and so the dwarf knew +which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been +turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf +married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after +her father’s death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters. + + + + +THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER + + +There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: +but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he +had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of +shoes. + +Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning +to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and +his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, +left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after +he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work; when, to his +great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The +good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. +He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the +whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. + +The same day a customer came in, and the shoes suited him so well that +he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them; and the poor +shoemaker, with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more. +In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early, that he might +get up and begin betimes next day; but he was saved all the trouble, for +when he got up in the morning the work was done ready to his hand. Soon +in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought +leather enough for four pair more. He cut out the work again overnight +and found it done in the morning, as before; and so it went on for some +time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and +the good man soon became thriving and well off again. + +One evening, about Christmas-time, as he and his wife were sitting over +the fire chatting together, he said to her, ‘I should like to sit up and +watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for +me.’ The wife liked the thought; so they left a light burning, and hid +themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up +there, and watched what would happen. + +As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and +they sat themselves upon the shoemaker’s bench, took up all the work +that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching +and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all +wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the +job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. +This was long before daybreak; and then they bustled away as quick as +lightning. + +The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. ‘These little wights have +made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good +turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do; and +indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to +keep off the cold. I’ll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, +and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; and +do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.’ + +The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when +all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the +work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to +watch what the little elves would do. + +About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the +room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they +saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed +mightily delighted. + +Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and +capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced +out at the door, and away over the green. + +The good couple saw them no more; but everything went well with them +from that time forward, as long as they lived. + + + + +THE JUNIPER-TREE + + +Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich +man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but +sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire +to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they +remained childless. + +In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree. +One winter’s day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and +as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the +snow. ‘Ah,’ sighed the woman heavily, ‘if I had but a child, as red as +blood and as white as snow,’ and as she spoke the words, her heart grew +light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and +she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed, +and the snow had all disappeared; then another month went by, and all +the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the +trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly +intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife +stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her +heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that +she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and +she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the +berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little +while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. ‘If I +die, bury me under the juniper-tree.’ Then she felt comforted and happy +again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and +when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy +was so great that she died. + +Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for +her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he +still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later +on he married again. + +He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife +was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother +loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked +at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in +the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could +get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession +of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She +drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the +poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left +school to the time he went back. + +One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the +store-room, and said, ‘Mother, give me an apple.’ ‘Yes, my child,’ said +the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest +had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock. + +‘Mother,’ said the little daughter again, ‘may not brother have one +too?’ The mother was angry at this, but she answered, ‘Yes, when he +comes out of school.’ + +Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed +as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out +of her little daughter’s hand, and said, ‘You shall not have one before +your brother.’ She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The +little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say +kindly to him, ‘My son, will you have an apple?’ but she gave him a +wicked look. ‘Mother,’ said the boy, ‘how dreadful you look! Yes, give +me an apple.’ The thought came to her that she would kill him. ‘Come +with me,’ she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest; ‘take one +out for yourself.’ And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged +her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy’s head. +Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done. +‘If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,’ she thought. So +she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of +her top drawer; then she set the boy’s head again on his shoulders, and +bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed +him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand. + +Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring +a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, ‘Mother, brother is +sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale; +and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that +frightened me.’ + +‘Go to him again,’ said her mother, ‘and if he does not answer, give him +a box on the ear.’ So little Marleen went, and said, ‘Brother, give me +that apple,’ but he did not say a word; then she gave him a box on the +ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran +crying and screaming to her mother. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I have knocked off +brother’s head,’ and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her. + +‘What have you done!’ said her mother, ‘but no one must know about it, +so you must keep silence; what is done can’t be undone; we will make +him into puddings.’ And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him +into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on, +and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no +need of salt. + +Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner; he asked, +‘Where is my son?’ The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of +black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing. + +The father again asked, ‘Where is my son?’ + +‘Oh,’ answered the wife, ‘he is gone into the country to his mother’s +great uncle; he is going to stay there some time.’ + +‘What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!’ + +‘Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six +weeks; he is well looked after there.’ + +‘I feel very unhappy about it,’ said the husband, ‘in case it should not +be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.’ + +With this he went on with his dinner, and said, ‘Little Marleen, why do +you weep? Brother will soon be back.’ Then he asked his wife for more +pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table. + +Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of +her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the +table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but +weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the juniper-tree, and +she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, +and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the +branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and +then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for +joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there +was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful +bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it +could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the +silk handkerchief and the bones were gone. + +Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were +still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to +the table and ate. + +The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to +sing: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the +song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got +up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his +slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on +one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still +held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing +up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street. + +‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.’ + +‘Nay,’ said the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold +chain, and I will sing it you again.’ + +‘Here is the chain, take it,’ said the goldsmith. ‘Only sing me that +again.’ + +The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then +he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker’s house and +sang: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his +shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his +hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun. + +‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing!’ Then he called through the +door to his wife: ‘Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it +and hear how beautifully it sings.’ Then he called his daughter and the +children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the +street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red +and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two +bright stars in its head. + +‘Bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘sing me that song again.’ + +‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; you must +give me something.’ + +‘Wife,’ said the man, ‘go into the garret; on the upper shelf you will +see a pair of red shoes; bring them to me.’ The wife went in and fetched +the shoes. + +‘There, bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘now sing me that song again.’ + +The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he +went back to the roof and sang: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw +and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the +mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click clack.’ Inside the mill were +twenty of the miller’s men hewing a stone, and as they went ‘Hick hack, +hick hack, hick hack,’ the mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click +clack.’ + +The bird settled on a lime-tree in front of the mill and sang: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + +then one of the men left off, + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +two more men left off and listened, + + My sister loved me best of all; + +then four more left off, + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + +now there were only eight at work, + + Underneath + +And now only five, + + the juniper-tree. + +And now only one, + + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +then he looked up and the last one had left off work. + +‘Bird,’ he said, ‘what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it +too; sing it again.’ + +‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; give me that +millstone, and I will sing it again.’ + +‘If it belonged to me alone,’ said the man, ‘you should have it.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said the others: ‘if he will sing again, he can have it.’ + +The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the +stone with a beam; then the bird put his head through the hole and took +the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the +tree and sang-- + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the +chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round +his neck, he flew right away to his father’s house. + +The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner. + +‘How lighthearted I feel,’ said the father, ‘so pleased and cheerful.’ + +‘And I,’ said the mother, ‘I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm +were coming.’ + +But little Marleen sat and wept and wept. + +Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof. + +‘I do feel so happy,’ said the father, ‘and how beautifully the sun +shines; I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the wife, ‘and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that +my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,’ and +she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the +corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears. + +The bird now flew to the juniper-tree and began singing: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + +the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear +nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a +violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning: + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +‘Look, mother,’ said the man, ‘at the beautiful bird that is singing so +magnificently; and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious +scent of spice in the air!’ + + My sister loved me best of all; + +then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed. + +‘I must go outside and see the bird nearer,’ said the man. + +‘Ah, do not go!’ cried the wife. ‘I feel as if the whole house were in +flames!’ + +But the man went out and looked at the bird. + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the +man’s neck, so that it fitted him exactly. + +He went inside, and said, ‘See, what a splendid bird that is; he has +given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.’ + +But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor, +and her cap fell from her head. + +Then the bird began again: + + ‘My mother killed her little son; + +‘Ah me!’ cried the wife, ‘if I were but a thousand feet beneath the +earth, that I might not hear that song.’ + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +then the woman fell down again as if dead. + + My sister loved me best of all; + +‘Well,’ said little Marleen, ‘I will go out too and see if the bird will +give me anything.’ + +So she went out. + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + +and he threw down the shoes to her, + + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ + +And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted; she put on the shoes and +danced and jumped about in them. ‘I was so miserable,’ she said, ‘when I +came out, but that has all passed away; that is indeed a splendid bird, +and he has given me a pair of red shoes.’ + +The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames +of fire. ‘Then I will go out too,’ she said, ‘and see if it will lighten +my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.’ + +But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone +down on her head, and she was crushed to death. + +The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only +saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had +passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and +little Marleen by the hand; then they all three rejoiced, and went +inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate. + + + + +THE TURNIP + + +There were two brothers who were both soldiers; the one was rich and +the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself; so, +pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well, +and sowed turnips. + +When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest; and +it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease +growing; so that it might have been called the prince of turnips for +there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it +was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and +the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it +would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, ‘What +shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another; +and for eating, the little turnips are better than this; the best thing +perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.’ + +Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it +to the king. ‘What a wonderful thing!’ said the king; ‘I have seen many +strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you +get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child +of fortune.’ ‘Ah, no!’ answered the gardener, ‘I am no child of fortune; +I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon; so I +laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a +brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world +knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me.’ + +The king then took pity on him, and said, ‘You shall be poor no +longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your +brother.’ Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so +rich that his brother’s fortune could not at all be compared with his. + +When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the +gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he +could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he +determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a +rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must +have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had received so +much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth? + +The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to +give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so +the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. +When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite; +and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to +kill his brother. + +So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to +lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, ‘Dear brother, I have +found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between +us.’ The other had no suspicions of his roguery: so they went out +together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out +upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree. + +But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a +horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their +prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a +cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime +he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out +his head. + +When the horseman came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, +who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as +the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, ‘Good +morning! good morning to thee, my friend!’ The student looked about +everywhere; and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came +from, cried out, ‘Who calls me?’ + +Then the man in the tree answered, ‘Lift up thine eyes, for behold here +I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great +and wondrous things. Compared to this seat, all the learning of the +schools is as empty air. A little longer, and I shall know all that man +can know, and shall come forth wiser than the wisest of mankind. Here +I discern the signs and motions of the heavens and the stars; the laws +that control the winds; the number of the sands on the seashore; the +healing of the sick; the virtues of all simples, of birds, and of +precious stones. Wert thou but once here, my friend, though wouldst feel +and own the power of knowledge. + +The student listened to all this and wondered much; at last he said, +‘Blessed be the day and hour when I found you; cannot you contrive to +let me into the sack for a little while?’ Then the other answered, as if +very unwillingly, ‘A little space I may allow thee to sit here, if thou +wilt reward me well and entreat me kindly; but thou must tarry yet an +hour below, till I have learnt some little matters that are yet unknown +to me.’ + +So the student sat himself down and waited a while; but the time hung +heavy upon him, and he begged earnestly that he might ascend forthwith, +for his thirst for knowledge was great. Then the other pretended to give +way, and said, ‘Thou must let the sack of wisdom descend, by untying +yonder cord, and then thou shalt enter.’ So the student let him down, +opened the sack, and set him free. ‘Now then,’ cried he, ‘let me ascend +quickly.’ As he began to put himself into the sack heels first, ‘Wait a +while,’ said the gardener, ‘that is not the way.’ Then he pushed him +in head first, tied up the sack, and soon swung up the searcher after +wisdom dangling in the air. ‘How is it with thee, friend?’ said he, +‘dost thou not feel that wisdom comes unto thee? Rest there in peace, +till thou art a wiser man than thou wert.’ + +So saying, he trotted off on the student’s nag, and left the poor fellow +to gather wisdom till somebody should come and let him down. + + + + +CLEVER HANS + + +The mother of Hans said: ‘Whither away, Hans?’ Hans answered: ‘To +Gretel.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ +‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, +Hans. What do you bring that is good?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want to have +something given me.’ Gretel presents Hans with a needle, Hans says: +‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ + +Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay-cart, and follows the cart +home. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ +‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing; had something +given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a needle.’ ‘Where is the +needle, Hans?’ ‘Stuck in the hay-cart.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans. You +should have stuck the needle in your sleeve.’ ‘Never mind, I’ll do +better next time.’ + +‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, +I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to +Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is +good?’ ‘I bring nothing. I want to have something given to me.’ Gretel +presents Hans with a knife. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans +takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home. ‘Good evening, +mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ What +did you take her?’ ‘Took her nothing, she gave me something.’ ‘What did +Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a knife.’ ‘Where is the knife, Hans?’ ‘Stuck +in my sleeve.’ ‘That’s ill done, Hans, you should have put the knife in +your pocket.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ + +‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, +I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to +Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you +bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents +Hans with a young goat. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans takes +the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he gets home it +is suffocated. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have +you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing, she +gave me something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me a goat.’ +‘Where is the goat, Hans?’ ‘Put it in my pocket.’ ‘That was ill done, +Hans, you should have put a rope round the goat’s neck.’ ‘Never mind, +will do better next time.’ + +‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, +I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to +Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you +bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents +Hans with a piece of bacon. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ + +Hans takes the bacon, ties it to a rope, and drags it away behind him. +The dogs come and devour the bacon. When he gets home, he has the rope +in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it. ‘Good +evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With +Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took her nothing, she gave me +something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a bit of bacon.’ ‘Where +is the bacon, Hans?’ ‘I tied it to a rope, brought it home, dogs took +it.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans, you should have carried the bacon on your +head.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ + +‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll +behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel. +‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans, What good thing do you bring?’ ‘I +bring nothing, but would have something given.’ Gretel presents Hans +with a calf. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ + +Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face. +‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With +Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took nothing, but had something +given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘A calf.’ ‘Where have you the +calf, Hans?’ ‘I set it on my head and it kicked my face.’ ‘That was +ill done, Hans, you should have led the calf, and put it in the stall.’ +‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ + +‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll +behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ + +Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good +thing do you bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, but would have something given.’ +Gretel says to Hans: ‘I will go with you.’ + +Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the rack, and binds +her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good +evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take +her?’ ‘I took her nothing.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me +nothing, she came with me.’ ‘Where have you left Gretel?’ ‘I led her by +the rope, tied her to the rack, and scattered some grass for her.’ ‘That +was ill done, Hans, you should have cast friendly eyes on her.’ ‘Never +mind, will do better.’ + +Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves’ and sheep’s eyes, +and threw them in Gretel’s face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself +loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans. + + + + +THE THREE LANGUAGES + + +An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he +was stupid, and could learn nothing. Then said the father: ‘Hark you, +my son, try as I will I can get nothing into your head. You must go from +hence, I will give you into the care of a celebrated master, who shall +see what he can do with you.’ The youth was sent into a strange town, +and remained a whole year with the master. At the end of this time, +he came home again, and his father asked: ‘Now, my son, what have you +learnt?’ ‘Father, I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark.’ ‘Lord +have mercy on us!’ cried the father; ‘is that all you have learnt? I +will send you into another town, to another master.’ The youth was taken +thither, and stayed a year with this master likewise. When he came back +the father again asked: ‘My son, what have you learnt?’ He answered: +‘Father, I have learnt what the birds say.’ Then the father fell into a +rage and said: ‘Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and +learnt nothing; are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes? I will +send you to a third master, but if you learn nothing this time also, I +will no longer be your father.’ The youth remained a whole year with the +third master also, and when he came home again, and his father inquired: +‘My son, what have you learnt?’ he answered: ‘Dear father, I have this +year learnt what the frogs croak.’ Then the father fell into the most +furious anger, sprang up, called his people thither, and said: ‘This man +is no longer my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him +out into the forest, and kill him.’ They took him forth, but when they +should have killed him, they could not do it for pity, and let him go, +and they cut the eyes and tongue out of a deer that they might carry +them to the old man as a token. + +The youth wandered on, and after some time came to a fortress where he +begged for a night’s lodging. ‘Yes,’ said the lord of the castle, ‘if +you will pass the night down there in the old tower, go thither; but I +warn you, it is at the peril of your life, for it is full of wild dogs, +which bark and howl without stopping, and at certain hours a man has to +be given to them, whom they at once devour.’ The whole district was in +sorrow and dismay because of them, and yet no one could do anything to +stop this. The youth, however, was without fear, and said: ‘Just let me +go down to the barking dogs, and give me something that I can throw to +them; they will do nothing to harm me.’ As he himself would have it so, +they gave him some food for the wild animals, and led him down to the +tower. When he went inside, the dogs did not bark at him, but wagged +their tails quite amicably around him, ate what he set before them, and +did not hurt one hair of his head. Next morning, to the astonishment of +everyone, he came out again safe and unharmed, and said to the lord of +the castle: ‘The dogs have revealed to me, in their own language, why +they dwell there, and bring evil on the land. They are bewitched, and +are obliged to watch over a great treasure which is below in the tower, +and they can have no rest until it is taken away, and I have likewise +learnt, from their discourse, how that is to be done.’ Then all who +heard this rejoiced, and the lord of the castle said he would adopt him +as a son if he accomplished it successfully. He went down again, and +as he knew what he had to do, he did it thoroughly, and brought a chest +full of gold out with him. The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth +heard no more; they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the +trouble. + +After some time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On +the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting +croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they +were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in +Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among +the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor. They at +length agreed that the person should be chosen as pope who should be +distinguished by some divine and miraculous token. And just as that was +decided on, the young count entered into the church, and suddenly two +snow-white doves flew on his shoulders and remained sitting there. The +ecclesiastics recognized therein the token from above, and asked him on +the spot if he would be pope. He was undecided, and knew not if he were +worthy of this, but the doves counselled him to do it, and at length he +said yes. Then was he anointed and consecrated, and thus was fulfilled +what he had heard from the frogs on his way, which had so affected him, +that he was to be his Holiness the Pope. Then he had to sing a mass, and +did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his +shoulders, and said it all in his ear. + + + + +THE FOX AND THE CAT + + +It happened that the cat met the fox in a forest, and as she thought to +herself: ‘He is clever and full of experience, and much esteemed in the +world,’ she spoke to him in a friendly way. ‘Good day, dear Mr Fox, +how are you? How is all with you? How are you getting on in these hard +times?’ The fox, full of all kinds of arrogance, looked at the cat from +head to foot, and for a long time did not know whether he would give +any answer or not. At last he said: ‘Oh, you wretched beard-cleaner, you +piebald fool, you hungry mouse-hunter, what can you be thinking of? Have +you the cheek to ask how I am getting on? What have you learnt? How +many arts do you understand?’ ‘I understand but one,’ replied the +cat, modestly. ‘What art is that?’ asked the fox. ‘When the hounds are +following me, I can spring into a tree and save myself.’ ‘Is that all?’ +said the fox. ‘I am master of a hundred arts, and have into the bargain +a sackful of cunning. You make me sorry for you; come with me, I will +teach you how people get away from the hounds.’ Just then came a hunter +with four dogs. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree, and sat down at the top +of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. ‘Open your +sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had +already seized him, and were holding him fast. ‘Ah, Mr Fox,’ cried the +cat. ‘You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been +able to climb like me, you would not have lost your life.’ + + + + +THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS + + +‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to +give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin +by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.’ So the +four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little +bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went +all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came +to four crossways, each leading to a different country. Then the eldest +said, ‘Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back +to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for +himself.’ + +So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man +met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. ‘I am +going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning +some art or trade,’ answered he. ‘Then,’ said the man, ‘go with me, and +I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.’ ‘No,’ +said the other, ‘that is not an honest calling, and what can one look +to earn by it in the end but the gallows?’ ‘Oh!’ said the man, ‘you need +not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be +fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care +anything about, and where no one can find you out.’ So the young man +agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that +nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon. + +The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was +setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. ‘I do not +know yet,’ said he. ‘Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a +noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand +the stars.’ The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful +star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave +his master, he gave him a glass, and said, ‘With this you can see all +that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from +you.’ + +The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him +so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the +craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and +said, ‘Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.’ + +The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to +do. ‘Would not you like,’ said he, ‘to be a tailor?’ ‘Oh, no!’ said +the young man; ‘sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working +backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.’ +‘Oh!’ answered the man, ‘that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, +and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.’ Not knowing +what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the +beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, +‘You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as +steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.’ + +After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four +brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other, +set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had +happened to them, and how each had learned some craft. + +Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high +tree, the father said, ‘I should like to try what each of you can do in +this way.’ So he looked up, and said to the second son, ‘At the top of +this tree there is a chaffinch’s nest; tell me how many eggs there are +in it.’ The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, ‘Five.’ +‘Now,’ said the father to the eldest son, ‘take away the eggs without +letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know +anything of what you are doing.’ So the cunning thief climbed up the +tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird; +and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its +ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the +table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, ‘Cut all +the eggs in two pieces at one shot.’ The huntsman took up his bow, and +at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished. + +‘Now comes your turn,’ said he to the young tailor; ‘sew the eggs and +the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall +have done them no harm.’ Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the +eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take +them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing +it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them: and in a few days they +crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where +the tailor had sewn them together. + +‘Well done, sons!’ said the old man; ‘you have made good use of your +time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not +know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for +you to turn your skill to some account!’ + +Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the +king’s daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king +mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever +brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four +brothers said to each other, ‘Here is a chance for us; let us try +what we can do.’ And they agreed to see whether they could not set the +princess free. ‘I will soon find out where she is, however,’ said the +star-gazer, as he looked through his glass; and he soon cried out, ‘I +see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the +dragon close by, guarding her.’ Then he went to the king, and asked for +a ship for himself and his brothers; and they sailed together over the +sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess +sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was +lying asleep, with his head upon her lap. ‘I dare not shoot at him,’ +said the huntsman, ‘for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.’ +‘Then I will try my skill,’ said the thief, and went and stole her away +from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know +it, but went on snoring. + +Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the +ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air; for +he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and +wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took +up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down +dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast that in +his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea +upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large +stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these, +and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked +them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then +reached the ship and got home safe. + +When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great +rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, ‘One of you shall marry +her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.’ Then +there arose a quarrel between them; and the star-gazer said, ‘If I had +not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use; +therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘Your seeing her would have been of +no use,’ said the thief, ‘if I had not taken her away from the dragon; +therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘No, she is mine,’ said the huntsman; +‘for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you +and the princess into pieces.’ ‘And if I had not sewn the boat together +again,’ said the tailor, ‘you would all have been drowned, therefore she +is mine.’ Then the king put in a word, and said, ‘Each of you is right; +and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of +you to have her: for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great +deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a +reward for his skill, half a kingdom.’ So the brothers agreed that this +plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who +had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each half a kingdom, +as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and +took good care of their father; and somebody took better care of the +young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have +her again. + + + + +LILY AND THE LION + + +A merchant, who had three daughters, was once setting out upon a +journey; but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should +bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls; the second for jewels; +but the third, who was called Lily, said, ‘Dear father, bring me a +rose.’ Now it was no easy task to find a rose, for it was the middle +of winter; yet as she was his prettiest daughter, and was very fond of +flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all +three, and bid them goodbye. + +And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and +jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the +rose; and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the +people laughed at him, and asked him whether he thought roses grew in +snow. This grieved him very much, for Lily was his dearest child; and as +he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he came to a +fine castle; and around the castle was a garden, in one half of which it +seemed to be summer-time and in the other half winter. On one side the +finest flowers were in full bloom, and on the other everything looked +dreary and buried in the snow. ‘A lucky hit!’ said he, as he called to +his servant, and told him to go to a beautiful bed of roses that was +there, and bring him away one of the finest flowers. + +This done, they were riding away well pleased, when up sprang a fierce +lion, and roared out, ‘Whoever has stolen my roses shall be eaten up +alive!’ Then the man said, ‘I knew not that the garden belonged to you; +can nothing save my life?’ ‘No!’ said the lion, ‘nothing, unless you +undertake to give me whatever meets you on your return home; if you +agree to this, I will give you your life, and the rose too for your +daughter.’ But the man was unwilling to do so and said, ‘It may be my +youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when +I go home.’ Then the servant was greatly frightened, and said, ‘It may +perhaps be only a cat or a dog.’ And at last the man yielded with a +heavy heart, and took the rose; and said he would give the lion whatever +should meet him first on his return. + +And as he came near home, it was Lily, his youngest and dearest +daughter, that met him; she came running, and kissed him, and welcomed +him home; and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was +still more glad. But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, +saying, ‘Alas, my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high +price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion; and when he has +you, he will tear you in pieces, and eat you.’ Then he told her all that +had happened, and said she should not go, let what would happen. + +But she comforted him, and said, ‘Dear father, the word you have given +must be kept; I will go to the lion, and soothe him: perhaps he will let +me come safe home again.’ + +The next morning she asked the way she was to go, and took leave of her +father, and went forth with a bold heart into the wood. But the lion was +an enchanted prince. By day he and all his court were lions, but in the +evening they took their right forms again. And when Lily came to the +castle, he welcomed her so courteously that she agreed to marry him. The +wedding-feast was held, and they lived happily together a long time. The +prince was only to be seen as soon as evening came, and then he held his +court; but every morning he left his bride, and went away by himself, +she knew not whither, till the night came again. + +After some time he said to her, ‘Tomorrow there will be a great feast in +your father’s house, for your eldest sister is to be married; and if +you wish to go and visit her my lions shall lead you thither.’ Then she +rejoiced much at the thoughts of seeing her father once more, and set +out with the lions; and everyone was overjoyed to see her, for they had +thought her dead long since. But she told them how happy she was, and +stayed till the feast was over, and then went back to the wood. + +Her second sister was soon after married, and when Lily was asked to +go to the wedding, she said to the prince, ‘I will not go alone this +time--you must go with me.’ But he would not, and said that it would be +a very hazardous thing; for if the least ray of the torch-light should +fall upon him his enchantment would become still worse, for he should be +changed into a dove, and be forced to wander about the world for seven +long years. However, she gave him no rest, and said she would take care +no light should fall upon him. So at last they set out together, and +took with them their little child; and she chose a large hall with thick +walls for him to sit in while the wedding-torches were lighted; but, +unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the +wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church, +and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light +fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came +in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, +‘Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but +every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you +the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me +free.’ + +This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed; and every +now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to +journey. Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked +neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven +years. Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time +was fast coming when all her troubles should end; yet repose was still +far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white +feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove. +‘Now,’ thought she to herself, ‘no aid of man can be of use to me.’ So +she went to the sun and said, ‘Thou shinest everywhere, on the hill’s +top and the valley’s depth--hast thou anywhere seen my white dove?’ +‘No,’ said the sun, ‘I have not seen it; but I will give thee a +casket--open it when thy hour of need comes.’ + +So she thanked the sun, and went on her way till eventide; and when +the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, ‘Thou shinest through the +night, over field and grove--hast thou nowhere seen my white dove?’ +‘No,’ said the moon, ‘I cannot help thee but I will give thee an +egg--break it when need comes.’ + +Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the night-wind blew; and she +raised up her voice to it, and said, ‘Thou blowest through every tree +and under every leaf--hast thou not seen my white dove?’ ‘No,’ said the +night-wind, ‘but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they have seen +it.’ Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had +not seen it, but the south wind said, ‘I have seen the white dove--he +has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the +seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon; +and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from +you.’ Then the night-wind said, ‘I will give thee counsel. Go to the +Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods--count them, and when thou +comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it; and +so the lion will have the victory, and both of them will appear to you +in their own forms. Then look round and thou wilt see a griffin, winged +like bird, sitting by the Red Sea; jump on to his back with thy beloved +one as quickly as possible, and he will carry you over the waters to +your home. I will also give thee this nut,’ continued the night-wind. +‘When you are half-way over, throw it down, and out of the waters will +immediately spring up a high nut-tree on which the griffin will be able +to rest, otherwise he would not have the strength to bear you the whole +way; if, therefore, thou dost forget to throw down the nut, he will let +you both fall into the sea.’ + +So our poor wanderer went forth, and found all as the night-wind had +said; and she plucked the eleventh rod, and smote the dragon, and the +lion forthwith became a prince, and the dragon a princess again. But +no sooner was the princess released from the spell, than she seized +the prince by the arm and sprang on to the griffin’s back, and went off +carrying the prince away with her. + +Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn; but she +took heart and said, ‘As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock +crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.’ She went on for +a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the +princess had carried the prince; and there was a feast got ready, and +she heard that the wedding was about to be held. ‘Heaven aid me now!’ +said she; and she took the casket that the sun had given her, and found +that within it lay a dress as dazzling as the sun itself. So she put it +on, and went into the palace, and all the people gazed upon her; and +the dress pleased the bride so much that she asked whether it was to be +sold. ‘Not for gold and silver.’ said she, ‘but for flesh and blood.’ +The princess asked what she meant, and she said, ‘Let me speak with the +bridegroom this night in his chamber, and I will give thee the dress.’ +At last the princess agreed, but she told her chamberlain to give the +prince a sleeping draught, that he might not hear or see her. When +evening came, and the prince had fallen asleep, she was led into +his chamber, and she sat herself down at his feet, and said: ‘I have +followed thee seven years. I have been to the sun, the moon, and the +night-wind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome +the dragon. Wilt thou then forget me quite?’ But the prince all the time +slept so soundly, that her voice only passed over him, and seemed like +the whistling of the wind among the fir-trees. + +Then poor Lily was led away, and forced to give up the golden dress; and +when she saw that there was no help for her, she went out into a meadow, +and sat herself down and wept. But as she sat she bethought herself of +the egg that the moon had given her; and when she broke it, there ran +out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then +nestled under the old one’s wings, so as to form the most beautiful +sight in the world. And she rose up and drove them before her, till the +bride saw them from her window, and was so pleased that she came forth +and asked her if she would sell the brood. ‘Not for gold or silver, but +for flesh and blood: let me again this evening speak with the bridegroom +in his chamber, and I will give thee the whole brood.’ + +Then the princess thought to betray her as before, and agreed to +what she asked: but when the prince went to his chamber he asked +the chamberlain why the wind had whistled so in the night. And the +chamberlain told him all--how he had given him a sleeping draught, and +how a poor maiden had come and spoken to him in his chamber, and was +to come again that night. Then the prince took care to throw away the +sleeping draught; and when Lily came and began again to tell him what +woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been, +he knew his beloved wife’s voice, and sprang up, and said, ‘You have +awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell +around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you; but Heaven hath sent +you to me in a lucky hour.’ + +And they stole away out of the palace by night unawares, and seated +themselves on the griffin, who flew back with them over the Red Sea. +When they were half-way across Lily let the nut fall into the water, +and immediately a large nut-tree arose from the sea, whereon the griffin +rested for a while, and then carried them safely home. There they found +their child, now grown up to be comely and fair; and after all their +troubles they lived happily together to the end of their days. + + + + +THE FOX AND THE HORSE + + +A farmer had a horse that had been an excellent faithful servant to +him: but he was now grown too old to work; so the farmer would give him +nothing more to eat, and said, ‘I want you no longer, so take yourself +off out of my stable; I shall not take you back again until you are +stronger than a lion.’ Then he opened the door and turned him adrift. + +The poor horse was very melancholy, and wandered up and down in the +wood, seeking some little shelter from the cold wind and rain. Presently +a fox met him: ‘What’s the matter, my friend?’ said he, ‘why do you hang +down your head and look so lonely and woe-begone?’ ‘Ah!’ replied the +horse, ‘justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has +forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I +can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become +stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I +have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.’ + +However, the fox bid him be of good cheer, and said, ‘I will help you; +lie down there, stretch yourself out quite stiff, and pretend to be +dead.’ The horse did as he was told, and the fox went straight to the +lion who lived in a cave close by, and said to him, ‘A little way off +lies a dead horse; come with me and you may make an excellent meal of +his carcase.’ The lion was greatly pleased, and set off immediately; and +when they came to the horse, the fox said, ‘You will not be able to eat +him comfortably here; I’ll tell you what--I will tie you fast to +his tail, and then you can draw him to your den, and eat him at your +leisure.’ + +This advice pleased the lion, so he laid himself down quietly for the +fox to make him fast to the horse. But the fox managed to tie his legs +together and bound all so hard and fast that with all his strength he +could not set himself free. When the work was done, the fox clapped the +horse on the shoulder, and said, ‘Jip! Dobbin! Jip!’ Then up he sprang, +and moved off, dragging the lion behind him. The beast began to roar +and bellow, till all the birds of the wood flew away for fright; but the +horse let him sing on, and made his way quietly over the fields to his +master’s house. + +‘Here he is, master,’ said he, ‘I have got the better of him’: and when +the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said. ‘Thou +shalt stay in thy stable and be well taken care of.’ And so the poor old +horse had plenty to eat, and lived--till he died. + + + + +THE BLUE LIGHT + + +There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years had served the +king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer +because of the many wounds which he had received. The king said to him: +‘You may return to your home, I need you no longer, and you will not +receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me +service for them.’ Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, +went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the +evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, +which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch. ‘Do give +me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,’ said he to +her, ‘or I shall starve.’ ‘Oho!’ she answered, ‘who gives anything to a +run-away soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you +will do what I wish.’ ‘What do you wish?’ said the soldier. ‘That you +should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.’ The soldier consented, +and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by +the evening. ‘I see well enough,’ said the witch, ‘that you can do no +more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for +which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and chop it small.’ The +soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch +proposed that he should stay one night more. ‘Tomorrow, you shall only +do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old +dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes +out, and you shall bring it up again.’ Next day the old woman took him +to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and +made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he +came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the +blue light away from him. ‘No,’ said he, perceiving her evil intention, +‘I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon +the ground.’ The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the +well, and went away. + +The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the blue +light went on burning, but of what use was that to him? He saw very well +that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, +then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which +was still half full. ‘This shall be my last pleasure,’ thought he, +pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the +smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood +before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’ ‘What my commands +are?’ replied the soldier, quite astonished. ‘I must do everything you +bid me,’ said the little man. ‘Good,’ said the soldier; ‘then in the +first place help me out of this well.’ The little man took him by the +hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget +to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the +treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the +soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above, he said +to the little man: ‘Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before +the judge.’ In a short time she came by like the wind, riding on a wild +tom-cat and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before the little man +reappeared. ‘It is all done,’ said he, ‘and the witch is already hanging +on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?’ inquired the dwarf. +‘At this moment, none,’ answered the soldier; ‘you can return home, only +be at hand immediately, if I summon you.’ ‘Nothing more is needed than +that you should light your pipe at the blue light, and I will appear +before you at once.’ Thereupon he vanished from his sight. + +The soldier returned to the town from which he came. He went to the +best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord +furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and the +soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the little black manikin +and said: ‘I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me, +and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.’ ‘What am I to +do?’ asked the little man. ‘Late at night, when the king’s daughter is +in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant’s work for +me.’ The manikin said: ‘That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very +dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.’ +When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the manikin +carried in the princess. ‘Aha! are you there?’ cried the soldier, ‘get +to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.’ When +she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he +stretched out his feet and said: ‘Pull off my boots,’ and then he +threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean +and brighten them. She, however, did everything he bade her, without +opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock +crowed, the manikin carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her +in her bed. + +Next morning when the princess arose she went to her father, and told +him that she had had a very strange dream. ‘I was carried through the +streets with the rapidity of lightning,’ said she, ‘and taken into a +soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his +room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a +dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.’ +‘The dream may have been true,’ said the king. ‘I will give you a piece +of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the +pocket, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and +leave a track in the streets.’ But unseen by the king, the manikin was +standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when +the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas +certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the +crafty manikin had just before scattered peas in every street there +was. And again the princess was compelled to do servant’s work until +cock-crow. + +Next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was +all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up +peas, and saying: ‘It must have rained peas, last night.’ ‘We must think +of something else,’ said the king; ‘keep your shoes on when you go to +bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide +one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.’ The black manikin +heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to +bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no +expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found +in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him. ‘Do what I bid you,’ +replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged +to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under +the bed. + +Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter’s +shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself, who at the +entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back, +and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable +things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in +his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of +his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The +soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to +him: ‘Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in +the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.’ His comrade ran +thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone +again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the black manikin. ‘Have no +fear,’ said the latter to his master. ‘Go wheresoever they take you, and +let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.’ Next day +the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge +condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last +favour of the king. ‘What is it?’ asked the king. ‘That I may smoke one +more pipe on my way.’ ‘You may smoke three,’ answered the king, ‘but do +not imagine that I will spare your life.’ Then the soldier pulled out +his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few wreaths +of smoke had ascended, the manikin was there with a small cudgel in his +hand, and said: ‘What does my lord command?’ ‘Strike down to earth that +false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has +treated me so ill.’ Then the manikin fell on them like lightning, +darting this way and that way, and whosoever was so much as touched by +his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The king +was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier’s mercy, and merely to +be allowed to live at all, gave him his kingdom for his own, and his +daughter to wife. + + + + +THE RAVEN + + +There was once a queen who had a little daughter, still too young to run +alone. One day the child was very troublesome, and the mother could not +quiet it, do what she would. She grew impatient, and seeing the ravens +flying round the castle, she opened the window, and said: ‘I wish you +were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.’ +Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the child in her arms was +turned into a raven, and flew away from her through the open window. The +bird took its flight to a dark wood and remained there for a long time, +and meanwhile the parents could hear nothing of their child. + +Long after this, a man was making his way through the wood when he heard +a raven calling, and he followed the sound of the voice. As he drew +near, the raven said, ‘I am by birth a king’s daughter, but am now under +the spell of some enchantment; you can, however, set me free.’ ‘What +am I to do?’ he asked. She replied, ‘Go farther into the wood until you +come to a house, wherein lives an old woman; she will offer you food and +drink, but you must not take of either; if you do, you will fall into +a deep sleep, and will not be able to help me. In the garden behind the +house is a large tan-heap, and on that you must stand and watch for me. +I shall drive there in my carriage at two o’clock in the afternoon for +three successive days; the first day it will be drawn by four white, the +second by four chestnut, and the last by four black horses; but if you +fail to keep awake and I find you sleeping, I shall not be set free.’ + +The man promised to do all that she wished, but the raven said, ‘Alas! I +know even now that you will take something from the woman and be unable +to save me.’ The man assured her again that he would on no account touch +a thing to eat or drink. + +When he came to the house and went inside, the old woman met him, and +said, ‘Poor man! how tired you are! Come in and rest and let me give you +something to eat and drink.’ + +‘No,’ answered the man, ‘I will neither eat not drink.’ + +But she would not leave him alone, and urged him saying, ‘If you will +not eat anything, at least you might take a draught of wine; one drink +counts for nothing,’ and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, and +drank. + +As it drew towards the appointed hour, he went outside into the garden +and mounted the tan-heap to await the raven. Suddenly a feeling of +fatigue came over him, and unable to resist it, he lay down for a little +while, fully determined, however, to keep awake; but in another minute +his eyes closed of their own accord, and he fell into such a deep sleep, +that all the noises in the world would not have awakened him. At two +o’clock the raven came driving along, drawn by her four white horses; +but even before she reached the spot, she said to herself, sighing, ‘I +know he has fallen asleep.’ When she entered the garden, there she found +him as she had feared, lying on the tan-heap, fast asleep. She got out +of her carriage and went to him; she called him and shook him, but it +was all in vain, he still continued sleeping. + +The next day at noon, the old woman came to him again with food and +drink which he at first refused. At last, overcome by her persistent +entreaties that he would take something, he lifted the glass and drank +again. + +Towards two o’clock he went into the garden and on to the tan-heap to +watch for the raven. He had not been there long before he began to feel +so tired that his limbs seemed hardly able to support him, and he could +not stand upright any longer; so again he lay down and fell fast asleep. +As the raven drove along her four chestnut horses, she said sorrowfully +to herself, ‘I know he has fallen asleep.’ She went as before to look +for him, but he slept, and it was impossible to awaken him. + +The following day the old woman said to him, ‘What is this? You are not +eating or drinking anything, do you want to kill yourself?’ + +He answered, ‘I may not and will not either eat or drink.’ + +But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him, +and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and +took a deep draught. + +When the hour came round again he went as usual on to the tan-heap in +the garden to await the king’s daughter, but he felt even more overcome +with weariness than on the two previous days, and throwing himself down, +he slept like a log. At two o’clock the raven could be seen approaching, +and this time her coachman and everything about her, as well as her +horses, were black. + +She was sadder than ever as she drove along, and said mournfully, ‘I +know he has fallen asleep, and will not be able to set me free.’ She +found him sleeping heavily, and all her efforts to awaken him were of no +avail. Then she placed beside him a loaf, and some meat, and a flask +of wine, of such a kind, that however much he took of them, they would +never grow less. After that she drew a gold ring, on which her name was +engraved, off her finger, and put it upon one of his. Finally, she laid +a letter near him, in which, after giving him particulars of the food +and drink she had left for him, she finished with the following words: +‘I see that as long as you remain here you will never be able to set me +free; if, however, you still wish to do so, come to the golden castle +of Stromberg; this is well within your power to accomplish.’ She then +returned to her carriage and drove to the golden castle of Stromberg. + +When the man awoke and found that he had been sleeping, he was grieved +at heart, and said, ‘She has no doubt been here and driven away again, +and it is now too late for me to save her.’ Then his eyes fell on the +things which were lying beside him; he read the letter, and knew from it +all that had happened. He rose up without delay, eager to start on his +way and to reach the castle of Stromberg, but he had no idea in which +direction he ought to go. He travelled about a long time in search of it +and came at last to a dark forest, through which he went on walking for +fourteen days and still could not find a way out. Once more the night +came on, and worn out he lay down under a bush and fell asleep. Again +the next day he pursued his way through the forest, and that evening, +thinking to rest again, he lay down as before, but he heard such a +howling and wailing that he found it impossible to sleep. He waited till +it was darker and people had begun to light up their houses, and then +seeing a little glimmer ahead of him, he went towards it. + +He found that the light came from a house which looked smaller than +it really was, from the contrast of its height with that of an immense +giant who stood in front of it. He thought to himself, ‘If the giant +sees me going in, my life will not be worth much.’ However, after a +while he summoned up courage and went forward. When the giant saw him, +he called out, ‘It is lucky for that you have come, for I have not had +anything to eat for a long time. I can have you now for my supper.’ ‘I +would rather you let that alone,’ said the man, ‘for I do not willingly +give myself up to be eaten; if you are wanting food I have enough to +satisfy your hunger.’ ‘If that is so,’ replied the giant, ‘I will leave +you in peace; I only thought of eating you because I had nothing else.’ + +So they went indoors together and sat down, and the man brought out the +bread, meat, and wine, which although he had eaten and drunk of them, +were still unconsumed. The giant was pleased with the good cheer, and +ate and drank to his heart’s content. When he had finished his supper +the man asked him if he could direct him to the castle of Stromberg. +The giant said, ‘I will look on my map; on it are marked all the towns, +villages, and houses.’ So he fetched his map, and looked for the castle, +but could not find it. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I have larger maps +upstairs in the cupboard, we will look on those,’ but they searched in +vain, for the castle was not marked even on these. The man now thought +he should like to continue his journey, but the giant begged him to +remain for a day or two longer until the return of his brother, who was +away in search of provisions. When the brother came home, they asked him +about the castle of Stromberg, and he told them he would look on his own +maps as soon as he had eaten and appeased his hunger. Accordingly, when +he had finished his supper, they all went up together to his room and +looked through his maps, but the castle was not to be found. Then he +fetched other older maps, and they went on looking for the castle until +at last they found it, but it was many thousand miles away. ‘How shall I +be able to get there?’ asked the man. ‘I have two hours to spare,’ said +the giant, ‘and I will carry you into the neighbourhood of the castle; I +must then return to look after the child who is in our care.’ + +The giant, thereupon, carried the man to within about a hundred leagues +of the castle, where he left him, saying, ‘You will be able to walk the +remainder of the way yourself.’ The man journeyed on day and night +till he reached the golden castle of Stromberg. He found it situated, +however, on a glass mountain, and looking up from the foot he saw the +enchanted maiden drive round her castle and then go inside. He was +overjoyed to see her, and longed to get to the top of the mountain, but +the sides were so slippery that every time he attempted to climb he +fell back again. When he saw that it was impossible to reach her, he was +greatly grieved, and said to himself, ‘I will remain here and wait for +her,’ so he built himself a little hut, and there he sat and watched for +a whole year, and every day he saw the king’s daughter driving round her +castle, but still was unable to get nearer to her. + +Looking out from his hut one day he saw three robbers fighting and he +called out to them, ‘God be with you.’ They stopped when they heard the +call, but looking round and seeing nobody, they went on again with their +fighting, which now became more furious. ‘God be with you,’ he cried +again, and again they paused and looked about, but seeing no one went +back to their fighting. A third time he called out, ‘God be with you,’ +and then thinking he should like to know the cause of dispute between +the three men, he went out and asked them why they were fighting so +angrily with one another. One of them said that he had found a stick, +and that he had but to strike it against any door through which he +wished to pass, and it immediately flew open. Another told him that he +had found a cloak which rendered its wearer invisible; and the third had +caught a horse which would carry its rider over any obstacle, and even +up the glass mountain. They had been unable to decide whether they +would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would +separate. On hearing this, the man said, ‘I will give you something in +exchange for those three things; not money, for that I have not got, +but something that is of far more value. I must first, however, prove +whether all you have told me about your three things is true.’ The +robbers, therefore, made him get on the horse, and handed him the stick +and the cloak, and when he had put this round him he was no longer +visible. Then he fell upon them with the stick and beat them one after +another, crying, ‘There, you idle vagabonds, you have got what you +deserve; are you satisfied now!’ + +After this he rode up the glass mountain. When he reached the gate of +the castle, he found it closed, but he gave it a blow with his stick, +and it flew wide open at once and he passed through. He mounted the +steps and entered the room where the maiden was sitting, with a golden +goblet full of wine in front of her. She could not see him for he still +wore his cloak. He took the ring which she had given him off his finger, +and threw it into the goblet, so that it rang as it touched the bottom. +‘That is my own ring,’ she exclaimed, ‘and if that is so the man must +also be here who is coming to set me free.’ + +She sought for him about the castle, but could find him nowhere. +Meanwhile he had gone outside again and mounted his horse and thrown off +the cloak. When therefore she came to the castle gate she saw him, and +cried aloud for joy. Then he dismounted and took her in his arms; and +she kissed him, and said, ‘Now you have indeed set me free, and tomorrow +we will celebrate our marriage.’ + + + + +THE GOLDEN GOOSE + + +There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called +Dummling,[*] and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion. + + [*] Simpleton + +It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, +and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a +bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst. + +When he entered the forest he met a little grey-haired old man who bade +him good day, and said: ‘Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket, +and let me have a draught of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ But +the clever son answered: ‘If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have +none for myself; be off with you,’ and he left the little man standing +and went on. + +But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a +false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home +and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man’s doing. + +After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him, +like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man +met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine. +But the second son, too, said sensibly enough: ‘What I give you will be +taken away from myself; be off!’ and he left the little man standing and +went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed; when he had made a +few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be +carried home. + +Then Dummling said: ‘Father, do let me go and cut wood.’ The father +answered: ‘Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone, +you do not understand anything about it.’ But Dummling begged so long +that at last he said: ‘Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting +yourself.’ His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the +cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer. + +When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise, +and greeting him, said: ‘Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out +of your bottle; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ Dummling answered: ‘I have +only cinder-cake and sour beer; if that pleases you, we will sit +down and eat.’ So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his +cinder-cake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good +wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said: ‘Since +you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will +give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will +find something at the roots.’ Then the little man took leave of him. + +Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose +sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and +taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the +night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were +curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have +liked to have one of its golden feathers. + +The eldest thought: ‘I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a +feather,’ and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by +the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it. + +The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a +feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she +was held fast. + +At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others +screamed out: ‘Keep away; for goodness’ sake keep away!’ But she did +not understand why she was to keep away. ‘The others are there,’ she +thought, ‘I may as well be there too,’ and ran to them; but as soon as +she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they +had to spend the night with the goose. + +The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out, +without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to +it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, +wherever his legs took him. + +In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the +procession he said: ‘For shame, you good-for-nothing girls, why are you +running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?’ At the +same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away, +but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself +obliged to run behind. + +Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running +behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out: ‘Hi! +your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a +christening today!’ and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but +was also held fast to it. + +Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers +came with their hoes from the fields; the parson called out to them +and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had +scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were +seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose. + +Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter +who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth +a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry +her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train +before the king’s daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people +running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite +loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have +her for his wife; but the king did not like the son-in-law, and made all +manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink +a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could +certainly help him; so he went into the forest, and in the same place +where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very +sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so +sorely, and he answered: ‘I have such a great thirst and cannot quench +it; cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but +that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!’ + +‘There, I can help you,’ said Dummling, ‘just come with me and you shall +be satisfied.’ + +He led him into the king’s cellar, and the man bent over the huge +barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was +out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more +for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom +everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a +new condition; he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain +of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the +forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his +body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying: ‘I have eaten a +whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger +as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to +die of hunger.’ + +At this Dummling was glad, and said: ‘Get up and come with me; you shall +eat yourself full.’ He led him to the king’s palace where all the +flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge +mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it, +began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished. +Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride; but the king again +sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on +water. ‘As soon as you come sailing back in it,’ said he, ‘you shall +have my daughter for wife.’ + +Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey +man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted, +he said: ‘Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you +the ship; and I do all this because you once were kind to me.’ Then he +gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king +saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The +wedding was celebrated, and after the king’s death, Dummling inherited +his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife. + + + + +THE WATER OF LIFE + + +Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way +off, a king who had three sons. This king once fell very ill--so ill +that nobody thought he could live. His sons were very much grieved +at their father’s sickness; and as they were walking together very +mournfully in the garden of the palace, a little old man met them and +asked what was the matter. They told him that their father was very ill, +and that they were afraid nothing could save him. ‘I know what would,’ +said the little old man; ‘it is the Water of Life. If he could have a +draught of it he would be well again; but it is very hard to get.’ Then +the eldest son said, ‘I will soon find it’: and he went to the sick +king, and begged that he might go in search of the Water of Life, as +it was the only thing that could save him. ‘No,’ said the king. ‘I had +rather die than place you in such great danger as you must meet with in +your journey.’ But he begged so hard that the king let him go; and the +prince thought to himself, ‘If I bring my father this water, he will +make me sole heir to his kingdom.’ + +Then he set out: and when he had gone on his way some time he came to a +deep valley, overhung with rocks and woods; and as he looked around, he +saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a +sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said, +‘Prince, whither so fast?’ ‘What is that to thee, you ugly imp?’ said +the prince haughtily, and rode on. + +But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell +of ill-luck upon him; so that as he rode on the mountain pass became +narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he +could not go to step forward: and when he thought to have turned his +horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing +round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was +shut in all round. He next tried to get off his horse and make his way +on foot, but again the laugh rang in his ears, and he found himself +unable to move a step, and thus he was forced to abide spellbound. + +Meantime the old king was lingering on in daily hope of his son’s +return, till at last the second son said, ‘Father, I will go in search +of the Water of Life.’ For he thought to himself, ‘My brother is surely +dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.’ The king was +at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish. +So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done, +and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the +mountains, saying, as before, ‘Prince, prince, whither so fast?’ ‘Mind +your own affairs, busybody!’ said the prince scornfully, and rode on. + +But the dwarf put the same spell upon him as he put on his elder +brother, and he, too, was at last obliged to take up his abode in the +heart of the mountains. Thus it is with proud silly people, who think +themselves above everyone else, and are too proud to ask or take advice. + +When the second prince had thus been gone a long time, the youngest son +said he would go and search for the Water of Life, and trusted he should +soon be able to make his father well again. So he set out, and the dwarf +met him too at the same spot in the valley, among the mountains, and +said, ‘Prince, whither so fast?’ And the prince said, ‘I am going in +search of the Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die: +can you help me? Pray be kind, and aid me if you can!’ ‘Do you know +where it is to be found?’ asked the dwarf. ‘No,’ said the prince, ‘I do +not. Pray tell me if you know.’ ‘Then as you have spoken to me kindly, +and are wise enough to seek for advice, I will tell you how and where to +go. The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle; and, +that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand +and two little loaves of bread; strike the iron door of the castle three +times with the wand, and it will open: two hungry lions will be lying +down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they +will let you pass; then hasten on to the well, and take some of the +Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve; for if you tarry longer +the door will shut upon you for ever.’ + +Then the prince thanked his little friend with the scarlet cloak for his +friendly aid, and took the wand and the bread, and went travelling on +and on, over sea and over land, till he came to his journey’s end, and +found everything to be as the dwarf had told him. The door flew open at +the third stroke of the wand, and when the lions were quieted he went on +through the castle and came at length to a beautiful hall. Around it he +saw several knights sitting in a trance; then he pulled off their rings +and put them on his own fingers. In another room he saw on a table a +sword and a loaf of bread, which he also took. Further on he came to a +room where a beautiful young lady sat upon a couch; and she welcomed him +joyfully, and said, if he would set her free from the spell that bound +her, the kingdom should be his, if he would come back in a year and +marry her. Then she told him that the well that held the Water of Life +was in the palace gardens; and bade him make haste, and draw what he +wanted before the clock struck twelve. + +He walked on; and as he walked through beautiful gardens he came to a +delightful shady spot in which stood a couch; and he thought to himself, +as he felt tired, that he would rest himself for a while, and gaze on +the lovely scenes around him. So he laid himself down, and sleep +fell upon him unawares, so that he did not wake up till the clock was +striking a quarter to twelve. Then he sprang from the couch dreadfully +frightened, ran to the well, filled a cup that was standing by him full +of water, and hastened to get away in time. Just as he was going out of +the iron door it struck twelve, and the door fell so quickly upon him +that it snapped off a piece of his heel. + +When he found himself safe, he was overjoyed to think that he had got +the Water of Life; and as he was going on his way homewards, he passed +by the little dwarf, who, when he saw the sword and the loaf, said, ‘You +have made a noble prize; with the sword you can at a blow slay whole +armies, and the bread will never fail you.’ Then the prince thought +to himself, ‘I cannot go home to my father without my brothers’; so he +said, ‘My dear friend, cannot you tell me where my two brothers are, who +set out in search of the Water of Life before me, and never came back?’ +‘I have shut them up by a charm between two mountains,’ said the dwarf, +‘because they were proud and ill-behaved, and scorned to ask advice.’ +The prince begged so hard for his brothers, that the dwarf at last set +them free, though unwillingly, saying, ‘Beware of them, for they have +bad hearts.’ Their brother, however, was greatly rejoiced to see them, +and told them all that had happened to him; how he had found the Water +of Life, and had taken a cup full of it; and how he had set a beautiful +princess free from a spell that bound her; and how she had engaged to +wait a whole year, and then to marry him, and to give him the kingdom. + +Then they all three rode on together, and on their way home came to a +country that was laid waste by war and a dreadful famine, so that it was +feared all must die for want. But the prince gave the king of the land +the bread, and all his kingdom ate of it. And he lent the king the +wonderful sword, and he slew the enemy’s army with it; and thus the +kingdom was once more in peace and plenty. In the same manner he +befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way. + +When they came to the sea, they got into a ship and during their voyage +the two eldest said to themselves, ‘Our brother has got the water which +we could not find, therefore our father will forsake us and give him the +kingdom, which is our right’; so they were full of envy and revenge, and +agreed together how they could ruin him. Then they waited till he was +fast asleep, and poured the Water of Life out of the cup, and took it +for themselves, giving him bitter sea-water instead. + +When they came to their journey’s end, the youngest son brought his cup +to the sick king, that he might drink and be healed. Scarcely, however, +had he tasted the bitter sea-water when he became worse even than he was +before; and then both the elder sons came in, and blamed the youngest +for what they had done; and said that he wanted to poison their father, +but that they had found the Water of Life, and had brought it with them. +He no sooner began to drink of what they brought him, than he felt his +sickness leave him, and was as strong and well as in his younger days. +Then they went to their brother, and laughed at him, and said, ‘Well, +brother, you found the Water of Life, did you? You have had the trouble +and we shall have the reward. Pray, with all your cleverness, why did +not you manage to keep your eyes open? Next year one of us will take +away your beautiful princess, if you do not take care. You had better +say nothing about this to our father, for he does not believe a word you +say; and if you tell tales, you shall lose your life into the bargain: +but be quiet, and we will let you off.’ + +The old king was still very angry with his youngest son, and thought +that he really meant to have taken away his life; so he called his court +together, and asked what should be done, and all agreed that he ought to +be put to death. The prince knew nothing of what was going on, till one +day, when the king’s chief huntsmen went a-hunting with him, and they +were alone in the wood together, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that +the prince said, ‘My friend, what is the matter with you?’ ‘I cannot and +dare not tell you,’ said he. But the prince begged very hard, and said, +‘Only tell me what it is, and do not think I shall be angry, for I will +forgive you.’ ‘Alas!’ said the huntsman; ‘the king has ordered me to +shoot you.’ The prince started at this, and said, ‘Let me live, and I +will change dresses with you; you shall take my royal coat to show to my +father, and do you give me your shabby one.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said +the huntsman; ‘I am sure I shall be glad to save you, for I could not +have shot you.’ Then he took the prince’s coat, and gave him the shabby +one, and went away through the wood. + +Some time after, three grand embassies came to the old king’s court, +with rich gifts of gold and precious stones for his youngest son; now +all these were sent from the three kings to whom he had lent his sword +and loaf of bread, in order to rid them of their enemy and feed their +people. This touched the old king’s heart, and he thought his son might +still be guiltless, and said to his court, ‘O that my son were still +alive! how it grieves me that I had him killed!’ ‘He is still alive,’ +said the huntsman; ‘and I am glad that I had pity on him, but let him +go in peace, and brought home his royal coat.’ At this the king was +overwhelmed with joy, and made it known throughout all his kingdom, that +if his son would come back to his court he would forgive him. + +Meanwhile the princess was eagerly waiting till her deliverer should +come back; and had a road made leading up to her palace all of shining +gold; and told her courtiers that whoever came on horseback, and rode +straight up to the gate upon it, was her true lover; and that they must +let him in: but whoever rode on one side of it, they must be sure was +not the right one; and that they must send him away at once. + +The time soon came, when the eldest brother thought that he would make +haste to go to the princess, and say that he was the one who had set +her free, and that he should have her for his wife, and the kingdom with +her. As he came before the palace and saw the golden road, he stopped to +look at it, and he thought to himself, ‘It is a pity to ride upon this +beautiful road’; so he turned aside and rode on the right-hand side of +it. But when he came to the gate, the guards, who had seen the road +he took, said to him, he could not be what he said he was, and must go +about his business. + +The second prince set out soon afterwards on the same errand; and when +he came to the golden road, and his horse had set one foot upon it, +he stopped to look at it, and thought it very beautiful, and said to +himself, ‘What a pity it is that anything should tread here!’ Then he +too turned aside and rode on the left side of it. But when he came to +the gate the guards said he was not the true prince, and that he too +must go away about his business; and away he went. + +Now when the full year was come round, the third brother left the forest +in which he had lain hid for fear of his father’s anger, and set out in +search of his betrothed bride. So he journeyed on, thinking of her all +the way, and rode so quickly that he did not even see what the road was +made of, but went with his horse straight over it; and as he came to the +gate it flew open, and the princess welcomed him with joy, and said +he was her deliverer, and should now be her husband and lord of the +kingdom. When the first joy at their meeting was over, the princess told +him she had heard of his father having forgiven him, and of his wish to +have him home again: so, before his wedding with the princess, he went +to visit his father, taking her with him. Then he told him everything; +how his brothers had cheated and robbed him, and yet that he had borne +all those wrongs for the love of his father. And the old king was very +angry, and wanted to punish his wicked sons; but they made their escape, +and got into a ship and sailed away over the wide sea, and where they +went to nobody knew and nobody cared. + +And now the old king gathered together his court, and asked all his +kingdom to come and celebrate the wedding of his son and the princess. +And young and old, noble and squire, gentle and simple, came at once +on the summons; and among the rest came the friendly dwarf, with the +sugarloaf hat, and a new scarlet cloak. + + And the wedding was held, and the merry bells run. + And all the good people they danced and they sung, + And feasted and frolick’d I can’t tell how long. + + + + +THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN + + +There was once a king’s son who had a bride whom he loved very much. And +when he was sitting beside her and very happy, news came that his father +lay sick unto death, and desired to see him once again before his end. +Then he said to his beloved: ‘I must now go and leave you, I give you +a ring as a remembrance of me. When I am king, I will return and fetch +you.’ So he rode away, and when he reached his father, the latter was +dangerously ill, and near his death. He said to him: ‘Dear son, I wished +to see you once again before my end, promise me to marry as I wish,’ and +he named a certain king’s daughter who was to be his wife. The son was +in such trouble that he did not think what he was doing, and said: ‘Yes, +dear father, your will shall be done,’ and thereupon the king shut his +eyes, and died. + +When therefore the son had been proclaimed king, and the time of +mourning was over, he was forced to keep the promise which he had given +his father, and caused the king’s daughter to be asked in marriage, and +she was promised to him. His first betrothed heard of this, and fretted +so much about his faithfulness that she nearly died. Then her father +said to her: ‘Dearest child, why are you so sad? You shall have +whatsoever you will.’ She thought for a moment and said: ‘Dear father, +I wish for eleven girls exactly like myself in face, figure, and size.’ +The father said: ‘If it be possible, your desire shall be fulfilled,’ +and he caused a search to be made in his whole kingdom, until eleven +young maidens were found who exactly resembled his daughter in face, +figure, and size. + +When they came to the king’s daughter, she had twelve suits of +huntsmen’s clothes made, all alike, and the eleven maidens had to put +on the huntsmen’s clothes, and she herself put on the twelfth suit. +Thereupon she took her leave of her father, and rode away with them, +and rode to the court of her former betrothed, whom she loved so dearly. +Then she asked if he required any huntsmen, and if he would take all of +them into his service. The king looked at her and did not know her, but +as they were such handsome fellows, he said: ‘Yes,’ and that he would +willingly take them, and now they were the king’s twelve huntsmen. + +The king, however, had a lion which was a wondrous animal, for he knew +all concealed and secret things. It came to pass that one evening he +said to the king: ‘You think you have twelve huntsmen?’ ‘Yes,’ said the +king, ‘they are twelve huntsmen.’ The lion continued: ‘You are mistaken, +they are twelve girls.’ The king said: ‘That cannot be true! How +will you prove that to me?’ ‘Oh, just let some peas be strewn in the +ante-chamber,’ answered the lion, ‘and then you will soon see. Men have +a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls +trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’ The king +was well pleased with the counsel, and caused the peas to be strewn. + +There was, however, a servant of the king’s who favoured the huntsmen, +and when he heard that they were going to be put to this test he went to +them and repeated everything, and said: ‘The lion wants to make the king +believe that you are girls.’ Then the king’s daughter thanked him, and +said to her maidens: ‘Show some strength, and step firmly on the peas.’ +So next morning when the king had the twelve huntsmen called before +him, and they came into the ante-chamber where the peas were lying, they +stepped so firmly on them, and had such a strong, sure walk, that not +one of the peas either rolled or stirred. Then they went away again, +and the king said to the lion: ‘You have lied to me, they walk just like +men.’ The lion said: ‘They have been informed that they were going to +be put to the test, and have assumed some strength. Just let twelve +spinning-wheels be brought into the ante-chamber, and they will go to +them and be pleased with them, and that is what no man would do.’ +The king liked the advice, and had the spinning-wheels placed in the +ante-chamber. + +But the servant, who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, +and disclosed the project. So when they were alone the king’s daughter +said to her eleven girls: ‘Show some constraint, and do not look round +at the spinning-wheels.’ And next morning when the king had his twelve +huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once +looked at the spinning-wheels. Then the king again said to the lion: +‘You have deceived me, they are men, for they have not looked at the +spinning-wheels.’ The lion replied: ‘They have restrained themselves.’ +The king, however, would no longer believe the lion. + +The twelve huntsmen always followed the king to the chase, and his +liking for them continually increased. Now it came to pass that +once when they were out hunting, news came that the king’s bride was +approaching. When the true bride heard that, it hurt her so much that +her heart was almost broken, and she fell fainting to the ground. The +king thought something had happened to his dear huntsman, ran up to him, +wanted to help him, and drew his glove off. Then he saw the ring which +he had given to his first bride, and when he looked in her face he +recognized her. Then his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and +when she opened her eyes he said: ‘You are mine, and I am yours, and +no one in the world can alter that.’ He sent a messenger to the other +bride, and entreated her to return to her own kingdom, for he had a wife +already, and someone who had just found an old key did not require a new +one. Thereupon the wedding was celebrated, and the lion was again taken +into favour, because, after all, he had told the truth. + + + + +THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN + + +There was once a merchant who had only one child, a son, that was very +young, and barely able to run alone. He had two richly laden ships then +making a voyage upon the seas, in which he had embarked all his wealth, +in the hope of making great gains, when the news came that both were +lost. Thus from being a rich man he became all at once so very poor that +nothing was left to him but one small plot of land; and there he often +went in an evening to take his walk, and ease his mind of a little of +his trouble. + +One day, as he was roaming along in a brown study, thinking with no +great comfort on what he had been and what he now was, and was like +to be, all on a sudden there stood before him a little, rough-looking, +black dwarf. ‘Prithee, friend, why so sorrowful?’ said he to the +merchant; ‘what is it you take so deeply to heart?’ ‘If you would do me +any good I would willingly tell you,’ said the merchant. ‘Who knows but +I may?’ said the little man: ‘tell me what ails you, and perhaps you +will find I may be of some use.’ Then the merchant told him how all his +wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea, and how he had nothing left +but that little plot of land. ‘Oh, trouble not yourself about that,’ +said the dwarf; ‘only undertake to bring me here, twelve years hence, +whatever meets you first on your going home, and I will give you as much +as you please.’ The merchant thought this was no great thing to ask; +that it would most likely be his dog or his cat, or something of that +sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel; so he agreed to the bargain, and +signed and sealed the bond to do what was asked of him. + +But as he drew near home, his little boy was so glad to see him that he +crept behind him, and laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in +his face and laughed. Then the father started, trembling with fear and +horror, and saw what it was that he had bound himself to do; but as no +gold was come, he made himself easy by thinking that it was only a joke +that the dwarf was playing him, and that, at any rate, when the money +came, he should see the bearer, and would not take it in. + +About a month afterwards he went upstairs into a lumber-room to look +for some old iron, that he might sell it and raise a little money; and +there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile of gold lying on the +floor. At the sight of this he was overjoyed, and forgetting all about +his son, went into trade again, and became a richer merchant than +before. + +Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the end of the twelve years drew +near the merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad +and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow were written upon his face. The +boy one day asked what was the matter, but his father would not tell for +some time; at last, however, he said that he had, without knowing it, +sold him for gold to a little, ugly-looking, black dwarf, and that the +twelve years were coming round when he must keep his word. Then Heinel +said, ‘Father, give yourself very little trouble about that; I shall be +too much for the little man.’ + +When the time came, the father and son went out together to the place +agreed upon: and the son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself +and his father in the middle of it. The little black dwarf soon came, +and walked round and round about the circle, but could not find any way +to get into it, and he either could not, or dared not, jump over it. At +last the boy said to him. ‘Have you anything to say to us, my friend, or +what do you want?’ Now Heinel had found a friend in a good fairy, that +was fond of him, and had told him what to do; for this fairy knew what +good luck was in store for him. ‘Have you brought me what you said you +would?’ said the dwarf to the merchant. The old man held his tongue, but +Heinel said again, ‘What do you want here?’ The dwarf said, ‘I come to +talk with your father, not with you.’ ‘You have cheated and taken in my +father,’ said the son; ‘pray give him up his bond at once.’ ‘Fair and +softly,’ said the little old man; ‘right is right; I have paid my money, +and your father has had it, and spent it; so be so good as to let me +have what I paid it for.’ ‘You must have my consent to that first,’ said +Heinel, ‘so please to step in here, and let us talk it over.’ The old +man grinned, and showed his teeth, as if he should have been very glad +to get into the circle if he could. Then at last, after a long talk, +they came to terms. Heinel agreed that his father must give him up, and +that so far the dwarf should have his way: but, on the other hand, the +fairy had told Heinel what fortune was in store for him, if he followed +his own course; and he did not choose to be given up to his hump-backed +friend, who seemed so anxious for his company. + +So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that +Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard +by; that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he +should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and +weather. Then he took leave of his father, and set himself in the boat, +but before it got far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side +low in the water, so the merchant thought that poor Heinel was lost, and +went home very sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking that at +any rate he had had his revenge. + +The boat, however, did not sink, for the good fairy took care of her +friend, and soon raised the boat up again, and it went safely on. The +young man sat safe within, till at length it ran ashore upon an unknown +land. As he jumped upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful castle +but empty and dreary within, for it was enchanted. ‘Here,’ said he to +himself, ‘must I find the prize the good fairy told me of.’ So he once +more searched the whole palace through, till at last he found a white +snake, lying coiled up on a cushion in one of the chambers. + +Now the white snake was an enchanted princess; and she was very glad +to see him, and said, ‘Are you at last come to set me free? Twelve +long years have I waited here for the fairy to bring you hither as she +promised, for you alone can save me. This night twelve men will come: +their faces will be black, and they will be dressed in chain armour. +They will ask what you do here, but give no answer; and let them do +what they will--beat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment you--bear all; only +speak not a word, and at twelve o’clock they must go away. The second +night twelve others will come: and the third night twenty-four, who +will even cut off your head; but at the twelfth hour of that night their +power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you the +Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to life +and health.’ And all came to pass as she had said; Heinel bore all, and +spoke not a word; and the third night the princess came, and fell on his +neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth throughout the castle, +the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned king of the Golden +Mountain. + +They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus +eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his +father; and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was +against his going, and said, ‘I know well that misfortunes will come +upon us if you go.’ However, he gave her no rest till she agreed. At his +going away she gave him a wishing-ring, and said, ‘Take this ring, and +put it on your finger; whatever you wish it will bring you; only promise +never to make use of it to bring me hence to your father’s house.’ Then +he said he would do what she asked, and put the ring on his finger, and +wished himself near the town where his father lived. + +Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment; but the guards would +not let him go in, because he was so strangely clad. So he went up to a +neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and borrowed his old frock, +and thus passed unknown into the town. When he came to his father’s +house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him, +and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long +since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would +not even give him anything to eat. The king, however, still vowed that +he was his son, and said, ‘Is there no mark by which you would know me +if I am really your son?’ ‘Yes,’ said his mother, ‘our Heinel had a mark +like a raspberry on his right arm.’ Then he showed them the mark, and +they knew that what he had said was true. + +He next told them how he was king of the Golden Mountain, and was +married to a princess, and had a son seven years old. But the merchant +said, ‘that can never be true; he must be a fine king truly who travels +about in a shepherd’s frock!’ At this the son was vexed; and forgetting +his word, turned his ring, and wished for his queen and son. In an +instant they stood before him; but the queen wept, and said he had +broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to +soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so in +truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him. + +One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her +the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he sat +himself down, and said, ‘I am very much tired; sit by me, I will rest my +head in your lap, and sleep a while.’ As soon as he had fallen asleep, +however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly away, and +wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And when he awoke +he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone from his finger. +‘I can never go back to my father’s house,’ said he; ‘they would say I +am a sorcerer: I will journey forth into the world, till I come again to +my kingdom.’ + +So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three +giants were sharing their father’s goods; and as they saw him pass they +cried out and said, ‘Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods +between us.’ Now there was a sword that cut off an enemy’s head whenever +the wearer gave the words, ‘Heads off!’; a cloak that made the owner +invisible, or gave him any form he pleased; and a pair of boots that +carried the wearer wherever he wished. Heinel said they must first let +him try these wonderful things, then he might know how to set a value +upon them. Then they gave him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly, +and in a moment he was a fly. ‘The cloak is very well,’ said he: ‘now +give me the sword.’ ‘No,’ said they; ‘not unless you undertake not to +say, “Heads off!” for if you do we are all dead men.’ So they gave it +him, charging him to try it on a tree. He next asked for the boots also; +and the moment he had all three in his power, he wished himself at +the Golden Mountain; and there he was at once. So the giants were left +behind with no goods to share or quarrel about. + +As Heinel came near his castle he heard the sound of merry music; and +the people around told him that his queen was about to marry another +husband. Then he threw his cloak around him, and passed through the +castle hall, and placed himself by the side of the queen, where no one +saw him. But when anything to eat was put upon her plate, he took it +away and ate it himself; and when a glass of wine was handed to her, he +took it and drank it; and thus, though they kept on giving her meat and +drink, her plate and cup were always empty. + +Upon this, fear and remorse came over her, and she went into her chamber +alone, and sat there weeping; and he followed her there. ‘Alas!’ said +she to herself, ‘was I not once set free? Why then does this enchantment +still seem to bind me?’ + +‘False and fickle one!’ said he. ‘One indeed came who set thee free, and +he is now near thee again; but how have you used him? Ought he to +have had such treatment from thee?’ Then he went out and sent away the +company, and said the wedding was at an end, for that he was come back +to the kingdom. But the princes, peers, and great men mocked at him. +However, he would enter into no parley with them, but only asked them +if they would go in peace or not. Then they turned upon him and tried +to seize him; but he drew his sword. ‘Heads Off!’ cried he; and with the +word the traitors’ heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king +of the Golden Mountain. + + + + +DOCTOR KNOWALL + + +There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with +two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two +talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that +the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he +ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would willingly +have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length +inquired if he too could not be a doctor. ‘Oh, yes,’ said the doctor, +‘that is soon managed.’ ‘What must I do?’ asked the peasant. ‘In the +first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on +the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into +money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to +medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: “I +am Doctor Knowall,” and have that nailed up above your house-door.’ The +peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored +people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money +stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such +a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had +the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and +asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was +to go with him and bring back the stolen money. ‘Oh, yes, but Grete, my +wife, must go too.’ The lord was willing, and let both of them have a +seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came +to the nobleman’s castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to +sit down and eat. ‘Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,’ said he, and he seated +himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a +dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: ‘Grete, +that was the first,’ meaning that was the servant who brought the first +dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say: ‘That is +the first thief,’ and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said +to his comrade outside: ‘The doctor knows all: we shall fare ill, he +said I was the first.’ The second did not want to go in at all, but was +forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife, +and said: ‘Grete, that is the second.’ This servant was equally alarmed, +and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the +peasant again said: ‘Grete, that is the third.’ The fourth had to carry +in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to +show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there +were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and +cried: ‘Ah, poor Crabb.’ When the lord heard that, he cried: ‘There! he +knows it; he must also know who has the money!’ + +On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the +doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore +he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen +the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a +heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he +did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was +concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall, +sat down to the table, and said: ‘My lord, now will I search in my book +where the gold is hidden.’ The fifth servant, however, crept into the +stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still +and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and +looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said: ‘I +know you are there, so you had better come out!’ Then the fellow in the +stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out, +crying: ‘That man knows everything!’ Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord +where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received +from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man. + + + + +THE SEVEN RAVENS + + +There was once a man who had seven sons, and last of all one daughter. +Although the little girl was very pretty, she was so weak and small that +they thought she could not live; but they said she should at once be +christened. + +So the father sent one of his sons in haste to the spring to get some +water, but the other six ran with him. Each wanted to be first at +drawing the water, and so they were in such a hurry that all let their +pitchers fall into the well, and they stood very foolishly looking at +one another, and did not know what to do, for none dared go home. In the +meantime the father was uneasy, and could not tell what made the +young men stay so long. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘the whole seven must have +forgotten themselves over some game of play’; and when he had waited +still longer and they yet did not come, he flew into a rage and wished +them all turned into ravens. Scarcely had he spoken these words when he +heard a croaking over his head, and looked up and saw seven ravens as +black as coal flying round and round. Sorry as he was to see his wish +so fulfilled, he did not know how what was done could be undone, and +comforted himself as well as he could for the loss of his seven sons +with his dear little daughter, who soon became stronger and every day +more beautiful. + +For a long time she did not know that she had ever had any brothers; for +her father and mother took care not to speak of them before her: but one +day by chance she heard the people about her speak of them. ‘Yes,’ said +they, ‘she is beautiful indeed, but still ‘tis a pity that her brothers +should have been lost for her sake.’ Then she was much grieved, and went +to her father and mother, and asked if she had any brothers, and what +had become of them. So they dared no longer hide the truth from her, but +said it was the will of Heaven, and that her birth was only the innocent +cause of it; but the little girl mourned sadly about it every day, and +thought herself bound to do all she could to bring her brothers back; +and she had neither rest nor ease, till at length one day she stole +away, and set out into the wide world to find her brothers, wherever +they might be, and free them, whatever it might cost her. + +She took nothing with her but a little ring which her father and mother +had given her, a loaf of bread in case she should be hungry, a little +pitcher of water in case she should be thirsty, and a little stool +to rest upon when she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and +journeyed till she came to the world’s end; then she came to the sun, +but the sun looked much too hot and fiery; so she ran away quickly to +the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, ‘I smell flesh +and blood this way!’ so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the +stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat +upon his own little stool; but the morning star rose up and gave her a +little piece of wood, and said, ‘If you have not this little piece of +wood, you cannot unlock the castle that stands on the glass-mountain, +and there your brothers live.’ The little girl took the piece of wood, +rolled it up in a little cloth, and went on again until she came to the +glass-mountain, and found the door shut. Then she felt for the little +piece of wood; but when she unwrapped the cloth it was not there, and +she saw she had lost the gift of the good stars. What was to be done? +She wanted to save her brothers, and had no key of the castle of the +glass-mountain; so this faithful little sister took a knife out of her +pocket and cut off her little finger, that was just the size of the +piece of wood she had lost, and put it in the door and opened it. + +As she went in, a little dwarf came up to her, and said, ‘What are you +seeking for?’ ‘I seek for my brothers, the seven ravens,’ answered she. +Then the dwarf said, ‘My masters are not at home; but if you will wait +till they come, pray step in.’ Now the little dwarf was getting their +dinner ready, and he brought their food upon seven little plates, and +their drink in seven little glasses, and set them upon the table, and +out of each little plate their sister ate a small piece, and out of each +little glass she drank a small drop; but she let the ring that she had +brought with her fall into the last glass. + +On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the +dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’ When they came in, they wanted to +eat and drink, and looked for their little plates and glasses. Then said +one after the other, + +‘Who has eaten from my little plate? And who has been drinking out of my +little glass?’ + + ‘Caw! Caw! well I ween + Mortal lips have this way been.’ + +When the seventh came to the bottom of his glass, and found there the +ring, he looked at it, and knew that it was his father’s and mother’s, +and said, ‘O that our little sister would but come! then we should be +free.’ When the little girl heard this (for she stood behind the door +all the time and listened), she ran forward, and in an instant all +the ravens took their right form again; and all hugged and kissed each +other, and went merrily home. + + + + +THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX + + +FIRST STORY + +There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that +his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He +stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved +as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in, +and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it +became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves. +The maid heard someone standing at the house-door, knocking. She went +and opened it, and it was a young fox, who said: + + ‘What may you be about, Miss Cat? + Do you sleep or do you wake?’ + +She answered: + + ‘I am not sleeping, I am waking, + Would you know what I am making? + I am boiling warm beer with butter, + Will you be my guest for supper?’ + +‘No, thank you, miss,’ said the fox, ‘what is Mrs Fox doing?’ The maid +replied: + + ‘She is sitting in her room, + Moaning in her gloom, + Weeping her little eyes quite red, + Because old Mr Fox is dead.’ + +‘Do just tell her, miss, that a young fox is here, who would like to woo +her.’ ‘Certainly, young sir.’ + + The cat goes up the stairs trip, trap, + The door she knocks at tap, tap, tap, + ‘Mistress Fox, are you inside?’ + ‘Oh, yes, my little cat,’ she cried. + ‘A wooer he stands at the door out there.’ + ‘What does he look like, my dear?’ + +‘Has he nine as beautiful tails as the late Mr Fox?’ ‘Oh, no,’ answered +the cat, ‘he has only one.’ ‘Then I will not have him.’ + +Miss Cat went downstairs and sent the wooer away. Soon afterwards there +was another knock, and another fox was at the door who wished to woo Mrs +Fox. He had two tails, but he did not fare better than the first. After +this still more came, each with one tail more than the other, but they +were all turned away, until at last one came who had nine tails, like +old Mr Fox. When the widow heard that, she said joyfully to the cat: + + ‘Now open the gates and doors all wide, + And carry old Mr Fox outside.’ + +But just as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr Fox stirred +under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs +Fox out of the house. + + +SECOND STORY + +When old Mr Fox was dead, the wolf came as a suitor, and knocked at the +door, and the cat who was servant to Mrs Fox, opened it for him. The +wolf greeted her, and said: + + ‘Good day, Mrs Cat of Kehrewit, + How comes it that alone you sit? + What are you making good?’ + +The cat replied: + + ‘In milk I’m breaking bread so sweet, + Will you be my guest, and eat?’ + +‘No, thank you, Mrs Cat,’ answered the wolf. ‘Is Mrs Fox not at home?’ + +The cat said: + + ‘She sits upstairs in her room, + Bewailing her sorrowful doom, + Bewailing her trouble so sore, + For old Mr Fox is no more.’ + +The wolf answered: + + ‘If she’s in want of a husband now, + Then will it please her to step below?’ + The cat runs quickly up the stair, + And lets her tail fly here and there, + Until she comes to the parlour door. + With her five gold rings at the door she knocks: + ‘Are you within, good Mistress Fox? + If you’re in want of a husband now, + Then will it please you to step below? + +Mrs Fox asked: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has he a pointed +mouth?’ ‘No,’ answered the cat. ‘Then he won’t do for me.’ + +When the wolf was gone, came a dog, a stag, a hare, a bear, a lion, and +all the beasts of the forest, one after the other. But one of the good +qualities which old Mr Fox had possessed, was always lacking, and the +cat had continually to send the suitors away. At length came a young +fox. Then Mrs Fox said: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a +little pointed mouth?’ ‘Yes,’ said the cat, ‘he has.’ ‘Then let him come +upstairs,’ said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding +feast. + + ‘Sweep me the room as clean as you can, + Up with the window, fling out my old man! + For many a fine fat mouse he brought, + Yet of his wife he never thought, + But ate up every one he caught.’ + +Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much +rejoicing and dancing; and if they have not left off, they are dancing +still. + + + + +THE SALAD + + +As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, +there came up a little old woman, and said to him, ‘Good day, good day; +you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me +something to eat.’ The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in +his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but +she took hold of him, and said, ‘Listen, my friend, to what I am going +to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after +a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds +sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down +dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when +you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to +be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will +find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It +is the bird’s heart that will bring you this good luck.’ + +The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, ‘If all this does +happen, it will be a fine thing for me.’ When he had gone a hundred +steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, +and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills +and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if +each wished to have it himself. ‘Well,’ said the huntsman, ‘this is +wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said’; then he shot into +the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the +flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. +Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took +out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him. + +The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay +the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and +indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and +at last thought to himself, ‘Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am +at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.’ + +Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his +neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through +a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, +and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young +lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and +said to the young lady, ‘There is a young man coming out of the wood who +carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child, +for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird’s heart that +brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.’ Meantime the +huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, ‘I +have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle +and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want’; +but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful +lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was +not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else +but looking at the lady’s eyes, and doing everything that she wished. +Then the old woman said, ‘Now is the time for getting the bird’s heart.’ +So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his +pillow, for it lay now under the young lady’s, and the old woman took it +away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his +prize. + +‘Well,’ said the old witch, ‘we have got the bird’s heart, but not the +wishing-cloak yet, and that we must also get.’ ‘Let us leave him that,’ +said the young lady; ‘he has already lost his wealth.’ Then the witch +was very angry, and said, ‘Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful +thing, and I must and will have it.’ So she did as the old woman told +her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and +seemed very sorrowful; then the huntsman said, ‘What makes you so sad?’ +‘Alas! dear sir,’ said she, ‘yonder lies the granite rock where all the +costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I +think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only +the birds and the flies--man cannot.’ ‘If that’s all your grief,’ said +the huntsman, ‘I’ll take you there with all my heart’; so he drew her under +his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they +were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were +delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch +made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, ‘Let us +sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand +any longer.’ So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and +fell asleep; and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from +his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished +herself home again. + +When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him +alone on the wild rock, he said, ‘Alas! what roguery there is in the +world!’ and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to +do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it; and as +he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, ‘I can only +save myself by feigning to be asleep’; so he laid himself down as if he +were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed +him with his foot, and said, ‘What worm is this that lies here curled +up?’ ‘Tread upon him and kill him,’ said the second. ‘It’s not worth the +trouble,’ said the third; ‘let him live, he’ll go climbing higher up the +mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.’ And they +passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said; and as soon as they +were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat +there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a +whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden, +and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages. + +Then he looked around him, and said, ‘I wish I had something to eat, if +not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples +nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.’ At last he +thought to himself, ‘I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen +me.’ So he picked out a fine head and ate of it; but scarcely had he +swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with +horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very +hungry, and the salad tasted very nice; so he ate on till he came +to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt +another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to +have found his old shape again. + +Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness; and +when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and +the bad salad, and thought to himself, ‘This will help me to my fortune +again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.’ So he +went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering +about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over +brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into +the castle and asked for a lodging; ‘I am so tired,’ said he, ‘that I +can go no farther.’ ‘Countryman,’ said the witch, ‘who are you? and what +is your business?’ ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a messenger sent by the king to +find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky +enough to find it, and have brought it with me; but the heat of the sun +scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don’t know that I can carry +it farther.’ + +When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they +longed to taste it, and said, ‘Dear countryman, let us just taste it.’ +‘To be sure,’ answered he; ‘I have two heads of it with me, and will +give you one’; so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the +witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed; and when it was +ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves +immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed +when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the +form of an ass. Now the servant-maid came into the kitchen, and seeing +the salad ready, was going to carry it up; but on the way she too felt a +wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves; so she +also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish +with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with +the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she +longed to taste it, she said, ‘I don’t know where the salad can be.’ +Then he thought something must have happened, and said, ‘I will go +into the kitchen and see.’ And as he went he saw two asses in the court +running about, and the salad lying on the ground. ‘All right!’ said +he; ‘those two have had their share.’ Then he took up the rest of +the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady, +saying, ‘I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.’ +So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying +away. + +Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they +might know him. ‘Now you shall be paid for your roguery,’ said he; and +tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he +came to a mill and knocked at the window. ‘What’s the matter?’ said the +miller. ‘I have three tiresome beasts here,’ said the other; ‘if you +will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you, +I will pay you whatever you ask.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said the miller; +‘but how shall I treat them?’ Then the huntsman said, ‘Give the old +one stripes three times a day and hay once; give the next (who was +the servant-maid) stripes once a day and hay three times; and give +the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and +no stripes’: for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten. +After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he +wanted. + +Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass +was dead; ‘The other two,’ said he, ‘are alive and eat, but are so +sorrowful that they cannot last long.’ Then the huntsman pitied them, +and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he +gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady +fell upon her knees before him, and said, ‘O dearest huntsman! forgive +me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was +against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak +hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird’s heart, I will give it you +too.’ But he said, ‘Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean +to make you my wife.’ So they were married, and lived together very +happily till they died. + + + + +THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS + + +A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible, +and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither +learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said: +‘There’s a fellow who will give his father some trouble!’ When anything +had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it; but +if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the +night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal +place, he answered: ‘Oh, no father, I’ll not go there, it makes me +shudder!’ for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at +night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: ‘Oh, +it makes us shudder!’ The younger sat in a corner and listened with +the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. ‘They are +always saying: “It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!” It does not +make me shudder,’ thought he. ‘That, too, must be an art of which I +understand nothing!’ + +Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: ‘Hearken to me, +you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you +too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your +brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.’ ‘Well, father,’ he +replied, ‘I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but +be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don’t understand +that at all yet.’ The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and +thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! +He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to +be a sickle must bend himself betimes.’ + +The father sighed, and answered him: ‘You shall soon learn what it is to +shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.’ + +Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father +bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward +in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing. ‘Just think,’ +said he, ‘when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he +actually wanted to learn to shudder.’ ‘If that be all,’ replied the +sexton, ‘he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon +polish him.’ The father was glad to do it, for he thought: ‘It will +train the boy a little.’ The sexton therefore took him into his house, +and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke +him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and +ring the bell. ‘You shall soon learn what shuddering is,’ thought he, +and secretly went there before him; and when the boy was at the top of +the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell +rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding +hole. ‘Who is there?’ cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did +not move or stir. ‘Give an answer,’ cried the boy, ‘or take yourself +off, you have no business here at night.’ + +The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might +think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time: ‘What do you want +here?--speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the +steps!’ The sexton thought: ‘He can’t mean to be as bad as his words,’ +uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy +called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose, +he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell +down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Thereupon he +rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and +fell asleep. The sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but +he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy, +and asked: ‘Do you know where my husband is? He climbed up the tower +before you did.’ ‘No, I don’t know,’ replied the boy, ‘but someone was +standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he +would neither give an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel, +and threw him downstairs. Just go there and you will see if it was he. +I should be sorry if it were.’ The woman ran away and found her husband, +who was lying moaning in the corner, and had broken his leg. + +She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the +boy’s father, ‘Your boy,’ cried she, ‘has been the cause of a great +misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his +leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.’ The father was +terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. ‘What wicked tricks +are these?’ said he. ‘The devil must have put them into your head.’ +‘Father,’ he replied, ‘do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was +standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know +who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go +away.’ ‘Ah,’ said the father, ‘I have nothing but unhappiness with you. +Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.’ + +‘Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I +go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate, +understand one art which will support me.’ ‘Learn what you will,’ spoke +the father, ‘it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you. +Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you +come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.’ +‘Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than +that, I can easily keep it in mind.’ + +When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his +pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to +himself: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!’ Then a man +approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with +himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could +see the gallows, the man said to him: ‘Look, there is the tree where +seven men have married the ropemaker’s daughter, and are now learning +how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will +soon learn how to shudder.’ ‘If that is all that is wanted,’ answered +the youth, ‘it is easily done; but if I learn how to shudder as fast as +that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the +morning.’ Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and +waited till evening came. And as he was cold, he lighted himself a fire, +but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he +could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each +other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself: +‘If you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and +suffer!’ And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed +up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven. +Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm +themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught +their clothes. So he said: ‘Take care, or I will hang you up again.’ The +dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their +rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said: ‘If you will not +take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you,’ and he hung +them up again each in his turn. Then he sat down by his fire and fell +asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have +the fifty talers, and said: ‘Well do you know how to shudder?’ ‘No,’ +answered he, ‘how should I know? Those fellows up there did not open +their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which +they had on their bodies get burnt.’ Then the man saw that he would not +get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying: ‘Such a youth has +never come my way before.’ + +The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to +himself: ‘Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!’ A +waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: ‘Who are +you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked: ‘From +whence do you come?’ ‘I know not.’ ‘Who is your father?’ ‘That I may +not tell you.’ ‘What is it that you are always muttering between your +teeth?’ ‘Ah,’ replied the youth, ‘I do so wish I could shudder, but +no one can teach me how.’ ‘Enough of your foolish chatter,’ said the +waggoner. ‘Come, go with me, I will see about a place for you.’ The +youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn +where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlour +the youth again said quite loudly: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could +but shudder!’ The host who heard this, laughed and said: ‘If that is +your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.’ ‘Ah, +be silent,’ said the hostess, ‘so many prying persons have already lost +their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as +these should never see the daylight again.’ + +But the youth said: ‘However difficult it may be, I will learn it. For +this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.’ He let the host have +no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a +haunted castle where anyone could very easily learn what shuddering was, +if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that +he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the +most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great +treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would +then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough. Already many men +had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the +youth went next morning to the king, and said: ‘If it be allowed, I will +willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.’ + +The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said: ‘You may +ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must +be things without life.’ Then he answered: ‘Then I ask for a fire, a +turning lathe, and a cutting-board with the knife.’ + +The king had these things carried into the castle for him during the +day. When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself +a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife +beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. ‘Ah, if I could +but shudder!’ said he, ‘but I shall not learn it here either.’ Towards +midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, +something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’ +‘You fools!’ cried he, ‘what are you crying about? If you are cold, come +and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.’ And when he had said +that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down +on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery +eyes. After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: +‘Comrade, shall we have a game of cards?’ ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but +just show me your paws.’ Then they stretched out their claws. ‘Oh,’ said +he, ‘what long nails you have! Wait, I must first cut them for you.’ +Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cutting-board +and screwed their feet fast. ‘I have looked at your fingers,’ said he, +‘and my fancy for card-playing has gone,’ and he struck them dead and +threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two, +and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and +corner came black cats and black dogs with red-hot chains, and more +and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled +horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put +it out. He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were +going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried: ‘Away with you, +vermin,’ and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others +he killed, and threw out into the fish-pond. When he came back he fanned +the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his +eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he +looked round and saw a great bed in the corner. ‘That is the very thing +for me,’ said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his +eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over +the whole of the castle. ‘That’s right,’ said he, ‘but go faster.’ Then +the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down, +over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside +down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up +in the air, got out and said: ‘Now anyone who likes, may drive,’ and +lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king +came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil +spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he: ‘After all it is a +pity,--for so handsome a man.’ The youth heard it, got up, and said: ‘It +has not come to that yet.’ Then the king was astonished, but very glad, +and asked how he had fared. ‘Very well indeed,’ answered he; ‘one +night is past, the two others will pass likewise.’ Then he went to the +innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said: ‘I never expected to +see you alive again! Have you learnt how to shudder yet?’ ‘No,’ said he, +‘it is all in vain. If someone would but tell me!’ + +The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the +fire, and once more began his old song: ‘If I could but shudder!’ When +midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard; at +first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for +a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the +chimney and fell before him. ‘Hullo!’ cried he, ‘another half belongs +to this. This is not enough!’ Then the uproar began again, there was a +roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. ‘Wait,’ said +he, ‘I will just stoke up the fire a little for you.’ When he had done +that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a +hideous man was sitting in his place. ‘That is no part of our bargain,’ +said the youth, ‘the bench is mine.’ The man wanted to push him away; +the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all +his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more +men fell down, one after the other; they brought nine dead men’s legs +and two skulls, and set them up and played at nine-pins with them. The +youth also wanted to play and said: ‘Listen you, can I join you?’ ‘Yes, +if you have any money.’ ‘Money enough,’ replied he, ‘but your balls are +not quite round.’ Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and +turned them till they were round. ‘There, now they will roll better!’ +said he. ‘Hurrah! now we’ll have fun!’ He played with them and lost some +of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his +sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came +to inquire after him. ‘How has it fared with you this time?’ asked he. +‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple +of farthings.’ ‘Have you not shuddered then?’ ‘What?’ said he, ‘I have +had a wonderful time! If I did but know what it was to shudder!’ + +The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly: +‘If I could but shudder.’ When it grew late, six tall men came in and +brought a coffin. Then he said: ‘Ha, ha, that is certainly my little +cousin, who died only a few days ago,’ and he beckoned with his finger, +and cried: ‘Come, little cousin, come.’ They placed the coffin on the +ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay +therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. ‘Wait,’ said he, ‘I +will warm you a little,’ and went to the fire and warmed his hand and +laid it on the dead man’s face, but he remained cold. Then he took him +out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his +arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he +thought to himself: ‘When two people lie in bed together, they warm each +other,’ and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by +him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move. +Then said the youth, ‘See, little cousin, have I not warmed you?’ The +dead man, however, got up and cried: ‘Now will I strangle you.’ + +‘What!’ said he, ‘is that the way you thank me? You shall at once go +into your coffin again,’ and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut +the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. ‘I cannot +manage to shudder,’ said he. ‘I shall never learn it here as long as I +live.’ + +Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible. +He was old, however, and had a long white beard. ‘You wretch,’ cried he, +‘you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.’ ‘Not so +fast,’ replied the youth. ‘If I am to die, I shall have to have a say +in it.’ ‘I will soon seize you,’ said the fiend. ‘Softly, softly, do not +talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.’ +‘We shall see,’ said the old man. ‘If you are stronger, I will let you +go--come, we will try.’ Then he led him by dark passages to a smith’s +forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground. +‘I can do better than that,’ said the youth, and went to the other +anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his +white beard hung down. Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil +with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard. ‘Now I have you,’ +said the youth. ‘Now it is your turn to die.’ Then he seized an iron bar +and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he +would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. +The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him +three chests full of gold. ‘Of these,’ said he, ‘one part is for the +poor, the other for the king, the third yours.’ In the meantime it +struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in +darkness. ‘I shall still be able to find my way out,’ said he, and felt +about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire. +Next morning the king came and said: ‘Now you must have learnt what +shuddering is?’ ‘No,’ he answered; ‘what can it be? My dead cousin was +here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down +below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.’ ‘Then,’ said the +king, ‘you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.’ ‘That +is all very well,’ said he, ‘but still I do not know what it is to +shudder!’ + +Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated; but howsoever +much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still +said always: ‘If I could but shudder--if I could but shudder.’ And this +at last angered her. Her waiting-maid said: ‘I will find a cure for him; +he shall soon learn what it is to shudder.’ She went out to the stream +which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons +brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was +to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water +with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would +sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried: ‘Oh, what makes me shudder +so?--what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it is to +shudder!’ + + + + +KING GRISLY-BEARD + + +A great king of a land far away in the East had a daughter who was very +beautiful, but so proud, and haughty, and conceited, that none of the +princes who came to ask her in marriage was good enough for her, and she +only made sport of them. + +Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all +her suitors; and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their +rank--kings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons, +and knights. Then the princess came in, and as she passed by them she +had something spiteful to say to every one. The first was too fat: ‘He’s +as round as a tub,’ said she. The next was too tall: ‘What a maypole!’ +said she. The next was too short: ‘What a dumpling!’ said she. The +fourth was too pale, and she called him ‘Wallface.’ The fifth was too +red, so she called him ‘Coxcomb.’ The sixth was not straight enough; +so she said he was like a green stick, that had been laid to dry over +a baker’s oven. And thus she had some joke to crack upon every one: but +she laughed more than all at a good king who was there. ‘Look at +him,’ said she; ‘his beard is like an old mop; he shall be called +Grisly-beard.’ So the king got the nickname of Grisly-beard. + +But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved, +and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or +unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that +came to the door. + +Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play +under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said, +‘Let him come in.’ So they brought in a dirty-looking fellow; and when +he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then the +king said, ‘You have sung so well, that I will give you my daughter for +your wife.’ The princess begged and prayed; but the king said, ‘I have +sworn to give you to the first comer, and I will keep my word.’ So words +and tears were of no avail; the parson was sent for, and she was married +to the fiddler. When this was over the king said, ‘Now get ready to +go--you must not stay here--you must travel on with your husband.’ + +Then the fiddler went his way, and took her with him, and they soon came +to a great wood. ‘Pray,’ said she, ‘whose is this wood?’ ‘It belongs +to King Grisly-beard,’ answered he; ‘hadst thou taken him, all had been +thine.’ ‘Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘would that I had +married King Grisly-beard!’ Next they came to some fine meadows. ‘Whose +are these beautiful green meadows?’ said she. ‘They belong to King +Grisly-beard, hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine.’ ‘Ah! +unlucky wretch that I am!’ said she; ‘would that I had married King +Grisly-beard!’ + +Then they came to a great city. ‘Whose is this noble city?’ said she. +‘It belongs to King Grisly-beard; hadst thou taken him, it had all been +thine.’ ‘Ah! wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘why did I not marry King +Grisly-beard?’ ‘That is no business of mine,’ said the fiddler: ‘why +should you wish for another husband? Am not I good enough for you?’ + +At last they came to a small cottage. ‘What a paltry place!’ said she; +‘to whom does that little dirty hole belong?’ Then the fiddler said, +‘That is your and my house, where we are to live.’ ‘Where are your +servants?’ cried she. ‘What do we want with servants?’ said he; ‘you +must do for yourself whatever is to be done. Now make the fire, and put +on water and cook my supper, for I am very tired.’ But the princess knew +nothing of making fires and cooking, and the fiddler was forced to help +her. When they had eaten a very scanty meal they went to bed; but the +fiddler called her up very early in the morning to clean the house. Thus +they lived for two days: and when they had eaten up all there was in the +cottage, the man said, ‘Wife, we can’t go on thus, spending money and +earning nothing. You must learn to weave baskets.’ Then he went out and +cut willows, and brought them home, and she began to weave; but it made +her fingers very sore. ‘I see this work won’t do,’ said he: ‘try and +spin; perhaps you will do that better.’ So she sat down and tried to +spin; but the threads cut her tender fingers till the blood ran. ‘See +now,’ said the fiddler, ‘you are good for nothing; you can do no work: +what a bargain I have got! However, I’ll try and set up a trade in pots +and pans, and you shall stand in the market and sell them.’ ‘Alas!’ +sighed she, ‘if any of my father’s court should pass by and see me +standing in the market, how they will laugh at me!’ + +But her husband did not care for that, and said she must work, if she +did not wish to die of hunger. At first the trade went well; for many +people, seeing such a beautiful woman, went to buy her wares, and paid +their money without thinking of taking away the goods. They lived on +this as long as it lasted; and then her husband bought a fresh lot of +ware, and she sat herself down with it in the corner of the market; but +a drunken soldier soon came by, and rode his horse against her stall, +and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces. Then she began to cry, +and knew not what to do. ‘Ah! what will become of me?’ said she; ‘what +will my husband say?’ So she ran home and told him all. ‘Who would +have thought you would have been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to put an +earthenware stall in the corner of the market, where everybody passes? +but let us have no more crying; I see you are not fit for this sort of +work, so I have been to the king’s palace, and asked if they did not +want a kitchen-maid; and they say they will take you, and there you will +have plenty to eat.’ + +Thus the princess became a kitchen-maid, and helped the cook to do all +the dirtiest work; but she was allowed to carry home some of the meat +that was left, and on this they lived. + +She had not been there long before she heard that the king’s eldest son +was passing by, going to be married; and she went to one of the windows +and looked out. Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of +the court was there. Then she bitterly grieved for the pride and folly +which had brought her so low. And the servants gave her some of the rich +meats, which she put into her basket to take home. + +All on a sudden, as she was going out, in came the king’s son in golden +clothes; and when he saw a beautiful woman at the door, he took her +by the hand, and said she should be his partner in the dance; but she +trembled for fear, for she saw that it was King Grisly-beard, who was +making sport of her. However, he kept fast hold, and led her in; and the +cover of the basket came off, so that the meats in it fell about. Then +everybody laughed and jeered at her; and she was so abashed, that she +wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth. She sprang to the +door to run away; but on the steps King Grisly-beard overtook her, and +brought her back and said, ‘Fear me not! I am the fiddler who has lived +with you in the hut. I brought you there because I really loved you. I +am also the soldier that overset your stall. I have done all this only +to cure you of your silly pride, and to show you the folly of your +ill-treatment of me. Now all is over: you have learnt wisdom, and it is +time to hold our marriage feast.’ + +Then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes; and +her father and his whole court were there already, and welcomed her home +on her marriage. Joy was in every face and every heart. The feast was +grand; they danced and sang; all were merry; and I only wish that you +and I had been of the party. + + + + +IRON HANS + + +There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near his +palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a +huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back. ‘Perhaps some +accident has befallen him,’ said the king, and the next day he sent out +two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away. +Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said: ‘Scour +the whole forest through, and do not give up until you have found all +three.’ But of these also, none came home again, none were seen again. +From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest, +and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen +of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted for +many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself to the king as +seeking a situation, and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The +king, however, would not give his consent, and said: ‘It is not safe in +there; I fear it would fare with you no better than with the others, +and you would never come out again.’ The huntsman replied: ‘Lord, I will +venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.’ + +The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was +not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to +pursue it; but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a +deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of +the water, seized it, and drew it under. When the huntsman saw that, he +went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bale out the +water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body +was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his +knees. They bound him with cords, and led him away to the castle. There +was great astonishment over the wild man; the king, however, had him put +in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened +on pain of death, and the queen herself was to take the key into her +keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the +forest with safety. + +The king had a son of eight years, who was once playing in the +courtyard, and while he was playing, his golden ball fell into the cage. +The boy ran thither and said: ‘Give me my ball out.’ ‘Not till you have +opened the door for me,’ answered the man. ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I will +not do that; the king has forbidden it,’ and ran away. The next day he +again went and asked for his ball; the wild man said: ‘Open my door,’ +but the boy would not. On the third day the king had ridden out hunting, +and the boy went once more and said: ‘I cannot open the door even if I +wished, for I have not the key.’ Then the wild man said: ‘It lies under +your mother’s pillow, you can get it there.’ The boy, who wanted to have +his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key. The +door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers. When it +was open the wild man stepped out, gave him the golden ball, and hurried +away. The boy had become afraid; he called and cried after him: ‘Oh, +wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!’ The wild man turned +back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps +into the forest. When the king came home, he observed the empty cage, +and asked the queen how that had happened. She knew nothing about it, +and sought the key, but it was gone. She called the boy, but no one +answered. The king sent out people to seek for him in the fields, but +they did not find him. Then he could easily guess what had happened, and +much grief reigned in the royal court. + +When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy +down from his shoulder, and said to him: ‘You will never see your father +and mother again, but I will keep you with me, for you have set me free, +and I have compassion on you. If you do all I bid you, you shall fare +well. Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the +world.’ He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the +next morning the man took him to a well, and said: ‘Behold, the gold +well is as bright and clear as crystal, you shall sit beside it, and +take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will +come every evening to see if you have obeyed my order.’ The boy placed +himself by the brink of the well, and often saw a golden fish or a +golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in. +As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he +involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw +that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold +off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron Hans came back, +looked at the boy, and said: ‘What has happened to the well?’ ‘Nothing +nothing,’ he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the +man might not see it. But he said: ‘You have dipped your finger into +the water, this time it may pass, but take care you do not again let +anything go in.’ By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and +watching it. His finger hurt him again and he passed it over his head, +and then unhappily a hair fell down into the well. He took it quickly +out, but it was already quite gilded. Iron Hans came, and already knew +what had happened. ‘You have let a hair fall into the well,’ said he. +‘I will allow you to watch by it once more, but if this happens for the +third time then the well is polluted and you can no longer remain with +me.’ + +On the third day, the boy sat by the well, and did not stir his finger, +however much it hurt him. But the time was long to him, and he looked at +the reflection of his face on the surface of the water. And as he +still bent down more and more while he was doing so, and trying to look +straight into the eyes, his long hair fell down from his shoulders into +the water. He raised himself up quickly, but the whole of the hair of +his head was already golden and shone like the sun. You can imagine how +terrified the poor boy was! He took his pocket-handkerchief and tied it +round his head, in order that the man might not see it. When he came he +already knew everything, and said: ‘Take the handkerchief off.’ Then the +golden hair streamed forth, and let the boy excuse himself as he might, +it was of no use. ‘You have not stood the trial and can stay here no +longer. Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is. +But as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is +one thing I will grant you; if you fall into any difficulty, come to the +forest and cry: “Iron Hans,” and then I will come and help you. My +power is great, greater than you think, and I have gold and silver in +abundance.’ + +Then the king’s son left the forest, and walked by beaten and unbeaten +paths ever onwards until at length he reached a great city. There he +looked for work, but could find none, and he learnt nothing by which he +could help himself. At length he went to the palace, and asked if they +would take him in. The people about court did not at all know what use +they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. At +length the cook took him into his service, and said he might carry wood +and water, and rake the cinders together. Once when it so happened that +no one else was at hand, the cook ordered him to carry the food to the +royal table, but as he did not like to let his golden hair be seen, he +kept his little cap on. Such a thing as that had never yet come under +the king’s notice, and he said: ‘When you come to the royal table you +must take your hat off.’ He answered: ‘Ah, Lord, I cannot; I have a bad +sore place on my head.’ Then the king had the cook called before him +and scolded him, and asked how he could take such a boy as that into his +service; and that he was to send him away at once. The cook, however, +had pity on him, and exchanged him for the gardener’s boy. + +And now the boy had to plant and water the garden, hoe and dig, and bear +the wind and bad weather. Once in summer when he was working alone in +the garden, the day was so warm he took his little cap off that the air +might cool him. As the sun shone on his hair it glittered and flashed so +that the rays fell into the bedroom of the king’s daughter, and up she +sprang to see what that could be. Then she saw the boy, and cried to +him: ‘Boy, bring me a wreath of flowers.’ He put his cap on with all +haste, and gathered wild field-flowers and bound them together. When he +was ascending the stairs with them, the gardener met him, and said: ‘How +can you take the king’s daughter a garland of such common flowers? Go +quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest.’ ‘Oh, +no,’ replied the boy, ‘the wild ones have more scent, and will please +her better.’ When he got into the room, the king’s daughter said: ‘Take +your cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence.’ He again +said: ‘I may not, I have a sore head.’ She, however, caught at his +cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his +shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she +held him by the arm, and gave him a handful of ducats. With these he +departed, but he cared nothing for the gold pieces. He took them to the +gardener, and said: ‘I present them to your children, they can play with +them.’ The following day the king’s daughter again called to him that he +was to bring her a wreath of field-flowers, and then he went in with it, +she instantly snatched at his cap, and wanted to take it away from him, +but he held it fast with both hands. She again gave him a handful of +ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for +playthings for his children. On the third day things went just the +same; she could not get his cap away from him, and he would not have her +money. + +Not long afterwards, the country was overrun by war. The king gathered +together his people, and did not know whether or not he could offer any +opposition to the enemy, who was superior in strength and had a mighty +army. Then said the gardener’s boy: ‘I am grown up, and will go to the +wars also, only give me a horse.’ The others laughed, and said: ‘Seek +one for yourself when we are gone, we will leave one behind us in the +stable for you.’ When they had gone forth, he went into the stable, and +led the horse out; it was lame of one foot, and limped hobblety jib, +hobblety jib; nevertheless he mounted it, and rode away to the dark +forest. When he came to the outskirts, he called ‘Iron Hans’ three +times so loudly that it echoed through the trees. Thereupon the wild man +appeared immediately, and said: ‘What do you desire?’ ‘I want a strong +steed, for I am going to the wars.’ ‘That you shall have, and still more +than you ask for.’ Then the wild man went back into the forest, and it +was not long before a stable-boy came out of it, who led a horse that +snorted with its nostrils, and could hardly be restrained, and behind +them followed a great troop of warriors entirely equipped in iron, and +their swords flashed in the sun. The youth made over his three-legged +horse to the stable-boy, mounted the other, and rode at the head of the +soldiers. When he got near the battlefield a great part of the king’s +men had already fallen, and little was wanting to make the rest give +way. Then the youth galloped thither with his iron soldiers, broke like +a hurricane over the enemy, and beat down all who opposed him. They +began to flee, but the youth pursued, and never stopped, until there +was not a single man left. Instead of returning to the king, however, he +conducted his troop by byways back to the forest, and called forth Iron +Hans. ‘What do you desire?’ asked the wild man. ‘Take back your horse +and your troops, and give me my three-legged horse again.’ All that he +asked was done, and soon he was riding on his three-legged horse. When +the king returned to his palace, his daughter went to meet him, and +wished him joy of his victory. ‘I am not the one who carried away the +victory,’ said he, ‘but a strange knight who came to my assistance with +his soldiers.’ The daughter wanted to hear who the strange knight was, +but the king did not know, and said: ‘He followed the enemy, and I did +not see him again.’ She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but +he smiled, and said: ‘He has just come home on his three-legged horse, +and the others have been mocking him, and crying: “Here comes our +hobblety jib back again!” They asked, too: “Under what hedge have you +been lying sleeping all the time?” So he said: “I did the best of all, +and it would have gone badly without me.” And then he was still more +ridiculed.’ + +The king said to his daughter: ‘I will proclaim a great feast that shall +last for three days, and you shall throw a golden apple. Perhaps the +unknown man will show himself.’ When the feast was announced, the youth +went out to the forest, and called Iron Hans. ‘What do you desire?’ +asked he. ‘That I may catch the king’s daughter’s golden apple.’ ‘It is +as safe as if you had it already,’ said Iron Hans. ‘You shall likewise +have a suit of red armour for the occasion, and ride on a spirited +chestnut-horse.’ When the day came, the youth galloped to the spot, took +his place amongst the knights, and was recognized by no one. The king’s +daughter came forward, and threw a golden apple to the knights, but none +of them caught it but he, only as soon as he had it he galloped away. + +On the second day Iron Hans equipped him as a white knight, and gave him +a white horse. Again he was the only one who caught the apple, and +he did not linger an instant, but galloped off with it. The king grew +angry, and said: ‘That is not allowed; he must appear before me and tell +his name.’ He gave the order that if the knight who caught the apple, +should go away again they should pursue him, and if he would not come +back willingly, they were to cut him down and stab him. + +On the third day, he received from Iron Hans a suit of black armour and +a black horse, and again he caught the apple. But when he was riding off +with it, the king’s attendants pursued him, and one of them got so near +him that he wounded the youth’s leg with the point of his sword. The +youth nevertheless escaped from them, but his horse leapt so violently +that the helmet fell from the youth’s head, and they could see that he +had golden hair. They rode back and announced this to the king. + +The following day the king’s daughter asked the gardener about his +boy. ‘He is at work in the garden; the queer creature has been at the +festival too, and only came home yesterday evening; he has likewise +shown my children three golden apples which he has won.’ + +The king had him summoned into his presence, and he came and again had +his little cap on his head. But the king’s daughter went up to him and +took it off, and then his golden hair fell down over his shoulders, and +he was so handsome that all were amazed. ‘Are you the knight who came +every day to the festival, always in different colours, and who caught +the three golden apples?’ asked the king. ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘and here +the apples are,’ and he took them out of his pocket, and returned them +to the king. ‘If you desire further proof, you may see the wound which +your people gave me when they followed me. But I am likewise the knight +who helped you to your victory over your enemies.’ ‘If you can perform +such deeds as that, you are no gardener’s boy; tell me, who is your +father?’ ‘My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great +as I require.’ ‘I well see,’ said the king, ‘that I owe my thanks to +you; can I do anything to please you?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘that indeed +you can. Give me your daughter to wife.’ The maiden laughed, and said: +‘He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his +golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy,’ and then she went and +kissed him. His father and mother came to the wedding, and were in great +delight, for they had given up all hope of ever seeing their dear +son again. And as they were sitting at the marriage-feast, the music +suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a +great retinue. He went up to the youth, embraced him and said: ‘I am +Iron Hans, and was by enchantment a wild man, but you have set me free; +all the treasures which I possess, shall be your property.’ + + + + +CAT-SKIN + + +There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was +so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of +the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her +end drew near she called the king to her and said, ‘Promise me that you +will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful +as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.’ Then when the king in his +grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died. But the king +was not to be comforted, and for a long time never thought of taking +another wife. At last, however, his wise men said, ‘this will not do; +the king must marry again, that we may have a queen.’ So messengers were +sent far and wide, to seek for a bride as beautiful as the late queen. +But there was no princess in the world so beautiful; and if there had +been, still there was not one to be found who had golden hair. So the +messengers came home, and had had all their trouble for nothing. + +Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother, +and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king looked +at her and saw that she was just like this late queen: then he said to +his courtiers, ‘May I not marry my daughter? She is the very image of my +dead wife: unless I have her, I shall not find any bride upon the whole +earth, and you say there must be a queen.’ When the courtiers heard this +they were shocked, and said, ‘Heaven forbid that a father should marry +his daughter! Out of so great a sin no good can come.’ And his daughter +was also shocked, but hoped the king would soon give up such thoughts; +so she said to him, ‘Before I marry anyone I must have three dresses: +one must be of gold, like the sun; another must be of shining silver, +like the moon; and a third must be dazzling as the stars: besides this, +I want a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur put together, to +which every beast in the kingdom must give a part of his skin.’ And thus +she thought he would think of the matter no more. But the king made the +most skilful workmen in his kingdom weave the three dresses: one golden, +like the sun; another silvery, like the moon; and a third sparkling, +like the stars: and his hunters were told to hunt out all the beasts in +his kingdom, and to take the finest fur out of their skins: and thus a +mantle of a thousand furs was made. + +When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the +night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden +ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three +dresses--of the sun, the moon, and the stars--up in a nutshell, and +wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared +her face and hands with soot. Then she threw herself upon Heaven for +help in her need, and went away, and journeyed on the whole night, till +at last she came to a large wood. As she was very tired, she sat herself +down in the hollow of a tree and soon fell asleep: and there she slept +on till it was midday. + +Now as the king to whom the wood belonged was hunting in it, his dogs +came to the tree, and began to snuff about, and run round and round, and +bark. ‘Look sharp!’ said the king to the huntsmen, ‘and see what sort +of game lies there.’ And the huntsmen went up to the tree, and when they +came back again said, ‘In the hollow tree there lies a most wonderful +beast, such as we never saw before; its skin seems to be of a thousand +kinds of fur, but there it lies fast asleep.’ ‘See,’ said the king, ‘if +you can catch it alive, and we will take it with us.’ So the huntsmen +took it up, and the maiden awoke and was greatly frightened, and said, +‘I am a poor child that has neither father nor mother left; have pity on +me and take me with you.’ Then they said, ‘Yes, Miss Cat-skin, you will +do for the kitchen; you can sweep up the ashes, and do things of that +sort.’ So they put her into the coach, and took her home to the king’s +palace. Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where +no light of day ever peeped in, and said, ‘Cat-skin, you may lie and +sleep there.’ And she was sent into the kitchen, and made to fetch wood +and water, to blow the fire, pluck the poultry, pick the herbs, sift the +ashes, and do all the dirty work. + +Thus Cat-skin lived for a long time very sorrowfully. ‘Ah! pretty +princess!’ thought she, ‘what will now become of thee?’ But it happened +one day that a feast was to be held in the king’s castle, so she said to +the cook, ‘May I go up a little while and see what is going on? I will +take care and stand behind the door.’ And the cook said, ‘Yes, you may +go, but be back again in half an hour’s time, to rake out the ashes.’ +Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the +fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her +beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds. She next opened +her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun, +and so went to the feast. Everyone made way for her, for nobody knew +her, and they thought she could be no less than a king’s daughter. But +the king came up to her, and held out his hand and danced with her; and +he thought in his heart, ‘I never saw any one half so beautiful.’ + +When the dance was at an end she curtsied; and when the king looked +round for her, she was gone, no one knew wither. The guards that stood +at the castle gate were called in: but they had seen no one. The truth +was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress, +blackened her face and hands, put on the fur-skin cloak, and was +Cat-skin again. When she went into the kitchen to her work, and began +to rake the ashes, the cook said, ‘Let that alone till the morning, and +heat the king’s soup; I should like to run up now and give a peep: but +take care you don’t let a hair fall into it, or you will run a chance of +never eating again.’ + +As soon as the cook went away, Cat-skin heated the king’s soup, and +toasted a slice of bread first, as nicely as ever she could; and when it +was ready, she went and looked in the cabin for her little golden ring, +and put it into the dish in which the soup was. When the dance was over, +the king ordered his soup to be brought in; and it pleased him so well, +that he thought he had never tasted any so good before. At the bottom +he saw a gold ring lying; and as he could not make out how it had got +there, he ordered the cook to be sent for. The cook was frightened when +he heard the order, and said to Cat-skin, ‘You must have let a hair fall +into the soup; if it be so, you will have a good beating.’ Then he went +before the king, and he asked him who had cooked the soup. ‘I did,’ +answered the cook. But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better +done than you could do it.’ Then he answered, ‘To tell the truth I did +not cook it, but Cat-skin did.’ ‘Then let Cat-skin come up,’ said the +king: and when she came he said to her, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am a poor +child,’ said she, ‘that has lost both father and mother.’ ‘How came you +in my palace?’ asked he. ‘I am good for nothing,’ said she, ‘but to be +scullion-girl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.’ ‘But how +did you get the ring that was in the soup?’ asked the king. Then she +would not own that she knew anything about the ring; so the king sent +her away again about her business. + +After a time there was another feast, and Cat-skin asked the cook to let +her go up and see it as before. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but come again in half +an hour, and cook the king the soup that he likes so much.’ Then she +ran to her little cabin, washed herself quickly, and took her dress +out which was silvery as the moon, and put it on; and when she went in, +looking like a king’s daughter, the king went up to her, and rejoiced at +seeing her again, and when the dance began he danced with her. After the +dance was at an end she managed to slip out, so slyly that the king did +not see where she was gone; but she sprang into her little cabin, and +made herself into Cat-skin again, and went into the kitchen to cook the +soup. Whilst the cook was above stairs, she got the golden necklace and +dropped it into the soup; then it was brought to the king, who ate it, +and it pleased him as well as before; so he sent for the cook, who +was again forced to tell him that Cat-skin had cooked it. Cat-skin was +brought again before the king, but she still told him that she was only +fit to have boots and shoes thrown at her head. + +But when the king had ordered a feast to be got ready for the third +time, it happened just the same as before. ‘You must be a witch, +Cat-skin,’ said the cook; ‘for you always put something into your soup, +so that it pleases the king better than mine.’ However, he let her go up +as before. Then she put on her dress which sparkled like the stars, and +went into the ball-room in it; and the king danced with her again, and +thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then. So whilst +he was dancing with her, he put a gold ring on her finger without her +seeing it, and ordered that the dance should be kept up a long time. +When it was at an end, he would have held her fast by the hand, but she +slipped away, and sprang so quickly through the crowd that he lost sight +of her: and she ran as fast as she could into her little cabin under +the stairs. But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the +half-hour; so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her +fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over +with soot, but left one of her fingers white. + +Then she ran into the kitchen, and cooked the king’s soup; and as soon +as the cook was gone, she put the golden brooch into the dish. When the +king got to the bottom, he ordered Cat-skin to be called once more, and +soon saw the white finger, and the ring that he had put on it whilst +they were dancing: so he seized her hand, and kept fast hold of it, and +when she wanted to loose herself and spring away, the fur cloak fell off +a little on one side, and the starry dress sparkled underneath it. + +Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and +beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself: so she +washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the +most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth. But the king said, +‘You are my beloved bride, and we will never more be parted from each +other.’ And the wedding feast was held, and a merry day it was, as ever +was heard of or seen in that country, or indeed in any other. + + + + +SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED + + +There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of +the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore +white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the +two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose-red. +They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children +in the world were, only Snow-white was more quiet and gentle than +Rose-red. Rose-red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields +seeking flowers and catching butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home +with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when +there was nothing to do. + +The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each +other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said: +‘We will not leave each other,’ Rose-red answered: ‘Never so long as we +live,’ and their mother would add: ‘What one has she must share with the +other.’ + +They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no +beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little +hare would eat a cabbage-leaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by +their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon +the boughs, and sang whatever they knew. + +No mishap overtook them; if they had stayed too late in the forest, and +night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss, +and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not +worry on their account. + +Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused +them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near +their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing +and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that +they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly +have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces +further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who +watches over good children. + +Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s little cottage so neat that +it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care +of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother’s +bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter +Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle +was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the +evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: ‘Go, Snow-white, and +bolt the door,’ and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took +her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls +listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the +floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head +hidden beneath its wings. + +One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone +knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said: +‘Quick, Rose-red, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking +shelter.’ Rose-red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a +poor man, but it was not; it was a bear that stretched his broad, black +head within the door. + +Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, +and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. But the bear began +to speak and said: ‘Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am +half-frozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.’ + +‘Poor bear,’ said the mother, ‘lie down by the fire, only take care that +you do not burn your coat.’ Then she cried: ‘Snow-white, Rose-red, come +out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.’ So they both came +out, and by-and-by the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid +of him. The bear said: ‘Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a +little’; so they brought the broom and swept the bear’s hide clean; +and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and +comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played +tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands, +put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a +hazel-switch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the +bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called +out: ‘Leave me alive, children, + + Snow-white, Rose-red, + Will you beat your wooer dead?’ + +When it was bed-time, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the +bear: ‘You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from +the cold and the bad weather.’ As soon as day dawned the two children +let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest. + +Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself +down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as +much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were +never fastened until their black friend had arrived. + +When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one +morning to Snow-white: ‘Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the +whole summer.’ ‘Where are you going, then, dear bear?’ asked Snow-white. +‘I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked +dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged +to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun +has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to +pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, +does not easily see daylight again.’ + +Snow-white was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the +door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt +and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white +as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about +it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the +trees. + +A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest +to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the +ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and +forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When +they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a +snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a +crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog +tied to a rope, and did not know what to do. + +He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried: ‘Why do you +stand there? Can you not come here and help me?’ ‘What are you up to, +little man?’ asked Rose-red. ‘You stupid, prying goose!’ answered the +dwarf: ‘I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. +The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with +heavy logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had +just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished; +but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the +tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white +beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, +milk-faced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!’ + +The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it +was caught too fast. ‘I will run and fetch someone,’ said Rose-red. ‘You +senseless goose!’ snarled the dwarf; ‘why should you fetch someone? You +are already two too many for me; can you not think of something better?’ +‘Don’t be impatient,’ said Snow-white, ‘I will help you,’ and she pulled +her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard. + +As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay +amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it +up, grumbling to himself: ‘Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine +beard. Bad luck to you!’ and then he swung the bag upon his back, and +went off without even once looking at the children. + +Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish +of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large +grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in. +They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. ‘Where are you going?’ said +Rose-red; ‘you surely don’t want to go into the water?’ ‘I am not such +a fool!’ cried the dwarf; ‘don’t you see that the accursed fish wants +to pull me in?’ The little man had been sitting there fishing, and +unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing-line; a +moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not +strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the +dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of +little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and +was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water. + +The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his +beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast +together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut +the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that +he screamed out: ‘Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man’s +face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have +cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. +I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took +out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word +he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone. + +It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the +town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them +across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There +they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and +round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a +rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran +up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance +the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. + +The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man, +and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go. +As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried +with his shrill voice: ‘Could you not have done it more carefully! You +dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you +clumsy creatures!’ Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and +slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by +this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their +business in town. + +As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the +dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, +and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening +sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with +all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared +at them. ‘Why do you stand gaping there?’ cried the dwarf, and his +ashen-grey face became copper-red with rage. He was still cursing when a +loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out +of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach +his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart +he cried: ‘Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures; +look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you +want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me +between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender +morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy’s sake eat them!’ The +bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single +blow with his paw, and he did not move again. + +The girls had run away, but the bear called to them: ‘Snow-white and +Rose-red, do not be afraid; wait, I will come with you.’ Then they +recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly +his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in +gold. ‘I am a king’s son,’ he said, ‘and I was bewitched by that wicked +dwarf, who had stolen my treasures; I have had to run about the forest +as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his +well-deserved punishment. + +Snow-white was married to him, and Rose-red to his brother, and they +divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered +together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with +her children for many years. She took the two rose-trees with her, and +they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful +roses, white and red. + +Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + +CHAPTER I. +Down the Rabbit-Hole + + +Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the +bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into +the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or +conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice +“without pictures or conversations?” + +So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the +hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of +making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and +picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran +close by her. + +There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it +so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh +dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, +it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the +time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually _took a +watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried +on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she +had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a +watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the +field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a +large rabbit-hole under the hedge. + +In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how +in the world she was to get out again. + +The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then +dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think +about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very +deep well. + +Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had +plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what +was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out +what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she +looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with +cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures +hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she +passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great +disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear +of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the +cupboards as she fell past it. + +“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall +think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me +at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the +top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.) + +Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? “I wonder how +many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be +getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would +be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for, you see, Alice had learnt +several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and +though this was not a _very_ good opportunity for showing off her +knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good +practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the right distance—but +then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had no +idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice +grand words to say.) + +Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right _through_ +the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk +with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather +glad there _was_ no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all +the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the +country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” +(and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy _curtseying_ as you’re +falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what +an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do +to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” + +Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began +talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” +(Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at +tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are +no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s +very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here +Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a +dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and +sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer +either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt +that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was +walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, +“Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, +thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and +the fall was over. + +Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: +she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another +long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down +it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, +and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears +and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she +turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found +herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging +from the roof. + +There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when +Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every +door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to +get out again. + +Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid +glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s +first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; +but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, +but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second +time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and +behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the +little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! + +Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not +much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the +passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get +out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright +flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head +through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought +poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, +how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only +knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had +happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things +indeed were really impossible. + +There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went +back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at +any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this +time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here +before,” said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper +label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large +letters. + +It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was +not going to do _that_ in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, +“and see whether it’s marked ‘_poison_’ or not”; for she had read +several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and +eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they +_would_ not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: +such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; +and that if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually +bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a +bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, +sooner or later. + +However, this bottle was _not_ marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to +taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed +flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and +hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a +telescope.” + +And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face +brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going +through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she +waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: +she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,” +said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I +wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the +flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could +not remember ever having seen such a thing. + +After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going +into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the +door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she +went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach +it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her +best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; +and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing +sat down and cried. + +“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself, +rather sharply; “I advise you to leave off this minute!” She generally +gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), +and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into +her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having +cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, +for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. +“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two +people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make _one_ respectable +person!” + +Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: +she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words +“EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said +Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it +makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll +get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” + +She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which +way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was +growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same +size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice +had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way +things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go +on in the common way. + +So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER II. +The Pool of Tears + + +“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that +for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m +opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” +(for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of +sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I +wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m +sure _I_ shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble +myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be +kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I +want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every +Christmas.” + +And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must +go by the carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending +presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! + + _Alice’s Right Foot, Esq., Hearthrug, near the Fender,_ (_with + Alice’s love_). + +Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!” + +Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was +now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden +key and hurried off to the garden door. + +Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to +look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more +hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like +you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop +this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding +gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about +four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. + +After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and +she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White +Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves +in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a +great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh! the Duchess, the +Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt +so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the +Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, +sir—” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and +the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. + +Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she +kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How +queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. +I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the +same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling +a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who +in the world am I? Ah, _that’s_ the great puzzle!” And she began +thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as +herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. + +“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long +ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t +be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a +very little! Besides, _she’s_ she, and _I’m_ I, and—oh dear, how +puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. +Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, +and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that +rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try +Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of +Rome, and Rome—no, _that’s_ all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been +changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘_How doth the little_—’” and she +crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began +to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words +did not come the same as they used to do:— + +“How doth the little crocodile + Improve his shining tail, +And pour the waters of the Nile + On every golden scale! + +“How cheerfully he seems to grin, + How neatly spread his claws, +And welcome little fishes in + With gently smiling jaws!” + + +“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes +filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and +I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to +no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve +made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be +no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ +I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and +then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down +here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden +burst of tears, “I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so +_very_ tired of being all alone here!” + +As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see +that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while +she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be +growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure +herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was +now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon +found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she +dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. + +“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the +sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and +now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little +door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden +key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than +ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this +before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” + +As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, +splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that +she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by +railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in +her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go +to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the +sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row +of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she +soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when +she was nine feet high. + +“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying +to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by +being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be +sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” + +Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way +off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought +it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small +she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had +slipped in like herself. + +“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? +Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very +likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she +began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired +of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right +way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but +she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of +a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather +inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, +but it said nothing. + +“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s +a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all +her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago +anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which +was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a +sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with +fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she +had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like +cats.” + +“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would +_you_ like cats if you were me?” + +“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry +about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d +take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear +quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about +in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her +paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to +nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your +pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all +over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. “We won’t talk +about her any more if you’d rather not.” + +“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his +tail. “As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always +_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name +again!” + +“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of +conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not +answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog near +our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you +know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when +you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts +of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you +know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says +it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, +“I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away +from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the +pool as it went. + +So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we +won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the +Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face +was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low +trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my +history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” + +It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the +birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a +Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice +led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale + + +They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the +birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close +to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. + +The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a +consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite +natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if +she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument +with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, “I am +older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would not allow +without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to +tell its age, there was no more to be said. + +At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, +called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! _I’ll_ soon make +you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the +Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she +felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. + +“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This +is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William +the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted +to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much +accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of +Mercia and Northumbria—’” + +“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver. + +“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did +you speak?” + +“Not I!” said the Lory hastily. + +“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “—I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, +the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even +Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’” + +“Found _what_?” said the Duck. + +“Found _it_,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know +what ‘it’ means.” + +“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when _I_ find a thing,” said the +Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the +archbishop find?” + +The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘—found +it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him +the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence +of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, +turning to Alice as it spoke. + +“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to +dry me at all.” + +“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move +that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic +remedies—” + +“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half +those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And +the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds +tittered audibly. + +“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, +that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.” + +“What _is_ a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she wanted much to +know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that _somebody_ ought to +speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. + +“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, +as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will +tell you how the Dodo managed it.) + +First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact +shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed +along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and +away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they +liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, +when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry +again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all +crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?” + +This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of +thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its +forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the +pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo +said, “_Everybody_ has won, and all must have prizes.” + +“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked. + +“Why, _she_, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one +finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a +confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” + +Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her +pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had +not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly +one a-piece, all round. + +“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse. + +“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in +your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice. + +“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. + +“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. + +Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly +presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant +thimble;” and, when it had finished this short speech, they all +cheered. + +Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave +that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything +to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as +she could. + +The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and +confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste +theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. +However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and +begged the Mouse to tell them something more. + +“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why +it is you hate—C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that it +would be offended again. + +“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and +sighing. + +“It _is_ a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder +at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on +puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the +tale was something like this:— + + “Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, ‘Let us both + go to law: _I_ will prosecute _you_.—Come, I’ll take no + denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I’ve + nothing to do.’ Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear + sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’ + ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ Said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll + try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.’” + +“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice severely. “What are +you thinking of?” + +“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the fifth +bend, I think?” + +“I had _not!_” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. + +“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking +anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!” + +“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and +walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!” + +“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily offended, +you know!” + +The Mouse only growled in reply. + +“Please come back and finish your story!” Alice called after it; and +the others all joined in chorus, “Yes, please do!” but the Mouse only +shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. + +“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it was +quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to +her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose +_your_ temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, a little +snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!” + +“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, +addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!” + +“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the +Lory. + +Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: +“Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice you +can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, +she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” + +This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the +birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very +carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home; the night-air +doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice +to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in +bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left +alone. + +“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a melancholy +tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best +cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you +any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very +lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a +little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up +eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was +coming back to finish his story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill + + +It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking +anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard +it muttering to itself “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh +my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are +ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a +moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid +gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but +they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since +her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the +little door, had vanished completely. + +Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and +called out to her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you +doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and +a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off +at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the +mistake it had made. + +“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How +surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him +his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she +came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass +plate with the name “W. RABBIT,” engraved upon it. She went in without +knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the +real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the +fan and gloves. + +“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for +a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” And she +began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “‘Miss Alice! Come +here directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, +nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I +don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in the house +if it began ordering people about like that!” + +By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table +in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three +pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the +gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a +little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label +this time with the words “DRINK ME,” but nevertheless she uncorked it +and put it to her lips. “I know _something_ interesting is sure to +happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink anything; so +I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large +again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!” + +It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had +drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, +and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put +down the bottle, saying to herself “That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t +grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t +drunk quite so much!” + +Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, +and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there +was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with +one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. +Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out +of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself “Now I +can do no more, whatever happens. What _will_ become of me?” + +Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, +and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there +seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room +again, no wonder she felt unhappy. + +“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t +always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and +rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and +yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what +_can_ have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied +that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of +one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And +when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,” she added in a +sorrowful tone; “at least there’s no room to grow up any more _here_.” + +“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I _never_ get any older than I am +now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but +then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like _that!_” + +“Oh, you foolish Alice!” she answered herself. “How can you learn +lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for _you_, and no room at all +for any lesson-books!” + +And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and +making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes +she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. + +“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. “Fetch me my gloves this moment!” +Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was +the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the +house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as +large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. + +Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as +the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, +that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself “Then I’ll +go round and get in at the window.” + +“_That_ you won’t!” thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied +she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her +hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, +but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, +from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a +cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. + +Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And +then a voice she had never heard before, “Sure then I’m here! Digging +for apples, yer honour!” + +“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rabbit angrily. “Here! Come and +help me out of _this!_” (Sounds of more broken glass.) + +“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?” + +“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!” (He pronounced it “arrum.”) + +“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole +window!” + +“Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.” + +“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!” + +There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers +now and then; such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at +all!” “Do as I tell you, you coward!” and at last she spread out her +hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were +_two_ little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “What a number +of cucumber-frames there must be!” thought Alice. “I wonder what +they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they +_could!_ I’m sure _I_ don’t want to stay in here any longer!” + +She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a +rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all +talking together: she made out the words: “Where’s the other +ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! +fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em +together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do +well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this +rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! +Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I +fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, _I_ shan’t! _You_ do +it!—_That_ I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says +you’re to go down the chimney!” + +“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to +herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in +Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but +I _think_ I can kick a little!” + +She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till +she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) +scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, +saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited +to see what would happen next. + +The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” +then the Rabbit’s voice along—“Catch him, you by the hedge!” then +silence, and then another confusion of voices—“Hold up his head—Brandy +now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell +us all about it!” + +Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (“That’s Bill,” thought +Alice,) “Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m +a deal too flustered to tell you—all I know is, something comes at me +like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!” + +“So you did, old fellow!” said the others. + +“We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice +called out as loud as she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you!” + +There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, “I +wonder what they _will_ do next! If they had any sense, they’d take the +roof off.” After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and +Alice heard the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin with.” + +“A barrowful of _what?_” thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, +for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the +window, and some of them hit her in the face. “I’ll put a stop to +this,” she said to herself, and shouted out, “You’d better not do that +again!” which produced another dead silence. + +Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into +little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her +head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’s sure to make +_some_ change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it +must make me smaller, I suppose.” + +So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she +began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get +through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of +little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, +was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it +something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she +appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself +safe in a thick wood. + +“The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice to herself, as she +wandered about in the wood, “is to grow to my right size again; and the +second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that +will be the best plan.” + +It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply +arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea +how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among +the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a +great hurry. + +An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and +feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor little +thing!” said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to +it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it +might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in +spite of all her coaxing. + +Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and +held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off +all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, +and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, +to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the +other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head +over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was +very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every +moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then +the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very +little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely +all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with +its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. + +This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she +set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, +and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the distance. + +“And yet what a dear little puppy it was!” said Alice, as she leant +against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the +leaves: “I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d +only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that +I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see—how _is_ it to be managed? I +suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great +question is, what?” + +The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at +the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that +looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. +There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as +herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and +behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what +was on the top of it. + +She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the +mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue +caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly +smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of +anything else. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +Advice from a Caterpillar + + +The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in +silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and +addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. + +“Who are _you?_” said the Caterpillar. + +This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, +rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know +who I _was_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been +changed several times since then.” + +“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain +yourself!” + +“I can’t explain _myself_, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m +not myself, you see.” + +“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. + +“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, +“for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many +different sizes in a day is very confusing.” + +“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you +have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then +after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little +queer, won’t you?” + +“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know +is, it would feel very queer to _me_.” + +“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are _you?_” + +Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. +Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such _very_ +short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I +think, you ought to tell me who _you_ are, first.” + +“Why?” said the Caterpillar. + +Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any +good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a _very_ unpleasant +state of mind, she turned away. + +“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something +important to say!” + +This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. + +“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she +could. + +“No,” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, +and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For +some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded +its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you +think you’re changed, do you?” + +“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can’t remember things as I +used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!” + +“Can’t remember _what_ things?” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all +came different!” Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. + +“Repeat, “_You are old, Father William_,’” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice folded her hands, and began:— + +“You are old, Father William,” the young man said, + “And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head— + Do you think, at your age, it is right?” + +“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, + “I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, + Why, I do it again and again.” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before, + And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— + Pray, what is the reason of that?” + +“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, + “I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— + Allow me to sell you a couple?” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak + For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak— + Pray, how did you manage to do it?” + +“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law, + And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, + Has lasted the rest of my life.” + +“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose + That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— + What made you so awfully clever?” + +“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” + Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!” + + +“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. + +“Not _quite_ right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly; “some of the +words have got altered.” + +“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, +and there was silence for some minutes. + +The Caterpillar was the first to speak. + +“What size do you want to be?” it asked. + +“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily replied; “only one +doesn’t like changing so often, you know.” + +“I _don’t_ know,” said the Caterpillar. + +Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life +before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. + +“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. + +“Well, I should like to be a _little_ larger, sir, if you wouldn’t +mind,” said Alice: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.” + +“It is a very good height indeed!” said the Caterpillar angrily, +rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). + +“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she +thought of herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily +offended!” + +“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Caterpillar; and it put the +hookah into its mouth and began smoking again. + +This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a +minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and +yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the +mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, +“One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you +grow shorter.” + +“One side of _what?_ The other side of _what?_” thought Alice to +herself. + +“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it +aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight. + +Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, +trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was +perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at +last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke +off a bit of the edge with each hand. + +“And now which is which?” she said to herself, and nibbled a little of +the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a +violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot! + +She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt +that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she +set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed +so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her +mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the +lefthand bit. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which +changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders +were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was +an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a +sea of green leaves that lay far below her. + +“What _can_ all that green stuff be?” said Alice. “And where _have_ my +shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” +She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, +except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. + +As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, +she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that +her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She +had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was +going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but +the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp +hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her +face, and was beating her violently with its wings. + +“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon. + +“I’m _not_ a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. “Let me alone!” + +“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued +tone, and added with a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and nothing +seems to suit them!” + +“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,” said Alice. + +“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried +hedges,” the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; “but those +serpents! There’s no pleasing them!” + +Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in +saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. + +“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the Pigeon; +“but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I +haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!” + +“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said Alice, who was beginning to +see its meaning. + +“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the +Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I +should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down +from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!” + +“But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—” + +“Well! _What_ are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to +invent something!” + +“I—I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered +the number of changes she had gone through that day. + +“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest +contempt. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never +_one_ with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s +no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never +tasted an egg!” + +“I _have_ tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who was a very truthful +child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you +know.” + +“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but if they do, why then +they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.” + +This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a +minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, “You’re +looking for eggs, I know _that_ well enough; and what does it matter to +me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” + +“It matters a good deal to _me_,” said Alice hastily; “but I’m not +looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want +_yours_: I don’t like them raw.” + +“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled +down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well +as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, +and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while +she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, +and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at +the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until +she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. + +It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it +felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, +and began talking to herself, as usual. “Come, there’s half my plan +done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m +going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my +right size: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how +_is_ that to be done, I wonder?” As she said this, she came suddenly +upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. +“Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it’ll never do to come upon them +_this_ size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she +began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go +near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Pig and Pepper + + +For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what +to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the +wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: +otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a +fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by +another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a +frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled +all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all +about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. + +The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, +nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, +saying, in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the +Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn +tone, only changing the order of the words a little, “From the Queen. +An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.” + +Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. + +Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood +for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the +Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the +door, staring stupidly up into the sky. + +Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. + +“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for +two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you +are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could +possibly hear you.” And certainly there _was_ a most extraordinary +noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now +and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to +pieces. + +“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?” + +“There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on +without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, +if you were _inside_, you might knock, and I could let you out, you +know.” He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and +this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” +she said to herself; “his eyes are so _very_ nearly at the top of his +head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?” +she repeated, aloud. + +“I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “till tomorrow—” + +At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came +skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, +and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. + +“—or next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly +as if nothing had happened. + +“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone. + +“_Are_ you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first +question, you know.” + +It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. “It’s really +dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures argue. +It’s enough to drive one crazy!” + +The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his +remark, with variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on and off, for +days and days.” + +“But what am _I_ to do?” said Alice. + +“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling. + +“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s +perfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in. + +The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from +one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool +in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, +stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. + +“There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to +herself, as well as she could for sneezing. + +There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed +occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling +alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen +that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting +on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. + +“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was +not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why +your cat grins like that?” + +“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!” + +She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite +jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the +baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:— + +“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t +know that cats _could_ grin.” + +“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.” + +“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite +pleased to have got into a conversation. + +“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.” + +Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would +be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she +was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the +fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at +the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a +shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of +them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, +that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. + +“Oh, _please_ mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down +in an agony of terror. “Oh, there goes his _precious_ nose!” as an +unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it +off. + +“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse +growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” + +“Which would _not_ be an advantage,” said Alice, who felt very glad to +get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. “Just +think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the +earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” + +“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!” + +Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take +the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to +be listening, so she went on again: “Twenty-four hours, I _think_; or +is it twelve? I—” + +“Oh, don’t bother _me_,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide +figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a +sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at +the end of every line: + +“Speak roughly to your little boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +He only does it to annoy, + Because he knows it teases.” + + +CHORUS. +(In which the cook and the baby joined): + + +“Wow! wow! wow!” + + +While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing +the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, +that Alice could hardly hear the words:— + +“I speak severely to my boy, + I beat him when he sneezes; +For he can thoroughly enjoy + The pepper when he pleases!” + + +CHORUS. + + +“Wow! wow! wow!” + + +“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, +flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play +croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook +threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. + +Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped +little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, +“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was +snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling +itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for +the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. + +As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to +twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right +ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it +out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” +thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be +murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the +little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). +“Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of +expressing yourself.” + +The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face +to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had +a _very_ turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also +its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did +not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only +sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there +were any tears. + +No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” +said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind +now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible +to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. + +Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do +with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so +violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time +there could be _no_ mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than +a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it +further. + +So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it +trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to +herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes +rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other +children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying +to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she +was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of +a tree a few yards off. + +The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she +thought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she +felt that it ought to be treated with respect. + +“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know +whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little +wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. +“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” + +“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. + +“I don’t much care where—” said Alice. + +“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. + +“—so long as I get _somewhere_,” Alice added as an explanation. + +“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long +enough.” + +Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another +question. “What sort of people live about here?” + +“In _that_ direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives +a Hatter: and in _that_ direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a +March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” + +“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. + +“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. +You’re mad.” + +“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. + +“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” + +Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how +do you know that you’re mad?” + +“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” + +“I suppose so,” said Alice. + +“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, +and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now _I_ growl when I’m pleased, +and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” + +“_I_ call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. + +“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the +Queen to-day?” + +“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited +yet.” + +“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished. + +Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer +things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, +it suddenly appeared again. + +“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly +forgotten to ask.” + +“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back +in a natural way. + +“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again. + +Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not +appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in +which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she +said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and +perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it +was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat +again, sitting on a branch of a tree. + +“Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat. + +“I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing +and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” + +“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, +beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which +remained some time after the rest of it had gone. + +“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a +grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” + +She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of +the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the +chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It +was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had +nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself +to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather +timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! +I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +A Mad Tea-Party + + +There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the +March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting +between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a +cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very +uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, +I suppose it doesn’t mind.” + +The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at +one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw +Alice coming. “There’s _plenty_ of room!” said Alice indignantly, and +she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. + +“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. + +Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. +“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. + +“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. + +“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. + +“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said +the March Hare. + +“I didn’t know it was _your_ table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great +many more than three.” + +“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at +Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first +speech. + +“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some +severity; “it’s very rude.” + +The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he _said_ +was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” + +“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve +begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. + +“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said +the March Hare. + +“Exactly so,” said Alice. + +“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. + +“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I +say—that’s the same thing, you know.” + +“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well +say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” + +“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what +I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!” + +“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be +talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing +as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” + +“It _is_ the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the +conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while +Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and +writing-desks, which wasn’t much. + +The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month +is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his +pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, +and holding it to his ear. + +Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” + +“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit +the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare. + +“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. + +“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: +“you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” + +The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped +it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of +nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the _best_ butter, +you know.” + +Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a +funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t +tell what o’clock it is!” + +“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does _your_ watch tell you what +year it is?” + +“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it +stays the same year for such a long time together.” + +“Which is just the case with _mine_,” said the Hatter. + +Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no +sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite +understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. + +“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little +hot tea upon its nose. + +The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its +eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.” + +“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice +again. + +“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?” + +“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. + +“Nor I,” said the March Hare. + +Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the +time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no +answers.” + +“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk +about wasting _it_. It’s _him_.” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. + +“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head +contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!” + +“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat +time when I learn music.” + +“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. +Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything +you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in +the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a +hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, +time for dinner!” + +(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) + +“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I +shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.” + +“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to +half-past one as long as you liked.” + +“Is that the way _you_ manage?” Alice asked. + +The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We +quarrelled last March—just before _he_ went mad, you know—” (pointing +with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert +given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing + +‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! +How I wonder what you’re at!’ + + +You know the song, perhaps?” + +“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. + +“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:— + +‘Up above the world you fly, +Like a tea-tray in the sky. + Twinkle, twinkle—’” + + +Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep +“_Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle_—” and went on so long that they +had to pinch it to make it stop. + +“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the +Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his +head!’” + +“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice. + +“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t +do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” + +A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many +tea-things are put out here?” she asked. + +“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, +and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” + +“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice. + +“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.” + +“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured +to ask. + +“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. +“I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” + +“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the +proposal. + +“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And +they pinched it on both sides at once. + +The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a +hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” + +“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. + +“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. + +“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again +before it’s done.” + +“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began +in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and +they lived at the bottom of a well—” + +“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest +in questions of eating and drinking. + +“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or +two. + +“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; +“they’d have been ill.” + +“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “_very_ ill.” + +Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of +living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But +why did they live at the bottom of a well?” + +“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. + +“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t +take more.” + +“You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to +take _more_ than nothing.” + +“Nobody asked _your_ opinion,” said Alice. + +“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly. + +Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to +some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and +repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?” + +The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then +said, “It was a treacle-well.” + +“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the +Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily +remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for +yourself.” + +“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I +dare say there may be _one_.” + +“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to +go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, +you know—” + +“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. + +“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. + +“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place +on.” + +He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare +moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the +place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any +advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than +before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. + +Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very +cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle +from?” + +“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should +think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?” + +“But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing +to notice this last remark. + +“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.” + +This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for +some time without interrupting it. + +“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing +its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of +things—everything that begins with an M—” + +“Why with an M?” said Alice. + +“Why not?” said the March Hare. + +Alice was silent. + +The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a +doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a +little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as +mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say +things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a +drawing of a muchness?” + +“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t +think—” + +“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. + +This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in +great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and +neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she +looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: +the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into +the teapot. + +“At any rate I’ll never go _there_ again!” said Alice as she picked her +way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in +all my life!” + +Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door +leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But +everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And +in she went. + +Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little +glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, +and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that +led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom +(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot +high: then she walked down the little passage: and _then_—she found +herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds +and the cool fountains. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +The Queen’s Croquet-Ground + + +A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses +growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily +painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she +went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard +one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me +like that!” + +“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my +elbow.” + +On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the +blame on others!” + +“_You’d_ better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only +yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!” + +“What for?” said the one who had spoken first. + +“That’s none of _your_ business, Two!” said Seven. + +“Yes, it _is_ his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for +bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.” + +Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun “Well, of all the unjust +things—” when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching +them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, +and all of them bowed low. + +“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are +painting those roses?” + +Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low +voice, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a +_red_ rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen +was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So +you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—” At this +moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called +out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw +themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, +and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. + +First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the +three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the +corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with +diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came +the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came +jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all +ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, +and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a +hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went +by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying +the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this +grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. + +Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face +like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard +of such a rule at processions; “and besides, what would be the use of a +procession,” thought she, “if people had all to lie down upon their +faces, so that they couldn’t see it?” So she stood still where she was, +and waited. + +When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked +at her, and the Queen said severely “Who is this?” She said it to the +Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. + +“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to +Alice, she went on, “What’s your name, child?” + +“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; +but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after +all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” + +“And who are _these?_” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners +who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on +their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of +the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, +or courtiers, or three of her own children. + +“How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. “It’s +no business of _mine_.” + +The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a +moment like a wild beast, screamed “Off with her head! Off—” + +“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was +silent. + +The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider, my +dear: she is only a child!” + +The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave “Turn +them over!” + +The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot. + +“Get up!” said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three +gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, +the royal children, and everybody else. + +“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me giddy.” And then, +turning to the rose-tree, she went on, “What _have_ you been doing +here?” + +“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone, going +down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—” + +“_I_ see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. +“Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the +soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran +to Alice for protection. + +“You shan’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a large +flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a +minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the +others. + +“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen. + +“Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!” the soldiers shouted +in reply. + +“That’s right!” shouted the Queen. “Can you play croquet?” + +The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was +evidently meant for her. + +“Yes!” shouted Alice. + +“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, +wondering very much what would happen next. + +“It’s—it’s a very fine day!” said a timid voice at her side. She was +walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. + +“Very,” said Alice: “—where’s the Duchess?” + +“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked +anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon +tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered “She’s under +sentence of execution.” + +“What for?” said Alice. + +“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. + +“No, I didn’t,” said Alice: “I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said +‘What for?’” + +“She boxed the Queen’s ears—” the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little +scream of laughter. “Oh, hush!” the Rabbit whispered in a frightened +tone. “The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the +Queen said—” + +“Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and +people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each +other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game +began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground +in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live +hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double +themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. + +The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: +she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, +under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she +had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the +hedgehog a blow with its head, it _would_ twist itself round and look +up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help +bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was +going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog +had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all +this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she +wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were +always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice +soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. + +The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling +all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time +the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and +shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once in a +minute. + +Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any +dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, +“and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully +fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any +one left alive!” + +She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she +could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious +appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after +watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said +to herself “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk +to.” + +“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth +enough for it to speak with. + +Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no use +speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at least one +of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put +down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad +she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there +was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. + +“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a +complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear +oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at +least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how +confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the +arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the +ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only +it ran away when it saw mine coming!” + +“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. + +“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed +that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, +“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.” + +The Queen smiled and passed on. + +“Who _are_ you talking to?” said the King, going up to Alice, and +looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity. + +“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” said Alice: “allow me to +introduce it.” + +“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may +kiss my hand if it likes.” + +“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. + +“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and don’t look at me like +that!” He got behind Alice as he spoke. + +“A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “I’ve read that in some book, +but I don’t remember where.” + +“Well, it must be removed,” said the King very decidedly, and he called +the Queen, who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I wish you would +have this cat removed!” + +The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or +small. “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round. + +“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the King eagerly, and he +hurried off. + +Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going +on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with +passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be +executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look +of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew +whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. + +The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed +to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the +other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to +the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a +helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. + +By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight +was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it doesn’t +matter much,” thought Alice, “as all the arches are gone from this side +of the ground.” So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not +escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her +friend. + +When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite +a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between +the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, +while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. + +The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle +the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they +all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly +what they said. + +The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless +there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a +thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at _his_ time of life. + +The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be +beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. + +The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in +less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was +this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and +anxious.) + +Alice could think of nothing else to say but “It belongs to the +Duchess: you’d better ask _her_ about it.” + +“She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the executioner: “fetch her here.” +And the executioner went off like an arrow. + +The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the +time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so +the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, +while the rest of the party went back to the game. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +The Mock Turtle’s Story + + +“You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!” +said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, +and they walked off together. + +Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought +to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so +savage when they met in the kitchen. + +“When _I’m_ a Duchess,” she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful +tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen _at all_. Soup +does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people +hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new +kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes +them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children +sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew _that_: then they wouldn’t be +so stingy about it, you know—” + +She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little +startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking +about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t +tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in +a bit.” + +“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark. + +“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only +you can find it.” And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as +she spoke. + +Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the +Duchess was _very_ ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the +right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an +uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she +bore it as well as she could. + +“The game’s going on rather better now,” she said, by way of keeping up +the conversation a little. + +“’Tis so,” said the Duchess: “and the moral of that is—‘Oh, ’tis love, +’tis love, that makes the world go round!’” + +“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding +their own business!” + +“Ah, well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her +sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of +_that_ is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of +themselves.’” + +“How fond she is of finding morals in things!” Alice thought to +herself. + +“I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,” +the Duchess said after a pause: “the reason is, that I’m doubtful about +the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?” + +“He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious +to have the experiment tried. + +“Very true,” said the Duchess: “flamingoes and mustard both bite. And +the moral of that is—‘Birds of a feather flock together.’” + +“Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. + +“Right, as usual,” said the Duchess: “what a clear way you have of +putting things!” + +“It’s a mineral, I _think_,” said Alice. + +“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to +everything that Alice said; “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. +And the moral of that is—‘The more there is of mine, the less there is +of yours.’” + +“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last +remark, “it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” + +“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that +is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or if you’d like it put more +simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might +appear to others that what you were or might have been was not +otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be +otherwise.’” + +“I think I should understand that better,” Alice said very politely, +“if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.” + +“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, +in a pleased tone. + +“Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,” said +Alice. + +“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the Duchess. “I make you a present +of everything I’ve said as yet.” + +“A cheap sort of present!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they don’t give +birthday presents like that!” But she did not venture to say it out +loud. + +“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp +little chin. + +“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to +feel a little worried. + +“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly; and +the m—” + +But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, +even in the middle of her favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was +linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the +Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a +thunderstorm. + +“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess began in a low, weak voice. + +“Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted the Queen, stamping on the +ground as she spoke; “either you or your head must be off, and that in +about half no time! Take your choice!” + +The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. + +“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too +much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the +croquet-ground. + +The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were +resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried +back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment’s delay +would cost them their lives. + +All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling +with the other players, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with +her head!” Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the +soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so +that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and +all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody +and under sentence of execution. + +Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have +you seen the Mock Turtle yet?” + +“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.” + +“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” said the Queen. + +“I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. + +“Come on, then,” said the Queen, “and he shall tell you his history,” + +As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, +to the company generally, “You are all pardoned.” “Come, _that’s_ a +good thing!” she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the +number of executions the Queen had ordered. + +They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If +you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy +thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock +Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some +executions I have ordered;” and she walked off, leaving Alice alone +with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, +but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it +as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited. + +The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till +she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, +half to itself, half to Alice. + +“What _is_ the fun?” said Alice. + +“Why, _she_,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all her fancy, that: they never +executes nobody, you know. Come on!” + +“Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,” thought Alice, as she went slowly +after it: “I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!” + +They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, +sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came +nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She +pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the +Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all +his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!” + +So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes +full of tears, but said nothing. + +“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your +history, she do.” + +“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “sit +down, both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” + +So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to +herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.” +But she waited patiently. + +“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real +Turtle.” + +These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an +occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant +heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and +saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” but she could not +help thinking there _must_ be more to come, so she sat still and said +nothing. + +“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, +though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the +sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—” + +“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked. + +“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle +angrily: “really you are very dull!” + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple +question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked +at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the +Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all +day about it!” and he went on in these words: + +“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—” + +“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice. + +“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. +The Mock Turtle went on. + +“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—” + +“_I’ve_ been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so +proud as all that.” + +“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously. + +“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.” + +“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly. + +“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a +tone of great relief. “Now at _ours_ they had at the end of the bill, +‘French, music, _and washing_—extra.’” + +“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom +of the sea.” + +“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I +only took the regular course.” + +“What was that?” inquired Alice. + +“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle +replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, +Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” + +“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?” + +The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of +uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?” + +“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.” + +“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify +is, you _are_ a simpleton.” + +Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so +she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?” + +“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the +subjects on his flappers, “—Mystery, ancient and modern, with +Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, +that used to come once a week: _he_ taught us Drawling, Stretching, and +Fainting in Coils.” + +“What was _that_ like?” said Alice. + +“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too +stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.” + +“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics master, +though. He was an old crab, _he_ was.” + +“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught +Laughing and Grief, they used to say.” + +“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both +creatures hid their faces in their paws. + +“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry +to change the subject. + +“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so +on.” + +“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. + +“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: +“because they lessen from day to day.” + +This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little +before she made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been +a holiday?” + +“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly. + +“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very +decided tone: “tell her something about the games now.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +The Lobster Quadrille + + +The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across +his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or +two sobs choked his voice. “Same as if he had a bone in his throat,” +said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in +the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears +running down his cheeks, he went on again:— + +“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said +Alice)—“and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” +(Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and +said “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a +Lobster Quadrille is!” + +“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a dance is it?” + +“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into a line along the +sea-shore—” + +“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; +then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—” + +“_That_ generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon. + +“—you advance twice—” + +“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon. + +“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance twice, set to partners—” + +“—change lobsters, and retire in same order,” continued the Gryphon. + +“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, “you throw the—” + +“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. + +“—as far out to sea as you can—” + +“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon. + +“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly +about. + +“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice. + +“Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,” said the Mock +Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had +been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very +sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice. + +“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly. + +“Would you like to see a little of it?” said the Mock Turtle. + +“Very much indeed,” said Alice. + +“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the Mock Turtle to the +Gryphon. “We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?” + +“Oh, _you_ sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.” + +So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and +then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their +forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly +and sadly:— + +“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. +“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. +See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! +They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? + +“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be +When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!” +But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance— +Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. + +“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied. +“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. +The further off from England the nearer is to France— +Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?” + + +“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, +feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that +curious song about the whiting!” + +“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve seen them, +of course?” + +“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she checked herself +hastily. + +“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve +seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.” + +“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. “They have their tails in +their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.” + +“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the Mock Turtle: “crumbs would +all wash off in the sea. But they _have_ their tails in their mouths; +and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his +eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon. + +“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they _would_ go with the +lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to +fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they +couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.” + +“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much +about a whiting before.” + +“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you +know why it’s called a whiting?” + +“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?” + +“_It does the boots and shoes_,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly. + +Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated +in a wondering tone. + +“Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what +makes them so shiny?” + +Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her +answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.” + +“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, +“are done with a whiting. Now you know.” + +“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. + +“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: +“any shrimp could have told you that.” + +“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still +running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, +please: we don’t want _you_ with us!’” + +“They were obliged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said: “no +wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” + +“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise. + +“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle: “why, if a fish came to _me_, +and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’” + +“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. + +“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And +the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of _your_ adventures.” + +“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said +Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, +because I was a different person then.” + +“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: +“explanations take such a dreadful time.” + +So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first +saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, +the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened +their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she +went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part +about her repeating “_You are old, Father William_,” to the +Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock +Turtle drew a long breath, and said “That’s very curious.” + +“It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said the Gryphon. + +“It all came different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I +should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to +begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of +authority over Alice. + +“Stand up and repeat ‘’_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,’” said the +Gryphon. + +“How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” +thought Alice; “I might as well be at school at once.” However, she got +up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster +Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came +very queer indeed:— + +“’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, +“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” +As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose +Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” + +[later editions continued as follows +When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, +And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, +But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, +His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] + + +“That’s different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child,” said +the Gryphon. + +“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds +uncommon nonsense.” + +Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, +wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. + +“I should like to have it explained,” said the Mock Turtle. + +“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon hastily. “Go on with the next +verse.” + +“But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle persisted. “How _could_ he turn +them out with his nose, you know?” + +“It’s the first position in dancing.” Alice said; but was dreadfully +puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. + +“Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it +begins ‘_I passed by his garden_.’” + +Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come +wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:— + +“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, +How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—” + +[later editions continued as follows +The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, +While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. +When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, +Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: +While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, +And concluded the banquet—] + + +“What _is_ the use of repeating all that stuff,” the Mock Turtle +interrupted, “if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the +most confusing thing _I_ ever heard!” + +“Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the Gryphon: and Alice was +only too glad to do so. + +“Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon +went on. “Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?” + +“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,” Alice +replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, +“Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘_Turtle Soup_,’ will you, old +fellow?” + +The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked +with sobs, to sing this:— + +“Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, +Waiting in a hot tureen! +Who for such dainties would not stoop? +Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! +Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! +Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beautiful Soup! + +“Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, +Game, or any other dish? +Who would not give all else for two p +ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? +Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! + Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! +Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!” + + +“Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun +to repeat it, when a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in the +distance. + +“Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried +off, without waiting for the end of the song. + +“What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only +answered “Come on!” and ran the faster, while more and more faintly +came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:— + +“Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, + Beautiful, beautiful Soup!” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +Who Stole the Tarts? + + +The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they +arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little +birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was +standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard +him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one +hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the +court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so +good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d +get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” +But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at +everything about her, to pass away the time. + +Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read +about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew +the name of nearly everything there. “That’s the judge,” she said to +herself, “because of his great wig.” + +The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the +wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he +did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. + +“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures,” +(she was obliged to say “creatures,” you see, because some of them were +animals, and some were birds,) “I suppose they are the jurors.” She +said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather +proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little +girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, “jury-men” +would have done just as well. + +The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. “What are +they doing?” Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have anything +to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.” + +“They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered in reply, +“for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.” + +“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she +stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the +court!” and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, +to make out who was talking. + +Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, +that all the jurors were writing down “stupid things!” on their slates, +and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell +“stupid,” and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. “A nice +muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice. + +One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice +could _not_ stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and +very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly +that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out +at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he +was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this +was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. + +“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King. + +On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then +unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:— + +“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, + All on a summer day: +The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, + And took them quite away!” + + +“Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury. + +“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great +deal to come before that!” + +“Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew +three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!” + +The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand +and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your +Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished +my tea when I was sent for.” + +“You ought to have finished,” said the King. “When did you begin?” + +The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the +court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I _think_ it +was,” he said. + +“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. + +“Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse. + +“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly +wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and +reduced the answer to shillings and pence. + +“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter. + +“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. + +“_Stolen!_” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made +a memorandum of the fact. + +“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none +of my own. I’m a hatter.” + +Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, +who turned pale and fidgeted. + +“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll +have you executed on the spot.” + +This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting +from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his +confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the +bread-and-butter. + +Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled +her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to +grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave +the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was +as long as there was room for her. + +“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.” said the Dormouse, who was sitting +next to her. “I can hardly breathe.” + +“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: “I’m growing.” + +“You’ve no right to grow _here_,” said the Dormouse. + +“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing +too.” + +“Yes, but _I_ grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in +that ridiculous fashion.” And he got up very sulkily and crossed over +to the other side of the court. + +All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, +just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers +of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” +on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes +off. + +“Give your evidence,” the King repeated angrily, “or I’ll have you +executed, whether you’re nervous or not.” + +“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, +“—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the +bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—” + +“The twinkling of the _what?_” said the King. + +“It _began_ with the tea,” the Hatter replied. + +“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you +take me for a dunce? Go on!” + +“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “and most things twinkled after +that—only the March Hare said—” + +“I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. + +“You did!” said the Hatter. + +“I deny it!” said the March Hare. + +“He denies it,” said the King: “leave out that part.” + +“Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on, looking +anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied +nothing, being fast asleep. + +“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut some more bread-and-butter—” + +“But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the jury asked. + +“That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. + +“You _must_ remember,” remarked the King, “or I’ll have you executed.” + +The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went +down on one knee. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. + +“You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. + +Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by +the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just +explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied +up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, +head first, and then sat upon it.) + +“I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. “I’ve so often read in +the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempts at +applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the +court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.” + +“If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” continued the +King. + +“I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: “I’m on the floor, as it is.” + +“Then you may _sit_ down,” the King replied. + +Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. + +“Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!” thought Alice. “Now we shall get +on better.” + +“I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with an anxious look at +the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. + +“You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, +without even waiting to put his shoes on. + +“—and just take his head off outside,” the Queen added to one of the +officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get +to the door. + +“Call the next witness!” said the King. + +The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in +her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the +court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. + +“Give your evidence,” said the King. + +“Shan’t,” said the cook. + +The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, +“Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness.” + +“Well, if I must, I must,” the King said, with a melancholy air, and, +after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were +nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, “What are tarts made of?” + +“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. + +“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. + +“Collar that Dormouse,” the Queen shrieked out. “Behead that Dormouse! +Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his +whiskers!” + +For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse +turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had +disappeared. + +“Never mind!” said the King, with an air of great relief. “Call the +next witness.” And he added in an undertone to the Queen, “Really, my +dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my +forehead ache!” + +Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling +very curious to see what the next witness would be like, “—for they +haven’t got much evidence _yet_,” she said to herself. Imagine her +surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill +little voice, the name “Alice!” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +Alice’s Evidence + + +“Here!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how +large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such +a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, +upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there +they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of +goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. + +“Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!” she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and +began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident +of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of +idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the +jury-box, or they would die. + +“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until +all the jurymen are back in their proper places—_all_,” he repeated +with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. + +Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put +the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its +tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon +got it out again, and put it right; “not that it signifies much,” she +said to herself; “I should think it would be _quite_ as much use in the +trial one way up as the other.” + +As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being +upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to +them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the +accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do +anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the +court. + +“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice. + +“Nothing,” said Alice. + +“Nothing _whatever?_” persisted the King. + +“Nothing whatever,” said Alice. + +“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They were +just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White +Rabbit interrupted: “_Un_important, your Majesty means, of course,” he +said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as +he spoke. + +“_Un_important, of course, I meant,” the King hastily said, and went on +to himself in an undertone, + +“important—unimportant—unimportant—important—” as if he were trying +which word sounded best. + +Some of the jury wrote it down “important,” and some “unimportant.” +Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; +“but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she thought to herself. + +At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in +his note-book, cackled out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule +Forty-two. _All persons more than a mile high to leave the court_.” + +Everybody looked at Alice. + +“_I’m_ not a mile high,” said Alice. + +“You are,” said the King. + +“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. + +“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a +regular rule: you invented it just now.” + +“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. + +“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice. + +The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. “Consider your +verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. + +“There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,” said the +White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; “this paper has just been +picked up.” + +“What’s in it?” said the Queen. + +“I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White Rabbit, “but it seems to be a +letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.” + +“It must have been that,” said the King, “unless it was written to +nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.” + +“Who is it directed to?” said one of the jurymen. + +“It isn’t directed at all,” said the White Rabbit; “in fact, there’s +nothing written on the _outside_.” He unfolded the paper as he spoke, +and added “It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.” + +“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?” asked another of the jurymen. + +“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the queerest +thing about it.” (The jury all looked puzzled.) + +“He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” said the King. (The jury +all brightened up again.) + +“Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “I didn’t write it, and they +can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.” + +“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter +worse. You _must_ have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed +your name like an honest man.” + +There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really +clever thing the King had said that day. + +“That _proves_ his guilt,” said the Queen. + +“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know +what they’re about!” + +“Read them,” said the King. + +The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please +your Majesty?” he asked. + +“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you +come to the end: then stop.” + +These were the verses the White Rabbit read:— + +“They told me you had been to her, + And mentioned me to him: +She gave me a good character, + But said I could not swim. + +He sent them word I had not gone + (We know it to be true): +If she should push the matter on, + What would become of you? + +I gave her one, they gave him two, + You gave us three or more; +They all returned from him to you, + Though they were mine before. + +If I or she should chance to be + Involved in this affair, +He trusts to you to set them free, + Exactly as we were. + +My notion was that you had been + (Before she had this fit) +An obstacle that came between + Him, and ourselves, and it. + +Don’t let him know she liked them best, + For this must ever be +A secret, kept from all the rest, + Between yourself and me.” + + +“That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,” said the +King, rubbing his hands; “so now let the jury—” + +“If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice, (she had grown so +large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of +interrupting him,) “I’ll give him sixpence. _I_ don’t believe there’s +an atom of meaning in it.” + +The jury all wrote down on their slates, “_She_ doesn’t believe there’s +an atom of meaning in it,” but none of them attempted to explain the +paper. + +“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of +trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t +know,” he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at +them with one eye; “I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. +“—_said I could not swim_—” you can’t swim, can you?” he added, turning +to the Knave. + +The Knave shook his head sadly. “Do I look like it?” he said. (Which he +certainly did _not_, being made entirely of cardboard.) + +“All right, so far,” said the King, and he went on muttering over the +verses to himself: “‘_We know it to be true_—’ that’s the jury, of +course—‘_I gave her one, they gave him two_—’ why, that must be what he +did with the tarts, you know—” + +“But, it goes on ‘_they all returned from him to you_,’” said Alice. + +“Why, there they are!” said the King triumphantly, pointing to the +tarts on the table. “Nothing can be clearer than _that_. Then +again—‘_before she had this fit_—’ you never had fits, my dear, I +think?” he said to the Queen. + +“Never!” said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard +as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his +slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily +began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long +as it lasted.) + +“Then the words don’t _fit_ you,” said the King, looking round the +court with a smile. There was a dead silence. + +“It’s a pun!” the King added in an offended tone, and everybody +laughed, “Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for +about the twentieth time that day. + +“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” + +“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the +sentence first!” + +“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple. + +“I won’t!” said Alice. + +“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody +moved. + +“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by +this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” + +At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon +her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and +tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her +head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead +leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. + +“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister; “Why, what a long sleep you’ve +had!” + +“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her +sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange +Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she +had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, “It _was_ a curious +dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.” +So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, +what a wonderful dream it had been. + + +But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her +hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all +her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, +and this was her dream:— + +First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny +hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were +looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and +see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair +that _would_ always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or +seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the +strange creatures of her little sister’s dream. + +The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the +frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she +could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends +shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen +ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby +was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed +around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the +Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, +filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock +Turtle. + +So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in +Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all +would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the +wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling +teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill +cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the +shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change +(she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the +lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock +Turtle’s heavy sobs. + +Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers +would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would +keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her +childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, +and make _their_ eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, +perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she +would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all +their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer +Days. + +The Wonderful Wizard of Oz + +Chapter I +The Cyclone + + +Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle +Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their +house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon +many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one +room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for +the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry +and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in +another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a +small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family +could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to +crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the +middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark +hole. + +When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see +nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a +house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of +the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a +gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was +not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until +they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had +been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it +away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. + +When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun +and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes +and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and +lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled +now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had +been so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and +press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached +her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she +could find anything to laugh at. + +Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and +did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his +rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke. + +It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray +as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black +dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on +either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and +Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly. + +Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the +doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than +usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at +the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes. + +From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry +and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the +coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the +south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the +grass coming from that direction also. + +Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up. + +“There’s a cyclone coming, Em,” he called to his wife. “I’ll go look +after the stock.” Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and +horses were kept. + +Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of +the danger close at hand. + +“Quick, Dorothy!” she screamed. “Run for the cellar!” + +Toto jumped out of Dorothy’s arms and hid under the bed, and the girl +started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door +in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. +Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt. When she +was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, +and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down +suddenly upon the floor. + +Then a strange thing happened. + +The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the +air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon. + +The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the +exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is +generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of +the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top +of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles +away as easily as you could carry a feather. + +It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy +found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, +and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were +being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle. + +Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there, +barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to +see what would happen. + +Once Toto got too near the open trap door, and fell in; and at first +the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his +ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air +was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole, +caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward +closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen. + +Hour after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; +but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about +her that she nearly became deaf. At first she had wondered if she would +be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed +and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to +wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last she crawled +over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and Toto +followed and lay down beside her. + +In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, +Dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. + + + + +Chapter II +The Council with the Munchkins + + +She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had +not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the +jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto +put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. Dorothy sat +up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the +bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She +sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door. + +The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes +growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. + +The cyclone had set the house down very gently—for a cyclone—in the +midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of +greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious +fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with +rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. +A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between +green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl +who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. + +While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, +she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had +ever seen. They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been +used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about +as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although +they were, so far as looks go, many years older. + +Three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed. They wore +round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with +little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The +hats of the men were blue; the little woman’s hat was white, and she +wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were +sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds. The men +were dressed in blue, of the same shade as their hats, and wore +well-polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. The men, +Dorothy thought, were about as old as Uncle Henry, for two of them had +beards. But the little woman was doubtless much older. Her face was +covered with wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked rather +stiffly. + +When these people drew near the house where Dorothy was standing in the +doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to +come farther. But the little old woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low +bow and said, in a sweet voice: + +“You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. +We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the +East, and for setting our people free from bondage.” + +Dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. What could the little +woman possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had +killed the Wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was an innocent, harmless +little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; +and she had never killed anything in all her life. + +But the little woman evidently expected her to answer; so Dorothy said, +with hesitation, “You are very kind, but there must be some mistake. I +have not killed anything.” + +“Your house did, anyway,” replied the little old woman, with a laugh, +“and that is the same thing. See!” she continued, pointing to the +corner of the house. “There are her two feet, still sticking out from +under a block of wood.” + +Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just +under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were +sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes. + +“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried Dorothy, clasping her hands together in +dismay. “The house must have fallen on her. Whatever shall we do?” + +“There is nothing to be done,” said the little woman calmly. + +“But who was she?” asked Dorothy. + +“She was the Wicked Witch of the East, as I said,” answered the little +woman. “She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, +making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and +are grateful to you for the favor.” + +“Who are the Munchkins?” inquired Dorothy. + +“They are the people who live in this land of the East where the Wicked +Witch ruled.” + +“Are you a Munchkin?” asked Dorothy. + +“No, but I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North. +When they saw the Witch of the East was dead the Munchkins sent a swift +messenger to me, and I came at once. I am the Witch of the North.” + +“Oh, gracious!” cried Dorothy. “Are you a real witch?” + +“Yes, indeed,” answered the little woman. “But I am a good witch, and +the people love me. I am not as powerful as the Wicked Witch was who +ruled here, or I should have set the people free myself.” + +“But I thought all witches were wicked,” said the girl, who was half +frightened at facing a real witch. “Oh, no, that is a great mistake. +There were only four witches in all the Land of Oz, and two of them, +those who live in the North and the South, are good witches. I know +this is true, for I am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. +Those who dwelt in the East and the West were, indeed, wicked witches; +but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one Wicked Witch +in all the Land of Oz—the one who lives in the West.” + +“But,” said Dorothy, after a moment’s thought, “Aunt Em has told me +that the witches were all dead—years and years ago.” + +“Who is Aunt Em?” inquired the little old woman. + +“She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from.” + +The Witch of the North seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed +and her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked up and said, “I do not +know where Kansas is, for I have never heard that country mentioned +before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?” + +“Oh, yes,” replied Dorothy. + +“Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries I believe there +are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, +you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off +from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and +wizards amongst us.” + +“Who are the wizards?” asked Dorothy. + +“Oz himself is the Great Wizard,” answered the Witch, sinking her voice +to a whisper. “He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He +lives in the City of Emeralds.” + +Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, +who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the +corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying. + +“What is it?” asked the little old woman, and looked, and began to +laugh. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared entirely, and nothing +was left but the silver shoes. + +“She was so old,” explained the Witch of the North, “that she dried up +quickly in the sun. That is the end of her. But the silver shoes are +yours, and you shall have them to wear.” She reached down and picked up +the shoes, and after shaking the dust out of them handed them to +Dorothy. + +“The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes,” said one of +the Munchkins, “and there is some charm connected with them; but what +it is we never knew.” + +Dorothy carried the shoes into the house and placed them on the table. +Then she came out again to the Munchkins and said: + +“I am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they will +worry about me. Can you help me find my way?” + +The Munchkins and the Witch first looked at one another, and then at +Dorothy, and then shook their heads. + +“At the East, not far from here,” said one, “there is a great desert, +and none could live to cross it.” + +“It is the same at the South,” said another, “for I have been there and +seen it. The South is the country of the Quadlings.” + +“I am told,” said the third man, “that it is the same at the West. And +that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of +the West, who would make you her slave if you passed her way.” + +“The North is my home,” said the old lady, “and at its edge is the same +great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I’m afraid, my dear, you +will have to live with us.” + +Dorothy began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these +strange people. Her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted Munchkins, +for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to weep +also. As for the little old woman, she took off her cap and balanced +the point on the end of her nose, while she counted “One, two, three” +in a solemn voice. At once the cap changed to a slate, on which was +written in big, white chalk marks: + +“LET DOROTHY GO TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS” + + +The little old woman took the slate from her nose, and having read the +words on it, asked, “Is your name Dorothy, my dear?” + +“Yes,” answered the child, looking up and drying her tears. + +“Then you must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will help you.” + +“Where is this city?” asked Dorothy. + +“It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the +Great Wizard I told you of.” + +“Is he a good man?” inquired the girl anxiously. + +“He is a good Wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I +have never seen him.” + +“How can I get there?” asked Dorothy. + +“You must walk. It is a long journey, through a country that is +sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use +all the magic arts I know of to keep you from harm.” + +“Won’t you go with me?” pleaded the girl, who had begun to look upon +the little old woman as her only friend. + +“No, I cannot do that,” she replied, “but I will give you my kiss, and +no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of +the North.” + +She came close to Dorothy and kissed her gently on the forehead. Where +her lips touched the girl they left a round, shining mark, as Dorothy +found out soon after. + +“The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,” said the +Witch, “so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of +him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. Good-bye, my dear.” + +The three Munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, +after which they walked away through the trees. The Witch gave Dorothy +a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and +straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little Toto, who +barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been +afraid even to growl while she stood by. + +But Dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear +in just that way, and was not surprised in the least. + + + + +Chapter III +How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow + + +When Dorothy was left alone she began to feel hungry. So she went to +the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. +She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it +down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. +Toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting +there. Dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging +from the branches that she gathered some of it, finding it just what +she wanted to help out her breakfast. + +Then she went back to the house, and having helped herself and Toto to +a good drink of the cool, clear water, she set about making ready for +the journey to the City of Emeralds. + +Dorothy had only one other dress, but that happened to be clean and was +hanging on a peg beside her bed. It was gingham, with checks of white +and blue; and although the blue was somewhat faded with many washings, +it was still a pretty frock. The girl washed herself carefully, dressed +herself in the clean gingham, and tied her pink sunbonnet on her head. +She took a little basket and filled it with bread from the cupboard, +laying a white cloth over the top. Then she looked down at her feet and +noticed how old and worn her shoes were. + +“They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto,” she said. And +Toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his +tail to show he knew what she meant. + +At that moment Dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had +belonged to the Witch of the East. + +“I wonder if they will fit me,” she said to Toto. “They would be just +the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.” + +She took off her old leather shoes and tried on the silver ones, which +fitted her as well as if they had been made for her. + +Finally she picked up her basket. + +“Come along, Toto,” she said. “We will go to the Emerald City and ask +the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.” + +She closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket +of her dress. And so, with Toto trotting along soberly behind her, she +started on her journey. + +There were several roads nearby, but it did not take her long to find +the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time she was walking +briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on +the hard, yellow road-bed. The sun shone bright and the birds sang +sweetly, and Dorothy did not feel nearly so bad as you might think a +little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own +country and set down in the midst of a strange land. + +She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country +was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted +a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and +vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and +able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and +the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for +everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the Wicked Witch and +setting them free from bondage. The houses of the Munchkins were +odd-looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. +All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the +favorite color. + +Toward evening, when Dorothy was tired with her long walk and began to +wonder where she should pass the night, she came to a house rather +larger than the rest. On the green lawn before it many men and women +were dancing. Five little fiddlers played as loudly as possible, and +the people were laughing and singing, while a big table near by was +loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes, and many other +good things to eat. + +The people greeted Dorothy kindly, and invited her to supper and to +pass the night with them; for this was the home of one of the richest +Munchkins in the land, and his friends were gathered with him to +celebrate their freedom from the bondage of the Wicked Witch. + +Dorothy ate a hearty supper and was waited upon by the rich Munchkin +himself, whose name was Boq. Then she sat upon a settee and watched the +people dance. + +When Boq saw her silver shoes he said, “You must be a great sorceress.” + +“Why?” asked the girl. + +“Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch. +Besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses +wear white.” + +“My dress is blue and white checked,” said Dorothy, smoothing out the +wrinkles in it. + +“It is kind of you to wear that,” said Boq. “Blue is the color of the +Munchkins, and white is the witch color. So we know you are a friendly +witch.” + +Dorothy did not know what to say to this, for all the people seemed to +think her a witch, and she knew very well she was only an ordinary +little girl who had come by the chance of a cyclone into a strange +land. + +When she had tired watching the dancing, Boq led her into the house, +where he gave her a room with a pretty bed in it. The sheets were made +of blue cloth, and Dorothy slept soundly in them till morning, with +Toto curled up on the blue rug beside her. + +She ate a hearty breakfast, and watched a wee Munchkin baby, who played +with Toto and pulled his tail and crowed and laughed in a way that +greatly amused Dorothy. Toto was a fine curiosity to all the people, +for they had never seen a dog before. + +“How far is it to the Emerald City?” the girl asked. + +“I do not know,” answered Boq gravely, “for I have never been there. It +is better for people to keep away from Oz, unless they have business +with him. But it is a long way to the Emerald City, and it will take +you many days. The country here is rich and pleasant, but you must pass +through rough and dangerous places before you reach the end of your +journey.” + +This worried Dorothy a little, but she knew that only the Great Oz +could help her get to Kansas again, so she bravely resolved not to turn +back. + +She bade her friends good-bye, and again started along the road of +yellow brick. When she had gone several miles she thought she would +stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road +and sat down. There was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far +away she saw a Scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from +the ripe corn. + +Dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully at the +Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw, with eyes, +nose, and mouth painted on it to represent a face. An old, pointed blue +hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin, was perched on his head, and +the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, +which had also been stuffed with straw. On the feet were some old boots +with blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the figure +was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the pole stuck up its +back. + +While Dorothy was looking earnestly into the queer, painted face of the +Scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her. +She thought she must have been mistaken at first, for none of the +scarecrows in Kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its +head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and +walked up to it, while Toto ran around the pole and barked. + +“Good day,” said the Scarecrow, in a rather husky voice. + +“Did you speak?” asked the girl, in wonder. + +“Certainly,” answered the Scarecrow. “How do you do?” + +“I’m pretty well, thank you,” replied Dorothy politely. “How do you +do?” + +“I’m not feeling well,” said the Scarecrow, with a smile, “for it is +very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows.” + +“Can’t you get down?” asked Dorothy. + +“No, for this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away +the pole I shall be greatly obliged to you.” + +Dorothy reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole, for, +being stuffed with straw, it was quite light. + +“Thank you very much,” said the Scarecrow, when he had been set down on +the ground. “I feel like a new man.” + +Dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man +speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her. + +“Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow when he had stretched himself and +yawned. “And where are you going?” + +“My name is Dorothy,” said the girl, “and I am going to the Emerald +City, to ask the Great Oz to send me back to Kansas.” + +“Where is the Emerald City?” he inquired. “And who is Oz?” + +“Why, don’t you know?” she returned, in surprise. + +“No, indeed. I don’t know anything. You see, I am stuffed, so I have no +brains at all,” he answered sadly. + +“Oh,” said Dorothy, “I’m awfully sorry for you.” + +“Do you think,” he asked, “if I go to the Emerald City with you, that +Oz would give me some brains?” + +“I cannot tell,” she returned, “but you may come with me, if you like. +If Oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off than you +are now.” + +“That is true,” said the Scarecrow. “You see,” he continued +confidentially, “I don’t mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, +because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin +into me, it doesn’t matter, for I can’t feel it. But I do not want +people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw +instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?” + +“I understand how you feel,” said the little girl, who was truly sorry +for him. “If you will come with me I’ll ask Oz to do all he can for +you.” + +“Thank you,” he answered gratefully. + +They walked back to the road. Dorothy helped him over the fence, and +they started along the path of yellow brick for the Emerald City. + +Toto did not like this addition to the party at first. He smelled +around the stuffed man as if he suspected there might be a nest of rats +in the straw, and he often growled in an unfriendly way at the +Scarecrow. + +“Don’t mind Toto,” said Dorothy to her new friend. “He never bites.” + +“Oh, I’m not afraid,” replied the Scarecrow. “He can’t hurt the straw. +Do let me carry that basket for you. I shall not mind it, for I can’t +get tired. I’ll tell you a secret,” he continued, as he walked along. +“There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of.” + +“What is that?” asked Dorothy; “the Munchkin farmer who made you?” + +“No,” answered the Scarecrow; “it’s a lighted match.” + + + + +Chapter IV +The Road Through the Forest + + +After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so +difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, +which were here very uneven. Sometimes, indeed, they were broken or +missing altogether, leaving holes that Toto jumped across and Dorothy +walked around. As for the Scarecrow, having no brains, he walked +straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length +on the hard bricks. It never hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick +him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing +merrily at his own mishap. + +The farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther +back. There were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther +they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became. + +At noon they sat down by the roadside, near a little brook, and Dorothy +opened her basket and got out some bread. She offered a piece to the +Scarecrow, but he refused. + +“I am never hungry,” he said, “and it is a lucky thing I am not, for my +mouth is only painted, and if I should cut a hole in it so I could eat, +the straw I am stuffed with would come out, and that would spoil the +shape of my head.” + +Dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on +eating her bread. + +“Tell me something about yourself and the country you came from,” said +the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. So she told him all +about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone +had carried her to this queer Land of Oz. + +The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, “I cannot understand why +you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, +gray place you call Kansas.” + +“That is because you have no brains” answered the girl. “No matter how +dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would +rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. +There is no place like home.” + +The Scarecrow sighed. + +“Of course I cannot understand it,” he said. “If your heads were +stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the +beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is +fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.” + +“Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child. + +The Scarecrow looked at her reproachfully, and answered: + +“My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. I was +only made day before yesterday. What happened in the world before that +time is all unknown to me. Luckily, when the farmer made my head, one +of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that I heard what +was going on. There was another Munchkin with him, and the first thing +I heard was the farmer saying, ‘How do you like those ears?’ + +“‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other. + +“‘Never mind,’” said the farmer. “‘They are ears just the same,’” which +was true enough. + +“‘Now I’ll make the eyes,’” said the farmer. So he painted my right +eye, and as soon as it was finished I found myself looking at him and +at everything around me with a great deal of curiosity, for this was my +first glimpse of the world. + +“‘That’s a rather pretty eye,’” remarked the Munchkin who was watching +the farmer. “‘Blue paint is just the color for eyes.’ + +“‘I think I’ll make the other a little bigger,’” said the farmer. And +when the second eye was done I could see much better than before. Then +he made my nose and my mouth. But I did not speak, because at that time +I didn’t know what a mouth was for. I had the fun of watching them make +my body and my arms and legs; and when they fastened on my head, at +last, I felt very proud, for I thought I was just as good a man as +anyone. + +“‘This fellow will scare the crows fast enough,’ said the farmer. ‘He +looks just like a man.’ + +“‘Why, he is a man,’ said the other, and I quite agreed with him. The +farmer carried me under his arm to the cornfield, and set me up on a +tall stick, where you found me. He and his friend soon after walked +away and left me alone. + +“I did not like to be deserted this way. So I tried to walk after them. +But my feet would not touch the ground, and I was forced to stay on +that pole. It was a lonely life to lead, for I had nothing to think of, +having been made such a little while before. Many crows and other birds +flew into the cornfield, but as soon as they saw me they flew away +again, thinking I was a Munchkin; and this pleased me and made me feel +that I was quite an important person. By and by an old crow flew near +me, and after looking at me carefully he perched upon my shoulder and +said: + +“‘I wonder if that farmer thought to fool me in this clumsy manner. Any +crow of sense could see that you are only stuffed with straw.’ Then he +hopped down at my feet and ate all the corn he wanted. The other birds, +seeing he was not harmed by me, came to eat the corn too, so in a short +time there was a great flock of them about me. + +“I felt sad at this, for it showed I was not such a good Scarecrow +after all; but the old crow comforted me, saying, ‘If you only had +brains in your head you would be as good a man as any of them, and a +better man than some of them. Brains are the only things worth having +in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man.’ + +“After the crows had gone I thought this over, and decided I would try +hard to get some brains. By good luck you came along and pulled me off +the stake, and from what you say I am sure the Great Oz will give me +brains as soon as we get to the Emerald City.” + +“I hope so,” said Dorothy earnestly, “since you seem anxious to have +them.” + +“Oh, yes; I am anxious,” returned the Scarecrow. “It is such an +uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.” + +“Well,” said the girl, “let us go.” And she handed the basket to the +Scarecrow. + +There were no fences at all by the roadside now, and the land was rough +and untilled. Toward evening they came to a great forest, where the +trees grew so big and close together that their branches met over the +road of yellow brick. It was almost dark under the trees, for the +branches shut out the daylight; but the travelers did not stop, and +went on into the forest. + +“If this road goes in, it must come out,” said the Scarecrow, “and as +the Emerald City is at the other end of the road, we must go wherever +it leads us.” + +“Anyone would know that,” said Dorothy. + +“Certainly; that is why I know it,” returned the Scarecrow. “If it +required brains to figure it out, I never should have said it.” + +After an hour or so the light faded away, and they found themselves +stumbling along in the darkness. Dorothy could not see at all, but Toto +could, for some dogs see very well in the dark; and the Scarecrow +declared he could see as well as by day. So she took hold of his arm +and managed to get along fairly well. + +“If you see any house, or any place where we can pass the night,” she +said, “you must tell me; for it is very uncomfortable walking in the +dark.” + +Soon after the Scarecrow stopped. + +“I see a little cottage at the right of us,” he said, “built of logs +and branches. Shall we go there?” + +“Yes, indeed,” answered the child. “I am all tired out.” + +So the Scarecrow led her through the trees until they reached the +cottage, and Dorothy entered and found a bed of dried leaves in one +corner. She lay down at once, and with Toto beside her soon fell into a +sound sleep. The Scarecrow, who was never tired, stood up in another +corner and waited patiently until morning came. + + + + +Chapter V +The Rescue of the Tin Woodman + + +When Dorothy awoke the sun was shining through the trees and Toto had +long been out chasing birds around him and squirrels. She sat up and +looked around her. There was the Scarecrow, still standing patiently in +his corner, waiting for her. + +“We must go and search for water,” she said to him. + +“Why do you want water?” he asked. + +“To wash my face clean after the dust of the road, and to drink, so the +dry bread will not stick in my throat.” + +“It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh,” said the Scarecrow +thoughtfully, “for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have +brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly.” + +They left the cottage and walked through the trees until they found a +little spring of clear water, where Dorothy drank and bathed and ate +her breakfast. She saw there was not much bread left in the basket, and +the girl was thankful the Scarecrow did not have to eat anything, for +there was scarcely enough for herself and Toto for the day. + +When she had finished her meal, and was about to go back to the road of +yellow brick, she was startled to hear a deep groan near by. + +“What was that?” she asked timidly. + +“I cannot imagine,” replied the Scarecrow; “but we can go and see.” + +Just then another groan reached their ears, and the sound seemed to +come from behind them. They turned and walked through the forest a few +steps, when Dorothy discovered something shining in a ray of sunshine +that fell between the trees. She ran to the place and then stopped +short, with a little cry of surprise. + +One of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing +beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely +of tin. His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he +stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all. + +Dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the Scarecrow, while +Toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his +teeth. + +“Did you groan?” asked Dorothy. + +“Yes,” answered the tin man, “I did. I’ve been groaning for more than a +year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.” + +“What can I do for you?” she inquired softly, for she was moved by the +sad voice in which the man spoke. + +“Get an oil-can and oil my joints,” he answered. “They are rusted so +badly that I cannot move them at all; if I am well oiled I shall soon +be all right again. You will find an oil-can on a shelf in my cottage.” + +Dorothy at once ran back to the cottage and found the oil-can, and then +she returned and asked anxiously, “Where are your joints?” + +“Oil my neck, first,” replied the Tin Woodman. So she oiled it, and as +it was quite badly rusted the Scarecrow took hold of the tin head and +moved it gently from side to side until it worked freely, and then the +man could turn it himself. + +“Now oil the joints in my arms,” he said. And Dorothy oiled them and +the Scarecrow bent them carefully until they were quite free from rust +and as good as new. + +The Tin Woodman gave a sigh of satisfaction and lowered his axe, which +he leaned against the tree. + +“This is a great comfort,” he said. “I have been holding that axe in +the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at +last. Now, if you will oil the joints of my legs, I shall be all right +once more.” + +So they oiled his legs until he could move them freely; and he thanked +them again and again for his release, for he seemed a very polite +creature, and very grateful. + +“I might have stood there always if you had not come along,” he said; +“so you have certainly saved my life. How did you happen to be here?” + +“We are on our way to the Emerald City to see the Great Oz,” she +answered, “and we stopped at your cottage to pass the night.” + +“Why do you wish to see Oz?” he asked. + +“I want him to send me back to Kansas, and the Scarecrow wants him to +put a few brains into his head,” she replied. + +The Tin Woodman appeared to think deeply for a moment. Then he said: + +“Do you suppose Oz could give me a heart?” + +“Why, I guess so,” Dorothy answered. “It would be as easy as to give +the Scarecrow brains.” + +“True,” the Tin Woodman returned. “So, if you will allow me to join +your party, I will also go to the Emerald City and ask Oz to help me.” + +“Come along,” said the Scarecrow heartily, and Dorothy added that she +would be pleased to have his company. So the Tin Woodman shouldered his +axe and they all passed through the forest until they came to the road +that was paved with yellow brick. + +The Tin Woodman had asked Dorothy to put the oil-can in her basket. +“For,” he said, “if I should get caught in the rain, and rust again, I +would need the oil-can badly.” + +It was a bit of good luck to have their new comrade join the party, for +soon after they had begun their journey again they came to a place +where the trees and branches grew so thick over the road that the +travelers could not pass. But the Tin Woodman set to work with his axe +and chopped so well that soon he cleared a passage for the entire +party. + +Dorothy was thinking so earnestly as they walked along that she did not +notice when the Scarecrow stumbled into a hole and rolled over to the +side of the road. Indeed he was obliged to call to her to help him up +again. + +“Why didn’t you walk around the hole?” asked the Tin Woodman. + +“I don’t know enough,” replied the Scarecrow cheerfully. “My head is +stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am going to Oz to ask +him for some brains.” + +“Oh, I see,” said the Tin Woodman. “But, after all, brains are not the +best things in the world.” + +“Have you any?” inquired the Scarecrow. + +“No, my head is quite empty,” answered the Woodman. “But once I had +brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much +rather have a heart.” + +“And why is that?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“I will tell you my story, and then you will know.” + +So, while they were walking through the forest, the Tin Woodman told +the following story: + +“I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest +and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a +woodchopper, and after my father died I took care of my old mother as +long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone +I would marry, so that I might not become lonely. + +“There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon +grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry +me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for +her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old +woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she +wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the +housework. So the old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East, and +promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. +Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping +away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my +wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my +left leg. + +“This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man +could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and +had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I +was used to it. But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for +she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin +girl. When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right +leg. Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of +tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; +but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked +Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I +thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come +along, and he made me a new head out of tin. + +“I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than +ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a +new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my +axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into +two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body +of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of +joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had +now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did +not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living +with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her. + +“My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and +it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There +was only one danger—that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in +my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, +there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a +rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I +was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a +terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time +to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. +While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can +love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me +one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.” + +Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story +of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a +new heart. + +“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of +a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had +one.” + +“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not +make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.” + +Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her +two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to +Kansas and Aunt Em, it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had +no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted. + +What worried her most was that the bread was nearly gone, and another +meal for herself and Toto would empty the basket. To be sure, neither +the Woodman nor the Scarecrow ever ate anything, but she was not made +of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed. + + + + +Chapter VI +The Cowardly Lion + + +All this time Dorothy and her companions had been walking through the +thick woods. The road was still paved with yellow brick, but these were +much covered by dried branches and dead leaves from the trees, and the +walking was not at all good. + +There were few birds in this part of the forest, for birds love the +open country where there is plenty of sunshine. But now and then there +came a deep growl from some wild animal hidden among the trees. These +sounds made the little girl’s heart beat fast, for she did not know +what made them; but Toto knew, and he walked close to Dorothy’s side, +and did not even bark in return. + +“How long will it be,” the child asked of the Tin Woodman, “before we +are out of the forest?” + +“I cannot tell,” was the answer, “for I have never been to the Emerald +City. But my father went there once, when I was a boy, and he said it +was a long journey through a dangerous country, although nearer to the +city where Oz dwells the country is beautiful. But I am not afraid so +long as I have my oil-can, and nothing can hurt the Scarecrow, while +you bear upon your forehead the mark of the Good Witch’s kiss, and that +will protect you from harm.” + +“But Toto!” said the girl anxiously. “What will protect him?” + +“We must protect him ourselves if he is in danger,” replied the Tin +Woodman. + +Just as he spoke there came from the forest a terrible roar, and the +next moment a great Lion bounded into the road. With one blow of his +paw he sent the Scarecrow spinning over and over to the edge of the +road, and then he struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws. But, +to the Lion’s surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, +although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still. + +Little Toto, now that he had an enemy to face, ran barking toward the +Lion, and the great beast had opened his mouth to bite the dog, when +Dorothy, fearing Toto would be killed, and heedless of danger, rushed +forward and slapped the Lion upon his nose as hard as she could, while +she cried out: + +“Don’t you dare to bite Toto! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a +big beast like you, to bite a poor little dog!” + +“I didn’t bite him,” said the Lion, as he rubbed his nose with his paw +where Dorothy had hit it. + +“No, but you tried to,” she retorted. “You are nothing but a big +coward.” + +“I know it,” said the Lion, hanging his head in shame. “I’ve always +known it. But how can I help it?” + +“I don’t know, I’m sure. To think of your striking a stuffed man, like +the poor Scarecrow!” + +“Is he stuffed?” asked the Lion in surprise, as he watched her pick up +the Scarecrow and set him upon his feet, while she patted him into +shape again. + +“Of course he’s stuffed,” replied Dorothy, who was still angry. + +“That’s why he went over so easily,” remarked the Lion. “It astonished +me to see him whirl around so. Is the other one stuffed also?” + +“No,” said Dorothy, “he’s made of tin.” And she helped the Woodman up +again. + +“That’s why he nearly blunted my claws,” said the Lion. “When they +scratched against the tin it made a cold shiver run down my back. What +is that little animal you are so tender of?” + +“He is my dog, Toto,” answered Dorothy. + +“Is he made of tin, or stuffed?” asked the Lion. + +“Neither. He’s a—a—a meat dog,” said the girl. + +“Oh! He’s a curious animal and seems remarkably small, now that I look +at him. No one would think of biting such a little thing, except a +coward like me,” continued the Lion sadly. + +“What makes you a coward?” asked Dorothy, looking at the great beast in +wonder, for he was as big as a small horse. + +“It’s a mystery,” replied the Lion. “I suppose I was born that way. All +the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for +the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts. I learned that +if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out +of my way. Whenever I’ve met a man I’ve been awfully scared; but I just +roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. If +the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, +I should have run myself—I’m such a coward; but just as soon as they +hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course I let them +go.” + +“But that isn’t right. The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said +the Scarecrow. + +“I know it,” returned the Lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip +of his tail. “It is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. +But whenever there is danger, my heart begins to beat fast.” + +“Perhaps you have heart disease,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“It may be,” said the Lion. + +“If you have,” continued the Tin Woodman, “you ought to be glad, for it +proves you have a heart. For my part, I have no heart; so I cannot have +heart disease.” + +“Perhaps,” said the Lion thoughtfully, “if I had no heart I should not +be a coward.” + +“Have you brains?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“I suppose so. I’ve never looked to see,” replied the Lion. + +“I am going to the Great Oz to ask him to give me some,” remarked the +Scarecrow, “for my head is stuffed with straw.” + +“And I am going to ask him to give me a heart,” said the Woodman. + +“And I am going to ask him to send Toto and me back to Kansas,” added +Dorothy. + +“Do you think Oz could give me courage?” asked the Cowardly Lion. + +“Just as easily as he could give me brains,” said the Scarecrow. + +“Or give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“Or send me back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. + +“Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,” said the Lion, “for my +life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage.” + +“You will be very welcome,” answered Dorothy, “for you will help to +keep away the other wild beasts. It seems to me they must be more +cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily.” + +“They really are,” said the Lion, “but that doesn’t make me any braver, +and as long as I know myself to be a coward I shall be unhappy.” + +So once more the little company set off upon the journey, the Lion +walking with stately strides at Dorothy’s side. Toto did not approve of +this new comrade at first, for he could not forget how nearly he had +been crushed between the Lion’s great jaws. But after a time he became +more at ease, and presently Toto and the Cowardly Lion had grown to be +good friends. + +During the rest of that day there was no other adventure to mar the +peace of their journey. Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a +beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little +thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always +careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept +several tears of sorrow and regret. These tears ran slowly down his +face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. When +Dorothy presently asked him a question the Tin Woodman could not open +his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. He became greatly +frightened at this and made many motions to Dorothy to relieve him, but +she could not understand. The Lion was also puzzled to know what was +wrong. But the Scarecrow seized the oil-can from Dorothy’s basket and +oiled the Woodman’s jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as +well as before. + +“This will serve me a lesson,” said he, “to look where I step. For if I +should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying +rusts my jaws so that I cannot speak.” + +Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and +when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to +harm it. The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore +he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. + +“You people with hearts,” he said, “have something to guide you, and +need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very +careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn’t mind so much.” + + + + +Chapter VII +The Journey to the Great Oz + + +They were obliged to camp out that night under a large tree in the +forest, for there were no houses near. The tree made a good, thick +covering to protect them from the dew, and the Tin Woodman chopped a +great pile of wood with his axe and Dorothy built a splendid fire that +warmed her and made her feel less lonely. She and Toto ate the last of +their bread, and now she did not know what they would do for breakfast. + +“If you wish,” said the Lion, “I will go into the forest and kill a +deer for you. You can roast it by the fire, since your tastes are so +peculiar that you prefer cooked food, and then you will have a very +good breakfast.” + +“Don’t! Please don’t,” begged the Tin Woodman. “I should certainly weep +if you killed a poor deer, and then my jaws would rust again.” + +But the Lion went away into the forest and found his own supper, and no +one ever knew what it was, for he didn’t mention it. And the Scarecrow +found a tree full of nuts and filled Dorothy’s basket with them, so +that she would not be hungry for a long time. She thought this was very +kind and thoughtful of the Scarecrow, but she laughed heartily at the +awkward way in which the poor creature picked up the nuts. His padded +hands were so clumsy and the nuts were so small that he dropped almost +as many as he put in the basket. But the Scarecrow did not mind how +long it took him to fill the basket, for it enabled him to keep away +from the fire, as he feared a spark might get into his straw and burn +him up. So he kept a good distance away from the flames, and only came +near to cover Dorothy with dry leaves when she lay down to sleep. These +kept her very snug and warm, and she slept soundly until morning. + +When it was daylight, the girl bathed her face in a little rippling +brook, and soon after they all started toward the Emerald City. + +This was to be an eventful day for the travelers. They had hardly been +walking an hour when they saw before them a great ditch that crossed +the road and divided the forest as far as they could see on either +side. It was a very wide ditch, and when they crept up to the edge and +looked into it they could see it was also very deep, and there were +many big, jagged rocks at the bottom. The sides were so steep that none +of them could climb down, and for a moment it seemed that their journey +must end. + +“What shall we do?” asked Dorothy despairingly. + +“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said the Tin Woodman, and the Lion shook +his shaggy mane and looked thoughtful. + +But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain. Neither can we +climb down into this great ditch. Therefore, if we cannot jump over it, +we must stop where we are.” + +“I think I could jump over it,” said the Cowardly Lion, after measuring +the distance carefully in his mind. + +“Then we are all right,” answered the Scarecrow, “for you can carry us +all over on your back, one at a time.” + +“Well, I’ll try it,” said the Lion. “Who will go first?” + +“I will,” declared the Scarecrow, “for, if you found that you could not +jump over the gulf, Dorothy would be killed, or the Tin Woodman badly +dented on the rocks below. But if I am on your back it will not matter +so much, for the fall would not hurt me at all.” + +“I am terribly afraid of falling, myself,” said the Cowardly Lion, “but +I suppose there is nothing to do but try it. So get on my back and we +will make the attempt.” + +The Scarecrow sat upon the Lion’s back, and the big beast walked to the +edge of the gulf and crouched down. + +“Why don’t you run and jump?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“Because that isn’t the way we Lions do these things,” he replied. Then +giving a great spring, he shot through the air and landed safely on the +other side. They were all greatly pleased to see how easily he did it, +and after the Scarecrow had got down from his back the Lion sprang +across the ditch again. + +Dorothy thought she would go next; so she took Toto in her arms and +climbed on the Lion’s back, holding tightly to his mane with one hand. +The next moment it seemed as if she were flying through the air; and +then, before she had time to think about it, she was safe on the other +side. The Lion went back a third time and got the Tin Woodman, and then +they all sat down for a few moments to give the beast a chance to rest, +for his great leaps had made his breath short, and he panted like a big +dog that has been running too long. + +They found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and +gloomy. After the Lion had rested they started along the road of yellow +brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would +come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. To +add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths +of the forest, and the Lion whispered to them that it was in this part +of the country that the Kalidahs lived. + +“What are the Kalidahs?” asked the girl. + +“They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like +tigers,” replied the Lion, “and with claws so long and sharp that they +could tear me in two as easily as I could kill Toto. I’m terribly +afraid of the Kalidahs.” + +“I’m not surprised that you are,” returned Dorothy. “They must be +dreadful beasts.” + +The Lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf +across the road. But this one was so broad and deep that the Lion knew +at once he could not leap across it. + +So they sat down to consider what they should do, and after serious +thought the Scarecrow said: + +“Here is a great tree, standing close to the ditch. If the Tin Woodman +can chop it down, so that it will fall to the other side, we can walk +across it easily.” + +“That is a first-rate idea,” said the Lion. “One would almost suspect +you had brains in your head, instead of straw.” + +The Woodman set to work at once, and so sharp was his axe that the tree +was soon chopped nearly through. Then the Lion put his strong front +legs against the tree and pushed with all his might, and slowly the big +tree tipped and fell with a crash across the ditch, with its top +branches on the other side. + +They had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl +made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them +two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. + +“They are the Kalidahs!” said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble. + +“Quick!” cried the Scarecrow. “Let us cross over.” + +So Dorothy went first, holding Toto in her arms, the Tin Woodman +followed, and the Scarecrow came next. The Lion, although he was +certainly afraid, turned to face the Kalidahs, and then he gave so loud +and terrible a roar that Dorothy screamed and the Scarecrow fell over +backward, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him +in surprise. + +But, seeing they were bigger than the Lion, and remembering that there +were two of them and only one of him, the Kalidahs again rushed +forward, and the Lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they +would do next. Without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began +to cross the tree. And the Lion said to Dorothy: + +“We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp +claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am +alive.” + +“Wait a minute!” called the Scarecrow. He had been thinking what was +best to be done, and now he asked the Woodman to chop away the end of +the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. The Tin Woodman began +to use his axe at once, and, just as the two Kalidahs were nearly +across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, +snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp +rocks at the bottom. + +“Well,” said the Cowardly Lion, drawing a long breath of relief, “I see +we are going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it, for it +must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive. Those creatures +frightened me so badly that my heart is beating yet.” + +“Ah,” said the Tin Woodman sadly, “I wish I had a heart to beat.” + +This adventure made the travelers more anxious than ever to get out of +the forest, and they walked so fast that Dorothy became tired, and had +to ride on the Lion’s back. To their great joy the trees became thinner +the farther they advanced, and in the afternoon they suddenly came upon +a broad river, flowing swiftly just before them. On the other side of +the water they could see the road of yellow brick running through a +beautiful country, with green meadows dotted with bright flowers and +all the road bordered with trees hanging full of delicious fruits. They +were greatly pleased to see this delightful country before them. + +“How shall we cross the river?” asked Dorothy. + +“That is easily done,” replied the Scarecrow. “The Tin Woodman must +build us a raft, so we can float to the other side.” + +So the Woodman took his axe and began to chop down small trees to make +a raft, and while he was busy at this the Scarecrow found on the +riverbank a tree full of fine fruit. This pleased Dorothy, who had +eaten nothing but nuts all day, and she made a hearty meal of the ripe +fruit. + +But it takes time to make a raft, even when one is as industrious and +untiring as the Tin Woodman, and when night came the work was not done. +So they found a cozy place under the trees where they slept well until +the morning; and Dorothy dreamed of the Emerald City, and of the good +Wizard Oz, who would soon send her back to her own home again. + + + + +Chapter VIII +The Deadly Poppy Field + + +Our little party of travelers awakened the next morning refreshed and +full of hope, and Dorothy breakfasted like a princess off peaches and +plums from the trees beside the river. Behind them was the dark forest +they had passed safely through, although they had suffered many +discouragements; but before them was a lovely, sunny country that +seemed to beckon them on to the Emerald City. + +To be sure, the broad river now cut them off from this beautiful land. +But the raft was nearly done, and after the Tin Woodman had cut a few +more logs and fastened them together with wooden pins, they were ready +to start. Dorothy sat down in the middle of the raft and held Toto in +her arms. When the Cowardly Lion stepped upon the raft it tipped badly, +for he was big and heavy; but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood +upon the other end to steady it, and they had long poles in their hands +to push the raft through the water. + +They got along quite well at first, but when they reached the middle of +the river the swift current swept the raft downstream, farther and +farther away from the road of yellow brick. And the water grew so deep +that the long poles would not touch the bottom. + +“This is bad,” said the Tin Woodman, “for if we cannot get to the land +we shall be carried into the country of the Wicked Witch of the West, +and she will enchant us and make us her slaves.” + +“And then I should get no brains,” said the Scarecrow. + +“And I should get no courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. + +“And I should get no heart,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“And I should never get back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. + +“We must certainly get to the Emerald City if we can,” the Scarecrow +continued, and he pushed so hard on his long pole that it stuck fast in +the mud at the bottom of the river. Then, before he could pull it out +again—or let go—the raft was swept away, and the poor Scarecrow was +left clinging to the pole in the middle of the river. + +“Good-bye!” he called after them, and they were very sorry to leave +him. Indeed, the Tin Woodman began to cry, but fortunately remembered +that he might rust, and so dried his tears on Dorothy’s apron. + +Of course this was a bad thing for the Scarecrow. + +“I am now worse off than when I first met Dorothy,” he thought. “Then, +I was stuck on a pole in a cornfield, where I could make-believe scare +the crows, at any rate. But surely there is no use for a Scarecrow +stuck on a pole in the middle of a river. I am afraid I shall never +have any brains, after all!” + +Down the stream the raft floated, and the poor Scarecrow was left far +behind. Then the Lion said: + +“Something must be done to save us. I think I can swim to the shore and +pull the raft after me, if you will only hold fast to the tip of my +tail.” + +So he sprang into the water, and the Tin Woodman caught fast hold of +his tail. Then the Lion began to swim with all his might toward the +shore. It was hard work, although he was so big; but by and by they +were drawn out of the current, and then Dorothy took the Tin Woodman’s +long pole and helped push the raft to the land. + +They were all tired out when they reached the shore at last and stepped +off upon the pretty green grass, and they also knew that the stream had +carried them a long way past the road of yellow brick that led to the +Emerald City. + +“What shall we do now?” asked the Tin Woodman, as the Lion lay down on +the grass to let the sun dry him. + +“We must get back to the road, in some way,” said Dorothy. + +“The best plan will be to walk along the riverbank until we come to the +road again,” remarked the Lion. + +So, when they were rested, Dorothy picked up her basket and they +started along the grassy bank, to the road from which the river had +carried them. It was a lovely country, with plenty of flowers and fruit +trees and sunshine to cheer them, and had they not felt so sorry for +the poor Scarecrow, they could have been very happy. + +They walked along as fast as they could, Dorothy only stopping once to +pick a beautiful flower; and after a time the Tin Woodman cried out: +“Look!” + +Then they all looked at the river and saw the Scarecrow perched upon +his pole in the middle of the water, looking very lonely and sad. + +“What can we do to save him?” asked Dorothy. + +The Lion and the Woodman both shook their heads, for they did not know. +So they sat down upon the bank and gazed wistfully at the Scarecrow +until a Stork flew by, who, upon seeing them, stopped to rest at the +water’s edge. + +“Who are you and where are you going?” asked the Stork. + +“I am Dorothy,” answered the girl, “and these are my friends, the Tin +Woodman and the Cowardly Lion; and we are going to the Emerald City.” + +“This isn’t the road,” said the Stork, as she twisted her long neck and +looked sharply at the queer party. + +“I know it,” returned Dorothy, “but we have lost the Scarecrow, and are +wondering how we shall get him again.” + +“Where is he?” asked the Stork. + +“Over there in the river,” answered the little girl. + +“If he wasn’t so big and heavy I would get him for you,” remarked the +Stork. + +“He isn’t heavy a bit,” said Dorothy eagerly, “for he is stuffed with +straw; and if you will bring him back to us, we shall thank you ever +and ever so much.” + +“Well, I’ll try,” said the Stork, “but if I find he is too heavy to +carry I shall have to drop him in the river again.” + +So the big bird flew into the air and over the water till she came to +where the Scarecrow was perched upon his pole. Then the Stork with her +great claws grabbed the Scarecrow by the arm and carried him up into +the air and back to the bank, where Dorothy and the Lion and the Tin +Woodman and Toto were sitting. + +When the Scarecrow found himself among his friends again, he was so +happy that he hugged them all, even the Lion and Toto; and as they +walked along he sang “Tol-de-ri-de-oh!” at every step, he felt so gay. + +“I was afraid I should have to stay in the river forever,” he said, +“but the kind Stork saved me, and if I ever get any brains I shall find +the Stork again and do her some kindness in return.” + +“That’s all right,” said the Stork, who was flying along beside them. +“I always like to help anyone in trouble. But I must go now, for my +babies are waiting in the nest for me. I hope you will find the Emerald +City and that Oz will help you.” + +“Thank you,” replied Dorothy, and then the kind Stork flew into the air +and was soon out of sight. + +They walked along listening to the singing of the brightly colored +birds and looking at the lovely flowers which now became so thick that +the ground was carpeted with them. There were big yellow and white and +blue and purple blossoms, besides great clusters of scarlet poppies, +which were so brilliant in color they almost dazzled Dorothy’s eyes. + +“Aren’t they beautiful?” the girl asked, as she breathed in the spicy +scent of the bright flowers. + +“I suppose so,” answered the Scarecrow. “When I have brains, I shall +probably like them better.” + +“If I only had a heart, I should love them,” added the Tin Woodman. + +“I always did like flowers,” said the Lion. “They seem so helpless and +frail. But there are none in the forest so bright as these.” + +They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer +and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the +midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when +there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that +anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried +away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever. But +Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red +flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy +and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep. + +But the Tin Woodman would not let her do this. + +“We must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark,” +he said; and the Scarecrow agreed with him. So they kept walking until +Dorothy could stand no longer. Her eyes closed in spite of herself and +she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep. + +“What shall we do?” asked the Tin Woodman. + +“If we leave her here she will die,” said the Lion. “The smell of the +flowers is killing us all. I myself can scarcely keep my eyes open, and +the dog is asleep already.” + +It was true; Toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. But the +Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, not being made of flesh, were not +troubled by the scent of the flowers. + +“Run fast,” said the Scarecrow to the Lion, “and get out of this deadly +flower bed as soon as you can. We will bring the little girl with us, +but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried.” + +So the Lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. +In a moment he was out of sight. + +“Let us make a chair with our hands and carry her,” said the Scarecrow. +So they picked up Toto and put the dog in Dorothy’s lap, and then they +made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms +and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers. + +On and on they walked, and it seemed that the great carpet of deadly +flowers that surrounded them would never end. They followed the bend of +the river, and at last came upon their friend the Lion, lying fast +asleep among the poppies. The flowers had been too strong for the huge +beast and he had given up at last, and fallen only a short distance +from the end of the poppy bed, where the sweet grass spread in +beautiful green fields before them. + +“We can do nothing for him,” said the Tin Woodman, sadly; “for he is +much too heavy to lift. We must leave him here to sleep on forever, and +perhaps he will dream that he has found courage at last.” + +“I’m sorry,” said the Scarecrow. “The Lion was a very good comrade for +one so cowardly. But let us go on.” + +They carried the sleeping girl to a pretty spot beside the river, far +enough from the poppy field to prevent her breathing any more of the +poison of the flowers, and here they laid her gently on the soft grass +and waited for the fresh breeze to waken her. + + + + +Chapter IX +The Queen of the Field Mice + + +“We cannot be far from the road of yellow brick, now,” remarked the +Scarecrow, as he stood beside the girl, “for we have come nearly as far +as the river carried us away.” + +The Tin Woodman was about to reply when he heard a low growl, and +turning his head (which worked beautifully on hinges) he saw a strange +beast come bounding over the grass toward them. It was, indeed, a great +yellow Wildcat, and the Woodman thought it must be chasing something, +for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, +showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of +fire. As it came nearer the Tin Woodman saw that running before the +beast was a little gray field mouse, and although he had no heart he +knew it was wrong for the Wildcat to try to kill such a pretty, +harmless creature. + +So the Woodman raised his axe, and as the Wildcat ran by he gave it a +quick blow that cut the beast’s head clean off from its body, and it +rolled over at his feet in two pieces. + +The field mouse, now that it was freed from its enemy, stopped short; +and coming slowly up to the Woodman it said, in a squeaky little voice: + +“Oh, thank you! Thank you ever so much for saving my life.” + +“Don’t speak of it, I beg of you,” replied the Woodman. “I have no +heart, you know, so I am careful to help all those who may need a +friend, even if it happens to be only a mouse.” + +“Only a mouse!” cried the little animal, indignantly. “Why, I am a +Queen—the Queen of all the Field Mice!” + +“Oh, indeed,” said the Woodman, making a bow. + +“Therefore you have done a great deed, as well as a brave one, in +saving my life,” added the Queen. + +At that moment several mice were seen running up as fast as their +little legs could carry them, and when they saw their Queen they +exclaimed: + +“Oh, your Majesty, we thought you would be killed! How did you manage +to escape the great Wildcat?” They all bowed so low to the little Queen +that they almost stood upon their heads. + +“This funny tin man,” she answered, “killed the Wildcat and saved my +life. So hereafter you must all serve him, and obey his slightest +wish.” + +“We will!” cried all the mice, in a shrill chorus. And then they +scampered in all directions, for Toto had awakened from his sleep, and +seeing all these mice around him he gave one bark of delight and jumped +right into the middle of the group. Toto had always loved to chase mice +when he lived in Kansas, and he saw no harm in it. + +But the Tin Woodman caught the dog in his arms and held him tight, +while he called to the mice, “Come back! Come back! Toto shall not hurt +you.” + +At this the Queen of the Mice stuck her head out from underneath a +clump of grass and asked, in a timid voice, “Are you sure he will not +bite us?” + +“I will not let him,” said the Woodman; “so do not be afraid.” + +One by one the mice came creeping back, and Toto did not bark again, +although he tried to get out of the Woodman’s arms, and would have +bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin. Finally one +of the biggest mice spoke. + +“Is there anything we can do,” it asked, “to repay you for saving the +life of our Queen?” + +“Nothing that I know of,” answered the Woodman; but the Scarecrow, who +had been trying to think, but could not because his head was stuffed +with straw, said, quickly, “Oh, yes; you can save our friend, the +Cowardly Lion, who is asleep in the poppy bed.” + +“A Lion!” cried the little Queen. “Why, he would eat us all up.” + +“Oh, no,” declared the Scarecrow; “this Lion is a coward.” + +“Really?” asked the Mouse. + +“He says so himself,” answered the Scarecrow, “and he would never hurt +anyone who is our friend. If you will help us to save him I promise +that he shall treat you all with kindness.” + +“Very well,” said the Queen, “we trust you. But what shall we do?” + +“Are there many of these mice which call you Queen and are willing to +obey you?” + +“Oh, yes; there are thousands,” she replied. + +“Then send for them all to come here as soon as possible, and let each +one bring a long piece of string.” + +The Queen turned to the mice that attended her and told them to go at +once and get all her people. As soon as they heard her orders they ran +away in every direction as fast as possible. + +“Now,” said the Scarecrow to the Tin Woodman, “you must go to those +trees by the riverside and make a truck that will carry the Lion.” + +So the Woodman went at once to the trees and began to work; and he soon +made a truck out of the limbs of trees, from which he chopped away all +the leaves and branches. He fastened it together with wooden pegs and +made the four wheels out of short pieces of a big tree trunk. So fast +and so well did he work that by the time the mice began to arrive the +truck was all ready for them. + +They came from all directions, and there were thousands of them: big +mice and little mice and middle-sized mice; and each one brought a +piece of string in his mouth. It was about this time that Dorothy woke +from her long sleep and opened her eyes. She was greatly astonished to +find herself lying upon the grass, with thousands of mice standing +around and looking at her timidly. But the Scarecrow told her about +everything, and turning to the dignified little Mouse, he said: + +“Permit me to introduce to you her Majesty, the Queen.” + +Dorothy nodded gravely and the Queen made a curtsy, after which she +became quite friendly with the little girl. + +The Scarecrow and the Woodman now began to fasten the mice to the +truck, using the strings they had brought. One end of a string was tied +around the neck of each mouse and the other end to the truck. Of course +the truck was a thousand times bigger than any of the mice who were to +draw it; but when all the mice had been harnessed, they were able to +pull it quite easily. Even the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman could sit +on it, and were drawn swiftly by their queer little horses to the place +where the Lion lay asleep. + +After a great deal of hard work, for the Lion was heavy, they managed +to get him up on the truck. Then the Queen hurriedly gave her people +the order to start, for she feared if the mice stayed among the poppies +too long they also would fall asleep. + +At first the little creatures, many though they were, could hardly stir +the heavily loaded truck; but the Woodman and the Scarecrow both pushed +from behind, and they got along better. Soon they rolled the Lion out +of the poppy bed to the green fields, where he could breathe the sweet, +fresh air again, instead of the poisonous scent of the flowers. + +Dorothy came to meet them and thanked the little mice warmly for saving +her companion from death. She had grown so fond of the big Lion she was +glad he had been rescued. + +Then the mice were unharnessed from the truck and scampered away +through the grass to their homes. The Queen of the Mice was the last to +leave. + +“If ever you need us again,” she said, “come out into the field and +call, and we shall hear you and come to your assistance. Good-bye!” + +“Good-bye!” they all answered, and away the Queen ran, while Dorothy +held Toto tightly lest he should run after her and frighten her. + +After this they sat down beside the Lion until he should awaken; and +the Scarecrow brought Dorothy some fruit from a tree near by, which she +ate for her dinner. + + + + +Chapter X +The Guardian of the Gate + + +It was some time before the Cowardly Lion awakened, for he had lain +among the poppies a long while, breathing in their deadly fragrance; +but when he did open his eyes and roll off the truck he was very glad +to find himself still alive. + +“I ran as fast as I could,” he said, sitting down and yawning, “but the +flowers were too strong for me. How did you get me out?” + +Then they told him of the field mice, and how they had generously saved +him from death; and the Cowardly Lion laughed, and said: + +“I have always thought myself very big and terrible; yet such little +things as flowers came near to killing me, and such small animals as +mice have saved my life. How strange it all is! But, comrades, what +shall we do now?” + +“We must journey on until we find the road of yellow brick again,” said +Dorothy, “and then we can keep on to the Emerald City.” + +So, the Lion being fully refreshed, and feeling quite himself again, +they all started upon the journey, greatly enjoying the walk through +the soft, fresh grass; and it was not long before they reached the road +of yellow brick and turned again toward the Emerald City where the +Great Oz dwelt. + +The road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was +beautiful, so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far +behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades. +Once more they could see fences built beside the road; but these were +painted green, and when they came to a small house, in which a farmer +evidently lived, that also was painted green. They passed by several of +these houses during the afternoon, and sometimes people came to the +doors and looked at them as if they would like to ask questions; but no +one came near them nor spoke to them because of the great Lion, of +which they were very much afraid. The people were all dressed in +clothing of a lovely emerald-green color and wore peaked hats like +those of the Munchkins. + +“This must be the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy, “and we are surely getting +near the Emerald City.” + +“Yes,” answered the Scarecrow. “Everything is green here, while in the +country of the Munchkins blue was the favorite color. But the people do +not seem to be as friendly as the Munchkins, and I’m afraid we shall be +unable to find a place to pass the night.” + +“I should like something to eat besides fruit,” said the girl, “and I’m +sure Toto is nearly starved. Let us stop at the next house and talk to +the people.” + +So, when they came to a good-sized farmhouse, Dorothy walked boldly up +to the door and knocked. + +A woman opened it just far enough to look out, and said, “What do you +want, child, and why is that great Lion with you?” + +“We wish to pass the night with you, if you will allow us,” answered +Dorothy; “and the Lion is my friend and comrade, and would not hurt you +for the world.” + +“Is he tame?” asked the woman, opening the door a little wider. + +“Oh, yes,” said the girl, “and he is a great coward, too. He will be +more afraid of you than you are of him.” + +“Well,” said the woman, after thinking it over and taking another peep +at the Lion, “if that is the case you may come in, and I will give you +some supper and a place to sleep.” + +So they all entered the house, where there were, besides the woman, two +children and a man. The man had hurt his leg, and was lying on the +couch in a corner. They seemed greatly surprised to see so strange a +company, and while the woman was busy laying the table the man asked: + +“Where are you all going?” + +“To the Emerald City,” said Dorothy, “to see the Great Oz.” + +“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed the man. “Are you sure that Oz will see you?” + +“Why not?” she replied. + +“Why, it is said that he never lets anyone come into his presence. I +have been to the Emerald City many times, and it is a beautiful and +wonderful place; but I have never been permitted to see the Great Oz, +nor do I know of any living person who has seen him.” + +“Does he never go out?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“Never. He sits day after day in the great Throne Room of his Palace, +and even those who wait upon him do not see him face to face.” + +“What is he like?” asked the girl. + +“That is hard to tell,” said the man thoughtfully. “You see, Oz is a +Great Wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. So that some say he +looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say +he looks like a cat. To others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a +brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. But who the real Oz is, +when he is in his own form, no living person can tell.” + +“That is very strange,” said Dorothy, “but we must try, in some way, to +see him, or we shall have made our journey for nothing.” + +“Why do you wish to see the terrible Oz?” asked the man. + +“I want him to give me some brains,” said the Scarecrow eagerly. + +“Oh, Oz could do that easily enough,” declared the man. “He has more +brains than he needs.” + +“And I want him to give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“That will not trouble him,” continued the man, “for Oz has a large +collection of hearts, of all sizes and shapes.” + +“And I want him to give me courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. + +“Oz keeps a great pot of courage in his Throne Room,” said the man, +“which he has covered with a golden plate, to keep it from running +over. He will be glad to give you some.” + +“And I want him to send me back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. + +“Where is Kansas?” asked the man, with surprise. + +“I don’t know,” replied Dorothy sorrowfully, “but it is my home, and +I’m sure it’s somewhere.” + +“Very likely. Well, Oz can do anything; so I suppose he will find +Kansas for you. But first you must get to see him, and that will be a +hard task; for the Great Wizard does not like to see anyone, and he +usually has his own way. But what do YOU want?” he continued, speaking +to Toto. Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not +speak. + +The woman now called to them that supper was ready, so they gathered +around the table and Dorothy ate some delicious porridge and a dish of +scrambled eggs and a plate of nice white bread, and enjoyed her meal. +The Lion ate some of the porridge, but did not care for it, saying it +was made from oats and oats were food for horses, not for lions. The +Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman ate nothing at all. Toto ate a little of +everything, and was glad to get a good supper again. + +The woman now gave Dorothy a bed to sleep in, and Toto lay down beside +her, while the Lion guarded the door of her room so she might not be +disturbed. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood up in a corner and +kept quiet all night, although of course they could not sleep. + +The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they started on their way, +and soon saw a beautiful green glow in the sky just before them. + +“That must be the Emerald City,” said Dorothy. + +As they walked on, the green glow became brighter and brighter, and it +seemed that at last they were nearing the end of their travels. Yet it +was afternoon before they came to the great wall that surrounded the +City. It was high and thick and of a bright green color. + +In front of them, and at the end of the road of yellow brick, was a big +gate, all studded with emeralds that glittered so in the sun that even +the painted eyes of the Scarecrow were dazzled by their brilliancy. + +There was a bell beside the gate, and Dorothy pushed the button and +heard a silvery tinkle sound within. Then the big gate swung slowly +open, and they all passed through and found themselves in a high arched +room, the walls of which glistened with countless emeralds. + +Before them stood a little man about the same size as the Munchkins. He +was clothed all in green, from his head to his feet, and even his skin +was of a greenish tint. At his side was a large green box. + +When he saw Dorothy and her companions the man asked, “What do you wish +in the Emerald City?” + +“We came here to see the Great Oz,” said Dorothy. + +The man was so surprised at this answer that he sat down to think it +over. + +“It has been many years since anyone asked me to see Oz,” he said, +shaking his head in perplexity. “He is powerful and terrible, and if +you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of +the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an instant.” + +“But it is not a foolish errand, nor an idle one,” replied the +Scarecrow; “it is important. And we have been told that Oz is a good +Wizard.” + +“So he is,” said the green man, “and he rules the Emerald City wisely +and well. But to those who are not honest, or who approach him from +curiosity, he is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see his +face. I am the Guardian of the Gates, and since you demand to see the +Great Oz I must take you to his Palace. But first you must put on the +spectacles.” + +“Why?” asked Dorothy. + +“Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the +Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear +spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it +when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock +them.” + +He opened the big box, and Dorothy saw that it was filled with +spectacles of every size and shape. All of them had green glasses in +them. The Guardian of the Gates found a pair that would just fit +Dorothy and put them over her eyes. There were two golden bands +fastened to them that passed around the back of her head, where they +were locked together by a little key that was at the end of a chain the +Guardian of the Gates wore around his neck. When they were on, Dorothy +could not take them off had she wished, but of course she did not wish +to be blinded by the glare of the Emerald City, so she said nothing. + +Then the green man fitted spectacles for the Scarecrow and the Tin +Woodman and the Lion, and even on little Toto; and all were locked fast +with the key. + +Then the Guardian of the Gates put on his own glasses and told them he +was ready to show them to the Palace. Taking a big golden key from a +peg on the wall, he opened another gate, and they all followed him +through the portal into the streets of the Emerald City. + + + + +Chapter XI +The Wonderful City of Oz + + +Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles, Dorothy and her +friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. +The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble +and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. They walked over a +pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined +together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the +brightness of the sun. The window panes were of green glass; even the +sky above the City had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were +green. + +There were many people—men, women, and children—walking about, and +these were all dressed in green clothes and had greenish skins. They +looked at Dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering +eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when +they saw the Lion; but no one spoke to them. Many shops stood in the +street, and Dorothy saw that everything in them was green. Green candy +and green pop corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green +hats, and green clothes of all sorts. At one place a man was selling +green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that +they paid for it with green pennies. + +There seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind; the men carried +things around in little green carts, which they pushed before them. +Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous. + +The Guardian of the Gates led them through the streets until they came +to a big building, exactly in the middle of the City, which was the +Palace of Oz, the Great Wizard. There was a soldier before the door, +dressed in a green uniform and wearing a long green beard. + +“Here are strangers,” said the Guardian of the Gates to him, “and they +demand to see the Great Oz.” + +“Step inside,” answered the soldier, “and I will carry your message to +him.” + +So they passed through the Palace Gates and were led into a big room +with a green carpet and lovely green furniture set with emeralds. The +soldier made them all wipe their feet upon a green mat before entering +this room, and when they were seated he said politely: + +“Please make yourselves comfortable while I go to the door of the +Throne Room and tell Oz you are here.” + +They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. When, at +last, he came back, Dorothy asked: + +“Have you seen Oz?” + +“Oh, no,” returned the soldier; “I have never seen him. But I spoke to +him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your message. He said he +will grant you an audience, if you so desire; but each one of you must +enter his presence alone, and he will admit but one each day. +Therefore, as you must remain in the Palace for several days, I will +have you shown to rooms where you may rest in comfort after your +journey.” + +“Thank you,” replied the girl; “that is very kind of Oz.” + +The soldier now blew upon a green whistle, and at once a young girl, +dressed in a pretty green silk gown, entered the room. She had lovely +green hair and green eyes, and she bowed low before Dorothy as she +said, “Follow me and I will show you your room.” + +So Dorothy said good-bye to all her friends except Toto, and taking the +dog in her arms followed the green girl through seven passages and up +three flights of stairs until they came to a room at the front of the +Palace. It was the sweetest little room in the world, with a soft +comfortable bed that had sheets of green silk and a green velvet +counterpane. There was a tiny fountain in the middle of the room, that +shot a spray of green perfume into the air, to fall back into a +beautifully carved green marble basin. Beautiful green flowers stood in +the windows, and there was a shelf with a row of little green books. +When Dorothy had time to open these books she found them full of queer +green pictures that made her laugh, they were so funny. + +In a wardrobe were many green dresses, made of silk and satin and +velvet; and all of them fitted Dorothy exactly. + +“Make yourself perfectly at home,” said the green girl, “and if you +wish for anything ring the bell. Oz will send for you tomorrow +morning.” + +She left Dorothy alone and went back to the others. These she also led +to rooms, and each one of them found himself lodged in a very pleasant +part of the Palace. Of course this politeness was wasted on the +Scarecrow; for when he found himself alone in his room he stood +stupidly in one spot, just within the doorway, to wait till morning. It +would not rest him to lie down, and he could not close his eyes; so he +remained all night staring at a little spider which was weaving its web +in a corner of the room, just as if it were not one of the most +wonderful rooms in the world. The Tin Woodman lay down on his bed from +force of habit, for he remembered when he was made of flesh; but not +being able to sleep, he passed the night moving his joints up and down +to make sure they kept in good working order. The Lion would have +preferred a bed of dried leaves in the forest, and did not like being +shut up in a room; but he had too much sense to let this worry him, so +he sprang upon the bed and rolled himself up like a cat and purred +himself asleep in a minute. + +The next morning, after breakfast, the green maiden came to fetch +Dorothy, and she dressed her in one of the prettiest gowns, made of +green brocaded satin. Dorothy put on a green silk apron and tied a +green ribbon around Toto’s neck, and they started for the Throne Room +of the Great Oz. + +First they came to a great hall in which were many ladies and gentlemen +of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. These people had nothing to +do but talk to each other, but they always came to wait outside the +Throne Room every morning, although they were never permitted to see +Oz. As Dorothy entered they looked at her curiously, and one of them +whispered: + +“Are you really going to look upon the face of Oz the Terrible?” + +“Of course,” answered the girl, “if he will see me.” + +“Oh, he will see you,” said the soldier who had taken her message to +the Wizard, “although he does not like to have people ask to see him. +Indeed, at first he was angry and said I should send you back where you +came from. Then he asked me what you looked like, and when I mentioned +your silver shoes he was very much interested. At last I told him about +the mark upon your forehead, and he decided he would admit you to his +presence.” + +Just then a bell rang, and the green girl said to Dorothy, “That is the +signal. You must go into the Throne Room alone.” + +She opened a little door and Dorothy walked boldly through and found +herself in a wonderful place. It was a big, round room with a high +arched roof, and the walls and ceiling and floor were covered with +large emeralds set closely together. In the center of the roof was a +great light, as bright as the sun, which made the emeralds sparkle in a +wonderful manner. + +But what interested Dorothy most was the big throne of green marble +that stood in the middle of the room. It was shaped like a chair and +sparkled with gems, as did everything else. In the center of the chair +was an enormous Head, without a body to support it or any arms or legs +whatever. There was no hair upon this head, but it had eyes and a nose +and mouth, and was much bigger than the head of the biggest giant. + +As Dorothy gazed upon this in wonder and fear, the eyes turned slowly +and looked at her sharply and steadily. Then the mouth moved, and +Dorothy heard a voice say: + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” + +It was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big +Head; so she took courage and answered: + +“I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help.” + +The eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a full minute. Then said the +voice: + +“Where did you get the silver shoes?” + +“I got them from the Wicked Witch of the East, when my house fell on +her and killed her,” she replied. + +“Where did you get the mark upon your forehead?” continued the voice. + +“That is where the Good Witch of the North kissed me when she bade me +good-bye and sent me to you,” said the girl. + +Again the eyes looked at her sharply, and they saw she was telling the +truth. Then Oz asked, “What do you wish me to do?” + +“Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are,” she +answered earnestly. “I don’t like your country, although it is so +beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my +being away so long.” + +The eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and +down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see +every part of the room. And at last they looked at Dorothy again. + +“Why should I do this for you?” asked Oz. + +“Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard +and I am only a little girl.” + +“But you were strong enough to kill the Wicked Witch of the East,” said +Oz. + +“That just happened,” returned Dorothy simply; “I could not help it.” + +“Well,” said the Head, “I will give you my answer. You have no right to +expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something for me in +return. In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets. If +you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again you must do +something for me first. Help me and I will help you.” + +“What must I do?” asked the girl. + +“Kill the Wicked Witch of the West,” answered Oz. + +“But I cannot!” exclaimed Dorothy, greatly surprised. + +“You killed the Witch of the East and you wear the silver shoes, which +bear a powerful charm. There is now but one Wicked Witch left in all +this land, and when you can tell me she is dead I will send you back to +Kansas—but not before.” + +The little girl began to weep, she was so much disappointed; and the +eyes winked again and looked upon her anxiously, as if the Great Oz +felt that she could help him if she would. + +“I never killed anything, willingly,” she sobbed. “Even if I wanted to, +how could I kill the Wicked Witch? If you, who are Great and Terrible, +cannot kill her yourself, how do you expect me to do it?” + +“I do not know,” said the Head; “but that is my answer, and until the +Wicked Witch dies you will not see your uncle and aunt again. Remember +that the Witch is Wicked—tremendously Wicked—and ought to be killed. +Now go, and do not ask to see me again until you have done your task.” + +Sorrowfully Dorothy left the Throne Room and went back where the Lion +and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were waiting to hear what Oz had +said to her. “There is no hope for me,” she said sadly, “for Oz will +not send me home until I have killed the Wicked Witch of the West; and +that I can never do.” + +Her friends were sorry, but could do nothing to help her; so Dorothy +went to her own room and lay down on the bed and cried herself to +sleep. + +The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the +Scarecrow and said: + +“Come with me, for Oz has sent for you.” + +So the Scarecrow followed him and was admitted into the great Throne +Room, where he saw, sitting in the emerald throne, a most lovely Lady. +She was dressed in green silk gauze and wore upon her flowing green +locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, +gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest +breath of air reached them. + +When the Scarecrow had bowed, as prettily as his straw stuffing would +let him, before this beautiful creature, she looked upon him sweetly, +and said: + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” + +Now the Scarecrow, who had expected to see the great Head Dorothy had +told him of, was much astonished; but he answered her bravely. + +“I am only a Scarecrow, stuffed with straw. Therefore I have no brains, +and I come to you praying that you will put brains in my head instead +of straw, so that I may become as much a man as any other in your +dominions.” + +“Why should I do this for you?” asked the Lady. + +“Because you are wise and powerful, and no one else can help me,” +answered the Scarecrow. + +“I never grant favors without some return,” said Oz; “but this much I +will promise. If you will kill for me the Wicked Witch of the West, I +will bestow upon you a great many brains, and such good brains that you +will be the wisest man in all the Land of Oz.” + +“I thought you asked Dorothy to kill the Witch,” said the Scarecrow, in +surprise. + +“So I did. I don’t care who kills her. But until she is dead I will not +grant your wish. Now go, and do not seek me again until you have earned +the brains you so greatly desire.” + +The Scarecrow went sorrowfully back to his friends and told them what +Oz had said; and Dorothy was surprised to find that the Great Wizard +was not a Head, as she had seen him, but a lovely Lady. + +“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “she needs a heart as much as the +Tin Woodman.” + +On the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the Tin +Woodman and said: + +“Oz has sent for you. Follow me.” + +So the Tin Woodman followed him and came to the great Throne Room. He +did not know whether he would find Oz a lovely Lady or a Head, but he +hoped it would be the lovely Lady. “For,” he said to himself, “if it is +the head, I am sure I shall not be given a heart, since a head has no +heart of its own and therefore cannot feel for me. But if it is the +lovely Lady I shall beg hard for a heart, for all ladies are themselves +said to be kindly hearted.” + +But when the Woodman entered the great Throne Room he saw neither the +Head nor the Lady, for Oz had taken the shape of a most terrible Beast. +It was nearly as big as an elephant, and the green throne seemed hardly +strong enough to hold its weight. The Beast had a head like that of a +rhinoceros, only there were five eyes in its face. There were five long +arms growing out of its body, and it also had five long, slim legs. +Thick, woolly hair covered every part of it, and a more +dreadful-looking monster could not be imagined. It was fortunate the +Tin Woodman had no heart at that moment, for it would have beat loud +and fast from terror. But being only tin, the Woodman was not at all +afraid, although he was much disappointed. + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” spoke the Beast, in a voice that was +one great roar. “Who are you, and why do you seek me?” + +“I am a Woodman, and made of tin. Therefore I have no heart, and cannot +love. I pray you to give me a heart that I may be as other men are.” + +“Why should I do this?” demanded the Beast. + +“Because I ask it, and you alone can grant my request,” answered the +Woodman. + +Oz gave a low growl at this, but said, gruffly: “If you indeed desire a +heart, you must earn it.” + +“How?” asked the Woodman. + +“Help Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch of the West,” replied the Beast. +“When the Witch is dead, come to me, and I will then give you the +biggest and kindest and most loving heart in all the Land of Oz.” + +So the Tin Woodman was forced to return sorrowfully to his friends and +tell them of the terrible Beast he had seen. They all wondered greatly +at the many forms the Great Wizard could take upon himself, and the +Lion said: + +“If he is a Beast when I go to see him, I shall roar my loudest, and so +frighten him that he will grant all I ask. And if he is the lovely +Lady, I shall pretend to spring upon her, and so compel her to do my +bidding. And if he is the great Head, he will be at my mercy; for I +will roll this head all about the room until he promises to give us +what we desire. So be of good cheer, my friends, for all will yet be +well.” + +The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers led the Lion to +the great Throne Room and bade him enter the presence of Oz. + +The Lion at once passed through the door, and glancing around saw, to +his surprise, that before the throne was a Ball of Fire, so fierce and +glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it. His first thought was +that Oz had by accident caught on fire and was burning up; but when he +tried to go nearer, the heat was so intense that it singed his +whiskers, and he crept back tremblingly to a spot nearer the door. + +Then a low, quiet voice came from the Ball of Fire, and these were the +words it spoke: + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” + +And the Lion answered, “I am a Cowardly Lion, afraid of everything. I +came to you to beg that you give me courage, so that in reality I may +become the King of Beasts, as men call me.” + +“Why should I give you courage?” demanded Oz. + +“Because of all Wizards you are the greatest, and alone have power to +grant my request,” answered the Lion. + +The Ball of Fire burned fiercely for a time, and the voice said, “Bring +me proof that the Wicked Witch is dead, and that moment I will give you +courage. But as long as the Witch lives, you must remain a coward.” + +The Lion was angry at this speech, but could say nothing in reply, and +while he stood silently gazing at the Ball of Fire it became so +furiously hot that he turned tail and rushed from the room. He was glad +to find his friends waiting for him, and told them of his terrible +interview with the Wizard. + +“What shall we do now?” asked Dorothy sadly. + +“There is only one thing we can do,” returned the Lion, “and that is to +go to the land of the Winkies, seek out the Wicked Witch, and destroy +her.” + +“But suppose we cannot?” said the girl. + +“Then I shall never have courage,” declared the Lion. + +“And I shall never have brains,” added the Scarecrow. + +“And I shall never have a heart,” spoke the Tin Woodman. + +“And I shall never see Aunt Em and Uncle Henry,” said Dorothy, +beginning to cry. + +“Be careful!” cried the green girl. “The tears will fall on your green +silk gown and spot it.” + +So Dorothy dried her eyes and said, “I suppose we must try it; but I am +sure I do not want to kill anybody, even to see Aunt Em again.” + +“I will go with you; but I’m too much of a coward to kill the Witch,” +said the Lion. + +“I will go too,” declared the Scarecrow; “but I shall not be of much +help to you, I am such a fool.” + +“I haven’t the heart to harm even a Witch,” remarked the Tin Woodman; +“but if you go I certainly shall go with you.” + +Therefore it was decided to start upon their journey the next morning, +and the Woodman sharpened his axe on a green grindstone and had all his +joints properly oiled. The Scarecrow stuffed himself with fresh straw +and Dorothy put new paint on his eyes that he might see better. The +green girl, who was very kind to them, filled Dorothy’s basket with +good things to eat, and fastened a little bell around Toto’s neck with +a green ribbon. + +They went to bed quite early and slept soundly until daylight, when +they were awakened by the crowing of a green cock that lived in the +back yard of the Palace, and the cackling of a hen that had laid a +green egg. + + + + +Chapter XII +The Search for the Wicked Witch + + +The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the +Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the +Gates lived. This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in +his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends. + +“Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West?” asked Dorothy. + +“There is no road,” answered the Guardian of the Gates. “No one ever +wishes to go that way.” + +“How, then, are we to find her?” inquired the girl. + +“That will be easy,” replied the man, “for when she knows you are in +the country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her +slaves.” + +“Perhaps not,” said the Scarecrow, “for we mean to destroy her.” + +“Oh, that is different,” said the Guardian of the Gates. “No one has +ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves +of you, as she has of the rest. But take care; for she is wicked and +fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her. Keep to the West, where +the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her.” + +They thanked him and bade him good-bye, and turned toward the West, +walking over fields of soft grass dotted here and there with daisies +and buttercups. Dorothy still wore the pretty silk dress she had put on +in the palace, but now, to her surprise, she found it was no longer +green, but pure white. The ribbon around Toto’s neck had also lost its +green color and was as white as Dorothy’s dress. + +The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced the ground +became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this +country of the West, and the ground was untilled. + +In the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no +trees to offer them shade; so that before night Dorothy and Toto and +the Lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with +the Woodman and the Scarecrow keeping watch. + +Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as +powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere. So, as she sat in +the door of her castle, she happened to look around and saw Dorothy +lying asleep, with her friends all about her. They were a long distance +off, but the Wicked Witch was angry to find them in her country; so she +blew upon a silver whistle that hung around her neck. + +At once there came running to her from all directions a pack of great +wolves. They had long legs and fierce eyes and sharp teeth. + +“Go to those people,” said the Witch, “and tear them to pieces.” + +“Are you not going to make them your slaves?” asked the leader of the +wolves. + +“No,” she answered, “one is of tin, and one of straw; one is a girl and +another a Lion. None of them is fit to work, so you may tear them into +small pieces.” + +“Very well,” said the wolf, and he dashed away at full speed, followed +by the others. + +It was lucky the Scarecrow and the Woodman were wide awake and heard +the wolves coming. + +“This is my fight,” said the Woodman, “so get behind me and I will meet +them as they come.” + +He seized his axe, which he had made very sharp, and as the leader of +the wolves came on the Tin Woodman swung his arm and chopped the wolf’s +head from its body, so that it immediately died. As soon as he could +raise his axe another wolf came up, and he also fell under the sharp +edge of the Tin Woodman’s weapon. There were forty wolves, and forty +times a wolf was killed, so that at last they all lay dead in a heap +before the Woodman. + +Then he put down his axe and sat beside the Scarecrow, who said, “It +was a good fight, friend.” + +They waited until Dorothy awoke the next morning. The little girl was +quite frightened when she saw the great pile of shaggy wolves, but the +Tin Woodman told her all. She thanked him for saving them and sat down +to breakfast, after which they started again upon their journey. + +Now this same morning the Wicked Witch came to the door of her castle +and looked out with her one eye that could see far off. She saw all her +wolves lying dead, and the strangers still traveling through her +country. This made her angrier than before, and she blew her silver +whistle twice. + +Straightway a great flock of wild crows came flying toward her, enough +to darken the sky. + +And the Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, “Fly at once to the +strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces.” + +The wild crows flew in one great flock toward Dorothy and her +companions. When the little girl saw them coming she was afraid. + +But the Scarecrow said, “This is my battle, so lie down beside me and +you will not be harmed.” + +So they all lay upon the ground except the Scarecrow, and he stood up +and stretched out his arms. And when the crows saw him they were +frightened, as these birds always are by scarecrows, and did not dare +to come any nearer. But the King Crow said: + +“It is only a stuffed man. I will peck his eyes out.” + +The King Crow flew at the Scarecrow, who caught it by the head and +twisted its neck until it died. And then another crow flew at him, and +the Scarecrow twisted its neck also. There were forty crows, and forty +times the Scarecrow twisted a neck, until at last all were lying dead +beside him. Then he called to his companions to rise, and again they +went upon their journey. + +When the Wicked Witch looked out again and saw all her crows lying in a +heap, she got into a terrible rage, and blew three times upon her +silver whistle. + +Forthwith there was heard a great buzzing in the air, and a swarm of +black bees came flying toward her. + +“Go to the strangers and sting them to death!” commanded the Witch, and +the bees turned and flew rapidly until they came to where Dorothy and +her friends were walking. But the Woodman had seen them coming, and the +Scarecrow had decided what to do. + +“Take out my straw and scatter it over the little girl and the dog and +the Lion,” he said to the Woodman, “and the bees cannot sting them.” +This the Woodman did, and as Dorothy lay close beside the Lion and held +Toto in her arms, the straw covered them entirely. + +The bees came and found no one but the Woodman to sting, so they flew +at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting +the Woodman at all. And as bees cannot live when their stings are +broken that was the end of the black bees, and they lay scattered thick +about the Woodman, like little heaps of fine coal. + +Then Dorothy and the Lion got up, and the girl helped the Tin Woodman +put the straw back into the Scarecrow again, until he was as good as +ever. So they started upon their journey once more. + +The Wicked Witch was so angry when she saw her black bees in little +heaps like fine coal that she stamped her foot and tore her hair and +gnashed her teeth. And then she called a dozen of her slaves, who were +the Winkies, and gave them sharp spears, telling them to go to the +strangers and destroy them. + +The Winkies were not a brave people, but they had to do as they were +told. So they marched away until they came near to Dorothy. Then the +Lion gave a great roar and sprang towards them, and the poor Winkies +were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could. + +When they returned to the castle the Wicked Witch beat them well with a +strap, and sent them back to their work, after which she sat down to +think what she should do next. She could not understand how all her +plans to destroy these strangers had failed; but she was a powerful +Witch, as well as a wicked one, and she soon made up her mind how to +act. + +There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and +rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it +could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any +order they were given. But no person could command these strange +creatures more than three times. Twice already the Wicked Witch had +used the charm of the Cap. Once was when she had made the Winkies her +slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. The Winged Monkeys +had helped her do this. The second time was when she had fought against +the Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The +Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could +she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so +until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce +wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her +slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was +only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends. + +So the Wicked Witch took the Golden Cap from her cupboard and placed it +upon her head. Then she stood upon her left foot and said slowly: + +“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” + +Next she stood upon her right foot and said: + +“Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” + +After this she stood upon both feet and cried in a loud voice: + +“Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” + +Now the charm began to work. The sky was darkened, and a low rumbling +sound was heard in the air. There was a rushing of many wings, a great +chattering and laughing, and the sun came out of the dark sky to show +the Wicked Witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of +immense and powerful wings on his shoulders. + +One, much bigger than the others, seemed to be their leader. He flew +close to the Witch and said, “You have called us for the third and last +time. What do you command?” + +“Go to the strangers who are within my land and destroy them all except +the Lion,” said the Wicked Witch. “Bring that beast to me, for I have a +mind to harness him like a horse, and make him work.” + +“Your commands shall be obeyed,” said the leader. Then, with a great +deal of chattering and noise, the Winged Monkeys flew away to the place +where Dorothy and her friends were walking. + +Some of the Monkeys seized the Tin Woodman and carried him through the +air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks. +Here they dropped the poor Woodman, who fell a great distance to the +rocks, where he lay so battered and dented that he could neither move +nor groan. + +Others of the Monkeys caught the Scarecrow, and with their long fingers +pulled all of the straw out of his clothes and head. They made his hat +and boots and clothes into a small bundle and threw it into the top +branches of a tall tree. + +The remaining Monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the Lion and +wound many coils about his body and head and legs, until he was unable +to bite or scratch or struggle in any way. Then they lifted him up and +flew away with him to the Witch’s castle, where he was placed in a +small yard with a high iron fence around it, so that he could not +escape. + +But Dorothy they did not harm at all. She stood, with Toto in her arms, +watching the sad fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her +turn. The leader of the Winged Monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy +arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the +mark of the Good Witch’s kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, +motioning the others not to touch her. + +“We dare not harm this little girl,” he said to them, “for she is +protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of +Evil. All we can do is to carry her to the castle of the Wicked Witch +and leave her there.” + +So, carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried +her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they +set her down upon the front doorstep. Then the leader said to the +Witch: + +“We have obeyed you as far as we were able. The Tin Woodman and the +Scarecrow are destroyed, and the Lion is tied up in your yard. The +little girl we dare not harm, nor the dog she carries in her arms. Your +power over our band is now ended, and you will never see us again.” + +Then all the Winged Monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and +noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight. + +The Wicked Witch was both surprised and worried when she saw the mark +on Dorothy’s forehead, for she knew well that neither the Winged +Monkeys nor she, herself, dare hurt the girl in any way. She looked +down at Dorothy’s feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble +with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At +first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened +to look into the child’s eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them +was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the +Silver Shoes gave her. So the Wicked Witch laughed to herself, and +thought, “I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to +use her power.” Then she said to Dorothy, harshly and severely: + +“Come with me; and see that you mind everything I tell you, for if you +do not I will make an end of you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the +Scarecrow.” + +Dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle +until they came to the kitchen, where the Witch bade her clean the pots +and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood. + +Dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as +she could; for she was glad the Wicked Witch had decided not to kill +her. + +With Dorothy hard at work, the Witch thought she would go into the +courtyard and harness the Cowardly Lion like a horse; it would amuse +her, she was sure, to make him draw her chariot whenever she wished to +go to drive. But as she opened the gate the Lion gave a loud roar and +bounded at her so fiercely that the Witch was afraid, and ran out and +shut the gate again. + +“If I cannot harness you,” said the Witch to the Lion, speaking through +the bars of the gate, “I can starve you. You shall have nothing to eat +until you do as I wish.” + +So after that she took no food to the imprisoned Lion; but every day +she came to the gate at noon and asked, “Are you ready to be harnessed +like a horse?” + +And the Lion would answer, “No. If you come in this yard, I will bite +you.” + +The reason the Lion did not have to do as the Witch wished was that +every night, while the woman was asleep, Dorothy carried him food from +the cupboard. After he had eaten he would lie down on his bed of straw, +and Dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on his soft, shaggy +mane, while they talked of their troubles and tried to plan some way to +escape. But they could find no way to get out of the castle, for it was +constantly guarded by the yellow Winkies, who were the slaves of the +Wicked Witch and too afraid of her not to do as she told them. + +The girl had to work hard during the day, and often the Witch +threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always carried in +her hand. But, in truth, she did not dare to strike Dorothy, because of +the mark upon her forehead. The child did not know this, and was full +of fear for herself and Toto. Once the Witch struck Toto a blow with +her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg in +return. The Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so +wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before. + +Dorothy’s life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would +be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again. Sometimes +she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at her feet and +looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for +his little mistress. Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas +or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the +little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too. + +Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver +Shoes which the girl always wore. Her bees and her crows and her wolves +were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of +the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of the Silver Shoes, +they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. +She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, +thinking she might steal them. But the child was so proud of her pretty +shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took +her bath. The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in +Dorothy’s room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was +greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when Dorothy +was bathing. Indeed, the old Witch never touched water, nor ever let +water touch her in any way. + +But the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally thought of a +trick that would give her what she wanted. She placed a bar of iron in +the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her magic arts made the +iron invisible to human eyes. So that when Dorothy walked across the +floor she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at +full length. She was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver +Shoes came off; and before she could reach it, the Witch had snatched +it away and put it on her own skinny foot. + +The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick, for +as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of their +charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her, even had she known how +to do so. + +The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew +angry, and said to the Witch, “Give me back my shoe!” + +“I will not,” retorted the Witch, “for it is now my shoe, and not +yours.” + +“You are a wicked creature!” cried Dorothy. “You have no right to take +my shoe from me.” + +“I shall keep it, just the same,” said the Witch, laughing at her, “and +someday I shall get the other one from you, too.” + +This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water +that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her from head to +foot. + +Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear, and then, as +Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall +away. + +“See what you have done!” she screamed. “In a minute I shall melt +away.” + +“I’m very sorry, indeed,” said Dorothy, who was truly frightened to see +the Witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her very eyes. + +“Didn’t you know water would be the end of me?” asked the Witch, in a +wailing, despairing voice. + +“Of course not,” answered Dorothy. “How should I?” + +“Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the +castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a +little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked +deeds. Look out—here I go!” + +With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass +and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. Seeing +that she had really melted away to nothing, Dorothy drew another bucket +of water and threw it over the mess. She then swept it all out the +door. After picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of +the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her +foot again. Then, being at last free to do as she chose, she ran out to +the courtyard to tell the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had +come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange +land. + + + + +Chapter XIII +The Rescue + + +The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had +been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate +of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle, +where Dorothy’s first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell +them that they were no longer slaves. + +There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had been +made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who had +always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a +holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and +dancing. + +“If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only with us,” +said the Lion, “I should be quite happy.” + +“Don’t you suppose we could rescue them?” asked the girl anxiously. + +“We can try,” answered the Lion. + +So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would help to +rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would be delighted +to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them free from +bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked as if they +knew the most, and they all started away. They traveled that day and +part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the Tin +Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near him, but the blade +was rusted and the handle broken off short. + +The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to +the Yellow Castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the +sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking sober and sorry. +When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the Winkies: + +“Are any of your people tinsmiths?” + +“Oh, yes. Some of us are very good tinsmiths,” they told her. + +“Then bring them to me,” she said. And when the tinsmiths came, +bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she inquired, “Can you +straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him back into +shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?” + +The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then answered that +they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So +they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and +worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and +bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body +and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into +his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there +were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as +the Woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all. + +When, at last, he walked into Dorothy’s room and thanked her for +rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy +had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his +joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick +and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears +did not need to be wiped away. As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so +often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was +obliged to go out into the courtyard and hold it in the sun till it +dried. + +“If we only had the Scarecrow with us again,” said the Tin Woodman, +when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, “I +should be quite happy.” + +“We must try to find him,” said the girl. + +So she called the Winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and +part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of +which the Winged Monkeys had tossed the Scarecrow’s clothes. + +It was a very tall tree, and the trunk was so smooth that no one could +climb it; but the Woodman said at once, “I’ll chop it down, and then we +can get the Scarecrow’s clothes.” + +Now while the tinsmiths had been at work mending the Woodman himself, +another of the Winkies, who was a goldsmith, had made an axe-handle of +solid gold and fitted it to the Woodman’s axe, instead of the old +broken handle. Others polished the blade until all the rust was removed +and it glistened like burnished silver. + +As soon as he had spoken, the Tin Woodman began to chop, and in a short +time the tree fell over with a crash, whereupon the Scarecrow’s clothes +fell out of the branches and rolled off on the ground. + +Dorothy picked them up and had the Winkies carry them back to the +castle, where they were stuffed with nice, clean straw; and behold! +here was the Scarecrow, as good as ever, thanking them over and over +again for saving him. + +Now that they were reunited, Dorothy and her friends spent a few happy +days at the Yellow Castle, where they found everything they needed to +make them comfortable. + +But one day the girl thought of Aunt Em, and said, “We must go back to +Oz, and claim his promise.” + +“Yes,” said the Woodman, “at last I shall get my heart.” + +“And I shall get my brains,” added the Scarecrow joyfully. + +“And I shall get my courage,” said the Lion thoughtfully. + +“And I shall get back to Kansas,” cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. +“Oh, let us start for the Emerald City tomorrow!” + +This they decided to do. The next day they called the Winkies together +and bade them good-bye. The Winkies were sorry to have them go, and +they had grown so fond of the Tin Woodman that they begged him to stay +and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West. Finding they were +determined to go, the Winkies gave Toto and the Lion each a golden +collar; and to Dorothy they presented a beautiful bracelet studded with +diamonds; and to the Scarecrow they gave a gold-headed walking stick, +to keep him from stumbling; and to the Tin Woodman they offered a +silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels. + +Every one of the travelers made the Winkies a pretty speech in return, +and all shook hands with them until their arms ached. + +Dorothy went to the Witch’s cupboard to fill her basket with food for +the journey, and there she saw the Golden Cap. She tried it on her own +head and found that it fitted her exactly. She did not know anything +about the charm of the Golden Cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so +she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket. + +Then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the Emerald +City; and the Winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to +carry with them. + + + + +Chapter XIV +The Winged Monkeys + + +You will remember there was no road—not even a pathway—between the +castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four +travelers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so +sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to +find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow +daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go +straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right +way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know +which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were +lost in the great fields. They kept on walking, however, and at night +the moon came out and shone brightly. So they lay down among the sweet +smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning—all but the +Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. + +The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if +they were quite sure which way they were going. + +“If we walk far enough,” said Dorothy, “I am sure we shall sometime +come to some place.” + +But day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but +the scarlet fields. The Scarecrow began to grumble a bit. + +“We have surely lost our way,” he said, “and unless we find it again in +time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my brains.” + +“Nor I my heart,” declared the Tin Woodman. “It seems to me I can +scarcely wait till I get to Oz, and you must admit this is a very long +journey.” + +“You see,” said the Cowardly Lion, with a whimper, “I haven’t the +courage to keep tramping forever, without getting anywhere at all.” + +Then Dorothy lost heart. She sat down on the grass and looked at her +companions, and they sat down and looked at her, and Toto found that +for the first time in his life he was too tired to chase a butterfly +that flew past his head. So he put out his tongue and panted and looked +at Dorothy as if to ask what they should do next. + +“Suppose we call the field mice,” she suggested. “They could probably +tell us the way to the Emerald City.” + +“To be sure they could,” cried the Scarecrow. “Why didn’t we think of +that before?” + +Dorothy blew the little whistle she had always carried about her neck +since the Queen of the Mice had given it to her. In a few minutes they +heard the pattering of tiny feet, and many of the small gray mice came +running up to her. Among them was the Queen herself, who asked, in her +squeaky little voice: + +“What can I do for my friends?” + +“We have lost our way,” said Dorothy. “Can you tell us where the +Emerald City is?” + +“Certainly,” answered the Queen; “but it is a great way off, for you +have had it at your backs all this time.” Then she noticed Dorothy’s +Golden Cap, and said, “Why don’t you use the charm of the Cap, and call +the Winged Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Oz in +less than an hour.” + +“I didn’t know there was a charm,” answered Dorothy, in surprise. “What +is it?” + +“It is written inside the Golden Cap,” replied the Queen of the Mice. +“But if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for +they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us.” + +“Won’t they hurt me?” asked the girl anxiously. + +“Oh, no. They must obey the wearer of the Cap. Good-bye!” And she +scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her. + +Dorothy looked inside the Golden Cap and saw some words written upon +the lining. These, she thought, must be the charm, so she read the +directions carefully and put the Cap upon her head. + +“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” she said, standing on her left foot. + +“What did you say?” asked the Scarecrow, who did not know what she was +doing. + +“Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” Dorothy went on, standing this time on her +right foot. + +“Hello!” replied the Tin Woodman calmly. + +“Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” said Dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. +This ended the saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering +and flapping of wings, as the band of Winged Monkeys flew up to them. + +The King bowed low before Dorothy, and asked, “What is your command?” + +“We wish to go to the Emerald City,” said the child, “and we have lost +our way.” + +“We will carry you,” replied the King, and no sooner had he spoken than +two of the Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her. +Others took the Scarecrow and the Woodman and the Lion, and one little +Monkey seized Toto and flew after them, although the dog tried hard to +bite him. + +The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were rather frightened at first, for +they remembered how badly the Winged Monkeys had treated them before; +but they saw that no harm was intended, so they rode through the air +quite cheerfully, and had a fine time looking at the pretty gardens and +woods far below them. + +Dorothy found herself riding easily between two of the biggest Monkeys, +one of them the King himself. They had made a chair of their hands and +were careful not to hurt her. + +“Why do you have to obey the charm of the Golden Cap?” she asked. + +“That is a long story,” answered the King, with a winged laugh; “but as +we have a long journey before us, I will pass the time by telling you +about it, if you wish.” + +“I shall be glad to hear it,” she replied. + +“Once,” began the leader, “we were a free people, living happily in the +great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and +doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. Perhaps some +of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull +the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing +nuts at the people who walked in the forest. But we were careless and +happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. This was +many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this +land. + +“There lived here then, away at the North, a beautiful princess, who +was also a powerful sorceress. All her magic was used to help the +people, and she was never known to hurt anyone who was good. Her name +was Gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great +blocks of ruby. Everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that +she could find no one to love in return, since all the men were much +too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise. At last, +however, she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his +years. Gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she +would make him her husband, so she took him to her ruby palace and used +all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any +woman could wish. When he grew to manhood, Quelala, as he was called, +was said to be the best and wisest man in all the land, while his manly +beauty was so great that Gayelette loved him dearly, and hastened to +make everything ready for the wedding. + +“My grandfather was at that time the King of the Winged Monkeys which +lived in the forest near Gayelette’s palace, and the old fellow loved a +joke better than a good dinner. One day, just before the wedding, my +grandfather was flying out with his band when he saw Quelala walking +beside the river. He was dressed in a rich costume of pink silk and +purple velvet, and my grandfather thought he would see what he could +do. At his word the band flew down and seized Quelala, carried him in +their arms until they were over the middle of the river, and then +dropped him into the water. + +“‘Swim out, my fine fellow,’ cried my grandfather, ‘and see if the +water has spotted your clothes.’ Quelala was much too wise not to swim, +and he was not in the least spoiled by all his good fortune. He +laughed, when he came to the top of the water, and swam in to shore. +But when Gayelette came running out to him she found his silks and +velvet all ruined by the river. + +“The princess was angry, and she knew, of course, who did it. She had +all the Winged Monkeys brought before her, and she said at first that +their wings should be tied and they should be treated as they had +treated Quelala, and dropped in the river. But my grandfather pleaded +hard, for he knew the Monkeys would drown in the river with their wings +tied, and Quelala said a kind word for them also; so that Gayelette +finally spared them, on condition that the Winged Monkeys should ever +after do three times the bidding of the owner of the Golden Cap. This +Cap had been made for a wedding present to Quelala, and it is said to +have cost the princess half her kingdom. Of course my grandfather and +all the other Monkeys at once agreed to the condition, and that is how +it happens that we are three times the slaves of the owner of the +Golden Cap, whosoever he may be.” + +“And what became of them?” asked Dorothy, who had been greatly +interested in the story. + +“Quelala being the first owner of the Golden Cap,” replied the Monkey, +“he was the first to lay his wishes upon us. As his bride could not +bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest after he +had married her and ordered us always to keep where she could never +again set eyes on a Winged Monkey, which we were glad to do, for we +were all afraid of her. + +“This was all we ever had to do until the Golden Cap fell into the +hands of the Wicked Witch of the West, who made us enslave the Winkies, +and afterward drive Oz himself out of the Land of the West. Now the +Golden Cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your +wishes upon us.” + +As the Monkey King finished his story Dorothy looked down and saw the +green, shining walls of the Emerald City before them. She wondered at +the rapid flight of the Monkeys, but was glad the journey was over. The +strange creatures set the travelers down carefully before the gate of +the City, the King bowed low to Dorothy, and then flew swiftly away, +followed by all his band. + +“That was a good ride,” said the little girl. + +“Yes, and a quick way out of our troubles,” replied the Lion. “How +lucky it was you brought away that wonderful Cap!” + + + + +Chapter XV +The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible + + +The four travelers walked up to the great gate of Emerald City and rang +the bell. After ringing several times, it was opened by the same +Guardian of the Gates they had met before. + +“What! are you back again?” he asked, in surprise. + +“Do you not see us?” answered the Scarecrow. + +“But I thought you had gone to visit the Wicked Witch of the West.” + +“We did visit her,” said the Scarecrow. + +“And she let you go again?” asked the man, in wonder. + +“She could not help it, for she is melted,” explained the Scarecrow. + +“Melted! Well, that is good news, indeed,” said the man. “Who melted +her?” + +“It was Dorothy,” said the Lion gravely. + +“Good gracious!” exclaimed the man, and he bowed very low indeed before +her. + +Then he led them into his little room and locked the spectacles from +the great box on all their eyes, just as he had done before. Afterward +they passed on through the gate into the Emerald City. When the people +heard from the Guardian of the Gates that Dorothy had melted the Wicked +Witch of the West, they all gathered around the travelers and followed +them in a great crowd to the Palace of Oz. + +The soldier with the green whiskers was still on guard before the door, +but he let them in at once, and they were again met by the beautiful +green girl, who showed each of them to their old rooms at once, so they +might rest until the Great Oz was ready to receive them. + +The soldier had the news carried straight to Oz that Dorothy and the +other travelers had come back again, after destroying the Wicked Witch; +but Oz made no reply. They thought the Great Wizard would send for them +at once, but he did not. They had no word from him the next day, nor +the next, nor the next. The waiting was tiresome and wearing, and at +last they grew vexed that Oz should treat them in so poor a fashion, +after sending them to undergo hardships and slavery. So the Scarecrow +at last asked the green girl to take another message to Oz, saying if +he did not let them in to see him at once they would call the Winged +Monkeys to help them, and find out whether he kept his promises or not. +When the Wizard was given this message he was so frightened that he +sent word for them to come to the Throne Room at four minutes after +nine o’clock the next morning. He had once met the Winged Monkeys in +the Land of the West, and he did not wish to meet them again. + +The four travelers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift +Oz had promised to bestow on him. Dorothy fell asleep only once, and +then she dreamed she was in Kansas, where Aunt Em was telling her how +glad she was to have her little girl at home again. + +Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning the green-whiskered soldier +came to them, and four minutes later they all went into the Throne Room +of the Great Oz. + +Of course each one of them expected to see the Wizard in the shape he +had taken before, and all were greatly surprised when they looked about +and saw no one at all in the room. They kept close to the door and +closer to one another, for the stillness of the empty room was more +dreadful than any of the forms they had seen Oz take. + +Presently they heard a solemn Voice, that seemed to come from somewhere +near the top of the great dome, and it said: + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Why do you seek me?” + +They looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, +Dorothy asked, “Where are you?” + +“I am everywhere,” answered the Voice, “but to the eyes of common +mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you +may converse with me.” Indeed, the Voice seemed just then to come +straight from the throne itself; so they walked toward it and stood in +a row while Dorothy said: + +“We have come to claim our promise, O Oz.” + +“What promise?” asked Oz. + +“You promised to send me back to Kansas when the Wicked Witch was +destroyed,” said the girl. + +“And you promised to give me brains,” said the Scarecrow. + +“And you promised to give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“And you promised to give me courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. + +“Is the Wicked Witch really destroyed?” asked the Voice, and Dorothy +thought it trembled a little. + +“Yes,” she answered, “I melted her with a bucket of water.” + +“Dear me,” said the Voice, “how sudden! Well, come to me tomorrow, for +I must have time to think it over.” + +“You’ve had plenty of time already,” said the Tin Woodman angrily. + +“We shan’t wait a day longer,” said the Scarecrow. + +“You must keep your promises to us!” exclaimed Dorothy. + +The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave +a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped +away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a +corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next +moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in +just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald head +and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. +The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and +cried out, “Who are you?” + +“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” said the little man, in a trembling +voice. “But don’t strike me—please don’t—and I’ll do anything you want +me to.” + +Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay. + +“I thought Oz was a great Head,” said Dorothy. + +“And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady,” said the Scarecrow. + +“And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast,” said the Tin Woodman. + +“And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire,” exclaimed the Lion. + +“No, you are all wrong,” said the little man meekly. “I have been +making believe.” + +“Making believe!” cried Dorothy. “Are you not a Great Wizard?” + +“Hush, my dear,” he said. “Don’t speak so loud, or you will be +overheard—and I should be ruined. I’m supposed to be a Great Wizard.” + +“And aren’t you?” she asked. + +“Not a bit of it, my dear; I’m just a common man.” + +“You’re more than that,” said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; “you’re +a humbug.” + +“Exactly so!” declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if +it pleased him. “I am a humbug.” + +“But this is terrible,” said the Tin Woodman. “How shall I ever get my +heart?” + +“Or I my courage?” asked the Lion. + +“Or I my brains?” wailed the Scarecrow, wiping the tears from his eyes +with his coat sleeve. + +“My dear friends,” said Oz, “I pray you not to speak of these little +things. Think of me, and the terrible trouble I’m in at being found +out.” + +“Doesn’t anyone else know you’re a humbug?” asked Dorothy. + +“No one knows it but you four—and myself,” replied Oz. “I have fooled +everyone so long that I thought I should never be found out. It was a +great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room. Usually I will +not see even my subjects, and so they believe I am something terrible.” + +“But, I don’t understand,” said Dorothy, in bewilderment. “How was it +that you appeared to me as a great Head?” + +“That was one of my tricks,” answered Oz. “Step this way, please, and I +will tell you all about it.” + +He led the way to a small chamber in the rear of the Throne Room, and +they all followed him. He pointed to one corner, in which lay the great +Head, made out of many thicknesses of paper, and with a carefully +painted face. + +“This I hung from the ceiling by a wire,” said Oz. “I stood behind the +screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open.” + +“But how about the voice?” she inquired. + +“Oh, I am a ventriloquist,” said the little man. “I can throw the sound +of my voice wherever I wish, so that you thought it was coming out of +the Head. Here are the other things I used to deceive you.” He showed +the Scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed to be +the lovely Lady. And the Tin Woodman saw that his terrible Beast was +nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their +sides out. As for the Ball of Fire, the false Wizard had hung that also +from the ceiling. It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was +poured upon it the ball burned fiercely. + +“Really,” said the Scarecrow, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself for +being such a humbug.” + +“I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was +the only thing I could do. Sit down, please, there are plenty of +chairs; and I will tell you my story.” + +So they sat down and listened while he told the following tale. + +“I was born in Omaha—” + +“Why, that isn’t very far from Kansas!” cried Dorothy. + +“No, but it’s farther from here,” he said, shaking his head at her +sadly. “When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was very +well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird or +beast.” Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his ears +and looked everywhere to see where she was. “After a time,” continued +Oz, “I tired of that, and became a balloonist.” + +“What is that?” asked Dorothy. + +“A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of +people together and get them to pay to see the circus,” he explained. + +“Oh,” she said, “I know.” + +“Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so +that I couldn’t come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so +far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles +away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the +morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a +strange and beautiful country. + +“It came down gradually, and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself +in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, +thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think so, because +they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished them to. + +“Just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, I ordered them to +build this City, and my Palace; and they did it all willingly and well. +Then I thought, as the country was so green and beautiful, I would call +it the Emerald City; and to make the name fit better I put green +spectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green.” + +“But isn’t everything here green?” asked Dorothy. + +“No more than in any other city,” replied Oz; “but when you wear green +spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you. The +Emerald City was built a great many years ago, for I was a young man +when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very old man now. But my +people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them +think it really is an Emerald City, and it certainly is a beautiful +place, abounding in jewels and precious metals, and every good thing +that is needed to make one happy. I have been good to the people, and +they like me; but ever since this Palace was built, I have shut myself +up and would not see any of them. + +“One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical +powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do +wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they +ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. +Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew +they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were +terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they +themselves, they would surely have destroyed me. As it was, I lived in +deadly fear of them for many years; so you can imagine how pleased I +was when I heard your house had fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East. +When you came to me, I was willing to promise anything if you would +only do away with the other Witch; but, now that you have melted her, I +am ashamed to say that I cannot keep my promises.” + +“I think you are a very bad man,” said Dorothy. + +“Oh, no, my dear; I’m really a very good man, but I’m a very bad +Wizard, I must admit.” + +“Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“You don’t need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has +brains, but it doesn’t know much. Experience is the only thing that +brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience +you are sure to get.” + +“That may all be true,” said the Scarecrow, “but I shall be very +unhappy unless you give me brains.” + +The false Wizard looked at him carefully. + +“Well,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not much of a magician, as I said; +but if you will come to me tomorrow morning, I will stuff your head +with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find +that out for yourself.” + +“Oh, thank you—thank you!” cried the Scarecrow. “I’ll find a way to use +them, never fear!” + +“But how about my courage?” asked the Lion anxiously. + +“You have plenty of courage, I am sure,” answered Oz. “All you need is +confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid +when it faces danger. The True courage is in facing danger when you are +afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.” + +“Perhaps I have, but I’m scared just the same,” said the Lion. “I shall +really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that +makes one forget he is afraid.” + +“Very well, I will give you that sort of courage tomorrow,” replied Oz. + +“How about my heart?” asked the Tin Woodman. + +“Why, as for that,” answered Oz, “I think you are wrong to want a +heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in +luck not to have a heart.” + +“That must be a matter of opinion,” said the Tin Woodman. “For my part, +I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me +the heart.” + +“Very well,” answered Oz meekly. “Come to me tomorrow and you shall +have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well +continue the part a little longer.” + +“And now,” said Dorothy, “how am I to get back to Kansas?” + +“We shall have to think about that,” replied the little man. “Give me +two or three days to consider the matter and I’ll try to find a way to +carry you over the desert. In the meantime you shall all be treated as +my guests, and while you live in the Palace my people will wait upon +you and obey your slightest wish. There is only one thing I ask in +return for my help—such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no +one I am a humbug.” + +They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to +their rooms in high spirits. Even Dorothy had hope that “The Great and +Terrible Humbug,” as she called him, would find a way to send her back +to Kansas, and if he did she was willing to forgive him everything. + + + + +Chapter XVI +The Magic Art of the Great Humbug + + +Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends: + +“Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I +return I shall be as other men are.” + +“I have always liked you as you were,” said Dorothy simply. + +“It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow,” he replied. “But surely you +will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain +is going to turn out.” Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful +voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door. + +“Come in,” said Oz. + +The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the +window, engaged in deep thought. + +“I have come for my brains,” remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily. + +“Oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please,” replied Oz. “You must excuse +me for taking your head off, but I shall have to do it in order to put +your brains in their proper place.” + +“That’s all right,” said the Scarecrow. “You are quite welcome to take +my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on +again.” + +So the Wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. Then he +entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed +with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together +thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow’s head with the mixture +and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place. + +When he had fastened the Scarecrow’s head on his body again he said to +him, “Hereafter you will be a great man, for I have given you a lot of +bran-new brains.” + +The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his +greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his +friends. + +Dorothy looked at him curiously. His head was quite bulged out at the +top with brains. + +“How do you feel?” she asked. + +“I feel wise indeed,” he answered earnestly. “When I get used to my +brains I shall know everything.” + +“Why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?” asked the +Tin Woodman. + +“That is proof that he is sharp,” remarked the Lion. + +“Well, I must go to Oz and get my heart,” said the Woodman. So he +walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. + +“Come in,” called Oz, and the Woodman entered and said, “I have come +for my heart.” + +“Very well,” answered the little man. “But I shall have to cut a hole +in your breast, so I can put your heart in the right place. I hope it +won’t hurt you.” + +“Oh, no,” answered the Woodman. “I shall not feel it at all.” + +So Oz brought a pair of tinsmith’s shears and cut a small, square hole +in the left side of the Tin Woodman’s breast. Then, going to a chest of +drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed +with sawdust. + +“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked. + +“It is, indeed!” replied the Woodman, who was greatly pleased. “But is +it a kind heart?” + +“Oh, very!” answered Oz. He put the heart in the Woodman’s breast and +then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it +had been cut. + +“There,” said he; “now you have a heart that any man might be proud of. +I’m sorry I had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn’t +be helped.” + +“Never mind the patch,” exclaimed the happy Woodman. “I am very +grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness.” + +“Don’t speak of it,” replied Oz. + +Then the Tin Woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy +on account of his good fortune. + +The Lion now walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. + +“Come in,” said Oz. + +“I have come for my courage,” announced the Lion, entering the room. + +“Very well,” answered the little man; “I will get it for you.” + +He went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a +square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold +dish, beautifully carved. Placing this before the Cowardly Lion, who +sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the Wizard said: + +“Drink.” + +“What is it?” asked the Lion. + +“Well,” answered Oz, “if it were inside of you, it would be courage. +You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this +really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore +I advise you to drink it as soon as possible.” + +The Lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty. + +“How do you feel now?” asked Oz. + +“Full of courage,” replied the Lion, who went joyfully back to his +friends to tell them of his good fortune. + +Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the +Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought +they wanted. “How can I help being a humbug,” he said, “when all these +people make me do things that everybody knows can’t be done? It was +easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman happy, because +they imagined I could do anything. But it will take more than +imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I’m sure I don’t know +how it can be done.” + + + + +Chapter XVII +How the Balloon Was Launched + + +For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for +the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and +contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his +head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could +understand them but himself. When the Tin Woodman walked about he felt +his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told Dorothy he had +discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had +owned when he was made of flesh. The Lion declared he was afraid of +nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army or a dozen of the +fierce Kalidahs. + +Thus each of the little party was satisfied except Dorothy, who longed +more than ever to get back to Kansas. + +On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she +entered the Throne Room he greeted her pleasantly: + +“Sit down, my dear; I think I have found the way to get you out of this +country.” + +“And back to Kansas?” she asked eagerly. + +“Well, I’m not sure about Kansas,” said Oz, “for I haven’t the faintest +notion which way it lies. But the first thing to do is to cross the +desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home.” + +“How can I cross the desert?” she inquired. + +“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” said the little man. “You see, when +I came to this country it was in a balloon. You also came through the +air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe the best way to get +across the desert will be through the air. Now, it is quite beyond my +powers to make a cyclone; but I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I +believe I can make a balloon.” + +“How?” asked Dorothy. + +“A balloon,” said Oz, “is made of silk, which is coated with glue to +keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace, so it will be +no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this country there is no gas +to fill the balloon with, to make it float.” + +“If it won’t float,” remarked Dorothy, “it will be of no use to us.” + +“True,” answered Oz. “But there is another way to make it float, which +is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn’t as good as gas, for if the +air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we +should be lost.” + +“We!” exclaimed the girl. “Are you going with me?” + +“Yes, of course,” replied Oz. “I am tired of being such a humbug. If I +should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a +Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them. +So I have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome. +I’d much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again.” + +“I shall be glad to have your company,” said Dorothy. + +“Thank you,” he answered. “Now, if you will help me sew the silk +together, we will begin to work on our balloon.” + +So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips +of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First +there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and +then a strip of emerald green; for Oz had a fancy to make the balloon +in different shades of the color about them. It took three days to sew +all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of +green silk more than twenty feet long. + +Then Oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it +airtight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready. + +“But we must have a basket to ride in,” he said. So he sent the soldier +with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened +with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon. + +When it was all ready, Oz sent word to his people that he was going to +make a visit to a great brother Wizard who lived in the clouds. The +news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the +wonderful sight. + +Oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the Palace, and the +people gazed upon it with much curiosity. The Tin Woodman had chopped a +big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and Oz held the bottom +of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it +would be caught in the silken bag. Gradually the balloon swelled out +and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the +ground. + +Then Oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice: + +“I am now going away to make a visit. While I am gone the Scarecrow +will rule over you. I command you to obey him as you would me.” + +The balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to +the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much +lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into +the sky. + +“Come, Dorothy!” cried the Wizard. “Hurry up, or the balloon will fly +away.” + +“I can’t find Toto anywhere,” replied Dorothy, who did not wish to +leave her little dog behind. Toto had run into the crowd to bark at a +kitten, and Dorothy at last found him. She picked him up and ran +towards the balloon. + +She was within a few steps of it, and Oz was holding out his hands to +help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon +rose into the air without her. + +“Come back!” she screamed. “I want to go, too!” + +“I can’t come back, my dear,” called Oz from the basket. “Good-bye!” + +“Good-bye!” shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where +the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and +farther into the sky. + +And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, +though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we +know. But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another: + +“Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this +beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the Wise +Scarecrow to rule over us.” + +Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful +Wizard, and would not be comforted. + + + + +Chapter XVIII +Away to the South + + +Dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to Kansas +again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone +up in a balloon. And she also felt sorry at losing Oz, and so did her +companions. + +The Tin Woodman came to her and said: + +“Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave +me my lovely heart. I should like to cry a little because Oz is gone, +if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that I shall not rust.” + +“With pleasure,” she answered, and brought a towel at once. Then the +Tin Woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears +carefully and wiped them away with the towel. When he had finished, he +thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jeweled +oil-can, to guard against mishap. + +The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he +was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. “For,” they said, “there +is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man.” +And, so far as they knew, they were quite right. + +The morning after the balloon had gone up with Oz, the four travelers +met in the Throne Room and talked matters over. The Scarecrow sat in +the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him. + +“We are not so unlucky,” said the new ruler, “for this Palace and the +Emerald City belong to us, and we can do just as we please. When I +remember that a short time ago I was up on a pole in a farmer’s +cornfield, and that now I am the ruler of this beautiful City, I am +quite satisfied with my lot.” + +“I also,” said the Tin Woodman, “am well-pleased with my new heart; +and, really, that was the only thing I wished in all the world.” + +“For my part, I am content in knowing I am as brave as any beast that +ever lived, if not braver,” said the Lion modestly. + +“If Dorothy would only be contented to live in the Emerald City,” +continued the Scarecrow, “we might all be happy together.” + +“But I don’t want to live here,” cried Dorothy. “I want to go to +Kansas, and live with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.” + +“Well, then, what can be done?” inquired the Woodman. + +The Scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins +and needles began to stick out of his brains. Finally he said: + +“Why not call the Winged Monkeys, and ask them to carry you over the +desert?” + +“I never thought of that!” said Dorothy joyfully. “It’s just the thing. +I’ll go at once for the Golden Cap.” + +When she brought it into the Throne Room she spoke the magic words, and +soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through the open window and +stood beside her. + +“This is the second time you have called us,” said the Monkey King, +bowing before the little girl. “What do you wish?” + +“I want you to fly with me to Kansas,” said Dorothy. + +But the Monkey King shook his head. + +“That cannot be done,” he said. “We belong to this country alone, and +cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet, +and I suppose there never will be, for they don’t belong there. We +shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross +the desert. Good-bye.” + +And with another bow, the Monkey King spread his wings and flew away +through the window, followed by all his band. + +Dorothy was ready to cry with disappointment. “I have wasted the charm +of the Golden Cap to no purpose,” she said, “for the Winged Monkeys +cannot help me.” + +“It is certainly too bad!” said the tender-hearted Woodman. + +The Scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly +that Dorothy feared it would burst. + +“Let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers,” he said, “and ask +his advice.” + +So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for +while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come farther than the door. + +“This little girl,” said the Scarecrow to the soldier, “wishes to cross +the desert. How can she do so?” + +“I cannot tell,” answered the soldier, “for nobody has ever crossed the +desert, unless it is Oz himself.” + +“Is there no one who can help me?” asked Dorothy earnestly. + +“Glinda might,” he suggested. + +“Who is Glinda?” inquired the Scarecrow. + +“The Witch of the South. She is the most powerful of all the Witches, +and rules over the Quadlings. Besides, her castle stands on the edge of +the desert, so she may know a way to cross it.” + +“Glinda is a Good Witch, isn’t she?” asked the child. + +“The Quadlings think she is good,” said the soldier, “and she is kind +to everyone. I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows +how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.” + +“How can I get to her castle?” asked Dorothy. + +“The road is straight to the South,” he answered, “but it is said to be +full of dangers to travelers. There are wild beasts in the woods, and a +race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. For +this reason none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City.” + +The soldier then left them and the Scarecrow said: + +“It seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing Dorothy can do is +to travel to the Land of the South and ask Glinda to help her. For, of +course, if Dorothy stays here she will never get back to Kansas.” + +“You must have been thinking again,” remarked the Tin Woodman. + +“I have,” said the Scarecrow. + +“I shall go with Dorothy,” declared the Lion, “for I am tired of your +city and long for the woods and the country again. I am really a wild +beast, you know. Besides, Dorothy will need someone to protect her.” + +“That is true,” agreed the Woodman. “My axe may be of service to her; +so I also will go with her to the Land of the South.” + +“When shall we start?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“Are you going?” they asked, in surprise. + +“Certainly. If it wasn’t for Dorothy I should never have had brains. +She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the +Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never +leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all.” + +“Thank you,” said Dorothy gratefully. “You are all very kind to me. But +I should like to start as soon as possible.” + +“We shall go tomorrow morning,” returned the Scarecrow. “So now let us +all get ready, for it will be a long journey.” + + + + +Chapter XIX +Attacked by the Fighting Trees + + +The next morning Dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye, and +they all shook hands with the soldier with the green whiskers, who had +walked with them as far as the gate. When the Guardian of the Gate saw +them again he wondered greatly that they could leave the beautiful City +to get into new trouble. But he at once unlocked their spectacles, +which he put back into the green box, and gave them many good wishes to +carry with them. + +“You are now our ruler,” he said to the Scarecrow; “so you must come +back to us as soon as possible.” + +“I certainly shall if I am able,” the Scarecrow replied; “but I must +help Dorothy to get home, first.” + +As Dorothy bade the good-natured Guardian a last farewell she said: + +“I have been very kindly treated in your lovely City, and everyone has +been good to me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” + +“Don’t try, my dear,” he answered. “We should like to keep you with us, +but if it is your wish to return to Kansas, I hope you will find a +way.” He then opened the gate of the outer wall, and they walked forth +and started upon their journey. + +The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the +Land of the South. They were all in the best of spirits, and laughed +and chatted together. Dorothy was once more filled with the hope of +getting home, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were glad to be of +use to her. As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and +whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country +again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, +barking merrily all the time. + +“City life does not agree with me at all,” remarked the Lion, as they +walked along at a brisk pace. “I have lost much flesh since I lived +there, and now I am anxious for a chance to show the other beasts how +courageous I have grown.” + +They now turned and took a last look at the Emerald City. All they +could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and +high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz. + +“Oz was not such a bad Wizard, after all,” said the Tin Woodman, as he +felt his heart rattling around in his breast. + +“He knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too,” said the +Scarecrow. + +“If Oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me,” added the +Lion, “he would have been a brave man.” + +Dorothy said nothing. Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he +had done his best, so she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, +even if he was a bad Wizard. + +The first day’s journey was through the green fields and bright flowers +that stretched about the Emerald City on every side. They slept that +night on the grass, with nothing but the stars over them; and they +rested very well indeed. + +In the morning they traveled on until they came to a thick wood. There +was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend to the right and +left as far as they could see; and, besides, they did not dare change +the direction of their journey for fear of getting lost. So they looked +for the place where it would be easiest to get into the forest. + +The Scarecrow, who was in the lead, finally discovered a big tree with +such wide-spreading branches that there was room for the party to pass +underneath. So he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under +the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next +minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his +fellow travelers. + +This did not hurt the Scarecrow, but it surprised him, and he looked +rather dizzy when Dorothy picked him up. + +“Here is another space between the trees,” called the Lion. + +“Let me try it first,” said the Scarecrow, “for it doesn’t hurt me to +get thrown about.” He walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its +branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again. + +“This is strange,” exclaimed Dorothy. “What shall we do?” + +“The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our +journey,” remarked the Lion. + +“I believe I will try it myself,” said the Woodman, and shouldering his +axe, he marched up to the first tree that had handled the Scarecrow so +roughly. When a big branch bent down to seize him the Woodman chopped +at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. At once the tree began shaking +all its branches as if in pain, and the Tin Woodman passed safely under +it. + +“Come on!” he shouted to the others. “Be quick!” They all ran forward +and passed under the tree without injury, except Toto, who was caught +by a small branch and shaken until he howled. But the Woodman promptly +chopped off the branch and set the little dog free. + +The other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they +made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down +their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the +forest, and given this wonderful power in order to keep strangers out +of it. + +The four travelers walked with ease through the trees until they came +to the farther edge of the wood. Then, to their surprise, they found +before them a high wall which seemed to be made of white china. It was +smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. + +“What shall we do now?” asked Dorothy. + +“I will make a ladder,” said the Tin Woodman, “for we certainly must +climb over the wall.” + + + + +Chapter XX +The Dainty China Country + + +While the Woodman was making a ladder from wood which he found in the +forest Dorothy lay down and slept, for she was tired by the long walk. +The Lion also curled himself up to sleep and Toto lay beside him. + +The Scarecrow watched the Woodman while he worked, and said to him: + +“I cannot think why this wall is here, nor what it is made of.” + +“Rest your brains and do not worry about the wall,” replied the +Woodman. “When we have climbed over it, we shall know what is on the +other side.” + +After a time the ladder was finished. It looked clumsy, but the Tin +Woodman was sure it was strong and would answer their purpose. The +Scarecrow waked Dorothy and the Lion and Toto, and told them that the +ladder was ready. The Scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was +so awkward that Dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from +falling off. When he got his head over the top of the wall the +Scarecrow said, “Oh, my!” + +“Go on,” exclaimed Dorothy. + +So the Scarecrow climbed farther up and sat down on the top of the +wall, and Dorothy put her head over and cried, “Oh, my!” just as the +Scarecrow had done. + +Then Toto came up, and immediately began to bark, but Dorothy made him +be still. + +The Lion climbed the ladder next, and the Tin Woodman came last; but +both of them cried, “Oh, my!” as soon as they looked over the wall. +When they were all sitting in a row on the top of the wall, they looked +down and saw a strange sight. + +Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and +shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were +many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colors. +These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as +high as Dorothy’s waist. There were also pretty little barns, with +china fences around them; and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs +and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups. + +But the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer +country. There were milkmaids and shepherdesses, with brightly colored +bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most +gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in +knee breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and +golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jeweled crowns upon +their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns +in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, +pointed caps. And, strangest of all, these people were all made of +china, even to their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of +them was no higher than Dorothy’s knee. + +No one did so much as look at the travelers at first, except one little +purple china dog with an extra-large head, which came to the wall and +barked at them in a tiny voice, afterwards running away again. + +“How shall we get down?” asked Dorothy. + +They found the ladder so heavy they could not pull it up, so the +Scarecrow fell off the wall and the others jumped down upon him so that +the hard floor would not hurt their feet. Of course they took pains not +to light on his head and get the pins in their feet. When all were +safely down they picked up the Scarecrow, whose body was quite +flattened out, and patted his straw into shape again. + +“We must cross this strange place in order to get to the other side,” +said Dorothy, “for it would be unwise for us to go any other way except +due South.” + +They began walking through the country of the china people, and the +first thing they came to was a china milkmaid milking a china cow. As +they drew near, the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, +the pail, and even the milkmaid herself, and all fell on the china +ground with a great clatter. + +Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg off, and +that the pail was lying in several small pieces, while the poor +milkmaid had a nick in her left elbow. + +“There!” cried the milkmaid angrily. “See what you have done! My cow +has broken her leg, and I must take her to the mender’s shop and have +it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my +cow?” + +“I’m very sorry,” returned Dorothy. “Please forgive us.” + +But the pretty milkmaid was much too vexed to make any answer. She +picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping +on three legs. As she left them the milkmaid cast many reproachful +glances over her shoulder at the clumsy strangers, holding her nicked +elbow close to her side. + +Dorothy was quite grieved at this mishap. + +“We must be very careful here,” said the kind-hearted Woodman, “or we +may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it.” + +A little farther on Dorothy met a most beautifully dressed young +Princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and started to run +away. + +Dorothy wanted to see more of the Princess, so she ran after her. But +the china girl cried out: + +“Don’t chase me! Don’t chase me!” + +She had such a frightened little voice that Dorothy stopped and said, +“Why not?” + +“Because,” answered the Princess, also stopping, a safe distance away, +“if I run I may fall down and break myself.” + +“But could you not be mended?” asked the girl. + +“Oh, yes; but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know,” +replied the Princess. + +“I suppose not,” said Dorothy. + +“Now there is Mr. Joker, one of our clowns,” continued the china lady, +“who is always trying to stand upon his head. He has broken himself so +often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn’t look at all +pretty. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself.” + +Indeed, a jolly little clown came walking toward them, and Dorothy +could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and +green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way +and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places. + +The Clown put his hands in his pockets, and after puffing out his +cheeks and nodding his head at them saucily, he said: + + “My lady fair, + Why do you stare +At poor old Mr. Joker? + You’re quite as stiff + And prim as if +You’d eaten up a poker!” + + +“Be quiet, sir!” said the Princess. “Can’t you see these are strangers, +and should be treated with respect?” + +“Well, that’s respect, I expect,” declared the Clown, and immediately +stood upon his head. + +“Don’t mind Mr. Joker,” said the Princess to Dorothy. “He is +considerably cracked in his head, and that makes him foolish.” + +“Oh, I don’t mind him a bit,” said Dorothy. “But you are so beautiful,” +she continued, “that I am sure I could love you dearly. Won’t you let +me carry you back to Kansas, and stand you on Aunt Em’s mantel? I could +carry you in my basket.” + +“That would make me very unhappy,” answered the china Princess. “You +see, here in our country we live contentedly, and can talk and move +around as we please. But whenever any of us are taken away our joints +at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. Of +course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantels and +cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter +here in our own country.” + +“I would not make you unhappy for all the world!” exclaimed Dorothy. +“So I’ll just say good-bye.” + +“Good-bye,” replied the Princess. + +They walked carefully through the china country. The little animals and +all the people scampered out of their way, fearing the strangers would +break them, and after an hour or so the travelers reached the other +side of the country and came to another china wall. + +It was not so high as the first, however, and by standing upon the +Lion’s back they all managed to scramble to the top. Then the Lion +gathered his legs under him and jumped on the wall; but just as he +jumped, he upset a china church with his tail and smashed it all to +pieces. + +“That was too bad,” said Dorothy, “but really I think we were lucky in +not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow’s leg and a +church. They are all so brittle!” + +“They are, indeed,” said the Scarecrow, “and I am thankful I am made of +straw and cannot be easily damaged. There are worse things in the world +than being a Scarecrow.” + + + + +Chapter XXI +The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts + + +After climbing down from the china wall the travelers found themselves +in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with +tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy +holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. However, +by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they +reached solid ground. But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and +after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered +another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had +ever seen. + +“This forest is perfectly delightful,” declared the Lion, looking +around him with joy. “Never have I seen a more beautiful place.” + +“It seems gloomy,” said the Scarecrow. + +“Not a bit of it,” answered the Lion. “I should like to live here all +my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich +and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild +beast could wish a pleasanter home.” + +“Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now,” said Dorothy. + +“I suppose there are,” returned the Lion, “but I do not see any of them +about.” + +They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any +farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the +Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. + +When morning came, they started again. Before they had gone far they +heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. Toto +whimpered a little, but none of the others was frightened, and they +kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the +wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. There +were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the +others in the natural history, and for a moment Dorothy was afraid. But +the Lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he +judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. + +As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the +great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came +up to the Lion and bowed, saying: + +“Welcome, O King of Beasts! You have come in good time to fight our +enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more.” + +“What is your trouble?” asked the Lion quietly. + +“We are all threatened,” answered the tiger, “by a fierce enemy which +has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like +a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a +tree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls +through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his +mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe +while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to +decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us.” + +The Lion thought for a moment. + +“Are there any other lions in this forest?” he asked. + +“No; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. And, besides, +they were none of them nearly so large and brave as you.” + +“If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as +King of the Forest?” inquired the Lion. + +“We will do that gladly,” returned the tiger; and all the other beasts +roared with a mighty roar: “We will!” + +“Where is this great spider of yours now?” asked the Lion. + +“Yonder, among the oak trees,” said the tiger, pointing with his +forefoot. + +“Take good care of these friends of mine,” said the Lion, “and I will +go at once to fight the monster.” + +He bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle +with the enemy. + +The great spider was lying asleep when the Lion found him, and it +looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust. Its legs +were quite as long as the tiger had said, and its body covered with +coarse black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a +foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as +slender as a wasp’s waist. This gave the Lion a hint of the best way to +attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep +than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the +monster’s back. Then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with +sharp claws, he knocked the spider’s head from its body. Jumping down, +he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was +quite dead. + +The Lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were +waiting for him and said proudly: + +“You need fear your enemy no longer.” + +Then the beasts bowed down to the Lion as their King, and he promised +to come back and rule over them as soon as Dorothy was safely on her +way to Kansas. + + + + +Chapter XXII +The Country of the Quadlings + + +The four travelers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and +when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered +from top to bottom with great pieces of rock. + +“That will be a hard climb,” said the Scarecrow, “but we must get over +the hill, nevertheless.” + +So he led the way and the others followed. They had nearly reached the +first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, “Keep back!” + +“Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow. + +Then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, “This +hill belongs to us, and we don’t allow anyone to cross it.” + +“But we must cross it,” said the Scarecrow. “We’re going to the country +of the Quadlings.” + +“But you shall not!” replied the voice, and there stepped from behind +the rock the strangest man the travelers had ever seen. + +He was quite short and stout and had a big head, which was flat at the +top and supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. But he had no arms +at all, and, seeing this, the Scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a +creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. So he said, “I’m +sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether +you like it or not,” and he walked boldly forward. + +As quick as lightning the man’s head shot forward and his neck +stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the +Scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the +hill. Almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and +the man laughed harshly as he said, “It isn’t as easy as you think!” + +A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy +saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind +every rock. + +The Lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the Scarecrow’s +mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder, he dashed up +the hill. + +Again a head shot swiftly out, and the great Lion went rolling down the +hill as if he had been struck by a cannon ball. + +Dorothy ran down and helped the Scarecrow to his feet, and the Lion +came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, “It is +useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand +them.” + +“What can we do, then?” she asked. + +“Call the Winged Monkeys,” suggested the Tin Woodman. “You have still +the right to command them once more.” + +“Very well,” she answered, and putting on the Golden Cap she uttered +the magic words. The Monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few +moments the entire band stood before her. + +“What are your commands?” inquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low. + +“Carry us over the hill to the country of the Quadlings,” answered the +girl. + +“It shall be done,” said the King, and at once the Winged Monkeys +caught the four travelers and Toto up in their arms and flew away with +them. As they passed over the hill the Hammer-Heads yelled with +vexation, and shot their heads high in the air, but they could not +reach the Winged Monkeys, which carried Dorothy and her comrades safely +over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the +Quadlings. + +“This is the last time you can summon us,” said the leader to Dorothy; +“so good-bye and good luck to you.” + +“Good-bye, and thank you very much,” returned the girl; and the Monkeys +rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling. + +The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field +upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, +and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences +and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had +been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the +country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and +fat and looked chubby and good-natured, were dressed all in red, which +showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain. + +The Monkeys had set them down near a farmhouse, and the four travelers +walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmer’s +wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them +all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, +and a bowl of milk for Toto. + +“How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?” asked the child. + +“It is not a great way,” answered the farmer’s wife. “Take the road to +the South and you will soon reach it.” + +Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields +and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very +beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in +handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy +approached, one of them said to her: + +“Why have you come to the South Country?” + +“To see the Good Witch who rules here,” she answered. “Will you take me +to her?” + +“Let me have your name, and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you.” +They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. +After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others +were to be admitted at once. + + + + +Chapter XXIII +Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish + + +Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of +the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the +Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself +into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his +joints. + +When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl +into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies. + +She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red +in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was +pure white but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the +little girl. + +“What can I do for you, my child?” she asked. + +Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her +to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the +wonderful adventures they had met with. + +“My greatest wish now,” she added, “is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt +Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that +will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this +year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it.” + +Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving +little girl. + +“Bless your dear heart,” she said, “I am sure I can tell you of a way +to get back to Kansas.” Then she added, “But, if I do, you must give me +the Golden Cap.” + +“Willingly!” exclaimed Dorothy; “indeed, it is of no use to me now, and +when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times.” + +“And I think I shall need their service just those three times,” +answered Glinda, smiling. + +Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the +Scarecrow, “What will you do when Dorothy has left us?” + +“I will return to the Emerald City,” he replied, “for Oz has made me +its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how +to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads.” + +“By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry +you to the gates of the Emerald City,” said Glinda, “for it would be a +shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler.” + +“Am I really wonderful?” asked the Scarecrow. + +“You are unusual,” replied Glinda. + +Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked, “What will become of you when +Dorothy leaves this country?” + +He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, “The Winkies +were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked +Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to +the Country of the West, I should like nothing better than to rule over +them forever.” + +“My second command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda “will be that +they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brain may not be +so large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really +brighter than he is—when you are well polished—and I am sure you will +rule the Winkies wisely and well.” + +Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, “When Dorothy +has returned to her own home, what will become of you?” + +“Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads,” he answered, “lies a grand old +forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If +I could only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily +there.” + +“My third command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda, “shall be to +carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden +Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band +may thereafter be free for evermore.” + +The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good +Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed: + +“You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet +told me how to get back to Kansas.” + +“Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,” replied Glinda. “If +you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the +very first day you came to this country.” + +“But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!” cried the +Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s +cornfield.” + +“And I should not have had my lovely heart,” said the Tin Woodman. “I +might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.” + +“And I should have lived a coward forever,” declared the Lion, “and no +beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.” + +“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these +good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, +and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should +like to go back to Kansas.” + +“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “have wonderful powers. And +one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to +any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in +the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together +three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to +go.” + +“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me +back to Kansas at once.” + +She threw her arms around the Lion’s neck and kissed him, patting his +big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in +a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed +body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, +and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her +loving comrades. + +Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little +girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she +had shown to her friends and herself. + +Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last +good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, +saying: + +“Take me home to Aunt Em!” + + +Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she +could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears. + +The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly +that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where +she was. + +At length, however, she sat up and looked about her. + +“Good gracious!” she cried. + +For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her +was the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried +away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and +Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, +barking furiously. + +Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver +Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost +forever in the desert. + + + + +Chapter XXIV +Home Again + + +Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she +looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her. + +“My darling child!” she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and +covering her face with kisses. “Where in the world did you come from?” + +“From the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy gravely. “And here is Toto, too. +And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be at home again!” + +TREASURE ISLAND + +PART ONE--The Old Buccaneer + +1 + +The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow + + +SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having +asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from +the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the +island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I +take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when +my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the +sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. + +I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the +inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a +tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the +shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with +black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid +white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself +as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so +often afterwards: + + “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” + +in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and +broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of +stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, +called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, +he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still +looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. + +“This is a handy cove,” says he at length; “and a pleasant sittyated +grog-shop. Much company, mate?” + +My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. + +“Well, then,” said he, “this is the berth for me. Here you, matey,” he +cried to the man who trundled the barrow; “bring up alongside and help +up my chest. I’ll stay here a bit,” he continued. “I’m a plain man; rum +and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch +ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I +see what you’re at--there”; and he threw down three or four gold pieces +on the threshold. “You can tell me when I’ve worked through that,” says +he, looking as fierce as a commander. + +And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none +of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like +a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came +with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at +the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the +coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as +lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And +that was all we could learn of our guest. + +He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or +upon the cliffs with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner +of the parlour next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly +he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and +blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came +about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back +from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the +road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind +that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was +desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did put up at the Admiral Benbow +(as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol) he +would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the +parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such +was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for +I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day +and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I +would only keep my “weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg” + and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first +of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only +blow through his nose at me and stare me down, but before the week was +out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my four-penny piece, and +repeat his orders to look out for “the seafaring man with one leg.” + +How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On +stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house and +the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a +thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg +would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous +kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the +middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and +ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for +my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies. + +But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one +leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who +knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water +than his head would carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his +wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call +for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his +stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house +shaking with “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” all the neighbours joining +in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing +louder than the other to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most +overriding companion ever known; he would slap his hand on the table for +silence all round; he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, +or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not +following his story. Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he +had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed. + +His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories +they were--about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and +the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his +own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men +that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told +these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the +crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be +ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over +and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his +presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking +back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country +life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to +admire him, calling him a “true sea-dog” and a “real old salt” and +such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England +terrible at sea. + +In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on staying week +after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had +been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to +insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through +his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared my poor +father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a +rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have +greatly hastened his early and unhappy death. + +All the time he lived with us the captain made no change whatever in his +dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his +hat having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it +was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his +coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and which, before +the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, +and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the +most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had +ever seen open. + +He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, when my poor +father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came +late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my +mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse should +come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I +followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright +doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and +pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, +with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, +far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he--the captain, +that is--began to pipe up his eternal song: + + “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! + Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” + +At first I had supposed “the dead man’s chest” to be that identical big +box of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled +in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this +time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song; it +was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it +did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite +angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on +a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain gradually +brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon +the table before him in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices +stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey’s; he went on as before speaking +clear and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or +two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, +glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath, +“Silence, there, between decks!” + +“Were you addressing me, sir?” says the doctor; and when the ruffian had +told him, with another oath, that this was so, “I have only one thing to +say to you, sir,” replies the doctor, “that if you keep on drinking rum, +the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!” + +The old fellow’s fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened +a sailor’s clasp-knife, and balancing it open on the palm of his hand, +threatened to pin the doctor to the wall. + +The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his +shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the +room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady: “If you do not put that +knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall +hang at the next assizes.” + +Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon +knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like +a beaten dog. + +“And now, sir,” continued the doctor, “since I now know there’s such a +fellow in my district, you may count I’ll have an eye upon you day and +night. I’m not a doctor only; I’m a magistrate; and if I catch a breath +of complaint against you, if it’s only for a piece of incivility like +tonight’s, I’ll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed +out of this. Let that suffice.” + +Soon after, Dr. Livesey’s horse came to the door and he rode away, but +the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come. + + + + +2 + +Black Dog Appears and Disappears + + +IT was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the +mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you +will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard +frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor +father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother +and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without +paying much regard to our unpleasant guest. + +It was one January morning, very early--a pinching, frosty morning--the +cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, +the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to +seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual and set out down the +beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, +his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I +remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and +the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud snort +of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey. + +Well, mother was upstairs with father and I was laying the +breakfast-table against the captain’s return when the parlour door +opened and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He +was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand, and +though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I +had always my eye open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I +remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a +smack of the sea about him too. + +I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum; but +as I was going out of the room to fetch it, he sat down upon a table +and motioned me to draw near. I paused where I was, with my napkin in my +hand. + +“Come here, sonny,” says he. “Come nearer here.” + +I took a step nearer. + +“Is this here table for my mate Bill?” he asked with a kind of leer. + +I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who +stayed in our house whom we called the captain. + +“Well,” said he, “my mate Bill would be called the captain, as like +as not. He has a cut on one cheek and a mighty pleasant way with him, +particularly in drink, has my mate Bill. We’ll put it, for argument +like, that your captain has a cut on one cheek--and we’ll put it, if you +like, that that cheek’s the right one. Ah, well! I told you. Now, is my +mate Bill in this here house?” + +I told him he was out walking. + +“Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone?” + +And when I had pointed out the rock and told him how the captain was +likely to return, and how soon, and answered a few other questions, +“Ah,” said he, “this’ll be as good as drink to my mate Bill.” + +The expression of his face as he said these words was not at all +pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was +mistaken, even supposing he meant what he said. But it was no affair of +mine, I thought; and besides, it was difficult to know what to do. The +stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round the +corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into +the road, but he immediately called me back, and as I did not obey quick +enough for his fancy, a most horrible change came over his tallowy face, +and he ordered me in with an oath that made me jump. As soon as I +was back again he returned to his former manner, half fawning, half +sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told me I was a good boy and he had +taken quite a fancy to me. “I have a son of my own,” said he, “as like +you as two blocks, and he’s all the pride of my ’art. But the great +thing for boys is discipline, sonny--discipline. Now, if you had sailed +along of Bill, you wouldn’t have stood there to be spoke to twice--not +you. That was never Bill’s way, nor the way of sich as sailed with him. +And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under his arm, +bless his old ’art, to be sure. You and me’ll just go back into the +parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and we’ll give Bill a little +surprise--bless his ’art, I say again.” + +So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlour and put me +behind him in the corner so that we were both hidden by the open door. I +was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and it rather added to my +fears to observe that the stranger was certainly frightened himself. He +cleared the hilt of his cutlass and loosened the blade in the sheath; +and all the time we were waiting there he kept swallowing as if he felt +what we used to call a lump in the throat. + +At last in strode the captain, slammed the door behind him, without +looking to the right or left, and marched straight across the room to +where his breakfast awaited him. + +“Bill,” said the stranger in a voice that I thought he had tried to make +bold and big. + +The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us; all the brown had +gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue; he had the look of a +man who sees a ghost, or the evil one, or something worse, if anything +can be; and upon my word, I felt sorry to see him all in a moment turn +so old and sick. + +“Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely,” said +the stranger. + +The captain made a sort of gasp. + +“Black Dog!” said he. + +“And who else?” returned the other, getting more at his ease. “Black +Dog as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate Billy, at the Admiral +Benbow inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, since +I lost them two talons,” holding up his mutilated hand. + +“Now, look here,” said the captain; “you’ve run me down; here I am; +well, then, speak up; what is it?” + +“That’s you, Bill,” returned Black Dog, “you’re in the right of it, +Billy. I’ll have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I’ve took +such a liking to; and we’ll sit down, if you please, and talk square, +like old shipmates.” + +When I returned with the rum, they were already seated on either side +of the captain’s breakfast-table--Black Dog next to the door and +sitting sideways so as to have one eye on his old shipmate and one, as I +thought, on his retreat. + +He bade me go and leave the door wide open. “None of your keyholes for +me, sonny,” he said; and I left them together and retired into the bar. + +For a long time, though I certainly did my best to listen, I could hear +nothing but a low gattling; but at last the voices began to grow higher, +and I could pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain. + +“No, no, no, no; and an end of it!” he cried once. And again, “If it +comes to swinging, swing all, say I.” + +Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion of oaths and +other noises--the chair and table went over in a lump, a clash of steel +followed, and then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black +Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both with drawn +cutlasses, and the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just +at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous +cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been +intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Benbow. You may see the +notch on the lower side of the frame to this day. + +That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road, Black +Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair of heels and +disappeared over the edge of the hill in half a minute. The captain, for +his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man. Then he +passed his hand over his eyes several times and at last turned back into +the house. + +“Jim,” says he, “rum”; and as he spoke, he reeled a little, and caught +himself with one hand against the wall. + +“Are you hurt?” cried I. + +“Rum,” he repeated. “I must get away from here. Rum! Rum!” + +I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen +out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still +getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in the parlour, and running +in, beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same +instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running +downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his head. He was breathing +very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed and his face a horrible +colour. + +“Dear, deary me,” cried my mother, “what a disgrace upon the house! And +your poor father sick!” + +In the meantime, we had no idea what to do to help the captain, nor any +other thought but that he had got his death-hurt in the scuffle with +the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his +throat, but his teeth were tightly shut and his jaws as strong as iron. +It was a happy relief for us when the door opened and Doctor Livesey +came in, on his visit to my father. + +“Oh, doctor,” we cried, “what shall we do? Where is he wounded?” + +“Wounded? A fiddle-stick’s end!” said the doctor. “No more wounded than +you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, +just you run upstairs to your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing +about it. For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow’s trebly +worthless life; Jim, you get me a basin.” + +When I got back with the basin, the doctor had already ripped up the +captain’s sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed +in several places. “Here’s luck,” “A fair wind,” and “Billy Bones his +fancy,” were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm; and up +near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from +it--done, as I thought, with great spirit. + +“Prophetic,” said the doctor, touching this picture with his finger. +“And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your name, we’ll have a look at +the colour of your blood. Jim,” he said, “are you afraid of blood?” + +“No, sir,” said I. + +“Well, then,” said he, “you hold the basin”; and with that he took his +lancet and opened a vein. + +A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes +and looked mistily about him. First he recognized the doctor with +an unmistakable frown; then his glance fell upon me, and he looked +relieved. But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise +himself, crying, “Where’s Black Dog?” + +“There is no Black Dog here,” said the doctor, “except what you have +on your own back. You have been drinking rum; you have had a stroke, +precisely as I told you; and I have just, very much against my own will, +dragged you headforemost out of the grave. Now, Mr. Bones--” + +“That’s not my name,” he interrupted. + +“Much I care,” returned the doctor. “It’s the name of a buccaneer of my +acquaintance; and I call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I +have to say to you is this; one glass of rum won’t kill you, but if +you take one you’ll take another and another, and I stake my wig if you +don’t break off short, you’ll die--do you understand that?--die, and go +to your own place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an effort. +I’ll help you to your bed for once.” + +Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him upstairs, and +laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on the pillow as if he +were almost fainting. + +“Now, mind you,” said the doctor, “I clear my conscience--the name of +rum for you is death.” + +And with that he went off to see my father, taking me with him by the +arm. + +“This is nothing,” he said as soon as he had closed the door. “I have +drawn blood enough to keep him quiet awhile; he should lie for a week +where he is--that is the best thing for him and you; but another stroke +would settle him.” + + + + +3 + +The Black Spot + +ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain’s door with some cooling drinks +and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little +higher, and he seemed both weak and excited. + +“Jim,” he said, “you’re the only one here that’s worth anything, and you +know I’ve been always good to you. Never a month but I’ve given you a +silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I’m pretty low, +and deserted by all; and Jim, you’ll bring me one noggin of rum, now, +won’t you, matey?” + +“The doctor--” I began. + +But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. +“Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do +he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates +dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the +sea with earthquakes--what to the doctor know of lands like that?--and I +lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, +to me; and if I’m not to have my rum now I’m a poor old hulk on a lee +shore, my blood’ll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab”; and he ran on +again for a while with curses. “Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges,” + he continued in the pleading tone. “I can’t keep ’em still, not I. I +haven’t had a drop this blessed day. That doctor’s a fool, I tell you. +If I don’t have a dram o’ rum, Jim, I’ll have the horrors; I seen some +on ’em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as +plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors, I’m a man that +has lived rough, and I’ll raise Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass +wouldn’t hurt me. I’ll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim.” + +He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, +who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was reassured by +the doctor’s words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer +of a bribe. + +“I want none of your money,” said I, “but what you owe my father. I’ll +get you one glass, and no more.” + +When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out. + +“Aye, aye,” said he, “that’s some better, sure enough. And now, matey, +did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth?” + +“A week at least,” said I. + +“Thunder!” he cried. “A week! I can’t do that; they’d have the black +spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me +this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn’t keep what they got, and want to +nail what is another’s. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know? +But I’m a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it +neither; and I’ll trick ’em again. I’m not afraid on ’em. I’ll shake out +another reef, matey, and daddle ’em again.” + +As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, +holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and +moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they +were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in +which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting +position on the edge. + +“That doctor’s done me,” he murmured. “My ears is singing. Lay me back.” + +Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again to his +former place, where he lay for a while silent. + +“Jim,” he said at length, “you saw that seafaring man today?” + +“Black Dog?” I asked. + +“Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “HE’S a bad un; but there’s worse that put him +on. Now, if I can’t get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind +you, it’s my old sea-chest they’re after; you get on a horse--you can, +can’t you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--well, yes, +I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all +hands--magistrates and sich--and he’ll lay ’em aboard at the Admiral +Benbow--all old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all on ’em that’s left. I was +first mate, I was, old Flint’s first mate, and I’m the on’y one as knows +the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I +was to now, you see. But you won’t peach unless they get the black spot +on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with +one leg, Jim--him above all.” + +“But what is the black spot, captain?” I asked. + +“That’s a summons, mate. I’ll tell you if they get that. But you keep +your weather-eye open, Jim, and I’ll share with you equals, upon my +honour.” + +He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker; but soon after I +had given him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, +“If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it’s me,” he fell at last into a heavy, +swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had all +gone well I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to +the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of +his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell out, my poor +father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other matters +on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the +arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on +in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of +the captain, far less to be afraid of him. + +He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his meals as usual, +though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of +rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing through +his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the night before the funeral +he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, +to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was, +we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly +taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after +my father’s death. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed he +seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength. He clambered up +and down stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, +and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding on to +the walls as he went for support and breathing hard and fast like a man +on a steep mountain. He never particularly addressed me, and it is my +belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences; but his temper was +more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness, more violent than +ever. He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his +cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But with all that, +he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather +wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a +different air, a kind of country love-song that he must have learned in +his youth before he had begun to follow the sea. + +So things passed until, the day after the funeral, and about three +o’clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon, I was standing at the door +for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw someone +drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped +before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and +nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge +old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively +deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. +He stopped a little from the inn, and raising his voice in an odd +sing-song, addressed the air in front of him, “Will any kind friend +inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in +the gracious defence of his native country, England--and God bless King +George!--where or in what part of this country he may now be?” + +“You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my good man,” said I. + +“I hear a voice,” said he, “a young voice. Will you give me your hand, +my kind young friend, and lead me in?” + +I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature +gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much startled that I +struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close up to him with +a single action of his arm. + +“Now, boy,” he said, “take me in to the captain.” + +“Sir,” said I, “upon my word I dare not.” + +“Oh,” he sneered, “that’s it! Take me in straight or I’ll break your +arm.” + +And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out. + +“Sir,” said I, “it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not what he +used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman--” + +“Come, now, march,” interrupted he; and I never heard a voice so cruel, +and cold, and ugly as that blind man’s. It cowed me more than the pain, +and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and +towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed +with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist +and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. “Lead me +straight up to him, and when I’m in view, cry out, ‘Here’s a friend +for you, Bill.’ If you don’t, I’ll do this,” and with that he gave me a +twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I +was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of +the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he +had ordered in a trembling voice. + +The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of +him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so +much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I +do not believe he had enough force left in his body. + +“Now, Bill, sit where you are,” said the beggar. “If I can’t see, I can +hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. +Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right.” + +We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the +hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain’s, +which closed upon it instantly. + +“And now that’s done,” said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly +left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, +skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood +motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance. + +It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our +senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his +wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked +sharply into the palm. + +“Ten o’clock!” he cried. “Six hours. We’ll do them yet,” and he sprang +to his feet. + +Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying +for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole +height face foremost to the floor. + +I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. +The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious +thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of +late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I +burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and +the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. + + + + +4 + +The Sea-chest + +I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and +perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once +in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man’s money--if +he had any--was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our +captain’s shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black +Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in +payment of the dead man’s debts. The captain’s order to mount at +once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone +and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed +impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall +of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled +us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by +approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain +on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar +hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as +the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily +be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together +and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. +Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and +the frosty fog. + +The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view, on the +other side of the next cove; and what greatly encouraged me, it was +in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his +appearance and whither he had presumably returned. We were not many +minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each +other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound--nothing but the low +wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood. + +It was already candle-light when we reached the hamlet, and I shall +never forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and +windows; but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were likely +to get in that quarter. For--you would have thought men would have been +ashamed of themselves--no soul would consent to return with us to the +Admiral Benbow. The more we told of our troubles, the more--man, woman, +and child--they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of +Captain Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to +some there and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who +had been to field-work on the far side of the Admiral Benbow remembered, +besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and taking them to +be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen a little +lugger in what we called Kitt’s Hole. For that matter, anyone who was a +comrade of the captain’s was enough to frighten them to death. And the +short and the long of the matter was, that while we could get several +who were willing enough to ride to Dr. Livesey’s, which lay in another +direction, not one would help us to defend the inn. + +They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other +hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother +made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that +belonged to her fatherless boy; “If none of the rest of you dare,” + she said, “Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way we came, and small +thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men. We’ll have that chest +open, if we die for it. And I’ll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, +to bring back our lawful money in.” + +Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of course they all cried +out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man would go along with +us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were +attacked, and to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were +pursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor’s +in search of armed assistance. + +My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night upon +this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise and peered +redly through the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, +for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all would be as +bright as day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. +We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear +anything to increase our terrors, till, to our relief, the door of the +Admiral Benbow had closed behind us. + +I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment in the +dark, alone in the house with the dead captain’s body. Then my mother +got a candle in the bar, and holding each other’s hands, we advanced +into the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his eyes +open and one arm stretched out. + +“Draw down the blind, Jim,” whispered my mother; “they might come and +watch outside. And now,” said she when I had done so, “we have to get +the key off THAT; and who’s to touch it, I should like to know!” and she +gave a kind of sob as she said the words. + +I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there +was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not +doubt that this was the BLACK SPOT; and taking it up, I found written +on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message: “You +have till ten tonight.” + +“He had till ten, Mother,” said I; and just as I said it, our old clock +began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly; but the news +was good, for it was only six. + +“Now, Jim,” she said, “that key.” + +I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, +and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away +at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a +tinder box were all that they contained, and I began to despair. + +“Perhaps it’s round his neck,” suggested my mother. + +Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and +there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with +his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with +hope and hurried upstairs without delay to the little room where he had +slept so long and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival. + +It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside, the initial “B” + burned on the top of it with a hot iron, and the corners somewhat +smashed and broken as by long, rough usage. + +“Give me the key,” said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, +she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. + +A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior, but nothing +was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully +brushed and folded. They had never been worn, my mother said. Under +that, the miscellany began--a quadrant, a tin canikin, several sticks of +tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an +old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of +foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six +curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should +have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and +hunted life. + +In the meantime, we had found nothing of any value but the silver and +the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way. Underneath there +was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour-bar. My +mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay before us, the last +things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth, and looking like +papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of +gold. + +“I’ll show these rogues that I’m an honest woman,” said my mother. “I’ll +have my dues, and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crossley’s bag.” And +she began to count over the amount of the captain’s score from the +sailor’s bag into the one that I was holding. + +It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were of all countries +and sizes--doubloons, and louis d’ors, and guineas, and pieces of eight, +and I know not what besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, +too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only that my mother +knew how to make her count. + +When we were about half-way through, I suddenly put my hand upon her +arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound that brought my +heart into my mouth--the tap-tapping of the blind man’s stick upon the +frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer, while we sat holding our breath. +Then it struck sharp on the inn door, and then we could hear the handle +being turned and the bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to enter; +and then there was a long time of silence both within and without. +At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our indescribable joy and +gratitude, died slowly away again until it ceased to be heard. + +“Mother,” said I, “take the whole and let’s be going,” for I was sure +the bolted door must have seemed suspicious and would bring the whole +hornet’s nest about our ears, though how thankful I was that I had +bolted it, none could tell who had never met that terrible blind man. + +But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take a +fraction more than was due to her and was obstinately unwilling to be +content with less. It was not yet seven, she said, by a long way; she +knew her rights and she would have them; and she was still arguing with +me when a little low whistle sounded a good way off upon the hill. That +was enough, and more than enough, for both of us. + +“I’ll take what I have,” she said, jumping to her feet. + +“And I’ll take this to square the count,” said I, picking up the oilskin +packet. + +Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle by +the empty chest; and the next we had opened the door and were in full +retreat. We had not started a moment too soon. The fog was rapidly +dispersing; already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on +either side; and it was only in the exact bottom of the dell and round +the tavern door that a thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the +first steps of our escape. Far less than half-way to the hamlet, very +little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the +moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running +came already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction, a +light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancing showed that one of +the newcomers carried a lantern. + +“My dear,” said my mother suddenly, “take the money and run on. I am +going to faint.” + +This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. How I cursed the +cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty +and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness! We were +just at the little bridge, by good fortune; and I helped her, tottering +as she was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh +and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength to do it +at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed to drag her +down the bank and a little way under the arch. Farther I could not move +her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it. +So there we had to stay--my mother almost entirely exposed and both of +us within earshot of the inn. + + + + +5 + +The Last of the Blind Man + +MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not +remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering +my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our +door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven +or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along +the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran +together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the +middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice +showed me that I was right. + +“Down with the door!” he cried. + +“Aye, aye, sir!” answered two or three; and a rush was made upon the +Admiral Benbow, the lantern-bearer following; and then I could see +them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were +surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind +man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as +if he were afire with eagerness and rage. + +“In, in, in!” he shouted, and cursed them for their delay. + +Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the +formidable beggar. There was a pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a +voice shouting from the house, “Bill’s dead.” + +But the blind man swore at them again for their delay. + +“Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the rest of you aloft and +get the chest,” he cried. + +I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the +house must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards, fresh sounds of +astonishment arose; the window of the captain’s room was thrown open +with a slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out into the +moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the +road below him. + +“Pew,” he cried, “they’ve been before us. Someone’s turned the chest out +alow and aloft.” + +“Is it there?” roared Pew. + +“The money’s there.” + +The blind man cursed the money. + +“Flint’s fist, I mean,” he cried. + +“We don’t see it here nohow,” returned the man. + +“Here, you below there, is it on Bill?” cried the blind man again. + +At that another fellow, probably him who had remained below to search +the captain’s body, came to the door of the inn. “Bill’s been overhauled +a’ready,” said he; “nothin’ left.” + +“It’s these people of the inn--it’s that boy. I wish I had put his eyes +out!” cried the blind man, Pew. “There were no time ago--they had the +door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find ’em.” + +“Sure enough, they left their glim here,” said the fellow from the +window. + +“Scatter and find ’em! Rout the house out!” reiterated Pew, striking +with his stick upon the road. + +Then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn, heavy feet +pounding to and fro, furniture thrown over, doors kicked in, until the +very rocks re-echoed and the men came out again, one after another, on +the road and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just +the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead +captain’s money was once more clearly audible through the night, +but this time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man’s +trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault, but I now found +that it was a signal from the hillside towards the hamlet, and from its +effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger. + +“There’s Dirk again,” said one. “Twice! We’ll have to budge, mates.” + +“Budge, you skulk!” cried Pew. “Dirk was a fool and a coward from the +first--you wouldn’t mind him. They must be close by; they can’t be far; +you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver +my soul,” he cried, “if I had eyes!” + +This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began +to look here and there among the lumber, but half-heartedly, I thought, +and with half an eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest +stood irresolute on the road. + +“You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You’d +be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it’s here, and +you stand there skulking. There wasn’t one of you dared face Bill, and +I did it--a blind man! And I’m to lose my chance for you! I’m to be a +poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a +coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch +them still.” + +“Hang it, Pew, we’ve got the doubloons!” grumbled one. + +“They might have hid the blessed thing,” said another. “Take the +Georges, Pew, and don’t stand here squalling.” + +Squalling was the word for it; Pew’s anger rose so high at these +objections till at last, his passion completely taking the upper hand, +he struck at them right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded +heavily on more than one. + +These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him +in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from +his grasp. + +This quarrel was the saving of us, for while it was still raging, +another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the +hamlet--the tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a +pistol-shot, flash and report, came from the hedge side. And that was +plainly the last signal of danger, for the buccaneers turned at once +and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one +slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of +them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic +or out of revenge for his ill words and blows I know not; but there he +remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping +and calling for his comrades. Finally he took a wrong turn and ran a few +steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying, “Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk,” + and other names, “you won’t leave old Pew, mates--not old Pew!” + +Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders +came in sight in the moonlight and swept at full gallop down the slope. + +At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for +the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a +second and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the +nearest of the coming horses. + +The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that +rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him +and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face +and moved no more. + +I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling up, at any +rate, horrified at the accident; and I soon saw what they were. One, +tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to +Dr. Livesey’s; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had met by the +way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some +news of the lugger in Kitt’s Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance +and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance +my mother and I owed our preservation from death. + +Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we had carried her up +to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her +back again, and she was none the worse for her terror, though she still +continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime the +supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to Kitt’s Hole; but his men +had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading, and sometimes +supporting, their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it was +no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the Hole the +lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her. A +voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he would get +some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his +arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance +stood there, as he said, “like a fish out of water,” and all he could do +was to dispatch a man to B---- to warn the cutter. “And that,” said he, +“is just about as good as nothing. They’ve got off clean, and there’s +an end. Only,” he added, “I’m glad I trod on Master Pew’s corns,” for by +this time he had heard my story. + +I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a +house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down +by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; +and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain’s +money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we +were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing of the scene. + +“They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were +they after? More money, I suppose?” + +“No, sir; not money, I think,” replied I. “In fact, sir, I believe I +have the thing in my breast pocket; and to tell you the truth, I should +like to get it put in safety.” + +“To be sure, boy; quite right,” said he. “I’ll take it, if you like.” + +“I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey--” I began. + +“Perfectly right,” he interrupted very cheerily, “perfectly right--a +gentleman and a magistrate. And, now I come to think of it, I might as +well ride round there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew’s +dead, when all’s done; not that I regret it, but he’s dead, you see, and +people will make it out against an officer of his Majesty’s revenue, +if make it out they can. Now, I’ll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I’ll +take you along.” + +I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet +where the horses were. By the time I had told mother of my purpose they +were all in the saddle. + +“Dogger,” said Mr. Dance, “you have a good horse; take up this lad +behind you.” + +As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger’s belt, the supervisor +gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road +to Dr. Livesey’s house. + + + + +6 + +The Captain’s Papers + +WE rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr. Livesey’s door. The +house was all dark to the front. + +Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup +to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid. + +“Is Dr. Livesey in?” I asked. + +No, she said, he had come home in the afternoon but had gone up to the +hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire. + +“So there we go, boys,” said Mr. Dance. + +This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with +Dogger’s stirrup-leather to the lodge gates and up the long, leafless, +moonlit avenue to where the white line of the hall buildings looked on +either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking +me along with him, was admitted at a word into the house. + +The servant led us down a matted passage and showed us at the end into a +great library, all lined with bookcases and busts upon the top of them, +where the squire and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side of a +bright fire. + +I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six +feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready +face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His +eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of +some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high. + +“Come in, Mr. Dance,” says he, very stately and condescending. + +“Good evening, Dance,” says the doctor with a nod. “And good evening to +you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?” + +The supervisor stood up straight and stiff and told his story like a +lesson; and you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward +and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and +interest. When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr. +Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried “Bravo!” and +broke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr. +Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire’s name) had got up +from his seat and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to +hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking +very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll. + +At last Mr. Dance finished the story. + +“Mr. Dance,” said the squire, “you are a very noble fellow. And as for +riding down that black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of +virtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump, +I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some +ale.” + +“And so, Jim,” said the doctor, “you have the thing that they were +after, have you?” + +“Here it is, sir,” said I, and gave him the oilskin packet. + +The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were itching to open +it; but instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of his +coat. + +“Squire,” said he, “when Dance has had his ale he must, of course, be +off on his Majesty’s service; but I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to +sleep at my house, and with your permission, I propose we should have up +the cold pie and let him sup.” + +“As you will, Livesey,” said the squire; “Hawkins has earned better than +cold pie.” + +So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a sidetable, and I made +a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was +further complimented and at last dismissed. + +“And now, squire,” said the doctor. + +“And now, Livesey,” said the squire in the same breath. + +“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Dr. Livesey. “You have heard of +this Flint, I suppose?” + +“Heard of him!” cried the squire. “Heard of him, you say! He was the +bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. +The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, +I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I’ve seen his top-sails with +these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that I +sailed with put back--put back, sir, into Port of Spain.” + +“Well, I’ve heard of him myself, in England,” said the doctor. “But the +point is, had he money?” + +“Money!” cried the squire. “Have you heard the story? What were these +villains after but money? What do they care for but money? For what +would they risk their rascal carcasses but money?” + +“That we shall soon know,” replied the doctor. “But you are so +confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory that I cannot get a word in. +What I want to know is this: Supposing that I have here in my pocket +some clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure amount +to much?” + +“Amount, sir!” cried the squire. “It will amount to this: If we have the +clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and +Hawkins here along, and I’ll have that treasure if I search a year.” + +“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we’ll +open the packet”; and he laid it before him on the table. + +The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out his +instrument case and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. It +contained two things--a book and a sealed paper. + +“First of all we’ll try the book,” observed the doctor. + +The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened +it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to come round from the +side-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. +On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man +with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the +same as the tattoo mark, “Billy Bones his fancy”; then there was “Mr. W. +Bones, mate,” “No more rum,” “Off Palm Key he got itt,” and some other +snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not help +wondering who it was that had “got itt,” and what “itt” was that he got. +A knife in his back as like as not. + +“Not much instruction there,” said Dr. Livesey as he passed on. + +The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of +entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a +sum of money, as in common account-books, but instead of explanatory +writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the 12th +of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become +due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the +cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added, +as “Offe Caraccas,” or a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as “62o +17′ 20″, 19o 2′ 40″.” + +The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separate +entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total +had been made out after five or six wrong additions, and these words +appended, “Bones, his pile.” + +“I can’t make head or tail of this,” said Dr. Livesey. + +“The thing is as clear as noonday,” cried the squire. “This is the +black-hearted hound’s account-book. These crosses stand for the names of +ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel’s +share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added something +clearer. ‘Offe Caraccas,’ now; you see, here was some unhappy vessel +boarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned her--coral +long ago.” + +“Right!” said the doctor. “See what it is to be a traveller. Right! And +the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank.” + +There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places noted +in the blank leaves towards the end and a table for reducing French, +English, and Spanish moneys to a common value. + +“Thrifty man!” cried the doctor. “He wasn’t the one to be cheated.” + +“And now,” said the squire, “for the other.” + +The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of +seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain’s +pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out +the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of +hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed +to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine +miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon +standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the +centre part marked “The Spy-glass.” There were several additions of a +later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink--two on the north +part of the island, one in the southwest--and beside this last, in +the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the +captain’s tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.” + +Over on the back the same hand had written this further information: + + Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to + the N. of N.N.E. + + Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. + + Ten feet. + + The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find + it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms + south of the black crag with the face on it. + + The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N. + point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a + quarter N. + J.F. + +That was all; but brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled +the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight. + +“Livesey,” said the squire, “you will give up this wretched practice +at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks’ time--three +weeks!--two weeks--ten days--we’ll have the best ship, sir, and the +choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You’ll make +a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship’s doctor; I am +admiral. We’ll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We’ll have favourable +winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding the +spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play duck and drake with ever +after.” + +“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “I’ll go with you; and I’ll go bail for +it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking. There’s only one +man I’m afraid of.” + +“And who’s that?” cried the squire. “Name the dog, sir!” + +“You,” replied the doctor; “for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not +the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the +inn tonight--bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the rest who stayed +aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all, +through thick and thin, bound that they’ll get that money. We must none +of us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick together in the +meanwhile; you’ll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and +from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we’ve +found.” + +“Livesey,” returned the squire, “you are always in the right of it. I’ll +be as silent as the grave.” + + + + + + +PART TWO--The Sea-cook + + + + +7 + +I Go to Bristol + +IT was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, +and none of our first plans--not even Dr. Livesey’s, of keeping me +beside him--could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go +to London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was +hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at the hall under the charge of +old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams +and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. +I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which +I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room, I +approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction; I +explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that +tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most +wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with +savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that +hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and +tragic as our actual adventures. + +So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed +to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, “To be opened, in the case of his +absence, by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins.” Obeying this order, we +found, or rather I found--for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading +anything but print--the following important news: + + Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17-- + + Dear Livesey--As I do not know whether you + are at the hall or still in London, I send this in + double to both places. + + The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at + anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a + sweeter schooner--a child might sail her--two + hundred tons; name, HISPANIOLA. + + I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who + has proved himself throughout the most surprising + trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in + my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in + Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we + sailed for--treasure, I mean. + +“Redruth,” said I, interrupting the letter, “Dr. Livesey will not like +that. The squire has been talking, after all.” + +“Well, who’s a better right?” growled the gamekeeper. “A pretty rum go +if squire ain’t to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think.” + +At that I gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on: + + Blandly himself found the HISPANIOLA, and + by the most admirable management got her for the + merest trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol + monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go + the length of declaring that this honest creature + would do anything for money, that the HISPANIOLA + belonged to him, and that he sold it me absurdly + high--the most transparent calumnies. None of them + dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship. + + So far there was not a hitch. The + workpeople, to be sure--riggers and what not--were + most annoyingly slow; but time cured that. It was + the crew that troubled me. + + I wished a round score of men--in case of + natives, buccaneers, or the odious French--and I + had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much + as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke + of fortune brought me the very man that I + required. + + I was standing on the dock, when, by the + merest accident, I fell in talk with him. I found + he was an old sailor, kept a public-house, knew + all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his + health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to + get to sea again. He had hobbled down there that + morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt. + + I was monstrously touched--so would you have + been--and, out of pure pity, I engaged him on the + spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is + called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded as + a recommendation, since he lost it in his + country’s service, under the immortal Hawke. He + has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable + age we live in! + + Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, + but it was a crew I had discovered. Between + Silver and myself we got together in a few days a + company of the toughest old salts imaginable--not + pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of + the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could + fight a frigate. + + Long John even got rid of two out of the six + or seven I had already engaged. He showed me in a + moment that they were just the sort of fresh-water + swabs we had to fear in an adventure of + importance. + + I am in the most magnificent health and + spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree, + yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old + tarpaulins tramping round the capstan. Seaward, + ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea + that has turned my head. So now, Livesey, come + post; do not lose an hour, if you respect me. + + Let young Hawkins go at once to see his + mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then both + come full speed to Bristol. + John Trelawney + + Postscript--I did not tell you that Blandly, + who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if + we don’t turn up by the end of August, had found + an admirable fellow for sailing master--a stiff + man, which I regret, but in all other respects a + treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very + competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I + have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things + shall go man-o’-war fashion on board the good ship + HISPANIOLA. + + I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of + substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has + a banker’s account, which has never been + overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn; + and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old + bachelors like you and I may be excused for + guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the + health, that sends him back to roving. + J. T. + + P.P.S.--Hawkins may stay one night with his + mother. + J. T. + +You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half +beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised a man, it was old +Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the +under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him; but such +was not the squire’s pleasure, and the squire’s pleasure was like law +among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even +to grumble. + +The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and +there I found my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had +so long been a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked +cease from troubling. The squire had had everything repaired, and the +public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture--above +all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found her a boy +as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while I was gone. + +It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my +situation. I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, +not at all of the home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this +clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I +had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog’s life, +for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting +him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them. + +The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were +afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye to Mother and the +cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral +Benbow--since he was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of my last +thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach +with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old brass telescope. +Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight. + +The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath. I was +wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the +swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from +the very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down dale through +stage after stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch +in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still +before a large building in a city street and that the day had already +broken a long time. + +“Where are we?” I asked. + +“Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.” + +Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far down the docks to +superintend the work upon the schooner. Thither we had now to walk, and +our way, to my great delight, lay along the quays and beside the great +multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one, sailors +were singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high over +my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider’s. +Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been +near the sea till then. The smell of tar and salt was something new. +I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the +ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and +whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, +clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could +not have been more delighted. + +And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a piping +boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown +island, and to seek for buried treasure! + +While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front +of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a +sea-officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on +his face and a capital imitation of a sailor’s walk. + +“Here you are,” he cried, “and the doctor came last night from London. +Bravo! The ship’s company complete!” + +“Oh, sir,” cried I, “when do we sail?” + +“Sail!” says he. “We sail tomorrow!” + + + + +8 + +At the Sign of the Spy-glass + +WHEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to John +Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass, and told me I should easily +find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright +lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I +set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and +seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and +bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in +question. + +It was a bright enough little place of entertainment. The sign was +newly painted; the windows had neat red curtains; the floor was cleanly +sanded. There was a street on each side and an open door on both, which +made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in spite of clouds of +tobacco smoke. + +The customers were mostly seafaring men, and they talked so loudly that +I hung at the door, almost afraid to enter. + +As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was +sure he must be Long John. His left leg was cut off close by the hip, +and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with +wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall +and strong, with a face as big as a ham--plain and pale, but intelligent +and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling +as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the +shoulder for the more favoured of his guests. + +Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of Long John in +Squire Trelawney’s letter I had taken a fear in my mind that he might +prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at +the old Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen +the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man, Pew, and I thought I knew +what a buccaneer was like--a very different creature, according to me, +from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord. + +I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up +to the man where he stood, propped on his crutch, talking to a customer. + +“Mr. Silver, sir?” I asked, holding out the note. + +“Yes, my lad,” said he; “such is my name, to be sure. And who may you +be?” And then as he saw the squire’s letter, he seemed to me to give +something almost like a start. + +“Oh!” said he, quite loud, and offering his hand. “I see. You are our +new cabin-boy; pleased I am to see you.” + +And he took my hand in his large firm grasp. + +Just then one of the customers at the far side rose suddenly and made +for the door. It was close by him, and he was out in the street in a +moment. But his hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognized him at +glance. It was the tallow-faced man, wanting two fingers, who had come +first to the Admiral Benbow. + +“Oh,” I cried, “stop him! It’s Black Dog!” + +“I don’t care two coppers who he is,” cried Silver. “But he hasn’t paid +his score. Harry, run and catch him.” + +One of the others who was nearest the door leaped up and started in +pursuit. + +“If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his score,” cried Silver; and +then, relinquishing my hand, “Who did you say he was?” he asked. “Black +what?” + +“Dog, sir,” said I. “Has Mr. Trelawney not told you of the buccaneers? +He was one of them.” + +“So?” cried Silver. “In my house! Ben, run and help Harry. One of those +swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with him, Morgan? Step up here.” + +The man whom he called Morgan--an old, grey-haired, mahogany-faced +sailor--came forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid. + +“Now, Morgan,” said Long John very sternly, “you never clapped your eyes +on that Black--Black Dog before, did you, now?” + +“Not I, sir,” said Morgan with a salute. + +“You didn’t know his name, did you?” + +“No, sir.” + +“By the powers, Tom Morgan, it’s as good for you!” exclaimed the +landlord. “If you had been mixed up with the like of that, you would +never have put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. And what +was he saying to you?” + +“I don’t rightly know, sir,” answered Morgan. + +“Do you call that a head on your shoulders, or a blessed dead-eye?” + cried Long John. “Don’t rightly know, don’t you! Perhaps you don’t +happen to rightly know who you was speaking to, perhaps? Come, now, what +was he jawing--v’yages, cap’ns, ships? Pipe up! What was it?” + +“We was a-talkin’ of keel-hauling,” answered Morgan. + +“Keel-hauling, was you? And a mighty suitable thing, too, and you may +lay to that. Get back to your place for a lubber, Tom.” + +And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver added to me in a +confidential whisper that was very flattering, as I thought, “He’s +quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on’y stupid. And now,” he ran on again, +aloud, “let’s see--Black Dog? No, I don’t know the name, not I. Yet I +kind of think I’ve--yes, I’ve seen the swab. He used to come here with a +blind beggar, he used.” + +“That he did, you may be sure,” said I. “I knew that blind man too. His +name was Pew.” + +“It was!” cried Silver, now quite excited. “Pew! That were his name for +certain. Ah, he looked a shark, he did! If we run down this Black Dog, +now, there’ll be news for Cap’n Trelawney! Ben’s a good runner; few +seamen run better than Ben. He should run him down, hand over hand, by +the powers! He talked o’ keel-hauling, did he? I’LL keel-haul him!” + +All the time he was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and +down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving +such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge +or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on +finding Black Dog at the Spy-glass, and I watched the cook narrowly. But +he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time +the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost +the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone +bail for the innocence of Long John Silver. + +“See here, now, Hawkins,” said he, “here’s a blessed hard thing on a +man like me, now, ain’t it? There’s Cap’n Trelawney--what’s he to think? +Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house +drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and +here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights! Now, +Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap’n. You’re a lad, you are, but +you’re as smart as paint. I see that when you first come in. Now, here +it is: What could I do, with this old timber I hobble on? When I was an +A B master mariner I’d have come up alongside of him, hand over hand, +and broached him to in a brace of old shakes, I would; but now--” + +And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he +had remembered something. + +“The score!” he burst out. “Three goes o’ rum! Why, shiver my timbers, +if I hadn’t forgotten my score!” + +And falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. +I could not help joining, and we laughed together, peal after peal, +until the tavern rang again. + +“Why, what a precious old sea-calf I am!” he said at last, wiping his +cheeks. “You and me should get on well, Hawkins, for I’ll take my davy +I should be rated ship’s boy. But come now, stand by to go about. This +won’t do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I’ll put on my old cockerel hat, +and step along of you to Cap’n Trelawney, and report this here affair. +For mind you, it’s serious, young Hawkins; and neither you nor me’s come +out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit. Nor you +neither, says you; not smart--none of the pair of us smart. But dash my +buttons! That was a good un about my score.” + +And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that though I did not +see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth. + +On our little walk along the quays, he made himself the most interesting +companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, +their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining the work that was going +forward--how one was discharging, another taking in cargo, and a third +making ready for sea--and every now and then telling me some little +anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a nautical phrase till I had +learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of +possible shipmates. + +When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr. Livesey were seated together, +finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it, before they should go +aboard the schooner on a visit of inspection. + +Long John told the story from first to last, with a great deal of spirit +and the most perfect truth. “That was how it were, now, weren’t it, +Hawkins?” he would say, now and again, and I could always bear him +entirely out. + +The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had got away, but we all +agreed there was nothing to be done, and after he had been complimented, +Long John took up his crutch and departed. + +“All hands aboard by four this afternoon,” shouted the squire after him. + +“Aye, aye, sir,” cried the cook, in the passage. + +“Well, squire,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t put much faith in your +discoveries, as a general thing; but I will say this, John Silver suits +me.” + +“The man’s a perfect trump,” declared the squire. + +“And now,” added the doctor, “Jim may come on board with us, may he +not?” + +“To be sure he may,” says squire. “Take your hat, Hawkins, and we’ll see +the ship.” + + + + +9 + +Powder and Arms + +THE HISPANIOLA lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and +round the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated +underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, +we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the +mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a +squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon +observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the +captain. + +This last was a sharp-looking man who seemed angry with everything on +board and was soon to tell us why, for we had hardly got down into the +cabin when a sailor followed us. + +“Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you,” said he. + +“I am always at the captain’s orders. Show him in,” said the squire. + +The captain, who was close behind his messenger, entered at once and +shut the door behind him. + +“Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? All well, I hope; all +shipshape and seaworthy?” + +“Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, even at +the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and +I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.” + +“Perhaps, sir, you don’t like the ship?” inquired the squire, very +angry, as I could see. + +“I can’t speak as to that, sir, not having seen her tried,” said the +captain. “She seems a clever craft; more I can’t say.” + +“Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, either?” says the +squire. + +But here Dr. Livesey cut in. + +“Stay a bit,” said he, “stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but +to produce ill feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too +little, and I’m bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. +You don’t, you say, like this cruise. Now, why?” + +“I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, to sail this ship +for that gentleman where he should bid me,” said the captain. “So far +so good. But now I find that every man before the mast knows more than I +do. I don’t call that fair, now, do you?” + +“No,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t.” + +“Next,” said the captain, “I learn we are going after treasure--hear +it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don’t +like treasure voyages on any account, and I don’t like them, above all, +when they are secret and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the +secret has been told to the parrot.” + +“Silver’s parrot?” asked the squire. + +“It’s a way of speaking,” said the captain. “Blabbed, I mean. It’s my +belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about, but I’ll tell +you my way of it--life or death, and a close run.” + +“That is all clear, and, I dare say, true enough,” replied Dr. Livesey. +“We take the risk, but we are not so ignorant as you believe us. Next, +you say you don’t like the crew. Are they not good seamen?” + +“I don’t like them, sir,” returned Captain Smollett. “And I think I +should have had the choosing of my own hands, if you go to that.” + +“Perhaps you should,” replied the doctor. “My friend should, perhaps, +have taken you along with him; but the slight, if there be one, was +unintentional. And you don’t like Mr. Arrow?” + +“I don’t, sir. I believe he’s a good seaman, but he’s too free with +the crew to be a good officer. A mate should keep himself to +himself--shouldn’t drink with the men before the mast!” + +“Do you mean he drinks?” cried the squire. + +“No, sir,” replied the captain, “only that he’s too familiar.” + +“Well, now, and the short and long of it, captain?” asked the doctor. +“Tell us what you want.” + +“Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go on this cruise?” + +“Like iron,” answered the squire. + +“Very good,” said the captain. “Then, as you’ve heard me very patiently, +saying things that I could not prove, hear me a few words more. They are +putting the powder and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you have a good +place under the cabin; why not put them there?--first point. Then, you +are bringing four of your own people with you, and they tell me some of +them are to be berthed forward. Why not give them the berths here beside +the cabin?--second point.” + +“Any more?” asked Mr. Trelawney. + +“One more,” said the captain. “There’s been too much blabbing already.” + +“Far too much,” agreed the doctor. + +“I’ll tell you what I’ve heard myself,” continued Captain Smollett: +“that you have a map of an island, that there’s crosses on the map to +show where treasure is, and that the island lies--” And then he named +the latitude and longitude exactly. + +“I never told that,” cried the squire, “to a soul!” + +“The hands know it, sir,” returned the captain. + +“Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins,” cried the squire. + +“It doesn’t much matter who it was,” replied the doctor. And I could +see that neither he nor the captain paid much regard to Mr. Trelawney’s +protestations. Neither did I, to be sure, he was so loose a talker; yet +in this case I believe he was really right and that nobody had told the +situation of the island. + +“Well, gentlemen,” continued the captain, “I don’t know who has this +map; but I make it a point, it shall be kept secret even from me and Mr. +Arrow. Otherwise I would ask you to let me resign.” + +“I see,” said the doctor. “You wish us to keep this matter dark and to +make a garrison of the stern part of the ship, manned with my friend’s +own people, and provided with all the arms and powder on board. In other +words, you fear a mutiny.” + +“Sir,” said Captain Smollett, “with no intention to take offence, I +deny your right to put words into my mouth. No captain, sir, would be +justified in going to sea at all if he had ground enough to say that. As +for Mr. Arrow, I believe him thoroughly honest; some of the men are the +same; all may be for what I know. But I am responsible for the ship’s +safety and the life of every man Jack aboard of her. I see things going, +as I think, not quite right. And I ask you to take certain precautions +or let me resign my berth. And that’s all.” + +“Captain Smollett,” began the doctor with a smile, “did ever you hear +the fable of the mountain and the mouse? You’ll excuse me, I dare say, +but you remind me of that fable. When you came in here, I’ll stake my +wig, you meant more than this.” + +“Doctor,” said the captain, “you are smart. When I came in here I meant +to get discharged. I had no thought that Mr. Trelawney would hear a +word.” + +“No more I would,” cried the squire. “Had Livesey not been here I should +have seen you to the deuce. As it is, I have heard you. I will do as you +desire, but I think the worse of you.” + +“That’s as you please, sir,” said the captain. “You’ll find I do my +duty.” + +And with that he took his leave. + +“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “contrary to all my notions, I believed +you have managed to get two honest men on board with you--that man and +John Silver.” + +“Silver, if you like,” cried the squire; “but as for that intolerable +humbug, I declare I think his conduct unmanly, unsailorly, and downright +un-English.” + +“Well,” says the doctor, “we shall see.” + +When we came on deck, the men had begun already to take out the arms and +powder, yo-ho-ing at their work, while the captain and Mr. Arrow stood +by superintending. + +The new arrangement was quite to my liking. The whole schooner had been +overhauled; six berths had been made astern out of what had been the +after-part of the main hold; and this set of cabins was only joined to +the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side. It had +been originally meant that the captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the +doctor, and the squire were to occupy these six berths. Now Redruth and +I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep +on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged on each side till you +might almost have called it a round-house. Very low it was still, of +course; but there was room to swing two hammocks, and even the mate +seemed pleased with the arrangement. Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful +as to the crew, but that is only guess, for as you shall hear, we had +not long the benefit of his opinion. + +We were all hard at work, changing the powder and the berths, when +the last man or two, and Long John along with them, came off in a +shore-boat. + +The cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness, and as soon as +he saw what was doing, “So ho, mates!” says he. “What’s this?” + +“We’re a-changing of the powder, Jack,” answers one. + +“Why, by the powers,” cried Long John, “if we do, we’ll miss the morning +tide!” + +“My orders!” said the captain shortly. “You may go below, my man. Hands +will want supper.” + +“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the cook, and touching his forelock, he +disappeared at once in the direction of his galley. + +“That’s a good man, captain,” said the doctor. + +“Very likely, sir,” replied Captain Smollett. “Easy with that, +men--easy,” he ran on, to the fellows who were shifting the powder; and +then suddenly observing me examining the swivel we carried amidships, +a long brass nine, “Here you, ship’s boy,” he cried, “out o’ that! Off +with you to the cook and get some work.” + +And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the +doctor, “I’ll have no favourites on my ship.” + +I assure you I was quite of the squire’s way of thinking, and hated the +captain deeply. + + + + +10 + +The Voyage + +ALL that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their +place, and boatfuls of the squire’s friends, Mr. Blandly and the like, +coming off to wish him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had +a night at the Admiral Benbow when I had half the work; and I was +dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe +and the crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice +as weary, yet I would not have left the deck, all was so new and +interesting to me--the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, +the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship’s lanterns. + +“Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,” cried one voice. + +“The old one,” cried another. + +“Aye, aye, mates,” said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch +under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I knew so +well: + +“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest--” + +And then the whole crew bore chorus:-- + +“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” + +And at the third “Ho!” drove the bars before them with a will. + +Even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old Admiral +Benbow in a second, and I seemed to hear the voice of the captain piping +in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging +dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and +shipping to flit by on either side; and before I could lie down to +snatch an hour of slumber the HISPANIOLA had begun her voyage to the +Isle of Treasure. + +I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It was fairly +prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable +seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before +we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened +which require to be known. + +Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had +feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they +pleased with him. But that was by no means the worst of it, for after a +day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, +stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time +he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself; +sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the +companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and +attend to his work at least passably. + +In the meantime, we could never make out where he got the drink. That +was the ship’s mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we could do nothing to +solve it; and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh if +he were drunk, and if he were sober deny solemnly that he ever tasted +anything but water. + +He was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence amongst +the men, but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself +outright, so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark +night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more. + +“Overboard!” said the captain. “Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble +of putting him in irons.” + +But there we were, without a mate; and it was necessary, of course, to +advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest +man aboard, and though he kept his old title, he served in a way as +mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him +very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather. And the +coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who +could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything. + +He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of +his name leads me on to speak of our ship’s cook, Barbecue, as the men +called him. + +Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have +both hands as free as possible. It was something to see him wedge the +foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and propped against it, yielding +to every movement of the ship, get on with his cooking like someone safe +ashore. Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather +cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the +widest spaces--Long John’s earrings, they were called; and he would hand +himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it +alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some +of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see +him so reduced. + +“He’s no common man, Barbecue,” said the coxswain to me. “He had good +schooling in his young days and can speak like a book when so minded; +and brave--a lion’s nothing alongside of Long John! I seen him grapple +four and knock their heads together--him unarmed.” + +All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking +to each and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was +unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept +as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in +a cage in one corner. + +“Come away, Hawkins,” he would say; “come and have a yarn with John. +Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the +news. Here’s Cap’n Flint--I calls my parrot Cap’n Flint, after the +famous buccaneer--here’s Cap’n Flint predicting success to our v’yage. +Wasn’t you, cap’n?” + +And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, “Pieces of eight! Pieces +of eight! Pieces of eight!” till you wondered that it was not out of +breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage. + +“Now, that bird,” he would say, “is, maybe, two hundred years +old, Hawkins--they live forever mostly; and if anybody’s seen more +wickedness, it must be the devil himself. She’s sailed with England, +the great Cap’n England, the pirate. She’s been at Madagascar, and at +Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and Portobello. She was at the +fishing up of the wrecked plate ships. It’s there she learned ‘Pieces +of eight,’ and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of ’em, +Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the viceroy of the Indies out of +Goa, she was; and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But +you smelt powder--didn’t you, cap’n?” + +“Stand by to go about,” the parrot would scream. + +“Ah, she’s a handsome craft, she is,” the cook would say, and give her +sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and +swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. “There,” John would +add, “you can’t touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here’s this poor old +innocent bird o’ mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may +lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before +chaplain.” And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had +that made me think he was the best of men. + +In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty +distant terms with one another. The squire made no bones about the +matter; he despised the captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke +but when he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and not a +word wasted. He owned, when driven into a corner, that he seemed to have +been wrong about the crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted +to see and all had behaved fairly well. As for the ship, he had taken a +downright fancy to her. “She’ll lie a point nearer the wind than a man +has a right to expect of his own married wife, sir. But,” he would add, +“all I say is, we’re not home again, and I don’t like the cruise.” + +The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and down the deck, +chin in air. + +“A trifle more of that man,” he would say, “and I shall explode.” + +We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities of the +HISPANIOLA. Every man on board seemed well content, and they must have +been hard to please if they had been otherwise, for it is my belief +there was never a ship’s company so spoiled since Noah put to sea. +Double grog was going on the least excuse; there was duff on odd days, +as, for instance, if the squire heard it was any man’s birthday, and +always a barrel of apples standing broached in the waist for anyone to +help himself that had a fancy. + +“Never knew good come of it yet,” the captain said to Dr. Livesey. +“Spoil forecastle hands, make devils. That’s my belief.” + +But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear, for if it had +not been for that, we should have had no note of warning and might all +have perished by the hand of treachery. + +This was how it came about. + +We had run up the trades to get the wind of the island we were after--I +am not allowed to be more plain--and now we were running down for it +with a bright lookout day and night. It was about the last day of our +outward voyage by the largest computation; some time that night, or at +latest before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. +We were heading S.S.W. and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. +The HISPANIOLA rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with +a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; everyone was in the +bravest spirits because we were now so near an end of the first part of +our adventure. + +Now, just after sundown, when all my work was over and I was on my way +to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on +deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at +the helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently +to himself, and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea +against the bows and around the sides of the ship. + +In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and found there was scarce an +apple left; but sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of +the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen +asleep or was on the point of doing so when a heavy man sat down with +rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders +against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak. +It was Silver’s voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would +not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and +listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for from these dozen +words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended +upon me alone. + + + + +11 + +What I Heard in the Apple Barrel + +“NO, not I,” said Silver. “Flint was cap’n; I was quartermaster, along +of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his +deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me--out of +college and all--Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged +like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That +was Roberts’ men, that was, and comed of changing names to their +ships--ROYAL FORTUNE and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let +her stay, I says. So it was with the CASSANDRA, as brought us all safe +home from Malabar, after England took the viceroy of the Indies; so it +was with the old WALRUS, Flint’s old ship, as I’ve seen amuck with the +red blood and fit to sink with gold.” + +“Ah!” cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and +evidently full of admiration. “He was the flower of the flock, was +Flint!” + +“Davis was a man too, by all accounts,” said Silver. “I never sailed +along of him; first with England, then with Flint, that’s my story; +and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine +hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain’t bad +for a man before the mast--all safe in bank. ’Tain’t earning now, it’s +saving does it, you may lay to that. Where’s all England’s men now? I +dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most on ’em aboard here, and glad to get +the duff--been begging before that, some on ’em. Old Pew, as had lost +his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in +a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he’s dead now +and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, +the man was starving! He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and +starved at that, by the powers!” + +“Well, it ain’t much use, after all,” said the young seaman. + +“’Tain’t much use for fools, you may lay to it--that, nor nothing,” + cried Silver. “But now, you look here: you’re young, you are, but you’re +as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I’ll talk +to you like a man.” + +You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue +addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used +to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed +him through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he was +overheard. + +“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk +swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise +is done, why, it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings +in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to +sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay. I puts it +all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason +of suspicion. I’m fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise, I set up +gentleman in earnest. Time enough too, says you. Ah, but I’ve lived easy +in the meantime, never denied myself o’ nothing heart desires, and slep’ +soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea. And how did I begin? +Before the mast, like you!” + +“Well,” said the other, “but all the other money’s gone now, ain’t it? +You daren’t show face in Bristol after this.” + +“Why, where might you suppose it was?” asked Silver derisively. + +“At Bristol, in banks and places,” answered his companion. + +“It were,” said the cook; “it were when we weighed anchor. But my old +missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass is sold, lease and goodwill +and rigging; and the old girl’s off to meet me. I would tell you where, +for I trust you, but it’d make jealousy among the mates.” + +“And can you trust your missis?” asked the other. + +“Gentlemen of fortune,” returned the cook, “usually trusts little among +themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with +me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cable--one as knows me, I +mean--it won’t be in the same world with old John. There was some that +was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own +self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest +crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil himself would have been feared to go +to sea with them. Well now, I tell you, I’m not a boasting man, and you +seen yourself how easy I keep company, but when I was quartermaster, +LAMBS wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of +yourself in old John’s ship.” + +“Well, I tell you now,” replied the lad, “I didn’t half a quarter like +the job till I had this talk with you, John; but there’s my hand on it +now.” + +“And a brave lad you were, and smart too,” answered Silver, shaking +hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, “and a finer figurehead for +a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on.” + +By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a +“gentleman of fortune” they plainly meant neither more nor less than a +common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last +act in the corruption of one of the honest hands--perhaps of the last +one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for Silver +giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the +party. + +“Dick’s square,” said Silver. + +“Oh, I know’d Dick was square,” returned the voice of the coxswain, +Israel Hands. “He’s no fool, is Dick.” And he turned his quid and spat. +“But look here,” he went on, “here’s what I want to know, Barbecue: how +long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat? I’ve had +a’most enough o’ Cap’n Smollett; he’s hazed me long enough, by thunder! +I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and wines, and +that.” + +“Israel,” said Silver, “your head ain’t much account, nor ever was. But +you’re able to hear, I reckon; leastways, your ears is big enough. +Now, here’s what I say: you’ll berth forward, and you’ll live hard, and +you’ll speak soft, and you’ll keep sober till I give the word; and you +may lay to that, my son.” + +“Well, I don’t say no, do I?” growled the coxswain. “What I say is, +when? That’s what I say.” + +“When! By the powers!” cried Silver. “Well now, if you want to know, +I’ll tell you when. The last moment I can manage, and that’s when. +Here’s a first-rate seaman, Cap’n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for +us. Here’s this squire and doctor with a map and such--I don’t know +where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well then, I mean this +squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it aboard, +by the powers. Then we’ll see. If I was sure of you all, sons of double +Dutchmen, I’d have Cap’n Smollett navigate us half-way back again before +I struck.” + +“Why, we’re all seamen aboard here, I should think,” said the lad Dick. + +“We’re all forecastle hands, you mean,” snapped Silver. “We can steer +a course, but who’s to set one? That’s what all you gentlemen split on, +first and last. If I had my way, I’d have Cap’n Smollett work us back +into the trades at least; then we’d have no blessed miscalculations and +a spoonful of water a day. But I know the sort you are. I’ll finish with +’em at the island, as soon’s the blunt’s on board, and a pity it is. But +you’re never happy till you’re drunk. Split my sides, I’ve a sick heart +to sail with the likes of you!” + +“Easy all, Long John,” cried Israel. “Who’s a-crossin’ of you?” + +“Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I seen laid aboard? And +how many brisk lads drying in the sun at Execution Dock?” cried Silver. +“And all for this same hurry and hurry and hurry. You hear me? I seen +a thing or two at sea, I have. If you would on’y lay your course, and a +p’int to windward, you would ride in carriages, you would. But not you! +I know you. You’ll have your mouthful of rum tomorrow, and go hang.” + +“Everybody knowed you was a kind of a chapling, John; but there’s others +as could hand and steer as well as you,” said Israel. “They liked a bit +o’ fun, they did. They wasn’t so high and dry, nohow, but took their +fling, like jolly companions every one.” + +“So?” says Silver. “Well, and where are they now? Pew was that sort, +and he died a beggar-man. Flint was, and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, +they was a sweet crew, they was! On’y, where are they?” + +“But,” asked Dick, “when we do lay ’em athwart, what are we to do with +’em, anyhow?” + +“There’s the man for me!” cried the cook admiringly. “That’s what I call +business. Well, what would you think? Put ’em ashore like maroons? That +would have been England’s way. Or cut ’em down like that much pork? That +would have been Flint’s, or Billy Bones’s.” + +“Billy was the man for that,” said Israel. “‘Dead men don’t bite,’ says +he. Well, he’s dead now hisself; he knows the long and short on it now; +and if ever a rough hand come to port, it was Billy.” + +“Right you are,” said Silver; “rough and ready. But mark you here, +I’m an easy man--I’m quite the gentleman, says you; but this time it’s +serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my vote--death. When I’m in +Parlyment and riding in my coach, I don’t want none of these sea-lawyers +in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. +Wait is what I say; but when the time comes, why, let her rip!” + +“John,” cries the coxswain, “you’re a man!” + +“You’ll say so, Israel when you see,” said Silver. “Only one thing I +claim--I claim Trelawney. I’ll wring his calf’s head off his body with +these hands, Dick!” he added, breaking off. “You just jump up, like a +sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe like.” + +You may fancy the terror I was in! I should have leaped out and run for +it if I had found the strength, but my limbs and heart alike misgave me. +I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone seemingly stopped him, and +the voice of Hands exclaimed, “Oh, stow that! Don’t you get sucking of +that bilge, John. Let’s have a go of the rum.” + +“Dick,” said Silver, “I trust you. I’ve a gauge on the keg, mind. +There’s the key; you fill a pannikin and bring it up.” + +Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must +have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him. + +Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke +straight on in the cook’s ear. It was but a word or two that I could +catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps +that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible: “Not +another man of them’ll jine.” Hence there were still faithful men on +board. + +When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and +drank--one “To luck,” another with a “Here’s to old Flint,” and Silver +himself saying, in a kind of song, “Here’s to ourselves, and hold your +luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.” + +Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking +up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and +shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time +the voice of the lookout shouted, “Land ho!” + + + + +12 + +Council of War + +THERE was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could hear people +tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an +instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the fore-sail, made a double +towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join +Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow. + +There all hands were already congregated. A belt of fog had lifted +almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon. Away to the +south-west of us we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, +and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose peak was +still buried in the fog. All three seemed sharp and conical in figure. + +So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet recovered from my +horrid fear of a minute or two before. And then I heard the voice of +Captain Smollett issuing orders. The HISPANIOLA was laid a couple of +points nearer the wind and now sailed a course that would just clear the +island on the east. + +“And now, men,” said the captain, when all was sheeted home, “has any +one of you ever seen that land ahead?” + +“I have, sir,” said Silver. “I’ve watered there with a trader I was cook +in.” + +“The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I fancy?” asked the +captain. + +“Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it. It were a main place for +pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed all their names for it. +That hill to the nor’ard they calls the Fore-mast Hill; there are three +hills in a row running south’ard--fore, main, and mizzen, sir. But the +main--that’s the big un, with the cloud on it--they usually calls +the Spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the +anchorage cleaning, for it’s there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking +your pardon.” + +“I have a chart here,” says Captain Smollett. “See if that’s the place.” + +Long John’s eyes burned in his head as he took the chart, but by the +fresh look of the paper I knew he was doomed to disappointment. This +was not the map we found in Billy Bones’s chest, but an accurate copy, +complete in all things--names and heights and soundings--with the single +exception of the red crosses and the written notes. Sharp as must have +been his annoyance, Silver had the strength of mind to hide it. + +“Yes, sir,” said he, “this is the spot, to be sure, and very prettily +drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder? The pirates were too +ignorant, I reckon. Aye, here it is: ‘Capt. Kidd’s Anchorage’--just +the name my shipmate called it. There’s a strong current runs along the +south, and then away nor’ard up the west coast. Right you was, sir,” + says he, “to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. +Leastways, if such was your intention as to enter and careen, and there +ain’t no better place for that in these waters.” + +“Thank you, my man,” says Captain Smollett. “I’ll ask you later on to +give us a help. You may go.” + +I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed his knowledge +of the island, and I own I was half-frightened when I saw him drawing +nearer to myself. He did not know, to be sure, that I had overheard his +council from the apple barrel, and yet I had by this time taken such a +horror of his cruelty, duplicity, and power that I could scarce conceal +a shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm. + +“Ah,” says he, “this here is a sweet spot, this island--a sweet spot for +a lad to get ashore on. You’ll bathe, and you’ll climb trees, and you’ll +hunt goats, you will; and you’ll get aloft on them hills like a goat +yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I was going to forget my timber +leg, I was. It’s a pleasant thing to be young and have ten toes, and you +may lay to that. When you want to go a bit of exploring, you just ask +old John, and he’ll put up a snack for you to take along.” + +And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoulder, he hobbled off +forward and went below. + +Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on +the quarter-deck, and anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst +not interrupt them openly. While I was still casting about in my +thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to his +side. He had left his pipe below, and being a slave to tobacco, had +meant that I should fetch it; but as soon as I was near enough to speak +and not to be overheard, I broke immediately, “Doctor, let me speak. Get +the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then make some pretence to +send for me. I have terrible news.” + +The doctor changed countenance a little, but next moment he was master +of himself. + +“Thank you, Jim,” said he quite loudly, “that was all I wanted to know,” + as if he had asked me a question. + +And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other two. They +spoke together for a little, and though none of them started, or raised +his voice, or so much as whistled, it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey +had communicated my request, for the next thing that I heard was the +captain giving an order to Job Anderson, and all hands were piped on +deck. + +“My lads,” said Captain Smollett, “I’ve a word to say to you. This +land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing for. Mr. +Trelawney, being a very open-handed gentleman, as we all know, has just +asked me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that every man on +board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to see it done +better, why, he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to +drink YOUR health and luck, and you’ll have grog served out for you to +drink OUR health and luck. I’ll tell you what I think of this: I think +it handsome. And if you think as I do, you’ll give a good sea-cheer for +the gentleman that does it.” + +The cheer followed--that was a matter of course; but it rang out so full +and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe these same men were +plotting for our blood. + +“One more cheer for Cap’n Smollett,” cried Long John when the first had +subsided. + +And this also was given with a will. + +On the top of that the three gentlemen went below, and not long after, +word was sent forward that Jim Hawkins was wanted in the cabin. + +I found them all three seated round the table, a bottle of Spanish wine +and some raisins before them, and the doctor smoking away, with his wig +on his lap, and that, I knew, was a sign that he was agitated. The stern +window was open, for it was a warm night, and you could see the moon +shining behind on the ship’s wake. + +“Now, Hawkins,” said the squire, “you have something to say. Speak up.” + +I did as I was bid, and as short as I could make it, told the whole +details of Silver’s conversation. Nobody interrupted me till I was done, +nor did any one of the three of them make so much as a movement, but +they kept their eyes upon my face from first to last. + +“Jim,” said Dr. Livesey, “take a seat.” + +And they made me sit down at table beside them, poured me out a glass of +wine, filled my hands with raisins, and all three, one after the other, +and each with a bow, drank my good health, and their service to me, for +my luck and courage. + +“Now, captain,” said the squire, “you were right, and I was wrong. I own +myself an ass, and I await your orders.” + +“No more an ass than I, sir,” returned the captain. “I never heard of a +crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that +had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But +this crew,” he added, “beats me.” + +“Captain,” said the doctor, “with your permission, that’s Silver. A very +remarkable man.” + +“He’d look remarkably well from a yard-arm, sir,” returned the captain. +“But this is talk; this don’t lead to anything. I see three or four +points, and with Mr. Trelawney’s permission, I’ll name them.” + +“You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak,” says Mr. Trelawney +grandly. + +“First point,” began Mr. Smollett. “We must go on, because we can’t turn +back. If I gave the word to go about, they would rise at once. Second +point, we have time before us--at least until this treasure’s found. +Third point, there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it’s got to come +to blows sooner or later, and what I propose is to take time by the +forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows some fine day when they +least expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home servants, Mr. +Trelawney?” + +“As upon myself,” declared the squire. + +“Three,” reckoned the captain; “ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins +here. Now, about the honest hands?” + +“Most likely Trelawney’s own men,” said the doctor; “those he had picked +up for himself before he lit on Silver.” + +“Nay,” replied the squire. “Hands was one of mine.” + +“I did think I could have trusted Hands,” added the captain. + +“And to think that they’re all Englishmen!” broke out the squire. “Sir, +I could find it in my heart to blow the ship up.” + +“Well, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the best that I can say is not +much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It’s +trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But +there’s no help for it till we know our men. Lay to, and whistle for a +wind, that’s my view.” + +“Jim here,” said the doctor, “can help us more than anyone. The men are +not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad.” + +“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you,” added the squire. + +I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether +helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed +through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there +were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely; and +out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were +six to their nineteen. + + + + + + +PART THREE--My Shore Adventure + + + + +13 + +How My Shore Adventure Began + +THE appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was +altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly ceased, we had +made a great deal of way during the night and were now lying becalmed +about half a mile to the south-east of the low eastern coast. +Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint +was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands, +and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others--some +singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. +The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. +All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four +hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in +configuration, running up sheer from almost every side and then suddenly +cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on. + +The HISPANIOLA was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell. The booms +were tearing at the blocks, the rudder was banging to and fro, and the +whole ship creaking, groaning, and jumping like a manufactory. I had +to cling tight to the backstay, and the world turned giddily before my +eyes, for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on, this +standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never +learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all in the morning, on an +empty stomach. + +Perhaps it was this--perhaps it was the look of the island, with its +grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we +could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach--at +least, although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore birds were +fishing and crying all around us, and you would have thought anyone +would have been glad to get to land after being so long at sea, my heart +sank, as the saying is, into my boots; and from the first look onward, I +hated the very thought of Treasure Island. + +We had a dreary morning’s work before us, for there was no sign of any +wind, and the boats had to be got out and manned, and the ship warped +three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow +passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I volunteered for one of +the boats, where I had, of course, no business. The heat was sweltering, +and the men grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was in command +of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew in order, he grumbled as +loud as the worst. + +“Well,” he said with an oath, “it’s not forever.” + +I thought this was a very bad sign, for up to that day the men had gone +briskly and willingly about their business; but the very sight of the +island had relaxed the cords of discipline. + +All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. +He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the +chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John never +hesitated once. + +“There’s a strong scour with the ebb,” he said, “and this here passage +has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade.” + +We brought up just where the anchor was in the chart, about a third of +a mile from each shore, the mainland on one side and Skeleton Island on +the other. The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor sent up +clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods, but in less than a +minute they were down again and all was once more silent. + +The place was entirely land-locked, buried in woods, the trees coming +right down to high-water mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hilltops +standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one +there. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps, emptied out into this +pond, as you might call it; and the foliage round that part of the shore +had a kind of poisonous brightness. From the ship we could see nothing +of the house or stockade, for they were quite buried among trees; and if +it had not been for the chart on the companion, we might have been the +first that had ever anchored there since the island arose out of the +seas. + +There was not a breath of air moving, nor a sound but that of the +surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks +outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage--a smell of +sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor sniffing +and sniffing, like someone tasting a bad egg. + +“I don’t know about treasure,” he said, “but I’ll stake my wig there’s +fever here.” + +If the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat, it became truly +threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck growling +together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look and +grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught +the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another. Mutiny, +it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud. + +And it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger. Long +John was hard at work going from group to group, spending himself in +good advice, and as for example no man could have shown a better. He +fairly outstripped himself in willingness and civility; he was all +smiles to everyone. If an order were given, John would be on his crutch +in an instant, with the cheeriest “Aye, aye, sir!” in the world; and +when there was nothing else to do, he kept up one song after another, as +if to conceal the discontent of the rest. + +Of all the gloomy features of that gloomy afternoon, this obvious +anxiety on the part of Long John appeared the worst. + +We held a council in the cabin. + +“Sir,” said the captain, “if I risk another order, the whole ship’ll +come about our ears by the run. You see, sir, here it is. I get a rough +answer, do I not? Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two +shakes; if I don’t, Silver will see there’s something under that, and +the game’s up. Now, we’ve only one man to rely on.” + +“And who is that?” asked the squire. + +“Silver, sir,” returned the captain; “he’s as anxious as you and I to +smother things up. This is a tiff; he’d soon talk ’em out of it if he +had the chance, and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. +Let’s allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why we’ll fight +the ship. If they none of them go, well then, we hold the cabin, and God +defend the right. If some go, you mark my words, sir, Silver’ll bring +’em aboard again as mild as lambs.” + +It was so decided; loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men; +Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were taken into our confidence and received +the news with less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for, +and then the captain went on deck and addressed the crew. + +“My lads,” said he, “we’ve had a hot day and are all tired and out of +sorts. A turn ashore’ll hurt nobody--the boats are still in the water; +you can take the gigs, and as many as please may go ashore for the +afternoon. I’ll fire a gun half an hour before sundown.” + +I believe the silly fellows must have thought they would break their +shins over treasure as soon as they were landed, for they all came out +of their sulks in a moment and gave a cheer that started the echo in a +faraway hill and sent the birds once more flying and squalling round the +anchorage. + +The captain was too bright to be in the way. He whipped out of sight +in a moment, leaving Silver to arrange the party, and I fancy it was as +well he did so. Had he been on deck, he could no longer so much as +have pretended not to understand the situation. It was as plain as day. +Silver was the captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it. The +honest hands--and I was soon to see it proved that there were such on +board--must have been very stupid fellows. Or rather, I suppose the +truth was this, that all hands were disaffected by the example of the +ringleaders--only some more, some less; and a few, being good fellows in +the main, could neither be led nor driven any further. It is one thing +to be idle and skulk and quite another to take a ship and murder a +number of innocent men. + +At last, however, the party was made up. Six fellows were to stay on +board, and the remaining thirteen, including Silver, began to embark. + +Then it was that there came into my head the first of the mad notions +that contributed so much to save our lives. If six men were left by +Silver, it was plain our party could not take and fight the ship; and +since only six were left, it was equally plain that the cabin party +had no present need of my assistance. It occurred to me at once to go +ashore. In a jiffy I had slipped over the side and curled up in the +fore-sheets of the nearest boat, and almost at the same moment she +shoved off. + +No one took notice of me, only the bow oar saying, “Is that you, Jim? +Keep your head down.” But Silver, from the other boat, looked sharply +over and called out to know if that were me; and from that moment I +began to regret what I had done. + +The crews raced for the beach, but the boat I was in, having some start +and being at once the lighter and the better manned, shot far ahead of +her consort, and the bow had struck among the shore-side trees and I +had caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into the nearest +thicket while Silver and the rest were still a hundred yards behind. + +“Jim, Jim!” I heard him shouting. + +But you may suppose I paid no heed; jumping, ducking, and breaking +through, I ran straight before my nose till I could run no longer. + + + + +14 + +The First Blow + +I WAS so pleased at having given the slip to Long John that I began to +enjoy myself and look around me with some interest on the strange land +that I was in. + +I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, +outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come out upon the skirts of an +open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with +a few pines and a great number of contorted trees, not unlike the oak +in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of +the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining +vividly in the sun. + +I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was +uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind, and nothing lived in front +of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among the +trees. Here and there were flowering plants, unknown to me; here and +there I saw snakes, and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and +hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did +I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous +rattle. + +Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike trees--live, or +evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should be called--which grew +low along the sand like brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the +foliage compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from the top of +one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing taller as it went, until +it reached the margin of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest +of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh was +steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass trembled +through the haze. + +All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bulrushes; +a wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon over the +whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and +circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be +drawing near along the borders of the fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon +I heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I +continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer. + +This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest +live-oak and squatted there, hearkening, as silent as a mouse. + +Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which I now recognized +to be Silver’s, once more took up the story and ran on for a long while +in a stream, only now and again interrupted by the other. By the sound +they must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely; but no +distinct word came to my hearing. + +At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down, +for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves +began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the +swamp. + +And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business, that since +I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the +least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my +plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the +favourable ambush of the crouching trees. + +I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only by +the sound of their voices but by the behaviour of the few birds that +still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders. + +Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at +last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear +down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about +with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to +face in conversation. + +The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the +ground, and his great, smooth, blond face, all shining with heat, was +lifted to the other man’s in a kind of appeal. + +“Mate,” he was saying, “it’s because I thinks gold dust of you--gold +dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn’t took to you like pitch, do +you think I’d have been here a-warning of you? All’s up--you can’t make +nor mend; it’s to save your neck that I’m a-speaking, and if one of the +wild uns knew it, where’d I be, Tom--now, tell me, where’d I be?” + +“Silver,” said the other man--and I observed he was not only red in the +face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a +taut rope--“Silver,” says he, “you’re old, and you’re honest, or has the +name for it; and you’ve money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn’t; +and you’re brave, or I’m mistook. And will you tell me you’ll let +yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure +as God sees me, I’d sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin my dooty--” + +And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise. I had found +one of the honest hands--well, here, at that same moment, came news of +another. Far away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound +like the cry of anger, then another on the back of it; and then one +horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the Spy-glass re-echoed it a +score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening +heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was +still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and +only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant +surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon. + +Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver had +not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, +watching his companion like a snake about to spring. + +“John!” said the sailor, stretching out his hand. + +“Hands off!” cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed to me, with +the speed and security of a trained gymnast. + +“Hands off, if you like, John Silver,” said the other. “It’s a black +conscience that can make you feared of me. But in heaven’s name, tell +me, what was that?” + +“That?” returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than ever, his eye +a mere pin-point in his big face, but gleaming like a crumb of glass. +“That? Oh, I reckon that’ll be Alan.” + +And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero. + +“Alan!” he cried. “Then rest his soul for a true seaman! And as for you, +John Silver, long you’ve been a mate of mine, but you’re mate of mine +no more. If I die like a dog, I’ll die in my dooty. You’ve killed Alan, +have you? Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you.” + +And with that, this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook +and set off walking for the beach. But he was not destined to go far. +With a cry John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of +his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air. +It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right +between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he +gave a sort of gasp, and fell. + +Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever tell. Like +enough, to judge from the sound, his back was broken on the spot. But he +had no time given him to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without +leg or crutch, was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried +his knife up to the hilt in that defenceless body. From my place of +ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows. + +I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the +next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling +mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going +round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells +ringing and distant voices shouting in my ear. + +When I came again to myself the monster had pulled himself together, +his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom +lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, +cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. +Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the +steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce +persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life +cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes. + +But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle, and +blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated +air. I could not tell, of course, the meaning of the signal, but +it instantly awoke my fears. More men would be coming. I might be +discovered. They had already slain two of the honest people; after Tom +and Alan, might not I come next? + +Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again, with what +speed and silence I could manage, to the more open portion of the +wood. As I did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the old +buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of danger lent me wings. As +soon as I was clear of the thicket, I ran as I never ran before, scarce +minding the direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the +murderers; and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into +a kind of frenzy. + +Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, +how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still +smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring +my neck like a snipe’s? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to +them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, +I thought. Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA; good-bye to the squire, the +doctor, and the captain! There was nothing left for me but death by +starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers. + +All this while, as I say, I was still running, and without taking any +notice, I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two +peaks and had got into a part of the island where the live-oaks grew +more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and +dimensions. Mingled with these were a few scattered pines, some fifty, +some nearer seventy, feet high. The air too smelt more freshly than down +beside the marsh. + +And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart. + + + + +15 + +The Man of the Island + +FROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and stony, a spout of +gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees. +My eyes turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a figure leap +with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. What it was, whether +bear or man or monkey, I could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and +shaggy; more I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition brought +me to a stand. + +I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind me the murderers, +before me this lurking nondescript. And immediately I began to prefer +the dangers that I knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared +less terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods, and I turned +on my heel, and looking sharply behind me over my shoulder, began to +retrace my steps in the direction of the boats. + +Instantly the figure reappeared, and making a wide circuit, began to +head me off. I was tired, at any rate; but had I been as fresh as when I +rose, I could see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an +adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted like a deer, running +manlike on two legs, but unlike any man that I had ever seen, stooping +almost double as it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in doubt +about that. + +I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of +calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, +had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in +proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of +escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed +into my mind. As soon as I remembered I was not defenceless, courage +glowed again in my heart and I set my face resolutely for this man of +the island and walked briskly towards him. + +He was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk; but he must +have been watching me closely, for as soon as I began to move in his +direction he reappeared and took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated, +drew back, came forward again, and at last, to my wonder and +confusion, threw himself on his knees and held out his clasped hands in +supplication. + +At that I once more stopped. + +“Who are you?” I asked. + +“Ben Gunn,” he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, +like a rusty lock. “I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am; and I haven’t spoke with a +Christian these three years.” + +I could now see that he was a white man like myself and that his +features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever it was exposed, was +burnt by the sun; even his lips were black, and his fair eyes looked +quite startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men that I had seen +or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness. He was clothed with tatters +of old ship’s canvas and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary patchwork +was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous +fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. +About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was the +one thing solid in his whole accoutrement. + +“Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?” + +“Nay, mate,” said he; “marooned.” + +I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of +punishment common enough among the buccaneers, in which the offender +is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some +desolate and distant island. + +“Marooned three years agone,” he continued, “and lived on goats since +then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can +do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You +mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, +many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese--toasted, mostly--and woke +up again, and here I were.” + +“If ever I can get aboard again,” said I, “you shall have cheese by the +stone.” + +All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket, smoothing +my hands, looking at my boots, and generally, in the intervals of +his speech, showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow +creature. But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled +slyness. + +“If ever you can get aboard again, says you?” he repeated. “Why, now, +who’s to hinder you?” + +“Not you, I know,” was my reply. + +“And right you was,” he cried. “Now you--what do you call yourself, +mate?” + +“Jim,” I told him. + +“Jim, Jim,” says he, quite pleased apparently. “Well, now, Jim, I’ve +lived that rough as you’d be ashamed to hear of. Now, for instance, you +wouldn’t think I had had a pious mother--to look at me?” he asked. + +“Why, no, not in particular,” I answered. + +“Ah, well,” said he, “but I had--remarkable pious. And I was a civil, +pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism that fast, as you couldn’t +tell one word from another. And here’s what it come to, Jim, and it +begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones! That’s what it +begun with, but it went further’n that; and so my mother told me, and +predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence +that put me here. I’ve thought it all out in this here lonely island, +and I’m back on piety. You don’t catch me tasting rum so much, but just +a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I’m bound +I’ll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim”--looking all round him and +lowering his voice to a whisper--“I’m rich.” + +I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and +I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face, for he repeated the +statement hotly: “Rich! Rich! I says. And I’ll tell you what: I’ll make +a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you’ll bless your stars, you will, you was +the first that found me!” + +And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face, and he +tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly +before my eyes. + +“Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain’t Flint’s ship?” he asked. + +At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe that I had found +an ally, and I answered him at once. + +“It’s not Flint’s ship, and Flint is dead; but I’ll tell you true, as +you ask me--there are some of Flint’s hands aboard; worse luck for the +rest of us.” + +“Not a man--with one--leg?” he gasped. + +“Silver?” I asked. + +“Ah, Silver!” says he. “That were his name.” + +“He’s the cook, and the ringleader too.” + +He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he give it quite a +wring. + +“If you was sent by Long John,” he said, “I’m as good as pork, and I +know it. But where was you, do you suppose?” + +I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him +the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found +ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he +patted me on the head. + +“You’re a good lad, Jim,” he said; “and you’re all in a clove hitch, +ain’t you? Well, you just put your trust in Ben Gunn--Ben Gunn’s the man +to do it. Would you think it likely, now, that your squire would prove +a liberal-minded one in case of help--him being in a clove hitch, as you +remark?” + +I told him the squire was the most liberal of men. + +“Aye, but you see,” returned Ben Gunn, “I didn’t mean giving me a gate +to keep, and a suit of livery clothes, and such; that’s not my mark, +Jim. What I mean is, would he be likely to come down to the toon of, say +one thousand pounds out of money that’s as good as a man’s own already?” + +“I am sure he would,” said I. “As it was, all hands were to share.” + +“AND a passage home?” he added with a look of great shrewdness. + +“Why,” I cried, “the squire’s a gentleman. And besides, if we got rid of +the others, we should want you to help work the vessel home.” + +“Ah,” said he, “so you would.” And he seemed very much relieved. + +“Now, I’ll tell you what,” he went on. “So much I’ll tell you, and no +more. I were in Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure; he and +six along--six strong seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us +standing off and on in the old WALRUS. One fine day up went the signal, +and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in +a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about +the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the six all dead--dead +and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard us could make out. It was +battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways--him against six. Billy +Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster; and they asked him +where the treasure was. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you can go ashore, if you like, +and stay,’ he says; ‘but as for the ship, she’ll beat up for more, by +thunder!’ That’s what he said. + +“Well, I was in another ship three years back, and we sighted this +island. ‘Boys,’ said I, ‘here’s Flint’s treasure; let’s land and find +it.’ The cap’n was displeased at that, but my messmates were all of a +mind and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they had +the worse word for me, until one fine morning all hands went aboard. ‘As +for you, Benjamin Gunn,’ says they, ‘here’s a musket,’ they says, ‘and +a spade, and pick-axe. You can stay here and find Flint’s money for +yourself,’ they says. + +“Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite of Christian +diet from that day to this. But now, you look here; look at me. Do I +look like a man before the mast? No, says you. Nor I weren’t, neither, I +says.” + +And with that he winked and pinched me hard. + +“Just you mention them words to your squire, Jim,” he went on. “Nor he +weren’t, neither--that’s the words. Three years he were the man of this +island, light and dark, fair and rain; and sometimes he would maybe +think upon a prayer (says you), and sometimes he would maybe think of +his old mother, so be as she’s alive (you’ll say); but the most part +of Gunn’s time (this is what you’ll say)--the most part of his time was +took up with another matter. And then you’ll give him a nip, like I do.” + +And he pinched me again in the most confidential manner. + +“Then,” he continued, “then you’ll up, and you’ll say this: Gunn is a +good man (you’ll say), and he puts a precious sight more confidence--a +precious sight, mind that--in a gen’leman born than in these gen’leman +of fortune, having been one hisself.” + +“Well,” I said, “I don’t understand one word that you’ve been saying. +But that’s neither here nor there; for how am I to get on board?” + +“Ah,” said he, “that’s the hitch, for sure. Well, there’s my boat, that +I made with my two hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the worst +come to the worst, we might try that after dark. Hi!” he broke out. +“What’s that?” + +For just then, although the sun had still an hour or two to run, all the +echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon. + +“They have begun to fight!” I cried. “Follow me.” + +And I began to run towards the anchorage, my terrors all forgotten, +while close at my side the marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily +and lightly. + +“Left, left,” says he; “keep to your left hand, mate Jim! Under the +trees with you! Theer’s where I killed my first goat. They don’t come +down here now; they’re all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear +of Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there’s the cetemery”--cemetery, he must have +meant. “You see the mounds? I come here and prayed, nows and thens, when +I thought maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren’t quite a chapel, +but it seemed more solemn like; and then, says you, Ben Gunn was +short-handed--no chapling, nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says.” + +So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor receiving any answer. + +The cannon-shot was followed after a considerable interval by a volley +of small arms. + +Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I +beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above a wood. + + + + + + +PART FOUR--The Stockade + + + + +16 + +Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the Ship Was Abandoned + +IT was about half past one--three bells in the sea phrase--that the two +boats went ashore from the HISPANIOLA. The captain, the squire, and I +were talking matters over in the cabin. Had there been a breath of wind, +we should have fallen on the six mutineers who were left aboard with +us, slipped our cable, and away to sea. But the wind was wanting; and +to complete our helplessness, down came Hunter with the news that Jim +Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest. + +It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins, but we were alarmed for +his safety. With the men in the temper they were in, it seemed an even +chance if we should see the lad again. We ran on deck. The pitch was +bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of the place turned me sick; +if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that abominable +anchorage. The six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the +forecastle; ashore we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting +in each, hard by where the river runs in. One of them was whistling +“Lillibullero.” + +Waiting was a strain, and it was decided that Hunter and I should go +ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information. + +The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight in, +in the direction of the stockade upon the chart. The two who were +left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance; +“Lillibullero” stopped off, and I could see the pair discussing what +they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver, all might have turned +out differently; but they had their orders, I suppose, and decided to +sit quietly where they were and hark back again to “Lillibullero.” + +There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so as to put it +between us; even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs. +I jumped out and came as near running as I durst, with a big silk +handkerchief under my hat for coolness’ sake and a brace of pistols +ready primed for safety. + +I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade. + +This was how it was: a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a +knoll. Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had clapped a +stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed +for musketry on either side. All round this they had cleared a wide +space, and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high, +without door or opening, too strong to pull down without time and labour +and too open to shelter the besiegers. The people in the log-house had +them in every way; they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like +partridges. All they wanted was a good watch and food; for, short of a +complete surprise, they might have held the place against a regiment. + +What particularly took my fancy was the spring. For though we had a good +enough place of it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, with plenty of arms +and ammunition, and things to eat, and excellent wines, there had been +one thing overlooked--we had no water. I was thinking this over when +there came ringing over the island the cry of a man at the point of +death. I was not new to violent death--I have served his Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound myself at Fontenoy--but I know +my pulse went dot and carry one. “Jim Hawkins is gone,” was my first +thought. + +It is something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been +a doctor. There is no time to dilly-dally in our work. And so now I made +up my mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the shore and +jumped on board the jolly-boat. + +By good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar. We made the water fly, and the +boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner. + +I found them all shaken, as was natural. The squire was sitting down, as +white as a sheet, thinking of the harm he had led us to, the good soul! +And one of the six forecastle hands was little better. + +“There’s a man,” says Captain Smollett, nodding towards him, “new to +this work. He came nigh-hand fainting, doctor, when he heard the cry. +Another touch of the rudder and that man would join us.” + +I told my plan to the captain, and between us we settled on the details +of its accomplishment. + +We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle, +with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection. Hunter +brought the boat round under the stern-port, and Joyce and I set to work +loading her with powder tins, muskets, bags of biscuits, kegs of pork, a +cask of cognac, and my invaluable medicine chest. + +In the meantime, the squire and the captain stayed on deck, and the +latter hailed the coxswain, who was the principal man aboard. + +“Mr. Hands,” he said, “here are two of us with a brace of pistols each. +If any one of you six make a signal of any description, that man’s +dead.” + +They were a good deal taken aback, and after a little consultation one +and all tumbled down the fore companion, thinking no doubt to take us +on the rear. But when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the sparred +galley, they went about ship at once, and a head popped out again on +deck. + +“Down, dog!” cries the captain. + +And the head popped back again; and we heard no more, for the time, of +these six very faint-hearted seamen. + +By this time, tumbling things in as they came, we had the jolly-boat +loaded as much as we dared. Joyce and I got out through the stern-port, +and we made for shore again as fast as oars could take us. + +This second trip fairly aroused the watchers along shore. “Lillibullero” + was dropped again; and just before we lost sight of them behind the +little point, one of them whipped ashore and disappeared. I had half a +mind to change my plan and destroy their boats, but I feared that Silver +and the others might be close at hand, and all might very well be lost +by trying for too much. + +We had soon touched land in the same place as before and set to +provision the block house. All three made the first journey, heavily +laden, and tossed our stores over the palisade. Then, leaving Joyce to +guard them--one man, to be sure, but with half a dozen muskets--Hunter +and I returned to the jolly-boat and loaded ourselves once more. So +we proceeded without pausing to take breath, till the whole cargo was +bestowed, when the two servants took up their position in the block +house, and I, with all my power, sculled back to the HISPANIOLA. + +That we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it +really was. They had the advantage of numbers, of course, but we had the +advantage of arms. Not one of the men ashore had a musket, and before +they could get within range for pistol shooting, we flattered ourselves +we should be able to give a good account of a half-dozen at least. + +The squire was waiting for me at the stern window, all his faintness +gone from him. He caught the painter and made it fast, and we fell to +loading the boat for our very lives. Pork, powder, and biscuit was the +cargo, with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire and me +and Redruth and the captain. The rest of the arms and powder we dropped +overboard in two fathoms and a half of water, so that we could see +the bright steel shining far below us in the sun, on the clean, sandy +bottom. + +By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging +round to her anchor. Voices were heard faintly halloaing in the +direction of the two gigs; and though this reassured us for Joyce and +Hunter, who were well to the eastward, it warned our party to be off. + +Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery and dropped into the +boat, which we then brought round to the ship’s counter, to be handier +for Captain Smollett. + +“Now, men,” said he, “do you hear me?” + +There was no answer from the forecastle. + +“It’s to you, Abraham Gray--it’s to you I am speaking.” + +Still no reply. + +“Gray,” resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, “I am leaving this ship, +and I order you to follow your captain. I know you are a good man at +bottom, and I dare say not one of the lot of you’s as bad as he makes +out. I have my watch here in my hand; I give you thirty seconds to join +me in.” + +There was a pause. + +“Come, my fine fellow,” continued the captain; “don’t hang so long in +stays. I’m risking my life and the lives of these good gentlemen every +second.” + +There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows, and out burst Abraham +Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek, and came running to the +captain like a dog to the whistle. + +“I’m with you, sir,” said he. + +And the next moment he and the captain had dropped aboard of us, and we +had shoved off and given way. + +We were clear out of the ship, but not yet ashore in our stockade. + + + + +17 + +Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat’s Last Trip + +THIS fifth trip was quite different from any of the others. In the +first place, the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely +overloaded. Five grown men, and three of them--Trelawney, Redruth, and +the captain--over six feet high, was already more than she was meant +to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and bread-bags. The gunwale was +lipping astern. Several times we shipped a little water, and my breeches +and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a +hundred yards. + +The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her to lie a little more +evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe. + +In the second place, the ebb was now making--a strong rippling current +running westward through the basin, and then south’ard and seaward down +the straits by which we had entered in the morning. Even the ripples +were a danger to our overloaded craft, but the worst of it was that we +were swept out of our true course and away from our proper landing-place +behind the point. If we let the current have its way we should come +ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates might appear at any moment. + +“I cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir,” said I to the captain. +I was steering, while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were at the oars. +“The tide keeps washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger?” + +“Not without swamping the boat,” said he. “You must bear up, sir, if you +please--bear up until you see you’re gaining.” + +I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward +until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the +way we ought to go. + +“We’ll never get ashore at this rate,” said I. + +“If it’s the only course that we can lie, sir, we must even lie it,” + returned the captain. “We must keep upstream. You see, sir,” he went on, +“if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it’s hard to say +where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the +gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can +dodge back along the shore.” + +“The current’s less a’ready, sir,” said the man Gray, who was sitting in +the fore-sheets; “you can ease her off a bit.” + +“Thank you, my man,” said I, quite as if nothing had happened, for we +had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves. + +Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I thought his voice was a +little changed. + +“The gun!” said he. + +“I have thought of that,” said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a +bombardment of the fort. “They could never get the gun ashore, and if +they did, they could never haul it through the woods.” + +“Look astern, doctor,” replied the captain. + +We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and there, to our horror, were +the five rogues busy about her, getting off her jacket, as they called +the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only that, but +it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round-shot and the +powder for the gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would +put it all into the possession of the evil ones abroad. + +“Israel was Flint’s gunner,” said Gray hoarsely. + +At any risk, we put the boat’s head direct for the landing-place. By +this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept +steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing, and I could +keep her steady for the goal. But the worst of it was that with the +course I now held we turned our broadside instead of our stern to the +HISPANIOLA and offered a target like a barn door. + +I could hear as well as see that brandy-faced rascal Israel Hands +plumping down a round-shot on the deck. + +“Who’s the best shot?” asked the captain. + +“Mr. Trelawney, out and away,” said I. + +“Mr. Trelawney, will you please pick me off one of these men, sir? +Hands, if possible,” said the captain. + +Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked to the priming of his gun. + +“Now,” cried the captain, “easy with that gun, sir, or you’ll swamp the +boat. All hands stand by to trim her when he aims.” + +The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased, and we leaned over to the +other side to keep the balance, and all was so nicely contrived that we +did not ship a drop. + +They had the gun, by this time, slewed round upon the swivel, and Hands, +who was at the muzzle with the rammer, was in consequence the most +exposed. However, we had no luck, for just as Trelawney fired, down he +stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it was one of the other four +who fell. + +The cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a +great number of voices from the shore, and looking in that direction +I saw the other pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling +into their places in the boats. + +“Here come the gigs, sir,” said I. + +“Give way, then,” cried the captain. “We mustn’t mind if we swamp her +now. If we can’t get ashore, all’s up.” + +“Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir,” I added; “the crew of the +other most likely going round by shore to cut us off.” + +“They’ll have a hot run, sir,” returned the captain. “Jack ashore, you +know. It’s not them I mind; it’s the round-shot. Carpet bowls! My lady’s +maid couldn’t miss. Tell us, squire, when you see the match, and we’ll +hold water.” + +In the meanwhile we had been making headway at a good pace for a boat so +overloaded, and we had shipped but little water in the process. We were +now close in; thirty or forty strokes and we should beach her, for the +ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of sand below the clustering +trees. The gig was no longer to be feared; the little point had already +concealed it from our eyes. The ebb-tide, which had so cruelly delayed +us, was now making reparation and delaying our assailants. The one +source of danger was the gun. + +“If I durst,” said the captain, “I’d stop and pick off another man.” + +But it was plain that they meant nothing should delay their shot. They +had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade, though he was not +dead, and I could see him trying to crawl away. + +“Ready!” cried the squire. + +“Hold!” cried the captain, quick as an echo. + +And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily +under water. The report fell in at the same instant of time. This was +the first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire’s shot not having +reached him. Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew, but I +fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have +contributed to our disaster. + +At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite gently, in three feet of +water, leaving the captain and myself, facing each other, on our feet. +The other three took complete headers, and came up again drenched and +bubbling. + +So far there was no great harm. No lives were lost, and we could wade +ashore in safety. But there were all our stores at the bottom, and to +make things worse, only two guns out of five remained in a state for +service. Mine I had snatched from my knees and held over my head, by +a sort of instinct. As for the captain, he had carried his over his +shoulder by a bandoleer, and like a wise man, lock uppermost. The other +three had gone down with the boat. + +To add to our concern, we heard voices already drawing near us in the +woods along shore, and we had not only the danger of being cut off from +the stockade in our half-crippled state but the fear before us whether, +if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half a dozen, they would have the +sense and conduct to stand firm. Hunter was steady, that we knew; Joyce +was a doubtful case--a pleasant, polite man for a valet and to brush +one’s clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man of war. + +With all this in our minds, we waded ashore as fast as we could, leaving +behind us the poor jolly-boat and a good half of all our powder and +provisions. + + + + +18 + +Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of the First Day’s Fighting + +WE made our best speed across the strip of wood that now divided us from +the stockade, and at every step we took the voices of the buccaneers +rang nearer. Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the +cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit of thicket. + +I began to see we should have a brush for it in earnest and looked to my +priming. + +“Captain,” said I, “Trelawney is the dead shot. Give him your gun; his +own is useless.” + +They exchanged guns, and Trelawney, silent and cool as he had been since +the beginning of the bustle, hung a moment on his heel to see that all +was fit for service. At the same time, observing Gray to be unarmed, I +handed him my cutlass. It did all our hearts good to see him spit in his +hand, knit his brows, and make the blade sing through the air. It was +plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt. + +Forty paces farther we came to the edge of the wood and saw the stockade +in front of us. We struck the enclosure about the middle of the south +side, and almost at the same time, seven mutineers--Job Anderson, the +boatswain, at their head--appeared in full cry at the southwestern +corner. + +They paused as if taken aback, and before they recovered, not only the +squire and I, but Hunter and Joyce from the block house, had time to +fire. The four shots came in rather a scattering volley, but they did +the business: one of the enemy actually fell, and the rest, without +hesitation, turned and plunged into the trees. + +After reloading, we walked down the outside of the palisade to see to +the fallen enemy. He was stone dead--shot through the heart. + +We began to rejoice over our good success when just at that moment a +pistol cracked in the bush, a ball whistled close past my ear, and poor +Tom Redruth stumbled and fell his length on the ground. Both the squire +and I returned the shot, but as we had nothing to aim at, it is probable +we only wasted powder. Then we reloaded and turned our attention to poor +Tom. + +The captain and Gray were already examining him, and I saw with half an +eye that all was over. + +I believe the readiness of our return volley had scattered the mutineers +once more, for we were suffered without further molestation to get the +poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade and carried, groaning and +bleeding, into the log-house. + +Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word of surprise, complaint, +fear, or even acquiescence from the very beginning of our troubles till +now, when we had laid him down in the log-house to die. He had lain like +a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery; he had followed every order +silently, doggedly, and well; he was the oldest of our party by a score +of years; and now, sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was +to die. + +The squire dropped down beside him on his knees and kissed his hand, +crying like a child. + +“Be I going, doctor?” he asked. + +“Tom, my man,” said I, “you’re going home.” + +“I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first,” he replied. + +“Tom,” said the squire, “say you forgive me, won’t you?” + +“Would that be respectful like, from me to you, squire?” was the answer. +“Howsoever, so be it, amen!” + +After a little while of silence, he said he thought somebody might read +a prayer. “It’s the custom, sir,” he added apologetically. And not long +after, without another word, he passed away. + +In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed to be wonderfully +swollen about the chest and pockets, had turned out a great many various +stores--the British colours, a Bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink, +the log-book, and pounds of tobacco. He had found a longish fir-tree +lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure, and with the help of Hunter +he had set it up at the corner of the log-house where the trunks crossed +and made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand +bent and run up the colours. + +This seemed mightily to relieve him. He re-entered the log-house and set +about counting up the stores as if nothing else existed. But he had an +eye on Tom’s passage for all that, and as soon as all was over, came +forward with another flag and reverently spread it on the body. + +“Don’t you take on, sir,” he said, shaking the squire’s hand. “All’s +well with him; no fear for a hand that’s been shot down in his duty to +captain and owner. It mayn’t be good divinity, but it’s a fact.” + +Then he pulled me aside. + +“Dr. Livesey,” he said, “in how many weeks do you and squire expect the +consort?” + +I told him it was a question not of weeks but of months, that if we +were not back by the end of August Blandly was to send to find us, but +neither sooner nor later. “You can calculate for yourself,” I said. + +“Why, yes,” returned the captain, scratching his head; “and making a +large allowance, sir, for all the gifts of Providence, I should say we +were pretty close hauled.” + +“How do you mean?” I asked. + +“It’s a pity, sir, we lost that second load. That’s what I mean,” + replied the captain. “As for powder and shot, we’ll do. But the rations +are short, very short--so short, Dr. Livesey, that we’re perhaps as well +without that extra mouth.” + +And he pointed to the dead body under the flag. + +Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a round-shot passed high above the +roof of the log-house and plumped far beyond us in the wood. + +“Oho!” said the captain. “Blaze away! You’ve little enough powder +already, my lads.” + +At the second trial, the aim was better, and the ball descended inside +the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand but doing no further damage. + +“Captain,” said the squire, “the house is quite invisible from the ship. +It must be the flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take it +in?” + +“Strike my colours!” cried the captain. “No, sir, not I”; and as soon +as he had said the words, I think we all agreed with him. For it was +not only a piece of stout, seamanly, good feeling; it was good policy +besides and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade. + +All through the evening they kept thundering away. Ball after ball flew +over or fell short or kicked up the sand in the enclosure, but they had +to fire so high that the shot fell dead and buried itself in the soft +sand. We had no ricochet to fear, and though one popped in through the +roof of the log-house and out again through the floor, we soon got used +to that sort of horse-play and minded it no more than cricket. + +“There is one good thing about all this,” observed the captain; “the +wood in front of us is likely clear. The ebb has made a good while; our +stores should be uncovered. Volunteers to go and bring in pork.” + +Gray and Hunter were the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole +out of the stockade, but it proved a useless mission. The mutineers were +bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in Israel’s gunnery. For +four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and wading out +with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to +hold her steady against the current. Silver was in the stern-sheets in +command; and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some +secret magazine of their own. + +The captain sat down to his log, and here is the beginning of the entry: + + Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship’s + doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter’s mate; John + Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, + owner’s servants, landsmen--being all that is left + faithful of the ship’s company--with stores for ten + days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew + British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. + Thomas Redruth, owner’s servant, landsman, shot by the + mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy-- + +And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins’ fate. + +A hail on the land side. + +“Somebody hailing us,” said Hunter, who was on guard. + +“Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is that you?” came the cries. + +And I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins, safe and sound, come +climbing over the stockade. + + + + +19 + +Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison in the Stockade + +AS soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours he came to a halt, stopped me by the +arm, and sat down. + +“Now,” said he, “there’s your friends, sure enough.” + +“Far more likely it’s the mutineers,” I answered. + +“That!” he cried. “Why, in a place like this, where nobody puts in but +gen’lemen of fortune, Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you don’t make +no doubt of that. No, that’s your friends. There’s been blows too, and I +reckon your friends has had the best of it; and here they are ashore in +the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was +the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were +never seen. He were afraid of none, not he; on’y Silver--Silver was that +genteel.” + +“Well,” said I, “that may be so, and so be it; all the more reason that +I should hurry on and join my friends.” + +“Nay, mate,” returned Ben, “not you. You’re a good boy, or I’m mistook; +but you’re on’y a boy, all told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn’t +bring me there, where you’re going--not rum wouldn’t, till I see your +born gen’leman and gets it on his word of honour. And you won’t forget +my words; ‘A precious sight (that’s what you’ll say), a precious sight +more confidence’--and then nips him.” + +And he pinched me the third time with the same air of cleverness. + +“And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know where to find him, Jim. Just +wheer you found him today. And him that comes is to have a white thing +in his hand, and he’s to come alone. Oh! And you’ll say this: ‘Ben +Gunn,’ says you, ‘has reasons of his own.’” + +“Well,” said I, “I believe I understand. You have something to propose, +and you wish to see the squire or the doctor, and you’re to be found +where I found you. Is that all?” + +“And when? says you,” he added. “Why, from about noon observation to +about six bells.” + +“Good,” said I, “and now may I go?” + +“You won’t forget?” he inquired anxiously. “Precious sight, and reasons +of his own, says you. Reasons of his own; that’s the mainstay; as +between man and man. Well, then”--still holding me--“I reckon you can +go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn’t go for to sell +Ben Gunn? Wild horses wouldn’t draw it from you? No, says you. And if +them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there’d be widders +in the morning?” + +Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannonball came tearing +through the trees and pitched in the sand not a hundred yards from where +we two were talking. The next moment each of us had taken to his heels +in a different direction. + +For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the island, and +balls kept crashing through the woods. I moved from hiding-place to +hiding-place, always pursued, or so it seemed to me, by these terrifying +missiles. But towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst +not venture in the direction of the stockade, where the balls fell +oftenest, I had begun, in a manner, to pluck up my heart again, and +after a long detour to the east, crept down among the shore-side trees. + +The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling and tumbling in the +woods and ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage; the tide, too, was +far out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered; the air, after the heat +of the day, chilled me through my jacket. + +The HISPANIOLA still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there +was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying from her peak. +Even as I looked, there came another red flash and another report that +sent the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot whistled through the +air. It was the last of the cannonade. + +I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men +were demolishing something with axes on the beach near the stockade--the +poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the +river, a great fire was glowing among the trees, and between that point +and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I +had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there was a +sound in their voices which suggested rum. + +At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. I was pretty +far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, +and is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island; and now, as I rose to my +feet, I saw, some distance further down the spit and rising from among +low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in +colour. It occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which Ben +Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat might be wanted and I +should know where to look for one. + +Then I skirted among the woods until I had regained the rear, or +shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon warmly welcomed by the +faithful party. + +I had soon told my story and began to look about me. The log-house was +made of unsquared trunks of pine--roof, walls, and floor. The latter +stood in several places as much as a foot or a foot and a half above the +surface of the sand. There was a porch at the door, and under this porch +the little spring welled up into an artificial basin of a rather odd +kind--no other than a great ship’s kettle of iron, with the bottom +knocked out, and sunk “to her bearings,” as the captain said, among the +sand. + +Little had been left besides the framework of the house, but in one +corner there was a stone slab laid down by way of hearth and an old +rusty iron basket to contain the fire. + +The slopes of the knoll and all the inside of the stockade had been +cleared of timber to build the house, and we could see by the stumps +what a fine and lofty grove had been destroyed. Most of the soil had +been washed away or buried in drift after the removal of the trees; only +where the streamlet ran down from the kettle a thick bed of moss and +some ferns and little creeping bushes were still green among the sand. +Very close around the stockade--too close for defence, they said--the +wood still flourished high and dense, all of fir on the land side, but +towards the sea with a large admixture of live-oaks. + +The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, whistled through every +chink of the rude building and sprinkled the floor with a continual rain +of fine sand. There was sand in our eyes, sand in our teeth, sand in our +suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of the kettle, for all +the world like porridge beginning to boil. Our chimney was a square hole +in the roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way +out, and the rest eddied about the house and kept us coughing and piping +the eye. + +Add to this that Gray, the new man, had his face tied up in a bandage +for a cut he had got in breaking away from the mutineers and that poor +old Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and stark, +under the Union Jack. + +If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should all have fallen in the +blues, but Captain Smollett was never the man for that. All hands were +called up before him, and he divided us into watches. The doctor and +Gray and I for one; the squire, Hunter, and Joyce upon the other. Tired +though we all were, two were sent out for firewood; two more were set to +dig a grave for Redruth; the doctor was named cook; I was put sentry at +the door; and the captain himself went from one to another, keeping up +our spirits and lending a hand wherever it was wanted. + +From time to time the doctor came to the door for a little air and to +rest his eyes, which were almost smoked out of his head, and whenever he +did so, he had a word for me. + +“That man Smollett,” he said once, “is a better man than I am. And when +I say that it means a deal, Jim.” + +Another time he came and was silent for a while. Then he put his head on +one side, and looked at me. + +“Is this Ben Gunn a man?” he asked. + +“I do not know, sir,” said I. “I am not very sure whether he’s sane.” + +“If there’s any doubt about the matter, he is,” returned the doctor. “A +man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, +can’t expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn’t lie in human +nature. Was it cheese you said he had a fancy for?” + +“Yes, sir, cheese,” I answered. + +“Well, Jim,” says he, “just see the good that comes of being dainty in +your food. You’ve seen my snuff-box, haven’t you? And you never saw me +take snuff, the reason being that in my snuff-box I carry a piece of +Parmesan cheese--a cheese made in Italy, very nutritious. Well, that’s +for Ben Gunn!” + +Before supper was eaten we buried old Tom in the sand and stood round +him for a while bare-headed in the breeze. A good deal of firewood had +been got in, but not enough for the captain’s fancy, and he shook his +head over it and told us we “must get back to this tomorrow rather +livelier.” Then, when we had eaten our pork and each had a good stiff +glass of brandy grog, the three chiefs got together in a corner to +discuss our prospects. + +It appears they were at their wits’ end what to do, the stores being so +low that we must have been starved into surrender long before help came. +But our best hope, it was decided, was to kill off the buccaneers until +they either hauled down their flag or ran away with the HISPANIOLA. From +nineteen they were already reduced to fifteen, two others were wounded, +and one at least--the man shot beside the gun--severely wounded, if he +were not dead. Every time we had a crack at them, we were to take it, +saving our own lives, with the extremest care. And besides that, we had +two able allies--rum and the climate. + +As for the first, though we were about half a mile away, we could hear +them roaring and singing late into the night; and as for the second, +the doctor staked his wig that, camped where they were in the marsh +and unprovided with remedies, the half of them would be on their backs +before a week. + +“So,” he added, “if we are not all shot down first they’ll be glad to +be packing in the schooner. It’s always a ship, and they can get to +buccaneering again, I suppose.” + +“First ship that ever I lost,” said Captain Smollett. + +I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when I got to sleep, which was +not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like a log of wood. + +The rest had long been up and had already breakfasted and increased the +pile of firewood by about half as much again when I was wakened by a +bustle and the sound of voices. + +“Flag of truce!” I heard someone say; and then, immediately after, with +a cry of surprise, “Silver himself!” + +And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes, ran to a loophole in the +wall. + + + + +20 + +Silver’s Embassy + +SURE enough, there were two men just outside the stockade, one of them +waving a white cloth, the other, no less a person than Silver himself, +standing placidly by. + +It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that I think I ever +was abroad in--a chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky was bright +and cloudless overhead, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in +the sun. But where Silver stood with his lieutenant, all was still in +shadow, and they waded knee-deep in a low white vapour that had crawled +during the night out of the morass. The chill and the vapour taken +together told a poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp, +feverish, unhealthy spot. + +“Keep indoors, men,” said the captain. “Ten to one this is a trick.” + +Then he hailed the buccaneer. + +“Who goes? Stand, or we fire.” + +“Flag of truce,” cried Silver. + +The captain was in the porch, keeping himself carefully out of the way +of a treacherous shot, should any be intended. He turned and spoke to +us, “Doctor’s watch on the lookout. Dr. Livesey take the north side, +if you please; Jim, the east; Gray, west. The watch below, all hands to +load muskets. Lively, men, and careful.” + +And then he turned again to the mutineers. + +“And what do you want with your flag of truce?” he cried. + +This time it was the other man who replied. + +“Cap’n Silver, sir, to come on board and make terms,” he shouted. + +“Cap’n Silver! Don’t know him. Who’s he?” cried the captain. And we +could hear him adding to himself, “Cap’n, is it? My heart, and here’s +promotion!” + +Long John answered for himself. “Me, sir. These poor lads have chosen me +cap’n, after your desertion, sir”--laying a particular emphasis upon the +word “desertion.” “We’re willing to submit, if we can come to terms, +and no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap’n Smollett, to let me +safe and sound out of this here stockade, and one minute to get out o’ +shot before a gun is fired.” + +“My man,” said Captain Smollett, “I have not the slightest desire to +talk to you. If you wish to talk to me, you can come, that’s all. If +there’s any treachery, it’ll be on your side, and the Lord help you.” + +“That’s enough, cap’n,” shouted Long John cheerily. “A word from you’s +enough. I know a gentleman, and you may lay to that.” + +We could see the man who carried the flag of truce attempting to hold +Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, seeing how cavalier had been the +captain’s answer. But Silver laughed at him aloud and slapped him on the +back as if the idea of alarm had been absurd. Then he advanced to the +stockade, threw over his crutch, got a leg up, and with great vigour +and skill succeeded in surmounting the fence and dropping safely to the +other side. + +I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on +to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had already deserted +my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated +himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his +hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron +kettle in the sand. He was whistling “Come, Lasses and Lads.” + +Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll. What with the +steepness of the incline, the thick tree stumps, and the soft sand, he +and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it +like a man in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, whom +he saluted in the handsomest style. He was tricked out in his best; +an immense blue coat, thick with brass buttons, hung as low as to his +knees, and a fine laced hat was set on the back of his head. + +“Here you are, my man,” said the captain, raising his head. “You had +better sit down.” + +“You ain’t a-going to let me inside, cap’n?” complained Long John. “It’s +a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand.” + +“Why, Silver,” said the captain, “if you had pleased to be an honest +man, you might have been sitting in your galley. It’s your own doing. +You’re either my ship’s cook--and then you were treated handsome--or +Cap’n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang!” + +“Well, well, cap’n,” returned the sea-cook, sitting down as he was +bidden on the sand, “you’ll have to give me a hand up again, that’s all. +A sweet pretty place you have of it here. Ah, there’s Jim! The top of +the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here’s my service. Why, there you all +are together like a happy family, in a manner of speaking.” + +“If you have anything to say, my man, better say it,” said the captain. + +“Right you were, Cap’n Smollett,” replied Silver. “Dooty is dooty, to be +sure. Well now, you look here, that was a good lay of yours last +night. I don’t deny it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with a +handspike-end. And I’ll not deny neither but what some of my people was +shook--maybe all was shook; maybe I was shook myself; maybe that’s +why I’m here for terms. But you mark me, cap’n, it won’t do twice, by +thunder! We’ll have to do sentry-go and ease off a point or so on the +rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind’s eye. But I’ll +tell you I was sober; I was on’y dog tired; and if I’d awoke a second +sooner, I’d ’a caught you at the act, I would. He wasn’t dead when I got +round to him, not he.” + +“Well?” says Captain Smollett as cool as can be. + +All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have +guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben +Gunn’s last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had +paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together round +their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only fourteen +enemies to deal with. + +“Well, here it is,” said Silver. “We want that treasure, and we’ll have +it--that’s our point! You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon; +and that’s yours. You have a chart, haven’t you?” + +“That’s as may be,” replied the captain. + +“Oh, well, you have, I know that,” returned Long John. “You needn’t be +so husky with a man; there ain’t a particle of service in that, and you +may lay to it. What I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never meant +you no harm, myself.” + +“That won’t do with me, my man,” interrupted the captain. “We know +exactly what you meant to do, and we don’t care, for now, you see, you +can’t do it.” + +And the captain looked at him calmly and proceeded to fill a pipe. + +“If Abe Gray--” Silver broke out. + +“Avast there!” cried Mr. Smollett. “Gray told me nothing, and I asked +him nothing; and what’s more, I would see you and him and this whole +island blown clean out of the water into blazes first. So there’s my +mind for you, my man, on that.” + +This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down. He had been +growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together. + +“Like enough,” said he. “I would set no limits to what gentlemen might +consider shipshape, or might not, as the case were. And seein’ as how +you are about to take a pipe, cap’n, I’ll make so free as do likewise.” + +And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat silently +smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now +stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit. It was as good as +the play to see them. + +“Now,” resumed Silver, “here it is. You give us the chart to get the +treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen and stoving of their heads in +while asleep. You do that, and we’ll offer you a choice. Either you come +aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then I’ll give you my +affy-davy, upon my word of honour, to clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or +if that ain’t to your fancy, some of my hands being rough and having +old scores on account of hazing, then you can stay here, you can. We’ll +divide stores with you, man for man; and I’ll give my affy-davy, as +before to speak the first ship I sight, and send ’em here to pick you +up. Now, you’ll own that’s talking. Handsomer you couldn’t look to get, +now you. And I hope”--raising his voice--“that all hands in this here +block house will overhaul my words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to +all.” + +Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked out the ashes of his +pipe in the palm of his left hand. + +“Is that all?” he asked. + +“Every last word, by thunder!” answered John. “Refuse that, and you’ve +seen the last of me but musket-balls.” + +“Very good,” said the captain. “Now you’ll hear me. If you’ll come up +one by one, unarmed, I’ll engage to clap you all in irons and take you +home to a fair trial in England. If you won’t, my name is Alexander +Smollett, I’ve flown my sovereign’s colours, and I’ll see you all +to Davy Jones. You can’t find the treasure. You can’t sail the +ship--there’s not a man among you fit to sail the ship. You can’t fight +us--Gray, there, got away from five of you. Your ship’s in irons, Master +Silver; you’re on a lee shore, and so you’ll find. I stand here and tell +you so; and they’re the last good words you’ll get from me, for in the +name of heaven, I’ll put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. +Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please, hand over hand, and double +quick.” + +Silver’s face was a picture; his eyes started in his head with wrath. He +shook the fire out of his pipe. + +“Give me a hand up!” he cried. + +“Not I,” returned the captain. + +“Who’ll give me a hand up?” he roared. + +Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest imprecations, he crawled +along the sand till he got hold of the porch and could hoist himself +again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the spring. + +“There!” he cried. “That’s what I think of ye. Before an hour’s out, +I’ll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by +thunder, laugh! Before an hour’s out, ye’ll laugh upon the other side. +Them that die’ll be the lucky ones.” + +And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed down the sand, was +helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with +the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among the +trees. + + + + +21 + +The Attack + +AS soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely +watching him, turned towards the interior of the house and found not a +man of us at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen +him angry. + +“Quarters!” he roared. And then, as we all slunk back to our places, +“Gray,” he said, “I’ll put your name in the log; you’ve stood by your +duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I’m surprised at you, sir. Doctor, +I thought you had worn the king’s coat! If that was how you served at +Fontenoy, sir, you’d have been better in your berth.” + +The doctor’s watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy +loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be +certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is. + +The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke. + +“My lads,” said he, “I’ve given Silver a broadside. I pitched it in +red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s out, as he said, we shall be +boarded. We’re outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in +shelter; and a minute ago I should have said we fought with discipline. +I’ve no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose.” + +Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all was clear. + +On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two +loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the +north side, five. There was a round score of muskets for the seven +of us; the firewood had been built into four piles--tables, you might +say--one about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some +ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the +defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged. + +“Toss out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we +mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.” + +The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the +embers smothered among sand. + +“Hawkins hasn’t had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to +your post to eat it,” continued Captain Smollett. “Lively, now, my lad; +you’ll want it before you’ve done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy +to all hands.” + +And while this was going on, the captain completed, in his own mind, the +plan of the defence. + +“Doctor, you will take the door,” he resumed. “See, and don’t expose +yourself; keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east +side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you +are the best shot--you and Gray will take this long north side, with the +five loopholes; it’s there the danger is. If they can get up to it and +fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty. +Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand +by to load and bear a hand.” + +As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had +climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the +clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking +and the resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets and coats +were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the neck and rolled up to the +shoulders; and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and +anxiety. + +An hour passed away. + +“Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray, +whistle for a wind.” + +And just at that moment came the first news of the attack. + +“If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am I to fire?” + +“I told you so!” cried the captain. + +“Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce with the same quiet civility. + +Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, +straining ears and eyes--the musketeers with their pieces balanced in +their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his +mouth very tight and a frown on his face. + +So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket +and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and +repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like +a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several bullets +struck the log-house, but not one entered; and as the smoke cleared away +and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and +empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel +betrayed the presence of our foes. + +“Did you hit your man?” asked the captain. + +“No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.” + +“Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett. “Load +his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there were on your side, doctor?” + +“I know precisely,” said Dr. Livesey. “Three shots were fired on this +side. I saw the three flashes--two close together--one farther to the +west.” + +“Three!” repeated the captain. “And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?” + +But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the +north--seven by the squire’s computation, eight or nine according to +Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was +plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and +that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of +hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If +the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would +take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats +in our own stronghold. + +Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud +huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side +and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once +more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway +and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits. + +The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired +again and yet again; three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure, +two back on the outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened +than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly +disappeared among the trees. + +Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing +inside our defences, while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight +men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though +useless fire on the log-house. + +The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building, +shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to +encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the +marksmen that not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the +four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us. + +The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle +loophole. + +“At ’em, all hands--all hands!” he roared in a voice of thunder. + +At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter’s musket by the +muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, +and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor. +Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the house, appeared +suddenly in the doorway and fell with his cutlass on the doctor. + +Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under +cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we who lay uncovered and could +not return a blow. + +The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative +safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistol-shots, +and one loud groan rang in my ears. + +“Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open! Cutlasses!” cried the +captain. + +I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time +snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly +felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was +close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing +his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat +down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash +across the face. + +“Round the house, lads! Round the house!” cried the captain; and even in +the hurly-burly, I perceived a change in his voice. + +Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with my cutlass raised, +ran round the corner of the house. Next moment I was face to face +with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head, +flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, but as the blow +still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon one side, and missing my +foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down the slope. + +When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been +already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us. One man, in a red +night-cap, with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the top and +thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been the interval that when I +found my feet again all was in the same posture, the fellow with the red +night-cap still half-way over, another still just showing his head above +the top of the stockade. And yet, in this breath of time, the fight was +over and the victory was ours. + +Gray, following close behind me, had cut down the big boatswain ere +he had time to recover from his last blow. Another had been shot at a +loophole in the very act of firing into the house and now lay in agony, +the pistol still smoking in his hand. A third, as I had seen, the doctor +had disposed of at a blow. Of the four who had scaled the palisade, one +only remained unaccounted for, and he, having left his cutlass on the +field, was now clambering out again with the fear of death upon him. + +“Fire--fire from the house!” cried the doctor. “And you, lads, back into +cover.” + +But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, and the last boarder +made good his escape and disappeared with the rest into the wood. In +three seconds nothing remained of the attacking party but the five who +had fallen, four on the inside and one on the outside of the palisade. + +The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for shelter. The survivors +would soon be back where they had left their muskets, and at any moment +the fire might recommence. + +The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke, and we saw at +a glance the price we had paid for victory. Hunter lay beside his +loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move +again; while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain, +one as pale as the other. + +“The captain’s wounded,” said Mr. Trelawney. + +“Have they run?” asked Mr. Smollett. + +“All that could, you may be bound,” returned the doctor; “but there’s +five of them will never run again.” + +“Five!” cried the captain. “Come, that’s better. Five against three +leaves us four to nine. That’s better odds than we had at starting. We +were seven to nineteen then, or thought we were, and that’s as bad to +bear.” * + +*The mutineers were soon only eight in number, for the man shot by Mr. +Trelawney on board the schooner died that same evening of his wound. But +this was, of course, not known till after by the faithful party. + + + + + + +PART FIVE--My Sea Adventure + + + + +22 + +How My Sea Adventure Began + +THERE was no return of the mutineers--not so much as another shot out of +the woods. They had “got their rations for that day,” as the captain put +it, and we had the place to ourselves and a quiet time to overhaul the +wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked outside in spite of the +danger, and even outside we could hardly tell what we were at, for +horror of the loud groans that reached us from the doctor’s patients. + +Out of the eight men who had fallen in the action, only three still +breathed--that one of the pirates who had been shot at the loophole, +Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and of these, the first two were as good +as dead; the mutineer indeed died under the doctor’s knife, and Hunter, +do what we could, never recovered consciousness in this world. He +lingered all day, breathing loudly like the old buccaneer at home in his +apoplectic fit, but the bones of his chest had been crushed by the +blow and his skull fractured in falling, and some time in the following +night, without sign or sound, he went to his Maker. + +As for the captain, his wounds were grievous indeed, but not dangerous. +No organ was fatally injured. Anderson’s ball--for it was Job that +shot him first--had broken his shoulder-blade and touched the lung, not +badly; the second had only torn and displaced some muscles in the calf. +He was sure to recover, the doctor said, but in the meantime, and for +weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his arm, nor so much as speak +when he could help it. + +My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea-bite. Doctor +Livesey patched it up with plaster and pulled my ears for me into the +bargain. + +After dinner the squire and the doctor sat by the captain’s side awhile +in consultation; and when they had talked to their hearts’ content, it +being then a little past noon, the doctor took up his hat and pistols, +girt on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket, and with a musket over +his shoulder crossed the palisade on the north side and set off briskly +through the trees. + +Gray and I were sitting together at the far end of the block house, to +be out of earshot of our officers consulting; and Gray took his pipe out +of his mouth and fairly forgot to put it back again, so thunder-struck +he was at this occurrence. + +“Why, in the name of Davy Jones,” said he, “is Dr. Livesey mad?” + +“Why no,” says I. “He’s about the last of this crew for that, I take +it.” + +“Well, shipmate,” said Gray, “mad he may not be; but if HE’S not, you +mark my words, I am.” + +“I take it,” replied I, “the doctor has his idea; and if I am right, +he’s going now to see Ben Gunn.” + +I was right, as appeared later; but in the meantime, the house being +stifling hot and the little patch of sand inside the palisade ablaze +with midday sun, I began to get another thought into my head, which was +not by any means so right. What I began to do was to envy the doctor +walking in the cool shadow of the woods with the birds about him and the +pleasant smell of the pines, while I sat grilling, with my clothes +stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood about me and so many poor +dead bodies lying all around that I took a disgust of the place that was +almost as strong as fear. + +All the time I was washing out the block house, and then washing up +the things from dinner, this disgust and envy kept growing stronger +and stronger, till at last, being near a bread-bag, and no one then +observing me, I took the first step towards my escapade and filled both +pockets of my coat with biscuit. + +I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I was going to do a foolish, +over-bold act; but I was determined to do it with all the precautions in +my power. These biscuits, should anything befall me, would keep me, at +least, from starving till far on in the next day. + +The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of pistols, and as I already +had a powder-horn and bullets, I felt myself well supplied with arms. + +As for the scheme I had in my head, it was not a bad one in itself. I +was to go down the sandy spit that divides the anchorage on the east +from the open sea, find the white rock I had observed last evening, and +ascertain whether it was there or not that Ben Gunn had hidden his boat, +a thing quite worth doing, as I still believe. But as I was certain I +should not be allowed to leave the enclosure, my only plan was to take +French leave and slip out when nobody was watching, and that was so bad +a way of doing it as made the thing itself wrong. But I was only a boy, +and I had made my mind up. + +Well, as things at last fell out, I found an admirable opportunity. The +squire and Gray were busy helping the captain with his bandages, the +coast was clear, I made a bolt for it over the stockade and into the +thickest of the trees, and before my absence was observed I was out of +cry of my companions. + +This was my second folly, far worse than the first, as I left but two +sound men to guard the house; but like the first, it was a help towards +saving all of us. + +I took my way straight for the east coast of the island, for I was +determined to go down the sea side of the spit to avoid all chance of +observation from the anchorage. It was already late in the afternoon, +although still warm and sunny. As I continued to thread the tall woods, +I could hear from far before me not only the continuous thunder of the +surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and grinding of boughs which +showed me the sea breeze had set in higher than usual. Soon cool +draughts of air began to reach me, and a few steps farther I came forth +into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny +to the horizon and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the +beach. + +I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island. The sun might +blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and +blue, but still these great rollers would be running along all the +external coast, thundering and thundering by day and night; and I scarce +believe there is one spot in the island where a man would be out of +earshot of their noise. + +I walked along beside the surf with great enjoyment, till, thinking +I was now got far enough to the south, I took the cover of some thick +bushes and crept warily up to the ridge of the spit. + +Behind me was the sea, in front the anchorage. The sea breeze, as though +it had the sooner blown itself out by its unusual violence, was already +at an end; it had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south +and south-east, carrying great banks of fog; and the anchorage, under +lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden as when first we entered +it. The HISPANIOLA, in that unbroken mirror, was exactly portrayed from +the truck to the waterline, the Jolly Roger hanging from her peak. + +Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the stern-sheets--him I could +always recognize--while a couple of men were leaning over the stern +bulwarks, one of them with a red cap--the very rogue that I had seen +some hours before stride-legs upon the palisade. Apparently they were +talking and laughing, though at that distance--upwards of a mile--I +could, of course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there began +the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, +though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint and even thought +I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon +her master’s wrist. + +Soon after, the jolly-boat shoved off and pulled for shore, and the man +with the red cap and his comrade went below by the cabin companion. + +Just about the same time, the sun had gone down behind the Spy-glass, +and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it began to grow dark in earnest. +I saw I must lose no time if I were to find the boat that evening. + +The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was still some eighth of +a mile further down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up +with it, crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub. Night had almost +come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was +an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick +underwood about knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully; and in the +centre of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat-skins, like what +the gipsies carry about with them in England. + +I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was +Ben Gunn’s boat--home-made if ever anything was home-made; a rude, +lop-sided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of +goat-skin, with the hair inside. The thing was extremely small, even +for me, and I can hardly imagine that it could have floated with a +full-sized man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of +stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion. + +I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient Britons made, but +I have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn’s +boat than by saying it was like the first and the worst coracle ever +made by man. But the great advantage of the coracle it certainly +possessed, for it was exceedingly light and portable. + +Well, now that I had found the boat, you would have thought I had had +enough of truantry for once, but in the meantime I had taken another +notion and become so obstinately fond of it that I would have carried +it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain Smollett himself. This was +to slip out under cover of the night, cut the HISPANIOLA adrift, and let +her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite made up my mind that the +mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had nothing nearer their +hearts than to up anchor and away to sea; this, I thought, it would be +a fine thing to prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their +watchmen unprovided with a boat, I thought it might be done with little +risk. + +Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit. It +was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had now buried +all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, +absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. And when, at last, +I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow +where I had supped, there were but two points visible on the whole +anchorage. + +One was the great fire on shore, by which the defeated pirates lay +carousing in the swamp. The other, a mere blur of light upon the +darkness, indicated the position of the anchored ship. She had swung +round to the ebb--her bow was now towards me--the only lights on board +were in the cabin, and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of +the strong rays that flowed from the stern window. + +The ebb had already run some time, and I had to wade through a long belt +of swampy sand, where I sank several times above the ankle, before I +came to the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way in, +with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downwards, on the +surface. + + + + +23 + +The Ebb-tide Runs + +THE coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I was done with +her--was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both +buoyant and clever in a seaway; but she was the most cross-grained, +lop-sided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more +leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the manoeuvre +she was best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was “queer +to handle till you knew her way.” + +Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in every direction but the +one I was bound to go; the most part of the time we were broadside on, +and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the +tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was still sweeping +me down; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right in the fairway, hardly to be +missed. + +First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than +darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next +moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went, the brisker grew the +current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold. + +The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she +pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the +rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. +One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the +tide. + +So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut +hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to +one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the HISPANIOLA from her anchor, I +and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water. + +This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again +particularly favoured me, I should have had to abandon my design. But +the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south +had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west. Just while I was +meditating, a puff came, caught the HISPANIOLA, and forced her up into +the current; and to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, +and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water. + +With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth, +and cut one strand after another, till the vessel swung only by two. +Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be +once more lightened by a breath of wind. + +All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin, but +to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts +that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing else to +do, I began to pay more heed. + +One I recognized for the coxswain’s, Israel Hands, that had been Flint’s +gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red +night-cap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still +drinking, for even while I was listening, one of them, with a drunken +cry, opened the stern window and threw out something, which I divined to +be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they +were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and +then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end +in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled +lower for a while, until the next crisis came and in its turn passed +away without result. + +On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burning warmly +through the shore-side trees. Someone was singing, a dull, old, droning +sailor’s song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, +and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had +heard it on the voyage more than once and remembered these words: + + “But one man of her crew alive, + What put to sea with seventy-five.” + +And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a +company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from +what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed +on. + +At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the +dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough +effort, cut the last fibres through. + +The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was almost +instantly swept against the bows of the HISPANIOLA. At the same time, +the schooner began to turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, +across the current. + +I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be swamped; and +since I found I could not push the coracle directly off, I now shoved +straight astern. At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbour, and +just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a light cord +that was trailing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I +grasped it. + +Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere +instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found it fast, curiosity +began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look +through the cabin window. + +I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when I judged myself near +enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height and thus commanded +the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin. + +By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty +swiftly through the water; indeed, we had already fetched up level with +the camp-fire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading +the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I +got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen +had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was +only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me +Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a +hand upon the other’s throat. + +I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near +overboard. I could see nothing for the moment but these two furious, +encrimsoned faces swaying together under the smoky lamp, and I shut my +eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness. + +The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished +company about the camp-fire had broken into the chorus I had heard so +often: + + “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! + Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” + +I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very +moment in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, when I was surprised by a sudden +lurch of the coracle. At the same moment, she yawed sharply and seemed +to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely increased. + +I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing +over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The +HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled +along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a +little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I +made sure she also was wheeling to the southward. + +I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There, +right behind me, was the glow of the camp-fire. The current had turned +at right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and +the little dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever +muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea. + +Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning, +perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one +shout followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on +the companion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been +interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster. + +I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff and devoutly +recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the end of the straits, I +made sure we must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all my +troubles would be ended speedily; and though I could, perhaps, bear to +die, I could not bear to look upon my fate as it approached. + +So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the +billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to +expect death at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me; a +numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind even in the midst of +my terrors, until sleep at last supervened and in my sea-tossed coracle +I lay and dreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow. + + + + +24 + +The Cruise of the Coracle + +IT was broad day when I awoke and found myself tossing at the south-west +end of Treasure Island. The sun was up but was still hid from me behind +the great bulk of the Spy-glass, which on this side descended almost to +the sea in formidable cliffs. + +Haulbowline Head and Mizzen-mast Hill were at my elbow, the hill bare +and dark, the head bound with cliffs forty or fifty feet high and +fringed with great masses of fallen rock. I was scarce a quarter of a +mile to seaward, and it was my first thought to paddle in and land. + +That notion was soon given over. Among the fallen rocks the breakers +spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and +falling, succeeded one another from second to second; and I saw myself, +if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore or spending +my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags. + +Nor was that all, for crawling together on flat tables of rock or +letting themselves drop into the sea with loud reports I beheld huge +slimy monsters--soft snails, as it were, of incredible bigness--two +or three score of them together, making the rocks to echo with their +barkings. + +I have understood since that they were sea lions, and entirely harmless. +But the look of them, added to the difficulty of the shore and the +high running of the surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that +landing-place. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to confront +such perils. + +In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, before me. North +of Haulbowline Head, the land runs in a long way, leaving at low tide +a long stretch of yellow sand. To the north of that, again, there comes +another cape--Cape of the Woods, as it was marked upon the chart--buried +in tall green pines, which descended to the margin of the sea. + +I remembered what Silver had said about the current that sets northward +along the whole west coast of Treasure Island, and seeing from my +position that I was already under its influence, I preferred to leave +Haulbowline Head behind me and reserve my strength for an attempt to +land upon the kindlier-looking Cape of the Woods. + +There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The wind blowing steady +and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the +current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken. + +Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have perished; but as it was, +it is surprising how easily and securely my little and light boat could +ride. Often, as I still lay at the bottom and kept no more than an eye +above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me; +yet the coracle would but bounce a little, dance as if on springs, and +subside on the other side into the trough as lightly as a bird. + +I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to try my skill at +paddling. But even a small change in the disposition of the weight will +produce violent changes in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly +moved before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing movement, +ran straight down a slope of water so steep that it made me giddy, and +struck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the next +wave. + +I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old +position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again and led +me as softly as before among the billows. It was plain she was not to be +interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way influence her +course, what hope had I left of reaching land? + +I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my head, for all that. +First, moving with all care, I gradually baled out the coracle with my +sea-cap; then, getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set myself +to study how it was she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers. + +I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth glossy mountain it looks +from shore or from a vessel’s deck, was for all the world like any range +of hills on dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys. The +coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side, threaded, so to +speak, her way through these lower parts and avoided the steep slopes +and higher, toppling summits of the wave. + +“Well, now,” thought I to myself, “it is plain I must lie where I am and +not disturb the balance; but it is plain also that I can put the paddle +over the side and from time to time, in smooth places, give her a shove +or two towards land.” No sooner thought upon than done. There I lay on +my elbows in the most trying attitude, and every now and again gave a +weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore. + +It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did visibly gain ground; and as +we drew near the Cape of the Woods, though I saw I must infallibly +miss that point, I had still made some hundred yards of easting. I was, +indeed, close in. I could see the cool green tree-tops swaying together +in the breeze, and I felt sure I should make the next promontory without +fail. + +It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with thirst. The glow +of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection from the waves, the +sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt, +combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache. The sight of the +trees so near at hand had almost made me sick with longing, but the +current had soon carried me past the point, and as the next reach of sea +opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the nature of my thoughts. + +Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld the HISPANIOLA +under sail. I made sure, of course, that I should be taken; but I was +so distressed for want of water that I scarce knew whether to be glad +or sorry at the thought, and long before I had come to a conclusion, +surprise had taken entire possession of my mind and I could do nothing +but stare and wonder. + +The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and two jibs, and the beautiful +white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first +sighted her, all her sails were drawing; she was lying a course about +north-west, and I presumed the men on board were going round the island +on their way back to the anchorage. Presently she began to fetch more +and more to the westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and were +going about in chase. At last, however, she fell right into the wind’s +eye, was taken dead aback, and stood there awhile helpless, with her +sails shivering. + +“Clumsy fellows,” said I; “they must still be drunk as owls.” And I +thought how Captain Smollett would have set them skipping. + +Meanwhile the schooner gradually fell off and filled again upon another +tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead +in the wind’s eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and +down, north, south, east, and west, the HISPANIOLA sailed by swoops +and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she had begun, with idly +flapping canvas. It became plain to me that nobody was steering. And if +so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk or had deserted her, +I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board I might return the vessel +to her captain. + +The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at an equal rate. +As for the latter’s sailing, it was so wild and intermittent, and she +hung each time so long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if +she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and paddle, I made +sure that I could overhaul her. The scheme had an air of adventure +that inspired me, and the thought of the water breaker beside the fore +companion doubled my growing courage. + +Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another cloud of spray, but +this time stuck to my purpose and set myself, with all my strength and +caution, to paddle after the unsteered HISPANIOLA. Once I shipped a sea +so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart fluttering like +a bird, but gradually I got into the way of the thing and guided my +coracle among the waves, with only now and then a blow upon her bows and +a dash of foam in my face. + +I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten +on the tiller as it banged about, and still no soul appeared upon her +decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men +were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do +what I chose with the ship. + +For some time she had been doing the worse thing possible for +me--standing still. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all +the time. Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled, and these +brought her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said this was +the worst thing possible for me, for helpless as she looked in this +situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling +and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not +only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her +leeway, which was naturally great. + +But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell for some seconds, +very low, and the current gradually turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved +slowly round her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the +cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the table still burning +on into the day. The main-sail hung drooped like a banner. She was +stock-still but for the current. + +For the last little while I had even lost, but now redoubling my +efforts, I began once more to overhaul the chase. + +I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap; +she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming +like a swallow. + +My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was towards joy. +Round she came, till she was broadside on to me--round still till she +had covered a half and then two thirds and then three quarters of the +distance that separated us. I could see the waves boiling white under +her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me from my low station in the +coracle. + +And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had scarce time to +think--scarce time to act and save myself. I was on the summit of one +swell when the schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was +over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping the coracle under +water. With one hand I caught the jib-boom, while my foot was lodged +between the stay and the brace; and as I still clung there panting, a +dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the +coracle and that I was left without retreat on the HISPANIOLA. + + + + +25 + +I Strike the Jolly Roger + +I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the flying jib +flapped and filled upon the other tack, with a report like a gun. The +schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse, but next moment, the +other sails still drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle. + +This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I lost no time, +crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled head foremost on the deck. + +I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was +still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. +Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since +the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty bottle, broken by +the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers. + +Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind. The jibs behind me +cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the whole ship gave a sickening +heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard, +the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck. + +There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on his back, as stiff +as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix and +his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped against +the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before him on +the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle. + +For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the +sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to +and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too +there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark and a heavy +blow of the ship’s bows against the swell; so much heavier weather was +made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided +coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea. + +At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and fro, but--what was +ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing +grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump too, Hands +appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the +deck, his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting +towards the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid +from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed +ringlet of one whisker. + +At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark +blood upon the planks and began to feel sure that they had killed each +other in their drunken wrath. + +While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship +was still, Israel Hands turned partly round and with a low moan writhed +himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The moan, +which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his jaw +hung open went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I had +overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left me. + +I walked aft until I reached the main-mast. + +“Come aboard, Mr. Hands,” I said ironically. + +He rolled his eyes round heavily, but he was too far gone to express +surprise. All he could do was to utter one word, “Brandy.” + +It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging the boom as it +once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft and down the companion +stairs into the cabin. + +It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the +lockfast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor +was thick with mud where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after +wading in the marshes round their camp. The bulkheads, all painted in +clear white and beaded round with gilt, bore a pattern of dirty hands. +Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in corners to the rolling of +the ship. One of the doctor’s medical books lay open on the table, half +of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for pipelights. In the midst of all +this the lamp still cast a smoky glow, obscure and brown as umber. + +I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, and of the bottles +a most surprising number had been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly, +since the mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been sober. + +Foraging about, I found a bottle with some brandy left, for Hands; and +for myself I routed out some biscuit, some pickled fruits, a great bunch +of raisins, and a piece of cheese. With these I came on deck, put down +my own stock behind the rudder head and well out of the coxswain’s +reach, went forward to the water-breaker, and had a good deep drink of +water, and then, and not till then, gave Hands the brandy. + +He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle from his mouth. + +“Aye,” said he, “by thunder, but I wanted some o’ that!” + +I had sat down already in my own corner and begun to eat. + +“Much hurt?” I asked him. + +He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked. + +“If that doctor was aboard,” he said, “I’d be right enough in a couple +of turns, but I don’t have no manner of luck, you see, and that’s what’s +the matter with me. As for that swab, he’s good and dead, he is,” he +added, indicating the man with the red cap. “He warn’t no seaman anyhow. +And where mought you have come from?” + +“Well,” said I, “I’ve come aboard to take possession of this ship, +Mr. Hands; and you’ll please regard me as your captain until further +notice.” + +He looked at me sourly enough but said nothing. Some of the colour had +come back into his cheeks, though he still looked very sick and still +continued to slip out and settle down as the ship banged about. + +“By the by,” I continued, “I can’t have these colours, Mr. Hands; and by +your leave, I’ll strike ’em. Better none than these.” + +And again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour lines, handed down their +cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard. + +“God save the king!” said I, waving my cap. “And there’s an end to +Captain Silver!” + +He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the while on his breast. + +“I reckon,” he said at last, “I reckon, Cap’n Hawkins, you’ll kind of +want to get ashore now. S’pose we talks.” + +“Why, yes,” says I, “with all my heart, Mr. Hands. Say on.” And I went +back to my meal with a good appetite. + +“This man,” he began, nodding feebly at the corpse “--O’Brien were his +name, a rank Irelander--this man and me got the canvas on her, meaning +for to sail her back. Well, HE’S dead now, he is--as dead as bilge; and +who’s to sail this ship, I don’t see. Without I gives you a hint, you +ain’t that man, as far’s I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me food +and drink and a old scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do, and +I’ll tell you how to sail her, and that’s about square all round, I take +it.” + +“I’ll tell you one thing,” says I: “I’m not going back to Captain Kidd’s +anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet and beach her quietly there.” + +“To be sure you did,” he cried. “Why, I ain’t sich an infernal lubber +after all. I can see, can’t I? I’ve tried my fling, I have, and I’ve +lost, and it’s you has the wind of me. North Inlet? Why, I haven’t no +ch’ice, not I! I’d help you sail her up to Execution Dock, by thunder! +So I would.” + +Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this. We struck our +bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had the HISPANIOLA sailing +easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good +hopes of turning the northern point ere noon and beating down again as +far as North Inlet before high water, when we might beach her safely and +wait till the subsiding tide permitted us to land. + +Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own chest, where I got a +soft silk handkerchief of my mother’s. With this, and with my aid, Hands +bound up the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh, and after +he had eaten a little and had a swallow or two more of the brandy, he +began to pick up visibly, sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, +and looked in every way another man. + +The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before it like a bird, the +coast of the island flashing by and the view changing every minute. +Soon we were past the high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country, +sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again +and had turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the +north. + +I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased with the bright, +sunshiny weather and these different prospects of the coast. I had now +plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had +smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I +had made. I should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for +the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck +and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile +that had in it something both of pain and weakness--a haggard old man’s +smile; but there was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of +treachery, in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and +watched me at my work. + + + + +26 + +Israel Hands + +THE wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west. We could run +so much the easier from the north-east corner of the island to the mouth +of the North Inlet. Only, as we had no power to anchor and dared not +beach her till the tide had flowed a good deal farther, time hung on our +hands. The coxswain told me how to lay the ship to; after a good many +trials I succeeded, and we both sat in silence over another meal. + +“Cap’n,” said he at length with that same uncomfortable smile, “here’s +my old shipmate, O’Brien; s’pose you was to heave him overboard. I ain’t +partic’lar as a rule, and I don’t take no blame for settling his hash, +but I don’t reckon him ornamental now, do you?” + +“I’m not strong enough, and I don’t like the job; and there he lies, for +me,” said I. + +“This here’s an unlucky ship, this HISPANIOLA, Jim,” he went on, +blinking. “There’s a power of men been killed in this HISPANIOLA--a +sight o’ poor seamen dead and gone since you and me took ship to +Bristol. I never seen sich dirty luck, not I. There was this here +O’Brien now--he’s dead, ain’t he? Well now, I’m no scholar, and you’re a +lad as can read and figure, and to put it straight, do you take it as a +dead man is dead for good, or do he come alive again?” + +“You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit; you must know +that already,” I replied. “O’Brien there is in another world, and may be +watching us.” + +“Ah!” says he. “Well, that’s unfort’nate--appears as if killing parties +was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits don’t reckon for much, by what +I’ve seen. I’ll chance it with the sperrits, Jim. And now, you’ve spoke +up free, and I’ll take it kind if you’d step down into that there cabin +and get me a--well, a--shiver my timbers! I can’t hit the name on ’t; +well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim--this here brandy’s too strong +for my head.” + +Now, the coxswain’s hesitation seemed to be unnatural, and as for the +notion of his preferring wine to brandy, I entirely disbelieved it. The +whole story was a pretext. He wanted me to leave the deck--so much was +plain; but with what purpose I could in no way imagine. His eyes never +met mine; they kept wandering to and fro, up and down, now with a look +to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead O’Brien. All the +time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out in the most guilty, +embarrassed manner, so that a child could have told that he was bent on +some deception. I was prompt with my answer, however, for I saw where +my advantage lay and that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily +conceal my suspicions to the end. + +“Some wine?” I said. “Far better. Will you have white or red?” + +“Well, I reckon it’s about the blessed same to me, shipmate,” he +replied; “so it’s strong, and plenty of it, what’s the odds?” + +“All right,” I answered. “I’ll bring you port, Mr. Hands. But I’ll have +to dig for it.” + +With that I scuttled down the companion with all the noise I could, +slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the sparred gallery, mounted the +forecastle ladder, and popped my head out of the fore companion. I +knew he would not expect to see me there, yet I took every precaution +possible, and certainly the worst of my suspicions proved too true. + +He had risen from his position to his hands and knees, and though his +leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he moved--for I could hear +him stifle a groan--yet it was at a good, rattling rate that he trailed +himself across the deck. In half a minute he had reached the port +scuppers and picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a +short dirk, discoloured to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it for +a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried the point upon his hand, +and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled +back again into his old place against the bulwark. + +This was all that I required to know. Israel could move about, he was +now armed, and if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, +it was plain that I was meant to be the victim. What he would do +afterwards--whether he would try to crawl right across the island from +North Inlet to the camp among the swamps or whether he would fire Long +Tom, trusting that his own comrades might come first to help him--was, +of course, more than I could say. + +Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that +our interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of +the schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a +sheltered place, and so that, when the time came, she could be got off +again with as little labour and danger as might be; and until that was +done I considered that my life would certainly be spared. + +While I was thus turning the business over in my mind, I had not been +idle with my body. I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more +into my shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and now, +with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck. + +Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in a bundle and with +his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light. He +looked up, however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the bottle like +a man who had done the same thing often, and took a good swig, with his +favourite toast of “Here’s luck!” Then he lay quiet for a little, and +then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid. + +“Cut me a junk o’ that,” says he, “for I haven’t no knife and hardly +strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I’ve missed +stays! Cut me a quid, as’ll likely be the last, lad, for I’m for my long +home, and no mistake.” + +“Well,” said I, “I’ll cut you some tobacco, but if I was you and thought +myself so badly, I would go to my prayers like a Christian man.” + +“Why?” said he. “Now, you tell me why.” + +“Why?” I cried. “You were asking me just now about the dead. You’ve +broken your trust; you’ve lived in sin and lies and blood; there’s a man +you killed lying at your feet this moment, and you ask me why! For God’s +mercy, Mr. Hands, that’s why.” + +I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden +in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, +for his part, took a great draught of the wine and spoke with the most +unusual solemnity. + +“For thirty years,” he said, “I’ve sailed the seas and seen good and +bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, +knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come +o’ goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don’t bite; +them’s my views--amen, so be it. And now, you look here,” he added, +suddenly changing his tone, “we’ve had about enough of this foolery. The +tide’s made good enough by now. You just take my orders, Cap’n Hawkins, +and we’ll sail slap in and be done with it.” + +All told, we had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was +delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow +and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely +handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am +very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot, for we went about and about +and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that +were a pleasure to behold. + +Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land closed around us. The +shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern +anchorage, but the space was longer and narrower and more like, what in +truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right before us, at the southern +end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last stages of dilapidation. It +had been a great vessel of three masts but had lain so long exposed to +the injuries of the weather that it was hung about with great webs of +dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore bushes had taken root and +now flourished thick with flowers. It was a sad sight, but it showed us +that the anchorage was calm. + +“Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship +in. Fine flat sand, never a cat’s paw, trees all around of it, and +flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.” + +“And once beached,” I inquired, “how shall we get her off again?” + +“Why, so,” he replied: “you take a line ashore there on the other side +at low water, take a turn about one of them big pines; bring it back, +take a turn around the capstan, and lie to for the tide. Come high +water, all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet +as natur’. And now, boy, you stand by. We’re near the bit now, and she’s +too much way on her. Starboard a little--so--steady--starboard--larboard +a little--steady--steady!” + +So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed, till, all of a +sudden, he cried, “Now, my hearty, luff!” And I put the helm hard up, +and the HISPANIOLA swung round rapidly and ran stem on for the low, +wooded shore. + +The excitement of these last manoeuvres had somewhat interfered with the +watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough, upon the coxswain. Even then +I was still so much interested, waiting for the ship to touch, that I +had quite forgot the peril that hung over my head and stood craning over +the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before +the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life had not a +sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turn my head. Perhaps I +had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; +perhaps it was an instinct like a cat’s; but, sure enough, when I looked +round, there was Hands, already half-way towards me, with the dirk in +his right hand. + +We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met, but while mine +was the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar of fury like a charging +bully’s. At the same instant, he threw himself forward and I leapt +sideways towards the bows. As I did so, I let go of the tiller, which +sprang sharp to leeward, and I think this saved my life, for it struck +Hands across the chest and stopped him, for the moment, dead. + +Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me +trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the main-mast +I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had +already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the +trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; +the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect. +Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then +I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher. + +Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast he could move, his grizzled +hair tumbling over his face, and his face itself as red as a red ensign +with his haste and fury. I had no time to try my other pistol, nor +indeed much inclination, for I was sure it would be useless. One thing I +saw plainly: I must not simply retreat before him, or he would speedily +hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly boxed +me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the +blood-stained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity. +I placed my palms against the main-mast, which was of a goodish bigness, +and waited, every nerve upon the stretch. + +Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused; and a moment or two passed +in feints on his part and corresponding movements upon mine. It was such +a game as I had often played at home about the rocks of Black Hill Cove, +but never before, you may be sure, with such a wildly beating heart as +now. Still, as I say, it was a boy’s game, and I thought I could hold +my own at it against an elderly seaman with a wounded thigh. Indeed my +courage had begun to rise so high that I allowed myself a few darting +thoughts on what would be the end of the affair, and while I saw +certainly that I could spin it out for long, I saw no hope of any +ultimate escape. + +Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the HISPANIOLA struck, +staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a +blow, canted over to the port side till the deck stood at an angle +of forty-five degrees and about a puncheon of water splashed into the +scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between the deck and bulwark. + +We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, almost +together, into the scuppers, the dead red-cap, with his arms still +spread out, tumbling stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my +head came against the coxswain’s foot with a crack that made my teeth +rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot again, for Hands had got +involved with the dead body. The sudden canting of the ship had made the +deck no place for running on; I had to find some new way of escape, +and that upon the instant, for my foe was almost touching me. Quick as +thought, I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, +and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the cross-trees. + +I had been saved by being prompt; the dirk had struck not half a foot +below me as I pursued my upward flight; and there stood Israel Hands +with his mouth open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue of +surprise and disappointment. + +Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost no time in changing the +priming of my pistol, and then, having one ready for service, and to +make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other +and recharge it afresh from the beginning. + +My new employment struck Hands all of a heap; he began to see the dice +going against him, and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled +himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk in his teeth, began +slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time and groans +to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I had quietly finished my +arrangements before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then, +with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him. + +“One more step, Mr. Hands,” said I, “and I’ll blow your brains out! Dead +men don’t bite, you know,” I added with a chuckle. + +He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was +trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my +new-found security, I laughed aloud. At last, with a swallow or two, he +spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity. +In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but in all +else he remained unmoved. + +“Jim,” says he, “I reckon we’re fouled, you and me, and we’ll have to +sign articles. I’d have had you but for that there lurch, but I don’t +have no luck, not I; and I reckon I’ll have to strike, which comes hard, +you see, for a master mariner to a ship’s younker like you, Jim.” + +I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock +upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his +shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow +and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the +mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say +it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious +aim--both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They +did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp +upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water. + + + + +27 + +“Pieces of Eight” + +OWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water, +and from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the +surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was in consequence +nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to +the surface in a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good. +As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on the +clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel’s sides. A fish or two +whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, he +appeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was dead +enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish +in the very place where he had designed my slaughter. + +I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and +terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk, +where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot +iron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me, +for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without a murmur; it was the +horror I had upon my mind of falling from the cross-trees into that +still green water, beside the body of the coxswain. + +I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to +cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses quieted +down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession of +myself. + +It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk, but either it stuck too +hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly +enough, that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had come +the nearest in the world to missing me altogether; it held me by a mere +pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the +faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again and only tacked to the +mast by my coat and shirt. + +These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the +deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have +again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds from +which Israel had so lately fallen. + +I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal +and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it +greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, and as the +ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing it from +its last passenger--the dead man, O’Brien. + +He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay +like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet, life-size, indeed, but how +different from life’s colour or life’s comeliness! In that position +I could easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragical +adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him +by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran and with one good heave, +tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge; the red cap +came off and remained floating on the surface; and as soon as the splash +subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, both wavering +with the tremulous movement of the water. O’Brien, though still quite a +young man, was very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across the +knees of the man who had killed him and the quick fishes steering to and +fro over both. + +I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned. The sun was +within so few degrees of setting that already the shadow of the pines +upon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage and +fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, and +though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the +east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the +idle sails to rattle to and fro. + +I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and +brought tumbling to the deck, but the main-sail was a harder matter. Of +course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and +the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought +this made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I +half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The +peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon +the water, and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhall, +that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the +HISPANIOLA must trust to luck, like myself. + +By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--the last rays, +I remember, falling through a glade of the wood and shining bright as +jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill; the +tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more +on her beam-ends. + +I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and +holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself +drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand was +firm and covered with ripple marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits, +leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side, with her main-sail trailing wide +upon the surface of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly +down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines. + +At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence +empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers +and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing +nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my +achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the +recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching answer, and I hoped that +even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time. + +So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for +the block house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly +of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd’s anchorage ran from the +two-peaked hill upon my left, and I bent my course in that direction +that I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty +open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner +of that hill, and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the +watercourse. + +This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon; +and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk +had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the +two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as +I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring +fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show himself so +careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it not reach the eyes +of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes? + +Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide myself +even roughly towards my destination; the double hill behind me and the +Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter; the stars were few +and pale; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among +bushes and rolling into sandy pits. + +Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up; a pale glimmer +of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon after +I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, and +knew the moon had risen. + +With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my +journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew near +to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies before +it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went a +trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get +shot down by my own party in mistake. + +The moon was climbing higher and higher, its light began to fall here +and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, and +right in front of me a glow of a different colour appeared among +the trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a little +darkened--as it were, the embers of a bonfire smouldering. + +For the life of me I could not think what it might be. + +At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western +end was already steeped in moonshine; the rest, and the block house +itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks +of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire had burned +itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation, +contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not +a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze. + +I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror +also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, +by the captain’s orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to +fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent. + +I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at a +convenient place, where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade. + +To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees and crawled, +without a sound, towards the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my +heart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It is not a pleasant noise in +itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just +then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and +peaceful in their sleep. The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful “All’s +well,” never fell more reassuringly on my ear. + +In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamous +bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping +in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it +was, thought I, to have the captain wounded; and again I blamed myself +sharply for leaving them in that danger with so few to mount guard. + +By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, +so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there +was the steady drone of the snorers and a small occasional noise, a +flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for. + +With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own +place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they +found me in the morning. + +My foot struck something yielding--it was a sleeper’s leg; and he turned +and groaned, but without awaking. + +And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the +darkness: + +“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! +Pieces of eight!” and so forth, without pause or change, like the +clacking of a tiny mill. + +Silver’s green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard +pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than any +human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain. + +I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping tone of the +parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up; and with a mighty oath, the +voice of Silver cried, “Who goes?” + +I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ran +full into the arms of a second, who for his part closed upon and held me +tight. + +“Bring a torch, Dick,” said Silver when my capture was thus assured. + +And one of the men left the log-house and presently returned with a +lighted brand. + + + + + + +PART SIX--Captain Silver + + + + +28 + +In the Enemy’s Camp + +THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block house, +showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in +possession of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac, +there were the pork and bread, as before, and what tenfold increased +my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had +perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to +perish with them. + +There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man was left +alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly +called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen +upon his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round +his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently +dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among +the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. + +The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John’s shoulder. He +himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used +to. He still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his +mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and +torn with the sharp briers of the wood. + +“So,” said he, “here’s Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers! Dropped in, like, +eh? Well, come, I take that friendly.” + +And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and began to fill a +pipe. + +“Give me a loan of the link, Dick,” said he; and then, when he had a +good light, “That’ll do, lad,” he added; “stick the glim in the wood +heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to! You needn’t stand up +for Mr. Hawkins; HE’LL excuse you, you may lay to that. And so, +Jim”--stopping the tobacco--“here you were, and quite a pleasant +surprise for poor old John. I see you were smart when first I set my +eyes on you, but this here gets away from me clean, it do.” + +To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me +with my back against the wall, and I stood there, looking Silver in the +face, pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with black +despair in my heart. + +Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure and then ran +on again. + +“Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here,” says he, “I’ll give you a +piece of my mind. I’ve always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, +and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always +wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my +cock, you’ve got to. Cap’n Smollett’s a fine seaman, as I’ll own up to +any day, but stiff on discipline. ‘Dooty is dooty,’ says he, and right +he is. Just you keep clear of the cap’n. The doctor himself is gone dead +again you--‘ungrateful scamp’ was what he said; and the short and the +long of the whole story is about here: you can’t go back to your own +lot, for they won’t have you; and without you start a third ship’s +company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you’ll have to jine with +Cap’n Silver.” + +So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly +believed the truth of Silver’s statement, that the cabin party were +incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by +what I heard. + +“I don’t say nothing as to your being in our hands,” continued Silver, +“though there you are, and you may lay to it. I’m all for argyment; I +never seen good come out o’ threatening. If you like the service, well, +you’ll jine; and if you don’t, Jim, why, you’re free to answer no--free +and welcome, shipmate; and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman, +shiver my sides!” + +“Am I to answer, then?” I asked with a very tremulous voice. Through all +this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung +me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast. + +“Lad,” said Silver, “no one’s a-pressing of you. Take your bearings. +None of us won’t hurry you, mate; time goes so pleasant in your company, +you see.” + +“Well,” says I, growing a bit bolder, “if I’m to choose, I declare I +have a right to know what’s what, and why you’re here, and where my +friends are.” + +“Wot’s wot?” repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep growl. “Ah, he’d +be a lucky one as knowed that!” + +“You’ll perhaps batten down your hatches till you’re spoke to, my +friend,” cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in +his first gracious tones, he replied to me, “Yesterday morning, Mr. +Hawkins,” said he, “in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey with a +flag of truce. Says he, ‘Cap’n Silver, you’re sold out. Ship’s gone.’ +Well, maybe we’d been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I +won’t say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and +by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never seen a pack o’ fools look +fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the +fishiest. ‘Well,’ says the doctor, ‘let’s bargain.’ We bargained, him +and I, and here we are: stores, brandy, block house, the firewood you +was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner of speaking, the whole +blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson. As for them, they’ve tramped; +I don’t know where’s they are.” + +He drew again quietly at his pipe. + +“And lest you should take it into that head of yours,” he went on, “that +you was included in the treaty, here’s the last word that was said: ‘How +many are you,’ says I, ‘to leave?’ ‘Four,’ says he; ‘four, and one of us +wounded. As for that boy, I don’t know where he is, confound him,’ says +he, ‘nor I don’t much care. We’re about sick of him.’ These was his +words. + +“Is that all?” I asked. + +“Well, it’s all that you’re to hear, my son,” returned Silver. + +“And now I am to choose?” + +“And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that,” said Silver. + +“Well,” said I, “I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have +to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it’s little I care. I’ve +seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there’s a thing or two +I have to tell you,” I said, and by this time I was quite excited; “and +the first is this: here you are, in a bad way--ship lost, treasure lost, +men lost, your whole business gone to wreck; and if you want to know who +did it--it was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land, +and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at +the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was +out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I +that killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her +where you’ll never see her more, not one of you. The laugh’s on my side; +I’ve had the top of this business from the first; I no more fear you +than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or spare me. But one thing +I’ll say, and no more; if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when +you fellows are in court for piracy, I’ll save you all I can. It is for +you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and +keep a witness to save you from the gallows.” + +I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and to my wonder, not +a man of them moved, but all sat staring at me like as many sheep. And +while they were still staring, I broke out again, “And now, Mr. Silver,” + I said, “I believe you’re the best man here, and if things go to the +worst, I’ll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took +it.” + +“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Silver with an accent so curious that I +could not, for the life of me, decide whether he were laughing at my +request or had been favourably affected by my courage. + +“I’ll put one to that,” cried the old mahogany-faced seaman--Morgan +by name--whom I had seen in Long John’s public-house upon the quays of +Bristol. “It was him that knowed Black Dog.” + +“Well, and see here,” added the sea-cook. “I’ll put another again to +that, by thunder! For it was this same boy that faked the chart from +Billy Bones. First and last, we’ve split upon Jim Hawkins!” + +“Then here goes!” said Morgan with an oath. + +And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty. + +“Avast, there!” cried Silver. “Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you +thought you was cap’n here, perhaps. By the powers, but I’ll teach you +better! Cross me, and you’ll go where many a good man’s gone before you, +first and last, these thirty year back--some to the yard-arm, shiver +my timbers, and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There’s +never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a’terwards, +Tom Morgan, you may lay to that.” + +Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others. + +“Tom’s right,” said one. + +“I stood hazing long enough from one,” added another. “I’ll be hanged if +I’ll be hazed by you, John Silver.” + +“Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with ME?” roared Silver, +bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still +glowing in his right hand. “Put a name on what you’re at; you ain’t +dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I lived this many +years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the +latter end of it? You know the way; you’re all gentlemen o’ fortune, by +your account. Well, I’m ready. Take a cutlass, him that dares, and I’ll +see the colour of his inside, crutch and all, before that pipe’s empty.” + +Not a man stirred; not a man answered. + +“That’s your sort, is it?” he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. +“Well, you’re a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not much worth to fight, you +ain’t. P’r’aps you can understand King George’s English. I’m cap’n here +by ’lection. I’m cap’n here because I’m the best man by a long sea-mile. +You won’t fight, as gentlemen o’ fortune should; then, by thunder, +you’ll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen +a better boy than that. He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you in +this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that’ll lay a +hand on him--that’s what I say, and you may lay to it.” + +There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, +my heart still going like a sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope +now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms +crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had +been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the +tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually +together towards the far end of the block house, and the low hiss of +their whispering sounded in my ear continuously, like a stream. One +after another, they would look up, and the red light of the torch would +fall for a second on their nervous faces; but it was not towards me, it +was towards Silver that they turned their eyes. + +“You seem to have a lot to say,” remarked Silver, spitting far into the +air. “Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to.” + +“Ax your pardon, sir,” returned one of the men; “you’re pretty free with +some of the rules; maybe you’ll kindly keep an eye upon the rest. This +crew’s dissatisfied; this crew don’t vally bullying a marlin-spike; this +crew has its rights like other crews, I’ll make so free as that; and by +your own rules, I take it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, +acknowledging you for to be captaing at this present; but I claim my +right, and steps outside for a council.” + +And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow, a long, ill-looking, +yellow-eyed man of five and thirty, stepped coolly towards the door and +disappeared out of the house. One after another the rest followed his +example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding some apology. +“According to rules,” said one. “Forecastle council,” said Morgan. And +so with one remark or another all marched out and left Silver and me +alone with the torch. + +The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe. + +“Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins,” he said in a steady whisper that was +no more than audible, “you’re within half a plank of death, and what’s +a long sight worse, of torture. They’re going to throw me off. But, you +mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn’t mean to; no, not +till you spoke up. I was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and +be hanged into the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I says to +myself, you stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins’ll stand by you. You’re +his last card, and by the living thunder, John, he’s yours! Back to +back, says I. You save your witness, and he’ll save your neck!” + +I began dimly to understand. + +“You mean all’s lost?” I asked. + +“Aye, by gum, I do!” he answered. “Ship gone, neck gone--that’s the +size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins, and seen no +schooner--well, I’m tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their +council, mark me, they’re outright fools and cowards. I’ll save your +life--if so be as I can--from them. But, see here, Jim--tit for tat--you +save Long John from swinging.” + +I was bewildered; it seemed a thing so hopeless he was asking--he, the +old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout. + +“What I can do, that I’ll do,” I said. + +“It’s a bargain!” cried Long John. “You speak up plucky, and by thunder, +I’ve a chance!” + +He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among the firewood, and +took a fresh light to his pipe. + +“Understand me, Jim,” he said, returning. “I’ve a head on my shoulders, +I have. I’m on squire’s side now. I know you’ve got that ship safe +somewheres. How you done it, I don’t know, but safe it is. I guess Hands +and O’Brien turned soft. I never much believed in neither of THEM. Now +you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won’t let others. I know when +a game’s up, I do; and I know a lad that’s staunch. Ah, you that’s +young--you and me might have done a power of good together!” + +He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin. + +“Will you taste, messmate?” he asked; and when I had refused: “Well, +I’ll take a dram myself, Jim,” said he. “I need a caulker, for there’s +trouble on hand. And talking o’ trouble, why did that doctor give me the +chart, Jim?” + +My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of +further questions. + +“Ah, well, he did, though,” said he. “And there’s something under that, +no doubt--something, surely, under that, Jim--bad or good.” + +And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head +like a man who looks forward to the worst. + + + + +29 + +The Black Spot Again + +THE council of buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them +re-entered the house, and with a repetition of the same salute, which +had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment’s loan of the torch. +Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired again, leaving us +together in the dark. + +“There’s a breeze coming, Jim,” said Silver, who had by this time +adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone. + +I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. The embers of the +great fire had so far burned themselves out and now glowed so low and +duskily that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About +half-way down the slope to the stockade, they were collected in a group; +one held the light, another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw +the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colours in +the moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though +watching the manoeuvres of this last. I could just make out that he +had a book as well as a knife in his hand, and was still wondering how +anything so incongruous had come in their possession when the kneeling +figure rose once more to his feet and the whole party began to move +together towards the house. + +“Here they come,” said I; and I returned to my former position, for it +seemed beneath my dignity that they should find me watching them. + +“Well, let ’em come, lad--let ’em come,” said Silver cheerily. “I’ve +still a shot in my locker.” + +The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled together just +inside, pushed one of their number forward. In any other circumstances +it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set +down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him. + +“Step up, lad,” cried Silver. “I won’t eat you. Hand it over, lubber. I +know the rules, I do; I won’t hurt a depytation.” + +Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having +passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly +back again to his companions. + +The sea-cook looked at what had been given him. + +“The black spot! I thought so,” he observed. “Where might you have got +the paper? Why, hillo! Look here, now; this ain’t lucky! You’ve gone and +cut this out of a Bible. What fool’s cut a Bible?” + +“Ah, there!” said Morgan. “There! Wot did I say? No good’ll come o’ +that, I said.” + +“Well, you’ve about fixed it now, among you,” continued Silver. “You’ll +all swing now, I reckon. What soft-headed lubber had a Bible?” + +“It was Dick,” said one. + +“Dick, was it? Then Dick can get to prayers,” said Silver. “He’s seen +his slice of luck, has Dick, and you may lay to that.” + +But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck in. + +“Belay that talk, John Silver,” he said. “This crew has tipped you the +black spot in full council, as in dooty bound; just you turn it over, as +in dooty bound, and see what’s wrote there. Then you can talk.” + +“Thanky, George,” replied the sea-cook. “You always was brisk for +business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I’m pleased to see. +Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! ‘Deposed’--that’s it, is it? Very pretty +wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your hand o’ write, George? Why, +you was gettin’ quite a leadin’ man in this here crew. You’ll be cap’n +next, I shouldn’t wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will +you? This pipe don’t draw.” + +“Come, now,” said George, “you don’t fool this crew no more. You’re a +funny man, by your account; but you’re over now, and you’ll maybe step +down off that barrel and help vote.” + +“I thought you said you knowed the rules,” returned Silver +contemptuously. “Leastways, if you don’t, I do; and I wait here--and I’m +still your cap’n, mind--till you outs with your grievances and I reply; +in the meantime, your black spot ain’t worth a biscuit. After that, +we’ll see.” + +“Oh,” replied George, “you don’t be under no kind of apprehension; WE’RE +all square, we are. First, you’ve made a hash of this cruise--you’ll be +a bold man to say no to that. Second, you let the enemy out o’ this here +trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I dunno, but it’s pretty plain +they wanted it. Third, you wouldn’t let us go at them upon the march. +Oh, we see through you, John Silver; you want to play booty, that’s +what’s wrong with you. And then, fourth, there’s this here boy.” + +“Is that all?” asked Silver quietly. + +“Enough, too,” retorted George. “We’ll all swing and sun-dry for your +bungling.” + +“Well now, look here, I’ll answer these four p’ints; one after another +I’ll answer ’em. I made a hash o’ this cruise, did I? Well now, you all +know what I wanted, and you all know if that had been done that we’d +’a been aboard the HISPANIOLA this night as ever was, every man of us +alive, and fit, and full of good plum-duff, and the treasure in the hold +of her, by thunder! Well, who crossed me? Who forced my hand, as was the +lawful cap’n? Who tipped me the black spot the day we landed and began +this dance? Ah, it’s a fine dance--I’m with you there--and looks mighty +like a hornpipe in a rope’s end at Execution Dock by London town, it +does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George +Merry! And you’re the last above board of that same meddling crew; +and you have the Davy Jones’s insolence to up and stand for cap’n over +me--you, that sank the lot of us! By the powers! But this tops the +stiffest yarn to nothing.” + +Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George and his late +comrades that these words had not been said in vain. + +“That’s for number one,” cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his +brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the house. +“Why, I give you my word, I’m sick to speak to you. You’ve neither sense +nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you +come to sea. Sea! Gentlemen o’ fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade.” + +“Go on, John,” said Morgan. “Speak up to the others.” + +“Ah, the others!” returned John. “They’re a nice lot, ain’t they? You +say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if you could understand how bad +it’s bungled, you would see! We’re that near the gibbet that my neck’s +stiff with thinking on it. You’ve seen ’em, maybe, hanged in chains, +birds about ’em, seamen p’inting ’em out as they go down with the tide. +‘Who’s that?’ says one. ‘That! Why, that’s John Silver. I knowed him +well,’ says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go +about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that’s about where we are, +every mother’s son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and +other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, +and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn’t he a hostage? Are we a-going +to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I +shouldn’t wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates! And number three? Ah, +well, there’s a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don’t count it +nothing to have a real college doctor to see you every day--you, John, +with your head broke--or you, George Merry, that had the ague shakes +upon you not six hours agone, and has your eyes the colour of lemon peel +to this same moment on the clock? And maybe, perhaps, you didn’t know +there was a consort coming either? But there is, and not so long till +then; and we’ll see who’ll be glad to have a hostage when it comes to +that. And as for number two, and why I made a bargain--well, you came +crawling on your knees to me to make it--on your knees you came, you was +that downhearted--and you’d have starved too if I hadn’t--but that’s a +trifle! You look there--that’s why!” + +And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly +recognized--none other than the chart on yellow paper, with the three +red crosses, that I had found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the +captain’s chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more than I +could fancy. + +But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was +incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats +upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another; +and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they +accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they +were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in +safety. + +“Yes,” said one, “that’s Flint, sure enough. J. F., and a score below, +with a clove hitch to it; so he done ever.” + +“Mighty pretty,” said George. “But how are we to get away with it, and +us no ship.” + +Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself with a hand against +the wall: “Now I give you warning, George,” he cried. “One more word +of your sauce, and I’ll call you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I +know? You had ought to tell me that--you and the rest, that lost me my +schooner, with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can’t; you +hain’t got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and +shall, George Merry, you may lay to that.” + +“That’s fair enow,” said the old man Morgan. + +“Fair! I reckon so,” said the sea-cook. “You lost the ship; I found the +treasure. Who’s the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder! +Elect whom you please to be your cap’n now; I’m done with it.” + +“Silver!” they cried. “Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap’n!” + +“So that’s the toon, is it?” cried the cook. “George, I reckon you’ll +have to wait another turn, friend; and lucky for you as I’m not a +revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this +black spot? ’Tain’t much good now, is it? Dick’s crossed his luck and +spoiled his Bible, and that’s about all.” + +“It’ll do to kiss the book on still, won’t it?” growled Dick, who was +evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself. + +“A Bible with a bit cut out!” returned Silver derisively. “Not it. It +don’t bind no more’n a ballad-book.” + +“Don’t it, though?” cried Dick with a sort of joy. “Well, I reckon +that’s worth having too.” + +“Here, Jim--here’s a cur’osity for you,” said Silver, and he tossed me +the paper. + +It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank, +for it had been the last leaf; the other contained a verse or two of +Revelation--these words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon +my mind: “Without are dogs and murderers.” The printed side had been +blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my +fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the +one word “Depposed.” I have that curiosity beside me at this moment, but +not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a +man might make with his thumb-nail. + +That was the end of the night’s business. Soon after, with a drink all +round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver’s vengeance was +to put George Merry up for sentinel and threaten him with death if he +should prove unfaithful. + +It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter +enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own +most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw +Silver now engaged upon--keeping the mutineers together with one hand +and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible, +to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept +peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he +was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet +that awaited him. + + + + +30 + +On Parole + +I WAS wakened--indeed, we were all wakened, for I could see even the +sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the +door-post--by a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the +wood: + +“Block house, ahoy!” it cried. “Here’s the doctor.” + +And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my +gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my +insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when I saw where it had brought +me--among what companions and surrounded by what dangers--I felt ashamed +to look him in the face. + +He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come; and when I +ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once +before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapour. + +“You, doctor! Top o’ the morning to you, sir!” cried Silver, broad awake +and beaming with good nature in a moment. “Bright and early, to be sure; +and it’s the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations. +George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Dr. Livesey over the ship’s +side. All a-doin’ well, your patients was--all well and merry.” + +So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch under his +elbow and one hand upon the side of the log-house--quite the old John in +voice, manner, and expression. + +“We’ve quite a surprise for you too, sir,” he continued. “We’ve a little +stranger here--he! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit +and taut as a fiddle; slep’ like a supercargo, he did, right alongside +of John--stem to stem we was, all night.” + +Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the +cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said, “Not +Jim?” + +“The very same Jim as ever was,” says Silver. + +The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some +seconds before he seemed able to move on. + +“Well, well,” he said at last, “duty first and pleasure afterwards, as +you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of +yours.” + +A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and with one grim +nod to me proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no +apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these +treacherous demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his +patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet +English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they +behaved to him as if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship’s +doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast. + +“You’re doing well, my friend,” he said to the fellow with the bandaged +head, “and if ever any person had a close shave, it was you; your head +must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You’re a pretty +colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take +that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men?” + +“Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough,” returned Morgan. + +“Because, you see, since I am mutineers’ doctor, or prison doctor as I +prefer to call it,” says Doctor Livesey in his pleasantest way, “I make +it a point of honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) +and the gallows.” + +The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home-thrust in +silence. + +“Dick don’t feel well, sir,” said one. + +“Don’t he?” replied the doctor. “Well, step up here, Dick, and let me +see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did! The man’s tongue +is fit to frighten the French. Another fever.” + +“Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.” + +“That comes--as you call it--of being arrant asses,” retorted the +doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, +and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most +probable--though of course it’s only an opinion--that you’ll all have +the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp +in a bog, would you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool +than many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have the +rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. + +“Well,” he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken +his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity +schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates--“well, that’s +done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, +please.” + +And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly. + +George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some +bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word of the doctor’s proposal he +swung round with a deep flush and cried “No!” and swore. + +Silver struck the barrel with his open hand. + +“Si-lence!” he roared and looked about him positively like a lion. +“Doctor,” he went on in his usual tones, “I was a-thinking of that, +knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We’re all humbly grateful +for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs +down like that much grog. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all. +Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour as a young gentleman--for +a young gentleman you are, although poor born--your word of honour not +to slip your cable?” + +I readily gave the pledge required. + +“Then, doctor,” said Silver, “you just step outside o’ that stockade, +and once you’re there I’ll bring the boy down on the inside, and I +reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our +dooties to the squire and Cap’n Smollett.” + +The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver’s black looks had +restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver +was roundly accused of playing double--of trying to make a separate +peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and +victims, and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was +doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not +imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man +the rest were, and his last night’s victory had given him a huge +preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts +you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, +fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to +break the treaty the very day they were bound a-treasure-hunting. + +“No, by thunder!” he cried. “It’s us must break the treaty when the time +comes; and till then I’ll gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots +with brandy.” + +And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, +with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced +by his volubility rather than convinced. + +“Slow, lad, slow,” he said. “They might round upon us in a twinkle of an +eye if we was seen to hurry.” + +Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the sand to where the +doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we +were within easy speaking distance Silver stopped. + +“You’ll make a note of this here also, doctor,” says he, “and the boy’ll +tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it too, and you +may lay to that. Doctor, when a man’s steering as near the wind as +me--playing chuck-farthing with the last breath in his body, like--you +wouldn’t think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You’ll +please bear in mind it’s not my life only now--it’s that boy’s into the +bargain; and you’ll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit o’ hope to +go on, for the sake of mercy.” + +Silver was a changed man once he was out there and had his back to his +friends and the block house; his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his +voice trembled; never was a soul more dead in earnest. + +“Why, John, you’re not afraid?” asked Dr. Livesey. + +“Doctor, I’m no coward; no, not I--not SO much!” and he snapped his +fingers. “If I was I wouldn’t say it. But I’ll own up fairly, I’ve the +shakes upon me for the gallows. You’re a good man and a true; I never +seen a better man! And you’ll not forget what I done good, not any more +than you’ll forget the bad, I know. And I step aside--see here--and +leave you and Jim alone. And you’ll put that down for me too, for it’s a +long stretch, is that!” + +So saying, he stepped back a little way, till he was out of earshot, and +there sat down upon a tree-stump and began to whistle, spinning round +now and again upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of me +and the doctor and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and +fro in the sand between the fire--which they were busy rekindling--and +the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the +breakfast. + +“So, Jim,” said the doctor sadly, “here you are. As you have brewed, so +shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows, I cannot find it in my heart to +blame you, but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind: when Captain +Smollett was well, you dared not have gone off; and when he was ill and +couldn’t help it, by George, it was downright cowardly!” + +I will own that I here began to weep. “Doctor,” I said, “you might spare +me. I have blamed myself enough; my life’s forfeit anyway, and I should +have been dead by now if Silver hadn’t stood for me; and doctor, +believe this, I can die--and I dare say I deserve it--but what I fear is +torture. If they come to torture me--” + +“Jim,” the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed, “Jim, I +can’t have this. Whip over, and we’ll run for it.” + +“Doctor,” said I, “I passed my word.” + +“I know, I know,” he cried. “We can’t help that, Jim, now. I’ll take it +on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, +I cannot let you. Jump! One jump, and you’re out, and we’ll run for it +like antelopes.” + +“No,” I replied; “you know right well you wouldn’t do the thing +yourself--neither you nor squire nor captain; and no more will I. Silver +trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not +let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of +where the ship is, for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, +and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high +water. At half tide she must be high and dry.” + +“The ship!” exclaimed the doctor. + +Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in +silence. + +“There is a kind of fate in this,” he observed when I had done. “Every +step, it’s you that saves our lives; and do you suppose by any chance +that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my +boy. You found out the plot; you found Ben Gunn--the best deed that +ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and +talking of Ben Gunn! Why, this is the mischief in person. Silver!” he +cried. “Silver! I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he continued as +the cook drew near again; “don’t you be in any great hurry after that +treasure.” + +“Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain’t,” said Silver. “I can +only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boy’s by seeking for that +treasure; and you may lay to that.” + +“Well, Silver,” replied the doctor, “if that is so, I’ll go one step +further: look out for squalls when you find it.” + +“Sir,” said Silver, “as between man and man, that’s too much and too +little. What you’re after, why you left the block house, why you given +me that there chart, I don’t know, now, do I? And yet I done your +bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope! But no, this here’s +too much. If you won’t tell me what you mean plain out, just say so and +I’ll leave the helm.” + +“No,” said the doctor musingly; “I’ve no right to say more; it’s not my +secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my word, I’d tell it you. But +I’ll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I’ll have +my wig sorted by the captain or I’m mistaken! And first, I’ll give you a +bit of hope; Silver, if we both get alive out of this wolf-trap, I’ll do +my best to save you, short of perjury.” + +Silver’s face was radiant. “You couldn’t say more, I’m sure, sir, not if +you was my mother,” he cried. + +“Well, that’s my first concession,” added the doctor. “My second is a +piece of advice: keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, +halloo. I’m off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I +speak at random. Good-bye, Jim.” + +And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to +Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood. + + + + +31 + +The Treasure-hunt--Flint’s Pointer + +“JIM,” said Silver when we were alone, “if I saved your life, you saved +mine; and I’ll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for +it--with the tail of my eye, I did; and I seen you say no, as plain as +hearing. Jim, that’s one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had +since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we’re to go in +for this here treasure-hunting, with sealed orders too, and I don’t like +it; and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we’ll save +our necks in spite o’ fate and fortune.” + +Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and +we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried +junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so +hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there +not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, +I suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, with an +empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared +again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of +the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way +of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they +were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their +entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign. + +Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his shoulder, had not +a word of blame for their recklessness. And this the more surprised me, +for I thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then. + +“Aye, mates,” said he, “it’s lucky you have Barbecue to think for you +with this here head. I got what I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have +the ship. Where they have it, I don’t know yet; but once we hit the +treasure, we’ll have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us +that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand.” + +Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot bacon; thus he +restored their hope and confidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired +his own at the same time. + +“As for hostage,” he continued, “that’s his last talk, I guess, with +them he loves so dear. I’ve got my piece o’ news, and thanky to him +for that; but it’s over and done. I’ll take him in a line when we go +treasure-hunting, for we’ll keep him like so much gold, in case of +accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we got the ship and +treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions, why then we’ll talk +Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we’ll give him his share, to be sure, for +all his kindness.” + +It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now. For my part, I +was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove +feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt +it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he +would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from +hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side. + +Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced to keep his faith +with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay before us! What a moment +that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty +and he and I should have to fight for dear life--he a cripple and I a +boy--against five strong and active seamen! + +Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the +behaviour of my friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade, +their inexplicable cession of the chart, or harder still to understand, +the doctor’s last warning to Silver, “Look out for squalls when you +find it,” and you will readily believe how little taste I found in my +breakfast and with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on +the quest for treasure. + +We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see us--all in soiled +sailor clothes and all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns +slung about him--one before and one behind--besides the great cutlass +at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of his square-tailed coat. +To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his +shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk. I had a +line about my waist and followed obediently after the sea-cook, who +held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his +powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear. + +The other men were variously burthened, some carrying picks and +shovels--for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore +from the HISPANIOLA--others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the +midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came from our stock, and I +could see the truth of Silver’s words the night before. Had he not +struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the +ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds +of their hunting. Water would have been little to their taste; a sailor +is not usually a good shot; and besides all that, when they were so +short of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder. + +Well, thus equipped, we all set out--even the fellow with the broken +head, who should certainly have kept in shadow--and straggled, one after +another, to the beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore +trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken thwart, and +both in their muddy and unbailed condition. Both were to be carried +along with us for the sake of safety; and so, with our numbers divided +between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage. + +As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross +was, of course, far too large to be a guide; and the terms of the note +on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran, the +reader may remember, thus: + + Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to + the N. of N.N.E. + Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. + Ten feet. + +A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us the +anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, +adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass +and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy eminence +called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly +with pine-trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a +different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours, +and which of these was the particular “tall tree” of Captain Flint could +only be decided on the spot, and by the readings of the compass. + +Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the boats had +picked a favourite of his own ere we were half-way over, Long John alone +shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there. + +We pulled easily, by Silver’s directions, not to weary the hands +prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at the mouth of +the second river--that which runs down a woody cleft of the Spy-glass. +Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the +plateau. + +At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation +greatly delayed our progress; but by little and little the hill began +to steepen and become stony under foot, and the wood to change its +character and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a most +pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching. A +heavy-scented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place +of grass. Thickets of green nutmeg-trees were dotted here and there with +the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines; and the first mingled +their spice with the aroma of the others. The air, besides, was fresh +and stirring, and this, under the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful +refreshment to our senses. + +The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to +and fro. About the centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and +I followed--I tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among +the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand, +or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill. + +We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the +brow of the plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry +aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others +began to run in his direction. + +“He can’t ’a found the treasure,” said old Morgan, hurrying past us from +the right, “for that’s clean a-top.” + +Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something +very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green +creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human +skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I believe a +chill struck for a moment to every heart. + +“He was a seaman,” said George Merry, who, bolder than the rest, had +gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. “Leastways, this +is good sea-cloth.” + +“Aye, aye,” said Silver; “like enough; you wouldn’t look to find a +bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie? +’Tain’t in natur’.” + +Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body +was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of +the birds that had fed upon him or of the slow-growing creeper that had +gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight--his +feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a +diver’s, pointing directly in the opposite. + +“I’ve taken a notion into my old numbskull,” observed Silver. “Here’s +the compass; there’s the tip-top p’int o’ Skeleton Island, stickin’ +out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them +bones.” + +It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island, +and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E. + +“I thought so,” cried the cook; “this here is a p’inter. Right up there +is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! +If it don’t make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of HIS +jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here; he killed ’em, +every man; and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver +my timbers! They’re long bones, and the hair’s been yellow. Aye, that +would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?” + +“Aye, aye,” returned Morgan; “I mind him; he owed me money, he did, and +took my knife ashore with him.” + +“Speaking of knives,” said another, “why don’t we find his’n lying +round? Flint warn’t the man to pick a seaman’s pocket; and the birds, I +guess, would leave it be.” + +“By the powers, and that’s true!” cried Silver. + +“There ain’t a thing left here,” said Merry, still feeling round among +the bones; “not a copper doit nor a baccy box. It don’t look nat’ral to +me.” + +“No, by gum, it don’t,” agreed Silver; “not nat’ral, nor not nice, says +you. Great guns! Messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot +spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what +they are now.” + +“I saw him dead with these here deadlights,” said Morgan. “Billy took me +in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes.” + +“Dead--aye, sure enough he’s dead and gone below,” said the fellow with +the bandage; “but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint’s. Dear +heart, but he died bad, did Flint!” + +“Aye, that he did,” observed another; “now he raged, and now he hollered +for the rum, and now he sang. ‘Fifteen Men’ were his only song, mates; +and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was +main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin’ out as +clear as clear--and the death-haul on the man already.” + +“Come, come,” said Silver; “stow this talk. He’s dead, and he don’t +walk, that I know; leastways, he won’t walk by day, and you may lay to +that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons.” + +We started, certainly; but in spite of the hot sun and the staring +daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the +wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of +the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits. + + + + +32 + +The Treasure-hunt--The Voice Among the Trees + +PARTLY from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver +and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained +the brow of the ascent. + +The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, this spot on which +we had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, +over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; +behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, +but saw--clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field +of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted +with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but +that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of +countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea; the +very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude. + +Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass. + +“There are three ‘tall trees’” said he, “about in the right line from +Skeleton Island. ‘Spy-glass shoulder,’ I take it, means that lower p’int +there. It’s child’s play to find the stuff now. I’ve half a mind to dine +first.” + +“I don’t feel sharp,” growled Morgan. “Thinkin’ o’ Flint--I think it +were--as done me.” + +“Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he’s dead,” said Silver. + +“He were an ugly devil,” cried a third pirate with a shudder; “that blue +in the face too!” + +“That was how the rum took him,” added Merry. “Blue! Well, I reckon he +was blue. That’s a true word.” + +Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of +thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to +whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted +the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees +in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the well-known +air and words: + + “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- + Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” + +I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The +colour went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their +feet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan grovelled on the ground. + +“It’s Flint, by ----!” cried Merry. + +The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken off, you would have +said, in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand upon +the singer’s mouth. Coming through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the +green tree-tops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the +effect on my companions was the stranger. + +“Come,” said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the word out; +“this won’t do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can’t +name the voice, but it’s someone skylarking--someone that’s flesh and +blood, and you may lay to that.” + +His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the colour to his +face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this +encouragement and were coming a little to themselves, when the same +voice broke out again--not this time singing, but in a faint distant +hail that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spy-glass. + +“Darby M’Graw,” it wailed--for that is the word that best describes the +sound--“Darby M’Graw! Darby M’Graw!” again and again and again; and then +rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out: “Fetch aft +the rum, Darby!” + +The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from +their heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared in +silence, dreadfully, before them. + +“That fixes it!” gasped one. “Let’s go.” + +“They was his last words,” moaned Morgan, “his last words above board.” + +Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought +up, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell among bad companions. + +Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head, +but he had not yet surrendered. + +“Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby,” he muttered; “not one +but us that’s here.” And then, making a great effort: “Shipmates,” + he cried, “I’m here to get that stuff, and I’ll not be beat by man or +devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers, I’ll +face him dead. There’s seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a +mile from here. When did ever a gentleman o’ fortune show his stern to +that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug--and him dead +too?” + +But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather, +indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words. + +“Belay there, John!” said Merry. “Don’t you cross a sperrit.” + +And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away +severally had they dared; but fear kept them together, and kept them +close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty +well fought his weakness down. + +“Sperrit? Well, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one thing not clear to me. +There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well +then, what’s he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know? That +ain’t in natur’, surely?” + +This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what will +affect the superstitious, and to my wonder, George Merry was greatly +relieved. + +“Well, that’s so,” he said. “You’ve a head upon your shoulders, John, +and no mistake. ’Bout ship, mates! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I +do believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint’s voice, I +grant you, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. It was liker +somebody else’s voice now--it was liker--” + +“By the powers, Ben Gunn!” roared Silver. + +“Aye, and so it were,” cried Morgan, springing on his knees. “Ben Gunn +it were!” + +“It don’t make much odds, do it, now?” asked Dick. “Ben Gunn’s not here +in the body any more’n Flint.” + +But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. + +“Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn,” cried Merry; “dead or alive, nobody minds +him.” + +It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned and how the natural +colour had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together, +with intervals of listening; and not long after, hearing no further +sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry walking +first with Silver’s compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton +Island. He had said the truth: dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. + +Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went, with +fearful glances; but he found no sympathy, and Silver even joked him on +his precautions. + +“I told you,” said he--“I told you you had sp’iled your Bible. If it +ain’t no good to swear by, what do you suppose a sperrit would give for +it? Not that!” and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his +crutch. + +But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soon plain to me that +the lad was falling sick; hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock +of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing +swiftly higher. + +It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; our way lay a little +downhill, for, as I have said, the plateau tilted towards the west. The +pines, great and small, grew wide apart; and even between the clumps of +nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking, +as we did, pretty near north-west across the island, we drew, on the +one hand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the +other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed +and trembled in the coracle. + +The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the +wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet +into the air above a clump of underwood--a giant of a vegetable, with +a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a +company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuous far to sea both on +the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the +chart. + +But it was not its size that now impressed my companions; it was the +knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere +buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they +drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in +their heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul +was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and +pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them. + +Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrils stood out and +quivered; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and +shiny countenance; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to +him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look. +Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read +them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had +been forgotten: his promise and the doctor’s warning were both things +of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the +treasure, find and board the HISPANIOLA under cover of night, cut +every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first +intended, laden with crimes and riches. + +Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with +the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it +was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me +his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us and now brought +up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses as his +fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all, +I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted +on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face--he who +died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink--had there, with his +own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove that was now so +peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the +thought I could believe I heard it ringing still. + +We were now at the margin of the thicket. + +“Huzza, mates, all together!” shouted Merry; and the foremost broke into +a run. + +And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop. A low cry +arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutch +like one possessed; and next moment he and I had come also to a dead +halt. + +Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had +fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft +of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing-cases strewn +around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name +WALRUS--the name of Flint’s ship. + +All was clear to probation. The CACHE had been found and rifled; the +seven hundred thousand pounds were gone! + + + + +33 + +The Fall of a Chieftain + +THERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men +was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost +instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a +racer, on that money; well, he was brought up, in a single second, dead; +and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the +others had had time to realize the disappointment. + +“Jim,” he whispered, “take that, and stand by for trouble.” + +And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol. + +At the same time, he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps +had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at +me and nodded, as much as to say, “Here is a narrow corner,” as, indeed, +I thought it was. His looks were not quite friendly, and I was so +revolted at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering, +“So you’ve changed sides again.” + +There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers, with oaths +and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit and to dig +with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan +found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It +was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a +quarter of a minute. + +“Two guineas!” roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. “That’s your seven +hundred thousand pounds, is it? You’re the man for bargains, ain’t you? +You’re him that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber!” + +“Dig away, boys,” said Silver with the coolest insolence; “you’ll find +some pig-nuts and I shouldn’t wonder.” + +“Pig-nuts!” repeated Merry, in a scream. “Mates, do you hear that? I +tell you now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him +and you’ll see it wrote there.” + +“Ah, Merry,” remarked Silver, “standing for cap’n again? You’re a +pushing lad, to be sure.” + +But this time everyone was entirely in Merry’s favour. They began to +scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One +thing I observed, which looked well for us: they all got out upon the +opposite side from Silver. + +Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit +between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow. +Silver never moved; he watched them, very upright on his crutch, and +looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake. + +At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters. + +“Mates,” says he, “there’s two of them alone there; one’s the old +cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this; the +other’s that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates--” + +He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a +charge. But just then--crack! crack! crack!--three musket-shots flashed +out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the +man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length +upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other +three turned and ran for it with all their might. + +Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into +the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the +last agony, “George,” said he, “I reckon I settled you.” + +At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with +smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees. + +“Forward!” cried the doctor. “Double quick, my lads. We must head ’em +off the boats.” + +And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to +the chest. + +I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man +went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were +fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the +doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the +verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope. + +“Doctor,” he hailed, “see there! No hurry!” + +Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we +could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as +they had started, right for Mizzenmast Hill. We were already between +them and the boats; and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, +mopping his face, came slowly up with us. + +“Thank ye kindly, doctor,” says he. “You came in in about the nick, I +guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it’s you, Ben Gunn!” he added. “Well, +you’re a nice one, to be sure.” + +“I’m Ben Gunn, I am,” replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his +embarrassment. “And,” he added, after a long pause, “how do, Mr. Silver? +Pretty well, I thank ye, says you.” + +“Ben, Ben,” murmured Silver, “to think as you’ve done me!” + +The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes deserted, in their +flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to +where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place. +It was a story that profoundly interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the +half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end. + +Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the +skeleton--it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he +had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe that lay broken in the +excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from +the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at +the north-east angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in +safety since two months before the arrival of the HISPANIOLA. + +When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon of the +attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone +to Silver, given him the chart, which was now useless--given him the +stores, for Ben Gunn’s cave was well supplied with goats’ meat salted +by himself--given anything and everything to get a chance of moving in +safety from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be clear of +malaria and keep a guard upon the money. + +“As for you, Jim,” he said, “it went against my heart, but I did what I +thought best for those who had stood by their duty; and if you were not +one of these, whose fault was it?” + +That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid +disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way +to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray +and the maroon and started, making the diagonal across the island to be +at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the +start of him; and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in +front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the +superstitions of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful that +Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed before the +arrival of the treasure-hunters. + +“Ah,” said Silver, “it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. +You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a +thought, doctor.” + +“Not a thought,” replied Dr. Livesey cheerily. + +And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pick-axe, +demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other and set out +to go round by sea for North Inlet. + +This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost +killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and +we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out +of the straits and doubled the south-east corner of the island, round +which, four days ago, we had towed the HISPANIOLA. + +As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the black mouth of Ben +Gunn’s cave and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was the +squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in which +the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any. + +Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should +we meet but the HISPANIOLA, cruising by herself? The last flood had +lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current, as +in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found +her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the +wreck of the main-sail. Another anchor was got ready and dropped in a +fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, +the nearest point for Ben Gunn’s treasure-house; and then Gray, +single-handed, returned with the gig to the HISPANIOLA, where he was to +pass the night on guard. + +A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the +top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind, saying nothing +of my escapade either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver’s polite +salute he somewhat flushed. + +“John Silver,” he said, “you’re a prodigious villain and imposter--a +monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well, +then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like +mill-stones.” + +“Thank you kindly, sir,” replied Long John, again saluting. + +“I dare you to thank me!” cried the squire. “It is a gross dereliction +of my duty. Stand back.” + +And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with +a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The +floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far +corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps +of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint’s +treasure that we had come so far to seek and that had cost already the +lives of seventeen men from the HISPANIOLA. How many it had cost in the +amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, +what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what +shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there +were still three upon that island--Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben +Gunn--who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in +vain to share in the reward. + +“Come in, Jim,” said the captain. “You’re a good boy in your line, Jim, +but I don’t think you and me’ll go to sea again. You’re too much of the +born favourite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here, +man?” + +“Come back to my dooty, sir,” returned Silver. + +“Ah!” said the captain, and that was all he said. + +What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me; and +what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn’s salted goat and some delicacies and +a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA. Never, I am sure, were people +gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the +firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything +was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter--the same bland, +polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out. + + + + +34 + +And Last + +THE next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this +great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three +miles by boat to the HISPANIOLA, was a considerable task for so small +a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did +not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was +sufficient to ensure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought, +besides, they had had more than enough of fighting. + +Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Gunn came and +went with the boat, while the rest during their absences piled treasure +on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope’s end, made a good load +for a grown man--one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, +as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave +packing the minted money into bread-bags. + +It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard for the diversity +of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied that I think I +never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, +Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and +moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the +last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked +like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square +pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round +your neck--nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, +have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they +were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my +fingers with sorting them out. + +Day after day this work went on; by every evening a fortune had been +stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow; and +all this time we heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers. + +At last--I think it was on the third night--the doctor and I were +strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it overlooks the lowlands of +the isle, when, from out the thick darkness below, the wind brought us +a noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch that reached +our ears, followed by the former silence. + +“Heaven forgive them,” said the doctor; “’tis the mutineers!” + +“All drunk, sir,” struck in the voice of Silver from behind us. + +Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in spite of +daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as quite a privileged +and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore +these slights and with what unwearying politeness he kept on trying to +ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than +a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old +quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to thank him for; +although for that matter, I suppose, I had reason to think even worse of +him than anybody else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery +upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor +answered him. + +“Drunk or raving,” said he. + +“Right you were, sir,” replied Silver; “and precious little odds which, +to you and me.” + +“I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane man,” returned +the doctor with a sneer, “and so my feelings may surprise you, Master +Silver. But if I were sure they were raving--as I am morally certain +one, at least, of them is down with fever--I should leave this camp, +and at whatever risk to my own carcass, take them the assistance of my +skill.” + +“Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong,” quoth Silver. “You +would lose your precious life, and you may lay to that. I’m on your side +now, hand and glove; and I shouldn’t wish for to see the party weakened, +let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But these men down +there, they couldn’t keep their word--no, not supposing they wished to; +and what’s more, they couldn’t believe as you could.” + +“No,” said the doctor. “You’re the man to keep your word, we know that.” + +Well, that was about the last news we had of the three pirates. Only +once we heard a gunshot a great way off and supposed them to be hunting. +A council was held, and it was decided that we must desert them on the +island--to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with the strong +approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder and shot, the bulk +of the salt goat, a few medicines, and some other necessaries, tools, +clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and by the particular +desire of the doctor, a handsome present of tobacco. + +That was about our last doing on the island. Before that, we had got the +treasure stowed and had shipped enough water and the remainder of the +goat meat in case of any distress; and at last, one fine morning, we +weighed anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood out +of North Inlet, the same colours flying that the captain had flown and +fought under at the palisade. + +The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for, +as we soon had proved. For coming through the narrows, we had to +lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of +them kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms raised in +supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that +wretched state; but we could not risk another mutiny; and to take them +home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor +hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were +to find them. But they continued to call us by name and appeal to us, +for God’s sake, to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a +place. + +At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly +drawing out of earshot, one of them--I know not which it was--leapt to +his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent +a shot whistling over Silver’s head and through the main-sail. + +After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked +out they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost +melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end +of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of +Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea. + +We were so short of men that everyone on board had to bear a hand--only +the captain lying on a mattress in the stern and giving his orders, for +though greatly recovered he was still in want of quiet. We laid her +head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the +voyage home without fresh hands; and as it was, what with baffling winds +and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it. + +It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most beautiful +land-locked gulf, and were immediately surrounded by shore boats full +of Negroes and Mexican Indians and half-bloods selling fruits and +vegetables and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of so many +good-humoured faces (especially the blacks), the taste of the tropical +fruits, and above all the lights that began to shine in the town made a +most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island; +and the doctor and the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore +to pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an +English man-of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and, +in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came +alongside the HISPANIOLA. + +Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, +with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone. +The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, +and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which +would certainly have been forfeit if “that man with the one leg +had stayed aboard.” But this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone +empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and had removed +one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, +to help him on his further wanderings. + +I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him. + +Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a +good cruise home, and the HISPANIOLA reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly +was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of +those who had sailed returned with her. “Drink and the devil had done +for the rest,” with a vengeance, although, to be sure, we were not quite +in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about: + + With one man of her crew alive, + What put to sea with seventy-five. + +All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used it wisely or +foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired +from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but being suddenly smit +with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now +mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship, married besides, and the +father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he +spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for +he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, +exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great +favourite, though something of a butt, with the country boys, and a +notable singer in church on Sundays and saints’ days. + +Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one +leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old +Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. +It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another +world are very small. + +The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where +Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and +wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and +the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about +its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint +still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” + + + WINNIE-THE-POOH + + CHAPTER I + + IN WHICH WE ARE INTRODUCED TO + WINNIE-THE-POOH AND SOME BEES, + AND THE STORIES BEGIN + + +Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the +back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, +the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there +really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and +think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he +is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh. + +When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to say, "But +I thought he was a boy?" + +"So did I," said Christopher Robin. + +"Then you can't call him Winnie?" + +"I don't." + +"But you said----" + +"He's Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don't you know what '_ther_' means?" + +"Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it +is all the explanation you are going to get. + +Sometimes Winnie-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort when he comes +downstairs, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly in front of the fire +and listen to a story. This evening---- + +"What about a story?" said Christopher Robin. + +"_What_ about a story?" I said. + +"Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?" + +"I suppose I could," I said. "What sort of stories does he like?" + +"About himself. Because he's _that_ sort of Bear." + +"Oh, I see." + +"So could you very sweetly?" + +"I'll try," I said. + +So I tried. + + * * * * * + +Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, +Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of +Sanders. + +(_"What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin._ + +"_It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived +under it._" + +_"Winnie-the-Pooh wasn't quite sure," said Christopher Robin._ + +_"Now I am," said a growly voice._ + +_"Then I will go on," said I._) + +One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle +of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, +and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise. + +Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between +his paws and began to think. + +First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. +You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, +without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's +making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise +that _I_ know of is because you're a bee." + +Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for +being a bee that I know of is making honey." + +And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is +so as _I_ can eat it." So he began to climb the tree. + +He climbed and he climbed and he climbed, and as he climbed he sang a +little song to himself. It went like this: + + Isn't it funny + How a bear likes honey? + Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! + I wonder why he does? + +Then he climbed a little further ... and a little further ... and +then just a little further. By that time he had thought of another song. + + It's a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees, + They'd build their nests at the _bottom_ of trees. + And that being so (if the Bees were Bears), + We shouldn't have to climb up all these stairs. + +He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a +Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just stood on that +branch ... + +_Crack!_ + +"Oh, help!" said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the branch below him. + +"If only I hadn't----" he said, as he bounced twenty feet on to the next +branch. + +"You see, what I _meant_ to do," he explained, as he turned +head-over-heels, and crashed on to another branch thirty feet below, +"what I _meant_ to do----" + +"Of course, it _was_ rather----" he admitted, as he slithered very +quickly through the next six branches. + +"It all comes, I suppose," he decided, as he said good-bye to the last +branch, spun round three times, and flew gracefully into a gorse-bush, +"it all comes of _liking_ honey so much. Oh, help!" + +He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his nose, +and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was +Christopher Robin. + +(_"Was that me?" said Christopher Robin in an awed voice, hardly daring +to believe it._ + +"_That was you._" + +_Christopher Robin said nothing, but his eyes got larger and larger, and +his face got pinker and pinker._) + +So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived +behind a green door in another part of the forest. + +"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he said. + +"Good morning, Winnie-_ther_-Pooh," said you. + +"I wonder if you've got such a thing as a balloon about you?" + +"A balloon?" + +"Yes, I just said to myself coming along: 'I wonder if Christopher Robin +has such a thing as a balloon about him?' I just said it to myself, +thinking of balloons, and wondering." + +"What do you want a balloon for?" you said. + +Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his +paw to his mouth, and said in a deep whisper: "_Honey!_" + +"But you don't get honey with balloons!" + +"_I_ do," said Pooh. + +Well, it just happened that you had been to a party the day before at +the house of your friend Piglet, and you had balloons at the party. You +had had a big green balloon; and one of Rabbit's relations had had a big +blue one, and had left it behind, being really too young to go to a +party at all; and so you had brought the green one _and_ the blue one +home with you. + +"Which one would you like?" you asked Pooh. + +He put his head between his paws and thought very carefully. + +"It's like this," he said. "When you go after honey with a balloon, the +great thing is not to let the bees know you're coming. Now, if you have +a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the tree, and +not notice you, and, if you have a blue balloon, they might think you +were only part of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: +Which is most likely?" + +"Wouldn't they notice _you_ underneath the balloon?" you asked. + +"They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "You never can +tell with bees." He thought for a moment and said: "I shall try to look +like a small black cloud. That will deceive them." + +"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said; and so it was +decided. + +Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun +with you, just in case, as you always did, and Winnie-the-Pooh went to a +very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was +black all over; and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as big, +and you and Pooh were both holding on to the string, you let go +suddenly, and Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed +there--level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet away from +it. + +"Hooray!" you shouted. + +"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look +like?" + +"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said. + +"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "--not like a small black cloud in a blue +sky?" + +"Not very much." + +"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you +never can tell with bees." + +There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He +could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite +reach the honey. + +After a little while he called down to you. + +"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper. + +"Hallo!" + +"I think the bees _suspect_ something!" + +"What sort of thing?" + +"I don't know. But something tells me that they're _suspicious_!" + +"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey." + +"It may be that. You never can tell with bees." + +There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again. + +"Christopher Robin!" + +"Yes?" + +"Have you an umbrella in your house?" + +"I think so." + +"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and +look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' +I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are +practising on these bees." + +Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it +aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your +umbrella. + +"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got +back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered +that the bees are now definitely Suspicious." + +"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said. + +"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to +deceive is the Queen Bee. Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down +there?" + +"No." + +"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying, +'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little +Cloud Song, such as a cloud might sing.... Go!" + +So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain, +Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song: + + How sweet to be a Cloud + Floating in the Blue! + Every little cloud + _Always_ sings aloud. + + "How sweet to be a Cloud + Floating in the Blue!" + It makes him very proud + To be a little cloud. + +The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, +indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the +second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud +for a moment, and then got up again. + +"Christopher--_ow!_--Robin," called out the cloud. + +"Yes?" + +"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important +decision. _These are the wrong sort of bees._" + +"Are they?" + +"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort +of honey, shouldn't you?" + +"Would they?" + +"Yes. So I think I shall come down." + +"How?" asked you. + +Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, +he would fall--_bump_--and he didn't like the idea of that. So he +thought for a long time, and then he said: + +"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you +got your gun?" + +"Of course I have," you said. "But if I do that, it will spoil the +balloon," you said. + +"But if you _don't_," said Pooh, "I shall have to let go, and that would +spoil _me_." + +When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very +carefully at the balloon, and fired. + +"_Ow!_" said Pooh. + +"Did I miss?" you asked. + +"You didn't exactly _miss_," said Pooh, "but you missed the _balloon_." + +"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the +balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down +to the ground. + +But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon +all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a +week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it +off. And I think--but I am not sure--that _that_ is why he was always +called Pooh. + + * * * * * + +"Is that the end of the story?" asked Christopher Robin. + +"That's the end of that one. There are others." + +"About Pooh and Me?" + +"And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don't you remember?" + +"I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget." + +"That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump----" + +"They didn't catch it, did they?" + +"No." + +"Pooh couldn't, because he hasn't any brain. Did _I_ catch it?" + +"Well, that comes into the story." + +Christopher Robin nodded. + +"I do remember," he said, "only Pooh doesn't very well, so that's why he +likes having it told to him again. Because then it's a real story and +not just a remembering." + +"That's just how _I_ feel," I said. + +Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up by the leg, and +walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind him. At the door he turned +and said, "Coming to see me have my bath?" + +"I might," I said. + +"I didn't hurt him when I shot him, did I?" + +"Not a bit." + +He nodded and went out, and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh--_bump, +bump, bump_--going up the stairs behind him. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + IN WHICH POOH GOES VISITING AND + GETS INTO A TIGHT PLACE + + +Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for +short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to +himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing +his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la_, +as he stretched up as high as he could go, and then _Tra-la-la, +tra-la--oh, help!--la_, as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast +he had said it over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by +heart, and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like +this: + + _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_ + _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_ + _Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._ + _Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_ + _Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_ + _Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._ + +Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily, +wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being +somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank +was a large hole. + +"Aha!" said Pooh. (_Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._) "If I know anything about +anything, that hole means Rabbit," he said, "and Rabbit means Company," +he said, "and Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and such +like. _Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._" + +So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called out: + +"Is anybody at home?" + +There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then +silence. + +"What I said was, 'Is anybody at home?'" called out Pooh very loudly. + +"No!" said a voice; and then added, "You needn't shout so loud. I heard +you quite well the first time." + +"Bother!" said Pooh. "Isn't there anybody here at all?" + +"Nobody." + +Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and thought for a little, +and he thought to himself, "There must be somebody there, because +somebody must have _said_ 'Nobody.'" So he put his head back in the +hole, and said: + +"Hallo, Rabbit, isn't that you?" + +"No," said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time. + +"But isn't that Rabbit's voice?" + +"I don't _think_ so," said Rabbit. "It isn't _meant_ to be." + +"Oh!" said Pooh. + +He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put +it back, and said: + +"Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?" + +"He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a great friend of his." + +"But this _is_ Me!" said Bear, very much surprised. + +"What sort of Me?" + +"Pooh Bear." + +"Are you sure?" said Rabbit, still more surprised. + +"Quite, quite sure," said Pooh. + +"Oh, well, then, come in." + +So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole, and at +last he got in. + +"You were quite right," said Rabbit, looking at him all over. "It _is_ +you. Glad to see you." + +"Who did you think it was?" + +"Well, I wasn't sure. You know how it is in the Forest. One can't have +_anybody_ coming into one's house. One has to be _careful_. What about a +mouthful of something?" + +Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, +and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and +when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so +excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he +added, "But don't bother about the bread, please." And for a long time +after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a +rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and +said that he must be going on. + +"Must you?" said Rabbit politely. + +"Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it--if you----" and +he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder. + +"As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out myself directly." + +"Oh, well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye." + +"Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any more." + +"_Is_ there any more?" asked Pooh quickly. + +Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No, there wasn't." + +"I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must +be going on." + +So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, +and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in +the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... +and then his shoulders ... and then---- + +"Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back." + +"Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on." + +"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!" + +Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the +front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh, +and looked at him. + +"Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked. + +"N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to +myself." + +"Here, give us a paw." + +Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and +pulled.... + +"_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!" + +"The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck." + +"It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big +enough." + +"It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at +the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said +Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew +if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher +Robin." + +Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came +back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old +Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. + +"I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that +Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should +_hate_ that," he said. + +"So should I," said Rabbit. + +"Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use +his front door again." + +"Good," said Rabbit. + +"If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." + +Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when +once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more +glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees +and some lived underground, and---- + +"You mean I'd _never_ get out?" said Pooh. + +"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to +waste it." + +Christopher Robin nodded. + +"Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to +wait for you to get thin again." + +"How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. + +"About a week, I should think." + +"But I can't stay here for a _week_!" + +"You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out +which is so difficult." + +"We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," +he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room +in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? +Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very +convenient just to hang the towels on them." + +"A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" + +"I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin +quicker. But we _will_ read to you." + +Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly +stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: + +"Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a +Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" + +So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end +of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end ... and in +between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the +end of the week Christopher Robin said, "_Now!_" + +So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher +Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and +they all pulled together.... + +And for a long time Pooh only said "_Ow!_" ... + +And "_Oh!_" ... + +And then, all of a sudden, he said "_Pop!_" just as if a cork were +coming out of a bottle. + +And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit's friends and relations +went head-over-heels backwards ... and on the top of them came +Winnie-the-Pooh--free! + +So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk +through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But, Christopher Robin +looked after him lovingly, and said to himself, "Silly old Bear!" + + + + + CHAPTER III + + IN WHICH POOH AND PIGLET GO HUNTING + AND NEARLY CATCH A WOOZLE + + +The Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, +and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived +in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken +board which had: "TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the +Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had +been in the family for a long time, Christopher Robin said you +_couldn't_ be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, +because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, +which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two +names in case he lost one--Trespassers after an uncle, and William after +Trespassers. + +"I've got two names," said Christopher Robin carelessly. + +"Well, there you are, that proves it," said Piglet. + +One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of +his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh +was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and +when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking. + +"Hallo!" said Piglet, "what are _you_ doing?" + +"Hunting," said Pooh. + +"Hunting what?" + +"Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously. + +"Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer. + +"That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?" + +"What do you think you'll answer?" + +"I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said Winnie-the-Pooh. +"Now, look there." He pointed to the ground in front of him. "What do +you see there?" + +"Tracks," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little squeak of +excitement. "Oh, Pooh! Do you think it's a--a--a Woozle?" + +"It may be," said Pooh. "Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You +never can tell with paw-marks." + +With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him +for a minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden +stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way. + +"What's the matter?" asked Piglet. + +"It's a very funny thing," said Bear, "but there seem to be +_two_ animals now. This--whatever-it-was--has been joined by +another--whatever-it-is--and the two of them are now proceeding +in company. Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they +turn out to be Hostile Animals?" + +Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had +nothing to do until Friday, and would be delighted to come, in case it +really _was_ a Woozle. + +"You mean, in case it really is two Woozles," said Winnie-the-Pooh, and +Piglet said that anyhow he had nothing to do until Friday. So off they +went together. + +There was a small spinney of larch trees just here, and it seemed as if +the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this +spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them; Piglet +passing the time by telling Pooh what his Grandfather Trespassers W had +done to Remove Stiffness after Tracking, and how his Grandfather +Trespassers W had suffered in his later years from Shortness of Breath, +and other matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what a Grandfather was +like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after now, and, +if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home and keep it, and +what Christopher Robin would say. And still the tracks went on in front +of them.... + +Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly in front of him. +"_Look!_" + +"_What?_" said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show that he hadn't +been frightened, he jumped up and down once or twice more in an +exercising sort of way. + +"The tracks!" said Pooh. "_A third animal has joined the other two!_" + +"Pooh!" cried Piglet. "Do you think it is another Woozle?" + +"No," said Pooh, "because it makes different marks. It is either Two +Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles +and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them." + +So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three +animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent. And Piglet wished very +much that his Grandfather T. W. were there, instead of elsewhere, and +Pooh thought how nice it would be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly +but quite accidentally, and only because he liked Christopher Robin so +much. And then, all of a sudden, Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again, and +licked the tip of his nose in a cooling manner, for he was feeling more +hot and anxious than ever in his life before. _There were four animals +in front of them!_ + +"Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, +and one, as it was, Wizzle. _Another Woozle has joined them!_" + +And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other +here, getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every +now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws. + +"I _think_," said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, +and found that it brought very little comfort, "I _think_ that I have +just remembered something. I have just remembered something that I +forgot to do yesterday and shan't be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose +I really ought to go back and do it now." + +"We'll do it this afternoon, and I'll come with you," said Pooh. + +"It isn't the sort of thing you can do in the afternoon," said Piglet +quickly. "It's a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in +the morning, and, if possible, between the hours of----What would you +say the time was?" + +"About twelve," said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the sun. + +"Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, +really, dear old Pooh, if you'll excuse me----_What's that?_" + +Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the whistle again, he +looked up into the branches of a big oak-tree, and then he saw a friend +of his. + +"It's Christopher Robin," he said. + +"Ah, then you'll be all right," said Piglet. "You'll be quite safe with +_him_. Good-bye," and he trotted off home as quickly as he could, very +glad to be Out of All Danger again. + +Christopher Robin came slowly down his tree. + +"Silly old Bear," he said, "what _were_ you doing? First you went round +the spinney twice by yourself, and then Piglet ran after you and you +went round again together, and then you were just going round a fourth +time----" + +"Wait a moment," said Winnie-the-Pooh, holding up his paw. + +He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he could think. Then +he fitted his paw into one of the Tracks ... and then he scratched his +nose twice, and stood up. + +"Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh. + +"I see now," said Winnie-the-Pooh. + +"I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and I am a Bear of No Brain +at All." + +"You're the Best Bear in All the World," said Christopher Robin +soothingly. + +"Am I?" said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly. + +"Anyhow," he said, "it is nearly Luncheon Time." + +So he went home for it. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + IN WHICH EEYORE LOSES A TAIL + AND POOH FINDS ONE + + +The Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thistly corner of +the forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought +about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and +sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch +as which?"--and sometimes he didn't quite know what he _was_ thinking +about. So when Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very glad +to be able to stop thinking for a little, in order to say "How do you +do?" in a gloomy manner to him. + +"And how are you?" said Winnie-the-Pooh. + +Eeyore shook his head from side to side. + +"Not very how," he said. "I don't seem to have felt at all how for a +long time." + +"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at +you." + +So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh +walked all round him once. + +"Why, what's happened to your tail?" he said in surprise. + +"What _has_ happened to it?" said Eeyore. + +"It isn't there!" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Well, either a tail _is_ there or it isn't there. You can't make a +mistake about it. And yours _isn't_ there!" + +"Then what is?" + +"Nothing." + +"Let's have a look," said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the +place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that +he couldn't catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came +back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked +between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, "I +believe you're right." + +"Of course I'm right," said Pooh. + +"That Accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily. "It Explains +Everything. No Wonder." + +"You must have left it somewhere," said Winnie-the-Pooh. + +"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he added, +after a long silence. + +Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn't +quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead. + +"Eeyore," he said solemnly, "I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for +you." + +"Thank you, Pooh," answered Eeyore. "You're a real friend," said he. +"Not like Some," he said. + +So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore's tail. + +It was a fine spring morning in the forest as he started out. Little +soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in +front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding +away suddenly so that the next might have his turn. Through them and +between them the sun shone bravely; and a copse which had worn its firs +all the year round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace +which the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney +marched Bear; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky beds of +streams, up steep banks of sandstone into the heather again; and so at +last, tired and hungry, to the Hundred Acre Wood. For it was in the +Hundred Acre Wood that Owl lived. + +"And if anyone knows anything about anything," said Bear to himself, +"it's Owl who knows something about something," he said, "or my name's +not Winnie-the-Pooh," he said. "Which it is," he added. "So there you +are." + +Owl lived at The Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which +was grander than anybody else's, or seemed so to Bear, because it had +both a knocker _and_ a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a +notice which said: + + PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD. + +Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said: + + PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID. + +These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only +one in the forest who could spell; for Owl, wise though he was in many +ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow +went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTEREDTOAST. + +Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully, first from left to +right, and afterwards, in case he had missed some of it, from right to +left. Then, to make quite sure, he knocked and pulled the knocker, and +he pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud +voice, "Owl! I require an answer! It's Bear speaking." And the door +opened, and Owl looked out. + +"Hallo, Pooh," he said. "How's things?" + +"Terrible and Sad," said Pooh, "because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, +has lost his tail. And he's Moping about it. So could you very kindly +tell me how to find it for him?" + +"Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." + +"What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of +Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." + +"It means the Thing to Do." + +"As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh humbly. + +"The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then----" + +"Just a moment," said Pooh, holding up his paw. "_What_ do we do to +this--what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell +me." + +"I _didn't_ sneeze." + +"Yes, you did, Owl." + +"Excuse me, Pooh, I didn't. You can't sneeze without knowing it." + +"Well, you can't know it without something having been sneezed." + +"What I _said_ was, 'First _Issue_ a Reward'." + +"You're doing it again," said Pooh sadly. + +"A Reward!" said Owl very loudly. "We write a notice to say that we will +give a large something to anybody who finds Eeyore's tail." + +"I see, I see," said Pooh, nodding his head. "Talking about large +somethings," he went on dreamily, "I generally have a small something +about now--about this time in the morning," and he looked wistfully at +the cupboard in the corner of Owl's parlour; "just a mouthful of +condensed milk or whatnot, with perhaps a lick of honey----" + +"Well, then," said Owl, "we write out this notice, and we put it up all +over the forest." + +"A lick of honey," murmured Bear to himself, "or--or not, as the case +may be." And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what +Owl was saying. + +But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at last he +came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write +out this notice was Christopher Robin. + +"It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you see them, +Pooh?" + +For some time now Pooh had been saying "Yes" and "No" in turn, with his +eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and having said, "Yes, yes," last +time, he said "No, not at all," now, without really knowing what Owl was +talking about. + +"Didn't you see them?" said Owl, a little surprised. "Come and look at +them now." + +So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice +below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and +the more he looked at the bell-rope, the more he felt that he had seen +something like it, somewhere else, sometime before. + +"Handsome bell-rope, isn't it?" said Owl. + +Pooh nodded. + +"It reminds me of something," he said, "but I can't think what. Where +did you get it?" + +"I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, and I +thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing +happened, and then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my +hand, and as nobody seemed to want it, I took it home, and----" + +"Owl," said Pooh solemnly, "you made a mistake. Somebody did want it." + +"Who?" + +"Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was--he was fond of it." + +"Fond of it?" + +"Attached to it," said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly. + + * * * * * + +So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back to Eeyore; and +when Christopher Robin had nailed it on in its right place again, Eeyore +frisked about the forest, waving his tail so happily that +Winnie-the-Pooh came over all funny, and had to hurry home for a little +snack of something to sustain him. And, wiping his mouth half an hour +afterwards, he sang to himself proudly: + + _Who found the Tail?_ + "I," said Pooh, + "At a quarter to two + (Only it was quarter to eleven really), + _I_ found the Tail!" + + + + + CHAPTER V + + IN WHICH PIGLET MEETS A HEFFALUMP + + +One day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet were +all talking together, Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was +eating and said carelessly: "I saw a Heffalump to-day, Piglet." + +"What was it doing?" asked Piglet. + +"Just lumping along," said Christopher Robin. "I don't think it saw +_me_." + +"I saw one once," said Piglet. "At least, I think I did," he said. "Only +perhaps it wasn't." + +"So did I," said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like. + +"You don't often see them," said Christopher Robin carelessly. + +"Not now," said Piglet. + +"Not at this time of year," said Pooh. + +Then they all talked about something else, until it was time for Pooh +and Piglet to go home together. At first as they stumped along the path +which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they didn't say much to each other; +but when they came to the stream and had helped each other across the +stepping stones, and were able to walk side by side again over the +heather, they began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and +Piglet said, "If you see what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh said, "It's just +what I think myself, Piglet," and Piglet said, "But, on the other hand, +Pooh, we must remember," and Pooh said, "Quite true, Piglet, although I +had forgotten it for the moment." And then, just as they came to the Six +Pine Trees, Pooh looked round to see that nobody else was listening, and +said in a very solemn voice: + +"Piglet, I have decided something." + +"What have you decided, Pooh?" + +"I have decided to catch a Heffalump." + +Pooh nodded his head several times as he said this, and waited for +Piglet to say "How?" or "Pooh, you couldn't!" or something helpful of +that sort, but Piglet said nothing. The fact was Piglet was wishing that +_he_ had thought about it first. + +"I shall do it," said Pooh, after waiting a little longer, "by means of +a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so you will have to help me, +Piglet." + +"Pooh," said Piglet, feeling quite happy again now, "I will." And then +he said, "How shall we do it?" and Pooh said, "That's just it. How?" And +then they sat down together to think it out. + +Pooh's first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep Pit, and then the +Heffalump would come along and fall into the Pit, and---- + +"Why?" said Piglet. + +"Why what?" said Pooh. + +"Why would he fall in?" + +Pooh rubbed his nose with his paw, and said that the Heffalump might be +walking along, humming a little song, and looking up at the sky, +wondering if it would rain, and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit +until he was half-way down, when it would be too late. + +Piglet said that this was a very good Trap, but supposing it were +raining already? + +Pooh rubbed his nose again, and said that he hadn't thought of that. And +then he brightened up, and said that, if it were raining already, the +Heffalump would be looking at the sky wondering if it would _clear up_, +and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way +down.... When it would be too late. + +Piglet said that, now that this point had been explained, he thought it +was a Cunning Trap. + +Pooh was very proud when he heard this, and he felt that the Heffalump +was as good as caught already, but there was just one other thing which +had to be thought about, and it was this. _Where should they dig the +Very Deep Pit?_ + +Piglet said that the best place would be somewhere where a Heffalump +was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot farther on. + +"But then he would see us digging it," said Pooh. + +"Not if he was looking at the sky." + +"He would Suspect," said Pooh, "if he happened to look down." He thought +for a long time and then added sadly, "It isn't as easy as I thought. I +suppose that's why Heffalumps hardly _ever_ get caught." + +"That must be it," said Piglet. + +They sighed and got up; and when they had taken a few gorse prickles out +of themselves they sat down again; and all the time Pooh was saying to +himself, "If only I could _think_ of something!" For he felt sure that a +Very Clever Brain could catch a Heffalump if only he knew the right way +to go about it. + +"Suppose," he said to Piglet, "_you_ wanted to catch _me_, how would you +do it?" + +"Well," said Piglet, "I should do it like this. I should make a Trap, +and I should put a Jar of Honey in the Trap, and you would smell it, and +you would go in after it, and----" + +"And I would go in after it," said Pooh excitedly, "only very carefully +so as not to hurt myself, and I would get to the Jar of Honey, and I +should lick round the edges first of all, pretending that there wasn't +any more, you know, and then I should walk away and think about it a +little, and then I should come back and start licking in the middle of +the jar, and then----" + +"Yes, well never mind about that. There you would be, and there I should +catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Heffalumps like? +I should think acorns, shouldn't you? We'll get a lot of----I say, wake +up, Pooh!" + +Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said +that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns. Piglet didn't +think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Piglet +remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, _he_ would have to find +the acorns, but if they put honey, then Pooh would have to give up some +of his own honey, so he said, "All right, honey then," just as Pooh +remembered it too, and was going to say, "All right, haycorns." + +"Honey," said Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now +settled. "_I'll_ dig the pit, while _you_ go and get the honey." + +"Very well," said Pooh, and he stumped off. + +As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, +and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had HUNNY +written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and +looked at it, and it _looked_ just like honey. "But you never can tell," +said Pooh. "I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just +this colour." So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick. "Yes," he +said, "it is. No doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down +to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course," he said, "somebody put +cheese in at the bottom just for a joke. Perhaps I had better go a +_little_ further ... just in case ... in case Heffalumps _don't_ +like cheese ... same as me.... Ah!" And he gave a deep sigh. "I +_was_ right. It _is_ honey, right the way down." + +Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Piglet, and Piglet +looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said, "Got it?" and +Pooh said, "Yes, but it isn't quite a full jar," and he threw it down to +Piglet, and Piglet said, "No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?" +and Pooh said "Yes." Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the bottom +of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together. + +"Well, good night, Pooh," said Piglet, when they had got to Pooh's +house. "And we meet at six o'clock to-morrow morning by the Pine Trees, +and see how many Heffalumps we've got in our Trap." + +"Six o'clock, Piglet. And have you got any string?" + +"No. Why do you want string?" + +"To lead them home with." + +"Oh! ... I _think_ Heffalumps come if you whistle." + +"Some do and some don't. You never can tell with Heffalumps. Well, good +night!" + +"Good night!" + +And off Piglet trotted to his house TRESPASSERS W, while Pooh made his +preparations for bed. + +Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Pooh +woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling. He had had that sinking feeling +before, and he knew what it meant. _He was hungry._ So he went to the +larder, and he stood on a chair and reached up to the top shelf, and +found--nothing. + +"That's funny," he thought. "I know I had a jar of honey there. A full +jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had HUNNY written on it, +so that I should know it was honey. That's very funny." And then he +began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a +murmur to himself. Like this: + + It's very, very funny, + 'Cos I _know_ I had some honey; + 'Cos it had a label on, + Saying HUNNY. + A goloptious full-up pot too, + And I don't know where it's got to, + No, I don't know where it's gone-- + Well, it's funny. + +He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, +when suddenly he remembered. He had put it into the Cunning Trap to +catch the Heffalump. + +"Bother!" said Pooh. "It all comes of trying to be kind to Heffalumps." +And he got back into bed. + +But he couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn't. +He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to +sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that +was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight +for a pot of Pooh's honey, _and eating it all_. For some minutes he lay +there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump +was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I +don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer. He +jumped out of bed, he ran out of the house, and he ran straight to the +Six Pine Trees. + +The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in the sky over the +Hundred Acre Wood which seemed to show that it was waking up and would +soon be kicking off the clothes. In the half-light the Pine Trees looked +cold and lonely, and the Very Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and +Pooh's jar of honey at the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and +no more. But as he got nearer to it his nose told him that it was indeed +honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his mouth, ready +for it. + +"Bother!" said Pooh, as he got his nose inside the jar. "A Heffalump has +been eating it!" And then he thought a little and said, "Oh, no, _I_ +did. I forgot." + +Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little left at the very +bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head right in, and began to +lick.... + +By and by Piglet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to himself, "Oh!" +Then he said bravely, "Yes," and then, still more bravely, "Quite so." +But he didn't feel very brave, for the word which was really jiggeting +about in his brain was "Heffalumps." + +What was a Heffalump like? + +Was it Fierce? + +_Did_ it come when you whistled? And _how_ did it come? + +Was it Fond of Pigs at all? + +If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference _what sort of Pig_? + +Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference _if the +Pig had a grandfather called TRESPASSERS WILLIAM_? + +He didn't know the answer to any of these questions ... and he was +going to see his first Heffalump in about an hour from now! + +Of course Pooh would be with him, and it was much more Friendly with +two. But suppose Heffalumps were Very Fierce with Pigs _and_ Bears? +Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a headache, and couldn't go +up to the Six Pine Trees this morning? But then suppose that it was a +very fine day, and there was no Heffalump in the trap, here he would be, +in bed all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What should +he do? + +And then he had a Clever Idea. He would go up very quietly to the Six +Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there +_was_ a Heffalump there. And if there was, he would go back to bed, and +if there wasn't, he wouldn't. + +So off he went. At first he thought that there wouldn't be a Heffalump +in the Trap, and then he thought that there would, and as he got nearer +he was _sure_ that there would, because he could hear it heffalumping +about it like anything. + +"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" said Piglet to himself. And he wanted to +run away. But somehow, having got so near, he felt that he must just see +what a Heffalump was like. So he crept to the side of the Trap and +looked in.... + +And all the time Winnie-the-Pooh had been trying to get the honey-jar +off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck. + +"_Bother!_" he said, inside the jar, and "_Oh, help!_" and, mostly, +"_Ow!_" And he tried bumping it against things, but as he couldn't see +what he was bumping it against, it didn't help him; and he tried to +climb out of the Trap, but as he could see nothing but jar, and not much +of that, he couldn't find his way. So at last he lifted up his head, jar +and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair ... and +it was at that moment that Piglet looked down. + +"Help, help!" cried Piglet, "a Heffalump, a Horrible Heffalump!" and he +scampered off as hard as he could, still crying out, "Help, help, a +Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff, Hoff, a Hellible Horralump! Holl, Holl, a +Hoffable Hellerump!" And he didn't stop crying and scampering until he +got to Christopher Robin's house. + +"Whatever's the matter, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin, who was just +getting up. + +"Heff," said Piglet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, "a +Heff--a Heff--a Heffalump." + +"Where?" + +"Up there," said Piglet, waving his paw. + +"What did it look like?" + +"Like--like----It had the biggest head you ever saw, Christopher Robin. +A great enormous thing, like--like nothing. A huge big--well, like a--I +don't know--like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar." + +"Well," said Christopher Robin, putting on his shoes, "I shall go and +look at it. Come on." + +Piglet wasn't afraid if he had Christopher Robin with him, so off they +went.... + +"I can hear it, can't you?" said Piglet anxiously, as they got near. + +"I can hear _something_," said Christopher Robin. + +It was Pooh bumping his head against a tree-root he had found. + +"There!" said Piglet. "Isn't it _awful_?" And he held on tight to +Christopher Robin's hand. + +Suddenly Christopher Robin began to laugh ... and he laughed ... and he +laughed ... and he laughed. And while he was still laughing--_Crash_ +went the Heffalump's head against the tree-root, Smash went the jar, +and out came Pooh's head again.... + +Then Piglet saw what a Foolish Piglet he had been, and he was so ashamed +of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a +headache. But Christopher Robin and Pooh went home to breakfast +together. + +"Oh, Bear!" said Christopher Robin. "How I do love you!" + +"So do I," said Pooh. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + IN WHICH EEYORE HAS A BIRTHDAY + AND GETS TWO PRESENTS + + +Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and +looked at himself in the water. + +"Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." + +He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed +across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at +himself in the water again. + +"As I thought," he said. "No better from _this_ side. But nobody minds. +Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is." + +There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came +Pooh. + +"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh. + +"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it _is_ a good +morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he. + +"Why, what's the matter?" + +"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's +all there is to it." + +"Can't all _what_?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose. + +"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush." + +"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, "What +mulberry bush is that?" + +"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word meaning bonhommy," he +explained. "I'm not complaining, but There It Is." + +Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded +to him like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a +Bear of Very Little Brain. So he sang _Cottleston Pie_ instead: + + Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, + A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly. + Ask me a riddle and I reply: + "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie._" + +That was the first verse. When he had finished it, Eeyore didn't +actually say that he didn't like it, so Pooh very kindly sang the second +verse to him: + + Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, + A fish can't whistle and neither can I. + Ask me a riddle and I reply: + "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie_." + +Eeyore still said nothing at all, so Pooh hummed the third verse quietly +to himself: + + Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, + Why does a chicken, I don't know why. + Ask me a riddle and I reply: + "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie_." + +"That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go +gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself." + +"I am," said Pooh. + +"Some can," said Eeyore. + +"Why, what's the matter?" + +"_Is_ anything the matter?" + +"You seem so sad, Eeyore." + +"Sad? Why should I be sad? It's my birthday. The happiest day of the +year." + +"Your birthday?" said Pooh in great surprise. + +"Of course it is. Can't you see? Look at all the presents I have had." +He waved a foot from side to side. "Look at the birthday cake. Candles +and pink sugar." + +Pooh looked--first to the right and then to the left. + +"Presents?" said Pooh. "Birthday cake?" said Pooh. "_Where?_" + +"Can't you see them?" + +"No," said Pooh. + +"Neither can I," said Eeyore. "Joke," he explained. "Ha ha!" + +Pooh scratched his head, being a little puzzled by all this. + +"But is it really your birthday?" he asked. + +"It is." + +"Oh! Well, Many happy returns of the day, Eeyore." + +"And many happy returns to you, Pooh Bear." + +"But it isn't _my_ birthday." + +"No, it's mine." + +"But you said 'Many happy returns'----" + +"Well, why not? You don't always want to be miserable on my birthday, do +you?" + +"Oh, I see," said Pooh. + +"It's bad enough," said Eeyore, almost breaking down, "being miserable +myself, what with no presents and no cake and no candles, and no proper +notice taken of me at all, but if everybody else is going to be +miserable too----" + +This was too much for Pooh. "Stay there!" he called to Eeyore, as he +turned and hurried back home as quick as he could; for he felt that he +must get poor Eeyore a present of _some_ sort at once, and he could +always think of a proper one afterwards. + +Outside his house he found Piglet, jumping up and down trying to reach +the knocker. + +"Hallo, Piglet," he said. + +"Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet. + +"What are _you_ trying to do?" + +"I was trying to reach the knocker," said Piglet. "I just came +round----" + +"Let me do it for you," said Pooh kindly. So he reached up and knocked +at the door. "I have just seen Eeyore," he began, "and poor Eeyore is in +a Very Sad Condition, because it's his birthday, and nobody has taken +any notice of it, and he's very Gloomy--you know what Eeyore is--and +there he was, and----What a long time whoever lives here is answering +this door." And he knocked again. + +"But Pooh," said Piglet, "it's your own house!" + +"Oh!" said Pooh. "So it is," he said. "Well, let's go in." + +So in they went. The first thing Pooh did was to go to the cupboard to +see if he had quite a small jar of honey left; and he had, so he took it +down. + +"I'm giving this to Eeyore," he explained, "as a present. What are _you_ +going to give?" + +"Couldn't I give it too?" said Piglet. "From both of us?" + +"No," said Pooh. "That would _not_ be a good plan." + +"All right, then, I'll give him a balloon. I've got one left from my +party. I'll go and get it now, shall I?" + +"That, Piglet, is a _very_ good idea. It is just what Eeyore wants to +cheer him up. Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon." + +So off Piglet trotted; and in the other direction went Pooh, with his +jar of honey. + +It was a warm day, and he had a long way to go. He hadn't gone more than +half-way when a sort of funny feeling began to creep all over him. It +began at the tip of his nose and trickled all through him and out at the +soles of his feet. It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, +"Now then, Pooh, time for a little something." + +"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I didn't know it was as late as that." So he +sat down and took the top off his jar of honey. "Lucky I brought this +with me," he thought. "Many a bear going out on a warm day like this +would never have thought of bringing a little something with him." And +he began to eat. + +"Now let me see," he thought, as he took his last lick of the inside of +the jar, "where was I going? Ah, yes, Eeyore." He got up slowly. + +And then, suddenly, he remembered. He had eaten Eeyore's birthday +present! + +"_Bother!_" said Pooh. "What _shall_ I do? I _must_ give him +_something_." + +For a little while he couldn't think of anything. Then he thought: +"Well, it's a very nice pot, even if there's no honey in it, and if I +washed it clean, and got somebody to write '_A Happy Birthday_' on it, +Eeyore could keep things in it, which might be Useful." So, as he was +just passing the Hundred Acre Wood, he went inside to call on Owl, who +lived there. + +"Good morning, Owl," he said. + +"Good morning, Pooh," said Owl. + +"Many happy returns of Eeyore's birthday," said Pooh. + +"Oh, is that what it is?" + +"What are you giving him, Owl?" + +"What are _you_ giving him, Pooh?" + +"I'm giving him a Useful Pot to Keep Things In, and I wanted to ask +you----" + +"Is this it?" said Owl, taking it out of Pooh's paw. + +"Yes, and I wanted to ask you----" + +"Somebody has been keeping honey in it," said Owl. + +"You can keep _anything_ in it," said Pooh earnestly. "It's Very Useful +like that. And I wanted to ask you----" + +"You ought to write '_A Happy Birthday_' on it." + +"_That_ was what I wanted to ask you," said Pooh. "Because my spelling +is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the +wrong places. Would _you_ write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?" + +"It's a nice pot," said Owl, looking at it all round. "Couldn't I give +it too? From both of us?" + +"No," said Pooh. "That would _not_ be a good plan. Now I'll just wash it +first, and then you can write on it." + +Well, he washed the pot out, and dried it, while Owl licked the end of +his pencil, and wondered how to spell "birthday." + +"Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously. "There's a notice +about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin +wrote. Could you read it?" + +"Christopher Robin told me what it said, and _then_ I could." + +"Well, I'll tell you what _this_ says, and then you'll be able to." + +So Owl wrote ... and this is what he wrote: + + HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY. + +Pooh looked on admiringly. + +"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly. + +"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it. + +"Well, _actually_, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy Birthday with +love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a long +thing like that." + +"Oh, I see," said Pooh. + +While all this was happening, Piglet had gone back to his own house to +get Eeyore's balloon. He held it very tightly against himself, so that +it shouldn't blow away, and he ran as fast as he could so as to get to +Eeyore before Pooh did; for he thought that he would like to be the +first one to give a present, just as if he had thought of it without +being told by anybody. And running along, and thinking how pleased +Eeyore would be, he didn't look where he was going ... and suddenly he +put his foot in a rabbit hole, and fell down flat on his face. + +BANG!!!???***!!! + +Piglet lay there, wondering what had happened. At first he thought that +the whole world had blown up; and then he thought that perhaps only the +Forest part of it had; and then he thought that perhaps only _he_ had, +and he was now alone in the moon or somewhere, and would never see +Christopher Robin or Pooh or Eeyore again. And then he thought, "Well, +even if I'm in the moon, I needn't be face downwards all the time," so +he got cautiously up and looked about him. + +He was still in the Forest! + +"Well, that's funny," he thought. "I wonder what that bang was. I +couldn't have made such a noise just falling down. And where's my +balloon? And what's that small piece of damp rag doing?" + +It was the balloon! + +"Oh, dear!" said Piglet "Oh, dear, oh, dearie, dearie, dear! Well, it's +too late now. I can't go back, and I haven't another balloon, and +perhaps Eeyore doesn't _like_ balloons so _very_ much." + +So he trotted on, rather sadly now, and down he came to the side of the +stream where Eeyore was, and called out to him. + +"Good morning, Eeyore," shouted Piglet. + +"Good morning, Little Piglet," said Eeyore. "If it _is_ a good morning," +he said. "Which I doubt," said he. "Not that it matters," he said. + +"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet, having now got closer. + +Eeyore stopped looking at himself in the stream, and turned to stare at +Piglet. + +"Just say that again," he said. + +"Many hap----" + +"Wait a moment." + +Balancing on three legs, he began to bring his fourth leg very +cautiously up to his ear. "I did this yesterday," he explained, as he +fell down for the third time. "It's quite easy. It's so as I can hear +better.... There, that's done it! Now then, what were you saying?" He +pushed his ear forward with his hoof. + +"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet again. + +"Meaning me?" + +"Of course, Eeyore." + +"My birthday?" + +"Yes." + +"Me having a real birthday?" + +"Yes, Eeyore, and I've brought you a present." + +Eeyore took down his right hoof from his right ear, turned round, and +with great difficulty put up his left hoof. + +"I must have that in the other ear," he said. "Now then." + +"A present," said Piglet very loudly. + +"Meaning me again?" + +"Yes." + +"My birthday still?" + +"Of course, Eeyore." + +"Me going on having a real birthday?" + +"Yes, Eeyore, and I brought you a balloon." + +"_Balloon?_" said Eeyore. "You did say balloon? One of those big +coloured things you blow up? Gaiety, song-and-dance, here we are and +there we are?" + +"Yes, but I'm afraid--I'm very sorry, Eeyore--but when I was running +along to bring it you, I fell down." + +"Dear, dear, how unlucky! You ran too fast, I expect. You didn't hurt +yourself, Little Piglet?" + +"No, but I--I--oh, Eeyore, I burst the balloon!" + +There was a very long silence. + +"My balloon?" said Eeyore at last. + +Piglet nodded. + +"My birthday balloon?" + +"Yes, Eeyore," said Piglet sniffing a little. "Here it is. With--with +many happy returns of the day." And he gave Eeyore the small piece of +damp rag. + +"Is this it?" said Eeyore, a little surprised. + +Piglet nodded. + +"My present?" + +Piglet nodded again. + +"The balloon?" + +"Yes." + +"Thank you, Piglet," said Eeyore. "You don't mind my asking," he went +on, "but what colour was this balloon when it--when it _was_ a balloon?" + +"Red." + +"I just wondered.... Red," he murmured to himself. "My favourite +colour.... How big was it?" + +"About as big as me." + +"I just wondered.... About as big as Piglet," he said to himself +sadly. "My favourite size. Well, well." + +Piglet felt very miserable, and didn't know what to say. He was still +opening his mouth to begin something, and then deciding that it wasn't +any good saying _that_, when he heard a shout from the other side of the +river, and there was Pooh. + +"Many happy returns of the day," called out Pooh, forgetting that he had +said it already. + +"Thank you, Pooh, I'm having them," said Eeyore gloomily. + +"I've brought you a little present," said Pooh excitedly. + +"I've had it," said Eeyore. + +Pooh had now splashed across the stream to Eeyore, and Piglet was +sitting a little way off, his head in his paws, snuffling to himself. + +"It's a Useful Pot," said Pooh. "Here it is. And it's got 'A Very Happy +Birthday with love from Pooh' written on it. That's what all that +writing is. And it's for putting things in. There!" + +When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited. + +"Why!" he said. "I believe my Balloon will just go into that Pot!" + +"Oh, no, Eeyore," said Pooh. "Balloons are much too big to go into Pots. +What you do with a balloon is, you hold the ballon----" + +"Not mine," said Eeyore proudly. "Look, Piglet!" And as Piglet looked +sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up with his teeth, and +placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; +and then picked it up again and put it carefully back. + +"So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!" + +"So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!" + +"Doesn't it?" said Eeyore. "It goes in and out like anything." + +"I'm very glad," said Pooh happily, "that I thought of giving you a +Useful Pot to put things in." + +"I'm very glad," said Piglet happily, "that I thought of giving you +Something to put in a Useful Pot." + +But Eeyore wasn't listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting +it back again, as happy as could be.... + + * * * * * + +"And didn't _I_ give him anything?" asked Christopher Robin sadly. + +"Of course you did," I said. "You gave him--don't you remember--a +little--a little----" + +"I gave him a box of paints to paint things with." + +"That was it." + +"Why didn't I give it to him in the morning?" + +"You were so busy getting his party ready for him. He had a cake with +icing on the top, and three candles, and his name in pink sugar, +and----" + +"Yes, _I_ remember," said Christopher Robin. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + IN WHICH KANGA AND BABY ROO COME + TO THE FOREST, AND PIGLET HAS A BATH + + +Nobody seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the +Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. When Pooh asked Christopher Robin, "How did +they come here?" Christopher Robin said, "In the Usual Way, if you know +what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh, who didn't, said "Oh!" Then he nodded his +head twice and said, "In the Usual Way. Ah!" Then he went to call upon +his friend Piglet to see what _he_ thought about it. And at Piglet's +house he found Rabbit. So they all talked about it together. + +"What I don't like about it is this," said Rabbit. "Here are we--you, +Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me--and suddenly----" + +"And Eeyore," said Pooh. + +"And Eeyore--and then suddenly----" + +"And Owl," said Pooh. + +"And Owl--and then all of a sudden----" + +"Oh, and Eeyore," said Pooh. "I was forgetting _him_." + +"Here--we--are," said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, "all--of--us, +and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning and, what do we find? We find +a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we have never even heard +before! An animal who carries her family about with her in her pocket! +Suppose _I_ carried _my_ family about with me in _my_ pocket, how many +pockets should I want?" + +"Sixteen," said Piglet. + +"Seventeen, isn't it?" said Rabbit. "And one more for a +handkerchief--that's eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit! I haven't +time." + +There was a long and thoughtful silence ... and then Pooh, who had +been frowning very hard for some minutes, said: "_I_ make it fifteen." + +"What?" said Rabbit. + +"Fifteen." + +"Fifteen what?" + +"Your family." + +"What about them?" + +Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit had been talking +about his family. + +"Did I?" said Rabbit carelessly. + +"Yes, you said----" + +"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet impatiently. + +"The question is, What are we to do about Kanga?" + +"Oh, I see," said Pooh. + +"The best way," said Rabbit, "would be this. The best way would be to +steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when Kanga says, 'Where's Baby +Roo?' we say, '_Aha!_'" + +"_Aha!_" said Pooh, practising. "_Aha! Aha!_ ... Of course," he went +on, "we could say 'Aha!' even if we hadn't stolen Baby Roo." + +"Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain." + +"I know," said Pooh humbly. + +"We say '_Aha!_' so that Kanga knows that _we_ know where Baby Roo is. +'_Aha!_' means 'We'll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go +away from the Forest and never come back.' Now don't talk while I +think." + +Pooh went into a corner and tried saying 'Aha!' in that sort of voice. +Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what Rabbit said, and +sometimes it seemed to him that it didn't. "I suppose it's just +practice," he thought. "I wonder if Kanga will have to practise too so +as to understand it." + +"There's just one thing," said Piglet, fidgeting a bit. "I was talking +to Christopher Robin, and he said that a Kanga was Generally Regarded as +One of the Fiercer Animals. I am not frightened of Fierce Animals in the +ordinary way, but it is well known that, if One of the Fiercer Animals +is Deprived of Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer +Animals. In which case '_Aha!_' is perhaps a _foolish_ thing to say." + +"Piglet," said Rabbit, taking out a pencil, and licking the end of it, +"you haven't any pluck." + +"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're +only a Very Small Animal." + +Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: + +"It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in +the adventure before us." + +Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful, that he forgot to be +frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to say that Kangas were +only Fierce during the winter months, being at other times of an +Affectionate Disposition, he could hardly sit still, he was so eager to +begin being useful at once. + +"What about me?" said Pooh sadly. "I suppose _I_ shan't be useful?" + +"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet comfortingly. "Another time perhaps." + +"Without Pooh," said Rabbit solemnly as he sharpened his pencil, "the +adventure would be impossible." + +"Oh!" said Piglet, and tried not to look disappointed. But Pooh went +into a corner of the room and said proudly to himself, "Impossible +without Me! _That_ sort of Bear." + +"Now listen all of you," said Rabbit when he had finished writing, and +Pooh and Piglet sat listening very eagerly with their mouths open. This +was what Rabbit read out: + + PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO + + 1. _General Remarks._ Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. + + 2. _More General Remarks._ Kanga never takes her eye off Baby Roo, + except when he's safely buttoned up in her pocket. + + 3. _Therefore._ If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must get a Long + Start, because Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. + (_See_ 1.) + + 4. _A Thought._ If Roo had jumped out of Kanga's pocket and Piglet + had jumped in, Kanga wouldn't know the difference, because Piglet + is a Very Small Animal. + + 5. Like Roo. + + 6. But Kanga would have to be looking the other way first, so as not + to see Piglet jumping in. + + 7. See 2. + + 8. _Another Thought._ But if Pooh was talking to her very excitedly, + she _might_ look the other way for a moment. + + 9. And then I could run away with Roo. + + 10. Quickly. + + 11. _And Kanga wouldn't discover the difference until Afterwards._ + +Well, Rabbit read this out proudly, and for a little while after he had +read it nobody said anything. And then Piglet, who had been opening and +shutting his mouth without making any noise, managed to say very +huskily: + +"And--Afterwards?" + +"How do you mean?" + +"When Kanga _does_ Discover the Difference?" + +"Then we all say '_Aha!_'" + +"All three of us?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh!" + +"Why, what's the trouble, Piglet?" + +"Nothing," said Piglet, "as long as _we all three_ say it. As long as we +all three say it," said Piglet, "I don't mind," he said, "but I +shouldn't care to say '_Aha!_' by myself. It wouldn't sound _nearly_ so +well. By the way," he said, "you _are_ quite sure about what you said +about the winter months?" + +"The winter months?" + +"Yes, only being Fierce in the Winter Months." + +"Oh, yes, yes, that's all right. Well, Pooh? You see what you have to +do?" + +"No," said Pooh Bear. "Not yet," he said. "What _do_ I do?" + +"Well, you just have to talk very hard to Kanga so as she doesn't notice +anything." + +"Oh! What about?" + +"Anything you like." + +"You mean like telling her a little bit of poetry or something?" + +"That's it," said Rabbit. "Splendid. Now come along." + +So they all went out to look for Kanga. + +Kanga and Roo were spending a quiet afternoon in a sandy part of the +Forest. Baby Roo was practising very small jumps in the sand, and +falling down mouse-holes and climbing out of them, and Kanga was +fidgeting about and saying "Just one more jump, dear, and then we must +go home." And at that moment who should come stumping up the hill but +Pooh. + +"Good afternoon, Kanga." + +"Good afternoon, Pooh." + +"Look at me jumping," squeaked Roo, and fell into another mouse-hole. + +"Hallo, Roo, my little fellow!" + +"We were just going home," said Kanga. "Good afternoon, Rabbit. Good +afternoon, Piglet." + +Rabbit and Piglet, who had now come up from the other side of the hill, +said "Good afternoon," and "Hallo, Roo," and Roo asked them to look at +him jumping, so they stayed and looked. + +And Kanga looked too.... + +"Oh, Kanga," said Pooh, after Rabbit had winked at him twice, "I don't +know if you are interested in Poetry at all?" + +"Hardly at all," said Kanga. + +"Oh!" said Pooh. + +"Roo, dear, just one more jump and then we must go home." + +There was a short silence while Roo fell down another mouse-hole. + +"Go on," said Rabbit in a loud whisper behind his paw. + +"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh, "I made up a little piece as I was +coming along. It went like this. Er--now let me see----" + +"Fancy!" said Kanga. "Now Roo, dear----" + +"You'll like this piece of poetry," said Rabbit. + +"You'll love it," said Piglet. + +"You must listen very carefully," said Rabbit. + +"So as not to miss any of it," said Piglet. + +"Oh, yes," said Kanga, but she still looked at Baby Roo. + +"_How_ did it go, Pooh?" said Rabbit. + +Pooh gave a little cough and began. + + LINES WRITTEN BY A BEAR OF VERY LITTLE BRAIN + + On Monday, when the sun is hot + I wonder to myself a lot: + "Now is it true, or is it not, + "That what is which and which is what?" + + On Tuesday, when it hails and snows, + The feeling on me grows and grows + That hardly anybody knows + If those are these or these are those. + + On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, + And I have nothing else to do, + I sometimes wonder if it's true + That who is what and what is who. + + On Thursday, when it starts to freeze + And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees, + How very readily one sees + That these are whose--but whose are these? + + On Friday---- + +"Yes, it is, isn't it?" said Kanga, not waiting to hear what happened on +Friday. "Just one more jump, Roo, dear, and then we really _must_ be +going." + +Rabbit gave Pooh a hurrying-up sort of nudge. + +"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh quickly, "have you ever noticed that tree +right over there?" + +"Where?" said Kanga. "Now, Roo----" + +"Right over there," said Pooh, pointing behind Kanga's back. + +"No," said Kanga. "Now jump in, Roo, dear, and we'll go home." + +"You ought to look at that tree right over there," said Rabbit. "Shall I +lift you in, Roo?" And he picked up Roo in his paws. + +"I can see a bird in it from here," said Pooh. "Or is it a fish?" + +"You ought to see that bird from here," said Rabbit. "Unless it's a +fish." + +"It isn't a fish, it's a bird," said Piglet. + +"So it is," said Rabbit. + +"Is it a starling or a blackbird?" said Pooh. + +"That's the whole question," said Rabbit. "Is it a blackbird or a +starling?" + +And then at last Kanga did turn her head to look. And the moment that +her head was turned, Rabbit said in a loud voice "In you go, Roo!" and +in jumped Piglet into Kanga's pocket, and off scampered Rabbit, with Roo +in his paws, as fast as he could. + +"Why, where's Rabbit?" said Kanga, turning round again. "Are you all +right, Roo, dear?" + +Piglet made a squeaky Roo-noise from the bottom of Kanga's pocket. + +"Rabbit had to go away," said Pooh. "I think he thought of something he +had to go and see about suddenly." + +"And Piglet?" + +"I think Piglet thought of something at the same time. Suddenly." + +"Well, we must be getting home," said Kanga. "Good-bye, Pooh." And in +three large jumps she was gone. + +Pooh looked after her as she went. + +"I wish I could jump like that," he thought. "Some can and some can't. +That's how it is." + +But there were moments when Piglet wished that Kanga couldn't. Often, +when he had had a long walk home through the Forest, he had wished that +he were a bird; but now he thought jerkily to himself at the bottom of +Kanga's pocket, + + this take + "If is shall really to + flying I never it." + +And as he went up in the air he said, "_Ooooooo!_" and as he came down +he said, "_Ow!_" And he was saying, "_Ooooooo-ow, Ooooooo-ow, +Ooooooo-ow_" all the way to Kanga's house. + +Of course as soon as Kanga unbuttoned her pocket, she saw what had +happened. Just for a moment, she thought she was frightened, and then +she knew she wasn't; for she felt quite sure that Christopher Robin +would never let any harm happen to Roo. So she said to herself, "If they +are having a joke with me, I will have a joke with them." + +"Now then, Roo, dear," she said, as she took Piglet out of her pocket. +"Bed-time." + +"_Aha!_" said Piglet, as well as he could after his Terrifying Journey. +But it wasn't a very good "_Aha!_" and Kanga didn't seem to understand +what it meant. + +"Bath first," said Kanga in a cheerful voice. + +"_Aha!_" said Piglet again, looking round anxiously for the others. But +the others weren't there. Rabbit was playing with Baby Roo in his own +house, and feeling more fond of him every minute, and Pooh, who had +decided to be a Kanga, was still at the sandy place on the top of the +Forest, practising jumps. + +"I am not at all sure," said Kanga in a thoughtful voice, "that it +wouldn't be a good idea to have a _cold_ bath this evening. Would you +like that, Roo, dear?" + +Piglet, who had never been really fond of baths, shuddered a long +indignant shudder, and said in as brave a voice as he could: + +"Kanga, I see that the time has come to spleak painly." + +"Funny little Roo," said Kanga, as she got the bath-water ready. + +"I am _not_ Roo," said Piglet loudly. "I am Piglet!" + +"Yes, dear, yes," said Kanga soothingly. "And imitating Piglet's voice +too! So clever of him," she went on, as she took a large bar of yellow +soap out of the cupboard. "What _will_ he be doing next?" + +"Can't you _see_?" shouted Piglet. "Haven't you got _eyes_? _Look_ at +me!" + +"I _am_ looking, Roo, dear," said Kanga rather severely. "And you know +what I told you yesterday about making faces. If you go on making faces +like Piglet's, you will grow up to _look_ like Piglet--and _then_ think +how sorry you will be. Now then, into the bath, and don't let me have to +speak to you about it again." + +Before he knew where he was, Piglet was in the bath, and Kanga was +scrubbing him firmly with a large lathery flannel. + +"Ow!" cried Piglet. "Let me out! I'm Piglet!" + +"Don't open the mouth, dear, or the soap goes in," said Kanga. "There! +What did I tell you?" + +"You--you--you did it on purpose," spluttered Piglet, as soon as he +could speak again ... and then accidentally had another mouthful of +lathery flannel. + +"That's right, dear, don't say anything," said Kanga, and in another +minute Piglet was out of the bath, and being rubbed dry with a towel. + +"Now," said Kanga, "there's your medicine, and then bed." + +"W-w-what medicine?" said Piglet. + +"To make you grow big and strong, dear. You don't want to grow up small +and weak like Piglet, do you? Well, then!" + +At that moment there was a knock at the door. + +"Come in," said Kanga, and in came Christopher Robin. + +"Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin!" cried Piglet. "Tell Kanga who I +am! She keeps saying I'm Roo. I'm _not_ Roo, am I?" + +Christopher Robin looked at him very carefully, and shook his head. + +"You can't be Roo," he said, "because I've just seen Roo playing in +Rabbit's house." + +"Well!" said Kanga. "Fancy that! Fancy my making a mistake like that." + +"There you are!" said Piglet. "I told you so. I'm Piglet." + +Christopher Robin shook his head again. + +"Oh, you're not Piglet," he said. "I know Piglet well, and he's _quite_ +a different colour." + +Piglet began to say that this was because he had just had a bath, and +then he thought that perhaps he wouldn't say that, and as he opened his +mouth to say something else, Kanga slipped the medicine spoon in, and +then patted him on the back and told him that it was really quite a nice +taste when you got used to it. + +"I knew it wasn't Piglet," said Kanga. "I wonder who it can be." + +"Perhaps it's some relation of Pooh's," said Christopher Robin. "What +about a nephew or an uncle or something?" + +Kanga agreed that this was probably what it was, and said that they +would have to call it by some name. + +"I shall call it Pootel," said Christopher Robin. "Henry Pootel for +short." + +And just when it was decided, Henry Pootel wriggled out of Kanga's arms +and jumped to the ground. To his great joy Christopher Robin had left +the door open. Never had Henry Pootel Piglet run so fast as he ran then, +and he didn't stop running until he had got quite close to his house. +But when he was a hundred yards away he stopped running, and rolled the +rest of the way home, so as to get his own nice comfortable colour +again.... + +So Kanga and Roo stayed in the Forest. And every Tuesday Roo spent the +day with his great friend Rabbit, and every Tuesday Kanga spent the day +with her great friend Pooh, teaching him to jump, and every Tuesday +Piglet spent the day with his great friend Christopher Robin. So they +were all happy again. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN LEADS + AN EXPOTITION TO THE NORTH POLE + + +One fine day Pooh had stumped up to the top of the Forest to see if +his friend Christopher Robin was interested in Bears at all. At +breakfast that morning (a simple meal of marmalade spread lightly over a +honeycomb or two) he had suddenly thought of a new song. It began like +this: + + "_Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear._" + +When he had got as far as this, he scratched his head, and thought to +himself "That's a very good start for a song, but what about the second +line?" He tried singing "Ho," two or three times, but it didn't seem to +help. "Perhaps it would be better," he thought, "if I sang Hi for the +life of a Bear." So he sang it ... but it wasn't. "Very well, then," +he said, "I shall sing that first line twice, and perhaps if I sing it +very quickly, I shall find myself singing the third and fourth lines +before I have time to think of them, and that will be a Good Song. Now +then:" + + Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear! + Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear! + I don't much mind if it rains or snows, + 'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice new nose, + I don't much care if it snows or thaws, + 'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice clean paws! + Sing Ho! for a Bear! + Sing Ho! for a Pooh! + And I'll have a little something in an hour or two! + +He was so pleased with this song that he sang it all the way to the top +of the Forest, "and if I go on singing it much longer," he thought, "it +will be time for the little something, and then the last line won't be +true." So he turned it into a hum instead. + +Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big +Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was +going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of +his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready +for Anything. + +"Good-morning, Christopher Robin," he called out. + +"Hallo, Pooh Bear. I can't get this boot on." + +"That's bad," said Pooh. + +"Do you think you could very kindly lean against me, 'cos I keep pulling +so hard that I fall over backwards." + +Pooh sat down, dug his feet into the ground, and pushed hard against +Christopher Robin's back, and Christopher Robin pushed hard against his, +and pulled and pulled at his boot until he had got it on. + +"And that's that," said Pooh. "What do we do next?" + +"We are all going on an Expedition," said Christopher Robin, as he got +up and brushed himself. "Thank you, Pooh." + +"Going on an Expotition?" said Pooh eagerly. "I don't think I've ever +been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?" + +"Expedition, silly old Bear. It's got an 'x' in it." + +"Oh!" said Pooh. "I know." But he didn't really. + +"We're going to discover the North Pole." + +"Oh!" said Pooh again. "What _is_ the North Pole?" he asked. + +"It's just a thing you discover," said Christopher Robin carelessly, not +being quite sure himself. + +"Oh! I see," said Pooh. "Are bears any good at discovering it?" + +"Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of you. It's an +Expedition. That's what an Expedition means. A long line of everybody. +You'd better tell the others to get ready, while I see if my gun's all +right. And we must all bring Provisions." + +"Bring what?" + +"Things to eat." + +"Oh!" said Pooh happily. "I thought you said Provisions. I'll go and +tell them." And he stumped off. + +The first person he met was Rabbit. + +"Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?" + +"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens." + +"I've got a message for you." + +"I'll give it to him." + +"We're all going on an Expotition with Christopher Robin!" + +"What is it when we're on it?" + +"A sort of boat, I think," said Pooh. + +"Oh! that sort." + +"Yes. And we're going to discover a Pole or something. Or was it a Mole? +Anyhow we're going to discover it." + +"We are, are we?" said Rabbit. + +"Yes. And we've got to bring Pro--things to eat with us. In case we want +to eat them. Now I'm going down to Piglet's. Tell Kanga, will you?" + +He left Rabbit and hurried down to Piglet's house. The Piglet was +sitting on the ground at the door of his house blowing happily at a +dandelion, and wondering whether it would be this year, next year, +sometime or never. He had just discovered that it would be never, and +was trying to remember what "_it_" was, and hoping it wasn't anything +nice, when Pooh came up. + +"Oh! Piglet," said Pooh excitedly, "we're going on an Expotition, all of +us, with things to eat. To discover something." + +"To discover what?" said Piglet anxiously. + +"Oh! just something." + +"Nothing fierce?" + +"Christopher Robin didn't say anything about fierce. He just said it had +an 'x'." + +"It isn't their necks I mind," said Piglet earnestly. "It's their teeth. +But if Christopher Robin is coming I don't mind anything." + +In a little while they were all ready at the top of the Forest, and the +Expotition started. First came Christopher Robin and Rabbit, then Piglet +and Pooh; then Kanga, with Roo in her pocket, and Owl; then Eeyore; and, +at the end, in a long line, all Rabbit's friends-and-relations. + +"I didn't ask them," explained Rabbit carelessly. "They just came. They +always do. They can march at the end, after Eeyore." + +"What I say," said Eeyore, "is that it's unsettling. I didn't want to +come on this Expo--what Pooh said. I only came to oblige. But here I +am; and if I am the end of the Expo--what we're talking about--then +let me _be_ the end. But if, every time I want to sit down for a +little rest, I have to brush away half a dozen of Rabbit's smaller +friends-and-relations first, then this isn't an Expo--whatever it +is--at all, it's simply a Confused Noise. That's what _I_ say." + +"I see what Eeyore means," said Owl. "If you ask me----" + +"I'm not asking anybody," said Eeyore. "I'm just telling everybody. We +can look for the North Pole, or we can play 'Here we go gathering Nuts +and May' with the end part of an ant's nest. It's all the same to me." + +There was a shout from the top of the line. + +"Come on!" called Christopher Robin. + +"Come on!" called Pooh and Piglet + +"Come on!" called Owl. + +"We're starting," said Rabbit. "I must go." And he hurried off to the +front of the Expotition with Christopher Robin. + +"All right," said Eeyore. "We're going. Only Don't Blame Me." + +So off they all went to discover the Pole. And as they walked, they +chattered to each other of this and that, all except Pooh, who was +making up a song. + +"This is the first verse," he said to Piglet, when he was ready with it. + +"First verse of what?" + +"My song." + +"What song?" + +"This one." + +"Which one?" + +"Well, if you listen, Piglet, you'll hear it." + +"How do you know I'm not listening?" + +Pooh couldn't answer that one, so he began to sing. + + They all went off to discover the Pole, + Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all; + It's a Thing you Discover, as I've been tole + By Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all. + Eeyore, Christopher Robin and Pooh + And Rabbit's relations all went too-- + And where the Pole was none of them knew.... + Sing Hey! for Owl and Rabbit and all! + +"Hush!" said Christopher Robin turning round to Pooh, "we're just coming +to a Dangerous Place." + +"Hush!" said Pooh turning round quickly to Piglet. + +"Hush!" said Piglet to Kanga. + +"Hush!" said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said "Hush!" several times to +himself very quietly. + +"Hush!" said Owl to Eeyore. + +"_Hush!_" said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's +friends-and-relations, and "Hush!" they said hastily to each other all +down the line, until it got to the last one of all. And the last and +smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to find that the whole +Expotition was saying "Hush!" to _him_, that he buried himself head +downwards in a crack in the ground, and stayed there for two days until +the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived +quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle. + +They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky +banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was. + +"It's just the place," he explained, "for an Ambush." + +"What sort of bush?" whispered Pooh to Piglet. "A gorse-bush?" + +"My dear Pooh," said Owl in his superior way, "don't you know what an +Ambush is?" + +"Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely, "Pooh's whisper was a +perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----" + +"An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise." + +"So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh. + +"An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said Piglet, "is a sort +of Surprise." + +"If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush," said Owl. + +"It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained +Piglet. + +Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung +at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six +days to get all the prickles out of himself. + +"We are not _talking_ about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. + +"I am," said Pooh. + +They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to +rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where +the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water +there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. +As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all +sat down and rested. + +"I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our +Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry." + +"Eat all our what?" said Pooh. + +"All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work. + +"That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too. + +"Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth +full. + +"All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his +melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any +chance?" + +"I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. +"Yes, I was. I thought so." + +"Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to +Pooh's place, and began to eat. + +"It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as +he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that +another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for +Others, makes all the difference." + +As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to +Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little +way up the stream together. + +"I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. + +"Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. + +"It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What +does the North Pole _look_ like?" + +"Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." + +"I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin +carelessly. + +"It's a funny thing," said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, +although I did know _once_." + +"I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" + +"Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if +it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, +shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." + +"Yes, that's what I thought." + +"The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" + +"That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. + +They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping +peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga +explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever +washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting +Anecdote full of long words like Encyclopædia and Rhododendron to which +Kanga wasn't listening. + +"I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern +Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" + +"Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" + +But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden +squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. + +"So much for _washing_," said Eeyore. + +"Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher Robin came +rushing down to the rescue. + +"Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of his pool, and was +hurried down a waterfall into the next pool. + +"Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously. + +"Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw----" and down he went over the next +waterfall into another pool. + +Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide awake suddenly, was +jumping up and down and making "Oo, I say" noises; Owl was explaining +that in a case of Sudden and Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was +to keep the Head Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying +"Are you _sure_ you're all right, Roo dear?" to which Roo, from whatever +pool he was in at the moment, was answering "Look at me swimming!" +Eeyore had turned round and hung his tail over the first pool into which +Roo fell, and with his back to the accident was grumbling quietly to +himself, and saying, "All this washing; but catch on to my tail, little +Roo, and you'll be all right"; and, Christopher Robin and Rabbit came +hurrying past Eeyore, and were calling out to the others in front of +them. + +"All right, Roo, I'm coming," called Christopher Robin. + +"Get something across the stream lower down, some of you fellows," +called Rabbit. + +But Pooh was getting something. Two pools below Roo he was standing with +a long pole in his paws, and Kanga came up and took one end of it, and +between them they held it across the lower part of the pool; and Roo, +still bubbling proudly, "Look at me swimming," drifted up against it, +and climbed out. + +"Did you see me swimming?" squeaked Roo excitedly, while Kanga scolded +him and rubbed him down. "Pooh, did you see me swimming? That's called +swimming, what I was doing. Rabbit, did you see what I was doing? +Swimming. Hallo, Piglet! I say, Piglet! What do you think I was doing! +Swimming! Christopher Robin, did you see me----" + +But Christopher Robin wasn't listening. He was looking at Pooh. + +"Pooh," he said, "where did you find that pole?" + +Pooh looked at the pole in his hands. + +"I just found it," he said. "I thought it ought to be useful. I just +picked it up." + +"Pooh," said Christopher Robin solemnly, "the Expedition is over. You +have found the North Pole!" + +"Oh!" said Pooh. + +Eeyore was sitting with his tail in the water when they all got back to +him. + +"Tell Roo to be quick, somebody," he said. "My tail's getting cold. I +don't want to mention it, but I just mention it. I don't want to +complain but there it is. My tail's cold." + +"Here I am!" squeaked Roo. + +"Oh, there you are." + +"Did you see me swimming?" + +Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it from side to side. + +"As I expected," he said. "Lost all feeling. Numbed it. That's what it's +done. Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody minds, I suppose it's all +right." + +"Poor old Eeyore. I'll dry it for you," said Christopher Robin, and he +took out his handkerchief and rubbed it up. + +"Thank you, Christopher Robin. You're the only one who seems to +understand about tails. They don't think--that's what the matter with +some of these others. They've no imagination. A tail isn't a tail to +_them_, it's just a Little Bit Extra at the back." + +"Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. "Is +_that_ better?" + +"It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know +what I mean." + +"Hullo, Eeyore," said Pooh, coming up to them with his pole. + +"Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able to use it again +in a day or two." + +"Use what?" said Pooh. + +"What we are talking about." + +"I wasn't talking about anything," said Pooh, looking puzzled. + +"My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry you were about my +tail, being all numb, and could you do anything to help?" + +"No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought for a little and +then suggested helpfully, "Perhaps it was somebody else." + +"Well, thank him for me when you see him." + +Pooh looked anxiously at Christopher Robin. + +"Pooh's found the North Pole," said Christopher Robin. "Isn't that +lovely?" + +Pooh looked modestly down. + +"Is that it?" said Eeyore. + +"Yes," said Christopher Robin. + +"Is that what we were looking for?" + +"Yes," said Pooh. + +"Oh!" said Eeyore. "Well, anyhow--it didn't rain," he said. + +They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christopher Robin tied a message +on to it. + + NORTH POLE + + DISCOVERED BY POOH + + POOH FOUND IT. + +Then they all went home again. And I think, but I am not quite sure, +that Roo had a hot bath and went straight to bed. But Pooh went back to +his own house, and feeling very proud of what he had done, had a little +something to revive himself. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + IN WHICH PIGLET IS ENTIRELY + SURROUNDED BY WATER + + +It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never +in all his life, and _he_ was goodness knows _how_ old--three, was it, +or four?--never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days. + +"If only," he thought, as he looked out of the window, "I had been in +Pooh's house, or Christopher Robin's house, or Rabbit's house when it +began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of +being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will +stop." And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, "Did you ever see such +rain, Pooh?" and Pooh saying, "Isn't it _awful_, Piglet?" and Piglet +saying, "I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin's way" and Pooh +saying, "I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this +time." It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn't +much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn't share +them with somebody. + +For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had +nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which +he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks +they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was +taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder +whether it would be coming into _his_ bed soon. + +"It's a little Anxious," he said to himself, "to be a Very Small Animal +Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by +Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could +escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could +escape by--by Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, +surrounded by water and I can't do _anything_." + +It went on raining, and every day the water got a little higher, until +now it was nearly up to Piglet's window ... and still he hadn't done +anything. + +"There's Pooh," he thought to himself. "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he +never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. +There's Owl. Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would +know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He +hasn't Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. +There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be so +anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking +about It. And then there's Eeyore. And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow +that he wouldn't mind about this. But I wonder what Christopher Robin +would do?" + +Then suddenly he remembered a story which Christopher Robin had told him +about a man on a desert island who had written something in a bottle and +thrown it in the sea; and Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a +bottle and threw it in the water, perhaps somebody would come and rescue +_him_! + +He left the window and began to search his house, all of it that wasn't +under water, and at last he found a pencil and a small piece of dry +paper, and a bottle with a cork to it. And he wrote on one side of the +paper: + + HELP! + PIGLET (ME) + +and on the other side: + + IT'S ME PIGLET, HELP HELP. + +Then he put the paper in the bottle, and he corked the bottle up as +tightly as he could, and he leant out of his window as far as he could +lean without falling in, and he threw the bottle as far as he could +throw--_splash!_--and in a little while it bobbed up again on the water; +and he watched it floating slowly away in the distance, until his eyes +ached with looking, and sometimes he thought it was the bottle, and +sometimes he thought it was just a ripple on the water which he was +following, and then suddenly he knew that he would never see it again +and that he had done all that he could do to save himself. + +"So now," he thought, "somebody else will have to do something, and I +hope they will do it soon, because if they don't I shall have to swim, +which I can't, so I hope they do it soon." And then he gave a very long +sigh and said, "I wish Pooh were here. It's so much more friendly with +two." + + * * * * * + +When the rain began Pooh was asleep. It rained, and it rained, and it +rained, and he slept and he slept and he slept. He had had a tiring day. +You remember how he discovered the North Pole; well, he was so proud of +this that he asked Christopher Robin if there were any other Poles such +as a Bear of Little Brain might discover. + +"There's a South Pole," said Christopher Robin, "and I expect there's an +East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them." + +Pooh was very excited when he heard this, and suggested that they should +have an Expotition to discover the East Pole, but Christopher Robin had +thought of something else to do with Kanga; so Pooh went out to discover +the East Pole by himself. Whether he discovered it or not, I forget; but +he was so tired when he got home that, in the very middle of his supper, +after he had been eating for little more than half-an-hour, he fell fast +asleep in his chair, and slept and slept and slept. + +Then suddenly he was dreaming. He was at the East Pole, and it was a +very cold pole with the coldest sort of snow and ice all over it. He had +found a bee-hive to sleep in, but there wasn't room for his legs, so he +had left them outside. And Wild Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, +came and nibbled all the fur off his legs to make nests for their Young. +And the more they nibbled, the colder his legs got, until suddenly he +woke up with an _Ow!_--and there he was, sitting in his chair with his +feet in the water, and water all round him! + +He splashed to his door and looked out... + +"This is Serious," said Pooh. "I must have an Escape." + +So he took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it to a broad +branch of his tree, well above the water, and then he climbed down again +and escaped with another pot ... and when the whole Escape was +finished, there was Pooh sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and +there, beside him, were ten pots of honey.... + +Two days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his +legs, and there, beside him, were four pots of honey.... + +Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his +legs, and there beside him, was one pot of honey. + +Four days later, there was Pooh ... + +And it was on the morning of the fourth day that Piglet's bottle came +floating past him, and with one loud cry of "Honey!" Pooh plunged into +the water, seized the bottle, and struggled back to his tree again. + +"Bother!" said Pooh, as he opened it. "All that wet for nothing. What's +that bit of paper doing?" + +He took it out and looked at it. + +"It's a Missage," he said to himself, "that's what it is. And that +letter is a 'P,' and so is that, and so is that, and 'P' means 'Pooh,' +so it's a very important Missage to me, and I can't read it. I must find +Christopher Robin or Owl or Piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can +read things, and they will tell me what this missage means. Only I can't +swim. Bother!" + +Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of Very Little Brain, +it was a good idea. He said to himself: + +"If a bottle can float, then a jar can float, and if a jar floats, I can +sit on the top of it, if it's a very big jar." + +So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up. "All boats have to have a +name," he said, "so I shall call mine _The Floating Bear_." And with +these words he dropped his boat into the water and jumped in after it. + +For a little while Pooh and _The Floating Bear_ were uncertain as to +which of them was meant to be on the top, but after trying one or two +different positions, they settled down with _The Floating Bear_ +underneath and Pooh triumphantly astride it, paddling vigorously with +his feet. + + * * * * * + +Christopher Robin lived at the very top of the Forest. It rained, and it +rained, and it rained, but the water couldn't come up to _his_ house. It +was rather jolly to look down into the valleys and see the water all +round him, but it rained so hard that he stayed indoors most of the +time, and thought about things. Every morning he went out with his +umbrella and put a stick in the place where the water came up to, and +every next morning he went out and couldn't see his stick any more, so +he put another stick in the place where the water came up to, and then +he walked home again, and each morning he had a shorter way to walk than +he had had the morning before. On the morning of the fifth day he saw +the water all round him, and knew that for the first time in his life he +was on a real island. Which was very exciting. + +It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say "How +do you do," to his friend Christopher Robin. + +"I say, Owl," said Christopher Robin, "isn't this fun? I'm on an +island!" + +"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said +Owl. + +"The what?" + +"It has been raining," explained Owl. + +"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has." + +"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height." + +"The who?" + +"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl. + +"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is." + +"However, the prospects are rapidly becoming more favourable. At any +moment----" + +"Have you seen Pooh?" + +"No. At any moment----" + +"I hope he's all right," said Christopher Robin. "I've been wondering +about him. I expect Piglet's with him. Do you think they're all right, +Owl?" + +"I expect so. You see, at any moment----" + +"Do go and see, Owl. Because Pooh hasn't got very much brain, and he +might do something silly, and I do love him so, Owl. Do you see, Owl?" + +"That's all right," said Owl. "I'll go. Back directly." And he flew off. + +In a little while he was back again. + +"Pooh isn't there," he said. + +"Not there?" + +"Has _been_ there. He's been sitting on a branch of his tree outside his +house with nine pots of honey. But he isn't there now." + +"Oh, Pooh!" cried Christopher Robin. "Where _are_ you?" + +"Here I am," said a growly voice behind him. + +"Pooh!" + +They rushed into each other's arms. + +"How did you get here, Pooh?" asked Christopher Robin, when he was ready +to talk again. + +"On my boat," said Pooh proudly. "I had a Very Important Missage sent me +in a bottle, and owing to having got some water in my eyes, I couldn't +read it, so I brought it to you. On my boat." + +With these proud words he gave Christopher Robin the missage. + +"But it's from Piglet!" cried Christopher Robin when he had read it. + +"Isn't there anything about Pooh in it?" asked Bear, looking over his +shoulder. + +Christopher Robin read the message aloud. + +"Oh, are those 'P's' piglets? I thought they were poohs." + +"We must rescue him at once! I thought he was with _you_, Pooh. Owl, +could you rescue him on your back?" + +"I don't think so," said Owl, after grave thought. "It is doubtful if +the necessary dorsal muscles----" + +"Then would you fly to him at _once_ and say that Rescue is Coming? And +Pooh and I will think of a Rescue and come as quick as ever we can. Oh, +don't _talk_, Owl, go on quick!" And, still thinking of something to +say, Owl flew off. + +"Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?" + +"I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the +island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a +Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." + +"Depends on what?" + +"On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it." + +"Oh! Well, where is it?" + +"There!" said Pooh, pointing proudly to _The Floating Bear_. + +It wasn't what Christopher Robin expected, and the more he looked at it, +the more he thought what a Brave and Clever Bear Pooh was, and the more +Christopher Robin thought this, the more Pooh looked modestly down his +nose and tried to pretend he wasn't. + +"But it's too small for two of us," said Christopher Robin sadly. + +"Three of us with Piglet." + +"That makes it smaller still. Oh, Pooh Bear, what shall we do?" + +And then this Bear, Pooh Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, F.O.P. (Friend of +Piglet's), R.C. (Rabbit's Companion), P.D. (Pole Discoverer), E.C. and +T.F. (Eeyore's Comforter and Tail-finder)--in fact, Pooh himself--said +something so clever that Christopher Robin could only look at him with +mouth open and eyes staring, wondering if this was really the Bear of +Very Little Brain whom he had known and loved so long. + +"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. + +"?" + +"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. + +"? ?" + +"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. + +"!!!!!!" + +For suddenly Christopher Robin saw that they might. He opened his +umbrella and put it point downwards in the water. It floated but +wobbled. Pooh got in. He was just beginning to say that it was all right +now, when he found that it wasn't, so after a short drink which he +didn't really want he waded back to Christopher Robin. Then they both +got in together, and it wobbled no longer. + +"I shall call this boat _The Brain of Pooh_," said Christopher Robin, +and _The Brain of Pooh_ set sail forthwith in a south-westerly +direction, revolving gracefully. + +You can imagine Piglet's joy when at last the ship came in sight of him. +In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger +during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was +in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown +up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long +story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and +the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who +was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly +and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until +he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden +loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his +aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself +back into safety and say, "How interesting, and did she?" when--well, +you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, _Brain of +Pooh_ (_Captain_, C. Robin; _1st Mate_, P. Bear) coming over the sea to +rescue him. Christopher Robin and Pooh again.... + +And that is really the end of the story, and I am very tired after that +last sentence, I think I shall stop there. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN GIVES + POOH A PARTY, AND WE SAY GOOD-BYE + + +One day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it +the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling +happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little +pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had +done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying +over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and +wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy +comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't +matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a +special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to +see what was wanted. + +"Owl," said Christopher Robin, "I am going to give a party." + +"You are, are you?" said Owl. + +"And it's to be a special sort of party, because it's because of what +Pooh did when he did what he did to save Piglet from the flood." + +"Oh, that's what it's for, is it?" said Owl. + +"Yes, so will you tell Pooh as quickly as you can, and all the others, +because it will be to-morrow." + +"Oh, it will, will it?" said Owl, still being as helpful as possible. + +"So will you go and tell them, Owl?" + +Owl tried to think of something very wise to say, but couldn't, so he +flew off to tell the others. And the first person he told was Pooh. + +"Pooh," he said, "Christopher Robin is giving a party." + +"Oh!" said Pooh. And then seeing that Owl expected him to say something +else, he said "Will there be those little cake things with pink sugar +icing?" + +Owl felt that it was rather beneath him to talk about little cake things +with pink sugar icing, so he told Pooh exactly what Christopher Robin +had said, and flew off to Eeyore. + +"A party for Me?" thought Pooh to himself. "How grand!" And he began to +wonder if all the other animals would know that it was a special Pooh +Party, and if Christopher Robin had told them about _The Floating Bear_ +and the _Brain of Pooh_ and all the wonderful ships he had invented and +sailed on, and he began to think how awful it would be if everybody had +forgotten about it, and nobody quite knew what the party was for; and +the more he thought like this, the more the party got muddled in his +mind, like a dream when nothing goes right. And the dream began to sing +itself over in his head until it became a sort of song. It was an + + ANXIOUS POOH SONG. + + 3 Cheers for Pooh! + (_For Who?_) + For Pooh-- + (_Why what did he do?_) + I thought you knew; + He saved his friend from a wetting! + 3 Cheers for Bear! + (_For where?_) + For Bear-- + He couldn't swim, + But he rescued him! + (_He rescued who?_) + Oh, listen, do! + I am talking of Pooh-- + (_Of who?_) + Of Pooh! + (_I'm sorry I keep forgetting_). + Well, Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain + (_Just say it again!_) + Of enormous brain-- + (_Of enormous what?_) + Well, he ate a lot, + And I don't know if he could swim or not, + But he managed to float + On a sort of boat + (_On a sort of what?_) + Well, a sort of pot-- + So now let's give him three hearty cheers + (_So now let's give him three hearty whiches?_) + And hope he'll be with us for years and years, + And grow in health and wisdom and riches! + 3 Cheers for Pooh! + (_For who?_) + For Pooh-- + 3 Cheers for Bear! + (_For where?_) + For Bear-- + 3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh! + (_Just tell me, somebody_--WHAT DID HE DO?) + +While this was going on inside him, Owl was talking to Eeyore. + +"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party." + +"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down +the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, +don't mention it." + +"There is an Invitation for you." + +"What's that like?" + +"An Invitation!" + +"Yes, I heard you. Who dropped it?" + +"This isn't anything to eat, it's asking you to the party. To-morrow." + +Eeyore shook his head slowly. + +"You mean Piglet. The little fellow with the excited ears. That's +Piglet. I'll tell him." + +"No, no!" said Owl, getting quite fussy. "It's you!" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Of course I'm sure. Christopher Robin said 'All of them! Tell all of +them.'" + +"All of them, except Eeyore?" + +"All of them," said Owl sulkily. + +"Ah!" said Eeyore. "A mistake, no doubt, but still, I shall come. Only +don't blame _me_ if it rains." + +But it didn't rain. Christopher Robin had made a long table out of some +long pieces of wood, and they all sat round it. Christopher Robin sat at +one end, and Pooh sat at the other, and between them on one side were +Owl and Eeyore and Piglet, and between them on the other side were +Rabbit, and Roo and Kanga. And all Rabbit's friends and relations spread +themselves about on the grass, and waited hopefully in case anybody +spoke to them, or dropped anything, or asked them the time. + +It was the first party to which Roo had ever been, and he was very +excited. As soon as ever they had sat down he began to talk. + +"Hallo, Pooh!" he squeaked. + +"Hallo, Roo!" said Pooh. + +Roo jumped up and down in his seat for a little while and then began +again. + +"Hallo, Piglet!" he squeaked. + +Piglet waved a paw at him, being too busy to say anything. + +"Hallo, Eeyore!" said Roo. + +Eeyore nodded gloomily at him. "It will rain soon, you see if it +doesn't," he said. + +Roo looked to see if it didn't, and it didn't, so he said "Hallo, +Owl!"--and Owl said "Hallo, my little fellow," in a kindly way, and went +on telling Christopher Robin about an accident which had nearly happened +to a friend of his whom Christopher Robin didn't know, and Kanga said to +Roo, "Drink up your milk first, dear, and talk afterwards." So Roo, who +was drinking his milk, tried to say that he could do both at once ... +and had to be patted on the back and dried for quite a long time +afterwards. + +When they had all nearly eaten enough, Christopher Robin banged on the +table with his spoon, and everybody stopped talking and was very silent, +except Roo who was just finishing a loud attack of hiccups and trying to +look as if it was one of Rabbit's relations. + +"This party," said Christopher Robin, "is a party because of what +someone did, and we all know who it was, and it's his party, because of +what he did, and I've got a present for him and here it is." Then he +felt about a little and whispered, "Where is it?" + +While he was looking, Eeyore coughed in an impressive way and began to +speak. + +"Friends," he said, "including oddments, it is a great pleasure, or +perhaps I had better say it has been a pleasure so far, to see you at my +party. What I did was nothing. Any of you--except Rabbit and Owl and +Kanga--would have done the same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of +course, apply to Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you +would have done the same. But it just happened to be Me. It was not, I +need hardly say, with an idea of getting what Christopher Robin is +looking for now"--and he put his front leg to his mouth and said in a +loud whisper, "Try under the table"--"that I did what I did--but because +I feel that we should all do what we can to help. I feel that we should +all----" + +"H--hup!" said Roo accidentally. + +"Roo, dear!" said Kanga reproachfully. + +"Was it me?" asked Roo, a little surprised. + +"What's Eeyore talking about?" Piglet whispered to Pooh. + +"I don't know," said Pooh rather dolefully. + +"I thought this was _your_ party." + +"I thought it was _once_. But I suppose it isn't." + +"I'd sooner it was yours than Eeyore's," said Piglet. + +"So would I," said Pooh. + +"H--hup!" said Roo again. + +"AS--I--WAS--SAYING," said Eeyore loudly and sternly, "as I was saying +when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that----" + +"Here it is!" cried Christopher Robin excitedly. "Pass it down to silly +old Pooh. It's for Pooh." + +"For Pooh?" said Eeyore. + +"Of course it is. The best bear in all the world." + +"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one can't complain. I +have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last +week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!' +The Social Round. Always something going on." + +Nobody was listening, for they were all saying "Open it, Pooh," "What is +it, Pooh?" "I know what it is," "No, you don't" and other helpful +remarks of this sort. And of course Pooh was opening it as quickly as +ever he could, but without cutting the string, because you never know +when a bit of string might be Useful. At last it was undone. + +When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was so pleased. It +was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in it marked "B" for Bear, +and pencils marked "HB" for Helping Bear, and pencils marked "BB" for +Brave Bear. There was a knife for sharpening the pencils, and +india-rubber for rubbing out anything which you had spelt wrong, and a +ruler for ruling lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on +the ruler in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and +Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying special things +in blue and red and green. And all these lovely things were in little +pockets of their own in a Special Case which shut with a click when you +clicked it. And they were all for Pooh. + +"Oh!" said Pooh. + +"Oh, Pooh!" said everybody else except Eeyore. + +"Thank-you," growled Pooh. + +But Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and +what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it." + +Later on, when they had all said "Good-bye" and "Thank-you" to +Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in +the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent. + +"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's +the first thing you say to yourself?" + +"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do _you_ say, Piglet?" + +"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting _to-day_?" said Piglet. + +Pooh nodded thoughtfully. + +"It's the same thing," he said. + + * * * * * + +"And what did happen?" asked Christopher Robin. + +"When?" + +"Next morning." + +"I don't know." + +"Could you think and tell me and Pooh some time?" + +"If you wanted it very much." + +"Pooh does," said Christopher Robin. + +He gave a deep sigh, picked his bear up by the leg and walked off to the +door, trailing Winnie-the-Pooh behind him. At the door he turned and +said "Coming to see me have my bath?" + +"I might," I said. + +"Was Pooh's pencil case any better than mine?" + +"It was just the same," I said. + +He nodded and went out ... and in a moment I heard +Winnie-the-Pooh--_bump, bump, bump_--going up the stairs behind him. + + +ANNE OF GREEN GABLES + +CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised + + +MRS. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down +into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and +traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the +old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook +in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool +and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, +well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. +Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it +probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, +keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children +up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never +rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. + +There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend +closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of neglecting their own; +but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage +their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a +notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the +Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop +of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all +this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen +window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts--she had knitted sixteen of them, +as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices--and keeping +a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up +the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular +peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two +sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that +hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing +eye. + +She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in +at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house +was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of +bees. Thomas Lynde--a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel +Lynde’s husband”--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field +beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on +the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew +that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening +before in William J. Blair’s store over at Carmody that he meant to sow +his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for +Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about +anything in his whole life. + +And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon +of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill; +moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was +plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy +and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable +distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going +there? + +Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this +and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both +questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be +something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest +man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where +he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and +driving in a buggy, was something that didn’t happen often. Mrs. Rachel, +ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon’s +enjoyment was spoiled. + +“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla +where he’s gone and why,” the worthy woman finally concluded. “He +doesn’t generally go to town this time of year and he _never_ visits; if +he’d run out of turnip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy to +go for more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. +Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off. I’m +clean puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind or +conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea +today.” + +Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the +big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a +scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow. To be sure, the +long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, as +shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly +could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods +when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest +edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible +from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so +sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place +_living_ at all. + +“It’s just _staying_, that’s what,” she said as she stepped along the +deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. “It’s no wonder +Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by +themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were +there’d be enough of them. I’d ruther look at people. To be sure, they +seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they’re used to it. A body +can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.” + +With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green +Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one +side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies. +Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have +seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla +Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could +have eaten a meal off the ground without over-brimming the proverbial +peck of dirt. + +Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in +when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful +apartment--or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully +clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its +windows looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on +the back yard, came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, +whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left +orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook, +was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when +she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to +her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to +be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table behind +her was laid for supper. + +Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental +note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates laid, +so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea; but +the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple preserves +and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any +particular company. Yet what of Matthew’s white collar and the sorrel +mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery +about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables. + +“Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. “This is a real fine +evening, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down? How are all your folks?” + +Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship +existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, +in spite of--or perhaps because of--their dissimilarity. + +Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark +hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little +knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it. She +looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she +was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had +been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative +of a sense of humor. + +“We’re all pretty well,” said Mrs. Rachel. “I was kind of afraid _you_ +weren’t, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe +he was going to the doctor’s.” + +Marilla’s lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs. +Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off so +unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor’s curiosity. + +“Oh, no, I’m quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday,” she +said. “Matthew went to Bright River. We’re getting a little boy from an +orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he’s coming on the train tonight.” + +If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a +kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished. +She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable +that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to +suppose it. + +“Are you in earnest, Marilla?” she demanded when voice returned to her. + +“Yes, of course,” said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums +in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any well-regulated +Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation. + +Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought +in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people +adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly +turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this! +Nothing! + +“What on earth put such a notion into your head?” she demanded +disapprovingly. + +This had been done without her advice being asked, and must perforce be +disapproved. + +“Well, we’ve been thinking about it for some time--all winter in fact,” + returned Marilla. “Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before +Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the +asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs. +Spencer has visited here and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have +talked it over off and on ever since. We thought we’d get a boy. Matthew +is getting up in years, you know--he’s sixty--and he isn’t so spry as he +once was. His heart troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate +hard it’s got to be to get hired help. There’s never anybody to be had +but those stupid, half-grown little French boys; and as soon as you do +get one broke into your ways and taught something he’s up and off to the +lobster canneries or the States. At first Matthew suggested getting a +Home boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that. ‘They may be all right--I’m not +saying they’re not--but no London street Arabs for me,’ I said. ‘Give +me a native born at least. There’ll be a risk, no matter who we get. But +I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born +Canadian.’ So in the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out +one when she went over to get her little girl. We heard last week she +was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer’s folks at Carmody +to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided that +would be the best age--old enough to be of some use in doing chores +right off and young enough to be trained up proper. We mean to give him +a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer +today--the mail-man brought it from the station--saying they were coming +on the five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew went to Bright River to +meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she goes on to +White Sands station herself.” + +Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to +speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece +of news. + +“Well, Marilla, I’ll just tell you plain that I think you’re doing a +mighty foolish thing--a risky thing, that’s what. You don’t know what +you’re getting. You’re bringing a strange child into your house and home +and you don’t know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is +like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he’s likely to turn out. +Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up +west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to +the house at night--set it _on purpose_, Marilla--and nearly burnt them to +a crisp in their beds. And I know another case where an adopted boy used +to suck the eggs--they couldn’t break him of it. If you had asked my +advice in the matter--which you didn’t do, Marilla--I’d have said for +mercy’s sake not to think of such a thing, that’s what.” + +This Job’s comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She +knitted steadily on. + +“I don’t deny there’s something in what you say, Rachel. I’ve had some +qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so +I gave in. It’s so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he +does I always feel it’s my duty to give in. And as for the risk, there’s +risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There’s risks +in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that--they don’t +always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island. +It isn’t as if we were getting him from England or the States. He can’t +be much different from ourselves.” + +“Well, I hope it will turn out all right,” said Mrs. Rachel in a tone +that plainly indicated her painful doubts. “Only don’t say I didn’t +warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well--I +heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did +that and the whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl +in that instance.” + +“Well, we’re not getting a girl,” said Marilla, as if poisoning wells +were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case +of a boy. “I’d never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at +Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, _she_ wouldn’t shrink +from adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head.” + +Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his +imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a good two hours at +least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert +Bell’s and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation second +to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took +herself away, somewhat to Marilla’s relief, for the latter felt +her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel’s +pessimism. + +“Well, of all things that ever were or will be!” ejaculated Mrs. Rachel +when she was safely out in the lane. “It does really seem as if I must +be dreaming. Well, I’m sorry for that poor young one and no mistake. +Matthew and Marilla don’t know anything about children and they’ll +expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be’s +he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to think +of a child at Green Gables somehow; there’s never been one there, for +Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built--if they +ever _were_ children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them. +I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes for anything. My, but I pity him, +that’s what.” + +So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her +heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently +at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been +still deeper and more profound. + + + + +CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised + + +MATTHEW Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight +miles to Bright River. It was a pretty road, running along between +snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive +through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air +was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped +away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while + + “The little birds sang as if it were + The one day of summer in all the year.” + +Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the +moments when he met women and had to nod to them--for in Prince Edward +island you are supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on the road +whether you know them or not. + +Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an +uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly +laughing at him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he +was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray +hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard +which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had looked +at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the +grayness. + +When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought +he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright +River hotel and went over to the station house. The long platform was +almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl who was +sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting +that it _was_ a girl, sidled past her as quickly as possible without +looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice the +tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She was +sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and +waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all +her might and main. + +Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office +preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty +train would soon be along. + +“The five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago,” answered +that brisk official. “But there was a passenger dropped off for you--a +little girl. She’s sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to +go into the ladies’ waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she +preferred to stay outside. ‘There was more scope for imagination,’ she +said. She’s a case, I should say.” + +“I’m not expecting a girl,” said Matthew blankly. “It’s a boy I’ve come +for. He should be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over +from Nova Scotia for me.” + +The stationmaster whistled. + +“Guess there’s some mistake,” he said. “Mrs. Spencer came off the train +with that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister +were adopting her from an orphan asylum and that you would be along for +her presently. That’s all I know about it--and I haven’t got any more +orphans concealed hereabouts.” + +“I don’t understand,” said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was +at hand to cope with the situation. + +“Well, you’d better question the girl,” said the station-master +carelessly. “I dare say she’ll be able to explain--she’s got a tongue +of her own, that’s certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you +wanted.” + +He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was +left to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its +den--walk up to a girl--a strange girl--an orphan girl--and demand of +her why she wasn’t a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about +and shuffled gently down the platform towards her. + +She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her +eyes on him now. Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen +what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would +have seen this: A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very +tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown +sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids +of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, +also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which +looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others. + +So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen +that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes +were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped +and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, +our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no +commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom +shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid. + +Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon +as she concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with +one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag; +the other she held out to him. + +“I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in +a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. “I’m very glad to see you. I was +beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming for me and I was imagining +all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up +my mind that if you didn’t come for me to-night I’d go down the track to +that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all +night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a +wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think? +You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn’t you? And +I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn’t +to-night.” + +Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and +there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the +glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take her home and +let Marilla do that. She couldn’t be left at Bright River anyhow, no +matter what mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations +might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables. + +“I’m sorry I was late,” he said shyly. “Come along. The horse is over in +the yard. Give me your bag.” + +“Oh, I can carry it,” the child responded cheerfully. “It isn’t heavy. +I’ve got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn’t heavy. And if it isn’t +carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out--so I’d better +keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It’s an extremely old +carpet-bag. Oh, I’m very glad you’ve come, even if it would have been +nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We’ve got to drive a long piece, +haven’t we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I’m glad because I +love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I’m going to live with you +and belong to you. I’ve never belonged to anybody--not really. But the +asylum was the worst. I’ve only been in it four months, but that was +enough. I don’t suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you +can’t possibly understand what it is like. It’s worse than anything you +could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like +that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without +knowing it, isn’t it? They were good, you know--the asylum people. But +there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylum--only just +in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about +them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really +the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents +in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I +used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because +I didn’t have time in the day. I guess that’s why I’m so thin--I _am_ +dreadful thin, ain’t I? There isn’t a pick on my bones. I do love to +imagine I’m nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.” + +With this Matthew’s companion stopped talking, partly because she was +out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another +word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down +a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into +the soft soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees +and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads. + +The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that +brushed against the side of the buggy. + +“Isn’t that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, +all white and lacy, make you think of?” she asked. + +“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. + +“Why, a bride, of course--a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. +I’ve never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don’t +ever expect to be a bride myself. I’m so homely nobody will ever want to +marry me--unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign +missionary mightn’t be very particular. But I do hope that some day I +shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I +just love pretty clothes. And I’ve never had a pretty dress in my life +that I can remember--but of course it’s all the more to look forward +to, isn’t it? And then I can imagine that I’m dressed gorgeously. This +morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear +this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you +know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of +wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn’t sell +it, but I’d rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, +wouldn’t you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be +looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that +I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress--because when you _are_ +imagining you might as well imagine something worth while--and a big +hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and +boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island +with all my might. I wasn’t a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither +was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadn’t time +to get sick, watching to see that I didn’t fall overboard. She said she +never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her from +being seasick it’s a mercy I did prowl, isn’t it? And I wanted to see +everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn’t know +whether I’d ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more +cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just +love it already, and I’m so glad I’m going to live here. I’ve always +heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, +and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I +would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it? +But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at +Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer +what made them red and she said she didn’t know and for pity’s sake not +to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand +already. I suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about +things if you don’t ask questions? And what _does_ make the roads red?” + +“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. + +“Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn’t it splendid +to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes +me feel glad to be alive--it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be +half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d +be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too +much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t +talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can _stop_ when I make up my mind to it, +although it’s difficult.” + +Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet +folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking +themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had +never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad +enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the +way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if +they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to +say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But +this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather +difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental +processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.” So he said as +shyly as usual: + +“Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don’t mind.” + +“Oh, I’m so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together +fine. It’s such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told +that children should be seen and not heard. I’ve had that said to me a +million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big +words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express +them, haven’t you?” + +“Well now, that seems reasonable,” said Matthew. + +“Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it +isn’t--it’s firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was +named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were +trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And +there weren’t any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny +things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them. +They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to +make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, ‘Oh, you +_poor_ little things! If you were out in a great big woods with other +trees all around you and little mosses and June bells growing over your +roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you +could grow, couldn’t you? But you can’t where you are. I know just +exactly how you feel, little trees.’ I felt sorry to leave them behind +this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don’t you? Is +there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer +that.” + +“Well now, yes, there’s one right below the house.” + +“Fancy. It’s always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I +never expected I would, though. Dreams don’t often come true, do they? +Wouldn’t it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty nearly +perfectly happy. I can’t feel exactly perfectly happy because--well, +what color would you call this?” + +She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and +held it up before Matthew’s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on +the tints of ladies’ tresses, but in this case there couldn’t be much +doubt. + +“It’s red, ain’t it?” he said. + +The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from +her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages. + +“Yes, it’s red,” she said resignedly. “Now you see why I can’t be +perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don’t mind the other +things so much--the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I +can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf +complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I _cannot_ imagine that +red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, ‘Now my hair is a +glorious black, black as the raven’s wing.’ But all the time I _know_ it +is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. +I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn’t +red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. +What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?” + +“Well now, I’m afraid I can’t,” said Matthew, who was getting a little +dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy +had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic. + +“Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was +divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be +divinely beautiful?” + +“Well now, no, I haven’t,” confessed Matthew ingenuously. + +“I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the +choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?” + +“Well now, I--I don’t know exactly.” + +“Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn’t make much real +difference for it isn’t likely I’ll ever be either. It’s certain I’ll +never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says--oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. +Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!” + +That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled +out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had +simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the “Avenue.” + +The “Avenue,” so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road +four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, +wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old +farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the +boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse +of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a +cathedral aisle. + +Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the +buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to +the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving +down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with +rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw +visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through +Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small +boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still +in silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child +had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically +as she could talk. + +“I guess you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Matthew ventured to +say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the +only reason he could think of. “But we haven’t very far to go now--only +another mile.” + +She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the +dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led. + +“Oh, Mr. Cuthbert,” she whispered, “that place we came through--that +white place--what was it?” + +“Well now, you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’ +profound reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.” + +“Pretty? Oh, _pretty_ doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, +either. They don’t go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful--wonderful. +It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by +imagination. It just satisfies me here”--she put one hand on her +breast--“it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did +you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?” + +“Well now, I just can’t recollect that I ever had.” + +“I have it lots of time--whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But +they shouldn’t call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning +in a name like that. They should call it--let me see--the White Way of +Delight. Isn’t that a nice imaginative name? When I don’t like the name +of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of +them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, +but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that +place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. +Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I’m glad and +I’m sorry. I’m sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I’m +always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may +come after, but you can never be sure. And it’s so often the case that +it isn’t pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I’m glad to +think of getting home. You see, I’ve never had a real home since I can +remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming +to a really truly home. Oh, isn’t that pretty!” + +They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking +almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it +midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of +sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a +glory of many shifting hues--the most spiritual shadings of crocus and +rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name +has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing +groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering +shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a +white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the +head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. +There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on +a slope beyond and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was +shining from one of its windows. + +“That’s Barry’s pond,” said Matthew. + +“Oh, I don’t like that name, either. I shall call it--let me see--the +Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know +because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives +me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?” + +Matthew ruminated. + +“Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly +white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of +them.” + +“Oh, I don’t think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you +think it can? There doesn’t seem to be much connection between grubs +and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it +Barry’s pond?” + +“I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard +Slope’s the name of his place. If it wasn’t for that big bush behind it +you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge +and round by the road, so it’s near half a mile further.” + +“Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about +my size.” + +“He’s got one about eleven. Her name is Diana.” + +“Oh!” with a long indrawing of breath. “What a perfectly lovely name!” + +“Well now, I dunno. There’s something dreadful heathenish about it, +seems to me. I’d ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. +But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they +gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana.” + +“I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, +then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. +I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that +perhaps just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a +jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them +for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if +the bridge _did_ crumple up I’d want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly +rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid +there are so many things to like in this world? There we’re over. Now +I’ll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say +good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they +like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.” + +When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew +said: + +“We’re pretty near home now. That’s Green Gables over--” + +“Oh, don’t tell me,” she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his +partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his +gesture. “Let me guess. I’m sure I’ll guess right.” + +She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a +hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still +clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose +up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, +gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one +to another the child’s eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they +lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white +with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, +in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining +like a lamp of guidance and promise. + +“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing. + +Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel’s back delightedly. + +“Well now, you’ve guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it +so’s you could tell.” + +“No, she didn’t--really she didn’t. All she said might just as well have +been about most of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it +looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it +seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and +blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched myself so many times today. +Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and +I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch myself to see if it +was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only +a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped +pinching. But it _is_ real and we’re nearly home.” + +With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred +uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would +have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was +not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde’s Hollow, where it was +already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them +from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green +Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from +the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was +not of Marilla or himself he was thinking or of the trouble this mistake +was probably going to make for them, but of the child’s disappointment. +When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had +an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering +something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill +a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature. + +The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves +were rustling silkily all round it. + +“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he +lifted her to the ground. “What nice dreams they must have!” + +Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained “all her worldly +goods,” she followed him into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised + + +MARILLA came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her +eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the +long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short +in amazement. + +“Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she ejaculated. “Where is the boy?” + +“There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew wretchedly. “There was only _her_.” + +He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her +name. + +“No boy! But there _must_ have been a boy,” insisted Marilla. “We sent +word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy.” + +“Well, she didn’t. She brought _her_. I asked the station-master. And I +had to bring her home. She couldn’t be left there, no matter where the +mistake had come in.” + +“Well, this is a pretty piece of business!” ejaculated Marilla. + +During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from +one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly +she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her +precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands. + +“You don’t want me!” she cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a +boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have +known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really +did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!” + +Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging +her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry +stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly across +the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla +stepped lamely into the breach. + +“Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.” + +“Yes, there _is_ need!” The child raised her head quickly, revealing a +tear-stained face and trembling lips. “_You_ would cry, too, if you were +an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and +found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is +the most _tragical_ thing that ever happened to me!” + +Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, +mellowed Marilla’s grim expression. + +“Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to turn you out-of-doors +to-night. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. +What’s your name?” + +The child hesitated for a moment. + +“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly. + +“_Call_ you Cordelia? Is that your name?” + +“No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called +Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.” + +“I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what +is?” + +“Anne Shirley,” reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, “but, +oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can’t matter much to you what you +call me if I’m only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is +such an unromantic name.” + +“Unromantic fiddlesticks!” said the unsympathetic Marilla. “Anne is a +real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.” + +“Oh, I’m not ashamed of it,” explained Anne, “only I like Cordelia +better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia--at least, I +always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was +Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne +please call me Anne spelled with an E.” + +“What difference does it make how it’s spelled?” asked Marilla with +another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot. + +“Oh, it makes _such_ a difference. It _looks_ so much nicer. When you hear +a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it +was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so +much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I +shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.” + +“Very well, then, Anne spelled with an E, can you tell us how this +mistake came to be made? We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring us a boy. +Were there no boys at the asylum?” + +“Oh, yes, there was an abundance of them. But Mrs. Spencer said +_distinctly_ that you wanted a girl about eleven years old. And the +matron said she thought I would do. You don’t know how delighted I was. +I couldn’t sleep all last night for joy. Oh,” she added reproachfully, +turning to Matthew, “why didn’t you tell me at the station that you +didn’t want me and leave me there? If I hadn’t seen the White Way of +Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters it wouldn’t be so hard.” + +“What on earth does she mean?” demanded Marilla, staring at Matthew. + +“She--she’s just referring to some conversation we had on the road,” + said Matthew hastily. “I’m going out to put the mare in, Marilla. Have +tea ready when I come back.” + +“Did Mrs. Spencer bring anybody over besides you?” continued Marilla +when Matthew had gone out. + +“She brought Lily Jones for herself. Lily is only five years old and she +is very beautiful and had nut-brown hair. If I was very beautiful and +had nut-brown hair would you keep me?” + +“No. We want a boy to help Matthew on the farm. A girl would be of +no use to us. Take off your hat. I’ll lay it and your bag on the hall +table.” + +Anne took off her hat meekly. Matthew came back presently and they sat +down to supper. But Anne could not eat. In vain she nibbled at the +bread and butter and pecked at the crab-apple preserve out of the little +scalloped glass dish by her plate. She did not really make any headway +at all. + +“You’re not eating anything,” said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it +were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. + +“I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the +depths of despair?” + +“I’ve never been in the depths of despair, so I can’t say,” responded +Marilla. + +“Weren’t you? Well, did you ever try to _imagine_ you were in the depths +of despair?” + +“No, I didn’t.” + +“Then I don’t think you can understand what it’s like. It’s a very +uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right +up in your throat and you can’t swallow anything, not even if it was a +chocolate caramel. I had one chocolate caramel once two years ago and it +was simply delicious. I’ve often dreamed since then that I had a lot +of chocolate caramels, but I always wake up just when I’m going to eat +them. I do hope you won’t be offended because I can’t eat. Everything is +extremely nice, but still I cannot eat.” + +“I guess she’s tired,” said Matthew, who hadn’t spoken since his return +from the barn. “Best put her to bed, Marilla.” + +Marilla had been wondering where Anne should be put to bed. She had +prepared a couch in the kitchen chamber for the desired and expected +boy. But, although it was neat and clean, it did not seem quite the +thing to put a girl there somehow. But the spare room was out of the +question for such a stray waif, so there remained only the east gable +room. Marilla lighted a candle and told Anne to follow her, which Anne +spiritlessly did, taking her hat and carpet-bag from the hall table as +she passed. The hall was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in +which she presently found herself seemed still cleaner. + +Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and +turned down the bedclothes. + +“I suppose you have a nightgown?” she questioned. + +Anne nodded. + +“Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for me. They’re +fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so +things are always skimpy--at least in a poor asylum like ours. I hate +skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as +in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that’s one +consolation.” + +“Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I’ll come back in a +few minutes for the candle. I daren’t trust you to put it out yourself. +You’d likely set the place on fire.” + +When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed +walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache +over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round +braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In +one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, +low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-corner +table adorned with a fat, red velvet pin-cushion hard enough to turn the +point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six-by-eight +mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white +muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the wash-stand. The whole +apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which +sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne’s bones. With a sob she hastily +discarded her garments, put on the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed +where she burrowed face downward into the pillow and pulled the clothes +over her head. When Marilla came up for the light various skimpy +articles of raiment scattered most untidily over the floor and a certain +tempestuous appearance of the bed were the only indications of any +presence save her own. + +She deliberately picked up Anne’s clothes, placed them neatly on a prim +yellow chair, and then, taking up the candle, went over to the bed. + +“Good night,” she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly. + +Anne’s white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a +startling suddenness. + +“How can you call it a _good_ night when you know it must be the very +worst night I’ve ever had?” she said reproachfully. + +Then she dived down into invisibility again. + +Marilla went slowly down to the kitchen and proceeded to wash the supper +dishes. Matthew was smoking--a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He +seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against it as a filthy habit; +but at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla +winked at the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent +for his emotions. + +“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish,” she said wrathfully. “This is +what comes of sending word instead of going ourselves. Richard Spencer’s +folks have twisted that message somehow. One of us will have to drive +over and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow, that’s certain. This girl will have +to be sent back to the asylum.” + +“Yes, I suppose so,” said Matthew reluctantly. + +“You _suppose_ so! Don’t you know it?” + +“Well now, she’s a real nice little thing, Marilla. It’s kind of a pity +to send her back when she’s so set on staying here.” + +“Matthew Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say you think we ought to keep +her!” + +Marilla’s astonishment could not have been greater if Matthew had +expressed a predilection for standing on his head. + +“Well, now, no, I suppose not--not exactly,” stammered Matthew, +uncomfortably driven into a corner for his precise meaning. “I +suppose--we could hardly be expected to keep her.” + +“I should say not. What good would she be to us?” + +“We might be some good to her,” said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly. + +“Matthew Cuthbert, I believe that child has bewitched you! I can see as +plain as plain that you want to keep her.” + +“Well now, she’s a real interesting little thing,” persisted Matthew. +“You should have heard her talk coming from the station.” + +“Oh, she can talk fast enough. I saw that at once. It’s nothing in her +favour, either. I don’t like children who have so much to say. I don’t +want an orphan girl and if I did she isn’t the style I’d pick out. +There’s something I don’t understand about her. No, she’s got to be +despatched straight-way back to where she came from.” + +“I could hire a French boy to help me,” said Matthew, “and she’d be +company for you.” + +“I’m not suffering for company,” said Marilla shortly. “And I’m not +going to keep her.” + +“Well now, it’s just as you say, of course, Marilla,” said Matthew +rising and putting his pipe away. “I’m going to bed.” + +To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away, went +Marilla, frowning most resolutely. And up-stairs, in the east gable, a +lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables + + +IT was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring +confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was +pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across +glimpses of blue sky. + +For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a +delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible +remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn’t want her because she +wasn’t a boy! + +But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside +of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor. +She pushed up the sash--it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn’t +been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight +that nothing was needed to hold it up. + +Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes +glistening with delight. Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? Wasn’t it a lovely +place? Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here! She would imagine +she was. There was scope for imagination here. + +A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against +the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf +was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of +apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; +and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below +were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance +drifted up to the window on the morning wind. + +Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the +hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, +upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful +possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it +was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in +it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the +other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible. + +Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over +green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea. + +Anne’s beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily +in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; +but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed. + +She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, until +she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheard +by the small dreamer. + +“It’s time you were dressed,” she said curtly. + +Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her +uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to +be. + +Anne stood up and drew a long breath. + +“Oh, isn’t it wonderful?” she said, waving her hand comprehensively at +the good world outside. + +“It’s a big tree,” said Marilla, “and it blooms great, but the fruit +don’t amount to much never--small and wormy.” + +“Oh, I don’t mean just the tree; of course it’s lovely--yes, it’s +_radiantly_ lovely--it blooms as if it meant it--but I meant everything, +the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big +dear world. Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning +like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. +Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They’re always +laughing. Even in winter-time I’ve heard them under the ice. I’m so glad +there’s a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn’t make any +difference to me when you’re not going to keep me, but it does. I shall +always like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if +I never see it again. If there wasn’t a brook I’d be _haunted_ by the +uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I’m not in the depths +of despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn’t it a +splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I’ve just +been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was +to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. +But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have +to stop and that hurts.” + +“You’d better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your +imaginings,” said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. +“Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the +window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as +smart as you can.” + +Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs +in ten minutes’ time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and +braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her +soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla’s requirements. As a matter of +fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes. + +“I’m pretty hungry this morning,” she announced as she slipped into the +chair Marilla placed for her. “The world doesn’t seem such a howling +wilderness as it did last night. I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning. +But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are +interesting, don’t you think? You don’t know what’s going to happen +through the day, and there’s so much scope for imagination. But I’m +glad it’s not rainy today because it’s easier to be cheerful and bear +up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal +to bear up under. It’s all very well to read about sorrows and imagine +yourself living through them heroically, but it’s not so nice when you +really come to have them, is it?” + +“For pity’s sake hold your tongue,” said Marilla. “You talk entirely too +much for a little girl.” + +Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her +continued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of +something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,--but this +was natural,--so that the meal was a very silent one. + +As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating +mechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the +sky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; she +had an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child’s body might +be there at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy +cloudland, borne aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want such +a child about the place? + +Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla +felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night +before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew’s way--take +a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent +persistency--a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its +very silence than if he had talked it out. + +When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to wash +the dishes. + +“Can you wash dishes right?” asked Marilla distrustfully. + +“Pretty well. I’m better at looking after children, though. I’ve had so +much experience at that. It’s such a pity you haven’t any here for me to +look after.” + +“I don’t feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I’ve +got at present. _You’re_ problem enough in all conscience. What’s to be +done with you I don’t know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man.” + +“I think he’s lovely,” said Anne reproachfully. “He is so very +sympathetic. He didn’t mind how much I talked--he seemed to like it. I +felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him.” + +“You’re both queer enough, if that’s what you mean by kindred spirits,” + said Marilla with a sniff. “Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take plenty of +hot water, and be sure you dry them well. I’ve got enough to attend to +this morning for I’ll have to drive over to White Sands in the afternoon +and see Mrs. Spencer. You’ll come with me and we’ll settle what’s to be +done with you. After you’ve finished the dishes go up-stairs and make +your bed.” + +Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye on +the process, discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully, for +she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick. But is +was done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to get rid of her, +told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time. + +Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very threshold +she stopped short, wheeled about, came back and sat down by the table, +light and glow as effectually blotted out as if some one had clapped an +extinguisher on her. + +“What’s the matter now?” demanded Marilla. + +“I don’t dare go out,” said Anne, in the tone of a martyr relinquishing +all earthly joys. “If I can’t stay here there is no use in my loving +Green Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all those +trees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I’ll not be able to help +loving it. It’s hard enough now, so I won’t make it any harder. I want +to go out so much--everything seems to be calling to me, ‘Anne, Anne, +come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate’--but it’s better not. +There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is +there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things, isn’t it? That was +why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought +I’d have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief +dream is over. I am resigned to my fate now, so I don’t think I’ll +go out for fear I’ll get unresigned again. What is the name of that +geranium on the window-sill, please?” + +“That’s the apple-scented geranium.” + +“Oh, I don’t mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it +yourself. Didn’t you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I call +it--let me see--Bonny would do--may I call it Bonny while I’m here? Oh, +do let me!” + +“Goodness, I don’t care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a +geranium?” + +“Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It +makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a +geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You +wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I +shall call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window +this morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course, +it won’t always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can’t +one?” + +“I never in all my life saw or heard anything to equal her,” muttered +Marilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes. “She +is kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I’m +wondering what on earth she’ll say next. She’ll be casting a spell over +me, too. She’s cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went +out said everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish he +was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back +then and argue him into reason. But what’s to be done with a man who +just _looks?_” + +Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyes +on the sky, when Marilla returned from her cellar pilgrimage. There +Marilla left her until the early dinner was on the table. + +“I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?” said +Marilla. + +Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted the +look and said grimly: + +“I’m going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I’ll take +Anne with me and Mrs. Spencer will probably make arrangements to send +her back to Nova Scotia at once. I’ll set your tea out for you and I’ll +be home in time to milk the cows.” + +Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wasted +words and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t +talk back--unless it is a woman who won’t. + +Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla and +Anne set off. Matthew opened the yard gate for them and as they drove +slowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as it seemed: + +“Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told him +I guessed I’d hire him for the summer.” + +Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious +clip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed +indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back once +as the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning over +the gate, looking wistfully after them. + + + + +CHAPTER V. Anne’s History + + +DO you know,” said Anne confidentially, “I’ve made up my mind to enjoy +this drive. It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy +things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you +must make it up _firmly_. I am not going to think about going back to +the asylum while we’re having our drive. I’m just going to think about +the drive. Oh, look, there’s one little early wild rose out! Isn’t it +lovely? Don’t you think it must be glad to be a rose? Wouldn’t it be +nice if roses could talk? I’m sure they could tell us such lovely +things. And isn’t pink the most bewitching color in the world? I love +it, but I can’t wear it. Redheaded people can’t wear pink, not even in +imagination. Did you ever know of anybody whose hair was red when she +was young, but got to be another color when she grew up?” + +“No, I don’t know as I ever did,” said Marilla mercilessly, “and I +shouldn’t think it likely to happen in your case either.” + +Anne sighed. + +“Well, that is another hope gone. ‘My life is a perfect graveyard of +buried hopes.’ That’s a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it +over to comfort myself whenever I’m disappointed in anything.” + +“I don’t see where the comforting comes in myself,” said Marilla. + +“Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were a +heroine in a book, you know. I am so fond of romantic things, and a +graveyard full of buried hopes is about as romantic a thing as one can +imagine isn’t it? I’m rather glad I have one. Are we going across the +Lake of Shining Waters today?” + +“We’re not going over Barry’s pond, if that’s what you mean by your Lake +of Shining Waters. We’re going by the shore road.” + +“Shore road sounds nice,” said Anne dreamily. “Is it as nice as it +sounds? Just when you said ‘shore road’ I saw it in a picture in my +mind, as quick as that! And White Sands is a pretty name, too; but I +don’t like it as well as Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It just +sounds like music. How far is it to White Sands?” + +“It’s five miles; and as you’re evidently bent on talking you might as +well talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about yourself.” + +“Oh, what I _know_ about myself isn’t really worth telling,” said Anne +eagerly. “If you’ll only let me tell you what I _imagine_ about myself +you’ll think it ever so much more interesting.” + +“No, I don’t want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald facts. +Begin at the beginning. Where were you born and how old are you?” + +“I was eleven last March,” said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts +with a little sigh. “And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. +My father’s name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher in the +Bolingbroke High School. My mother’s name was Bertha Shirley. Aren’t +Walter and Bertha lovely names? I’m so glad my parents had nice names. +It would be a real disgrace to have a father named--well, say Jedediah, +wouldn’t it?” + +“I guess it doesn’t matter what a person’s name is as long as he behaves +himself,” said Marilla, feeling herself called upon to inculcate a good +and useful moral. + +“Well, I don’t know.” Anne looked thoughtful. “I read in a book once +that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been +able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose _would_ be as nice if it was +called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. I suppose my father could have been +a good man even if he had been called Jedediah; but I’m sure it would +have been a cross. Well, my mother was a teacher in the High school, +too, but when she married father she gave up teaching, of course. A +husband was enough responsibility. Mrs. Thomas said that they were +a pair of babies and as poor as church mice. They went to live in a +weeny-teeny little yellow house in Bolingbroke. I’ve never seen that +house, but I’ve imagined it thousands of times. I think it must have +had honeysuckle over the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and +lilies of the valley just inside the gate. Yes, and muslin curtains in +all the windows. Muslin curtains give a house such an air. I was born +in that house. Mrs. Thomas said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw, I +was so scrawny and tiny and nothing but eyes, but that mother thought I +was perfectly beautiful. I should think a mother would be a better judge +than a poor woman who came in to scrub, wouldn’t you? I’m glad she +was satisfied with me anyhow, I would feel so sad if I thought I was a +disappointment to her--because she didn’t live very long after that, you +see. She died of fever when I was just three months old. I do wish she’d +lived long enough for me to remember calling her mother. I think it +would be so sweet to say ‘mother,’ don’t you? And father died four days +afterwards from fever too. That left me an orphan and folks were at +their wits’ end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You see, +nobody wanted me even then. It seems to be my fate. Father and mother +had both come from places far away and it was well known they hadn’t any +relatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she’d take me, though she was +poor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up by hand. Do you know +if there is anything in being brought up by hand that ought to make +people who are brought up that way better than other people? Because +whenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be such a +bad girl when she had brought me up by hand--reproachful-like. + +“Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville, and I +lived with them until I was eight years old. I helped look after the +Thomas children--there were four of them younger than me--and I can tell +you they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killed +falling under a train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the +children, but she didn’t want me. Mrs. Thomas was at _her_ wits’ end, so +she said, what to do with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river came +down and said she’d take me, seeing I was handy with children, and +I went up the river to live with her in a little clearing among the +stumps. It was a very lonesome place. I’m sure I could never have +lived there if I hadn’t had an imagination. Mr. Hammond worked a little +sawmill up there, and Mrs. Hammond had eight children. She had twins +three times. I like babies in moderation, but twins three times in +succession is _too much_. I told Mrs. Hammond so firmly, when the last +pair came. I used to get so dreadfully tired carrying them about. + +“I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr. Hammond +died and Mrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping. She divided her children +among her relatives and went to the States. I had to go to the asylum +at Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn’t want me at the +asylum, either; they said they were over-crowded as it was. But they had +to take me and I was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came.” + +Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidently +she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not +wanted her. + +“Did you ever go to school?” demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel mare +down the shore road. + +“Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs. +Thomas. When I went up river we were so far from a school that I +couldn’t walk it in winter and there was a vacation in summer, so I +could only go in the spring and fall. But of course I went while I was +at the asylum. I can read pretty well and I know ever so many pieces of +poetry off by heart--‘The Battle of Hohenlinden’ and ‘Edinburgh after +Flodden,’ and ‘Bingen of the Rhine,’ and most of the ‘Lady of the Lake’ +and most of ‘The Seasons’ by James Thompson. Don’t you just love poetry +that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back? There is a piece +in the Fifth Reader--‘The Downfall of Poland’--that is just full of +thrills. Of course, I wasn’t in the Fifth Reader--I was only in the +Fourth--but the big girls used to lend me theirs to read.” + +“Were those women--Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond--good to you?” asked +Marilla, looking at Anne out of the corner of her eye. + +“O-o-o-h,” faltered Anne. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed +scarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow. “Oh, they _meant_ to be--I know +they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people +mean to be good to you, you don’t mind very much when they’re not +quite--always. They had a good deal to worry them, you know. It’s a very +trying to have a drunken husband, you see; and it must be very trying to +have twins three times in succession, don’t you think? But I feel sure +they meant to be good to me.” + +Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up to a silent +rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly +while she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart for +the child. What a starved, unloved life she had had--a life of drudgery +and poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between +the lines of Anne’s history and divine the truth. No wonder she had been +so delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to be +sent back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew’s unaccountable +whim and let her stay? He was set on it; and the child seemed a nice, +teachable little thing. + +“She’s got too much to say,” thought Marilla, “but she might be trained +out of that. And there’s nothing rude or slangy in what she does say. +She’s ladylike. It’s likely her people were nice folks.” + +The shore road was “woodsy and wild and lonesome.” On the right hand, +scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle with +the gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstone +cliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness than +the sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down +at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy +coves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, +shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinions +flashing silvery in the sunlight. + +“Isn’t the sea wonderful?” said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyed +silence. “Once, when I lived in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an express +wagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten miles away. +I enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I had to look after the +children all the time. I lived it over in happy dreams for years. +But this shore is nicer than the Marysville shore. Aren’t those gulls +splendid? Would you like to be a gull? I think I would--that is, if I +couldn’t be a human girl. Don’t you think it would be nice to wake up at +sunrise and swoop down over the water and away out over that lovely blue +all day; and then at night to fly back to one’s nest? Oh, I can just +imagine myself doing it. What big house is that just ahead, please?” + +“That’s the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but the season hasn’t +begun yet. There are heaps of Americans come there for the summer. They +think this shore is just about right.” + +“I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer’s place,” said Anne mournfully. +“I don’t want to get there. Somehow, it will seem like the end of +everything.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind + + +GET there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a big +yellow house at White Sands Cove, and she came to the door with surprise +and welcome mingled on her benevolent face. + +“Dear, dear,” she exclaimed, “you’re the last folks I was looking for +today, but I’m real glad to see you. You’ll put your horse in? And how +are you, Anne?” + +“I’m as well as can be expected, thank you,” said Anne smilelessly. A +blight seemed to have descended on her. + +“I suppose we’ll stay a little while to rest the mare,” said Marilla, +“but I promised Matthew I’d be home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer, +there’s been a queer mistake somewhere, and I’ve come over to see where +it is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the +asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or +eleven years old.” + +“Marilla Cuthbert, you don’t say so!” said Mrs. Spencer in distress. +“Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said you +wanted a girl--didn’t she Flora Jane?” appealing to her daughter who had +come out to the steps. + +“She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert,” corroborated Flora Jane earnestly. + +“I’m dreadful sorry,” said Mrs. Spencer. “It’s too bad; but it certainly +wasn’t my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could and I +thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible flighty +thing. I’ve often had to scold her well for her heedlessness.” + +“It was our own fault,” said Marilla resignedly. “We should have come +to you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along by +word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the +only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the +asylum? I suppose they’ll take her back, won’t they?” + +“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, “but I don’t think +it will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here +yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she’d sent by me +for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know, +and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I +call it positively providential.” + +Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with +the matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome +orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it. + +She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced +woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had +heard of her. “A terrible worker and driver,” Mrs. Peter was said to +be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and +stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt +a qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her tender +mercies. + +“Well, I’ll go in and we’ll talk the matter over,” she said. + +“And if there isn’t Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!” + exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into the +parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had been +strained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had +lost every particle of warmth it had ever possessed. “That is real +lucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take the armchair, Miss +Cuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don’t wiggle. Let +me take your hats. Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Good +afternoon, Mrs. Blewett. We were just saying how fortunate it was you +happened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, Miss +Cuthbert. Please excuse me for just a moment. I forgot to tell Flora +Jane to take the buns out of the oven.” + +Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sitting +mutely on the ottoman, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stared +at Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given into the keeping +of this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in her +throat and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraid +she couldn’t keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushed +and beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty, physical, +mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand. + +“It seems there’s been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs. Blewett,” + she said. “I was under the impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanted +a little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it seems it was a +boy they wanted. So if you’re still of the same mind you were yesterday, +I think she’ll be just the thing for you.” + +Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot. + +“How old are you and what’s your name?” she demanded. + +“Anne Shirley,” faltered the shrinking child, not daring to make any +stipulations regarding the spelling thereof, “and I’m eleven years old.” + +“Humph! You don’t look as if there was much to you. But you’re wiry. I +don’t know but the wiry ones are the best after all. Well, if I take you +you’ll have to be a good girl, you know--good and smart and respectful. +I’ll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, I +suppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. The +baby’s awful fractious, and I’m clean worn out attending to him. If you +like I can take her right home now.” + +Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child’s pale face +with its look of mute misery--the misery of a helpless little creature +who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped. +Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal +of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. More-over, she did +not fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a sensitive, “highstrung” child over to +such a woman! No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that! + +“Well, I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I didn’t say that Matthew and I +had absolutely decided that we wouldn’t keep her. In fact I may say that +Matthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to find out how the +mistake had occurred. I think I’d better take her home again and talk it +over with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn’t to decide on anything without +consulting him. If we make up our mind not to keep her we’ll bring or +send her over to you tomorrow night. If we don’t you may know that she +is going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?” + +“I suppose it’ll have to,” said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously. + +During Marilla’s speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne’s face. First +the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; +her eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quite +transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett +went out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang +up and flew across the room to Marilla. + +“Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let me +stay at Green Gables?” she said, in a breathless whisper, as if speaking +aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. “Did you really say it? Or +did I only imagine that you did?” + +“I think you’d better learn to control that imagination of yours, Anne, +if you can’t distinguish between what is real and what isn’t,” said +Marilla crossly. “Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. It +isn’t decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take +you after all. She certainly needs you much more than I do.” + +“I’d rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her,” said Anne +passionately. “She looks exactly like a--like a gimlet.” + +Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be +reproved for such a speech. + +“A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and +a stranger,” she said severely. “Go back and sit down quietly and hold +your tongue and behave as a good girl should.” + +“I’ll try to do and be anything you want me, if you’ll only keep me,” + said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman. + +When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in +the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed +his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he +saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said +nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the +yard behind the barn milking the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne’s +history and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer. + +“I wouldn’t give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman,” said Matthew with +unusual vim. + +“I don’t fancy her style myself,” admitted Marilla, “but it’s that +or keeping her ourselves, Matthew. And since you seem to want her, I +suppose I’m willing--or have to be. I’ve been thinking over the idea +until I’ve got kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I’ve never +brought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I’ll make a +terrible mess of it. But I’ll do my best. So far as I’m concerned, +Matthew, she may stay.” + +Matthew’s shy face was a glow of delight. + +“Well now, I reckoned you’d come to see it in that light, Marilla,” he +said. “She’s such an interesting little thing.” + +“It’d be more to the point if you could say she was a useful little +thing,” retorted Marilla, “but I’ll make it my business to see she’s +trained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you’re not to go interfering with +my methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn’t know much about bringing up +a child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor. So you just +leave me to manage her. When I fail it’ll be time enough to put your oar +in.” + +“There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way,” said Matthew +reassuringly. “Only be as good and kind to her as you can without +spoiling her. I kind of think she’s one of the sort you can do anything +with if you only get her to love you.” + +Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew’s opinions +concerning anything feminine, and walked off to the dairy with the +pails. + +“I won’t tell her tonight that she can stay,” she reflected, as she +strained the milk into the creamers. “She’d be so excited that she +wouldn’t sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you’re fairly in for it. Did +you ever suppose you’d see the day when you’d be adopting an orphan +girl? It’s surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew +should be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a +mortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we’ve decided on the experiment +and goodness only knows what will come of it.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. Anne Says Her Prayers + + +WHEN Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly: + +“Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all about +the floor when you took them off. That is a very untidy habit, and I +can’t allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of clothing +fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven’t any use at all for +little girls who aren’t neat.” + +“I was so harrowed up in my mind last night that I didn’t think about my +clothes at all,” said Anne. “I’ll fold them nicely tonight. They always +made us do that at the asylum. Half the time, though, I’d forget, I’d be +in such a hurry to get into bed nice and quiet and imagine things.” + +“You’ll have to remember a little better if you stay here,” admonished +Marilla. “There, that looks something like. Say your prayers now and get +into bed.” + +“I never say any prayers,” announced Anne. + +Marilla looked horrified astonishment. + +“Why, Anne, what do you mean? Were you never taught to say your prayers? +God always wants little girls to say their prayers. Don’t you know who +God is, Anne?” + +“‘God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, +wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,’” responded Anne +promptly and glibly. + +Marilla looked rather relieved. + +“So you do know something then, thank goodness! You’re not quite a +heathen. Where did you learn that?” + +“Oh, at the asylum Sunday-school. They made us learn the whole +catechism. I liked it pretty well. There’s something splendid about some +of the words. ‘Infinite, eternal and unchangeable.’ Isn’t that grand? It +has such a roll to it--just like a big organ playing. You couldn’t quite +call it poetry, I suppose, but it sounds a lot like it, doesn’t it?” + +“We’re not talking about poetry, Anne--we are talking about saying your +prayers. Don’t you know it’s a terrible wicked thing not to say your +prayers every night? I’m afraid you are a very bad little girl.” + +“You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair,” said +Anne reproachfully. “People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble +is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red _on purpose_, and I’ve +never cared about Him since. And anyhow I’d always be too tired at night +to bother saying prayers. People who have to look after twins can’t be +expected to say their prayers. Now, do you honestly think they can?” + +Marilla decided that Anne’s religious training must be begun at once. +Plainly there was no time to be lost. + +“You must say your prayers while you are under my roof, Anne.” + +“Why, of course, if you want me to,” assented Anne cheerfully. “I’d do +anything to oblige you. But you’ll have to tell me what to say for this +once. After I get into bed I’ll imagine out a real nice prayer to say +always. I believe that it will be quite interesting, now that I come to +think of it.” + +“You must kneel down,” said Marilla in embarrassment. + +Anne knelt at Marilla’s knee and looked up gravely. + +“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll +tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone +or into the deep, deep, woods, and I’d look up into the +sky--up--up--up--into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no +end to its blueness. And then I’d just _feel_ a prayer. Well, I’m ready. +What am I to say?” + +Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne +the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as +I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor--which is simply +another name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred +to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood +lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch +of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God’s love, since she had +never had it translated to her through the medium of human love. + +“You’re old enough to pray for yourself, Anne,” she said finally. “Just +thank God for your blessings and ask Him humbly for the things you +want.” + +“Well, I’ll do my best,” promised Anne, burying her face in Marilla’s +lap. “Gracious heavenly Father--that’s the way the ministers say it in +church, so I suppose it’s all right in private prayer, isn’t it?” she +interjected, lifting her head for a moment. “Gracious heavenly Father, +I thank Thee for the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining +Waters and Bonny and the Snow Queen. I’m really extremely grateful for +them. And that’s all the blessings I can think of just now to thank +Thee for. As for the things I want, they’re so numerous that it would +take a great deal of time to name them all so I will only mention the +two most important. Please let me stay at Green Gables; and please let +me be good-looking when I grow up. I remain, + + “Yours respectfully, + Anne Shirley. + +“There, did I do all right?” she asked eagerly, getting up. “I could +have made it much more flowery if I’d had a little more time to think it +over.” + +Poor Marilla was only preserved from complete collapse by remembering +that it was not irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance on the part +of Anne that was responsible for this extraordinary petition. She tucked +the child up in bed, mentally vowing that she should be taught a prayer +the very next day, and was leaving the room with the light when Anne +called her back. + +“I’ve just thought of it now. I should have said, ‘Amen’ in place +of ‘yours respectfully,’ shouldn’t I?--the way the ministers do. I’d +forgotten it, but I felt a prayer should be finished off in some way, so +I put in the other. Do you suppose it will make any difference?” + +“I--I don’t suppose it will,” said Marilla. “Go to sleep now like a good +child. Good night.” + +“I can only say good night tonight with a clear conscience,” said Anne, +cuddling luxuriously down among her pillows. + +Marilla retreated to the kitchen, set the candle firmly on the table, +and glared at Matthew. + +“Matthew Cuthbert, it’s about time somebody adopted that child and +taught her something. She’s next door to a perfect heathen. Will you +believe that she never said a prayer in her life till tonight? I’ll send +her to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of the Day series, that’s +what I’ll do. And she shall go to Sunday-school just as soon as I can +get some suitable clothes made for her. I foresee that I shall have +my hands full. Well, well, we can’t get through this world without our +share of trouble. I’ve had a pretty easy life of it so far, but my time +has come at last and I suppose I’ll just have to make the best of it.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. Anne’s Bringing-up Is Begun + + +FOR reasons best known to herself, Marilla did not tell Anne that +she was to stay at Green Gables until the next afternoon. During the +forenoon she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched over her +with a keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that Anne +was smart and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most +serious shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into daydreams in +the middle of a task and forget all about it until such time as she was +sharply recalled to earth by a reprimand or a catastrophe. + +When Anne had finished washing the dinner dishes she suddenly confronted +Marilla with the air and expression of one desperately determined to +learn the worst. Her thin little body trembled from head to foot; her +face flushed and her eyes dilated until they were almost black; she +clasped her hands tightly and said in an imploring voice: + +“Oh, please, Miss Cuthbert, won’t you tell me if you are going to send +me away or not? I’ve tried to be patient all the morning, but I really +feel that I cannot bear not knowing any longer. It’s a dreadful feeling. +Please tell me.” + +“You haven’t scalded the dishcloth in clean hot water as I told you to +do,” said Marilla immovably. “Just go and do it before you ask any more +questions, Anne.” + +Anne went and attended to the dishcloth. Then she returned to Marilla +and fastened imploring eyes of the latter’s face. “Well,” said Marilla, +unable to find any excuse for deferring her explanation longer, “I +suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I have decided to keep +you--that is, if you will try to be a good little girl and show yourself +grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?” + +“I’m crying,” said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. “I can’t think why. +I’m glad as glad can be. Oh, _glad_ doesn’t seem the right word at all. I +was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms--but this! Oh, it’s +something more than glad. I’m so happy. I’ll try to be so good. It +will be uphill work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was +desperately wicked. However, I’ll do my very best. But can you tell me +why I’m crying?” + +“I suppose it’s because you’re all excited and worked up,” said Marilla +disapprovingly. “Sit down on that chair and try to calm yourself. I’m +afraid you both cry and laugh far too easily. Yes, you can stay here and +we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it’s only a +fortnight till vacation so it isn’t worth while for you to start before +it opens again in September.” + +“What am I to call you?” asked Anne. “Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert? +Can I call you Aunt Marilla?” + +“No; you’ll call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called +Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.” + +“It sounds awfully disrespectful to just say Marilla,” protested Anne. + +“I guess there’ll be nothing disrespectful in it if you’re careful +to speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me +Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert--when he thinks of +it.” + +“I’d love to call you Aunt Marilla,” said Anne wistfully. “I’ve never +had an aunt or any relation at all--not even a grandmother. It would +make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can’t I call you Aunt +Marilla?” + +“No. I’m not your aunt and I don’t believe in calling people names that +don’t belong to them.” + +“But we could imagine you were my aunt.” + +“I couldn’t,” said Marilla grimly. + +“Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?” asked +Anne wide-eyed. + +“No.” + +“Oh!” Anne drew a long breath. “Oh, Miss--Marilla, how much you miss!” + +“I don’t believe in imagining things different from what they really +are,” retorted Marilla. “When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances +He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away. And that reminds me. Go +into the sitting room, Anne--be sure your feet are clean and don’t +let any flies in--and bring me out the illustrated card that’s on the +mantelpiece. The Lord’s Prayer is on it and you’ll devote your spare +time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There’s to be no more +of such praying as I heard last night.” + +“I suppose I was very awkward,” said Anne apologetically, “but then, you +see, I’d never had any practice. You couldn’t really expect a person +to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I thought out a +splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. +It was nearly as long as a minister’s and so poetical. But would you +believe it? I couldn’t remember one word when I woke up this morning. +And I’m afraid I’ll never be able to think out another one as good. +Somehow, things never are so good when they’re thought out a second +time. Have you ever noticed that?” + +“Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do +a thing I want you to obey me at once and not stand stock-still and +discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you.” + +Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she failed +to return; after waiting ten minutes Marilla laid down her knitting +and marched after her with a grim expression. She found Anne standing +motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two windows, +with her eyes a-star with dreams. The white and green light strained +through apple trees and clustering vines outside fell over the rapt +little figure with a half-unearthly radiance. + +“Anne, whatever are you thinking of?” demanded Marilla sharply. + +Anne came back to earth with a start. + +“That,” she said, pointing to the picture--a rather vivid chromo +entitled, “Christ Blessing Little Children”--“and I was just imagining I +was one of them--that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing +off by herself in the corner as if she didn’t belong to anybody, like +me. She looks lonely and sad, don’t you think? I guess she hadn’t any +father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she +just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would +notice her--except Him. I’m sure I know just how she felt. Her heart +must have beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I +asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn’t notice her. But +it’s likely He did, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to imagine it all +out--her edging a little nearer all the time until she was quite close +to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her hair and +oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist +hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, +if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have looked so +sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.” + +“Anne,” said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this speech +long before, “you shouldn’t talk that way. It’s irreverent--positively +irreverent.” + +Anne’s eyes marveled. + +“Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I’m sure I didn’t mean to be +irreverent.” + +“Well I don’t suppose you did--but it doesn’t sound right to talk so +familiarly about such things. And another thing, Anne, when I send you +after something you’re to bring it at once and not fall into mooning and +imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come right +to the kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer off by +heart.” + +Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had +brought in to decorate the dinner-table--Marilla had eyed that +decoration askance, but had said nothing--propped her chin on her hands, +and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes. + +“I like this,” she announced at length. “It’s beautiful. I’ve heard it +before--I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday school say it +over once. But I didn’t like it then. He had such a cracked voice and +he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a +disagreeable duty. This isn’t poetry, but it makes me feel just the same +way poetry does. ‘Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.’ +That is just like a line of music. Oh, I’m so glad you thought of making +me learn this, Miss--Marilla.” + +“Well, learn it and hold your tongue,” said Marilla shortly. + +Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft +kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments +longer. + +“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have +a bosom friend in Avonlea?” + +“A--a what kind of friend?” + +“A bosom friend--an intimate friend, you know--a really kindred spirit +to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all +my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest +dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do +you think it’s possible?” + +“Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she’s about your age. She’s +a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for you when +she comes home. She’s visiting her aunt over at Carmody just now. You’ll +have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a +very particular woman. She won’t let Diana play with any little girl who +isn’t nice and good.” + +Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with +interest. + +“What is Diana like? Her hair isn’t red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It’s bad +enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it in a +bosom friend.” + +“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and +rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being +pretty.” + +Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was +firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a +child who was being brought up. + +But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the +delightful possibilities before it. + +“Oh, I’m so glad she’s pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself--and +that’s impossible in my case--it would be best to have a beautiful bosom +friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting +room with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept +her best china and her preserves there--when she had any preserves to +keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night +when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to +pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in +it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to +talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her everything. +Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend +that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I +could open the door and step right into the room where Katie Maurice +lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas’ shelves of preserves and china. And +then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a +wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have +lived there happy for ever after. When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond +it just broke my heart to leave Katie Maurice. She felt it dreadfully, +too, I know she did, for she was crying when she kissed me good-bye +through the bookcase door. There was no bookcase at Mrs. Hammond’s. But +just up the river a little way from the house there was a long green +little valley, and the loveliest echo lived there. It echoed back every +word you said, even if you didn’t talk a bit loud. So I imagined that it +was a little girl called Violetta and we were great friends and I loved +her almost as well as I loved Katie Maurice--not quite, but almost, you +know. The night before I went to the asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, +and oh, her good-bye came back to me in such sad, sad tones. I had +become so attached to her that I hadn’t the heart to imagine a bosom +friend at the asylum, even if there had been any scope for imagination +there.” + +“I think it’s just as well there wasn’t,” said Marilla drily. “I +don’t approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe your own +imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to +put such nonsense out of your head. But don’t let Mrs. Barry hear you +talking about your Katie Maurices and your Violettas or she’ll think you +tell stories.” + +“Oh, I won’t. I couldn’t talk of them to everybody--their memories are +too sacred for that. But I thought I’d like to have you know about them. +Oh, look, here’s a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just +think what a lovely place to live--in an apple blossom! Fancy going to +sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn’t a human girl I +think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.” + +“Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull,” sniffed Marilla. “I think you +are very fickle minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk. +But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you’ve got anybody +that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it.” + +“Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now--all but just the last line.” + +“Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish learning +it well, and stay there until I call you down to help me get tea.” + +“Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?” pleaded Anne. + +“No; you don’t want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should have +left them on the tree in the first place.” + +“I did feel a little that way, too,” said Anne. “I kind of felt I +shouldn’t shorten their lovely lives by picking them--I wouldn’t want +to be picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was +_irresistible_. What do you do when you meet with an irresistible +temptation?” + +“Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?” + +Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by the +window. + +“There--I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming +upstairs. Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll +always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet +with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the +windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The +furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound _so_ +luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, +pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. +I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall. +I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing white lace, with a +pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair. My hair is of midnight +darkness and my skin is a clear ivory pallor. My name is the Lady +Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it isn’t--I can’t make _that_ seem real.” + +She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her +pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her. + +“You’re only Anne of Green Gables,” she said earnestly, “and I see you, +just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady +Cordelia. But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than +Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?” + +She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook +herself to the open window. + + +“Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon dear birches down +in the hollow. And good afternoon, dear gray house up on the hill. I +wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall +love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice +and Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I’d hate to hurt +anybody’s feelings, even a little bookcase girl’s or a little echo +girl’s. I must be careful to remember them and send them a kiss every +day.” + +Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips past the cherry +blossoms and then, with her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out +on a sea of daydreams. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified + + +ANNE had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived to +inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. +A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady +to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. +Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for +people who were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on +earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations +of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot +out-of-doors she hurried up to Green Gables, bursting with curiosity to +see Matthew and Marilla’s orphan, concerning whom all sorts of stories +and suppositions had gone abroad in Avonlea. + +Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight. Already +she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the place. She had +discovered that a lane opened out below the apple orchard and ran up +through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end +in all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild +cherry arch, corners thick with fern, and branching byways of maple and +mountain ash. + +She had made friends with the spring down in the hollow--that wonderful +deep, clear icy-cold spring; it was set about with smooth red sandstones +and rimmed in by great palm-like clumps of water fern; and beyond it was +a log bridge over the brook. + +That bridge led Anne’s dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond, where +perpetual twilight reigned under the straight, thick-growing firs and +spruces; the only flowers there were myriads of delicate “June bells,” + those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial +starflowers, like the spirits of last year’s blossoms. Gossamers +glimmered like threads of silver among the trees and the fir boughs and +tassels seemed to utter friendly speech. + +All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half +hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and +Marilla half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that Matthew complained, to +be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his +face; Marilla permitted the “chatter” until she found herself becoming +too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a +curt command to hold her tongue. + +Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her +own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy +evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk +her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with +such evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its +compensations. When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the +real reason of her call. + +“I’ve been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew.” + +“I don’t suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself,” said +Marilla. “I’m getting over my surprise now.” + +“It was too bad there was such a mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel +sympathetically. “Couldn’t you have sent her back?” + +“I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. +And I must say I like her myself--although I admit she has her faults. +The house seems a different place already. She’s a real bright little +thing.” + +Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she +read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel’s expression. + +“It’s a great responsibility you’ve taken on yourself,” said that +lady gloomily, “especially when you’ve never had any experience with +children. You don’t know much about her or her real disposition, I +suppose, and there’s no guessing how a child like that will turn out. +But I don’t want to discourage you I’m sure, Marilla.” + +“I’m not feeling discouraged,” was Marilla’s dry response, “when I make +up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you’d like to see +Anne. I’ll call her in.” + +Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of +her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in +the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside +the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short +tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin +legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and +obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into +over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. + +“Well, they didn’t pick you for your looks, that’s sure and certain,” + was Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those +delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their +mind without fear or favor. “She’s terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. +Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did +any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, +child, I say.” + +Anne “came there,” but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one +bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her +face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form +trembling from head to foot. + +“I hate you,” she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the +floor. “I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--” a louder stamp with each +assertion of hatred. “How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare +you say I’m freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling +woman!” + +“Anne!” exclaimed Marilla in consternation. + +But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes +blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like +an atmosphere. + +“How dare you say such things about me?” she repeated vehemently. “How +would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like +to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn’t a spark of +imagination in you? I don’t care if I do hurt your feelings by saying +so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever +hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas’ intoxicated husband. And I’ll _never_ +forgive you for it, never, never!” + +Stamp! Stamp! + +“Did anybody ever see such a temper!” exclaimed the horrified Mrs. +Rachel. + +“Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up,” said Marilla, +recovering her powers of speech with difficulty. + +Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the +tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the +hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that +the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence. + +“Well, I don’t envy you your job bringing _that_ up, Marilla,” said Mrs. +Rachel with unspeakable solemnity. + +Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or +deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever +afterwards. + +“You shouldn’t have twitted her about her looks, Rachel.” + +“Marilla Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say that you are upholding her in +such a terrible display of temper as we’ve just seen?” demanded Mrs. +Rachel indignantly. + +“No,” said Marilla slowly, “I’m not trying to excuse her. She’s been +very naughty and I’ll have to give her a talking to about it. But we +must make allowances for her. She’s never been taught what is right. And +you _were_ too hard on her, Rachel.” + +Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she was +again surprised at herself for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an air +of offended dignity. + +“Well, I see that I’ll have to be very careful what I say after this, +Marilla, since the fine feelings of orphans, brought from goodness +knows where, have to be considered before anything else. Oh, no, I’m not +vexed--don’t worry yourself. I’m too sorry for you to leave any room for +anger in my mind. You’ll have your own troubles with that child. But +if you’ll take my advice--which I suppose you won’t do, although I’ve +brought up ten children and buried two--you’ll do that ‘talking to’ you +mention with a fair-sized birch switch. I should think _that_ would be the +most effective language for that kind of a child. Her temper matches her +hair I guess. Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you’ll come down to +see me often as usual. But you can’t expect me to visit here again in a +hurry, if I’m liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It’s +something new in _my_ experience.” + +Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away--if a fat woman who always +waddled _could_ be said to sweep away--and Marilla with a very solemn face +betook herself to the east gable. + +On the way upstairs she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do. +She felt no little dismay over the scene that had just been enacted. +How unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such temper before Mrs. +Rachel Lynde, of all people! Then Marilla suddenly became aware of an +uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more humiliation +over this than sorrow over the discovery of such a serious defect +in Anne’s disposition. And how was she to punish her? The amiable +suggestion of the birch switch--to the efficiency of which all of Mrs. +Rachel’s own children could have borne smarting testimony--did not +appeal to Marilla. She did not believe she could whip a child. No, +some other method of punishment must be found to bring Anne to a proper +realization of the enormity of her offense. + +Marilla found Anne face downward on her bed, crying bitterly, quite +oblivious of muddy boots on a clean counterpane. + +“Anne,” she said not ungently. + +No answer. + +“Anne,” with greater severity, “get off that bed this minute and listen +to what I have to say to you.” + +Anne squirmed off the bed and sat rigidly on a chair beside it, her face +swollen and tear-stained and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor. + +“This is a nice way for you to behave. Anne! Aren’t you ashamed of +yourself?” + +“She hadn’t any right to call me ugly and redheaded,” retorted Anne, +evasive and defiant. + +“You hadn’t any right to fly into such a fury and talk the way you did +to her, Anne. I was ashamed of you--thoroughly ashamed of you. I +wanted you to behave nicely to Mrs. Lynde, and instead of that you have +disgraced me. I’m sure I don’t know why you should lose your temper like +that just because Mrs. Lynde said you were red-haired and homely. You +say it yourself often enough.” + +“Oh, but there’s such a difference between saying a thing yourself and +hearing other people say it,” wailed Anne. “You may know a thing is +so, but you can’t help hoping other people don’t quite think it is. I +suppose you think I have an awful temper, but I couldn’t help it. When +she said those things something just rose right up in me and choked me. +I _had_ to fly out at her.” + +“Well, you made a fine exhibition of yourself I must say. Mrs. Lynde +will have a nice story to tell about you everywhere--and she’ll tell +it, too. It was a dreadful thing for you to lose your temper like that, +Anne.” + +“Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face that +you were skinny and ugly,” pleaded Anne tearfully. + +An old remembrance suddenly rose up before Marilla. She had been a very +small child when she had heard one aunt say of her to another, “What a +pity she is such a dark, homely little thing.” Marilla was every day of +fifty before the sting had gone out of that memory. + +“I don’t say that I think Mrs. Lynde was exactly right in saying what +she did to you, Anne,” she admitted in a softer tone. “Rachel is too +outspoken. But that is no excuse for such behavior on your part. She +was a stranger and an elderly person and my visitor--all three very good +reasons why you should have been respectful to her. You were rude and +saucy and”--Marilla had a saving inspiration of punishment--“you must go +to her and tell her you are very sorry for your bad temper and ask her +to forgive you.” + +“I can never do that,” said Anne determinedly and darkly. “You can +punish me in any way you like, Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, +damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and +water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Mrs. Lynde to forgive +me.” + +“We’re not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons,” + said Marilla drily, “especially as they’re rather scarce in Avonlea. But +apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and you’ll stay here in your +room until you can tell me you’re willing to do it.” + +“I shall have to stay here forever then,” said Anne mournfully, “because +I can’t tell Mrs. Lynde I’m sorry I said those things to her. How can +I? I’m _not_ sorry. I’m sorry I’ve vexed you; but I’m _glad_ I told her just +what I did. It was a great satisfaction. I can’t say I’m sorry when I’m +not, can I? I can’t even _imagine_ I’m sorry.” + +“Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the +morning,” said Marilla, rising to depart. “You’ll have the night to +think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You said +you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables, but +I must say it hasn’t seemed very much like it this evening.” + +Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne’s stormy bosom, Marilla +descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in +soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she +recalled Mrs. Rachel’s dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with +amusement and she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER X. Anne’s Apology + + +MARILLA said nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when +Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to be +made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told +Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of +the enormity of Anne’s behavior. + +“It’s a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she’s a meddlesome +old gossip,” was Matthew’s consolatory rejoinder. + +“Matthew Cuthbert, I’m astonished at you. You know that Anne’s behavior +was dreadful, and yet you take her part! I suppose you’ll be saying next +thing that she oughtn’t to be punished at all!” + +“Well now--no--not exactly,” said Matthew uneasily. “I reckon she +ought to be punished a little. But don’t be too hard on her, Marilla. +Recollect she hasn’t ever had anyone to teach her right. You’re--you’re +going to give her something to eat, aren’t you?” + +“When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?” + demanded Marilla indignantly. “She’ll have her meals regular, and +I’ll carry them up to her myself. But she’ll stay up there until she’s +willing to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that’s final, Matthew.” + +Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals--for Anne still +remained obdurate. After each meal Marilla carried a well-filled tray +to the east gable and brought it down later on not noticeably depleted. +Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne eaten +anything at all? + +When Marilla went out that evening to bring the cows from the back +pasture, Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns and watching, +slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs. As +a general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the little +bedroom off the hall where he slept; once in a while he ventured +uncomfortably into the parlor or sitting room when the minister came to +tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring he +helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years ago. + +He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the +door of the east gable before he summoned courage to tap on it with his +fingers and then open the door to peep in. + +Anne was sitting on the yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully out +into the garden. Very small and unhappy she looked, and Matthew’s heart +smote him. He softly closed the door and tiptoed over to her. + +“Anne,” he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, “how are you +making it, Anne?” + +Anne smiled wanly. + +“Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time. Of +course, it’s rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that.” + +Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary +imprisonment before her. + +Matthew recollected that he must say what he had come to say without +loss of time, lest Marilla return prematurely. “Well now, Anne, don’t +you think you’d better do it and have it over with?” he whispered. +“It’ll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for Marilla’s a +dreadful deter-mined woman--dreadful determined, Anne. Do it right off, +I say, and have it over.” + +“Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?” + +“Yes--apologize--that’s the very word,” said Matthew eagerly. “Just +smooth it over so to speak. That’s what I was trying to get at.” + +“I suppose I could do it to oblige you,” said Anne thoughtfully. “It +would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I _am_ sorry now. I wasn’t +a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all +night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just +furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn’t in a temper +anymore--and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed +of myself. But I just couldn’t think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde +so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I’d stay shut up here +forever rather than do that. But still--I’d do anything for you--if you +really want me to--” + +“Well now, of course I do. It’s terrible lonesome downstairs without +you. Just go and smooth things over--that’s a good girl.” + +“Very well,” said Anne resignedly. “I’ll tell Marilla as soon as she +comes in I’ve repented.” + +“That’s right--that’s right, Anne. But don’t tell Marilla I said +anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I +promised not to do that.” + +“Wild horses won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Anne solemnly. +“How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?” + +But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the +remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what +he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to the house, was +agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, “Marilla” over +the banisters. + +“Well?” she said, going into the hall. + +“I’m sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I’m willing to go +and tell Mrs. Lynde so.” + +“Very well.” Marilla’s crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had +been wondering what under the canopy she should do if Anne did not give +in. “I’ll take you down after milking.” + +Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the +lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected. +But halfway down Anne’s dejection vanished as if by enchantment. She +lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset +sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld the +change disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her +to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde. + +“What are you thinking of, Anne?” she asked sharply. + +“I’m imagining out what I must say to Mrs. Lynde,” answered Anne +dreamily. + +This was satisfactory--or should have been so. But Marilla could not +rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was +going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant. + +Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence +of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the +radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before +a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the +astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly. + +“Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry,” she said with a quiver in +her voice. “I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up +a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to +you--and I’ve disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have +let me stay at Green Gables although I’m not a boy. I’m a dreadfully +wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out +by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a +temper because you told me the truth. It _was_ the truth; every word you +said was true. My hair is red and I’m freckled and skinny and ugly. +What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn’t have said it. Oh, Mrs. +Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong +sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a +dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you forgive me, +Mrs. Lynde.” + +Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word +of judgment. + +There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her +voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. +But the former under-stood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying +her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her +abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, +had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive +pleasure. + +Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see +this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and +all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart. + +“There, there, get up, child,” she said heartily. “Of course I forgive +you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I’m such an +outspoken person. You just mustn’t mind me, that’s what. It can’t be +denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once--went to school +with her, in fact--whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she +was young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome auburn. I +wouldn’t be a mite surprised if yours did, too--not a mite.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Lynde!” Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. “You +have given me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh, +I could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome +auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one’s +hair was a handsome auburn, don’t you think? And now may I go out into +your garden and sit on that bench under the apple-trees while you and +Marilla are talking? There is so much more scope for imagination out +there.” + +“Laws, yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of them white +June lilies over in the corner if you like.” + +As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to light a +lamp. + +“She’s a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Marilla; it’s easier +than the one you’ve got; I just keep that for the hired boy to sit +on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of +taking about her after all. I don’t feel so surprised at you and Matthew +keeping her as I did--nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out all +right. Of course, she has a queer way of expressing herself--a little +too--well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she’ll likely get over +that now that she’s come to live among civilized folks. And then, her +temper’s pretty quick, I guess; but there’s one comfort, a child that +has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain’t never likely to +be sly or deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that’s what. On the +whole, Marilla, I kind of like her.” + +When Marilla went home Anne came out of the fragrant twilight of the +orchard with a sheaf of white narcissi in her hands. + +“I apologized pretty well, didn’t I?” she said proudly as they went +down the lane. “I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it +thoroughly.” + +“You did it thoroughly, all right enough,” was Marilla’s comment. +Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the +recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to scold +Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She +compromised with her conscience by saying severely: + +“I hope you won’t have occasion to make many more such apologies. I hope +you’ll try to control your temper now, Anne.” + +“That wouldn’t be so hard if people wouldn’t twit me about my looks,” + said Anne with a sigh. “I don’t get cross about other things; but I’m +_so_ tired of being twitted about my hair and it just makes me boil right +over. Do you suppose my hair will really be a handsome auburn when I +grow up?” + +“You shouldn’t think so much about your looks, Anne. I’m afraid you are +a very vain little girl.” + +“How can I be vain when I know I’m homely?” protested Anne. “I love +pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that +isn’t pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful--just as I feel when I look +at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn’t beautiful.” + +“Handsome is as handsome does,” quoted Marilla. “I’ve had that said +to me before, but I have my doubts about it,” remarked skeptical Anne, +sniffing at her narcissi. “Oh, aren’t these flowers sweet! It was lovely +of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against Mrs. +Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and +be forgiven, doesn’t it? Aren’t the stars bright tonight? If you could +live in a star, which one would you pick? I’d like that lovely clear big +one away over there above that dark hill.” + +“Anne, do hold your tongue,” said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying to +follow the gyrations of Anne’s thoughts. + +Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little gypsy +wind came down it to meet them, laden with the spicy perfume of young +dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light gleamed out +through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came +close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman’s hard palm. + +“It’s lovely to be going home and know it’s home,” she said. “I love +Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever +seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I’m so happy. I could pray right now and +not find it a bit hard.” + +Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla’s heart at touch of +that thin little hand in her own--a throb of the maternity she had +missed, perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness disturbed +her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by +inculcating a moral. + +“If you’ll be a good girl you’ll always be happy, Anne. And you should +never find it hard to say your prayers.” + +“Saying one’s prayers isn’t exactly the same thing as praying,” said +Anne meditatively. “But I’m going to imagine that I’m the wind that is +blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees I’ll +imagine I’m gently waving down here in the ferns--and then I’ll fly over +to Mrs. Lynde’s garden and set the flowers dancing--and then I’ll go +with one great swoop over the clover field--and then I’ll blow over the +Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves. +Oh, there’s so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I’ll not talk +any more just now, Marilla.” + +“Thanks be to goodness for that,” breathed Marilla in devout relief. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. Anne’s Impressions of Sunday-School + + +WELL, how do you like them?” said Marilla. + +Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three new +dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham which +Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer +because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checkered +sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and +one was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased that +week at a Carmody store. + +She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike--plain skirts +fulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt +and tight as sleeves could be. + +“I’ll imagine that I like them,” said Anne soberly. + +“I don’t want you to imagine it,” said Marilla, offended. “Oh, I can see +you don’t like the dresses! What is the matter with them? Aren’t they +neat and clean and new?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then why don’t you like them?” + +“They’re--they’re not--pretty,” said Anne reluctantly. + +“Pretty!” Marilla sniffed. “I didn’t trouble my head about getting +pretty dresses for you. I don’t believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I’ll +tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable +dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they’re all +you’ll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will do +you for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and Sunday +school. I’ll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tear +them. I should think you’d be grateful to get most anything after those +skimpy wincey things you’ve been wearing.” + +“Oh, I _am_ grateful,” protested Anne. “But I’d be ever so much +gratefuller if--if you’d made just one of them with puffed sleeves. +Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, +Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves.” + +“Well, you’ll have to do without your thrill. I hadn’t any material +to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking things +anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones.” + +“But I’d rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and +sensible all by myself,” persisted Anne mournfully. + +“Trust you for that! Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your +closet, and then sit down and learn the Sunday school lesson. I got +a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you’ll go to Sunday school +tomorrow,” said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon. + +Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses. + +“I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves,” she +whispered disconsolately. “I prayed for one, but I didn’t much expect it +on that account. I didn’t suppose God would have time to bother about +a little orphan girl’s dress. I knew I’d just have to depend on +Marilla for it. Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of +snow-white muslin with lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves.” + +The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from +going to Sunday-school with Anne. + +“You’ll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne,” she said. +“She’ll see that you get into the right class. Now, mind you behave +yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde to +show you our pew. Here’s a cent for collection. Don’t stare at people +and don’t fidget. I shall expect you to tell me the text when you come +home.” + +Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white +sateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open to +the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle +of her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the +extreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who +had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter, +however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being +confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred +buttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberally +garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them. Whatever other people +might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she tripped +gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink +and yellow very proudly. + +When she had reached Mrs. Lynde’s house she found that lady gone. +Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the church alone. In the porch +she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired in +whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this +stranger in their midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. Avonlea +little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde said +she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables, +said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers +like a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other behind +their quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later +on when the opening exercises were over and Anne found herself in Miss +Rogerson’s class. + +Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-school +class for twenty years. Her method of teaching was to ask the printed +questions from the quarterly and look sternly over its edge at the +particular little girl she thought ought to answer the question. She +looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla’s drilling, +answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much +about either question or answer. + +She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; +every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves. Anne felt that +life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves. + +“Well, how did you like Sunday school?” Marilla wanted to know when Anne +came home. Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane, +so Marilla was spared the knowledge of that for a time. + +“I didn’t like it a bit. It was horrid.” + +“Anne Shirley!” said Marilla rebukingly. + +Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonny’s +leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia. + +“They might have been lonesome while I was away,” she explained. “And +now about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs. +Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went into the church, with +a lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the +window while the opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully +long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through +if I hadn’t been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the +Lake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts +of splendid things.” + +“You shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. You should have listened +to Mr. Bell.” + +“But he wasn’t talking to me,” protested Anne. “He was talking to God +and he didn’t seem to be very much inter-ested in it, either. I think +he thought God was too far off though. There was a long row of white +birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through +them, ‘way, ‘way down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like a +beautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just said, ‘Thank you for it, +God,’ two or three times.” + +“Not out loud, I hope,” said Marilla anxiously. + +“Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through at last +and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Rogerson’s class. +There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed sleeves. I tried +to imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I? It was +as easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone in +the east gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who had +really truly puffs.” + +“You shouldn’t have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday school. +You should have been attending to the lesson. I hope you knew it.” + +“Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss Rogerson asked ever so +many. I don’t think it was fair for her to do all the asking. There were +lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t like to because I didn’t think +she was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited a +paraphrase. She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn’t, but I could +recite, ‘The Dog at His Master’s Grave’ if she liked. That’s in the +Third Royal Reader. It isn’t a really truly religious piece of poetry, +but it’s so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. She said it +wouldn’t do and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for next +Sunday. I read it over in church afterwards and it’s splendid. There are +two lines in particular that just thrill me. + + “‘Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell + In Midian’s evil day.’ + +“I don’t know what ‘squadrons’ means nor ‘Midian,’ either, but it sounds +_so_ tragical. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to recite it. +I’ll practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked Miss +Rogerson--because Mrs. Lynde was too far away--to show me your pew. +I sat just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, third +chapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text. If I was a +minister I’d pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully long, +too. I suppose the minister had to match it to the text. I didn’t think +he was a bit interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that he +hasn’t enough imagination. I didn’t listen to him very much. I just let +my thoughts run and I thought of the most surprising things.” + +Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but +she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had +said, especially about the minister’s sermons and Mr. Bell’s prayers, +were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for +years, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that +those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible +and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of +neglected humanity. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise + + +IT was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the +flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde’s and called Anne to +account. + +“Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat +rigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put you +up to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have been!” + +“Oh. I know pink and yellow aren’t becoming to me,” began Anne. + +“Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all, +no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the most +aggravating child!” + +“I don’t see why it’s any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat +than on your dress,” protested Anne. “Lots of little girls there had +bouquets pinned on their dresses. What’s the difference?” + +Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths of +the abstract. + +“Don’t answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to do +such a thing. Never let me catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachel +says she thought she would sink through the floor when she saw you come +in all rigged out like that. She couldn’t get near enough to tell you +to take them off till it was too late. She says people talked about it +something dreadful. Of course they would think I had no better sense +than to let you go decked out like that.” + +“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. “I never +thought you’d mind. The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty +I thought they’d look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls had +artificial flowers on their hats. I’m afraid I’m going to be a dreadful +trial to you. Maybe you’d better send me back to the asylum. That would +be terrible; I don’t think I could endure it; most likely I would go +into consumption; I’m so thin as it is, you see. But that would be +better than being a trial to you.” + +“Nonsense,” said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child +cry. “I don’t want to send you back to the asylum, I’m sure. All I want +is that you should behave like other little girls and not make yourself +ridiculous. Don’t cry any more. I’ve got some news for you. Diana Barry +came home this afternoon. I’m going up to see if I can borrow a skirt +pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like you can come with me and get +acquainted with Diana.” + +Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening on +her cheeks; the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the +floor. + +“Oh, Marilla, I’m frightened--now that it has come I’m actually +frightened. What if she shouldn’t like me! It would be the most tragical +disappointment of my life.” + +“Now, don’t get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn’t use such long +words. It sounds so funny in a little girl. I guess Diana ‘ll like you +well enough. It’s her mother you’ve got to reckon with. If she doesn’t +like you it won’t matter how much Diana does. If she has heard about +your outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with buttercups round +your hat I don’t know what she’ll think of you. You must be polite and +well behaved, and don’t make any of your startling speeches. For pity’s +sake, if the child isn’t actually trembling!” + +Anne _was_ trembling. Her face was pale and tense. + +“Oh, Marilla, you’d be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little +girl you hoped to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn’t like +you,” she said as she hastened to get her hat. + +They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and up +the firry hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in answer to +Marilla’s knock. She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with a +very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict with +her children. + +“How do you do, Marilla?” she said cordially. “Come in. And this is the +little girl you have adopted, I suppose?” + +“Yes, this is Anne Shirley,” said Marilla. + +“Spelled with an E,” gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she was, +was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that important +point. + +Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and +said kindly: + +“How are you?” + +“I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank you +ma’am,” said Anne gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper, +“There wasn’t anything startling in that, was there, Marilla?” + +Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when the +callers entered. She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother’s +black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry expression which was +her inheritance from her father. + +“This is my little girl Diana,” said Mrs. Barry. “Diana, you might take +Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be better +for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirely +too much--” this to Marilla as the little girls went out--“and I can’t +prevent her, for her father aids and abets her. She’s always poring over +a book. I’m glad she has the prospect of a playmate--perhaps it will +take her more out-of-doors.” + +Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streaming +through the dark old firs to the west of it, stood Anne and Diana, +gazing bashfully at each other over a clump of gorgeous tiger lilies. + +The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have +delighted Anne’s heart at any time less fraught with destiny. It was +encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourished +flowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths neatly bordered +with clamshells, intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the beds +between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There were rosy bleeding-hearts +and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny, +sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted +Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple +Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with its +delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot +its fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where +sunshine lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering, +purred and rustled. + +“Oh, Diana,” said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost +in a whisper, “oh, do you think you can like me a little--enough to be +my bosom friend?” + +Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke. + +“Why, I guess so,” she said frankly. “I’m awfully glad you’ve come to +live at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play with. +There isn’t any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I’ve +no sisters big enough.” + +“Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?” demanded Anne +eagerly. + +Diana looked shocked. + +“Why it’s dreadfully wicked to swear,” she said rebukingly. + +“Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know.” + +“I never heard of but one kind,” said Diana doubtfully. + +“There really is another. Oh, it isn’t wicked at all. It just means +vowing and promising solemnly.” + +“Well, I don’t mind doing that,” agreed Diana, relieved. “How do you do +it?” + +“We must join hands--so,” said Anne gravely. “It ought to be over +running water. We’ll just imagine this path is running water. I’ll +repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom +friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you +say it and put my name in.” + +Diana repeated the “oath” with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said: + +“You’re a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I +believe I’m going to like you real well.” + +When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as far as the log +bridge. The two little girls walked with their arms about each other. +At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoon +together. + +“Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?” asked Marilla as they went +up through the garden of Green Gables. + +“Oh yes,” sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on +Marilla’s part. “Oh Marilla, I’m the happiest girl on Prince Edward +Island this very moment. I assure you I’ll say my prayers with a right +good-will tonight. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. +William Bell’s birch grove tomorrow. Can I have those broken pieces of +china that are out in the woodshed? Diana’s birthday is in February and +mine is in March. Don’t you think that is a very strange coincidence? +Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it’s perfectly +splendid and tremendously exciting. She’s going to show me a place back +in the woods where rice lilies grow. Don’t you think Diana has got very +soulful eyes? I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to +sing a song called ‘Nelly in the Hazel Dell.’ She’s going to give me a +picture to put up in my room; it’s a perfectly beautiful picture, she +says--a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress. A sewing-machine agent +gave it to her. I wish I had something to give Diana. I’m an inch taller +than Diana, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she’d like to be +thin because it’s so much more graceful, but I’m afraid she only said +it to soothe my feelings. We’re going to the shore some day to gather +shells. We have agreed to call the spring down by the log bridge the +Dryad’s Bubble. Isn’t that a perfectly elegant name? I read a story +once about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy, I +think.” + +“Well, all I hope is you won’t talk Diana to death,” said Marilla. “But +remember this in all your planning, Anne. You’re not going to play all +the time nor most of it. You’ll have your work to do and it’ll have to +be done first.” + +Anne’s cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow. He +had just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishly +produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne, with a +deprecatory look at Marilla. + +“I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some,” he +said. + +“Humph,” sniffed Marilla. “It’ll ruin her teeth and stomach. There, +there, child, don’t look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew +has gone and got them. He’d better have brought you peppermints. They’re +wholesomer. Don’t sicken yourself eating all them at once now.” + +“Oh, no, indeed, I won’t,” said Anne eagerly. “I’ll just eat one +tonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana half of them, can’t I? The +other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It’s +delightful to think I have something to give her.” + +“I will say it for the child,” said Marilla when Anne had gone to +her gable, “she isn’t stingy. I’m glad, for of all faults I detest +stinginess in a child. Dear me, it’s only three weeks since she came, +and it seems as if she’d been here always. I can’t imagine the place +without her. Now, don’t be looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That’s bad +enough in a woman, but it isn’t to be endured in a man. I’m perfectly +willing to own up that I’m glad I consented to keep the child and that +I’m getting fond of her, but don’t you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert.” + + + +CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of Anticipation + + +IT’S time Anne was in to do her sewing,” said Marilla, glancing at the +clock and then out into the yellow August afternoon where everything +drowsed in the heat. “She stayed playing with Diana more than half an +hour more ‘n I gave her leave to; and now she’s perched out there on +the woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to the dozen, when she knows +perfectly well she ought to be at her work. And of course he’s listening +to her like a perfect ninny. I never saw such an infatuated man. +The more she talks and the odder the things she says, the more he’s +delighted evidently. Anne Shirley, you come right in here this minute, +do you hear me!” + +A series of staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from +the yard, eyes shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair +streaming behind her in a torrent of brightness. + +“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “there’s going to be a +Sunday-school picnic next week--in Mr. Harmon Andrews’s field, right +near the lake of Shining Waters. And Mrs. Superintendent Bell and Mrs. +Rachel Lynde are going to make ice cream--think of it, Marilla--_ice +cream!_ And, oh, Marilla, can I go to it?” + +“Just look at the clock, if you please, Anne. What time did I tell you +to come in?” + +“Two o’clock--but isn’t it splendid about the picnic, Marilla? Please +can I go? Oh, I’ve never been to a picnic--I’ve dreamed of picnics, but +I’ve never--” + +“Yes, I told you to come at two o’clock. And it’s a quarter to three. +I’d like to know why you didn’t obey me, Anne.” + +“Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no idea +how fascinating Idlewild is. And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew +about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener. Please can I +go?” + +“You’ll have to learn to resist the fascination of +Idle-whatever-you-call-it. When I tell you to come in at a certain time +I mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn’t stop to +discourse with sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for the +picnic, of course you can go. You’re a Sunday-school scholar, and it’s +not likely I’d refuse to let you go when all the other little girls are +going.” + +“But--but,” faltered Anne, “Diana says that everybody must take a basket +of things to eat. I can’t cook, as you know, Marilla, and--and--I don’t +mind going to a picnic without puffed sleeves so much, but I’d feel +terribly humiliated if I had to go without a basket. It’s been preying +on my mind ever since Diana told me.” + +“Well, it needn’t prey any longer. I’ll bake you a basket.” + +“Oh, you dear good Marilla. Oh, you are so kind to me. Oh, I’m so much +obliged to you.” + +Getting through with her “ohs” Anne cast herself into Marilla’s arms and +rapturously kissed her sallow cheek. It was the first time in her whole +life that childish lips had voluntarily touched Marilla’s face. Again +that sudden sensation of startling sweetness thrilled her. She was +secretly vastly pleased at Anne’s impulsive caress, which was probably +the reason why she said brusquely: + +“There, there, never mind your kissing nonsense. I’d sooner see you +doing strictly as you’re told. As for cooking, I mean to begin giving +you lessons in that some of these days. But you’re so featherbrained, +Anne, I’ve been waiting to see if you’d sober down a little and learn +to be steady before I begin. You’ve got to keep your wits about you in +cooking and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove +all over creation. Now, get out your patchwork and have your square done +before teatime.” + +“I do _not_ like patchwork,” said Anne dolefully, hunting out her +workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white +diamonds with a sigh. “I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but +there’s no scope for imagination in patchwork. It’s just one little seam +after another and you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course +I’d rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any +other place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick +sewing patches as it does when I’m playing with Diana, though. Oh, we +do have such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the +imagination, but I’m well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in +every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook +that runs up between our farm and Mr. Barry’s. It belongs to Mr. William +Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of white birch +trees--the most romantic spot, Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse +there. We call it Idlewild. Isn’t that a poetical name? I assure you it +took me some time to think it out. I stayed awake nearly a whole night +before I invented it. Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came +like an inspiration. Diana was _enraptured_ when she heard it. We have got +our house fixed up elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla--won’t +you? We have great big stones, all covered with moss, for seats, and +boards from tree to tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on +them. Of course, they’re all broken but it’s the easiest thing in the +world to imagine that they are whole. There’s a piece of a plate with a +spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We keep +it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass +is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their +chicken house. It’s all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows +that haven’t grown big yet--and Diana’s mother told her it was broken +off a hanging lamp they once had. But it’s nice to imagine the fairies +lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it the fairy glass. +Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named that little round +pool over in Mr. Barry’s field Willowmere. I got that name out of the +book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla. The heroine +had five lovers. I’d be satisfied with one, wouldn’t you? She was very +handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as +easy as anything. I’d love to be able to faint, wouldn’t you, Marilla? +It’s so romantic. But I’m really very healthy for all I’m so thin. I +believe I’m getting fatter, though. Don’t you think I am? I look at my +elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming. +Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She is going to +wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I +don’t feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened +to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I’d live through it, +but I’m certain it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn’t matter if +I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn’t make up for +missing this one. They’re going to have boats on the Lake of Shining +Waters--and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream. +Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of +those things that are beyond imagination.” + +“Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock,” said +Marilla. “Now, just for curiosity’s sake, see if you can hold your +tongue for the same length of time.” + +Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she talked +picnic and thought picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained and +she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest it should keep +on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra +patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves. + +On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she +grew actually cold all over with excitement when the minister announced +the picnic from the pulpit. + +“Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don’t think I’d +ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to be +a picnic. I couldn’t help fearing I’d only imagined it. But when a +minister says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it.” + +“You set your heart too much on things, Anne,” said Marilla, with a +sigh. “I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for +you through life.” + +“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” + exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can +prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. +Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be +disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to +be disappointed.” + +Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual. Marilla +always wore her amethyst brooch to church. She would have thought it +rather sacrilegious to leave it off--as bad as forgetting her Bible or +her collection dime. That amethyst brooch was Marilla’s most treasured +possession. A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn +had bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-fashioned oval, containing +a braid of her mother’s hair, surrounded by a border of very fine +amethysts. Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how +fine the amethysts actually were; but she thought them very beautiful +and was always pleasantly conscious of their violet shimmer at her +throat, above her good brown satin dress, even although she could not +see it. + +Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw that +brooch. + +“Oh, Marilla, it’s a perfectly elegant brooch. I don’t know how you +can pay attention to the sermon or the prayers when you have it on. I +couldn’t, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what I used +to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, +I read about them and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I +thought they would be lovely glimmering purple stones. When I saw a +real diamond in a lady’s ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of +course, it was very lovely but it wasn’t my idea of a diamond. Will you +let me hold the brooch for one minute, Marilla? Do you think amethysts +can be the souls of good violets?” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. Anne’s Confession + + +ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room +with a troubled face. + +“Anne,” she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the +spotless table and singing, “Nelly of the Hazel Dell” with a vigor and +expression that did credit to Diana’s teaching, “did you see anything +of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came +home from church yesterday evening, but I can’t find it anywhere.” + +“I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society,” said +Anne, a little slowly. “I was passing your door when I saw it on the +cushion, so I went in to look at it.” + +“Did you touch it?” said Marilla sternly. + +“Y-e-e-s,” admitted Anne, “I took it up and I pinned it on my breast +just to see how it would look.” + +“You had no business to do anything of the sort. It’s very wrong in a +little girl to meddle. You shouldn’t have gone into my room in the first +place and you shouldn’t have touched a brooch that didn’t belong to you +in the second. Where did you put it?” + +“Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn’t it on a minute. Truly, I +didn’t mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn’t think about its being wrong to +go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I’ll never +do it again. That’s one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty +thing twice.” + +“You didn’t put it back,” said Marilla. “That brooch isn’t anywhere on +the bureau. You’ve taken it out or something, Anne.” + +“I did put it back,” said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. “I +don’t just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in +the china tray. But I’m perfectly certain I put it back.” + +“I’ll go and have another look,” said Marilla, determining to be just. +“If you put that brooch back it’s there still. If it isn’t I’ll know you +didn’t, that’s all!” + +Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the +bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly +be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen. + +“Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last +person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth +at once. Did you take it out and lose it?” + +“No, I didn’t,” said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla’s angry gaze +squarely. “I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the +truth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I’m not very +certain what a block is. So there, Marilla.” + +Anne’s “so there” was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but +Marilla took it as a display of defiance. + +“I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne,” she said sharply. “I +know you are. There now, don’t say anything more unless you are prepared +to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you are +ready to confess.” + +“Will I take the peas with me?” said Anne meekly. + +“No, I’ll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you.” + +When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very +disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What +if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken +it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face, +too! + +“I don’t know what I wouldn’t sooner have had happen,” thought Marilla, +as she nervously shelled the peas. “Of course, I don’t suppose she meant +to steal it or anything like that. She’s just taken it to play with +or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that’s +clear, for there hasn’t been a soul in that room since she was in it, by +her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there’s +nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for +fear she’ll be punished. It’s a dreadful thing to think she tells +falsehoods. It’s a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It’s a +fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can’t trust. +Slyness and untruthfulness--that’s what she has displayed. I declare I +feel worse about that than about the brooch. If she’d only have told the +truth about it I wouldn’t mind so much.” + +Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and +searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the +east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew +anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced +that she did. + +She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and +puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit +that circumstances were against her. + +“You’re sure it hasn’t fell down behind the bureau?” was the only +suggestion he could offer. + +“I’ve moved the bureau and I’ve taken out the drawers and I’ve looked +in every crack and cranny” was Marilla’s positive answer. “The brooch +is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That’s the plain, +ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face.” + +“Well now, what are you going to do about it?” Matthew asked forlornly, +feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with the +situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time. + +“She’ll stay in her room until she confesses,” said Marilla grimly, +remembering the success of this method in the former case. “Then we’ll +see. Perhaps we’ll be able to find the brooch if she’ll only tell +where she took it; but in any case she’ll have to be severely punished, +Matthew.” + +“Well now, you’ll have to punish her,” said Matthew, reaching for his +hat. “I’ve nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself.” + +Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde +for advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and +left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to +confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch. +The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity +which she sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it, +“beat out.” + +“You’ll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your +mind to that,” she said firmly. + +“But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla,” cried Anne. “You won’t keep me +from going to that, will you? You’ll just let me out for the afternoon, +won’t you? Then I’ll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_ +cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic.” + +“You’ll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you’ve confessed, +Anne.” + +“Oh, Marilla,” gasped Anne. + +But Marilla had gone out and shut the door. + +Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to +order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies +in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless +winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms +like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful +hands as if watching for Anne’s usual morning greeting from the east +gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast +up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and +resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes. + +“Marilla, I’m ready to confess.” + +“Ah!” Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded; +but her success was very bitter to her. “Let me hear what you have to +say then, Anne.” + +“I took the amethyst brooch,” said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she +had learned. “I took it just as you said. I didn’t mean to take it when +I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my +breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how +perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was +the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I +was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and +I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to +amethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before +you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the +time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters +I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine +in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it +just slipped through my fingers--so--and went down--down--down, all +purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining +Waters. And that’s the best I can do at confessing, Marilla.” + +Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had +taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly +reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or +repentance. + +“Anne, this is terrible,” she said, trying to speak calmly. “You are the +very wickedest girl I ever heard of.” + +“Yes, I suppose I am,” agreed Anne tranquilly. “And I know I’ll have to +be punished. It’ll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won’t you please +get it over right off because I’d like to go to the picnic with nothing +on my mind.” + +“Picnic, indeed! You’ll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall +be your punishment. And it isn’t half severe enough either for what +you’ve done!” + +“Not go to the picnic!” Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla’s +hand. “But you _promised_ me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the +picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that. +Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice +cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice +cream again.” + +Marilla disengaged Anne’s clinging hands stonily. + +“You needn’t plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that’s +final. No, not a word.” + +Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands +together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face +downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of +disappointment and despair. + +“For the land’s sake!” gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. “I +believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she +does. If she isn’t she’s utterly bad. Oh dear, I’m afraid Rachel was +right from the first. But I’ve put my hand to the plow and I won’t look +back.” + +That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the +porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to +do. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Then +she went out and raked the yard. + +When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A +tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters. + +“Come down to your dinner, Anne.” + +“I don’t want any dinner, Marilla,” said Anne, sobbingly. “I couldn’t +eat anything. My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience +someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember +when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don’t ask me to eat +anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are +so unromantic when one is in affliction.” + +Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale +of woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful +sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man. + +“Well now, she shouldn’t have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories +about it,” he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic +pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited to +crises of feeling, “but she’s such a little thing--such an interesting +little thing. Don’t you think it’s pretty rough not to let her go to the +picnic when she’s so set on it?” + +“Matthew Cuthbert, I’m amazed at you. I think I’ve let her off entirely +too easy. And she doesn’t appear to realize how wicked she’s been at +all--that’s what worries me most. If she’d really felt sorry it wouldn’t +be so bad. And you don’t seem to realize it, neither; you’re making +excuses for her all the time to yourself--I can see that.” + +“Well now, she’s such a little thing,” feebly reiterated Matthew. “And +there should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she’s never had any +bringing up.” + +“Well, she’s having it now” retorted Marilla. + +The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was +a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, +the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personal +insult. + +When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed +Marilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black +lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning +from the Ladies’ Aid. + +She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As +Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that +clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the +shawl--something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light. +Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging +to a thread of the lace by its catch! + +“Dear life and heart,” said Marilla blankly, “what does this mean? +Here’s my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of +Barry’s pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost +it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that +when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a +minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!” + +Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had cried +herself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window. + +“Anne Shirley,” said Marilla solemnly, “I’ve just found my brooch +hanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole +you told me this morning meant.” + +“Why, you said you’d keep me here until I confessed,” returned Anne +wearily, “and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the +picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and +made it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I +wouldn’t forget it. But you wouldn’t let me go to the picnic after all, +so all my trouble was wasted.” + +Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked +her. + +“Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn’t +have doubted your word when I’d never known you to tell a story. +Of course, it wasn’t right for you to confess to a thing you hadn’t +done--it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you’ll +forgive me, Anne, I’ll forgive you and we’ll start square again. And now +get yourself ready for the picnic.” + +Anne flew up like a rocket. + +“Oh, Marilla, isn’t it too late?” + +“No, it’s only two o’clock. They won’t be more than well gathered yet +and it’ll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your +hair and put on your gingham. I’ll fill a basket for you. There’s plenty +of stuff baked in the house. And I’ll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel +and drive you down to the picnic ground.” + +“Oh, Marilla,” exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. “Five minutes +ago I was so miserable I was wishing I’d never been born and now I +wouldn’t change places with an angel!” + +That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to +Green Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe. + +“Oh, Marilla, I’ve had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a +new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn’t it very +expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr. +Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--six +of us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning +out to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn’t caught her by her +sash just in the nick of time she’d fallen in and prob’ly been drowned. +I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to +have been nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And +we had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla, +I assure you it was sublime.” + +That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stocking +basket. + +“I’m willing to own up that I made a mistake,” she concluded candidly, +“but I’ve learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of Anne’s +‘confession,’ although I suppose I shouldn’t for it really was a +falsehood. But it doesn’t seem as bad as the other would have been, +somehow, and anyhow I’m responsible for it. That child is hard to +understand in some respects. But I believe she’ll turn out all right +yet. And there’s one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that +she’s in.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot + + +WHAT a splendid day!” said Anne, drawing a long breath. “Isn’t it good +just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born +yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can +never have this one. And it’s splendider still to have such a lovely way +to go to school by, isn’t it?” + +“It’s a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty +and hot,” said Diana practically, peeping into her dinner basket and +mentally calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts +reposing there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl +would have. + +The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and +to eat three raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with +one’s best chum would have forever and ever branded as “awful mean” the +girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls +you just got enough to tantalize you. + +The way Anne and Diana went to school _was_ a pretty one. Anne thought +those walks to and from school with Diana couldn’t be improved upon +even by imagination. Going around by the main road would have been so +unromantic; but to go by Lover’s Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and +the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was. + +Lover’s Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched +far up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was the way by +which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled home +in winter. Anne had named it Lover’s Lane before she had been a month at +Green Gables. + +“Not that lovers ever really walk there,” she explained to Marilla, +“but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there’s a +Lover’s Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it’s a very pretty +name, don’t you think? So romantic! We can’t imagine the lovers into it, +you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without +people calling you crazy.” + +Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover’s Lane as far +as the brook. Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on +up the lane under the leafy arch of maples--“maples are such sociable +trees,” said Anne; “they’re always rustling and whispering to +you”--until they came to a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane +and walked through Mr. Barry’s back field and past Willowmere. Beyond +Willowmere came Violet Vale--a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr. +Andrew Bell’s big woods. “Of course there are no violets there now,” + Anne told Marilla, “but Diana says there are millions of them in spring. +Oh, Marilla, can’t you just imagine you see them? It actually takes away +my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw the beat +of me for hitting on fancy names for places. It’s nice to be clever at +something, isn’t it? But Diana named the Birch Path. She wanted to, so +I let her; but I’m sure I could have found something more poetical than +plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that. But the Birch +Path is one of the prettiest places in the world, Marilla.” + +It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on it. +It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill +straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted +through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart +of a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, +white stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild +lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly +along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and +music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees +overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road +if you were quiet--which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in +a blue moon. Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and +then it was just up the spruce hill to the school. + +The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and +wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial +old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their +lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school +children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was +a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of +milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour. + +Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September +with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she +get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever manage +to hold her tongue during school hours? + +Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that +evening in high spirits. + +“I think I’m going to like school here,” she announced. “I don’t think +much of the master, through. He’s all the time curling his mustache +and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you know. She’s +sixteen and she’s studying for the entrance examination into Queen’s +Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is +_dead gone_ on her. She’s got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair +and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the back +and he sits there, too, most of the time--to explain her lessons, he +says. But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate +and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and +Ruby Gillis says she doesn’t believe it had anything to do with the +lesson.” + +“Anne Shirley, don’t let me hear you talking about your teacher in that +way again,” said Marilla sharply. “You don’t go to school to criticize +the master. I guess he can teach _you_ something, and it’s your business +to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to +come home telling tales about him. That is something I won’t encourage. +I hope you were a good girl.” + +“Indeed I was,” said Anne comfortably. “It wasn’t so hard as you might +imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and +we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice +girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It’s +so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like +Diana best and always will. I _adore_ Diana. I’m dreadfully far behind the +others. They’re all in the fifth book and I’m only in the fourth. I feel +that it’s kind of a disgrace. But there’s not one of them has such an +imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and +geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my +spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could +see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have +been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and +Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with ‘May I see you home?’ on +it. I’m to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear +her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads +off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh, +Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she +heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. +Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you +can’t imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really +a pretty nose? I know you’ll tell me the truth.” + +“Your nose is well enough,” said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought +Anne’s nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention of +telling her so. + +That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now, this +crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the +Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea. + +“I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today,” said Diana. “He’s been +visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came +home Saturday night. He’s _aw’fly_ handsome, Anne. And he teases the +girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.” + +Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented +out than not. + +“Gilbert Blythe?” said Anne. “Isn’t his name that’s written up on the +porch wall with Julia Bell’s and a big ‘Take Notice’ over them?” + +“Yes,” said Diana, tossing her head, “but I’m sure he doesn’t like Julia +Bell so very much. I’ve heard him say he studied the multiplication +table by her freckles.” + +“Oh, don’t speak about freckles to me,” implored Anne. “It isn’t +delicate when I’ve got so many. But I do think that writing take-notices +up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I should +just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy’s. Not, of +course,” she hastened to add, “that anybody would.” + +Anne sighed. She didn’t want her name written up. But it was a little +humiliating to know that there was no danger of it. + +“Nonsense,” said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played +such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured +on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. “It’s only meant as +a joke. And don’t you be too sure your name won’t ever be written up. +Charlie Sloane is _dead gone_ on you. He told his mother--his _mother_, +mind you--that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than +being good looking.” + +“No, it isn’t,” said Anne, feminine to the core. “I’d rather be pretty +than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane, I can’t bear a boy with goggle +eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I’d never _get_ over it, Diana +Barry. But it _is_ nice to keep head of your class.” + +“You’ll have Gilbert in your class after this,” said Diana, “and he’s +used to being head of his class, I can tell you. He’s only in the fourth +book although he’s nearly fourteen. Four years ago his father was sick +and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him. +They were there three years and Gil didn’t go to school hardly any +until they came back. You won’t find it so easy to keep head after this, +Anne.” + +“I’m glad,” said Anne quickly. “I couldn’t really feel proud of keeping +head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday +spelling ‘ebullition.’ Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped +in her book. Mr. Phillips didn’t see her--he was looking at Prissy +Andrews--but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she +got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.” + +“Those Pye girls are cheats all round,” said Diana indignantly, as they +climbed the fence of the main road. “Gertie Pye actually went and put +her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I +don’t speak to her now.” + +When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews’s +Latin, Diana whispered to Anne, “That’s Gilbert Blythe sitting right +across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you don’t +think he’s handsome.” + +Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said +Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid +of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He +was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth +twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take +a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, +believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at +her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert +had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the +soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at +Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery. + +“I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome,” confided Anne to Diana, +“but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange +girl.” + +But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen. + +Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to +Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as +they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their +slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle. +Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing +utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only +to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in +Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes +fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west +window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and +seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions. + +Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look +at him and meeting with failure. She _should_ look at him, that red-haired +Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t +like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school. + +Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red +braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper: + +“Carrots! Carrots!” + +Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance! + +She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies +fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert +from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry +tears. + +“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!” + +And then--thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and +cracked it--slate not head--clear across. + +Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable +one. Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby +Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy +Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared +open-mouthed at the tableau. + +Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne’s +shoulder. + +“Anne Shirley, what does this mean?” he said angrily. Anne returned no +answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell +before the whole school that she had been called “carrots.” Gilbert it +was who spoke up stoutly. + +“It was my fault Mr. Phillips. I teased her.” + +Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert. + +“I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such +a vindictive spirit,” he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of +being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts +of small imperfect mortals. “Anne, go and stand on the platform in front +of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon.” + +Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment under +which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a white, +set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on the +blackboard above her head. + +“Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control +her temper,” and then read it out loud so that even the primer class, +who couldn’t read writing, should understand it. + +Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her. +She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart +for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With +resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana’s +sympathetic gaze and Charlie Sloane’s indignant nods and Josie Pye’s +malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him. +She would _never_ look at him again! She would never speak to him!! + +When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high. +Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door. + +“I’m awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne,” he whispered +contritely. “Honest I am. Don’t be mad for keeps, now.” + +Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. “Oh +how could you, Anne?” breathed Diana as they went down the road half +reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that _she_ could never have +resisted Gilbert’s plea. + +“I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne firmly. “And Mr. +Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my +soul, Diana.” + +Diana hadn’t the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was +something terrible. + +“You mustn’t mind Gilbert making fun of your hair,” she said soothingly. +“Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine because it’s +so black. He’s called me a crow a dozen times; and I never heard him +apologize for anything before, either.” + +“There’s a great deal of difference between being called a crow and +being called carrots,” said Anne with dignity. “Gilbert Blythe has hurt +my feelings _excruciatingly_, Diana.” + +It is possible the matter might have blown over without more +excruciation if nothing else had happened. But when things begin to +happen they are apt to keep on. + +Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell’s spruce +grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they +could keep an eye on Eben Wright’s house, where the master boarded. When +they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse; +but the distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright’s lane +they were very apt to arrive there, breathless and gasping, some three +minutes too late. + +On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic +fits of reform and announced before going home to dinner, that he should +expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned. Anyone +who came in late would be punished. + +All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell’s spruce grove as +usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to “pick a chew.” But +spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they +picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that +recalled them to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting +from the top of a patriarchal old spruce “Master’s coming.” + +The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the +schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to +wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not +been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the +grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a +wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity +of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer, +however; run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys +at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. +Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat. + +Mr. Phillips’s brief reforming energy was over; he didn’t want the +bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something +to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it +in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a +forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a +particularly rakish and disheveled appearance. + +“Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys’ company we +shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon,” he said sarcastically. +“Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe.” + +The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the +wreath from Anne’s hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master +as if turned to stone. + +“Did you hear what I said, Anne?” queried Mr. Phillips sternly. + +“Yes, sir,” said Anne slowly “but I didn’t suppose you really meant it.” + +“I assure you I did”--still with the sarcastic inflection which all the +children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. “Obey me at +once.” + +For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing +that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the +aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms +on the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, +told the others going home from school that she’d “acksually never seen +anything like it--it was so white, with awful little red spots in it.” + +To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be +singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it +was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should +be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly +unbearable. Anne felt that she could not bear it and it would be of +no use to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and +humiliation. + +At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged. +But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if +his whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon returned +to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips called the +history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move, and +Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses “To Priscilla” before he +called the class, was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never +missed her. Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk +a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, “You are sweet,” and +slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the +pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the +floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position +without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert. + +When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out +everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and +arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate. + +“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to +know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the +question before. + +“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne. Diana gasped and +stared at Anne to see if she meant it. + +“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked. + +“She’ll have to,” said Anne. “I’ll _never_ go to school to that man +again.” + +“Oh, Anne!” Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. “I do think you’re +mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid +Gertie Pye--I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come back, +Anne.” + +“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly. +“I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But +I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it. You harrow up my very soul.” + +“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana. “We are going +to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we’ll be playing +ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne. It’s tremendously +exciting. And we’re going to learn a new song--Jane Andrews is +practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy +book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, +down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, +Anne.” + +Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not go +to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home. + +“Nonsense,” said Marilla. + +“It isn’t nonsense at all,” said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn, +reproachful eyes. “Don’t you understand, Marilla? I’ve been insulted.” + +“Insulted fiddlesticks! You’ll go to school tomorrow as usual.” + +“Oh, no.” Anne shook her head gently. “I’m not going back, Marilla. I’ll +learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold my +tongue all the time if it’s possible at all. But I will not go back to +school, I assure you.” + +Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking +out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in +overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then. +“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought. +“There’s no use reasoning with Anne now. She’s too worked up and I’ve +an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can +make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a +rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I’ll just talk +it over with Rachel. She’s sent ten children to school and she ought to +know something about it. She’ll have heard the whole story, too, by this +time.” + +Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully +as usual. + +“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little +shamefacedly. + +Mrs. Rachel nodded. + +“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said. “Tillie Boulter was +in on her way home from school and told me about it.” + +“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Marilla. “She declares she +won’t go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I’ve been +expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were +going too smooth to last. She’s so high strung. What would you advise, +Rachel?” + +“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde +amiably--Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice--“I’d just +humor her a little at first, that’s what I’d do. It’s my belief that +Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn’t do to say so to the +children, you know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday +for giving way to temper. But today it was different. The others who +were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that’s what. And I +don’t believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It +isn’t modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne’s part +right through and said all the scholars did too. Anne seems real popular +among them, somehow. I never thought she’d take with them so well.” + +“Then you really think I’d better let her stay home,” said Marilla in +amazement. + +“Yes. That is I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it +herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and +be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if +you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum +she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the +better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to school, as +far as _that_ goes. Mr. Phillips isn’t any good at all as a teacher. The +order he keeps is scandalous, that’s what, and he neglects the young +fry and puts all his time on those big scholars he’s getting ready for +Queen’s. He’d never have got the school for another year if his uncle +hadn’t been a trustee--_the_ trustee, for he just leads the other two +around by the nose, that’s what. I declare, I don’t know what education +in this Island is coming to.” + +Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the +head of the educational system of the Province things would be much +better managed. + +Marilla took Mrs. Rachel’s advice and not another word was said to Anne +about going back to school. She learned her lessons at home, did her +chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights; +but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in Sunday +school she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit thawed by +his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana’s efforts as a peacemaker +were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert +Blythe to the end of life. + +As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the +love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and +dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket +of apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight, +crying bitterly. + +“Whatever’s the matter now, Anne?” she asked. + +“It’s about Diana,” sobbed Anne luxuriously. “I love Diana so, Marilla. +I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up +that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall +I do? I hate her husband--I just hate him furiously. I’ve been imagining +it all out--the wedding and everything--Diana dressed in snowy garments, +with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the +bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a +breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana +goodbye-e-e--” Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing +bitterness. + +Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no +use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and +unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside, halted +in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before? + +“Well, Anne Shirley,” said Marilla as soon as she could speak, “if you +must borrow trouble, for pity’s sake borrow it handier home. I should +think you had an imagination, sure enough.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results + + +OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the +hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard +were royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the +loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned +themselves in aftermaths. + +Anne reveled in the world of color about her. + +“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in +with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world +where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from +September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t +they give you a thrill--several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room +with them.” + +“Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably +developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors +stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.” + +“Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much +better in a room where there are pretty things. I’m going to put these +boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table.” + +“Mind you don’t drop leaves all over the stairs then. I’m going on a +meeting of the Aid Society at Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I won’t +likely be home before dark. You’ll have to get Matthew and Jerry their +supper, so mind you don’t forget to put the tea to draw until you sit +down at the table as you did last time.” + +“It was dreadful of me to forget,” said Anne apologetically, “but that +was the afternoon I was trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and it +crowded other things out. Matthew was so good. He never scolded a bit. +He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well as +not. And I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so +he didn’t find the time long at all. It was a beautiful fairy story, +Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and +Matthew said he couldn’t tell where the join came in.” + +“Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up +and have dinner in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits about +you this time. And--I don’t really know if I’m doing right--it may make +you more addlepated than ever--but you can ask Diana to come over and +spend the afternoon with you and have tea here.” + +“Oh, Marilla!” Anne clasped her hands. “How perfectly lovely! You _are_ +able to imagine things after all or else you’d never have understood how +I’ve longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish. +No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company. Oh, +Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?” + +“No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never use +that except for the minister or the Aids. You’ll put down the old brown +tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. +It’s time it was being used anyhow--I believe it’s beginning to work. +And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps.” + +“I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and +pouring out the tea,” said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. “And +asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn’t but of course I’ll +ask her just as if I didn’t know. And then pressing her to take another +piece of fruit cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it’s +a wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can I take her into the spare +room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlor to +sit?” + +“No. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there’s a +bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church +social the other night. It’s on the second shelf of the sitting-room +closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a cooky to eat +with it along in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew ‘ll be late coming +in to tea since he’s hauling potatoes to the vessel.” + +Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad’s Bubble and up the spruce +path to Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea. As a result just after +Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in _her_ +second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked +out to tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without +knocking; but now she knocked primly at the front door. And when Anne, +dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little girls +shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before. This unnatural +solemnity lasted until after Diana had been taken to the east gable to +lay off her hat and then had sat for ten minutes in the sitting room, +toes in position. + +“How is your mother?” inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not +seen Mrs. Barry picking apples that morning in excellent health and +spirits. + +“She is very well, thank you. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling potatoes +to the _lily sands_ this afternoon, is he?” said Diana, who had ridden +down to Mr. Harmon Andrews’s that morning in Matthew’s cart. + +“Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father’s crop +is good too.” + +“It is fairly good, thank you. Have you picked many of your apples yet?” + +“Oh, ever so many,” said Anne forgetting to be dignified and jumping up +quickly. “Let’s go out to the orchard and get some of the Red Sweetings, +Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left on the tree. Marilla +is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and cherry +preserves for tea. But it isn’t good manners to tell your company what +you are going to give them to eat, so I won’t tell you what she said we +could have to drink. Only it begins with an R and a C and it’s bright +red color. I love bright red drinks, don’t you? They taste twice as good +as any other color.” + +The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground +with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girls spent most of the +afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the frost had spared +the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples +and talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what +went on in school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated +it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made +her--Diana’s--blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts +away, true’s you live, with a magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the +Creek gave her. You had to rub the warts with the pebble and then throw +it away over your left shoulder at the time of the new moon and the +warts would all go. Charlie Sloane’s name was written up with Em White’s +on the porch wall and Em White was _awful mad_ about it; Sam Boulter had +“sassed” Mr. Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped him and Sam’s +father came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on +one of his children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a +blue crossover with tassels on it and the airs she put on about it were +perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn’t speak to Mamie Wilson +because Mamie Wilson’s grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright’s +grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody missed Anne so and wished +she’s come to school again; and Gilbert Blythe-- + +But Anne didn’t want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up +hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial. + +Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no +bottle of raspberry cordial there. Search revealed it away back on the +top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler. + +“Now, please help yourself, Diana,” she said politely. “I don’t believe +I’ll have any just now. I don’t feel as if I wanted any after all those +apples.” + +Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue +admiringly, and then sipped it daintily. + +“That’s awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne,” she said. “I didn’t know +raspberry cordial was so nice.” + +“I’m real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I’m going to +run out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a +person’s mind when they’re keeping house, isn’t there?” + +When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second +glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered +no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls were +generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice. + +“The nicest I ever drank,” said Diana. “It’s ever so much nicer than +Mrs. Lynde’s, although she brags of hers so much. It doesn’t taste a bit +like hers.” + +“I should think Marilla’s raspberry cordial would prob’ly be much nicer +than Mrs. Lynde’s,” said Anne loyally. “Marilla is a famous cook. She is +trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work. +There’s so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go +by rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I +was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I thought you +were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I +went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took +the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the +graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with +your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who +sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. +The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But +I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so +essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don’t wonder. +I’m a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified about the pudding +sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there +was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said +there was enough for another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry +shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Diana, +but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun--of course I’m a +Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic--taking the veil to bury a +broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering +the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry. +Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in +that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out +in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three waters. Marilla was out +milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I’d give the +sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was +a frost fairy going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow, +whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the pudding sauce +again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester +Ross from Spencervale came here that morning. You know they are very +stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in +dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I tried to be as +polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to +think I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn’t pretty. Everything +went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand +and the pitcher of pudding sauce _warmed up_, in the other. Diana, that +was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in +my place and shrieked out ‘Marilla, you mustn’t use that pudding sauce. +There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.’ Oh, +Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred. +Mrs. Chester Ross just _looked_ at me and I thought I would sink through +the floor with mortification. She is such a perfect housekeeper and +fancy what she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but +she never said a word--then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out +and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but +I couldn’t swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on +my head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful +scolding. Why, Diana, what is the matter?” + +Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her +hands to her head. + +“I’m--I’m awful sick,” she said, a little thickly. “I--I--must go right +home.” + +“Oh, you mustn’t dream of going home without your tea,” cried Anne in +distress. “I’ll get it right off--I’ll go and put the tea down this very +minute.” + +“I must go home,” repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly. + +“Let me get you a lunch anyhow,” implored Anne. “Let me give you a bit +of fruit cake and some of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa for +a little while and you’ll be better. Where do you feel bad?” + +“I must go home,” said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain +Anne pleaded. + +“I never heard of company going home without tea,” she mourned. “Oh, +Diana, do you suppose that it’s possible you’re really taking the +smallpox? If you are I’ll go and nurse you, you can depend on that. I’ll +never forsake you. But I do wish you’d stay till after tea. Where do you +feel bad?” + +“I’m awful dizzy,” said Diana. + +And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of disappointment +in her eyes, got Diana’s hat and went with her as far as the Barry +yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables, where she +sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the +pantry and got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone +out of the performance. + +The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from +dawn till dusk Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday +afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand. In a very +short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling +down her cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face +downward on the sofa in an agony. + +“Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?” queried Marilla in doubt and +dismay. “I do hope you haven’t gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again.” + +No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs! + +“Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Sit +right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying about.” + +Anne sat up, tragedy personified. + +“Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an +awful state,” she wailed. “She says that I set Diana _drunk_ Saturday +and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she says I must be a +thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she’s never, never going to let +Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I’m just overcome with woe.” + +Marilla stared in blank amazement. + +“Set Diana drunk!” she said when she found her voice. “Anne are you or +Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?” + +“Not a thing but raspberry cordial,” sobbed Anne. “I never thought +raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla--not even if they +drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so--so--like +Mrs. Thomas’s husband! But I didn’t mean to set her drunk.” + +“Drunk fiddlesticks!” said Marilla, marching to the sitting room pantry. +There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as one +containing some of her three-year-old homemade currant wine for which +she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, +Mrs. Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the same time +Marilla recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry cordial +down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told Anne. + +She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her face +was twitching in spite of herself. + +“Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went +and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Didn’t you +know the difference yourself?” + +“I never tasted it,” said Anne. “I thought it was the cordial. I meant +to be so--so--hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home. +Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk. She just laughed +silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to +sleep and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she +was drunk. She had a fearful headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is +so indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on purpose.” + +“I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to +drink three glassfuls of anything,” said Marilla shortly. “Why, three +of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it had only been +cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are +so down on me for making currant wine, although I haven’t made any for +three years ever since I found out that the minister didn’t approve. I +just kept that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don’t cry. I +can’t see as you were to blame although I’m sorry it happened so.” + +“I must cry,” said Anne. “My heart is broken. The stars in their courses +fight against me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever. Oh, Marilla, +I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of friendship.” + +“Don’t be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she +finds you’re not to blame. I suppose she thinks you’ve done it for a +silly joke or something of that sort. You’d best go up this evening and +tell her how it was.” + +“My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana’s injured mother,” + sighed Anne. “I wish you’d go, Marilla. You’re so much more dignified +than I am. Likely she’d listen to you quicker than to me.” + +“Well, I will,” said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be the +wiser course. “Don’t cry any more, Anne. It will be all right.” + +Marilla had changed her mind about it being all right by the time she +got back from Orchard Slope. Anne was watching for her coming and flew +to the porch door to meet her. + +“Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it’s been no use,” she said +sorrowfully. “Mrs. Barry won’t forgive me?” + +“Mrs. Barry indeed!” snapped Marilla. “Of all the unreasonable women +I ever saw she’s the worst. I told her it was all a mistake and you +weren’t to blame, but she just simply didn’t believe me. And she rubbed +it well in about my currant wine and how I’d always said it couldn’t +have the least effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that currant +wine wasn’t meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls at a time and that if a +child I had to do with was so greedy I’d sober her up with a right good +spanking.” + +Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a very +much distracted little soul in the porch behind her. Presently Anne +stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly and +steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the +log bridge and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale little +moon hanging low over the western woods. Mrs. Barry, coming to the door +in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped eager-eyed suppliant on +the doorstep. + +Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices and +dislikes, and her anger was of the cold, sullen sort which is always +hardest to overcome. To do her justice, she really believed Anne had +made Diana drunk out of sheer malice prepense, and she was honestly +anxious to preserve her little daughter from the contamination of +further intimacy with such a child. + +“What do you want?” she said stiffly. + +Anne clasped her hands. + +“Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to--to--intoxicate +Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl +that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all +the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought +it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry +cordial. Oh, please don’t say that you won’t let Diana play with me any +more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe.” + +This speech which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde’s heart in a +twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still +more. She was suspicious of Anne’s big words and dramatic gestures and +imagined that the child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and +cruelly: + +“I don’t think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with. +You’d better go home and behave yourself.” + +Anne’s lips quivered. + +“Won’t you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?” she implored. + +“Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father,” said Mrs. Barry, going +in and shutting the door. + +Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair. + +“My last hope is gone,” she told Marilla. “I went up and saw Mrs. Barry +myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do _not_ think she +is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray and I +haven’t much hope that that’ll do much good because, Marilla, I do not +believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person +as Mrs. Barry.” + +“Anne, you shouldn’t say such things” rebuked Marilla, striving to +overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find +growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew +that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne’s tribulations. + +But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found +that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into +her face. + +“Poor little soul,” she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the +child’s tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed +cheek on the pillow. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life + + +THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen +window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad’s +Bubble beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne was out of the house +and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in +her expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana’s dejected +countenance. + +“Your mother hasn’t relented?” she gasped. + +Diana shook her head mournfully. + +“No; and oh, Anne, she says I’m never to play with you again. I’ve cried +and cried and I told her it wasn’t your fault, but it wasn’t any use. I +had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye to +you. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she’s timing me by the +clock.” + +“Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell in,” said Anne +tearfully. “Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget +me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress +thee?” + +“Indeed I will,” sobbed Diana, “and I’ll never have another bosom +friend--I don’t want to have. I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.” + +“Oh, Diana,” cried Anne, clasping her hands, “do you _love_ me?” + +“Why, of course I do. Didn’t you know that?” + +“No.” Anne drew a long breath. “I thought you _liked_ me of course but I +never hoped you _loved_ me. Why, Diana, I didn’t think anybody could +love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is +wonderful! It’s a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness +of a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again.” + +“I love you devotedly, Anne,” said Diana stanchly, “and I always will, +you may be sure of that.” + +“And I will always love thee, Diana,” said Anne, solemnly extending her +hand. “In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my +lonely life, as that last story we read together says. Diana, wilt +thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure +forevermore?” + +“Have you got anything to cut it with?” queried Diana, wiping away the +tears which Anne’s affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and +returning to practicalities. + +“Yes. I’ve got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately,” + said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana’s curls. “Fare thee well, +my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side +by side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.” + +Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand +to the latter whenever she turned to look back. Then she returned to +the house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic +parting. + +“It is all over,” she informed Marilla. “I shall never have another +friend. I’m really worse off than ever before, for I haven’t Katie +Maurice and Violetta now. And even if I had it wouldn’t be the same. +Somehow, little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend. +Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring. It will +be sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I +could think of and said ‘thou’ and ‘thee.’ ‘Thou’ and ‘thee’ seem so +much more romantic than ‘you.’ Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I’m +going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my +life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don’t believe I’ll +live very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her +Mrs. Barry may feel remorse for what she has done and will let Diana +come to my funeral.” + +“I don’t think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as you +can talk, Anne,” said Marilla unsympathetically. + +The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room +with her basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into +a line of determination. + +“I’m going back to school,” she announced. “That is all there is left +in life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In +school I can look at her and muse over days departed.” + +“You’d better muse over your lessons and sums,” said Marilla, concealing +her delight at this development of the situation. “If you’re going back +to school I hope we’ll hear no more of breaking slates over people’s +heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what your +teacher tells you.” + +“I’ll try to be a model pupil,” agreed Anne dolefully. “There won’t be +much fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model +pupil and there isn’t a spark of imagination or life in her. She is +just dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel so +depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now. I’m going round by +the road. I couldn’t bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should +weep bitter tears if I did.” + +Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination had +been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her dramatic +ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour. Ruby Gillis +smuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May +MacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a +floral catalogue--a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea +school. Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new +pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave +her a perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied +carefully on a piece of pale pink paper scalloped on the edges the +following effusion: + + “TO ANNE + + “When twilight drops her curtain down + And pins it with a star + Remember that you have a friend + Though she may wander far.” + + +“It’s so nice to be appreciated,” sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla +that night. + +The girls were not the only scholars who “appreciated” her. When Anne +went to her seat after dinner hour--she had been told by Mr. Phillips to +sit with the model Minnie Andrews--she found on her desk a big luscious +“strawberry apple.” Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she +remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew +was in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining +Waters. Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red-hot coal and +ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple lay +untouched on her desk until the next morning, when little Timothy +Andrews, who swept the school and kindled the fire, annexed it as one +of his perquisites. Charlie Sloane’s slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened +with striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary +pencils cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner hour, met +with a more favorable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to accept +it and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuated +youth straightway into the seventh heaven of delight and caused him to +make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in +after school to rewrite it. + +But as, + + The Cæsar’s pageant shorn of Brutus’ bust + Did but of Rome’s best son remind her more, + +so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry who +was sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne’s little triumph. + +“Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think,” she mourned to +Marilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully and +wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across to +Anne. + + “Dear Anne, ran the former, “Mother says I’m not to play with you or + talk to you even in school. It isn’t my fault and don’t be cross at + me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell + all my secrets to and I don’t like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you + one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They are awfully + fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make + them. When you look at it remember + + Your true friend, + Diana Barry. + + +Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply +back to the other side of the school. + + +My own darling Diana:-- + +Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother. +Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever. +Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl--although she has no +imagination--but after having been Diana’s busum friend I cannot be +Minnie’s. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn’t very good +yet, although much improoved. + +Yours until death us do part + +Anne or Cordelia Shirley. + + +P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight. A. _or_ C.S. + + +Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begun +to go to school. But none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something of +the “model” spirit from Minnie Andrews; at least she got on very well +with Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heart +and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe. +The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good natured +on Gilbert’s side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing +cannot be said of Anne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for +holding grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. She +would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork, +because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne +persistently ignored; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated +between them. Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with +a toss of her long red braids, spelled him down. One morning Gilbert had +all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the blackboard +on the roll of honor; the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly with +decimals the entire evening before, would be first. One awful day they +were ties and their names were written up together. It was almost as bad +as a take-notice and Anne’s mortification was as evident as Gilbert’s +satisfaction. When the written examinations at the end of each month +were held the suspense was terrible. The first month Gilbert came out +three marks ahead. The second Anne beat him by five. But her triumph was +marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the +whole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had +felt the sting of his defeat. + +Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly +determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress +under any kind of teacher. By the end of the term Anne and Gilbert were +both promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin studying the +elements of “the branches”--by which Latin, geometry, French, and +algebra were meant. In geometry Anne met her Waterloo. + +“It’s perfectly awful stuff, Marilla,” she groaned. “I’m sure I’ll never +be able to make head or tail of it. There is no scope for imagination in +it at all. Mr. Phillips says I’m the worst dunce he ever saw at it. +And Gil--I mean some of the others are so smart at it. It is extremely +mortifying, Marilla. + +“Even Diana gets along better than I do. But I don’t mind being beaten +by Diana. Even although we meet as strangers now I still love her with +an _inextinguishable_ love. It makes me very sad at times to think about +her. But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an +interesting world, can one?” + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. Anne to the Rescue + + +ALL things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance +it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to +include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or +anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables. +But it had. + +It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and +such of his nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass +meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of the Avonlea people were on +Premier’s side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly +all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty +miles away. Mrs. Rachel Lynde had gone too. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a +red-hot politician and couldn’t have believed that the political rally +could be carried through without her, although she was on the opposite +side of politics. So she went to town and took her husband--Thomas would +be useful in looking after the horse--and Marilla Cuthbert with her. +Marilla had a sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she thought +it might be her only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly +took it, leaving Anne and Matthew to keep house until her return the +following day. + +Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely +at the mass meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green +Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned +Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the +windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a _Farmers’ Advocate_ on the sofa and +Anne at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite +sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf, where lay a new book that +Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was +warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and +Anne’s fingers tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert +Blythe’s triumph on the morrow. Anne turned her back on the clock shelf +and tried to imagine it wasn’t there. + +“Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?” + +“Well now, no, I didn’t,” said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a +start. + +“I wish you had,” sighed Anne, “because then you’d be able to sympathize +with me. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is +casting a cloud over my whole life. I’m such a dunce at it, Matthew.” + +“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew soothingly. “I guess you’re all right +at anything. Mr. Phillips told me last week in Blair’s store at Carmody +that you was the smartest scholar in school and was making rapid +progress. ‘Rapid progress’ was his very words. There’s them as runs down +Teddy Phillips and says he ain’t much of a teacher, but I guess he’s all +right.” + +Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was “all right.” + +“I’m sure I’d get on better with geometry if only he wouldn’t change +the letters,” complained Anne. “I learn the proposition off by heart and +then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what +are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don’t think a teacher should +take such a mean advantage, do you? We’re studying agriculture now and +I’ve found out at last what makes the roads red. It’s a great comfort. +I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde +says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa +and that it’s an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were +allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change. What way do you +vote, Matthew?” + +“Conservative,” said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part of +Matthew’s religion. + +“Then I’m Conservative too,” said Anne decidedly. “I’m glad because +Gil--because some of the boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips +is a Grit too because Prissy Andrews’s father is one, and Ruby Gillis +says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl’s +mother in religion and her father in politics. Is that true, Matthew?” + +“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. + +“Did you ever go courting, Matthew?” + +“Well now, no, I dunno’s I ever did,” said Matthew, who had certainly +never thought of such a thing in his whole existence. + +Anne reflected with her chin in her hands. + +“It must be rather interesting, don’t you think, Matthew? Ruby Gillis +says when she grows up she’s going to have ever so many beaus on the +string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too +exciting. I’d rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis +knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big +sisters, and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hot +cakes. Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening. +He says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is +studying for Queen’s too, and I should think she needed help a lot more +than Prissy because she’s ever so much stupider, but he never goes to +help her in the evenings at all. There are a great many things in this +world that I can’t understand very well, Matthew.” + +“Well now, I dunno as I comprehend them all myself,” acknowledged +Matthew. + +“Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons. I won’t allow myself to +open that new book Jane lent me until I’m through. But it’s a terrible +temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there +just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book +that makes me cry. But I think I’ll carry that book into the sitting +room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And you must +_not_ give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if +I implore you on my bended knees. It’s all very well to say resist +temptation, but it’s ever so much easier to resist it if you can’t get +the key. And then shall I run down the cellar and get some russets, +Matthew? Wouldn’t you like some russets?” + +“Well now, I dunno but what I would,” said Matthew, who never ate +russets but knew Anne’s weakness for them. + +Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of +russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside +and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed Diana +Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around +her head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, +and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder +and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next day, +by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn’t been +set on fire. + +“Whatever is the matter, Diana?” cried Anne. “Has your mother relented +at last?” + +“Oh, Anne, do come quick,” implored Diana nervously. “Minnie May is +awful sick--she’s got croup. Young Mary Joe says--and Father and Mother +are away to town and there’s nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is +awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn’t know what to do--and oh, Anne, I’m +so scared!” + +Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past +Diana and away into the darkness of the yard. + +“He’s gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor,” + said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket. “I know it as well as +if he’d said so. Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his +thoughts without words at all.” + +“I don’t believe he’ll find the doctor at Carmody,” sobbed Diana. “I +know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too. +Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh, +Anne!” + +“Don’t cry, Di,” said Anne cheerily. “I know exactly what to do for +croup. You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times. When you look +after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience. They +all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle--you +mayn’t have any at your house. Come on now.” + +The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through +Lover’s Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too +deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although sincerely sorry +for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the +situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a +kindred spirit. + +The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy +slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the +dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the +wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go +skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend +who had been so long estranged. + +Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen +sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard +all over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl +from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children +during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of +thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it. + +Anne went to work with skill and promptness. + +“Minnie May has croup all right; she’s pretty bad, but I’ve seen them +worse. First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there +isn’t more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I’ve filled it up, and, +Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove. I don’t want to hurt your +feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this before if +you’d any imagination. Now, I’ll undress Minnie May and put her to bed +and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I’m going to give +her a dose of ipecac first of all.” + +Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up +three pairs of twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once, +but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls +worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe, +honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated +more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies. + +It was three o’clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been +obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need +for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping +soundly. + +“I was awfully near giving up in despair,” explained Anne. “She got +worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were, +even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke to death. +I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose +went down I said to myself--not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I +didn’t want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had +to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings--‘This is the last +lingering hope and I fear, tis a vain one.’ But in about three minutes +she coughed up the phlegm and began to get better right away. You must +just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can’t express it in words. You +know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words.” + +“Yes, I know,” nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were +thinking some things about her that couldn’t be expressed in words. +Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs. Barry. + +“That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert’s is as smart as +they make ‘em. I tell you she saved that baby’s life, for it would have +been too late by the time I got there. She seems to have a skill and +presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw +anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me.” + +Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, heavy +eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as +they crossed the long white field and walked under the glittering fairy +arch of the Lover’s Lane maples. + +“Oh, Matthew, isn’t it a wonderful morning? The world looks like +something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn’t it? Those +trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath--pouf! I’m so glad +I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you? And I’m so +glad Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn’t I +mightn’t have known what to do for Minnie May. I’m real sorry I was +ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins. But, oh, Matthew, I’m so +sleepy. I can’t go to school. I just know I couldn’t keep my eyes open +and I’d be so stupid. But I hate to stay home, for Gil--some of +the others will get head of the class, and it’s so hard to get up +again--although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you +have when you do get up, haven’t you?” + +“Well now, I guess you’ll manage all right,” said Matthew, looking at +Anne’s white little face and the dark shadows under her eyes. “You just +go right to bed and have a good sleep. I’ll do all the chores.” + +Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it +was well on in the white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and +descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the +meantime, was sitting knitting. + +“Oh, did you see the Premier?” exclaimed Anne at once. “What did he look +like Marilla?” + +“Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks,” said +Marilla. “Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of +being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no +use for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself +some blue plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you’re hungry. +Matthew has been telling me about last night. I must say it was +fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn’t have had any idea myself, for +I never saw a case of croup. There now, never mind talking till you’ve +had your dinner. I can tell by the look of you that you’re just full up +with speeches, but they’ll keep.” + +Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then +for she knew if she did Anne’s consequent excitement would lift her +clear out of the region of such material matters as appetite or dinner. +Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say: + +“Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I +wouldn’t wake you up. She says you saved Minnie May’s life, and she is +very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of the currant wine. She +says she knows now you didn’t mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes +you’ll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You’re to go +over this evening if you like for Diana can’t stir outside the door +on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for +pity’s sake don’t fly up into the air.” + +The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne’s +expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated +with the flame of her spirit. + +“Oh, Marilla, can I go right now--without washing my dishes? I’ll wash +them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so +unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment.” + +“Yes, yes, run along,” said Marilla indulgently. “Anne Shirley--are you +crazy? Come back this instant and put something on you. I might as well +call to the wind. She’s gone without a cap or wrap. Look at her tearing +through the orchard with her hair streaming. It’ll be a mercy if she +doesn’t catch her death of cold.” + +Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy +places. Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like +sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal +rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles +of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through +the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s +heart and on her lips. + +“You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla,” she announced. +“I’m perfectly happy--yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I +have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she +was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed, +Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, ‘I have no hard +feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not +mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the +mantle of oblivion.’ That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn’t +it, Marilla?” + +“I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry’s head. And Diana +and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch +her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but +us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else. Diana +gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of +poetry:” + + “If you love me as I love you + Nothing but death can part us two.” + +“And that is true, Marilla. We’re going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us +sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews. +We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out, +Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can’t tell you what a thrill +it gave me. Nobody ever used their very best china on my account before. +And we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of +preserves, Marilla. And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said ‘Pa, +why don’t you pass the biscuits to Anne?’ It must be lovely to be grown +up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice.” + +“I don’t know about that,” said Marilla, with a brief sigh. + +“Well, anyway, when I am grown up,” said Anne decidedly, “I’m always +going to talk to little girls as if they were too, and I’ll never laugh +when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts +one’s feelings. After tea Diana and I made taffy. The taffy wasn’t very +good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before. +Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and +let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat +walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of +it was splendid fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come +over as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses +to me all the way down to Lover’s Lane. I assure you, Marilla, that I +feel like praying tonight and I’m going to think out a special brand-new +prayer in honor of the occasion.” + + + +CHAPTER XIX. A Concert a Catastrophe and a Confession + + +MARILLA, can I go over to see Diana just for a minute?” asked Anne, +running breathlessly down from the east gable one February evening. + +“I don’t see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for,” said +Marilla shortly. “You and Diana walked home from school together and +then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more, your tongues +going the whole blessed time, clickety-clack. So I don’t think you’re +very badly off to see her again.” + +“But she wants to see me,” pleaded Anne. “She has something very +important to tell me.” + +“How do you know she has?” + +“Because she just signaled to me from her window. We have arranged a +way to signal with our candles and cardboard. We set the candle on the +window sill and make flashes by passing the cardboard back and forth. So +many flashes mean a certain thing. It was my idea, Marilla.” + +“I’ll warrant you it was,” said Marilla emphatically. “And the next +thing you’ll be setting fire to the curtains with your signaling +nonsense.” + +“Oh, we’re very careful, Marilla. And it’s so interesting. Two flashes +mean, ‘Are you there?’ Three mean ‘yes’ and four ‘no.’ Five mean, ‘Come +over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal.’ +Diana has just signaled five flashes, and I’m really suffering to know +what it is.” + +“Well, you needn’t suffer any longer,” said Marilla sarcastically. “You +can go, but you’re to be back here in just ten minutes, remember that.” + +Anne did remember it and was back in the stipulated time, although +probably no mortal will ever know just what it cost her to confine the +discussion of Diana’s important communication within the limits of ten +minutes. But at least she had made good use of them. + +“Oh, Marilla, what do you think? You know tomorrow is Diana’s birthday. +Well, her mother told her she could ask me to go home with her from +school and stay all night with her. And her cousins are coming over from +Newbridge in a big pung sleigh to go to the Debating Club concert at +the hall tomorrow night. And they are going to take Diana and me to the +concert--if you’ll let me go, that is. You will, won’t you, Marilla? Oh, +I feel so excited.” + +“You can calm down then, because you’re not going. You’re better at home +in your own bed, and as for that club concert, it’s all nonsense, and +little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all.” + +“I’m sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair,” pleaded Anne. + +“I’m not saying it isn’t. But you’re not going to begin gadding about +to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for +children. I’m surprised at Mrs. Barry’s letting Diana go.” + +“But it’s such a very special occasion,” mourned Anne, on the verge of +tears. “Diana has only one birthday in a year. It isn’t as if birthdays +were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going to recite ‘Curfew +Must Not Ring Tonight.’ That is such a good moral piece, Marilla, I’m +sure it would do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going to +sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns. +And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is; +he’s going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as +a sermon. Please, mayn’t I go, Marilla?” + +“You heard what I said, Anne, didn’t you? Take off your boots now and go +to bed. It’s past eight.” + +“There’s just one more thing, Marilla,” said Anne, with the air of +producing the last shot in her locker. “Mrs. Barry told Diana that we +might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of your little +Anne being put in the spare-room bed.” + +“It’s an honor you’ll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and +don’t let me hear another word out of you.” + +When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully +upstairs, Matthew, who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge +during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said decidedly: + +“Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go.” + +“I don’t then,” retorted Marilla. “Who’s bringing this child up, +Matthew, you or me?” + +“Well now, you,” admitted Matthew. + +“Don’t interfere then.” + +“Well now, I ain’t interfering. It ain’t interfering to have your own +opinion. And my opinion is that you ought to let Anne go.” + +“You’d think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the notion, +I’ve no doubt,” was Marilla’s amiable rejoinder. “I might have let her +spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don’t approve of this +concert plan. She’d go there and catch cold like as not, and have her +head filled up with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for +a week. I understand that child’s disposition and what’s good for it +better than you, Matthew.” + +“I think you ought to let Anne go,” repeated Matthew firmly. Argument +was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was. +Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence. The +next morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry, +Matthew paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again: + +“I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla.” + +For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she +yielded to the inevitable and said tartly: + +“Very well, she can go, since nothing else ‘ll please you.” + +Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand. + +“Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again.” + +“I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew’s doings and I +wash my hands of it. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or +coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don’t blame me, +blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you’re dripping greasy water all over the +floor. I never saw such a careless child.” + +“Oh, I know I’m a great trial to you, Marilla,” said Anne repentantly. +“I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I +don’t make, although I might. I’ll get some sand and scrub up the spots +before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to +that concert. I never was to a concert in my life, and when the other +girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You didn’t know +just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands +me, and it’s so nice to be understood, Marilla.” + +Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in +school. Gilbert Blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out +of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne’s consequent humiliation was +less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the +spare-room bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that +with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably +have been their portion. + +Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going +to the concert, for nothing else was discussed that day in school. The +Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter, had had several +smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission +ten cents, in aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been +practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in +it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part. +Everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie +Sloane, whose father shared Marilla’s opinions about small girls going +out to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried into her grammar all the +afternoon and felt that life was not worth living. + +For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and +increased therefrom in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive +ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a “perfectly elegant tea;” and +then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana’s little room +upstairs. Diana did Anne’s front hair in the new pompadour style and +Anne tied Diana’s bows with the especial knack she possessed; and they +experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging +their back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes +glowing with excitement. + +True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain +black tam and shapeless, tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with +Diana’s jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she remembered in +time that she had an imagination and could use it. + +Then Diana’s cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all crowded +into the big pung sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne reveled in +the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth roads with +the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent sunset, and +the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to +rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with +wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant laughter, that seemed +like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter. + +“Oh, Diana,” breathed Anne, squeezing Diana’s mittened hand under the +fur robe, “isn’t it all like a beautiful dream? Do I really look the +same as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must show in +my looks.” + +“You look awfully nice,” said Diana, who having just received a +compliment from one of her cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on. +“You’ve got the loveliest color.” + +The program that night was a series of “thrills” for at least one +listener in the audience, and, as Anne assured Diana, every succeeding +thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews, attired in +a new pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white +throat and real carnations in her hair--rumor whispered that the master +had sent all the way to town for them for her--“climbed the slimy +ladder, dark without one ray of light,” Anne shivered in luxurious +sympathy; when the choir sang “Far Above the Gentle Daisies” Anne gazed +at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane +proceeded to explain and illustrate “How Sockery Set a Hen” Anne laughed +until people sitting near her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her +than with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in +Avonlea; and when Mr. Phillips gave Mark Antony’s oration over the +dead body of Cæsar in the most heart-stirring tones--looking at Prissy +Andrews at the end of every sentence--Anne felt that she could rise and +mutiny on the spot if but one Roman citizen led the way. + +Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert +Blythe recited “Bingen on the Rhine” Anne picked up Rhoda Murray’s +library book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly +stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled. + +It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with the +exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come. Everybody +seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent. Anne and Diana tiptoed +into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened. +It was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the +grate. + +“Let’s undress here,” said Diana. “It’s so nice and warm.” + +“Hasn’t it been a delightful time?” sighed Anne rapturously. “It must +be splendid to get up and recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be +asked to do it, Diana?” + +“Yes, of course, someday. They’re always wanting the big scholars to +recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he’s only two years older than us. +Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to +the line, + + ‘There’s Another, _not_ a sister,’ + +he looked right down at you.” + +“Diana,” said Anne with dignity, “you are my bosom friend, but I cannot +allow even you to speak to me of that person. Are you ready for bed? +Let’s run a race and see who’ll get to the bed first.” + +The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew +down the long room, through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed +at the same moment. And then--something--moved beneath them, there was a +gasp and a cry--and somebody said in muffled accents: + +“Merciful goodness!” + +Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed +and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they +found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs. + +“Oh, who was it--_what_ was it?” whispered Anne, her teeth chattering with +cold and fright. + +“It was Aunt Josephine,” said Diana, gasping with laughter. “Oh, Anne, +it was Aunt Josephine, however she came to be there. Oh, and I know she +will be furious. It’s dreadful--it’s really dreadful--but did you ever +know anything so funny, Anne?” + +“Who is your Aunt Josephine?” + +“She’s father’s aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She’s awfully +old--seventy anyhow--and I don’t believe she was _ever_ a little girl. We +were expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon. She’s awfully prim +and proper and she’ll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we’ll +have to sleep with Minnie May--and you can’t think how she kicks.” + +Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next +morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two little girls. + +“Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you +came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you +would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I +hope you didn’t disturb your aunt, Diana.” + +Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged furtive +smiles of guilty amusement across the table. Anne hurried home after +breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which +presently resulted in the Barry household until the late afternoon, when +she went down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand for Marilla. + +“So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last +night?” said Mrs. Lynde severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Mrs. +Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to Carmody. She’s feeling +real worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she +got up this morning--and Josephine Barry’s temper is no joke, I can tell +you that. She wouldn’t speak to Diana at all.” + +“It wasn’t Diana’s fault,” said Anne contritely. “It was mine. I +suggested racing to see who would get into bed first.” + +“I knew it!” said Mrs. Lynde, with the exultation of a correct guesser. +“I knew that idea came out of your head. Well, it’s made a nice lot of +trouble, that’s what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a month, but +she declares she won’t stay another day and is going right back to town +tomorrow, Sunday and all as it is. She’d have gone today if they could +have taken her. She had promised to pay for a quarter’s music lessons +for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such a +tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The +Barrys must feel cut up. Old Miss Barry is rich and they’d like to keep +on the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn’t say just that to +me, but I’m a pretty good judge of human nature, that’s what.” + +“I’m such an unlucky girl,” mourned Anne. “I’m always getting into +scrapes myself and getting my best friends--people I’d shed my heart’s +blood for--into them too. Can you tell me why it is so, Mrs. Lynde?” + +“It’s because you’re too heedless and impulsive, child, that’s what. You +never stop to think--whatever comes into your head to say or do you say +or do it without a moment’s reflection.” + +“Oh, but that’s the best of it,” protested Anne. “Something just flashes +into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to +think it over you spoil it all. Haven’t you never felt that yourself, +Mrs. Lynde?” + +No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely. + +“You must learn to think a little, Anne, that’s what. The proverb you +need to go by is ‘Look before you leap’--especially into spare-room +beds.” + +Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained +pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her +eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde’s she took her way +across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen +door. + +“Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn’t she?” whispered +Anne. + +“Yes,” answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance +over her shoulder at the closed sitting-room door. “She was fairly +dancing with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I was the +worst-behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed +of the way they had brought me up. She says she won’t stay and I’m sure +I don’t care. But Father and Mother do.” + +“Why didn’t you tell them it was my fault?” demanded Anne. + +“It’s likely I’d do such a thing, isn’t it?” said Diana with just scorn. +“I’m no telltale, Anne Shirley, and anyhow I was just as much to blame +as you.” + +“Well, I’m going in to tell her myself,” said Anne resolutely. + +Diana stared. + +“Anne Shirley, you’d never! why--she’ll eat you alive!” + +“Don’t frighten me any more than I am frightened,” implored Anne. “I’d +rather walk up to a cannon’s mouth. But I’ve got to do it, Diana. It +was my fault and I’ve got to confess. I’ve had practice in confessing, +fortunately.” + +“Well, she’s in the room,” said Diana. “You can go in if you want to. I +wouldn’t dare. And I don’t believe you’ll do a bit of good.” + +With this encouragement Anne bearded the lion in its den--that is to +say, walked resolutely up to the sitting-room door and knocked faintly. +A sharp “Come in” followed. + +Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by +the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her +gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her chair, expecting to see +Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up +with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror. + +“Who are you?” demanded Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony. + +“I’m Anne of Green Gables,” said the small visitor tremulously, clasping +her hands with her characteristic gesture, “and I’ve come to confess, if +you please.” + +“Confess what?” + +“That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I +suggested it. Diana would never have thought of such a thing, I am sure. +Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry. So you must see how unjust it +is to blame her.” + +“Oh, I must, hey? I rather think Diana did her share of the jumping at +least. Such carryings on in a respectable house!” + +“But we were only in fun,” persisted Anne. “I think you ought to forgive +us, Miss Barry, now that we’ve apologized. And anyhow, please forgive +Diana and let her have her music lessons. Diana’s heart is set on her +music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too well what it is to set your +heart on a thing and not get it. If you must be cross with anyone, be +cross with me. I’ve been so used in my early days to having people cross +at me that I can endure it much better than Diana can.” + +Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady’s eyes by this time +and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest. But she still said +severely: + +“I don’t think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun. +Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young. You +don’t know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after a long +and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you.” + +“I don’t _know_, but I can _imagine_,” said Anne eagerly. “I’m sure it must +have been very disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too. Have +you any imagination, Miss Barry? If you have, just put yourself in +our place. We didn’t know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly +scared us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. And then we +couldn’t sleep in the spare room after being promised. I suppose you are +used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine what you would feel +like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor.” + +All the snap had gone by this time. Miss Barry actually laughed--a +sound which caused Diana, waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen +outside, to give a great gasp of relief. + +“I’m afraid my imagination is a little rusty--it’s so long since I used +it,” she said. “I dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong as +mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here and tell me +about yourself.” + +“I am very sorry I can’t,” said Anne firmly. “I would like to, because +you seem like an interesting lady, and you might even be a kindred +spirit although you don’t look very much like it. But it is my duty to +go home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind +lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but +it is very discouraging work. You must not blame her because I jumped on +the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive +Diana and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea.” + +“I think perhaps I will if you will come over and talk to me +occasionally,” said Miss Barry. + +That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a silver bangle bracelet and told the +senior members of the household that she had unpacked her valise. + +“I’ve made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better +acquainted with that Anne-girl,” she said frankly. “She amuses me, and +at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity.” + +Marilla’s only comment when she heard the story was, “I told you so.” + This was for Matthew’s benefit. + +Miss Barry stayed her month out and over. She was a more agreeable guest +than usual, for Anne kept her in good humor. They became firm friends. + +When Miss Barry went away she said: + +“Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you’re to visit me and +I’ll put you in my very sparest spare-room bed to sleep.” + +“Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all,” Anne confided to Marilla. +“You wouldn’t think so to look at her, but she is. You don’t find it +right out at first, as in Matthew’s case, but after a while you come +to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s +splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” + + + + +CHAPTER XX. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong + + +SPRING had come once more to Green Gables--the beautiful capricious, +reluctant Canadian spring, lingering along through April and May in a +succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles +of resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover’s Lane were red budded +and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad’s Bubble. Away up in +the barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane’s place, the Mayflowers blossomed +out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the +school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming +home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of +flowery spoil. + +“I’m so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no +Mayflowers,” said Anne. “Diana says perhaps they have something better, +but there couldn’t be anything better than Mayflowers, could there, +Marilla? And Diana says if they don’t know what they are like they don’t +miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it +would be _tragic_, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and _not_ +to miss them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think +they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this +is their heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our +lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well--such a _romantic_ spot. +Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because +he wouldn’t take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very _fashionable_ +to dare. Mr. Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews +and I heard him to say ‘sweets to the sweet.’ He got that out of a +book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some +Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can’t tell you the +person’s name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips. We +made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats; and when the +time came to go home we marched in procession down the road, two by two, +with our bouquets and wreaths, singing ‘My Home on the Hill.’ Oh, it was +so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas Sloane’s folks rushed out to see us +and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after us. We made a +real sensation.” + +“Not much wonder! Such silly doings!” was Marilla’s response. + +After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled +with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent +steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground. + +“Somehow,” she told Diana, “when I’m going through here I don’t really +care whether Gil--whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But +when I’m up in school it’s all different and I care as much as ever. +There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is +why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would +be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so +interesting.” + +One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when the +frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the +Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover +fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. +She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the +book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the +boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom. + +In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The +walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly +and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was +altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to +pervade it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses +and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms +on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its +vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had +tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and +moonshine. Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of Anne’s freshly +ironed school aprons. She hung them over a chair and sat down with +a short sigh. She had had one of her headaches that afternoon, and +although the pain had gone she felt weak and “tuckered out,” as she +expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid with sympathy. + +“I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place, Marilla. I +would have endured it joyfully for your sake.” + +“I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me +rest,” said Marilla. “You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer +mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn’t exactly necessary to starch +Matthew’s handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven +to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of +leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn’t seem to be your way +evidently.” + +Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic. + +“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anne penitently. “I never thought about that +pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt +_instinctively_ that there was something missing on the dinner table. I +was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to +imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until +I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to +imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a +handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that +is how I came to forget the pie. I didn’t know I starched the +handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a +name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It’s the +most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple trees on it and the +brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be +splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen’s +birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I’m sorry about that pie +and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today because it’s an +anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?” + +“No, I can’t think of anything special.” + +“Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never +forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn’t +seem so important to you. I’ve been here for a year and I’ve been so +happy. Of course, I’ve had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. +Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?” + +“No, I can’t say I’m sorry,” said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how +she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, “no, not exactly +sorry. If you’ve finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and +ask Mrs. Barry if she’ll lend me Diana’s apron pattern.” + +“Oh--it’s--it’s too dark,” cried Anne. + +“Too dark? Why, it’s only twilight. And goodness knows you’ve gone over +often enough after dark.” + +“I’ll go over early in the morning,” said Anne eagerly. “I’ll get up at +sunrise and go over, Marilla.” + +“What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to +cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too.” + +“I’ll have to go around by the road, then,” said Anne, taking up her hat +reluctantly. + +“Go by the road and waste half an hour! I’d like to catch you!” + +“I can’t go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla,” cried Anne desperately. + +Marilla stared. + +“The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the Haunted +Wood?” + +“The spruce wood over the brook,” said Anne in a whisper. + +“Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who +has been telling you such stuff?” + +“Nobody,” confessed Anne. “Diana and I just imagined the wood was +haunted. All the places around here are so--so--_commonplace_. We just got +this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is +so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it’s so +gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There’s a white +lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings +her hands and utters wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a +death in the family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the +corner up by Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers +on your hand--so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder to think of it. And +there’s a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower +at you between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn’t go through the +Haunted Wood after dark now for anything. I’d be sure that white things +would reach out from behind the trees and grab me.” + +“Did ever anyone hear the like!” ejaculated Marilla, who had +listened in dumb amazement. “Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you +believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?” + +“Not believe _exactly_,” faltered Anne. “At least, I don’t believe it in +daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it’s different. That is when ghosts +walk.” + +“There are no such things as ghosts, Anne.” + +“Oh, but there are, Marilla,” cried Anne eagerly. “I know people who +have seen them. And they are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says +that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night +after he’d been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane’s grandmother +wouldn’t tell a story for anything. She’s a very religious woman. And +Mrs. Thomas’s father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with +its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the +spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine +days. He didn’t, but he died two years after, so you see it was really +true. And Ruby Gillis says--” + +“Anne Shirley,” interrupted Marilla firmly, “I never want to hear you +talking in this fashion again. I’ve had my doubts about that imagination +of yours right along, and if this is going to be the outcome of it, I +won’t countenance any such doings. You’ll go right over to Barry’s, and +you’ll go through that spruce grove, just for a lesson and a warning to +you. And never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods +again.” + +Anne might plead and cry as she liked--and did, for her terror was very +real. Her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce +grove in mortal dread after nightfall. But Marilla was inexorable. She +marched the shrinking ghost-seer down to the spring and ordered her +to proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of +wailing ladies and headless specters beyond. + +“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed Anne. “What would you +feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?” + +“I’ll risk it,” said Marilla unfeelingly. “You know I always mean what I +say. I’ll cure you of imagining ghosts into places. March, now.” + +Anne marched. That is, she stumbled over the bridge and went shuddering +up the horrible dim path beyond. Anne never forgot that walk. Bitterly +did she repent the license she had given to her imagination. The goblins +of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her, reaching out their cold, +fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them +into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over +the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn +wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the +perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness +over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she reached Mr. +William Bell’s field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of +white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of breath +that she could hardly gasp out her request for the apron pattern. +Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The dreadful +return journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes, +preferring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs +to that of seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log +bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief. + +“Well, so nothing caught you?” said Marilla unsympathetically. + +“Oh, Mar--Marilla,” chattered Anne, “I’ll b-b-be contt-tented with +c-c-commonplace places after this.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings + + +DEAR ME, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as +Mrs. Lynde says,” remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and books +down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her red +eyes with a very damp handkerchief. “Wasn’t it fortunate, Marilla, that +I took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that +it would be needed.” + +“I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you’d require two +handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away,” said +Marilla. + +“I don’t think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,” + reflected Anne. “I just cried because all the others did. It was +Ruby Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr. +Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she +burst into tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other. +I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips +made me sit with Gil--with a boy; and the time he spelled my name +without an ‘e’ on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce +he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he +had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn’t, Marilla, and I +just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how +glad she’d be when Mr. Phillips went away and she declared she’d never +shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a +handkerchief from her brother--of course the boys didn’t cry--because +she hadn’t brought one of her own, not expecting to need it. Oh, +Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a beautiful +farewell speech beginning, ‘The time has come for us to part.’ It was +very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla. Oh, I felt +dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times I’d talked in school +and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and Prissy. +I can tell you I wished I’d been a model pupil like Minnie Andrews. She +hadn’t anything on her conscience. The girls cried all the way home from +school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few minutes, ‘The time has come +for us to part,’ and that would start us off again whenever we were in +any danger of cheering up. I do feel dreadfully sad, Marilla. But one +can’t feel quite in the depths of despair with two months’ vacation +before them, can they, Marilla? And besides, we met the new minister and +his wife coming from the station. For all I was feeling so bad about Mr. +Phillips going away I couldn’t help taking a little interest in a new +minister, could I? His wife is very pretty. Not exactly regally lovely, +of course--it wouldn’t do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally +lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says the +minister’s wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she +dresses so fashionably. Our new minister’s wife was dressed in blue +muslin with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses. +Jane Andrews said she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for +a minister’s wife, but I didn’t make any such uncharitable remark, +Marilla, because I know what it is to long for puffed sleeves. Besides, +she’s only been a minister’s wife for a little while, so one should +make allowances, shouldn’t they? They are going to board with Mrs. Lynde +until the manse is ready.” + +If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde’s that evening, was actuated by +any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had +borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most +of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes +never expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the +borrowers thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife, +was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement +where sensations were few and far between. + +Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in +imagination, had been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a +widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the fact that +gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one, every year +of his sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and +departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection +born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his +shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a +variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and various +candidates and “supplies” who came Sunday after Sunday to preach on +trial. These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers +in Israel; but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the +corner of the old Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and +discussed the same in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining from +principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form. + +“I don’t think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew” was Anne’s final +summing up. “Mrs. Lynde says his delivery was so poor, but I think his +worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley’s--he had no imagination. And Mr. +Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in +the matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology +wasn’t sound. Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man, +but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church; +he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister, +mustn’t you, Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; +but Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t married, or even engaged, because she made +special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to have +a young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the +congregation and that would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very farseeing +woman, isn’t she, Matthew? I’m very glad they’ve called Mr. Allan. I +liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he +meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it. +Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t perfect, but she says she supposes we couldn’t +expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars a year, +and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly +on all the points of doctrine. And she knows his wife’s people and they +are most respectable and the women are all good housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde +says that sound doctrine in the man and good housekeeping in the woman +make an ideal combination for a minister’s family.” + +The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple, still +on their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for +their chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to them from the start. +Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high ideals, +and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship of the +manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and wholeheartedly in love. +She had discovered another kindred spirit. + +“Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely,” she announced one Sunday afternoon. +“She’s taken our class and she’s a splendid teacher. She said right away +she didn’t think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions, +and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I’ve always thought. She +said we could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many. +I’m good at asking questions, Marilla.” + +“I believe you,” was Marilla’s emphatic comment. + +“Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was +to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn’t think that was a +very proper question to ask because it hadn’t any connection with the +lesson--the lesson was about Daniel in the lions’ den--but Mrs. Allan +just smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a +lovely smile; she has such _exquisite_ dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had +dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I’m not half so skinny as I was when I +came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence +people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence +other people for good. She talked so nice about everything. I never knew +before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it +was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan’s isn’t, and I’d like to be a +Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn’t want to be one like Mr. +Superintendent Bell.” + +“It’s very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell,” said Marilla +severely. “Mr. Bell is a real good man.” + +“Oh, of course he’s good,” agreed Anne, “but he doesn’t seem to get any +comfort out of it. If I could be good I’d dance and sing all day because +I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and +of course it wouldn’t be dignified in a minister’s wife. But I can just +feel she’s glad she’s a Christian and that she’d be one even if she +could get to heaven without it.” + +“I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon,” said +Marilla reflectively. “They’ve been most everywhere but here. Let me +see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don’t say a +word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he’d find some +excuse to be away that day. He’d got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn’t +mind him, but he’s going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new +minister, and a new minister’s wife will frighten him to death.” + +“I’ll be as secret as the dead,” assured Anne. “But oh, Marilla, will +you let me make a cake for the occasion? I’d love to do something for +Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time.” + +“You can make a layer cake,” promised Marilla. + +Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. +Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important +undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of +the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She +talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they +sat on the big red stones by the Dryad’s Bubble and made rainbows in the +water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam. + +“Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I’m to make in the +morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just +before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy +two days of it. It’s such a responsibility having a minister’s family to +tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see +our pantry. It’s a sight to behold. We’re going to have jellied chicken +and cold tongue. We’re to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and +whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, +and fruit cake, and Marilla’s famous yellow plum preserves that she +keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and +biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister +is dyspeptic and can’t eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, +but I don’t think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to +have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer +cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn’t be good! I dreamed last night that +I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a +head.” + +“It’ll be good, all right,” assured Diana, who was a very comfortable +sort of friend. “I’m sure that piece of the one you made that we had for +lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant.” + +“Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just +when you especially want them to be good,” sighed Anne, setting a +particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. “However, I suppose I shall +just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, +look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come +out after we go away and take it for a scarf?” + +“You know there is no such thing as a dryad,” said Diana. Diana’s mother +had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over +it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights +of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of +belief even in harmless dryads. + +“But it’s so easy to imagine there is,” said Anne. “Every night before +I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really +sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes +I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don’t +give up your faith in the dryad!” + +Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too +excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of +her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short +of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary +matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. +When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath. + +“I’m sure I haven’t forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you +think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn’t good? I +used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of +getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. +Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says +we’ll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what +if that cake doesn’t rise?” + +“We’ll have plenty without it” was Marilla’s unimpassioned way of +looking at the subject. + +The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and +feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together +with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan eating it +and possibly asking for another piece! + +“You’ll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla,” she said. “Can I +fix the table with ferns and wild roses?” + +“I think that’s all nonsense,” sniffed Marilla. “In my opinion it’s the +eatables that matter and not flummery decorations.” + +“Mrs. Barry had _her_ table decorated,” said Anne, who was not entirely +guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, “and the minister paid her an +elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the +palate.” + +“Well, do as you like,” said Marilla, who was quite determined not to +be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. “Only mind you leave enough +room for the dishes and the food.” + +Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that +should leave Mrs. Barry’s nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns +and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea table such a +thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they +exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness. + +“It’s Anne’s doings,” said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs. +Allan’s approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world. + +Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness +and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and +nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him +in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes +and white collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly. +He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be +expected. + +All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne’s layer cake was passed. +Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety, +declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne’s face, said +smilingly: + +“Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose +for you.” + +“In that case I must sample it,” laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to +a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla. + +Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression +crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away +at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake. + +“Anne Shirley!” she exclaimed, “what on earth did you put into that +cake?” + +“Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla,” cried Anne with a look of +anguish. “Oh, isn’t it all right?” + +“All right! It’s simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don’t try to eat it. Anne, +taste it yourself. What flavoring did you use?” + +“Vanilla,” said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting +the cake. “Only vanilla. Oh, Marilla, it must have been the baking +powder. I had my suspicions of that bak--” + +“Baking powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you +used.” + +Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially +filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly, “Best Vanilla.” + +Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it. + +“Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavored that cake with _Anodyne Liniment_. I +broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an +old empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it’s partly my fault--I should have +warned you--but for pity’s sake why couldn’t you have smelled it?” + +Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace. + +“I couldn’t--I had such a cold!” and with this she fairly fled to the +gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who +refuses to be comforted. + +Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the +room. + +“Oh, Marilla,” sobbed Anne, without looking up, “I’m disgraced forever. +I shall never be able to live this down. It will get out--things always +do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I +shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the +girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment. Gil--the boys in school +will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark +of Christian pity don’t tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes +after this. I’ll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but +I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again. Perhaps she’ll think I +tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried +to poison her benefactor. But the liniment isn’t poisonous. It’s meant +to be taken internally--although not in cakes. Won’t you tell Mrs. Allan +so, Marilla?” + +“Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself,” said a merry voice. + +Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with +laughing eyes. + +“My dear little girl, you mustn’t cry like this,” she said, genuinely +disturbed by Anne’s tragic face. “Why, it’s all just a funny mistake +that anybody might make.” + +“Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake,” said Anne forlornly. “And +I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan.” + +“Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and +thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now, +you mustn’t cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower +garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I +want to see it, for I’m very much interested in flowers.” + +Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it +was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing +more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests went away +Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been +expected, considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless, she sighed +deeply. + +“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no +mistakes in it yet?” + +“I’ll warrant you’ll make plenty in it,” said Marilla. “I never saw your +beat for making mistakes, Anne.” + +“Yes, and well I know it,” admitted Anne mournfully. “But have you ever +noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same +mistake twice.” + +“I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new +ones.” + +“Oh, don’t you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one +person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I’ll be through +with them. That’s a very comforting thought.” + +“Well, you’d better go and give that cake to the pigs,” said Marilla. +“It isn’t fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Boute.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. Anne is Invited Out to Tea + + +AND what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?” asked +Marilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. “Have +you discovered another kindred spirit?” Excitement hung around Anne like +a garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had come +dancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow +sunshine and lazy shadows of the August evening. + +“No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the +manse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs. Allan left the letter for me at the post +office. Just look at it, Marilla. ‘Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables.’ +That is the first time I was ever called ‘Miss.’ Such a thrill as it +gave me! I shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures.” + +“Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of her +Sunday-school class to tea in turn,” said Marilla, regarding the +wonderful event very coolly. “You needn’t get in such a fever over it. +Do learn to take things calmly, child.” + +For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All +“spirit and fire and dew,” as she was, the pleasures and pains of life +came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely +troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would +probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently +understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more +than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill +Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien +to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not +make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall +of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into “deeps of affliction.” The +fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had +almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into +her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither +would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she +was. + +Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew had +said the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy day +tomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her, +it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of +the gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its +strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm +and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Anne +thought that the morning would never come. + +But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are +invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew’s +predictions, was fine and Anne’s spirits soared to their highest. +“Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love +everybody I see,” she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes. +“You don’t know how good I feel! Wouldn’t it be nice if it could last? I +believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every +day. But oh, Marilla, it’s a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious. +What if I shouldn’t behave properly? You know I never had tea at a +manse before, and I’m not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette, +although I’ve been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department +of the Family Herald ever since I came here. I’m so afraid I’ll do +something silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it be +good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to _very_ +much?” + +“The trouble with you, Anne, is that you’re thinking too much about +yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest +and most agreeable to her,” said Marilla, hitting for once in her life +on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this. + +“You are right, Marilla. I’ll try not to think about myself at all.” + +Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of +“etiquette,” for she came home through the twilight, under a great, +high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, in +a beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sitting +on the big red-sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly +head in Marilla’s gingham lap. + +A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rims +of firry western hills and whistling through the poplars. One clear star +hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in Lover’s +Lane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched them +as she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were +all tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting. + +“Oh, Marilla, I’ve had a most _fascinating_ time. I feel that I have not +lived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should never +be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met me +at the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy, +with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a +seraph. I really think I’d like to be a minister’s wife when I grow up, +Marilla. A minister mightn’t mind my red hair because he wouldn’t be +thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to +be naturally good and I’ll never be that, so I suppose there’s no use in +thinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you know, and others +are not. I’m one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I’m full of original +sin. No matter how hard I try to be good I can never make such a success +of it as those who are naturally good. It’s a good deal like geometry, +I expect. But don’t you think the trying so hard ought to count for +something? Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love her +passionately. You know there are some people, like Matthew and Mrs. +Allan that you can love right off without any trouble. And there are +others, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have to try very hard to love. You +know you _ought_ to love them because they know so much and are such +active workers in the church, but you have to keep reminding yourself of +it all the time or else you forget. There was another little girl at the +manse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday school. Her name was Laurette +Bradley, and she was a very nice little girl. Not exactly a kindred +spirit, you know, but still very nice. We had an elegant tea, and I +think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After tea Mrs. +Allan played and sang and she got Lauretta and me to sing too. +Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing in the +Sunday-school choir after this. You can’t think how I was thrilled at +the mere thought. I’ve longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir, +as Diana does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to. +Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the +White Sands Hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta +says that the Americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight in +aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the White +Sands people to recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herself +someday. I just gazed at her in awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I +had a heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything--about Mrs. Thomas and +the twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and +my troubles over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs. +Allan told me she was a dunce at geometry too. You don’t know how that +encouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before I left, and what +do you think, Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it’s +a lady. Her name is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn’t that a romantic name? Mrs. +Lynde says they’ve never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and she +thinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid +to have a lady teacher, and I really don’t see how I’m going to live +through the two weeks before school begins. I’m so impatient to see +her.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor + + +ANNE had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost a +month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode, it was high time +for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as +absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls +in the pantry instead of into the pigs’ bucket, and walking clean over +the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative +reverie, not really being worth counting. + +A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party. + +“Small and select,” Anne assured Marilla. “Just the girls in our class.” + +They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, +when they found themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all +their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might +present itself. This presently took the form of “daring.” + +Daring was the fashionable amusement among the Avonlea small fry just +then. It had begun among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all +the silly things that were done in Avonlea that summer because the doers +thereof were “dared” to do them would fill a book by themselves. + +First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point +in the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby Gillis, +albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said +tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she +should tear her new muslin dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of the +aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop on her +left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her right +foot to the ground; which Jane Andrews gamely tried to do, but gave out +at the third corner and had to confess herself defeated. + +Josie’s triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted, +Anne Shirley dared her to walk along the top of the board fence which +bounded the garden to the east. Now, to “walk” board fences requires +more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who +has never tried it. But Josie Pye, if deficient in some qualities +that make for popularity, had at least a natural and inborn gift, duly +cultivated, for walking board fences. Josie walked the Barry fence with +an airy unconcern which seemed to imply that a little thing like that +wasn’t worth a “dare.” Reluctant admiration greeted her exploit, for +most of the other girls could appreciate it, having suffered many things +themselves in their efforts to walk fences. Josie descended from her +perch, flushed with victory, and darted a defiant glance at Anne. + +Anne tossed her red braids. + +“I don’t think it’s such a very wonderful thing to walk a little, low, +board fence,” she said. “I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the +ridgepole of a roof.” + +“I don’t believe it,” said Josie flatly. “I don’t believe anybody could +walk a ridgepole. _You_ couldn’t, anyhow.” + +“Couldn’t I?” cried Anne rashly. + +“Then I dare you to do it,” said Josie defiantly. “I dare you to climb +up there and walk the ridgepole of Mr. Barry’s kitchen roof.” + +Anne turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done. She +walked toward the house, where a ladder was leaning against the kitchen +roof. All the fifth-class girls said, “Oh!” partly in excitement, partly +in dismay. + +“Don’t you do it, Anne,” entreated Diana. “You’ll fall off and be +killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It isn’t fair to dare anybody to do +anything so dangerous.” + +“I must do it. My honor is at stake,” said Anne solemnly. “I shall walk +that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are +to have my pearl bead ring.” + +Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the ridgepole, +balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to +walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up +in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your +imagination helped you out much. Nevertheless, she managed to take +several steps before the catastrophe came. Then she swayed, lost her +balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down over the sun-baked +roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia creeper +beneath--all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, +terrified shriek. + +If Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended +Diana would probably have fallen heir to the pearl bead ring then and +there. Fortunately she fell on the other side, where the roof extended +down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was +a much less serious thing. Nevertheless, when Diana and the other +girls had rushed frantically around the house--except Ruby Gillis, who +remained as if rooted to the ground and went into hysterics--they found +Anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the Virginia +creeper. + +“Anne, are you killed?” shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees +beside her friend. “Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and +tell me if you’re killed.” + +To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, +who, in spite of lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible +visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne +Shirley’s early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered +uncertainly: + +“No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious.” + +“Where?” sobbed Carrie Sloane. “Oh, where, Anne?” Before Anne could +answer Mrs. Barry appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne tried to +scramble to her feet, but sank back again with a sharp little cry of +pain. + +“What’s the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?” demanded Mrs. Barry. + +“My ankle,” gasped Anne. “Oh, Diana, please find your father and ask him +to take me home. I know I can never walk there. And I’m sure I couldn’t +hop so far on one foot when Jane couldn’t even hop around the garden.” + +Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when +she saw Mr. Barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs. +Barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after +him. In his arms he carried Anne, whose head lay limply against his +shoulder. + +At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that +pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. +She would have admitted that she liked Anne--nay, that she was very fond +of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne +was dearer to her than anything else on earth. + +“Mr. Barry, what has happened to her?” she gasped, more white and shaken +than the self-contained, sensible Marilla had been for many years. + +Anne herself answered, lifting her head. + +“Don’t be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole and I +fell off. I expect I have sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have +broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of things.” + +“I might have known you’d go and do something of the sort when I let you +go to that party,” said Marilla, sharp and shrewish in her very relief. +“Bring her in here, Mr. Barry, and lay her on the sofa. Mercy me, the +child has gone and fainted!” + +It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Anne had one more +of her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away. + +Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway +dispatched for the doctor, who in due time came, to discover that the +injury was more serious than they had supposed. Anne’s ankle was broken. + +That night, when Marilla went up to the east gable, where a white-faced +girl was lying, a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed. + +“Aren’t you very sorry for me, Marilla?” + +“It was your own fault,” said Marilla, twitching down the blind and +lighting a lamp. + +“And that is just why you should be sorry for me,” said Anne, “because +the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard. If I +could blame it on anybody I would feel so much better. But what would +you have done, Marilla, if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole?” + +“I’d have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such +absurdity!” said Marilla. + +Anne sighed. + +“But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven’t. I just felt +that I couldn’t bear Josie Pye’s scorn. She would have crowed over me +all my life. And I think I have been punished so much that you needn’t +be very cross with me, Marilla. It’s not a bit nice to faint, after all. +And the doctor hurt me dreadfully when he was setting my ankle. I won’t +be able to go around for six or seven weeks and I’ll miss the new lady +teacher. She won’t be new any more by the time I’m able to go to school. +And Gil--everybody will get ahead of me in class. Oh, I am an afflicted +mortal. But I’ll try to bear it all bravely if only you won’t be cross +with me, Marilla.” + +“There, there, I’m not cross,” said Marilla. “You’re an unlucky child, +there’s no doubt about that; but as you say, you’ll have the suffering +of it. Here now, try and eat some supper.” + +“Isn’t it fortunate I’ve got such an imagination?” said Anne. “It will +help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven’t any +imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?” + +Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during +the tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not solely dependent +on it. She had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of +the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her +all the happenings in the juvenile world of Avonlea. + +“Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla,” sighed Anne happily, +on the day when she could first limp across the floor. “It isn’t very +pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side to it, Marilla. You +find out how many friends you have. Why, even Superintendent Bell came +to see me, and he’s really a very fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of +course; but still I like him and I’m awfully sorry I ever criticized his +prayers. I believe now he really does mean them, only he has got into +the habit of saying them as if he didn’t. He could get over that if he’d +take a little trouble. I gave him a good broad hint. I told him how hard +I tried to make my own little private prayers interesting. He told me +all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy. It does seem +so strange to think of Superintendent Bell ever being a boy. Even my +imagination has its limits, for I can’t imagine _that_. When I try to +imagine him as a boy I see him with gray whiskers and spectacles, just +as he looks in Sunday school, only small. Now, it’s so easy to imagine +Mrs. Allan as a little girl. Mrs. Allan has been to see me fourteen +times. Isn’t that something to be proud of, Marilla? When a minister’s +wife has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful person to +have visit you, too. She never tells you it’s your own fault and she +hopes you’ll be a better girl on account of it. Mrs. Lynde always told +me that when she came to see me; and she said it in a kind of way that +made me feel she might hope I’d be a better girl but didn’t really +believe I would. Even Josie Pye came to see me. I received her as +politely as I could, because I think she was sorry she dared me to walk +a ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had to carry a dark burden +of remorse all her life. Diana has been a faithful friend. She’s been +over every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be so glad +when I can go to school for I’ve heard such exciting things about the +new teacher. The girls all think she is perfectly sweet. Diana says she +has the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes. She dresses +beautifully, and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else’s in +Avonlea. Every other Friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody +has to say a piece or take part in a dialogue. Oh, it’s just glorious to +think of it. Josie Pye says she hates it but that is just because Josie +has so little imagination. Diana and Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are +preparing a dialogue, called ‘A Morning Visit,’ for next Friday. And the +Friday afternoons they don’t have recitations Miss Stacy takes them +all to the woods for a ‘field’ day and they study ferns and flowers +and birds. And they have physical culture exercises every morning and +evening. Mrs. Lynde says she never heard of such goings on and it all +comes of having a lady teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I +believe I shall find that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit.” + +“There’s one thing plain to be seen, Anne,” said Marilla, “and that is +that your fall off the Barry roof hasn’t injured your tongue at all.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert + + +IT was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school--a +glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the +valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had +poured them in for the sun to drain--amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and +smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth +of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of +many-stemmed woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a canopy +of yellow and the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a +tang in the very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping, +unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it _was_ jolly to +be back again at the little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby Gillis +nodding across the aisle and Carrie Sloane sending up notes and Julia +Bell passing a “chew” of gum down from the back seat. Anne drew a long +breath of happiness as she sharpened her pencil and arranged her picture +cards in her desk. Life was certainly very interesting. + +In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy +was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and +holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was +in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under this +wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the +critical Marilla glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims. + +“I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so ladylike +and she has such a sweet voice. When she pronounces my name I feel +_instinctively_ that she’s spelling it with an E. We had recitations +this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite +‘Mary, Queen of Scots.’ I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis +told me coming home that the way I said the line, ‘Now for my father’s +arm,’ she said, ‘my woman’s heart farewell,’ just made her blood run +cold.” + +“Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the +barn,” suggested Matthew. + +“Of course I will,” said Anne meditatively, “but I won’t be able to do +it so well, I know. It won’t be so exciting as it is when you have a +whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I +won’t be able to make your blood run cold.” + +“Mrs. Lynde says it made _her_ blood run cold to see the boys climbing to +the very tops of those big trees on Bell’s hill after crows’ nests last +Friday,” said Marilla. “I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it.” + +“But we wanted a crow’s nest for nature study,” explained Anne. “That +was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla. +And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have to write +compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones.” + +“It’s very vain of you to say so then. You’d better let your teacher say +it.” + +“But she _did_ say it, Marilla. And indeed I’m not vain about it. How can +I be, when I’m such a dunce at geometry? Although I’m really beginning +to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it so clear. Still, +I’ll never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection. +But I love writing compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose +our own subjects; but next week we are to write a composition on some +remarkable person. It’s hard to choose among so many remarkable people +who have lived. Mustn’t it be splendid to be remarkable and have +compositions written about you after you’re dead? Oh, I would dearly +love to be remarkable. I think when I grow up I’ll be a trained nurse +and go with the Red Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of +mercy. That is, if I don’t go out as a foreign missionary. That would +be very romantic, but one would have to be very good to be a missionary, +and that would be a stumbling block. We have physical culture exercises +every day, too. They make you graceful and promote digestion.” + +“Promote fiddlesticks!” said Marilla, who honestly thought it was all +nonsense. + +But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical culture +contortions paled before a project which Miss Stacy brought forward in +November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea school should get up +a concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas Night, for the laudable +purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one and +all taking graciously to this plan, the preparations for a program +were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was so +excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart +and soul, hampered as she was by Marilla’s disapproval. Marilla thought +it all rank foolishness. + +“It’s just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that +ought to be put on your lessons,” she grumbled. “I don’t approve of +children’s getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes +them vain and forward and fond of gadding.” + +“But think of the worthy object,” pleaded Anne. “A flag will cultivate a +spirit of patriotism, Marilla.” + +“Fudge! There’s precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of +you. All you want is a good time.” + +“Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn’t it all right? Of +course it’s real nice to be getting up a concert. We’re going to have +six choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I’m in two dialogues--‘The +Society for the Suppression of Gossip’ and ‘The Fairy Queen.’ The boys +are going to have a dialogue too. And I’m to have two recitations, +Marilla. I just tremble when I think of it, but it’s a nice thrilly kind +of tremble. And we’re to have a tableau at the last--‘Faith, Hope and +Charity.’ Diana and Ruby and I are to be in it, all draped in white with +flowing hair. I’m to be Hope, with my hands clasped--so--and my eyes +uplifted. I’m going to practice my recitations in the garret. Don’t be +alarmed if you hear me groaning. I have to groan heartrendingly in one +of them, and it’s really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla. +Josie Pye is sulky because she didn’t get the part she wanted in +the dialogue. She wanted to be the fairy queen. That would have been +ridiculous, for who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy +queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is to be the queen and I am to be +one of her maids of honor. Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy is +just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie +says. I’m to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis +is going to lend me her slippers because I haven’t any of my own. It’s +necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You couldn’t imagine +a fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are +going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with +pink tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march in two by two +after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the +organ. Oh, Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, +but don’t you hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?” + +“All I hope is that you’ll behave yourself. I’ll be heartily glad when +all this fuss is over and you’ll be able to settle down. You are simply +good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues and +groans and tableaus. As for your tongue, it’s a marvel it’s not clean +worn out.” + +Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new +moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green +western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood. Anne perched herself +on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an appreciative +and sympathetic listener in this instance at least. + +“Well now, I reckon it’s going to be a pretty good concert. And I +expect you’ll do your part fine,” he said, smiling down into her eager, +vivacious little face. Anne smiled back at him. Those two were the best +of friends and Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had +nothing to do with bringing her up. That was Marilla’s exclusive duty; +if it had been his he would have been worried over frequent conflicts +between inclination and said duty. As it was, he was free to, “spoil +Anne”--Marilla’s phrasing--as much as he liked. But it was not such a +bad arrangement after all; a little “appreciation” sometimes does quite +as much good as all the conscientious “bringing up” in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves + + +MATTHEW was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the +kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and had sat +down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious of +the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice +of “The Fairy Queen” in the sitting room. Presently they came trooping +through the hall and out into the kitchen, laughing and chattering +gaily. They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the +shadows beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the +other, and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they +put on caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue and the concert. +Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as they; but Matthew +suddenly became conscious that there was something about her different +from her mates. And what worried Matthew was that the difference +impressed him as being something that should not exist. Anne had a +brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features +than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note +of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist +in any of these respects. Then in what did it consist? + +Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone, arm +in arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken herself +to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who, he felt, would be +quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only difference she +saw between Anne and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their +tongues quiet while Anne never did. This, Matthew felt, would be no +great help. + +He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out, much +to Marilla’s disgust. After two hours of smoking and hard reflection +Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was not dressed like +the other girls! + +The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced that +Anne never had been dressed like the other girls--never since she had +come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, +all made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there was +such a thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was +quite sure that Anne’s sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the +other girls wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls he had seen +around her that evening--all gay in waists of red and blue and pink +and white--and he wondered why Marilla always kept her so plainly and +soberly gowned. + +Of course, it must be all right. Marilla knew best and Marilla was +bringing her up. Probably some wise, inscrutable motive was to be served +thereby. But surely it would do no harm to let the child have one pretty +dress--something like Diana Barry always wore. Matthew decided that +he would give her one; that surely could not be objected to as an +unwarranted putting in of his oar. Christmas was only a fortnight off. +A nice new dress would be the very thing for a present. Matthew, with a +sigh of satisfaction, put away his pipe and went to bed, while Marilla +opened all the doors and aired the house. + +The very next evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the +dress, determined to get the worst over and have done with it. It would +be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were some things Matthew +could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be +at the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl’s dress. + +After much cogitation Matthew resolved to go to Samuel Lawson’s store +instead of William Blair’s. To be sure, the Cuthberts always had gone to +William Blair’s; it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them +as to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative. But William +Blair’s two daughters frequently waited on customers there and Matthew +held them in absolute dread. He could contrive to deal with them when he +knew exactly what he wanted and could point it out; but in such a matter +as this, requiring explanation and consultation, Matthew felt that he +must be sure of a man behind the counter. So he would go to Lawson’s, +where Samuel or his son would wait on him. + +Alas! Matthew did not know that Samuel, in the recent expansion of his +business, had set up a lady clerk also; she was a niece of his wife’s +and a very dashing young person indeed, with a huge, drooping pompadour, +big, rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile. She +was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets +that glittered and rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands. +Matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all; and +those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop. + +“What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Cuthbert?” Miss Lucilla Harris +inquired, briskly and ingratiatingly, tapping the counter with both +hands. + +“Have you any--any--any--well now, say any garden rakes?” stammered +Matthew. + +Miss Harris looked somewhat surprised, as well she might, to hear a man +inquiring for garden rakes in the middle of December. + +“I believe we have one or two left over,” she said, “but they’re +upstairs in the lumber room. I’ll go and see.” During her absence +Matthew collected his scattered senses for another effort. + +When Miss Harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired: +“Anything else tonight, Mr. Cuthbert?” Matthew took his courage in +both hands and replied: “Well now, since you suggest it, I might as +well--take--that is--look at--buy some--some hayseed.” + +Miss Harris had heard Matthew Cuthbert called odd. She now concluded +that he was entirely crazy. + +“We only keep hayseed in the spring,” she explained loftily. “We’ve none +on hand just now.” + +“Oh, certainly--certainly--just as you say,” stammered unhappy +Matthew, seizing the rake and making for the door. At the threshold he +recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back. +While Miss Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for +a final desperate attempt. + +“Well now--if it isn’t too much trouble--I might as well--that is--I’d +like to look at--at--some sugar.” + +“White or brown?” queried Miss Harris patiently. + +“Oh--well now--brown,” said Matthew feebly. + +“There’s a barrel of it over there,” said Miss Harris, shaking her +bangles at it. “It’s the only kind we have.” + +“I’ll--I’ll take twenty pounds of it,” said Matthew, with beads of +perspiration standing on his forehead. + +Matthew had driven halfway home before he was his own man again. It had +been a gruesome experience, but it served him right, he thought, for +committing the heresy of going to a strange store. When he reached +home he hid the rake in the tool house, but the sugar he carried in to +Marilla. + +“Brown sugar!” exclaimed Marilla. “Whatever possessed you to get so +much? You know I never use it except for the hired man’s porridge or +black fruit cake. Jerry’s gone and I’ve made my cake long ago. It’s not +good sugar, either--it’s coarse and dark--William Blair doesn’t usually +keep sugar like that.” + +“I--I thought it might come in handy sometime,” said Matthew, making +good his escape. + +When Matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman was +required to cope with the situation. Marilla was out of the question. +Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once. +Remained only Mrs. Lynde; for of no other woman in Avonlea would Matthew +have dared to ask advice. To Mrs. Lynde he went accordingly, and that +good lady promptly took the matter out of the harassed man’s hands. + +“Pick out a dress for you to give Anne? To be sure I will. I’m going to +Carmody tomorrow and I’ll attend to it. Have you something particular in +mind? No? Well, I’ll just go by my own judgment then. I believe a nice +rich brown would just suit Anne, and William Blair has some new gloria +in that’s real pretty. Perhaps you’d like me to make it up for her, too, +seeing that if Marilla was to make it Anne would probably get wind of it +before the time and spoil the surprise? Well, I’ll do it. No, it isn’t +a mite of trouble. I like sewing. I’ll make it to fit my niece, Jenny +Gillis, for she and Anne are as like as two peas as far as figure goes.” + +“Well now, I’m much obliged,” said Matthew, “and--and--I dunno--but I’d +like--I think they make the sleeves different nowadays to what they used +to be. If it wouldn’t be asking too much I--I’d like them made in the +new way.” + +“Puffs? Of course. You needn’t worry a speck more about it, Matthew. +I’ll make it up in the very latest fashion,” said Mrs. Lynde. To herself +she added when Matthew had gone: + +“It’ll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing something +decent for once. The way Marilla dresses her is positively ridiculous, +that’s what, and I’ve ached to tell her so plainly a dozen times. I’ve +held my tongue though, for I can see Marilla doesn’t want advice and she +thinks she knows more about bringing children up than I do for all +she’s an old maid. But that’s always the way. Folks that has brought up +children know that there’s no hard and fast method in the world that’ll +suit every child. But them as never have think it’s all as plain and +easy as Rule of Three--just set your three terms down so fashion, and +the sum ‘ll work out correct. But flesh and blood don’t come under the +head of arithmetic and that’s where Marilla Cuthbert makes her mistake. +I suppose she’s trying to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by +dressing her as she does; but it’s more likely to cultivate envy and +discontent. I’m sure the child must feel the difference between her +clothes and the other girls’. But to think of Matthew taking notice of +it! That man is waking up after being asleep for over sixty years.” + +Marilla knew all the following fortnight that Matthew had something on +his mind, but what it was she could not guess, until Christmas Eve, when +Mrs. Lynde brought up the new dress. Marilla behaved pretty well on the +whole, although it is very likely she distrusted Mrs. Lynde’s diplomatic +explanation that she had made the dress because Matthew was afraid Anne +would find out about it too soon if Marilla made it. + +“So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and +grinning about to himself for two weeks, is it?” she said a little +stiffly but tolerantly. “I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I +must say I don’t think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three +good, warm, serviceable ones this fall, and anything more is sheer +extravagance. There’s enough material in those sleeves alone to make a +waist, I declare there is. You’ll just pamper Anne’s vanity, Matthew, +and she’s as vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she’ll be satisfied +at last, for I know she’s been hankering after those silly sleeves ever +since they came in, although she never said a word after the first. The +puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they’re +as big as balloons now. Next year anybody who wears them will have to go +through a door sideways.” + +Christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a very +mild December and people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but +just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure Avonlea. Anne +peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes. The firs +in the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches +and wild cherry trees were outlined in pearl; the plowed fields were +stretches of snowy dimples; and there was a crisp tang in the air that +was glorious. Anne ran downstairs singing until her voice reechoed +through Green Gables. + +“Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn’t it a lovely +Christmas? I’m so glad it’s white. Any other kind of Christmas doesn’t +seem real, does it? I don’t like green Christmases. They’re not +green--they’re just nasty faded browns and grays. What makes people call +them green? Why--why--Matthew, is that for me? Oh, Matthew!” + +Matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swathings and +held it out with a deprecatory glance at Marilla, who feigned to be +contemptuously filling the teapot, but nevertheless watched the scene +out of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air. + +Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty +it was--a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt +with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the +most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. +But the sleeves--they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and +above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of +brown-silk ribbon. + +“That’s a Christmas present for you, Anne,” said Matthew shyly. +“Why--why--Anne, don’t you like it? Well now--well now.” + +For Anne’s eyes had suddenly filled with tears. + +“Like it! Oh, Matthew!” Anne laid the dress over a chair and clasped +her hands. “Matthew, it’s perfectly exquisite. Oh, I can never thank you +enough. Look at those sleeves! Oh, it seems to me this must be a happy +dream.” + +“Well, well, let us have breakfast,” interrupted Marilla. “I must say, +Anne, I don’t think you needed the dress; but since Matthew has got it +for you, see that you take good care of it. There’s a hair ribbon Mrs. +Lynde left for you. It’s brown, to match the dress. Come now, sit in.” + +“I don’t see how I’m going to eat breakfast,” said Anne rapturously. +“Breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment. I’d rather +feast my eyes on that dress. I’m so glad that puffed sleeves are still +fashionable. It did seem to me that I’d never get over it if they went +out before I had a dress with them. I’d never have felt quite satisfied, +you see. It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give me the ribbon too. I feel +that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It’s at times like this I’m +sorry I’m not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will +be in future. But somehow it’s hard to carry out your resolutions when +irresistible temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra effort +after this.” + +When the commonplace breakfast was over Diana appeared, crossing the +white log bridge in the hollow, a gay little figure in her crimson +ulster. Anne flew down the slope to meet her. + +“Merry Christmas, Diana! And oh, it’s a wonderful Christmas. I’ve +something splendid to show you. Matthew has given me the loveliest +dress, with _such_ sleeves. I couldn’t even imagine any nicer.” + +“I’ve got something more for you,” said Diana breathlessly. “Here--this +box. Aunt Josephine sent us out a big box with ever so many things in +it--and this is for you. I’d have brought it over last night, but it +didn’t come until after dark, and I never feel very comfortable coming +through the Haunted Wood in the dark now.” + +Anne opened the box and peeped in. First a card with “For the Anne-girl +and Merry Christmas,” written on it; and then, a pair of the daintiest +little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows and glistening +buckles. + +“Oh,” said Anne, “Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming.” + +“I call it providential,” said Diana. “You won’t have to borrow Ruby’s +slippers now, and that’s a blessing, for they’re two sizes too big for +you, and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling. Josie Pye would +be delighted. Mind you, Rob Wright went home with Gertie Pye from the +practice night before last. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?” + +All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for the +hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held. + +The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The +little hall was crowded; all the performers did excellently well, but +Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in +the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny. + +“Oh, hasn’t it been a brilliant evening?” sighed Anne, when it was all +over and she and Diana were walking home together under a dark, starry +sky. + +“Everything went off very well,” said Diana practically. “I guess we +must have made as much as ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to +send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers.” + +“Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill to +think of it. Your solo was perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder than +you did when it was encored. I just said to myself, ‘It is my dear bosom +friend who is so honored.’” + +“Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one +was simply splendid.” + +“Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really +cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a million +eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I +was sure I couldn’t begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed +sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, +Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so +far away. I just felt like a parrot. It’s providential that I practiced +those recitations so often up in the garret, or I’d never have been able +to get through. Did I groan all right?” + +“Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely,” assured Diana. + +“I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was +splendid to think I had touched somebody’s heart. It’s so romantic +to take part in a concert, isn’t it? Oh, it’s been a very memorable +occasion indeed.” + +“Wasn’t the boys’ dialogue fine?” said Diana. “Gilbert Blythe was just +splendid. Anne, I do think it’s awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait +till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue +one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put +it in his breast pocket. There now. You’re so romantic that I’m sure you +ought to be pleased at that.” + +“It’s nothing to me what that person does,” said Anne loftily. “I simply +never waste a thought on him, Diana.” + +That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the +first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after +Anne had gone to bed. + +“Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them,” said Matthew +proudly. + +“Yes, she did,” admitted Marilla. “She’s a bright child, Matthew. And +she looked real nice too. I’ve been kind of opposed to this concert +scheme, but I suppose there’s no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I +was proud of Anne tonight, although I’m not going to tell her so.” + +“Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ‘fore she went +upstairs,” said Matthew. “We must see what we can do for her some of +these days, Marilla. I guess she’ll need something more than Avonlea +school by and by.” + +“There’s time enough to think of that,” said Marilla. “She’s only +thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a +big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne +look so tall. She’s quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do +for her will be to send her to Queen’s after a spell. But nothing need +be said about that for a year or two yet.” + +“Well now, it’ll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on,” said +Matthew. “Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking +over.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed + + +JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence +again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and +unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for +weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway +days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really +think she could. + +“I’m positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the +same again as it was in those olden days,” she said mournfully, as if +referring to a period of at least fifty years back. “Perhaps after a +while I’ll get used to it, but I’m afraid concerts spoil people for +everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. +Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be +sensible; but still, I don’t believe I’d really want to be a sensible +person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no +danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now +that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because +I’m tired. I simply couldn’t sleep last night for ever so long. I just +lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That’s one +splendid thing about such affairs--it’s so lovely to look back to them.” + +Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove +and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby +Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in +their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising +friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did +not “speak” for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright +that Julia Bell’s bow when she got up to recite made her think of a +chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes +would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared +that the Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had +retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to +do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, +because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about +her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was “licked”; consequently Moody +Spurgeon’s sister, Ella May, would not “speak” to Anne Shirley all the +rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work +in Miss Stacy’s little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness. + +The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so +little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by +way of the Birch Path. On Anne’s birthday they were tripping lightly +down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss +Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on “A +Winter’s Walk in the Woods,” and it behooved them to be observant. + +“Just think, Diana, I’m thirteen years old today,” remarked Anne in an +awed voice. “I can scarcely realize that I’m in my teens. When I woke +this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You’ve +been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn’t seem such a novelty +to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. +In two more years I’ll be really grown up. It’s a great comfort to think +that I’ll be able to use big words then without being laughed at.” + +“Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she’s fifteen,” + said Diana. + +“Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus,” said Anne disdainfully. +“She’s actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a +take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. But I’m afraid that is an +uncharitable speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable +speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think, don’t they? I +simply can’t talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech, +so I never mention her at all. You may have noticed that. I’m trying to +be as much like Mrs. Allan as I possibly can, for I think she’s perfect. +Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde says he just worships the ground she +treads on and she doesn’t really think it right for a minister to +set his affections so much on a mortal being. But then, Diana, even +ministers are human and have their besetting sins just like everybody +else. I had such an interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about besetting +sins last Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it’s proper +to talk about on Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is +imagining too much and forgetting my duties. I’m striving very hard +to overcome it and now that I’m really thirteen perhaps I’ll get on +better.” + +“In four more years we’ll be able to put our hair up,” said Diana. +“Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think +that’s ridiculous. I shall wait until I’m seventeen.” + +“If I had Alice Bell’s crooked nose,” said Anne decidedly, “I +wouldn’t--but there! I won’t say what I was going to because it was +extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose and +that’s vanity. I’m afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I +heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to +me. Oh, Diana, look, there’s a rabbit. That’s something to remember for +our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in +winter as in summer. They’re so white and still, as if they were asleep +and dreaming pretty dreams.” + +“I won’t mind writing that composition when its time comes,” sighed +Diana. “I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we’re to +hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a +story out of our own heads!” + +“Why, it’s as easy as wink,” said Anne. + +“It’s easy for you because you have an imagination,” retorted Diana, +“but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you +have your composition all done?” + +Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing +miserably. + +“I wrote it last Monday evening. It’s called ‘The Jealous Rival; or In +Death Not Divided.’ I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and +nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is +the kind of critic I like. It’s a sad, sweet story. I just cried like +a child while I was writing it. It’s about two beautiful maidens called +Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village +and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette +with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was +a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes.” + +“I never saw anybody with purple eyes,” said Diana dubiously. + +“Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the +common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I’ve found out what an +alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You +know so much more than you did when you were only twelve.” + +“Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?” asked Diana, who was +beginning to feel rather interested in their fate. + +“They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram +DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair +Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a +carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three +miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found +it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to +go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed +because I thought she’d likely be an authority on the subject, having so +many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when +Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan +that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, ‘What +do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?’ And Susan said, +‘Yes--no--I don’t know--let me see’--and there they were, engaged as +quick as that. But I didn’t think that sort of a proposal was a very +romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. +I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees, +although Ruby Gillis says it isn’t done nowadays. Geraldine accepted +him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a lot of trouble +with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look upon it as my +masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby necklace +and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for he was +immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over their +path. Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when +Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious, +especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her +affection for Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she +should never marry Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine’s friend +the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the bridge over a +rushing turbulent stream and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed +Geraldine over the brink with a wild, mocking, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ But Bertram +saw it all and he at once plunged into the current, exclaiming, ‘I +will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.’ But alas, he had forgotten he +couldn’t swim, and they were both drowned, clasped in each other’s arms. +Their bodies were washed ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the +one grave and their funeral was most imposing, Diana. It’s so much +more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for +Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic +asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime.” + +“How perfectly lovely!” sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew’s school +of critics. “I don’t see how you can make up such thrilling things out +of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was as good as yours.” + +“It would be if you’d only cultivate it,” said Anne cheeringly. “I’ve +just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and me have a story club all our +own and write stories for practice. I’ll help you along until you can +do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know. +Miss Stacy says so. Only we must take the right way. I told her about +the Haunted Wood, but she said we went the wrong way about it in that.” + +This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to Diana +and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include Jane Andrews +and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that their imaginations +needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it--although Ruby Gillis +opined that their admission would make it more exciting--and each member +had to produce one story a week. + +“It’s extremely interesting,” Anne told Marilla. “Each girl has to read +her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going to keep them +all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants. We each write +under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls +do pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much +lovemaking into her stories and you know too much is worse than too +little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly +when she had to read it out loud. Jane’s stories are extremely sensible. +Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time +she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get +rid of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but +that isn’t hard for I’ve millions of ideas.” + +“I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,” scoffed +Marilla. “You’ll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time +that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but +writing them is worse.” + +“But we’re so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla,” explained +Anne. “I insist upon that. All the good people are rewarded and all +the bad ones are suitably punished. I’m sure that must have a wholesome +effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read one of +my stories to him and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the moral was +excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong places. I like it better when +people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the pathetic +parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt +Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories. So +we copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine Barry +wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That +kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost +everybody died. But I’m glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club +is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that ought to be our +object in everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget +so often when I’m having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan +when I grow up. Do you think there is any prospect of it, Marilla?” + +“I shouldn’t say there was a great deal” was Marilla’s encouraging +answer. “I’m sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little +girl as you are.” + +“No; but she wasn’t always so good as she is now either,” said Anne +seriously. “She told me so herself--that is, she said she was a dreadful +mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I felt +so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla, +to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and +mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels +shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how +small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that +when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt’s pantry +and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn’t +have felt that way. I’d have thought that it was real noble of him to +confess it, and I’d have thought what an encouraging thing it would be +for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them +to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it. +That’s how I’d feel, Marilla.” + +“The way I feel at present, Anne,” said Marilla, “is that it’s high time +you had those dishes washed. You’ve taken half an hour longer than +you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk +afterwards.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit + + +MARILLA, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting, +realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight +that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to +the youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis +of her thoughts and feelings. She probably imagined that she was +thinking about the Aids and their missionary box and the new carpet +for the vestry room, but under these reflections was a harmonious +consciousness of red fields smoking into pale-purply mists in the +declining sun, of long, sharp-pointed fir shadows falling over the +meadow beyond the brook, of still, crimson-budded maples around a +mirrorlike wood pool, of a wakening in the world and a stir of hidden +pulses under the gray sod. The spring was abroad in the land and +Marilla’s sober, middle-aged step was lighter and swifter because of its +deep, primal gladness. + +Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its +network of trees and reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in +several little coruscations of glory. Marilla, as she picked her steps +along the damp lane, thought that it was really a satisfaction to know +that she was going home to a briskly snapping wood fire and a table +nicely spread for tea, instead of to the cold comfort of old Aid meeting +evenings before Anne had come to Green Gables. + +Consequently, when Marilla entered her kitchen and found the fire black +out, with no sign of Anne anywhere, she felt justly disappointed and +irritated. She had told Anne to be sure and have tea ready at five +o’clock, but now she must hurry to take off her second-best dress and +prepare the meal herself against Matthew’s return from plowing. + +“I’ll settle Miss Anne when she comes home,” said Marilla grimly, as +she shaved up kindlings with a carving knife and with more vim than was +strictly necessary. Matthew had come in and was waiting patiently for +his tea in his corner. “She’s gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing +stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never +thinking once about the time or her duties. She’s just got to be pulled +up short and sudden on this sort of thing. I don’t care if Mrs. Allan +does say she’s the brightest and sweetest child she ever knew. She may +be bright and sweet enough, but her head is full of nonsense and there’s +never any knowing what shape it’ll break out in next. Just as soon as +she grows out of one freak she takes up with another. But there! Here I +am saying the very thing I was so riled with Rachel Lynde for saying at +the Aid today. I was real glad when Mrs. Allan spoke up for Anne, for +if she hadn’t I know I’d have said something too sharp to Rachel before +everybody. Anne’s got plenty of faults, goodness knows, and far be it +from me to deny it. But I’m bringing her up and not Rachel Lynde, who’d +pick faults in the Angel Gabriel himself if he lived in Avonlea. Just +the same, Anne has no business to leave the house like this when I told +her she was to stay home this afternoon and look after things. I must +say, with all her faults, I never found her disobedient or untrustworthy +before and I’m real sorry to find her so now.” + +“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew, who, being patient and wise and, +above all, hungry, had deemed it best to let Marilla talk her wrath +out unhindered, having learned by experience that she got through +with whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely +argument. “Perhaps you’re judging her too hasty, Marilla. Don’t call her +untrustworthy until you’re sure she has disobeyed you. Mebbe it can all +be explained--Anne’s a great hand at explaining.” + +“She’s not here when I told her to stay,” retorted Marilla. “I reckon +she’ll find it hard to explain _that_ to my satisfaction. Of course I knew +you’d take her part, Matthew. But I’m bringing her up, not you.” + +It was dark when supper was ready, and still no sign of Anne, coming +hurriedly over the log bridge or up Lover’s Lane, breathless and +repentant with a sense of neglected duties. Marilla washed and put away +the dishes grimly. Then, wanting a candle to light her way down the +cellar, she went up to the east gable for the one that generally stood +on Anne’s table. Lighting it, she turned around to see Anne herself +lying on the bed, face downward among the pillows. + +“Mercy on us,” said astonished Marilla, “have you been asleep, Anne?” + +“No,” was the muffled reply. + +“Are you sick then?” demanded Marilla anxiously, going over to the bed. + +Anne cowered deeper into her pillows as if desirous of hiding herself +forever from mortal eyes. + +“No. But please, Marilla, go away and don’t look at me. I’m in the +depths of despair and I don’t care who gets head in class or writes the +best composition or sings in the Sunday-school choir any more. Little +things like that are of no importance now because I don’t suppose I’ll +ever be able to go anywhere again. My career is closed. Please, Marilla, +go away and don’t look at me.” + +“Did anyone ever hear the like?” the mystified Marilla wanted to know. +“Anne Shirley, whatever is the matter with you? What have you done? Get +right up this minute and tell me. This minute, I say. There now, what is +it?” + +Anne had slid to the floor in despairing obedience. + +“Look at my hair, Marilla,” she whispered. + +Accordingly, Marilla lifted her candle and looked scrutinizingly at +Anne’s hair, flowing in heavy masses down her back. It certainly had a +very strange appearance. + +“Anne Shirley, what have you done to your hair? Why, it’s _green!_” + +Green it might be called, if it were any earthly color--a queer, +dull, bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red +to heighten the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen +anything so grotesque as Anne’s hair at that moment. + +“Yes, it’s green,” moaned Anne. “I thought nothing could be as bad as +red hair. But now I know it’s ten times worse to have green hair. Oh, +Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am.” + +“I little know how you got into this fix, but I mean to find out,” said +Marilla. “Come right down to the kitchen--it’s too cold up here--and +tell me just what you’ve done. I’ve been expecting something queer for +some time. You haven’t got into any scrape for over two months, and I +was sure another one was due. Now, then, what did you do to your hair?” + +“I dyed it.” + +“Dyed it! Dyed your hair! Anne Shirley, didn’t you know it was a wicked +thing to do?” + +“Yes, I knew it was a little wicked,” admitted Anne. “But I thought it +was worth while to be a little wicked to get rid of red hair. I counted +the cost, Marilla. Besides, I meant to be extra good in other ways to +make up for it.” + +“Well,” said Marilla sarcastically, “if I’d decided it was worth while +to dye my hair I’d have dyed it a decent color at least. I wouldn’t have +dyed it green.” + +“But I didn’t mean to dye it green, Marilla,” protested Anne dejectedly. +“If I was wicked I meant to be wicked to some purpose. He said it would +turn my hair a beautiful raven black--he positively assured me that it +would. How could I doubt his word, Marilla? I know what it feels like +to have your word doubted. And Mrs. Allan says we should never suspect +anyone of not telling us the truth unless we have proof that they’re +not. I have proof now--green hair is proof enough for anybody. But I +hadn’t then and I believed every word he said _implicitly_.” + +“Who said? Who are you talking about?” + +“The peddler that was here this afternoon. I bought the dye from him.” + +“Anne Shirley, how often have I told you never to let one of those +Italians in the house! I don’t believe in encouraging them to come +around at all.” + +“Oh, I didn’t let him in the house. I remembered what you told me, and I +went out, carefully shut the door, and looked at his things on the step. +Besides, he wasn’t an Italian--he was a German Jew. He had a big box +full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to +make enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany. He +spoke so feelingly about them that it touched my heart. I wanted to buy +something from him to help him in such a worthy object. Then all at once +I saw the bottle of hair dye. The peddler said it was warranted to dye +any hair a beautiful raven black and wouldn’t wash off. In a trice I +saw myself with beautiful raven-black hair and the temptation was +irresistible. But the price of the bottle was seventy-five cents and I +had only fifty cents left out of my chicken money. I think the peddler +had a very kind heart, for he said that, seeing it was me, he’d sell it +for fifty cents and that was just giving it away. So I bought it, and as +soon as he had gone I came up here and applied it with an old hairbrush +as the directions said. I used up the whole bottle, and oh, Marilla, +when I saw the dreadful color it turned my hair I repented of being +wicked, I can tell you. And I’ve been repenting ever since.” + +“Well, I hope you’ll repent to good purpose,” said Marilla severely, +“and that you’ve got your eyes opened to where your vanity has led you, +Anne. Goodness knows what’s to be done. I suppose the first thing is to +give your hair a good washing and see if that will do any good.” + +Accordingly, Anne washed her hair, scrubbing it vigorously with soap and +water, but for all the difference it made she might as well have been +scouring its original red. The peddler had certainly spoken the truth +when he declared that the dye wouldn’t wash off, however his veracity +might be impeached in other respects. + +“Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?” questioned Anne in tears. “I can never +live this down. People have pretty well forgotten my other mistakes--the +liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a temper with +Mrs. Lynde. But they’ll never forget this. They will think I am not +respectable. Oh, Marilla, ‘what a tangled web we weave when first we +practice to deceive.’ That is poetry, but it is true. And oh, how Josie +Pye will laugh! Marilla, I _cannot_ face Josie Pye. I am the unhappiest +girl in Prince Edward Island.” + +Anne’s unhappiness continued for a week. During that time she went +nowhere and shampooed her hair every day. Diana alone of outsiders knew +the fatal secret, but she promised solemnly never to tell, and it may +be stated here and now that she kept her word. At the end of the week +Marilla said decidedly: + +“It’s no use, Anne. That is fast dye if ever there was any. Your hair +must be cut off; there is no other way. You can’t go out with it looking +like that.” + +Anne’s lips quivered, but she realized the bitter truth of Marilla’s +remarks. With a dismal sigh she went for the scissors. + +“Please cut it off at once, Marilla, and have it over. Oh, I feel that +my heart is broken. This is such an unromantic affliction. The girls in +books lose their hair in fevers or sell it to get money for some good +deed, and I’m sure I wouldn’t mind losing my hair in some such fashion +half so much. But there is nothing comforting in having your hair cut +off because you’ve dyed it a dreadful color, is there? I’m going to weep +all the time you’re cutting it off, if it won’t interfere. It seems such +a tragic thing.” + +Anne wept then, but later on, when she went upstairs and looked in the +glass, she was calm with despair. Marilla had done her work thoroughly +and it had been necessary to shingle the hair as closely as possible. +The result was not becoming, to state the case as mildly as may be. Anne +promptly turned her glass to the wall. + +“I’ll never, never look at myself again until my hair grows,” she +exclaimed passionately. + +Then she suddenly righted the glass. + +“Yes, I will, too. I’d do penance for being wicked that way. I’ll look +at myself every time I come to my room and see how ugly I am. And I +won’t try to imagine it away, either. I never thought I was vain about +my hair, of all things, but now I know I was, in spite of its being +red, because it was so long and thick and curly. I expect something will +happen to my nose next.” + +Anne’s clipped head made a sensation in school on the following Monday, +but to her relief nobody guessed the real reason for it, not even Josie +Pye, who, however, did not fail to inform Anne that she looked like a +perfect scarecrow. + +“I didn’t say anything when Josie said that to me,” Anne confided +that evening to Marilla, who was lying on the sofa after one of her +headaches, “because I thought it was part of my punishment and I ought +to bear it patiently. It’s hard to be told you look like a scarecrow +and I wanted to say something back. But I didn’t. I just swept her one +scornful look and then I forgave her. It makes you feel very virtuous +when you forgive people, doesn’t it? I mean to devote all my energies +to being good after this and I shall never try to be beautiful again. Of +course it’s better to be good. I know it is, but it’s sometimes so hard +to believe a thing even when you know it. I do really want to be good, +Marilla, like you and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy, and grow up to be a +credit to you. Diana says when my hair begins to grow to tie a black +velvet ribbon around my head with a bow at one side. She says she +thinks it will be very becoming. I will call it a snood--that sounds so +romantic. But am I talking too much, Marilla? Does it hurt your head?” + +“My head is better now. It was terrible bad this afternoon, though. +These headaches of mine are getting worse and worse. I’ll have to see +a doctor about them. As for your chatter, I don’t know that I mind +it--I’ve got so used to it.” + +Which was Marilla’s way of saying that she liked to hear it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. An Unfortunate Lily Maid + + +OF course you must be Elaine, Anne,” said Diana. “I could never have +the courage to float down there.” + +“Nor I,” said Ruby Gillis, with a shiver. “I don’t mind floating down +when there’s two or three of us in the flat and we can sit up. It’s fun +then. But to lie down and pretend I was dead--I just couldn’t. I’d die +really of fright.” + +“Of course it would be romantic,” conceded Jane Andrews, “but I know I +couldn’t keep still. I’d be popping up every minute or so to see where I +was and if I wasn’t drifting too far out. And you know, Anne, that would +spoil the effect.” + +“But it’s so ridiculous to have a redheaded Elaine,” mourned Anne. “I’m +not afraid to float down and I’d love to be Elaine. But it’s ridiculous +just the same. Ruby ought to be Elaine because she is so fair and has +such lovely long golden hair--Elaine had ‘all her bright hair streaming +down,’ you know. And Elaine was the lily maid. Now, a red-haired person +cannot be a lily maid.” + +“Your complexion is just as fair as Ruby’s,” said Diana earnestly, “and +your hair is ever so much darker than it used to be before you cut it.” + +“Oh, do you really think so?” exclaimed Anne, flushing sensitively with +delight. “I’ve sometimes thought it was myself--but I never dared to ask +anyone for fear she would tell me it wasn’t. Do you think it could be +called auburn now, Diana?” + +“Yes, and I think it is real pretty,” said Diana, looking admiringly at +the short, silky curls that clustered over Anne’s head and were held in +place by a very jaunty black velvet ribbon and bow. + +They were standing on the bank of the pond, below Orchard Slope, where +a little headland fringed with birches ran out from the bank; at its tip +was a small wooden platform built out into the water for the convenience +of fishermen and duck hunters. Ruby and Jane were spending the midsummer +afternoon with Diana, and Anne had come over to play with them. + +Anne and Diana had spent most of their playtime that summer on and about +the pond. Idlewild was a thing of the past, Mr. Bell having ruthlessly +cut down the little circle of trees in his back pasture in the spring. +Anne had sat among the stumps and wept, not without an eye to the +romance of it; but she was speedily consoled, for, after all, as she and +Diana said, big girls of thirteen, going on fourteen, were too old for +such childish amusements as playhouses, and there were more fascinating +sports to be found about the pond. It was splendid to fish for trout +over the bridge and the two girls learned to row themselves about in the +little flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for duck shooting. + +It was Anne’s idea that they dramatize Elaine. They had studied +Tennyson’s poem in school the preceding winter, the Superintendent of +Education having prescribed it in the English course for the Prince +Edward Island schools. They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to +pieces in general until it was a wonder there was any meaning at all +left in it for them, but at least the fair lily maid and Lancelot and +Guinevere and King Arthur had become very real people to them, and Anne +was devoured by secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot. +Those days, she said, were so much more romantic than the present. + +Anne’s plan was hailed with enthusiasm. The girls had discovered that if +the flat were pushed off from the landing place it would drift down +with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another +headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond. They had often +gone down like this and nothing could be more convenient for playing +Elaine. + +“Well, I’ll be Elaine,” said Anne, yielding reluctantly, for, although +she would have been delighted to play the principal character, yet +her artistic sense demanded fitness for it and this, she felt, her +limitations made impossible. “Ruby, you must be King Arthur and Jane +will be Guinevere and Diana must be Lancelot. But first you must be the +brothers and the father. We can’t have the old dumb servitor because +there isn’t room for two in the flat when one is lying down. We must +pall the barge all its length in blackest samite. That old black shawl +of your mother’s will be just the thing, Diana.” + +The black shawl having been procured, Anne spread it over the flat and +then lay down on the bottom, with closed eyes and hands folded over her +breast. + +“Oh, she does look really dead,” whispered Ruby Gillis nervously, +watching the still, white little face under the flickering shadows of +the birches. “It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you suppose it’s +really right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is +abominably wicked.” + +“Ruby, you shouldn’t talk about Mrs. Lynde,” said Anne severely. “It +spoils the effect because this is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde +was born. Jane, you arrange this. It’s silly for Elaine to be talking +when she’s dead.” + +Jane rose to the occasion. Cloth of gold for coverlet there was none, +but an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe was an excellent +substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the effect of +a tall blue iris placed in one of Anne’s folded hands was all that could +be desired. + +“Now, she’s all ready,” said Jane. “We must kiss her quiet brows +and, Diana, you say, ‘Sister, farewell forever,’ and Ruby, you say, +‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly +can. Anne, for goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine ‘lay as +though she smiled.’ That’s better. Now push the flat off.” + +The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old +embedded stake in the process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long +enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before +scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the lower +headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be +in readiness to receive the lily maid. + +For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her +situation to the full. Then something happened not at all romantic. The +flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine +to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall +of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her +barge through which the water was literally pouring. That sharp stake at +the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat. Anne +did not know this, but it did not take her long to realize that she was +in a dangerous plight. At this rate the flat would fill and sink long +before it could drift to the lower headland. Where were the oars? Left +behind at the landing! + +Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she was +white to the lips, but she did not lose her self-possession. There was +one chance--just one. + +“I was horribly frightened,” she told Mrs. Allan the next day, “and it +seemed like years while the flat was drifting down to the bridge and the +water rising in it every moment. I prayed, Mrs. Allan, most earnestly, +but I didn’t shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could +save me was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge +piles for me to climb up on it. You know the piles are just old tree +trunks and there are lots of knots and old branch stubs on them. It was +proper to pray, but I had to do my part by watching out and right well +I knew it. I just said, ‘Dear God, please take the flat close to a pile +and I’ll do the rest,’ over and over again. Under such circumstances you +don’t think much about making a flowery prayer. But mine was answered, +for the flat bumped right into a pile for a minute and I flung the scarf +and the shawl over my shoulder and scrambled up on a big providential +stub. And there I was, Mrs. Allan, clinging to that slippery old pile +with no way of getting up or down. It was a very unromantic position, +but I didn’t think about that at the time. You don’t think much about +romance when you have just escaped from a watery grave. I said a +grateful prayer at once and then I gave all my attention to holding on +tight, for I knew I should probably have to depend on human aid to get +back to dry land.” + +The flat drifted under the bridge and then promptly sank in midstream. +Ruby, Jane, and Diana, already awaiting it on the lower headland, saw it +disappear before their very eyes and had not a doubt but that Anne +had gone down with it. For a moment they stood still, white as sheets, +frozen with horror at the tragedy; then, shrieking at the tops of +their voices, they started on a frantic run up through the woods, never +pausing as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge. +Anne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw their flying +forms and heard their shrieks. Help would soon come, but meanwhile her +position was a very uncomfortable one. + +The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate lily +maid. Why didn’t somebody come? Where had the girls gone? Suppose they +had fainted, one and all! Suppose nobody ever came! Suppose she grew so +tired and cramped that she could hold on no longer! Anne looked at the +wicked green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and +shivered. Her imagination began to suggest all manner of gruesome +possibilities to her. + +Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her +arms and wrists another moment, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the +bridge in Harmon Andrews’s dory! + +Gilbert glanced up and, much to his amazement, beheld a little white +scornful face looking down upon him with big, frightened but also +scornful gray eyes. + +“Anne Shirley! How on earth did you get there?” he exclaimed. + +Without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and extended +his hand. There was no help for it; Anne, clinging to Gilbert Blythe’s +hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and furious, +in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe. It was +certainly extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances! + +“What has happened, Anne?” asked Gilbert, taking up his oars. + +“We were playing Elaine,” explained Anne frigidly, without even looking +at her rescuer, “and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge--I +mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. +The girls went for help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the +landing?” + +Gilbert obligingly rowed to the landing and Anne, disdaining assistance, +sprang nimbly on shore. + +“I’m very much obliged to you,” she said haughtily as she turned away. +But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand +on her arm. + +“Anne,” he said hurriedly, “look here. Can’t we be good friends? I’m +awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn’t mean to vex +you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it’s so long ago. I think +your hair is awfully pretty now--honest I do. Let’s be friends.” + +For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened +consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, +half-eager expression in Gilbert’s hazel eyes was something that was +very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the +bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering +determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her +recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had +called her “carrots” and had brought about her disgrace before the whole +school. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as +laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened by time +seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She would never forgive him! + +“No,” she said coldly, “I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert +Blythe; and I don’t want to be!” + +“All right!” Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his +cheeks. “I’ll never ask you to be friends again, Anne Shirley. And I +don’t care either!” + +He pulled away with swift defiant strokes, and Anne went up the steep, +ferny little path under the maples. She held her head very high, but +she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret. She almost wished she had +answered Gilbert differently. Of course, he had insulted her terribly, +but still--! Altogether, Anne rather thought it would be a relief to +sit down and have a good cry. She was really quite unstrung, for the +reaction from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt. + +Halfway up the path she met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond in +a state narrowly removed from positive frenzy. They had found nobody at +Orchard Slope, both Mr. and Mrs. Barry being away. Here Ruby Gillis had +succumbed to hysterics, and was left to recover from them as best she +might, while Jane and Diana flew through the Haunted Wood and across the +brook to Green Gables. There they had found nobody either, for Marilla +had gone to Carmody and Matthew was making hay in the back field. + +“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana, fairly falling on the former’s neck +and weeping with relief and delight, “oh, Anne--we thought--you +were--drowned--and we felt like murderers--because we had made--you +be--Elaine. And Ruby is in hysterics--oh, Anne, how did you escape?” + +“I climbed up on one of the piles,” explained Anne wearily, “and Gilbert +Blythe came along in Mr. Andrews’s dory and brought me to land.” + +“Oh, Anne, how splendid of him! Why, it’s so romantic!” said Jane, +finding breath enough for utterance at last. “Of course you’ll speak to +him after this.” + +“Of course I won’t,” flashed Anne, with a momentary return of her old +spirit. “And I don’t want ever to hear the word ‘romantic’ again, Jane +Andrews. I’m awfully sorry you were so frightened, girls. It is all my +fault. I feel sure I was born under an unlucky star. Everything I do +gets me or my dearest friends into a scrape. We’ve gone and lost your +father’s flat, Diana, and I have a presentiment that we’ll not be +allowed to row on the pond any more.” + +Anne’s presentiment proved more trustworthy than presentiments are apt +to do. Great was the consternation in the Barry and Cuthbert households +when the events of the afternoon became known. + +“Will you ever have any sense, Anne?” groaned Marilla. + +“Oh, yes, I think I will, Marilla,” returned Anne optimistically. A good +cry, indulged in the grateful solitude of the east gable, had soothed +her nerves and restored her to her wonted cheerfulness. “I think my +prospects of becoming sensible are brighter now than ever.” + +“I don’t see how,” said Marilla. + +“Well,” explained Anne, “I’ve learned a new and valuable lesson today. +Ever since I came to Green Gables I’ve been making mistakes, and each +mistake has helped to cure me of some great shortcoming. The affair of +the amethyst brooch cured me of meddling with things that didn’t belong +to me. The Haunted Wood mistake cured me of letting my imagination run +away with me. The liniment cake mistake cured me of carelessness in +cooking. Dyeing my hair cured me of vanity. I never think about my hair +and nose now--at least, very seldom. And today’s mistake is going to +cure me of being too romantic. I have come to the conclusion that it is +no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in +towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated +now. I feel quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me +in this respect, Marilla.” + +“I’m sure I hope so,” said Marilla skeptically. + +But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand on +Anne’s shoulder when Marilla had gone out. + +“Don’t give up all your romance, Anne,” he whispered shyly, “a little +of it is a good thing--not too much, of course--but keep a little of it, +Anne, keep a little of it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. An Epoch in Anne’s Life + + +ANNE was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover’s +Lane. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the +woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane +was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy +beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a +clear violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and +there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the +fir trees at evening. + +The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily, +repeating aloud the battle canto from _Marmion_--which had also been part +of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had +made them learn off by heart--and exulting in its rushing lines and the +clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines + + The stubborn spearsmen still made good + Their dark impenetrable wood, + +she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy +herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was to +behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and +looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be +told. But betray too eager curiosity she would not. + +“Isn’t this evening just like a purple dream, Diana? It makes me so glad +to be alive. In the mornings I always think the mornings are best; but +when evening comes I think it’s lovelier still.” + +“It’s a very fine evening,” said Diana, “but oh, I have such news, Anne. +Guess. You can have three guesses.” + +“Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and +Mrs. Allan wants us to decorate it,” cried Anne. + +“No. Charlotte’s beau won’t agree to that, because nobody ever has been +married in the church yet, and he thinks it would seem too much like a +funeral. It’s too mean, because it would be such fun. Guess again.” + +“Jane’s mother is going to let her have a birthday party?” + +Diana shook her head, her black eyes dancing with merriment. + +“I can’t think what it can be,” said Anne in despair, “unless it’s that +Moody Spurgeon MacPherson saw you home from prayer meeting last night. +Did he?” + +“I should think not,” exclaimed Diana indignantly. “I wouldn’t be likely +to boast of it if he did, the horrid creature! I knew you couldn’t guess +it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and Aunt Josephine +wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her for the +Exhibition. There!” + +“Oh, Diana,” whispered Anne, finding it necessary to lean up against a +maple tree for support, “do you really mean it? But I’m afraid Marilla +won’t let me go. She will say that she can’t encourage gadding about. +That was what she said last week when Jane invited me to go with them +in their double-seated buggy to the American concert at the White Sands +Hotel. I wanted to go, but Marilla said I’d be better at home learning +my lessons and so would Jane. I was bitterly disappointed, Diana. I felt +so heartbroken that I wouldn’t say my prayers when I went to bed. But I +repented of that and got up in the middle of the night and said them.” + +“I’ll tell you,” said Diana, “we’ll get Mother to ask Marilla. She’ll be +more likely to let you go then; and if she does we’ll have the time +of our lives, Anne. I’ve never been to an Exhibition, and it’s so +aggravating to hear the other girls talking about their trips. Jane and +Ruby have been twice, and they’re going this year again.” + +“I’m not going to think about it at all until I know whether I can go +or not,” said Anne resolutely. “If I did and then was disappointed, it +would be more than I could bear. But in case I do go I’m very glad my +new coat will be ready by that time. Marilla didn’t think I needed a new +coat. She said my old one would do very well for another winter and +that I ought to be satisfied with having a new dress. The dress is very +pretty, Diana--navy blue and made so fashionably. Marilla always makes +my dresses fashionably now, because she says she doesn’t intend to have +Matthew going to Mrs. Lynde to make them. I’m so glad. It is ever so +much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable. At least, it is +easier for me. I suppose it doesn’t make such a difference to naturally +good people. But Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla +bought a lovely piece of blue broadcloth, and it’s being made by a real +dressmaker over at Carmody. It’s to be done Saturday night, and I’m +trying not to imagine myself walking up the church aisle on Sunday in +my new suit and cap, because I’m afraid it isn’t right to imagine such +things. But it just slips into my mind in spite of me. My cap is so +pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day we were over at Carmody. It is +one of those little blue velvet ones that are all the rage, with gold +cord and tassels. Your new hat is elegant, Diana, and so becoming. When +I saw you come into church last Sunday my heart swelled with pride to +think you were my dearest friend. Do you suppose it’s wrong for us to +think so much about our clothes? Marilla says it is very sinful. But it +is such an interesting subject, isn’t it?” + +Marilla agreed to let Anne go to town, and it was arranged that +Mr. Barry should take the girls in on the following Tuesday. As +Charlottetown was thirty miles away and Mr. Barry wished to go and +return the same day, it was necessary to make a very early start. But +Anne counted it all joy, and was up before sunrise on Tuesday morning. +A glance from her window assured her that the day would be fine, for +the eastern sky behind the firs of the Haunted Wood was all silvery +and cloudless. Through the gap in the trees a light was shining in the +western gable of Orchard Slope, a token that Diana was also up. + +Anne was dressed by the time Matthew had the fire on and had the +breakfast ready when Marilla came down, but for her own part was much +too excited to eat. After breakfast the jaunty new cap and jacket were +donned, and Anne hastened over the brook and up through the firs to +Orchard Slope. Mr. Barry and Diana were waiting for her, and they were +soon on the road. + +It was a long drive, but Anne and Diana enjoyed every minute of it. It +was delightful to rattle along over the moist roads in the early red +sunlight that was creeping across the shorn harvest fields. The air was +fresh and crisp, and little smoke-blue mists curled through the valleys +and floated off from the hills. Sometimes the road went through woods +where maples were beginning to hang out scarlet banners; sometimes it +crossed rivers on bridges that made Anne’s flesh cringe with the old, +half-delightful fear; sometimes it wound along a harbor shore and passed +by a little cluster of weather-gray fishing huts; again it mounted to +hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty-blue sky could be +seen; but wherever it went there was much of interest to discuss. It was +almost noon when they reached town and found their way to “Beechwood.” + It was quite a fine old mansion, set back from the street in a seclusion +of green elms and branching beeches. Miss Barry met them at the door +with a twinkle in her sharp black eyes. + +“So you’ve come to see me at last, you Anne-girl,” she said. “Mercy, +child, how you have grown! You’re taller than I am, I declare. And +you’re ever so much better looking than you used to be, too. But I dare +say you know that without being told.” + +“Indeed I didn’t,” said Anne radiantly. “I know I’m not so freckled as +I used to be, so I’ve much to be thankful for, but I really hadn’t dared +to hope there was any other improvement. I’m so glad you think there is, +Miss Barry.” Miss Barry’s house was furnished with “great magnificence,” + as Anne told Marilla afterward. The two little country girls were rather +abashed by the splendor of the parlor where Miss Barry left them when +she went to see about dinner. + +“Isn’t it just like a palace?” whispered Diana. “I never was in Aunt +Josephine’s house before, and I’d no idea it was so grand. I just wish +Julia Bell could see this--she puts on such airs about her mother’s +parlor.” + +“Velvet carpet,” sighed Anne luxuriously, “and silk curtains! I’ve +dreamed of such things, Diana. But do you know I don’t believe I feel +very comfortable with them after all. There are so many things in this +room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is +one consolation when you are poor--there are so many more things you can +imagine about.” + +Their sojourn in town was something that Anne and Diana dated from for +years. From first to last it was crowded with delights. + +On Wednesday Miss Barry took them to the Exhibition grounds and kept +them there all day. + +“It was splendid,” Anne related to Marilla later on. “I never imagined +anything so interesting. I don’t really know which department was the +most interesting. I think I liked the horses and the flowers and the +fancywork best. Josie Pye took first prize for knitted lace. I was +real glad she did. And I was glad that I felt glad, for it shows I’m +improving, don’t you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice in Josie’s +success? Mr. Harmon Andrews took second prize for Gravenstein apples +and Mr. Bell took first prize for a pig. Diana said she thought it was +ridiculous for a Sunday-school superintendent to take a prize in pigs, +but I don’t see why. Do you? She said she would always think of it after +this when he was praying so solemnly. Clara Louise MacPherson took a +prize for painting, and Mrs. Lynde got first prize for homemade butter +and cheese. So Avonlea was pretty well represented, wasn’t it? Mrs. +Lynde was there that day, and I never knew how much I really liked her +until I saw her familiar face among all those strangers. There +were thousands of people there, Marilla. It made me feel dreadfully +insignificant. And Miss Barry took us up to the grandstand to see +the horse races. Mrs. Lynde wouldn’t go; she said horse racing was an +abomination and, she being a church member, thought it her bounden duty +to set a good example by staying away. But there were so many there I +don’t believe Mrs. Lynde’s absence would ever be noticed. I don’t think, +though, that I ought to go very often to horse races, because they _are_ +awfully fascinating. Diana got so excited that she offered to bet me +ten cents that the red horse would win. I didn’t believe he would, but +I refused to bet, because I wanted to tell Mrs. Allan all about +everything, and I felt sure it wouldn’t do to tell her that. It’s always +wrong to do anything you can’t tell the minister’s wife. It’s as good as +an extra conscience to have a minister’s wife for your friend. And I was +very glad I didn’t bet, because the red horse _did_ win, and I would have +lost ten cents. So you see that virtue was its own reward. We saw a man +go up in a balloon. I’d love to go up in a balloon, Marilla; it would +be simply thrilling; and we saw a man selling fortunes. You paid him ten +cents and a little bird picked out your fortune for you. Miss Barry gave +Diana and me ten cents each to have our fortunes told. Mine was that I +would marry a dark-complected man who was very wealthy, and I would go +across water to live. I looked carefully at all the dark men I saw after +that, but I didn’t care much for any of them, and anyhow I suppose +it’s too early to be looking out for him yet. Oh, it was a +never-to-be-forgotten day, Marilla. I was so tired I couldn’t sleep at +night. Miss Barry put us in the spare room, according to promise. It +was an elegant room, Marilla, but somehow sleeping in a spare room isn’t +what I used to think it was. That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m +beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a +child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.” + +Thursday the girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss +Barry took them to a concert in the Academy of Music, where a noted +prima donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a glittering vision of +delight. + +“Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn’t +even talk, so you may know what it was like. I just sat in enraptured +silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore white satin +and diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything +else. Oh, I can’t tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could +never be hard to be good any more. I felt like I do when I look up to +the stars. Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears. +I was so sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn’t see +how I was ever to return to common life again. She said she thought if +we went over to the restaurant across the street and had an ice cream +it might help me. That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found +it true. The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and +dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o’clock at night. +Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked +me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very +seriously before I could tell her what I really thought. So I thought it +over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And +I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn’t born for city life and +that I was glad of it. It’s nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant +restaurants at eleven o’clock at night once in a while; but as a regular +thing I’d rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind +of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that +the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook. I told Miss Barry +so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally +laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I +don’t think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn’t trying to be funny. +But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally.” + +Friday brought going-home time, and Mr. Barry drove in for the girls. + +“Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves,” said Miss Barry, as she bade +them good-bye. + +“Indeed we have,” said Diana. + +“And you, Anne-girl?” + +“I’ve enjoyed every minute of the time,” said Anne, throwing her arms +impulsively about the old woman’s neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek. +Diana would never have dared to do such a thing and felt rather aghast +at Anne’s freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and she stood on her +veranda and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back into her +big house with a sigh. It seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh young +lives. Miss Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the truth must +be told, and had never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued +people only as they were of service to her or amused her. Anne had +amused her, and consequently stood high in the old lady’s good graces. +But Miss Barry found herself thinking less about Anne’s quaint speeches +than of her fresh enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little +winning ways, and the sweetness of her eyes and lips. + +“I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she’d adopted +a girl out of an orphan asylum,” she said to herself, “but I guess she +didn’t make much of a mistake after all. If I’d a child like Anne in the +house all the time I’d be a better and happier woman.” + +Anne and Diana found the drive home as pleasant as the drive +in--pleasanter, indeed, since there was the delightful consciousness of +home waiting at the end of it. It was sunset when they passed through +White Sands and turned into the shore road. Beyond, the Avonlea hills +came out darkly against the saffron sky. Behind them the moon was rising +out of the sea that grew all radiant and transfigured in her light. +Every little cove along the curving road was a marvel of dancing +ripples. The waves broke with a soft swish on the rocks below them, and +the tang of the sea was in the strong, fresh air. + +“Oh, but it’s good to be alive and to be going home,” breathed Anne. + +When she crossed the log bridge over the brook the kitchen light of +Green Gables winked her a friendly welcome back, and through the open +door shone the hearth fire, sending out its warm red glow athwart the +chilly autumn night. Anne ran blithely up the hill and into the kitchen, +where a hot supper was waiting on the table. + +“So you’ve got back?” said Marilla, folding up her knitting. + +“Yes, and oh, it’s so good to be back,” said Anne joyously. “I could +kiss everything, even to the clock. Marilla, a broiled chicken! You +don’t mean to say you cooked that for me!” + +“Yes, I did,” said Marilla. “I thought you’d be hungry after such +a drive and need something real appetizing. Hurry and take off your +things, and we’ll have supper as soon as Matthew comes in. I’m glad +you’ve got back, I must say. It’s been fearful lonesome here without +you, and I never put in four longer days.” + +After supper Anne sat before the fire between Matthew and Marilla, and +gave them a full account of her visit. + +“I’ve had a splendid time,” she concluded happily, “and I feel that it +marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home.” + + + +CHAPTER XXX. The Queens Class Is Organized + + +MARILLA laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her +eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having +her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had +grown tired very often of late. + +It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around +Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing +red flames in the stove. + +Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that +joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled +from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped +to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. +Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and +rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling +were happening to her in cloudland--adventures that always turned out +triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual +life. + +Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been +suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling +of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself +easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn. +But she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection +all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love +made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy +feeling that it was rather sinful to set one’s heart so intensely on any +human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a +sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical +than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had +no idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that +Marilla was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy +and understanding. But she always checked the thought reproachfully, +remembering what she owed to Marilla. + +“Anne,” said Marilla abruptly, “Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when +you were out with Diana.” + +Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh. + +“Was she? Oh, I’m so sorry I wasn’t in. Why didn’t you call me, Marilla? +Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It’s lovely in the woods +now. All the little wood things--the ferns and the satin leaves and the +crackerberries--have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them +away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little +gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last +moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn’t say much about that, though. +Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about +imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on +Diana’s imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a +blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby +said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby +Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse +she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn’t do to +drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously +of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids +and live together forever. Diana hasn’t quite made up her mind though, +because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, +dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal +about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older +than we used to be that it isn’t becoming to talk of childish matters. +It’s such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took +all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and +talked to us about it. She said we couldn’t be too careful what habits +we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time +we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid +for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we +could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked +the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn, +Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and +form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as +possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be +properly developed. It’s perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, +Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy +here this afternoon?” + +“That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you’ll ever give me a chance +to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you.” + +“About me?” Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed: + +“Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly +I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school +yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian +history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour, +and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply +wild to know how it turned out--although I felt sure Ben Hur must win, +because it wouldn’t be poetical justice if he didn’t--so I spread the +history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and +my knee. I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, +while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it +that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at +once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so +reproachful-like. I can’t tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla, +especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur +away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and +talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I +was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly, +I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a +history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that +moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I +cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I’d never do such +a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking +at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned +out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn’t require that, and she forgave me +freely. So I think it wasn’t very kind of her to come up here to you +about it after all.” + +“Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your +guilty conscience that’s the matter with you. You have no business to be +taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was +a girl I wasn’t so much as allowed to look at a novel.” + +“Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it’s really such a religious +book?” protested Anne. “Of course it’s a little too exciting to be +proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never +read _any_ book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a +proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy +made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The +Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me, +and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the +blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome +book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I +didn’t mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was _agonizing_ +to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love +for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It’s really wonderful, Marilla, +what you can do when you’re truly anxious to please a certain person.” + +“Well, I guess I’ll light the lamp and get to work,” said Marilla. “I +see plainly that you don’t want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say. +You’re more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything +else.” + +“Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it,” cried Anne contritely. “I +won’t say another word--not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really +trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only +knew how many things I want to say and don’t, you’d give me some credit +for it. Please tell me, Marilla.” + +“Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students +who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s. She intends +to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came to ask +Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think +about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen’s and pass for a +teacher?” + +“Oh, Marilla!” Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. +“It’s been the dream of my life--that is, for the last six months, ever +since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance. But I +didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly +useless. I’d love to be a teacher. But won’t it be dreadfully expensive? +Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy +through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.” + +“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I +took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you +and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn +her own living whether she ever has to or not. You’ll always have a home +at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what +is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it’s just as well to be +prepared. So you can join the Queen’s class if you like, Anne.” + +“Oh, Marilla, thank you.” Anne flung her arms about Marilla’s waist and +looked up earnestly into her face. “I’m extremely grateful to you and +Matthew. And I’ll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a +credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I +can hold my own in anything else if I work hard.” + +“I dare say you’ll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright +and diligent.” Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what +Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity. +“You needn’t rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. +There is no hurry. You won’t be ready to try the Entrance for a year and +a half yet. But it’s well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, +Miss Stacy says.” + +“I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,” said Anne +blissfully, “because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody +should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says +we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a +worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you, +Marilla? I think it’s a very noble profession.” + +The Queen’s class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne +Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody +Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents +did not intend to send her to Queen’s. This seemed nothing short of a +calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the +croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when +the Queen’s class first remained in school for the extra lessons and +Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through +the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep +her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump +came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her +uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds +would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears. + +“But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of +death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go +out alone,” she said mournfully that night. “I thought how splendid it +would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, +too. But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. +Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but +there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the +Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby +are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their +ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets +through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote +her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid +a salary for teaching, but a husband won’t pay you anything, and growls +if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks +from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a +perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she +is just going to college for education’s sake, because she won’t have to +earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who +are living on charity--_they_ have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to +be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn’t be anything else with a name +like that to live up to. I hope it isn’t wicked of me, Marilla, but +really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. +He’s such a funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little +blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will +be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he’s +going to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde +says he’ll never succeed at that, because the Sloanes are all honest +people, and it’s only rascals that get on in politics nowadays.” + +“What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?” queried Marilla, seeing that Anne +was opening her Cæsar. + +“I don’t happen to know what Gilbert Blythe’s ambition in life is--if he +has any,” said Anne scornfully. + +There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the +rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt +that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was +a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly +acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete +with them. + +Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea +for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, +had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He +talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with +them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the +other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley +he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be +ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head +that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart +she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Lake +of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All at +once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old +resentment she had cherished against him was gone--gone just when she +most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every +incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel +the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last +spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten +without knowing it. But it was too late. + +And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should +ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn’t been +so proud and horrid! She determined to “shroud her feelings in deepest +oblivion,” and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so +successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as +he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his +retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed +Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly. + +Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and +studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace +of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be +learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be +practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at +the manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it, +spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once +more. + +Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen’s class, left behind in +school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and +meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that +Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they +had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged +and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term +was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them. + +“But you’ve done good work this past year,” Miss Stacy told them on the +last evening, “and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best +time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health +and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the +tug of war, you know--the last year before the Entrance.” + +“Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?” asked Josie Pye. + +Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of +the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask +it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors +running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was +not coming back the next year--that she had been offered a position +in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept. The +Queen’s class listened in breathless suspense for her answer. + +“Yes, I think I will,” said Miss Stacy. “I thought of taking another +school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth, +I’ve grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn’t leave +them. So I’ll stay and see you through.” + +“Hurrah!” said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried +away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he +thought about it for a week. + +“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Anne, with shining eyes. “Dear Stacy, it would +be perfectly dreadful if you didn’t come back. I don’t believe I could +have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came +here.” + +When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an +old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket +box. + +“I’m not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation,” she told +Marilla. “I’ve studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I’ve +pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first +book off by heart, even when the letters _are_ changed. I just feel tired +of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination run riot for +the summer. Oh, you needn’t be alarmed, Marilla. I’ll only let it run +riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time +this summer, for maybe it’s the last summer I’ll be a little girl. Mrs. +Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as I’ve done this +I’ll have to put on longer skirts. She says I’m all running to legs and +eyes. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live +up to them and be very dignified. It won’t even do to believe in fairies +then, I’m afraid; so I’m going to believe in them with all my whole +heart this summer. I think we’re going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby +Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there’s the Sunday +school picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr. Barry says +that some evening he’ll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel +and have dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. +Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling +sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests +in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high +life and she’ll never forget it to her dying day.” + +Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not +been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting +people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables. + +“Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday,” Marilla explained, +“and I didn’t feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he’s all right again now, +but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I’m anxious about +him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That’s easy +enough, for Matthew doesn’t go about looking for excitement by any means +and never did, but he’s not to do any very heavy work either and you +might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay +off your things, Rachel. You’ll stay to tea?” + +“Well, seeing you’re so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay” said +Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else. + +Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the +tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even +Mrs. Rachel’s criticism. + +“I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl,” admitted Mrs. +Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset. +“She must be a great help to you.” + +“She is,” said Marilla, “and she’s real steady and reliable now. I used +to be afraid she’d never get over her featherbrained ways, but she has +and I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her in anything now.” + +“I never would have thought she’d have turned out so well that first day +I was here three years ago,” said Mrs. Rachel. “Lawful heart, shall I +ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says to +Thomas, says I, ‘Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert ‘ll live to +rue the step she’s took.’ But I was mistaken and I’m real glad of it. I +ain’t one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to +own up that they’ve made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank +goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren’t no +wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in +this world, that’s what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules +that worked with other children. It’s nothing short of wonderful how +she’s improved these three years, but especially in looks. She’s a real +pretty girl got to be, though I can’t say I’m overly partial to that +pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana +Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis’s looks are real showy. But +somehow--I don’t know how it is but when Anne and them are together, +though she ain’t half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common +and overdone--something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus +alongside of the big, red peonies, that’s what.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. Where the Brook and River Meet + + +ANNE had her “good” summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana +fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover’s Lane +and the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded. +Marilla offered no objections to Anne’s gypsyings. The Spencervale +doctor who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the +house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over +sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to +Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was: + +“Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don’t +let her read books until she gets more spring into her step.” + +This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne’s death +warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a +result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and +frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart’s +content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a +step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full +of ambition and zest once more. + +“I feel just like studying with might and main,” she declared as she +brought her books down from the attic. “Oh, you good old friends, I’m +glad to see your honest faces once more--yes, even you, geometry. I’ve +had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I’m rejoicing as a +strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn’t Mr. +Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every +day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up +and then we’ll be left and have to turn to and break in another green +preacher. But I don’t see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, +Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we +have him. If I were a man I think I’d be a minister. They can have +such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be +thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers’ hearts. Why +can’t women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was +shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might +be female ministers in the States and she believed there was, but thank +goodness we hadn’t got to that stage in Canada yet and she hoped we +never would. But I don’t see why. I think women would make splendid +ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or +anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work. +I’m sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell +and I’ve no doubt she could preach too with a little practice.” + +“Yes, I believe she could,” said Marilla dryly. “She does plenty of +unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong +in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them.” + +“Marilla,” said Anne in a burst of confidence, “I want to tell you +something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me +terribly--on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about +such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I’m with you or Mrs. +Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what +would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I’m with +Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the +very thing she tells me I oughtn’t to do. I feel irresistibly tempted +to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you +think it’s because I’m really bad and unregenerate?” + +Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed. + +“If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very +effect on me. I sometimes think she’d have more of an influence for +good, as you say yourself, if she didn’t keep nagging people to do +right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging. +But there, I shouldn’t talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she +means well. There isn’t a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks +her share of work.” + +“I’m very glad you feel the same,” said Anne decidedly. “It’s so +encouraging. I shan’t worry so much over that after this. But I dare say +there’ll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the +time--things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and +there’s another right after. There are so many things to be thought over +and decided when you’re beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the +time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It’s a serious thing +to grow up, isn’t it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as +you and Matthew and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy I ought to grow up +successfully, and I’m sure it will be my own fault if I don’t. I feel +it’s a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I +don’t grow up right I can’t go back and begin over again. I’ve grown two +inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby’s party. I’m +so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty +and it was sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it +wasn’t really necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie +Pye has flounces on all her dresses. I know I’ll be able to study better +because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my +mind about that flounce.” + +“It’s worth something to have that,” admitted Marilla. + +Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager +for work once more. Especially did the Queen’s class gird up their loins +for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their +pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as “the Entrance,” + at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their +very shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to +haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoons +inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological +problems. When Anne had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably +at pass lists of the Entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe’s name was +blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all. + +But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was +as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of +thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored +knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne’s eager eyes. + + + “Hills peeped o’er hill and Alps on Alps arose.” + + +Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy’s tactful, careful, broadminded +guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for +themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree +that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed all +innovations on established methods rather dubiously. + +Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of +the Spencervale doctor’s dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. +The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one +or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh +drives and skating frolics galore. + +Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was +astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the +girl was taller than herself. + +“Why, Anne, how you’ve grown!” she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh +followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne’s inches. +The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this +tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the +proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much +as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful +sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting +with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the +weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it +and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through +her tears. + +“I was thinking about Anne,” she explained. “She’s got to be such a big +girl--and she’ll probably be away from us next winter. I’ll miss her +terrible.” + +“She’ll be able to come home often,” comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was +as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home +from Bright River on that June evening four years before. “The branch +railroad will be built to Carmody by that time.” + +“It won’t be the same thing as having her here all the time,” sighed +Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted. +“But there--men can’t understand these things!” + +There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change. +For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the +more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla +noticed and commented on this also. + +“You don’t chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as +many big words. What has come over you?” + +Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked +dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on +the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. + +“I don’t know--I don’t want to talk as much,” she said, denting her +chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. “It’s nicer to think dear, pretty +thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to +have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don’t want to use +big words any more. It’s almost a pity, isn’t it, now that I’m really +growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It’s fun to be almost +grown up in some ways, but it’s not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. +There’s so much to learn and do and think that there isn’t time for big +words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and +better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was +hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I +could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I’ve got used +to it now and I see it’s so much better.” + +“What has become of your story club? I haven’t heard you speak of it for +a long time.” + +“The story club isn’t in existence any longer. We hadn’t time for +it--and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be +writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy +sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she +won’t let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own +lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own +too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to +look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, +but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself +to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to.” + +“You’ve only two more months before the Entrance,” said Marilla. “Do you +think you’ll be able to get through?” + +Anne shivered. + +“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’ll be all right--and then I get +horribly afraid. We’ve studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us +thoroughly, but we mayn’t get through for all that. We’ve each got a +stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane’s is Latin, and +Ruby and Charlie’s is algebra, and Josie’s is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon +says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English +history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as +hard as we’ll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so +we’ll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me. +Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I’ll do if I don’t +pass.” + +“Why, go to school next year and try again,” said Marilla unconcernedly. + +“Oh, I don’t believe I’d have the heart for it. It would be such a +disgrace to fail, especially if Gil--if the others passed. And I get so +nervous in an examination that I’m likely to make a mess of it. I wish I +had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her.” + +Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring +world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things +upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. +There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the +Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently +to enjoy them. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out + + +WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss +Stacy’s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that +evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore +convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy’s farewell words must +have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips’s had been under similar +circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse +from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply. + +“It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn’t it?” she said +dismally. + +“You oughtn’t to feel half as badly as I do,” said Anne, hunting vainly +for a dry spot on her handkerchief. “You’ll be back again next winter, +but I suppose I’ve left the dear old school forever--if I have good +luck, that is.” + +“It won’t be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won’t be there, nor you nor Jane +nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn’t bear +to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven’t +we, Anne? It’s dreadful to think they’re all over.” + +Two big tears rolled down by Diana’s nose. + +“If you would stop crying I could,” said Anne imploringly. “Just as +soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off +again. As Mrs. Lynde says, ‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as +you can.’ After all, I dare say I’ll be back next year. This is one +of the times I _know_ I’m not going to pass. They’re getting alarmingly +frequent.” + +“Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave.” + +“Yes, but those exams didn’t make me nervous. When I think of the real +thing you can’t imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round +my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it’s so +unlucky. I am _not_ superstitious and I know it can make no difference. +But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.” + +“I do wish I was going in with you,” said Diana. “Wouldn’t we have +a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you’ll have to cram in the +evenings.” + +“No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says +it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not +think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It’s good advice, but +I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think. +Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her +Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up +_at least_ as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to +ask me to stay at Beechwood while I’m in town.” + +“You’ll write to me while you’re in, won’t you?” + +“I’ll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,” promised +Anne. + +“I’ll be haunting the post office Wednesday,” vowed Diana. + +Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted +the post office, as agreed, and got her letter. + + +“Dearest Diana” [wrote Anne], + +“Here it is Tuesday night and I’m writing this in the library at +Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and +wished so much you were with me. I couldn’t ‘cram’ because I’d promised +Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history +as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were +learned. + +“This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling +for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands +and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn’t slept +a wink and she didn’t believe I was strong enough to stand the grind +of the teacher’s course even if I did get through. There are times and +seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in +learning to like Josie Pye! + +“When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from +all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting +on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth +he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over +and over to steady his nerves and for pity’s sake not to interrupt +him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot +everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts +firmly in their proper place! + +“When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and +I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of +the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered if +I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear +across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English +examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled +around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment--Diana, I felt exactly +as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green +Gables--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began +beating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for I +knew I could do something with _that_ paper anyhow. + +“At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in +the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully +mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh, +Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it +it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my +Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would +recite it from now till tomorrow morning. + +“I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody +Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in +history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he +was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a +carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to +stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn’t. +Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon +I’m always glad I’m a girl and not his sister. + +“Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just +discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When +she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had +been with us. + +“Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as +Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I +fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I +think I’d rather it didn’t go on if I failed! + +“Yours devotedly, + +“Anne” + + +The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and +Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of +chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she +arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years. + +“You old darling, it’s perfectly splendid to see you back again. It +seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get +along?” + +“Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don’t know +whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment +that I didn’t. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the +dearest, loveliest spot in the world.” + +“How did the others do?” + +“The girls say they know they didn’t pass, but I think they did pretty +well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it! +Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he +failed in algebra. But we don’t really know anything about it and won’t +until the pass list is out. That won’t be for a fortnight. Fancy living +a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake +up until it is over.” + +Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so +she merely said: + +“Oh, you’ll pass all right. Don’t worry.” + +“I’d rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the +list,” flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that +success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of +Gilbert Blythe. + +With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the +examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the +street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne +had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly +that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a +little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew +that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she +even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question +and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert +would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if +she failed. + +But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted +to “pass high” for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew. +Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she “would beat the +whole Island.” That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to +hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she +would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew’s +kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she +felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient +grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations. + +At the end of the fortnight Anne took to “haunting” the post office +also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the +Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings +as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert +were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely +away. + +“I haven’t got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,” + he told Anne. “I’m just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me +suddenly whether I’ve passed or not.” + +When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began +to feel that she really couldn’t stand the strain much longer. Her +appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. +Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory +superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting +Anne’s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her +home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if +he hadn’t better vote Grit at the next election. + +But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, +for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the +world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with +flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the +stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink +from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the +spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying +down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a +fluttering newspaper in her hand. + +Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The +pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt +her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana +came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even +knocking, so great was her excitement. + +“Anne, you’ve passed,” she cried, “passed the _very first_--you and +Gilbert both--you’re ties--but your name is first. Oh, I’m so proud!” + +Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne’s bed, utterly +breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, +oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her +shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. +Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two +hundred! That moment was worth living for. + +“You did just splendidly, Anne,” puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently +to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a +word. “Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes +ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won’t be here +till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over +like a wild thing. You’ve all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon +and all, although he’s conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty +well--they’re halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through +with three marks to spare, but you’ll see she’ll put on as many airs as +if she’d led. Won’t Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel +like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were +me I know I’d go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but +you’re as calm and cool as a spring evening.” + +“I’m just dazzled inside,” said Anne. “I want to say a hundred things, +and I can’t find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I +did too, just once! I let myself think _once_, ‘What if I should come out +first?’ quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to +think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run +right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we’ll go up the road and +tell the good news to the others.” + +They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling +hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at +the lane fence. + +“Oh, Matthew,” exclaimed Anne, “I’ve passed and I’m first--or one of the +first! I’m not vain, but I’m thankful.” + +“Well now, I always said it,” said Matthew, gazing at the pass list +delightedly. “I knew you could beat them all easy.” + +“You’ve done pretty well, I must say, Anne,” said Marilla, trying to +hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel’s critical eye. But that +good soul said heartily: + +“I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in +saying it. You’re a credit to your friends, Anne, that’s what, and we’re +all proud of you.” + +That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious +little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open +window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude +and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it +thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when +she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and +beautiful as maidenhood might desire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. The Hotel Concert + + +PUT on your white organdy, by all means, Anne,” advised Diana +decidedly. + +They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only +twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless +sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into +burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet +summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway +voices and laughter. But in Anne’s room the blind was drawn and the lamp +lighted, for an important toilet was being made. + +The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that +night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to +the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept +in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and +dainty a nest as a young girl could desire. + +The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of +Anne’s early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams +had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented +them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that +softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of +pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade +tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few +good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy’s photograph occupied +the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh +flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly +perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no “mahogany +furniture,” but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a +cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, +a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes +painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a +low white bed. + +Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had +got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all +the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it +along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir +had been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a +violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; +and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to +recite. + +As Anne would have said at one time, it was “an epoch in her life,” and +she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in +the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his +Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather +than admit it, and said she didn’t think it was very proper for a lot +of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible +person with them. + +Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother +Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and +boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from +town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers. + +“Do you really think the organdy will be best?” queried Anne anxiously. +“I don’t think it’s as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it +certainly isn’t so fashionable.” + +“But it suits you ever so much better,” said Diana. “It’s so soft +and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too +dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you.” + +Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for +notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much +sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular +night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was +forever debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so +her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon +Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and +combed and adorned to the Queen’s taste. + +“Pull out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your sash; now +for your slippers. I’m going to braid your hair in two thick braids, +and tie them halfway up with big white bows--no, don’t pull out a single +curl over your forehead--just have the soft part. There is no way you do +your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a +Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose +just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for +you.” + +“Shall I put my pearl beads on?” asked Anne. “Matthew brought me a +string from town last week, and I know he’d like to see them on me.” + +Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically, +and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied +around Anne’s slim milk-white throat. + +“There’s something so stylish about you, Anne,” said Diana, with +unenvious admiration. “You hold your head with such an air. I suppose +it’s your figure. I am just a dumpling. I’ve always been afraid of it, +and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign +myself to it.” + +“But you have such dimples,” said Anne, smiling affectionately into the +pretty, vivacious face so near her own. “Lovely dimples, like little +dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream +will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn’t +complain. Am I all ready now?” + +“All ready,” assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt +figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a +much softer face. “Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla. +Doesn’t she look lovely?” + +Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt. + +“She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I +expect she’ll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew +with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy’s the +most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when +he got it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays. +Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for +Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything +off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable, +and Matthew plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear +of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on.” + +Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked, +with that + + “One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown” + +and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her +girl recite. + +“I wonder if it _is_ too damp for my dress,” said Anne anxiously. + +“Not a bit of it,” said Diana, pulling up the window blind. “It’s a +perfect night, and there won’t be any dew. Look at the moonlight.” + +“I’m so glad my window looks east into the sun rising,” said Anne, going +over to Diana. “It’s so splendid to see the morning coming up over those +long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It’s new every +morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest +sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don’t know how +I’ll get along without it when I go to town next month.” + +“Don’t speak of your going away tonight,” begged Diana. “I don’t want to +think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good time +this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you nervous?” + +“Not a bit. I’ve recited so often in public I don’t mind at all now. +I’ve decided to give ‘The Maiden’s Vow.’ It’s so pathetic. Laura Spencer +is going to give a comic recitation, but I’d rather make people cry than +laugh.” + +“What will you recite if they encore you?” + +“They won’t dream of encoring me,” scoffed Anne, who was not without her +own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling +Matthew all about it at the next morning’s breakfast table. “There are +Billy and Jane now--I hear the wheels. Come on.” + +Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him, +so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit +back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her +heart’s content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter +in Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round, +expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he +admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect +of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him. + +Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally +passing a sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and chuckled and never +could think of any reply until it was too late--contrived to enjoy the +drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full +of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed +and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of +light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert +committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performers’ dressing room +which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club, +among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified. Her +dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now +seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she thought, among all +the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her +pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her? +And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse +flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank +miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at +Green Gables. + +It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, +where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes, +the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down +in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid +time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink +silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout +lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne +through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so +scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl +kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the “country bumpkins” + and “rustic belles” in the audience, languidly anticipating “such fun” + from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she +would hate that white-lace girl to the end of life. + +Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the +hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a +wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems +on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice +and wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her +selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the +time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended +she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and +recite after that--never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if +she were only back at Green Gables! + +At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne--who did +not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace +girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied +therein if she had--got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. +She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each +other’s hands in nervous sympathy. + +Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as +she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience +as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely. +Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering--the rows of +ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of +wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches +at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of +friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless +critics. Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement +from her “rustic” efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and +miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness +came over her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would +have fled from the platform despite the humiliation which, she felt, +must ever after be her portion if she did so. + +But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the +audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending +forward with a smile on his face--a smile which seemed to Anne at once +triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert +was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and +of the effect produced by Anne’s slender white form and spiritual face +against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had +driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant +and taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if +she had. She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage +and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She _would +not_ fail before Gilbert Blythe--he should never be able to laugh at her, +never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her +recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of +the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored +to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness +she recited as she had never done before. When she finished there were +bursts of honest applause. Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing +with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken +by the stout lady in pink silk. + +“My dear, you did splendidly,” she puffed. “I’ve been crying like a +baby, actually I have. There, they’re encoring you--they’re bound to +have you back!” + +“Oh, I can’t go,” said Anne confusedly. “But yet--I must, or Matthew +will be disappointed. He said they would encore me.” + +“Then don’t disappoint Matthew,” said the pink lady, laughing. + +Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint, +funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The +rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her. + +When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady--who was the wife of +an American millionaire--took her under her wing, and introduced her +to everybody; and everybody was very nice to her. The professional +elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that +she had a charming voice and “interpreted” her selections beautifully. +Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had +supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and Jane +were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne, +but Billy was nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear +of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them, with the team, +however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into +the calm, white moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked +into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the firs. + +Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! +How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the +sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants +guarding enchanted coasts. + +“Hasn’t it been a perfectly splendid time?” sighed Jane, as they drove +away. “I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at +a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and +chicken salad every blessed day. I’m sure it would be ever so much +more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, +although I thought at first you were never going to begin. I think it +was better than Mrs. Evans’s.” + +“Oh, no, don’t say things like that, Jane,” said Anne quickly, “because +it sounds silly. It couldn’t be better than Mrs. Evans’s, you know, for +she is a professional, and I’m only a schoolgirl, with a little knack +of reciting. I’m quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty +well.” + +“I’ve a compliment for you, Anne,” said Diana. “At least I think it +must be a compliment because of the tone he said it in. Part of it +was anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me--such a +romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he +is a distinguished artist, and that her mother’s cousin in Boston is +married to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard +him say--didn’t we, Jane?--‘Who is that girl on the platform with the +splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.’ There now, +Anne. But what does Titian hair mean?” + +“Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess,” laughed Anne. “Titian +was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women.” + +“_Did_ you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They +were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?” + +“We _are_ rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why, we have sixteen years to our +credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more +or less. Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of +things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had +millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn’t change into any +of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl +and wear a sour look all your life, as if you’d been born turning up +your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so +stout and short that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, +with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully +unhappy sometime to have such a look. You _know_ you wouldn’t, Jane +Andrews!” + +“I _don’t_ know--exactly,” said Jane unconvinced. “I think diamonds would +comfort a person for a good deal.” + +“Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by +diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of +Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as +much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady’s jewels.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. A Queen’s Girl + + +THE next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was +getting ready to go to Queen’s, and there was much sewing to be done, +and many things to be talked over and arranged. Anne’s outfit was +ample and pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made +no objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More--one +evening she went up to the east gable with her arms full of a delicate +pale green material. + +“Anne, here’s something for a nice light dress for you. I don’t suppose +you really need it; you’ve plenty of pretty waists; but I thought maybe +you’d like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere +of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that +Jane and Ruby and Josie have got ‘evening dresses,’ as they call them, +and I don’t mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allan to help me +pick it in town last week, and we’ll get Emily Gillis to make it for +you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren’t to be equaled.” + +“Oh, Marilla, it’s just lovely,” said Anne. “Thank you so much. I don’t +believe you ought to be so kind to me--it’s making it harder every day +for me to go away.” + +The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings +as Emily’s taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthew’s +and Marilla’s benefit, and recited “The Maiden’s Vow” for them in the +kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful +motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green +Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child +in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking +out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to +Marilla’s own eyes. + +“I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla,” said Anne gaily +stooping over Marilla’s chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady’s +cheek. “Now, I call that a positive triumph.” + +“No, I wasn’t crying over your piece,” said Marilla, who would have +scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. “I just +couldn’t help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And +I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your +queer ways. You’ve grown up now and you’re going away; and you look so +tall and stylish and so--so--different altogether in that dress--as if +you didn’t belong in Avonlea at all--and I just got lonesome thinking it +all over.” + +“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined +face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s +eyes. “I’m not a bit changed--not really. I’m only just pruned down and +branched out. The real _me_--back here--is just the same. It won’t make a +bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I +shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear +Green Gables more and better every day of her life.” + +Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla’s faded one, and reached +out a hand to pat Matthew’s shoulder. Marilla would have given much just +then to have possessed Anne’s power of putting her feelings into words; +but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only put her +arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing +that she need never let her go. + +Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went +out-of-doors. Under the stars of the blue summer night he walked +agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars. + +“Well now, I guess she ain’t been much spoiled,” he muttered, proudly. +“I guess my putting in my oar occasional never did much harm after all. +She’s smart and pretty, and loving, too, which is better than all the +rest. She’s been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier mistake +than what Mrs. Spencer made--if it _was_ luck. I don’t believe it was any +such thing. It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I +reckon.” + +The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove +in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an +untearful practical one--on Marilla’s side at least--with Marilla. But +when Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at +White Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived +to enjoy herself tolerably well; while Marilla plunged fiercely into +unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of +heartache--the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away +in ready tears. But that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and +miserably conscious that the little gable room at the end of the +hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft +breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in +a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect +how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature. + +Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to +hurry off to the Academy. That first day passed pleasantly enough in a +whirl of excitement, meeting all the new students, learning to know the +professors by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne +intended taking up the Second Year work being advised to do so by Miss +Stacy; Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same. This meant getting a +First Class teacher’s license in one year instead of two, if they were +successful; but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, +Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the +stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work. +Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in +a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the +tall, brown-haired boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion +she did, did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. +Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old +rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what +to do if it had been lacking. + +“I wouldn’t feel comfortable without it,” she thought. “Gilbert looks +awfully determined. I suppose he’s making up his mind, here and now, to +win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never noticed it before. +I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for First Class, too. I suppose I +won’t feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, +though. I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. +It’s really an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Diana that +no Queen’s girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear +to me as she is; but I’ve lots of second-best affections to bestow. I +like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist. +She looks vivid and red-rosy; there’s that pale, fair one gazing out of +the window. She has lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two +about dreams. I’d like to know them both--know them well--well enough to +walk with my arm about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just +now I don’t know them and they don’t know me, and probably don’t want to +know me particularly. Oh, it’s lonesome!” + +It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom +that night at twilight. She was not to board with the other girls, who +all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss Josephine Barry +would have liked to board her, but Beechwood was so far from the +Academy that it was out of the question; so Miss Barry hunted up a +boarding-house, assuring Matthew and Marilla that it was the very place +for Anne. + +“The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman,” explained Miss Barry. +“Her husband was a British officer, and she is very careful what sort +of boarders she takes. Anne will not meet with any objectionable persons +under her roof. The table is good, and the house is near the Academy, in +a quiet neighborhood.” + +All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did +not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized +upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its +dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty +book-case; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of +her own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant +consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing in +the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the +slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a +vast starry sky, and the light from Diana’s window shining out through +the gap in the trees. Here there was nothing of this; Anne knew that +outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone +wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand +lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry, +and fought against it. + +“I _won’t_ cry. It’s silly--and weak--there’s the third tear splashing +down by my nose. There are more coming! I must think of something funny +to stop them. But there’s nothing funny except what is connected with +Avonlea, and that only makes things worse--four--five--I’m going home +next Friday, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew is nearly +home by now--and Marilla is at the gate, looking down the lane for +him--six--seven--eight--oh, there’s no use in counting them! They’re +coming in a flood presently. I can’t cheer up--I don’t _want_ to cheer up. +It’s nicer to be miserable!” + +The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye appeared +at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that +there had never been much love lost between her and Josie. As a part of +Avonlea life even a Pye was welcome. + +“I’m so glad you came up,” Anne said sincerely. + +“You’ve been crying,” remarked Josie, with aggravating pity. “I suppose +you’re homesick--some people have so little self-control in that +respect. I’ve no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Town’s too +jolly after that poky old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so +long. You shouldn’t cry, Anne; it isn’t becoming, for your nose and eyes +get red, and then you seem _all_ red. I’d a perfectly scrumptious time in +the Academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His moustache +would give you kerwollowps of the heart. Have you anything eatable +around, Anne? I’m literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely Marilla ‘d +load you up with cake. That’s why I called round. Otherwise I’d have +gone to the park to hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He boards +same place as I do, and he’s a sport. He noticed you in class today, and +asked me who the red-headed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that +the Cuthberts had adopted, and nobody knew very much about what you’d +been before that.” + +Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more +satisfactory than Josie Pye’s companionship when Jane and Ruby appeared, +each with an inch of Queen’s color ribbon--purple and scarlet--pinned +proudly to her coat. As Josie was not “speaking” to Jane just then she +had to subside into comparative harmlessness. + +“Well,” said Jane with a sigh, “I feel as if I’d lived many moons since +the morning. I ought to be home studying my Virgil--that horrid old +professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow. But I simply +couldn’t settle down to study tonight. Anne, methinks I see the +traces of tears. If you’ve been crying _do_ own up. It will restore my +self-respect, for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along. I +don’t mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey, too. Cake? +You’ll give me a teeny piece, won’t you? Thank you. It has the real +Avonlea flavor.” + +Ruby, perceiving the Queen’s calendar lying on the table, wanted to know +if Anne meant to try for the gold medal. + +Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it. + +“Oh, that reminds me,” said Josie, “Queen’s is to get one of the Avery +scholarships after all. The word came today. Frank Stockley told me--his +uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It will be announced +in the Academy tomorrow.” + +An Avery scholarship! Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the +horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before +Josie had told the news Anne’s highest pinnacle of aspiration had been +a teacher’s provincial license, First Class, at the end of the year, and +perhaps the medal! But now in one moment Anne saw herself winning +the Avery scholarship, taking an Arts course at Redmond College, and +graduating in a gown and mortar board, before the echo of Josie’s words +had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt +that here her foot was on native heath. + +A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his +fortune to endow a large number of scholarships to be distributed +among the various high schools and academies of the Maritime Provinces, +according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt +whether one would be allotted to Queen’s, but the matter was settled at +last, and at the end of the year the graduate who made the highest mark +in English and English Literature would win the scholarship--two hundred +and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder +that Anne went to bed that night with tingling cheeks! + +“I’ll win that scholarship if hard work can do it,” she resolved. +“Wouldn’t Matthew be proud if I got to be a B.A.? Oh, it’s delightful to +have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to +be any end to them--that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain +to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does +make life so interesting.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen’s + + +ANNE’S homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her +weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea +students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday +night. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on +hand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. +Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in +the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, +were the best and dearest hours in the whole week. + +Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her +satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinking +herself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as long +as her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had +to take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, +a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great +deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of +life frankly. + +“But I shouldn’t think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,” + whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would not +have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking, +too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert +to jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies and +ambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem +the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed. + +There was no silly sentiment in Anne’s ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys +were to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible good +comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have cared +how many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a genius +for friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague +consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing +to round out one’s conceptions of companionship and furnish broader +standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her +feelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thought +that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over the +crisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many and +merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening +around them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever +young fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination to +get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane +Andrews that she didn’t understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said; +he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit on +and for her part she didn’t think it any fun to be bothering about books +and that sort of thing when you didn’t have to. Frank Stockley had lots +more dash and go, but then he wasn’t half as good-looking as Gilbert and +she really couldn’t decide which she liked best! + +In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about +her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the +“rose-red” girl, Stella Maynard, and the “dream girl,” Priscilla Grant, +she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking +maiden to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the +vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies, +as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne’s own. + +After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home +on Fridays and settled down to hard work. By this time all the Queen’s +scholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks and +the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of +individuality. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was +admitted that the medal contestants had practically narrowed down +to three--Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Avery +scholarship was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possible +winner. The bronze medal for mathematics was considered as good as +won by a fat, funny little up-country boy with a bumpy forehead and a +patched coat. + +Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in the +Second Year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty, with +small but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Marr was +admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes +of hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews--plain, plodding, conscientious +Jane--carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even Josie +Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady in +attendance at Queen’s. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy’s old +pupils held their own in the wider arena of the academical course. + +Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense +as it had ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known in the +class at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no +longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the +proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It +would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would be +insupportable if she did not. + +In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. +Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her +Sunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, +as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the +vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the +latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical +old lady. + +“That Anne-girl improves all the time,” she said. “I get tired of other +girls--there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne +has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while +it lasts. I don’t know that she is as amusing as she was when she was +a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love +them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.” + +Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in +Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where +snow-wreaths lingered; and the “mist of green” was on the woods and in +the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen’s students thought and +talked only of examinations. + +“It doesn’t seem possible that the term is nearly over,” said Anne. +“Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to--a whole winter +of studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up next +week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but +when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and +the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don’t seem half so +important.” + +Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view +of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important +indeed--far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was +all very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her +moments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on +them--as the girls truly thought theirs did--you could not regard them +philosophically. + +“I’ve lost seven pounds in the last two weeks,” sighed Jane. “It’s no +use to say don’t worry. I _will_ worry. Worrying helps you some--it +seems as if you were doing something when you’re worrying. It would be +dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen’s all winter +and spending so much money.” + +“_I_ don’t care,” said Josie Pye. “If I don’t pass this year I’m coming +back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says +that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal +and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship.” + +“That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie,” laughed Anne, “but just +now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out +all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little ferns +are poking their heads up in Lovers’ Lane, it’s not a great deal of +difference whether I win the Avery or not. I’ve done my best and I begin +to understand what is meant by the ‘joy of the strife.’ Next to trying +and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don’t talk +about exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses +and picture to yourself what it must look like over the purply-dark +beech-woods back of Avonlea.” + +“What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?” asked Ruby +practically. + +Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a side +eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her soft +cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, +looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome +of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden +tissue of youth’s own optimism. All the Beyond was hers with its +possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years--each year a rose of +promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream + + +ON the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be +posted on the bulletin board at Queen’s, Anne and Jane walked down the +street together. Jane was smiling and happy; examinations were over +and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further +considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions +and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For +we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although +ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but +exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. +Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had +won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not +seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time. + +“Of course you’ll win one of them anyhow,” said Jane, who couldn’t +understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise. + +“I have not hope of the Avery,” said Anne. “Everybody says Emily Clay +will win it. And I’m not going to march up to that bulletin board and +look at it before everybody. I haven’t the moral courage. I’m going +straight to the girls’ dressing room. You must read the announcements +and then come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name of our +old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just +say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do _don’t_ +sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane.” + +Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for +such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen’s they +found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on +their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, “Hurrah for +Blythe, Medalist!” + +For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. +So she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry--he +had been so sure she would win. + +And then! + +Somebody called out: + +“Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!” + +“Oh, Anne,” gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls’ dressing room amid +hearty cheers. “Oh, Anne I’m so proud! Isn’t it splendid?” + +And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a +laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands +shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all +she managed to whisper to Jane: + +“Oh, won’t Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home +right away.” + +Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held +in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays +read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made. + +Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student +on the platform--a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed +cheeks and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and +whispered about as the Avery winner. + +“Reckon you’re glad we kept her, Marilla?” whispered Matthew, speaking +for the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished +her essay. + +“It’s not the first time I’ve been glad,” retorted Marilla. “You do like +to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert.” + +Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked +Marilla in the back with her parasol. + +“Aren’t you proud of that Anne-girl? I am,” she said. + +Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had +not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another +day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. +Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where +Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked +about her and drew a long breath of happiness. + +“Oh, Diana, it’s so good to be back again. It’s so good to see those +pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--and that white orchard and +the old Snow Queen. Isn’t the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea +rose--why, it’s a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it’s _good_ +to see you again, Diana!” + +“I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me,” said +Diana reproachfully. “Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were +_infatuated_ with her.” + +Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded “June lilies” of her +bouquet. + +“Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are +that one, Diana,” she said. “I love you more than ever--and I’ve so many +things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit +here and look at you. I’m tired, I think--tired of being studious and +ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the +orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing.” + +“You’ve done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won’t be teaching now that +you’ve won the Avery?” + +“No. I’m going to Redmond in September. Doesn’t it seem wonderful? I’ll +have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three +glorious, golden months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. +Isn’t it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and +Josie Pye?” + +“The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,” said +Diana. “Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father +can’t afford to send him to college next year, after all, so he means +to earn his own way through. I expect he’ll get the school here if Miss +Ames decides to leave.” + +Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not +known this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond +also. What would she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not +work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be +rather flat without her friend the enemy? + +The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was +not looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year +before. + +“Marilla,” she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, “is Matthew quite +well?” + +“No, he isn’t,” said Marilla in a troubled tone. “He’s had some real +bad spells with his heart this spring and he won’t spare himself a mite. +I’ve been real worried about him, but he’s some better this while back +and we’ve got a good hired man, so I’m hoping he’ll kind of rest and +pick up. Maybe he will now you’re home. You always cheer him up.” + +Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla’s face in her hands. + +“You are not looking as well yourself as I’d like to see you, Marilla. +You look tired. I’m afraid you’ve been working too hard. You must take +a rest, now that I’m home. I’m just going to take this one day off to +visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will +be your turn to be lazy while I do the work.” + +Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl. + +“It’s not the work--it’s my head. I’ve got a pain so often now--behind +my eyes. Doctor Spencer’s been fussing with glasses, but they don’t do +me any good. There is a distinguished oculist coming to the Island the +last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I’ll have to. +I can’t read or sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you’ve done real +well at Queen’s I must say. To take First Class License in one year and +win the Avery scholarship--well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before +a fall and she doesn’t believe in the higher education of women at all; +she says it unfits them for woman’s true sphere. I don’t believe a word +of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me--did you hear anything about the +Abbey Bank lately, Anne?” + +“I heard it was shaky,” answered Anne. “Why?” + +“That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said +there was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have +saved is in that bank--every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the +Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of +father’s and he’d always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him +at the head of it was good enough for anybody.” + +“I think he has only been its nominal head for many years,” said +Anne. “He is a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the +institution.” + +“Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money +right out and he said he’d think of it. But Mr. Russell told him +yesterday that the bank was all right.” + +Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She +never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free +from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours +in the orchard; she went to the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Violet +Vale; she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; +and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through +Lovers’ Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through +with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill +gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and +erect, suited her springing step to his. + +“You’ve been working too hard today, Matthew,” she said reproachfully. +“Why won’t you take things easier?” + +“Well now, I can’t seem to,” said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate +to let the cows through. “It’s only that I’m getting old, Anne, and keep +forgetting it. Well, well, I’ve always worked pretty hard and I’d rather +drop in harness.” + +“If I had been the boy you sent for,” said Anne wistfully, “I’d be able +to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it +in my heart to wish I had been, just for that.” + +“Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,” said Matthew +patting her hand. “Just mind you that--rather than a dozen boys. Well +now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It +was a girl--my girl--my girl that I’m proud of.” + +He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the +memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a +long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the +future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; +the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always +remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. +It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is +ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has +been laid upon it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death + + +MATTHEW--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?” + +It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through +the hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it was long before Anne +could love the sight or odor of white narcissus again,--in time to hear +her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper +in his hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her +flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as +Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him Matthew +had fallen across the threshold. + +“He’s fainted,” gasped Marilla. “Anne, run for Martin--quick, quick! +He’s at the barn.” + +Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office, +started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to +send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand, +came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore +Matthew to consciousness. + +Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her +ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and +the tears came into her eyes. + +“Oh, Marilla,” she said gravely. “I don’t think--we can do anything for +him.” + +“Mrs. Lynde, you don’t think--you can’t think Matthew is--is--” Anne +could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid. + +“Child, yes, I’m afraid of it. Look at his face. When you’ve seen that +look as often as I have you’ll know what it means.” + +Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great +Presence. + +When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and +probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The +secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held +and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained +an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank. + +The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and +neighbors thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness +for the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert +was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had +fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned. + +When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house was +hushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin, +his long gray hair framing his placid face on which there was a little +kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were +flowers about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had +planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew +had always had a secret, wordless love. Anne had gathered them and +brought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white +face. It was the last thing she could do for him. + +The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going to +the east gable, where Anne was standing at her window, said gently: + +“Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?” + +“Thank you, Diana.” Anne looked earnestly into her friend’s face. “I +think you won’t misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I’m not +afraid. I haven’t been alone one minute since it happened--and I want to +be. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can’t +realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can’t be dead; and +the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and +I’ve had this horrible dull ache ever since.” + +Diana did not quite understand. Marilla’s impassioned grief, breaking +all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush, +she could comprehend better than Anne’s tearless agony. But she went +away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow. + +Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her a +terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she had +loved so much and who had been so kind to her, Matthew who had walked +with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below +with that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when +she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed, looking up to the +stars beyond the hills--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of +misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the +day’s pain and excitement. + +In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about +her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of +sorrow. She could see Matthew’s face smiling at her as he had smiled +when they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voice +saying, “My girl--my girl that I’m proud of.” Then the tears came and +Anne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her. + +“There--there--don’t cry so, dearie. It can’t bring him back. +It--it--isn’t right to cry so. I knew that today, but I couldn’t help +it then. He’d always been such a good, kind brother to me--but God knows +best.” + +“Oh, just let me cry, Marilla,” sobbed Anne. “The tears don’t hurt me +like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your +arm round me--so. I couldn’t have Diana stay, she’s good and kind and +sweet--but it’s not her sorrow--she’s outside of it and she couldn’t +come close enough to my heart to help me. It’s our sorrow--yours and +mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?” + +“We’ve got each other, Anne. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t +here--if you’d never come. Oh, Anne, I know I’ve been kind of strict and +harsh with you maybe--but you mustn’t think I didn’t love you as well as +Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It’s never +been easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this +it’s easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood +and you’ve been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables.” + +Two days afterwards they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead +threshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had +loved and the trees he had planted; and then Avonlea settled back to its +usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old +groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, +although always with the aching sense of “loss in all familiar things.” + Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so--that +they _could_ go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like +shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs +and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of +gladness when she saw them--that Diana’s visits were pleasant to her +and that Diana’s merry words and ways moved her to laughter and +smiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and +friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her +heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices. + +“It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in +these things now that he has gone,” she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan +one evening when they were together in the manse garden. “I miss him so +much--all the time--and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very +beautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something +funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could +never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn’t to.” + +“When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know +that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you,” said Mrs. +Allan gently. “He is just away now; and he likes to know it just the +same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing +influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. +I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that +anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share +the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our +sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.” + +“I was down to the graveyard to plant a rosebush on Matthew’s grave +this afternoon,” said Anne dreamily. “I took a slip of the little white +Scotch rosebush his mother brought out from Scotland long ago; Matthew +always liked those roses the best--they were so small and sweet on +their thorny stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by his +grave--as if I were doing something that must please him in taking it +there to be near him. I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhaps +the souls of all those little white roses that he has loved so many +summers were all there to meet him. I must go home now. Marilla is all +alone and she gets lonely at twilight.” + +“She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college,” + said Mrs. Allan. + +Anne did not reply; she said good night and went slowly back to green +Gables. Marilla was sitting on the front door-steps and Anne sat down +beside her. The door was open behind them, held back by a big pink conch +shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions. + +Anne gathered some sprays of pale-yellow honeysuckle and put them in +her hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerial +benediction, above her every time she moved. + +“Doctor Spencer was here while you were away,” Marilla said. “He says +that the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists that I must +go in and have my eyes examined. I suppose I’d better go and have it +over. I’ll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kind +of glasses to suit my eyes. You won’t mind staying here alone while I’m +away, will you? Martin will have to drive me in and there’s ironing and +baking to do.” + +“I shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shall +attend to the ironing and baking beautifully--you needn’t fear that I’ll +starch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with liniment.” + +Marilla laughed. + +“What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You were +always getting into scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Do +you mind the time you dyed your hair?” + +“Yes, indeed. I shall never forget it,” smiled Anne, touching the heavy +braid of hair that was wound about her shapely head. “I laugh a little +now sometimes when I think what a worry my hair used to be to me--but I +don’t laugh _much_, because it was a very real trouble then. I did suffer +terribly over my hair and my freckles. My freckles are really gone; and +people are nice enough to tell me my hair is auburn now--all but Josie +Pye. She informed me yesterday that she really thought it was redder +than ever, or at least my black dress made it look redder, and she asked +me if people who had red hair ever got used to having it. Marilla, I’ve +almost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pye. I’ve made what I +would once have called a heroic effort to like her, but Josie Pye won’t +_be_ liked.” + +“Josie is a Pye,” said Marilla sharply, “so she can’t help being +disagreeable. I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in +society, but I must say I don’t know what it is any more than I know the +use of thistles. Is Josie going to teach?” + +“No, she is going back to Queen’s next year. So are Moody Spurgeon and +Charlie Sloane. Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they have both got +schools--Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at some place up west.” + +“Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too, isn’t he?” + +“Yes”--briefly. + +“What a nice-looking fellow he is,” said Marilla absently. “I saw him in +church last Sunday and he seemed so tall and manly. He looks a lot like +his father did at the same age. John Blythe was a nice boy. We used to +be real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau.” + +Anne looked up with swift interest. + +“Oh, Marilla--and what happened?--why didn’t you--” + +“We had a quarrel. I wouldn’t forgive him when he asked me to. I meant +to, after awhile--but I was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish him +first. He never came back--the Blythes were all mighty independent. But +I always felt--rather sorry. I’ve always kind of wished I’d forgiven him +when I had the chance.” + +“So you’ve had a bit of romance in your life, too,” said Anne softly. + +“Yes, I suppose you might call it that. You wouldn’t think so to look at +me, would you? But you never can tell about people from their outsides. +Everybody has forgot about me and John. I’d forgotten myself. But it all +came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday.” + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road + + +MARILLA went to town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne had +gone over to Orchard Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla in +the kitchen, sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand. +Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne’s heart. She +had never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that. + +“Are you very tired, Marilla?” + +“Yes--no--I don’t know,” said Marilla wearily, looking up. “I suppose I +am tired but I haven’t thought about it. It’s not that.” + +“Did you see the oculist? What did he say?” asked Anne anxiously. + +“Yes, I saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up all +reading and sewing entirely and any kind of work that strains the eyes, +and if I’m careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he’s given me +he thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. +But if I don’t he says I’ll certainly be stone-blind in six months. +Blind! Anne, just think of it!” + +For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was +silent. It seemed to her that she could _not_ speak. Then she said +bravely, but with a catch in her voice: + +“Marilla, _don’t_ think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you are +careful you won’t lose your sight altogether; and if his glasses cure +your headaches it will be a great thing.” + +“I don’t call it much hope,” said Marilla bitterly. “What am I to live +for if I can’t read or sew or do anything like that? I might as well +be blind--or dead. And as for crying, I can’t help that when I get +lonesome. But there, it’s no good talking about it. If you’ll get me +a cup of tea I’ll be thankful. I’m about done out. Don’t say anything +about this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can’t bear that folks +should come here to question and sympathize and talk about it.” + +When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then +Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the +darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly +things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! +Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy +with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before +she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. +She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a +friend--as duty ever is when we meet it frankly. + +One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the front +yard where she had been talking to a caller--a man whom Anne knew by +sight as Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have been +saying to bring that look to Marilla’s face. + +“What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?” + +Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in +her eyes in defiance of the oculist’s prohibition and her voice broke as +she said: + +“He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it.” + +“Buy it! Buy Green Gables?” Anne wondered if she had heard aright. “Oh, +Marilla, you don’t mean to sell Green Gables!” + +“Anne, I don’t know what else is to be done. I’ve thought it all over. +If my eyes were strong I could stay here and make out to look after +things and manage, with a good hired man. But as it is I can’t. I may +lose my sight altogether; and anyway I’ll not be fit to run things. Oh, +I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to sell my home. +But things would only go behind worse and worse all the time, till +nobody would want to buy it. Every cent of our money went in that bank; +and there’s some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde advises +me to sell the farm and board somewhere--with her I suppose. It won’t +bring much--it’s small and the buildings are old. But it’ll be enough +for me to live on I reckon. I’m thankful you’re provided for with that +scholarship, Anne. I’m sorry you won’t have a home to come to in your +vacations, that’s all, but I suppose you’ll manage somehow.” + +Marilla broke down and wept bitterly. + +“You mustn’t sell Green Gables,” said Anne resolutely. + +“Oh, Anne, I wish I didn’t have to. But you can see for yourself. I +can’t stay here alone. I’d go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my +sight would go--I know it would.” + +“You won’t have to stay here alone, Marilla. I’ll be with you. I’m not +going to Redmond.” + +“Not going to Redmond!” Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands and +looked at Anne. “Why, what do you mean?” + +“Just what I say. I’m not going to take the scholarship. I decided so +the night after you came home from town. You surely don’t think I could +leave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all you’ve done for me. +I’ve been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barry +wants to rent the farm for next year. So you won’t have any bother over +that. And I’m going to teach. I’ve applied for the school here--but I +don’t expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised it to +Gilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school--Mr. Blair told me +so last night at the store. Of course that won’t be quite as nice or +convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home and +drive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least. And +even in winter I can come home Fridays. We’ll keep a horse for that. Oh, +I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I’ll read to you and keep you +cheered up. You sha’n’t be dull or lonesome. And we’ll be real cozy and +happy here together, you and I.” + +Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream. + +“Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I +can’t let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible.” + +“Nonsense!” Anne laughed merrily. “There is no sacrifice. Nothing could +be worse than giving up Green Gables--nothing could hurt me more. We +must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I’m _not_ +going to Redmond; and I _am_ going to stay here and teach. Don’t you worry +about me a bit.” + +“But your ambitions--and--” + +“I’m just as ambitious as ever. Only, I’ve changed the object of my +ambitions. I’m going to be a good teacher--and I’m going to save your +eyesight. Besides, I mean to study at home here and take a little +college course all by myself. Oh, I’ve dozens of plans, Marilla. I’ve +been thinking them out for a week. I shall give life here my best, and +I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my +future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought +I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I +don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the +best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder +how the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and +soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new +beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on.” + +“I don’t feel as if I ought to let you give it up,” said Marilla, +referring to the scholarship. + +“But you can’t prevent me. I’m sixteen and a half, ‘obstinate as a +mule,’ as Mrs. Lynde once told me,” laughed Anne. “Oh, Marilla, don’t +you go pitying me. I don’t like to be pitied, and there is no need +for it. I’m heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green +Gables. Nobody could love it as you and I do--so we must keep it.” + +“You blessed girl!” said Marilla, yielding. “I feel as if you’d given me +new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college--but +I know I can’t, so I ain’t going to try. I’ll make it up to you though, +Anne.” + +When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up +the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there +was a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, not +knowing about Marilla’s eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did +not. She told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure +to the girl’s eyes. Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one evening +and found Anne and Marilla sitting at the front door in the warm, +scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came down +and the white moths flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filled +the dewy air. + +Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by the +door, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with a +long breath of mingled weariness and relief. + +“I declare I’m getting glad to sit down. I’ve been on my feet all day, +and two hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It’s +a great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well, +Anne, I hear you’ve given up your notion of going to college. I was +real glad to hear it. You’ve got as much education now as a woman can be +comfortable with. I don’t believe in girls going to college with the men +and cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense.” + +“But I’m going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde,” said +Anne laughing. “I’m going to take my Arts course right here at Green +Gables, and study everything that I would at college.” + +Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror. + +“Anne Shirley, you’ll kill yourself.” + +“Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I’m not going to overdo +things. As ‘Josiah Allen’s wife,’ says, I shall be ‘mejum’. But I’ll +have lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I’ve no +vocation for fancy work. I’m going to teach over at Carmody, you know.” + +“I don’t know it. I guess you’re going to teach right here in Avonlea. +The trustees have decided to give you the school.” + +“Mrs. Lynde!” cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. “Why, I +thought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!” + +“So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it +he went to them--they had a business meeting at the school last night, +you know--and told them that he withdrew his application, and suggested +that they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands. Of +course he knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must +say I think it was real kind and thoughtful in him, that’s what. Real +self-sacrificing, too, for he’ll have his board to pay at White Sands, +and everybody knows he’s got to earn his own way through college. So the +trustees decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came +home and told me.” + +“I don’t feel that I ought to take it,” murmured Anne. “I mean--I don’t +think I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for--for me.” + +“I guess you can’t prevent him now. He’s signed papers with the White +Sands trustees. So it wouldn’t do him any good now if you were to +refuse. Of course you’ll take the school. You’ll get along all right, +now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a +good thing she was, that’s what. There’s been some Pye or other going to +Avonlea school for the last twenty years, and I guess their mission in +life was to keep school teachers reminded that earth isn’t their home. +Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barry +gable mean?” + +“Diana is signaling for me to go over,” laughed Anne. “You know we keep +up the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants.” + +Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firry +shadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently. + +“There’s a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways.” + +“There’s a good deal more of the woman about her in others,” retorted +Marilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness. + +But crispness was no longer Marilla’s distinguishing characteristic. As +Mrs. Lynde told her Thomas that night. + +“Marilla Cuthbert has got _mellow_. That’s what.” + +Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh +flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered +there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, +with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its +whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally +left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining +Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike +afterlight--“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the +air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home +lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay +the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west +was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in +still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and +she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it. + +“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to +be alive in you.” + +Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the +Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he +recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have passed +on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand. + +“Gilbert,” she said, with scarlet cheeks, “I want to thank you for +giving up the school for me. It was very good of you--and I want you to +know that I appreciate it.” + +Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly. + +“It wasn’t particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be +able to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after +this? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?” + +Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand. + +“I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn’t know +it. What a stubborn little goose I was. I’ve been--I may as well make a +complete confession--I’ve been sorry ever since.” + +“We are going to be the best of friends,” said Gilbert, jubilantly. “We +were born to be good friends, Anne. You’ve thwarted destiny enough. I +know we can help each other in many ways. You are going to keep up your +studies, aren’t you? So am I. Come, I’m going to walk home with you.” + +Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen. + +“Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?” + +“Gilbert Blythe,” answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. “I met +him on Barry’s hill.” + +“I didn’t think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that you’d +stand for half an hour at the gate talking to him,” said Marilla with a +dry smile. + +“We haven’t been--we’ve been good enemies. But we have decided that it +will be much more sensible to be good friends in the future. Were we +really there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, +we have five years’ lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla.” + +Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. +The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came +up to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow and +Diana’s light gleamed through the old gap. + +Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after +coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be +narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. +The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship +were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her +ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road! + +“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’” whispered Anne +softly. + + +Andersen's Fairy Tales + +THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES + +Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of +new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble +himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to +the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him +for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of +the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, +“he is sitting in council,” it was always said of him, “The Emperor is +sitting in his wardrobe.” + +Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers +arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves +weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to +weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the +clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of +remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or +who was extraordinarily simple in character. + +“These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!” thought the Emperor. “Had I +such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit +for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the +foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately.” And he caused +large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they +might begin their work directly. + +So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very +busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the +most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own +knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms +until late at night. + +“I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth,” + said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, +however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or +one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be +sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he +would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the +weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All +the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the +cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how +ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be. + +“I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers,” said the Emperor +at last, after some deliberation, “he will be best able to see how the +cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable +for his office than he is.” + +So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were +working with all their might, at their empty looms. “What can be the +meaning of this?” thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. “I +cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms.” However, he did +not express his thoughts aloud. + +The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come +nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased +him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time +pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, +he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, +viz: there was nothing there. “What!” thought he again. “Is it possible +that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must +know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, +that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see +the stuff.” + +“Well, Sir Minister!” said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. +“You do not say whether the stuff pleases you.” + +“Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom +through his spectacles. “This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell +the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them.” + +“We shall be much obliged to you,” said the impostors, and then they +named the different colors and described the pattern of the pretended +stuff. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order +that he might repeat them to the Emperor; and then the knaves asked for +more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what +they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their +knapsacks; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as +before at their empty looms. + +The Emperor now sent another officer of his court to see how the men +were getting on, and to ascertain whether the cloth would soon be +ready. It was just the same with this gentleman as with the minister; +he surveyed the looms on all sides, but could see nothing at all but the +empty frames. + +“Does not the stuff appear as beautiful to you, as it did to my lord the +minister?” asked the impostors of the Emperor's second ambassador; at +the same time making the same gestures as before, and talking of the +design and colors which were not there. + +“I certainly am not stupid!” thought the messenger. “It must be, that I +am not fit for my good, profitable office! That is very odd; however, no +one shall know anything about it.” And accordingly he praised the stuff +he could not see, and declared that he was delighted with both colors +and patterns. “Indeed, please your Imperial Majesty,” said he to his +sovereign when he returned, “the cloth which the weavers are preparing +is extraordinarily magnificent.” + +The whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had +ordered to be woven at his own expense. + +And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while +it was still in the loom. Accompanied by a select number of officers of +the court, among whom were the two honest men who had already admired +the cloth, he went to the crafty impostors, who, as soon as they were +aware of the Emperor's approach, went on working more diligently than +ever; although they still did not pass a single thread through the +looms. + +“Is not the work absolutely magnificent?” said the two officers of the +crown, already mentioned. “If your Majesty will only be pleased to look +at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!” and at the same +time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone +else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship. + +“How is this?” said the Emperor to himself. “I can see nothing! This +is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an +Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! the cloth +is charming,” said he, aloud. “It has my complete approbation.” And he +smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no +account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of +his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, +hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more +than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, “Oh, how beautiful!” + and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid +material, for the approaching procession. “Magnificent! Charming! +Excellent!” resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The +Emperor shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the impostors +with the riband of an order of knighthood, to be worn in their +button-holes, and the title of “Gentlemen Weavers.” + +The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the +procession was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that +everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the Emperor's new +suit. They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with +their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. +“See!” cried they, at last. “The Emperor's new clothes are ready!” + +And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the +weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding +something up, saying, “Here are your Majesty's trousers! Here is the +scarf! Here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; +one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, +however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth.” + +“Yes indeed!” said all the courtiers, although not one of them could see +anything of this exquisite manufacture. + +“If your Imperial Majesty will be graciously pleased to take off your +clothes, we will fit on the new suit, in front of the looking glass.” + +The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to +array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, +before the looking glass. + +“How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they +fit!” everyone cried out. “What a design! What colors! These are indeed +royal robes!” + +“The canopy which is to be borne over your Majesty, in the procession, +is waiting,” announced the chief master of the ceremonies. + +“I am quite ready,” answered the Emperor. “Do my new clothes fit well?” + asked he, turning himself round again before the looking glass, in order +that he might appear to be examining his handsome suit. + +The lords of the bedchamber, who were to carry his Majesty's train felt +about on the ground, as if they were lifting up the ends of the mantle; +and pretended to be carrying something; for they would by no means +betray anything like simplicity, or unfitness for their office. + +So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the +procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people +standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, “Oh! How beautiful +are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to +the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!” in short, no one would +allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in +doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit +for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's various suits, had ever +made so great an impression, as these invisible ones. + +“But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” said a little child. + +“Listen to the voice of innocence!” exclaimed his father; and what the +child had said was whispered from one to another. + +“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. +The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he +thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber +took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in +reality, there was no train to hold. + + + + +THE SWINEHERD + +There was once a poor Prince, who had a kingdom. His kingdom was very +small, but still quite large enough to marry upon; and he wished to +marry. + +It was certainly rather cool of him to say to the Emperor's daughter, +“Will you have me?” But so he did; for his name was renowned far and +wide; and there were a hundred princesses who would have answered, +“Yes!” and “Thank you kindly.” We shall see what this princess said. + +Listen! + +It happened that where the Prince's father lay buried, there grew a rose +tree--a most beautiful rose tree, which blossomed only once in every +five years, and even then bore only one flower, but that was a rose! +It smelt so sweet that all cares and sorrows were forgotten by him who +inhaled its fragrance. + +And furthermore, the Prince had a nightingale, who could sing in such a +manner that it seemed as though all sweet melodies dwelt in her little +throat. So the Princess was to have the rose, and the nightingale; and +they were accordingly put into large silver caskets, and sent to her. + +The Emperor had them brought into a large hall, where the Princess was +playing at “Visiting,” with the ladies of the court; and when she saw +the caskets with the presents, she clapped her hands for joy. + +“Ah, if it were but a little pussy-cat!” said she; but the rose tree, +with its beautiful rose came to view. + +“Oh, how prettily it is made!” said all the court ladies. + +“It is more than pretty,” said the Emperor, “it is charming!” + +But the Princess touched it, and was almost ready to cry. + +“Fie, papa!” said she. “It is not made at all, it is natural!” + +“Let us see what is in the other casket, before we get into a bad +humor,” said the Emperor. So the nightingale came forth and sang so +delightfully that at first no one could say anything ill-humored of her. + +“Superbe! Charmant!” exclaimed the ladies; for they all used to chatter +French, each one worse than her neighbor. + +“How much the bird reminds me of the musical box that belonged to our +blessed Empress,” said an old knight. “Oh yes! These are the same tones, +the same execution.” + +“Yes! yes!” said the Emperor, and he wept like a child at the +remembrance. + +“I will still hope that it is not a real bird,” said the Princess. + +“Yes, it is a real bird,” said those who had brought it. “Well then let +the bird fly,” said the Princess; and she positively refused to see the +Prince. + +However, he was not to be discouraged; he daubed his face over brown and +black; pulled his cap over his ears, and knocked at the door. + +“Good day to my lord, the Emperor!” said he. “Can I have employment at +the palace?” + +“Why, yes,” said the Emperor. “I want some one to take care of the pigs, +for we have a great many of them.” + +So the Prince was appointed “Imperial Swineherd.” He had a dirty little +room close by the pigsty; and there he sat the whole day, and worked. By +the evening he had made a pretty little kitchen-pot. Little bells were +hung all round it; and when the pot was boiling, these bells tinkled in +the most charming manner, and played the old melody, + + “Ach! du lieber Augustin, + Alles ist weg, weg, weg!”* + + * “Ah! dear Augustine! + All is gone, gone, gone!” + + +But what was still more curious, whoever held his finger in the smoke of +the kitchen-pot, immediately smelt all the dishes that were cooking on +every hearth in the city--this, you see, was something quite different +from the rose. + +Now the Princess happened to walk that way; and when she heard the tune, +she stood quite still, and seemed pleased; for she could play “Lieber +Augustine”; it was the only piece she knew; and she played it with one +finger. + +“Why there is my piece,” said the Princess. “That swineherd must +certainly have been well educated! Go in and ask him the price of the +instrument.” + +So one of the court-ladies must run in; however, she drew on wooden +slippers first. + +“What will you take for the kitchen-pot?” said the lady. + +“I will have ten kisses from the Princess,” said the swineherd. + +“Yes, indeed!” said the lady. + +“I cannot sell it for less,” rejoined the swineherd. + +“He is an impudent fellow!” said the Princess, and she walked on; but +when she had gone a little way, the bells tinkled so prettily + + “Ach! du lieber Augustin, + Alles ist weg, weg, weg!” + +“Stay,” said the Princess. “Ask him if he will have ten kisses from the +ladies of my court.” + +“No, thank you!” said the swineherd. “Ten kisses from the Princess, or I +keep the kitchen-pot myself.” + +“That must not be, either!” said the Princess. “But do you all stand +before me that no one may see us.” + +And the court-ladies placed themselves in front of her, and spread +out their dresses--the swineherd got ten kisses, and the Princess--the +kitchen-pot. + +That was delightful! The pot was boiling the whole evening, and the +whole of the following day. They knew perfectly well what was cooking at +every fire throughout the city, from the chamberlain's to the cobbler's; +the court-ladies danced and clapped their hands. + +“We know who has soup, and who has pancakes for dinner to-day, who has +cutlets, and who has eggs. How interesting!” + +“Yes, but keep my secret, for I am an Emperor's daughter.” + +The swineherd--that is to say--the Prince, for no one knew that he was +other than an ill-favored swineherd, let not a day pass without working +at something; he at last constructed a rattle, which, when it was swung +round, played all the waltzes and jig tunes, which have ever been heard +since the creation of the world. + +“Ah, that is superbe!” said the Princess when she passed by. “I have +never heard prettier compositions! Go in and ask him the price of the +instrument; but mind, he shall have no more kisses!” + +“He will have a hundred kisses from the Princess!” said the lady who had +been to ask. + +“I think he is not in his right senses!” said the Princess, and walked +on, but when she had gone a little way, she stopped again. “One must +encourage art,” said she, “I am the Emperor's daughter. Tell him he +shall, as on yesterday, have ten kisses from me, and may take the rest +from the ladies of the court.” + +“Oh--but we should not like that at all!” said they. “What are you +muttering?” asked the Princess. “If I can kiss him, surely you can. +Remember that you owe everything to me.” So the ladies were obliged to +go to him again. + +“A hundred kisses from the Princess,” said he, “or else let everyone +keep his own!” + +“Stand round!” said she; and all the ladies stood round her whilst the +kissing was going on. + +“What can be the reason for such a crowd close by the pigsty?” said the +Emperor, who happened just then to step out on the balcony; he rubbed +his eyes, and put on his spectacles. “They are the ladies of the +court; I must go down and see what they are about!” So he pulled up his +slippers at the heel, for he had trodden them down. + +As soon as he had got into the court-yard, he moved very softly, and the +ladies were so much engrossed with counting the kisses, that all might +go on fairly, that they did not perceive the Emperor. He rose on his +tiptoes. + +“What is all this?” said he, when he saw what was going on, and he boxed +the Princess's ears with his slipper, just as the swineherd was taking +the eighty-sixth kiss. + +“March out!” said the Emperor, for he was very angry; and both Princess +and swineherd were thrust out of the city. + +The Princess now stood and wept, the swineherd scolded, and the rain +poured down. + +“Alas! Unhappy creature that I am!” said the Princess. “If I had but +married the handsome young Prince! Ah! how unfortunate I am!” + +And the swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown color +from his face, threw off his dirty clothes, and stepped forth in his +princely robes; he looked so noble that the Princess could not help +bowing before him. + +“I am come to despise thee,” said he. “Thou would'st not have an +honorable Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, +but thou wast ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery +plaything. Thou art rightly served.” + +He then went back to his own little kingdom, and shut the door of his +palace in her face. Now she might well sing, + + “Ach! du lieber Augustin, + Alles ist weg, weg, weg!” + + + + +THE REAL PRINCESS + +There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she +must be a real Princess. He travelled all over the world in hopes of +finding such a lady; but there was always something wrong. Princesses he +found in plenty; but whether they were real Princesses it was impossible +for him to decide, for now one thing, now another, seemed to him not +quite right about the ladies. At last he returned to his palace quite +cast down, because he wished so much to have a real Princess for his +wife. + +One evening a fearful tempest arose, it thundered and lightened, and the +rain poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was as dark as +pitch. All at once there was heard a violent knocking at the door, and +the old King, the Prince's father, went out himself to open it. + +It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain +and the wind, she was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from +her hair, and her clothes clung to her body. She said she was a real +Princess. + +“Ah! we shall soon see that!” thought the old Queen-mother; however, she +said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the +bedroom, took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas +on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over +the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses. + +Upon this bed the Princess was to pass the night. + +The next morning she was asked how she had slept. “Oh, very badly +indeed!” she replied. “I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night +through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard +under me, and am all over black and blue. It has hurt me so much!” + +Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had +been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses +and twenty feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a +delicate sense of feeling. + +The Prince accordingly made her his wife; being now convinced that he +had found a real Princess. The three peas were however put into the +cabinet of curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they +are not lost. + +Wasn't this a lady of real delicacy? + + + + +THE SHOES OF FORTUNE + +I. A Beginning + +Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style +of writing. Those who do not like him, magnify it, shrug up their +shoulders, and exclaim--there he is again! I, for my part, know very +well how I can bring about this movement and this exclamation. It would +happen immediately if I were to begin here, as I intended to do, with: +“Rome has its Corso, Naples its Toledo”--“Ah! that Andersen; there he is +again!” they would cry; yet I must, to please my fancy, continue quite +quietly, and add: “But Copenhagen has its East Street.” + +Here, then, we will stay for the present. In one of the houses not far +from the new market a party was invited--a very large party, in order, +as is often the case, to get a return invitation from the others. One +half of the company was already seated at the card-table, the other half +awaited the result of the stereotype preliminary observation of the lady +of the house: + +“Now let us see what we can do to amuse ourselves.” + +They had got just so far, and the conversation began to crystallise, +as it could but do with the scanty stream which the commonplace world +supplied. Amongst other things they spoke of the middle ages: some +praised that period as far more interesting, far more poetical than our +own too sober present; indeed Councillor Knap defended this opinion +so warmly, that the hostess declared immediately on his side, and both +exerted themselves with unwearied eloquence. The Councillor boldly +declared the time of King Hans to be the noblest and the most happy +period.* + +* A.D. 1482-1513 + + +While the conversation turned on this subject, and was only for a moment +interrupted by the arrival of a journal that contained nothing worth +reading, we will just step out into the antechamber, where cloaks, +mackintoshes, sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two +female figures, a young and an old one. One might have thought at first +they were servants come to accompany their mistresses home; but on +looking nearer, one soon saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their +forms were too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their +dress too striking. Two fairies were they; the younger, it is true, +was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the waiting-maids of her +handmaidens who carry about the lesser good things that she distributes; +the other looked extremely gloomy--it was Care. She always attends to +her own serious business herself, as then she is sure of having it done +properly. + +They were telling each other, with a confidential interchange of ideas, +where they had been during the day. The messenger of Fortune had only +executed a few unimportant commissions, such as saving a new bonnet from +a shower of rain, etc.; but what she had yet to perform was something +quite unusual. + +“I must tell you,” said she, “that to-day is my birthday; and in honor +of it, a pair of walking-shoes or galoshes has been entrusted to me, +which I am to carry to mankind. These shoes possess the property of +instantly transporting him who has them on to the place or the period +in which he most wishes to be; every wish, as regards time or place, or +state of being, will be immediately fulfilled, and so at last man will +be happy, here below.” + +“Do you seriously believe it?” replied Care, in a severe tone of +reproach. “No; he will be very unhappy, and will assuredly bless the +moment when he feels that he has freed himself from the fatal shoes.” + +“Stupid nonsense!” said the other angrily. “I will put them here by +the door. Some one will make a mistake for certain and take the wrong +ones--he will be a happy man.” + +Such was their conversation. + + +II. What Happened to the Councillor + +It was late; Councillor Knap, deeply occupied with the times of King +Hans, intended to go home, and malicious Fate managed matters so that +his feet, instead of finding their way to his own galoshes, slipped +into those of Fortune. Thus caparisoned the good man walked out of the +well-lighted rooms into East Street. By the magic power of the shoes he +was carried back to the times of King Hans; on which account his foot +very naturally sank in the mud and puddles of the street, there having +been in those days no pavement in Copenhagen. + +“Well! This is too bad! How dirty it is here!” sighed the Councillor. +“As to a pavement, I can find no traces of one, and all the lamps, it +seems, have gone to sleep.” + +The moon was not yet very high; it was besides rather foggy, so that +in the darkness all objects seemed mingled in chaotic confusion. At the +next corner hung a votive lamp before a Madonna, but the light it gave +was little better than none at all; indeed, he did not observe it before +he was exactly under it, and his eyes fell upon the bright colors of the +pictures which represented the well-known group of the Virgin and the +infant Jesus. + +“That is probably a wax-work show,” thought he; “and the people delay +taking down their sign in hopes of a late visitor or two.” + +A few persons in the costume of the time of King Hans passed quickly by +him. + +“How strange they look! The good folks come probably from a masquerade!” + +Suddenly was heard the sound of drums and fifes; the bright blaze of a +fire shot up from time to time, and its ruddy gleams seemed to contend +with the bluish light of the torches. The Councillor stood still, and +watched a most strange procession pass by. First came a dozen drummers, +who understood pretty well how to handle their instruments; then came +halberdiers, and some armed with cross-bows. The principal person in the +procession was a priest. Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked +what was the meaning of all this mummery, and who that man was. + +“That's the Bishop of Zealand,” was the answer. + +“Good Heavens! What has taken possession of the Bishop?” sighed the +Councillor, shaking his head. It certainly could not be the Bishop; even +though he was considered the most absent man in the whole kingdom, and +people told the drollest anecdotes about him. Reflecting on the matter, +and without looking right or left, the Councillor went through East +Street and across the Habro-Platz. The bridge leading to Palace Square +was not to be found; scarcely trusting his senses, the nocturnal +wanderer discovered a shallow piece of water, and here fell in with two +men who very comfortably were rocking to and fro in a boat. + +“Does your honor want to cross the ferry to the Holme?” asked they. + +“Across to the Holme!” said the Councillor, who knew nothing of the age +in which he at that moment was. “No, I am going to Christianshafen, to +Little Market Street.” + +Both men stared at him in astonishment. + +“Only just tell me where the bridge is,” said he. “It is really +unpardonable that there are no lamps here; and it is as dirty as if one +had to wade through a morass.” + +The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their +language become to him. + +“I don't understand your Bornholmish dialect,” said he at last, angrily, +and turning his back upon them. He was unable to find the bridge: there +was no railway either. “It is really disgraceful what a state this place +is in,” muttered he to himself. Never had his age, with which, however, +he was always grumbling, seemed so miserable as on this evening. “I'll +take a hackney-coach!” thought he. But where were the hackney-coaches? +Not one was to be seen. + +“I must go back to the New Market; there, it is to be hoped, I +shall find some coaches; for if I don't, I shall never get safe to +Christianshafen.” + +So off he went in the direction of East Street, and had nearly got to +the end of it when the moon shone forth. + +“God bless me! What wooden scaffolding is that which they have set up +there?” cried he involuntarily, as he looked at East Gate, which, in +those days, was at the end of East Street. + +He found, however, a little side-door open, and through this he went, +and stepped into our New Market of the present time. It was a huge +desolate plain; some wild bushes stood up here and there, while across +the field flowed a broad canal or river. Some wretched hovels for the +Dutch sailors, resembling great boxes, and after which the place was +named, lay about in confused disorder on the opposite bank. + +“I either behold a fata morgana, or I am regularly tipsy,” whimpered out +the Councillor. “But what's this?” + +He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was seriously ill. He +gazed at the street formerly so well known to him, and now so strange in +appearance, and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them were +of wood, slightly put together; and many had a thatched roof. + +“No--I am far from well,” sighed he; “and yet I drank only one glass of +punch; but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong to give +us punch and hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first +opportunity. I have half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer. +But no, that would be too silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up +still.” + +He looked for the house, but it had vanished. + +“It is really dreadful,” groaned he with increasing anxiety; “I cannot +recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent shop from one +end to the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere; just +as if I were at Ringstead. Oh! I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any +longer. Where the deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very +spot; yet there is not the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a +degree has everything changed this night! At all events here are some +people up and stirring. Oh! oh! I am certainly very ill.” + +He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of which a faint light +shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of public-house. +The room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in Holstein; a +pretty numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen burghers, and +a few scholars, sat here in deep converse over their pewter cans, and +gave little heed to the person who entered. + +“By your leave!” said the Councillor to the Hostess, who came bustling +towards him. “I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have the +goodness to send for a hackney-coach to take me to Christianshafen?” + +The woman examined him with eyes of astonishment, and shook her head; +she then addressed him in German. The Councillor thought she did not +understand Danish, and therefore repeated his wish in German. This, in +connection with his costume, strengthened the good woman in the belief +that he was a foreigner. That he was ill, she comprehended directly; so +she brought him a pitcher of water, which tasted certainly pretty strong +of the sea, although it had been fetched from the well. + +The Councillor supported his head on his hand, drew a long breath, and +thought over all the wondrous things he saw around him. + +“Is this the Daily News of this evening?” he asked mechanically, as he +saw the Hostess push aside a large sheet of paper. + +The meaning of this councillorship query remained, of course, a riddle +to her, yet she handed him the paper without replying. It was a coarse +wood-cut, representing a splendid meteor “as seen in the town of +Cologne,” which was to be read below in bright letters. + +“That is very old!” said the Councillor, whom this piece of antiquity +began to make considerably more cheerful. “Pray how did you come into +possession of this rare print? It is extremely interesting, although the +whole is a mere fable. Such meteorous appearances are to be explained in +this way--that they are the reflections of the Aurora Borealis, and it +is highly probable they are caused principally by electricity.” + +Those persons who were sitting nearest him and heard his speech, +stared at him in wonderment; and one of them rose, took off his hat +respectfully, and said with a serious countenance, “You are no doubt a +very learned man, Monsieur.” + +“Oh no,” answered the Councillor, “I can only join in conversation on +this topic and on that, as indeed one must do according to the demands +of the world at present.” + +“Modestia is a fine virtue,” continued the gentleman; “however, as to +your speech, I must say mihi secus videtur: yet I am willing to suspend +my judicium.” + +“May I ask with whom I have the pleasure of speaking?” asked the +Councillor. + +“I am a Bachelor in Theologia,” answered the gentleman with a stiff +reverence. + +This reply fully satisfied the Councillor; the title suited the dress. +“He is certainly,” thought he, “some village schoolmaster--some queer +old fellow, such as one still often meets with in Jutland.” + +“This is no locus docendi, it is true,” began the clerical gentleman; +“yet I beg you earnestly to let us profit by your learning. Your reading +in the ancients is, sine dubio, of vast extent?” + +“Oh yes, I've read something, to be sure,” replied the Councillor. “I +like reading all useful works; but I do not on that account despise the +modern ones; 'tis only the unfortunate 'Tales of Every-day Life' that I +cannot bear--we have enough and more than enough such in reality.” + +“'Tales of Every-day Life?'” said our Bachelor inquiringly. + +“I mean those new fangled novels, twisting and writhing themselves in +the dust of commonplace, which also expect to find a reading public.” + +“Oh,” exclaimed the clerical gentleman smiling, “there is much wit in +them; besides they are read at court. The King likes the history of Sir +Iffven and Sir Gaudian particularly, which treats of King Arthur, and +his Knights of the Round Table; he has more than once joked about it +with his high vassals.” + +“I have not read that novel,” said the Councillor; “it must be quite a +new one, that Heiberg has published lately.” + +“No,” answered the theologian of the time of King Hans: “that book is +not written by a Heiberg, but was imprinted by Godfrey von Gehmen.” + +“Oh, is that the author's name?” said the Councillor. “It is a very +old name, and, as well as I recollect, he was the first printer that +appeared in Denmark.” + +“Yes, he is our first printer,” replied the clerical gentleman hastily. + +So far all went on well. Some one of the worthy burghers now spoke of +the dreadful pestilence that had raged in the country a few years back, +meaning that of 1484. The Councillor imagined it was the cholera that +was meant, which people made so much fuss about; and the discourse +passed off satisfactorily enough. The war of the buccaneers of 1490 was +so recent that it could not fail being alluded to; the English +pirates had, they said, most shamefully taken their ships while in the +roadstead; and the Councillor, before whose eyes the Herostratic [*] +event of 1801 still floated vividly, agreed entirely with the others in +abusing the rascally English. With other topics he was not so fortunate; +every moment brought about some new confusion, and threatened to become +a perfect Babel; for the worthy Bachelor was really too ignorant, and +the simplest observations of the Councillor sounded to him too daring +and phantastical. They looked at one another from the crown of the head +to the soles of the feet; and when matters grew to too high a +pitch, then the Bachelor talked Latin, in the hope of being better +understood--but it was of no use after all. + + * Herostratus, or Eratostratus--an Ephesian, who wantonly + set fire to the famous temple of Diana, in order to + commemorate his name by so uncommon an action. + +“What's the matter?” asked the Hostess, plucking the Councillor by the +sleeve; and now his recollection returned, for in the course of the +conversation he had entirely forgotten all that had preceded it. + +“Merciful God, where am I!” exclaimed he in agony; and while he so +thought, all his ideas and feelings of overpowering dizziness, against +which he struggled with the utmost power of desperation, encompassed +him with renewed force. “Let us drink claret and mead, and Bremen beer,” + shouted one of the guests--“and you shall drink with us!” + +Two maidens approached. One wore a cap of two staring colors, denoting +the class of persons to which she belonged. They poured out the liquor, +and made the most friendly gesticulations; while a cold perspiration +trickled down the back of the poor Councillor. + +“What's to be the end of this! What's to become of me!” groaned he; but +he was forced, in spite of his opposition, to drink with the rest. They +took hold of the worthy man; who, hearing on every side that he was +intoxicated, did not in the least doubt the truth of this certainly +not very polite assertion; but on the contrary, implored the ladies +and gentlemen present to procure him a hackney-coach: they, however, +imagined he was talking Russian. + +Never before, he thought, had he been in such a coarse and ignorant +company; one might almost fancy the people had turned heathens again. +“It is the most dreadful moment of my life: the whole world is leagued +against me!” But suddenly it occurred to him that he might stoop down +under the table, and then creep unobserved out of the door. He did so; +but just as he was going, the others remarked what he was about; they +laid hold of him by the legs; and now, happily for him, off fell his +fatal shoes--and with them the charm was at an end. + +The Councillor saw quite distinctly before him a lantern burning, and +behind this a large handsome house. All seemed to him in proper order as +usual; it was East Street, splendid and elegant as we now see it. He lay +with his feet towards a doorway, and exactly opposite sat the watchman +asleep. + +“Gracious Heaven!” said he. “Have I lain here in the street and dreamed? +Yes; 'tis East Street! How splendid and light it is! But really it is +terrible what an effect that one glass of punch must have had on me!” + +Two minutes later, he was sitting in a hackney-coach and driving to +Frederickshafen. He thought of the distress and agony he had endured, +and praised from the very bottom of his heart the happy reality--our own +time--which, with all its deficiencies, is yet much better than that in +which, so much against his inclination, he had lately been. + + +III. The Watchman's Adventure + +“Why, there is a pair of galoshes, as sure as I'm alive!” said the +watchman, awaking from a gentle slumber. “They belong no doubt to the +lieutenant who lives over the way. They lie close to the door.” + +The worthy man was inclined to ring and deliver them at the house, for +there was still a light in the window; but he did not like disturbing +the other people in their beds, and so very considerately he left the +matter alone. + +“Such a pair of shoes must be very warm and comfortable,” said he; “the +leather is so soft and supple.” They fitted his feet as though they +had been made for him. “'Tis a curious world we live in,” continued he, +soliloquizing. “There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to +bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease; +but does he do it? No; he saunters up and down his room, because, +probably, he has enjoyed too many of the good things of this world at +his dinner. That's a happy fellow! He has neither an infirm mother, nor +a whole troop of everlastingly hungry children to torment him. Every +evening he goes to a party, where his nice supper costs him nothing: +would to Heaven I could but change with him! How happy should I be!” + +While expressing his wish, the charm of the shoes, which he had put on, +began to work; the watchman entered into the being and nature of the +lieutenant. He stood in the handsomely furnished apartment, and held +between his fingers a small sheet of rose-colored paper, on which some +verses were written--written indeed by the officer himself; for who has +not, at least once in his life, had a lyrical moment? And if one then +marks down one's thoughts, poetry is produced. But here was written: + + OH, WERE I RICH! + + “Oh, were I rich! Such was my wish, yea such + When hardly three feet high, I longed for much. + Oh, were I rich! an officer were I, + With sword, and uniform, and plume so high. + And the time came, and officer was I! + But yet I grew not rich. Alas, poor me! + Have pity, Thou, who all man's wants dost see. + + “I sat one evening sunk in dreams of bliss, + A maid of seven years old gave me a kiss, + I at that time was rich in poesy + And tales of old, though poor as poor could be; + But all she asked for was this poesy. + Then was I rich, but not in gold, poor me! + As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see. + + “Oh, were I rich! Oft asked I for this boon. + The child grew up to womanhood full soon. + She is so pretty, clever, and so kind + Oh, did she know what's hidden in my mind-- + A tale of old. Would she to me were kind! + But I'm condemned to silence! oh, poor me! + As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see. + + “Oh, were I rich in calm and peace of mind, + My grief you then would not here written find! + O thou, to whom I do my heart devote, + Oh read this page of glad days now remote, + A dark, dark tale, which I tonight devote! + Dark is the future now. Alas, poor me! + Have pity Thou, who all men's pains dost see.” + +Such verses as these people write when they are in love! But no man +in his senses ever thinks of printing them. Here one of the sorrows of +life, in which there is real poetry, gave itself vent; not that +barren grief which the poet may only hint at, but never depict in its +detail--misery and want: that animal necessity, in short, to snatch +at least at a fallen leaf of the bread-fruit tree, if not at the fruit +itself. The higher the position in which one finds oneself transplanted, +the greater is the suffering. Everyday necessity is the stagnant pool of +life--no lovely picture reflects itself therein. Lieutenant, love, and +lack of money--that is a symbolic triangle, or much the same as the +half of the shattered die of Fortune. This the lieutenant felt most +poignantly, and this was the reason he leant his head against the +window, and sighed so deeply. + +“The poor watchman out there in the street is far happier than I. He +knows not what I term privation. He has a home, a wife, and children, +who weep with him over his sorrows, who rejoice with him when he is +glad. Oh, far happier were I, could I exchange with him my being--with +his desires and with his hopes perform the weary pilgrimage of life! Oh, +he is a hundred times happier than I!” + +In the same moment the watchman was again watchman. It was the shoes +that caused the metamorphosis by means of which, unknown to himself, he +took upon him the thoughts and feelings of the officer; but, as we have +just seen, he felt himself in his new situation much less contented, +and now preferred the very thing which but some minutes before he had +rejected. So then the watchman was again watchman. + +“That was an unpleasant dream,” said he; “but 'twas droll enough +altogether. I fancied that I was the lieutenant over there: and yet +the thing was not very much to my taste after all. I missed my good old +mother and the dear little ones; who almost tear me to pieces for sheer +love.” + +He seated himself once more and nodded: the dream continued to haunt +him, for he still had the shoes on his feet. A falling star shone in the +dark firmament. + +“There falls another star,” said he: “but what does it matter; there +are always enough left. I should not much mind examining the little +glimmering things somewhat nearer, especially the moon; for that would +not slip so easily through a man's fingers. When we die--so at least +says the student, for whom my wife does the washing--we shall fly about +as light as a feather from one such a star to the other. That's, of +course, not true: but 'twould be pretty enough if it were so. If I could +but once take a leap up there, my body might stay here on the steps for +what I care.” + +Behold--there are certain things in the world to which one ought never +to give utterance except with the greatest caution; but doubly careful +must one be when we have the Shoes of Fortune on our feet. Now just +listen to what happened to the watchman. + +As to ourselves, we all know the speed produced by the employment of +steam; we have experienced it either on railroads, or in boats when +crossing the sea; but such a flight is like the travelling of a sloth in +comparison with the velocity with which light moves. It flies nineteen +million times faster than the best race-horse; and yet electricity is +quicker still. Death is an electric shock which our heart receives; the +freed soul soars upwards on the wings of electricity. The sun's light +wants eight minutes and some seconds to perform a journey of more than +twenty million of our Danish [*] miles; borne by electricity, the soul +wants even some minutes less to accomplish the same flight. To it the +space between the heavenly bodies is not greater than the distance +between the homes of our friends in town is for us, even if they live a +short way from each other; such an electric shock in the heart, however, +costs us the use of the body here below; unless, like the watchman of +East Street, we happen to have on the Shoes of Fortune. + + * A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English. + + +In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our +miles up to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of +matter much lighter than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft +as newly-fallen snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent +mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's +“Map of the Moon.” Within, down it sunk perpendicularly into a caldron, +about a Danish mile in depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance +we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white of +an egg in a glass of water. The matter of which it was built was just as +soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars, transparent and +rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was rolling like +a large fiery ball. + +He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what +we call “men”; yet they looked different to us. A far more correct +imagination than that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and +if they had been placed in rank and file, and copied by some skilful +painter's hand, one would, without doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily, +“What a beautiful arabesque!” + +*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said +to be by Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its +inhabitants, written with such a semblance of truth that many were +deceived by the imposture. + +Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard +A. Locke, and originally published in New York. + + +They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of +the watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend +it; for in our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor +mortals, despite all our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she +not show us--she the queen in the land of enchantment--her astounding +dramatic talent in all our dreams? There every acquaintance appears and +speaks upon the stage, so entirely in character, and with the same tone +of voice, that none of us, when awake, were able to imitate it. How +well can she recall persons to our mind, of whom we have not thought for +years; when suddenly they step forth “every inch a man,” resembling the +real personages, even to the finest features, and become the heroes +or heroines of our world of dreams. In reality, such remembrances are +rather unpleasant: every sin, every evil thought, may, like a clock with +alarm or chimes, be repeated at pleasure; then the question is if we can +trust ourselves to give an account of every unbecoming word in our heart +and on our lips. + +The watchman's spirit understood the language of the inhabitants of the +moon pretty well. The Selenites* disputed variously about our earth, +and expressed their doubts if it could be inhabited: the air, they said, +must certainly be too dense to allow any rational dweller in the moon +the necessary free respiration. They considered the moon alone to +be inhabited: they imagined it was the real heart of the universe or +planetary system, on which the genuine Cosmopolites, or citizens of the +world, dwelt. What strange things men--no, what strange things Selenites +sometimes take into their heads! + +* Dwellers in the moon. + + +About politics they had a good deal to say. But little Denmark must +take care what it is about, and not run counter to the moon; that +great realm, that might in an ill-humor bestir itself, and dash down a +hail-storm in our faces, or force the Baltic to overflow the sides of +its gigantic basin. + +We will, therefore, not listen to what was spoken, and on no condition +run in the possibility of telling tales out of school; but we will +rather proceed, like good quiet citizens, to East Street, and observe +what happened meanwhile to the body of the watchman. + +He sat lifeless on the steps: the morning-star,* that is to say, the +heavy wooden staff, headed with iron spikes, and which had nothing else +in common with its sparkling brother in the sky, had glided from his +hand; while his eyes were fixed with glassy stare on the moon, looking +for the good old fellow of a spirit which still haunted it. + +*The watchmen in Germany, had formerly, and in some places they still +carry with them, on their rounds at night, a sort of mace or club, known +in ancient times by the above denomination. + + +“What's the hour, watchman?” asked a passer-by. But when the watchman +gave no reply, the merry roysterer, who was now returning home from a +noisy drinking bout, took it into his head to try what a tweak of the +nose would do, on which the supposed sleeper lost his balance, the body +lay motionless, stretched out on the pavement: the man was dead. When +the patrol came up, all his comrades, who comprehended nothing of the +whole affair, were seized with a dreadful fright, for dead he was, +and he remained so. The proper authorities were informed of the +circumstance, people talked a good deal about it, and in the morning the +body was carried to the hospital. + +Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back +and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. No doubt +it would, in its anxiety, run off to the police, and then to the +“Hue and Cry” office, to announce that “the finder will be handsomely +rewarded,” and at last away to the hospital; yet we may boldly assert +that the soul is shrewdest when it shakes off every fetter, and every +sort of leading-string--the body only makes it stupid. + +The seemingly dead body of the watchman wandered, as we have said, to +the hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room: +and the first thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the +galoshes--when the spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must +have returned with the quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement. +It took its direction towards the body in a straight line; and a few +seconds after, life began to show itself in the man. He asserted that +the preceding night had been the worst that ever the malice of fate had +allotted him; he would not for two silver marks again go through what he +had endured while moon-stricken; but now, however, it was over. + +The same day he was discharged from the hospital as perfectly cured; but +the Shoes meanwhile remained behind. + + +IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's “Dramatic Readings”--A +Most Strange Journey + +Every inhabitant of Copenhagen knows, from personal inspection, how +the entrance to Frederick's Hospital looks; but as it is possible that +others, who are not Copenhagen people, may also read this little work, +we will beforehand give a short description of it. + +The extensive building is separated from the street by a pretty high +railing, the thick iron bars of which are so far apart, that in +all seriousness, it is said, some very thin fellow had of a night +occasionally squeezed himself through to go and pay his little visits +in the town. The part of the body most difficult to manage on such +occasions was, no doubt, the head; here, as is so often the case in +the world, long-headed people get through best. So much, then, for the +introduction. + +One of the young men, whose head, in a physical sense only, might be +said to be of the thickest, had the watch that evening. The rain poured +down in torrents; yet despite these two obstacles, the young man was +obliged to go out, if it were but for a quarter of an hour; and as +to telling the door-keeper about it, that, he thought, was quite +unnecessary, if, with a whole skin, he were able to slip through the +railings. There, on the floor lay the galoshes, which the watchman +had forgotten; he never dreamed for a moment that they were those of +Fortune; and they promised to do him good service in the wet; so he put +them on. The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the +grating, for he had never tried before. Well, there he stood. + +“Would to Heaven I had got my head through!” said he, involuntarily; and +instantly through it slipped, easily and without pain, notwithstanding +it was pretty large and thick. But now the rest of the body was to be +got through! + +“Ah! I am much too stout,” groaned he aloud, while fixed as in a vice. +“I had thought the head was the most difficult part of the matter--oh! +oh! I really cannot squeeze myself through!” + +He now wanted to pull his over-hasty head back again, but he could not. +For his neck there was room enough, but for nothing more. His first +feeling was of anger; his next that his temper fell to zero. The +Shoes of Fortune had placed him in the most dreadful situation; and, +unfortunately, it never occurred to him to wish himself free. The +pitch-black clouds poured down their contents in still heavier torrents; +not a creature was to be seen in the streets. To reach up to the bell +was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help would have availed him +little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be found caught in a +trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself through! He saw +clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner till +dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith must be +fetched to file away the bars; but all that would not be done so quickly +as he could think about it. The whole Charity School, just opposite, +would be in motion; all the new booths, with their not very +courtier-like swarm of seamen, would join them out of curiosity, and +would greet him with a wild “hurrah!” while he was standing in his +pillory: there would be a mob, a hissing, and rejoicing, and jeering, +ten times worse than in the rows about the Jews some years ago--“Oh, my +blood is mounting to my brain; 'tis enough to drive one mad! I shall go +wild! I know not what to do. Oh! were I but loose; my dizziness would +then cease; oh, were my head but loose!” + +You see he ought to have said that sooner; for the moment he expressed +the wish his head was free; and cured of all his paroxysms of love, he +hastened off to his room, where the pains consequent on the fright the +Shoes had prepared for him, did not so soon take their leave. + +But you must not think that the affair is over now; it grows much worse. + +The night passed, the next day also; but nobody came to fetch the Shoes. + +In the evening “Dramatic Readings” were to be given at the little +theatre in King Street. The house was filled to suffocation; and among +other pieces to be recited was a new poem by H. C. Andersen, called, My +Aunt's Spectacles; the contents of which were pretty nearly as follows: + +“A certain person had an aunt, who boasted of particular skill in +fortune-telling with cards, and who was constantly being stormed by +persons that wanted to have a peep into futurity. But she was full of +mystery about her art, in which a certain pair of magic spectacles +did her essential service. Her nephew, a merry boy, who was his aunt's +darling, begged so long for these spectacles, that, at last, she lent +him the treasure, after having informed him, with many exhortations, +that in order to execute the interesting trick, he need only repair to +some place where a great many persons were assembled; and then, from a +higher position, whence he could overlook the crowd, pass the company in +review before him through his spectacles. Immediately 'the inner man' of +each individual would be displayed before him, like a game of cards, in +which he unerringly might read what the future of every person presented +was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the +powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more +fitted for such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience, +and set his spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents +itself before him, which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet +without expressing his opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set +them all thinking and guessing; but in order to hurt nobody, he wraps +his witty oracular judgments in a transparent veil, or rather in a lurid +thundercloud, shooting forth bright sparks of wit, that they may fall in +the powder-magazine of the expectant audience.” + +The humorous poem was admirably recited, and the speaker much applauded. +Among the audience was the young man of the hospital, who seemed to have +forgotten his adventure of the preceding night. He had on the Shoes; for +as yet no lawful owner had appeared to claim them; and besides it was so +very dirty out-of-doors, they were just the thing for him, he thought. + +The beginning of the poem he praised with great generosity: he even +found the idea original and effective. But that the end of it, like the +Rhine, was very insignificant, proved, in his opinion, the author's +want of invention; he was without genius, etc. This was an excellent +opportunity to have said something clever. + +Meanwhile he was haunted by the idea--he should like to possess such a +pair of spectacles himself; then, perhaps, by using them circumspectly, +one would be able to look into people's hearts, which, he thought, would +be far more interesting than merely to see what was to happen next year; +for that we should all know in proper time, but the other never. + +“I can now,” said he to himself, “fancy the whole row of ladies and +gentlemen sitting there in the front row; if one could but see into +their hearts--yes, that would be a revelation--a sort of bazar. In that +lady yonder, so strangely dressed, I should find for certain a large +milliner's shop; in that one the shop is empty, but it wants cleaning +plain enough. But there would also be some good stately shops among +them. Alas!” sighed he, “I know one in which all is stately; but there +sits already a spruce young shopman, which is the only thing that's +amiss in the whole shop. All would be splendidly decked out, and we +should hear, 'Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in; here you will find all +you please to want.' Ah! I wish to Heaven I could walk in and take a +trip right through the hearts of those present!” + +And behold! to the Shoes of Fortune this was the cue; the whole man +shrunk together and a most uncommon journey through the hearts of the +front row of spectators, now began. The first heart through which he +came, was that of a middle-aged lady, but he instantly fancied himself +in the room of the “Institution for the cure of the crooked and +deformed,” where casts of mis-shapen limbs are displayed in naked +reality on the wall. Yet there was this difference, in the institution +the casts were taken at the entry of the patient; but here they were +retained and guarded in the heart while the sound persons went away. +They were, namely, casts of female friends, whose bodily or mental +deformities were here most faithfully preserved. + +With the snake-like writhings of an idea he glided into another female +heart; but this seemed to him like a large holy fane. [*] The white dove of +innocence fluttered over the altar. How gladly would he have sunk upon +his knees; but he must away to the next heart; yet he still heard the +pealing tones of the organ, and he himself seemed to have become a newer +and a better man; he felt unworthy to tread the neighboring sanctuary +which a poor garret, with a sick bed-rid mother, revealed. But God's +warm sun streamed through the open window; lovely roses nodded from +the wooden flower-boxes on the roof, and two sky-blue birds sang +rejoicingly, while the sick mother implored God's richest blessings on +her pious daughter. + + * temple + + +He now crept on hands and feet through a butcher's shop; at least on +every side, and above and below, there was nought but flesh. It was the +heart of a most respectable rich man, whose name is certain to be found +in the Directory. + +He was now in the heart of the wife of this worthy gentleman. It was an +old, dilapidated, mouldering dovecot. The husband's portrait was used as +a weather-cock, which was connected in some way or other with the doors, +and so they opened and shut of their own accord, whenever the stern old +husband turned round. + +Hereupon he wandered into a boudoir formed entirely of mirrors, like +the one in Castle Rosenburg; but here the glasses magnified to an +astonishing degree. On the floor, in the middle of the room, sat, like a +Dalai-Lama, the insignificant “Self” of the person, quite confounded at +his own greatness. He then imagined he had got into a needle-case full +of pointed needles of every size. + +“This is certainly the heart of an old maid,” thought he. But he was +mistaken. It was the heart of a young military man; a man, as people +said, of talent and feeling. + +In the greatest perplexity, he now came out of the last heart in the +row; he was unable to put his thoughts in order, and fancied that his +too lively imagination had run away with him. + +“Good Heavens!” sighed he. “I have surely a disposition to madness--'tis +dreadfully hot here; my blood boils in my veins and my head is burning +like a coal.” And he now remembered the important event of the evening +before, how his head had got jammed in between the iron railings of the +hospital. “That's what it is, no doubt,” said he. “I must do something +in time: under such circumstances a Russian bath might do me good. I +only wish I were already on the upper bank.” [*] + + *In these Russian (vapor) baths the person extends himself + on a bank or form, and as he gets accustomed to the heat, + moves to another higher up towards the ceiling, where, of + course, the vapor is warmest. In this manner he ascends + gradually to the highest. + +And so there he lay on the uppermost bank in the vapor-bath; but with +all his clothes on, in his boots and galoshes, while the hot drops fell +scalding from the ceiling on his face. + +“Holloa!” cried he, leaping down. The bathing attendant, on his side, +uttered a loud cry of astonishment when he beheld in the bath, a man +completely dressed. + +The other, however, retained sufficient presence of mind to whisper to +him, “'Tis a bet, and I have won it!” But the first thing he did as soon +as he got home, was to have a large blister put on his chest and back to +draw out his madness. + +The next morning he had a sore chest and a bleeding back; and, excepting +the fright, that was all that he had gained by the Shoes of Fortune. + + +V. Metamorphosis of the Copying-Clerk + +The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile +of the galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now +went to fetch them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in +the street, claimed them as his property, they were delivered over to +the police-office.* + +*As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal, +but any circumstance, however trifling, is reduced to writing, the +labor, as well as the number of papers that thus accumulate, is +enormous. In a police-office, consequently, we find copying-clerks among +many other scribes of various denominations, of which, it seems, our +hero was one. + + +“Why, I declare the Shoes look just like my own,” said one of the +clerks, eying the newly-found treasure, whose hidden powers, even he, +sharp as he was, was not able to discover. “One must have more than +the eye of a shoemaker to know one pair from the other,” said he, +soliloquizing; and putting, at the same time, the galoshes in search of +an owner, beside his own in the corner. + +“Here, sir!” said one of the men, who panting brought him a tremendous +pile of papers. + +The copying-clerk turned round and spoke awhile with the man about the +reports and legal documents in question; but when he had finished, and +his eye fell again on the Shoes, he was unable to say whether those to +the left or those to the right belonged to him. “At all events it must +be those which are wet,” thought he; but this time, in spite of his +cleverness, he guessed quite wrong, for it was just those of Fortune +which played as it were into his hands, or rather on his feet. And why, +I should like to know, are the police never to be wrong? So he put them +on quickly, stuck his papers in his pocket, and took besides a few under +his arm, intending to look them through at home to make the necessary +notes. It was noon; and the weather, that had threatened rain, began +to clear up, while gaily dressed holiday folks filled the streets. “A +little trip to Fredericksburg would do me no great harm,” thought he; +“for I, poor beast of burden that I am, have so much to annoy me, that I +don't know what a good appetite is. 'Tis a bitter crust, alas! at which +I am condemned to gnaw!” + +Nobody could be more steady or quiet than this young man; we therefore +wish him joy of the excursion with all our heart; and it will certainly +be beneficial for a person who leads so sedentary a life. In the park +he met a friend, one of our young poets, who told him that the following +day he should set out on his long-intended tour. + +“So you are going away again!” said the clerk. “You are a very free +and happy being; we others are chained by the leg and held fast to our +desk.” + +“Yes; but it is a chain, friend, which ensures you the blessed bread +of existence,” answered the poet. “You need feel no care for the coming +morrow: when you are old, you receive a pension.” + +“True,” said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders; “and yet you are +the better off. To sit at one's ease and poetise--that is a pleasure; +everybody has something agreeable to say to you, and you are always your +own master. No, friend, you should but try what it is to sit from one +year's end to the other occupied with and judging the most trivial +matters.” + +The poet shook his head, the copying-clerk did the same. Each one kept +to his own opinion, and so they separated. + +“It's a strange race, those poets!” said the clerk, who was very fond of +soliloquizing. “I should like some day, just for a trial, to take such +nature upon me, and be a poet myself; I am very sure I should make +no such miserable verses as the others. Today, methinks, is a most +delicious day for a poet. Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening +into life. The air is so unusually clear, the clouds sail on so +buoyantly, and from the green herbage a fragrance is exhaled that fills +me with delight. For many a year have I not felt as at this moment.” + +We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is become a poet; to +give further proof of it, however, would in most cases be insipid, for +it is a most foolish notion to fancy a poet different from other men. +Among the latter there may be far more poetical natures than many an +acknowledged poet, when examined more closely, could boast of; the +difference only is, that the poet possesses a better mental memory, on +which account he is able to retain the feeling and the thought till they +can be embodied by means of words; a faculty which the others do not +possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature to one that is +richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap over a +certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden +change with the clerk strike the reader. + +“The sweet air!” continued he of the police-office, in his dreamy +imaginings; “how it reminds me of the violets in the garden of my aunt +Magdalena! Yes, then I was a little wild boy, who did not go to school +very regularly. O heavens! 'tis a long time since I have thought on +those times. The good old soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She +always had a few twigs or green shoots in water--let the winter rage +without as it might. The violets exhaled their sweet breath, whilst I +pressed against the windowpanes covered with fantastic frost-work the +copper coin I had heated on the stove, and so made peep-holes. +What splendid vistas were then opened to my view! What change--what +magnificence! Yonder in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted +by their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole occupant. But +when the spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival, +a new and busy life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn +asunder, the ships were fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail +away to distant lands. But I have remained here--must always remain +here, sitting at my desk in the office, and patiently see other people +fetch their passports to go abroad. Such is my fate! Alas!”--sighed he, +and was again silent. “Great Heaven! What is come to me! Never have I +thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air that affects +me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing.” + +He felt in his pocket for the papers. “These police-reports will soon +stem the torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious +overflowing of the time-worn banks of official duties”; he said to +himself consolingly, while his eye ran over the first page. “DAME +TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts.” “What is that? And yet it is undeniably +my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy? Wonderful, very +wonderful!--And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE RAMPARTS; or +THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with new songs to the most favorite +airs.' The deuce! Where did I get all this rubbish? Some one must have +slipped it slyly into my pocket for a joke. There is too a letter to me; +a crumpled letter and the seal broken.” + +Yes; it was not a very polite epistle from the manager of a theatre, in +which both pieces were flatly refused. + +“Hem! hem!” said the clerk breathlessly, and quite exhausted he seated +himself on a bank. His thoughts were so elastic, his heart so tender; +and involuntarily he picked one of the nearest flowers. It is a simple +daisy, just bursting out of the bud. What the botanist tells us after +a number of imperfect lectures, the flower proclaimed in a minute. It +related the mythus of its birth, told of the power of the sun-light that +spread out its delicate leaves, and forced them to impregnate the air +with their incense--and then he thought of the manifold struggles of +life, which in like manner awaken the budding flowers of feeling in our +bosom. Light and air contend with chivalric emulation for the love of +the fair flower that bestowed her chief favors on the latter; full of +longing she turned towards the light, and as soon as it vanished, rolled +her tender leaves together and slept in the embraces of the air. “It is +the light which adorns me,” said the flower. + +“But 'tis the air which enables thee to breathe,” said the poet's voice. + +Close by stood a boy who dashed his stick into a wet ditch. The drops of +water splashed up to the green leafy roof, and the clerk thought of the +million of ephemera which in a single drop were thrown up to a height, +that was as great doubtless for their size, as for us if we were to +be hurled above the clouds. While he thought of this and of the whole +metamorphosis he had undergone, he smiled and said, “I sleep and dream; +but it is wonderful how one can dream so naturally, and know besides so +exactly that it is but a dream. If only to-morrow on awaking, I could +again call all to mind so vividly! I seem in unusually good spirits; my +perception of things is clear, I feel as light and cheerful as though +I were in heaven; but I know for a certainty, that if to-morrow a dim +remembrance of it should swim before my mind, it will then seem nothing +but stupid nonsense, as I have often experienced already--especially +before I enlisted under the banner of the police, for that dispels like +a whirlwind all the visions of an unfettered imagination. All we hear +or say in a dream that is fair and beautiful is like the gold of the +subterranean spirits; it is rich and splendid when it is given us, but +viewed by daylight we find only withered leaves. Alas!” he sighed quite +sorrowful, and gazed at the chirping birds that hopped contentedly from +branch to branch, “they are much better off than I! To fly must be a +heavenly art; and happy do I prize that creature in which it is innate. +Yes! Could I exchange my nature with any other creature, I fain would be +such a happy little lark!” + +He had hardly uttered these hasty words when the skirts and sleeves +of his coat folded themselves together into wings; the clothes became +feathers, and the galoshes claws. He observed it perfectly, and laughed +in his heart. “Now then, there is no doubt that I am dreaming; but I +never before was aware of such mad freaks as these.” And up he flew into +the green roof and sang; but in the song there was no poetry, for the +spirit of the poet was gone. The Shoes, as is the case with anybody who +does what he has to do properly, could only attend to one thing at a +time. He wanted to be a poet, and he was one; he now wished to be a +merry chirping bird: but when he was metamorphosed into one, the former +peculiarities ceased immediately. “It is really pleasant enough,” said +he: “the whole day long I sit in the office amid the driest +law-papers, and at night I fly in my dream as a lark in the gardens of +Fredericksburg; one might really write a very pretty comedy upon it.” He +now fluttered down into the grass, turned his head gracefully on every +side, and with his bill pecked the pliant blades of grass, which, in +comparison to his present size, seemed as majestic as the palm-branches +of northern Africa. + +Unfortunately the pleasure lasted but a moment. Presently black night +overshadowed our enthusiast, who had so entirely missed his part of +copying-clerk at a police-office; some vast object seemed to be thrown +over him. It was a large oil-skin cap, which a sailor-boy of the quay +had thrown over the struggling bird; a coarse hand sought its way +carefully in under the broad rim, and seized the clerk over the back +and wings. In the first moment of fear, he called, indeed, as loud as +he could--“You impudent little blackguard! I am a copying-clerk at +the police-office; and you know you cannot insult any belonging to the +constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you good-for-nothing +rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch birds in the royal gardens of +Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where you come from.” + This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere +“Pippi-pi.” He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak, and walked on. + +He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper class--that is to say as +individuals, for with regard to learning they were in the lowest class +in the school; and they bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk +came to Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family living in +Gother Street. + +“'Tis well that I'm dreaming,” said the clerk, “or I really should get +angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few pence as a lark; no doubt +it was that accursed poetical nature which has metamorphosed me +into such a poor harmless little creature. It is really pitiable, +particularly when one gets into the hands of a little blackguard, +perfect in all sorts of cruelty to animals: all I should like to know +is, how the story will end.” + +The two schoolboys, the proprietors now of the transformed clerk, +carried him into an elegant room. A stout stately dame received them +with a smile; but she expressed much dissatisfaction that a common +field-bird, as she called the lark, should appear in such high society. +For to-day, however, she would allow it; and they must shut him in the +empty cage that was standing in the window. “Perhaps he will amuse my +good Polly,” added the lady, looking with a benignant smile at a large +green parrot that swung himself backwards and forwards most comfortably +in his ring, inside a magnificent brass-wired cage. “To-day is Polly's +birthday,” said she with stupid simplicity: “and the little brown +field-bird must wish him joy.” + +Mr. Polly uttered not a syllable in reply, but swung to and fro with +dignified condescension; while a pretty canary, as yellow as gold, that +had lately been brought from his sunny fragrant home, began to sing +aloud. + +“Noisy creature! Will you be quiet!” screamed the lady of the house, +covering the cage with an embroidered white pocket handkerchief. + +“Chirp, chirp!” sighed he. “That was a dreadful snowstorm”; and he +sighed again, and was silent. + +The copying-clerk, or, as the lady said, the brown field-bird, was +put into a small cage, close to the Canary, and not far from “my good +Polly.” The only human sounds that the Parrot could bawl out +were, “Come, let us be men!” Everything else that he said was as +unintelligible to everybody as the chirping of the Canary, except to the +clerk, who was now a bird too: he understood his companion perfectly. + +“I flew about beneath the green palms and the blossoming almond-trees,” + sang the Canary; “I flew around, with my brothers and sisters, over +the beautiful flowers, and over the glassy lakes, where the bright +water-plants nodded to me from below. There, too, I saw many +splendidly-dressed paroquets, that told the drollest stories, and the +wildest fairy tales without end.” + +“Oh! those were uncouth birds,” answered the Parrot. “They had no +education, and talked of whatever came into their head. + +“If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you +too, I should think. It is a great fault to have no taste for what is +witty or amusing--come, let us be men.” + +“Ah, you have no remembrance of love for the charming maidens that +danced beneath the outspread tents beside the bright fragrant flowers? +Do you no longer remember the sweet fruits, and the cooling juice in +the wild plants of our never-to-be-forgotten home?” said the former +inhabitant of the Canary Isles, continuing his dithyrambic. + +“Oh, yes,” said the Parrot; “but I am far better off here. I am well +fed, and get friendly treatment. I know I am a clever fellow; and that +is all I care about. Come, let us be men. You are of a poetical nature, +as it is called--I, on the contrary, possess profound knowledge and +inexhaustible wit. You have genius; but clear-sighted, calm discretion +does not take such lofty flights, and utter such high natural tones. +For this they have covered you over--they never do the like to me; for +I cost more. Besides, they are afraid of my beak; and I have always a +witty answer at hand. Come, let us be men!” + +“O warm spicy land of my birth,” sang the Canary bird; “I will sing of +thy dark-green bowers, of the calm bays where the pendent boughs +kiss the surface of the water; I will sing of the rejoicing of all my +brothers and sisters where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance.” + +“Spare us your elegiac tones,” said the Parrot giggling. “Rather speak +of something at which one may laugh heartily. Laughing is an infallible +sign of the highest degree of mental development. Can a dog, or a horse +laugh? No, but they can cry. The gift of laughing was given to man +alone. Ha! ha! ha!” screamed Polly, and added his stereotype witticism. +“Come, let us be men!” + +“Poor little Danish grey-bird,” said the Canary; “you have been caught +too. It is, no doubt, cold enough in your woods, but there at least +is the breath of liberty; therefore fly away. In the hurry they have +forgotten to shut your cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, my +friend; fly away. Farewell!” + +Instinctively the Clerk obeyed; with a few strokes of his wings he was +out of the cage; but at the same moment the door, which was only ajar, +and which led to the next room, began to creak, and supple and creeping +came the large tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The +frightened Canary fluttered about in his cage; the Parrot flapped his +wings, and cried, “Come, let us be men!” The Clerk felt a mortal fright, +and flew through the window, far away over the houses and streets. At +last he was forced to rest a little. + +The neighboring house had a something familiar about it; a window stood +open; he flew in; it was his own room. He perched upon the table. + +“Come, let us be men!” said he, involuntarily imitating the chatter of +the Parrot, and at the same moment he was again a copying-clerk; but he +was sitting in the middle of the table. + +“Heaven help me!” cried he. “How did I get up here--and so buried in +sleep, too? After all, that was a very unpleasant, disagreeable dream +that haunted me! The whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!” + + +VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave + +The following day, early in the morning, while the Clerk was still in +bed, someone knocked at his door. It was his neighbor, a young Divine, +who lived on the same floor. He walked in. + +“Lend me your Galoshes,” said he; “it is so wet in the garden, though +the sun is shining most invitingly. I should like to go out a little.” + +He got the Galoshes, and he was soon below in a little duodecimo garden, +where between two immense walls a plumtree and an apple-tree were +standing. Even such a little garden as this was considered in the +metropolis of Copenhagen as a great luxury. + +The young man wandered up and down the narrow paths, as well as the +prescribed limits would allow; the clock struck six; without was heard +the horn of a post-boy. + +“To travel! to travel!” exclaimed he, overcome by most painful and +passionate remembrances. “That is the happiest thing in the world! That +is the highest aim of all my wishes! Then at last would the agonizing +restlessness be allayed, which destroys my existence! But it must be +far, far away! I would behold magnificent Switzerland; I would travel to +Italy, and--” + +It was a good thing that the power of the Galoshes worked as +instantaneously as lightning in a powder-magazine would do, otherwise +the poor man with his overstrained wishes would have travelled about +the world too much for himself as well as for us. In short, he was +travelling. He was in the middle of Switzerland, but packed up with +eight other passengers in the inside of an eternally-creaking diligence; +his head ached till it almost split, his weary neck could hardly bear +the heavy load, and his feet, pinched by his torturing boots, were +terribly swollen. He was in an intermediate state between sleeping and +waking; at variance with himself, with his company, with the country, +and with the government. In his right pocket he had his letter of +credit, in the left, his passport, and in a small leathern purse some +double louis d'or, carefully sewn up in the bosom of his waistcoat. +Every dream proclaimed that one or the other of these valuables was +lost; wherefore he started up as in a fever; and the first movement +which his hand made, described a magic triangle from the right pocket to +the left, and then up towards the bosom, to feel if he had them all safe +or not. From the roof inside the carriage, umbrellas, walking-sticks, +hats, and sundry other articles were depending, and hindered the view, +which was particularly imposing. He now endeavored as well as he +was able to dispel his gloom, which was caused by outward chance +circumstances merely, and on the bosom of nature imbibe the milk of +purest human enjoyment. + +Grand, solemn, and dark was the whole landscape around. The gigantic +pine-forests, on the pointed crags, seemed almost like little tufts of +heather, colored by the surrounding clouds. It began to snow, a cold +wind blew and roared as though it were seeking a bride. + +“Augh!” sighed he, “were we only on the other side the Alps, then we +should have summer, and I could get my letters of credit cashed. The +anxiety I feel about them prevents me enjoying Switzerland. Were I but +on the other side!” + +And so saying he was on the other side in Italy, between Florence and +Rome. Lake Thracymene, illumined by the evening sun, lay like flaming +gold between the dark-blue mountain-ridges; here, where Hannibal +defeated Flaminius, the rivers now held each other in their green +embraces; lovely, half-naked children tended a herd of black swine, +beneath a group of fragrant laurel-trees, hard by the road-side. +Could we render this inimitable picture properly, then would everybody +exclaim, “Beautiful, unparalleled Italy!” But neither the young Divine +said so, nor anyone of his grumbling companions in the coach of the +vetturino. + +The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one +waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population +did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the +well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their +ravenous bites. The poor horses, tortured almost to death, suffered most +from this truly Egyptian plague; the flies alighted upon them in large +disgusting swarms; and if the coachman got down and scraped them off, +hardly a minute elapsed before they were there again. The sun now set: a +freezing cold, though of short duration pervaded the whole creation; +it was like a horrid gust coming from a burial-vault on a warm summer's +day--but all around the mountains retained that wonderful green tone +which we see in some old pictures, and which, should we not have seen a +similar play of color in the South, we declare at once to be unnatural. +It was a glorious prospect; but the stomach was empty, the body tired; +all that the heart cared and longed for was good night-quarters; yet +how would they be? For these one looked much more anxiously than for the +charms of nature, which every where were so profusely displayed. + +The road led through an olive-grove, and here the solitary inn was +situated. Ten or twelve crippled-beggars had encamped outside. The +healthiest of them resembled, to use an expression of Marryat's, +“Hunger's eldest son when he had come of age”; the others were either +blind, had withered legs and crept about on their hands, or withered +arms and fingerless hands. It was the most wretched misery, dragged +from among the filthiest rags. “Excellenza, miserabili!” sighed they, +thrusting forth their deformed limbs to view. Even the hostess, with +bare feet, uncombed hair, and dressed in a garment of doubtful color, +received the guests grumblingly. The doors were fastened with a loop of +string; the floor of the rooms presented a stone paving half torn +up; bats fluttered wildly about the ceiling; and as to the smell +therein--no--that was beyond description. + +“You had better lay the cloth below in the stable,” said one of the +travellers; “there, at all events, one knows what one is breathing.” + +The windows were quickly opened, to let in a little fresh air. Quicker, +however, than the breeze, the withered, sallow arms of the beggars were +thrust in, accompanied by the eternal whine of “Miserabili, miserabili, +excellenza!” On the walls were displayed innumerable inscriptions, +written in nearly every language of Europe, some in verse, some in +prose, most of them not very laudatory of “bella Italia.” + +The meal was served. It consisted of a soup of salted water, seasoned +with pepper and rancid oil. The last ingredient played a very prominent +part in the salad; stale eggs and roasted cocks'-combs furnished the +grand dish of the repast; the wine even was not without a disgusting +taste--it was like a medicinal draught. + +At night the boxes and other effects of the passengers were placed +against the rickety doors. One of the travellers kept watch while the +others slept. The sentry was our young Divine. How close it was in the +chamber! The heat oppressive to suffocation--the gnats hummed and stung +unceasingly--the “miserabili” without whined and moaned in their sleep. + +“Travelling would be agreeable enough,” said he groaning, “if one only +had no body, or could send it to rest while the spirit went on its +pilgrimage unhindered, whither the voice within might call it. Wherever +I go, I am pursued by a longing that is insatiable--that I cannot +explain to myself, and that tears my very heart. I want something better +than what is but what is fled in an instant. But what is it, and where +is it to be found? Yet, I know in reality what it is I wish for. Oh! +most happy were I, could I but reach one aim--could but reach the +happiest of all!” + +And as he spoke the word he was again in his home; the long white +curtains hung down from the windows, and in the middle of the floor +stood the black coffin; in it he lay in the sleep of death. His wish +was fulfilled--the body rested, while the spirit went unhindered on its +pilgrimage. “Let no one deem himself happy before his end,” were the +words of Solon; and here was a new and brilliant proof of the wisdom of +the old apothegm. + +Every corpse is a sphynx of immortality; here too on the black coffin +the sphynx gave us no answer to what he who lay within had written two +days before: + + “O mighty Death! thy silence teaches nought, + Thou leadest only to the near grave's brink; + Is broken now the ladder of my thoughts? + Do I instead of mounting only sink? + + Our heaviest grief the world oft seeth not, + Our sorest pain we hide from stranger eyes: + And for the sufferer there is nothing left + But the green mound that o'er the coffin lies.” + +Two figures were moving in the chamber. We knew them both; it was the +fairy of Care, and the emissary of Fortune. They both bent over the +corpse. + +“Do you now see,” said Care, “what happiness your Galoshes have brought +to mankind?” + +“To him, at least, who slumbers here, they have brought an imperishable +blessing,” answered the other. + +“Ah no!” replied Care. “He took his departure himself; he was not called +away. His mental powers here below were not strong enough to reach the +treasures lying beyond this life, and which his destiny ordained he +should obtain. I will now confer a benefit on him.” + +And she took the Galoshes from his feet; his sleep of death was ended; +and he who had been thus called back again to life arose from his +dread couch in all the vigor of youth. Care vanished, and with her the +Galoshes. She has no doubt taken them for herself, to keep them to all +eternity. + + + + +THE FIR TREE + +Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir Tree. The place he had was a +very good one: the sun shone on him: as to fresh air, there was enough +of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as +firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree. + +He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care +for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they +were in the woods looking for wild-strawberries. The children often came +with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on +a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, “Oh, how pretty he +is! What a nice little fir!” But this was what the Tree could not bear +to hear. + +At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year +he was another long bit taller; for with fir trees one can always tell +by the shoots how many years old they are. + +“Oh! Were I but such a high tree as the others are,” sighed he. “Then I +should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into +the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches: and +when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the +others!” + +Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds which morning +and evening sailed above him, gave the little Tree any pleasure. + +In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would +often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that +made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the Tree +was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. “To grow and +grow, to get older and be tall,” thought the Tree--“that, after all, is +the most delightful thing in the world!” + +In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled some of the largest +trees. This happened every year; and the young Fir Tree, that had now +grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent +great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were +lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be +recognised; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged +them out of the wood. + +Where did they go to? What became of them? + +In spring, when the swallows and the storks came, the Tree asked them, +“Don't you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them +anywhere?” + +The swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked +musing, nodded his head, and said, “Yes; I think I know; I met many +ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent +masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. +I may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most +majestically!” + +“Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea +look in reality? What is it like?” + +“That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with these +words off he went. + +“Rejoice in thy growth!” said the Sunbeams. “Rejoice in thy vigorous +growth, and in the fresh life that moveth within thee!” + +And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him; but the +Fir understood it not. + +When Christmas came, quite young trees were cut down: trees which often +were not even as large or of the same age as this Fir Tree, who could +never rest, but always wanted to be off. These young trees, and they +were always the finest looking, retained their branches; they were laid +on carts, and the horses drew them out of the wood. + +“Where are they going to?” asked the Fir. “They are not taller than +I; there was one indeed that was considerably shorter; and why do they +retain all their branches? Whither are they taken?” + +“We know! We know!” chirped the Sparrows. “We have peeped in at the +windows in the town below! We know whither they are taken! The greatest +splendor and the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them. We +peeped through the windows, and saw them planted in the middle of the +warm room and ornamented with the most splendid things, with gilded +apples, with gingerbread, with toys, and many hundred lights!” + +“And then?” asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough. “And then? +What happens then?” + +“We did not see anything more: it was incomparably beautiful.” + +“I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a career,” cried +the Tree, rejoicing. “That is still better than to cross the sea! What +a longing do I suffer! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my +branches spread like the others that were carried off last year! Oh! +were I but already on the cart! Were I in the warm room with all the +splendor and magnificence! Yes; then something better, something still +grander, will surely follow, or wherefore should they thus ornament me? +Something better, something still grander must follow--but what? Oh, how +I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with me!” + +“Rejoice in our presence!” said the Air and the Sunlight. “Rejoice in +thy own fresh youth!” + +But the Tree did not rejoice at all; he grew and grew, and was green +both winter and summer. People that saw him said, “What a fine tree!” + and towards Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe +struck deep into the very pith; the Tree fell to the earth with a sigh; +he felt a pang--it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness, +for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place +where he had sprung up. He well knew that he should never see his dear +old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him, anymore; perhaps +not even the birds! The departure was not at all agreeable. + +The Tree only came to himself when he was unloaded in a court-yard with +the other trees, and heard a man say, “That one is splendid! We don't +want the others.” Then two servants came in rich livery and carried the +Fir Tree into a large and splendid drawing-room. Portraits were hanging +on the walls, and near the white porcelain stove stood two large Chinese +vases with lions on the covers. There, too, were large easy-chairs, +silken sofas, large tables full of picture-books and full of toys, worth +hundreds and hundreds of crowns--at least the children said so. And the +Fir Tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with sand; but no +one could see that it was a cask, for green cloth was hung all round it, +and it stood on a large gaily-colored carpet. Oh! how the Tree quivered! +What was to happen? The servants, as well as the young ladies, decorated +it. On one branch there hung little nets cut out of colored paper, and +each net was filled with sugarplums; and among the other boughs gilded +apples and walnuts were suspended, looking as though they had grown +there, and little blue and white tapers were placed among the leaves. +Dolls that looked for all the world like men--the Tree had never beheld +such before--were seen among the foliage, and at the very top a +large star of gold tinsel was fixed. It was really splendid--beyond +description splendid. + +“This evening!” they all said. “How it will shine this evening!” + +“Oh!” thought the Tree. “If the evening were but come! If the tapers +were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other +trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will +beat against the windowpanes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and +winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!” + +He knew very much about the matter--but he was so impatient that for +sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the same +thing as a headache with us. + +The candles were now lighted--what brightness! What splendor! The +Tree trembled so in every bough that one of the tapers set fire to the +foliage. It blazed up famously. + +“Help! Help!” cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire. + +Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state he was in! He was +so uneasy lest he should lose something of his splendor, that he was +quite bewildered amidst the glare and brightness; when suddenly both +folding-doors opened and a troop of children rushed in as if they would +upset the Tree. The older persons followed quietly; the little ones +stood quite still. But it was only for a moment; then they shouted that +the whole place re-echoed with their rejoicing; they danced round the +Tree, and one present after the other was pulled off. + +“What are they about?” thought the Tree. “What is to happen now!” And +the lights burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down +they were put out one after the other, and then the children had +permission to plunder the Tree. So they fell upon it with such violence +that all its branches cracked; if it had not been fixed firmly in the +ground, it would certainly have tumbled down. + +The children danced about with their beautiful playthings; no one looked +at the Tree except the old nurse, who peeped between the branches; but +it was only to see if there was a fig or an apple left that had been +forgotten. + +“A story! A story!” cried the children, drawing a little fat man towards +the Tree. He seated himself under it and said, “Now we are in the shade, +and the Tree can listen too. But I shall tell only one story. Now which +will you have; that about Ivedy-Avedy, or about Humpy-Dumpy, who +tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne and married the +princess?” + +“Ivedy-Avedy,” cried some; “Humpy-Dumpy,” cried the others. There was +such a bawling and screaming--the Fir Tree alone was silent, and he +thought to himself, “Am I not to bawl with the rest? Am I to do nothing +whatever?” for he was one of the company, and had done what he had to +do. + +And the man told about Humpy-Dumpy that tumbled down, who +notwithstanding came to the throne, and at last married the princess. +And the children clapped their hands, and cried. “Oh, go on! Do go on!” + They wanted to hear about Ivedy-Avedy too, but the little man only told +them about Humpy-Dumpy. The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed +in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this. +“Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes! +That's the way of the world!” thought the Fir Tree, and believed it all, +because the man who told the story was so good-looking. “Well, well! who +knows, perhaps I may fall downstairs, too, and get a princess as wife!” + And he looked forward with joy to the morrow, when he hoped to be decked +out again with lights, playthings, fruits, and tinsel. + +“I won't tremble to-morrow!” thought the Fir Tree. “I will enjoy to +the full all my splendor! To-morrow I shall hear again the story of +Humpy-Dumpy, and perhaps that of Ivedy-Avedy too.” And the whole night +the Tree stood still and in deep thought. + +In the morning the servant and the housemaid came in. + +“Now then the splendor will begin again,” thought the Fir. But they +dragged him out of the room, and up the stairs into the loft: and here, +in a dark corner, where no daylight could enter, they left him. “What's +the meaning of this?” thought the Tree. “What am I to do here? What +shall I hear now, I wonder?” And he leaned against the wall lost in +reverie. Time enough had he too for his reflections; for days and nights +passed on, and nobody came up; and when at last somebody did come, it +was only to put some great trunks in a corner, out of the way. There +stood the Tree quite hidden; it seemed as if he had been entirely +forgotten. + +“'Tis now winter out-of-doors!” thought the Tree. “The earth is hard and +covered with snow; men cannot plant me now, and therefore I have been +put up here under shelter till the spring-time comes! How thoughtful +that is! How kind man is, after all! If it only were not so dark here, +and so terribly lonely! Not even a hare! And out in the woods it was +so pleasant, when the snow was on the ground, and the hare leaped by; +yes--even when he jumped over me; but I did not like it then! It is +really terribly lonely here!” + +“Squeak! Squeak!” said a little Mouse, at the same moment, peeping out +of his hole. And then another little one came. They snuffed about the +Fir Tree, and rustled among the branches. + +“It is dreadfully cold,” said the Mouse. “But for that, it would be +delightful here, old Fir, wouldn't it?” + +“I am by no means old,” said the Fir Tree. “There's many a one +considerably older than I am.” + +“Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?” They +were so extremely curious. “Tell us about the most beautiful spot on the +earth. Have you never been there? Were you never in the larder, where +cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above; where one dances +about on tallow candles: that place where one enters lean, and comes out +again fat and portly?” + +“I know no such place,” said the Tree. “But I know the wood, where the +sun shines and where the little birds sing.” And then he told all about +his youth; and the little Mice had never heard the like before; and they +listened and said, + +“Well, to be sure! How much you have seen! How happy you must have +been!” + +“I!” said the Fir Tree, thinking over what he had himself related. +“Yes, in reality those were happy times.” And then he told about +Christmas-eve, when he was decked out with cakes and candles. + +“Oh,” said the little Mice, “how fortunate you have been, old Fir Tree!” + +“I am by no means old,” said he. “I came from the wood this winter; I am +in my prime, and am only rather short for my age.” + +“What delightful stories you know,” said the Mice: and the next night +they came with four other little Mice, who were to hear what the Tree +recounted: and the more he related, the more he remembered himself; and +it appeared as if those times had really been happy times. “But they may +still come--they may still come! Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet +he got a princess!” and he thought at the moment of a nice little Birch +Tree growing out in the woods: to the Fir, that would be a real charming +princess. + +“Who is Humpy-Dumpy?” asked the Mice. So then the Fir Tree told the +whole fairy tale, for he could remember every single word of it; and the +little Mice jumped for joy up to the very top of the Tree. Next night +two more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even; but they said the +stories were not interesting, which vexed the little Mice; and they, +too, now began to think them not so very amusing either. + +“Do you know only one story?” asked the Rats. + +“Only that one,” answered the Tree. “I heard it on my happiest evening; +but I did not then know how happy I was.” + +“It is a very stupid story! Don't you know one about bacon and tallow +candles? Can't you tell any larder stories?” + +“No,” said the Tree. + +“Then good-bye,” said the Rats; and they went home. + +At last the little Mice stayed away also; and the Tree sighed: “After +all, it was very pleasant when the sleek little Mice sat round me, and +listened to what I told them. Now that too is over. But I will take good +care to enjoy myself when I am brought out again.” + +But when was that to be? Why, one morning there came a quantity of +people and set to work in the loft. The trunks were moved, the tree was +pulled out and thrown--rather hard, it is true--down on the floor, but a +man drew him towards the stairs, where the daylight shone. + +“Now a merry life will begin again,” thought the Tree. He felt the fresh +air, the first sunbeam--and now he was out in the courtyard. All passed +so quickly, there was so much going on around him, the Tree quite forgot +to look to himself. The court adjoined a garden, and all was in flower; +the roses hung so fresh and odorous over the balustrade, the lindens +were in blossom, the Swallows flew by, and said, “Quirre-vit! My husband +is come!” but it was not the Fir Tree that they meant. + +“Now, then, I shall really enjoy life,” said he exultingly, and spread +out his branches; but, alas, they were all withered and yellow! It was +in a corner that he lay, among weeds and nettles. The golden star of +tinsel was still on the top of the Tree, and glittered in the sunshine. + +In the court-yard some of the merry children were playing who had danced +at Christmas round the Fir Tree, and were so glad at the sight of him. +One of the youngest ran and tore off the golden star. + +“Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, +trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet. + +And the Tree beheld all the beauty of the flowers, and the freshness in +the garden; he beheld himself, and wished he had remained in his dark +corner in the loft; he thought of his first youth in the wood, of the +merry Christmas-eve, and of the little Mice who had listened with so +much pleasure to the story of Humpy-Dumpy. + +“'Tis over--'tis past!” said the poor Tree. “Had I but rejoiced when I +had reason to do so! But now 'tis past, 'tis past!” + +And the gardener's boy chopped the Tree into small pieces; there was a +whole heap lying there. The wood flamed up splendidly under the large +brewing copper, and it sighed so deeply! Each sigh was like a shot. + +The boys played about in the court, and the youngest wore the gold star +on his breast which the Tree had had on the happiest evening of his +life. However, that was over now--the Tree gone, the story at an end. +All, all was over--every tale must end at last. + + + + +THE SNOW QUEEN + +FIRST STORY. Which Treats of a Mirror and of the Splinters + +Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall +know more than we know now: but to begin. + +Once upon a time there was a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most +mischievous of all sprites. One day he was in a very good humor, for +he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and +beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but +that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified +and increased in ugliness. In this mirror the most beautiful landscapes +looked like boiled spinach, and the best persons were turned into +frights, or appeared to stand on their heads; their faces were so +distorted that they were not to be recognised; and if anyone had a mole, +you might be sure that it would be magnified and spread over both nose +and mouth. + +“That's glorious fun!” said the sprite. If a good thought passed through +a man's mind, then a grin was seen in the mirror, and the sprite laughed +heartily at his clever discovery. All the little sprites who went to his +school--for he kept a sprite school--told each other that a miracle had +happened; and that now only, as they thought, it would be possible to +see how the world really looked. They ran about with the mirror; and at +last there was not a land or a person who was not represented distorted +in the mirror. So then they thought they would fly up to the sky, +and have a joke there. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more +terribly it grinned: they could hardly hold it fast. Higher and higher +still they flew, nearer and nearer to the stars, when suddenly the +mirror shook so terribly with grinning, that it flew out of their hands +and fell to the earth, where it was dashed in a hundred million and more +pieces. And now it worked much more evil than before; for some of these +pieces were hardly so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about in +the wide world, and when they got into people's eyes, there they stayed; +and then people saw everything perverted, or only had an eye for that +which was evil. This happened because the very smallest bit had the +same power which the whole mirror had possessed. Some persons even got +a splinter in their heart, and then it made one shudder, for their heart +became like a lump of ice. Some of the broken pieces were so large that +they were used for windowpanes, through which one could not see one's +friends. Other pieces were put in spectacles; and that was a sad affair +when people put on their glasses to see well and rightly. Then the +wicked sprite laughed till he almost choked, for all this tickled his +fancy. The fine splinters still flew about in the air: and now we shall +hear what happened next. + + +SECOND STORY. A Little Boy and a Little Girl + +In a large town, where there are so many houses, and so many people, +that there is no roof left for everybody to have a little garden; and +where, on this account, most persons are obliged to content themselves +with flowers in pots; there lived two little children, who had a garden +somewhat larger than a flower-pot. They were not brother and sister; but +they cared for each other as much as if they were. Their parents lived +exactly opposite. They inhabited two garrets; and where the roof of the +one house joined that of the other, and the gutter ran along the extreme +end of it, there was to each house a small window: one needed only to +step over the gutter to get from one window to the other. + +The children's parents had large wooden boxes there, in which vegetables +for the kitchen were planted, and little rosetrees besides: there was a +rose in each box, and they grew splendidly. They now thought of placing +the boxes across the gutter, so that they nearly reached from one window +to the other, and looked just like two walls of flowers. The tendrils +of the peas hung down over the boxes; and the rose-trees shot up long +branches, twined round the windows, and then bent towards each other: it +was almost like a triumphant arch of foliage and flowers. The boxes were +very high, and the children knew that they must not creep over them; so +they often obtained permission to get out of the windows to each other, +and to sit on their little stools among the roses, where they could play +delightfully. In winter there was an end of this pleasure. The windows +were often frozen over; but then they heated copper farthings on the +stove, and laid the hot farthing on the windowpane, and then they had a +capital peep-hole, quite nicely rounded; and out of each peeped a gentle +friendly eye--it was the little boy and the little girl who were looking +out. His name was Kay, hers was Gerda. In summer, with one jump, they +could get to each other; but in winter they were obliged first to +go down the long stairs, and then up the long stairs again: and +out-of-doors there was quite a snow-storm. + +“It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother. + +“Do the white bees choose a queen?” asked the little boy; for he knew +that the honey-bees always have one. + +“Yes,” said the grandmother, “she flies where the swarm hangs in the +thickest clusters. She is the largest of all; and she can never remain +quietly on the earth, but goes up again into the black clouds. Many a +winter's night she flies through the streets of the town, and peeps in +at the windows; and they then freeze in so wondrous a manner that they +look like flowers.” + +“Yes, I have seen it,” said both the children; and so they knew that it +was true. + +“Can the Snow Queen come in?” said the little girl. + +“Only let her come in!” said the little boy. “Then I'd put her on the +stove, and she'd melt.” + +And then his grandmother patted his head and told him other stories. + +In the evening, when little Kay was at home, and half undressed, he +climbed up on the chair by the window, and peeped out of the little +hole. A few snow-flakes were falling, and one, the largest of all, +remained lying on the edge of a flower-pot. + +The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a +young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little +flakes like stars. She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of +ice, of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, +like two stars; but there was neither quiet nor repose in them. She +nodded towards the window, and beckoned with her hand. The little boy +was frightened, and jumped down from the chair; it seemed to him as if, +at the same moment, a large bird flew past the window. + +The next day it was a sharp frost--and then the spring came; the sun +shone, the green leaves appeared, the swallows built their nests, the +windows were opened, and the little children again sat in their pretty +garden, high up on the leads at the top of the house. + +That summer the roses flowered in unwonted beauty. The little girl had +learned a hymn, in which there was something about roses; and then she +thought of her own flowers; and she sang the verse to the little boy, +who then sang it with her: + + “The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, + And angels descend there the children to greet.” + +And the children held each other by the hand, kissed the roses, looked +up at the clear sunshine, and spoke as though they really saw angels +there. What lovely summer-days those were! How delightful to be out in +the air, near the fresh rose-bushes, that seem as if they would never +finish blossoming! + +Kay and Gerda looked at the picture-book full of beasts and of birds; +and it was then--the clock in the church-tower was just striking +five--that Kay said, “Oh! I feel such a sharp pain in my heart; and now +something has got into my eye!” + +The little girl put her arms around his neck. He winked his eyes; now +there was nothing to be seen. + +“I think it is out now,” said he; but it was not. It was just one of +those pieces of glass from the magic mirror that had got into his eye; +and poor Kay had got another piece right in his heart. It will soon +become like ice. It did not hurt any longer, but there it was. + +“What are you crying for?” asked he. “You look so ugly! There's nothing +the matter with me. Ah,” said he at once, “that rose is cankered! And +look, this one is quite crooked! After all, these roses are very ugly! +They are just like the box they are planted in!” And then he gave the +box a good kick with his foot, and pulled both the roses up. + +“What are you doing?” cried the little girl; and as he perceived her +fright, he pulled up another rose, got in at the window, and hastened +off from dear little Gerda. + +Afterwards, when she brought her picture-book, he asked, “What horrid +beasts have you there?” And if his grandmother told them stories, he +always interrupted her; besides, if he could manage it, he would get +behind her, put on her spectacles, and imitate her way of speaking; he +copied all her ways, and then everybody laughed at him. He was soon able +to imitate the gait and manner of everyone in the street. Everything +that was peculiar and displeasing in them--that Kay knew how to imitate: +and at such times all the people said, “The boy is certainly very +clever!” But it was the glass he had got in his eye; the glass that was +sticking in his heart, which made him tease even little Gerda, whose +whole soul was devoted to him. + +His games now were quite different to what they had formerly been, they +were so very knowing. One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were +flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the snow +as it fell. + +“Look through this glass, Gerda,” said he. And every flake seemed +larger, and appeared like a magnificent flower, or beautiful star; it +was splendid to look at! + +“Look, how clever!” said Kay. “That's much more interesting than real +flowers! They are as exact as possible; there is not a fault in them, if +they did not melt!” + +It was not long after this, that Kay came one day with large gloves on, +and his little sledge at his back, and bawled right into Gerda's ears, +“I have permission to go out into the square where the others are +playing”; and off he was in a moment. + +There, in the market-place, some of the boldest of the boys used to tie +their sledges to the carts as they passed by, and so they were pulled +along, and got a good ride. It was so capital! Just as they were in the +very height of their amusement, a large sledge passed by: it was painted +quite white, and there was someone in it wrapped up in a rough white +mantle of fur, with a rough white fur cap on his head. The sledge drove +round the square twice, and Kay tied on his sledge as quickly as he +could, and off he drove with it. On they went quicker and quicker into +the next street; and the person who drove turned round to Kay, and +nodded to him in a friendly manner, just as if they knew each other. +Every time he was going to untie his sledge, the person nodded to him, +and then Kay sat quiet; and so on they went till they came outside +the gates of the town. Then the snow began to fall so thickly that the +little boy could not see an arm's length before him, but still on he +went: when suddenly he let go the string he held in his hand in order +to get loose from the sledge, but it was of no use; still the little +vehicle rushed on with the quickness of the wind. He then cried as loud +as he could, but no one heard him; the snow drifted and the sledge flew +on, and sometimes it gave a jerk as though they were driving over hedges +and ditches. He was quite frightened, and he tried to repeat the +Lord's Prayer; but all he could do, he was only able to remember the +multiplication table. + +The snow-flakes grew larger and larger, till at last they looked just +like great white fowls. Suddenly they flew on one side; the large sledge +stopped, and the person who drove rose up. It was a lady; her cloak and +cap were of snow. She was tall and of slender figure, and of a dazzling +whiteness. It was the Snow Queen. + +“We have travelled fast,” said she; “but it is freezingly cold. Come +under my bearskin.” And she put him in the sledge beside her, +wrapped the fur round him, and he felt as though he were sinking in a +snow-wreath. + +“Are you still cold?” asked she; and then she kissed his forehead. +Ah! it was colder than ice; it penetrated to his very heart, which was +already almost a frozen lump; it seemed to him as if he were about to +die--but a moment more and it was quite congenial to him, and he did not +remark the cold that was around him. + +“My sledge! Do not forget my sledge!” It was the first thing he thought +of. It was there tied to one of the white chickens, who flew along with +it on his back behind the large sledge. The Snow Queen kissed Kay once +more, and then he forgot little Gerda, grandmother, and all whom he had +left at his home. + +“Now you will have no more kisses,” said she, “or else I should kiss you +to death!” + +Kay looked at her. She was very beautiful; a more clever, or a more +lovely countenance he could not fancy to himself; and she no longer +appeared of ice as before, when she sat outside the window, and beckoned +to him; in his eyes she was perfect, he did not fear her at all, and +told her that he could calculate in his head and with fractions, even; +that he knew the number of square miles there were in the different +countries, and how many inhabitants they contained; and she smiled while +he spoke. It then seemed to him as if what he knew was not enough, and +he looked upwards in the large huge empty space above him, and on she +flew with him; flew high over the black clouds, while the storm moaned +and whistled as though it were singing some old tune. On they flew +over woods and lakes, over seas, and many lands; and beneath them the +chilling storm rushed fast, the wolves howled, the snow crackled; above +them flew large screaming crows, but higher up appeared the moon, quite +large and bright; and it was on it that Kay gazed during the long long +winter's night; while by day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen. + + +THIRD STORY. Of the Flower-Garden At the Old Woman's Who Understood +Witchcraft + +But what became of little Gerda when Kay did not return? Where could he +be? Nobody knew; nobody could give any intelligence. All the boys knew +was, that they had seen him tie his sledge to another large and splendid +one, which drove down the street and out of the town. Nobody knew +where he was; many sad tears were shed, and little Gerda wept long and +bitterly; at last she said he must be dead; that he had been drowned in +the river which flowed close to the town. Oh! those were very long and +dismal winter evenings! + +At last spring came, with its warm sunshine. + +“Kay is dead and gone!” said little Gerda. + +“That I don't believe,” said the Sunshine. + +“Kay is dead and gone!” said she to the Swallows. + +“That I don't believe,” said they: and at last little Gerda did not +think so any longer either. + +“I'll put on my red shoes,” said she, one morning; “Kay has never seen +them, and then I'll go down to the river and ask there.” + +It was quite early; she kissed her old grandmother, who was still +asleep, put on her red shoes, and went alone to the river. + +“Is it true that you have taken my little playfellow? I will make you a +present of my red shoes, if you will give him back to me.” + +And, as it seemed to her, the blue waves nodded in a strange manner; +then she took off her red shoes, the most precious things she possessed, +and threw them both into the river. But they fell close to the bank, and +the little waves bore them immediately to land; it was as if the stream +would not take what was dearest to her; for in reality it had not got +little Kay; but Gerda thought that she had not thrown the shoes out far +enough, so she clambered into a boat which lay among the rushes, went +to the farthest end, and threw out the shoes. But the boat was not +fastened, and the motion which she occasioned, made it drift from the +shore. She observed this, and hastened to get back; but before she could +do so, the boat was more than a yard from the land, and was gliding +quickly onward. + +Little Gerda was very frightened, and began to cry; but no one heard her +except the sparrows, and they could not carry her to land; but they flew +along the bank, and sang as if to comfort her, “Here we are! Here we +are!” The boat drifted with the stream, little Gerda sat quite still +without shoes, for they were swimming behind the boat, but she could not +reach them, because the boat went much faster than they did. + +The banks on both sides were beautiful; lovely flowers, venerable trees, +and slopes with sheep and cows, but not a human being was to be seen. + +“Perhaps the river will carry me to little Kay,” said she; and then +she grew less sad. She rose, and looked for many hours at the beautiful +green banks. Presently she sailed by a large cherry-orchard, where was +a little cottage with curious red and blue windows; it was thatched, +and before it two wooden soldiers stood sentry, and presented arms when +anyone went past. + +Gerda called to them, for she thought they were alive; but they, of +course, did not answer. She came close to them, for the stream drifted +the boat quite near the land. + +Gerda called still louder, and an old woman then came out of the +cottage, leaning upon a crooked stick. She had a large broad-brimmed hat +on, painted with the most splendid flowers. + +“Poor little child!” said the old woman. “How did you get upon the large +rapid river, to be driven about so in the wide world!” And then the +old woman went into the water, caught hold of the boat with her crooked +stick, drew it to the bank, and lifted little Gerda out. + +And Gerda was so glad to be on dry land again; but she was rather afraid +of the strange old woman. + +“But come and tell me who you are, and how you came here,” said she. + +And Gerda told her all; and the old woman shook her head and said, +“A-hem! a-hem!” and when Gerda had told her everything, and asked her if +she had not seen little Kay, the woman answered that he had not passed +there, but he no doubt would come; and she told her not to be cast down, +but taste her cherries, and look at her flowers, which were finer than +any in a picture-book, each of which could tell a whole story. She then +took Gerda by the hand, led her into the little cottage, and locked the +door. + +The windows were very high up; the glass was red, blue, and green, and +the sunlight shone through quite wondrously in all sorts of colors. On +the table stood the most exquisite cherries, and Gerda ate as many as +she chose, for she had permission to do so. While she was eating, the +old woman combed her hair with a golden comb, and her hair curled and +shone with a lovely golden color around that sweet little face, which +was so round and so like a rose. + +“I have often longed for such a dear little girl,” said the old woman. +“Now you shall see how well we agree together”; and while she combed +little Gerda's hair, the child forgot her foster-brother Kay more and +more, for the old woman understood magic; but she was no evil being, she +only practised witchcraft a little for her own private amusement, and +now she wanted very much to keep little Gerda. She therefore went out +in the garden, stretched out her crooked stick towards the rose-bushes, +which, beautifully as they were blowing, all sank into the earth and no +one could tell where they had stood. The old woman feared that if Gerda +should see the roses, she would then think of her own, would remember +little Kay, and run away from her. + +She now led Gerda into the flower-garden. Oh, what odour and what +loveliness was there! Every flower that one could think of, and of every +season, stood there in fullest bloom; no picture-book could be gayer or +more beautiful. Gerda jumped for joy, and played till the sun set behind +the tall cherry-tree; she then had a pretty bed, with a red silken +coverlet filled with blue violets. She fell asleep, and had as pleasant +dreams as ever a queen on her wedding-day. + +The next morning she went to play with the flowers in the warm sunshine, +and thus passed away a day. Gerda knew every flower; and, numerous as +they were, it still seemed to Gerda that one was wanting, though she +did not know which. One day while she was looking at the hat of the old +woman painted with flowers, the most beautiful of them all seemed to her +to be a rose. The old woman had forgotten to take it from her hat +when she made the others vanish in the earth. But so it is when one's +thoughts are not collected. “What!” said Gerda. “Are there no roses +here?” and she ran about amongst the flowerbeds, and looked, and looked, +but there was not one to be found. She then sat down and wept; but her +hot tears fell just where a rose-bush had sunk; and when her warm tears +watered the ground, the tree shot up suddenly as fresh and blooming as +when it had been swallowed up. Gerda kissed the roses, thought of her +own dear roses at home, and with them of little Kay. + +“Oh, how long I have stayed!” said the little girl. “I intended to look +for Kay! Don't you know where he is?” she asked of the roses. “Do you +think he is dead and gone?” + +“Dead he certainly is not,” said the Roses. “We have been in the earth +where all the dead are, but Kay was not there.” + +“Many thanks!” said little Gerda; and she went to the other flowers, +looked into their cups, and asked, “Don't you know where little Kay is?” + +But every flower stood in the sunshine, and dreamed its own fairy tale +or its own story: and they all told her very many things, but not one +knew anything of Kay. + +Well, what did the Tiger-Lily say? + +“Hearest thou not the drum? Bum! Bum! Those are the only two tones. +Always bum! Bum! Hark to the plaintive song of the old woman, to the +call of the priests! The Hindoo woman in her long robe stands upon the +funeral pile; the flames rise around her and her dead husband, but the +Hindoo woman thinks on the living one in the surrounding circle; on him +whose eyes burn hotter than the flames--on him, the fire of whose eyes +pierces her heart more than the flames which soon will burn her body to +ashes. Can the heart's flame die in the flame of the funeral pile?” + +“I don't understand that at all,” said little Gerda. + +“That is my story,” said the Lily. + +What did the Convolvulus say? + +“Projecting over a narrow mountain-path there hangs an old feudal +castle. Thick evergreens grow on the dilapidated walls, and around the +altar, where a lovely maiden is standing: she bends over the railing and +looks out upon the rose. No fresher rose hangs on the branches than she; +no appleblossom carried away by the wind is more buoyant! How her silken +robe is rustling! + +“'Is he not yet come?'” + +“Is it Kay that you mean?” asked little Gerda. + +“I am speaking about my story--about my dream,” answered the +Convolvulus. + +What did the Snowdrops say? + +“Between the trees a long board is hanging--it is a swing. Two little +girls are sitting in it, and swing themselves backwards and forwards; +their frocks are as white as snow, and long green silk ribands flutter +from their bonnets. Their brother, who is older than they are, stands up +in the swing; he twines his arms round the cords to hold himself fast, +for in one hand he has a little cup, and in the other a clay-pipe. He is +blowing soap-bubbles. The swing moves, and the bubbles float in charming +changing colors: the last is still hanging to the end of the pipe, and +rocks in the breeze. The swing moves. The little black dog, as light as +a soap-bubble, jumps up on his hind legs to try to get into the swing. +It moves, the dog falls down, barks, and is angry. They tease him; the +bubble bursts! A swing, a bursting bubble--such is my song!” + +“What you relate may be very pretty, but you tell it in so melancholy a +manner, and do not mention Kay.” + +What do the Hyacinths say? + +“There were once upon a time three sisters, quite transparent, and very +beautiful. The robe of the one was red, that of the second blue, and +that of the third white. They danced hand in hand beside the calm +lake in the clear moonshine. They were not elfin maidens, but mortal +children. A sweet fragrance was smelt, and the maidens vanished in the +wood; the fragrance grew stronger--three coffins, and in them three +lovely maidens, glided out of the forest and across the lake: the +shining glow-worms flew around like little floating lights. Do the +dancing maidens sleep, or are they dead? The odour of the flowers says +they are corpses; the evening bell tolls for the dead!” + +“You make me quite sad,” said little Gerda. “I cannot help thinking of +the dead maidens. Oh! is little Kay really dead? The Roses have been in +the earth, and they say no.” + +“Ding, dong!” sounded the Hyacinth bells. “We do not toll for little +Kay; we do not know him. That is our way of singing, the only one we +have.” + +And Gerda went to the Ranunculuses, that looked forth from among the +shining green leaves. + +“You are a little bright sun!” said Gerda. “Tell me if you know where I +can find my playfellow.” + +And the Ranunculus shone brightly, and looked again at Gerda. What +song could the Ranunculus sing? It was one that said nothing about Kay +either. + +“In a small court the bright sun was shining in the first days of +spring. The beams glided down the white walls of a neighbor's house, and +close by the fresh yellow flowers were growing, shining like gold in +the warm sun-rays. An old grandmother was sitting in the air; her +grand-daughter, the poor and lovely servant just come for a short visit. +She knows her grandmother. There was gold, pure virgin gold in that +blessed kiss. There, that is my little story,” said the Ranunculus. + +“My poor old grandmother!” sighed Gerda. “Yes, she is longing for me, +no doubt: she is sorrowing for me, as she did for little Kay. But I +will soon come home, and then I will bring Kay with me. It is of no use +asking the flowers; they only know their own old rhymes, and can tell me +nothing.” And she tucked up her frock, to enable her to run quicker; but +the Narcissus gave her a knock on the leg, just as she was going to +jump over it. So she stood still, looked at the long yellow flower, and +asked, “You perhaps know something?” and she bent down to the Narcissus. +And what did it say? + +“I can see myself--I can see myself! Oh, how odorous I am! Up in the +little garret there stands, half-dressed, a little Dancer. She stands +now on one leg, now on both; she despises the whole world; yet she lives +only in imagination. She pours water out of the teapot over a piece of +stuff which she holds in her hand; it is the bodice; cleanliness is a +fine thing. The white dress is hanging on the hook; it was washed in the +teapot, and dried on the roof. She puts it on, ties a saffron-colored +kerchief round her neck, and then the gown looks whiter. I can see +myself--I can see myself!” + +“That's nothing to me,” said little Gerda. “That does not concern me.” + And then off she ran to the further end of the garden. + +The gate was locked, but she shook the rusted bolt till it was loosened, +and the gate opened; and little Gerda ran off barefooted into the wide +world. She looked round her thrice, but no one followed her. At last she +could run no longer; she sat down on a large stone, and when she looked +about her, she saw that the summer had passed; it was late in the +autumn, but that one could not remark in the beautiful garden, where +there was always sunshine, and where there were flowers the whole year +round. + +“Dear me, how long I have staid!” said Gerda. “Autumn is come. I must +not rest any longer.” And she got up to go further. + +Oh, how tender and wearied her little feet were! All around it looked +so cold and raw: the long willow-leaves were quite yellow, and the fog +dripped from them like water; one leaf fell after the other: the sloes +only stood full of fruit, which set one's teeth on edge. Oh, how dark +and comfortless it was in the dreary world! + + +FOURTH STORY. The Prince and Princess + +Gerda was obliged to rest herself again, when, exactly opposite to her, +a large Raven came hopping over the white snow. He had long been looking +at Gerda and shaking his head; and now he said, “Caw! Caw!” Good day! +Good day! He could not say it better; but he felt a sympathy for the +little girl, and asked her where she was going all alone. The word +“alone” Gerda understood quite well, and felt how much was expressed +by it; so she told the Raven her whole history, and asked if he had not +seen Kay. + +The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!” + +“What, do you really think so?” cried the little girl; and she nearly +squeezed the Raven to death, so much did she kiss him. + +“Gently, gently,” said the Raven. “I think I know; I think that it may +be little Kay. But now he has forgotten you for the Princess.” + +“Does he live with a Princess?” asked Gerda. + +“Yes--listen,” said the Raven; “but it will be difficult for me to +speak your language. If you understand the Raven language I can tell you +better.” + +“No, I have not learnt it,” said Gerda; “but my grandmother understands +it, and she can speak gibberish too. I wish I had learnt it.” + +“No matter,” said the Raven; “I will tell you as well as I can; however, +it will be bad enough.” And then he told all he knew. + +“In the kingdom where we now are there lives a Princess, who is +extraordinarily clever; for she has read all the newspapers in the whole +world, and has forgotten them again--so clever is she. She was lately, +it is said, sitting on her throne--which is not very amusing after +all--when she began humming an old tune, and it was just, 'Oh, why +should I not be married?' 'That song is not without its meaning,' said +she, and so then she was determined to marry; but she would have a +husband who knew how to give an answer when he was spoken to--not +one who looked only as if he were a great personage, for that is so +tiresome. She then had all the ladies of the court drummed together; and +when they heard her intention, all were very pleased, and said, 'We are +very glad to hear it; it is the very thing we were thinking of.' You may +believe every word I say,” said the Raven; “for I have a tame sweetheart +that hops about in the palace quite free, and it was she who told me all +this. + +“The newspapers appeared forthwith with a border of hearts and the +initials of the Princess; and therein you might read that every +good-looking young man was at liberty to come to the palace and speak to +the Princess; and he who spoke in such wise as showed he felt himself at +home there, that one the Princess would choose for her husband. + +“Yes, Yes,” said the Raven, “you may believe it; it is as true as I am +sitting here. People came in crowds; there was a crush and a hurry, but +no one was successful either on the first or second day. They could all +talk well enough when they were out in the street; but as soon as +they came inside the palace gates, and saw the guard richly dressed +in silver, and the lackeys in gold on the staircase, and the large +illuminated saloons, then they were abashed; and when they stood before +the throne on which the Princess was sitting, all they could do was +to repeat the last word they had uttered, and to hear it again did not +interest her very much. It was just as if the people within were under +a charm, and had fallen into a trance till they came out again into the +street; for then--oh, then--they could chatter enough. There was a whole +row of them standing from the town-gates to the palace. I was there +myself to look,” said the Raven. “They grew hungry and thirsty; but from +the palace they got nothing whatever, not even a glass of water. Some +of the cleverest, it is true, had taken bread and butter with them: +but none shared it with his neighbor, for each thought, 'Let him look +hungry, and then the Princess won't have him.'” + +“But Kay--little Kay,” said Gerda, “when did he come? Was he among the +number?” + +“Patience, patience; we are just come to him. It was on the third day +when a little personage without horse or equipage, came marching right +boldly up to the palace; his eyes shone like yours, he had beautiful +long hair, but his clothes were very shabby.” + +“That was Kay,” cried Gerda, with a voice of delight. “Oh, now I've +found him!” and she clapped her hands for joy. + +“He had a little knapsack at his back,” said the Raven. + +“No, that was certainly his sledge,” said Gerda; “for when he went away +he took his sledge with him.” + +“That may be,” said the Raven; “I did not examine him so minutely; but +I know from my tame sweetheart, that when he came into the court-yard +of the palace, and saw the body-guard in silver, the lackeys on the +staircase, he was not the least abashed; he nodded, and said to them, +'It must be very tiresome to stand on the stairs; for my part, I shall +go in.' The saloons were gleaming with lustres--privy councillors and +excellencies were walking about barefooted, and wore gold keys; it was +enough to make any one feel uncomfortable. His boots creaked, too, so +loudly, but still he was not at all afraid.” + +“That's Kay for certain,” said Gerda. “I know he had on new boots; I +have heard them creaking in grandmama's room.” + +“Yes, they creaked,” said the Raven. “And on he went boldly up to the +Princess, who was sitting on a pearl as large as a spinning-wheel. +All the ladies of the court, with their attendants and attendants' +attendants, and all the cavaliers, with their gentlemen and gentlemen's +gentlemen, stood round; and the nearer they stood to the door, the +prouder they looked. It was hardly possible to look at the gentleman's +gentleman, so very haughtily did he stand in the doorway.” + +“It must have been terrible,” said little Gerda. “And did Kay get the +Princess?” + +“Were I not a Raven, I should have taken the Princess myself, although +I am promised. It is said he spoke as well as I speak when I talk Raven +language; this I learned from my tame sweetheart. He was bold and nicely +behaved; he had not come to woo the Princess, but only to hear her +wisdom. She pleased him, and he pleased her.” + +“Yes, yes; for certain that was Kay,” said Gerda. “He was so clever; +he could reckon fractions in his head. Oh, won't you take me to the +palace?” + +“That is very easily said,” answered the Raven. “But how are we to +manage it? I'll speak to my tame sweetheart about it: she must advise +us; for so much I must tell you, such a little girl as you are will +never get permission to enter.” + +“Oh, yes I shall,” said Gerda; “when Kay hears that I am here, he will +come out directly to fetch me.” + +“Wait for me here on these steps,” said the Raven. He moved his head +backwards and forwards and flew away. + +The evening was closing in when the Raven returned. “Caw--caw!” said he. +“She sends you her compliments; and here is a roll for you. She took +it out of the kitchen, where there is bread enough. You are hungry, +no doubt. It is not possible for you to enter the palace, for you are +barefooted: the guards in silver, and the lackeys in gold, would not +allow it; but do not cry, you shall come in still. My sweetheart knows a +little back stair that leads to the bedchamber, and she knows where she +can get the key of it.” + +And they went into the garden in the large avenue, where one leaf was +falling after the other; and when the lights in the palace had all +gradually disappeared, the Raven led little Gerda to the back door, +which stood half open. + +Oh, how Gerda's heart beat with anxiety and longing! It was just as if +she had been about to do something wrong; and yet she only wanted to +know if little Kay was there. Yes, he must be there. She called to mind +his intelligent eyes, and his long hair, so vividly, she could quite see +him as he used to laugh when they were sitting under the roses at home. +“He will, no doubt, be glad to see you--to hear what a long way you have +come for his sake; to know how unhappy all at home were when he did not +come back.” + +Oh, what a fright and a joy it was! + +They were now on the stairs. A single lamp was burning there; and on the +floor stood the tame Raven, turning her head on every side and looking +at Gerda, who bowed as her grandmother had taught her to do. + +“My intended has told me so much good of you, my dear young lady,” said +the tame Raven. “Your tale is very affecting. If you will take the lamp, +I will go before. We will go straight on, for we shall meet no one.” + +“I think there is somebody just behind us,” said Gerda; and something +rushed past: it was like shadowy figures on the wall; horses with +flowing manes and thin legs, huntsmen, ladies and gentlemen on +horseback. + +“They are only dreams,” said the Raven. “They come to fetch the thoughts +of the high personages to the chase; 'tis well, for now you can observe +them in bed all the better. But let me find, when you enjoy honor and +distinction, that you possess a grateful heart.” + +“Tut! That's not worth talking about,” said the Raven of the woods. + +They now entered the first saloon, which was of rose-colored satin, with +artificial flowers on the wall. Here the dreams were rushing past, +but they hastened by so quickly that Gerda could not see the high +personages. One hall was more magnificent than the other; one might +indeed well be abashed; and at last they came into the bedchamber. The +ceiling of the room resembled a large palm-tree with leaves of glass, +of costly glass; and in the middle, from a thick golden stem, hung two +beds, each of which resembled a lily. One was white, and in this lay the +Princess; the other was red, and it was here that Gerda was to look for +little Kay. She bent back one of the red leaves, and saw a brown neck. +Oh! that was Kay! She called him quite loud by name, held the lamp +towards him--the dreams rushed back again into the chamber--he awoke, +turned his head, and--it was not little Kay! + +The Prince was only like him about the neck; but he was young and +handsome. And out of the white lily leaves the Princess peeped, too, +and asked what was the matter. Then little Gerda cried, and told her her +whole history, and all that the Ravens had done for her. + +“Poor little thing!” said the Prince and the Princess. They praised the +Ravens very much, and told them they were not at all angry with them, +but they were not to do so again. However, they should have a reward. +“Will you fly about here at liberty,” asked the Princess; “or would you +like to have a fixed appointment as court ravens, with all the broken +bits from the kitchen?” + +And both the Ravens nodded, and begged for a fixed appointment; for +they thought of their old age, and said, “It is a good thing to have a +provision for our old days.” + +And the Prince got up and let Gerda sleep in his bed, and more than this +he could not do. She folded her little hands and thought, “How good men +and animals are!” and she then fell asleep and slept soundly. All the +dreams flew in again, and they now looked like the angels; they drew +a little sledge, in which little Kay sat and nodded his head; but the +whole was only a dream, and therefore it all vanished as soon as she +awoke. + +The next day she was dressed from head to foot in silk and velvet. They +offered to let her stay at the palace, and lead a happy life; but she +begged to have a little carriage with a horse in front, and for a small +pair of shoes; then, she said, she would again go forth in the wide +world and look for Kay. + +Shoes and a muff were given her; she was, too, dressed very nicely; and +when she was about to set off, a new carriage stopped before the door. +It was of pure gold, and the arms of the Prince and Princess shone +like a star upon it; the coachman, the footmen, and the outriders, for +outriders were there, too, all wore golden crowns. The Prince and the +Princess assisted her into the carriage themselves, and wished her all +success. The Raven of the woods, who was now married, accompanied her +for the first three miles. He sat beside Gerda, for he could not bear +riding backwards; the other Raven stood in the doorway, and flapped her +wings; she could not accompany Gerda, because she suffered from headache +since she had had a fixed appointment and ate so much. The carriage +was lined inside with sugar-plums, and in the seats were fruits and +gingerbread. + +“Farewell! Farewell!” cried Prince and Princess; and Gerda wept, and +the Raven wept. Thus passed the first miles; and then the Raven bade her +farewell, and this was the most painful separation of all. He flew into +a tree, and beat his black wings as long as he could see the carriage, +that shone from afar like a sunbeam. + + +FIFTH STORY. The Little Robber Maiden + +They drove through the dark wood; but the carriage shone like a torch, +and it dazzled the eyes of the robbers, so that they could not bear to +look at it. + +“'Tis gold! 'Tis gold!” they cried; and they rushed forward, seized +the horses, knocked down the little postilion, the coachman, and the +servants, and pulled little Gerda out of the carriage. + +“How plump, how beautiful she is! She must have been fed on +nut-kernels,” said the old female robber, who had a long, scrubby beard, +and bushy eyebrows that hung down over her eyes. “She is as good as a +fatted lamb! How nice she will be!” And then she drew out a knife, the +blade of which shone so that it was quite dreadful to behold. + +“Oh!” cried the woman at the same moment. She had been bitten in the ear +by her own little daughter, who hung at her back; and who was so wild +and unmanageable, that it was quite amusing to see her. “You naughty +child!” said the mother: and now she had not time to kill Gerda. + +“She shall play with me,” said the little robber child. “She shall give +me her muff, and her pretty frock; she shall sleep in my bed!” And then +she gave her mother another bite, so that she jumped, and ran round with +the pain; and the Robbers laughed, and said, “Look, how she is dancing +with the little one!” + +“I will go into the carriage,” said the little robber maiden; and she +would have her will, for she was very spoiled and very headstrong. She +and Gerda got in; and then away they drove over the stumps of felled +trees, deeper and deeper into the woods. The little robber maiden was as +tall as Gerda, but stronger, broader-shouldered, and of dark complexion; +her eyes were quite black; they looked almost melancholy. She embraced +little Gerda, and said, “They shall not kill you as long as I am not +displeased with you. You are, doubtless, a Princess?” + +“No,” said little Gerda; who then related all that had happened to her, +and how much she cared about little Kay. + +The little robber maiden looked at her with a serious air, nodded her +head slightly, and said, “They shall not kill you, even if I am angry +with you: then I will do it myself”; and she dried Gerda's eyes, and put +both her hands in the handsome muff, which was so soft and warm. + +At length the carriage stopped. They were in the midst of the court-yard +of a robber's castle. It was full of cracks from top to bottom; and out +of the openings magpies and rooks were flying; and the great bull-dogs, +each of which looked as if he could swallow a man, jumped up, but they +did not bark, for that was forbidden. + +In the midst of the large, old, smoking hall burnt a great fire on the +stone floor. The smoke disappeared under the stones, and had to seek +its own egress. In an immense caldron soup was boiling; and rabbits and +hares were being roasted on a spit. + +“You shall sleep with me to-night, with all my animals,” said the little +robber maiden. They had something to eat and drink; and then went into +a corner, where straw and carpets were lying. Beside them, on laths and +perches, sat nearly a hundred pigeons, all asleep, seemingly; but yet +they moved a little when the robber maiden came. “They are all mine,” + said she, at the same time seizing one that was next to her by the legs +and shaking it so that its wings fluttered. “Kiss it,” cried the little +girl, and flung the pigeon in Gerda's face. “Up there is the rabble of +the wood,” continued she, pointing to several laths which were fastened +before a hole high up in the wall; “that's the rabble; they would all +fly away immediately, if they were not well fastened in. And here is my +dear old Bac”; and she laid hold of the horns of a reindeer, that had a +bright copper ring round its neck, and was tethered to the spot. “We are +obliged to lock this fellow in too, or he would make his escape. Every +evening I tickle his neck with my sharp knife; he is so frightened at +it!” and the little girl drew forth a long knife, from a crack in the +wall, and let it glide over the Reindeer's neck. The poor animal kicked; +the girl laughed, and pulled Gerda into bed with her. + +“Do you intend to keep your knife while you sleep?” asked Gerda; looking +at it rather fearfully. + +“I always sleep with the knife,” said the little robber maiden. “There +is no knowing what may happen. But tell me now, once more, all about +little Kay; and why you have started off in the wide world alone.” And +Gerda related all, from the very beginning: the Wood-pigeons cooed above +in their cage, and the others slept. The little robber maiden wound her +arm round Gerda's neck, held the knife in the other hand, and snored so +loud that everybody could hear her; but Gerda could not close her eyes, +for she did not know whether she was to live or die. The robbers sat +round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female robber jumped about +so, that it was quite dreadful for Gerda to see her. + +Then the Wood-pigeons said, “Coo! Coo! We have seen little Kay! A white +hen carries his sledge; he himself sat in the carriage of the Snow +Queen, who passed here, down just over the wood, as we lay in our nest. +She blew upon us young ones; and all died except we two. Coo! Coo!” + +“What is that you say up there?” cried little Gerda. “Where did the Snow +Queen go to? Do you know anything about it?” + +“She is no doubt gone to Lapland; for there is always snow and ice +there. Only ask the Reindeer, who is tethered there.” + +“Ice and snow is there! There it is, glorious and beautiful!” said the +Reindeer. “One can spring about in the large shining valleys! The Snow +Queen has her summer-tent there; but her fixed abode is high up towards +the North Pole, on the Island called Spitzbergen.” + +“Oh, Kay! Poor little Kay!” sighed Gerda. + +“Do you choose to be quiet?” said the robber maiden. “If you don't, I +shall make you.” + +In the morning Gerda told her all that the Wood-pigeons had said; and +the little maiden looked very serious, but she nodded her head, and +said, “That's no matter--that's no matter. Do you know where Lapland +lies!” she asked of the Reindeer. + +“Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolled in +his head. “I was born and bred there--there I leapt about on the fields +of snow.” + +“Listen,” said the robber maiden to Gerda. “You see that the men are +gone; but my mother is still here, and will remain. However, towards +morning she takes a draught out of the large flask, and then she sleeps +a little: then I will do something for you.” She now jumped out of bed, +flew to her mother; with her arms round her neck, and pulling her by the +beard, said, “Good morrow, my own sweet nanny-goat of a mother.” And her +mother took hold of her nose, and pinched it till it was red and blue; +but this was all done out of pure love. + +When the mother had taken a sup at her flask, and was having a nap, the +little robber maiden went to the Reindeer, and said, “I should very much +like to give you still many a tickling with the sharp knife, for then +you are so amusing; however, I will untether you, and help you out, +so that you may go back to Lapland. But you must make good use of your +legs; and take this little girl for me to the palace of the Snow Queen, +where her playfellow is. You have heard, I suppose, all she said; for +she spoke loud enough, and you were listening.” + +The Reindeer gave a bound for joy. The robber maiden lifted up little +Gerda, and took the precaution to bind her fast on the Reindeer's back; +she even gave her a small cushion to sit on. “Here are your worsted +leggins, for it will be cold; but the muff I shall keep for myself, for +it is so very pretty. But I do not wish you to be cold. Here is a pair +of lined gloves of my mother's; they just reach up to your elbow. On +with them! Now you look about the hands just like my ugly old mother!” + +And Gerda wept for joy. + +“I can't bear to see you fretting,” said the little robber maiden. “This +is just the time when you ought to look pleased. Here are two loaves and +a ham for you, so that you won't starve.” The bread and the meat were +fastened to the Reindeer's back; the little maiden opened the door, +called in all the dogs, and then with her knife cut the rope that +fastened the animal, and said to him, “Now, off with you; but take good +care of the little girl!” + +And Gerda stretched out her hands with the large wadded gloves towards +the robber maiden, and said, “Farewell!” and the Reindeer flew on over +bush and bramble through the great wood, over moor and heath, as fast as +he could go. + +“Ddsa! Ddsa!” was heard in the sky. It was just as if somebody was +sneezing. + +“These are my old northern-lights,” said the Reindeer, “look how they +gleam!” And on he now sped still quicker--day and night on he went: the +loaves were consumed, and the ham too; and now they were in Lapland. + + +SIXTH STORY. The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman + +Suddenly they stopped before a little house, which looked very +miserable. The roof reached to the ground; and the door was so low, that +the family were obliged to creep upon their stomachs when they went in +or out. Nobody was at home except an old Lapland woman, who was dressing +fish by the light of an oil lamp. And the Reindeer told her the whole +of Gerda's history, but first of all his own; for that seemed to him of +much greater importance. Gerda was so chilled that she could not speak. + +“Poor thing,” said the Lapland woman, “you have far to run still. You +have more than a hundred miles to go before you get to Finland; there +the Snow Queen has her country-house, and burns blue lights every +evening. I will give you a few words from me, which I will write on a +dried haberdine, for paper I have none; this you can take with you to +the Finland woman, and she will be able to give you more information +than I can.” + +When Gerda had warmed herself, and had eaten and drunk, the Lapland +woman wrote a few words on a dried haberdine, begged Gerda to take care +of them, put her on the Reindeer, bound her fast, and away sprang the +animal. “Ddsa! Ddsa!” was again heard in the air; the most charming +blue lights burned the whole night in the sky, and at last they came to +Finland. They knocked at the chimney of the Finland woman; for as to a +door, she had none. + +There was such a heat inside that the Finland woman herself went about +almost naked. She was diminutive and dirty. She immediately loosened +little Gerda's clothes, pulled off her thick gloves and boots; for +otherwise the heat would have been too great--and after laying a piece +of ice on the Reindeer's head, read what was written on the fish-skin. +She read it three times: she then knew it by heart; so she put the fish +into the cupboard--for it might very well be eaten, and she never threw +anything away. + +Then the Reindeer related his own story first, and afterwards that of +little Gerda; and the Finland woman winked her eyes, but said nothing. + +“You are so clever,” said the Reindeer; “you can, I know, twist all the +winds of the world together in a knot. If the seaman loosens one knot, +then he has a good wind; if a second, then it blows pretty stiffly; if +he undoes the third and fourth, then it rages so that the forests are +upturned. Will you give the little maiden a potion, that she may possess +the strength of twelve men, and vanquish the Snow Queen?” + +“The strength of twelve men!” said the Finland woman. “Much good that +would be!” Then she went to a cupboard, and drew out a large skin rolled +up. When she had unrolled it, strange characters were to be seen written +thereon; and the Finland woman read at such a rate that the perspiration +trickled down her forehead. + +But the Reindeer begged so hard for little Gerda, and Gerda looked so +imploringly with tearful eyes at the Finland woman, that she winked, and +drew the Reindeer aside into a corner, where they whispered together, +while the animal got some fresh ice put on his head. + +“'Tis true little Kay is at the Snow Queen's, and finds everything there +quite to his taste; and he thinks it the very best place in the world; +but the reason of that is, he has a splinter of glass in his eye, and in +his heart. These must be got out first; otherwise he will never go back +to mankind, and the Snow Queen will retain her power over him.” + +“But can you give little Gerda nothing to take which will endue her with +power over the whole?” + +“I can give her no more power than what she has already. Don't you see +how great it is? Don't you see how men and animals are forced to serve +her; how well she gets through the world barefooted? She must not hear +of her power from us; that power lies in her heart, because she is +a sweet and innocent child! If she cannot get to the Snow Queen by +herself, and rid little Kay of the glass, we cannot help her. Two miles +hence the garden of the Snow Queen begins; thither you may carry the +little girl. Set her down by the large bush with red berries, standing +in the snow; don't stay talking, but hasten back as fast as possible.” + And now the Finland woman placed little Gerda on the Reindeer's back, +and off he ran with all imaginable speed. + +“Oh! I have not got my boots! I have not brought my gloves!” cried +little Gerda. She remarked she was without them from the cutting frost; +but the Reindeer dared not stand still; on he ran till he came to the +great bush with the red berries, and there he set Gerda down, kissed her +mouth, while large bright tears flowed from the animal's eyes, and then +back he went as fast as possible. There stood poor Gerda now, without +shoes or gloves, in the very middle of dreadful icy Finland. + +She ran on as fast as she could. There then came a whole regiment of +snow-flakes, but they did not fall from above, and they were quite +bright and shining from the Aurora Borealis. The flakes ran along +the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew. Gerda well +remembered how large and strange the snow-flakes appeared when she +once saw them through a magnifying-glass; but now they were large and +terrific in another manner--they were all alive. They were the outposts +of the Snow Queen. They had the most wondrous shapes; some looked like +large ugly porcupines; others like snakes knotted together, with their +heads sticking out; and others, again, like small fat bears, with the +hair standing on end: all were of dazzling whiteness--all were living +snow-flakes. + +Little Gerda repeated the Lord's Prayer. The cold was so intense that +she could see her own breath, which came like smoke out of her mouth. It +grew thicker and thicker, and took the form of little angels, that grew +more and more when they touched the earth. All had helms on their heads, +and lances and shields in their hands; they increased in numbers; and +when Gerda had finished the Lord's Prayer, she was surrounded by a whole +legion. They thrust at the horrid snow-flakes with their spears, so that +they flew into a thousand pieces; and little Gerda walked on bravely and +in security. The angels patted her hands and feet; and then she felt the +cold less, and went on quickly towards the palace of the Snow Queen. + +But now we shall see how Kay fared. He never thought of Gerda, and least +of all that she was standing before the palace. + + +SEVENTH STORY. What Took Place in the Palace of the Snow Queen, and what +Happened Afterward. + +The walls of the palace were of driving snow, and the windows and doors +of cutting winds. There were more than a hundred halls there, according +as the snow was driven by the winds. The largest was many miles in +extent; all were lighted up by the powerful Aurora Borealis, and all +were so large, so empty, so icy cold, and so resplendent! Mirth never +reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball, with the storm +for music, while the polar bears went on their hind legs and showed off +their steps. Never a little tea-party of white young lady foxes; vast, +cold, and empty were the halls of the Snow Queen. The northern-lights +shone with such precision that one could tell exactly when they were +at their highest or lowest degree of brightness. In the middle of the +empty, endless hall of snow, was a frozen lake; it was cracked in a +thousand pieces, but each piece was so like the other, that it seemed +the work of a cunning artificer. In the middle of this lake sat the Snow +Queen when she was at home; and then she said she was sitting in the +Mirror of Understanding, and that this was the only one and the best +thing in the world. + +Little Kay was quite blue, yes nearly black with cold; but he did not +observe it, for she had kissed away all feeling of cold from his body, +and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed +flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he +wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces +of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. +Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was +an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were +extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit +of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures which +represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just +the word he wanted--that word was “eternity”; and the Snow Queen had +said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, +and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new +skates.” But he could not find it out. + +“I am going now to warm lands,” said the Snow Queen. “I must have a look +down into the black caldrons.” It was the volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna +that she meant. “I will just give them a coating of white, for that is +as it ought to be; besides, it is good for the oranges and the grapes.” + And then away she flew, and Kay sat quite alone in the empty halls of +ice that were miles long, and looked at the blocks of ice, and thought +and thought till his skull was almost cracked. There he sat quite +benumbed and motionless; one would have imagined he was frozen to death. + +Suddenly little Gerda stepped through the great portal into the palace. +The gate was formed of cutting winds; but Gerda repeated her evening +prayer, and the winds were laid as though they slept; and the little +maiden entered the vast, empty, cold halls. There she beheld Kay: she +recognised him, flew to embrace him, and cried out, her arms firmly +holding him the while, “Kay, sweet little Kay! Have I then found you at +last?” + +But he sat quite still, benumbed and cold. Then little Gerda shed +burning tears; and they fell on his bosom, they penetrated to his +heart, they thawed the lumps of ice, and consumed the splinters of the +looking-glass; he looked at her, and she sang the hymn: + +“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there +the children to greet.” + +Hereupon Kay burst into tears; he wept so much that the splinter rolled +out of his eye, and he recognised her, and shouted, “Gerda, sweet little +Gerda! Where have you been so long? And where have I been?” He looked +round him. “How cold it is here!” said he. “How empty and cold!” And he +held fast by Gerda, who laughed and wept for joy. It was so beautiful, +that even the blocks of ice danced about for joy; and when they were +tired and laid themselves down, they formed exactly the letters which +the Snow Queen had told him to find out; so now he was his own master, +and he would have the whole world and a pair of new skates into the +bargain. + +Gerda kissed his cheeks, and they grew quite blooming; she kissed his +eyes, and they shone like her own; she kissed his hands and feet, and he +was again well and merry. The Snow Queen might come back as soon as she +liked; there stood his discharge written in resplendent masses of ice. + +They took each other by the hand, and wandered forth out of the large +hall; they talked of their old grandmother, and of the roses upon the +roof; and wherever they went, the winds ceased raging, and the sun burst +forth. And when they reached the bush with the red berries, they found +the Reindeer waiting for them. He had brought another, a young one, with +him, whose udder was filled with milk, which he gave to the little ones, +and kissed their lips. They then carried Kay and Gerda--first to the +Finland woman, where they warmed themselves in the warm room, and +learned what they were to do on their journey home; and they went to +the Lapland woman, who made some new clothes for them and repaired their +sledges. + +The Reindeer and the young hind leaped along beside them, and +accompanied them to the boundary of the country. Here the first +vegetation peeped forth; here Kay and Gerda took leave of the Lapland +woman. “Farewell! Farewell!” they all said. And the first green buds +appeared, the first little birds began to chirrup; and out of the wood +came, riding on a magnificent horse, which Gerda knew (it was one of the +leaders in the golden carriage), a young damsel with a bright-red cap on +her head, and armed with pistols. It was the little robber maiden, who, +tired of being at home, had determined to make a journey to the north; +and afterwards in another direction, if that did not please her. She +recognised Gerda immediately, and Gerda knew her too. It was a joyful +meeting. + +“You are a fine fellow for tramping about,” said she to little Kay; “I +should like to know, faith, if you deserve that one should run from one +end of the world to the other for your sake?” + +But Gerda patted her cheeks, and inquired for the Prince and Princess. + +“They are gone abroad,” said the other. + +“But the Raven?” asked little Gerda. + +“Oh! The Raven is dead,” she answered. “His tame sweetheart is a +widow, and wears a bit of black worsted round her leg; she laments most +piteously, but it's all mere talk and stuff! Now tell me what you've +been doing and how you managed to catch him.” + +And Gerda and Kay both told their story. + +And “Schnipp-schnapp-schnurre-basselurre,” said the robber maiden; and +she took the hands of each, and promised that if she should some day +pass through the town where they lived, she would come and visit them; +and then away she rode. Kay and Gerda took each other's hand: it was +lovely spring weather, with abundance of flowers and of verdure. The +church-bells rang, and the children recognised the high towers, and the +large town; it was that in which they dwelt. They entered and hastened +up to their grandmother's room, where everything was standing as +formerly. The clock said “tick! tack!” and the finger moved round; but +as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. The roses +on the leads hung blooming in at the open window; there stood the little +children's chairs, and Kay and Gerda sat down on them, holding each +other by the hand; they both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of +the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in +the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: “Unless ye become as +little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” + +And Kay and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they +understood the old hymn: + +“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there +the children to greet.” + +There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children +at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer! + + + + +THE LEAP-FROG + +A Flea, a Grasshopper, and a Leap-frog once wanted to see which could +jump highest; and they invited the whole world, and everybody else +besides who chose to come to see the festival. Three famous jumpers were +they, as everyone would say, when they all met together in the room. + +“I will give my daughter to him who jumps highest,” exclaimed the King; +“for it is not so amusing where there is no prize to jump for.” + +The Flea was the first to step forward. He had exquisite manners, and +bowed to the company on all sides; for he had noble blood, and was, +moreover, accustomed to the society of man alone; and that makes a great +difference. + +Then came the Grasshopper. He was considerably heavier, but he was +well-mannered, and wore a green uniform, which he had by right of birth; +he said, moreover, that he belonged to a very ancient Egyptian family, +and that in the house where he then was, he was thought much of. The +fact was, he had been just brought out of the fields, and put in a +pasteboard house, three stories high, all made of court-cards, with the +colored side inwards; and doors and windows cut out of the body of +the Queen of Hearts. “I sing so well,” said he, “that sixteen native +grasshoppers who have chirped from infancy, and yet got no house built +of cards to live in, grew thinner than they were before for sheer +vexation when they heard me.” + +It was thus that the Flea and the Grasshopper gave an account of +themselves, and thought they were quite good enough to marry a Princess. + +The Leap-frog said nothing; but people gave it as their opinion, that +he therefore thought the more; and when the housedog snuffed at him +with his nose, he confessed the Leap-frog was of good family. The old +councillor, who had had three orders given him to make him hold his +tongue, asserted that the Leap-frog was a prophet; for that one could +see on his back, if there would be a severe or mild winter, and that +was what one could not see even on the back of the man who writes the +almanac. + +“I say nothing, it is true,” exclaimed the King; “but I have my own +opinion, notwithstanding.” + +Now the trial was to take place. The Flea jumped so high that nobody +could see where he went to; so they all asserted he had not jumped at +all; and that was dishonorable. + +The Grasshopper jumped only half as high; but he leaped into the King's +face, who said that was ill-mannered. + +The Leap-frog stood still for a long time lost in thought; it was +believed at last he would not jump at all. + +“I only hope he is not unwell,” said the house-dog; when, pop! he made a +jump all on one side into the lap of the Princess, who was sitting on a +little golden stool close by. + +Hereupon the King said, “There is nothing above my daughter; therefore +to bound up to her is the highest jump that can be made; but for this, +one must possess understanding, and the Leap-frog has shown that he has +understanding. He is brave and intellectual.” + +And so he won the Princess. + +“It's all the same to me,” said the Flea. “She may have the old +Leap-frog, for all I care. I jumped the highest; but in this world +merit seldom meets its reward. A fine exterior is what people look at +now-a-days.” + +The Flea then went into foreign service, where, it is said, he was +killed. + +The Grasshopper sat without on a green bank, and reflected on worldly +things; and he said too, “Yes, a fine exterior is everything--a fine +exterior is what people care about.” And then he began chirping his +peculiar melancholy song, from which we have taken this history; and +which may, very possibly, be all untrue, although it does stand here +printed in black and white. + + + + +THE ELDERBUSH + +Once upon a time there was a little boy who had taken cold. He had +gone out and got his feet wet; though nobody could imagine how it had +happened, for it was quite dry weather. So his mother undressed him, put +him to bed, and had the tea-pot brought in, to make him a good cup of +Elderflower tea. Just at that moment the merry old man came in who +lived up a-top of the house all alone; for he had neither wife nor +children--but he liked children very much, and knew so many fairy tales, +that it was quite delightful. + +“Now drink your tea,” said the boy's mother; “then, perhaps, you may +hear a fairy tale.” + +“If I had but something new to tell,” said the old man. “But how did the +child get his feet wet?” + +“That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother. + +“Am I to hear a fairy tale?” asked the little boy. + +“Yes, if you can tell me exactly--for I must know that first--how deep +the gutter is in the little street opposite, that you pass through in +going to school.” + +“Just up to the middle of my boot,” said the child; “but then I must go +into the deep hole.” + +“Ah, ah! That's where the wet feet came from,” said the old man. “I +ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.” + +“You can make one in a moment,” said the little boy. “My mother says +that all you look at can be turned into a fairy tale: and that you can +find a story in everything.” + +“Yes, but such tales and stories are good for nothing. The right sort +come of themselves; they tap at my forehead and say, 'Here we are.'” + +“Won't there be a tap soon?” asked the little boy. And his mother +laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and poured boiling water +upon them. + +“Do tell me something! Pray do!” + +“Yes, if a fairy tale would come of its own accord; but they are proud +and haughty, and come only when they choose. Stop!” said he, all on a +sudden. “I have it! Pay attention! There is one in the tea-pot!” + +And the little boy looked at the tea-pot. The cover rose more and more; +and the Elder-flowers came forth so fresh and white, and shot up long +branches. Out of the spout even did they spread themselves on all sides, +and grew larger and larger; it was a splendid Elderbush, a whole tree; +and it reached into the very bed, and pushed the curtains aside. How +it bloomed! And what an odour! In the middle of the bush sat a +friendly-looking old woman in a most strange dress. It was quite +green, like the leaves of the elder, and was trimmed with large white +Elder-flowers; so that at first one could not tell whether it was a +stuff, or a natural green and real flowers. + +“What's that woman's name?” asked the little boy. + +“The Greeks and Romans,” said the old man, “called her a Dryad; but that +we do not understand. The people who live in the New Booths [*] have a much +better name for her; they call her 'old Granny'--and she it is to +whom you are to pay attention. Now listen, and look at the beautiful +Elderbush. + + * A row of buildings for seamen in Copenhagen. + +“Just such another large blooming Elder Tree stands near the New Booths. +It grew there in the corner of a little miserable court-yard; and under +it sat, of an afternoon, in the most splendid sunshine, two old +people; an old, old seaman, and his old, old wife. They had +great-grand-children, and were soon to celebrate the fiftieth +anniversary of their marriage; but they could not exactly recollect the +date: and old Granny sat in the tree, and looked as pleased as now. 'I +know the date,' said she; but those below did not hear her, for they +were talking about old times. + +“'Yes, can't you remember when we were very little,' said the old +seaman, 'and ran and played about? It was the very same court-yard where +we now are, and we stuck slips in the ground, and made a garden.' + +“'I remember it well,' said the old woman; 'I remember it quite well. We +watered the slips, and one of them was an Elderbush. It took root, put +forth green shoots, and grew up to be the large tree under which we old +folks are now sitting.' + +“'To be sure,' said he. 'And there in the corner stood a waterpail, +where I used to swim my boats.' + +“'True; but first we went to school to learn somewhat,' said she; 'and +then we were confirmed. We both cried; but in the afternoon we went up +the Round Tower, and looked down on Copenhagen, and far, far away over +the water; then we went to Friedericksberg, where the King and the Queen +were sailing about in their splendid barges.' + +“'But I had a different sort of sailing to that, later; and that, too, +for many a year; a long way off, on great voyages.' + +“'Yes, many a time have I wept for your sake,' said she. 'I thought you +were dead and gone, and lying down in the deep waters. Many a night have +I got up to see if the wind had not changed: and changed it had, sure +enough; but you never came. I remember so well one day, when the rain +was pouring down in torrents, the scavengers were before the house where +I was in service, and I had come up with the dust, and remained standing +at the door--it was dreadful weather--when just as I was there, the +postman came and gave me a letter. It was from you! What a tour that +letter had made! I opened it instantly and read: I laughed and wept. +I was so happy. In it I read that you were in warm lands where the +coffee-tree grows. What a blessed land that must be! You related so +much, and I saw it all the while the rain was pouring down, and I +standing there with the dust-box. At the same moment came someone who +embraced me.' + +“'Yes; but you gave him a good box on his ear that made it tingle!' + +“'But I did not know it was you. You arrived as soon as your letter, +and you were so handsome--that you still are--and had a long yellow silk +handkerchief round your neck, and a bran new hat on; oh, you were so +dashing! Good heavens! What weather it was, and what a state the street +was in!' + +“'And then we married,' said he. 'Don't you remember? And then we +had our first little boy, and then Mary, and Nicholas, and Peter, and +Christian.' + +“'Yes, and how they all grew up to be honest people, and were beloved by +everybody.' + +“'And their children also have children,' said the old sailor; 'yes, +those are our grand-children, full of strength and vigor. It was, +methinks about this season that we had our wedding.' + +“'Yes, this very day is the fiftieth anniversary of the marriage,' said +old Granny, sticking her head between the two old people; who thought +it was their neighbor who nodded to them. They looked at each other and +held one another by the hand. Soon after came their children, and their +grand-children; for they knew well enough that it was the day of the +fiftieth anniversary, and had come with their gratulations that very +morning; but the old people had forgotten it, although they were able +to remember all that had happened many years ago. And the Elderbush sent +forth a strong odour in the sun, that was just about to set, and shone +right in the old people's faces. They both looked so rosy-cheeked; and +the youngest of the grandchildren danced around them, and called out +quite delighted, that there was to be something very splendid that +evening--they were all to have hot potatoes. And old Nanny nodded in the +bush, and shouted 'hurrah!' with the rest.” + +“But that is no fairy tale,” said the little boy, who was listening to +the story. + +“The thing is, you must understand it,” said the narrator; “let us ask +old Nanny.” + +“That was no fairy tale, 'tis true,” said old Nanny; “but now it's +coming. The most wonderful fairy tales grow out of that which is +reality; were that not the case, you know, my magnificent Elderbush +could not have grown out of the tea-pot.” And then she took the little +boy out of bed, laid him on her bosom, and the branches of the Elder +Tree, full of flowers, closed around her. They sat in an aerial +dwelling, and it flew with them through the air. Oh, it was wondrous +beautiful! Old Nanny had grown all of a sudden a young and pretty +maiden; but her robe was still the same green stuff with white flowers, +which she had worn before. On her bosom she had a real Elderflower, +and in her yellow waving hair a wreath of the flowers; her eyes were so +large and blue that it was a pleasure to look at them; she kissed the +boy, and now they were of the same age and felt alike. + +Hand in hand they went out of the bower, and they were standing in the +beautiful garden of their home. Near the green lawn papa's walking-stick +was tied, and for the little ones it seemed to be endowed with life; for +as soon as they got astride it, the round polished knob was turned into +a magnificent neighing head, a long black mane fluttered in the breeze, +and four slender yet strong legs shot out. The animal was strong and +handsome, and away they went at full gallop round the lawn. + +“Huzza! Now we are riding miles off,” said the boy. “We are riding away +to the castle where we were last year!” + +And on they rode round the grass-plot; and the little maiden, who, we +know, was no one else but old Nanny, kept on crying out, “Now we are in +the country! Don't you see the farm-house yonder? And there is an Elder +Tree standing beside it; and the cock is scraping away the earth for the +hens, look, how he struts! And now we are close to the church. It lies +high upon the hill, between the large oak-trees, one of which is half +decayed. And now we are by the smithy, where the fire is blazing, and +where the half-naked men are banging with their hammers till the sparks +fly about. Away! away! To the beautiful country-seat!” + +And all that the little maiden, who sat behind on the stick, spoke of, +flew by in reality. The boy saw it all, and yet they were only going +round the grass-plot. Then they played in a side avenue, and marked out +a little garden on the earth; and they took Elder-blossoms from their +hair, planted them, and they grew just like those the old people planted +when they were children, as related before. They went hand in hand, as +the old people had done when they were children; but not to the Round +Tower, or to Friedericksberg; no, the little damsel wound her arms round +the boy, and then they flew far away through all Denmark. And spring +came, and summer; and then it was autumn, and then winter; and a +thousand pictures were reflected in the eye and in the heart of the boy; +and the little girl always sang to him, “This you will never forget.” + And during their whole flight the Elder Tree smelt so sweet and odorous; +he remarked the roses and the fresh beeches, but the Elder Tree had +a more wondrous fragrance, for its flowers hung on the breast of the +little maiden; and there, too, did he often lay his head during the +flight. + +“It is lovely here in spring!” said the young maiden. And they stood in +a beech-wood that had just put on its first green, where the woodroof [*] +at their feet sent forth its fragrance, and the pale-red anemony looked +so pretty among the verdure. “Oh, would it were always spring in the +sweetly-smelling Danish beech-forests!” + + * Asperula odorata. + +“It is lovely here in summer!” said she. And she flew past old castles +of by-gone days of chivalry, where the red walls and the embattled +gables were mirrored in the canal, where the swans were swimming, and +peered up into the old cool avenues. In the fields the corn was waving +like the sea; in the ditches red and yellow flowers were growing; while +wild-drone flowers, and blooming convolvuluses were creeping in the +hedges; and towards evening the moon rose round and large, and the +haycocks in the meadows smelt so sweetly. “This one never forgets!” + +“It is lovely here in autumn!” said the little maiden. And suddenly the +atmosphere grew as blue again as before; the forest grew red, and green, +and yellow-colored. The dogs came leaping along, and whole flocks of +wild-fowl flew over the cairn, where blackberry-bushes were hanging +round the old stones. The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full +of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were +sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the +old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers. Nothing could +be more charming. + +“It is delightful here in winter!” said the little maiden. And all the +trees were covered with hoar-frost; they looked like white corals; the +snow crackled under foot, as if one had new boots on; and one falling +star after the other was seen in the sky. The Christmas-tree was lighted +in the room; presents were there, and good-humor reigned. In the country +the violin sounded in the room of the peasant; the newly-baked cakes +were attacked; even the poorest child said, “It is really delightful +here in winter!” + +Yes, it was delightful; and the little maiden showed the boy everything; +and the Elder Tree still was fragrant, and the red flag, with the white +cross, was still waving: the flag under which the old seaman in the New +Booths had sailed. And the boy grew up to be a lad, and was to go forth +in the wide world-far, far away to warm lands, where the coffee-tree +grows; but at his departure the little maiden took an Elder-blossom from +her bosom, and gave it him to keep; and it was placed between the leaves +of his Prayer-Book; and when in foreign lands he opened the book, it +was always at the place where the keepsake-flower lay; and the more he +looked at it, the fresher it became; he felt as it were, the fragrance +of the Danish groves; and from among the leaves of the flowers he could +distinctly see the little maiden, peeping forth with her bright blue +eyes--and then she whispered, “It is delightful here in Spring, Summer, +Autumn, and Winter”; and a hundred visions glided before his mind. + +Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old +wife under the blooming tree. They held each other by the hand, as the +old grand-father and grand-mother yonder in the New Booths did, and they +talked exactly like them of old times, and of the fiftieth anniversary +of their wedding. The little maiden, with the blue eyes, and with +Elder-blossoms in her hair, sat in the tree, nodded to both of them, +and said, “To-day is the fiftieth anniversary!” And then she took two +flowers out of her hair, and kissed them. First, they shone like silver, +then like gold; and when they laid them on the heads of the old people, +each flower became a golden crown. So there they both sat, like a king +and a queen, under the fragrant tree, that looked exactly like an elder: +the old man told his wife the story of “Old Nanny,” as it had been told +him when a boy. And it seemed to both of them it contained much that +resembled their own history; and those parts that were like it pleased +them best. + +“Thus it is,” said the little maiden in the tree, “some call me 'Old +Nanny,' others a 'Dryad,' but, in reality, my name is 'Remembrance'; +'tis I who sit in the tree that grows and grows! I can remember; I can +tell things! Let me see if you have my flower still?” + +And the old man opened his Prayer-Book. There lay the Elder-blossom, +as fresh as if it had been placed there but a short time before; and +Remembrance nodded, and the old people, decked with crowns of gold, sat +in the flush of the evening sun. They closed their eyes, and--and--! +Yes, that's the end of the story! + +The little boy lay in his bed; he did not know if he had dreamed or +not, or if he had been listening while someone told him the story. The +tea-pot was standing on the table, but no Elder Tree was growing out +of it! And the old man, who had been talking, was just on the point of +going out at the door, and he did go. + +“How splendid that was!” said the little boy. “Mother, I have been to +warm countries.” + +“So I should think,” said his mother. “When one has drunk two good +cupfuls of Elder-flower tea, 'tis likely enough one goes into warm +climates”; and she tucked him up nicely, least he should take cold. “You +have had a good sleep while I have been sitting here, and arguing with +him whether it was a story or a fairy tale.” + +“And where is old Nanny?” asked the little boy. + +“In the tea-pot,” said his mother; “and there she may remain.” + + + + +THE BELL + +People said “The Evening Bell is sounding, the sun is setting.” For a +strange wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town. +It was like the sound of a church-bell: but it was only heard for a +moment, for the rolling of the carriages and the voices of the multitude +made too great a noise. + +Those persons who were walking outside the town, where the houses were +farther apart, with gardens or little fields between them, could see +the evening sky still better, and heard the sound of the bell much +more distinctly. It was as if the tones came from a church in the still +forest; people looked thitherward, and felt their minds attuned most +solemnly. + +A long time passed, and people said to each other--“I wonder if there +is a church out in the wood? The bell has a tone that is wondrous sweet; +let us stroll thither, and examine the matter nearer.” And the rich +people drove out, and the poor walked, but the way seemed strangely +long to them; and when they came to a clump of willows which grew on the +skirts of the forest, they sat down, and looked up at the long +branches, and fancied they were now in the depth of the green wood. The +confectioner of the town came out, and set up his booth there; and soon +after came another confectioner, who hung a bell over his stand, as +a sign or ornament, but it had no clapper, and it was tarred over to +preserve it from the rain. When all the people returned home, they said +it had been very romantic, and that it was quite a different sort of +thing to a pic-nic or tea-party. There were three persons who asserted +they had penetrated to the end of the forest, and that they had always +heard the wonderful sounds of the bell, but it had seemed to them as if +it had come from the town. One wrote a whole poem about it, and said the +bell sounded like the voice of a mother to a good dear child, and +that no melody was sweeter than the tones of the bell. The king of the +country was also observant of it, and vowed that he who could discover +whence the sounds proceeded, should have the title of “Universal +Bell-ringer,” even if it were not really a bell. + +Many persons now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place, +but one only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far +enough, that one not further than the others. However, he said that +the sound proceeded from a very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of +learned owl, that continually knocked its head against the branches. But +whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no +one could say with certainty. So now he got the place of “Universal +Bell-ringer,” and wrote yearly a short treatise “On the Owl”; but +everybody was just as wise as before. + +It was the day of confirmation. The clergyman had spoken so touchingly, +the children who were confirmed had been greatly moved; it was +an eventful day for them; from children they become all at once +grown-up-persons; it was as if their infant souls were now to fly all +at once into persons with more understanding. The sun was shining +gloriously; the children that had been confirmed went out of the town; +and from the wood was borne towards them the sounds of the unknown bell +with wonderful distinctness. They all immediately felt a wish to go +thither; all except three. One of them had to go home to try on a +ball-dress; for it was just the dress and the ball which had caused her +to be confirmed this time, for otherwise she would not have come; +the other was a poor boy, who had borrowed his coat and boots to be +confirmed in from the innkeeper's son, and he was to give them back by +a certain hour; the third said that he never went to a strange place +if his parents were not with him--that he had always been a good boy +hitherto, and would still be so now that he was confirmed, and that one +ought not to laugh at him for it: the others, however, did make fun of +him, after all. + +There were three, therefore, that did not go; the others hastened on. +The sun shone, the birds sang, and the children sang too, and each held +the other by the hand; for as yet they had none of them any high office, +and were all of equal rank in the eye of God. + +But two of the youngest soon grew tired, and both returned to town; two +little girls sat down, and twined garlands, so they did not go either; +and when the others reached the willow-tree, where the confectioner was, +they said, “Now we are there! In reality the bell does not exist; it is +only a fancy that people have taken into their heads!” + +At the same moment the bell sounded deep in the wood, so clear and +solemnly that five or six determined to penetrate somewhat further. It +was so thick, and the foliage so dense, that it was quite fatiguing +to proceed. Woodroof and anemonies grew almost too high; blooming +convolvuluses and blackberry-bushes hung in long garlands from tree to +tree, where the nightingale sang and the sunbeams were playing: it was +very beautiful, but it was no place for girls to go; their clothes would +get so torn. Large blocks of stone lay there, overgrown with moss of +every color; the fresh spring bubbled forth, and made a strange gurgling +sound. + +“That surely cannot be the bell,” said one of the children, lying down +and listening. “This must be looked to.” So he remained, and let the +others go on without him. + +They afterwards came to a little house, made of branches and the bark of +trees; a large wild apple-tree bent over it, as if it would shower down +all its blessings on the roof, where roses were blooming. The long stems +twined round the gable, on which there hung a small bell. + +Was it that which people had heard? Yes, everybody was unanimous on the +subject, except one, who said that the bell was too small and too fine +to be heard at so great a distance, and besides it was very different +tones to those that could move a human heart in such a manner. It was a +king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want +to be wiser than everybody else.” + +They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more +and more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell +with which the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the +wind blew, he could also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea +where the confectioner had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose +louder; it was almost as if an organ were accompanying it, and the tones +came from the left hand, the side where the heart is placed. A rustling +was heard in the bushes, and a little boy stood before the King's Son, a +boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a jacket that one could see what +long wrists he had. Both knew each other: the boy was that one among +the children who could not come because he had to go home and return his +jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son. This he had done, and was now +going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress, for the bell sounded +with so deep a tone, and with such strange power, that proceed he must. + +“Why, then, we can go together,” said the King's Son. But the poor +child that had been confirmed was quite ashamed; he looked at his wooden +shoes, pulled at the short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was +afraid he could not walk so fast; besides, he thought that the bell must +be looked for to the right; for that was the place where all sorts of +beautiful things were to be found. + +“But there we shall not meet,” said the King's Son, nodding at the same +time to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the +wood, where thorns tore his humble dress, and scratched his face and +hands and feet till they bled. The King's Son got some scratches too; +but the sun shone on his path, and it is him that we will follow, for he +was an excellent and resolute youth. + +“I must and will find the bell,” said he, “even if I am obliged to go to +the end of the world.” + +The ugly apes sat upon the trees, and grinned. “Shall we thrash him?” + said they. “Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!” + +But on he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the +wood, where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white +lilies with blood-red stamina, skyblue tulips, which shone as they waved +in the winds, and apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like +large soapbubbles: so only think how the trees must have sparkled in the +sunshine! Around the nicest green meads, where the deer were playing in +the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches; and if the bark of one of +the trees was cracked, there grass and long creeping plants grew in +the crevices. And there were large calm lakes there too, in which white +swans were swimming, and beat the air with their wings. The King's Son +often stood still and listened. He thought the bell sounded from the +depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that the tone +proceeded not from there, but farther off, from out the depths of the +forest. + +The sun now set: the atmosphere glowed like fire. It was still in the +woods, so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn, +and said: “I cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night +is coming--the dark, dark night. Yet perhaps I may be able once more +to see the round red sun before he entirely disappears. I will climb up +yonder rock.” + +And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of +trees--climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing +and the toads were croaking--and he gained the summit before the sun +had quite gone down. How magnificent was the sight from this height! The +sea--the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves against the +coast--was stretched out before him. And yonder, where sea and sky meet, +stood the sun, like a large shining altar, all melted together in the +most glowing colors. And the wood and the sea sang a song of rejoicing, +and his heart sang with the rest: all nature was a vast holy church, +in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the pillars, flowers and +grass the velvet carpeting, and heaven itself the large cupola. The red +colors above faded away as the sun vanished, but a million stars were +lighted, a million lamps shone; and the King's Son spread out his arms +towards heaven, and wood, and sea; when at the same moment, coming by +a path to the right, appeared, in his wooden shoes and jacket, the poor +boy who had been confirmed with him. He had followed his own path, and +had reached the spot just as soon as the son of the king had done. They +ran towards each other, and stood together hand in hand in the vast +church of nature and of poetry, while over them sounded the invisible +holy bell: blessed spirits floated around them, and lifted up their +voices in a rejoicing hallelujah! + + + + +THE OLD HOUSE + +In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house--it was almost +three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great +beam on which the date of the year was carved: together with tulips and +hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and over +every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam. The one story +stood forward a great way over the other; and directly under the eaves +was a leaden spout with a dragon's head; the rain-water should have run +out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly, for there was a hole in +the spout. + +All the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large +window panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would have +nothing to do with the old house: they certainly thought, “How long is +that old decayed thing to stand here as a spectacle in the street? And +then the projecting windows stand so far out, that no one can see from +our windows what happens in that direction! The steps are as broad as +those of a palace, and as high as to a church tower. The iron railings +look just like the door to an old family vault, and then they have brass +tops--that's so stupid!” + +On the other side of the street were also new and neat houses, and they +thought just as the others did; but at the window opposite the old house +there sat a little boy with fresh rosy cheeks and bright beaming eyes: +he certainly liked the old house best, and that both in sunshine and +moonshine. And when he looked across at the wall where the mortar +had fallen out, he could sit and find out there the strangest figures +imaginable; exactly as the street had appeared before, with steps, +projecting windows, and pointed gables; he could see soldiers with +halberds, and spouts where the water ran, like dragons and serpents. +That was a house to look at; and there lived an old man, who wore plush +breeches; and he had a coat with large brass buttons, and a wig that one +could see was a real wig. Every morning there came an old fellow to him +who put his rooms in order, and went on errands; otherwise, the old man +in the plush breeches was quite alone in the old house. Now and then he +came to the window and looked out, and the little boy nodded to him, +and the old man nodded again, and so they became acquaintances, and then +they were friends, although they had never spoken to each other--but +that made no difference. The little boy heard his parents say, “The old +man opposite is very well off, but he is so very, very lonely!” + +The Sunday following, the little boy took something, and wrapped it up +in a piece of paper, went downstairs, and stood in the doorway; and when +the man who went on errands came past, he said to him-- + +“I say, master! will you give this to the old man over the way from me? +I have two pewter soldiers--this is one of them, and he shall have it, +for I know he is so very, very lonely.” + +And the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded, and took the pewter +soldier over to the old house. Afterwards there came a message; it was +to ask if the little boy himself had not a wish to come over and pay a +visit; and so he got permission of his parents, and then went over to +the old house. + +And the brass balls on the iron railings shone much brighter than ever; +one would have thought they were polished on account of the visit; and +it was as if the carved-out trumpeters--for there were trumpeters, who +stood in tulips, carved out on the door--blew with all their +might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than before. Yes, they +blew--“Trateratra! The little boy comes! Trateratra!”--and then the door +opened. + +The whole passage was hung with portraits of knights in armor, and +ladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled, and the silken gowns +rustled! And then there was a flight of stairs which went a good way +upwards, and a little way downwards, and then one came on a balcony +which was in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes and +long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of them altogether, +for the whole balcony outside, the yard, and the walls, were overgrown +with so much green stuff, that it looked like a garden; only a balcony. +Here stood old flower-pots with faces and asses' ears, and the flowers +grew just as they liked. One of the pots was quite overrun on all sides +with pinks, that is to say, with the green part; shoot stood by shoot, +and it said quite distinctly, “The air has cherished me, the sun has +kissed me, and promised me a little flower on Sunday! a little flower on +Sunday!” + +And then they entered a chamber where the walls were covered with hog's +leather, and printed with gold flowers. + + “The gilding decays, + But hog's leather stays!” + +said the walls. + +And there stood easy-chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out, +and with arms on both sides. “Sit down! sit down!” said they. “Ugh! how +I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old clothespress, +ugh!” + +And then the little boy came into the room where the projecting windows +were, and where the old man sat. + +“I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!” said the old +man. “And I thank you because you come over to me.” + +“Thankee! thankee!” or “cranky! cranky!” sounded from all the furniture; +there was so much of it, that each article stood in the other's way, to +get a look at the little boy. + +In the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a beautiful lady, +so young, so glad, but dressed quite as in former times, with clothes +that stood quite stiff, and with powder in her hair; she neither said +“thankee, thankee!” nor “cranky, cranky!” but looked with her mild eyes +at the little boy, who directly asked the old man, “Where did you get +her?” + +“Yonder, at the broker's,” said the old man, “where there are so many +pictures hanging. No one knows or cares about them, for they are all of +them buried; but I knew her in by-gone days, and now she has been dead +and gone these fifty years!” + +Under the picture, in a glazed frame, there hung a bouquet of withered +flowers; they were almost fifty years old; they looked so very old! + +The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned, +and everything in the room became still older; but they did not observe +it. + +“They say at home,” said the little boy, “that you are so very, very +lonely!” + +“Oh!” said he. “The old thoughts, with what they may bring with them, +come and visit me, and now you also come! I am very well off!” + +Then he took a book with pictures in it down from the shelf; there were +whole long processions and pageants, with the strangest characters, +which one never sees now-a-days; soldiers like the knave of clubs, +and citizens with waving flags: the tailors had theirs, with a pair of +shears held by two lions--and the shoemakers theirs, without boots, +but with an eagle that had two heads, for the shoemakers must have +everything so that they can say, it is a pair! Yes, that was a picture +book! + +The old man now went into the other room to fetch preserves, apples, and +nuts--yes, it was delightful over there in the old house. + +“I cannot bear it any longer!” said the pewter soldier, who sat on the +drawers. “It is so lonely and melancholy here! But when one has been in +a family circle one cannot accustom oneself to this life! I cannot bear +it any longer! The whole day is so long, and the evenings are still +longer! Here it is not at all as it is over the way at your home, where +your father and mother spoke so pleasantly, and where you and all your +sweet children made such a delightful noise. Nay, how lonely the old man +is--do you think that he gets kisses? Do you think he gets mild eyes, +or a Christmas tree? He will get nothing but a grave! I can bear it no +longer!” + +“You must not let it grieve you so much,” said the little boy. “I find +it so very delightful here, and then all the old thoughts, with what +they may bring with them, they come and visit here.” + +“Yes, it's all very well, but I see nothing of them, and I don't know +them!” said the pewter soldier. “I cannot bear it!” + +“But you must!” said the little boy. + +Then in came the old man with the most pleased and happy face, the most +delicious preserves, apples, and nuts, and so the little boy thought no +more about the pewter soldier. + +The little boy returned home happy and pleased, and weeks and days +passed away, and nods were made to the old house, and from the old +house, and then the little boy went over there again. + +The carved trumpeters blew, “Trateratra! There is the little boy! +Trateratra!” and the swords and armor on the knights' portraits rattled, +and the silk gowns rustled; the hog's leather spoke, and the old chairs +had the gout in their legs and rheumatism in their backs: Ugh! it was +exactly like the first time, for over there one day and hour was just +like another. + +“I cannot bear it!” said the pewter soldier. “I have shed pewter tears! +It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and lose arms and +legs! It would at least be a change. I cannot bear it longer! Now, I +know what it is to have a visit from one's old thoughts, with what they +may bring with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be sure +it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down +from the drawers. + +“I saw you all over there at home so distinctly, as if you really were +here; it was again that Sunday morning; all you children stood before +the table and sung your Psalms, as you do every morning. You stood +devoutly with folded hands; and father and mother were just as pious; +and then the door was opened, and little sister Mary, who is not two +years old yet, and who always dances when she hears music or singing, of +whatever kind it may be, was put into the room--though she ought not to +have been there--and then she began to dance, but could not keep time, +because the tones were so long; and then she stood, first on the one +leg, and bent her head forwards, and then on the other leg, and bent +her head forwards--but all would not do. You stood very seriously all +together, although it was difficult enough; but I laughed to myself, and +then I fell off the table, and got a bump, which I have still--for it +was not right of me to laugh. But the whole now passes before me again +in thought, and everything that I have lived to see; and these are the +old thoughts, with what they may bring with them. + +“Tell me if you still sing on Sundays? Tell me something about little +Mary! And how my comrade, the other pewter soldier, lives! Yes, he is +happy enough, that's sure! I cannot bear it any longer!” + +“You are given away as a present!” said the little boy. “You must +remain. Can you not understand that?” + +The old man now came with a drawer, in which there was much to be seen, +both “tin boxes” and “balsam boxes,” old cards, so large and so gilded, +such as one never sees them now. And several drawers were opened, and +the piano was opened; it had landscapes on the inside of the lid, and it +was so hoarse when the old man played on it! and then he hummed a song. + +“Yes, she could sing that!” said he, and nodded to the portrait, which +he had bought at the broker's, and the old man's eyes shone so bright! + +“I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!” shouted the pewter +soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself off the drawers right +down on the floor. What became of him? The old man sought, and the +little boy sought; he was away, and he stayed away. + +“I shall find him!” said the old man; but he never found him. The floor +was too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice, and there +he lay as in an open tomb. + +That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed, +and several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy was +obliged to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the old +house, and there the snow had been blown into all the carved work and +inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if there was no +one at home--nor was there any one at home--the old man was dead! + +In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was borne +into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to lie in +his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all his friends +were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it was +driven away. + +Some days afterwards there was an auction at the old house, and the +little boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and the +old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old chairs, and +the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and something came there; +the portrait of her who had been found at the broker's came to the +broker's again; and there it hung, for no one knew her more--no one +cared about the old picture. + +In the spring they pulled the house down, for, as people said, it was +a ruin. One could see from the street right into the room with the +hog's-leather hanging, which was slashed and torn; and the green grass +and leaves about the balcony hung quite wild about the falling beams. +And then it was put to rights. + +“That was a relief,” said the neighboring houses. + +A fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white +walls; but before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a +little garden laid out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the +neighboring house. Before the garden there was a large iron railing +with an iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still and +peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the vine, and chattered +away at each other as well as they could, but it was not about the old +house, for they could not remember it, so many years had passed--so many +that the little boy had grown up to a whole man, yes, a clever man, and +a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been married, and, together +with his little wife, had come to live in the house here, where the +garden was; and he stood by her there whilst she planted a field-flower +that she found so pretty; she planted it with her little hand, and +pressed the earth around it with her fingers. Oh! what was that? She +had stuck herself. There sat something pointed, straight out of the soft +mould. + +It was--yes, guess! It was the pewter soldier, he that was lost up at +the old man's, and had tumbled and turned about amongst the timber and +the rubbish, and had at last laid for many years in the ground. + +The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with a green leaf, +and then with her fine handkerchief--it had such a delightful smell, +that it was to the pewter soldier just as if he had awaked from a +trance. + +“Let me see him,” said the young man. He laughed, and then shook his +head. “Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter +soldier which I had when I was a little boy!” And then he told his wife +about the old house, and the old man, and about the pewter soldier that +he sent over to him because he was so very, very lonely; and he told it +as correctly as it had really been, so that the tears came into the eyes +of his young wife, on account of the old house and the old man. + +“It may possibly be, however, that it is the same pewter soldier!” said +she. “I will take care of it, and remember all that you have told me; +but you must show me the old man's grave!” + +“But I do not know it,” said he, “and no one knows it! All his friends +were dead, no one took care of it, and I was then a little boy!” + +“How very, very lonely he must have been!” said she. + +“Very, very lonely!” said the pewter soldier. “But it is delightful not +to be forgotten!” + +“Delightful!” shouted something close by; but no one, except the pewter +soldier, saw that it was a piece of the hog's-leather hangings; it had +lost all its gilding, it looked like a piece of wet clay, but it had an +opinion, and it gave it: + + “The gilding decays, + But hog's leather stays!” + +This the pewter soldier did not believe. + + + + +THE HAPPY FAMILY + +Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one +holds it before one, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it over +one's head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, for +it is so immensely large. The burdock never grows alone, but where there +grows one there always grow several: it is a great delight, and all this +delightfulness is snails' food. The great white snails which persons of +quality in former times made fricassees of, ate, and said, “Hem, +hem! how delicious!” for they thought it tasted so delicate--lived on +dock-leaves, and therefore burdock seeds were sown. + +Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails, they +were quite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew and +grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get the mastery +over them--it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an +apple and a plum-tree, or else one never would have thought that it was +a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the two last venerable old +snails. + +They themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember +very well that there had been many more; that they were of a family +from foreign lands, and that for them and theirs the whole forest was +planted. They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was +still something more in the world, which was called the manor-house, and +that there they were boiled, and then they became black, and were then +placed on a silver dish; but what happened further they knew not; or, in +fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish, they could +not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful, and particularly +genteel. Neither the chafers, the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they +asked about it could give them any information--none of them had been +boiled or laid on a silver dish. + +The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the +world, that they knew; the forest was planted for their sake, and the +manor-house was there that they might be boiled and laid on a silver +dish. + +Now they lived a very lonely and happy life; and as they had no children +themselves, they had adopted a little common snail, which they brought +up as their own; but the little one would not grow, for he was of a +common family; but the old ones, especially Dame Mother Snail, thought +they could observe how he increased in size, and she begged father, +if he could not see it, that he would at least feel the little snail's +shell; and then he felt it, and found the good dame was right. + +One day there was a heavy storm of rain. + +“Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail. + +“There are also rain-drops!” said Mother Snail. “And now the rain pours +right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I am very +happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has +his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures, sure +enough; but can you not see that we are folks of quality in the world? +We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock forest is +planted for our sakes! I should like to know how far it extends, and +what there is outside!” + +“There is nothing at all,” said Father Snail. “No place can be better +than ours, and I have nothing to wish for!” + +“Yes,” said the dame. “I would willingly go to the manorhouse, be +boiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our forefathers have been treated +so; there is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!” + +“The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!” said Father Snail. “Or +the burdocks have grown up over it, so that they cannot come out. There +need not, however, be any haste about that; but you are always in such a +tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same. Has he +not been creeping up that stalk these three days? It gives me a headache +when I look up to him!” + +“You must not scold him,” said Mother Snail. “He creeps so carefully; he +will afford us much pleasure--and we have nothing but him to live for! +But have you not thought of it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do +you not think that there are some of our species at a great distance in +the interior of the burdock forest?” + +“Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of,” said the old one. +“Black snails without a house--but they are so common, and so conceited. +But we might give the ants a commission to look out for us; they run +to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a +wife for our little snail!” + +“I know one, sure enough--the most charming one!” said one of the ants. +“But I am afraid we shall hardly succeed, for she is a queen!” + +“That is nothing!” said the old folks. “Has she a house?” + +“She has a palace!” said the ant. “The finest ant's palace, with seven +hundred passages!” + +“I thank you!” said Mother Snail. “Our son shall not go into an +ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the +commission to the white gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and +sunshine; they know the whole forest here, both within and without.” + +“We have a wife for him,” said the gnats. “At a hundred human paces from +here there sits a little snail in her house, on a gooseberry bush; she +is quite lonely, and old enough to be married. It is only a hundred +human paces!” + +“Well, then, let her come to him!” said the old ones. “He has a whole +forest of burdocks, she has only a bush!” + +And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week +before she arrived; but therein was just the very best of it, for one +could thus see that she was of the same species. + +And then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms shone as well as +they could. In other respects the whole went off very quietly, for the +old folks could not bear noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made +a brilliant speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much +affected; and so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole +forest of burdocks, and said--what they had always said--that it was +the best in the world; and if they lived honestly and decently, and +increased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the +course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on +silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their +shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple governed +in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled, +and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that +the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world +were extinct; and as no one contradicted them, so, of course it was so. +And the rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their sake, +and the sun shone in order to give the burdock forest a color for their +sakes; and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy; for +they, indeed were so. + + + + +THE STORY OF A MOTHER + +A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so +afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed +themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a +deep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more +sorrowfully on the little creature. + +Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man +wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed +it, as it was the cold winter season! Everything out-of-doors was +covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face. + +As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment, +the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove, +that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, +and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at her +little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and raised its little +hand. + +“Do you not think that I shall save him?” said she. “Our Lord will not +take him from me!” + +And the old man--it was Death himself--he nodded so strangely, it could +just as well signify yes as no. And the mother looked down in her lap, +and the tears ran down over her cheeks; her head became so heavy--she +had not closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now she slept, +but only for a minute, when she started up and trembled with cold. + +“What is that?” said she, and looked on all sides; but the old man was +gone, and her little child was gone--he had taken it with him; and the +old clock in the corner burred, and burred, the great leaden weight ran +down to the floor, bump! and then the clock also stood still. + +But the poor mother ran out of the house and cried aloud for her child. + +Out there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman in long, black +clothes; and she said, “Death has been in thy chamber, and I saw him +hasten away with thy little child; he goes faster than the wind, and he +never brings back what he takes!” + +“Oh, only tell me which way he went!” said the mother. “Tell me the way, +and I shall find him!” + +“I know it!” said the woman in the black clothes. “But before I tell it, +thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy child! +I am fond of them. I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears +whilst thou sang'st them!” + +“I will sing them all, all!” said the mother. “But do not stop me now--I +may overtake him--I may find my child!” + +But Night stood still and mute. Then the mother wrung her hands, sang +and wept, and there were many songs, but yet many more tears; and then +Night said, “Go to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw +Death take his way with thy little child!” + +The roads crossed each other in the depths of the forest, and she no +longer knew whither she should go! then there stood a thorn-bush; +there was neither leaf nor flower on it, it was also in the cold winter +season, and ice-flakes hung on the branches. + +“Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?” said the +mother. + +“Yes,” said the thorn-bush; “but I will not tell thee which way he took, +unless thou wilt first warm me up at thy heart. I am freezing to death; +I shall become a lump of ice!” + +And she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly, that it might +be thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went right into her flesh, and her +blood flowed in large drops, but the thornbush shot forth fresh green +leaves, and there came flowers on it in the cold winter night, the heart +of the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told her the way +she should go. + +She then came to a large lake, where there was neither ship nor boat. +The lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear her; neither was it open, +nor low enough that she could wade through it; and across it she must go +if she would find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the lake, and +that was an impossibility for a human being, but the afflicted mother +thought that a miracle might happen nevertheless. + +“Oh, what would I not give to come to my child!” said the weeping +mother; and she wept still more, and her eyes sunk down in the depths of +the waters, and became two precious pearls; but the water bore her up, +as if she sat in a swing, and she flew in the rocking waves to the shore +on the opposite side, where there stood a mile-broad, strange house, one +knew not if it were a mountain with forests and caverns, or if it were +built up; but the poor mother could not see it; she had wept her eyes +out. + +“Where shall I find Death, who took away my little child?” said she. + +“He has not come here yet!” said the old grave woman, who was appointed +to look after Death's great greenhouse! “How have you been able to find +the way hither? And who has helped you?” + +“OUR LORD has helped me,” said she. “He is merciful, and you will also +be so! Where shall I find my little child?” + +“Nay, I know not,” said the woman, “and you cannot see! Many flowers and +trees have withered this night; Death will soon come and plant them over +again! You certainly know that every person has his or her life's tree +or flower, just as everyone happens to be settled; they look like other +plants, but they have pulsations of the heart. Children's hearts can +also beat; go after yours, perhaps you may know your child's; but what +will you give me if I tell you what you shall do more?” + +“I have nothing to give,” said the afflicted mother, “but I will go to +the world's end for you!” + +“Nay, I have nothing to do there!” said the woman. “But you can give +me your long black hair; you know yourself that it is fine, and that +I like! You shall have my white hair instead, and that's always +something!” + +“Do you demand nothing else?” said she. “That I will gladly give you!” + And she gave her her fine black hair, and got the old woman's snow-white +hair instead. + +So they went into Death's great greenhouse, where flowers and trees +grew strangely into one another. There stood fine hyacinths under glass +bells, and there stood strong-stemmed peonies; there grew water plants, +some so fresh, others half sick, the water-snakes lay down on them, +and black crabs pinched their stalks. There stood beautiful palm-trees, +oaks, and plantains; there stood parsley and flowering thyme: every tree +and every flower had its name; each of them was a human life, the human +frame still lived--one in China, and another in Greenland--round about +in the world. There were large trees in small pots, so that they stood +so stunted in growth, and ready to burst the pots; in other places, +there was a little dull flower in rich mould, with moss round about it, +and it was so petted and nursed. But the distressed mother bent down +over all the smallest plants, and heard within them how the human heart +beat; and amongst millions she knew her child's. + +“There it is!” cried she, and stretched her hands out over a little blue +crocus, that hung quite sickly on one side. + +“Don't touch the flower!” said the old woman. “But place yourself here, +and when Death comes--I expect him every moment--do not let him pluck +the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the +others. Then he will be afraid! He is responsible for them to OUR LORD, +and no one dares to pluck them up before HE gives leave.” + +All at once an icy cold rushed through the great hall, and the blind +mother could feel that it was Death that came. + +“How hast thou been able to find thy way hither?” he asked. “How couldst +thou come quicker than I?” + +“I am a mother,” said she. + +And Death stretched out his long hand towards the fine little flower, +but she held her hands fast around his, so tight, and yet afraid that +she should touch one of the leaves. Then Death blew on her hands, and +she felt that it was colder than the cold wind, and her hands fell down +powerless. + +“Thou canst not do anything against me!” said Death. + +“But OUR LORD can!” said she. + +“I only do His bidding!” said Death. “I am His gardener, I take all His +flowers and trees, and plant them out in the great garden of Paradise, +in the unknown land; but how they grow there, and how it is there I dare +not tell thee.” + +“Give me back my child!” said the mother, and she wept and prayed. At +once she seized hold of two beautiful flowers close by, with each hand, +and cried out to Death, “I will tear all thy flowers off, for I am in +despair.” + +“Touch them not!” said Death. “Thou say'st that thou art so unhappy, and +now thou wilt make another mother equally unhappy.” + +“Another mother!” said the poor woman, and directly let go her hold of +both the flowers. + +“There, thou hast thine eyes,” said Death; “I fished them up from the +lake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them again, +they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep well +close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou wouldst +have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life--their whole +human existence: and see what thou wast about to disturb and destroy.” + +And she looked down into the well; and it was a happiness to see how the +one became a blessing to the world, to see how much happiness and joy +were felt everywhere. And she saw the other's life, and it was sorrow +and distress, horror, and wretchedness. + +“Both of them are God's will!” said Death. + +“Which of them is Misfortune's flower and which is that of Happiness?” + asked she. + +“That I will not tell thee,” said Death; “but this thou shalt know from +me, that the one flower was thy own child! it was thy child's fate thou +saw'st--thy own child's future life!” + +Then the mother screamed with terror, “Which of them was my child? Tell +it me! Save the innocent! Save my child from all that misery! Rather +take it away! Take it into God's kingdom! Forget my tears, forget my +prayers, and all that I have done!” + +“I do not understand thee!” said Death. “Wilt thou have thy child again, +or shall I go with it there, where thou dost not know!” + +Then the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to our +Lord: “Oh, hear me not when I pray against Thy will, which is the best! +hear me not! hear me not!” + +And she bowed her head down in her lap, and Death took her child and +went with it into the unknown land. + + + + +THE FALSE COLLAR + +There was once a fine gentleman, all of whose moveables were a boot-jack +and a hair-comb: but he had the finest false collars in the world; and +it is about one of these collars that we are now to hear a story. + +It was so old, that it began to think of marriage; and it happened that +it came to be washed in company with a garter. + +“Nay!” said the collar. “I never did see anything so slender and so +fine, so soft and so neat. May I not ask your name?” + +“That I shall not tell you!” said the garter. + +“Where do you live?” asked the collar. + +But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange +question to answer. + +“You are certainly a girdle,” said the collar; “that is to say an inside +girdle. I see well that you are both for use and ornament, my dear young +lady.” + +“I will thank you not to speak to me,” said the garter. “I think I have +not given the least occasion for it.” + +“Yes! When one is as handsome as you,” said the collar, “that is +occasion enough.” + +“Don't come so near me, I beg of you!” said the garter. “You look so +much like those men-folks.” + +“I am also a fine gentleman,” said the collar. “I have a bootjack and a +hair-comb.” + +But that was not true, for it was his master who had them: but he +boasted. + +“Don't come so near me,” said the garter: “I am not accustomed to it.” + +“Prude!” exclaimed the collar; and then it was taken out of the +washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the +sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm +box-iron. “Dear lady!” said the collar. “Dear widow-lady! I feel quite +hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a hole +in me. Oh! I offer you my hand.” + +“Rag!” said the box-iron; and went proudly over the collar: for she +fancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw +the waggons. “Rag!” said the box-iron. + +The collar was a little jagged at the edge, and so came the long +scissors to cut off the jagged part. “Oh!” said the collar. “You are +certainly the first opera dancer. How well you can stretch your legs +out! It is the most graceful performance I have ever seen. No one can +imitate you.” + +“I know it,” said the scissors. + +“You deserve to be a baroness,” said the collar. “All that I have is a +fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a hair-comb. If I only had the barony!” + +“Do you seek my hand?” said the scissors; for she was angry; and without +more ado, she CUT HIM, and then he was condemned. + +“I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. It is surprising how well +you preserve your teeth, Miss,” said the collar. “Have you never thought +of being betrothed?” + +“Yes, of course! you may be sure of that,” said the hair-comb. “I AM +betrothed--to the boot-jack!” + +“Betrothed!” exclaimed the collar. Now there was no other to court, and +so he despised it. + +A long time passed away, then the collar came into the rag chest at the +paper mill; there was a large company of rags, the fine by themselves, +and the coarse by themselves, just as it should be. They all had much to +say, but the collar the most; for he was a real boaster. + +“I have had such an immense number of sweethearts!” said the collar. +“I could not be in peace! It is true, I was always a fine starched-up +gentleman! I had both a boot-jack and a hair-comb, which I never used! +You should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay down! +I shall never forget MY FIRST LOVE--she was a girdle, so fine, so soft, +and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! +There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing +till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she +gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! My +own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the +heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort of thing; but I +am extremely sorry for the garter--I mean the girdle--that went into the +water-tub. I have much on my conscience, I want to become white paper!” + +And it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the +collar came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, +and on which the story is printed; and that was because it boasted so +terribly afterwards of what had never happened to it. It would be well +for us to beware, that we may not act in a similar manner, for we can +never know if we may not, in the course of time, also come into the +rag chest, and be made into white paper, and then have our whole life's +history printed on it, even the most secret, and be obliged to run about +and tell it ourselves, just like this collar. + + + + +THE SHADOW + +It is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough! there the people +become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the HOTTEST lands they are +burnt to Negroes. But now it was only to the HOT lands that a learned +man had come from the cold; there he thought that he could run about +just as when at home, but he soon found out his mistake. + +He, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors--the +window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the +whole house slept, or there was no one at home. + +The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine +must fall there from morning till evening--it was really not to be +borne. + +The learned man from the cold lands--he was a young man, and seemed to +be a clever man--sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became +quite meagre--even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect +on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they +began to freshen up again. + +In the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out on +all the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one be +accustomed to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the +street. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the +street--chairs and tables were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes, +above a thousand lights were burning--and the one talked and the other +sung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along with +a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys were +screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and +detonating balls--and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers--for +there were funerals with psalm and hymn--and then the din of carriages +driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough down +in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in +which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one +lived there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so +well in the sun's heat! and that they could not do unless they were +watered--and some one must water them--there must be somebody there. +The door opposite was also opened late in the evening, but it was dark +within, at least in the front room; further in there was heard the sound +of music. The learned foreigner thought it quite marvellous, but now--it +might be that he only imagined it--for he found everything marvellous +out there, in the warm lands, if there had only been no sun. The +stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house +opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared +to him to be extremely tiresome. “It is as if some one sat there, and +practised a piece that he could not master--always the same piece. 'I +shall master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he +plays.” + +* The word mahogany can be understood, in Danish, as having two +meanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in +jest, it signifies “excessively fine,” which arose from an anecdote of +Nyboder, in Copenhagen, (the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was +always proud and fine, in her way, came to her neighbor, and complained +that she had got a splinter in her finger. “What of?” asked the +neighbor's wife. “It is a mahogany splinter,” said the other. “Mahogany! +It cannot be less with you!” exclaimed the woman--and thence the +proverb, “It is so mahogany!”--(that is, so excessively fine)--is +derived. + + +One night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony +open--the curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought +that a strange lustre came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the +flowers shone like flames, in the most beautiful colors, and in the +midst of the flowers stood a slender, graceful maiden--it was as if she +also shone; the light really hurt his eyes. He now opened them quite +wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was on the floor; he +crept gently behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone; the flowers +shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as ever; +the door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft and +delightful, one could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it. Yet +it was like a piece of enchantment. And who lived there? Where was the +actual entrance? The whole of the ground-floor was a row of shops, and +there people could not always be running through. + +One evening the stranger sat out on the balcony. The light burnt in the +room behind him; and thus it was quite natural that his shadow should +fall on his opposite neighbor's wall. Yes! there it sat, directly +opposite, between the flowers on the balcony; and when the stranger +moved, the shadow also moved: for that it always does. + +“I think my shadow is the only living thing one sees over there,” said +the learned man. “See, how nicely it sits between the flowers. The door +stands half-open: now the shadow should be cunning, and go into the +room, look about, and then come and tell me what it had seen. Come, now! +Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest. “Have the kindness to +step in. Now! Art thou going?” and then he nodded to the shadow, and the +shadow nodded again. “Well then, go! But don't stay away.” + +The stranger rose, and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony +rose also; the stranger turned round and the shadow also turned round. +Yes! if anyone had paid particular attention to it, they would have +seen, quite distinctly, that the shadow went in through the half-open +balcony-door of their opposite neighbor, just as the stranger went into +his own room, and let the long curtain fall down after him. + +Next morning, the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the +newspapers. + +“What is that?” said he, as he came out into the sunshine. “I have no +shadow! So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again. It +is really tiresome!” + +This annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because +he knew there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known +to everybody at home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now came +there and told his story, they would say that he was imitating it, and +that he had no need to do. He would, therefore, not talk about it at +all; and that was wisely thought. + +*Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man. + + +In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the light +directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always have its +master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made himself little; +he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He said, “Hem! hem!” + but it was of no use. + +It was vexatious; but in the warm lands everything grows so quickly; and +after the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that a new +shadow came in the sunshine. In the course of three weeks he had a very +fair shadow, which, when he set out for his home in the northern lands, +grew more and more in the journey, so that at last it was so long and so +large, that it was more than sufficient. + +The learned man then came home, and he wrote books about what was true +in the world, and about what was good and what was beautiful; and there +passed days and years--yes! many years passed away. + +One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knocking +at the door. + +“Come in!” said he; but no one came in; so he opened the door, and there +stood before him such an extremely lean man, that he felt quite strange. +As to the rest, the man was very finely dressed--he must be a gentleman. + +“Whom have I the honor of speaking?” asked the learned man. + +“Yes! I thought as much,” said the fine man. “I thought you would not +know me. I have got so much body. I have even got flesh and clothes. You +certainly never thought of seeing me so well off. Do you not know your +old shadow? You certainly thought I should never more return. Things +have gone on well with me since I was last with you. I have, in all +respects, become very well off. Shall I purchase my freedom from +service? If so, I can do it”; and then he rattled a whole bunch of +valuable seals that hung to his watch, and he stuck his hand in the +thick gold chain he wore around his neck--nay! how all his fingers +glittered with diamond rings; and then all were pure gems. + +“Nay; I cannot recover from my surprise!” said the learned man. “What is +the meaning of all this?” + +“Something common, is it not,” said the shadow. “But you yourself do not +belong to the common order; and I, as you know well, have from a child +followed in your footsteps. As soon as you found I was capable to go +out alone in the world, I went my own way. I am in the most brilliant +circumstances, but there came a sort of desire over me to see you once +more before you die; you will die, I suppose? I also wished to see this +land again--for you know we always love our native land. I know you have +got another shadow again; have I anything to pay to it or you? If so, +you will oblige me by saying what it is.” + +“Nay, is it really thou?” said the learned man. “It is most remarkable: +I never imagined that one's old shadow could come again as a man.” + +“Tell me what I have to pay,” said the shadow; “for I don't like to be +in any sort of debt.” + +“How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man. “What debt is there to +talk about? Make thyself as free as anyone else. I am extremely glad to +hear of thy good fortune: sit down, old friend, and tell me a little +how it has gone with thee, and what thou hast seen at our opposite +neighbor's there--in the warm lands.” + +“Yes, I will tell you all about it,” said the shadow, and sat down: “but +then you must also promise me, that, wherever you may meet me, you will +never say to anyone here in the town that I have been your shadow. I +intend to get betrothed, for I can provide for more than one family.” + +“Be quite at thy ease about that,” said the learned man; “I shall not +say to anyone who thou actually art: here is my hand--I promise it, and +a man's bond is his word.” + +“A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.” + +It was really quite astonishing how much of a man it was. It was dressed +entirely in black, and of the very finest cloth; it had patent leather +boots, and a hat that could be folded together, so that it was bare +crown and brim; not to speak of what we already know it had--seals, gold +neck-chain, and diamond rings; yes, the shadow was well-dressed, and it +was just that which made it quite a man. + +“Now I shall tell you my adventures,” said the shadow; and then he +sat, with the polished boots, as heavily as he could, on the arm of the +learned man's new shadow, which lay like a poodle-dog at his feet. +Now this was perhaps from arrogance; and the shadow on the ground kept +itself so still and quiet, that it might hear all that passed: it wished +to know how it could get free, and work its way up, so as to become its +own master. + +“Do you know who lived in our opposite neighbor's house?” said the +shadow. “It was the most charming of all beings, it was Poesy! I was +there for three weeks, and that has as much effect as if one had lived +three thousand years, and read all that was composed and written; +that is what I say, and it is right. I have seen everything and I know +everything!” + +“Poesy!” cried the learned man. “Yes, yes, she often dwells a recluse +in large cities! Poesy! Yes, I have seen her--a single short moment, +but sleep came into my eyes! She stood on the balcony and shone as the +Aurora Borealis shines. Go on, go on--thou wert on the balcony, and went +through the doorway, and then--” + +“Then I was in the antechamber,” said the shadow. “You always sat and +looked over to the antechamber. There was no light; there was a sort +of twilight, but the one door stood open directly opposite the other +through a long row of rooms and saloons, and there it was lighted up. I +should have been completely killed if I had gone over to the maiden; but +I was circumspect, I took time to think, and that one must always do.” + +“And what didst thou then see?” asked the learned man. + +“I saw everything, and I shall tell all to you: but--it is no pride on +my part--as a free man, and with the knowledge I have, not to speak of +my position in life, my excellent circumstances--I certainly wish that +you would say YOU* to me!” + +* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate acquaintances to use the +second person singular, “Du,” (thou) when speaking to each other. When +a friendship is formed between men, they generally affirm it, when +occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to each other +and exclaiming, “thy health,” at the same time striking their glasses +together. This is called drinking “Duus”: they are then, “Duus Brodre,” + (thou brothers) and ever afterwards use the pronoun “thou,” to each +other, it being regarded as more familiar than “De,” (you). Father and +mother, sister and brother say thou to one another--without regard to +age or rank. Master and mistress say thou to their servants the superior +to the inferior. But servants and inferiors do not use the same term +to their masters, or superiors--nor is it ever used when speaking to a +stranger, or anyone with whom they are but slightly acquainted--they +then say as in English--you. + + +“I beg your pardon,” said the learned man; “it is an old habit with me. +YOU are perfectly right, and I shall remember it; but now you must tell +me all YOU saw!” + +“Everything!” said the shadow. “For I saw everything, and I know +everything!” + +“How did it look in the furthest saloon?” asked the learned man. “Was it +there as in the fresh woods? Was it there as in a holy church? Were the +saloons like the starlit firmament when we stand on the high mountains?” + +“Everything was there!” said the shadow. “I did not go quite in, I +remained in the foremost room, in the twilight, but I stood there +quite well; I saw everything, and I know everything! I have been in the +antechamber at the court of Poesy.” + +“But WHAT DID you see? Did all the gods of the olden times pass through +the large saloons? Did the old heroes combat there? Did sweet children +play there, and relate their dreams?” + +“I tell you I was there, and you can conceive that I saw everything +there was to be seen. Had you come over there, you would not have been +a man; but I became so! And besides, I learned to know my inward nature, +my innate qualities, the relationship I had with Poesy. At the time I +was with you, I thought not of that, but always--you know it well--when +the sun rose, and when the sun went down, I became so strangely great; +in the moonlight I was very near being more distinct than yourself; at +that time I did not understand my nature; it was revealed to me in the +antechamber! I became a man! I came out matured; but you were no longer +in the warm lands; as a man I was ashamed to go as I did. I was in +want of boots, of clothes, of the whole human varnish that makes a man +perceptible. I took my way--I tell it to you, but you will not put it in +any book--I took my way to the cake woman--I hid myself behind her; +the woman didn't think how much she concealed. I went out first in the +evening; I ran about the streets in the moonlight; I made myself long up +the walls--it tickles the back so delightfully! I ran up, and ran down, +peeped into the highest windows, into the saloons, and on the roofs, I +peeped in where no one could peep, and I saw what no one else saw, what +no one else should see! This is, in fact, a base world! I would not be a +man if it were not now once accepted and regarded as something to be so! +I saw the most unimaginable things with the women, with the men, with +parents, and with the sweet, matchless children; I saw,” said the +shadow, “what no human being must know, but what they would all +so willingly know--what is bad in their neighbor. Had I written a +newspaper, it would have been read! But I wrote direct to the persons +themselves, and there was consternation in all the towns where I came. +They were so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of +me. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors gave me new +clothes--I am well furnished; the master of the mint struck new coin for +me, and the women said I was so handsome! And so I became the man I am. +And I now bid you farewell. Here is my card--I live on the sunny side +of the street, and am always at home in rainy weather!” And so away went +the shadow. “That was most extraordinary!” said the learned man. Years +and days passed away, then the shadow came again. “How goes it?” said +the shadow. + +“Alas!” said the learned man. “I write about the true, and the good, +and the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such things; I am quite +desperate, for I take it so much to heart!” + +“But I don't!” said the shadow. “I become fat, and it is that one wants +to become! You do not understand the world. You will become ill by it. +You must travel! I shall make a tour this summer; will you go with me? +I should like to have a travelling companion! Will you go with me, as +shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you with me; I shall +pay the travelling expenses!” + +“Nay, this is too much!” said the learned man. + +“It is just as one takes it!” said the shadow. “It will do you much good +to travel! Will you be my shadow? You shall have everything free on the +journey!” + +“Nay, that is too bad!” said the learned man. + +“But it is just so with the world!” said the shadow, “and so it will +be!” and away it went again. + +The learned man was not at all in the most enviable state; grief and +torment followed him, and what he said about the true, and the good, and +the beautiful, was, to most persons, like roses for a cow! He was quite +ill at last. + +“You really look like a shadow!” said his friends to him; and the +learned man trembled, for he thought of it. + +“You must go to a watering-place!” said the shadow, who came and visited +him. “There is nothing else for it! I will take you with me for old +acquaintance' sake; I will pay the travelling expenses, and you write +the descriptions--and if they are a little amusing for me on the way! +I will go to a watering-place--my beard does not grow out as it +ought--that is also a sickness--and one must have a beard! Now you be +wise and accept the offer; we shall travel as comrades!” + +And so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the master was the +shadow; they drove with each other, they rode and walked together, side +by side, before and behind, just as the sun was; the shadow always took +care to keep itself in the master's place. Now the learned man didn't +think much about that; he was a very kind-hearted man, and particularly +mild and friendly, and so he said one day to the shadow: “As we have +now become companions, and in this way have grown up together from +childhood, shall we not drink 'thou' together, it is more familiar?” + +“You are right,” said the shadow, who was now the proper master. “It is +said in a very straight-forward and well-meant manner. You, as a learned +man, certainly know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot bear to +touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in every limb if one +rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just such a feeling on hearing +you say thou to me; I feel myself as if pressed to the earth in my first +situation with you. You see that it is a feeling; that it is not pride: +I cannot allow you to say THOU to me, but I will willingly say THOU to +you, so it is half done!” + +So the shadow said THOU to its former master. + +“This is rather too bad,” thought he, “that I must say YOU and he say +THOU,” but he was now obliged to put up with it. + +So they came to a watering-place where there were many strangers, and +amongst them was a princess, who was troubled with seeing too well; and +that was so alarming! + +She directly observed that the stranger who had just come was quite a +different sort of person to all the others; “He has come here in order +to get his beard to grow, they say, but I see the real cause, he cannot +cast a shadow.” + +She had become inquisitive; and so she entered into conversation +directly with the strange gentleman, on their promenades. As the +daughter of a king, she needed not to stand upon trifles, so she said, +“Your complaint is, that you cannot cast a shadow?” + +“Your Royal Highness must be improving considerably,” said the shadow, +“I know your complaint is, that you see too clearly, but it has +decreased, you are cured. I just happen to have a very unusual shadow! +Do you not see that person who always goes with me? Other persons have +a common shadow, but I do not like what is common to all. We give our +servants finer cloth for their livery than we ourselves use, and so I +had my shadow trimmed up into a man: yes, you see I have even given him +a shadow. It is somewhat expensive, but I like to have something for +myself!” + +“What!” thought the princess. “Should I really be cured! These baths are +the first in the world! In our time water has wonderful powers. But I +shall not leave the place, for it now begins to be amusing here. I am +extremely fond of that stranger: would that his beard should not grow, +for in that case he will leave us!” + +In the evening, the princess and the shadow danced together in the large +ball-room. She was light, but he was still lighter; she had never had +such a partner in the dance. She told him from what land she came, and +he knew that land; he had been there, but then she was not at home; he +had peeped in at the window, above and below--he had seen both the +one and the other, and so he could answer the princess, and make +insinuations, so that she was quite astonished; he must be the wisest +man in the whole world! She felt such respect for what he knew! So that +when they again danced together she fell in love with him; and that the +shadow could remark, for she almost pierced him through with her eyes. +So they danced once more together; and she was about to declare herself, +but she was discreet; she thought of her country and kingdom, and of the +many persons she would have to reign over. + +“He is a wise man,” said she to herself--“It is well; and he dances +delightfully--that is also good; but has he solid knowledge? That is +just as important! He must be examined.” + +So she began, by degrees, to question him about the most difficult +things she could think of, and which she herself could not have +answered; so that the shadow made a strange face. + +“You cannot answer these questions?” said the princess. + +“They belong to my childhood's learning,” said the shadow. “I really +believe my shadow, by the door there, can answer them!” + +“Your shadow!” said the princess. “That would indeed be marvellous!” + +“I will not say for a certainty that he can,” said the shadow, “but I +think so; he has now followed me for so many years, and listened to my +conversation--I should think it possible. But your royal highness will +permit me to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for +a man, that when he is to be in a proper humor--and he must be so to +answer well--he must be treated quite like a man.” + +“Oh! I like that!” said the princess. + +So she went to the learned man by the door, and she spoke to him about +the sun and the moon, and about persons out of and in the world, and he +answered with wisdom and prudence. + +“What a man that must be who has so wise a shadow!” thought she. “It +will be a real blessing to my people and kingdom if I choose him for my +consort--I will do it!” + +They were soon agreed, both the princess and the shadow; but no one was +to know about it before she arrived in her own kingdom. + +“No one--not even my shadow!” said the shadow, and he had his own +thoughts about it! + +Now they were in the country where the princess reigned when she was at +home. + +“Listen, my good friend,” said the shadow to the learned man. “I have +now become as happy and mighty as anyone can be; I will, therefore, do +something particular for thee! Thou shalt always live with me in the +palace, drive with me in my royal carriage, and have ten thousand +pounds a year; but then thou must submit to be called SHADOW by all and +everyone; thou must not say that thou hast ever been a man; and once +a year, when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine, thou must lie at my +feet, as a shadow shall do! I must tell thee: I am going to marry the +king's daughter, and the nuptials are to take place this evening!” + +“Nay, this is going too far!” said the learned man. “I will not have it; +I will not do it! It is to deceive the whole country and the princess +too! I will tell everything! That I am a man, and that thou art a +shadow--thou art only dressed up!” + +“There is no one who will believe it!” said the shadow. “Be reasonable, +or I will call the guard!” + +“I will go directly to the princess!” said the learned man. + +“But I will go first!” said the shadow. “And thou wilt go to prison!” + and that he was obliged to do--for the sentinels obeyed him whom they +knew the king's daughter was to marry. + +“You tremble!” said the princess, as the shadow came into her chamber. +“Has anything happened? You must not be unwell this evening, now that we +are to have our nuptials celebrated.” + +“I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to +see!” said the shadow. “Only imagine--yes, it is true, such a poor +shadow-skull cannot bear much--only think, my shadow has become mad; +he thinks that he is a man, and that I--now only think--that I am his +shadow!” + +“It is terrible!” said the princess; “but he is confined, is he not?” + +“That he is. I am afraid that he will never recover.” + +“Poor shadow!” said the princess. “He is very unfortunate; it would be +a real work of charity to deliver him from the little life he has, and, +when I think properly over the matter, I am of opinion that it will be +necessary to do away with him in all stillness!” + +“It is certainly hard,” said the shadow, “for he was a faithful +servant!” and then he gave a sort of sigh. + +“You are a noble character!” said the princess. + +The whole city was illuminated in the evening, and the cannons went off +with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a marriage! +The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, +and get another hurrah! + +The learned man heard nothing of all this--for they had deprived him of +life. + + + + +THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL + +Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and +evening--the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there +went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked +feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was +the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had +hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them +as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that +rolled by dreadfully fast. + +One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by +an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for +a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the +little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red +and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, +and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of +her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing. + +She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of +sorrow, the poor little thing! + +The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful +curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now +thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so +deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of +that she thought. + +In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the +other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet +she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go +home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could +not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would certainly get +blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof, +through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were +stopped up with straw and rags. + +Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford +her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the +bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew +one out. “Rischt!” how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright +flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful +light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting +before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass +ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed +so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to +warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she +had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand. + +She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the +light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a +veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a +snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the +roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried +plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped +down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its +breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the match went +out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. +She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most +magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than +the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant's +house. + +Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and +gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked +down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them +when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher +and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and +formed a long trail of fire. + +“Someone is just dead!” said the little girl; for her old grandmother, +the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told +her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God. + +She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the +lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, +and with such an expression of love. + +“Grandmother!” cried the little one. “Oh, take me with you! You go +away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the +delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!” And +she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for +she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her. And +the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at +noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and +so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in +brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither +cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God. + +But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with +rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen +to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the +child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. “She +wanted to warm herself,” people said. No one had the slightest suspicion +of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the +splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a +new year. + + + + +THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK + +Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but that +was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant it for +Charles, and it is all well enough if one does but know it. He had now +to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much younger than +himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same time; but +these two things would not do together at all. There sat the poor little +fellow, with his sister on his lap, and he sang to her all the songs he +knew; and he glanced the while from time to time into the geography-book +that lay open before him. By the next morning he was to have learnt +all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know about them all that is +possible to be known. + +His mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little Augusta +on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly that he +pretty nearly read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker, but his +mother had no money to buy a candle. + +“There goes the old washerwoman over the way,” said his mother, as she +looked out of the window. “The poor woman can hardly drag herself along, +and she must now drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy, +Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won't you?” + +So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again into +the room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no thought of +such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead; +in it he lay and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand, and +of all that his master had told him. He ought, to be sure, to have read +over his lesson again, but that, you know, he could not do. He therefore +put his geography-book under his pillow, because he had heard that was +a very good thing to do when one wants to learn one's lesson; but one +cannot, however, rely upon it entirely. Well, there he lay, and thought +and thought, and all at once it was just as if someone kissed his eyes +and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not sleep; it was as though the old +washerwoman gazed on him with her mild eyes and said, “It were a great +sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided +me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at all +times.” And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping +and scratching. + +“Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!”--that was an old hen who came creeping +along, and she was from Kjoge. “I am a Kjoger hen,” [*] said she, and then +she related how many inhabitants there were there, and about the battle +that had taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth talking +about. + + * Kjoge, a town in the bay of Kjoge. “To see the Kjoge + hens,” is an expression similar to “showing a child London,” + which is said to be done by taking his head in both bands, + and so lifting him off the ground. At the invasion of the + English in 1807, an encounter of a no very glorious nature + took place between the British troops and the undisciplined + Danish militia. + +“Kribledy, krabledy--plump!” down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird, +the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that +there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he +was very proud. “Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* Plump! Here +I lie capitally.” + +* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some hundred paces from +it lies the manor-house Ny Soe, where Thorwaldsen, the famed sculptor, +generally sojourned during his stay in Denmark, and where he called many +of his immortal works into existence. + + +But little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he was on +horseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping on and on. A +knight with a gleaming plume, and most magnificently dressed, held him +before him on the horse, and thus they rode through the wood to the old +town of Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town. High +towers rose from the castle of the king, and the brightness of many +candles streamed from all the windows; within was dance and song, +and King Waldemar and the young, richly-attired maids of honor danced +together. The morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the whole +town and the king's palace crumbled together, and one tower after the +other; and at last only a single one remained standing where the castle +had been before,* and the town was so small and poor, and the school +boys came along with their books under their arms, and said, “2000 +inhabitants!” but that was not true, for there were not so many. + +*Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar, a considerable place, now +an unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains of +a wall, show where the castle once stood. + + +And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed, and +yet as if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside him. + +“Little Tukey! Little Tukey!” cried someone near. It was a seaman, +quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a +midshipman it was not. + +“Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising +into importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches: +formerly people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on +the sea,” said Corsor; “I have high roads and gardens, and I have given +birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all poets are not. I +once intended to equip a ship that was to sail all round the earth; but +I did not do it, although I could have done so: and then, too, I smell +so deliciously, for close before the gate bloom the most beautiful +roses.” + +*Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction +of steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time +for a favorable wind, “the most tiresome of towns.” The poet Baggesen +was born here. + + +Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as +soon as the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden there +appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above stood a +magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out the +hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that there +was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king with +a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the +fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up +the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of Denmark, +hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and +the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. “Do not forget the +diet,” said King Hroar.* + +*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from +King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful +cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are +interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble. + + +Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him +just as if one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an +old peasant-woman, who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the +market-place. She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and +back: it was so wet, it certainly must have been raining. “Yes, that it +has,” said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's +comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered +together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she +looked as she were going to make a spring. “Croak! croak!” said she. +“It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in +Sorbe!” She was now suddenly a frog, “Croak”; and now she was an old +woman. “One must dress according to the weather,” said she. “It is wet; +it is wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, +and by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the +finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the +bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek--Croak!” + +* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by +woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy +for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed +professors here. The latter lives there still. + + +When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one +walked with great boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform +and so tiring that little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by +the bye, could not do him any harm. + +But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his +little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair, +was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings was yet +able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green woods and the +blue lakes. + +“Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are +flying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very +large! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the +world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt itself +like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with marble +statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your name +shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the ship that +was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde--” + +“Do not forget the diet!” said King Hroar. + +“Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last you +sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly--” + +“As if I lay in Soroe,” said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he was +now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not at +all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring. + +And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he +knew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at the +door, nodded to him friendly, and said, “Thanks, many thanks, my good +child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your loveliest +dream!” + +Little Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving God +knew it. + + + + +THE NAUGHTY BOY + +Along time ago, there lived an old poet, a thoroughly kind old poet. As +he was sitting one evening in his room, a dreadful storm arose without, +and the rain streamed down from heaven; but the old poet sat warm +and comfortable in his chimney-corner, where the fire blazed and the +roasting apple hissed. + +“Those who have not a roof over their heads will be wetted to the skin,” + said the good old poet. + +“Oh let me in! Let me in! I am cold, and I'm so wet!” exclaimed suddenly +a child that stood crying at the door and knocking for admittance, while +the rain poured down, and the wind made all the windows rattle. + +“Poor thing!” said the old poet, as he went to open the door. There +stood a little boy, quite naked, and the water ran down from his long +golden hair; he trembled with cold, and had he not come into a warm room +he would most certainly have perished in the frightful tempest. + +“Poor child!” said the old poet, as he took the boy by the hand. “Come +in, come in, and I will soon restore thee! Thou shalt have wine and +roasted apples, for thou art verily a charming child!” And the boy was +so really. His eyes were like two bright stars; and although the water +trickled down his hair, it waved in beautiful curls. He looked exactly +like a little angel, but he was so pale, and his whole body trembled +with cold. He had a nice little bow in his hand, but it was quite +spoiled by the rain, and the tints of his many-colored arrows ran one +into the other. + +The old poet seated himself beside his hearth, and took the little +fellow on his lap; he squeezed the water out of his dripping hair, +warmed his hands between his own, and boiled for him some sweet wine. +Then the boy recovered, his cheeks again grew rosy, he jumped down from +the lap where he was sitting, and danced round the kind old poet. + +“You are a merry fellow,” said the old man. “What's your name?” + +“My name is Cupid,” answered the boy. “Don't you know me? There lies my +bow; it shoots well, I can assure you! Look, the weather is now clearing +up, and the moon is shining clear again through the window.” + +“Why, your bow is quite spoiled,” said the old poet. + +“That were sad indeed,” said the boy, and he took the bow in his hand +and examined it on every side. “Oh, it is dry again, and is not hurt at +all; the string is quite tight. I will try it directly.” And he bent his +bow, took aim, and shot an arrow at the old poet, right into his heart. +“You see now that my bow was not spoiled,” said he laughing; and away he +ran. + +The naughty boy, to shoot the old poet in that way; he who had taken him +into his warm room, who had treated him so kindly, and who had given him +warm wine and the very best apples! + +The poor poet lay on the earth and wept, for the arrow had really flown +into his heart. + +“Fie!” said he. “How naughty a boy Cupid is! I will tell all children +about him, that they may take care and not play with him, for he will +only cause them sorrow and many a heartache.” + +And all good children to whom he related this story, took great heed +of this naughty Cupid; but he made fools of them still, for he is +astonishingly cunning. When the university students come from the +lectures, he runs beside them in a black coat, and with a book under his +arm. It is quite impossible for them to know him, and they walk along +with him arm in arm, as if he, too, were a student like themselves; and +then, unperceived, he thrusts an arrow to their bosom. When the young +maidens come from being examined by the clergyman, or go to church to +be confirmed, there he is again close behind them. Yes, he is forever +following people. At the play, he sits in the great chandelier and burns +in bright flames, so that people think it is really a flame, but they +soon discover it is something else. He roves about in the garden of the +palace and upon the ramparts: yes, once he even shot your father and +mother right in the heart. Ask them only and you will hear what they'll +tell you. Oh, he is a naughty boy, that Cupid; you must never have +anything to do with him. He is forever running after everybody. Only +think, he shot an arrow once at your old grandmother! But that is a +long time ago, and it is all past now; however, a thing of that sort she +never forgets. Fie, naughty Cupid! But now you know him, and you know, +too, how ill-behaved he is! + + + + +THE RED SHOES + +There was once a little girl who was very pretty and delicate, but in +summer she was forced to run about with bare feet, she was so poor, and +in winter wear very large wooden shoes, which made her little insteps +quite red, and that looked so dangerous! + +In the middle of the village lived old Dame Shoemaker; she sat and sewed +together, as well as she could, a little pair of shoes out of old red +strips of cloth; they were very clumsy, but it was a kind thought. They +were meant for the little girl. The little girl was called Karen. + +On the very day her mother was buried, Karen received the red shoes, +and wore them for the first time. They were certainly not intended for +mourning, but she had no others, and with stockingless feet she followed +the poor straw coffin in them. + +Suddenly a large old carriage drove up, and a large old lady sat in it: +she looked at the little girl, felt compassion for her, and then said to +the clergyman: + +“Here, give me the little girl. I will adopt her!” + +And Karen believed all this happened on account of the red shoes, but +the old lady thought they were horrible, and they were burnt. But Karen +herself was cleanly and nicely dressed; she must learn to read and sew; +and people said she was a nice little thing, but the looking-glass said: +“Thou art more than nice, thou art beautiful!” + +Now the queen once travelled through the land, and she had her little +daughter with her. And this little daughter was a princess, and people +streamed to the castle, and Karen was there also, and the little +princess stood in her fine white dress, in a window, and let herself be +stared at; she had neither a train nor a golden crown, but splendid +red morocco shoes. They were certainly far handsomer than those Dame +Shoemaker had made for little Karen. Nothing in the world can be +compared with red shoes. + +Now Karen was old enough to be confirmed; she had new clothes and was to +have new shoes also. The rich shoemaker in the city took the measure of +her little foot. This took place at his house, in his room; where stood +large glass-cases, filled with elegant shoes and brilliant boots. All +this looked charming, but the old lady could not see well, and so had +no pleasure in them. In the midst of the shoes stood a pair of red ones, +just like those the princess had worn. How beautiful they were! The +shoemaker said also they had been made for the child of a count, but had +not fitted. + +“That must be patent leather!” said the old lady. “They shine so!” + +“Yes, they shine!” said Karen, and they fitted, and were bought, but the +old lady knew nothing about their being red, else she would never have +allowed Karen to have gone in red shoes to be confirmed. Yet such was +the case. + +Everybody looked at her feet; and when she stepped through the chancel +door on the church pavement, it seemed to her as if the old figures on +the tombs, those portraits of old preachers and preachers' wives, with +stiff ruffs, and long black dresses, fixed their eyes on her red shoes. +And she thought only of them as the clergyman laid his hand upon her +head, and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with God, and how +she should be now a matured Christian; and the organ pealed so solemnly; +the sweet children's voices sang, and the old music-directors sang, but +Karen only thought of her red shoes. + +In the afternoon, the old lady heard from everyone that the shoes had +been red, and she said that it was very wrong of Karen, that it was not +at all becoming, and that in future Karen should only go in black shoes +to church, even when she should be older. + +The next Sunday there was the sacrament, and Karen looked at the black +shoes, looked at the red ones--looked at them again, and put on the red +shoes. + +The sun shone gloriously; Karen and the old lady walked along the path +through the corn; it was rather dusty there. + +At the church door stood an old soldier with a crutch, and with a +wonderfully long beard, which was more red than white, and he bowed to +the ground, and asked the old lady whether he might dust her shoes. And +Karen stretched out her little foot. + +“See, what beautiful dancing shoes!” said the soldier. “Sit firm when +you dance”; and he put his hand out towards the soles. + +And the old lady gave the old soldier alms, and went into the church +with Karen. + +And all the people in the church looked at Karen's red shoes, and all +the pictures, and as Karen knelt before the altar, and raised the cup to +her lips, she only thought of the red shoes, and they seemed to swim +in it; and she forgot to sing her psalm, and she forgot to pray, “Our +Father in Heaven!” + +Now all the people went out of church, and the old lady got into her +carriage. Karen raised her foot to get in after her, when the old +soldier said, + +“Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!” + +And Karen could not help dancing a step or two, and when she began her +feet continued to dance; it was just as though the shoes had power over +them. She danced round the church corner, she could not leave off; the +coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her, and he lifted +her in the carriage, but her feet continued to dance so that she trod on +the old lady dreadfully. At length she took the shoes off, and then her +legs had peace. + +The shoes were placed in a closet at home, but Karen could not avoid +looking at them. + +Now the old lady was sick, and it was said she could not recover. She +must be nursed and waited upon, and there was no one whose duty it was +so much as Karen's. But there was a great ball in the city, to which +Karen was invited. She looked at the old lady, who could not recover, +she looked at the red shoes, and she thought there could be no sin in +it; she put on the red shoes, she might do that also, she thought. But +then she went to the ball and began to dance. + +When she wanted to dance to the right, the shoes would dance to the +left, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced back +again, down the steps, into the street, and out of the city gate. She +danced, and was forced to dance straight out into the gloomy wood. + +Then it was suddenly light up among the trees, and she fancied it must +be the moon, for there was a face; but it was the old soldier with +the red beard; he sat there, nodded his head, and said, “Look, what +beautiful dancing shoes!” + +Then she was terrified, and wanted to fling off the red shoes, but they +clung fast; and she pulled down her stockings, but the shoes seemed to +have grown to her feet. And she danced, and must dance, over fields and +meadows, in rain and sunshine, by night and day; but at night it was the +most fearful. + +She danced over the churchyard, but the dead did not dance--they had +something better to do than to dance. She wished to seat herself on a +poor man's grave, where the bitter tansy grew; but for her there was +neither peace nor rest; and when she danced towards the open church +door, she saw an angel standing there. He wore long, white garments; he +had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth; his countenance +was severe and grave; and in his hand he held a sword, broad and +glittering. + +“Dance shalt thou!” said he. “Dance in thy red shoes till thou art pale +and cold! Till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton! Dance shalt +thou from door to door, and where proud, vain children dwell, thou shalt +knock, that they may hear thee and tremble! Dance shalt thou--!” + +“Mercy!” cried Karen. But she did not hear the angel's reply, for the +shoes carried her through the gate into the fields, across roads and +bridges, and she must keep ever dancing. + +One morning she danced past a door which she well knew. Within sounded +a psalm; a coffin, decked with flowers, was borne forth. Then she knew +that the old lady was dead, and felt that she was abandoned by all, and +condemned by the angel of God. + +She danced, and she was forced to dance through the gloomy night. The +shoes carried her over stack and stone; she was torn till she bled; she +danced over the heath till she came to a little house. Here, she knew, +dwelt the executioner; and she tapped with her fingers at the window, +and said, “Come out! Come out! I cannot come in, for I am forced to +dance!” + +And the executioner said, “Thou dost not know who I am, I fancy? I +strike bad people's heads off; and I hear that my axe rings!” + +“Don't strike my head off!” said Karen. “Then I can't repent of my sins! +But strike off my feet in the red shoes!” + +And then she confessed her entire sin, and the executioner struck off +her feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced away with the little +feet across the field into the deep wood. + +And he carved out little wooden feet for her, and crutches, taught +her the psalm criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand which had +wielded the axe, and went over the heath. + +“Now I have suffered enough for the red shoes!” said she. “Now I will +go into the church that people may see me!” And she hastened towards the +church door: but when she was near it, the red shoes danced before her, +and she was terrified, and turned round. The whole week she was unhappy, +and wept many bitter tears; but when Sunday returned, she said, “Well, +now I have suffered and struggled enough! I really believe I am as good +as many a one who sits in the church, and holds her head so high!” + +And away she went boldly; but she had not got farther than the +churchyard gate before she saw the red shoes dancing before her; and she +was frightened, and turned back, and repented of her sin from her heart. + +And she went to the parsonage, and begged that they would take her +into service; she would be very industrious, she said, and would do +everything she could; she did not care about the wages, only she wished +to have a home, and be with good people. And the clergyman's wife was +sorry for her and took her into service; and she was industrious and +thoughtful. She sat still and listened when the clergyman read the Bible +in the evenings. All the children thought a great deal of her; but when +they spoke of dress, and grandeur, and beauty, she shook her head. + +The following Sunday, when the family was going to church, they asked +her whether she would not go with them; but she glanced sorrowfully, +with tears in her eyes, at her crutches. The family went to hear the +word of God; but she went alone into her little chamber; there was only +room for a bed and chair to stand in it; and here she sat down with her +Prayer-Book; and whilst she read with a pious mind, the wind bore +the strains of the organ towards her, and she raised her tearful +countenance, and said, “O God, help me!” + +And the sun shone so clearly, and straight before her stood the angel +of God in white garments, the same she had seen that night at the church +door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its stead a +splendid green spray, full of roses. And he touched the ceiling with the +spray, and the ceiling rose so high, and where he had touched it there +gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls, and they widened out, +and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the +preachers and the preachers' wives. The congregation sat in cushioned +seats, and sang out of their Prayer-Books. For the church itself had +come to the poor girl in her narrow chamber, or else she had come into +the church. She sat in the pew with the clergyman's family, and when +they had ended the psalm and looked up, they nodded and said, “It is +right that thou art come!” + +“It was through mercy!” she said. + +And the organ pealed, and the children's voices in the choir sounded so +sweet and soft! The clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the window +into the pew where Karen sat! Her heart was so full of sunshine, peace, +and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine to God, and there +no one asked after the RED SHOES. + + +The Happy Prince. + +HIGH above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy +Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes +he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his +sword-hilt. + +He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” +remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for +having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing +lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not. + +“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her +little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams +of crying for anything.” + +“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a +disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue. + +“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they came out +of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white +pinafores. + +“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master, “you have never seen +one.” + +“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children; and the +Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not +approve of children dreaming. + +One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had +gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was +in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring +as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so +attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her. + +“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at +once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, +touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was +his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer. + +“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows; “she has +no money, and far too many relations”; and indeed the river was quite +full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away. + +After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. +“She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that she is a +coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And certainly, +whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. “I +admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love travelling, and my +wife, consequently, should love travelling also.” + +“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the Reed shook +her head, she was so attached to her home. + +“You have been trifling with me,” he cried. “I am off to the Pyramids. +Good-bye!” and he flew away. + +All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. “Where +shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made preparations.” + +Then he saw the statue on the tall column. + +“I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position, with plenty of +fresh air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince. + +“I have a golden bedroom,” he said softly to himself as he looked round, +and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under +his wing a large drop of water fell on him. “What a curious thing!” he +cried; “there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear +and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is +really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her +selfishness.” + +Then another drop fell. + +“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he said; “I +must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away. + +But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, +and saw—Ah! what did he see? + +The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were +running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the +moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity. + +“Who are you?” he said. + +“I am the Happy Prince.” + +“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow; “you have quite drenched +me.” + +“When I was alive and had a human heart,” answered the statue, “I did not +know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci, where +sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my +companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great +Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask +what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers +called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be +happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have +set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery +of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but +weep.” + +“What! is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He was too +polite to make any personal remarks out loud. + +“Far away,” continued the statue in a low musical voice, “far away in a +little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and +through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and +worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she +is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for +the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next +Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying +ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing +to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little +Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet +are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.” + +“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My friends are flying up +and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they +will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there +himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and +embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and +his hands are like withered leaves.” + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay +with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and +the mother so sad.” + +“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the Swallow. “Last summer, when I +was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, +who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we +swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family +famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.” + +But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. +“It is very cold here,” he said; “but I will stay with you for one night, +and be your messenger.” + +“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince. + +So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and +flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town. + +He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were +sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A +beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. “How wonderful +the stars are,” he said to her, “and how wonderful is the power of love!” + +“I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,” she answered; +“I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the +seamstresses are so lazy.” + +He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of +the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining +with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he +came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on +his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he +hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. +Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his +wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting better”; and +he sank into a delicious slumber. + +Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had +done. “It is curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm now, although +it is so cold.” + +“That is because you have done a good action,” said the Prince. And the +little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always +made him sleepy. + +When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. “What a +remarkable phenomenon,” said the Professor of Ornithology as he was +passing over the bridge. “A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a long +letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full +of so many words that they could not understand. + +“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at +the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time +on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, +and said to each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed +himself very much. + +When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. “Have you any +commissions for Egypt?” he cried; “I am just starting.” + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay +with me one night longer?” + +“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends +will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among +the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All +night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he +utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions +come down to the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green +beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.” + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the +city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered +with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered +violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a +pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a +play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any +more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” + +“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who really had +a good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?” + +“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I +have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of +India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. +He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish +his play.” + +“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that”; and he began to +weep. + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command +you.” + +So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the +student’s garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in +the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man +had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the +bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying +on the withered violets. + +“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some great +admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite happy. + +The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of +a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold +with ropes. “Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up. “I am +going to Egypt”! cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon +rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. + +“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried. + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay +with me one night longer?” + +“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be +here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the +crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are +building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves +are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave +you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back +two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby +shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the +great sea.” + +“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a little +match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all +spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, +and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is +bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will +not beat her.” + +“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot +pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.” + +“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command +you.” + +So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He +swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her +hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran +home, laughing. + +Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind now,” he said, +“so I will stay with you always.” + +“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.” + +“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept at the +Prince’s feet. + +All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of +what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who +stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their +beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the +desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the +side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King +of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a +large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and +has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who +sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the +butterflies. + +“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvellous +things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of +women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little +Swallow, and tell me what you see there.” + +So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in +their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He +flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children +looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a +bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s arms to try and keep +themselves warm. “How hungry we are!” they said. “You must not lie +here,” shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain. + +Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen. + +“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it off, +leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold +can make them happy.” + +Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy +Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he +brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they +laughed and played games in the street. “We have bread now!” they cried. + +Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets +looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and +glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of +the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore +scarlet caps and skated on the ice. + +The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave +the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the +baker’s door when the baker was not looking and tried to keep himself +warm by flapping his wings. + +But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to +fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he +murmured, “will you let me kiss your hand?” + +“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the +Prince, “you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, +for I love you.” + +“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to +the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?” + +And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his +feet. + +At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something +had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. +It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost. + +Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in +company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked +up at the statue: “Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said. + +“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with +the Mayor; and they went up to look at it. + +“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is +golden no longer,” said the Mayor in fact, “he is little better than a +beggar!” + +“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors. + +“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the Mayor. “We +must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die +here.” And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion. + +So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is no longer +beautiful he is no longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the +University. + +Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of +the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. “We must +have another statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of +myself.” + +“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. +When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still. + +“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. +“This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it +away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also +lying. + +“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of +His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird. + +“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this +little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy +Prince shall praise me.” + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of two birds] + + + + +The Nightingale and the Rose. + + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of young man lying on grass] + +“SHE said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,” cried +the young Student; “but in all my garden there is no red rose.” + +From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she +looked out through the leaves, and wondered. + +“No red rose in all my garden!” he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled +with tears. “Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have +read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of +philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made +wretched.” + +“Here at last is a true lover,” said the Nightingale. “Night after night +have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night have I told +his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is dark as the +hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but +passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal +upon his brow.” + +“The Prince gives a ball to-morrow night,” murmured the young Student, +“and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red rose she will +dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in +my arms, and she will lean her head upon my shoulder, and her hand will +be clasped in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall +sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my +heart will break.” + +“Here indeed is the true lover,” said the Nightingale. “What I sing of, +he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain. Surely Love is a wonderful +thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. +Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the +marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be +weighed out in the balance for gold.” + +“The musicians will sit in their gallery,” said the young Student, “and +play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to the sound +of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her feet will +not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their gay dresses will throng +round her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose to +give her”; and he flung himself down on the grass, and buried his face in +his hands, and wept. + +“Why is he weeping?” asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran past him with +his tail in the air. + +“Why, indeed?” said a Butterfly, who was fluttering about after a +sunbeam. + +“Why, indeed?” whispered a Daisy to his neighbour, in a soft, low voice. + +“He is weeping for a red rose,” said the Nightingale. + +“For a red rose?” they cried; “how very ridiculous!” and the little +Lizard, who was something of a cynic, laughed outright. + +But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student’s sorrow, and +she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery of Love. + +Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. +She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed +across the garden. + +In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful Rose-tree, and +when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray. + +“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” + +But the Tree shook its head. + +“My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea, and +whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who grows +round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want.” + +So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing round the +old sun-dial. + +“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” + +But the Tree shook its head. + +“My roses are yellow,” it answered; “as yellow as the hair of the +mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil +that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe. But go +to my brother who grows beneath the Student’s window, and perhaps he will +give you what you want.” + +So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing beneath +the Student’s window. + +“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” + +But the Tree shook its head. + +“My roses are red,” it answered, “as red as the feet of the dove, and +redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the +ocean-cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has +nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no +roses at all this year.” + +“One red rose is all I want,” cried the Nightingale, “only one red rose! +Is there no way by which I can get it?” + +“There is a way,” answered the Tree; “but it is so terrible that I dare +not tell it to you.” + +“Tell it to me,” said the Nightingale, “I am not afraid.” + +“If you want a red rose,” said the Tree, “you must build it out of music +by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s-blood. You must sing to +me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, +and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into +my veins, and become mine.” + +“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, +“and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, +and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot +of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the +bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the +hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird +compared to the heart of a man?” + +So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She +swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through +the grove. + +The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left him, +and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes. + +“Be happy,” cried the Nightingale, “be happy; you shall have your red +rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my +own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a +true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and +mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, +and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and +his breath is like frankincense.” + +The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not +understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the +things that are written down in books. + +But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the +little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches. + +“Sing me one last song,” he whispered; “I shall feel very lonely when you +are gone.” + +So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like water +bubbling from a silver jar. + +When she had finished her song the Student got up, and pulled a note-book +and a lead-pencil out of his pocket. + +“She has form,” he said to himself, as he walked away through the +grove—“that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am +afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without +any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks +merely of music, and everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, +it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What +a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.” +And he went into his room, and lay down on his little pallet-bed, and +began to think of his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep. + +And when the Moon shone in the heavens the Nightingale flew to the +Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang +with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned down +and listened. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and +deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her. + +She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. +And on the top-most spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous +rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at +first, as the mist that hangs over the river—pale as the feet of the +morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in +a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the +rose that blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree. + +But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. +“Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will come +before the rose is finished.” + +So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder and +louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of +a man and a maid. + +And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like the +flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the bride. +But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the rose’s heart remained +white, for only a Nightingale’s heart’s-blood can crimson the heart of a +rose. + +And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. +“Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will come +before the rose is finished.” + +So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn +touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, +bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of +the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the +tomb. + +And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. +Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart. + +But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter, and her little wings began to +beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, +and she felt something choking her in her throat. + +Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she +forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and +it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold +morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke +the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds +of the river, and they carried its message to the sea. + +“Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now”; but the +Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, +with the thorn in her heart. + +And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out. + +“Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!” he cried; “here is a red rose! I +have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that +I am sure it has a long Latin name”; and he leaned down and plucked it. + +Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor’s house with the rose +in his hand. + +The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway winding blue +silk on a reel, and her little dog was lying at her feet. + +“You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose,” +cried the Student. “Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will +wear it to-night next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell +you how I love you.” + +But the girl frowned. + +“I am afraid it will not go with my dress,” she answered; “and, besides, +the Chamberlain’s nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody +knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.” + +“Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful,” said the Student angrily; +and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and +a cart-wheel went over it. + +“Ungrateful!” said the girl. “I tell you what, you are very rude; and, +after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don’t believe you have +even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain’s nephew has”; +and she got up from her chair and went into the house. + +“What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away. “It +is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is +always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one +believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, +as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to +Philosophy and study Metaphysics.” + +So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began +to read. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of nightingale and rose] + + + + +The Selfish Giant. + + + [Picture: The Selfish Giant] + +EVERY afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go +and play in the Giant’s garden. + +It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over +the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve +peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of +pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the +trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in +order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each +other. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of children in garden] + +One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish +ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years +were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was +limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived +he saw the children playing in the garden. + +“What are you doing here?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the +children ran away. + +“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand +that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a +high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board. + + TRESPASSERS + + WILL BE + + PROSECUTED + +He was a very selfish Giant. + +The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the +road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did +not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons +were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we +were there,” they said to each other. + +Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms +and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still +winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, +and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head +out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for +the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to +sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. +“Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all +the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white +cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the +North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and +he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. +“This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” +So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of +the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and +round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his +breath was like ice. + +“I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the +Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white +garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.” + +But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit +to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too +selfish,” she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, +and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees. + +One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely +music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the +King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing +outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in +his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the +world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind +ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open +casement. “I believe the Spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and +he jumped out of bed and looked out. + +What did he see? + +He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the +children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the +trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And +the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had +covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above +the children’s heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with +delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and +laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. +It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little +boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the +tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree +was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was +blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and +it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny. + +And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have +been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will +put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock +down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever +and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done. + +So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went +out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so +frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. +Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that +he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and +took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree +broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the +little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant’s +neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the +Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came +the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, +and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people +were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with +the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen. + +All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to +bid him good-bye. + +“But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the +tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him. + +“We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.” + +“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. +But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had +never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad. + +Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with +the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. +The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first +little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he +used to say. + +Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not +play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the +children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful +flowers,” he said; “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of +all.” + +One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He +did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring +asleep, and that the flowers were resting. + +Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It +certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden +was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were +all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood +the little boy he had loved. + +Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He +hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came +quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to +wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of +two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet. + +“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may +take my big sword and slay him.” + +“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.” + +“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he +knelt before the little child. + +And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once +in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is +Paradise.” + +And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying +dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of wreath] + + + + +The Devoted Friend. + + + [Picture: Hans and the Miller] + +ONE morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole. He had +bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long +bit of black india-rubber. The little ducks were swimming about in the +pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother, who +was pure white with real red legs, was trying to teach them how to stand +on their heads in the water. + +“You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your +heads,” she kept saying to them; and every now and then she showed them +how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention to her. They +were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in +society at all. + +“What disobedient children!” cried the old Water-rat; “they really +deserve to be drowned.” + +“Nothing of the kind,” answered the Duck, “every one must make a +beginning, and parents cannot be too patient.” + +“Ah! I know nothing about the feelings of parents,” said the Water-rat; +“I am not a family man. In fact, I have never been married, and I never +intend to be. Love is all very well in its way, but friendship is much +higher. Indeed, I know of nothing in the world that is either nobler or +rarer than a devoted friendship.” + +“And what, pray, is your idea of the duties of a devoted friend?” asked a +Green Linnet, who was sitting in a willow-tree hard by, and had overheard +the conversation. + +“Yes, that is just what I want to know,” said the Duck; and she swam away +to the end of the pond, and stood upon her head, in order to give her +children a good example. + +“What a silly question!” cried the Water-rat. “I should expect my +devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.” + +“And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a +silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings. + +“I don’t understand you,” answered the Water-rat. + +“Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet. + +“Is the story about me?” asked the Water-rat. “If so, I will listen to +it, for I am extremely fond of fiction.” + +“It is applicable to you,” answered the Linnet; and he flew down, and +alighting upon the bank, he told the story of The Devoted Friend. + +“Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow +named Hans.” + +“Was he very distinguished?” asked the Water-rat. + +“No,” answered the Linnet, “I don’t think he was distinguished at all, +except for his kind heart, and his funny round good-humoured face. He +lived in a tiny cottage all by himself, and every day he worked in his +garden. In all the country-side there was no garden so lovely as his. +Sweet-william grew there, and Gilly-flowers, and Shepherds’-purses, and +Fair-maids of France. There were damask Roses, and yellow Roses, lilac +Crocuses, and gold, purple Violets and white. Columbine and Ladysmock, +Marjoram and Wild Basil, the Cowslip and the Flower-de-luce, the Daffodil +and the Clove-Pink bloomed or blossomed in their proper order as the +months went by, one flower taking another flower’s place, so that there +were always beautiful things to look at, and pleasant odours to smell. + +“Little Hans had a great many friends, but the most devoted friend of all +was big Hugh the Miller. Indeed, so devoted was the rich Miller to +little Hans, that he would never go by his garden without leaning over +the wall and plucking a large nosegay, or a handful of sweet herbs, or +filling his pockets with plums and cherries if it was the fruit season. + +“‘Real friends should have everything in common,’ the Miller used to say, +and little Hans nodded and smiled, and felt very proud of having a friend +with such noble ideas. + +“Sometimes, indeed, the neighbours thought it strange that the rich +Miller never gave little Hans anything in return, though he had a hundred +sacks of flour stored away in his mill, and six milch cows, and a large +flock of woolly sheep; but Hans never troubled his head about these +things, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to listen to all the +wonderful things the Miller used to say about the unselfishness of true +friendship. + +“So little Hans worked away in his garden. During the spring, the +summer, and the autumn he was very happy, but when the winter came, and +he had no fruit or flowers to bring to the market, he suffered a good +deal from cold and hunger, and often had to go to bed without any supper +but a few dried pears or some hard nuts. In the winter, also, he was +extremely lonely, as the Miller never came to see him then. + +“‘There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow +lasts,’ the Miller used to say to his wife, ‘for when people are in +trouble they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors. That +at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I +shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and +he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses and that will make +him so happy.’ + +“‘You are certainly very thoughtful about others,’ answered the Wife, as +she sat in her comfortable armchair by the big pinewood fire; ‘very +thoughtful indeed. It is quite a treat to hear you talk about +friendship. I am sure the clergyman himself could not say such beautiful +things as you do, though he does live in a three-storied house, and wear +a gold ring on his little finger.’ + +“‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s youngest +son. ‘If poor Hans is in trouble I will give him half my porridge, and +show him my white rabbits.’ + +“‘What a silly boy you are!’ cried the Miller; ‘I really don’t know what +is the use of sending you to school. You seem not to learn anything. +Why, if little Hans came up here, and saw our warm fire, and our good +supper, and our great cask of red wine, he might get envious, and envy is +a most terrible thing, and would spoil anybody’s nature. I certainly +will not allow Hans’ nature to be spoiled. I am his best friend, and I +will always watch over him, and see that he is not led into any +temptations. Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have +some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing, and +friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words +are spelt differently, and mean quite different things. Everybody can +see that.’ + +“‘How well you talk!’ said the Miller’s Wife, pouring herself out a large +glass of warm ale; ‘really I feel quite drowsy. It is just like being in +church.’ + +“‘Lots of people act well,’ answered the Miller; ‘but very few people +talk well, which shows that talking is much the more difficult thing of +the two, and much the finer thing also’; and he looked sternly across the +table at his little son, who felt so ashamed of himself that he hung his +head down, and grew quite scarlet, and began to cry into his tea. +However, he was so young that you must excuse him.” + +“Is that the end of the story?” asked the Water-rat. + +“Certainly not,” answered the Linnet, “that is the beginning.” + +“Then you are quite behind the age,” said the Water-rat. “Every good +story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the +beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I +heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the +pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am +sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, +and whenever the young man made any remark, he always answered ‘Pooh!’ +But pray go on with your story. I like the Miller immensely. I have all +kinds of beautiful sentiments myself, so there is a great sympathy +between us.” + +“Well,” said the Linnet, hopping now on one leg and now on the other, “as +soon as the winter was over, and the primroses began to open their pale +yellow stars, the Miller said to his wife that he would go down and see +little Hans. + +“‘Why, what a good heart you have!’ cried his Wife; ‘you are always +thinking of others. And mind you take the big basket with you for the +flowers.’ + +“So the Miller tied the sails of the windmill together with a strong iron +chain, and went down the hill with the basket on his arm. + +“‘Good morning, little Hans,’ said the Miller. + +“‘Good morning,’ said Hans, leaning on his spade, and smiling from ear to +ear. + +“‘And how have you been all the winter?’ said the Miller. + +“‘Well, really,’ cried Hans, ‘it is very good of you to ask, very good +indeed. I am afraid I had rather a hard time of it, but now the spring +has come, and I am quite happy, and all my flowers are doing well.’ + +“‘We often talked of you during the winter, Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘and +wondered how you were getting on.’ + +“‘That was kind of you,’ said Hans; ‘I was half afraid you had forgotten +me.’ + +“‘Hans, I am surprised at you,’ said the Miller; ‘friendship never +forgets. That is the wonderful thing about it, but I am afraid you don’t +understand the poetry of life. How lovely your primroses are looking, +by-the-bye!” + +“‘They are certainly very lovely,’ said Hans, ‘and it is a most lucky +thing for me that I have so many. I am going to bring them into the +market and sell them to the Burgomaster’s daughter, and buy back my +wheelbarrow with the money.’ + +“‘Buy back your wheelbarrow? You don’t mean to say you have sold it? +What a very stupid thing to do!’ + +“‘Well, the fact is,’ said Hans, ‘that I was obliged to. You see the +winter was a very bad time for me, and I really had no money at all to +buy bread with. So I first sold the silver buttons off my Sunday coat, +and then I sold my silver chain, and then I sold my big pipe, and at last +I sold my wheelbarrow. But I am going to buy them all back again now.’ + +“‘Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘I will give you my wheelbarrow. It is not in +very good repair; indeed, one side is gone, and there is something wrong +with the wheel-spokes; but in spite of that I will give it to you. I +know it is very generous of me, and a great many people would think me +extremely foolish for parting with it, but I am not like the rest of the +world. I think that generosity is the essence of friendship, and, +besides, I have got a new wheelbarrow for myself. Yes, you may set your +mind at ease, I will give you my wheelbarrow.’ + +“‘Well, really, that is generous of you,’ said little Hans, and his funny +round face glowed all over with pleasure. ‘I can easily put it in +repair, as I have a plank of wood in the house.’ + +“‘A plank of wood!’ said the Miller; ‘why, that is just what I want for +the roof of my barn. There is a very large hole in it, and the corn will +all get damp if I don’t stop it up. How lucky you mentioned it! It is +quite remarkable how one good action always breeds another. I have given +you my wheelbarrow, and now you are going to give me your plank. Of +course, the wheelbarrow is worth far more than the plank, but true, +friendship never notices things like that. Pray get it at once, and I +will set to work at my barn this very day.’ + +“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, and he ran into the shed and dragged the +plank out. + +“‘It is not a very big plank,’ said the Miller, looking at it, ‘and I am +afraid that after I have mended my barn-roof there won’t be any left for +you to mend the wheelbarrow with; but, of course, that is not my fault. +And now, as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I am sure you would like to +give me some flowers in return. Here is the basket, and mind you fill it +quite full.’ + +“‘Quite full?’ said little Hans, rather sorrowfully, for it was really a +very big basket, and he knew that if he filled it he would have no +flowers left for the market and he was very anxious to get his silver +buttons back. + +“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘as I have given you my +wheelbarrow, I don’t think that it is much to ask you for a few flowers. +I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true +friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’ + +“‘My dear friend, my best friend,’ cried little Hans, ‘you are welcome to +all the flowers in my garden. I would much sooner have your good opinion +than my silver buttons, any day’; and he ran and plucked all his pretty +primroses, and filled the Miller’s basket. + +“‘Good-bye, little Hans,’ said the Miller, as he went up the hill with +the plank on his shoulder, and the big basket in his hand. + +“‘Good-bye,’ said little Hans, and he began to dig away quite merrily, he +was so pleased about the wheelbarrow. + +“The next day he was nailing up some honeysuckle against the porch, when +he heard the Miller’s voice calling to him from the road. So he jumped +off the ladder, and ran down the garden, and looked over the wall. + +“There was the Miller with a large sack of flour on his back. + +“‘Dear little Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘would you mind carrying this sack +of flour for me to market?’ + +“‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said Hans, ‘but I am really very busy to-day. I +have got all my creepers to nail up, and all my flowers to water, and all +my grass to roll.’ + +“‘Well, really,’ said the Miller, ‘I think that, considering that I am +going to give you my wheelbarrow, it is rather unfriendly of you to +refuse.’ + +“‘Oh, don’t say that,’ cried little Hans, ‘I wouldn’t be unfriendly for +the whole world’; and he ran in for his cap, and trudged off with the big +sack on his shoulders. + +“It was a very hot day, and the road was terribly dusty, and before Hans +had reached the sixth milestone he was so tired that he had to sit down +and rest. However, he went on bravely, and as last he reached the +market. After he had waited there some time, he sold the sack of flour +for a very good price, and then he returned home at once, for he was +afraid that if he stopped too late he might meet some robbers on the way. + +“‘It has certainly been a hard day,’ said little Hans to himself as he +was going to bed, ‘but I am glad I did not refuse the Miller, for he is +my best friend, and, besides, he is going to give me his wheelbarrow.’ + +“Early the next morning the Miller came down to get the money for his +sack of flour, but little Hans was so tired that he was still in bed. + +“‘Upon my word,’ said the Miller, ‘you are very lazy. Really, +considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, I think you might +work harder. Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of +my friends to be idle or sluggish. You must not mind my speaking quite +plainly to you. Of course I should not dream of doing so if I were not +your friend. But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say +exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to +please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, +and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he +prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.’ + +“‘I am very sorry,’ said little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off +his night-cap, ‘but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for +a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I +always work better after hearing the birds sing?’ + +“‘Well, I am glad of that,’ said the Miller, clapping little Hans on the +back, ‘for I want you to come up to the mill as soon as you are dressed, +and mend my barn-roof for me.’ + +“Poor little Hans was very anxious to go and work in his garden, for his +flowers had not been watered for two days, but he did not like to refuse +the Miller, as he was such a good friend to him. + +“‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he +inquired in a shy and timid voice. + +“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘I do not think it is much to ask +of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of +course if you refuse I will go and do it myself.’ + +“‘Oh! on no account,’ cried little Hans and he jumped out of bed, and +dressed himself, and went up to the barn. + +“He worked there all day long, till sunset, and at sunset the Miller came +to see how he was getting on. + +“‘Have you mended the hole in the roof yet, little Hans?’ cried the +Miller in a cheery voice. + +“‘It is quite mended,’ answered little Hans, coming down the ladder. + +“‘Ah!’ said the Miller, ‘there is no work so delightful as the work one +does for others.’ + +“‘It is certainly a great privilege to hear you talk,’ answered little +Hans, sitting down, and wiping his forehead, ‘a very great privilege. +But I am afraid I shall never have such beautiful ideas as you have.’ + +“‘Oh! they will come to you,’ said the Miller, ‘but you must take more +pains. At present you have only the practice of friendship; some day you +will have the theory also.’ + +“‘Do you really think I shall?’ asked little Hans. + +“‘I have no doubt of it,’ answered the Miller, ‘but now that you have +mended the roof, you had better go home and rest, for I want you to drive +my sheep to the mountain to-morrow.’ + +“Poor little Hans was afraid to say anything to this, and early the next +morning the Miller brought his sheep round to the cottage, and Hans +started off with them to the mountain. It took him the whole day to get +there and back; and when he returned he was so tired that he went off to +sleep in his chair, and did not wake up till it was broad daylight. + +“‘What a delightful time I shall have in my garden,’ he said, and he went +to work at once. + +“But somehow he was never able to look after his flowers at all, for his +friend the Miller was always coming round and sending him off on long +errands, or getting him to help at the mill. Little Hans was very much +distressed at times, as he was afraid his flowers would think he had +forgotten them, but he consoled himself by the reflection that the Miller +was his best friend. ‘Besides,’ he used to say, ‘he is going to give me +his wheelbarrow, and that is an act of pure generosity.’ + +“So little Hans worked away for the Miller, and the Miller said all kinds +of beautiful things about friendship, which Hans took down in a +note-book, and used to read over at night, for he was a very good +scholar. + +“Now it happened that one evening little Hans was sitting by his fireside +when a loud rap came at the door. It was a very wild night, and the wind +was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he +thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a +third, louder than any of the others. + +“‘It is some poor traveller,’ said little Hans to himself, and he ran to +the door. + +“There stood the Miller with a lantern in one hand and a big stick in the +other. + +“‘Dear little Hans,’ cried the Miller, ‘I am in great trouble. My little +boy has fallen off a ladder and hurt himself, and I am going for the +Doctor. But he lives so far away, and it is such a bad night, that it +has just occurred to me that it would be much better if you went instead +of me. You know I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, and so, it is +only fair that you should do something for me in return.’ + +“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, ‘I take it quite as a compliment your +coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your +lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the +ditch.’ + +“‘I am very sorry,’ answered the Miller, ‘but it is my new lantern, and +it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it.’ + +“‘Well, never mind, I will do without it,’ cried little Hans, and he took +down his great fur coat, and his warm scarlet cap, and tied a muffler +round his throat, and started off. + +“What a dreadful storm it was! The night was so black that little Hans +could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely +stand. However, he was very courageous, and after he had been walking +about three hours, he arrived at the Doctor’s house, and knocked at the +door. + +“‘Who is there?’ cried the Doctor, putting his head out of his bedroom +window. + +“‘Little Hans, Doctor.’ + +“’What do you want, little Hans?’ + +“‘The Miller’s son has fallen from a ladder, and has hurt himself, and +the Miller wants you to come at once.’ + +“‘All right!’ said the Doctor; and he ordered his horse, and his big +boots, and his lantern, and came downstairs, and rode off in the +direction of the Miller’s house, little Hans trudging behind him. + +“But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and +little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse. +At last he lost his way, and wandered off on the moor, which was a very +dangerous place, as it was full of deep holes, and there poor little Hans +was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating +in a great pool of water, and was brought back by them to the cottage. + +“Everybody went to little Hans’ funeral, as he was so popular, and the +Miller was the chief mourner. + +“‘As I was his best friend,’ said the Miller, ‘it is only fair that I +should have the best place’; so he walked at the head of the procession +in a long black cloak, and every now and then he wiped his eyes with a +big pocket-handkerchief. + +“‘Little Hans is certainly a great loss to every one,’ said the +Blacksmith, when the funeral was over, and they were all seated +comfortably in the inn, drinking spiced wine and eating sweet cakes. + +“‘A great loss to me at any rate,’ answered the Miller; ‘why, I had as +good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don’t know what to do +with it. It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair +that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take +care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being +generous.’” + +“Well?” said the Water-rat, after a long pause. + +“Well, that is the end,” said the Linnet. + +“But what became of the Miller?” asked the Water-rat. + +“Oh! I really don’t know,” replied the Linnet; “and I am sure that I +don’t care.” + +“It is quite evident then that you have no sympathy in your nature,” said +the Water-rat. + +“I am afraid you don’t quite see the moral of the story,” remarked the +Linnet. + +“The what?” screamed the Water-rat. + +“The moral.” + +“Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?” + +“Certainly,” said the Linnet. + +“Well, really,” said the Water-rat, in a very angry manner, “I think you +should have told me that before you began. If you had done so, I +certainly would not have listened to you; in fact, I should have said +‘Pooh,’ like the critic. However, I can say it now”; so he shouted out +“Pooh” at the top of his voice, gave a whisk with his tail, and went back +into his hole. + +“And how do you like the Water-rat?” asked the Duck, who came paddling up +some minutes afterwards. “He has a great many good points, but for my +own part I have a mother’s feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed +bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes.” + +“I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,” answered the Linnet. “The +fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.” + +“Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,” said the Duck. + +And I quite agree with her. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of windmill and overturned barrow] + + + + +The Remarkable Rocket. + + + [Picture: The Remarkable Rocket] + +THE King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. +He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. +She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a +sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great golden +swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess herself. Her +long ermine-cloak reached right down to her feet, on her head was a tiny +cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she +had always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the streets +all the people wondered. “She is like a white rose!” they cried, and +they threw down flowers on her from the balconies. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic of young man kissing the princess’ hand] + +At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had +dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he +sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand. + +“Your picture was beautiful,” he murmured, “but you are more beautiful +than your picture”; and the little Princess blushed. + +“She was like a white rose before,” said a young Page to his neighbour, +“but she is like a red rose now”; and the whole Court was delighted. + +For the next three days everybody went about saying, “White rose, Red +rose, Red rose, White rose”; and the King gave orders that the Page’s +salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not +of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly +published in the Court Gazette. + +When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was a +magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in hand +under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little pearls. Then +there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five hours. The Prince and +Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear +crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips +touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy. + +“It’s quite clear that they love each other,” said the little Page, “as +clear as crystal!” and the King doubled his salary a second time. “What +an honour!” cried all the courtiers. + +After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom were +to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to play the +flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, +because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two airs, and was never +quite certain which one he was playing; but it made no matter, for, +whatever he did, everybody cried out, “Charming! charming!” + +The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to be +let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen a +firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal +Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage. + +“What are fireworks like?” she had asked the Prince, one morning, as she +was walking on the terrace. + +“They are like the Aurora Borealis,” said the King, who always answered +questions that were addressed to other people, “only much more natural. +I prefer them to stars myself, as you always know when they are going to +appear, and they are as delightful as my own flute-playing. You must +certainly see them.” + +So at the end of the King’s garden a great stand had been set up, and as +soon as the Royal Pyrotechnist had put everything in its proper place, +the fireworks began to talk to each other. + +“The world is certainly very beautiful,” cried a little Squib. “Just +look at those yellow tulips. Why! if they were real crackers they could +not be lovelier. I am very glad I have travelled. Travel improves the +mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.” + +“The King’s garden is not the world, you foolish squib,” said a big Roman +Candle; “the world is an enormous place, and it would take you three days +to see it thoroughly.” + +“Any place you love is the world to you,” exclaimed a pensive Catherine +Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided +herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the +poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed +them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I +remember myself once—But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the +past.” + +“Nonsense!” said the Roman Candle, “Romance never dies. It is like the +moon, and lives for ever. The bride and bridegroom, for instance, love +each other very dearly. I heard all about them this morning from a +brown-paper cartridge, who happened to be staying in the same drawer as +myself, and knew the latest Court news.” + +But the Catherine Wheel shook her head. “Romance is dead, Romance is +dead, Romance is dead,” she murmured. She was one of those people who +think that, if you say the same thing over and over a great many times, +it becomes true in the end. + +Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round. + +It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end +of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so as +to attract attention. + +“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine +Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.” + +“Order! order!” cried out a Cracker. He was something of a politician, +and had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, so he knew +the proper Parliamentary expressions to use. + +“Quite dead,” whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to sleep. + +As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third time and +began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was dictating +his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he +was talking. In fact, he had a most distinguished manner. + +“How fortunate it is for the King’s son,” he remarked, “that he is to be +married on the very day on which I am to be let off. Really, if it had +been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out better for him; +but, Princes are always lucky.” + +“Dear me!” said the little Squib, “I thought it was quite the other way, +and that we were to be let off in the Prince’s honour.” + +“It may be so with you,” he answered; “indeed, I have no doubt that it +is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come +of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel +of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing. When she made her +great public appearance she spun round nineteen times before she went +out, and each time that she did so she threw into the air seven pink +stars. She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very +best gunpowder. My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French +extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would +never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly +disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden +rain. The newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering +terms. Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic +art.” + +“Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean,” said a Bengal Light; “I know it is +Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister.” + +“Well, I said Pylotechnic,” answered the Rocket, in a severe tone of +voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at once to +bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still a person of +some importance. + +“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying—What was I saying?” + +“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle. + +“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was +so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of every kind, +for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole world is so sensitive +as I am, I am quite sure of that.” + +“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle. + +“A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other +people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the +Cracker nearly exploded with laughter. + +“Pray, what are you laughing at?” inquired the Rocket; “I am not +laughing.” + +“I am laughing because I am happy,” replied the Cracker. + +“That is a very selfish reason,” said the Rocket angrily. “What right +have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others. In fact, you +should be thinking about me. I am always thinking about myself, and I +expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. +It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess it in a high degree. Suppose, +for instance, anything happened to me to-night, what a misfortune that +would be for every one! The Prince and Princess would never be happy +again, their whole married life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I +know he would not get over it. Really, when I begin to reflect on the +importance of my position, I am almost moved to tears.” + +“If you want to give pleasure to others,” cried the Roman Candle, “you +had better keep yourself dry.” + +“Certainly,” exclaimed the Bengal Light, who was now in better spirits; +“that is only common sense.” + +“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget that I +am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can have common +sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I have imagination, +for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as +being quite different. As for keeping myself dry, there is evidently no +one here who can at all appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for +myself, I don’t care. The only thing that sustains one through life is +the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this +is a feeling that I have always cultivated. But none of you have any +hearts. Here you are laughing and making merry just as if the Prince and +Princess had not just been married.” + +“Well, really,” exclaimed a small Fire-balloon, “why not? It is a most +joyful occasion, and when I soar up into the air I intend to tell the +stars all about it. You will see them twinkle when I talk to them about +the pretty bride.” + +“Ah! what a trivial view of life!” said the Rocket; “but it is only what +I expected. There is nothing in you; you are hollow and empty. Why, +perhaps the Prince and Princess may go to live in a country where there +is a deep river, and perhaps they may have one only son, a little +fair-haired boy with violet eyes like the Prince himself; and perhaps +some day he may go out to walk with his nurse; and perhaps the nurse may +go to sleep under a great elder-tree; and perhaps the little boy may fall +into the deep river and be drowned. What a terrible misfortune! Poor +people, to lose their only son! It is really too dreadful! I shall +never get over it.” + +“But they have not lost their only son,” said the Roman Candle; “no +misfortune has happened to them at all.” + +“I never said that they had,” replied the Rocket; “I said that they +might. If they had lost their only son there would be no use in saying +anything more about the matter. I hate people who cry over spilt milk. +But when I think that they might lose their only son, I certainly am very +much affected.” + +“You certainly are!” cried the Bengal Light. “In fact, you are the most +affected person I ever met.” + +“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you cannot +understand my friendship for the Prince.” + +“Why, you don’t even know him,” growled the Roman Candle. + +“I never said I knew him,” answered the Rocket. “I dare say that if I +knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very dangerous thing +to know one’s friends.” + +“You had really better keep yourself dry,” said the Fire-balloon. “That +is the important thing.” + +“Very important for you, I have no doubt,” answered the Rocket, “but I +shall weep if I choose”; and he actually burst into real tears, which +flowed down his stick like rain-drops, and nearly drowned two little +beetles, who were just thinking of setting up house together, and were +looking for a nice dry spot to live in. + +“He must have a truly romantic nature,” said the Catherine Wheel, “for he +weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about”; and she heaved a deep +sigh, and thought about the deal box. + +But the Roman Candle and the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and kept +saying, “Humbug! humbug!” at the top of their voices. They were +extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called +it humbug. + +Then the moon rose like a wonderful silver shield; and the stars began to +shine, and a sound of music came from the palace. + +The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so +beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and +watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat time. + +Then ten o’clock struck, and then eleven, and then twelve, and at the +last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and the King +sent for the Royal Pyrotechnist. + +“Let the fireworks begin,” said the King; and the Royal Pyrotechnist made +a low bow, and marched down to the end of the garden. He had six +attendants with him, each of whom carried a lighted torch at the end of a +long pole. + +It was certainly a magnificent display. + +Whizz! Whizz! went the Catherine Wheel, as she spun round and round. +Boom! Boom! went the Roman Candle. Then the Squibs danced all over the +place, and the Bengal Lights made everything look scarlet. “Good-bye,” +cried the Fire-balloon, as he soared away, dropping tiny blue sparks. +Bang! Bang! answered the Crackers, who were enjoying themselves +immensely. Every one was a great success except the Remarkable Rocket. +He was so damp with crying that he could not go off at all. The best +thing in him was the gunpowder, and that was so wet with tears that it +was of no use. All his poor relations, to whom he would never speak, +except with a sneer, shot up into the sky like wonderful golden flowers +with blossoms of fire. Huzza! Huzza! cried the Court; and the little +Princess laughed with pleasure. + +“I suppose they are reserving me for some grand occasion,” said the +Rocket; “no doubt that is what it means,” and he looked more supercilious +than ever. + +The next day the workmen came to put everything tidy. “This is evidently +a deputation,” said the Rocket; “I will receive them with becoming +dignity” so he put his nose in the air, and began to frown severely as if +he were thinking about some very important subject. But they took no +notice of him at all till they were just going away. Then one of them +caught sight of him. “Hallo!” he cried, “what a bad rocket!” and he +threw him over the wall into the ditch. + +“BAD Rocket? BAD Rocket?” he said, as he whirled through the air; +“impossible! GRAND Rocket, that is what the man said. BAD and GRAND +sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same”; and he fell +into the mud. + +“It is not comfortable here,” he remarked, “but no doubt it is some +fashionable watering-place, and they have sent me away to recruit my +health. My nerves are certainly very much shattered, and I require +rest.” + +Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled coat, +swam up to him. + +“A new arrival, I see!” said the Frog. “Well, after all there is nothing +like mud. Give me rainy weather and a ditch, and I am quite happy. Do +you think it will be a wet afternoon? I am sure I hope so, but the sky +is quite blue and cloudless. What a pity!” + +“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket, and he began to cough. + +“What a delightful voice you have!” cried the Frog. “Really it is quite +like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical sound in the +world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We sit in the old duck +pond close by the farmer’s house, and as soon as the moon rises we begin. +It is so entrancing that everybody lies awake to listen to us. In fact, +it was only yesterday that I heard the farmer’s wife say to her mother +that she could not get a wink of sleep at night on account of us. It is +most gratifying to find oneself so popular.” + +“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket angrily. He was very much annoyed that he +could not get a word in. + +“A delightful voice, certainly,” continued the Frog; “I hope you will +come over to the duck-pond. I am off to look for my daughters. I have +six beautiful daughters, and I am so afraid the Pike may meet them. He +is a perfect monster, and would have no hesitation in breakfasting off +them. Well, good-bye: I have enjoyed our conversation very much, I +assure you.” + +“Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. “You have talked the whole time +yourself. That is not conversation.” + +“Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog, “and I like to do all the +talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.” + +“But I like arguments,” said the Rocket. + +“I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. “Arguments are extremely +vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. +Good-bye a second time; I see my daughters in the distance:” and the +little Frog swam away. + +“You are a very irritating person,” said the Rocket, “and very ill-bred. +I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to +talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call selfishness, and +selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially to any one of my +temperament, for I am well known for my sympathetic nature. In fact, you +should take example by me; you could not possibly have a better model. +Now that you have the chance you had better avail yourself of it, for I +am going back to Court almost immediately. I am a great favourite at +Court; in fact, the Prince and Princess were married yesterday in my +honour. Of course you know nothing of these matters, for you are a +provincial.” + +“There is no good talking to him,” said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on +the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for he has gone away.” + +“Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket. “I am not going +to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like +hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have +long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I +don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” + +“Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-fly; +and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky. + +“How very silly of him not to stay here!” said the Rocket. “I am sure +that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, +I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some +day”; and he sank down a little deeper into the mud. + +After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow legs, +and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account of her +waddle. + +“Quack, quack, quack,” she said. “What a curious shape you are! May I +ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?” + +“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,” answered +the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your +ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable +as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up +into the sky, and come down in a shower of golden rain.” + +“I don’t think much of that,” said the Duck, “as I cannot see what use it +is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the ox, or draw +a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the collie-dog, that +would be something.” + +“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, “I +see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my position is +never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than +sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least +of all with such industries as you seem to recommend. Indeed, I have +always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who +have nothing whatever to do.” + +“Well, well,” said the Duck, who was of a very peaceable disposition, and +never quarrelled with any one, “everybody has different tastes. I hope, +at any rate, that you are going to take up your residence here.” + +“Oh! dear no,” cried the Rocket. “I am merely a visitor, a distinguished +visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather tedious. There is +neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it is essentially suburban. +I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that I am destined to make +a sensation in the world.” + +“I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,” remarked the Duck; +“there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I took the chair +at a meeting some time ago, and we passed resolutions condemning +everything that we did not like. However, they did not seem to have much +effect. Now I go in for domesticity, and look after my family.” + +“I am made for public life,” said the Rocket, “and so are all my +relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite great +attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I do so it will +be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and +distracts one’s mind from higher things.” + +“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck; “and +that reminds me how hungry I feel”: and she swam away down the stream, +saying, “Quack, quack, quack.” + +“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal to say +to you”; but the Duck paid no attention to him. “I am glad that she has +gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly middle-class mind”; and +he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the +loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came +running down the bank, with a kettle and some faggots. + +“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very +dignified. + +“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick! I wonder how it +came here”; and he picked the rocket out of the ditch. + +“OLD Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible! GOLD Stick, that is what he +said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he mistakes me for one +of the Court dignitaries!” + +“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to boil +the kettle.” + +So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit +the fire. + +“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me off in +broad day-light, so that every one can see me.” + +“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the kettle +will be boiled”; and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes. + +The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last, +however, the fire caught him. + +“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and +straight. “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher +than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall go so high +that—” + +Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air. + +“Delightful!” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever. What a +success I am!” + +But nobody saw him. + +Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him. + +“Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole world on +fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for +a whole year.” And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the +gunpowder. There was no doubt about it. + +But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound +asleep. + +Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the +back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch. + +“Good heavens!” cried the Goose. “It is going to rain sticks”; and she +rushed into the water. + +“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and he +went out. + + +Through the Looking-Glass, + +CHAPTER I. +Looking-Glass house + +One thing was certain, that the _white_ kitten had had nothing to do +with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten +had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of +an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it +_couldn’t_ have had any hand in the mischief. + +The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she held the +poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw +she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and +just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which +was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was +all meant for its good. + +But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, +and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great +arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been +having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been +trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all +come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all +knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the +middle. + +“Oh, you wicked little thing!” cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and +giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. +“Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You _ought_, +Dinah, you know you ought!” she added, looking reproachfully at the old +cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she +scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted +with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on +very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, +and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, +pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then +putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be +glad to help, if it might. + +“Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?” Alice began. “You’d have +guessed if you’d been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making +you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys getting in sticks +for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so +cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll +go and see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here Alice wound two or three turns +of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look: +this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, +and yards and yards of it got unwound again. + +“Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice went on as soon as they +were comfortably settled again, “when I saw all the mischief you had +been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out +into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous +darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt +me!” she went on, holding up one finger. “I’m going to tell you all +your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing +your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! +What’s that you say?” (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) “Her +paw went into your eye? Well, that’s _your_ fault, for keeping your +eyes open—if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now +don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled +Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk +before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she +wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the +worsted while I wasn’t looking! + +“That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for any of +them yet. You know I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday +week—Suppose they had saved up all _my_ punishments!” she went on, +talking more to herself than the kitten. “What _would_ they do at the +end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day +came. Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going without a +dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without +fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind _that_ much! I’d far +rather go without them than eat them! + +“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and +soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over +outside. I wonder if the snow _loves_ the trees and fields, that it +kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with +a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the +summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they +dress themselves all in green, and dance about—whenever the wind +blows—oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of +worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so _wish_ it was true! I’m sure +the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown. + +“Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking it +seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as +if you understood it: and when I said ‘Check!’ you purred! Well, it +_was_ a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn’t +been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces. +Kitty, dear, let’s pretend—” And here I wish I could tell you half the +things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase “Let’s +pretend.” She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the +day before—all because Alice had begun with “Let’s pretend we’re kings +and queens;” and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued +that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them, and Alice had +been reduced at last to say, “Well, _you_ can be one of them then, and +_I’ll_ be all the rest.” And once she had really frightened her old +nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, “Nurse! Do let’s pretend that +I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.” + +But this is taking us away from Alice’s speech to the kitten. “Let’s +pretend that you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you +sat up and folded your arms, you’d look exactly like her. Now do try, +there’s a dear!” And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it +up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing +didn’t succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn’t +fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the +Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was—“and if you’re not +good directly,” she added, “I’ll put you through into Looking-glass +House. How would you like _that_?” + +“Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I’ll tell you +all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there’s the room you can +see through the glass—that’s just the same as our drawing room, only +the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a +chair—all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could +see _that_ bit! I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the +winter: you never _can_ tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and +then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence, +just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are +something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, +because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold +up one in the other room. + +“How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if +they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good to +drink—But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a +little _peep_ of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the +door of our drawing-room wide open: and it’s very like our passage as +far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. +Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into +Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in +it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, +Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we +can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! +It’ll be easy enough to get through—” She was up on the chimney-piece +while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And +certainly the glass _was_ beginning to melt away, just like a bright +silvery mist. + +In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly +down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to +look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite +pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as +the one she had left behind. “So I shall be as warm here as I was in +the old room,” thought Alice: “warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no +one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when +they see me through the glass in here, and can’t get at me!” + +Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from +the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest +was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall +next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the +chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the +Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at +her. + +“They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,” Alice thought to +herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth +among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little “Oh!” of +surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The +chessmen were walking about, two and two! + +“Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,” Alice said (in a whisper, +for fear of frightening them), “and there are the White King and the +White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel—and here are two castles +walking arm in arm—I don’t think they can hear me,” she went on, as she +put her head closer down, “and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. I +feel somehow as if I were invisible—” + +Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her +turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and +begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would +happen next. + +“It is the voice of my child!” the White Queen cried out as she rushed +past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the +cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!” and she began +scrambling wildly up the side of the fender. + +“Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rubbing his nose, which had been +hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a _little_ annoyed with the +Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot. + +Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily was +nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen +and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter. + +The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air had +quite taken away her breath and for a minute or two she could do +nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had +recovered her breath a little, she called out to the White King, who +was sitting sulkily among the ashes, “Mind the volcano!” + +“What volcano?” said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as +if he thought that was the most likely place to find one. + +“Blew—me—up,” panted the Queen, who was still a little out of breath. +“Mind you come up—the regular way—don’t get blown up!” + +Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar, +till at last she said, “Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting to the +table, at that rate. I’d far better help you, hadn’t I?” But the King +took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could +neither hear her nor see her. + +So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more slowly +than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his breath away: +but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well +dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes. + +She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face +as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible +hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but +his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder +and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let +him drop upon the floor. + +“Oh! _please_ don’t make such faces, my dear!” she cried out, quite +forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. “You make me laugh so that +I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your mouth so wide open! All the +ashes will get into it—there, now I think you’re tidy enough!” she +added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the +Queen. + +The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly still: +and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the +room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she +could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it +she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together +in a frightened whisper—so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they +said. + +The King was saying, “I assure, you my dear, I turned cold to the very +ends of my whiskers!” + +To which the Queen replied, “You haven’t got any whiskers.” + +“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, _never_ +forget!” + +“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of +it.” + +Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous +memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought +struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some +way over his shoulder, and began writing for him. + +The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the pencil +for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong for +him, and at last he panted out, “My dear! I really _must_ get a thinner +pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit; it writes all manner of things +that I don’t intend—” + +“What manner of things?” said the Queen, looking over the book (in +which Alice had put “_The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He +balances very badly_”) “That’s not a memorandum of _your_ feelings!” + +There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat +watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him, +and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again), +she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read, +“—for it’s all in some language I don’t know,” she said to herself. + +It was like this. + +.YKCOWREBBAJ + +sevot yhtils eht dna, gillirb sawT’ +ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD + ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA +.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA + + + +She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought +struck her. “Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold +it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.” + +This was the poem that Alice read. + +JABBERWOCKY. + +’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe. + +“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! + The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! +Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun + The frumious Bandersnatch!” + +He took his vorpal sword in hand: + Long time the manxome foe he sought— +So rested he by the Tumtum tree, + And stood awhile in thought. + +And as in uffish thought he stood, + The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, +Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, + And burbled as it came! + +One, two! One, two! And through and through + The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! +He left it dead, and with its head + He went galumphing back. + +“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? + Come to my arms, my beamish boy! +O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” + He chortled in his joy. + +’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe. + + +“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s +_rather_ hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even +to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to +fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are! +However, _somebody_ killed _something_: that’s clear, at any rate—” + +“But oh!” thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, “if I don’t make haste I +shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I’ve seen what +the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!” +She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs—or, at least, +it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention of hers for getting down +stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the +tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without +even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the +hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if +she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a little giddy +with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself +walking again in the natural way. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +The Garden of Live Flowers + + +“I should see the garden far better,” said Alice to herself, “if I +could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads +straight to it—at least, no, it doesn’t do that—” (after going a few +yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), “but I +suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more like a +corkscrew than a path! Well, _this_ turn goes to the hill, I +suppose—no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the house! Well +then, I’ll try it the other way.” + +And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn after turn, but +always coming back to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once, when +she turned a corner rather more quickly than usual, she ran against it +before she could stop herself. + +“It’s no use talking about it,” Alice said, looking up at the house and +pretending it was arguing with her. “I’m _not_ going in again yet. I +know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again—back into the +old room—and there’d be an end of all my adventures!” + +So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once more +down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill. +For a few minutes all went on well, and she was just saying, “I really +_shall_ do it this time—” when the path gave a sudden twist and shook +itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found +herself actually walking in at the door. + +“Oh, it’s too bad!” she cried. “I never saw such a house for getting in +the way! Never!” + +However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to be +done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with +a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle. + +“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving +gracefully about in the wind, “I _wish_ you could talk!” + +“We _can_ talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “when there’s anybody worth +talking to.” + +Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite +seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went +on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice—almost in a whisper. +“And can _all_ the flowers talk?” + +“As well as _you_ can,” said the Tiger-lily. “And a great deal louder.” + +“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” said the Rose, “and I +really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘Her face has +got _some_ sense in it, though it’s not a clever one!’ Still, you’re +the right colour, and that goes a long way.” + +“I don’t care about the colour,” the Tiger-lily remarked. “If only her +petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.” + +Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions. +“Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody +to take care of you?” + +“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose: “what else is it good +for?” + +“But what could it do, if any danger came?” Alice asked. + +“It says ‘Bough-wough!’” cried a Daisy: “that’s why its branches are +called boughs!” + +“Didn’t you know _that_?” cried another Daisy, and here they all began +shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill +voices. “Silence, every one of you!” cried the Tiger-lily, waving +itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement. +“They know I can’t get at them!” it panted, bending its quivering head +towards Alice, “or they wouldn’t dare to do it!” + +“Never mind!” Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the +daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, “If you don’t +hold your tongues, I’ll pick you!” + +There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned +white. + +“That’s right!” said the Tiger-lily. “The daisies are worst of all. +When one speaks, they all begin together, and it’s enough to make one +wither to hear the way they go on!” + +“How is it you can all talk so nicely?” Alice said, hoping to get it +into a better temper by a compliment. “I’ve been in many gardens +before, but none of the flowers could talk.” + +“Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” said the Tiger-lily. “Then +you’ll know why.” + +Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said, “but I don’t see what that +has to do with it.” + +“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “they make the beds too soft—so +that the flowers are always asleep.” + +This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know +it. “I never thought of that before!” she said. + +“It’s _my_ opinion that you never think _at all_,” the Rose said in a +rather severe tone. + +“I never saw anybody that looked stupider,” a Violet said, so suddenly, +that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn’t spoken before. + +“Hold _your_ tongue!” cried the Tiger-lily. “As if _you_ ever saw +anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there, +till you know no more what’s going on in the world, than if you were a +bud!” + +“Are there any more people in the garden besides me?” Alice said, not +choosing to notice the Rose’s last remark. + +“There’s one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,” +said the Rose. “I wonder how you do it—” (“You’re always wondering,” +said the Tiger-lily), “but she’s more bushy than you are.” + +“Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her +mind, “There’s another little girl in the garden, somewhere!” + +“Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,” the Rose said, “but +she’s redder—and her petals are shorter, I think.” + +“Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,” the Tiger-lily +interrupted: “not tumbled about anyhow, like yours.” + +“But that’s not _your_ fault,” the Rose added kindly: “you’re beginning +to fade, you know—and then one can’t help one’s petals getting a little +untidy.” + +Alice didn’t like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she +asked “Does she ever come out here?” + +“I daresay you’ll see her soon,” said the Rose. “She’s one of the +thorny kind.” + +“Where does she wear the thorns?” Alice asked with some curiosity. + +“Why all round her head, of course,” the Rose replied. “I was wondering +_you_ hadn’t got some too. I thought it was the regular rule.” + +“She’s coming!” cried the Larkspur. “I hear her footstep, thump, thump, +thump, along the gravel-walk!” + +Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. “She’s +grown a good deal!” was her first remark. She had indeed: when Alice +first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high—and +here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself! + +“It’s the fresh air that does it,” said the Rose: “wonderfully fine air +it is, out here.” + +“I think I’ll go and meet her,” said Alice, for, though the flowers +were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have +a talk with a real Queen. + +“You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose: “_I_ should advise you to +walk the other way.” + +This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at +once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a +moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again. + +A little provoked, she drew back, and after looking everywhere for the +queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she +would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction. + +It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she +found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the +hill she had been so long aiming at. + +“Where do you come from?” said the Red Queen. “And where are you going? +Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all the time.” + +Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she +could, that she had lost her way. + +“I don’t know what you mean by _your_ way,” said the Queen: “all the +ways about here belong to _me_—but why did you come out here at all?” +she added in a kinder tone. “Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say, +it saves time.” + +Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the +Queen to disbelieve it. “I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to +herself, “the next time I’m a little late for dinner.” + +“It’s time for you to answer now,” the Queen said, looking at her +watch: “open your mouth a _little_ wider when you speak, and always say +‘your Majesty.’” + +“I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty—” + +“That’s right,” said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice +didn’t like at all, “though, when you say ‘garden,’—_I’ve_ seen +gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.” + +Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but went on: “—and I thought I’d +try and find my way to the top of that hill—” + +“When you say ‘hill,’” the Queen interrupted, “_I_ could show you +hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.” + +“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at +last: “a hill _can’t_ be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—” + +The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” +she said, “but _I’ve_ heard nonsense, compared with which that would be +as sensible as a dictionary!” + +Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen’s tone that she +was a _little_ offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to +the top of the little hill. + +For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all +directions over the country—and a most curious country it was. There +were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from +side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a +number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook. + +“I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!” Alice said at +last. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there +are!” She added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick +with excitement as she went on. “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s +being played—all over the world—if this _is_ the world at all, you +know. Oh, what fun it is! How I _wish_ I was one of them! I wouldn’t +mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should +_like_ to be a Queen, best.” + +She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her +companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. You +can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like, as Lily’s too young to +play; and you’re in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to +the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen—” Just at this moment, somehow or +other, they began to run. + +Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how +it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running +hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do +to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying “Faster! Faster!” +but Alice felt she _could not_ go faster, though she had not breath +left to say so. + +The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other +things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they +went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things +move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed +to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!” + +Not that Alice had any idea of doing _that_. She felt as if she would +never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and +still the Queen cried “Faster! Faster!” and dragged her along. “Are we +nearly there?” Alice managed to pant out at last. + +“Nearly there!” the Queen repeated. “Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! +Faster!” And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling +in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied. + +“Now! Now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! Faster!” And they went so fast +that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the +ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite +exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, +breathless and giddy. + +The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest +a little now.” + +Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been +under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!” + +“Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?” + +“Well, in _our_ country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d +generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, +as we’ve been doing.” + +“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, _here_, you see, it +takes all the running _you_ can do, to keep in the same place. If you +want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as +that!” + +“I’d rather not try, please!” said Alice. “I’m quite content to stay +here—only I _am_ so hot and thirsty!” + +“I know what _you’d_ like!” the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a +little box out of her pocket. “Have a biscuit?” + +Alice thought it would not be civil to say “No,” though it wasn’t at +all what she wanted. So she took it, and ate it as well as she could: +and it was _very_ dry; and she thought she had never been so nearly +choked in all her life. + +“While you’re refreshing yourself,” said the Queen, “I’ll just take the +measurements.” And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in +inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in +here and there. + +“At the end of two yards,” she said, putting in a peg to mark the +distance, “I shall give you your directions—have another biscuit?” + +“No, thank you,” said Alice: “one’s _quite_ enough!” + +“Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Queen. + +Alice did not know what to say to this, but luckily the Queen did not +wait for an answer, but went on. “At the end of _three_ yards I shall +repeat them—for fear of your forgetting them. At the end of _four_, I +shall say good-bye. And at the end of _five_, I shall go!” + +She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with +great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly +walking down the row. + +At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said, “A pawn goes two squares +in its first move, you know. So you’ll go _very_ quickly through the +Third Square—by railway, I should think—and you’ll find yourself in the +Fourth Square in no time. Well, _that_ square belongs to Tweedledum and +Tweedledee—the Fifth is mostly water—the Sixth belongs to Humpty +Dumpty—But you make no remark?” + +“I—I didn’t know I had to make one—just then,” Alice faltered out. + +“You _should_ have said, ‘It’s extremely kind of you to tell me all +this’—however, we’ll suppose it said—the Seventh Square is all +forest—however, one of the Knights will show you the way—and in the +Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it’s all feasting and +fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again. + +At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said, “Speak +in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing—turn out your +toes as you walk—and remember who you are!” She did not wait for Alice +to curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg, where she +turned for a moment to say “good-bye,” and then hurried on to the last. + +How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the last +peg, she was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether she +ran quickly into the wood (“and she _can_ run very fast!” thought +Alice), there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and Alice began +to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her +to move. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +Looking-Glass Insects + + +Of course the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the +country she was going to travel through. “It’s something very like +learning geography,” thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of +being able to see a little further. “Principal rivers—there _are_ none. +Principal mountains—I’m on the only one, but I don’t think it’s got any +name. Principal towns—why, what _are_ those creatures, making honey +down there? They can’t be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you +know—” and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that +was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, +“just as if it was a regular bee,” thought Alice. + +However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an +elephant—as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath +away at first. “And what enormous flowers they must be!” was her next +idea. “Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put +to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I’ll go +down and—no, I won’t _just_ yet,” she went on, checking herself just as +she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse +for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll never do to go down among them +without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it’ll be +when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—‘Oh, I like it well +enough—’” (here came the favourite little toss of the head), “‘only it +was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!’” + +“I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said after a pause: “and +perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to +get into the Third Square!” + +So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of +the six little brooks. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“Tickets, please!” said the Guard, putting his head in at the window. +In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the +same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage. + +“Now then! Show your ticket, child!” the Guard went on, looking angrily +at Alice. And a great many voices all said together (“like the chorus +of a song,” thought Alice), “Don’t keep him waiting, child! Why, his +time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!” + +“I’m afraid I haven’t got one,” Alice said in a frightened tone: “there +wasn’t a ticket-office where I came from.” And again the chorus of +voices went on. “There wasn’t room for one where she came from. The +land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!” + +“Don’t make excuses,” said the Guard: “you should have bought one from +the engine-driver.” And once more the chorus of voices went on with +“The man that drives the engine. Why, the smoke alone is worth a +thousand pounds a puff!” + +Alice thought to herself, “Then there’s no use in speaking.” The voices +didn’t join in this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but to her great +surprise, they all _thought_ in chorus (I hope you understand what +_thinking in chorus_ means—for I must confess that _I_ don’t), “Better +say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!” + +“I shall dream about a thousand pounds tonight, I know I shall!” +thought Alice. + +All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, +then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he +said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,” and shut up the window and +went away. + +“So young a child,” said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was +dressed in white paper), “ought to know which way she’s going, even if +she doesn’t know her own name!” + +A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes +and said in a loud voice, “She ought to know her way to the +ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her alphabet!” + +There was a Beetle sitting next to the Goat (it was a very queer +carriage-full of passengers altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be +that they should all speak in turn, _he_ went on with “She’ll have to +go back from here as luggage!” + +Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse +voice spoke next. “Change engines—” it said, and was obliged to leave +off. + +“It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to herself. And an extremely +small voice, close to her ear, said, “You might make a joke on +that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.” + +Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, “She must be labelled +‘Lass, with care,’ you know—” + +And after that other voices went on (“What a number of people there are +in the carriage!” thought Alice), saying, “She must go by post, as +she’s got a head on her—” “She must be sent as a message by the +telegraph—” “She must draw the train herself the rest of the way—” and +so on. + +But the gentleman dressed in white paper leaned forwards and whispered +in her ear, “Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a +return-ticket every time the train stops.” + +“Indeed I shan’t!” Alice said rather impatiently. “I don’t belong to +this railway journey at all—I was in a wood just now—and I wish I could +get back there.” + +“You might make a joke on _that_,” said the little voice close to her +ear: “something about ‘you _would_ if you could,’ you know.” + +“Don’t tease so,” said Alice, looking about in vain to see where the +voice came from; “if you’re so anxious to have a joke made, why don’t +you make one yourself?” + +The little voice sighed deeply: it was _very_ unhappy, evidently, and +Alice would have said something pitying to comfort it, “If it would +only sigh like other people!” she thought. But this was such a +wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn’t have heard it at all, if it +hadn’t come _quite_ close to her ear. The consequence of this was that +it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts from the +unhappiness of the poor little creature. + +“I know you are a friend,” the little voice went on; “a dear friend, +and an old friend. And you won’t hurt me, though I _am_ an insect.” + +“What kind of insect?” Alice inquired a little anxiously. What she +really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she +thought this wouldn’t be quite a civil question to ask. + +“What, then you don’t—” the little voice began, when it was drowned by +a shrill scream from the engine, and everybody jumped up in alarm, +Alice among the rest. + +The Horse, who had put his head out of the window, quietly drew it in +and said, “It’s only a brook we have to jump over.” Everybody seemed +satisfied with this, though Alice felt a little nervous at the idea of +trains jumping at all. “However, it’ll take us into the Fourth Square, +that’s some comfort!” she said to herself. In another moment she felt +the carriage rise straight up into the air, and in her fright she +caught at the thing nearest to her hand, which happened to be the +Goat’s beard. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +But the beard seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she found +herself sitting quietly under a tree—while the Gnat (for that was the +insect she had been talking to) was balancing itself on a twig just +over her head, and fanning her with its wings. + +It certainly was a _very_ large Gnat: “about the size of a chicken,” +Alice thought. Still, she couldn’t feel nervous with it, after they had +been talking together so long. + +“—then you don’t like all insects?” the Gnat went on, as quietly as if +nothing had happened. + +“I like them when they can talk,” Alice said. “None of them ever talk, +where _I_ come from.” + +“What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where _you_ come from?” the +Gnat inquired. + +“I don’t _rejoice_ in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m +rather afraid of them—at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the +names of some of them.” + +“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly. + +“I never knew them to do it.” + +“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they won’t +answer to them?” + +“No use to _them_,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people who name +them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?” + +“I can’t say,” the Gnat replied. “Further on, in the wood down there, +they’ve got no names—however, go on with your list of insects: you’re +wasting time.” + +“Well, there’s the Horse-fly,” Alice began, counting off the names on +her fingers. + +“All right,” said the Gnat: “half way up that bush, you’ll see a +Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It’s made entirely of wood, and gets +about by swinging itself from branch to branch.” + +“What does it live on?” Alice asked, with great curiosity. + +“Sap and sawdust,” said the Gnat. “Go on with the list.” + +Alice looked up at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, and made +up her mind that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright +and sticky; and then she went on. + +“And there’s the Dragon-fly.” + +“Look on the branch above your head,” said the Gnat, “and there you’ll +find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of +holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.” + +“And what does it live on?” + +“Frumenty and mince pie,” the Gnat replied; “and it makes its nest in a +Christmas box.” + +“And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went on, after she had taken a +good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to +herself, “I wonder if that’s the reason insects are so fond of flying +into candles—because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!” + +“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in +some alarm), “you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin +slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump +of sugar.” + +“And what does _it_ live on?” + +“Weak tea with cream in it.” + +A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. “Supposing it couldn’t find +any?” she suggested. + +“Then it would die, of course.” + +“But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully. + +“It always happens,” said the Gnat. + +After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two, pondering. The Gnat +amused itself meanwhile by humming round and round her head: at last it +settled again and remarked, “I suppose you don’t want to lose your +name?” + +“No, indeed,” Alice said, a little anxiously. + +“And yet I don’t know,” the Gnat went on in a careless tone: “only +think how convenient it would be if you could manage to go home without +it! For instance, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, +she would call out ‘come here—,’ and there she would have to leave off, +because there wouldn’t be any name for her to call, and of course you +wouldn’t have to go, you know.” + +“That would never do, I’m sure,” said Alice: “the governess would never +think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn’t remember my +name, she’d call me ‘Miss!’ as the servants do.” + +“Well, if she said ‘Miss,’ and didn’t say anything more,” the Gnat +remarked, “of course you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke. I wish +_you_ had made it.” + +“Why do you wish _I_ had made it?” Alice asked. “It’s a very bad one.” + +But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling +down its cheeks. + +“You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if it makes you so unhappy.” + +Then came another of those melancholy little sighs, and this time the +poor Gnat really seemed to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice +looked up, there was nothing whatever to be seen on the twig, and, as +she was getting quite chilly with sitting still so long, she got up and +walked on. + +She very soon came to an open field, with a wood on the other side of +it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a _little_ +timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her +mind to go on: “for I certainly won’t go _back_,” she thought to +herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square. + +“This must be the wood,” she said thoughtfully to herself, “where +things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of _my_ name when I go +in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all—because they’d have to give me +another, and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the +fun would be trying to find the creature that had got my old name! +That’s just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose +dogs—‘_answers to the name of “Dash:” had on a brass collar_’—just +fancy calling everything you met ‘Alice,’ till one of them answered! +Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise.” + +She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked +very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said +as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into +the—into _what_?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to +think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under _this_, you +know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What _does_ it call +itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it +hasn’t!” + +She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. +“Then it really _has_ happened, after all! And now, who am I? I _will_ +remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined +didn’t help much, and all she could say, after a great deal of +puzzling, was, “L, I _know_ it begins with L!” + +Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large +gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” +Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it +only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again. + +“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet +voice it had! + +“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, +“Nothing, just now.” + +“Think again,” it said: “that won’t do.” + +Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what +_you_ call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a +little.” + +“I’ll tell you, if you’ll move a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I +can’t remember here.” + +So they walked on together though the wood, Alice with her arms clasped +lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into +another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, +and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in +a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look +of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it +had darted away at full speed. + +Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at +having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. “However, I +know my name now.” she said, “that’s _some_ comfort. Alice—Alice—I +won’t forget it again. And now, which of these finger-posts ought I to +follow, I wonder?” + +It was not a very difficult question to answer, as there was only one +road through the wood, and the two finger-posts both pointed along it. +“I’ll settle it,” Alice said to herself, “when the road divides and +they point different ways.” + +But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long way, +but wherever the road divided there were sure to be two finger-posts +pointing the same way, one marked “TO TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE” and the other +“TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.” + +“I do believe,” said Alice at last, “that they live in the same house! +I wonder I never thought of that before—But I can’t stay there long. +I’ll just call and say ‘how d’you do?’ and ask them the way out of the +wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!” So +she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a +sharp corner, she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she +could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered +herself, feeling sure that they must be. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +Tweedledum And Tweedledee + + +They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other’s +neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them +had “DUM” embroidered on his collar, and the other “DEE.” “I suppose +they’ve each got ‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of the collar,” she said +to herself. + +They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was +just looking round to see if the word ‘TWEEDLE’ was written at the back +of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one +marked “DUM.” + +“If you think we’re wax-works,” he said, “you ought to pay, you know. +Wax-works weren’t made to be looked at for nothing, nohow!” + +“Contrariwise,” added the one marked “DEE,” “if you think we’re alive, +you ought to speak.” + +“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” was all Alice could say; for the words of +the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, +and she could hardly help saying them out loud:— + +“Tweedledum and Tweedledee + Agreed to have a battle; +For Tweedledum said Tweedledee + Had spoiled his nice new rattle. + +Just then flew down a monstrous crow, + As black as a tar-barrel; +Which frightened both the heroes so, + They quite forgot their quarrel.” + + +“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum: “but it isn’t so, +nohow.” + +“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and +if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” + +“I was thinking,” Alice said very politely, “which is the best way out +of this wood: it’s getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?” + +But the little men only looked at each other and grinned. + +They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice +couldn’t help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying “First +Boy!” + +“Nohow!” Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again with +a snap. + +“Next Boy!” said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt quite +certain he would only shout out “Contrariwise!” and so he did. + +“You’ve been wrong!” cried Tweedledum. “The first thing in a visit is +to say ‘How d’ye do?’ and shake hands!” And here the two brothers gave +each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were free, +to shake hands with her. + +Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of +hurting the other one’s feelings; so, as the best way out of the +difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they +were dancing round in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered +afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it +seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was +done (as well as she could make it out) by the branches rubbing one +across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks. + +“But it certainly _was_ funny,” (Alice said afterwards, when she was +telling her sister the history of all this,) “to find myself singing +‘_Here we go round the mulberry bush_.’ I don’t know when I began it, +but somehow I felt as if I’d been singing it a long long time!” + +The other two dancers were fat, and very soon out of breath. “Four +times round is enough for one dance,” Tweedledum panted out, and they +left off dancing as suddenly as they had begun: the music stopped at +the same moment. + +Then they let go of Alice’s hands, and stood looking at her for a +minute: there was a rather awkward pause, as Alice didn’t know how to +begin a conversation with people she had just been dancing with. “It +would never do to say ‘How d’ye do?’ _now_,” she said to herself: “we +seem to have got beyond that, somehow!” + +“I hope you’re not much tired?” she said at last. + +“Nohow. And thank you _very_ much for asking,” said Tweedledum. + +“So _much_ obliged!” added Tweedledee. “You like poetry?” + +“Ye-es, pretty well—_some_ poetry,” Alice said doubtfully. “Would you +tell me which road leads out of the wood?” + +“What shall I repeat to her?” said Tweedledee, looking round at +Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question. + +“‘_The Walrus and the Carpenter_’ is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, +giving his brother an affectionate hug. + +Tweedledee began instantly: + +“The sun was shining—” + + +Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. “If it’s _very_ long,” she said, +as politely as she could, “would you please tell me first which road—” + +Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again: + +“The sun was shining on the sea, + Shining with all his might: +He did his very best to make + The billows smooth and bright— +And this was odd, because it was + The middle of the night. + +The moon was shining sulkily, + Because she thought the sun +Had got no business to be there + After the day was done— +‘It’s very rude of him,’ she said, + ‘To come and spoil the fun!’ + +The sea was wet as wet could be, + The sands were dry as dry. +You could not see a cloud, because + No cloud was in the sky: +No birds were flying over head— + There were no birds to fly. + +The Walrus and the Carpenter + Were walking close at hand; +They wept like anything to see + Such quantities of sand: +‘If this were only cleared away,’ + They said, ‘it _would_ be grand!’ + +‘If seven maids with seven mops + Swept it for half a year, +Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, + ‘That they could get it clear?’ +‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter, + And shed a bitter tear. + +‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ + The Walrus did beseech. +‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, + Along the briny beach: +We cannot do with more than four, + To give a hand to each.’ + +The eldest Oyster looked at him. + But never a word he said: +The eldest Oyster winked his eye, + And shook his heavy head— +Meaning to say he did not choose + To leave the oyster-bed. + +But four young oysters hurried up, + All eager for the treat: +Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, + Their shoes were clean and neat— +And this was odd, because, you know, + They hadn’t any feet. + +Four other Oysters followed them, + And yet another four; +And thick and fast they came at last, + And more, and more, and more— +All hopping through the frothy waves, + And scrambling to the shore. + +The Walrus and the Carpenter + Walked on a mile or so, +And then they rested on a rock + Conveniently low: +And all the little Oysters stood + And waited in a row. + +‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, + ‘To talk of many things: +Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— + Of cabbages—and kings— +And why the sea is boiling hot— + And whether pigs have wings.’ + +‘But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried, + ‘Before we have our chat; +For some of us are out of breath, + And all of us are fat!’ +‘No hurry!’ said the Carpenter. + They thanked him much for that. + +‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, + ‘Is what we chiefly need: +Pepper and vinegar besides + Are very good indeed— +Now if you’re ready Oysters dear, + We can begin to feed.’ + +‘But not on us!’ the Oysters cried, + Turning a little blue, +‘After such kindness, that would be + A dismal thing to do!’ +‘The night is fine,’ the Walrus said + ‘Do you admire the view? + +‘It was so kind of you to come! + And you are very nice!’ +The Carpenter said nothing but + ‘Cut us another slice: +I wish you were not quite so deaf— + I’ve had to ask you twice!’ + +‘It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said, + ‘To play them such a trick, +After we’ve brought them out so far, + And made them trot so quick!’ +The Carpenter said nothing but + ‘The butter’s spread too thick!’ + +‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said. + ‘I deeply sympathize.’ +With sobs and tears he sorted out + Those of the largest size. +Holding his pocket handkerchief + Before his streaming eyes. + +‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter. + ‘You’ve had a pleasant run! +Shall we be trotting home again?’ + But answer came there none— +And that was scarcely odd, because + They’d eaten every one.” + + +“I like the Walrus best,” said Alice: “because you see he was a +_little_ sorry for the poor oysters.” + +“He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee. “You see he +held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count +how many he took: contrariwise.” + +“That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. “Then I like the Carpenter +best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.” + +“But he ate as many as he could get,” said Tweedledum. + +This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, “Well! They were _both_ +very unpleasant characters—” Here she checked herself in some alarm, at +hearing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large +steam-engine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more +likely to be a wild beast. “Are there any lions or tigers about here?” +she asked timidly. + +“It’s only the Red King snoring,” said Tweedledee. + +“Come and look at him!” the brothers cried, and they each took one of +Alice’s hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping. + +“Isn’t he a _lovely_ sight?” said Tweedledum. + +Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap +on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy +heap, and snoring loud—“fit to snore his head off!” as Tweedledum +remarked. + +“I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,” said Alice, +who was a very thoughtful little girl. + +“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s +dreaming about?” + +Alice said “Nobody can guess that.” + +“Why, about _you_!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands +triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you +suppose you’d be?” + +“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. + +“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, +you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!” + +“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go +out—bang!—just like a candle!” + +“I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. “Besides, if _I’m_ only a +sort of thing in his dream, what are _you_, I should like to know?” + +“Ditto” said Tweedledum. + +“Ditto, ditto” cried Tweedledee. + +He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying, “Hush! You’ll +be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” + +“Well, it no use _your_ talking about waking him,” said Tweedledum, +“when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well +you’re not real.” + +“I _am_ real!” said Alice and began to cry. + +“You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,” Tweedledee remarked: +“there’s nothing to cry about.” + +“If I wasn’t real,” Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all +seemed so ridiculous—“I shouldn’t be able to cry.” + +“I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?” Tweedledum interrupted +in a tone of great contempt. + +“I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice thought to herself: “and it’s +foolish to cry about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and went on as +cheerfully as she could. “At any rate I’d better be getting out of the +wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to +rain?” + +Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and +looked up into it. “No, I don’t think it is,” he said: “at least—not +under _here_. Nohow.” + +“But it may rain _outside_?” + +“It may—if it chooses,” said Tweedledee: “we’ve no objection. +Contrariwise.” + +“Selfish things!” thought Alice, and she was just going to say +“Good-night” and leave them, when Tweedledum sprang out from under the +umbrella and seized her by the wrist. + +“Do you see _that_?” he said, in a voice choking with passion, and his +eyes grew large and yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a +trembling finger at a small white thing lying under the tree. + +“It’s only a rattle,” Alice said, after a careful examination of the +little white thing. “Not a rattle-_snake_, you know,” she added +hastily, thinking that he was frightened: “only an old rattle—quite old +and broken.” + +“I knew it was!” cried Tweedledum, beginning to stamp about wildly and +tear his hair. “It’s spoilt, of course!” Here he looked at Tweedledee, +who immediately sat down on the ground, and tried to hide himself under +the umbrella. + +Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said in a soothing tone, “You +needn’t be so angry about an old rattle.” + +“But it isn’t old!” Tweedledum cried, in a greater fury than ever. +“It’s new, I tell you—I bought it yesterday—my nice new RATTLE!” and +his voice rose to a perfect scream. + +All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the umbrella, +with himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to do, that +it quite took off Alice’s attention from the angry brother. But he +couldn’t quite succeed, and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in +the umbrella, with only his head out: and there he lay, opening and +shutting his mouth and his large eyes—“looking more like a fish than +anything else,” Alice thought. + +“Of course you agree to have a battle?” Tweedledum said in a calmer +tone. + +“I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the +umbrella: “only _she_ must help us to dress up, you know.” + +So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned +in a minute with their arms full of things—such as bolsters, blankets, +hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. “I hope +you’re a good hand at pinning and tying strings?” Tweedledum remarked. +“Every one of these things has got to go on, somehow or other.” + +Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about +anything in all her life—the way those two bustled about—and the +quantity of things they put on—and the trouble they gave her in tying +strings and fastening buttons—“Really they’ll be more like bundles of +old clothes than anything else, by the time they’re ready!” she said to +herself, as she arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, “to +keep his head from being cut off,” as he said. + +“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s one of the most serious things +that can possibly happen to one in a battle—to get one’s head cut off.” + +Alice laughed aloud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear +of hurting his feelings. + +“Do I look very pale?” said Tweedledum, coming up to have his helmet +tied on. (He _called_ it a helmet, though it certainly looked much more +like a saucepan.) + +“Well—yes—a _little_,” Alice replied gently. + +“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only to-day I +happen to have a headache.” + +“And _I’ve_ got a toothache!” said Tweedledee, who had overheard the +remark. “I’m far worse off than you!” + +“Then you’d better not fight to-day,” said Alice, thinking it a good +opportunity to make peace. + +“We _must_ have a bit of a fight, but I don’t care about going on +long,” said Tweedledum. “What’s the time now?” + +Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said “Half-past four.” + +“Let’s fight till six, and then have dinner,” said Tweedledum. + +“Very well,” the other said, rather sadly: “and _she_ can watch us—only +you’d better not come _very_ close,” he added: “I generally hit +everything I can see—when I get really excited.” + +“And _I_ hit everything within reach,” cried Tweedledum, “whether I can +see it or not!” + +Alice laughed. “You must hit the _trees_ pretty often, I should think,” +she said. + +Tweedledum looked round him with a satisfied smile. “I don’t suppose,” +he said, “there’ll be a tree left standing, for ever so far round, by +the time we’ve finished!” + +“And all about a rattle!” said Alice, still hoping to make them a +_little_ ashamed of fighting for such a trifle. + +“I shouldn’t have minded it so much,” said Tweedledum, “if it hadn’t +been a new one.” + +“I wish the monstrous crow would come!” thought Alice. + +“There’s only one sword, you know,” Tweedledum said to his brother: +“but you can have the umbrella—it’s quite as sharp. Only we must begin +quick. It’s getting as dark as it can.” + +“And darker,” said Tweedledee. + +It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a +thunderstorm coming on. “What a thick black cloud that is!” she said. +“And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it’s got wings!” + +“It’s the crow!” Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm: and +the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a moment. + +Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree. +“It can never get at me _here_,” she thought: “it’s far too large to +squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn’t flap its +wings so—it makes quite a hurricane in the wood—here’s somebody’s shawl +being blown away!” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +Wool and Water + + +She caught the shawl as she spoke, and looked about for the owner: in +another moment the White Queen came running wildly through the wood, +with both arms stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and Alice +very civilly went to meet her with the shawl. + +“I’m very glad I happened to be in the way,” Alice said, as she helped +her to put on her shawl again. + +The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of +way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded +like “bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter,” and Alice felt that if there +was to be any conversation at all, she must manage it herself. So she +began rather timidly: “Am I addressing the White Queen?” + +“Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing,” The Queen said. “It isn’t +_my_ notion of the thing, at all.” + +Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very +beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said, “If your +Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, I’ll do it as well as +I can.” + +“But I don’t want it done at all!” groaned the poor Queen. “I’ve been +a-dressing myself for the last two hours.” + +It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had +got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. “Every +single thing’s crooked,” Alice thought to herself, “and she’s all over +pins!—may I put your shawl straight for you?” she added aloud. + +“I don’t know what’s the matter with it!” the Queen said, in a +melancholy voice. “It’s out of temper, I think. I’ve pinned it here, +and I’ve pinned it there, but there’s no pleasing it!” + +“It _can’t_ go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one side,” +Alice said, as she gently put it right for her; “and, dear me, what a +state your hair is in!” + +“The brush has got entangled in it!” the Queen said with a sigh. “And I +lost the comb yesterday.” + +Alice carefully released the brush, and did her best to get the hair +into order. “Come, you look rather better now!” she said, after +altering most of the pins. “But really you should have a lady’s maid!” + +“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Twopence a +week, and jam every other day.” + +Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire +_me_—and I don’t care for jam.” + +“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen. + +“Well, I don’t want any _to-day_, at any rate.” + +“You couldn’t have it if you _did_ want it,” the Queen said. “The rule +is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.” + +“It _must_ come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected. + +“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every _other_ day: to-day +isn’t any _other_ day, you know.” + +“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!” + +“That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it +always makes one a little giddy at first—” + +“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never +heard of such a thing!” + +“—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both +ways.” + +“I’m sure _mine_ only works one way,” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember +things before they happen.” + +“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen +remarked. + +“What sort of things do _you_ remember best?” Alice ventured to ask. + +“Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a +careless tone. “For instance, now,” she went on, sticking a large piece +of plaster on her finger as she spoke, “there’s the King’s Messenger. +He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin +till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.” + +“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice. + +“That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?” the Queen said, as she +bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon. + +Alice felt there was no denying _that_. “Of course it would be all the +better,” she said: “but it wouldn’t be all the better his being +punished.” + +“You’re wrong _there_, at any rate,” said the Queen: “were _you_ ever +punished?” + +“Only for faults,” said Alice. + +“And you were all the better for it, I know!” the Queen said +triumphantly. + +“Yes, but then I _had_ done the things I was punished for,” said Alice: +“that makes all the difference.” + +“But if you _hadn’t_ done them,” the Queen said, “that would have been +better still; better, and better, and better!” Her voice went higher +with each “better,” till it got quite to a squeak at last. + +Alice was just beginning to say “There’s a mistake somewhere—,” when +the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence +unfinished. “Oh, oh, oh!” shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as +if she wanted to shake it off. “My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!” + +Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that +Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears. + +“What _is_ the matter?” she said, as soon as there was a chance of +making herself heard. “Have you pricked your finger?” + +“I haven’t pricked it _yet_,” the Queen said, “but I soon shall—oh, oh, +oh!” + +“When do you expect to do it?” Alice asked, feeling very much inclined +to laugh. + +“When I fasten my shawl again,” the poor Queen groaned out: “the brooch +will come undone directly. Oh, oh!” As she said the words the brooch +flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it +again. + +“Take care!” cried Alice. “You’re holding it all crooked!” And she +caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the +Queen had pricked her finger. + +“That accounts for the bleeding, you see,” she said to Alice with a +smile. “Now you understand the way things happen here.” + +“But why don’t you scream now?” Alice asked, holding her hands ready to +put over her ears again. + +“Why, I’ve done all the screaming already,” said the Queen. “What would +be the good of having it all over again?” + +By this time it was getting light. “The crow must have flown away, I +think,” said Alice: “I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was the night +coming on.” + +“I wish _I_ could manage to be glad!” the Queen said. “Only I never can +remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood, and +being glad whenever you like!” + +“Only it is so _very_ lonely here!” Alice said in a melancholy voice; +and at the thought of her loneliness two large tears came rolling down +her cheeks. + +“Oh, don’t go on like that!” cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands +in despair. “Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long +way you’ve come to-day. Consider what o’clock it is. Consider anything, +only don’t cry!” + +Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears. +“Can _you_ keep from crying by considering things?” she asked. + +“That’s the way it’s done,” the Queen said with great decision: “nobody +can do two things at once, you know. Let’s consider your age to begin +with—how old are you?” + +“I’m seven and a half exactly.” + +“You needn’t say ‘exactually,’” the Queen remarked: “I can believe it +without that. Now I’ll give _you_ something to believe. I’m just one +hundred and one, five months and a day.” + +“I can’t believe _that_!” said Alice. + +“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long +breath, and shut your eyes.” + +Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one _can’t_ believe +impossible things.” + +“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was +your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve +believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes +the shawl again!” + +The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind blew +the Queen’s shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her arms +again, and went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in +catching it for herself. “I’ve got it!” she cried in a triumphant tone. +“Now you shall see me pin it on again, all by myself!” + +“Then I hope your finger is better now?” Alice said very politely, as +she crossed the little brook after the Queen. + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +“Oh, much better!” cried the Queen, her voice rising to a squeak as she +went on. “Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!” The last +word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite started. + +She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up +in wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She couldn’t make out +what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really—was it +really a _sheep_ that was sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub +as she could, she could make nothing more of it: she was in a little +dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her +was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and +then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles. + +“What is it you want to buy?” the Sheep said at last, looking up for a +moment from her knitting. + +“I don’t _quite_ know yet,” Alice said, very gently. “I should like to +look all round me first, if I might.” + +“You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,” said +the Sheep: “but you can’t look _all_ round you—unless you’ve got eyes +at the back of your head.” + +But these, as it happened, Alice had _not_ got: so she contented +herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to them. + +The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things—but the +oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, +to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always +quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they +could hold. + +“Things flow about so here!” she said at last in a plaintive tone, +after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright +thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, +and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. “And +this one is the most provoking of all—but I’ll tell you what—” she +added, as a sudden thought struck her, “I’ll follow it up to the very +top shelf of all. It’ll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect!” + +But even this plan failed: the “thing” went through the ceiling as +quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it. + +“Are you a child or a teetotum?” the Sheep said, as she took up another +pair of needles. “You’ll make me giddy soon, if you go on turning round +like that.” She was now working with fourteen pairs at once, and Alice +couldn’t help looking at her in great astonishment. + +“How _can_ she knit with so many?” the puzzled child thought to +herself. “She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!” + +“Can you row?” the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles +as she spoke. + +“Yes, a little—but not on land—and not with needles—” Alice was +beginning to say, when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her +hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between +banks: so there was nothing for it but to do her best. + +“Feather!” cried the Sheep, as she took up another pair of needles. + +This didn’t sound like a remark that needed any answer, so Alice said +nothing, but pulled away. There was something very queer about the +water, she thought, as every now and then the oars got fast in it, and +would hardly come out again. + +“Feather! Feather!” the Sheep cried again, taking more needles. “You’ll +be catching a crab directly.” + +“A dear little crab!” thought Alice. “I should like that.” + +“Didn’t you hear me say ‘Feather’?” the Sheep cried angrily, taking up +quite a bunch of needles. + +“Indeed I did,” said Alice: “you’ve said it very often—and very loud. +Please, where _are_ the crabs?” + +“In the water, of course!” said the Sheep, sticking some of the needles +into her hair, as her hands were full. “Feather, I say!” + +“_Why_ do you say ‘feather’ so often?” Alice asked at last, rather +vexed. “I’m not a bird!” + +“You are,” said the Sheep: “you’re a little goose.” + +This offended Alice a little, so there was no more conversation for a +minute or two, while the boat glided gently on, sometimes among beds of +weeds (which made the oars stick fast in the water, worse then ever), +and sometimes under trees, but always with the same tall river-banks +frowning over their heads. + +“Oh, please! There are some scented rushes!” Alice cried in a sudden +transport of delight. “There really are—and _such_ beauties!” + +“You needn’t say ‘please’ to _me_ about “em,” the Sheep said, without +looking up from her knitting: “I didn’t put “em there, and I’m not +going to take “em away.” + +“No, but I meant—please, may we wait and pick some?” Alice pleaded. “If +you don’t mind stopping the boat for a minute.” + +“How am _I_ to stop it?” said the Sheep. “If you leave off rowing, +it’ll stop of itself.” + +So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it +glided gently in among the waving rushes. And then the little sleeves +were carefully rolled up, and the little arms were plunged in +elbow-deep to get the rushes a good long way down before breaking them +off—and for a while Alice forgot all about the Sheep and the knitting, +as she bent over the side of the boat, with just the ends of her +tangled hair dipping into the water—while with bright eager eyes she +caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented rushes. + +“I only hope the boat won’t tipple over!” she said to herself. “Oh, +_what_ a lovely one! Only I couldn’t quite reach it.” “And it certainly +_did_ seem a little provoking (“almost as if it happened on purpose,” +she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful +rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that +she couldn’t reach. + +“The prettiest are always further!” she said at last, with a sigh at +the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed +cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, +and began to arrange her new-found treasures. + +What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade, +and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she +picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very +little while—and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like +snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet—but Alice hardly noticed this, +there were so many other curious things to think about. + +They hadn’t gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars got +fast in the water and _wouldn’t_ come out again (so Alice explained it +afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle of it caught her +under the chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks of “Oh, oh, +oh!” from poor Alice, it swept her straight off the seat, and down +among the heap of rushes. + +However, she wasn’t hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep went on with +her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had happened. “That was +a nice crab you caught!” she remarked, as Alice got back into her +place, very much relieved to find herself still in the boat. + +“Was it? I didn’t see it,” Said Alice, peeping cautiously over the side +of the boat into the dark water. “I wish it hadn’t let go—I should so +like to see a little crab to take home with me!” But the Sheep only +laughed scornfully, and went on with her knitting. + +“Are there many crabs here?” said Alice. + +“Crabs, and all sorts of things,” said the Sheep: “plenty of choice, +only make up your mind. Now, what _do_ you want to buy?” + +“To buy!” Alice echoed in a tone that was half astonished and half +frightened—for the oars, and the boat, and the river, had vanished all +in a moment, and she was back again in the little dark shop. + +“I should like to buy an egg, please,” she said timidly. “How do you +sell them?” + +“Fivepence farthing for one—Twopence for two,” the Sheep replied. + +“Then two are cheaper than one?” Alice said in a surprised tone, taking +out her purse. + +“Only you _must_ eat them both, if you buy two,” said the Sheep. + +“Then I’ll have _one_, please,” said Alice, as she put the money down +on the counter. For she thought to herself, “They mightn’t be at all +nice, you know.” + +The Sheep took the money, and put it away in a box: then she said “I +never put things into people’s hands—that would never do—you must get +it for yourself.” And so saying, she went off to the other end of the +shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf. + +“I wonder _why_ it wouldn’t do?” thought Alice, as she groped her way +among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards the +end. “The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let +me see, is this a chair? Why, it’s got branches, I declare! How very +odd to find trees growing here! And actually here’s a little brook! +Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!” + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +So she went on, wondering more and more at every step, as everything +turned into a tree the moment she came up to it, and she quite expected +the egg to do the same. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Humpty Dumpty + + +However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: +when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes +and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw +clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. “It can’t be anybody else!” +she said to herself. “I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written +all over his face.” + +It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous +face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on +the top of a high wall—such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how +he could keep his balance—and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the +opposite direction, and he didn’t take the least notice of her, she +thought he must be a stuffed figure after all. + +“And how exactly like an egg he is!” she said aloud, standing with her +hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to +fall. + +“It’s _very_ provoking,” Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, +looking away from Alice as he spoke, “to be called an egg—_Very!_” + +“I said you _looked_ like an egg, Sir,” Alice gently explained. “And +some eggs are very pretty, you know” she added, hoping to turn her +remark into a sort of a compliment. + +“Some people,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual, +“have no more sense than a baby!” + +Alice didn’t know what to say to this: it wasn’t at all like +conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to _her_; in fact, +his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree—so she stood and +softly repeated to herself:— + +“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: +Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. +All the King’s horses and all the King’s men +Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.” + + +“That last line is much too long for the poetry,” she added, almost out +loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her. + +“Don’t stand there chattering to yourself like that,” Humpty Dumpty +said, looking at her for the first time, “but tell me your name and +your business.” + +“My _name_ is Alice, but—” + +“It’s a stupid enough name!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. +“What does it mean?” + +“_Must_ a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully. + +“Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “_my_ name +means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name +like yours, you might be any shape, almost.” + +“Why do you sit out here all alone?” said Alice, not wishing to begin +an argument. + +“Why, because there’s nobody with me!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “Did you +think I didn’t know the answer to _that_? Ask another.” + +“Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground?” Alice went on, not +with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured +anxiety for the queer creature. “That wall is so _very_ narrow!” + +“What tremendously easy riddles you ask!” Humpty Dumpty growled out. +“Of course I don’t think so! Why, if ever I _did_ fall off—which +there’s no chance of—but _if_ I did—” Here he pursed his lips and +looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. “_If_ +I did fall,” he went on, “_The King has promised me—with his very own +mouth_—to—to—” + +“To send all his horses and all his men,” Alice interrupted, rather +unwisely. + +“Now I declare that’s too bad!” Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a +sudden passion. “You’ve been listening at doors—and behind trees—and +down chimneys—or you couldn’t have known it!” + +“I haven’t, indeed!” Alice said very gently. “It’s in a book.” + +“Ah, well! They may write such things in a _book_,” Humpty Dumpty said +in a calmer tone. “That’s what you call a History of England, that is. +Now, take a good look at me! I’m one that has spoken to a King, _I_ am: +mayhap you’ll never see such another: and to show you I’m not proud, +you may shake hands with me!” And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as +he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing +so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched him a little anxiously as +she took it. “If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet +behind,” she thought: “and then I don’t know what would happen to his +head! I’m afraid it would come off!” + +“Yes, all his horses and all his men,” Humpty Dumpty went on. “They’d +pick me up again in a minute, _they_ would! However, this conversation +is going on a little too fast: let’s go back to the last remark but +one.” + +“I’m afraid I can’t quite remember it,” Alice said very politely. + +“In that case we start fresh,” said Humpty Dumpty, “and it’s my turn to +choose a subject—” (“He talks about it just as if it was a game!” +thought Alice.) “So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you +were?” + +Alice made a short calculation, and said “Seven years and six months.” + +“Wrong!” Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. “You never said a word +like it!” + +“I though you meant ‘How old _are_ you?’” Alice explained. + +“If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,” said Humpty Dumpty. + +Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, so she said nothing. + +“Seven years and six months!” Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. “An +uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked _my_ advice, I’d have +said ‘Leave off at seven’—but it’s too late now.” + +“I never ask advice about growing,” Alice said indignantly. + +“Too proud?” the other inquired. + +Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. “I mean,” she said, +“that one can’t help growing older.” + +“_One_ can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty Dumpty, “but _two_ can. With proper +assistance, you might have left off at seven.” + +“What a beautiful belt you’ve got on!” Alice suddenly remarked. + +(They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and if +they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her turn +now.) “At least,” she corrected herself on second thoughts, “a +beautiful cravat, I should have said—no, a belt, I mean—I beg your +pardon!” she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly +offended, and she began to wish she hadn’t chosen that subject. “If I +only knew,” she thought to herself, “which was neck and which was +waist!” + +Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, though he said nothing for a +minute or two. When he _did_ speak again, it was in a deep growl. + +“It is a—_most—provoking_—thing,” he said at last, “when a person +doesn’t know a cravat from a belt!” + +“I know it’s very ignorant of me,” Alice said, in so humble a tone that +Humpty Dumpty relented. + +“It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It’s a present +from the White King and Queen. There now!” + +“Is it really?” said Alice, quite pleased to find that she _had_ chosen +a good subject, after all. + +“They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed +one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, “they gave it +me—for an un-birthday present.” + +“I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air. + +“I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. + +“I mean, what _is_ an un-birthday present?” + +“A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.” + +Alice considered a little. “I like birthday presents best,” she said at +last. + +“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “How +many days are there in a year?” + +“Three hundred and sixty-five,” said Alice. + +“And how many birthdays have you?” + +“One.” + +“And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?” + +“Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.” + +Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. “I’d rather see that done on paper,” he +said. + +Alice couldn’t help smiling as she took out her memorandum-book, and +worked the sum for him: + + 365 + 1 +____ +364 +___ + + +Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked at it carefully. “That seems to +be done right—” he began. + +“You’re holding it upside down!” Alice interrupted. + +“To be sure I was!” Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round +for him. “I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that +_seems_ to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over +thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and +sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—” + +“Certainly,” said Alice. + +“And only _one_ for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for +you!” + +“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said. + +Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell +you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” + +“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice +objected. + +“When _I_ use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, +“it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” + +“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you _can_ make words mean so +many different things.” + +“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s +all.” + +Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty +Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, +they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not +verbs—however, _I_ can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! +That’s what _I_ say!” + +“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?” + +“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking +very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough +of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you +mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest +of your life.” + +“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful +tone. + +“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I +always pay it extra.” + +“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark. + +“Ah, you should see “em come round me of a Saturday night,” Humpty +Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: “for to get +their wages, you know.” + +(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I +can’t tell _you_.) + +“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you +kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?” + +“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that +were ever invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just +yet.” + +This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse: + +’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe. + + +“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted: “there are +plenty of hard words there. ‘_Brillig_’ means four o’clock in the +afternoon—the time when you begin _broiling_ things for dinner.” + +“That’ll do very well,” said Alice: “and ‘_slithy_’?” + +“Well, ‘_slithy_’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as +‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed +up into one word.” + +“I see it now,” Alice remarked thoughtfully: “and what are ‘_toves_’?” + +“Well, ‘_toves_’ are something like badgers—they’re something like +lizards—and they’re something like corkscrews.” + +“They must be very curious looking creatures.” + +“They are that,” said Humpty Dumpty: “also they make their nests under +sun-dials—also they live on cheese.” + +“And what’s the ‘_gyre_’ and to ‘_gimble_’?” + +“To ‘_gyre_’ is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To ‘_gimble_’ +is to make holes like a gimlet.” + +“And ‘_the wabe_’ is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?” said +Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity. + +“Of course it is. It’s called ‘_wabe_,’ you know, because it goes a +long way before it, and a long way behind it—” + +“And a long way beyond it on each side,” Alice added. + +“Exactly so. Well, then, ‘_mimsy_’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s +another portmanteau for you). And a ‘_borogove_’ is a thin +shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something +like a live mop.” + +“And then ‘_mome raths_’?” said Alice. “I’m afraid I’m giving you a +great deal of trouble.” + +“Well, a ‘_rath_’ is a sort of green pig: but ‘_mome_’ I’m not certain +about. I think it’s short for ‘from home’—meaning that they’d lost +their way, you know.” + +“And what does ‘_outgrabe_’ mean?” + +“Well, ‘_outgrabing_’ is something between bellowing and whistling, +with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you’ll hear it done, +maybe—down in the wood yonder—and when you’ve once heard it you’ll be +_quite_ content. Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to you?” + +“I read it in a book,” said Alice. “But I had some poetry repeated to +me, much easier than that, by—Tweedledee, I think it was.” + +“As to poetry, you know,” said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his +great hands, “_I_ can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes +to that—” + +“Oh, it needn’t come to that!” Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him +from beginning. + +“The piece I’m going to repeat,” he went on without noticing her +remark, “was written entirely for your amusement.” + +Alice felt that in that case she really _ought_ to listen to it, so she +sat down, and said “Thank you” rather sadly. + +“In winter, when the fields are white, +I sing this song for your delight— + + +only I don’t sing it,” he added, as an explanation. + +“I see you don’t,” said Alice. + +“If you can _see_ whether I’m singing or not, you’ve sharper eyes than +most.” Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent. + +“In spring, when woods are getting green, +I’ll try and tell you what I mean.” + + +“Thank you very much,” said Alice. + +“In summer, when the days are long, +Perhaps you’ll understand the song: + +In autumn, when the leaves are brown, +Take pen and ink, and write it down.” + + +“I will, if I can remember it so long,” said Alice. + +“You needn’t go on making remarks like that,” Humpty Dumpty said: +“they’re not sensible, and they put me out.” + +“I sent a message to the fish: +I told them ‘This is what I wish.’ + +The little fishes of the sea, +They sent an answer back to me. + +The little fishes’ answer was +‘We cannot do it, Sir, because—‘” + + +“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said Alice. + +“It gets easier further on,” Humpty Dumpty replied. + +“I sent to them again to say +‘It will be better to obey.’ + +The fishes answered with a grin, +‘Why, what a temper you are in!’ + +I told them once, I told them twice: +They would not listen to advice. + +I took a kettle large and new, +Fit for the deed I had to do. + +My heart went hop, my heart went thump; +I filled the kettle at the pump. + +Then some one came to me and said, +‘The little fishes are in bed.’ + +I said to him, I said it plain, +‘Then you must wake them up again.’ + +I said it very loud and clear; +I went and shouted in his ear.” + + +Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this +verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, “I wouldn’t have been the +messenger for _anything_!” + +“But he was very stiff and proud; +He said ‘You needn’t shout so loud!’ + +And he was very proud and stiff; +He said ‘I’d go and wake them, if—’ + +I took a corkscrew from the shelf: +I went to wake them up myself. + +And when I found the door was locked, +I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked. + +And when I found the door was shut, +I tried to turn the handle, but—” + + +There was a long pause. + +“Is that all?” Alice timidly asked. + +“That’s all,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Good-bye.” + +This was rather sudden, Alice thought: but, after such a _very_ strong +hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil +to stay. So she got up, and held out her hand. “Good-bye, till we meet +again!” she said as cheerfully as she could. + +“I shouldn’t know you again if we _did_ meet,” Humpty Dumpty replied in +a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; “you’re so +exactly like other people.” + +“The face is what one goes by, generally,” Alice remarked in a +thoughtful tone. + +“That’s just what I complain of,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Your face is the +same as everybody has—the two eyes, so—” (marking their places in the +air with this thumb) “nose in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the +same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for +instance—or the mouth at the top—that would be _some_ help.” + +“It wouldn’t look nice,” Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut +his eyes and said “Wait till you’ve tried.” + +Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never +opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said “Good-bye!” +once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but +she couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, “Of all the +unsatisfactory—” (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to +have such a long word to say) “of all the unsatisfactory people I +_ever_ met—” She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a +heavy crash shook the forest from end to end. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +The Lion and the Unicorn + + +The next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at first in +twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such +crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice got behind a +tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by. + +She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so +uncertain on their feet: they were always tripping over something or +other, and whenever one went down, several more always fell over him, +so that the ground was soon covered with little heaps of men. + +Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed rather better +than the foot-soldiers: but even _they_ stumbled now and then; and it +seemed to be a regular rule that, whenever a horse stumbled the rider +fell off instantly. The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was +very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she found +the White King seated on the ground, busily writing in his +memorandum-book. + +“I’ve sent them all!” the King cried in a tone of delight, on seeing +Alice. “Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came +through the wood?” + +“Yes, I did,” said Alice: “several thousand, I should think.” + +“Four thousand two hundred and seven, that’s the exact number,” the +King said, referring to his book. “I couldn’t send all the horses, you +know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven’t sent +the two Messengers, either. They’re both gone to the town. Just look +along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.” + +“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. + +“I only wish _I_ had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. +“To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much +as _I_ can do to see real people, by this light!” + +All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the +road, shading her eyes with one hand. “I see somebody now!” she +exclaimed at last. “But he’s coming very slowly—and what curious +attitudes he goes into!” (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, +and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands +spread out like fans on each side.) + +“Not at all,” said the King. “He’s an Anglo-Saxon Messenger—and those +are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he’s happy. His name +is Haigha.” (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with “mayor.”) + +“I love my love with an H,” Alice couldn’t help beginning, “because he +is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him +with—with—with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he +lives—” + +“He lives on the Hill,” the King remarked simply, without the least +idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating +for the name of a town beginning with H. “The other Messenger’s called +Hatta. I must have _two_, you know—to come and go. One to come, and one +to go.” + +“I beg your pardon?” said Alice. + +“It isn’t respectable to beg,” said the King. + +“I only meant that I didn’t understand,” said Alice. “Why one to come +and one to go?” + +“Didn’t I tell you?” the King repeated impatiently. “I must have +_two_—to fetch and carry. One to fetch, and one to carry.” + +At this moment the Messenger arrived: he was far too much out of breath +to say a word, and could only wave his hands about, and make the most +fearful faces at the poor King. + +“This young lady loves you with an H,” the King said, introducing Alice +in the hope of turning off the Messenger’s attention from himself—but +it was no use—the Anglo-Saxon attitudes only got more extraordinary +every moment, while the great eyes rolled wildly from side to side. + +“You alarm me!” said the King. “I feel faint—Give me a ham sandwich!” + +On which the Messenger, to Alice’s great amusement, opened a bag that +hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who devoured it +greedily. + +“Another sandwich!” said the King. + +“There’s nothing but hay left now,” the Messenger said, peeping into +the bag. + +“Hay, then,” the King murmured in a faint whisper. + +Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal. “There’s nothing +like eating hay when you’re faint,” he remarked to her, as he munched +away. + +“I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,” Alice +suggested: “or some sal-volatile.” + +“I didn’t say there was nothing _better_,” the King replied. “I said +there was nothing _like_ it.” Which Alice did not venture to deny. + +“Who did you pass on the road?” the King went on, holding out his hand +to the Messenger for some more hay. + +“Nobody,” said the Messenger. + +“Quite right,” said the King: “this young lady saw him too. So of +course Nobody walks slower than you.” + +“I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sulky tone. “I’m sure nobody +walks much faster than I do!” + +“He can’t do that,” said the King, “or else he’d have been here first. +However, now you’ve got your breath, you may tell us what’s happened in +the town.” + +“I’ll whisper it,” said the Messenger, putting his hands to his mouth +in the shape of a trumpet, and stooping so as to get close to the +King’s ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she wanted to hear the news +too. However, instead of whispering, he simply shouted at the top of +his voice “They’re at it again!” + +“Do you call _that_ a whisper?” cried the poor King, jumping up and +shaking himself. “If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you buttered! +It went through and through my head like an earthquake!” + +“It would have to be a very tiny earthquake!” thought Alice. “Who are +at it again?” she ventured to ask. + +“Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,” said the King. + +“Fighting for the crown?” + +“Yes, to be sure,” said the King: “and the best of the joke is, that +it’s _my_ crown all the while! Let’s run and see them.” And they +trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the +old song:— + +“The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: +The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. +Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown; +Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.” + + +“Does—the one—that wins—get the crown?” she asked, as well as she +could, for the run was putting her quite out of breath. + +“Dear me, no!” said the King. “What an idea!” + +“Would you—be good enough,” Alice panted out, after running a little +further, “to stop a minute—just to get—one’s breath again?” + +“I’m _good_ enough,” the King said, “only I’m not strong enough. You +see, a minute goes by so fearfully quick. You might as well try to stop +a Bandersnatch!” + +Alice had no more breath for talking, so they trotted on in silence, +till they came in sight of a great crowd, in the middle of which the +Lion and Unicorn were fighting. They were in such a cloud of dust, that +at first Alice could not make out which was which: but she soon managed +to distinguish the Unicorn by his horn. + +They placed themselves close to where Hatta, the other messenger, was +standing watching the fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece +of bread-and-butter in the other. + +“He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t finished his tea when he +was sent in,” Haigha whispered to Alice: “and they only give them +oyster-shells in there—so you see he’s very hungry and thirsty. How are +you, dear child?” he went on, putting his arm affectionately round +Hatta’s neck. + +Hatta looked round and nodded, and went on with his bread and butter. + +“Were you happy in prison, dear child?” said Haigha. + +Hatta looked round once more, and this time a tear or two trickled down +his cheek: but not a word would he say. + +“Speak, can’t you!” Haigha cried impatiently. But Hatta only munched +away, and drank some more tea. + +“Speak, won’t you!” cried the King. “How are they getting on with the +fight?” + +Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of +bread-and-butter. “They’re getting on very well,” he said in a choking +voice: “each of them has been down about eighty-seven times.” + +“Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white bread and the brown?” +Alice ventured to remark. + +“It’s waiting for “em now,” said Hatta: “this is a bit of it as I’m +eating.” + +There was a pause in the fight just then, and the Lion and the Unicorn +sat down, panting, while the King called out “Ten minutes allowed for +refreshments!” Haigha and Hatta set to work at once, carrying rough +trays of white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but it was +_very_ dry. + +“I don’t think they’ll fight any more to-day,” the King said to Hatta: +“go and order the drums to begin.” And Hatta went bounding away like a +grasshopper. + +For a minute or two Alice stood silent, watching him. Suddenly she +brightened up. “Look, look!” she cried, pointing eagerly. “There’s the +White Queen running across the country! She came flying out of the wood +over yonder—How fast those Queens _can_ run!” + +“There’s some enemy after her, no doubt,” the King said, without even +looking round. “That wood’s full of them.” + +“But aren’t you going to run and help her?” Alice asked, very much +surprised at his taking it so quietly. + +“No use, no use!” said the King. “She runs so fearfully quick. You +might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a memorandum +about her, if you like—She’s a dear good creature,” he repeated softly +to himself, as he opened his memorandum-book. “Do you spell ‘creature’ +with a double ‘e’?” + +At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his +pockets. “I had the best of it this time?” he said to the King, just +glancing at him as he passed. + +“A little—a little,” the King replied, rather nervously. “You shouldn’t +have run him through with your horn, you know.” + +“It didn’t hurt him,” the Unicorn said carelessly, and he was going on, +when his eye happened to fall upon Alice: he turned round rather +instantly, and stood for some time looking at her with an air of the +deepest disgust. + +“What—is—this?” he said at last. + +“This is a child!” Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to +introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an +Anglo-Saxon attitude. “We only found it to-day. It’s as large as life, +and twice as natural!” + +“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn. “Is +it alive?” + +“It can talk,” said Haigha, solemnly. + +The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said “Talk, child.” + +Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do +you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I +never saw one alive before!” + +“Well, now that we _have_ seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if +you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?” + +“Yes, if you like,” said Alice. + +“Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!” the Unicorn went on, turning +from her to the King. “None of your brown bread for me!” + +“Certainly—certainly!” the King muttered, and beckoned to Haigha. “Open +the bag!” he whispered. “Quick! Not that one—that’s full of hay!” + +Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and gave it to Alice to hold, +while he got out a dish and carving-knife. How they all came out of it +Alice couldn’t guess. It was just like a conjuring-trick, she thought. + +The Lion had joined them while this was going on: he looked very tired +and sleepy, and his eyes were half shut. “What’s this!” he said, +blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in a deep hollow tone that +sounded like the tolling of a great bell. + +“Ah, what _is_ it, now?” the Unicorn cried eagerly. “You’ll never +guess! _I_ couldn’t.” + +The Lion looked at Alice wearily. “Are you animal—vegetable—or +mineral?” he said, yawning at every other word. + +“It’s a fabulous monster!” the Unicorn cried out, before Alice could +reply. + +“Then hand round the plum-cake, Monster,” the Lion said, lying down and +putting his chin on his paws. “And sit down, both of you,” (to the King +and the Unicorn): “fair play with the cake, you know!” + +The King was evidently very uncomfortable at having to sit down between +the two great creatures; but there was no other place for him. + +“What a fight we might have for the crown, _now_!” the Unicorn said, +looking slyly up at the crown, which the poor King was nearly shaking +off his head, he trembled so much. + +“I should win easy,” said the Lion. + +“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Unicorn. + +“Why, I beat you all round the town, you chicken!” the Lion replied +angrily, half getting up as he spoke. + +Here the King interrupted, to prevent the quarrel going on: he was very +nervous, and his voice quite quivered. “All round the town?” he said. +“That’s a good long way. Did you go by the old bridge, or the +market-place? You get the best view by the old bridge.” + +“I’m sure I don’t know,” the Lion growled out as he lay down again. +“There was too much dust to see anything. What a time the Monster is, +cutting up that cake!” + +Alice had seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great +dish on her knees, and was sawing away diligently with the knife. “It’s +very provoking!” she said, in reply to the Lion (she was getting quite +used to being called “the Monster”). “I’ve cut several slices already, +but they always join on again!” + +“You don’t know how to manage Looking-glass cakes,” the Unicorn +remarked. “Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards.” + +This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obediently got up, and carried +the dish round, and the cake divided itself into three pieces as she +did so. “_Now_ cut it up,” said the Lion, as she returned to her place +with the empty dish. + +“I say, this isn’t fair!” cried the Unicorn, as Alice sat with the +knife in her hand, very much puzzled how to begin. “The Monster has +given the Lion twice as much as me!” + +“She’s kept none for herself, anyhow,” said the Lion. “Do you like +plum-cake, Monster?” + +But before Alice could answer him, the drums began. + +Where the noise came from, she couldn’t make out: the air seemed full +of it, and it rang through and through her head till she felt quite +deafened. She started to her feet and sprang across the little brook in +her terror, + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +and had just time to see the Lion and the Unicorn rise to their feet, +with angry looks at being interrupted in their feast, before she +dropped to her knees, and put her hands over her ears, vainly trying to +shut out the dreadful uproar. + +“If _that_ doesn’t ‘drum them out of town,’” she thought to herself, +“nothing ever will!” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +“It’s my own Invention” + + +After a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead +silence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one +to be seen, and her first thought was that she must have been dreaming +about the Lion and the Unicorn and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers. +However, there was the great dish still lying at her feet, on which she +had tried to cut the plum-cake, “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” she +said to herself, “unless—unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only +I do hope it’s _my_ dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like +belonging to another person’s dream,” she went on in a rather +complaining tone: “I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what +happens!” + +At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of +“Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and a Knight dressed in crimson armour came +galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club. Just as he reached +her, the horse stopped suddenly: “You’re my prisoner!” the Knight +cried, as he tumbled off his horse. + +Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself +at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again. +As soon as he was comfortably in the saddle, he began once more “You’re +my—” but here another voice broke in “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and Alice +looked round in some surprise for the new enemy. + +This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice’s side, and +tumbled off his horse just as the Red Knight had done: then he got on +again, and the two Knights sat and looked at each other for some time +without speaking. Alice looked from one to the other in some +bewilderment. + +“She’s _my_ prisoner, you know!” the Red Knight said at last. + +“Yes, but then _I_ came and rescued her!” the White Knight replied. + +“Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the Red Knight, as he took up +his helmet (which hung from the saddle, and was something the shape of +a horse’s head), and put it on. + +“You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?” the White Knight +remarked, putting on his helmet too. + +“I always do,” said the Red Knight, and they began banging away at each +other with such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out of the way +of the blows. + +“I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,” she said to herself, as +she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place: “one +Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off +his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles off himself—and another Rule +seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were +Punch and Judy—What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a +whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the +horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were +tables!” + +Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to be that +they always fell on their heads, and the battle ended with their both +falling off in this way, side by side: when they got up again, they +shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted and galloped off. + +“It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?” said the White Knight, as he +came up panting. + +“I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “I don’t want to be anybody’s +prisoner. I want to be a Queen.” + +“So you will, when you’ve crossed the next brook,” said the White +Knight. “I’ll see you safe to the end of the wood—and then I must go +back, you know. That’s the end of my move.” + +“Thank you very much,” said Alice. “May I help you off with your +helmet?” It was evidently more than he could manage by himself; +however, she managed to shake him out of it at last. + +“Now one can breathe more easily,” said the Knight, putting back his +shaggy hair with both hands, and turning his gentle face and large mild +eyes to Alice. She thought she had never seen such a strange-looking +soldier in all her life. + +He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and +he had a queer-shaped little deal box fastened across his shoulder, +upside-down, and with the lid hanging open. Alice looked at it with +great curiosity. + +“I see you’re admiring my little box.” the Knight said in a friendly +tone. “It’s my own invention—to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You see +I carry it upside-down, so that the rain can’t get in.” + +“But the things can get _out_,” Alice gently remarked. “Do you know the +lid’s open?” + +“I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade of vexation passing over +his face. “Then all the things must have fallen out! And the box is no +use without them.” He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to +throw it into the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, +and he hung it carefully on a tree. “Can you guess why I did that?” he +said to Alice. + +Alice shook her head. + +“In hopes some bees may make a nest in it—then I should get the honey.” + +“But you’ve got a bee-hive—or something like one—fastened to the +saddle,” said Alice. + +“Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight said in a discontented +tone, “one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. +And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees +out—or the bees keep the mice out, I don’t know which.” + +“I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,” said Alice. “It isn’t +very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.” + +“Not very likely, perhaps,” said the Knight: “but if they _do_ come, I +don’t choose to have them running all about.” + +“You see,” he went on after a pause, “it’s as well to be provided for +_everything_. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets round +his feet.” + +“But what are they for?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. + +“To guard against the bites of sharks,” the Knight replied. “It’s an +invention of my own. And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the end of +the wood—What’s the dish for?” + +“It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice. + +“We’d better take it with us,” the Knight said. “It’ll come in handy if +we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.” + +This took a very long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open +very carefully, because the Knight was so _very_ awkward in putting in +the dish: the first two or three times that he tried he fell in himself +instead. “It’s rather a tight fit, you see,” he said, as they got it in +a last; “There are so many candlesticks in the bag.” And he hung it to +the saddle, which was already loaded with bunches of carrots, and +fire-irons, and many other things. + +“I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened on?” he continued, as they +set off. + +“Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling. + +“That’s hardly enough,” he said, anxiously. “You see the wind is so +_very_ strong here. It’s as strong as soup.” + +“Have you invented a plan for keeping the hair from being blown off?” +Alice enquired. + +“Not yet,” said the Knight. “But I’ve got a plan for keeping it from +_falling_ off.” + +“I should like to hear it, very much.” + +“First you take an upright stick,” said the Knight. “Then you make your +hair creep up it, like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is +because it hangs _down_—things never fall _upwards_, you know. It’s a +plan of my own invention. You may try it if you like.” + +It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few +minutes she walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now +and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who certainly was _not_ a +good rider. + +Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in +front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather +suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except +that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he +generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon +found that it was the best plan not to walk _quite_ close to the horse. + +“I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice in riding,” she ventured to +say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble. + +The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the +remark. “What makes you say that?” he asked, as he scrambled back into +the saddle, keeping hold of Alice’s hair with one hand, to save himself +from falling over on the other side. + +“Because people don’t fall off quite so often, when they’ve had much +practice.” + +“I’ve had plenty of practice,” the Knight said very gravely: “plenty of +practice!” + +Alice could think of nothing better to say than “Indeed?” but she said +it as heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after +this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice +watching anxiously for the next tumble. + +“The great art of riding,” the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, +waving his right arm as he spoke, “is to keep—” Here the sentence ended +as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of +his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking. She was quite +frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him +up, “I hope no bones are broken?” + +“None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if he didn’t mind breaking two +or three of them. “The great art of riding, as I was saying, is—to keep +your balance properly. Like this, you know—” + +He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice +what he meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the +horse’s feet. + +“Plenty of practice!” he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was +getting him on his feet again. “Plenty of practice!” + +“It’s too ridiculous!” cried Alice, losing all her patience this time. +“You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!” + +“Does that kind go smoothly?” the Knight asked in a tone of great +interest, clasping his arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just in +time to save himself from tumbling off again. + +“Much more smoothly than a live horse,” Alice said, with a little +scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it. + +“I’ll get one,” the Knight said thoughtfully to himself. “One or +two—several.” + +There was a short silence after this, and then the Knight went on +again. “I’m a great hand at inventing things. Now, I daresay you +noticed, that last time you picked me up, that I was looking rather +thoughtful?” + +“You _were_ a little grave,” said Alice. + +“Well, just then I was inventing a new way of getting over a gate—would +you like to hear it?” + +“Very much indeed,” Alice said politely. + +“I’ll tell you how I came to think of it,” said the Knight. “You see, I +said to myself, ‘The only difficulty is with the feet: the _head_ is +high enough already.’ Now, first I put my head on the top of the +gate—then I stand on my head—then the feet are high enough, you +see—then I’m over, you see.” + +“Yes, I suppose you’d be over when that was done,” Alice said +thoughtfully: “but don’t you think it would be rather hard?” + +“I haven’t tried it yet,” the Knight said, gravely: “so I can’t tell +for certain—but I’m afraid it _would_ be a little hard.” + +He looked so vexed at the idea, that Alice changed the subject hastily. +“What a curious helmet you’ve got!” she said cheerfully. “Is that your +invention too?” + +The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet, which hung from the +saddle. “Yes,” he said, “but I’ve invented a better one than that—like +a sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it +always touched the ground directly. So I had a _very_ little way to +fall, you see—But there _was_ the danger of falling _into_ it, to be +sure. That happened to me once—and the worst of it was, before I could +get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on. He thought it +was his own helmet.” + +The knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh. +“I’m afraid you must have hurt him,” she said in a trembling voice, +“being on the top of his head.” + +“I had to kick him, of course,” the Knight said, very seriously. “And +then he took the helmet off again—but it took hours and hours to get me +out. I was as fast as—as lightning, you know.” + +“But that’s a different kind of fastness,” Alice objected. + +The Knight shook his head. “It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can +assure you!” he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as he said +this, and instantly rolled out of the saddle, and fell headlong into a +deep ditch. + +Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him. She was rather +startled by the fall, as for some time he had kept on very well, and +she was afraid that he really _was_ hurt this time. However, though she +could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was much relieved to +hear that he was talking on in his usual tone. “All kinds of fastness,” +he repeated: “but it was careless of him to put another man’s helmet +on—with the man in it, too.” + +“How _can_ you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked, +as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank. + +The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where +my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. +In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new +things.” + +“Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,” he went on after +a pause, “was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course.” + +“In time to have it cooked for the next course?” said Alice. “Well, not +the _next_ course,” the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone: “no, +certainly not the next _course_.” + +“Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn’t have two +pudding-courses in one dinner?” + +“Well, not the _next_ day,” the Knight repeated as before: “not the +next _day_. In fact,” he went on, holding his head down, and his voice +getting lower and lower, “I don’t believe that pudding ever _was_ +cooked! In fact, I don’t believe that pudding ever _will_ be cooked! +And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.” + +“What did you mean it to be made of?” Alice asked, hoping to cheer him +up, for the poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it. + +“It began with blotting paper,” the Knight answered with a groan. + +“That wouldn’t be very nice, I’m afraid—” + +“Not very nice _alone_,” he interrupted, quite eagerly: “but you’ve no +idea what a difference it makes mixing it with other things—such as +gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must leave you.” They had just +come to the end of the wood. + +Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding. + +“You are sad,” the Knight said in an anxious tone: “let me sing you a +song to comfort you.” + +“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry +that day. + +“It’s long,” said the Knight, “but very, _very_ beautiful. Everybody +that hears me sing it—either it brings the _tears_ into their eyes, or +else—” + +“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. + +“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called +‘_Haddocks’ Eyes_.’” + +“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to feel +interested. + +“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. +“That’s what the name is _called_. The name really _is_ ‘_The Aged Aged +Man_.’” + +“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the _song_ is called’?” Alice +corrected herself. + +“No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The _song_ is called +‘_Ways and Means_’: but that’s only what it’s _called_, you know!” + +“Well, what _is_ the song, then?” said Alice, who was by this time +completely bewildered. + +“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really _is_ +‘_A-sitting On A Gate_’: and the tune’s my own invention.” + +So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: +then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile +lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of his +song, he began. + +Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The +Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most +clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, +as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of +the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on +his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly +moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the +grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this +she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she +leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a +half dream, to the melancholy music of the song. + +“But the tune _isn’t_ his own invention,” she said to herself: “it’s +‘_I give thee all, I can no more_.’” She stood and listened very +attentively, but no tears came into her eyes. + +“I’ll tell thee everything I can; + There’s little to relate. +I saw an aged aged man, + A-sitting on a gate. +‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said, + ‘and how is it you live?’ +And his answer trickled through my head + Like water through a sieve. + +He said ‘I look for butterflies + That sleep among the wheat: +I make them into mutton-pies, + And sell them in the street. +I sell them unto men,’ he said, + ‘Who sail on stormy seas; +And that’s the way I get my bread— + A trifle, if you please.’ + +But I was thinking of a plan + To dye one’s whiskers green, +And always use so large a fan + That they could not be seen. +So, having no reply to give + To what the old man said, +I cried, ‘Come, tell me how you live!’ + And thumped him on the head. + +His accents mild took up the tale: + He said ‘I go my ways, +And when I find a mountain-rill, + I set it in a blaze; +And thence they make a stuff they call + Rolands’ Macassar Oil— +Yet twopence-halfpenny is all + They give me for my toil.’ + +But I was thinking of a way + To feed oneself on batter, +And so go on from day to day + Getting a little fatter. +I shook him well from side to side, + Until his face was blue: +‘Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried, + ‘And what it is you do!’ + +He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes + Among the heather bright, +And work them into waistcoat-buttons + In the silent night. +And these I do not sell for gold + Or coin of silvery shine +But for a copper halfpenny, + And that will purchase nine. + +‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, + Or set limed twigs for crabs; +I sometimes search the grassy knolls + For wheels of Hansom-cabs. +And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink) + ‘By which I get my wealth— +And very gladly will I drink + Your Honour’s noble health.’ + +I heard him then, for I had just + Completed my design +To keep the Menai bridge from rust + By boiling it in wine. +I thanked him much for telling me + The way he got his wealth, +But chiefly for his wish that he + Might drink my noble health. + +And now, if e’er by chance I put + My fingers into glue +Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot + Into a left-hand shoe, +Or if I drop upon my toe + A very heavy weight, +I weep, for it reminds me so, +Of that old man I used to know— +Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow, +Whose hair was whiter than the snow, +Whose face was very like a crow, +With eyes, like cinders, all aglow, +Who seemed distracted with his woe, +Who rocked his body to and fro, +And muttered mumblingly and low, +As if his mouth were full of dough, +Who snorted like a buffalo— +That summer evening, long ago, + A-sitting on a gate.” + + +As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the +reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road by which they had +come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” he said, “down the hill and over +that little brook, and then you’ll be a Queen—But you’ll stay and see +me off first?” he added as Alice turned with an eager look in the +direction to which he pointed. “I shan’t be long. You’ll wait and wave +your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll +encourage me, you see.” + +“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice: “and thank you very much for coming +so far—and for the song—I liked it very much.” + +“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully: “but you didn’t cry so much as +I thought you would.” + +So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the +forest. “It won’t take long to see him _off_, I expect,” Alice said to +herself, as she stood watching him. “There he goes! Right on his head +as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily—that comes of having +so many things hung round the horse—” So she went on talking to +herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and +the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After +the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her +handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight. + +“I hope it encouraged him,” she said, as she turned to run down the +hill: “and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it +sounds!” A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. “The +Eighth Square at last!” she cried as she bounded across, + +* * * * * * * + + * * * * * * + +* * * * * * * + + +and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with little +flower-beds dotted about it here and there. “Oh, how glad I am to get +here! And what _is_ this on my head?” she exclaimed in a tone of +dismay, as she put her hands up to something very heavy, and fitted +tight all round her head. + +“But how _can_ it have got there without my knowing it?” she said to +herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what +it could possibly be. + +It was a golden crown. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +Queen Alice + + +“Well, this _is_ grand!” said Alice. “I never expected I should be a +Queen so soon—and I’ll tell you what it is, your majesty,” she went on +in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), +“it’ll never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that! +Queens have to be dignified, you know!” + +So she got up and walked about—rather stiffly just at first, as she was +afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with +the thought that there was nobody to see her, “and if I really am a +Queen,” she said as she sat down again, “I shall be able to manage it +quite well in time.” + +Everything was happening so oddly that she didn’t feel a bit surprised +at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one +on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came +there, but she feared it would not be quite civil. However, there would +be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. “Please, would +you tell me—” she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen. + +“Speak when you’re spoken to!” The Queen sharply interrupted her. + +“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready +for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, +and the other person always waited for _you_ to begin, you see nobody +would ever say anything, so that—” + +“Ridiculous!” cried the Queen. “Why, don’t you see, child—” here she +broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly +changed the subject of the conversation. “What do you mean by ‘If you +really are a Queen’? What right have you to call yourself so? You can’t +be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination. And +the sooner we begin it, the better.” + +“I only said ‘if’!” poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone. + +The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a +little shudder, “She _says_ she only said ‘if’—” + +“But she said a great deal more than that!” the White Queen moaned, +wringing her hands. “Oh, ever so much more than that!” + +“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen said to Alice. “Always speak the +truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards.” + +“I’m sure I didn’t mean—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen +interrupted her impatiently. + +“That’s just what I complain of! You _should_ have meant! What do you +suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should +have some meaning—and a child’s more important than a joke, I hope. You +couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with both hands.” + +“I don’t deny things with my _hands_,” Alice objected. + +“Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. “I said you couldn’t if you +tried.” + +“She’s in that state of mind,” said the White Queen, “that she wants to +deny _something_—only she doesn’t know what to deny!” + +“A nasty, vicious temper,” the Red Queen remarked; and then there was +an uncomfortable silence for a minute or two. + +The Red Queen broke the silence by saying to the White Queen, “I invite +you to Alice’s dinner-party this afternoon.” + +The White Queen smiled feebly, and said “And I invite _you_.” + +“I didn’t know I was to have a party at all,” said Alice; “but if there +is to be one, I think _I_ ought to invite the guests.” + +“We gave you the opportunity of doing it,” the Red Queen remarked: “but +I daresay you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet?” + +“Manners are not taught in lessons,” said Alice. “Lessons teach you to +do sums, and things of that sort.” + +“And you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and +one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?” + +“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” + +“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can you do +Subtraction? Take nine from eight.” + +“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very readily: “but—” + +“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can you do Division? +Divide a loaf by a knife—what’s the answer to that?” + +“I suppose—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. +“Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone +from a dog: what remains?” + +Alice considered. “The bone wouldn’t remain, of course, if I took +it—and the dog wouldn’t remain; it would come to bite me—and I’m sure +_I_ shouldn’t remain!” + +“Then you think nothing would remain?” said the Red Queen. + +“I think that’s the answer.” + +“Wrong, as usual,” said the Red Queen: “the dog’s temper would remain.” + +“But I don’t see how—” + +“Why, look here!” the Red Queen cried. “The dog would lose its temper, +wouldn’t it?” + +“Perhaps it would,” Alice replied cautiously. + +“Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!” the Queen +exclaimed triumphantly. + +Alice said, as gravely as she could, “They might go different ways.” +But she couldn’t help thinking to herself, “What dreadful nonsense we +_are_ talking!” + +“She can’t do sums a _bit_!” the Queens said together, with great +emphasis. + +“Can _you_ do sums?” Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, +for she didn’t like being found fault with so much. + +The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. “I can do Addition, if you give me +time—but I can’t do Subtraction, under _any_ circumstances!” + +“Of course you know your A B C?” said the Red Queen. + +“To be sure I do.” said Alice. + +“So do I,” the White Queen whispered: “we’ll often say it over +together, dear. And I’ll tell you a secret—I can read words of one +letter! Isn’t _that_ grand! However, don’t be discouraged. You’ll come +to it in time.” + +Here the Red Queen began again. “Can you answer useful questions?” she +said. “How is bread made?” + +“I know _that_!” Alice cried eagerly. “You take some flour—” + +“Where do you pick the flower?” the White Queen asked. “In a garden, or +in the hedges?” + +“Well, it isn’t _picked_ at all,” Alice explained: “it’s _ground_—” + +“How many acres of ground?” said the White Queen. “You mustn’t leave +out so many things.” + +“Fan her head!” the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. “She’ll be +feverish after so much thinking.” So they set to work and fanned her +with bunches of leaves, till she had to beg them to leave off, it blew +her hair about so. + +“She’s all right again now,” said the Red Queen. “Do you know +Languages? What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?” + +“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English,” Alice replied gravely. + +“Who ever said it was?” said the Red Queen. + +Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time. “If you’ll +tell me what language ‘fiddle-de-dee’ is, I’ll tell you the French for +it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. + +But the Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said “Queens +never make bargains.” + +“I wish Queens never asked questions,” Alice thought to herself. + +“Don’t let us quarrel,” the White Queen said in an anxious tone. “What +is the cause of lightning?” + +“The cause of lightning,” Alice said very decidedly, for she felt quite +certain about this, “is the thunder—no, no!” she hastily corrected +herself. “I meant the other way.” + +“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once +said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.” + +“Which reminds me—” the White Queen said, looking down and nervously +clasping and unclasping her hands, “we had _such_ a thunderstorm last +Tuesday—I mean one of the last set of Tuesdays, you know.” + +Alice was puzzled. “In _our_ country,” she remarked, “there’s only one +day at a time.” + +The Red Queen said, “That’s a poor thin way of doing things. Now +_here_, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and +sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together—for +warmth, you know.” + +“Are five nights warmer than one night, then?” Alice ventured to ask. + +“Five times as warm, of course.” + +“But they should be five times as _cold_, by the same rule—” + +“Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five times as warm, _and_ five times +as cold—just as I’m five times as rich as you are, _and_ five times as +clever!” + +Alice sighed and gave it up. “It’s exactly like a riddle with no +answer!” she thought. + +“Humpty Dumpty saw it too,” the White Queen went on in a low voice, +more as if she were talking to herself. “He came to the door with a +corkscrew in his hand—” + +“What did he want?” said the Red Queen. + +“He said he _would_ come in,” the White Queen went on, “because he was +looking for a hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there wasn’t such a +thing in the house, that morning.” + +“Is there generally?” Alice asked in an astonished tone. + +“Well, only on Thursdays,” said the Queen. + +“I know what he came for,” said Alice: “he wanted to punish the fish, +because—” + +Here the White Queen began again. “It was _such_ a thunderstorm, you +can’t think!” (“She _never_ could, you know,” said the Red Queen.) “And +part of the roof came off, and ever so much thunder got in—and it went +rolling round the room in great lumps—and knocking over the tables and +things—till I was so frightened, I couldn’t remember my own name!” + +Alice thought to herself, “I never should _try_ to remember my name in +the middle of an accident! Where would be the use of it?” but she did +not say this aloud, for fear of hurting the poor Queen’s feeling. + +“Your Majesty must excuse her,” the Red Queen said to Alice, taking one +of the White Queen’s hands in her own, and gently stroking it: “she +means well, but she can’t help saying foolish things, as a general +rule.” + +The White Queen looked timidly at Alice, who felt she _ought_ to say +something kind, but really couldn’t think of anything at the moment. + +“She never was really well brought up,” the Red Queen went on: “but +it’s amazing how good-tempered she is! Pat her on the head, and see how +pleased she’ll be!” But this was more than Alice had courage to do. + +“A little kindness—and putting her hair in papers—would do wonders with +her—” + +The White Queen gave a deep sigh, and laid her head on Alice’s +shoulder. “I _am_ so sleepy?” she moaned. + +“She’s tired, poor thing!” said the Red Queen. “Smooth her hair—lend +her your nightcap—and sing her a soothing lullaby.” + +“I haven’t got a nightcap with me,” said Alice, as she tried to obey +the first direction: “and I don’t know any soothing lullabies.” + +“I must do it myself, then,” said the Red Queen, and she began: + +“Hush-a-by lady, in Alice’s lap! +Till the feast’s ready, we’ve time for a nap: +When the feast’s over, we’ll go to the ball— +Red Queen, and White Queen, and Alice, and all! + + +“And now you know the words,” she added, as she put her head down on +Alice’s other shoulder, “just sing it through to _me_. I’m getting +sleepy, too.” In another moment both Queens were fast asleep, and +snoring loud. + +“What _am_ I to do?” exclaimed Alice, looking about in great +perplexity, as first one round head, and then the other, rolled down +from her shoulder, and lay like a heavy lump in her lap. “I don’t think +it _ever_ happened before, that any one had to take care of two Queens +asleep at once! No, not in all the History of England—it couldn’t, you +know, because there never was more than one Queen at a time. Do wake +up, you heavy things!” she went on in an impatient tone; but there was +no answer but a gentle snoring. + +The snoring got more distinct every minute, and sounded more like a +tune: at last she could even make out the words, and she listened so +eagerly that, when the two great heads vanished from her lap, she +hardly missed them. + +She was standing before an arched doorway over which were the words +QUEEN ALICE in large letters, and on each side of the arch there was a +bell-handle; one was marked “Visitors’ Bell,” and the other “Servants’ +Bell.” + +“I’ll wait till the song’s over,” thought Alice, “and then I’ll +ring—the—_which_ bell must I ring?” she went on, very much puzzled by +the names. “I’m not a visitor, and I’m not a servant. There _ought_ to +be one marked ‘Queen,’ you know—” + +Just then the door opened a little way, and a creature with a long beak +put its head out for a moment and said “No admittance till the week +after next!” and shut the door again with a bang. + +Alice knocked and rang in vain for a long time, but at last, a very old +Frog, who was sitting under a tree, got up and hobbled slowly towards +her: he was dressed in bright yellow, and had enormous boots on. + +“What is it, now?” the Frog said in a deep hoarse whisper. + +Alice turned round, ready to find fault with anybody. “Where’s the +servant whose business it is to answer the door?” she began angrily. + +“Which door?” said the Frog. + +Alice almost stamped with irritation at the slow drawl in which he +spoke. “_This_ door, of course!” + +The Frog looked at the door with his large dull eyes for a minute: then +he went nearer and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying +whether the paint would come off; then he looked at Alice. + +“To answer the door?” he said. “What’s it been asking of?” He was so +hoarse that Alice could scarcely hear him. + +“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. + +“I talks English, doesn’t I?” the Frog went on. “Or are you deaf? What +did it ask you?” + +“Nothing!” Alice said impatiently. “I’ve been knocking at it!” + +“Shouldn’t do that—shouldn’t do that—” the Frog muttered. “Vexes it, +you know.” Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one of his +great feet. “You let _it_ alone,” he panted out, as he hobbled back to +his tree, “and it’ll let _you_ alone, you know.” + +At this moment the door was flung open, and a shrill voice was heard +singing: + +“To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said, +‘I’ve a sceptre in hand, I’ve a crown on my head; +Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be, +Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me.’” + + +And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus: + +“Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can, +And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran: +Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea— +And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!” + + +Then followed a confused noise of cheering, and Alice thought to +herself, “Thirty times three makes ninety. I wonder if any one’s +counting?” In a minute there was silence again, and the same shrill +voice sang another verse; + +“‘O Looking-Glass creatures,’ quoth Alice, ‘draw near! +“Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear: +“Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea +Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!’” + + +Then came the chorus again:— + +“Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink, +Or anything else that is pleasant to drink: +Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine— +And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!” + + +“Ninety times nine!” Alice repeated in despair, “Oh, that’ll never be +done! I’d better go in at once—” and there was a dead silence the +moment she appeared. + +Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large +hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: +some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among +them. “I’m glad they’ve come without waiting to be asked,” she thought: +“I should never have known who were the right people to invite!” + +There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White +Queens had already taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. +Alice sat down in it, rather uncomfortable in the silence, and longing +for some one to speak. + +At last the Red Queen began. “You’ve missed the soup and fish,” she +said. “Put on the joint!” And the waiters set a leg of mutton before +Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve +a joint before. + +“You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,” +said the Red Queen. “Alice—Mutton; Mutton—Alice.” The leg of mutton got +up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the +bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused. + +“May I give you a slice?” she said, taking up the knife and fork, and +looking from one Queen to the other. + +“Certainly not,” the Red Queen said, very decidedly: “it isn’t +etiquette to cut any one you’ve been introduced to. Remove the joint!” +And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its +place. + +“I won’t be introduced to the pudding, please,” Alice said rather +hastily, “or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?” + +But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled “Pudding—Alice; +Alice—Pudding. Remove the pudding!” and the waiters took it away so +quickly that Alice couldn’t return its bow. + +However, she didn’t see why the Red Queen should be the only one to +give orders, so, as an experiment, she called out “Waiter! Bring back +the pudding!” and there it was again in a moment like a +conjuring-trick. It was so large that she couldn’t help feeling a +_little_ shy with it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she +conquered her shyness by a great effort and cut a slice and handed it +to the Red Queen. + +“What impertinence!” said the Pudding. “I wonder how you’d like it, if +I were to cut a slice out of _you_, you creature!” + +It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn’t a word to +say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp. + +“Make a remark,” said the Red Queen: “it’s ridiculous to leave all the +conversation to the pudding!” + +“Do you know, I’ve had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me +to-day,” Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment +she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed +upon her; “and it’s a very curious thing, I think—every poem was about +fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re so fond of fishes, all +about here?” + +She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. +“As to fishes,” she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth +close to Alice’s ear, “her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in +poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?” + +“Her Red Majesty’s very kind to mention it,” the White Queen murmured +into Alice’s other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. “It +would be _such_ a treat! May I?” + +“Please do,” Alice said very politely. + +The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice’s cheek. Then +she began: + + “‘First, the fish must be caught.’ +That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it. + ‘Next, the fish must be bought.’ +That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it. + + ‘Now cook me the fish!’ +That is easy, and will not take more than a minute. + ‘Let it lie in a dish!’ +That is easy, because it already is in it. + + ‘Bring it here! Let me sup!’ +It is easy to set such a dish on the table. + ‘Take the dish-cover up!’ +Ah, that is so hard that I fear I’m unable! + + For it holds it like glue— +Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle: + Which is easiest to do, +Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle?” + + +“Take a minute to think about it, and then guess,” said the Red Queen. +“Meanwhile, we’ll drink your health—Queen Alice’s health!” she screamed +at the top of her voice, and all the guests began drinking it directly, +and very queerly they managed it: some of them put their glasses upon +their heads like extinguishers, and drank all that trickled down their +faces—others upset the decanters, and drank the wine as it ran off the +edges of the table—and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) +scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly lapping up +the gravy, “just like pigs in a trough!” thought Alice. + +“You ought to return thanks in a neat speech,” the Red Queen said, +frowning at Alice as she spoke. + +“We must support you, you know,” the White Queen whispered, as Alice +got up to do it, very obediently, but a little frightened. + +“Thank you very much,” she whispered in reply, “but I can do quite well +without.” + +“That wouldn’t be at all the thing,” the Red Queen said very decidedly: +so Alice tried to submit to it with a good grace. + +(“And they _did_ push so!” she said afterwards, when she was telling +her sister the history of the feast. “You would have thought they +wanted to squeeze me flat!”) + +In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep in her place while she +made her speech: the two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, that +they nearly lifted her up into the air: “I rise to return thanks—” +Alice began: and she really _did_ rise as she spoke, several inches; +but she got hold of the edge of the table, and managed to pull herself +down again. + +“Take care of yourself!” screamed the White Queen, seizing Alice’s hair +with both her hands. “Something’s going to happen!” + +And then (as Alice afterwards described it) all sorts of things +happened in a moment. The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking +something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top. As to the +bottles, they each took a pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on +as wings, and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about in all +directions: “and very like birds they look,” Alice thought to herself, +as well as she could in the dreadful confusion that was beginning. + +At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh at her side, and turned to see +what was the matter with the White Queen; but, instead of the Queen, +there was the leg of mutton sitting in the chair. “Here I am!” cried a +voice from the soup tureen, and Alice turned again, just in time to see +the Queen’s broad good-natured face grinning at her for a moment over +the edge of the tureen, before she disappeared into the soup. + +There was not a moment to be lost. Already several of the guests were +lying down in the dishes, and the soup ladle was walking up the table +towards Alice’s chair, and beckoning to her impatiently to get out of +its way. + +“I can’t stand this any longer!” she cried as she jumped up and seized +the table-cloth with both hands: one good pull, and plates, dishes, +guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the floor. + +“And as for _you_,” she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, +whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief—but the Queen was +no longer at her side—she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a +little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round +after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her. + +At any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was +far too much excited to be surprised at anything _now_. “As for _you_,” +she repeated, catching hold of the little creature in the very act of +jumping over a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, “I’ll +shake you into a kitten, that I will!” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +Shaking + + +She took her off the table as she spoke, and shook her backwards and +forwards with all her might. + +The Red Queen made no resistance whatever; only her face grew very +small, and her eyes got large and green: and still, as Alice went on +shaking her, she kept on growing shorter—and fatter—and softer—and +rounder—and— + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +Waking + + +—and it really _was_ a kitten, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +Which Dreamed it? + + +“Your majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,” Alice said, rubbing her eyes, +and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. “You +woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you’ve been along with me, +Kitty—all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?” + +It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the +remark) that, whatever you say to them, they _always_ purr. “If they +would only purr for ‘yes’ and mew for ‘no,’ or any rule of that sort,” +she had said, “so that one could keep up a conversation! But how _can_ +you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?” + +On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess +whether it meant “yes” or “no.” + +So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the +Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put +the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. “Now, Kitty!” she +cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. “Confess that was what you +turned into!” + +(“But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said, when she was explaining the +thing afterwards to her sister: “it turned away its head, and pretended +not to see it: but it looked a _little_ ashamed of itself, so I think +it _must_ have been the Red Queen.”) + +“Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice cried with a merry laugh. +“And curtsey while you’re thinking what to—what to purr. It saves time, +remember!” And she caught it up and gave it one little kiss, “just in +honour of having been a Red Queen.” + +“Snowdrop, my pet!” she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White +Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “when _will_ +Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the +reason you were so untidy in my dream—Dinah! do you know that you’re +scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it’s most disrespectful of you! + +“And what did _Dinah_ turn to, I wonder?” she prattled on, as she +settled comfortably down, with one elbow in the rug, and her chin in +her hand, to watch the kittens. “Tell me, Dinah, did you turn to Humpty +Dumpty? I _think_ you did—however, you’d better not mention it to your +friends just yet, for I’m not sure. + +“By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been really with me in my dream, +there was one thing you _would_ have enjoyed—I had such a quantity of +poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a +real treat. All the time you’re eating your breakfast, I’ll repeat ‘The +Walrus and the Carpenter’ to you; and then you can make believe it’s +oysters, dear! + +“Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a +serious question, my dear, and you should _not_ go on licking your paw +like that—as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, +it _must_ have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, +of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! _Was_ it the Red King, +Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, _do_ +help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking +kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the +question. + +Which do _you_ think it was? + + +A boat beneath a sunny sky, +Lingering onward dreamily +In an evening of July— + +Children three that nestle near, +Eager eye and willing ear, +Pleased a simple tale to hear— + +Long has paled that sunny sky: +Echoes fade and memories die. +Autumn frosts have slain July. + +Still she haunts me, phantomwise, +Alice moving under skies +Never seen by waking eyes. + +Children yet, the tale to hear, +Eager eye and willing ear, +Lovingly shall nestle near. + +In a Wonderland they lie, +Dreaming as the days go by, +Dreaming as the summers die: + +Ever drifting down the stream— +Lingering in the golden gleam— +Life, what is it but a dream? + + +THE SECRET GARDEN + +CHAPTER I + +THERE IS NO ONE LEFT + + +When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle +everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It +was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin +light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was +yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one +way or another. Her father had held a position under the English +Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had +been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself +with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary +was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to +understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the +child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, +fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she +became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way +also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces +of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her +and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be +angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years +old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The +young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked +her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other +governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter +time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to +know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all. + +One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she +awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw +that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah. + +"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you +stay. Send my Ayah to me." + +The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could +not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked +her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not +possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib. + +There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done +in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, +while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared +faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She +was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered +out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the +veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuck +big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time +growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she +would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned. + +"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig +is the worst insult of all. + +She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she +heard her mother come out on the veranda with some one. She was with a +fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. +Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that +he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child +stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this +when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib--Mary used to +call her that oftener than anything else--was such a tall, slim, pretty +person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and +she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and +she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and +Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever +this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and +scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face. + +"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say. + +"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. +Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago." + +The Mem Sahib wrung her hands. + +"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly +dinner party. What a fool I was!" + +At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the +servants' quarters that she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary stood +shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder. + +"What is it? What is it?" Mrs. Lennox gasped. + +"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You did not say it had +broken out among your servants." + +"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me! Come with me!" and +she turned and ran into the house. + +After that appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the +morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most +fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill +in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had +wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other servants were dead +and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and +dying people in all the bungalows. + +During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself +in the nursery and was forgotten by every one. Nobody thought of her, +nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew +nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only +knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and frightening +sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though a +partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as +if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for +some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty +she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It was sweet, and +she did not know how strong it was. Very soon it made her intensely +drowsy, and she went back to her nursery and shut herself in again, +frightened by cries she heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of +feet. The wine made her so sleepy that she could scarcely keep her eyes +open and she lay down on her bed and knew nothing more for a long time. + +Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but +she was not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried +in and out of the bungalow. + +When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was +perfectly still. She had never known it to be so silent before. She +heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got +well of the cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who +would take care of her now her Ayah was dead. There would be a new Ayah, +and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired +of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not +an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one. The noise +and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and +she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. +Every one was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was +fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered +nothing but themselves. But if every one had got well again, surely some +one would remember and come to look for her. + +But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more +and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting and when +she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her +with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a harmless +little thing who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out +of the room. He slipped under the door as she watched him. + +"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there was no one +in the bungalow but me and the snake." + +Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on +the veranda. They were men's footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow +and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them and they +seemed to open doors and look into rooms. + +"What desolation!" she heard one voice say. "That pretty, pretty woman! +I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though no one ever +saw her." + +Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door +a few minutes later. She looked an ugly, cross little thing and was +frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully +neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer she had once +seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled, but when he +saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back. + +"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child alone! In a +place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!" + +"I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly. +She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow "A place +like this!" "I fell asleep when every one had the cholera and I have +only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?" + +"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his +companions. "She has actually been forgotten!" + +"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does nobody +come?" + +The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even +thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away. + +"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come." + +It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that she had +neither father nor mother left; that they had died and been carried away +in the night, and that the few native servants who had not died also had +left the house as quickly as they could get out of it, none of them even +remembering that there was a Missie Sahib. That was why the place was so +quiet. It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and +the little rustling snake. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY + + +Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance and she had thought +her very pretty, but as she knew very little of her she could scarcely +have been expected to love her or to miss her very much when she was +gone. She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a +self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself, as she had +always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very +anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as +she had always been taken care of, she supposed she always would be. +What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to +nice people, who would be polite to her and give her her own way as her +Ayah and the other native servants had done. + +She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman's house +where she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English +clergyman was poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and +they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys +from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was so +disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play +with her. By the second day they had given her a nickname which made her +furious. + +It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a little boy with +impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose and Mary hated him. She was +playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing the day +the cholera broke out. She was making heaps of earth and paths for a +garden and Basil came and stood near to watch her. Presently he got +rather interested and suddenly made a suggestion. + +"Why don't you put a heap of stones there and pretend it is a rockery?" +he said. "There in the middle," and he leaned over her to point. + +"Go away!" cried Mary. "I don't want boys. Go away!" + +For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was +always teasing his sisters. He danced round and round her and made faces +and sang and laughed. + + "Mistress Mary, quite contrary, + How does your garden grow? + With silver bells, and cockle shells, + And marigolds all in a row." + +He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too; and the +crosser Mary got, the more they sang "Mistress Mary, quite contrary"; +and after that as long as she stayed with them they called her "Mistress +Mary Quite Contrary" when they spoke of her to each other, and often +when they spoke to her. + +"You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her, "at the end of the +week. And we're glad of it." + +"I am glad of it, too," answered Mary. "Where is home?" + +"She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil, with seven-year-old scorn. +"It's England, of course. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel +was sent to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama. You have +none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr. Archibald Craven." + +"I don't know anything about him," snapped Mary. + +"I know you don't," Basil answered. "You don't know anything. Girls +never do. I heard father and mother talking about him. He lives in a +great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes near him. +He's so cross he won't let them, and they wouldn't come if he would let +them. He's a hunchback, and he's horrid." + +"I don't believe you," said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her +fingers in her ears, because she would not listen any more. + +But she thought over it a great deal afterward; and when Mrs. Crawford +told her that night that she was going to sail away to England in a few +days and go to her uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at +Misselthwaite Manor, she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested +that they did not know what to think about her. They tried to be kind to +her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs. Crawford attempted to +kiss her, and held herself stiffly when Mr. Crawford patted her +shoulder. + +"She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward. +"And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty +manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a +child. The children call her 'Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and though +it's naughty of them, one can't help understanding it." + +"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty +manners oftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty +ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to +remember that many people never even knew that she had a child at all." + +"I believe she scarcely ever looked at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford. +"When her Ayah was dead there was no one to give a thought to the little +thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in +that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his +skin when he opened the door and found her standing by herself in the +middle of the room." + +Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer's +wife, who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school. +She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was +rather glad to hand the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven +sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at +Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout +woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple +dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black bonnet with +purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled when she moved her +head. Mary did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked people +there was nothing remarkable in that; besides which it was very evident +Mrs. Medlock did not think much of her. + +"My word! she's a plain little piece of goods!" she said. "And we'd +heard that her mother was a beauty. She hasn't handed much of it down, +has she, ma'am?" + +"Perhaps she will improve as she grows older," the officer's wife said +good-naturedly. "If she were not so sallow and had a nicer expression, +her features are rather good. Children alter so much." + +"She'll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock. "And there's +nothing likely to improve children at Misselthwaite--if you ask me!" + +They thought Mary was not listening because she was standing a little +apart from them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She +was watching the passing buses and cabs, and people, but she heard quite +well and was made very curious about her uncle and the place he lived +in. What sort of a place was it, and what would he be like? What was a +hunchback? She had never seen one. Perhaps there were none in India. + +Since she had been living in other people's houses and had had no Ayah, +she had begun to feel lonely and to think queer thoughts which were new +to her. She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to +any one even when her father and mother had been alive. Other children +seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers, but she had never seemed +to really be any one's little girl. She had had servants, and food and +clothes, but no one had taken any notice of her. She did not know that +this was because she was a disagreeable child; but then, of course, she +did not know she was disagreeable. She often thought that other people +were, but she did not know that she was so herself. + +She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, +with her common, highly colored face and her common fine bonnet. When +the next day they set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked +through the station to the railway carriage with her head up and trying +to keep as far away from her as she could, because she did not want to +seem to belong to her. It would have made her very angry to think people +imagined she was her little girl. + +But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her and her thoughts. +She was the kind of woman who would "stand no nonsense from young ones." +At least, that is what she would have said if she had been asked. She +had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's daughter was +going to be married, but she had a comfortable, well paid place as +housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and the only way in which she could +keep it was to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. She +never dared even to ask a question. + +"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera," Mr. Craven had said +in his short, cold way. "Captain Lennox was my wife's brother and I am +their daughter's guardian. The child is to be brought here. You must go +to London and bring her yourself." + +So she packed her small trunk and made the journey. + +Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and +fretful. She had nothing to read or to look at, and she had folded her +thin little black-gloved hands in her lap. Her black dress made her look +yellower than ever, and her limp light hair straggled from under her +black crêpe hat. + +"A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock +thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She +had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at +last she got tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk, hard +voice. + +"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going +to," she said. "Do you know anything about your uncle?" + +"No," said Mary. + +"Never heard your father and mother talk about him?" + +"No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered that her +father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular. +Certainly they had never told her things. + +"Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive +little face. She did not say any more for a few moments and then she +began again. + +"I suppose you might as well be told something--to prepare you. You are +going to a queer place." + +Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by +her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on. + +"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven's +proud of it in his way--and that's gloomy enough, too. The house is six +hundred years old and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a +hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. And +there's pictures and fine old furniture and things that's been there for +ages, and there's a big park round it and gardens and trees with +branches trailing to the ground--some of them." She paused and took +another breath. "But there's nothing else," she ended suddenly. + +Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike +India, and anything new rather attracted her. But she did not intend to +look as if she were interested. That was one of her unhappy, +disagreeable ways. So she sat still. + +"Well," said Mrs. Medlock. "What do you think of it?" + +"Nothing," she answered. "I know nothing about such places." + +That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh. + +"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman. Don't you care?" + +"It doesn't matter," said Mary, "whether I care or not." + +"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock. "It doesn't. What +you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for I don't know, unless +because it's the easiest way. _He's_ not going to trouble himself about +you, that's sure and certain. He never troubles himself about no one." + +She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something in time. + +"He's got a crooked back," she said. "That set him wrong. He was a sour +young man and got no good of all his money and big place till he was +married." + +Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention not to seem to +care. She had never thought of the hunchback's being married and she was +a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative +woman she continued with more interest. This was one way of passing some +of the time, at any rate. + +"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to +get her a blade o' grass she wanted. Nobody thought she'd marry him, but +she did, and people said she married him for his money. But she +didn't--she didn't," positively. "When she died--" + +Mary gave a little involuntary jump. + +"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She had just +remembered a French fairy story she had once read called "Riquet à la +Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess and +it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven. + +"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And it made him queerer than +ever. He cares about nobody. He won't see people. Most of the time he +goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the +West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's an old +fellow, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows his +ways." + +It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel +cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with +their doors locked--a house on the edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor +was--sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! +She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it +seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in +gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the window-panes. If the +pretty wife had been alive she might have made things cheerful by being +something like her own mother and by running in and out and going to +parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace." But she was not there +any more. + +"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't," said Mrs. +Medlock. "And you mustn't expect that there will be people to talk to +you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself. You'll be told +what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. There's +gardens enough. But when you're in the house don't go wandering and +poking about. Mr. Craven won't have it." + +"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little Mary; and just +as suddenly as she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven +she began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to +deserve all that had happened to him. + +And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the +railway carriage and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which looked as if +it would go on forever and ever. She watched it so long and steadily +that the grayness grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell +asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ACROSS THE MOOR + + +She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought a +lunchbasket at one of the stations and they had some chicken and cold +beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain seemed to be +streaming down more heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore +wet and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps in the +carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over her tea and chicken +and beef. She ate a great deal and afterward fell asleep herself, and +Mary sat and stared at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side +until she herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage, +lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows. It was quite +dark when she awakened again. The train had stopped at a station and +Mrs. Medlock was shaking her. + +"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open your eyes! We're at +Thwaite Station and we've got a long drive before us." + +Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while Mrs. Medlock +collected her parcels. The little girl did not offer to help her, +because in India native servants always picked up or carried things and +it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one. + +The station was a small one and nobody but themselves seemed to be +getting out of the train. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a +rough, good-natured way, pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion +which Mary found out afterward was Yorkshire. + +"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th' young 'un with +thee." + +"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with a Yorkshire +accent herself and jerking her head over her shoulder toward Mary. +"How's thy Missus?" + +"Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee." + +A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform. Mary +saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman who +helped her in. His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of +his hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was, the burly +station-master included. + +When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove +off, the little girl found herself seated in a comfortably cushioned +corner, but she was not inclined to go to sleep again. She sat and +looked out of the window, curious to see something of the road over +which she was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken +of. She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened, +but she felt that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with +a hundred rooms nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a +moor. + +"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock. + +"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see," the woman +answered. "We've got to drive five miles across Missel Moor before we +get to the Manor. You won't see much because it's a dark night, but you +can see something." + +Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness of her corner, +keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage lamps cast rays of light a +little distance ahead of them and she caught glimpses of the things they +passed. After they had left the station they had driven through a tiny +village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the lights of a public +house. Then they had passed a church and a vicarage and a little +shop-window or so in a cottage with toys and sweets and odd things set +out for sale. Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and +trees. After that there seemed nothing different for a long time--or at +least it seemed a long time to her. + +At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they were climbing +up-hill, and presently there seemed to be no more hedges and no more +trees. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either +side. She leaned forward and pressed her face against the window just as +the carriage gave a big jolt. + +"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock. + +The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which +seemed to be cut through bushes and low growing things which ended in +the great expanse of dark apparently spread out before and around them. +A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound. + +"It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round at her +companion. + +"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields nor mountains, +it's just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on +but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies +and sheep." + +"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it," said +Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now." + +"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said. "It's a +wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's plenty that likes +it--particularly when the heather's in bloom." + +On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, +the wind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went +up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge +beneath which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary +felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak +moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on +a strip of dry land. + +"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it," and she +pinched her thin lips more tightly together. + +The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road when she first caught +sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and drew a long +sigh of relief. + +"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling," she exclaimed. "It's +the light in the lodge window. We shall get a good cup of tea after a +bit, at all events." + +It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage passed through +the park gates there was still two miles of avenue to drive through and +the trees (which nearly met overhead) made it seem as if they were +driving through a long dark vault. + +They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an +immensely long but low-built house which seemed to ramble round a stone +court. At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all in the +windows, but as she got out of the carriage she saw that one room in a +corner up-stairs showed a dull glow. + +The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped +panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound with great iron +bars. It opened into an enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that +the faces in the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of +armor made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them. As she stood +on the stone floor she looked a very small, odd little black figure, and +she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked. + +A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for +them. + +"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice. "He doesn't +want to see her. He's going to London in the morning." + +"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered. "So long as I know +what's expected of me, I can manage." + +"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said, "is that you +make sure that he's not disturbed and that he doesn't see what he +doesn't want to see." + +And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long +corridor and up a short flight of steps and through another corridor and +another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a room +with a fire in it and a supper on a table. + +Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously: + +"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll live--and +you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!" + +It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she +had perhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARTHA + + +When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid +had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on the +hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for +a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never seen +a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls were +covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were +fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there +was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses +and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them. +Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land +which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless, +dull, purplish sea. + +"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window. + +Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and +pointed also. + +"That there?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?" + +"No," answered Mary. "I hate it." + +"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her +hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will like it." + +"Do you?" inquired Mary. + +"Aye, that I do," answered Martha, cheerfully polishing away at the +grate. "I just love it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin' things +as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse +an' broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a +lot o' fresh air--an' th' sky looks so high an' th' bees an' skylarks +makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away +from th' moor for anythin'." + +Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native +servants she had been used to in India were not in the least like this. +They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their +masters as if they were their equals. They made salaams and called them +"protector of the poor" and names of that sort. Indian servants were +commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say +"please" and "thank you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the +face when she was angry. She wondered a little what this girl would do +if one slapped her in the face. She was a round, rosy, good-natured +looking creature, but she had a sturdy way which made Mistress Mary +wonder if she might not even slap back--if the person who slapped her +was only a little girl. + +"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather +haughtily. + +Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and +laughed, without seeming the least out of temper. + +"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at +Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under housemaids. +I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let +up-stairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a +funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor +Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, he won't be +troubled about anythin' when he's here, an' he's nearly always away. +Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. She told me she could +never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses." + +"Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her imperious +little Indian way. + +Martha began to rub her grate again. + +"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr. +Craven's--but I'm to do the housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a +bit. But you won't need much waitin' on." + +"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary. + +Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad +Yorkshire in her amazement. + +"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said. + +"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary. + +"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be +careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put on +your own clothes?" + +"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah +dressed me, of course." + +"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she was +impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll +do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't +see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair fools--what with +nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was +puppies!" + +"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could +scarcely stand this. + +But Martha was not at all crushed. + +"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I +dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' +respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I +thought you was a black too." + +Mary sat up in bed furious. + +"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You--you daughter +of a pig!" + +Martha stared and looked hot. + +"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's +not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. +When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You +always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black +an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I +come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' +pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," +disappointedly, "no more black than me--for all you're so yeller." + +Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. + +"You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about +natives! They are not people--they're servants who must salaam to you. +You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!" + +She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl's simple +stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away +from everything she understood and which understood her, that she threw +herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. +She sobbed so unrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a +little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent +over her. + +"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for +sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about +anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'." + +There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer +Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She +gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved. + +"It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was +to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. +It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy +clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' +cannot button them up tha'self." + +When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the +wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night +before with Mrs. Medlock. + +"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black." + +She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool +approval: + +"Those are nicer than mine." + +"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven +ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London. He said 'I won't have a child +dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. 'It'd make +the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew +what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn't hold +with black hersel'." + +"I hate black things," said Mary. + +The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha +had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen +a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for +her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own. + +"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly +held out her foot. + +"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom." + +She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native servants were +always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not +done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not +the custom" and one knew that was the end of the matter. + +It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but +stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was +ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite +Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to +her--things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking +up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young +lady's maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and +would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button +boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an +untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage +with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of +doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who +were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about and tumble +over things. + +If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused she would +perhaps have laughed at Martha's readiness to talk, but Mary only +listened to her coldly and wondered at her freedom of manner. At first +she was not at all interested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in +her good-tempered, homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying. + +"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve of us an' my +father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's put +to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an' +play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She +says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do. Our +Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls his +own." + +"Where did he get it?" asked Mary. + +"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he +began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young +grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it +lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him." + +Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought +she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, +and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it +was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room +which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it was rather +like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up +person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak +chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast. +But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with +something more than indifference at the first plate Martha set before +her. + +"I don't want it," she said. + +"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously. + +"No." + +"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit +o' sugar." + +"I don't want it," repeated Mary. + +"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If +our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes." + +"Why?" said Mary coldly. + +"Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full +in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes." + +"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference +of ignorance. + +Martha looked indignant. + +"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," +she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just +stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an' +Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores." + +"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary. + +"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I +get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean +up for mother an' give her a day's rest." + +Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade. + +"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you +good and give you some stomach for your meat." + +Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but +everything looked dull and wintry. + +"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" + +"Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' +got to do?" + +Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had +prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would +be better to go and see what the gardens were like. + +"Who will go with me?" she inquired. + +Martha stared. + +"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to learn to play +like other children does when they haven't got sisters and brothers. Our +Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how +he made friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that knows +him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand. However little there +is to eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to coax his pets." + +It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out, +though she was not aware of it. There would be birds outside though +there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the +birds in India and it might amuse her to look at them. + +Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots +and she showed her her way down-stairs. + +"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," she said, +pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. "There's lots o' flowers in +summer-time, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a +second before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has +been in it for ten years." + +"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door +added to the hundred in the strange house. + +"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no +one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th' door an' dug a hole and +buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run." + +After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in +the shrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no one +had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like and +whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed +through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide +lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were trees, and +flower-beds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and a large +pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were +bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not the +garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You could +always walk into a garden. + +She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end of the path she +was following, there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing over it. +She was not familiar enough with England to know that she was coming +upon the kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing. +She went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the +ivy, and that it stood open. This was not the closed garden, evidently, +and she could go into it. + +She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all +round it and that it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed +to open into one another. She saw another open green door, revealing +bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables. +Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall, and over some of the +beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary +thought, as she stood and stared about her. It might be nicer in summer +when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about it now. + +Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the +door leading from the second garden. He looked startled when he saw +Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not +seem at all pleased to see her--but then she was displeased with his +garden and wore her "quite contrary" expression, and certainly did not +seem at all pleased to see him. + +"What is this place?" she asked. + +"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," he answered. + +"What is that?" said Mary, pointing through the other green door. + +"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall +an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that." + +"Can I go in them?" asked Mary. + +"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see." + +Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second +green door. There she found more walls and winter vegetables and glass +frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was +not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for ten +years. As she was not at all a timid child and always did what she +wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. She +hoped the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had +found the mysterious garden--but it did open quite easily and she walked +through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls all round +it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-trees +growing in the winter-browned grass--but there was no green door to be +seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the +upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to +end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place +at the other side. She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and +when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on +the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter +song--almost as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to her. + +She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly +little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little +girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big +bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the +world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been +used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though +she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the +bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face +which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was +not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should +ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew +all about it. + +Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought +so much of the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to +see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If he +had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered if +she should ever see him, but she knew that if she did she should not +like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and +stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully to +ask him why he had done such a queer thing. + +"People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I +never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking +and laughing and making noises." + +She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at +her, and as she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped rather +suddenly on the path. + +"I believe that tree was in the secret garden--I feel sure it was," she +said. "There was a wall round the place and there was no door." + +She walked back into the first kitchen-garden she had entered and found +the old man digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched +him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and +so at last she spoke to him. + +"I have been into the other gardens," she said. + +"There was nothin' to prevent thee," he answered crustily. + +"I went into the orchard." + +"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," he answered. + +"There was no door there into the other garden," said Mary. + +"What garden?" he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a +moment. + +"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Mistress Mary. "There +are trees there--I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red breast was +sitting on one of them and he sang." + +To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed its +expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite +different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person +looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before. + +He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to +whistle--a low soft whistle. She could not understand how such a surly +man could make such a coaxing sound. + +Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. She heard a soft +little rushing flight through the air--and it was the bird with the red +breast flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth +quite near to the gardener's foot. + +"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if +he were speaking to a child. + +"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not +seen thee before to-day. Has tha' begun tha' courtin' this early in th' +season? Tha'rt too forrad." + +The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his +soft bright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar +and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly, +looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Mary a queer feeling in +her heart, because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a +person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and slender +delicate legs. + +"Will he always come when you call him?" she asked almost in a whisper. + +"Aye, that he will. I've knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He +come out of th' nest in th' other garden an' when first he flew over +th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got +friendly. When he went over th' wall again th' rest of th' brood was +gone an' he was lonely an' he come back to me." + +"What kind of a bird is he?" Mary asked. + +"Doesn't tha' know? He's a robin redbreast an' they're th' friendliest, +curiousest birds alive. They're almost as friendly as dogs--if you know +how to get on with 'em. Watch him peckin' about there an' lookin' round +at us now an' again. He knows we're talkin' about him." + +It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked +at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both proud +and fond of him. + +"He's a conceited one," he chuckled. "He likes to hear folk talk about +him. An' curious--bless me, there never was his like for curiosity an' +meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what I'm plantin'. He knows all th' +things Mester Craven never troubles hissel' to find out. He's th' head +gardener, he is." + +The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped +and looked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed +at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out +all about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased. + +"Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" she asked. + +"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make +'em fly an' they're scattered before you know it. This one was a knowin' +one an' he knew he was lonely." + +Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very +hard. + +"I'm lonely," she said. + +She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her +feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at +her and she looked at the robin. + +The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her +a minute. + +"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he asked. + +Mary nodded. + +"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonelier before tha's done," he +said. + +He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden +soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed. + +"What is your name?" Mary inquired. + +He stood up to answer her. + +"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, +"I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked his thumb +toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got." + +"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like +me and I never played with any one." + +It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and +old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man. + +"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said. "We was wove out of th' +same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as +sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll +warrant." + +This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about +herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to +you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but +she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also +wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked before the robin came. +She actually began to wonder also if she was "nasty tempered." She felt +uncomfortable. + +Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near her and she turned +round. She was standing a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin +had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a +song. Ben Weatherstaff laughed outright. + +"What did he do that for?" asked Mary. + +"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang me +if he hasn't took a fancy to thee." + +"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly and +looked up. + +"Would you make friends with me?" she said to the robin just as if she +was speaking to a person. "Would you?" And she did not say it either in +her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so +soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she +had been when she heard him whistle. + +"Why," he cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a +real child instead of a sharp old woman. Tha' said it almost like Dickon +talks to his wild things on th' moor." + +"Do you know Dickon?" Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry. + +"Everybody knows him. Dickon's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very +blackberries an' heather-bells knows him. I warrant th' foxes shows him +where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from +him." + +Mary would have liked to ask some more questions. She was almost as +curious about Dickon as she was about the deserted garden. But just that +moment the robin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his +wings, spread them and flew away. He had made his visit and had other +things to do. + +"He has flown over the wall!" Mary cried out, watching him. "He has +flown into the orchard--he has flown across the other wall--into the +garden where there is no door!" + +"He lives there," said old Ben. "He came out o' th' egg there. If he's +courtin', he's makin' up to some young madam of a robin that lives among +th' old rose-trees there." + +"Rose-trees," said Mary. "Are there rose-trees?" + +Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig. + +"There was ten year' ago," he mumbled. + +"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door? There +must be a door somewhere." + +Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked +when she first saw him. + +"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," he said. + +"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be." + +"None as any one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't you +be a meddlesome wench an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go. +Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an' play you. I've no more +time." + +And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and +walked off, without even glancing at her or saying good-by. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR + + +At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the +others. Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha +kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her +breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each +breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor which +seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after she +had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would +have to stay in and do nothing--and so she went out. She did not know +that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know +that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and +down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself +stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor. She +ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at +her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could +not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather +filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body +and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes +when she did not know anything about it. + +But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one +morning knowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her +breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it +away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it +until her bowl was empty. + +"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?" said +Martha. + +"It tastes nice to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself. + +"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals," +answered Martha. "It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals as well as +appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an' +nothin' to put in it. You go on playin' you out o' doors every day an' +you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't be so yeller." + +"I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing to play with." + +"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha. "Our children plays with +sticks and stones. They just runs about an' shouts an' looks at things." + +Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There was nothing else to +do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths +in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but though +several times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was +too surly. Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade +and turned away as if he did it on purpose. + +One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk +outside the gardens with the walls round them. There were bare +flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly. +There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were +more bushy than elsewhere. It seemed as if for a long time that part had +been neglected. The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat, +but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all. + +A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff Mary stopped to +notice this and wondered why it was so. She had just paused and was +looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a +gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of +the wall, perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward +to look at her with his small head on one side. + +"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you?" And it did not seem at all +queer to her that she spoke to him as if she was sure that he would +understand and answer her. + +He did answer. He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as if +he were telling her all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress Mary as +if she understood him, too, though he was not speaking in words. It was +as if he said: + +"Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice? Isn't everything +nice? Let us both chirp and hop and twitter. Come on! Come on!" + +Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the +wall she ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary--she +actually looked almost pretty for a moment. + +"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk; and +she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do +in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and +whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting +flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly. + +That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him. He had been +swinging on a tree-top then and she had been standing in the orchard. +Now she was on the other side of the orchard and standing in the path +outside a wall--much lower down--and there was the same tree inside. + +"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself. "It's the +garden without a door. He lives in there. How I wish I could see what it +is like!" + +She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning. +Then she ran down the path through the other door and then into the +orchard, and when she stood and looked up there was the tree on the +other side of the wall, and there was the robin just finishing his song +and beginning to preen his feathers with his beak. + +"It is the garden," she said. "I am sure it is." + +She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall, +but she only found what she had found before--that there was no door in +it. Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walk +outside the long ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end of it and +looked at it, but there was no door; and then she walked to the other +end, looking again, but there was no door. + +"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door +and there is no door. But there must have been one ten years ago, +because Mr. Craven buried the key." + +This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested +and feel that she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite +Manor. In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much +about anything. The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun +to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a little. + +She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her +supper at night she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable. She did not +feel cross when Martha chattered away. She felt as if she rather liked +to hear her, and at last she thought she would ask her a question. She +asked it after she had finished her supper and had sat down on the +hearth-rug before the fire. + +"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said. + +She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all. +She was very young, and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and +sisters, and she found it dull in the great servants' hall down-stairs +where the footman and upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech +and looked upon her as a common little thing, and sat and whispered +among themselves. Martha liked to talk, and the strange child who had +lived in India, and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enough to +attract her. + +She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked. + +"Art tha' thinkin' about that garden yet?" she said. "I knew tha' would. +That was just the way with me when I first heard about it." + +"Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted. + +Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable. + +"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said. "You could +bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it to-night." + +Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened, and then +she understood. It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which +rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were +buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in. +But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe +and warm inside a room with a red coal fire. + +"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after she had listened. She +intended to know if Martha did. + +Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge. + +"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to be talked about. +There's lots o' things in this place that's not to be talked over. +That's Mr. Craven's orders. His troubles are none servants' business, he +says. But for th' garden he wouldn't be like he is. It was Mrs. Craven's +garden that she had made when first they were married an' she just loved +it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves. An' none o' th' +gardeners was ever let to go in. Him an' her used to go in an' shut th' +door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin' an' talkin'. An' she was +just a bit of a girl an' there was an old tree with a branch bent like a +seat on it. An' she made roses grow over it an' she used to sit there. +But one day when she was sittin' there th' branch broke an' she fell on +th' ground an' was hurt so bad that next day she died. Th' doctors +thought he'd go out o' his mind an' die, too. That's why he hates it. No +one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one talk about it." + +Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and +listened to the wind "wutherin'." It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder +than ever. + +At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things +had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She +had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood +her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had +been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found +out what it was to be sorry for some one. She was getting on. + +But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something +else. She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely +distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed +almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded +rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure +that this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, +but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha. + +"Do you hear any one crying?" she said. + +Martha suddenly looked confused. + +"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some +one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds." + +"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down one of those long +corridors." + +And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere +down-stairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the +door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they +both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound +was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly +than ever. + +"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it isn't a +grown-up person." + +Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it +they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a +bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased +"wutherin'" for a few moments. + +"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was +little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all +day." + +But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary +stare very hard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!" + + +The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary +looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and +cloud. There could be no going out to-day. + +"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked +Martha. + +"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! +there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she +gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed and plays +there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if +th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't +show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned +in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it +warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole was swum out an' +th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home now. He found a +half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it home, too, an' +tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it hops an' flies +about with him everywhere." + +The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar +talk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when she +stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when she +lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the +moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little +rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble +about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured collie +puppies. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon. When Martha +told stories of what "mother" said or did they always sounded +comfortable. + +"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I +have nothing." + +Martha looked perplexed. + +"Can tha' knit?" she asked. + +"No," answered Mary. + +"Can tha' sew?" + +"No." + +"Can tha' read?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why doesn't tha' read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'? +Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now." + +"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India." + +"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' +library, there's thousands o' books there." + +Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly +inspired by a new idea. She made up her mind to go and find it herself. +She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to +be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room down-stairs. In this +queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no +one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a +luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about +with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there +were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal +of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out of the way. + +Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one +troubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked +at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her +what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of +treating children. In India she had always been attended by her Ayah, +who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had +often been tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody and was +learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she thought +she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her +and put on. + +"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood waiting +for her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp +as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks fair soft in +th' head." + +Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her +think several entirely new things. + +She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha +had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone down-stairs. She was +thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the +library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because +she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind +the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all +really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them. +Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors +she could count? It would be something to do on this morning when she +could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission to do +things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not +have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk about +the house, even if she had seen her. + +She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she +began her wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into other +corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to +others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the +walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but +oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes +made of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose +walls were covered with these portraits. She had never thought there +could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and +stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if +they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their +house. Some were pictures of children--little girls in thick satin +frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys +with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs +around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and +wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore +such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like +herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her +finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look. + +"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here." + +Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed +as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small +self, wandering about up-stairs and down, through narrow passages and +wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever +walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in +them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it +true. + +It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of +turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock +had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of +them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt +that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door +itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened +into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and +inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room. A +broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the +mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed +to stare at her more curiously than ever. + +"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she +makes me feel queer." + +After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that +she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, +though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures +or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious +pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them. + +In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were +all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little +elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had +their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than +the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had +seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened +the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these +for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants in +order and shut the door of the cabinet. + +In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, +she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just +after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. +It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from +which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion, +and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole +peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it. + +Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a +little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and +made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near +her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were +seven mice who did not look lonely at all. + +"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me," said +Mary. + +She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any +farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by +turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down +until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor +again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know +exactly where she was. + +"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing still +at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall. "I +don't know which way to go. How still everything is!" + +It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that +the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite +like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a +fretful, childish whine muffled by passing through walls. + +"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. +"And it _is_ crying." + +She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then +sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a +door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the +corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of +keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face. + +"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and +pulled her away. "What did I tell you?" + +"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which +way to go and I heard some one crying." + +She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the +next. + +"You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You come +along back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears." + +And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one +passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own +room. + +"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find +yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as +he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after +you. I've got enough to do." + +She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went +and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground +her teeth. + +"There _was_ some one crying--there _was_--there _was_!" she said to +herself. + +She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had +found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a +long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the +time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray +mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE KEY OF THE GARDEN + + +Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed +immediately, and called to Martha. + +"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!" + +The rain-storm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept +away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a +brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never had +Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and blazing; this +was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters +of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the +arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The +far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of +gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray. + +"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin. "Th' storm's over for a bit. It +does like this at this time o' th' year. It goes off in a night like it +was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come again. +That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way off yet, but +it's comin'." + +"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary +said. + +"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead +brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!" + +"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously. In India the natives spoke +different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was not +surprised when Martha used words she did not know. + +Martha laughed as she had done the first morning. + +"There now," she said. "I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock +said I mustn't. 'Nowt o' th' soart' means 'nothin'-of-the-sort,'" slowly +and carefully, "but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshire's th' sunniest +place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a +bit. Just you wait till you see th' gold-colored gorse blossoms an' th' +blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather flowerin', all purple bells, an' +hundreds o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin' +up an' singin'. You'll want to get out on it at sunrise an' live out on +it all day like Dickon does." + +"Could I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully, looking through her +window at the far-off blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such +a heavenly color. + +"I don't know," answered Martha. "Tha's never used tha' legs since tha' +was born, it seems to me. Tha' couldn't walk five mile. It's five mile +to our cottage." + +"I should like to see your cottage." + +Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing +brush and began to rub the grate again. She was thinking that the small +plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the +first morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan +Ann's when she wanted something very much. + +"I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "She's one o' them that nearly +always sees a way to do things. It's my day out to-day an' I'm goin' +home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother. Perhaps she +could talk to her." + +"I like your mother," said Mary. + +"I should think tha' did," agreed Martha, polishing away. + +"I've never seen her," said Mary. + +"No, tha' hasn't," replied Martha. + +She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the +back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite +positively. + +"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' good-natured an' clean +that no one could help likin' her whether they'd seen her or not. When +I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm +crossin' th' moor." + +"I like Dickon," added Mary. "And I've never seen him." + +"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee that th' very birds likes +him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an' ponies, an' th' foxes themselves. +I wonder," staring at her reflectively, "what Dickon would think of +thee?" + +"He wouldn't like me," said Mary in her stiff, cold little way. "No one +does." + +Martha looked reflective again. + +"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired, really quite as if she were +curious to know. + +Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over. + +"Not at all--really," she answered. "But I never thought of that +before." + +Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection. + +"Mother said that to me once," she said. "She was at her wash-tub an' I +was in a bad temper an' talkin' ill of folk, an' she turns round on me +an' says: 'Tha' young vixon, tha'! There tha' stands sayin' tha' +doesn't like this one an' tha' doesn't like that one. How does tha' like +thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it brought me to my senses in a minute." + +She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her +breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the +cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do +the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly. + +Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the +house. She went out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the +first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower +garden ten times. She counted the times carefully and when she had +finished she felt in better spirits. The sunshine made the whole place +look different. The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as +well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up into +it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of the +little snow-white clouds and float about. She went into the first +kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other +gardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him good. He +spoke to her of his own accord. + +"Springtime's comin'," he said. "Cannot tha' smell it?" + +Mary sniffed and thought she could. + +"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said. + +"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away. "It's in a good +humor makin' ready to grow things. It's glad when plantin' time comes. +It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens +out there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's +warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin' out o' th' black +earth after a bit." + +"What will they be?" asked Mary. + +"Crocuses an' snowdrops an' daffydowndillys. Has tha' never seen them?" + +"No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India," +said Mary. "And I think things grow up in a night." + +"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff. "Tha'll have to +wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher here, an' push out a spike +more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that. You watch 'em." + +"I am going to," answered Mary. + +Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew +at once that the robin had come again. He was very pert and lively, and +hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and +looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question. + +"Do you think he remembers me?" she said. + +"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every cabbage +stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people. He's never seen a little +wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee. Tha's no +need to try to hide anything from _him_." + +"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he +lives?" Mary inquired. + +"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again. + +"The one where the old rose-trees are." She could not help asking, +because she wanted so much to know. "Are all the flowers dead, or do +some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?" + +"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the +robin. "He's the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside it for +ten year'." + +Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years +ago. + +She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just +as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother. She +was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to +like--when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one +of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall +over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked +up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and +it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin. + +She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare +flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to +peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed +her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her +with delight that she almost trembled a little. + +"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than +anything else in the world!" + +She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail +and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like +satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and +so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and +like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had +ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and +closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like +robin sounds. + +Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as +that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand +toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because +he was a real person--only nicer than any other person in the world. She +was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe. + +The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the +perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were +tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and +as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile +of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The +earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole +and he had scratched quite a deep hole. + +Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she +looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was +something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up +into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was +more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had +been buried a long time. + +Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face +as it hung from her finger. + +"Perhaps it has been buried for ten years," she said in a whisper. +"Perhaps it is the key to the garden!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY + + +She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, +and thought about it. As I have said before, she was not a child who had +been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All +she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed +garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps +open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the +old rose-trees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she +wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must be different from other places +and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years. +Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every day and shut +the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own and play +it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would +think the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The +thought of that pleased her very much. + +Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred +mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse +herself, had set her inactive brain to working and was actually +awakening her imagination. There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, +pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it. Just as it had +given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood, +so the same things had stirred her mind. In India she had always been +too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but in this +place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things. Already +she felt less "contrary," though she did not know why. + +She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk. No one +but herself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and look +at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it. The ivy was the +baffling thing. Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but +thickly-growing, glossy, dark green leaves. She was very much +disappointed. Something of her contrariness came back to her as she +paced the walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside. It seemed so +silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be able to get in. She +took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house, and she made +up her mind that she would always carry it with her when she went out, +so that if she ever should find the hidden door she would be ready. + +Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but +she was back at her work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever and +in the best of spirits. + +"I got up at four o'clock," she said. "Eh! it was pretty on th' moor +with th' birds gettin' up an' th' rabbits scamperin' about an' th' sun +risin'. I didn't walk all th' way. A man gave me a ride in his cart an' +I can tell you I did enjoy myself." + +She was full of stories of the delights of her day out. Her mother had +been glad to see her and they had got the baking and washing all out of +the way. She had even made each of the children a dough-cake with a bit +of brown sugar in it. + +"I had 'em all pipin' hot when they came in from playin' on th' moor. +An' th' cottage all smelt o' nice, clean hot bakin' an' there was a good +fire, an' they just shouted for joy. Our Dickon he said our cottage was +good enough for a king to live in." + +In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her +mother had sewed patches on torn clothes and mended stockings and Martha +had told them about the little girl who had come from India and who had +been waited on all her life by what Martha called "blacks" until she +didn't know how to put on her own stockings. + +"Eh! they did like to hear about you," said Martha. "They wanted to know +all about th' blacks an' about th' ship you came in. I couldn't tell 'em +enough." + +Mary reflected a little. + +"I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out," she said, +"so that you will have more to talk about. I dare say they would like to +hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officers going +to hunt tigers." + +"My word!" cried delighted Martha. "It would set 'em clean off their +heads. Would tha' really do that, Miss? It would be same as a wild beast +show like we heard they had in York once." + +"India is quite different from Yorkshire," Mary said slowly, as she +thought the matter over. "I never thought of that. Did Dickon and your +mother like to hear you talk about me?" + +"Why, our Dickon's eyes nearly started out o' his head, they got that +round," answered Martha. "But mother, she was put out about your seemin' +to be all by yourself like. She said, 'Hasn't Mr. Craven got no +governess for her, nor no nurse?' and I said, 'No, he hasn't, though +Mrs. Medlock says he will when he thinks of it, but she says he mayn't +think of it for two or three years.'" + +"I don't want a governess," said Mary sharply. + +"But mother says you ought to be learnin' your book by this time an' you +ought to have a woman to look after you, an' she says: 'Now, Martha, you +just think how you'd feel yourself, in a big place like that, wanderin' +about all alone, an' no mother. You do your best to cheer her up,' she +says, an' I said I would." + +Mary gave her a long, steady look. + +"You do cheer me up," she said. "I like to hear you talk." + +Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held +in her hands under her apron. + +"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I've brought +thee a present." + +"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of +fourteen hungry people give any one a present! + +"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin'," Martha explained. "An' he +stopped his cart at our door. He had pots an' pans an' odds an' ends, +but mother had no money to buy anythin'. Just as he was goin' away our +'Lizabeth Ellen called out, 'Mother, he's got skippin'-ropes with red +an' blue handles.' An' mother she calls out quite sudden, 'Here, stop, +mister! How much are they?' An' he says 'Tuppence,' an' mother she +began fumblin' in her pocket an' she says to me, 'Martha, tha's brought +me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places to put every +penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that child a +skippin'-rope,' an' she bought one an' here it is." + +She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. +It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each +end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping-rope before. She gazed at +it with a mystified expression. + +"What is it for?" she asked curiously. + +"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that they've not got +skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and +camels! No wonder most of 'em's black. This is what it's for; just watch +me." + +And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each +hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair +to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to +stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager +had the impudence to be doing under their very noses. But Martha did not +even see them. The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face +delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped +until she had reached a hundred. + +"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped. "I've +skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but I wasn't as fat +then as I am now, an' I was in practice." + +Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself. + +"It looks nice," she said. "Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think I +could ever skip like that?" + +"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. "You +can't skip a hundred at first, but if you practise you'll mount up. +That's what mother said. She says, 'Nothin' will do her more good than +skippin' rope. It's th' sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play +out in th' fresh air skippin' an' it'll stretch her legs an' arms an' +give her some strength in 'em.'" + +It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress +Mary's arms and legs when she first began to skip. She was not very +clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop. + +"Put on tha' things and run an' skip out o' doors," said Martha. "Mother +said I must tell you to keep out o' doors as much as you could, even +when it rains a bit, so as tha' wrap up warm." + +Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping-rope over her arm. +She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something +and turned back rather slowly. + +"Martha," she said, "they were your wages. It was your twopence really. +Thank you." She said it stiffly because she was not used to thanking +people or noticing that they did things for her. "Thank you," she said, +and held out her hand because she did not know what else to do. + +Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed +to this sort of thing either. Then she laughed. + +"Eh! tha' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our +'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have give me a kiss." + +Mary looked stiffer than ever. + +"Do you want me to kiss you?" + +Martha laughed again. + +"Nay, not me," she answered. "If tha' was different, p'raps tha'd want +to thysel'. But tha' isn't. Run off outside an' play with thy rope." + +Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room. +Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle +to her. At first she had disliked her very much, but now she did not. + +The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and +skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red, and she was more +interested than she had ever been since she was born. The sun was +shining and a little wind was blowing--not a rough wind, but one which +came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly +turned earth with it. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one +walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden and +saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping +about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head +and looked at her with a curious expression. She had wondered if he +would notice her. She really wanted him to see her skip. + +"Well!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word! P'raps tha' art a young 'un, after +all, an' p'raps tha's got child's blood in thy veins instead of sour +buttermilk. Tha's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben +Weatherstaff. I wouldn't have believed tha' could do it." + +"I never skipped before," Mary said. "I'm just beginning. I can only go +up to twenty." + +"Tha' keep on," said Ben. "Tha' shapes well enough at it for a young 'un +that's lived with heathen. Just see how he's watchin' thee," jerking his +head toward the robin. "He followed after thee yesterday. He'll be at +it again to-day. He'll be bound to find out what th' skippin'-rope is. +He's never seen one. Eh!" shaking his head at the bird, "tha' curosity +will be th' death of thee sometime if tha' doesn't look sharp." + +Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every +few minutes. At length she went to her own special walk and made up her +mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it. It was a good long +skip and she began slowly, but before she had gone half-way down the +path she was so hot and breathless that she was obliged to stop. She did +not mind much, because she had already counted up to thirty. She stopped +with a little laugh of pleasure, and there, lo and behold, was the robin +swaying on a long branch of ivy. He had followed her and he greeted her +with a chirp. As Mary had skipped toward him she felt something heavy in +her pocket strike against her at each jump, and when she saw the robin +she laughed again. + +"You showed me where the key was yesterday," she said. "You ought to +show me the door to-day; but I don't believe you know!" + +The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall +and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show +off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when +he shows off--and they are nearly always doing it. + +Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah's stories, +and she always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic. + +One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was a +stronger one than the rest. It was strong enough to wave the branches of +the trees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing +sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall. Mary had stepped close to +the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy +trails, and more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in +her hand. This she did because she had seen something under it--a round +knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it. It was the +knob of a door. + +She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them +aside. Thick as the ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging +curtain, though some had crept over wood and iron. Mary's heart began to +thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. The +robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one side, +as if he were as excited as she was. What was this under her hands which +was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a hole in? + +It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put +her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the +keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, +but it did turn. + +And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk +to see if any one was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, +it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help +it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the +door which opened slowly--slowly. + +Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her +back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with +excitement, and wonder, and delight. + +She was standing _inside_ the secret garden. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN + + +It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could +imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless +stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted +together. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great +many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry +brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rose-bushes +if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so +spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other +trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look +strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them +and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here +and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and +had crept from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of +themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did +not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin gray or brown +branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over +everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass, where they had +fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy +tangle from tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious. Mary had +thought it must be different from other gardens which had not been left +all by themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other +place she had ever seen in her life. + +"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!" + +Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who +had flown to his tree-top, was still as all the rest. He did not even +flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary. + +"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person who +has spoken in here for ten years." + +She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid +of awakening some one. She was glad that there was grass under her feet +and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the +fairy-like gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays and +tendrils which formed them. + +"I wonder if they are all quite dead," she said. "Is it all a quite dead +garden? I wish it wasn't." + +If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood +was alive by looking at it, but she could only see that there were only +gray or brown sprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a +tiny leaf-bud anywhere. + +But she was _inside_ the wonderful garden and she could come through the +door under the ivy any time and she felt as if she had found a world all +her own. + +The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky +over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant +and soft than it was over the moor. The robin flew down from his +tree-top and hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another. He +chirped a good deal and had a very busy air, as if he were showing her +things. Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds +of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all. +All that troubled her was her wish that she knew whether all the roses +were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived and might put out leaves +and buds as the weather got warmer. She did not want it to be a quite +dead garden. If it were a quite alive garden, how wonderful it would +be, and what thousands of roses would grow on every side! + +Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she came in and after she +had walked about for a while she thought she would skip round the whole +garden, stopping when she wanted to look at things. There seemed to have +been grass paths here and there, and in one or two corners there were +alcoves of evergreen with stone seats or tall moss-covered flower urns +in them. + +As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There +had once been a flower-bed in it, and she thought she saw something +sticking out of the black earth--some sharp little pale green points. +She remembered what Ben Weatherstaff had said and she knelt down to look +at them. + +"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they _might_ be crocuses or +snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered. + +She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp +earth. She liked it very much. + +"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places," she said. +"I will go all over the garden and look." + +She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and kept her eyes on the +ground. She looked in the old border beds and among the grass, and after +she had gone round, trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so many +more sharp, pale green points, and she had become quite excited again. + +"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself. "Even +if the roses are dead, there are other things alive." + +She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick +in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way +through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow. +She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood and +knelt down and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made +nice little clear places around them. + +"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said, after she had +finished with the first ones. "I am going to do ever so many more. I'll +do all I can see. If I haven't time to-day I can come to-morrow." + +She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so +immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under +the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat +off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to +the grass and the pale green points all the time. + +The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see +gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben +Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to +eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature +who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come into his +garden and begin at once. + +Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday +dinner. In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when she put on +her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could not believe +that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually +happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points +were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had +looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them. + +"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking all round at her +new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they +heard her. + +Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door and +slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such +bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted. + +"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said. "Eh! +mother will be pleased when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done +for thee." + +In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had +found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion. She +had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it +and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was. + +"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that look like onions?" + +"They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o' spring flowers grow from 'em. +Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones are +narcissusis an' jonquils an' daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is +lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot of +'em planted in our bit o' garden." + +"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking +possession of her. + +"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says he +just whispers things out o' th' ground." + +"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one +helped them?" inquired Mary anxiously. + +"They're things as helps themselves," said Martha. "That's why poor folk +can afford to have 'em. If you don't trouble 'em, most of 'em'll work +away underground for a lifetime an' spread out an' have little 'uns. +There's a place in th' park woods here where there's snowdrops by +thousands. They're the prettiest sight in Yorkshire when th' spring +comes. No one knows when they was first planted." + +"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary. "I want to see all the +things that grow in England." + +She had finished her dinner and gone to her favorite seat on the +hearth-rug. + +"I wish--I wish I had a little spade," she said. + +"Whatever does tha' want a spade for?" asked Martha, laughing. "Art tha' +goin' to take to diggin'? I must tell mother that, too." + +Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She must be careful if +she meant to keep her secret kingdom. She wasn't doing any harm, but if +Mr. Craven found out about the open door he would be fearfully angry and +get a new key and lock it up forevermore. She really could not bear +that. + +"This is such a big lonely place," she said slowly, as if she were +turning matters over in her mind. "The house is lonely, and the park is +lonely, and the gardens are lonely. So many places seem shut up. I never +did many things in India, but there were more people to look at--natives +and soldiers marching by--and sometimes bands playing, and my Ayah told +me stories. There is no one to talk to here except you and Ben +Weatherstaff. And you have to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff won't +speak to me often. I thought if I had a little spade I could dig +somewhere as he does, and I might make a little garden if he would give +me some seeds." + +Martha's face quite lighted up. + +"There now!" she exclaimed, "if that wasn't one of th' things mother +said. She says, 'There's such a lot o' room in that big place, why don't +they give her a bit for herself, even if she doesn't plant nothin' but +parsley an' radishes? She'd dig an' rake away an' be right down happy +over it.' Them was the very words she said." + +"Were they?" said Mary. "How many things she knows, doesn't she?" + +"Eh!" said Martha. "It's like she says: 'A woman as brings up twelve +children learns something besides her A B C. Children's as good as +'rithmetic to set you findin' out things.'" + +"How much would a spade cost--a little one?" Mary asked. + +"Well," was Martha's reflective answer, "at Thwaite village there's a +shop or so an' I saw little garden sets with a spade an' a rake an' a +fork all tied together for two shillings. An' they was stout enough to +work with, too." + +"I've got more than that in my purse," said Mary. "Mrs. Morrison gave +me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr. Craven." + +"Did he remember thee that much?" exclaimed Martha. + +"Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week to spend. She gives +me one every Saturday. I didn't know what to spend it on." + +"My word! that's riches," said Martha. "Tha' can buy anything in th' +world tha' wants. Th' rent of our cottage is only one an' threepence an' +it's like pullin' eye-teeth to get it. Now I've just thought of +somethin'," putting her hands on her hips. + +"What?" said Mary eagerly. + +"In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o' flower-seeds for a penny +each, and our Dickon he knows which is th' prettiest ones an' how to +make 'em grow. He walks over to Thwaite many a day just for th' fun of +it. Does tha' know how to print letters?" suddenly. + +"I know how to write," Mary answered. + +Martha shook her head. + +"Our Dickon can only read printin'. If tha' could print we could write a +letter to him an' ask him to go an' buy th' garden tools an' th' seeds +at th' same time." + +"Oh! you're a good girl!" Mary cried. "You are, really! I didn't know +you were so nice. I know I can print letters if I try. Let's ask Mrs. +Medlock for a pen and ink and some paper." + +"I've got some of my own," said Martha. "I bought 'em so I could print a +bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday. I'll go and get it." + +She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin +little hands together with sheer pleasure. + +"If I have a spade," she whispered, "I can make the earth nice and soft +and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and can make flowers grow the garden +won't be dead at all--it will come alive." + +She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned +with her pen and ink and paper she was obliged to clear the table and +carry the plates and dishes down-stairs and when she got into the +kitchen Mrs. Medlock was there and told her to do something, so Mary +waited for what seemed to her a long time before she came back. Then it +was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon. Mary had been taught +very little because her governesses had disliked her too much to stay +with her. She could not spell particularly well but she found that she +could print letters when she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated +to her: + + "_My Dear Dickon:_ + + This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me + at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money and will + you go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds + and a set of garden tools to make a flower-bed. + Pick the prettiest ones and easy to grow because + she has never done it before and lived in India + which is different. Give my love to mother and + every one of you. Miss Mary is going to tell me a + lot more so that on my next day out you can hear + about elephants and camels and gentlemen going + hunting lions and tigers. + + "Your loving sister, + "MARTHA PHOEBE SOWERBY." + +"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher's boy to +take it in his cart. He's a great friend o' Dickon's," said Martha. + +"How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?" asked Mary. + +"He'll bring 'em to you himself. He'll like to walk over this way." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should +see Dickon." + +"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, she had looked so +pleased. + +"Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him +very much." + +Martha gave a little start, as if she suddenly remembered something. + +"Now to think," she broke out, "to think o' me forgettin' that there; +an' I thought I was goin' to tell you first thing this mornin'. I asked +mother--and she said she'd ask Mrs. Medlock her own self." + +"Do you mean--" Mary began. + +"What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottage +some day and have a bit o' mother's hot oat cake, an' butter, an' a +glass o' milk." + +It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To +think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue! +To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children! + +"Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?" she asked, quite +anxiously. + +"Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and +how clean she keeps the cottage." + +"If I went I should see your mother as well as Dickon," said Mary, +thinking it over and liking the idea very much. "She doesn't seem to be +like the mothers in India." + +Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon ended by +making her feel quiet and thoughtful. Martha stayed with her until +tea-time, but they sat in comfortable quiet and talked very little. But +just before Martha went down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a +question. + +"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again +to-day?" + +Martha certainly started slightly. + +"What makes thee ask that?" she said. + +"Because when I waited so long for you to come back I opened the door +and walked down the corridor to see if you were coming. And I heard that +far-off crying again, just as we heard it the other night. There isn't a +wind to-day, so you see it couldn't have been the wind." + +"Eh!" said Martha restlessly. "Tha' mustn't go walkin' about in +corridors an' listenin'. Mr. Craven would be that there angry there's no +knowin' what he'd do." + +"I wasn't listening," said Mary. "I was just waiting for you--and I +heard it. That's three times." + +"My word! There's Mrs. Medlock's bell," said Martha, and she almost ran +out of the room. + +"It's the strangest house any one ever lived in," said Mary drowsily, as +she dropped her head on the cushioned seat of the armchair near her. +Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope had made her feel so +comfortably tired that she fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +DICKON + + +The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret +Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked +the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful +old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like +being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had +read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret +gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them +for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She +had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider +awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was beginning to like +to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She +could run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The +bulbs in the secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice +clear places were made round them that they had all the breathing space +they wanted, and really, if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to +cheer up under the dark earth and work tremendously. The sun could get +at them and warm them, and when the rain came down it could reach them +at once, so they began to feel very much alive. + +Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now she had something +interesting to be determined about, she was very much absorbed, indeed. +She worked and dug and pulled up weeds steadily, only becoming more +pleased with her work every hour instead of tiring of it. It seemed to +her like a fascinating sort of play. She found many more of the +sprouting pale green points than she had ever hoped to find. They seemed +to be starting up everywhere and each day she was sure she found tiny +new ones, some so tiny that they barely peeped above the earth. There +were so many that she remembered what Martha had said about the +"snowdrops by the thousands," and about bulbs spreading and making new +ones. These had been left to themselves for ten years and perhaps they +had spread, like the snowdrops, into thousands. She wondered how long it +would be before they showed that they were flowers. Sometimes she +stopped digging to look at the garden and try to imagine what it would +be like when it was covered with thousands of lovely things in bloom. + +During that week of sunshine, she became more intimate with Ben +Weatherstaff. She surprised him several times by seeming to start up +beside him as if she sprang out of the earth. The truth was that she was +afraid that he would pick up his tools and go away if he saw her coming, +so she always walked toward him as silently as possible. But, in fact, +he did not object to her as strongly as he had at first. Perhaps he was +secretly rather flattered by her evident desire for his elderly company. +Then, also, she was more civil than she had been. He did not know that +when she first saw him she spoke to him as she would have spoken to a +native, and had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire man was not +accustomed to salaam to his masters, and be merely commanded by them to +do things. + +"Tha'rt like th' robin," he said to her one morning when he lifted his +head and saw her standing by him. "I never knows when I shall see thee +or which side tha'll come from." + +"He's friends with me now," said Mary. + +"That's like him," snapped Ben Weatherstaff. "Makin' up to th' women +folk just for vanity an' flightiness. There's nothin' he wouldn't do for +th' sake o' showin' off an' flirtin' his tail-feathers. He's as full o' +pride as an egg's full o' meat." + +He very seldom talked much and sometimes did not even answer Mary's +questions except by a grunt, but this morning he said more than usual. +He stood up and rested one hobnailed boot on the top of his spade while +he looked her over. + +"How long has tha' been here?" he jerked out. + +"I think it's about a month," she answered. + +"Tha's beginnin' to do Misselthwaite credit," he said. "Tha's a bit +fatter than tha' was an' tha's not quite so yeller. Tha' looked like a +young plucked crow when tha' first came into this garden. Thinks I to +myself I never set eyes on an uglier, sourer faced young 'un." + +Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much of her looks she was +not greatly disturbed. + +"I know I'm fatter," she said. "My stockings are getting tighter. They +used to make wrinkles. There's the robin, Ben Weatherstaff." + +There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever. +His red waistcoat was as glossy as satin and he flirted his wings and +tail and tilted his head and hopped about with all sorts of lively +graces. He seemed determined to make Ben Weatherstaff admire him. But +Ben was sarcastic. + +"Aye, there tha' art!" he said. "Tha' can put up with me for a bit +sometimes when tha's got no one better. Tha's been reddinin' up thy +waistcoat an' polishin' thy feathers this two weeks. I know what tha's +up to. Tha's courtin' some bold young madam somewhere, tellin' thy lies +to her about bein' th' finest cock robin on Missel Moor an' ready to +fight all th' rest of 'em." + +"Oh! look at him!" exclaimed Mary. + +The robin was evidently in a fascinating, bold mood. He hopped closer +and closer and looked at Ben Weatherstaff more and more engagingly. He +flew on to the nearest currant bush and tilted his head and sang a +little song right at him. + +"Tha' thinks tha'll get over me by doin' that," said Ben, wrinkling his +face up in such a way that Mary felt sure he was trying not to look +pleased. "Tha' thinks no one can stand out against thee--that's what +tha' thinks." + +The robin spread his wings--Mary could scarcely believe her eyes. He +flew right up to the handle of Ben Weatherstaff's spade and alighted on +the top of it. Then the old man's face wrinkled itself slowly into a new +expression. He stood still as if he were afraid to breathe--as if he +would not have stirred for the world, lest his robin should start away. +He spoke quite in a whisper. + +"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if he were saying something +quite different. "Tha' does know how to get at a chap--tha' does! Tha's +fair unearthly, tha's so knowin'." + +And he stood without stirring--almost without drawing his breath--until +the robin gave another flirt to his wings and flew away. Then he stood +looking at the handle of the spade as if there might be Magic in it, and +then he began to dig again and said nothing for several minutes. + +But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was not +afraid to talk to him. + +"Have you a garden of your own?" she asked. + +"No. I'm bachelder an' lodge with Martin at th' gate." + +"If you had one," said Mary, "what would you plant?" + +"Cabbages an' 'taters an' onions." + +"But if you wanted to make a flower garden," persisted Mary, "what would +you plant?" + +"Bulbs an' sweet-smellin' things--but mostly roses." + +Mary's face lighted up. + +"Do you like roses?" she said. + +Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it aside before he answered. + +"Well, yes, I do. I was learned that by a young lady I was gardener to. +She had a lot in a place she was fond of, an' she loved 'em like they +was children--or robins. I've seen her bend over an' kiss 'em." He +dragged out another weed and scowled at it. "That were as much as ten +year' ago." + +"Where is she now?" asked Mary, much interested. + +"Heaven," he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil, "'cording +to what parson says." + +"What happened to the roses?" Mary asked again, more interested than +ever. + +"They was left to themselves." + +Mary was becoming quite excited. + +"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left to +themselves?" she ventured. + +"Well, I'd got to like 'em--an' I liked her--an' she liked 'em," Ben +Weatherstaff admitted reluctantly. "Once or twice a year I'd go an' work +at 'em a bit--prune 'em an' dig about th' roots. They run wild, but they +was in rich soil, so some of 'em lived." + +"When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can you +tell whether they are dead or alive?" inquired Mary. + +"Wait till th' spring gets at 'em--wait till th' sun shines on th' rain +an' th' rain falls on th' sunshine an' then tha'll find out." + +"How--how?" cried Mary, forgetting to be careful. + +"Look along th' twigs an' branches an' if tha' sees a bit of a brown +lump swelling here an' there, watch it after th' warm rain an' see what +happens." He stopped suddenly and looked curiously at her eager face. +"Why does tha' care so much about roses an' such, all of a sudden?" he +demanded. + +Mistress Mary felt her face grow red. She was almost afraid to answer. + +"I--I want to play that--that I have a garden of my own," she stammered. +"I--there is nothing for me to do. I have nothing--and no one." + +"Well," said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her, "that's true. +Tha' hasn't." + +He said it in such an odd way that Mary wondered if he was actually a +little sorry for her. She had never felt sorry for herself; she had only +felt tired and cross, because she disliked people and things so much. +But now the world seemed to be changing and getting nicer. If no one +found out about the secret garden, she should enjoy herself always. + +She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes longer and asked him as +many questions as she dared. He answered every one of them in his queer +grunting way and he did not seem really cross and did not pick up his +spade and leave her. He said something about roses just as she was +going away and it reminded her of the ones he had said he had been fond +of. + +"Do you go and see those other roses now?" she asked. + +"Not been this year. My rheumatics has made me too stiff in th' joints." + +He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite suddenly he seemed to +get angry with her, though she did not see why he should. + +"Now look here!" he said sharply. "Don't tha' ask so many questions. +Tha'rt th' worst wench for askin' questions I've ever come across. Get +thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for to-day." + +And he said it so crossly that she knew there was not the least use in +staying another minute. She went skipping slowly down the outside walk, +thinking him over and saying to herself that, queer as it was, here was +another person whom she liked in spite of his crossness. She liked old +Ben Weatherstaff. Yes, she did like him. She always wanted to try to +make him talk to her. Also she began to believe that he knew everything +in the world about flowers. + +There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round the secret garden and +ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she +would skip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were +any rabbits hopping about. She enjoyed the skipping very much and when +she reached the little gate she opened it and went through because she +heard a low, peculiar whistling sound and wanted to find out what it +was. + +It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite caught her breath as she +stopped to look at it. A boy was sitting under a tree, with his back +against it, playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny looking boy +about twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks +were as red as poppies and never had Mistress Mary seen such round and +such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned +against, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind +a bush nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep +out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with +tremulous noses--and actually it appeared as if they were all drawing +near to watch him and listen to the strange low little call his pipe +seemed to make. + +When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost +as low as and rather like his piping. + +"Don't tha' move," he said. "It'd flight 'em." + +Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and began to rise +from the ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he +were moving at all, but at last he stood on his feet and then the +squirrel scampered back up into the branches of his tree, the pheasant +withdrew his head and the rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop +away, though not at all as if they were frightened. + +"I'm Dickon," the boy said. "I know tha'rt Miss Mary." + +Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at first that he was +Dickon. Who else could have been charming rabbits and pheasants as the +natives charm snakes in India? He had a wide, red, curving mouth and his +smile spread all over his face. + +"I got up slow," he explained, "because if tha' makes a quick move it +startles 'em. A body 'as to move gentle an' speak low when wild things +is about." + +He did not speak to her as if they had never seen each other before but +as if he knew her quite well. Mary knew nothing about boys and she spoke +to him a little stiffly because she felt rather shy. + +"Did you get Martha's letter?" she asked. + +He nodded his curly, rust-colored head. + +"That's why I come." + +He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground +beside him when he piped. + +"I've got th' garden tools. There's a little spade an' rake an' a fork +an' hoe. Eh! they are good 'uns. There's a trowel, too. An' th' woman in +th' shop threw in a packet o' white poppy an' one o' blue larkspur when +I bought th' other seeds." + +"Will you show the seeds to me?" Mary said. + +She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. +It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not +like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and +with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. As she came closer to him +she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and +leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very +much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and +round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy. + +"Let us sit down on this log and look at them," she said. + +They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of his +coat pocket. He untied the string and inside there were ever so many +neater and smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one. + +"There's a lot o' mignonette an' poppies," he said. "Mignonette's th' +sweetest smellin' thing as grows, an' it'll grow wherever you cast it, +same as poppies will. Them as'll come up an' bloom if you just whistle +to 'em, them's th' nicest of all." + +He stopped and turned his head quickly, his poppy-cheeked face lighting +up. + +"Where's that robin as is callin' us?" he said. + +The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries, and +Mary thought she knew whose it was. + +"Is it really calling us?" she asked. + +"Aye," said Dickon, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, +"he's callin' some one he's friends with. That's same as sayin' 'Here I +am. Look at me. I wants a bit of a chat.' There he is in the bush. Whose +is he?" + +"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows me a little," answered +Mary. + +"Aye, he knows thee," said Dickon in his low voice again. "An' he likes +thee. He's took thee on. He'll tell me all about thee in a minute." + +He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement Mary had noticed +before, and then he made a sound almost like the robin's own twitter. +The robin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered quite as +if he were replying to a question. + +"Aye, he's a friend o' yours," chuckled Dickon. + +"Do you think he is?" cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know. "Do +you think he really likes me?" + +"He wouldn't come near thee if he didn't," answered Dickon. "Birds is +rare choosers an' a robin can flout a body worse than a man. See, he's +making up to thee now. 'Cannot tha' see a chap?' he's sayin'." + +And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered +and tilted as he hopped on his bush. + +"Do you understand everything birds say?" said Mary. + +Dickon's grin spread until he seemed all wide, red, curving mouth, and +he rubbed his rough head. + +"I think I do, and they think I do," he said. "I've lived on th' moor +with 'em so long. I've watched 'em break shell an' come out an' fledge +an' learn to fly an' begin to sing, till I think I'm one of 'em. +Sometimes I think p'raps I'm a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit, or a +squirrel, or even a beetle, an' I don't know it." + +He laughed and came back to the log and began to talk about the flower +seeds again. He told her what they looked like when they were flowers; +he told her how to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them. + +"See here," he said suddenly, turning round to look at her. "I'll plant +them for thee myself. Where is tha' garden?" + +Mary's thin hands clutched each other as they lay on her lap. She did +not know what to say, so for a whole minute she said nothing. She had +never thought of this. She felt miserable. And she felt as if she went +red and then pale. + +"Tha's got a bit o' garden, hasn't tha'?" Dickon said. + +It was true that she had turned red and then pale. Dickon saw her do it, +and as she still said nothing, he began to be puzzled. + +"Wouldn't they give thee a bit?" he asked. "Hasn't tha' got any yet?" + +She held her hands even tighter and turned her eyes toward him. + +"I don't know anything about boys," she said slowly. "Could you keep a +secret, if I told you one? It's a great secret. I don't know what I +should do if any one found it out. I believe I should die!" She said the +last sentence quite fiercely. + +Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his +rough head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly. + +"I'm keepin' secrets all th' time," he said. "If I couldn't keep secrets +from th' other lads, secrets about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests, an' +wild things' holes, there'd be naught safe on th' moor. Aye, I can keep +secrets." + +Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve but +she did it. + +"I've stolen a garden," she said very fast. "It isn't mine. It isn't +anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into +it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know." + +She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life. + +"I don't care, I don't care! Nobody has any right to take it from me +when I care about it and they don't. They're letting it die, all shut in +by itself," she ended passionately, and she threw her arms over her face +and burst out crying--poor little Mistress Mary. + +Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder. + +"Eh-h-h!" he said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the way he +did it meant both wonder and sympathy. + +"I've nothing to do," said Mary. "Nothing belongs to me. I found it +myself and I got into it myself. I was only just like the robin, and +they wouldn't take it from the robin." + +"Where is it?" asked Dickon in a dropped voice. + +Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew she felt contrary +again, and obstinate, and she did not care at all. She was imperious and +Indian, and at the same time hot and sorrowful. + +"Come with me and I'll show you," she said. + +She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew so +thickly. Dickon followed her with a queer, almost pitying, look on his +face. He felt as if he were being led to look at some strange bird's +nest and must move softly. When she stepped to the wall and lifted the +hanging ivy he started. There was a door and Mary pushed it slowly open +and they passed in together, and then Mary stood and waved her hand +round defiantly. + +"It's this," she said. "It's a secret garden, and I'm the only one in +the world who wants it to be alive." + +Dickon looked round and round about it, and round and round again. + +"Eh!" he almost whispered, "it is a queer, pretty place! It's like as if +a body was in a dream." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH + + +For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched +him, and then he began to walk about softly, even more lightly than Mary +had walked the first time she had found herself inside the four walls. +His eyes seemed to be taking in everything--the gray trees with the gray +creepers climbing over them and hanging from their branches, the tangle +on the walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the stone +seats and tall flower urns standing in them. + +"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper. + +"Did you know about it?" asked Mary. + +She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her. + +"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's +to do in here." + +"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand +quickly against her mouth. "Did you know about the garden?" she asked +again when she had recovered herself. + +Dickon nodded. + +"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered. +"Us used to wonder what it was like." + +He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his +round eyes looked queerly happy. + +"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th' +safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles o' +trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't +build here." + +Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it. + +"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps +they were all dead." + +"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!" + +He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen +all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and +branches. He took a thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its +blades. + +"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An' +there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's a +new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of +hard, dry gray. + +Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way. + +"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive--quite?" + +Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth. + +"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha +had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively." + +"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to +be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there +are." + +She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. +They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his +knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful. + +"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on +it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an' +growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he +pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might think this +was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut it +low down an' see." + +He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not +far above the earth. + +"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee so. There's green in that +wood yet. Look at it." + +Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might. + +"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he +explained. "When th' inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here piece +I've cut off, it's done for. There's a big root here as all this live +wood sprung out of, an' if th' old wood's cut off an' it's dug round, +an' took care of there'll be--" he stopped and lifted his face to look +up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him--"there'll be a fountain +o' roses here this summer." + +They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong +and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood +away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green +life in it. In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell +too, and when he cut through a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out +joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade of +moist green. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed +her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and +stirred the earth and let the air in. + +They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses +when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of +surprise. + +"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. "Who did that +there?" + +It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points. + +"I did it," said Mary. + +"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed. + +"I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so +thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe. So +I made a place for them. I don't even know what they are." + +Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile. + +"Tha' was right," he said. "A gardener couldn't have told thee better. +They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops, +an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch, "an' here's +daffydowndillys. Eh! they will be a sight." + +He ran from one clearing to another. + +"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking +her over. + +"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger. I used +always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell +the earth when it's turned up." + +"It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely. "There's +naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' +fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em. I get out on th' moor +many a day when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush an' listen to th' +soft swish o' drops on th' heather an' I just sniff an' sniff. My nose +end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says." + +"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly. She +had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one. + +"Not me," he said, grinning. "I never ketched cold since I was born. I +wasn't brought up nesh enough. I've chased about th' moor in all +weathers same as th' rabbits does. Mother says I've sniffed up too much +fresh air for twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with cold. I'm as +tough as a white-thorn knobstick." + +He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him +and helping him with her fork or the trowel. + +"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite +exultantly. + +"Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged. "I'm sure I can +help, too. I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me. +Oh! do come, Dickon!" + +"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered +stoutly. "It's th' best fun I ever had in my life--shut in here an' +wakenin' up a garden." + +"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive +I'll--I don't know what I'll do," she ended helplessly. What could you +do for a boy like that? + +"I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon, with his happy grin. +"Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll learn +how to talk to th' robin same as I do. Eh! we'll have a lot o' fun." + +He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and +bushes with a thoughtful expression. + +"I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped +an' spick an' span, would you?" he said. "It's nicer like this with +things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other." + +"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like +a secret garden if it was tidy." + +Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look. + +"It's a secret garden sure enough," he said, "but seems like some one +besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' +ago." + +"But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary. "No one +could get in." + +"That's true," he answered. "It's a queer place. Seems to me as if +there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an' there, later than ten year' +ago." + +"But how could it have been done?" said Mary. + +He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head. + +"Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th' door locked an' th' key +buried." + +Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should +never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Of +course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon +began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung +at her when he wanted to tease her. + +"Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired. + +"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, +"an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas." + +"Let us plant some," said Mary. + +"There's lilies o' th' valley here already; I saw 'em. They'll have +growed too close an' we'll have to separate 'em, but there's plenty. Th' +other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring you some +bits o' plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha' want 'em?" + +Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and +of how she had hated them and of their calling her "Mistress Mary Quite +Contrary." + +"They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang-- + + 'Mistress Mary, quite contrary, + How does your garden grow? + With silver bells, and cockle shells, + And marigolds all in a row.' + +I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers +like silver bells." + +She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the +earth. + +"I wasn't as contrary as they were." + +But Dickon laughed. + +"Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was +sniffing up the scent of it, "there doesn't seem to be no need for no +one to be contrary when there's flowers an' such like, an' such lots o' +friendly wild things runnin' about makin' homes for themselves, or +buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?" + +Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped +frowning. + +"Dickon," she said. "You are as nice as Martha said you were. I like +you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like five +people." + +Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the +grate. He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round +blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose. + +"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th' other four?" + +"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the +robin and Ben Weatherstaff." + +Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his +arm over his mouth. + +"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art th' +queerest little lass I ever saw." + +Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a +question she had never dreamed of asking any one before. And she tried +to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India a +native was always pleased if you knew his speech. + +"Does tha' like me?" she said. + +"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an' so +does th' robin, I do believe!" + +"That's two, then," said Mary. "That's two for me." + +And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary was +startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard strike +the hour of her midday dinner. + +"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And you will have to go too, +won't you?" + +Dickon grinned. + +"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said. "Mother always lets +me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket." + +He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy +little bundle tied up in a quiet clean, coarse, blue and white +handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of +something laid between them. + +"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice o' +fat bacon with it to-day." + +Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it. + +"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be done with mine first. +I'll get some more work done before I start back home." + +He sat down with his back against a tree. + +"I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and give him th' rind o' th' bacon +to peck at. They likes a bit o' fat wonderful." + +Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly it seemed as if he might +be a sort of wood fairy who might be gone when she came into the garden +again. He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-way to the +door in the wall and then she stopped and went back. + +"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said. + +His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread +and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly. + +"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does tha' +think I'd tell any one? Not me," he said. "Tha' art as safe as a missel +thrush." + +And she was quite sure she was. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" + + +Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her +room. Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright +pink. Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near +it. + +"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?" + +"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!" + +"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha' like him?" + +"I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice. + +Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too. + +"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never +thought he was handsome. His nose turns up too much." + +"I like it to turn up," said Mary. + +"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful. "Though +they're a nice color." + +"I like them round," said Mary. "And they are exactly the color of the +sky over the moor." + +Martha beamed with satisfaction. + +"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds +an' th' clouds. But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?" + +"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately. "I wish mine were just +like it." + +Martha chuckled delightedly. + +"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said. "But I knowed +it would be that way when tha' saw him. How did tha' like th' seeds an' +th' garden tools?" + +"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary. + +"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em. He'd be sure to bring 'em +if they was in Yorkshire. He's such a trusty lad." + +Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but she +did not. She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening tools, +and there was only one moment when Mary was frightened. This was when +she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted. + +"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired. + +"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating. + +"Well, I wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is." + +"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen under-gardeners and +Ben Weatherstaff." + +"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha. "He's not half +as bad as he looks, for all he's so crabbed. Mr. Craven lets him do what +he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he used to +make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he'd find you a corner somewhere +out o' the way." + +"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one _could_ mind my +having it, could they?" Mary said anxiously. + +"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha. "You wouldn't do no +harm." + +Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the +table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but +Martha stopped her. + +"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said. "I thought I'd let you eat +your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he +wants to see you." + +Mary turned quite pale. + +"Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I came. I heard +Pitcher say he didn't." + +"Well," explained Martha, "Mrs. Medlock says it's because o' mother. She +was walkin' to Thwaite village an' she met him. She'd never spoke to him +before, but Mrs. Craven had been to our cottage two or three times. He'd +forgot, but mother hadn't an' she made bold to stop him. I don't know +what she said to him about you but she said somethin' as put him in th' +mind to see you before he goes away again, to-morrow." + +"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away to-morrow? I am so glad!" + +"He's goin' for a long time. He mayn't come back till autumn or winter. +He's goin' to travel in foreign places. He's always doin' it." + +"Oh! I'm so glad--so glad!" said Mary thankfully. + +If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be +time to watch the secret garden come alive. Even if he found out then +and took it away from her she would have had that much at least. + +"When do you think he will want to see--" + +She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. +Medlock walked in. She had on her best black dress and cap, and her +collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man's face +on it. It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years +ago, and she always wore it when she was dressed up. She looked nervous +and excited. + +"Your hair's rough," she said quickly. "Go and brush it. Martha, help +her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him in +his study." + +All the pink left Mary's cheeks. Her heart began to thump and she felt +herself changing into a stiff, plain, silent child again. She did not +even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom, +followed by Martha. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and +her hair brushed, and after she was quite tidy she followed Mrs. Medlock +down the corridors, in silence. What was there for her to say? She was +obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and she +would not like him. She knew what he would think of her. + +She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At +last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door, and when some one said, "Come in," +they entered the room together. A man was sitting in an armchair before +the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him. + +"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said. + +"You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to +take her away," said Mr. Craven. + +When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a +plain little thing, twisting her thin hands together. She could see that +the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with high, +rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white. He +turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her. + +"Come here!" he said. + +Mary went to him. + +He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been so +miserable. He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him and +as if he did not know what in the world to do with her. + +"Are you well?" he asked. + +"Yes," answered Mary. + +"Do they take good care of you?" + +"Yes." + +He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over. + +"You are very thin," he said. + +"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest +way. + +What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely +saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly keep +his thoughts upon her. + +"I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember you? I intended to send +you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot." + +"Please," began Mary. "Please--" and then the lump in her throat choked +her. + +"What do you want to say?" he inquired. + +"I am--I am too big for a nurse," said Mary. "And please--please don't +make me have a governess yet." + +He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her. + +"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absent-mindedly. + +Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage. + +"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered. + +"Yes, I think so," he replied. + +"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. She knows." + +He seemed to rouse himself. + +"What do you want to do?" + +"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did +not tremble. "I never liked it in India. It makes me hungry here, and I +am getting fatter." + +He was watching her. + +"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will," he said. "She +thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess." + +"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor," +argued Mary. + +"Where do you play?" he asked next. + +"Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope. I +skip and run--and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick +up out of the earth. I don't do any harm." + +"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice. "You could not +do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like." + +Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see +the excited lump which she felt jump into it. She came a step nearer to +him. + +"May I?" she said tremulously. + +Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever. + +"Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed. "Of course you may. I am your +guardian, though I am a poor one for any child. I cannot give you time +or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I wish you +to be happy and comfortable. I don't know anything about children, but +Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need. I sent for you to-day +because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked +about you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and running +about." + +"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself. + +"She ought to," said Mr. Craven. "I thought her rather bold to stop me +on the moor, but she said--Mrs. Craven had been kind to her." It seemed +hard for him to speak his dead wife's name. "She is a respectable woman. +Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things. Play out of doors +as much as you like. It's a big place and you may go where you like and +amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?" as if a sudden +thought had struck him. "Do you want toys, books, dolls?" + +"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?" + +In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and +that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked +quite startled. + +"Earth!" he repeated. "What do you mean?" + +"To plant seeds in--to make things grow--to see them come alive," Mary +faltered. + +He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his +eyes. + +"Do you--care about gardens so much," he said slowly. + +"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary. "I was always ill and +tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and +stuck flowers in them. But here it is different." + +Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room. + +"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she +must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her +his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind. + +"You can have as much earth as you want," he said. "You remind me of +some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a +bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, "take it, child, +and make it come alive." + +"May I take it from anywhere--if it's not wanted?" + +"Anywhere," he answered. "There! You must go now, I am tired." He +touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. "Good-by. I shall be away all +summer." + +Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been +waiting in the corridor. + +"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I +understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before she +begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in the +garden. Don't look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh air +and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now and then and +she may sometimes go to the cottage." + +Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved to hear that she need not +"look after" Mary too much. She had felt her a tiresome charge and had +indeed seen as little of her as she dared. In addition to this she was +fond of Martha's mother. + +"Thank you, sir," she said. "Susan Sowerby and me went to school +together and she's as sensible and good-hearted a woman as you'd find in +a day's walk. I never had any children myself and she's had twelve, and +there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can get no harm from +them. I'd always take Susan Sowerby's advice about children myself. +She's what you might call healthy-minded--if you understand me." + +"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take Miss Mary away now and send +Pitcher to me." + +When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back +to her room. She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact, +hurried back after she had removed the dinner service. + +"I can have my garden!" cried Mary. "I may have it where I like! I am +not going to have a governess for a long time! Your mother is coming to +see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me could +not do any harm and I may do what I like--anywhere!" + +"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?" + +"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face is +so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together." + +She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so much +longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would have to +set out early on his five-mile walk. When she slipped through the door +under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left him. The +gardening tools were laid together under a tree. She ran to them, +looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen. He had +gone away and the secret garden was empty--except for the robin who had +just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush watching +her. + +"He's gone," she said wofully. "Oh! was he--was he--was he only a wood +fairy?" + +Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye. It +was a piece of paper--in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had +printed for Martha to send to Dickon. It was fastened on the bush with a +long thorn, and in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there. There +were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of picture. At first +she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest +with a bird sitting on it. Underneath were the printed letters and they +said: + +"I will cum bak." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"I AM COLIN" + + +Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and +she showed it to Martha. + +"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never knew our Dickon was as +clever as that. That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest, +as large as life an' twice as natural." + +Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had +meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was +her nest and she was like a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that +queer, common boy! + +She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep +looking forward to the morning. + +But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly +in the springtime. She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain +beating with heavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in +torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and in the +chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable +and angry. + +"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it +knew I did not want it." + +She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not +cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she +hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again. The +mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she +had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it +"wuthered" and how the big rain-drops poured down and beat against the +pane! + +"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on +crying," she said. + + * * * * * + +She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour, +when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward +the door listening. She listened and she listened. + +"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper. "That isn't the +wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before." + +The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a +far-off faint sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes +and each minute she became more and more sure. She felt as if she must +find out what it was. It seemed even stranger than the secret garden and +the buried key. Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood made +her bold. She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor. + +"I am going to find out what it is," she said. "Everybody is in bed and +I don't care about Mrs. Medlock--I don't care!" + +There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out +of the room. The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was too +excited to mind that. She thought she remembered the corners she must +turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with tapestry--the +one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she lost herself. The sound +had come up that passage. So she went on with her dim light, almost +feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she fancied she could +hear it. The far-off faint crying went on and led her. Sometimes it +stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was this the right +corner to turn? She stopped and thought. Yes it was. Down this passage +and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to the right +again. Yes, there was the tapestry door. + +She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood +in the corridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was +not loud. It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few +yards farther on there was a door. She could see a glimmer of light +coming from beneath it. The Someone was crying in that room, and it was +quite a young Someone. + +So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing +in the room! + +It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. There was a +low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the +side of a carved four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was +lying a boy, crying fretfully. + +Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep +again and was dreaming without knowing it. + +The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to +have eyes too big for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over +his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He +looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were +tired and cross than as if he were in pain. + +Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her +breath. Then she crept across the room, and as she drew nearer the +light attracted the boy's attention and he turned his head on his pillow +and stared at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed +immense. + +[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU?--ARE YOU A GHOST?'"--_Page 157_] + +"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. "Are you a +ghost?" + +"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened. +"Are you one?" + +He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what +strange eyes he had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for +his face because they had black lashes all round them. + +"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so. "I am Colin." + +"Who is Colin?" she faltered. + +"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?" + +"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle." + +"He is my father," said the boy. + +"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why +didn't they?" + +"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with +an anxious expression. + +She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her. + +"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very +often. You might be one of them." + +Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she +put a piece of it between his fingers. + +"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said. "I will pinch you +a little if you like, to show you how real I am. For a minute I thought +you might be a dream too." + +"Where did you come from?" he asked. + +"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I +heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you +crying for?" + +"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your +name again." + +"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?" + +He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a +little more as if he believed in her reality. + +"No," he answered. "They daren't." + +"Why?" asked Mary. + +"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let people +see me and talk me over." + +"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment. + +"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father +won't let people talk me over either. The servants are not allowed to +speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live. My +father hates to think I may be like him." + +"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. "What a queer house! +Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are +locked up--and you! Have you been locked up?" + +"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it. It +tires me too much." + +"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured. + +"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn't want to see me." + +"Why?" Mary could not help asking again. + +A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face. + +"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me. +He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking. He almost hates +me." + +"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to +herself. + +"What garden?" the boy asked. + +"Oh! just--just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you +been here always?" + +"Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside, +but I won't stay because people stare at me. I used to wear an iron +thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from London to +see me and said it was stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me +out in the fresh air. I hate fresh air and I don't want to go out." + +"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking +at me like that?" + +"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully. +"Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake." + +"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced round the room with its high +ceiling and shadowy corners and dim firelight. "It looks quite like a +dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the house is +asleep--everybody but us. We are wide awake." + +"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly. + +Mary thought of something all at once. + +"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go +away?" + +He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull. + +"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you +are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk. I want to hear about +you." + +Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the +cushioned stool. She did not want to go away at all. She wanted to stay +in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy. + +"What do you want me to tell you?" she said. + +He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to +know which corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had been +doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had lived +before she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these questions and many +more and he lay back on his pillow and listened. He made her tell him a +great deal about India and about her voyage across the ocean. She found +out that because he had been an invalid he had not learned things as +other children had. One of his nurses had taught him to read when he was +quite little and he was always reading and looking at pictures in +splendid books. + +Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all +sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have +been amused, however. He could have anything he asked for and was never +made to do anything he did not like to do. + +"Every one is obliged to do what pleases me," he said indifferently. "It +makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to grow up." + +He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to +matter to him at all. He seemed to like the sound of Mary's voice. As +she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way. Once or +twice she wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze. But at +last he asked a question which opened up a new subject. + +"How old are you?" he asked. + +"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so +are you." + +"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice. + +"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was +buried. And it has been locked for ten years." + +Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows. + +"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he +exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested. + +"It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously. "He +locked the door. No one--no one knew where he buried the key." + +"What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly. + +"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's +careful answer. + +But it was too late to be careful. He was too much like herself. He too +had had nothing to think about and the idea of a hidden garden attracted +him as it had attracted her. He asked question after question. Where was +it? Had she never looked for the door? Had she never asked the +gardeners? + +"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told not +to answer questions." + +"I would make them," said Colin. + +"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could +make people answer questions, who knew what might happen! + +"Every one is obliged to please me. I told you that," he said. "If I +were to live, this place would sometime belong to me. They all know +that. I would make them tell me." + +Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see +quite plainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the +whole world belonged to him. How peculiar he was and how coolly he spoke +of not living. + +"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was +curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden. + +"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had spoken +before. "Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say I +shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now +they think I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin. He +is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my father +is dead. I should think he wouldn't want me to live." + +"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary. + +"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to die. +When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and cry." + +"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know +who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget +the garden. + +"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about +that garden. Don't you want to see it?" + +"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice. + +"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted to +see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want the key dug +up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in my +chair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them open +the door." + +He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like +stars and looked more immense than ever. + +"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I +will let you go, too." + +Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be +spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again +feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest. + +"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out. + +He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy! + +"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it." + +"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make +them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret +again." + +He leaned still farther forward. + +"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me." + +Mary's words almost tumbled over one another. + +"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if there +was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could +find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind +us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and +pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if +we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it +all come alive--" + +"Is it dead?" he interrupted her. + +"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will +live but the roses--" + +He stopped her again as excited as she was herself. + +"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly. + +"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the +earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming." + +"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in +rooms if you are ill." + +"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, +and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary. "If the +garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things +grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don't you see? +Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?" + +He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on +his face. + +"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to +grow up. They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret. But I +like this kind better." + +"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary, +"perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime. And +then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can +always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some boy +who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a +secret garden." + +"I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy. "I +should like that. I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden." + +Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of +keeping the secret seemed to please him. She felt almost sure that if +she kept on talking and could make him see the garden in his mind as she +had seen it he would like it so much that he could not bear to think +that everybody might tramp into it when they chose. + +"I'll tell you what I _think_ it would be like, if we could go into it," +she said. "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle +perhaps." + +He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the +roses which _might_ have clambered from tree to tree and hung +down--about the many birds which _might_ have built their nests there +because it was so safe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben +Weatherstaff, and there was so much to tell about the robin and it was +so easy and safe to talk about it that she ceased to feel afraid. The +robin pleased him so much that he smiled until he looked almost +beautiful, and at first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than +herself, with his big eyes and heavy locks of hair. + +"I did not know birds could be like that," he said. "But if you stay in +a room you never see things. What a lot of things you know. I feel as if +you had been inside that garden." + +She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He evidently +did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a surprise. + +"I am going to let you look at something," he said. "Do you see that +rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?" + +Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a +curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture. + +"Yes," she answered. + +"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin. "Go and pull it." + +Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the +silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a +picture. It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had +bright hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were +exactly like Colin's unhappy ones, agate gray and looking twice as big +as they really were because of the black lashes all round them. + +"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she died. +Sometimes I hate her for doing it." + +"How queer!" said Mary. + +"If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always," he +grumbled. "I dare say I should have lived, too. And my father would not +have hated to look at me. I dare say I should have had a strong back. +Draw the curtain again." + +Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool. + +"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like +yours--at least they are the same shape and color. Why is the curtain +drawn over her?" + +He moved uncomfortably. + +"I made them do it," he said. "Sometimes I don't like to see her looking +at me. She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable. Besides, she is +mine and I don't want every one to see her." + +There were a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke. + +"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she +inquired. + +"She would do as I told her to do," he answered. "And I should tell her +that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I am glad you +came." + +"So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often as I can, but"--she +hesitated--"I shall have to look every day for the garden door." + +"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward." + +He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke +again. + +"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said. "I will not tell them +until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room and say +that I want to be by myself. Do you know Martha?" + +"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary. "She waits on me." + +He nodded his head toward the outer corridor. + +"She is the one who is asleep in the other room. The nurse went away +yesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes Martha +attend to me when she wants to go out. Martha shall tell you when to +come here." + +Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked +questions about the crying. + +"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said. + +"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and +then Martha comes." + +"I have been here a long time," said Mary. "Shall I go away now? Your +eyes look sleepy." + +"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly. + +"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will +do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it +and sing something quite low." + +"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily. + +Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she +leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a +very low little chanting song in Hindustani. + +"That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting +and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were +lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast +asleep. So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without +making a sound. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A YOUNG RAJAH + + +The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came and the rain had not +stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was +so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the +afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She +came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing +nothing else. + +"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' +looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." + +"I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary. + +Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled +eyes. + +"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!" + +"I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see +where it came from. It was Colin. I found him." + +Martha's face became red with fright. + +"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done +it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin' +about him--but tha'll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and +what'll mother do!" + +"You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We talked +and talked and he said he was glad I came." + +"Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's like +when anything vexes him. He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but when +he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us +daren't call our souls our own." + +"He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he +made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and +talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't +let me go. He let me see his mother's picture. Before I left him I sang +him to sleep." + +Martha fairly gasped with amazement. + +"I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested. "It's as if tha'd walked +straight into a lion's den. If he'd been like he is most times he'd have +throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th' house. He won't +let strangers look at him." + +"He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at +me. We stared!" said Mary. + +"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock finds +out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be packed +back to mother." + +"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It's to be +a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly. "And he says +everybody is obliged to do as he pleases." + +"Aye, that's true enough--th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her +forehead with her apron. + +"He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him +every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me." + +"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place--I shall for sure!" + +"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is +ordered to obey him," Mary argued. + +"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was +nice to thee!" + +"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered. + +"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long +breath. + +"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India, +but I can't make it. I just went into his room and I was so surprised +to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and stared at +me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he +was. And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of the +night and not knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other +questions. And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must not." + +"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha. + +"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary. + +"Nobody knows for sure and certain," said Martha. "Mr. Craven went off +his head like when he was born. Th' doctors thought he'd have to be put +in a 'sylum. It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you. He +wouldn't set eyes on th' baby. He just raved and said it'd be another +hunchback like him and it'd better die." + +"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked. "He didn't look like one." + +"He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began all wrong. Mother said that +there was enough trouble and raging in th' house to set any child wrong. +They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been takin' care of +it--keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk. Once they made him +wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill. Then a big doctor +came to see him an' made them take it off. He talked to th' other doctor +quite rough--in a polite way. He said there'd been too much medicine and +too much lettin' him have his own way." + +"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary. + +"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha. "I won't say as he +hasn't been ill a good bit. He's had coughs an' colds that's nearly +killed him two or three times. Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he +had typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He'd been out of +his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't know +nothin', an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing +for him an' for everybody.' An' she looked at him an' there he was with +his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible as she was herself. She +didn't know what'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give +me some water an' stop talkin'.'" + +"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary. + +"Mother says there's no reason why any child should live that gets no +fresh air an' doesn't do nothin' but lie on his back an' read +picture-books an' take medicine. He's weak and hates th' trouble o' +bein' taken out o' doors, an' he gets cold so easy he says it makes him +ill." + +Mary sat and looked at the fire. + +"I wonder," she said slowly, "if it would not do him good to go out into +a garden and watch things growing. It did me good." + +"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they +took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He'd been readin' in a +paper about people gettin' somethin' he called 'rose cold' an' he began +to sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't know +th' rules passed by an' looked at him curious. He threw himself into a +passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to be a +hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an' was ill all night." + +"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said +Mary. + +"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha. "Tha' may as well know +that at th' start." + +Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting. + +"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said. "I +hope he's in a good temper." + +She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a +puzzled expression. + +"Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said. "He's up on his sofa with his +picture-books. He's told the nurse to stay away until six o'clock. I'm +to wait in the next room. Th' minute she was gone he called me to him +an' says, 'I want Mary Lennox to come and talk to me, and remember +you're not to tell any one.' You'd better go as quick as you can." + +Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as +much as she wanted to see Dickon, but she wanted to see him very much. + +There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in +the daylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed. There were +rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the walls +which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky +and falling rain. Colin looked rather like a picture himself. He was +wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded +cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek. + +"Come in," he said. "I've been thinking about you all morning." + +"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary. "You don't know how +frightened Martha is. She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me about +you and then she will be sent away." + +He frowned. + +"Go and tell her to come here," he said. "She is in the next room." + +Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. +Colin was still frowning. + +"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded. + +"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red. + +"Has Medlock to do what I please?" + +"Everybody has, sir," said Martha. + +"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock +send you away if she finds it out?" + +"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha. + +"I'll send _her_ away if she dares to say a word about such a thing," +said Master Craven grandly. "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you." + +"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir." + +"What I want is your duty," said Colin more grandly still. "I'll take +care of you. Now go away." + +When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at +him as if he had set her wondering. + +"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her. "What are you thinking +about?" + +"I am thinking about two things." + +"What are they? Sit down and tell me." + +"This is the first one," said Mary, seating herself on the big stool. +"Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds +and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you +spoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them--in a +minute. I think they would have been killed if they hadn't." + +"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first +tell me what the second thing was." + +"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon." + +"Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!" + +She might as well tell him, she thought. She could talk about Dickon +without mentioning the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha talk +about him. Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring +him nearer. + +"He is Martha's brother. He is twelve years old," she explained. "He is +not like any one else in the world. He can charm foxes and squirrels and +birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft +tune on a pipe and they come and listen." + +There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one +suddenly toward him. + +"There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this," he exclaimed. "Come and +look at it." + +The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he +turned to one of them. + +"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly. + +"He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained. "But he +doesn't call it Magic. He says it's because he lives on the moor so much +and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird +or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin +questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps." + +Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and +the spots on his cheeks burned. + +"Tell me some more about him," he said. + +"He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on. "And he knows where +foxes and badgers and otters live. He keeps them secret so that other +boys won't find their holes and frighten them. He knows about everything +that grows or lives on the moor." + +"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a great, +bare, dreary place?" + +"It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary. "Thousands of lovely +things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy +building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing +or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under +the earth or in the trees or heather. It's their world." + +"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at +her. + +"I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering. +"I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous. Martha told +me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel +as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the +heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey--and all +full of bees and butterflies." + +"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He +looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and +wondering what it was. + +"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary. + +"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone. + +Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold. + +"You might--sometime." + +He moved as if he were startled. + +"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die." + +"How do you know?" said Mary unsympathetically. She didn't like the way +he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic. She +felt rather as if he almost boasted about it. + +"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly. "They +are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice. They wish I +would, too." + +Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together. + +"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?" + +"The servants--and of course Dr. Craven because he would get +Misselthwaite and be rich instead of poor. He daren't say so, but he +always looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had typhoid fever his face +got quite fat. I think my father wishes it, too." + +"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately. + +That made Colin turn and look at her again. + +"Don't you?" he said. + +And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were +thinking. And there was quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both of +them thinking strange things children do not usually think of. + +"I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron +thing off," said Mary at last. "Did he say you were going to die?" + +"No." + +"What did he say?" + +"He didn't whisper," Colin answered. "Perhaps he knew I hated +whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud. He said, 'The lad +might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.' It +sounded as if he was in a temper." + +"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary +reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one +way or the other. "I believe Dickon would. He's always talking about +live things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill. +He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying--or looking down +at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and +they are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh +with his wide mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as red as cherries." + +She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed +at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes. + +"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it. +Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then we +will look at your pictures." + +It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to +talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people who +lived in it on sixteen shillings a week--and the children who got fat on +the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon's mother--and the +skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on it--and about pale green +points sticking up out of the black sod. And it was all so alive that +Mary talked more than she had ever talked before--and Colin both talked +and listened as he had never done either before. And they both began to +laugh over nothings as children will when they are happy together. And +they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if +they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old +creatures--instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who +believed that he was going to die. + +They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they +forgot about the time. They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben +Weatherstaff and his robin and Colin was actually sitting up as if he +had forgotten about his weak back when he suddenly remembered +something. + +"Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of," he said. +"We are cousins." + +It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered +this simple thing that they laughed more than ever, because they had got +into the humor to laugh at anything. And in the midst of the fun the +door opened and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock. + +Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back +because he had accidentally bumped against her. + +"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock, with her eyes almost starting +out of her head. "Good Lord!" + +"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward. "What does it mean?" + +Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again. Colin answered as if +neither the doctor's alarm nor Mrs. Medlock's terror were of the +slightest consequence. He was as little disturbed or frightened as if an +elderly cat and dog had walked into the room. + +"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said. "I asked her to come and talk +to me. I like her. She must come and talk to me whenever I send for +her." + +Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock. + +"Oh, sir," she panted. "I don't know how it's happened. There's not a +servant on the place that'd dare to talk--they all have their orders." + +"Nobody told her anything," said Colin, "she heard me crying and found +me herself. I am glad she came. Don't be silly, Medlock." + +Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain +that he dare not oppose his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt his +pulse. + +"I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not good +for you, my boy," he said. + +"I should be excited if she kept away," answered Colin, his eyes +beginning to look dangerously sparkling. "I am better. She makes me +better. The nurse must bring up her tea with mine. We will have tea +together." + +Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but +there was evidently nothing to be done. + +"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock. +"But"--thinking the matter over--"he looked better this morning before +she came into the room." + +"She came into the room last night. She stayed with me a long time. She +sang a Hindustani song to me and it made me go to sleep," said Colin. "I +was better when I wakened up. I wanted my breakfast. I want my tea now. +Tell nurse, Medlock." + +Dr. Craven did not stay very long. He talked to the nurse for a few +minutes when she came into the room and said a few words of warning to +Colin. He must not talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill; he +must not forget that he was very easily tired. Mary thought that there +seemed to be a number of uncomfortable things he was not to forget. + +Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr. +Craven's face. + +"I _want_ to forget it," he said at last. "She makes me forget it. That +is why I want her." + +Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left the room. He gave a puzzled +glance at the little girl sitting on the large stool. She had become a +stiff, silent child again as soon as he entered and he could not see +what the attraction was. The boy actually did look brighter, +however--and he sighed rather heavily as he went down the corridor. + +"They are always wanting me to eat things when I don't want to," said +Colin, as the nurse brought in the tea and put it on the table by the +sofa. "Now, if you'll eat I will. Those muffins look so nice and hot. +Tell me about Rajahs." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +NEST BUILDING + + +After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and +the sun which poured down was quite hot. Though there had been no chance +to see either the secret garden or Dickon, Mistress Mary had enjoyed +herself very much. The week had not seemed long. She had spent hours of +every day with Colin in his room, talking about Rajahs or gardens or +Dickon and the cottage on the moor. They had looked at the splendid +books and pictures and sometimes Mary had read things to Colin, and +sometimes he had read a little to her. When he was amused and interested +she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid at all, except that his +face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa. + +"You are a sly young one to listen and get out of your bed to go +following things up like you did that night," Mrs. Medlock said once. +"But there's no saying it's not been a sort of blessing to the lot of +us. He's not had a tantrum or a whining fit since you made friends. The +nurse was just going to give up the case because she was so sick of +him, but she says she doesn't mind staying now you've gone on duty with +her," laughing a little. + +In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the +secret garden. There were certain things she wanted to find out from +him, but she felt that she must find them out without asking him direct +questions. In the first place, as she began to like to be with him, she +wanted to discover whether he was the kind of boy you could tell a +secret to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently so +pleased with the idea of a garden no one knew anything about that she +thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had not known him long +enough to be sure. The second thing she wanted to find out was this: If +he could be trusted--if he really could--wouldn't it be possible to take +him to the garden without having any one find it out? The grand doctor +had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had said that he would +not mind fresh air in a secret garden. Perhaps if he had a great deal of +fresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw things growing he might +not think so much about dying. Mary had seen herself in the glass +sometimes lately when she had realized that she looked quite a different +creature from the child she had seen when she arrived from India. This +child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen a change in her. + +"Th' air from th' moor has done thee good already," she had said. +"Tha'rt not nigh so yeller and tha'rt not nigh so scrawny. Even tha' +hair doesn't slamp down on tha' head so flat. It's got some life in it +so as it sticks out a bit." + +"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter. I'm sure +there's more of it." + +"It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling it up a little round her +face. "Tha'rt not half so ugly when it's that way an' there's a bit o' +red in tha' cheeks." + +If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be +good for Colin. But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps he +would not like to see Dickon. + +"Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one +day. + +"I always hated it," he answered, "even when I was very little. Then +when they took me to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriage +everybody used to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and +then they would begin to whisper and I knew then they were saying I +shouldn't live to grow up. Then sometimes the ladies would pat my +cheeks and say 'Poor child!' Once when a lady did that I screamed out +loud and bit her hand. She was so frightened she ran away." + +"She thought you had gone mad like a dog," said Mary, not at all +admiringly. + +"I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning. + +"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your room?" +said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly. + +"I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he said. "You can't bite a +ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don't care." + +"Would you hate it if--if a boy looked at you?" Mary asked uncertainly. + +He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully. + +"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over +every word, "there's one boy I believe I shouldn't mind. It's that boy +who knows where the foxes live--Dickon." + +"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary. + +"The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over, +"perhaps that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer and I am +a boy animal." + +Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both +laughing a great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in +his hole very funny indeed. + +What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon. + + * * * * * + +On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very +early. The sun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and there +was something so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed +and ran to the window. She drew up the blinds and opened the window +itself and a great waft of fresh, scented air blew in upon her. The moor +was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had happened +to it. There were tender little fluting sounds here and there and +everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to tune up for a +concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun. + +"It's warm--warm!" she said. "It will make the green points push up and +up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle with +all their might under the earth." + +She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, +breathing big breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because she +remembered what Dickon's mother had said about the end of his nose +quivering like a rabbit's. + +"It must be very early," she said. "The little clouds are all pink and +I've never seen the sky look like this. No one is up. I don't even hear +the stable boys." + +A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet. + +"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!" + +She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her clothes +in five minutes. She knew a small side door which she could unbolt +herself and she flew down-stairs in her stocking feet and put on her +shoes in the hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the +door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she +was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with +the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the +fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree. She +clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so +blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light +that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that +thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran +around the shrubs and paths toward the secret garden. + +"It is all different already," she said. "The grass is greener and +things are sticking up everywhere and things are uncurling and green +buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come." + +The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which +bordered the walk by the lower wall. There were things sprouting and +pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually +here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the +stems of crocuses. Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen +how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing. + +When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, +she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw--caw of a crow +and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat +a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely +indeed. She had never seen a crow so close before and he made her a +little nervous, but the next moment he spread his wings and flapped away +across the garden. She hoped he was not going to stay inside and she +pushed the door open wondering if he would. When she got fairly into the +garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay because he had +alighted on a dwarf apple-tree, and under the apple-tree was lying a +little reddish animal with a bushy tail, and both of them were watching +the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling on the +grass working hard. + +Mary flew across the grass to him. + +"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early! +How could you! The sun has only just got up!" + +He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a +bit of the sky. + +"Eh!" he said. "I was up long before him. How could I have stayed abed! +Th' world's all fair begun again this mornin', it has. An' it's workin' +an' hummin' an' scratchin' an' pipin' an' nest-buildin' an' breathin' +out scents, till you've got to be out on it 'stead o' lyin' on your +back. When th' sun did jump up, th' moor went mad for joy, an' I was in +the midst of th' heather, an' I run like mad myself, shoutin' an' +singin'. An' I come straight here. I couldn't have stayed away. Why, th' +garden was lyin' here waitin'!" + +Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running +herself. + +"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!" + +Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed animal rose +from its place under the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing +once, flew down from its branch and settled quietly on his shoulder. + +"This is th' little fox cub," he said, rubbing the little reddish +animal's head. "It's named Captain. An' this here's Soot. Soot he flew +across th' moor with me an' Captain he run same as if th' hounds had +been after him. They both felt same as I did." + +Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary. +When Dickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and Captain +trotted quietly close to his side. + +"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an' +these! An' Eh! look at these here!" + +He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They had +come upon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange and +gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them. + +"You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her +head. "Flowers are so different." + +He looked puzzled but smiled. + +"Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a time that way when I come in +from th' moor after a day's roamin' an' she stood there at th' door in +th' sun, lookin' so glad an' comfortable." + +They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many +wonders that they were obliged to remind themselves that they must +whisper or speak low. He showed her swelling leaf-buds on rose branches +which had seemed dead. He showed her ten thousand new green points +pushing through the mould. They put their eager young noses close to the +earth and sniffed its warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled +and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary's hair was as tumbled +as Dickon's and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his. + +There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in +the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it +was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted +through the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of +red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak. Dickon stood +quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly +found themselves laughing in a church. + +"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire. "We munnot scarce +breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin' when I seed him last. It's Ben +Weatherstaff's robin. He's buildin' his nest. He'll stay here if us +don't flight him." + +They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving. + +"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon. +"He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin' +now. He'll be a good bit different till all this is over. He's settin' +up housekeepin'. He'll be shyer an' readier to take things ill. He's got +no time for visitin' an' gossipin'. Us must keep still a bit an' try to +look as if us was grass an' trees an' bushes. Then when he's got used to +seein' us I'll chirp a bit an' he'll know us'll not be in his way." + +Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, +how to try to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the +queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the +world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched +him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it was possible for him to +quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat +wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a +softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could. + +"It's part o' th' springtime, this nest-buildin' is," he said. "I +warrant it's been goin' on in th' same way every year since th' world +was begun. They've got their way o' thinkin' and doin' things an' a +body had better not meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easier +than any other season if you're too curious." + +"If we talk about him I can't help looking at him," Mary said as softly +as possible. "We must talk of something else. There is something I want +to tell you." + +"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon. "What +is it tha's got to tell me?" + +"Well--do you know about Colin?" she whispered. + +He turned his head to look at her. + +"What does tha' know about him?" he asked. + +"I've seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. He wants +me to come. He says I'm making him forget about being ill and dying," +answered Mary. + +Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from +his round face. + +"I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right down glad. It makes me +easier. I knowed I must say nothin' about him an' I don't like havin' to +hide things." + +"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary. + +"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But I says to mother, +'Mother,' I says, 'I got a secret to keep. It's not a bad 'un, tha' +knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where a bird's nest is. Tha' +doesn't mind it, does tha'?'" + +Mary always wanted to hear about mother. + +"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear. + +Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly. + +"It was just like her, what she said," he answered. "She give my head a +bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can have all th' +secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'" + +"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary. + +"Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad +as was like to be a cripple, an' they knowed Mester Craven didn't like +him to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs. +Craven was such a pretty young lady an' they was so fond of each other. +Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she +doesn't mind talkin' to mother before us children, because she knows us +has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha' find out about him? +Martha was in fine trouble th' last time she came home. She said tha'd +heard him frettin' an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't know +what to say." + +Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which +had wakened her and about the faint far-off sounds of the complaining +voice which had led her down the dark corridors with her candle and had +ended with her opening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the +carven four-posted bed in the corner. When she described the small +ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed eyes Dickon shook his +head. + +"Them's just like his mother's eyes, only hers was always laughin', they +say," he said. "They say as Mr. Craven can't bear to see him when he's +awake an' it's because his eyes is so like his mother's an' yet looks so +different in his miserable bit of a face." + +"Do you think he wants him to die?" whispered Mary. + +"No, but he wishes he'd never been born. Mother she says that's th' +worst thing on earth for a child. Them as is not wanted scarce ever +thrives. Mester Craven he'd buy anythin' as money could buy for th' poor +lad but he'd like to forget as he's on earth. For one thing, he's afraid +he'll look at him some day and find he's growed hunchback." + +"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't sit up," said Mary. "He +says he's always thinking that if he should feel a lump coming he +should go crazy and scream himself to death." + +"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon. +"No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things." + +The fox was lying on the grass close by him looking up to ask for a pat +now and then, and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly and +thought a few minutes in silence. Presently he lifted his head and +looked round the garden. + +"When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was +gray. Look round now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference." + +Mary looked and caught her breath a little. + +"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing. It is as if a green mist +were creeping over it. It's almost like a green gauze veil." + +"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's +all gone. Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?" + +"I know it was something nice," said Mary eagerly. "I believe it was +something about Colin." + +"I was thinkin' that if he was out here he wouldn't be watchin' for +lumps to grow on his back; he'd be watchin' for buds to break on th' +rose-bushes, an' he'd likely be healthier," explained Dickon. "I was +wonderin' if us could ever get him in th' humor to come out here an' +lie under th' trees in his carriage." + +"I've been wondering that myself. I've thought of it almost every time +I've talked to him," said Mary. "I've wondered if he could keep a secret +and I've wondered if we could bring him here without any one seeing us. +I thought perhaps you could push his carriage. The doctor said he must +have fresh air and if he wants us to take him out no one dare disobey +him. He won't go out for other people and perhaps they will be glad if +he will go out with us. He could order the gardeners to keep away so +they wouldn't find out." + +Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back. + +"It'd be good for him, I'll warrant," he said. "Us'd not be thinkin' +he'd better never been born. Us'd be just two children watchin' a garden +grow, an' he'd be another. Two lads an' a little lass just lookin' on at +th' springtime. I warrant it'd be better than doctor's stuff." + +"He's been lying in his room so long and he's always been so afraid of +his back that it has made him queer," said Mary. "He knows a good many +things out of books but he doesn't know anything else. He says he has +been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doors and hates +gardens and gardeners. But he likes to hear about this garden because +it is a secret. I daren't tell him much but he said he wanted to see +it." + +"Us'll have him out here sometime for sure," said Dickon. "I could push +his carriage well enough. Has tha' noticed how th' robin an' his mate +has been workin' while we've been sittin' here? Look at him perched on +that branch wonderin' where it'd be best to put that twig he's got in +his beak." + +He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and +looked at him inquiringly, still holding his twig. Dickon spoke to him +as Ben Weatherstaff did, but Dickon's tone was one of friendly advice. + +"Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll be all right. Tha' knew how +to build tha' nest before tha' came out o' th' egg. Get on with thee, +lad. Tha'st got no time to lose." + +"Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!" Mary said, laughing +delightedly. "Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and makes fun of him, and he +hops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he likes +it. Ben Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones +thrown at him than not be noticed." + +Dickon laughed too and went on talking. + +"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin. "Us is near +bein' wild things ourselves. Us is nest-buildin' too, bless thee. Look +out tha' doesn't tell on us." + +And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary +knew that when he flew away with his twig to his own corner of the +garden the darkness of his dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell +their secret for the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"I WON'T!" SAID MARY + + +They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in +returning to the house and was also in such a hurry to get back to her +work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment. + +"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha. "I'm +very busy in the garden." + +Martha looked rather frightened. + +"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell +him that." + +But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a +self-sacrificing person. + +"I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting for me;" and she ran +away. + +The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. +Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of +the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon had brought a +spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that +by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild place was not +likely to become a "gardener's garden" it would be a wilderness of +growing things before the springtime was over. + +"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead," Dickon said, +working away with all his might. "An' there'll be peach an' plum trees +in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll be a carpet o' flowers." + +The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the +robin and his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of +lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away +over the tree-tops in the park. Each time he came back and perched near +Dickon and cawed several times as if he were relating his adventures, +and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the robin. Once when +Dickon was so busy that he did not answer him at first, Soot flew on to +his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with his large beak. When Mary +wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once +he took his pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strange little +notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened. + +"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking at her +as she was digging. "Tha's beginning to look different, for sure." + +Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits. + +"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite exultantly. +"Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses. Martha says my +hair is growing thicker. It isn't so flat and stringy." + +The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays slanting +under the trees when they parted. + +"It'll be fine to-morrow," said Dickon. "I'll be at work by sunrise." + +"So will I," said Mary. + + * * * * * + +She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her. She +wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox cub and the rook and about what +the springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear. So +it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see +Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful face. + +"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did Colin say when you told him I +couldn't come?" + +"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He was nigh goin' into one o' +his tantrums. There's been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him quiet. +He would watch the clock all th' time." + +Mary's lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used to +considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why an +ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She +knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and +nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers and +need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had a +headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else also +had a headache or something quite as bad. And she felt she was quite +right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong. + +He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying flat on +his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she came in. +This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff +manner. + +"Why didn't you get up?" she said. + +"I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming," he answered, +without looking at her. "I made them put me back in bed this afternoon. +My back ached and my head ached and I was tired. Why didn't you come?" + +"I was working in the garden with Dickon," said Mary. + +Colin frowned and condescended to look at her. + +"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of +coming to talk to me," he said. + +Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion without +making a noise. She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what +happened. + +"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!" she +retorted. + +"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin. + +"I won't!" said Mary. + +"I'll make you," said Colin, "They shall drag you in." + +"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely. "They may drag me in but +they can't make me talk when they get me here. I'll sit and clench my +teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't even look at you. I'll stare +at the floor!" + +They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other. If they +had been two little street boys they would have sprung at each other and +had a rough-and-tumble fight. As it was, they did the next thing to it. + +"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin. + +"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people always say that. Any one is +selfish who doesn't do what they want. You're more selfish than I am. +You're the most selfish boy I ever saw." + +"I'm not!" snapped Colin. "I'm not as selfish as your fine Dickon is! He +keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all by myself. He's +selfish, if you like!" + +Mary's eyes flashed fire. + +"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said. "He's--he's +like an angel!" It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not +care. + +"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously. "He's a common cottage boy +off the moor!" + +"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary. "He's a thousand times +better!" + +Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get the +better of him. The truth was that he had never had a fight with any one +like himself in his life and, upon the whole, it was rather good for +him, though neither he nor Mary knew anything about that. He turned his +head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big tear was squeezed out and +ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel pathetic and sorry for +himself--not for any one else. + +"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there +is a lump coming on my back," he said. "And I am going to die besides." + +"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically. + +He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never heard such +a thing said before. He was at once furious and slightly pleased, if a +person could be both at the same time. + +"I'm not?" he cried. "I am! You know I am! Everybody says so." + +"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly. "You just say that to make +people sorry. I believe you're proud of it. I don't believe it! If you +were a nice boy it might be true--but you're too nasty!" + +In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy +rage. + +"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his pillow and +threw it at her. He was not strong enough to throw it far and it only +fell at her feet, but Mary's face looked as pinched as a nutcracker. + +"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!" + +She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned round and +spoke again. + +"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said. "Dickon +brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you all about +them. Now I won't tell you a single thing!" + +She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her +great astonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if she had +been listening and, more amazing still--she was laughing. She was a big +handsome young woman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at all, +as she could not bear invalids and she was always making excuses to +leave Colin to Martha or any one else who would take her place. Mary had +never liked her, and she simply stood and gazed up at her as she stood +giggling into her handkerchief. + +"What are you laughing at?" she asked her. + +"At you two young ones," said the nurse. "It's the best thing that could +happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one to stand up to him +that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into her handkerchief +again. "If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight with it would +have been the saving of him." + +"Is he going to die?" + +"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse. "Hysterics and temper +are half what ails him." + +"What are hysterics?" asked Mary. + +"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this--but at any +rate you've given him something to have hysterics about, and I'm glad +of it." + +Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she +had come in from the garden. She was cross and disappointed but not at +all sorry for Colin. She had looked forward to telling him a great many +things and she had meant to try to make up her mind whether it would be +safe to trust him with the great secret. She had been beginning to think +it would be, but now she had changed her mind entirely. She would never +tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and +die if he liked! It would serve him right! She felt so sour and +unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost forgot about Dickon and +the green veil creeping over the world and the soft wind blowing down +from the moor. + +Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been +temporarily replaced by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden box +on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it was +full of neat packages. + +"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha. "It looks as if it had +picture-books in it." + +Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room. +"Do you want anything--dolls--toys--books?" She opened the package +wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what she should do +with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were several beautiful +books such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens and were +full of pictures. There were two or three games and there was a +beautiful little writing-case with a gold monogram on it and a gold pen +and inkstand. + +Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out of +her mind. She had not expected him to remember her at all and her hard +little heart grew quite warm. + +"I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first thing I +shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am much +obliged." + +If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her +presents at once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read +some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he +would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he +was going to die or have put his hand on his spine to see if there was a +lump coming. He had a way of doing that which she could not bear. It +gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always looked so +frightened himself. He said that if he felt even quite a little lump +some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow. Something he had +heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him the idea and he +had thought over it in secret until it was quite firmly fixed in his +mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his father's back had begun to show its +crookedness in that way when he was a child. He had never told any one +but Mary that most of his "tantrums" as they called them grew out of his +hysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had told +her. + +"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she said +to herself. "And he has been cross to-day. Perhaps--perhaps he has been +thinking about it all afternoon." + +She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking. + +"I said I would never go back again--" she hesitated, knitting her +brows--"but perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see--if he wants me--in +the morning. Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me again, but--I +think--I'll go." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A TANTRUM + + +She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the +garden and she was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought +her supper and she had eaten it, she was glad to go to bed. As she laid +her head on the pillow she murmured to herself: + +"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterward--I +believe--I'll go to see him." + +She thought it was the middle of the night when she was wakened by such +dreadful sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant. What was +it--what was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors +were opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and +some one was crying and screaming at the same time, screaming and crying +in a horrible way. + +"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse +called hysterics. How awful it sounds." + +As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people +were so frightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather +than hear them. She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and +shivering. + +"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," she kept saying. "I +can't bear it." + +Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she +remembered how he had driven her out of the room and thought that +perhaps the sight of her might make him worse. Even when she pressed her +hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep the awful sounds +out. She hated them so and was so terrified by them that suddenly they +began to make her angry and she felt as if she should like to fly into a +tantrum herself and frighten him as he was frightening her. She was not +used to any one's tempers but her own. She took her hands from her ears +and sprang up and stamped her foot. + +"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody ought +to beat him!" she cried out. + +Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door +opened and the nurse came in. She was not laughing now by any means. She +even looked rather pale. + +"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry. "He'll +do himself harm. No one can do anything with him. You come and try, +like a good child. He likes you." + +"He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her +foot with excitement. + +The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth was that she had been +afraid she might find Mary crying and hiding her head under the +bed-clothes. + +"That's right," she said. "You're in the right humor. You go and scold +him. Give him something new to think of. Do go, child, as quick as ever +you can." + +It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been +funny as well as dreadful--that it was funny that all the grown-up +people were so frightened that they came to a little girl just because +they guessed she was almost as bad as Colin himself. + +She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the +higher her temper mounted. She felt quite wicked by the time she reached +the door. She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to +the four-posted bed. + +"You stop!" she almost shouted. "You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates +you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you scream +yourself to death! You _will_ scream yourself to death in a minute, and +I wish you would!" + +A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought nor said such +things, but it just happened that the shock of hearing them was the best +possible thing for this hysterical boy whom no one had ever dared to +restrain or contradict. + +He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he +actually almost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the +furious little voice. His face looked dreadful, white and red and +swollen, and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary did not +care an atom. + +"If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll scream too--and I can +scream louder than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten you!" + +He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so. The +scream which had been coming almost choked him. The tears were streaming +down his face and he shook all over. + +"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't--I can't!" + +"You can!" shouted Mary. "Half that ails you is hysterics and +temper--just hysterics--hysterics--hysterics!" and she stamped each time +she said it. + +"I felt the lump--I felt it," choked out Colin. "I knew I should. I +shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die," and he began to +writhe again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't +scream. + +"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely. "If you did it was +only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps. There's nothing the +matter with your horrid back--nothing but hysterics! Turn over and let +me look at it!" + +She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow as if it had an effect +on him. He was probably like herself and had never heard it before. + +"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his back this minute!" + +The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together +near the door staring at her, their mouths half open. All three had +gasped with fright more than once. The nurse came forward as if she were +half afraid. Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs. + +"Perhaps he--he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice. + +Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs: + +"Sh--show her! She--she'll see then!" + +It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could be +counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not count +them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little +face. She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her +head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth. There was just a minute's +silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while Mary looked up +and down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if she had been the +great doctor from London. + +"There's not a single lump there!" she said at last. "There's not a lump +as big as a pin--except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them +because you're thin. I've got backbone lumps myself, and they used to +stick out as much as yours do, until I began to get fatter, and I am not +fat enough yet to hide them. There's not a lump as big as a pin! If you +ever say there is again, I shall laugh!" + +No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish +words had on him. If he had ever had any one to talk to about his secret +terrors--if he had ever dared to let himself ask questions--if he had +had childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge closed +house, breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people who were +most of them ignorant and tired of him, he would have found out that +most of his fright and illness was created by himself. But he had lain +and thought of himself and his aches and weariness for hours and days +and months and years. And now that an angry unsympathetic little girl +insisted obstinately that he was not as ill as he thought he was he +actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth. + +"I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that he thought he had a lump on +his spine. His back is weak because he won't try to sit up. I could have +told him there was no lump there." + +Colin gulped and turned his face a little to look at her. + +"C-could you?" he said pathetically. + +"Yes, sir." + +"There!" said Mary, and she gulped too. + +Colin turned on his face again and but for his long-drawn broken +breaths, which were the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he lay still +for a minute, though great tears streamed down his face and wet the +pillow. Actually the tears meant that a curious great relief had come to +him. Presently he turned and looked at the nurse again and strangely +enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he spoke to her. + +"Do you think--I could--live to grow up?" he said. + +The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some +of the London doctor's words. + +"You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give +way to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air." + +Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying and +this perhaps made him feel gentle. He put out his hand a little toward +Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantrum having passed, she was +softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort +of making up. + +"I'll--I'll go out with you, Mary," he said. "I shan't hate fresh air if +we can find--" He remembered just in time to stop himself from saying +"if we can find the secret garden" and he ended, "I shall like to go out +with you if Dickon will come and push my chair. I do so want to see +Dickon and the fox and the crow." + +The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the pillows. +Then she made Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to Mary, who really +was very glad to get it after her excitement. Mrs. Medlock and Martha +gladly slipped away, and after everything was neat and calm and in order +the nurse looked as if she would very gladly slip away also. She was a +healthy young woman who resented being robbed of her sleep and she +yawned quite openly as she looked at Mary, who had pushed her big +footstool close to the four-posted bed and was holding Colin's hand. + +"You must go back and get your sleep out," she said. "He'll drop off +after a while--if he's not too upset. Then I'll lie down myself in the +next room." + +"Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?" Mary +whispered to Colin. + +His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her +appealingly. + +"Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft song. I shall go to sleep in a +minute." + +"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse. "You can go +if you like." + +"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. "If he doesn't go +to sleep in half an hour you must call me." + +"Very well," answered Mary. + +The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone +Colin pulled Mary's hand again. + +"I almost told," he said; "but I stopped myself in time. I won't talk +and I'll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lot of nice things to +tell me. Have you--do you think you have found out anything at all about +the way into the secret garden?" + +Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heart +relented. + +"Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have. And if you will go to sleep I +will tell you to-morrow." + +His hand quite trembled. + +"Oh, Mary!" he said. "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should +live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah +song--you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you +imagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep." + +"Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes." + +He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began +to speak very slowly and in a very low voice. + +"I think it has been left alone so long--that it has grown all into a +lovely tangle. I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed +until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the +ground--almost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but +many--are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and +fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and +snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. Now the +spring has begun--perhaps--perhaps--" + +The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she +saw it and went on. + +"Perhaps they are coming up through the grass--perhaps there are +clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones--even now. Perhaps the leaves +are beginning to break out and uncurl--and perhaps--the gray is changing +and a green gauze veil is creeping--and creeping over--everything. And +the birds are coming to look at it--because it is--so safe and still. +And perhaps--perhaps--perhaps--" very softly and slowly indeed, "the +robin has found a mate--and is building a nest." + +And Colin was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +"THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME" + + +Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning. She slept late +because she was tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told +her that though Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he +always was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate +her breakfast slowly as she listened. + +"He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon as tha' +can," Martha said. "It's queer what a fancy he's took to thee. Tha' did +give it him last night for sure--didn't tha'? Nobody else would have +dared to do it. Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save +him. Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is +never to have his own way--or always to have it. She doesn't know which +is th' worst. Tha' was in a fine temper tha'self, too. But he says to me +when I went into his room, 'Please ask Miss Mary if she'll please come +an' talk to me?' Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" + +"I'll run and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin +first and tell him--I know what I'll tell him," with a sudden +inspiration. + +She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room and for a second he +looked disappointed. He was in bed and his face was pitifully white and +there were dark circles round his eyes. + +"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache all over because +I'm so tired. Are you going somewhere?" + +Mary went and leaned against his bed. + +"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon, but I'll come back. +Colin, it's--it's something about the secret garden." + +His whole face brightened and a little color came into it. + +"Oh! is it!" he cried out. "I dreamed about it all night. I heard you +say something about gray changing into green, and I dreamed I was +standing in a place all filled with trembling little green leaves--and +there were birds on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still. +I'll lie and think about it until you come back." + +In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden. The fox and the +crow were with him again and this time he had brought two tame +squirrels. + +"I came over on the pony this mornin'," he said. "Eh! he is a good +little chap--Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets. This here one +he's called Nut an' this here other one's called Shell." + +When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right shoulder and when +he said "Shell" the other one leaped on to his left shoulder. + +When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at their feet, Soot +solemnly listening on a tree and Nut and Shell nosing about close to +them, it seemed to Mary that it would be scarcely bearable to leave such +delightfulness, but when she began to tell her story somehow the look in +Dickon's funny face gradually changed her mind. She could see he felt +sorrier for Colin than she did. He looked up at the sky and all about +him. + +"Just listen to them birds--th' world seems full of 'em--all whistlin' +an' pipin'," he said. "Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken at 'em +callin' to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th' world's +callin'. The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see 'em--an', my word, th' +nice smells there is about!" sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. +"An' that poor lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets to +thinkin' o' things as sets him screamin'. Eh! my! we mun get him out +here--we mun get him watchin' an' listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an' +get him just soaked through wi' sunshine. An' we munnot lose no time +about it." + +When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire +though at other times he tried to modify his dialect so that Mary could +better understand. But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact +been trying to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke a little now. + +"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed, we must"). "I'll +tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded, and Dickon grinned, +because when the little wench tried to twist her tongue into speaking +Yorkshire it amused him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee. +He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain. When I go +back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see +him to-morrow mornin'--an' bring tha' creatures wi' thee--an' then--in a +bit, when there's more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two, we'll get +him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll bring him +here an' show him everything." + +When she stopped she was quite proud of herself. She had never made a +long speech in Yorkshire before and she had remembered very well. + +"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin," Dickon +chuckled. "Tha'll make him laugh an' there's nowt as good for ill folk +as laughin' is. Mother says she believes as half a hour's good laugh +every mornin' 'ud cure a chap as was makin' ready for typhus fever." + +"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day," said Mary, chuckling +herself. + +The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it seemed +as if Magicians were passing through it drawing loveliness out of the +earth and the boughs with wands. It was hard to go away and leave it +all, particularly as Nut had actually crept on to her dress and Shell +had scrambled down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under and stayed +there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back to the house +and when she sat down close to Colin's bed he began to sniff as Dickon +did though not in such an experienced way. + +"You smell like flowers and--and fresh things," he cried out quite +joyously. "What is it you smell of? It's cool and warm and sweet all at +the same time." + +"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin' on th' +grass under a tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an' Soot an' Nut an' +Shell. It's th' springtime an' out o' doors an' sunshine as smells so +graidely." + +She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know how broadly +Yorkshire sounds until you have heard some one speak it. Colin began to +laugh. + +"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk like that before. +How funny it sounds." + +"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered Mary triumphantly. "I +canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an' Martha can but tha' sees I can +shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit o' Yorkshire when tha' hears +it? An' tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel' bred an' born! Eh! I wonder tha'rt +not ashamed o' thy face." + +And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could +not stop themselves and they laughed until the room echoed and Mrs. +Medlock opening the door to come in drew back into the corridor and +stood listening amazed. + +"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshire herself +because there was no one to hear her and she was so astonished. "Whoever +heard th' like! Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!" + +There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin could never hear +enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot and Nut and Shell and the pony +whose name was Jump. Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see +Jump. He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging +over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose. He was +rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough and wiry as if +the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel springs. He had +lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment he saw Dickon and he had +trotted up to him and put his head across his shoulder and then Dickon +had talked into his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies +and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him give Mary his small front hoof +and kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle. + +"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?" Colin asked. + +"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says anything will +understand if you're friends with it for sure, but you have to be +friends for sure." + +Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be +staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking. + +"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last, "but I'm not. I +never had anything to be friends with, and I can't bear people." + +"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary. + +"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's very funny but I even like you." + +"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary. "He said he'd warrant +we'd both got the same nasty tempers. I think you are like him too. We +are all three alike--you and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we were +neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked. But I +don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin and Dickon." + +"Did you feel as if you hated people?" + +"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation. "I should have detested +you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon." + +Colin put out his thin hand and touched her. + +"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about sending Dickon +away. I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at +you but--but perhaps he is." + +"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly, "because +his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have +patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but--but if an angel +did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor--if there was a Yorkshire +angel--I believe he'd understand the green things and know how to make +them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon +does and they'd know he was friends for sure." + +"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin; "I want to see +him." + +"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because--because--" + +Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell +him. Colin knew something new was coming. + +"Because what?" he cried eagerly. + +Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and +caught hold of both his hands. + +"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I +trust you--for sure--_for sure_?" she implored. + +Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer. + +"Yes--yes!" + +"Well, Dickon will come to see you to-morrow morning, and he'll bring +his creatures with him." + +"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight. + +"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with solemn excitement. +"The rest is better. There is a door into the garden. I found it. It is +under the ivy on the wall." + +If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted +"Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he was weak and rather hysterical; his +eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped for breath. + +"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see it? Shall I get +into it? Shall I _live_ to get into it?" and he clutched her hands and +dragged her toward him. + +"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly. "Of course you'll +live to get into it! Don't be silly!" + +And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish that she brought +him to his senses and he began to laugh at himself and a few minutes +afterward she was sitting on her stool again telling him not what she +imagined the secret garden to be like but what it really was, and +Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten and he was listening +enraptured. + +"It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last. "It sounds +just as if you had really seen it. You know I said that when you told me +first." + +Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth. + +"I had seen it--and I had been in," she said. "I found the key and got +in weeks ago. But I daren't tell you--I daren't because I was so afraid +I couldn't trust you--_for sure_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"IT HAS COME!" + + +Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had +his tantrum. He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred +and he always found, when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his +bed, sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break into fresh +sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the +difficulties of these visits. On this occasion he was away from +Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon. + +"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived. "He +will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day. The boy is half +insane with hysteria and self-indulgence." + +"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes +when you see him. That plain sour-faced child that's almost as bad as +himself has just bewitched him. How she's done it there's no telling. +The Lord knows she's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear her +speak, but she did what none of us dare do. She just flew at him like a +little cat last night, and stamped her feet and ordered him to stop +screaming, and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop, +and this afternoon--well just come up and see, sir. It's past +crediting." + +The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his patient's room was +indeed rather astonishing to him. As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he +heard laughing and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his +dressing-gown and he was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture +in one of the garden books and talking to the plain child who at that +moment could scarcely be called plain at all because her face was so +glowing with enjoyment. + +"Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those," Colin was +announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums." + +"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Mistress Mary. +"There are clumps there already." + +Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite still and Colin +looked fretful. + +"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy," Dr. Craven said a +trifle nervously. He was rather a nervous man. + +"I'm better now--much better," Colin answered, rather like a Rajah. +"I'm going out in my chair in a day or two if it is fine. I want some +fresh air." + +Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse and looked at him +curiously. + +"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not +to tire yourself." + +"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young Rajah. + +As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman had shrieked +aloud with rage and had insisted that fresh air would give him cold and +kill him, it is not to be wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat +startled. + +"I thought you did not like fresh air," he said. + +"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah; "but my cousin is +going out with me." + +"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr. Craven. + +"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Mary could not +help remembering how the young native Prince had looked with his +diamonds and emeralds and pearls stuck all over him and the great rubies +on the small dark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach +with salaams and receive his orders. + +"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when she is +with me. She made me better last night. A very strong boy I know will +push my carriage." + +Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome hysterical boy should +chance to get well he himself would lose all chance of inheriting +Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak +one, and he did not intend to let him run into actual danger. + +"He must be a strong boy and a steady boy," he said. "And I must know +something about him. Who is he? What is his name?" + +"It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow that everybody +who knew the moor must know Dickon. And she was right, too. She saw that +in a moment Dr. Craven's serious face relaxed into a relieved smile. + +"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you will be safe enough. He's as +strong as a moor pony, is Dickon." + +"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest lad i' Yorkshire." She +had been talking Yorkshire to Colin and she forgot herself. + +"Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven, laughing outright. + +"I'm learning it as if it was French," said Mary rather coldly. "It's +like a native dialect in India. Very clever people try to learn them. I +like it and so does Colin." + +"Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't do you any +harm. Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?" + +"No," Colin answered. "I wouldn't take it at first and after Mary made +me quiet she talked me to sleep--in a low voice--about the spring +creeping into a garden." + +"That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more perplexed than ever and +glancing sideways at Mistress Mary sitting on her stool and looking down +silently at the carpet. "You are evidently better, but you must +remember--" + +"I don't want to remember," interrupted the Rajah, appearing again. +"When I lie by myself and remember I begin to have pains everywhere and +I think of things that make me begin to scream because I hate them so. +If there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget you were ill +instead of remembering it I would have him brought here." And he waved a +thin hand which ought really to have been covered with royal signet +rings made of rubies. "It is because my cousin makes me forget that she +makes me better." + +Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a "tantrum"; usually +he was obliged to remain a very long time and do a great many things. +This afternoon he did not give any medicine or leave any new orders and +he was spared any disagreeable scenes. When he went down-stairs he +looked very thoughtful and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock in the library +she felt that he was a much puzzled man. + +"Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have believed it?" + +"It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor. "And there's +no denying it is better than the old one." + +"I believe Susan Sowerby's right--I do that," said Mrs. Medlock. "I +stopped in her cottage on my way to Thwaite yesterday and had a bit of +talk with her. And she says to me, 'Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a +good child, an' she mayn't be a pretty one, but she's a child, an' +children needs children.' We went to school together, Susan Sowerby and +me." + +"She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr. Craven. "When I find her in +a cottage I know the chances are that I shall save my patient." + +Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby. + +"She's got a way with her, has Susan," she went on quite volubly. "I've +been thinking all morning of one thing she said yesterday. She says, +'Once when I was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd been +fightin' I ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my jography told as +th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out before I was ten +that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than +his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow +quarters to go round. But don't you--none o' you--think as you own th' +whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it +out without hard knocks." What children learns from children,' she says, +'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th' whole orange--peel an' all. +If you do you'll likely not get even th' pips, an' them's too bitter to +eat.'" + +"She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat. + +"Well, she's got a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock, much +pleased. "Sometimes I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan, if you was a different +woman an' didn't talk such broad Yorkshire I've seen the times when I +should have said you was clever.'" + + * * * * * + +That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his +eyes in the morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it--smiled +because he felt so curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be +awake, and he turned over and stretched his limbs luxuriously. He felt +as if tight strings which had held him had loosened themselves and let +him go. He did not know that Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves +had relaxed and rested themselves. Instead of lying and staring at the +wall and wishing he had not awakened, his mind was full of the plans he +and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden and of Dickon and +his wild creatures. It was so nice to have things to think about. And he +had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard feet running +along the corridor and Mary was at the door. The next minute she was in +the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of +fresh air full of the scent of the morning. + +"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!" +he cried. + +She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright +with the air and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it. + +"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed. "You +never saw anything so beautiful! It has _come_! I thought it had come +that other morning, but it was only coming. It is here now! It has come, +the Spring! Dickon says so!" + +"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he +felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in bed. + +"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and +half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!" + +And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a +moment more it was opened wide and freshness and softness and scents and +birds' songs were pouring through. + +"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw in long breaths +of it. That's what Dickon does when he's lying on the moor. He says he +feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and he feels as if he +could live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it." + +She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she caught Colin's +fancy. + +"'Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel like that?" he said, and he +did as she told him, drawing in long deep breaths over and over again +until he felt that something quite new and delightful was happening to +him. + +Mary was at his bedside again. + +"Things are crowding up out of the earth," she ran on in a hurry. "And +there are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and the green veil +has covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about +their nests for fear they may be too late that some of them are even +fighting for places in the secret garden. And the rose-bushes look as +wick as wick can be, and there are primroses in the lanes and woods, and +the seeds we planted are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and the crow +and the squirrels and a new-born lamb." + +And then she paused for breath. The new-born lamb Dickon had found three +days before lying by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the moor. +It was not the first motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do +with it. He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had +let it lie near the fire and had fed it with warm milk. It was a soft +thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its body. +Dickon had carried it over the moor in his arms and its feeding bottle +was in his pocket with a squirrel, and when Mary had sat under a tree +with its limp warmness huddled on her lap she had felt as if she were +too full of strange joy to speak. A lamb--a lamb! A living lamb who lay +on your lap like a baby! + +She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening and drawing +in long breaths of air when the nurse entered. She started a little at +the sight of the open window. She had sat stifling in the room many a +warm day because her patient was sure that open windows gave people +cold. + +"Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?" she inquired. + +"No," was the answer. "I am breathing long breaths of fresh air. It +makes you strong. I am going to get up to the sofa for breakfast and my +cousin will have breakfast with me." + +The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give the order for two +breakfasts. She found the servants' hall a more amusing place than the +invalid's chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news from +up-stairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young +recluse who, as the cook said, "had found his master, and good for him." +The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler, +who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion +that the invalid would be all the better "for a good hiding." + +When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was put upon the +table he made an announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like +manner. + +"A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb, +are coming to see me this morning. I want them brought up-stairs as soon +as they come," he said. "You are not to begin playing with the animals +in the servants' hall and keep them there. I want them here." + +The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough. + +"Yes, sir," she answered. + +"I'll tell you what you can do," added Colin, waving his hand. "You can +tell Martha to bring them here. The boy is Martha's brother. His name is +Dickon and he is an animal charmer." + +"I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin," said the nurse. + +"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely. "Charmers' animals +never bite." + +"There are snake-charmers in India," said Mary; "and they can put their +snakes' heads in their mouths." + +"Goodness!" shuddered the nurse. + +They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring in upon them. +Colin's breakfast was a very good one and Mary watched him with serious +interest. + +"You will begin to get fatter just as I did," she said. "I never wanted +my breakfast when I was in India and now I always want it." + +"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin. "Perhaps it was the fresh air. +When do you think Dickon will come?" + +He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary held up her hand. + +"Listen!" she said. "Did you hear a caw?" + +Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world to hear +inside a house, a hoarse "caw-caw." + +"Yes," he answered. + +"That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again! Do you hear a bleat--a tiny +one?" + +"Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing. + +"That's the new-born lamb," said Mary. "He's coming." + +Dickon's moorland boots were thick and clumsy and though he tried to +walk quietly they made a clumping sound as he walked through the long +corridors. Mary and Colin heard him marching--marching, until he passed +through the tapestry door on to the soft carpet of Colin's own passage. + +"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you +please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures." + +[Illustration: "DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."--_Page +251_] + +Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile. The new-born lamb was in +his arms and the little red fox trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left +shoulder and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped out of +his coat pocket. + +Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared--as he had stared when he +first saw Mary; but this was a stare of wonder and delight. The truth +was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood +what this boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his +squirrels and his lamb were so near to him and his friendliness that +they seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin had never talked to a +boy in his life and he was so overwhelmed by his own pleasure and +curiosity that he did not even think of speaking. + +But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt +embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had only +stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were +always like that until they found out about you. He walked over to +Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and +immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown +and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled +head with soft impatience against his side. Of course no boy could have +helped speaking then. + +"What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does it want?" + +"It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling more and more. "I brought it +to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha'd like to see it feed." + +He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket. + +"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with +a gentle brown hand. "This is what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' +this than tha' will out o' silk velvet coats. There now," and he pushed +the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began +to suck it with ravenous ecstasy. + +After that there was no wondering what to say. By the time the lamb fell +asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all. He told them +how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago. +He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him +swing higher and higher into the sky until he was only a speck in the +heights of blue. + +"I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin' how a chap +could hear it when it seemed as if he'd get out o' th' world in a +minute--an' just then I heard somethin' else far off among th' gorse +bushes. It was a weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new lamb as was +hungry an' I knowed it wouldn't be hungry if it hadn't lost its mother +somehow, so I set off searchin'. Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in +an' out among th' gorse bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed +to take th' wrong turnin'. But at last I seed a bit o' white by a rock +on top o' th' moor an' I climbed up an' found th' little 'un half dead +wi' cold an' clemmin'." + +While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and +cawed remarks about the scenery while Nut and Shell made excursions into +the big trees outside and ran up and down trunks and explored branches. +Captain curled up near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from +preference. + +They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all +the flowers by their country names and knew exactly which ones were +already growing in the secret garden. + +"I couldna' say that there name," he said, pointing to one under which +was written "Aquilegia," "but us calls that a columbine, an' that there +one it's a snapdragon and they both grow wild in hedges, but these is +garden ones an' they're bigger an' grander. There's some big clumps o' +columbine in th' garden. They'll look like a bed o' blue an' white +butterflies flutterin' when they're out." + +"I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am going to see them!" + +"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously. "An tha' munnot lose no +time about it." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +"I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!" + + +But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came +some very windy days and then Colin was threatened with a cold, which +two things happening one after the other would no doubt have thrown him +into a rage but that there was so much careful and mysterious planning +to do and almost every day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to +talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes and hedges +and on the borders of streams. The things he had to tell about otters' +and badgers' and water-rats' houses, not to mention birds' nests and +field-mice and their burrows, were enough to make you almost tremble +with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from an animal +charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole +busy underworld was working. + +"They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they have to build their homes +every year. An' it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to get 'em +done." + +The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made +before Colin could be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden. +No one must see the chair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned +a certain corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the +ivied walls. As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in +his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its +greatest charms. Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever suspect that +they had a secret. People must think that he was simply going out with +Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not object to their +looking at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about their +route. They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other +and go round among the fountain flower-beds as if they were looking at +the "bedding-out plants" the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having +arranged. That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would +think it at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks and +lose themselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as +serious and elaborately thought out as the plans of march made by great +generals in time of war. + +Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the +invalid's apartments had of course filtered through the servants' hall +into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding +this, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders from Master +Colin's room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartment +no outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to +him. + +"Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, +"what's to do now? His Royal Highness that wasn't to be looked at +calling up a man he's never set eyes on." + +Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had never caught even a glimpse +of the boy and had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about his uncanny +looks and ways and his insane tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest +was that he might die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful +descriptions of a humped back and helpless limbs, given by people who +had never seen him. + +"Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach," said Mrs. Medlock, as +she led him up the back staircase to the corridor on to which opened the +hitherto mysterious chamber. + +"Let's hope they're changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock," he +answered. + +"They couldn't well change for the worse," she continued; "and queer as +it all is there's them as finds their duties made a lot easier to stand +up under. Don't you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the +middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby's Dickon more at home than you +or me could ever be." + +There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately +believed. When Mr. Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently. + +"He'd be at home in Buckingham Palace or at the bottom of a coal mine," +he said. "And yet it's not impudence, either. He's just fine, is that +lad." + +It was perhaps well he had been prepared or he might have been startled. +When the bedroom door was opened a large crow, which seemed quite at +home perched on the high back of a carven chair, announced the entrance +of a visitor by saying "Caw--Caw" quite loudly. In spite of Mrs. +Medlock's warning, Mr. Roach only just escaped being sufficiently +undignified to jump backward. + +The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on his sofa. He was sitting in an +armchair and a young lamb was standing by him shaking its tail in +feeding-lamb fashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle. A +squirrel was perched on Dickon's bent back attentively nibbling a nut. +The little girl from India was sitting on a big footstool looking on. + +"Here is Mr. Roach, Master Colin," said Mrs. Medlock. + +The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor over--at least that was +what the head gardener felt happened. + +"Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I sent for you to give you some +very important orders." + +"Very good, sir," answered Roach, wondering if he was to receive +instructions to fell all the oaks in the park or to transform the +orchards into water-gardens. + +"I am going out in my chair this afternoon," said Colin. "If the fresh +air agrees with me I may go out every day. When I go, none of the +gardeners are to be anywhere near the Long Walk by the garden walls. No +one is to be there. I shall go out about two o'clock and every one must +keep away until I send word that they may go back to their work." + +"Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that the oaks +might remain and that the orchards were safe. + +"Mary," said Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing you say in India +when you have finished talking and want people to go?" + +"You say, 'You have my permission to go,'" answered Mary. + +The Rajah waved his hand. + +"You have my permission to go, Roach," he said. "But, remember, this is +very important." + +"Caw--Caw!" remarked the crow hoarsely but not impolitely. + +"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took +him out of the room. + +Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled +until he almost laughed. + +"My word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordly way with him, hasn't he? +You'd think he was a whole Royal Family rolled into one--Prince Consort +and all." + +"Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to let him trample all over +every one of us ever since he had feet and he thinks that's what folks +was born for." + +"Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives," suggested Mr. Roach. + +"Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said Mrs. Medlock. "If he does +live and that Indian child stays here I'll warrant she teaches him that +the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says. And +he'll be likely to find out the size of his own quarter." + +Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions. + +"It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon I shall see it--this +afternoon I shall be in it!" + +Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with +Colin. She did not think he looked tired but he was very quiet before +their lunch came and he was quiet while they were eating it. She +wondered why and asked him about it. + +"What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said. "When you are thinking they +get as big as saucers. What are you thinking about now?" + +"I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered. + +"The garden?" asked Mary. + +"The springtime," he said. "I was thinking that I've really never seen +it before. I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at +it. I didn't even think about it." + +"I never saw it in India because there wasn't any," said Mary. + +Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than +she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at +wonderful books and pictures. + +"That morning when you ran in and said 'It's come! It's come!' you made +me feel quite queer. It sounded as if things were coming with a great +procession and big bursts and wafts of music. I've a picture like it in +one of my books--crowds of lovely people and children with garlands and +branches with blossoms on them, every one laughing and dancing and +crowding and playing on pipes. That was why I said, 'Perhaps we shall +hear golden trumpets' and told you to throw open the window." + +"How funny!" said Mary. "That's really just what it feels like. And if +all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds and wild creatures +danced past at once, what a crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and +sing and flute and that would be the wafts of music." + +They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but +because they both so liked it. + +A little later the nurse made Colin ready. She noticed that instead of +lying like a log while his clothes were put on he sat up and made some +efforts to help himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the +time. + +"This is one of his good days, sir," she said to Dr. Craven, who +dropped in to inspect him. "He's in such good spirits that it makes him +stronger." + +"I'll call in again later in the afternoon, after he has come in," said +Dr. Craven. "I must see how the going out agrees with him. I wish," in a +very low voice, "that he would let you go with him." + +"I'd rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay here while +it's suggested," answered the nurse with sudden firmness. + +"I hadn't really decided to suggest it," said the doctor, with his +slight nervousness. "We'll try the experiment. Dickon's a lad I'd trust +with a new-born child." + +The strongest footman in the house carried Colin down-stairs and put him +in his wheeled chair near which Dickon waited outside. After the +manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand +to him and to the nurse. + +"You have my permission to go," he said, and they both disappeared +quickly and it must be confessed giggled when they were safely inside +the house. + +Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily. Mistress +Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the +sky. The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed +like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. +The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange +with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin kept lifting his thin chest +to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they which were +listening--listening, instead of his ears. + +"There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he +said. "What is that scent the puffs of wind bring?" + +"It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon. "Eh! th' +bees are at it wonderful to-day." + +Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took. +In fact every gardener or gardener's lad had been witched away. But they +wound in and out among the shrubbery and out and round the fountain +beds, following their carefully planned route for the mere mysterious +pleasure of it. But when at last they turned into the Long Walk by the +ivied walls the excited sense of an approaching thrill made them, for +some curious reason they could not have explained, begin to speak in +whispers. + +"This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where I used to walk up and down +and wonder and wonder." + +"Is it?" cried Colin, and his eyes began to search the ivy with eager +curiousness. "But I can see nothing," he whispered. "There is no door." + +"That's what I thought," said Mary. + +Then there was a lovely breathless silence and the chair wheeled on. + +"That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff works," said Mary. + +"Is it?" said Colin. + +A few yards more and Mary whispered again. + +"This is where the robin flew over the wall," she said. + +"Is it?" cried Colin. "Oh! I wish he'd come again!" + +"And that," said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a big lilac +bush, "is where he perched on the little heap of earth and showed me the +key." + +Then Colin sat up. + +"Where? Where? There?" he cried, and his eyes were as big as the wolf's +in Red Riding-Hood, when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark on +them. Dickon stood still and the wheeled chair stopped. + +"And this," said Mary, stepping on to the bed close to the ivy, "is +where I went to talk to him when he chirped at me from the top of the +wall. And this is the ivy the wind blew back," and she took hold of the +hanging green curtain. + +"Oh! is it--is it!" gasped Colin. + +"And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push him in--push +him in quickly!" + +And Dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push. + +But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he +gasped with delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held +them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the chair +stopped as if by magic and the door was closed. Not till then did he +take them away and look round and round and round as Dickon and Mary had +done. And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and +tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in +the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and +there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white +and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were +fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and +scents. And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely +touch. And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him. He looked +so strange and different because a pink glow of color had actually +crept all over him--ivory face and neck and hands and all. + +"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary! Dickon! I +shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +BEN WEATHERSTAFF + + +One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only +now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and +ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn +dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back +and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and +flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost +makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging +majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning +for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then +for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by +oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness +slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again +and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then +sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of +stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of +far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes. + +And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the +Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon +the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly +beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the +spring came and crowded everything it possibly could into that one +place. More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and stood still +with a sort of growing wonder in his eyes, shaking his head softly. + +"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen an' there's +a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but seems to me like I never seed +one as graidely as this 'ere." + +"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy. +"I'll warrant it's th' graidelest one as ever was in this world." + +"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it was +made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for me?" + +"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good +Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' first-rate--that tha' art." + +And delight reigned. + +They drew the chair under the plum-tree, which was snow-white with +blossoms and musical with bees. It was like a king's canopy, a fairy +king's. There were flowering cherry-trees near and apple-trees whose +buds were pink and white, and here and there one had burst open wide. +Between the blossoming branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked +down like wonderful eyes. + +Mary and Dickon worked a little here and there and Colin watched them. +They brought him things to look at--buds which were opening, buds which +were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green, +the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty +shell of some bird early hatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round +and round the garden, stopping every other moment to let him look at +wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from trees. It was +like being taken in state round the country of a magic king and queen +and shown all the mysterious riches it contained. + +"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said Colin. + +"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th' eggs +hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head +swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as +big as himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he gets +there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which big mouth to drop +th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks on every side. Mother +says as when she sees th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks +filled, she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do. She says she's +seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be droppin' off +'em, though folk can't see it." + +This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to cover +their mouths with their hands, remembering that they must not be heard. +Colin had been instructed as to the law of whispers and low voices +several days before. He liked the mysteriousness of it and did his best, +but in the midst of excited enjoyment it is rather difficult never to +laugh above a whisper. + +Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour the +sunshine grew more golden. The wheeled chair had been drawn back under +the canopy and Dickon had sat down on the grass and had just drawn out +his pipe when Colin saw something he had not had time to notice before. + +"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said. + +Dickon looked across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was +a brief moment of stillness. + +"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very gentle +sound. + +Mary gazed at the tree and thought. + +"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf anywhere," +Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?" + +"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as has climbed all over it will +near hide every bit o' th' dead wood when they're full o' leaves an' +flowers. It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest of all." + +Mary still gazed at the tree and thought. + +"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin. "I wonder +how it was done." + +"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon. "Eh!" with a sudden +relieved start and laying his hand on Colin. "Look at that robin! There +he is! He's been foragin' for his mate." + +Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the flash of +red-breasted bird with something in his beak. He darted through the +greenness and into the close-grown corner and was out of sight. Colin +leaned back on his cushion again, laughing a little. + +"He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock. I think I'd like +some tea myself." + +And so they were safe. + +"It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to Dickon +afterward. "I know it was Magic." For both she and Dickon had been +afraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had broken +off ten years ago and they had talked it over together and Dickon had +stood and rubbed his head in a troubled way. + +"We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees," he had +said. "We couldn't never tell him how it broke, poor lad. If he says +anything about it we mun--we mun try to look cheerful." + +"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary. + +But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the +tree. She wondered and wondered in those few moments if there was any +reality in that other thing Dickon had said. He had gone on rubbing his +rust-red hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look had begun to +grow in his blue eyes. + +"Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady," he had gone on rather +hesitatingly. "An' mother she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite +many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when +they're took out o' th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees. Happen +she's been in the garden an' happen it was her set us to work, an' told +us to bring him here." + +Mary had thought he meant something about Magic. She was a great +believer in Magic. Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked Magic, +of course good Magic, on everything near him and that was why people +liked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend. She +wondered, indeed, if it were not possible that his gift had brought the +robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that dangerous question. +She felt that his Magic was working all the afternoon and making Colin +look like an entirely different boy. It did not seem possible that he +could be the crazy creature who had screamed and beaten and bitten his +pillow. Even his ivory whiteness seemed to change. The faint glow of +color which had shown on his face and neck and hands when he first got +inside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were +made of flesh instead of ivory or wax. + +They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was +so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some. + +"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the +rhododendron walk," he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring it +here." + +It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth +was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, +a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic +errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into +investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked up trees +with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet +into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and made +hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all joyfully in +one gulp. + +The afternoon was dragging toward its mellow hour. The sun was deepening +the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were +flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the +tea-basket was re-packed ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin +was lying against his cushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his +forehead and his face looking quite a natural color. + +"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back +to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after." + +"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary. + +"I'm going to get nothing else," he answered. "I've seen the spring now +and I'm going to see the summer. I'm going to see everything grow here. +I'm going to grow here myself." + +"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an' +diggin' same as other folk afore long." + +Colin flushed tremendously. + +"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?" + +Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary had +ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs. + +"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha'--tha's got legs o' thine +own, same as other folks!" + +Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer. + +"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and weak. +They shake so that I'm afraid to try to stand on them." + +Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath. + +"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with +renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit." + +"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering about +things. + +They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping +lower. It was that hour when everything stills itself, and they really +had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were +resting luxuriously. Even the creatures had ceased moving about and had +drawn together and were resting near them. Soot had perched on a low +branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film drowsily over his +eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if he might snore in a minute. + +In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half +lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper: + +"Who is that man?" + +Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet. + +"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices. + +Colin pointed to the high wall. + +"Look!" he whispered excitedly. "Just look!" + +Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben Weatherstaff's +indignant face glaring at them over the wall from the top of a ladder! +He actually shook his fist at Mary. + +"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd +give thee a hidin'!" + +He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his energetic +intention to jump down and deal with her; but as she came toward him he +evidently thought better of it and stood on the top step of his ladder +shaking his fist down at her. + +"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th' +first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced young besom, +allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it wasna' wanted. I +never knowed how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it hadna' been for th' +robin--Drat him--" + +"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood below +him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff, it was +the robin who showed me the way!" + +Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of the +wall, he was so outraged. + +"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha' badness on a +robin,--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him showin' thee +th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt,"--she could see his next words burst +out because he was overpowered by curiosity--"however i' this world did +tha' get in?" + +"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately. "He +didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell you from here +while you're shaking your fist at me." + +He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his +jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw +coming over the grass toward him. + +At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised +that he had only sat up and listened as if he were spellbound. But in +the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to +Dickon. + +"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop +right in front of him!" + +And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which +made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes +which came toward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach +because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal command in his great +black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended haughtily toward him. +And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose. It was really no +wonder his mouth dropped open. + +"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah. + +How Ben Weatherstaff stared! His red old eyes fixed themselves on what +was before him as if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and gazed and +gulped a lump down his throat and did not say a word. + +"Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously. "Answer!" + +Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes and +over his forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice. + +"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I do--wi' tha' mother's eyes starin' +at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how tha' come here. But tha'rt th' +poor cripple." + +Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and +he sat bolt upright. + +"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!" + +"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce +indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there +was none there--not one!" + +Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if +he could never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth shook and his +voice shook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and he +could only remember the things he had heard. + +"Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely. + +"No!" shouted Colin. + +"Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet. + +It was too much. The strength which Colin usually threw into his +tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been +accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly simple +belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff's voice +was more than Rajah flesh and blood could endure. His anger and insulted +pride made him forget everything but this one moment and filled him with +a power he had never known before, an almost unnatural strength. + +"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the +coverings off his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come here! Come +here! This minute!" + +Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short +gasp and felt herself turn pale. + +"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled over to +herself under her breath as fast as ever she could. + +There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on to the +ground, Dickon held Colin's arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet +were on the grass. Colin was standing upright--upright--as straight as +an arrow and looking strangely tall--his head thrown back and his +strange eyes flashing lightning. + +"Look at me!" he flung up at Ben Weatherstaff. "Just look at me--you! +Just look at me!" + +"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad +i' Yorkshire!" + +What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He choked +and gulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he +struck his old hands together. + +"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' +as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee. Tha'lt make a mon +yet. God bless thee!" + +Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter. He +stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff in the face. + +"I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are to obey +me. This is my garden. Don't dare to say a word about it! You get down +from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet you +and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We did not want you, but now +you will have to be in the secret. Be quick!" + +Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer +rush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin +straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back. + +"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then remembering +himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes, +sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN + + +When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary. + +"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door +under the ivy. + +Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his +cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling. + +"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it +quite grandly. + +"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered +Dickon. "An' tha's stopped." + +"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin. + +Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said. + +"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply. + +Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin. + +"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these +'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump +of crocuses in the grass. + +Colin looked down at them. + +"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic then that +there--there couldna' be." + +He drew himself up straighter than ever. + +"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet +away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I +can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit +down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair." + +He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully +steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that +he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight +that he looked tall. + +When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him +standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath. + +"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his +attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud +face. + +But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this: + +"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You +can do it! You _can_!" + +She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him +on his feet looking like that. She could not bear that he should give in +before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a +sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. +He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way. + +"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have +I got crooked legs?" + +Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had +recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way. + +"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with +thysel'--? hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple +an' half-witted?" + +"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?" + +"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an' +they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?" + +"Every one thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm not!" + +And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up +and down, down and up. + +"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort! Tha's got +too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on th' ground in +such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee down on th' rug a bit +young Mester an' give me thy orders." + +There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding +in his manner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as she could as +they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to be remembered, she +had told him, was that Colin was getting well--getting well. The garden +was doing it. No one must let him remember about having humps and dying. + +The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree. + +"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired. + +"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by +favor--because she liked me." + +"She?" said Colin. + +"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff. + +"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was her +garden, wasn't it?" + +"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She were +main fond of it." + +"It is my garden now, I am fond of it. I shall come here every day," +announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that no one is +to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and made it +come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help--but you must come +when no one can see you." + +Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile. + +"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said. + +"What!" exclaimed Colin. "When?" + +"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was +about two year' ago." + +"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin. "There was no +door!" + +"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through th' door. I +come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'." + +"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make out +how it had been done." + +"She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly. "An' she +was such a pretty young thing. She says to me once, 'Ben,' says she +laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take care of my +roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one was ever to come +nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th' wall I come--until +th' rheumatics stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work once a year. She'd +gave her order first." + +"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said +Dickon. "I did wonder." + +"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to +keep the secret." + +"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An' it'll be easier for a man wi' +rheumatics to come in at th' door." + +On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin stretched +out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his face and he +began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but +presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless interest--he +drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some over. + +"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you +can!" + +Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a +word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face. + +Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke +exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire. + +"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an' +tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please +me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an' here I am diggin'." + +Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended +by chuckling. + +"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a +Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to +plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot." + +"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!" + +It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way +forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and +wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary +slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had +deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and over. He +looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new +exercise, slight as it was. + +"I want to do it before the sun goes quite--quite down," he said. + +Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on +purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the +greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun +to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from the +mould. + +"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the earth +thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place." + +The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he +set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. +It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning +forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward +to see what was being done. Nut and Shell chattered about it from a +cherry-tree. + +"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only slipping over +the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes. That's +part of the Magic." + +And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so gave him +strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange +lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two +feet--laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MAGIC + + +Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to +it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some +one out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his +room the poor man looked him over seriously. + +"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert +yourself." + +"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. To-morrow I +am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon." + +"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid +it would not be wise." + +"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I +am going." + +Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities was that +he did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his +way of ordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island +all his life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own +manners and had had no one to compare himself with. Mary had indeed +been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had +gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which +is usual or popular. Having made this discovery she naturally thought it +of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him +curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to +make him ask her why she was doing it and of course she did. + +"What are you looking at me for?" he said. + +"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven." + +"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some +satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to +die." + +"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary, "but I was +thinking just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be +polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never have +done it." + +"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly. + +"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man," +said Mary, "he would have slapped you." + +"But he daren't," said Colin. + +"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite +without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't +like--because you were going to die and things like that. You were such +a poor thing." + +"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing. I +won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon." + +"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went +on, thinking aloud. + +Colin turned his head, frowning. + +"Am I queer?" he demanded. + +"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross," she added +impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is Ben Weatherstaff. But I +am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I +found the garden." + +"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he +frowned again with determination. + +He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw +his beautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face. + +"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every day to the garden. +There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Mary. I am sure there +is." + +"So am I," said Mary. + +"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is. +_Something_ is there--_something_!" + +"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow." + +They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months +that followed--the wonderful months--the radiant months--the amazing +ones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have never +had a garden, you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you +will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to +pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease +pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in +the crevices of the walls. Then the green things began to show buds and +the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every +shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days +flowers had been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner. Ben +Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from +between the bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely +clinging things to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass +in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies +of the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines +or campanulas. + +"She was main fond o' them--she was," Ben Weatherstaff said. "She liked +them things as was allus pointin' up to th' blue sky, she used to tell. +Not as she was one o' them as looked down on th' earth--not her. She +just loved it but she said as th' blue sky allus looked so joyful." + +The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended +them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced in the breeze by the score, +gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years and which +it might be confessed seemed rather to wonder how such new people had +got there. And the roses--the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled +round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their +branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long +garlands falling in cascades--they came alive day by day, hour by hour. +Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first but swelling and +working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent +delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden +air. + +Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning +he was brought out and every hour of each day when it didn't rain he +spent in the garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the +grass "watching things growing," he said. If you watched long enough, he +declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Also you could make +the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on various +unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of +straw or feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if they were +trees from whose tops one could look out to explore the country. A mole +throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and making its way out at +last with the long-nailed paws which looked so like elfish hands, had +absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees' ways, +frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to explore +and when Dickon revealed them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, +ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout's and water-rats' and badgers' +ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over. + +And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really once +stood on his feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and when Mary told +him of the spell she had worked he was excited and approved of it +greatly. He talked of it constantly. + +"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely +one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. +Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen +until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment." + +The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for +Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah +standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also very +beautifully smiling. + +"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and +Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell +you something very important." + +"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One +of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood +he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like +a sailor.) + +"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah. "When +I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going +to begin now with this experiment." + +"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the +first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries. + +It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this +stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read +about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing +sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you +it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though he +was only ten years old--going on eleven. At this moment he was +especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of +actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person. + +"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will +be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows +anything about it except a few people in old books--and Mary a little, +because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon +knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms +animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had +not been an animal charmer--which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy +is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not +sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us--like +electricity and horses and steam." + +This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and +really could not keep still. + +"Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight. + +"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator +proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and +making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another +they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very +curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be +scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's +something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it +Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from +what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up +and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up +through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being +happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me +breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out +of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers +and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all +around us. In this garden--in all the places. The Magic in this garden +has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going +to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in +myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how +to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it +perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When +I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself +as fast as she could, 'You can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had +to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and +so did Dickon's. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime +as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me +well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And +you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben +Weatherstaff?" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!" + +"If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through +drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment +succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking +about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be +the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you +it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things." + +"I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs +who said words over and over thousands of times," said Mary. + +"I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th' same thing over thousands o' +times--callin' Jem a drunken brute," said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. +"Summat allus come o' that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidin' an' +went to th' Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord." + +Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered +up. + +"Well," he said, "you see something did come of it. She used the wrong +Magic until she made him beat her. If she'd used the right Magic and had +said something nice perhaps he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and +perhaps--perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet." + +Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little +old eyes. + +"Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, Mester Colin," he +said. "Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of a hint o' +what Magic will do for her. She'd be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik +'speriment worked--an' so 'ud Jem." + +Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with +curious delight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a +long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly +while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself. + +"Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin asked him, wondering what +he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he +saw him looking at him or at one of his "creatures" with his happy wide +smile. + +He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual. + +"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when th' +sun shines on 'em. It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?" + +Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs +and devotees in illustrations Colin suggested that they should all sit +cross-legged under the tree which made a canopy. + +"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather +tired and I want to sit down." + +"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' musn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might +spoil th' Magic." + +Colin turned and looked at him--into his innocent round eyes. + +"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic." + +It all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their +circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into +appearing at a prayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being +what he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this being the Rajah's affair +he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified at being +called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon +held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's signal no +one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the crow, +the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of +the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own +desire. + +"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely. "They want to help us." + +Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head high +as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful +look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy. + +"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, +as if we were dervishes?" + +"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff. +"I've got th' rheumatics." + +"The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but +we won't sway until it has done it. We will only chant." + +"I canna' do no chantin'," said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. "They +turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it." + +No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not +even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic. + +"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy +spirit. "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The +flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being +alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me--the +Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me. It's in every one of us. It's +in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!" + +He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly +number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer +and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began +to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The +humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and +drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit +asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot had +pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder, the +gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped. + +"Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced. + +Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a +jerk. + +"You have been asleep," said Colin. + +"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm +bound to get out afore th' collection." + +He was not quite awake yet. + +"You're not in church," said Colin. + +"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard +every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor calls it +rheumatics." + +The Rajah waved his hand. + +"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my +permission to go to your work. But come back to-morrow." + +"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben. + +It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a +stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up +his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look +over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any +stumbling. + +The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was +formed. It really did look like a procession. Colin was at its head with +Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked +behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub +keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to +nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt +himself in charge. + +It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards +it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately Ben +Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand +from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all +the time and he looked very grand. + +"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I +can feel it! I can feel it!" + +It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him. +He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the +grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but +he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When he +returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked +triumphant. + +"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific +discovery." + +"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary. + +"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because he will not be told. +This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to know anything +about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any +other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken +back in it. I won't have people whispering and asking questions and I +won't let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite +succeeded. Then sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall +just walk into his study and say 'Here I am; I am like any other boy. I +am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a +scientific experiment.'" + +"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary. "He won't believe his +eyes." + +Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was +going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had +been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any +other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw +that he had a son who was as straight and strong as other fathers' +sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had +been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was +afraid to look at him. + +"He'll be obliged to believe them," he said. "One of the things I am +going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific +discoveries, is to be an athlete." + +"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben +Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion +prize-fighter of all England." + +Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly. + +"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful. You must not take +liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works I +shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer." + +"Ax pardon--ax pardon, sir," answered Ben, touching his forehead in +salute. "I ought to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," but his eyes +twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind +being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength +and spirit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +"LET THEM LAUGH" + + +The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the +cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall +of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight +and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there +planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs +for his mother. In the company of his "creatures" he did wonders there +and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded he +whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or +Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him. + +"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it +wasn't for Dickon's garden. Anything'll grow for him. His 'taters and +cabbages is twice th' size of any one else's an' they've got a flavor +with 'em as nobody's has." + +When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. +After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that +was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on +and hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only +vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower +seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among gooseberry +bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and +pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year or whose +roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. The +low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had +tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers +into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were +to be seen. + +"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is +to be friends with 'em for sure. They're just like th' 'creatures.' If +they're thirsty give 'em a drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o' +food. They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if +I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless." + +It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that +happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only told that +"Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with +Miss Mary and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it +was agreed between the two children that Dickon's mother might "come +into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for +sure." + +So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the +thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze +which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned +never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, +the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his introduction to the +hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff's angry +face peering over the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant strength, +made Mrs. Sowerby's nice-looking face quite change color several times. + +"My word!" she said. "It was a good thing that little lass came to th' +Manor. It's been th' makin' o' her an' th' savin' o' him. Standin' on +his feet! An' us all thinkin' he was a poor half-witted lad with not a +straight bone in him." + +She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep +thinking. + +"What do they make of it at th' Manor--him being so well an' cheerful +an' never complainin'?" she inquired. + +"They don't know what to make of it," answered Dickon. "Every day as +comes round his face looks different. It's fillin' out and doesn't look +so sharp an' th' waxy color is goin'. But he has to do his bit o' +complainin'," with a highly entertained grin. + +"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby. + +Dickon chuckled. + +"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened. If the doctor +knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and +tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself. +He's goin' to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father +comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his room an' show him he's +as straight as other lads. But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan +to do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off th' +scent." + +Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had +finished his last sentence. + +"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' theirselves, I'll warrant. They'll +get a good bit o' play actin' out of it an' there's nothin' children +likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad." + +Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes +were twinkling with fun. + +"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out," he +explained. "An' he flies out at John, th' footman, for not carryin' him +careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an' never +lifts his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house. An' he grunts an' +frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his chair. Him an' Miss +Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an' complains she'll +say, 'Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that, +poor Colin?'--but th' trouble is that sometimes they can scarce keep +from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the garden they laugh +till they've no breath left to laugh with. An' they have to stuff their +faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the gardeners from hearin', +if any of 'em's about." + +"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still +laughing herself. "Good healthy child laughin's better than pills any +day o' th' year. That pair'll plump up for sure." + +"They are plumpin' up," said Dickon. "They're that hungry they don't +know how to get enough to eat without makin' talk. Mester Colin says if +he keeps sendin' for more food they won't believe he's an invalid at +all. Miss Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if +she goes hungry she'll get thin an' they mun both get fat at once." + +Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty, +that she quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon +laughed with her. + +"I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said when she could speak. +"I've thought of a way to help 'em. When tha' goes to 'em in th' +mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new milk an' I'll bake 'em a +crusty cottage loaf or some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as you +children like. Nothin's so good as fresh milk an' bread. Then they could +take off th' edge o' their hunger while they were in their garden an' +th' fine food they get indoors 'ud polish off th' corners." + +"Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what a wonder tha' art! Tha' +always sees a way out o' things. They was quite in a pother yesterday. +They didn't see how they was to manage without orderin' up more +food--they felt that empty inside." + +"They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an' health's comin' back to both of +'em. Children like that feels like young wolves an' food's flesh an' +blood to 'em," said Mrs. Sowerby. Then she smiled Dickon's own curving +smile. "Eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves for sure," she said. + +She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creature--and she +had never been more so than when she said their "play actin'" would be +their joy. Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources +of entertainment. The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had +been unconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse and then +by Dr. Craven himself. + +"Your appetite is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had said +one day. "You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed with +you." + +"Nothing disagrees with me now," replied Colin, and then seeing the +nurse looking at him curiously he suddenly remembered that perhaps he +ought not to appear too well just yet. "At least things don't so often +disagree with me. It's the fresh air." + +"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified +expression. "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it." + +"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away. "As if she +thought there must be something to find out." + +"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin. "No one must begin to +find out yet." When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled, +also. He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance. + +"You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested. "Where do you +go?" + +Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion. + +"I will not let any one know where I go," he answered. "I go to a place +I like. Every one has orders to keep out of the way. I won't be watched +and stared at. You know that!" + +"You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harm--I +do not think so. The nurse says that you eat much more than you have +ever done before." + +"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is +an unnatural appetite." + +"I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you," said Dr. +Craven. "You are gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better." + +"Perhaps--perhaps I am bloated and feverish," said Colin, assuming a +discouraging air of gloom. "People who are not going to live are +often--different." + +Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist and he pushed up +his sleeve and felt his arm. + +"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully, "and such flesh as you +have gained is healthy. If we can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk +of dying. Your father will be very happy to hear of this remarkable +improvement." + +"I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth fiercely. "It will only +disappoint him if I get worse again--and I may get worse this very +night. I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might be beginning to +have one now. I won't have letters written to my father--I won't--I +won't! You are making me angry and you know that is bad for me. I feel +hot already. I hate being written about and being talked over as much as +I hate being stared at!" + +"Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him. "Nothing shall be written +without your permission. You are too sensitive about things. You must +not undo the good which has been done." + +He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse he +privately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned to +the patient. + +"The boy is extraordinarily better," he said. "His advance seems almost +abnormal. But of course he is doing now of his own free will what we +could not make him do before. Still, he excites himself very easily and +nothing must be said to irritate him." + +Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously. From +this time dated their plan of "play actin'." + +"I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said Colin regretfully. "I don't +want to have one and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself into a +big one. Perhaps I couldn't have one at all. That lump doesn't come in +my throat now and I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible +ones. But if they talk about writing to my father I shall have to do +something." + +He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible +to carry out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an +amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of +home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and +clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found +themselves at the table--particularly if there were delicate slices of +sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver +cover--they would look into each other's eyes in desperation. + +"I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always +ended by saying. "We can send away some of the lunch and a great deal of +the dinner." + +But they never found they could send away anything and the highly +polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened +much comment. + +"I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish the slices of ham were +thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for any one." + +"It's enough for a person who is going to die," answered Mary when first +she heard this, "but it's not enough for a person who is going to live. +I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh heather +and gorse smells from the moor come pouring in at the open window." + +The morning that Dickon--after they had been enjoying themselves in the +garden for about two hours--went behind a big rose-bush and brought +forth two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with +cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made currant +buns folded in a clean blue and white napkin, buns so carefully tucked +in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprised joyfulness. +What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of! What a kind, clever +woman she must be! How good the buns were! And what delicious fresh +milk! + +"Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin. "It makes her +think of ways to do things--nice things. She is a Magic person. Tell her +we are grateful, Dickon--extremely grateful." + +He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed them. +He liked this so much that he improved upon it. + +"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme." + +And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with +buns and drank milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner of +any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing +in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours behind him. + +This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind. +They actually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people +to provide food for she might not have enough to satisfy two extra +appetites every day. So they asked her to let them send some of their +shillings to buy things. + +Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park +outside the garden where Mary had first found him piping to the wild +creatures there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort of +tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs +were a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes with salt and +fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king--besides being +deliciously satisfying. You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as +many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the +mouths of fourteen people. + +Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under +the plum-tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after +its brief blossom-time was ended. After the ceremony Colin always took +his walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found +power at intervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more +steadily and cover more ground. And each day his belief in the Magic +grew stronger--as well it might. He tried one experiment after another +as he felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon who showed him the +best things of all. + +"Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite +for mother an' near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth. He's the +strongest chap on th' moor. He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump +higher than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther. He's gone all +th' way to Scotland for th' sports some years. He's knowed me ever since +I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him some +questions. Th' gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee, Mester +Colin, and I says, 'How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out that way, +Bob? Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?' An' he says +'Well, yes, lad, I did. A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite once +showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every muscle in my body.' +An' I says, 'Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with 'em, Bob?' +an' he laughed an' says, 'Art tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, 'No, +but I knows a young gentleman that's gettin' well of a long illness an' +I wish I knowed some o' them tricks to tell him about.' I didn't say no +names an' he didn't ask none. He's friendly same as I said an' he stood +up an' showed me good-natured like, an' I imitated what he did till I +knowed it by heart." + +Colin had been listening excitedly. + +"Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?" + +"Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up. "But he says tha' mun do +'em gentle at first an' be careful not to tire thysel'. Rest in between +times an' take deep breaths an' don't overdo." + +"I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the +most Magic boy in the world!" + +Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully +practical but simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with +widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down. Presently he +did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary +began to do them also. Soot, who was watching the performance, became +much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about restlessly because +he could not do them too. + +From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as +the Magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of +them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but +for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he +arrived they would have been lost. But the little oven in the hollow and +Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and the +nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again. You can trifle with your +breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the brim +with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oat-cakes +and buns and heather honey and clotted cream. + +"They are eating next to nothing," said the nurse. "They'll die of +starvation if they can't be persuaded to take some nourishment. And yet +see how they look." + +"Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. "Eh! I'm moithered to death +with them. They're a pair of young Satans. Bursting their jackets one +day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals Cook can +tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and bread +sauce did they set a fork into yesterday--and the poor woman fair +_invented_ a pudding for them--and back it's sent. She almost cried. +She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve themselves into their +graves." + +Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully. He wore an +extremely worried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed +him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look +at--but it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa and +examined him. He had been called to London on business and had not seen +the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things begin to gain health +they gain it rapidly. The waxen tinge had left Colin's skin and a warm +rose showed through it; his beautiful eyes were clear and the hollows +under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out. His once dark, +heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily from his +forehead and were soft and warm with life. His lips were fuller and of a +normal color. In fact as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed +invalid he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in his hand +and thought him over. + +"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything," he said. "That will +not do. You will lose all you have gained--and you have gained +amazingly. You ate so well a short time ago." + +"I told you it was an unnatural appetite," answered Colin. + +Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer +sound which she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost +choking. + +"What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her. + +Mary became quite severe in her manner. + +"It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with +reproachful dignity, "and it got into my throat." + +"But" she said afterward to Colin, "I couldn't stop myself. It just +burst out because all at once I couldn't help remembering that last big +potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through +that thick lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it." + +"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr. +Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock. + +"There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the +trees," Mrs. Medlock answered. "They stay out in the grounds all day and +see no one but each other. And if they want anything different to eat +from what's sent up to them they need only ask for it." + +"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with them +we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature." + +"So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock. "She's begun to be downright pretty +since she's filled out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her hair's +grown thick and healthy looking and she's got a bright color. The +glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and Master +Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhaps they're +growing fat on that." + +"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let them laugh." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE CURTAIN + + +And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed +new miracles. In the robin's nest there were Eggs and the robin's +mate sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast +and careful wings. At first she was very nervous and the robin himself +was indignantly watchful. Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown +corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some +mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little +pair that in the garden there was nothing which was not quite like +themselves--nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what +was happening to them--the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking +beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that +garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if +an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and +crash through space and come to an end--if there had been even one who +did not feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness +even in that golden springtime air. But they all knew it and felt it and +the robin and his mate knew they knew it. + +At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For some +mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first moment he +set his dew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger but +a sort of robin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin (which is +a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for any other). To speak +robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman. Dickon always +spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he used when he +spoke to humans did not matter in the least. The robin thought he spoke +this gibberish to them because they were not intelligent enough to +understand feathered speech. His movements also were robin. They never +startled one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous or threatening. +Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not even +disturbing. + +But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other +two. In the first place the boy creature did not come into the garden on +his legs. He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild +animals were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful. Then when he +began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer unaccustomed way +and the others seemed to have to help him. The robin used to secrete +himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head tilted first on one +side and then on the other. He thought that the slow movements might +mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When cats are +preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very slowly. The robin +talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days but after +that he decided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so +great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the Eggs. + +When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it +was an immense relief. But for a long time--or it seemed a long time to +the robin--he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other +humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting +or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner +to begin again. + +One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn +to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing. He had +taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So +it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or rather to +walk. He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her that the Eggs +would probably conduct themselves in the same way after they were +fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly interested and +derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the edge of her +nest--though she always thought that the Eggs would be much cleverer and +learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans were +always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them never seemed +really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the air or on +tree-tops. + +After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all +three of the children at times did unusual things. They would stand +under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way +which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went +through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never +able to explain to his mate what they were doing or trying to do. He +could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in +such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was +doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions +were not of a dangerous nature. Of course neither the robin nor his mate +had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his exercises +for making the muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not like human +beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first and so they +develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly about to find +every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied +means wasted away through want of use). + +When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like +the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace and +content. Fears for the Eggs became things of the past. Knowing that your +Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the fact +that you could watch so many curious things going on made setting a most +entertaining occupation. On wet days the Eggs' mother sometimes felt +even a little dull because the children did not come into the garden. + +But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. +One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was +beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his +sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an +inspiration. + +"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my +body are so full of Magic that I can't keep them still. They want to be +doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in the +morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting +outside and everything seems just shouting for joy--even the trees and +things we can't really hear--I feel as if I must jump out of bed and +shout myself. And if I did it, just think what would happen!" + +Mary giggled inordinately. + +"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and +they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor," +she said. + +Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look--how +horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright. + +"I wish my father would come home," he said. "I want to tell him myself. +I'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this much +longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too +different. I wish it wasn't raining to-day." + +It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration. + +"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are +in this house?" + +"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered. + +"There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary. "And one +rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them. No one ever +knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was +coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the +second time I heard you crying." + +Colin started up on his sofa. + +"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a +secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. You could wheel me in my +chair and nobody would know where we went." + +"That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No one would dare to follow +us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do our exercises. +There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivory +elephants. There are all sorts of rooms." + +"Ring the bell," said Colin. + +When the nurse came in he gave his orders. + +"I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the +part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as the +picture-gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and +leave us alone until I send for him again." + +Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had wheeled +the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in +obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As +soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his +own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair. + +"I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, +"and then I am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's +exercises." + +And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the +portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and +holding the parrot on her finger. + +"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations. They lived a long time +ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great, great +aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but as you +looked when you came here. Now you are a great deal fatter and better +looking." + +"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed. + +They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory +elephants. They found the rose-colored brocade boudoir and the hole in +the cushion the mouse had left but the mice had grown up and run away +and the hole was empty. They saw more rooms and made more discoveries +than Mary had made on her first pilgrimage. They found new corridors +and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and +weird old things they did not know the use of. It was a curiously +entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same +house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were +miles away from them was a fascinating thing. + +"I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew I lived in such a big +queer old place. I like it. We will ramble about every rainy day. We +shall always be finding new queer corners and things." + +That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that +when they returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the +luncheon away untouched. + +When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs she slapped it down on the +kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly +polished dishes and plates. + +"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house of mystery, and those two +children are the greatest mysteries in it." + +"If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John, +"there'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day as he did a +month ago. I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of doing +my muscles an injury." + +That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's +room. She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because she +thought the change might have been made by chance. She said nothing +to-day but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantel. +She could look at it because the curtain had been drawn aside. That was +the change she noticed. + +"I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared +a few minutes. "I always know when you want me to tell you something. +You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keep it +like that." + +"Why?" asked Mary. + +"Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing. I +wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the +Magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I +couldn't lie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was +quite light and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and +somehow that made me go and pull the cord. She looked right down at me +as if she were laughing because she was glad I was standing there. It +made me like to look at her. I want to see her laughing like that all +the time. I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps." + +"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps +you are her ghost made into a boy." + +That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered +her slowly. + +"If I were her ghost--my father would be fond of me," he said. + +"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary. + +"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me +I think I should tell him about the Magic. It might make him more +cheerful." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +"IT'S MOTHER!" + + +Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's +incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures. + +"I like to do it," he explained, "because when I grow up and make great +scientific discoveries I shall be obliged to lecture about them and so +this is practise. I can only give short lectures now because I am very +young, and besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he was in church +and he would go to sleep." + +"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up +an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap can answer him back. I +wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel' sometimes." + +But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes on +him and kept them there. He looked him over with critical affection. It +was not so much the lecture which interested him as the legs which +looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head which held +itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks which had +filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold the light he +remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze +meant that he was much impressed he wondered what he was reflecting on +and once when he had seemed quite entranced he questioned him. + +"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked. + +"I was thinkin'," answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's gone up three or +four pound this week. I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders. +I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales." + +"It's the Magic and--and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said +Colin. "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded." + +That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he +was ruddy with running and his funny face looked more twinkling than +usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains they +fell to work. They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking +rain. The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for the +weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves which +must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. Colin was as +good at weeding as any one in these days and he could lecture while he +was doing it. + +"The Magic works best when you work yourself," he said this morning. +"You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I am going to read books +about bones and muscles, but I am going to write a book about Magic. I +am making it up now. I keep finding out things." + +It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his trowel +and stood up on his feet. He had been silent for several minutes and +they had seen that he was thinking out lectures, as he often did. When +he dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to Mary and Dickon as +if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. He stretched himself out +to his tallest height and he threw out his arms exultantly. Color glowed +in his face and his strange eyes widened with joyfulness. All at once he +had realized something to the full. + +"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!" + +They stopped their weeding and looked at him. + +"Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he +demanded. + +Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could +see more things than most people could and many of them were things he +never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy. + +"Aye, that we do," he answered. + +Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing. + +"Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once I remembered it +myself--when I looked at my hand digging with the trowel--and I had to +stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it _is_ real! I'm +_well_--I'm _well_!" + +"Aye, that tha' art!" said Dickon. + +"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all +over. + +He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought +about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all through +him--a sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been so +strong that he could not help calling out. + +"I shall live forever and ever and ever!" he cried grandly. "I shall +find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about +people and creatures and everything that grows--like Dickon--and I shall +never stop making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feel--I feel as if I want +to shout out something--something thankful, joyful!" + +Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round +at him. + +"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He had +no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with any +particular reverence. + +But Colin was of an exploring mind and he knew nothing about the +Doxology. + +"What is that?" he inquired. + +"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff. + +Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer's smile. + +"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th' +skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'." + +"If she says that, it must be a nice song," Colin answered. "I've never +been in a church myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon. I want +to hear it." + +Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it. He understood what +Colin felt better than Colin did himself. He understood by a sort of +instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding. He pulled +off his cap and looked round still smiling. + +"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha', +Ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows." + +Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as +he watched Dickon intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his +knees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look +on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this +remarkable thing. + +Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes and began to sing in +quite a simple matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice: + + "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, + Praise Him all creatures here below, + Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host, + Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. + Amen." + +When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with his +jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on +Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative. + +"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it. Perhaps it means just +what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic." +He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. "Perhaps they are both the same +thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it again, +Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It's my song. How does +it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?" + +[Illustration: "'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"--_Page 344_] + +And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as +musically as they could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and +beautiful--and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his +throat and at the third he joined in with such vigor that it seemed +almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed that the +very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he found out +that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he was staring +and winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet. + +"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I +may change my mind i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound this +week, Mester Colin--five on 'em!" + +Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his +attention and his expression had become a startled one. + +"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?" + +The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had +entered. She had come in with the last line of their song and she had +stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the +sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, +and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was rather like +a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful +affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in--all of them, even +Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower that was in bloom. +Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that she was an +intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps. + +"It's Mother--that's who it is!" he cried and he went across the grass +at a run. + +Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both +felt their pulses beat faster. + +"It's Mother!" Dickon said again when they met half-way. "I knowed tha' +wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid." + +Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his +eyes quite devoured her face. + +"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and +the secret garden. I'd never wanted to see any one or anything before." + +The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own. +She flushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed to +sweep over her eyes. + +"Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously. "Eh! dear lad!" as if she had +not known she were going to say it. She did not say, "Mester Colin," +but just "dear lad" quite suddenly. She might have said it to Dickon in +the same way if she had seen something in his face which touched her. +Colin liked it. + +"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked. + +She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes. + +"Aye, that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my +heart jump." + +"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my father +like me?" + +"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a soft +quick pat. "He mun come home--he mun come home." + +"Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff, getting close to her. "Look at +th' lad's legs, wilt tha'? They was like drumsticks i' stockin' two +month' ago--an' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knock-kneed both +at th' same time. Look at 'em now!" + +Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh. + +"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said. "Let +him go on playin' an' workin' in th' garden an' eatin' hearty an' +drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i' +Yorkshire, thank God for it." + +She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little +face over in a motherly fashion. + +"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our 'Lizabeth +Ellen. I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too. Our Martha told me as +Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty woman. Tha'lt be like a blush rose +when tha' grows up, my little lass, bless thee." + +She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and +described the plain sallow child she had said that she had no confidence +whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. "It doesn't stand to reason +that a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou' little lass," she +had added obstinately. + +Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face. She +had only known that she looked "different" and seemed to have a great +deal more hair and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her +pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear +that she might some day look like her. + +Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole +story of it and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin +walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept +looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the +delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling. It +seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his "creatures." +She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if they were +children. Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her and flew upon +her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her about the robin +and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a motherly little +mellow laugh in her throat. + +"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but +I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o' +legs," she said. + +It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland +cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic. + +"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about +Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do." + +"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it by that name but what +does th' name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i' France +an' a different one i' Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' +an' th' sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good Thing. It +isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called out of our +names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless thee. It goes +on makin' worlds by th' million--worlds like us. Never thee stop +believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it--an' +call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into th' +garden." + +"I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at +her. "Suddenly I felt how different I was--how strong my arms and legs +were, you know--and how I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and +wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen." + +"Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology. It would ha' listened +to anything tha'd sung. It was th' joy that mattered. Eh! lad, +lad--what's names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick +soft pat again. + +She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and +when the hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding +place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour +their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She was +full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things. She told +them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words. She laughed +as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing +difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful +invalid. + +"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are +together," explained Colin. "And it doesn't sound ill at all. We try to +choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever." + +"There's one thing that comes into my mind so often," said Mary, "and I +can scarcely ever hold in when I think of it suddenly. I keep thinking +suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon. It isn't like +one yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and suppose some +morning it should look like one--what should we do!" + +"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do," said +Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keep it up much longer. Mester +Craven'll come home." + +"Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?" + +Susan Sowerby chuckled softly. + +"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told +him in tha' own way," she said. "Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it." + +"I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin. "I think about +different ways every day. I think now I just want to run into his +room." + +"That'd be a fine start for him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to see +his face, lad. I would that! He mun come back--that he mun." + +One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her +cottage. They planned it all. They were to drive over the moor and lunch +out of doors among the heather. They would see all the twelve children +and Dickon's garden and would not come back until they were tired. + +Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to the house and Mrs. Medlock. It +was time for Colin to be wheeled back also. But before he got into his +chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a +kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of +her blue cloak and held it fast. + +"You are just what I--what I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my +mother--as well as Dickon's!" + +All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms +close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been Dickon's +brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes. + +"Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden, I +do believe. She couldna' keep out of it. Thy father mun come back to +thee--he mun!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +IN THE GARDEN + + +In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have +been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out +than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still +more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to +believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it +can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the +world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things +people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just +mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as +sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad +one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ +get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may +never get over it as long as you live. + +So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about +her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to +be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, +bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, +though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for +her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and +moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old +gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and +with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy +and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable +thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow +and tired. + +So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his +fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and +reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical +half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the +spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon +his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push +out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran +healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. +His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was +nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to +any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his +mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting +in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one +place. + + "Where you tend a rose, my lad, + A thistle cannot grow." + +While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming +alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away +beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains +of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind +filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous; +he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark +ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on +mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming all about him +and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought them. A +terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had +let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to +allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted +his home and his duties. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded +over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because +it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers +thought he must be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on +his soul. He was a tall man with a drawn face and crooked shoulders and +the name he always entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald Craven, +Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England." + +He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his +study and told her she might have her "bit of earth." He had been in the +most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more +than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had +been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and had +looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with +such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born. + +But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he +realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had +happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had +been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted any man's +soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his. +But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a +carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran quite +merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious damp greenness. +Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled +over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in +it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed like a thing alive +and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valley was +very, very still. + +As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven +gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the valley +itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat +and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing +at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing so +close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he found +himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago. +He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of +blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just +that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--filling and filling it +until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet clear +spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen +until at last it swept the dark water away. But of course he did not +think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to grow +quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate +blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to +him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly +and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and +wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released +in him, very quietly. + +"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over +his forehead. "I almost feel as if--I were alive!" + +I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to +be able to explain how this had happened to him. Neither does any one +else yet. He did not understand at all himself--but he remembered this +strange hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he +found out quite by accident that on this very day Colin had cried out as +he went into the secret garden: + +"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!" + +The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he +slept a new reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did +not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the +doors wide to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping and rushing +back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But, +strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes--sometimes +half-hours--when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to +lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. +Slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knew of--he was "coming alive" +with the garden. + +As the golden summer changed into the deeper golden autumn he went to +the Lake of Como. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his +days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the +soft thick verdure of the hills and tramped until he was tired so that +he might sleep. But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he knew, +and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him. + +"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger." + +It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when his +thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too. He +began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home. Now +and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he +should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed again +and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it slept +and the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes. He +shrank from it. + +One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon +was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The +stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go +into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace +at the water's edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the heavenly +scents of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and +it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep. + +He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his +dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He +remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought +he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late +roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he heard a +voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed +very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very +side. + +"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer +than before, "Archie! Archie!" + +He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real +voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it. + +"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?" + +"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In the +garden!" + +And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and +sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was +brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an +Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa +were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign master +might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or where he +would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the +boat on the lake all night. The man held a salver with some letters on +it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he had gone +away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and looking +at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him and something more--a +lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happened as +he thought--as if something had changed. He was remembering the +dream--the real--real dream. + +"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But the +door is locked and the key is buried deep." + +When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one +lying at the top of the rest was an English letter and came from +Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a hand +he knew. He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first +words attracted his attention at once. + + "_Dear Sir:_ + + "I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you + once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary I spoke. + I will make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I + would come home if I was you. I think you would be + glad to come and--if you will excuse me, sir--I + think your lady would ask you to come if she was + here. + + "Your obedient servant, + "SUSAN SOWERBY." + +Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope. +He kept thinking about the dream. + +"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said. "Yes, I'll go at once." + +And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to +prepare for his return to England. + + * * * * * + +In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad +journey he found himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in +all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to forget +him. Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him +constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days when he +had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was +dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at +last it had been such a weak wretched thing that every one had been sure +it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took care +of it the days passed and it lived and then every one believed it would +be a deformed and crippled creature. + +He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father +at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had +shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his +own misery. The first time after a year's absence he returned to +Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly and +indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes +round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had +adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as +death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, +and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a +vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from +furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail. + +All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled +him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming +alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and +deeply. + +"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself. "Ten +years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything--quite too late. +What have I been thinking of!" + +Of course this was the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even +Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either +black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby +had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature +had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill. If he had not +been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession +of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had +brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to +thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in +better things. + +"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good +and control him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to +Misselthwaite." + +But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the +cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a +group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him +that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the +morning to help a woman who had a new baby. "Our Dickon," they +volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where +he went several days each week. + +Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round +red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he +awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at +their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and +gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest. + +"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each +of you," he said. + +Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, +leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind. + +The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. +Why did it seem to give him a sense of home-coming which he had been +sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky +and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing +nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six +hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering +to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed +with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find +him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his +shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and +clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the +garden!" + +"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I +must--though I don't know why." + +When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the +usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to +the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went +into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat +excited and curious and flustered. + +"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired. + +"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner +of speaking." + +"Worse?" he suggested. + +Mrs. Medlock really was flushed. + +"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the +nurse, nor me can exactly make him out." + +"Why is that?" + +"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be +changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and +his ways--" + +"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master asked, knitting his +brows anxiously. + +"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with +what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began to +eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and the +meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir, +perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The +things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave +a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that +Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. Well, sir, +just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he +suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan +Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to both +Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if +you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until +night." + +"How does he look?" was the next question. + +"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on +flesh--but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat. He laughs sometimes +in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary. He never used to laugh at +all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him. He +never was as puzzled in his life." + +"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked. + +"In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden--though not a human +creature is allowed to go near for fear they'll look at him." + +Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words. + +"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he +stood and repeated it again and again. "In the garden!" + +He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was +standing in and when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went +out of the room. He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door in +the shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds. The fountain +was playing now and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn flowers. +He crossed the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls. He +did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path. He felt +as if he were being drawn back to the place he had so long forsaken, and +he did not know why. As he drew near to it his step became still more +slow. He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick over +it--but he did not know exactly where it lay--that buried key. + +So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment +after he had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were +walking in a dream. + +The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, +no human being had passed that portal for ten lonely years--and yet +inside the garden there were sounds. They were the sounds of running +scuffling feet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they +were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices--exclamations and +smothered joyous cries. It seemed actually like the laughter of young +things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to +be heard but who in a moment or so--as their excitement mounted--would +burst forth. What in heaven's name was he dreaming of--what in heaven's +name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things +which were not for human ears? Was it that the far clear voice had +meant? + +And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds +forgot to hush themselves. The feet ran faster and faster--they were +nearing the garden door--there was quick strong young breathing and a +wild outbreak of laughing shouts which could not be contained--and the +door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, +and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the +outsider, dashed almost into his arms. + +Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a +result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to +look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath. + +He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his +running had sent splendid color leaping to his face. He threw the thick +hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes--eyes +full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It +was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath. + +"Who--What? Who!" he stammered. + +This was not what Colin had expected--this was not what he had planned. +He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing +out--winning a race--perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to +his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed +through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look +taller than he had ever looked before--inches taller. + +"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can +myself. I'm Colin." + +Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he +said hurriedly: + +"In the garden! In the garden!" + +"Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden that did it--and Mary and +Dickon and the creatures--and the Magic. No one knows. We kept it to +tell you when you came. I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going +to be an athlete." + +He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words +tumbling over each other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook +with unbelieving joy. + +Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm. + +"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. + +"Aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!" + +Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still. +He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment. + +"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last. "And tell me all +about it." + +And so they led him in. + +The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and +flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing +together--lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered well +when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the +year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and +hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing +trees made one feel that one stood in an embowered temple of gold. The +newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into +its grayness. He looked round and round. + +"I thought it would be dead," he said. + +"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive." + +Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand +while he told the story. + +It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, +as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and +wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting--the coming of the +spring--the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah +to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face. The odd +companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The +listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came +into his eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete, the Lecturer, the +Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human +thing. + +"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it need not be a secret any +more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see +me--but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back +with you, Father--to the house." + + * * * * * + +Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on +this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen +and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a +glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most +dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present +generation actually took place. + +One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the +lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he +might have caught sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting +with Master Colin. + +"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked. + +Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of +his hand. + +"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air. + +"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock. + +"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I +could sup up another mug of it." + +"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her +excitement. + +"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp. + +"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each +other?" + +"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' step-ladder +lookin' over th' wall. But I'll tell thee this. There's been things +goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about. An' what tha'll +find out tha'll find out soon." + +And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and +waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the +shrubbery a piece of the lawn. + +"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across th' +grass." + +When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek +and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the +servants' hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes +almost starting out of their heads. + +Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many +of them had never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air +and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy +in Yorkshire--Master Colin! + + +THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO + +CHAPTER 1 + +How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood +that wept and laughed like a child. + + +Centuries ago there lived-- + +“A king!” my little readers will say immediately. + +No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time there was a piece of +wood. It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common +block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the +fire in winter to make cold rooms cozy and warm. + +I do not know how this really happened, yet the fact remains that +one fine day this piece of wood found itself in the shop of an old +carpenter. His real name was Mastro Antonio, but everyone called him +Mastro Cherry, for the tip of his nose was so round and red and shiny +that it looked like a ripe cherry. + +As soon as he saw that piece of wood, Mastro Cherry was filled with joy. +Rubbing his hands together happily, he mumbled half to himself: + +“This has come in the nick of time. I shall use it to make the leg of a +table.” + +He grasped the hatchet quickly to peel off the bark and shape the wood. +But as he was about to give it the first blow, he stood still with arm +uplifted, for he had heard a wee, little voice say in a beseeching tone: +“Please be careful! Do not hit me so hard!” + +What a look of surprise shone on Mastro Cherry’s face! His funny face +became still funnier. + +He turned frightened eyes about the room to find out where that wee, +little voice had come from and he saw no one! He looked under the +bench--no one! He peeped inside the closet--no one! He searched among +the shavings--no one! He opened the door to look up and down the +street--and still no one! + +“Oh, I see!” he then said, laughing and scratching his Wig. “It can +easily be seen that I only thought I heard the tiny voice say the words! +Well, well--to work once more.” + +He struck a most solemn blow upon the piece of wood. + +“Oh, oh! You hurt!” cried the same far-away little voice. + +Mastro Cherry grew dumb, his eyes popped out of his head, his mouth +opened wide, and his tongue hung down on his chin. + +As soon as he regained the use of his senses, he said, trembling and +stuttering from fright: + +“Where did that voice come from, when there is no one around? Might it +be that this piece of wood has learned to weep and cry like a child? I +can hardly believe it. Here it is--a piece of common firewood, good +only to burn in the stove, the same as any other. Yet--might someone be +hidden in it? If so, the worse for him. I’ll fix him!” + +With these words, he grabbed the log with both hands and started to +knock it about unmercifully. He threw it to the floor, against the walls +of the room, and even up to the ceiling. + +He listened for the tiny voice to moan and cry. He waited two +minutes--nothing; five minutes--nothing; ten minutes--nothing. + +“Oh, I see,” he said, trying bravely to laugh and ruffling up his wig +with his hand. “It can easily be seen I only imagined I heard the tiny +voice! Well, well--to work once more!” + +The poor fellow was scared half to death, so he tried to sing a gay song +in order to gain courage. + +He set aside the hatchet and picked up the plane to make the wood smooth +and even, but as he drew it to and fro, he heard the same tiny voice. +This time it giggled as it spoke: + +“Stop it! Oh, stop it! Ha, ha, ha! You tickle my stomach.” + +This time poor Mastro Cherry fell as if shot. When he opened his eyes, +he found himself sitting on the floor. + +His face had changed; fright had turned even the tip of his nose from +red to deepest purple. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +Mastro Cherry gives the piece of wood to his friend Geppetto, who +takes it to make himself a Marionette that will dance, fence, and turn +somersaults. + + +In that very instant, a loud knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” said +the carpenter, not having an atom of strength left with which to stand +up. + +At the words, the door opened and a dapper little old man came in. +His name was Geppetto, but to the boys of the neighborhood he was +Polendina,* on account of the wig he always wore which was just the +color of yellow corn. + + * Cornmeal mush + +Geppetto had a very bad temper. Woe to the one who called him Polendina! +He became as wild as a beast and no one could soothe him. + +“Good day, Mastro Antonio,” said Geppetto. “What are you doing on the +floor?” + +“I am teaching the ants their A B C’s.” + +“Good luck to you!” + +“What brought you here, friend Geppetto?” + +“My legs. And it may flatter you to know, Mastro Antonio, that I have +come to you to beg for a favor.” + +“Here I am, at your service,” answered the carpenter, raising himself on +to his knees. + +“This morning a fine idea came to me.” + +“Let’s hear it.” + +“I thought of making myself a beautiful wooden Marionette. It must be +wonderful, one that will be able to dance, fence, and turn somersaults. +With it I intend to go around the world, to earn my crust of bread and +cup of wine. What do you think of it?” + +“Bravo, Polendina!” cried the same tiny voice which came from no one +knew where. + +On hearing himself called Polendina, Mastro Geppetto turned the color of +a red pepper and, facing the carpenter, said to him angrily: + +“Why do you insult me?” + +“Who is insulting you?” + +“You called me Polendina.” + +“I did not.” + +“I suppose you think _I_ did! Yet I KNOW it was you.” + +“No!” + +“Yes!” + +“No!” + +“Yes!” + +And growing angrier each moment, they went from words to blows, and +finally began to scratch and bite and slap each other. + +When the fight was over, Mastro Antonio had Geppetto’s yellow wig in his +hands and Geppetto found the carpenter’s curly wig in his mouth. + +“Give me back my wig!” shouted Mastro Antonio in a surly voice. + +“You return mine and we’ll be friends.” + +The two little old men, each with his own wig back on his own head, +shook hands and swore to be good friends for the rest of their lives. + +“Well then, Mastro Geppetto,” said the carpenter, to show he bore him no +ill will, “what is it you want?” + +“I want a piece of wood to make a Marionette. Will you give it to me?” + +Mastro Antonio, very glad indeed, went immediately to his bench to get +the piece of wood which had frightened him so much. But as he was about +to give it to his friend, with a violent jerk it slipped out of his +hands and hit against poor Geppetto’s thin legs. + +“Ah! Is this the gentle way, Mastro Antonio, in which you make your +gifts? You have made me almost lame!” + +“I swear to you I did not do it!” + +“It was _I_, of course!” + +“It’s the fault of this piece of wood.” + +“You’re right; but remember you were the one to throw it at my legs.” + +“I did not throw it!” + +“Liar!” + +“Geppetto, do not insult me or I shall call you Polendina.” + +“Idiot.” + +“Polendina!” + +“Donkey!” + +“Polendina!” + +“Ugly monkey!” + +“Polendina!” + +On hearing himself called Polendina for the third time, Geppetto lost +his head with rage and threw himself upon the carpenter. Then and there +they gave each other a sound thrashing. + +After this fight, Mastro Antonio had two more scratches on his nose, +and Geppetto had two buttons missing from his coat. Thus having settled +their accounts, they shook hands and swore to be good friends for the +rest of their lives. + +Then Geppetto took the fine piece of wood, thanked Mastro Antonio, and +limped away toward home. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +As soon as he gets home, Geppetto fashions the Marionette and calls it +Pinocchio. The first pranks of the Marionette. + + +Little as Geppetto’s house was, it was neat and comfortable. It was a +small room on the ground floor, with a tiny window under the stairway. +The furniture could not have been much simpler: a very old chair, a +rickety old bed, and a tumble-down table. A fireplace full of burning +logs was painted on the wall opposite the door. Over the fire, there +was painted a pot full of something which kept boiling happily away and +sending up clouds of what looked like real steam. + +As soon as he reached home, Geppetto took his tools and began to cut and +shape the wood into a Marionette. + +“What shall I call him?” he said to himself. “I think I’ll call him +PINOCCHIO. This name will make his fortune. I knew a whole family of +Pinocchi once--Pinocchio the father, Pinocchia the mother, and Pinocchi +the children--and they were all lucky. The richest of them begged for +his living.” + +After choosing the name for his Marionette, Geppetto set seriously to +work to make the hair, the forehead, the eyes. Fancy his surprise +when he noticed that these eyes moved and then stared fixedly at him. +Geppetto, seeing this, felt insulted and said in a grieved tone: + +“Ugly wooden eyes, why do you stare so?” + +There was no answer. + +After the eyes, Geppetto made the nose, which began to stretch as soon +as finished. It stretched and stretched and stretched till it became so +long, it seemed endless. + +Poor Geppetto kept cutting it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the +longer grew that impertinent nose. In despair he let it alone. + +Next he made the mouth. + +No sooner was it finished than it began to laugh and poke fun at him. + +“Stop laughing!” said Geppetto angrily; but he might as well have spoken +to the wall. + +“Stop laughing, I say!” he roared in a voice of thunder. + +The mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue. + +Not wishing to start an argument, Geppetto made believe he saw nothing +and went on with his work. After the mouth, he made the chin, then the +neck, the shoulders, the stomach, the arms, and the hands. + +As he was about to put the last touches on the finger tips, Geppetto +felt his wig being pulled off. He glanced up and what did he see? His +yellow wig was in the Marionette’s hand. “Pinocchio, give me my wig!” + +But instead of giving it back, Pinocchio put it on his own head, which +was half swallowed up in it. + +At that unexpected trick, Geppetto became very sad and downcast, more so +than he had ever been before. + +“Pinocchio, you wicked boy!” he cried out. “You are not yet finished, +and you start out by being impudent to your poor old father. Very bad, +my son, very bad!” + +And he wiped away a tear. + +The legs and feet still had to be made. As soon as they were done, +Geppetto felt a sharp kick on the tip of his nose. + +“I deserve it!” he said to himself. “I should have thought of this +before I made him. Now it’s too late!” + +He took hold of the Marionette under the arms and put him on the floor +to teach him to walk. + +Pinocchio’s legs were so stiff that he could not move them, and Geppetto +held his hand and showed him how to put out one foot after the other. + +When his legs were limbered up, Pinocchio started walking by himself and +ran all around the room. He came to the open door, and with one leap he +was out into the street. Away he flew! + +Poor Geppetto ran after him but was unable to catch him, for Pinocchio +ran in leaps and bounds, his two wooden feet, as they beat on the stones +of the street, making as much noise as twenty peasants in wooden shoes. + +“Catch him! Catch him!” Geppetto kept shouting. But the people in the +street, seeing a wooden Marionette running like the wind, stood still to +stare and to laugh until they cried. + +At last, by sheer luck, a Carabineer* happened along, who, hearing all +that noise, thought that it might be a runaway colt, and stood bravely +in the middle of the street, with legs wide apart, firmly resolved to +stop it and prevent any trouble. + + * A military policeman + +Pinocchio saw the Carabineer from afar and tried his best to escape +between the legs of the big fellow, but without success. + +The Carabineer grabbed him by the nose (it was an extremely long one and +seemed made on purpose for that very thing) and returned him to Mastro +Geppetto. + +The little old man wanted to pull Pinocchio’s ears. Think how he felt +when, upon searching for them, he discovered that he had forgotten to +make them! + +All he could do was to seize Pinocchio by the back of the neck and take +him home. As he was doing so, he shook him two or three times and said +to him angrily: + +“We’re going home now. When we get home, then we’ll settle this matter!” + +Pinocchio, on hearing this, threw himself on the ground and refused to +take another step. One person after another gathered around the two. + +Some said one thing, some another. + +“Poor Marionette,” called out a man. “I am not surprised he doesn’t want +to go home. Geppetto, no doubt, will beat him unmercifully, he is so +mean and cruel!” + +“Geppetto looks like a good man,” added another, “but with boys he’s a +real tyrant. If we leave that poor Marionette in his hands he may tear +him to pieces!” + +They said so much that, finally, the Carabineer ended matters by setting +Pinocchio at liberty and dragging Geppetto to prison. The poor old +fellow did not know how to defend himself, but wept and wailed like a +child and said between his sobs: + +“Ungrateful boy! To think I tried so hard to make you a well-behaved +Marionette! I deserve it, however! I should have given the matter more +thought.” + +What happened after this is an almost unbelievable story, but you may +read it, dear children, in the chapters that follow. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +The story of Pinocchio and the Talking Cricket, in which one sees that +bad children do not like to be corrected by those who know more than +they do. + + +Very little time did it take to get poor old Geppetto to prison. In +the meantime that rascal, Pinocchio, free now from the clutches of the +Carabineer, was running wildly across fields and meadows, taking one +short cut after another toward home. In his wild flight, he leaped over +brambles and bushes, and across brooks and ponds, as if he were a goat +or a hare chased by hounds. + +On reaching home, he found the house door half open. He slipped into +the room, locked the door, and threw himself on the floor, happy at his +escape. + +But his happiness lasted only a short time, for just then he heard +someone saying: + +“Cri-cri-cri!” + +“Who is calling me?” asked Pinocchio, greatly frightened. + +“I am!” + +Pinocchio turned and saw a large cricket crawling slowly up the wall. + +“Tell me, Cricket, who are you?” + +“I am the Talking Cricket and I have been living in this room for more +than one hundred years.” + +“Today, however, this room is mine,” said the Marionette, “and if you +wish to do me a favor, get out now, and don’t turn around even once.” + +“I refuse to leave this spot,” answered the Cricket, “until I have told +you a great truth.” + +“Tell it, then, and hurry.” + +“Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home! +They will never be happy in this world, and when they are older they +will be very sorry for it.” + +“Sing on, Cricket mine, as you please. What I know is, that tomorrow, +at dawn, I leave this place forever. If I stay here the same thing will +happen to me which happens to all other boys and girls. They are sent to +school, and whether they want to or not, they must study. As for me, +let me tell you, I hate to study! It’s much more fun, I think, to chase +after butterflies, climb trees, and steal birds’ nests.” + +“Poor little silly! Don’t you know that if you go on like that, you +will grow into a perfect donkey and that you’ll be the laughingstock of +everyone?” + +“Keep still, you ugly Cricket!” cried Pinocchio. + +But the Cricket, who was a wise old philosopher, instead of being +offended at Pinocchio’s impudence, continued in the same tone: + +“If you do not like going to school, why don’t you at least learn a +trade, so that you can earn an honest living?” + +“Shall I tell you something?” asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to lose +patience. “Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really +suits me.” + +“And what can that be?” + +“That of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and wandering around from +morning till night.” + +“Let me tell you, for your own good, Pinocchio,” said the Talking +Cricket in his calm voice, “that those who follow that trade always end +up in the hospital or in prison.” + +“Careful, ugly Cricket! If you make me angry, you’ll be sorry!” + +“Poor Pinocchio, I am sorry for you.” + +“Why?” + +“Because you are a Marionette and, what is much worse, you have a wooden +head.” + +At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from +the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket. + +Perhaps he did not think he would strike it. But, sad to relate, my dear +children, he did hit the Cricket, straight on its head. + +With a last weak “cri-cri-cri” the poor Cricket fell from the wall, +dead! + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Pinocchio is hungry and looks for an egg to cook himself an omelet; but, +to his surprise, the omelet flies out of the window. + + +If the Cricket’s death scared Pinocchio at all, it was only for a very +few moments. For, as night came on, a queer, empty feeling at the pit of +his stomach reminded the Marionette that he had eaten nothing as yet. + +A boy’s appetite grows very fast, and in a few moments the queer, empty +feeling had become hunger, and the hunger grew bigger and bigger, until +soon he was as ravenous as a bear. + +Poor Pinocchio ran to the fireplace where the pot was boiling and +stretched out his hand to take the cover off, but to his amazement the +pot was only painted! Think how he felt! His long nose became at least +two inches longer. + +He ran about the room, dug in all the boxes and drawers, and even looked +under the bed in search of a piece of bread, hard though it might be, +or a cookie, or perhaps a bit of fish. A bone left by a dog would have +tasted good to him! But he found nothing. + +And meanwhile his hunger grew and grew. The only relief poor Pinocchio +had was to yawn; and he certainly did yawn, such a big yawn that his +mouth stretched out to the tips of his ears. Soon he became dizzy and +faint. He wept and wailed to himself: “The Talking Cricket was right. It +was wrong of me to disobey Father and to run away from home. If he were +here now, I wouldn’t be so hungry! Oh, how horrible it is to be hungry!” + +Suddenly, he saw, among the sweepings in a corner, something round and +white that looked very much like a hen’s egg. In a jiffy he pounced upon +it. It was an egg. + +The Marionette’s joy knew no bounds. It is impossible to describe it, +you must picture it to yourself. Certain that he was dreaming, he turned +the egg over and over in his hands, fondled it, kissed it, and talked to +it: + +“And now, how shall I cook you? Shall I make an omelet? No, it is better +to fry you in a pan! Or shall I drink you? No, the best way is to fry +you in the pan. You will taste better.” + +No sooner said than done. He placed a little pan over a foot warmer full +of hot coals. In the pan, instead of oil or butter, he poured a +little water. As soon as the water started to boil--tac!--he broke the +eggshell. But in place of the white and the yolk of the egg, a little +yellow Chick, fluffy and gay and smiling, escaped from it. Bowing +politely to Pinocchio, he said to him: + +“Many, many thanks, indeed, Mr. Pinocchio, for having saved me the +trouble of breaking my shell! Good-by and good luck to you and remember +me to the family!” + +With these words he spread out his wings and, darting to the open +window, he flew away into space till he was out of sight. + +The poor Marionette stood as if turned to stone, with wide eyes, open +mouth, and the empty halves of the egg-shell in his hands. When he came +to himself, he began to cry and shriek at the top of his lungs, stamping +his feet on the ground and wailing all the while: + +“The Talking Cricket was right! If I had not run away from home and if +Father were here now, I should not be dying of hunger. Oh, how horrible +it is to be hungry!” + +And as his stomach kept grumbling more than ever and he had nothing +to quiet it with, he thought of going out for a walk to the near-by +village, in the hope of finding some charitable person who might give +him a bit of bread. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +Pinocchio falls asleep with his feet on a foot warmer, and awakens the +next day with his feet all burned off. + + +Pinocchio hated the dark street, but he was so hungry that, in spite of +it, he ran out of the house. The night was pitch black. It thundered, +and bright flashes of lightning now and again shot across the sky, +turning it into a sea of fire. An angry wind blew cold and raised dense +clouds of dust, while the trees shook and moaned in a weird way. + +Pinocchio was greatly afraid of thunder and lightning, but the hunger he +felt was far greater than his fear. In a dozen leaps and bounds, he +came to the village, tired out, puffing like a whale, and with tongue +hanging. + +The whole village was dark and deserted. The stores were closed, the +doors, the windows. In the streets, not even a dog could be seen. It +seemed the Village of the Dead. + +Pinocchio, in desperation, ran up to a doorway, threw himself upon the +bell, and pulled it wildly, saying to himself: “Someone will surely +answer that!” + +He was right. An old man in a nightcap opened the window and looked out. +He called down angrily: + +“What do you want at this hour of night?” + +“Will you be good enough to give me a bit of bread? I am hungry.” + +“Wait a minute and I’ll come right back,” answered the old fellow, +thinking he had to deal with one of those boys who love to roam around +at night ringing people’s bells while they are peacefully asleep. + +After a minute or two, the same voice cried: + +“Get under the window and hold out your hat!” + +Pinocchio had no hat, but he managed to get under the window just in +time to feel a shower of ice-cold water pour down on his poor wooden +head, his shoulders, and over his whole body. + +He returned home as wet as a rag, and tired out from weariness and +hunger. + +As he no longer had any strength left with which to stand, he sat down +on a little stool and put his two feet on the stove to dry them. + +There he fell asleep, and while he slept, his wooden feet began to burn. +Slowly, very slowly, they blackened and turned to ashes. + +Pinocchio snored away happily as if his feet were not his own. At dawn +he opened his eyes just as a loud knocking sounded at the door. + +“Who is it?” he called, yawning and rubbing his eyes. + +“It is I,” answered a voice. + +It was the voice of Geppetto. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +Geppetto returns home and gives his own breakfast to the Marionette + + +The poor Marionette, who was still half asleep, had not yet found out +that his two feet were burned and gone. As soon as he heard his Father’s +voice, he jumped up from his seat to open the door, but, as he did so, +he staggered and fell headlong to the floor. + +In falling, he made as much noise as a sack of wood falling from the +fifth story of a house. + +“Open the door for me!” Geppetto shouted from the street. + +“Father, dear Father, I can’t,” answered the Marionette in despair, +crying and rolling on the floor. + +“Why can’t you?” + +“Because someone has eaten my feet.” + +“And who has eaten them?” + +“The cat,” answered Pinocchio, seeing that little animal busily playing +with some shavings in the corner of the room. + +“Open! I say,” repeated Geppetto, “or I’ll give you a sound whipping +when I get in.” + +“Father, believe me, I can’t stand up. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall have +to walk on my knees all my life.” + +Geppetto, thinking that all these tears and cries were only other pranks +of the Marionette, climbed up the side of the house and went in through +the window. + +At first he was very angry, but on seeing Pinocchio stretched out on the +floor and really without feet, he felt very sad and sorrowful. Picking +him up from the floor, he fondled and caressed him, talking to him while +the tears ran down his cheeks: + +“My little Pinocchio, my dear little Pinocchio! How did you burn your +feet?” + +“I don’t know, Father, but believe me, the night has been a terrible one +and I shall remember it as long as I live. The thunder was so noisy and +the lightning so bright--and I was hungry. And then the Talking Cricket +said to me, ‘You deserve it; you were bad;’ and I said to him, ‘Careful, +Cricket;’ and he said to me, ‘You are a Marionette and you have a wooden +head;’ and I threw the hammer at him and killed him. It was his own +fault, for I didn’t want to kill him. And I put the pan on the coals, +but the Chick flew away and said, ‘I’ll see you again! Remember me to +the family.’ And my hunger grew, and I went out, and the old man with a +nightcap looked out of the window and threw water on me, and I came home +and put my feet on the stove to dry them because I was still hungry, +and I fell asleep and now my feet are gone but my hunger isn’t! +Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” And poor Pinocchio began to scream and cry so loudly that +he could be heard for miles around. + +Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that jumbled talk, except +that the Marionette was hungry, felt sorry for him, and pulling three +pears out of his pocket, offered them to him, saying: + +“These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly. +Eat them and stop weeping.” + +“If you want me to eat them, please peel them for me.” + +“Peel them?” asked Geppetto, very much surprised. “I should never have +thought, dear boy of mine, that you were so dainty and fussy about your +food. Bad, very bad! In this world, even as children, we must accustom +ourselves to eat of everything, for we never know what life may hold in +store for us!” + +“You may be right,” answered Pinocchio, “but I will not eat the pears if +they are not peeled. I don’t like them.” + +And good old Geppetto took out a knife, peeled the three pears, and put +the skins in a row on the table. + +Pinocchio ate one pear in a twinkling and started to throw the core +away, but Geppetto held his arm. + +“Oh, no, don’t throw it away! Everything in this world may be of some +use!” + +“But the core I will not eat!” cried Pinocchio in an angry tone. + +“Who knows?” repeated Geppetto calmly. + +And later the three cores were placed on the table next to the skins. + +Pinocchio had eaten the three pears, or rather devoured them. Then he +yawned deeply, and wailed: + +“I’m still hungry.” + +“But I have no more to give you.” + +“Really, nothing--nothing?” + +“I have only these three cores and these skins.” + +“Very well, then,” said Pinocchio, “if there is nothing else I’ll eat +them.” + +At first he made a wry face, but, one after another, the skins and the +cores disappeared. + +“Ah! Now I feel fine!” he said after eating the last one. + +“You see,” observed Geppetto, “that I was right when I told you that one +must not be too fussy and too dainty about food. My dear, we never know +what life may have in store for us!” + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +Geppetto makes Pinocchio a new pair of feet, and sells his coat to buy +him an A-B-C book. + + +The Marionette, as soon as his hunger was appeased, started to grumble +and cry that he wanted a new pair of feet. + +But Mastro Geppetto, in order to punish him for his mischief, let him +alone the whole morning. After dinner he said to him: + +“Why should I make your feet over again? To see you run away from home +once more?” + +“I promise you,” answered the Marionette, sobbing, “that from now on +I’ll be good--” + +“Boys always promise that when they want something,” said Geppetto. + +“I promise to go to school every day, to study, and to succeed--” + +“Boys always sing that song when they want their own will.” + +“But I am not like other boys! I am better than all of them and I always +tell the truth. I promise you, Father, that I’ll learn a trade, and I’ll +be the comfort and staff of your old age.” + +Geppetto, though trying to look very stern, felt his eyes fill with +tears and his heart soften when he saw Pinocchio so unhappy. He said +no more, but taking his tools and two pieces of wood, he set to work +diligently. + +In less than an hour the feet were finished, two slender, nimble little +feet, strong and quick, modeled as if by an artist’s hands. + +“Close your eyes and sleep!” Geppetto then said to the Marionette. + +Pinocchio closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, while Geppetto +stuck on the two feet with a bit of glue melted in an eggshell, doing +his work so well that the joint could hardly be seen. + +As soon as the Marionette felt his new feet, he gave one leap from the +table and started to skip and jump around, as if he had lost his head +from very joy. + +“To show you how grateful I am to you, Father, I’ll go to school now. +But to go to school I need a suit of clothes.” + +Geppetto did not have a penny in his pocket, so he made his son a little +suit of flowered paper, a pair of shoes from the bark of a tree, and a +tiny cap from a bit of dough. + +Pinocchio ran to look at himself in a bowl of water, and he felt so +happy that he said proudly: + +“Now I look like a gentleman.” + +“Truly,” answered Geppetto. “But remember that fine clothes do not make +the man unless they be neat and clean.” + +“Very true,” answered Pinocchio, “but, in order to go to school, I still +need something very important.” + +“What is it?” + +“An A-B-C book.” + +“To be sure! But how shall we get it?” + +“That’s easy. We’ll go to a bookstore and buy it.” + +“And the money?” + +“I have none.” + +“Neither have I,” said the old man sadly. + +Pinocchio, although a happy boy always, became sad and downcast at these +words. When poverty shows itself, even mischievous boys understand what +it means. + +“What does it matter, after all?” cried Geppetto all at once, as he +jumped up from his chair. Putting on his old coat, full of darns and +patches, he ran out of the house without another word. + +After a while he returned. In his hands he had the A-B-C book for his +son, but the old coat was gone. The poor fellow was in his shirt sleeves +and the day was cold. + +“Where’s your coat, Father?” + +“I have sold it.” + +“Why did you sell your coat?” + +“It was too warm.” + +Pinocchio understood the answer in a twinkling, and, unable to restrain +his tears, he jumped on his father’s neck and kissed him over and over. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Pinocchio sells his A-B-C book to pay his way into the Marionette +Theater. + + +See Pinocchio hurrying off to school with his new A-B-C book under +his arm! As he walked along, his brain was busy planning hundreds of +wonderful things, building hundreds of castles in the air. Talking to +himself, he said: + +“In school today, I’ll learn to read, tomorrow to write, and the day +after tomorrow I’ll do arithmetic. Then, clever as I am, I can earn a +lot of money. With the very first pennies I make, I’ll buy Father a new +cloth coat. Cloth, did I say? No, it shall be of gold and silver with +diamond buttons. That poor man certainly deserves it; for, after all, +isn’t he in his shirt sleeves because he was good enough to buy a +book for me? On this cold day, too! Fathers are indeed good to their +children!” + +As he talked to himself, he thought he heard sounds of pipes and drums +coming from a distance: pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi. . .zum, zum, zum, zum. + +He stopped to listen. Those sounds came from a little street that led to +a small village along the shore. + +“What can that noise be? What a nuisance that I have to go to school! +Otherwise. . .” + +There he stopped, very much puzzled. He felt he had to make up his mind +for either one thing or another. Should he go to school, or should he +follow the pipes? + +“Today I’ll follow the pipes, and tomorrow I’ll go to school. There’s +always plenty of time to go to school,” decided the little rascal at +last, shrugging his shoulders. + +No sooner said than done. He started down the street, going like the +wind. On he ran, and louder grew the sounds of pipe and drum: pi-pi-pi, +pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi . . .zum, zum, zum, zum. + +Suddenly, he found himself in a large square, full of people standing in +front of a little wooden building painted in brilliant colors. + +“What is that house?” Pinocchio asked a little boy near him. + +“Read the sign and you’ll know.” + +“I’d like to read, but somehow I can’t today.” + +“Oh, really? Then I’ll read it to you. Know, then, that written in +letters of fire I see the words: GREAT MARIONETTE THEATER. + +“When did the show start?” + +“It is starting now.” + +“And how much does one pay to get in?” + +“Four pennies.” + +Pinocchio, who was wild with curiosity to know what was going on inside, +lost all his pride and said to the boy shamelessly: + +“Will you give me four pennies until tomorrow?” + +“I’d give them to you gladly,” answered the other, poking fun at him, +“but just now I can’t give them to you.” + +“For the price of four pennies, I’ll sell you my coat.” + +“If it rains, what shall I do with a coat of flowered paper? I could not +take it off again.” + +“Do you want to buy my shoes?” + +“They are only good enough to light a fire with.” + +“What about my hat?” + +“Fine bargain, indeed! A cap of dough! The mice might come and eat it +from my head!” + +Pinocchio was almost in tears. He was just about to make one last offer, +but he lacked the courage to do so. He hesitated, he wondered, he could +not make up his mind. At last he said: + +“Will you give me four pennies for the book?” + +“I am a boy and I buy nothing from boys,” said the little fellow with +far more common sense than the Marionette. + +“I’ll give you four pennies for your A-B-C book,” said a ragpicker who +stood by. + +Then and there, the book changed hands. And to think that poor old +Geppetto sat at home in his shirt sleeves, shivering with cold, having +sold his coat to buy that little book for his son! + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +The Marionettes recognize their brother Pinocchio, and greet him with +loud cheers; but the Director, Fire Eater, happens along and poor +Pinocchio almost loses his life. + + +Quick as a flash, Pinocchio disappeared into the Marionette Theater. And +then something happened which almost caused a riot. + +The curtain was up and the performance had started. + +Harlequin and Pulcinella were reciting on the stage and, as usual, they +were threatening each other with sticks and blows. + +The theater was full of people, enjoying the spectacle and laughing till +they cried at the antics of the two Marionettes. + +The play continued for a few minutes, and then suddenly, without any +warning, Harlequin stopped talking. Turning toward the audience, he +pointed to the rear of the orchestra, yelling wildly at the same time: + +“Look, look! Am I asleep or awake? Or do I really see Pinocchio there?” + +“Yes, yes! It is Pinocchio!” screamed Pulcinella. + +“It is! It is!” shrieked Signora Rosaura, peeking in from the side of +the stage. + +“It is Pinocchio! It is Pinocchio!” yelled all the Marionettes, pouring +out of the wings. “It is Pinocchio. It is our brother Pinocchio! Hurrah +for Pinocchio!” + +“Pinocchio, come up to me!” shouted Harlequin. “Come to the arms of your +wooden brothers!” + +At such a loving invitation, Pinocchio, with one leap from the back of +the orchestra, found himself in the front rows. With another leap, +he was on the orchestra leader’s head. With a third, he landed on the +stage. + +It is impossible to describe the shrieks of joy, the warm embraces, the +knocks, and the friendly greetings with which that strange company of +dramatic actors and actresses received Pinocchio. + +It was a heart-rending spectacle, but the audience, seeing that the play +had stopped, became angry and began to yell: + +“The play, the play, we want the play!” + +The yelling was of no use, for the Marionettes, instead of going on +with their act, made twice as much racket as before, and, lifting up +Pinocchio on their shoulders, carried him around the stage in triumph. + +At that very moment, the Director came out of his room. He had such a +fearful appearance that one look at him would fill you with horror. His +beard was as black as pitch, and so long that it reached from his chin +down to his feet. His mouth was as wide as an oven, his teeth like +yellow fangs, and his eyes, two glowing red coals. In his huge, hairy +hands, a long whip, made of green snakes and black cats’ tails twisted +together, swished through the air in a dangerous way. + +At the unexpected apparition, no one dared even to breathe. One could +almost hear a fly go by. Those poor Marionettes, one and all, trembled +like leaves in a storm. + +“Why have you brought such excitement into my theater;” the huge fellow +asked Pinocchio with the voice of an ogre suffering with a cold. + +“Believe me, your Honor, the fault was not mine.” + +“Enough! Be quiet! I’ll take care of you later.” + +As soon as the play was over, the Director went to the kitchen, where +a fine big lamb was slowly turning on the spit. More wood was needed to +finish cooking it. He called Harlequin and Pulcinella and said to them: + +“Bring that Marionette to me! He looks as if he were made of +well-seasoned wood. He’ll make a fine fire for this spit.” + +Harlequin and Pulcinella hesitated a bit. Then, frightened by a look +from their master, they left the kitchen to obey him. A few minutes +later they returned, carrying poor Pinocchio, who was wriggling and +squirming like an eel and crying pitifully: + +“Father, save me! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +Fire Eater sneezes and forgives Pinocchio, who saves his friend, +Harlequin, from death. + + +In the theater, great excitement reigned. + +Fire Eater (this was really his name) was very ugly, but he was far from +being as bad as he looked. Proof of this is that, when he saw the poor +Marionette being brought in to him, struggling with fear and crying, “I +don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” he felt sorry for him and began +first to waver and then to weaken. Finally, he could control himself no +longer and gave a loud sneeze. + +At that sneeze, Harlequin, who until then had been as sad as a weeping +willow, smiled happily and leaning toward the Marionette, whispered to +him: + +“Good news, brother mine! Fire Eater has sneezed and this is a sign that +he feels sorry for you. You are saved!” + +For be it known, that, while other people, when sad and sorrowful, weep +and wipe their eyes, Fire Eater, on the other hand, had the strange +habit of sneezing each time he felt unhappy. The way was just as good as +any other to show the kindness of his heart. + +After sneezing, Fire Eater, ugly as ever, cried to Pinocchio: + +“Stop crying! Your wails give me a funny feeling down here in my stomach +and--E--tchee!--E--tchee!” Two loud sneezes finished his speech. + +“God bless you!” said Pinocchio. + +“Thanks! Are your father and mother still living?” demanded Fire Eater. + +“My father, yes. My mother I have never known.” + +“Your poor father would suffer terribly if I were to use you as +firewood. Poor old man! I feel sorry for him! E--tchee! E--tchee! +E--tchee!” Three more sneezes sounded, louder than ever. + +“God bless you!” said Pinocchio. + +“Thanks! However, I ought to be sorry for myself, too, just now. My good +dinner is spoiled. I have no more wood for the fire, and the lamb +is only half cooked. Never mind! In your place I’ll burn some other +Marionette. Hey there! Officers!” + +At the call, two wooden officers appeared, long and thin as a yard of +rope, with queer hats on their heads and swords in their hands. + +Fire Eater yelled at them in a hoarse voice: + +“Take Harlequin, tie him, and throw him on the fire. I want my lamb well +done!” + +Think how poor Harlequin felt! He was so scared that his legs doubled up +under him and he fell to the floor. + +Pinocchio, at that heartbreaking sight, threw himself at the feet of +Fire Eater and, weeping bitterly, asked in a pitiful voice which could +scarcely be heard: + +“Have pity, I beg of you, signore!” + +“There are no signori here!” + +“Have pity, kind sir!” + +“There are no sirs here!” + +“Have pity, your Excellency!” + +On hearing himself addressed as your Excellency, the Director of the +Marionette Theater sat up very straight in his chair, stroked his long +beard, and becoming suddenly kind and compassionate, smiled proudly as +he said to Pinocchio: + +“Well, what do you want from me now, Marionette?” + +“I beg for mercy for my poor friend, Harlequin, who has never done the +least harm in his life.” + +“There is no mercy here, Pinocchio. I have spared you. Harlequin must +burn in your place. I am hungry and my dinner must be cooked.” + +“In that case,” said Pinocchio proudly, as he stood up and flung away +his cap of dough, “in that case, my duty is clear. Come, officers! +Tie me up and throw me on those flames. No, it is not fair for poor +Harlequin, the best friend that I have in the world, to die in my +place!” + +These brave words, said in a piercing voice, made all the other +Marionettes cry. Even the officers, who were made of wood also, cried +like two babies. + +Fire Eater at first remained hard and cold as a piece of ice; but then, +little by little, he softened and began to sneeze. And after four or +five sneezes, he opened wide his arms and said to Pinocchio: + +“You are a brave boy! Come to my arms and kiss me!” + +Pinocchio ran to him and scurrying like a squirrel up the long black +beard, he gave Fire Eater a loving kiss on the tip of his nose. + +“Has pardon been granted to me?” asked poor Harlequin with a voice that +was hardly a breath. + +“Pardon is yours!” answered Fire Eater; and sighing and wagging his +head, he added: “Well, tonight I shall have to eat my lamb only half +cooked, but beware the next time, Marionettes.” + +At the news that pardon had been given, the Marionettes ran to the stage +and, turning on all the lights, they danced and sang till dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +Fire Eater gives Pinocchio five gold pieces for his father, Geppetto; +but the Marionette meets a Fox and a Cat and follows them. + + +The next day Fire Eater called Pinocchio aside and asked him: + +“What is your father’s name?” + +“Geppetto.” + +“And what is his trade?” + +“He’s a wood carver.” + +“Does he earn much?” + +“He earns so much that he never has a penny in his pockets. Just think +that, in order to buy me an A-B-C book for school, he had to sell the +only coat he owned, a coat so full of darns and patches that it was a +pity.” + +“Poor fellow! I feel sorry for him. Here, take these five gold pieces. +Go, give them to him with my kindest regards.” + +Pinocchio, as may easily be imagined, thanked him a thousand times. He +kissed each Marionette in turn, even the officers, and, beside himself +with joy, set out on his homeward journey. + +He had gone barely half a mile when he met a lame Fox and a blind Cat, +walking together like two good friends. The lame Fox leaned on the Cat, +and the blind Cat let the Fox lead him along. + +“Good morning, Pinocchio,” said the Fox, greeting him courteously. + +“How do you know my name?” asked the Marionette. + +“I know your father well.” + +“Where have you seen him?” + +“I saw him yesterday standing at the door of his house.” + +“And what was he doing?” + +“He was in his shirt sleeves trembling with cold.” + +“Poor Father! But, after today, God willing, he will suffer no longer.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I have become a rich man.” + +“You, a rich man?” said the Fox, and he began to laugh out loud. The Cat +was laughing also, but tried to hide it by stroking his long whiskers. + +“There is nothing to laugh at,” cried Pinocchio angrily. “I am very +sorry to make your mouth water, but these, as you know, are five new +gold pieces.” + +And he pulled out the gold pieces which Fire Eater had given him. + +At the cheerful tinkle of the gold, the Fox unconsciously held out his +paw that was supposed to be lame, and the Cat opened wide his two eyes +till they looked like live coals, but he closed them again so quickly +that Pinocchio did not notice. + +“And may I ask,” inquired the Fox, “what you are going to do with all +that money?” + +“First of all,” answered the Marionette, “I want to buy a fine new coat +for my father, a coat of gold and silver with diamond buttons; after +that, I’ll buy an A-B-C book for myself.” + +“For yourself?” + +“For myself. I want to go to school and study hard.” + +“Look at me,” said the Fox. “For the silly reason of wanting to study, I +have lost a paw.” + +“Look at me,” said the Cat. “For the same foolish reason, I have lost +the sight of both eyes.” + +At that moment, a Blackbird, perched on the fence along the road, called +out sharp and clear: + +“Pinocchio, do not listen to bad advice. If you do, you’ll be sorry!” + +Poor little Blackbird! If he had only kept his words to himself! In the +twinkling of an eyelid, the Cat leaped on him, and ate him, feathers and +all. + +After eating the bird, he cleaned his whiskers, closed his eyes, and +became blind once more. + +“Poor Blackbird!” said Pinocchio to the Cat. “Why did you kill him?” + +“I killed him to teach him a lesson. He talks too much. Next time he +will keep his words to himself.” + +By this time the three companions had walked a long distance. Suddenly, +the Fox stopped in his tracks and, turning to the Marionette, said to +him: + +“Do you want to double your gold pieces?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Do you want one hundred, a thousand, two thousand gold pieces for your +miserable five?” + +“Yes, but how?” + +“The way is very easy. Instead of returning home, come with us.” + +“And where will you take me?” + +“To the City of Simple Simons.” + +Pinocchio thought a while and then said firmly: + +“No, I don’t want to go. Home is near, and I’m going where Father is +waiting for me. How unhappy he must be that I have not yet returned! I +have been a bad son, and the Talking Cricket was right when he said that +a disobedient boy cannot be happy in this world. I have learned this +at my own expense. Even last night in the theater, when Fire Eater. . . +Brrrr!!!!! . . . The shivers run up and down my back at the mere thought +of it.” + +“Well, then,” said the Fox, “if you really want to go home, go ahead, +but you’ll be sorry.” + +“You’ll be sorry,” repeated the Cat. + +“Think well, Pinocchio, you are turning your back on Dame Fortune.” + +“On Dame Fortune,” repeated the Cat. + +“Tomorrow your five gold pieces will be two thousand!” + +“Two thousand!” repeated the Cat. + +“But how can they possibly become so many?” asked Pinocchio wonderingly. + +“I’ll explain,” said the Fox. “You must know that, just outside the City +of Simple Simons, there is a blessed field called the Field of Wonders. +In this field you dig a hole and in the hole you bury a gold piece. +After covering up the hole with earth you water it well, sprinkle a bit +of salt on it, and go to bed. During the night, the gold piece sprouts, +grows, blossoms, and next morning you find a beautiful tree, that is +loaded with gold pieces.” + +“So that if I were to bury my five gold pieces,” cried Pinocchio with +growing wonder, “next morning I should find--how many?” + +“It is very simple to figure out,” answered the Fox. “Why, you can +figure it on your fingers! Granted that each piece gives you five +hundred, multiply five hundred by five. Next morning you will find +twenty-five hundred new, sparkling gold pieces.” + +“Fine! Fine!” cried Pinocchio, dancing about with joy. “And as soon as +I have them, I shall keep two thousand for myself and the other five +hundred I’ll give to you two.” + +“A gift for us?” cried the Fox, pretending to be insulted. “Why, of +course not!” + +“Of course not!” repeated the Cat. + +“We do not work for gain,” answered the Fox. “We work only to enrich +others.” + +“To enrich others!” repeated the Cat. + +“What good people,” thought Pinocchio to himself. And forgetting his +father, the new coat, the A-B-C book, and all his good resolutions, he +said to the Fox and to the Cat: + +“Let us go. I am with you.” + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +The Inn of the Red Lobster + + +Cat and Fox and Marionette walked and walked and walked. At last, toward +evening, dead tired, they came to the Inn of the Red Lobster. + +“Let us stop here a while,” said the Fox, “to eat a bite and rest for +a few hours. At midnight we’ll start out again, for at dawn tomorrow we +must be at the Field of Wonders.” + +They went into the Inn and all three sat down at the same table. +However, not one of them was very hungry. + +The poor Cat felt very weak, and he was able to eat only thirty-five +mullets with tomato sauce and four portions of tripe with cheese. +Moreover, as he was so in need of strength, he had to have four more +helpings of butter and cheese. + +The Fox, after a great deal of coaxing, tried his best to eat a little. +The doctor had put him on a diet, and he had to be satisfied with a +small hare dressed with a dozen young and tender spring chickens. After +the hare, he ordered some partridges, a few pheasants, a couple of +rabbits, and a dozen frogs and lizards. That was all. He felt ill, he +said, and could not eat another bite. + +Pinocchio ate least of all. He asked for a bite of bread and a few nuts +and then hardly touched them. The poor fellow, with his mind on the +Field of Wonders, was suffering from a gold-piece indigestion. + +Supper over, the Fox said to the Innkeeper: + +“Give us two good rooms, one for Mr. Pinocchio and the other for me and +my friend. Before starting out, we’ll take a little nap. Remember to +call us at midnight sharp, for we must continue on our journey.” + +“Yes, sir,” answered the Innkeeper, winking in a knowing way at the Fox +and the Cat, as if to say, “I understand.” + +As soon as Pinocchio was in bed, he fell fast asleep and began to dream. +He dreamed he was in the middle of a field. The field was full of +vines heavy with grapes. The grapes were no other than gold coins which +tinkled merrily as they swayed in the wind. They seemed to say, “Let him +who wants us take us!” + +Just as Pinocchio stretched out his hand to take a handful of them, he +was awakened by three loud knocks at the door. It was the Innkeeper who +had come to tell him that midnight had struck. + +“Are my friends ready?” the Marionette asked him. + +“Indeed, yes! They went two hours ago.” + +“Why in such a hurry?” + +“Unfortunately the Cat received a telegram which said that his +first-born was suffering from chilblains and was on the point of death. +He could not even wait to say good-by to you.” + +“Did they pay for the supper?” + +“How could they do such a thing? Being people of great refinement, they +did not want to offend you so deeply as not to allow you the honor of +paying the bill.” + +“Too bad! That offense would have been more than pleasing to me,” said +Pinocchio, scratching his head. + +“Where did my good friends say they would wait for me?” he added. + +“At the Field of Wonders, at sunrise tomorrow morning.” + +Pinocchio paid a gold piece for the three suppers and started on his way +toward the field that was to make him a rich man. + +He walked on, not knowing where he was going, for it was dark, so dark +that not a thing was visible. Round about him, not a leaf stirred. A few +bats skimmed his nose now and again and scared him half to death. Once +or twice he shouted, “Who goes there?” and the far-away hills echoed +back to him, “Who goes there? Who goes there? Who goes. . . ?” + +As he walked, Pinocchio noticed a tiny insect glimmering on the trunk of +a tree, a small being that glowed with a pale, soft light. + +“Who are you?” he asked. + +“I am the ghost of the Talking Cricket,” answered the little being in a +faint voice that sounded as if it came from a far-away world. + +“What do you want?” asked the Marionette. + +“I want to give you a few words of good advice. Return home and give the +four gold pieces you have left to your poor old father who is weeping +because he has not seen you for many a day.” + +“Tomorrow my father will be a rich man, for these four gold pieces will +become two thousand.” + +“Don’t listen to those who promise you wealth overnight, my boy. As a +rule they are either fools or swindlers! Listen to me and go home.” + +“But I want to go on!” + +“The hour is late!” + +“I want to go on.” + +“The night is very dark.” + +“I want to go on.” + +“The road is dangerous.” + +“I want to go on.” + +“Remember that boys who insist on having their own way, sooner or later +come to grief.” + +“The same nonsense. Good-by, Cricket.” + +“Good night, Pinocchio, and may Heaven preserve you from the Assassins.” + +There was silence for a minute and the light of the Talking Cricket +disappeared suddenly, just as if someone had snuffed it out. Once again +the road was plunged in darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +Pinocchio, not having listened to the good advice of the Talking +Cricket, falls into the hands of the Assassins. + + +“Dear, oh, dear! When I come to think of it,” said the Marionette to +himself, as he once more set out on his journey, “we boys are really +very unlucky. Everybody scolds us, everybody gives us advice, everybody +warns us. If we were to allow it, everyone would try to be father and +mother to us; everyone, even the Talking Cricket. Take me, for example. +Just because I would not listen to that bothersome Cricket, who knows +how many misfortunes may be awaiting me! Assassins indeed! At least I +have never believed in them, nor ever will. To speak sensibly, I think +assassins have been invented by fathers and mothers to frighten children +who want to run away at night. And then, even if I were to meet them +on the road, what matter? I’ll just run up to them, and say, ‘Well, +signori, what do you want? Remember that you can’t fool with me! Run +along and mind your business.’ At such a speech, I can almost see those +poor fellows running like the wind. But in case they don’t run away, I +can always run myself. . .” + +Pinocchio was not given time to argue any longer, for he thought he +heard a slight rustle among the leaves behind him. + +He turned to look and behold, there in the darkness stood two big black +shadows, wrapped from head to foot in black sacks. The two figures +leaped toward him as softly as if they were ghosts. + +“Here they come!” Pinocchio said to himself, and, not knowing where to +hide the gold pieces, he stuck all four of them under his tongue. + +He tried to run away, but hardly had he taken a step, when he felt his +arms grasped and heard two horrible, deep voices say to him: “Your money +or your life!” + +On account of the gold pieces in his mouth, Pinocchio could not say +a word, so he tried with head and hands and body to show, as best he +could, that he was only a poor Marionette without a penny in his pocket. + +“Come, come, less nonsense, and out with your money!” cried the two +thieves in threatening voices. + +Once more, Pinocchio’s head and hands said, “I haven’t a penny.” + +“Out with that money or you’re a dead man,” said the taller of the two +Assassins. + +“Dead man,” repeated the other. + +“And after having killed you, we will kill your father also.” + +“Your father also!” + +“No, no, no, not my Father!” cried Pinocchio, wild with terror; but as +he screamed, the gold pieces tinkled together in his mouth. + +“Ah, you rascal! So that’s the game! You have the money hidden under +your tongue. Out with it!” + +But Pinocchio was as stubborn as ever. + +“Are you deaf? Wait, young man, we’ll get it from you in a twinkling!” + +One of them grabbed the Marionette by the nose and the other by the +chin, and they pulled him unmercifully from side to side in order to +make him open his mouth. + +All was of no use. The Marionette’s lips might have been nailed +together. They would not open. + +In desperation the smaller of the two Assassins pulled out a long knife +from his pocket, and tried to pry Pinocchio’s mouth open with it. + +Quick as a flash, the Marionette sank his teeth deep into the Assassin’s +hand, bit it off and spat it out. Fancy his surprise when he saw that it +was not a hand, but a cat’s paw. + +Encouraged by this first victory, he freed himself from the claws of +his assailers and, leaping over the bushes along the road, ran swiftly +across the fields. His pursuers were after him at once, like two dogs +chasing a hare. + +After running seven miles or so, Pinocchio was well-nigh exhausted. +Seeing himself lost, he climbed up a giant pine tree and sat there +to see what he could see. The Assassins tried to climb also, but they +slipped and fell. + +Far from giving up the chase, this only spurred them on. They gathered a +bundle of wood, piled it up at the foot of the pine, and set fire to it. +In a twinkling the tree began to sputter and burn like a candle blown by +the wind. Pinocchio saw the flames climb higher and higher. Not wishing +to end his days as a roasted Marionette, he jumped quickly to the ground +and off he went, the Assassins close to him, as before. + +Dawn was breaking when, without any warning whatsoever, Pinocchio found +his path barred by a deep pool full of water the color of muddy coffee. + +What was there to do? With a “One, two, three!” he jumped clear across +it. The Assassins jumped also, but not having measured their distance +well--splash!!!--they fell right into the middle of the pool. Pinocchio +who heard the splash and felt it, too, cried out, laughing, but never +stopping in his race: + +“A pleasant bath to you, signori!” + +He thought they must surely be drowned and turned his head to see. But +there were the two somber figures still following him, though their +black sacks were drenched and dripping with water. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +The Assassins chase Pinocchio, catch him, and hang him to the branch of +a giant oak tree. + + +As he ran, the Marionette felt more and more certain that he would have +to give himself up into the hands of his pursuers. Suddenly he saw a +little cottage gleaming white as the snow among the trees of the forest. + +“If I have enough breath left with which to reach that little house, I +may be saved,” he said to himself. + +Not waiting another moment, he darted swiftly through the woods, the +Assassins still after him. + +After a hard race of almost an hour, tired and out of breath, Pinocchio +finally reached the door of the cottage and knocked. No one answered. + +He knocked again, harder than before, for behind him he heard the steps +and the labored breathing of his persecutors. The same silence followed. + +As knocking was of no use, Pinocchio, in despair, began to kick and bang +against the door, as if he wanted to break it. At the noise, a window +opened and a lovely maiden looked out. She had azure hair and a face +white as wax. Her eyes were closed and her hands crossed on her breast. +With a voice so weak that it hardly could be heard, she whispered: + +“No one lives in this house. Everyone is dead.” + +“Won’t you, at least, open the door for me?” cried Pinocchio in a +beseeching voice. + +“I also am dead.” + +“Dead? What are you doing at the window, then?” + +“I am waiting for the coffin to take me away.” + +After these words, the little girl disappeared and the window closed +without a sound. + +“Oh, Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair,” cried Pinocchio, “open, I beg of +you. Take pity on a poor boy who is being chased by two Assass--” + +He did not finish, for two powerful hands grasped him by the neck and +the same two horrible voices growled threateningly: “Now we have you!” + +The Marionette, seeing death dancing before him, trembled so hard that +the joints of his legs rattled and the coins tinkled under his tongue. + +“Well,” the Assassins asked, “will you open your mouth now or not? Ah! +You do not answer? Very well, this time you shall open it.” + +Taking out two long, sharp knives, they struck two heavy blows on the +Marionette’s back. + +Happily for him, Pinocchio was made of very hard wood and the knives +broke into a thousand pieces. The Assassins looked at each other in +dismay, holding the handles of the knives in their hands. + +“I understand,” said one of them to the other, “there is nothing left to +do now but to hang him.” + +“To hang him,” repeated the other. + +They tied Pinocchio’s hands behind his shoulders and slipped the noose +around his neck. Throwing the rope over the high limb of a giant oak +tree, they pulled till the poor Marionette hung far up in space. + +Satisfied with their work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio +to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette’s eyes were +still open, his mouth still shut and his legs kicked harder than ever. + +Tired of waiting, the Assassins called to him mockingly: “Good-by till +tomorrow. When we return in the morning, we hope you’ll be polite enough +to let us find you dead and gone and with your mouth wide open.” With +these words they went. + +A few minutes went by and then a wild wind started to blow. As it +shrieked and moaned, the poor little sufferer was blown to and fro +like the hammer of a bell. The rocking made him seasick and the noose, +becoming tighter and tighter, choked him. Little by little a film +covered his eyes. + +Death was creeping nearer and nearer, and the Marionette still hoped +for some good soul to come to his rescue, but no one appeared. As he was +about to die, he thought of his poor old father, and hardly conscious of +what he was saying, murmured to himself: + +“Oh, Father, dear Father! If you were only here!” + +These were his last words. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, +stretched out his legs, and hung there, as if he were dead. + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +The Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair sends for the poor Marionette, puts +him to bed, and calls three Doctors to tell her if Pinocchio is dead or +alive. + + +If the poor Marionette had dangled there much longer, all hope would +have been lost. Luckily for him, the Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair once +again looked out of her window. Filled with pity at the sight of the +poor little fellow being knocked helplessly about by the wind, she +clapped her hands sharply together three times. + +At the signal, a loud whirr of wings in quick flight was heard and a +large Falcon came and settled itself on the window ledge. + +“What do you command, my charming Fairy?” asked the Falcon, bending his +beak in deep reverence (for it must be known that, after all, the Lovely +Maiden with Azure Hair was none other than a very kind Fairy who had +lived, for more than a thousand years, in the vicinity of the forest). + +“Do you see that Marionette hanging from the limb of that giant oak +tree?” + +“I see him.” + +“Very well. Fly immediately to him. With your strong beak, break the +knot which holds him tied, take him down, and lay him softly on the +grass at the foot of the oak.” + +The Falcon flew away and after two minutes returned, saying, “I have +done what you have commanded.” + +“How did you find him? Alive or dead?” + +“At first glance, I thought he was dead. But I found I was wrong, for +as soon as I loosened the knot around his neck, he gave a long sigh and +mumbled with a faint voice, ‘Now I feel better!’” + +The Fairy clapped her hands twice. A magnificent Poodle appeared, +walking on his hind legs just like a man. He was dressed in court +livery. A tricorn trimmed with gold lace was set at a rakish angle over +a wig of white curls that dropped down to his waist. He wore a jaunty +coat of chocolate-colored velvet, with diamond buttons, and with two +huge pockets which were always filled with bones, dropped there +at dinner by his loving mistress. Breeches of crimson velvet, silk +stockings, and low, silver-buckled slippers completed his costume. His +tail was encased in a blue silk covering, which was to protect it from +the rain. + +“Come, Medoro,” said the Fairy to him. “Get my best coach ready and set +out toward the forest. On reaching the oak tree, you will find a poor, +half-dead Marionette stretched out on the grass. Lift him up tenderly, +place him on the silken cushions of the coach, and bring him here to +me.” + +The Poodle, to show that he understood, wagged his silk-covered tail two +or three times and set off at a quick pace. + +In a few minutes, a lovely little coach, made of glass, with lining as +soft as whipped cream and chocolate pudding, and stuffed with canary +feathers, pulled out of the stable. It was drawn by one hundred pairs +of white mice, and the Poodle sat on the coachman’s seat and snapped his +whip gayly in the air, as if he were a real coachman in a hurry to get +to his destination. + +In a quarter of an hour the coach was back. The Fairy, who was waiting +at the door of the house, lifted the poor little Marionette in her arms, +took him to a dainty room with mother-of-pearl walls, put him to bed, +and sent immediately for the most famous doctors of the neighborhood to +come to her. + +One after another the doctors came, a Crow, and Owl, and a Talking +Cricket. + +“I should like to know, signori,” said the Fairy, turning to the three +doctors gathered about Pinocchio’s bed, “I should like to know if this +poor Marionette is dead or alive.” + +At this invitation, the Crow stepped out and felt Pinocchio’s pulse, his +nose, his little toe. Then he solemnly pronounced the following words: + +“To my mind this Marionette is dead and gone; but if, by any evil +chance, he were not, then that would be a sure sign that he is still +alive!” + +“I am sorry,” said the Owl, “to have to contradict the Crow, my famous +friend and colleague. To my mind this Marionette is alive; but if, by +any evil chance, he were not, then that would be a sure sign that he is +wholly dead!” + +“And do you hold any opinion?” the Fairy asked the Talking Cricket. + +“I say that a wise doctor, when he does not know what he is talking +about, should know enough to keep his mouth shut. However, that +Marionette is not a stranger to me. I have known him a long time!” + +Pinocchio, who until then had been very quiet, shuddered so hard that +the bed shook. + +“That Marionette,” continued the Talking Cricket, “is a rascal of the +worst kind.” + +Pinocchio opened his eyes and closed them again. + +“He is rude, lazy, a runaway.” + +Pinocchio hid his face under the sheets. + +“That Marionette is a disobedient son who is breaking his father’s +heart!” + +Long shuddering sobs were heard, cries, and deep sighs. Think how +surprised everyone was when, on raising the sheets, they discovered +Pinocchio half melted in tears! + +“When the dead weep, they are beginning to recover,” said the Crow +solemnly. + +“I am sorry to contradict my famous friend and colleague,” said the Owl, +“but as far as I’m concerned, I think that when the dead weep, it means +they do not want to die.” + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Pinocchio eats sugar, but refuses to take medicine. When the undertakers +come for him, he drinks the medicine and feels better. Afterwards he +tells a lie and, in punishment, his nose grows longer and longer. + + +As soon as the three doctors had left the room, the Fairy went to +Pinocchio’s bed and, touching him on the forehead, noticed that he was +burning with fever. + +She took a glass of water, put a white powder into it, and, handing it +to the Marionette, said lovingly to him: + +“Drink this, and in a few days you’ll be up and well.” + +Pinocchio looked at the glass, made a wry face, and asked in a whining +voice: “Is it sweet or bitter?” + +“It is bitter, but it is good for you.” + +“If it is bitter, I don’t want it.” + +“Drink it!” + +“I don’t like anything bitter.” + +“Drink it and I’ll give you a lump of sugar to take the bitter taste +from your mouth.” + +“Where’s the sugar?” + +“Here it is,” said the Fairy, taking a lump from a golden sugar bowl. + +“I want the sugar first, then I’ll drink the bitter water.” + +“Do you promise?” + +“Yes.” + +The Fairy gave him the sugar and Pinocchio, after chewing and swallowing +it in a twinkling, said, smacking his lips: + +“If only sugar were medicine! I should take it every day.” + +“Now keep your promise and drink these few drops of water. They’ll be +good for you.” + +Pinocchio took the glass in both hands and stuck his nose into it. He +lifted it to his mouth and once more stuck his nose into it. + +“It is too bitter, much too bitter! I can’t drink it.” + +“How do you know, when you haven’t even tasted it?” + +“I can imagine it. I smell it. I want another lump of sugar, then I’ll +drink it.” + +The Fairy, with all the patience of a good mother, gave him more sugar +and again handed him the glass. + +“I can’t drink it like that,” the Marionette said, making more wry +faces. + +“Why?” + +“Because that feather pillow on my feet bothers me.” + +The Fairy took away the pillow. + +“It’s no use. I can’t drink it even now.” + +“What’s the matter now?” + +“I don’t like the way that door looks. It’s half open.” + +The Fairy closed the door. + +“I won’t drink it,” cried Pinocchio, bursting out crying. “I won’t drink +this awful water. I won’t. I won’t! No, no, no, no!” + +“My boy, you’ll be sorry.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“You are very sick.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“In a few hours the fever will take you far away to another world.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“Aren’t you afraid of death?” + +“Not a bit. I’d rather die than drink that awful medicine.” + +At that moment, the door of the room flew open and in came four Rabbits +as black as ink, carrying a small black coffin on their shoulders. + +“What do you want from me?” asked Pinocchio. + +“We have come for you,” said the largest Rabbit. + +“For me? But I’m not dead yet!” + +“No, not dead yet; but you will be in a few moments since you have +refused to take the medicine which would have made you well.” + +“Oh, Fairy, my Fairy,” the Marionette cried out, “give me that glass! +Quick, please! I don’t want to die! No, no, not yet--not yet!” + +And holding the glass with his two hands, he swallowed the medicine at +one gulp. + +“Well,” said the four Rabbits, “this time we have made the trip for +nothing.” + +And turning on their heels, they marched solemnly out of the room, +carrying their little black coffin and muttering and grumbling between +their teeth. + +In a twinkling, Pinocchio felt fine. With one leap he was out of bed and +into his clothes. + +The Fairy, seeing him run and jump around the room gay as a bird on +wing, said to him: + +“My medicine was good for you, after all, wasn’t it?” + +“Good indeed! It has given me new life.” + +“Why, then, did I have to beg you so hard to make you drink it?” + +“I’m a boy, you see, and all boys hate medicine more than they do +sickness.” + +“What a shame! Boys ought to know, after all, that medicine, taken in +time, can save them from much pain and even from death.” + +“Next time I won’t have to be begged so hard. I’ll remember those black +Rabbits with the black coffin on their shoulders and I’ll take the glass +and pouf!--down it will go!” + +“Come here now and tell me how it came about that you found yourself in +the hands of the Assassins.” + +“It happened that Fire Eater gave me five gold pieces to give to my +Father, but on the way, I met a Fox and a Cat, who asked me, ‘Do you +want the five pieces to become two thousand?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And +they said, ‘Come with us to the Field of Wonders.’ And I said, ‘Let’s +go.’ Then they said, ‘Let us stop at the Inn of the Red Lobster for +dinner and after midnight we’ll set out again.’ We ate and went to +sleep. When I awoke they were gone and I started out in the darkness all +alone. On the road I met two Assassins dressed in black coal sacks, +who said to me, ‘Your money or your life!’ and I said, ‘I haven’t any +money’; for, you see, I had put the money under my tongue. One of them +tried to put his hand in my mouth and I bit it off and spat it out; but +it wasn’t a hand, it was a cat’s paw. And they ran after me and I ran +and ran, till at last they caught me and tied my neck with a rope and +hanged me to a tree, saying, ‘Tomorrow we’ll come back for you and +you’ll be dead and your mouth will be open, and then we’ll take the gold +pieces that you have hidden under your tongue.’” + +“Where are the gold pieces now?” the Fairy asked. + +“I lost them,” answered Pinocchio, but he told a lie, for he had them in +his pocket. + +As he spoke, his nose, long though it was, became at least two inches +longer. + +“And where did you lose them?” + +“In the wood near by.” + +At this second lie, his nose grew a few more inches. + +“If you lost them in the near-by wood,” said the Fairy, “we’ll look for +them and find them, for everything that is lost there is always found.” + +“Ah, now I remember,” replied the Marionette, becoming more and more +confused. “I did not lose the gold pieces, but I swallowed them when I +drank the medicine.” + +At this third lie, his nose became longer than ever, so long that he +could not even turn around. If he turned to the right, he knocked it +against the bed or into the windowpanes; if he turned to the left, he +struck the walls or the door; if he raised it a bit, he almost put the +Fairy’s eyes out. + +The Fairy sat looking at him and laughing. + +“Why do you laugh?” the Marionette asked her, worried now at the sight +of his growing nose. + +“I am laughing at your lies.” + +“How do you know I am lying?” + +“Lies, my boy, are known in a moment. There are two kinds of lies, lies +with short legs and lies with long noses. Yours, just now, happen to +have long noses.” + +Pinocchio, not knowing where to hide his shame, tried to escape from the +room, but his nose had become so long that he could not get it out of +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +Pinocchio finds the Fox and the Cat again, and goes with them to sow the +gold pieces in the Field of Wonders. + + +Crying as if his heart would break, the Marionette mourned for hours +over the length of his nose. No matter how he tried, it would not go +through the door. The Fairy showed no pity toward him, as she was trying +to teach him a good lesson, so that he would stop telling lies, the +worst habit any boy may acquire. But when she saw him, pale with fright +and with his eyes half out of his head from terror, she began to feel +sorry for him and clapped her hands together. A thousand woodpeckers +flew in through the window and settled themselves on Pinocchio’s nose. +They pecked and pecked so hard at that enormous nose that in a few +moments, it was the same size as before. + +“How good you are, my Fairy,” said Pinocchio, drying his eyes, “and how +much I love you!” + +“I love you, too,” answered the Fairy, “and if you wish to stay with me, +you may be my little brother and I’ll be your good little sister.” + +“I should like to stay--but what about my poor father?” + +“I have thought of everything. Your father has been sent for and before +night he will be here.” + +“Really?” cried Pinocchio joyfully. “Then, my good Fairy, if you are +willing, I should like to go to meet him. I cannot wait to kiss that +dear old man, who has suffered so much for my sake.” + +“Surely; go ahead, but be careful not to lose your way. Take the wood +path and you’ll surely meet him.” + +Pinocchio set out, and as soon as he found himself in the wood, he +ran like a hare. When he reached the giant oak tree he stopped, for he +thought he heard a rustle in the brush. He was right. There stood the +Fox and the Cat, the two traveling companions with whom he had eaten at +the Inn of the Red Lobster. + +“Here comes our dear Pinocchio!” cried the Fox, hugging and kissing him. +“How did you happen here?” + +“How did you happen here?” repeated the Cat. + +“It is a long story,” said the Marionette. “Let me tell it to you. The +other night, when you left me alone at the Inn, I met the Assassins on +the road--” + +“The Assassins? Oh, my poor friend! And what did they want?” + +“They wanted my gold pieces.” + +“Rascals!” said the Fox. + +“The worst sort of rascals!” added the Cat. + +“But I began to run,” continued the Marionette, “and they after me, +until they overtook me and hanged me to the limb of that oak.” + +Pinocchio pointed to the giant oak near by. + +“Could anything be worse?” said the Fox. + +“What an awful world to live in! Where shall we find a safe place for +gentlemen like ourselves?” + +As the Fox talked thus, Pinocchio noticed that the Cat carried his right +paw in a sling. + +“What happened to your paw?” he asked. + +The Cat tried to answer, but he became so terribly twisted in his speech +that the Fox had to help him out. + +“My friend is too modest to answer. I’ll answer for him. About an hour +ago, we met an old wolf on the road. He was half starved and begged for +help. Having nothing to give him, what do you think my friend did out +of the kindness of his heart? With his teeth, he bit off the paw of +his front foot and threw it at that poor beast, so that he might have +something to eat.” + +As he spoke, the Fox wiped off a tear. + +Pinocchio, almost in tears himself, whispered in the Cat’s ear: + +“If all the cats were like you, how lucky the mice would be!” + +“And what are you doing here?” the Fox asked the Marionette. + +“I am waiting for my father, who will be here at any moment now.” + +“And your gold pieces?” + +“I still have them in my pocket, except one which I spent at the Inn of +the Red Lobster.” + +“To think that those four gold pieces might become two thousand +tomorrow. Why don’t you listen to me? Why don’t you sow them in the +Field of Wonders?” + +“Today it is impossible. I’ll go with you some other time.” + +“Another day will be too late,” said the Fox. + +“Why?” + +“Because that field has been bought by a very rich man, and today is the +last day that it will be open to the public.” + +“How far is this Field of Wonders?” + +“Only two miles away. Will you come with us? We’ll be there in half an +hour. You can sow the money, and, after a few minutes, you will gather +your two thousand coins and return home rich. Are you coming?” + +Pinocchio hesitated a moment before answering, for he remembered the +good Fairy, old Geppetto, and the advice of the Talking Cricket. Then +he ended by doing what all boys do, when they have no heart and little +brain. He shrugged his shoulders and said to the Fox and the Cat: + +“Let us go! I am with you.” + +And they went. + +They walked and walked for a half a day at least and at last they came +to the town called the City of Simple Simons. As soon as they entered +the town, Pinocchio noticed that all the streets were filled with +hairless dogs, yawning from hunger; with sheared sheep, trembling with +cold; with combless chickens, begging for a grain of wheat; with large +butterflies, unable to use their wings because they had sold all their +lovely colors; with tailless peacocks, ashamed to show themselves; and +with bedraggled pheasants, scuttling away hurriedly, grieving for their +bright feathers of gold and silver, lost to them forever. + +Through this crowd of paupers and beggars, a beautiful coach passed now +and again. Within it sat either a Fox, a Hawk, or a Vulture. + +“Where is the Field of Wonders?” asked Pinocchio, growing tired of +waiting. + +“Be patient. It is only a few more steps away.” + +They passed through the city and, just outside the walls, they stepped +into a lonely field, which looked more or less like any other field. + +“Here we are,” said the Fox to the Marionette. “Dig a hole here and put +the gold pieces into it.” + +The Marionette obeyed. He dug the hole, put the four gold pieces into +it, and covered them up very carefully. “Now,” said the Fox, “go to that +near-by brook, bring back a pail full of water, and sprinkle it over the +spot.” + +Pinocchio followed the directions closely, but, as he had no pail, he +pulled off his shoe, filled it with water, and sprinkled the earth which +covered the gold. Then he asked: + +“Anything else?” + +“Nothing else,” answered the Fox. “Now we can go. Return here within +twenty minutes and you will find the vine grown and the branches filled +with gold pieces.” + +Pinocchio, beside himself with joy, thanked the Fox and the Cat many +times and promised them each a beautiful gift. + +“We don’t want any of your gifts,” answered the two rogues. “It is +enough for us that we have helped you to become rich with little or no +trouble. For this we are as happy as kings.” + +They said good-by to Pinocchio and, wishing him good luck, went on their +way. + + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +Pinocchio is robbed of his gold pieces and, in punishment, is sentenced +to four months in prison. + + +If the Marionette had been told to wait a day instead of twenty minutes, +the time could not have seemed longer to him. He walked impatiently to +and fro and finally turned his nose toward the Field of Wonders. + +And as he walked with hurried steps, his heart beat with an excited tic, +tac, tic, tac, just as if it were a wall clock, and his busy brain kept +thinking: + +“What if, instead of a thousand, I should find two thousand? Or if, +instead of two thousand, I should find five thousand--or one hundred +thousand? I’ll build myself a beautiful palace, with a thousand stables +filled with a thousand wooden horses to play with, a cellar overflowing +with lemonade and ice cream soda, and a library of candies and fruits, +cakes and cookies.” + +Thus amusing himself with fancies, he came to the field. There he +stopped to see if, by any chance, a vine filled with gold coins was +in sight. But he saw nothing! He took a few steps forward, and still +nothing! He stepped into the field. He went up to the place where he had +dug the hole and buried the gold pieces. Again nothing! Pinocchio became +very thoughtful and, forgetting his good manners altogether, he pulled a +hand out of his pocket and gave his head a thorough scratching. + +As he did so, he heard a hearty burst of laughter close to his head. He +turned sharply, and there, just above him on the branch of a tree, sat a +large Parrot, busily preening his feathers. + +“What are you laughing at?” Pinocchio asked peevishly. + +“I am laughing because, in preening my feathers, I tickled myself under +the wings.” + +The Marionette did not answer. He walked to the brook, filled his shoe +with water, and once more sprinkled the ground which covered the gold +pieces. + +Another burst of laughter, even more impertinent than the first, was +heard in the quiet field. + +“Well,” cried the Marionette, angrily this time, “may I know, Mr. +Parrot, what amuses you so?” + +“I am laughing at those simpletons who believe everything they hear and +who allow themselves to be caught so easily in the traps set for them.” + +“Do you, perhaps, mean me?” + +“I certainly do mean you, poor Pinocchio--you who are such a little +silly as to believe that gold can be sown in a field just like beans +or squash. I, too, believed that once and today I am very sorry for it. +Today (but too late!) I have reached the conclusion that, in order to +come by money honestly, one must work and know how to earn it with hand +or brain.” + +“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the Marionette, who was +beginning to tremble with fear. + +“Too bad! I’ll explain myself better,” said the Parrot. “While you were +away in the city the Fox and the Cat returned here in a great hurry. +They took the four gold pieces which you have buried and ran away as +fast as the wind. If you can catch them, you’re a brave one!” + +Pinocchio’s mouth opened wide. He would not believe the Parrot’s words +and began to dig away furiously at the earth. He dug and he dug till +the hole was as big as himself, but no money was there. Every penny was +gone. + +In desperation, he ran to the city and went straight to the courthouse +to report the robbery to the magistrate. The Judge was a Monkey, a large +Gorilla venerable with age. A flowing white beard covered his chest and +he wore gold-rimmed spectacles from which the glasses had dropped +out. The reason for wearing these, he said, was that his eyes had been +weakened by the work of many years. + +Pinocchio, standing before him, told his pitiful tale, word by word. +He gave the names and the descriptions of the robbers and begged for +justice. + +The Judge listened to him with great patience. A kind look shone in his +eyes. He became very much interested in the story; he felt moved; he +almost wept. When the Marionette had no more to say, the Judge put out +his hand and rang a bell. + +At the sound, two large Mastiffs appeared, dressed in Carabineers’ +uniforms. + +Then the magistrate, pointing to Pinocchio, said in a very solemn voice: + +“This poor simpleton has been robbed of four gold pieces. Take him, +therefore, and throw him into prison.” The Marionette, on hearing this +sentence passed upon him, was thoroughly stunned. He tried to protest, +but the two officers clapped their paws on his mouth and hustled him +away to jail. + +There he had to remain for four long, weary months. And if it had not +been for a very lucky chance, he probably would have had to stay there +longer. For, my dear children, you must know that it happened just then +that the young emperor who ruled over the City of Simple Simons had +gained a great victory over his enemy, and in celebration thereof, he +had ordered illuminations, fireworks, shows of all kinds, and, best of +all, the opening of all prison doors. + +“If the others go, I go, too,” said Pinocchio to the Jailer. + +“Not you,” answered the Jailer. “You are one of those--” + +“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Pinocchio, “I, too, am a thief.” + +“In that case you also are free,” said the Jailer. Taking off his cap, +he bowed low and opened the door of the prison, and Pinocchio ran out +and away, with never a look backward. + + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Freed from prison, Pinocchio sets out to return to the Fairy; but on the +way he meets a Serpent and later is caught in a trap. + + +Fancy the happiness of Pinocchio on finding himself free! Without saying +yes or no, he fled from the city and set out on the road that was to +take him back to the house of the lovely Fairy. + +It had rained for many days, and the road was so muddy that, at times, +Pinocchio sank down almost to his knees. + +But he kept on bravely. + +Tormented by the wish to see his father and his fairy sister with azure +hair, he raced like a greyhound. As he ran, he was splashed with mud +even up to his cap. + +“How unhappy I have been,” he said to himself. “And yet I deserve +everything, for I am certainly very stubborn and stupid! I will always +have my own way. I won’t listen to those who love me and who have more +brains than I. But from now on, I’ll be different and I’ll try to become +a most obedient boy. I have found out, beyond any doubt whatever, that +disobedient boys are certainly far from happy, and that, in the long +run, they always lose out. I wonder if Father is waiting for me. Will +I find him at the Fairy’s house? It is so long, poor man, since I have +seen him, and I do so want his love and his kisses. And will the Fairy +ever forgive me for all I have done? She who has been so good to me and +to whom I owe my life! Can there be a worse or more heartless boy than I +am anywhere?” + +As he spoke, he stopped suddenly, frozen with terror. + +What was the matter? An immense Serpent lay stretched across the road--a +Serpent with a bright green skin, fiery eyes which glowed and burned, +and a pointed tail that smoked like a chimney. + +How frightened was poor Pinocchio! He ran back wildly for half a mile, +and at last settled himself atop a heap of stones to wait for the +Serpent to go on his way and leave the road clear for him. + +He waited an hour; two hours; three hours; but the Serpent was always +there, and even from afar one could see the flash of his red eyes and +the column of smoke which rose from his long, pointed tail. + +Pinocchio, trying to feel very brave, walked straight up to him and said +in a sweet, soothing voice: + +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Serpent, would you be so kind as to step aside +to let me pass?” + +He might as well have talked to a wall. The Serpent never moved. + +Once more, in the same sweet voice, he spoke: + +“You must know, Mr. Serpent, that I am going home where my father is +waiting for me. It is so long since I have seen him! Would you mind very +much if I passed?” + +He waited for some sign of an answer to his questions, but the answer +did not come. On the contrary, the green Serpent, who had seemed, until +then, wide awake and full of life, became suddenly very quiet and still. +His eyes closed and his tail stopped smoking. + +“Is he dead, I wonder?” said Pinocchio, rubbing his hands together +happily. Without a moment’s hesitation, he started to step over him, but +he had just raised one leg when the Serpent shot up like a spring and +the Marionette fell head over heels backward. He fell so awkwardly that +his head stuck in the mud, and there he stood with his legs straight up +in the air. + +At the sight of the Marionette kicking and squirming like a young +whirlwind, the Serpent laughed so heartily and so long that at last he +burst an artery and died on the spot. + +Pinocchio freed himself from his awkward position and once more began +to run in order to reach the Fairy’s house before dark. As he went, the +pangs of hunger grew so strong that, unable to withstand them, he jumped +into a field to pick a few grapes that tempted him. Woe to him! + +No sooner had he reached the grapevine than--crack! went his legs. + +The poor Marionette was caught in a trap set there by a Farmer for some +Weasels which came every night to steal his chickens. + + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +Pinocchio is caught by a Farmer, who uses him as a watchdog for his +chicken coop. + + +Pinocchio, as you may well imagine, began to scream and weep and beg; +but all was of no use, for no houses were to be seen and not a soul +passed by on the road. + +Night came on. + +A little because of the sharp pain in his legs, a little because of +fright at finding himself alone in the darkness of the field, the +Marionette was about to faint, when he saw a tiny Glowworm flickering +by. He called to her and said: + +“Dear little Glowworm, will you set me free?” + +“Poor little fellow!” replied the Glowworm, stopping to look at him with +pity. “How came you to be caught in this trap?” + +“I stepped into this lonely field to take a few grapes and--” + +“Are the grapes yours?” + +“No.” + +“Who has taught you to take things that do not belong to you?” + +“I was hungry.” + +“Hunger, my boy, is no reason for taking something which belongs to +another.” + +“It’s true, it’s true!” cried Pinocchio in tears. “I won’t do it again.” + +Just then, the conversation was interrupted by approaching footsteps. +It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if, by +chance, he had caught the Weasels which had been eating his chickens. + +Great was his surprise when, on holding up his lantern, he saw that, +instead of a Weasel, he had caught a boy! + +“Ah, you little thief!” said the Farmer in an angry voice. “So you are +the one who steals my chickens!” + +“Not I! No, no!” cried Pinocchio, sobbing bitterly. “I came here only to +take a very few grapes.” + +“He who steals grapes may very easily steal chickens also. Take my word +for it, I’ll give you a lesson that you’ll remember for a long while.” + +He opened the trap, grabbed the Marionette by the collar, and carried +him to the house as if he were a puppy. When he reached the yard in +front of the house, he flung him to the ground, put a foot on his neck, +and said to him roughly: “It is late now and it’s time for bed. Tomorrow +we’ll settle matters. In the meantime, since my watchdog died today, you +may take his place and guard my henhouse.” + +No sooner said than done. He slipped a dog collar around Pinocchio’s +neck and tightened it so that it would not come off. A long iron chain +was tied to the collar. The other end of the chain was nailed to the +wall. + +“If tonight it should happen to rain,” said the Farmer, “you can sleep +in that little doghouse near-by, where you will find plenty of straw for +a soft bed. It has been Melampo’s bed for three years, and it will be +good enough for you. And if, by any chance, any thieves should come, be +sure to bark!” + +After this last warning, the Farmer went into the house and closed the +door and barred it. + +Poor Pinocchio huddled close to the doghouse more dead than alive from +cold, hunger, and fright. Now and again he pulled and tugged at the +collar which nearly choked him and cried out in a weak voice: + +“I deserve it! Yes, I deserve it! I have been nothing but a truant and +a vagabond. I have never obeyed anyone and I have always done as I +pleased. If I were only like so many others and had studied and worked +and stayed with my poor old father, I should not find myself here +now, in this field and in the darkness, taking the place of a farmer’s +watchdog. Oh, if I could start all over again! But what is done can’t be +undone, and I must be patient!” + +After this little sermon to himself, which came from the very depths of +his heart, Pinocchio went into the doghouse and fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +Pinocchio discovers the thieves and, as a reward for faithfulness, he +regains his liberty. + + +Even though a boy may be very unhappy, he very seldom loses sleep over +his worries. The Marionette, being no exception to this rule, slept on +peacefully for a few hours till well along toward midnight, when he +was awakened by strange whisperings and stealthy sounds coming from the +yard. He stuck his nose out of the doghouse and saw four slender, hairy +animals. They were Weasels, small animals very fond of both eggs and +chickens. One of them left her companions and, going to the door of the +doghouse, said in a sweet voice: + +“Good evening, Melampo.” + +“My name is not Melampo,” answered Pinocchio. + +“Who are you, then?” + +“I am Pinocchio.” + +“What are you doing here?” + +“I’m the watchdog.” + +“But where is Melampo? Where is the old dog who used to live in this +house?” + +“He died this morning.” + +“Died? Poor beast! He was so good! Still, judging by your face, I think +you, too, are a good-natured dog.” + +“I beg your pardon, I am not a dog!” + +“What are you, then?” + +“I am a Marionette.” + +“Are you taking the place of the watchdog?” + +“I’m sorry to say that I am. I’m being punished.” + +“Well, I shall make the same terms with you that we had with the dead +Melampo. I am sure you will be glad to hear them.” + +“And what are the terms?” + +“This is our plan: We’ll come once in a while, as in the past, to pay +a visit to this henhouse, and we’ll take away eight chickens. Of these, +seven are for us, and one for you, provided, of course, that you will +make believe you are sleeping and will not bark for the Farmer.” + +“Did Melampo really do that?” asked Pinocchio. + +“Indeed he did, and because of that we were the best of friends. Sleep +away peacefully, and remember that before we go we shall leave you a +nice fat chicken all ready for your breakfast in the morning. Is that +understood?” + +“Even too well,” answered Pinocchio. And shaking his head in a +threatening manner, he seemed to say, “We’ll talk this over in a few +minutes, my friends.” + +As soon as the four Weasels had talked things over, they went straight +to the chicken coop which stood close to the doghouse. Digging busily +with teeth and claws, they opened the little door and slipped in. But +they were no sooner in than they heard the door close with a sharp bang. + +The one who had done the trick was Pinocchio, who, not satisfied with +that, dragged a heavy stone in front of it. That done, he started to +bark. And he barked as if he were a real watchdog: “Bow, wow, wow! Bow, +wow!” + +The Farmer heard the loud barks and jumped out of bed. Taking his gun, +he leaped to the window and shouted: “What’s the matter?” + +“The thieves are here,” answered Pinocchio. + +“Where are they?” + +“In the chicken coop.” + +“I’ll come down in a second.” + +And, in fact, he was down in the yard in a twinkling and running toward +the chicken coop. + +He opened the door, pulled out the Weasels one by one, and, after tying +them in a bag, said to them in a happy voice: “You’re in my hands at +last! I could punish you now, but I’ll wait! In the morning you may come +with me to the inn and there you’ll make a fine dinner for some hungry +mortal. It is really too great an honor for you, one you do not deserve; +but, as you see, I am really a very kind and generous man and I am going +to do this for you!” + +Then he went up to Pinocchio and began to pet and caress him. + +“How did you ever find them out so quickly? And to think that Melampo, +my faithful Melampo, never saw them in all these years!” + +The Marionette could have told, then and there, all he knew about the +shameful contract between the dog and the Weasels, but thinking of +the dead dog, he said to himself: “Melampo is dead. What is the use of +accusing him? The dead are gone and they cannot defend themselves. The +best thing to do is to leave them in peace!” + +“Were you awake or asleep when they came?” continued the Farmer. + +“I was asleep,” answered Pinocchio, “but they awakened me with their +whisperings. One of them even came to the door of the doghouse and said +to me, ‘If you promise not to bark, we will make you a present of one +of the chickens for your breakfast.’ Did you hear that? They had the +audacity to make such a proposition as that to me! For you must know +that, though I am a very wicked Marionette full of faults, still I never +have been, nor ever shall be, bribed.” + +“Fine boy!” cried the Farmer, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly +way. “You ought to be proud of yourself. And to show you what I think of +you, you are free from this instant!” + +And he slipped the dog collar from his neck. + + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +Pinocchio weeps upon learning that the Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair +is dead. He meets a Pigeon, who carries him to the seashore. He throws +himself into the sea to go to the aid of his father. + + +As soon as Pinocchio no longer felt the shameful weight of the dog +collar around his neck, he started to run across the fields and meadows, +and never stopped till he came to the main road that was to take him to +the Fairy’s house. + +When he reached it, he looked into the valley far below him and there +he saw the wood where unluckily he had met the Fox and the Cat, and the +tall oak tree where he had been hanged; but though he searched far and +near, he could not see the house where the Fairy with the Azure Hair +lived. + +He became terribly frightened and, running as fast as he could, he +finally came to the spot where it had once stood. The little house was +no longer there. In its place lay a small marble slab, which bore this +sad inscription: + + HERE LIES + THE LOVELY FAIRY WITH AZURE HAIR + WHO DIED OF GRIEF + WHEN ABANDONED BY + HER LITTLE BROTHER PINOCCHIO + +The poor Marionette was heartbroken at reading these words. He fell to +the ground and, covering the cold marble with kisses, burst into bitter +tears. He cried all night, and dawn found him still there, though his +tears had dried and only hard, dry sobs shook his wooden frame. But +these were so loud that they could be heard by the faraway hills. + +As he sobbed he said to himself: + +“Oh, my Fairy, my dear, dear Fairy, why did you die? Why did I not die, +who am so bad, instead of you, who are so good? And my father--where can +he be? Please dear Fairy, tell me where he is and I shall never, never +leave him again! You are not really dead, are you? If you love me, you +will come back, alive as before. Don’t you feel sorry for me? I’m so +lonely. If the two Assassins come, they’ll hang me again from the giant +oak tree and I will really die, this time. What shall I do alone in the +world? Now that you are dead and my father is lost, where shall I eat? +Where shall I sleep? Who will make my new clothes? Oh, I want to die! +Yes, I want to die! Oh, oh, oh!” + +Poor Pinocchio! He even tried to tear his hair, but as it was only +painted on his wooden head, he could not even pull it. + +Just then a large Pigeon flew far above him. Seeing the Marionette, he +cried to him: + +“Tell me, little boy, what are you doing there?” + +“Can’t you see? I’m crying,” cried Pinocchio, lifting his head toward +the voice and rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. + +“Tell me,” asked the Pigeon, “do you by chance know of a Marionette, +Pinocchio by name?” + +“Pinocchio! Did you say Pinocchio?” replied the Marionette, jumping to +his feet. “Why, I am Pinocchio!” + +At this answer, the Pigeon flew swiftly down to the earth. He was much +larger than a turkey. + +“Then you know Geppetto also?” + +“Do I know him? He’s my father, my poor, dear father! Has he, perhaps, +spoken to you of me? Will you take me to him? Is he still alive? Answer +me, please! Is he still alive?” + +“I left him three days ago on the shore of a large sea.” + +“What was he doing?” + +“He was building a little boat with which to cross the ocean. For +the last four months, that poor man has been wandering around Europe, +looking for you. Not having found you yet, he has made up his mind to +look for you in the New World, far across the ocean.” + +“How far is it from here to the shore?” asked Pinocchio anxiously. + +“More than fifty miles.” + +“Fifty miles? Oh, dear Pigeon, how I wish I had your wings!” + +“If you want to come, I’ll take you with me.” + +“How?” + +“Astride my back. Are you very heavy?” + +“Heavy? Not at all. I’m only a feather.” + +“Very well.” + +Saying nothing more, Pinocchio jumped on the Pigeon’s back and, as he +settled himself, he cried out gayly: + +“Gallop on, gallop on, my pretty steed! I’m in a great hurry.” + +The Pigeon flew away, and in a few minutes he had reached the clouds. +The Marionette looked to see what was below them. His head swam and he +was so frightened that he clutched wildly at the Pigeon’s neck to keep +himself from falling. + +They flew all day. Toward evening the Pigeon said: + +“I’m very thirsty!” + +“And I’m very hungry!” said Pinocchio. + +“Let us stop a few minutes at that pigeon coop down there. Then we can +go on and be at the seashore in the morning.” + +They went into the empty coop and there they found nothing but a bowl of +water and a small basket filled with chick-peas. + +The Marionette had always hated chick-peas. According to him, they had +always made him sick; but that night he ate them with a relish. As he +finished them, he turned to the Pigeon and said: + +“I never should have thought that chick-peas could be so good!” + +“You must remember, my boy,” answered the Pigeon, “that hunger is the +best sauce!” + +After resting a few minutes longer, they set out again. The next morning +they were at the seashore. + +Pinocchio jumped off the Pigeon’s back, and the Pigeon, not wanting any +thanks for a kind deed, flew away swiftly and disappeared. + +The shore was full of people, shrieking and tearing their hair as they +looked toward the sea. + +“What has happened?” asked Pinocchio of a little old woman. + +“A poor old father lost his only son some time ago and today he built a +tiny boat for himself in order to go in search of him across the ocean. +The water is very rough and we’re afraid he will be drowned.” + +“Where is the little boat?” + +“There. Straight down there,” answered the little old woman, pointing to +a tiny shadow, no bigger than a nutshell, floating on the sea. + +Pinocchio looked closely for a few minutes and then gave a sharp cry: + +“It’s my father! It’s my father!” + +Meanwhile, the little boat, tossed about by the angry waters, appeared +and disappeared in the waves. And Pinocchio, standing on a high rock, +tired out with searching, waved to him with hand and cap and even with +his nose. + +It looked as if Geppetto, though far away from the shore, recognized his +son, for he took off his cap and waved also. He seemed to be trying to +make everyone understand that he would come back if he were able, but +the sea was so heavy that he could do nothing with his oars. Suddenly a +huge wave came and the boat disappeared. + +They waited and waited for it, but it was gone. + +“Poor man!” said the fisher folk on the shore, whispering a prayer as +they turned to go home. + +Just then a desperate cry was heard. Turning around, the fisher folk saw +Pinocchio dive into the sea and heard him cry out: + +“I’ll save him! I’ll save my father!” + +The Marionette, being made of wood, floated easily along and swam like +a fish in the rough water. Now and again he disappeared only to reappear +once more. In a twinkling, he was far away from land. At last he was +completely lost to view. + +“Poor boy!” cried the fisher folk on the shore, and again they mumbled a +few prayers, as they returned home. + + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +Pinocchio reaches the Island of the Busy Bees and finds the Fairy once +more. + + +Pinocchio, spurred on by the hope of finding his father and of being in +time to save him, swam all night long. + +And what a horrible night it was! It poured rain, it hailed, it +thundered, and the lightning was so bright that it turned the night into +day. + +At dawn, he saw, not far away from him, a long stretch of sand. It was +an island in the middle of the sea. + +Pinocchio tried his best to get there, but he couldn’t. The waves played +with him and tossed him about as if he were a twig or a bit of straw. At +last, and luckily for him, a tremendous wave tossed him to the very spot +where he wanted to be. The blow from the wave was so strong that, as he +fell to the ground, his joints cracked and almost broke. But, nothing +daunted, he jumped to his feet and cried: + +“Once more I have escaped with my life!” + +Little by little the sky cleared. The sun came out in full splendor and +the sea became as calm as a lake. + +Then the Marionette took off his clothes and laid them on the sand to +dry. He looked over the waters to see whether he might catch sight of +a boat with a little man in it. He searched and he searched, but he saw +nothing except sea and sky and far away a few sails, so small that they +might have been birds. + +“If only I knew the name of this island!” he said to himself. “If I even +knew what kind of people I would find here! But whom shall I ask? There +is no one here.” + +The idea of finding himself in so lonesome a spot made him so sad that +he was about to cry, but just then he saw a big Fish swimming near-by, +with his head far out of the water. + +Not knowing what to call him, the Marionette said to him: + +“Hey there, Mr. Fish, may I have a word with you?” + +“Even two, if you want,” answered the fish, who happened to be a very +polite Dolphin. + +“Will you please tell me if, on this island, there are places where one +may eat without necessarily being eaten?” + +“Surely, there are,” answered the Dolphin. “In fact you’ll find one not +far from this spot.” + +“And how shall I get there?” + +“Take that path on your left and follow your nose. You can’t go wrong.” + +“Tell me another thing. You who travel day and night through the sea, +did you not perhaps meet a little boat with my father in it?” + +“And who is you father?” + +“He is the best father in the world, even as I am the worst son that can +be found.” + +“In the storm of last night,” answered the Dolphin, “the little boat +must have been swamped.” + +“And my father?” + +“By this time, he must have been swallowed by the Terrible Shark, which, +for the last few days, has been bringing terror to these waters.” + +“Is this Shark very big?” asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to tremble +with fright. + +“Is he big?” replied the Dolphin. “Just to give you an idea of his size, +let me tell you that he is larger than a five story building and that +he has a mouth so big and so deep, that a whole train and engine could +easily get into it.” + +“Mother mine!” cried the Marionette, scared to death; and dressing +himself as fast as he could, he turned to the Dolphin and said: + +“Farewell, Mr. Fish. Pardon the bother, and many thanks for your +kindness.” + +This said, he took the path at so swift a gait that he seemed to fly, +and at every small sound he heard, he turned in fear to see whether the +Terrible Shark, five stories high and with a train in his mouth, was +following him. + +After walking a half hour, he came to a small country called the Land +of the Busy Bees. The streets were filled with people running to and fro +about their tasks. Everyone worked, everyone had something to do. Even +if one were to search with a lantern, not one idle man or one tramp +could have been found. + +“I understand,” said Pinocchio at once wearily, “this is no place for +me! I was not born for work.” + +But in the meantime, he began to feel hungry, for it was twenty-four +hours since he had eaten. + +What was to be done? + +There were only two means left to him in order to get a bite to eat. He +had either to work or to beg. + +He was ashamed to beg, because his father had always preached to him +that begging should be done only by the sick or the old. He had said +that the real poor in this world, deserving of our pity and help, were +only those who, either through age or sickness, had lost the means of +earning their bread with their own hands. All others should work, and if +they didn’t, and went hungry, so much the worse for them. + +Just then a man passed by, worn out and wet with perspiration, pulling, +with difficulty, two heavy carts filled with coal. + +Pinocchio looked at him and, judging him by his looks to be a kind man, +said to him with eyes downcast in shame: + +“Will you be so good as to give me a penny, for I am faint with hunger?” + +“Not only one penny,” answered the Coal Man. “I’ll give you four if you +will help me pull these two wagons.” + +“I am surprised!” answered the Marionette, very much offended. “I wish +you to know that I never have been a donkey, nor have I ever pulled a +wagon.” + +“So much the better for you!” answered the Coal Man. “Then, my boy, if +you are really faint with hunger, eat two slices of your pride; and I +hope they don’t give you indigestion.” + +A few minutes after, a Bricklayer passed by, carrying a pail full of +plaster on his shoulder. + +“Good man, will you be kind enough to give a penny to a poor boy who is +yawning from hunger?” + +“Gladly,” answered the Bricklayer. “Come with me and carry some plaster, +and instead of one penny, I’ll give you five.” + +“But the plaster is heavy,” answered Pinocchio, “and the work too hard +for me.” + +“If the work is too hard for you, my boy, enjoy your yawns and may they +bring you luck!” + +In less than a half hour, at least twenty people passed and Pinocchio +begged of each one, but they all answered: + +“Aren’t you ashamed? Instead of being a beggar in the streets, why don’t +you look for work and earn your own bread?” + +Finally a little woman went by carrying two water jugs. + +“Good woman, will you allow me to have a drink from one of your jugs?” + asked Pinocchio, who was burning up with thirst. + +“With pleasure, my boy!” she answered, setting the two jugs on the +ground before him. + +When Pinocchio had had his fill, he grumbled, as he wiped his mouth: + +“My thirst is gone. If I could only as easily get rid of my hunger!” + +On hearing these words, the good little woman immediately said: + +“If you help me to carry these jugs home, I’ll give you a slice of +bread.” + +Pinocchio looked at the jug and said neither yes nor no. + +“And with the bread, I’ll give you a nice dish of cauliflower with white +sauce on it.” + +Pinocchio gave the jug another look and said neither yes nor no. + +“And after the cauliflower, some cake and jam.” + +At this last bribery, Pinocchio could no longer resist and said firmly: + +“Very well. I’ll take the jug home for you.” + +The jug was very heavy, and the Marionette, not being strong enough to +carry it with his hands, had to put it on his head. + +When they arrived home, the little woman made Pinocchio sit down at a +small table and placed before him the bread, the cauliflower, and +the cake. Pinocchio did not eat; he devoured. His stomach seemed a +bottomless pit. + +His hunger finally appeased, he raised his head to thank his kind +benefactress. But he had not looked at her long when he gave a cry of +surprise and sat there with his eyes wide open, his fork in the air, and +his mouth filled with bread and cauliflower. + +“Why all this surprise?” asked the good woman, laughing. + +“Because--” answered Pinocchio, stammering and stuttering, “because--you +look like--you remind me of--yes, yes, the same voice, the same eyes, +the same hair--yes, yes, yes, you also have the same azure hair she +had--Oh, my little Fairy, my little Fairy! Tell me that it is you! Don’t +make me cry any longer! If you only knew! I have cried so much, I have +suffered so!” + +And Pinocchio threw himself on the floor and clasped the knees of the +mysterious little woman. + + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +Pinocchio promises the Fairy to be good and to study, as he is growing +tired of being a Marionette, and wishes to become a real boy. + + +If Pinocchio cried much longer, the little woman thought he would melt +away, so she finally admitted that she was the little Fairy with Azure +Hair. + +“You rascal of a Marionette! How did you know it was I?” she asked, +laughing. + +“My love for you told me who you were.” + +“Do you remember? You left me when I was a little girl and now you find +me a grown woman. I am so old, I could almost be your mother!” + +“I am very glad of that, for then I can call you mother instead of +sister. For a long time I have wanted a mother, just like other boys. +But how did you grow so quickly?” + +“That’s a secret!” + +“Tell it to me. I also want to grow a little. Look at me! I have never +grown higher than a penny’s worth of cheese.” + +“But you can’t grow,” answered the Fairy. + +“Why not?” + +“Because Marionettes never grow. They are born Marionettes, they live +Marionettes, and they die Marionettes.” + +“Oh, I’m tired of always being a Marionette!” cried Pinocchio +disgustedly. “It’s about time for me to grow into a man as everyone else +does.” + +“And you will if you deserve it--” + +“Really? What can I do to deserve it?” + +“It’s a very simple matter. Try to act like a well-behaved child.” + +“Don’t you think I do?” + +“Far from it! Good boys are obedient, and you, on the contrary--” + +“And I never obey.” + +“Good boys love study and work, but you--” + +“And I, on the contrary, am a lazy fellow and a tramp all year round.” + +“Good boys always tell the truth.” + +“And I always tell lies.” + +“Good boys go gladly to school.” + +“And I get sick if I go to school. From now on I’ll be different.” + +“Do you promise?” + +“I promise. I want to become a good boy and be a comfort to my father. +Where is my poor father now?” + +“I do not know.” + +“Will I ever be lucky enough to find him and embrace him once more?” + +“I think so. Indeed, I am sure of it.” + +At this answer, Pinocchio’s happiness was very great. He grasped the +Fairy’s hands and kissed them so hard that it looked as if he had lost +his head. Then lifting his face, he looked at her lovingly and asked: +“Tell me, little Mother, it isn’t true that you are dead, is it?” + +“It doesn’t seem so,” answered the Fairy, smiling. + +“If you only knew how I suffered and how I wept when I read ‘Here +lies--’” + +“I know it, and for that I have forgiven you. The depth of your sorrow +made me see that you have a kind heart. There is always hope for boys +with hearts such as yours, though they may often be very mischievous. +This is the reason why I have come so far to look for you. From now on, +I’ll be your own little mother.” + +“Oh! How lovely!” cried Pinocchio, jumping with joy. + +“You will obey me always and do as I wish?” + +“Gladly, very gladly, more than gladly!” + +“Beginning tomorrow,” said the Fairy, “you’ll go to school every day.” + +Pinocchio’s face fell a little. + +“Then you will choose the trade you like best.” + +Pinocchio became more serious. + +“What are you mumbling to yourself?” asked the Fairy. + +“I was just saying,” whined the Marionette in a whisper, “that it seems +too late for me to go to school now.” + +“No, indeed. Remember it is never too late to learn.” + +“But I don’t want either trade or profession.” + +“Why?” + +“Because work wearies me!” + +“My dear boy,” said the Fairy, “people who speak as you do usually end +their days either in a prison or in a hospital. A man, remember, +whether rich or poor, should do something in this world. No one can +find happiness without work. Woe betide the lazy fellow! Laziness is a +serious illness and one must cure it immediately; yes, even from early +childhood. If not, it will kill you in the end.” + +These words touched Pinocchio’s heart. He lifted his eyes to his Fairy +and said seriously: “I’ll work; I’ll study; I’ll do all you tell me. +After all, the life of a Marionette has grown very tiresome to me and I +want to become a boy, no matter how hard it is. You promise that, do you +not?” + +“Yes, I promise, and now it is up to you.” + + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +Pinocchio goes to the seashore with his friends to see the Terrible +Shark. + + +In the morning, bright and early, Pinocchio started for school. + +Imagine what the boys said when they saw a Marionette enter the +classroom! They laughed until they cried. Everyone played tricks on him. +One pulled his hat off, another tugged at his coat, a third tried to +paint a mustache under his nose. One even attempted to tie strings to +his feet and his hands to make him dance. + +For a while Pinocchio was very calm and quiet. Finally, however, he +lost all patience and turning to his tormentors, he said to them +threateningly: + +“Careful, boys, I haven’t come here to be made fun of. I’ll respect you +and I want you to respect me.” + +“Hurrah for Dr. Know-all! You have spoken like a printed book!” howled +the boys, bursting with laughter. One of them, more impudent than the +rest, put out his hand to pull the Marionette’s nose. + +But he was not quick enough, for Pinocchio stretched his leg under the +table and kicked him hard on the shin. + +“Oh, what hard feet!” cried the boy, rubbing the spot where the +Marionette had kicked him. + +“And what elbows! They are even harder than the feet!” shouted another +one, who, because of some other trick, had received a blow in the +stomach. + +With that kick and that blow Pinocchio gained everybody’s favor. +Everyone admired him, danced attendance upon him, petted and caressed +him. + +As the days passed into weeks, even the teacher praised him, for he saw +him attentive, hard working, and wide awake, always the first to come in +the morning, and the last to leave when school was over. + +Pinocchio’s only fault was that he had too many friends. Among these +were many well-known rascals, who cared not a jot for study or for +success. + +The teacher warned him each day, and even the good Fairy repeated to him +many times: + +“Take care, Pinocchio! Those bad companions will sooner or later make +you lose your love for study. Some day they will lead you astray.” + +“There’s no such danger,” answered the Marionette, shrugging his +shoulders and pointing to his forehead as if to say, “I’m too wise.” + +So it happened that one day, as he was walking to school, he met some +boys who ran up to him and said: + +“Have you heard the news?” + +“No!” + +“A Shark as big as a mountain has been seen near the shore.” + +“Really? I wonder if it could be the same one I heard of when my father +was drowned?” + +“We are going to see it. Are you coming?” + +“No, not I. I must go to school.” + +“What do you care about school? You can go there tomorrow. With a lesson +more or less, we are always the same donkeys.” + +“And what will the teacher say?” + +“Let him talk. He is paid to grumble all day long.” + +“And my mother?” + +“Mothers don’t know anything,” answered those scamps. + +“Do you know what I’ll do?” said Pinocchio. “For certain reasons of +mine, I, too, want to see that Shark; but I’ll go after school. I can +see him then as well as now.” + +“Poor simpleton!” cried one of the boys. “Do you think that a fish of +that size will stand there waiting for you? He turns and off he goes, +and no one will ever be the wiser.” + +“How long does it take from here to the shore?” asked the Marionette. +“One hour there and back.” + + +“Very well, then. Let’s see who gets there first!” cried Pinocchio. + +At the signal, the little troop, with books under their arms, dashed +across the fields. Pinocchio led the way, running as if on wings, the +others following as fast as they could. + +Now and again, he looked back and, seeing his followers hot and tired, +and with tongues hanging out, he laughed out heartily. Unhappy boy! If +he had only known then the dreadful things that were to happen to him on +account of his disobedience! + + + + +CHAPTER 27 + +The great battle between Pinocchio and his playmates. One is wounded. +Pinocchio is arrested. + + +Going like the wind, Pinocchio took but a very short time to reach the +shore. He glanced all about him, but there was no sign of a Shark. The +sea was as smooth as glass. + +“Hey there, boys! Where’s that Shark?” he asked, turning to his +playmates. + +“He may have gone for his breakfast,” said one of them, laughing. + +“Or, perhaps, he went to bed for a little nap,” said another, laughing +also. + +From the answers and the laughter which followed them, Pinocchio +understood that the boys had played a trick on him. + +“What now?” he said angrily to them. “What’s the joke?” + +“Oh, the joke’s on you!” cried his tormentors, laughing more heartily +than ever, and dancing gayly around the Marionette. + +“And that is--?” + +“That we have made you stay out of school to come with us. Aren’t you +ashamed of being such a goody-goody, and of studying so hard? You never +have a bit of enjoyment.” + +“And what is it to you, if I do study?” + +“What does the teacher think of us, you mean?” + +“Why?” + +“Don’t you see? If you study and we don’t, we pay for it. After all, +it’s only fair to look out for ourselves.” + +“What do you want me to do?” + +“Hate school and books and teachers, as we all do. They are your worst +enemies, you know, and they like to make you as unhappy as they can.” + +“And if I go on studying, what will you do to me?” + +“You’ll pay for it!” + +“Really, you amuse me,” answered the Marionette, nodding his head. + +“Hey, Pinocchio,” cried the tallest of them all, “that will do. We are +tired of hearing you bragging about yourself, you little turkey cock! +You may not be afraid of us, but remember we are not afraid of you, +either! You are alone, you know, and we are seven.” + +“Like the seven sins,” said Pinocchio, still laughing. + +“Did you hear that? He has insulted us all. He has called us sins.” + +“Pinocchio, apologize for that, or look out!” + +“Cuck--oo!” said the Marionette, mocking them with his thumb to his +nose. + +“You’ll be sorry!” + +“Cuck--oo!” + +“We’ll whip you soundly!” + +“Cuck--oo!” + +“You’ll go home with a broken nose!” + +“Cuck--oo!” + +“Very well, then! Take that, and keep it for your supper,” called out +the boldest of his tormentors. + +And with the words, he gave Pinocchio a terrible blow on the head. + +Pinocchio answered with another blow, and that was the signal for the +beginning of the fray. In a few moments, the fight raged hot and heavy +on both sides. + +Pinocchio, although alone, defended himself bravely. With those two +wooden feet of his, he worked so fast that his opponents kept at a +respectful distance. Wherever they landed, they left their painful mark +and the boys could only run away and howl. + +Enraged at not being able to fight the Marionette at close quarters, +they started to throw all kinds of books at him. Readers, geographies, +histories, grammars flew in all directions. But Pinocchio was keen of +eye and swift of movement, and the books only passed over his head, +landed in the sea, and disappeared. + +The fish, thinking they might be good to eat, came to the top of the +water in great numbers. Some took a nibble, some took a bite, but no +sooner had they tasted a page or two, than they spat them out with a wry +face, as if to say: + +“What a horrid taste! Our own food is so much better!” + +Meanwhile, the battle waxed more and more furious. At the noise, a large +Crab crawled slowly out of the water and, with a voice that sounded like +a trombone suffering from a cold, he cried out: + +“Stop fighting, you rascals! These battles between boys rarely end well. +Trouble is sure to come to you!” + +Poor Crab! He might as well have spoken to the wind. Instead of +listening to his good advice, Pinocchio turned to him and said as +roughly as he knew how: + +“Keep quiet, ugly Gab! It would be better for you to chew a few cough +drops to get rid of that cold you have. Go to bed and sleep! You will +feel better in the morning.” + +In the meantime, the boys, having used all their books, looked around +for new ammunition. Seeing Pinocchio’s bundle lying idle near-by, they +somehow managed to get hold of it. + +One of the books was a very large volume, an arithmetic text, heavily +bound in leather. It was Pinocchio’s pride. Among all his books, he +liked that one the best. + +Thinking it would make a fine missile, one of the boys took hold of it +and threw it with all his strength at Pinocchio’s head. But instead of +hitting the Marionette, the book struck one of the other boys, who, as +pale as a ghost, cried out faintly: “Oh, Mother, help! I’m dying!” and +fell senseless to the ground. + +At the sight of that pale little corpse, the boys were so frightened +that they turned tail and ran. In a few moments, all had disappeared. + +All except Pinocchio. Although scared to death by the horror of what +had been done, he ran to the sea and soaked his handkerchief in the cool +water and with it bathed the head of his poor little schoolmate. Sobbing +bitterly, he called to him, saying: + +“Eugene! My poor Eugene! Open your eyes and look at me! Why don’t you +answer? I was not the one who hit you, you know. Believe me, I didn’t +do it. Open your eyes, Eugene? If you keep them shut, I’ll die, too. +Oh, dear me, how shall I ever go home now? How shall I ever look at my +little mother again? What will happen to me? Where shall I go? Where +shall I hide? Oh, how much better it would have been, a thousand times +better, if only I had gone to school! Why did I listen to those boys? +They always were a bad influence! And to think that the teacher had told +me--and my mother, too!--‘Beware of bad company!’ That’s what she said. +But I’m stubborn and proud. I listen, but always I do as I wish. And +then I pay. I’ve never had a moment’s peace since I’ve been born! Oh, +dear! What will become of me? What will become of me?” + +Pinocchio went on crying and moaning and beating his head. Again and +again he called to his little friend, when suddenly he heard heavy steps +approaching. + +He looked up and saw two tall Carabineers near him. + +“What are you doing stretched out on the ground?” they asked Pinocchio. + +“I’m helping this schoolfellow of mine.” + +“Has he fainted?” + +“I should say so,” said one of the Carabineers, bending to look at +Eugene. “This boy has been wounded on the temple. Who has hurt him?” + +“Not I,” stammered the Marionette, who had hardly a breath left in his +whole body. + +“If it wasn’t you, who was it, then?” + +“Not I,” repeated Pinocchio. + +“And with what was he wounded?” + +“With this book,” and the Marionette picked up the arithmetic text to +show it to the officer. + +“And whose book is this?” + +“Mine.” + +“Enough.” + +“Not another word! Get up as quickly as you can and come along with us.” + +“But I--” + +“Come with us!” + +“But I am innocent.” + +“Come with us!” + +Before starting out, the officers called out to several fishermen +passing by in a boat and said to them: + +“Take care of this little fellow who has been hurt. Take him home and +bind his wounds. Tomorrow we’ll come after him.” + +They then took hold of Pinocchio and, putting him between them, said to +him in a rough voice: “March! And go quickly, or it will be the worse +for you!” + +They did not have to repeat their words. The Marionette walked swiftly +along the road to the village. But the poor fellow hardly knew what +he was about. He thought he had a nightmare. He felt ill. His eyes saw +everything double, his legs trembled, his tongue was dry, and, try as he +might, he could not utter a single word. Yet, in spite of this numbness +of feeling, he suffered keenly at the thought of passing under the +windows of his good little Fairy’s house. What would she say on seeing +him between two Carabineers? + +They had just reached the village, when a sudden gust of wind blew off +Pinocchio’s cap and made it go sailing far down the street. + +“Would you allow me,” the Marionette asked the Carabineers, “to run +after my cap?” + +“Very well, go; but hurry.” + +The Marionette went, picked up his cap--but instead of putting it on his +head, he stuck it between his teeth and then raced toward the sea. + +He went like a bullet out of a gun. + +The Carabineers, judging that it would be very difficult to catch him, +sent a large Mastiff after him, one that had won first prize in all the +dog races. Pinocchio ran fast and the Dog ran faster. At so much noise, +the people hung out of the windows or gathered in the street, anxious to +see the end of the contest. But they were disappointed, for the Dog and +Pinocchio raised so much dust on the road that, after a few moments, it +was impossible to see them. + + + + +CHAPTER 28 + +Pinocchio runs the danger of being fried in a pan like a fish + + +During that wild chase, Pinocchio lived through a terrible moment when +he almost gave himself up as lost. This was when Alidoro (that was the +Mastiff’s name), in a frenzy of running, came so near that he was on the +very point of reaching him. + +The Marionette heard, close behind him, the labored breathing of the +beast who was fast on his trail, and now and again even felt his hot +breath blow over him. + +Luckily, by this time, he was very near the shore, and the sea was in +sight; in fact, only a few short steps away. + +As soon as he set foot on the beach, Pinocchio gave a leap and fell into +the water. Alidoro tried to stop, but as he was running very fast, he +couldn’t, and he, too, landed far out in the sea. Strange though it may +seem, the Dog could not swim. He beat the water with his paws to hold +himself up, but the harder he tried, the deeper he sank. As he stuck his +head out once more, the poor fellow’s eyes were bulging and he barked +out wildly, “I drown! I drown!” + +“Drown!” answered Pinocchio from afar, happy at his escape. + +“Help, Pinocchio, dear little Pinocchio! Save me from death!” + +At those cries of suffering, the Marionette, who after all had a very +kind heart, was moved to compassion. He turned toward the poor animal +and said to him: + +“But if I help you, will you promise not to bother me again by running +after me?” + +“I promise! I promise! Only hurry, for if you wait another second, I’ll +be dead and gone!” + +Pinocchio hesitated still another minute. Then, remembering how his +father had often told him that a kind deed is never lost, he swam to +Alidoro and, catching hold of his tail, dragged him to the shore. + +The poor Dog was so weak he could not stand. He had swallowed so much +salt water that he was swollen like a balloon. However, Pinocchio, not +wishing to trust him too much, threw himself once again into the sea. As +he swam away, he called out: + +“Good-by, Alidoro, good luck and remember me to the family!” + +“Good-by, little Pinocchio,” answered the Dog. “A thousand thanks for +having saved me from death. You did me a good turn, and, in this world, +what is given is always returned. If the chance comes, I shall be +there.” + +Pinocchio went on swimming close to shore. At last he thought he had +reached a safe place. Glancing up and down the beach, he saw the opening +of a cave out of which rose a spiral of smoke. + +“In that cave,” he said to himself, “there must be a fire. So much the +better. I’ll dry my clothes and warm myself, and then--well--” + +His mind made up, Pinocchio swam to the rocks, but as he started to +climb, he felt something under him lifting him up higher and higher. He +tried to escape, but he was too late. To his great surprise, he found +himself in a huge net, amid a crowd of fish of all kinds and sizes, who +were fighting and struggling desperately to free themselves. + +At the same time, he saw a Fisherman come out of the cave, a Fisherman +so ugly that Pinocchio thought he was a sea monster. In place of hair, +his head was covered by a thick bush of green grass. Green was the skin +of his body, green were his eyes, green was the long, long beard that +reached down to his feet. He looked like a giant lizard with legs and +arms. + +When the Fisherman pulled the net out of the sea, he cried out joyfully: + +“Blessed Providence! Once more I’ll have a fine meal of fish!” + +“Thank Heaven, I’m not a fish!” said Pinocchio to himself, trying with +these words to find a little courage. + +The Fisherman took the net and the fish to the cave, a dark, gloomy, +smoky place. In the middle of it, a pan full of oil sizzled over a +smoky fire, sending out a repelling odor of tallow that took away one’s +breath. + +“Now, let’s see what kind of fish we have caught today,” said the Green +Fisherman. He put a hand as big as a spade into the net and pulled out a +handful of mullets. + +“Fine mullets, these!” he said, after looking at them and smelling them +with pleasure. After that, he threw them into a large, empty tub. + +Many times he repeated this performance. As he pulled each fish out of +the net, his mouth watered with the thought of the good dinner coming, +and he said: + +“Fine fish, these bass!” + +“Very tasty, these whitefish!” + +“Delicious flounders, these!” + +“What splendid crabs!” + +“And these dear little anchovies, with their heads still on!” + +As you can well imagine, the bass, the flounders, the whitefish, and +even the little anchovies all went together into the tub to keep the +mullets company. The last to come out of the net was Pinocchio. + +As soon as the Fisherman pulled him out, his green eyes opened wide with +surprise, and he cried out in fear: + +“What kind of fish is this? I don’t remember ever eating anything like +it.” + +He looked at him closely and after turning him over and over, he said at +last: + +“I understand. He must be a crab!” + +Pinocchio, mortified at being taken for a crab, said resentfully: + +“What nonsense! A crab indeed! I am no such thing. Beware how you deal +with me! I am a Marionette, I want you to know.” + +“A Marionette?” asked the Fisherman. “I must admit that a Marionette +fish is, for me, an entirely new kind of fish. So much the better. I’ll +eat you with greater relish.” + +“Eat me? But can’t you understand that I’m not a fish? Can’t you hear +that I speak and think as you do?” + +“It’s true,” answered the Fisherman; “but since I see that you are a +fish, well able to talk and think as I do, I’ll treat you with all due +respect.” + +“And that is--” + +“That, as a sign of my particular esteem, I’ll leave to you the choice +of the manner in which you are to be cooked. Do you wish to be fried in +a pan, or do you prefer to be cooked with tomato sauce?” + +“To tell you the truth,” answered Pinocchio, “if I must choose, I should +much rather go free so I may return home!” + +“Are you fooling? Do you think that I want to lose the opportunity to +taste such a rare fish? A Marionette fish does not come very often to +these seas. Leave it to me. I’ll fry you in the pan with the others. +I know you’ll like it. It’s always a comfort to find oneself in good +company.” + +The unlucky Marionette, hearing this, began to cry and wail and beg. +With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said: + +“How much better it would have been for me to go to school! I did listen +to my playmates and now I am paying for it! Oh! Oh! Oh!” + +And as he struggled and squirmed like an eel to escape from him, the +Green Fisherman took a stout cord and tied him hand and foot, and threw +him into the bottom of the tub with the others. + +Then he pulled a wooden bowl full of flour out of a cupboard and started +to roll the fish into it, one by one. When they were white with it, +he threw them into the pan. The first to dance in the hot oil were the +mullets, the bass followed, then the whitefish, the flounders, and the +anchovies. Pinocchio’s turn came last. Seeing himself so near to death +(and such a horrible death!) he began to tremble so with fright that he +had no voice left with which to beg for his life. + +The poor boy beseeched only with his eyes. But the Green Fisherman, +not even noticing that it was he, turned him over and over in the flour +until he looked like a Marionette made of chalk. + +Then he took him by the head and . . . + + + + +CHAPTER 29 + +Pinocchio returns to the Fairy’s house and she promises him that, on the +morrow, he will cease to be a Marionette and become a boy. A wonderful +party of coffee-and-milk to celebrate the great event. + + +Mindful of what the Fisherman had said, Pinocchio knew that all hope +of being saved had gone. He closed his eyes and waited for the final +moment. + +Suddenly, a large Dog, attracted by the odor of the boiling oil, came +running into the cave. + +“Get out!” cried the Fisherman threateningly and still holding onto the +Marionette, who was all covered with flour. + +But the poor Dog was very hungry, and whining and wagging his tail, he +tried to say: + +“Give me a bite of the fish and I’ll go in peace.” + +“Get out, I say!” repeated the Fisherman. + +And he drew back his foot to give the Dog a kick. + +Then the Dog, who, being really hungry, would take no refusal, turned +in a rage toward the Fisherman and bared his terrible fangs. And at that +moment, a pitiful little voice was heard saying: “Save me, Alidoro; if +you don’t, I fry!” + +The Dog immediately recognized Pinocchio’s voice. Great was his surprise +to find that the voice came from the little flour-covered bundle that +the Fisherman held in his hand. + +Then what did he do? With one great leap, he grasped that bundle in his +mouth and, holding it lightly between his teeth, ran through the door +and disappeared like a flash! + +The Fisherman, angry at seeing his meal snatched from under his nose, +ran after the Dog, but a bad fit of coughing made him stop and turn +back. + +Meanwhile, Alidoro, as soon as he had found the road which led to the +village, stopped and dropped Pinocchio softly to the ground. + +“How much I do thank you!” said the Marionette. + +“It is not necessary,” answered the Dog. “You saved me once, and what is +given is always returned. We are in this world to help one another.” + +“But how did you get in that cave?” + +“I was lying here on the sand more dead than alive, when an appetizing +odor of fried fish came to me. That odor tickled my hunger and I +followed it. Oh, if I had come a moment later!” + +“Don’t speak about it,” wailed Pinocchio, still trembling with fright. +“Don’t say a word. If you had come a moment later, I would be fried, +eaten, and digested by this time. Brrrrrr! I shiver at the mere thought +of it.” + +Alidoro laughingly held out his paw to the Marionette, who shook it +heartily, feeling that now he and the Dog were good friends. Then they +bid each other good-by and the Dog went home. + +Pinocchio, left alone, walked toward a little hut near by, where an old +man sat at the door sunning himself, and asked: + +“Tell me, good man, have you heard anything of a poor boy with a wounded +head, whose name was Eugene?” + +“The boy was brought to this hut and now--” + +“Now he is dead?” Pinocchio interrupted sorrowfully. + +“No, he is now alive and he has already returned home.” + +“Really? Really?” cried the Marionette, jumping around with joy. “Then +the wound was not serious?” + +“But it might have been--and even mortal,” answered the old man, “for a +heavy book was thrown at his head.” + +“And who threw it?” + +“A schoolmate of his, a certain Pinocchio.” + +“And who is this Pinocchio?” asked the Marionette, feigning ignorance. + +“They say he is a mischief-maker, a tramp, a street urchin--” + +“Calumnies! All calumnies!” + +“Do you know this Pinocchio?” + +“By sight!” answered the Marionette. + +“And what do you think of him?” asked the old man. + +“I think he’s a very good boy, fond of study, obedient, kind to his +Father, and to his whole family--” + +As he was telling all these enormous lies about himself, Pinocchio +touched his nose and found it twice as long as it should be. Scared out +of his wits, he cried out: + +“Don’t listen to me, good man! All the wonderful things I have said are +not true at all. I know Pinocchio well and he is indeed a very wicked +fellow, lazy and disobedient, who instead of going to school, runs away +with his playmates to have a good time.” + +At this speech, his nose returned to its natural size. + +“Why are you so pale?” the old man asked suddenly. + +“Let me tell you. Without knowing it, I rubbed myself against a newly +painted wall,” he lied, ashamed to say that he had been made ready for +the frying pan. + +“What have you done with your coat and your hat and your breeches?” + +“I met thieves and they robbed me. Tell me, my good man, have you not, +perhaps, a little suit to give me, so that I may go home?” + +“My boy, as for clothes, I have only a bag in which I keep hops. If you +want it, take it. There it is.” + +Pinocchio did not wait for him to repeat his words. He took the bag, +which happened to be empty, and after cutting a big hole at the top and +two at the sides, he slipped into it as if it were a shirt. Lightly clad +as he was, he started out toward the village. + +Along the way he felt very uneasy. In fact he was so unhappy that he +went along taking two steps forward and one back, and as he went he said +to himself: + +“How shall I ever face my good little Fairy? What will she say when she +sees me? Will she forgive this last trick of mine? I am sure she won’t. +Oh, no, she won’t. And I deserve it, as usual! For I am a rascal, fine +on promises which I never keep!” + +He came to the village late at night. It was so dark he could see +nothing and it was raining pitchforks. + +Pinocchio went straight to the Fairy’s house, firmly resolved to knock +at the door. + +When he found himself there, he lost courage and ran back a few steps. +A second time he came to the door and again he ran back. A third time +he repeated his performance. The fourth time, before he had time to lose +his courage, he grasped the knocker and made a faint sound with it. + +He waited and waited and waited. Finally, after a full half hour, a +top-floor window (the house had four stories) opened and Pinocchio saw +a large Snail look out. A tiny light glowed on top of her head. “Who +knocks at this late hour?” she called. + +“Is the Fairy home?” asked the Marionette. + +“The Fairy is asleep and does not wish to be disturbed. Who are you?” + +“It is I.” + +“Who’s I?” + +“Pinocchio.” + +“Who is Pinocchio?” + +“The Marionette; the one who lives in the Fairy’s house.” + +“Oh, I understand,” said the Snail. “Wait for me there. I’ll come down +to open the door for you.” + +“Hurry, I beg of you, for I am dying of cold.” + +“My boy, I am a snail and snails are never in a hurry.” + +An hour passed, two hours; and the door was still closed. Pinocchio, who +was trembling with fear and shivering from the cold rain on his back, +knocked a second time, this time louder than before. + +At that second knock, a window on the third floor opened and the same +Snail looked out. + +“Dear little Snail,” cried Pinocchio from the street. “I have been +waiting two hours for you! And two hours on a dreadful night like this +are as long as two years. Hurry, please!” + +“My boy,” answered the Snail in a calm, peaceful voice, “my dear boy, I +am a snail and snails are never in a hurry.” And the window closed. + +A few minutes later midnight struck; then one o’clock--two o’clock. And +the door still remained closed! + +Then Pinocchio, losing all patience, grabbed the knocker with both +hands, fully determined to awaken the whole house and street with it. +As soon as he touched the knocker, however, it became an eel and wiggled +away into the darkness. + +“Really?” cried Pinocchio, blind with rage. “If the knocker is gone, I +can still use my feet.” + +He stepped back and gave the door a most solemn kick. He kicked so hard +that his foot went straight through the door and his leg followed almost +to the knee. No matter how he pulled and tugged, he could not pull it +out. There he stayed as if nailed to the door. + +Poor Pinocchio! The rest of the night he had to spend with one foot +through the door and the other one in the air. + +As dawn was breaking, the door finally opened. That brave little animal, +the Snail, had taken exactly nine hours to go from the fourth floor to +the street. How she must have raced! + +“What are you doing with your foot through the door?” she asked the +Marionette, laughing. + +“It was a misfortune. Won’t you try, pretty little Snail, to free me +from this terrible torture?” + +“My boy, we need a carpenter here and I have never been one.” + +“Ask the Fairy to help me!” + +“The Fairy is asleep and does not want to be disturbed.” + +“But what do you want me to do, nailed to the door like this?” + +“Enjoy yourself counting the ants which are passing by.” + +“Bring me something to eat, at least, for I am faint with hunger.” + +“Immediately!” + +In fact, after three hours and a half, Pinocchio saw her return with +a silver tray on her head. On the tray there was bread, roast chicken, +fruit. + +“Here is the breakfast the Fairy sends to you,” said the Snail. + +At the sight of all these good things, the Marionette felt much better. + +What was his disgust, however, when on tasting the food, he found the +bread to be made of chalk, the chicken of cardboard, and the brilliant +fruit of colored alabaster! + +He wanted to cry, he wanted to give himself up to despair, he wanted to +throw away the tray and all that was on it. Instead, either from pain or +weakness, he fell to the floor in a dead faint. + +When he regained his senses, he found himself stretched out on a sofa +and the Fairy was seated near him. + +“This time also I forgive you,” said the Fairy to him. “But be careful +not to get into mischief again.” + +Pinocchio promised to study and to behave himself. And he kept his word +for the remainder of the year. At the end of it, he passed first in all +his examinations, and his report was so good that the Fairy said to him +happily: + +“Tomorrow your wish will come true.” + +“And what is it?” + +“Tomorrow you will cease to be a Marionette and will become a real boy.” + +Pinocchio was beside himself with joy. All his friends and schoolmates +must be invited to celebrate the great event! The Fairy promised to +prepare two hundred cups of coffee-and-milk and four hundred slices of +toast buttered on both sides. + +The day promised to be a very gay and happy one, but-- + +Unluckily, in a Marionette’s life there’s always a BUT which is apt to +spoil everything. + + + + +CHAPTER 30 + +Pinocchio, instead of becoming a boy, runs away to the Land of Toys with +his friend, Lamp-Wick. + + +Coming at last out of the surprise into which the Fairy’s words had +thrown him, Pinocchio asked for permission to give out the invitations. + +“Indeed, you may invite your friends to tomorrow’s party. Only remember +to return home before dark. Do you understand?” + +“I’ll be back in one hour without fail,” answered the Marionette. + +“Take care, Pinocchio! Boys give promises very easily, but they as +easily forget them.” + +“But I am not like those others. When I give my word I keep it.” + +“We shall see. In case you do disobey, you will be the one to suffer, +not anyone else.” + +“Why?” + +“Because boys who do not listen to their elders always come to grief.” + +“I certainly have,” said Pinocchio, “but from now on, I obey.” + +“We shall see if you are telling the truth.” + +Without adding another word, the Marionette bade the good Fairy good-by, +and singing and dancing, he left the house. + +In a little more than an hour, all his friends were invited. Some +accepted quickly and gladly. Others had to be coaxed, but when they +heard that the toast was to be buttered on both sides, they all ended by +accepting the invitation with the words, “We’ll come to please you.” + +Now it must be known that, among all his friends, Pinocchio had one whom +he loved most of all. The boy’s real name was Romeo, but everyone called +him Lamp-Wick, for he was long and thin and had a woebegone look about +him. + +Lamp-Wick was the laziest boy in the school and the biggest +mischief-maker, but Pinocchio loved him dearly. + +That day, he went straight to his friend’s house to invite him to the +party, but Lamp-Wick was not at home. He went a second time, and again a +third, but still without success. + +Where could he be? Pinocchio searched here and there and everywhere, and +finally discovered him hiding near a farmer’s wagon. + +“What are you doing there?” asked Pinocchio, running up to him. + +“I am waiting for midnight to strike to go--” + +“Where?” + +“Far, far away!” + +“And I have gone to your house three times to look for you!” + +“What did you want from me?” + +“Haven’t you heard the news? Don’t you know what good luck is mine?” + +“What is it?” + +“Tomorrow I end my days as a Marionette and become a boy, like you and +all my other friends.” + +“May it bring you luck!” + +“Shall I see you at my party tomorrow?” + +“But I’m telling you that I go tonight.” + +“At what time?” + +“At midnight.” + +“And where are you going?” + +“To a real country--the best in the world--a wonderful place!” + +“What is it called?” + +“It is called the Land of Toys. Why don’t you come, too?” + +“I? Oh, no!” + +“You are making a big mistake, Pinocchio. Believe me, if you don’t come, +you’ll be sorry. Where can you find a place that will agree better with +you and me? No schools, no teachers, no books! In that blessed place +there is no such thing as study. Here, it is only on Saturdays that +we have no school. In the Land of Toys, every day, except Sunday, is a +Saturday. Vacation begins on the first of January and ends on the last +day of December. That is the place for me! All countries should be like +it! How happy we should all be!” + +“But how does one spend the day in the Land of Toys?” + +“Days are spent in play and enjoyment from morn till night. At night one +goes to bed, and next morning, the good times begin all over again. What +do you think of it?” + +“H’m--!” said Pinocchio, nodding his wooden head, as if to say, “It’s +the kind of life which would agree with me perfectly.” + +“Do you want to go with me, then? Yes or no? You must make up your +mind.” + +“No, no, and again no! I have promised my kind Fairy to become a good +boy, and I want to keep my word. Just see: The sun is setting and I must +leave you and run. Good-by and good luck to you!” + +“Where are you going in such a hurry?” + +“Home. My good Fairy wants me to return home before night.” + +“Wait two minutes more.” + +“It’s too late!” + +“Only two minutes.” + +“And if the Fairy scolds me?” + +“Let her scold. After she gets tired, she will stop,” said Lamp-Wick. + +“Are you going alone or with others?” + +“Alone? There will be more than a hundred of us!” + +“Will you walk?” + +“At midnight the wagon passes here that is to take us within the +boundaries of that marvelous country.” + +“How I wish midnight would strike!” + +“Why?” + +“To see you all set out together.” + +“Stay here a while longer and you will see us!” + +“No, no. I want to return home.” + +“Wait two more minutes.” + +“I have waited too long as it is. The Fairy will be worried.” + +“Poor Fairy! Is she afraid the bats will eat you up?” + +“Listen, Lamp-Wick,” said the Marionette, “are you really sure that +there are no schools in the Land of Toys?” “Not even the shadow of one.” + +“Not even one teacher?” + +“Not one.” + +“And one does not have to study?” + +“Never, never, never!” + +“What a great land!” said Pinocchio, feeling his mouth water. “What a +beautiful land! I have never been there, but I can well imagine it.” + +“Why don’t you come, too?” + +“It is useless for you to tempt me! I told you I promised my good Fairy +to behave myself, and I am going to keep my word.” + +“Good-by, then, and remember me to the grammar schools, to the high +schools, and even to the colleges if you meet them on the way.” + +“Good-by, Lamp-Wick. Have a pleasant trip, enjoy yourself, and remember +your friends once in a while.” + +With these words, the Marionette started on his way home. Turning once +more to his friend, he asked him: + +“But are you sure that, in that country, each week is composed of six +Saturdays and one Sunday?” + +“Very sure!” + +“And that vacation begins on the first of January and ends on the +thirty-first of December?” + +“Very, very sure!” + +“What a great country!” repeated Pinocchio, puzzled as to what to do. + +Then, in sudden determination, he said hurriedly: + +“Good-by for the last time, and good luck.” + +“Good-by.” + +“How soon will you go?” + +“Within two hours.” + +“What a pity! If it were only one hour, I might wait for you.” + +“And the Fairy?” + +“By this time I’m late, and one hour more or less makes very little +difference.” + +“Poor Pinocchio! And if the Fairy scolds you?” + +“Oh, I’ll let her scold. After she gets tired, she will stop.” + +In the meantime, the night became darker and darker. All at once in the +distance a small light flickered. A queer sound could be heard, soft +as a little bell, and faint and muffled like the buzz of a far-away +mosquito. + +“There it is!” cried Lamp-Wick, jumping to his feet. + +“What?” whispered Pinocchio. + +“The wagon which is coming to get me. For the last time, are you coming +or not?” + +“But is it really true that in that country boys never have to study?” + +“Never, never, never!” + +“What a wonderful, beautiful, marvelous country! Oh--h--h!!” + + + + +CHAPTER 31 + +After five months of play, Pinocchio wakes up one fine morning and finds +a great surprise awaiting him. + + +Finally the wagon arrived. It made no noise, for its wheels were bound +with straw and rags. + +It was drawn by twelve pair of donkeys, all of the same size, but all +of different color. Some were gray, others white, and still others a +mixture of brown and black. Here and there were a few with large yellow +and blue stripes. + +The strangest thing of all was that those twenty-four donkeys, instead +of being iron-shod like any other beast of burden, had on their feet +laced shoes made of leather, just like the ones boys wear. + +And the driver of the wagon? + +Imagine to yourselves a little, fat man, much wider than he was long, +round and shiny as a ball of butter, with a face beaming like an apple, +a little mouth that always smiled, and a voice small and wheedling like +that of a cat begging for food. + +No sooner did any boy see him than he fell in love with him, and nothing +satisfied him but to be allowed to ride in his wagon to that lovely +place called the Land of Toys. + +In fact the wagon was so closely packed with boys of all ages that it +looked like a box of sardines. They were uncomfortable, they were piled +one on top of the other, they could hardly breathe; yet not one word of +complaint was heard. The thought that in a few hours they would reach a +country where there were no schools, no books, no teachers, made these +boys so happy that they felt neither hunger, nor thirst, nor sleep, nor +discomfort. + +No sooner had the wagon stopped than the little fat man turned to +Lamp-Wick. With bows and smiles, he asked in a wheedling tone: + +“Tell me, my fine boy, do you also want to come to my wonderful +country?” + +“Indeed I do.” + +“But I warn you, my little dear, there’s no more room in the wagon. It +is full.” + +“Never mind,” answered Lamp-Wick. “If there’s no room inside, I can sit +on the top of the coach.” + +And with one leap, he perched himself there. + +“What about you, my love?” asked the Little Man, turning politely to +Pinocchio. “What are you going to do? Will you come with us, or do you +stay here?” + +“I stay here,” answered Pinocchio. “I want to return home, as I prefer +to study and to succeed in life.” + +“May that bring you luck!” + +“Pinocchio!” Lamp-Wick called out. “Listen to me. Come with us and we’ll +always be happy.” + +“No, no, no!” + +“Come with us and we’ll always be happy,” cried four other voices from +the wagon. + +“Come with us and we’ll always be happy,” shouted the one hundred and +more boys in the wagon, all together. “And if I go with you, what will +my good Fairy say?” asked the Marionette, who was beginning to waver and +weaken in his good resolutions. + +“Don’t worry so much. Only think that we are going to a land where +we shall be allowed to make all the racket we like from morning till +night.” + +Pinocchio did not answer, but sighed deeply once--twice--a third time. +Finally, he said: + +“Make room for me. I want to go, too!” + +“The seats are all filled,” answered the Little Man, “but to show you +how much I think of you, take my place as coachman.” + +“And you?” + +“I’ll walk.” + +“No, indeed. I could not permit such a thing. I much prefer riding one +of these donkeys,” cried Pinocchio. + +No sooner said than done. He approached the first donkey and tried to +mount it. But the little animal turned suddenly and gave him such a +terrible kick in the stomach that Pinocchio was thrown to the ground and +fell with his legs in the air. + +At this unlooked-for entertainment, the whole company of runaways +laughed uproariously. + +The little fat man did not laugh. He went up to the rebellious animal, +and, still smiling, bent over him lovingly and bit off half of his right +ear. + +In the meantime, Pinocchio lifted himself up from the ground, and with +one leap landed on the donkey’s back. The leap was so well taken that +all the boys shouted, + +“Hurrah for Pinocchio!” and clapped their hands in hearty applause. + +Suddenly the little donkey gave a kick with his two hind feet and, +at this unexpected move, the poor Marionette found himself once again +sprawling right in the middle of the road. + +Again the boys shouted with laughter. But the Little Man, instead of +laughing, became so loving toward the little animal that, with another +kiss, he bit off half of his left ear. + +“You can mount now, my boy,” he then said to Pinocchio. “Have no fear. +That donkey was worried about something, but I have spoken to him and +now he seems quiet and reasonable.” + +Pinocchio mounted and the wagon started on its way. While the donkeys +galloped along the stony road, the Marionette fancied he heard a very +quiet voice whispering to him: + +“Poor silly! You have done as you wished. But you are going to be a +sorry boy before very long.” + +Pinocchio, greatly frightened, looked about him to see whence the words +had come, but he saw no one. The donkeys galloped, the wagon rolled +on smoothly, the boys slept (Lamp-Wick snored like a dormouse) and the +little, fat driver sang sleepily between his teeth. + +After a mile or so, Pinocchio again heard the same faint voice +whispering: “Remember, little simpleton! Boys who stop studying and turn +their backs upon books and schools and teachers in order to give all +their time to nonsense and pleasure, sooner or later come to grief. Oh, +how well I know this! How well I can prove it to you! A day will come +when you will weep bitterly, even as I am weeping now--but it will be +too late!” + +At these whispered words, the Marionette grew more and more frightened. +He jumped to the ground, ran up to the donkey on whose back he had been +riding, and taking his nose in his hands, looked at him. Think how great +was his surprise when he saw that the donkey was weeping--weeping just +like a boy! + +“Hey, Mr. Driver!” cried the Marionette. “Do you know what strange thing +is happening here! This donkey weeps.” + +“Let him weep. When he gets married, he will have time to laugh.” + +“Have you perhaps taught him to speak?” + +“No, he learned to mumble a few words when he lived for three years with +a band of trained dogs.” + +“Poor beast!” + +“Come, come,” said the Little Man, “do not lose time over a donkey that +can weep. Mount quickly and let us go. The night is cool and the road is +long.” + +Pinocchio obeyed without another word. The wagon started again. Toward +dawn the next morning they finally reached that much-longed-for country, +the Land of Toys. + +This great land was entirely different from any other place in the +world. Its population, large though it was, was composed wholly of boys. +The oldest were about fourteen years of age, the youngest, eight. In +the street, there was such a racket, such shouting, such blowing of +trumpets, that it was deafening. Everywhere groups of boys were gathered +together. Some played at marbles, at hopscotch, at ball. Others rode on +bicycles or on wooden horses. Some played at blindman’s buff, others at +tag. Here a group played circus, there another sang and recited. A few +turned somersaults, others walked on their hands with their feet in the +air. Generals in full uniform leading regiments of cardboard soldiers +passed by. Laughter, shrieks, howls, catcalls, hand-clapping followed +this parade. One boy made a noise like a hen, another like a rooster, +and a third imitated a lion in his den. All together they created such +a pandemonium that it would have been necessary for you to put cotton +in your ears. The squares were filled with small wooden theaters, +overflowing with boys from morning till night, and on the walls of the +houses, written with charcoal, were words like these: HURRAH FOR THE +LAND OF TOYS! DOWN WITH ARITHMETIC! NO MORE SCHOOL! + +As soon as they had set foot in that land, Pinocchio, Lamp-Wick, and +all the other boys who had traveled with them started out on a tour of +investigation. They wandered everywhere, they looked into every nook and +corner, house and theater. They became everybody’s friend. Who could be +happier than they? + +What with entertainments and parties, the hours, the days, the weeks +passed like lightning. + +“Oh, what a beautiful life this is!” said Pinocchio each time that, by +chance, he met his friend Lamp-Wick. + +“Was I right or wrong?” answered Lamp-Wick. “And to think you did not +want to come! To think that even yesterday the idea came into your head +to return home to see your Fairy and to start studying again! If today +you are free from pencils and books and school, you owe it to me, to +my advice, to my care. Do you admit it? Only true friends count, after +all.” + +“It’s true, Lamp-Wick, it’s true. If today I am a really happy boy, it +is all because of you. And to think that the teacher, when speaking of +you, used to say, ‘Do not go with that Lamp-Wick! He is a bad companion +and some day he will lead you astray.’” + +“Poor teacher!” answered the other, nodding his head. “Indeed I know how +much he disliked me and how he enjoyed speaking ill of me. But I am of a +generous nature, and I gladly forgive him.” + +“Great soul!” said Pinocchio, fondly embracing his friend. + +Five months passed and the boys continued playing and enjoying +themselves from morn till night, without ever seeing a book, or a desk, +or a school. But, my children, there came a morning when Pinocchio awoke +and found a great surprise awaiting him, a surprise which made him feel +very unhappy, as you shall see. + + + + +CHAPTER 32 + +Pinocchio’s ears become like those of a Donkey. In a little while he +changes into a real Donkey and begins to bray. + + +Everyone, at one time or another, has found some surprise awaiting him. +Of the kind which Pinocchio had on that eventful morning of his life, +there are but few. + +What was it? I will tell you, my dear little readers. On awakening, +Pinocchio put his hand up to his head and there he found-- + +Guess! + +He found that, during the night, his ears had grown at least ten full +inches! + +You must know that the Marionette, even from his birth, had very small +ears, so small indeed that to the naked eye they could hardly be seen. +Fancy how he felt when he noticed that overnight those two dainty organs +had become as long as shoe brushes! + +He went in search of a mirror, but not finding any, he just filled a +basin with water and looked at himself. There he saw what he never +could have wished to see. His manly figure was adorned and enriched by a +beautiful pair of donkey’s ears. + +I leave you to think of the terrible grief, the shame, the despair of +the poor Marionette. + +He began to cry, to scream, to knock his head against the wall, but the +more he shrieked, the longer and the more hairy grew his ears. + +At those piercing shrieks, a Dormouse came into the room, a fat little +Dormouse, who lived upstairs. Seeing Pinocchio so grief-stricken, she +asked him anxiously: + +“What is the matter, dear little neighbor?” + +“I am sick, my little Dormouse, very, very sick--and from an illness +which frightens me! Do you understand how to feel the pulse?” + +“A little.” + +“Feel mine then and tell me if I have a fever.” + +The Dormouse took Pinocchio’s wrist between her paws and, after a few +minutes, looked up at him sorrowfully and said: “My friend, I am sorry, +but I must give you some very sad news.” + +“What is it?” + +“You have a very bad fever.” + +“But what fever is it?” + +“The donkey fever.” + +“I don’t know anything about that fever,” answered the Marionette, +beginning to understand even too well what was happening to him. + +“Then I will tell you all about it,” said the Dormouse. “Know then that, +within two or three hours, you will no longer be a Marionette, nor a +boy.” + +“What shall I be?” + +“Within two or three hours you will become a real donkey, just like the +ones that pull the fruit carts to market.” + +“Oh, what have I done? What have I done?” cried Pinocchio, grasping his +two long ears in his hands and pulling and tugging at them angrily, just +as if they belonged to another. + +“My dear boy,” answered the Dormouse to cheer him up a bit, “why worry +now? What is done cannot be undone, you know. Fate has decreed that all +lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all +their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys.” + +“But is it really so?” asked the Marionette, sobbing bitterly. + +“I am sorry to say it is. And tears now are useless. You should have +thought of all this before.” + +“But the fault is not mine. Believe me, little Dormouse, the fault is +all Lamp-Wick’s.” + +“And who is this Lamp-Wick?” + +“A classmate of mine. I wanted to return home. I wanted to be obedient. +I wanted to study and to succeed in school, but Lamp-Wick said to me, +‘Why do you want to waste your time studying? Why do you want to go to +school? Come with me to the Land of Toys. There we’ll never study again. +There we can enjoy ourselves and be happy from morn till night.’” + +“And why did you follow the advice of that false friend?” + +“Why? Because, my dear little Dormouse, I am a heedless +Marionette--heedless and heartless. Oh! If I had only had a bit of +heart, I should never have abandoned that good Fairy, who loved me +so well and who has been so kind to me! And by this time, I should no +longer be a Marionette. I should have become a real boy, like all these +friends of mine! Oh, if I meet Lamp-Wick I am going to tell him what I +think of him--and more, too!” + +After this long speech, Pinocchio walked to the door of the room. But +when he reached it, remembering his donkey ears, he felt ashamed to show +them to the public and turned back. He took a large cotton bag from a +shelf, put it on his head, and pulled it far down to his very nose. + +Thus adorned, he went out. He looked for Lamp-Wick everywhere, along the +streets, in the squares, inside the theatres, everywhere; but he was +not to be found. He asked everyone whom he met about him, but no one had +seen him. In desperation, he returned home and knocked at the door. + +“Who is it?” asked Lamp-Wick from within. + +“It is I!” answered the Marionette. + +“Wait a minute.” + +After a full half hour the door opened. Another surprise awaited +Pinocchio! There in the room stood his friend, with a large cotton bag +on his head, pulled far down to his very nose. + +At the sight of that bag, Pinocchio felt slightly happier and thought to +himself: + +“My friend must be suffering from the same sickness that I am! I wonder +if he, too, has donkey fever?” + +But pretending he had seen nothing, he asked with a smile: + +“How are you, my dear Lamp-Wick?” + +“Very well. Like a mouse in a Parmesan cheese.” + +“Is that really true?” + +“Why should I lie to you?” + +“I beg your pardon, my friend, but why then are you wearing that cotton +bag over your ears?” + +“The doctor has ordered it because one of my knees hurts. And you, dear +Marionette, why are you wearing that cotton bag down to your nose?” + +“The doctor has ordered it because I have bruised my foot.” + +“Oh, my poor Pinocchio!” + +“Oh, my poor Lamp-Wick!” + +An embarrassingly long silence followed these words, during which time +the two friends looked at each other in a mocking way. + +Finally the Marionette, in a voice sweet as honey and soft as a flute, +said to his companion: + +“Tell me, Lamp-Wick, dear friend, have you ever suffered from an +earache?” + +“Never! And you?” + +“Never! Still, since this morning my ear has been torturing me.” + +“So has mine.” + +“Yours, too? And which ear is it?” + +“Both of them. And yours?” + +“Both of them, too. I wonder if it could be the same sickness.” + +“I’m afraid it is.” + +“Will you do me a favor, Lamp-Wick?” + +“Gladly! With my whole heart.” + +“Will you let me see your ears?” + +“Why not? But before I show you mine, I want to see yours, dear +Pinocchio.” + +“No. You must show yours first.” + +“No, my dear! Yours first, then mine.” + +“Well, then,” said the Marionette, “let us make a contract.” + +“Let’s hear the contract!” + +“Let us take off our caps together. All right?” + +“All right.” + +“Ready then!” + +Pinocchio began to count, “One! Two! Three!” + +At the word “Three!” the two boys pulled off their caps and threw them +high in air. + +And then a scene took place which is hard to believe, but it is all too +true. The Marionette and his friend, Lamp-Wick, when they saw each other +both stricken by the same misfortune, instead of feeling sorrowful and +ashamed, began to poke fun at each other, and after much nonsense, they +ended by bursting out into hearty laughter. + +They laughed and laughed, and laughed again--laughed till they +ached--laughed till they cried. + +But all of a sudden Lamp-Wick stopped laughing. He tottered and almost +fell. Pale as a ghost, he turned to Pinocchio and said: + +“Help, help, Pinocchio!” + +“What is the matter?” + +“Oh, help me! I can no longer stand up.” + +“I can’t either,” cried Pinocchio; and his laughter turned to tears as +he stumbled about helplessly. + +They had hardly finished speaking, when both of them fell on all fours +and began running and jumping around the room. As they ran, their arms +turned into legs, their faces lengthened into snouts and their backs +became covered with long gray hairs. + +This was humiliation enough, but the most horrible moment was the one +in which the two poor creatures felt their tails appear. Overcome with +shame and grief, they tried to cry and bemoan their fate. + +But what is done can’t be undone! Instead of moans and cries, they burst +forth into loud donkey brays, which sounded very much like, “Haw! Haw! +Haw!” + +At that moment, a loud knocking was heard at the door and a voice called +to them: + +“Open! I am the Little Man, the driver of the wagon which brought you +here. Open, I say, or beware!” + + + + +CHAPTER 33 + +Pinocchio, having become a Donkey, is bought by the owner of a Circus, +who wants to teach him to do tricks. The Donkey becomes lame and is sold +to a man who wants to use his skin for a drumhead. + + +Very sad and downcast were the two poor little fellows as they stood +and looked at each other. Outside the room, the Little Man grew more and +more impatient, and finally gave the door such a violent kick that +it flew open. With his usual sweet smile on his lips, he looked at +Pinocchio and Lamp-Wick and said to them: + +“Fine work, boys! You have brayed well, so well that I recognized your +voices immediately, and here I am.” + +On hearing this, the two Donkeys bowed their heads in shame, dropped +their ears, and put their tails between their legs. + +At first, the Little Man petted and caressed them and smoothed down +their hairy coats. Then he took out a currycomb and worked over them +till they shone like glass. Satisfied with the looks of the two little +animals, he bridled them and took them to a market place far away from +the Land of Toys, in the hope of selling them at a good price. + +In fact, he did not have to wait very long for an offer. Lamp-Wick was +bought by a farmer whose donkey had died the day before. Pinocchio went +to the owner of a circus, who wanted to teach him to do tricks for his +audiences. + +And now do you understand what the Little Man’s profession was? This +horrid little being, whose face shone with kindness, went about the +world looking for boys. Lazy boys, boys who hated books, boys who wanted +to run away from home, boys who were tired of school--all these were his +joy and his fortune. He took them with him to the Land of Toys and let +them enjoy themselves to their heart’s content. When, after months of +all play and no work, they became little donkeys, he sold them on the +market place. In a few years, he had become a millionaire. + +What happened to Lamp-Wick? My dear children, I do not know. Pinocchio, +I can tell you, met with great hardships even from the first day. + +After putting him in a stable, his new master filled his manger with +straw, but Pinocchio, after tasting a mouthful, spat it out. + +Then the man filled the manger with hay. But Pinocchio did not like that +any better. + +“Ah, you don’t like hay either?” he cried angrily. “Wait, my pretty +Donkey, I’ll teach you not to be so particular.” + +Without more ado, he took a whip and gave the Donkey a hearty blow +across the legs. + +Pinocchio screamed with pain and as he screamed he brayed: + +“Haw! Haw! Haw! I can’t digest straw!” + +“Then eat the hay!” answered his master, who understood the Donkey +perfectly. + +“Haw! Haw! Haw! Hay gives me a headache!” + +“Do you pretend, by any chance, that I should feed you duck or chicken?” + asked the man again, and, angrier than ever, he gave poor Pinocchio +another lashing. + +At that second beating, Pinocchio became very quiet and said no more. + +After that, the door of the stable was closed and he was left alone. It +was many hours since he had eaten anything and he started to yawn from +hunger. As he yawned, he opened a mouth as big as an oven. + +Finally, not finding anything else in the manger, he tasted the hay. +After tasting it, he chewed it well, closed his eyes, and swallowed it. + +“This hay is not bad,” he said to himself. “But how much happier I +should be if I had studied! Just now, instead of hay, I should be eating +some good bread and butter. Patience!” + +Next morning, when he awoke, Pinocchio looked in the manger for more +hay, but it was all gone. He had eaten it all during the night. + +He tried the straw, but, as he chewed away at it, he noticed to his +great disappointment that it tasted neither like rice nor like macaroni. + +“Patience!” he repeated as he chewed. “If only my misfortune might serve +as a lesson to disobedient boys who refuse to study! Patience! Have +patience!” + +“Patience indeed!” shouted his master just then, as he came into the +stable. “Do you think, perhaps, my little Donkey, that I have brought +you here only to give you food and drink? Oh, no! You are to help me +earn some fine gold pieces, do you hear? Come along, now. I am going +to teach you to jump and bow, to dance a waltz and a polka, and even to +stand on your head.” + +Poor Pinocchio, whether he liked it or not, had to learn all these +wonderful things; but it took him three long months and cost him many, +many lashings before he was pronounced perfect. + +The day came at last when Pinocchio’s master was able to announce an +extraordinary performance. The announcements, posted all around the +town, and written in large letters, read thus: + + GREAT SPECTACLE TONIGHT + LEAPS AND EXERCISES BY THE GREAT ARTISTS + AND THE FAMOUS HORSES + of the + COMPANY + + First Public Appearance + + of the + + FAMOUS DONKEY + + called + + PINOCCHIO + + THE STAR OF THE DANCE + ---- + The Theater will be as Light as Day + +That night, as you can well imagine, the theater was filled to +overflowing one hour before the show was scheduled to start. + +Not an orchestra chair could be had, not a balcony seat, nor a gallery +seat; not even for their weight in gold. + +The place swarmed with boys and girls of all ages and sizes, wriggling +and dancing about in a fever of impatience to see the famous Donkey +dance. + +When the first part of the performance was over, the Owner and Manager +of the circus, in a black coat, white knee breeches, and patent leather +boots, presented himself to the public and in a loud, pompous voice made +the following announcement: + +“Most honored friends, Gentlemen and Ladies! + +“Your humble servant, the Manager of this theater, presents himself +before you tonight in order to introduce to you the greatest, the most +famous Donkey in the world, a Donkey that has had the great honor in his +short life of performing before the kings and queens and emperors of all +the great courts of Europe. + +“We thank you for your attention!” + +This speech was greeted by much laughter and applause. And the applause +grew to a roar when Pinocchio, the famous Donkey, appeared in the circus +ring. He was handsomely arrayed. A new bridle of shining leather with +buckles of polished brass was on his back; two white camellias were tied +to his ears; ribbons and tassels of red silk adorned his mane, which was +divided into many curls. A great sash of gold and silver was fastened +around his waist and his tail was decorated with ribbons of many +brilliant colors. He was a handsome Donkey indeed! + +The Manager, when introducing him to the public, added these words: + +“Most honored audience! I shall not take your time tonight to tell you +of the great difficulties which I have encountered while trying to tame +this animal, since I found him in the wilds of Africa. Observe, I beg +of you, the savage look of his eye. All the means used by centuries of +civilization in subduing wild beasts failed in this case. I had finally +to resort to the gentle language of the whip in order to bring him to +my will. With all my kindness, however, I never succeeded in gaining my +Donkey’s love. He is still today as savage as the day I found him. He +still fears and hates me. But I have found in him one great redeeming +feature. Do you see this little bump on his forehead? It is this bump +which gives him his great talent of dancing and using his feet as nimbly +as a human being. Admire him, O signori, and enjoy yourselves. I let +you, now, be the judges of my success as a teacher of animals. Before +I leave you, I wish to state that there will be another performance +tomorrow night. If the weather threatens rain, the great spectacle will +take place at eleven o’clock in the morning.” + +The Manager bowed and then turned to Pinocchio and said: “Ready, +Pinocchio! Before starting your performance, salute your audience!” + +Pinocchio obediently bent his two knees to the ground and remained +kneeling until the Manager, with the crack of the whip, cried sharply: +“Walk!” + +The Donkey lifted himself on his four feet and walked around the ring. A +few minutes passed and again the voice of the Manager called: + +“Quickstep!” and Pinocchio obediently changed his step. + +“Gallop!” and Pinocchio galloped. + +“Full speed!” and Pinocchio ran as fast as he could. As he ran the +master raised his arm and a pistol shot rang in the air. + +At the shot, the little Donkey fell to the ground as if he were really +dead. + +A shower of applause greeted the Donkey as he arose to his feet. Cries +and shouts and handclappings were heard on all sides. + +At all that noise, Pinocchio lifted his head and raised his eyes. There, +in front of him, in a box sat a beautiful woman. Around her neck she +wore a long gold chain, from which hung a large medallion. On the +medallion was painted the picture of a Marionette. + +“That picture is of me! That beautiful lady is my Fairy!” said Pinocchio +to himself, recognizing her. He felt so happy that he tried his best to +cry out: + +“Oh, my Fairy! My own Fairy!” + +But instead of words, a loud braying was heard in the theater, so loud +and so long that all the spectators--men, women, and children, but +especially the children--burst out laughing. + +Then, in order to teach the Donkey that it was not good manners to bray +before the public, the Manager hit him on the nose with the handle of +the whip. + +The poor little Donkey stuck out a long tongue and licked his nose for a +long time in an effort to take away the pain. + +And what was his grief when on looking up toward the boxes, he saw that +the Fairy had disappeared! + +He felt himself fainting, his eyes filled with tears, and he wept +bitterly. No one knew it, however, least of all the Manager, who, +cracking his whip, cried out: + +“Bravo, Pinocchio! Now show us how gracefully you can jump through the +rings.” + +Pinocchio tried two or three times, but each time he came near the ring, +he found it more to his taste to go under it. The fourth time, at a look +from his master he leaped through it, but as he did so his hind legs +caught in the ring and he fell to the floor in a heap. + +When he got up, he was lame and could hardly limp as far as the stable. + +“Pinocchio! We want Pinocchio! We want the little Donkey!” cried the +boys from the orchestra, saddened by the accident. + +No one saw Pinocchio again that evening. + +The next morning the veterinary--that is, the animal doctor--declared +that he would be lame for the rest of his life. + +“What do I want with a lame donkey?” said the Manager to the stableboy. +“Take him to the market and sell him.” + +When they reached the square, a buyer was soon found. + +“How much do you ask for that little lame Donkey?” he asked. + +“Four dollars.” + +“I’ll give you four cents. Don’t think I’m buying him for work. I want +only his skin. It looks very tough and I can use it to make myself a +drumhead. I belong to a musical band in my village and I need a drum.” + +I leave it to you, my dear children, to picture to yourself the great +pleasure with which Pinocchio heard that he was to become a drumhead! + +As soon as the buyer had paid the four cents, the Donkey changed hands. +His new owner took him to a high cliff overlooking the sea, put a stone +around his neck, tied a rope to one of his hind feet, gave him a push, +and threw him into the water. + +Pinocchio sank immediately. And his new master sat on the cliff waiting +for him to drown, so as to skin him and make himself a drumhead. + + + + +CHAPTER 34 + +Pinocchio is thrown into the sea, eaten by fishes, and becomes a +Marionette once more. As he swims to land, he is swallowed by the +Terrible Shark. + + +Down into the sea, deeper and deeper, sank Pinocchio, and finally, after +fifty minutes of waiting, the man on the cliff said to himself: + +“By this time my poor little lame Donkey must be drowned. Up with him +and then I can get to work on my beautiful drum.” + +He pulled the rope which he had tied to Pinocchio’s leg--pulled and +pulled and pulled and, at last, he saw appear on the surface of the +water--Can you guess what? Instead of a dead donkey, he saw a very much +alive Marionette, wriggling and squirming like an eel. + +Seeing that wooden Marionette, the poor man thought he was dreaming and +sat there with his mouth wide open and his eyes popping out of his head. + +Gathering his wits together, he said: + +“And the Donkey I threw into the sea?” + +“I am that Donkey,” answered the Marionette laughing. + +“You?” + +“I.” + +“Ah, you little cheat! Are you poking fun at me?” + +“Poking fun at you? Not at all, dear Master. I am talking seriously.” + +“But, then, how is it that you, who a few minutes ago were a donkey, are +now standing before me a wooden Marionette?” + +“It may be the effect of salt water. The sea is fond of playing these +tricks.” + +“Be careful, Marionette, be careful! Don’t laugh at me! Woe be to you, +if I lose my patience!” + +“Well, then, my Master, do you want to know my whole story? Untie my leg +and I can tell it to you better.” + +The old fellow, curious to know the true story of the Marionette’s life, +immediately untied the rope which held his foot. Pinocchio, feeling free +as a bird of the air, began his tale: + +“Know, then, that, once upon a time, I was a wooden Marionette, just +as I am today. One day I was about to become a boy, a real boy, but on +account of my laziness and my hatred of books, and because I listened to +bad companions, I ran away from home. One beautiful morning, I awoke to +find myself changed into a donkey--long ears, gray coat, even a tail! +What a shameful day for me! I hope you will never experience one like +it, dear Master. I was taken to the fair and sold to a Circus Owner, who +tried to make me dance and jump through the rings. One night, during a +performance, I had a bad fall and became lame. Not knowing what to do +with a lame donkey, the Circus Owner sent me to the market place and you +bought me.” + +“Indeed I did! And I paid four cents for you. Now who will return my +money to me?” + +“But why did you buy me? You bought me to do me harm--to kill me--to +make a drumhead out of me!” + +“Indeed I did! And now where shall I find another skin?” + +“Never mind, dear Master. There are so many donkeys in this world.” + +“Tell me, impudent little rogue, does your story end here?” + +“One more word,” answered the Marionette, “and I am through. After +buying me, you brought me here to kill me. But feeling sorry for me, you +tied a stone to my neck and threw me to the bottom of the sea. That was +very good and kind of you to want me to suffer as little as possible and +I shall remember you always. And now my Fairy will take care of me, even +if you--” + +“Your Fairy? Who is she?” + +“She is my mother, and, like all other mothers who love their children, +she never loses sight of me, even though I do not deserve it. And today +this good Fairy of mine, as soon as she saw me in danger of drowning, +sent a thousand fishes to the spot where I lay. They thought I was +really a dead donkey and began to eat me. What great bites they took! +One ate my ears, another my nose, a third my neck and my mane. Some went +at my legs and some at my back, and among the others, there was one tiny +fish so gentle and polite that he did me the great favor of eating even +my tail.” + +“From now on,” said the man, horrified, “I swear I shall never again +taste fish. How I should enjoy opening a mullet or a whitefish just to +find there the tail of a dead donkey!” + +“I think as you do,” answered the Marionette, laughing. “Still, you must +know that when the fish finished eating my donkey coat, which covered +me from head to foot, they naturally came to the bones--or rather, in my +case, to the wood, for as you know, I am made of very hard wood. After +the first few bites, those greedy fish found out that the wood was not +good for their teeth, and, afraid of indigestion, they turned and ran +here and there without saying good-by or even as much as thank you to +me. Here, dear Master, you have my story. You know now why you found a +Marionette and not a dead donkey when you pulled me out of the water.” + +“I laugh at your story!” cried the man angrily. “I know that I spent +four cents to get you and I want my money back. Do you know what I can +do; I am going to take you to the market once more and sell you as dry +firewood.” + +“Very well, sell me. I am satisfied,” said Pinocchio. But as he spoke, +he gave a quick leap and dived into the sea. Swimming away as fast as he +could, he cried out, laughing: + +“Good-by, Master. If you ever need a skin for your drum, remember me.” + +He swam on and on. After a while, he turned around again and called +louder than before: + +“Good-by, Master. If you ever need a piece of good dry firewood, +remember me.” + +In a few seconds he had gone so far he could hardly be seen. All that +could be seen of him was a very small black dot moving swiftly on the +blue surface of the water, a little black dot which now and then lifted +a leg or an arm in the air. One would have thought that Pinocchio had +turned into a porpoise playing in the sun. + +After swimming for a long time, Pinocchio saw a large rock in the middle +of the sea, a rock as white as marble. High on the rock stood a little +Goat bleating and calling and beckoning to the Marionette to come to +her. + +There was something very strange about that little Goat. Her coat was +not white or black or brown as that of any other goat, but azure, a deep +brilliant color that reminded one of the hair of the lovely maiden. + +Pinocchio’s heart beat fast, and then faster and faster. He redoubled +his efforts and swam as hard as he could toward the white rock. He was +almost halfway over, when suddenly a horrible sea monster stuck its head +out of the water, an enormous head with a huge mouth, wide open, showing +three rows of gleaming teeth, the mere sight of which would have filled +you with fear. + +Do you know what it was? + +That sea monster was no other than the enormous Shark, which has often +been mentioned in this story and which, on account of its cruelty, had +been nicknamed “The Attila of the Sea” by both fish and fishermen. + +Poor Pinocchio! The sight of that monster frightened him almost to +death! He tried to swim away from him, to change his path, to escape, +but that immense mouth kept coming nearer and nearer. + +“Hasten, Pinocchio, I beg you!” bleated the little Goat on the high +rock. + +And Pinocchio swam desperately with his arms, his body, his legs, his +feet. + +“Quick, Pinocchio, the monster is coming nearer!” + +Pinocchio swam faster and faster, and harder and harder. + +“Faster, Pinocchio! The monster will get you! There he is! There he is! +Quick, quick, or you are lost!” + +Pinocchio went through the water like a shot--swifter and swifter. He +came close to the rock. The Goat leaned over and gave him one of her +hoofs to help him up out of the water. + +Alas! It was too late. The monster overtook him and the Marionette found +himself in between the rows of gleaming white teeth. Only for a moment, +however, for the Shark took a deep breath and, as he breathed, he drank +in the Marionette as easily as he would have sucked an egg. Then he +swallowed him so fast that Pinocchio, falling down into the body of the +fish, lay stunned for a half hour. + +When he recovered his senses the Marionette could not remember where he +was. Around him all was darkness, a darkness so deep and so black that +for a moment he thought he had put his head into an inkwell. He listened +for a few moments and heard nothing. Once in a while a cold wind blew +on his face. At first he could not understand where that wind was coming +from, but after a while he understood that it came from the lungs of the +monster. I forgot to tell you that the Shark was suffering from asthma, +so that whenever he breathed a storm seemed to blow. + +Pinocchio at first tried to be brave, but as soon as he became convinced +that he was really and truly in the Shark’s stomach, he burst into sobs +and tears. “Help! Help!” he cried. “Oh, poor me! Won’t someone come to +save me?” + +“Who is there to help you, unhappy boy?” said a rough voice, like a +guitar out of tune. + +“Who is talking?” asked Pinocchio, frozen with terror. + +“It is I, a poor Tunny swallowed by the Shark at the same time as you. +And what kind of a fish are you?” + +“I have nothing to do with fishes. I am a Marionette.” + +“If you are not a fish, why did you let this monster swallow you?” + +“I didn’t let him. He chased me and swallowed me without even a ‘by your +leave’! And now what are we to do here in the dark?” + +“Wait until the Shark has digested us both, I suppose.” + +“But I don’t want to be digested,” shouted Pinocchio, starting to sob. + +“Neither do I,” said the Tunny, “but I am wise enough to think that if +one is born a fish, it is more dignified to die under the water than in +the frying pan.” + +“What nonsense!” cried Pinocchio. + +“Mine is an opinion,” replied the Tunny, “and opinions should be +respected.” + +“But I want to get out of this place. I want to escape.” + +“Go, if you can!” + +“Is this Shark that has swallowed us very long?” asked the Marionette. + +“His body, not counting the tail, is almost a mile long.” + +While talking in the darkness, Pinocchio thought he saw a faint light in +the distance. + +“What can that be?” he said to the Tunny. + +“Some other poor fish, waiting as patiently as we to be digested by the +Shark.” + +“I want to see him. He may be an old fish and may know some way of +escape.” + +“I wish you all good luck, dear Marionette.” + +“Good-by, Tunny.” + +“Good-by, Marionette, and good luck.” + +“When shall I see you again?” + +“Who knows? It is better not to think about it.” + + + + +CHAPTER 35 + +In the Shark’s body Pinocchio finds whom? Read this chapter, my +children, and you will know. + + +Pinocchio, as soon as he had said good-by to his good friend, the Tunny, +tottered away in the darkness and began to walk as well as he could +toward the faint light which glowed in the distance. + +As he walked his feet splashed in a pool of greasy and slippery water, +which had such a heavy smell of fish fried in oil that Pinocchio thought +it was Lent. + +The farther on he went, the brighter and clearer grew the tiny light. On +and on he walked till finally he found--I give you a thousand guesses, +my dear children! He found a little table set for dinner and lighted by +a candle stuck in a glass bottle; and near the table sat a little old +man, white as the snow, eating live fish. They wriggled so that, now and +again, one of them slipped out of the old man’s mouth and escaped into +the darkness under the table. + +At this sight, the poor Marionette was filled with such great and sudden +happiness that he almost dropped in a faint. He wanted to laugh, he +wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand and one things, but all he +could do was to stand still, stuttering and stammering brokenly. At +last, with a great effort, he was able to let out a scream of joy and, +opening wide his arms he threw them around the old man’s neck. + +“Oh, Father, dear Father! Have I found you at last? Now I shall never, +never leave you again!” + +“Are my eyes really telling me the truth?” answered the old man, rubbing +his eyes. “Are you really my own dear Pinocchio?” + +“Yes, yes, yes! It is I! Look at me! And you have forgiven me, haven’t +you? Oh, my dear Father, how good you are! And to think that I--Oh, but +if you only knew how many misfortunes have fallen on my head and how +many troubles I have had! Just think that on the day you sold your old +coat to buy me my A-B-C book so that I could go to school, I ran away to +the Marionette Theater and the proprietor caught me and wanted to burn +me to cook his roast lamb! He was the one who gave me the five gold +pieces for you, but I met the Fox and the Cat, who took me to the Inn of +the Red Lobster. There they ate like wolves and I left the Inn alone +and I met the Assassins in the wood. I ran and they ran after me, always +after me, till they hanged me to the branch of a giant oak tree. Then +the Fairy of the Azure Hair sent the coach to rescue me and the doctors, +after looking at me, said, ‘If he is not dead, then he is surely alive,’ +and then I told a lie and my nose began to grow. It grew and it grew, +till I couldn’t get it through the door of the room. And then I went +with the Fox and the Cat to the Field of Wonders to bury the gold +pieces. The Parrot laughed at me and, instead of two thousand gold +pieces, I found none. When the Judge heard I had been robbed, he sent +me to jail to make the thieves happy; and when I came away I saw a fine +bunch of grapes hanging on a vine. The trap caught me and the Farmer put +a collar on me and made me a watchdog. He found out I was innocent when +I caught the Weasels and he let me go. The Serpent with the tail that +smoked started to laugh and a vein in his chest broke and so I went back +to the Fairy’s house. She was dead, and the Pigeon, seeing me crying, +said to me, ‘I have seen your father building a boat to look for you in +America,’ and I said to him, ‘Oh, if I only had wings!’ and he said to +me, ‘Do you want to go to your father?’ and I said, ‘Perhaps, but how?’ +and he said, ‘Get on my back. I’ll take you there.’ We flew all night +long, and next morning the fishermen were looking toward the sea, +crying, ‘There is a poor little man drowning,’ and I knew it was you, +because my heart told me so and I waved to you from the shore--” + +“I knew you also,” put in Geppetto, “and I wanted to go to you; but how +could I? The sea was rough and the whitecaps overturned the boat. Then +a Terrible Shark came up out of the sea and, as soon as he saw me in the +water, swam quickly toward me, put out his tongue, and swallowed me as +easily as if I had been a chocolate peppermint.” + +“And how long have you been shut away in here?” + +“From that day to this, two long weary years--two years, my Pinocchio, +which have been like two centuries.” + +“And how have you lived? Where did you find the candle? And the matches +with which to light it--where did you get them?” + +“You must know that, in the storm which swamped my boat, a large ship +also suffered the same fate. The sailors were all saved, but the ship +went right to the bottom of the sea, and the same Terrible Shark that +swallowed me, swallowed most of it.” + +“What! Swallowed a ship?” asked Pinocchio in astonishment. + +“At one gulp. The only thing he spat out was the main-mast, for it +stuck in his teeth. To my own good luck, that ship was loaded with meat, +preserved foods, crackers, bread, bottles of wine, raisins, cheese, +coffee, sugar, wax candles, and boxes of matches. With all these +blessings, I have been able to live happily on for two whole years, but +now I am at the very last crumbs. Today there is nothing left in the +cupboard, and this candle you see here is the last one I have.” + +“And then?” + +“And then, my dear, we’ll find ourselves in darkness.” + +“Then, my dear Father,” said Pinocchio, “there is no time to lose. We +must try to escape.” + +“Escape! How?” + +“We can run out of the Shark’s mouth and dive into the sea.” + +“You speak well, but I cannot swim, my dear Pinocchio.” + +“Why should that matter? You can climb on my shoulders and I, who am a +fine swimmer, will carry you safely to the shore.” + +“Dreams, my boy!” answered Geppetto, shaking his head and smiling sadly. +“Do you think it possible for a Marionette, a yard high, to have the +strength to carry me on his shoulders and swim?” + +“Try it and see! And in any case, if it is written that we must die, we +shall at least die together.” + +Not adding another word, Pinocchio took the candle in his hand and going +ahead to light the way, he said to his father: + +“Follow me and have no fear.” + +They walked a long distance through the stomach and the whole body of +the Shark. When they reached the throat of the monster, they stopped for +a while to wait for the right moment in which to make their escape. + +I want you to know that the Shark, being very old and suffering from +asthma and heart trouble, was obliged to sleep with his mouth open. +Because of this, Pinocchio was able to catch a glimpse of the sky filled +with stars, as he looked up through the open jaws of his new home. + +“The time has come for us to escape,” he whispered, turning to his +father. “The Shark is fast asleep. The sea is calm and the night is +as bright as day. Follow me closely, dear Father, and we shall soon be +saved.” + +No sooner said than done. They climbed up the throat of the monster till +they came to that immense open mouth. There they had to walk on tiptoes, +for if they tickled the Shark’s long tongue he might awaken--and where +would they be then? The tongue was so wide and so long that it looked +like a country road. The two fugitives were just about to dive into the +sea when the Shark sneezed very suddenly and, as he sneezed, he gave +Pinocchio and Geppetto such a jolt that they found themselves thrown +on their backs and dashed once more and very unceremoniously into the +stomach of the monster. + +To make matters worse, the candle went out and father and son were left +in the dark. + +“And now?” asked Pinocchio with a serious face. + +“Now we are lost.” + +“Why lost? Give me your hand, dear Father, and be careful not to slip!” + +“Where will you take me?” + +“We must try again. Come with me and don’t be afraid.” + +With these words Pinocchio took his father by the hand and, always +walking on tiptoes, they climbed up the monster’s throat for a second +time. They then crossed the whole tongue and jumped over three rows of +teeth. But before they took the last great leap, the Marionette said to +his father: + +“Climb on my back and hold on tightly to my neck. I’ll take care of +everything else.” + +As soon as Geppetto was comfortably seated on his shoulders, Pinocchio, +very sure of what he was doing, dived into the water and started to +swim. The sea was like oil, the moon shone in all splendor, and the +Shark continued to sleep so soundly that not even a cannon shot would +have awakened him. + + + + +CHAPTER 36 + +Pinocchio finally ceases to be a Marionette and becomes a boy + + +“My dear Father, we are saved!” cried the Marionette. “All we have to do +now is to get to the shore, and that is easy.” + +Without another word, he swam swiftly away in an effort to reach land as +soon as possible. All at once he noticed that Geppetto was shivering and +shaking as if with a high fever. + +Was he shivering from fear or from cold? Who knows? Perhaps a little +of both. But Pinocchio, thinking his father was frightened, tried to +comfort him by saying: + +“Courage, Father! In a few moments we shall be safe on land.” + +“But where is that blessed shore?” asked the little old man, more and +more worried as he tried to pierce the faraway shadows. “Here I am +searching on all sides and I see nothing but sea and sky.” + +“I see the shore,” said the Marionette. “Remember, Father, that I am +like a cat. I see better at night than by day.” + +Poor Pinocchio pretended to be peaceful and contented, but he was +far from that. He was beginning to feel discouraged, his strength was +leaving him, and his breathing was becoming more and more labored. He +felt he could not go on much longer, and the shore was still far away. + +He swam a few more strokes. Then he turned to Geppetto and cried out +weakly: + +“Help me, Father! Help, for I am dying!” + +Father and son were really about to drown when they heard a voice like a +guitar out of tune call from the sea: + +“What is the trouble?” + +“It is I and my poor father.” + +“I know the voice. You are Pinocchio.” + +“Exactly. And you?” + +“I am the Tunny, your companion in the Shark’s stomach.” + +“And how did you escape?” + +“I imitated your example. You are the one who showed me the way and +after you went, I followed.” + +“Tunny, you arrived at the right moment! I implore you, for the love you +bear your children, the little Tunnies, to help us, or we are lost!” + +“With great pleasure indeed. Hang onto my tail, both of you, and let me +lead you. In a twinkling you will be safe on land.” + +Geppetto and Pinocchio, as you can easily imagine, did not refuse the +invitation; indeed, instead of hanging onto the tail, they thought it +better to climb on the Tunny’s back. + +“Are we too heavy?” asked Pinocchio. + +“Heavy? Not in the least. You are as light as sea-shells,” answered the +Tunny, who was as large as a two-year-old horse. + +As soon as they reached the shore, Pinocchio was the first to jump to +the ground to help his old father. Then he turned to the fish and said +to him: + +“Dear friend, you have saved my father, and I have not enough words +with which to thank you! Allow me to embrace you as a sign of my eternal +gratitude.” + +The Tunny stuck his nose out of the water and Pinocchio knelt on the +sand and kissed him most affectionately on his cheek. At this warm +greeting, the poor Tunny, who was not used to such tenderness, wept +like a child. He felt so embarrassed and ashamed that he turned quickly, +plunged into the sea, and disappeared. + +In the meantime day had dawned. + +Pinocchio offered his arm to Geppetto, who was so weak he could hardly +stand, and said to him: + +“Lean on my arm, dear Father, and let us go. We will walk very, very +slowly, and if we feel tired we can rest by the wayside.” + +“And where are we going?” asked Geppetto. + +“To look for a house or a hut, where they will be kind enough to give us +a bite of bread and a bit of straw to sleep on.” + +They had not taken a hundred steps when they saw two rough-looking +individuals sitting on a stone begging for alms. + +It was the Fox and the Cat, but one could hardly recognize them, they +looked so miserable. The Cat, after pretending to be blind for so many +years had really lost the sight of both eyes. And the Fox, old, thin, +and almost hairless, had even lost his tail. That sly thief had fallen +into deepest poverty, and one day he had been forced to sell his +beautiful tail for a bite to eat. + +“Oh, Pinocchio,” he cried in a tearful voice. “Give us some alms, we beg +of you! We are old, tired, and sick.” + +“Sick!” repeated the Cat. + +“Addio, false friends!” answered the Marionette. “You cheated me once, +but you will never catch me again.” + +“Believe us! Today we are truly poor and starving.” + +“Starving!” repeated the Cat. + +“If you are poor; you deserve it! Remember the old proverb which says: +‘Stolen money never bears fruit.’ Addio, false friends.” + +“Have mercy on us!” + +“On us.” + +“Addio, false friends. Remember the old proverb which says: ‘Bad wheat +always makes poor bread!’” + +“Do not abandon us.” + +“Abandon us,” repeated the Cat. + +“Addio, false friends. Remember the old proverb: ‘Whoever steals his +neighbor’s shirt, usually dies without his own.’” + +Waving good-by to them, Pinocchio and Geppetto calmly went on their way. +After a few more steps, they saw, at the end of a long road near a clump +of trees, a tiny cottage built of straw. + +“Someone must live in that little hut,” said Pinocchio. “Let us see for +ourselves.” + +They went and knocked at the door. + +“Who is it?” said a little voice from within. + +“A poor father and a poorer son, without food and with no roof to cover +them,” answered the Marionette. + +“Turn the key and the door will open,” said the same little voice. + +Pinocchio turned the key and the door opened. As soon as they went in, +they looked here and there and everywhere but saw no one. + +“Oh--ho, where is the owner of the hut?” cried Pinocchio, very much +surprised. + +“Here I am, up here!” + +Father and son looked up to the ceiling, and there on a beam sat the +Talking Cricket. + +“Oh, my dear Cricket,” said Pinocchio, bowing politely. + +“Oh, now you call me your dear Cricket, but do you remember when you +threw your hammer at me to kill me?” + +“You are right, dear Cricket. Throw a hammer at me now. I deserve it! +But spare my poor old father.” + +“I am going to spare both the father and the son. I have only wanted to +remind you of the trick you long ago played upon me, to teach you that +in this world of ours we must be kind and courteous to others, if we +want to find kindness and courtesy in our own days of trouble.” + +“You are right, little Cricket, you are more than right, and I shall +remember the lesson you have taught me. But will you tell how you +succeeded in buying this pretty little cottage?” + +“This cottage was given to me yesterday by a little Goat with blue +hair.” + +“And where did the Goat go?” asked Pinocchio. + +“I don’t know.” + +“And when will she come back?” + +“She will never come back. Yesterday she went away bleating sadly, and +it seemed to me she said: ‘Poor Pinocchio, I shall never see him again. +. .the Shark must have eaten him by this time.’” + +“Were those her real words? Then it was she--it was--my dear little +Fairy,” cried out Pinocchio, sobbing bitterly. After he had cried a +long time, he wiped his eyes and then he made a bed of straw for old +Geppetto. He laid him on it and said to the Talking Cricket: + +“Tell me, little Cricket, where shall I find a glass of milk for my poor +Father?” + +“Three fields away from here lives Farmer John. He has some cows. Go +there and he will give you what you want.” + +Pinocchio ran all the way to Farmer John’s house. The Farmer said to +him: + +“How much milk do you want?” + +“I want a full glass.” + +“A full glass costs a penny. First give me the penny.” + +“I have no penny,” answered Pinocchio, sad and ashamed. + +“Very bad, my Marionette,” answered the Farmer, “very bad. If you have +no penny, I have no milk.” + +“Too bad,” said Pinocchio and started to go. + +“Wait a moment,” said Farmer John. “Perhaps we can come to terms. Do you +know how to draw water from a well?” + +“I can try.” + +“Then go to that well you see yonder and draw one hundred bucketfuls of +water.” + +“Very well.” + +“After you have finished, I shall give you a glass of warm sweet milk.” + +“I am satisfied.” + +Farmer John took the Marionette to the well and showed him how to draw +the water. Pinocchio set to work as well as he knew how, but long before +he had pulled up the one hundred buckets, he was tired out and dripping +with perspiration. He had never worked so hard in his life. + +“Until today,” said the Farmer, “my donkey has drawn the water for me, +but now that poor animal is dying.” + +“Will you take me to see him?” said Pinocchio. + +“Gladly.” + +As soon as Pinocchio went into the stable, he spied a little Donkey +lying on a bed of straw in the corner of the stable. He was worn out +from hunger and too much work. After looking at him a long time, he said +to himself: “I know that Donkey! I have seen him before.” + +And bending low over him, he asked: “Who are you?” + +At this question, the Donkey opened weary, dying eyes and answered in +the same tongue: “I am Lamp-Wick.” + +Then he closed his eyes and died. + +“Oh, my poor Lamp-Wick,” said Pinocchio in a faint voice, as he wiped +his eyes with some straw he had picked up from the ground. + +“Do you feel so sorry for a little donkey that has cost you nothing?” + said the Farmer. “What should I do--I, who have paid my good money for +him?” + +“But, you see, he was my friend.” + +“Your friend?” + +“A classmate of mine.” + +“What,” shouted Farmer John, bursting out laughing. “What! You had +donkeys in your school? How you must have studied!” + +The Marionette, ashamed and hurt by those words, did not answer, but +taking his glass of milk returned to his father. + +From that day on, for more than five months, Pinocchio got up every +morning just as dawn was breaking and went to the farm to draw water. +And every day he was given a glass of warm milk for his poor old father, +who grew stronger and better day by day. But he was not satisfied with +this. He learned to make baskets of reeds and sold them. With the money +he received, he and his father were able to keep from starving. + +Among other things, he built a rolling chair, strong and comfortable, to +take his old father out for an airing on bright, sunny days. + +In the evening the Marionette studied by lamplight. With some of the +money he had earned, he bought himself a secondhand volume that had +a few pages missing, and with that he learned to read in a very short +time. As far as writing was concerned, he used a long stick at one end +of which he had whittled a long, fine point. Ink he had none, so he used +the juice of blackberries or cherries. Little by little his diligence +was rewarded. He succeeded, not only in his studies, but also in his +work, and a day came when he put enough money together to keep his old +father comfortable and happy. Besides this, he was able to save the +great amount of fifty pennies. With it he wanted to buy himself a new +suit. + +One day he said to his father: + +“I am going to the market place to buy myself a coat, a cap, and a pair +of shoes. When I come back I’ll be so dressed up, you will think I am a +rich man.” + +He ran out of the house and up the road to the village, laughing and +singing. Suddenly he heard his name called, and looking around to see +whence the voice came, he noticed a large snail crawling out of some +bushes. + +“Don’t you recognize me?” said the Snail. + +“Yes and no.” + +“Do you remember the Snail that lived with the Fairy with Azure Hair? Do +you not remember how she opened the door for you one night and gave you +something to eat?” + +“I remember everything,” cried Pinocchio. “Answer me quickly, pretty +Snail, where have you left my Fairy? What is she doing? Has she forgiven +me? Does she remember me? Does she still love me? Is she very far away +from here? May I see her?” + +At all these questions, tumbling out one after another, the Snail +answered, calm as ever: + +“My dear Pinocchio, the Fairy is lying ill in a hospital.” + +“In a hospital?” + +“Yes, indeed. She has been stricken with trouble and illness, and she +hasn’t a penny left with which to buy a bite of bread.” + +“Really? Oh, how sorry I am! My poor, dear little Fairy! If I had a +million I should run to her with it! But I have only fifty pennies. Here +they are. I was just going to buy some clothes. Here, take them, little +Snail, and give them to my good Fairy.” + +“What about the new clothes?” + +“What does that matter? I should like to sell these rags I have on to +help her more. Go, and hurry. Come back here within a couple of days +and I hope to have more money for you! Until today I have worked for my +father. Now I shall have to work for my mother also. Good-by, and I hope +to see you soon.” + +The Snail, much against her usual habit, began to run like a lizard +under a summer sun. + +When Pinocchio returned home, his father asked him: + +“And where is the new suit?” + +“I couldn’t find one to fit me. I shall have to look again some other +day.” + +That night, Pinocchio, instead of going to bed at ten o’clock waited +until midnight, and instead of making eight baskets, he made sixteen. + +After that he went to bed and fell asleep. As he slept, he dreamed of +his Fairy, beautiful, smiling, and happy, who kissed him and said to +him, “Bravo, Pinocchio! In reward for your kind heart, I forgive you for +all your old mischief. Boys who love and take good care of their parents +when they are old and sick, deserve praise even though they may not be +held up as models of obedience and good behavior. Keep on doing so well, +and you will be happy.” + +At that very moment, Pinocchio awoke and opened wide his eyes. + +What was his surprise and his joy when, on looking himself over, he saw +that he was no longer a Marionette, but that he had become a real live +boy! He looked all about him and instead of the usual walls of straw, he +found himself in a beautifully furnished little room, the prettiest he +had ever seen. In a twinkling, he jumped down from his bed to look on +the chair standing near. There, he found a new suit, a new hat, and a +pair of shoes. + +As soon as he was dressed, he put his hands in his pockets and pulled +out a little leather purse on which were written the following words: + + The Fairy with Azure Hair returns + fifty pennies to her dear Pinocchio + with many thanks for his kind heart. + +The Marionette opened the purse to find the money, and behold--there +were fifty gold coins! + +Pinocchio ran to the mirror. He hardly recognized himself. The bright +face of a tall boy looked at him with wide-awake blue eyes, dark brown +hair and happy, smiling lips. + +Surrounded by so much splendor, the Marionette hardly knew what he was +doing. He rubbed his eyes two or three times, wondering if he were still +asleep or awake and decided he must be awake. + +“And where is Father?” he cried suddenly. He ran into the next room, and +there stood Geppetto, grown years younger overnight, spick and span +in his new clothes and gay as a lark in the morning. He was once more +Mastro Geppetto, the wood carver, hard at work on a lovely picture +frame, decorating it with flowers and leaves, and heads of animals. + +“Father, Father, what has happened? Tell me if you can,” cried +Pinocchio, as he ran and jumped on his Father’s neck. + +“This sudden change in our house is all your doing, my dear Pinocchio,” + answered Geppetto. + +“What have I to do with it?” + +“Just this. When bad boys become good and kind, they have the power of +making their homes gay and new with happiness.” + +“I wonder where the old Pinocchio of wood has hidden himself?” + +“There he is,” answered Geppetto. And he pointed to a large Marionette +leaning against a chair, head turned to one side, arms hanging limp, and +legs twisted under him. + +After a long, long look, Pinocchio said to himself with great content: + +“How ridiculous I was as a Marionette! 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index 000000000..63a4c8805 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/main/remat.hs @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} +{-# Language OverloadedStrings #-} +module Main where + +import Control.Applicative +import Control.Monad +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Text (Text) +import qualified Data.Text as T +import qualified Data.Text.IO as T +import Debug.Trace +import System.Environment +import System.IO +import Text.Parser.Char +import Text.Parser.Combinators +import Text.Trifecta (Parser) +import qualified Text.Trifecta as Trifecta + +import Balanced +import Filter +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TWRemat +import TreeWidth +import Util + +parse :: Parser a -> Text -> a +parse p txt = case Trifecta.parseString p mempty (T.unpack txt) of + Trifecta.Success a -> a + Trifecta.Failure e -> error (show (Trifecta._errDoc e)) + +p_nat :: (Read a, Integral a) => Parser a +p_nat = read <$> some digit + +isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> [Node] -> Bool +isValidSchedule gr steps ts = go steps IS.empty + where + go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (G.preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) + go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) + go [] live = all (\n -> IS.member n live) ts + +-- Modify the graph to insert direct dependencies through 'pointer' +-- type ops to the op that generated their underlying +-- storage. Example, given op1 -> id -> op2, op2 will now directly +-- keep op1 alive. Assuming that 'pointer' type ops are ~0 cost the +-- 'id' can now be immediately freed after use, and all memory usage +-- charged to op1, simplifying memory analysis. +mergePointers :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Gr a +mergePointers gr info = merged + where + merged = G.insEdges [(p, n) | n <- G.nodes gr, p <- pdeps n] gr + pdeps n = let pparents n = [p | p <- G.preList gr n, info p == Pointer] + go [] visited = Set.toList visited + go (p:ps) visited | Set.member p visited = go ps visited + | otherwise = go (pparents p ++ ps) (Set.insert p visited) + in go (pparents n) Set.empty + + +outputSchedule :: [Step] -> IO () +outputSchedule schedule = do + args <- getArgs + let printStep (Compute n) = "c " <> T.pack (show n) + printStep (Free n) = "f " <> T.pack (show n) + output = T.unlines (map printStep schedule) + case args of + [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output + [path] -> T.putStr output + + +main :: IO () +main = do + args <- getArgs + let path = head args + txt <- T.readFile path + let p = do + string "p remat2" *> spaces + memlimit <- optional (text "memlimit" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces) + nodes <- some $ do + text "node" <* spaces + node_id <- p_nat <* spaces + deps <- fold <$> optional (text "deps" *> spaces *> many (p_nat <* spaces)) + let p_weight = do + cpu <- text "cpu" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces + mem <- text "mem" *> spaces *> p_nat <* spaces + return (Normal{cpu,mem}) + p_effectful = const Effectful <$> text "effectful" <* spaces + p_pointer = const Pointer <$> text "pointer" <* spaces + weight <- optional (p_weight <|> p_effectful <|> p_pointer) + target <- (const True <$> text "target" <* spaces) <|> pure False + optional (char '\n') + return (node_id, deps, weight, target) + eof + return (memlimit, nodes) + (memlimit, node_data) = parse p txt + ns = [n | (n, _, _, _) <- node_data] + es = [(d, n) | (n, ds, _, _) <- node_data, d <- ds] + ts = [n | (n, _, _, True) <- node_data] + + case memlimit of + Just memlimit -> let + weights = Map.fromList [(n,w) | (n, _, Just w, _) <- node_data] + weight n = Map.findWithDefault (Normal 1 1) n weights + graph = mergePointers (G.mkUGraph ns es) weight + schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) + schedule' = optimize graph weight memlimit schedule + in do outputSchedule schedule' + hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts)) + hPutStrLn stderr ("length = " ++ show (length schedule')) + evalSched weight (initSched graph schedule') + Nothing -> let + graph = G.mkUGraph ns es + schedule = remat graph (IS.fromList ts) + in outputSchedule schedule + -- -- G.plotLab "tree.dot" (IS.toList <$> treeWidth graph) + -- print (length ns) + -- print (length schedule, isValidSchedule graph schedule ts) + -- print (length schedule', isValidSchedule graph schedule' ts) + + -- let sched_1 = initSched graph schedule + -- evalSched weight sched_1 + + -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 + -- evalSched weight sched_2 + + -- let go sched = do + -- let sched_1 = greedy weight 1000 sched + -- evalSched weight sched_1 + -- let sched_2 = optSched sched_1 + -- evalSched weight sched_2 + -- go sched_2 + + -- go sched_2 + + -- let + -- output = T.unlines $ map T.pack $ do + -- step <- schedule + -- return $ case step of + -- Compute n -> "c " ++ show n + -- Free n -> "f " ++ show n + -- case args of + -- [path, outpath] -> T.writeFile outpath output + -- [path] -> T.putStr output + -- hPutStrLn stderr ("isValid = " ++ show (isValidSchedule graph schedule)) diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/main/test.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/main/test.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0adccd3f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/main/test.hs @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} +module Main where + +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph +import TWRemat +import TestBalanced +import TestGraph +import TestTreeWidth + +isValidSchedule :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Bool +isValidSchedule gr steps = go steps IS.empty + where + go (Compute n : steps) live = all (`IS.member` live) (preList gr n) && go steps (IS.insert n live) + go (Free n : steps) live = IS.member n live && go steps (IS.delete n live) + go [] live = True + +main = defaultMain $ testGroup "Tests" [ + testGraph, + testBalanced, + testTreeWidth, + testGroup "TWRemat" [ + testProperty "produces valid schedule" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> + let t = last (nodes gr) + in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList [t])), + testProperty "produces valid schedule x2" $ \(DagOf (gr :: Gr ())) -> + let t = take 2 (nodes gr) + in isValidSchedule gr (remat gr (IS.fromList t)) + ] + ] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Balanced.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Balanced.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0660c06d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Balanced.hs @@ -0,0 +1,97 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} +module Balanced where + +import Data.Bifunctor +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Ord +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import TreeWidth + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import Util + +balancedSeparator :: Gr a -> Node +balancedSeparator gr = minimumOn (\n -> (weight n, n)) (G.nodes gr) + where + cutWeight = memo (G.edges gr) $ \(a,b) -> + 1 + sum [cutWeight (b,c) | c <- G.sucList gr b, c /= a] :: Int + weight = \a -> + maximum [cutWeight (a,b) | b <- G.sucList gr a] + +-- Rose tree with weight annotations. +data Tree a = Tree Int a [Tree a] + deriving (Show, Functor, Foldable, Traversable) + +treeWeight :: Tree a -> Int +treeWeight (Tree w _ _) = w + +treeVal :: Tree a -> a +treeVal (Tree _ a _) = a + +tree :: a -> [Tree a] -> Tree a +tree a subs = Tree (1 + sum (map treeWeight subs)) a subs + +-- Create a Tree from treelike graph. Assumes gr is undirected and +-- simple and has at least one node. +mkTree :: Gr a -> Tree Node +mkTree gr = tree top [go top v | v <- G.sucList gr top, v /= top] + where + go u v = tree v [go v w | w <- G.sucList gr v, w /= u] + top = head (G.nodes gr) + +-- Choose one element from a list. +choose1 :: [a] -> [(a, [a])] +choose1 xs = do i <- [0..length xs-1] + return (xs!!i, take i xs ++ drop (i+1) xs) + +-- Balance a tree by recursively rotating each node until the heaviest +-- subtree has minimal weight. The result is a tree with two +-- properties: +-- +-- 1. For every node v in the tree, the subtrees rooted at children of +-- v are disjoint connected components of the original tree with v +-- removed. +-- +-- 2. The tree is balanced, in that for every node v, the heaviest +-- child of v has weight at most weight[v]/2. + +balance :: Tree a -> Tree a +balance root@(Tree x a []) = root +balance root@(Tree x a children) + -- If we can improve balance by rotating, do so and check again. + | bestscore < score root = balance best + -- Current level is balanced, now balance all children. + | otherwise = tree a (map balance children) + where + rotate (Tree _ new_a new_children) other_children = + let old_root = tree a other_children + in tree new_a (old_root : new_children) + options = [rotate choice rest | (choice, rest) <- choose1 children] + score (Tree x a children) + | null children = 0 + | otherwise = maximum (map treeWeight children) + (bestscore, best) = minimumOn fst [(score t, t) | t <- options] + +-- Convert a +sepTree :: Gr a -> Tree a +sepTree gr = fmap (G.lab gr) $ balance $ mkTree gr + +-- sepTreeSlow :: Gr a -> Tree a +-- sepTreeSlow gr +-- | G.order gr == 1 = tree (snd $ head $ G.labNodes gr) [] +-- | otherwise = tree (G.lab gr top) [sepTreeSlow sub | sub <- G.splitComponents (G.delNode top gr)] +-- where +-- top = balancedSeparator gr diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Dense.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Dense.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..45f1cc7a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Dense.hs @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +module Dense where + +type Dense = [Int] + +between :: Dense -> Dense -> Dense +between (a:as) (b:bs) + | a + 1 < b = [div (a + b) 2] + | a < b = a : after as + | a == b = a : between as bs + +before :: Dense -> Dense +before [] = error "before []" +before (a:as) = [a - 1] + +after :: Dense -> Dense +after [] = [2^20] +after (a:as) = [a + 1] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Filter.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Filter.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2de8742c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Filter.hs @@ -0,0 +1,175 @@ +{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE NamedFieldPuns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-} +{-# LANGUAGE PatternSynonyms #-} +{-# LANGUAGE ViewPatterns #-} +{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-} +module Filter where + +import Control.Monad.State.Lazy +import Data.Foldable +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Monoid +import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) +import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PSQ +import Data.Relation (Relation) +import qualified Data.Relation as R +import Data.Semigroup +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Debug.Trace + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TWRemat + +newtype CID = CID Int + deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) + + +-- Indexed data structure for rematerializion schedule. +data Sched = Sched { + computes :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> node id (many-1) + c_free :: Relation CID Node, -- compute step -> nodes freed afterward (many-many) + c_require :: Relation CID Node -- compute step -> nodes required as input (many-many) + } + deriving (Show) + +pattern One :: a -> Set a +pattern One a <- (Set.toList -> [a]) where + One a = Set.singleton a + +pattern None :: Set a +pattern None <- (Set.null -> True) where + None = Set.empty + +deleteL :: (Ord a, Ord b) => a -> Relation a b -> Relation a b +deleteL a rel = foldr go rel (Set.toList $ R.lookupDom a rel) + where + go b = R.delete a b + +-- Info for each node relevant to evaluating and optimizing cpu/memory +-- consumption. +data Weight = + -- Normal node that reads its inputs and produces some output. + Normal{cpu::Int, mem::Int} + -- Effectful node that must not be duplicated (eg. assigning to a + -- variable). Assumed to produce no relevant output. + | Effectful + -- Pointer nodes return a view that shares memory with dependencies, + -- keeping them from being GCd (example: tf.identity). + | Pointer + deriving (Eq, Ord) + +-- Reduce cpu usage of a schedule under the constraint that peak mem usage must be less than `memLimit`. +greedy :: (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> Sched -> Sched +greedy info memLimit sched@Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = go (R.toList computes) Set.empty 0 Set.empty PSQ.empty + where + memOf n = case info n of + Normal{mem} -> mem + Effectful -> 0 + Pointer -> 0 + + priority :: CID -> Node -> Maybe Double + priority c n + -- Anything we don't need anymore should be freed immediately. + | Nothing == Set.lookupGT c (R.lookupRan n c_require) = Just 0 + | otherwise = case info n of + -- Otherwise, prioritise the ops which use most memory and least cpu to recompute. + Normal{mem, cpu} -> Just (fromIntegral cpu / fromIntegral mem) + -- Effectful ops are assumed to use no memory and should never be freed. + Effectful -> Nothing + -- Free pointer ops immediately. + Pointer -> Just 0 + + go [] keepcid memUsage live freeList = + let finish c Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n -> Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, + c_free = case (Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n computes), + Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)) of + (Just cc, Just fc) | cc <= fc -> R.delete fc n c_free, + c_require = deleteL c c_require} + in foldr (.) id [finish c | c <- toList (R.dom computes), not (Set.member c keepcid)] sched + go ((c,n):cs) keepcid memUsage live freeList + | Set.member n live = go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live (PSQ.delete n freeList) + | memUsage + memOf n > memLimit && not (PSQ.null freeList) = case PSQ.findMin freeList of + Just (f,_,_) -> + go ((c,n):cs) keepcid (memUsage - memOf f) (Set.delete f live) (PSQ.deleteMin freeList) + | otherwise = go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList + + go_next (c,n) cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = + go_free c cs (Set.insert c keepcid) (memUsage + memOf n) (Set.insert n live) (PSQ.delete n freeList) + + go_free c cs keepcid memUsage live freeList = + let freeList' = foldr (.) id [PSQ.insert n v () + | n <- Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free), + Just v <- [priority c n]] freeList + in go cs keepcid memUsage live freeList' + +evalSched :: (Node -> Weight) -> Sched -> IO () +evalSched info Sched{computes,c_free,c_require} = do + putStrLn (unwords ["steps=" ++ show (Set.size (R.dom computes)), + "cpu=" ++ show (sum [cpu | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, Normal{cpu} <- [info n]]), + "peak=" ++ show peak]) + where + memOf n = case info n of + Normal{mem} -> mem + _ -> 0 + peak = go (Set.toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) 0 0 + go [] maxMem curMem = maxMem + go (c:cs) maxMem curMem = case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n -> go cs (max maxMem (curMem + memOf n)) (curMem + memOf n - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) + None -> go cs maxMem (curMem - sum [memOf f | f <- toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)]) + +-- Basic optimizations: move Free actions to be as early as possible, +-- and eliminate Compute actions that are immediately Freed without +-- being used. +optSched :: Sched -> Sched +optSched sched@Sched{computes, c_free} = foldr go sched (toList (R.dom computes <> R.dom c_free)) + where + checkAnnihilate c sched@Sched{..} = + case R.lookupDom c computes of + One n | R.member c n c_free -> + Sched{computes = R.delete c n computes, + c_free = R.delete c n c_free, + c_require = deleteL c c_require} + _ -> sched + checkMove c sched@Sched{..} = + case R.lookupDom c c_free of + ns | Set.size ns > 0 -> + let target n = getMax <$> fold [Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n computes), + Max <$> Set.lookupLE c (R.lookupRan n c_require), + Max <$> Set.lookupLT c (R.lookupRan n c_free)] + process n sched@Sched{..} = case target n of + Just c' | c' < c -> sched { c_free = R.insert c' n $ R.delete c n $ c_free } + Just c' | c'== c -> sched + Nothing -> sched { c_free = R.delete c n $ c_free } + in foldr process sched (Set.toList ns) + _ -> sched + + go c sched = checkMove c $ checkAnnihilate c sched + + +initSched :: Gr a -> [Step] -> Sched +initSched gr sched = Sched{computes, c_free, c_require} + where + steps = Map.fromList (zip [1..] sched) :: Map Int Step + computes = R.fromList [(CID k, n) | (k, Compute n) <- Map.toList steps] + cdom = R.dom computes + c_free = R.fromList [let Just c = Set.lookupLT (CID k) cdom + in (c, n) | (k, Free n) <- Map.toList steps] + c_require = R.fromList [(c, p) | (c, n) <- R.toList computes, p <- G.preList gr n] + +runSched :: Sched -> [Step] +runSched Sched{computes, c_free} = fold [[Compute n] ++ (Free <$> Set.toList (R.lookupDom c c_free)) + | (c, n) <- R.toList computes] + +-- 6 cycles of forward-backward optimization seems to generally be enough for a good schedule. +optimize :: Gr a -> (Node -> Weight) -> Int -> [Step] -> [Step] +optimize gr info memLimit steps = runSched (foldl' step startSched [1..maxSteps]) + where + step !sched i = trace ("Optimizing schedule... " ++ show i ++ "/" ++ show maxSteps) $ optSched (greedy info memLimit sched) + startSched = optSched (initSched gr steps) + maxSteps = 6 diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Graph.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Graph.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c19dd732 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Graph.hs @@ -0,0 +1,236 @@ +module Graph where + +import Control.Monad.State.Strict +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Text.Printf + +type Node = Int +type Context a = (IntSet, a, IntSet) +newtype Gr a = Gr (IntMap (Context a)) + +instance Functor Gr where + fmap = nmap + +instance Show a => Show (Gr a) where + showsPrec d g = showParen (d > 10) $ showString "mkGraph " . showsPrec 11 (labNodes g) . showString " " . showsPrec 11 (edges g) + +mkGraph :: [(Node, a)] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a +mkGraph nodes edges = Gr (IM.fromList [(v, ctx v a) | (v, a) <- nodes]) + where + ctx v a = (IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v bwd, a, IM.findWithDefault IS.empty v fwd) + fwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- edges] + bwd = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- edges] + +mkUGraph :: [Node] -> [(Node, Node)] -> Gr () +mkUGraph nodes edges = mkGraph (zip nodes (repeat ())) edges + +labNodes :: Gr a -> [(Node, a)] +labNodes (Gr m) = l <$> IM.toList m + where + l (v, (p, a, s)) = (v, a) + +nodes :: Gr a -> [Node] +nodes (Gr m) = IM.keys m + +edges :: Gr a -> [(Node, Node)] +edges (Gr m) = foldMap go (IM.toList m) + where + go (v, (p, a, s)) = map ((,) v) (IS.toList s) + +suc :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet +suc (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> s + +pre :: Gr a -> Node -> IntSet +pre (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> p + +lab :: Gr a -> Node -> a +lab (Gr m) v = case m IM.! v of + (p, a, s) -> a + +labMaybe :: Gr a -> Node -> Maybe a +labMaybe (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of + Just (p, a, s) -> Just a + Nothing -> Nothing + +sucList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] +sucList g v = IS.toList (suc g v) + +preList :: Gr a -> Node -> [Node] +preList g v = IS.toList (pre g v) + +indeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +indeg gr v = IS.size (pre gr v) + +outdeg :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +outdeg gr v = IS.size (suc gr v) + +hasEdge :: Gr a -> (Node, Node) -> Bool +hasEdge (Gr m) (a,b) = case IM.lookup a m of + Just (p, a, s) -> IS.member b s + Nothing -> False + +hasNode :: Gr a -> Node -> Bool +hasNode (Gr m) v = case IM.lookup v m of + Just _ -> True + Nothing -> False + +delNode :: Node -> Gr a -> Gr a +delNode v (Gr m) = case IM.lookup v m of + Just (p, a, s) -> Gr . foldr (.) id (clearSucc v <$> IS.toList p) . foldr (.) id (clearPred v <$> IS.toList s) . IM.delete v $ m + Nothing -> Gr m + where + clearSucc v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, IS.delete v s)) k m + clearPred v k m = IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (IS.delete v p, a, s)) k m + +insEdges :: [(Node, Node)] -> Gr a -> Gr a +insEdges es (Gr m) = Gr . part1 . part2 $ m + where + adjs = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(a, IS.singleton b) | (a, b) <- es] + adjp = IM.fromListWith (<>) [(b, IS.singleton a) | (a, b) <- es] + part1 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p, a, s <> js)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjs] + part2 = foldr (.) id [IM.adjust (\(p, a, s) -> (p <> js, a, s)) i | (i, js) <- IM.toList adjp] + +insNode :: (Node, a) -> Gr a -> Gr a +insNode (i, a) (Gr m) = Gr (IM.alter go i m) + where + go (Just (p1, a1, s1)) = Just (p1, a, s1) + go Nothing = Just (IS.empty, a, IS.empty) + +(&) :: (IntSet, Node, a, IntSet) -> Gr a -> Gr a +(&) (p, i, a, s) = insEdges (ein ++ eout) . insNode (i, a) + where + ein = [(j, i) | j <- IS.toList p] + eout = [(i, j) | j <- IS.toList s] + +newNodes :: Int -> Gr a -> [Node] +newNodes n (Gr m) = case IM.findMax m of + (x, _) -> [x+1..x+n] + +-- XXX: Really slow. +order :: Gr a -> Int +order (Gr m) = IM.size m + +gmap :: (Node -> Context a -> Context b) -> Gr a -> Gr b +gmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapWithKey f m) + +nmap :: (a -> b) -> Gr a -> Gr b +nmap f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.map go m) + where go (p, a, s) = (p, f a, s) + +gfilter :: (Node -> Context a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a +gfilter f (Gr m) = Gr (IM.mapMaybeWithKey go m) + where + go i (p, a, s) + | IS.member i keep = Just (IS.intersection p keep, a, IS.intersection s keep) + | otherwise = Nothing + keep = IS.fromList [i | (i, ctx) <- IM.toList m, f i ctx] + +labfilter :: (a -> Bool) -> Gr a -> Gr a +labfilter f g = gfilter (\i (p, a, s) -> f a) g + +dfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] +dfs g start = go start IS.empty + where + go [] visited = [] + go (x:xs) visited + | IS.member x visited = go xs visited + | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) + +udfs :: Gr a -> [Node] -> [Node] +udfs g start = go start IS.empty + where + go [] visited = [] + go (x:xs) visited + | IS.member x visited = go xs visited + | otherwise = x : go (sucList g x ++ preList g x ++ xs) (IS.insert x visited) + +topsort :: Gr a -> [Node] +topsort g = (foldr (.) id $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty) [] + where + go = \x -> do + visited <- get + case IS.member x visited of + True -> pure id + False -> do + put (IS.insert x visited) + before <- foldr (.) id <$> traverse go (preList g x) + return (before . (x:)) + +subgraph :: Gr a -> [Node] -> Gr a +subgraph gr ns = (mkGraph + (filter (\(i,a) -> IS.member i nset) (labNodes gr)) + (filter (\(i,j) -> IS.member i nset && IS.member j nset) (edges gr))) + where + nset = IS.fromList ns + + +-- Assumes that g is undirected, but does not check. +components :: Gr a -> [[Node]] +components g = filter (not . null) $ evalState (traverse go (nodes g)) IS.empty + where + go = \x -> go1 [x] [] + go1 :: [Node] -> [Node] -> State IntSet [Node] + go1 [] os = pure os + go1 (x:xs) os = do + visited <- get + case IS.member x visited of + True -> go1 xs os + False -> do + put (IS.insert x visited) + go1 (sucList g x ++ xs) (x:os) + +splitComponents :: Gr a -> [Gr a] +splitComponents (Gr m) = [Gr (IM.restrictKeys m (IS.fromList c)) | c <- components (Gr m)] + +isEmpty :: Gr a -> Bool +isEmpty (Gr m) = IM.null m + +isConnected :: Gr a -> Bool +isConnected g = isEmpty g || IS.fromList (udfs g (take 1 (nodes g))) == IS.fromList (nodes g) + +isUndirected :: Gr a -> Bool +isUndirected (Gr m) = all ok (toList m) + where + ok (p, a, s) = p == s + +-- Make simple and undirected, remove labels +simplify :: Gr a -> Gr () +simplify gr = const () <$> simplify' gr + +-- Make simple and undirected +simplify' :: Gr a -> Gr a +simplify' gr = gmap dedup gr + where + dedup node (p, a, s) = + let adj = IS.delete node $ (p <> s) + in (adj, a, adj) + +plot :: String -> Gr () -> IO () +plot fname gr = writeFile fname txt + where + txt = unlines [ + "digraph {", + unlines [show n | n <- nodes gr], + unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], + unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], + "}"] + +plotLab :: Show a => String -> Gr a -> IO () +plotLab fname gr = writeFile fname txt + where + txt = unlines [ + if isUndirected gr then "graph {" else "digraph {", + unlines [printf "%i [label=\"%s\"]" n (show a) | (n,a) <- labNodes gr], + unlines [show a ++ " -- " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, hasEdge gr (b,a), a < b], + unlines [show a ++ " -> " ++ show b | (a,b) <- edges gr, not (hasEdge gr (b,a))], + "}"] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6e638d7f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/TWRemat.hs @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +{-# Language DeriveTraversable #-} +{-# Language NamedFieldPuns #-} +module TWRemat where + +import Data.DList (DList) +import qualified Data.DList as DL +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Lazy as Map +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.List +import Data.Ord + +import Balanced +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TreeWidth +import Util + +data Step = Compute Node | Free Node + deriving (Show, Eq, Ord) + +toposort :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Node] +toposort gr = go + where + go xs = sortOn (\x -> score IM.! x) (IS.toList xs) + score = IM.fromList (zip (G.topsort gr) [0..]) + +ancestors :: Gr a -> (Node -> IntSet) +ancestors gr = tab + where + tab = memo (G.nodes gr) (\n -> IS.singleton n <> foldMap tab (G.preList gr n)) + +-- Recursively remove elements of root node from all subtrees. +preFilter :: Tree Bag -> Tree Bag +preFilter (Tree _ x subs) = tree x [preFilter $ fmap (`IS.difference` x) c | c <- subs] + +data Comp = Comp{x :: Bag, xall :: Bag} + +-- Annotate each node with the union of all nodes in its subtree. +preFold :: Tree Bag -> Tree Comp +preFold t@(Tree _ x subs) = tree Comp{x,xall=total} subs' + where subs' = preFold <$> subs + total = x <> fold (xall . treeVal <$> subs') + +-- Computes a rematerialization schedule for the given DAG, which ends +-- with the nodes of 'compute' computed and in memory. +remat :: Gr a -> IntSet -> [Step] +remat gr compute = DL.toList (twremat (preFold . preFilter . sepTree $ treeWidth gr) compute) + where + topo = toposort gr + antab = ancestors gr + + twremat :: Tree Comp -> IntSet -> DList Step + twremat (Tree _ Comp{x} components) compute + | IS.null compute = mempty + | otherwise = case components of + [] -> + -- Base case: simply execute the remaining nodes in order, then + -- free the ones the caller doesn't need. + DL.fromList (Compute <$> topo target) <> DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) + components -> + -- Recursion case: select a balanced separator X of the tree decomposition. + -- 1. for each node v of X that we need to compute, in topological order + -- a. Recursively compute the direct dependencies of v in each subtree, + -- excluding any which are in X itself (those are already computed + -- and in memory, since we are traversing X in topological order). + -- b. Compute v. + -- c. Free the dependencies computed in #1a. + -- 2. Recursively compute the needed nodes which are not in X + -- 3. Free the computed nodes of X that the caller doesn't need. + let compsets = map (xall . treeVal) components :: [Bag] + part1 v = let deps = G.pre gr v + new_computes = [deps `IS.intersection` chi_nodes | chi_nodes <- compsets] + in fold [twremat chi new_compute | (chi, new_compute) <- zip components new_computes] + <> (DL.singleton (Compute v)) + <> DL.fromList (Free <$> (IS.toList $ fold new_computes)) + part2 = fold [twremat chi (outside `IS.intersection` chi_nodes) | (chi, chi_nodes) <- zip components compsets] + part3 = DL.fromList (Free <$> topo (target `IS.difference` compute)) + in foldMap part1 (topo target) <> part2 <> part3 + where + ancestor_set = foldMap antab (IS.toList compute) :: IntSet + -- Nodes of X which are needed, directly or indirectly. + target = IS.filter (\i -> IS.member i ancestor_set) x + -- Nodes the caller needs which are not in X. + outside = compute `IS.difference` x diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3201608db --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/TreeWidth.hs @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +{-# Language BangPatterns #-} +module TreeWidth where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.OrdPSQ (OrdPSQ) +import qualified Data.OrdPSQ as PQ +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G + +type Bag = IntSet + +-- O(n^2 d^2), where d is the average degree +slowTreeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag +slowTreeWidth ga = go (G.simplify ga) [] + where + go gr ns = case min_fill_in gr of + Just node -> let gr' = G.insEdges [(a, b) | + a <- G.sucList gr node, + b <- G.sucList gr node, + a /= b, + not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] $ G.delNode node gr + in go gr' ((node, G.suc gr node) : ns) + Nothing -> finish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, IS.fromList (G.nodes gr))] []) + finish [] tree = tree + finish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree = finish ns tree' + where + target = head ([i | (i, bag) <- G.labNodes tree, IS.isSubsetOf neighbors bag] ++ [0]) -- inefficient + [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree + adj = IS.singleton target + tree' = (adj, new_id, IS.insert node neighbors, adj) G.& tree + +-- O(n d^2 log n), where d is the average degree +treeWidth :: Gr a -> Gr Bag +treeWidth ga = let gr = G.simplify ga in go gr [] (initCache gr) + where + go !gr !ns !cache = + case minCache cache of + Just node -> let neighbors = G.sucList gr node + newEdges = [(a, b) | + a <- neighbors, + b <- neighbors, + a /= b, + not (G.hasEdge gr (a,b))] + gr' = G.insEdges newEdges $ G.delNode node gr + dirty = IS.fromList $ [node] ++ neighbors ++ (neighbors >>= G.sucList gr) + in go gr' ((node, IS.fromList $ neighbors) : ns) (updateCache gr' dirty cache) + Nothing -> finish ns (IS.fromList (G.nodes gr)) + finish ns initBag = gofinish ns (G.mkGraph [(0, initBag)] []) (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton 0)) initBag) + -- 'bags' indexes the current bags of the tree by their contents + -- bags : vertex v -> set of bags containing v + gofinish [] tree bags = tree + gofinish ((node,neighbors):ns) tree bags = gofinish ns tree' bags' + where + -- Either connect to some bag that contains all our neighbors, or connect to the first bag + target = case [b | n <- IS.toList neighbors, Just b <- [IM.lookup n bags]] of + [] -> 0 + bs -> head (IS.toList (foldr1 IS.intersection bs) ++ [0]) + [new_id] = G.newNodes 1 tree + new_bag = IS.insert node neighbors + adj = IS.singleton target + tree' = (adj, new_id, new_bag, adj) G.& tree + bags' = IM.unionWith (<>) bags (IM.fromSet (const (IS.singleton new_id)) new_bag) + +-- The cache maintains a priority queue of nodes according to their +-- fill number, such that the node with minimum fill number can be +-- obtained in O(1), and the cache can be updated to accomodate +-- removal or addition of nodes in O(log n). +type MinFillCache = OrdPSQ Node (Int, Int, Node) () + +-- O(n d^2), where d is the average degree of nodes +initCache :: Gr a -> MinFillCache +initCache gr = PQ.fromList [(node, (fill gr node, G.outdeg gr node, node), ()) | node <- G.nodes gr] + +-- O(m log n), where m is the number of nodes to refresh +updateCache :: Gr a -> IntSet -> MinFillCache -> MinFillCache +updateCache gr nodes cache = foldr update cache (IS.toList nodes) + where + update node cache + | G.hasNode gr node = let f = fill gr node + d = G.outdeg gr node + in PQ.insert node (f, d, node) () cache + | otherwise = PQ.delete node cache + +-- O(log n) +minCache :: MinFillCache -> Maybe Node +minCache cache + | order == 0 = Nothing + | degree == order - 1 = Nothing + | otherwise = Just n + where + order = PQ.size cache + Just (n, (_, degree, _), _) = PQ.findMin cache + +-- Find fill number of a node, defined as the minimum number of edges +-- that must be added to the graph to make the neighborhood of `node` +-- into a clique. O(log n + e^2), where e is the number of neighbors +-- of node +fill :: Gr a -> Node -> Int +fill gr node = sum (map subfill (IS.toList neighbors)) `div` 2 + where neighbors = G.suc gr node + subfill n = IS.size (neighbors `IS.difference` G.suc gr n) - 1 + +-- Find node with minimum fill number. +-- O(n d^2) +min_fill_in :: Gr a -> Maybe G.Node +min_fill_in gr + | G.isEmpty gr = Nothing + | degree == G.order gr - 1 = Nothing + | otherwise = case minimum [(fill gr n, G.outdeg gr n, n) | n <- nodes] of + (_, _, node) -> Just node + where + nodes = G.nodes gr + degree = minimum (map (G.outdeg gr) nodes) diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Tupfile b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Tupfile new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e69de29bb diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/src/Util.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Util.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fe8824c58 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/src/Util.hs @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +module Util where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.List +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Ord +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +reflex :: Ord a => [a] -> Map a a +reflex xs = Map.fromList [(x, x) | x <- xs] + +memo :: Ord a => [a] -> (a -> b) -> (a -> b) +memo xs f = \x -> tab Map.! x + where + tab = f <$> reflex xs + +minimumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b +minimumOn f xs = minimumBy (comparing f) xs + +maximumOn :: (Foldable t, Ord a) => (b -> a) -> t b -> b +maximumOn f xs = maximumBy (comparing f) xs diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a9c4214dd --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestBalanced.hs @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +module TestBalanced where + +import Control.Monad +import Data.Foldable +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Balanced +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TestGraph + +subTrees :: Tree a -> [Tree a] +subTrees t@(Tree w a []) = [t] +subTrees t@(Tree w a cs) = t : foldMap subTrees cs + +testBalanced :: TestTree +testBalanced = testGroup "Balanced" [ + testProperty "Subtrees are connected" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) + in all go (subTrees t), + testProperty "Subtrees are connected after balance" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go tree = G.isConnected (G.subgraph gr (toList tree)) + in all go (subTrees t), + testProperty "Subtrees are balanced" $ \(TreeOf gr) -> + let t = balance $ mkTree (gr :: Gr ()) + go t@(Tree w a []) = True + go t@(Tree w a cs) = maximum (map treeWeight cs) <= div w 2 + in all go (subTrees t) + ] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3d3f7c81b --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestGraph.hs @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +{-# Language ScopedTypeVariables #-} +module TestGraph where + +import Control.Monad +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Arbitrary as FGL +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.Graph as FGL +import qualified Data.Graph.Inductive.PatriciaTree as FGL +import Data.List +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (Gr a) where + arbitrary = do let t = id :: Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) -> Gen (FGL.Gr a ()) + g <- t arbitrary + return (mkGraph (FGL.labNodes g) (FGL.edges g)) + +newtype TreeOf a = TreeOf { getTreeOf :: Gr a } + deriving Show + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (TreeOf a) where + arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) + ids <- shuffle [1..n] + vals <- replicateM n arbitrary + + let go tree xs [] = pure tree + go tree xs (y:ys) = do + x <- elements xs + go ((x,y):tree) (y : xs) ys + edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) + + return (TreeOf $ simplify' $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) edges) + +newtype DagOf a = DagOf { getDagOf :: Gr a } + deriving Show + +instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary (DagOf a) where + arbitrary = do n <- chooseInt (1, 20) + ids <- shuffle [1..n] + vals <- replicateM n arbitrary + + let go edges xs [] = pure edges + go edges xs (y:ys) = do + -- choose an existing node, make the new node a dependency + x <- elements xs + go ((y,x):edges) (y : xs) ys + edges <- go [] [head ids] (tail ids) + + extra <- case n of + 1 -> pure [] + _ -> do + n_extra <- chooseInt (0,20) + replicateM n_extra $ do + sub <- elements (filter ((>1) . length) (tails ids)) + let (a:b:cs) = sub + b <- elements (b:cs) + return (b, a) + + return (DagOf $ mkGraph (zip ids vals) (edges ++ extra)) + +testGraph :: TestTree +testGraph = testGroup "Graph" [ + testProperty "subgraph nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> + let sub = take (length (nodes gr) `div` 2) (nodes gr) + subgr = subgraph gr sub + in nodes (subgr) == sub, + testProperty "topsort nodes" $ \(gr :: Gr ()) -> + sort (nodes gr) == sort (topsort gr) + ] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1b1e94988 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/test/TestTreeWidth.hs @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +module TestTreeWidth where + +import Data.Foldable +import Data.IntMap (IntMap) +import qualified Data.IntMap as IM +import Data.IntSet (IntSet) +import qualified Data.IntSet as IS +import Data.Map (Map) +import qualified Data.Map.Strict as Map +import Data.Set (Set) +import qualified Data.Set as Set +import Data.Tuple +import Debug.Trace + +import Test.QuickCheck +import Test.Tasty +import Test.Tasty.QuickCheck + +import Graph (Gr, Node) +import qualified Graph as G +import TestGraph +import TreeWidth + +-- Verify the three properties of a tree decomposition: +-- 1. The union of all bags = the set of nodes +check1 :: Gr () -> Bool +check1 gr = IS.unions (map snd (G.labNodes (treeWidth gr))) == IS.fromList (G.nodes gr) + +-- 2. For every edge (a,b), there is a bag which includes both vertices. +check2 :: Gr () -> Bool +check2 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + sets = map snd (G.labNodes tree) + in and [any (\s -> IS.member a s && IS.member b s) sets | (a, b) <- G.edges gr] + +-- 3. For a given vertex v, bags containing v are connected. +check3 :: Gr () -> Bool +check3 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + in and [G.isConnected (G.labfilter (IS.member v) tree) | v <- G.nodes gr] + +-- ?. should validate that the result is a tree? +check4 :: Gr () -> Bool +check4 gr = let tree = treeWidth gr + in length (G.edges tree) == 2 * (G.order tree - 1) + +testTreeWidth :: TestTree +testTreeWidth = testGroup "TreeWidth" [ + testProperty "vertices" check1, + testProperty "edges" check2, + testProperty "connected" check3, + testProperty "tree" check4 + ] diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/test/Tupfile b/gpt-2/twremat/test/Tupfile new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e69de29bb diff --git a/gpt-2/twremat/twremat.cabal b/gpt-2/twremat/twremat.cabal new file mode 100644 index 000000000..70e38bb25 --- /dev/null +++ b/gpt-2/twremat/twremat.cabal @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +cabal-version: 2.2 +name: twremat +version: 0.1.0.0 +synopsis: Fast implementation of `Efficient Rematerialization for Deep Networks` +-- description: +-- bug-reports: +-- license: GPL-3.0-or-later +-- license-file: LICENSE +author: nshepperd +maintainer: nshepperd@gmail.com +-- copyright: +-- category: Distribution +extra-source-files: README.md + +library lib + hs-source-dirs: src + exposed-modules: + Balanced Dense Filter Graph TreeWidth TWRemat Util + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation + default-language: Haskell2010 + +executable twremat + main-is: remat.hs + -- other-modules: Cabbage.Config, Cabbage.Cabal, Cabbage.Parser + -- other-extensions: + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, + containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text + -- , Glob + -- , containers + -- , directory + -- , filepath + -- , optparse-applicative + -- , pretty-simple + -- , process + -- , temporary + -- , text + -- , xdg-basedir + -- , parsers + -- , trifecta + + hs-source-dirs: main + default-language: Haskell2010 + default-extensions: LambdaCase, OverloadedStrings, RecordWildCards + + +Test-Suite testmain + type: exitcode-stdio-1.0 + main-is: test.hs + hs-source-dirs: main test + other-modules: TestBalanced TestGraph TestTreeWidth + build-depends: base >= 4.12.0.0 && < 4.16.0.0, lib, + containers, mtl, psqueues, dlist, relation, parsers, trifecta, text, + QuickCheck, tasty, tasty-quickcheck, fgl, fgl-arbitrary + default-language: Haskell2010 diff --git a/readme.md b/readme.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e0725ceb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/readme.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ + +# Install Requirements +- Some additional requirements might be required +`pip install -r requirements.txt` + +`pip install tensorflow` + + +# Fine tuning model. + +- Inside of the gpt-2/src you can use the `encode.py` to train a text file. +__note: you first need to download one of the models__ + +`python encode.py .txt training.npz` + +- This trains the model. While training you may enter `ctrl + C` and it will automatically save the content inside of a folder called checkpoint. Then you will want to copy that folders contents into the model (or copy of) you trained from. Use this to generate your text. + +`python train.py --dataset training.npz` \ No newline at end of file From b05775f6e15ac8d48ab76b9b6613bccccf1901f3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:25:40 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 80/83] removed env --- .env | 2 -- 1 file changed, 2 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 .env diff --git a/.env b/.env deleted file mode 100644 index f6b964f0c..000000000 --- a/.env +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2 +0,0 @@ -ADMIN_USERNAME=admin -ADMIN_PASSWORD=pwd \ No newline at end of file From d17db8eab69c66d45e20b4244b55dc5a5990cc96 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:26:03 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 81/83] git ignore --- .gitignore | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) create mode 100644 .gitignore diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2eea525d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +.env \ No newline at end of file From 1f4a69d3b61d5bb566176fa7aa8add1956bd21de Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:29:37 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 82/83] deleted text files --- gpt-2/src/alice.txt | 3353 -- gpt-2/src/bees.txt | 1597 - gpt-2/src/train.txt | 73230 ------------------------------------------ 3 files changed, 78180 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 gpt-2/src/alice.txt delete mode 100644 gpt-2/src/bees.txt delete mode 100644 gpt-2/src/train.txt diff --git a/gpt-2/src/alice.txt b/gpt-2/src/alice.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8a050284d..000000000 --- a/gpt-2/src/alice.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3353 +0,0 @@ -Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - -CHAPTER I. -Down the Rabbit-Hole - - -Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the -bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into -the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or -conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice -“without pictures or conversations?” - -So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the -hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of -making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and -picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran -close by her. - -There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it -so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh -dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, -it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the -time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually _took a -watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried -on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she -had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a -watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the -field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a -large rabbit-hole under the hedge. - -In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how -in the world she was to get out again. - -The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then -dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think -about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very -deep well. - -Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had -plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what -was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out -what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she -looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with -cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures -hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she -passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great -disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear -of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the -cupboards as she fell past it. - -“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall -think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me -at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the -top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.) - -Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? “I wonder how -many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be -getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would -be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for, you see, Alice had learnt -several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and -though this was not a _very_ good opportunity for showing off her -knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good -practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the right distance—but -then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had no -idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice -grand words to say.) - -Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right _through_ -the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk -with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather -glad there _was_ no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all -the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the -country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” -(and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy _curtseying_ as you’re -falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what -an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do -to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” - -Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began -talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” -(Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at -tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are -no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s -very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here -Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a -dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and -sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer -either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt -that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was -walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, -“Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, -thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and -the fall was over. - -Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: -she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another -long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down -it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, -and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears -and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she -turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found -herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging -from the roof. - -There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when -Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every -door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to -get out again. - -Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid -glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s -first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; -but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, -but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second -time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and -behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the -little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! - -Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not -much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the -passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get -out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright -flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head -through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought -poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, -how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only -knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had -happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things -indeed were really impossible. - -There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went -back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at -any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this -time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here -before,” said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper -label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large -letters. - -It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was -not going to do _that_ in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, -“and see whether it’s marked ‘_poison_’ or not”; for she had read -several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and -eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they -_would_ not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: -such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; -and that if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually -bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a -bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, -sooner or later. - -However, this bottle was _not_ marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to -taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed -flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and -hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a -telescope.” - -And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face -brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going -through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she -waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: -she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,” -said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I -wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the -flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could -not remember ever having seen such a thing. - -After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going -into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the -door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she -went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach -it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her -best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; -and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing -sat down and cried. - -“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself, -rather sharply; “I advise you to leave off this minute!” She generally -gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), -and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into -her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having -cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, -for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. -“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two -people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make _one_ respectable -person!” - -Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: -she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words -“EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said -Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it -makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll -get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” - -She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which -way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was -growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same -size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice -had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way -things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go -on in the common way. - -So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - - - -CHAPTER II. -The Pool of Tears - - -“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that -for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m -opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” -(for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of -sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I -wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m -sure _I_ shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble -myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be -kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I -want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every -Christmas.” - -And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must -go by the carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending -presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! - - _Alice’s Right Foot, Esq., Hearthrug, near the Fender,_ (_with - Alice’s love_). - -Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!” - -Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was -now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden -key and hurried off to the garden door. - -Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to -look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more -hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. - -“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like -you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop -this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding -gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about -four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. - -After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and -she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White -Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves -in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a -great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh! the Duchess, the -Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt -so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the -Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, -sir—” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and -the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. - -Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she -kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How -queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. -I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the -same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling -a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who -in the world am I? Ah, _that’s_ the great puzzle!” And she began -thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as -herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. - -“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long -ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t -be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a -very little! Besides, _she’s_ she, and _I’m_ I, and—oh dear, how -puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. -Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, -and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that -rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try -Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of -Rome, and Rome—no, _that’s_ all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been -changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘_How doth the little_—’” and she -crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began -to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words -did not come the same as they used to do:— - -“How doth the little crocodile - Improve his shining tail, -And pour the waters of the Nile - On every golden scale! - -“How cheerfully he seems to grin, - How neatly spread his claws, -And welcome little fishes in - With gently smiling jaws!” - - -“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes -filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and -I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to -no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve -made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be -no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ -I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and -then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down -here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden -burst of tears, “I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so -_very_ tired of being all alone here!” - -As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see -that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while -she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be -growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure -herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was -now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon -found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she -dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. - -“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the -sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and -now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little -door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden -key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than -ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this -before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” - -As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, -splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that -she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by -railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in -her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go -to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the -sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row -of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she -soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when -she was nine feet high. - -“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying -to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by -being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be -sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” - -Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way -off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought -it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small -she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had -slipped in like herself. - -“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? -Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very -likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she -began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired -of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right -way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but -she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of -a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather -inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, -but it said nothing. - -“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s -a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all -her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago -anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which -was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a -sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with -fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she -had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like -cats.” - -“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would -_you_ like cats if you were me?” - -“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry -about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d -take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear -quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about -in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her -paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to -nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your -pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all -over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. “We won’t talk -about her any more if you’d rather not.” - -“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his -tail. “As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always -_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name -again!” - -“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of -conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not -answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog near -our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you -know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when -you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts -of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you -know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says -it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, -“I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away -from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the -pool as it went. - -So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we -won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the -Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face -was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low -trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my -history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” - -It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the -birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a -Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice -led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. - - - - -CHAPTER III. -A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale - - -They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the -birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close -to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. - -The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a -consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite -natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if -she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument -with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, “I am -older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would not allow -without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to -tell its age, there was no more to be said. - -At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, -called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! _I’ll_ soon make -you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the -Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she -felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. - -“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This -is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William -the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted -to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much -accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of -Mercia and Northumbria—’” - -“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver. - -“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did -you speak?” - -“Not I!” said the Lory hastily. - -“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “—I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, -the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even -Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’” - -“Found _what_?” said the Duck. - -“Found _it_,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know -what ‘it’ means.” - -“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when _I_ find a thing,” said the -Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the -archbishop find?” - -The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘—found -it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him -the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence -of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, -turning to Alice as it spoke. - -“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to -dry me at all.” - -“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move -that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic -remedies—” - -“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half -those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And -the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds -tittered audibly. - -“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, -that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.” - -“What _is_ a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she wanted much to -know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that _somebody_ ought to -speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. - -“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, -as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will -tell you how the Dodo managed it.) - -First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact -shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed -along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and -away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they -liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, -when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry -again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all -crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?” - -This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of -thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its -forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the -pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo -said, “_Everybody_ has won, and all must have prizes.” - -“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked. - -“Why, _she_, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one -finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a -confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” - -Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her -pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had -not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly -one a-piece, all round. - -“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse. - -“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in -your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice. - -“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. - -“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. - -Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly -presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant -thimble;” and, when it had finished this short speech, they all -cheered. - -Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave -that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything -to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as -she could. - -The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and -confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste -theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. -However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and -begged the Mouse to tell them something more. - -“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why -it is you hate—C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that it -would be offended again. - -“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and -sighing. - -“It _is_ a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder -at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on -puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the -tale was something like this:— - - “Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, ‘Let us both - go to law: _I_ will prosecute _you_.—Come, I’ll take no - denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I’ve - nothing to do.’ Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear - sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’ - ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ Said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll - try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.’” - -“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice severely. “What are -you thinking of?” - -“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the fifth -bend, I think?” - -“I had _not!_” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. - -“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking -anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!” - -“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and -walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!” - -“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily offended, -you know!” - -The Mouse only growled in reply. - -“Please come back and finish your story!” Alice called after it; and -the others all joined in chorus, “Yes, please do!” but the Mouse only -shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. - -“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it was -quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to -her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose -_your_ temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, a little -snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!” - -“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, -addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!” - -“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the -Lory. - -Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: -“Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice you -can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, -she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” - -This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the -birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very -carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home; the night-air -doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice -to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in -bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left -alone. - -“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a melancholy -tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best -cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you -any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very -lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a -little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up -eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was -coming back to finish his story. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. -The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill - - -It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking -anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard -it muttering to itself “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh -my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are -ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a -moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid -gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but -they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since -her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the -little door, had vanished completely. - -Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and -called out to her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you -doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and -a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off -at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the -mistake it had made. - -“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How -surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him -his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she -came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass -plate with the name “W. RABBIT,” engraved upon it. She went in without -knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the -real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the -fan and gloves. - -“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for -a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” And she -began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “‘Miss Alice! Come -here directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, -nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I -don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in the house -if it began ordering people about like that!” - -By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table -in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three -pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the -gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a -little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label -this time with the words “DRINK ME,” but nevertheless she uncorked it -and put it to her lips. “I know _something_ interesting is sure to -happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink anything; so -I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large -again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!” - -It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had -drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, -and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put -down the bottle, saying to herself “That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t -grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t -drunk quite so much!” - -Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, -and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there -was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with -one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. -Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out -of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself “Now I -can do no more, whatever happens. What _will_ become of me?” - -Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, -and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there -seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room -again, no wonder she felt unhappy. - -“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t -always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and -rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and -yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what -_can_ have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied -that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of -one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And -when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,” she added in a -sorrowful tone; “at least there’s no room to grow up any more _here_.” - -“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I _never_ get any older than I am -now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but -then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like _that!_” - -“Oh, you foolish Alice!” she answered herself. “How can you learn -lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for _you_, and no room at all -for any lesson-books!” - -And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and -making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes -she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. - -“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. “Fetch me my gloves this moment!” -Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was -the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the -house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as -large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. - -Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as -the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, -that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself “Then I’ll -go round and get in at the window.” - -“_That_ you won’t!” thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied -she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her -hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, -but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, -from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a -cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. - -Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And -then a voice she had never heard before, “Sure then I’m here! Digging -for apples, yer honour!” - -“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rabbit angrily. “Here! Come and -help me out of _this!_” (Sounds of more broken glass.) - -“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?” - -“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!” (He pronounced it “arrum.”) - -“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole -window!” - -“Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.” - -“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!” - -There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers -now and then; such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at -all!” “Do as I tell you, you coward!” and at last she spread out her -hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were -_two_ little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “What a number -of cucumber-frames there must be!” thought Alice. “I wonder what -they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they -_could!_ I’m sure _I_ don’t want to stay in here any longer!” - -She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a -rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all -talking together: she made out the words: “Where’s the other -ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! -fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em -together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do -well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this -rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! -Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I -fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, _I_ shan’t! _You_ do -it!—_That_ I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says -you’re to go down the chimney!” - -“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to -herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in -Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but -I _think_ I can kick a little!” - -She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till -she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) -scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, -saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited -to see what would happen next. - -The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” -then the Rabbit’s voice along—“Catch him, you by the hedge!” then -silence, and then another confusion of voices—“Hold up his head—Brandy -now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell -us all about it!” - -Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (“That’s Bill,” thought -Alice,) “Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m -a deal too flustered to tell you—all I know is, something comes at me -like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!” - -“So you did, old fellow!” said the others. - -“We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice -called out as loud as she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you!” - -There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, “I -wonder what they _will_ do next! If they had any sense, they’d take the -roof off.” After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and -Alice heard the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin with.” - -“A barrowful of _what?_” thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, -for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the -window, and some of them hit her in the face. “I’ll put a stop to -this,” she said to herself, and shouted out, “You’d better not do that -again!” which produced another dead silence. - -Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into -little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her -head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’s sure to make -_some_ change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it -must make me smaller, I suppose.” - -So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she -began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get -through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of -little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, -was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it -something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she -appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself -safe in a thick wood. - -“The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice to herself, as she -wandered about in the wood, “is to grow to my right size again; and the -second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that -will be the best plan.” - -It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply -arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea -how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among -the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a -great hurry. - -An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and -feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor little -thing!” said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to -it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it -might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in -spite of all her coaxing. - -Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and -held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off -all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, -and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, -to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the -other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head -over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was -very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every -moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then -the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very -little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely -all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with -its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. - -This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she -set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, -and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the distance. - -“And yet what a dear little puppy it was!” said Alice, as she leant -against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the -leaves: “I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d -only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that -I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see—how _is_ it to be managed? I -suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great -question is, what?” - -The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at -the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that -looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. -There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as -herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and -behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what -was on the top of it. - -She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the -mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue -caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly -smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of -anything else. - - - - -CHAPTER V. -Advice from a Caterpillar - - -The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in -silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and -addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. - -“Who are _you?_” said the Caterpillar. - -This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, -rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know -who I _was_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been -changed several times since then.” - -“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain -yourself!” - -“I can’t explain _myself_, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m -not myself, you see.” - -“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. - -“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, -“for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many -different sizes in a day is very confusing.” - -“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you -have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then -after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little -queer, won’t you?” - -“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know -is, it would feel very queer to _me_.” - -“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are _you?_” - -Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. -Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such _very_ -short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I -think, you ought to tell me who _you_ are, first.” - -“Why?” said the Caterpillar. - -Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any -good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a _very_ unpleasant -state of mind, she turned away. - -“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something -important to say!” - -This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. - -“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she -could. - -“No,” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, -and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For -some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded -its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you -think you’re changed, do you?” - -“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can’t remember things as I -used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!” - -“Can’t remember _what_ things?” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all -came different!” Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. - -“Repeat, “_You are old, Father William_,’” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice folded her hands, and began:— - -“You are old, Father William,” the young man said, - “And your hair has become very white; -And yet you incessantly stand on your head— - Do you think, at your age, it is right?” - -“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, - “I feared it might injure the brain; -But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, - Why, I do it again and again.” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before, - And have grown most uncommonly fat; -Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— - Pray, what is the reason of that?” - -“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, - “I kept all my limbs very supple -By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— - Allow me to sell you a couple?” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak - For anything tougher than suet; -Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak— - Pray, how did you manage to do it?” - -“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law, - And argued each case with my wife; -And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, - Has lasted the rest of my life.” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose - That your eye was as steady as ever; -Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— - What made you so awfully clever?” - -“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” - Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs! -Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? - Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!” - - -“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Not _quite_ right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly; “some of the -words have got altered.” - -“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, -and there was silence for some minutes. - -The Caterpillar was the first to speak. - -“What size do you want to be?” it asked. - -“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily replied; “only one -doesn’t like changing so often, you know.” - -“I _don’t_ know,” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life -before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. - -“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, I should like to be a _little_ larger, sir, if you wouldn’t -mind,” said Alice: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.” - -“It is a very good height indeed!” said the Caterpillar angrily, -rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). - -“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she -thought of herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily -offended!” - -“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Caterpillar; and it put the -hookah into its mouth and began smoking again. - -This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a -minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and -yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the -mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, -“One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you -grow shorter.” - -“One side of _what?_ The other side of _what?_” thought Alice to -herself. - -“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it -aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight. - -Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, -trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was -perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at -last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke -off a bit of the edge with each hand. - -“And now which is which?” she said to herself, and nibbled a little of -the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a -violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot! - -She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt -that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she -set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed -so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her -mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the -lefthand bit. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which -changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders -were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was -an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a -sea of green leaves that lay far below her. - -“What _can_ all that green stuff be?” said Alice. “And where _have_ my -shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” -She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, -except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. - -As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, -she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that -her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She -had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was -going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but -the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp -hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her -face, and was beating her violently with its wings. - -“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon. - -“I’m _not_ a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. “Let me alone!” - -“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued -tone, and added with a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and nothing -seems to suit them!” - -“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,” said Alice. - -“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried -hedges,” the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; “but those -serpents! There’s no pleasing them!” - -Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in -saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. - -“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the Pigeon; -“but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I -haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!” - -“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said Alice, who was beginning to -see its meaning. - -“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the -Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I -should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down -from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!” - -“But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—” - -“Well! _What_ are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to -invent something!” - -“I—I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered -the number of changes she had gone through that day. - -“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest -contempt. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never -_one_ with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s -no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never -tasted an egg!” - -“I _have_ tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who was a very truthful -child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you -know.” - -“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but if they do, why then -they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.” - -This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a -minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, “You’re -looking for eggs, I know _that_ well enough; and what does it matter to -me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” - -“It matters a good deal to _me_,” said Alice hastily; “but I’m not -looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want -_yours_: I don’t like them raw.” - -“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled -down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well -as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, -and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while -she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, -and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at -the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until -she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. - -It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it -felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, -and began talking to herself, as usual. “Come, there’s half my plan -done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m -going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my -right size: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how -_is_ that to be done, I wonder?” As she said this, she came suddenly -upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. -“Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it’ll never do to come upon them -_this_ size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she -began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go -near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. -Pig and Pepper - - -For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what -to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the -wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: -otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a -fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by -another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a -frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled -all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all -about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. - -The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, -nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, -saying, in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the -Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn -tone, only changing the order of the words a little, “From the Queen. -An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.” - -Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. - -Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood -for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the -Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the -door, staring stupidly up into the sky. - -Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. - -“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for -two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you -are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could -possibly hear you.” And certainly there _was_ a most extraordinary -noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now -and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to -pieces. - -“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?” - -“There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on -without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, -if you were _inside_, you might knock, and I could let you out, you -know.” He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and -this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” -she said to herself; “his eyes are so _very_ nearly at the top of his -head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?” -she repeated, aloud. - -“I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “till tomorrow—” - -At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came -skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, -and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. - -“—or next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly -as if nothing had happened. - -“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone. - -“_Are_ you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first -question, you know.” - -It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. “It’s really -dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures argue. -It’s enough to drive one crazy!” - -The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his -remark, with variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on and off, for -days and days.” - -“But what am _I_ to do?” said Alice. - -“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling. - -“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s -perfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in. - -The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from -one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool -in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, -stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. - -“There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to -herself, as well as she could for sneezing. - -There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed -occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling -alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen -that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting -on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. - -“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was -not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why -your cat grins like that?” - -“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!” - -She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite -jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the -baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:— - -“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t -know that cats _could_ grin.” - -“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.” - -“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite -pleased to have got into a conversation. - -“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.” - -Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would -be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she -was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the -fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at -the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a -shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of -them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, -that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. - -“Oh, _please_ mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down -in an agony of terror. “Oh, there goes his _precious_ nose!” as an -unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it -off. - -“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse -growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” - -“Which would _not_ be an advantage,” said Alice, who felt very glad to -get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. “Just -think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the -earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” - -“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!” - -Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take -the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to -be listening, so she went on again: “Twenty-four hours, I _think_; or -is it twelve? I—” - -“Oh, don’t bother _me_,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide -figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a -sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at -the end of every line: - -“Speak roughly to your little boy, - And beat him when he sneezes: -He only does it to annoy, - Because he knows it teases.” - - -CHORUS. -(In which the cook and the baby joined): - - -“Wow! wow! wow!” - - -While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing -the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, -that Alice could hardly hear the words:— - -“I speak severely to my boy, - I beat him when he sneezes; -For he can thoroughly enjoy - The pepper when he pleases!” - - -CHORUS. - - -“Wow! wow! wow!” - - -“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, -flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play -croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook -threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. - -Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped -little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, -“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was -snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling -itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for -the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. - -As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to -twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right -ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it -out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” -thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be -murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the -little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). -“Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of -expressing yourself.” - -The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face -to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had -a _very_ turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also -its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did -not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only -sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there -were any tears. - -No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” -said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind -now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible -to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. - -Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do -with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so -violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time -there could be _no_ mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than -a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it -further. - -So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it -trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to -herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes -rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other -children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying -to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she -was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of -a tree a few yards off. - -The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she -thought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she -felt that it ought to be treated with respect. - -“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know -whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little -wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. -“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” - -“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. - -“I don’t much care where—” said Alice. - -“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. - -“—so long as I get _somewhere_,” Alice added as an explanation. - -“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long -enough.” - -Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another -question. “What sort of people live about here?” - -“In _that_ direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives -a Hatter: and in _that_ direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a -March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” - -“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. - -“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. -You’re mad.” - -“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. - -“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” - -Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how -do you know that you’re mad?” - -“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” - -“I suppose so,” said Alice. - -“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, -and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now _I_ growl when I’m pleased, -and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” - -“_I_ call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. - -“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the -Queen to-day?” - -“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited -yet.” - -“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished. - -Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer -things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, -it suddenly appeared again. - -“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly -forgotten to ask.” - -“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back -in a natural way. - -“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again. - -Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not -appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in -which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she -said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and -perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it -was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat -again, sitting on a branch of a tree. - -“Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat. - -“I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing -and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” - -“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, -beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which -remained some time after the rest of it had gone. - -“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a -grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” - -She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of -the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the -chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It -was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had -nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself -to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather -timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! -I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. -A Mad Tea-Party - - -There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the -March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting -between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a -cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very -uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, -I suppose it doesn’t mind.” - -The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at -one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw -Alice coming. “There’s _plenty_ of room!” said Alice indignantly, and -she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. - -“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. - -Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. -“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. - -“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. - -“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. - -“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said -the March Hare. - -“I didn’t know it was _your_ table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great -many more than three.” - -“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at -Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first -speech. - -“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some -severity; “it’s very rude.” - -The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he _said_ -was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” - -“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve -begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. - -“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said -the March Hare. - -“Exactly so,” said Alice. - -“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. - -“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I -say—that’s the same thing, you know.” - -“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well -say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” - -“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what -I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!” - -“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be -talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing -as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” - -“It _is_ the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the -conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while -Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and -writing-desks, which wasn’t much. - -The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month -is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his -pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, -and holding it to his ear. - -Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” - -“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit -the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare. - -“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. - -“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: -“you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” - -The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped -it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of -nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the _best_ butter, -you know.” - -Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a -funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t -tell what o’clock it is!” - -“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does _your_ watch tell you what -year it is?” - -“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it -stays the same year for such a long time together.” - -“Which is just the case with _mine_,” said the Hatter. - -Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no -sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite -understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. - -“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little -hot tea upon its nose. - -The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its -eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.” - -“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice -again. - -“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?” - -“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. - -“Nor I,” said the March Hare. - -Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the -time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no -answers.” - -“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk -about wasting _it_. It’s _him_.” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. - -“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head -contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!” - -“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat -time when I learn music.” - -“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. -Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything -you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in -the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a -hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, -time for dinner!” - -(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) - -“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I -shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.” - -“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to -half-past one as long as you liked.” - -“Is that the way _you_ manage?” Alice asked. - -The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We -quarrelled last March—just before _he_ went mad, you know—” (pointing -with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert -given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing - -‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! -How I wonder what you’re at!’ - - -You know the song, perhaps?” - -“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. - -“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:— - -‘Up above the world you fly, -Like a tea-tray in the sky. - Twinkle, twinkle—’” - - -Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep -“_Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle_—” and went on so long that they -had to pinch it to make it stop. - -“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the -Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his -head!’” - -“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice. - -“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t -do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” - -A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many -tea-things are put out here?” she asked. - -“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, -and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” - -“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice. - -“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.” - -“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured -to ask. - -“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. -“I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” - -“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the -proposal. - -“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And -they pinched it on both sides at once. - -The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a -hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” - -“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. - -“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. - -“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again -before it’s done.” - -“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began -in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and -they lived at the bottom of a well—” - -“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest -in questions of eating and drinking. - -“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or -two. - -“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; -“they’d have been ill.” - -“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “_very_ ill.” - -Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of -living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But -why did they live at the bottom of a well?” - -“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. - -“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t -take more.” - -“You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to -take _more_ than nothing.” - -“Nobody asked _your_ opinion,” said Alice. - -“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly. - -Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to -some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and -repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?” - -The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then -said, “It was a treacle-well.” - -“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the -Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily -remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for -yourself.” - -“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I -dare say there may be _one_.” - -“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to -go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, -you know—” - -“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. - -“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. - -“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place -on.” - -He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare -moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the -place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any -advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than -before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. - -Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very -cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle -from?” - -“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should -think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?” - -“But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing -to notice this last remark. - -“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.” - -This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for -some time without interrupting it. - -“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing -its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of -things—everything that begins with an M—” - -“Why with an M?” said Alice. - -“Why not?” said the March Hare. - -Alice was silent. - -The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a -doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a -little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as -mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say -things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a -drawing of a muchness?” - -“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t -think—” - -“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. - -This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in -great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and -neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she -looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: -the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into -the teapot. - -“At any rate I’ll never go _there_ again!” said Alice as she picked her -way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in -all my life!” - -Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door -leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But -everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And -in she went. - -Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little -glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, -and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that -led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom -(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot -high: then she walked down the little passage: and _then_—she found -herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds -and the cool fountains. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. -The Queen’s Croquet-Ground - - -A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses -growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily -painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she -went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard -one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me -like that!” - -“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my -elbow.” - -On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the -blame on others!” - -“_You’d_ better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only -yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!” - -“What for?” said the one who had spoken first. - -“That’s none of _your_ business, Two!” said Seven. - -“Yes, it _is_ his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for -bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.” - -Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun “Well, of all the unjust -things—” when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching -them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, -and all of them bowed low. - -“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are -painting those roses?” - -Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low -voice, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a -_red_ rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen -was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So -you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—” At this -moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called -out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw -themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, -and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. - -First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the -three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the -corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with -diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came -the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came -jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all -ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, -and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a -hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went -by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying -the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this -grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. - -Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face -like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard -of such a rule at processions; “and besides, what would be the use of a -procession,” thought she, “if people had all to lie down upon their -faces, so that they couldn’t see it?” So she stood still where she was, -and waited. - -When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked -at her, and the Queen said severely “Who is this?” She said it to the -Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. - -“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to -Alice, she went on, “What’s your name, child?” - -“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; -but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after -all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” - -“And who are _these?_” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners -who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on -their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of -the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, -or courtiers, or three of her own children. - -“How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. “It’s -no business of _mine_.” - -The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a -moment like a wild beast, screamed “Off with her head! Off—” - -“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was -silent. - -The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider, my -dear: she is only a child!” - -The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave “Turn -them over!” - -The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot. - -“Get up!” said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three -gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, -the royal children, and everybody else. - -“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me giddy.” And then, -turning to the rose-tree, she went on, “What _have_ you been doing -here?” - -“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone, going -down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—” - -“_I_ see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. -“Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the -soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran -to Alice for protection. - -“You shan’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a large -flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a -minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the -others. - -“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen. - -“Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!” the soldiers shouted -in reply. - -“That’s right!” shouted the Queen. “Can you play croquet?” - -The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was -evidently meant for her. - -“Yes!” shouted Alice. - -“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, -wondering very much what would happen next. - -“It’s—it’s a very fine day!” said a timid voice at her side. She was -walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. - -“Very,” said Alice: “—where’s the Duchess?” - -“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked -anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon -tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered “She’s under -sentence of execution.” - -“What for?” said Alice. - -“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. - -“No, I didn’t,” said Alice: “I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said -‘What for?’” - -“She boxed the Queen’s ears—” the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little -scream of laughter. “Oh, hush!” the Rabbit whispered in a frightened -tone. “The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the -Queen said—” - -“Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and -people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each -other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game -began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground -in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live -hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double -themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. - -The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: -she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, -under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she -had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the -hedgehog a blow with its head, it _would_ twist itself round and look -up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help -bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was -going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog -had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all -this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she -wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were -always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice -soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. - -The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling -all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time -the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and -shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once in a -minute. - -Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any -dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, -“and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully -fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any -one left alive!” - -She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she -could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious -appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after -watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said -to herself “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk -to.” - -“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth -enough for it to speak with. - -Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no use -speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at least one -of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put -down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad -she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there -was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. - -“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a -complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear -oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at -least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how -confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the -arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the -ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only -it ran away when it saw mine coming!” - -“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. - -“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed -that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, -“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.” - -The Queen smiled and passed on. - -“Who _are_ you talking to?” said the King, going up to Alice, and -looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity. - -“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” said Alice: “allow me to -introduce it.” - -“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may -kiss my hand if it likes.” - -“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. - -“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and don’t look at me like -that!” He got behind Alice as he spoke. - -“A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “I’ve read that in some book, -but I don’t remember where.” - -“Well, it must be removed,” said the King very decidedly, and he called -the Queen, who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I wish you would -have this cat removed!” - -The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or -small. “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round. - -“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the King eagerly, and he -hurried off. - -Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going -on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with -passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be -executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look -of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew -whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. - -The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed -to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the -other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to -the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a -helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. - -By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight -was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it doesn’t -matter much,” thought Alice, “as all the arches are gone from this side -of the ground.” So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not -escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her -friend. - -When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite -a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between -the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, -while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. - -The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle -the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they -all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly -what they said. - -The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless -there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a -thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at _his_ time of life. - -The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be -beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. - -The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in -less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was -this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and -anxious.) - -Alice could think of nothing else to say but “It belongs to the -Duchess: you’d better ask _her_ about it.” - -“She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the executioner: “fetch her here.” -And the executioner went off like an arrow. - -The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the -time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so -the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, -while the rest of the party went back to the game. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. -The Mock Turtle’s Story - - -“You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!” -said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, -and they walked off together. - -Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought -to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so -savage when they met in the kitchen. - -“When _I’m_ a Duchess,” she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful -tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen _at all_. Soup -does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people -hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new -kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes -them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children -sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew _that_: then they wouldn’t be -so stingy about it, you know—” - -She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little -startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking -about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t -tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in -a bit.” - -“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark. - -“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only -you can find it.” And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as -she spoke. - -Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the -Duchess was _very_ ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the -right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an -uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she -bore it as well as she could. - -“The game’s going on rather better now,” she said, by way of keeping up -the conversation a little. - -“’Tis so,” said the Duchess: “and the moral of that is—‘Oh, ’tis love, -’tis love, that makes the world go round!’” - -“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding -their own business!” - -“Ah, well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her -sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of -_that_ is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of -themselves.’” - -“How fond she is of finding morals in things!” Alice thought to -herself. - -“I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,” -the Duchess said after a pause: “the reason is, that I’m doubtful about -the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?” - -“He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious -to have the experiment tried. - -“Very true,” said the Duchess: “flamingoes and mustard both bite. And -the moral of that is—‘Birds of a feather flock together.’” - -“Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. - -“Right, as usual,” said the Duchess: “what a clear way you have of -putting things!” - -“It’s a mineral, I _think_,” said Alice. - -“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to -everything that Alice said; “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. -And the moral of that is—‘The more there is of mine, the less there is -of yours.’” - -“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last -remark, “it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” - -“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that -is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or if you’d like it put more -simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might -appear to others that what you were or might have been was not -otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be -otherwise.’” - -“I think I should understand that better,” Alice said very politely, -“if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.” - -“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, -in a pleased tone. - -“Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,” said -Alice. - -“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the Duchess. “I make you a present -of everything I’ve said as yet.” - -“A cheap sort of present!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they don’t give -birthday presents like that!” But she did not venture to say it out -loud. - -“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp -little chin. - -“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to -feel a little worried. - -“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly; and -the m—” - -But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, -even in the middle of her favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was -linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the -Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a -thunderstorm. - -“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess began in a low, weak voice. - -“Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted the Queen, stamping on the -ground as she spoke; “either you or your head must be off, and that in -about half no time! Take your choice!” - -The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. - -“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too -much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the -croquet-ground. - -The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were -resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried -back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment’s delay -would cost them their lives. - -All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling -with the other players, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with -her head!” Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the -soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so -that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and -all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody -and under sentence of execution. - -Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have -you seen the Mock Turtle yet?” - -“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.” - -“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” said the Queen. - -“I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. - -“Come on, then,” said the Queen, “and he shall tell you his history,” - -As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, -to the company generally, “You are all pardoned.” “Come, _that’s_ a -good thing!” she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the -number of executions the Queen had ordered. - -They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If -you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy -thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock -Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some -executions I have ordered;” and she walked off, leaving Alice alone -with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, -but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it -as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited. - -The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till -she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, -half to itself, half to Alice. - -“What _is_ the fun?” said Alice. - -“Why, _she_,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all her fancy, that: they never -executes nobody, you know. Come on!” - -“Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,” thought Alice, as she went slowly -after it: “I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!” - -They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, -sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came -nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She -pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the -Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all -his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!” - -So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes -full of tears, but said nothing. - -“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your -history, she do.” - -“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “sit -down, both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” - -So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to -herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.” -But she waited patiently. - -“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real -Turtle.” - -These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an -occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant -heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and -saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” but she could not -help thinking there _must_ be more to come, so she sat still and said -nothing. - -“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, -though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the -sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—” - -“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked. - -“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle -angrily: “really you are very dull!” - -“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple -question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked -at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the -Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all -day about it!” and he went on in these words: - -“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—” - -“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice. - -“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. -The Mock Turtle went on. - -“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—” - -“_I’ve_ been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so -proud as all that.” - -“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously. - -“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.” - -“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly. - -“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a -tone of great relief. “Now at _ours_ they had at the end of the bill, -‘French, music, _and washing_—extra.’” - -“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom -of the sea.” - -“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I -only took the regular course.” - -“What was that?” inquired Alice. - -“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle -replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, -Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” - -“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?” - -The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of -uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?” - -“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.” - -“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify -is, you _are_ a simpleton.” - -Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so -she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?” - -“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the -subjects on his flappers, “—Mystery, ancient and modern, with -Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, -that used to come once a week: _he_ taught us Drawling, Stretching, and -Fainting in Coils.” - -“What was _that_ like?” said Alice. - -“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too -stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.” - -“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics master, -though. He was an old crab, _he_ was.” - -“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught -Laughing and Grief, they used to say.” - -“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both -creatures hid their faces in their paws. - -“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry -to change the subject. - -“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so -on.” - -“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. - -“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: -“because they lessen from day to day.” - -This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little -before she made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been -a holiday?” - -“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly. - -“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very -decided tone: “tell her something about the games now.” - - - - -CHAPTER X. -The Lobster Quadrille - - -The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across -his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or -two sobs choked his voice. “Same as if he had a bone in his throat,” -said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in -the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears -running down his cheeks, he went on again:— - -“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said -Alice)—“and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” -(Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and -said “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a -Lobster Quadrille is!” - -“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a dance is it?” - -“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into a line along the -sea-shore—” - -“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; -then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—” - -“_That_ generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon. - -“—you advance twice—” - -“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon. - -“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance twice, set to partners—” - -“—change lobsters, and retire in same order,” continued the Gryphon. - -“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, “you throw the—” - -“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. - -“—as far out to sea as you can—” - -“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon. - -“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly -about. - -“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice. - -“Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,” said the Mock -Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had -been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very -sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice. - -“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly. - -“Would you like to see a little of it?” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Very much indeed,” said Alice. - -“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the Mock Turtle to the -Gryphon. “We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?” - -“Oh, _you_ sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.” - -So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and -then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their -forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly -and sadly:— - -“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. -“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. -See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! -They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? - -“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be -When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!” -But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance— -Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. -Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. -Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. - -“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied. -“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. -The further off from England the nearer is to France— -Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?” - - -“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, -feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that -curious song about the whiting!” - -“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve seen them, -of course?” - -“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she checked herself -hastily. - -“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve -seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.” - -“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. “They have their tails in -their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.” - -“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the Mock Turtle: “crumbs would -all wash off in the sea. But they _have_ their tails in their mouths; -and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his -eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon. - -“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they _would_ go with the -lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to -fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they -couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.” - -“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much -about a whiting before.” - -“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you -know why it’s called a whiting?” - -“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?” - -“_It does the boots and shoes_,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly. - -Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated -in a wondering tone. - -“Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what -makes them so shiny?” - -Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her -answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.” - -“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, -“are done with a whiting. Now you know.” - -“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. - -“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: -“any shrimp could have told you that.” - -“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still -running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, -please: we don’t want _you_ with us!’” - -“They were obliged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said: “no -wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” - -“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise. - -“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle: “why, if a fish came to _me_, -and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’” - -“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. - -“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And -the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of _your_ adventures.” - -“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said -Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, -because I was a different person then.” - -“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: -“explanations take such a dreadful time.” - -So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first -saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, -the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened -their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she -went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part -about her repeating “_You are old, Father William_,” to the -Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock -Turtle drew a long breath, and said “That’s very curious.” - -“It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said the Gryphon. - -“It all came different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I -should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to -begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of -authority over Alice. - -“Stand up and repeat ‘’_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,’” said the -Gryphon. - -“How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” -thought Alice; “I might as well be at school at once.” However, she got -up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster -Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came -very queer indeed:— - -“’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, -“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” -As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose -Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” - -[later editions continued as follows -When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, -And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, -But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, -His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] - - -“That’s different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child,” said -the Gryphon. - -“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds -uncommon nonsense.” - -Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, -wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. - -“I should like to have it explained,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon hastily. “Go on with the next -verse.” - -“But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle persisted. “How _could_ he turn -them out with his nose, you know?” - -“It’s the first position in dancing.” Alice said; but was dreadfully -puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. - -“Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it -begins ‘_I passed by his garden_.’” - -Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come -wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:— - -“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, -How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—” - -[later editions continued as follows -The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, -While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. -When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, -Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: -While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, -And concluded the banquet—] - - -“What _is_ the use of repeating all that stuff,” the Mock Turtle -interrupted, “if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the -most confusing thing _I_ ever heard!” - -“Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the Gryphon: and Alice was -only too glad to do so. - -“Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon -went on. “Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?” - -“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,” Alice -replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, -“Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘_Turtle Soup_,’ will you, old -fellow?” - -The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked -with sobs, to sing this:— - -“Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, -Waiting in a hot tureen! -Who for such dainties would not stoop? -Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! -Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! -Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beautiful Soup! - -“Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, -Game, or any other dish? -Who would not give all else for two p -ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? -Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! -Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!” - - -“Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun -to repeat it, when a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in the -distance. - -“Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried -off, without waiting for the end of the song. - -“What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only -answered “Come on!” and ran the faster, while more and more faintly -came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:— - -“Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beautiful Soup!” - - - - -CHAPTER XI. -Who Stole the Tarts? - - -The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they -arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little -birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was -standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard -him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one -hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the -court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so -good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d -get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” -But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at -everything about her, to pass away the time. - -Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read -about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew -the name of nearly everything there. “That’s the judge,” she said to -herself, “because of his great wig.” - -The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the -wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he -did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. - -“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures,” -(she was obliged to say “creatures,” you see, because some of them were -animals, and some were birds,) “I suppose they are the jurors.” She -said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather -proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little -girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, “jury-men” -would have done just as well. - -The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. “What are -they doing?” Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have anything -to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.” - -“They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered in reply, -“for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.” - -“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she -stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the -court!” and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, -to make out who was talking. - -Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, -that all the jurors were writing down “stupid things!” on their slates, -and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell -“stupid,” and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. “A nice -muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice. - -One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice -could _not_ stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and -very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly -that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out -at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he -was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this -was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. - -“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King. - -On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then -unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:— - -“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, - All on a summer day: -The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, - And took them quite away!” - - -“Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury. - -“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great -deal to come before that!” - -“Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew -three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!” - -The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand -and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your -Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished -my tea when I was sent for.” - -“You ought to have finished,” said the King. “When did you begin?” - -The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the -court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I _think_ it -was,” he said. - -“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. - -“Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse. - -“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly -wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and -reduced the answer to shillings and pence. - -“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter. - -“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. - -“_Stolen!_” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made -a memorandum of the fact. - -“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none -of my own. I’m a hatter.” - -Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, -who turned pale and fidgeted. - -“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll -have you executed on the spot.” - -This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting -from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his -confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the -bread-and-butter. - -Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled -her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to -grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave -the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was -as long as there was room for her. - -“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.” said the Dormouse, who was sitting -next to her. “I can hardly breathe.” - -“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: “I’m growing.” - -“You’ve no right to grow _here_,” said the Dormouse. - -“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing -too.” - -“Yes, but _I_ grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in -that ridiculous fashion.” And he got up very sulkily and crossed over -to the other side of the court. - -All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, -just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers -of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” -on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes -off. - -“Give your evidence,” the King repeated angrily, “or I’ll have you -executed, whether you’re nervous or not.” - -“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, -“—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the -bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—” - -“The twinkling of the _what?_” said the King. - -“It _began_ with the tea,” the Hatter replied. - -“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you -take me for a dunce? Go on!” - -“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “and most things twinkled after -that—only the March Hare said—” - -“I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. - -“You did!” said the Hatter. - -“I deny it!” said the March Hare. - -“He denies it,” said the King: “leave out that part.” - -“Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on, looking -anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied -nothing, being fast asleep. - -“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut some more bread-and-butter—” - -“But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the jury asked. - -“That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. - -“You _must_ remember,” remarked the King, “or I’ll have you executed.” - -The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went -down on one knee. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. - -“You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. - -Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by -the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just -explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied -up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, -head first, and then sat upon it.) - -“I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. “I’ve so often read in -the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempts at -applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the -court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.” - -“If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” continued the -King. - -“I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: “I’m on the floor, as it is.” - -“Then you may _sit_ down,” the King replied. - -Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. - -“Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!” thought Alice. “Now we shall get -on better.” - -“I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with an anxious look at -the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. - -“You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, -without even waiting to put his shoes on. - -“—and just take his head off outside,” the Queen added to one of the -officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get -to the door. - -“Call the next witness!” said the King. - -The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in -her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the -court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. - -“Give your evidence,” said the King. - -“Shan’t,” said the cook. - -The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, -“Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness.” - -“Well, if I must, I must,” the King said, with a melancholy air, and, -after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were -nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, “What are tarts made of?” - -“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. - -“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. - -“Collar that Dormouse,” the Queen shrieked out. “Behead that Dormouse! -Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his -whiskers!” - -For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse -turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had -disappeared. - -“Never mind!” said the King, with an air of great relief. “Call the -next witness.” And he added in an undertone to the Queen, “Really, my -dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my -forehead ache!” - -Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling -very curious to see what the next witness would be like, “—for they -haven’t got much evidence _yet_,” she said to herself. Imagine her -surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill -little voice, the name “Alice!” - - - - -CHAPTER XII. -Alice’s Evidence - - -“Here!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how -large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such -a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, -upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there -they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of -goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. - -“Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!” she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and -began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident -of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of -idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the -jury-box, or they would die. - -“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until -all the jurymen are back in their proper places—_all_,” he repeated -with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. - -Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put -the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its -tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon -got it out again, and put it right; “not that it signifies much,” she -said to herself; “I should think it would be _quite_ as much use in the -trial one way up as the other.” - -As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being -upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to -them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the -accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do -anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the -court. - -“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice. - -“Nothing,” said Alice. - -“Nothing _whatever?_” persisted the King. - -“Nothing whatever,” said Alice. - -“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They were -just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White -Rabbit interrupted: “_Un_important, your Majesty means, of course,” he -said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as -he spoke. - -“_Un_important, of course, I meant,” the King hastily said, and went on -to himself in an undertone, - -“important—unimportant—unimportant—important—” as if he were trying -which word sounded best. - -Some of the jury wrote it down “important,” and some “unimportant.” -Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; -“but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she thought to herself. - -At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in -his note-book, cackled out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule -Forty-two. _All persons more than a mile high to leave the court_.” - -Everybody looked at Alice. - -“_I’m_ not a mile high,” said Alice. - -“You are,” said the King. - -“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. - -“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a -regular rule: you invented it just now.” - -“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. - -“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice. - -The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. “Consider your -verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. - -“There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,” said the -White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; “this paper has just been -picked up.” - -“What’s in it?” said the Queen. - -“I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White Rabbit, “but it seems to be a -letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.” - -“It must have been that,” said the King, “unless it was written to -nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.” - -“Who is it directed to?” said one of the jurymen. - -“It isn’t directed at all,” said the White Rabbit; “in fact, there’s -nothing written on the _outside_.” He unfolded the paper as he spoke, -and added “It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.” - -“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?” asked another of the jurymen. - -“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the queerest -thing about it.” (The jury all looked puzzled.) - -“He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” said the King. (The jury -all brightened up again.) - -“Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “I didn’t write it, and they -can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.” - -“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter -worse. You _must_ have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed -your name like an honest man.” - -There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really -clever thing the King had said that day. - -“That _proves_ his guilt,” said the Queen. - -“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know -what they’re about!” - -“Read them,” said the King. - -The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please -your Majesty?” he asked. - -“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you -come to the end: then stop.” - -These were the verses the White Rabbit read:— - -“They told me you had been to her, - And mentioned me to him: -She gave me a good character, - But said I could not swim. - -He sent them word I had not gone - (We know it to be true): -If she should push the matter on, - What would become of you? - -I gave her one, they gave him two, - You gave us three or more; -They all returned from him to you, - Though they were mine before. - -If I or she should chance to be - Involved in this affair, -He trusts to you to set them free, - Exactly as we were. - -My notion was that you had been - (Before she had this fit) -An obstacle that came between - Him, and ourselves, and it. - -Don’t let him know she liked them best, - For this must ever be -A secret, kept from all the rest, - Between yourself and me.” - - -“That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,” said the -King, rubbing his hands; “so now let the jury—” - -“If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice, (she had grown so -large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of -interrupting him,) “I’ll give him sixpence. _I_ don’t believe there’s -an atom of meaning in it.” - -The jury all wrote down on their slates, “_She_ doesn’t believe there’s -an atom of meaning in it,” but none of them attempted to explain the -paper. - -“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of -trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t -know,” he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at -them with one eye; “I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. -“—_said I could not swim_—” you can’t swim, can you?” he added, turning -to the Knave. - -The Knave shook his head sadly. “Do I look like it?” he said. (Which he -certainly did _not_, being made entirely of cardboard.) - -“All right, so far,” said the King, and he went on muttering over the -verses to himself: “‘_We know it to be true_—’ that’s the jury, of -course—‘_I gave her one, they gave him two_—’ why, that must be what he -did with the tarts, you know—” - -“But, it goes on ‘_they all returned from him to you_,’” said Alice. - -“Why, there they are!” said the King triumphantly, pointing to the -tarts on the table. “Nothing can be clearer than _that_. Then -again—‘_before she had this fit_—’ you never had fits, my dear, I -think?” he said to the Queen. - -“Never!” said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard -as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his -slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily -began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long -as it lasted.) - -“Then the words don’t _fit_ you,” said the King, looking round the -court with a smile. There was a dead silence. - -“It’s a pun!” the King added in an offended tone, and everybody -laughed, “Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for -about the twentieth time that day. - -“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” - -“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the -sentence first!” - -“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple. - -“I won’t!” said Alice. - -“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody -moved. - -“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by -this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” - -At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon -her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and -tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her -head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead -leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. - -“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister; “Why, what a long sleep you’ve -had!” - -“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her -sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange -Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she -had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, “It _was_ a curious -dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.” -So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, -what a wonderful dream it had been. - - -But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her -hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all -her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, -and this was her dream:— - -First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny -hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were -looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and -see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair -that _would_ always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or -seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the -strange creatures of her little sister’s dream. - -The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the -frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she -could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends -shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen -ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby -was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed -around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the -Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, -filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock -Turtle. - -So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in -Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all -would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the -wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling -teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill -cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the -shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change -(she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the -lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock -Turtle’s heavy sobs. - -Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers -would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would -keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her -childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, -and make _their_ eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, -perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she -would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all -their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer -days. - -THE END diff --git a/gpt-2/src/bees.txt b/gpt-2/src/bees.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b64440df3..000000000 --- a/gpt-2/src/bees.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1597 +0,0 @@ -Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made hives, by humans. Most such bees are honey bees in the genus Apis, but other honey-producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. A beekeeper (or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive produce (including beeswax, propolis, flower pollen, bee pollen, and royal jelly), to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary or "bee yard". - -Bees are directly influenced by their environment, therefore, their behavior and success varies greatly across climates. For instance, the busy foraging season for bees will be much longer in the warmer south than it will be in the north. -Familiarize yourself with what beekeeping looks like in your neck of the woods. We recommend joining your local beekeepers club or association, and finding an experienced mentor in your area. - -The apiary at the Queens County Farm Museum is now a who’s who of Manhattan rescue bees. They hail from the rooftops of the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel, the Brooks Brothers flagship and the New York Institute of Technology, among other places. The apiary officially opened early last summer, which was perfect timing, since a good portion of New York’s honeybees (many of whom live atop office buildings and hotels across the city) found themselves untended and in limbo during the shutdown. Since New York City legalized beekeeping in 2010, it has grown in popularity. It is a small-space activity; a hive is roughly the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet. There are now bee-focused nonprofits, public parks with pollinator gardens and jars of hyperlocal honey in abundance at green markets. The new apiary in Queens, which has basically handled overflow during the pandemic, shows how bee-crazy New Yorkers have become. -But there is also a growing concern among some scientists that honeybees, most of them imported to the city to feed this beekeeping frenzy, are a threat to New York’s native pollinators, whose dwindling populations could affect local flora and the environment at large. -When the virus slowed our lives down, encouraging us to stay in our homes, enjoy the outdoors and focus on activities in the natural world (like bird-watching or gardening), the zeal for urban beekeeping intensified, too. Sean Flynn, a beekeeper for over five years, took the opportunity to share his passion with his youngest daughter, Alaura, 18. -“I’ve always had this fascination with the hive mentality — it’s about the collective and the greater good,” said Mr. Flynn, who put a hive in his middle daughter’s bedroom when she went off to college six years ago. He kept the windows open in his sixth-story apartment so the bees could come and go as they pleased. The neighbors never noticed. -Mr. Flynn now inspects and monitors 12 different hives in various community gardens across the city. Recently, he captured a swarm outside the Javits Center. Although he is allergic to bee stings, Mr. Flynn temporarily housed the Javits bees in his own bedroom until he could relocate them — something he has done several times before to his own detriment. -There are anywhere from 115,000 to 125,000 beekeepers nationwide, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which oversees city beekeeping, recorded 326 registered hives in 2020. While beekeepers are required to register their hives, they often don’t. Mr. Coté, the president of the New York City Beekeepers Association and a fourth-generation beekeeper, believes there are more than 600 active hives in the city. -Jennifer Walden Weprin, the executive director of the Queens County Farm Museum, has seen renewed interest in the farm’s beekeeping courses, which started up again in the spring. The apiary’s 40 colonies, with over 2 million bees, rival the human population of the borough. The rescue bees will most likely become permanent residents now that they’re settled, but the owners of several of their former homes have expressed interest in creating new rooftop colonies.Many beekeepers know how to spot and manage swarms, which develop when hives are overcrowded and look like “a quivering ball of live bees, usually the size of a basketball,” Mr. Coté said. In a swarm, the queen and a third to a half of the hive leave. They will rest somewhere for up to three days (on a tree, an air-conditioner or a fire hydrant, for example), Mr. Coté said, while “real estate bees” go in search of a suitable new home for the group. Back at the original hive, a new queen is born from eggs that the old queen left behind, the colony repopulates and the cycle continues. -This April, Mr. Coté arrived at his farm in Norwalk, Conn., with a semi-truck full of Italian honeybees from a breeder in Georgia. He then transferred the bees into a cargo van and a pickup truck before heading for the city, carrying 300 separate packages full of 12,000 bees each. He delivered them to enthusiastic fellow beekeepers at a meeting point along Central Park West. -Such bee packages could be problematic, according to Sarah Kornbluth, a field associate with the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, who voiced her concern for local birds and other animals that depend on native bees. New York City has about 200 native species (not including honeybees, which originally came from Europe), so honeybees pose stiff competition for the city’s native pollinators, driving them further afield for provisions, which slows their population growth. -“There is no need for European honeybees in the city, and it would be great if we had them only for educational purposes,” said Ms. Kornbluth, who would like to see more of a movement to maintain the bees that are already here. “I think there is a lot of room for fun in native pollinator conservation, and if anyone could do it, it’s the beekeepers.” -There is a small movement afoot: Bee houses are being installed across the city. The Bee Conservancy, based in New York, created its Sponsor-a-Hive program last year in collaboration with Brooklyn Woods, a nonprofit that trains unemployed and low-income adults in woodworking and fabrication. The pine bee houses are designed with a mixture of nesting tubes for native bees to ensure a diversity of species. -“If you want local food, you really need local bees,” said Guillermo Fernandez, the founder and executive director of the Bee Conservancy. “For many bees, an area of a couple hundred feet might be their entire world, so small things can add up to a lot,” said Mr. Fernandez, who finds the chaos of the hive relaxing. “A hive is a box of calm in a frantic city,” he said. “The buzz and gentleness is quite soothing.” -Since February, Brooklyn Woods graduates have created over 350 bee houses. Christine Baerga, 31, who lives in Jamaica, Queens, has had some part in crafting most of them so far. Ms. Baerga’s life changed for the better during the pandemic, when she moved out of a homeless shelter and became a celebrated bee house artisan. -“Bees are master craftsmen and builders,” Ms. Baerga said. “They’re one of the more important creatures in the world. Without them, there is no us.” -Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. -Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. -About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. -Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. -Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. -The human relationship with honeybees is, he reminds us, unique: unlike domesticated livestock, all honeybees are essentially wild animals that can live very well on their own. Because they seemed to take nicely to the variety of beehives humans have invented over the 10,000-year history of beekeeping, no one thought to reveal the truly secret life of bees. And very few biologists beyond Seeley have the vision and tenacity to conceive of and perform a long-term study of the type that underpins this book. -care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is widespread: honeybees are kept in large cities and villages, on farms and rangelands, in forests and deserts, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the Equator. Honeybees are not domesticated. Those living in a man-made domicile called a beehive or hive are no different from those living in a colony in a tree. -In antiquity people knew that bees produce delicious honey, that they sting, and that they increase their numbers by swarming. By the 17th century they had learned the value of smoke in controlling them and had developed the screen veil as protection against stings. From the 17th to the 19th century, the key discoveries upon which modern beekeeping is founded were made. These included the mystery of the queen bee as the mother of nearly all the occupants of the hive, her curious mating technique, parthenogenetic development, the movable frame hives, and the fact that bees rear a new queen if the old one disappears. -Given this knowledge, people were able to divide a colony instead of relying on natural swarming. Then the development of the wax-comb foundation, the starter comb on which bees build straight, easily handled combs, and the discovery that honey can be centrifuged or extracted from them and the combs reused, paved the way for large-scale honey production and modern commercial beekeeping. The identification of bee diseases and their control with drugs, the value of pollen and pollen substitutes in producing strong colonies, and the artificial insemination of queens have increased the honey-production efficiency of colonies. -Honeybees belong to the order Hymenoptera and to one of the Apis species. (For a complete discussion of honeybees, see the article hymenopteran.) Honeybees are social insects noted for providing their nests with large amounts of honey. A colony of honeybees is a highly complex cluster of individuals that functions virtually as a single organism. It usually consists of the queen bee, a fertilized female capable of laying a thousand or more eggs per day; from a few to 60,000 sexually undeveloped females, the worker bees; and from none to 1,000 male bees, or drones. The female of most species of bees is equipped with a venomous sting. -Honeybees collect nectar, a sugary solution, from nectaries in blossoms and sometimes from nectaries on the leaves or stems of plants. Nectar may consist of 50 to 80 percent water, but when the bees convert it into honey it will contain only about 16 to 18 percent water. Sometimes they collect honeydew, an exudate from certain plant-sucking insects, and store it as honey. The primary carbohydrate diet of bees is honey. They also collect pollen, the dustlike male element, from the anthers of flowers. Pollen provides the essential proteins necessary for the rearing of young bees. In the act of collecting nectar and pollen to provision the nest, the bees pollinate the flowers they visit. Honeybees also collect propolis, a resinous material from buds of trees, for sealing cracks in the hive or for covering foreign objects in the hive that they cannot remove. They collect water to air-condition the hive and to dilute the honey when they consume it. A populous colony in a desirable location may, in a year’s time, collect and carry into the hive as much as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of nectar, water, and pollen.Bees secrete beeswax in tiny flakes on the underside of the abdomen and mold it into honeycomb, thin-walled, back-to-back, six-sided cells. The use of the cell varies depending on the needs of the colony. Honey or pollen may be stored in some cells, while the queen lays eggs, normally one per cell, in others. The area where the bees develop from the eggs is called the broodnest. Generally, honey is stored toward the top of the combs and pollen in cells around the broodnest below the honey. -The bees maintain a uniform temperature of about 93 °F (34 °C) in the broodnest regardless of outside temperature. The colony can survive daily maximum temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) if water is available with which they can air-condition the cluster. When the temperature falls below about 57 °F (14 °C), the bees cease flying, form a tight cluster to conserve heat, and await the return of warm weather. They can survive for several weeks in temperatures of −50 °F (−46 °C). -When summer flowers bloom in profusion, the queen’s egg-laying is stimulated, the cluster expands, and honey accumulates in the combs. When the large number of young bees emerge, the domicile becomes crowded. - -When the colony becomes crowded with adult bees and there are insufficient cells in which the queen can lay large numbers of eggs, the worker bees select a dozen or so tiny larvae that would otherwise develop into worker bees. These larvae are fed copiously with royal jelly, a whitish food with the consistency of mayonnaise, produced by certain brood-food glands in the heads of the worker bees. The cell in which the larva is developing is drawn out downward and enlarged to permit development of the queen. Shortly before these virgin queens emerge as adults from their queen cells, the mother queen departs from the beehive with the swarm. Swarming usually occurs during the middle of a warm day, when the queen and a portion of the worker bees (usually from 5,000 to 25,000) suddenly swirl out of the hive and into the air. After a few minutes’ flight, the queen alights, preferably on a branch of a tree but sometimes on a roof, a parked automobile, or even a fire hydrant. All the bees settle into a tight cluster around her while a handful of scouts reconnoitre a new homesite. -When the scout bees have located a new domicile, the cluster breaks. The swarm takes to the air and in a swirling mass proceeds to the new home. Swarming is the bees’ natural method of propagation or increase. - -Back in the parent colony, the first queen to emerge after the mother queen departs with the swarm immediately attempts to destroy the others. If two or more emerge at the same time, they fight to the death. When the surviving virgin is about a week old, she soars off on her mating flight. To maintain genetic diversity within a colony, a queen frequently mates with more than one drone (called polyandry) while in the air. She may repeat the mating flights for two or three successive days, after which she begins egg laying. She rarely ever leaves the hive again except with a swarm. Normally, sufficient sperm are stored in her sperm pouch, or spermatheca, to fertilize all the eggs she will lay for the rest of her life. The drones die in the act of mating. -The queen can live up to five years, although many beekeepers replace the queen every year or two. If she is accidentally killed or begins to falter in her egg-laying efficiency, the worker bees will rear a “supersedure” queen that will mate and begin egg laying without a swarm emerging. She ignores the mother queen, who soon disappears from the colony. - -Worker bees live about six weeks during the active season but may live for several months if they emerge as adults in the fall and spend the winter in the cluster. As the name implies, worker bees do all the work of the hive, except the egg laying. -Drones are reared only when the colony is populous and there are plentiful sources of nectar and pollen. They usually live a few weeks, but they are driven from the hive to perish when fall or an extended period of adversity comes upon the colony. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen. -The queen can lay drone (unfertilized) eggs in the drone cells. If she is not allowed to mate or if her supply of sperm is exhausted, she will lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells. The development of unfertilized eggs into adult drones is known as parthenogenesis. Occasionally a colony may become queenless and unable to develop another queen. Then some of the worker bees begin to lay eggs, often several to a cell, and these develop into drones. A colony that has developed laying workers is difficult to requeen with a laying queen. -The beekeeper’s year starts in early fall. At that time he requeens the colonies whose queens are not producing adequate amounts of brood and makes sure that each colony has sufficient stores: at least 50 pounds (22 kilograms) of honey and several frames filled with pollen. Some beekeepers also feed the drug fumagillin to reduce possible damage to the adult bees by nosema disease (see below Disease and pest control). The colonies need a sunny exposure and protection from cold winds. Some beekeepers in northern and mountainous areas wrap their colonies with insulating material in winter. A few beekeepers kill their bees in the fall, harvest the honey, store the empty equipment, then restock with a two- or three-pound (0.8- or 1.4-kilogram) package of bees and a young queen the following spring. -If the colonies are well prepared in the fall, they need little attention during the winter. But in early spring an examination of the colonies by the beekeeper is important. Frequently, strong colonies exhaust their food supply and starve only a few days before flowers begin to bloom in abundance. Only a few pounds of sugar syrup, 50-50 sugar water, or a honey-filled comb from another more prosperous colony might save such a starving colony. Again fumagillin may be fed to the colony, and some beekeepers also feed a cake of pollen substitute or pollen supplement. Honey is not fed to the colonies unless the beekeeper is sure about its source. Honey from colonies affected by the brood disease American foulbrood could infect his colonies and cause a serious loss. -As the spring season advances, the cluster size increases from the low population of 10,000 to 20,000 bees that survived the winter. To accommodate the increased size of the cluster and broodnest, the keeper adds more supers, or boxes of combs. If the combs are so manipulated that the queen can continually expand her egg-laying area upward, the colony is unlikely to swarm. This can be achieved by placing empty combs or combs in which brood is about ready to emerge at the top of the cluster and combs filled with eggs or young brood toward the lower part of the broodnest. The beekeeper wants the colony to reach its peak of population, 50,000 to 60,000 bees, at the beginning of the major nectar flow. -The bees in a swarm, having departed the hive with a full stomach of honey, rarely sting. The usual way to capture them is to place a hive or upturned box beneath or nearby, then shake or smoke the bees to force the queen and a majority of the bees into it. The others follow. After the swarm is safely inside the box, it can be removed to a permanent location. -Regulations governing the keeping of bees usually require the bees to be kept in hives with movable combs. If the bees are captured in a box, they are generally transferred into a movable-frame hive within a few days so the new honey and comb will not be lost in the transfer. - -When a beekeeper requeens a colony, he removes the failing or otherwise undesirable queen and places a new one in a screen cage in the broodnest. After a few days the colony becomes adjusted to her and she can be released from the cage. A strange queen placed in the cluster without this temporary protection usually will be killed at once by the workers. Queens usually are shipped in individual cages of about three cubic inches (50 cubic centimetres) with about half a dozen attendant bees and a ball of specially prepared sugar candy plugging one end of the cage. When the cage is placed in the hive, the bees from both sides eat the candy. By the time the candy is consumed and the bees reach each other, their odours have become indistinguishable, and the queen emerges from the cage into the colony and begins her egg-laying duties. -Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells. - -The worker bee sting is barbed, and in the act of stinging it is torn from the bee. It has a venom-filled poison sac and muscles attached that continue to work the sting deeper into the flesh for several minutes and increase the amount of venom injected. To prevent this, the sting should be scraped loose (rather than grasped and pulled out) at once. Bee stings are painful, and no one becomes immune to the pain. Immunity to the swelling is usually built up after a few stings, however. -Normal reaction to a bee sting is immediate, intense pain at the site of the sting. This lasts for a minute or two and is followed by a reddening, which may spread an inch or more. Swelling may not become apparent until the following day. Occasionally, acute allergic reactions develop from a sting, usually with persons who have other allergic problems. Such a reaction becomes evident in less than an hour and may consist of extreme difficulty in breathing, heart irregularity, shock, splotched skin, and speech difficulty. Such persons should obtain the services of a medical doctor immediately. -One of the most mysterious disorders to strike honeybee colonies in the modern era is colony collapse disorder (CCD). It is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. While the underlying cause is not known, it appears that the disorder affects the adult bees’ ability to navigate. They leave the hive to find pollen and never return. Honey and pollen are usually present in the hive, and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may remain in the brood nest. CCD is also characterized by delayed robbing of the honey in the dead colonies by other, healthy bee colonies in the immediate area, as well as slower than normal invasion by common pests, such as wax moths and small hive beetles. The disorder appears to affect only the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). -CCD was first reported in autumn 2006 by a commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania, who had colony losses estimated at 80 to 90 percent. Colony losses continued to be reported by other beekeepers in 35 states throughout the United States during the spring and summer of 2007, with many beekeepers losing anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. Beekeepers in other countries, including Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, France, and Switzerland, also reported substantial losses of honeybees. In the following years, the syndrome continued to impact honeybee colonies, though the percentage of colonies lost annually appeared to decline. Nonetheless, the potential economic impact on agriculture is great; annually in the United States alone an estimated $15 billion of crops are pollinated by honeybees. -Studies of adult honeybee carcasses from affected colonies indicate that the bees are infected with a number of pathogens and parasites, including viruses, species of Nosema, and the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis. However, scientists have not reached a definitive conclusion on whether a single pathogen is the root cause of the disorder, and many scientists suspect that a combination of factors are involved, such as a weakened immune system, brought on by colony stress, and the presence of pathogens, which are a constant threat and can be numerous in honeybee colonies. In addition, pesticides such as neonicotinoids (insecticides based on derivatives of nicotine) can be toxic to honeybees and are suspected of causing or contributing to CCD. -Mice frequently enter the hive in winter when the bees are clustered, or they get into stored combs and despoil or damage them by chewing the frames and combs to construct their nest. Skunks devour large numbers of bees at the hive entrance, usually at night. Fences, traps, and poison are used against them. Bears eat the honeybees and the brood in the hive, usually destroying it and its contents in the process. In bear country, electric fences and traps are used to protect bee colonies. -At times bees become their own deadly enemy. If honey is exposed to them when no flowers are in bloom and the weather is mild, the bees from different colonies will fight over it. Sometimes this fighting, or robbing, becomes intense and spreads from hive to hive in moblike action. If all the bees in one colony are killed, the honey is quickly stolen and carried into other hives. This further intensifies the robbing so that a cluster that was carrying honey into its hive a few minutes earlier is attacked, all of its occupants killed, the honey again stolen, and the process repeated. Usually, once robbing becomes intense, only darkness or foul weather will stop it. - -The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a lepidopterous insect that, in its larval stage, destroys combs. It does not attack adult bees but may begin destruction of combs of a weak colony long before the bees are gone. It can also destroy stored combs of honey. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they often eat out a place to spin their cocoons in the soft wood of the beehive, damaging frames and other hive parts. The best control for this pest is keeping colonies strong. Stored combs are fumigated, kept in a cold room, or stacked in such a way that a strong air draft flows around them. -The larvae of the lesser wax moth, Achroia grisella, cause damage to stored combs similar to that of the greater wax moth. The Mediterranean flour moth larva, Anagasta kuehniella, feeds on pollen in the combs and causes some damage. Control for both of these moths is the same as for the greater wax moth. -The bee louse, Braula caeca, is a tiny, wingless member of the fly family that is occasionally found on bees. It feeds on nectar or honey from the mouthparts of its host. Its larvae burrow in the cappings of honey combs. -Ants sometimes invade hives and disrupt or kill the bees. Termites can damage or destroy hive parts placed on the soil. Other insects, such as dragonflies (Odonata), robberflies (Diptera), praying mantises (Orthoptera), ambush bugs (Hemiptera), and certain wasps and yellow jackets (Hymenoptera) are natural enemies of the honeybee. - -American foulbrood, caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus larvae, is the most serious brood disease. It occurs throughout the world wherever bees are kept and affects workers, drones, and queens. The spores are highly resistant to heat and chemicals. A comb containing brood severely infected with this disease has a mottled appearance caused by the mixture of healthy capped brood interspersed with diseased or empty cells formerly occupied by diseased brood. The decayed mass has a typical ropiness when dug into, which is one of its identifying characteristics. -American foulbrood can be spread to healthy colonies by transferring equipment or allowing the bees to feed on honey from infected colonies. Sulfathiazole and Terramycin are widely used to control the disease. Many countries and most states in the U.S. require the destruction by fire of diseased colonies and have apiary inspectors to enforce the regulations. -European foulbrood is caused by a nonsporeforming bacterium, Streptococcus pluton, but Bacillus alvie and Acromobacter eurydice are often associated with Streptococcus pluton. This disease is similar in appearance to American foulbrood. In some instances it severely affects the colonies, but they recover so that colony destruction is not necessary. Terramycin can control the disease. -Sacbrood is caused by a virus and is superficially similar to the foulbrood diseases. It can appear and disappear spontaneously but is seldom serious. No chemical control is needed. If the problem persists, the beekeeper usually requeens the colony. -Chalk brood is caused by the fungus Ascosphaera apis. The larvae victims of this disease have a chalky white appearance. Stonebrood, which affects both brood and adults, is also caused by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus, which can usually be isolated from bees that have stonebrood. -Nosema disease, caused by the microsporidian Nosema apis, is the most serious disease of adult bees. It is widespread, causes heavy losses in honey production, and severely weakens colonies. The external symptoms of bees with nosema disease are not apparent. The disease is transmitted from adult to adult by ingestion of the spores that soon germinate in the ventriculus, or main, stomach. An infected ventriculus is normally swollen, soft, and grayish white. A degree of control may be obtained by feeding the colony the drug fumagillin. -Acarine disease is caused by the mite Acarapis woodi that gets into the tracheae of the bee through its breathing holes or spiracles in its thorax or midsection. Bees affected by this mite are unable to fly, have disjointed wings and distended abdomens. There is presently no good control for this mite. The only U.S. federal law pertaining to bees was passed to prevent the importation of adult bees carrying this mite into the United States. Two other mites, Varroa destructor and Tropilaelaps clareae, which are native to Asia, are serious problems for beekeepers. V. destructor is now commonly found in Europe and North America, where it is capable of devastating entire colonies of honeybees. -There are other minor diseases of adult bees, but they seldom cause serious problems. -Backyard beekeeping is increasing in popularity, leading to more people having honey bees as their next-door neighbors. According to the 2017 American Housing Survey, about 52 percent of people in the United States describe their neighborhood as suburban, while only 27 percent describe their neighborhood as urban, and 21 percent as rural. This means that new beekeepers are likely to live in a suburban neighborhood. Additionally, since a typical Langstroth hive only requires a few square feet, almost every backyard has more than enough space for a hive, so just about anyone with a yard could potentially keep bees. -To successfully keep bees in suburbia does require more than just the physical space for the hives, as keeping bees in close proximity to people has its own set of guidelines that should be followed. First, before you even purchase bees or equipment, you should check to see if there are any community/city/country/state laws where you live that pertain to keeping bees. The laws may say whether or not you can keep bees, dictate how many hives you are allowed to have, and specify how far away the hives can be placed from property lines. The laws are put into place both to protect the beekeeper and also to protect the public. Familiarizing yourself with the laws makes it easier for you to enjoy your hobby and its sweet rewards. - -If you’re going to keep bees in your backyard, being a good neighbor is key. A general rule of thumb is that if you’re on good terms with your neighbors before you get bees, then they’ll be just as excited as you are about your new hobby. But, if you’re on bad terms with your neighbor(s), then getting bees is like pouring gasoline on an open fire. The best thing to do is ask yourself, “What do my neighbors think of me?” If you’re honest with yourself and your answer is not positive, then write down a list of things that you can do to be a better neighbor, otherwise it may be a constant struggle for you and your bees. -Establish an open line of communication with your neighbors. Give them your phone number and encourage them to call anytime they have any questions, or if any issues arise, such as concerns about stings or if a swarm of bees bivouacs in their yard. Rather than letting them panic, it’s better if they call so that you can be a good bee neighbor and take care of the situation before it gets out of hand. Whenever you’re speaking with your neighbors, always ask about any concerns they might have and address each one to the best of your ability. If you don’t know the answer to any of their questions, you can always get back to them after you’ve found the answer by asking more experienced beekeepers in your area, or by searching trusted sources such as the Cornell Pollinator Network Resources page. Last, remember that it’s always a good idea to utilize the beekeeper’s irresistible “superpower,” by giving jars of honey to each of your neighbors. Once they taste pure, local honey, they may likely become one of your biggest fans and be sweet on having bees—and free honey—close by. - -Educating people about bees is important, as the non-beekeeping public often thinks that honey bees, yellowjackets, wasps, and hornets are all flying, sting-machines that love to make pincushions out of every human they see. Too often when someone finds out that you keep bees, they’re thinking about the old Bugs Bunny cartoons where all the bees come out of the hive and form a giant mallet to clobber people into the ground. Therefore, it’s a good idea to educate your neighbors about honey bee behavior and explain why they don’t have to worry. Key points that you can mention include the following: -1. Having bees next door will not increase the number of bees in their yard - Honey bees travel great distances to collect food. They routinely visit flowers up to 3 miles from their hive. Bees also tend to cruise at altitudes of 30 feet and higher, well above the space that people occupy. - One yard does not have nearly enough flowers to support a honey bee colony. Around two million flowers are needed to make a single pound of honey, and colonies can make upwards of 100 pounds when conditions are good. - Flowers have a finite amount of nectar and pollen, so regardless of where a hive is located, bees will only visit someone’s yard when the flowers are inviting them with nectar and pollen. - Bees get all of their food from plants. They are not scavengers or hunters like other insects. Yellowjackets, on the other hand, are attracted to sugary sodas and some picnic foods. - -2. Honey bees are typically gentle insects. - Honey bees only sting when provoked, and most stocks that suburban beekeepers keep have been bred for gentleness. - Honey bees die when they sting, so they only use their stinger when needed. This can happen if they are swatted, stepped on, or if their hive is disturbed. -Since a lot of people call any striped insect that flies a “bee,” it is a good idea to teach people the differences between honey bees and wasps, especially since most people get stung by yellowjackets. The more people know about honey bees, the less likely you and your bees will get blamed any time someone gets stung. Explain that the honey bee’s stinger is barbed like a fishhook, causing bees to die when they sting. A yellowjacket’s stinger, on the other hand, is smooth like a doctor’s syringe, allowing yellowjackets to sting repeatedly and often. It’s also good to point out that honey bees never live in a hole in the ground, or in any paper-looking nest, especially a ball-shaped one hanging from a tree. Another easy way to get people to remember the difference between the two is pointing out that honey bees are fuzzy (covered in hair) and brown, while yellowjackets are practically hairless, look smooth and shiny, and are yellow and black in color. -Additionally, talk with people about all the trees, flowers, fruits, nuts, and vegetables that depend on honey bees for pollination. Explaining to people that having bees around will help their yards to look better and their vegetable gardens grow is the fastest way to get people to welcome your bees to the neighborhood. - -Once you’re on good terms with your neighbors, the next important aspect to backyard beekeeping is to assess your yard as an apiary. The general suggestions of where to place your hives, such as facing hives south and on dry, flat ground, still apply. But if you have neighbors close by, there are additional best practices you must also follow. First, it’s a good idea to think about how non-beekeepers will be using your yard. While a south-facing hive is best, you also have to think about what will be happening 10-15 feet in front of your hives. One way to visualize the bees’ flight path is to stand where you’re thinking of putting your hives and spraying a hose 10 feet, 15 feet, even 20 feet in front of you. What are the chances of someone, or something, getting wet? What kind of foot traffic does that area of the yard get? It is equally as important to think about how your neighbors use their yard, so it is not a good idea to put a hive directly on a property line. Instead, place your hives ten feet or more from the property line. Make sure there is a fence around your hives or yard to keep any inquisitive neighbors from accidently getting too close to your hives or walking into the bees’ flight path. Another way to keep bees and people out of one another’s way is to use a flight barrier: tall bushes, the side of your garage or shed, or anything else that forces the bees to immediately fly up into the air and away from people. -It’s also important to provide your bees with water on your property so they don’t make a neighbor’s pool, dog bowl, air conditioner, birdbath, koi pond, or other water source their own. Keep a water source within fifteen feet of your hive(s) year-round, so that they orient on the source you have provided for them before any scout bees find water sources in a neighbor’s yard. -If you are just starting out, most reputable beekeeping sources will recommend starting with two hives. Having two hives for your first few years will help you to learn the art and science of beekeeping, while providing you with the proper amount of experience and resources needed to successfully keep healthy bees. However, after a few years, many beekeepers want to expand and keep more than two hives. In suburbia, your lot size will dictate how many hives you can realistically and safely keep on your property. Generally, the best practice to follow is no more than three colonies on any lot of one-quarter acre or less (not counting nucs). Then, for every additional one-quarter of an acre, add another three hives. So one-half acre could have up to six hives, three-quarters acre could have up to nine hives, and a one acre lot could have up to twelve hives. Additionally, keeping one nuc for every two hives is also acceptable. Regardless of the size of your property, it is much more important to always expand slowly, over time, by adding one or two hives per year. Expanding too quickly in a populated neighborhood could lead to severe, unwanted bee-people interactions, which is one reason why expanding slower is better. Also, if and when you are ready to expand, rather than overloading your backyard with too many hives, another option could be to find other yards close by to keep some of your hives. You may find people in your community that don’t want to care for bees, but for just a share of the honey, would welcome having your hives on their property. - -Issues can arise when bees’ robbing instincts are engaged. Robbing is a detrimental behavior because it can spread parasites and diseases among colonies, can significantly weaken or kill small colonies, and can be an alarming sight to behold for passersby. If all the nectar sources have dried up and a colony is low on food, it is essential that suburban beekeepers take precautions for robbing behavior. In northeastern states like New York, robbing tends to happen most often during dearth periods in mid July, late September, and October. There are many things a suburban beekeeper can do to prevent and manage robbing. First, they could feed sugar syrup only in feeders that are inside a hive. Boardman (entrance) feeders and open containers of syrup can trigger a robbing response, attracting bees to the area and creating a frenzy. Second, they should be careful not to spill any sugar syrup or drip unripened nectar outside of the hive during a dearth. If they do, they should clean it up immediately. Third, they can install entrance reducers or robbing screens on smaller or weaker colonies to help prevent robbers from entering. Forth, honey supers should be removed before the nectar dearth, remain covered until brought inside for extraction, and never left unattended in the apiary. Last, all honey extraction should take place inside, in a bee-tight room. After extraction, wet honey supers should be placed temporarily back on the hives beneath the outer cover for the bees to clean. It is recommended to avoid placing uncovered, wet supers out in the open, as this encourages robbing activity. -There are potentially other scenarios that could possibly arise that would also require you to respond. Your primary responsibility as a suburban beekeeper will be to always act quickly and resolve any issue before it becomes a major concern. The best thing you can do to ensure that you’re being a good beekeeper is to join your local beekeeping club. A club will connect you with experienced beekeepers that can help you become a better beekeeper and offer advice on keeping bees in your community. By joining a club, you will also be able to find a beekeeping friend who could help you when you need it, and perhaps look after your colonies while you’re out of town. Regardless of how much you know, there is always so much to learn about bees and beekeeping, which is why having a network of other beekeepers in your area is so important. Beekeeping clubs can keep you up-to-date on the latest research, the best USDA-approved mite treatments to use in your area, and provide you with a community that is always willing to talk about bees. Backyard beekeeping is an enjoyable and rewarding pastime. It’s something the whole family can do together, or something you can do by yourself for a few moments of solitude. Having bees in your backyard means that you can grab a cup of coffee and head outside to hang with your colonies and watch your bees busy at work. There are a few extra requirements for keeping bees in suburbia, but the underlying theme and golden rule of suburban beekeeping is to respect your neighbors, your bees, and your environment. -beekeeping, care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is widespread: honeybees are kept in large cities and villages, on farms and rangelands, in forests and deserts, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the Equator. Honeybees are not domesticated. Those living in a man-made domicile called a beehive or hive are no different from those living in a colony in a tree. -In antiquity people knew that bees produce delicious honey, that they sting, and that they increase their numbers by swarming. By the 17th century they had learned the value of smoke in controlling them and had developed the screen veil as protection against stings. From the 17th to the 19th century, the key discoveries upon which modern beekeeping is founded were made. These included the mystery of the queen bee as the mother of nearly all the occupants of the hive, her curious mating technique, parthenogenetic development, the movable frame hives, and the fact that bees rear a new queen if the old one disappears. -Given this knowledge, people were able to divide a colony instead of relying on natural swarming. Then the development of the wax-comb foundation, the starter comb on which bees build straight, easily handled combs, and the discovery that honey can be centrifuged or extracted from them and the combs reused, paved the way for large-scale honey production and modern commercial beekeeping. The identification of bee diseases and their control with drugs, the value of pollen and pollen substitutes in producing strong colonies, and the artificial insemination of queens have increased the honey-production efficiency of colonies. -Honeybees belong to the order Hymenoptera and to one of the Apis species. (For a complete discussion of honeybees, see the article hymenopteran.) Honeybees are social insects noted for providing their nests with large amounts of honey. A colony of honeybees is a highly complex cluster of individuals that functions virtually as a single organism. It usually consists of the queen bee, a fertilized female capable of laying a thousand or more eggs per day; from a few to 60,000 sexually undeveloped females, the worker bees; and from none to 1,000 male bees, or drones. The female of most species of bees is equipped with a venomous sting. - -Honeybees collect nectar, a sugary solution, from nectaries in blossoms and sometimes from nectaries on the leaves or stems of plants. Nectar may consist of 50 to 80 percent water, but when the bees convert it into honey it will contain only about 16 to 18 percent water. Sometimes they collect honeydew, an exudate from certain plant-sucking insects, and store it as honey. The primary carbohydrate diet of bees is honey. They also collect pollen, the dustlike male element, from the anthers of flowers. Pollen provides the essential proteins necessary for the rearing of young bees. In the act of collecting nectar and pollen to provision the nest, the bees pollinate the flowers they visit. Honeybees also collect propolis, a resinous material from buds of trees, for sealing cracks in the hive or for covering foreign objects in the hive that they cannot remove. They collect water to air-condition the hive and to dilute the honey when they consume it. A populous colony in a desirable location may, in a year’s time, collect and carry into the hive as much as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of nectar, water, and pollen. - -Bees secrete beeswax in tiny flakes on the underside of the abdomen and mold it into honeycomb, thin-walled, back-to-back, six-sided cells. The use of the cell varies depending on the needs of the colony. Honey or pollen may be stored in some cells, while the queen lays eggs, normally one per cell, in others. The area where the bees develop from the eggs is called the broodnest. Generally, honey is stored toward the top of the combs and pollen in cells around the broodnest below the honey. -The bees maintain a uniform temperature of about 93 °F (34 °C) in the broodnest regardless of outside temperature. The colony can survive daily maximum temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) if water is available with which they can air-condition the cluster. When the temperature falls below about 57 °F (14 °C), the bees cease flying, form a tight cluster to conserve heat, and await the return of warm weather. They can survive for several weeks in temperatures of −50 °F (−46 °C). -When summer flowers bloom in profusion, the queen’s egg-laying is stimulated, the cluster expands, and honey accumulates in the combs. When the large number of young bees emerge, the domicile becomes crowded. - -When the colony becomes crowded with adult bees and there are insufficient cells in which the queen can lay large numbers of eggs, the worker bees select a dozen or so tiny larvae that would otherwise develop into worker bees. These larvae are fed copiously with royal jelly, a whitish food with the consistency of mayonnaise, produced by certain brood-food glands in the heads of the worker bees. The cell in which the larva is developing is drawn out downward and enlarged to permit development of the queen. Shortly before these virgin queens emerge as adults from their queen cells, the mother queen departs from the beehive with the swarm. Swarming usually occurs during the middle of a warm day, when the queen and a portion of the worker bees (usually from 5,000 to 25,000) suddenly swirl out of the hive and into the air. After a few minutes’ flight, the queen alights, preferably on a branch of a tree but sometimes on a roof, a parked automobile, or even a fire hydrant. All the bees settle into a tight cluster around her while a handful of scouts reconnoitre a new homesite. -When the scout bees have located a new domicile, the cluster breaks. The swarm takes to the air and in a swirling mass proceeds to the new home. Swarming is the bees’ natural method of propagation or increase. - -Back in the parent colony, the first queen to emerge after the mother queen departs with the swarm immediately attempts to destroy the others. If two or more emerge at the same time, they fight to the death. When the surviving virgin is about a week old, she soars off on her mating flight. To maintain genetic diversity within a colony, a queen frequently mates with more than one drone (called polyandry) while in the air. She may repeat the mating flights for two or three successive days, after which she begins egg laying. She rarely ever leaves the hive again except with a swarm. Normally, sufficient sperm are stored in her sperm pouch, or spermatheca, to fertilize all the eggs she will lay for the rest of her life. The drones die in the act of mating. -The queen can live up to five years, although many beekeepers replace the queen every year or two. If she is accidentally killed or begins to falter in her egg-laying efficiency, the worker bees will rear a “supersedure” queen that will mate and begin egg laying without a swarm emerging. She ignores the mother queen, who soon disappears from the colony. - -Worker bees live about six weeks during the active season but may live for several months if they emerge as adults in the fall and spend the winter in the cluster. As the name implies, worker bees do all the work of the hive, except the egg laying. - -Drones are reared only when the colony is populous and there are plentiful sources of nectar and pollen. They usually live a few weeks, but they are driven from the hive to perish when fall or an extended period of adversity comes upon the colony. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen. -The queen can lay drone (unfertilized) eggs in the drone cells. If she is not allowed to mate or if her supply of sperm is exhausted, she will lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells. The development of unfertilized eggs into adult drones is known as parthenogenesis. Occasionally a colony may become queenless and unable to develop another queen. Then some of the worker bees begin to lay eggs, often several to a cell, and these develop into drones. A colony that has developed laying workers is difficult to requeen with a laying queen. -The beekeeper’s year starts in early fall. At that time he requeens the colonies whose queens are not producing adequate amounts of brood and makes sure that each colony has sufficient stores: at least 50 pounds (22 kilograms) of honey and several frames filled with pollen. Some beekeepers also feed the drug fumagillin to reduce possible damage to the adult bees by nosema disease (see below Disease and pest control). The colonies need a sunny exposure and protection from cold winds. Some beekeepers in northern and mountainous areas wrap their colonies with insulating material in winter. A few beekeepers kill their bees in the fall, harvest the honey, store the empty equipment, then restock with a two- or three-pound (0.8- or 1.4-kilogram) package of bees and a young queen the following spring. -If the colonies are well prepared in the fall, they need little attention during the winter. But in early spring an examination of the colonies by the beekeeper is important. Frequently, strong colonies exhaust their food supply and starve only a few days before flowers begin to bloom in abundance. Only a few pounds of sugar syrup, 50-50 sugar water, or a honey-filled comb from another more prosperous colony might save such a starving colony. Again fumagillin may be fed to the colony, and some beekeepers also feed a cake of pollen substitute or pollen supplement. Honey is not fed to the colonies unless the beekeeper is sure about its source. Honey from colonies affected by the brood disease American foulbrood could infect his colonies and cause a serious loss. -As the spring season advances, the cluster size increases from the low population of 10,000 to 20,000 bees that survived the winter. To accommodate the increased size of the cluster and broodnest, the keeper adds more supers, or boxes of combs. If the combs are so manipulated that the queen can continually expand her egg-laying area upward, the colony is unlikely to swarm. This can be achieved by placing empty combs or combs in which brood is about ready to emerge at the top of the cluster and combs filled with eggs or young brood toward the lower part of the broodnest. The beekeeper wants the colony to reach its peak of population, 50,000 to 60,000 bees, at the beginning of the major nectar flow. -The bees in a swarm, having departed the hive with a full stomach of honey, rarely sting. The usual way to capture them is to place a hive or upturned box beneath or nearby, then shake or smoke the bees to force the queen and a majority of the bees into it. The others follow. After the swarm is safely inside the box, it can be removed to a permanent location. -Regulations governing the keeping of bees usually require the bees to be kept in hives with movable combs. If the bees are captured in a box, they are generally transferred into a movable-frame hive within a few days so the new honey and comb will not be lost in the transfer. - -When a beekeeper requeens a colony, he removes the failing or otherwise undesirable queen and places a new one in a screen cage in the broodnest. After a few days the colony becomes adjusted to her and she can be released from the cage. A strange queen placed in the cluster without this temporary protection usually will be killed at once by the workers. Queens usually are shipped in individual cages of about three cubic inches (50 cubic centimetres) with about half a dozen attendant bees and a ball of specially prepared sugar candy plugging one end of the cage. When the cage is placed in the hive, the bees from both sides eat the candy. By the time the candy is consumed and the bees reach each other, their odours have become indistinguishable, and the queen emerges from the cage into the colony and begins her egg-laying duties. -Beekeeping equipment -Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells. - -The worker bee sting is barbed, and in the act of stinging it is torn from the bee. It has a venom-filled poison sac and muscles attached that continue to work the sting deeper into the flesh for several minutes and increase the amount of venom injected. To prevent this, the sting should be scraped loose (rather than grasped and pulled out) at once. Bee stings are painful, and no one becomes immune to the pain. Immunity to the swelling is usually built up after a few stings, however. -Normal reaction to a bee sting is immediate, intense pain at the site of the sting. This lasts for a minute or two and is followed by a reddening, which may spread an inch or more. Swelling may not become apparent until the following day. Occasionally, acute allergic reactions develop from a sting, usually with persons who have other allergic problems. Such a reaction becomes evident in less than an hour and may consist of extreme difficulty in breathing, heart irregularity, shock, splotched skin, and speech difficulty. Such persons should obtain the services of a medical doctor immediately. -Honey is marketed in several different forms: liquid honey, comb honey, and creamed honey. Sometimes the predominant floral type from which the honey was collected is indicated. -Liquid honey -If liquid (strained, extracted) honey is desired, additional supers are added directly above the brood nest. When one is largely filled, it is raised and another is placed underneath. This may continue until several have been filled, each holding from 30 to 50 pounds (14 to 23 kilograms), or until the nectar flow has ended. After the bees have evaporated the water until the honey is of the desired consistency and sealed in the cells, the combs are removed, the cells uncapped with the uncapping knife, and the honey extracted. The removed honey is immediately heated to about 140 °F (60 °C), which thins it and destroys yeasts that can cause fermentation. It is then strained of wax particles and pollen grains, cooled rapidly, and packaged for market. -In production of honey in the comb, or comb honey, extreme care is necessary to prevent the bees’ swarming. The colony must be strong, and the bees must be crowded into the smallest space they will tolerate without swarming. New frames or sections of a frame with extra-thin foundation wax, added at exactly the right time for the bees to fill without destroying them, are placed directly above the brood nest. The bees must fill and seal the new comb to permit removal within a few days, or it will be of inferior quality. As rapidly as sections are removed, new sections are added, until the nectar flow subsides. Then these are removed and the colony given combs to store its honey for the winter. -Creamed honey -Almost all honey will granulate or turn to sugar. Such honey can be liquefied without materially affecting its quality by placing the container in water heated to about 150 °F (66 °C). Liquid and granulated honey is sometimes blended, homogenized, and held at a cool temperature, which speeds uniformly fine granulation. If properly processed, the granules will be extremely fine; the honey, which has a smooth, creamy appearance, is referred to as creamed honey. - -Some honeys are sold by floral type; that is, they are given the name of the predominant flowers visited by the bees when they accumulated the honey. The beekeeper has no way to direct the bees to a particular source of food but through experience learns which plants are the major sources of honey. Different flowers produce different colours and flavours of honey. It may be heavy-bodied or thin-bodied, dark or light, mild-flavoured or strong-flavoured. Most honey has been blended by the beekeeper to a standard grade that can be supplied and marketed year after year. - -Beeswax is a by-product of beekeeping in most areas. When beekeepers uncap or break honeycombs or have unusable combs, they try to salvage the beeswax. First, they recover as much honey from the combs as possible by drainage or extraction. Then they place the material in water heated to slightly over 145 °F (63 °C). This melts the wax, which rises to the surface. After it cools and hardens, the cake of wax is removed and refined for reuse in comb foundation. Beeswax has many other uses: in quality candles, cosmetics, agriculture, art, and industry. In some areas bees are manipulated primarily for wax production. Wax is a highly stable commodity that can be transported long distances under unfavourable conditions without damage.Queens are reared for sale to other beekeepers for requeening established colonies or for adding to a 2- or 3-pound (0.9- or 1.4-kilogram) package of 8,000 to 10,000 live bees to form new colonies or replenish weak ones. The queens are produced when the beekeeper cages the reigning queen in a colony, then inserts into the cluster from 30 to 60 queen cell bases into which young (one-day-old) worker larvae have been transferred. Queens can be artificially inseminated with sperm from drones of a known source, but most beekeepers let the queens mate naturally. The live bees are shaken from the combs of the colony through a funnel into screen-wire cages. -The greatest value of bees is in their service as pollinators. Some 90 crops grown in the United States alone are dependent on insect pollination, performed primarily by the honeybee. The average colony of bees is worth from 20 to 40 times as much in the pollination of crops as it is in the production of honey. The value of bees in the pollination of ornamental plants has never been calculated. Bees are also valuable in the pollination of some forest and range plants that produce seeds on which birds and other wildlife feed. -When bees are used in the pollination of crops, the beekeeper places the colonies within or adjacent to the field to be pollinated. The majority of the roughly 1,000,000 colonies that are used for pollination are used in alfalfa-seed fields and almond and apple orchards. The colonies are distributed at the rate of two or more per acre in groups every 0.1 mile (0.16 kilometre) throughout alfalfa fields. Two colonies per acre are recommended for almond orchards and about one colony per acre in apple orchards. -Some growers prefer to have the colonies placed alongside the orchard; others want them distributed in small groups within the orchard. Bees also are used regularly by growers of many other crops: blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, clovers, cucumbers, cranberries, cutflower seed, plums and prunes, vetch, and watermelon. - -Honeybees have diseases and enemies: diseases of the brood; diseases that affect only the adult bees; insect enemies of the adults and of the comb; and other enemies, including toads, lizards, birds, mice, skunks, and bears. -American foulbrood, caused by a spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus larvae, is the most serious brood disease. It occurs throughout the world wherever bees are kept and affects workers, drones, and queens. The spores are highly resistant to heat and chemicals. A comb containing brood severely infected with this disease has a mottled appearance caused by the mixture of healthy capped brood interspersed with diseased or empty cells formerly occupied by diseased brood. The decayed mass has a typical ropiness when dug into, which is one of its identifying characteristics. -American foulbrood can be spread to healthy colonies by transferring equipment or allowing the bees to feed on honey from infected colonies. Sulfathiazole and Terramycin are widely used to control the disease. Many countries and most states in the U.S. require the destruction by fire of diseased colonies and have apiary inspectors to enforce the regulations. - -European foulbrood is caused by a nonsporeforming bacterium, Streptococcus pluton, but Bacillus alvie and Acromobacter eurydice are often associated with Streptococcus pluton. This disease is similar in appearance to American foulbrood. In some instances it severely affects the colonies, but they recover so that colony destruction is not necessary. Terramycin can control the disease. - -Sacbrood is caused by a virus and is superficially similar to the foulbrood diseases. It can appear and disappear spontaneously but is seldom serious. No chemical control is needed. If the problem persists, the beekeeper usually requeens the colony. - -Chalk brood is caused by the fungus Ascosphaera apis. The larvae victims of this disease have a chalky white appearance. Stonebrood, which affects both brood and adults, is also caused by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus, which can usually be isolated from bees that have stonebrood. - -Nosema disease, caused by the microsporidian Nosema apis, is the most serious disease of adult bees. It is widespread, causes heavy losses in honey production, and severely weakens colonies. The external symptoms of bees with nosema disease are not apparent. The disease is transmitted from adult to adult by ingestion of the spores that soon germinate in the ventriculus, or main, stomach. An infected ventriculus is normally swollen, soft, and grayish white. A degree of control may be obtained by feeding the colony the drug fumagillin. - -Acarine disease is caused by the mite Acarapis woodi that gets into the tracheae of the bee through its breathing holes or spiracles in its thorax or midsection. Bees affected by this mite are unable to fly, have disjointed wings and distended abdomens. There is presently no good control for this mite. The only U.S. federal law pertaining to bees was passed to prevent the importation of adult bees carrying this mite into the United States. Two other mites, Varroa destructor and Tropilaelaps clareae, which are native to Asia, are serious problems for beekeepers. V. destructor is now commonly found in Europe and North America, where it is capable of devastating entire colonies of honeybees. -There are other minor diseases of adult bees, but they seldom cause serious problems. - -The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a lepidopterous insect that, in its larval stage, destroys combs. It does not attack adult bees but may begin destruction of combs of a weak colony long before the bees are gone. It can also destroy stored combs of honey. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they often eat out a place to spin their cocoons in the soft wood of the beehive, damaging frames and other hive parts. The best control for this pest is keeping colonies strong. Stored combs are fumigated, kept in a cold room, or stacked in such a way that a strong air draft flows around them. -The larvae of the lesser wax moth, Achroia grisella, cause damage to stored combs similar to that of the greater wax moth. The Mediterranean flour moth larva, Anagasta kuehniella, feeds on pollen in the combs and causes some damage. Control for both of these moths is the same as for the greater wax moth. - -The bee louse, Braula caeca, is a tiny, wingless member of the fly family that is occasionally found on bees. It feeds on nectar or honey from the mouthparts of its host. Its larvae burrow in the cappings of honey combs. - -Ants sometimes invade hives and disrupt or kill the bees. Termites can damage or destroy hive parts placed on the soil. Other insects, such as dragonflies (Odonata), robberflies (Diptera), praying mantises (Orthoptera), ambush bugs (Hemiptera), and certain wasps and yellow jackets (Hymenoptera) are natural enemies of the honeybee. - -Mice frequently enter the hive in winter when the bees are clustered, or they get into stored combs and despoil or damage them by chewing the frames and combs to construct their nest. Skunks devour large numbers of bees at the hive entrance, usually at night. Fences, traps, and poison are used against them. Bears eat the honeybees and the brood in the hive, usually destroying it and its contents in the process. In bear country, electric fences and traps are used to protect bee colonies. - -At times bees become their own deadly enemy. If honey is exposed to them when no flowers are in bloom and the weather is mild, the bees from different colonies will fight over it. Sometimes this fighting, or robbing, becomes intense and spreads from hive to hive in moblike action. If all the bees in one colony are killed, the honey is quickly stolen and carried into other hives. This further intensifies the robbing so that a cluster that was carrying honey into its hive a few minutes earlier is attacked, all of its occupants killed, the honey again stolen, and the process repeated. Usually, once robbing becomes intense, only darkness or foul weather will stop it. - -One of the most mysterious disorders to strike honeybee colonies in the modern era is colony collapse disorder (CCD). It is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. While the underlying cause is not known, it appears that the disorder affects the adult bees’ ability to navigate. They leave the hive to find pollen and never return. Honey and pollen are usually present in the hive, and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may remain in the brood nest. CCD is also characterized by delayed robbing of the honey in the dead colonies by other, healthy bee colonies in the immediate area, as well as slower than normal invasion by common pests, such as wax moths and small hive beetles. The disorder appears to affect only the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). - -CCD was first reported in autumn 2006 by a commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania, who had colony losses estimated at 80 to 90 percent. Colony losses continued to be reported by other beekeepers in 35 states throughout the United States during the spring and summer of 2007, with many beekeepers losing anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. Beekeepers in other countries, including Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, France, and Switzerland, also reported substantial losses of honeybees. In the following years, the syndrome continued to impact honeybee colonies, though the percentage of colonies lost annually appeared to decline. Nonetheless, the potential economic impact on agriculture is great; annually in the United States alone an estimated $15 billion of crops are pollinated by honeybees. - -Studies of adult honeybee carcasses from affected colonies indicate that the bees are infected with a number of pathogens and parasites, including viruses, species of Nosema, and the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis. However, scientists have not reached a definitive conclusion on whether a single pathogen is the root cause of the disorder, and many scientists suspect that a combination of factors are involved, such as a weakened immune system, brought on by colony stress, and the presence of pathogens, which are a constant threat and can be numerous in honeybee colonies. In addition, pesticides such as neonicotinoids (insecticides based on derivatives of nicotine) can be toxic to honeybees and are suspected of causing or contributing to CCD. - -Bees and beekeeping have been subjects of vital importance in the world's agricultural literature for centuries. Special Collections holds many resources that trace the history of beekeeping from the earliest published works on honeybee husbandry, such as the 1572 edition of Thomas Hill's A pleasant instruction of the parfit ordering of Bees. Other works mark the advancement of scientific knowledge about bees. An example of this is Charles Butler's The Feminine Monarchie: or The Historie of Bees (originally published in 1609). Butler was among the earliest observers to recognize that worker bees were female instead of male, as was commonly believed when he first published his book in 1609 (Special Collections has the 1623 and 1634 editions). - -Among Special Collections' historical resources on bee culture are numerous illustrated works showing the wide variety of hives and equipment that were used in the United States and around the world. In addition to rare books, nursery and seed trade catalogs advertising beekeepers' supplies provide glimpses into the art and craft of beekeeping. - -Starting a honey bee colony with a package -purchased from a reputable producer is a good -way to insure the colony you have is healthy and of -a particular race or hybrid. A package should be -installed in the early spring to take advantage of the -nectar flow. -A package consists of a known amount (by -weight) of bees and a caged queen shipped in a screen -box containing a feeder can of sugar syrup. Packages -can be bought in 2-, 3- and 5-pound sizes. One pound -contains about 4000 bees. They should be ordered -long before you want to receive them, ideally in the -Fall. -Inspect the package. If the majority of the workers -are dead or the queen is dead, contact your supplier -for instructions and possible replacement. If all is well, -place the bees in a cool, dark place until early evening. - -Installing apackage of bees into a single deep hive body. the feeder can is resting of the corner of the hive. -Installation -The cage should be installed into one single -deep or two medium hive bodies. You can use all -new foundation, drawn comb or a mixture. If using a -mixture, put the drawn comb in the center to facilitate -egg-laying there. Make sure the drawn comb was -taken from healthy colonies. -In the early evening, take the package to the -apiary. Spray more sugar solution onto the sides of the -package. Remove the outer and inner covers from the -hive. Remove four or five frames from one end of the -hive body or both bodies (medium body). Spray sugar -solution lightly onto the remaining frames and on the -inner walls of the hive body. -Remove the top cover and feeder can from the -package. Remove the queen cage from the package -and cover the opening of the package. Remove the -cork from the end of the queen cage plugged with -candy and use a nail to poke a hole in the candy, -being careful not to harm the queen. Suspend the -cage, candy end up, between the two center frames -of those remaining in the hive body. For medium -hive bodies, suspend the cage within the bottom hive -body. Remove the cover from the hole in the top of the -package, shake about a cupful of bees onto the queen -cage then place the package, with the hole end up, in -the open space within the hive. -Replace the inner cover and place a feeder can -with a 2:1 sugar solution and Fumidil-BTM(according -to label directions) over the opening in the inner cover. -(Be sure the queen cage is not directly below the inner -cover opening.) Place an empty super on the inner -cover around the feeder can and cover this with the -outer cover. Partially block the hive entrance with -a entrance reducer or grass and leave it blocked for -about a month. -Check the queen cage in three days to see if the -queen has been released. If she has not been released, -remove the screen and let her walk into the colony. -Then, do not disturb the colony for 10 days. At this -time, examine the frames for a brood pattern. If a -brood pattern and eggs are found, then you have -successfully installed the package. Remove the -package container and replace the frames removed -earlier. Close the colony. - -Other Methods of Bee Installation -There are variations of the installation method -mentioned above, including differences in releasing -the queen and the workers. After suspending the -queen cage, gently shake the bees from the package -onto the bottom board. Lightly mist the bees with -sugar solution. Replace the frames, being careful not to crush any bees. Close the hive and proceed as -above. -Another method of queen introduction is to place -the queen cage on the bottom board, shake a cupful -of bees onto the cage, then shake the remaining bees -onto the bottom board. -Also, the queen may be released more -immediately by removing the cork-only plug end of -queen cage. But likelihood of queen acceptance is -reduced using this method of release. - -Before entering the apiary, suit up in appropriate attire. If not wearing a bee suit (Beekeeping Protective Gear), dress in light-colored, cotton or rip-stop nylon clothing. Always wear a veil. Wrap the bottoms of your pants’ legs around the top of your boots and secure them in place with a rubber band or tape. Bees drop from handled frames to the ground and may crawl up your legs as you work around the hive. Gloves are optional. Beginners should wear gloves until they feel confident without them. -Light your smoker and fill the chamber with fuel. -Approach the colony from the rear or the side. Always work the colony from the rear or the side. Apply two gentle puffs of smoke into the entrance. Pry the outer cover up 2 to 3 inches along one side. Lightly puff under the outer space and replace it. Wait about 30 seconds before removing the outer and inner covers. - -Gently remove the outer cover and place it on the ground, upside down, near the colony. It can be used as a base for stacking supers or brood chambers that you remove as you inspect the colony. Gently remove the inner cover and lean it near the entrance so that clinging bees can reenter the hive. Do not block the -entrance with the inner cover. - -When removing and handling frames, work with slow, steady movements. Avoid bumping or shaking motions that may shake bees off the frame. Lightly smoke bees to manipulate their movement, such as when you need to examine frames for eggs. Before replacing a frame, smoke the bees out of the way to avoid crushing them. - -Do not leave colonies open for too long. Bees may get overly defensive and an open hive may initiate robbing behavior. Before closing the hive, use smoke to move bees back onto the frames from the edge and outside walls of hive bodies. - -Open a colony when the temperature is 55 degrees F or warmer, the sun is shining, the bees are flying and the wind is calm. Open and inspect colonies once a week during spring build-up and honey production. Colonies should be opened and inspected one or more times each month from February through November. - -Items you should bring to the apiary or that you should keep on hand: - -• Extra hive tool or tools, gloves, veil, bee suit and -smoker. - -• Matches or lighter. - -• Dry smoker fuel. - -• Extra frames with drawn comb or new foundation, -and extra hive bodies. - -• Container to collect wax scrapings or propolis. - -• Jars or sealable bags to collect bees for mite testing -or comb for disease identification. - -• Queen excluders. - -• Entrance reducers. - -• Heavy fabric, such as burlap, or extra inner or outer -covers to protect uncovered colonies or supers from -robbing bees. - -• Newspaper for uniting colonies. - -• Permanent marking pen or pencil. - -• Extra queen cages and queen marking paint. - -• A sting kit for those allergic to bees (Epipen™), first aid kit and other medications for the beekeeper. - -Inspecting a frame of brood. -To inspect a colony you must open it up and look inside (See Working with a Bee Colony). Once inside, pry the outside frame of the brood chamber loose. -Remove the frame from the body and hold it in front -of you with one hand on each end of the top bar. If -possible, position yourself so that the sun is shining -over your shoulder and onto the frame. Observe the -bees and the frame. -Honey bee eggs and young larvae. -Inspect the brood frames for: - -• Healthy larvae. Larvae should be pearly white. Gray, -yellow, brown or black larvae are diseased, chilled or -injured. - -• Eggs standing in the bottom of cells. Recently laid -eggs will be standing on end in the bottom of cells, -one egg per cell. As they age, they gradually fall to -one side. Two or more eggs on the sides of the cell are -from a laying worker. - -• Cell caps of healthy brood. These will be convex and -tan. Cell caps of unhealthy brood are often concave -and perforated with small holes. -A healthy brood frame. -• Area of cells with brood. A prolific queen will have -a laying pattern of brood with very few skipped -cells over most of the frame. The pattern should be -compact and in a semicircle, usually occurring over -the bottom half of the frame. - -• Honey and pollen stores. Honey should appear -adjacent to the brood pattern. Adequate honey stores -will vary with colony size. Pollen is stored in cells -adjacent to honey. -Remove and inspect all of the frames that contain -brood. After inspection of a frame, place it in the -hive body toward the side from which you removed -the outside frame. After completing your inspection, -replace the frames in their original order and close the -hive. -When you open a colony for inspection, you -can also perform other tasks necessary for colony -maintenance, such as feeding, treating with antibiotics -or miticides, replacing damaged combs with frames -containing new foundation, adding an empty super or -removing a super of honey. Prepare the items you need -in advance and have them near when you open the -colony. - -Items you should bring to the apiary or that you should keep on hand: - -Extra hive tool or tools, gloves, veil, bee suit and smoker. -Matches or lighter. -Dry smoker fuel. -Extra frames with drawn comb or new foundation, and extra hive bodies. -Container to collect wax scrapings or propolis. -Jars or sealable bags to collect bees for mite testing or comb for disease identification. -Queen excluders. -Entrance reducers. -Heavy fabric, such as burlap, or extra inner or outer covers to protect uncovered colonies or supers from robbing bees. -Newspaper for uniting colonies. -Permanent marking pen or pencil. -Extra queen cages and queen marking paint. -A sting kit for those allergic to bees (Epipen™), first aid kit and other medications for the beekeeper. - -What is a swarm? Swarming is the natural mode -of reproduction for a honey bee colony in spring. -Swarming is induced as bees increase their population -size and require more space. A swarm usually consists -of the old queen (sometimes a new one) and 50 to 60 -percent of the worker bees in the swarming colony. -Workers preparing to swarm engorge themselves -on honey and force the old queen out of the hive. -Changing weather conditions from cool and rainy to -warm and sunny seem to stimulate the natural urge of -bees to swarm.Bees on exposed comb. -Most swarms leave the colony in good weather -between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., fly to a nearby tree or -bush and land on a limb. Immediately after landing -and for the next 24 to 36 hours, the bees are very -docile; they are interested in swarming, not in -defending their colony. Scout bees come out of the -cluster of the swarm and search the local area for -a protected location for the colony. The scout bees -communicate the information to the swarm and a -“decision” is made, whereupon the bees leave the -branch and proceed to their new location. -After arriving at the new location, or rarely if -the swarming bees have failed to find a location (see -photo at right), the bees start to build wax comb and the -queen lays eggs to start a new brood nest. After brood -production commences, the new colony will become -defensive of its new home. - -Preparing for a “Swarm Call” -As a beekeeper you may be contacted by -neighbors, businesses and the county Extension office -as early as the month of March to go out and collect -a swarm. This request is a “swarm call.” Collecting -a swarm can be exciting, fun and a good way to start -a new colony with less expense. However, you must -be prepared to go and get the swarm at a moment’s -notice, because the swarm may depart quickly, not -“waiting” for you to get ready. You may want to -give your name and phone number to your county -Extension office so that your name can be put on a list -of beekeepers who are willing to retrieve swarms. - -A swarm in a pine tree. -• Anticipate the call by finding a container to hold -the swarm (a cardboard box will do, but a hive body -with bottom and top works better); prepare sugar -syrup (1:1 sugar/water) in a squirt bottle; collect -smoker, fuel and matches, a strap to hold lid/top on -container, bee veil and a ladder. - -• When the person calls announcing he or she needs -someone to retrieve a swarm, you should tell the -caller not to disturb the swarm or spray it with water, -soap or pesticide. - -• The caller may be excited or even alarmed. Calm -the caller by explaining what is happening and that -swarming honey bees are not defensive or dangerous -unless disturbed. - -• Explain that a swarm will usually move from the -original location within 24 to 48 hours; therefore, if -a beekeeper is not available to collect the bees from -a homeowner’s property, the bees will normally leave -without causing a problem. - -• Ask questions to improve your chance of success in -collecting the swarm. -Questions to Ask about Swarms: - -1. Are these really honey bees? Ask them what the -“cluster looks like.” You do not want yellowjackets -or hornets. Has anyone disturbed the cluster? - -2. Get permission from the landowner/homeowner to -collect the swarm from his or her property. - -3. Be sure to write down the name, address and -phone number, including work number of the -homeowner or someone who will be on site. - -4. Ask for directions of how to find the swarm -location, including where on the property. - -5. How long have the bees been there? - -6. How high off the ground are they? Will you need a -ladder? - -7. How big is the swarm (beach ball, football size, -etc.)? - -8. Ask the caller if it’s all right (or acceptable) if -you snip a branch of the tree or bush holding the -swarm. - - -A swarm that’s easy to collect! - - -How to Collect a Swarm – This Is the Fun Part! -Let’s start with an “ideal swarm” example to start -with. This swarm has formed in a small tree, 5 feet -above level ground in a fenced yard. The homeowner -reports the swarm has been there only 20 minutes. - -• Place the whole cluster of bees, including the queen, -directly into an empty hive body or nucleus (smaller -version). This way frames can be gradually added to -this “colony” and there is no need to shift the bees -into a hive later. Some beekeepers like to lay the -cluster down on a sheet in front of the hive and let -the bees walk into the hive on their own. This is your -choice. - -• Mist the hanging cluster of bees lightly as well as the -inside surfaces of the hive body and frames (those -that can fit in easily with the swarm) with 1:1 sugar: -water syrup. - -• If the bees are clustered on a low branch, snip it and -carefully lower the branch and bees into the hive. - -• If it’s not possible to cut the branch, then place the -hive body below and surrounding the bottom of -the cluster, if possible. Then shake the branch to -dislodge the bees into the hive body. If shaking isn’t -an option, then gently brush or scoop the bees with a -gloved hand down into the hive body. - -• Add frames gradually to the middle area to fill the -box as bees move up onto frame surfaces. - -• Carefully look on the branch for a missed queen and -scoop any clusters gently into the box. - -• Crack the lid on the box for a few minutes to allow -stragglers to find the new colony. -You may need to leave the new colony in this -location overnight if many bees are flying around. In -other situations everything happens quickly and you -can put them in and leave within a few minutes. This -may depend, in part, on how long the swarm has been -in this location. -Attach the top to the hive body and secure -window screen in the entrance with staples to keep -bees inside while providing ventilation. Strap the unit -together and move it to the new location. -You will need to modify this method to fit your -unique situation. Not all swarms cluster this close to -the ground on an easy-to-reach branch. You will need -to decide if the swarm is too high or on a structure -that is out of reach for safe retrieval. We have collected -swarms from interesting places such as vehicles, -grocery shopping carts, mailboxes, statues and from -eaves of buildings. - -The most common reasons for dividing a colony -are swarm prevention and the need to increase colony -numbers. A strong colony can be divided into two -or three colonies (splits). The number of splits will -depend on the amount of brood present in the parent -colony. For each split, you need three to five frames -of brood and a couple of food frames with pollen and -honey. Be careful not to split a colony too many times -or wait until it’s too late in the year, because the small -colony needs time to build up for winter. -Tip: Lightly misting the frames and bees in the -splits with a 1:1 sugar:water solution will calm the -bees, and occupy them while they get acquainted with -their new home, especially if you intend to mix brood -from one or more colonies to form the split. - -Contents -1 When Should a Colony Be Divided? -2 To Divide a Colony with Queen Cells: -3 To Divide a Colony and Produce a Queen from Eggs: -4 Dividing a Colony and Requeening with Purchased Queens. - - -When Should a Colony Be Divided? -A colony can be divided when it has a large -population of bees, at least 10 frames of brood and -appears overcrowded. When you open a crowded -colony, bees tend to “pour over” the top of the -frames. In the spring, a large colony preparing to -swarm is an excellent candidate to divide. Prior to -swarming, a colony produces many (sometimes 10 or -more) queen cells (called swarm cells) on the bottom -portion of frames in the brood area. Once the queen -cells are capped, swarming is imminent unless you -act quickly to “convince” the bees that they have -already swarmed. Dividing the colony is one method -to reduce overcrowding in the brood area and in the -honey storage area as well. Prior to making the splits -you need to determine how many can be made and -how to provide queens for the parent colony and/orsplits. To provide a queen you can use queen cells -or eggs from the parent colony or purchase queens -from a queen producer. - - -To Divide a Colony with Queen Cells: -1) Set up hive stands and organize all equipment -to be used for the new colony(ies). You will need -bottom, inner and top covers, supers and frames. -If using foundation when there is no honey flow, -you will need to feed sugar syrup (see feeding bees). - -2) Open the parent colony with minimum smoke -and find the queen. Place the frame with her in the -new colony. This will give the parent colony the -illusion that the queen has swarmed. Determine -the number of frames of brood and food in the -colony being divided. - -3) Place the split without the old queen in the -location of the parent colony. The older foraging -workers will return to the parent colony. - -4) Carefully remove brood frames that contain -queen cells to an empty hive body. Queen cells are -easily damaged. Do not leave the frame exposed to -sun and do not turn the queen cells upside down. - -5) Place a frame having two or three large, wellshaped -queen cells into the queenless split adjacent -to other brood combs and destroy the queen cells -that you do not need. - -6) Place three to five frames of brood near the -center of the super in each new colony and provide -enough bees to completely cover the brood. - -7) Add at least one frame of pollen and one frame -of honey, placing them outside the brood. - -8) Provide at least two frames of empty drawn -comb (preferred) or two frames of foundation on -the outside of the brood area. - -9) Place a super, containing drawn comb or -foundation, above the brood chamber. - -10) Add a top feeder if there is no honey flow (see -feeding bees). - -11) Do not disturb for 14 days. At this point, check -for a laying queen in both splits. - - -To Divide a Colony and Produce a Queen from Eggs: -Follow the procedure above; however, rather than -providing splits with queen cells, you will be giving -them frames with eggs to make their own queen. Eight -to 10 days later, check for queen cell formation. Be -careful not to damage the queen cells. At this time, -destroy all but two or three of the largest, best-shaped, -capped queen cells. Do not disturb for 14 days. Then -check for a laying queen. - - -Dividing a Colony and Requeening with Purchased Queens. -Follow the procedure for dividing as explained -above with these changes/options: - -1) If you plan to put new queens in both splits, -order new queens in advance. Place the queen -shipping cage, with the cork removed from the -candy end, between two frames of capped brood in -each queenless colony (see Queen Marking and Requeening). -Return in three days to see if the queen has been -released. If she has been released, do not disturb -for 10 days, then check for a laying queen. If she is -still in the cage, poke a hole through the candy to -speed up her release and check again in three days. - -2) If you want to save the old queen, leave her in -the original location and move the split to another -location. When you divide the brood, give the split -more capped brood, because these newly emerged -bees will accept a new queen more readily than -will older workers. - -Two methods may be used. The simplest method -is to move the colony in small increments, about -one yard each day. If a colony is moved more than -a yard per day, returning foragers will be confused -and you will lose some of the field bees. The second -method involves removing the colony to a site several -miles away for several days to allow foraging bees to “forget” the old location. Then return the colony -to the new site in the original apiary where they will -“learn,” and become oriented to, the new location. - - -Secure the Colony before Moving - -Colony secured with a locking strap. - - -Locking straps can be used to secure the -colony for moving. A strap should be placed around -an entire individual colony and tightened firmly. -Additional strapping to secure the colonies within -the transporting vehicle or trailer will be necessary to -prevent movement or shifting during the move. For -ease of use, strapping is the preferred method. -Stapling is another method of securing colonies -for transport. All the outside parts of a beehive are -stapled together with 2 3/4-inch hive staples. Drive -the staples in at the four corners, fastening each part -to the part above and below. This can be done during -the day in preparation for moving in the evening after -dark. Using staples, however, will damage hive bodies, -promote wood decay and agitate the bees during -stapling. -Before moving a hive, remove the surplus supers -of honey down to the brood chamber(s) and one empty -super. Excess honey supers increase weight and make -strapping more difficult. - - -Ventilate the Bees for the Move - -Entrance screen for moving bees. - - -Remove the inner cover and nail a screened -cooling board over the top to close and ventilate the -top of the hive. A cooling board is a plywood panel the -size of an inner cover with a large, centrally located, -screened window. An inner cover with the center hole -screened can be used for a short distance move. In -cool weather, a cooling board may not be necessary. -To screen the entrance for a short-distance move, -plastic window screen may be stapled across the -entrance. For longer distances, an entrance screen can -be made by constructing a frame with 11⁄2-inch by 1⁄2- -inch pieces of wood that will fit between the bottom -board cleats, against the front of the hive body to -cover the entrance. The bottom of the frame is made -with a 3/4-inch piece to cover without blocking the -entrance. The frame is covered with metal window -screen wire. The screened frame encloses a screened -porch on the front of the hive. Air will circulate -through the entrance and out the top to keep the bees -cool in transit. - - -When to Move a Colony -Moving at nighttime is best, because all the -field bees should be in the colony. A daytime move, -especially a long-distance one, would result in the loss -of foraging bees returning to the old location. The -bees will return to the hive at dusk or a little later. -Have everything in place except the entrance screen. -Attach the entrance screen with two wood screws -through the two end bars and load the colony for -moving to a new location. -Place the colony on a base at the new location. -Smoke the entrance and remove the screen. Place the -inner and outer covers on the hive. -The bees will fill the combs and cap the honey -when they have cured it to approximately 18 percent -or less water. Some of the frames of honey may not -be capped until several days after the nectar flow -has stopped. The frames and supers of honey that -are capped can be removed from the colony. Avoid -harvesting honey in uncapped cells. It is likely to -be too high in moisture content and will ferment in -storage without additional drying. -Extract soon after removing super from the hive. -Honey must be extracted within three to four days -after removal from the hive to prevent damage by wax -moths or small hive beetles. Be prepared to extract -the honey when you remove the super from the hive. -If extraction is not possible within three or four days, -frames of honey can be stored below 32 degrees F for -long periods of time without danger of crystallization. -Open the colony and inspect the supers of honey. -Frames of capped and uncapped honey can be -exchanged between supers. The super of honey may -contain many bees. Do not use smoke to drive the bees -out of the super; excessive use of smoke may taint the -flavor of the honey. - -Contents -1 Methods to Remove Bees from Honey Supers -1.1 Bee Repellants -1.2 Air Blowers -1.3 Bee Escapes -2 If You Find Brood in Honey Supers -3 Avoid Robbing - - -Methods to Remove Bees from Honey Supers -To harvest a small amount of honey, you can -simply shake bees from individual frames. On the -ground near the colony, place an empty super inside -an outer cover turned bottom side up. An inner cover -with a bee escape (see Bee Escapes below), a flat piece -of plywood or an outer cover is needed to cover the -super as you place the frames of honey that are free of -bees into the super. Remove a frame of honey from the -super of honey taken from the colony. Hold the frame -by the ends of the top bar in front of the colony a short -distance above the entrance. One or two short, strong -shakes will dislodge all the bees. Immediately place -the frame into the empty super and cover the super to -prevent the bees from returning to the frame. Shake -the bees from the remaining frames and load the -super, keeping it completely covered except to insert -the frames of honey. This method can be used very -effectively with a small number of colonies. To remove -bees from entire supers, you can use a bee repellent, a -blower or bee escapes. - - -BEE REPELLANTS -These repellents, such as Bee Go™, are aromatic -liquids of butyric anhydride that are sprinkled in -small quantities onto a fume board, which is placed on -the top of supers. As the repellent evaporates, the odor -will drive the bees out of the super within minutes. -The fume board consists of an absorbent cloth or pad -stapled onto a wooden frame or spare inner cover. -The cloth side is placed on top of the super. Warming -an outer cover for a few minutes in the sun before -covering the fume board will accelerate the process. - - -AIR BLOWERS -Blowers may be purchased from beekeeping -supply vendors to remove bees from honey supers. -A blower is made for this purpose. Or, you can use a -blower made for home and garden use. A super must -be held upright on its side while air is blown between -the frames. Bees may be difficult to dislodge. Also, the -noise and smell of the blower may irritate bees and -make them more defensive. - - -BEE ESCAPES -Escapes provide a more passive method of bee -removal. The Porter® bee escape fits into the center -hole of an inner cover to allow bees to exit a super, but -not to re-enter it. The inner cover with bee escape is -placed between the honey supers and the brood nest. -This method works best on cool nights when bees -move down to the brood nest. Escapes usually must -be left on colonies for at least two days to insure all or -most bees have been removed. - - -If You Find Brood in Honey Supers -A queen may expand the brood nest up into the -honey supers. Check all supers of honey to be removed -for presence of brood. Locate the queen and return -her to the brood nest below. Exchange frames with -brood for frames of capped honey, consolidating all -of the brood into one super. Honey stored in brood -frames is food for the bees and should not be packed -for human consumption. Place the super with brood -on top of the brood chamber. Place a queen excluder -over the hive bodies containing brood to prevent the -queen from re-entering honey supers. - - -Avoid Robbing -Keep all frames and supers of honey sealed -during honey removal. During removal, stack supers -filled with honey between outer covers on top and -bottom to prevent robbing bees and other insects -from reaching the honey. For transport, honey supers -should be well secured. Locking straps work well for -transporting supers. - -Insulating colonies for winter can be worth the cost and effort in cold climates by insreasing winter survival. Here is one method to prepare colonies for winter: - -If you know how many bees were in your sample, you can estimate the number of mites per 100 bees. If there is brood in the colony when you sample, you should double this number to factor in the amount of mites in worker brood. For example, if there are 5 mites / 100 bees, the total infestation is probably 10 mites/100 bees. If your colony has over 10-12 mites/100 bees, you should consider treatment. - -Follow these 10 easy steps to determine the infestation level of varroa mites in a honey bee colony. - -1. The first step is to make a container with a cover made of 8×8 hardware cloth. An easy method is to use a wide-mouth canning jar. Use a ring type cover. Cut a circle of 8×8 hardware cloth the size of the cover that fits in the ring and use it instead of the cover. - - -A wide-mouth canning jar with a cover made of 8×8 hardware cloth - - -2. You will also need something white to shake the mites and powdered sugar into. You can just shake them onto a piece of paper if it is not windy. A white container works best but any light color (yellow) would be ok. - -3. Shake about 200-400 bees into the container. You can shake the bees from a frame into a bent piece of sheet metal (flashing) to help pour them into the container. - - -Remove a frame from the brood area to take a sample of bees for varroa mite sampling. - - -4. 1 fluid oz. = approximately 100 bees. 1/4 cup = approximately 200 bees. You will have to shake the bees in, then tap the bottom of the container to get all the bees on the bottom of the container to measure them. - -5. With the bees in the container place the 8×8 screen on top and secure. - - -Put about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar into container. - - -6. Put about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar into container. Shake the bees with the powdered sugar until they are well coated. Let the container sit for about 1-2 minutes. - -7. Tip the container upside down over the white container and shake the powdered sugar and mites out through the screen. - -8. Continue to shake for at least one minute to be sure you have all of the mites. - - -The mites show up easier on a white background. - - -9. Count the number of mites in the powdered sugar. If you have trouble seeing them you can add a small amount of water to dissolve the sugar, making the mites easier to see. - -10. Return the bees to their colony.The bees will survive. Once they are cleaned up they can go back to work. -We feel that the advantages of marking the -queen outweigh the disadvantages. A queen marked -with bright colored paint is easier to find. You -know the marked queen is one you introduced, not -a supersedure of unknown quality. You also know -her age. Younger queens are more prolific layers and -produce more pheromone that maintains colony -cohesion, thus making the colony less prone to -swarming and less susceptible to stressful conditions. - -How to Mark a Queen -• Practice with drones until you have confidence that -you can do it without damaging the drone. You do -not want to squeeze the abdomen or thorax and you -do not want to drop the queen. - -• Be prepared: have enamel paint and a helper’s extra -pair of hands ready, if needed, to hold the frame, -unscrew cap from paint bottle, etc. If alone, shake -paint and unscrew cap. - - -Marking a queen. - - -• Grasp queen by the wings between forefinger and -thumb of left hand so that her legs are suspended. - -• Place the forefinger of the right hand (nail side down) -below her legs and she will quickly rest her legs on it. - -• Move the thumb of right hand on top of and trapping -at least two legs (right side) with enough pressure to -hold her (see photo). If you have the legs secure she -will stop moving. - -• Release wings with left hand. - -• If alone, daub the paint onto the center of the thorax -only and hold her gently for 30 seconds to one -minute before putting her back on the frame from -which she was taken. Insert the frame back into the -colony. - -• If a helper is available to daub paint, add your left -thumb to trap additional legs of the queen (left side) -and have the helper daub the paint on the queen’s -thorax. - - -Requeening -Why Requeen? Better Performance – Better Production -Most beekeepers requeen every year to take -advantage of the better egg-laying performance -and productivity of the young queen. A queen may -lay for several years, but 99 per cent of queens are -most prolific for the first year and decline during the -second year, with performance falling drastically -thereafter. A colony with an older queen is more likely -to swarm than one with a young queen. Colonies -with more prolific, young queens are less likely to be -overwhelmed by parasitic mites. An inferior queen -results in an inferior colony. -If you let the colony requeen itself, you may end -up with an inferior queen. Smaller, less vigorous -queens usually hatch out first and destroy larger -queens in their queen cells before they emerge. -A queen needs to mate with 12 or more drones -over a one- or two-day period to accumulate the 5 -million sperm she will need throughout her life. If the -weather during her mating flights is cold or rainy, then -drones may be scarce, resulting in less mating. This -queen may run out of sperm later in the season and no -longer lay worker eggs. -A virgin queen may mate with drones of -inferior stock, resulting in a colony with poor honey -production, increased tendency to swarm or one that -exhibits excessive defensive behavior. -Consider requeening if the colony exhibits -one or more of the following: unexplained low bee -population, excessive propolis production, laying -workers, defensiveness, high swarming tendency, poor -honey production or excessive drone production. - - -When to Requeen? -A colony can be requeened at any time during the -warm season, but requeening is most successful when -a nectar flow is on. Routine requeening is usually done -in spring or late summer. We suggest requeening early -in August, but let’s examine why spring requeening is -also an option. - - -THE ADVANTAGES OF SPRING REQUEENING: -• The old queen is easier to find due to smaller bee -populations. - -• Nectar/honey flows usually occur in spring. -Requeening during a honey flow increases -acceptance, and reduces robbing and defensiveness. - - -THE DISADVANTAGES OF SPRING REQUEENING: -• Inclement spring weather in Tennessee may confine -bees, causing them to eat their stores and increase -chance of queen supersedure. - -• Spring rains and cool temperatures may prohibit -opening the colony to install a new queen. - -• If swarming has begun, you can miss capped queen -cells as well as virgin queens that may be present or -may be returning from mating. - -• Queens from queen producers may be of inferior -quality due to poor weather conditions for mating in -queen production areas. - - -THE ADVANTAGES OF AUGUST REQUEENING: -• Colony starts the winter with young healthy bees and -a new queen. - -• Colony less likely to swarm next spring with a young -queen. - -• Spring population should be higher with a younger -queen laying more in late winter and early spring -than an old queen. - -• Queens are less expensive to purchase than in spring. - -• There is a break in the brood cycle, which can reduce -disease and pest problems. - -• If this queen fails, then you still have time to try -again before cool fall weather. - - -THE DISADVANTAGES OF AUGUST REQUEENING: -• Harder to find old queen with large bee population. - -• If no honey flow is on, then bees will be more -defensive and prone to robbing. - -• If no honey flow is on, then you need to feed all -colonies in the apiary where you are requeening. -If you feed only the requeened colonies, the strong -colonies nearby will rob them. - -• May take more time if bees start robbing the colony -being requeened, because you must stop working -and come back later after robbing ceases. - - -Queen Introduction – Direct or Indirect? -Although many procedures have been described -about how to install a queen, they can be classified as -either direct or indirect. - -With direct methods the queen is released directly -into the colony, usually in combination with smoke, -scented sugar syrup or honey. The new queen and -the colony to receive the queen are both treated with -smoke, scented sugar syrup or honey to mask any -difference in odor between her and the colony. -Indirect methods of queen introduction using -shipping cages are more preferred by most beekeepers. -Some beekeepers use push-in cages and others use a -division screen method. - - -Benton cage and JZ BZ cage. -Many queen producers still ship their queens to -beekeepers in the wooden “Benton cage.” This cage -has three circular cavities covered by screen, openings -on either end that are plugged by corks. The cavity on -one end of the cage is filled with sugar candy (fondant, -a mixture of powdered sugar and water in a doughlike -consistency). The plastic “JZ BZ” queen cage is -preferred by some queen package producers. -The new laying queen is normally shipped with -six attendant bees inside the cage to take care of her. -When you receive the queens in the mail, inspect -them to make sure they are alive. Add a couple drops -of water to each cage on the screen, away from the -candy end, to let the bees get water. New research -suggests that the attendants should be removed before -introducing the queen because they interfere with -acceptance. -One way to safely remove attendants is to do it -in a closed room with a window. You can wrap the -cage except for the corked end without candy with -a cloth, then remove the cork, making this opening -the only place where light can enter. The workers and -sometimes the queen will be attracted to light and -come out. The quickest method is to turn off room -lights, remove the screen and let all bees y to the -“lighted” window. Then replace the screen and put -only the queen back inside. - - -Installing a Queen in a Shipping Cage: -• Locate the old queen and remove her from the -colony. If you have difficulty finding queens, place -queen excluders between supers with brood for four -days before requeening. This will confine the queen -to one box. While searching for the queen, search -also for eggs. The queen will be in the box where -you find eggs, because eggs laid before you added -excluders have hatched. - - -Installing a queen in a shipping cage. - - -• Remove the cork from the candy end of the cage. -One purpose of the candy is to delay immediate -release of the new queen. In the two days (usually) -that the workers take to eat the candy and release -the queen, her odors and that of her attendants have -blended in with that of the colony. A new queen and -her attendants have a different odor than that of the -new colony and they may be treated aggressively if -they are released too soon. - -• Press the side of the cage with the candy end up -vertically into the middle of a frame of brood and -move the adjacent frame of brood to “sandwich” the -cage perpendicular, in between. - -• Putting the candy end up keeps any attendant bees -(if included) from blocking the hole if they should -die. If the candy end were down, dead attendants -could block the queen’s exit. - -• Wait three days before inspecting to determine if the -queen is released. If she is not out and much candy -remains or it is too hard, carefully poke a small hole -through the candy to speed the process. - -• Wait 10 days to search for her, and more importantly, -for eggs, which indicate she is laying and has been -accepted into the colony. - - -Installing a Queen Using Press-in Cages. - -wire press-in queen introduction cage. - - -A press-in cage is a screen box with an open side -made of eight-mesh (1/8- inch squares) screen, 4 inches -by 4 inches, with each edge bent upward at a 90-degree -angle to form a side that is 1 inch wide. The open side -of the box is pressed over the queen on a capped brood -frame that is about to emerge. No adult bees should -be trapped under the cage with the queen. A few cells -of honey should also be under the cage. New workers -hatch out under the cage, take care of the queen and -clean cells where she lays eggs. The cage is removed -when eggs are found. During this several-day process, -the queen and workers acclimate to one another and -the queen is readily accepted. Caution: Make sure you -put the cage over comb without holes. Workers can -crawl through holes to get inside the cage before it’s -time to release the queen. - -Vigorous well-nourished colonies are able to withstand bee diseases and parasites better than poorly nourished colonies. Scientists have emphasized that malnutrition may be playing a key role in the decline of colonies due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Honey bees can suffer from a compromised immune system related to poor nutrition. - - -Natural Forage -Healthy bees require a diversity of natural pollen. -Placing bees on locations with abundant and diverse floral resources will help them stay healthy. -Locations vary in their carrying capacity, and experience will suggest optimum densities. -Placing too many bees in one location will result in inadequate floral resources, robbing, drifting and the spread of bee diseases and parasites. - -Supplemental Feeding -Forage can be limited in late summer and fall. When floral resources are inadequate, feeding bees sugar syrup and pollen substitutes can improve colony survival and performance. -Supplemental feeding is critical to build bees for early almond pollination by Feb. 1st. - -A good protein source is very important for strong colonies - -Provide protein pollen patties. -Pollen substitutes should have three (3) essential properties: - -Consumable – honey bees should be readily able to eat and consume the supplemental feed; -Absorbable – honey bees should be able to digest and absorb the supplemental feed, and; -Nutritious – it should contain the necessary and vital ingredients for bee health. -Place pollen patties between brood boxes or on top of hive frames. -It is critical to provide supplemental feed when colonies arrive for almond pollination; dearth is a factor prior to and after bloom. -For more information see Honey_Bee_Nutrition - - -Provide plentiful and abundant water - -Water -Provide plentiful and abundant water. -Pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers may drift into water sources; locate colonies near colonies near accessible clean water. -Drought causes honey bee stress. Work with your grower on identifying a potable water source for bees to avoid dehydration. - - -The Beekeeper’s Goal: - -Provide bees a diversity of natural pollen. -When possible, locate natural forage for your bees. -Fall is a critical time to build bees for almond pollination. -Provide supplemental feed, especially protein, to build strong, 8-frame colonies by Feb. 1st. -Water is just as important as food; keep your bees well-hydrated with clean water. - - - -2.Best Management Practices for Pest/Varroa Control -Controlling pests, particularly Varroa, is a critically important management practice. - - -Why is Varroa harmful to Honey Bees? -Varroa mites reduce individual bee and colony vigor by feeding on their haemolymph. In addition, they vector viruses and facilitate infection by other bee pathogens. - - -Manage for Varroa control -Varroa control should be a primary activity in your beekeeping operation. -Requeen with mite resistant stock. Using stock selected for resistance may aid in slowing down the growth of Varroa populations. - -Sticky board mite trap - -Do your colonies have Varroa mites? -Monitoring is important, early detection is key. -Check often, every 2-3 months. -Conduct a random sampling of hives. -Follow regional guidelines for action thresholds. - -How to check for Varroa -Sticky Boards for an accurate mite count -Alcohol Wash -Sugar/Ether Roll - -How to treat for Varroa -Use biotechnical methods to suppress mite populations if action is necessary when surplus honey is being produced. -Drone brood removal -Powdered sugar dusting -Screened bottom boards -If honey is not being produced, use thymol-based materials or organic acids. -Exercise judicious treatment and soft chemicals. -Follow the recommended label instructions. -Rotate treatments to prevent resistance. -Varroa mites have exhibited resistance to some varroacides in some regions. Check with your local cooperative extension office or apiary inspector to find out which varroacides are most effective in your area. -Be aware that strong colonies in mid-summer can be highly infested with Varroa and even strong colonies can crash in population in late-summer and fall. - -Are your treatments working? -Recheck for efficacy; don’t assume your treatments are working. -Varroa is a community problem. Work with your beekeeper neighbors to be sure that all beekeepers are keeping Varroa at low levels. - -Minimize toxin exposure -Honey bees have a limited capacity to metabolize toxins, including beekeeper-applied varroacides, and some toxins can accumulate in beeswax combs. -Be aware of crop pest control practices near your apiary; know the risks and have a plan for protecting colonies. -Varroacides can tie up bees’ detoxification capabilities and render them less able to deal with other varroacides and chemicals used on crops. -Avoid treating bees with varroacides when they are likely to be exposed to crop pest control chemicals. -Renew beeswax combs by replacing a few combs from each hive annually - - -The Beekeeper’s Goal: - -A good management program pays close attention to mite levels. -Varroa can rebound quickly; watch your threshold levels closely. -Constant monitoring and timely treatment is critical for healthy hives. - - - -3. Best Management Practices for Disease Control/Nosema -Evidence suggests that presence of Nosema is contributing to honey bee health problems. - -Why is Nosema harmful to Honey Bees? - -Scientists agree that Nosema ceranae is the most prevalent and economically damaging of the honey bee diseases. In serious cases of Nosema, the colony may eventually die. - - -Do your colonies have Nosema? -It’s important to monitor your bees for Nosema (N. apis and N. ceranae) – early detection is key – and treat to reduce levels if warranted. -Monitor Nosema levels and colony condition. -Check often, ideally monthly. -Random sampling of hives - -How to check for Nosema -Collect live or fresh dead bees from the hive entrance or from top bars of the frames. -On-site microscopic examination of honey bee gut for spore count. -When levels exceed 1 million spores per bee, colonies can exhibit dwindling, but this will not always be the case. - -How to treat for Nosema - -Chemical control with Fumagillin -Practice judicious treatment. -Follow proper preparation, storage and application. - -Hygiene -Clean comb -Clean or replace contaminated equipment. - -Nutrition -Good “Fall Flow” of natural or wild forage, proper nutrition eases stress. -Strong immune system = healthy bees. -Treat based on your risk assessment and previous experience. - - -Are your treatments working? -Recheck for efficacy -Don’t assume - - -The Beekeeper’s Goal - -Watch your Nosema levels; Nosema can appear quickly. -Be aware that Nosema in the presence of high mite levels can compromise colony health. -Constant monitoring and treatment are critical for healthy hives. - - - -4. Best Management Practices for Hive Equipment -A well-maintained and orderly apiary can translate into a successful beekeeping operation. - -Why practice diligent hive maintenance? - -Beekeepers agree that the most important piece of equipment in the apiary is the beehive, the home of the honey bee. - - -Hive Maintenance -Proper maintenance extends the life of the hive. -Check apiary for hive condition. -Inspect for rotten, loose or broken boards and frames. -Reconstruct, tighten or replace frame parts. -Paint supers with light colors to beat summer heat. -Take advantage of the winter months to do maintenance and prepare for the new season. -Check bee attire. - -Repair clothes, veil, gloves and bodysuit. -Inspect your essential two (2) pieces of equipment. - -Smoker and the hive or “universal” tool -Maintain yard equipment. - -Inspect and repair trucks, trailers, loaders and forklifts. -Repair bunkhouses, if applicable. -Eliminate trash in the apiary. -Practice fire safety when the bee smoker is in use. - -Hygiene -Practice good hygiene with hands, gloves, and other equipment to reduce transmission of pathogens between colonies. -Replace comb with new foundation to minimize residual chemicals in old wax. -Develop a comb replacement schedule. -Purchase equipment only if it has a history of clean health. - -Hive Security -Be aware that the probability of hive theft has increased with the increased value of pollinating crops. -Keep equipment simple to identify. -ID hives with a brand or name. -Secure a signed contract when entering into a “wintering deal.” -Practice discretion when showing where your yards are located. -The Beekeeper’s Goal - -Keep your equipment in good condition. -Good maintenance prolongs the life of hive parts, clothing, vehicles, and other equipment. -Good hygiene reduces the incidences of pests and diseases. -Hive security can minimize economic losses. - - - -Best Management Practices for Colony Management -Successful beekeepers employ practices that are tested and proved to be profitable. - -Exert you energy wisely - -Invest time, money and energy on your healthy colonies. -Practice judicious methods - -Maintain a reserve; don’t commit all your colonies to contract. - -healthy brood frame - - - -Monitor colony strength -Cull weak colonies. -Use diagnostic services for objective colony assessment. -Check frames of brood for intended strength to coincide with almond bloom. -Be mindful of colony placement to minimize stress. -Do not combine weak collapsing colonies with healthy colonies. - -Managing Stock -Maintain genetic quality to meet your objectives: -Maintain stocks that are productive and disease and pest resistant. -Encourage high drone densities to provide well-mated queens and genetically diverse colonies. -Discourage stocks that are excessively defensive. -Select stock by propagating colonies that prosper when other colonies exhibitsymptoms of stress. -Requeen colonies, at least annually. Package bees typically exhibit low Varroa and virus levels during the year following installation. Consider making colony increases by shaking package bees from your own colonies. - -Water - -Consider water access when transporting colonies and when placing colonies in the orchard. -The Beekeeper’s Goal - -Work towards strong 8-frame colonies for almond pollination by Feb. 1st. -Invest your energy in the expectation of future returns and benefits. -Use discretion to avoid waste. -Employ genetics, diagnostic services and placement of hives to ensure healthy colonies. - - - -6. Best Management Practices for Business Management -Beekeeping is an evolving profession. - - - -Be professional in your beekeeper/grower interactions. - -Use a Contract (See a Sample Pollination Contract at http://www.ProjectApism.org under ‘Downloads’). -Determine pollination fees that are realistic relative to your operation costs. -Use well-maintained equipment. -Be dependable with the timing of hive drops and pick-ups. -Be visible to your growers. -Develop contingency plans for the unexpected. -Be efficient - -Streamline your business to manage resources wisely. -Keep good records to improve practices. -Keep learning - -Successful beekeeping is a rapidly changing art and science. -Join local, state, regional and national organizations. -Attend conferences. -Access the internet, watch for reliable sources of information. -Subscribe to bee journals. -Regularly check the CAP project website for new information at http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/index.html. -Give back - -Beekeeping needs ideas and leadership to build a prosperous future. -Mentor new and young beekeepers. -Support and contribute to bee research to ensure a sustainable pollination industry. - - - -7. Best Management Practices for Almond Growers Renting Bees -Growers can help beekeepers in the pollination process of their crops. - - -Nutrition -If possible, help your beekeeper locate flowering forage prior to and after almond bloom. - -Plant a cover crop on adjacent land: -At perimeter of orchard -Within younger orchards -On fallow land -Good examples of alternative food resources are mustard, clover or vetch. - -Water -Water is important to prevent dehydration. -Provide abundant and potable water, free from contamination. -Landings and screens make water accessible and prevent bee drownings. - -Access and Placement -Beekeepers need to place, service and remove hives routinely. - -The distribution of colonies should be accessible and convenient at all times. -Orchard roads should be maintained and graded for easy access. -Allow hive placement in areas not prone to flooding or shade. -Eastern and southern exposures are better for sun and warmer temperatures and encourage bee flight for pollination. -Let bees do their job, place hives as to limit human and honey bee interaction. - -Agricultural Sprays -Let your beekeeper know the agricultural products used for crop protection, including tank mixes. -Application and Timing - -Honey bees come in contact with agricultural sprays in different ways: -Bees may fly through the spray. -Sprays may drift to hives via wind. -Bees may collect and bring into the hive pollen that contains chemical residue. -Management practices to minimize contact are: -Spray when bees are not flying. -Spray when pollen is not being produced by the tree. -Time applications at night or when bees are not flying. - -Communication -Keep in contact with your beekeeper, especially prior to almond bloom. -Inquire about supplemental feeding through the winter. -Ask about colony collapses, Varroa infestations, honey crop, over-wintering. -Location, transportation and other factors can positively or negatively affect the strength of the colonies. -Negotiate rental fee, number of colonies per acre, frames of bees per colony, and payment schedule. -Discuss timing of hive placement prior to bloom and pick up after bloom. - -Pollination Contracts -A signed contract protects both grower and beekeeper. -Visit Downloads at http://www.ProjectApism.org/ for a pollination contract template. -Secure contracts early for the following season so beekeepers will make the investment in colony health and strength. -When colonies arrive in the orchard, check colony strength; 8 to 10 frames is optimum. -An objective third party inspection of colonies will confirm if contractual obligations have been met. -Allow your beekeeper time and opportunity to provide additional colonies if needed. -Walk your orchard during honey bee flight hours to make sure you see plenty of bee activity. - -Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. -Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. -About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. -Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. -Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. -Producing honey for profit is highly dependent on successful marketing. You should conduct market research to determine your competition, the amount of honey you can sell, and in what form(s) your customers prefer their honey. -Successful marketing of honey requires a well-organized marketing plan consisting of at least the following: -● Production of high-quality honey -● Attractive containers and labels -● An effective advertising program -● Dependable service for customers -Most honey in the United States is extracted and sold as liquid honey. However, honey can be prepared and marketed in five different ways: -● Extracted honey -● Section-comb honey -● Cut-comb honey -● Chunk honey -● Finely crystallized or creamed honey -Equipment needs vary depending on the type and quantity of honey you wish to produce. Extracted liquid honey is the most profitable to produce under conditions where honey flows are generally light. Beekeepers who do not want to invest in extracting equipment can produce cut-comb honey, which is relatively easy to process. Section-comb honey, however, requires more equipment, close attention to colony management, and more frequent manipulation of bees than the production of extracted honey. In addition, beeswax--particularly crafted beeswax products (candles, ornaments, etc.)--is becoming an important source of income for some beekeepers. -Markets for honey and bee products are extensive. You should plan to start small and expand as market demand increases and you develop a better understanding of the markets for your products. For detailed marketing information and useful resources, contact the National Honey Board (see the "For More Information" section). -Beekeeping - Honey Bees -Honey bees can be managed to produce many products, but they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination of agricultural crops. -Download PDF Save For Later Print Purchase Print - ARTICLESUPDATED: JUNE 13, 2013 - -Honey bees produce or collect a variety of products that benefit people. These products include honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis (a sticky resin collected from buds and used as a glue in the hive). Although honey bees can be managed to produce large quantities of these products, they are even more valued for the major role they play in pollination, especially of our agricultural crops. While other insects, birds, and bats also are pollinators, people have little control over the actions or numbers of these pollinators. Honey bee colonies, however, can be easily moved and placed wherever and whenever they are needed for pollination. -Also, honey bees have additional advantages over other pollinators such as their availability in large numbers and their instinctive pollen-hoarding behavior. Without the pollinating service of honey bees, the cost of many fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds would be many times what it is today. -About 150,000 beekeepers manage approximately 2.5 million colonies of honey bees in the United States. Beekeepers derive income from their bees in a variety of ways. Some move their colonies several times during the season to produce a variety of honey crops and/or to pollinate various crops for a fee (apples, peaches, blueberries, or pumpkins, for instance). Some stationary beekeepers have apiaries in good honey-producing locations and make honey crops without moving their bees. -Other beekeepers sell equipment, nucleus colonies, and/ or package bees or rear and sell queens as a source of income. However, the majority of individuals keeping bees today maintain a small number of hives for enjoyment and/or the production of honey for home use and pollination of home gardens and orchards. -Around 175 million pounds of honey are produced annually in the United States. Honey is priced according to its color (water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, and dark amber), with recent wholesale prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. About 3.9 million pounds of beeswax, worth about $7 million, are also produced annually as a by-product of the honey harvest. -Planning Ahead -Good planning is an important part of successful beekeeping. New beekeepers need to consider the following before purchasing honey bees and the necessary equipment to keep them and produce honey: -● Number of colonies you will start with -● Location of your apiary and the amount of site preparation that will be necessary -● How and where you will purchase your bees (package bees and nucleus colonies should be ordered the fall prior to the spring they are needed) -● Equipment needed (such as hives for bees, protective equipment for the beekeeper, and honey-processing equipment) and where you will purchase it -● Amount you can spend (your budget) -● Amount of time you have to devote to a beekeeping enterprise -● Local and state laws concerning the keeping of bees -● Potential markets for your honey, beeswax, or other products -● Registration of honey bee colonies with your state department of agriculture -● Registration of your honey-extracting facility (this is now required in some states like Pennsylvania, even if you extract in a kitchen or structure such as a garage) -● A plan for control of Varroa mites and other diseases -The number of colonies you start with will depend on whether you are planning to keep bees simply for your own enjoyment and use, as a sideline for generating additional income, or as a commercial venture. Many sideline and commercial beekeepers started out keeping bees as a hobby. If you are a beginning beekeeper, you should start small and let your operation grow with your enthusiasm and experience. New beekeepers often want to start with a single colony, but it is better to begin with at least two or three colonies. While the initial cost is higher, the time required to manage two colonies is no greater than the time required to care for one, and some of the management problems you may face can be corrected with the assistance of a second or third colony. -Requirements for successful honey production -● Strong colonies -● Young queens (preferably selected for mite resistance) -● Minimal swarming -● Good locations with plentiful food resources and strong nectar flow -Marketing -Honey -Producing honey for profit is highly dependent on successful marketing. You should conduct market research to determine your competition, the amount of honey you can sell, and in what form(s) your customers prefer their honey. -Successful marketing of honey requires a well-organized marketing plan consisting of at least the following: -● Production of high-quality honey -● Attractive containers and labels -● An effective advertising program -● Dependable service for customers -Most honey in the United States is extracted and sold as liquid honey. However, honey can be prepared and marketed in five different ways: -● Extracted honey -● Section-comb honey -● Cut-comb honey -● Chunk honey -● Finely crystallized or creamed honey -Equipment needs vary depending on the type and quantity of honey you wish to produce. Extracted liquid honey is the most profitable to produce under conditions where honey flows are generally light. Beekeepers who do not want to invest in extracting equipment can produce cut-comb honey, which is relatively easy to process. Section-comb honey, however, requires more equipment, close attention to colony management, and more frequent manipulation of bees than the production of extracted honey. In addition, beeswax--particularly crafted beeswax products (candles, ornaments, etc.)--is becoming an important source of income for some beekeepers. -Markets for honey and bee products are extensive. You should plan to start small and expand as market demand increases and you develop a better understanding of the markets for your products. For detailed marketing information and useful resources, contact the National Honey Board (see the "For More Information" section). -Pollination -Renting hives to growers for pollination services can be an important source of income for beekeepers. Contact fruit and vegetable grower organizations, your state or local beekeeping association, your local county extension educator, or university beekeeping specialist to inform them of your interest in renting your colonies for pollination. To avoid misunderstandings, it is important for beekeepers and growers to have a written agreement when honey bee colonies are being rented for pollination services. -Overwintered or established colonies cost the most, but they can be a good buy. Before you can purchase the bees, they should be inspected by a state bee inspector to ensure that they are disease free. Avoid weak colonies and dilapidated equipment. - -Package bees are caged worker bees with a queen, produced mainly in the southern United States by beekeepers who specialize in producing package bees. They consist of 2, 3, or 5 pounds of bees, a queen (in a separate queen cage), and a canister of sugar syrup used for food by the bees during transport. The 3-pound package is often the best buy. Package bees should be ordered in the fall to ensure delivery by the desired early spring date. Packages are shipped in special screen mailing cages through the U.S. Postal Service or other package delivery services. Another option for beekeepers is to contact someone who will transport the bees for a fee. Beekeepers sometimes travel to bring package bees home for many beekeepers at once. Check newsletters to see if anyone is offering this service. - -Swarms are another way to get started. Swarms can be easily collected and placed in prepared equipment. It is wise to requeen swarms as soon as possible since old queens head most swarms. - -Bees are subject to certain diseases, parasites, predators, and pests. Most pests and predators of bees are easy to control, but diseases and two recently introduced parasitic mites are a great threat to the industry. Diseases may be grouped into two categories: those affecting the brood, and those affecting the adult bees. - -Brood diseases can be harmful and include American foulbrood (AFB), European foulbrood (EFB), sacbrood, and chalkbrood. The prevalence of American foulbrood makes it difficult to profitably keep bees unless this disease is monitored and controlled when identified. Adult diseases include virus and nosema. Most states have laws prohibiting the keeping of AFB-infected colonies or selling or removing infected bees or equipment. In most states, inspectors are authorized to enter any place where bees are kept to examine hives, bees, and equipment. Inspectors are authorized to prescribe treatment of diseased colonies and order the destruction of those in which the disease is too far advanced to warrant treatment. - -Due to vigorous disease-control programs, beekeepers suffer few major problems with diseases. The biggest obstacle facing beekeepers today is the presence of two kinds of parasitic mites. Mites and the diseases associated with them were not found in the United States until the early 1980s. During the fall and winter, these mites can cause high mortality rates in bee colonies if not properly treated. Beekeeping, whether for fun or profit, is no longer possible without close attention to mite control. - -The Varroa mite is considered by many to be the most serious honey bee pest. This mite is an external parasite that is visible to the naked eye. The brownishred, oval (shaped like a tiny clamshell) mite feeds on the blood of both adult bees and the brood. Heavy parasitism by Varroa mites results in bee mortality, subsequent weakening of colonies, and often death. - -The tracheal mite is an internal parasitic mite that lives and reproduces within the thoracic tracheae, or breathing tubes, of adult honey bees. These microscopic mites penetrate the tracheae of honey bees and feed on their blood. Feeding by the mites damages the tracheal walls, which blocks the bees' breathing passages. These breathing tubes supply the flight muscles with oxygen. As a result of mite feeding, the flight muscles may atrophy, and the bees may be unable to fly or control their body temperature. Pathogens also may be introduced into the bees' bloodstream by feeding mites. - -Efforts to stop the spread of these two mites have been largely unsuccessful, but research into various chemical controls and alternative control techniques, such as the use of resistant stocks, look promising. For more information on parasitic mite control, contact your county extension office or your university beekeeping specialist or visit the MAAREC website. - -According to a 2007 report by the National Academies of Science, most North American pollinators, including honey bees, are in decline. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the most recent manifestation of an overall long-term decline in the managed honey bee population. CCD is characterized by the demise of honey bee colonies as a result of the rapid loss of the adult bee population. Typically, these colonies have healthy-looking brood and adequate food stores. Multiple possible causes of CCD are being studied. A combination of factors including mites, diseases, use of pesticides, environmental stresses, and migratory beekeeping may also be the cause. - -Depending on where bees are kept, bears can be a serious hindrance to successful beekeeping. In areas where bears are known to be present, the construction of an electric fence enclosing the apiary is highly recommended before the bees are acquired. Additional pests that may need to be addressed include hive beetles, mice, skunks, opossums, and wax moths. - -You may now insure your honey, pollen collection, wax, and breeding stock through a crop insurance program for apiculture. The new grid-based rainfall index apiculture group-risk policy is available in selected states and counties (including all counties in Pennsylvania). Advantages of this coverage include flexibility of when to insure during the year and how much to insure (you are not required to insure all your colonies). This allows you to adjust coverage to better match the value of your beekeeping enterprise. Payments for losses under this program are based on lack of rainfall as measured by a rainfall index within a geographic grid (approximately 12 by 12 miles in area). -You can also insure your income from beekeeping and any other agricultural enterprises you may have using AGR-Lite. AGR-Lite is a whole-farm policy that covers all your crops and is based on your farm's gross revenue as reported on your federal taxes. To use AGR-Lite you must have five years of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Schedule F forms. If your business structure is either a C or an S corporation, the necessary information can be entered into a Schedule F for crop insurance purposes. -Much of beekeeping is simple observation and response. If you are a novice beekeeper, inspect the hive about once a week for a couple of months so that you can learn. Once you feel comfortable, adjust your routine to every two weeks. Make sure the outside of the hive is clean and free of bee poop, the landing board is free of litter, and there are no ants on the hive. Open the hives and check frames for larvae and eggs (on warm days only). If the queen is healthy, you will see plenty of larvae in various stages of development. -If you don’t see evidence of a healthy queen, consult an expert. Your local beekeeping guild is a good source. -Ultimately, the less often you inspect the hive, the better for its health. Opening the hives and thoroughly checking them requires smoking to keep the bees calm. This stresses the bees and it takes them about a day to recover. As you learn more, you will find you won’t need to pull many frames to know what is going on inside. And you will figure out a lot simply by observing the bees as they come and go from the hive. -Varroa mites are the pest most typically found in hives. Left unchecked, they can cripple and eventually kill the hive (see Pest Control, below, for hints about checking for mites and mite control). Other pests you need to watch for include the small hive beetle and the wax moth. Diseases you need to be on the lookout for are American and European foulbrood. Early intervention can often mean the difference between a healthy hive and a dead hive. - -Start with one deep hive body-brood box. When the bees have filled it with 7 or 8 frames of bees and brood, top it with a second brood box. Let the bees build up brood cells in the second brood box, too. When the second brood box is well filled (7 or 8 frames of bees), top it with a queen excluder, if you choose to use one, and, finally, the honey super (the box from which you will collect most of your honey). - -The powdered sugar method lets you both count the mites and control them. Sift powdered sugar, 1 cup per brood box, over the tops of the frames and brush it into the hive. The powdered sugar makes the mites lose their grip on the bees and fall off; plus the bees groom the sugar off their bodies, dislodging more mites. Again, use the bottom board to capture the fallen mites. You should not see more than a few mites 10 minutes after dusting. If there are more, you have a problem. - -A 24-hour count of a natural mite fall will give you a good idea of a hive’s infestation. Coat the bottom of your Country Rube board with petroleum jelly or cooking spray (to trap the mites), slide it into the lower part of the bottom board, wait for 24 hours, and then pull it out and count the mites. Anything more than 10 mites per brood box indicates you have a problem. -Drone frames will also help trap varroa mites. These frames are designed to encourage bees to make drone comb cells, which are larger than worker comb cells. Since varroa mites prefer drone brood 10 to 1, the drone comb makes a great mite trap. Just before the drones hatch (24 days after the eggs were laid), destroy the drone comb (you can freeze it and return it to the hive, or simply cut it out), and replace the drone frame for the next cycle. (Since our queens have already mated and have a lifetime’s supply of sperm inside of them, they do not need the drones in order to reproduce.) - -We were lucky to collect honey the first summer. Typically, during the first year the bees build up their hive, and if they overwinter well, you can begin harvesting in the late spring or early summer of the second year. Three months after bringing our bees home, we had 4 frames packed with honey, each weighing about 8 pounds. Lacking a professional extractor, we used the following low-tech method. -1. Cut and crush Using the bench scraper, we cut the honey—wax and all—off the foundation into a bowl, balancing the frame on a wooden spoon set across the bowl like a bridge. Then we used a wooden spoon to crush the honey and wax in the bowl. -2. Straining and settling We poured this slurry of wax and honey through a double layer of cheesecloth and the stainless-steel strainer into our food-grade plastic bucket. Then we left it to drain and settle for a couple of days (bubbles and foam rose to the surface). -3. Bottling We covered the floor with newspapers and got our jars ready. Then we loosened the honey gate (the stopper at the bottom of the bucket) to release the honey into each jar. In went the honey, on went the lids. It was as simple as that. From 4 full frames of honeycomb, we reaped 12 pounds, 10 ounces of honey. We rinsed the leftover wax and froze it. Later, we rendered the wax in a solar wax melter and used it for craft projects like lip balm and hand salve. We had a second surprise harvest later in the summer, bringing our total to about 31 pounds of pure, fragrant honey. -Packaged bees and caged queen It takes time to build up the colony this way, but it’s the least-expensive choice. You can usually order packaged bees through your local beekeepers’ guild. Preorder as early as the fall and certainly no later than early spring, as bees are only available for a short time in spring. - diff --git a/gpt-2/src/train.txt b/gpt-2/src/train.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 45547cc61..000000000 --- a/gpt-2/src/train.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,73230 +0,0 @@ -A Little Princess -Sara - - -Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and -heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop -windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl -sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the -big thoroughfares. - -She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father, -who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing -people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes. - -She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look -on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of -twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she -was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself -remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up -people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a -long, long time. - -At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from -Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big -ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children -playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers' wives who -used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said. - -Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was that at one -time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the -ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets -where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling -that she moved closer to her father. - -"Papa," she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was almost a -whisper, "papa." - -"What is it, darling?" Captain Crewe answered, holding her closer and -looking down into her face. "What is Sara thinking of?" - -"Is this the place?" Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to him. "Is -it, papa?" - -"Yes, little Sara, it is. We have reached it at last." And though she -was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he said it. - -It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for -"the place," as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was -born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich, -petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world. -They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only -knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought -she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she -grew up she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich -meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used -to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee -Sahib," and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and -pets and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that -people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew -about it. - -During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that thing -was "the place" she was to be taken to some day. The climate of India -was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they were sent away -from it--generally to England and to school. She had seen other -children go away, and had heard their fathers and mothers talk about -the letters they received from them. She had known that she would be -obliged to go also, and though sometimes her father's stories of the -voyage and the new country had attracted her, she had been troubled by -the thought that he could not stay with her. - -"Couldn't you go to that place with me, papa?" she had asked when she -was five years old. "Couldn't you go to school, too? I would help you -with your lessons." - -"But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sara," he -had always said. "You will go to a nice house where there will be a -lot of little girls, and you will play together, and I will send you -plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem scarcely a -year before you are big enough and clever enough to come back and take -care of papa." - -She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her father; to -ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when he had dinner -parties; to talk to him and read his books--that would be what she -would like most in the world, and if one must go away to "the place" in -England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. She did not care -very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she -could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and -was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling -them to herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had -liked them as much as she did. - -"Well, papa," she said softly, "if we are here I suppose we must be -resigned." - -He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was really -not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret. -His quaint little Sara had been a great companion to him, and he felt -he should be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India, he went into -his bungalow knowing he need not expect to see the small figure in its -white frock come forward to meet him. So he held her very closely in -his arms as the cab rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the -house which was their destination. - -It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in its -row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on which was -engraved in black letters: - -MISS MINCHIN, - -Select Seminary for Young Ladies. - - -"Here we are, Sara," said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound as -cheerful as possible. Then he lifted her out of the cab and they -mounted the steps and rang the bell. Sara often thought afterward that -the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin. It was respectable -and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly; and the very -armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them. In the hall everything -was hard and polished--even the red cheeks of the moon face on the tall -clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. The drawing room into -which they were ushered was covered by a carpet with a square pattern -upon it, the chairs were square, and a heavy marble timepiece stood -upon the heavy marble mantel. - -As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast one of -her quick looks about her. - -"I don't like it, papa," she said. "But then I dare say soldiers--even -brave ones--don't really LIKE going into battle." - -Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, -and he never tired of hearing Sara's queer speeches. - -"Oh, little Sara," he said. "What shall I do when I have no one to say -solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are." - -"But why do solemn things make you laugh so?" inquired Sara. - -"Because you are such fun when you say them," he answered, laughing -still more. And then suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed -her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and looking almost as if -tears had come into his eyes. - -It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room. She was very like -her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. She had -large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile. It spread -itself into a very large smile when she saw Sara and Captain Crewe. -She had heard a great many desirable things of the young soldier from -the lady who had recommended her school to him. Among other things, she -had heard that he was a rich father who was willing to spend a great -deal of money on his little daughter. - -"It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful and -promising child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's hand and -stroking it. "Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A -clever child is a great treasure in an establishment like mine." - -Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's face. She -was thinking something odd, as usual. - -"Why does she say I am a beautiful child?" she was thinking. "I am not -beautiful at all. Colonel Grange's little girl, Isobel, is beautiful. -She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long hair the color of -gold. I have short black hair and green eyes; besides which, I am a -thin child and not fair in the least. I am one of the ugliest children -I ever saw. She is beginning by telling a story." - -She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. She was -not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty of the -regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She was a slim, supple -creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive -little face. Her hair was heavy and quite black and only curled at the -tips; her eyes were greenish gray, it is true, but they were big, -wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though she herself did not -like the color of them, many other people did. Still she was very firm -in her belief that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all -elated by Miss Minchin's flattery. - -"I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful," she thought; -"and I should know I was telling a story. I believe I am as ugly as -she is--in my way. What did she say that for?" - -After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had said -it. She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa and mamma -who brought a child to her school. - -Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin -talked. She had been brought to the seminary because Lady Meredith's -two little girls had been educated there, and Captain Crewe had a great -respect for Lady Meredith's experience. Sara was to be what was known -as "a parlor boarder," and she was to enjoy even greater privileges -than parlor boarders usually did. She was to have a pretty bedroom and -sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a -maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her nurse in India. - -"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe -said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. "The -difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. -She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She -doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a -little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new -books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books--great, big, fat -ones--French and German as well as English--history and biography and -poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she -reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a -new doll. She ought to play more with dolls." - -"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every -few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be -intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend." - -Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at Captain -Crewe. - -"Who is Emily?" she inquired. - -"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling. - -Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she -answered. - -"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said. "She is a doll papa is -going to buy for me. We are going out together to find her. I have -called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I -want her to talk to about him." - -Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed. - -"What an original child!" she said. "What a darling little creature!" - -"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. "She is a darling -little creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin." - -Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact, she -remained with him until he sailed away again to India. They went out -and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things. -They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed; but -Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little girl -to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself, so -between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of -seven. There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace -dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich -feathers, and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and -handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the -polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the -odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign -princess--perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah. - -And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops -and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her. - -"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. "I -want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. The trouble with -dolls, papa"--and she put her head on one side and reflected as she -said it--"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to HEAR." So -they looked at big ones and little ones--at dolls with black eyes and -dolls with blue--at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden -braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed. - -"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes. -"If, when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take her to a -dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if -they are tried on." - -After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at -the shop windows and let the cab follow them. They had passed two or -three places without even going in, when, as they were approaching a -shop which was really not a very large one, Sara suddenly started and -clutched her father's arm. - -"Oh, papa!" she cried. "There is Emily!" - -A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her -green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate -with and fond of. - -"She is actually waiting there for us!" she said. "Let us go in to -her." - -"Dear me," said Captain Crewe, "I feel as if we ought to have someone -to introduce us." - -"You must introduce me and I will introduce you," said Sara. "But I -knew her the minute I saw her--so perhaps she knew me, too." - -Perhaps she had known her. She had certainly a very intelligent -expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. She was a large -doll, but not too large to carry about easily; she had naturally -curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle about her, and her -eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with soft, thick eyelashes which -were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines. - -"Of course," said Sara, looking into her face as she held her on her -knee, "of course papa, this is Emily." - -So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children's outfitter's shop -and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara's own. She had lace -frocks, too, and velvet and muslin ones, and hats and coats and -beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and gloves and handkerchiefs and -furs. - -"I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a good -mother," said Sara. "I'm her mother, though I am going to make a -companion of her." - -Captain Crewe would really have enjoyed the shopping tremendously, but -that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart. This all meant that he -was going to be separated from his beloved, quaint little comrade. - -He got out of his bed in the middle of that night and went and stood -looking down at Sara, who lay asleep with Emily in her arms. Her black -hair was spread out on the pillow and Emily's golden-brown hair mingled -with it, both of them had lace-ruffled nightgowns, and both had long -eyelashes which lay and curled up on their cheeks. Emily looked so like -a real child that Captain Crewe felt glad she was there. He drew a big -sigh and pulled his mustache with a boyish expression. - -"Heigh-ho, little Sara!" he said to himself "I don't believe you know -how much your daddy will miss you." - -The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there. He was -to sail away the next morning. He explained to Miss Minchin that his -solicitors, Messrs. Barrow & Skipworth, had charge of his affairs in -England and would give her any advice she wanted, and that they would -pay the bills she sent in for Sara's expenses. He would write to Sara -twice a week, and she was to be given every pleasure she asked for. - -"She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it isn't -safe to give her," he said. - -Then he went with Sara into her little sitting room and they bade each -other good-by. Sara sat on his knee and held the lapels of his coat in -her small hands, and looked long and hard at his face. - -"Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking her hair. - -"No," she answered. "I know you by heart. You are inside my heart." -And they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would -never let each other go. - -When the cab drove away from the door, Sara was sitting on the floor of -her sitting room, with her hands under her chin and her eyes following -it until it had turned the corner of the square. Emily was sitting by -her, and she looked after it, too. When Miss Minchin sent her sister, -Miss Amelia, to see what the child was doing, she found she could not -open the door. - -"I have locked it," said a queer, polite little voice from inside. "I -want to be quite by myself, if you please." - -Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of her -sister. She was really the better-natured person of the two, but she -never disobeyed Miss Minchin. She went downstairs again, looking -almost alarmed. - -"I never saw such a funny, old-fashioned child, sister," she said. "She -has locked herself in, and she is not making the least particle of -noise." - -"It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some of them -do," Miss Minchin answered. "I expected that a child as much spoiled -as she is would set the whole house in an uproar. If ever a child was -given her own way in everything, she is." - -"I've been opening her trunks and putting her things away," said Miss -Amelia. "I never saw anything like them--sable and ermine on her -coats, and real Valenciennes lace on her underclothing. You have seen -some of her clothes. What DO you think of them?" - -"I think they are perfectly ridiculous," replied Miss Minchin, sharply; -"but they will look very well at the head of the line when we take the -schoolchildren to church on Sunday. She has been provided for as if she -were a little princess." - -And upstairs in the locked room Sara and Emily sat on the floor and -stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared, while Captain -Crewe looked backward, waving and kissing his hand as if he could not -bear to stop. - - - -2 - -A French Lesson - - -When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody looked at -her with wide, interested eyes. By that time every pupil--from Lavinia -Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt quite grown up, to Lottie -Legh, who was only just four and the baby of the school--had heard a -great deal about her. They knew very certainly that she was Miss -Minchin's show pupil and was considered a credit to the establishment. -One or two of them had even caught a glimpse of her French maid, -Mariette, who had arrived the evening before. Lavinia had managed to -pass Sara's room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening -a box which had arrived late from some shop. - -"It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them--frills and -frills," she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her -geography. "I saw her shaking them out. I heard Miss Minchin say to -Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous -for a child. My mamma says that children should be dressed simply. She -has got one of those petticoats on now. I saw it when she sat down." - -"She has silk stockings on!" whispered Jessie, bending over her -geography also. "And what little feet! I never saw such little feet." - -"Oh," sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, "that is the way her slippers are -made. My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look small if -you have a clever shoemaker. I don't think she is pretty at all. Her -eyes are such a queer color." - -"She isn't pretty as other pretty people are," said Jessie, stealing a -glance across the room; "but she makes you want to look at her again. -She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green." - -Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. -She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at -all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and -looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered -what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they -cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa at all like her -own. She had had a long talk with Emily about her papa that morning. - -"He is on the sea now, Emily," she had said. "We must be very great -friends to each other and tell each other things. Emily, look at me. -You have the nicest eyes I ever saw--but I wish you could speak." - -She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of -her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even -pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood. After -Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue schoolroom frock and tied her -hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she went to Emily, who sat in a chair of -her own, and gave her a book. - -"You can read that while I am downstairs," she said; and, seeing -Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious -little face. - -"What I believe about dolls," she said, "is that they can do things -they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and -talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out of the room. -That is her secret. You see, if people knew that dolls could do -things, they would make them work. So, perhaps, they have promised -each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will -just sit there and stare; but if you go out, she will begin to read, -perhaps, or go and look out of the window. Then if she heard either of -us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend -she had been there all the time." - -"Comme elle est drole!" Mariette said to herself, and when she went -downstairs she told the head housemaid about it. But she had already -begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small -face and such perfect manners. She had taken care of children before -who were not so polite. Sara was a very fine little person, and had a -gentle, appreciative way of saying, "If you please, Mariette," "Thank -you, Mariette," which was very charming. Mariette told the head -housemaid that she thanked her as if she was thanking a lady. - -"Elle a l'air d'une princesse, cette petite," she said. Indeed, she was -very much pleased with her new little mistress and liked her place -greatly. - -After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few minutes, -being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a dignified -manner upon her desk. - -"Young ladies," she said, "I wish to introduce you to your new -companion." All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara rose -also. "I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crewe; she -has just come to us from a great distance--in fact, from India. As soon -as lessons are over you must make each other's acquaintance." - -The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy, and then -they sat down and looked at each other again. - -"Sara," said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, "come here to me." - -She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its leaves. -Sara went to her politely. - -"As your papa has engaged a French maid for you," she began, "I -conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French -language." - -Sara felt a little awkward. - -"I think he engaged her," she said, "because he--he thought I would -like her, Miss Minchin." - -"I am afraid," said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile, "that you -have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine that things are -done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you -to learn French." - -If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite to -people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But, as -it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. Miss Minchin was a very -severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely sure that Sara -knew nothing whatever of French that she felt as if it would be almost -rude to correct her. The truth was that Sara could not remember the -time when she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often -spoken it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French -woman, and Captain Crewe had loved her language, so it happened that -Sara had always heard and been familiar with it. - -"I--I have never really learned French, but--but--" she began, trying -shyly to make herself clear. - -One of Miss Minchin's chief secret annoyances was that she did not -speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating -fact. She, therefore, had no intention of discussing the matter and -laying herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil. - -"That is enough," she said with polite tartness. "If you have not -learned, you must begin at once. The French master, Monsieur Dufarge, -will be here in a few minutes. Take this book and look at it until he -arrives." - -Sara's cheeks felt warm. She went back to her seat and opened the -book. She looked at the first page with a grave face. She knew it -would be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. But -it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page which told her -that "le pere" meant "the father," and "la mere" meant "the mother." - -Miss Minchin glanced toward her scrutinizingly. - -"You look rather cross, Sara," she said. "I am sorry you do not like -the idea of learning French." - -"I am very fond of it," answered Sara, thinking she would try again; -"but--" - -"You must not say 'but' when you are told to do things," said Miss -Minchin. "Look at your book again." - -And Sara did so, and did not smile, even when she found that "le fils" -meant "the son," and "le frere" meant "the brother." - -"When Monsieur Dufarge comes," she thought, "I can make him understand." - -Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice, -intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his -eyes fell upon Sara trying politely to seem absorbed in her little book -of phrases. - -"Is this a new pupil for me, madame?" he said to Miss Minchin. "I hope -that is my good fortune." - -"Her papa--Captain Crewe--is very anxious that she should begin the -language. But I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. She -does not seem to wish to learn," said Miss Minchin. - -"I am sorry of that, mademoiselle," he said kindly to Sara. "Perhaps, -when we begin to study together, I may show you that it is a charming -tongue." - -Little Sara rose in her seat. She was beginning to feel rather -desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace. She looked up into -Monsieur Dufarge's face with her big, green-gray eyes, and they were -quite innocently appealing. She knew that he would understand as soon -as she spoke. She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent -French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French -exactly--not out of books--but her papa and other people had always -spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read -and written English. Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he -did. Her dear mamma, who had died when she was born, had been French. -She would be glad to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what -she had tried to explain to madame was that she already knew the words -in this book--and she held out the little book of phrases. - -When she began to speak Miss Minchin started quite violently and sat -staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly, until she had -finished. Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his smile was one of -great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own -language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in -his native land--which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed -worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her, -with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin. - -"Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her. She has not -LEARNED French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite." - -"You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified, -turning to Sara. - -"I--I tried," said Sara. "I--I suppose I did not begin right." - -Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault -that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils -had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie were giggling behind -their French grammars, she felt infuriated. - -"Silence, young ladies!" she said severely, rapping upon the desk. -"Silence at once!" - -And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against her show -pupil. - - - -3 - -Ermengarde - - -On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin's side, aware that -the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had -noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her -very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat -child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had -a good-naturedly pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight -pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail around her -neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the -desk, as she stared wonderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur -Dufarge began to speak to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and -when Sara stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent, -appealing eyes, answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat -little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed -amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to -remember that "la mere" meant "the mother," and "le pere," "the -father,"--when one spoke sensible English--it was almost too much for -her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who -seemed not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew -any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were -mere trifles. - -She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she -attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross -at the moment, immediately pounced upon her. - -"Miss St. John!" she exclaimed severely. "What do you mean by such -conduct? Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit -up at once!" - -Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie -tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost -looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes; and -Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her -and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to -spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy. - -"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago," her father used -to say, "she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, -rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight -when she sees people in trouble." - -So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John, and kept -glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no -easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being -spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her French lesson was a -pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even Monsieur Dufarge smile in -spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jessie and the more fortunate girls -either giggled or looked at her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not -laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John -called "le bon pain," "lee bong pang." She had a fine, hot little -temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard -the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face. - -"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she bent over -her book. "They ought not to laugh." - -When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups to -talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather -disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over to her and spoke. She -only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by -way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something friendly -about Sara, and people always felt it. - -"What is your name?" she said. - -To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must recall that a new pupil -is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of this new pupil -the entire school had talked the night before until it fell asleep -quite exhausted by excitement and contradictory stories. A new pupil -with a carriage and a pony and a maid, and a voyage from India to -discuss, was not an ordinary acquaintance. - -"My name's Ermengarde St. John," she answered. - -"Mine is Sara Crewe," said Sara. "Yours is very pretty. It sounds -like a story book." - -"Do you like it?" fluttered Ermengarde. "I--I like yours." - -Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father. -Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If you have a father -who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has -thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart, he -frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your lesson -books at least; and it is not improbable that he will feel you ought to -be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write a French -exercise. Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. He could not -understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably dull -creature who never shone in anything. - -"Good heavens!" he had said more than once, as he stared at her, "there -are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza!" - -If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing -entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly like her. -She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied. - -"She must be MADE to learn," her father said to Miss Minchin. - -Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in disgrace -or in tears. She learned things and forgot them; or, if she remembered -them, she did not understand them. So it was natural that, having made -Sara's acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound -admiration. - -"You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully. - -Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and, tucking -up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees. - -"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she answered. -"You could speak it if you had always heard it." - -"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengarde. "I NEVER could speak it!" - -"Why?" inquired Sara, curiously. - -Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled. - -"You heard me just now," she said. "I'm always like that. I can't SAY -the words. They're so queer." - -She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice, -"You are CLEVER, aren't you?" - -Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows -were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings and the sooty -branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it -said very often that she was "clever," and she wondered if she was--and -IF she was, how it had happened. - -"I don't know," she said. "I can't tell." Then, seeing a mournful -look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the -subject. - -"Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired. - -"Who is Emily?" Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done. - -"Come up to my room and see," said Sara, holding out her hand. - -They jumped down from the window-seat together, and went upstairs. - -"Is it true," Ermengarde whispered, as they went through the hall--"is -it true that you have a playroom all to yourself?" - -"Yes," Sara answered. "Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have one, -because--well, it was because when I play I make up stories and tell -them to myself, and I don't like people to hear me. It spoils it if I -think people listen." - -They had reached the passage leading to Sara's room by this time, and -Ermengarde stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath. - -"You MAKE up stories!" she gasped. "Can you do that--as well as speak -French? CAN you?" - -Sara looked at her in simple surprise. - -"Why, anyone can make up things," she said. "Have you never tried?" - -She put her hand warningly on Ermengarde's. - -"Let us go very quietly to the door," she whispered, "and then I will -open it quite suddenly; perhaps we may catch her." - -She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her -eyes which fascinated Ermengarde, though she had not the remotest idea -what it meant, or whom it was she wanted to "catch," or why she wanted -to catch her. Whatsoever she meant, Ermengarde was sure it was -something delightfully exciting. So, quite thrilled with expectation, -she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. They made not the least -noise until they reached the door. Then Sara suddenly turned the -handle, and threw it wide open. Its opening revealed the room quite -neat and quiet, a fire gently burning in the grate, and a wonderful -doll sitting in a chair by it, apparently reading a book. - -"Oh, she got back to her seat before we could see her!" Sara -explained. "Of course they always do. They are as quick as lightning." - -Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again. - -"Can she--walk?" she asked breathlessly. - -"Yes," answered Sara. "At least I believe she can. At least I PRETEND -I believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true. Have you -never pretended things?" - -"No," said Ermengarde. "Never. I--tell me about it." - -She was so bewitched by this odd, new companion that she actually -stared at Sara instead of at Emily--notwithstanding that Emily was the -most attractive doll person she had ever seen. - -"Let us sit down," said Sara, "and I will tell you. It's so easy that -when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always. -And it's beautiful. Emily, you must listen. This is Ermengarde St. -John, Emily. Ermengarde, this is Emily. Would you like to hold her?" - -"Oh, may I?" said Ermengarde. "May I, really? She is beautiful!" And -Emily was put into her arms. - -Never in her dull, short life had Miss St. John dreamed of such an hour -as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they heard the -lunch-bell ring and were obliged to go downstairs. - -Sara sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things. She sat -rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She -told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what fascinated -Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and -talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were -out of the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew -back to their places "like lightning" when people returned to the room. - -"WE couldn't do it," said Sara, seriously. "You see, it's a kind of -magic." - -Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily, -Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over -it and put out the light in her shining eyes. She drew her breath in -so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound, and then she shut -her lips and held them tightly closed, as if she was determined either -to do or NOT to do something. Ermengarde had an idea that if she had -been like any other little girl, she might have suddenly burst out -sobbing and crying. But she did not. - -"Have you a--a pain?" Ermengarde ventured. - -"Yes," Sara answered, after a moment's silence. "But it is not in my -body." Then she added something in a low voice which she tried to keep -quite steady, and it was this: "Do you love your father more than -anything else in all the whole world?" - -Ermengarde's mouth fell open a little. She knew that it would be far -from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say that -it had never occurred to you that you COULD love your father, that you -would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in his society -for ten minutes. She was, indeed, greatly embarrassed. - -"I--I scarcely ever see him," she stammered. "He is always in the -library--reading things." - -"I love mine more than all the world ten times over," Sara said. "That -is what my pain is. He has gone away." - -She put her head quietly down on her little, huddled-up knees, and sat -very still for a few minutes. - -"She's going to cry out loud," thought Ermengarde, fearfully. - -But she did not. Her short, black locks tumbled about her ears, and -she sat still. Then she spoke without lifting her head. - -"I promised him I would bear it," she said. "And I will. You have to -bear things. Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier. If there -was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, -deep wounds. And he would never say a word--not one word." - -Ermengarde could only gaze at her, but she felt that she was beginning -to adore her. She was so wonderful and different from anyone else. - -Presently, she lifted her face and shook back her black locks, with a -queer little smile. - -"If I go on talking and talking," she said, "and telling you things -about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don't forget, but you -bear it better." - -Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes -felt as if tears were in them. - -"Lavinia and Jessie are 'best friends,'" she said rather huskily. "I -wish we could be 'best friends.' Would you have me for yours? You're -clever, and I'm the stupidest child in the school, but I--oh, I do so -like you!" - -"I'm glad of that," said Sara. "It makes you thankful when you are -liked. Yes. We will be friends. And I'll tell you what"--a sudden -gleam lighting her face--"I can help you with your French lessons." - - - -4 - -Lottie - - -If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss -Minchin's Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at -all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished -guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If -she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have -become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much -indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would -have learned nothing. Privately Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was -far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a -desirable pupil wish to leave her school. She knew quite well that if -Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy, -Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin's opinion was that -if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she -liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so -treated. Accordingly, Sara was praised for her quickness at her -lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils, -for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full -little purse; the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a -virtue, and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain, -she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever -little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about -herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things -over to Ermengarde as time went on. - -"Things happen to people by accident," she used to say. "A lot of nice -accidents have happened to me. It just HAPPENED that I always liked -lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. It -just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice -and clever, and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not -really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and -everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? I -don't know"--looking quite serious--"how I shall ever find out whether -I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, -and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials." - -"Lavinia has no trials," said Ermengarde, stolidly, "and she is horrid -enough." - -Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively, as she thought the -matter over. - -"Well," she said at last, "perhaps--perhaps that is because Lavinia is -GROWING." This was the result of a charitable recollection of having -heard Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she -believed it affected her health and temper. - -Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara. -Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the -school. She had led because she was capable of making herself -extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered -over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough -to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the -best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked -out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, -combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin -at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter -enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader, -too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because -she never did. - -"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best -friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the -least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't -help being--just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made -such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off -when parents come." - -"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave -about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation -of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her -accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at -any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says -herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she -always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing -so grand in being an Indian officer." - -"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers. He killed the one in -the skin Sara has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on -it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat." - -"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia. "My mamma says -that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow -up eccentric." - -It was quite true that Sara was never "grand." She was a friendly -little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand. -The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out -of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry -by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and -when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them -up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other -article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or -alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small -characters. - -"If you are four you are four," she said severely to Lavinia on an -occasion of her having--it must be confessed--slapped Lottie and called -her "a brat;" "but you will be five next year, and six the year after -that. And," opening large, convicting eyes, "it takes sixteen years to -make you twenty." - -"Dear me," said Lavinia, "how we can calculate!" In fact, it was not -to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty--and twenty was an age -the most daring were scarcely bold enough to dream of. - -So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known -to have a tea party, made up of these despised ones, in her own room. -And Emily had been played with, and Emily's own tea service used--the -one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened weak tea and had -blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set -before. From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen -by the entire alphabet class. - -Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been -a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been -sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine -what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child -had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or -lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling -little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she -wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not -have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill -little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of -the house or another. - -Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out -that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought -to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up -people talking her over in the early days, after her mother's death. So -it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge. - -The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing -a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to -suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently, refused to be -silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was -obliged to almost shout--in a stately and severe manner--to make -herself heard. - -"What IS she crying for?" she almost yelled. - -"Oh--oh--oh!" Sara heard; "I haven't got any mam--ma-a!" - -"Oh, Lottie!" screamed Miss Amelia. "Do stop, darling! Don't cry! -Please don't!" - -"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Lottie howled tempestuously. -"Haven't--got--any--mam--ma-a!" - -"She ought to be whipped," Miss Minchin proclaimed. "You SHALL be -whipped, you naughty child!" - -Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss -Minchin's voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she -sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of -the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter. - -Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the -room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with -Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and -saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as -heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or -amiable. - -"Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile. - -"I stopped," explained Sara, "because I knew it was Lottie--and I -thought, perhaps--just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try, -Miss Minchin?" - -"If you can, you are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in -her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by -her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in -everything," she said in her approving way. "I dare say you can manage -her. Go in." And she left her. - -When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming -and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending -over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with -heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that -kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted -on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then -another. - -"Poor darling," she said one moment, "I know you haven't any mamma, -poor--" Then in quite another tone, "If you don't stop, Lottie, I will -shake you. Poor little angel! There--! You wicked, bad, detestable -child, I will smack you! I will!" - -Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going -to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better -not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and -excitedly. - -"Miss Amelia," she said in a low voice, "Miss Minchin says I may try to -make her stop--may I?" - -Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. "Oh, DO you think you -can?" she gasped. - -"I don't know whether I CAN", answered Sara, still in her half-whisper; -"but I will try." - -Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie's -fat little legs kicked as hard as ever. - -"If you will steal out of the room," said Sara, "I will stay with her." - -"Oh, Sara!" almost whimpered Miss Amelia. "We never had such a -dreadful child before. I don't believe we can keep her." - -But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an -excuse for doing it. - -Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked -down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the -floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie's angry screams, the -room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss -Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people -protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and -shriek, and find the only person near you not seeming to mind in the -least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming -eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl. -But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she -was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having -paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must -begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara's odd, interested -face made her first howl rather half-hearted. - -"I--haven't--any--ma--ma--ma-a!" she announced; but her voice was not -so strong. - -Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of -understanding in her eyes. - -"Neither have I," she said. - -This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped -her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a -crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while -Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was -foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her. -She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were -distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob, -said, "Where is she?" - -Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in -heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts -had not been quite like those of other people. - -"She went to heaven," she said. "But I am sure she comes out sometimes -to see me--though I don't see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can -both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room." - -Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty, -little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet -forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour, -she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be -related to an angel. - -Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she -said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own -imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had -been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown -pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be -angels. But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely -country where real people were. - -"There are fields and fields of flowers," she said, forgetting herself, -as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream, -"fields and fields of lilies--and when the soft wind blows over them it -wafts the scent of them into the air--and everybody always breathes it, -because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about -in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make -little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never -tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And -there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are -low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down onto -the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages." - -Whatsoever story she had begun to tell, Lottie would, no doubt, have -stopped crying, and been fascinated into listening; but there was no -denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged -herself close to Sara, and drank in every word until the end came--far -too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip -ominously. - -"I want to go there," she cried. "I--haven't any mamma in this school." - -Sara saw the danger signal, and came out of her dream. She took hold -of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing -little laugh. - -"I will be your mamma," she said. "We will play that you are my little -girl. And Emily shall be your sister." - -Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves. - -"Shall she?" she said. - -"Yes," answered Sara, jumping to her feet. "Let us go and tell her. -And then I will wash your face and brush your hair." - -To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully, and trotted out of the room -and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole -of the last hour's tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had -refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been -called in to use her majestic authority. - -And from that time Sara was an adopted mother. - - - -5 - -Becky - - -Of course the greatest power Sara possessed and the one which gained -her even more followers than her luxuries and the fact that she was -"the show pupil," the power that Lavinia and certain other girls were -most envious of, and at the same time most fascinated by in spite of -themselves, was her power of telling stories and of making everything -she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one or not. - -Anyone who has been at school with a teller of stories knows what the -wonder means--how he or she is followed about and besought in a whisper -to relate romances; how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts -of the favored party in the hope of being allowed to join in and -listen. Sara not only could tell stories, but she adored telling them. -When she sat or stood in the midst of a circle and began to invent -wonderful things, her green eyes grew big and shining, her cheeks -flushed, and, without knowing that she was doing it, she began to act -and made what she told lovely or alarming by the raising or dropping of -her voice, the bend and sway of her slim body, and the dramatic -movement of her hands. She forgot that she was talking to listening -children; she saw and lived with the fairy folk, or the kings and -queens and beautiful ladies, whose adventures she was narrating. -Sometimes when she had finished her story, she was quite out of breath -with excitement, and would lay her hand on her thin, little, -quick-rising chest, and half laugh as if at herself. - -"When I am telling it," she would say, "it doesn't seem as if it was -only made up. It seems more real than you are--more real than the -schoolroom. I feel as if I were all the people in the story--one after -the other. It is queer." - -She had been at Miss Minchin's school about two years when, one foggy -winter's afternoon, as she was getting out of her carriage, comfortably -wrapped up in her warmest velvets and furs and looking very much -grander than she knew, she caught sight, as she crossed the pavement, -of a dingy little figure standing on the area steps, and stretching its -neck so that its wide-open eyes might peer at her through the railings. -Something in the eagerness and timidity of the smudgy face made her -look at it, and when she looked she smiled because it was her way to -smile at people. - -But the owner of the smudgy face and the wide-open eyes evidently was -afraid that she ought not to have been caught looking at pupils of -importance. She dodged out of sight like a jack-in-the-box and -scurried back into the kitchen, disappearing so suddenly that if she -had not been such a poor little forlorn thing, Sara would have laughed -in spite of herself. That very evening, as Sara was sitting in the -midst of a group of listeners in a corner of the schoolroom telling one -of her stories, the very same figure timidly entered the room, carrying -a coal box much too heavy for her, and knelt down upon the hearth rug -to replenish the fire and sweep up the ashes. - -She was cleaner than she had been when she peeped through the area -railings, but she looked just as frightened. She was evidently afraid -to look at the children or seem to be listening. She put on pieces of -coal cautiously with her fingers so that she might make no disturbing -noise, and she swept about the fire irons very softly. But Sara saw in -two minutes that she was deeply interested in what was going on, and -that she was doing her work slowly in the hope of catching a word here -and there. And realizing this, she raised her voice and spoke more -clearly. - -"The Mermaids swam softly about in the crystal-green water, and dragged -after them a fishing-net woven of deep-sea pearls," she said. "The -Princess sat on the white rock and watched them." - -It was a wonderful story about a princess who was loved by a Prince -Merman, and went to live with him in shining caves under the sea. - -The small drudge before the grate swept the hearth once and then swept -it again. Having done it twice, she did it three times; and, as she -was doing it the third time, the sound of the story so lured her to -listen that she fell under the spell and actually forgot that she had -no right to listen at all, and also forgot everything else. She sat -down upon her heels as she knelt on the hearth rug, and the brush hung -idly in her fingers. The voice of the storyteller went on and drew her -with it into winding grottos under the sea, glowing with soft, clear -blue light, and paved with pure golden sands. Strange sea flowers and -grasses waved about her, and far away faint singing and music echoed. - -The hearth brush fell from the work-roughened hand, and Lavinia Herbert -looked round. - -"That girl has been listening," she said. - -The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She -caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a -frightened rabbit. - -Sara felt rather hot-tempered. - -"I knew she was listening," she said. "Why shouldn't she?" - -Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance. - -"Well," she remarked, "I do not know whether your mamma would like you -to tell stories to servant girls, but I know MY mamma wouldn't like ME -to do it." - -"My mamma!" said Sara, looking odd. "I don't believe she would mind in -the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody." - -"I thought," retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, "that your mamma -was dead. How can she know things?" - -"Do you think she DOESN'T know things?" said Sara, in her stern little -voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice. - -"Sara's mamma knows everything," piped in Lottie. "So does my -mamma--'cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin's--my other one knows -everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields -of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me -to bed." - -"You wicked thing," said Lavinia, turning on Sara; "making fairy -stories about heaven." - -"There are much more splendid stories in Revelation," returned Sara. -"Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can -tell you"--with a fine bit of unheavenly temper--"you will never find -out whether they are or not if you're not kinder to people than you are -now. Come along, Lottie." And she marched out of the room, rather -hoping that she might see the little servant again somewhere, but she -found no trace of her when she got into the hall. - -"Who is that little girl who makes the fires?" she asked Mariette that -night. - -Mariette broke forth into a flow of description. - -Ah, indeed, Mademoiselle Sara might well ask. She was a forlorn little -thing who had just taken the place of scullery maid--though, as to -being scullery maid, she was everything else besides. She blacked boots -and grates, and carried heavy coal-scuttles up and down stairs, and -scrubbed floors and cleaned windows, and was ordered about by -everybody. She was fourteen years old, but was so stunted in growth -that she looked about twelve. In truth, Mariette was sorry for her. -She was so timid that if one chanced to speak to her it appeared as if -her poor, frightened eyes would jump out of her head. - -"What is her name?" asked Sara, who had sat by the table, with her chin -on her hands, as she listened absorbedly to the recital. - -Her name was Becky. Mariette heard everyone below-stairs calling, -"Becky, do this," and "Becky, do that," every five minutes in the day. - -Sara sat and looked into the fire, reflecting on Becky for some time -after Mariette left her. She made up a story of which Becky was the -ill-used heroine. She thought she looked as if she had never had quite -enough to eat. Her very eyes were hungry. She hoped she should see -her again, but though she caught sight of her carrying things up or -down stairs on several occasions, she always seemed in such a hurry and -so afraid of being seen that it was impossible to speak to her. - -But a few weeks later, on another foggy afternoon, when she entered her -sitting room she found herself confronting a rather pathetic picture. -In her own special and pet easy-chair before the bright fire, -Becky--with a coal smudge on her nose and several on her apron, with -her poor little cap hanging half off her head, and an empty coal box on -the floor near her--sat fast asleep, tired out beyond even the -endurance of her hard-working young body. She had been sent up to put -the bedrooms in order for the evening. There were a great many of them, -and she had been running about all day. Sara's rooms she had saved -until the last. They were not like the other rooms, which were plain -and bare. Ordinary pupils were expected to be satisfied with mere -necessaries. Sara's comfortable sitting room seemed a bower of luxury -to the scullery maid, though it was, in fact, merely a nice, bright -little room. But there were pictures and books in it, and curious -things from India; there was a sofa and the low, soft chair; Emily sat -in a chair of her own, with the air of a presiding goddess, and there -was always a glowing fire and a polished grate. Becky saved it until -the end of her afternoon's work, because it rested her to go into it, -and she always hoped to snatch a few minutes to sit down in the soft -chair and look about her, and think about the wonderful good fortune of -the child who owned such surroundings and who went out on the cold days -in beautiful hats and coats one tried to catch a glimpse of through the -area railing. - -On this afternoon, when she had sat down, the sensation of relief to -her short, aching legs had been so wonderful and delightful that it had -seemed to soothe her whole body, and the glow of warmth and comfort -from the fire had crept over her like a spell, until, as she looked at -the red coals, a tired, slow smile stole over her smudged face, her -head nodded forward without her being aware of it, her eyes drooped, -and she fell fast asleep. She had really been only about ten minutes -in the room when Sara entered, but she was in as deep a sleep as if she -had been, like the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering for a hundred years. -But she did not look--poor Becky--like a Sleeping Beauty at all. She -looked only like an ugly, stunted, worn-out little scullery drudge. - -Sara seemed as much unlike her as if she were a creature from another -world. - -On this particular afternoon she had been taking her dancing lesson, -and the afternoon on which the dancing master appeared was rather a -grand occasion at the seminary, though it occurred every week. The -pupils were attired in their prettiest frocks, and as Sara danced -particularly well, she was very much brought forward, and Mariette was -requested to make her as diaphanous and fine as possible. - -Today a frock the color of a rose had been put on her, and Mariette had -bought some real buds and made her a wreath to wear on her black locks. -She had been learning a new, delightful dance in which she had been -skimming and flying about the room, like a large rose-colored -butterfly, and the enjoyment and exercise had brought a brilliant, -happy glow into her face. - -When she entered the room, she floated in with a few of the butterfly -steps--and there sat Becky, nodding her cap sideways off her head. - -"Oh!" cried Sara, softly, when she saw her. "That poor thing!" - -It did not occur to her to feel cross at finding her pet chair occupied -by the small, dingy figure. To tell the truth, she was quite glad to -find it there. When the ill-used heroine of her story wakened, she -could talk to her. She crept toward her quietly, and stood looking at -her. Becky gave a little snore. - -"I wish she'd waken herself," Sara said. "I don't like to waken her. -But Miss Minchin would be cross if she found out. I'll just wait a few -minutes." - -She took a seat on the edge of the table, and sat swinging her slim, -rose-colored legs, and wondering what it would be best to do. Miss -Amelia might come in at any moment, and if she did, Becky would be sure -to be scolded. - -"But she is so tired," she thought. "She is so tired!" - -A piece of flaming coal ended her perplexity for her that very moment. -It broke off from a large lump and fell on to the fender. Becky -started, and opened her eyes with a frightened gasp. She did not know -she had fallen asleep. She had only sat down for one moment and felt -the beautiful glow--and here she found herself staring in wild alarm at -the wonderful pupil, who sat perched quite near her, like a -rose-colored fairy, with interested eyes. - -She sprang up and clutched at her cap. She felt it dangling over her -ear, and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh, she had got herself into -trouble now with a vengeance! To have impudently fallen asleep on such -a young lady's chair! She would be turned out of doors without wages. - -She made a sound like a big breathless sob. - -"Oh, miss! Oh, miss!" she stuttered. "I arst yer pardon, miss! Oh, I -do, miss!" - -Sara jumped down, and came quite close to her. - -"Don't be frightened," she said, quite as if she had been speaking to a -little girl like herself. "It doesn't matter the least bit." - -"I didn't go to do it, miss," protested Becky. "It was the warm -fire--an' me bein' so tired. It--it WASN'T impertience!" - -Sara broke into a friendly little laugh, and put her hand on her -shoulder. - -"You were tired," she said; "you could not help it. You are not really -awake yet." - -How poor Becky stared at her! In fact, she had never heard such a -nice, friendly sound in anyone's voice before. She was used to being -ordered about and scolded, and having her ears boxed. And this one--in -her rose-colored dancing afternoon splendor--was looking at her as if -she were not a culprit at all--as if she had a right to be tired--even -to fall asleep! The touch of the soft, slim little paw on her shoulder -was the most amazing thing she had ever known. - -"Ain't--ain't yer angry, miss?" she gasped. "Ain't yer goin' to tell -the missus?" - -"No," cried out Sara. "Of course I'm not." - -The woeful fright in the coal-smutted face made her suddenly so sorry -that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer thoughts rushed into -her mind. She put her hand against Becky's cheek. - -"Why," she said, "we are just the same--I am only a little girl like -you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!" - -Becky did not understand in the least. Her mind could not grasp such -amazing thoughts, and "an accident" meant to her a calamity in which -some one was run over or fell off a ladder and was carried to "the -'orspital." - -"A' accident, miss," she fluttered respectfully. "Is it?" - -"Yes," Sara answered, and she looked at her dreamily for a moment. But -the next she spoke in a different tone. She realized that Becky did -not know what she meant. - -"Have you done your work?" she asked. "Dare you stay here a few -minutes?" - -Becky lost her breath again. - -"Here, miss? Me?" - -Sara ran to the door, opened it, and looked out and listened. - -"No one is anywhere about," she explained. "If your bedrooms are -finished, perhaps you might stay a tiny while. I thought--perhaps--you -might like a piece of cake." - -The next ten minutes seemed to Becky like a sort of delirium. Sara -opened a cupboard, and gave her a thick slice of cake. She seemed to -rejoice when it was devoured in hungry bites. She talked and asked -questions, and laughed until Becky's fears actually began to calm -themselves, and she once or twice gathered boldness enough to ask a -question or so herself, daring as she felt it to be. - -"Is that--" she ventured, looking longingly at the rose-colored frock. -And she asked it almost in a whisper. "Is that there your best?" - -"It is one of my dancing-frocks," answered Sara. "I like it, don't -you?" - -For a few seconds Becky was almost speechless with admiration. Then -she said in an awed voice, "Onct I see a princess. I was standin' in -the street with the crowd outside Covin' Garden, watchin' the swells go -inter the operer. An' there was one everyone stared at most. They ses -to each other, 'That's the princess.' She was a growed-up young lady, -but she was pink all over--gownd an' cloak, an' flowers an' all. I -called her to mind the minnit I see you, sittin' there on the table, -miss. You looked like her." - -"I've often thought," said Sara, in her reflecting voice, "that I -should like to be a princess; I wonder what it feels like. I believe I -will begin pretending I am one." - -Becky stared at her admiringly, and, as before, did not understand her -in the least. She watched her with a sort of adoration. Very soon Sara -left her reflections and turned to her with a new question. - -"Becky," she said, "weren't you listening to that story?" - -"Yes, miss," confessed Becky, a little alarmed again. "I knowed I -hadn't orter, but it was that beautiful I--I couldn't help it." - -"I liked you to listen to it," said Sara. "If you tell stories, you -like nothing so much as to tell them to people who want to listen. I -don't know why it is. Would you like to hear the rest?" - -Becky lost her breath again. - -"Me hear it?" she cried. "Like as if I was a pupil, miss! All about -the Prince--and the little white Mer-babies swimming about -laughing--with stars in their hair?" - -Sara nodded. - -"You haven't time to hear it now, I'm afraid," she said; "but if you -will tell me just what time you come to do my rooms, I will try to be -here and tell you a bit of it every day until it is finished. It's a -lovely long one--and I'm always putting new bits to it." - -"Then," breathed Becky, devoutly, "I wouldn't mind HOW heavy the coal -boxes was--or WHAT the cook done to me, if--if I might have that to -think of." - -"You may," said Sara. "I'll tell it ALL to you." - -When Becky went downstairs, she was not the same Becky who had -staggered up, loaded down by the weight of the coal scuttle. She had an -extra piece of cake in her pocket, and she had been fed and warmed, but -not only by cake and fire. Something else had warmed and fed her, and -the something else was Sara. - -When she was gone Sara sat on her favorite perch on the end of her -table. Her feet were on a chair, her elbows on her knees, and her chin -in her hands. - -"If I WAS a princess--a REAL princess," she murmured, "I could scatter -largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I -can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was -just as happy as if it was largess. I'll pretend that to do things -people like is scattering largess. I've scattered largess." - - - -6 - -The Diamond Mines - - -Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara, -but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it the chief subject -of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters -Captain Crewe told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at -school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in -India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds -had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all -went as was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such -wealth as it made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the -friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to share in -this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at -least, was what Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any -other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small -attraction for her or for the schoolroom; but "diamond mines" sounded -so like the Arabian Nights that no one could be indifferent. Sara -thought them enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and -Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where -sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, -dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengarde delighted in the -story, and Lottie insisted on its being retold to her every evening. -Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and told Jessie that she didn't -believe such things as diamond mines existed. - -"My mamma has a diamond ring which cost forty pounds," she said. "And -it is not a big one, either. If there were mines full of diamonds, -people would be so rich it would be ridiculous." - -"Perhaps Sara will be so rich that she will be ridiculous," giggled -Jessie. - -"She's ridiculous without being rich," Lavinia sniffed. - -"I believe you hate her," said Jessie. - -"No, I don't," snapped Lavinia. "But I don't believe in mines full of -diamonds." - -"Well, people have to get them from somewhere," said Jessie. -"Lavinia," with a new giggle, "what do you think Gertrude says?" - -"I don't know, I'm sure; and I don't care if it's something more about -that everlasting Sara." - -"Well, it is. One of her 'pretends' is that she is a princess. She -plays it all the time--even in school. She says it makes her learn her -lessons better. She wants Ermengarde to be one, too, but Ermengarde -says she is too fat." - -"She IS too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin." - -Naturally, Jessie giggled again. - -"She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you -have. It has only to do with what you THINK of, and what you DO." - -"I suppose she thinks she could be a princess if she was a beggar," -said Lavinia. "Let us begin to call her Your Royal Highness." - -Lessons for the day were over, and they were sitting before the -schoolroom fire, enjoying the time they liked best. It was the time -when Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia were taking their tea in the sitting -room sacred to themselves. At this hour a great deal of talking was -done, and a great many secrets changed hands, particularly if the -younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run -about noisily, which it must be confessed they usually did. When they -made an uproar the older girls usually interfered with scolding and -shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if -they did not, Miss Minchin or Miss Amelia would appear and put an end -to festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke the door opened and Sara entered -with Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little -dog. - -"There she is, with that horrid child!" exclaimed Lavinia in a whisper. -"If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she keep her in her own room? She -will begin howling about something in five minutes." - -It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in -the schoolroom, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She -joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled -herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It -was a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a -harrowing picture of the prisoners in the Bastille--men who had spent -so many years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who -rescued them, their long, gray hair and beards almost hid their faces, -and they had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were -like beings in a dream. - -She was so far away from the schoolroom that it was not agreeable to be -dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find -anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when -she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are -fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at -such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one -not easy to manage. - -"It makes me feel as if someone had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde -once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember -things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered." - -She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the -window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner. - -Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having first -irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended by falling -down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and -down in the midst of a group of friends and enemies, who were -alternately coaxing and scolding her. - -"Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia commanded. - -"I'm not a cry-baby ... I'm not!" wailed Lottie. "Sara, Sa--ra!" - -"If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie. -"Lottie darling, I'll give you a penny!" - -"I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at the -fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth again. - -Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round her. - -"Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara." - -"She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie. - -Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew. - -"But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED." Lottie -remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to lift up her -voice. - -"I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't--a bit--of mamma." - -"Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten? Don't -you know that Sara is your mamma? Don't you want Sara for your mamma?" - -Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff. - -"Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and I'll -whisper a story to you." - -"Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you--tell me--about the diamond -mines?" - -"The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled thing, -I should like to SLAP her!" - -Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had -been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille, and she had -had to recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go -and take care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was -not fond of Lavinia. - -"Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap YOU--but I -don't want to slap you!" restraining herself. "At least I both want to -slap you--and I should LIKE to slap you--but I WON'T slap you. We are -not little gutter children. We are both old enough to know better." - -Here was Lavinia's opportunity. - -"Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I -believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very -fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil." - -Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her -ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of -her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new -"pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she -was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a -secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. -She felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She -only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into -rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she -spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and -everybody listened to her. - -"It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I -pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one." - -Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several -times she had found that she could not think of a satisfactory reply -when she was dealing with Sara. The reason for this was that, somehow, -the rest always seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She -saw now that they were pricking up their ears interestedly. The truth -was, they liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear -something more definite about this one, and drew nearer Sara -accordingly. - -Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat. - -"Dear me," she said, "I hope, when you ascend the throne, you won't -forget us!" - -"I won't," said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but stood -quite still, and stared at her steadily as she saw her take Jessie's -arm and turn away. - -After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as -"Princess Sara" whenever they wished to be particularly disdainful, and -those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term -of affection. No one called her "princess" instead of "Sara," but her -adorers were much pleased with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the -title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to -visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal -boarding school. - -To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The -acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up -terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and -grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia -knew very little about it. They were aware that Sara was "kind" to the -scullery maid, but they knew nothing of certain delightful moments -snatched perilously when, the upstairs rooms being set in order with -lightning rapidity, Sara's sitting room was reached, and the heavy coal -box set down with a sigh of joy. At such times stories were told by -installments, things of a satisfying nature were either produced and -eaten or hastily tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night, when -Becky went upstairs to her attic to bed. - -"But I has to eat 'em careful, miss," she said once; "'cos if I leaves -crumbs the rats come out to get 'em." - -"Rats!" exclaimed Sara, in horror. "Are there RATS there?" - -"Lots of 'em, miss," Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner. -"There mostly is rats an' mice in attics. You gets used to the noise -they makes scuttling about. I've got so I don't mind 'em s' long as -they don't run over my piller." - -"Ugh!" said Sara. - -"You gets used to anythin' after a bit," said Becky. "You have to, -miss, if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats than -cockroaches." - -"So would I," said Sara; "I suppose you might make friends with a rat -in time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends with a -cockroach." - -Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in the -bright, warm room, and when this was the case perhaps only a few words -could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into the old-fashioned -pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt, tied round her waist with a -band of tape. The search for and discovery of satisfying things to eat -which could be packed into small compass, added a new interest to -Sara's existence. When she drove or walked out, she used to look into -shop windows eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home -two or three little meat pies, she felt that she had hit upon a -discovery. When she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled. - -"Oh, miss!" she murmured. "Them will be nice an' fillin.' It's -fillin'ness that's best. Sponge cake's a 'evenly thing, but it melts -away like--if you understand, miss. These'll just STAY in yer -stummick." - -"Well," hesitated Sara, "I don't think it would be good if they stayed -always, but I do believe they will be satisfying." - -They were satisfying--and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a -cook-shop--and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky began -to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not seem so -unbearably heavy. - -However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and the -hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the -chance of the afternoon to look forward to--the chance that Miss Sara -would be able to be in her sitting room. In fact, the mere seeing of -Miss Sara would have been enough without meat pies. If there was time -only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put -heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an -installment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered -afterward and sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think -over. Sara--who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better -than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver--had not the -least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor -she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born -open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your -hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out -of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and -laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all. - -Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little -hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and, -though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as "fillin'" as -the meat pies. - -A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her from -her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high -spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted -by the business connected with the diamond mines. - -"You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a businessman at -all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really -understand them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps, if I was not -feverish I should not be awake, tossing about, one half of the night -and spend the other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus -were here, I dare say she would give me some solemn, good advice. You -would, wouldn't you, Little Missus?" - -One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus" because -she had such an old-fashioned air. - -He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among other -things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to -be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to -the letter asking her if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sara -had been very quaint. - -"I am getting very old," she wrote; "you see, I shall never live to -have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is -something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem -about 'A Last Doll' would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. I -have tried, and it made me laugh. It did not sound like Watts or -Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one could ever take Emily's place, -but I should respect the Last Doll very much; and I am sure the school -would love it. They all like dolls, though some of the big ones--the -almost fifteen ones--pretend they are too grown up." - -Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his -bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and -letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread, but -he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks. - -"Oh," he said, "she's better fun every year she lives. God grant this -business may right itself and leave me free to run home and see her. -What wouldn't I give to have her little arms round my neck this minute! -What WOULDN'T I give!" - -The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. The schoolroom -was to be decorated, and there was to be a party. The boxes containing -the presents were to be opened with great ceremony, and there was to be -a glittering feast spread in Miss Minchin's sacred room. When the day -arrived the whole house was in a whirl of excitement. How the morning -passed nobody quite knew, because there seemed such preparations to be -made. The schoolroom was being decked with garlands of holly; the -desks had been moved away, and red covers had been put on the forms -which were arrayed round the room against the wall. - -When Sara went into her sitting room in the morning, she found on the -table a small, dumpy package, tied up in a piece of brown paper. She -knew it was a present, and she thought she could guess whom it came -from. She opened it quite tenderly. It was a square pincushion, made -of not quite clean red flannel, and black pins had been stuck carefully -into it to form the words, "Menny hapy returns." - -"Oh!" cried Sara, with a warm feeling in her heart. "What pains she -has taken! I like it so, it--it makes me feel sorrowful." - -But the next moment she was mystified. On the under side of the -pincushion was secured a card, bearing in neat letters the name "Miss -Amelia Minchin." - -Sara turned it over and over. - -"Miss Amelia!" she said to herself "How CAN it be!" - -And just at that very moment she heard the door being cautiously pushed -open and saw Becky peeping round it. - -There was an affectionate, happy grin on her face, and she shuffled -forward and stood nervously pulling at her fingers. - -"Do yer like it, Miss Sara?" she said. "Do yer?" - -"Like it?" cried Sara. "You darling Becky, you made it all yourself." - -Becky gave a hysteric but joyful sniff, and her eyes looked quite moist -with delight. - -"It ain't nothin' but flannin, an' the flannin ain't new; but I wanted -to give yer somethin' an' I made it of nights. I knew yer could PRETEND -it was satin with diamond pins in. _I_ tried to when I was makin' it. -The card, miss," rather doubtfully; "'t warn't wrong of me to pick it -up out o' the dust-bin, was it? Miss 'Meliar had throwed it away. I -hadn't no card o' my own, an' I knowed it wouldn't be a proper presink -if I didn't pin a card on--so I pinned Miss 'Meliar's." - -Sara flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told herself or -anyone else why there was a lump in her throat. - -"Oh, Becky!" she cried out, with a queer little laugh, "I love you, -Becky--I do, I do!" - -"Oh, miss!" breathed Becky. "Thank yer, miss, kindly; it ain't good -enough for that. The--the flannin wasn't new." - - - -7 - -The Diamond Mines Again - - -When Sara entered the holly-hung schoolroom in the afternoon, she did -so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Minchin, in her grandest -silk dress, led her by the hand. A manservant followed, carrying the -box containing the Last Doll, a housemaid carried a second box, and -Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third and wearing a clean apron -and a new cap. Sara would have much preferred to enter in the usual -way, but Miss Minchin had sent for her, and, after an interview in her -private sitting room, had expressed her wishes. - -"This is not an ordinary occasion," she said. "I do not desire that it -should be treated as one." - -So Sara was led grandly in and felt shy when, on her entry, the big -girls stared at her and touched each other's elbows, and the little -ones began to squirm joyously in their seats. - -"Silence, young ladies!" said Miss Minchin, at the murmur which arose. -"James, place the box on the table and remove the lid. Emma, put yours -upon a chair. Becky!" suddenly and severely. - -Becky had quite forgotten herself in her excitement, and was grinning -at Lottie, who was wriggling with rapturous expectation. She almost -dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and her -frightened, bobbing curtsy of apology was so funny that Lavinia and -Jessie tittered. - -"It is not your place to look at the young ladies," said Miss Minchin. -"You forget yourself. Put your box down." - -Becky obeyed with alarmed haste and hastily backed toward the door. - -"You may leave us," Miss Minchin announced to the servants with a wave -of her hand. - -Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants to pass -out first. She could not help casting a longing glance at the box on -the table. Something made of blue satin was peeping from between the -folds of tissue paper. - -"If you please, Miss Minchin," said Sara, suddenly, "mayn't Becky stay?" - -It was a bold thing to do. Miss Minchin was betrayed into something -like a slight jump. Then she put her eyeglass up, and gazed at her -show pupil disturbedly. - -"Becky!" she exclaimed. "My dearest Sara!" - -Sara advanced a step toward her. - -"I want her because I know she will like to see the presents," she -explained. "She is a little girl, too, you know." - -Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other. - -"My dear Sara," she said, "Becky is the scullery maid. Scullery -maids--er--are not little girls." - -It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. -Scullery maids were machines who carried coal scuttles and made fires. - -"But Becky is," said Sara. "And I know she would enjoy herself. -Please let her stay--because it is my birthday." - -Miss Minchin replied with much dignity: - -"As you ask it as a birthday favor--she may stay. Rebecca, thank Miss -Sara for her great kindness." - -Becky had been backing into the corner, twisting the hem of her apron -in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but between -Sara's eyes and her own there passed a gleam of friendly understanding, -while her words tumbled over each other. - -"Oh, if you please, miss! I'm that grateful, miss! I did want to see -the doll, miss, that I did. Thank you, miss. And thank you, -ma'am,"--turning and making an alarmed bob to Miss Minchin--"for -letting me take the liberty." - -Miss Minchin waved her hand again--this time it was in the direction of -the corner near the door. - -"Go and stand there," she commanded. "Not too near the young ladies." - -Becky went to her place, grinning. She did not care where she was -sent, so that she might have the luck of being inside the room, instead -of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights were going -on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her throat -ominously and spoke again. - -"Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you," she announced. - -"She's going to make a speech," whispered one of the girls. "I wish it -was over." - -Sara felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was probable -that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a -schoolroom and have a speech made about you. - -"You are aware, young ladies," the speech began--for it was a -speech--"that dear Sara is eleven years old today." - -"DEAR Sara!" murmured Lavinia. - -"Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Sara's -birthdays are rather different from other little girls' birthdays. When -she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it will be -her duty to spend in a meritorious manner." - -"The diamond mines," giggled Jessie, in a whisper. - -Sara did not hear her; but as she stood with her green-gray eyes fixed -steadily on Miss Minchin, she felt herself growing rather hot. When -Miss Minchin talked about money, she felt somehow that she always hated -her--and, of course, it was disrespectful to hate grown-up people. - -"When her dear papa, Captain Crewe, brought her from India and gave her -into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a jesting way, -'I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin.' My reply was, 'Her -education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be such as will adorn -the largest fortune.' Sara has become my most accomplished pupil. Her -French and her dancing are a credit to the seminary. Her -manners--which have caused you to call her Princess Sara--are perfect. -Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this afternoon's party. I -hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your -appreciation of it by saying aloud all together, 'Thank you, Sara!'" - -The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had done the morning Sara -remembered so well. - -"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie jumped -up and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a -curtsy--and it was a very nice one. - -"Thank you," she said, "for coming to my party." - -"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Minchin. "That is what a -real princess does when the populace applauds her. -Lavinia"--scathingly--"the sound you just made was extremely like a -snort. If you are jealous of your fellow-pupil, I beg you will express -your feelings in some more lady-like manner. Now I will leave you to -enjoy yourselves." - -The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence always -had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every -seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs; the -older ones wasted no time in deserting theirs. There was a rush toward -the boxes. Sara had bent over one of them with a delighted face. - -"These are books, I know," she said. - -The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked -aghast. - -"Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?" she exclaimed. -"Why, he's as bad as mine. Don't open them, Sara." - -"I like them," Sara laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When -she took out the Last Doll it was so magnificent that the children -uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it -in breathless rapture. - -"She is almost as big as Lottie," someone gasped. - -Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling. - -"She's dressed for the theater," said Lavinia. "Her cloak is lined -with ermine." - -"Oh," cried Ermengarde, darting forward, "she has an opera-glass in her -hand--a blue-and-gold one!" - -"Here is her trunk," said Sara. "Let us open it and look at her -things." - -She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded -clamoring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their -contents. Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were -lace collars and silk stockings and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel -case containing a necklace and a tiara which looked quite as if they -were made of real diamonds; there was a long sealskin and muff, there -were ball dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses; there were -hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie forgot that they -were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight -and caught up things to look at them. - -"Suppose," Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large, -black-velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these -splendors--"suppose she understands human talk and feels proud of being -admired." - -"You are always supposing things," said Lavinia, and her air was very -superior. - -"I know I am," answered Sara, undisturbedly. "I like it. There is -nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you -suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real." - -"It's all very well to suppose things if you have everything," said -Lavinia. "Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived -in a garret?" - -Sara stopped arranging the Last Doll's ostrich plumes, and looked -thoughtful. - -"I BELIEVE I could," she said. "If one was a beggar, one would have to -suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn't be easy." - -She often thought afterward how strange it was that just as she had -finished saying this--just at that very moment--Miss Amelia came into -the room. - -"Sara," she said, "your papa's solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see -Miss Minchin, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments -are laid in her parlor, you had all better come and have your feast -now, so that my sister can have her interview here in the schoolroom." - -Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many -pairs of eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into -decorum, and then, with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away, -leaving the Last Doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her -wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and coats hung upon chair backs, -piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their seats. - -Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the -indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties--it really -was an indiscretion. - -"Go back to your work, Becky," Miss Amelia had said; but she had -stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while -she stood looking at them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the -threshold, and, being smitten with terror at the thought of being -accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted under the table, which -hid her by its tablecloth. - -Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry -little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself -also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the -dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression. - -She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair. - -"Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow," she said. - -Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by -the Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his -eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll -herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright -and returned his gaze indifferently. - -"A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive -material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly -enough, that young man." - -Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her -best patron and was a liberty. - -Even solicitors had no right to take liberties. - -"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow," she said stiffly. "I do not -understand." - -"Birthday presents," said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, "to a -child eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it." - -Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly. - -"Captain Crewe is a man of fortune," she said. "The diamond mines -alone--" - -Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. "Diamond mines!" he broke out. -"There are none! Never were!" - -Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair. - -"What!" she cried. "What do you mean?" - -"At any rate," answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, "it would have -been much better if there never had been any." - -"Any diamond mines?" ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a -chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her. - -"Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth," said Mr. -Barrow. "When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a -businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend's -diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends -want his money to put into. The late Captain Crewe--" - -Here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp. - -"The LATE Captain Crewe!" she cried out. "The LATE! You don't come to -tell me that Captain Crewe is--" - -"He's dead, ma'am," Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died -of jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might -not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business -troubles, and the business troubles might not have put an end to him if -the jungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!" - -Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken -filled her with alarm. - -"What WERE his business troubles?" she said. "What WERE they?" - -"Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends--and ruin." - -Miss Minchin lost her breath. - -"Ruin!" she gasped out. - -"Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear friend -was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money -into it, and all Captain Crewe's. Then the dear friend ran -away--Captain Crewe was already stricken with fever when the news came. -The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving about his -little girl--and didn't leave a penny." - -Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in -her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select -Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed, -and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame. - -"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left NOTHING! That -Sara will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she is -left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?" - -Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make his -own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay. - -"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is certainly -left on your hands, ma'am--as she hasn't a relation in the world that -we know of." - -Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to open -the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on -joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments. - -"It is monstrous!" she said. "She's in my sitting room at this moment, -dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my -expense." - -"She's giving it at your expense, madam, if she's giving it," said Mr. -Barrow, calmly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible for anything. -There never was a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune. Captain Crewe -died without paying OUR last bill--and it was a big one." - -Miss Minchin turned back from the door in increased indignation. This -was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being. - -"That is what has happened to me!" she cried. "I was always so sure of -his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the -child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous -fantastic wardrobe. The child was to have anything she wanted. She -has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've paid for all of them -since the last cheque came." - -Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the story of -Miss Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of his firm -clear and related the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular -sympathy for irate keepers of boarding schools. - -"You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, "unless -you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you. -She hasn't a brass farthing to call her own." - -"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it -entirely his duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?" - -"There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his -eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is dead. -The child is left a pauper. Nobody is responsible for her but you." - -"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible!" - -Miss Minchin became quite white with rage. - -Mr. Barrow turned to go. - -"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said uninterestedly. -"Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry the thing has -happened, of course." - -"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly -mistaken," Miss Minchin gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I -will turn her into the street!" - -If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say -quite so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly -brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all -self-control. - -Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door. - -"I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented; "it wouldn't look well. -Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the establishment. -Pupil bundled out penniless and without friends." - -He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He also -knew that Miss Minchin was a business woman, and would be shrewd enough -to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make -people speak of her as cruel and hard-hearted. - -"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "She's a clever -child, I believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she grows -older." - -"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!" exclaimed -Miss Minchin. - -"I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow, with a little sinister -smile. "I am sure you will. Good morning!" - -He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be confessed that -Miss Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had -said was quite true. She knew it. She had absolutely no redress. Her -show pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only a friendless, -beggared little girl. Such money as she herself had advanced was lost -and could not be regained. - -And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell -upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had -actually been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this. - -But as she started toward the door it was opened by Miss Amelia, who, -when she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a step in -alarm. - -"What IS the matter, sister?" she ejaculated. - -Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered: - -"Where is Sara Crewe?" - -Miss Amelia was bewildered. - -"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, she's with the children in your room, of -course." - -"Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe?"--in bitter irony. - -"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A BLACK one?" - -"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?" - -Miss Amelia began to turn pale. - -"No--ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has only the -old black velvet, and she has outgrown it." - -"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put -the black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has done with -finery!" - -Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry. - -"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What CAN have happened?" - -Miss Minchin wasted no words. - -"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That -spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands." - -Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair. - -"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I shall -never see a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party of hers. -Go and make her change her frock at once." - -"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?" - -"This moment!" was the fierce answer. "Don't sit staring like a goose. -Go!" - -Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She knew, in -fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do -a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing -to go into the midst of a room full of delighted children, and tell the -giver of the feast that she had suddenly been transformed into a little -beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an old black frock which was -too small for her. But the thing must be done. This was evidently not -the time when questions might be asked. - -She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red. -After which she got up and went out of the room, without venturing to -say another word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had -done just now, the wisest course to pursue was to obey orders without -any comment. Miss Minchin walked across the room. She spoke to herself -aloud without knowing that she was doing it. During the last year the -story of the diamond mines had suggested all sorts of possibilities to -her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make fortunes in stocks, -with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking forward to -gains, she was left to look back upon losses. - -"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been pampered as -if she were a QUEEN." She was sweeping angrily past the corner table as -she said it, and the next moment she started at the sound of a loud, -sobbing sniff which issued from under the cover. - -"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff was -heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table -cover. - -"How DARE you!" she cried out. "How dare you! Come out immediately!" - -It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side, -and her face was red with repressed crying. - -"If you please, 'm--it's me, mum," she explained. "I know I hadn't -ought to. But I was lookin' at the doll, mum--an' I was frightened -when you come in--an' slipped under the table." - -"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss Minchin. - -"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin'--I -thought I could slip out without your noticin', but I couldn't an' I -had to stay. But I didn't listen, mum--I wouldn't for nothin'. But I -couldn't help hearin'." - -Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady -before her. She burst into fresh tears. - -"Oh, please, 'm," she said; "I dare say you'll give me warnin', mum--but -I'm so sorry for poor Miss Sara--I'm so sorry!" - -"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Minchin. - -Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks. - -"Yes, 'm; I will, 'm," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just wanted to -arst you: Miss Sara--she's been such a rich young lady, an' she's been -waited on, 'and and foot; an' what will she do now, mum, without no -maid? If--if, oh please, would you let me wait on her after I've done -my pots an' kettles? I'd do 'em that quick--if you'd let me wait on -her now she's poor. Oh," breaking out afresh, "poor little Miss Sara, -mum--that was called a princess." - -Somehow, she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever. That the -very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child--whom -she realized more fully than ever that she had never liked--was too -much. She actually stamped her foot. - -"No--certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and on other -people, too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave your place." - -Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room -and down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her -pots and kettles, and wept as if her heart would break. - -"It's exactly like the ones in the stories," she wailed. "Them pore -princess ones that was drove into the world." - -Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard as she did when -Sara came to her, a few hours later, in response to a message she had -sent her. - -Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had either -been a dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had happened -in the life of quite another little girl. - -Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had been -removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put back -into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it always -did--all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed -her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside their party -frocks; and this having been done, they had returned to the schoolroom -and huddled together in groups, whispering and talking excitedly. - -"Tell Sara to come to my room," Miss Minchin had said to her sister. -"And explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant -scenes." - -"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the strangest child I ever saw. -She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when -Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her what had happened, -she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound. -Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale. -When I had finished, she still stood staring for a few seconds, and -then her chin began to shake, and she turned round and ran out of the -room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she -did not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I -was saying. It made me feel quite queer not to be answered; and when -you tell anything sudden and strange, you expect people will say -SOMETHING--whatever it is." - -Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after -she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself -scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying -over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own, -"My papa is dead! My papa is dead!" - -Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watching her from her chair, and -cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear--papa is dead? He -is dead in India--thousands of miles away." - -When she came into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her -summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them. -Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had -suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the -rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her -treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked instead -a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure. - -She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast-aside black-velvet -frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long -and thin, showing themselves from beneath the brief skirt. As she had -not found a piece of black ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled -loosely about her face and contrasted strongly with its pallor. She -held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was swathed in a piece of -black material. - -"Put down your doll," said Miss Minchin. "What do you mean by bringing -her here?" - -"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I have. My -papa gave her to me." - -She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable, and she -did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold -steadiness with which Miss Minchin felt it difficult to cope--perhaps -because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman thing. - -"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You will have -to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful." - -Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a word. - -"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on. "I -suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you." - -"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I am -quite poor." - -"You are a beggar," said Miss Minchin, her temper rising at the -recollection of what all this meant. "It appears that you have no -relations and no home, and no one to take care of you." - -For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again said -nothing. - -"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin, sharply. "Are you so -stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are quite alone -in the world, and have no one to do anything for you, unless I choose -to keep you here out of charity." - -"I understand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a sound as -if she had gulped down something which rose in her throat. "I -understand." - -"That doll," cried Miss Minchin, pointing to the splendid birthday gift -seated near--"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical, -extravagant things--I actually paid the bill for her!" - -Sara turned her head toward the chair. - -"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little mournful -voice had an odd sound. - -"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Minchin. "And she is mine, not -yours. Everything you own is mine." - -"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want it." - -If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin might -almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who liked to -domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara's pale little -steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if -her might was being set at naught. - -"Don't put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of thing -is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your -pony will be sent away--your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your -oldest and plainest clothes--your extravagant ones are no longer suited -to your station. You are like Becky--you must work for your living." - -To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's eyes--a -shade of relief. - -"Can I work?" she said. "If I can work it will not matter so much. -What can I do?" - -"You can do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a sharp -child, and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful I may -let you stay here. You speak French well, and you can help with the -younger children." - -"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I can teach them. -I like them, and they like me." - -"Don't talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss Minchin. "You -will have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands -and help in the kitchen as well as in the schoolroom. If you don't -please me, you will be sent away. Remember that. Now go." - -Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul, she -was thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to leave the -room. - -"Stop!" said Miss Minchin. "Don't you intend to thank me?" - -Sara paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her breast. - -"What for?" she said. - -"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my kindness in -giving you a home." - -Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved -up and down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce way. - -"You are not kind," she said. "You are NOT kind, and it is NOT a -home." And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Minchin -could stop her or do anything but stare after her with stony anger. - -She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she held -Emily tightly against her side. - -"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could speak--if -she could speak!" - -She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her -cheek upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think and -think and think. But just before she reached the landing Miss Amelia -came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood before it, -looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt secretly -ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do. - -"You--you are not to go in there," she said. - -"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace. - -"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little. - -Somehow, all at once, Sara understood. She realized that this was the -beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of. - -"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not -shake. - -"You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky." - -Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She turned, and -mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow, and covered -with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away -and leaving far behind her the world in which that other child, who no -longer seemed herself, had lived. This child, in her short, tight old -frock, climbing the stairs to the attic, was quite a different creature. - -When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a dreary -little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked -about her. - -Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was -whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places. -There was a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed covered -with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be -used downstairs had been sent up. Under the skylight in the roof, -which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky, there stood -an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat down. She -seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across her knees -and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there, -her little black head resting on the black draperies, not saying one -word, not making one sound. - -And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door--such a -low, humble one that she did not at first hear it, and, indeed, was not -roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a poor tear-smeared -face appeared peeping round it. It was Becky's face, and Becky had -been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes with her kitchen -apron until she looked strange indeed. - -"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you allow -me--jest to come in?" - -Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile, -and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through the loving -mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes--her face looked more like a -child's not so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and -gave a little sob. - -"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only two -little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is. There's -no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore." - -Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast, -kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain. - -"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken. -"Whats'ever 'appens to you--whats'ever--you'd be a princess all the -same--an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different." - - - -8 - -In the Attic - - -The first night she spent in her attic was a thing Sara never forgot. -During its passing she lived through a wild, unchildlike woe of which -she never spoke to anyone about her. There was no one who would have -understood. It was, indeed, well for her that as she lay awake in the -darkness her mind was forcibly distracted, now and then, by the -strangeness of her surroundings. It was, perhaps, well for her that -she was reminded by her small body of material things. If this had not -been so, the anguish of her young mind might have been too great for a -child to bear. But, really, while the night was passing she scarcely -knew that she had a body at all or remembered any other thing than one. - -"My papa is dead!" she kept whispering to herself. "My papa is dead!" - -It was not until long afterward that she realized that her bed had been -so hard that she turned over and over in it to find a place to rest, -that the darkness seemed more intense than any she had ever known, and -that the wind howled over the roof among the chimneys like something -which wailed aloud. Then there was something worse. This was certain -scufflings and scratchings and squeakings in the walls and behind the -skirting boards. She knew what they meant, because Becky had described -them. They meant rats and mice who were either fighting with each -other or playing together. Once or twice she even heard sharp-toed feet -scurrying across the floor, and she remembered in those after days, -when she recalled things, that when first she heard them she started up -in bed and sat trembling, and when she lay down again covered her head -with the bedclothes. - -The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made all -at once. - -"She must begin as she is to go on," Miss Minchin said to Miss Amelia. -"She must be taught at once what she is to expect." - -Mariette had left the house the next morning. The glimpse Sara caught -of her sitting room, as she passed its open door, showed her that -everything had been changed. Her ornaments and luxuries had been -removed, and a bed had been placed in a corner to transform it into a -new pupil's bedroom. - -When she went down to breakfast she saw that her seat at Miss Minchin's -side was occupied by Lavinia, and Miss Minchin spoke to her coldly. - -"You will begin your new duties, Sara," she said, "by taking your seat -with the younger children at a smaller table. You must keep them -quiet, and see that they behave well and do not waste their food. You -ought to have been down earlier. Lottie has already upset her tea." - -That was the beginning, and from day to day the duties given to her -were added to. She taught the younger children French and heard their -other lessons, and these were the least of her labors. It was found -that she could be made use of in numberless directions. She could be -sent on errands at any time and in all weathers. She could be told to -do things other people neglected. The cook and the housemaids took -their tone from Miss Minchin, and rather enjoyed ordering about the -"young one" who had been made so much fuss over for so long. They were -not servants of the best class, and had neither good manners nor good -tempers, and it was frequently convenient to have at hand someone on -whom blame could be laid. - -During the first month or two, Sara thought that her willingness to do -things as well as she could, and her silence under reproof, might -soften those who drove her so hard. In her proud little heart she -wanted them to see that she was trying to earn her living and not -accepting charity. But the time came when she saw that no one was -softened at all; and the more willing she was to do as she was told, -the more domineering and exacting careless housemaids became, and the -more ready a scolding cook was to blame her. - -If she had been older, Miss Minchin would have given her the bigger -girls to teach and saved money by dismissing an instructress; but while -she remained and looked like a child, she could be made more useful as -a sort of little superior errand girl and maid of all work. An ordinary -errand boy would not have been so clever and reliable. Sara could be -trusted with difficult commissions and complicated messages. She could -even go and pay bills, and she combined with this the ability to dust a -room well and to set things in order. - -Her own lessons became things of the past. She was taught nothing, and -only after long and busy days spent in running here and there at -everybody's orders was she grudgingly allowed to go into the deserted -schoolroom, with a pile of old books, and study alone at night. - -"If I do not remind myself of the things I have learned, perhaps I may -forget them," she said to herself. "I am almost a scullery maid, and -if I am a scullery maid who knows nothing, I shall be like poor Becky. -I wonder if I could QUITE forget and begin to drop my H'S and not -remember that Henry the Eighth had six wives." - -One of the most curious things in her new existence was her changed -position among the pupils. Instead of being a sort of small royal -personage among them, she no longer seemed to be one of their number at -all. She was kept so constantly at work that she scarcely ever had an -opportunity of speaking to any of them, and she could not avoid seeing -that Miss Minchin preferred that she should live a life apart from that -of the occupants of the schoolroom. - -"I will not have her forming intimacies and talking to the other -children," that lady said. "Girls like a grievance, and if she begins -to tell romantic stories about herself, she will become an ill-used -heroine, and parents will be given a wrong impression. It is better -that she should live a separate life--one suited to her circumstances. -I am giving her a home, and that is more than she has any right to -expect from me." - -Sara did not expect much, and was far too proud to try to continue to -be intimate with girls who evidently felt rather awkward and uncertain -about her. The fact was that Miss Minchin's pupils were a set of dull, -matter-of-fact young people. They were accustomed to being rich and -comfortable, and as Sara's frocks grew shorter and shabbier and -queerer-looking, and it became an established fact that she wore shoes -with holes in them and was sent out to buy groceries and carry them -through the streets in a basket on her arm when the cook wanted them in -a hurry, they felt rather as if, when they spoke to her, they were -addressing an under servant. - -"To think that she was the girl with the diamond mines," Lavinia -commented. "She does look an object. And she's queerer than ever. I -never liked her much, but I can't bear that way she has now of looking -at people without speaking--just as if she was finding them out." - -"I am," said Sara, promptly, when she heard of this. "That's what I -look at some people for. I like to know about them. I think them over -afterward." - -The truth was that she had saved herself annoyance several times by -keeping her eye on Lavinia, who was quite ready to make mischief, and -would have been rather pleased to have made it for the ex-show pupil. - -Sara never made any mischief herself, or interfered with anyone. She -worked like a drudge; she tramped through the wet streets, carrying -parcels and baskets; she labored with the childish inattention of the -little ones' French lessons; as she became shabbier and more -forlorn-looking, she was told that she had better take her meals -downstairs; she was treated as if she was nobody's concern, and her -heart grew proud and sore, but she never told anyone what she felt. - -"Soldiers don't complain," she would say between her small, shut teeth, -"I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war." - -But there were hours when her child heart might almost have broken with -loneliness but for three people. - -The first, it must be owned, was Becky--just Becky. Throughout all -that first night spent in the garret, she had felt a vague comfort in -knowing that on the other side of the wall in which the rats scuffled -and squeaked there was another young human creature. And during the -nights that followed the sense of comfort grew. They had little chance -to speak to each other during the day. Each had her own tasks to -perform, and any attempt at conversation would have been regarded as a -tendency to loiter and lose time. "Don't mind me, miss," Becky -whispered during the first morning, "if I don't say nothin' polite. -Some un'd be down on us if I did. I MEANS 'please' an' 'thank you' an' -'beg pardon,' but I dassn't to take time to say it." - -But before daybreak she used to slip into Sara's attic and button her -dress and give her such help as she required before she went downstairs -to light the kitchen fire. And when night came Sara always heard the -humble knock at her door which meant that her handmaid was ready to -help her again if she was needed. During the first weeks of her grief -Sara felt as if she were too stupefied to talk, so it happened that -some time passed before they saw each other much or exchanged visits. -Becky's heart told her that it was best that people in trouble should -be left alone. - -The second of the trio of comforters was Ermengarde, but odd things -happened before Ermengarde found her place. - -When Sara's mind seemed to awaken again to the life about her, she -realized that she had forgotten that an Ermengarde lived in the world. -The two had always been friends, but Sara had felt as if she were years -the older. It could not be contested that Ermengarde was as dull as -she was affectionate. She clung to Sara in a simple, helpless way; she -brought her lessons to her that she might be helped; she listened to -her every word and besieged her with requests for stories. But she had -nothing interesting to say herself, and she loathed books of every -description. She was, in fact, not a person one would remember when -one was caught in the storm of a great trouble, and Sara forgot her. - -It had been all the easier to forget her because she had been suddenly -called home for a few weeks. When she came back she did not see Sara -for a day or two, and when she met her for the first time she -encountered her coming down a corridor with her arms full of garments -which were to be taken downstairs to be mended. Sara herself had -already been taught to mend them. She looked pale and unlike herself, -and she was attired in the queer, outgrown frock whose shortness showed -so much thin black leg. - -Ermengarde was too slow a girl to be equal to such a situation. She -could not think of anything to say. She knew what had happened, but, -somehow, she had never imagined Sara could look like this--so odd and -poor and almost like a servant. It made her quite miserable, and she -could do nothing but break into a short hysterical laugh and -exclaim--aimlessly and as if without any meaning, "Oh, Sara, is that -you?" - -"Yes," answered Sara, and suddenly a strange thought passed through her -mind and made her face flush. She held the pile of garments in her -arms, and her chin rested upon the top of it to keep it steady. -Something in the look of her straight-gazing eyes made Ermengarde lose -her wits still more. She felt as if Sara had changed into a new kind -of girl, and she had never known her before. Perhaps it was because she -had suddenly grown poor and had to mend things and work like Becky. - -"Oh," she stammered. "How--how are you?" - -"I don't know," Sara replied. "How are you?" - -"I'm--I'm quite well," said Ermengarde, overwhelmed with shyness. Then -spasmodically she thought of something to say which seemed more -intimate. "Are you--are you very unhappy?" she said in a rush. - -Then Sara was guilty of an injustice. Just at that moment her torn -heart swelled within her, and she felt that if anyone was as stupid as -that, one had better get away from her. - -"What do you think?" she said. "Do you think I am very happy?" And she -marched past her without another word. - -In course of time she realized that if her wretchedness had not made -her forget things, she would have known that poor, dull Ermengarde was -not to be blamed for her unready, awkward ways. She was always -awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid she was given to being. - -But the sudden thought which had flashed upon her had made her -over-sensitive. - -"She is like the others," she had thought. "She does not really want -to talk to me. She knows no one does." - -So for several weeks a barrier stood between them. When they met by -chance Sara looked the other way, and Ermengarde felt too stiff and -embarrassed to speak. Sometimes they nodded to each other in passing, -but there were times when they did not even exchange a greeting. - -"If she would rather not talk to me," Sara thought, "I will keep out of -her way. Miss Minchin makes that easy enough." - -Miss Minchin made it so easy that at last they scarcely saw each other -at all. At that time it was noticed that Ermengarde was more stupid -than ever, and that she looked listless and unhappy. She used to sit -in the window-seat, huddled in a heap, and stare out of the window -without speaking. Once Jessie, who was passing, stopped to look at her -curiously. - -"What are you crying for, Ermengarde?" she asked. - -"I'm not crying," answered Ermengarde, in a muffled, unsteady voice. - -"You are," said Jessie. "A great big tear just rolled down the bridge -of your nose and dropped off at the end of it. And there goes another." - -"Well," said Ermengarde, "I'm miserable--and no one need interfere." -And she turned her plump back and took out her handkerchief and boldly -hid her face in it. - -That night, when Sara went to her attic, she was later than usual. She -had been kept at work until after the hour at which the pupils went to -bed, and after that she had gone to her lessons in the lonely -schoolroom. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was surprised -to see a glimmer of light coming from under the attic door. - -"Nobody goes there but myself," she thought quickly, "but someone has -lighted a candle." - -Someone had, indeed, lighted a candle, and it was not burning in the -kitchen candlestick she was expected to use, but in one of those -belonging to the pupils' bedrooms. The someone was sitting upon the -battered footstool, and was dressed in her nightgown and wrapped up in -a red shawl. It was Ermengarde. - -"Ermengarde!" cried Sara. She was so startled that she was almost -frightened. "You will get into trouble." - -Ermengarde stumbled up from her footstool. She shuffled across the -attic in her bedroom slippers, which were too large for her. Her eyes -and nose were pink with crying. - -"I know I shall--if I'm found out." she said. "But I don't care--I -don't care a bit. Oh, Sara, please tell me. What is the matter? Why -don't you like me any more?" - -Something in her voice made the familiar lump rise in Sara's throat. It -was so affectionate and simple--so like the old Ermengarde who had -asked her to be "best friends." It sounded as if she had not meant -what she had seemed to mean during these past weeks. - -"I do like you," Sara answered. "I thought--you see, everything is -different now. I thought you--were different." - -Ermengarde opened her wet eyes wide. - -"Why, it was you who were different!" she cried. "You didn't want to -talk to me. I didn't know what to do. It was you who were different -after I came back." - -Sara thought a moment. She saw she had made a mistake. - -"I AM different," she explained, "though not in the way you think. Miss -Minchin does not want me to talk to the girls. Most of them don't want -to talk to me. I thought--perhaps--you didn't. So I tried to keep out -of your way." - -"Oh, Sara," Ermengarde almost wailed in her reproachful dismay. And -then after one more look they rushed into each other's arms. It must -be confessed that Sara's small black head lay for some minutes on the -shoulder covered by the red shawl. When Ermengarde had seemed to -desert her, she had felt horribly lonely. - -Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sara clasping her -knees with her arms, and Ermengarde rolled up in her shawl. Ermengarde -looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly. - -"I couldn't bear it any more," she said. "I dare say you could live -without me, Sara; but I couldn't live without you. I was nearly DEAD. -So tonight, when I was crying under the bedclothes, I thought all at -once of creeping up here and just begging you to let us be friends -again." - -"You are nicer than I am," said Sara. "I was too proud to try and make -friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am -NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps"--wrinkling her -forehead wisely--"that is what they were sent for." - -"I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly. - -"Neither do I--to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly. "But I -suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it. There -MIGHT"--doubtfully--"be good in Miss Minchin." - -Ermengarde looked round the attic with a rather fearsome curiosity. - -"Sara," she said, "do you think you can bear living here?" - -Sara looked round also. - -"If I pretend it's quite different, I can," she answered; "or if I -pretend it is a place in a story." - -She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for her. It -had not worked for her at all since her troubles had come upon her. She -had felt as if it had been stunned. - -"Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of Monte -Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. And think of the people in -the Bastille!" - -"The Bastille," half whispered Ermengarde, watching her and beginning -to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French Revolution -which Sara had been able to fix in her mind by her dramatic relation of -them. No one but Sara could have done it. - -A well-known glow came into Sara's eyes. - -"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, "that will be a good place to -pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been here for -years and years--and years; and everybody has forgotten about me. Miss -Minchin is the jailer--and Becky"--a sudden light adding itself to the -glow in her eyes--"Becky is the prisoner in the next cell." - -She turned to Ermengarde, looking quite like the old Sara. - -"I shall pretend that," she said; "and it will be a great comfort." - -Ermengarde was at once enraptured and awed. - -"And will you tell me all about it?" she said. "May I creep up here at -night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have made up in the -day? It will seem as if we were more 'best friends' than ever." - -"Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and mine has -tried you and proved how nice you are." - - - -9 - -Melchisedec - - -The third person in the trio was Lottie. She was a small thing and did -not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by the -alteration she saw in her young adopted mother. She had heard it -rumored that strange things had happened to Sara, but she could not -understand why she looked different--why she wore an old black frock -and came into the schoolroom only to teach instead of to sit in her -place of honor and learn lessons herself. There had been much -whispering among the little ones when it had been discovered that Sara -no longer lived in the rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state. -Lottie's chief difficulty was that Sara said so little when one asked -her questions. At seven mysteries must be made very clear if one is to -understand them. - -"Are you very poor now, Sara?" she had asked confidentially the first -morning her friend took charge of the small French class. "Are you as -poor as a beggar?" She thrust a fat hand into the slim one and opened -round, tearful eyes. "I don't want you to be as poor as a beggar." - -She looked as if she was going to cry. And Sara hurriedly consoled her. - -"Beggars have nowhere to live," she said courageously. "I have a place -to live in." - -"Where do you live?" persisted Lottie. "The new girl sleeps in your -room, and it isn't pretty any more." - -"I live in another room," said Sara. - -"Is it a nice one?" inquired Lottie. "I want to go and see it." - -"You must not talk," said Sara. "Miss Minchin is looking at us. She -will be angry with me for letting you whisper." - -She had found out already that she was to be held accountable for -everything which was objected to. If the children were not attentive, -if they talked, if they were restless, it was she who would be reproved. - -But Lottie was a determined little person. If Sara would not tell her -where she lived, she would find out in some other way. She talked to -her small companions and hung about the elder girls and listened when -they were gossiping; and acting upon certain information they had -unconsciously let drop, she started late one afternoon on a voyage of -discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of, until -she reached the attic floor. There she found two doors near each other, -and opening one, she saw her beloved Sara standing upon an old table -and looking out of a window. - -"Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast because the -attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away from all the world. -Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs. - -Sara turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to be -aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and any one -chanced to hear, they were both lost. She jumped down from her table -and ran to the child. - -"Don't cry and make a noise," she implored. "I shall be scolded if you -do, and I have been scolded all day. It's--it's not such a bad room, -Lottie." - -"Isn't it?" gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit her lip. -She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted -parent to make an effort to control herself for her sake. Then, -somehow, it was quite possible that any place in which Sara lived might -turn out to be nice. "Why isn't it, Sara?" she almost whispered. - -Sara hugged her close and tried to laugh. There was a sort of comfort -in the warmth of the plump, childish body. She had had a hard day and -had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes. - -"You can see all sorts of things you can't see downstairs," she said. - -"What sort of things?" demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sara could -always awaken even in bigger girls. - -"Chimneys--quite close to us--with smoke curling up in wreaths and -clouds and going up into the sky--and sparrows hopping about and -talking to each other just as if they were people--and other attic -windows where heads may pop out any minute and you can wonder who they -belong to. And it all feels as high up--as if it was another world." - -"Oh, let me see it!" cried Lottie. "Lift me up!" - -Sara lifted her up, and they stood on the old table together and leaned -on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked out. - -Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different world they -saw. The slates spread out on either side of them and slanted down -into the rain gutter-pipes. The sparrows, being at home there, -twittered and hopped about quite without fear. Two of them perched on -the chimney top nearest and quarrelled with each other fiercely until -one pecked the other and drove him away. The garret window next to -theirs was shut because the house next door was empty. - -"I wish someone lived there," Sara said. "It is so close that if there -was a little girl in the attic, we could talk to each other through the -windows and climb over to see each other, if we were not afraid of -falling." - -The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street, -that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among the chimney -pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost -unreal. One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and -Miss Amelia and the schoolroom, and the roll of wheels in the square -seemed a sound belonging to another existence. - -"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. "I like this -attic--I like it! It is nicer than downstairs!" - -"Look at that sparrow," whispered Sara. "I wish I had some crumbs to -throw to him." - -"I have some!" came in a little shriek from Lottie. "I have part of a -bun in my pocket; I bought it with my penny yesterday, and I saved a -bit." - -When they threw out a few crumbs the sparrow jumped and flew away to an -adjacent chimney top. He was evidently not accustomed to intimates in -attics, and unexpected crumbs startled him. But when Lottie remained -quite still and Sara chirped very softly--almost as if she were a -sparrow herself--he saw that the thing which had alarmed him -represented hospitality, after all. He put his head on one side, and -from his perch on the chimney looked down at the crumbs with twinkling -eyes. Lottie could scarcely keep still. - -"Will he come? Will he come?" she whispered. - -"His eyes look as if he would," Sara whispered back. "He is thinking -and thinking whether he dare. Yes, he will! Yes, he is coming!" - -He flew down and hopped toward the crumbs, but stopped a few inches -away from them, putting his head on one side again, as if reflecting on -the chances that Sara and Lottie might turn out to be big cats and jump -on him. At last his heart told him they were really nicer than they -looked, and he hopped nearer and nearer, darted at the biggest crumb -with a lightning peck, seized it, and carried it away to the other side -of his chimney. - -"Now he KNOWS", said Sara. "And he will come back for the others." - -He did come back, and even brought a friend, and the friend went away -and brought a relative, and among them they made a hearty meal over -which they twittered and chattered and exclaimed, stopping every now -and then to put their heads on one side and examine Lottie and Sara. -Lottie was so delighted that she quite forgot her first shocked -impression of the attic. In fact, when she was lifted down from the -table and returned to earthly things, as it were, Sara was able to -point out to her many beauties in the room which she herself would not -have suspected the existence of. - -"It is so little and so high above everything," she said, "that it is -almost like a nest in a tree. The slanting ceiling is so funny. See, -you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room; and when the morning -begins to come I can lie in bed and look right up into the sky through -that flat window in the roof. It is like a square patch of light. If -the sun is going to shine, little pink clouds float about, and I feel -as if I could touch them. And if it rains, the drops patter and patter -as if they were saying something nice. Then if there are stars, you -can lie and try to count how many go into the patch. It takes such a -lot. And just look at that tiny, rusty grate in the corner. If it was -polished and there was a fire in it, just think how nice it would be. -You see, it's really a beautiful little room." - -She was walking round the small place, holding Lottie's hand and making -gestures which described all the beauties she was making herself see. -She quite made Lottie see them, too. Lottie could always believe in -the things Sara made pictures of. - -"You see," she said, "there could be a thick, soft blue Indian rug on -the floor; and in that corner there could be a soft little sofa, with -cushions to curl up on; and just over it could be a shelf full of books -so that one could reach them easily; and there could be a fur rug -before the fire, and hangings on the wall to cover up the whitewash, -and pictures. They would have to be little ones, but they could be -beautiful; and there could be a lamp with a deep rose-colored shade; -and a table in the middle, with things to have tea with; and a little -fat copper kettle singing on the hob; and the bed could be quite -different. It could be made soft and covered with a lovely silk -coverlet. It could be beautiful. And perhaps we could coax the -sparrows until we made such friends with them that they would come and -peck at the window and ask to be let in." - -"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie. "I should like to live here!" - -When Sara had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and, after setting -her on her way, had come back to her attic, she stood in the middle of -it and looked about her. The enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie -had died away. The bed was hard and covered with its dingy quilt. The -whitewashed wall showed its broken patches, the floor was cold and -bare, the grate was broken and rusty, and the battered footstool, -tilted sideways on its injured leg, the only seat in the room. She sat -down on it for a few minutes and let her head drop in her hands. The -mere fact that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a -little worse--just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more desolate -after visitors come and go, leaving them behind. - -"It's a lonely place," she said. "Sometimes it's the loneliest place -in the world." - -She was sitting in this way when her attention was attracted by a -slight sound near her. She lifted her head to see where it came from, -and if she had been a nervous child she would have left her seat on the -battered footstool in a great hurry. A large rat was sitting up on his -hind quarters and sniffing the air in an interested manner. Some of -Lottie's crumbs had dropped upon the floor and their scent had drawn -him out of his hole. - -He looked so queer and so like a gray-whiskered dwarf or gnome that -Sara was rather fascinated. He looked at her with his bright eyes, as -if he were asking a question. He was evidently so doubtful that one of -the child's queer thoughts came into her mind. - -"I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat," she mused. "Nobody likes -you. People jump and run away and scream out, 'Oh, a horrid rat!' I -shouldn't like people to scream and jump and say, 'Oh, a horrid Sara!' -the moment they saw me. And set traps for me, and pretend they were -dinner. It's so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat -if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said, 'Wouldn't you -rather be a sparrow?'" - -She had sat so quietly that the rat had begun to take courage. He was -very much afraid of her, but perhaps he had a heart like the sparrow -and it told him that she was not a thing which pounced. He was very -hungry. He had a wife and a large family in the wall, and they had had -frightfully bad luck for several days. He had left the children crying -bitterly, and felt he would risk a good deal for a few crumbs, so he -cautiously dropped upon his feet. - -"Come on," said Sara; "I'm not a trap. You can have them, poor thing! -Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats. Suppose I -make friends with you." - -How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is -certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is -not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps -there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without -even making a sound, to another soul. But whatsoever was the reason, -the rat knew from that moment that he was safe--even though he was a -rat. He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool -would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises or throw -heavy objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would -send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a very -nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had stood on his -hind legs and sniffed the air, with his bright eyes fixed on Sara, he -had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating -him as an enemy. When the mysterious thing which speaks without saying -any words told him that she would not, he went softly toward the crumbs -and began to eat them. As he did it he glanced every now and then at -Sara, just as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very -apologetic that it touched her heart. - -She sat and watched him without making any movement. One crumb was -very much larger than the others--in fact, it could scarcely be called -a crumb. It was evident that he wanted that piece very much, but it -lay quite near the footstool and he was still rather timid. - -"I believe he wants it to carry to his family in the wall," Sara -thought. "If I do not stir at all, perhaps he will come and get it." - -She scarcely allowed herself to breathe, she was so deeply interested. -The rat shuffled a little nearer and ate a few more crumbs, then he -stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side glance at the occupant of -the footstool; then he darted at the piece of bun with something very -like the sudden boldness of the sparrow, and the instant he had -possession of it fled back to the wall, slipped down a crack in the -skirting board, and was gone. - -"I knew he wanted it for his children," said Sara. "I do believe I -could make friends with him." - -A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found -it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the -tips of her fingers Sara did not come to her for two or three minutes. -There was, indeed, such a silence in the room at first that Ermengarde -wondered if she could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she -heard her utter a little, low laugh and speak coaxingly to someone. - -"There!" Ermengarde heard her say. "Take it and go home, Melchisedec! -Go home to your wife!" - -Almost immediately Sara opened the door, and when she did so she found -Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold. - -"Who--who ARE you talking to, Sara?" she gasped out. - -Sara drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and -amused her. - -"You must promise not to be frightened--not to scream the least bit, or -I can't tell you," she answered. - -Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to -control herself. She looked all round the attic and saw no one. And -yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone. She thought of ghosts. - -"Is it--something that will frighten me?" she asked timorously. - -"Some people are afraid of them," said Sara. "I was at first--but I am -not now." - -"Was it--a ghost?" quaked Ermengarde. - -"No," said Sara, laughing. "It was my rat." - -Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the little dingy -bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown and the red shawl. She -did not scream, but she gasped with fright. - -"Oh! Oh!" she cried under her breath. "A rat! A rat!" - -"I was afraid you would be frightened," said Sara. "But you needn't -be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and comes out when I -call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him?" - -The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of scraps -brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, she -had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming -familiar with was a mere rat. - -At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a -heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet, but the sight of Sara's -composed little countenance and the story of Melchisedec's first -appearance began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward -over the edge of the bed and watched Sara go and kneel down by the hole -in the skirting board. - -"He--he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?" she said. - -"No," answered Sara. "He's as polite as we are. He is just like a -person. Now watch!" - -She began to make a low, whistling sound--so low and coaxing that it -could only have been heard in entire stillness. She did it several -times, looking entirely absorbed in it. Ermengarde thought she looked -as if she were working a spell. And at last, evidently in response to -it, a gray-whiskered, bright-eyed head peeped out of the hole. Sara -had some crumbs in her hand. She dropped them, and Melchisedec came -quietly forth and ate them. A piece of larger size than the rest he -took and carried in the most businesslike manner back to his home. - -"You see," said Sara, "that is for his wife and children. He is very -nice. He only eats the little bits. After he goes back I can always -hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three kinds of squeaks. -One kind is the children's, and one is Mrs. Melchisedec's, and one is -Melchisedec's own." - -Ermengarde began to laugh. - -"Oh, Sara!" she said. "You ARE queer--but you are nice." - -"I know I am queer," admitted Sara, cheerfully; "and I TRY to be nice." -She rubbed her forehead with her little brown paw, and a puzzled, -tender look came into her face. "Papa always laughed at me," she said; -"but I liked it. He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up -things. I--I can't help making up things. If I didn't, I don't -believe I could live." She paused and glanced around the attic. "I'm -sure I couldn't live here," she added in a low voice. - -Ermengarde was interested, as she always was. "When you talk about -things," she said, "they seem as if they grew real. You talk about -Melchisedec as if he was a person." - -"He IS a person," said Sara. "He gets hungry and frightened, just as -we do; and he is married and has children. How do we know he doesn't -think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. -That was why I gave him a name." - -She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees. - -"Besides," she said, "he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can -always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite -enough to support him." - -"Is it the Bastille yet?" asked Ermengarde, eagerly. "Do you always -pretend it is the Bastille?" - -"Nearly always," answered Sara. "Sometimes I try to pretend it is -another kind of place; but the Bastille is generally -easiest--particularly when it is cold." - -Just at that moment Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed, she was so -startled by a sound she heard. It was like two distinct knocks on the -wall. - -"What is that?" she exclaimed. - -Sara got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically: - -"It is the prisoner in the next cell." - -"Becky!" cried Ermengarde, enraptured. - -"Yes," said Sara. "Listen; the two knocks meant, 'Prisoner, are you -there?'" - -She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer. - -"That means, 'Yes, I am here, and all is well.'" - -Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall. - -"That means," explained Sara, "'Then, fellow-sufferer, we will sleep in -peace. Good night.'" - -Ermengarde quite beamed with delight. - -"Oh, Sara!" she whispered joyfully. "It is like a story!" - -"It IS a story," said Sara. "EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story--I -am a story. Miss Minchin is a story." - -And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was -a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sara that -she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal -noiselessly downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed. - - - -10 - -The Indian Gentleman - - -But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make -pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when Sara -would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss -Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after -the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits were rare ones, -and Sara lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier life when -she was downstairs than when she was in her attic. She had no one to -talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked through the -streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying -to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water -soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds -hurrying past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the -Princess Sara, driving through the streets in her brougham, or walking, -attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager little face and -picturesque coats and hats had often caused people to look after her. -A happy, beautifully cared for little girl naturally attracts -attention. Shabby, poorly dressed children are not rare enough and -pretty enough to make people turn around to look at them and smile. No -one looked at Sara in these days, and no one seemed to see her as she -hurried along the crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, -and, as she was dressed only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of -her wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer, indeed. All -her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left -for her use she was expected to wear so long as she could put them on -at all. Sometimes, when she passed a shop window with a mirror in it, -she almost laughed outright on catching a glimpse of herself, and -sometimes her face went red and she bit her lip and turned away. - -In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were lighted up, -she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse herself by imagining -things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or about the -tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of rooms before the -shutters were closed. There were several families in the square in -which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a -way of her own. The one she liked best she called the Large Family. -She called it the Large Family not because the members of it were -big--for, indeed, most of them were little--but because there were so -many of them. There were eight children in the Large Family, and a -stout, rosy mother, and a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy -grandmother, and any number of servants. The eight children were always -either being taken out to walk or to ride in perambulators by -comfortable nurses, or they were going to drive with their mamma, or -they were flying to the door in the evening to meet their papa and kiss -him and dance around him and drag off his overcoat and look in the -pockets for packages, or they were crowding about the nursery windows -and looking out and pushing each other and laughing--in fact, they were -always doing something enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large -family. Sara was quite fond of them, and had given them names out of -books--quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys when she -did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace -cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet -Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and who -had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came -Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica -Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector. - -One evening a very funny thing happened--though, perhaps, in one sense -it was not a funny thing at all. - -Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children's party, -and just as Sara was about to pass the door they were crossing the -pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them. Veronica -Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace frocks and lovely sashes, -had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was following them. He -was such a pretty fellow and had such rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and -such a darling little round head covered with curls, that Sara forgot -her basket and shabby cloak altogether--in fact, forgot everything but -that she wanted to look at him for a moment. So she paused and looked. - -It was Christmas time, and the Large Family had been hearing many -stories about children who were poor and had no mammas and papas to -fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime--children who were, -in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In the stories, kind -people--sometimes little boys and girls with tender hearts--invariably -saw the poor children and gave them money or rich gifts, or took them -home to beautiful dinners. Guy Clarence had been affected to tears -that very afternoon by the reading of such a story, and he had burned -with a desire to find such a poor child and give her a certain sixpence -he possessed, and thus provide for her for life. An entire sixpence, he -was sure, would mean affluence for evermore. As he crossed the strip of -red carpet laid across the pavement from the door to the carriage, he -had this very sixpence in the pocket of his very short man-o-war -trousers; And just as Rosalind Gladys got into the vehicle and jumped -on the seat in order to feel the cushions spring under her, he saw Sara -standing on the wet pavement in her shabby frock and hat, with her old -basket on her arm, looking at him hungrily. - -He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had perhaps had -nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they looked so -because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his home held and his -rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry wish to snatch him in her -arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a thin face -and thin legs and a common basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand -in his pocket and found his sixpence and walked up to her benignly. - -"Here, poor little girl," he said. "Here is a sixpence. I will give it -to you." - -Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly like -poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on the pavement -to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had given them -pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went pale, and for -a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence. - -"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it, indeed!" - -Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her manner -was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica -Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was -really called Nora) leaned forward to listen. - -But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust -the sixpence into her hand. - -"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly. "You -can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!" - -There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so -likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that -Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a -cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it -must be admitted her cheeks burned. - -"Thank you," she said. "You are a kind, kind little darling thing." -And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away, trying to -smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining -through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but -until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar. - -As the Large Family's carriage drove away, the children inside it were -talking with interested excitement. - -"Oh, Donald," (this was Guy Clarence's name), Janet exclaimed -alarmedly, "why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I'm sure -she is not a beggar!" - -"She didn't speak like a beggar!" cried Nora. "And her face didn't -really look like a beggar's face!" - -"Besides, she didn't beg," said Janet. "I was so afraid she might be -angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for -beggars when they are not beggars." - -"She wasn't angry," said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm. -"She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little darling -thing. And I was!"--stoutly. "It was my whole sixpence." - -Janet and Nora exchanged glances. - -"A beggar girl would never have said that," decided Janet. "She would -have said, 'Thank yer kindly, little gentleman--thank yer, sir;' and -perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy." - -Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large Family -was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to -appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions -concerning her were held round the fire. - -"She is a kind of servant at the seminary," Janet said. "I don't -believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan. But she is -not a beggar, however shabby she looks." - -And afterward she was called by all of them, -"The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar," which was, of course, rather a -long name, and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said -it in a hurry. - -Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit -of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large Family -increased--as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love -increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look -forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to -give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her, -and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her -and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to -feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows -that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of -the attic window, and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter -of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds -appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the -crumbs she scattered. With Melchisedec she had become so intimate that -he actually brought Mrs. Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and -then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and, -somehow, he looked quite as if he understood. - -There had grown in her mind rather a strange feeling about Emily, who -always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one of her moments -of great desolateness. She would have liked to believe or pretend to -believe that Emily understood and sympathized with her. She did not -like to own to herself that her only companion could feel and hear -nothing. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to -her on the old red footstool, and stare and pretend about her until her -own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like -fear--particularly at night when everything was so still, when the only -sound in the attic was the occasional sudden scurry and squeak of -Melchisedec's family in the wall. One of her "pretends" was that Emily -was a kind of good witch who could protect her. Sometimes, after she -had stared at her until she was wrought up to the highest pitch of -fancifulness, she would ask her questions and find herself ALMOST -feeling as if she would presently answer. But she never did. - -"As to answering, though," said Sara, trying to console herself, "I -don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When -people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to -say a word--just to look at them and THINK. Miss Minchin turns pale -with rage when I do it, Miss Amelia looks frightened, and so do the -girls. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are -stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your -rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they -hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what -makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer -your enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I -am like myself. Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends, even. -She keeps it all in her heart." - -But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, she did -not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she had been -sent here and there, sometimes on long errands through wind and cold -and rain, she came in wet and hungry, and was sent out again because -nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that her slim -legs might be tired and her small body might be chilled; when she had -been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks for thanks; when -the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss Minchin had been in -her worst mood, and when she had seen the girls sneering among -themselves at her shabbiness--then she was not always able to comfort -her sore, proud, desolate heart with fancies when Emily merely sat -upright in her old chair and stared. - -One of these nights, when she came up to the attic cold and hungry, -with a tempest raging in her young breast, Emily's stare seemed so -vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so inexpressive, that Sara lost all -control over herself. There was nobody but Emily--no one in the world. -And there she sat. - -"I shall die presently," she said at first. - -Emily simply stared. - -"I can't bear this," said the poor child, trembling. "I know I shall -die. I'm cold; I'm wet; I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand -miles today, and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until -night. And because I could not find that last thing the cook sent me -for, they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because -my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now. -And they laughed. Do you hear?" - -She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly -a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage -hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of -sobbing--Sara who never cried. - -"You are nothing but a DOLL!" she cried. "Nothing but a -doll--doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. -You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a -DOLL!" Emily lay on the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up -over her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she was -calm, even dignified. Sara hid her face in her arms. The rats in the -wall began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble. -Melchisedec was chastising some of his family. - -Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to -break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised -her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the -side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of -glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook -her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile. - -"You can't help being a doll," she said with a resigned sigh, "any more -than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We are not all -made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." And she kissed her and -shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her chair. - -She had wished very much that some one would take the empty house next -door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near -hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open -someday and a head and shoulders rising out of the square aperture. - -"If it looked a nice head," she thought, "I might begin by saying, -'Good morning,' and all sorts of things might happen. But, of course, -it's not really likely that anyone but under servants would sleep -there." - -One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit to the -grocer's, the butcher's, and the baker's, she saw, to her great -delight, that during her rather prolonged absence, a van full of -furniture had stopped before the next house, the front doors were -thrown open, and men in shirt sleeves were going in and out carrying -heavy packages and pieces of furniture. - -"It's taken!" she said. "It really IS taken! Oh, I do hope a nice -head will look out of the attic window!" - -She would almost have liked to join the group of loiterers who had -stopped on the pavement to watch the things carried in. She had an idea -that if she could see some of the furniture she could guess something -about the people it belonged to. - -"Miss Minchin's tables and chairs are just like her," she thought; "I -remember thinking that the first minute I saw her, even though I was so -little. I told papa afterward, and he laughed and said it was true. I -am sure the Large Family have fat, comfortable armchairs and sofas, and -I can see that their red-flowery wallpaper is exactly like them. It's -warm and cheerful and kind-looking and happy." - -She was sent out for parsley to the greengrocer's later in the day, and -when she came up the area steps her heart gave quite a quick beat of -recognition. Several pieces of furniture had been set out of the van -upon the pavement. There was a beautiful table of elaborately wrought -teakwood, and some chairs, and a screen covered with rich Oriental -embroidery. The sight of them gave her a weird, homesick feeling. She -had seen things so like them in India. One of the things Miss Minchin -had taken from her was a carved teakwood desk her father had sent her. - -"They are beautiful things," she said; "they look as if they ought to -belong to a nice person. All the things look rather grand. I suppose -it is a rich family." - -The vans of furniture came and were unloaded and gave place to others -all the day. Several times it so happened that Sara had an opportunity -of seeing things carried in. It became plain that she had been right -in guessing that the newcomers were people of large means. All the -furniture was rich and beautiful, and a great deal of it was Oriental. -Wonderful rugs and draperies and ornaments were taken from the vans, -many pictures, and books enough for a library. Among other things there -was a superb god Buddha in a splendid shrine. - -"Someone in the family MUST have been in India," Sara thought. "They -have got used to Indian things and like them. I AM glad. I shall feel -as if they were friends, even if a head never looks out of the attic -window." - -When she was taking in the evening's milk for the cook (there was -really no odd job she was not called upon to do), she saw something -occur which made the situation more interesting than ever. The -handsome, rosy man who was the father of the Large Family walked across -the square in the most matter-of-fact manner, and ran up the steps of -the next-door house. He ran up them as if he felt quite at home and -expected to run up and down them many a time in the future. He stayed -inside quite a long time, and several times came out and gave -directions to the workmen, as if he had a right to do so. It was quite -certain that he was in some intimate way connected with the newcomers -and was acting for them. - -"If the new people have children," Sara speculated, "the Large Family -children will be sure to come and play with them, and they MIGHT come -up into the attic just for fun." - -At night, after her work was done, Becky came in to see her fellow -prisoner and bring her news. - -"It's a' Nindian gentleman that's comin' to live next door, miss," she -said. "I don't know whether he's a black gentleman or not, but he's a -Nindian one. He's very rich, an' he's ill, an' the gentleman of the -Large Family is his lawyer. He's had a lot of trouble, an' it's made -him ill an' low in his mind. He worships idols, miss. He's an 'eathen -an' bows down to wood an' stone. I seen a' idol bein' carried in for -him to worship. Somebody had oughter send him a trac'. You can get a -trac' for a penny." - -Sara laughed a little. - -"I don't believe he worships that idol," she said; "some people like to -keep them to look at because they are interesting. My papa had a -beautiful one, and he did not worship it." - -But Becky was rather inclined to prefer to believe that the new -neighbor was "an 'eathen." It sounded so much more romantic than that -he should merely be the ordinary kind of gentleman who went to church -with a prayer book. She sat and talked long that night of what he -would be like, of what his wife would be like if he had one, and of -what his children would be like if they had children. Sara saw that -privately she could not help hoping very much that they would all be -black, and would wear turbans, and, above all, that--like their -parent--they would all be "'eathens." - -"I never lived next door to no 'eathens, miss," she said; "I should -like to see what sort o' ways they'd have." - -It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it -was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He -was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he -was shattered in health and unhappy in mind. - -A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When the -footman dismounted from the box and opened the door the gentleman who -was the father of the Large Family got out first. After him there -descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the steps two -men-servants. They came to assist their master, who, when he was helped -out of the carriage, proved to be a man with a haggard, distressed -face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs. He was carried up the -steps, and the head of the Large Family went with him, looking very -anxious. Shortly afterward a doctor's carriage arrived, and the doctor -went in--plainly to take care of him. - -"There is such a yellow gentleman next door, Sara," Lottie whispered at -the French class afterward. "Do you think he is a Chinee? The -geography says the Chinee men are yellow." - -"No, he is not Chinese," Sara whispered back; "he is very ill. Go on -with your exercise, Lottie. 'Non, monsieur. Je n'ai pas le canif de -mon oncle.'" - -That was the beginning of the story of the Indian gentleman. - - - -11 - -Ram Dass - - -There were fine sunsets even in the square, sometimes. One could only -see parts of them, however, between the chimneys and over the roofs. -From the kitchen windows one could not see them at all, and could only -guess that they were going on because the bricks looked warm and the -air rosy or yellow for a while, or perhaps one saw a blazing glow -strike a particular pane of glass somewhere. There was, however, one -place from which one could see all the splendor of them: the piles of -red or gold clouds in the west; or the purple ones edged with dazzling -brightness; or the little fleecy, floating ones, tinged with rose-color -and looking like flights of pink doves scurrying across the blue in a -great hurry if there was a wind. The place where one could see all -this, and seem at the same time to breathe a purer air, was, of course, -the attic window. When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in -an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and -railings, Sara knew something was going on in the sky; and when it was -at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called -back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs, -and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the -window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a -long breath and looked all round her. It used to seem as if she had -all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of -the other attics. Generally the skylights were closed; but even if -they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them. -And there Sara would stand, sometimes turning her face upward to the -blue which seemed so friendly and near--just like a lovely vaulted -ceiling--sometimes watching the west and all the wonderful things that -happened there: the clouds melting or drifting or waiting softly to be -changed pink or crimson or snow-white or purple or pale dove-gray. -Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep -turquoise-blue, or liquid amber, or chrysoprase-green; sometimes dark -headlands jutted into strange, lost seas; sometimes slender strips of -wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together. There were -places where it seemed that one could run or climb or stand and wait to -see what next was coming--until, perhaps, as it all melted, one could -float away. At least it seemed so to Sara, and nothing had ever been -quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the -table--her body half out of the skylight--the sparrows twittering with -sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to -twitter with a sort of subdued softness just when these marvels were -going on. - -There was such a sunset as this a few days after the Indian gentleman -was brought to his new home; and, as it fortunately happened that the -afternoon's work was done in the kitchen and nobody had ordered her to -go anywhere or perform any task, Sara found it easier than usual to -slip away and go upstairs. - -She mounted her table and stood looking out. It was a wonderful -moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west, as if a -glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light -filled the air; the birds flying across the tops of the houses showed -quite black against it. - -"It's a Splendid one," said Sara, softly, to herself. "It makes me -feel almost afraid--as if something strange was just going to happen. -The Splendid ones always make me feel like that." - -She suddenly turned her head because she heard a sound a few yards away -from her. It was an odd sound like a queer little squeaky chattering. -It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at -the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging -from the skylight, but it was not the head or body of a little girl or -a housemaid; it was the picturesque white-swathed form and dark-faced, -gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-servant--"a -Lascar," Sara said to herself quickly--and the sound she had heard came -from a small monkey he held in his arms as if he were fond of it, and -which was snuggling and chattering against his breast. - -As Sara looked toward him he looked toward her. The first thing she -thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt -absolutely sure he had come up to look at the sun, because he had seen -it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at -him interestedly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She -had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may -be. - -Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered, -and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was -as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. The friendly look -in Sara's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull. - -It was perhaps in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on -the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure, -and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He -suddenly broke loose, jumped on to the slates, ran across them -chattering, and actually leaped on to Sara's shoulder, and from there -down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her; but she -knew he must be restored to his master--if the Lascar was his -master--and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her -catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps -get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at -all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was -fond of him. - -She turned to the Lascar, feeling glad that she remembered still some -of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She -could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he -knew. - -"Will he let me catch him?" she asked. - -She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark -face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was -that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind -little voice came from heaven itself. At once Sara saw that he had -been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of -respectful thanks. He was the servant of Missee Sahib. The monkey was -a good monkey and would not bite; but, unfortunately, he was difficult -to catch. He would flee from one spot to another, like the lightning. -He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Dass knew him as if he were -his child, and Ram Dass he would sometimes obey, but not always. If -Missee Sahib would permit Ram Dass, he himself could cross the roof to -her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal. -But he was evidently afraid Sara might think he was taking a great -liberty and perhaps would not let him come. - -But Sara gave him leave at once. - -"Can you get across?" she inquired. - -"In a moment," he answered her. - -"Then come," she said; "he is flying from side to side of the room as -if he was frightened." - -Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as -steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He -slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. -Then he turned to Sara and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and -uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of -shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. It was not a very -long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the -mere fun of it, but presently he sprang chattering on to Ram Dass's -shoulder and sat there chattering and clinging to his neck with a weird -little skinny arm. - -Ram Dass thanked Sara profoundly. She had seen that his quick native -eyes had taken in at a glance all the bare shabbiness of the room, but -he spoke to her as if he were speaking to the little daughter of a -rajah, and pretended that he observed nothing. He did not presume to -remain more than a few moments after he had caught the monkey, and -those moments were given to further deep and grateful obeisance to her -in return for her indulgence. This little evil one, he said, stroking -the monkey, was, in truth, not so evil as he seemed, and his master, -who was ill, was sometimes amused by him. He would have been made sad -if his favorite had run away and been lost. Then he salaamed once more -and got through the skylight and across the slates again with as much -agility as the monkey himself had displayed. - -When he had gone Sara stood in the middle of her attic and thought of -many things his face and his manner had brought back to her. The sight -of his native costume and the profound reverence of his manner stirred -all her past memories. It seemed a strange thing to remember that -she--the drudge whom the cook had said insulting things to an hour -ago--had only a few years ago been surrounded by people who all treated -her as Ram Dass had treated her; who salaamed when she went by, whose -foreheads almost touched the ground when she spoke to them, who were -her servants and her slaves. It was like a sort of dream. It was all -over, and it could never come back. It certainly seemed that there was -no way in which any change could take place. She knew what Miss Minchin -intended that her future should be. So long as she was too young to be -used as a regular teacher, she would be used as an errand girl and -servant and yet expected to remember what she had learned and in some -mysterious way to learn more. The greater number of her evenings she -was supposed to spend at study, and at various indefinite intervals she -was examined and knew she would have been severely admonished if she -had not advanced as was expected of her. The truth, indeed, was that -Miss Minchin knew that she was too anxious to learn to require -teachers. Give her books, and she would devour them and end by knowing -them by heart. She might be trusted to be equal to teaching a good -deal in the course of a few years. This was what would happen: when -she was older she would be expected to drudge in the schoolroom as she -drudged now in various parts of the house; they would be obliged to -give her more respectable clothes, but they would be sure to be plain -and ugly and to make her look somehow like a servant. That was all -there seemed to be to look forward to, and Sara stood quite still for -several minutes and thought it over. - -Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek -and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little -body and lifted her head. - -"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a -princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be -easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a -great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows -it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne -was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and -they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more -like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. -I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten -her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off." - -This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had -consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the -house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not -understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it -seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above -the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and -acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them -at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, -domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes -fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such -times she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: - -"You don't know that you are saying these things to a princess, and -that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only -spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, -vulgar old thing, and don't know any better." - -This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer -and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing -for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be -made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. - -"A princess must be polite," she said to herself. - -And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were -insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply -to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. - -"She's got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham -Palace, that young one," said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. -"I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never -forgets her manners. 'If you please, cook'; 'Will you be so kind, -cook?' 'I beg your pardon, cook'; 'May I trouble you, cook?' She -drops 'em about the kitchen as if they was nothing." - -The morning after the interview with Ram Dass and his monkey, Sara was -in the schoolroom with her small pupils. Having finished giving them -their lessons, she was putting the French exercise-books together and -thinking, as she did it, of the various things royal personages in -disguise were called upon to do: Alfred the Great, for instance, -burning the cakes and getting his ears boxed by the wife of the -neat-herd. How frightened she must have been when she found out what -she had done. If Miss Minchin should find out that she--Sara, whose -toes were almost sticking out of her boots--was a princess--a real one! -The look in her eyes was exactly the look which Miss Minchin most -disliked. She would not have it; she was quite near her and was so -enraged that she actually flew at her and boxed her ears--exactly as -the neat-herd's wife had boxed King Alfred's. It made Sara start. She -wakened from her dream at the shock, and, catching her breath, stood -still a second. Then, not knowing she was going to do it, she broke -into a little laugh. - -"What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child?" Miss Minchin -exclaimed. - -It took Sara a few seconds to control herself sufficiently to remember -that she was a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting from the -blows she had received. - -"I was thinking," she answered. - -"Beg my pardon immediately," said Miss Minchin. - -Sara hesitated a second before she replied. - -"I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was rude," she said then; -"but I won't beg your pardon for thinking." - -"What were you thinking?" demanded Miss Minchin. -"How dare you think? What were you thinking?" - -Jessie tittered, and she and Lavinia nudged each other in unison. All -the girls looked up from their books to listen. Really, it always -interested them a little when Miss Minchin attacked Sara. Sara always -said something queer, and never seemed the least bit frightened. She -was not in the least frightened now, though her boxed ears were scarlet -and her eyes were as bright as stars. - -"I was thinking," she answered grandly and politely, "that you did not -know what you were doing." - -"That I did not know what I was doing?" Miss Minchin fairly gasped. - -"Yes," said Sara, "and I was thinking what would happen if I were a -princess and you boxed my ears--what I should do to you. And I was -thinking that if I were one, you would never dare to do it, whatever I -said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would -be if you suddenly found out--" - -She had the imagined future so clearly before her eyes that she spoke -in a manner which had an effect even upon Miss Minchin. It almost -seemed for the moment to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must -be some real power hidden behind this candid daring. - -"What?" she exclaimed. "Found out what?" - -"That I really was a princess," said Sara, "and could do -anything--anything I liked." - -Every pair of eyes in the room widened to its full limit. Lavinia -leaned forward on her seat to look. - -"Go to your room," cried Miss Minchin, breathlessly, "this instant! -Leave the schoolroom! Attend to your lessons, young ladies!" - -Sara made a little bow. - -"Excuse me for laughing if it was impolite," she said, and walked out -of the room, leaving Miss Minchin struggling with her rage, and the -girls whispering over their books. - -"Did you see her? Did you see how queer she looked?" Jessie broke -out. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be -something. Suppose she should!" - - - -12 - -The Other Side of the Wall - - -When one lives in a row of houses, it is interesting to think of the -things which are being done and said on the other side of the wall of -the very rooms one is living in. Sara was fond of amusing herself by -trying to imagine the things hidden by the wall which divided the -Select Seminary from the Indian gentleman's house. She knew that the -schoolroom was next to the Indian gentleman's study, and she hoped that -the wall was thick so that the noise made sometimes after lesson hours -would not disturb him. - -"I am growing quite fond of him," she said to Ermengarde; "I should not -like him to be disturbed. I have adopted him for a friend. You can do -that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them, -and think about them and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like -relations. I'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call -twice a day." - -"I have very few relations," said Ermengarde, reflectively, "and I'm -very glad of it. I don't like those I have. My two aunts are always -saying, 'Dear me, Ermengarde! You are very fat. You shouldn't eat -sweets,' and my uncle is always asking me things like, 'When did Edward -the Third ascend the throne?' and, 'Who died of a surfeit of lampreys?'" - -Sara laughed. - -"People you never speak to can't ask you questions like that," she -said; "and I'm sure the Indian gentleman wouldn't even if he was quite -intimate with you. I am fond of him." - -She had become fond of the Large Family because they looked happy; but -she had become fond of the Indian gentleman because he looked unhappy. -He had evidently not fully recovered from some very severe illness. In -the kitchen--where, of course, the servants, through some mysterious -means, knew everything--there was much discussion of his case. He was -not an Indian gentleman really, but an Englishman who had lived in -India. He had met with great misfortunes which had for a time so -imperilled his whole fortune that he had thought himself ruined and -disgraced forever. The shock had been so great that he had almost died -of brain fever; and ever since he had been shattered in health, though -his fortunes had changed and all his possessions had been restored to -him. His trouble and peril had been connected with mines. - -"And mines with diamonds in 'em!" said the cook. "No savin's of mine -never goes into no mines--particular diamond ones"--with a side glance -at Sara. "We all know somethin' of THEM." - -"He felt as my papa felt," Sara thought. "He was ill as my papa was; -but he did not die." - -So her heart was more drawn to him than before. When she was sent out -at night she used sometimes to feel quite glad, because there was -always a chance that the curtains of the house next door might not yet -be closed and she could look into the warm room and see her adopted -friend. When no one was about she used sometimes to stop, and, holding -to the iron railings, wish him good night as if he could hear her. - -"Perhaps you can FEEL if you can't hear," was her fancy. "Perhaps kind -thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and -walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don't know -why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well -and happy again. I am so sorry for you," she would whisper in an -intense little voice. "I wish you had a 'Little Missus' who could pet -you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be -your 'Little Missus' myself, poor dear! Good night--good night. God -bless you!" - -She would go away, feeling quite comforted and a little warmer herself. -Her sympathy was so strong that it seemed as if it MUST reach him -somehow as he sat alone in his armchair by the fire, nearly always in a -great dressing gown, and nearly always with his forehead resting in his -hand as he gazed hopelessly into the fire. He looked to Sara like a man -who had a trouble on his mind still, not merely like one whose troubles -lay all in the past. - -"He always seems as if he were thinking of something that hurts him -NOW," she said to herself, "but he has got his money back and he will -get over his brain fever in time, so he ought not to look like that. I -wonder if there is something else." - -If there was something else--something even servants did not hear -of--she could not help believing that the father of the Large Family -knew it--the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency. Mr. Montmorency -went to see him often, and Mrs. Montmorency and all the little -Montmorencys went, too, though less often. He seemed particularly fond -of the two elder little girls--the Janet and Nora who had been so -alarmed when their small brother Donald had given Sara his sixpence. He -had, in fact, a very tender place in his heart for all children, and -particularly for little girls. Janet and Nora were as fond of him as -he was of them, and looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the -afternoons when they were allowed to cross the square and make their -well-behaved little visits to him. They were extremely decorous little -visits because he was an invalid. - -"He is a poor thing," said Janet, "and he says we cheer him up. We try -to cheer him up very quietly." - -Janet was the head of the family, and kept the rest of it in order. It -was she who decided when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to -tell stories about India, and it was she who saw when he was tired and -it was the time to steal quietly away and tell Ram Dass to go to him. -They were very fond of Ram Dass. He could have told any number of -stories if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani. The -Indian gentleman's real name was Mr. Carrisford, and Janet told Mr. -Carrisford about the encounter with the -little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. He was very much interested, and all -the more so when he heard from Ram Dass of the adventure of the monkey -on the roof. Ram Dass made for him a very clear picture of the attic -and its desolateness--of the bare floor and broken plaster, the rusty, -empty grate, and the hard, narrow bed. - -"Carmichael," he said to the father of the Large Family, after he had -heard this description, "I wonder how many of the attics in this square -are like that one, and how many wretched little servant girls sleep on -such beds, while I toss on my down pillows, loaded and harassed by -wealth that is, most of it--not mine." - -"My dear fellow," Mr. Carmichael answered cheerily, "the sooner you -cease tormenting yourself the better it will be for you. If you -possessed all the wealth of all the Indies, you could not set right all -the discomforts in the world, and if you began to refurnish all the -attics in this square, there would still remain all the attics in all -the other squares and streets to put in order. And there you are!" - -Mr. Carrisford sat and bit his nails as he looked into the glowing bed -of coals in the grate. - -"Do you suppose," he said slowly, after a pause--"do you think it is -possible that the other child--the child I never cease thinking of, I -believe--could be--could POSSIBLY be reduced to any such condition as -the poor little soul next door?" - -Mr. Carmichael looked at him uneasily. He knew that the worst thing -the man could do for himself, for his reason and his health, was to -begin to think in the particular way of this particular subject. - -"If the child at Madame Pascal's school in Paris was the one you are in -search of," he answered soothingly, "she would seem to be in the hands -of people who can afford to take care of her. They adopted her because -she had been the favorite companion of their little daughter who died. -They had no other children, and Madame Pascal said that they were -extremely well-to-do Russians." - -"And the wretched woman actually did not know where they had taken -her!" exclaimed Mr. Carrisford. - -Mr. Carmichael shrugged his shoulders. - -"She was a shrewd, worldly Frenchwoman, and was evidently only too glad -to get the child so comfortably off her hands when the father's death -left her totally unprovided for. Women of her type do not trouble -themselves about the futures of children who might prove burdens. The -adopted parents apparently disappeared and left no trace." - -"But you say 'IF the child was the one I am in search of. You say 'if.' -We are not sure. There was a difference in the name." - -"Madame Pascal pronounced it as if it were Carew instead of Crewe--but -that might be merely a matter of pronunciation. The circumstances were -curiously similar. An English officer in India had placed his -motherless little girl at the school. He had died suddenly after -losing his fortune." Mr. Carmichael paused a moment, as if a new -thought had occurred to him. "Are you SURE the child was left at a -school in Paris? Are you sure it was Paris?" - -"My dear fellow," broke forth Carrisford, with restless bitterness, "I -am SURE of nothing. I never saw either the child or her mother. Ralph -Crewe and I loved each other as boys, but we had not met since our -school days, until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent -promise of the mines. He became absorbed, too. The whole thing was so -huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we -scarcely spoke of anything else. I only knew that the child had been -sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember, now, HOW I knew it." - -He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when his -still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the -past. - -Mr. Carmichael watched him anxiously. It was necessary to ask some -questions, but they must be put quietly and with caution. - -"But you had reason to think the school WAS in Paris?" - -"Yes," was the answer, "because her mother was a Frenchwoman, and I had -heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed -only likely that she would be there." - -"Yes," Mr. Carmichael said, "it seems more than probable." - -The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, -wasted hand. - -"Carmichael," he said, "I MUST find her. If she is alive, she is -somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault. -How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? -This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our -most fantastic dreams, and poor Crewe's child may be begging in the -street!" - -"No, no," said Carmichael. "Try to be calm. Console yourself with the -fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her." - -"Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?" -Carrisford groaned in petulant misery. "I believe I should have stood -my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as -well as my own. Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he -owned. He trusted me--he LOVED me. And he died thinking I had ruined -him--I--Tom Carrisford, who played cricket at Eton with him. What a -villain he must have thought me!" - -"Don't reproach yourself so bitterly." - -"I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail--I -reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and -a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had -ruined him and his child." - -The good-hearted father of the Large Family put his hand on his -shoulder comfortingly. - -"You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of -mental torture," he said. "You were half delirious already. If you -had not been you would have stayed and fought it out. You were in a -hospital, strapped down in bed, raving with brain fever, two days after -you left the place. Remember that." - -Carrisford dropped his forehead in his hands. - -"Good God! Yes," he said. "I was driven mad with dread and horror. I -had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house all the -air seemed full of hideous things mocking and mouthing at me." - -"That is explanation enough in itself," said Mr. Carmichael. "How -could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely!" - -Carrisford shook his drooping head. - -"And when I returned to consciousness poor Crewe was dead--and buried. -And I seemed to remember nothing. I did not remember the child for -months and months. Even when I began to recall her existence -everything seemed in a sort of haze." - -He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead. "It sometimes seems so -now when I try to remember. Surely I must sometime have heard Crewe -speak of the school she was sent to. Don't you think so?" - -"He might not have spoken of it definitely. You never seem even to -have heard her real name." - -"He used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented. He called her -his 'Little Missus.' But the wretched mines drove everything else out -of our heads. We talked of nothing else. If he spoke of the school, I -forgot--I forgot. And now I shall never remember." - -"Come, come," said Carmichael. "We shall find her yet. We will -continue to search for Madame Pascal's good-natured Russians. She -seemed to have a vague idea that they lived in Moscow. We will take -that as a clue. I will go to Moscow." - -"If I were able to travel, I would go with you," said Carrisford; "but -I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire. And when I -look into it I seem to see Crewe's gay young face gazing back at me. -He looks as if he were asking me a question. Sometimes I dream of him -at night, and he always stands before me and asks the same question in -words. Can you guess what he says, Carmichael?" - -Mr. Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice. - -"Not exactly," he said. - -"He always says, 'Tom, old man--Tom--where is the Little Missus?'" He -caught at Carmichael's hand and clung to it. "I must be able to answer -him--I must!" he said. "Help me to find her. Help me." - - -On the other side of the wall Sara was sitting in her garret talking to -Melchisedec, who had come out for his evening meal. - -"It has been hard to be a princess today, Melchisedec," she said. "It -has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the weather grows colder -and the streets get more sloppy. When Lavinia laughed at my muddy -skirt as I passed her in the hall, I thought of something to say all in -a flash--and I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back -at people like that--if you are a princess. But you have to bite your -tongue to hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, -Melchisedec. And it's a cold night." - -Quite suddenly she put her black head down in her arms, as she often -did when she was alone. - -"Oh, papa," she whispered, "what a long time it seems since I was your -'Little Missus'!" - -This was what happened that day on both sides of the wall. - - - -13 - -One of the Populace - - -The winter was a wretched one. There were days on which Sara tramped -through snow when she went on her errands; there were worse days when -the snow melted and combined itself with mud to form slush; there were -others when the fog was so thick that the lamps in the street were -lighted all day and London looked as it had looked the afternoon, -several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thoroughfares -with Sara tucked up on its seat, leaning against her father's shoulder. -On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked -delightfully cozy and alluring, and the study in which the Indian -gentleman sat glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was -dismal beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look -at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds hung -low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping -heavy rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no -special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to -her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to light a candle. The women -in the kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered -than ever. Becky was driven like a little slave. - -"'Twarn't for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night when she -had crept into the attic--"'twarn't for you, an' the Bastille, an' -bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does -seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer -every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. -The cook she's like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, -please, miss--tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've dug under the -walls." - -"I'll tell you something warmer," shivered Sara. "Get your coverlet -and wrap it round you, and I'll get mine, and we will huddle close -together on the bed, and I'll tell you about the tropical forest where -the Indian gentleman's monkey used to live. When I see him sitting on -the table near the window and looking out into the street with that -mournful expression, I always feel sure he is thinking about the -tropical forest where he used to swing by his tail from coconut trees. -I wonder who caught him, and if he left a family behind who had -depended on him for coconuts." - -"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways, even -the Bastille is sort of heatin' when you gets to tellin' about it." - -"That is because it makes you think of something else," said Sara, -wrapping the coverlet round her until only her small dark face was to -be seen looking out of it. "I've noticed this. What you have to do -with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of -something else." - -"Can you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes. - -Sara knitted her brows a moment. - -"Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't," she said stoutly. "But when I -CAN I'm all right. And what I believe is that we always could--if we -practiced enough. I've been practicing a good deal lately, and it's -beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are -horrible--just horrible--I think as hard as ever I can of being a -princess. I say to myself, 'I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and -because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable.' -You don't know how it makes you forget"--with a laugh. - -She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else, -and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she was a -princess. But one of the strongest tests she was ever put to came on a -certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, would never -quite fade out of her memory even in the years to come. - -For several days it had rained continuously; the streets were chilly -and sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist; there was mud -everywhere--sticky London mud--and over everything the pall of drizzle -and fog. Of course there were several long and tiresome errands to be -done--there always were on days like this--and Sara was sent out again -and again, until her shabby clothes were damp through. The absurd old -feathers on her forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd than ever, -and her downtrodden shoes were so wet that they could not hold any more -water. Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner, because -Miss Minchin had chosen to punish her. She was so cold and hungry and -tired that her face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some -kind-hearted person passing her in the street glanced at her with -sudden sympathy. But she did not know that. She hurried on, trying to -make her mind think of something else. It was really very necessary. -Her way of doing it was to "pretend" and "suppose" with all the -strength that was left in her. But really this time it was harder than -she had ever found it, and once or twice she thought it almost made her -more cold and hungry instead of less so. But she persevered -obstinately, and as the muddy water squelched through her broken shoes -and the wind seemed trying to drag her thin jacket from her, she talked -to herself as she walked, though she did not speak aloud or even move -her lips. - -"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought. "Suppose I had good shoes -and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And -suppose--suppose--just when I was near a baker's where they sold hot -buns, I should find sixpence--which belonged to nobody. SUPPOSE if I -did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns and eat -them all without stopping." - -Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes. - -It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sara. She had to cross -the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud was -dreadful--she almost had to wade. She picked her way as carefully as -she could, but she could not save herself much; only, in picking her -way, she had to look down at her feet and the mud, and in looking -down--just as she reached the pavement--she saw something shining in -the gutter. It was actually a piece of silver--a tiny piece trodden -upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough left to shine a little. -Not quite a sixpence, but the next thing to it--a fourpenny piece. - -In one second it was in her cold little red-and-blue hand. - -"Oh," she gasped, "it is true! It is true!" - -And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the shop -directly facing her. And it was a baker's shop, and a cheerful, stout, -motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into the window a tray of -delicious newly baked hot buns, fresh from the oven--large, plump, -shiny buns, with currants in them. - -It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds--the shock, and the -sight of the buns, and the delightful odors of warm bread floating up -through the baker's cellar window. - -She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money. It -had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was -completely lost in the stream of passing people who crowded and jostled -each other all day long. - -"But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything," she -said to herself, rather faintly. So she crossed the pavement and put -her wet foot on the step. As she did so she saw something that made -her stop. - -It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself--a little figure -which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, -red muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner -was trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared -a shock head of tangled hair, and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry -eyes. - -Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a -sudden sympathy. - -"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the -populace--and she is hungrier than I am." - -The child--this "one of the populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled -herself aside a little, so as to give her room to pass. She was used -to being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman -chanced to see her he would tell her to "move on." - -Sara clutched her little fourpenny piece and hesitated for a few -seconds. Then she spoke to her. - -"Are you hungry?" she asked. - -The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more. - -"Ain't I jist?" she said in a hoarse voice. "Jist ain't I?" - -"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara. - -"No dinner," more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. "Nor yet no -bre'fast--nor yet no supper. No nothin'. - -"Since when?" asked Sara. - -"Dunno. Never got nothin' today--nowhere. I've axed an' axed." - -Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer -little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to -herself, though she was sick at heart. - -"If I'm a princess," she was saying, "if I'm a princess--when they were -poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the -populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves. They -always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it had been sixpence I could -have eaten six. It won't be enough for either of us. But it will be -better than nothing." - -"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar child. - -She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously. The -woman was just going to put some more hot buns into the window. - -"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver -fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her. - -The woman looked at it and then at her--at her intense little face and -draggled, once fine clothes. - -"Bless us, no," she answered. "Did you find it?" - -"Yes," said Sara. "In the gutter." - -"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there for a week, -and goodness knows who lost it. YOU could never find out." - -"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I would ask you." - -"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and -good-natured all at once. - -"Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara glance at -the buns. - -"Four buns, if you please," said Sara. "Those at a penny each." - -The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. - -Sara noticed that she put in six. - -"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only fourpence." - -"I'll throw in two for makeweight," said the woman with her -good-natured look. "I dare say you can eat them sometime. Aren't you -hungry?" - -A mist rose before Sara's eyes. - -"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you -for your kindness; and"--she was going to add--"there is a child -outside who is hungrier than I am." But just at that moment two or -three customers came in at once, and each one seemed in a hurry, so she -could only thank the woman again and go out. - -The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step. She -looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring straight -before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara saw her suddenly -draw the back of her roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away -the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from -under her lids. She was muttering to herself. - -Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had -already warmed her own cold hands a little. - -"See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is nice and -hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry." - -The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good -luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the bun and began to -cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites. - -"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight. "OH -my!" - -Sara took out three more buns and put them down. - -The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful. - -"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." -But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not -starving," she said--and she put down the fifth. - -The little ravening London savage was still snatching and devouring -when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if -she had ever been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a -poor little wild animal. - -"Good-bye," said Sara. - -When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The -child had a bun in each hand and had stopped in the middle of a bite to -watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another -stare--a curious lingering stare--jerked her shaggy head in response, -and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even -finish the one she had begun. - -At that moment the baker-woman looked out of her shop window. - -"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young un hasn't given her -buns to a beggar child! It wasn't because she didn't want them, -either. Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to -know what she did it for." - -She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her -curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the -beggar child. - -"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her. The child nodded her head -toward Sara's vanishing figure. - -"What did she say?" inquired the woman. - -"Axed me if I was 'ungry," replied the hoarse voice. - -"What did you say?" - -"Said I was jist." - -"And then she came in and got the buns, and gave them to you, did she?" - -The child nodded. - -"How many?" - -"Five." - -The woman thought it over. - -"Left just one for herself," she said in a low voice. "And she could -have eaten the whole six--I saw it in her eyes." - -She looked after the little draggled far-away figure and felt more -disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a -day. - -"I wish she hadn't gone so quick," she said. "I'm blest if she -shouldn't have had a dozen." Then she turned to the child. - -"Are you hungry yet?" she said. - -"I'm allus hungry," was the answer, "but 't ain't as bad as it was." - -"Come in here," said the woman, and she held open the shop door. - -The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited into a warm place full -of bread seemed an incredible thing. She did not know what was going -to happen. She did not care, even. - -"Get yourself warm," said the woman, pointing to a fire in the tiny -back room. "And look here; when you are hard up for a bit of bread, -you can come in here and ask for it. I'm blest if I won't give it to -you for that young one's sake." - - * * * - -Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. At all events, it was -very hot, and it was better than nothing. As she walked along she -broke off small pieces and ate them slowly to make them last longer. - -"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a -whole dinner. I should be overeating myself if I went on like this." - -It was dark when she reached the square where the Select Seminary was -situated. The lights in the houses were all lighted. The blinds were -not yet drawn in the windows of the room where she nearly always caught -glimpses of members of the Large Family. Frequently at this hour she -could see the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency sitting in a big -chair, with a small swarm round him, talking, laughing, perching on the -arms of his seat or on his knees or leaning against them. This evening -the swarm was about him, but he was not seated. On the contrary, there -was a good deal of excitement going on. It was evident that a journey -was to be taken, and it was Mr. Montmorency who was to take it. A -brougham stood before the door, and a big portmanteau had been strapped -upon it. The children were dancing about, chattering and hanging on to -their father. The pretty rosy mother was standing near him, talking as -if she was asking final questions. Sara paused a moment to see the -little ones lifted up and kissed and the bigger ones bent over and -kissed also. - -"I wonder if he will stay away long," she thought. "The portmanteau is -rather big. Oh, dear, how they will miss him! I shall miss him -myself--even though he doesn't know I am alive." - -When the door opened she moved away--remembering the sixpence--but she -saw the traveler come out and stand against the background of the -warmly-lighted hall, the older children still hovering about him. - -"Will Moscow be covered with snow?" said the little girl Janet. "Will -there be ice everywhere?" - -"Shall you drive in a drosky?" cried another. "Shall you see the Czar?" - -"I will write and tell you all about it," he answered, laughing. "And -I will send you pictures of muzhiks and things. Run into the house. It -is a hideous damp night. I would rather stay with you than go to -Moscow. Good night! Good night, duckies! God bless you!" And he ran -down the steps and jumped into the brougham. - -"If you find the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence, -jumping up and down on the door mat. - -Then they went in and shut the door. - -"Did you see," said Janet to Nora, as they went back to the room--"the -little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar was passing? She looked all cold and -wet, and I saw her turn her head over her shoulder and look at us. -Mamma says her clothes always look as if they had been given her by -someone who was quite rich--someone who only let her have them because -they were too shabby to wear. The people at the school always send her -out on errands on the horridest days and nights there are." - -Sara crossed the square to Miss Minchin's area steps, feeling faint and -shaky. - -"I wonder who the little girl is," she thought--"the little girl he is -going to look for." - -And she went down the area steps, lugging her basket and finding it -very heavy indeed, as the father of the Large Family drove quickly on -his way to the station to take the train which was to carry him to -Moscow, where he was to make his best efforts to search for the lost -little daughter of Captain Crewe. - - - -14 - -What Melchisedec Heard and Saw - - -On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strange thing happened in -the attic. Only Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was so much -alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there, -and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with -great caution to watch what was going on. - -The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it in the -early morning. The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of -the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchisedec had, in fact, -found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect -silence reigned, he decided to come out and reconnoiter, though -experience taught him that Sara would not return for some time. He had -been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally -unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his -attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He stopped to listen -with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that something was moving -on the roof. It was approaching the skylight; it reached the skylight. -The skylight was being mysteriously opened. A dark face peered into -the attic; then another face appeared behind it, and both looked in -with signs of caution and interest. Two men were outside on the roof, -and were making silent preparations to enter through the skylight -itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was a young man who was the -Indian gentleman's secretary; but of course Melchisedec did not know -this. He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy -of the attic; and as the one with the dark face let himself down -through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not -make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turned tail and fled -precipitately back to his hole. He was frightened to death. He had -ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would never throw anything -but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low, -coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain -near. He lay close and flat near the entrance of his home, just -managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much -he understood of the talk he heard I am not in the least able to say; -but, even if he had understood it all, he would probably have remained -greatly mystified. - -The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as -noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last glimpse of -Melchisedec's vanishing tail. - -"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper. - -"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There are -many in the walls." - -"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man. "It is a wonder the child is not -terrified of them." - -Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully. -He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara, though she had -only spoken to him once. - -"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he answered. -"She is not as other children. I see her when she does not see me. I -slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is -safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She -stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to -her. The sparrows come at her call. The rat she has fed and tamed in -her loneliness. The poor slave of the house comes to her for comfort. -There is a little child who comes to her in secret; there is one older -who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might. This I -have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the -house--who is an evil woman--she is treated like a pariah; but she has -the bearing of a child who is of the blood of kings!" - -"You seem to know a great deal about her," the secretary said. - -"All her life each day I know," answered Ram Dass. "Her going out I -know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her coldness -and her hunger. I know when she is alone until midnight, learning from -her books; I know when her secret friends steal to her and she is -happier--as children can be, even in the midst of poverty--because they -come and she may laugh and talk with them in whispers. If she were ill -I should know, and I would come and serve her if it might be done." - -"You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that she -will not return and surprise us. She would be frightened if she found -us here, and the Sahib Carrisford's plan would be spoiled." - -Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to it. - -"None mount here but herself, Sahib," he said. "She has gone out with -her basket and may be gone for hours. If I stand here I can hear any -step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs." - -The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast pocket. - -"Keep your ears open," he said; and he began to walk slowly and softly -round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his tablet as he -looked at things. - -First he went to the narrow bed. He pressed his hand upon the mattress -and uttered an exclamation. - -"As hard as a stone," he said. "That will have to be altered some day -when she is out. A special journey can be made to bring it across. It -cannot be done tonight." He lifted the covering and examined the one -thin pillow. - -"Coverlet dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and ragged," he -said. "What a bed for a child to sleep in--and in a house which calls -itself respectable! There has not been a fire in that grate for many a -day," glancing at the rusty fireplace. - -"Never since I have seen it," said Ram Dass. "The mistress of the -house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be cold." - -The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet. He looked up from it -as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket. - -"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said. "Who planned it?" - -Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance. - -"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said; "though -it was naught but a fancy. I am fond of this child; we are both -lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends. -Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The -vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had -comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew -cheered and warmed as she spoke. Then she came to this fancy; and the -next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to -amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased the Sahib. To -hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested -in her and asked questions. At last he began to please himself with -the thought of making her visions real things." - -"You think that it can be done while she sleeps? Suppose she -awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that whatsoever -the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well -as the Sahib Carrisford's. - -"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied; "and -children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones. I could have entered -this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon -her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things through the -window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she awakens she will -think a magician has been here." - -He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the -secretary smiled back at him. - -"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said. "Only an -Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London fogs." - -They did not remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who, -as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their -movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested -in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace, -the broken footstool, the old table, the walls--which last he touched -with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that -a number of old nails had been driven in various places. - -"You can hang things on them," he said. - -Ram Dass smiled mysteriously. - -"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered, bringing with me -small, sharp nails which can be pressed into the wall without blows -from a hammer. I placed many in the plaster where I may need them. -They are ready." - -The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round him as he -thrust his tablets back into his pocket. - -"I think I have made notes enough; we can go now," he said. "The Sahib -Carrisford has a warm heart. It is a thousand pities that he has not -found the lost child." - -"If he should find her his strength would be restored to him," said Ram -Dass. "His God may lead her to him yet." - -Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had -entered it. And, after he was quite sure they had gone, Melchisedec -was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes felt it safe -to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the hope that even -such alarming human beings as these might have chanced to carry crumbs -in their pockets and drop one or two of them. - - - -15 - -The Magic - - -When Sara had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass closing -the shutters, and caught her glimpse of this room also. - -"It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside," was the -thought which crossed her mind. - -There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian -gentleman was sitting before it. His head was resting in his hand, and -he looked as lonely and unhappy as ever. - -"Poor man!" said Sara. "I wonder what you are supposing." - -And this was what he was "supposing" at that very moment. - -"Suppose," he was thinking, "suppose--even if Carmichael traces the -people to Moscow--the little girl they took from Madame Pascal's school -in Paris is NOT the one we are in search of. Suppose she proves to be -quite a different child. What steps shall I take next?" - -When Sara went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come -downstairs to scold the cook. - -"Where have you wasted your time?" she demanded. "You have been out -for hours." - -"It was so wet and muddy," Sara answered, "it was hard to walk, because -my shoes were so bad and slipped about." - -"Make no excuses," said Miss Minchin, "and tell no falsehoods." - -Sara went in to the cook. The cook had received a severe lecture and -was in a fearful temper as a result. She was only too rejoiced to have -someone to vent her rage on, and Sara was a convenience, as usual. - -"Why didn't you stay all night?" she snapped. - -Sara laid her purchases on the table. - -"Here are the things," she said. - -The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage humor -indeed. - -"May I have something to eat?" Sara asked rather faintly. - -"Tea's over and done with," was the answer. "Did you expect me to keep -it hot for you?" - -Sara stood silent for a second. - -"I had no dinner," she said next, and her voice was quite low. She -made it low because she was afraid it would tremble. - -"There's some bread in the pantry," said the cook. "That's all you'll -get at this time of day." - -Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook -was in too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with it. It was -always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sara. Really, it was hard -for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her -attic. She often found them long and steep when she was tired; but -tonight it seemed as if she would never reach the top. Several times -she was obliged to stop to rest. When she reached the top landing she -was glad to see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door. -That meant that Ermengarde had managed to creep up to pay her a visit. -There was some comfort in that. It was better than to go into the room -alone and find it empty and desolate. The mere presence of plump, -comfortable Ermengarde, wrapped in her red shawl, would warm it a -little. - -Yes; there Ermengarde was when she opened the door. She was sitting in -the middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely under her. She had -never become intimate with Melchisedec and his family, though they -rather fascinated her. When she found herself alone in the attic she -always preferred to sit on the bed until Sara arrived. She had, in -fact, on this occasion had time to become rather nervous, because -Melchisedec had appeared and sniffed about a good deal, and once had -made her utter a repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs and, -while he looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction. - -"Oh, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come. Melchy WOULD -sniff about so. I tried to coax him to go back, but he wouldn't for -such a long time. I like him, you know; but it does frighten me when -he sniffs right at me. Do you think he ever WOULD jump?" - -"No," answered Sara. - -Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to look at her. - -"You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you are quite pale." - -"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool. "Oh, -there's Melchisedec, poor thing. He's come to ask for his supper." - -Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening for -her footstep. Sara was quite sure he knew it. He came forward with an -affectionate, expectant expression as Sara put her hand in her pocket -and turned it inside out, shaking her head. - -"I'm very sorry," she said. "I haven't one crumb left. Go home, -Melchisedec, and tell your wife there was nothing in my pocket. I'm -afraid I forgot because the cook and Miss Minchin were so cross." - -Melchisedec seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not -contentedly, back to his home. - -"I did not expect to see you tonight, Ermie," Sara said. Ermengarde -hugged herself in the red shawl. - -"Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old aunt," she -explained. "No one else ever comes and looks into the bedrooms after -we are in bed. I could stay here until morning if I wanted to." - -She pointed toward the table under the skylight. Sara had not looked -toward it as she came in. A number of books were piled upon it. -Ermengarde's gesture was a dejected one. - -"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said. "There they are." - -Sara looked round and got up at once. She ran to the table, and -picking up the top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For the -moment she forgot her discomforts. - -"Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful! Carlyle's French Revolution. I -have SO wanted to read that!" - -"I haven't," said Ermengarde. "And papa will be so cross if I don't. -He'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for the holidays. -What SHALL I do?" - -Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an excited -flush on her cheeks. - -"Look here," she cried, "if you'll lend me these books, _I'll_ read -them--and tell you everything that's in them afterward--and I'll tell -it so that you will remember it, too." - -"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?" - -"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember what I -tell them." - -"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if you'll do -that, and make me remember, I'll--I'll give you anything." - -"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara. "I want your -books--I want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest heaved. - -"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them--but I -don't. I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be." - -Sara was opening one book after the other. "What are you going to tell -your father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her mind. - -"Oh, he needn't know," answered Ermengarde. "He'll think I've read -them." - -Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly. "That's almost like -telling lies," she said. "And lies--well, you see, they are not only -wicked--they're VULGAR. Sometimes"--reflectively--"I've thought perhaps -I might do something wicked--I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill -Miss Minchin, you know, when she was ill-treating me--but I COULDN'T be -vulgar. Why can't you tell your father _I_ read them?" - -"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little discouraged by -this unexpected turn of affairs. - -"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara. "And if I can tell -it to you in an easy way and make you remember it, I should think he -would like that." - -"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful Ermengarde. -"You would if you were my father." - -"It's not your fault that--" began Sara. She pulled herself up and -stopped rather suddenly. She had been going to say, "It's not your -fault that you are stupid." - -"That what?" Ermengarde asked. - -"That you can't learn things quickly," amended Sara. "If you can't, -you can't. If I can--why, I can; that's all." - -She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let her -feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn anything -at once, and not being able to learn anything at all. As she looked at -her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her. - -"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't -everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people. If Miss -Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she is now, she'd -still be a detestable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of -clever people have done harm and have been wicked. Look at -Robespierre--" - -She stopped and examined Ermengarde's countenance, which was beginning -to look bewildered. "Don't you remember?" she demanded. "I told you -about him not long ago. I believe you've forgotten." - -"Well, I don't remember ALL of it," admitted Ermengarde. - -"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet things -and wrap myself in the coverlet and tell you over again." - -She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against the wall, -and she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of slippers. Then she -jumped on the bed, and drawing the coverlet about her shoulders, sat -with her arms round her knees. "Now, listen," she said. - -She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution, and told -such stories of it that Ermengarde's eyes grew round with alarm and she -held her breath. But though she was rather terrified, there was a -delightful thrill in listening, and she was not likely to forget -Robespierre again, or to have any doubts about the Princesse de -Lamballe. - -"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara -explained. "And she had beautiful floating blonde hair; and when I -think of her, I never see her head on her body, but always on a pike, -with those furious people dancing and howling." - -It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had made, -and for the present the books were to be left in the attic. - -"Now let's tell each other things," said Sara. "How are you getting on -with your French lessons?" - -"Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you -explained the conjugations. Miss Minchin could not understand why I -did my exercises so well that first morning." - -Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees. - -"She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her sums so well," she -said; "but it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help her." She -glanced round the room. "The attic would be rather nice--if it wasn't -so dreadful," she said, laughing again. "It's a good place to pretend -in." - -The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the sometimes -almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she had not a -sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for herself. On the rare -occasions that she could reach Sara's room she only saw the side of it -which was made exciting by things which were "pretended" and stories -which were told. Her visits partook of the character of adventures; -and though sometimes Sara looked rather pale, and it was not to be -denied that she had grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not -admit of complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was -almost ravenous with hunger, as she was tonight. She was growing -rapidly, and her constant walking and running about would have given -her a keen appetite even if she had had abundant and regular meals of a -much more nourishing nature than the unappetizing, inferior food -snatched at such odd times as suited the kitchen convenience. She was -growing used to a certain gnawing feeling in her young stomach. - -"I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and weary -march," she often said to herself. She liked the sound of the phrase, -"long and weary march." It made her feel rather like a soldier. She -had also a quaint sense of being a hostess in the attic. - -"If I lived in a castle," she argued, "and Ermengarde was the lady of -another castle, and came to see me, with knights and squires and -vassals riding with her, and pennons flying, when I heard the clarions -sounding outside the drawbridge I should go down to receive her, and I -should spread feasts in the banquet hall and call in minstrels to sing -and play and relate romances. When she comes into the attic I can't -spread feasts, but I can tell stories, and not let her know -disagreeable things. I dare say poor chatelaines had to do that in -time of famine, when their lands had been pillaged." She was a proud, -brave little chatelaine, and dispensed generously the one hospitality -she could offer--the dreams she dreamed--the visions she saw--the -imaginings which were her joy and comfort. - -So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as -well as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered -if her hunger would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as -if she had never been quite so hungry before. - -"I wish I was as thin as you, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly. "I -believe you are thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look so big, -and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your elbow!" - -Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up. - -"I always was a thin child," she said bravely, "and I always had big -green eyes." - -"I love your queer eyes," said Ermengarde, looking into them with -affectionate admiration. "They always look as if they saw such a long -way. I love them--and I love them to be green--though they look black -generally." - -"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the dark with -them--because I have tried, and I couldn't--I wish I could." - -It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight -which neither of them saw. If either of them had chanced to turn and -look, she would have been startled by the sight of a dark face which -peered cautiously into the room and disappeared as quickly and almost -as silently as it had appeared. Not QUITE as silently, however. Sara, -who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof. - -"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said. "It wasn't scratchy -enough." - -"What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled. - -"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara. - -"N-no," Ermengarde faltered. "Did you?" {another ed. has "No-no,"} - -"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did. It sounded as if -something was on the slates--something that dragged softly." - -"What could it be?" said Ermengarde. "Could it be--robbers?" - -"No," Sara began cheerfully. "There is nothing to steal--" - -She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the sound -that checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below, -and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice. Sara sprang off the bed, and -put out the candle. - -"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the darkness. -"She is making her cry." - -"Will she come in here?" Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken. - -"No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir." - -It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs. -Sara could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she -was angry enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it -sounded as if she was driving Becky before her. - -"You impudent, dishonest child!" they heard her say. "Cook tells me -she has missed things repeatedly." - -"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing. "I was 'ungry enough, but 't -warn't me--never!" - -"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice. -"Picking and stealing! Half a meat pie, indeed!" - -"'T warn't me," wept Becky. "I could 'ave eat a whole un--but I never -laid a finger on it." - -Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. -The meat pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became -apparent that she boxed Becky's ears. - -"Don't tell falsehoods," she said. "Go to your room this instant." - -Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in -her slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her -door shut, and knew that she threw herself upon her bed. - -"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her pillow. "An' -I never took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her policeman." - -Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was -clenching her little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her -outstretched hands. She could scarcely stand still, but she dared not -move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs and all was still. - -"The wicked, cruel thing!" she burst forth. "The cook takes things -herself and then says Becky steals them. She DOESN'T! She DOESN'T! -She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash barrel!" -She pressed her hands hard against her face and burst into passionate -little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed -by it. Sara was crying! The unconquerable Sara! It seemed to denote -something new--some mood she had never known. Suppose--suppose--a new -dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow, little mind all -at once. She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the -table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle. -When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara, with her -new thought growing to definite fear in her eyes. - -"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, "are--are--you -never told me--I don't want to be rude, but--are YOU ever hungry?" - -It was too much just at that moment. The barrier broke down. Sara -lifted her face from her hands. - -"Yes," she said in a new passionate way. "Yes, I am. I'm so hungry -now that I could almost eat you. And it makes it worse to hear poor -Becky. She's hungrier than I am." - -Ermengarde gasped. - -"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully. "And I never knew!" - -"I didn't want you to know," Sara said. "It would have made me feel -like a street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar." - -"No, you don't--you don't!" Ermengarde broke in. "Your clothes are a -little queer--but you couldn't look like a street beggar. You haven't -a street-beggar face." - -"A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity," said Sara, with a -short little laugh in spite of herself. "Here it is." And she pulled -out the thin ribbon from her neck. "He wouldn't have given me his -Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I needed it." - -Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of -them. It made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their -eyes. - -"Who was he?" asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had not -been a mere ordinary silver sixpence. - -"He was a darling little thing going to a party," said Sara. "He was -one of the Large Family, the little one with the round legs--the one I -call Guy Clarence. I suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas -presents and hampers full of cakes and things, and he could see I had -nothing." - -Ermengarde gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had -recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden -inspiration. - -"Oh, Sara!" she cried. "What a silly thing I am not to have thought of -it!" - -"Of what?" - -"Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry. "This very -afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full of good things. I -never touched it, I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so -bothered about papa's books." Her words began to tumble over each -other. "It's got cake in it, and little meat pies, and jam tarts and -buns, and oranges and red-currant wine, and figs and chocolate. I'll -creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now." - -Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention of food -has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengarde's arm. - -"Do you think--you COULD?" she ejaculated. - -"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door--opened -it softly--put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she -went back to Sara. "The lights are out. Everybody's in bed. I can -creep--and creep--and no one will hear." - -It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden -light sprang into Sara's eyes. - -"Ermie!" she said. "Let us PRETEND! Let us pretend it's a party! And -oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?" - -"Yes! Yes! Let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't hear." - -Sara went to the wall. Through it she could hear poor Becky crying -more softly. She knocked four times. - -"That means, 'Come to me through the secret passage under the wall,' -she explained. 'I have something to communicate.'" - -Five quick knocks answered her. - -"She is coming," she said. - -Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky appeared. Her -eyes were red and her cap was sliding off, and when she caught sight of -Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron. - -"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde. - -"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because she is -going to bring a box of good things up here to us." - -Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such excitement. - -"To eat, miss?" she said. "Things that's good to eat?" - -"Yes," answered Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party." - -"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in Ermengarde. -"I'll go this minute!" - -She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she dropped -her red shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one saw it for a -minute or so. Becky was too much overpowered by the good luck which -had befallen her. - -"Oh, miss! oh, miss!" she gasped; "I know it was you that asked her to -let me come. It--it makes me cry to think of it." And she went to -Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly. - -But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform -her world for her. Here in the attic--with the cold night -outside--with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely passed--with -the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's eyes not yet -faded--this simple, cheerful thing had happened like a thing of magic. - -She caught her breath. - -"Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before things get -to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just -remember that always. The worst thing never QUITE comes." - -She gave Becky a little cheerful shake. - -"No, no! You mustn't cry!" she said. "We must make haste and set the -table." - -"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room. "What'll we -set it with?" - -Sara looked round the attic, too. - -"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing. - -That moment she saw something and pounced upon it. It was Ermengarde's -red shawl which lay upon the floor. - -"Here's the shawl," she cried. "I know she won't mind it. It will make -such a nice red tablecloth." - -They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it. Red is -a wonderfully kind and comfortable color. It began to make the room -look furnished directly. - -"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara. "We must -pretend there is one!" - -Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration. The -rug was laid down already. - -"How soft and thick it is!" she said, with the little laugh which Becky -knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again -delicately, as if she felt something under it. - -"Yes, miss," answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She -was always quite serious. - -"What next, now?" said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over -her eyes. "Something will come if I think and wait a little"--in a -soft, expectant voice. "The Magic will tell me." - -One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she called -it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her -stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she -would uncover an enlightened, laughing face. - -In a moment she did. - -"There!" she cried. "It has come! I know now! I must look among the -things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess." - -She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the -attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. -Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find -something. The Magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or -another. - -In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had been -overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a -relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs. She seized -them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to arrange them upon the -red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into shape with the narrow -lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells for her as she -did it. - -"These are the plates," she said. "They are golden plates. These are -the richly embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain." - -"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the -information. - -"You must pretend it," said Sara. "If you pretend it enough, you will -see them." - -"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted -herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired. - -Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very -queer indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in -strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at -her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous -weight. - -"What is the matter, Becky?" Sara cried. "What are you doing?" - -Becky opened her eyes with a start. - -"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I was -tryin' to see it like you do. I almost did," with a hopeful grin. "But -it takes a lot o' stren'th." - -"Perhaps it does if you are not used to it," said Sara, with friendly -sympathy; "but you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often. -I wouldn't try so hard just at first. It will come to you after a -while. I'll just tell you what things are. Look at these." - -She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the -bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled -the wreath off. - -"These are garlands for the feast," she said grandly. "They fill all -the air with perfume. There's a mug on the wash-stand, Becky. Oh--and -bring the soap dish for a centerpiece." - -Becky handed them to her reverently. - -"What are they now, miss?" she inquired. "You'd think they was made of -crockery--but I know they ain't." - -"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath -about the mug. "And this"--bending tenderly over the soap dish and -heaping it with roses--"is purest alabaster encrusted with gems." - -She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips -which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream. - -"My, ain't it lovely!" whispered Becky. - -"If we just had something for bonbon dishes," Sara murmured. -"There!"--darting to the trunk again. "I remember I saw something this -minute." - -It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but -the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and -was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick -which was to light the feast. Only the Magic could have made it more -than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a -long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing -wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath. - -"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is it the -Bastille now--or has it turned into somethin' different?" - -"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet hall!" - -"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to -view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment. - -"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are given. -It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney -filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers -twinkling on every side." - -"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again. - -Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under -the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. -To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self -confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red, -adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that -the preparations were brilliant indeed. - -"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!" - -"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old trunk. I -asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look." - -"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are! -They ain't just--oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to Sara. - -So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST -see it all: the golden platters--the vaulted spaces--the blazing -logs--the twinkling waxen tapers. As the things were taken out of the -hamper--the frosted cakes--the fruits--the bonbons and the wine--the -feast became a splendid thing. - -"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde. - -"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky. - -Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought. - -"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said. "Pretend you are a princess now -and this is a royal feast." - -"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we -will be your maids of honor." - -"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how. -YOU be her." - -"Well, if you want me to," said Sara. - -But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate. - -"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed. -"If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we -shall feel as if it was a real fire." She struck a match and lighted -it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room. - -"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its -not being real." - -She stood in the dancing glow and smiled. - -"Doesn't it LOOK real?" she said. "Now we will begin the party." - -She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to -Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream. - -"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be -seated at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent -on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you." She turned her head -slightly toward the corner of the room. "What, ho, there, minstrels! -Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses," she explained -rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels to play at their -feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. -Now we will begin." - -They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their -hands--not one of them had time to do more, when--they all three sprang -to their feet and turned pale faces toward the -door--listening--listening. - -Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each -of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of -all things had come. - -"It's--the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon -the floor. - -"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white -face. "Miss Minchin has found us out." - -Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale -herself, but it was with rage. She looked from the frightened faces to -the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of -the burnt paper in the grate. - -"I have been suspecting something of this sort," she exclaimed; "but I -did not dream of such audacity. Lavinia was telling the truth." - -So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret -and had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her -ears for a second time. - -"You impudent creature!" she said. "You leave the house in the -morning!" - -Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. -Ermengarde burst into tears. - -"Oh, don't send her away," she sobbed. "My aunt sent me the hamper. -We're--only--having a party." - -"So I see," said Miss Minchin, witheringly. "With the Princess Sara at -the head of the table." She turned fiercely on Sara. "It is your -doing, I know," she cried. "Ermengarde would never have thought of -such a thing. You decorated the table, I suppose--with this rubbish." -She stamped her foot at Becky. "Go to your attic!" she commanded, and -Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking. - -Then it was Sara's turn again. - -"I will attend to you tomorrow. You shall have neither breakfast, -dinner, nor supper!" - -"I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin," said -Sara, rather faintly. - -"Then all the better. You will have something to remember. Don't -stand there. Put those things into the hamper again." - -She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and -caught sight of Ermengarde's new books. - -"And you"--to Ermengarde--"have brought your beautiful new books into -this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay -there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would HE -say if he knew where you are tonight?" - -Something she saw in Sara's grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her -turn on her fiercely. - -"What are you thinking of?" she demanded. "Why do you look at me like -that?" - -"I was wondering," answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day -in the schoolroom. - -"What were you wondering?" - -It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness in -Sara's manner. It was only sad and quiet. - -"I was wondering," she said in a low voice, "what MY papa would say if -he knew where I am tonight." - -Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before and her anger -expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate fashion. She flew at -her and shook her. - -"You insolent, unmanageable child!" she cried. "How dare you! How -dare you!" - -She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the -hamper in a jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde's arms, and pushed -her before her toward the door. - -"I will leave you to wonder," she said. "Go to bed this instant." And -she shut the door behind herself and poor stumbling Ermengarde, and -left Sara standing quite alone. - -The dream was quite at an end. The last spark had died out of the -paper in the grate and left only black tinder; the table was left bare, -the golden plates and richly embroidered napkins, and the garlands were -transformed again into old handkerchiefs, scraps of red and white -paper, and discarded artificial flowers all scattered on the floor; the -minstrels in the minstrel gallery had stolen away, and the viols and -bassoons were still. Emily was sitting with her back against the wall, -staring very hard. Sara saw her, and went and picked her up with -trembling hands. - -"There isn't any banquet left, Emily," she said. "And there isn't any -princess. There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille." -And she sat down and hid her face. - -What would have happened if she had not hidden it just then, and if she -had chanced to look up at the skylight at the wrong moment, I do not -know--perhaps the end of this chapter might have been quite -different--because if she had glanced at the skylight she would -certainly have been startled by what she would have seen. She would -have seen exactly the same face pressed against the glass and peering -in at her as it had peered in earlier in the evening when she had been -talking to Ermengarde. - -But she did not look up. She sat with her little black head in her -arms for some time. She always sat like that when she was trying to -bear something in silence. Then she got up and went slowly to the bed. - -"I can't pretend anything else--while I am awake," she said. "There -wouldn't be any use in trying. If I go to sleep, perhaps a dream will -come and pretend for me." - -She suddenly felt so tired--perhaps through want of food--that she sat -down on the edge of the bed quite weakly. - -"Suppose there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little -dancing flames," she murmured. "Suppose there was a comfortable chair -before it--and suppose there was a small table near, with a little -hot--hot supper on it. And suppose"--as she drew the thin coverings -over her--"suppose this was a beautiful soft bed, with fleecy blankets -and large downy pillows. Suppose--suppose--" And her very weariness -was good to her, for her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep. - - -She did not know how long she slept. But she had been tired enough to -sleep deeply and profoundly--too deeply and soundly to be disturbed by -anything, even by the squeaks and scamperings of Melchisedec's entire -family, if all his sons and daughters had chosen to come out of their -hole to fight and tumble and play. - -When she awakened it was rather suddenly, and she did not know that any -particular thing had called her out of her sleep. The truth was, -however, that it was a sound which had called her back--a real -sound--the click of the skylight as it fell in closing after a lithe -white figure which slipped through it and crouched down close by upon -the slates of the roof--just near enough to see what happened in the -attic, but not near enough to be seen. - -At first she did not open her eyes. She felt too sleepy and--curiously -enough--too warm and comfortable. She was so warm and comfortable, -indeed, that she did not believe she was really awake. She never was as -warm and cozy as this except in some lovely vision. - -"What a nice dream!" she murmured. "I feel quite warm. -I--don't--want--to--wake--up." - -Of course it was a dream. She felt as if warm, delightful bedclothes -were heaped upon her. She could actually FEEL blankets, and when she -put out her hand it touched something exactly like a satin-covered -eider-down quilt. She must not awaken from this delight--she must be -quite still and make it last. - -But she could not--even though she kept her eyes closed tightly, she -could not. Something was forcing her to awaken--something in the room. -It was a sense of light, and a sound--the sound of a crackling, roaring -little fire. - -"Oh, I am awakening," she said mournfully. "I can't help it--I can't." - -Her eyes opened in spite of herself. And then she actually smiled--for -what she saw she had never seen in the attic before, and knew she never -should see. - -"Oh, I HAVEN'T awakened," she whispered, daring to rise on her elbow -and look all about her. "I am dreaming yet." She knew it MUST be a -dream, for if she were awake such things could not--could not be. - -Do you wonder that she felt sure she had not come back to earth? This -is what she saw. In the grate there was a glowing, blazing fire; on -the hob was a little brass kettle hissing and boiling; spread upon the -floor was a thick, warm crimson rug; before the fire a folding-chair, -unfolded, and with cushions on it; by the chair a small folding-table, -unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it spread small covered -dishes, a cup, a saucer, a teapot; on the bed were new warm coverings -and a satin-covered down quilt; at the foot a curious wadded silk robe, -a pair of quilted slippers, and some books. The room of her dream -seemed changed into fairyland--and it was flooded with warm light, for -a bright lamp stood on the table covered with a rosy shade. - -She sat up, resting on her elbow, and her breathing came short and fast. - -"It does not--melt away," she panted. "Oh, I never had such a dream -before." She scarcely dared to stir; but at last she pushed the -bedclothes aside, and put her feet on the floor with a rapturous smile. - -"I am dreaming--I am getting out of bed," she heard her own voice say; -and then, as she stood up in the midst of it all, turning slowly from -side to side--"I am dreaming it stays--real! I'm dreaming it FEELS -real. It's bewitched--or I'm bewitched. I only THINK I see it all." -Her words began to hurry themselves. "If I can only keep on thinking -it," she cried, "I don't care! I don't care!" - -She stood panting a moment longer, and then cried out again. - -"Oh, it isn't true!" she said. "It CAN'T be true! But oh, how true it -seems!" - -The blazing fire drew her to it, and she knelt down and held out her -hands close to it--so close that the heat made her start back. - -"A fire I only dreamed wouldn't be HOT," she cried. - -She sprang up, touched the table, the dishes, the rug; she went to the -bed and touched the blankets. She took up the soft wadded -dressing-gown, and suddenly clutched it to her breast and held it to -her cheek. - -"It's warm. It's soft!" she almost sobbed. "It's real. It must be!" - -She threw it over her shoulders, and put her feet into the slippers. - -"They are real, too. It's all real!" she cried. "I am NOT--I am NOT -dreaming!" - -She almost staggered to the books and opened the one which lay upon the -top. Something was written on the flyleaf--just a few words, and they -were these: - -"To the little girl in the attic. From a friend." - -When she saw that--wasn't it a strange thing for her to do--she put her -face down upon the page and burst into tears. - -"I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a -little. I have a friend." - -She took her candle and stole out of her own room and into Becky's, and -stood by her bedside. - -"Becky, Becky!" she whispered as loudly as she dared. "Wake up!" - -When Becky wakened, and she sat upright staring aghast, her face still -smudged with traces of tears, beside her stood a little figure in a -luxurious wadded robe of crimson silk. The face she saw was a shining, -wonderful thing. The Princess Sara--as she remembered her--stood at -her very bedside, holding a candle in her hand. - -"Come," she said. "Oh, Becky, come!" - -Becky was too frightened to speak. She simply got up and followed her, -with her mouth and eyes open, and without a word. - -And when they crossed the threshold, Sara shut the door gently and drew -her into the warm, glowing midst of things which made her brain reel -and her hungry senses faint. "It's true! It's true!" she cried. -"I've touched them all. They are as real as we are. The Magic has come -and done it, Becky, while we were asleep--the Magic that won't let -those worst things EVER quite happen." - - - -16 - -The Visitor - - -Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. How they -crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made so much of itself -in the little grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes, and -found rich, hot, savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and -sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. The mug from -the washstand was used as Becky's tea cup, and the tea was so delicious -that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea. -They were warm and full-fed and happy, and it was just like Sara that, -having found her strange good fortune real, she should give herself up -to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of -imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing -that happened, and almost to cease, in a short time, to find it -bewildering. - -"I don't know anyone in the world who could have done it," she said; -"but there has been someone. And here we are sitting by their -fire--and--and--it's true! And whoever it is--wherever they are--I -have a friend, Becky--someone is my friend." - -It cannot be denied that as they sat before the blazing fire, and ate -the nourishing, comfortable food, they felt a kind of rapturous awe, -and looked into each other's eyes with something like doubt. - -"Do you think," Becky faltered once, in a whisper, "do you think it -could melt away, miss? Hadn't we better be quick?" And she hastily -crammed her sandwich into her mouth. If it was only a dream, kitchen -manners would be overlooked. - -"No, it won't melt away," said Sara. "I am EATING this muffin, and I -can taste it. You never really eat things in dreams. You only think -you are going to eat them. Besides, I keep giving myself pinches; and -I touched a hot piece of coal just now, on purpose." - -The sleepy comfort which at length almost overpowered them was a -heavenly thing. It was the drowsiness of happy, well-fed childhood, -and they sat in the fire glow and luxuriated in it until Sara found -herself turning to look at her transformed bed. - -There were even blankets enough to share with Becky. The narrow couch -in the next attic was more comfortable that night than its occupant had -ever dreamed that it could be. - -As she went out of the room, Becky turned upon the threshold and looked -about her with devouring eyes. - -"If it ain't here in the mornin', miss," she said, "it's been here -tonight, anyways, an' I shan't never forget it." She looked at each -particular thing, as if to commit it to memory. "The fire was THERE", -pointing with her finger, "an' the table was before it; an' the lamp -was there, an' the light looked rosy red; an' there was a satin cover -on your bed, an' a warm rug on the floor, an' everythin' looked -beautiful; an'"--she paused a second, and laid her hand on her stomach -tenderly--"there WAS soup an' sandwiches an' muffins--there WAS." And, -with this conviction a reality at least, she went away. - -Through the mysterious agency which works in schools and among -servants, it was quite well known in the morning that Sara Crewe was in -horrible disgrace, that Ermengarde was under punishment, and that Becky -would have been packed out of the house before breakfast, but that a -scullery maid could not be dispensed with at once. The servants knew -that she was allowed to stay because Miss Minchin could not easily find -another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden -slave for so few shillings a week. The elder girls in the schoolroom -knew that if Miss Minchin did not send Sara away it was for practical -reasons of her own. - -"She's growing so fast and learning such a lot, somehow," said Jessie -to Lavinia, "that she will be given classes soon, and Miss Minchin -knows she will have to work for nothing. It was rather nasty of you, -Lavvy, to tell about her having fun in the garret. How did you find it -out?" - -"I got it out of Lottie. She's such a baby she didn't know she was -telling me. There was nothing nasty at all in speaking to Miss -Minchin. I felt it my duty"--priggishly. "She was being deceitful. -And it's ridiculous that she should look so grand, and be made so much -of, in her rags and tatters!" - -"What were they doing when Miss Minchin caught them?" - -"Pretending some silly thing. Ermengarde had taken up her hamper to -share with Sara and Becky. She never invites us to share things. Not -that I care, but it's rather vulgar of her to share with servant girls -in attics. I wonder Miss Minchin didn't turn Sara out--even if she -does want her for a teacher." - -"If she was turned out where would she go?" inquired Jessie, a trifle -anxiously. - -"How do I know?" snapped Lavinia. "She'll look rather queer when she -comes into the schoolroom this morning, I should think--after what's -happened. She had no dinner yesterday, and she's not to have any -today." - -Jessie was not as ill-natured as she was silly. She picked up her book -with a little jerk. - -"Well, I think it's horrid," she said. "They've no right to starve her -to death." - -When Sara went into the kitchen that morning the cook looked askance at -her, and so did the housemaids; but she passed them hurriedly. She had, -in fact, overslept herself a little, and as Becky had done the same, -neither had had time to see the other, and each had come downstairs in -haste. - -Sara went into the scullery. Becky was violently scrubbing a kettle, -and was actually gurgling a little song in her throat. She looked up -with a wildly elated face. - -"It was there when I wakened, miss--the blanket," she whispered -excitedly. "It was as real as it was last night." - -"So was mine," said Sara. "It is all there now--all of it. While I -was dressing I ate some of the cold things we left." - -"Oh, laws! Oh, laws!" Becky uttered the exclamation in a sort of -rapturous groan, and ducked her head over her kettle just in time, as -the cook came in from the kitchen. - -Miss Minchin had expected to see in Sara, when she appeared in the -schoolroom, very much what Lavinia had expected to see. Sara had always -been an annoying puzzle to her, because severity never made her cry or -look frightened. When she was scolded she stood still and listened -politely with a grave face; when she was punished she performed her -extra tasks or went without her meals, making no complaint or outward -sign of rebellion. The very fact that she never made an impudent -answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impudence in itself. But after -yesterday's deprivation of meals, the violent scene of last night, the -prospect of hunger today, she must surely have broken down. It would -be strange indeed if she did not come downstairs with pale cheeks and -red eyes and an unhappy, humbled face. - -Miss Minchin saw her for the first time when she entered the schoolroom -to hear the little French class recite its lessons and superintend its -exercises. And she came in with a springing step, color in her cheeks, -and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. It was the most -astonishing thing Miss Minchin had ever known. It gave her quite a -shock. What was the child made of? What could such a thing mean? She -called her at once to her desk. - -"You do not look as if you realize that you are in disgrace," she said. -"Are you absolutely hardened?" - -The truth is that when one is still a child--or even if one is grown -up--and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when -one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to -find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and -one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one's eyes. Miss -Minchin was almost struck dumb by the look of Sara's eyes when she made -her perfectly respectful answer. - -"I beg your pardon, Miss Minchin," she said; "I know that I am in -disgrace." - -"Be good enough not to forget it and look as if you had come into a -fortune. It is an impertinence. And remember you are to have no food -today." - -"Yes, Miss Minchin," Sara answered; but as she turned away her heart -leaped with the memory of what yesterday had been. "If the Magic had -not saved me just in time," she thought, "how horrible it would have -been!" - -"She can't be very hungry," whispered Lavinia. "Just look at her. -Perhaps she is pretending she has had a good breakfast"--with a -spiteful laugh. - -"She's different from other people," said Jessie, watching Sara with -her class. "Sometimes I'm a bit frightened of her." - -"Ridiculous thing!" ejaculated Lavinia. - -All through the day the light was in Sara's face, and the color in her -cheek. The servants cast puzzled glances at her, and whispered to each -other, and Miss Amelia's small blue eyes wore an expression of -bewilderment. What such an audacious look of well-being, under august -displeasure could mean she could not understand. It was, however, just -like Sara's singular obstinate way. She was probably determined to -brave the matter out. - -One thing Sara had resolved upon, as she thought things over. The -wonders which had happened must be kept a secret, if such a thing were -possible. If Miss Minchin should choose to mount to the attic again, -of course all would be discovered. But it did not seem likely that she -would do so for some time at least, unless she was led by suspicion. -Ermengarde and Lottie would be watched with such strictness that they -would not dare to steal out of their beds again. Ermengarde could be -told the story and trusted to keep it secret. If Lottie made any -discoveries, she could be bound to secrecy also. Perhaps the Magic -itself would help to hide its own marvels. - -"But whatever happens," Sara kept saying to herself all day--"WHATEVER -happens, somewhere in the world there is a heavenly kind person who is -my friend--my friend. If I never know who it is--if I never can even -thank him--I shall never feel quite so lonely. Oh, the Magic was GOOD -to me!" - -If it was possible for weather to be worse than it had been the day -before, it was worse this day--wetter, muddier, colder. There were -more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and, knowing that -Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything -matter when one's Magic has just proved itself one's friend. Sara's -supper of the night before had given her strength, she knew that she -should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had naturally begun -to be hungry again before evening, she felt that she could bear it -until breakfast-time on the following day, when her meals would surely -be given to her again. It was quite late when she was at last allowed -to go upstairs. She had been told to go into the schoolroom and study -until ten o'clock, and she had become interested in her work, and -remained over her books later. - -When she reached the top flight of stairs and stood before the attic -door, it must be confessed that her heart beat rather fast. - -"Of course it MIGHT all have been taken away," she whispered, trying to -be brave. "It might only have been lent to me for just that one awful -night. But it WAS lent to me--I had it. It was real." - -She pushed the door open and went in. Once inside, she gasped -slightly, shut the door, and stood with her back against it looking -from side to side. - -The Magic had been there again. It actually had, and it had done even -more than before. The fire was blazing, in lovely leaping flames, more -merrily than ever. A number of new things had been brought into the -attic which so altered the look of it that if she had not been past -doubting she would have rubbed her eyes. Upon the low table another -supper stood--this time with cups and plates for Becky as well as -herself; a piece of bright, heavy, strange embroidery covered the -battered mantel, and on it some ornaments had been placed. All the -bare, ugly things which could be covered with draperies had been -concealed and made to look quite pretty. Some odd materials of rich -colors had been fastened against the wall with fine, sharp tacks--so -sharp that they could be pressed into the wood and plaster without -hammering. Some brilliant fans were pinned up, and there were several -large cushions, big and substantial enough to use as seats. A wooden -box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it -wore quite the air of a sofa. - -Sara slowly moved away from the door and simply sat down and looked and -looked again. - -"It is exactly like something fairy come true," she said. "There isn't -the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything--diamonds -or bags of gold--and they would appear! THAT wouldn't be any stranger -than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? -And to think I used to pretend and pretend and wish there were fairies! -The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am -LIVING in a fairy story. I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and -able to turn things into anything else." - -She rose and knocked upon the wall for the prisoner in the next cell, -and the prisoner came. - -When she entered she almost dropped in a heap upon the floor. For a -few seconds she quite lost her breath. - -"Oh, laws!" she gasped. "Oh, laws, miss!" - -"You see," said Sara. - -On this night Becky sat on a cushion upon the hearth rug and had a cup -and saucer of her own. - -When Sara went to bed she found that she had a new thick mattress and -big downy pillows. Her old mattress and pillow had been removed to -Becky's bedstead, and, consequently, with these additions Becky had -been supplied with unheard-of comfort. - -"Where does it all come from?" Becky broke forth once. "Laws, who does -it, miss?" - -"Don't let us even ASK," said Sara. "If it were not that I want to -say, 'Oh, thank you,' I would rather not know. It makes it more -beautiful." - -From that time life became more wonderful day by day. The fairy story -continued. Almost every day something new was done. Some new comfort -or ornament appeared each time Sara opened the door at night, until in -a short time the attic was a beautiful little room full of all sorts of -odd and luxurious things. The ugly walls were gradually entirely -covered with pictures and draperies, ingenious pieces of folding -furniture appeared, a bookshelf was hung up and filled with books, new -comforts and conveniences appeared one by one, until there seemed -nothing left to be desired. When Sara went downstairs in the morning, -the remains of the supper were on the table; and when she returned to -the attic in the evening, the magician had removed them and left -another nice little meal. Miss Minchin was as harsh and insulting as -ever, Miss Amelia as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar and rude. -Sara was sent on errands in all weathers, and scolded and driven hither -and thither; she was scarcely allowed to speak to Ermengarde and -Lottie; Lavinia sneered at the increasing shabbiness of her clothes; -and the other girls stared curiously at her when she appeared in the -schoolroom. But what did it all matter while she was living in this -wonderful mysterious story? It was more romantic and delightful than -anything she had ever invented to comfort her starved young soul and -save herself from despair. Sometimes, when she was scolded, she could -scarcely keep from smiling. - -"If you only knew!" she was saying to herself. "If you only knew!" - -The comfort and happiness she enjoyed were making her stronger, and she -had them always to look forward to. If she came home from her errands -wet and tired and hungry, she knew she would soon be warm and well fed -after she had climbed the stairs. During the hardest day she could -occupy herself blissfully by thinking of what she should see when she -opened the attic door, and wondering what new delight had been prepared -for her. In a very short time she began to look less thin. Color came -into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem so much too big for her face. - -"Sara Crewe looks wonderfully well," Miss Minchin remarked -disapprovingly to her sister. - -"Yes," answered poor, silly Miss Amelia. "She is absolutely fattening. -She was beginning to look like a little starved crow." - -"Starved!" exclaimed Miss Minchin, angrily. "There was no reason why -she should look starved. She always had plenty to eat!" - -"Of--of course," agreed Miss Amelia, humbly, alarmed to find that she -had, as usual, said the wrong thing. - -"There is something very disagreeable in seeing that sort of thing in a -child of her age," said Miss Minchin, with haughty vagueness. - -"What--sort of thing?" Miss Amelia ventured. - -"It might almost be called defiance," answered Miss Minchin, feeling -annoyed because she knew the thing she resented was nothing like -defiance, and she did not know what other unpleasant term to use. "The -spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and -broken by--by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word, -she seems as little subdued as if--as if she were a princess." - -"Do you remember," put in the unwise Miss Amelia, "what she said to you -that day in the schoolroom about what you would do if you found out -that she was--" - -"No, I don't," said Miss Minchin. "Don't talk nonsense." But she -remembered very clearly indeed. - -Very naturally, even Becky was beginning to look plumper and less -frightened. She could not help it. She had her share in the secret -fairy story, too. She had two mattresses, two pillows, plenty of -bed-covering, and every night a hot supper and a seat on the cushions -by the fire. The Bastille had melted away, the prisoners no longer -existed. Two comforted children sat in the midst of delights. -Sometimes Sara read aloud from her books, sometimes she learned her own -lessons, sometimes she sat and looked into the fire and tried to -imagine who her friend could be, and wished she could say to him some -of the things in her heart. - -Then it came about that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to -the door and left several parcels. All were addressed in large -letters, "To the Little Girl in the right-hand attic." - -Sara herself was sent to open the door and take them in. She laid the -two largest parcels on the hall table, and was looking at the address, -when Miss Minchin came down the stairs and saw her. - -"Take the things to the young lady to whom they belong," she said -severely. "Don't stand there staring at them. - -"They belong to me," answered Sara, quietly. - -"To you?" exclaimed Miss Minchin. "What do you mean?" - -"I don't know where they come from," said Sara, "but they are addressed -to me. I sleep in the right-hand attic. Becky has the other one." - -Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at the parcels with an excited -expression. - -"What is in them?" she demanded. - -"I don't know," replied Sara. - -"Open them," she ordered. - -Sara did as she was told. When the packages were unfolded Miss -Minchin's countenance wore suddenly a singular expression. What she -saw was pretty and comfortable clothing--clothing of different kinds: -shoes, stockings, and gloves, and a warm and beautiful coat. There were -even a nice hat and an umbrella. They were all good and expensive -things, and on the pocket of the coat was pinned a paper, on which were -written these words: "To be worn every day. Will be replaced by others -when necessary." - -Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an incident which suggested -strange things to her sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a -mistake, after all, and that the neglected child had some powerful -though eccentric friend in the background--perhaps some previously -unknown relation, who had suddenly traced her whereabouts, and chose to -provide for her in this mysterious and fantastic way? Relations were -sometimes very odd--particularly rich old bachelor uncles, who did not -care for having children near them. A man of that sort might prefer to -overlook his young relation's welfare at a distance. Such a person, -however, would be sure to be crotchety and hot-tempered enough to be -easily offended. It would not be very pleasant if there were such a -one, and he should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, -the scant food, and the hard work. She felt very queer indeed, and -very uncertain, and she gave a side glance at Sara. - -"Well," she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the -little girl lost her father, "someone is very kind to you. As the -things have been sent, and you are to have new ones when they are worn -out, you may as well go and put them on and look respectable. After you -are dressed you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the -schoolroom. You need not go out on any more errands today." - -About half an hour afterward, when the schoolroom door opened and Sara -walked in, the entire seminary was struck dumb. - -"My word!" ejaculated Jessie, jogging Lavinia's elbow. "Look at the -Princess Sara!" - -Everybody was looking, and when Lavinia looked she turned quite red. - -It was the Princess Sara indeed. At least, since the days when she had -been a princess, Sara had never looked as she did now. She did not -seem the Sara they had seen come down the back stairs a few hours ago. -She was dressed in the kind of frock Lavinia had been used to envying -her the possession of. It was deep and warm in color, and beautifully -made. Her slender feet looked as they had done when Jessie had admired -them, and the hair, whose heavy locks had made her look rather like a -Shetland pony when it fell loose about her small, odd face, was tied -back with a ribbon. - -"Perhaps someone has left her a fortune," Jessie whispered. "I always -thought something would happen to her. She's so queer." - -"Perhaps the diamond mines have suddenly appeared again," said Lavinia, -scathingly. "Don't please her by staring at her in that way, you silly -thing." - -"Sara," broke in Miss Minchin's deep voice, "come and sit here." - -And while the whole schoolroom stared and pushed with elbows, and -scarcely made any effort to conceal its excited curiosity, Sara went to -her old seat of honor, and bent her head over her books. - -That night, when she went to her room, after she and Becky had eaten -their supper she sat and looked at the fire seriously for a long time. - -"Are you making something up in your head, miss?" Becky inquired with -respectful softness. When Sara sat in silence and looked into the -coals with dreaming eyes it generally meant that she was making a new -story. But this time she was not, and she shook her head. - -"No," she answered. "I am wondering what I ought to do." - -Becky stared--still respectfully. She was filled with something -approaching reverence for everything Sara did and said. - -"I can't help thinking about my friend," Sara explained. "If he wants -to keep himself a secret, it would be rude to try and find out who he -is. But I do so want him to know how thankful I am to him--and how -happy he has made me. Anyone who is kind wants to know when people -have been made happy. They care for that more than for being thanked. -I wish--I do wish--" - -She stopped short because her eyes at that instant fell upon something -standing on a table in a corner. It was something she had found in the -room when she came up to it only two days before. It was a little -writing-case fitted with paper and envelopes and pens and ink. - -"Oh," she exclaimed, "why did I not think of that before?" - -She rose and went to the corner and brought the case back to the fire. - -"I can write to him," she said joyfully, "and leave it on the table. -Then perhaps the person who takes the things away will take it, too. I -won't ask him anything. He won't mind my thanking him, I feel sure." - -So she wrote a note. This is what she said: - - -I hope you will not think it is impolite that I should write this note -to you when you wish to keep yourself a secret. Please believe I do -not mean to be impolite or try to find out anything at all; only I want -to thank you for being so kind to me--so heavenly kind--and making -everything like a fairy story. I am so grateful to you, and I am so -happy--and so is Becky. Becky feels just as thankful as I do--it is -all just as beautiful and wonderful to her as it is to me. We used to -be so lonely and cold and hungry, and now--oh, just think what you have -done for us! Please let me say just these words. It seems as if I -OUGHT to say them. THANK you--THANK you--THANK you! - -THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE ATTIC. - - -The next morning she left this on the little table, and in the evening -it had been taken away with the other things; so she knew the Magician -had received it, and she was happier for the thought. She was reading -one of her new books to Becky just before they went to their respective -beds, when her attention was attracted by a sound at the skylight. -When she looked up from her page she saw that Becky had heard the sound -also, as she had turned her head to look and was listening rather -nervously. - -"Something's there, miss," she whispered. - -"Yes," said Sara, slowly. "It sounds--rather like a cat--trying to get -in." - -She left her chair and went to the skylight. It was a queer little -sound she heard--like a soft scratching. She suddenly remembered -something and laughed. She remembered a quaint little intruder who had -made his way into the attic once before. She had seen him that very -afternoon, sitting disconsolately on a table before a window in the -Indian gentleman's house. - -"Suppose," she whispered in pleased excitement--"just suppose it was -the monkey who got away again. Oh, I wish it was!" - -She climbed on a chair, very cautiously raised the skylight, and peeped -out. It had been snowing all day, and on the snow, quite near her, -crouched a tiny, shivering figure, whose small black face wrinkled -itself piteously at sight of her. - -"It is the monkey," she cried out. "He has crept out of the Lascar's -attic, and he saw the light." - -Becky ran to her side. - -"Are you going to let him in, miss?" she said. - -"Yes," Sara answered joyfully. "It's too cold for monkeys to be out. -They're delicate. I'll coax him in." - -She put a hand out delicately, speaking in a coaxing voice--as she -spoke to the sparrows and to Melchisedec--as if she were some friendly -little animal herself. - -"Come along, monkey darling," she said. "I won't hurt you." - -He knew she would not hurt him. He knew it before she laid her soft, -caressing little paw on him and drew him towards her. He had felt human -love in the slim brown hands of Ram Dass, and he felt it in hers. He -let her lift him through the skylight, and when he found himself in her -arms he cuddled up to her breast and looked up into her face. - -"Nice monkey! Nice monkey!" she crooned, kissing his funny head. "Oh, -I do love little animal things." - -He was evidently glad to get to the fire, and when she sat down and -held him on her knee he looked from her to Becky with mingled interest -and appreciation. - -"He IS plain-looking, miss, ain't he?" said Becky. - -"He looks like a very ugly baby," laughed Sara. "I beg your pardon, -monkey; but I'm glad you are not a baby. Your mother COULDN'T be proud -of you, and no one would dare to say you looked like any of your -relations. Oh, I do like you!" - -She leaned back in her chair and reflected. - -"Perhaps he's sorry he's so ugly," she said, "and it's always on his -mind. I wonder if he HAS a mind. Monkey, my love, have you a mind?" - -But the monkey only put up a tiny paw and scratched his head. - -"What shall you do with him?" Becky asked. - -"I shall let him sleep with me tonight, and then take him back to the -Indian gentleman tomorrow. I am sorry to take you back, monkey; but -you must go. You ought to be fondest of your own family; and I'm not a -REAL relation." - -And when she went to bed she made him a nest at her feet, and he curled -up and slept there as if he were a baby and much pleased with his -quarters. - - - -17 - -"It Is the Child!" - - -The next afternoon three members of the Large Family sat in the Indian -gentleman's library, doing their best to cheer him up. They had been -allowed to come in to perform this office because he had specially -invited them. He had been living in a state of suspense for some time, -and today he was waiting for a certain event very anxiously. This -event was the return of Mr. Carmichael from Moscow. His stay there had -been prolonged from week to week. On his first arrival there, he had -not been able satisfactorily to trace the family he had gone in search -of. When he felt at last sure that he had found them and had gone to -their house, he had been told that they were absent on a journey. His -efforts to reach them had been unavailing, so he had decided to remain -in Moscow until their return. Mr. Carrisford sat in his reclining -chair, and Janet sat on the floor beside him. He was very fond of -Janet. Nora had found a footstool, and Donald was astride the tiger's -head which ornamented the rug made of the animal's skin. It must be -owned that he was riding it rather violently. - -"Don't chirrup so loud, Donald," Janet said. "When you come to cheer -an ill person up you don't cheer him up at the top of your voice. -Perhaps cheering up is too loud, Mr. Carrisford?" turning to the Indian -gentleman. - -But he only patted her shoulder. - -"No, it isn't," he answered. "And it keeps me from thinking too much." - -"I'm going to be quiet," Donald shouted. "We'll all be as quiet as -mice." - -"Mice don't make a noise like that," said Janet. - -Donald made a bridle of his handkerchief and bounced up and down on the -tiger's head. - -"A whole lot of mice might," he said cheerfully. "A thousand mice -might." - -"I don't believe fifty thousand mice would," said Janet, severely; "and -we have to be as quiet as one mouse." - -Mr. Carrisford laughed and patted her shoulder again. - -"Papa won't be very long now," she said. "May we talk about the lost -little girl?" - -"I don't think I could talk much about anything else just now," the -Indian gentleman answered, knitting his forehead with a tired look. - -"We like her so much," said Nora. "We call her the little un-fairy -princess." - -"Why?" the Indian gentleman inquired, because the fancies of the Large -Family always made him forget things a little. - -It was Janet who answered. - -"It is because, though she is not exactly a fairy, she will be so rich -when she is found that she will be like a princess in a fairy tale. We -called her the fairy princess at first, but it didn't quite suit." - -"Is it true," said Nora, "that her papa gave all his money to a friend -to put in a mine that had diamonds in it, and then the friend thought -he had lost it all and ran away because he felt as if he was a robber?" - -"But he wasn't really, you know," put in Janet, hastily. - -The Indian gentleman took hold of her hand quickly. - -"No, he wasn't really," he said. - -"I am sorry for the friend," Janet said; "I can't help it. He didn't -mean to do it, and it would break his heart. I am sure it would break -his heart." - -"You are an understanding little woman, Janet," the Indian gentleman -said, and he held her hand close. - -"Did you tell Mr. Carrisford," Donald shouted again, "about the -little-girl-who-isn't-a-beggar? Did you tell him she has new nice -clothes? P'r'aps she's been found by somebody when she was lost." - -"There's a cab!" exclaimed Janet. "It's stopping before the door. It -is papa!" - -They all ran to the windows to look out. - -"Yes, it's papa," Donald proclaimed. "But there is no little girl." - -All three of them incontinently fled from the room and tumbled into the -hall. It was in this way they always welcomed their father. They were -to be heard jumping up and down, clapping their hands, and being caught -up and kissed. - -Mr. Carrisford made an effort to rise and sank back again. - -"It is no use," he said. "What a wreck I am!" - -Mr. Carmichael's voice approached the door. - -"No, children," he was saying; "you may come in after I have talked to -Mr. Carrisford. Go and play with Ram Dass." - -Then the door opened and he came in. He looked rosier than ever, and -brought an atmosphere of freshness and health with him; but his eyes -were disappointed and anxious as they met the invalid's look of eager -question even as they grasped each other's hands. - -"What news?" Mr. Carrisford asked. "The child the Russian people -adopted?" - -"She is not the child we are looking for," was Mr. Carmichael's answer. -"She is much younger than Captain Crewe's little girl. Her name is -Emily Carew. I have seen and talked to her. The Russians were able to -give me every detail." - -How wearied and miserable the Indian gentleman looked! His hand -dropped from Mr. Carmichael's. - -"Then the search has to be begun over again," he said. "That is all. -Please sit down." - -Mr. Carmichael took a seat. Somehow, he had gradually grown fond of -this unhappy man. He was himself so well and happy, and so surrounded -by cheerfulness and love, that desolation and broken health seemed -pitifully unbearable things. If there had been the sound of just one -gay little high-pitched voice in the house, it would have been so much -less forlorn. And that a man should be compelled to carry about in his -breast the thought that he had seemed to wrong and desert a child was -not a thing one could face. - -"Come, come," he said in his cheery voice; "we'll find her yet." - -"We must begin at once. No time must be lost," Mr. Carrisford fretted. -"Have you any new suggestion to make--any whatsoever?" - -Mr. Carmichael felt rather restless, and he rose and began to pace the -room with a thoughtful, though uncertain face. - -"Well, perhaps," he said. "I don't know what it may be worth. The -fact is, an idea occurred to me as I was thinking the thing over in the -train on the journey from Dover." - -"What was it? If she is alive, she is somewhere." - -"Yes; she is SOMEWHERE. We have searched the schools in Paris. Let us -give up Paris and begin in London. That was my idea--to search London." - -"There are schools enough in London," said Mr. Carrisford. Then he -slightly started, roused by a recollection. "By the way, there is one -next door." - -"Then we will begin there. We cannot begin nearer than next door." - -"No," said Carrisford. "There is a child there who interests me; but -she is not a pupil. And she is a little dark, forlorn creature, as -unlike poor Crewe as a child could be." - -Perhaps the Magic was at work again at that very moment--the beautiful -Magic. It really seemed as if it might be so. What was it that brought -Ram Dass into the room--even as his master spoke--salaaming -respectfully, but with a scarcely concealed touch of excitement in his -dark, flashing eyes? - -"Sahib," he said, "the child herself has come--the child the sahib felt -pity for. She brings back the monkey who had again run away to her -attic under the roof. I have asked that she remain. It was my thought -that it would please the sahib to see and speak with her." - -"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Carmichael. - -"God knows," Mr. Carrrisford answered. "She is the child I spoke of. A -little drudge at the school." He waved his hand to Ram Dass, and -addressed him. "Yes, I should like to see her. Go and bring her in." -Then he turned to Mr. Carmichael. "While you have been away," he -explained, "I have been desperate. The days were so dark and long. Ram -Dass told me of this child's miseries, and together we invented a -romantic plan to help her. I suppose it was a childish thing to do; -but it gave me something to plan and think of. Without the help of an -agile, soft-footed Oriental like Ram Dass, however, it could not have -been done." - -Then Sara came into the room. She carried the monkey in her arms, and -he evidently did not intend to part from her, if it could be helped. -He was clinging to her and chattering, and the interesting excitement -of finding herself in the Indian gentleman's room had brought a flush -to Sara's cheeks. - -"Your monkey ran away again," she said, in her pretty voice. "He came -to my garret window last night, and I took him in because it was so -cold. I would have brought him back if it had not been so late. I knew -you were ill and might not like to be disturbed." - -The Indian gentleman's hollow eyes dwelt on her with curious interest. - -"That was very thoughtful of you," he said. - -Sara looked toward Ram Dass, who stood near the door. - -"Shall I give him to the Lascar?" she asked. - -"How do you know he is a Lascar?" said the Indian gentleman, smiling a -little. - -"Oh, I know Lascars," Sara said, handing over the reluctant monkey. "I -was born in India." - -The Indian gentleman sat upright so suddenly, and with such a change of -expression, that she was for a moment quite startled. - -"You were born in India," he exclaimed, "were you? Come here." And he -held out his hand. - -Sara went to him and laid her hand in his, as he seemed to want to take -it. She stood still, and her green-gray eyes met his wonderingly. -Something seemed to be the matter with him. - -"You live next door?" he demanded. - -"Yes; I live at Miss Minchin's seminary." - -"But you are not one of her pupils?" - -A strange little smile hovered about Sara's mouth. She hesitated a -moment. - -"I don't think I know exactly WHAT I am," she replied. - -"Why not?" - -"At first I was a pupil, and a parlor boarder; but now--" - -"You were a pupil! What are you now?" - -The queer little sad smile was on Sara's lips again. - -"I sleep in the attic, next to the scullery maid," she said. "I run -errands for the cook--I do anything she tells me; and I teach the -little ones their lessons." - -"Question her, Carmichael," said Mr. Carrisford, sinking back as if he -had lost his strength. "Question her; I cannot." - -The big, kind father of the Large Family knew how to question little -girls. Sara realized how much practice he had had when he spoke to her -in his nice, encouraging voice. - -"What do you mean by 'At first,' my child?" he inquired. - -"When I was first taken there by my papa." - -"Where is your papa?" - -"He died," said Sara, very quietly. "He lost all his money and there -was none left for me. There was no one to take care of me or to pay -Miss Minchin." - -"Carmichael!" the Indian gentleman cried out loudly. "Carmichael!" - -"We must not frighten her," Mr. Carmichael said aside to him in a -quick, low voice. And he added aloud to Sara, "So you were sent up -into the attic, and made into a little drudge. That was about it, -wasn't it?" - -"There was no one to take care of me," said Sara. "There was no money; -I belong to nobody." - -"How did your father lose his money?" the Indian gentleman broke in -breathlessly. - -"He did not lose it himself," Sara answered, wondering still more each -moment. "He had a friend he was very fond of--he was very fond of him. -It was his friend who took his money. He trusted his friend too much." - -The Indian gentleman's breath came more quickly. - -"The friend might have MEANT to do no harm," he said. "It might have -happened through a mistake." - -Sara did not know how unrelenting her quiet young voice sounded as she -answered. If she had known, she would surely have tried to soften it -for the Indian gentleman's sake. - -"The suffering was just as bad for my papa," she said. "It killed him." - -"What was your father's name?" the Indian gentleman said. "Tell me." - -"His name was Ralph Crewe," Sara answered, feeling startled. "Captain -Crewe. He died in India." - -The haggard face contracted, and Ram Dass sprang to his master's side. - -"Carmichael," the invalid gasped, "it is the child--the child!" - -For a moment Sara thought he was going to die. Ram Dass poured out -drops from a bottle, and held them to his lips. Sara stood near, -trembling a little. She looked in a bewildered way at Mr. Carmichael. - -"What child am I?" she faltered. - -"He was your father's friend," Mr. Carmichael answered her. "Don't be -frightened. We have been looking for you for two years." - -Sara put her hand up to her forehead, and her mouth trembled. She -spoke as if she were in a dream. - -"And I was at Miss Minchin's all the while," she half whispered. "Just -on the other side of the wall." - - - -18 - -"I Tried Not to Be" - - -It was pretty, comfortable Mrs. Carmichael who explained everything. -She was sent for at once, and came across the square to take Sara into -her warm arms and make clear to her all that had happened. The -excitement of the totally unexpected discovery had been temporarily -almost overpowering to Mr. Carrisford in his weak condition. - -"Upon my word," he said faintly to Mr. Carmichael, when it was -suggested that the little girl should go into another room. "I feel as -if I do not want to lose sight of her." - -"I will take care of her," Janet said, "and mamma will come in a few -minutes." And it was Janet who led her away. - -"We're so glad you are found," she said. "You don't know how glad we -are that you are found." - -Donald stood with his hands in his pockets, and gazed at Sara with -reflecting and self-reproachful eyes. - -"If I'd just asked what your name was when I gave you my sixpence," he -said, "you would have told me it was Sara Crewe, and then you would -have been found in a minute." Then Mrs. Carmichael came in. She looked -very much moved, and suddenly took Sara in her arms and kissed her. - -"You look bewildered, poor child," she said. "And it is not to be -wondered at." - -Sara could only think of one thing. - -"Was he," she said, with a glance toward the closed door of the -library--"was HE the wicked friend? Oh, do tell me!" - -Mrs. Carmichael was crying as she kissed her again. She felt as if she -ought to be kissed very often because she had not been kissed for so -long. - -"He was not wicked, my dear," she answered. "He did not really lose -your papa's money. He only thought he had lost it; and because he -loved him so much his grief made him so ill that for a time he was not -in his right mind. He almost died of brain fever, and long before he -began to recover your poor papa was dead." - -"And he did not know where to find me," murmured Sara. "And I was so -near." Somehow, she could not forget that she had been so near. - -"He believed you were in school in France," Mrs. Carmichael explained. -"And he was continually misled by false clues. He has looked for you -everywhere. When he saw you pass by, looking so sad and neglected, he -did not dream that you were his friend's poor child; but because you -were a little girl, too, he was sorry for you, and wanted to make you -happier. And he told Ram Dass to climb into your attic window and try -to make you comfortable." - -Sara gave a start of joy; her whole look changed. - -"Did Ram Dass bring the things?" she cried out. "Did he tell Ram Dass -to do it? Did he make the dream that came true?" - -"Yes, my dear--yes! He is kind and good, and he was sorry for you, for -little lost Sara Crewe's sake." - -The library door opened and Mr. Carmichael appeared, calling Sara to -him with a gesture. - -"Mr. Carrisford is better already," he said. "He wants you to come to -him." - -Sara did not wait. When the Indian gentleman looked at her as she -entered, he saw that her face was all alight. - -She went and stood before his chair, with her hands clasped together -against her breast. - -"You sent the things to me," she said, in a joyful emotional little -voice, "the beautiful, beautiful things? YOU sent them!" - -"Yes, poor, dear child, I did," he answered her. He was weak and -broken with long illness and trouble, but he looked at her with the -look she remembered in her father's eyes--that look of loving her and -wanting to take her in his arms. It made her kneel down by him, just -as she used to kneel by her father when they were the dearest friends -and lovers in the world. - -"Then it is you who are my friend," she said; "it is you who are my -friend!" And she dropped her face on his thin hand and kissed it again -and again. - -"The man will be himself again in three weeks," Mr. Carmichael said -aside to his wife. "Look at his face already." - -In fact, he did look changed. Here was the "Little Missus," and he had -new things to think of and plan for already. In the first place, there -was Miss Minchin. She must be interviewed and told of the change which -had taken place in the fortunes of her pupil. - -Sara was not to return to the seminary at all. The Indian gentleman -was very determined upon that point. She must remain where she was, -and Mr. Carmichael should go and see Miss Minchin himself. - -"I am glad I need not go back," said Sara. "She will be very angry. -She does not like me; though perhaps it is my fault, because I do not -like her." - -But, oddly enough, Miss Minchin made it unnecessary for Mr. Carmichael -to go to her, by actually coming in search of her pupil herself. She -had wanted Sara for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing -thing. One of the housemaids had seen her steal out of the area with -something hidden under her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps -of the next door and enter the house. - -"What does she mean!" cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia. - -"I don't know, I'm sure, sister," answered Miss Amelia. "Unless she -has made friends with him because he has lived in India." - -"It would be just like her to thrust herself upon him and try to gain -his sympathies in some such impertinent fashion," said Miss Minchin. -"She must have been in the house for two hours. I will not allow such -presumption. I shall go and inquire into the matter, and apologize for -her intrusion." - -Sara was sitting on a footstool close to Mr. Carrisford's knee, and -listening to some of the many things he felt it necessary to try to -explain to her, when Ram Dass announced the visitor's arrival. - -Sara rose involuntarily, and became rather pale; but Mr. Carrisford saw -that she stood quietly, and showed none of the ordinary signs of child -terror. - -Miss Minchin entered the room with a sternly dignified manner. She was -correctly and well dressed, and rigidly polite. - -"I am sorry to disturb Mr. Carrisford," she said; "but I have -explanations to make. I am Miss Minchin, the proprietress of the Young -Ladies' Seminary next door." - -The Indian gentleman looked at her for a moment in silent scrutiny. He -was a man who had naturally a rather hot temper, and he did not wish it -to get too much the better of him. - -"So you are Miss Minchin?" he said. - -"I am, sir." - -"In that case," the Indian gentleman replied, "you have arrived at the -right time. My solicitor, Mr. Carmichael, was just on the point of -going to see you." - -Mr. Carmichael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr. -Carrisford in amazement. - -"Your solicitor!" she said. "I do not understand. I have come here as -a matter of duty. I have just discovered that you have been intruded -upon through the forwardness of one of my pupils--a charity pupil. I -came to explain that she intruded without my knowledge." She turned -upon Sara. "Go home at once," she commanded indignantly. "You shall be -severely punished. Go home at once." - -The Indian gentleman drew Sara to his side and patted her hand. - -"She is not going." - -Miss Minchin felt rather as if she must be losing her senses. - -"Not going!" she repeated. - -"No," said Mr. Carrisford. "She is not going home--if you give your -house that name. Her home for the future will be with me." - -Miss Minchin fell back in amazed indignation. - -"With YOU! With YOU sir! What does this mean?" - -"Kindly explain the matter, Carmichael," said the Indian gentleman; -"and get it over as quickly as possible." And he made Sara sit down -again, and held her hands in his--which was another trick of her papa's. - -Then Mr. Carmichael explained--in the quiet, level-toned, steady manner -of a man who knew his subject, and all its legal significance, which -was a thing Miss Minchin understood as a business woman, and did not -enjoy. - -"Mr. Carrisford, madam," he said, "was an intimate friend of the late -Captain Crewe. He was his partner in certain large investments. The -fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered, -and is now in Mr. Carrisford's hands." - -"The fortune!" cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she -uttered the exclamation. "Sara's fortune!" - -"It WILL be Sara's fortune," replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly. "It -is Sara's fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it -enormously. The diamond mines have retrieved themselves." - -"The diamond mines!" Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, -nothing so horrible, she felt, had ever happened to her since she was -born. - -"The diamond mines," Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help -adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile, "There are not many -princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity -pupil, Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her -for nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her." - -After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained -matters to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to -make it quite clear to her that Sara's future was an assured one, and -that what had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold; -also, that she had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend. - -Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was -silly enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not -help seeing she had lost through her worldly folly. - -"He found her under my care," she protested. "I have done everything -for her. But for me she should have starved in the streets." - -Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper. - -"As to starving in the streets," he said, "she might have starved more -comfortably there than in your attic." - -"Captain Crewe left her in my charge," Miss Minchin argued. "She must -return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor boarder again. -She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf." - -"Come, come, Miss Minchin," Mr. Carmichael interposed, "the law will do -nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare -say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with -Sara." - -"Then," said Miss Minchin, "I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you, -perhaps," she said awkwardly to the little girl; "but you know that -your papa was pleased with your progress. And--ahem--I have always been -fond of you." - -Sara's green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear -look Miss Minchin particularly disliked. - -"Have YOU, Miss Minchin?" she said. "I did not know that." - -Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up. - -"You ought to have known it," said she; "but children, unfortunately, -never know what is best for them. Amelia and I always said you were -the cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your -poor papa and come home with me?" - -Sara took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the -day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody, and was in -danger of being turned into the street; she was thinking of the cold, -hungry hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchisedec in the -attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the face. - -"You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin," she said; -"you know quite well." - -A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin's hard, angry face. - -"You will never see your companions again," she began. "I will see -that Ermengarde and Lottie are kept away--" - -Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness. - -"Excuse me," he said; "she will see anyone she wishes to see. The -parents of Miss Crewe's fellow-pupils are not likely to refuse her -invitations to visit her at her guardian's house. Mr. Carrisford will -attend to that." - -It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse -than the eccentric bachelor uncle who might have a peppery temper and -be easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid -mind could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow -their children to remain friends with a little heiress of diamond -mines. And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how -unhappy Sara Crewe had been made, many unpleasant things might happen. - -"You have not undertaken an easy charge," she said to the Indian -gentleman, as she turned to leave the room; "you will discover that -very soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose"--to -Sara--"that you feel now that you are a princess again." - -Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet -fancy might not be easy for strangers--even nice ones--to understand at -first. - -"I--TRIED not to be anything else," she answered in a low voice--"even -when I was coldest and hungriest--I tried not to be." - -"Now it will not be necessary to try," said Miss Minchin, acidly, as -Ram Dass salaamed her out of the room. - - -She returned home and, going to her sitting room, sent at once for Miss -Amelia. She sat closeted with her all the rest of the afternoon, and -it must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one -bad quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears, and mopped her -eyes a good deal. One of her unfortunate remarks almost caused her -sister to snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual -manner. - -"I'm not as clever as you, sister," she said, "and I am always afraid -to say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were -not so timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I -must say I've often thought it would have been better if you had been -less severe on Sara Crewe, and had seen that she was decently dressed -and more comfortable. I KNOW she was worked too hard for a child of her -age, and I know she was only half fed--" - -"How dare you say such a thing!" exclaimed Miss Minchin. - -"I don't know how I dare," Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of -reckless courage; "but now I've begun I may as well finish, whatever -happens to me. The child was a clever child and a good child--and she -would have paid you for any kindness you had shown her. But you didn't -show her any. The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always -disliked her for that reason. She used to see through us both--" - -"Amelia!" gasped her infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her -ears and knock her cap off, as she had often done to Becky. - -But Miss Amelia's disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to -care what occurred next. - -"She did! She did!" she cried. "She saw through us both. She saw that -you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and -that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees -for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from -her--though she behaved herself like a little princess even when she -was a beggar. She did--she did--like a little princess!" And her -hysterics got the better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and -cry both at once, and rock herself backward and forward. - -"And now you've lost her," she cried wildly; "and some other school -will get her and her money; and if she were like any other child she'd -tell how she's been treated, and all our pupils would be taken away and -we should be ruined. And it serves us right; but it serves you right -more than it does me, for you are a hard woman, Maria Minchin, you're a -hard, selfish, worldly woman!" - -And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical -chokes and gurgles that her sister was obliged to go to her and apply -salts and sal volatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her -indignation at her audacity. - -And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin -actually began to stand a little in awe of a sister who, while she -looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, -and might, consequently, break out and speak truths people did not want -to hear. - -That evening, when the pupils were gathered together before the fire in -the schoolroom, as was their custom before going to bed, Ermengarde -came in with a letter in her hand and a queer expression on her round -face. It was queer because, while it was an expression of delighted -excitement, it was combined with such amazement as seemed to belong to -a kind of shock just received. - -"What IS the matter?" cried two or three voices at once. - -"Is it anything to do with the row that has been going on?" said -Lavinia, eagerly. "There has been such a row in Miss Minchin's room, -Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics and has had to go to bed." - -Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned. - -"I have just had this letter from Sara," she said, holding it out to -let them see what a long letter it was. - -"From Sara!" Every voice joined in that exclamation. - -"Where is she?" almost shrieked Jessie. - -"Next door," said Ermengarde, "with the Indian gentleman." - -"Where? Where? Has she been sent away? Does Miss Minchin know? Was -the row about that? Why did she write? Tell us! Tell us!" - -There was a perfect babel, and Lottie began to cry plaintively. - -Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half plunged out into -what, at the moment, seemed the most important and self-explaining -thing. - -"There WERE diamond mines," she said stoutly; "there WERE!" Open mouths -and open eyes confronted her. - -"They were real," she hurried on. "It was all a mistake about them. -Something happened for a time, and Mr. Carrisford thought they were -ruined--" - -"Who is Mr. Carrisford?" shouted Jessie. - -"The Indian gentleman. And Captain Crewe thought so, too--and he died; -and Mr. Carrisford had brain fever and ran away, and HE almost died. -And he did not know where Sara was. And it turned out that there were -millions and millions of diamonds in the mines; and half of them belong -to Sara; and they belonged to her when she was living in the attic with -no one but Melchisedec for a friend, and the cook ordering her about. -And Mr. Carrisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his -home--and she will never come back--and she will be more a princess -than she ever was--a hundred and fifty thousand times more. And I am -going to see her tomorrow afternoon. There!" - -Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar -after this; and though she heard the noise, she did not try. She was -not in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room, -while Miss Amelia was weeping in bed. She knew that the news had -penetrated the walls in some mysterious manner, and that every servant -and every child would go to bed talking about it. - -So until almost midnight the entire seminary, realizing somehow that -all rules were laid aside, crowded round Ermengarde in the schoolroom -and heard read and re-read the letter containing a story which was -quite as wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented, and which had -the amazing charm of having happened to Sara herself and the mystic -Indian gentleman in the very next house. - -Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep up stairs earlier than -usual. She wanted to get away from people and go and look at the -little magic room once more. She did not know what would happen to it. -It was not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin. It would be -taken away, and the attic would be bare and empty again. Glad as she -was for Sara's sake, she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump -in her throat and tears blurring her sight. There would be no fire -tonight, and no rosy lamp; no supper, and no princess sitting in the -glow reading or telling stories--no princess! - -She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open, and then she -broke into a low cry. - -The lamp was flushing the room, the fire was blazing, the supper was -waiting; and Ram Dass was standing smiling into her startled face. - -"Missee sahib remembered," he said. "She told the sahib all. She -wished you to know the good fortune which has befallen her. Behold a -letter on the tray. She has written. She did not wish that you should -go to sleep unhappy. The sahib commands you to come to him tomorrow. -You are to be the attendant of missee sahib. Tonight I take these -things back over the roof." - -And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salaam and -slipped through the skylight with an agile silentness of movement which -showed Becky how easily he had done it before. - - - -19 - -Anne - - -Never had such joy reigned in the nursery of the Large Family. Never -had they dreamed of such delights as resulted from an intimate -acquaintance with the little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. The mere fact -of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession. -Everybody wanted to be told over and over again the things which had -happened to her. When one was sitting by a warm fire in a big, glowing -room, it was quite delightful to hear how cold it could be in an attic. -It must be admitted that the attic was rather delighted in, and that -its coldness and bareness quite sank into insignificance when -Melchisedec was remembered, and one heard about the sparrows and things -one could see if one climbed on the table and stuck one's head and -shoulders out of the skylight. - -Of course the thing loved best was the story of the banquet and the -dream which was true. Sara told it for the first time the day after -she had been found. Several members of the Large Family came to take -tea with her, and as they sat or curled up on the hearth-rug she told -the story in her own way, and the Indian gentleman listened and watched -her. When she had finished she looked up at him and put her hand on his -knee. - -"That is my part," she said. "Now won't you tell your part of it, -Uncle Tom?" He had asked her to call him always "Uncle Tom." "I don't -know your part yet, and it must be beautiful." - -So he told them how, when he sat alone, ill and dull and irritable, Ram -Dass had tried to distract him by describing the passers by, and there -was one child who passed oftener than any one else; he had begun to be -interested in her--partly perhaps because he was thinking a great deal -of a little girl, and partly because Ram Dass had been able to relate -the incident of his visit to the attic in chase of the monkey. He had -described its cheerless look, and the bearing of the child, who seemed -as if she was not of the class of those who were treated as drudges and -servants. Bit by bit, Ram Dass had made discoveries concerning the -wretchedness of her life. He had found out how easy a matter it was to -climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and this fact had -been the beginning of all that followed. - -"Sahib," he had said one day, "I could cross the slates and make the -child a fire when she is out on some errand. When she returned, wet -and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it." - -The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Carrisford's sad face had -lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been so filled with rapture that -he had enlarged upon it and explained to his master how simple it would -be to accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike -pleasure and invention, and the preparations for the carrying out of -the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have -dragged wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had -kept watch, all his packages being in readiness in the attic which was -his own; and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as -interested as himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying -flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when the banquet had -come to its disastrous conclusion; he had been sure of the profoundness -of Sara's wearied sleep; and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept -into the room, while his companion remained outside and handed the -things to him. When Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had -closed the lantern-slide and lain flat upon the floor. These and many -other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand -questions. - -"I am so glad," Sara said. "I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!" - -There never were such friends as these two became. Somehow, they -seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. The Indian gentleman had -never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sara. In a -month's time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a -new man. He was always amused and interested, and he began to find an -actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he -loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for -Sara. There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and -it was one of his pleasures to invent things to surprise her. She -found beautiful new flowers growing in her room, whimsical little gifts -tucked under pillows, and once, as they sat together in the evening, -they heard the scratch of a heavy paw on the door, and when Sara went -to find out what it was, there stood a great dog--a splendid Russian -boarhound--with a grand silver and gold collar bearing an inscription. -"I am Boris," it read; "I serve the Princess Sara." - -There was nothing the Indian gentleman loved more than the recollection -of the little princess in rags and tatters. The afternoons in which -the Large Family, or Ermengarde and Lottie, gathered to rejoice -together were very delightful. But the hours when Sara and the Indian -gentleman sat alone and read or talked had a special charm of their -own. During their passing many interesting things occurred. - -One evening, Mr. Carrisford, looking up from his book, noticed that his -companion had not stirred for some time, but sat gazing into the fire. - -"What are you 'supposing,' Sara?" he asked. - -Sara looked up, with a bright color on her cheek. - -"I WAS supposing," she said; "I was remembering that hungry day, and a -child I saw." - -"But there were a great many hungry days," said the Indian gentleman, -with rather a sad tone in his voice. "Which hungry day was it?" - -"I forgot you didn't know," said Sara. "It was the day the dream came -true." - -Then she told him the story of the bun shop, and the fourpence she -picked up out of the sloppy mud, and the child who was hungrier than -herself. She told it quite simply, and in as few words as possible; -but somehow the Indian gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes -with his hand and look down at the carpet. - -"And I was supposing a kind of plan," she said, when she had finished. -"I was thinking I should like to do something." - -"What was it?" said Mr. Carrisford, in a low tone. "You may do -anything you like to do, princess." - -"I was wondering," rather hesitated Sara--"you know, you say I have so -much money--I was wondering if I could go to see the bun-woman, and -tell her that if, when hungry children--particularly on those dreadful -days--come and sit on the steps, or look in at the window, she would -just call them in and give them something to eat, she might send the -bills to me. Could I do that?" - -"You shall do it tomorrow morning," said the Indian gentleman. - -"Thank you," said Sara. "You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and -it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it away." - -"Yes, yes, my dear," said the Indian gentleman. "Yes, yes, it must be. -Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and -only remember you are a princess." - -"Yes," said Sara, smiling; "and I can give buns and bread to the -populace." And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian gentleman -(he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes) drew her small -dark head down on his knee and stroked her hair. - -The next morning, Miss Minchin, in looking out of her window, saw the -things she perhaps least enjoyed seeing. The Indian gentleman's -carriage, with its tall horses, drew up before the door of the next -house, and its owner and a little figure, warm with soft, rich furs, -descended the steps to get into it. The little figure was a familiar -one, and reminded Miss Minchin of days in the past. It was followed by -another as familiar--the sight of which she found very irritating. It -was Becky, who, in the character of delighted attendant, always -accompanied her young mistress to her carriage, carrying wraps and -belongings. Already Becky had a pink, round face. - -A little later the carriage drew up before the door of the baker's -shop, and its occupants got out, oddly enough, just as the bun-woman -was putting a tray of smoking-hot buns into the window. - -When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her, and, -leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she -looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted -up. - -"I'm sure that I remember you, miss," she said. "And yet--" - -"Yes," said Sara; "once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and--" - -"And you gave five of 'em to a beggar child," the woman broke in on -her. "I've always remembered it. I couldn't make it out at first." She -turned round to the Indian gentleman and spoke her next words to him. -"I beg your pardon, sir, but there's not many young people that notices -a hungry face in that way; and I've thought of it many a time. Excuse -the liberty, miss,"--to Sara--"but you look rosier and--well, better -than you did that--that--" - -"I am better, thank you," said Sara. "And--I am much happier--and I -have come to ask you to do something for me." - -"Me, miss!" exclaimed the bun-woman, smiling cheerfully. "Why, bless -you! Yes, miss. What can I do?" - -And then Sara, leaning on the counter, made her little proposal -concerning the dreadful days and the hungry waifs and the buns. - -The woman watched her, and listened with an astonished face. - -"Why, bless me!" she said again when she had heard it all; "it'll be a -pleasure to me to do it. I am a working-woman myself and cannot afford -to do much on my own account, and there's sights of trouble on every -side; but, if you'll excuse me, I'm bound to say I've given away many a -bit of bread since that wet afternoon, just along o' thinking of -you--an' how wet an' cold you was, an' how hungry you looked; an' yet -you gave away your hot buns as if you was a princess." - -The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sara smiled a -little, too, remembering what she had said to herself when she put the -buns down on the ravenous child's ragged lap. - -"She looked so hungry," she said. "She was even hungrier than I was." - -"She was starving," said the woman. "Many's the time she's told me of -it since--how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was -a-tearing at her poor young insides." - -"Oh, have you seen her since then?" exclaimed Sara. "Do you know where -she is?" - -"Yes, I do," answered the woman, smiling more good-naturedly than ever. -"Why, she's in that there back room, miss, an' has been for a month; -an' a decent, well-meanin' girl she's goin' to turn out, an' such a -help to me in the shop an' in the kitchen as you'd scarce believe, -knowin' how she's lived." - -She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and the -next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter. And -actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking -as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she -had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage, and the wild look -had gone from her eyes. She knew Sara in an instant, and stood and -looked at her as if she could never look enough. - -"You see," said the woman, "I told her to come when she was hungry, and -when she'd come I'd give her odd jobs to do; an' I found she was -willing, and somehow I got to like her; and the end of it was, I've -given her a place an' a home, and she helps me, an' behaves well, an' -is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name's Anne. She has no other." - -The children stood and looked at each other for a few minutes; and then -Sara took her hand out of her muff and held it out across the counter, -and Anne took it, and they looked straight into each other's eyes. - -"I am so glad," Sara said. "And I have just thought of something. -Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you be the one to give the buns and bread -to the children. Perhaps you would like to do it because you know what -it is to be hungry, too." - -"Yes, miss," said the girl. - -And, somehow, Sara felt as if she understood her, though she said so -little, and only stood still and looked and looked after her as she -went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and they got into the -carriage and drove away. - -THE BROTHERS GRIMM FAIRY TALES - -THE GOLDEN BIRD - - -A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree -which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about -the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one -of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the -gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his -eldest son to watch; but about twelve o’clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was -ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning -another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but -the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come -to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself -under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling -noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as -it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son -jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; -only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. -The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than -all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, ‘One feather is of no -use to me, I must have the whole bird.’ - -Then the gardener’s eldest son set out and thought to find the golden -bird very easily; and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a -wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting; so he took his -bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, ‘Do not shoot me, -for I will give you good counsel; I know what your business is, and -that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the -evening; and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each -other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at: go not in -there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you -to be very poor and mean.’ But the son thought to himself, ‘What can -such a beast as this know about the matter?’ So he shot his arrow at -the fox; but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and -ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to -the village where the two inns were; and in one of these were people -singing, and dancing, and feasting; but the other looked very dirty, -and poor. ‘I should be very silly,’ said he, ‘if I went to that shabby -house, and left this charming place’; so he went into the smart house, -and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too. - -Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings -were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened -to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came -to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where -the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not -withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and -his country in the same manner. - -Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into -the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not -listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and -was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his -coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would -not rest at home; and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard -the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not -attempt his life as his brothers had done; so the fox said, ‘Sit upon my -tail, and you will travel faster.’ So he sat down, and the fox began to -run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair -whistled in the wind. - -When they came to the village, the son followed the fox’s counsel, and -without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all -night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he -was beginning his journey, and said, ‘Go straight forward, till you come -to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and -snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and -on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage; -close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the -bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise -you will repent it.’ Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the -young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till -their hair whistled in the wind. - -Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said: so the son went in -and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and -below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been -lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, ‘It will be a -very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage’; so -he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. -But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and -they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning -the court sat to judge him; and when all was heard, it sentenced him to -die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as -swiftly as the wind; and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird -given him for his own. - -So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair, -when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, ‘You see now -what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will -still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as -I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the -horse stands in his stall: by his side will lie the groom fast asleep -and snoring: take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old -leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.’ -Then the son sat down on the fox’s tail, and away they went over stock -and stone till their hair whistled in the wind. - -All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden -saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity -to put the leathern saddle upon it. ‘I will give him the good one,’ -said he; ‘I am sure he deserves it.’ As he took up the golden saddle the -groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took -him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court -to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he -could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the -bird and the horse given him for his own. - -Then he went his way very sorrowful; but the old fox came and said, ‘Why -did not you listen to me? If you had, you would have carried away -both the bird and the horse; yet will I once more give you counsel. Go -straight on, and in the evening you will arrive at a castle. At twelve -o’clock at night the princess goes to the bathing-house: go up to her -and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away; but take care -you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.’ -Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock -and stone till their hair whistled again. - -As they came to the castle, all was as the fox had said, and at twelve -o’clock the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the -kiss, and she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears -that he would let her take leave of her father. At first he refused, -but she wept still more and more, and fell at his feet, till at last -he consented; but the moment she came to her father’s house the guards -awoke and he was taken prisoner again. - -Then he was brought before the king, and the king said, ‘You shall never -have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops -the view from my window.’ Now this hill was so big that the whole world -could not take it away: and when he had worked for seven days, and had -done very little, the fox came and said. ‘Lie down and go to sleep; I -will work for you.’ And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone; -so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now that it was -removed he must give him the princess. - -Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young man -and the princess; and the fox came and said to him, ‘We will have all -three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.’ ‘Ah!’ said the young man, -‘that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?’ - -‘If you will only listen,’ said the fox, ‘it can be done. When you come -to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, “Here -she is!” Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount the golden -horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of -them; but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on -to the horse behind you; clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as -fast as you can.’ - -All went right: then the fox said, ‘When you come to the castle where -the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will -ride in and speak to the king; and when he sees that it is the right -horse, he will bring out the bird; but you must sit still, and say that -you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird; and -when you get it into your hand, ride away.’ - -This, too, happened as the fox said; they carried off the bird, the -princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood. Then the fox -came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’ But the -young man refused to do it: so the fox said, ‘I will at any rate give -you good counsel: beware of two things; ransom no one from the gallows, -and sit down by the side of no river.’ Then away he went. ‘Well,’ -thought the young man, ‘it is no hard matter to keep that advice.’ - -He rode on with the princess, till at last he came to the village where -he had left his two brothers. And there he heard a great noise and -uproar; and when he asked what was the matter, the people said, ‘Two men -are going to be hanged.’ As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were -his brothers, who had turned robbers; so he said, ‘Cannot they in any -way be saved?’ But the people said ‘No,’ unless he would bestow all his -money upon the rascals and buy their liberty. Then he did not stay to -think about the matter, but paid what was asked, and his brothers were -given up, and went on with him towards their home. - -And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so -cool and pleasant that the two brothers said, ‘Let us sit down by the -side of the river, and rest a while, to eat and drink.’ So he said, -‘Yes,’ and forgot the fox’s counsel, and sat down on the side of the -river; and while he suspected nothing, they came behind, and threw him -down the bank, and took the princess, the horse, and the bird, and went -home to the king their master, and said. ‘All this have we won by our -labour.’ Then there was great rejoicing made; but the horse would not -eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept. - -The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river’s bed: luckily it was -nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep -that he could find no way to get out. Then the old fox came once more, -and scolded him for not following his advice; otherwise no evil would -have befallen him: ‘Yet,’ said he, ‘I cannot leave you here, so lay hold -of my tail and hold fast.’ Then he pulled him out of the river, and said -to him, as he got upon the bank, ‘Your brothers have set watch to kill -you, if they find you in the kingdom.’ So he dressed himself as a poor -man, and came secretly to the king’s court, and was scarcely within the -doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess -left off weeping. Then he went to the king, and told him all his -brothers’ roguery; and they were seized and punished, and he had the -princess given to him again; and after the king’s death he was heir to -his kingdom. - -A long while after, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox -met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut -off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the -fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the -princess, who had been lost a great many many years. - - - - -HANS IN LUCK - - -Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes -right--all that falls to them is so much gain--all their geese are -swans--all their cards are trumps--toss them which way you will, they -will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so -much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as -they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it -know about the matter? - -One of these lucky beings was neighbour Hans. Seven long years he had -worked hard for his master. At last he said, ‘Master, my time is up; I -must go home and see my poor mother once more: so pray pay me my wages -and let me go.’ And the master said, ‘You have been a faithful and good -servant, Hans, so your pay shall be handsome.’ Then he gave him a lump -of silver as big as his head. - -Hans took out his pocket-handkerchief, put the piece of silver into it, -threw it over his shoulder, and jogged off on his road homewards. As he -went lazily on, dragging one foot after another, a man came in sight, -trotting gaily along on a capital horse. ‘Ah!’ said Hans aloud, ‘what a -fine thing it is to ride on horseback! There he sits as easy and happy -as if he was at home, in the chair by his fireside; he trips against no -stones, saves shoe-leather, and gets on he hardly knows how.’ Hans did -not speak so softly but the horseman heard it all, and said, ‘Well, -friend, why do you go on foot then?’ ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I have this load to -carry: to be sure it is silver, but it is so heavy that I can’t hold up -my head, and you must know it hurts my shoulder sadly.’ ‘What do you say -of making an exchange?’ said the horseman. ‘I will give you my horse, -and you shall give me the silver; which will save you a great deal of -trouble in carrying such a heavy load about with you.’ ‘With all my -heart,’ said Hans: ‘but as you are so kind to me, I must tell you one -thing--you will have a weary task to draw that silver about with you.’ -However, the horseman got off, took the silver, helped Hans up, gave him -the bridle into one hand and the whip into the other, and said, ‘When -you want to go very fast, smack your lips loudly together, and cry -“Jip!”’ - -Hans was delighted as he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his -elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one -minute whistling a merry tune, and another singing, - - ‘No care and no sorrow, - A fig for the morrow! - We’ll laugh and be merry, - Sing neigh down derry!’ - -After a time he thought he should like to go a little faster, so he -smacked his lips and cried ‘Jip!’ Away went the horse full gallop; and -before Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his -back by the road-side. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who -was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to -himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the -shepherd, ‘This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon -a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break -his neck. However, I’m off now once for all: I like your cow now a great -deal better than this smart beast that played me this trick, and has -spoiled my best coat, you see, in this puddle; which, by the by, smells -not very like a nosegay. One can walk along at one’s leisure behind that -cow--keep good company, and have milk, butter, and cheese, every day, -into the bargain. What would I give to have such a prize!’ ‘Well,’ said -the shepherd, ‘if you are so fond of her, I will change my cow for your -horse; I like to do good to my neighbours, even though I lose by it -myself.’ ‘Done!’ said Hans, merrily. ‘What a noble heart that good man -has!’ thought he. Then the shepherd jumped upon the horse, wished Hans -and the cow good morning, and away he rode. - -Hans brushed his coat, wiped his face and hands, rested a while, and -then drove off his cow quietly, and thought his bargain a very lucky -one. ‘If I have only a piece of bread (and I certainly shall always be -able to get that), I can, whenever I like, eat my butter and cheese with -it; and when I am thirsty I can milk my cow and drink the milk: and what -can I wish for more?’ When he came to an inn, he halted, ate up all his -bread, and gave away his last penny for a glass of beer. When he had -rested himself he set off again, driving his cow towards his mother’s -village. But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at -last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than -an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue -clave to the roof of his mouth. ‘I can find a cure for this,’ thought -he; ‘now I will milk my cow and quench my thirst’: so he tied her to the -stump of a tree, and held his leathern cap to milk into; but not a drop -was to be had. Who would have thought that this cow, which was to bring -him milk and butter and cheese, was all that time utterly dry? Hans had -not thought of looking to that. - -While he was trying his luck in milking, and managing the matter very -clumsily, the uneasy beast began to think him very troublesome; and at -last gave him such a kick on the head as knocked him down; and there he -lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher soon came by, driving a -pig in a wheelbarrow. ‘What is the matter with you, my man?’ said the -butcher, as he helped him up. Hans told him what had happened, how he -was dry, and wanted to milk his cow, but found the cow was dry too. Then -the butcher gave him a flask of ale, saying, ‘There, drink and refresh -yourself; your cow will give you no milk: don’t you see she is an old -beast, good for nothing but the slaughter-house?’ ‘Alas, alas!’ said -Hans, ‘who would have thought it? What a shame to take my horse, and -give me only a dry cow! If I kill her, what will she be good for? I hate -cow-beef; it is not tender enough for me. If it were a pig now--like -that fat gentleman you are driving along at his ease--one could do -something with it; it would at any rate make sausages.’ ‘Well,’ said -the butcher, ‘I don’t like to say no, when one is asked to do a kind, -neighbourly thing. To please you I will change, and give you my fine fat -pig for the cow.’ ‘Heaven reward you for your kindness and self-denial!’ -said Hans, as he gave the butcher the cow; and taking the pig off the -wheel-barrow, drove it away, holding it by the string that was tied to -its leg. - -So on he jogged, and all seemed now to go right with him: he had met -with some misfortunes, to be sure; but he was now well repaid for all. -How could it be otherwise with such a travelling companion as he had at -last got? - -The next man he met was a countryman carrying a fine white goose. The -countryman stopped to ask what was o’clock; this led to further chat; -and Hans told him all his luck, how he had so many good bargains, and -how all the world went gay and smiling with him. The countryman then -began to tell his tale, and said he was going to take the goose to a -christening. ‘Feel,’ said he, ‘how heavy it is, and yet it is only eight -weeks old. Whoever roasts and eats it will find plenty of fat upon it, -it has lived so well!’ ‘You’re right,’ said Hans, as he weighed it in -his hand; ‘but if you talk of fat, my pig is no trifle.’ Meantime the -countryman began to look grave, and shook his head. ‘Hark ye!’ said he, -‘my worthy friend, you seem a good sort of fellow, so I can’t help doing -you a kind turn. Your pig may get you into a scrape. In the village I -just came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was -dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire’s pig. If -you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least -they will do will be to throw you into the horse-pond. Can you swim?’ - -Poor Hans was sadly frightened. ‘Good man,’ cried he, ‘pray get me out -of this scrape. I know nothing of where the pig was either bred or born; -but he may have been the squire’s for aught I can tell: you know this -country better than I do, take my pig and give me the goose.’ ‘I ought -to have something into the bargain,’ said the countryman; ‘give a fat -goose for a pig, indeed! ‘Tis not everyone would do so much for you as -that. However, I will not be hard upon you, as you are in trouble.’ Then -he took the string in his hand, and drove off the pig by a side path; -while Hans went on the way homewards free from care. ‘After all,’ -thought he, ‘that chap is pretty well taken in. I don’t care whose pig -it is, but wherever it came from it has been a very good friend to me. I -have much the best of the bargain. First there will be a capital roast; -then the fat will find me in goose-grease for six months; and then there -are all the beautiful white feathers. I will put them into my pillow, -and then I am sure I shall sleep soundly without rocking. How happy my -mother will be! Talk of a pig, indeed! Give me a fine fat goose.’ - -As he came to the next village, he saw a scissor-grinder with his wheel, -working and singing, - - ‘O’er hill and o’er dale - So happy I roam, - Work light and live well, - All the world is my home; - Then who so blythe, so merry as I?’ - -Hans stood looking on for a while, and at last said, ‘You must be well -off, master grinder! you seem so happy at your work.’ ‘Yes,’ said the -other, ‘mine is a golden trade; a good grinder never puts his hand -into his pocket without finding money in it--but where did you get that -beautiful goose?’ ‘I did not buy it, I gave a pig for it.’ ‘And where -did you get the pig?’ ‘I gave a cow for it.’ ‘And the cow?’ ‘I gave a -horse for it.’ ‘And the horse?’ ‘I gave a lump of silver as big as my -head for it.’ ‘And the silver?’ ‘Oh! I worked hard for that seven long -years.’ ‘You have thriven well in the world hitherto,’ said the grinder, -‘now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand -in it, your fortune would be made.’ ‘Very true: but how is that to be -managed?’ ‘How? Why, you must turn grinder like myself,’ said the other; -‘you only want a grindstone; the rest will come of itself. Here is one -that is but little the worse for wear: I would not ask more than the -value of your goose for it--will you buy?’ ‘How can you ask?’ said -Hans; ‘I should be the happiest man in the world, if I could have money -whenever I put my hand in my pocket: what could I want more? there’s -the goose.’ ‘Now,’ said the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone -that lay by his side, ‘this is a most capital stone; do but work it well -enough, and you can make an old nail cut with it.’ - -Hans took the stone, and went his way with a light heart: his eyes -sparkled for joy, and he said to himself, ‘Surely I must have been born -in a lucky hour; everything I could want or wish for comes of itself. -People are so kind; they seem really to think I do them a favour in -letting them make me rich, and giving me good bargains.’ - -Meantime he began to be tired, and hungry too, for he had given away his -last penny in his joy at getting the cow. - -At last he could go no farther, for the stone tired him sadly: and he -dragged himself to the side of a river, that he might take a drink of -water, and rest a while. So he laid the stone carefully by his side on -the bank: but, as he stooped down to drink, he forgot it, pushed it a -little, and down it rolled, plump into the stream. - -For a while he watched it sinking in the deep clear water; then sprang -up and danced for joy, and again fell upon his knees and thanked Heaven, -with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague, -the ugly heavy stone. - -‘How happy am I!’ cried he; ‘nobody was ever so lucky as I.’ Then up he -got with a light heart, free from all his troubles, and walked on till -he reached his mother’s house, and told her how very easy the road to -good luck was. - - - - -JORINDA AND JORINDEL - - -There was once an old castle, that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy -wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take -any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of -an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always -became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred -paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step -till she came and set him free; which she would not do till he had given -her his word never to come there again: but when any pretty maiden came -within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her -into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were -seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with -beautiful birds in them. - -Now there was once a maiden whose name was Jorinda. She was prettier -than all the pretty girls that ever were seen before, and a shepherd -lad, whose name was Jorindel, was very fond of her, and they were soon -to be married. One day they went to walk in the wood, that they might be -alone; and Jorindel said, ‘We must take care that we don’t go too near -to the fairy’s castle.’ It was a beautiful evening; the last rays of the -setting sun shone bright through the long stems of the trees upon -the green underwood beneath, and the turtle-doves sang from the tall -birches. - -Jorinda sat down to gaze upon the sun; Jorindel sat by her side; and -both felt sad, they knew not why; but it seemed as if they were to be -parted from one another for ever. They had wandered a long way; and when -they looked to see which way they should go home, they found themselves -at a loss to know what path to take. - -The sun was setting fast, and already half of its circle had sunk behind -the hill: Jorindel on a sudden looked behind him, and saw through the -bushes that they had, without knowing it, sat down close under the old -walls of the castle. Then he shrank for fear, turned pale, and trembled. -Jorinda was just singing, - - ‘The ring-dove sang from the willow spray, - Well-a-day! Well-a-day! - He mourn’d for the fate of his darling mate, - Well-a-day!’ - -when her song stopped suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and -beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended -with a mournful _jug, jug_. An owl with fiery eyes flew three times -round them, and three times screamed: - - ‘Tu whu! Tu whu! Tu whu!’ - -Jorindel could not move; he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither -weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down; -the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the -old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and -chin that almost met one another. - -She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away -with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gone--but -what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot -where he stood. At last the fairy came back and sang with a hoarse -voice: - - ‘Till the prisoner is fast, - And her doom is cast, - There stay! Oh, stay! - When the charm is around her, - And the spell has bound her, - Hie away! away!’ - -On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then he fell on his knees -before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda: but -she laughed at him, and said he should never see her again; then she -went her way. - -He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. ‘Alas!’ he said, ‘what -will become of me?’ He could not go back to his own home, so he went to -a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time -did he walk round and round as near to the hated castle as he dared go, -but all in vain; he heard or saw nothing of Jorinda. - -At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower, -and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl; and he dreamt that he -plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and -that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he -found his Jorinda again. - -In the morning when he awoke, he began to search over hill and dale for -this pretty flower; and eight long days he sought for it in vain: but -on the ninth day, early in the morning, he found the beautiful purple -flower; and in the middle of it was a large dewdrop, as big as a costly -pearl. Then he plucked the flower, and set out and travelled day and -night, till he came again to the castle. - -He walked nearer than a hundred paces to it, and yet he did not become -fixed as before, but found that he could go quite close up to the door. -Jorindel was very glad indeed to see this. Then he touched the door with -the flower, and it sprang open; so that he went in through the court, -and listened when he heard so many birds singing. At last he came to the -chamber where the fairy sat, with the seven hundred birds singing in -the seven hundred cages. When she saw Jorindel she was very angry, and -screamed with rage; but she could not come within two yards of him, for -the flower he held in his hand was his safeguard. He looked around at -the birds, but alas! there were many, many nightingales, and how then -should he find out which was his Jorinda? While he was thinking what to -do, he saw the fairy had taken down one of the cages, and was making the -best of her way off through the door. He ran or flew after her, touched -the cage with the flower, and Jorinda stood before him, and threw her -arms round his neck looking as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as when -they walked together in the wood. - -Then he touched all the other birds with the flower, so that they all -took their old forms again; and he took Jorinda home, where they were -married, and lived happily together many years: and so did a good many -other lads, whose maidens had been forced to sing in the old fairy’s -cages by themselves, much longer than they liked. - - - - -THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS - - -An honest farmer had once an ass that had been a faithful servant to him -a great many years, but was now growing old and every day more and more -unfit for work. His master therefore was tired of keeping him and -began to think of putting an end to him; but the ass, who saw that some -mischief was in the wind, took himself slyly off, and began his journey -towards the great city, ‘For there,’ thought he, ‘I may turn musician.’ - -After he had travelled a little way, he spied a dog lying by the -roadside and panting as if he were tired. ‘What makes you pant so, my -friend?’ said the ass. ‘Alas!’ said the dog, ‘my master was going to -knock me on the head, because I am old and weak, and can no longer make -myself useful to him in hunting; so I ran away; but what can I do to -earn my livelihood?’ ‘Hark ye!’ said the ass, ‘I am going to the great -city to turn musician: suppose you go with me, and try what you can -do in the same way?’ The dog said he was willing, and they jogged on -together. - -They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the -road and making a most rueful face. ‘Pray, my good lady,’ said the ass, -‘what’s the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!’ ‘Ah, me!’ -said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in -danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather lie at my -ease by the fire than run about the house after the mice, my mistress -laid hold of me, and was going to drown me; and though I have been lucky -enough to get away from her, I do not know what I am to live upon.’ -‘Oh,’ said the ass, ‘by all means go with us to the great city; you are -a good night singer, and may make your fortune as a musician.’ The cat -was pleased with the thought, and joined the party. - -Soon afterwards, as they were passing by a farmyard, they saw a cock -perched upon a gate, and screaming out with all his might and main. -‘Bravo!’ said the ass; ‘upon my word, you make a famous noise; pray what -is all this about?’ ‘Why,’ said the cock, ‘I was just now saying that -we should have fine weather for our washing-day, and yet my mistress and -the cook don’t thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my -head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming -on Sunday!’ ‘Heaven forbid!’ said the ass, ‘come with us Master -Chanticleer; it will be better, at any rate, than staying here to have -your head cut off! Besides, who knows? If we care to sing in tune, we -may get up some kind of a concert; so come along with us.’ ‘With all my -heart,’ said the cock: so they all four went on jollily together. - -They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when -night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. The ass and the dog laid -themselves down under a great tree, and the cat climbed up into the -branches; while the cock, thinking that the higher he sat the safer he -should be, flew up to the very top of the tree, and then, according to -his custom, before he went to sleep, looked out on all sides of him to -see that everything was well. In doing this, he saw afar off something -bright and shining and calling to his companions said, ‘There must be a -house no great way off, for I see a light.’ ‘If that be the case,’ said -the ass, ‘we had better change our quarters, for our lodging is not the -best in the world!’ ‘Besides,’ added the dog, ‘I should not be the -worse for a bone or two, or a bit of meat.’ So they walked off together -towards the spot where Chanticleer had seen the light, and as they drew -near it became larger and brighter, till they at last came close to a -house in which a gang of robbers lived. - -The ass, being the tallest of the company, marched up to the window and -peeped in. ‘Well, Donkey,’ said Chanticleer, ‘what do you see?’ ‘What -do I see?’ replied the ass. ‘Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of -good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.’ ‘That would -be a noble lodging for us,’ said the cock. ‘Yes,’ said the ass, ‘if we -could only get in’; so they consulted together how they should contrive -to get the robbers out; and at last they hit upon a plan. The ass placed -himself upright on his hind legs, with his forefeet resting against the -window; the dog got upon his back; the cat scrambled up to the dog’s -shoulders, and the cock flew up and sat upon the cat’s head. When -all was ready a signal was given, and they began their music. The ass -brayed, the dog barked, the cat mewed, and the cock screamed; and then -they all broke through the window at once, and came tumbling into -the room, amongst the broken glass, with a most hideous clatter! The -robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert, -had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them, -and scampered away as fast as they could. - -The coast once clear, our travellers soon sat down and dispatched what -the robbers had left, with as much eagerness as if they had not expected -to eat again for a month. As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they -put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to -his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in -the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the -cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the -cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all -rather tired with their journey, they soon fell asleep. - -But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were -out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in -too great a hurry to run away; and one of them, who was bolder than -the rest, went to see what was going on. Finding everything still, he -marched into the kitchen, and groped about till he found a match in -order to light a candle; and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of -the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to -light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprang at his face, -and spat, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away -he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the -leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the -cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At -this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told -the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at -him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a -knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him -in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a -club, and how the devil had sat upon the top of the house and cried out, -‘Throw the rascal up here!’ After this the robbers never dared to go -back to the house; but the musicians were so pleased with their quarters -that they took up their abode there; and there they are, I dare say, at -this very day. - - - - -OLD SULTAN - - -A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old, -and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife -were standing together before the house the shepherd said, ‘I will shoot -old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.’ But his wife -said, ‘Pray let the poor faithful creature live; he has served us well a -great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of -his days.’ ‘But what can we do with him?’ said the shepherd, ‘he has not -a tooth in his head, and the thieves don’t care for him at all; to -be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood; -tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.’ - -Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd -and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think -tomorrow would be his last day; so in the evening he went to his good -friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, -and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. ‘Make yourself -easy,’ said the wolf, ‘I will give you some good advice. Your master, -you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the -field; and they take their little child with them, and lay it down -behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie -down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come -out of the wood and run away with it; you must run after me as fast as -you can, and I will let it drop; then you may carry it back, and they -will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you -that they will take care of you as long as you live.’ The dog liked this -plan very well; and accordingly so it was managed. The wolf ran with the -child a little way; the shepherd and his wife screamed out; but Sultan -soon overtook him, and carried the poor little thing back to his master -and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, ‘Old -Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live -and be well taken care of, and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and -give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on -as long as he lives.’ So from this time forward Sultan had all that he -could wish for. - -Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, ‘Now, my -good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way -when I want to taste one of the old shepherd’s fine fat sheep.’ ‘No,’ -said the Sultan; ‘I will be true to my master.’ However, the wolf -thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But -Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait -for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for -a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed -his locks for him finely. - -Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan ‘an old rogue,’ and -swore he would have his revenge. So the next morning the wolf sent the -boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now -Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd’s old -three-legged cat; so he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped -along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air. - -The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground; and when they -espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat’s long tail standing -straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to -fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up -a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this way of -fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped -up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked about and -wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden -himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of -them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a -mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped -up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, ‘Look up in the tree, there -sits the one who is to blame.’ So they looked up, and espied the wolf -sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal, -and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of -himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan. - - - - -THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN - - -In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish -of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and -that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. -When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her -observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards -a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw -began and said: ‘Dear friends, from whence do you come here?’ The coal -replied: ‘I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped -by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I should have been -burnt to ashes.’ The bean said: ‘I too have escaped with a whole skin, -but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made -into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.’ ‘And would a better -fate have fallen to my lot?’ said the straw. ‘The old woman has -destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at -once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.’ - -‘But what are we to do now?’ said the coal. - -‘I think,’ answered the bean, ‘that as we have so fortunately escaped -death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new -mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and -repair to a foreign country.’ - -The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way -together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was -no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over -it. The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight -across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’ The straw -therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal, -who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite boldly on to the -newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the -water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still, -and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in -two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed -when she got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had -prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, -was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst. It would -have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who -was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook. -As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread, -and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the -tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam. - - - - -BRIAR ROSE - - -A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, -where there were in those days fairies. Now this king and queen had -plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes to wear, and plenty of -good things to eat and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day: but -though they had been married many years they had no children, and this -grieved them very much indeed. But one day as the queen was walking -by the side of the river, at the bottom of the garden, she saw a poor -little fish, that had thrown itself out of the water, and lay gasping -and nearly dead on the bank. Then the queen took pity on the little -fish, and threw it back again into the river; and before it swam away -it lifted its head out of the water and said, ‘I know what your wish is, -and it shall be fulfilled, in return for your kindness to me--you will -soon have a daughter.’ What the little fish had foretold soon came to -pass; and the queen had a little girl, so very beautiful that the king -could not cease looking on it for joy, and said he would hold a great -feast and make merry, and show the child to all the land. So he asked -his kinsmen, and nobles, and friends, and neighbours. But the queen -said, ‘I will have the fairies also, that they might be kind and good -to our little daughter.’ Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom; -but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat -out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her. -So twelve fairies came, each with a high red cap on her head, and red -shoes with high heels on her feet, and a long white wand in her hand: -and after the feast was over they gathered round in a ring and gave all -their best gifts to the little princess. One gave her goodness, another -beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the -world. - -Just as eleven of them had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in -the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was -come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a -broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-hall. -Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and -scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her -revenge. So she cried out, ‘The king’s daughter shall, in her fifteenth -year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.’ Then the twelfth of -the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and -said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its -mischief; so her gift was, that the king’s daughter, when the spindle -wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a -hundred years. - -However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from -the threatened evil; so he ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom -should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first eleven -fairies were in the meantime fulfilled; for the princess was so -beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who knew -her loved her. - -It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king -and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she -roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till -at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase -ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when -she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning -away very busily. ‘Why, how now, good mother,’ said the princess; ‘what -are you doing there?’ ‘Spinning,’ said the old lady, and nodded her -head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. ‘How prettily that -little thing turns round!’ said the princess, and took the spindle -and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched it, before the -fairy’s prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded her, and she fell -down lifeless on the ground. - -However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep; and -the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court, -fell asleep too; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in -the court, the pigeons on the house-top, and the very flies slept upon -the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to -sleep; the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a -goose upon it for the king’s dinner stood still; and the cook, who was -at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box -on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell -asleep; the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with the -jug at his lips: and thus everything stood still, and slept soundly. - -A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it -became higher and thicker; till at last the old palace was surrounded -and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But -there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Briar -Rose (for so the king’s daughter was called): so that, from time to -time, several kings’ sons came, and tried to break through the thicket -into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do; for the -thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands; and there -they stuck fast, and died wretchedly. - -After many, many years there came a king’s son into that land: and an -old man told him the story of the thicket of thorns; and how a beautiful -palace stood behind it, and how a wonderful princess, called Briar Rose, -lay in it asleep, with all her court. He told, too, how he had heard -from his grandfather that many, many princes had come, and had tried to -break through the thicket, but that they had all stuck fast in it, and -died. Then the young prince said, ‘All this shall not frighten me; I -will go and see this Briar Rose.’ The old man tried to hinder him, but -he was bent upon going. - -Now that very day the hundred years were ended; and as the prince came -to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through -which he went with ease, and they shut in after him as thick as ever. -Then he came at last to the palace, and there in the court lay the dogs -asleep; and the horses were standing in the stables; and on the roof sat -the pigeons fast asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he -came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit -was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going -to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be -plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as -if she was going to beat the boy. - -Then he went on still farther, and all was so still that he could hear -every breath he drew; till at last he came to the old tower, and opened -the door of the little room in which Briar Rose was; and there she lay, -fast asleep on a couch by the window. She looked so beautiful that he -could not take his eyes off her, so he stooped down and gave her a kiss. -But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled -upon him; and they went out together; and soon the king and queen also -awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder. -And the horses shook themselves, and the dogs jumped up and barked; the -pigeons took their heads from under their wings, and looked about and -flew into the fields; the flies on the walls buzzed again; the fire in -the kitchen blazed up; round went the jack, and round went the spit, -with the goose for the king’s dinner upon it; the butler finished his -draught of ale; the maid went on plucking the fowl; and the cook gave -the boy the box on his ear. - -And then the prince and Briar Rose were married, and the wedding feast -was given; and they lived happily together all their lives long. - - - - -THE DOG AND THE SPARROW - - -A shepherd’s dog had a master who took no care of him, but often let him -suffer the greatest hunger. At last he could bear it no longer; so he -took to his heels, and off he ran in a very sad and sorrowful mood. -On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad, -my friend?’ ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have -nothing to eat.’ ‘If that be all,’ answered the sparrow, ‘come with me -into the next town, and I will soon find you plenty of food.’ So on they -went together into the town: and as they passed by a butcher’s shop, -the sparrow said to the dog, ‘Stand there a little while till I peck you -down a piece of meat.’ So the sparrow perched upon the shelf: and having -first looked carefully about her to see if anyone was watching her, she -pecked and scratched at a steak that lay upon the edge of the shelf, -till at last down it fell. Then the dog snapped it up, and scrambled -away with it into a corner, where he soon ate it all up. ‘Well,’ said -the sparrow, ‘you shall have some more if you will; so come with me to -the next shop, and I will peck you down another steak.’ When the dog had -eaten this too, the sparrow said to him, ‘Well, my good friend, have you -had enough now?’ ‘I have had plenty of meat,’ answered he, ‘but I should -like to have a piece of bread to eat after it.’ ‘Come with me then,’ -said the sparrow, ‘and you shall soon have that too.’ So she took him -to a baker’s shop, and pecked at two rolls that lay in the window, till -they fell down: and as the dog still wished for more, she took him to -another shop and pecked down some more for him. When that was eaten, the -sparrow asked him whether he had had enough now. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘and -now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.’ So they both went -out upon the high road; but as the weather was warm, they had not gone -far before the dog said, ‘I am very much tired--I should like to take a -nap.’ ‘Very well,’ answered the sparrow, ‘do so, and in the meantime -I will perch upon that bush.’ So the dog stretched himself out on the -road, and fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, there came by a carter with -a cart drawn by three horses, and loaded with two casks of wine. The -sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would -go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called -out, ‘Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.’ But the -carter, grumbling to himself, ‘You make it the worse for me, indeed! -what can you do?’ cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor -dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. ‘There,’ cried the -sparrow, ‘thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now -mind what I say. This deed of thine shall cost thee all thou art worth.’ -‘Do your worst, and welcome,’ said the brute, ‘what harm can you do me?’ -and passed on. But the sparrow crept under the tilt of the cart, and -pecked at the bung of one of the casks till she loosened it; and then -all the wine ran out, without the carter seeing it. At last he looked -round, and saw that the cart was dripping, and the cask quite empty. -‘What an unlucky wretch I am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said -the sparrow, as she alighted upon the head of one of the horses, and -pecked at him till he reared up and kicked. When the carter saw this, -he drew out his hatchet and aimed a blow at the sparrow, meaning to kill -her; but she flew away, and the blow fell upon the poor horse’s head -with such force, that he fell down dead. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ -cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the sparrow. And as the carter -went on with the other two horses, she again crept under the tilt of the -cart, and pecked out the bung of the second cask, so that all the wine -ran out. When the carter saw this, he again cried out, ‘Miserable wretch -that I am!’ But the sparrow answered, ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ and -perched on the head of the second horse, and pecked at him too. The -carter ran up and struck at her again with his hatchet; but away she -flew, and the blow fell upon the second horse and killed him on the -spot. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ said he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said -the sparrow; and perching upon the third horse, she began to peck him -too. The carter was mad with fury; and without looking about him, or -caring what he was about, struck again at the sparrow; but killed his -third horse as he done the other two. ‘Alas! miserable wretch that I -am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ answered the sparrow as she flew -away; ‘now will I plague and punish thee at thy own house.’ The -carter was forced at last to leave his cart behind him, and to go home -overflowing with rage and vexation. ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what -ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three -dead.’ ‘Alas! husband,’ replied she, ‘and a wicked bird has come into -the house, and has brought with her all the birds in the world, I am -sure, and they have fallen upon our corn in the loft, and are eating it -up at such a rate!’ Away ran the husband upstairs, and saw thousands of -birds sitting upon the floor eating up his corn, with the sparrow in the -midst of them. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ cried the carter; for he saw -that the corn was almost all gone. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the -sparrow; ‘thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life yet!’ and away she flew. - -The carter seeing that he had thus lost all that he had, went down -into his kitchen; and was still not sorry for what he had done, but sat -himself angrily and sulkily in the chimney corner. But the sparrow sat -on the outside of the window, and cried ‘Carter! thy cruelty shall cost -thee thy life!’ With that he jumped up in a rage, seized his hatchet, -and threw it at the sparrow; but it missed her, and only broke the -window. The sparrow now hopped in, perched upon the window-seat, and -cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life!’ Then he became mad and -blind with rage, and struck the window-seat with such force that he -cleft it in two: and as the sparrow flew from place to place, the carter -and his wife were so furious, that they broke all their furniture, -glasses, chairs, benches, the table, and at last the walls, without -touching the bird at all. In the end, however, they caught her: and the -wife said, ‘Shall I kill her at once?’ ‘No,’ cried he, ‘that is letting -her off too easily: she shall die a much more cruel death; I will eat -her.’ But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck -and cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!’ With that he -could wait no longer: so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, ‘Wife, -strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.’ And the wife struck; but -she missed her aim, and hit her husband on the head so that he fell down -dead, and the sparrow flew quietly home to her nest. - - - - -THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES - - -There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in -twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were -shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite -worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody -could find out how it happened, or where they had been. - -Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could -discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses -danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his -wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not -succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death. - -A king’s son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was -taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their -twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; -and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door -of his chamber was left open. But the king’s son soon fell asleep; and -when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been -dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing -happened the second and third night: so the king ordered his head to be -cut off. After him came several others; but they had all the same luck, -and all lost their lives in the same manner. - -Now it chanced that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle -and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king -reigned: and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, -who asked him where he was going. ‘I hardly know where I am going, or -what I had better do,’ said the soldier; ‘but I think I should like very -well to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time -I might be a king.’ ‘Well,’ said the old dame, ‘that is no very hard -task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the -princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves -you pretend to be fast asleep.’ - -Then she gave him a cloak, and said, ‘As soon as you put that on -you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the -princesses wherever they go.’ When the soldier heard all this good -counsel, he determined to try his luck: so he went to the king, and said -he was willing to undertake the task. - -He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered -fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led -to the outer chamber. Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of -the princesses brought him a cup of wine; but the soldier threw it all -away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself -down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loud as if -he was fast asleep. When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed -heartily; and the eldest said, ‘This fellow too might have done a wiser -thing than lose his life in this way!’ Then they rose up and opened -their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and -dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager -to begin dancing. But the youngest said, ‘I don’t know how it is, while -you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will -befall us.’ ‘You simpleton,’ said the eldest, ‘you are always afraid; -have you forgotten how many kings’ sons have already watched in vain? -And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping -draught, he would have slept soundly enough.’ - -When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he -snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were -quite safe; and the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, -and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier -saw them going down through the trap-door one after another, the eldest -leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put -on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them; -but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest -princess, and she cried out to her sisters, ‘All is not right; someone -took hold of my gown.’ ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is -nothing but a nail in the wall.’ Then down they all went, and at the -bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and -the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully. -The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke -off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the -youngest daughter said again, ‘I am sure all is not right--did not you -hear that noise? That never happened before.’ But the eldest said, ‘It -is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.’ - -Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of -gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering -diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there -was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear; but -the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy. -So they went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the -lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, -who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses. - -One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into -the same boat with the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the -prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier -said, ‘I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might -we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat -seems very heavy today.’ ‘It is only the heat of the weather,’ said the -princess: ‘I feel it very warm too.’ - -On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from -which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, -and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and -the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too; and -when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it -all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, -too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always -silenced her. They danced on till three o’clock in the morning, and then -all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off. -The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the -soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the -opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising -to come again the next night. - -When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, -and laid himself down; and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very -much tired, they heard him snoring in his bed; so they said, ‘Now all -is quite safe’; then they undressed themselves, put away their fine -clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed. In the morning the -soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more -of this strange adventure, and went again the second and third night; -and every thing happened just as before; the princesses danced each time -till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. However, -on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a -token of where he had been. - -As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken -before the king with the three branches and the golden cup; and the -twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would -say. And when the king asked him. ‘Where do my twelve daughters dance at -night?’ he answered, ‘With twelve princes in a castle under ground.’ And -then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three -branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him. Then the king -called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said -was true: and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was -of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all. And the king -asked the soldier which of them he would choose for his wife; and he -answered, ‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.’--And they -were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king’s -heir. - - - - -THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE - - -There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close -by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and -one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling -waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away -deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. -But the fish said, ‘Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an -enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!’ ‘Oh, ho!’ -said the man, ‘you need not make so many words about the matter; I will -have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon -as you please!’ Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted -straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him -on the wave. - -When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how -he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted -prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. ‘Did not -you ask it for anything?’ said the wife, ‘we live very wretchedly here, -in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug -little cottage.’ - -The fisherman did not much like the business: however, he went to the -seashore; and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and -green. And he stood at the water’s edge, and said: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, ‘Well, what is her will? -What does your wife want?’ ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘she says that when -I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let -you go; she does not like living any longer in the pigsty, and wants -a snug little cottage.’ ‘Go home, then,’ said the fish; ‘she is in the -cottage already!’ So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the -door of a nice trim little cottage. ‘Come in, come in!’ said she; ‘is -not this much better than the filthy pigsty we had?’ And there was a -parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there -was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits; and -there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. ‘Ah!’ said the -fisherman, ‘how happily we shall live now!’ ‘We will try to do so, at -least,’ said his wife. - -Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Ilsabill said, -‘Husband, there is not near room enough for us in this cottage; the -courtyard and the garden are a great deal too small; I should like to -have a large stone castle to live in: go to the fish again and tell him -to give us a castle.’ ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘I don’t like to go to -him again, for perhaps he will be angry; we ought to be easy with this -pretty cottage to live in.’ ‘Nonsense!’ said the wife; ‘he will do it -very willingly, I know; go along and try!’ - -The fisherman went, but his heart was very heavy: and when he came to -the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was very calm; and he went -close to the edge of the waves, and said: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -‘Well, what does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the man, -dolefully, ‘my wife wants to live in a stone castle.’ ‘Go home, then,’ -said the fish; ‘she is standing at the gate of it already.’ So away went -the fisherman, and found his wife standing before the gate of a great -castle. ‘See,’ said she, ‘is not this grand?’ With that they went into -the castle together, and found a great many servants there, and the -rooms all richly furnished, and full of golden chairs and tables; and -behind the castle was a garden, and around it was a park half a -mile long, full of sheep, and goats, and hares, and deer; and in the -courtyard were stables and cow-houses. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘now we -will live cheerful and happy in this beautiful castle for the rest of -our lives.’ ‘Perhaps we may,’ said the wife; ‘but let us sleep upon it, -before we make up our minds to that.’ So they went to bed. - -The next morning when Dame Ilsabill awoke it was broad daylight, and -she jogged the fisherman with her elbow, and said, ‘Get up, husband, -and bestir yourself, for we must be king of all the land.’ ‘Wife, wife,’ -said the man, ‘why should we wish to be the king? I will not be king.’ -‘Then I will,’ said she. ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you -be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘say -no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.’ So the man went away -quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be king. This time -the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread with curling waves -and the ridges of foam as he cried out: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -‘Well, what would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Alas!’ said the poor -man, ‘my wife wants to be king.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is king -already.’ - -Then the fisherman went home; and as he came close to the palace he saw -a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when -he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds, -with a golden crown upon her head; and on each side of her stood six -fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. ‘Well, wife,’ said the -fisherman, ‘are you king?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am king.’ And when he had -looked at her for a long time, he said, ‘Ah, wife! what a fine thing it -is to be king! Now we shall never have anything more to wish for as long -as we live.’ ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long -time. I am king, it is true; but I begin to be tired of that, and I -think I should like to be emperor.’ ‘Alas, wife! why should you wish to -be emperor?’ said the fisherman. ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘go to the fish! -I say I will be emperor.’ ‘Ah, wife!’ replied the fisherman, ‘the fish -cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for -such a thing.’ ‘I am king,’ said Ilsabill, ‘and you are my slave; so go -at once!’ - -So the fisherman was forced to go; and he muttered as he went along, -‘This will come to no good, it is too much to ask; the fish will be -tired at last, and then we shall be sorry for what we have done.’ He -soon came to the seashore; and the water was quite black and muddy, and -a mighty whirlwind blew over the waves and rolled them about, but he -went as near as he could to the water’s brink, and said: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -‘What would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, -‘she wants to be emperor.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is emperor -already.’ - -So he went home again; and as he came near he saw his wife Ilsabill -sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on -her head full two yards high; and on each side of her stood her guards -and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the -tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And -before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls: and the fisherman went -up to her and said, ‘Wife, are you emperor?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am -emperor.’ ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing -it is to be emperor!’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘why should we stop at being -emperor? I will be pope next.’ ‘O wife, wife!’ said he, ‘how can you be -pope? there is but one pope at a time in Christendom.’ ‘Husband,’ said -she, ‘I will be pope this very day.’ ‘But,’ replied the husband, ‘the -fish cannot make you pope.’ ‘What nonsense!’ said she; ‘if he can make -an emperor, he can make a pope: go and try him.’ - -So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging -and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were -in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows. In the -middle of the heavens there was a little piece of blue sky, but towards -the south all was red, as if a dreadful storm was rising. At this sight -the fisherman was dreadfully frightened, and he trembled so that his -knees knocked together: but still he went down near to the shore, and -said: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘my -wife wants to be pope.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is pope already.’ - -Then the fisherman went home, and found Ilsabill sitting on a throne -that was two miles high. And she had three great crowns on her head, and -around her stood all the pomp and power of the Church. And on each side -of her were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as -large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no -larger than a small rushlight. ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, as he looked -at all this greatness, ‘are you pope?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am pope.’ -‘Well, wife,’ replied he, ‘it is a grand thing to be pope; and now -you must be easy, for you can be nothing greater.’ ‘I will think about -that,’ said the wife. Then they went to bed: but Dame Ilsabill could not -sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last, as she -was dropping asleep, morning broke, and the sun rose. ‘Ha!’ thought she, -as she woke up and looked at it through the window, ‘after all I cannot -prevent the sun rising.’ At this thought she was very angry, and wakened -her husband, and said, ‘Husband, go to the fish and tell him I must -be lord of the sun and moon.’ The fisherman was half asleep, but the -thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed. -‘Alas, wife!’ said he, ‘cannot you be easy with being pope?’ ‘No,’ -said she, ‘I am very uneasy as long as the sun and moon rise without my -leave. Go to the fish at once!’ - -Then the man went shivering with fear; and as he was going down to -the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the very rocks -shook. And all the heavens became black with stormy clouds, and the -lightnings played, and the thunders rolled; and you might have seen in -the sea great black waves, swelling up like mountains with crowns of -white foam upon their heads. And the fisherman crept towards the sea, -and cried out, as well as he could: - - ‘O man of the sea! - Hearken to me! - My wife Ilsabill - Will have her own will, - And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’ - -‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘she wants to -be lord of the sun and moon.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish, ‘to your pigsty -again.’ - -And there they live to this very day. - - - - -THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR - - -Once in summer-time the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest, -and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said: ‘Brother -wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?’ ‘That is the King of birds,’ -said the wolf, ‘before whom we must bow down.’ In reality the bird was -the willow-wren. ‘IF that’s the case,’ said the bear, ‘I should very -much like to see his royal palace; come, take me thither.’ ‘That is not -done quite as you seem to think,’ said the wolf; ‘you must wait until -the Queen comes,’ Soon afterwards, the Queen arrived with some food in -her beak, and the lord King came too, and they began to feed their young -ones. The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him -back by the sleeve, and said: ‘No, you must wait until the lord and lady -Queen have gone away again.’ So they took stock of the hole where the -nest lay, and trotted away. The bear, however, could not rest until he -had seen the royal palace, and when a short time had passed, went to it -again. The King and Queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw -five or six young ones lying there. ‘Is that the royal palace?’ cried -the bear; ‘it is a wretched palace, and you are not King’s children, you -are disreputable children!’ When the young wrens heard that, they were -frightfully angry, and screamed: ‘No, that we are not! Our parents are -honest people! Bear, you will have to pay for that!’ - -The bear and the wolf grew uneasy, and turned back and went into their -holes. The young willow-wrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and -when their parents again brought food they said: ‘We will not so much as -touch one fly’s leg, no, not if we were dying of hunger, until you have -settled whether we are respectable children or not; the bear has been -here and has insulted us!’ Then the old King said: ‘Be easy, he shall -be punished,’ and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear’s cave, and -called in: ‘Old Growler, why have you insulted my children? You shall -suffer for it--we will punish you by a bloody war.’ Thus war was -announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take -part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth -contained. And the willow-wren summoned everything which flew in the -air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, bees and -flies had to come. - -When the time came for the war to begin, the willow-wren sent out spies -to discover who was the enemy’s commander-in-chief. The gnat, who was -the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled, -and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be -announced. There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him -and said: ‘Fox, you are the most cunning of all animals, you shall be -general and lead us.’ ‘Good,’ said the fox, ‘but what signal shall we -agree upon?’ No one knew that, so the fox said: ‘I have a fine long -bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red feathers. When I lift -my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge; but if I -let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.’ When the gnat had heard -that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest -detail, to the willow-wren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin, -all the four-footed animals came running up with such a noise that the -earth trembled. The willow-wren with his army also came flying through -the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one -was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each -other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with orders to settle -beneath the fox’s tail, and sting with all his might. When the fox felt -the first string, he started so that he lifted one leg, from pain, but -he bore it, and still kept his tail high in the air; at the second -sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment; at the third, he could -hold out no longer, screamed, and put his tail between his legs. When -the animals saw that, they thought all was lost, and began to flee, each -into his hole, and the birds had won the battle. - -Then the King and Queen flew home to their children and cried: -‘Children, rejoice, eat and drink to your heart’s content, we have won -the battle!’ But the young wrens said: ‘We will not eat yet, the bear -must come to the nest, and beg for pardon and say that we are honourable -children, before we will do that.’ Then the willow-wren flew to the -bear’s hole and cried: ‘Growler, you are to come to the nest to my -children, and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall -be broken.’ So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear, and begged -their pardon. And now at last the young wrens were satisfied, and sat -down together and ate and drank, and made merry till quite late into the -night. - - - - -THE FROG-PRINCE - - -One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went -out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool -spring of water, that rose in the midst of it, she sat herself down -to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her -favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and -catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that -she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled -along upon the ground, till at last it fell down into the spring. The -princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so -deep that she could not see the bottom of it. Then she began to bewail -her loss, and said, ‘Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would -give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the -world.’ - -Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, -‘Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘what can you -do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.’ -The frog said, ‘I want not your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; -but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off -your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed, I will bring you your ball -again.’ ‘What nonsense,’ thought the princess, ‘this silly frog is -talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though -he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he -shall have what he asks.’ So she said to the frog, ‘Well, if you will -bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.’ Then the frog put his head -down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came -up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the -spring. As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick -it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she -never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could. -The frog called after her, ‘Stay, princess, and take me with you as you -said,’ But she did not stop to hear a word. - -The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a -strange noise--tap, tap--plash, plash--as if something was coming up the -marble staircase: and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the -door, and a little voice cried out and said: - - ‘Open the door, my princess dear, - Open the door to thy true love here! - And mind the words that thou and I said - By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ - -Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw -the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly -frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her -seat. The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, -asked her what was the matter. ‘There is a nasty frog,’ said she, ‘at -the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning: I -told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never -get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come -in.’ - -While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said: - - ‘Open the door, my princess dear, - Open the door to thy true love here! - And mind the words that thou and I said - By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ - -Then the king said to the young princess, ‘As you have given your word -you must keep it; so go and let him in.’ She did so, and the frog hopped -into the room, and then straight on--tap, tap--plash, plash--from the -bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where -the princess sat. ‘Pray lift me upon chair,’ said he to the princess, -‘and let me sit next to you.’ As soon as she had done this, the frog -said, ‘Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.’ This -she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, ‘Now I am -tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.’ And the princess, -though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the -pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was -light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house. -‘Now, then,’ thought the princess, ‘at last he is gone, and I shall be -troubled with him no more.’ - -But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same -tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said: - - ‘Open the door, my princess dear, - Open the door to thy true love here! - And mind the words that thou and I said - By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’ - -And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon -her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did -the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was -astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her -with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head -of her bed. - -He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had -changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till -some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from -her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. ‘You,’ said the -prince, ‘have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for -but that you should go with me into my father’s kingdom, where I will -marry you, and love you as long as you live.’ - -The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying ‘Yes’ to -all this; and as they spoke a gay coach drove up, with eight beautiful -horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind -the coach rode the prince’s servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed -the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so -bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst. - -They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight -horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince’s -kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great -many years. - - - - -CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP - - -A certain cat had made the acquaintance of a mouse, and had said so much -to her about the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at -length the mouse agreed that they should live and keep house together. -‘But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer -from hunger,’ said the cat; ‘and you, little mouse, cannot venture -everywhere, or you will be caught in a trap some day.’ The good advice -was followed, and a pot of fat was bought, but they did not know where -to put it. At length, after much consideration, the cat said: ‘I know no -place where it will be better stored up than in the church, for no one -dares take anything away from there. We will set it beneath the altar, -and not touch it until we are really in need of it.’ So the pot was -placed in safety, but it was not long before the cat had a great -yearning for it, and said to the mouse: ‘I want to tell you something, -little mouse; my cousin has brought a little son into the world, and has -asked me to be godmother; he is white with brown spots, and I am to hold -him over the font at the christening. Let me go out today, and you look -after the house by yourself.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ answered the mouse, ‘by all -means go, and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I -should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.’ All this, -however, was untrue; the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to -be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat, -began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a -walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then -stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought -of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening did she return home. -‘Well, here you are again,’ said the mouse, ‘no doubt you have had a -merry day.’ ‘All went off well,’ answered the cat. ‘What name did they -give the child?’ ‘Top off!’ said the cat quite coolly. ‘Top off!’ cried -the mouse, ‘that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in -your family?’ ‘What does that matter,’ said the cat, ‘it is no worse -than Crumb-stealer, as your godchildren are called.’ - -Before long the cat was seized by another fit of yearning. She said to -the mouse: ‘You must do me a favour, and once more manage the house for -a day alone. I am again asked to be godmother, and, as the child has a -white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.’ The good mouse consented, -but the cat crept behind the town walls to the church, and devoured -half the pot of fat. ‘Nothing ever seems so good as what one keeps to -oneself,’ said she, and was quite satisfied with her day’s work. When -she went home the mouse inquired: ‘And what was the child christened?’ -‘Half-done,’ answered the cat. ‘Half-done! What are you saying? I -never heard the name in my life, I’ll wager anything it is not in the -calendar!’ - -The cat’s mouth soon began to water for some more licking. ‘All good -things go in threes,’ said she, ‘I am asked to stand godmother again. -The child is quite black, only it has white paws, but with that -exception, it has not a single white hair on its whole body; this only -happens once every few years, you will let me go, won’t you?’ ‘Top-off! -Half-done!’ answered the mouse, ‘they are such odd names, they make me -very thoughtful.’ ‘You sit at home,’ said the cat, ‘in your dark-grey -fur coat and long tail, and are filled with fancies, that’s because -you do not go out in the daytime.’ During the cat’s absence the mouse -cleaned the house, and put it in order, but the greedy cat entirely -emptied the pot of fat. ‘When everything is eaten up one has some -peace,’ said she to herself, and well filled and fat she did not return -home till night. The mouse at once asked what name had been given to -the third child. ‘It will not please you more than the others,’ said the -cat. ‘He is called All-gone.’ ‘All-gone,’ cried the mouse ‘that is the -most suspicious name of all! I have never seen it in print. All-gone; -what can that mean?’ and she shook her head, curled herself up, and lay -down to sleep. - -From this time forth no one invited the cat to be godmother, but -when the winter had come and there was no longer anything to be found -outside, the mouse thought of their provision, and said: ‘Come, cat, -we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored up for ourselves--we -shall enjoy that.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the cat, ‘you will enjoy it as much -as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the -window.’ They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of -fat certainly was still in its place, but it was empty. ‘Alas!’ said the -mouse, ‘now I see what has happened, now it comes to light! You are a true -friend! You have devoured all when you were standing godmother. First -top off, then half-done, then--’ ‘Will you hold your tongue,’ cried the -cat, ‘one word more, and I will eat you too.’ ‘All-gone’ was already on -the poor mouse’s lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang -on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of -the world. - - - - -THE GOOSE-GIRL - - -The king of a great land died, and left his queen to take care of their -only child. This child was a daughter, who was very beautiful; and her -mother loved her dearly, and was very kind to her. And there was a good -fairy too, who was fond of the princess, and helped her mother to watch -over her. When she grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived a -great way off; and as the time drew near for her to be married, she -got ready to set off on her journey to his country. Then the queen her -mother, packed up a great many costly things; jewels, and gold, and -silver; trinkets, fine dresses, and in short everything that became a -royal bride. And she gave her a waiting-maid to ride with her, and give -her into the bridegroom’s hands; and each had a horse for the journey. -Now the princess’s horse was the fairy’s gift, and it was called Falada, -and could speak. - -When the time came for them to set out, the fairy went into her -bed-chamber, and took a little knife, and cut off a lock of her hair, -and gave it to the princess, and said, ‘Take care of it, dear child; for -it is a charm that may be of use to you on the road.’ Then they all took -a sorrowful leave of the princess; and she put the lock of hair into -her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her -bridegroom’s kingdom. - -One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to -feel very thirsty: and she said to her maid, ‘Pray get down, and fetch -me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to -drink.’ ‘Nay,’ said the maid, ‘if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and -stoop down by the water and drink; I shall not be your waiting-maid any -longer.’ Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the -little brook, and drank; for she was frightened, and dared not bring out -her golden cup; and she wept and said, ‘Alas! what will become of me?’ -And the lock answered her, and said: - - ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, - Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ - -But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her -maid’s ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again. - -Then all rode farther on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and -the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again; -and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid’s rude -speech, and said, ‘Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in -my golden cup.’ But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily -than before: ‘Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waiting-maid.’ -Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay -down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said, -‘What will become of me?’ And the lock of hair answered her again: - - ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, - Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ - -And as she leaned down to drink, the lock of hair fell from her bosom, -and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did -not see it; but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the -charm; and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that -she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would -have got upon Falada again, the maid said, ‘I shall ride upon Falada, -and you may have my horse instead’; so she was forced to give up her -horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her -maid’s shabby ones. - -At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous -servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had -happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. - -Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the -other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the -royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince flew to -meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one -who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber; -but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. - -Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do; so he -amused himself by sitting at his kitchen window, looking at what was -going on; and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty, -and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went up into the royal chamber -to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left -standing in the court below. ‘I brought her with me for the sake of her -company on the road,’ said she; ‘pray give the girl some work to do, -that she may not be idle.’ The old king could not for some time think -of any work for her to do; but at last he said, ‘I have a lad who takes -care of my geese; she may go and help him.’ Now the name of this lad, -that the real bride was to help in watching the king’s geese, was -Curdken. - -But the false bride said to the prince, ‘Dear husband, pray do me one -piece of kindness.’ ‘That I will,’ said the prince. ‘Then tell one of -your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it -was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road’; but the truth was, -she was very much afraid lest Falada should some day or other speak, and -tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the -faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it, she -wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada’s head against a large -dark gate of the city, through which she had to pass every morning -and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the -slaughterer said he would do as she wished; and cut off the head, and -nailed it up under the dark gate. - -Early the next morning, as she and Curdken went out through the gate, -she said sorrowfully: - - ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ - -and the head answered: - - ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! - Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, - Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ - -Then they went out of the city, and drove the geese on. And when she -came to the meadow, she sat down upon a bank there, and let down her -waving locks of hair, which were all of pure silver; and when Curdken -saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the -locks out, but she cried: - - ‘Blow, breezes, blow! - Let Curdken’s hat go! - Blow, breezes, blow! - Let him after it go! - O’er hills, dales, and rocks, - Away be it whirl’d - Till the silvery locks - Are all comb’d and curl’d! - -Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken’s hat; and -away it flew over the hills: and he was forced to turn and run after -it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her -hair, and had put it up again safe. Then he was very angry and sulky, -and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it -grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. - -The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor -girl looked up at Falada’s head, and cried: - - ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ - -and the head answered: - - ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! - Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, - Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ - -Then she drove on the geese, and sat down again in the meadow, and began -to comb out her hair as before; and Curdken ran up to her, and wanted to -take hold of it; but she cried out quickly: - - ‘Blow, breezes, blow! - Let Curdken’s hat go! - Blow, breezes, blow! - Let him after it go! - O’er hills, dales, and rocks, - Away be it whirl’d - Till the silvery locks - Are all comb’d and curl’d! - -Then the wind came and blew away his hat; and off it flew a great way, -over the hills and far away, so that he had to run after it; and when -he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they -watched the geese till it grew dark. - -In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and -said, ‘I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any -longer.’ ‘Why?’ said the king. ‘Because, instead of doing any good, she -does nothing but tease me all day long.’ Then the king made him tell him -what had happened. And Curdken said, ‘When we go in the morning through -the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head -of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says: - - ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ - -and the head answers: - - ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! - Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, - Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ - -And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow -where the geese fed; how his hat was blown away; and how he was forced -to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the -old king told the boy to go out again the next day: and when morning -came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke -to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and -hid himself in a bush by the meadow’s side; and he soon saw with his own -eyes how they drove the flock of geese; and how, after a little time, -she let down her hair that glittered in the sun. And then he heard her -say: - - ‘Blow, breezes, blow! - Let Curdken’s hat go! - Blow, breezes, blow! - Let him after it go! - O’er hills, dales, and rocks, - Away be it whirl’d - Till the silvery locks - Are all comb’d and curl’d! - -And soon came a gale of wind, and carried away Curdken’s hat, and away -went Curdken after it, while the girl went on combing and curling her -hair. All this the old king saw: so he went home without being seen; and -when the little goose-girl came back in the evening he called her aside, -and asked her why she did so: but she burst into tears, and said, ‘That -I must not tell you or any man, or I shall lose my life.’ - -But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told -him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very -lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered -royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was -so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a -false bride; for that she was merely a waiting-maid, while the true -bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and -heard how meek and patient she had been; and without saying anything to -the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all -his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one -side, and the true one on the other; but nobody knew her again, for her -beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes; and she did not seem at all -like the little goose-girl, now that she had her brilliant dress on. - -When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said -he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the -princess, as if it was one that he had once heard; and he asked the -true waiting-maid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would -behave thus. ‘Nothing better,’ said this false bride, ‘than that she -should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that -two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to -street till she was dead.’ ‘Thou art she!’ said the old king; ‘and as -thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.’ And the young -king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the -kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives; and the good fairy came -to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again. - - - - -THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET - - -1. HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS - -‘The nuts are quite ripe now,’ said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet, -‘suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can, -before the squirrel takes them all away.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said -Partlet, ‘let us go and make a holiday of it together.’ - -So they went to the mountains; and as it was a lovely day, they stayed -there till the evening. Now, whether it was that they had eaten so many -nuts that they could not walk, or whether they were lazy and would not, -I do not know: however, they took it into their heads that it did not -become them to go home on foot. So Chanticleer began to build a little -carriage of nutshells: and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into -it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her -home. ‘That’s a good joke!’ said Chanticleer; ‘no, that will never do; -I had rather by half walk home; I’ll sit on the box and be coachman, -if you like, but I’ll not draw.’ While this was passing, a duck came -quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have -you in my grounds? I’ll give it you well for your insolence!’ and upon -that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no -coward, and returned the duck’s blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely -that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only granted her -upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she -agreed to do; and Chanticleer got upon the box, and drove, crying, ‘Now, -duck, get on as fast as you can.’ And away they went at a pretty good -pace. - -After they had travelled along a little way, they met a needle and a pin -walking together along the road: and the needle cried out, ‘Stop, stop!’ -and said it was so dark that they could hardly find their way, and such -dirty walking they could not get on at all: he told them that he and his -friend, the pin, had been at a public-house a few miles off, and had sat -drinking till they had forgotten how late it was; he begged therefore -that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their -carriage. Chanticleer observing that they were but thin fellows, and not -likely to take up much room, told them they might ride, but made them -promise not to dirty the wheels of the carriage in getting in, nor to -tread on Partlet’s toes. - -Late at night they arrived at an inn; and as it was bad travelling in -the dark, and the duck seemed much tired, and waddled about a good -deal from one side to the other, they made up their minds to fix their -quarters there: but the landlord at first was unwilling, and said his -house was full, thinking they might not be very respectable company: -however, they spoke civilly to him, and gave him the egg which Partlet -had laid by the way, and said they would give him the duck, who was in -the habit of laying one every day: so at last he let them come in, and -they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily. - -Early in the morning, before it was quite light, and when nobody was -stirring in the inn, Chanticleer awakened his wife, and, fetching the -egg, they pecked a hole in it, ate it up, and threw the shells into the -fireplace: they then went to the pin and needle, who were fast asleep, -and seizing them by the heads, stuck one into the landlord’s easy chair -and the other into his handkerchief; and, having done this, they crept -away as softly as possible. However, the duck, who slept in the open -air in the yard, heard them coming, and jumping into the brook which ran -close by the inn, soon swam out of their reach. - -An hour or two afterwards the landlord got up, and took his handkerchief -to wipe his face, but the pin ran into him and pricked him: then he -walked into the kitchen to light his pipe at the fire, but when he -stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes, and almost blinded him. -‘Bless me!’ said he, ‘all the world seems to have a design against my -head this morning’: and so saying, he threw himself sulkily into his -easy chair; but, oh dear! the needle ran into him; and this time the -pain was not in his head. He now flew into a very great passion, and, -suspecting the company who had come in the night before, he went to look -after them, but they were all off; so he swore that he never again -would take in such a troop of vagabonds, who ate a great deal, paid no -reckoning, and gave him nothing for his trouble but their apish tricks. - - -2. HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES - -Another day, Chanticleer and Partlet wished to ride out together; -so Chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels, and -harnessed six mice to it; and then he and Partlet got into the carriage, -and away they drove. Soon afterwards a cat met them, and said, ‘Where -are you going?’ And Chanticleer replied, - - ‘All on our way - A visit to pay - To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’ - -Then the cat said, ‘Take me with you,’ Chanticleer said, ‘With all my -heart: get up behind, and be sure you do not fall off.’ - - ‘Take care of this handsome coach of mine, - Nor dirty my pretty red wheels so fine! - Now, mice, be ready, - And, wheels, run steady! - For we are going a visit to pay - To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’ - -Soon after came up a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin; and -Chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with -them. - -When they arrived at Mr Korbes’s house, he was not at home; so the mice -drew the carriage into the coach-house, Chanticleer and Partlet flew -upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into -the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the -millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself -up in the towel. - -When Mr Korbes came home, he went to the fireplace to make a fire; but -the cat threw all the ashes in his eyes: so he ran to the kitchen to -wash himself; but there the duck splashed all the water in his face; and -when he tried to wipe himself, the egg broke to pieces in the towel all -over his face and eyes. Then he was very angry, and went without his -supper to bed; but when he laid his head on the pillow, the pin ran into -his cheek: at this he became quite furious, and, jumping up, would have -run out of the house; but when he came to the door, the millstone fell -down on his head, and killed him on the spot. - - -3. HOW PARTLET DIED AND WAS BURIED, AND HOW CHANTICLEER DIED OF GRIEF - -Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the mountains -to eat nuts; and it was settled that all the nuts which they found -should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very large -nut; but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it all to -herself: however, it was so big that she could not swallow it, and it -stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried out to -Chanticleer, ‘Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some water, or I -shall be choked.’ Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river, and -said, ‘River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in the mountain, and -will be choked by a great nut.’ The river said, ‘Run first to the bride, -and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the water.’ Chanticleer ran to -the bride, and said, ‘Bride, you must give me a silken cord, for then -the river will give me water, and the water I will carry to Partlet, who -lies on the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.’ But the bride -said, ‘Run first, and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow -in the garden.’ Then Chanticleer ran to the garden, and took the garland -from the bough where it hung, and brought it to the bride; and then -the bride gave him the silken cord, and he took the silken cord to -the river, and the river gave him water, and he carried the water to -Partlet; but in the meantime she was choked by the great nut, and lay -quite dead, and never moved any more. - -Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly; and all the beasts -came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a little -hearse to carry her to her grave; and when it was ready they harnessed -themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way they -met the fox. ‘Where are you going, Chanticleer?’ said he. ‘To bury my -Partlet,’ said the other. ‘May I go with you?’ said the fox. ‘Yes; but -you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to draw you.’ Then -the fox got up behind; and presently the wolf, the bear, the goat, and -all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon the hearse. - -So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. ‘How shall we get -over?’ said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, ‘I will lay myself across, -and you may pass over upon me.’ But as the mice were going over, the -straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell in -and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood came -and said, ‘I am big enough; I will lay myself across the stream, and you -shall pass over upon me.’ So he laid himself down; but they managed -so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the -stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and kindly -offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the stream; -and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse, and -managed to get Partlet out of it; but the fox and the other mourners, -who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into the water -and were all carried away by the stream and drowned. - -Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet; and having dug -a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over her. -Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he -died too; and so all were dead. - - - - -RAPUNZEL - - -There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a -child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. -These people had a little window at the back of their house from which -a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful -flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no -one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had -great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was -standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a -bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it -looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, -and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and -asked: ‘What ails you, dear wife?’ ‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘if I can’t eat -some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall -die.’ The man, who loved her, thought: ‘Sooner than let your wife die, -bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.’ -At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the -enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his -wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It -tasted so good to her--so very good, that the next day she longed for it -three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband -must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening -therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the -wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before -him. ‘How can you dare,’ said she with angry look, ‘descend into my -garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!’ -‘Ah,’ answered he, ‘let mercy take the place of justice, I only made -up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the -window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she -had not got some to eat.’ Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be -softened, and said to him: ‘If the case be as you say, I will allow -you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one -condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into -the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a -mother.’ The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the -woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the -child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her. - -Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was -twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in -a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a -little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself -beneath it and cried: - - ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, - Let down your hair to me.’ - -Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she -heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, -wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair -fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it. - -After a year or two, it came to pass that the king’s son rode through -the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so -charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her -solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king’s -son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, -but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply -touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and -listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw -that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried: - - ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, - Let down your hair to me.’ - -Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress -climbed up to her. ‘If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too -will try my fortune,’ said he, and the next day when it began to grow -dark, he went to the tower and cried: - - ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, - Let down your hair to me.’ - -Immediately the hair fell down and the king’s son climbed up. - -At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes -had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king’s son began to talk to -her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred -that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. -Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take -him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she -thought: ‘He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does’; and she said -yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: ‘I will willingly go away with -you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk -every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when -that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.’ They -agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the -old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until -once Rapunzel said to her: ‘Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that -you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king’s son--he -is with me in a moment.’ ‘Ah! you wicked child,’ cried the enchantress. -‘What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all -the world, and yet you have deceived me!’ In her anger she clutched -Rapunzel’s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, -seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut -off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless -that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great -grief and misery. - -On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress -fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the -window, and when the king’s son came and cried: - - ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, - Let down your hair to me.’ - -she let the hair down. The king’s son ascended, but instead of finding -his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with -wicked and venomous looks. ‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you would fetch -your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; -the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is -lost to you; you will never see her again.’ The king’s son was beside -himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He -escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his -eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but -roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of -his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at -length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she -had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a -voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and -when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two -of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could -see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was -joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and -contented. - - - - -FUNDEVOGEL - - -There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as -he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were -there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at -the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen -asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in -her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree. - -The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself: -‘You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.’ He -took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together. And the -one, which he had found on a tree was called Fundevogel, because a bird -had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina loved each other so dearly that -when they did not see each other they were sad. - -Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and -began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out -to the spring. Lina saw this and said, ‘Listen, old Sanna, why are you -fetching so much water?’ ‘If you will never repeat it to anyone, I will -tell you why.’ So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to anyone, -and then the cook said: ‘Early tomorrow morning, when the forester -is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the -kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.’ - -Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when he -was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to Fundevogel: -‘If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.’ Fundevogel -said: ‘Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.’ Then said Lina: ‘Then -will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many buckets of water -into the house that I asked her why she was doing that, and she said -that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she said that early -tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would set the kettle -full of water, throw you into it and boil you; but we will get up -quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.’ - -The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and went -away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the -bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when she came in, -and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then she was terribly -alarmed, and she said to herself: ‘What shall I say now when the -forester comes home and sees that the children are gone? They must be -followed instantly to get them back again.’ - -Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and -overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the -forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina -said to Fundevogel: ‘Never leave me, and I will never leave you.’ -Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’ Then said Lina: ‘Do you become -a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.’ When the three servants came to -the forest, nothing was there but a rose-tree and one rose on it, but -the children were nowhere. Then said they: ‘There is nothing to be done -here,’ and they went home and told the cook that they had seen nothing -in the forest but a little rose-bush with one rose on it. Then the -old cook scolded and said: ‘You simpletons, you should have cut the -rose-bush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it home with -you; go, and do it at once.’ They had therefore to go out and look for -the second time. The children, however, saw them coming from a distance. -Then Lina said: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave -you.’ Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now; nor ever.’ Said Lina: ‘Then do you -become a church, and I’ll be the chandelier in it.’ So when the three -servants came, nothing was there but a church, with a chandelier in -it. They said therefore to each other: ‘What can we do here, let us go -home.’ When they got home, the cook asked if they had not found them; -so they said no, they had found nothing but a church, and there was a -chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said: ‘You fools! why -did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the chandelier home -with you?’ And now the old cook herself got on her legs, and went with -the three servants in pursuit of the children. The children, however, -saw from afar that the three servants were coming, and the cook waddling -after them. Then said Lina: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will -never leave you.’ Then said Fundevogel: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’ -Said Lina: ‘Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon it.’ The cook, -however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she lay down by it, -and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam quickly to her, seized -her head in its beak and drew her into the water, and there the old -witch had to drown. Then the children went home together, and were -heartily delighted, and if they have not died, they are living still. - - - - -THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR - - -One summer’s morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the -window; he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came -a peasant woman down the street crying: ‘Good jams, cheap! Good jams, -cheap!’ This rang pleasantly in the tailor’s ears; he stretched his -delicate head out of the window, and called: ‘Come up here, dear woman; -here you will get rid of your goods.’ The woman came up the three steps -to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack all the pots -for him. He inspected each one, lifted it up, put his nose to it, and -at length said: ‘The jam seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four -ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no -consequence.’ The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, gave him -what he desired, but went away quite angry and grumbling. ‘Now, this jam -shall be blessed by God,’ cried the little tailor, ‘and give me health -and strength’; so he brought the bread out of the cupboard, cut himself -a piece right across the loaf and spread the jam over it. ‘This won’t -taste bitter,’ said he, ‘but I will just finish the jacket before I -take a bite.’ He laid the bread near him, sewed on, and in his joy, made -bigger and bigger stitches. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam -rose to where the flies were sitting in great numbers, and they were -attracted and descended on it in hosts. ‘Hi! who invited you?’ said the -little tailor, and drove the unbidden guests away. The flies, however, -who understood no German, would not be turned away, but came back -again in ever-increasing companies. The little tailor at last lost all -patience, and drew a piece of cloth from the hole under his work-table, -and saying: ‘Wait, and I will give it to you,’ struck it mercilessly on -them. When he drew it away and counted, there lay before him no fewer -than seven, dead and with legs stretched out. ‘Are you a fellow of that -sort?’ said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery. ‘The whole -town shall know of this!’ And the little tailor hastened to cut himself -a girdle, stitched it, and embroidered on it in large letters: ‘Seven at -one stroke!’ ‘What, the town!’ he continued, ‘the whole world shall hear -of it!’ and his heart wagged with joy like a lamb’s tail. The tailor -put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he -thought his workshop was too small for his valour. Before he went away, -he sought about in the house to see if there was anything which he could -take with him; however, he found nothing but an old cheese, and that -he put in his pocket. In front of the door he observed a bird which -had caught itself in the thicket. It had to go into his pocket with the -cheese. Now he took to the road boldly, and as he was light and nimble, -he felt no fatigue. The road led him up a mountain, and when he had -reached the highest point of it, there sat a powerful giant looking -peacefully about him. The little tailor went bravely up, spoke to him, -and said: ‘Good day, comrade, so you are sitting there overlooking the -wide-spread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck. -Have you any inclination to go with me?’ The giant looked contemptuously -at the tailor, and said: ‘You ragamuffin! You miserable creature!’ - -‘Oh, indeed?’ answered the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and -showed the giant the girdle, ‘there may you read what kind of a man I -am!’ The giant read: ‘Seven at one stroke,’ and thought that they had -been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect -for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished to try him first, and took -a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that water dropped out -of it. ‘Do that likewise,’ said the giant, ‘if you have strength.’ ‘Is -that all?’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play with us!’ and put his -hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until -the liquid ran out of it. ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better, -wasn’t it?’ The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it -of the little man. Then the giant picked up a stone and threw it so high -that the eye could scarcely follow it. ‘Now, little mite of a man, do -that likewise,’ ‘Well thrown,’ said the tailor, ‘but after all the stone -came down to earth again; I will throw you one which shall never come -back at all,’ and he put his hand into his pocket, took out the bird, -and threw it into the air. The bird, delighted with its liberty, -rose, flew away and did not come back. ‘How does that shot please you, -comrade?’ asked the tailor. ‘You can certainly throw,’ said the giant, -‘but now we will see if you are able to carry anything properly.’ He -took the little tailor to a mighty oak tree which lay there felled on -the ground, and said: ‘If you are strong enough, help me to carry the -tree out of the forest.’ ‘Readily,’ answered the little man; ‘take you -the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs; -after all, they are the heaviest.’ The giant took the trunk on his -shoulder, but the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who -could not look round, had to carry away the whole tree, and the little -tailor into the bargain: he behind, was quite merry and happy, and -whistled the song: ‘Three tailors rode forth from the gate,’ as if -carrying the tree were child’s play. The giant, after he had dragged the -heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried: ‘Hark -you, I shall have to let the tree fall!’ The tailor sprang nimbly down, -seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said -to the giant: ‘You are such a great fellow, and yet cannot even carry -the tree!’ - -They went on together, and as they passed a cherry-tree, the giant laid -hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it -down, gave it into the tailor’s hand, and bade him eat. But the little -tailor was much too weak to hold the tree, and when the giant let it go, -it sprang back again, and the tailor was tossed into the air with it. -When he had fallen down again without injury, the giant said: ‘What is -this? Have you not strength enough to hold the weak twig?’ ‘There is no -lack of strength,’ answered the little tailor. ‘Do you think that could -be anything to a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I leapt over -the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket. -Jump as I did, if you can do it.’ The giant made the attempt but he -could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so -that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand. - -The giant said: ‘If you are such a valiant fellow, come with me into our -cavern and spend the night with us.’ The little tailor was willing, and -followed him. When they went into the cave, other giants were sitting -there by the fire, and each of them had a roasted sheep in his hand and -was eating it. The little tailor looked round and thought: ‘It is much -more spacious here than in my workshop.’ The giant showed him a bed, and -said he was to lie down in it and sleep. The bed, however, was too -big for the little tailor; he did not lie down in it, but crept into -a corner. When it was midnight, and the giant thought that the little -tailor was lying in a sound sleep, he got up, took a great iron bar, -cut through the bed with one blow, and thought he had finished off the -grasshopper for good. With the earliest dawn the giants went into the -forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he -walked up to them quite merrily and boldly. The giants were terrified, -they were afraid that he would strike them all dead, and ran away in a -great hurry. - -The little tailor went onwards, always following his own pointed nose. -After he had walked for a long time, he came to the courtyard of a royal -palace, and as he felt weary, he lay down on the grass and fell asleep. -Whilst he lay there, the people came and inspected him on all sides, and -read on his girdle: ‘Seven at one stroke.’ ‘Ah!’ said they, ‘what does -the great warrior want here in the midst of peace? He must be a mighty -lord.’ They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their -opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful -man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart. The counsel pleased -the king, and he sent one of his courtiers to the little tailor to offer -him military service when he awoke. The ambassador remained standing by -the sleeper, waited until he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes, -and then conveyed to him this proposal. ‘For this very reason have -I come here,’ the tailor replied, ‘I am ready to enter the king’s -service.’ He was therefore honourably received, and a special dwelling -was assigned him. - -The soldiers, however, were set against the little tailor, and wished -him a thousand miles away. ‘What is to be the end of this?’ they said -among themselves. ‘If we quarrel with him, and he strikes about him, -seven of us will fall at every blow; not one of us can stand against -him.’ They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to -the king, and begged for their dismissal. ‘We are not prepared,’ said -they, ‘to stay with a man who kills seven at one stroke.’ The king was -sorry that for the sake of one he should lose all his faithful servants, -wished that he had never set eyes on the tailor, and would willingly -have been rid of him again. But he did not venture to give him his -dismissal, for he dreaded lest he should strike him and all his people -dead, and place himself on the royal throne. He thought about it for a -long time, and at last found good counsel. He sent to the little tailor -and caused him to be informed that as he was a great warrior, he had one -request to make to him. In a forest of his country lived two giants, -who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging, -and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in -danger of death. If the tailor conquered and killed these two giants, he -would give him his only daughter to wife, and half of his kingdom as a -dowry, likewise one hundred horsemen should go with him to assist him. -‘That would indeed be a fine thing for a man like me!’ thought the -little tailor. ‘One is not offered a beautiful princess and half a -kingdom every day of one’s life!’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will soon -subdue the giants, and do not require the help of the hundred horsemen -to do it; he who can hit seven with one blow has no need to be afraid of -two.’ - -The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him. -When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers: -‘Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.’ Then -he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a -while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and -snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not -idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the -tree. When he was halfway up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat -just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on -the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing, -but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said: ‘Why are you -knocking me?’ ‘You must be dreaming,’ said the other, ‘I am not knocking -you.’ They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the tailor -threw a stone down on the second. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ cried -the other ‘Why are you pelting me?’ ‘I am not pelting you,’ answered -the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as they were -weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once more. The -little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest stone, and -threw it with all his might on the breast of the first giant. ‘That -is too bad!’ cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and pushed his -companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back in -the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore up trees and -belaboured each other so long, that at last they both fell down dead on -the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt down. ‘It is -a lucky thing,’ said he, ‘that they did not tear up the tree on which -I was sitting, or I should have had to sprint on to another like a -squirrel; but we tailors are nimble.’ He drew out his sword and gave -each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then went out to the -horsemen and said: ‘The work is done; I have finished both of them -off, but it was hard work! They tore up trees in their sore need, and -defended themselves with them, but all that is to no purpose when a man -like myself comes, who can kill seven at one blow.’ ‘But are you not -wounded?’ asked the horsemen. ‘You need not concern yourself about -that,’ answered the tailor, ‘they have not bent one hair of mine.’ The -horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest; there they -found the giants swimming in their blood, and all round about lay the -torn-up trees. - -The little tailor demanded of the king the promised reward; he, however, -repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get -rid of the hero. ‘Before you receive my daughter, and the half of my -kingdom,’ said he to him, ‘you must perform one more heroic deed. In -the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and you must catch -it first.’ ‘I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one -blow, is my kind of affair.’ He took a rope and an axe with him, went -forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to -wait outside. He had not long to seek. The unicorn soon came towards -him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would gore him with its -horn without more ado. ‘Softly, softly; it can’t be done as quickly as -that,’ said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite -close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against -the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk -that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it -was caught. ‘Now, I have got the bird,’ said the tailor, and came out -from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his -axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the -beast away and took it to the king. - -The king still would not give him the promised reward, and made a third -demand. Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that -made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their -help. ‘Willingly,’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play!’ He did not -take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased -that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in -such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him. When -the boar perceived the tailor, it ran on him with foaming mouth and -whetted tusks, and was about to throw him to the ground, but the hero -fled and sprang into a chapel which was near and up to the window at -once, and in one bound out again. The boar ran after him, but the tailor -ran round outside and shut the door behind it, and then the raging -beast, which was much too heavy and awkward to leap out of the window, -was caught. The little tailor called the huntsmen thither that they -might see the prisoner with their own eyes. The hero, however, went to -the king, who was now, whether he liked it or not, obliged to keep his -promise, and gave his daughter and the half of his kingdom. Had he known -that it was no warlike hero, but a little tailor who was standing before -him, it would have gone to his heart still more than it did. The wedding -was held with great magnificence and small joy, and out of a tailor a -king was made. - -After some time the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at -night: ‘Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I -will rap the yard-measure over your ears.’ Then she discovered in what -state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained -of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid of -her husband, who was nothing else but a tailor. The king comforted her -and said: ‘Leave your bedroom door open this night, and my servants -shall stand outside, and when he has fallen asleep shall go in, bind -him, and take him on board a ship which shall carry him into the wide -world.’ The woman was satisfied with this; but the king’s armour-bearer, -who had heard all, was friendly with the young lord, and informed him of -the whole plot. ‘I’ll put a screw into that business,’ said the little -tailor. At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and -when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door, -and then lay down again. The little tailor, who was only pretending to -be asleep, began to cry out in a clear voice: ‘Boy, make me the doublet -and patch me the pantaloons, or I will rap the yard-measure over your -ears. I smote seven at one blow. I killed two giants, I brought away one -unicorn, and caught a wild boar, and am I to fear those who are standing -outside the room.’ When these men heard the tailor speaking thus, they -were overcome by a great dread, and ran as if the wild huntsman were -behind them, and none of them would venture anything further against -him. So the little tailor was and remained a king to the end of his -life. - - - - -HANSEL AND GRETEL - - -Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his -two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had -little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the -land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought -over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he -groaned and said to his wife: ‘What is to become of us? How are we -to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for -ourselves?’ ‘I’ll tell you what, husband,’ answered the woman, ‘early -tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where -it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each -of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and -leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be -rid of them.’ ‘No, wife,’ said the man, ‘I will not do that; how can I -bear to leave my children alone in the forest?--the wild animals would -soon come and tear them to pieces.’ ‘O, you fool!’ said she, ‘then we -must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our -coffins,’ and she left him no peace until he consented. ‘But I feel very -sorry for the poor children, all the same,’ said the man. - -The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had -heard what their stepmother had said to their father. Gretel wept -bitter tears, and said to Hansel: ‘Now all is over with us.’ ‘Be quiet, -Gretel,’ said Hansel, ‘do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way -to help us.’ And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put -on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon -shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house -glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the -little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went -back and said to Gretel: ‘Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in -peace, God will not forsake us,’ and he lay down again in his bed. When -day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the -two children, saying: ‘Get up, you sluggards! we are going into the -forest to fetch wood.’ She gave each a little piece of bread, and said: -‘There is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then, -for you will get nothing else.’ Gretel took the bread under her apron, -as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together -on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel -stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again. -His father said: ‘Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying -behind for? Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs.’ ‘Ah, -father,’ said Hansel, ‘I am looking at my little white cat, which is -sitting up on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me.’ The wife said: -‘Fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is -shining on the chimneys.’ Hansel, however, had not been looking back at -the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebble-stones -out of his pocket on the road. - -When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said: ‘Now, -children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not -be cold.’ Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a -little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning -very high, the woman said: ‘Now, children, lay yourselves down by the -fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we -have done, we will come back and fetch you away.’ - -Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little -piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they -believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but -a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was -blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long -time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When -at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and -said: ‘How are we to get out of the forest now?’ But Hansel comforted -her and said: ‘Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we -will soon find the way.’ And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took -his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like -newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way. - -They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more -to their father’s house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman -opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said: ‘You naughty -children, why have you slept so long in the forest?--we thought you were -never coming back at all!’ The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut -him to the heart to leave them behind alone. - -Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the -land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their -father: ‘Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that -is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the -wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other -means of saving ourselves!’ The man’s heart was heavy, and he thought: -‘It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your -children.’ The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to -say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise, -and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time -also. - -The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. -When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go -out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked -the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his -little sister, and said: ‘Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the -good God will help us.’ - -Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their -beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller -than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his -in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. -‘Hansel, why do you stop and look round?’ said the father, ‘go on.’ ‘I -am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and -wants to say goodbye to me,’ answered Hansel. ‘Fool!’ said the woman, -‘that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining -on the chimney.’ Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs -on the path. - -The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had -never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and -the mother said: ‘Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired -you may sleep a little; we are going into the forest to cut wood, and in -the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away.’ When -it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had -scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but -no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark -night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said: ‘Just wait, -Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread -which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again.’ When -the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many -thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked -them all up. Hansel said to Gretel: ‘We shall soon find the way,’ but -they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day -too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, -and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three -berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their -legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell -asleep. - -It was now three mornings since they had left their father’s house. They -began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if -help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it -was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, -which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And -when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them, -and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of -which it alighted; and when they approached the little house they saw -that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows -were of clear sugar. ‘We will set to work on that,’ said Hansel, ‘and -have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat -some of the window, it will taste sweet.’ Hansel reached up above, and -broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant -against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried -from the parlour: - - ‘Nibble, nibble, gnaw, - Who is nibbling at my little house?’ - -The children answered: - - ‘The wind, the wind, - The heaven-born wind,’ - -and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the -taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out -the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with -it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who -supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were -so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their -hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said: ‘Oh, you dear -children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay with me. No -harm shall happen to you.’ She took them both by the hand, and led them -into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and -pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little -beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down -in them, and thought they were in heaven. - -The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality -a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the -little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell -into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast -day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have -a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. -When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with -malice, and said mockingly: ‘I have them, they shall not escape me -again!’ Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was -already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so -pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself: ‘That -will be a dainty mouthful!’ Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled -hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a -grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to -Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: ‘Get up, lazy thing, fetch -some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the -stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.’ -Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was -forced to do what the wicked witch commanded. - -And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing -but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and -cried: ‘Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon -be fat.’ Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and -the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was -Hansel’s finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening -him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she -was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. ‘Now, then, -Gretel,’ she cried to the girl, ‘stir yourself, and bring some water. -Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.’ Ah, -how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, -and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! ‘Dear God, do help us,’ she -cried. ‘If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should -at any rate have died together.’ ‘Just keep your noise to yourself,’ -said the old woman, ‘it won’t help you at all.’ - -Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with -the water, and light the fire. ‘We will bake first,’ said the old woman, -‘I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.’ She pushed poor -Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. -‘Creep in,’ said the witch, ‘and see if it is properly heated, so that -we can put the bread in.’ And once Gretel was inside, she intended to -shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. -But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: ‘I do not know how I am -to do it; how do I get in?’ ‘Silly goose,’ said the old woman. ‘The door -is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!’ and she crept up and -thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove -her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then -she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless -witch was miserably burnt to death. - -Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, -and cried: ‘Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!’ Then Hansel -sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did -rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And -as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch’s -house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels. -‘These are far better than pebbles!’ said Hansel, and thrust into his -pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said: ‘I, too, will take -something home with me,’ and filled her pinafore full. ‘But now we must -be off,’ said Hansel, ‘that we may get out of the witch’s forest.’ - -When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of -water. ‘We cannot cross,’ said Hansel, ‘I see no foot-plank, and no -bridge.’ ‘And there is also no ferry,’ answered Gretel, ‘but a white -duck is swimming there: if I ask her, she will help us over.’ Then she -cried: - - ‘Little duck, little duck, dost thou see, - Hansel and Gretel are waiting for thee? - There’s never a plank, or bridge in sight, - Take us across on thy back so white.’ - -The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told -his sister to sit by him. ‘No,’ replied Gretel, ‘that will be too heavy -for the little duck; she shall take us across, one after the other.’ The -good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had -walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar -to them, and at length they saw from afar their father’s house. Then -they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round -their father’s neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had -left the children in the forest; the woman, however, was dead. Gretel -emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the -room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to -add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together -in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse; whosoever -catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it. - - - - -THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE - - -Once upon a time, a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, entered into -partnership and set up house together. For a long time all went well; -they lived in great comfort, and prospered so far as to be able to add -considerably to their stores. The bird’s duty was to fly daily into the -wood and bring in fuel; the mouse fetched the water, and the sausage saw -to the cooking. - -When people are too well off they always begin to long for something -new. And so it came to pass, that the bird, while out one day, met a -fellow bird, to whom he boastfully expatiated on the excellence of his -household arrangements. But the other bird sneered at him for being a -poor simpleton, who did all the hard work, while the other two stayed -at home and had a good time of it. For, when the mouse had made the fire -and fetched in the water, she could retire into her little room and rest -until it was time to set the table. The sausage had only to watch the -pot to see that the food was properly cooked, and when it was near -dinner-time, he just threw himself into the broth, or rolled in and out -among the vegetables three or four times, and there they were, buttered, -and salted, and ready to be served. Then, when the bird came home and -had laid aside his burden, they sat down to table, and when they had -finished their meal, they could sleep their fill till the following -morning: and that was really a very delightful life. - -Influenced by those remarks, the bird next morning refused to bring in -the wood, telling the others that he had been their servant long enough, -and had been a fool into the bargain, and that it was now time to make a -change, and to try some other way of arranging the work. Beg and pray -as the mouse and the sausage might, it was of no use; the bird remained -master of the situation, and the venture had to be made. They therefore -drew lots, and it fell to the sausage to bring in the wood, to the mouse -to cook, and to the bird to fetch the water. - -And now what happened? The sausage started in search of wood, the bird -made the fire, and the mouse put on the pot, and then these two waited -till the sausage returned with the fuel for the following day. But the -sausage remained so long away, that they became uneasy, and the bird -flew out to meet him. He had not flown far, however, when he came across -a dog who, having met the sausage, had regarded him as his legitimate -booty, and so seized and swallowed him. The bird complained to the dog -of this bare-faced robbery, but nothing he said was of any avail, for -the dog answered that he found false credentials on the sausage, and -that was the reason his life had been forfeited. - -He picked up the wood, and flew sadly home, and told the mouse all he -had seen and heard. They were both very unhappy, but agreed to make the -best of things and to remain with one another. - -So now the bird set the table, and the mouse looked after the food and, -wishing to prepare it in the same way as the sausage, by rolling in and -out among the vegetables to salt and butter them, she jumped into the -pot; but she stopped short long before she reached the bottom, having -already parted not only with her skin and hair, but also with life. - -Presently the bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he -could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood -here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to -be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down, -caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water, -but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable -to recover himself, he was drowned. - - - - -MOTHER HOLLE - - -Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them -was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. The mother, -however, loved the ugly and lazy one best, because she was her own -daughter, and so the other, who was only her stepdaughter, was made -to do all the work of the house, and was quite the Cinderella of the -family. Her stepmother sent her out every day to sit by the well in -the high road, there to spin until she made her fingers bleed. Now it -chanced one day that some blood fell on to the spindle, and as the girl -stopped over the well to wash it off, the spindle suddenly sprang out -of her hand and fell into the well. She ran home crying to tell of her -misfortune, but her stepmother spoke harshly to her, and after giving -her a violent scolding, said unkindly, ‘As you have let the spindle fall -into the well you may go yourself and fetch it out.’ - -The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in -her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle. - -She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a -beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming -in every direction. - -She walked over the meadow, and presently she came upon a baker’s oven -full of bread, and the loaves cried out to her, ‘Take us out, take us -out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long -ago.’ So she took the bread-shovel and drew them all out. - -She went on a little farther, till she came to a tree full of apples. -‘Shake me, shake me, I pray,’ cried the tree; ‘my apples, one and all, -are ripe.’ So she shook the tree, and the apples came falling down upon -her like rain; but she continued shaking until there was not a single -apple left upon it. Then she carefully gathered the apples together in a -heap and walked on again. - -The next thing she came to was a little house, and there she saw an old -woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified, and -turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, ‘What are you -afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do the work of my house -properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very careful, -however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you always to shake -it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about; then they say, down there -in the world, that it is snowing; for I am Mother Holle.’ The old woman -spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up courage and agreed to enter -into her service. - -She took care to do everything according to the old woman’s bidding and -every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the -feathers flew about like so many snowflakes. The old woman was as good -as her word: she never spoke angrily to her, and gave her roast and -boiled meats every day. - -So she stayed on with Mother Holle for some time, and then she began -to grow unhappy. She could not at first tell why she felt sad, but she -became conscious at last of great longing to go home; then she knew she -was homesick, although she was a thousand times better off with Mother -Holle than with her mother and sister. After waiting awhile, she went -to Mother Holle and said, ‘I am so homesick, that I cannot stay with -you any longer, for although I am so happy here, I must return to my own -people.’ - -Then Mother Holle said, ‘I am pleased that you should want to go back -to your own people, and as you have served me so well and faithfully, I -will take you home myself.’ - -Thereupon she led the girl by the hand up to a broad gateway. The gate -was opened, and as the girl passed through, a shower of gold fell upon -her, and the gold clung to her, so that she was covered with it from -head to foot. - -‘That is a reward for your industry,’ said Mother Holle, and as she -spoke she handed her the spindle which she had dropped into the well. - -The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old -world close to her mother’s house. As she entered the courtyard, the -cock who was perched on the well, called out: - - ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo! - Your golden daughter’s come back to you.’ - -Then she went in to her mother and sister, and as she was so richly -covered with gold, they gave her a warm welcome. She related to them -all that had happened, and when the mother heard how she had come by her -great riches, she thought she should like her ugly, lazy daughter to go -and try her fortune. So she made the sister go and sit by the well -and spin, and the girl pricked her finger and thrust her hand into a -thorn-bush, so that she might drop some blood on to the spindle; then -she threw it into the well, and jumped in herself. - -Like her sister she awoke in the beautiful meadow, and walked over it -till she came to the oven. ‘Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall -be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long ago,’ cried the loaves -as before. But the lazy girl answered, ‘Do you think I am going to dirty -my hands for you?’ and walked on. - -Presently she came to the apple-tree. ‘Shake me, shake me, I pray; my -apples, one and all, are ripe,’ it cried. But she only answered, ‘A nice -thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and -passed on. - -At last she came to Mother Holle’s house, and as she had heard all about -the large teeth from her sister, she was not afraid of them, and engaged -herself without delay to the old woman. - -The first day she was very obedient and industrious, and exerted herself -to please Mother Holle, for she thought of the gold she should get in -return. The next day, however, she began to dawdle over her work, and -the third day she was more idle still; then she began to lie in bed in -the mornings and refused to get up. Worse still, she neglected to -make the old woman’s bed properly, and forgot to shake it so that the -feathers might fly about. So Mother Holle very soon got tired of her, -and told her she might go. The lazy girl was delighted at this, and -thought to herself, ‘The gold will soon be mine.’ Mother Holle led her, -as she had led her sister, to the broad gateway; but as she was passing -through, instead of the shower of gold, a great bucketful of pitch came -pouring over her. - -‘That is in return for your services,’ said the old woman, and she shut -the gate. - -So the lazy girl had to go home covered with pitch, and the cock on the -well called out as she saw her: - - ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo! - Your dirty daughter’s come back to you.’ - -But, try what she would, she could not get the pitch off and it stuck to -her as long as she lived. - - - - -LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD] - - -Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone -who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was -nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a -little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never -wear anything else; so she was always called ‘Little Red-Cap.’ - -One day her mother said to her: ‘Come, Little Red-Cap, here is a piece -of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill -and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and -when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, -or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will -get nothing; and when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, “Good -morning”, and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.’ - -‘I will take great care,’ said Little Red-Cap to her mother, and gave -her hand on it. - -The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, -and just as Little Red-Cap entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red-Cap -did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of -him. - -‘Good day, Little Red-Cap,’ said he. - -‘Thank you kindly, wolf.’ - -‘Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?’ - -‘To my grandmother’s.’ - -‘What have you got in your apron?’ - -‘Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to -have something good, to make her stronger.’ - -‘Where does your grandmother live, Little Red-Cap?’ - -‘A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands -under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you -surely must know it,’ replied Little Red-Cap. - -The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice -plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must -act craftily, so as to catch both.’ So he walked for a short time by -the side of Little Red-Cap, and then he said: ‘See, Little Red-Cap, how -pretty the flowers are about here--why do you not look round? I believe, -too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you -walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else -out here in the wood is merry.’ - -Little Red-Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing -here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, -she thought: ‘Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would -please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there -in good time’; and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for -flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a -still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and -deeper into the wood. - -Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked -at the door. - -‘Who is there?’ - -‘Little Red-Cap,’ replied the wolf. ‘She is bringing cake and wine; open -the door.’ - -‘Lift the latch,’ called out the grandmother, ‘I am too weak, and cannot -get up.’ - -The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a -word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and devoured her. Then -he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in bed -and drew the curtains. - -Little Red-Cap, however, had been running about picking flowers, -and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she -remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her. - -She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she -went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to -herself: ‘Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like -being with grandmother so much.’ She called out: ‘Good morning,’ but -received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. -There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and -looking very strange. - -‘Oh! grandmother,’ she said, ‘what big ears you have!’ - -‘The better to hear you with, my child,’ was the reply. - -‘But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!’ she said. - -‘The better to see you with, my dear.’ - -‘But, grandmother, what large hands you have!’ - -‘The better to hug you with.’ - -‘Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!’ - -‘The better to eat you with!’ - -And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of -bed and swallowed up Red-Cap. - -When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, -fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing -the house, and thought to himself: ‘How the old woman is snoring! I must -just see if she wants anything.’ So he went into the room, and when he -came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. ‘Do I find you -here, you old sinner!’ said he. ‘I have long sought you!’ Then just as -he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have -devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did -not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach -of the sleeping wolf. When he had made two snips, he saw the little -Red-Cap shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl -sprang out, crying: ‘Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was -inside the wolf’; and after that the aged grandmother came out alive -also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red-Cap, however, quickly fetched -great stones with which they filled the wolf’s belly, and when he awoke, -he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at -once, and fell dead. - -Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and -went home with it; the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which -Red-Cap had brought, and revived, but Red-Cap thought to herself: ‘As -long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the -wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.’ - - -It also related that once when Red-Cap was again taking cakes to the old -grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the -path. Red-Cap, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on -her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he -had said ‘good morning’ to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, -that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would -have eaten her up. ‘Well,’ said the grandmother, ‘we will shut the door, -that he may not come in.’ Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried: -‘Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red-Cap, and am bringing you -some cakes.’ But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard -stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, -intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to -steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother -saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone -trough, so she said to the child: ‘Take the pail, Red-Cap; I made some -sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the -trough.’ Red-Cap carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the -smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, -and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep -his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight -into the great trough, and was drowned. But Red-Cap went joyously home, -and no one ever did anything to harm her again. - - - - -THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM - - -There was once a miller who had one beautiful daughter, and as she was -grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided -for. He said to himself, ‘I will give her to the first suitable man who -comes and asks for her hand.’ Not long after a suitor appeared, and as -he appeared to be very rich and the miller could see nothing in him with -which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him. But the girl did -not care for the man as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband. -She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him -nor think of him without an inward shudder. One day he said to her, ‘You -have not yet paid me a visit, although we have been betrothed for some -time.’ ‘I do not know where your house is,’ she answered. ‘My house is -out there in the dark forest,’ he said. She tried to excuse herself by -saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Her betrothed -only replied, ‘You must come and see me next Sunday; I have already -invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way, I -will strew ashes along the path.’ - -When Sunday came, and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of -dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might -be able to find her path again, she filled her pockets with peas and -lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along. On reaching the -entrance to the forest she found the path strewed with ashes, and these -she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every -step she took. She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest, -darkest part of the forest. There she saw a lonely house, looking so -grim and mysterious, that it did not please her at all. She stepped -inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned -throughout. Suddenly a voice cried: - - ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, - Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ - -The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a -cage on the wall. Again it cried: - - ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, - Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ - -The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were -all empty, and still she saw no one. At last she came to the cellar, -and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from -shaking. ‘Can you tell me,’ asked the girl, ‘if my betrothed husband -lives here?’ - -‘Ah, you poor child,’ answered the old woman, ‘what a place for you to -come to! This is a murderers’ den. You think yourself a promised bride, -and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that -you will keep your marriage feast. Look, do you see that large cauldron -of water which I am obliged to keep on the fire! As soon as they have -you in their power they will kill you without mercy, and cook and eat -you, for they are eaters of men. If I did not take pity on you and save -you, you would be lost.’ - -Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask, which quite hid her -from view. ‘Keep as still as a mouse,’ she said; ‘do not move or speak, -or it will be all over with you. Tonight, when the robbers are -all asleep, we will flee together. I have long been waiting for an -opportunity to escape.’ - -The words were hardly out of her mouth when the godless crew returned, -dragging another young girl along with them. They were all drunk, and -paid no heed to her cries and lamentations. They gave her wine to drink, -three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red, and one of yellow, -and with that her heart gave way and she died. Then they tore off her -dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body into -pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it. - -The poor betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the -cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by -the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on -the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off -easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger; but the finger sprang -into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was -hiding there. The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he -could not find it. ‘Have you looked behind the large cask?’ said one of -the others. But the old woman called out, ‘Come and eat your suppers, -and let the thing be till tomorrow; the finger won’t run away.’ - -‘The old woman is right,’ said the robbers, and they ceased looking for -the finger and sat down. - -The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine, and before -long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and -snoring. As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind -the cask. She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers, who -were lying close together, and every moment she was filled with renewed -dread lest she should awaken them. But God helped her, so that she -passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs, -opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers’ -den. They found the ashes scattered by the wind, but the peas and -lentils had sprouted, and grown sufficiently above the ground, to guide -them in the moonlight along the path. All night long they walked, and it -was morning before they reached the mill. Then the girl told her father -all that had happened. - -The day came that had been fixed for the marriage. The bridegroom -arrived and also a large company of guests, for the miller had taken -care to invite all his friends and relations. As they sat at the feast, -each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did -not say a word. - -‘And you, my love,’ said the bridegroom, turning to her, ‘is there no -tale you know? Tell us something.’ - -‘I will tell you a dream, then,’ said the bride. ‘I went alone through a -forest and came at last to a house; not a soul could I find within, but -a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried: - - ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, - Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’ - -and again a second time it said these words.’ - -‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ - -‘I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty, -and everything was so grim and mysterious. At last I went down to the -cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her -head still. I asked her if my betrothed lived here, and she answered, -“Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers’ den; your betrothed -does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards -cook and eat you.”’ - -‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ - -‘The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done -this when the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with -them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and -yellow, and with that she died.’ - -‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ - -‘Then they tore off her dainty clothing, and cut her beautiful body into -pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.’ - -‘My darling, this is only a dream.’ - -‘And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her -finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut -off her finger; but the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the -great cask into my lap. And here is the finger with the ring.’ And -with these words the bride drew forth the finger and shewed it to the -assembled guests. - -The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and -tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast. They -delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were -condemned to death for their wicked deeds. - - - - -TOM THUMB - - -A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the -fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. ‘How lonely it is, -wife,’ said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, ‘for you and me -to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse -us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!’ -‘What you say is very true,’ said the wife, sighing, and turning round -her wheel; ‘how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were -ever so small--nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb--I should be very -happy, and love it dearly.’ Now--odd as you may think it--it came to -pass that this good woman’s wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she -had wished it; for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was -quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So -they said, ‘Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, -little as he is, we will love him dearly.’ And they called him Thomas -Thumb. - -They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew -bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. -Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to -be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about. - -One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut -fuel, he said, ‘I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I -want to make haste.’ ‘Oh, father,’ cried Tom, ‘I will take care of that; -the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.’ Then the woodman -laughed, and said, ‘How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse’s -bridle.’ ‘Never mind that, father,’ said Tom; ‘if my mother will only -harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to -go.’ ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘we will try for once.’ - -When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put -Tom into his ear; and as he sat there the little man told the beast how -to go, crying out, ‘Go on!’ and ‘Stop!’ as he wanted: and thus the horse -went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the -wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom -was calling out, ‘Gently! gently!’ two strangers came up. ‘What an odd -thing that is!’ said one: ‘there is a cart going along, and I hear a -carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.’ ‘That is queer, -indeed,’ said the other; ‘let us follow the cart, and see where it -goes.’ So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the -place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried -out, ‘See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take -me down!’ So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with -the other took his son out of the horse’s ear, and put him down upon a -straw, where he sat as merry as you please. - -The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what -to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, ‘That -little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him -about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.’ So they went up to -the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. ‘He -will be better off,’ said they, ‘with us than with you.’ ‘I won’t sell -him at all,’ said the father; ‘my own flesh and blood is dearer to me -than all the silver and gold in the world.’ But Tom, hearing of the -bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father’s coat to his shoulder -and whispered in his ear, ‘Take the money, father, and let them have me; -I’ll soon come back to you.’ - -So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a -large piece of gold, and they paid the price. ‘Where would you like to -sit?’ said one of them. ‘Oh, put me on the rim of your hat; that will be -a nice gallery for me; I can walk about there and see the country as we -go along.’ So they did as he wished; and when Tom had taken leave of his -father they took him away with them. - -They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man -said, ‘Let me get down, I’m tired.’ So the man took off his hat, and -put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the -road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into -an old mouse-hole. ‘Good night, my masters!’ said he, ‘I’m off! mind and -look sharp after me the next time.’ Then they ran at once to the place, -and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain; -Tom only crawled farther and farther in; and at last it became quite -dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as -sulky as could be. - -When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding-place. ‘What -dangerous walking it is,’ said he, ‘in this ploughed field! If I were to -fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.’ -At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail-shell. ‘This is -lucky,’ said he, ‘I can sleep here very well’; and in he crept. - -Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting -together; and one said to the other, ‘How can we rob that rich parson’s -house of his silver and gold?’ ‘I’ll tell you!’ cried Tom. ‘What noise -was that?’ said the thief, frightened; ‘I’m sure I heard someone speak.’ -They stood still listening, and Tom said, ‘Take me with you, and I’ll -soon show you how to get the parson’s money.’ ‘But where are you?’ said -they. ‘Look about on the ground,’ answered he, ‘and listen where the -sound comes from.’ At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him -up in their hands. ‘You little urchin!’ they said, ‘what can you do for -us?’ ‘Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson’s house, -and throw you out whatever you want.’ ‘That’s a good thought,’ said the -thieves; ‘come along, we shall see what you can do.’ - -When they came to the parson’s house, Tom slipped through the -window-bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, -‘Will you have all that is here?’ At this the thieves were frightened, -and said, ‘Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.’ -But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, -‘How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?’ Now the cook lay in -the next room; and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and -listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little -way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, ‘The little -urchin is only trying to make fools of us.’ So they came back and -whispered softly to him, saying, ‘Now let us have no more of your -roguish jokes; but throw us out some of the money.’ Then Tom called out -as loud as he could, ‘Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.’ - -The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to -open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails: and -the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light. -By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn; and when -she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found -nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her -eyes open. - -The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug -place to finish his night’s rest in; so he laid himself down, meaning -to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and -mother. But alas! how woefully he was undone! what crosses and sorrows -happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak, -to feed the cows; and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away -a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast -asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found -himself in the mouth of the cow; for the cook had put the hay into the -cow’s rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. ‘Good -lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ But he soon -found out where he really was; and was forced to have all his wits about -him, that he might not get between the cow’s teeth, and so be crushed to -death. At last down he went into her stomach. ‘It is rather dark,’ said -he; ‘they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in; a -candle would be no bad thing.’ - -Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at -all; and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming -down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he -cried out as loud as he could, ‘Don’t bring me any more hay! Don’t bring -me any more hay!’ - -The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone -speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice -that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off -her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself -up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the -parson, and said, ‘Sir, sir, the cow is talking!’ But the parson -said, ‘Woman, thou art surely mad!’ However, he went with her into the -cow-house, to try and see what was the matter. - -Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, ‘Don’t -bring me any more hay!’ Then the parson himself was frightened; and -thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the -spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom -lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill. - -Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy -task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh -ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the -whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away. - -Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would -not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called -out, ‘My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.’ ‘Where’s that?’ -said the wolf. ‘In such and such a house,’ said Tom, describing his own -father’s house. ‘You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and -then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold -chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can -wish.’ - -The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to -the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into -the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart’s content. As soon as -he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that -he could not go out by the same way he came in. - -This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a -great shout, making all the noise he could. ‘Will you be easy?’ said the -wolf; ‘you’ll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.’ -‘What’s that to me?’ said the little man; ‘you have had your frolic, now -I’ve a mind to be merry myself’; and he began, singing and shouting as -loud as he could. - -The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through -a crack in the door; but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well -suppose that they were sadly frightened; and the woodman ran for his -axe, and gave his wife a scythe. ‘Do you stay behind,’ said the woodman, -‘and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the -scythe.’ Tom heard all this, and cried out, ‘Father, father! I am here, -the wolf has swallowed me.’ And his father said, ‘Heaven be praised! we -have found our dear child again’; and he told his wife not to use the -scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and -struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! and when he was -dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. ‘Ah!’ said the father, -‘what fears we have had for you!’ ‘Yes, father,’ answered he; ‘I have -travelled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we -parted; and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.’ -‘Why, where have you been?’ said his father. ‘I have been in a -mouse-hole--and in a snail-shell--and down a cow’s throat--and in the -wolf’s belly; and yet here I am again, safe and sound.’ - -‘Well,’ said they, ‘you are come back, and we will not sell you again -for all the riches in the world.’ - -Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty -to eat and drink, for he was very hungry; and then they fetched new -clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey. -So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace; for -though he had been so great a traveller, and had done and seen so many -fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always -agreed that, after all, there’s no place like HOME! - - - - -RUMPELSTILTSKIN - - -By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream -of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller’s house was -close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. -She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud -of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and -hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now -this king was very fond of money; and when he heard the miller’s boast -his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before -him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great -heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, ‘All this must -be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.’ It was in vain -that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, -for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber -door was locked, and she was left alone. - -She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard -fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man -hobbled in, and said, ‘Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you -weeping for?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘I must spin this straw into gold, and -I know not how.’ ‘What will you give me,’ said the hobgoblin, ‘to do it -for you?’ ‘My necklace,’ replied the maiden. He took her at her word, -and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang: - - ‘Round about, round about, - Lo and behold! - Reel away, reel away, - Straw into gold!’ - -And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and -the straw was all spun into gold. - -When the king came and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased; -but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor -miller’s daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, -and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and -said, ‘What will you give me to do your task?’ ‘The ring on my finger,’ -said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the -wheel again, and whistled and sang: - - ‘Round about, round about, - Lo and behold! - Reel away, reel away, - Straw into gold!’ - -till, long before morning, all was done again. - -The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; -but still he had not enough: so he took the miller’s daughter to a yet -larger heap, and said, ‘All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, -you shall be my queen.’ As soon as she was alone that dwarf came in, and -said, ‘What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?’ -‘I have nothing left,’ said she. ‘Then say you will give me,’ said -the little man, ‘the first little child that you may have when you are -queen.’ ‘That may never be,’ thought the miller’s daughter: and as she -knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he -asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once -more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding -all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller’s -daughter, and she really became queen. - -At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the -dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where -she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then -she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all -the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at -last her tears softened him, and he said, ‘I will give you three days’ -grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your -child.’ - -Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that -she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find -out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with -TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could -remember; but to all and each of them he said, ‘Madam, that is not my -name.’ - -The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, -BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman -still said to every one of them, ‘Madam, that is not my name.’ - -The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, ‘I have -travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as -I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox -and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut; and before -the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was -dancing upon one leg, and singing: - - “Merrily the feast I’ll make. - Today I’ll brew, tomorrow bake; - Merrily I’ll dance and sing, - For next day will a stranger bring. - Little does my lady dream - Rumpelstiltskin is my name!” - -When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little -friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round -to enjoy the fun; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her -arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began -to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child, to take home with -him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, ‘Now, lady, what is my -name?’ ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she. ‘No, madam!’ ‘Is it TOM?’ ‘No, madam!’ -‘Is it JEMMY?’ ‘It is not.’ ‘Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?’ said the -lady slyly. ‘Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!’ cried -the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the -floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it -out. - -Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the -baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much -trouble for nothing, and said, ‘We wish you a very good morning, and a -merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!’ - - - - -CLEVER GRETEL - - -There was once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and -when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, -was quite happy and thought: ‘You certainly are a pretty girl!’ And when -she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, -and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she -was cooking until she was satisfied, and said: ‘The cook must know what -the food is like.’ - -It came to pass that the master one day said to her: ‘Gretel, there is a -guest coming this evening; prepare me two fowls very daintily.’ ‘I will -see to it, master,’ answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them, -plucked them, put them on the spit, and towards evening set them before -the fire, that they might roast. The fowls began to turn brown, and were -nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Then Gretel called out -to her master: ‘If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away -from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten -the moment they are at their juiciest.’ The master said: ‘I will run -myself, and fetch the guest.’ When the master had turned his back, -Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought: ‘Standing -so long by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty; who knows -when they will come? Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a -drink.’ She ran down, set a jug, said: ‘God bless it for you, Gretel,’ -and took a good drink, and thought that wine should flow on, and should -not be interrupted, and took yet another hearty draught. - -Then she went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them, -and drove the spit merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good, -Gretel thought: ‘Something might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!’ -She touched it with her finger, and said: ‘Ah! how good fowls are! It -certainly is a sin and a shame that they are not eaten at the right -time!’ She ran to the window, to see if the master was not coming with -his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and thought: -‘One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.’ -So she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she -thought: ‘The other must go down too, or else master will observe that -something is missing.’ When the two wings were eaten, she went and -looked for her master, and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to -her: ‘Who knows? They are perhaps not coming at all, and have turned in -somewhere.’ Then she said: ‘Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has -been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is -eaten you will have some peace, why should God’s good gifts be spoilt?’ -So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the -one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, -and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said: -‘What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together; what’s -right for the one is right for the other; I think if I were to take -another draught it would do me no harm.’ So she took another hearty -drink, and let the second chicken follow the first. - -While she was making the most of it, her master came and cried: ‘Hurry -up, Gretel, the guest is coming directly after me!’ ‘Yes, sir, I will -soon serve up,’ answered Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that -the table was properly laid, and took the great knife, wherewith he was -going to carve the chickens, and sharpened it on the steps. Presently -the guest came, and knocked politely and courteously at the house-door. -Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and when she saw the guest, -she put her finger to her lips and said: ‘Hush! hush! go away as quickly -as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse for you; he -certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off your -two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!’ The guest -heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he -could. Gretel was not idle; she ran screaming to her master, and cried: -‘You have invited a fine guest!’ ‘Why, Gretel? What do you mean by -that?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘he has taken the chickens which I was just -going to serve up, off the dish, and has run away with them!’ ‘That’s a -nice trick!’ said her master, and lamented the fine chickens. ‘If he had -but left me one, so that something remained for me to eat.’ He called to -him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him -with the knife still in his hand, crying: ‘Just one, just one,’ meaning -that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and not take both. The -guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to give up one of -his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to take -them both with him. - - - - -THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON - - -There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull -of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly -hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run -out of his mouth. His son and his son’s wife were disgusted at this, so -the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, -and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough -of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of -tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it -fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said -nothing and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden bowl for a few -half-pence, out of which he had to eat. - -They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old -began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. ‘What are -you doing there?’ asked the father. ‘I am making a little trough,’ -answered the child, ‘for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.’ - -The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently -began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and -henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he -did spill a little of anything. - - - - -THE LITTLE PEASANT - - -There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich -peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He -had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and -yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her: -‘Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall -make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any -other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.’ the woman -also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed -the calf, and painted it as it ought to be, and made it with its head -hanging down as if it were eating. - -Next morning when the cows were being driven out, the little peasant -called the cow-herd in and said: ‘Look, I have a little calf there, -but it is still small and has to be carried.’ The cow-herd said: ‘All -right,’ and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set -it among the grass. The little calf always remained standing like one -which was eating, and the cow-herd said: ‘It will soon run by itself, -just look how it eats already!’ At night when he was going to drive the -herd home again, he said to the calf: ‘If you can stand there and eat -your fill, you can also go on your four legs; I don’t care to drag you -home again in my arms.’ But the little peasant stood at his door, and -waited for his little calf, and when the cow-herd drove the cows through -the village, and the calf was missing, he inquired where it was. The -cow-herd answered: ‘It is still standing out there eating. It would not -stop and come with us.’ But the little peasant said: ‘Oh, but I must -have my beast back again.’ Then they went back to the meadow together, -but someone had stolen the calf, and it was gone. The cow-herd said: ‘It -must have run away.’ The peasant, however, said: ‘Don’t tell me -that,’ and led the cow-herd before the mayor, who for his carelessness -condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf which had run away. - -And now the little peasant and his wife had the cow for which they had -so long wished, and they were heartily glad, but they had no food for -it, and could give it nothing to eat, so it soon had to be killed. They -salted the flesh, and the peasant went into the town and wanted to sell -the skin there, so that he might buy a new calf with the proceeds. On -the way he passed by a mill, and there sat a raven with broken wings, -and out of pity he took him and wrapped him in the skin. But as the -weather grew so bad and there was a storm of rain and wind, he could -go no farther, and turned back to the mill and begged for shelter. The -miller’s wife was alone in the house, and said to the peasant: ‘Lay -yourself on the straw there,’ and gave him a slice of bread and cheese. -The peasant ate it, and lay down with his skin beside him, and the woman -thought: ‘He is tired and has gone to sleep.’ In the meantime came the -parson; the miller’s wife received him well, and said: ‘My husband is -out, so we will have a feast.’ The peasant listened, and when he heard -them talk about feasting he was vexed that he had been forced to make -shift with a slice of bread and cheese. Then the woman served up four -different things, roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine. - -Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking -outside. The woman said: ‘Oh, heavens! It is my husband!’ she quickly -hid the roast meat inside the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow, -the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet -on the porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said: ‘Thank -heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the -world were coming to an end.’ The miller saw the peasant lying on the -straw, and asked, ‘What is that fellow doing there?’ ‘Ah,’ said the -wife, ‘the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for -shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where -the straw was.’ The man said: ‘I have no objection, but be quick and get -me something to eat.’ The woman said: ‘But I have nothing but bread and -cheese.’ ‘I am contented with anything,’ replied the husband, ‘so far as -I am concerned, bread and cheese will do,’ and looked at the peasant and -said: ‘Come and eat some more with me.’ The peasant did not require to -be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin -in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked: ‘What have you -there?’ The peasant answered: ‘I have a soothsayer inside it.’ ‘Can -he foretell anything to me?’ said the miller. ‘Why not?’ answered -the peasant: ‘but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to -himself.’ The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something -for once.’ Then the peasant pinched the raven’s head, so that he croaked -and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: ‘What did he say?’ The -peasant answered: ‘In the first place, he says that there is some wine -hidden under the pillow.’ ‘Bless me!’ cried the miller, and went there -and found the wine. ‘Now go on,’ said he. The peasant made the raven -croak again, and said: ‘In the second place, he says that there is some -roast meat in the tiled stove.’ ‘Upon my word!’ cried the miller, and -went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven -prophesy still more, and said: ‘Thirdly, he says that there is some -salad on the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the miller, and -went there and found the salad. At last the peasant pinched the raven -once more till he croaked, and said: ‘Fourthly, he says that there -are some cakes under the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the -miller, and looked there, and found the cakes. - -And now the two sat down to the table together, but the miller’s wife -was frightened to death, and went to bed and took all the keys with -her. The miller would have liked much to know the fifth, but the little -peasant said: ‘First, we will quickly eat the four things, for the fifth -is something bad.’ So they ate, and after that they bargained how much -the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on -three hundred talers. Then the peasant once more pinched the raven’s -head till he croaked loudly. The miller asked: ‘What did he say?’ The -peasant replied: ‘He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in -the closet on the porch.’ The miller said: ‘The Devil must go out,’ and -opened the house-door; then the woman was forced to give up the keys, -and the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he -could, and the miller said: ‘It was true; I saw the black rascal with my -own eyes.’ The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with -the three hundred talers. - -At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful -house, and the peasants said: ‘The small peasant has certainly been to -the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in -shovels.’ Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and -bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered: ‘I sold my cow’s -skin in the town, for three hundred talers.’ When the peasants heard -that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed -all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in -the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said: ‘But my -servant must go first.’ When she came to the merchant in the town, he -did not give her more than two talers for a skin, and when the others -came, he did not give them so much, and said: ‘What can I do with all -these skins?’ - -Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus -outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this -treachery before the mayor. The innocent little peasant was unanimously -sentenced to death, and was to be rolled into the water, in a barrel -pierced full of holes. He was led forth, and a priest was brought who -was to say a mass for his soul. The others were all obliged to retire to -a distance, and when the peasant looked at the priest, he recognized the -man who had been with the miller’s wife. He said to him: ‘I set you free -from the closet, set me free from the barrel.’ At this same moment up -came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd whom the peasant knew had -long been wishing to be mayor, so he cried with all his might: ‘No, I -will not do it; if the whole world insists on it, I will not do it!’ The -shepherd hearing that, came up to him, and asked: ‘What are you about? -What is it that you will not do?’ The peasant said: ‘They want to make -me mayor, if I will but put myself in the barrel, but I will not do it.’ -The shepherd said: ‘If nothing more than that is needful in order to be -mayor, I would get into the barrel at once.’ The peasant said: ‘If you -will get in, you will be mayor.’ The shepherd was willing, and got in, -and the peasant shut the top down on him; then he took the shepherd’s -flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson went to the crowd, -and declared that the mass had been said. Then they came and rolled the -barrel towards the water. When the barrel began to roll, the shepherd -cried: ‘I am quite willing to be mayor.’ They believed no otherwise than -that it was the peasant who was saying this, and answered: ‘That is -what we intend, but first you shall look about you a little down below -there,’ and they rolled the barrel down into the water. - -After that the peasants went home, and as they were entering the -village, the small peasant also came quietly in, driving a flock of -sheep and looking quite contented. Then the peasants were astonished, -and said: ‘Peasant, from whence do you come? Have you come out of the -water?’ ‘Yes, truly,’ replied the peasant, ‘I sank deep, deep down, -until at last I got to the bottom; I pushed the bottom out of the -barrel, and crept out, and there were pretty meadows on which a number -of lambs were feeding, and from thence I brought this flock away with -me.’ Said the peasants: ‘Are there any more there?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he, -‘more than I could want.’ Then the peasants made up their minds that -they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece, but the -mayor said: ‘I come first.’ So they went to the water together, and just -then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in the blue sky, which -are called little lambs, and they were reflected in the water, whereupon -the peasants cried: ‘We already see the sheep down below!’ The mayor -pressed forward and said: ‘I will go down first, and look about me, and -if things promise well I’ll call you.’ So he jumped in; splash! went -the water; it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd -plunged in after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and -the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man. - - - - -FREDERICK AND CATHERINE - - -There was once a man called Frederick: he had a wife whose name was -Catherine, and they had not long been married. One day Frederick said. -‘Kate! I am going to work in the fields; when I come back I shall be -hungry so let me have something nice cooked, and a good draught of ale.’ -‘Very well,’ said she, ‘it shall all be ready.’ When dinner-time drew -nigh, Catherine took a nice steak, which was all the meat she had, and -put it on the fire to fry. The steak soon began to look brown, and to -crackle in the pan; and Catherine stood by with a fork and turned it: -then she said to herself, ‘The steak is almost ready, I may as well go -to the cellar for the ale.’ So she left the pan on the fire and took a -large jug and went into the cellar and tapped the ale cask. The beer ran -into the jug and Catherine stood looking on. At last it popped into her -head, ‘The dog is not shut up--he may be running away with the steak; -that’s well thought of.’ So up she ran from the cellar; and sure enough -the rascally cur had got the steak in his mouth, and was making off with -it. - -Away ran Catherine, and away ran the dog across the field: but he ran -faster than she, and stuck close to the steak. ‘It’s all gone, and “what -can’t be cured must be endured”,’ said Catherine. So she turned round; -and as she had run a good way and was tired, she walked home leisurely -to cool herself. - -Now all this time the ale was running too, for Catherine had not turned -the cock; and when the jug was full the liquor ran upon the floor till -the cask was empty. When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had -happened. ‘My stars!’ said she, ‘what shall I do to keep Frederick from -seeing all this slopping about?’ So she thought a while; and at last -remembered that there was a sack of fine meal bought at the last fair, -and that if she sprinkled this over the floor it would suck up the ale -nicely. ‘What a lucky thing,’ said she, ‘that we kept that meal! we have -now a good use for it.’ So away she went for it: but she managed to set -it down just upon the great jug full of beer, and upset it; and thus -all the ale that had been saved was set swimming on the floor also. ‘Ah! -well,’ said she, ‘when one goes another may as well follow.’ Then she -strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her -cleverness, and said, ‘How very neat and clean it looks!’ - -At noon Frederick came home. ‘Now, wife,’ cried he, ‘what have you for -dinner?’ ‘O Frederick!’ answered she, ‘I was cooking you a steak; but -while I went down to draw the ale, the dog ran away with it; and while -I ran after him, the ale ran out; and when I went to dry up the ale -with the sack of meal that we got at the fair, I upset the jug: but the -cellar is now quite dry, and looks so clean!’ ‘Kate, Kate,’ said he, -‘how could you do all this?’ Why did you leave the steak to fry, and the -ale to run, and then spoil all the meal?’ ‘Why, Frederick,’ said she, ‘I -did not know I was doing wrong; you should have told me before.’ - -The husband thought to himself, ‘If my wife manages matters thus, I must -look sharp myself.’ Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he -said to Catherine, ‘What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put -them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you -never go near or meddle with them.’ ‘No, Frederick,’ said she, ‘that -I never will.’ As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with -earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy. -‘Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money: if -you had any use for yellow buttons, I might deal with you.’ ‘Yellow -buttons!’ said they: ‘let us have a look at them.’ ‘Go into the garden -and dig where I tell you, and you will find the yellow buttons: I dare -not go myself.’ So the rogues went: and when they found what these -yellow buttons were, they took them all away, and left her plenty of -plates and dishes. Then she set them all about the house for a show: -and when Frederick came back, he cried out, ‘Kate, what have you been -doing?’ ‘See,’ said she, ‘I have bought all these with your yellow -buttons: but I did not touch them myself; the pedlars went themselves -and dug them up.’ ‘Wife, wife,’ said Frederick, ‘what a pretty piece of -work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money: how came you -to do such a thing?’ ‘Why,’ answered she, ‘I did not know there was any -harm in it; you should have told me.’ - -Catherine stood musing for a while, and at last said to her husband, -‘Hark ye, Frederick, we will soon get the gold back: let us run after -the thieves.’ ‘Well, we will try,’ answered he; ‘but take some butter -and cheese with you, that we may have something to eat by the way.’ -‘Very well,’ said she; and they set out: and as Frederick walked the -fastest, he left his wife some way behind. ‘It does not matter,’ thought -she: ‘when we turn back, I shall be so much nearer home than he.’ - -Presently she came to the top of a hill, down the side of which there -was a road so narrow that the cart wheels always chafed the trees -on each side as they passed. ‘Ah, see now,’ said she, ‘how they have -bruised and wounded those poor trees; they will never get well.’ So she -took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so -that the wheels might not hurt them so much. While she was doing this -kind office one of her cheeses fell out of the basket, and rolled down -the hill. Catherine looked, but could not see where it had gone; so she -said, ‘Well, I suppose the other will go the same way and find you; he -has younger legs than I have.’ Then she rolled the other cheese after -it; and away it went, nobody knows where, down the hill. But she said -she supposed that they knew the road, and would follow her, and she -could not stay there all day waiting for them. - -At last she overtook Frederick, who desired her to give him something to -eat. Then she gave him the dry bread. ‘Where are the butter and cheese?’ -said he. ‘Oh!’ answered she, ‘I used the butter to grease those poor -trees that the wheels chafed so: and one of the cheeses ran away so I -sent the other after it to find it, and I suppose they are both on -the road together somewhere.’ ‘What a goose you are to do such silly -things!’ said the husband. ‘How can you say so?’ said she; ‘I am sure -you never told me not.’ - -They ate the dry bread together; and Frederick said, ‘Kate, I hope you -locked the door safe when you came away.’ ‘No,’ answered she, ‘you did -not tell me.’ ‘Then go home, and do it now before we go any farther,’ -said Frederick, ‘and bring with you something to eat.’ - -Catherine did as he told her, and thought to herself by the way, -‘Frederick wants something to eat; but I don’t think he is very fond of -butter and cheese: I’ll bring him a bag of fine nuts, and the vinegar, -for I have often seen him take some.’ - -When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she -took off the hinges, and said, ‘Frederick told me to lock the door, but -surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.’ So she took -her time by the way; and when she overtook her husband she cried -out, ‘There, Frederick, there is the door itself, you may watch it as -carefully as you please.’ ‘Alas! alas!’ said he, ‘what a clever wife I -have! I sent you to make the house fast, and you take the door away, so -that everybody may go in and out as they please--however, as you have -brought the door, you shall carry it about with you for your pains.’ -‘Very well,’ answered she, ‘I’ll carry the door; but I’ll not carry the -nuts and vinegar bottle also--that would be too much of a load; so if -you please, I’ll fasten them to the door.’ - -Frederick of course made no objection to that plan, and they set off -into the wood to look for the thieves; but they could not find them: and -when it grew dark, they climbed up into a tree to spend the night there. -Scarcely were they up, than who should come by but the very rogues they -were looking for. They were in truth great rascals, and belonged to that -class of people who find things before they are lost; they were tired; -so they sat down and made a fire under the very tree where Frederick and -Catherine were. Frederick slipped down on the other side, and picked up -some stones. Then he climbed up again, and tried to hit the thieves on -the head with them: but they only said, ‘It must be near morning, for -the wind shakes the fir-apples down.’ - -Catherine, who had the door on her shoulder, began to be very tired; -but she thought it was the nuts upon it that were so heavy: so she said -softly, ‘Frederick, I must let the nuts go.’ ‘No,’ answered he, ‘not -now, they will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that: they must go.’ ‘Well, -then, make haste and throw them down, if you will.’ Then away rattled -the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, ‘Bless me, -it is hailing.’ - -A little while after, Catherine thought the door was still very heavy: -so she whispered to Frederick, ‘I must throw the vinegar down.’ ‘Pray -don’t,’ answered he, ‘it will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that,’ said -she, ‘go it must.’ So she poured all the vinegar down; and the thieves -said, ‘What a heavy dew there is!’ - -At last it popped into Catherine’s head that it was the door itself that -was so heavy all the time: so she whispered, ‘Frederick, I must throw -the door down soon.’ But he begged and prayed her not to do so, for he -was sure it would betray them. ‘Here goes, however,’ said she: and down -went the door with such a clatter upon the thieves, that they cried -out ‘Murder!’ and not knowing what was coming, ran away as fast as they -could, and left all the gold. So when Frederick and Catherine came down, -there they found all their money safe and sound. - - - - -SWEETHEART ROLAND - - -There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two -daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was -her own daughter, and one beautiful and good, and this one she hated, -because she was her stepdaughter. The stepdaughter once had a pretty -apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious, and -told her mother that she must and would have that apron. ‘Be quiet, my -child,’ said the old woman, ‘and you shall have it. Your stepsister has -long deserved death; tonight when she is asleep I will come and cut her -head off. Only be careful that you are at the far side of the bed, and -push her well to the front.’ It would have been all over with the poor -girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner, and heard -everything. All day long she dared not go out of doors, and when bedtime -had come, the witch’s daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the -far side, but when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the -front, and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall. In -the night, the old woman came creeping in, she held an axe in her right -hand, and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside, -and then she grasped the axe with both hands, and cut her own child’s -head off. - -When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who -was called Roland, and knocked at his door. When he came out, she said -to him: ‘Listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste; my stepmother -wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child. When daylight comes, -and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.’ ‘But,’ said Roland, -‘I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape -if she pursues us.’ The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the -dead girl’s head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground, one in -front of the bed, one in the kitchen, and one on the stairs. Then she -hurried away with her lover. - -When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter, and -wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come. Then the witch -cried: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here, on the stairs, I am sweeping,’ answered -the first drop of blood. The old woman went out, but saw no one on the -stairs, and cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here in the kitchen, I am -warming myself,’ cried the second drop of blood. She went into the -kitchen, but found no one. Then she cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Ah, -here in the bed, I am sleeping,’ cried the third drop of blood. She went -into the room to the bed. What did she see there? Her own child, -whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood. The witch fell into -a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far -into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her -sweetheart Roland. ‘That shall not help you,’ cried she, ‘even if you -have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.’ She put on her -many-league boots, in which she covered an hour’s walk at every step, -and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when -she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic -wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck -swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore, -threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck; -but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to -go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart -Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole -night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful -flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart -Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up -towards them, and said to the musician: ‘Dear musician, may I pluck that -beautiful flower for myself?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will play to -you while you do it.’ As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was -just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower -was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced -to dance, for it was a magical dance. The faster he played, the more -violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes -from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he -did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground. - -As they were now set free, Roland said: ‘Now I will go to my father and -arrange for the wedding.’ ‘Then in the meantime I will stay here and -wait for you,’ said the girl, ‘and that no one may recognize me, I will -change myself into a red stone landmark.’ Then Roland went away, and the -girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved. -But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another, who so -fascinated him that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl remained there a -long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad, and -changed herself into a flower, and thought: ‘Someone will surely come -this way, and trample me down.’ - -It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw -the flower, and as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him, and -laid it away in his chest. From that time forth, strange things happened -in the shepherd’s house. When he arose in the morning, all the work was -already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the -fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon, -when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served. He -could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being -in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it. He was -certainly pleased with this good attendance, but still at last he was so -afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice. The wise -woman said: ‘There is some enchantment behind it, listen very early some -morning if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no -matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it, and then the magic will -be stopped.’ - -The shepherd did as she bade him, and next morning just as day dawned, -he saw the chest open, and the flower come out. Swiftly he -sprang towards it, and threw a white cloth over it. Instantly the -transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him, -who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this -time she had attended to his house-keeping. She told him her story, -and as she pleased him he asked her if she would marry him, but she -answered: ‘No,’ for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart -Roland, although he had deserted her. Nevertheless, she promised not to -go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd. - -And now the time drew near when Roland’s wedding was to be celebrated, -and then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced -that all the girls were to be present at it, and sing in honour of the -bridal pair. When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad -that she thought her heart would break, and she would not go thither, -but the other girls came and took her. When it came to her turn to sing, -she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left, and then she -could not refuse. But when she began her song, and it reached Roland’s -ears, he sprang up and cried: ‘I know the voice, that is the true -bride, I will have no other!’ Everything he had forgotten, and which had -vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart. Then -the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart Roland, and -grief came to an end and joy began. - - - - -SNOWDROP - - -It was the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling -around, that the queen of a country many thousand miles off sat working -at her window. The frame of the window was made of fine black ebony, and -as she sat looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three -drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully upon the red -drops that sprinkled the white snow, and said, ‘Would that my little -daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as -black as this ebony windowframe!’ And so the little girl really did grow -up; her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and -her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snowdrop. - -But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who became -queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear -to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy -looking-glass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon -herself in it, and say: - - ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! - Of all the ladies in the land, - Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ - -And the glass had always answered: - - ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all the land.’ - -But Snowdrop grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years -old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. -Then the glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it -as usual: - - ‘Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see, - But Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee!’ - -When she heard this she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to -one of her servants, and said, ‘Take Snowdrop away into the wide wood, -that I may never see her any more.’ Then the servant led her away; but -his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he -said, ‘I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.’ So he left her by -herself; and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would -tear her in pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his -heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her but to leave her to -her fate, with the chance of someone finding and saving her. - -Then poor Snowdrop wandered along through the wood in great fear; and -the wild beasts roared about her, but none did her any harm. In the -evening she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in to rest, for -her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was spruce and -neat in the cottage: on the table was spread a white cloth, and there -were seven little plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses -with wine in them; and seven knives and forks laid in order; and by -the wall stood seven little beds. As she was very hungry, she picked -a little piece of each loaf and drank a very little wine out of each -glass; and after that she thought she would lie down and rest. So she -tried all the little beds; but one was too long, and another was too -short, till at last the seventh suited her: and there she laid herself -down and went to sleep. - -By and by in came the masters of the cottage. Now they were seven little -dwarfs, that lived among the mountains, and dug and searched for gold. -They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw at once that all was not -right. The first said, ‘Who has been sitting on my stool?’ The second, -‘Who has been eating off my plate?’ The third, ‘Who has been picking my -bread?’ The fourth, ‘Who has been meddling with my spoon?’ The fifth, -‘Who has been handling my fork?’ The sixth, ‘Who has been cutting with -my knife?’ The seventh, ‘Who has been drinking my wine?’ Then the first -looked round and said, ‘Who has been lying on my bed?’ And the rest came -running to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his -bed. But the seventh saw Snowdrop, and called all his brethren to come -and see her; and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought -their lamps to look at her, and said, ‘Good heavens! what a lovely child -she is!’ And they were very glad to see her, and took care not to wake -her; and the seventh dwarf slept an hour with each of the other dwarfs -in turn, till the night was gone. - -In the morning Snowdrop told them all her story; and they pitied her, -and said if she would keep all things in order, and cook and wash and -knit and spin for them, she might stay where she was, and they would -take good care of her. Then they went out all day long to their work, -seeking for gold and silver in the mountains: but Snowdrop was left at -home; and they warned her, and said, ‘The queen will soon find out where -you are, so take care and let no one in.’ - -But the queen, now that she thought Snowdrop was dead, believed that she -must be the handsomest lady in the land; and she went to her glass and -said: - - ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! - Of all the ladies in the land, - Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ - -And the glass answered: - - ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: - But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, - Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, - There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she - Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’ - -Then the queen was very much frightened; for she knew that the glass -always spoke the truth, and was sure that the servant had betrayed her. -And she could not bear to think that anyone lived who was more beautiful -than she was; so she dressed herself up as an old pedlar, and went -her way over the hills, to the place where the dwarfs dwelt. Then she -knocked at the door, and cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ Snowdrop looked -out at the window, and said, ‘Good day, good woman! what have you to -sell?’ ‘Good wares, fine wares,’ said she; ‘laces and bobbins of all -colours.’ ‘I will let the old lady in; she seems to be a very good -sort of body,’ thought Snowdrop, as she ran down and unbolted the door. -‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced! Let me -lace them up with one of my nice new laces.’ Snowdrop did not dream of -any mischief; so she stood before the old woman; but she set to work -so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snowdrop’s breath was -stopped, and she fell down as if she were dead. ‘There’s an end to all -thy beauty,’ said the spiteful queen, and went away home. - -In the evening the seven dwarfs came home; and I need not say how -grieved they were to see their faithful Snowdrop stretched out upon the -ground, as if she was quite dead. However, they lifted her up, and when -they found what ailed her, they cut the lace; and in a little time she -began to breathe, and very soon came to life again. Then they said, ‘The -old woman was the queen herself; take care another time, and let no one -in when we are away.’ - -When the queen got home, she went straight to her glass, and spoke to it -as before; but to her great grief it still said: - - ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: - But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, - Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, - There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she - Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’ - -Then the blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see that -Snowdrop still lived; and she dressed herself up again, but in quite -another dress from the one she wore before, and took with her a poisoned -comb. When she reached the dwarfs’ cottage, she knocked at the door, and -cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ But Snowdrop said, ‘I dare not let anyone -in.’ Then the queen said, ‘Only look at my beautiful combs!’ and gave -her the poisoned one. And it looked so pretty, that she took it up and -put it into her hair to try it; but the moment it touched her head, -the poison was so powerful that she fell down senseless. ‘There you may -lie,’ said the queen, and went her way. But by good luck the dwarfs -came in very early that evening; and when they saw Snowdrop lying on -the ground, they thought what had happened, and soon found the poisoned -comb. And when they took it away she got well, and told them all that -had passed; and they warned her once more not to open the door to -anyone. - -Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and shook with rage when she -read the very same answer as before; and she said, ‘Snowdrop shall die, -if it cost me my life.’ So she went by herself into her chamber, and got -ready a poisoned apple: the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but -whoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she dressed herself up as a -peasant’s wife, and travelled over the hills to the dwarfs’ cottage, -and knocked at the door; but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and -said, ‘I dare not let anyone in, for the dwarfs have told me not.’ ‘Do -as you please,’ said the old woman, ‘but at any rate take this pretty -apple; I will give it you.’ ‘No,’ said Snowdrop, ‘I dare not take it.’ -‘You silly girl!’ answered the other, ‘what are you afraid of? Do you -think it is poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the -other.’ Now the apple was so made up that one side was good, though the -other side was poisoned. Then Snowdrop was much tempted to taste, for -the apple looked so very nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she -could wait no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth, -when she fell down dead upon the ground. ‘This time nothing will save -thee,’ said the queen; and she went home to her glass, and at last it -said: - - ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest of all the fair.’ - -And then her wicked heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could -be. - -When evening came, and the dwarfs had gone home, they found Snowdrop -lying on the ground: no breath came from her lips, and they were afraid -that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and -washed her face with wine and water; but all was in vain, for the little -girl seemed quite dead. So they laid her down upon a bier, and all seven -watched and bewailed her three whole days; and then they thought they -would bury her: but her cheeks were still rosy; and her face looked just -as it did while she was alive; so they said, ‘We will never bury her in -the cold ground.’ And they made a coffin of glass, so that they might -still look at her, and wrote upon it in golden letters what her name -was, and that she was a king’s daughter. And the coffin was set among -the hills, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the -birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop; and first of all came -an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side. - -And thus Snowdrop lay for a long, long time, and still only looked as -though she was asleep; for she was even now as white as snow, and as red -as blood, and as black as ebony. At last a prince came and called at the -dwarfs’ house; and he saw Snowdrop, and read what was written in golden -letters. Then he offered the dwarfs money, and prayed and besought them -to let him take her away; but they said, ‘We will not part with her for -all the gold in the world.’ At last, however, they had pity on him, and -gave him the coffin; but the moment he lifted it up to carry it home -with him, the piece of apple fell from between her lips, and Snowdrop -awoke, and said, ‘Where am I?’ And the prince said, ‘Thou art quite safe -with me.’ - -Then he told her all that had happened, and said, ‘I love you far better -than all the world; so come with me to my father’s palace, and you shall -be my wife.’ And Snowdrop consented, and went home with the prince; -and everything was got ready with great pomp and splendour for their -wedding. - -To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop’s old enemy the queen; -and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the -glass and said: - - ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true! - Of all the ladies in the land, - Who is fairest, tell me, who?’ - -And the glass answered: - - ‘Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween; - But lovelier far is the new-made queen.’ - -When she heard this she started with rage; but her envy and curiosity -were so great, that she could not help setting out to see the bride. And -when she got there, and saw that it was no other than Snowdrop, who, as -she thought, had been dead a long while, she choked with rage, and fell -down and died: but Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily -over that land many, many years; and sometimes they went up into the -mountains, and paid a visit to the little dwarfs, who had been so kind -to Snowdrop in her time of need. - - - - -THE PINK - - -There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no children. -Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to -bestow on her a son or a daughter. Then an angel from heaven came to her -and said: ‘Be at rest, you shall have a son with the power of wishing, -so that whatsoever in the world he wishes for, that shall he have.’ Then -she went to the king, and told him the joyful tidings, and when the time -was come she gave birth to a son, and the king was filled with gladness. - -Every morning she went with the child to the garden where the wild -beasts were kept, and washed herself there in a clear stream. It -happened once when the child was a little older, that it was lying in -her arms and she fell asleep. Then came the old cook, who knew that the -child had the power of wishing, and stole it away, and he took a hen, -and cut it in pieces, and dropped some of its blood on the queen’s apron -and on her dress. Then he carried the child away to a secret place, -where a nurse was obliged to suckle it, and he ran to the king and -accused the queen of having allowed her child to be taken from her by -the wild beasts. When the king saw the blood on her apron, he believed -this, fell into such a passion that he ordered a high tower to be built, -in which neither sun nor moon could be seen and had his wife put into -it, and walled up. Here she was to stay for seven years without meat -or drink, and die of hunger. But God sent two angels from heaven in the -shape of white doves, which flew to her twice a day, and carried her -food until the seven years were over. - -The cook, however, thought to himself: ‘If the child has the power of -wishing, and I am here, he might very easily get me into trouble.’ So -he left the palace and went to the boy, who was already big enough to -speak, and said to him: ‘Wish for a beautiful palace for yourself with -a garden, and all else that pertains to it.’ Scarcely were the words out -of the boy’s mouth, when everything was there that he had wished for. -After a while the cook said to him: ‘It is not well for you to be so -alone, wish for a pretty girl as a companion.’ Then the king’s son -wished for one, and she immediately stood before him, and was more -beautiful than any painter could have painted her. The two played -together, and loved each other with all their hearts, and the old cook -went out hunting like a nobleman. The thought occurred to him, however, -that the king’s son might some day wish to be with his father, and thus -bring him into great peril. So he went out and took the maiden aside, -and said: ‘Tonight when the boy is asleep, go to his bed and plunge this -knife into his heart, and bring me his heart and tongue, and if you do -not do it, you shall lose your life.’ Thereupon he went away, and when -he returned next day she had not done it, and said: ‘Why should I shed -the blood of an innocent boy who has never harmed anyone?’ The cook once -more said: ‘If you do not do it, it shall cost you your own life.’ When -he had gone away, she had a little hind brought to her, and ordered her -to be killed, and took her heart and tongue, and laid them on a plate, -and when she saw the old man coming, she said to the boy: ‘Lie down in -your bed, and draw the clothes over you.’ Then the wicked wretch came in -and said: ‘Where are the boy’s heart and tongue?’ The girl reached the -plate to him, but the king’s son threw off the quilt, and said: ‘You old -sinner, why did you want to kill me? Now will I pronounce thy sentence. -You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar round your neck, -and shall eat burning coals, till the flames burst forth from your -throat.’ And when he had spoken these words, the old man was changed -into a poodle dog, and had a gold collar round his neck, and the cooks -were ordered to bring up some live coals, and these he ate, until the -flames broke forth from his throat. The king’s son remained there a -short while longer, and he thought of his mother, and wondered if she -were still alive. At length he said to the maiden: ‘I will go home to my -own country; if you will go with me, I will provide for you.’ ‘Ah,’ -she replied, ‘the way is so long, and what shall I do in a strange land -where I am unknown?’ As she did not seem quite willing, and as they -could not be parted from each other, he wished that she might be changed -into a beautiful pink, and took her with him. Then he went away to his -own country, and the poodle had to run after him. He went to the tower -in which his mother was confined, and as it was so high, he wished for -a ladder which would reach up to the very top. Then he mounted up and -looked inside, and cried: ‘Beloved mother, Lady Queen, are you still -alive, or are you dead?’ She answered: ‘I have just eaten, and am still -satisfied,’ for she thought the angels were there. Said he: ‘I am your -dear son, whom the wild beasts were said to have torn from your arms; -but I am alive still, and will soon set you free.’ Then he descended -again, and went to his father, and caused himself to be announced as a -strange huntsman, and asked if he could offer him service. The king said -yes, if he was skilful and could get game for him, he should come to -him, but that deer had never taken up their quarters in any part of the -district or country. Then the huntsman promised to procure as much game -for him as he could possibly use at the royal table. So he summoned all -the huntsmen together, and bade them go out into the forest with him. -And he went with them and made them form a great circle, open at one end -where he stationed himself, and began to wish. Two hundred deer and more -came running inside the circle at once, and the huntsmen shot them. -Then they were all placed on sixty country carts, and driven home to the -king, and for once he was able to deck his table with game, after having -had none at all for years. - -Now the king felt great joy at this, and commanded that his entire -household should eat with him next day, and made a great feast. When -they were all assembled together, he said to the huntsman: ‘As you are -so clever, you shall sit by me.’ He replied: ‘Lord King, your majesty -must excuse me, I am a poor huntsman.’ But the king insisted on it, -and said: ‘You shall sit by me,’ until he did it. Whilst he was sitting -there, he thought of his dearest mother, and wished that one of the -king’s principal servants would begin to speak of her, and would ask how -it was faring with the queen in the tower, and if she were alive still, -or had perished. Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began, -and said: ‘Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the queen -living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?’ But the king -replied: ‘She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts; I will -not have her named.’ Then the huntsman arose and said: ‘Gracious lord -father she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away -by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her -arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a -chicken.’ Thereupon he took the dog with the golden collar, and said: -‘That is the wretch!’ and caused live coals to be brought, and these the -dog was compelled to devour before the sight of all, until flames burst -forth from its throat. On this the huntsman asked the king if he would -like to see the dog in his true shape, and wished him back into the form -of the cook, in which he stood immediately, with his white apron, -and his knife by his side. When the king saw him he fell into a passion, -and ordered him to be cast into the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman -spoke further and said: ‘Father, will you see the maiden who brought me -up so tenderly and who was afterwards to murder me, but did not do it, -though her own life depended on it?’ The king replied: ‘Yes, I would -like to see her.’ The son said: ‘Most gracious father, I will show her -to you in the form of a beautiful flower,’ and he thrust his hand into -his pocket and brought forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table, -and it was so beautiful that the king had never seen one to equal it. -Then the son said: ‘Now will I show her to you in her own form,’ and -wished that she might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so -beautiful that no painter could have made her look more so. - -And the king sent two waiting-maids and two attendants into the tower, -to fetch the queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was -led in she ate nothing, and said: ‘The gracious and merciful God who has -supported me in the tower, will soon set me free.’ She lived three days -more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the two white -doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were angels of -heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave. The aged -king ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief consumed the -king’s own heart, and he soon died. His son married the beautiful maiden -whom he had brought with him as a flower in his pocket, and whether they -are still alive or not, is known to God. - - - - -CLEVER ELSIE - - -There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And -when she had grown up her father said: ‘We will get her married.’ ‘Yes,’ -said the mother, ‘if only someone would come who would have her.’ At -length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans; -but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really smart. ‘Oh,’ said -the father, ‘she has plenty of good sense’; and the mother said: ‘Oh, -she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.’ -‘Well,’ said Hans, ‘if she is not really smart, I won’t have her.’ When -they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said: ‘Elsie, go -into the cellar and fetch some beer.’ Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher -from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she -went, so that the time might not appear long. When she was below she -fetched herself a chair, and set it before the barrel so that she had -no need to stoop, and did not hurt her back or do herself any unexpected -injury. Then she placed the can before her, and turned the tap, and -while the beer was running she would not let her eyes be idle, but -looked up at the wall, and after much peering here and there, saw a -pick-axe exactly above her, which the masons had accidentally left -there. - -Then Clever Elsie began to weep and said: ‘If I get Hans, and we have -a child, and he grows big, and we send him into the cellar here to draw -beer, then the pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then she -sat and wept and screamed with all the strength of her body, over the -misfortune which lay before her. Those upstairs waited for the drink, -but Clever Elsie still did not come. Then the woman said to the servant: -‘Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is.’ The maid went and -found her sitting in front of the barrel, screaming loudly. ‘Elsie why -do you weep?’ asked the maid. ‘Ah,’ she answered, ‘have I not reason to -weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to -draw beer here, the pick-axe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill -him.’ Then said the maid: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down -beside her and began loudly to weep over the misfortune. After a while, -as the maid did not come back, and those upstairs were thirsty for the -beer, the man said to the boy: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see -where Elsie and the girl are.’ The boy went down, and there sat Clever -Elsie and the girl both weeping together. Then he asked: ‘Why are you -weeping?’ ‘Ah,’ said Elsie, ‘have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, -and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the -pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then said the boy: ‘What -a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down by her, and likewise began to -howl loudly. Upstairs they waited for the boy, but as he still did not -return, the man said to the woman: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see -where Elsie is!’ The woman went down, and found all three in the midst -of their lamentations, and inquired what was the cause; then Elsie told -her also that her future child was to be killed by the pick-axe, when it -grew big and had to draw beer, and the pick-axe fell down. Then said the -mother likewise: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down and wept -with them. The man upstairs waited a short time, but as his wife did not -come back and his thirst grew ever greater, he said: ‘I must go into the -cellar myself and see where Elsie is.’ But when he got into the cellar, -and they were all sitting together crying, and he heard the reason, and -that Elsie’s child was the cause, and the Elsie might perhaps bring one -into the world some day, and that he might be killed by the pick-axe, if -he should happen to be sitting beneath it, drawing beer just at the very -time when it fell down, he cried: ‘Oh, what a clever Elsie!’ and sat -down, and likewise wept with them. The bridegroom stayed upstairs alone -for a long time; then as no one would come back he thought: ‘They must be -waiting for me below: I too must go there and see what they are about.’ -When he got down, the five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting -quite piteously, each out-doing the other. ‘What misfortune has happened -then?’ asked he. ‘Ah, dear Hans,’ said Elsie, ‘if we marry each other -and have a child, and he is big, and we perhaps send him here to draw -something to drink, then the pick-axe which has been left up there might -dash his brains out if it were to fall down, so have we not reason to -weep?’ ‘Come,’ said Hans, ‘more understanding than that is not needed -for my household, as you are such a clever Elsie, I will have you,’ and -seized her hand, took her upstairs with him, and married her. - -After Hans had had her some time, he said: ‘Wife, I am going out to work -and earn some money for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we -may have some bread.’ ‘Yes, dear Hans, I will do that.’ After Hans had -gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field -with her. When she came to the field she said to herself: ‘What shall I -do; shall I cut first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first.’ Then -she drank her cup of broth and when she was fully satisfied, she once -more said: ‘What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or shall I sleep first? -I will sleep first.’ Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. -Hans had been at home for a long time, but Elsie did not come; then said -he: ‘What a clever Elsie I have; she is so industrious that she does not -even come home to eat.’ But when evening came and she still stayed away, -Hans went out to see what she had cut, but nothing was cut, and she -was lying among the corn asleep. Then Hans hastened home and brought -a fowler’s net with little bells and hung it round about her, and she -still went on sleeping. Then he ran home, shut the house-door, and sat -down in his chair and worked. At length, when it was quite dark, Clever -Elsie awoke and when she got up there was a jingling all round about -her, and the bells rang at each step which she took. Then she was -alarmed, and became uncertain whether she really was Clever Elsie or -not, and said: ‘Is it I, or is it not I?’ But she knew not what answer -to make to this, and stood for a time in doubt; at length she thought: -‘I will go home and ask if it be I, or if it be not I, they will be sure -to know.’ She ran to the door of her own house, but it was shut; then -she knocked at the window and cried: ‘Hans, is Elsie within?’ ‘Yes,’ -answered Hans, ‘she is within.’ Hereupon she was terrified, and said: -‘Ah, heavens! Then it is not I,’ and went to another door; but when the -people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open it, and she -could get in nowhere. Then she ran out of the village, and no one has -seen her since. - - - - -THE MISER IN THE BUSH - - -A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for -him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came -into the man’s head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer; -so he went to his master, and said, ‘I have worked hard for you a long -time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my -trouble.’ The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very -simple-hearted; so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year’s -service a penny. The poor fellow thought it was a great deal of money to -have, and said to himself, ‘Why should I work hard, and live here on bad -fare any longer? I can now travel into the wide world, and make myself -merry.’ With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming -over hill and valley. - -As he jogged along over the fields, singing and dancing, a little dwarf -met him, and asked him what made him so merry. ‘Why, what should make -me down-hearted?’ said he; ‘I am sound in health and rich in purse, what -should I care for? I have saved up my three years’ earnings and have it -all safe in my pocket.’ ‘How much may it come to?’ said the little man. -‘Full threepence,’ replied the countryman. ‘I wish you would give them -to me,’ said the other; ‘I am very poor.’ Then the man pitied him, and -gave him all he had; and the little dwarf said in return, ‘As you have -such a kind honest heart, I will grant you three wishes--one for every -penny; so choose whatever you like.’ Then the countryman rejoiced at -his good luck, and said, ‘I like many things better than money: first, I -will have a bow that will bring down everything I shoot at; secondly, -a fiddle that will set everyone dancing that hears me play upon it; and -thirdly, I should like that everyone should grant what I ask.’ The dwarf -said he should have his three wishes; so he gave him the bow and fiddle, -and went his way. - -Our honest friend journeyed on his way too; and if he was merry before, -he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old -miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush -singing away most joyfully. ‘Oh, what a pretty bird!’ said the miser; ‘I -would give a great deal of money to have such a one.’ ‘If that’s all,’ -said the countryman, ‘I will soon bring it down.’ Then he took up his -bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of the tree. -The miser crept into the bush to find it; but directly he had got into -the middle, his companion took up his fiddle and played away, and the -miser began to dance and spring about, capering higher and higher in -the air. The thorns soon began to tear his clothes till they all hung -in rags about him, and he himself was all scratched and wounded, so that -the blood ran down. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ cried the miser, ‘Master! -master! pray let the fiddle alone. What have I done to deserve this?’ -‘Thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough,’ said the other; ‘thou -art only meeting thy reward’: so he played up another tune. Then the -miser began to beg and promise, and offered money for his liberty; but -he did not come up to the musician’s price for some time, and he danced -him along brisker and brisker, and the miser bid higher and higher, till -at last he offered a round hundred of florins that he had in his purse, -and had just gained by cheating some poor fellow. When the countryman -saw so much money, he said, ‘I will agree to your proposal.’ So he took -the purse, put up his fiddle, and travelled on very pleased with his -bargain. - -Meanwhile the miser crept out of the bush half-naked and in a piteous -plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge, and serve -his late companion some trick. At last he went to the judge, and -complained that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him -into the bargain; and that the fellow who did it carried a bow at his -back and a fiddle hung round his neck. Then the judge sent out his -officers to bring up the accused wherever they should find him; and he -was soon caught and brought up to be tried. - -The miser began to tell his tale, and said he had been robbed of -his money. ‘No, you gave it me for playing a tune to you.’ said the -countryman; but the judge told him that was not likely, and cut the -matter short by ordering him off to the gallows. - -So away he was taken; but as he stood on the steps he said, ‘My Lord -Judge, grant me one last request.’ ‘Anything but thy life,’ replied the -other. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I do not ask my life; only to let me play upon -my fiddle for the last time.’ The miser cried out, ‘Oh, no! no! for -heaven’s sake don’t listen to him! don’t listen to him!’ But the judge -said, ‘It is only this once, he will soon have done.’ The fact was, he -could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift. - -Then the miser said, ‘Bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity’s sake.’ But -the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first -note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion; all began capering, and -no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his -prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first -bar of the tune, all were dancing together--judge, court, and miser, and -all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing was merry -and pleasant enough; but when it had gone on a while, and there seemed -to be no end of playing or dancing, they began to cry out, and beg him -to leave off; but he stopped not a whit the more for their entreaties, -till the judge not only gave him his life, but promised to return him -the hundred florins. - -Then he called to the miser, and said, ‘Tell us now, you vagabond, where -you got that gold, or I shall play on for your amusement only,’ ‘I stole -it,’ said the miser in the presence of all the people; ‘I acknowledge -that I stole it, and that you earned it fairly.’ Then the countryman -stopped his fiddle, and left the miser to take his place at the gallows. - - - - -ASHPUTTEL - - -The wife of a rich man fell sick; and when she felt that her end drew -nigh, she called her only daughter to her bed-side, and said, ‘Always be -a good girl, and I will look down from heaven and watch over you.’ Soon -afterwards she shut her eyes and died, and was buried in the garden; -and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept, and was always -good and kind to all about her. And the snow fell and spread a beautiful -white covering over the grave; but by the time the spring came, and the -sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This -new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her; -they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time -for the poor little girl. ‘What does the good-for-nothing want in the -parlour?’ said they; ‘they who would eat bread should first earn it; -away with the kitchen-maid!’ Then they took away her fine clothes, and -gave her an old grey frock to put on, and laughed at her, and turned her -into the kitchen. - -There she was forced to do hard work; to rise early before daylight, to -bring the water, to make the fire, to cook and to wash. Besides that, -the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways, and laughed at her. In the -evening when she was tired, she had no bed to lie down on, but was made -to lie by the hearth among the ashes; and as this, of course, made her -always dusty and dirty, they called her Ashputtel. - -It happened once that the father was going to the fair, and asked his -wife’s daughters what he should bring them. ‘Fine clothes,’ said the -first; ‘Pearls and diamonds,’ cried the second. ‘Now, child,’ said he -to his own daughter, ‘what will you have?’ ‘The first twig, dear -father, that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come -homewards,’ said she. Then he bought for the first two the fine clothes -and pearls and diamonds they had asked for: and on his way home, as he -rode through a green copse, a hazel twig brushed against him, and almost -pushed off his hat: so he broke it off and brought it away; and when he -got home he gave it to his daughter. Then she took it, and went to -her mother’s grave and planted it there; and cried so much that it was -watered with her tears; and there it grew and became a fine tree. Three -times every day she went to it and cried; and soon a little bird came -and built its nest upon the tree, and talked with her, and watched over -her, and brought her whatever she wished for. - -Now it happened that the king of that land held a feast, which was to -last three days; and out of those who came to it his son was to choose -a bride for himself. Ashputtel’s two sisters were asked to come; so they -called her up, and said, ‘Now, comb our hair, brush our shoes, and tie -our sashes for us, for we are going to dance at the king’s feast.’ -Then she did as she was told; but when all was done she could not help -crying, for she thought to herself, she should so have liked to have -gone with them to the ball; and at last she begged her mother very hard -to let her go. ‘You, Ashputtel!’ said she; ‘you who have nothing to -wear, no clothes at all, and who cannot even dance--you want to go to -the ball? And when she kept on begging, she said at last, to get rid of -her, ‘I will throw this dishful of peas into the ash-heap, and if in -two hours’ time you have picked them all out, you shall go to the feast -too.’ - -Then she threw the peas down among the ashes, but the little maiden ran -out at the back door into the garden, and cried out: - - ‘Hither, hither, through the sky, - Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! - Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, - Hither, hither, haste away! - One and all come help me, quick! - Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’ - -Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next -came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under -heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes. -And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, -pick, pick; and then the others began to pick, pick, pick: and among -them all they soon picked out all the good grain, and put it into a dish -but left the ashes. Long before the end of the hour the work was quite -done, and all flew out again at the windows. - -Then Ashputtel brought the dish to her mother, overjoyed at the thought -that now she should go to the ball. But the mother said, ‘No, no! you -slut, you have no clothes, and cannot dance; you shall not go.’ And when -Ashputtel begged very hard to go, she said, ‘If you can in one hour’s -time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes, you shall go -too.’ And thus she thought she should at least get rid of her. So she -shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. - -But the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house, -and cried out as before: - - ‘Hither, hither, through the sky, - Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! - Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, - Hither, hither, haste away! - One and all come help me, quick! - Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’ - -Then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window; next came two -turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven, -chirping and hopping about. And they flew down into the ashes; and the -little doves put their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and -then the others began pick, pick, pick; and they put all the good grain -into the dishes, and left all the ashes. Before half an hour’s time all -was done, and out they flew again. And then Ashputtel took the dishes to -her mother, rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball. -But her mother said, ‘It is all of no use, you cannot go; you have no -clothes, and cannot dance, and you would only put us to shame’: and off -she went with her two daughters to the ball. - -Now when all were gone, and nobody left at home, Ashputtel went -sorrowfully and sat down under the hazel-tree, and cried out: - - ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, - Gold and silver over me!’ - -Then her friend the bird flew out of the tree, and brought a gold and -silver dress for her, and slippers of spangled silk; and she put them -on, and followed her sisters to the feast. But they did not know her, -and thought it must be some strange princess, she looked so fine and -beautiful in her rich clothes; and they never once thought of Ashputtel, -taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt. - -The king’s son soon came up to her, and took her by the hand and danced -with her, and no one else: and he never left her hand; but when anyone -else came to ask her to dance, he said, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’ - -Thus they danced till a late hour of the night; and then she wanted to -go home: and the king’s son said, ‘I shall go and take care of you to -your home’; for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived. But -she slipped away from him, unawares, and ran off towards home; and as -the prince followed her, she jumped up into the pigeon-house and shut -the door. Then he waited till her father came home, and told him that -the unknown maiden, who had been at the feast, had hid herself in the -pigeon-house. But when they had broken open the door they found no one -within; and as they came back into the house, Ashputtel was lying, as -she always did, in her dirty frock by the ashes, and her dim little -lamp was burning in the chimney. For she had run as quickly as she could -through the pigeon-house and on to the hazel-tree, and had there taken -off her beautiful clothes, and put them beneath the tree, that the bird -might carry them away, and had lain down again amid the ashes in her -little grey frock. - -The next day when the feast was again held, and her father, mother, and -sisters were gone, Ashputtel went to the hazel-tree, and said: - - ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, - Gold and silver over me!’ - -And the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she -had worn the day before. And when she came in it to the ball, everyone -wondered at her beauty: but the king’s son, who was waiting for her, -took her by the hand, and danced with her; and when anyone asked her to -dance, he said as before, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’ - -When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son followed here -as before, that he might see into what house she went: but she sprang -away from him all at once into the garden behind her father’s house. -In this garden stood a fine large pear-tree full of ripe fruit; and -Ashputtel, not knowing where to hide herself, jumped up into it without -being seen. Then the king’s son lost sight of her, and could not find -out where she was gone, but waited till her father came home, and said -to him, ‘The unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away, and I -think she must have sprung into the pear-tree.’ The father thought to -himself, ‘Can it be Ashputtel?’ So he had an axe brought; and they cut -down the tree, but found no one upon it. And when they came back into -the kitchen, there lay Ashputtel among the ashes; for she had slipped -down on the other side of the tree, and carried her beautiful clothes -back to the bird at the hazel-tree, and then put on her little grey -frock. - -The third day, when her father and mother and sisters were gone, she -went again into the garden, and said: - - ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree, - Gold and silver over me!’ - -Then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the -former one, and slippers which were all of gold: so that when she came -to the feast no one knew what to say, for wonder at her beauty: and the -king’s son danced with nobody but her; and when anyone else asked her to -dance, he said, ‘This lady is _my_ partner, sir.’ - -When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son would go with -her, and said to himself, ‘I will not lose her this time’; but, however, -she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that she dropped -her left golden slipper upon the stairs. - -The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his father, -and said, ‘I will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper -fits.’ Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it; for they -had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the golden -slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper was, and -wanted to try it on, and the mother stood by. But her great toe could -not go into it, and the shoe was altogether much too small for her. Then -the mother gave her a knife, and said, ‘Never mind, cut it off; when you -are queen you will not care about toes; you will not want to walk.’ So -the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed on the shoe, -and went to the king’s son. Then he took her for his bride, and set her -beside him on his horse, and rode away with her homewards. - -But on their way home they had to pass by the hazel-tree that Ashputtel -had planted; and on the branch sat a little dove singing: - - ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe! - The shoe is too small, and not made for you! - Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, - For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’ - -Then the prince got down and looked at her foot; and he saw, by the -blood that streamed from it, what a trick she had played him. So he -turned his horse round, and brought the false bride back to her home, -and said, ‘This is not the right bride; let the other sister try and put -on the slipper.’ Then she went into the room and got her foot into the -shoe, all but the heel, which was too large. But her mother squeezed it -in till the blood came, and took her to the king’s son: and he set her -as his bride by his side on his horse, and rode away with her. - -But when they came to the hazel-tree the little dove sat there still, -and sang: - - ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe! - The shoe is too small, and not made for you! - Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, - For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’ - -Then he looked down, and saw that the blood streamed so much from the -shoe, that her white stockings were quite red. So he turned his horse -and brought her also back again. ‘This is not the true bride,’ said he -to the father; ‘have you no other daughters?’ ‘No,’ said he; ‘there is -only a little dirty Ashputtel here, the child of my first wife; I am -sure she cannot be the bride.’ The prince told him to send her. But the -mother said, ‘No, no, she is much too dirty; she will not dare to show -herself.’ However, the prince would have her come; and she first washed -her face and hands, and then went in and curtsied to him, and he reached -her the golden slipper. Then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot, -and put on the golden slipper; and it fitted her as if it had been made -for her. And when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her, and -said, ‘This is the right bride.’ But the mother and both the sisters -were frightened, and turned pale with anger as he took Ashputtel on his -horse, and rode away with her. And when they came to the hazel-tree, the -white dove sang: - - ‘Home! home! look at the shoe! - Princess! the shoe was made for you! - Prince! prince! take home thy bride, - For she is the true one that sits by thy side!’ - -And when the dove had done its song, it came flying, and perched upon -her right shoulder, and so went home with her. - - - - -THE WHITE SNAKE - - -A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through -all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of -the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a -strange custom; every day after dinner, when the table was cleared, -and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more -dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what -was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the -cover to eat of it until he was quite alone. - -This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who took -away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help -carrying the dish into his room. When he had carefully locked the door, -he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake lying on the dish. But -when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it, -so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth. No sooner had it -touched his tongue than he heard a strange whispering of little voices -outside his window. He went and listened, and then noticed that it was -the sparrows who were chattering together, and telling one another of -all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating -the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals. - -Now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most -beautiful ring, and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty -servant, who was allowed to go everywhere. The king ordered the man to -be brought before him, and threatened with angry words that unless he -could before the morrow point out the thief, he himself should be looked -upon as guilty and executed. In vain he declared his innocence; he was -dismissed with no better answer. - -In his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought -how to help himself out of his trouble. Now some ducks were sitting -together quietly by a brook and taking their rest; and, whilst they -were making their feathers smooth with their bills, they were having a -confidential conversation together. The servant stood by and listened. -They were telling one another of all the places where they had been -waddling about all the morning, and what good food they had found; and -one said in a pitiful tone: ‘Something lies heavy on my stomach; as -I was eating in haste I swallowed a ring which lay under the queen’s -window.’ The servant at once seized her by the neck, carried her to the -kitchen, and said to the cook: ‘Here is a fine duck; pray, kill her.’ -‘Yes,’ said the cook, and weighed her in his hand; ‘she has spared -no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long -enough.’ So he cut off her head, and as she was being dressed for the -spit, the queen’s ring was found inside her. - -The servant could now easily prove his innocence; and the king, to make -amends for the wrong, allowed him to ask a favour, and promised him -the best place in the court that he could wish for. The servant refused -everything, and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling, as -he had a mind to see the world and go about a little. When his request -was granted he set out on his way, and one day came to a pond, where he -saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water. Now, though -it is said that fishes are dumb, he heard them lamenting that they must -perish so miserably, and, as he had a kind heart, he got off his -horse and put the three prisoners back into the water. They leapt with -delight, put out their heads, and cried to him: ‘We will remember you -and repay you for saving us!’ - -He rode on, and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in -the sand at his feet. He listened, and heard an ant-king complain: ‘Why -cannot folks, with their clumsy beasts, keep off our bodies? That stupid -horse, with his heavy hoofs, has been treading down my people without -mercy!’ So he turned on to a side path and the ant-king cried out to -him: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves another!’ - -The path led him into a wood, and there he saw two old ravens standing -by their nest, and throwing out their young ones. ‘Out with you, you -idle, good-for-nothing creatures!’ cried they; ‘we cannot find food for -you any longer; you are big enough, and can provide for yourselves.’ -But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and -crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are! We must shift for ourselves, -and yet we cannot fly! What can we do, but lie here and starve?’ So the -good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword, and gave -it to them for food. Then they came hopping up to it, satisfied their -hunger, and cried: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves -another!’ - -And now he had to use his own legs, and when he had walked a long -way, he came to a large city. There was a great noise and crowd in -the streets, and a man rode up on horseback, crying aloud: ‘The king’s -daughter wants a husband; but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard -task, and if he does not succeed he will forfeit his life.’ Many had -already made the attempt, but in vain; nevertheless when the youth -saw the king’s daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty that he -forgot all danger, went before the king, and declared himself a suitor. - -So he was led out to the sea, and a gold ring was thrown into it, before -his eyes; then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the -bottom of the sea, and added: ‘If you come up again without it you will -be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves.’ All the -people grieved for the handsome youth; then they went away, leaving him -alone by the sea. - -He stood on the shore and considered what he should do, when suddenly -he saw three fishes come swimming towards him, and they were the very -fishes whose lives he had saved. The one in the middle held a mussel in -its mouth, which it laid on the shore at the youth’s feet, and when he -had taken it up and opened it, there lay the gold ring in the shell. -Full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him -the promised reward. - -But when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in -birth, she scorned him, and required him first to perform another -task. She went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten -sacksful of millet-seed on the grass; then she said: ‘Tomorrow morning -before sunrise these must be picked up, and not a single grain be -wanting.’ - -The youth sat down in the garden and considered how it might be possible -to perform this task, but he could think of nothing, and there he sat -sorrowfully awaiting the break of day, when he should be led to death. -But as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw -all the ten sacks standing side by side, quite full, and not a single -grain was missing. The ant-king had come in the night with thousands -and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had by great industry -picked up all the millet-seed and gathered them into the sacks. - -Presently the king’s daughter herself came down into the garden, and was -amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him. -But she could not yet conquer her proud heart, and said: ‘Although he -has performed both the tasks, he shall not be my husband until he had -brought me an apple from the Tree of Life.’ The youth did not know where -the Tree of Life stood, but he set out, and would have gone on for ever, -as long as his legs would carry him, though he had no hope of finding -it. After he had wandered through three kingdoms, he came one evening to -a wood, and lay down under a tree to sleep. But he heard a rustling in -the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand. At the same time -three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and -said: ‘We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving; when -we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple, -we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life -stands, and have brought you the apple.’ The youth, full of joy, set out -homewards, and took the Golden Apple to the king’s beautiful daughter, -who had now no more excuses left to make. They cut the Apple of Life in -two and ate it together; and then her heart became full of love for him, -and they lived in undisturbed happiness to a great age. - - - - -THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS - - -There was once upon a time an old goat who had seven little kids, and -loved them with all the love of a mother for her children. One day she -wanted to go into the forest and fetch some food. So she called all -seven to her and said: ‘Dear children, I have to go into the forest, -be on your guard against the wolf; if he comes in, he will devour you -all--skin, hair, and everything. The wretch often disguises himself, but -you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet.’ The -kids said: ‘Dear mother, we will take good care of ourselves; you may go -away without any anxiety.’ Then the old one bleated, and went on her way -with an easy mind. - -It was not long before someone knocked at the house-door and called: -‘Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought -something back with her for each of you.’ But the little kids knew that -it was the wolf, by the rough voice. ‘We will not open the door,’ cried -they, ‘you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but -your voice is rough; you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf went away to a -shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made -his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the -house, and called: ‘Open the door, dear children, your mother is here -and has brought something back with her for each of you.’ But the wolf -had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them -and cried: ‘We will not open the door, our mother has not black feet -like you: you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf ran to a baker and said: ‘I -have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.’ And when the baker -had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said: ‘Strew some -white meal over my feet for me.’ The miller thought to himself: ‘The -wolf wants to deceive someone,’ and refused; but the wolf said: ‘If you -will not do it, I will devour you.’ Then the miller was afraid, and made -his paws white for him. Truly, this is the way of mankind. - -So now the wretch went for the third time to the house-door, knocked at -it and said: ‘Open the door for me, children, your dear little mother -has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the -forest with her.’ The little kids cried: ‘First show us your paws that -we may know if you are our dear little mother.’ Then he put his paws -in through the window and when the kids saw that they were white, they -believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should -come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves. -One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the -stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the -sixth under the washing-bowl, and the seventh into the clock-case. But -the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony; one after the -other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest, who was in -the clock-case, was the only one he did not find. When the wolf had -satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a -tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon afterwards -the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! what a sight she saw -there! The house-door stood wide open. The table, chairs, and benches -were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts -and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her children, but they -were nowhere to be found. She called them one after another by name, but -no one answered. At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice -cried: ‘Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.’ She took the kid out, and -it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others. Then -you may imagine how she wept over her poor children. - -At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her. -When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree and snored -so loud that the branches shook. She looked at him on every side and -saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged belly. ‘Ah, -heavens,’ she said, ‘is it possible that my poor children whom he has -swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?’ Then the kid had to -run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut -open the monster’s stomach, and hardly had she made one cut, than one -little kid thrust its head out, and when she had cut farther, all six -sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered -no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them -down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother, -and jumped like a tailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said: ‘Now -go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast’s -stomach with them while he is still asleep.’ Then the seven kids dragged -the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into this -stomach as they could get in; and the mother sewed him up again in the -greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once -stirred. - -When the wolf at length had had his fill of sleep, he got on his legs, -and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to -go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the -stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried -he: - - ‘What rumbles and tumbles - Against my poor bones? - I thought ‘twas six kids, - But it feels like big stones.’ - -And when he got to the well and stooped over the water to drink, the -heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven -kids saw that, they came running to the spot and cried aloud: ‘The wolf -is dead! The wolf is dead!’ and danced for joy round about the well with -their mother. - - - - -THE QUEEN BEE - - -Two kings’ sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their -fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so -that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a -little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers: but when -he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so -young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who -were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set -out on their journey together, and came at last to an ant-hill. The two -elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor -ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the -little dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not -suffer you to trouble them.’ - -So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming -about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the -dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill -them.’ Next they came to a bees’-nest in a hollow tree, and there was -so much honey that it ran down the trunk; and the two brothers wanted to -light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey. -But the dwarf held them back, and said, ‘Let the pretty insects enjoy -themselves, I cannot let you burn them.’ - -At length the three brothers came to a castle: and as they passed by the -stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and -no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they -came to a door on which were three locks: but in the middle of the door -was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw -a little grey old man sitting at a table; and they called to him once or -twice, but he did not hear: however, they called a third time, and then -he rose and came out to them. - -He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful -table covered with all sorts of good things: and when they had eaten and -drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber. - -The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table, -where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by -which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: ‘In the -wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king’s -daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun, -he who seeks them will be turned into marble.’ - -The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day: -but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he was -turned into stone as the tablet had foretold. - -The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded no -better than the first; for he could only find the second hundred of the -pearls; and therefore he too was turned into stone. - -At last came the little dwarf’s turn; and he looked in the moss; but it -was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!--so he sat -down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants -(whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants; and -it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a -heap. - -The second tablet said: ‘The key of the princess’s bed-chamber must be -fished up out of the lake.’ And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, -he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they -dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom. - -The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and -the best of the king’s three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and -all exactly alike: but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of -sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey; -so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey. - -Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf -from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three; but at last she sat -upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey: and so the dwarf knew -which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been -turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf -married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after -her father’s death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters. - - - - -THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER - - -There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: -but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he -had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of -shoes. - -Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning -to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and -his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, -left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after -he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work; when, to his -great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The -good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. -He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the -whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. - -The same day a customer came in, and the shoes suited him so well that -he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them; and the poor -shoemaker, with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more. -In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early, that he might -get up and begin betimes next day; but he was saved all the trouble, for -when he got up in the morning the work was done ready to his hand. Soon -in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought -leather enough for four pair more. He cut out the work again overnight -and found it done in the morning, as before; and so it went on for some -time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and -the good man soon became thriving and well off again. - -One evening, about Christmas-time, as he and his wife were sitting over -the fire chatting together, he said to her, ‘I should like to sit up and -watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for -me.’ The wife liked the thought; so they left a light burning, and hid -themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up -there, and watched what would happen. - -As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and -they sat themselves upon the shoemaker’s bench, took up all the work -that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching -and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all -wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the -job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. -This was long before daybreak; and then they bustled away as quick as -lightning. - -The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. ‘These little wights have -made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good -turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do; and -indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to -keep off the cold. I’ll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, -and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; and -do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.’ - -The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when -all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the -work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to -watch what the little elves would do. - -About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the -room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they -saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed -mightily delighted. - -Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and -capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced -out at the door, and away over the green. - -The good couple saw them no more; but everything went well with them -from that time forward, as long as they lived. - - - - -THE JUNIPER-TREE - - -Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich -man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but -sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire -to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they -remained childless. - -In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree. -One winter’s day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and -as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the -snow. ‘Ah,’ sighed the woman heavily, ‘if I had but a child, as red as -blood and as white as snow,’ and as she spoke the words, her heart grew -light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and -she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed, -and the snow had all disappeared; then another month went by, and all -the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the -trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly -intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife -stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her -heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that -she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and -she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the -berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little -while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. ‘If I -die, bury me under the juniper-tree.’ Then she felt comforted and happy -again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and -when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy -was so great that she died. - -Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for -her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he -still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later -on he married again. - -He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife -was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother -loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked -at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in -the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could -get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession -of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She -drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the -poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left -school to the time he went back. - -One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the -store-room, and said, ‘Mother, give me an apple.’ ‘Yes, my child,’ said -the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest -had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock. - -‘Mother,’ said the little daughter again, ‘may not brother have one -too?’ The mother was angry at this, but she answered, ‘Yes, when he -comes out of school.’ - -Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed -as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out -of her little daughter’s hand, and said, ‘You shall not have one before -your brother.’ She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The -little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say -kindly to him, ‘My son, will you have an apple?’ but she gave him a -wicked look. ‘Mother,’ said the boy, ‘how dreadful you look! Yes, give -me an apple.’ The thought came to her that she would kill him. ‘Come -with me,’ she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest; ‘take one -out for yourself.’ And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged -her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy’s head. -Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done. -‘If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,’ she thought. So -she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of -her top drawer; then she set the boy’s head again on his shoulders, and -bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed -him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand. - -Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring -a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, ‘Mother, brother is -sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale; -and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that -frightened me.’ - -‘Go to him again,’ said her mother, ‘and if he does not answer, give him -a box on the ear.’ So little Marleen went, and said, ‘Brother, give me -that apple,’ but he did not say a word; then she gave him a box on the -ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran -crying and screaming to her mother. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I have knocked off -brother’s head,’ and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her. - -‘What have you done!’ said her mother, ‘but no one must know about it, -so you must keep silence; what is done can’t be undone; we will make -him into puddings.’ And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him -into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on, -and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no -need of salt. - -Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner; he asked, -‘Where is my son?’ The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of -black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing. - -The father again asked, ‘Where is my son?’ - -‘Oh,’ answered the wife, ‘he is gone into the country to his mother’s -great uncle; he is going to stay there some time.’ - -‘What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!’ - -‘Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six -weeks; he is well looked after there.’ - -‘I feel very unhappy about it,’ said the husband, ‘in case it should not -be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.’ - -With this he went on with his dinner, and said, ‘Little Marleen, why do -you weep? Brother will soon be back.’ Then he asked his wife for more -pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table. - -Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of -her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the -table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but -weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the juniper-tree, and -she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, -and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the -branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and -then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for -joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there -was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful -bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it -could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the -silk handkerchief and the bones were gone. - -Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were -still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to -the table and ate. - -The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to -sing: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - My father grieved when I was gone; - My sister loved me best of all; - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the -song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got -up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his -slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on -one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still -held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing -up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street. - -‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.’ - -‘Nay,’ said the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold -chain, and I will sing it you again.’ - -‘Here is the chain, take it,’ said the goldsmith. ‘Only sing me that -again.’ - -The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then -he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - My father grieved when I was gone; - My sister loved me best of all; - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker’s house and -sang: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - My father grieved when I was gone; - My sister loved me best of all; - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his -shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his -hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun. - -‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing!’ Then he called through the -door to his wife: ‘Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it -and hear how beautifully it sings.’ Then he called his daughter and the -children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the -street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red -and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two -bright stars in its head. - -‘Bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘sing me that song again.’ - -‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; you must -give me something.’ - -‘Wife,’ said the man, ‘go into the garret; on the upper shelf you will -see a pair of red shoes; bring them to me.’ The wife went in and fetched -the shoes. - -‘There, bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘now sing me that song again.’ - -The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he -went back to the roof and sang: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - My father grieved when I was gone; - My sister loved me best of all; - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw -and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the -mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click clack.’ Inside the mill were -twenty of the miller’s men hewing a stone, and as they went ‘Hick hack, -hick hack, hick hack,’ the mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click -clack.’ - -The bird settled on a lime-tree in front of the mill and sang: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - -then one of the men left off, - - My father grieved when I was gone; - -two more men left off and listened, - - My sister loved me best of all; - -then four more left off, - - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - -now there were only eight at work, - - Underneath - -And now only five, - - the juniper-tree. - -And now only one, - - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -then he looked up and the last one had left off work. - -‘Bird,’ he said, ‘what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it -too; sing it again.’ - -‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; give me that -millstone, and I will sing it again.’ - -‘If it belonged to me alone,’ said the man, ‘you should have it.’ - -‘Yes, yes,’ said the others: ‘if he will sing again, he can have it.’ - -The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the -stone with a beam; then the bird put his head through the hole and took -the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the -tree and sang-- - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - My father grieved when I was gone; - My sister loved me best of all; - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the -chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round -his neck, he flew right away to his father’s house. - -The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner. - -‘How lighthearted I feel,’ said the father, ‘so pleased and cheerful.’ - -‘And I,’ said the mother, ‘I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm -were coming.’ - -But little Marleen sat and wept and wept. - -Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof. - -‘I do feel so happy,’ said the father, ‘and how beautifully the sun -shines; I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.’ - -‘Ah!’ said the wife, ‘and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that -my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,’ and -she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the -corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears. - -The bird now flew to the juniper-tree and began singing: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - -the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear -nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a -violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning: - - My father grieved when I was gone; - -‘Look, mother,’ said the man, ‘at the beautiful bird that is singing so -magnificently; and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious -scent of spice in the air!’ - - My sister loved me best of all; - -then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed. - -‘I must go outside and see the bird nearer,’ said the man. - -‘Ah, do not go!’ cried the wife. ‘I feel as if the whole house were in -flames!’ - -But the man went out and looked at the bird. - - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the -man’s neck, so that it fitted him exactly. - -He went inside, and said, ‘See, what a splendid bird that is; he has -given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.’ - -But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor, -and her cap fell from her head. - -Then the bird began again: - - ‘My mother killed her little son; - -‘Ah me!’ cried the wife, ‘if I were but a thousand feet beneath the -earth, that I might not hear that song.’ - - My father grieved when I was gone; - -then the woman fell down again as if dead. - - My sister loved me best of all; - -‘Well,’ said little Marleen, ‘I will go out too and see if the bird will -give me anything.’ - -So she went out. - - She laid her kerchief over me, - And took my bones that they might lie - -and he threw down the shoes to her, - - Underneath the juniper-tree - Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’ - -And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted; she put on the shoes and -danced and jumped about in them. ‘I was so miserable,’ she said, ‘when I -came out, but that has all passed away; that is indeed a splendid bird, -and he has given me a pair of red shoes.’ - -The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames -of fire. ‘Then I will go out too,’ she said, ‘and see if it will lighten -my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.’ - -But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone -down on her head, and she was crushed to death. - -The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only -saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had -passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and -little Marleen by the hand; then they all three rejoiced, and went -inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate. - - - - -THE TURNIP - - -There were two brothers who were both soldiers; the one was rich and -the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself; so, -pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well, -and sowed turnips. - -When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest; and -it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease -growing; so that it might have been called the prince of turnips for -there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it -was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and -the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it -would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, ‘What -shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another; -and for eating, the little turnips are better than this; the best thing -perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.’ - -Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it -to the king. ‘What a wonderful thing!’ said the king; ‘I have seen many -strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you -get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child -of fortune.’ ‘Ah, no!’ answered the gardener, ‘I am no child of fortune; -I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon; so I -laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a -brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world -knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me.’ - -The king then took pity on him, and said, ‘You shall be poor no -longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your -brother.’ Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so -rich that his brother’s fortune could not at all be compared with his. - -When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the -gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he -could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he -determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a -rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must -have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had received so -much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth? - -The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to -give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so -the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. -When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite; -and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to -kill his brother. - -So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to -lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, ‘Dear brother, I have -found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between -us.’ The other had no suspicions of his roguery: so they went out -together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out -upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree. - -But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a -horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their -prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a -cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime -he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out -his head. - -When the horseman came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, -who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as -the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, ‘Good -morning! good morning to thee, my friend!’ The student looked about -everywhere; and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came -from, cried out, ‘Who calls me?’ - -Then the man in the tree answered, ‘Lift up thine eyes, for behold here -I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great -and wondrous things. Compared to this seat, all the learning of the -schools is as empty air. A little longer, and I shall know all that man -can know, and shall come forth wiser than the wisest of mankind. Here -I discern the signs and motions of the heavens and the stars; the laws -that control the winds; the number of the sands on the seashore; the -healing of the sick; the virtues of all simples, of birds, and of -precious stones. Wert thou but once here, my friend, though wouldst feel -and own the power of knowledge. - -The student listened to all this and wondered much; at last he said, -‘Blessed be the day and hour when I found you; cannot you contrive to -let me into the sack for a little while?’ Then the other answered, as if -very unwillingly, ‘A little space I may allow thee to sit here, if thou -wilt reward me well and entreat me kindly; but thou must tarry yet an -hour below, till I have learnt some little matters that are yet unknown -to me.’ - -So the student sat himself down and waited a while; but the time hung -heavy upon him, and he begged earnestly that he might ascend forthwith, -for his thirst for knowledge was great. Then the other pretended to give -way, and said, ‘Thou must let the sack of wisdom descend, by untying -yonder cord, and then thou shalt enter.’ So the student let him down, -opened the sack, and set him free. ‘Now then,’ cried he, ‘let me ascend -quickly.’ As he began to put himself into the sack heels first, ‘Wait a -while,’ said the gardener, ‘that is not the way.’ Then he pushed him -in head first, tied up the sack, and soon swung up the searcher after -wisdom dangling in the air. ‘How is it with thee, friend?’ said he, -‘dost thou not feel that wisdom comes unto thee? Rest there in peace, -till thou art a wiser man than thou wert.’ - -So saying, he trotted off on the student’s nag, and left the poor fellow -to gather wisdom till somebody should come and let him down. - - - - -CLEVER HANS - - -The mother of Hans said: ‘Whither away, Hans?’ Hans answered: ‘To -Gretel.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ -‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, -Hans. What do you bring that is good?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want to have -something given me.’ Gretel presents Hans with a needle, Hans says: -‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ - -Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay-cart, and follows the cart -home. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ -‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing; had something -given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a needle.’ ‘Where is the -needle, Hans?’ ‘Stuck in the hay-cart.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans. You -should have stuck the needle in your sleeve.’ ‘Never mind, I’ll do -better next time.’ - -‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, -I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to -Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is -good?’ ‘I bring nothing. I want to have something given to me.’ Gretel -presents Hans with a knife. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans -takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home. ‘Good evening, -mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ What -did you take her?’ ‘Took her nothing, she gave me something.’ ‘What did -Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a knife.’ ‘Where is the knife, Hans?’ ‘Stuck -in my sleeve.’ ‘That’s ill done, Hans, you should have put the knife in -your pocket.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ - -‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, -I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to -Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you -bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents -Hans with a young goat. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans takes -the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he gets home it -is suffocated. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have -you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing, she -gave me something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me a goat.’ -‘Where is the goat, Hans?’ ‘Put it in my pocket.’ ‘That was ill done, -Hans, you should have put a rope round the goat’s neck.’ ‘Never mind, -will do better next time.’ - -‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, -I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to -Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you -bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents -Hans with a piece of bacon. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ - -Hans takes the bacon, ties it to a rope, and drags it away behind him. -The dogs come and devour the bacon. When he gets home, he has the rope -in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it. ‘Good -evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With -Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took her nothing, she gave me -something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a bit of bacon.’ ‘Where -is the bacon, Hans?’ ‘I tied it to a rope, brought it home, dogs took -it.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans, you should have carried the bacon on your -head.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ - -‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll -behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel. -‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans, What good thing do you bring?’ ‘I -bring nothing, but would have something given.’ Gretel presents Hans -with a calf. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ - -Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face. -‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With -Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took nothing, but had something -given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘A calf.’ ‘Where have you the -calf, Hans?’ ‘I set it on my head and it kicked my face.’ ‘That was -ill done, Hans, you should have led the calf, and put it in the stall.’ -‘Never mind, will do better next time.’ - -‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll -behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ - -Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good -thing do you bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, but would have something given.’ -Gretel says to Hans: ‘I will go with you.’ - -Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the rack, and binds -her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good -evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take -her?’ ‘I took her nothing.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me -nothing, she came with me.’ ‘Where have you left Gretel?’ ‘I led her by -the rope, tied her to the rack, and scattered some grass for her.’ ‘That -was ill done, Hans, you should have cast friendly eyes on her.’ ‘Never -mind, will do better.’ - -Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves’ and sheep’s eyes, -and threw them in Gretel’s face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself -loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans. - - - - -THE THREE LANGUAGES - - -An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he -was stupid, and could learn nothing. Then said the father: ‘Hark you, -my son, try as I will I can get nothing into your head. You must go from -hence, I will give you into the care of a celebrated master, who shall -see what he can do with you.’ The youth was sent into a strange town, -and remained a whole year with the master. At the end of this time, -he came home again, and his father asked: ‘Now, my son, what have you -learnt?’ ‘Father, I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark.’ ‘Lord -have mercy on us!’ cried the father; ‘is that all you have learnt? I -will send you into another town, to another master.’ The youth was taken -thither, and stayed a year with this master likewise. When he came back -the father again asked: ‘My son, what have you learnt?’ He answered: -‘Father, I have learnt what the birds say.’ Then the father fell into a -rage and said: ‘Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and -learnt nothing; are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes? I will -send you to a third master, but if you learn nothing this time also, I -will no longer be your father.’ The youth remained a whole year with the -third master also, and when he came home again, and his father inquired: -‘My son, what have you learnt?’ he answered: ‘Dear father, I have this -year learnt what the frogs croak.’ Then the father fell into the most -furious anger, sprang up, called his people thither, and said: ‘This man -is no longer my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him -out into the forest, and kill him.’ They took him forth, but when they -should have killed him, they could not do it for pity, and let him go, -and they cut the eyes and tongue out of a deer that they might carry -them to the old man as a token. - -The youth wandered on, and after some time came to a fortress where he -begged for a night’s lodging. ‘Yes,’ said the lord of the castle, ‘if -you will pass the night down there in the old tower, go thither; but I -warn you, it is at the peril of your life, for it is full of wild dogs, -which bark and howl without stopping, and at certain hours a man has to -be given to them, whom they at once devour.’ The whole district was in -sorrow and dismay because of them, and yet no one could do anything to -stop this. The youth, however, was without fear, and said: ‘Just let me -go down to the barking dogs, and give me something that I can throw to -them; they will do nothing to harm me.’ As he himself would have it so, -they gave him some food for the wild animals, and led him down to the -tower. When he went inside, the dogs did not bark at him, but wagged -their tails quite amicably around him, ate what he set before them, and -did not hurt one hair of his head. Next morning, to the astonishment of -everyone, he came out again safe and unharmed, and said to the lord of -the castle: ‘The dogs have revealed to me, in their own language, why -they dwell there, and bring evil on the land. They are bewitched, and -are obliged to watch over a great treasure which is below in the tower, -and they can have no rest until it is taken away, and I have likewise -learnt, from their discourse, how that is to be done.’ Then all who -heard this rejoiced, and the lord of the castle said he would adopt him -as a son if he accomplished it successfully. He went down again, and -as he knew what he had to do, he did it thoroughly, and brought a chest -full of gold out with him. The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth -heard no more; they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the -trouble. - -After some time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On -the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting -croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they -were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in -Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among -the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor. They at -length agreed that the person should be chosen as pope who should be -distinguished by some divine and miraculous token. And just as that was -decided on, the young count entered into the church, and suddenly two -snow-white doves flew on his shoulders and remained sitting there. The -ecclesiastics recognized therein the token from above, and asked him on -the spot if he would be pope. He was undecided, and knew not if he were -worthy of this, but the doves counselled him to do it, and at length he -said yes. Then was he anointed and consecrated, and thus was fulfilled -what he had heard from the frogs on his way, which had so affected him, -that he was to be his Holiness the Pope. Then he had to sing a mass, and -did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his -shoulders, and said it all in his ear. - - - - -THE FOX AND THE CAT - - -It happened that the cat met the fox in a forest, and as she thought to -herself: ‘He is clever and full of experience, and much esteemed in the -world,’ she spoke to him in a friendly way. ‘Good day, dear Mr Fox, -how are you? How is all with you? How are you getting on in these hard -times?’ The fox, full of all kinds of arrogance, looked at the cat from -head to foot, and for a long time did not know whether he would give -any answer or not. At last he said: ‘Oh, you wretched beard-cleaner, you -piebald fool, you hungry mouse-hunter, what can you be thinking of? Have -you the cheek to ask how I am getting on? What have you learnt? How -many arts do you understand?’ ‘I understand but one,’ replied the -cat, modestly. ‘What art is that?’ asked the fox. ‘When the hounds are -following me, I can spring into a tree and save myself.’ ‘Is that all?’ -said the fox. ‘I am master of a hundred arts, and have into the bargain -a sackful of cunning. You make me sorry for you; come with me, I will -teach you how people get away from the hounds.’ Just then came a hunter -with four dogs. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree, and sat down at the top -of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. ‘Open your -sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had -already seized him, and were holding him fast. ‘Ah, Mr Fox,’ cried the -cat. ‘You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been -able to climb like me, you would not have lost your life.’ - - - - -THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS - - -‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to -give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin -by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.’ So the -four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little -bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went -all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came -to four crossways, each leading to a different country. Then the eldest -said, ‘Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back -to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for -himself.’ - -So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man -met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. ‘I am -going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning -some art or trade,’ answered he. ‘Then,’ said the man, ‘go with me, and -I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.’ ‘No,’ -said the other, ‘that is not an honest calling, and what can one look -to earn by it in the end but the gallows?’ ‘Oh!’ said the man, ‘you need -not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be -fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care -anything about, and where no one can find you out.’ So the young man -agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that -nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon. - -The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was -setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. ‘I do not -know yet,’ said he. ‘Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a -noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand -the stars.’ The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful -star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave -his master, he gave him a glass, and said, ‘With this you can see all -that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from -you.’ - -The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him -so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the -craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and -said, ‘Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.’ - -The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to -do. ‘Would not you like,’ said he, ‘to be a tailor?’ ‘Oh, no!’ said -the young man; ‘sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working -backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.’ -‘Oh!’ answered the man, ‘that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, -and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.’ Not knowing -what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the -beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, -‘You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as -steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.’ - -After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four -brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other, -set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had -happened to them, and how each had learned some craft. - -Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high -tree, the father said, ‘I should like to try what each of you can do in -this way.’ So he looked up, and said to the second son, ‘At the top of -this tree there is a chaffinch’s nest; tell me how many eggs there are -in it.’ The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, ‘Five.’ -‘Now,’ said the father to the eldest son, ‘take away the eggs without -letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know -anything of what you are doing.’ So the cunning thief climbed up the -tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird; -and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its -ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the -table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, ‘Cut all -the eggs in two pieces at one shot.’ The huntsman took up his bow, and -at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished. - -‘Now comes your turn,’ said he to the young tailor; ‘sew the eggs and -the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall -have done them no harm.’ Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the -eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take -them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing -it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them: and in a few days they -crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where -the tailor had sewn them together. - -‘Well done, sons!’ said the old man; ‘you have made good use of your -time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not -know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for -you to turn your skill to some account!’ - -Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the -king’s daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king -mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever -brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four -brothers said to each other, ‘Here is a chance for us; let us try -what we can do.’ And they agreed to see whether they could not set the -princess free. ‘I will soon find out where she is, however,’ said the -star-gazer, as he looked through his glass; and he soon cried out, ‘I -see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the -dragon close by, guarding her.’ Then he went to the king, and asked for -a ship for himself and his brothers; and they sailed together over the -sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess -sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was -lying asleep, with his head upon her lap. ‘I dare not shoot at him,’ -said the huntsman, ‘for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.’ -‘Then I will try my skill,’ said the thief, and went and stole her away -from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know -it, but went on snoring. - -Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the -ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air; for -he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and -wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took -up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down -dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast that in -his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea -upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large -stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these, -and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked -them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then -reached the ship and got home safe. - -When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great -rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, ‘One of you shall marry -her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.’ Then -there arose a quarrel between them; and the star-gazer said, ‘If I had -not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use; -therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘Your seeing her would have been of -no use,’ said the thief, ‘if I had not taken her away from the dragon; -therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘No, she is mine,’ said the huntsman; -‘for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you -and the princess into pieces.’ ‘And if I had not sewn the boat together -again,’ said the tailor, ‘you would all have been drowned, therefore she -is mine.’ Then the king put in a word, and said, ‘Each of you is right; -and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of -you to have her: for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great -deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a -reward for his skill, half a kingdom.’ So the brothers agreed that this -plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who -had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each half a kingdom, -as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and -took good care of their father; and somebody took better care of the -young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have -her again. - - - - -LILY AND THE LION - - -A merchant, who had three daughters, was once setting out upon a -journey; but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should -bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls; the second for jewels; -but the third, who was called Lily, said, ‘Dear father, bring me a -rose.’ Now it was no easy task to find a rose, for it was the middle -of winter; yet as she was his prettiest daughter, and was very fond of -flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all -three, and bid them goodbye. - -And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and -jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the -rose; and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the -people laughed at him, and asked him whether he thought roses grew in -snow. This grieved him very much, for Lily was his dearest child; and as -he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he came to a -fine castle; and around the castle was a garden, in one half of which it -seemed to be summer-time and in the other half winter. On one side the -finest flowers were in full bloom, and on the other everything looked -dreary and buried in the snow. ‘A lucky hit!’ said he, as he called to -his servant, and told him to go to a beautiful bed of roses that was -there, and bring him away one of the finest flowers. - -This done, they were riding away well pleased, when up sprang a fierce -lion, and roared out, ‘Whoever has stolen my roses shall be eaten up -alive!’ Then the man said, ‘I knew not that the garden belonged to you; -can nothing save my life?’ ‘No!’ said the lion, ‘nothing, unless you -undertake to give me whatever meets you on your return home; if you -agree to this, I will give you your life, and the rose too for your -daughter.’ But the man was unwilling to do so and said, ‘It may be my -youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when -I go home.’ Then the servant was greatly frightened, and said, ‘It may -perhaps be only a cat or a dog.’ And at last the man yielded with a -heavy heart, and took the rose; and said he would give the lion whatever -should meet him first on his return. - -And as he came near home, it was Lily, his youngest and dearest -daughter, that met him; she came running, and kissed him, and welcomed -him home; and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was -still more glad. But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, -saying, ‘Alas, my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high -price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion; and when he has -you, he will tear you in pieces, and eat you.’ Then he told her all that -had happened, and said she should not go, let what would happen. - -But she comforted him, and said, ‘Dear father, the word you have given -must be kept; I will go to the lion, and soothe him: perhaps he will let -me come safe home again.’ - -The next morning she asked the way she was to go, and took leave of her -father, and went forth with a bold heart into the wood. But the lion was -an enchanted prince. By day he and all his court were lions, but in the -evening they took their right forms again. And when Lily came to the -castle, he welcomed her so courteously that she agreed to marry him. The -wedding-feast was held, and they lived happily together a long time. The -prince was only to be seen as soon as evening came, and then he held his -court; but every morning he left his bride, and went away by himself, -she knew not whither, till the night came again. - -After some time he said to her, ‘Tomorrow there will be a great feast in -your father’s house, for your eldest sister is to be married; and if -you wish to go and visit her my lions shall lead you thither.’ Then she -rejoiced much at the thoughts of seeing her father once more, and set -out with the lions; and everyone was overjoyed to see her, for they had -thought her dead long since. But she told them how happy she was, and -stayed till the feast was over, and then went back to the wood. - -Her second sister was soon after married, and when Lily was asked to -go to the wedding, she said to the prince, ‘I will not go alone this -time--you must go with me.’ But he would not, and said that it would be -a very hazardous thing; for if the least ray of the torch-light should -fall upon him his enchantment would become still worse, for he should be -changed into a dove, and be forced to wander about the world for seven -long years. However, she gave him no rest, and said she would take care -no light should fall upon him. So at last they set out together, and -took with them their little child; and she chose a large hall with thick -walls for him to sit in while the wedding-torches were lighted; but, -unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the -wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church, -and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light -fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came -in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, -‘Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but -every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you -the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me -free.’ - -This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed; and every -now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to -journey. Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked -neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven -years. Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time -was fast coming when all her troubles should end; yet repose was still -far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white -feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove. -‘Now,’ thought she to herself, ‘no aid of man can be of use to me.’ So -she went to the sun and said, ‘Thou shinest everywhere, on the hill’s -top and the valley’s depth--hast thou anywhere seen my white dove?’ -‘No,’ said the sun, ‘I have not seen it; but I will give thee a -casket--open it when thy hour of need comes.’ - -So she thanked the sun, and went on her way till eventide; and when -the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, ‘Thou shinest through the -night, over field and grove--hast thou nowhere seen my white dove?’ -‘No,’ said the moon, ‘I cannot help thee but I will give thee an -egg--break it when need comes.’ - -Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the night-wind blew; and she -raised up her voice to it, and said, ‘Thou blowest through every tree -and under every leaf--hast thou not seen my white dove?’ ‘No,’ said the -night-wind, ‘but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they have seen -it.’ Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had -not seen it, but the south wind said, ‘I have seen the white dove--he -has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the -seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon; -and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from -you.’ Then the night-wind said, ‘I will give thee counsel. Go to the -Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods--count them, and when thou -comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it; and -so the lion will have the victory, and both of them will appear to you -in their own forms. Then look round and thou wilt see a griffin, winged -like bird, sitting by the Red Sea; jump on to his back with thy beloved -one as quickly as possible, and he will carry you over the waters to -your home. I will also give thee this nut,’ continued the night-wind. -‘When you are half-way over, throw it down, and out of the waters will -immediately spring up a high nut-tree on which the griffin will be able -to rest, otherwise he would not have the strength to bear you the whole -way; if, therefore, thou dost forget to throw down the nut, he will let -you both fall into the sea.’ - -So our poor wanderer went forth, and found all as the night-wind had -said; and she plucked the eleventh rod, and smote the dragon, and the -lion forthwith became a prince, and the dragon a princess again. But -no sooner was the princess released from the spell, than she seized -the prince by the arm and sprang on to the griffin’s back, and went off -carrying the prince away with her. - -Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn; but she -took heart and said, ‘As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock -crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.’ She went on for -a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the -princess had carried the prince; and there was a feast got ready, and -she heard that the wedding was about to be held. ‘Heaven aid me now!’ -said she; and she took the casket that the sun had given her, and found -that within it lay a dress as dazzling as the sun itself. So she put it -on, and went into the palace, and all the people gazed upon her; and -the dress pleased the bride so much that she asked whether it was to be -sold. ‘Not for gold and silver.’ said she, ‘but for flesh and blood.’ -The princess asked what she meant, and she said, ‘Let me speak with the -bridegroom this night in his chamber, and I will give thee the dress.’ -At last the princess agreed, but she told her chamberlain to give the -prince a sleeping draught, that he might not hear or see her. When -evening came, and the prince had fallen asleep, she was led into -his chamber, and she sat herself down at his feet, and said: ‘I have -followed thee seven years. I have been to the sun, the moon, and the -night-wind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome -the dragon. Wilt thou then forget me quite?’ But the prince all the time -slept so soundly, that her voice only passed over him, and seemed like -the whistling of the wind among the fir-trees. - -Then poor Lily was led away, and forced to give up the golden dress; and -when she saw that there was no help for her, she went out into a meadow, -and sat herself down and wept. But as she sat she bethought herself of -the egg that the moon had given her; and when she broke it, there ran -out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then -nestled under the old one’s wings, so as to form the most beautiful -sight in the world. And she rose up and drove them before her, till the -bride saw them from her window, and was so pleased that she came forth -and asked her if she would sell the brood. ‘Not for gold or silver, but -for flesh and blood: let me again this evening speak with the bridegroom -in his chamber, and I will give thee the whole brood.’ - -Then the princess thought to betray her as before, and agreed to -what she asked: but when the prince went to his chamber he asked -the chamberlain why the wind had whistled so in the night. And the -chamberlain told him all--how he had given him a sleeping draught, and -how a poor maiden had come and spoken to him in his chamber, and was -to come again that night. Then the prince took care to throw away the -sleeping draught; and when Lily came and began again to tell him what -woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been, -he knew his beloved wife’s voice, and sprang up, and said, ‘You have -awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell -around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you; but Heaven hath sent -you to me in a lucky hour.’ - -And they stole away out of the palace by night unawares, and seated -themselves on the griffin, who flew back with them over the Red Sea. -When they were half-way across Lily let the nut fall into the water, -and immediately a large nut-tree arose from the sea, whereon the griffin -rested for a while, and then carried them safely home. There they found -their child, now grown up to be comely and fair; and after all their -troubles they lived happily together to the end of their days. - - - - -THE FOX AND THE HORSE - - -A farmer had a horse that had been an excellent faithful servant to -him: but he was now grown too old to work; so the farmer would give him -nothing more to eat, and said, ‘I want you no longer, so take yourself -off out of my stable; I shall not take you back again until you are -stronger than a lion.’ Then he opened the door and turned him adrift. - -The poor horse was very melancholy, and wandered up and down in the -wood, seeking some little shelter from the cold wind and rain. Presently -a fox met him: ‘What’s the matter, my friend?’ said he, ‘why do you hang -down your head and look so lonely and woe-begone?’ ‘Ah!’ replied the -horse, ‘justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has -forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I -can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become -stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I -have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.’ - -However, the fox bid him be of good cheer, and said, ‘I will help you; -lie down there, stretch yourself out quite stiff, and pretend to be -dead.’ The horse did as he was told, and the fox went straight to the -lion who lived in a cave close by, and said to him, ‘A little way off -lies a dead horse; come with me and you may make an excellent meal of -his carcase.’ The lion was greatly pleased, and set off immediately; and -when they came to the horse, the fox said, ‘You will not be able to eat -him comfortably here; I’ll tell you what--I will tie you fast to -his tail, and then you can draw him to your den, and eat him at your -leisure.’ - -This advice pleased the lion, so he laid himself down quietly for the -fox to make him fast to the horse. But the fox managed to tie his legs -together and bound all so hard and fast that with all his strength he -could not set himself free. When the work was done, the fox clapped the -horse on the shoulder, and said, ‘Jip! Dobbin! Jip!’ Then up he sprang, -and moved off, dragging the lion behind him. The beast began to roar -and bellow, till all the birds of the wood flew away for fright; but the -horse let him sing on, and made his way quietly over the fields to his -master’s house. - -‘Here he is, master,’ said he, ‘I have got the better of him’: and when -the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said. ‘Thou -shalt stay in thy stable and be well taken care of.’ And so the poor old -horse had plenty to eat, and lived--till he died. - - - - -THE BLUE LIGHT - - -There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years had served the -king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer -because of the many wounds which he had received. The king said to him: -‘You may return to your home, I need you no longer, and you will not -receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me -service for them.’ Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, -went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the -evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, -which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch. ‘Do give -me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,’ said he to -her, ‘or I shall starve.’ ‘Oho!’ she answered, ‘who gives anything to a -run-away soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you -will do what I wish.’ ‘What do you wish?’ said the soldier. ‘That you -should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.’ The soldier consented, -and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by -the evening. ‘I see well enough,’ said the witch, ‘that you can do no -more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for -which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and chop it small.’ The -soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch -proposed that he should stay one night more. ‘Tomorrow, you shall only -do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old -dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes -out, and you shall bring it up again.’ Next day the old woman took him -to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and -made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he -came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the -blue light away from him. ‘No,’ said he, perceiving her evil intention, -‘I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon -the ground.’ The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the -well, and went away. - -The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the blue -light went on burning, but of what use was that to him? He saw very well -that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, -then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which -was still half full. ‘This shall be my last pleasure,’ thought he, -pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the -smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood -before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’ ‘What my commands -are?’ replied the soldier, quite astonished. ‘I must do everything you -bid me,’ said the little man. ‘Good,’ said the soldier; ‘then in the -first place help me out of this well.’ The little man took him by the -hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget -to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the -treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the -soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above, he said -to the little man: ‘Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before -the judge.’ In a short time she came by like the wind, riding on a wild -tom-cat and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before the little man -reappeared. ‘It is all done,’ said he, ‘and the witch is already hanging -on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?’ inquired the dwarf. -‘At this moment, none,’ answered the soldier; ‘you can return home, only -be at hand immediately, if I summon you.’ ‘Nothing more is needed than -that you should light your pipe at the blue light, and I will appear -before you at once.’ Thereupon he vanished from his sight. - -The soldier returned to the town from which he came. He went to the -best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord -furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and the -soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the little black manikin -and said: ‘I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me, -and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.’ ‘What am I to -do?’ asked the little man. ‘Late at night, when the king’s daughter is -in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant’s work for -me.’ The manikin said: ‘That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very -dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.’ -When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the manikin -carried in the princess. ‘Aha! are you there?’ cried the soldier, ‘get -to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.’ When -she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he -stretched out his feet and said: ‘Pull off my boots,’ and then he -threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean -and brighten them. She, however, did everything he bade her, without -opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock -crowed, the manikin carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her -in her bed. - -Next morning when the princess arose she went to her father, and told -him that she had had a very strange dream. ‘I was carried through the -streets with the rapidity of lightning,’ said she, ‘and taken into a -soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his -room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a -dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.’ -‘The dream may have been true,’ said the king. ‘I will give you a piece -of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the -pocket, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and -leave a track in the streets.’ But unseen by the king, the manikin was -standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when -the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas -certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the -crafty manikin had just before scattered peas in every street there -was. And again the princess was compelled to do servant’s work until -cock-crow. - -Next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was -all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up -peas, and saying: ‘It must have rained peas, last night.’ ‘We must think -of something else,’ said the king; ‘keep your shoes on when you go to -bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide -one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.’ The black manikin -heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to -bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no -expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found -in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him. ‘Do what I bid you,’ -replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged -to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under -the bed. - -Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter’s -shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself, who at the -entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back, -and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable -things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in -his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of -his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The -soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to -him: ‘Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in -the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.’ His comrade ran -thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone -again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the black manikin. ‘Have no -fear,’ said the latter to his master. ‘Go wheresoever they take you, and -let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.’ Next day -the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge -condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last -favour of the king. ‘What is it?’ asked the king. ‘That I may smoke one -more pipe on my way.’ ‘You may smoke three,’ answered the king, ‘but do -not imagine that I will spare your life.’ Then the soldier pulled out -his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few wreaths -of smoke had ascended, the manikin was there with a small cudgel in his -hand, and said: ‘What does my lord command?’ ‘Strike down to earth that -false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has -treated me so ill.’ Then the manikin fell on them like lightning, -darting this way and that way, and whosoever was so much as touched by -his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The king -was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier’s mercy, and merely to -be allowed to live at all, gave him his kingdom for his own, and his -daughter to wife. - - - - -THE RAVEN - - -There was once a queen who had a little daughter, still too young to run -alone. One day the child was very troublesome, and the mother could not -quiet it, do what she would. She grew impatient, and seeing the ravens -flying round the castle, she opened the window, and said: ‘I wish you -were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.’ -Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the child in her arms was -turned into a raven, and flew away from her through the open window. The -bird took its flight to a dark wood and remained there for a long time, -and meanwhile the parents could hear nothing of their child. - -Long after this, a man was making his way through the wood when he heard -a raven calling, and he followed the sound of the voice. As he drew -near, the raven said, ‘I am by birth a king’s daughter, but am now under -the spell of some enchantment; you can, however, set me free.’ ‘What -am I to do?’ he asked. She replied, ‘Go farther into the wood until you -come to a house, wherein lives an old woman; she will offer you food and -drink, but you must not take of either; if you do, you will fall into -a deep sleep, and will not be able to help me. In the garden behind the -house is a large tan-heap, and on that you must stand and watch for me. -I shall drive there in my carriage at two o’clock in the afternoon for -three successive days; the first day it will be drawn by four white, the -second by four chestnut, and the last by four black horses; but if you -fail to keep awake and I find you sleeping, I shall not be set free.’ - -The man promised to do all that she wished, but the raven said, ‘Alas! I -know even now that you will take something from the woman and be unable -to save me.’ The man assured her again that he would on no account touch -a thing to eat or drink. - -When he came to the house and went inside, the old woman met him, and -said, ‘Poor man! how tired you are! Come in and rest and let me give you -something to eat and drink.’ - -‘No,’ answered the man, ‘I will neither eat not drink.’ - -But she would not leave him alone, and urged him saying, ‘If you will -not eat anything, at least you might take a draught of wine; one drink -counts for nothing,’ and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, and -drank. - -As it drew towards the appointed hour, he went outside into the garden -and mounted the tan-heap to await the raven. Suddenly a feeling of -fatigue came over him, and unable to resist it, he lay down for a little -while, fully determined, however, to keep awake; but in another minute -his eyes closed of their own accord, and he fell into such a deep sleep, -that all the noises in the world would not have awakened him. At two -o’clock the raven came driving along, drawn by her four white horses; -but even before she reached the spot, she said to herself, sighing, ‘I -know he has fallen asleep.’ When she entered the garden, there she found -him as she had feared, lying on the tan-heap, fast asleep. She got out -of her carriage and went to him; she called him and shook him, but it -was all in vain, he still continued sleeping. - -The next day at noon, the old woman came to him again with food and -drink which he at first refused. At last, overcome by her persistent -entreaties that he would take something, he lifted the glass and drank -again. - -Towards two o’clock he went into the garden and on to the tan-heap to -watch for the raven. He had not been there long before he began to feel -so tired that his limbs seemed hardly able to support him, and he could -not stand upright any longer; so again he lay down and fell fast asleep. -As the raven drove along her four chestnut horses, she said sorrowfully -to herself, ‘I know he has fallen asleep.’ She went as before to look -for him, but he slept, and it was impossible to awaken him. - -The following day the old woman said to him, ‘What is this? You are not -eating or drinking anything, do you want to kill yourself?’ - -He answered, ‘I may not and will not either eat or drink.’ - -But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him, -and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and -took a deep draught. - -When the hour came round again he went as usual on to the tan-heap in -the garden to await the king’s daughter, but he felt even more overcome -with weariness than on the two previous days, and throwing himself down, -he slept like a log. At two o’clock the raven could be seen approaching, -and this time her coachman and everything about her, as well as her -horses, were black. - -She was sadder than ever as she drove along, and said mournfully, ‘I -know he has fallen asleep, and will not be able to set me free.’ She -found him sleeping heavily, and all her efforts to awaken him were of no -avail. Then she placed beside him a loaf, and some meat, and a flask -of wine, of such a kind, that however much he took of them, they would -never grow less. After that she drew a gold ring, on which her name was -engraved, off her finger, and put it upon one of his. Finally, she laid -a letter near him, in which, after giving him particulars of the food -and drink she had left for him, she finished with the following words: -‘I see that as long as you remain here you will never be able to set me -free; if, however, you still wish to do so, come to the golden castle -of Stromberg; this is well within your power to accomplish.’ She then -returned to her carriage and drove to the golden castle of Stromberg. - -When the man awoke and found that he had been sleeping, he was grieved -at heart, and said, ‘She has no doubt been here and driven away again, -and it is now too late for me to save her.’ Then his eyes fell on the -things which were lying beside him; he read the letter, and knew from it -all that had happened. He rose up without delay, eager to start on his -way and to reach the castle of Stromberg, but he had no idea in which -direction he ought to go. He travelled about a long time in search of it -and came at last to a dark forest, through which he went on walking for -fourteen days and still could not find a way out. Once more the night -came on, and worn out he lay down under a bush and fell asleep. Again -the next day he pursued his way through the forest, and that evening, -thinking to rest again, he lay down as before, but he heard such a -howling and wailing that he found it impossible to sleep. He waited till -it was darker and people had begun to light up their houses, and then -seeing a little glimmer ahead of him, he went towards it. - -He found that the light came from a house which looked smaller than -it really was, from the contrast of its height with that of an immense -giant who stood in front of it. He thought to himself, ‘If the giant -sees me going in, my life will not be worth much.’ However, after a -while he summoned up courage and went forward. When the giant saw him, -he called out, ‘It is lucky for that you have come, for I have not had -anything to eat for a long time. I can have you now for my supper.’ ‘I -would rather you let that alone,’ said the man, ‘for I do not willingly -give myself up to be eaten; if you are wanting food I have enough to -satisfy your hunger.’ ‘If that is so,’ replied the giant, ‘I will leave -you in peace; I only thought of eating you because I had nothing else.’ - -So they went indoors together and sat down, and the man brought out the -bread, meat, and wine, which although he had eaten and drunk of them, -were still unconsumed. The giant was pleased with the good cheer, and -ate and drank to his heart’s content. When he had finished his supper -the man asked him if he could direct him to the castle of Stromberg. -The giant said, ‘I will look on my map; on it are marked all the towns, -villages, and houses.’ So he fetched his map, and looked for the castle, -but could not find it. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I have larger maps -upstairs in the cupboard, we will look on those,’ but they searched in -vain, for the castle was not marked even on these. The man now thought -he should like to continue his journey, but the giant begged him to -remain for a day or two longer until the return of his brother, who was -away in search of provisions. When the brother came home, they asked him -about the castle of Stromberg, and he told them he would look on his own -maps as soon as he had eaten and appeased his hunger. Accordingly, when -he had finished his supper, they all went up together to his room and -looked through his maps, but the castle was not to be found. Then he -fetched other older maps, and they went on looking for the castle until -at last they found it, but it was many thousand miles away. ‘How shall I -be able to get there?’ asked the man. ‘I have two hours to spare,’ said -the giant, ‘and I will carry you into the neighbourhood of the castle; I -must then return to look after the child who is in our care.’ - -The giant, thereupon, carried the man to within about a hundred leagues -of the castle, where he left him, saying, ‘You will be able to walk the -remainder of the way yourself.’ The man journeyed on day and night -till he reached the golden castle of Stromberg. He found it situated, -however, on a glass mountain, and looking up from the foot he saw the -enchanted maiden drive round her castle and then go inside. He was -overjoyed to see her, and longed to get to the top of the mountain, but -the sides were so slippery that every time he attempted to climb he -fell back again. When he saw that it was impossible to reach her, he was -greatly grieved, and said to himself, ‘I will remain here and wait for -her,’ so he built himself a little hut, and there he sat and watched for -a whole year, and every day he saw the king’s daughter driving round her -castle, but still was unable to get nearer to her. - -Looking out from his hut one day he saw three robbers fighting and he -called out to them, ‘God be with you.’ They stopped when they heard the -call, but looking round and seeing nobody, they went on again with their -fighting, which now became more furious. ‘God be with you,’ he cried -again, and again they paused and looked about, but seeing no one went -back to their fighting. A third time he called out, ‘God be with you,’ -and then thinking he should like to know the cause of dispute between -the three men, he went out and asked them why they were fighting so -angrily with one another. One of them said that he had found a stick, -and that he had but to strike it against any door through which he -wished to pass, and it immediately flew open. Another told him that he -had found a cloak which rendered its wearer invisible; and the third had -caught a horse which would carry its rider over any obstacle, and even -up the glass mountain. They had been unable to decide whether they -would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would -separate. On hearing this, the man said, ‘I will give you something in -exchange for those three things; not money, for that I have not got, -but something that is of far more value. I must first, however, prove -whether all you have told me about your three things is true.’ The -robbers, therefore, made him get on the horse, and handed him the stick -and the cloak, and when he had put this round him he was no longer -visible. Then he fell upon them with the stick and beat them one after -another, crying, ‘There, you idle vagabonds, you have got what you -deserve; are you satisfied now!’ - -After this he rode up the glass mountain. When he reached the gate of -the castle, he found it closed, but he gave it a blow with his stick, -and it flew wide open at once and he passed through. He mounted the -steps and entered the room where the maiden was sitting, with a golden -goblet full of wine in front of her. She could not see him for he still -wore his cloak. He took the ring which she had given him off his finger, -and threw it into the goblet, so that it rang as it touched the bottom. -‘That is my own ring,’ she exclaimed, ‘and if that is so the man must -also be here who is coming to set me free.’ - -She sought for him about the castle, but could find him nowhere. -Meanwhile he had gone outside again and mounted his horse and thrown off -the cloak. When therefore she came to the castle gate she saw him, and -cried aloud for joy. Then he dismounted and took her in his arms; and -she kissed him, and said, ‘Now you have indeed set me free, and tomorrow -we will celebrate our marriage.’ - - - - -THE GOLDEN GOOSE - - -There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called -Dummling,[*] and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion. - - [*] Simpleton - -It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, -and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a -bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst. - -When he entered the forest he met a little grey-haired old man who bade -him good day, and said: ‘Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket, -and let me have a draught of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ But -the clever son answered: ‘If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have -none for myself; be off with you,’ and he left the little man standing -and went on. - -But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a -false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home -and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man’s doing. - -After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him, -like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man -met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine. -But the second son, too, said sensibly enough: ‘What I give you will be -taken away from myself; be off!’ and he left the little man standing and -went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed; when he had made a -few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be -carried home. - -Then Dummling said: ‘Father, do let me go and cut wood.’ The father -answered: ‘Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone, -you do not understand anything about it.’ But Dummling begged so long -that at last he said: ‘Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting -yourself.’ His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the -cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer. - -When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise, -and greeting him, said: ‘Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out -of your bottle; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ Dummling answered: ‘I have -only cinder-cake and sour beer; if that pleases you, we will sit -down and eat.’ So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his -cinder-cake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good -wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said: ‘Since -you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will -give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will -find something at the roots.’ Then the little man took leave of him. - -Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose -sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and -taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the -night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were -curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have -liked to have one of its golden feathers. - -The eldest thought: ‘I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a -feather,’ and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by -the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it. - -The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a -feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she -was held fast. - -At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others -screamed out: ‘Keep away; for goodness’ sake keep away!’ But she did -not understand why she was to keep away. ‘The others are there,’ she -thought, ‘I may as well be there too,’ and ran to them; but as soon as -she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they -had to spend the night with the goose. - -The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out, -without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to -it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, -wherever his legs took him. - -In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the -procession he said: ‘For shame, you good-for-nothing girls, why are you -running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?’ At the -same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away, -but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself -obliged to run behind. - -Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running -behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out: ‘Hi! -your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a -christening today!’ and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but -was also held fast to it. - -Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers -came with their hoes from the fields; the parson called out to them -and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had -scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were -seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose. - -Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter -who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth -a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry -her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train -before the king’s daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people -running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite -loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have -her for his wife; but the king did not like the son-in-law, and made all -manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink -a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could -certainly help him; so he went into the forest, and in the same place -where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very -sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so -sorely, and he answered: ‘I have such a great thirst and cannot quench -it; cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but -that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!’ - -‘There, I can help you,’ said Dummling, ‘just come with me and you shall -be satisfied.’ - -He led him into the king’s cellar, and the man bent over the huge -barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was -out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more -for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom -everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a -new condition; he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain -of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the -forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his -body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying: ‘I have eaten a -whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger -as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to -die of hunger.’ - -At this Dummling was glad, and said: ‘Get up and come with me; you shall -eat yourself full.’ He led him to the king’s palace where all the -flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge -mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it, -began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished. -Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride; but the king again -sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on -water. ‘As soon as you come sailing back in it,’ said he, ‘you shall -have my daughter for wife.’ - -Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey -man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted, -he said: ‘Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you -the ship; and I do all this because you once were kind to me.’ Then he -gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king -saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The -wedding was celebrated, and after the king’s death, Dummling inherited -his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife. - - - - -THE WATER OF LIFE - - -Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way -off, a king who had three sons. This king once fell very ill--so ill -that nobody thought he could live. His sons were very much grieved -at their father’s sickness; and as they were walking together very -mournfully in the garden of the palace, a little old man met them and -asked what was the matter. They told him that their father was very ill, -and that they were afraid nothing could save him. ‘I know what would,’ -said the little old man; ‘it is the Water of Life. If he could have a -draught of it he would be well again; but it is very hard to get.’ Then -the eldest son said, ‘I will soon find it’: and he went to the sick -king, and begged that he might go in search of the Water of Life, as -it was the only thing that could save him. ‘No,’ said the king. ‘I had -rather die than place you in such great danger as you must meet with in -your journey.’ But he begged so hard that the king let him go; and the -prince thought to himself, ‘If I bring my father this water, he will -make me sole heir to his kingdom.’ - -Then he set out: and when he had gone on his way some time he came to a -deep valley, overhung with rocks and woods; and as he looked around, he -saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a -sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said, -‘Prince, whither so fast?’ ‘What is that to thee, you ugly imp?’ said -the prince haughtily, and rode on. - -But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell -of ill-luck upon him; so that as he rode on the mountain pass became -narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he -could not go to step forward: and when he thought to have turned his -horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing -round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was -shut in all round. He next tried to get off his horse and make his way -on foot, but again the laugh rang in his ears, and he found himself -unable to move a step, and thus he was forced to abide spellbound. - -Meantime the old king was lingering on in daily hope of his son’s -return, till at last the second son said, ‘Father, I will go in search -of the Water of Life.’ For he thought to himself, ‘My brother is surely -dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.’ The king was -at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish. -So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done, -and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the -mountains, saying, as before, ‘Prince, prince, whither so fast?’ ‘Mind -your own affairs, busybody!’ said the prince scornfully, and rode on. - -But the dwarf put the same spell upon him as he put on his elder -brother, and he, too, was at last obliged to take up his abode in the -heart of the mountains. Thus it is with proud silly people, who think -themselves above everyone else, and are too proud to ask or take advice. - -When the second prince had thus been gone a long time, the youngest son -said he would go and search for the Water of Life, and trusted he should -soon be able to make his father well again. So he set out, and the dwarf -met him too at the same spot in the valley, among the mountains, and -said, ‘Prince, whither so fast?’ And the prince said, ‘I am going in -search of the Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die: -can you help me? Pray be kind, and aid me if you can!’ ‘Do you know -where it is to be found?’ asked the dwarf. ‘No,’ said the prince, ‘I do -not. Pray tell me if you know.’ ‘Then as you have spoken to me kindly, -and are wise enough to seek for advice, I will tell you how and where to -go. The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle; and, -that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand -and two little loaves of bread; strike the iron door of the castle three -times with the wand, and it will open: two hungry lions will be lying -down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they -will let you pass; then hasten on to the well, and take some of the -Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve; for if you tarry longer -the door will shut upon you for ever.’ - -Then the prince thanked his little friend with the scarlet cloak for his -friendly aid, and took the wand and the bread, and went travelling on -and on, over sea and over land, till he came to his journey’s end, and -found everything to be as the dwarf had told him. The door flew open at -the third stroke of the wand, and when the lions were quieted he went on -through the castle and came at length to a beautiful hall. Around it he -saw several knights sitting in a trance; then he pulled off their rings -and put them on his own fingers. In another room he saw on a table a -sword and a loaf of bread, which he also took. Further on he came to a -room where a beautiful young lady sat upon a couch; and she welcomed him -joyfully, and said, if he would set her free from the spell that bound -her, the kingdom should be his, if he would come back in a year and -marry her. Then she told him that the well that held the Water of Life -was in the palace gardens; and bade him make haste, and draw what he -wanted before the clock struck twelve. - -He walked on; and as he walked through beautiful gardens he came to a -delightful shady spot in which stood a couch; and he thought to himself, -as he felt tired, that he would rest himself for a while, and gaze on -the lovely scenes around him. So he laid himself down, and sleep -fell upon him unawares, so that he did not wake up till the clock was -striking a quarter to twelve. Then he sprang from the couch dreadfully -frightened, ran to the well, filled a cup that was standing by him full -of water, and hastened to get away in time. Just as he was going out of -the iron door it struck twelve, and the door fell so quickly upon him -that it snapped off a piece of his heel. - -When he found himself safe, he was overjoyed to think that he had got -the Water of Life; and as he was going on his way homewards, he passed -by the little dwarf, who, when he saw the sword and the loaf, said, ‘You -have made a noble prize; with the sword you can at a blow slay whole -armies, and the bread will never fail you.’ Then the prince thought -to himself, ‘I cannot go home to my father without my brothers’; so he -said, ‘My dear friend, cannot you tell me where my two brothers are, who -set out in search of the Water of Life before me, and never came back?’ -‘I have shut them up by a charm between two mountains,’ said the dwarf, -‘because they were proud and ill-behaved, and scorned to ask advice.’ -The prince begged so hard for his brothers, that the dwarf at last set -them free, though unwillingly, saying, ‘Beware of them, for they have -bad hearts.’ Their brother, however, was greatly rejoiced to see them, -and told them all that had happened to him; how he had found the Water -of Life, and had taken a cup full of it; and how he had set a beautiful -princess free from a spell that bound her; and how she had engaged to -wait a whole year, and then to marry him, and to give him the kingdom. - -Then they all three rode on together, and on their way home came to a -country that was laid waste by war and a dreadful famine, so that it was -feared all must die for want. But the prince gave the king of the land -the bread, and all his kingdom ate of it. And he lent the king the -wonderful sword, and he slew the enemy’s army with it; and thus the -kingdom was once more in peace and plenty. In the same manner he -befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way. - -When they came to the sea, they got into a ship and during their voyage -the two eldest said to themselves, ‘Our brother has got the water which -we could not find, therefore our father will forsake us and give him the -kingdom, which is our right’; so they were full of envy and revenge, and -agreed together how they could ruin him. Then they waited till he was -fast asleep, and poured the Water of Life out of the cup, and took it -for themselves, giving him bitter sea-water instead. - -When they came to their journey’s end, the youngest son brought his cup -to the sick king, that he might drink and be healed. Scarcely, however, -had he tasted the bitter sea-water when he became worse even than he was -before; and then both the elder sons came in, and blamed the youngest -for what they had done; and said that he wanted to poison their father, -but that they had found the Water of Life, and had brought it with them. -He no sooner began to drink of what they brought him, than he felt his -sickness leave him, and was as strong and well as in his younger days. -Then they went to their brother, and laughed at him, and said, ‘Well, -brother, you found the Water of Life, did you? You have had the trouble -and we shall have the reward. Pray, with all your cleverness, why did -not you manage to keep your eyes open? Next year one of us will take -away your beautiful princess, if you do not take care. You had better -say nothing about this to our father, for he does not believe a word you -say; and if you tell tales, you shall lose your life into the bargain: -but be quiet, and we will let you off.’ - -The old king was still very angry with his youngest son, and thought -that he really meant to have taken away his life; so he called his court -together, and asked what should be done, and all agreed that he ought to -be put to death. The prince knew nothing of what was going on, till one -day, when the king’s chief huntsmen went a-hunting with him, and they -were alone in the wood together, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that -the prince said, ‘My friend, what is the matter with you?’ ‘I cannot and -dare not tell you,’ said he. But the prince begged very hard, and said, -‘Only tell me what it is, and do not think I shall be angry, for I will -forgive you.’ ‘Alas!’ said the huntsman; ‘the king has ordered me to -shoot you.’ The prince started at this, and said, ‘Let me live, and I -will change dresses with you; you shall take my royal coat to show to my -father, and do you give me your shabby one.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said -the huntsman; ‘I am sure I shall be glad to save you, for I could not -have shot you.’ Then he took the prince’s coat, and gave him the shabby -one, and went away through the wood. - -Some time after, three grand embassies came to the old king’s court, -with rich gifts of gold and precious stones for his youngest son; now -all these were sent from the three kings to whom he had lent his sword -and loaf of bread, in order to rid them of their enemy and feed their -people. This touched the old king’s heart, and he thought his son might -still be guiltless, and said to his court, ‘O that my son were still -alive! how it grieves me that I had him killed!’ ‘He is still alive,’ -said the huntsman; ‘and I am glad that I had pity on him, but let him -go in peace, and brought home his royal coat.’ At this the king was -overwhelmed with joy, and made it known throughout all his kingdom, that -if his son would come back to his court he would forgive him. - -Meanwhile the princess was eagerly waiting till her deliverer should -come back; and had a road made leading up to her palace all of shining -gold; and told her courtiers that whoever came on horseback, and rode -straight up to the gate upon it, was her true lover; and that they must -let him in: but whoever rode on one side of it, they must be sure was -not the right one; and that they must send him away at once. - -The time soon came, when the eldest brother thought that he would make -haste to go to the princess, and say that he was the one who had set -her free, and that he should have her for his wife, and the kingdom with -her. As he came before the palace and saw the golden road, he stopped to -look at it, and he thought to himself, ‘It is a pity to ride upon this -beautiful road’; so he turned aside and rode on the right-hand side of -it. But when he came to the gate, the guards, who had seen the road -he took, said to him, he could not be what he said he was, and must go -about his business. - -The second prince set out soon afterwards on the same errand; and when -he came to the golden road, and his horse had set one foot upon it, -he stopped to look at it, and thought it very beautiful, and said to -himself, ‘What a pity it is that anything should tread here!’ Then he -too turned aside and rode on the left side of it. But when he came to -the gate the guards said he was not the true prince, and that he too -must go away about his business; and away he went. - -Now when the full year was come round, the third brother left the forest -in which he had lain hid for fear of his father’s anger, and set out in -search of his betrothed bride. So he journeyed on, thinking of her all -the way, and rode so quickly that he did not even see what the road was -made of, but went with his horse straight over it; and as he came to the -gate it flew open, and the princess welcomed him with joy, and said -he was her deliverer, and should now be her husband and lord of the -kingdom. When the first joy at their meeting was over, the princess told -him she had heard of his father having forgiven him, and of his wish to -have him home again: so, before his wedding with the princess, he went -to visit his father, taking her with him. Then he told him everything; -how his brothers had cheated and robbed him, and yet that he had borne -all those wrongs for the love of his father. And the old king was very -angry, and wanted to punish his wicked sons; but they made their escape, -and got into a ship and sailed away over the wide sea, and where they -went to nobody knew and nobody cared. - -And now the old king gathered together his court, and asked all his -kingdom to come and celebrate the wedding of his son and the princess. -And young and old, noble and squire, gentle and simple, came at once -on the summons; and among the rest came the friendly dwarf, with the -sugarloaf hat, and a new scarlet cloak. - - And the wedding was held, and the merry bells run. - And all the good people they danced and they sung, - And feasted and frolick’d I can’t tell how long. - - - - -THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN - - -There was once a king’s son who had a bride whom he loved very much. And -when he was sitting beside her and very happy, news came that his father -lay sick unto death, and desired to see him once again before his end. -Then he said to his beloved: ‘I must now go and leave you, I give you -a ring as a remembrance of me. When I am king, I will return and fetch -you.’ So he rode away, and when he reached his father, the latter was -dangerously ill, and near his death. He said to him: ‘Dear son, I wished -to see you once again before my end, promise me to marry as I wish,’ and -he named a certain king’s daughter who was to be his wife. The son was -in such trouble that he did not think what he was doing, and said: ‘Yes, -dear father, your will shall be done,’ and thereupon the king shut his -eyes, and died. - -When therefore the son had been proclaimed king, and the time of -mourning was over, he was forced to keep the promise which he had given -his father, and caused the king’s daughter to be asked in marriage, and -she was promised to him. His first betrothed heard of this, and fretted -so much about his faithfulness that she nearly died. Then her father -said to her: ‘Dearest child, why are you so sad? You shall have -whatsoever you will.’ She thought for a moment and said: ‘Dear father, -I wish for eleven girls exactly like myself in face, figure, and size.’ -The father said: ‘If it be possible, your desire shall be fulfilled,’ -and he caused a search to be made in his whole kingdom, until eleven -young maidens were found who exactly resembled his daughter in face, -figure, and size. - -When they came to the king’s daughter, she had twelve suits of -huntsmen’s clothes made, all alike, and the eleven maidens had to put -on the huntsmen’s clothes, and she herself put on the twelfth suit. -Thereupon she took her leave of her father, and rode away with them, -and rode to the court of her former betrothed, whom she loved so dearly. -Then she asked if he required any huntsmen, and if he would take all of -them into his service. The king looked at her and did not know her, but -as they were such handsome fellows, he said: ‘Yes,’ and that he would -willingly take them, and now they were the king’s twelve huntsmen. - -The king, however, had a lion which was a wondrous animal, for he knew -all concealed and secret things. It came to pass that one evening he -said to the king: ‘You think you have twelve huntsmen?’ ‘Yes,’ said the -king, ‘they are twelve huntsmen.’ The lion continued: ‘You are mistaken, -they are twelve girls.’ The king said: ‘That cannot be true! How -will you prove that to me?’ ‘Oh, just let some peas be strewn in the -ante-chamber,’ answered the lion, ‘and then you will soon see. Men have -a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls -trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’ The king -was well pleased with the counsel, and caused the peas to be strewn. - -There was, however, a servant of the king’s who favoured the huntsmen, -and when he heard that they were going to be put to this test he went to -them and repeated everything, and said: ‘The lion wants to make the king -believe that you are girls.’ Then the king’s daughter thanked him, and -said to her maidens: ‘Show some strength, and step firmly on the peas.’ -So next morning when the king had the twelve huntsmen called before -him, and they came into the ante-chamber where the peas were lying, they -stepped so firmly on them, and had such a strong, sure walk, that not -one of the peas either rolled or stirred. Then they went away again, -and the king said to the lion: ‘You have lied to me, they walk just like -men.’ The lion said: ‘They have been informed that they were going to -be put to the test, and have assumed some strength. Just let twelve -spinning-wheels be brought into the ante-chamber, and they will go to -them and be pleased with them, and that is what no man would do.’ -The king liked the advice, and had the spinning-wheels placed in the -ante-chamber. - -But the servant, who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, -and disclosed the project. So when they were alone the king’s daughter -said to her eleven girls: ‘Show some constraint, and do not look round -at the spinning-wheels.’ And next morning when the king had his twelve -huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once -looked at the spinning-wheels. Then the king again said to the lion: -‘You have deceived me, they are men, for they have not looked at the -spinning-wheels.’ The lion replied: ‘They have restrained themselves.’ -The king, however, would no longer believe the lion. - -The twelve huntsmen always followed the king to the chase, and his -liking for them continually increased. Now it came to pass that -once when they were out hunting, news came that the king’s bride was -approaching. When the true bride heard that, it hurt her so much that -her heart was almost broken, and she fell fainting to the ground. The -king thought something had happened to his dear huntsman, ran up to him, -wanted to help him, and drew his glove off. Then he saw the ring which -he had given to his first bride, and when he looked in her face he -recognized her. Then his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and -when she opened her eyes he said: ‘You are mine, and I am yours, and -no one in the world can alter that.’ He sent a messenger to the other -bride, and entreated her to return to her own kingdom, for he had a wife -already, and someone who had just found an old key did not require a new -one. Thereupon the wedding was celebrated, and the lion was again taken -into favour, because, after all, he had told the truth. - - - - -THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN - - -There was once a merchant who had only one child, a son, that was very -young, and barely able to run alone. He had two richly laden ships then -making a voyage upon the seas, in which he had embarked all his wealth, -in the hope of making great gains, when the news came that both were -lost. Thus from being a rich man he became all at once so very poor that -nothing was left to him but one small plot of land; and there he often -went in an evening to take his walk, and ease his mind of a little of -his trouble. - -One day, as he was roaming along in a brown study, thinking with no -great comfort on what he had been and what he now was, and was like -to be, all on a sudden there stood before him a little, rough-looking, -black dwarf. ‘Prithee, friend, why so sorrowful?’ said he to the -merchant; ‘what is it you take so deeply to heart?’ ‘If you would do me -any good I would willingly tell you,’ said the merchant. ‘Who knows but -I may?’ said the little man: ‘tell me what ails you, and perhaps you -will find I may be of some use.’ Then the merchant told him how all his -wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea, and how he had nothing left -but that little plot of land. ‘Oh, trouble not yourself about that,’ -said the dwarf; ‘only undertake to bring me here, twelve years hence, -whatever meets you first on your going home, and I will give you as much -as you please.’ The merchant thought this was no great thing to ask; -that it would most likely be his dog or his cat, or something of that -sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel; so he agreed to the bargain, and -signed and sealed the bond to do what was asked of him. - -But as he drew near home, his little boy was so glad to see him that he -crept behind him, and laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in -his face and laughed. Then the father started, trembling with fear and -horror, and saw what it was that he had bound himself to do; but as no -gold was come, he made himself easy by thinking that it was only a joke -that the dwarf was playing him, and that, at any rate, when the money -came, he should see the bearer, and would not take it in. - -About a month afterwards he went upstairs into a lumber-room to look -for some old iron, that he might sell it and raise a little money; and -there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile of gold lying on the -floor. At the sight of this he was overjoyed, and forgetting all about -his son, went into trade again, and became a richer merchant than -before. - -Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the end of the twelve years drew -near the merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad -and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow were written upon his face. The -boy one day asked what was the matter, but his father would not tell for -some time; at last, however, he said that he had, without knowing it, -sold him for gold to a little, ugly-looking, black dwarf, and that the -twelve years were coming round when he must keep his word. Then Heinel -said, ‘Father, give yourself very little trouble about that; I shall be -too much for the little man.’ - -When the time came, the father and son went out together to the place -agreed upon: and the son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself -and his father in the middle of it. The little black dwarf soon came, -and walked round and round about the circle, but could not find any way -to get into it, and he either could not, or dared not, jump over it. At -last the boy said to him. ‘Have you anything to say to us, my friend, or -what do you want?’ Now Heinel had found a friend in a good fairy, that -was fond of him, and had told him what to do; for this fairy knew what -good luck was in store for him. ‘Have you brought me what you said you -would?’ said the dwarf to the merchant. The old man held his tongue, but -Heinel said again, ‘What do you want here?’ The dwarf said, ‘I come to -talk with your father, not with you.’ ‘You have cheated and taken in my -father,’ said the son; ‘pray give him up his bond at once.’ ‘Fair and -softly,’ said the little old man; ‘right is right; I have paid my money, -and your father has had it, and spent it; so be so good as to let me -have what I paid it for.’ ‘You must have my consent to that first,’ said -Heinel, ‘so please to step in here, and let us talk it over.’ The old -man grinned, and showed his teeth, as if he should have been very glad -to get into the circle if he could. Then at last, after a long talk, -they came to terms. Heinel agreed that his father must give him up, and -that so far the dwarf should have his way: but, on the other hand, the -fairy had told Heinel what fortune was in store for him, if he followed -his own course; and he did not choose to be given up to his hump-backed -friend, who seemed so anxious for his company. - -So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that -Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard -by; that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he -should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and -weather. Then he took leave of his father, and set himself in the boat, -but before it got far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side -low in the water, so the merchant thought that poor Heinel was lost, and -went home very sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking that at -any rate he had had his revenge. - -The boat, however, did not sink, for the good fairy took care of her -friend, and soon raised the boat up again, and it went safely on. The -young man sat safe within, till at length it ran ashore upon an unknown -land. As he jumped upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful castle -but empty and dreary within, for it was enchanted. ‘Here,’ said he to -himself, ‘must I find the prize the good fairy told me of.’ So he once -more searched the whole palace through, till at last he found a white -snake, lying coiled up on a cushion in one of the chambers. - -Now the white snake was an enchanted princess; and she was very glad -to see him, and said, ‘Are you at last come to set me free? Twelve -long years have I waited here for the fairy to bring you hither as she -promised, for you alone can save me. This night twelve men will come: -their faces will be black, and they will be dressed in chain armour. -They will ask what you do here, but give no answer; and let them do -what they will--beat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment you--bear all; only -speak not a word, and at twelve o’clock they must go away. The second -night twelve others will come: and the third night twenty-four, who -will even cut off your head; but at the twelfth hour of that night their -power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you the -Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to life -and health.’ And all came to pass as she had said; Heinel bore all, and -spoke not a word; and the third night the princess came, and fell on his -neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth throughout the castle, -the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned king of the Golden -Mountain. - -They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus -eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his -father; and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was -against his going, and said, ‘I know well that misfortunes will come -upon us if you go.’ However, he gave her no rest till she agreed. At his -going away she gave him a wishing-ring, and said, ‘Take this ring, and -put it on your finger; whatever you wish it will bring you; only promise -never to make use of it to bring me hence to your father’s house.’ Then -he said he would do what she asked, and put the ring on his finger, and -wished himself near the town where his father lived. - -Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment; but the guards would -not let him go in, because he was so strangely clad. So he went up to a -neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and borrowed his old frock, -and thus passed unknown into the town. When he came to his father’s -house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him, -and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long -since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would -not even give him anything to eat. The king, however, still vowed that -he was his son, and said, ‘Is there no mark by which you would know me -if I am really your son?’ ‘Yes,’ said his mother, ‘our Heinel had a mark -like a raspberry on his right arm.’ Then he showed them the mark, and -they knew that what he had said was true. - -He next told them how he was king of the Golden Mountain, and was -married to a princess, and had a son seven years old. But the merchant -said, ‘that can never be true; he must be a fine king truly who travels -about in a shepherd’s frock!’ At this the son was vexed; and forgetting -his word, turned his ring, and wished for his queen and son. In an -instant they stood before him; but the queen wept, and said he had -broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to -soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so in -truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him. - -One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her -the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he sat -himself down, and said, ‘I am very much tired; sit by me, I will rest my -head in your lap, and sleep a while.’ As soon as he had fallen asleep, -however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly away, and -wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And when he awoke -he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone from his finger. -‘I can never go back to my father’s house,’ said he; ‘they would say I -am a sorcerer: I will journey forth into the world, till I come again to -my kingdom.’ - -So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three -giants were sharing their father’s goods; and as they saw him pass they -cried out and said, ‘Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods -between us.’ Now there was a sword that cut off an enemy’s head whenever -the wearer gave the words, ‘Heads off!’; a cloak that made the owner -invisible, or gave him any form he pleased; and a pair of boots that -carried the wearer wherever he wished. Heinel said they must first let -him try these wonderful things, then he might know how to set a value -upon them. Then they gave him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly, -and in a moment he was a fly. ‘The cloak is very well,’ said he: ‘now -give me the sword.’ ‘No,’ said they; ‘not unless you undertake not to -say, “Heads off!” for if you do we are all dead men.’ So they gave it -him, charging him to try it on a tree. He next asked for the boots also; -and the moment he had all three in his power, he wished himself at -the Golden Mountain; and there he was at once. So the giants were left -behind with no goods to share or quarrel about. - -As Heinel came near his castle he heard the sound of merry music; and -the people around told him that his queen was about to marry another -husband. Then he threw his cloak around him, and passed through the -castle hall, and placed himself by the side of the queen, where no one -saw him. But when anything to eat was put upon her plate, he took it -away and ate it himself; and when a glass of wine was handed to her, he -took it and drank it; and thus, though they kept on giving her meat and -drink, her plate and cup were always empty. - -Upon this, fear and remorse came over her, and she went into her chamber -alone, and sat there weeping; and he followed her there. ‘Alas!’ said -she to herself, ‘was I not once set free? Why then does this enchantment -still seem to bind me?’ - -‘False and fickle one!’ said he. ‘One indeed came who set thee free, and -he is now near thee again; but how have you used him? Ought he to -have had such treatment from thee?’ Then he went out and sent away the -company, and said the wedding was at an end, for that he was come back -to the kingdom. But the princes, peers, and great men mocked at him. -However, he would enter into no parley with them, but only asked them -if they would go in peace or not. Then they turned upon him and tried -to seize him; but he drew his sword. ‘Heads Off!’ cried he; and with the -word the traitors’ heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king -of the Golden Mountain. - - - - -DOCTOR KNOWALL - - -There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with -two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two -talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that -the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he -ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would willingly -have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length -inquired if he too could not be a doctor. ‘Oh, yes,’ said the doctor, -‘that is soon managed.’ ‘What must I do?’ asked the peasant. ‘In the -first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on -the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into -money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to -medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: “I -am Doctor Knowall,” and have that nailed up above your house-door.’ The -peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored -people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money -stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such -a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had -the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and -asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was -to go with him and bring back the stolen money. ‘Oh, yes, but Grete, my -wife, must go too.’ The lord was willing, and let both of them have a -seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came -to the nobleman’s castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to -sit down and eat. ‘Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,’ said he, and he seated -himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a -dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: ‘Grete, -that was the first,’ meaning that was the servant who brought the first -dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say: ‘That is -the first thief,’ and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said -to his comrade outside: ‘The doctor knows all: we shall fare ill, he -said I was the first.’ The second did not want to go in at all, but was -forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife, -and said: ‘Grete, that is the second.’ This servant was equally alarmed, -and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the -peasant again said: ‘Grete, that is the third.’ The fourth had to carry -in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to -show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there -were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and -cried: ‘Ah, poor Crabb.’ When the lord heard that, he cried: ‘There! he -knows it; he must also know who has the money!’ - -On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the -doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore -he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen -the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a -heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he -did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was -concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall, -sat down to the table, and said: ‘My lord, now will I search in my book -where the gold is hidden.’ The fifth servant, however, crept into the -stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still -and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and -looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said: ‘I -know you are there, so you had better come out!’ Then the fellow in the -stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out, -crying: ‘That man knows everything!’ Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord -where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received -from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man. - - - - -THE SEVEN RAVENS - - -There was once a man who had seven sons, and last of all one daughter. -Although the little girl was very pretty, she was so weak and small that -they thought she could not live; but they said she should at once be -christened. - -So the father sent one of his sons in haste to the spring to get some -water, but the other six ran with him. Each wanted to be first at -drawing the water, and so they were in such a hurry that all let their -pitchers fall into the well, and they stood very foolishly looking at -one another, and did not know what to do, for none dared go home. In the -meantime the father was uneasy, and could not tell what made the -young men stay so long. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘the whole seven must have -forgotten themselves over some game of play’; and when he had waited -still longer and they yet did not come, he flew into a rage and wished -them all turned into ravens. Scarcely had he spoken these words when he -heard a croaking over his head, and looked up and saw seven ravens as -black as coal flying round and round. Sorry as he was to see his wish -so fulfilled, he did not know how what was done could be undone, and -comforted himself as well as he could for the loss of his seven sons -with his dear little daughter, who soon became stronger and every day -more beautiful. - -For a long time she did not know that she had ever had any brothers; for -her father and mother took care not to speak of them before her: but one -day by chance she heard the people about her speak of them. ‘Yes,’ said -they, ‘she is beautiful indeed, but still ‘tis a pity that her brothers -should have been lost for her sake.’ Then she was much grieved, and went -to her father and mother, and asked if she had any brothers, and what -had become of them. So they dared no longer hide the truth from her, but -said it was the will of Heaven, and that her birth was only the innocent -cause of it; but the little girl mourned sadly about it every day, and -thought herself bound to do all she could to bring her brothers back; -and she had neither rest nor ease, till at length one day she stole -away, and set out into the wide world to find her brothers, wherever -they might be, and free them, whatever it might cost her. - -She took nothing with her but a little ring which her father and mother -had given her, a loaf of bread in case she should be hungry, a little -pitcher of water in case she should be thirsty, and a little stool -to rest upon when she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and -journeyed till she came to the world’s end; then she came to the sun, -but the sun looked much too hot and fiery; so she ran away quickly to -the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, ‘I smell flesh -and blood this way!’ so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the -stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat -upon his own little stool; but the morning star rose up and gave her a -little piece of wood, and said, ‘If you have not this little piece of -wood, you cannot unlock the castle that stands on the glass-mountain, -and there your brothers live.’ The little girl took the piece of wood, -rolled it up in a little cloth, and went on again until she came to the -glass-mountain, and found the door shut. Then she felt for the little -piece of wood; but when she unwrapped the cloth it was not there, and -she saw she had lost the gift of the good stars. What was to be done? -She wanted to save her brothers, and had no key of the castle of the -glass-mountain; so this faithful little sister took a knife out of her -pocket and cut off her little finger, that was just the size of the -piece of wood she had lost, and put it in the door and opened it. - -As she went in, a little dwarf came up to her, and said, ‘What are you -seeking for?’ ‘I seek for my brothers, the seven ravens,’ answered she. -Then the dwarf said, ‘My masters are not at home; but if you will wait -till they come, pray step in.’ Now the little dwarf was getting their -dinner ready, and he brought their food upon seven little plates, and -their drink in seven little glasses, and set them upon the table, and -out of each little plate their sister ate a small piece, and out of each -little glass she drank a small drop; but she let the ring that she had -brought with her fall into the last glass. - -On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the -dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’ When they came in, they wanted to -eat and drink, and looked for their little plates and glasses. Then said -one after the other, - -‘Who has eaten from my little plate? And who has been drinking out of my -little glass?’ - - ‘Caw! Caw! well I ween - Mortal lips have this way been.’ - -When the seventh came to the bottom of his glass, and found there the -ring, he looked at it, and knew that it was his father’s and mother’s, -and said, ‘O that our little sister would but come! then we should be -free.’ When the little girl heard this (for she stood behind the door -all the time and listened), she ran forward, and in an instant all -the ravens took their right form again; and all hugged and kissed each -other, and went merrily home. - - - - -THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX - - -FIRST STORY - -There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that -his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He -stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved -as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in, -and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it -became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves. -The maid heard someone standing at the house-door, knocking. She went -and opened it, and it was a young fox, who said: - - ‘What may you be about, Miss Cat? - Do you sleep or do you wake?’ - -She answered: - - ‘I am not sleeping, I am waking, - Would you know what I am making? - I am boiling warm beer with butter, - Will you be my guest for supper?’ - -‘No, thank you, miss,’ said the fox, ‘what is Mrs Fox doing?’ The maid -replied: - - ‘She is sitting in her room, - Moaning in her gloom, - Weeping her little eyes quite red, - Because old Mr Fox is dead.’ - -‘Do just tell her, miss, that a young fox is here, who would like to woo -her.’ ‘Certainly, young sir.’ - - The cat goes up the stairs trip, trap, - The door she knocks at tap, tap, tap, - ‘Mistress Fox, are you inside?’ - ‘Oh, yes, my little cat,’ she cried. - ‘A wooer he stands at the door out there.’ - ‘What does he look like, my dear?’ - -‘Has he nine as beautiful tails as the late Mr Fox?’ ‘Oh, no,’ answered -the cat, ‘he has only one.’ ‘Then I will not have him.’ - -Miss Cat went downstairs and sent the wooer away. Soon afterwards there -was another knock, and another fox was at the door who wished to woo Mrs -Fox. He had two tails, but he did not fare better than the first. After -this still more came, each with one tail more than the other, but they -were all turned away, until at last one came who had nine tails, like -old Mr Fox. When the widow heard that, she said joyfully to the cat: - - ‘Now open the gates and doors all wide, - And carry old Mr Fox outside.’ - -But just as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr Fox stirred -under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs -Fox out of the house. - - -SECOND STORY - -When old Mr Fox was dead, the wolf came as a suitor, and knocked at the -door, and the cat who was servant to Mrs Fox, opened it for him. The -wolf greeted her, and said: - - ‘Good day, Mrs Cat of Kehrewit, - How comes it that alone you sit? - What are you making good?’ - -The cat replied: - - ‘In milk I’m breaking bread so sweet, - Will you be my guest, and eat?’ - -‘No, thank you, Mrs Cat,’ answered the wolf. ‘Is Mrs Fox not at home?’ - -The cat said: - - ‘She sits upstairs in her room, - Bewailing her sorrowful doom, - Bewailing her trouble so sore, - For old Mr Fox is no more.’ - -The wolf answered: - - ‘If she’s in want of a husband now, - Then will it please her to step below?’ - The cat runs quickly up the stair, - And lets her tail fly here and there, - Until she comes to the parlour door. - With her five gold rings at the door she knocks: - ‘Are you within, good Mistress Fox? - If you’re in want of a husband now, - Then will it please you to step below? - -Mrs Fox asked: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has he a pointed -mouth?’ ‘No,’ answered the cat. ‘Then he won’t do for me.’ - -When the wolf was gone, came a dog, a stag, a hare, a bear, a lion, and -all the beasts of the forest, one after the other. But one of the good -qualities which old Mr Fox had possessed, was always lacking, and the -cat had continually to send the suitors away. At length came a young -fox. Then Mrs Fox said: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a -little pointed mouth?’ ‘Yes,’ said the cat, ‘he has.’ ‘Then let him come -upstairs,’ said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding -feast. - - ‘Sweep me the room as clean as you can, - Up with the window, fling out my old man! - For many a fine fat mouse he brought, - Yet of his wife he never thought, - But ate up every one he caught.’ - -Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much -rejoicing and dancing; and if they have not left off, they are dancing -still. - - - - -THE SALAD - - -As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, -there came up a little old woman, and said to him, ‘Good day, good day; -you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me -something to eat.’ The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in -his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but -she took hold of him, and said, ‘Listen, my friend, to what I am going -to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after -a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds -sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down -dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when -you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to -be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will -find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It -is the bird’s heart that will bring you this good luck.’ - -The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, ‘If all this does -happen, it will be a fine thing for me.’ When he had gone a hundred -steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, -and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills -and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if -each wished to have it himself. ‘Well,’ said the huntsman, ‘this is -wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said’; then he shot into -the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the -flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. -Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took -out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him. - -The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay -the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and -indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and -at last thought to himself, ‘Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am -at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.’ - -Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his -neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through -a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, -and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young -lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and -said to the young lady, ‘There is a young man coming out of the wood who -carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child, -for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird’s heart that -brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.’ Meantime the -huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, ‘I -have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle -and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want’; -but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful -lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was -not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else -but looking at the lady’s eyes, and doing everything that she wished. -Then the old woman said, ‘Now is the time for getting the bird’s heart.’ -So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his -pillow, for it lay now under the young lady’s, and the old woman took it -away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his -prize. - -‘Well,’ said the old witch, ‘we have got the bird’s heart, but not the -wishing-cloak yet, and that we must also get.’ ‘Let us leave him that,’ -said the young lady; ‘he has already lost his wealth.’ Then the witch -was very angry, and said, ‘Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful -thing, and I must and will have it.’ So she did as the old woman told -her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and -seemed very sorrowful; then the huntsman said, ‘What makes you so sad?’ -‘Alas! dear sir,’ said she, ‘yonder lies the granite rock where all the -costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I -think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only -the birds and the flies--man cannot.’ ‘If that’s all your grief,’ said -the huntsman, ‘I’ll take you there with all my heart’; so he drew her under -his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they -were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were -delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch -made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, ‘Let us -sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand -any longer.’ So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and -fell asleep; and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from -his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished -herself home again. - -When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him -alone on the wild rock, he said, ‘Alas! what roguery there is in the -world!’ and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to -do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it; and as -he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, ‘I can only -save myself by feigning to be asleep’; so he laid himself down as if he -were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed -him with his foot, and said, ‘What worm is this that lies here curled -up?’ ‘Tread upon him and kill him,’ said the second. ‘It’s not worth the -trouble,’ said the third; ‘let him live, he’ll go climbing higher up the -mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.’ And they -passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said; and as soon as they -were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat -there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a -whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden, -and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages. - -Then he looked around him, and said, ‘I wish I had something to eat, if -not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples -nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.’ At last he -thought to himself, ‘I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen -me.’ So he picked out a fine head and ate of it; but scarcely had he -swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with -horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very -hungry, and the salad tasted very nice; so he ate on till he came -to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt -another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to -have found his old shape again. - -Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness; and -when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and -the bad salad, and thought to himself, ‘This will help me to my fortune -again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.’ So he -went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering -about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over -brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into -the castle and asked for a lodging; ‘I am so tired,’ said he, ‘that I -can go no farther.’ ‘Countryman,’ said the witch, ‘who are you? and what -is your business?’ ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a messenger sent by the king to -find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky -enough to find it, and have brought it with me; but the heat of the sun -scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don’t know that I can carry -it farther.’ - -When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they -longed to taste it, and said, ‘Dear countryman, let us just taste it.’ -‘To be sure,’ answered he; ‘I have two heads of it with me, and will -give you one’; so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the -witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed; and when it was -ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves -immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed -when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the -form of an ass. Now the servant-maid came into the kitchen, and seeing -the salad ready, was going to carry it up; but on the way she too felt a -wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves; so she -also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish -with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with -the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she -longed to taste it, she said, ‘I don’t know where the salad can be.’ -Then he thought something must have happened, and said, ‘I will go -into the kitchen and see.’ And as he went he saw two asses in the court -running about, and the salad lying on the ground. ‘All right!’ said -he; ‘those two have had their share.’ Then he took up the rest of -the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady, -saying, ‘I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.’ -So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying -away. - -Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they -might know him. ‘Now you shall be paid for your roguery,’ said he; and -tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he -came to a mill and knocked at the window. ‘What’s the matter?’ said the -miller. ‘I have three tiresome beasts here,’ said the other; ‘if you -will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you, -I will pay you whatever you ask.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said the miller; -‘but how shall I treat them?’ Then the huntsman said, ‘Give the old -one stripes three times a day and hay once; give the next (who was -the servant-maid) stripes once a day and hay three times; and give -the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and -no stripes’: for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten. -After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he -wanted. - -Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass -was dead; ‘The other two,’ said he, ‘are alive and eat, but are so -sorrowful that they cannot last long.’ Then the huntsman pitied them, -and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he -gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady -fell upon her knees before him, and said, ‘O dearest huntsman! forgive -me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was -against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak -hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird’s heart, I will give it you -too.’ But he said, ‘Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean -to make you my wife.’ So they were married, and lived together very -happily till they died. - - - - -THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS - - -A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible, -and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither -learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said: -‘There’s a fellow who will give his father some trouble!’ When anything -had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it; but -if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the -night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal -place, he answered: ‘Oh, no father, I’ll not go there, it makes me -shudder!’ for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at -night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: ‘Oh, -it makes us shudder!’ The younger sat in a corner and listened with -the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. ‘They are -always saying: “It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!” It does not -make me shudder,’ thought he. ‘That, too, must be an art of which I -understand nothing!’ - -Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: ‘Hearken to me, -you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you -too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your -brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.’ ‘Well, father,’ he -replied, ‘I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but -be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don’t understand -that at all yet.’ The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and -thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! -He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to -be a sickle must bend himself betimes.’ - -The father sighed, and answered him: ‘You shall soon learn what it is to -shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.’ - -Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father -bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward -in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing. ‘Just think,’ -said he, ‘when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he -actually wanted to learn to shudder.’ ‘If that be all,’ replied the -sexton, ‘he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon -polish him.’ The father was glad to do it, for he thought: ‘It will -train the boy a little.’ The sexton therefore took him into his house, -and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke -him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and -ring the bell. ‘You shall soon learn what shuddering is,’ thought he, -and secretly went there before him; and when the boy was at the top of -the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell -rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding -hole. ‘Who is there?’ cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did -not move or stir. ‘Give an answer,’ cried the boy, ‘or take yourself -off, you have no business here at night.’ - -The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might -think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time: ‘What do you want -here?--speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the -steps!’ The sexton thought: ‘He can’t mean to be as bad as his words,’ -uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy -called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose, -he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell -down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Thereupon he -rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and -fell asleep. The sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but -he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy, -and asked: ‘Do you know where my husband is? He climbed up the tower -before you did.’ ‘No, I don’t know,’ replied the boy, ‘but someone was -standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he -would neither give an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel, -and threw him downstairs. Just go there and you will see if it was he. -I should be sorry if it were.’ The woman ran away and found her husband, -who was lying moaning in the corner, and had broken his leg. - -She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the -boy’s father, ‘Your boy,’ cried she, ‘has been the cause of a great -misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his -leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.’ The father was -terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. ‘What wicked tricks -are these?’ said he. ‘The devil must have put them into your head.’ -‘Father,’ he replied, ‘do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was -standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know -who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go -away.’ ‘Ah,’ said the father, ‘I have nothing but unhappiness with you. -Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.’ - -‘Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I -go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate, -understand one art which will support me.’ ‘Learn what you will,’ spoke -the father, ‘it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you. -Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you -come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.’ -‘Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than -that, I can easily keep it in mind.’ - -When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his -pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to -himself: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!’ Then a man -approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with -himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could -see the gallows, the man said to him: ‘Look, there is the tree where -seven men have married the ropemaker’s daughter, and are now learning -how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will -soon learn how to shudder.’ ‘If that is all that is wanted,’ answered -the youth, ‘it is easily done; but if I learn how to shudder as fast as -that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the -morning.’ Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and -waited till evening came. And as he was cold, he lighted himself a fire, -but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he -could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each -other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself: -‘If you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and -suffer!’ And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed -up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven. -Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm -themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught -their clothes. So he said: ‘Take care, or I will hang you up again.’ The -dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their -rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said: ‘If you will not -take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you,’ and he hung -them up again each in his turn. Then he sat down by his fire and fell -asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have -the fifty talers, and said: ‘Well do you know how to shudder?’ ‘No,’ -answered he, ‘how should I know? Those fellows up there did not open -their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which -they had on their bodies get burnt.’ Then the man saw that he would not -get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying: ‘Such a youth has -never come my way before.’ - -The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to -himself: ‘Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!’ A -waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: ‘Who are -you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked: ‘From -whence do you come?’ ‘I know not.’ ‘Who is your father?’ ‘That I may -not tell you.’ ‘What is it that you are always muttering between your -teeth?’ ‘Ah,’ replied the youth, ‘I do so wish I could shudder, but -no one can teach me how.’ ‘Enough of your foolish chatter,’ said the -waggoner. ‘Come, go with me, I will see about a place for you.’ The -youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn -where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlour -the youth again said quite loudly: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could -but shudder!’ The host who heard this, laughed and said: ‘If that is -your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.’ ‘Ah, -be silent,’ said the hostess, ‘so many prying persons have already lost -their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as -these should never see the daylight again.’ - -But the youth said: ‘However difficult it may be, I will learn it. For -this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.’ He let the host have -no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a -haunted castle where anyone could very easily learn what shuddering was, -if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that -he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the -most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great -treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would -then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough. Already many men -had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the -youth went next morning to the king, and said: ‘If it be allowed, I will -willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.’ - -The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said: ‘You may -ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must -be things without life.’ Then he answered: ‘Then I ask for a fire, a -turning lathe, and a cutting-board with the knife.’ - -The king had these things carried into the castle for him during the -day. When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself -a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife -beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. ‘Ah, if I could -but shudder!’ said he, ‘but I shall not learn it here either.’ Towards -midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, -something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’ -‘You fools!’ cried he, ‘what are you crying about? If you are cold, come -and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.’ And when he had said -that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down -on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery -eyes. After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: -‘Comrade, shall we have a game of cards?’ ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but -just show me your paws.’ Then they stretched out their claws. ‘Oh,’ said -he, ‘what long nails you have! Wait, I must first cut them for you.’ -Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cutting-board -and screwed their feet fast. ‘I have looked at your fingers,’ said he, -‘and my fancy for card-playing has gone,’ and he struck them dead and -threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two, -and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and -corner came black cats and black dogs with red-hot chains, and more -and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled -horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put -it out. He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were -going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried: ‘Away with you, -vermin,’ and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others -he killed, and threw out into the fish-pond. When he came back he fanned -the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his -eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he -looked round and saw a great bed in the corner. ‘That is the very thing -for me,’ said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his -eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over -the whole of the castle. ‘That’s right,’ said he, ‘but go faster.’ Then -the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down, -over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside -down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up -in the air, got out and said: ‘Now anyone who likes, may drive,’ and -lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king -came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil -spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he: ‘After all it is a -pity,--for so handsome a man.’ The youth heard it, got up, and said: ‘It -has not come to that yet.’ Then the king was astonished, but very glad, -and asked how he had fared. ‘Very well indeed,’ answered he; ‘one -night is past, the two others will pass likewise.’ Then he went to the -innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said: ‘I never expected to -see you alive again! Have you learnt how to shudder yet?’ ‘No,’ said he, -‘it is all in vain. If someone would but tell me!’ - -The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the -fire, and once more began his old song: ‘If I could but shudder!’ When -midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard; at -first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for -a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the -chimney and fell before him. ‘Hullo!’ cried he, ‘another half belongs -to this. This is not enough!’ Then the uproar began again, there was a -roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. ‘Wait,’ said -he, ‘I will just stoke up the fire a little for you.’ When he had done -that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a -hideous man was sitting in his place. ‘That is no part of our bargain,’ -said the youth, ‘the bench is mine.’ The man wanted to push him away; -the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all -his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more -men fell down, one after the other; they brought nine dead men’s legs -and two skulls, and set them up and played at nine-pins with them. The -youth also wanted to play and said: ‘Listen you, can I join you?’ ‘Yes, -if you have any money.’ ‘Money enough,’ replied he, ‘but your balls are -not quite round.’ Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and -turned them till they were round. ‘There, now they will roll better!’ -said he. ‘Hurrah! now we’ll have fun!’ He played with them and lost some -of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his -sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came -to inquire after him. ‘How has it fared with you this time?’ asked he. -‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple -of farthings.’ ‘Have you not shuddered then?’ ‘What?’ said he, ‘I have -had a wonderful time! If I did but know what it was to shudder!’ - -The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly: -‘If I could but shudder.’ When it grew late, six tall men came in and -brought a coffin. Then he said: ‘Ha, ha, that is certainly my little -cousin, who died only a few days ago,’ and he beckoned with his finger, -and cried: ‘Come, little cousin, come.’ They placed the coffin on the -ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay -therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. ‘Wait,’ said he, ‘I -will warm you a little,’ and went to the fire and warmed his hand and -laid it on the dead man’s face, but he remained cold. Then he took him -out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his -arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he -thought to himself: ‘When two people lie in bed together, they warm each -other,’ and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by -him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move. -Then said the youth, ‘See, little cousin, have I not warmed you?’ The -dead man, however, got up and cried: ‘Now will I strangle you.’ - -‘What!’ said he, ‘is that the way you thank me? You shall at once go -into your coffin again,’ and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut -the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. ‘I cannot -manage to shudder,’ said he. ‘I shall never learn it here as long as I -live.’ - -Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible. -He was old, however, and had a long white beard. ‘You wretch,’ cried he, -‘you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.’ ‘Not so -fast,’ replied the youth. ‘If I am to die, I shall have to have a say -in it.’ ‘I will soon seize you,’ said the fiend. ‘Softly, softly, do not -talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.’ -‘We shall see,’ said the old man. ‘If you are stronger, I will let you -go--come, we will try.’ Then he led him by dark passages to a smith’s -forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground. -‘I can do better than that,’ said the youth, and went to the other -anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his -white beard hung down. Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil -with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard. ‘Now I have you,’ -said the youth. ‘Now it is your turn to die.’ Then he seized an iron bar -and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he -would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. -The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him -three chests full of gold. ‘Of these,’ said he, ‘one part is for the -poor, the other for the king, the third yours.’ In the meantime it -struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in -darkness. ‘I shall still be able to find my way out,’ said he, and felt -about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire. -Next morning the king came and said: ‘Now you must have learnt what -shuddering is?’ ‘No,’ he answered; ‘what can it be? My dead cousin was -here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down -below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.’ ‘Then,’ said the -king, ‘you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.’ ‘That -is all very well,’ said he, ‘but still I do not know what it is to -shudder!’ - -Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated; but howsoever -much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still -said always: ‘If I could but shudder--if I could but shudder.’ And this -at last angered her. Her waiting-maid said: ‘I will find a cure for him; -he shall soon learn what it is to shudder.’ She went out to the stream -which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons -brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was -to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water -with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would -sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried: ‘Oh, what makes me shudder -so?--what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it is to -shudder!’ - - - - -KING GRISLY-BEARD - - -A great king of a land far away in the East had a daughter who was very -beautiful, but so proud, and haughty, and conceited, that none of the -princes who came to ask her in marriage was good enough for her, and she -only made sport of them. - -Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all -her suitors; and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their -rank--kings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons, -and knights. Then the princess came in, and as she passed by them she -had something spiteful to say to every one. The first was too fat: ‘He’s -as round as a tub,’ said she. The next was too tall: ‘What a maypole!’ -said she. The next was too short: ‘What a dumpling!’ said she. The -fourth was too pale, and she called him ‘Wallface.’ The fifth was too -red, so she called him ‘Coxcomb.’ The sixth was not straight enough; -so she said he was like a green stick, that had been laid to dry over -a baker’s oven. And thus she had some joke to crack upon every one: but -she laughed more than all at a good king who was there. ‘Look at -him,’ said she; ‘his beard is like an old mop; he shall be called -Grisly-beard.’ So the king got the nickname of Grisly-beard. - -But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved, -and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or -unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that -came to the door. - -Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play -under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said, -‘Let him come in.’ So they brought in a dirty-looking fellow; and when -he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then the -king said, ‘You have sung so well, that I will give you my daughter for -your wife.’ The princess begged and prayed; but the king said, ‘I have -sworn to give you to the first comer, and I will keep my word.’ So words -and tears were of no avail; the parson was sent for, and she was married -to the fiddler. When this was over the king said, ‘Now get ready to -go--you must not stay here--you must travel on with your husband.’ - -Then the fiddler went his way, and took her with him, and they soon came -to a great wood. ‘Pray,’ said she, ‘whose is this wood?’ ‘It belongs -to King Grisly-beard,’ answered he; ‘hadst thou taken him, all had been -thine.’ ‘Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘would that I had -married King Grisly-beard!’ Next they came to some fine meadows. ‘Whose -are these beautiful green meadows?’ said she. ‘They belong to King -Grisly-beard, hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine.’ ‘Ah! -unlucky wretch that I am!’ said she; ‘would that I had married King -Grisly-beard!’ - -Then they came to a great city. ‘Whose is this noble city?’ said she. -‘It belongs to King Grisly-beard; hadst thou taken him, it had all been -thine.’ ‘Ah! wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘why did I not marry King -Grisly-beard?’ ‘That is no business of mine,’ said the fiddler: ‘why -should you wish for another husband? Am not I good enough for you?’ - -At last they came to a small cottage. ‘What a paltry place!’ said she; -‘to whom does that little dirty hole belong?’ Then the fiddler said, -‘That is your and my house, where we are to live.’ ‘Where are your -servants?’ cried she. ‘What do we want with servants?’ said he; ‘you -must do for yourself whatever is to be done. Now make the fire, and put -on water and cook my supper, for I am very tired.’ But the princess knew -nothing of making fires and cooking, and the fiddler was forced to help -her. When they had eaten a very scanty meal they went to bed; but the -fiddler called her up very early in the morning to clean the house. Thus -they lived for two days: and when they had eaten up all there was in the -cottage, the man said, ‘Wife, we can’t go on thus, spending money and -earning nothing. You must learn to weave baskets.’ Then he went out and -cut willows, and brought them home, and she began to weave; but it made -her fingers very sore. ‘I see this work won’t do,’ said he: ‘try and -spin; perhaps you will do that better.’ So she sat down and tried to -spin; but the threads cut her tender fingers till the blood ran. ‘See -now,’ said the fiddler, ‘you are good for nothing; you can do no work: -what a bargain I have got! However, I’ll try and set up a trade in pots -and pans, and you shall stand in the market and sell them.’ ‘Alas!’ -sighed she, ‘if any of my father’s court should pass by and see me -standing in the market, how they will laugh at me!’ - -But her husband did not care for that, and said she must work, if she -did not wish to die of hunger. At first the trade went well; for many -people, seeing such a beautiful woman, went to buy her wares, and paid -their money without thinking of taking away the goods. They lived on -this as long as it lasted; and then her husband bought a fresh lot of -ware, and she sat herself down with it in the corner of the market; but -a drunken soldier soon came by, and rode his horse against her stall, -and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces. Then she began to cry, -and knew not what to do. ‘Ah! what will become of me?’ said she; ‘what -will my husband say?’ So she ran home and told him all. ‘Who would -have thought you would have been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to put an -earthenware stall in the corner of the market, where everybody passes? -but let us have no more crying; I see you are not fit for this sort of -work, so I have been to the king’s palace, and asked if they did not -want a kitchen-maid; and they say they will take you, and there you will -have plenty to eat.’ - -Thus the princess became a kitchen-maid, and helped the cook to do all -the dirtiest work; but she was allowed to carry home some of the meat -that was left, and on this they lived. - -She had not been there long before she heard that the king’s eldest son -was passing by, going to be married; and she went to one of the windows -and looked out. Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of -the court was there. Then she bitterly grieved for the pride and folly -which had brought her so low. And the servants gave her some of the rich -meats, which she put into her basket to take home. - -All on a sudden, as she was going out, in came the king’s son in golden -clothes; and when he saw a beautiful woman at the door, he took her -by the hand, and said she should be his partner in the dance; but she -trembled for fear, for she saw that it was King Grisly-beard, who was -making sport of her. However, he kept fast hold, and led her in; and the -cover of the basket came off, so that the meats in it fell about. Then -everybody laughed and jeered at her; and she was so abashed, that she -wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth. She sprang to the -door to run away; but on the steps King Grisly-beard overtook her, and -brought her back and said, ‘Fear me not! I am the fiddler who has lived -with you in the hut. I brought you there because I really loved you. I -am also the soldier that overset your stall. I have done all this only -to cure you of your silly pride, and to show you the folly of your -ill-treatment of me. Now all is over: you have learnt wisdom, and it is -time to hold our marriage feast.’ - -Then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes; and -her father and his whole court were there already, and welcomed her home -on her marriage. Joy was in every face and every heart. The feast was -grand; they danced and sang; all were merry; and I only wish that you -and I had been of the party. - - - - -IRON HANS - - -There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near his -palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a -huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back. ‘Perhaps some -accident has befallen him,’ said the king, and the next day he sent out -two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away. -Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said: ‘Scour -the whole forest through, and do not give up until you have found all -three.’ But of these also, none came home again, none were seen again. -From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest, -and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen -of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted for -many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself to the king as -seeking a situation, and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The -king, however, would not give his consent, and said: ‘It is not safe in -there; I fear it would fare with you no better than with the others, -and you would never come out again.’ The huntsman replied: ‘Lord, I will -venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.’ - -The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was -not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to -pursue it; but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a -deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of -the water, seized it, and drew it under. When the huntsman saw that, he -went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bale out the -water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body -was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his -knees. They bound him with cords, and led him away to the castle. There -was great astonishment over the wild man; the king, however, had him put -in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened -on pain of death, and the queen herself was to take the key into her -keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the -forest with safety. - -The king had a son of eight years, who was once playing in the -courtyard, and while he was playing, his golden ball fell into the cage. -The boy ran thither and said: ‘Give me my ball out.’ ‘Not till you have -opened the door for me,’ answered the man. ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I will -not do that; the king has forbidden it,’ and ran away. The next day he -again went and asked for his ball; the wild man said: ‘Open my door,’ -but the boy would not. On the third day the king had ridden out hunting, -and the boy went once more and said: ‘I cannot open the door even if I -wished, for I have not the key.’ Then the wild man said: ‘It lies under -your mother’s pillow, you can get it there.’ The boy, who wanted to have -his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key. The -door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers. When it -was open the wild man stepped out, gave him the golden ball, and hurried -away. The boy had become afraid; he called and cried after him: ‘Oh, -wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!’ The wild man turned -back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps -into the forest. When the king came home, he observed the empty cage, -and asked the queen how that had happened. She knew nothing about it, -and sought the key, but it was gone. She called the boy, but no one -answered. The king sent out people to seek for him in the fields, but -they did not find him. Then he could easily guess what had happened, and -much grief reigned in the royal court. - -When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy -down from his shoulder, and said to him: ‘You will never see your father -and mother again, but I will keep you with me, for you have set me free, -and I have compassion on you. If you do all I bid you, you shall fare -well. Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the -world.’ He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the -next morning the man took him to a well, and said: ‘Behold, the gold -well is as bright and clear as crystal, you shall sit beside it, and -take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will -come every evening to see if you have obeyed my order.’ The boy placed -himself by the brink of the well, and often saw a golden fish or a -golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in. -As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he -involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw -that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold -off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron Hans came back, -looked at the boy, and said: ‘What has happened to the well?’ ‘Nothing -nothing,’ he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the -man might not see it. But he said: ‘You have dipped your finger into -the water, this time it may pass, but take care you do not again let -anything go in.’ By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and -watching it. His finger hurt him again and he passed it over his head, -and then unhappily a hair fell down into the well. He took it quickly -out, but it was already quite gilded. Iron Hans came, and already knew -what had happened. ‘You have let a hair fall into the well,’ said he. -‘I will allow you to watch by it once more, but if this happens for the -third time then the well is polluted and you can no longer remain with -me.’ - -On the third day, the boy sat by the well, and did not stir his finger, -however much it hurt him. But the time was long to him, and he looked at -the reflection of his face on the surface of the water. And as he -still bent down more and more while he was doing so, and trying to look -straight into the eyes, his long hair fell down from his shoulders into -the water. He raised himself up quickly, but the whole of the hair of -his head was already golden and shone like the sun. You can imagine how -terrified the poor boy was! He took his pocket-handkerchief and tied it -round his head, in order that the man might not see it. When he came he -already knew everything, and said: ‘Take the handkerchief off.’ Then the -golden hair streamed forth, and let the boy excuse himself as he might, -it was of no use. ‘You have not stood the trial and can stay here no -longer. Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is. -But as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is -one thing I will grant you; if you fall into any difficulty, come to the -forest and cry: “Iron Hans,” and then I will come and help you. My -power is great, greater than you think, and I have gold and silver in -abundance.’ - -Then the king’s son left the forest, and walked by beaten and unbeaten -paths ever onwards until at length he reached a great city. There he -looked for work, but could find none, and he learnt nothing by which he -could help himself. At length he went to the palace, and asked if they -would take him in. The people about court did not at all know what use -they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. At -length the cook took him into his service, and said he might carry wood -and water, and rake the cinders together. Once when it so happened that -no one else was at hand, the cook ordered him to carry the food to the -royal table, but as he did not like to let his golden hair be seen, he -kept his little cap on. Such a thing as that had never yet come under -the king’s notice, and he said: ‘When you come to the royal table you -must take your hat off.’ He answered: ‘Ah, Lord, I cannot; I have a bad -sore place on my head.’ Then the king had the cook called before him -and scolded him, and asked how he could take such a boy as that into his -service; and that he was to send him away at once. The cook, however, -had pity on him, and exchanged him for the gardener’s boy. - -And now the boy had to plant and water the garden, hoe and dig, and bear -the wind and bad weather. Once in summer when he was working alone in -the garden, the day was so warm he took his little cap off that the air -might cool him. As the sun shone on his hair it glittered and flashed so -that the rays fell into the bedroom of the king’s daughter, and up she -sprang to see what that could be. Then she saw the boy, and cried to -him: ‘Boy, bring me a wreath of flowers.’ He put his cap on with all -haste, and gathered wild field-flowers and bound them together. When he -was ascending the stairs with them, the gardener met him, and said: ‘How -can you take the king’s daughter a garland of such common flowers? Go -quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest.’ ‘Oh, -no,’ replied the boy, ‘the wild ones have more scent, and will please -her better.’ When he got into the room, the king’s daughter said: ‘Take -your cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence.’ He again -said: ‘I may not, I have a sore head.’ She, however, caught at his -cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his -shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she -held him by the arm, and gave him a handful of ducats. With these he -departed, but he cared nothing for the gold pieces. He took them to the -gardener, and said: ‘I present them to your children, they can play with -them.’ The following day the king’s daughter again called to him that he -was to bring her a wreath of field-flowers, and then he went in with it, -she instantly snatched at his cap, and wanted to take it away from him, -but he held it fast with both hands. She again gave him a handful of -ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for -playthings for his children. On the third day things went just the -same; she could not get his cap away from him, and he would not have her -money. - -Not long afterwards, the country was overrun by war. The king gathered -together his people, and did not know whether or not he could offer any -opposition to the enemy, who was superior in strength and had a mighty -army. Then said the gardener’s boy: ‘I am grown up, and will go to the -wars also, only give me a horse.’ The others laughed, and said: ‘Seek -one for yourself when we are gone, we will leave one behind us in the -stable for you.’ When they had gone forth, he went into the stable, and -led the horse out; it was lame of one foot, and limped hobblety jib, -hobblety jib; nevertheless he mounted it, and rode away to the dark -forest. When he came to the outskirts, he called ‘Iron Hans’ three -times so loudly that it echoed through the trees. Thereupon the wild man -appeared immediately, and said: ‘What do you desire?’ ‘I want a strong -steed, for I am going to the wars.’ ‘That you shall have, and still more -than you ask for.’ Then the wild man went back into the forest, and it -was not long before a stable-boy came out of it, who led a horse that -snorted with its nostrils, and could hardly be restrained, and behind -them followed a great troop of warriors entirely equipped in iron, and -their swords flashed in the sun. The youth made over his three-legged -horse to the stable-boy, mounted the other, and rode at the head of the -soldiers. When he got near the battlefield a great part of the king’s -men had already fallen, and little was wanting to make the rest give -way. Then the youth galloped thither with his iron soldiers, broke like -a hurricane over the enemy, and beat down all who opposed him. They -began to flee, but the youth pursued, and never stopped, until there -was not a single man left. Instead of returning to the king, however, he -conducted his troop by byways back to the forest, and called forth Iron -Hans. ‘What do you desire?’ asked the wild man. ‘Take back your horse -and your troops, and give me my three-legged horse again.’ All that he -asked was done, and soon he was riding on his three-legged horse. When -the king returned to his palace, his daughter went to meet him, and -wished him joy of his victory. ‘I am not the one who carried away the -victory,’ said he, ‘but a strange knight who came to my assistance with -his soldiers.’ The daughter wanted to hear who the strange knight was, -but the king did not know, and said: ‘He followed the enemy, and I did -not see him again.’ She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but -he smiled, and said: ‘He has just come home on his three-legged horse, -and the others have been mocking him, and crying: “Here comes our -hobblety jib back again!” They asked, too: “Under what hedge have you -been lying sleeping all the time?” So he said: “I did the best of all, -and it would have gone badly without me.” And then he was still more -ridiculed.’ - -The king said to his daughter: ‘I will proclaim a great feast that shall -last for three days, and you shall throw a golden apple. Perhaps the -unknown man will show himself.’ When the feast was announced, the youth -went out to the forest, and called Iron Hans. ‘What do you desire?’ -asked he. ‘That I may catch the king’s daughter’s golden apple.’ ‘It is -as safe as if you had it already,’ said Iron Hans. ‘You shall likewise -have a suit of red armour for the occasion, and ride on a spirited -chestnut-horse.’ When the day came, the youth galloped to the spot, took -his place amongst the knights, and was recognized by no one. The king’s -daughter came forward, and threw a golden apple to the knights, but none -of them caught it but he, only as soon as he had it he galloped away. - -On the second day Iron Hans equipped him as a white knight, and gave him -a white horse. Again he was the only one who caught the apple, and -he did not linger an instant, but galloped off with it. The king grew -angry, and said: ‘That is not allowed; he must appear before me and tell -his name.’ He gave the order that if the knight who caught the apple, -should go away again they should pursue him, and if he would not come -back willingly, they were to cut him down and stab him. - -On the third day, he received from Iron Hans a suit of black armour and -a black horse, and again he caught the apple. But when he was riding off -with it, the king’s attendants pursued him, and one of them got so near -him that he wounded the youth’s leg with the point of his sword. The -youth nevertheless escaped from them, but his horse leapt so violently -that the helmet fell from the youth’s head, and they could see that he -had golden hair. They rode back and announced this to the king. - -The following day the king’s daughter asked the gardener about his -boy. ‘He is at work in the garden; the queer creature has been at the -festival too, and only came home yesterday evening; he has likewise -shown my children three golden apples which he has won.’ - -The king had him summoned into his presence, and he came and again had -his little cap on his head. But the king’s daughter went up to him and -took it off, and then his golden hair fell down over his shoulders, and -he was so handsome that all were amazed. ‘Are you the knight who came -every day to the festival, always in different colours, and who caught -the three golden apples?’ asked the king. ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘and here -the apples are,’ and he took them out of his pocket, and returned them -to the king. ‘If you desire further proof, you may see the wound which -your people gave me when they followed me. But I am likewise the knight -who helped you to your victory over your enemies.’ ‘If you can perform -such deeds as that, you are no gardener’s boy; tell me, who is your -father?’ ‘My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great -as I require.’ ‘I well see,’ said the king, ‘that I owe my thanks to -you; can I do anything to please you?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘that indeed -you can. Give me your daughter to wife.’ The maiden laughed, and said: -‘He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his -golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy,’ and then she went and -kissed him. His father and mother came to the wedding, and were in great -delight, for they had given up all hope of ever seeing their dear -son again. And as they were sitting at the marriage-feast, the music -suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a -great retinue. He went up to the youth, embraced him and said: ‘I am -Iron Hans, and was by enchantment a wild man, but you have set me free; -all the treasures which I possess, shall be your property.’ - - - - -CAT-SKIN - - -There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was -so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of -the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her -end drew near she called the king to her and said, ‘Promise me that you -will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful -as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.’ Then when the king in his -grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died. But the king -was not to be comforted, and for a long time never thought of taking -another wife. At last, however, his wise men said, ‘this will not do; -the king must marry again, that we may have a queen.’ So messengers were -sent far and wide, to seek for a bride as beautiful as the late queen. -But there was no princess in the world so beautiful; and if there had -been, still there was not one to be found who had golden hair. So the -messengers came home, and had had all their trouble for nothing. - -Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother, -and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king looked -at her and saw that she was just like this late queen: then he said to -his courtiers, ‘May I not marry my daughter? She is the very image of my -dead wife: unless I have her, I shall not find any bride upon the whole -earth, and you say there must be a queen.’ When the courtiers heard this -they were shocked, and said, ‘Heaven forbid that a father should marry -his daughter! Out of so great a sin no good can come.’ And his daughter -was also shocked, but hoped the king would soon give up such thoughts; -so she said to him, ‘Before I marry anyone I must have three dresses: -one must be of gold, like the sun; another must be of shining silver, -like the moon; and a third must be dazzling as the stars: besides this, -I want a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur put together, to -which every beast in the kingdom must give a part of his skin.’ And thus -she thought he would think of the matter no more. But the king made the -most skilful workmen in his kingdom weave the three dresses: one golden, -like the sun; another silvery, like the moon; and a third sparkling, -like the stars: and his hunters were told to hunt out all the beasts in -his kingdom, and to take the finest fur out of their skins: and thus a -mantle of a thousand furs was made. - -When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the -night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden -ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three -dresses--of the sun, the moon, and the stars--up in a nutshell, and -wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared -her face and hands with soot. Then she threw herself upon Heaven for -help in her need, and went away, and journeyed on the whole night, till -at last she came to a large wood. As she was very tired, she sat herself -down in the hollow of a tree and soon fell asleep: and there she slept -on till it was midday. - -Now as the king to whom the wood belonged was hunting in it, his dogs -came to the tree, and began to snuff about, and run round and round, and -bark. ‘Look sharp!’ said the king to the huntsmen, ‘and see what sort -of game lies there.’ And the huntsmen went up to the tree, and when they -came back again said, ‘In the hollow tree there lies a most wonderful -beast, such as we never saw before; its skin seems to be of a thousand -kinds of fur, but there it lies fast asleep.’ ‘See,’ said the king, ‘if -you can catch it alive, and we will take it with us.’ So the huntsmen -took it up, and the maiden awoke and was greatly frightened, and said, -‘I am a poor child that has neither father nor mother left; have pity on -me and take me with you.’ Then they said, ‘Yes, Miss Cat-skin, you will -do for the kitchen; you can sweep up the ashes, and do things of that -sort.’ So they put her into the coach, and took her home to the king’s -palace. Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where -no light of day ever peeped in, and said, ‘Cat-skin, you may lie and -sleep there.’ And she was sent into the kitchen, and made to fetch wood -and water, to blow the fire, pluck the poultry, pick the herbs, sift the -ashes, and do all the dirty work. - -Thus Cat-skin lived for a long time very sorrowfully. ‘Ah! pretty -princess!’ thought she, ‘what will now become of thee?’ But it happened -one day that a feast was to be held in the king’s castle, so she said to -the cook, ‘May I go up a little while and see what is going on? I will -take care and stand behind the door.’ And the cook said, ‘Yes, you may -go, but be back again in half an hour’s time, to rake out the ashes.’ -Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the -fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her -beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds. She next opened -her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun, -and so went to the feast. Everyone made way for her, for nobody knew -her, and they thought she could be no less than a king’s daughter. But -the king came up to her, and held out his hand and danced with her; and -he thought in his heart, ‘I never saw any one half so beautiful.’ - -When the dance was at an end she curtsied; and when the king looked -round for her, she was gone, no one knew wither. The guards that stood -at the castle gate were called in: but they had seen no one. The truth -was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress, -blackened her face and hands, put on the fur-skin cloak, and was -Cat-skin again. When she went into the kitchen to her work, and began -to rake the ashes, the cook said, ‘Let that alone till the morning, and -heat the king’s soup; I should like to run up now and give a peep: but -take care you don’t let a hair fall into it, or you will run a chance of -never eating again.’ - -As soon as the cook went away, Cat-skin heated the king’s soup, and -toasted a slice of bread first, as nicely as ever she could; and when it -was ready, she went and looked in the cabin for her little golden ring, -and put it into the dish in which the soup was. When the dance was over, -the king ordered his soup to be brought in; and it pleased him so well, -that he thought he had never tasted any so good before. At the bottom -he saw a gold ring lying; and as he could not make out how it had got -there, he ordered the cook to be sent for. The cook was frightened when -he heard the order, and said to Cat-skin, ‘You must have let a hair fall -into the soup; if it be so, you will have a good beating.’ Then he went -before the king, and he asked him who had cooked the soup. ‘I did,’ -answered the cook. But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better -done than you could do it.’ Then he answered, ‘To tell the truth I did -not cook it, but Cat-skin did.’ ‘Then let Cat-skin come up,’ said the -king: and when she came he said to her, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am a poor -child,’ said she, ‘that has lost both father and mother.’ ‘How came you -in my palace?’ asked he. ‘I am good for nothing,’ said she, ‘but to be -scullion-girl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.’ ‘But how -did you get the ring that was in the soup?’ asked the king. Then she -would not own that she knew anything about the ring; so the king sent -her away again about her business. - -After a time there was another feast, and Cat-skin asked the cook to let -her go up and see it as before. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but come again in half -an hour, and cook the king the soup that he likes so much.’ Then she -ran to her little cabin, washed herself quickly, and took her dress -out which was silvery as the moon, and put it on; and when she went in, -looking like a king’s daughter, the king went up to her, and rejoiced at -seeing her again, and when the dance began he danced with her. After the -dance was at an end she managed to slip out, so slyly that the king did -not see where she was gone; but she sprang into her little cabin, and -made herself into Cat-skin again, and went into the kitchen to cook the -soup. Whilst the cook was above stairs, she got the golden necklace and -dropped it into the soup; then it was brought to the king, who ate it, -and it pleased him as well as before; so he sent for the cook, who -was again forced to tell him that Cat-skin had cooked it. Cat-skin was -brought again before the king, but she still told him that she was only -fit to have boots and shoes thrown at her head. - -But when the king had ordered a feast to be got ready for the third -time, it happened just the same as before. ‘You must be a witch, -Cat-skin,’ said the cook; ‘for you always put something into your soup, -so that it pleases the king better than mine.’ However, he let her go up -as before. Then she put on her dress which sparkled like the stars, and -went into the ball-room in it; and the king danced with her again, and -thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then. So whilst -he was dancing with her, he put a gold ring on her finger without her -seeing it, and ordered that the dance should be kept up a long time. -When it was at an end, he would have held her fast by the hand, but she -slipped away, and sprang so quickly through the crowd that he lost sight -of her: and she ran as fast as she could into her little cabin under -the stairs. But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the -half-hour; so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her -fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over -with soot, but left one of her fingers white. - -Then she ran into the kitchen, and cooked the king’s soup; and as soon -as the cook was gone, she put the golden brooch into the dish. When the -king got to the bottom, he ordered Cat-skin to be called once more, and -soon saw the white finger, and the ring that he had put on it whilst -they were dancing: so he seized her hand, and kept fast hold of it, and -when she wanted to loose herself and spring away, the fur cloak fell off -a little on one side, and the starry dress sparkled underneath it. - -Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and -beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself: so she -washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the -most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth. But the king said, -‘You are my beloved bride, and we will never more be parted from each -other.’ And the wedding feast was held, and a merry day it was, as ever -was heard of or seen in that country, or indeed in any other. - - - - -SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED - - -There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of -the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore -white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the -two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose-red. -They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children -in the world were, only Snow-white was more quiet and gentle than -Rose-red. Rose-red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields -seeking flowers and catching butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home -with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when -there was nothing to do. - -The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each -other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said: -‘We will not leave each other,’ Rose-red answered: ‘Never so long as we -live,’ and their mother would add: ‘What one has she must share with the -other.’ - -They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no -beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little -hare would eat a cabbage-leaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by -their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon -the boughs, and sang whatever they knew. - -No mishap overtook them; if they had stayed too late in the forest, and -night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss, -and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not -worry on their account. - -Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused -them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near -their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing -and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that -they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly -have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces -further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who -watches over good children. - -Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s little cottage so neat that -it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care -of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother’s -bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter -Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle -was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the -evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: ‘Go, Snow-white, and -bolt the door,’ and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took -her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls -listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the -floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head -hidden beneath its wings. - -One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone -knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said: -‘Quick, Rose-red, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking -shelter.’ Rose-red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a -poor man, but it was not; it was a bear that stretched his broad, black -head within the door. - -Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, -and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. But the bear began -to speak and said: ‘Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am -half-frozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.’ - -‘Poor bear,’ said the mother, ‘lie down by the fire, only take care that -you do not burn your coat.’ Then she cried: ‘Snow-white, Rose-red, come -out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.’ So they both came -out, and by-and-by the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid -of him. The bear said: ‘Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a -little’; so they brought the broom and swept the bear’s hide clean; -and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and -comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played -tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands, -put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a -hazel-switch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the -bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called -out: ‘Leave me alive, children, - - Snow-white, Rose-red, - Will you beat your wooer dead?’ - -When it was bed-time, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the -bear: ‘You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from -the cold and the bad weather.’ As soon as day dawned the two children -let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest. - -Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself -down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as -much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were -never fastened until their black friend had arrived. - -When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one -morning to Snow-white: ‘Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the -whole summer.’ ‘Where are you going, then, dear bear?’ asked Snow-white. -‘I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked -dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged -to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun -has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to -pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, -does not easily see daylight again.’ - -Snow-white was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the -door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt -and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white -as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about -it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the -trees. - -A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest -to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the -ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and -forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When -they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a -snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a -crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog -tied to a rope, and did not know what to do. - -He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried: ‘Why do you -stand there? Can you not come here and help me?’ ‘What are you up to, -little man?’ asked Rose-red. ‘You stupid, prying goose!’ answered the -dwarf: ‘I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. -The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with -heavy logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had -just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished; -but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the -tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white -beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, -milk-faced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!’ - -The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it -was caught too fast. ‘I will run and fetch someone,’ said Rose-red. ‘You -senseless goose!’ snarled the dwarf; ‘why should you fetch someone? You -are already two too many for me; can you not think of something better?’ -‘Don’t be impatient,’ said Snow-white, ‘I will help you,’ and she pulled -her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard. - -As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay -amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it -up, grumbling to himself: ‘Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine -beard. Bad luck to you!’ and then he swung the bag upon his back, and -went off without even once looking at the children. - -Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish -of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large -grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in. -They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. ‘Where are you going?’ said -Rose-red; ‘you surely don’t want to go into the water?’ ‘I am not such -a fool!’ cried the dwarf; ‘don’t you see that the accursed fish wants -to pull me in?’ The little man had been sitting there fishing, and -unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing-line; a -moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not -strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the -dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of -little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and -was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water. - -The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his -beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast -together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut -the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that -he screamed out: ‘Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man’s -face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have -cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. -I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took -out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word -he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone. - -It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the -town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them -across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There -they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and -round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a -rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran -up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance -the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. - -The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man, -and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go. -As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried -with his shrill voice: ‘Could you not have done it more carefully! You -dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you -clumsy creatures!’ Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and -slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by -this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their -business in town. - -As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the -dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, -and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening -sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with -all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared -at them. ‘Why do you stand gaping there?’ cried the dwarf, and his -ashen-grey face became copper-red with rage. He was still cursing when a -loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out -of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach -his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart -he cried: ‘Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures; -look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you -want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me -between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender -morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy’s sake eat them!’ The -bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single -blow with his paw, and he did not move again. - -The girls had run away, but the bear called to them: ‘Snow-white and -Rose-red, do not be afraid; wait, I will come with you.’ Then they -recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly -his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in -gold. ‘I am a king’s son,’ he said, ‘and I was bewitched by that wicked -dwarf, who had stolen my treasures; I have had to run about the forest -as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his -well-deserved punishment. - -Snow-white was married to him, and Rose-red to his brother, and they -divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered -together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with -her children for many years. She took the two rose-trees with her, and -they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful -roses, white and red. - -Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - -CHAPTER I. -Down the Rabbit-Hole - - -Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the -bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into -the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or -conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice -“without pictures or conversations?” - -So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the -hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of -making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and -picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran -close by her. - -There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it -so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh -dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, -it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the -time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually _took a -watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried -on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she -had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a -watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the -field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a -large rabbit-hole under the hedge. - -In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how -in the world she was to get out again. - -The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then -dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think -about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very -deep well. - -Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had -plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what -was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out -what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she -looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with -cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures -hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she -passed; it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great -disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear -of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the -cupboards as she fell past it. - -“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall -think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me -at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the -top of the house!” (Which was very likely true.) - -Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? “I wonder how -many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be -getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would -be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for, you see, Alice had learnt -several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and -though this was not a _very_ good opportunity for showing off her -knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good -practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the right distance—but -then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had no -idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice -grand words to say.) - -Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right _through_ -the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk -with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather -glad there _was_ no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all -the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the -country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?” -(and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy _curtseying_ as you’re -falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) “And what -an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do -to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” - -Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began -talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” -(Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at -tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are -no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s -very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here -Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a -dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and -sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer -either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt -that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was -walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, -“Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, -thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and -the fall was over. - -Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: -she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another -long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down -it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, -and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears -and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she -turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found -herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging -from the roof. - -There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when -Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every -door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to -get out again. - -Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid -glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s -first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; -but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, -but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second -time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and -behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the -little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! - -Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not -much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the -passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get -out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright -flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head -through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought -poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, -how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only -knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had -happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things -indeed were really impossible. - -There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went -back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at -any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this -time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here -before,” said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper -label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large -letters. - -It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was -not going to do _that_ in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, -“and see whether it’s marked ‘_poison_’ or not”; for she had read -several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and -eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they -_would_ not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: -such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; -and that if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually -bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a -bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you, -sooner or later. - -However, this bottle was _not_ marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to -taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed -flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and -hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a -telescope.” - -And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face -brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going -through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she -waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: -she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,” -said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I -wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the -flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could -not remember ever having seen such a thing. - -After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going -into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the -door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she -went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach -it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her -best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; -and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing -sat down and cried. - -“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself, -rather sharply; “I advise you to leave off this minute!” She generally -gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), -and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into -her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having -cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, -for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. -“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two -people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make _one_ respectable -person!” - -Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: -she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words -“EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said -Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it -makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll -get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” - -She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which -way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was -growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same -size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice -had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way -things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go -on in the common way. - -So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - - - -CHAPTER II. -The Pool of Tears - - -“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that -for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m -opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” -(for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of -sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I -wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m -sure _I_ shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble -myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be -kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I -want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every -Christmas.” - -And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must -go by the carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending -presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! - - _Alice’s Right Foot, Esq., Hearthrug, near the Fender,_ (_with - Alice’s love_). - -Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!” - -Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was -now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden -key and hurried off to the garden door. - -Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to -look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more -hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. - -“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like -you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop -this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding -gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about -four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. - -After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and -she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White -Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves -in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a -great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh! the Duchess, the -Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt -so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the -Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, -sir—” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and -the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. - -Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she -kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How -queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. -I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the -same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling -a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who -in the world am I? Ah, _that’s_ the great puzzle!” And she began -thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as -herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. - -“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long -ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t -be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a -very little! Besides, _she’s_ she, and _I’m_ I, and—oh dear, how -puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. -Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, -and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that -rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try -Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of -Rome, and Rome—no, _that’s_ all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been -changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘_How doth the little_—’” and she -crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began -to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words -did not come the same as they used to do:— - -“How doth the little crocodile - Improve his shining tail, -And pour the waters of the Nile - On every golden scale! - -“How cheerfully he seems to grin, - How neatly spread his claws, -And welcome little fishes in - With gently smiling jaws!” - - -“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes -filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and -I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to -no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve -made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be -no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ -I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and -then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down -here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden -burst of tears, “I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so -_very_ tired of being all alone here!” - -As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see -that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while -she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be -growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure -herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was -now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon -found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she -dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. - -“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the -sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and -now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little -door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden -key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than -ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this -before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” - -As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, -splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that -she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by -railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in -her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go -to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the -sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row -of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she -soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when -she was nine feet high. - -“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying -to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by -being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be -sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” - -Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way -off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought -it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small -she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had -slipped in like herself. - -“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? -Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very -likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she -began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired -of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right -way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but -she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of -a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather -inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, -but it said nothing. - -“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s -a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all -her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago -anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which -was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a -sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with -fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she -had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like -cats.” - -“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would -_you_ like cats if you were me?” - -“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry -about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d -take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear -quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about -in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her -paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to -nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your -pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all -over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. “We won’t talk -about her any more if you’d rather not.” - -“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his -tail. “As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always -_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name -again!” - -“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of -conversation. “Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?” The Mouse did not -answer, so Alice went on eagerly: “There is such a nice little dog near -our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you -know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when -you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts -of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you -know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says -it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, -“I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away -from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the -pool as it went. - -So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we -won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the -Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face -was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low -trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my -history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” - -It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the -birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a -Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice -led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. - - - - -CHAPTER III. -A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale - - -They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the -birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close -to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. - -The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a -consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite -natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if -she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument -with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, “I am -older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would not allow -without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to -tell its age, there was no more to be said. - -At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, -called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! _I’ll_ soon make -you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the -Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she -felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. - -“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This -is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William -the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted -to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much -accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of -Mercia and Northumbria—’” - -“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver. - -“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did -you speak?” - -“Not I!” said the Lory hastily. - -“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “—I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, -the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even -Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’” - -“Found _what_?” said the Duck. - -“Found _it_,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know -what ‘it’ means.” - -“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when _I_ find a thing,” said the -Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the -archbishop find?” - -The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘—found -it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him -the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence -of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, -turning to Alice as it spoke. - -“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to -dry me at all.” - -“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move -that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic -remedies—” - -“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half -those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And -the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds -tittered audibly. - -“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, -that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.” - -“What _is_ a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she wanted much to -know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that _somebody_ ought to -speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. - -“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, -as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will -tell you how the Dodo managed it.) - -First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact -shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed -along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and -away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they -liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, -when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry -again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all -crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?” - -This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of -thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its -forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the -pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo -said, “_Everybody_ has won, and all must have prizes.” - -“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked. - -“Why, _she_, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one -finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a -confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” - -Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her -pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had -not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly -one a-piece, all round. - -“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse. - -“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in -your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice. - -“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. - -“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. - -Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly -presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant -thimble;” and, when it had finished this short speech, they all -cheered. - -Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave -that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything -to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as -she could. - -The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and -confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste -theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. -However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and -begged the Mouse to tell them something more. - -“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why -it is you hate—C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that it -would be offended again. - -“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and -sighing. - -“It _is_ a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder -at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on -puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the -tale was something like this:— - - “Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, ‘Let us both - go to law: _I_ will prosecute _you_.—Come, I’ll take no - denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I’ve - nothing to do.’ Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear - sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’ - ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ Said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll - try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.’” - -“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice severely. “What are -you thinking of?” - -“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the fifth -bend, I think?” - -“I had _not!_” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. - -“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking -anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!” - -“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and -walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!” - -“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily offended, -you know!” - -The Mouse only growled in reply. - -“Please come back and finish your story!” Alice called after it; and -the others all joined in chorus, “Yes, please do!” but the Mouse only -shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. - -“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it was -quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to -her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose -_your_ temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, a little -snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!” - -“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, -addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!” - -“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the -Lory. - -Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: -“Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice you -can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, -she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” - -This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the -birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very -carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home; the night-air -doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice -to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in -bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left -alone. - -“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a melancholy -tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best -cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you -any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very -lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a -little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up -eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was -coming back to finish his story. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. -The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill - - -It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking -anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard -it muttering to itself “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh -my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are -ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a -moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid -gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but -they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since -her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the -little door, had vanished completely. - -Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and -called out to her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you -doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and -a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off -at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the -mistake it had made. - -“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How -surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him -his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she -came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass -plate with the name “W. RABBIT,” engraved upon it. She went in without -knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the -real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the -fan and gloves. - -“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for -a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” And she -began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “‘Miss Alice! Come -here directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, -nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I -don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in the house -if it began ordering people about like that!” - -By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table -in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three -pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the -gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a -little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label -this time with the words “DRINK ME,” but nevertheless she uncorked it -and put it to her lips. “I know _something_ interesting is sure to -happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink anything; so -I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large -again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!” - -It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had -drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, -and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put -down the bottle, saying to herself “That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t -grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t -drunk quite so much!” - -Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, -and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there -was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with -one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. -Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out -of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself “Now I -can do no more, whatever happens. What _will_ become of me?” - -Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, -and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there -seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room -again, no wonder she felt unhappy. - -“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t -always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and -rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and -yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what -_can_ have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied -that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of -one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And -when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,” she added in a -sorrowful tone; “at least there’s no room to grow up any more _here_.” - -“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I _never_ get any older than I am -now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but -then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like _that!_” - -“Oh, you foolish Alice!” she answered herself. “How can you learn -lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for _you_, and no room at all -for any lesson-books!” - -And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and -making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes -she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. - -“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. “Fetch me my gloves this moment!” -Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was -the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the -house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as -large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. - -Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as -the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, -that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself “Then I’ll -go round and get in at the window.” - -“_That_ you won’t!” thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied -she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her -hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, -but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, -from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a -cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. - -Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And -then a voice she had never heard before, “Sure then I’m here! Digging -for apples, yer honour!” - -“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rabbit angrily. “Here! Come and -help me out of _this!_” (Sounds of more broken glass.) - -“Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?” - -“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!” (He pronounced it “arrum.”) - -“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole -window!” - -“Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.” - -“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!” - -There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers -now and then; such as, “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at -all!” “Do as I tell you, you coward!” and at last she spread out her -hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were -_two_ little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “What a number -of cucumber-frames there must be!” thought Alice. “I wonder what -they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they -_could!_ I’m sure _I_ don’t want to stay in here any longer!” - -She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a -rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all -talking together: she made out the words: “Where’s the other -ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! -fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em -together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do -well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this -rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! -Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I -fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, _I_ shan’t! _You_ do -it!—_That_ I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says -you’re to go down the chimney!” - -“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to -herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in -Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but -I _think_ I can kick a little!” - -She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till -she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) -scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, -saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited -to see what would happen next. - -The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” -then the Rabbit’s voice along—“Catch him, you by the hedge!” then -silence, and then another confusion of voices—“Hold up his head—Brandy -now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell -us all about it!” - -Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (“That’s Bill,” thought -Alice,) “Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m -a deal too flustered to tell you—all I know is, something comes at me -like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!” - -“So you did, old fellow!” said the others. - -“We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice -called out as loud as she could, “If you do, I’ll set Dinah at you!” - -There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, “I -wonder what they _will_ do next! If they had any sense, they’d take the -roof off.” After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and -Alice heard the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin with.” - -“A barrowful of _what?_” thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, -for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the -window, and some of them hit her in the face. “I’ll put a stop to -this,” she said to herself, and shouted out, “You’d better not do that -again!” which produced another dead silence. - -Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into -little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her -head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’s sure to make -_some_ change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it -must make me smaller, I suppose.” - -So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she -began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get -through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of -little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, -was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it -something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she -appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself -safe in a thick wood. - -“The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice to herself, as she -wandered about in the wood, “is to grow to my right size again; and the -second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that -will be the best plan.” - -It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply -arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea -how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among -the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a -great hurry. - -An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and -feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor little -thing!” said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to -it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it -might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in -spite of all her coaxing. - -Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and -held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off -all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, -and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, -to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the -other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head -over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was -very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every -moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then -the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very -little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely -all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with -its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. - -This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she -set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, -and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the distance. - -“And yet what a dear little puppy it was!” said Alice, as she leant -against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the -leaves: “I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d -only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that -I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see—how _is_ it to be managed? I -suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great -question is, what?” - -The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at -the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that -looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. -There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as -herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and -behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what -was on the top of it. - -She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the -mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue -caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly -smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of -anything else. - - - - -CHAPTER V. -Advice from a Caterpillar - - -The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in -silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and -addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. - -“Who are _you?_” said the Caterpillar. - -This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, -rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know -who I _was_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been -changed several times since then.” - -“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain -yourself!” - -“I can’t explain _myself_, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m -not myself, you see.” - -“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. - -“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, -“for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many -different sizes in a day is very confusing.” - -“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you -have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then -after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little -queer, won’t you?” - -“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know -is, it would feel very queer to _me_.” - -“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are _you?_” - -Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. -Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such _very_ -short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I -think, you ought to tell me who _you_ are, first.” - -“Why?” said the Caterpillar. - -Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any -good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a _very_ unpleasant -state of mind, she turned away. - -“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something -important to say!” - -This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. - -“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she -could. - -“No,” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, -and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For -some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded -its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you -think you’re changed, do you?” - -“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can’t remember things as I -used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!” - -“Can’t remember _what_ things?” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all -came different!” Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. - -“Repeat, “_You are old, Father William_,’” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice folded her hands, and began:— - -“You are old, Father William,” the young man said, - “And your hair has become very white; -And yet you incessantly stand on your head— - Do you think, at your age, it is right?” - -“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, - “I feared it might injure the brain; -But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, - Why, I do it again and again.” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before, - And have grown most uncommonly fat; -Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— - Pray, what is the reason of that?” - -“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, - “I kept all my limbs very supple -By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— - Allow me to sell you a couple?” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak - For anything tougher than suet; -Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak— - Pray, how did you manage to do it?” - -“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law, - And argued each case with my wife; -And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, - Has lasted the rest of my life.” - -“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose - That your eye was as steady as ever; -Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— - What made you so awfully clever?” - -“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” - Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs! -Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? - Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!” - - -“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. - -“Not _quite_ right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly; “some of the -words have got altered.” - -“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, -and there was silence for some minutes. - -The Caterpillar was the first to speak. - -“What size do you want to be?” it asked. - -“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily replied; “only one -doesn’t like changing so often, you know.” - -“I _don’t_ know,” said the Caterpillar. - -Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life -before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. - -“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. - -“Well, I should like to be a _little_ larger, sir, if you wouldn’t -mind,” said Alice: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.” - -“It is a very good height indeed!” said the Caterpillar angrily, -rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). - -“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she -thought of herself, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily -offended!” - -“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Caterpillar; and it put the -hookah into its mouth and began smoking again. - -This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a -minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and -yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the -mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, -“One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you -grow shorter.” - -“One side of _what?_ The other side of _what?_” thought Alice to -herself. - -“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it -aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight. - -Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, -trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was -perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at -last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke -off a bit of the edge with each hand. - -“And now which is which?” she said to herself, and nibbled a little of -the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a -violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot! - -She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt -that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she -set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed -so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her -mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the -lefthand bit. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which -changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders -were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was -an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a -sea of green leaves that lay far below her. - -“What _can_ all that green stuff be?” said Alice. “And where _have_ my -shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” -She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, -except a little shaking among the distant green leaves. - -As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, -she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that -her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She -had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was -going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but -the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp -hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her -face, and was beating her violently with its wings. - -“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon. - -“I’m _not_ a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. “Let me alone!” - -“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued -tone, and added with a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, and nothing -seems to suit them!” - -“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,” said Alice. - -“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried -hedges,” the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; “but those -serpents! There’s no pleasing them!” - -Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in -saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished. - -“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the Pigeon; -“but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I -haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!” - -“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said Alice, who was beginning to -see its meaning. - -“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the -Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I -should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down -from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!” - -“But I’m _not_ a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—” - -“Well! _What_ are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to -invent something!” - -“I—I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered -the number of changes she had gone through that day. - -“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest -contempt. “I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never -_one_ with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s -no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never -tasted an egg!” - -“I _have_ tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who was a very truthful -child; “but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you -know.” - -“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but if they do, why then -they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.” - -This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a -minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, “You’re -looking for eggs, I know _that_ well enough; and what does it matter to -me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” - -“It matters a good deal to _me_,” said Alice hastily; “but I’m not -looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want -_yours_: I don’t like them raw.” - -“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled -down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well -as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, -and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while -she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, -and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at -the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until -she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. - -It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it -felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, -and began talking to herself, as usual. “Come, there’s half my plan -done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m -going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my -right size: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how -_is_ that to be done, I wonder?” As she said this, she came suddenly -upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. -“Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it’ll never do to come upon them -_this_ size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she -began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go -near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. -Pig and Pepper - - -For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what -to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the -wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: -otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a -fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by -another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a -frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled -all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all -about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. - -The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, -nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, -saying, in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the -Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn -tone, only changing the order of the words a little, “From the Queen. -An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.” - -Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. - -Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood -for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the -Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the -door, staring stupidly up into the sky. - -Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. - -“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for -two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you -are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could -possibly hear you.” And certainly there _was_ a most extraordinary -noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now -and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to -pieces. - -“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?” - -“There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on -without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, -if you were _inside_, you might knock, and I could let you out, you -know.” He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and -this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” -she said to herself; “his eyes are so _very_ nearly at the top of his -head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?” -she repeated, aloud. - -“I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “till tomorrow—” - -At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came -skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, -and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. - -“—or next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly -as if nothing had happened. - -“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone. - -“_Are_ you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first -question, you know.” - -It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. “It’s really -dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures argue. -It’s enough to drive one crazy!” - -The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his -remark, with variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on and off, for -days and days.” - -“But what am _I_ to do?” said Alice. - -“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling. - -“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s -perfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in. - -The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from -one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool -in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, -stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. - -“There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to -herself, as well as she could for sneezing. - -There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed -occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling -alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen -that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting -on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. - -“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was -not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why -your cat grins like that?” - -“It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!” - -She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite -jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the -baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:— - -“I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t -know that cats _could_ grin.” - -“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.” - -“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite -pleased to have got into a conversation. - -“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.” - -Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would -be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she -was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the -fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at -the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a -shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of -them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, -that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. - -“Oh, _please_ mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down -in an agony of terror. “Oh, there goes his _precious_ nose!” as an -unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it -off. - -“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse -growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” - -“Which would _not_ be an advantage,” said Alice, who felt very glad to -get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. “Just -think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the -earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” - -“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!” - -Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take -the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to -be listening, so she went on again: “Twenty-four hours, I _think_; or -is it twelve? I—” - -“Oh, don’t bother _me_,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide -figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a -sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at -the end of every line: - -“Speak roughly to your little boy, - And beat him when he sneezes: -He only does it to annoy, - Because he knows it teases.” - - -CHORUS. -(In which the cook and the baby joined): - - -“Wow! wow! wow!” - - -While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing -the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, -that Alice could hardly hear the words:— - -“I speak severely to my boy, - I beat him when he sneezes; -For he can thoroughly enjoy - The pepper when he pleases!” - - -CHORUS. - - -“Wow! wow! wow!” - - -“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, -flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play -croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook -threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. - -Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped -little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, -“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was -snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling -itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for -the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. - -As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to -twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right -ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it -out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” -thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be -murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the -little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). -“Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of -expressing yourself.” - -The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face -to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had -a _very_ turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also -its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did -not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only -sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there -were any tears. - -No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” -said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind -now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible -to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. - -Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do -with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so -violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time -there could be _no_ mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than -a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it -further. - -So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it -trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to -herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes -rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other -children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying -to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she -was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of -a tree a few yards off. - -The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she -thought: still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she -felt that it ought to be treated with respect. - -“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know -whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little -wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. -“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” - -“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. - -“I don’t much care where—” said Alice. - -“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. - -“—so long as I get _somewhere_,” Alice added as an explanation. - -“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long -enough.” - -Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another -question. “What sort of people live about here?” - -“In _that_ direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives -a Hatter: and in _that_ direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a -March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” - -“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. - -“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. -You’re mad.” - -“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. - -“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” - -Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how -do you know that you’re mad?” - -“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” - -“I suppose so,” said Alice. - -“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, -and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now _I_ growl when I’m pleased, -and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” - -“_I_ call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. - -“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the -Queen to-day?” - -“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited -yet.” - -“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished. - -Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer -things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, -it suddenly appeared again. - -“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly -forgotten to ask.” - -“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back -in a natural way. - -“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again. - -Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not -appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in -which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she -said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and -perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it -was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat -again, sitting on a branch of a tree. - -“Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat. - -“I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing -and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” - -“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, -beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which -remained some time after the rest of it had gone. - -“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a -grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” - -She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of -the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the -chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It -was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had -nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself -to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather -timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! -I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. -A Mad Tea-Party - - -There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the -March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting -between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a -cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very -uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, -I suppose it doesn’t mind.” - -The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at -one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw -Alice coming. “There’s _plenty_ of room!” said Alice indignantly, and -she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. - -“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. - -Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. -“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. - -“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. - -“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. - -“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said -the March Hare. - -“I didn’t know it was _your_ table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great -many more than three.” - -“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at -Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first -speech. - -“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some -severity; “it’s very rude.” - -The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he _said_ -was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” - -“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve -begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. - -“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said -the March Hare. - -“Exactly so,” said Alice. - -“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. - -“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I -say—that’s the same thing, you know.” - -“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well -say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” - -“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what -I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!” - -“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be -talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing -as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” - -“It _is_ the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the -conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while -Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and -writing-desks, which wasn’t much. - -The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month -is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his -pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, -and holding it to his ear. - -Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” - -“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit -the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare. - -“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. - -“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: -“you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” - -The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped -it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of -nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the _best_ butter, -you know.” - -Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a -funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t -tell what o’clock it is!” - -“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does _your_ watch tell you what -year it is?” - -“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it -stays the same year for such a long time together.” - -“Which is just the case with _mine_,” said the Hatter. - -Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no -sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite -understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. - -“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little -hot tea upon its nose. - -The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its -eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.” - -“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice -again. - -“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?” - -“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. - -“Nor I,” said the March Hare. - -Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the -time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no -answers.” - -“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk -about wasting _it_. It’s _him_.” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. - -“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head -contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!” - -“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat -time when I learn music.” - -“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. -Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything -you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in -the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a -hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, -time for dinner!” - -(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) - -“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I -shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.” - -“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to -half-past one as long as you liked.” - -“Is that the way _you_ manage?” Alice asked. - -The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We -quarrelled last March—just before _he_ went mad, you know—” (pointing -with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert -given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing - -‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! -How I wonder what you’re at!’ - - -You know the song, perhaps?” - -“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. - -“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:— - -‘Up above the world you fly, -Like a tea-tray in the sky. - Twinkle, twinkle—’” - - -Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep -“_Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle_—” and went on so long that they -had to pinch it to make it stop. - -“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the -Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his -head!’” - -“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice. - -“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t -do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” - -A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many -tea-things are put out here?” she asked. - -“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, -and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” - -“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice. - -“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.” - -“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured -to ask. - -“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. -“I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” - -“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the -proposal. - -“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And -they pinched it on both sides at once. - -The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a -hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” - -“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. - -“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. - -“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again -before it’s done.” - -“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began -in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and -they lived at the bottom of a well—” - -“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest -in questions of eating and drinking. - -“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or -two. - -“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; -“they’d have been ill.” - -“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “_very_ ill.” - -Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of -living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But -why did they live at the bottom of a well?” - -“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. - -“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t -take more.” - -“You mean you can’t take _less_,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to -take _more_ than nothing.” - -“Nobody asked _your_ opinion,” said Alice. - -“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly. - -Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to -some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and -repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?” - -The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then -said, “It was a treacle-well.” - -“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the -Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily -remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for -yourself.” - -“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I -dare say there may be _one_.” - -“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to -go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, -you know—” - -“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. - -“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. - -“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place -on.” - -He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare -moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the -place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any -advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than -before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. - -Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very -cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle -from?” - -“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should -think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?” - -“But they were _in_ the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing -to notice this last remark. - -“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.” - -This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for -some time without interrupting it. - -“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing -its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of -things—everything that begins with an M—” - -“Why with an M?” said Alice. - -“Why not?” said the March Hare. - -Alice was silent. - -The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a -doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a -little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as -mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say -things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a -drawing of a muchness?” - -“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t -think—” - -“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. - -This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in -great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and -neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she -looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: -the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into -the teapot. - -“At any rate I’ll never go _there_ again!” said Alice as she picked her -way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in -all my life!” - -Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door -leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But -everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And -in she went. - -Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little -glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, -and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that -led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom -(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot -high: then she walked down the little passage: and _then_—she found -herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds -and the cool fountains. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. -The Queen’s Croquet-Ground - - -A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses -growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily -painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she -went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard -one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me -like that!” - -“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my -elbow.” - -On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the -blame on others!” - -“_You’d_ better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only -yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!” - -“What for?” said the one who had spoken first. - -“That’s none of _your_ business, Two!” said Seven. - -“Yes, it _is_ his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for -bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.” - -Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun “Well, of all the unjust -things—” when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching -them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, -and all of them bowed low. - -“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are -painting those roses?” - -Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low -voice, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a -_red_ rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen -was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So -you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—” At this -moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called -out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw -themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, -and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. - -First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the -three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the -corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with -diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came -the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came -jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all -ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, -and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a -hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went -by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying -the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this -grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. - -Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face -like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard -of such a rule at processions; “and besides, what would be the use of a -procession,” thought she, “if people had all to lie down upon their -faces, so that they couldn’t see it?” So she stood still where she was, -and waited. - -When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked -at her, and the Queen said severely “Who is this?” She said it to the -Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. - -“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to -Alice, she went on, “What’s your name, child?” - -“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; -but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after -all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” - -“And who are _these?_” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners -who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on -their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of -the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, -or courtiers, or three of her own children. - -“How should _I_ know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. “It’s -no business of _mine_.” - -The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a -moment like a wild beast, screamed “Off with her head! Off—” - -“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was -silent. - -The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider, my -dear: she is only a child!” - -The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave “Turn -them over!” - -The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot. - -“Get up!” said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three -gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, -the royal children, and everybody else. - -“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me giddy.” And then, -turning to the rose-tree, she went on, “What _have_ you been doing -here?” - -“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone, going -down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—” - -“_I_ see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. -“Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the -soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran -to Alice for protection. - -“You shan’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a large -flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a -minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the -others. - -“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen. - -“Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!” the soldiers shouted -in reply. - -“That’s right!” shouted the Queen. “Can you play croquet?” - -The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was -evidently meant for her. - -“Yes!” shouted Alice. - -“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, -wondering very much what would happen next. - -“It’s—it’s a very fine day!” said a timid voice at her side. She was -walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. - -“Very,” said Alice: “—where’s the Duchess?” - -“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked -anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon -tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered “She’s under -sentence of execution.” - -“What for?” said Alice. - -“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked. - -“No, I didn’t,” said Alice: “I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said -‘What for?’” - -“She boxed the Queen’s ears—” the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little -scream of laughter. “Oh, hush!” the Rabbit whispered in a frightened -tone. “The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the -Queen said—” - -“Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and -people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each -other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game -began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground -in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live -hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double -themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. - -The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: -she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, -under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she -had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the -hedgehog a blow with its head, it _would_ twist itself round and look -up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help -bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was -going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog -had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all -this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she -wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were -always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice -soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. - -The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling -all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time -the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and -shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about once in a -minute. - -Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any -dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, -“and then,” thought she, “what would become of me? They’re dreadfully -fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any -one left alive!” - -She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she -could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious -appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after -watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said -to herself “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk -to.” - -“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth -enough for it to speak with. - -Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no use -speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at least one -of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put -down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad -she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there -was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. - -“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a -complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear -oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at -least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how -confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the -arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the -ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only -it ran away when it saw mine coming!” - -“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. - -“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed -that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, -“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.” - -The Queen smiled and passed on. - -“Who _are_ you talking to?” said the King, going up to Alice, and -looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity. - -“It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,” said Alice: “allow me to -introduce it.” - -“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may -kiss my hand if it likes.” - -“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. - -“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and don’t look at me like -that!” He got behind Alice as he spoke. - -“A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “I’ve read that in some book, -but I don’t remember where.” - -“Well, it must be removed,” said the King very decidedly, and he called -the Queen, who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I wish you would -have this cat removed!” - -The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or -small. “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round. - -“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the King eagerly, and he -hurried off. - -Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going -on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with -passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be -executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look -of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew -whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. - -The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed -to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the -other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to -the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a -helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. - -By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight -was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it doesn’t -matter much,” thought Alice, “as all the arches are gone from this side -of the ground.” So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not -escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her -friend. - -When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite -a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between -the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, -while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. - -The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle -the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they -all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly -what they said. - -The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless -there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a -thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at _his_ time of life. - -The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be -beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. - -The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in -less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was -this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and -anxious.) - -Alice could think of nothing else to say but “It belongs to the -Duchess: you’d better ask _her_ about it.” - -“She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the executioner: “fetch her here.” -And the executioner went off like an arrow. - -The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the -time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so -the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, -while the rest of the party went back to the game. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. -The Mock Turtle’s Story - - -“You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!” -said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, -and they walked off together. - -Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought -to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so -savage when they met in the kitchen. - -“When _I’m_ a Duchess,” she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful -tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen _at all_. Soup -does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people -hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new -kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes -them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children -sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew _that_: then they wouldn’t be -so stingy about it, you know—” - -She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little -startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking -about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t -tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in -a bit.” - -“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark. - -“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only -you can find it.” And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as -she spoke. - -Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the -Duchess was _very_ ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the -right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an -uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she -bore it as well as she could. - -“The game’s going on rather better now,” she said, by way of keeping up -the conversation a little. - -“’Tis so,” said the Duchess: “and the moral of that is—‘Oh, ’tis love, -’tis love, that makes the world go round!’” - -“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding -their own business!” - -“Ah, well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her -sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of -_that_ is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of -themselves.’” - -“How fond she is of finding morals in things!” Alice thought to -herself. - -“I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,” -the Duchess said after a pause: “the reason is, that I’m doubtful about -the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?” - -“He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious -to have the experiment tried. - -“Very true,” said the Duchess: “flamingoes and mustard both bite. And -the moral of that is—‘Birds of a feather flock together.’” - -“Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. - -“Right, as usual,” said the Duchess: “what a clear way you have of -putting things!” - -“It’s a mineral, I _think_,” said Alice. - -“Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to -everything that Alice said; “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. -And the moral of that is—‘The more there is of mine, the less there is -of yours.’” - -“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last -remark, “it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” - -“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that -is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or if you’d like it put more -simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might -appear to others that what you were or might have been was not -otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be -otherwise.’” - -“I think I should understand that better,” Alice said very politely, -“if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.” - -“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, -in a pleased tone. - -“Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,” said -Alice. - -“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the Duchess. “I make you a present -of everything I’ve said as yet.” - -“A cheap sort of present!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they don’t give -birthday presents like that!” But she did not venture to say it out -loud. - -“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp -little chin. - -“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to -feel a little worried. - -“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly; and -the m—” - -But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, -even in the middle of her favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was -linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the -Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a -thunderstorm. - -“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess began in a low, weak voice. - -“Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted the Queen, stamping on the -ground as she spoke; “either you or your head must be off, and that in -about half no time! Take your choice!” - -The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. - -“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too -much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the -croquet-ground. - -The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were -resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried -back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment’s delay -would cost them their lives. - -All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling -with the other players, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with -her head!” Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the -soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so -that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and -all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody -and under sentence of execution. - -Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have -you seen the Mock Turtle yet?” - -“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.” - -“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” said the Queen. - -“I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. - -“Come on, then,” said the Queen, “and he shall tell you his history,” - -As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, -to the company generally, “You are all pardoned.” “Come, _that’s_ a -good thing!” she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the -number of executions the Queen had ordered. - -They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If -you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy -thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock -Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some -executions I have ordered;” and she walked off, leaving Alice alone -with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, -but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it -as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited. - -The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till -she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, -half to itself, half to Alice. - -“What _is_ the fun?” said Alice. - -“Why, _she_,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all her fancy, that: they never -executes nobody, you know. Come on!” - -“Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,” thought Alice, as she went slowly -after it: “I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!” - -They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, -sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came -nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She -pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the -Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all -his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!” - -So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes -full of tears, but said nothing. - -“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your -history, she do.” - -“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “sit -down, both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” - -So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to -herself, “I don’t see how he can _ever_ finish, if he doesn’t begin.” -But she waited patiently. - -“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real -Turtle.” - -These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an -occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant -heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and -saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” but she could not -help thinking there _must_ be more to come, so she sat still and said -nothing. - -“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, -though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the -sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—” - -“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked. - -“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle -angrily: “really you are very dull!” - -“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple -question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked -at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the -Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all -day about it!” and he went on in these words: - -“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—” - -“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice. - -“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. -The Mock Turtle went on. - -“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—” - -“_I’ve_ been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so -proud as all that.” - -“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously. - -“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.” - -“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly. - -“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a -tone of great relief. “Now at _ours_ they had at the end of the bill, -‘French, music, _and washing_—extra.’” - -“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom -of the sea.” - -“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I -only took the regular course.” - -“What was that?” inquired Alice. - -“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle -replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, -Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” - -“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?” - -The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of -uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?” - -“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.” - -“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify -is, you _are_ a simpleton.” - -Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so -she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?” - -“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the -subjects on his flappers, “—Mystery, ancient and modern, with -Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, -that used to come once a week: _he_ taught us Drawling, Stretching, and -Fainting in Coils.” - -“What was _that_ like?” said Alice. - -“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too -stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.” - -“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classics master, -though. He was an old crab, _he_ was.” - -“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught -Laughing and Grief, they used to say.” - -“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both -creatures hid their faces in their paws. - -“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry -to change the subject. - -“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so -on.” - -“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. - -“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: -“because they lessen from day to day.” - -This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little -before she made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been -a holiday?” - -“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly. - -“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very -decided tone: “tell her something about the games now.” - - - - -CHAPTER X. -The Lobster Quadrille - - -The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across -his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or -two sobs choked his voice. “Same as if he had a bone in his throat,” -said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in -the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears -running down his cheeks, he went on again:— - -“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said -Alice)—“and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” -(Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and -said “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a -Lobster Quadrille is!” - -“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a dance is it?” - -“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into a line along the -sea-shore—” - -“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. “Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; -then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—” - -“_That_ generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon. - -“—you advance twice—” - -“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried the Gryphon. - -“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said: “advance twice, set to partners—” - -“—change lobsters, and retire in same order,” continued the Gryphon. - -“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, “you throw the—” - -“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air. - -“—as far out to sea as you can—” - -“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon. - -“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly -about. - -“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice. - -“Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,” said the Mock -Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had -been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very -sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice. - -“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly. - -“Would you like to see a little of it?” said the Mock Turtle. - -“Very much indeed,” said Alice. - -“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the Mock Turtle to the -Gryphon. “We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?” - -“Oh, _you_ sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve forgotten the words.” - -So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and -then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their -forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly -and sadly:— - -“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. -“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. -See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! -They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? - -“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be -When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!” -But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance— -Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. -Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. -Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. - -“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied. -“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. -The further off from England the nearer is to France— -Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? -Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?” - - -“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, -feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that -curious song about the whiting!” - -“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve seen them, -of course?” - -“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she checked herself -hastily. - -“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve -seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.” - -“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. “They have their tails in -their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.” - -“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the Mock Turtle: “crumbs would -all wash off in the sea. But they _have_ their tails in their mouths; -and the reason is—” here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his -eyes.—“Tell her about the reason and all that,” he said to the Gryphon. - -“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they _would_ go with the -lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to -fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they -couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.” - -“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much -about a whiting before.” - -“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you -know why it’s called a whiting?” - -“I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?” - -“_It does the boots and shoes_,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly. - -Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated -in a wondering tone. - -“Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what -makes them so shiny?” - -Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her -answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.” - -“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, -“are done with a whiting. Now you know.” - -“And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. - -“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: -“any shrimp could have told you that.” - -“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still -running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, -please: we don’t want _you_ with us!’” - -“They were obliged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said: “no -wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” - -“Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise. - -“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle: “why, if a fish came to _me_, -and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’” - -“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. - -“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And -the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of _your_ adventures.” - -“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said -Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, -because I was a different person then.” - -“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: -“explanations take such a dreadful time.” - -So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first -saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, -the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened -their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she -went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part -about her repeating “_You are old, Father William_,” to the -Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock -Turtle drew a long breath, and said “That’s very curious.” - -“It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said the Gryphon. - -“It all came different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I -should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to -begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of -authority over Alice. - -“Stand up and repeat ‘’_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,’” said the -Gryphon. - -“How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” -thought Alice; “I might as well be at school at once.” However, she got -up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster -Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came -very queer indeed:— - -“’Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, -“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” -As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose -Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” - -[later editions continued as follows -When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, -And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, -But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, -His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] - - -“That’s different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child,” said -the Gryphon. - -“Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds -uncommon nonsense.” - -Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, -wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. - -“I should like to have it explained,” said the Mock Turtle. - -“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon hastily. “Go on with the next -verse.” - -“But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle persisted. “How _could_ he turn -them out with his nose, you know?” - -“It’s the first position in dancing.” Alice said; but was dreadfully -puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. - -“Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it -begins ‘_I passed by his garden_.’” - -Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come -wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:— - -“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, -How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—” - -[later editions continued as follows -The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, -While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. -When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, -Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: -While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, -And concluded the banquet—] - - -“What _is_ the use of repeating all that stuff,” the Mock Turtle -interrupted, “if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the -most confusing thing _I_ ever heard!” - -“Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the Gryphon: and Alice was -only too glad to do so. - -“Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon -went on. “Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?” - -“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,” Alice -replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, -“Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘_Turtle Soup_,’ will you, old -fellow?” - -The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked -with sobs, to sing this:— - -“Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, -Waiting in a hot tureen! -Who for such dainties would not stoop? -Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! -Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! -Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beautiful Soup! - -“Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, -Game, or any other dish? -Who would not give all else for two p -ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? -Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! - Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! -Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!” - - -“Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun -to repeat it, when a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in the -distance. - -“Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried -off, without waiting for the end of the song. - -“What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only -answered “Come on!” and ran the faster, while more and more faintly -came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:— - -“Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, - Beautiful, beautiful Soup!” - - - - -CHAPTER XI. -Who Stole the Tarts? - - -The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they -arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little -birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was -standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard -him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one -hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the -court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so -good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d -get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” -But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at -everything about her, to pass away the time. - -Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read -about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew -the name of nearly everything there. “That’s the judge,” she said to -herself, “because of his great wig.” - -The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the -wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he -did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. - -“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures,” -(she was obliged to say “creatures,” you see, because some of them were -animals, and some were birds,) “I suppose they are the jurors.” She -said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather -proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little -girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, “jury-men” -would have done just as well. - -The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. “What are -they doing?” Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have anything -to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.” - -“They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered in reply, -“for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.” - -“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she -stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the -court!” and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, -to make out who was talking. - -Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, -that all the jurors were writing down “stupid things!” on their slates, -and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell -“stupid,” and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. “A nice -muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice. - -One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice -could _not_ stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and -very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly -that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out -at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he -was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this -was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. - -“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King. - -On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then -unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:— - -“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, - All on a summer day: -The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, - And took them quite away!” - - -“Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury. - -“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great -deal to come before that!” - -“Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew -three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!” - -The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand -and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your -Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished -my tea when I was sent for.” - -“You ought to have finished,” said the King. “When did you begin?” - -The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the -court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I _think_ it -was,” he said. - -“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. - -“Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse. - -“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly -wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and -reduced the answer to shillings and pence. - -“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter. - -“It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. - -“_Stolen!_” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made -a memorandum of the fact. - -“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation; “I’ve none -of my own. I’m a hatter.” - -Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, -who turned pale and fidgeted. - -“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll -have you executed on the spot.” - -This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting -from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his -confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the -bread-and-butter. - -Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled -her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to -grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave -the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was -as long as there was room for her. - -“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.” said the Dormouse, who was sitting -next to her. “I can hardly breathe.” - -“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: “I’m growing.” - -“You’ve no right to grow _here_,” said the Dormouse. - -“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing -too.” - -“Yes, but _I_ grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in -that ridiculous fashion.” And he got up very sulkily and crossed over -to the other side of the court. - -All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, -just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers -of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” -on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes -off. - -“Give your evidence,” the King repeated angrily, “or I’ll have you -executed, whether you’re nervous or not.” - -“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, -“—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the -bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—” - -“The twinkling of the _what?_” said the King. - -“It _began_ with the tea,” the Hatter replied. - -“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you -take me for a dunce? Go on!” - -“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “and most things twinkled after -that—only the March Hare said—” - -“I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. - -“You did!” said the Hatter. - -“I deny it!” said the March Hare. - -“He denies it,” said the King: “leave out that part.” - -“Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on, looking -anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied -nothing, being fast asleep. - -“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut some more bread-and-butter—” - -“But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the jury asked. - -“That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. - -“You _must_ remember,” remarked the King, “or I’ll have you executed.” - -The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went -down on one knee. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. - -“You’re a _very_ poor _speaker_,” said the King. - -Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by -the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just -explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied -up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, -head first, and then sat upon it.) - -“I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. “I’ve so often read in -the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempts at -applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the -court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.” - -“If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” continued the -King. - -“I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: “I’m on the floor, as it is.” - -“Then you may _sit_ down,” the King replied. - -Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. - -“Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!” thought Alice. “Now we shall get -on better.” - -“I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with an anxious look at -the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. - -“You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, -without even waiting to put his shoes on. - -“—and just take his head off outside,” the Queen added to one of the -officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get -to the door. - -“Call the next witness!” said the King. - -The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in -her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the -court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. - -“Give your evidence,” said the King. - -“Shan’t,” said the cook. - -The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, -“Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness.” - -“Well, if I must, I must,” the King said, with a melancholy air, and, -after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were -nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, “What are tarts made of?” - -“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. - -“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. - -“Collar that Dormouse,” the Queen shrieked out. “Behead that Dormouse! -Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his -whiskers!” - -For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse -turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had -disappeared. - -“Never mind!” said the King, with an air of great relief. “Call the -next witness.” And he added in an undertone to the Queen, “Really, my -dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my -forehead ache!” - -Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling -very curious to see what the next witness would be like, “—for they -haven’t got much evidence _yet_,” she said to herself. Imagine her -surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill -little voice, the name “Alice!” - - - - -CHAPTER XII. -Alice’s Evidence - - -“Here!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how -large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such -a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, -upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there -they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of -goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. - -“Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!” she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and -began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident -of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of -idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the -jury-box, or they would die. - -“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until -all the jurymen are back in their proper places—_all_,” he repeated -with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. - -Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put -the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its -tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon -got it out again, and put it right; “not that it signifies much,” she -said to herself; “I should think it would be _quite_ as much use in the -trial one way up as the other.” - -As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being -upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to -them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the -accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do -anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the -court. - -“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice. - -“Nothing,” said Alice. - -“Nothing _whatever?_” persisted the King. - -“Nothing whatever,” said Alice. - -“That’s very important,” the King said, turning to the jury. They were -just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White -Rabbit interrupted: “_Un_important, your Majesty means, of course,” he -said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as -he spoke. - -“_Un_important, of course, I meant,” the King hastily said, and went on -to himself in an undertone, - -“important—unimportant—unimportant—important—” as if he were trying -which word sounded best. - -Some of the jury wrote it down “important,” and some “unimportant.” -Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; -“but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she thought to herself. - -At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in -his note-book, cackled out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule -Forty-two. _All persons more than a mile high to leave the court_.” - -Everybody looked at Alice. - -“_I’m_ not a mile high,” said Alice. - -“You are,” said the King. - -“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. - -“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a -regular rule: you invented it just now.” - -“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King. - -“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice. - -The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. “Consider your -verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. - -“There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,” said the -White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; “this paper has just been -picked up.” - -“What’s in it?” said the Queen. - -“I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White Rabbit, “but it seems to be a -letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.” - -“It must have been that,” said the King, “unless it was written to -nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.” - -“Who is it directed to?” said one of the jurymen. - -“It isn’t directed at all,” said the White Rabbit; “in fact, there’s -nothing written on the _outside_.” He unfolded the paper as he spoke, -and added “It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.” - -“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?” asked another of the jurymen. - -“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the queerest -thing about it.” (The jury all looked puzzled.) - -“He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” said the King. (The jury -all brightened up again.) - -“Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “I didn’t write it, and they -can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.” - -“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter -worse. You _must_ have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed -your name like an honest man.” - -There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really -clever thing the King had said that day. - -“That _proves_ his guilt,” said the Queen. - -“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know -what they’re about!” - -“Read them,” said the King. - -The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please -your Majesty?” he asked. - -“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you -come to the end: then stop.” - -These were the verses the White Rabbit read:— - -“They told me you had been to her, - And mentioned me to him: -She gave me a good character, - But said I could not swim. - -He sent them word I had not gone - (We know it to be true): -If she should push the matter on, - What would become of you? - -I gave her one, they gave him two, - You gave us three or more; -They all returned from him to you, - Though they were mine before. - -If I or she should chance to be - Involved in this affair, -He trusts to you to set them free, - Exactly as we were. - -My notion was that you had been - (Before she had this fit) -An obstacle that came between - Him, and ourselves, and it. - -Don’t let him know she liked them best, - For this must ever be -A secret, kept from all the rest, - Between yourself and me.” - - -“That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,” said the -King, rubbing his hands; “so now let the jury—” - -“If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice, (she had grown so -large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of -interrupting him,) “I’ll give him sixpence. _I_ don’t believe there’s -an atom of meaning in it.” - -The jury all wrote down on their slates, “_She_ doesn’t believe there’s -an atom of meaning in it,” but none of them attempted to explain the -paper. - -“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of -trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t -know,” he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at -them with one eye; “I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. -“—_said I could not swim_—” you can’t swim, can you?” he added, turning -to the Knave. - -The Knave shook his head sadly. “Do I look like it?” he said. (Which he -certainly did _not_, being made entirely of cardboard.) - -“All right, so far,” said the King, and he went on muttering over the -verses to himself: “‘_We know it to be true_—’ that’s the jury, of -course—‘_I gave her one, they gave him two_—’ why, that must be what he -did with the tarts, you know—” - -“But, it goes on ‘_they all returned from him to you_,’” said Alice. - -“Why, there they are!” said the King triumphantly, pointing to the -tarts on the table. “Nothing can be clearer than _that_. Then -again—‘_before she had this fit_—’ you never had fits, my dear, I -think?” he said to the Queen. - -“Never!” said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard -as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his -slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily -began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long -as it lasted.) - -“Then the words don’t _fit_ you,” said the King, looking round the -court with a smile. There was a dead silence. - -“It’s a pun!” the King added in an offended tone, and everybody -laughed, “Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for -about the twentieth time that day. - -“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” - -“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the -sentence first!” - -“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple. - -“I won’t!” said Alice. - -“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody -moved. - -“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by -this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” - -At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon -her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and -tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her -head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead -leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. - -“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister; “Why, what a long sleep you’ve -had!” - -“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her -sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange -Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she -had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, “It _was_ a curious -dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.” -So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, -what a wonderful dream it had been. - - -But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her -hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all -her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, -and this was her dream:— - -First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny -hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were -looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and -see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair -that _would_ always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or -seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the -strange creatures of her little sister’s dream. - -The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the -frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she -could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends -shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen -ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby -was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed -around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the -Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, -filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock -Turtle. - -So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in -Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all -would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the -wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling -teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill -cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the -shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change -(she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the -lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock -Turtle’s heavy sobs. - -Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers -would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would -keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her -childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, -and make _their_ eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, -perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she -would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all -their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer -Days. - -The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - -Chapter I -The Cyclone - - -Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle -Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their -house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon -many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one -room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for -the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry -and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in -another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a -small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family -could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to -crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the -middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark -hole. - -When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see -nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a -house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of -the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a -gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was -not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until -they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had -been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it -away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. - -When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun -and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes -and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and -lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled -now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had -been so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and -press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached -her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she -could find anything to laugh at. - -Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and -did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his -rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke. - -It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray -as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black -dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on -either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and -Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly. - -Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the -doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than -usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at -the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes. - -From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry -and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the -coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the -south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the -grass coming from that direction also. - -Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up. - -“There’s a cyclone coming, Em,” he called to his wife. “I’ll go look -after the stock.” Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and -horses were kept. - -Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of -the danger close at hand. - -“Quick, Dorothy!” she screamed. “Run for the cellar!” - -Toto jumped out of Dorothy’s arms and hid under the bed, and the girl -started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door -in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. -Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt. When she -was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, -and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down -suddenly upon the floor. - -Then a strange thing happened. - -The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the -air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon. - -The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the -exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is -generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of -the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top -of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles -away as easily as you could carry a feather. - -It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy -found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, -and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were -being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle. - -Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there, -barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to -see what would happen. - -Once Toto got too near the open trap door, and fell in; and at first -the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his -ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air -was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole, -caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward -closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen. - -Hour after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; -but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about -her that she nearly became deaf. At first she had wondered if she would -be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed -and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to -wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last she crawled -over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and Toto -followed and lay down beside her. - -In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, -Dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. - - - - -Chapter II -The Council with the Munchkins - - -She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had -not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the -jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto -put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. Dorothy sat -up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the -bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She -sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door. - -The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes -growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. - -The cyclone had set the house down very gently—for a cyclone—in the -midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of -greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious -fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with -rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. -A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between -green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl -who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. - -While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, -she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had -ever seen. They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been -used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about -as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although -they were, so far as looks go, many years older. - -Three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed. They wore -round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with -little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The -hats of the men were blue; the little woman’s hat was white, and she -wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were -sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds. The men -were dressed in blue, of the same shade as their hats, and wore -well-polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. The men, -Dorothy thought, were about as old as Uncle Henry, for two of them had -beards. But the little woman was doubtless much older. Her face was -covered with wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked rather -stiffly. - -When these people drew near the house where Dorothy was standing in the -doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to -come farther. But the little old woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low -bow and said, in a sweet voice: - -“You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. -We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the -East, and for setting our people free from bondage.” - -Dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. What could the little -woman possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had -killed the Wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was an innocent, harmless -little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; -and she had never killed anything in all her life. - -But the little woman evidently expected her to answer; so Dorothy said, -with hesitation, “You are very kind, but there must be some mistake. I -have not killed anything.” - -“Your house did, anyway,” replied the little old woman, with a laugh, -“and that is the same thing. See!” she continued, pointing to the -corner of the house. “There are her two feet, still sticking out from -under a block of wood.” - -Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just -under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were -sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes. - -“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried Dorothy, clasping her hands together in -dismay. “The house must have fallen on her. Whatever shall we do?” - -“There is nothing to be done,” said the little woman calmly. - -“But who was she?” asked Dorothy. - -“She was the Wicked Witch of the East, as I said,” answered the little -woman. “She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, -making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and -are grateful to you for the favor.” - -“Who are the Munchkins?” inquired Dorothy. - -“They are the people who live in this land of the East where the Wicked -Witch ruled.” - -“Are you a Munchkin?” asked Dorothy. - -“No, but I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North. -When they saw the Witch of the East was dead the Munchkins sent a swift -messenger to me, and I came at once. I am the Witch of the North.” - -“Oh, gracious!” cried Dorothy. “Are you a real witch?” - -“Yes, indeed,” answered the little woman. “But I am a good witch, and -the people love me. I am not as powerful as the Wicked Witch was who -ruled here, or I should have set the people free myself.” - -“But I thought all witches were wicked,” said the girl, who was half -frightened at facing a real witch. “Oh, no, that is a great mistake. -There were only four witches in all the Land of Oz, and two of them, -those who live in the North and the South, are good witches. I know -this is true, for I am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. -Those who dwelt in the East and the West were, indeed, wicked witches; -but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one Wicked Witch -in all the Land of Oz—the one who lives in the West.” - -“But,” said Dorothy, after a moment’s thought, “Aunt Em has told me -that the witches were all dead—years and years ago.” - -“Who is Aunt Em?” inquired the little old woman. - -“She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from.” - -The Witch of the North seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed -and her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked up and said, “I do not -know where Kansas is, for I have never heard that country mentioned -before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?” - -“Oh, yes,” replied Dorothy. - -“Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries I believe there -are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, -you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off -from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and -wizards amongst us.” - -“Who are the wizards?” asked Dorothy. - -“Oz himself is the Great Wizard,” answered the Witch, sinking her voice -to a whisper. “He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He -lives in the City of Emeralds.” - -Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, -who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the -corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying. - -“What is it?” asked the little old woman, and looked, and began to -laugh. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared entirely, and nothing -was left but the silver shoes. - -“She was so old,” explained the Witch of the North, “that she dried up -quickly in the sun. That is the end of her. But the silver shoes are -yours, and you shall have them to wear.” She reached down and picked up -the shoes, and after shaking the dust out of them handed them to -Dorothy. - -“The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes,” said one of -the Munchkins, “and there is some charm connected with them; but what -it is we never knew.” - -Dorothy carried the shoes into the house and placed them on the table. -Then she came out again to the Munchkins and said: - -“I am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they will -worry about me. Can you help me find my way?” - -The Munchkins and the Witch first looked at one another, and then at -Dorothy, and then shook their heads. - -“At the East, not far from here,” said one, “there is a great desert, -and none could live to cross it.” - -“It is the same at the South,” said another, “for I have been there and -seen it. The South is the country of the Quadlings.” - -“I am told,” said the third man, “that it is the same at the West. And -that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of -the West, who would make you her slave if you passed her way.” - -“The North is my home,” said the old lady, “and at its edge is the same -great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I’m afraid, my dear, you -will have to live with us.” - -Dorothy began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these -strange people. Her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted Munchkins, -for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to weep -also. As for the little old woman, she took off her cap and balanced -the point on the end of her nose, while she counted “One, two, three” -in a solemn voice. At once the cap changed to a slate, on which was -written in big, white chalk marks: - -“LET DOROTHY GO TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS” - - -The little old woman took the slate from her nose, and having read the -words on it, asked, “Is your name Dorothy, my dear?” - -“Yes,” answered the child, looking up and drying her tears. - -“Then you must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will help you.” - -“Where is this city?” asked Dorothy. - -“It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the -Great Wizard I told you of.” - -“Is he a good man?” inquired the girl anxiously. - -“He is a good Wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I -have never seen him.” - -“How can I get there?” asked Dorothy. - -“You must walk. It is a long journey, through a country that is -sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use -all the magic arts I know of to keep you from harm.” - -“Won’t you go with me?” pleaded the girl, who had begun to look upon -the little old woman as her only friend. - -“No, I cannot do that,” she replied, “but I will give you my kiss, and -no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of -the North.” - -She came close to Dorothy and kissed her gently on the forehead. Where -her lips touched the girl they left a round, shining mark, as Dorothy -found out soon after. - -“The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,” said the -Witch, “so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of -him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. Good-bye, my dear.” - -The three Munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, -after which they walked away through the trees. The Witch gave Dorothy -a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and -straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little Toto, who -barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been -afraid even to growl while she stood by. - -But Dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear -in just that way, and was not surprised in the least. - - - - -Chapter III -How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow - - -When Dorothy was left alone she began to feel hungry. So she went to -the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. -She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it -down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. -Toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting -there. Dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging -from the branches that she gathered some of it, finding it just what -she wanted to help out her breakfast. - -Then she went back to the house, and having helped herself and Toto to -a good drink of the cool, clear water, she set about making ready for -the journey to the City of Emeralds. - -Dorothy had only one other dress, but that happened to be clean and was -hanging on a peg beside her bed. It was gingham, with checks of white -and blue; and although the blue was somewhat faded with many washings, -it was still a pretty frock. The girl washed herself carefully, dressed -herself in the clean gingham, and tied her pink sunbonnet on her head. -She took a little basket and filled it with bread from the cupboard, -laying a white cloth over the top. Then she looked down at her feet and -noticed how old and worn her shoes were. - -“They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto,” she said. And -Toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his -tail to show he knew what she meant. - -At that moment Dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had -belonged to the Witch of the East. - -“I wonder if they will fit me,” she said to Toto. “They would be just -the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.” - -She took off her old leather shoes and tried on the silver ones, which -fitted her as well as if they had been made for her. - -Finally she picked up her basket. - -“Come along, Toto,” she said. “We will go to the Emerald City and ask -the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.” - -She closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket -of her dress. And so, with Toto trotting along soberly behind her, she -started on her journey. - -There were several roads nearby, but it did not take her long to find -the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time she was walking -briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on -the hard, yellow road-bed. The sun shone bright and the birds sang -sweetly, and Dorothy did not feel nearly so bad as you might think a -little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own -country and set down in the midst of a strange land. - -She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country -was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted -a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and -vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and -able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and -the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for -everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the Wicked Witch and -setting them free from bondage. The houses of the Munchkins were -odd-looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. -All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the -favorite color. - -Toward evening, when Dorothy was tired with her long walk and began to -wonder where she should pass the night, she came to a house rather -larger than the rest. On the green lawn before it many men and women -were dancing. Five little fiddlers played as loudly as possible, and -the people were laughing and singing, while a big table near by was -loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes, and many other -good things to eat. - -The people greeted Dorothy kindly, and invited her to supper and to -pass the night with them; for this was the home of one of the richest -Munchkins in the land, and his friends were gathered with him to -celebrate their freedom from the bondage of the Wicked Witch. - -Dorothy ate a hearty supper and was waited upon by the rich Munchkin -himself, whose name was Boq. Then she sat upon a settee and watched the -people dance. - -When Boq saw her silver shoes he said, “You must be a great sorceress.” - -“Why?” asked the girl. - -“Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch. -Besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses -wear white.” - -“My dress is blue and white checked,” said Dorothy, smoothing out the -wrinkles in it. - -“It is kind of you to wear that,” said Boq. “Blue is the color of the -Munchkins, and white is the witch color. So we know you are a friendly -witch.” - -Dorothy did not know what to say to this, for all the people seemed to -think her a witch, and she knew very well she was only an ordinary -little girl who had come by the chance of a cyclone into a strange -land. - -When she had tired watching the dancing, Boq led her into the house, -where he gave her a room with a pretty bed in it. The sheets were made -of blue cloth, and Dorothy slept soundly in them till morning, with -Toto curled up on the blue rug beside her. - -She ate a hearty breakfast, and watched a wee Munchkin baby, who played -with Toto and pulled his tail and crowed and laughed in a way that -greatly amused Dorothy. Toto was a fine curiosity to all the people, -for they had never seen a dog before. - -“How far is it to the Emerald City?” the girl asked. - -“I do not know,” answered Boq gravely, “for I have never been there. It -is better for people to keep away from Oz, unless they have business -with him. But it is a long way to the Emerald City, and it will take -you many days. The country here is rich and pleasant, but you must pass -through rough and dangerous places before you reach the end of your -journey.” - -This worried Dorothy a little, but she knew that only the Great Oz -could help her get to Kansas again, so she bravely resolved not to turn -back. - -She bade her friends good-bye, and again started along the road of -yellow brick. When she had gone several miles she thought she would -stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road -and sat down. There was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far -away she saw a Scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from -the ripe corn. - -Dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully at the -Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw, with eyes, -nose, and mouth painted on it to represent a face. An old, pointed blue -hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin, was perched on his head, and -the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, -which had also been stuffed with straw. On the feet were some old boots -with blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the figure -was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the pole stuck up its -back. - -While Dorothy was looking earnestly into the queer, painted face of the -Scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her. -She thought she must have been mistaken at first, for none of the -scarecrows in Kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its -head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and -walked up to it, while Toto ran around the pole and barked. - -“Good day,” said the Scarecrow, in a rather husky voice. - -“Did you speak?” asked the girl, in wonder. - -“Certainly,” answered the Scarecrow. “How do you do?” - -“I’m pretty well, thank you,” replied Dorothy politely. “How do you -do?” - -“I’m not feeling well,” said the Scarecrow, with a smile, “for it is -very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows.” - -“Can’t you get down?” asked Dorothy. - -“No, for this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away -the pole I shall be greatly obliged to you.” - -Dorothy reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole, for, -being stuffed with straw, it was quite light. - -“Thank you very much,” said the Scarecrow, when he had been set down on -the ground. “I feel like a new man.” - -Dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man -speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her. - -“Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow when he had stretched himself and -yawned. “And where are you going?” - -“My name is Dorothy,” said the girl, “and I am going to the Emerald -City, to ask the Great Oz to send me back to Kansas.” - -“Where is the Emerald City?” he inquired. “And who is Oz?” - -“Why, don’t you know?” she returned, in surprise. - -“No, indeed. I don’t know anything. You see, I am stuffed, so I have no -brains at all,” he answered sadly. - -“Oh,” said Dorothy, “I’m awfully sorry for you.” - -“Do you think,” he asked, “if I go to the Emerald City with you, that -Oz would give me some brains?” - -“I cannot tell,” she returned, “but you may come with me, if you like. -If Oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off than you -are now.” - -“That is true,” said the Scarecrow. “You see,” he continued -confidentially, “I don’t mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, -because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin -into me, it doesn’t matter, for I can’t feel it. But I do not want -people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw -instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?” - -“I understand how you feel,” said the little girl, who was truly sorry -for him. “If you will come with me I’ll ask Oz to do all he can for -you.” - -“Thank you,” he answered gratefully. - -They walked back to the road. Dorothy helped him over the fence, and -they started along the path of yellow brick for the Emerald City. - -Toto did not like this addition to the party at first. He smelled -around the stuffed man as if he suspected there might be a nest of rats -in the straw, and he often growled in an unfriendly way at the -Scarecrow. - -“Don’t mind Toto,” said Dorothy to her new friend. “He never bites.” - -“Oh, I’m not afraid,” replied the Scarecrow. “He can’t hurt the straw. -Do let me carry that basket for you. I shall not mind it, for I can’t -get tired. I’ll tell you a secret,” he continued, as he walked along. -“There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of.” - -“What is that?” asked Dorothy; “the Munchkin farmer who made you?” - -“No,” answered the Scarecrow; “it’s a lighted match.” - - - - -Chapter IV -The Road Through the Forest - - -After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so -difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, -which were here very uneven. Sometimes, indeed, they were broken or -missing altogether, leaving holes that Toto jumped across and Dorothy -walked around. As for the Scarecrow, having no brains, he walked -straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length -on the hard bricks. It never hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick -him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing -merrily at his own mishap. - -The farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther -back. There were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther -they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became. - -At noon they sat down by the roadside, near a little brook, and Dorothy -opened her basket and got out some bread. She offered a piece to the -Scarecrow, but he refused. - -“I am never hungry,” he said, “and it is a lucky thing I am not, for my -mouth is only painted, and if I should cut a hole in it so I could eat, -the straw I am stuffed with would come out, and that would spoil the -shape of my head.” - -Dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on -eating her bread. - -“Tell me something about yourself and the country you came from,” said -the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. So she told him all -about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone -had carried her to this queer Land of Oz. - -The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, “I cannot understand why -you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, -gray place you call Kansas.” - -“That is because you have no brains” answered the girl. “No matter how -dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would -rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. -There is no place like home.” - -The Scarecrow sighed. - -“Of course I cannot understand it,” he said. “If your heads were -stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the -beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is -fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.” - -“Won’t you tell me a story, while we are resting?” asked the child. - -The Scarecrow looked at her reproachfully, and answered: - -“My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. I was -only made day before yesterday. What happened in the world before that -time is all unknown to me. Luckily, when the farmer made my head, one -of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that I heard what -was going on. There was another Munchkin with him, and the first thing -I heard was the farmer saying, ‘How do you like those ears?’ - -“‘They aren’t straight,’” answered the other. - -“‘Never mind,’” said the farmer. “‘They are ears just the same,’” which -was true enough. - -“‘Now I’ll make the eyes,’” said the farmer. So he painted my right -eye, and as soon as it was finished I found myself looking at him and -at everything around me with a great deal of curiosity, for this was my -first glimpse of the world. - -“‘That’s a rather pretty eye,’” remarked the Munchkin who was watching -the farmer. “‘Blue paint is just the color for eyes.’ - -“‘I think I’ll make the other a little bigger,’” said the farmer. And -when the second eye was done I could see much better than before. Then -he made my nose and my mouth. But I did not speak, because at that time -I didn’t know what a mouth was for. I had the fun of watching them make -my body and my arms and legs; and when they fastened on my head, at -last, I felt very proud, for I thought I was just as good a man as -anyone. - -“‘This fellow will scare the crows fast enough,’ said the farmer. ‘He -looks just like a man.’ - -“‘Why, he is a man,’ said the other, and I quite agreed with him. The -farmer carried me under his arm to the cornfield, and set me up on a -tall stick, where you found me. He and his friend soon after walked -away and left me alone. - -“I did not like to be deserted this way. So I tried to walk after them. -But my feet would not touch the ground, and I was forced to stay on -that pole. It was a lonely life to lead, for I had nothing to think of, -having been made such a little while before. Many crows and other birds -flew into the cornfield, but as soon as they saw me they flew away -again, thinking I was a Munchkin; and this pleased me and made me feel -that I was quite an important person. By and by an old crow flew near -me, and after looking at me carefully he perched upon my shoulder and -said: - -“‘I wonder if that farmer thought to fool me in this clumsy manner. Any -crow of sense could see that you are only stuffed with straw.’ Then he -hopped down at my feet and ate all the corn he wanted. The other birds, -seeing he was not harmed by me, came to eat the corn too, so in a short -time there was a great flock of them about me. - -“I felt sad at this, for it showed I was not such a good Scarecrow -after all; but the old crow comforted me, saying, ‘If you only had -brains in your head you would be as good a man as any of them, and a -better man than some of them. Brains are the only things worth having -in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man.’ - -“After the crows had gone I thought this over, and decided I would try -hard to get some brains. By good luck you came along and pulled me off -the stake, and from what you say I am sure the Great Oz will give me -brains as soon as we get to the Emerald City.” - -“I hope so,” said Dorothy earnestly, “since you seem anxious to have -them.” - -“Oh, yes; I am anxious,” returned the Scarecrow. “It is such an -uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.” - -“Well,” said the girl, “let us go.” And she handed the basket to the -Scarecrow. - -There were no fences at all by the roadside now, and the land was rough -and untilled. Toward evening they came to a great forest, where the -trees grew so big and close together that their branches met over the -road of yellow brick. It was almost dark under the trees, for the -branches shut out the daylight; but the travelers did not stop, and -went on into the forest. - -“If this road goes in, it must come out,” said the Scarecrow, “and as -the Emerald City is at the other end of the road, we must go wherever -it leads us.” - -“Anyone would know that,” said Dorothy. - -“Certainly; that is why I know it,” returned the Scarecrow. “If it -required brains to figure it out, I never should have said it.” - -After an hour or so the light faded away, and they found themselves -stumbling along in the darkness. Dorothy could not see at all, but Toto -could, for some dogs see very well in the dark; and the Scarecrow -declared he could see as well as by day. So she took hold of his arm -and managed to get along fairly well. - -“If you see any house, or any place where we can pass the night,” she -said, “you must tell me; for it is very uncomfortable walking in the -dark.” - -Soon after the Scarecrow stopped. - -“I see a little cottage at the right of us,” he said, “built of logs -and branches. Shall we go there?” - -“Yes, indeed,” answered the child. “I am all tired out.” - -So the Scarecrow led her through the trees until they reached the -cottage, and Dorothy entered and found a bed of dried leaves in one -corner. She lay down at once, and with Toto beside her soon fell into a -sound sleep. The Scarecrow, who was never tired, stood up in another -corner and waited patiently until morning came. - - - - -Chapter V -The Rescue of the Tin Woodman - - -When Dorothy awoke the sun was shining through the trees and Toto had -long been out chasing birds around him and squirrels. She sat up and -looked around her. There was the Scarecrow, still standing patiently in -his corner, waiting for her. - -“We must go and search for water,” she said to him. - -“Why do you want water?” he asked. - -“To wash my face clean after the dust of the road, and to drink, so the -dry bread will not stick in my throat.” - -“It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh,” said the Scarecrow -thoughtfully, “for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have -brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly.” - -They left the cottage and walked through the trees until they found a -little spring of clear water, where Dorothy drank and bathed and ate -her breakfast. She saw there was not much bread left in the basket, and -the girl was thankful the Scarecrow did not have to eat anything, for -there was scarcely enough for herself and Toto for the day. - -When she had finished her meal, and was about to go back to the road of -yellow brick, she was startled to hear a deep groan near by. - -“What was that?” she asked timidly. - -“I cannot imagine,” replied the Scarecrow; “but we can go and see.” - -Just then another groan reached their ears, and the sound seemed to -come from behind them. They turned and walked through the forest a few -steps, when Dorothy discovered something shining in a ray of sunshine -that fell between the trees. She ran to the place and then stopped -short, with a little cry of surprise. - -One of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing -beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely -of tin. His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he -stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all. - -Dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the Scarecrow, while -Toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his -teeth. - -“Did you groan?” asked Dorothy. - -“Yes,” answered the tin man, “I did. I’ve been groaning for more than a -year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.” - -“What can I do for you?” she inquired softly, for she was moved by the -sad voice in which the man spoke. - -“Get an oil-can and oil my joints,” he answered. “They are rusted so -badly that I cannot move them at all; if I am well oiled I shall soon -be all right again. You will find an oil-can on a shelf in my cottage.” - -Dorothy at once ran back to the cottage and found the oil-can, and then -she returned and asked anxiously, “Where are your joints?” - -“Oil my neck, first,” replied the Tin Woodman. So she oiled it, and as -it was quite badly rusted the Scarecrow took hold of the tin head and -moved it gently from side to side until it worked freely, and then the -man could turn it himself. - -“Now oil the joints in my arms,” he said. And Dorothy oiled them and -the Scarecrow bent them carefully until they were quite free from rust -and as good as new. - -The Tin Woodman gave a sigh of satisfaction and lowered his axe, which -he leaned against the tree. - -“This is a great comfort,” he said. “I have been holding that axe in -the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at -last. Now, if you will oil the joints of my legs, I shall be all right -once more.” - -So they oiled his legs until he could move them freely; and he thanked -them again and again for his release, for he seemed a very polite -creature, and very grateful. - -“I might have stood there always if you had not come along,” he said; -“so you have certainly saved my life. How did you happen to be here?” - -“We are on our way to the Emerald City to see the Great Oz,” she -answered, “and we stopped at your cottage to pass the night.” - -“Why do you wish to see Oz?” he asked. - -“I want him to send me back to Kansas, and the Scarecrow wants him to -put a few brains into his head,” she replied. - -The Tin Woodman appeared to think deeply for a moment. Then he said: - -“Do you suppose Oz could give me a heart?” - -“Why, I guess so,” Dorothy answered. “It would be as easy as to give -the Scarecrow brains.” - -“True,” the Tin Woodman returned. “So, if you will allow me to join -your party, I will also go to the Emerald City and ask Oz to help me.” - -“Come along,” said the Scarecrow heartily, and Dorothy added that she -would be pleased to have his company. So the Tin Woodman shouldered his -axe and they all passed through the forest until they came to the road -that was paved with yellow brick. - -The Tin Woodman had asked Dorothy to put the oil-can in her basket. -“For,” he said, “if I should get caught in the rain, and rust again, I -would need the oil-can badly.” - -It was a bit of good luck to have their new comrade join the party, for -soon after they had begun their journey again they came to a place -where the trees and branches grew so thick over the road that the -travelers could not pass. But the Tin Woodman set to work with his axe -and chopped so well that soon he cleared a passage for the entire -party. - -Dorothy was thinking so earnestly as they walked along that she did not -notice when the Scarecrow stumbled into a hole and rolled over to the -side of the road. Indeed he was obliged to call to her to help him up -again. - -“Why didn’t you walk around the hole?” asked the Tin Woodman. - -“I don’t know enough,” replied the Scarecrow cheerfully. “My head is -stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am going to Oz to ask -him for some brains.” - -“Oh, I see,” said the Tin Woodman. “But, after all, brains are not the -best things in the world.” - -“Have you any?” inquired the Scarecrow. - -“No, my head is quite empty,” answered the Woodman. “But once I had -brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much -rather have a heart.” - -“And why is that?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“I will tell you my story, and then you will know.” - -So, while they were walking through the forest, the Tin Woodman told -the following story: - -“I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest -and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a -woodchopper, and after my father died I took care of my old mother as -long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone -I would marry, so that I might not become lonely. - -“There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon -grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry -me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for -her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old -woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she -wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the -housework. So the old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East, and -promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. -Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping -away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my -wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my -left leg. - -“This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man -could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and -had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I -was used to it. But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for -she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin -girl. When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right -leg. Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of -tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; -but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked -Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I -thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come -along, and he made me a new head out of tin. - -“I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than -ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a -new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my -axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into -two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body -of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of -joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had -now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did -not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living -with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her. - -“My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and -it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There -was only one danger—that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in -my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, -there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a -rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I -was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a -terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time -to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. -While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can -love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me -one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.” - -Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story -of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a -new heart. - -“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of -a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had -one.” - -“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not -make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.” - -Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her -two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to -Kansas and Aunt Em, it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had -no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted. - -What worried her most was that the bread was nearly gone, and another -meal for herself and Toto would empty the basket. To be sure, neither -the Woodman nor the Scarecrow ever ate anything, but she was not made -of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed. - - - - -Chapter VI -The Cowardly Lion - - -All this time Dorothy and her companions had been walking through the -thick woods. The road was still paved with yellow brick, but these were -much covered by dried branches and dead leaves from the trees, and the -walking was not at all good. - -There were few birds in this part of the forest, for birds love the -open country where there is plenty of sunshine. But now and then there -came a deep growl from some wild animal hidden among the trees. These -sounds made the little girl’s heart beat fast, for she did not know -what made them; but Toto knew, and he walked close to Dorothy’s side, -and did not even bark in return. - -“How long will it be,” the child asked of the Tin Woodman, “before we -are out of the forest?” - -“I cannot tell,” was the answer, “for I have never been to the Emerald -City. But my father went there once, when I was a boy, and he said it -was a long journey through a dangerous country, although nearer to the -city where Oz dwells the country is beautiful. But I am not afraid so -long as I have my oil-can, and nothing can hurt the Scarecrow, while -you bear upon your forehead the mark of the Good Witch’s kiss, and that -will protect you from harm.” - -“But Toto!” said the girl anxiously. “What will protect him?” - -“We must protect him ourselves if he is in danger,” replied the Tin -Woodman. - -Just as he spoke there came from the forest a terrible roar, and the -next moment a great Lion bounded into the road. With one blow of his -paw he sent the Scarecrow spinning over and over to the edge of the -road, and then he struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws. But, -to the Lion’s surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, -although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still. - -Little Toto, now that he had an enemy to face, ran barking toward the -Lion, and the great beast had opened his mouth to bite the dog, when -Dorothy, fearing Toto would be killed, and heedless of danger, rushed -forward and slapped the Lion upon his nose as hard as she could, while -she cried out: - -“Don’t you dare to bite Toto! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a -big beast like you, to bite a poor little dog!” - -“I didn’t bite him,” said the Lion, as he rubbed his nose with his paw -where Dorothy had hit it. - -“No, but you tried to,” she retorted. “You are nothing but a big -coward.” - -“I know it,” said the Lion, hanging his head in shame. “I’ve always -known it. But how can I help it?” - -“I don’t know, I’m sure. To think of your striking a stuffed man, like -the poor Scarecrow!” - -“Is he stuffed?” asked the Lion in surprise, as he watched her pick up -the Scarecrow and set him upon his feet, while she patted him into -shape again. - -“Of course he’s stuffed,” replied Dorothy, who was still angry. - -“That’s why he went over so easily,” remarked the Lion. “It astonished -me to see him whirl around so. Is the other one stuffed also?” - -“No,” said Dorothy, “he’s made of tin.” And she helped the Woodman up -again. - -“That’s why he nearly blunted my claws,” said the Lion. “When they -scratched against the tin it made a cold shiver run down my back. What -is that little animal you are so tender of?” - -“He is my dog, Toto,” answered Dorothy. - -“Is he made of tin, or stuffed?” asked the Lion. - -“Neither. He’s a—a—a meat dog,” said the girl. - -“Oh! He’s a curious animal and seems remarkably small, now that I look -at him. No one would think of biting such a little thing, except a -coward like me,” continued the Lion sadly. - -“What makes you a coward?” asked Dorothy, looking at the great beast in -wonder, for he was as big as a small horse. - -“It’s a mystery,” replied the Lion. “I suppose I was born that way. All -the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for -the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts. I learned that -if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out -of my way. Whenever I’ve met a man I’ve been awfully scared; but I just -roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. If -the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, -I should have run myself—I’m such a coward; but just as soon as they -hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course I let them -go.” - -“But that isn’t right. The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” said -the Scarecrow. - -“I know it,” returned the Lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip -of his tail. “It is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. -But whenever there is danger, my heart begins to beat fast.” - -“Perhaps you have heart disease,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“It may be,” said the Lion. - -“If you have,” continued the Tin Woodman, “you ought to be glad, for it -proves you have a heart. For my part, I have no heart; so I cannot have -heart disease.” - -“Perhaps,” said the Lion thoughtfully, “if I had no heart I should not -be a coward.” - -“Have you brains?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“I suppose so. I’ve never looked to see,” replied the Lion. - -“I am going to the Great Oz to ask him to give me some,” remarked the -Scarecrow, “for my head is stuffed with straw.” - -“And I am going to ask him to give me a heart,” said the Woodman. - -“And I am going to ask him to send Toto and me back to Kansas,” added -Dorothy. - -“Do you think Oz could give me courage?” asked the Cowardly Lion. - -“Just as easily as he could give me brains,” said the Scarecrow. - -“Or give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“Or send me back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. - -“Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,” said the Lion, “for my -life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage.” - -“You will be very welcome,” answered Dorothy, “for you will help to -keep away the other wild beasts. It seems to me they must be more -cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily.” - -“They really are,” said the Lion, “but that doesn’t make me any braver, -and as long as I know myself to be a coward I shall be unhappy.” - -So once more the little company set off upon the journey, the Lion -walking with stately strides at Dorothy’s side. Toto did not approve of -this new comrade at first, for he could not forget how nearly he had -been crushed between the Lion’s great jaws. But after a time he became -more at ease, and presently Toto and the Cowardly Lion had grown to be -good friends. - -During the rest of that day there was no other adventure to mar the -peace of their journey. Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a -beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little -thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always -careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept -several tears of sorrow and regret. These tears ran slowly down his -face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. When -Dorothy presently asked him a question the Tin Woodman could not open -his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. He became greatly -frightened at this and made many motions to Dorothy to relieve him, but -she could not understand. The Lion was also puzzled to know what was -wrong. But the Scarecrow seized the oil-can from Dorothy’s basket and -oiled the Woodman’s jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as -well as before. - -“This will serve me a lesson,” said he, “to look where I step. For if I -should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying -rusts my jaws so that I cannot speak.” - -Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and -when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to -harm it. The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore -he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. - -“You people with hearts,” he said, “have something to guide you, and -need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very -careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn’t mind so much.” - - - - -Chapter VII -The Journey to the Great Oz - - -They were obliged to camp out that night under a large tree in the -forest, for there were no houses near. The tree made a good, thick -covering to protect them from the dew, and the Tin Woodman chopped a -great pile of wood with his axe and Dorothy built a splendid fire that -warmed her and made her feel less lonely. She and Toto ate the last of -their bread, and now she did not know what they would do for breakfast. - -“If you wish,” said the Lion, “I will go into the forest and kill a -deer for you. You can roast it by the fire, since your tastes are so -peculiar that you prefer cooked food, and then you will have a very -good breakfast.” - -“Don’t! Please don’t,” begged the Tin Woodman. “I should certainly weep -if you killed a poor deer, and then my jaws would rust again.” - -But the Lion went away into the forest and found his own supper, and no -one ever knew what it was, for he didn’t mention it. And the Scarecrow -found a tree full of nuts and filled Dorothy’s basket with them, so -that she would not be hungry for a long time. She thought this was very -kind and thoughtful of the Scarecrow, but she laughed heartily at the -awkward way in which the poor creature picked up the nuts. His padded -hands were so clumsy and the nuts were so small that he dropped almost -as many as he put in the basket. But the Scarecrow did not mind how -long it took him to fill the basket, for it enabled him to keep away -from the fire, as he feared a spark might get into his straw and burn -him up. So he kept a good distance away from the flames, and only came -near to cover Dorothy with dry leaves when she lay down to sleep. These -kept her very snug and warm, and she slept soundly until morning. - -When it was daylight, the girl bathed her face in a little rippling -brook, and soon after they all started toward the Emerald City. - -This was to be an eventful day for the travelers. They had hardly been -walking an hour when they saw before them a great ditch that crossed -the road and divided the forest as far as they could see on either -side. It was a very wide ditch, and when they crept up to the edge and -looked into it they could see it was also very deep, and there were -many big, jagged rocks at the bottom. The sides were so steep that none -of them could climb down, and for a moment it seemed that their journey -must end. - -“What shall we do?” asked Dorothy despairingly. - -“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said the Tin Woodman, and the Lion shook -his shaggy mane and looked thoughtful. - -But the Scarecrow said, “We cannot fly, that is certain. Neither can we -climb down into this great ditch. Therefore, if we cannot jump over it, -we must stop where we are.” - -“I think I could jump over it,” said the Cowardly Lion, after measuring -the distance carefully in his mind. - -“Then we are all right,” answered the Scarecrow, “for you can carry us -all over on your back, one at a time.” - -“Well, I’ll try it,” said the Lion. “Who will go first?” - -“I will,” declared the Scarecrow, “for, if you found that you could not -jump over the gulf, Dorothy would be killed, or the Tin Woodman badly -dented on the rocks below. But if I am on your back it will not matter -so much, for the fall would not hurt me at all.” - -“I am terribly afraid of falling, myself,” said the Cowardly Lion, “but -I suppose there is nothing to do but try it. So get on my back and we -will make the attempt.” - -The Scarecrow sat upon the Lion’s back, and the big beast walked to the -edge of the gulf and crouched down. - -“Why don’t you run and jump?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“Because that isn’t the way we Lions do these things,” he replied. Then -giving a great spring, he shot through the air and landed safely on the -other side. They were all greatly pleased to see how easily he did it, -and after the Scarecrow had got down from his back the Lion sprang -across the ditch again. - -Dorothy thought she would go next; so she took Toto in her arms and -climbed on the Lion’s back, holding tightly to his mane with one hand. -The next moment it seemed as if she were flying through the air; and -then, before she had time to think about it, she was safe on the other -side. The Lion went back a third time and got the Tin Woodman, and then -they all sat down for a few moments to give the beast a chance to rest, -for his great leaps had made his breath short, and he panted like a big -dog that has been running too long. - -They found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and -gloomy. After the Lion had rested they started along the road of yellow -brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would -come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. To -add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths -of the forest, and the Lion whispered to them that it was in this part -of the country that the Kalidahs lived. - -“What are the Kalidahs?” asked the girl. - -“They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like -tigers,” replied the Lion, “and with claws so long and sharp that they -could tear me in two as easily as I could kill Toto. I’m terribly -afraid of the Kalidahs.” - -“I’m not surprised that you are,” returned Dorothy. “They must be -dreadful beasts.” - -The Lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf -across the road. But this one was so broad and deep that the Lion knew -at once he could not leap across it. - -So they sat down to consider what they should do, and after serious -thought the Scarecrow said: - -“Here is a great tree, standing close to the ditch. If the Tin Woodman -can chop it down, so that it will fall to the other side, we can walk -across it easily.” - -“That is a first-rate idea,” said the Lion. “One would almost suspect -you had brains in your head, instead of straw.” - -The Woodman set to work at once, and so sharp was his axe that the tree -was soon chopped nearly through. Then the Lion put his strong front -legs against the tree and pushed with all his might, and slowly the big -tree tipped and fell with a crash across the ditch, with its top -branches on the other side. - -They had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl -made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them -two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. - -“They are the Kalidahs!” said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble. - -“Quick!” cried the Scarecrow. “Let us cross over.” - -So Dorothy went first, holding Toto in her arms, the Tin Woodman -followed, and the Scarecrow came next. The Lion, although he was -certainly afraid, turned to face the Kalidahs, and then he gave so loud -and terrible a roar that Dorothy screamed and the Scarecrow fell over -backward, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him -in surprise. - -But, seeing they were bigger than the Lion, and remembering that there -were two of them and only one of him, the Kalidahs again rushed -forward, and the Lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they -would do next. Without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began -to cross the tree. And the Lion said to Dorothy: - -“We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp -claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am -alive.” - -“Wait a minute!” called the Scarecrow. He had been thinking what was -best to be done, and now he asked the Woodman to chop away the end of -the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. The Tin Woodman began -to use his axe at once, and, just as the two Kalidahs were nearly -across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, -snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp -rocks at the bottom. - -“Well,” said the Cowardly Lion, drawing a long breath of relief, “I see -we are going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it, for it -must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive. Those creatures -frightened me so badly that my heart is beating yet.” - -“Ah,” said the Tin Woodman sadly, “I wish I had a heart to beat.” - -This adventure made the travelers more anxious than ever to get out of -the forest, and they walked so fast that Dorothy became tired, and had -to ride on the Lion’s back. To their great joy the trees became thinner -the farther they advanced, and in the afternoon they suddenly came upon -a broad river, flowing swiftly just before them. On the other side of -the water they could see the road of yellow brick running through a -beautiful country, with green meadows dotted with bright flowers and -all the road bordered with trees hanging full of delicious fruits. They -were greatly pleased to see this delightful country before them. - -“How shall we cross the river?” asked Dorothy. - -“That is easily done,” replied the Scarecrow. “The Tin Woodman must -build us a raft, so we can float to the other side.” - -So the Woodman took his axe and began to chop down small trees to make -a raft, and while he was busy at this the Scarecrow found on the -riverbank a tree full of fine fruit. This pleased Dorothy, who had -eaten nothing but nuts all day, and she made a hearty meal of the ripe -fruit. - -But it takes time to make a raft, even when one is as industrious and -untiring as the Tin Woodman, and when night came the work was not done. -So they found a cozy place under the trees where they slept well until -the morning; and Dorothy dreamed of the Emerald City, and of the good -Wizard Oz, who would soon send her back to her own home again. - - - - -Chapter VIII -The Deadly Poppy Field - - -Our little party of travelers awakened the next morning refreshed and -full of hope, and Dorothy breakfasted like a princess off peaches and -plums from the trees beside the river. Behind them was the dark forest -they had passed safely through, although they had suffered many -discouragements; but before them was a lovely, sunny country that -seemed to beckon them on to the Emerald City. - -To be sure, the broad river now cut them off from this beautiful land. -But the raft was nearly done, and after the Tin Woodman had cut a few -more logs and fastened them together with wooden pins, they were ready -to start. Dorothy sat down in the middle of the raft and held Toto in -her arms. When the Cowardly Lion stepped upon the raft it tipped badly, -for he was big and heavy; but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood -upon the other end to steady it, and they had long poles in their hands -to push the raft through the water. - -They got along quite well at first, but when they reached the middle of -the river the swift current swept the raft downstream, farther and -farther away from the road of yellow brick. And the water grew so deep -that the long poles would not touch the bottom. - -“This is bad,” said the Tin Woodman, “for if we cannot get to the land -we shall be carried into the country of the Wicked Witch of the West, -and she will enchant us and make us her slaves.” - -“And then I should get no brains,” said the Scarecrow. - -“And I should get no courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. - -“And I should get no heart,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“And I should never get back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. - -“We must certainly get to the Emerald City if we can,” the Scarecrow -continued, and he pushed so hard on his long pole that it stuck fast in -the mud at the bottom of the river. Then, before he could pull it out -again—or let go—the raft was swept away, and the poor Scarecrow was -left clinging to the pole in the middle of the river. - -“Good-bye!” he called after them, and they were very sorry to leave -him. Indeed, the Tin Woodman began to cry, but fortunately remembered -that he might rust, and so dried his tears on Dorothy’s apron. - -Of course this was a bad thing for the Scarecrow. - -“I am now worse off than when I first met Dorothy,” he thought. “Then, -I was stuck on a pole in a cornfield, where I could make-believe scare -the crows, at any rate. But surely there is no use for a Scarecrow -stuck on a pole in the middle of a river. I am afraid I shall never -have any brains, after all!” - -Down the stream the raft floated, and the poor Scarecrow was left far -behind. Then the Lion said: - -“Something must be done to save us. I think I can swim to the shore and -pull the raft after me, if you will only hold fast to the tip of my -tail.” - -So he sprang into the water, and the Tin Woodman caught fast hold of -his tail. Then the Lion began to swim with all his might toward the -shore. It was hard work, although he was so big; but by and by they -were drawn out of the current, and then Dorothy took the Tin Woodman’s -long pole and helped push the raft to the land. - -They were all tired out when they reached the shore at last and stepped -off upon the pretty green grass, and they also knew that the stream had -carried them a long way past the road of yellow brick that led to the -Emerald City. - -“What shall we do now?” asked the Tin Woodman, as the Lion lay down on -the grass to let the sun dry him. - -“We must get back to the road, in some way,” said Dorothy. - -“The best plan will be to walk along the riverbank until we come to the -road again,” remarked the Lion. - -So, when they were rested, Dorothy picked up her basket and they -started along the grassy bank, to the road from which the river had -carried them. It was a lovely country, with plenty of flowers and fruit -trees and sunshine to cheer them, and had they not felt so sorry for -the poor Scarecrow, they could have been very happy. - -They walked along as fast as they could, Dorothy only stopping once to -pick a beautiful flower; and after a time the Tin Woodman cried out: -“Look!” - -Then they all looked at the river and saw the Scarecrow perched upon -his pole in the middle of the water, looking very lonely and sad. - -“What can we do to save him?” asked Dorothy. - -The Lion and the Woodman both shook their heads, for they did not know. -So they sat down upon the bank and gazed wistfully at the Scarecrow -until a Stork flew by, who, upon seeing them, stopped to rest at the -water’s edge. - -“Who are you and where are you going?” asked the Stork. - -“I am Dorothy,” answered the girl, “and these are my friends, the Tin -Woodman and the Cowardly Lion; and we are going to the Emerald City.” - -“This isn’t the road,” said the Stork, as she twisted her long neck and -looked sharply at the queer party. - -“I know it,” returned Dorothy, “but we have lost the Scarecrow, and are -wondering how we shall get him again.” - -“Where is he?” asked the Stork. - -“Over there in the river,” answered the little girl. - -“If he wasn’t so big and heavy I would get him for you,” remarked the -Stork. - -“He isn’t heavy a bit,” said Dorothy eagerly, “for he is stuffed with -straw; and if you will bring him back to us, we shall thank you ever -and ever so much.” - -“Well, I’ll try,” said the Stork, “but if I find he is too heavy to -carry I shall have to drop him in the river again.” - -So the big bird flew into the air and over the water till she came to -where the Scarecrow was perched upon his pole. Then the Stork with her -great claws grabbed the Scarecrow by the arm and carried him up into -the air and back to the bank, where Dorothy and the Lion and the Tin -Woodman and Toto were sitting. - -When the Scarecrow found himself among his friends again, he was so -happy that he hugged them all, even the Lion and Toto; and as they -walked along he sang “Tol-de-ri-de-oh!” at every step, he felt so gay. - -“I was afraid I should have to stay in the river forever,” he said, -“but the kind Stork saved me, and if I ever get any brains I shall find -the Stork again and do her some kindness in return.” - -“That’s all right,” said the Stork, who was flying along beside them. -“I always like to help anyone in trouble. But I must go now, for my -babies are waiting in the nest for me. I hope you will find the Emerald -City and that Oz will help you.” - -“Thank you,” replied Dorothy, and then the kind Stork flew into the air -and was soon out of sight. - -They walked along listening to the singing of the brightly colored -birds and looking at the lovely flowers which now became so thick that -the ground was carpeted with them. There were big yellow and white and -blue and purple blossoms, besides great clusters of scarlet poppies, -which were so brilliant in color they almost dazzled Dorothy’s eyes. - -“Aren’t they beautiful?” the girl asked, as she breathed in the spicy -scent of the bright flowers. - -“I suppose so,” answered the Scarecrow. “When I have brains, I shall -probably like them better.” - -“If I only had a heart, I should love them,” added the Tin Woodman. - -“I always did like flowers,” said the Lion. “They seem so helpless and -frail. But there are none in the forest so bright as these.” - -They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer -and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the -midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when -there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that -anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried -away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever. But -Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red -flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy -and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep. - -But the Tin Woodman would not let her do this. - -“We must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark,” -he said; and the Scarecrow agreed with him. So they kept walking until -Dorothy could stand no longer. Her eyes closed in spite of herself and -she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep. - -“What shall we do?” asked the Tin Woodman. - -“If we leave her here she will die,” said the Lion. “The smell of the -flowers is killing us all. I myself can scarcely keep my eyes open, and -the dog is asleep already.” - -It was true; Toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. But the -Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, not being made of flesh, were not -troubled by the scent of the flowers. - -“Run fast,” said the Scarecrow to the Lion, “and get out of this deadly -flower bed as soon as you can. We will bring the little girl with us, -but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried.” - -So the Lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. -In a moment he was out of sight. - -“Let us make a chair with our hands and carry her,” said the Scarecrow. -So they picked up Toto and put the dog in Dorothy’s lap, and then they -made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms -and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers. - -On and on they walked, and it seemed that the great carpet of deadly -flowers that surrounded them would never end. They followed the bend of -the river, and at last came upon their friend the Lion, lying fast -asleep among the poppies. The flowers had been too strong for the huge -beast and he had given up at last, and fallen only a short distance -from the end of the poppy bed, where the sweet grass spread in -beautiful green fields before them. - -“We can do nothing for him,” said the Tin Woodman, sadly; “for he is -much too heavy to lift. We must leave him here to sleep on forever, and -perhaps he will dream that he has found courage at last.” - -“I’m sorry,” said the Scarecrow. “The Lion was a very good comrade for -one so cowardly. But let us go on.” - -They carried the sleeping girl to a pretty spot beside the river, far -enough from the poppy field to prevent her breathing any more of the -poison of the flowers, and here they laid her gently on the soft grass -and waited for the fresh breeze to waken her. - - - - -Chapter IX -The Queen of the Field Mice - - -“We cannot be far from the road of yellow brick, now,” remarked the -Scarecrow, as he stood beside the girl, “for we have come nearly as far -as the river carried us away.” - -The Tin Woodman was about to reply when he heard a low growl, and -turning his head (which worked beautifully on hinges) he saw a strange -beast come bounding over the grass toward them. It was, indeed, a great -yellow Wildcat, and the Woodman thought it must be chasing something, -for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, -showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of -fire. As it came nearer the Tin Woodman saw that running before the -beast was a little gray field mouse, and although he had no heart he -knew it was wrong for the Wildcat to try to kill such a pretty, -harmless creature. - -So the Woodman raised his axe, and as the Wildcat ran by he gave it a -quick blow that cut the beast’s head clean off from its body, and it -rolled over at his feet in two pieces. - -The field mouse, now that it was freed from its enemy, stopped short; -and coming slowly up to the Woodman it said, in a squeaky little voice: - -“Oh, thank you! Thank you ever so much for saving my life.” - -“Don’t speak of it, I beg of you,” replied the Woodman. “I have no -heart, you know, so I am careful to help all those who may need a -friend, even if it happens to be only a mouse.” - -“Only a mouse!” cried the little animal, indignantly. “Why, I am a -Queen—the Queen of all the Field Mice!” - -“Oh, indeed,” said the Woodman, making a bow. - -“Therefore you have done a great deed, as well as a brave one, in -saving my life,” added the Queen. - -At that moment several mice were seen running up as fast as their -little legs could carry them, and when they saw their Queen they -exclaimed: - -“Oh, your Majesty, we thought you would be killed! How did you manage -to escape the great Wildcat?” They all bowed so low to the little Queen -that they almost stood upon their heads. - -“This funny tin man,” she answered, “killed the Wildcat and saved my -life. So hereafter you must all serve him, and obey his slightest -wish.” - -“We will!” cried all the mice, in a shrill chorus. And then they -scampered in all directions, for Toto had awakened from his sleep, and -seeing all these mice around him he gave one bark of delight and jumped -right into the middle of the group. Toto had always loved to chase mice -when he lived in Kansas, and he saw no harm in it. - -But the Tin Woodman caught the dog in his arms and held him tight, -while he called to the mice, “Come back! Come back! Toto shall not hurt -you.” - -At this the Queen of the Mice stuck her head out from underneath a -clump of grass and asked, in a timid voice, “Are you sure he will not -bite us?” - -“I will not let him,” said the Woodman; “so do not be afraid.” - -One by one the mice came creeping back, and Toto did not bark again, -although he tried to get out of the Woodman’s arms, and would have -bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin. Finally one -of the biggest mice spoke. - -“Is there anything we can do,” it asked, “to repay you for saving the -life of our Queen?” - -“Nothing that I know of,” answered the Woodman; but the Scarecrow, who -had been trying to think, but could not because his head was stuffed -with straw, said, quickly, “Oh, yes; you can save our friend, the -Cowardly Lion, who is asleep in the poppy bed.” - -“A Lion!” cried the little Queen. “Why, he would eat us all up.” - -“Oh, no,” declared the Scarecrow; “this Lion is a coward.” - -“Really?” asked the Mouse. - -“He says so himself,” answered the Scarecrow, “and he would never hurt -anyone who is our friend. If you will help us to save him I promise -that he shall treat you all with kindness.” - -“Very well,” said the Queen, “we trust you. But what shall we do?” - -“Are there many of these mice which call you Queen and are willing to -obey you?” - -“Oh, yes; there are thousands,” she replied. - -“Then send for them all to come here as soon as possible, and let each -one bring a long piece of string.” - -The Queen turned to the mice that attended her and told them to go at -once and get all her people. As soon as they heard her orders they ran -away in every direction as fast as possible. - -“Now,” said the Scarecrow to the Tin Woodman, “you must go to those -trees by the riverside and make a truck that will carry the Lion.” - -So the Woodman went at once to the trees and began to work; and he soon -made a truck out of the limbs of trees, from which he chopped away all -the leaves and branches. He fastened it together with wooden pegs and -made the four wheels out of short pieces of a big tree trunk. So fast -and so well did he work that by the time the mice began to arrive the -truck was all ready for them. - -They came from all directions, and there were thousands of them: big -mice and little mice and middle-sized mice; and each one brought a -piece of string in his mouth. It was about this time that Dorothy woke -from her long sleep and opened her eyes. She was greatly astonished to -find herself lying upon the grass, with thousands of mice standing -around and looking at her timidly. But the Scarecrow told her about -everything, and turning to the dignified little Mouse, he said: - -“Permit me to introduce to you her Majesty, the Queen.” - -Dorothy nodded gravely and the Queen made a curtsy, after which she -became quite friendly with the little girl. - -The Scarecrow and the Woodman now began to fasten the mice to the -truck, using the strings they had brought. One end of a string was tied -around the neck of each mouse and the other end to the truck. Of course -the truck was a thousand times bigger than any of the mice who were to -draw it; but when all the mice had been harnessed, they were able to -pull it quite easily. Even the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman could sit -on it, and were drawn swiftly by their queer little horses to the place -where the Lion lay asleep. - -After a great deal of hard work, for the Lion was heavy, they managed -to get him up on the truck. Then the Queen hurriedly gave her people -the order to start, for she feared if the mice stayed among the poppies -too long they also would fall asleep. - -At first the little creatures, many though they were, could hardly stir -the heavily loaded truck; but the Woodman and the Scarecrow both pushed -from behind, and they got along better. Soon they rolled the Lion out -of the poppy bed to the green fields, where he could breathe the sweet, -fresh air again, instead of the poisonous scent of the flowers. - -Dorothy came to meet them and thanked the little mice warmly for saving -her companion from death. She had grown so fond of the big Lion she was -glad he had been rescued. - -Then the mice were unharnessed from the truck and scampered away -through the grass to their homes. The Queen of the Mice was the last to -leave. - -“If ever you need us again,” she said, “come out into the field and -call, and we shall hear you and come to your assistance. Good-bye!” - -“Good-bye!” they all answered, and away the Queen ran, while Dorothy -held Toto tightly lest he should run after her and frighten her. - -After this they sat down beside the Lion until he should awaken; and -the Scarecrow brought Dorothy some fruit from a tree near by, which she -ate for her dinner. - - - - -Chapter X -The Guardian of the Gate - - -It was some time before the Cowardly Lion awakened, for he had lain -among the poppies a long while, breathing in their deadly fragrance; -but when he did open his eyes and roll off the truck he was very glad -to find himself still alive. - -“I ran as fast as I could,” he said, sitting down and yawning, “but the -flowers were too strong for me. How did you get me out?” - -Then they told him of the field mice, and how they had generously saved -him from death; and the Cowardly Lion laughed, and said: - -“I have always thought myself very big and terrible; yet such little -things as flowers came near to killing me, and such small animals as -mice have saved my life. How strange it all is! But, comrades, what -shall we do now?” - -“We must journey on until we find the road of yellow brick again,” said -Dorothy, “and then we can keep on to the Emerald City.” - -So, the Lion being fully refreshed, and feeling quite himself again, -they all started upon the journey, greatly enjoying the walk through -the soft, fresh grass; and it was not long before they reached the road -of yellow brick and turned again toward the Emerald City where the -Great Oz dwelt. - -The road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was -beautiful, so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far -behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades. -Once more they could see fences built beside the road; but these were -painted green, and when they came to a small house, in which a farmer -evidently lived, that also was painted green. They passed by several of -these houses during the afternoon, and sometimes people came to the -doors and looked at them as if they would like to ask questions; but no -one came near them nor spoke to them because of the great Lion, of -which they were very much afraid. The people were all dressed in -clothing of a lovely emerald-green color and wore peaked hats like -those of the Munchkins. - -“This must be the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy, “and we are surely getting -near the Emerald City.” - -“Yes,” answered the Scarecrow. “Everything is green here, while in the -country of the Munchkins blue was the favorite color. But the people do -not seem to be as friendly as the Munchkins, and I’m afraid we shall be -unable to find a place to pass the night.” - -“I should like something to eat besides fruit,” said the girl, “and I’m -sure Toto is nearly starved. Let us stop at the next house and talk to -the people.” - -So, when they came to a good-sized farmhouse, Dorothy walked boldly up -to the door and knocked. - -A woman opened it just far enough to look out, and said, “What do you -want, child, and why is that great Lion with you?” - -“We wish to pass the night with you, if you will allow us,” answered -Dorothy; “and the Lion is my friend and comrade, and would not hurt you -for the world.” - -“Is he tame?” asked the woman, opening the door a little wider. - -“Oh, yes,” said the girl, “and he is a great coward, too. He will be -more afraid of you than you are of him.” - -“Well,” said the woman, after thinking it over and taking another peep -at the Lion, “if that is the case you may come in, and I will give you -some supper and a place to sleep.” - -So they all entered the house, where there were, besides the woman, two -children and a man. The man had hurt his leg, and was lying on the -couch in a corner. They seemed greatly surprised to see so strange a -company, and while the woman was busy laying the table the man asked: - -“Where are you all going?” - -“To the Emerald City,” said Dorothy, “to see the Great Oz.” - -“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed the man. “Are you sure that Oz will see you?” - -“Why not?” she replied. - -“Why, it is said that he never lets anyone come into his presence. I -have been to the Emerald City many times, and it is a beautiful and -wonderful place; but I have never been permitted to see the Great Oz, -nor do I know of any living person who has seen him.” - -“Does he never go out?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“Never. He sits day after day in the great Throne Room of his Palace, -and even those who wait upon him do not see him face to face.” - -“What is he like?” asked the girl. - -“That is hard to tell,” said the man thoughtfully. “You see, Oz is a -Great Wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. So that some say he -looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say -he looks like a cat. To others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a -brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. But who the real Oz is, -when he is in his own form, no living person can tell.” - -“That is very strange,” said Dorothy, “but we must try, in some way, to -see him, or we shall have made our journey for nothing.” - -“Why do you wish to see the terrible Oz?” asked the man. - -“I want him to give me some brains,” said the Scarecrow eagerly. - -“Oh, Oz could do that easily enough,” declared the man. “He has more -brains than he needs.” - -“And I want him to give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“That will not trouble him,” continued the man, “for Oz has a large -collection of hearts, of all sizes and shapes.” - -“And I want him to give me courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. - -“Oz keeps a great pot of courage in his Throne Room,” said the man, -“which he has covered with a golden plate, to keep it from running -over. He will be glad to give you some.” - -“And I want him to send me back to Kansas,” said Dorothy. - -“Where is Kansas?” asked the man, with surprise. - -“I don’t know,” replied Dorothy sorrowfully, “but it is my home, and -I’m sure it’s somewhere.” - -“Very likely. Well, Oz can do anything; so I suppose he will find -Kansas for you. But first you must get to see him, and that will be a -hard task; for the Great Wizard does not like to see anyone, and he -usually has his own way. But what do YOU want?” he continued, speaking -to Toto. Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not -speak. - -The woman now called to them that supper was ready, so they gathered -around the table and Dorothy ate some delicious porridge and a dish of -scrambled eggs and a plate of nice white bread, and enjoyed her meal. -The Lion ate some of the porridge, but did not care for it, saying it -was made from oats and oats were food for horses, not for lions. The -Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman ate nothing at all. Toto ate a little of -everything, and was glad to get a good supper again. - -The woman now gave Dorothy a bed to sleep in, and Toto lay down beside -her, while the Lion guarded the door of her room so she might not be -disturbed. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood up in a corner and -kept quiet all night, although of course they could not sleep. - -The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they started on their way, -and soon saw a beautiful green glow in the sky just before them. - -“That must be the Emerald City,” said Dorothy. - -As they walked on, the green glow became brighter and brighter, and it -seemed that at last they were nearing the end of their travels. Yet it -was afternoon before they came to the great wall that surrounded the -City. It was high and thick and of a bright green color. - -In front of them, and at the end of the road of yellow brick, was a big -gate, all studded with emeralds that glittered so in the sun that even -the painted eyes of the Scarecrow were dazzled by their brilliancy. - -There was a bell beside the gate, and Dorothy pushed the button and -heard a silvery tinkle sound within. Then the big gate swung slowly -open, and they all passed through and found themselves in a high arched -room, the walls of which glistened with countless emeralds. - -Before them stood a little man about the same size as the Munchkins. He -was clothed all in green, from his head to his feet, and even his skin -was of a greenish tint. At his side was a large green box. - -When he saw Dorothy and her companions the man asked, “What do you wish -in the Emerald City?” - -“We came here to see the Great Oz,” said Dorothy. - -The man was so surprised at this answer that he sat down to think it -over. - -“It has been many years since anyone asked me to see Oz,” he said, -shaking his head in perplexity. “He is powerful and terrible, and if -you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of -the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an instant.” - -“But it is not a foolish errand, nor an idle one,” replied the -Scarecrow; “it is important. And we have been told that Oz is a good -Wizard.” - -“So he is,” said the green man, “and he rules the Emerald City wisely -and well. But to those who are not honest, or who approach him from -curiosity, he is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see his -face. I am the Guardian of the Gates, and since you demand to see the -Great Oz I must take you to his Palace. But first you must put on the -spectacles.” - -“Why?” asked Dorothy. - -“Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the -Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear -spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it -when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock -them.” - -He opened the big box, and Dorothy saw that it was filled with -spectacles of every size and shape. All of them had green glasses in -them. The Guardian of the Gates found a pair that would just fit -Dorothy and put them over her eyes. There were two golden bands -fastened to them that passed around the back of her head, where they -were locked together by a little key that was at the end of a chain the -Guardian of the Gates wore around his neck. When they were on, Dorothy -could not take them off had she wished, but of course she did not wish -to be blinded by the glare of the Emerald City, so she said nothing. - -Then the green man fitted spectacles for the Scarecrow and the Tin -Woodman and the Lion, and even on little Toto; and all were locked fast -with the key. - -Then the Guardian of the Gates put on his own glasses and told them he -was ready to show them to the Palace. Taking a big golden key from a -peg on the wall, he opened another gate, and they all followed him -through the portal into the streets of the Emerald City. - - - - -Chapter XI -The Wonderful City of Oz - - -Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles, Dorothy and her -friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. -The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble -and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. They walked over a -pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined -together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the -brightness of the sun. The window panes were of green glass; even the -sky above the City had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were -green. - -There were many people—men, women, and children—walking about, and -these were all dressed in green clothes and had greenish skins. They -looked at Dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering -eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when -they saw the Lion; but no one spoke to them. Many shops stood in the -street, and Dorothy saw that everything in them was green. Green candy -and green pop corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green -hats, and green clothes of all sorts. At one place a man was selling -green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that -they paid for it with green pennies. - -There seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind; the men carried -things around in little green carts, which they pushed before them. -Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous. - -The Guardian of the Gates led them through the streets until they came -to a big building, exactly in the middle of the City, which was the -Palace of Oz, the Great Wizard. There was a soldier before the door, -dressed in a green uniform and wearing a long green beard. - -“Here are strangers,” said the Guardian of the Gates to him, “and they -demand to see the Great Oz.” - -“Step inside,” answered the soldier, “and I will carry your message to -him.” - -So they passed through the Palace Gates and were led into a big room -with a green carpet and lovely green furniture set with emeralds. The -soldier made them all wipe their feet upon a green mat before entering -this room, and when they were seated he said politely: - -“Please make yourselves comfortable while I go to the door of the -Throne Room and tell Oz you are here.” - -They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. When, at -last, he came back, Dorothy asked: - -“Have you seen Oz?” - -“Oh, no,” returned the soldier; “I have never seen him. But I spoke to -him as he sat behind his screen and gave him your message. He said he -will grant you an audience, if you so desire; but each one of you must -enter his presence alone, and he will admit but one each day. -Therefore, as you must remain in the Palace for several days, I will -have you shown to rooms where you may rest in comfort after your -journey.” - -“Thank you,” replied the girl; “that is very kind of Oz.” - -The soldier now blew upon a green whistle, and at once a young girl, -dressed in a pretty green silk gown, entered the room. She had lovely -green hair and green eyes, and she bowed low before Dorothy as she -said, “Follow me and I will show you your room.” - -So Dorothy said good-bye to all her friends except Toto, and taking the -dog in her arms followed the green girl through seven passages and up -three flights of stairs until they came to a room at the front of the -Palace. It was the sweetest little room in the world, with a soft -comfortable bed that had sheets of green silk and a green velvet -counterpane. There was a tiny fountain in the middle of the room, that -shot a spray of green perfume into the air, to fall back into a -beautifully carved green marble basin. Beautiful green flowers stood in -the windows, and there was a shelf with a row of little green books. -When Dorothy had time to open these books she found them full of queer -green pictures that made her laugh, they were so funny. - -In a wardrobe were many green dresses, made of silk and satin and -velvet; and all of them fitted Dorothy exactly. - -“Make yourself perfectly at home,” said the green girl, “and if you -wish for anything ring the bell. Oz will send for you tomorrow -morning.” - -She left Dorothy alone and went back to the others. These she also led -to rooms, and each one of them found himself lodged in a very pleasant -part of the Palace. Of course this politeness was wasted on the -Scarecrow; for when he found himself alone in his room he stood -stupidly in one spot, just within the doorway, to wait till morning. It -would not rest him to lie down, and he could not close his eyes; so he -remained all night staring at a little spider which was weaving its web -in a corner of the room, just as if it were not one of the most -wonderful rooms in the world. The Tin Woodman lay down on his bed from -force of habit, for he remembered when he was made of flesh; but not -being able to sleep, he passed the night moving his joints up and down -to make sure they kept in good working order. The Lion would have -preferred a bed of dried leaves in the forest, and did not like being -shut up in a room; but he had too much sense to let this worry him, so -he sprang upon the bed and rolled himself up like a cat and purred -himself asleep in a minute. - -The next morning, after breakfast, the green maiden came to fetch -Dorothy, and she dressed her in one of the prettiest gowns, made of -green brocaded satin. Dorothy put on a green silk apron and tied a -green ribbon around Toto’s neck, and they started for the Throne Room -of the Great Oz. - -First they came to a great hall in which were many ladies and gentlemen -of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. These people had nothing to -do but talk to each other, but they always came to wait outside the -Throne Room every morning, although they were never permitted to see -Oz. As Dorothy entered they looked at her curiously, and one of them -whispered: - -“Are you really going to look upon the face of Oz the Terrible?” - -“Of course,” answered the girl, “if he will see me.” - -“Oh, he will see you,” said the soldier who had taken her message to -the Wizard, “although he does not like to have people ask to see him. -Indeed, at first he was angry and said I should send you back where you -came from. Then he asked me what you looked like, and when I mentioned -your silver shoes he was very much interested. At last I told him about -the mark upon your forehead, and he decided he would admit you to his -presence.” - -Just then a bell rang, and the green girl said to Dorothy, “That is the -signal. You must go into the Throne Room alone.” - -She opened a little door and Dorothy walked boldly through and found -herself in a wonderful place. It was a big, round room with a high -arched roof, and the walls and ceiling and floor were covered with -large emeralds set closely together. In the center of the roof was a -great light, as bright as the sun, which made the emeralds sparkle in a -wonderful manner. - -But what interested Dorothy most was the big throne of green marble -that stood in the middle of the room. It was shaped like a chair and -sparkled with gems, as did everything else. In the center of the chair -was an enormous Head, without a body to support it or any arms or legs -whatever. There was no hair upon this head, but it had eyes and a nose -and mouth, and was much bigger than the head of the biggest giant. - -As Dorothy gazed upon this in wonder and fear, the eyes turned slowly -and looked at her sharply and steadily. Then the mouth moved, and -Dorothy heard a voice say: - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” - -It was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big -Head; so she took courage and answered: - -“I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help.” - -The eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a full minute. Then said the -voice: - -“Where did you get the silver shoes?” - -“I got them from the Wicked Witch of the East, when my house fell on -her and killed her,” she replied. - -“Where did you get the mark upon your forehead?” continued the voice. - -“That is where the Good Witch of the North kissed me when she bade me -good-bye and sent me to you,” said the girl. - -Again the eyes looked at her sharply, and they saw she was telling the -truth. Then Oz asked, “What do you wish me to do?” - -“Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are,” she -answered earnestly. “I don’t like your country, although it is so -beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my -being away so long.” - -The eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and -down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see -every part of the room. And at last they looked at Dorothy again. - -“Why should I do this for you?” asked Oz. - -“Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard -and I am only a little girl.” - -“But you were strong enough to kill the Wicked Witch of the East,” said -Oz. - -“That just happened,” returned Dorothy simply; “I could not help it.” - -“Well,” said the Head, “I will give you my answer. You have no right to -expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something for me in -return. In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets. If -you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again you must do -something for me first. Help me and I will help you.” - -“What must I do?” asked the girl. - -“Kill the Wicked Witch of the West,” answered Oz. - -“But I cannot!” exclaimed Dorothy, greatly surprised. - -“You killed the Witch of the East and you wear the silver shoes, which -bear a powerful charm. There is now but one Wicked Witch left in all -this land, and when you can tell me she is dead I will send you back to -Kansas—but not before.” - -The little girl began to weep, she was so much disappointed; and the -eyes winked again and looked upon her anxiously, as if the Great Oz -felt that she could help him if she would. - -“I never killed anything, willingly,” she sobbed. “Even if I wanted to, -how could I kill the Wicked Witch? If you, who are Great and Terrible, -cannot kill her yourself, how do you expect me to do it?” - -“I do not know,” said the Head; “but that is my answer, and until the -Wicked Witch dies you will not see your uncle and aunt again. Remember -that the Witch is Wicked—tremendously Wicked—and ought to be killed. -Now go, and do not ask to see me again until you have done your task.” - -Sorrowfully Dorothy left the Throne Room and went back where the Lion -and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were waiting to hear what Oz had -said to her. “There is no hope for me,” she said sadly, “for Oz will -not send me home until I have killed the Wicked Witch of the West; and -that I can never do.” - -Her friends were sorry, but could do nothing to help her; so Dorothy -went to her own room and lay down on the bed and cried herself to -sleep. - -The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the -Scarecrow and said: - -“Come with me, for Oz has sent for you.” - -So the Scarecrow followed him and was admitted into the great Throne -Room, where he saw, sitting in the emerald throne, a most lovely Lady. -She was dressed in green silk gauze and wore upon her flowing green -locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, -gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest -breath of air reached them. - -When the Scarecrow had bowed, as prettily as his straw stuffing would -let him, before this beautiful creature, she looked upon him sweetly, -and said: - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” - -Now the Scarecrow, who had expected to see the great Head Dorothy had -told him of, was much astonished; but he answered her bravely. - -“I am only a Scarecrow, stuffed with straw. Therefore I have no brains, -and I come to you praying that you will put brains in my head instead -of straw, so that I may become as much a man as any other in your -dominions.” - -“Why should I do this for you?” asked the Lady. - -“Because you are wise and powerful, and no one else can help me,” -answered the Scarecrow. - -“I never grant favors without some return,” said Oz; “but this much I -will promise. If you will kill for me the Wicked Witch of the West, I -will bestow upon you a great many brains, and such good brains that you -will be the wisest man in all the Land of Oz.” - -“I thought you asked Dorothy to kill the Witch,” said the Scarecrow, in -surprise. - -“So I did. I don’t care who kills her. But until she is dead I will not -grant your wish. Now go, and do not seek me again until you have earned -the brains you so greatly desire.” - -The Scarecrow went sorrowfully back to his friends and told them what -Oz had said; and Dorothy was surprised to find that the Great Wizard -was not a Head, as she had seen him, but a lovely Lady. - -“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “she needs a heart as much as the -Tin Woodman.” - -On the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the Tin -Woodman and said: - -“Oz has sent for you. Follow me.” - -So the Tin Woodman followed him and came to the great Throne Room. He -did not know whether he would find Oz a lovely Lady or a Head, but he -hoped it would be the lovely Lady. “For,” he said to himself, “if it is -the head, I am sure I shall not be given a heart, since a head has no -heart of its own and therefore cannot feel for me. But if it is the -lovely Lady I shall beg hard for a heart, for all ladies are themselves -said to be kindly hearted.” - -But when the Woodman entered the great Throne Room he saw neither the -Head nor the Lady, for Oz had taken the shape of a most terrible Beast. -It was nearly as big as an elephant, and the green throne seemed hardly -strong enough to hold its weight. The Beast had a head like that of a -rhinoceros, only there were five eyes in its face. There were five long -arms growing out of its body, and it also had five long, slim legs. -Thick, woolly hair covered every part of it, and a more -dreadful-looking monster could not be imagined. It was fortunate the -Tin Woodman had no heart at that moment, for it would have beat loud -and fast from terror. But being only tin, the Woodman was not at all -afraid, although he was much disappointed. - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” spoke the Beast, in a voice that was -one great roar. “Who are you, and why do you seek me?” - -“I am a Woodman, and made of tin. Therefore I have no heart, and cannot -love. I pray you to give me a heart that I may be as other men are.” - -“Why should I do this?” demanded the Beast. - -“Because I ask it, and you alone can grant my request,” answered the -Woodman. - -Oz gave a low growl at this, but said, gruffly: “If you indeed desire a -heart, you must earn it.” - -“How?” asked the Woodman. - -“Help Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch of the West,” replied the Beast. -“When the Witch is dead, come to me, and I will then give you the -biggest and kindest and most loving heart in all the Land of Oz.” - -So the Tin Woodman was forced to return sorrowfully to his friends and -tell them of the terrible Beast he had seen. They all wondered greatly -at the many forms the Great Wizard could take upon himself, and the -Lion said: - -“If he is a Beast when I go to see him, I shall roar my loudest, and so -frighten him that he will grant all I ask. And if he is the lovely -Lady, I shall pretend to spring upon her, and so compel her to do my -bidding. And if he is the great Head, he will be at my mercy; for I -will roll this head all about the room until he promises to give us -what we desire. So be of good cheer, my friends, for all will yet be -well.” - -The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers led the Lion to -the great Throne Room and bade him enter the presence of Oz. - -The Lion at once passed through the door, and glancing around saw, to -his surprise, that before the throne was a Ball of Fire, so fierce and -glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it. His first thought was -that Oz had by accident caught on fire and was burning up; but when he -tried to go nearer, the heat was so intense that it singed his -whiskers, and he crept back tremblingly to a spot nearer the door. - -Then a low, quiet voice came from the Ball of Fire, and these were the -words it spoke: - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” - -And the Lion answered, “I am a Cowardly Lion, afraid of everything. I -came to you to beg that you give me courage, so that in reality I may -become the King of Beasts, as men call me.” - -“Why should I give you courage?” demanded Oz. - -“Because of all Wizards you are the greatest, and alone have power to -grant my request,” answered the Lion. - -The Ball of Fire burned fiercely for a time, and the voice said, “Bring -me proof that the Wicked Witch is dead, and that moment I will give you -courage. But as long as the Witch lives, you must remain a coward.” - -The Lion was angry at this speech, but could say nothing in reply, and -while he stood silently gazing at the Ball of Fire it became so -furiously hot that he turned tail and rushed from the room. He was glad -to find his friends waiting for him, and told them of his terrible -interview with the Wizard. - -“What shall we do now?” asked Dorothy sadly. - -“There is only one thing we can do,” returned the Lion, “and that is to -go to the land of the Winkies, seek out the Wicked Witch, and destroy -her.” - -“But suppose we cannot?” said the girl. - -“Then I shall never have courage,” declared the Lion. - -“And I shall never have brains,” added the Scarecrow. - -“And I shall never have a heart,” spoke the Tin Woodman. - -“And I shall never see Aunt Em and Uncle Henry,” said Dorothy, -beginning to cry. - -“Be careful!” cried the green girl. “The tears will fall on your green -silk gown and spot it.” - -So Dorothy dried her eyes and said, “I suppose we must try it; but I am -sure I do not want to kill anybody, even to see Aunt Em again.” - -“I will go with you; but I’m too much of a coward to kill the Witch,” -said the Lion. - -“I will go too,” declared the Scarecrow; “but I shall not be of much -help to you, I am such a fool.” - -“I haven’t the heart to harm even a Witch,” remarked the Tin Woodman; -“but if you go I certainly shall go with you.” - -Therefore it was decided to start upon their journey the next morning, -and the Woodman sharpened his axe on a green grindstone and had all his -joints properly oiled. The Scarecrow stuffed himself with fresh straw -and Dorothy put new paint on his eyes that he might see better. The -green girl, who was very kind to them, filled Dorothy’s basket with -good things to eat, and fastened a little bell around Toto’s neck with -a green ribbon. - -They went to bed quite early and slept soundly until daylight, when -they were awakened by the crowing of a green cock that lived in the -back yard of the Palace, and the cackling of a hen that had laid a -green egg. - - - - -Chapter XII -The Search for the Wicked Witch - - -The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the -Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the -Gates lived. This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in -his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends. - -“Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West?” asked Dorothy. - -“There is no road,” answered the Guardian of the Gates. “No one ever -wishes to go that way.” - -“How, then, are we to find her?” inquired the girl. - -“That will be easy,” replied the man, “for when she knows you are in -the country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her -slaves.” - -“Perhaps not,” said the Scarecrow, “for we mean to destroy her.” - -“Oh, that is different,” said the Guardian of the Gates. “No one has -ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves -of you, as she has of the rest. But take care; for she is wicked and -fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her. Keep to the West, where -the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her.” - -They thanked him and bade him good-bye, and turned toward the West, -walking over fields of soft grass dotted here and there with daisies -and buttercups. Dorothy still wore the pretty silk dress she had put on -in the palace, but now, to her surprise, she found it was no longer -green, but pure white. The ribbon around Toto’s neck had also lost its -green color and was as white as Dorothy’s dress. - -The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced the ground -became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this -country of the West, and the ground was untilled. - -In the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no -trees to offer them shade; so that before night Dorothy and Toto and -the Lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with -the Woodman and the Scarecrow keeping watch. - -Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as -powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere. So, as she sat in -the door of her castle, she happened to look around and saw Dorothy -lying asleep, with her friends all about her. They were a long distance -off, but the Wicked Witch was angry to find them in her country; so she -blew upon a silver whistle that hung around her neck. - -At once there came running to her from all directions a pack of great -wolves. They had long legs and fierce eyes and sharp teeth. - -“Go to those people,” said the Witch, “and tear them to pieces.” - -“Are you not going to make them your slaves?” asked the leader of the -wolves. - -“No,” she answered, “one is of tin, and one of straw; one is a girl and -another a Lion. None of them is fit to work, so you may tear them into -small pieces.” - -“Very well,” said the wolf, and he dashed away at full speed, followed -by the others. - -It was lucky the Scarecrow and the Woodman were wide awake and heard -the wolves coming. - -“This is my fight,” said the Woodman, “so get behind me and I will meet -them as they come.” - -He seized his axe, which he had made very sharp, and as the leader of -the wolves came on the Tin Woodman swung his arm and chopped the wolf’s -head from its body, so that it immediately died. As soon as he could -raise his axe another wolf came up, and he also fell under the sharp -edge of the Tin Woodman’s weapon. There were forty wolves, and forty -times a wolf was killed, so that at last they all lay dead in a heap -before the Woodman. - -Then he put down his axe and sat beside the Scarecrow, who said, “It -was a good fight, friend.” - -They waited until Dorothy awoke the next morning. The little girl was -quite frightened when she saw the great pile of shaggy wolves, but the -Tin Woodman told her all. She thanked him for saving them and sat down -to breakfast, after which they started again upon their journey. - -Now this same morning the Wicked Witch came to the door of her castle -and looked out with her one eye that could see far off. She saw all her -wolves lying dead, and the strangers still traveling through her -country. This made her angrier than before, and she blew her silver -whistle twice. - -Straightway a great flock of wild crows came flying toward her, enough -to darken the sky. - -And the Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, “Fly at once to the -strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces.” - -The wild crows flew in one great flock toward Dorothy and her -companions. When the little girl saw them coming she was afraid. - -But the Scarecrow said, “This is my battle, so lie down beside me and -you will not be harmed.” - -So they all lay upon the ground except the Scarecrow, and he stood up -and stretched out his arms. And when the crows saw him they were -frightened, as these birds always are by scarecrows, and did not dare -to come any nearer. But the King Crow said: - -“It is only a stuffed man. I will peck his eyes out.” - -The King Crow flew at the Scarecrow, who caught it by the head and -twisted its neck until it died. And then another crow flew at him, and -the Scarecrow twisted its neck also. There were forty crows, and forty -times the Scarecrow twisted a neck, until at last all were lying dead -beside him. Then he called to his companions to rise, and again they -went upon their journey. - -When the Wicked Witch looked out again and saw all her crows lying in a -heap, she got into a terrible rage, and blew three times upon her -silver whistle. - -Forthwith there was heard a great buzzing in the air, and a swarm of -black bees came flying toward her. - -“Go to the strangers and sting them to death!” commanded the Witch, and -the bees turned and flew rapidly until they came to where Dorothy and -her friends were walking. But the Woodman had seen them coming, and the -Scarecrow had decided what to do. - -“Take out my straw and scatter it over the little girl and the dog and -the Lion,” he said to the Woodman, “and the bees cannot sting them.” -This the Woodman did, and as Dorothy lay close beside the Lion and held -Toto in her arms, the straw covered them entirely. - -The bees came and found no one but the Woodman to sting, so they flew -at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting -the Woodman at all. And as bees cannot live when their stings are -broken that was the end of the black bees, and they lay scattered thick -about the Woodman, like little heaps of fine coal. - -Then Dorothy and the Lion got up, and the girl helped the Tin Woodman -put the straw back into the Scarecrow again, until he was as good as -ever. So they started upon their journey once more. - -The Wicked Witch was so angry when she saw her black bees in little -heaps like fine coal that she stamped her foot and tore her hair and -gnashed her teeth. And then she called a dozen of her slaves, who were -the Winkies, and gave them sharp spears, telling them to go to the -strangers and destroy them. - -The Winkies were not a brave people, but they had to do as they were -told. So they marched away until they came near to Dorothy. Then the -Lion gave a great roar and sprang towards them, and the poor Winkies -were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could. - -When they returned to the castle the Wicked Witch beat them well with a -strap, and sent them back to their work, after which she sat down to -think what she should do next. She could not understand how all her -plans to destroy these strangers had failed; but she was a powerful -Witch, as well as a wicked one, and she soon made up her mind how to -act. - -There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and -rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it -could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any -order they were given. But no person could command these strange -creatures more than three times. Twice already the Wicked Witch had -used the charm of the Cap. Once was when she had made the Winkies her -slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. The Winged Monkeys -had helped her do this. The second time was when she had fought against -the Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The -Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could -she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so -until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce -wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her -slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was -only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends. - -So the Wicked Witch took the Golden Cap from her cupboard and placed it -upon her head. Then she stood upon her left foot and said slowly: - -“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” - -Next she stood upon her right foot and said: - -“Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” - -After this she stood upon both feet and cried in a loud voice: - -“Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” - -Now the charm began to work. The sky was darkened, and a low rumbling -sound was heard in the air. There was a rushing of many wings, a great -chattering and laughing, and the sun came out of the dark sky to show -the Wicked Witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of -immense and powerful wings on his shoulders. - -One, much bigger than the others, seemed to be their leader. He flew -close to the Witch and said, “You have called us for the third and last -time. What do you command?” - -“Go to the strangers who are within my land and destroy them all except -the Lion,” said the Wicked Witch. “Bring that beast to me, for I have a -mind to harness him like a horse, and make him work.” - -“Your commands shall be obeyed,” said the leader. Then, with a great -deal of chattering and noise, the Winged Monkeys flew away to the place -where Dorothy and her friends were walking. - -Some of the Monkeys seized the Tin Woodman and carried him through the -air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks. -Here they dropped the poor Woodman, who fell a great distance to the -rocks, where he lay so battered and dented that he could neither move -nor groan. - -Others of the Monkeys caught the Scarecrow, and with their long fingers -pulled all of the straw out of his clothes and head. They made his hat -and boots and clothes into a small bundle and threw it into the top -branches of a tall tree. - -The remaining Monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the Lion and -wound many coils about his body and head and legs, until he was unable -to bite or scratch or struggle in any way. Then they lifted him up and -flew away with him to the Witch’s castle, where he was placed in a -small yard with a high iron fence around it, so that he could not -escape. - -But Dorothy they did not harm at all. She stood, with Toto in her arms, -watching the sad fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her -turn. The leader of the Winged Monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy -arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the -mark of the Good Witch’s kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, -motioning the others not to touch her. - -“We dare not harm this little girl,” he said to them, “for she is -protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of -Evil. All we can do is to carry her to the castle of the Wicked Witch -and leave her there.” - -So, carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried -her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they -set her down upon the front doorstep. Then the leader said to the -Witch: - -“We have obeyed you as far as we were able. The Tin Woodman and the -Scarecrow are destroyed, and the Lion is tied up in your yard. The -little girl we dare not harm, nor the dog she carries in her arms. Your -power over our band is now ended, and you will never see us again.” - -Then all the Winged Monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and -noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight. - -The Wicked Witch was both surprised and worried when she saw the mark -on Dorothy’s forehead, for she knew well that neither the Winged -Monkeys nor she, herself, dare hurt the girl in any way. She looked -down at Dorothy’s feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble -with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At -first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened -to look into the child’s eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them -was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the -Silver Shoes gave her. So the Wicked Witch laughed to herself, and -thought, “I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to -use her power.” Then she said to Dorothy, harshly and severely: - -“Come with me; and see that you mind everything I tell you, for if you -do not I will make an end of you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the -Scarecrow.” - -Dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle -until they came to the kitchen, where the Witch bade her clean the pots -and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood. - -Dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as -she could; for she was glad the Wicked Witch had decided not to kill -her. - -With Dorothy hard at work, the Witch thought she would go into the -courtyard and harness the Cowardly Lion like a horse; it would amuse -her, she was sure, to make him draw her chariot whenever she wished to -go to drive. But as she opened the gate the Lion gave a loud roar and -bounded at her so fiercely that the Witch was afraid, and ran out and -shut the gate again. - -“If I cannot harness you,” said the Witch to the Lion, speaking through -the bars of the gate, “I can starve you. You shall have nothing to eat -until you do as I wish.” - -So after that she took no food to the imprisoned Lion; but every day -she came to the gate at noon and asked, “Are you ready to be harnessed -like a horse?” - -And the Lion would answer, “No. If you come in this yard, I will bite -you.” - -The reason the Lion did not have to do as the Witch wished was that -every night, while the woman was asleep, Dorothy carried him food from -the cupboard. After he had eaten he would lie down on his bed of straw, -and Dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on his soft, shaggy -mane, while they talked of their troubles and tried to plan some way to -escape. But they could find no way to get out of the castle, for it was -constantly guarded by the yellow Winkies, who were the slaves of the -Wicked Witch and too afraid of her not to do as she told them. - -The girl had to work hard during the day, and often the Witch -threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always carried in -her hand. But, in truth, she did not dare to strike Dorothy, because of -the mark upon her forehead. The child did not know this, and was full -of fear for herself and Toto. Once the Witch struck Toto a blow with -her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg in -return. The Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so -wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before. - -Dorothy’s life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would -be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again. Sometimes -she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at her feet and -looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for -his little mistress. Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas -or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the -little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too. - -Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver -Shoes which the girl always wore. Her bees and her crows and her wolves -were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of -the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of the Silver Shoes, -they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. -She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, -thinking she might steal them. But the child was so proud of her pretty -shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took -her bath. The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in -Dorothy’s room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was -greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when Dorothy -was bathing. Indeed, the old Witch never touched water, nor ever let -water touch her in any way. - -But the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally thought of a -trick that would give her what she wanted. She placed a bar of iron in -the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her magic arts made the -iron invisible to human eyes. So that when Dorothy walked across the -floor she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at -full length. She was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver -Shoes came off; and before she could reach it, the Witch had snatched -it away and put it on her own skinny foot. - -The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick, for -as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of their -charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her, even had she known how -to do so. - -The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew -angry, and said to the Witch, “Give me back my shoe!” - -“I will not,” retorted the Witch, “for it is now my shoe, and not -yours.” - -“You are a wicked creature!” cried Dorothy. “You have no right to take -my shoe from me.” - -“I shall keep it, just the same,” said the Witch, laughing at her, “and -someday I shall get the other one from you, too.” - -This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water -that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her from head to -foot. - -Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear, and then, as -Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall -away. - -“See what you have done!” she screamed. “In a minute I shall melt -away.” - -“I’m very sorry, indeed,” said Dorothy, who was truly frightened to see -the Witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her very eyes. - -“Didn’t you know water would be the end of me?” asked the Witch, in a -wailing, despairing voice. - -“Of course not,” answered Dorothy. “How should I?” - -“Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the -castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a -little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked -deeds. Look out—here I go!” - -With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass -and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. Seeing -that she had really melted away to nothing, Dorothy drew another bucket -of water and threw it over the mess. She then swept it all out the -door. After picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of -the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her -foot again. Then, being at last free to do as she chose, she ran out to -the courtyard to tell the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had -come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange -land. - - - - -Chapter XIII -The Rescue - - -The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had -been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate -of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle, -where Dorothy’s first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell -them that they were no longer slaves. - -There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had been -made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who had -always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a -holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and -dancing. - -“If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only with us,” -said the Lion, “I should be quite happy.” - -“Don’t you suppose we could rescue them?” asked the girl anxiously. - -“We can try,” answered the Lion. - -So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would help to -rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would be delighted -to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them free from -bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked as if they -knew the most, and they all started away. They traveled that day and -part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the Tin -Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near him, but the blade -was rusted and the handle broken off short. - -The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to -the Yellow Castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the -sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking sober and sorry. -When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the Winkies: - -“Are any of your people tinsmiths?” - -“Oh, yes. Some of us are very good tinsmiths,” they told her. - -“Then bring them to me,” she said. And when the tinsmiths came, -bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she inquired, “Can you -straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him back into -shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?” - -The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then answered that -they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So -they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and -worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and -bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body -and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into -his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there -were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as -the Woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all. - -When, at last, he walked into Dorothy’s room and thanked her for -rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy -had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his -joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick -and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears -did not need to be wiped away. As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so -often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was -obliged to go out into the courtyard and hold it in the sun till it -dried. - -“If we only had the Scarecrow with us again,” said the Tin Woodman, -when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, “I -should be quite happy.” - -“We must try to find him,” said the girl. - -So she called the Winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and -part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of -which the Winged Monkeys had tossed the Scarecrow’s clothes. - -It was a very tall tree, and the trunk was so smooth that no one could -climb it; but the Woodman said at once, “I’ll chop it down, and then we -can get the Scarecrow’s clothes.” - -Now while the tinsmiths had been at work mending the Woodman himself, -another of the Winkies, who was a goldsmith, had made an axe-handle of -solid gold and fitted it to the Woodman’s axe, instead of the old -broken handle. Others polished the blade until all the rust was removed -and it glistened like burnished silver. - -As soon as he had spoken, the Tin Woodman began to chop, and in a short -time the tree fell over with a crash, whereupon the Scarecrow’s clothes -fell out of the branches and rolled off on the ground. - -Dorothy picked them up and had the Winkies carry them back to the -castle, where they were stuffed with nice, clean straw; and behold! -here was the Scarecrow, as good as ever, thanking them over and over -again for saving him. - -Now that they were reunited, Dorothy and her friends spent a few happy -days at the Yellow Castle, where they found everything they needed to -make them comfortable. - -But one day the girl thought of Aunt Em, and said, “We must go back to -Oz, and claim his promise.” - -“Yes,” said the Woodman, “at last I shall get my heart.” - -“And I shall get my brains,” added the Scarecrow joyfully. - -“And I shall get my courage,” said the Lion thoughtfully. - -“And I shall get back to Kansas,” cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. -“Oh, let us start for the Emerald City tomorrow!” - -This they decided to do. The next day they called the Winkies together -and bade them good-bye. The Winkies were sorry to have them go, and -they had grown so fond of the Tin Woodman that they begged him to stay -and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West. Finding they were -determined to go, the Winkies gave Toto and the Lion each a golden -collar; and to Dorothy they presented a beautiful bracelet studded with -diamonds; and to the Scarecrow they gave a gold-headed walking stick, -to keep him from stumbling; and to the Tin Woodman they offered a -silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels. - -Every one of the travelers made the Winkies a pretty speech in return, -and all shook hands with them until their arms ached. - -Dorothy went to the Witch’s cupboard to fill her basket with food for -the journey, and there she saw the Golden Cap. She tried it on her own -head and found that it fitted her exactly. She did not know anything -about the charm of the Golden Cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so -she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket. - -Then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the Emerald -City; and the Winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to -carry with them. - - - - -Chapter XIV -The Winged Monkeys - - -You will remember there was no road—not even a pathway—between the -castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four -travelers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so -sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to -find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow -daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go -straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right -way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know -which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were -lost in the great fields. They kept on walking, however, and at night -the moon came out and shone brightly. So they lay down among the sweet -smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning—all but the -Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. - -The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if -they were quite sure which way they were going. - -“If we walk far enough,” said Dorothy, “I am sure we shall sometime -come to some place.” - -But day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but -the scarlet fields. The Scarecrow began to grumble a bit. - -“We have surely lost our way,” he said, “and unless we find it again in -time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my brains.” - -“Nor I my heart,” declared the Tin Woodman. “It seems to me I can -scarcely wait till I get to Oz, and you must admit this is a very long -journey.” - -“You see,” said the Cowardly Lion, with a whimper, “I haven’t the -courage to keep tramping forever, without getting anywhere at all.” - -Then Dorothy lost heart. She sat down on the grass and looked at her -companions, and they sat down and looked at her, and Toto found that -for the first time in his life he was too tired to chase a butterfly -that flew past his head. So he put out his tongue and panted and looked -at Dorothy as if to ask what they should do next. - -“Suppose we call the field mice,” she suggested. “They could probably -tell us the way to the Emerald City.” - -“To be sure they could,” cried the Scarecrow. “Why didn’t we think of -that before?” - -Dorothy blew the little whistle she had always carried about her neck -since the Queen of the Mice had given it to her. In a few minutes they -heard the pattering of tiny feet, and many of the small gray mice came -running up to her. Among them was the Queen herself, who asked, in her -squeaky little voice: - -“What can I do for my friends?” - -“We have lost our way,” said Dorothy. “Can you tell us where the -Emerald City is?” - -“Certainly,” answered the Queen; “but it is a great way off, for you -have had it at your backs all this time.” Then she noticed Dorothy’s -Golden Cap, and said, “Why don’t you use the charm of the Cap, and call -the Winged Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Oz in -less than an hour.” - -“I didn’t know there was a charm,” answered Dorothy, in surprise. “What -is it?” - -“It is written inside the Golden Cap,” replied the Queen of the Mice. -“But if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for -they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us.” - -“Won’t they hurt me?” asked the girl anxiously. - -“Oh, no. They must obey the wearer of the Cap. Good-bye!” And she -scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her. - -Dorothy looked inside the Golden Cap and saw some words written upon -the lining. These, she thought, must be the charm, so she read the -directions carefully and put the Cap upon her head. - -“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” she said, standing on her left foot. - -“What did you say?” asked the Scarecrow, who did not know what she was -doing. - -“Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” Dorothy went on, standing this time on her -right foot. - -“Hello!” replied the Tin Woodman calmly. - -“Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” said Dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. -This ended the saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering -and flapping of wings, as the band of Winged Monkeys flew up to them. - -The King bowed low before Dorothy, and asked, “What is your command?” - -“We wish to go to the Emerald City,” said the child, “and we have lost -our way.” - -“We will carry you,” replied the King, and no sooner had he spoken than -two of the Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her. -Others took the Scarecrow and the Woodman and the Lion, and one little -Monkey seized Toto and flew after them, although the dog tried hard to -bite him. - -The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were rather frightened at first, for -they remembered how badly the Winged Monkeys had treated them before; -but they saw that no harm was intended, so they rode through the air -quite cheerfully, and had a fine time looking at the pretty gardens and -woods far below them. - -Dorothy found herself riding easily between two of the biggest Monkeys, -one of them the King himself. They had made a chair of their hands and -were careful not to hurt her. - -“Why do you have to obey the charm of the Golden Cap?” she asked. - -“That is a long story,” answered the King, with a winged laugh; “but as -we have a long journey before us, I will pass the time by telling you -about it, if you wish.” - -“I shall be glad to hear it,” she replied. - -“Once,” began the leader, “we were a free people, living happily in the -great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and -doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. Perhaps some -of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull -the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing -nuts at the people who walked in the forest. But we were careless and -happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. This was -many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this -land. - -“There lived here then, away at the North, a beautiful princess, who -was also a powerful sorceress. All her magic was used to help the -people, and she was never known to hurt anyone who was good. Her name -was Gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great -blocks of ruby. Everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that -she could find no one to love in return, since all the men were much -too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise. At last, -however, she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his -years. Gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she -would make him her husband, so she took him to her ruby palace and used -all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any -woman could wish. When he grew to manhood, Quelala, as he was called, -was said to be the best and wisest man in all the land, while his manly -beauty was so great that Gayelette loved him dearly, and hastened to -make everything ready for the wedding. - -“My grandfather was at that time the King of the Winged Monkeys which -lived in the forest near Gayelette’s palace, and the old fellow loved a -joke better than a good dinner. One day, just before the wedding, my -grandfather was flying out with his band when he saw Quelala walking -beside the river. He was dressed in a rich costume of pink silk and -purple velvet, and my grandfather thought he would see what he could -do. At his word the band flew down and seized Quelala, carried him in -their arms until they were over the middle of the river, and then -dropped him into the water. - -“‘Swim out, my fine fellow,’ cried my grandfather, ‘and see if the -water has spotted your clothes.’ Quelala was much too wise not to swim, -and he was not in the least spoiled by all his good fortune. He -laughed, when he came to the top of the water, and swam in to shore. -But when Gayelette came running out to him she found his silks and -velvet all ruined by the river. - -“The princess was angry, and she knew, of course, who did it. She had -all the Winged Monkeys brought before her, and she said at first that -their wings should be tied and they should be treated as they had -treated Quelala, and dropped in the river. But my grandfather pleaded -hard, for he knew the Monkeys would drown in the river with their wings -tied, and Quelala said a kind word for them also; so that Gayelette -finally spared them, on condition that the Winged Monkeys should ever -after do three times the bidding of the owner of the Golden Cap. This -Cap had been made for a wedding present to Quelala, and it is said to -have cost the princess half her kingdom. Of course my grandfather and -all the other Monkeys at once agreed to the condition, and that is how -it happens that we are three times the slaves of the owner of the -Golden Cap, whosoever he may be.” - -“And what became of them?” asked Dorothy, who had been greatly -interested in the story. - -“Quelala being the first owner of the Golden Cap,” replied the Monkey, -“he was the first to lay his wishes upon us. As his bride could not -bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest after he -had married her and ordered us always to keep where she could never -again set eyes on a Winged Monkey, which we were glad to do, for we -were all afraid of her. - -“This was all we ever had to do until the Golden Cap fell into the -hands of the Wicked Witch of the West, who made us enslave the Winkies, -and afterward drive Oz himself out of the Land of the West. Now the -Golden Cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your -wishes upon us.” - -As the Monkey King finished his story Dorothy looked down and saw the -green, shining walls of the Emerald City before them. She wondered at -the rapid flight of the Monkeys, but was glad the journey was over. The -strange creatures set the travelers down carefully before the gate of -the City, the King bowed low to Dorothy, and then flew swiftly away, -followed by all his band. - -“That was a good ride,” said the little girl. - -“Yes, and a quick way out of our troubles,” replied the Lion. “How -lucky it was you brought away that wonderful Cap!” - - - - -Chapter XV -The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible - - -The four travelers walked up to the great gate of Emerald City and rang -the bell. After ringing several times, it was opened by the same -Guardian of the Gates they had met before. - -“What! are you back again?” he asked, in surprise. - -“Do you not see us?” answered the Scarecrow. - -“But I thought you had gone to visit the Wicked Witch of the West.” - -“We did visit her,” said the Scarecrow. - -“And she let you go again?” asked the man, in wonder. - -“She could not help it, for she is melted,” explained the Scarecrow. - -“Melted! Well, that is good news, indeed,” said the man. “Who melted -her?” - -“It was Dorothy,” said the Lion gravely. - -“Good gracious!” exclaimed the man, and he bowed very low indeed before -her. - -Then he led them into his little room and locked the spectacles from -the great box on all their eyes, just as he had done before. Afterward -they passed on through the gate into the Emerald City. When the people -heard from the Guardian of the Gates that Dorothy had melted the Wicked -Witch of the West, they all gathered around the travelers and followed -them in a great crowd to the Palace of Oz. - -The soldier with the green whiskers was still on guard before the door, -but he let them in at once, and they were again met by the beautiful -green girl, who showed each of them to their old rooms at once, so they -might rest until the Great Oz was ready to receive them. - -The soldier had the news carried straight to Oz that Dorothy and the -other travelers had come back again, after destroying the Wicked Witch; -but Oz made no reply. They thought the Great Wizard would send for them -at once, but he did not. They had no word from him the next day, nor -the next, nor the next. The waiting was tiresome and wearing, and at -last they grew vexed that Oz should treat them in so poor a fashion, -after sending them to undergo hardships and slavery. So the Scarecrow -at last asked the green girl to take another message to Oz, saying if -he did not let them in to see him at once they would call the Winged -Monkeys to help them, and find out whether he kept his promises or not. -When the Wizard was given this message he was so frightened that he -sent word for them to come to the Throne Room at four minutes after -nine o’clock the next morning. He had once met the Winged Monkeys in -the Land of the West, and he did not wish to meet them again. - -The four travelers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift -Oz had promised to bestow on him. Dorothy fell asleep only once, and -then she dreamed she was in Kansas, where Aunt Em was telling her how -glad she was to have her little girl at home again. - -Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning the green-whiskered soldier -came to them, and four minutes later they all went into the Throne Room -of the Great Oz. - -Of course each one of them expected to see the Wizard in the shape he -had taken before, and all were greatly surprised when they looked about -and saw no one at all in the room. They kept close to the door and -closer to one another, for the stillness of the empty room was more -dreadful than any of the forms they had seen Oz take. - -Presently they heard a solemn Voice, that seemed to come from somewhere -near the top of the great dome, and it said: - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Why do you seek me?” - -They looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, -Dorothy asked, “Where are you?” - -“I am everywhere,” answered the Voice, “but to the eyes of common -mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you -may converse with me.” Indeed, the Voice seemed just then to come -straight from the throne itself; so they walked toward it and stood in -a row while Dorothy said: - -“We have come to claim our promise, O Oz.” - -“What promise?” asked Oz. - -“You promised to send me back to Kansas when the Wicked Witch was -destroyed,” said the girl. - -“And you promised to give me brains,” said the Scarecrow. - -“And you promised to give me a heart,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“And you promised to give me courage,” said the Cowardly Lion. - -“Is the Wicked Witch really destroyed?” asked the Voice, and Dorothy -thought it trembled a little. - -“Yes,” she answered, “I melted her with a bucket of water.” - -“Dear me,” said the Voice, “how sudden! Well, come to me tomorrow, for -I must have time to think it over.” - -“You’ve had plenty of time already,” said the Tin Woodman angrily. - -“We shan’t wait a day longer,” said the Scarecrow. - -“You must keep your promises to us!” exclaimed Dorothy. - -The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave -a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped -away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a -corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next -moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in -just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald head -and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. -The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and -cried out, “Who are you?” - -“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” said the little man, in a trembling -voice. “But don’t strike me—please don’t—and I’ll do anything you want -me to.” - -Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay. - -“I thought Oz was a great Head,” said Dorothy. - -“And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady,” said the Scarecrow. - -“And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast,” said the Tin Woodman. - -“And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire,” exclaimed the Lion. - -“No, you are all wrong,” said the little man meekly. “I have been -making believe.” - -“Making believe!” cried Dorothy. “Are you not a Great Wizard?” - -“Hush, my dear,” he said. “Don’t speak so loud, or you will be -overheard—and I should be ruined. I’m supposed to be a Great Wizard.” - -“And aren’t you?” she asked. - -“Not a bit of it, my dear; I’m just a common man.” - -“You’re more than that,” said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; “you’re -a humbug.” - -“Exactly so!” declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if -it pleased him. “I am a humbug.” - -“But this is terrible,” said the Tin Woodman. “How shall I ever get my -heart?” - -“Or I my courage?” asked the Lion. - -“Or I my brains?” wailed the Scarecrow, wiping the tears from his eyes -with his coat sleeve. - -“My dear friends,” said Oz, “I pray you not to speak of these little -things. Think of me, and the terrible trouble I’m in at being found -out.” - -“Doesn’t anyone else know you’re a humbug?” asked Dorothy. - -“No one knows it but you four—and myself,” replied Oz. “I have fooled -everyone so long that I thought I should never be found out. It was a -great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room. Usually I will -not see even my subjects, and so they believe I am something terrible.” - -“But, I don’t understand,” said Dorothy, in bewilderment. “How was it -that you appeared to me as a great Head?” - -“That was one of my tricks,” answered Oz. “Step this way, please, and I -will tell you all about it.” - -He led the way to a small chamber in the rear of the Throne Room, and -they all followed him. He pointed to one corner, in which lay the great -Head, made out of many thicknesses of paper, and with a carefully -painted face. - -“This I hung from the ceiling by a wire,” said Oz. “I stood behind the -screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open.” - -“But how about the voice?” she inquired. - -“Oh, I am a ventriloquist,” said the little man. “I can throw the sound -of my voice wherever I wish, so that you thought it was coming out of -the Head. Here are the other things I used to deceive you.” He showed -the Scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed to be -the lovely Lady. And the Tin Woodman saw that his terrible Beast was -nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their -sides out. As for the Ball of Fire, the false Wizard had hung that also -from the ceiling. It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was -poured upon it the ball burned fiercely. - -“Really,” said the Scarecrow, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself for -being such a humbug.” - -“I am—I certainly am,” answered the little man sorrowfully; “but it was -the only thing I could do. Sit down, please, there are plenty of -chairs; and I will tell you my story.” - -So they sat down and listened while he told the following tale. - -“I was born in Omaha—” - -“Why, that isn’t very far from Kansas!” cried Dorothy. - -“No, but it’s farther from here,” he said, shaking his head at her -sadly. “When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was very -well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird or -beast.” Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his ears -and looked everywhere to see where she was. “After a time,” continued -Oz, “I tired of that, and became a balloonist.” - -“What is that?” asked Dorothy. - -“A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of -people together and get them to pay to see the circus,” he explained. - -“Oh,” she said, “I know.” - -“Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so -that I couldn’t come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so -far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles -away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the -morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a -strange and beautiful country. - -“It came down gradually, and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself -in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, -thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think so, because -they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished them to. - -“Just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, I ordered them to -build this City, and my Palace; and they did it all willingly and well. -Then I thought, as the country was so green and beautiful, I would call -it the Emerald City; and to make the name fit better I put green -spectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green.” - -“But isn’t everything here green?” asked Dorothy. - -“No more than in any other city,” replied Oz; “but when you wear green -spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you. The -Emerald City was built a great many years ago, for I was a young man -when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very old man now. But my -people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them -think it really is an Emerald City, and it certainly is a beautiful -place, abounding in jewels and precious metals, and every good thing -that is needed to make one happy. I have been good to the people, and -they like me; but ever since this Palace was built, I have shut myself -up and would not see any of them. - -“One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical -powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do -wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they -ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. -Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew -they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were -terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they -themselves, they would surely have destroyed me. As it was, I lived in -deadly fear of them for many years; so you can imagine how pleased I -was when I heard your house had fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East. -When you came to me, I was willing to promise anything if you would -only do away with the other Witch; but, now that you have melted her, I -am ashamed to say that I cannot keep my promises.” - -“I think you are a very bad man,” said Dorothy. - -“Oh, no, my dear; I’m really a very good man, but I’m a very bad -Wizard, I must admit.” - -“Can’t you give me brains?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“You don’t need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has -brains, but it doesn’t know much. Experience is the only thing that -brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience -you are sure to get.” - -“That may all be true,” said the Scarecrow, “but I shall be very -unhappy unless you give me brains.” - -The false Wizard looked at him carefully. - -“Well,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not much of a magician, as I said; -but if you will come to me tomorrow morning, I will stuff your head -with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find -that out for yourself.” - -“Oh, thank you—thank you!” cried the Scarecrow. “I’ll find a way to use -them, never fear!” - -“But how about my courage?” asked the Lion anxiously. - -“You have plenty of courage, I am sure,” answered Oz. “All you need is -confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid -when it faces danger. The True courage is in facing danger when you are -afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.” - -“Perhaps I have, but I’m scared just the same,” said the Lion. “I shall -really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that -makes one forget he is afraid.” - -“Very well, I will give you that sort of courage tomorrow,” replied Oz. - -“How about my heart?” asked the Tin Woodman. - -“Why, as for that,” answered Oz, “I think you are wrong to want a -heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in -luck not to have a heart.” - -“That must be a matter of opinion,” said the Tin Woodman. “For my part, -I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me -the heart.” - -“Very well,” answered Oz meekly. “Come to me tomorrow and you shall -have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well -continue the part a little longer.” - -“And now,” said Dorothy, “how am I to get back to Kansas?” - -“We shall have to think about that,” replied the little man. “Give me -two or three days to consider the matter and I’ll try to find a way to -carry you over the desert. In the meantime you shall all be treated as -my guests, and while you live in the Palace my people will wait upon -you and obey your slightest wish. There is only one thing I ask in -return for my help—such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no -one I am a humbug.” - -They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to -their rooms in high spirits. Even Dorothy had hope that “The Great and -Terrible Humbug,” as she called him, would find a way to send her back -to Kansas, and if he did she was willing to forgive him everything. - - - - -Chapter XVI -The Magic Art of the Great Humbug - - -Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends: - -“Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I -return I shall be as other men are.” - -“I have always liked you as you were,” said Dorothy simply. - -“It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow,” he replied. “But surely you -will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain -is going to turn out.” Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful -voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door. - -“Come in,” said Oz. - -The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the -window, engaged in deep thought. - -“I have come for my brains,” remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily. - -“Oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please,” replied Oz. “You must excuse -me for taking your head off, but I shall have to do it in order to put -your brains in their proper place.” - -“That’s all right,” said the Scarecrow. “You are quite welcome to take -my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on -again.” - -So the Wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. Then he -entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed -with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together -thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow’s head with the mixture -and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place. - -When he had fastened the Scarecrow’s head on his body again he said to -him, “Hereafter you will be a great man, for I have given you a lot of -bran-new brains.” - -The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his -greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his -friends. - -Dorothy looked at him curiously. His head was quite bulged out at the -top with brains. - -“How do you feel?” she asked. - -“I feel wise indeed,” he answered earnestly. “When I get used to my -brains I shall know everything.” - -“Why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?” asked the -Tin Woodman. - -“That is proof that he is sharp,” remarked the Lion. - -“Well, I must go to Oz and get my heart,” said the Woodman. So he -walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. - -“Come in,” called Oz, and the Woodman entered and said, “I have come -for my heart.” - -“Very well,” answered the little man. “But I shall have to cut a hole -in your breast, so I can put your heart in the right place. I hope it -won’t hurt you.” - -“Oh, no,” answered the Woodman. “I shall not feel it at all.” - -So Oz brought a pair of tinsmith’s shears and cut a small, square hole -in the left side of the Tin Woodman’s breast. Then, going to a chest of -drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed -with sawdust. - -“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked. - -“It is, indeed!” replied the Woodman, who was greatly pleased. “But is -it a kind heart?” - -“Oh, very!” answered Oz. He put the heart in the Woodman’s breast and -then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it -had been cut. - -“There,” said he; “now you have a heart that any man might be proud of. -I’m sorry I had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn’t -be helped.” - -“Never mind the patch,” exclaimed the happy Woodman. “I am very -grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness.” - -“Don’t speak of it,” replied Oz. - -Then the Tin Woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy -on account of his good fortune. - -The Lion now walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. - -“Come in,” said Oz. - -“I have come for my courage,” announced the Lion, entering the room. - -“Very well,” answered the little man; “I will get it for you.” - -He went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a -square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold -dish, beautifully carved. Placing this before the Cowardly Lion, who -sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the Wizard said: - -“Drink.” - -“What is it?” asked the Lion. - -“Well,” answered Oz, “if it were inside of you, it would be courage. -You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this -really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore -I advise you to drink it as soon as possible.” - -The Lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty. - -“How do you feel now?” asked Oz. - -“Full of courage,” replied the Lion, who went joyfully back to his -friends to tell them of his good fortune. - -Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the -Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought -they wanted. “How can I help being a humbug,” he said, “when all these -people make me do things that everybody knows can’t be done? It was -easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman happy, because -they imagined I could do anything. But it will take more than -imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I’m sure I don’t know -how it can be done.” - - - - -Chapter XVII -How the Balloon Was Launched - - -For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for -the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and -contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his -head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could -understand them but himself. When the Tin Woodman walked about he felt -his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told Dorothy he had -discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had -owned when he was made of flesh. The Lion declared he was afraid of -nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army or a dozen of the -fierce Kalidahs. - -Thus each of the little party was satisfied except Dorothy, who longed -more than ever to get back to Kansas. - -On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she -entered the Throne Room he greeted her pleasantly: - -“Sit down, my dear; I think I have found the way to get you out of this -country.” - -“And back to Kansas?” she asked eagerly. - -“Well, I’m not sure about Kansas,” said Oz, “for I haven’t the faintest -notion which way it lies. But the first thing to do is to cross the -desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home.” - -“How can I cross the desert?” she inquired. - -“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” said the little man. “You see, when -I came to this country it was in a balloon. You also came through the -air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe the best way to get -across the desert will be through the air. Now, it is quite beyond my -powers to make a cyclone; but I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I -believe I can make a balloon.” - -“How?” asked Dorothy. - -“A balloon,” said Oz, “is made of silk, which is coated with glue to -keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace, so it will be -no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this country there is no gas -to fill the balloon with, to make it float.” - -“If it won’t float,” remarked Dorothy, “it will be of no use to us.” - -“True,” answered Oz. “But there is another way to make it float, which -is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn’t as good as gas, for if the -air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we -should be lost.” - -“We!” exclaimed the girl. “Are you going with me?” - -“Yes, of course,” replied Oz. “I am tired of being such a humbug. If I -should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a -Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them. -So I have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome. -I’d much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again.” - -“I shall be glad to have your company,” said Dorothy. - -“Thank you,” he answered. “Now, if you will help me sew the silk -together, we will begin to work on our balloon.” - -So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips -of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First -there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and -then a strip of emerald green; for Oz had a fancy to make the balloon -in different shades of the color about them. It took three days to sew -all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of -green silk more than twenty feet long. - -Then Oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it -airtight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready. - -“But we must have a basket to ride in,” he said. So he sent the soldier -with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened -with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon. - -When it was all ready, Oz sent word to his people that he was going to -make a visit to a great brother Wizard who lived in the clouds. The -news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the -wonderful sight. - -Oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the Palace, and the -people gazed upon it with much curiosity. The Tin Woodman had chopped a -big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and Oz held the bottom -of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it -would be caught in the silken bag. Gradually the balloon swelled out -and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the -ground. - -Then Oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice: - -“I am now going away to make a visit. While I am gone the Scarecrow -will rule over you. I command you to obey him as you would me.” - -The balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to -the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much -lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into -the sky. - -“Come, Dorothy!” cried the Wizard. “Hurry up, or the balloon will fly -away.” - -“I can’t find Toto anywhere,” replied Dorothy, who did not wish to -leave her little dog behind. Toto had run into the crowd to bark at a -kitten, and Dorothy at last found him. She picked him up and ran -towards the balloon. - -She was within a few steps of it, and Oz was holding out his hands to -help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon -rose into the air without her. - -“Come back!” she screamed. “I want to go, too!” - -“I can’t come back, my dear,” called Oz from the basket. “Good-bye!” - -“Good-bye!” shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where -the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and -farther into the sky. - -And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, -though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we -know. But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another: - -“Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this -beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the Wise -Scarecrow to rule over us.” - -Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful -Wizard, and would not be comforted. - - - - -Chapter XVIII -Away to the South - - -Dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to Kansas -again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone -up in a balloon. And she also felt sorry at losing Oz, and so did her -companions. - -The Tin Woodman came to her and said: - -“Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave -me my lovely heart. I should like to cry a little because Oz is gone, -if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that I shall not rust.” - -“With pleasure,” she answered, and brought a towel at once. Then the -Tin Woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears -carefully and wiped them away with the towel. When he had finished, he -thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jeweled -oil-can, to guard against mishap. - -The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he -was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. “For,” they said, “there -is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man.” -And, so far as they knew, they were quite right. - -The morning after the balloon had gone up with Oz, the four travelers -met in the Throne Room and talked matters over. The Scarecrow sat in -the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him. - -“We are not so unlucky,” said the new ruler, “for this Palace and the -Emerald City belong to us, and we can do just as we please. When I -remember that a short time ago I was up on a pole in a farmer’s -cornfield, and that now I am the ruler of this beautiful City, I am -quite satisfied with my lot.” - -“I also,” said the Tin Woodman, “am well-pleased with my new heart; -and, really, that was the only thing I wished in all the world.” - -“For my part, I am content in knowing I am as brave as any beast that -ever lived, if not braver,” said the Lion modestly. - -“If Dorothy would only be contented to live in the Emerald City,” -continued the Scarecrow, “we might all be happy together.” - -“But I don’t want to live here,” cried Dorothy. “I want to go to -Kansas, and live with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.” - -“Well, then, what can be done?” inquired the Woodman. - -The Scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins -and needles began to stick out of his brains. Finally he said: - -“Why not call the Winged Monkeys, and ask them to carry you over the -desert?” - -“I never thought of that!” said Dorothy joyfully. “It’s just the thing. -I’ll go at once for the Golden Cap.” - -When she brought it into the Throne Room she spoke the magic words, and -soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through the open window and -stood beside her. - -“This is the second time you have called us,” said the Monkey King, -bowing before the little girl. “What do you wish?” - -“I want you to fly with me to Kansas,” said Dorothy. - -But the Monkey King shook his head. - -“That cannot be done,” he said. “We belong to this country alone, and -cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet, -and I suppose there never will be, for they don’t belong there. We -shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross -the desert. Good-bye.” - -And with another bow, the Monkey King spread his wings and flew away -through the window, followed by all his band. - -Dorothy was ready to cry with disappointment. “I have wasted the charm -of the Golden Cap to no purpose,” she said, “for the Winged Monkeys -cannot help me.” - -“It is certainly too bad!” said the tender-hearted Woodman. - -The Scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly -that Dorothy feared it would burst. - -“Let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers,” he said, “and ask -his advice.” - -So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for -while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come farther than the door. - -“This little girl,” said the Scarecrow to the soldier, “wishes to cross -the desert. How can she do so?” - -“I cannot tell,” answered the soldier, “for nobody has ever crossed the -desert, unless it is Oz himself.” - -“Is there no one who can help me?” asked Dorothy earnestly. - -“Glinda might,” he suggested. - -“Who is Glinda?” inquired the Scarecrow. - -“The Witch of the South. She is the most powerful of all the Witches, -and rules over the Quadlings. Besides, her castle stands on the edge of -the desert, so she may know a way to cross it.” - -“Glinda is a Good Witch, isn’t she?” asked the child. - -“The Quadlings think she is good,” said the soldier, “and she is kind -to everyone. I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows -how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.” - -“How can I get to her castle?” asked Dorothy. - -“The road is straight to the South,” he answered, “but it is said to be -full of dangers to travelers. There are wild beasts in the woods, and a -race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. For -this reason none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City.” - -The soldier then left them and the Scarecrow said: - -“It seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing Dorothy can do is -to travel to the Land of the South and ask Glinda to help her. For, of -course, if Dorothy stays here she will never get back to Kansas.” - -“You must have been thinking again,” remarked the Tin Woodman. - -“I have,” said the Scarecrow. - -“I shall go with Dorothy,” declared the Lion, “for I am tired of your -city and long for the woods and the country again. I am really a wild -beast, you know. Besides, Dorothy will need someone to protect her.” - -“That is true,” agreed the Woodman. “My axe may be of service to her; -so I also will go with her to the Land of the South.” - -“When shall we start?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“Are you going?” they asked, in surprise. - -“Certainly. If it wasn’t for Dorothy I should never have had brains. -She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the -Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never -leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all.” - -“Thank you,” said Dorothy gratefully. “You are all very kind to me. But -I should like to start as soon as possible.” - -“We shall go tomorrow morning,” returned the Scarecrow. “So now let us -all get ready, for it will be a long journey.” - - - - -Chapter XIX -Attacked by the Fighting Trees - - -The next morning Dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye, and -they all shook hands with the soldier with the green whiskers, who had -walked with them as far as the gate. When the Guardian of the Gate saw -them again he wondered greatly that they could leave the beautiful City -to get into new trouble. But he at once unlocked their spectacles, -which he put back into the green box, and gave them many good wishes to -carry with them. - -“You are now our ruler,” he said to the Scarecrow; “so you must come -back to us as soon as possible.” - -“I certainly shall if I am able,” the Scarecrow replied; “but I must -help Dorothy to get home, first.” - -As Dorothy bade the good-natured Guardian a last farewell she said: - -“I have been very kindly treated in your lovely City, and everyone has -been good to me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” - -“Don’t try, my dear,” he answered. “We should like to keep you with us, -but if it is your wish to return to Kansas, I hope you will find a -way.” He then opened the gate of the outer wall, and they walked forth -and started upon their journey. - -The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the -Land of the South. They were all in the best of spirits, and laughed -and chatted together. Dorothy was once more filled with the hope of -getting home, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were glad to be of -use to her. As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and -whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country -again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, -barking merrily all the time. - -“City life does not agree with me at all,” remarked the Lion, as they -walked along at a brisk pace. “I have lost much flesh since I lived -there, and now I am anxious for a chance to show the other beasts how -courageous I have grown.” - -They now turned and took a last look at the Emerald City. All they -could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and -high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz. - -“Oz was not such a bad Wizard, after all,” said the Tin Woodman, as he -felt his heart rattling around in his breast. - -“He knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too,” said the -Scarecrow. - -“If Oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me,” added the -Lion, “he would have been a brave man.” - -Dorothy said nothing. Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he -had done his best, so she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, -even if he was a bad Wizard. - -The first day’s journey was through the green fields and bright flowers -that stretched about the Emerald City on every side. They slept that -night on the grass, with nothing but the stars over them; and they -rested very well indeed. - -In the morning they traveled on until they came to a thick wood. There -was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend to the right and -left as far as they could see; and, besides, they did not dare change -the direction of their journey for fear of getting lost. So they looked -for the place where it would be easiest to get into the forest. - -The Scarecrow, who was in the lead, finally discovered a big tree with -such wide-spreading branches that there was room for the party to pass -underneath. So he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under -the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next -minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his -fellow travelers. - -This did not hurt the Scarecrow, but it surprised him, and he looked -rather dizzy when Dorothy picked him up. - -“Here is another space between the trees,” called the Lion. - -“Let me try it first,” said the Scarecrow, “for it doesn’t hurt me to -get thrown about.” He walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its -branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again. - -“This is strange,” exclaimed Dorothy. “What shall we do?” - -“The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our -journey,” remarked the Lion. - -“I believe I will try it myself,” said the Woodman, and shouldering his -axe, he marched up to the first tree that had handled the Scarecrow so -roughly. When a big branch bent down to seize him the Woodman chopped -at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. At once the tree began shaking -all its branches as if in pain, and the Tin Woodman passed safely under -it. - -“Come on!” he shouted to the others. “Be quick!” They all ran forward -and passed under the tree without injury, except Toto, who was caught -by a small branch and shaken until he howled. But the Woodman promptly -chopped off the branch and set the little dog free. - -The other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they -made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down -their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the -forest, and given this wonderful power in order to keep strangers out -of it. - -The four travelers walked with ease through the trees until they came -to the farther edge of the wood. Then, to their surprise, they found -before them a high wall which seemed to be made of white china. It was -smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. - -“What shall we do now?” asked Dorothy. - -“I will make a ladder,” said the Tin Woodman, “for we certainly must -climb over the wall.” - - - - -Chapter XX -The Dainty China Country - - -While the Woodman was making a ladder from wood which he found in the -forest Dorothy lay down and slept, for she was tired by the long walk. -The Lion also curled himself up to sleep and Toto lay beside him. - -The Scarecrow watched the Woodman while he worked, and said to him: - -“I cannot think why this wall is here, nor what it is made of.” - -“Rest your brains and do not worry about the wall,” replied the -Woodman. “When we have climbed over it, we shall know what is on the -other side.” - -After a time the ladder was finished. It looked clumsy, but the Tin -Woodman was sure it was strong and would answer their purpose. The -Scarecrow waked Dorothy and the Lion and Toto, and told them that the -ladder was ready. The Scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was -so awkward that Dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from -falling off. When he got his head over the top of the wall the -Scarecrow said, “Oh, my!” - -“Go on,” exclaimed Dorothy. - -So the Scarecrow climbed farther up and sat down on the top of the -wall, and Dorothy put her head over and cried, “Oh, my!” just as the -Scarecrow had done. - -Then Toto came up, and immediately began to bark, but Dorothy made him -be still. - -The Lion climbed the ladder next, and the Tin Woodman came last; but -both of them cried, “Oh, my!” as soon as they looked over the wall. -When they were all sitting in a row on the top of the wall, they looked -down and saw a strange sight. - -Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and -shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were -many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colors. -These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as -high as Dorothy’s waist. There were also pretty little barns, with -china fences around them; and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs -and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups. - -But the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer -country. There were milkmaids and shepherdesses, with brightly colored -bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most -gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in -knee breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and -golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jeweled crowns upon -their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns -in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, -pointed caps. And, strangest of all, these people were all made of -china, even to their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of -them was no higher than Dorothy’s knee. - -No one did so much as look at the travelers at first, except one little -purple china dog with an extra-large head, which came to the wall and -barked at them in a tiny voice, afterwards running away again. - -“How shall we get down?” asked Dorothy. - -They found the ladder so heavy they could not pull it up, so the -Scarecrow fell off the wall and the others jumped down upon him so that -the hard floor would not hurt their feet. Of course they took pains not -to light on his head and get the pins in their feet. When all were -safely down they picked up the Scarecrow, whose body was quite -flattened out, and patted his straw into shape again. - -“We must cross this strange place in order to get to the other side,” -said Dorothy, “for it would be unwise for us to go any other way except -due South.” - -They began walking through the country of the china people, and the -first thing they came to was a china milkmaid milking a china cow. As -they drew near, the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, -the pail, and even the milkmaid herself, and all fell on the china -ground with a great clatter. - -Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg off, and -that the pail was lying in several small pieces, while the poor -milkmaid had a nick in her left elbow. - -“There!” cried the milkmaid angrily. “See what you have done! My cow -has broken her leg, and I must take her to the mender’s shop and have -it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my -cow?” - -“I’m very sorry,” returned Dorothy. “Please forgive us.” - -But the pretty milkmaid was much too vexed to make any answer. She -picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping -on three legs. As she left them the milkmaid cast many reproachful -glances over her shoulder at the clumsy strangers, holding her nicked -elbow close to her side. - -Dorothy was quite grieved at this mishap. - -“We must be very careful here,” said the kind-hearted Woodman, “or we -may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it.” - -A little farther on Dorothy met a most beautifully dressed young -Princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and started to run -away. - -Dorothy wanted to see more of the Princess, so she ran after her. But -the china girl cried out: - -“Don’t chase me! Don’t chase me!” - -She had such a frightened little voice that Dorothy stopped and said, -“Why not?” - -“Because,” answered the Princess, also stopping, a safe distance away, -“if I run I may fall down and break myself.” - -“But could you not be mended?” asked the girl. - -“Oh, yes; but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know,” -replied the Princess. - -“I suppose not,” said Dorothy. - -“Now there is Mr. Joker, one of our clowns,” continued the china lady, -“who is always trying to stand upon his head. He has broken himself so -often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn’t look at all -pretty. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself.” - -Indeed, a jolly little clown came walking toward them, and Dorothy -could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and -green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way -and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places. - -The Clown put his hands in his pockets, and after puffing out his -cheeks and nodding his head at them saucily, he said: - - “My lady fair, - Why do you stare -At poor old Mr. Joker? - You’re quite as stiff - And prim as if -You’d eaten up a poker!” - - -“Be quiet, sir!” said the Princess. “Can’t you see these are strangers, -and should be treated with respect?” - -“Well, that’s respect, I expect,” declared the Clown, and immediately -stood upon his head. - -“Don’t mind Mr. Joker,” said the Princess to Dorothy. “He is -considerably cracked in his head, and that makes him foolish.” - -“Oh, I don’t mind him a bit,” said Dorothy. “But you are so beautiful,” -she continued, “that I am sure I could love you dearly. Won’t you let -me carry you back to Kansas, and stand you on Aunt Em’s mantel? I could -carry you in my basket.” - -“That would make me very unhappy,” answered the china Princess. “You -see, here in our country we live contentedly, and can talk and move -around as we please. But whenever any of us are taken away our joints -at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. Of -course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantels and -cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter -here in our own country.” - -“I would not make you unhappy for all the world!” exclaimed Dorothy. -“So I’ll just say good-bye.” - -“Good-bye,” replied the Princess. - -They walked carefully through the china country. The little animals and -all the people scampered out of their way, fearing the strangers would -break them, and after an hour or so the travelers reached the other -side of the country and came to another china wall. - -It was not so high as the first, however, and by standing upon the -Lion’s back they all managed to scramble to the top. Then the Lion -gathered his legs under him and jumped on the wall; but just as he -jumped, he upset a china church with his tail and smashed it all to -pieces. - -“That was too bad,” said Dorothy, “but really I think we were lucky in -not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow’s leg and a -church. They are all so brittle!” - -“They are, indeed,” said the Scarecrow, “and I am thankful I am made of -straw and cannot be easily damaged. There are worse things in the world -than being a Scarecrow.” - - - - -Chapter XXI -The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts - - -After climbing down from the china wall the travelers found themselves -in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with -tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy -holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. However, -by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they -reached solid ground. But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and -after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered -another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had -ever seen. - -“This forest is perfectly delightful,” declared the Lion, looking -around him with joy. “Never have I seen a more beautiful place.” - -“It seems gloomy,” said the Scarecrow. - -“Not a bit of it,” answered the Lion. “I should like to live here all -my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich -and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild -beast could wish a pleasanter home.” - -“Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now,” said Dorothy. - -“I suppose there are,” returned the Lion, “but I do not see any of them -about.” - -They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any -farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the -Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. - -When morning came, they started again. Before they had gone far they -heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. Toto -whimpered a little, but none of the others was frightened, and they -kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the -wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. There -were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the -others in the natural history, and for a moment Dorothy was afraid. But -the Lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he -judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. - -As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the -great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came -up to the Lion and bowed, saying: - -“Welcome, O King of Beasts! You have come in good time to fight our -enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more.” - -“What is your trouble?” asked the Lion quietly. - -“We are all threatened,” answered the tiger, “by a fierce enemy which -has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like -a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a -tree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls -through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his -mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe -while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to -decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us.” - -The Lion thought for a moment. - -“Are there any other lions in this forest?” he asked. - -“No; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. And, besides, -they were none of them nearly so large and brave as you.” - -“If I put an end to your enemy, will you bow down to me and obey me as -King of the Forest?” inquired the Lion. - -“We will do that gladly,” returned the tiger; and all the other beasts -roared with a mighty roar: “We will!” - -“Where is this great spider of yours now?” asked the Lion. - -“Yonder, among the oak trees,” said the tiger, pointing with his -forefoot. - -“Take good care of these friends of mine,” said the Lion, “and I will -go at once to fight the monster.” - -He bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle -with the enemy. - -The great spider was lying asleep when the Lion found him, and it -looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust. Its legs -were quite as long as the tiger had said, and its body covered with -coarse black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a -foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as -slender as a wasp’s waist. This gave the Lion a hint of the best way to -attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep -than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the -monster’s back. Then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with -sharp claws, he knocked the spider’s head from its body. Jumping down, -he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was -quite dead. - -The Lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were -waiting for him and said proudly: - -“You need fear your enemy no longer.” - -Then the beasts bowed down to the Lion as their King, and he promised -to come back and rule over them as soon as Dorothy was safely on her -way to Kansas. - - - - -Chapter XXII -The Country of the Quadlings - - -The four travelers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and -when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered -from top to bottom with great pieces of rock. - -“That will be a hard climb,” said the Scarecrow, “but we must get over -the hill, nevertheless.” - -So he led the way and the others followed. They had nearly reached the -first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, “Keep back!” - -“Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow. - -Then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, “This -hill belongs to us, and we don’t allow anyone to cross it.” - -“But we must cross it,” said the Scarecrow. “We’re going to the country -of the Quadlings.” - -“But you shall not!” replied the voice, and there stepped from behind -the rock the strangest man the travelers had ever seen. - -He was quite short and stout and had a big head, which was flat at the -top and supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. But he had no arms -at all, and, seeing this, the Scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a -creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. So he said, “I’m -sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether -you like it or not,” and he walked boldly forward. - -As quick as lightning the man’s head shot forward and his neck -stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the -Scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the -hill. Almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and -the man laughed harshly as he said, “It isn’t as easy as you think!” - -A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy -saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind -every rock. - -The Lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the Scarecrow’s -mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder, he dashed up -the hill. - -Again a head shot swiftly out, and the great Lion went rolling down the -hill as if he had been struck by a cannon ball. - -Dorothy ran down and helped the Scarecrow to his feet, and the Lion -came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, “It is -useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand -them.” - -“What can we do, then?” she asked. - -“Call the Winged Monkeys,” suggested the Tin Woodman. “You have still -the right to command them once more.” - -“Very well,” she answered, and putting on the Golden Cap she uttered -the magic words. The Monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few -moments the entire band stood before her. - -“What are your commands?” inquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low. - -“Carry us over the hill to the country of the Quadlings,” answered the -girl. - -“It shall be done,” said the King, and at once the Winged Monkeys -caught the four travelers and Toto up in their arms and flew away with -them. As they passed over the hill the Hammer-Heads yelled with -vexation, and shot their heads high in the air, but they could not -reach the Winged Monkeys, which carried Dorothy and her comrades safely -over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the -Quadlings. - -“This is the last time you can summon us,” said the leader to Dorothy; -“so good-bye and good luck to you.” - -“Good-bye, and thank you very much,” returned the girl; and the Monkeys -rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling. - -The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field -upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, -and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences -and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had -been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the -country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and -fat and looked chubby and good-natured, were dressed all in red, which -showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain. - -The Monkeys had set them down near a farmhouse, and the four travelers -walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmer’s -wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them -all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, -and a bowl of milk for Toto. - -“How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?” asked the child. - -“It is not a great way,” answered the farmer’s wife. “Take the road to -the South and you will soon reach it.” - -Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields -and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very -beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in -handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy -approached, one of them said to her: - -“Why have you come to the South Country?” - -“To see the Good Witch who rules here,” she answered. “Will you take me -to her?” - -“Let me have your name, and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you.” -They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. -After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others -were to be admitted at once. - - - - -Chapter XXIII -Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish - - -Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of -the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the -Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself -into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his -joints. - -When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl -into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies. - -She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red -in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was -pure white but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the -little girl. - -“What can I do for you, my child?” she asked. - -Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her -to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the -wonderful adventures they had met with. - -“My greatest wish now,” she added, “is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt -Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that -will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this -year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it.” - -Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving -little girl. - -“Bless your dear heart,” she said, “I am sure I can tell you of a way -to get back to Kansas.” Then she added, “But, if I do, you must give me -the Golden Cap.” - -“Willingly!” exclaimed Dorothy; “indeed, it is of no use to me now, and -when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times.” - -“And I think I shall need their service just those three times,” -answered Glinda, smiling. - -Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the -Scarecrow, “What will you do when Dorothy has left us?” - -“I will return to the Emerald City,” he replied, “for Oz has made me -its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how -to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads.” - -“By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry -you to the gates of the Emerald City,” said Glinda, “for it would be a -shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler.” - -“Am I really wonderful?” asked the Scarecrow. - -“You are unusual,” replied Glinda. - -Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked, “What will become of you when -Dorothy leaves this country?” - -He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, “The Winkies -were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked -Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to -the Country of the West, I should like nothing better than to rule over -them forever.” - -“My second command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda “will be that -they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brain may not be -so large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really -brighter than he is—when you are well polished—and I am sure you will -rule the Winkies wisely and well.” - -Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, “When Dorothy -has returned to her own home, what will become of you?” - -“Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads,” he answered, “lies a grand old -forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If -I could only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily -there.” - -“My third command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda, “shall be to -carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden -Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band -may thereafter be free for evermore.” - -The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good -Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed: - -“You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet -told me how to get back to Kansas.” - -“Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,” replied Glinda. “If -you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the -very first day you came to this country.” - -“But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!” cried the -Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s -cornfield.” - -“And I should not have had my lovely heart,” said the Tin Woodman. “I -might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.” - -“And I should have lived a coward forever,” declared the Lion, “and no -beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.” - -“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these -good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, -and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should -like to go back to Kansas.” - -“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “have wonderful powers. And -one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to -any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in -the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together -three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to -go.” - -“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me -back to Kansas at once.” - -She threw her arms around the Lion’s neck and kissed him, patting his -big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in -a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed -body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, -and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her -loving comrades. - -Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little -girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she -had shown to her friends and herself. - -Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last -good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, -saying: - -“Take me home to Aunt Em!” - - -Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she -could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears. - -The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly -that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where -she was. - -At length, however, she sat up and looked about her. - -“Good gracious!” she cried. - -For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her -was the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried -away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and -Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, -barking furiously. - -Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver -Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost -forever in the desert. - - - - -Chapter XXIV -Home Again - - -Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she -looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her. - -“My darling child!” she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and -covering her face with kisses. “Where in the world did you come from?” - -“From the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy gravely. “And here is Toto, too. -And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be at home again!” - -TREASURE ISLAND - -PART ONE--The Old Buccaneer - -1 - -The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow - - -SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having -asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from -the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the -island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I -take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when -my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the -sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. - -I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the -inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a -tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the -shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with -black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid -white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself -as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so -often afterwards: - - “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” - -in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and -broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of -stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, -called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, -he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still -looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. - -“This is a handy cove,” says he at length; “and a pleasant sittyated -grog-shop. Much company, mate?” - -My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. - -“Well, then,” said he, “this is the berth for me. Here you, matey,” he -cried to the man who trundled the barrow; “bring up alongside and help -up my chest. I’ll stay here a bit,” he continued. “I’m a plain man; rum -and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch -ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I -see what you’re at--there”; and he threw down three or four gold pieces -on the threshold. “You can tell me when I’ve worked through that,” says -he, looking as fierce as a commander. - -And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none -of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like -a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came -with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at -the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the -coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as -lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And -that was all we could learn of our guest. - -He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or -upon the cliffs with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner -of the parlour next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly -he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and -blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came -about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back -from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the -road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind -that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was -desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did put up at the Admiral Benbow -(as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol) he -would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the -parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such -was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for -I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day -and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I -would only keep my “weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg” - and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first -of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only -blow through his nose at me and stare me down, but before the week was -out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my four-penny piece, and -repeat his orders to look out for “the seafaring man with one leg.” - -How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On -stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house and -the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a -thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg -would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous -kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the -middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and -ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for -my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies. - -But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one -leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who -knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water -than his head would carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his -wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call -for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his -stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house -shaking with “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” all the neighbours joining -in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing -louder than the other to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most -overriding companion ever known; he would slap his hand on the table for -silence all round; he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, -or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not -following his story. Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he -had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed. - -His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories -they were--about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and -the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his -own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men -that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told -these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the -crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be -ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over -and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his -presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking -back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country -life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to -admire him, calling him a “true sea-dog” and a “real old salt” and -such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England -terrible at sea. - -In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on staying week -after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had -been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to -insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through -his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared my poor -father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a -rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have -greatly hastened his early and unhappy death. - -All the time he lived with us the captain made no change whatever in his -dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his -hat having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it -was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his -coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and which, before -the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, -and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the -most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had -ever seen open. - -He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, when my poor -father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came -late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my -mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse should -come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I -followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright -doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and -pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, -with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, -far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he--the captain, -that is--began to pipe up his eternal song: - - “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! - Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” - -At first I had supposed “the dead man’s chest” to be that identical big -box of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled -in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this -time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song; it -was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it -did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite -angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on -a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain gradually -brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon -the table before him in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices -stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey’s; he went on as before speaking -clear and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or -two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, -glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath, -“Silence, there, between decks!” - -“Were you addressing me, sir?” says the doctor; and when the ruffian had -told him, with another oath, that this was so, “I have only one thing to -say to you, sir,” replies the doctor, “that if you keep on drinking rum, -the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!” - -The old fellow’s fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened -a sailor’s clasp-knife, and balancing it open on the palm of his hand, -threatened to pin the doctor to the wall. - -The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his -shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the -room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady: “If you do not put that -knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall -hang at the next assizes.” - -Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon -knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like -a beaten dog. - -“And now, sir,” continued the doctor, “since I now know there’s such a -fellow in my district, you may count I’ll have an eye upon you day and -night. I’m not a doctor only; I’m a magistrate; and if I catch a breath -of complaint against you, if it’s only for a piece of incivility like -tonight’s, I’ll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed -out of this. Let that suffice.” - -Soon after, Dr. Livesey’s horse came to the door and he rode away, but -the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come. - - - - -2 - -Black Dog Appears and Disappears - - -IT was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the -mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you -will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard -frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor -father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother -and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without -paying much regard to our unpleasant guest. - -It was one January morning, very early--a pinching, frosty morning--the -cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, -the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to -seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual and set out down the -beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, -his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I -remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and -the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud snort -of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey. - -Well, mother was upstairs with father and I was laying the -breakfast-table against the captain’s return when the parlour door -opened and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He -was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand, and -though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I -had always my eye open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I -remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a -smack of the sea about him too. - -I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum; but -as I was going out of the room to fetch it, he sat down upon a table -and motioned me to draw near. I paused where I was, with my napkin in my -hand. - -“Come here, sonny,” says he. “Come nearer here.” - -I took a step nearer. - -“Is this here table for my mate Bill?” he asked with a kind of leer. - -I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who -stayed in our house whom we called the captain. - -“Well,” said he, “my mate Bill would be called the captain, as like -as not. He has a cut on one cheek and a mighty pleasant way with him, -particularly in drink, has my mate Bill. We’ll put it, for argument -like, that your captain has a cut on one cheek--and we’ll put it, if you -like, that that cheek’s the right one. Ah, well! I told you. Now, is my -mate Bill in this here house?” - -I told him he was out walking. - -“Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone?” - -And when I had pointed out the rock and told him how the captain was -likely to return, and how soon, and answered a few other questions, -“Ah,” said he, “this’ll be as good as drink to my mate Bill.” - -The expression of his face as he said these words was not at all -pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was -mistaken, even supposing he meant what he said. But it was no affair of -mine, I thought; and besides, it was difficult to know what to do. The -stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round the -corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into -the road, but he immediately called me back, and as I did not obey quick -enough for his fancy, a most horrible change came over his tallowy face, -and he ordered me in with an oath that made me jump. As soon as I -was back again he returned to his former manner, half fawning, half -sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told me I was a good boy and he had -taken quite a fancy to me. “I have a son of my own,” said he, “as like -you as two blocks, and he’s all the pride of my ’art. But the great -thing for boys is discipline, sonny--discipline. Now, if you had sailed -along of Bill, you wouldn’t have stood there to be spoke to twice--not -you. That was never Bill’s way, nor the way of sich as sailed with him. -And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under his arm, -bless his old ’art, to be sure. You and me’ll just go back into the -parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and we’ll give Bill a little -surprise--bless his ’art, I say again.” - -So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlour and put me -behind him in the corner so that we were both hidden by the open door. I -was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and it rather added to my -fears to observe that the stranger was certainly frightened himself. He -cleared the hilt of his cutlass and loosened the blade in the sheath; -and all the time we were waiting there he kept swallowing as if he felt -what we used to call a lump in the throat. - -At last in strode the captain, slammed the door behind him, without -looking to the right or left, and marched straight across the room to -where his breakfast awaited him. - -“Bill,” said the stranger in a voice that I thought he had tried to make -bold and big. - -The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us; all the brown had -gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue; he had the look of a -man who sees a ghost, or the evil one, or something worse, if anything -can be; and upon my word, I felt sorry to see him all in a moment turn -so old and sick. - -“Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely,” said -the stranger. - -The captain made a sort of gasp. - -“Black Dog!” said he. - -“And who else?” returned the other, getting more at his ease. “Black -Dog as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate Billy, at the Admiral -Benbow inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, since -I lost them two talons,” holding up his mutilated hand. - -“Now, look here,” said the captain; “you’ve run me down; here I am; -well, then, speak up; what is it?” - -“That’s you, Bill,” returned Black Dog, “you’re in the right of it, -Billy. I’ll have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I’ve took -such a liking to; and we’ll sit down, if you please, and talk square, -like old shipmates.” - -When I returned with the rum, they were already seated on either side -of the captain’s breakfast-table--Black Dog next to the door and -sitting sideways so as to have one eye on his old shipmate and one, as I -thought, on his retreat. - -He bade me go and leave the door wide open. “None of your keyholes for -me, sonny,” he said; and I left them together and retired into the bar. - -For a long time, though I certainly did my best to listen, I could hear -nothing but a low gattling; but at last the voices began to grow higher, -and I could pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain. - -“No, no, no, no; and an end of it!” he cried once. And again, “If it -comes to swinging, swing all, say I.” - -Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion of oaths and -other noises--the chair and table went over in a lump, a clash of steel -followed, and then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black -Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both with drawn -cutlasses, and the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just -at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous -cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been -intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Benbow. You may see the -notch on the lower side of the frame to this day. - -That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road, Black -Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair of heels and -disappeared over the edge of the hill in half a minute. The captain, for -his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man. Then he -passed his hand over his eyes several times and at last turned back into -the house. - -“Jim,” says he, “rum”; and as he spoke, he reeled a little, and caught -himself with one hand against the wall. - -“Are you hurt?” cried I. - -“Rum,” he repeated. “I must get away from here. Rum! Rum!” - -I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen -out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still -getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in the parlour, and running -in, beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same -instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running -downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his head. He was breathing -very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed and his face a horrible -colour. - -“Dear, deary me,” cried my mother, “what a disgrace upon the house! And -your poor father sick!” - -In the meantime, we had no idea what to do to help the captain, nor any -other thought but that he had got his death-hurt in the scuffle with -the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his -throat, but his teeth were tightly shut and his jaws as strong as iron. -It was a happy relief for us when the door opened and Doctor Livesey -came in, on his visit to my father. - -“Oh, doctor,” we cried, “what shall we do? Where is he wounded?” - -“Wounded? A fiddle-stick’s end!” said the doctor. “No more wounded than -you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, -just you run upstairs to your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing -about it. For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow’s trebly -worthless life; Jim, you get me a basin.” - -When I got back with the basin, the doctor had already ripped up the -captain’s sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed -in several places. “Here’s luck,” “A fair wind,” and “Billy Bones his -fancy,” were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm; and up -near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from -it--done, as I thought, with great spirit. - -“Prophetic,” said the doctor, touching this picture with his finger. -“And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your name, we’ll have a look at -the colour of your blood. Jim,” he said, “are you afraid of blood?” - -“No, sir,” said I. - -“Well, then,” said he, “you hold the basin”; and with that he took his -lancet and opened a vein. - -A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes -and looked mistily about him. First he recognized the doctor with -an unmistakable frown; then his glance fell upon me, and he looked -relieved. But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise -himself, crying, “Where’s Black Dog?” - -“There is no Black Dog here,” said the doctor, “except what you have -on your own back. You have been drinking rum; you have had a stroke, -precisely as I told you; and I have just, very much against my own will, -dragged you headforemost out of the grave. Now, Mr. Bones--” - -“That’s not my name,” he interrupted. - -“Much I care,” returned the doctor. “It’s the name of a buccaneer of my -acquaintance; and I call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I -have to say to you is this; one glass of rum won’t kill you, but if -you take one you’ll take another and another, and I stake my wig if you -don’t break off short, you’ll die--do you understand that?--die, and go -to your own place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an effort. -I’ll help you to your bed for once.” - -Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him upstairs, and -laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on the pillow as if he -were almost fainting. - -“Now, mind you,” said the doctor, “I clear my conscience--the name of -rum for you is death.” - -And with that he went off to see my father, taking me with him by the -arm. - -“This is nothing,” he said as soon as he had closed the door. “I have -drawn blood enough to keep him quiet awhile; he should lie for a week -where he is--that is the best thing for him and you; but another stroke -would settle him.” - - - - -3 - -The Black Spot - -ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain’s door with some cooling drinks -and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little -higher, and he seemed both weak and excited. - -“Jim,” he said, “you’re the only one here that’s worth anything, and you -know I’ve been always good to you. Never a month but I’ve given you a -silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I’m pretty low, -and deserted by all; and Jim, you’ll bring me one noggin of rum, now, -won’t you, matey?” - -“The doctor--” I began. - -But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. -“Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do -he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates -dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the -sea with earthquakes--what to the doctor know of lands like that?--and I -lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, -to me; and if I’m not to have my rum now I’m a poor old hulk on a lee -shore, my blood’ll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab”; and he ran on -again for a while with curses. “Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges,” - he continued in the pleading tone. “I can’t keep ’em still, not I. I -haven’t had a drop this blessed day. That doctor’s a fool, I tell you. -If I don’t have a dram o’ rum, Jim, I’ll have the horrors; I seen some -on ’em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as -plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors, I’m a man that -has lived rough, and I’ll raise Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass -wouldn’t hurt me. I’ll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim.” - -He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, -who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was reassured by -the doctor’s words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer -of a bribe. - -“I want none of your money,” said I, “but what you owe my father. I’ll -get you one glass, and no more.” - -When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out. - -“Aye, aye,” said he, “that’s some better, sure enough. And now, matey, -did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth?” - -“A week at least,” said I. - -“Thunder!” he cried. “A week! I can’t do that; they’d have the black -spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me -this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn’t keep what they got, and want to -nail what is another’s. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know? -But I’m a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it -neither; and I’ll trick ’em again. I’m not afraid on ’em. I’ll shake out -another reef, matey, and daddle ’em again.” - -As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, -holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and -moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they -were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in -which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting -position on the edge. - -“That doctor’s done me,” he murmured. “My ears is singing. Lay me back.” - -Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again to his -former place, where he lay for a while silent. - -“Jim,” he said at length, “you saw that seafaring man today?” - -“Black Dog?” I asked. - -“Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “HE’S a bad un; but there’s worse that put him -on. Now, if I can’t get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind -you, it’s my old sea-chest they’re after; you get on a horse--you can, -can’t you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--well, yes, -I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all -hands--magistrates and sich--and he’ll lay ’em aboard at the Admiral -Benbow--all old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all on ’em that’s left. I was -first mate, I was, old Flint’s first mate, and I’m the on’y one as knows -the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I -was to now, you see. But you won’t peach unless they get the black spot -on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with -one leg, Jim--him above all.” - -“But what is the black spot, captain?” I asked. - -“That’s a summons, mate. I’ll tell you if they get that. But you keep -your weather-eye open, Jim, and I’ll share with you equals, upon my -honour.” - -He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker; but soon after I -had given him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, -“If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it’s me,” he fell at last into a heavy, -swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had all -gone well I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to -the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of -his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell out, my poor -father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other matters -on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the -arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on -in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of -the captain, far less to be afraid of him. - -He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his meals as usual, -though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of -rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing through -his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the night before the funeral -he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, -to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was, -we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly -taken up with a case many miles away and was never near the house after -my father’s death. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed he -seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength. He clambered up -and down stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, -and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding on to -the walls as he went for support and breathing hard and fast like a man -on a steep mountain. He never particularly addressed me, and it is my -belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences; but his temper was -more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness, more violent than -ever. He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his -cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But with all that, -he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather -wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a -different air, a kind of country love-song that he must have learned in -his youth before he had begun to follow the sea. - -So things passed until, the day after the funeral, and about three -o’clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon, I was standing at the door -for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw someone -drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped -before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and -nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge -old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively -deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. -He stopped a little from the inn, and raising his voice in an odd -sing-song, addressed the air in front of him, “Will any kind friend -inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in -the gracious defence of his native country, England--and God bless King -George!--where or in what part of this country he may now be?” - -“You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my good man,” said I. - -“I hear a voice,” said he, “a young voice. Will you give me your hand, -my kind young friend, and lead me in?” - -I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature -gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much startled that I -struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close up to him with -a single action of his arm. - -“Now, boy,” he said, “take me in to the captain.” - -“Sir,” said I, “upon my word I dare not.” - -“Oh,” he sneered, “that’s it! Take me in straight or I’ll break your -arm.” - -And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out. - -“Sir,” said I, “it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not what he -used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman--” - -“Come, now, march,” interrupted he; and I never heard a voice so cruel, -and cold, and ugly as that blind man’s. It cowed me more than the pain, -and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and -towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed -with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist -and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. “Lead me -straight up to him, and when I’m in view, cry out, ‘Here’s a friend -for you, Bill.’ If you don’t, I’ll do this,” and with that he gave me a -twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I -was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of -the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he -had ordered in a trembling voice. - -The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of -him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so -much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I -do not believe he had enough force left in his body. - -“Now, Bill, sit where you are,” said the beggar. “If I can’t see, I can -hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. -Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right.” - -We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the -hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain’s, -which closed upon it instantly. - -“And now that’s done,” said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly -left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, -skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood -motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance. - -It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our -senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his -wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked -sharply into the palm. - -“Ten o’clock!” he cried. “Six hours. We’ll do them yet,” and he sprang -to his feet. - -Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying -for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole -height face foremost to the floor. - -I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. -The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious -thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of -late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I -burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and -the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. - - - - -4 - -The Sea-chest - -I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and -perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once -in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man’s money--if -he had any--was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our -captain’s shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black -Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in -payment of the dead man’s debts. The captain’s order to mount at -once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone -and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed -impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall -of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled -us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by -approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain -on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar -hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as -the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily -be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together -and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. -Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and -the frosty fog. - -The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view, on the -other side of the next cove; and what greatly encouraged me, it was -in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his -appearance and whither he had presumably returned. We were not many -minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each -other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound--nothing but the low -wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood. - -It was already candle-light when we reached the hamlet, and I shall -never forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and -windows; but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were likely -to get in that quarter. For--you would have thought men would have been -ashamed of themselves--no soul would consent to return with us to the -Admiral Benbow. The more we told of our troubles, the more--man, woman, -and child--they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of -Captain Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to -some there and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who -had been to field-work on the far side of the Admiral Benbow remembered, -besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and taking them to -be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen a little -lugger in what we called Kitt’s Hole. For that matter, anyone who was a -comrade of the captain’s was enough to frighten them to death. And the -short and the long of the matter was, that while we could get several -who were willing enough to ride to Dr. Livesey’s, which lay in another -direction, not one would help us to defend the inn. - -They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other -hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother -made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that -belonged to her fatherless boy; “If none of the rest of you dare,” - she said, “Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way we came, and small -thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men. We’ll have that chest -open, if we die for it. And I’ll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, -to bring back our lawful money in.” - -Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of course they all cried -out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man would go along with -us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were -attacked, and to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were -pursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor’s -in search of armed assistance. - -My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night upon -this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise and peered -redly through the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, -for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all would be as -bright as day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. -We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear -anything to increase our terrors, till, to our relief, the door of the -Admiral Benbow had closed behind us. - -I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment in the -dark, alone in the house with the dead captain’s body. Then my mother -got a candle in the bar, and holding each other’s hands, we advanced -into the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his eyes -open and one arm stretched out. - -“Draw down the blind, Jim,” whispered my mother; “they might come and -watch outside. And now,” said she when I had done so, “we have to get -the key off THAT; and who’s to touch it, I should like to know!” and she -gave a kind of sob as she said the words. - -I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there -was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not -doubt that this was the BLACK SPOT; and taking it up, I found written -on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message: “You -have till ten tonight.” - -“He had till ten, Mother,” said I; and just as I said it, our old clock -began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly; but the news -was good, for it was only six. - -“Now, Jim,” she said, “that key.” - -I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, -and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away -at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a -tinder box were all that they contained, and I began to despair. - -“Perhaps it’s round his neck,” suggested my mother. - -Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and -there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with -his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with -hope and hurried upstairs without delay to the little room where he had -slept so long and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival. - -It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside, the initial “B” - burned on the top of it with a hot iron, and the corners somewhat -smashed and broken as by long, rough usage. - -“Give me the key,” said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, -she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. - -A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior, but nothing -was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully -brushed and folded. They had never been worn, my mother said. Under -that, the miscellany began--a quadrant, a tin canikin, several sticks of -tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an -old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of -foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six -curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should -have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and -hunted life. - -In the meantime, we had found nothing of any value but the silver and -the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way. Underneath there -was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour-bar. My -mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay before us, the last -things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth, and looking like -papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of -gold. - -“I’ll show these rogues that I’m an honest woman,” said my mother. “I’ll -have my dues, and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crossley’s bag.” And -she began to count over the amount of the captain’s score from the -sailor’s bag into the one that I was holding. - -It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were of all countries -and sizes--doubloons, and louis d’ors, and guineas, and pieces of eight, -and I know not what besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, -too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only that my mother -knew how to make her count. - -When we were about half-way through, I suddenly put my hand upon her -arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound that brought my -heart into my mouth--the tap-tapping of the blind man’s stick upon the -frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer, while we sat holding our breath. -Then it struck sharp on the inn door, and then we could hear the handle -being turned and the bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to enter; -and then there was a long time of silence both within and without. -At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our indescribable joy and -gratitude, died slowly away again until it ceased to be heard. - -“Mother,” said I, “take the whole and let’s be going,” for I was sure -the bolted door must have seemed suspicious and would bring the whole -hornet’s nest about our ears, though how thankful I was that I had -bolted it, none could tell who had never met that terrible blind man. - -But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take a -fraction more than was due to her and was obstinately unwilling to be -content with less. It was not yet seven, she said, by a long way; she -knew her rights and she would have them; and she was still arguing with -me when a little low whistle sounded a good way off upon the hill. That -was enough, and more than enough, for both of us. - -“I’ll take what I have,” she said, jumping to her feet. - -“And I’ll take this to square the count,” said I, picking up the oilskin -packet. - -Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle by -the empty chest; and the next we had opened the door and were in full -retreat. We had not started a moment too soon. The fog was rapidly -dispersing; already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on -either side; and it was only in the exact bottom of the dell and round -the tavern door that a thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the -first steps of our escape. Far less than half-way to the hamlet, very -little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the -moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running -came already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction, a -light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancing showed that one of -the newcomers carried a lantern. - -“My dear,” said my mother suddenly, “take the money and run on. I am -going to faint.” - -This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. How I cursed the -cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty -and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness! We were -just at the little bridge, by good fortune; and I helped her, tottering -as she was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh -and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength to do it -at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed to drag her -down the bank and a little way under the arch. Farther I could not move -her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it. -So there we had to stay--my mother almost entirely exposed and both of -us within earshot of the inn. - - - - -5 - -The Last of the Blind Man - -MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not -remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering -my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our -door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven -or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along -the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran -together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the -middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice -showed me that I was right. - -“Down with the door!” he cried. - -“Aye, aye, sir!” answered two or three; and a rush was made upon the -Admiral Benbow, the lantern-bearer following; and then I could see -them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were -surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind -man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as -if he were afire with eagerness and rage. - -“In, in, in!” he shouted, and cursed them for their delay. - -Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the -formidable beggar. There was a pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a -voice shouting from the house, “Bill’s dead.” - -But the blind man swore at them again for their delay. - -“Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the rest of you aloft and -get the chest,” he cried. - -I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the -house must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards, fresh sounds of -astonishment arose; the window of the captain’s room was thrown open -with a slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out into the -moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the -road below him. - -“Pew,” he cried, “they’ve been before us. Someone’s turned the chest out -alow and aloft.” - -“Is it there?” roared Pew. - -“The money’s there.” - -The blind man cursed the money. - -“Flint’s fist, I mean,” he cried. - -“We don’t see it here nohow,” returned the man. - -“Here, you below there, is it on Bill?” cried the blind man again. - -At that another fellow, probably him who had remained below to search -the captain’s body, came to the door of the inn. “Bill’s been overhauled -a’ready,” said he; “nothin’ left.” - -“It’s these people of the inn--it’s that boy. I wish I had put his eyes -out!” cried the blind man, Pew. “There were no time ago--they had the -door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find ’em.” - -“Sure enough, they left their glim here,” said the fellow from the -window. - -“Scatter and find ’em! Rout the house out!” reiterated Pew, striking -with his stick upon the road. - -Then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn, heavy feet -pounding to and fro, furniture thrown over, doors kicked in, until the -very rocks re-echoed and the men came out again, one after another, on -the road and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just -the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead -captain’s money was once more clearly audible through the night, -but this time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man’s -trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault, but I now found -that it was a signal from the hillside towards the hamlet, and from its -effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger. - -“There’s Dirk again,” said one. “Twice! We’ll have to budge, mates.” - -“Budge, you skulk!” cried Pew. “Dirk was a fool and a coward from the -first--you wouldn’t mind him. They must be close by; they can’t be far; -you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver -my soul,” he cried, “if I had eyes!” - -This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began -to look here and there among the lumber, but half-heartedly, I thought, -and with half an eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest -stood irresolute on the road. - -“You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You’d -be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it’s here, and -you stand there skulking. There wasn’t one of you dared face Bill, and -I did it--a blind man! And I’m to lose my chance for you! I’m to be a -poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a -coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch -them still.” - -“Hang it, Pew, we’ve got the doubloons!” grumbled one. - -“They might have hid the blessed thing,” said another. “Take the -Georges, Pew, and don’t stand here squalling.” - -Squalling was the word for it; Pew’s anger rose so high at these -objections till at last, his passion completely taking the upper hand, -he struck at them right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded -heavily on more than one. - -These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him -in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from -his grasp. - -This quarrel was the saving of us, for while it was still raging, -another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the -hamlet--the tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a -pistol-shot, flash and report, came from the hedge side. And that was -plainly the last signal of danger, for the buccaneers turned at once -and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one -slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of -them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic -or out of revenge for his ill words and blows I know not; but there he -remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping -and calling for his comrades. Finally he took a wrong turn and ran a few -steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying, “Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk,” - and other names, “you won’t leave old Pew, mates--not old Pew!” - -Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders -came in sight in the moonlight and swept at full gallop down the slope. - -At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for -the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a -second and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the -nearest of the coming horses. - -The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that -rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him -and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face -and moved no more. - -I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling up, at any -rate, horrified at the accident; and I soon saw what they were. One, -tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to -Dr. Livesey’s; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had met by the -way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some -news of the lugger in Kitt’s Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance -and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance -my mother and I owed our preservation from death. - -Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we had carried her up -to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her -back again, and she was none the worse for her terror, though she still -continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime the -supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to Kitt’s Hole; but his men -had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading, and sometimes -supporting, their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it was -no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the Hole the -lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her. A -voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he would get -some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his -arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance -stood there, as he said, “like a fish out of water,” and all he could do -was to dispatch a man to B---- to warn the cutter. “And that,” said he, -“is just about as good as nothing. They’ve got off clean, and there’s -an end. Only,” he added, “I’m glad I trod on Master Pew’s corns,” for by -this time he had heard my story. - -I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a -house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down -by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; -and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain’s -money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we -were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing of the scene. - -“They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were -they after? More money, I suppose?” - -“No, sir; not money, I think,” replied I. “In fact, sir, I believe I -have the thing in my breast pocket; and to tell you the truth, I should -like to get it put in safety.” - -“To be sure, boy; quite right,” said he. “I’ll take it, if you like.” - -“I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey--” I began. - -“Perfectly right,” he interrupted very cheerily, “perfectly right--a -gentleman and a magistrate. And, now I come to think of it, I might as -well ride round there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew’s -dead, when all’s done; not that I regret it, but he’s dead, you see, and -people will make it out against an officer of his Majesty’s revenue, -if make it out they can. Now, I’ll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I’ll -take you along.” - -I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet -where the horses were. By the time I had told mother of my purpose they -were all in the saddle. - -“Dogger,” said Mr. Dance, “you have a good horse; take up this lad -behind you.” - -As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger’s belt, the supervisor -gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road -to Dr. Livesey’s house. - - - - -6 - -The Captain’s Papers - -WE rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr. Livesey’s door. The -house was all dark to the front. - -Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup -to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid. - -“Is Dr. Livesey in?” I asked. - -No, she said, he had come home in the afternoon but had gone up to the -hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire. - -“So there we go, boys,” said Mr. Dance. - -This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with -Dogger’s stirrup-leather to the lodge gates and up the long, leafless, -moonlit avenue to where the white line of the hall buildings looked on -either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking -me along with him, was admitted at a word into the house. - -The servant led us down a matted passage and showed us at the end into a -great library, all lined with bookcases and busts upon the top of them, -where the squire and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side of a -bright fire. - -I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six -feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready -face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His -eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of -some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high. - -“Come in, Mr. Dance,” says he, very stately and condescending. - -“Good evening, Dance,” says the doctor with a nod. “And good evening to -you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?” - -The supervisor stood up straight and stiff and told his story like a -lesson; and you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward -and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and -interest. When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr. -Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried “Bravo!” and -broke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr. -Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire’s name) had got up -from his seat and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to -hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking -very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll. - -At last Mr. Dance finished the story. - -“Mr. Dance,” said the squire, “you are a very noble fellow. And as for -riding down that black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of -virtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump, -I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some -ale.” - -“And so, Jim,” said the doctor, “you have the thing that they were -after, have you?” - -“Here it is, sir,” said I, and gave him the oilskin packet. - -The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were itching to open -it; but instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of his -coat. - -“Squire,” said he, “when Dance has had his ale he must, of course, be -off on his Majesty’s service; but I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to -sleep at my house, and with your permission, I propose we should have up -the cold pie and let him sup.” - -“As you will, Livesey,” said the squire; “Hawkins has earned better than -cold pie.” - -So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a sidetable, and I made -a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was -further complimented and at last dismissed. - -“And now, squire,” said the doctor. - -“And now, Livesey,” said the squire in the same breath. - -“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Dr. Livesey. “You have heard of -this Flint, I suppose?” - -“Heard of him!” cried the squire. “Heard of him, you say! He was the -bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. -The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, -I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I’ve seen his top-sails with -these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that I -sailed with put back--put back, sir, into Port of Spain.” - -“Well, I’ve heard of him myself, in England,” said the doctor. “But the -point is, had he money?” - -“Money!” cried the squire. “Have you heard the story? What were these -villains after but money? What do they care for but money? For what -would they risk their rascal carcasses but money?” - -“That we shall soon know,” replied the doctor. “But you are so -confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory that I cannot get a word in. -What I want to know is this: Supposing that I have here in my pocket -some clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure amount -to much?” - -“Amount, sir!” cried the squire. “It will amount to this: If we have the -clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and -Hawkins here along, and I’ll have that treasure if I search a year.” - -“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we’ll -open the packet”; and he laid it before him on the table. - -The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out his -instrument case and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. It -contained two things--a book and a sealed paper. - -“First of all we’ll try the book,” observed the doctor. - -The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened -it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to come round from the -side-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. -On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man -with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the -same as the tattoo mark, “Billy Bones his fancy”; then there was “Mr. W. -Bones, mate,” “No more rum,” “Off Palm Key he got itt,” and some other -snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not help -wondering who it was that had “got itt,” and what “itt” was that he got. -A knife in his back as like as not. - -“Not much instruction there,” said Dr. Livesey as he passed on. - -The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of -entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a -sum of money, as in common account-books, but instead of explanatory -writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the 12th -of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become -due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the -cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added, -as “Offe Caraccas,” or a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as “62o -17′ 20″, 19o 2′ 40″.” - -The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separate -entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total -had been made out after five or six wrong additions, and these words -appended, “Bones, his pile.” - -“I can’t make head or tail of this,” said Dr. Livesey. - -“The thing is as clear as noonday,” cried the squire. “This is the -black-hearted hound’s account-book. These crosses stand for the names of -ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel’s -share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added something -clearer. ‘Offe Caraccas,’ now; you see, here was some unhappy vessel -boarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned her--coral -long ago.” - -“Right!” said the doctor. “See what it is to be a traveller. Right! And -the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank.” - -There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places noted -in the blank leaves towards the end and a table for reducing French, -English, and Spanish moneys to a common value. - -“Thrifty man!” cried the doctor. “He wasn’t the one to be cheated.” - -“And now,” said the squire, “for the other.” - -The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of -seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain’s -pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out -the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of -hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed -to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine -miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon -standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the -centre part marked “The Spy-glass.” There were several additions of a -later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink--two on the north -part of the island, one in the southwest--and beside this last, in -the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the -captain’s tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.” - -Over on the back the same hand had written this further information: - - Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to - the N. of N.N.E. - - Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. - - Ten feet. - - The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find - it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms - south of the black crag with the face on it. - - The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N. - point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a - quarter N. - J.F. - -That was all; but brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled -the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight. - -“Livesey,” said the squire, “you will give up this wretched practice -at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks’ time--three -weeks!--two weeks--ten days--we’ll have the best ship, sir, and the -choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You’ll make -a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship’s doctor; I am -admiral. We’ll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We’ll have favourable -winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding the -spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play duck and drake with ever -after.” - -“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “I’ll go with you; and I’ll go bail for -it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking. There’s only one -man I’m afraid of.” - -“And who’s that?” cried the squire. “Name the dog, sir!” - -“You,” replied the doctor; “for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not -the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the -inn tonight--bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the rest who stayed -aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all, -through thick and thin, bound that they’ll get that money. We must none -of us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick together in the -meanwhile; you’ll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and -from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we’ve -found.” - -“Livesey,” returned the squire, “you are always in the right of it. I’ll -be as silent as the grave.” - - - - - - -PART TWO--The Sea-cook - - - - -7 - -I Go to Bristol - -IT was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, -and none of our first plans--not even Dr. Livesey’s, of keeping me -beside him--could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go -to London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was -hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at the hall under the charge of -old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams -and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. -I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which -I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room, I -approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction; I -explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that -tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most -wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with -savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that -hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and -tragic as our actual adventures. - -So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed -to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, “To be opened, in the case of his -absence, by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins.” Obeying this order, we -found, or rather I found--for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading -anything but print--the following important news: - - Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17-- - - Dear Livesey--As I do not know whether you - are at the hall or still in London, I send this in - double to both places. - - The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at - anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a - sweeter schooner--a child might sail her--two - hundred tons; name, HISPANIOLA. - - I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who - has proved himself throughout the most surprising - trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in - my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in - Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we - sailed for--treasure, I mean. - -“Redruth,” said I, interrupting the letter, “Dr. Livesey will not like -that. The squire has been talking, after all.” - -“Well, who’s a better right?” growled the gamekeeper. “A pretty rum go -if squire ain’t to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think.” - -At that I gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on: - - Blandly himself found the HISPANIOLA, and - by the most admirable management got her for the - merest trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol - monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go - the length of declaring that this honest creature - would do anything for money, that the HISPANIOLA - belonged to him, and that he sold it me absurdly - high--the most transparent calumnies. None of them - dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship. - - So far there was not a hitch. The - workpeople, to be sure--riggers and what not--were - most annoyingly slow; but time cured that. It was - the crew that troubled me. - - I wished a round score of men--in case of - natives, buccaneers, or the odious French--and I - had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much - as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke - of fortune brought me the very man that I - required. - - I was standing on the dock, when, by the - merest accident, I fell in talk with him. I found - he was an old sailor, kept a public-house, knew - all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his - health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to - get to sea again. He had hobbled down there that - morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt. - - I was monstrously touched--so would you have - been--and, out of pure pity, I engaged him on the - spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is - called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded as - a recommendation, since he lost it in his - country’s service, under the immortal Hawke. He - has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable - age we live in! - - Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, - but it was a crew I had discovered. Between - Silver and myself we got together in a few days a - company of the toughest old salts imaginable--not - pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of - the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could - fight a frigate. - - Long John even got rid of two out of the six - or seven I had already engaged. He showed me in a - moment that they were just the sort of fresh-water - swabs we had to fear in an adventure of - importance. - - I am in the most magnificent health and - spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree, - yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old - tarpaulins tramping round the capstan. Seaward, - ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea - that has turned my head. So now, Livesey, come - post; do not lose an hour, if you respect me. - - Let young Hawkins go at once to see his - mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then both - come full speed to Bristol. - John Trelawney - - Postscript--I did not tell you that Blandly, - who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if - we don’t turn up by the end of August, had found - an admirable fellow for sailing master--a stiff - man, which I regret, but in all other respects a - treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very - competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I - have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things - shall go man-o’-war fashion on board the good ship - HISPANIOLA. - - I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of - substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has - a banker’s account, which has never been - overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn; - and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old - bachelors like you and I may be excused for - guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the - health, that sends him back to roving. - J. T. - - P.P.S.--Hawkins may stay one night with his - mother. - J. T. - -You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half -beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised a man, it was old -Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the -under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him; but such -was not the squire’s pleasure, and the squire’s pleasure was like law -among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even -to grumble. - -The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and -there I found my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had -so long been a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked -cease from troubling. The squire had had everything repaired, and the -public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture--above -all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found her a boy -as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while I was gone. - -It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my -situation. I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, -not at all of the home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this -clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I -had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog’s life, -for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting -him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them. - -The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were -afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye to Mother and the -cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral -Benbow--since he was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of my last -thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach -with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old brass telescope. -Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight. - -The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath. I was -wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the -swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from -the very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down dale through -stage after stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch -in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still -before a large building in a city street and that the day had already -broken a long time. - -“Where are we?” I asked. - -“Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.” - -Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far down the docks to -superintend the work upon the schooner. Thither we had now to walk, and -our way, to my great delight, lay along the quays and beside the great -multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one, sailors -were singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high over -my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider’s. -Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been -near the sea till then. The smell of tar and salt was something new. -I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the -ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and -whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, -clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could -not have been more delighted. - -And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a piping -boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown -island, and to seek for buried treasure! - -While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front -of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a -sea-officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on -his face and a capital imitation of a sailor’s walk. - -“Here you are,” he cried, “and the doctor came last night from London. -Bravo! The ship’s company complete!” - -“Oh, sir,” cried I, “when do we sail?” - -“Sail!” says he. “We sail tomorrow!” - - - - -8 - -At the Sign of the Spy-glass - -WHEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to John -Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass, and told me I should easily -find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright -lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I -set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and -seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and -bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in -question. - -It was a bright enough little place of entertainment. The sign was -newly painted; the windows had neat red curtains; the floor was cleanly -sanded. There was a street on each side and an open door on both, which -made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in spite of clouds of -tobacco smoke. - -The customers were mostly seafaring men, and they talked so loudly that -I hung at the door, almost afraid to enter. - -As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was -sure he must be Long John. His left leg was cut off close by the hip, -and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with -wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall -and strong, with a face as big as a ham--plain and pale, but intelligent -and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling -as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the -shoulder for the more favoured of his guests. - -Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of Long John in -Squire Trelawney’s letter I had taken a fear in my mind that he might -prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at -the old Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen -the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man, Pew, and I thought I knew -what a buccaneer was like--a very different creature, according to me, -from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord. - -I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up -to the man where he stood, propped on his crutch, talking to a customer. - -“Mr. Silver, sir?” I asked, holding out the note. - -“Yes, my lad,” said he; “such is my name, to be sure. And who may you -be?” And then as he saw the squire’s letter, he seemed to me to give -something almost like a start. - -“Oh!” said he, quite loud, and offering his hand. “I see. You are our -new cabin-boy; pleased I am to see you.” - -And he took my hand in his large firm grasp. - -Just then one of the customers at the far side rose suddenly and made -for the door. It was close by him, and he was out in the street in a -moment. But his hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognized him at -glance. It was the tallow-faced man, wanting two fingers, who had come -first to the Admiral Benbow. - -“Oh,” I cried, “stop him! It’s Black Dog!” - -“I don’t care two coppers who he is,” cried Silver. “But he hasn’t paid -his score. Harry, run and catch him.” - -One of the others who was nearest the door leaped up and started in -pursuit. - -“If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his score,” cried Silver; and -then, relinquishing my hand, “Who did you say he was?” he asked. “Black -what?” - -“Dog, sir,” said I. “Has Mr. Trelawney not told you of the buccaneers? -He was one of them.” - -“So?” cried Silver. “In my house! Ben, run and help Harry. One of those -swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with him, Morgan? Step up here.” - -The man whom he called Morgan--an old, grey-haired, mahogany-faced -sailor--came forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid. - -“Now, Morgan,” said Long John very sternly, “you never clapped your eyes -on that Black--Black Dog before, did you, now?” - -“Not I, sir,” said Morgan with a salute. - -“You didn’t know his name, did you?” - -“No, sir.” - -“By the powers, Tom Morgan, it’s as good for you!” exclaimed the -landlord. “If you had been mixed up with the like of that, you would -never have put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. And what -was he saying to you?” - -“I don’t rightly know, sir,” answered Morgan. - -“Do you call that a head on your shoulders, or a blessed dead-eye?” - cried Long John. “Don’t rightly know, don’t you! Perhaps you don’t -happen to rightly know who you was speaking to, perhaps? Come, now, what -was he jawing--v’yages, cap’ns, ships? Pipe up! What was it?” - -“We was a-talkin’ of keel-hauling,” answered Morgan. - -“Keel-hauling, was you? And a mighty suitable thing, too, and you may -lay to that. Get back to your place for a lubber, Tom.” - -And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver added to me in a -confidential whisper that was very flattering, as I thought, “He’s -quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on’y stupid. And now,” he ran on again, -aloud, “let’s see--Black Dog? No, I don’t know the name, not I. Yet I -kind of think I’ve--yes, I’ve seen the swab. He used to come here with a -blind beggar, he used.” - -“That he did, you may be sure,” said I. “I knew that blind man too. His -name was Pew.” - -“It was!” cried Silver, now quite excited. “Pew! That were his name for -certain. Ah, he looked a shark, he did! If we run down this Black Dog, -now, there’ll be news for Cap’n Trelawney! Ben’s a good runner; few -seamen run better than Ben. He should run him down, hand over hand, by -the powers! He talked o’ keel-hauling, did he? I’LL keel-haul him!” - -All the time he was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and -down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving -such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge -or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on -finding Black Dog at the Spy-glass, and I watched the cook narrowly. But -he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time -the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost -the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone -bail for the innocence of Long John Silver. - -“See here, now, Hawkins,” said he, “here’s a blessed hard thing on a -man like me, now, ain’t it? There’s Cap’n Trelawney--what’s he to think? -Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house -drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and -here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights! Now, -Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap’n. You’re a lad, you are, but -you’re as smart as paint. I see that when you first come in. Now, here -it is: What could I do, with this old timber I hobble on? When I was an -A B master mariner I’d have come up alongside of him, hand over hand, -and broached him to in a brace of old shakes, I would; but now--” - -And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he -had remembered something. - -“The score!” he burst out. “Three goes o’ rum! Why, shiver my timbers, -if I hadn’t forgotten my score!” - -And falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. -I could not help joining, and we laughed together, peal after peal, -until the tavern rang again. - -“Why, what a precious old sea-calf I am!” he said at last, wiping his -cheeks. “You and me should get on well, Hawkins, for I’ll take my davy -I should be rated ship’s boy. But come now, stand by to go about. This -won’t do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I’ll put on my old cockerel hat, -and step along of you to Cap’n Trelawney, and report this here affair. -For mind you, it’s serious, young Hawkins; and neither you nor me’s come -out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit. Nor you -neither, says you; not smart--none of the pair of us smart. But dash my -buttons! That was a good un about my score.” - -And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that though I did not -see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth. - -On our little walk along the quays, he made himself the most interesting -companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, -their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining the work that was going -forward--how one was discharging, another taking in cargo, and a third -making ready for sea--and every now and then telling me some little -anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a nautical phrase till I had -learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of -possible shipmates. - -When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr. Livesey were seated together, -finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it, before they should go -aboard the schooner on a visit of inspection. - -Long John told the story from first to last, with a great deal of spirit -and the most perfect truth. “That was how it were, now, weren’t it, -Hawkins?” he would say, now and again, and I could always bear him -entirely out. - -The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had got away, but we all -agreed there was nothing to be done, and after he had been complimented, -Long John took up his crutch and departed. - -“All hands aboard by four this afternoon,” shouted the squire after him. - -“Aye, aye, sir,” cried the cook, in the passage. - -“Well, squire,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t put much faith in your -discoveries, as a general thing; but I will say this, John Silver suits -me.” - -“The man’s a perfect trump,” declared the squire. - -“And now,” added the doctor, “Jim may come on board with us, may he -not?” - -“To be sure he may,” says squire. “Take your hat, Hawkins, and we’ll see -the ship.” - - - - -9 - -Powder and Arms - -THE HISPANIOLA lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and -round the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated -underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, -we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the -mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a -squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon -observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the -captain. - -This last was a sharp-looking man who seemed angry with everything on -board and was soon to tell us why, for we had hardly got down into the -cabin when a sailor followed us. - -“Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you,” said he. - -“I am always at the captain’s orders. Show him in,” said the squire. - -The captain, who was close behind his messenger, entered at once and -shut the door behind him. - -“Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? All well, I hope; all -shipshape and seaworthy?” - -“Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, even at -the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and -I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.” - -“Perhaps, sir, you don’t like the ship?” inquired the squire, very -angry, as I could see. - -“I can’t speak as to that, sir, not having seen her tried,” said the -captain. “She seems a clever craft; more I can’t say.” - -“Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, either?” says the -squire. - -But here Dr. Livesey cut in. - -“Stay a bit,” said he, “stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but -to produce ill feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too -little, and I’m bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. -You don’t, you say, like this cruise. Now, why?” - -“I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, to sail this ship -for that gentleman where he should bid me,” said the captain. “So far -so good. But now I find that every man before the mast knows more than I -do. I don’t call that fair, now, do you?” - -“No,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t.” - -“Next,” said the captain, “I learn we are going after treasure--hear -it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don’t -like treasure voyages on any account, and I don’t like them, above all, -when they are secret and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the -secret has been told to the parrot.” - -“Silver’s parrot?” asked the squire. - -“It’s a way of speaking,” said the captain. “Blabbed, I mean. It’s my -belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about, but I’ll tell -you my way of it--life or death, and a close run.” - -“That is all clear, and, I dare say, true enough,” replied Dr. Livesey. -“We take the risk, but we are not so ignorant as you believe us. Next, -you say you don’t like the crew. Are they not good seamen?” - -“I don’t like them, sir,” returned Captain Smollett. “And I think I -should have had the choosing of my own hands, if you go to that.” - -“Perhaps you should,” replied the doctor. “My friend should, perhaps, -have taken you along with him; but the slight, if there be one, was -unintentional. And you don’t like Mr. Arrow?” - -“I don’t, sir. I believe he’s a good seaman, but he’s too free with -the crew to be a good officer. A mate should keep himself to -himself--shouldn’t drink with the men before the mast!” - -“Do you mean he drinks?” cried the squire. - -“No, sir,” replied the captain, “only that he’s too familiar.” - -“Well, now, and the short and long of it, captain?” asked the doctor. -“Tell us what you want.” - -“Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go on this cruise?” - -“Like iron,” answered the squire. - -“Very good,” said the captain. “Then, as you’ve heard me very patiently, -saying things that I could not prove, hear me a few words more. They are -putting the powder and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you have a good -place under the cabin; why not put them there?--first point. Then, you -are bringing four of your own people with you, and they tell me some of -them are to be berthed forward. Why not give them the berths here beside -the cabin?--second point.” - -“Any more?” asked Mr. Trelawney. - -“One more,” said the captain. “There’s been too much blabbing already.” - -“Far too much,” agreed the doctor. - -“I’ll tell you what I’ve heard myself,” continued Captain Smollett: -“that you have a map of an island, that there’s crosses on the map to -show where treasure is, and that the island lies--” And then he named -the latitude and longitude exactly. - -“I never told that,” cried the squire, “to a soul!” - -“The hands know it, sir,” returned the captain. - -“Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins,” cried the squire. - -“It doesn’t much matter who it was,” replied the doctor. And I could -see that neither he nor the captain paid much regard to Mr. Trelawney’s -protestations. Neither did I, to be sure, he was so loose a talker; yet -in this case I believe he was really right and that nobody had told the -situation of the island. - -“Well, gentlemen,” continued the captain, “I don’t know who has this -map; but I make it a point, it shall be kept secret even from me and Mr. -Arrow. Otherwise I would ask you to let me resign.” - -“I see,” said the doctor. “You wish us to keep this matter dark and to -make a garrison of the stern part of the ship, manned with my friend’s -own people, and provided with all the arms and powder on board. In other -words, you fear a mutiny.” - -“Sir,” said Captain Smollett, “with no intention to take offence, I -deny your right to put words into my mouth. No captain, sir, would be -justified in going to sea at all if he had ground enough to say that. As -for Mr. Arrow, I believe him thoroughly honest; some of the men are the -same; all may be for what I know. But I am responsible for the ship’s -safety and the life of every man Jack aboard of her. I see things going, -as I think, not quite right. And I ask you to take certain precautions -or let me resign my berth. And that’s all.” - -“Captain Smollett,” began the doctor with a smile, “did ever you hear -the fable of the mountain and the mouse? You’ll excuse me, I dare say, -but you remind me of that fable. When you came in here, I’ll stake my -wig, you meant more than this.” - -“Doctor,” said the captain, “you are smart. When I came in here I meant -to get discharged. I had no thought that Mr. Trelawney would hear a -word.” - -“No more I would,” cried the squire. “Had Livesey not been here I should -have seen you to the deuce. As it is, I have heard you. I will do as you -desire, but I think the worse of you.” - -“That’s as you please, sir,” said the captain. “You’ll find I do my -duty.” - -And with that he took his leave. - -“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “contrary to all my notions, I believed -you have managed to get two honest men on board with you--that man and -John Silver.” - -“Silver, if you like,” cried the squire; “but as for that intolerable -humbug, I declare I think his conduct unmanly, unsailorly, and downright -un-English.” - -“Well,” says the doctor, “we shall see.” - -When we came on deck, the men had begun already to take out the arms and -powder, yo-ho-ing at their work, while the captain and Mr. Arrow stood -by superintending. - -The new arrangement was quite to my liking. The whole schooner had been -overhauled; six berths had been made astern out of what had been the -after-part of the main hold; and this set of cabins was only joined to -the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side. It had -been originally meant that the captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the -doctor, and the squire were to occupy these six berths. Now Redruth and -I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep -on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged on each side till you -might almost have called it a round-house. Very low it was still, of -course; but there was room to swing two hammocks, and even the mate -seemed pleased with the arrangement. Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful -as to the crew, but that is only guess, for as you shall hear, we had -not long the benefit of his opinion. - -We were all hard at work, changing the powder and the berths, when -the last man or two, and Long John along with them, came off in a -shore-boat. - -The cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness, and as soon as -he saw what was doing, “So ho, mates!” says he. “What’s this?” - -“We’re a-changing of the powder, Jack,” answers one. - -“Why, by the powers,” cried Long John, “if we do, we’ll miss the morning -tide!” - -“My orders!” said the captain shortly. “You may go below, my man. Hands -will want supper.” - -“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the cook, and touching his forelock, he -disappeared at once in the direction of his galley. - -“That’s a good man, captain,” said the doctor. - -“Very likely, sir,” replied Captain Smollett. “Easy with that, -men--easy,” he ran on, to the fellows who were shifting the powder; and -then suddenly observing me examining the swivel we carried amidships, -a long brass nine, “Here you, ship’s boy,” he cried, “out o’ that! Off -with you to the cook and get some work.” - -And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the -doctor, “I’ll have no favourites on my ship.” - -I assure you I was quite of the squire’s way of thinking, and hated the -captain deeply. - - - - -10 - -The Voyage - -ALL that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their -place, and boatfuls of the squire’s friends, Mr. Blandly and the like, -coming off to wish him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had -a night at the Admiral Benbow when I had half the work; and I was -dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe -and the crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice -as weary, yet I would not have left the deck, all was so new and -interesting to me--the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, -the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship’s lanterns. - -“Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,” cried one voice. - -“The old one,” cried another. - -“Aye, aye, mates,” said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch -under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I knew so -well: - -“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest--” - -And then the whole crew bore chorus:-- - -“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” - -And at the third “Ho!” drove the bars before them with a will. - -Even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old Admiral -Benbow in a second, and I seemed to hear the voice of the captain piping -in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging -dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and -shipping to flit by on either side; and before I could lie down to -snatch an hour of slumber the HISPANIOLA had begun her voyage to the -Isle of Treasure. - -I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It was fairly -prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable -seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before -we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened -which require to be known. - -Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had -feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they -pleased with him. But that was by no means the worst of it, for after a -day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, -stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time -he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself; -sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the -companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and -attend to his work at least passably. - -In the meantime, we could never make out where he got the drink. That -was the ship’s mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we could do nothing to -solve it; and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh if -he were drunk, and if he were sober deny solemnly that he ever tasted -anything but water. - -He was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence amongst -the men, but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself -outright, so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark -night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more. - -“Overboard!” said the captain. “Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble -of putting him in irons.” - -But there we were, without a mate; and it was necessary, of course, to -advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest -man aboard, and though he kept his old title, he served in a way as -mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him -very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather. And the -coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who -could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything. - -He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of -his name leads me on to speak of our ship’s cook, Barbecue, as the men -called him. - -Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have -both hands as free as possible. It was something to see him wedge the -foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and propped against it, yielding -to every movement of the ship, get on with his cooking like someone safe -ashore. Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather -cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the -widest spaces--Long John’s earrings, they were called; and he would hand -himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it -alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some -of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see -him so reduced. - -“He’s no common man, Barbecue,” said the coxswain to me. “He had good -schooling in his young days and can speak like a book when so minded; -and brave--a lion’s nothing alongside of Long John! I seen him grapple -four and knock their heads together--him unarmed.” - -All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking -to each and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was -unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept -as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in -a cage in one corner. - -“Come away, Hawkins,” he would say; “come and have a yarn with John. -Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the -news. Here’s Cap’n Flint--I calls my parrot Cap’n Flint, after the -famous buccaneer--here’s Cap’n Flint predicting success to our v’yage. -Wasn’t you, cap’n?” - -And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, “Pieces of eight! Pieces -of eight! Pieces of eight!” till you wondered that it was not out of -breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage. - -“Now, that bird,” he would say, “is, maybe, two hundred years -old, Hawkins--they live forever mostly; and if anybody’s seen more -wickedness, it must be the devil himself. She’s sailed with England, -the great Cap’n England, the pirate. She’s been at Madagascar, and at -Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and Portobello. She was at the -fishing up of the wrecked plate ships. It’s there she learned ‘Pieces -of eight,’ and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of ’em, -Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the viceroy of the Indies out of -Goa, she was; and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But -you smelt powder--didn’t you, cap’n?” - -“Stand by to go about,” the parrot would scream. - -“Ah, she’s a handsome craft, she is,” the cook would say, and give her -sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and -swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. “There,” John would -add, “you can’t touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here’s this poor old -innocent bird o’ mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may -lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before -chaplain.” And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had -that made me think he was the best of men. - -In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty -distant terms with one another. The squire made no bones about the -matter; he despised the captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke -but when he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and not a -word wasted. He owned, when driven into a corner, that he seemed to have -been wrong about the crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted -to see and all had behaved fairly well. As for the ship, he had taken a -downright fancy to her. “She’ll lie a point nearer the wind than a man -has a right to expect of his own married wife, sir. But,” he would add, -“all I say is, we’re not home again, and I don’t like the cruise.” - -The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and down the deck, -chin in air. - -“A trifle more of that man,” he would say, “and I shall explode.” - -We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities of the -HISPANIOLA. Every man on board seemed well content, and they must have -been hard to please if they had been otherwise, for it is my belief -there was never a ship’s company so spoiled since Noah put to sea. -Double grog was going on the least excuse; there was duff on odd days, -as, for instance, if the squire heard it was any man’s birthday, and -always a barrel of apples standing broached in the waist for anyone to -help himself that had a fancy. - -“Never knew good come of it yet,” the captain said to Dr. Livesey. -“Spoil forecastle hands, make devils. That’s my belief.” - -But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear, for if it had -not been for that, we should have had no note of warning and might all -have perished by the hand of treachery. - -This was how it came about. - -We had run up the trades to get the wind of the island we were after--I -am not allowed to be more plain--and now we were running down for it -with a bright lookout day and night. It was about the last day of our -outward voyage by the largest computation; some time that night, or at -latest before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. -We were heading S.S.W. and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. -The HISPANIOLA rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with -a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; everyone was in the -bravest spirits because we were now so near an end of the first part of -our adventure. - -Now, just after sundown, when all my work was over and I was on my way -to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on -deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at -the helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently -to himself, and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea -against the bows and around the sides of the ship. - -In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and found there was scarce an -apple left; but sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of -the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen -asleep or was on the point of doing so when a heavy man sat down with -rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders -against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak. -It was Silver’s voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would -not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and -listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for from these dozen -words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended -upon me alone. - - - - -11 - -What I Heard in the Apple Barrel - -“NO, not I,” said Silver. “Flint was cap’n; I was quartermaster, along -of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his -deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me--out of -college and all--Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged -like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That -was Roberts’ men, that was, and comed of changing names to their -ships--ROYAL FORTUNE and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let -her stay, I says. So it was with the CASSANDRA, as brought us all safe -home from Malabar, after England took the viceroy of the Indies; so it -was with the old WALRUS, Flint’s old ship, as I’ve seen amuck with the -red blood and fit to sink with gold.” - -“Ah!” cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and -evidently full of admiration. “He was the flower of the flock, was -Flint!” - -“Davis was a man too, by all accounts,” said Silver. “I never sailed -along of him; first with England, then with Flint, that’s my story; -and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine -hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain’t bad -for a man before the mast--all safe in bank. ’Tain’t earning now, it’s -saving does it, you may lay to that. Where’s all England’s men now? I -dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most on ’em aboard here, and glad to get -the duff--been begging before that, some on ’em. Old Pew, as had lost -his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in -a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he’s dead now -and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, -the man was starving! He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and -starved at that, by the powers!” - -“Well, it ain’t much use, after all,” said the young seaman. - -“’Tain’t much use for fools, you may lay to it--that, nor nothing,” - cried Silver. “But now, you look here: you’re young, you are, but you’re -as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I’ll talk -to you like a man.” - -You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue -addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used -to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed -him through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he was -overheard. - -“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk -swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise -is done, why, it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings -in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to -sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay. I puts it -all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason -of suspicion. I’m fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise, I set up -gentleman in earnest. Time enough too, says you. Ah, but I’ve lived easy -in the meantime, never denied myself o’ nothing heart desires, and slep’ -soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea. And how did I begin? -Before the mast, like you!” - -“Well,” said the other, “but all the other money’s gone now, ain’t it? -You daren’t show face in Bristol after this.” - -“Why, where might you suppose it was?” asked Silver derisively. - -“At Bristol, in banks and places,” answered his companion. - -“It were,” said the cook; “it were when we weighed anchor. But my old -missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass is sold, lease and goodwill -and rigging; and the old girl’s off to meet me. I would tell you where, -for I trust you, but it’d make jealousy among the mates.” - -“And can you trust your missis?” asked the other. - -“Gentlemen of fortune,” returned the cook, “usually trusts little among -themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with -me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cable--one as knows me, I -mean--it won’t be in the same world with old John. There was some that -was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own -self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest -crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil himself would have been feared to go -to sea with them. Well now, I tell you, I’m not a boasting man, and you -seen yourself how easy I keep company, but when I was quartermaster, -LAMBS wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of -yourself in old John’s ship.” - -“Well, I tell you now,” replied the lad, “I didn’t half a quarter like -the job till I had this talk with you, John; but there’s my hand on it -now.” - -“And a brave lad you were, and smart too,” answered Silver, shaking -hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, “and a finer figurehead for -a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on.” - -By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a -“gentleman of fortune” they plainly meant neither more nor less than a -common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last -act in the corruption of one of the honest hands--perhaps of the last -one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for Silver -giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the -party. - -“Dick’s square,” said Silver. - -“Oh, I know’d Dick was square,” returned the voice of the coxswain, -Israel Hands. “He’s no fool, is Dick.” And he turned his quid and spat. -“But look here,” he went on, “here’s what I want to know, Barbecue: how -long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat? I’ve had -a’most enough o’ Cap’n Smollett; he’s hazed me long enough, by thunder! -I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and wines, and -that.” - -“Israel,” said Silver, “your head ain’t much account, nor ever was. But -you’re able to hear, I reckon; leastways, your ears is big enough. -Now, here’s what I say: you’ll berth forward, and you’ll live hard, and -you’ll speak soft, and you’ll keep sober till I give the word; and you -may lay to that, my son.” - -“Well, I don’t say no, do I?” growled the coxswain. “What I say is, -when? That’s what I say.” - -“When! By the powers!” cried Silver. “Well now, if you want to know, -I’ll tell you when. The last moment I can manage, and that’s when. -Here’s a first-rate seaman, Cap’n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for -us. Here’s this squire and doctor with a map and such--I don’t know -where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well then, I mean this -squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it aboard, -by the powers. Then we’ll see. If I was sure of you all, sons of double -Dutchmen, I’d have Cap’n Smollett navigate us half-way back again before -I struck.” - -“Why, we’re all seamen aboard here, I should think,” said the lad Dick. - -“We’re all forecastle hands, you mean,” snapped Silver. “We can steer -a course, but who’s to set one? That’s what all you gentlemen split on, -first and last. If I had my way, I’d have Cap’n Smollett work us back -into the trades at least; then we’d have no blessed miscalculations and -a spoonful of water a day. But I know the sort you are. I’ll finish with -’em at the island, as soon’s the blunt’s on board, and a pity it is. But -you’re never happy till you’re drunk. Split my sides, I’ve a sick heart -to sail with the likes of you!” - -“Easy all, Long John,” cried Israel. “Who’s a-crossin’ of you?” - -“Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I seen laid aboard? And -how many brisk lads drying in the sun at Execution Dock?” cried Silver. -“And all for this same hurry and hurry and hurry. You hear me? I seen -a thing or two at sea, I have. If you would on’y lay your course, and a -p’int to windward, you would ride in carriages, you would. But not you! -I know you. You’ll have your mouthful of rum tomorrow, and go hang.” - -“Everybody knowed you was a kind of a chapling, John; but there’s others -as could hand and steer as well as you,” said Israel. “They liked a bit -o’ fun, they did. They wasn’t so high and dry, nohow, but took their -fling, like jolly companions every one.” - -“So?” says Silver. “Well, and where are they now? Pew was that sort, -and he died a beggar-man. Flint was, and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, -they was a sweet crew, they was! On’y, where are they?” - -“But,” asked Dick, “when we do lay ’em athwart, what are we to do with -’em, anyhow?” - -“There’s the man for me!” cried the cook admiringly. “That’s what I call -business. Well, what would you think? Put ’em ashore like maroons? That -would have been England’s way. Or cut ’em down like that much pork? That -would have been Flint’s, or Billy Bones’s.” - -“Billy was the man for that,” said Israel. “‘Dead men don’t bite,’ says -he. Well, he’s dead now hisself; he knows the long and short on it now; -and if ever a rough hand come to port, it was Billy.” - -“Right you are,” said Silver; “rough and ready. But mark you here, -I’m an easy man--I’m quite the gentleman, says you; but this time it’s -serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my vote--death. When I’m in -Parlyment and riding in my coach, I don’t want none of these sea-lawyers -in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. -Wait is what I say; but when the time comes, why, let her rip!” - -“John,” cries the coxswain, “you’re a man!” - -“You’ll say so, Israel when you see,” said Silver. “Only one thing I -claim--I claim Trelawney. I’ll wring his calf’s head off his body with -these hands, Dick!” he added, breaking off. “You just jump up, like a -sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe like.” - -You may fancy the terror I was in! I should have leaped out and run for -it if I had found the strength, but my limbs and heart alike misgave me. -I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone seemingly stopped him, and -the voice of Hands exclaimed, “Oh, stow that! Don’t you get sucking of -that bilge, John. Let’s have a go of the rum.” - -“Dick,” said Silver, “I trust you. I’ve a gauge on the keg, mind. -There’s the key; you fill a pannikin and bring it up.” - -Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must -have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him. - -Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke -straight on in the cook’s ear. It was but a word or two that I could -catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps -that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible: “Not -another man of them’ll jine.” Hence there were still faithful men on -board. - -When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and -drank--one “To luck,” another with a “Here’s to old Flint,” and Silver -himself saying, in a kind of song, “Here’s to ourselves, and hold your -luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.” - -Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking -up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and -shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time -the voice of the lookout shouted, “Land ho!” - - - - -12 - -Council of War - -THERE was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could hear people -tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an -instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the fore-sail, made a double -towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join -Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow. - -There all hands were already congregated. A belt of fog had lifted -almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon. Away to the -south-west of us we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, -and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose peak was -still buried in the fog. All three seemed sharp and conical in figure. - -So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet recovered from my -horrid fear of a minute or two before. And then I heard the voice of -Captain Smollett issuing orders. The HISPANIOLA was laid a couple of -points nearer the wind and now sailed a course that would just clear the -island on the east. - -“And now, men,” said the captain, when all was sheeted home, “has any -one of you ever seen that land ahead?” - -“I have, sir,” said Silver. “I’ve watered there with a trader I was cook -in.” - -“The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I fancy?” asked the -captain. - -“Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it. It were a main place for -pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed all their names for it. -That hill to the nor’ard they calls the Fore-mast Hill; there are three -hills in a row running south’ard--fore, main, and mizzen, sir. But the -main--that’s the big un, with the cloud on it--they usually calls -the Spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the -anchorage cleaning, for it’s there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking -your pardon.” - -“I have a chart here,” says Captain Smollett. “See if that’s the place.” - -Long John’s eyes burned in his head as he took the chart, but by the -fresh look of the paper I knew he was doomed to disappointment. This -was not the map we found in Billy Bones’s chest, but an accurate copy, -complete in all things--names and heights and soundings--with the single -exception of the red crosses and the written notes. Sharp as must have -been his annoyance, Silver had the strength of mind to hide it. - -“Yes, sir,” said he, “this is the spot, to be sure, and very prettily -drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder? The pirates were too -ignorant, I reckon. Aye, here it is: ‘Capt. Kidd’s Anchorage’--just -the name my shipmate called it. There’s a strong current runs along the -south, and then away nor’ard up the west coast. Right you was, sir,” - says he, “to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. -Leastways, if such was your intention as to enter and careen, and there -ain’t no better place for that in these waters.” - -“Thank you, my man,” says Captain Smollett. “I’ll ask you later on to -give us a help. You may go.” - -I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed his knowledge -of the island, and I own I was half-frightened when I saw him drawing -nearer to myself. He did not know, to be sure, that I had overheard his -council from the apple barrel, and yet I had by this time taken such a -horror of his cruelty, duplicity, and power that I could scarce conceal -a shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm. - -“Ah,” says he, “this here is a sweet spot, this island--a sweet spot for -a lad to get ashore on. You’ll bathe, and you’ll climb trees, and you’ll -hunt goats, you will; and you’ll get aloft on them hills like a goat -yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I was going to forget my timber -leg, I was. It’s a pleasant thing to be young and have ten toes, and you -may lay to that. When you want to go a bit of exploring, you just ask -old John, and he’ll put up a snack for you to take along.” - -And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoulder, he hobbled off -forward and went below. - -Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on -the quarter-deck, and anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst -not interrupt them openly. While I was still casting about in my -thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to his -side. He had left his pipe below, and being a slave to tobacco, had -meant that I should fetch it; but as soon as I was near enough to speak -and not to be overheard, I broke immediately, “Doctor, let me speak. Get -the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then make some pretence to -send for me. I have terrible news.” - -The doctor changed countenance a little, but next moment he was master -of himself. - -“Thank you, Jim,” said he quite loudly, “that was all I wanted to know,” - as if he had asked me a question. - -And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other two. They -spoke together for a little, and though none of them started, or raised -his voice, or so much as whistled, it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey -had communicated my request, for the next thing that I heard was the -captain giving an order to Job Anderson, and all hands were piped on -deck. - -“My lads,” said Captain Smollett, “I’ve a word to say to you. This -land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing for. Mr. -Trelawney, being a very open-handed gentleman, as we all know, has just -asked me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that every man on -board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to see it done -better, why, he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to -drink YOUR health and luck, and you’ll have grog served out for you to -drink OUR health and luck. I’ll tell you what I think of this: I think -it handsome. And if you think as I do, you’ll give a good sea-cheer for -the gentleman that does it.” - -The cheer followed--that was a matter of course; but it rang out so full -and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe these same men were -plotting for our blood. - -“One more cheer for Cap’n Smollett,” cried Long John when the first had -subsided. - -And this also was given with a will. - -On the top of that the three gentlemen went below, and not long after, -word was sent forward that Jim Hawkins was wanted in the cabin. - -I found them all three seated round the table, a bottle of Spanish wine -and some raisins before them, and the doctor smoking away, with his wig -on his lap, and that, I knew, was a sign that he was agitated. The stern -window was open, for it was a warm night, and you could see the moon -shining behind on the ship’s wake. - -“Now, Hawkins,” said the squire, “you have something to say. Speak up.” - -I did as I was bid, and as short as I could make it, told the whole -details of Silver’s conversation. Nobody interrupted me till I was done, -nor did any one of the three of them make so much as a movement, but -they kept their eyes upon my face from first to last. - -“Jim,” said Dr. Livesey, “take a seat.” - -And they made me sit down at table beside them, poured me out a glass of -wine, filled my hands with raisins, and all three, one after the other, -and each with a bow, drank my good health, and their service to me, for -my luck and courage. - -“Now, captain,” said the squire, “you were right, and I was wrong. I own -myself an ass, and I await your orders.” - -“No more an ass than I, sir,” returned the captain. “I never heard of a -crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that -had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But -this crew,” he added, “beats me.” - -“Captain,” said the doctor, “with your permission, that’s Silver. A very -remarkable man.” - -“He’d look remarkably well from a yard-arm, sir,” returned the captain. -“But this is talk; this don’t lead to anything. I see three or four -points, and with Mr. Trelawney’s permission, I’ll name them.” - -“You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak,” says Mr. Trelawney -grandly. - -“First point,” began Mr. Smollett. “We must go on, because we can’t turn -back. If I gave the word to go about, they would rise at once. Second -point, we have time before us--at least until this treasure’s found. -Third point, there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it’s got to come -to blows sooner or later, and what I propose is to take time by the -forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows some fine day when they -least expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home servants, Mr. -Trelawney?” - -“As upon myself,” declared the squire. - -“Three,” reckoned the captain; “ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins -here. Now, about the honest hands?” - -“Most likely Trelawney’s own men,” said the doctor; “those he had picked -up for himself before he lit on Silver.” - -“Nay,” replied the squire. “Hands was one of mine.” - -“I did think I could have trusted Hands,” added the captain. - -“And to think that they’re all Englishmen!” broke out the squire. “Sir, -I could find it in my heart to blow the ship up.” - -“Well, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the best that I can say is not -much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It’s -trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But -there’s no help for it till we know our men. Lay to, and whistle for a -wind, that’s my view.” - -“Jim here,” said the doctor, “can help us more than anyone. The men are -not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad.” - -“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you,” added the squire. - -I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether -helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed -through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there -were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely; and -out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were -six to their nineteen. - - - - - - -PART THREE--My Shore Adventure - - - - -13 - -How My Shore Adventure Began - -THE appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was -altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly ceased, we had -made a great deal of way during the night and were now lying becalmed -about half a mile to the south-east of the low eastern coast. -Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint -was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands, -and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others--some -singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. -The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. -All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four -hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in -configuration, running up sheer from almost every side and then suddenly -cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on. - -The HISPANIOLA was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell. The booms -were tearing at the blocks, the rudder was banging to and fro, and the -whole ship creaking, groaning, and jumping like a manufactory. I had -to cling tight to the backstay, and the world turned giddily before my -eyes, for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on, this -standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never -learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all in the morning, on an -empty stomach. - -Perhaps it was this--perhaps it was the look of the island, with its -grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we -could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach--at -least, although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore birds were -fishing and crying all around us, and you would have thought anyone -would have been glad to get to land after being so long at sea, my heart -sank, as the saying is, into my boots; and from the first look onward, I -hated the very thought of Treasure Island. - -We had a dreary morning’s work before us, for there was no sign of any -wind, and the boats had to be got out and manned, and the ship warped -three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow -passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I volunteered for one of -the boats, where I had, of course, no business. The heat was sweltering, -and the men grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was in command -of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew in order, he grumbled as -loud as the worst. - -“Well,” he said with an oath, “it’s not forever.” - -I thought this was a very bad sign, for up to that day the men had gone -briskly and willingly about their business; but the very sight of the -island had relaxed the cords of discipline. - -All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. -He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the -chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John never -hesitated once. - -“There’s a strong scour with the ebb,” he said, “and this here passage -has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade.” - -We brought up just where the anchor was in the chart, about a third of -a mile from each shore, the mainland on one side and Skeleton Island on -the other. The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor sent up -clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods, but in less than a -minute they were down again and all was once more silent. - -The place was entirely land-locked, buried in woods, the trees coming -right down to high-water mark, the shores mostly flat, and the hilltops -standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one -there. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps, emptied out into this -pond, as you might call it; and the foliage round that part of the shore -had a kind of poisonous brightness. From the ship we could see nothing -of the house or stockade, for they were quite buried among trees; and if -it had not been for the chart on the companion, we might have been the -first that had ever anchored there since the island arose out of the -seas. - -There was not a breath of air moving, nor a sound but that of the -surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks -outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage--a smell of -sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor sniffing -and sniffing, like someone tasting a bad egg. - -“I don’t know about treasure,” he said, “but I’ll stake my wig there’s -fever here.” - -If the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat, it became truly -threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck growling -together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look and -grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught -the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another. Mutiny, -it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud. - -And it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger. Long -John was hard at work going from group to group, spending himself in -good advice, and as for example no man could have shown a better. He -fairly outstripped himself in willingness and civility; he was all -smiles to everyone. If an order were given, John would be on his crutch -in an instant, with the cheeriest “Aye, aye, sir!” in the world; and -when there was nothing else to do, he kept up one song after another, as -if to conceal the discontent of the rest. - -Of all the gloomy features of that gloomy afternoon, this obvious -anxiety on the part of Long John appeared the worst. - -We held a council in the cabin. - -“Sir,” said the captain, “if I risk another order, the whole ship’ll -come about our ears by the run. You see, sir, here it is. I get a rough -answer, do I not? Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two -shakes; if I don’t, Silver will see there’s something under that, and -the game’s up. Now, we’ve only one man to rely on.” - -“And who is that?” asked the squire. - -“Silver, sir,” returned the captain; “he’s as anxious as you and I to -smother things up. This is a tiff; he’d soon talk ’em out of it if he -had the chance, and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. -Let’s allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why we’ll fight -the ship. If they none of them go, well then, we hold the cabin, and God -defend the right. If some go, you mark my words, sir, Silver’ll bring -’em aboard again as mild as lambs.” - -It was so decided; loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men; -Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were taken into our confidence and received -the news with less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for, -and then the captain went on deck and addressed the crew. - -“My lads,” said he, “we’ve had a hot day and are all tired and out of -sorts. A turn ashore’ll hurt nobody--the boats are still in the water; -you can take the gigs, and as many as please may go ashore for the -afternoon. I’ll fire a gun half an hour before sundown.” - -I believe the silly fellows must have thought they would break their -shins over treasure as soon as they were landed, for they all came out -of their sulks in a moment and gave a cheer that started the echo in a -faraway hill and sent the birds once more flying and squalling round the -anchorage. - -The captain was too bright to be in the way. He whipped out of sight -in a moment, leaving Silver to arrange the party, and I fancy it was as -well he did so. Had he been on deck, he could no longer so much as -have pretended not to understand the situation. It was as plain as day. -Silver was the captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it. The -honest hands--and I was soon to see it proved that there were such on -board--must have been very stupid fellows. Or rather, I suppose the -truth was this, that all hands were disaffected by the example of the -ringleaders--only some more, some less; and a few, being good fellows in -the main, could neither be led nor driven any further. It is one thing -to be idle and skulk and quite another to take a ship and murder a -number of innocent men. - -At last, however, the party was made up. Six fellows were to stay on -board, and the remaining thirteen, including Silver, began to embark. - -Then it was that there came into my head the first of the mad notions -that contributed so much to save our lives. If six men were left by -Silver, it was plain our party could not take and fight the ship; and -since only six were left, it was equally plain that the cabin party -had no present need of my assistance. It occurred to me at once to go -ashore. In a jiffy I had slipped over the side and curled up in the -fore-sheets of the nearest boat, and almost at the same moment she -shoved off. - -No one took notice of me, only the bow oar saying, “Is that you, Jim? -Keep your head down.” But Silver, from the other boat, looked sharply -over and called out to know if that were me; and from that moment I -began to regret what I had done. - -The crews raced for the beach, but the boat I was in, having some start -and being at once the lighter and the better manned, shot far ahead of -her consort, and the bow had struck among the shore-side trees and I -had caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into the nearest -thicket while Silver and the rest were still a hundred yards behind. - -“Jim, Jim!” I heard him shouting. - -But you may suppose I paid no heed; jumping, ducking, and breaking -through, I ran straight before my nose till I could run no longer. - - - - -14 - -The First Blow - -I WAS so pleased at having given the slip to Long John that I began to -enjoy myself and look around me with some interest on the strange land -that I was in. - -I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, -outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come out upon the skirts of an -open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with -a few pines and a great number of contorted trees, not unlike the oak -in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of -the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining -vividly in the sun. - -I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was -uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind, and nothing lived in front -of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among the -trees. Here and there were flowering plants, unknown to me; here and -there I saw snakes, and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and -hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did -I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous -rattle. - -Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike trees--live, or -evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should be called--which grew -low along the sand like brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the -foliage compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from the top of -one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing taller as it went, until -it reached the margin of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest -of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh was -steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass trembled -through the haze. - -All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bulrushes; -a wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon over the -whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and -circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be -drawing near along the borders of the fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon -I heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I -continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer. - -This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest -live-oak and squatted there, hearkening, as silent as a mouse. - -Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which I now recognized -to be Silver’s, once more took up the story and ran on for a long while -in a stream, only now and again interrupted by the other. By the sound -they must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely; but no -distinct word came to my hearing. - -At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down, -for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves -began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the -swamp. - -And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business, that since -I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the -least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my -plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the -favourable ambush of the crouching trees. - -I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only by -the sound of their voices but by the behaviour of the few birds that -still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders. - -Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at -last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear -down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about -with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to -face in conversation. - -The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the -ground, and his great, smooth, blond face, all shining with heat, was -lifted to the other man’s in a kind of appeal. - -“Mate,” he was saying, “it’s because I thinks gold dust of you--gold -dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn’t took to you like pitch, do -you think I’d have been here a-warning of you? All’s up--you can’t make -nor mend; it’s to save your neck that I’m a-speaking, and if one of the -wild uns knew it, where’d I be, Tom--now, tell me, where’d I be?” - -“Silver,” said the other man--and I observed he was not only red in the -face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a -taut rope--“Silver,” says he, “you’re old, and you’re honest, or has the -name for it; and you’ve money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn’t; -and you’re brave, or I’m mistook. And will you tell me you’ll let -yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure -as God sees me, I’d sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin my dooty--” - -And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise. I had found -one of the honest hands--well, here, at that same moment, came news of -another. Far away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound -like the cry of anger, then another on the back of it; and then one -horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the Spy-glass re-echoed it a -score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening -heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was -still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and -only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant -surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon. - -Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver had -not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, -watching his companion like a snake about to spring. - -“John!” said the sailor, stretching out his hand. - -“Hands off!” cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed to me, with -the speed and security of a trained gymnast. - -“Hands off, if you like, John Silver,” said the other. “It’s a black -conscience that can make you feared of me. But in heaven’s name, tell -me, what was that?” - -“That?” returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than ever, his eye -a mere pin-point in his big face, but gleaming like a crumb of glass. -“That? Oh, I reckon that’ll be Alan.” - -And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero. - -“Alan!” he cried. “Then rest his soul for a true seaman! And as for you, -John Silver, long you’ve been a mate of mine, but you’re mate of mine -no more. If I die like a dog, I’ll die in my dooty. You’ve killed Alan, -have you? Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you.” - -And with that, this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook -and set off walking for the beach. But he was not destined to go far. -With a cry John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of -his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air. -It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right -between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he -gave a sort of gasp, and fell. - -Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever tell. Like -enough, to judge from the sound, his back was broken on the spot. But he -had no time given him to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without -leg or crutch, was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried -his knife up to the hilt in that defenceless body. From my place of -ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows. - -I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the -next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling -mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going -round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells -ringing and distant voices shouting in my ear. - -When I came again to myself the monster had pulled himself together, -his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom -lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, -cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. -Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the -steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce -persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life -cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes. - -But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle, and -blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated -air. I could not tell, of course, the meaning of the signal, but -it instantly awoke my fears. More men would be coming. I might be -discovered. They had already slain two of the honest people; after Tom -and Alan, might not I come next? - -Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again, with what -speed and silence I could manage, to the more open portion of the -wood. As I did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the old -buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of danger lent me wings. As -soon as I was clear of the thicket, I ran as I never ran before, scarce -minding the direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the -murderers; and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into -a kind of frenzy. - -Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, -how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still -smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring -my neck like a snipe’s? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to -them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, -I thought. Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA; good-bye to the squire, the -doctor, and the captain! There was nothing left for me but death by -starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers. - -All this while, as I say, I was still running, and without taking any -notice, I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two -peaks and had got into a part of the island where the live-oaks grew -more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and -dimensions. Mingled with these were a few scattered pines, some fifty, -some nearer seventy, feet high. The air too smelt more freshly than down -beside the marsh. - -And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart. - - - - -15 - -The Man of the Island - -FROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and stony, a spout of -gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees. -My eyes turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a figure leap -with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. What it was, whether -bear or man or monkey, I could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and -shaggy; more I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition brought -me to a stand. - -I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind me the murderers, -before me this lurking nondescript. And immediately I began to prefer -the dangers that I knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared -less terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods, and I turned -on my heel, and looking sharply behind me over my shoulder, began to -retrace my steps in the direction of the boats. - -Instantly the figure reappeared, and making a wide circuit, began to -head me off. I was tired, at any rate; but had I been as fresh as when I -rose, I could see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an -adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted like a deer, running -manlike on two legs, but unlike any man that I had ever seen, stooping -almost double as it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in doubt -about that. - -I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of -calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, -had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in -proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of -escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed -into my mind. As soon as I remembered I was not defenceless, courage -glowed again in my heart and I set my face resolutely for this man of -the island and walked briskly towards him. - -He was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk; but he must -have been watching me closely, for as soon as I began to move in his -direction he reappeared and took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated, -drew back, came forward again, and at last, to my wonder and -confusion, threw himself on his knees and held out his clasped hands in -supplication. - -At that I once more stopped. - -“Who are you?” I asked. - -“Ben Gunn,” he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, -like a rusty lock. “I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am; and I haven’t spoke with a -Christian these three years.” - -I could now see that he was a white man like myself and that his -features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever it was exposed, was -burnt by the sun; even his lips were black, and his fair eyes looked -quite startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men that I had seen -or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness. He was clothed with tatters -of old ship’s canvas and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary patchwork -was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous -fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. -About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was the -one thing solid in his whole accoutrement. - -“Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?” - -“Nay, mate,” said he; “marooned.” - -I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of -punishment common enough among the buccaneers, in which the offender -is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some -desolate and distant island. - -“Marooned three years agone,” he continued, “and lived on goats since -then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can -do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You -mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, -many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese--toasted, mostly--and woke -up again, and here I were.” - -“If ever I can get aboard again,” said I, “you shall have cheese by the -stone.” - -All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket, smoothing -my hands, looking at my boots, and generally, in the intervals of -his speech, showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow -creature. But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled -slyness. - -“If ever you can get aboard again, says you?” he repeated. “Why, now, -who’s to hinder you?” - -“Not you, I know,” was my reply. - -“And right you was,” he cried. “Now you--what do you call yourself, -mate?” - -“Jim,” I told him. - -“Jim, Jim,” says he, quite pleased apparently. “Well, now, Jim, I’ve -lived that rough as you’d be ashamed to hear of. Now, for instance, you -wouldn’t think I had had a pious mother--to look at me?” he asked. - -“Why, no, not in particular,” I answered. - -“Ah, well,” said he, “but I had--remarkable pious. And I was a civil, -pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism that fast, as you couldn’t -tell one word from another. And here’s what it come to, Jim, and it -begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones! That’s what it -begun with, but it went further’n that; and so my mother told me, and -predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence -that put me here. I’ve thought it all out in this here lonely island, -and I’m back on piety. You don’t catch me tasting rum so much, but just -a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I’m bound -I’ll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim”--looking all round him and -lowering his voice to a whisper--“I’m rich.” - -I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and -I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face, for he repeated the -statement hotly: “Rich! Rich! I says. And I’ll tell you what: I’ll make -a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you’ll bless your stars, you will, you was -the first that found me!” - -And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face, and he -tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly -before my eyes. - -“Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain’t Flint’s ship?” he asked. - -At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe that I had found -an ally, and I answered him at once. - -“It’s not Flint’s ship, and Flint is dead; but I’ll tell you true, as -you ask me--there are some of Flint’s hands aboard; worse luck for the -rest of us.” - -“Not a man--with one--leg?” he gasped. - -“Silver?” I asked. - -“Ah, Silver!” says he. “That were his name.” - -“He’s the cook, and the ringleader too.” - -He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he give it quite a -wring. - -“If you was sent by Long John,” he said, “I’m as good as pork, and I -know it. But where was you, do you suppose?” - -I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him -the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found -ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he -patted me on the head. - -“You’re a good lad, Jim,” he said; “and you’re all in a clove hitch, -ain’t you? Well, you just put your trust in Ben Gunn--Ben Gunn’s the man -to do it. Would you think it likely, now, that your squire would prove -a liberal-minded one in case of help--him being in a clove hitch, as you -remark?” - -I told him the squire was the most liberal of men. - -“Aye, but you see,” returned Ben Gunn, “I didn’t mean giving me a gate -to keep, and a suit of livery clothes, and such; that’s not my mark, -Jim. What I mean is, would he be likely to come down to the toon of, say -one thousand pounds out of money that’s as good as a man’s own already?” - -“I am sure he would,” said I. “As it was, all hands were to share.” - -“AND a passage home?” he added with a look of great shrewdness. - -“Why,” I cried, “the squire’s a gentleman. And besides, if we got rid of -the others, we should want you to help work the vessel home.” - -“Ah,” said he, “so you would.” And he seemed very much relieved. - -“Now, I’ll tell you what,” he went on. “So much I’ll tell you, and no -more. I were in Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure; he and -six along--six strong seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us -standing off and on in the old WALRUS. One fine day up went the signal, -and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in -a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about -the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the six all dead--dead -and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard us could make out. It was -battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways--him against six. Billy -Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster; and they asked him -where the treasure was. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you can go ashore, if you like, -and stay,’ he says; ‘but as for the ship, she’ll beat up for more, by -thunder!’ That’s what he said. - -“Well, I was in another ship three years back, and we sighted this -island. ‘Boys,’ said I, ‘here’s Flint’s treasure; let’s land and find -it.’ The cap’n was displeased at that, but my messmates were all of a -mind and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they had -the worse word for me, until one fine morning all hands went aboard. ‘As -for you, Benjamin Gunn,’ says they, ‘here’s a musket,’ they says, ‘and -a spade, and pick-axe. You can stay here and find Flint’s money for -yourself,’ they says. - -“Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite of Christian -diet from that day to this. But now, you look here; look at me. Do I -look like a man before the mast? No, says you. Nor I weren’t, neither, I -says.” - -And with that he winked and pinched me hard. - -“Just you mention them words to your squire, Jim,” he went on. “Nor he -weren’t, neither--that’s the words. Three years he were the man of this -island, light and dark, fair and rain; and sometimes he would maybe -think upon a prayer (says you), and sometimes he would maybe think of -his old mother, so be as she’s alive (you’ll say); but the most part -of Gunn’s time (this is what you’ll say)--the most part of his time was -took up with another matter. And then you’ll give him a nip, like I do.” - -And he pinched me again in the most confidential manner. - -“Then,” he continued, “then you’ll up, and you’ll say this: Gunn is a -good man (you’ll say), and he puts a precious sight more confidence--a -precious sight, mind that--in a gen’leman born than in these gen’leman -of fortune, having been one hisself.” - -“Well,” I said, “I don’t understand one word that you’ve been saying. -But that’s neither here nor there; for how am I to get on board?” - -“Ah,” said he, “that’s the hitch, for sure. Well, there’s my boat, that -I made with my two hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the worst -come to the worst, we might try that after dark. Hi!” he broke out. -“What’s that?” - -For just then, although the sun had still an hour or two to run, all the -echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon. - -“They have begun to fight!” I cried. “Follow me.” - -And I began to run towards the anchorage, my terrors all forgotten, -while close at my side the marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily -and lightly. - -“Left, left,” says he; “keep to your left hand, mate Jim! Under the -trees with you! Theer’s where I killed my first goat. They don’t come -down here now; they’re all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear -of Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there’s the cetemery”--cemetery, he must have -meant. “You see the mounds? I come here and prayed, nows and thens, when -I thought maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren’t quite a chapel, -but it seemed more solemn like; and then, says you, Ben Gunn was -short-handed--no chapling, nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says.” - -So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor receiving any answer. - -The cannon-shot was followed after a considerable interval by a volley -of small arms. - -Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I -beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above a wood. - - - - - - -PART FOUR--The Stockade - - - - -16 - -Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the Ship Was Abandoned - -IT was about half past one--three bells in the sea phrase--that the two -boats went ashore from the HISPANIOLA. The captain, the squire, and I -were talking matters over in the cabin. Had there been a breath of wind, -we should have fallen on the six mutineers who were left aboard with -us, slipped our cable, and away to sea. But the wind was wanting; and -to complete our helplessness, down came Hunter with the news that Jim -Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest. - -It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins, but we were alarmed for -his safety. With the men in the temper they were in, it seemed an even -chance if we should see the lad again. We ran on deck. The pitch was -bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of the place turned me sick; -if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that abominable -anchorage. The six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the -forecastle; ashore we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting -in each, hard by where the river runs in. One of them was whistling -“Lillibullero.” - -Waiting was a strain, and it was decided that Hunter and I should go -ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information. - -The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight in, -in the direction of the stockade upon the chart. The two who were -left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance; -“Lillibullero” stopped off, and I could see the pair discussing what -they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver, all might have turned -out differently; but they had their orders, I suppose, and decided to -sit quietly where they were and hark back again to “Lillibullero.” - -There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so as to put it -between us; even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs. -I jumped out and came as near running as I durst, with a big silk -handkerchief under my hat for coolness’ sake and a brace of pistols -ready primed for safety. - -I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade. - -This was how it was: a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a -knoll. Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had clapped a -stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed -for musketry on either side. All round this they had cleared a wide -space, and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high, -without door or opening, too strong to pull down without time and labour -and too open to shelter the besiegers. The people in the log-house had -them in every way; they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like -partridges. All they wanted was a good watch and food; for, short of a -complete surprise, they might have held the place against a regiment. - -What particularly took my fancy was the spring. For though we had a good -enough place of it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, with plenty of arms -and ammunition, and things to eat, and excellent wines, there had been -one thing overlooked--we had no water. I was thinking this over when -there came ringing over the island the cry of a man at the point of -death. I was not new to violent death--I have served his Royal Highness -the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound myself at Fontenoy--but I know -my pulse went dot and carry one. “Jim Hawkins is gone,” was my first -thought. - -It is something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been -a doctor. There is no time to dilly-dally in our work. And so now I made -up my mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the shore and -jumped on board the jolly-boat. - -By good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar. We made the water fly, and the -boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner. - -I found them all shaken, as was natural. The squire was sitting down, as -white as a sheet, thinking of the harm he had led us to, the good soul! -And one of the six forecastle hands was little better. - -“There’s a man,” says Captain Smollett, nodding towards him, “new to -this work. He came nigh-hand fainting, doctor, when he heard the cry. -Another touch of the rudder and that man would join us.” - -I told my plan to the captain, and between us we settled on the details -of its accomplishment. - -We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle, -with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection. Hunter -brought the boat round under the stern-port, and Joyce and I set to work -loading her with powder tins, muskets, bags of biscuits, kegs of pork, a -cask of cognac, and my invaluable medicine chest. - -In the meantime, the squire and the captain stayed on deck, and the -latter hailed the coxswain, who was the principal man aboard. - -“Mr. Hands,” he said, “here are two of us with a brace of pistols each. -If any one of you six make a signal of any description, that man’s -dead.” - -They were a good deal taken aback, and after a little consultation one -and all tumbled down the fore companion, thinking no doubt to take us -on the rear. But when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the sparred -galley, they went about ship at once, and a head popped out again on -deck. - -“Down, dog!” cries the captain. - -And the head popped back again; and we heard no more, for the time, of -these six very faint-hearted seamen. - -By this time, tumbling things in as they came, we had the jolly-boat -loaded as much as we dared. Joyce and I got out through the stern-port, -and we made for shore again as fast as oars could take us. - -This second trip fairly aroused the watchers along shore. “Lillibullero” - was dropped again; and just before we lost sight of them behind the -little point, one of them whipped ashore and disappeared. I had half a -mind to change my plan and destroy their boats, but I feared that Silver -and the others might be close at hand, and all might very well be lost -by trying for too much. - -We had soon touched land in the same place as before and set to -provision the block house. All three made the first journey, heavily -laden, and tossed our stores over the palisade. Then, leaving Joyce to -guard them--one man, to be sure, but with half a dozen muskets--Hunter -and I returned to the jolly-boat and loaded ourselves once more. So -we proceeded without pausing to take breath, till the whole cargo was -bestowed, when the two servants took up their position in the block -house, and I, with all my power, sculled back to the HISPANIOLA. - -That we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it -really was. They had the advantage of numbers, of course, but we had the -advantage of arms. Not one of the men ashore had a musket, and before -they could get within range for pistol shooting, we flattered ourselves -we should be able to give a good account of a half-dozen at least. - -The squire was waiting for me at the stern window, all his faintness -gone from him. He caught the painter and made it fast, and we fell to -loading the boat for our very lives. Pork, powder, and biscuit was the -cargo, with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire and me -and Redruth and the captain. The rest of the arms and powder we dropped -overboard in two fathoms and a half of water, so that we could see -the bright steel shining far below us in the sun, on the clean, sandy -bottom. - -By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging -round to her anchor. Voices were heard faintly halloaing in the -direction of the two gigs; and though this reassured us for Joyce and -Hunter, who were well to the eastward, it warned our party to be off. - -Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery and dropped into the -boat, which we then brought round to the ship’s counter, to be handier -for Captain Smollett. - -“Now, men,” said he, “do you hear me?” - -There was no answer from the forecastle. - -“It’s to you, Abraham Gray--it’s to you I am speaking.” - -Still no reply. - -“Gray,” resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, “I am leaving this ship, -and I order you to follow your captain. I know you are a good man at -bottom, and I dare say not one of the lot of you’s as bad as he makes -out. I have my watch here in my hand; I give you thirty seconds to join -me in.” - -There was a pause. - -“Come, my fine fellow,” continued the captain; “don’t hang so long in -stays. I’m risking my life and the lives of these good gentlemen every -second.” - -There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows, and out burst Abraham -Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek, and came running to the -captain like a dog to the whistle. - -“I’m with you, sir,” said he. - -And the next moment he and the captain had dropped aboard of us, and we -had shoved off and given way. - -We were clear out of the ship, but not yet ashore in our stockade. - - - - -17 - -Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat’s Last Trip - -THIS fifth trip was quite different from any of the others. In the -first place, the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely -overloaded. Five grown men, and three of them--Trelawney, Redruth, and -the captain--over six feet high, was already more than she was meant -to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and bread-bags. The gunwale was -lipping astern. Several times we shipped a little water, and my breeches -and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a -hundred yards. - -The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her to lie a little more -evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe. - -In the second place, the ebb was now making--a strong rippling current -running westward through the basin, and then south’ard and seaward down -the straits by which we had entered in the morning. Even the ripples -were a danger to our overloaded craft, but the worst of it was that we -were swept out of our true course and away from our proper landing-place -behind the point. If we let the current have its way we should come -ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates might appear at any moment. - -“I cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir,” said I to the captain. -I was steering, while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were at the oars. -“The tide keeps washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger?” - -“Not without swamping the boat,” said he. “You must bear up, sir, if you -please--bear up until you see you’re gaining.” - -I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward -until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the -way we ought to go. - -“We’ll never get ashore at this rate,” said I. - -“If it’s the only course that we can lie, sir, we must even lie it,” - returned the captain. “We must keep upstream. You see, sir,” he went on, -“if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it’s hard to say -where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the -gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can -dodge back along the shore.” - -“The current’s less a’ready, sir,” said the man Gray, who was sitting in -the fore-sheets; “you can ease her off a bit.” - -“Thank you, my man,” said I, quite as if nothing had happened, for we -had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves. - -Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I thought his voice was a -little changed. - -“The gun!” said he. - -“I have thought of that,” said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a -bombardment of the fort. “They could never get the gun ashore, and if -they did, they could never haul it through the woods.” - -“Look astern, doctor,” replied the captain. - -We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and there, to our horror, were -the five rogues busy about her, getting off her jacket, as they called -the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only that, but -it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round-shot and the -powder for the gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would -put it all into the possession of the evil ones abroad. - -“Israel was Flint’s gunner,” said Gray hoarsely. - -At any risk, we put the boat’s head direct for the landing-place. By -this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept -steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing, and I could -keep her steady for the goal. But the worst of it was that with the -course I now held we turned our broadside instead of our stern to the -HISPANIOLA and offered a target like a barn door. - -I could hear as well as see that brandy-faced rascal Israel Hands -plumping down a round-shot on the deck. - -“Who’s the best shot?” asked the captain. - -“Mr. Trelawney, out and away,” said I. - -“Mr. Trelawney, will you please pick me off one of these men, sir? -Hands, if possible,” said the captain. - -Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked to the priming of his gun. - -“Now,” cried the captain, “easy with that gun, sir, or you’ll swamp the -boat. All hands stand by to trim her when he aims.” - -The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased, and we leaned over to the -other side to keep the balance, and all was so nicely contrived that we -did not ship a drop. - -They had the gun, by this time, slewed round upon the swivel, and Hands, -who was at the muzzle with the rammer, was in consequence the most -exposed. However, we had no luck, for just as Trelawney fired, down he -stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it was one of the other four -who fell. - -The cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a -great number of voices from the shore, and looking in that direction -I saw the other pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling -into their places in the boats. - -“Here come the gigs, sir,” said I. - -“Give way, then,” cried the captain. “We mustn’t mind if we swamp her -now. If we can’t get ashore, all’s up.” - -“Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir,” I added; “the crew of the -other most likely going round by shore to cut us off.” - -“They’ll have a hot run, sir,” returned the captain. “Jack ashore, you -know. It’s not them I mind; it’s the round-shot. Carpet bowls! My lady’s -maid couldn’t miss. Tell us, squire, when you see the match, and we’ll -hold water.” - -In the meanwhile we had been making headway at a good pace for a boat so -overloaded, and we had shipped but little water in the process. We were -now close in; thirty or forty strokes and we should beach her, for the -ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of sand below the clustering -trees. The gig was no longer to be feared; the little point had already -concealed it from our eyes. The ebb-tide, which had so cruelly delayed -us, was now making reparation and delaying our assailants. The one -source of danger was the gun. - -“If I durst,” said the captain, “I’d stop and pick off another man.” - -But it was plain that they meant nothing should delay their shot. They -had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade, though he was not -dead, and I could see him trying to crawl away. - -“Ready!” cried the squire. - -“Hold!” cried the captain, quick as an echo. - -And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily -under water. The report fell in at the same instant of time. This was -the first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire’s shot not having -reached him. Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew, but I -fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have -contributed to our disaster. - -At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite gently, in three feet of -water, leaving the captain and myself, facing each other, on our feet. -The other three took complete headers, and came up again drenched and -bubbling. - -So far there was no great harm. No lives were lost, and we could wade -ashore in safety. But there were all our stores at the bottom, and to -make things worse, only two guns out of five remained in a state for -service. Mine I had snatched from my knees and held over my head, by -a sort of instinct. As for the captain, he had carried his over his -shoulder by a bandoleer, and like a wise man, lock uppermost. The other -three had gone down with the boat. - -To add to our concern, we heard voices already drawing near us in the -woods along shore, and we had not only the danger of being cut off from -the stockade in our half-crippled state but the fear before us whether, -if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half a dozen, they would have the -sense and conduct to stand firm. Hunter was steady, that we knew; Joyce -was a doubtful case--a pleasant, polite man for a valet and to brush -one’s clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man of war. - -With all this in our minds, we waded ashore as fast as we could, leaving -behind us the poor jolly-boat and a good half of all our powder and -provisions. - - - - -18 - -Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of the First Day’s Fighting - -WE made our best speed across the strip of wood that now divided us from -the stockade, and at every step we took the voices of the buccaneers -rang nearer. Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the -cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit of thicket. - -I began to see we should have a brush for it in earnest and looked to my -priming. - -“Captain,” said I, “Trelawney is the dead shot. Give him your gun; his -own is useless.” - -They exchanged guns, and Trelawney, silent and cool as he had been since -the beginning of the bustle, hung a moment on his heel to see that all -was fit for service. At the same time, observing Gray to be unarmed, I -handed him my cutlass. It did all our hearts good to see him spit in his -hand, knit his brows, and make the blade sing through the air. It was -plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt. - -Forty paces farther we came to the edge of the wood and saw the stockade -in front of us. We struck the enclosure about the middle of the south -side, and almost at the same time, seven mutineers--Job Anderson, the -boatswain, at their head--appeared in full cry at the southwestern -corner. - -They paused as if taken aback, and before they recovered, not only the -squire and I, but Hunter and Joyce from the block house, had time to -fire. The four shots came in rather a scattering volley, but they did -the business: one of the enemy actually fell, and the rest, without -hesitation, turned and plunged into the trees. - -After reloading, we walked down the outside of the palisade to see to -the fallen enemy. He was stone dead--shot through the heart. - -We began to rejoice over our good success when just at that moment a -pistol cracked in the bush, a ball whistled close past my ear, and poor -Tom Redruth stumbled and fell his length on the ground. Both the squire -and I returned the shot, but as we had nothing to aim at, it is probable -we only wasted powder. Then we reloaded and turned our attention to poor -Tom. - -The captain and Gray were already examining him, and I saw with half an -eye that all was over. - -I believe the readiness of our return volley had scattered the mutineers -once more, for we were suffered without further molestation to get the -poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade and carried, groaning and -bleeding, into the log-house. - -Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word of surprise, complaint, -fear, or even acquiescence from the very beginning of our troubles till -now, when we had laid him down in the log-house to die. He had lain like -a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery; he had followed every order -silently, doggedly, and well; he was the oldest of our party by a score -of years; and now, sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was -to die. - -The squire dropped down beside him on his knees and kissed his hand, -crying like a child. - -“Be I going, doctor?” he asked. - -“Tom, my man,” said I, “you’re going home.” - -“I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first,” he replied. - -“Tom,” said the squire, “say you forgive me, won’t you?” - -“Would that be respectful like, from me to you, squire?” was the answer. -“Howsoever, so be it, amen!” - -After a little while of silence, he said he thought somebody might read -a prayer. “It’s the custom, sir,” he added apologetically. And not long -after, without another word, he passed away. - -In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed to be wonderfully -swollen about the chest and pockets, had turned out a great many various -stores--the British colours, a Bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink, -the log-book, and pounds of tobacco. He had found a longish fir-tree -lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure, and with the help of Hunter -he had set it up at the corner of the log-house where the trunks crossed -and made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand -bent and run up the colours. - -This seemed mightily to relieve him. He re-entered the log-house and set -about counting up the stores as if nothing else existed. But he had an -eye on Tom’s passage for all that, and as soon as all was over, came -forward with another flag and reverently spread it on the body. - -“Don’t you take on, sir,” he said, shaking the squire’s hand. “All’s -well with him; no fear for a hand that’s been shot down in his duty to -captain and owner. It mayn’t be good divinity, but it’s a fact.” - -Then he pulled me aside. - -“Dr. Livesey,” he said, “in how many weeks do you and squire expect the -consort?” - -I told him it was a question not of weeks but of months, that if we -were not back by the end of August Blandly was to send to find us, but -neither sooner nor later. “You can calculate for yourself,” I said. - -“Why, yes,” returned the captain, scratching his head; “and making a -large allowance, sir, for all the gifts of Providence, I should say we -were pretty close hauled.” - -“How do you mean?” I asked. - -“It’s a pity, sir, we lost that second load. That’s what I mean,” - replied the captain. “As for powder and shot, we’ll do. But the rations -are short, very short--so short, Dr. Livesey, that we’re perhaps as well -without that extra mouth.” - -And he pointed to the dead body under the flag. - -Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a round-shot passed high above the -roof of the log-house and plumped far beyond us in the wood. - -“Oho!” said the captain. “Blaze away! You’ve little enough powder -already, my lads.” - -At the second trial, the aim was better, and the ball descended inside -the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand but doing no further damage. - -“Captain,” said the squire, “the house is quite invisible from the ship. -It must be the flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take it -in?” - -“Strike my colours!” cried the captain. “No, sir, not I”; and as soon -as he had said the words, I think we all agreed with him. For it was -not only a piece of stout, seamanly, good feeling; it was good policy -besides and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade. - -All through the evening they kept thundering away. Ball after ball flew -over or fell short or kicked up the sand in the enclosure, but they had -to fire so high that the shot fell dead and buried itself in the soft -sand. We had no ricochet to fear, and though one popped in through the -roof of the log-house and out again through the floor, we soon got used -to that sort of horse-play and minded it no more than cricket. - -“There is one good thing about all this,” observed the captain; “the -wood in front of us is likely clear. The ebb has made a good while; our -stores should be uncovered. Volunteers to go and bring in pork.” - -Gray and Hunter were the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole -out of the stockade, but it proved a useless mission. The mutineers were -bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in Israel’s gunnery. For -four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and wading out -with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to -hold her steady against the current. Silver was in the stern-sheets in -command; and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some -secret magazine of their own. - -The captain sat down to his log, and here is the beginning of the entry: - - Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship’s - doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter’s mate; John - Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, - owner’s servants, landsmen--being all that is left - faithful of the ship’s company--with stores for ten - days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew - British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. - Thomas Redruth, owner’s servant, landsman, shot by the - mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy-- - -And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins’ fate. - -A hail on the land side. - -“Somebody hailing us,” said Hunter, who was on guard. - -“Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is that you?” came the cries. - -And I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins, safe and sound, come -climbing over the stockade. - - - - -19 - -Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison in the Stockade - -AS soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours he came to a halt, stopped me by the -arm, and sat down. - -“Now,” said he, “there’s your friends, sure enough.” - -“Far more likely it’s the mutineers,” I answered. - -“That!” he cried. “Why, in a place like this, where nobody puts in but -gen’lemen of fortune, Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you don’t make -no doubt of that. No, that’s your friends. There’s been blows too, and I -reckon your friends has had the best of it; and here they are ashore in -the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was -the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were -never seen. He were afraid of none, not he; on’y Silver--Silver was that -genteel.” - -“Well,” said I, “that may be so, and so be it; all the more reason that -I should hurry on and join my friends.” - -“Nay, mate,” returned Ben, “not you. You’re a good boy, or I’m mistook; -but you’re on’y a boy, all told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn’t -bring me there, where you’re going--not rum wouldn’t, till I see your -born gen’leman and gets it on his word of honour. And you won’t forget -my words; ‘A precious sight (that’s what you’ll say), a precious sight -more confidence’--and then nips him.” - -And he pinched me the third time with the same air of cleverness. - -“And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know where to find him, Jim. Just -wheer you found him today. And him that comes is to have a white thing -in his hand, and he’s to come alone. Oh! And you’ll say this: ‘Ben -Gunn,’ says you, ‘has reasons of his own.’” - -“Well,” said I, “I believe I understand. You have something to propose, -and you wish to see the squire or the doctor, and you’re to be found -where I found you. Is that all?” - -“And when? says you,” he added. “Why, from about noon observation to -about six bells.” - -“Good,” said I, “and now may I go?” - -“You won’t forget?” he inquired anxiously. “Precious sight, and reasons -of his own, says you. Reasons of his own; that’s the mainstay; as -between man and man. Well, then”--still holding me--“I reckon you can -go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn’t go for to sell -Ben Gunn? Wild horses wouldn’t draw it from you? No, says you. And if -them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there’d be widders -in the morning?” - -Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannonball came tearing -through the trees and pitched in the sand not a hundred yards from where -we two were talking. The next moment each of us had taken to his heels -in a different direction. - -For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the island, and -balls kept crashing through the woods. I moved from hiding-place to -hiding-place, always pursued, or so it seemed to me, by these terrifying -missiles. But towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst -not venture in the direction of the stockade, where the balls fell -oftenest, I had begun, in a manner, to pluck up my heart again, and -after a long detour to the east, crept down among the shore-side trees. - -The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling and tumbling in the -woods and ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage; the tide, too, was -far out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered; the air, after the heat -of the day, chilled me through my jacket. - -The HISPANIOLA still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there -was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying from her peak. -Even as I looked, there came another red flash and another report that -sent the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot whistled through the -air. It was the last of the cannonade. - -I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men -were demolishing something with axes on the beach near the stockade--the -poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the -river, a great fire was glowing among the trees, and between that point -and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I -had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there was a -sound in their voices which suggested rum. - -At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. I was pretty -far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, -and is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island; and now, as I rose to my -feet, I saw, some distance further down the spit and rising from among -low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in -colour. It occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which Ben -Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat might be wanted and I -should know where to look for one. - -Then I skirted among the woods until I had regained the rear, or -shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon warmly welcomed by the -faithful party. - -I had soon told my story and began to look about me. The log-house was -made of unsquared trunks of pine--roof, walls, and floor. The latter -stood in several places as much as a foot or a foot and a half above the -surface of the sand. There was a porch at the door, and under this porch -the little spring welled up into an artificial basin of a rather odd -kind--no other than a great ship’s kettle of iron, with the bottom -knocked out, and sunk “to her bearings,” as the captain said, among the -sand. - -Little had been left besides the framework of the house, but in one -corner there was a stone slab laid down by way of hearth and an old -rusty iron basket to contain the fire. - -The slopes of the knoll and all the inside of the stockade had been -cleared of timber to build the house, and we could see by the stumps -what a fine and lofty grove had been destroyed. Most of the soil had -been washed away or buried in drift after the removal of the trees; only -where the streamlet ran down from the kettle a thick bed of moss and -some ferns and little creeping bushes were still green among the sand. -Very close around the stockade--too close for defence, they said--the -wood still flourished high and dense, all of fir on the land side, but -towards the sea with a large admixture of live-oaks. - -The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, whistled through every -chink of the rude building and sprinkled the floor with a continual rain -of fine sand. There was sand in our eyes, sand in our teeth, sand in our -suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of the kettle, for all -the world like porridge beginning to boil. Our chimney was a square hole -in the roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way -out, and the rest eddied about the house and kept us coughing and piping -the eye. - -Add to this that Gray, the new man, had his face tied up in a bandage -for a cut he had got in breaking away from the mutineers and that poor -old Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and stark, -under the Union Jack. - -If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should all have fallen in the -blues, but Captain Smollett was never the man for that. All hands were -called up before him, and he divided us into watches. The doctor and -Gray and I for one; the squire, Hunter, and Joyce upon the other. Tired -though we all were, two were sent out for firewood; two more were set to -dig a grave for Redruth; the doctor was named cook; I was put sentry at -the door; and the captain himself went from one to another, keeping up -our spirits and lending a hand wherever it was wanted. - -From time to time the doctor came to the door for a little air and to -rest his eyes, which were almost smoked out of his head, and whenever he -did so, he had a word for me. - -“That man Smollett,” he said once, “is a better man than I am. And when -I say that it means a deal, Jim.” - -Another time he came and was silent for a while. Then he put his head on -one side, and looked at me. - -“Is this Ben Gunn a man?” he asked. - -“I do not know, sir,” said I. “I am not very sure whether he’s sane.” - -“If there’s any doubt about the matter, he is,” returned the doctor. “A -man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, -can’t expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn’t lie in human -nature. Was it cheese you said he had a fancy for?” - -“Yes, sir, cheese,” I answered. - -“Well, Jim,” says he, “just see the good that comes of being dainty in -your food. You’ve seen my snuff-box, haven’t you? And you never saw me -take snuff, the reason being that in my snuff-box I carry a piece of -Parmesan cheese--a cheese made in Italy, very nutritious. Well, that’s -for Ben Gunn!” - -Before supper was eaten we buried old Tom in the sand and stood round -him for a while bare-headed in the breeze. A good deal of firewood had -been got in, but not enough for the captain’s fancy, and he shook his -head over it and told us we “must get back to this tomorrow rather -livelier.” Then, when we had eaten our pork and each had a good stiff -glass of brandy grog, the three chiefs got together in a corner to -discuss our prospects. - -It appears they were at their wits’ end what to do, the stores being so -low that we must have been starved into surrender long before help came. -But our best hope, it was decided, was to kill off the buccaneers until -they either hauled down their flag or ran away with the HISPANIOLA. From -nineteen they were already reduced to fifteen, two others were wounded, -and one at least--the man shot beside the gun--severely wounded, if he -were not dead. Every time we had a crack at them, we were to take it, -saving our own lives, with the extremest care. And besides that, we had -two able allies--rum and the climate. - -As for the first, though we were about half a mile away, we could hear -them roaring and singing late into the night; and as for the second, -the doctor staked his wig that, camped where they were in the marsh -and unprovided with remedies, the half of them would be on their backs -before a week. - -“So,” he added, “if we are not all shot down first they’ll be glad to -be packing in the schooner. It’s always a ship, and they can get to -buccaneering again, I suppose.” - -“First ship that ever I lost,” said Captain Smollett. - -I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when I got to sleep, which was -not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like a log of wood. - -The rest had long been up and had already breakfasted and increased the -pile of firewood by about half as much again when I was wakened by a -bustle and the sound of voices. - -“Flag of truce!” I heard someone say; and then, immediately after, with -a cry of surprise, “Silver himself!” - -And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes, ran to a loophole in the -wall. - - - - -20 - -Silver’s Embassy - -SURE enough, there were two men just outside the stockade, one of them -waving a white cloth, the other, no less a person than Silver himself, -standing placidly by. - -It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that I think I ever -was abroad in--a chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky was bright -and cloudless overhead, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in -the sun. But where Silver stood with his lieutenant, all was still in -shadow, and they waded knee-deep in a low white vapour that had crawled -during the night out of the morass. The chill and the vapour taken -together told a poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp, -feverish, unhealthy spot. - -“Keep indoors, men,” said the captain. “Ten to one this is a trick.” - -Then he hailed the buccaneer. - -“Who goes? Stand, or we fire.” - -“Flag of truce,” cried Silver. - -The captain was in the porch, keeping himself carefully out of the way -of a treacherous shot, should any be intended. He turned and spoke to -us, “Doctor’s watch on the lookout. Dr. Livesey take the north side, -if you please; Jim, the east; Gray, west. The watch below, all hands to -load muskets. Lively, men, and careful.” - -And then he turned again to the mutineers. - -“And what do you want with your flag of truce?” he cried. - -This time it was the other man who replied. - -“Cap’n Silver, sir, to come on board and make terms,” he shouted. - -“Cap’n Silver! Don’t know him. Who’s he?” cried the captain. And we -could hear him adding to himself, “Cap’n, is it? My heart, and here’s -promotion!” - -Long John answered for himself. “Me, sir. These poor lads have chosen me -cap’n, after your desertion, sir”--laying a particular emphasis upon the -word “desertion.” “We’re willing to submit, if we can come to terms, -and no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap’n Smollett, to let me -safe and sound out of this here stockade, and one minute to get out o’ -shot before a gun is fired.” - -“My man,” said Captain Smollett, “I have not the slightest desire to -talk to you. If you wish to talk to me, you can come, that’s all. If -there’s any treachery, it’ll be on your side, and the Lord help you.” - -“That’s enough, cap’n,” shouted Long John cheerily. “A word from you’s -enough. I know a gentleman, and you may lay to that.” - -We could see the man who carried the flag of truce attempting to hold -Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, seeing how cavalier had been the -captain’s answer. But Silver laughed at him aloud and slapped him on the -back as if the idea of alarm had been absurd. Then he advanced to the -stockade, threw over his crutch, got a leg up, and with great vigour -and skill succeeded in surmounting the fence and dropping safely to the -other side. - -I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on -to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had already deserted -my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated -himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his -hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron -kettle in the sand. He was whistling “Come, Lasses and Lads.” - -Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll. What with the -steepness of the incline, the thick tree stumps, and the soft sand, he -and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it -like a man in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, whom -he saluted in the handsomest style. He was tricked out in his best; -an immense blue coat, thick with brass buttons, hung as low as to his -knees, and a fine laced hat was set on the back of his head. - -“Here you are, my man,” said the captain, raising his head. “You had -better sit down.” - -“You ain’t a-going to let me inside, cap’n?” complained Long John. “It’s -a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand.” - -“Why, Silver,” said the captain, “if you had pleased to be an honest -man, you might have been sitting in your galley. It’s your own doing. -You’re either my ship’s cook--and then you were treated handsome--or -Cap’n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang!” - -“Well, well, cap’n,” returned the sea-cook, sitting down as he was -bidden on the sand, “you’ll have to give me a hand up again, that’s all. -A sweet pretty place you have of it here. Ah, there’s Jim! The top of -the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here’s my service. Why, there you all -are together like a happy family, in a manner of speaking.” - -“If you have anything to say, my man, better say it,” said the captain. - -“Right you were, Cap’n Smollett,” replied Silver. “Dooty is dooty, to be -sure. Well now, you look here, that was a good lay of yours last -night. I don’t deny it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with a -handspike-end. And I’ll not deny neither but what some of my people was -shook--maybe all was shook; maybe I was shook myself; maybe that’s -why I’m here for terms. But you mark me, cap’n, it won’t do twice, by -thunder! We’ll have to do sentry-go and ease off a point or so on the -rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind’s eye. But I’ll -tell you I was sober; I was on’y dog tired; and if I’d awoke a second -sooner, I’d ’a caught you at the act, I would. He wasn’t dead when I got -round to him, not he.” - -“Well?” says Captain Smollett as cool as can be. - -All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have -guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben -Gunn’s last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had -paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together round -their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only fourteen -enemies to deal with. - -“Well, here it is,” said Silver. “We want that treasure, and we’ll have -it--that’s our point! You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon; -and that’s yours. You have a chart, haven’t you?” - -“That’s as may be,” replied the captain. - -“Oh, well, you have, I know that,” returned Long John. “You needn’t be -so husky with a man; there ain’t a particle of service in that, and you -may lay to it. What I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never meant -you no harm, myself.” - -“That won’t do with me, my man,” interrupted the captain. “We know -exactly what you meant to do, and we don’t care, for now, you see, you -can’t do it.” - -And the captain looked at him calmly and proceeded to fill a pipe. - -“If Abe Gray--” Silver broke out. - -“Avast there!” cried Mr. Smollett. “Gray told me nothing, and I asked -him nothing; and what’s more, I would see you and him and this whole -island blown clean out of the water into blazes first. So there’s my -mind for you, my man, on that.” - -This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down. He had been -growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together. - -“Like enough,” said he. “I would set no limits to what gentlemen might -consider shipshape, or might not, as the case were. And seein’ as how -you are about to take a pipe, cap’n, I’ll make so free as do likewise.” - -And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat silently -smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now -stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit. It was as good as -the play to see them. - -“Now,” resumed Silver, “here it is. You give us the chart to get the -treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen and stoving of their heads in -while asleep. You do that, and we’ll offer you a choice. Either you come -aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then I’ll give you my -affy-davy, upon my word of honour, to clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or -if that ain’t to your fancy, some of my hands being rough and having -old scores on account of hazing, then you can stay here, you can. We’ll -divide stores with you, man for man; and I’ll give my affy-davy, as -before to speak the first ship I sight, and send ’em here to pick you -up. Now, you’ll own that’s talking. Handsomer you couldn’t look to get, -now you. And I hope”--raising his voice--“that all hands in this here -block house will overhaul my words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to -all.” - -Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked out the ashes of his -pipe in the palm of his left hand. - -“Is that all?” he asked. - -“Every last word, by thunder!” answered John. “Refuse that, and you’ve -seen the last of me but musket-balls.” - -“Very good,” said the captain. “Now you’ll hear me. If you’ll come up -one by one, unarmed, I’ll engage to clap you all in irons and take you -home to a fair trial in England. If you won’t, my name is Alexander -Smollett, I’ve flown my sovereign’s colours, and I’ll see you all -to Davy Jones. You can’t find the treasure. You can’t sail the -ship--there’s not a man among you fit to sail the ship. You can’t fight -us--Gray, there, got away from five of you. Your ship’s in irons, Master -Silver; you’re on a lee shore, and so you’ll find. I stand here and tell -you so; and they’re the last good words you’ll get from me, for in the -name of heaven, I’ll put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. -Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please, hand over hand, and double -quick.” - -Silver’s face was a picture; his eyes started in his head with wrath. He -shook the fire out of his pipe. - -“Give me a hand up!” he cried. - -“Not I,” returned the captain. - -“Who’ll give me a hand up?” he roared. - -Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest imprecations, he crawled -along the sand till he got hold of the porch and could hoist himself -again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the spring. - -“There!” he cried. “That’s what I think of ye. Before an hour’s out, -I’ll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by -thunder, laugh! Before an hour’s out, ye’ll laugh upon the other side. -Them that die’ll be the lucky ones.” - -And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed down the sand, was -helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with -the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among the -trees. - - - - -21 - -The Attack - -AS soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely -watching him, turned towards the interior of the house and found not a -man of us at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen -him angry. - -“Quarters!” he roared. And then, as we all slunk back to our places, -“Gray,” he said, “I’ll put your name in the log; you’ve stood by your -duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I’m surprised at you, sir. Doctor, -I thought you had worn the king’s coat! If that was how you served at -Fontenoy, sir, you’d have been better in your berth.” - -The doctor’s watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy -loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be -certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is. - -The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke. - -“My lads,” said he, “I’ve given Silver a broadside. I pitched it in -red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s out, as he said, we shall be -boarded. We’re outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in -shelter; and a minute ago I should have said we fought with discipline. -I’ve no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose.” - -Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all was clear. - -On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two -loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the -north side, five. There was a round score of muskets for the seven -of us; the firewood had been built into four piles--tables, you might -say--one about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some -ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the -defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged. - -“Toss out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we -mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.” - -The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the -embers smothered among sand. - -“Hawkins hasn’t had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to -your post to eat it,” continued Captain Smollett. “Lively, now, my lad; -you’ll want it before you’ve done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy -to all hands.” - -And while this was going on, the captain completed, in his own mind, the -plan of the defence. - -“Doctor, you will take the door,” he resumed. “See, and don’t expose -yourself; keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east -side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you -are the best shot--you and Gray will take this long north side, with the -five loopholes; it’s there the danger is. If they can get up to it and -fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty. -Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand -by to load and bear a hand.” - -As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had -climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the -clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking -and the resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets and coats -were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the neck and rolled up to the -shoulders; and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and -anxiety. - -An hour passed away. - -“Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray, -whistle for a wind.” - -And just at that moment came the first news of the attack. - -“If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am I to fire?” - -“I told you so!” cried the captain. - -“Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce with the same quiet civility. - -Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, -straining ears and eyes--the musketeers with their pieces balanced in -their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his -mouth very tight and a frown on his face. - -So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket -and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and -repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like -a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several bullets -struck the log-house, but not one entered; and as the smoke cleared away -and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and -empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel -betrayed the presence of our foes. - -“Did you hit your man?” asked the captain. - -“No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.” - -“Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett. “Load -his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there were on your side, doctor?” - -“I know precisely,” said Dr. Livesey. “Three shots were fired on this -side. I saw the three flashes--two close together--one farther to the -west.” - -“Three!” repeated the captain. “And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?” - -But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the -north--seven by the squire’s computation, eight or nine according to -Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was -plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and -that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of -hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If -the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would -take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats -in our own stronghold. - -Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud -huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side -and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once -more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway -and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits. - -The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired -again and yet again; three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure, -two back on the outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened -than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly -disappeared among the trees. - -Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing -inside our defences, while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight -men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though -useless fire on the log-house. - -The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building, -shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to -encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the -marksmen that not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the -four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us. - -The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle -loophole. - -“At ’em, all hands--all hands!” he roared in a voice of thunder. - -At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter’s musket by the -muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, -and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor. -Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the house, appeared -suddenly in the doorway and fell with his cutlass on the doctor. - -Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under -cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we who lay uncovered and could -not return a blow. - -The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative -safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistol-shots, -and one loud groan rang in my ears. - -“Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open! Cutlasses!” cried the -captain. - -I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time -snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly -felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was -close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing -his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat -down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash -across the face. - -“Round the house, lads! Round the house!” cried the captain; and even in -the hurly-burly, I perceived a change in his voice. - -Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with my cutlass raised, -ran round the corner of the house. Next moment I was face to face -with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head, -flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, but as the blow -still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon one side, and missing my -foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down the slope. - -When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been -already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us. One man, in a red -night-cap, with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the top and -thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been the interval that when I -found my feet again all was in the same posture, the fellow with the red -night-cap still half-way over, another still just showing his head above -the top of the stockade. And yet, in this breath of time, the fight was -over and the victory was ours. - -Gray, following close behind me, had cut down the big boatswain ere -he had time to recover from his last blow. Another had been shot at a -loophole in the very act of firing into the house and now lay in agony, -the pistol still smoking in his hand. A third, as I had seen, the doctor -had disposed of at a blow. Of the four who had scaled the palisade, one -only remained unaccounted for, and he, having left his cutlass on the -field, was now clambering out again with the fear of death upon him. - -“Fire--fire from the house!” cried the doctor. “And you, lads, back into -cover.” - -But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, and the last boarder -made good his escape and disappeared with the rest into the wood. In -three seconds nothing remained of the attacking party but the five who -had fallen, four on the inside and one on the outside of the palisade. - -The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for shelter. The survivors -would soon be back where they had left their muskets, and at any moment -the fire might recommence. - -The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke, and we saw at -a glance the price we had paid for victory. Hunter lay beside his -loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move -again; while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain, -one as pale as the other. - -“The captain’s wounded,” said Mr. Trelawney. - -“Have they run?” asked Mr. Smollett. - -“All that could, you may be bound,” returned the doctor; “but there’s -five of them will never run again.” - -“Five!” cried the captain. “Come, that’s better. Five against three -leaves us four to nine. That’s better odds than we had at starting. We -were seven to nineteen then, or thought we were, and that’s as bad to -bear.” * - -*The mutineers were soon only eight in number, for the man shot by Mr. -Trelawney on board the schooner died that same evening of his wound. But -this was, of course, not known till after by the faithful party. - - - - - - -PART FIVE--My Sea Adventure - - - - -22 - -How My Sea Adventure Began - -THERE was no return of the mutineers--not so much as another shot out of -the woods. They had “got their rations for that day,” as the captain put -it, and we had the place to ourselves and a quiet time to overhaul the -wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked outside in spite of the -danger, and even outside we could hardly tell what we were at, for -horror of the loud groans that reached us from the doctor’s patients. - -Out of the eight men who had fallen in the action, only three still -breathed--that one of the pirates who had been shot at the loophole, -Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and of these, the first two were as good -as dead; the mutineer indeed died under the doctor’s knife, and Hunter, -do what we could, never recovered consciousness in this world. He -lingered all day, breathing loudly like the old buccaneer at home in his -apoplectic fit, but the bones of his chest had been crushed by the -blow and his skull fractured in falling, and some time in the following -night, without sign or sound, he went to his Maker. - -As for the captain, his wounds were grievous indeed, but not dangerous. -No organ was fatally injured. Anderson’s ball--for it was Job that -shot him first--had broken his shoulder-blade and touched the lung, not -badly; the second had only torn and displaced some muscles in the calf. -He was sure to recover, the doctor said, but in the meantime, and for -weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his arm, nor so much as speak -when he could help it. - -My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea-bite. Doctor -Livesey patched it up with plaster and pulled my ears for me into the -bargain. - -After dinner the squire and the doctor sat by the captain’s side awhile -in consultation; and when they had talked to their hearts’ content, it -being then a little past noon, the doctor took up his hat and pistols, -girt on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket, and with a musket over -his shoulder crossed the palisade on the north side and set off briskly -through the trees. - -Gray and I were sitting together at the far end of the block house, to -be out of earshot of our officers consulting; and Gray took his pipe out -of his mouth and fairly forgot to put it back again, so thunder-struck -he was at this occurrence. - -“Why, in the name of Davy Jones,” said he, “is Dr. Livesey mad?” - -“Why no,” says I. “He’s about the last of this crew for that, I take -it.” - -“Well, shipmate,” said Gray, “mad he may not be; but if HE’S not, you -mark my words, I am.” - -“I take it,” replied I, “the doctor has his idea; and if I am right, -he’s going now to see Ben Gunn.” - -I was right, as appeared later; but in the meantime, the house being -stifling hot and the little patch of sand inside the palisade ablaze -with midday sun, I began to get another thought into my head, which was -not by any means so right. What I began to do was to envy the doctor -walking in the cool shadow of the woods with the birds about him and the -pleasant smell of the pines, while I sat grilling, with my clothes -stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood about me and so many poor -dead bodies lying all around that I took a disgust of the place that was -almost as strong as fear. - -All the time I was washing out the block house, and then washing up -the things from dinner, this disgust and envy kept growing stronger -and stronger, till at last, being near a bread-bag, and no one then -observing me, I took the first step towards my escapade and filled both -pockets of my coat with biscuit. - -I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I was going to do a foolish, -over-bold act; but I was determined to do it with all the precautions in -my power. These biscuits, should anything befall me, would keep me, at -least, from starving till far on in the next day. - -The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of pistols, and as I already -had a powder-horn and bullets, I felt myself well supplied with arms. - -As for the scheme I had in my head, it was not a bad one in itself. I -was to go down the sandy spit that divides the anchorage on the east -from the open sea, find the white rock I had observed last evening, and -ascertain whether it was there or not that Ben Gunn had hidden his boat, -a thing quite worth doing, as I still believe. But as I was certain I -should not be allowed to leave the enclosure, my only plan was to take -French leave and slip out when nobody was watching, and that was so bad -a way of doing it as made the thing itself wrong. But I was only a boy, -and I had made my mind up. - -Well, as things at last fell out, I found an admirable opportunity. The -squire and Gray were busy helping the captain with his bandages, the -coast was clear, I made a bolt for it over the stockade and into the -thickest of the trees, and before my absence was observed I was out of -cry of my companions. - -This was my second folly, far worse than the first, as I left but two -sound men to guard the house; but like the first, it was a help towards -saving all of us. - -I took my way straight for the east coast of the island, for I was -determined to go down the sea side of the spit to avoid all chance of -observation from the anchorage. It was already late in the afternoon, -although still warm and sunny. As I continued to thread the tall woods, -I could hear from far before me not only the continuous thunder of the -surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and grinding of boughs which -showed me the sea breeze had set in higher than usual. Soon cool -draughts of air began to reach me, and a few steps farther I came forth -into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny -to the horizon and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the -beach. - -I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island. The sun might -blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and -blue, but still these great rollers would be running along all the -external coast, thundering and thundering by day and night; and I scarce -believe there is one spot in the island where a man would be out of -earshot of their noise. - -I walked along beside the surf with great enjoyment, till, thinking -I was now got far enough to the south, I took the cover of some thick -bushes and crept warily up to the ridge of the spit. - -Behind me was the sea, in front the anchorage. The sea breeze, as though -it had the sooner blown itself out by its unusual violence, was already -at an end; it had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south -and south-east, carrying great banks of fog; and the anchorage, under -lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden as when first we entered -it. The HISPANIOLA, in that unbroken mirror, was exactly portrayed from -the truck to the waterline, the Jolly Roger hanging from her peak. - -Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the stern-sheets--him I could -always recognize--while a couple of men were leaning over the stern -bulwarks, one of them with a red cap--the very rogue that I had seen -some hours before stride-legs upon the palisade. Apparently they were -talking and laughing, though at that distance--upwards of a mile--I -could, of course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there began -the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, -though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint and even thought -I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon -her master’s wrist. - -Soon after, the jolly-boat shoved off and pulled for shore, and the man -with the red cap and his comrade went below by the cabin companion. - -Just about the same time, the sun had gone down behind the Spy-glass, -and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it began to grow dark in earnest. -I saw I must lose no time if I were to find the boat that evening. - -The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was still some eighth of -a mile further down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up -with it, crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub. Night had almost -come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was -an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick -underwood about knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully; and in the -centre of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat-skins, like what -the gipsies carry about with them in England. - -I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was -Ben Gunn’s boat--home-made if ever anything was home-made; a rude, -lop-sided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of -goat-skin, with the hair inside. The thing was extremely small, even -for me, and I can hardly imagine that it could have floated with a -full-sized man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of -stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion. - -I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient Britons made, but -I have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn’s -boat than by saying it was like the first and the worst coracle ever -made by man. But the great advantage of the coracle it certainly -possessed, for it was exceedingly light and portable. - -Well, now that I had found the boat, you would have thought I had had -enough of truantry for once, but in the meantime I had taken another -notion and become so obstinately fond of it that I would have carried -it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain Smollett himself. This was -to slip out under cover of the night, cut the HISPANIOLA adrift, and let -her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite made up my mind that the -mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had nothing nearer their -hearts than to up anchor and away to sea; this, I thought, it would be -a fine thing to prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their -watchmen unprovided with a boat, I thought it might be done with little -risk. - -Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit. It -was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had now buried -all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, -absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. And when, at last, -I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow -where I had supped, there were but two points visible on the whole -anchorage. - -One was the great fire on shore, by which the defeated pirates lay -carousing in the swamp. The other, a mere blur of light upon the -darkness, indicated the position of the anchored ship. She had swung -round to the ebb--her bow was now towards me--the only lights on board -were in the cabin, and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of -the strong rays that flowed from the stern window. - -The ebb had already run some time, and I had to wade through a long belt -of swampy sand, where I sank several times above the ankle, before I -came to the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way in, -with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downwards, on the -surface. - - - - -23 - -The Ebb-tide Runs - -THE coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I was done with -her--was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both -buoyant and clever in a seaway; but she was the most cross-grained, -lop-sided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more -leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the manoeuvre -she was best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was “queer -to handle till you knew her way.” - -Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in every direction but the -one I was bound to go; the most part of the time we were broadside on, -and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the -tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was still sweeping -me down; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right in the fairway, hardly to be -missed. - -First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than -darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next -moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went, the brisker grew the -current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold. - -The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she -pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the -rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. -One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the -tide. - -So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut -hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to -one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the HISPANIOLA from her anchor, I -and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water. - -This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again -particularly favoured me, I should have had to abandon my design. But -the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south -had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west. Just while I was -meditating, a puff came, caught the HISPANIOLA, and forced her up into -the current; and to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, -and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water. - -With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth, -and cut one strand after another, till the vessel swung only by two. -Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be -once more lightened by a breath of wind. - -All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin, but -to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts -that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing else to -do, I began to pay more heed. - -One I recognized for the coxswain’s, Israel Hands, that had been Flint’s -gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red -night-cap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still -drinking, for even while I was listening, one of them, with a drunken -cry, opened the stern window and threw out something, which I divined to -be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they -were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and -then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end -in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled -lower for a while, until the next crisis came and in its turn passed -away without result. - -On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burning warmly -through the shore-side trees. Someone was singing, a dull, old, droning -sailor’s song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, -and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had -heard it on the voyage more than once and remembered these words: - - “But one man of her crew alive, - What put to sea with seventy-five.” - -And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a -company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from -what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed -on. - -At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the -dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough -effort, cut the last fibres through. - -The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was almost -instantly swept against the bows of the HISPANIOLA. At the same time, -the schooner began to turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, -across the current. - -I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be swamped; and -since I found I could not push the coracle directly off, I now shoved -straight astern. At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbour, and -just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a light cord -that was trailing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I -grasped it. - -Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere -instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found it fast, curiosity -began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look -through the cabin window. - -I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when I judged myself near -enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height and thus commanded -the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin. - -By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty -swiftly through the water; indeed, we had already fetched up level with -the camp-fire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading -the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I -got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen -had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was -only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me -Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a -hand upon the other’s throat. - -I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near -overboard. I could see nothing for the moment but these two furious, -encrimsoned faces swaying together under the smoky lamp, and I shut my -eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness. - -The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished -company about the camp-fire had broken into the chorus I had heard so -often: - - “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! - Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” - -I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very -moment in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, when I was surprised by a sudden -lurch of the coracle. At the same moment, she yawed sharply and seemed -to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely increased. - -I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing -over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The -HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled -along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a -little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I -made sure she also was wheeling to the southward. - -I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There, -right behind me, was the glow of the camp-fire. The current had turned -at right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and -the little dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever -muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea. - -Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning, -perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one -shout followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on -the companion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been -interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster. - -I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff and devoutly -recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the end of the straits, I -made sure we must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all my -troubles would be ended speedily; and though I could, perhaps, bear to -die, I could not bear to look upon my fate as it approached. - -So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the -billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to -expect death at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me; a -numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind even in the midst of -my terrors, until sleep at last supervened and in my sea-tossed coracle -I lay and dreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow. - - - - -24 - -The Cruise of the Coracle - -IT was broad day when I awoke and found myself tossing at the south-west -end of Treasure Island. The sun was up but was still hid from me behind -the great bulk of the Spy-glass, which on this side descended almost to -the sea in formidable cliffs. - -Haulbowline Head and Mizzen-mast Hill were at my elbow, the hill bare -and dark, the head bound with cliffs forty or fifty feet high and -fringed with great masses of fallen rock. I was scarce a quarter of a -mile to seaward, and it was my first thought to paddle in and land. - -That notion was soon given over. Among the fallen rocks the breakers -spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and -falling, succeeded one another from second to second; and I saw myself, -if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore or spending -my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags. - -Nor was that all, for crawling together on flat tables of rock or -letting themselves drop into the sea with loud reports I beheld huge -slimy monsters--soft snails, as it were, of incredible bigness--two -or three score of them together, making the rocks to echo with their -barkings. - -I have understood since that they were sea lions, and entirely harmless. -But the look of them, added to the difficulty of the shore and the -high running of the surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that -landing-place. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to confront -such perils. - -In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, before me. North -of Haulbowline Head, the land runs in a long way, leaving at low tide -a long stretch of yellow sand. To the north of that, again, there comes -another cape--Cape of the Woods, as it was marked upon the chart--buried -in tall green pines, which descended to the margin of the sea. - -I remembered what Silver had said about the current that sets northward -along the whole west coast of Treasure Island, and seeing from my -position that I was already under its influence, I preferred to leave -Haulbowline Head behind me and reserve my strength for an attempt to -land upon the kindlier-looking Cape of the Woods. - -There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The wind blowing steady -and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the -current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken. - -Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have perished; but as it was, -it is surprising how easily and securely my little and light boat could -ride. Often, as I still lay at the bottom and kept no more than an eye -above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me; -yet the coracle would but bounce a little, dance as if on springs, and -subside on the other side into the trough as lightly as a bird. - -I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to try my skill at -paddling. But even a small change in the disposition of the weight will -produce violent changes in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly -moved before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing movement, -ran straight down a slope of water so steep that it made me giddy, and -struck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the next -wave. - -I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old -position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again and led -me as softly as before among the billows. It was plain she was not to be -interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way influence her -course, what hope had I left of reaching land? - -I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my head, for all that. -First, moving with all care, I gradually baled out the coracle with my -sea-cap; then, getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set myself -to study how it was she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers. - -I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth glossy mountain it looks -from shore or from a vessel’s deck, was for all the world like any range -of hills on dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys. The -coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side, threaded, so to -speak, her way through these lower parts and avoided the steep slopes -and higher, toppling summits of the wave. - -“Well, now,” thought I to myself, “it is plain I must lie where I am and -not disturb the balance; but it is plain also that I can put the paddle -over the side and from time to time, in smooth places, give her a shove -or two towards land.” No sooner thought upon than done. There I lay on -my elbows in the most trying attitude, and every now and again gave a -weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore. - -It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did visibly gain ground; and as -we drew near the Cape of the Woods, though I saw I must infallibly -miss that point, I had still made some hundred yards of easting. I was, -indeed, close in. I could see the cool green tree-tops swaying together -in the breeze, and I felt sure I should make the next promontory without -fail. - -It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with thirst. The glow -of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection from the waves, the -sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt, -combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache. The sight of the -trees so near at hand had almost made me sick with longing, but the -current had soon carried me past the point, and as the next reach of sea -opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the nature of my thoughts. - -Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld the HISPANIOLA -under sail. I made sure, of course, that I should be taken; but I was -so distressed for want of water that I scarce knew whether to be glad -or sorry at the thought, and long before I had come to a conclusion, -surprise had taken entire possession of my mind and I could do nothing -but stare and wonder. - -The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and two jibs, and the beautiful -white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first -sighted her, all her sails were drawing; she was lying a course about -north-west, and I presumed the men on board were going round the island -on their way back to the anchorage. Presently she began to fetch more -and more to the westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and were -going about in chase. At last, however, she fell right into the wind’s -eye, was taken dead aback, and stood there awhile helpless, with her -sails shivering. - -“Clumsy fellows,” said I; “they must still be drunk as owls.” And I -thought how Captain Smollett would have set them skipping. - -Meanwhile the schooner gradually fell off and filled again upon another -tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead -in the wind’s eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and -down, north, south, east, and west, the HISPANIOLA sailed by swoops -and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she had begun, with idly -flapping canvas. It became plain to me that nobody was steering. And if -so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk or had deserted her, -I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board I might return the vessel -to her captain. - -The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at an equal rate. -As for the latter’s sailing, it was so wild and intermittent, and she -hung each time so long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if -she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and paddle, I made -sure that I could overhaul her. The scheme had an air of adventure -that inspired me, and the thought of the water breaker beside the fore -companion doubled my growing courage. - -Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another cloud of spray, but -this time stuck to my purpose and set myself, with all my strength and -caution, to paddle after the unsteered HISPANIOLA. Once I shipped a sea -so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart fluttering like -a bird, but gradually I got into the way of the thing and guided my -coracle among the waves, with only now and then a blow upon her bows and -a dash of foam in my face. - -I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten -on the tiller as it banged about, and still no soul appeared upon her -decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men -were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do -what I chose with the ship. - -For some time she had been doing the worse thing possible for -me--standing still. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all -the time. Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled, and these -brought her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said this was -the worst thing possible for me, for helpless as she looked in this -situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling -and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not -only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her -leeway, which was naturally great. - -But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell for some seconds, -very low, and the current gradually turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved -slowly round her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the -cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the table still burning -on into the day. The main-sail hung drooped like a banner. She was -stock-still but for the current. - -For the last little while I had even lost, but now redoubling my -efforts, I began once more to overhaul the chase. - -I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap; -she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming -like a swallow. - -My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was towards joy. -Round she came, till she was broadside on to me--round still till she -had covered a half and then two thirds and then three quarters of the -distance that separated us. I could see the waves boiling white under -her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me from my low station in the -coracle. - -And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had scarce time to -think--scarce time to act and save myself. I was on the summit of one -swell when the schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was -over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping the coracle under -water. With one hand I caught the jib-boom, while my foot was lodged -between the stay and the brace; and as I still clung there panting, a -dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the -coracle and that I was left without retreat on the HISPANIOLA. - - - - -25 - -I Strike the Jolly Roger - -I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the flying jib -flapped and filled upon the other tack, with a report like a gun. The -schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse, but next moment, the -other sails still drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle. - -This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I lost no time, -crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled head foremost on the deck. - -I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was -still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. -Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since -the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty bottle, broken by -the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers. - -Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind. The jibs behind me -cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the whole ship gave a sickening -heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard, -the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck. - -There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on his back, as stiff -as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix and -his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped against -the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before him on -the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle. - -For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the -sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to -and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too -there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark and a heavy -blow of the ship’s bows against the swell; so much heavier weather was -made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided -coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea. - -At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and fro, but--what was -ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing -grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump too, Hands -appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the -deck, his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting -towards the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid -from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed -ringlet of one whisker. - -At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark -blood upon the planks and began to feel sure that they had killed each -other in their drunken wrath. - -While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship -was still, Israel Hands turned partly round and with a low moan writhed -himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The moan, -which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his jaw -hung open went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I had -overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left me. - -I walked aft until I reached the main-mast. - -“Come aboard, Mr. Hands,” I said ironically. - -He rolled his eyes round heavily, but he was too far gone to express -surprise. All he could do was to utter one word, “Brandy.” - -It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging the boom as it -once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft and down the companion -stairs into the cabin. - -It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the -lockfast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor -was thick with mud where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after -wading in the marshes round their camp. The bulkheads, all painted in -clear white and beaded round with gilt, bore a pattern of dirty hands. -Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in corners to the rolling of -the ship. One of the doctor’s medical books lay open on the table, half -of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for pipelights. In the midst of all -this the lamp still cast a smoky glow, obscure and brown as umber. - -I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, and of the bottles -a most surprising number had been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly, -since the mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been sober. - -Foraging about, I found a bottle with some brandy left, for Hands; and -for myself I routed out some biscuit, some pickled fruits, a great bunch -of raisins, and a piece of cheese. With these I came on deck, put down -my own stock behind the rudder head and well out of the coxswain’s -reach, went forward to the water-breaker, and had a good deep drink of -water, and then, and not till then, gave Hands the brandy. - -He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle from his mouth. - -“Aye,” said he, “by thunder, but I wanted some o’ that!” - -I had sat down already in my own corner and begun to eat. - -“Much hurt?” I asked him. - -He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked. - -“If that doctor was aboard,” he said, “I’d be right enough in a couple -of turns, but I don’t have no manner of luck, you see, and that’s what’s -the matter with me. As for that swab, he’s good and dead, he is,” he -added, indicating the man with the red cap. “He warn’t no seaman anyhow. -And where mought you have come from?” - -“Well,” said I, “I’ve come aboard to take possession of this ship, -Mr. Hands; and you’ll please regard me as your captain until further -notice.” - -He looked at me sourly enough but said nothing. Some of the colour had -come back into his cheeks, though he still looked very sick and still -continued to slip out and settle down as the ship banged about. - -“By the by,” I continued, “I can’t have these colours, Mr. Hands; and by -your leave, I’ll strike ’em. Better none than these.” - -And again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour lines, handed down their -cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard. - -“God save the king!” said I, waving my cap. “And there’s an end to -Captain Silver!” - -He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the while on his breast. - -“I reckon,” he said at last, “I reckon, Cap’n Hawkins, you’ll kind of -want to get ashore now. S’pose we talks.” - -“Why, yes,” says I, “with all my heart, Mr. Hands. Say on.” And I went -back to my meal with a good appetite. - -“This man,” he began, nodding feebly at the corpse “--O’Brien were his -name, a rank Irelander--this man and me got the canvas on her, meaning -for to sail her back. Well, HE’S dead now, he is--as dead as bilge; and -who’s to sail this ship, I don’t see. Without I gives you a hint, you -ain’t that man, as far’s I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me food -and drink and a old scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do, and -I’ll tell you how to sail her, and that’s about square all round, I take -it.” - -“I’ll tell you one thing,” says I: “I’m not going back to Captain Kidd’s -anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet and beach her quietly there.” - -“To be sure you did,” he cried. “Why, I ain’t sich an infernal lubber -after all. I can see, can’t I? I’ve tried my fling, I have, and I’ve -lost, and it’s you has the wind of me. North Inlet? Why, I haven’t no -ch’ice, not I! I’d help you sail her up to Execution Dock, by thunder! -So I would.” - -Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this. We struck our -bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had the HISPANIOLA sailing -easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good -hopes of turning the northern point ere noon and beating down again as -far as North Inlet before high water, when we might beach her safely and -wait till the subsiding tide permitted us to land. - -Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own chest, where I got a -soft silk handkerchief of my mother’s. With this, and with my aid, Hands -bound up the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh, and after -he had eaten a little and had a swallow or two more of the brandy, he -began to pick up visibly, sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, -and looked in every way another man. - -The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before it like a bird, the -coast of the island flashing by and the view changing every minute. -Soon we were past the high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country, -sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again -and had turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the -north. - -I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased with the bright, -sunshiny weather and these different prospects of the coast. I had now -plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had -smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I -had made. I should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for -the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck -and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile -that had in it something both of pain and weakness--a haggard old man’s -smile; but there was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of -treachery, in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and -watched me at my work. - - - - -26 - -Israel Hands - -THE wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west. We could run -so much the easier from the north-east corner of the island to the mouth -of the North Inlet. Only, as we had no power to anchor and dared not -beach her till the tide had flowed a good deal farther, time hung on our -hands. The coxswain told me how to lay the ship to; after a good many -trials I succeeded, and we both sat in silence over another meal. - -“Cap’n,” said he at length with that same uncomfortable smile, “here’s -my old shipmate, O’Brien; s’pose you was to heave him overboard. I ain’t -partic’lar as a rule, and I don’t take no blame for settling his hash, -but I don’t reckon him ornamental now, do you?” - -“I’m not strong enough, and I don’t like the job; and there he lies, for -me,” said I. - -“This here’s an unlucky ship, this HISPANIOLA, Jim,” he went on, -blinking. “There’s a power of men been killed in this HISPANIOLA--a -sight o’ poor seamen dead and gone since you and me took ship to -Bristol. I never seen sich dirty luck, not I. There was this here -O’Brien now--he’s dead, ain’t he? Well now, I’m no scholar, and you’re a -lad as can read and figure, and to put it straight, do you take it as a -dead man is dead for good, or do he come alive again?” - -“You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit; you must know -that already,” I replied. “O’Brien there is in another world, and may be -watching us.” - -“Ah!” says he. “Well, that’s unfort’nate--appears as if killing parties -was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits don’t reckon for much, by what -I’ve seen. I’ll chance it with the sperrits, Jim. And now, you’ve spoke -up free, and I’ll take it kind if you’d step down into that there cabin -and get me a--well, a--shiver my timbers! I can’t hit the name on ’t; -well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim--this here brandy’s too strong -for my head.” - -Now, the coxswain’s hesitation seemed to be unnatural, and as for the -notion of his preferring wine to brandy, I entirely disbelieved it. The -whole story was a pretext. He wanted me to leave the deck--so much was -plain; but with what purpose I could in no way imagine. His eyes never -met mine; they kept wandering to and fro, up and down, now with a look -to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead O’Brien. All the -time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out in the most guilty, -embarrassed manner, so that a child could have told that he was bent on -some deception. I was prompt with my answer, however, for I saw where -my advantage lay and that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily -conceal my suspicions to the end. - -“Some wine?” I said. “Far better. Will you have white or red?” - -“Well, I reckon it’s about the blessed same to me, shipmate,” he -replied; “so it’s strong, and plenty of it, what’s the odds?” - -“All right,” I answered. “I’ll bring you port, Mr. Hands. But I’ll have -to dig for it.” - -With that I scuttled down the companion with all the noise I could, -slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the sparred gallery, mounted the -forecastle ladder, and popped my head out of the fore companion. I -knew he would not expect to see me there, yet I took every precaution -possible, and certainly the worst of my suspicions proved too true. - -He had risen from his position to his hands and knees, and though his -leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he moved--for I could hear -him stifle a groan--yet it was at a good, rattling rate that he trailed -himself across the deck. In half a minute he had reached the port -scuppers and picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a -short dirk, discoloured to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it for -a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried the point upon his hand, -and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled -back again into his old place against the bulwark. - -This was all that I required to know. Israel could move about, he was -now armed, and if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, -it was plain that I was meant to be the victim. What he would do -afterwards--whether he would try to crawl right across the island from -North Inlet to the camp among the swamps or whether he would fire Long -Tom, trusting that his own comrades might come first to help him--was, -of course, more than I could say. - -Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that -our interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of -the schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a -sheltered place, and so that, when the time came, she could be got off -again with as little labour and danger as might be; and until that was -done I considered that my life would certainly be spared. - -While I was thus turning the business over in my mind, I had not been -idle with my body. I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more -into my shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and now, -with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck. - -Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in a bundle and with -his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light. He -looked up, however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the bottle like -a man who had done the same thing often, and took a good swig, with his -favourite toast of “Here’s luck!” Then he lay quiet for a little, and -then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid. - -“Cut me a junk o’ that,” says he, “for I haven’t no knife and hardly -strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I’ve missed -stays! Cut me a quid, as’ll likely be the last, lad, for I’m for my long -home, and no mistake.” - -“Well,” said I, “I’ll cut you some tobacco, but if I was you and thought -myself so badly, I would go to my prayers like a Christian man.” - -“Why?” said he. “Now, you tell me why.” - -“Why?” I cried. “You were asking me just now about the dead. You’ve -broken your trust; you’ve lived in sin and lies and blood; there’s a man -you killed lying at your feet this moment, and you ask me why! For God’s -mercy, Mr. Hands, that’s why.” - -I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden -in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, -for his part, took a great draught of the wine and spoke with the most -unusual solemnity. - -“For thirty years,” he said, “I’ve sailed the seas and seen good and -bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, -knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come -o’ goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don’t bite; -them’s my views--amen, so be it. And now, you look here,” he added, -suddenly changing his tone, “we’ve had about enough of this foolery. The -tide’s made good enough by now. You just take my orders, Cap’n Hawkins, -and we’ll sail slap in and be done with it.” - -All told, we had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was -delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow -and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely -handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am -very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot, for we went about and about -and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that -were a pleasure to behold. - -Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land closed around us. The -shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern -anchorage, but the space was longer and narrower and more like, what in -truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right before us, at the southern -end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last stages of dilapidation. It -had been a great vessel of three masts but had lain so long exposed to -the injuries of the weather that it was hung about with great webs of -dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore bushes had taken root and -now flourished thick with flowers. It was a sad sight, but it showed us -that the anchorage was calm. - -“Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship -in. Fine flat sand, never a cat’s paw, trees all around of it, and -flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.” - -“And once beached,” I inquired, “how shall we get her off again?” - -“Why, so,” he replied: “you take a line ashore there on the other side -at low water, take a turn about one of them big pines; bring it back, -take a turn around the capstan, and lie to for the tide. Come high -water, all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet -as natur’. And now, boy, you stand by. We’re near the bit now, and she’s -too much way on her. Starboard a little--so--steady--starboard--larboard -a little--steady--steady!” - -So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed, till, all of a -sudden, he cried, “Now, my hearty, luff!” And I put the helm hard up, -and the HISPANIOLA swung round rapidly and ran stem on for the low, -wooded shore. - -The excitement of these last manoeuvres had somewhat interfered with the -watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough, upon the coxswain. Even then -I was still so much interested, waiting for the ship to touch, that I -had quite forgot the peril that hung over my head and stood craning over -the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before -the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life had not a -sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turn my head. Perhaps I -had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; -perhaps it was an instinct like a cat’s; but, sure enough, when I looked -round, there was Hands, already half-way towards me, with the dirk in -his right hand. - -We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met, but while mine -was the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar of fury like a charging -bully’s. At the same instant, he threw himself forward and I leapt -sideways towards the bows. As I did so, I let go of the tiller, which -sprang sharp to leeward, and I think this saved my life, for it struck -Hands across the chest and stopped him, for the moment, dead. - -Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me -trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the main-mast -I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had -already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the -trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; -the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect. -Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then -I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher. - -Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast he could move, his grizzled -hair tumbling over his face, and his face itself as red as a red ensign -with his haste and fury. I had no time to try my other pistol, nor -indeed much inclination, for I was sure it would be useless. One thing I -saw plainly: I must not simply retreat before him, or he would speedily -hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly boxed -me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the -blood-stained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity. -I placed my palms against the main-mast, which was of a goodish bigness, -and waited, every nerve upon the stretch. - -Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused; and a moment or two passed -in feints on his part and corresponding movements upon mine. It was such -a game as I had often played at home about the rocks of Black Hill Cove, -but never before, you may be sure, with such a wildly beating heart as -now. Still, as I say, it was a boy’s game, and I thought I could hold -my own at it against an elderly seaman with a wounded thigh. Indeed my -courage had begun to rise so high that I allowed myself a few darting -thoughts on what would be the end of the affair, and while I saw -certainly that I could spin it out for long, I saw no hope of any -ultimate escape. - -Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the HISPANIOLA struck, -staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a -blow, canted over to the port side till the deck stood at an angle -of forty-five degrees and about a puncheon of water splashed into the -scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between the deck and bulwark. - -We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, almost -together, into the scuppers, the dead red-cap, with his arms still -spread out, tumbling stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my -head came against the coxswain’s foot with a crack that made my teeth -rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot again, for Hands had got -involved with the dead body. The sudden canting of the ship had made the -deck no place for running on; I had to find some new way of escape, -and that upon the instant, for my foe was almost touching me. Quick as -thought, I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, -and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the cross-trees. - -I had been saved by being prompt; the dirk had struck not half a foot -below me as I pursued my upward flight; and there stood Israel Hands -with his mouth open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue of -surprise and disappointment. - -Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost no time in changing the -priming of my pistol, and then, having one ready for service, and to -make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other -and recharge it afresh from the beginning. - -My new employment struck Hands all of a heap; he began to see the dice -going against him, and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled -himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk in his teeth, began -slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time and groans -to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I had quietly finished my -arrangements before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then, -with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him. - -“One more step, Mr. Hands,” said I, “and I’ll blow your brains out! Dead -men don’t bite, you know,” I added with a chuckle. - -He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was -trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my -new-found security, I laughed aloud. At last, with a swallow or two, he -spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity. -In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but in all -else he remained unmoved. - -“Jim,” says he, “I reckon we’re fouled, you and me, and we’ll have to -sign articles. I’d have had you but for that there lurch, but I don’t -have no luck, not I; and I reckon I’ll have to strike, which comes hard, -you see, for a master mariner to a ship’s younker like you, Jim.” - -I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock -upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his -shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow -and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the -mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say -it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious -aim--both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They -did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp -upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water. - - - - -27 - -“Pieces of Eight” - -OWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water, -and from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the -surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was in consequence -nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to -the surface in a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good. -As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on the -clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel’s sides. A fish or two -whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, he -appeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was dead -enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish -in the very place where he had designed my slaughter. - -I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and -terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk, -where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot -iron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me, -for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without a murmur; it was the -horror I had upon my mind of falling from the cross-trees into that -still green water, beside the body of the coxswain. - -I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to -cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses quieted -down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession of -myself. - -It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk, but either it stuck too -hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly -enough, that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had come -the nearest in the world to missing me altogether; it held me by a mere -pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the -faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again and only tacked to the -mast by my coat and shirt. - -These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the -deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have -again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds from -which Israel had so lately fallen. - -I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal -and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it -greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, and as the -ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing it from -its last passenger--the dead man, O’Brien. - -He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay -like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet, life-size, indeed, but how -different from life’s colour or life’s comeliness! In that position -I could easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragical -adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him -by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran and with one good heave, -tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge; the red cap -came off and remained floating on the surface; and as soon as the splash -subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, both wavering -with the tremulous movement of the water. O’Brien, though still quite a -young man, was very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across the -knees of the man who had killed him and the quick fishes steering to and -fro over both. - -I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned. The sun was -within so few degrees of setting that already the shadow of the pines -upon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage and -fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, and -though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the -east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the -idle sails to rattle to and fro. - -I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and -brought tumbling to the deck, but the main-sail was a harder matter. Of -course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and -the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought -this made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I -half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The -peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon -the water, and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhall, -that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the -HISPANIOLA must trust to luck, like myself. - -By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--the last rays, -I remember, falling through a glade of the wood and shining bright as -jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill; the -tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more -on her beam-ends. - -I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and -holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself -drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand was -firm and covered with ripple marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits, -leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side, with her main-sail trailing wide -upon the surface of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly -down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines. - -At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence -empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers -and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing -nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my -achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the -recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching answer, and I hoped that -even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time. - -So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for -the block house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly -of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd’s anchorage ran from the -two-peaked hill upon my left, and I bent my course in that direction -that I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty -open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner -of that hill, and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the -watercourse. - -This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon; -and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk -had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the -two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as -I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring -fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show himself so -careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it not reach the eyes -of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes? - -Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide myself -even roughly towards my destination; the double hill behind me and the -Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter; the stars were few -and pale; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among -bushes and rolling into sandy pits. - -Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up; a pale glimmer -of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon after -I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, and -knew the moon had risen. - -With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my -journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew near -to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies before -it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went a -trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get -shot down by my own party in mistake. - -The moon was climbing higher and higher, its light began to fall here -and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, and -right in front of me a glow of a different colour appeared among -the trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a little -darkened--as it were, the embers of a bonfire smouldering. - -For the life of me I could not think what it might be. - -At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western -end was already steeped in moonshine; the rest, and the block house -itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks -of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire had burned -itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation, -contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not -a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze. - -I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror -also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, -by the captain’s orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to -fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent. - -I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at a -convenient place, where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade. - -To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees and crawled, -without a sound, towards the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my -heart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It is not a pleasant noise in -itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just -then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and -peaceful in their sleep. The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful “All’s -well,” never fell more reassuringly on my ear. - -In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamous -bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping -in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it -was, thought I, to have the captain wounded; and again I blamed myself -sharply for leaving them in that danger with so few to mount guard. - -By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, -so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there -was the steady drone of the snorers and a small occasional noise, a -flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for. - -With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own -place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they -found me in the morning. - -My foot struck something yielding--it was a sleeper’s leg; and he turned -and groaned, but without awaking. - -And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the -darkness: - -“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! -Pieces of eight!” and so forth, without pause or change, like the -clacking of a tiny mill. - -Silver’s green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard -pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than any -human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain. - -I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping tone of the -parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up; and with a mighty oath, the -voice of Silver cried, “Who goes?” - -I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ran -full into the arms of a second, who for his part closed upon and held me -tight. - -“Bring a torch, Dick,” said Silver when my capture was thus assured. - -And one of the men left the log-house and presently returned with a -lighted brand. - - - - - - -PART SIX--Captain Silver - - - - -28 - -In the Enemy’s Camp - -THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block house, -showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in -possession of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac, -there were the pork and bread, as before, and what tenfold increased -my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had -perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to -perish with them. - -There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man was left -alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly -called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen -upon his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round -his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently -dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among -the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. - -The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John’s shoulder. He -himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used -to. He still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his -mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and -torn with the sharp briers of the wood. - -“So,” said he, “here’s Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers! Dropped in, like, -eh? Well, come, I take that friendly.” - -And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and began to fill a -pipe. - -“Give me a loan of the link, Dick,” said he; and then, when he had a -good light, “That’ll do, lad,” he added; “stick the glim in the wood -heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to! You needn’t stand up -for Mr. Hawkins; HE’LL excuse you, you may lay to that. And so, -Jim”--stopping the tobacco--“here you were, and quite a pleasant -surprise for poor old John. I see you were smart when first I set my -eyes on you, but this here gets away from me clean, it do.” - -To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me -with my back against the wall, and I stood there, looking Silver in the -face, pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with black -despair in my heart. - -Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure and then ran -on again. - -“Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here,” says he, “I’ll give you a -piece of my mind. I’ve always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, -and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always -wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my -cock, you’ve got to. Cap’n Smollett’s a fine seaman, as I’ll own up to -any day, but stiff on discipline. ‘Dooty is dooty,’ says he, and right -he is. Just you keep clear of the cap’n. The doctor himself is gone dead -again you--‘ungrateful scamp’ was what he said; and the short and the -long of the whole story is about here: you can’t go back to your own -lot, for they won’t have you; and without you start a third ship’s -company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you’ll have to jine with -Cap’n Silver.” - -So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly -believed the truth of Silver’s statement, that the cabin party were -incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by -what I heard. - -“I don’t say nothing as to your being in our hands,” continued Silver, -“though there you are, and you may lay to it. I’m all for argyment; I -never seen good come out o’ threatening. If you like the service, well, -you’ll jine; and if you don’t, Jim, why, you’re free to answer no--free -and welcome, shipmate; and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman, -shiver my sides!” - -“Am I to answer, then?” I asked with a very tremulous voice. Through all -this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung -me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast. - -“Lad,” said Silver, “no one’s a-pressing of you. Take your bearings. -None of us won’t hurry you, mate; time goes so pleasant in your company, -you see.” - -“Well,” says I, growing a bit bolder, “if I’m to choose, I declare I -have a right to know what’s what, and why you’re here, and where my -friends are.” - -“Wot’s wot?” repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep growl. “Ah, he’d -be a lucky one as knowed that!” - -“You’ll perhaps batten down your hatches till you’re spoke to, my -friend,” cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in -his first gracious tones, he replied to me, “Yesterday morning, Mr. -Hawkins,” said he, “in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey with a -flag of truce. Says he, ‘Cap’n Silver, you’re sold out. Ship’s gone.’ -Well, maybe we’d been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I -won’t say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and -by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never seen a pack o’ fools look -fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the -fishiest. ‘Well,’ says the doctor, ‘let’s bargain.’ We bargained, him -and I, and here we are: stores, brandy, block house, the firewood you -was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner of speaking, the whole -blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson. As for them, they’ve tramped; -I don’t know where’s they are.” - -He drew again quietly at his pipe. - -“And lest you should take it into that head of yours,” he went on, “that -you was included in the treaty, here’s the last word that was said: ‘How -many are you,’ says I, ‘to leave?’ ‘Four,’ says he; ‘four, and one of us -wounded. As for that boy, I don’t know where he is, confound him,’ says -he, ‘nor I don’t much care. We’re about sick of him.’ These was his -words. - -“Is that all?” I asked. - -“Well, it’s all that you’re to hear, my son,” returned Silver. - -“And now I am to choose?” - -“And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that,” said Silver. - -“Well,” said I, “I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have -to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it’s little I care. I’ve -seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there’s a thing or two -I have to tell you,” I said, and by this time I was quite excited; “and -the first is this: here you are, in a bad way--ship lost, treasure lost, -men lost, your whole business gone to wreck; and if you want to know who -did it--it was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land, -and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at -the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was -out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I -that killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her -where you’ll never see her more, not one of you. The laugh’s on my side; -I’ve had the top of this business from the first; I no more fear you -than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or spare me. But one thing -I’ll say, and no more; if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when -you fellows are in court for piracy, I’ll save you all I can. It is for -you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and -keep a witness to save you from the gallows.” - -I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and to my wonder, not -a man of them moved, but all sat staring at me like as many sheep. And -while they were still staring, I broke out again, “And now, Mr. Silver,” - I said, “I believe you’re the best man here, and if things go to the -worst, I’ll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took -it.” - -“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Silver with an accent so curious that I -could not, for the life of me, decide whether he were laughing at my -request or had been favourably affected by my courage. - -“I’ll put one to that,” cried the old mahogany-faced seaman--Morgan -by name--whom I had seen in Long John’s public-house upon the quays of -Bristol. “It was him that knowed Black Dog.” - -“Well, and see here,” added the sea-cook. “I’ll put another again to -that, by thunder! For it was this same boy that faked the chart from -Billy Bones. First and last, we’ve split upon Jim Hawkins!” - -“Then here goes!” said Morgan with an oath. - -And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty. - -“Avast, there!” cried Silver. “Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you -thought you was cap’n here, perhaps. By the powers, but I’ll teach you -better! Cross me, and you’ll go where many a good man’s gone before you, -first and last, these thirty year back--some to the yard-arm, shiver -my timbers, and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There’s -never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a’terwards, -Tom Morgan, you may lay to that.” - -Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others. - -“Tom’s right,” said one. - -“I stood hazing long enough from one,” added another. “I’ll be hanged if -I’ll be hazed by you, John Silver.” - -“Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with ME?” roared Silver, -bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still -glowing in his right hand. “Put a name on what you’re at; you ain’t -dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I lived this many -years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the -latter end of it? You know the way; you’re all gentlemen o’ fortune, by -your account. Well, I’m ready. Take a cutlass, him that dares, and I’ll -see the colour of his inside, crutch and all, before that pipe’s empty.” - -Not a man stirred; not a man answered. - -“That’s your sort, is it?” he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. -“Well, you’re a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not much worth to fight, you -ain’t. P’r’aps you can understand King George’s English. I’m cap’n here -by ’lection. I’m cap’n here because I’m the best man by a long sea-mile. -You won’t fight, as gentlemen o’ fortune should; then, by thunder, -you’ll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen -a better boy than that. He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you in -this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that’ll lay a -hand on him--that’s what I say, and you may lay to it.” - -There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, -my heart still going like a sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope -now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms -crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had -been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the -tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually -together towards the far end of the block house, and the low hiss of -their whispering sounded in my ear continuously, like a stream. One -after another, they would look up, and the red light of the torch would -fall for a second on their nervous faces; but it was not towards me, it -was towards Silver that they turned their eyes. - -“You seem to have a lot to say,” remarked Silver, spitting far into the -air. “Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to.” - -“Ax your pardon, sir,” returned one of the men; “you’re pretty free with -some of the rules; maybe you’ll kindly keep an eye upon the rest. This -crew’s dissatisfied; this crew don’t vally bullying a marlin-spike; this -crew has its rights like other crews, I’ll make so free as that; and by -your own rules, I take it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, -acknowledging you for to be captaing at this present; but I claim my -right, and steps outside for a council.” - -And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow, a long, ill-looking, -yellow-eyed man of five and thirty, stepped coolly towards the door and -disappeared out of the house. One after another the rest followed his -example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding some apology. -“According to rules,” said one. “Forecastle council,” said Morgan. And -so with one remark or another all marched out and left Silver and me -alone with the torch. - -The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe. - -“Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins,” he said in a steady whisper that was -no more than audible, “you’re within half a plank of death, and what’s -a long sight worse, of torture. They’re going to throw me off. But, you -mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn’t mean to; no, not -till you spoke up. I was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and -be hanged into the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I says to -myself, you stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins’ll stand by you. You’re -his last card, and by the living thunder, John, he’s yours! Back to -back, says I. You save your witness, and he’ll save your neck!” - -I began dimly to understand. - -“You mean all’s lost?” I asked. - -“Aye, by gum, I do!” he answered. “Ship gone, neck gone--that’s the -size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins, and seen no -schooner--well, I’m tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their -council, mark me, they’re outright fools and cowards. I’ll save your -life--if so be as I can--from them. But, see here, Jim--tit for tat--you -save Long John from swinging.” - -I was bewildered; it seemed a thing so hopeless he was asking--he, the -old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout. - -“What I can do, that I’ll do,” I said. - -“It’s a bargain!” cried Long John. “You speak up plucky, and by thunder, -I’ve a chance!” - -He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among the firewood, and -took a fresh light to his pipe. - -“Understand me, Jim,” he said, returning. “I’ve a head on my shoulders, -I have. I’m on squire’s side now. I know you’ve got that ship safe -somewheres. How you done it, I don’t know, but safe it is. I guess Hands -and O’Brien turned soft. I never much believed in neither of THEM. Now -you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won’t let others. I know when -a game’s up, I do; and I know a lad that’s staunch. Ah, you that’s -young--you and me might have done a power of good together!” - -He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin. - -“Will you taste, messmate?” he asked; and when I had refused: “Well, -I’ll take a dram myself, Jim,” said he. “I need a caulker, for there’s -trouble on hand. And talking o’ trouble, why did that doctor give me the -chart, Jim?” - -My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of -further questions. - -“Ah, well, he did, though,” said he. “And there’s something under that, -no doubt--something, surely, under that, Jim--bad or good.” - -And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head -like a man who looks forward to the worst. - - - - -29 - -The Black Spot Again - -THE council of buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them -re-entered the house, and with a repetition of the same salute, which -had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment’s loan of the torch. -Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired again, leaving us -together in the dark. - -“There’s a breeze coming, Jim,” said Silver, who had by this time -adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone. - -I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. The embers of the -great fire had so far burned themselves out and now glowed so low and -duskily that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About -half-way down the slope to the stockade, they were collected in a group; -one held the light, another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw -the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colours in -the moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though -watching the manoeuvres of this last. I could just make out that he -had a book as well as a knife in his hand, and was still wondering how -anything so incongruous had come in their possession when the kneeling -figure rose once more to his feet and the whole party began to move -together towards the house. - -“Here they come,” said I; and I returned to my former position, for it -seemed beneath my dignity that they should find me watching them. - -“Well, let ’em come, lad--let ’em come,” said Silver cheerily. “I’ve -still a shot in my locker.” - -The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled together just -inside, pushed one of their number forward. In any other circumstances -it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set -down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him. - -“Step up, lad,” cried Silver. “I won’t eat you. Hand it over, lubber. I -know the rules, I do; I won’t hurt a depytation.” - -Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having -passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly -back again to his companions. - -The sea-cook looked at what had been given him. - -“The black spot! I thought so,” he observed. “Where might you have got -the paper? Why, hillo! Look here, now; this ain’t lucky! You’ve gone and -cut this out of a Bible. What fool’s cut a Bible?” - -“Ah, there!” said Morgan. “There! Wot did I say? No good’ll come o’ -that, I said.” - -“Well, you’ve about fixed it now, among you,” continued Silver. “You’ll -all swing now, I reckon. What soft-headed lubber had a Bible?” - -“It was Dick,” said one. - -“Dick, was it? Then Dick can get to prayers,” said Silver. “He’s seen -his slice of luck, has Dick, and you may lay to that.” - -But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck in. - -“Belay that talk, John Silver,” he said. “This crew has tipped you the -black spot in full council, as in dooty bound; just you turn it over, as -in dooty bound, and see what’s wrote there. Then you can talk.” - -“Thanky, George,” replied the sea-cook. “You always was brisk for -business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I’m pleased to see. -Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! ‘Deposed’--that’s it, is it? Very pretty -wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your hand o’ write, George? Why, -you was gettin’ quite a leadin’ man in this here crew. You’ll be cap’n -next, I shouldn’t wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will -you? This pipe don’t draw.” - -“Come, now,” said George, “you don’t fool this crew no more. You’re a -funny man, by your account; but you’re over now, and you’ll maybe step -down off that barrel and help vote.” - -“I thought you said you knowed the rules,” returned Silver -contemptuously. “Leastways, if you don’t, I do; and I wait here--and I’m -still your cap’n, mind--till you outs with your grievances and I reply; -in the meantime, your black spot ain’t worth a biscuit. After that, -we’ll see.” - -“Oh,” replied George, “you don’t be under no kind of apprehension; WE’RE -all square, we are. First, you’ve made a hash of this cruise--you’ll be -a bold man to say no to that. Second, you let the enemy out o’ this here -trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I dunno, but it’s pretty plain -they wanted it. Third, you wouldn’t let us go at them upon the march. -Oh, we see through you, John Silver; you want to play booty, that’s -what’s wrong with you. And then, fourth, there’s this here boy.” - -“Is that all?” asked Silver quietly. - -“Enough, too,” retorted George. “We’ll all swing and sun-dry for your -bungling.” - -“Well now, look here, I’ll answer these four p’ints; one after another -I’ll answer ’em. I made a hash o’ this cruise, did I? Well now, you all -know what I wanted, and you all know if that had been done that we’d -’a been aboard the HISPANIOLA this night as ever was, every man of us -alive, and fit, and full of good plum-duff, and the treasure in the hold -of her, by thunder! Well, who crossed me? Who forced my hand, as was the -lawful cap’n? Who tipped me the black spot the day we landed and began -this dance? Ah, it’s a fine dance--I’m with you there--and looks mighty -like a hornpipe in a rope’s end at Execution Dock by London town, it -does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George -Merry! And you’re the last above board of that same meddling crew; -and you have the Davy Jones’s insolence to up and stand for cap’n over -me--you, that sank the lot of us! By the powers! But this tops the -stiffest yarn to nothing.” - -Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George and his late -comrades that these words had not been said in vain. - -“That’s for number one,” cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his -brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the house. -“Why, I give you my word, I’m sick to speak to you. You’ve neither sense -nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you -come to sea. Sea! Gentlemen o’ fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade.” - -“Go on, John,” said Morgan. “Speak up to the others.” - -“Ah, the others!” returned John. “They’re a nice lot, ain’t they? You -say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if you could understand how bad -it’s bungled, you would see! We’re that near the gibbet that my neck’s -stiff with thinking on it. You’ve seen ’em, maybe, hanged in chains, -birds about ’em, seamen p’inting ’em out as they go down with the tide. -‘Who’s that?’ says one. ‘That! Why, that’s John Silver. I knowed him -well,’ says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go -about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that’s about where we are, -every mother’s son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and -other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, -and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn’t he a hostage? Are we a-going -to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I -shouldn’t wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates! And number three? Ah, -well, there’s a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don’t count it -nothing to have a real college doctor to see you every day--you, John, -with your head broke--or you, George Merry, that had the ague shakes -upon you not six hours agone, and has your eyes the colour of lemon peel -to this same moment on the clock? And maybe, perhaps, you didn’t know -there was a consort coming either? But there is, and not so long till -then; and we’ll see who’ll be glad to have a hostage when it comes to -that. And as for number two, and why I made a bargain--well, you came -crawling on your knees to me to make it--on your knees you came, you was -that downhearted--and you’d have starved too if I hadn’t--but that’s a -trifle! You look there--that’s why!” - -And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly -recognized--none other than the chart on yellow paper, with the three -red crosses, that I had found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the -captain’s chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more than I -could fancy. - -But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was -incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats -upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another; -and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they -accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they -were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in -safety. - -“Yes,” said one, “that’s Flint, sure enough. J. F., and a score below, -with a clove hitch to it; so he done ever.” - -“Mighty pretty,” said George. “But how are we to get away with it, and -us no ship.” - -Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself with a hand against -the wall: “Now I give you warning, George,” he cried. “One more word -of your sauce, and I’ll call you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I -know? You had ought to tell me that--you and the rest, that lost me my -schooner, with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can’t; you -hain’t got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and -shall, George Merry, you may lay to that.” - -“That’s fair enow,” said the old man Morgan. - -“Fair! I reckon so,” said the sea-cook. “You lost the ship; I found the -treasure. Who’s the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder! -Elect whom you please to be your cap’n now; I’m done with it.” - -“Silver!” they cried. “Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap’n!” - -“So that’s the toon, is it?” cried the cook. “George, I reckon you’ll -have to wait another turn, friend; and lucky for you as I’m not a -revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this -black spot? ’Tain’t much good now, is it? Dick’s crossed his luck and -spoiled his Bible, and that’s about all.” - -“It’ll do to kiss the book on still, won’t it?” growled Dick, who was -evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself. - -“A Bible with a bit cut out!” returned Silver derisively. “Not it. It -don’t bind no more’n a ballad-book.” - -“Don’t it, though?” cried Dick with a sort of joy. “Well, I reckon -that’s worth having too.” - -“Here, Jim--here’s a cur’osity for you,” said Silver, and he tossed me -the paper. - -It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank, -for it had been the last leaf; the other contained a verse or two of -Revelation--these words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon -my mind: “Without are dogs and murderers.” The printed side had been -blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my -fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the -one word “Depposed.” I have that curiosity beside me at this moment, but -not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a -man might make with his thumb-nail. - -That was the end of the night’s business. Soon after, with a drink all -round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver’s vengeance was -to put George Merry up for sentinel and threaten him with death if he -should prove unfaithful. - -It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter -enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own -most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw -Silver now engaged upon--keeping the mutineers together with one hand -and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible, -to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept -peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he -was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet -that awaited him. - - - - -30 - -On Parole - -I WAS wakened--indeed, we were all wakened, for I could see even the -sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the -door-post--by a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the -wood: - -“Block house, ahoy!” it cried. “Here’s the doctor.” - -And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my -gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my -insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when I saw where it had brought -me--among what companions and surrounded by what dangers--I felt ashamed -to look him in the face. - -He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come; and when I -ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once -before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapour. - -“You, doctor! Top o’ the morning to you, sir!” cried Silver, broad awake -and beaming with good nature in a moment. “Bright and early, to be sure; -and it’s the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations. -George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Dr. Livesey over the ship’s -side. All a-doin’ well, your patients was--all well and merry.” - -So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch under his -elbow and one hand upon the side of the log-house--quite the old John in -voice, manner, and expression. - -“We’ve quite a surprise for you too, sir,” he continued. “We’ve a little -stranger here--he! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit -and taut as a fiddle; slep’ like a supercargo, he did, right alongside -of John--stem to stem we was, all night.” - -Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the -cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said, “Not -Jim?” - -“The very same Jim as ever was,” says Silver. - -The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some -seconds before he seemed able to move on. - -“Well, well,” he said at last, “duty first and pleasure afterwards, as -you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of -yours.” - -A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and with one grim -nod to me proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no -apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these -treacherous demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his -patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet -English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they -behaved to him as if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship’s -doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast. - -“You’re doing well, my friend,” he said to the fellow with the bandaged -head, “and if ever any person had a close shave, it was you; your head -must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You’re a pretty -colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take -that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men?” - -“Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough,” returned Morgan. - -“Because, you see, since I am mutineers’ doctor, or prison doctor as I -prefer to call it,” says Doctor Livesey in his pleasantest way, “I make -it a point of honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) -and the gallows.” - -The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home-thrust in -silence. - -“Dick don’t feel well, sir,” said one. - -“Don’t he?” replied the doctor. “Well, step up here, Dick, and let me -see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did! The man’s tongue -is fit to frighten the French. Another fever.” - -“Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.” - -“That comes--as you call it--of being arrant asses,” retorted the -doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, -and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most -probable--though of course it’s only an opinion--that you’ll all have -the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp -in a bog, would you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool -than many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have the -rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. - -“Well,” he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken -his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity -schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates--“well, that’s -done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, -please.” - -And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly. - -George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some -bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word of the doctor’s proposal he -swung round with a deep flush and cried “No!” and swore. - -Silver struck the barrel with his open hand. - -“Si-lence!” he roared and looked about him positively like a lion. -“Doctor,” he went on in his usual tones, “I was a-thinking of that, -knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We’re all humbly grateful -for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs -down like that much grog. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all. -Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour as a young gentleman--for -a young gentleman you are, although poor born--your word of honour not -to slip your cable?” - -I readily gave the pledge required. - -“Then, doctor,” said Silver, “you just step outside o’ that stockade, -and once you’re there I’ll bring the boy down on the inside, and I -reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our -dooties to the squire and Cap’n Smollett.” - -The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver’s black looks had -restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver -was roundly accused of playing double--of trying to make a separate -peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and -victims, and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was -doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not -imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man -the rest were, and his last night’s victory had given him a huge -preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts -you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, -fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to -break the treaty the very day they were bound a-treasure-hunting. - -“No, by thunder!” he cried. “It’s us must break the treaty when the time -comes; and till then I’ll gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots -with brandy.” - -And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, -with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced -by his volubility rather than convinced. - -“Slow, lad, slow,” he said. “They might round upon us in a twinkle of an -eye if we was seen to hurry.” - -Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the sand to where the -doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we -were within easy speaking distance Silver stopped. - -“You’ll make a note of this here also, doctor,” says he, “and the boy’ll -tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it too, and you -may lay to that. Doctor, when a man’s steering as near the wind as -me--playing chuck-farthing with the last breath in his body, like--you -wouldn’t think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You’ll -please bear in mind it’s not my life only now--it’s that boy’s into the -bargain; and you’ll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit o’ hope to -go on, for the sake of mercy.” - -Silver was a changed man once he was out there and had his back to his -friends and the block house; his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his -voice trembled; never was a soul more dead in earnest. - -“Why, John, you’re not afraid?” asked Dr. Livesey. - -“Doctor, I’m no coward; no, not I--not SO much!” and he snapped his -fingers. “If I was I wouldn’t say it. But I’ll own up fairly, I’ve the -shakes upon me for the gallows. You’re a good man and a true; I never -seen a better man! And you’ll not forget what I done good, not any more -than you’ll forget the bad, I know. And I step aside--see here--and -leave you and Jim alone. And you’ll put that down for me too, for it’s a -long stretch, is that!” - -So saying, he stepped back a little way, till he was out of earshot, and -there sat down upon a tree-stump and began to whistle, spinning round -now and again upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of me -and the doctor and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and -fro in the sand between the fire--which they were busy rekindling--and -the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the -breakfast. - -“So, Jim,” said the doctor sadly, “here you are. As you have brewed, so -shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows, I cannot find it in my heart to -blame you, but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind: when Captain -Smollett was well, you dared not have gone off; and when he was ill and -couldn’t help it, by George, it was downright cowardly!” - -I will own that I here began to weep. “Doctor,” I said, “you might spare -me. I have blamed myself enough; my life’s forfeit anyway, and I should -have been dead by now if Silver hadn’t stood for me; and doctor, -believe this, I can die--and I dare say I deserve it--but what I fear is -torture. If they come to torture me--” - -“Jim,” the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed, “Jim, I -can’t have this. Whip over, and we’ll run for it.” - -“Doctor,” said I, “I passed my word.” - -“I know, I know,” he cried. “We can’t help that, Jim, now. I’ll take it -on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, -I cannot let you. Jump! One jump, and you’re out, and we’ll run for it -like antelopes.” - -“No,” I replied; “you know right well you wouldn’t do the thing -yourself--neither you nor squire nor captain; and no more will I. Silver -trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not -let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of -where the ship is, for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, -and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high -water. At half tide she must be high and dry.” - -“The ship!” exclaimed the doctor. - -Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in -silence. - -“There is a kind of fate in this,” he observed when I had done. “Every -step, it’s you that saves our lives; and do you suppose by any chance -that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my -boy. You found out the plot; you found Ben Gunn--the best deed that -ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and -talking of Ben Gunn! Why, this is the mischief in person. Silver!” he -cried. “Silver! I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he continued as -the cook drew near again; “don’t you be in any great hurry after that -treasure.” - -“Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain’t,” said Silver. “I can -only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boy’s by seeking for that -treasure; and you may lay to that.” - -“Well, Silver,” replied the doctor, “if that is so, I’ll go one step -further: look out for squalls when you find it.” - -“Sir,” said Silver, “as between man and man, that’s too much and too -little. What you’re after, why you left the block house, why you given -me that there chart, I don’t know, now, do I? And yet I done your -bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope! But no, this here’s -too much. If you won’t tell me what you mean plain out, just say so and -I’ll leave the helm.” - -“No,” said the doctor musingly; “I’ve no right to say more; it’s not my -secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my word, I’d tell it you. But -I’ll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I’ll have -my wig sorted by the captain or I’m mistaken! And first, I’ll give you a -bit of hope; Silver, if we both get alive out of this wolf-trap, I’ll do -my best to save you, short of perjury.” - -Silver’s face was radiant. “You couldn’t say more, I’m sure, sir, not if -you was my mother,” he cried. - -“Well, that’s my first concession,” added the doctor. “My second is a -piece of advice: keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, -halloo. I’m off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I -speak at random. Good-bye, Jim.” - -And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to -Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood. - - - - -31 - -The Treasure-hunt--Flint’s Pointer - -“JIM,” said Silver when we were alone, “if I saved your life, you saved -mine; and I’ll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for -it--with the tail of my eye, I did; and I seen you say no, as plain as -hearing. Jim, that’s one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had -since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we’re to go in -for this here treasure-hunting, with sealed orders too, and I don’t like -it; and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we’ll save -our necks in spite o’ fate and fortune.” - -Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and -we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried -junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so -hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there -not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, -I suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, with an -empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared -again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of -the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way -of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they -were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their -entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign. - -Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his shoulder, had not -a word of blame for their recklessness. And this the more surprised me, -for I thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then. - -“Aye, mates,” said he, “it’s lucky you have Barbecue to think for you -with this here head. I got what I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have -the ship. Where they have it, I don’t know yet; but once we hit the -treasure, we’ll have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us -that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand.” - -Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot bacon; thus he -restored their hope and confidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired -his own at the same time. - -“As for hostage,” he continued, “that’s his last talk, I guess, with -them he loves so dear. I’ve got my piece o’ news, and thanky to him -for that; but it’s over and done. I’ll take him in a line when we go -treasure-hunting, for we’ll keep him like so much gold, in case of -accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we got the ship and -treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions, why then we’ll talk -Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we’ll give him his share, to be sure, for -all his kindness.” - -It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now. For my part, I -was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove -feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt -it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he -would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from -hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side. - -Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced to keep his faith -with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay before us! What a moment -that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty -and he and I should have to fight for dear life--he a cripple and I a -boy--against five strong and active seamen! - -Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the -behaviour of my friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade, -their inexplicable cession of the chart, or harder still to understand, -the doctor’s last warning to Silver, “Look out for squalls when you -find it,” and you will readily believe how little taste I found in my -breakfast and with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on -the quest for treasure. - -We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see us--all in soiled -sailor clothes and all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns -slung about him--one before and one behind--besides the great cutlass -at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of his square-tailed coat. -To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his -shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk. I had a -line about my waist and followed obediently after the sea-cook, who -held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his -powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear. - -The other men were variously burthened, some carrying picks and -shovels--for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore -from the HISPANIOLA--others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the -midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came from our stock, and I -could see the truth of Silver’s words the night before. Had he not -struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the -ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds -of their hunting. Water would have been little to their taste; a sailor -is not usually a good shot; and besides all that, when they were so -short of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder. - -Well, thus equipped, we all set out--even the fellow with the broken -head, who should certainly have kept in shadow--and straggled, one after -another, to the beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore -trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken thwart, and -both in their muddy and unbailed condition. Both were to be carried -along with us for the sake of safety; and so, with our numbers divided -between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage. - -As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross -was, of course, far too large to be a guide; and the terms of the note -on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran, the -reader may remember, thus: - - Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to - the N. of N.N.E. - Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. - Ten feet. - -A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us the -anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, -adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass -and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy eminence -called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly -with pine-trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a -different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours, -and which of these was the particular “tall tree” of Captain Flint could -only be decided on the spot, and by the readings of the compass. - -Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the boats had -picked a favourite of his own ere we were half-way over, Long John alone -shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there. - -We pulled easily, by Silver’s directions, not to weary the hands -prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at the mouth of -the second river--that which runs down a woody cleft of the Spy-glass. -Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the -plateau. - -At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation -greatly delayed our progress; but by little and little the hill began -to steepen and become stony under foot, and the wood to change its -character and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a most -pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching. A -heavy-scented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place -of grass. Thickets of green nutmeg-trees were dotted here and there with -the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines; and the first mingled -their spice with the aroma of the others. The air, besides, was fresh -and stirring, and this, under the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful -refreshment to our senses. - -The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to -and fro. About the centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and -I followed--I tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among -the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand, -or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill. - -We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the -brow of the plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry -aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others -began to run in his direction. - -“He can’t ’a found the treasure,” said old Morgan, hurrying past us from -the right, “for that’s clean a-top.” - -Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something -very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green -creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human -skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I believe a -chill struck for a moment to every heart. - -“He was a seaman,” said George Merry, who, bolder than the rest, had -gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. “Leastways, this -is good sea-cloth.” - -“Aye, aye,” said Silver; “like enough; you wouldn’t look to find a -bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie? -’Tain’t in natur’.” - -Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body -was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of -the birds that had fed upon him or of the slow-growing creeper that had -gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight--his -feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a -diver’s, pointing directly in the opposite. - -“I’ve taken a notion into my old numbskull,” observed Silver. “Here’s -the compass; there’s the tip-top p’int o’ Skeleton Island, stickin’ -out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them -bones.” - -It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island, -and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E. - -“I thought so,” cried the cook; “this here is a p’inter. Right up there -is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! -If it don’t make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of HIS -jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here; he killed ’em, -every man; and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver -my timbers! They’re long bones, and the hair’s been yellow. Aye, that -would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?” - -“Aye, aye,” returned Morgan; “I mind him; he owed me money, he did, and -took my knife ashore with him.” - -“Speaking of knives,” said another, “why don’t we find his’n lying -round? Flint warn’t the man to pick a seaman’s pocket; and the birds, I -guess, would leave it be.” - -“By the powers, and that’s true!” cried Silver. - -“There ain’t a thing left here,” said Merry, still feeling round among -the bones; “not a copper doit nor a baccy box. It don’t look nat’ral to -me.” - -“No, by gum, it don’t,” agreed Silver; “not nat’ral, nor not nice, says -you. Great guns! Messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot -spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what -they are now.” - -“I saw him dead with these here deadlights,” said Morgan. “Billy took me -in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes.” - -“Dead--aye, sure enough he’s dead and gone below,” said the fellow with -the bandage; “but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint’s. Dear -heart, but he died bad, did Flint!” - -“Aye, that he did,” observed another; “now he raged, and now he hollered -for the rum, and now he sang. ‘Fifteen Men’ were his only song, mates; -and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was -main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin’ out as -clear as clear--and the death-haul on the man already.” - -“Come, come,” said Silver; “stow this talk. He’s dead, and he don’t -walk, that I know; leastways, he won’t walk by day, and you may lay to -that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons.” - -We started, certainly; but in spite of the hot sun and the staring -daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the -wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of -the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits. - - - - -32 - -The Treasure-hunt--The Voice Among the Trees - -PARTLY from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver -and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained -the brow of the ascent. - -The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, this spot on which -we had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, -over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; -behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, -but saw--clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field -of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted -with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but -that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of -countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea; the -very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude. - -Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass. - -“There are three ‘tall trees’” said he, “about in the right line from -Skeleton Island. ‘Spy-glass shoulder,’ I take it, means that lower p’int -there. It’s child’s play to find the stuff now. I’ve half a mind to dine -first.” - -“I don’t feel sharp,” growled Morgan. “Thinkin’ o’ Flint--I think it -were--as done me.” - -“Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he’s dead,” said Silver. - -“He were an ugly devil,” cried a third pirate with a shudder; “that blue -in the face too!” - -“That was how the rum took him,” added Merry. “Blue! Well, I reckon he -was blue. That’s a true word.” - -Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of -thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to -whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted -the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees -in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the well-known -air and words: - - “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest-- - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” - -I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The -colour went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their -feet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan grovelled on the ground. - -“It’s Flint, by ----!” cried Merry. - -The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken off, you would have -said, in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand upon -the singer’s mouth. Coming through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the -green tree-tops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the -effect on my companions was the stranger. - -“Come,” said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the word out; -“this won’t do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can’t -name the voice, but it’s someone skylarking--someone that’s flesh and -blood, and you may lay to that.” - -His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the colour to his -face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this -encouragement and were coming a little to themselves, when the same -voice broke out again--not this time singing, but in a faint distant -hail that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spy-glass. - -“Darby M’Graw,” it wailed--for that is the word that best describes the -sound--“Darby M’Graw! Darby M’Graw!” again and again and again; and then -rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out: “Fetch aft -the rum, Darby!” - -The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from -their heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared in -silence, dreadfully, before them. - -“That fixes it!” gasped one. “Let’s go.” - -“They was his last words,” moaned Morgan, “his last words above board.” - -Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought -up, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell among bad companions. - -Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head, -but he had not yet surrendered. - -“Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby,” he muttered; “not one -but us that’s here.” And then, making a great effort: “Shipmates,” - he cried, “I’m here to get that stuff, and I’ll not be beat by man or -devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers, I’ll -face him dead. There’s seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a -mile from here. When did ever a gentleman o’ fortune show his stern to -that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug--and him dead -too?” - -But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather, -indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words. - -“Belay there, John!” said Merry. “Don’t you cross a sperrit.” - -And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away -severally had they dared; but fear kept them together, and kept them -close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty -well fought his weakness down. - -“Sperrit? Well, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one thing not clear to me. -There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well -then, what’s he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know? That -ain’t in natur’, surely?” - -This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what will -affect the superstitious, and to my wonder, George Merry was greatly -relieved. - -“Well, that’s so,” he said. “You’ve a head upon your shoulders, John, -and no mistake. ’Bout ship, mates! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I -do believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint’s voice, I -grant you, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. It was liker -somebody else’s voice now--it was liker--” - -“By the powers, Ben Gunn!” roared Silver. - -“Aye, and so it were,” cried Morgan, springing on his knees. “Ben Gunn -it were!” - -“It don’t make much odds, do it, now?” asked Dick. “Ben Gunn’s not here -in the body any more’n Flint.” - -But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. - -“Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn,” cried Merry; “dead or alive, nobody minds -him.” - -It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned and how the natural -colour had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together, -with intervals of listening; and not long after, hearing no further -sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry walking -first with Silver’s compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton -Island. He had said the truth: dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. - -Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went, with -fearful glances; but he found no sympathy, and Silver even joked him on -his precautions. - -“I told you,” said he--“I told you you had sp’iled your Bible. If it -ain’t no good to swear by, what do you suppose a sperrit would give for -it? Not that!” and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his -crutch. - -But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soon plain to me that -the lad was falling sick; hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock -of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing -swiftly higher. - -It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; our way lay a little -downhill, for, as I have said, the plateau tilted towards the west. The -pines, great and small, grew wide apart; and even between the clumps of -nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking, -as we did, pretty near north-west across the island, we drew, on the -one hand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the -other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed -and trembled in the coracle. - -The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the -wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet -into the air above a clump of underwood--a giant of a vegetable, with -a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a -company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuous far to sea both on -the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the -chart. - -But it was not its size that now impressed my companions; it was the -knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere -buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they -drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in -their heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul -was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and -pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them. - -Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrils stood out and -quivered; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and -shiny countenance; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to -him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look. -Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read -them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had -been forgotten: his promise and the doctor’s warning were both things -of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the -treasure, find and board the HISPANIOLA under cover of night, cut -every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first -intended, laden with crimes and riches. - -Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with -the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it -was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me -his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us and now brought -up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses as his -fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all, -I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted -on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face--he who -died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink--had there, with his -own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove that was now so -peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the -thought I could believe I heard it ringing still. - -We were now at the margin of the thicket. - -“Huzza, mates, all together!” shouted Merry; and the foremost broke into -a run. - -And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop. A low cry -arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutch -like one possessed; and next moment he and I had come also to a dead -halt. - -Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had -fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft -of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing-cases strewn -around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name -WALRUS--the name of Flint’s ship. - -All was clear to probation. The CACHE had been found and rifled; the -seven hundred thousand pounds were gone! - - - - -33 - -The Fall of a Chieftain - -THERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men -was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost -instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a -racer, on that money; well, he was brought up, in a single second, dead; -and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the -others had had time to realize the disappointment. - -“Jim,” he whispered, “take that, and stand by for trouble.” - -And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol. - -At the same time, he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps -had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at -me and nodded, as much as to say, “Here is a narrow corner,” as, indeed, -I thought it was. His looks were not quite friendly, and I was so -revolted at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering, -“So you’ve changed sides again.” - -There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers, with oaths -and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit and to dig -with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan -found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It -was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a -quarter of a minute. - -“Two guineas!” roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. “That’s your seven -hundred thousand pounds, is it? You’re the man for bargains, ain’t you? -You’re him that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber!” - -“Dig away, boys,” said Silver with the coolest insolence; “you’ll find -some pig-nuts and I shouldn’t wonder.” - -“Pig-nuts!” repeated Merry, in a scream. “Mates, do you hear that? I -tell you now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him -and you’ll see it wrote there.” - -“Ah, Merry,” remarked Silver, “standing for cap’n again? You’re a -pushing lad, to be sure.” - -But this time everyone was entirely in Merry’s favour. They began to -scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One -thing I observed, which looked well for us: they all got out upon the -opposite side from Silver. - -Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit -between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow. -Silver never moved; he watched them, very upright on his crutch, and -looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake. - -At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters. - -“Mates,” says he, “there’s two of them alone there; one’s the old -cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this; the -other’s that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates--” - -He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a -charge. But just then--crack! crack! crack!--three musket-shots flashed -out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the -man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length -upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other -three turned and ran for it with all their might. - -Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into -the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the -last agony, “George,” said he, “I reckon I settled you.” - -At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with -smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees. - -“Forward!” cried the doctor. “Double quick, my lads. We must head ’em -off the boats.” - -And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to -the chest. - -I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man -went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were -fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the -doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the -verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope. - -“Doctor,” he hailed, “see there! No hurry!” - -Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we -could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as -they had started, right for Mizzenmast Hill. We were already between -them and the boats; and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, -mopping his face, came slowly up with us. - -“Thank ye kindly, doctor,” says he. “You came in in about the nick, I -guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it’s you, Ben Gunn!” he added. “Well, -you’re a nice one, to be sure.” - -“I’m Ben Gunn, I am,” replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his -embarrassment. “And,” he added, after a long pause, “how do, Mr. Silver? -Pretty well, I thank ye, says you.” - -“Ben, Ben,” murmured Silver, “to think as you’ve done me!” - -The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes deserted, in their -flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to -where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place. -It was a story that profoundly interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the -half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end. - -Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the -skeleton--it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he -had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe that lay broken in the -excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from -the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at -the north-east angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in -safety since two months before the arrival of the HISPANIOLA. - -When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon of the -attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone -to Silver, given him the chart, which was now useless--given him the -stores, for Ben Gunn’s cave was well supplied with goats’ meat salted -by himself--given anything and everything to get a chance of moving in -safety from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be clear of -malaria and keep a guard upon the money. - -“As for you, Jim,” he said, “it went against my heart, but I did what I -thought best for those who had stood by their duty; and if you were not -one of these, whose fault was it?” - -That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid -disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way -to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray -and the maroon and started, making the diagonal across the island to be -at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the -start of him; and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in -front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the -superstitions of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful that -Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed before the -arrival of the treasure-hunters. - -“Ah,” said Silver, “it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. -You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a -thought, doctor.” - -“Not a thought,” replied Dr. Livesey cheerily. - -And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pick-axe, -demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other and set out -to go round by sea for North Inlet. - -This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost -killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and -we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out -of the straits and doubled the south-east corner of the island, round -which, four days ago, we had towed the HISPANIOLA. - -As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the black mouth of Ben -Gunn’s cave and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was the -squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in which -the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any. - -Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should -we meet but the HISPANIOLA, cruising by herself? The last flood had -lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current, as -in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found -her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the -wreck of the main-sail. Another anchor was got ready and dropped in a -fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, -the nearest point for Ben Gunn’s treasure-house; and then Gray, -single-handed, returned with the gig to the HISPANIOLA, where he was to -pass the night on guard. - -A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the -top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind, saying nothing -of my escapade either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver’s polite -salute he somewhat flushed. - -“John Silver,” he said, “you’re a prodigious villain and imposter--a -monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well, -then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like -mill-stones.” - -“Thank you kindly, sir,” replied Long John, again saluting. - -“I dare you to thank me!” cried the squire. “It is a gross dereliction -of my duty. Stand back.” - -And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with -a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The -floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far -corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps -of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint’s -treasure that we had come so far to seek and that had cost already the -lives of seventeen men from the HISPANIOLA. How many it had cost in the -amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, -what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what -shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there -were still three upon that island--Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben -Gunn--who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in -vain to share in the reward. - -“Come in, Jim,” said the captain. “You’re a good boy in your line, Jim, -but I don’t think you and me’ll go to sea again. You’re too much of the -born favourite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here, -man?” - -“Come back to my dooty, sir,” returned Silver. - -“Ah!” said the captain, and that was all he said. - -What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me; and -what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn’s salted goat and some delicacies and -a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA. Never, I am sure, were people -gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the -firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything -was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter--the same bland, -polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out. - - - - -34 - -And Last - -THE next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this -great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three -miles by boat to the HISPANIOLA, was a considerable task for so small -a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did -not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was -sufficient to ensure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought, -besides, they had had more than enough of fighting. - -Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Gunn came and -went with the boat, while the rest during their absences piled treasure -on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope’s end, made a good load -for a grown man--one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, -as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave -packing the minted money into bread-bags. - -It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard for the diversity -of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied that I think I -never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, -Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and -moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the -last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked -like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square -pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round -your neck--nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, -have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they -were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my -fingers with sorting them out. - -Day after day this work went on; by every evening a fortune had been -stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow; and -all this time we heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers. - -At last--I think it was on the third night--the doctor and I were -strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it overlooks the lowlands of -the isle, when, from out the thick darkness below, the wind brought us -a noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch that reached -our ears, followed by the former silence. - -“Heaven forgive them,” said the doctor; “’tis the mutineers!” - -“All drunk, sir,” struck in the voice of Silver from behind us. - -Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in spite of -daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as quite a privileged -and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore -these slights and with what unwearying politeness he kept on trying to -ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than -a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old -quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to thank him for; -although for that matter, I suppose, I had reason to think even worse of -him than anybody else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery -upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor -answered him. - -“Drunk or raving,” said he. - -“Right you were, sir,” replied Silver; “and precious little odds which, -to you and me.” - -“I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane man,” returned -the doctor with a sneer, “and so my feelings may surprise you, Master -Silver. But if I were sure they were raving--as I am morally certain -one, at least, of them is down with fever--I should leave this camp, -and at whatever risk to my own carcass, take them the assistance of my -skill.” - -“Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong,” quoth Silver. “You -would lose your precious life, and you may lay to that. I’m on your side -now, hand and glove; and I shouldn’t wish for to see the party weakened, -let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But these men down -there, they couldn’t keep their word--no, not supposing they wished to; -and what’s more, they couldn’t believe as you could.” - -“No,” said the doctor. “You’re the man to keep your word, we know that.” - -Well, that was about the last news we had of the three pirates. Only -once we heard a gunshot a great way off and supposed them to be hunting. -A council was held, and it was decided that we must desert them on the -island--to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with the strong -approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder and shot, the bulk -of the salt goat, a few medicines, and some other necessaries, tools, -clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and by the particular -desire of the doctor, a handsome present of tobacco. - -That was about our last doing on the island. Before that, we had got the -treasure stowed and had shipped enough water and the remainder of the -goat meat in case of any distress; and at last, one fine morning, we -weighed anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood out -of North Inlet, the same colours flying that the captain had flown and -fought under at the palisade. - -The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for, -as we soon had proved. For coming through the narrows, we had to -lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of -them kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms raised in -supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that -wretched state; but we could not risk another mutiny; and to take them -home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor -hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were -to find them. But they continued to call us by name and appeal to us, -for God’s sake, to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a -place. - -At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly -drawing out of earshot, one of them--I know not which it was--leapt to -his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent -a shot whistling over Silver’s head and through the main-sail. - -After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked -out they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost -melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end -of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of -Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea. - -We were so short of men that everyone on board had to bear a hand--only -the captain lying on a mattress in the stern and giving his orders, for -though greatly recovered he was still in want of quiet. We laid her -head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the -voyage home without fresh hands; and as it was, what with baffling winds -and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it. - -It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most beautiful -land-locked gulf, and were immediately surrounded by shore boats full -of Negroes and Mexican Indians and half-bloods selling fruits and -vegetables and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of so many -good-humoured faces (especially the blacks), the taste of the tropical -fruits, and above all the lights that began to shine in the town made a -most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island; -and the doctor and the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore -to pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an -English man-of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and, -in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came -alongside the HISPANIOLA. - -Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, -with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone. -The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, -and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which -would certainly have been forfeit if “that man with the one leg -had stayed aboard.” But this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone -empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and had removed -one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, -to help him on his further wanderings. - -I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him. - -Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a -good cruise home, and the HISPANIOLA reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly -was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of -those who had sailed returned with her. “Drink and the devil had done -for the rest,” with a vengeance, although, to be sure, we were not quite -in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about: - - With one man of her crew alive, - What put to sea with seventy-five. - -All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used it wisely or -foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired -from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but being suddenly smit -with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now -mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship, married besides, and the -father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he -spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for -he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, -exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great -favourite, though something of a butt, with the country boys, and a -notable singer in church on Sundays and saints’ days. - -Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one -leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old -Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. -It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another -world are very small. - -The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where -Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and -wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and -the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about -its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint -still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” - - - WINNIE-THE-POOH - - CHAPTER I - - IN WHICH WE ARE INTRODUCED TO - WINNIE-THE-POOH AND SOME BEES, - AND THE STORIES BEGIN - - -Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the -back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, -the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there -really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and -think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he -is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh. - -When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to say, "But -I thought he was a boy?" - -"So did I," said Christopher Robin. - -"Then you can't call him Winnie?" - -"I don't." - -"But you said----" - -"He's Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don't you know what '_ther_' means?" - -"Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it -is all the explanation you are going to get. - -Sometimes Winnie-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort when he comes -downstairs, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly in front of the fire -and listen to a story. This evening---- - -"What about a story?" said Christopher Robin. - -"_What_ about a story?" I said. - -"Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?" - -"I suppose I could," I said. "What sort of stories does he like?" - -"About himself. Because he's _that_ sort of Bear." - -"Oh, I see." - -"So could you very sweetly?" - -"I'll try," I said. - -So I tried. - - * * * * * - -Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, -Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of -Sanders. - -(_"What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin._ - -"_It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived -under it._" - -_"Winnie-the-Pooh wasn't quite sure," said Christopher Robin._ - -_"Now I am," said a growly voice._ - -_"Then I will go on," said I._) - -One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle -of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, -and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise. - -Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between -his paws and began to think. - -First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. -You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, -without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's -making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise -that _I_ know of is because you're a bee." - -Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for -being a bee that I know of is making honey." - -And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is -so as _I_ can eat it." So he began to climb the tree. - -He climbed and he climbed and he climbed, and as he climbed he sang a -little song to himself. It went like this: - - Isn't it funny - How a bear likes honey? - Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! - I wonder why he does? - -Then he climbed a little further ... and a little further ... and -then just a little further. By that time he had thought of another song. - - It's a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees, - They'd build their nests at the _bottom_ of trees. - And that being so (if the Bees were Bears), - We shouldn't have to climb up all these stairs. - -He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a -Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just stood on that -branch ... - -_Crack!_ - -"Oh, help!" said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the branch below him. - -"If only I hadn't----" he said, as he bounced twenty feet on to the next -branch. - -"You see, what I _meant_ to do," he explained, as he turned -head-over-heels, and crashed on to another branch thirty feet below, -"what I _meant_ to do----" - -"Of course, it _was_ rather----" he admitted, as he slithered very -quickly through the next six branches. - -"It all comes, I suppose," he decided, as he said good-bye to the last -branch, spun round three times, and flew gracefully into a gorse-bush, -"it all comes of _liking_ honey so much. Oh, help!" - -He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his nose, -and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was -Christopher Robin. - -(_"Was that me?" said Christopher Robin in an awed voice, hardly daring -to believe it._ - -"_That was you._" - -_Christopher Robin said nothing, but his eyes got larger and larger, and -his face got pinker and pinker._) - -So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived -behind a green door in another part of the forest. - -"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he said. - -"Good morning, Winnie-_ther_-Pooh," said you. - -"I wonder if you've got such a thing as a balloon about you?" - -"A balloon?" - -"Yes, I just said to myself coming along: 'I wonder if Christopher Robin -has such a thing as a balloon about him?' I just said it to myself, -thinking of balloons, and wondering." - -"What do you want a balloon for?" you said. - -Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his -paw to his mouth, and said in a deep whisper: "_Honey!_" - -"But you don't get honey with balloons!" - -"_I_ do," said Pooh. - -Well, it just happened that you had been to a party the day before at -the house of your friend Piglet, and you had balloons at the party. You -had had a big green balloon; and one of Rabbit's relations had had a big -blue one, and had left it behind, being really too young to go to a -party at all; and so you had brought the green one _and_ the blue one -home with you. - -"Which one would you like?" you asked Pooh. - -He put his head between his paws and thought very carefully. - -"It's like this," he said. "When you go after honey with a balloon, the -great thing is not to let the bees know you're coming. Now, if you have -a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the tree, and -not notice you, and, if you have a blue balloon, they might think you -were only part of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: -Which is most likely?" - -"Wouldn't they notice _you_ underneath the balloon?" you asked. - -"They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "You never can -tell with bees." He thought for a moment and said: "I shall try to look -like a small black cloud. That will deceive them." - -"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said; and so it was -decided. - -Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun -with you, just in case, as you always did, and Winnie-the-Pooh went to a -very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was -black all over; and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as big, -and you and Pooh were both holding on to the string, you let go -suddenly, and Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed -there--level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet away from -it. - -"Hooray!" you shouted. - -"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look -like?" - -"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said. - -"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "--not like a small black cloud in a blue -sky?" - -"Not very much." - -"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you -never can tell with bees." - -There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He -could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite -reach the honey. - -After a little while he called down to you. - -"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper. - -"Hallo!" - -"I think the bees _suspect_ something!" - -"What sort of thing?" - -"I don't know. But something tells me that they're _suspicious_!" - -"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey." - -"It may be that. You never can tell with bees." - -There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again. - -"Christopher Robin!" - -"Yes?" - -"Have you an umbrella in your house?" - -"I think so." - -"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and -look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' -I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are -practising on these bees." - -Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it -aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your -umbrella. - -"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got -back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered -that the bees are now definitely Suspicious." - -"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said. - -"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to -deceive is the Queen Bee. Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down -there?" - -"No." - -"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying, -'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little -Cloud Song, such as a cloud might sing.... Go!" - -So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain, -Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song: - - How sweet to be a Cloud - Floating in the Blue! - Every little cloud - _Always_ sings aloud. - - "How sweet to be a Cloud - Floating in the Blue!" - It makes him very proud - To be a little cloud. - -The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, -indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the -second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud -for a moment, and then got up again. - -"Christopher--_ow!_--Robin," called out the cloud. - -"Yes?" - -"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important -decision. _These are the wrong sort of bees._" - -"Are they?" - -"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort -of honey, shouldn't you?" - -"Would they?" - -"Yes. So I think I shall come down." - -"How?" asked you. - -Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, -he would fall--_bump_--and he didn't like the idea of that. So he -thought for a long time, and then he said: - -"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you -got your gun?" - -"Of course I have," you said. "But if I do that, it will spoil the -balloon," you said. - -"But if you _don't_," said Pooh, "I shall have to let go, and that would -spoil _me_." - -When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very -carefully at the balloon, and fired. - -"_Ow!_" said Pooh. - -"Did I miss?" you asked. - -"You didn't exactly _miss_," said Pooh, "but you missed the _balloon_." - -"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the -balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down -to the ground. - -But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon -all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a -week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it -off. And I think--but I am not sure--that _that_ is why he was always -called Pooh. - - * * * * * - -"Is that the end of the story?" asked Christopher Robin. - -"That's the end of that one. There are others." - -"About Pooh and Me?" - -"And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don't you remember?" - -"I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget." - -"That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump----" - -"They didn't catch it, did they?" - -"No." - -"Pooh couldn't, because he hasn't any brain. Did _I_ catch it?" - -"Well, that comes into the story." - -Christopher Robin nodded. - -"I do remember," he said, "only Pooh doesn't very well, so that's why he -likes having it told to him again. Because then it's a real story and -not just a remembering." - -"That's just how _I_ feel," I said. - -Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up by the leg, and -walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind him. At the door he turned -and said, "Coming to see me have my bath?" - -"I might," I said. - -"I didn't hurt him when I shot him, did I?" - -"Not a bit." - -He nodded and went out, and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh--_bump, -bump, bump_--going up the stairs behind him. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - IN WHICH POOH GOES VISITING AND - GETS INTO A TIGHT PLACE - - -Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for -short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to -himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing -his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la_, -as he stretched up as high as he could go, and then _Tra-la-la, -tra-la--oh, help!--la_, as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast -he had said it over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by -heart, and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like -this: - - _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_ - _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_ - _Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._ - _Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_ - _Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_ - _Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._ - -Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily, -wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being -somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank -was a large hole. - -"Aha!" said Pooh. (_Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._) "If I know anything about -anything, that hole means Rabbit," he said, "and Rabbit means Company," -he said, "and Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and such -like. _Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._" - -So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called out: - -"Is anybody at home?" - -There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then -silence. - -"What I said was, 'Is anybody at home?'" called out Pooh very loudly. - -"No!" said a voice; and then added, "You needn't shout so loud. I heard -you quite well the first time." - -"Bother!" said Pooh. "Isn't there anybody here at all?" - -"Nobody." - -Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and thought for a little, -and he thought to himself, "There must be somebody there, because -somebody must have _said_ 'Nobody.'" So he put his head back in the -hole, and said: - -"Hallo, Rabbit, isn't that you?" - -"No," said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time. - -"But isn't that Rabbit's voice?" - -"I don't _think_ so," said Rabbit. "It isn't _meant_ to be." - -"Oh!" said Pooh. - -He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put -it back, and said: - -"Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?" - -"He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a great friend of his." - -"But this _is_ Me!" said Bear, very much surprised. - -"What sort of Me?" - -"Pooh Bear." - -"Are you sure?" said Rabbit, still more surprised. - -"Quite, quite sure," said Pooh. - -"Oh, well, then, come in." - -So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole, and at -last he got in. - -"You were quite right," said Rabbit, looking at him all over. "It _is_ -you. Glad to see you." - -"Who did you think it was?" - -"Well, I wasn't sure. You know how it is in the Forest. One can't have -_anybody_ coming into one's house. One has to be _careful_. What about a -mouthful of something?" - -Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, -and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and -when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so -excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he -added, "But don't bother about the bread, please." And for a long time -after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a -rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and -said that he must be going on. - -"Must you?" said Rabbit politely. - -"Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it--if you----" and -he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder. - -"As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out myself directly." - -"Oh, well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye." - -"Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any more." - -"_Is_ there any more?" asked Pooh quickly. - -Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No, there wasn't." - -"I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must -be going on." - -So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, -and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in -the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... -and then his shoulders ... and then---- - -"Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back." - -"Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on." - -"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!" - -Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the -front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh, -and looked at him. - -"Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked. - -"N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to -myself." - -"Here, give us a paw." - -Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and -pulled.... - -"_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!" - -"The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck." - -"It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big -enough." - -"It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at -the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said -Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew -if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher -Robin." - -Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came -back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old -Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. - -"I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that -Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should -_hate_ that," he said. - -"So should I," said Rabbit. - -"Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use -his front door again." - -"Good," said Rabbit. - -"If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." - -Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when -once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more -glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees -and some lived underground, and---- - -"You mean I'd _never_ get out?" said Pooh. - -"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to -waste it." - -Christopher Robin nodded. - -"Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to -wait for you to get thin again." - -"How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. - -"About a week, I should think." - -"But I can't stay here for a _week_!" - -"You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out -which is so difficult." - -"We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," -he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room -in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? -Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very -convenient just to hang the towels on them." - -"A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" - -"I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin -quicker. But we _will_ read to you." - -Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly -stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: - -"Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a -Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" - -So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end -of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end ... and in -between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the -end of the week Christopher Robin said, "_Now!_" - -So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher -Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and -they all pulled together.... - -And for a long time Pooh only said "_Ow!_" ... - -And "_Oh!_" ... - -And then, all of a sudden, he said "_Pop!_" just as if a cork were -coming out of a bottle. - -And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit's friends and relations -went head-over-heels backwards ... and on the top of them came -Winnie-the-Pooh--free! - -So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk -through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But, Christopher Robin -looked after him lovingly, and said to himself, "Silly old Bear!" - - - - - CHAPTER III - - IN WHICH POOH AND PIGLET GO HUNTING - AND NEARLY CATCH A WOOZLE - - -The Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, -and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived -in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken -board which had: "TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the -Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had -been in the family for a long time, Christopher Robin said you -_couldn't_ be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, -because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, -which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two -names in case he lost one--Trespassers after an uncle, and William after -Trespassers. - -"I've got two names," said Christopher Robin carelessly. - -"Well, there you are, that proves it," said Piglet. - -One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of -his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh -was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and -when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking. - -"Hallo!" said Piglet, "what are _you_ doing?" - -"Hunting," said Pooh. - -"Hunting what?" - -"Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously. - -"Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer. - -"That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?" - -"What do you think you'll answer?" - -"I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said Winnie-the-Pooh. -"Now, look there." He pointed to the ground in front of him. "What do -you see there?" - -"Tracks," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little squeak of -excitement. "Oh, Pooh! Do you think it's a--a--a Woozle?" - -"It may be," said Pooh. "Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You -never can tell with paw-marks." - -With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him -for a minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden -stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way. - -"What's the matter?" asked Piglet. - -"It's a very funny thing," said Bear, "but there seem to be -_two_ animals now. This--whatever-it-was--has been joined by -another--whatever-it-is--and the two of them are now proceeding -in company. Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they -turn out to be Hostile Animals?" - -Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had -nothing to do until Friday, and would be delighted to come, in case it -really _was_ a Woozle. - -"You mean, in case it really is two Woozles," said Winnie-the-Pooh, and -Piglet said that anyhow he had nothing to do until Friday. So off they -went together. - -There was a small spinney of larch trees just here, and it seemed as if -the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this -spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them; Piglet -passing the time by telling Pooh what his Grandfather Trespassers W had -done to Remove Stiffness after Tracking, and how his Grandfather -Trespassers W had suffered in his later years from Shortness of Breath, -and other matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what a Grandfather was -like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after now, and, -if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home and keep it, and -what Christopher Robin would say. And still the tracks went on in front -of them.... - -Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly in front of him. -"_Look!_" - -"_What?_" said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show that he hadn't -been frightened, he jumped up and down once or twice more in an -exercising sort of way. - -"The tracks!" said Pooh. "_A third animal has joined the other two!_" - -"Pooh!" cried Piglet. "Do you think it is another Woozle?" - -"No," said Pooh, "because it makes different marks. It is either Two -Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles -and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them." - -So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three -animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent. And Piglet wished very -much that his Grandfather T. W. were there, instead of elsewhere, and -Pooh thought how nice it would be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly -but quite accidentally, and only because he liked Christopher Robin so -much. And then, all of a sudden, Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again, and -licked the tip of his nose in a cooling manner, for he was feeling more -hot and anxious than ever in his life before. _There were four animals -in front of them!_ - -"Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, -and one, as it was, Wizzle. _Another Woozle has joined them!_" - -And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other -here, getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every -now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws. - -"I _think_," said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, -and found that it brought very little comfort, "I _think_ that I have -just remembered something. I have just remembered something that I -forgot to do yesterday and shan't be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose -I really ought to go back and do it now." - -"We'll do it this afternoon, and I'll come with you," said Pooh. - -"It isn't the sort of thing you can do in the afternoon," said Piglet -quickly. "It's a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in -the morning, and, if possible, between the hours of----What would you -say the time was?" - -"About twelve," said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the sun. - -"Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, -really, dear old Pooh, if you'll excuse me----_What's that?_" - -Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the whistle again, he -looked up into the branches of a big oak-tree, and then he saw a friend -of his. - -"It's Christopher Robin," he said. - -"Ah, then you'll be all right," said Piglet. "You'll be quite safe with -_him_. Good-bye," and he trotted off home as quickly as he could, very -glad to be Out of All Danger again. - -Christopher Robin came slowly down his tree. - -"Silly old Bear," he said, "what _were_ you doing? First you went round -the spinney twice by yourself, and then Piglet ran after you and you -went round again together, and then you were just going round a fourth -time----" - -"Wait a moment," said Winnie-the-Pooh, holding up his paw. - -He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he could think. Then -he fitted his paw into one of the Tracks ... and then he scratched his -nose twice, and stood up. - -"Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh. - -"I see now," said Winnie-the-Pooh. - -"I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and I am a Bear of No Brain -at All." - -"You're the Best Bear in All the World," said Christopher Robin -soothingly. - -"Am I?" said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly. - -"Anyhow," he said, "it is nearly Luncheon Time." - -So he went home for it. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - IN WHICH EEYORE LOSES A TAIL - AND POOH FINDS ONE - - -The Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thistly corner of -the forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought -about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and -sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch -as which?"--and sometimes he didn't quite know what he _was_ thinking -about. So when Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very glad -to be able to stop thinking for a little, in order to say "How do you -do?" in a gloomy manner to him. - -"And how are you?" said Winnie-the-Pooh. - -Eeyore shook his head from side to side. - -"Not very how," he said. "I don't seem to have felt at all how for a -long time." - -"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at -you." - -So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh -walked all round him once. - -"Why, what's happened to your tail?" he said in surprise. - -"What _has_ happened to it?" said Eeyore. - -"It isn't there!" - -"Are you sure?" - -"Well, either a tail _is_ there or it isn't there. You can't make a -mistake about it. And yours _isn't_ there!" - -"Then what is?" - -"Nothing." - -"Let's have a look," said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the -place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that -he couldn't catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came -back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked -between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, "I -believe you're right." - -"Of course I'm right," said Pooh. - -"That Accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily. "It Explains -Everything. No Wonder." - -"You must have left it somewhere," said Winnie-the-Pooh. - -"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he added, -after a long silence. - -Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn't -quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead. - -"Eeyore," he said solemnly, "I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for -you." - -"Thank you, Pooh," answered Eeyore. "You're a real friend," said he. -"Not like Some," he said. - -So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore's tail. - -It was a fine spring morning in the forest as he started out. Little -soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in -front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding -away suddenly so that the next might have his turn. Through them and -between them the sun shone bravely; and a copse which had worn its firs -all the year round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace -which the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney -marched Bear; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky beds of -streams, up steep banks of sandstone into the heather again; and so at -last, tired and hungry, to the Hundred Acre Wood. For it was in the -Hundred Acre Wood that Owl lived. - -"And if anyone knows anything about anything," said Bear to himself, -"it's Owl who knows something about something," he said, "or my name's -not Winnie-the-Pooh," he said. "Which it is," he added. "So there you -are." - -Owl lived at The Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which -was grander than anybody else's, or seemed so to Bear, because it had -both a knocker _and_ a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a -notice which said: - - PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD. - -Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said: - - PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID. - -These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only -one in the forest who could spell; for Owl, wise though he was in many -ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow -went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTEREDTOAST. - -Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully, first from left to -right, and afterwards, in case he had missed some of it, from right to -left. Then, to make quite sure, he knocked and pulled the knocker, and -he pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud -voice, "Owl! I require an answer! It's Bear speaking." And the door -opened, and Owl looked out. - -"Hallo, Pooh," he said. "How's things?" - -"Terrible and Sad," said Pooh, "because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, -has lost his tail. And he's Moping about it. So could you very kindly -tell me how to find it for him?" - -"Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." - -"What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of -Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." - -"It means the Thing to Do." - -"As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh humbly. - -"The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then----" - -"Just a moment," said Pooh, holding up his paw. "_What_ do we do to -this--what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell -me." - -"I _didn't_ sneeze." - -"Yes, you did, Owl." - -"Excuse me, Pooh, I didn't. You can't sneeze without knowing it." - -"Well, you can't know it without something having been sneezed." - -"What I _said_ was, 'First _Issue_ a Reward'." - -"You're doing it again," said Pooh sadly. - -"A Reward!" said Owl very loudly. "We write a notice to say that we will -give a large something to anybody who finds Eeyore's tail." - -"I see, I see," said Pooh, nodding his head. "Talking about large -somethings," he went on dreamily, "I generally have a small something -about now--about this time in the morning," and he looked wistfully at -the cupboard in the corner of Owl's parlour; "just a mouthful of -condensed milk or whatnot, with perhaps a lick of honey----" - -"Well, then," said Owl, "we write out this notice, and we put it up all -over the forest." - -"A lick of honey," murmured Bear to himself, "or--or not, as the case -may be." And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what -Owl was saying. - -But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at last he -came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write -out this notice was Christopher Robin. - -"It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you see them, -Pooh?" - -For some time now Pooh had been saying "Yes" and "No" in turn, with his -eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and having said, "Yes, yes," last -time, he said "No, not at all," now, without really knowing what Owl was -talking about. - -"Didn't you see them?" said Owl, a little surprised. "Come and look at -them now." - -So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice -below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and -the more he looked at the bell-rope, the more he felt that he had seen -something like it, somewhere else, sometime before. - -"Handsome bell-rope, isn't it?" said Owl. - -Pooh nodded. - -"It reminds me of something," he said, "but I can't think what. Where -did you get it?" - -"I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, and I -thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing -happened, and then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my -hand, and as nobody seemed to want it, I took it home, and----" - -"Owl," said Pooh solemnly, "you made a mistake. Somebody did want it." - -"Who?" - -"Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was--he was fond of it." - -"Fond of it?" - -"Attached to it," said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly. - - * * * * * - -So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back to Eeyore; and -when Christopher Robin had nailed it on in its right place again, Eeyore -frisked about the forest, waving his tail so happily that -Winnie-the-Pooh came over all funny, and had to hurry home for a little -snack of something to sustain him. And, wiping his mouth half an hour -afterwards, he sang to himself proudly: - - _Who found the Tail?_ - "I," said Pooh, - "At a quarter to two - (Only it was quarter to eleven really), - _I_ found the Tail!" - - - - - CHAPTER V - - IN WHICH PIGLET MEETS A HEFFALUMP - - -One day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet were -all talking together, Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was -eating and said carelessly: "I saw a Heffalump to-day, Piglet." - -"What was it doing?" asked Piglet. - -"Just lumping along," said Christopher Robin. "I don't think it saw -_me_." - -"I saw one once," said Piglet. "At least, I think I did," he said. "Only -perhaps it wasn't." - -"So did I," said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like. - -"You don't often see them," said Christopher Robin carelessly. - -"Not now," said Piglet. - -"Not at this time of year," said Pooh. - -Then they all talked about something else, until it was time for Pooh -and Piglet to go home together. At first as they stumped along the path -which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they didn't say much to each other; -but when they came to the stream and had helped each other across the -stepping stones, and were able to walk side by side again over the -heather, they began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and -Piglet said, "If you see what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh said, "It's just -what I think myself, Piglet," and Piglet said, "But, on the other hand, -Pooh, we must remember," and Pooh said, "Quite true, Piglet, although I -had forgotten it for the moment." And then, just as they came to the Six -Pine Trees, Pooh looked round to see that nobody else was listening, and -said in a very solemn voice: - -"Piglet, I have decided something." - -"What have you decided, Pooh?" - -"I have decided to catch a Heffalump." - -Pooh nodded his head several times as he said this, and waited for -Piglet to say "How?" or "Pooh, you couldn't!" or something helpful of -that sort, but Piglet said nothing. The fact was Piglet was wishing that -_he_ had thought about it first. - -"I shall do it," said Pooh, after waiting a little longer, "by means of -a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so you will have to help me, -Piglet." - -"Pooh," said Piglet, feeling quite happy again now, "I will." And then -he said, "How shall we do it?" and Pooh said, "That's just it. How?" And -then they sat down together to think it out. - -Pooh's first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep Pit, and then the -Heffalump would come along and fall into the Pit, and---- - -"Why?" said Piglet. - -"Why what?" said Pooh. - -"Why would he fall in?" - -Pooh rubbed his nose with his paw, and said that the Heffalump might be -walking along, humming a little song, and looking up at the sky, -wondering if it would rain, and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit -until he was half-way down, when it would be too late. - -Piglet said that this was a very good Trap, but supposing it were -raining already? - -Pooh rubbed his nose again, and said that he hadn't thought of that. And -then he brightened up, and said that, if it were raining already, the -Heffalump would be looking at the sky wondering if it would _clear up_, -and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way -down.... When it would be too late. - -Piglet said that, now that this point had been explained, he thought it -was a Cunning Trap. - -Pooh was very proud when he heard this, and he felt that the Heffalump -was as good as caught already, but there was just one other thing which -had to be thought about, and it was this. _Where should they dig the -Very Deep Pit?_ - -Piglet said that the best place would be somewhere where a Heffalump -was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot farther on. - -"But then he would see us digging it," said Pooh. - -"Not if he was looking at the sky." - -"He would Suspect," said Pooh, "if he happened to look down." He thought -for a long time and then added sadly, "It isn't as easy as I thought. I -suppose that's why Heffalumps hardly _ever_ get caught." - -"That must be it," said Piglet. - -They sighed and got up; and when they had taken a few gorse prickles out -of themselves they sat down again; and all the time Pooh was saying to -himself, "If only I could _think_ of something!" For he felt sure that a -Very Clever Brain could catch a Heffalump if only he knew the right way -to go about it. - -"Suppose," he said to Piglet, "_you_ wanted to catch _me_, how would you -do it?" - -"Well," said Piglet, "I should do it like this. I should make a Trap, -and I should put a Jar of Honey in the Trap, and you would smell it, and -you would go in after it, and----" - -"And I would go in after it," said Pooh excitedly, "only very carefully -so as not to hurt myself, and I would get to the Jar of Honey, and I -should lick round the edges first of all, pretending that there wasn't -any more, you know, and then I should walk away and think about it a -little, and then I should come back and start licking in the middle of -the jar, and then----" - -"Yes, well never mind about that. There you would be, and there I should -catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Heffalumps like? -I should think acorns, shouldn't you? We'll get a lot of----I say, wake -up, Pooh!" - -Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said -that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns. Piglet didn't -think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Piglet -remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, _he_ would have to find -the acorns, but if they put honey, then Pooh would have to give up some -of his own honey, so he said, "All right, honey then," just as Pooh -remembered it too, and was going to say, "All right, haycorns." - -"Honey," said Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now -settled. "_I'll_ dig the pit, while _you_ go and get the honey." - -"Very well," said Pooh, and he stumped off. - -As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, -and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had HUNNY -written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and -looked at it, and it _looked_ just like honey. "But you never can tell," -said Pooh. "I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just -this colour." So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick. "Yes," he -said, "it is. No doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down -to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course," he said, "somebody put -cheese in at the bottom just for a joke. Perhaps I had better go a -_little_ further ... just in case ... in case Heffalumps _don't_ -like cheese ... same as me.... Ah!" And he gave a deep sigh. "I -_was_ right. It _is_ honey, right the way down." - -Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Piglet, and Piglet -looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said, "Got it?" and -Pooh said, "Yes, but it isn't quite a full jar," and he threw it down to -Piglet, and Piglet said, "No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?" -and Pooh said "Yes." Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the bottom -of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together. - -"Well, good night, Pooh," said Piglet, when they had got to Pooh's -house. "And we meet at six o'clock to-morrow morning by the Pine Trees, -and see how many Heffalumps we've got in our Trap." - -"Six o'clock, Piglet. And have you got any string?" - -"No. Why do you want string?" - -"To lead them home with." - -"Oh! ... I _think_ Heffalumps come if you whistle." - -"Some do and some don't. You never can tell with Heffalumps. Well, good -night!" - -"Good night!" - -And off Piglet trotted to his house TRESPASSERS W, while Pooh made his -preparations for bed. - -Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Pooh -woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling. He had had that sinking feeling -before, and he knew what it meant. _He was hungry._ So he went to the -larder, and he stood on a chair and reached up to the top shelf, and -found--nothing. - -"That's funny," he thought. "I know I had a jar of honey there. A full -jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had HUNNY written on it, -so that I should know it was honey. That's very funny." And then he -began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a -murmur to himself. Like this: - - It's very, very funny, - 'Cos I _know_ I had some honey; - 'Cos it had a label on, - Saying HUNNY. - A goloptious full-up pot too, - And I don't know where it's got to, - No, I don't know where it's gone-- - Well, it's funny. - -He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, -when suddenly he remembered. He had put it into the Cunning Trap to -catch the Heffalump. - -"Bother!" said Pooh. "It all comes of trying to be kind to Heffalumps." -And he got back into bed. - -But he couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn't. -He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to -sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that -was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight -for a pot of Pooh's honey, _and eating it all_. For some minutes he lay -there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump -was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I -don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer. He -jumped out of bed, he ran out of the house, and he ran straight to the -Six Pine Trees. - -The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in the sky over the -Hundred Acre Wood which seemed to show that it was waking up and would -soon be kicking off the clothes. In the half-light the Pine Trees looked -cold and lonely, and the Very Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and -Pooh's jar of honey at the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and -no more. But as he got nearer to it his nose told him that it was indeed -honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his mouth, ready -for it. - -"Bother!" said Pooh, as he got his nose inside the jar. "A Heffalump has -been eating it!" And then he thought a little and said, "Oh, no, _I_ -did. I forgot." - -Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little left at the very -bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head right in, and began to -lick.... - -By and by Piglet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to himself, "Oh!" -Then he said bravely, "Yes," and then, still more bravely, "Quite so." -But he didn't feel very brave, for the word which was really jiggeting -about in his brain was "Heffalumps." - -What was a Heffalump like? - -Was it Fierce? - -_Did_ it come when you whistled? And _how_ did it come? - -Was it Fond of Pigs at all? - -If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference _what sort of Pig_? - -Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference _if the -Pig had a grandfather called TRESPASSERS WILLIAM_? - -He didn't know the answer to any of these questions ... and he was -going to see his first Heffalump in about an hour from now! - -Of course Pooh would be with him, and it was much more Friendly with -two. But suppose Heffalumps were Very Fierce with Pigs _and_ Bears? -Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a headache, and couldn't go -up to the Six Pine Trees this morning? But then suppose that it was a -very fine day, and there was no Heffalump in the trap, here he would be, -in bed all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What should -he do? - -And then he had a Clever Idea. He would go up very quietly to the Six -Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there -_was_ a Heffalump there. And if there was, he would go back to bed, and -if there wasn't, he wouldn't. - -So off he went. At first he thought that there wouldn't be a Heffalump -in the Trap, and then he thought that there would, and as he got nearer -he was _sure_ that there would, because he could hear it heffalumping -about it like anything. - -"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" said Piglet to himself. And he wanted to -run away. But somehow, having got so near, he felt that he must just see -what a Heffalump was like. So he crept to the side of the Trap and -looked in.... - -And all the time Winnie-the-Pooh had been trying to get the honey-jar -off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck. - -"_Bother!_" he said, inside the jar, and "_Oh, help!_" and, mostly, -"_Ow!_" And he tried bumping it against things, but as he couldn't see -what he was bumping it against, it didn't help him; and he tried to -climb out of the Trap, but as he could see nothing but jar, and not much -of that, he couldn't find his way. So at last he lifted up his head, jar -and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair ... and -it was at that moment that Piglet looked down. - -"Help, help!" cried Piglet, "a Heffalump, a Horrible Heffalump!" and he -scampered off as hard as he could, still crying out, "Help, help, a -Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff, Hoff, a Hellible Horralump! Holl, Holl, a -Hoffable Hellerump!" And he didn't stop crying and scampering until he -got to Christopher Robin's house. - -"Whatever's the matter, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin, who was just -getting up. - -"Heff," said Piglet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, "a -Heff--a Heff--a Heffalump." - -"Where?" - -"Up there," said Piglet, waving his paw. - -"What did it look like?" - -"Like--like----It had the biggest head you ever saw, Christopher Robin. -A great enormous thing, like--like nothing. A huge big--well, like a--I -don't know--like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar." - -"Well," said Christopher Robin, putting on his shoes, "I shall go and -look at it. Come on." - -Piglet wasn't afraid if he had Christopher Robin with him, so off they -went.... - -"I can hear it, can't you?" said Piglet anxiously, as they got near. - -"I can hear _something_," said Christopher Robin. - -It was Pooh bumping his head against a tree-root he had found. - -"There!" said Piglet. "Isn't it _awful_?" And he held on tight to -Christopher Robin's hand. - -Suddenly Christopher Robin began to laugh ... and he laughed ... and he -laughed ... and he laughed. And while he was still laughing--_Crash_ -went the Heffalump's head against the tree-root, Smash went the jar, -and out came Pooh's head again.... - -Then Piglet saw what a Foolish Piglet he had been, and he was so ashamed -of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a -headache. But Christopher Robin and Pooh went home to breakfast -together. - -"Oh, Bear!" said Christopher Robin. "How I do love you!" - -"So do I," said Pooh. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - IN WHICH EEYORE HAS A BIRTHDAY - AND GETS TWO PRESENTS - - -Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and -looked at himself in the water. - -"Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." - -He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed -across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at -himself in the water again. - -"As I thought," he said. "No better from _this_ side. But nobody minds. -Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is." - -There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came -Pooh. - -"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh. - -"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it _is_ a good -morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he. - -"Why, what's the matter?" - -"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's -all there is to it." - -"Can't all _what_?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose. - -"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush." - -"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, "What -mulberry bush is that?" - -"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word meaning bonhommy," he -explained. "I'm not complaining, but There It Is." - -Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded -to him like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a -Bear of Very Little Brain. So he sang _Cottleston Pie_ instead: - - Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, - A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly. - Ask me a riddle and I reply: - "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie._" - -That was the first verse. When he had finished it, Eeyore didn't -actually say that he didn't like it, so Pooh very kindly sang the second -verse to him: - - Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, - A fish can't whistle and neither can I. - Ask me a riddle and I reply: - "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie_." - -Eeyore still said nothing at all, so Pooh hummed the third verse quietly -to himself: - - Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie, - Why does a chicken, I don't know why. - Ask me a riddle and I reply: - "_Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie_." - -"That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go -gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself." - -"I am," said Pooh. - -"Some can," said Eeyore. - -"Why, what's the matter?" - -"_Is_ anything the matter?" - -"You seem so sad, Eeyore." - -"Sad? Why should I be sad? It's my birthday. The happiest day of the -year." - -"Your birthday?" said Pooh in great surprise. - -"Of course it is. Can't you see? Look at all the presents I have had." -He waved a foot from side to side. "Look at the birthday cake. Candles -and pink sugar." - -Pooh looked--first to the right and then to the left. - -"Presents?" said Pooh. "Birthday cake?" said Pooh. "_Where?_" - -"Can't you see them?" - -"No," said Pooh. - -"Neither can I," said Eeyore. "Joke," he explained. "Ha ha!" - -Pooh scratched his head, being a little puzzled by all this. - -"But is it really your birthday?" he asked. - -"It is." - -"Oh! Well, Many happy returns of the day, Eeyore." - -"And many happy returns to you, Pooh Bear." - -"But it isn't _my_ birthday." - -"No, it's mine." - -"But you said 'Many happy returns'----" - -"Well, why not? You don't always want to be miserable on my birthday, do -you?" - -"Oh, I see," said Pooh. - -"It's bad enough," said Eeyore, almost breaking down, "being miserable -myself, what with no presents and no cake and no candles, and no proper -notice taken of me at all, but if everybody else is going to be -miserable too----" - -This was too much for Pooh. "Stay there!" he called to Eeyore, as he -turned and hurried back home as quick as he could; for he felt that he -must get poor Eeyore a present of _some_ sort at once, and he could -always think of a proper one afterwards. - -Outside his house he found Piglet, jumping up and down trying to reach -the knocker. - -"Hallo, Piglet," he said. - -"Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet. - -"What are _you_ trying to do?" - -"I was trying to reach the knocker," said Piglet. "I just came -round----" - -"Let me do it for you," said Pooh kindly. So he reached up and knocked -at the door. "I have just seen Eeyore," he began, "and poor Eeyore is in -a Very Sad Condition, because it's his birthday, and nobody has taken -any notice of it, and he's very Gloomy--you know what Eeyore is--and -there he was, and----What a long time whoever lives here is answering -this door." And he knocked again. - -"But Pooh," said Piglet, "it's your own house!" - -"Oh!" said Pooh. "So it is," he said. "Well, let's go in." - -So in they went. The first thing Pooh did was to go to the cupboard to -see if he had quite a small jar of honey left; and he had, so he took it -down. - -"I'm giving this to Eeyore," he explained, "as a present. What are _you_ -going to give?" - -"Couldn't I give it too?" said Piglet. "From both of us?" - -"No," said Pooh. "That would _not_ be a good plan." - -"All right, then, I'll give him a balloon. I've got one left from my -party. I'll go and get it now, shall I?" - -"That, Piglet, is a _very_ good idea. It is just what Eeyore wants to -cheer him up. Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon." - -So off Piglet trotted; and in the other direction went Pooh, with his -jar of honey. - -It was a warm day, and he had a long way to go. He hadn't gone more than -half-way when a sort of funny feeling began to creep all over him. It -began at the tip of his nose and trickled all through him and out at the -soles of his feet. It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, -"Now then, Pooh, time for a little something." - -"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I didn't know it was as late as that." So he -sat down and took the top off his jar of honey. "Lucky I brought this -with me," he thought. "Many a bear going out on a warm day like this -would never have thought of bringing a little something with him." And -he began to eat. - -"Now let me see," he thought, as he took his last lick of the inside of -the jar, "where was I going? Ah, yes, Eeyore." He got up slowly. - -And then, suddenly, he remembered. He had eaten Eeyore's birthday -present! - -"_Bother!_" said Pooh. "What _shall_ I do? I _must_ give him -_something_." - -For a little while he couldn't think of anything. Then he thought: -"Well, it's a very nice pot, even if there's no honey in it, and if I -washed it clean, and got somebody to write '_A Happy Birthday_' on it, -Eeyore could keep things in it, which might be Useful." So, as he was -just passing the Hundred Acre Wood, he went inside to call on Owl, who -lived there. - -"Good morning, Owl," he said. - -"Good morning, Pooh," said Owl. - -"Many happy returns of Eeyore's birthday," said Pooh. - -"Oh, is that what it is?" - -"What are you giving him, Owl?" - -"What are _you_ giving him, Pooh?" - -"I'm giving him a Useful Pot to Keep Things In, and I wanted to ask -you----" - -"Is this it?" said Owl, taking it out of Pooh's paw. - -"Yes, and I wanted to ask you----" - -"Somebody has been keeping honey in it," said Owl. - -"You can keep _anything_ in it," said Pooh earnestly. "It's Very Useful -like that. And I wanted to ask you----" - -"You ought to write '_A Happy Birthday_' on it." - -"_That_ was what I wanted to ask you," said Pooh. "Because my spelling -is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the -wrong places. Would _you_ write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?" - -"It's a nice pot," said Owl, looking at it all round. "Couldn't I give -it too? From both of us?" - -"No," said Pooh. "That would _not_ be a good plan. Now I'll just wash it -first, and then you can write on it." - -Well, he washed the pot out, and dried it, while Owl licked the end of -his pencil, and wondered how to spell "birthday." - -"Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously. "There's a notice -about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin -wrote. Could you read it?" - -"Christopher Robin told me what it said, and _then_ I could." - -"Well, I'll tell you what _this_ says, and then you'll be able to." - -So Owl wrote ... and this is what he wrote: - - HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY. - -Pooh looked on admiringly. - -"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly. - -"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it. - -"Well, _actually_, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy Birthday with -love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a long -thing like that." - -"Oh, I see," said Pooh. - -While all this was happening, Piglet had gone back to his own house to -get Eeyore's balloon. He held it very tightly against himself, so that -it shouldn't blow away, and he ran as fast as he could so as to get to -Eeyore before Pooh did; for he thought that he would like to be the -first one to give a present, just as if he had thought of it without -being told by anybody. And running along, and thinking how pleased -Eeyore would be, he didn't look where he was going ... and suddenly he -put his foot in a rabbit hole, and fell down flat on his face. - -BANG!!!???***!!! - -Piglet lay there, wondering what had happened. At first he thought that -the whole world had blown up; and then he thought that perhaps only the -Forest part of it had; and then he thought that perhaps only _he_ had, -and he was now alone in the moon or somewhere, and would never see -Christopher Robin or Pooh or Eeyore again. And then he thought, "Well, -even if I'm in the moon, I needn't be face downwards all the time," so -he got cautiously up and looked about him. - -He was still in the Forest! - -"Well, that's funny," he thought. "I wonder what that bang was. I -couldn't have made such a noise just falling down. And where's my -balloon? And what's that small piece of damp rag doing?" - -It was the balloon! - -"Oh, dear!" said Piglet "Oh, dear, oh, dearie, dearie, dear! Well, it's -too late now. I can't go back, and I haven't another balloon, and -perhaps Eeyore doesn't _like_ balloons so _very_ much." - -So he trotted on, rather sadly now, and down he came to the side of the -stream where Eeyore was, and called out to him. - -"Good morning, Eeyore," shouted Piglet. - -"Good morning, Little Piglet," said Eeyore. "If it _is_ a good morning," -he said. "Which I doubt," said he. "Not that it matters," he said. - -"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet, having now got closer. - -Eeyore stopped looking at himself in the stream, and turned to stare at -Piglet. - -"Just say that again," he said. - -"Many hap----" - -"Wait a moment." - -Balancing on three legs, he began to bring his fourth leg very -cautiously up to his ear. "I did this yesterday," he explained, as he -fell down for the third time. "It's quite easy. It's so as I can hear -better.... There, that's done it! Now then, what were you saying?" He -pushed his ear forward with his hoof. - -"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet again. - -"Meaning me?" - -"Of course, Eeyore." - -"My birthday?" - -"Yes." - -"Me having a real birthday?" - -"Yes, Eeyore, and I've brought you a present." - -Eeyore took down his right hoof from his right ear, turned round, and -with great difficulty put up his left hoof. - -"I must have that in the other ear," he said. "Now then." - -"A present," said Piglet very loudly. - -"Meaning me again?" - -"Yes." - -"My birthday still?" - -"Of course, Eeyore." - -"Me going on having a real birthday?" - -"Yes, Eeyore, and I brought you a balloon." - -"_Balloon?_" said Eeyore. "You did say balloon? One of those big -coloured things you blow up? Gaiety, song-and-dance, here we are and -there we are?" - -"Yes, but I'm afraid--I'm very sorry, Eeyore--but when I was running -along to bring it you, I fell down." - -"Dear, dear, how unlucky! You ran too fast, I expect. You didn't hurt -yourself, Little Piglet?" - -"No, but I--I--oh, Eeyore, I burst the balloon!" - -There was a very long silence. - -"My balloon?" said Eeyore at last. - -Piglet nodded. - -"My birthday balloon?" - -"Yes, Eeyore," said Piglet sniffing a little. "Here it is. With--with -many happy returns of the day." And he gave Eeyore the small piece of -damp rag. - -"Is this it?" said Eeyore, a little surprised. - -Piglet nodded. - -"My present?" - -Piglet nodded again. - -"The balloon?" - -"Yes." - -"Thank you, Piglet," said Eeyore. "You don't mind my asking," he went -on, "but what colour was this balloon when it--when it _was_ a balloon?" - -"Red." - -"I just wondered.... Red," he murmured to himself. "My favourite -colour.... How big was it?" - -"About as big as me." - -"I just wondered.... About as big as Piglet," he said to himself -sadly. "My favourite size. Well, well." - -Piglet felt very miserable, and didn't know what to say. He was still -opening his mouth to begin something, and then deciding that it wasn't -any good saying _that_, when he heard a shout from the other side of the -river, and there was Pooh. - -"Many happy returns of the day," called out Pooh, forgetting that he had -said it already. - -"Thank you, Pooh, I'm having them," said Eeyore gloomily. - -"I've brought you a little present," said Pooh excitedly. - -"I've had it," said Eeyore. - -Pooh had now splashed across the stream to Eeyore, and Piglet was -sitting a little way off, his head in his paws, snuffling to himself. - -"It's a Useful Pot," said Pooh. "Here it is. And it's got 'A Very Happy -Birthday with love from Pooh' written on it. That's what all that -writing is. And it's for putting things in. There!" - -When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited. - -"Why!" he said. "I believe my Balloon will just go into that Pot!" - -"Oh, no, Eeyore," said Pooh. "Balloons are much too big to go into Pots. -What you do with a balloon is, you hold the ballon----" - -"Not mine," said Eeyore proudly. "Look, Piglet!" And as Piglet looked -sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up with his teeth, and -placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; -and then picked it up again and put it carefully back. - -"So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!" - -"So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!" - -"Doesn't it?" said Eeyore. "It goes in and out like anything." - -"I'm very glad," said Pooh happily, "that I thought of giving you a -Useful Pot to put things in." - -"I'm very glad," said Piglet happily, "that I thought of giving you -Something to put in a Useful Pot." - -But Eeyore wasn't listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting -it back again, as happy as could be.... - - * * * * * - -"And didn't _I_ give him anything?" asked Christopher Robin sadly. - -"Of course you did," I said. "You gave him--don't you remember--a -little--a little----" - -"I gave him a box of paints to paint things with." - -"That was it." - -"Why didn't I give it to him in the morning?" - -"You were so busy getting his party ready for him. He had a cake with -icing on the top, and three candles, and his name in pink sugar, -and----" - -"Yes, _I_ remember," said Christopher Robin. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - IN WHICH KANGA AND BABY ROO COME - TO THE FOREST, AND PIGLET HAS A BATH - - -Nobody seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the -Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. When Pooh asked Christopher Robin, "How did -they come here?" Christopher Robin said, "In the Usual Way, if you know -what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh, who didn't, said "Oh!" Then he nodded his -head twice and said, "In the Usual Way. Ah!" Then he went to call upon -his friend Piglet to see what _he_ thought about it. And at Piglet's -house he found Rabbit. So they all talked about it together. - -"What I don't like about it is this," said Rabbit. "Here are we--you, -Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me--and suddenly----" - -"And Eeyore," said Pooh. - -"And Eeyore--and then suddenly----" - -"And Owl," said Pooh. - -"And Owl--and then all of a sudden----" - -"Oh, and Eeyore," said Pooh. "I was forgetting _him_." - -"Here--we--are," said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, "all--of--us, -and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning and, what do we find? We find -a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we have never even heard -before! An animal who carries her family about with her in her pocket! -Suppose _I_ carried _my_ family about with me in _my_ pocket, how many -pockets should I want?" - -"Sixteen," said Piglet. - -"Seventeen, isn't it?" said Rabbit. "And one more for a -handkerchief--that's eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit! I haven't -time." - -There was a long and thoughtful silence ... and then Pooh, who had -been frowning very hard for some minutes, said: "_I_ make it fifteen." - -"What?" said Rabbit. - -"Fifteen." - -"Fifteen what?" - -"Your family." - -"What about them?" - -Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit had been talking -about his family. - -"Did I?" said Rabbit carelessly. - -"Yes, you said----" - -"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet impatiently. - -"The question is, What are we to do about Kanga?" - -"Oh, I see," said Pooh. - -"The best way," said Rabbit, "would be this. The best way would be to -steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when Kanga says, 'Where's Baby -Roo?' we say, '_Aha!_'" - -"_Aha!_" said Pooh, practising. "_Aha! Aha!_ ... Of course," he went -on, "we could say 'Aha!' even if we hadn't stolen Baby Roo." - -"Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain." - -"I know," said Pooh humbly. - -"We say '_Aha!_' so that Kanga knows that _we_ know where Baby Roo is. -'_Aha!_' means 'We'll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go -away from the Forest and never come back.' Now don't talk while I -think." - -Pooh went into a corner and tried saying 'Aha!' in that sort of voice. -Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what Rabbit said, and -sometimes it seemed to him that it didn't. "I suppose it's just -practice," he thought. "I wonder if Kanga will have to practise too so -as to understand it." - -"There's just one thing," said Piglet, fidgeting a bit. "I was talking -to Christopher Robin, and he said that a Kanga was Generally Regarded as -One of the Fiercer Animals. I am not frightened of Fierce Animals in the -ordinary way, but it is well known that, if One of the Fiercer Animals -is Deprived of Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer -Animals. In which case '_Aha!_' is perhaps a _foolish_ thing to say." - -"Piglet," said Rabbit, taking out a pencil, and licking the end of it, -"you haven't any pluck." - -"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're -only a Very Small Animal." - -Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: - -"It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in -the adventure before us." - -Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful, that he forgot to be -frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to say that Kangas were -only Fierce during the winter months, being at other times of an -Affectionate Disposition, he could hardly sit still, he was so eager to -begin being useful at once. - -"What about me?" said Pooh sadly. "I suppose _I_ shan't be useful?" - -"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet comfortingly. "Another time perhaps." - -"Without Pooh," said Rabbit solemnly as he sharpened his pencil, "the -adventure would be impossible." - -"Oh!" said Piglet, and tried not to look disappointed. But Pooh went -into a corner of the room and said proudly to himself, "Impossible -without Me! _That_ sort of Bear." - -"Now listen all of you," said Rabbit when he had finished writing, and -Pooh and Piglet sat listening very eagerly with their mouths open. This -was what Rabbit read out: - - PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO - - 1. _General Remarks._ Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. - - 2. _More General Remarks._ Kanga never takes her eye off Baby Roo, - except when he's safely buttoned up in her pocket. - - 3. _Therefore._ If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must get a Long - Start, because Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. - (_See_ 1.) - - 4. _A Thought._ If Roo had jumped out of Kanga's pocket and Piglet - had jumped in, Kanga wouldn't know the difference, because Piglet - is a Very Small Animal. - - 5. Like Roo. - - 6. But Kanga would have to be looking the other way first, so as not - to see Piglet jumping in. - - 7. See 2. - - 8. _Another Thought._ But if Pooh was talking to her very excitedly, - she _might_ look the other way for a moment. - - 9. And then I could run away with Roo. - - 10. Quickly. - - 11. _And Kanga wouldn't discover the difference until Afterwards._ - -Well, Rabbit read this out proudly, and for a little while after he had -read it nobody said anything. And then Piglet, who had been opening and -shutting his mouth without making any noise, managed to say very -huskily: - -"And--Afterwards?" - -"How do you mean?" - -"When Kanga _does_ Discover the Difference?" - -"Then we all say '_Aha!_'" - -"All three of us?" - -"Yes." - -"Oh!" - -"Why, what's the trouble, Piglet?" - -"Nothing," said Piglet, "as long as _we all three_ say it. As long as we -all three say it," said Piglet, "I don't mind," he said, "but I -shouldn't care to say '_Aha!_' by myself. It wouldn't sound _nearly_ so -well. By the way," he said, "you _are_ quite sure about what you said -about the winter months?" - -"The winter months?" - -"Yes, only being Fierce in the Winter Months." - -"Oh, yes, yes, that's all right. Well, Pooh? You see what you have to -do?" - -"No," said Pooh Bear. "Not yet," he said. "What _do_ I do?" - -"Well, you just have to talk very hard to Kanga so as she doesn't notice -anything." - -"Oh! What about?" - -"Anything you like." - -"You mean like telling her a little bit of poetry or something?" - -"That's it," said Rabbit. "Splendid. Now come along." - -So they all went out to look for Kanga. - -Kanga and Roo were spending a quiet afternoon in a sandy part of the -Forest. Baby Roo was practising very small jumps in the sand, and -falling down mouse-holes and climbing out of them, and Kanga was -fidgeting about and saying "Just one more jump, dear, and then we must -go home." And at that moment who should come stumping up the hill but -Pooh. - -"Good afternoon, Kanga." - -"Good afternoon, Pooh." - -"Look at me jumping," squeaked Roo, and fell into another mouse-hole. - -"Hallo, Roo, my little fellow!" - -"We were just going home," said Kanga. "Good afternoon, Rabbit. Good -afternoon, Piglet." - -Rabbit and Piglet, who had now come up from the other side of the hill, -said "Good afternoon," and "Hallo, Roo," and Roo asked them to look at -him jumping, so they stayed and looked. - -And Kanga looked too.... - -"Oh, Kanga," said Pooh, after Rabbit had winked at him twice, "I don't -know if you are interested in Poetry at all?" - -"Hardly at all," said Kanga. - -"Oh!" said Pooh. - -"Roo, dear, just one more jump and then we must go home." - -There was a short silence while Roo fell down another mouse-hole. - -"Go on," said Rabbit in a loud whisper behind his paw. - -"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh, "I made up a little piece as I was -coming along. It went like this. Er--now let me see----" - -"Fancy!" said Kanga. "Now Roo, dear----" - -"You'll like this piece of poetry," said Rabbit. - -"You'll love it," said Piglet. - -"You must listen very carefully," said Rabbit. - -"So as not to miss any of it," said Piglet. - -"Oh, yes," said Kanga, but she still looked at Baby Roo. - -"_How_ did it go, Pooh?" said Rabbit. - -Pooh gave a little cough and began. - - LINES WRITTEN BY A BEAR OF VERY LITTLE BRAIN - - On Monday, when the sun is hot - I wonder to myself a lot: - "Now is it true, or is it not, - "That what is which and which is what?" - - On Tuesday, when it hails and snows, - The feeling on me grows and grows - That hardly anybody knows - If those are these or these are those. - - On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, - And I have nothing else to do, - I sometimes wonder if it's true - That who is what and what is who. - - On Thursday, when it starts to freeze - And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees, - How very readily one sees - That these are whose--but whose are these? - - On Friday---- - -"Yes, it is, isn't it?" said Kanga, not waiting to hear what happened on -Friday. "Just one more jump, Roo, dear, and then we really _must_ be -going." - -Rabbit gave Pooh a hurrying-up sort of nudge. - -"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh quickly, "have you ever noticed that tree -right over there?" - -"Where?" said Kanga. "Now, Roo----" - -"Right over there," said Pooh, pointing behind Kanga's back. - -"No," said Kanga. "Now jump in, Roo, dear, and we'll go home." - -"You ought to look at that tree right over there," said Rabbit. "Shall I -lift you in, Roo?" And he picked up Roo in his paws. - -"I can see a bird in it from here," said Pooh. "Or is it a fish?" - -"You ought to see that bird from here," said Rabbit. "Unless it's a -fish." - -"It isn't a fish, it's a bird," said Piglet. - -"So it is," said Rabbit. - -"Is it a starling or a blackbird?" said Pooh. - -"That's the whole question," said Rabbit. "Is it a blackbird or a -starling?" - -And then at last Kanga did turn her head to look. And the moment that -her head was turned, Rabbit said in a loud voice "In you go, Roo!" and -in jumped Piglet into Kanga's pocket, and off scampered Rabbit, with Roo -in his paws, as fast as he could. - -"Why, where's Rabbit?" said Kanga, turning round again. "Are you all -right, Roo, dear?" - -Piglet made a squeaky Roo-noise from the bottom of Kanga's pocket. - -"Rabbit had to go away," said Pooh. "I think he thought of something he -had to go and see about suddenly." - -"And Piglet?" - -"I think Piglet thought of something at the same time. Suddenly." - -"Well, we must be getting home," said Kanga. "Good-bye, Pooh." And in -three large jumps she was gone. - -Pooh looked after her as she went. - -"I wish I could jump like that," he thought. "Some can and some can't. -That's how it is." - -But there were moments when Piglet wished that Kanga couldn't. Often, -when he had had a long walk home through the Forest, he had wished that -he were a bird; but now he thought jerkily to himself at the bottom of -Kanga's pocket, - - this take - "If is shall really to - flying I never it." - -And as he went up in the air he said, "_Ooooooo!_" and as he came down -he said, "_Ow!_" And he was saying, "_Ooooooo-ow, Ooooooo-ow, -Ooooooo-ow_" all the way to Kanga's house. - -Of course as soon as Kanga unbuttoned her pocket, she saw what had -happened. Just for a moment, she thought she was frightened, and then -she knew she wasn't; for she felt quite sure that Christopher Robin -would never let any harm happen to Roo. So she said to herself, "If they -are having a joke with me, I will have a joke with them." - -"Now then, Roo, dear," she said, as she took Piglet out of her pocket. -"Bed-time." - -"_Aha!_" said Piglet, as well as he could after his Terrifying Journey. -But it wasn't a very good "_Aha!_" and Kanga didn't seem to understand -what it meant. - -"Bath first," said Kanga in a cheerful voice. - -"_Aha!_" said Piglet again, looking round anxiously for the others. But -the others weren't there. Rabbit was playing with Baby Roo in his own -house, and feeling more fond of him every minute, and Pooh, who had -decided to be a Kanga, was still at the sandy place on the top of the -Forest, practising jumps. - -"I am not at all sure," said Kanga in a thoughtful voice, "that it -wouldn't be a good idea to have a _cold_ bath this evening. Would you -like that, Roo, dear?" - -Piglet, who had never been really fond of baths, shuddered a long -indignant shudder, and said in as brave a voice as he could: - -"Kanga, I see that the time has come to spleak painly." - -"Funny little Roo," said Kanga, as she got the bath-water ready. - -"I am _not_ Roo," said Piglet loudly. "I am Piglet!" - -"Yes, dear, yes," said Kanga soothingly. "And imitating Piglet's voice -too! So clever of him," she went on, as she took a large bar of yellow -soap out of the cupboard. "What _will_ he be doing next?" - -"Can't you _see_?" shouted Piglet. "Haven't you got _eyes_? _Look_ at -me!" - -"I _am_ looking, Roo, dear," said Kanga rather severely. "And you know -what I told you yesterday about making faces. If you go on making faces -like Piglet's, you will grow up to _look_ like Piglet--and _then_ think -how sorry you will be. Now then, into the bath, and don't let me have to -speak to you about it again." - -Before he knew where he was, Piglet was in the bath, and Kanga was -scrubbing him firmly with a large lathery flannel. - -"Ow!" cried Piglet. "Let me out! I'm Piglet!" - -"Don't open the mouth, dear, or the soap goes in," said Kanga. "There! -What did I tell you?" - -"You--you--you did it on purpose," spluttered Piglet, as soon as he -could speak again ... and then accidentally had another mouthful of -lathery flannel. - -"That's right, dear, don't say anything," said Kanga, and in another -minute Piglet was out of the bath, and being rubbed dry with a towel. - -"Now," said Kanga, "there's your medicine, and then bed." - -"W-w-what medicine?" said Piglet. - -"To make you grow big and strong, dear. You don't want to grow up small -and weak like Piglet, do you? Well, then!" - -At that moment there was a knock at the door. - -"Come in," said Kanga, and in came Christopher Robin. - -"Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin!" cried Piglet. "Tell Kanga who I -am! She keeps saying I'm Roo. I'm _not_ Roo, am I?" - -Christopher Robin looked at him very carefully, and shook his head. - -"You can't be Roo," he said, "because I've just seen Roo playing in -Rabbit's house." - -"Well!" said Kanga. "Fancy that! Fancy my making a mistake like that." - -"There you are!" said Piglet. "I told you so. I'm Piglet." - -Christopher Robin shook his head again. - -"Oh, you're not Piglet," he said. "I know Piglet well, and he's _quite_ -a different colour." - -Piglet began to say that this was because he had just had a bath, and -then he thought that perhaps he wouldn't say that, and as he opened his -mouth to say something else, Kanga slipped the medicine spoon in, and -then patted him on the back and told him that it was really quite a nice -taste when you got used to it. - -"I knew it wasn't Piglet," said Kanga. "I wonder who it can be." - -"Perhaps it's some relation of Pooh's," said Christopher Robin. "What -about a nephew or an uncle or something?" - -Kanga agreed that this was probably what it was, and said that they -would have to call it by some name. - -"I shall call it Pootel," said Christopher Robin. "Henry Pootel for -short." - -And just when it was decided, Henry Pootel wriggled out of Kanga's arms -and jumped to the ground. To his great joy Christopher Robin had left -the door open. Never had Henry Pootel Piglet run so fast as he ran then, -and he didn't stop running until he had got quite close to his house. -But when he was a hundred yards away he stopped running, and rolled the -rest of the way home, so as to get his own nice comfortable colour -again.... - -So Kanga and Roo stayed in the Forest. And every Tuesday Roo spent the -day with his great friend Rabbit, and every Tuesday Kanga spent the day -with her great friend Pooh, teaching him to jump, and every Tuesday -Piglet spent the day with his great friend Christopher Robin. So they -were all happy again. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN LEADS - AN EXPOTITION TO THE NORTH POLE - - -One fine day Pooh had stumped up to the top of the Forest to see if -his friend Christopher Robin was interested in Bears at all. At -breakfast that morning (a simple meal of marmalade spread lightly over a -honeycomb or two) he had suddenly thought of a new song. It began like -this: - - "_Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear._" - -When he had got as far as this, he scratched his head, and thought to -himself "That's a very good start for a song, but what about the second -line?" He tried singing "Ho," two or three times, but it didn't seem to -help. "Perhaps it would be better," he thought, "if I sang Hi for the -life of a Bear." So he sang it ... but it wasn't. "Very well, then," -he said, "I shall sing that first line twice, and perhaps if I sing it -very quickly, I shall find myself singing the third and fourth lines -before I have time to think of them, and that will be a Good Song. Now -then:" - - Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear! - Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear! - I don't much mind if it rains or snows, - 'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice new nose, - I don't much care if it snows or thaws, - 'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice clean paws! - Sing Ho! for a Bear! - Sing Ho! for a Pooh! - And I'll have a little something in an hour or two! - -He was so pleased with this song that he sang it all the way to the top -of the Forest, "and if I go on singing it much longer," he thought, "it -will be time for the little something, and then the last line won't be -true." So he turned it into a hum instead. - -Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big -Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was -going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of -his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready -for Anything. - -"Good-morning, Christopher Robin," he called out. - -"Hallo, Pooh Bear. I can't get this boot on." - -"That's bad," said Pooh. - -"Do you think you could very kindly lean against me, 'cos I keep pulling -so hard that I fall over backwards." - -Pooh sat down, dug his feet into the ground, and pushed hard against -Christopher Robin's back, and Christopher Robin pushed hard against his, -and pulled and pulled at his boot until he had got it on. - -"And that's that," said Pooh. "What do we do next?" - -"We are all going on an Expedition," said Christopher Robin, as he got -up and brushed himself. "Thank you, Pooh." - -"Going on an Expotition?" said Pooh eagerly. "I don't think I've ever -been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?" - -"Expedition, silly old Bear. It's got an 'x' in it." - -"Oh!" said Pooh. "I know." But he didn't really. - -"We're going to discover the North Pole." - -"Oh!" said Pooh again. "What _is_ the North Pole?" he asked. - -"It's just a thing you discover," said Christopher Robin carelessly, not -being quite sure himself. - -"Oh! I see," said Pooh. "Are bears any good at discovering it?" - -"Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of you. It's an -Expedition. That's what an Expedition means. A long line of everybody. -You'd better tell the others to get ready, while I see if my gun's all -right. And we must all bring Provisions." - -"Bring what?" - -"Things to eat." - -"Oh!" said Pooh happily. "I thought you said Provisions. I'll go and -tell them." And he stumped off. - -The first person he met was Rabbit. - -"Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?" - -"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens." - -"I've got a message for you." - -"I'll give it to him." - -"We're all going on an Expotition with Christopher Robin!" - -"What is it when we're on it?" - -"A sort of boat, I think," said Pooh. - -"Oh! that sort." - -"Yes. And we're going to discover a Pole or something. Or was it a Mole? -Anyhow we're going to discover it." - -"We are, are we?" said Rabbit. - -"Yes. And we've got to bring Pro--things to eat with us. In case we want -to eat them. Now I'm going down to Piglet's. Tell Kanga, will you?" - -He left Rabbit and hurried down to Piglet's house. The Piglet was -sitting on the ground at the door of his house blowing happily at a -dandelion, and wondering whether it would be this year, next year, -sometime or never. He had just discovered that it would be never, and -was trying to remember what "_it_" was, and hoping it wasn't anything -nice, when Pooh came up. - -"Oh! Piglet," said Pooh excitedly, "we're going on an Expotition, all of -us, with things to eat. To discover something." - -"To discover what?" said Piglet anxiously. - -"Oh! just something." - -"Nothing fierce?" - -"Christopher Robin didn't say anything about fierce. He just said it had -an 'x'." - -"It isn't their necks I mind," said Piglet earnestly. "It's their teeth. -But if Christopher Robin is coming I don't mind anything." - -In a little while they were all ready at the top of the Forest, and the -Expotition started. First came Christopher Robin and Rabbit, then Piglet -and Pooh; then Kanga, with Roo in her pocket, and Owl; then Eeyore; and, -at the end, in a long line, all Rabbit's friends-and-relations. - -"I didn't ask them," explained Rabbit carelessly. "They just came. They -always do. They can march at the end, after Eeyore." - -"What I say," said Eeyore, "is that it's unsettling. I didn't want to -come on this Expo--what Pooh said. I only came to oblige. But here I -am; and if I am the end of the Expo--what we're talking about--then -let me _be_ the end. But if, every time I want to sit down for a -little rest, I have to brush away half a dozen of Rabbit's smaller -friends-and-relations first, then this isn't an Expo--whatever it -is--at all, it's simply a Confused Noise. That's what _I_ say." - -"I see what Eeyore means," said Owl. "If you ask me----" - -"I'm not asking anybody," said Eeyore. "I'm just telling everybody. We -can look for the North Pole, or we can play 'Here we go gathering Nuts -and May' with the end part of an ant's nest. It's all the same to me." - -There was a shout from the top of the line. - -"Come on!" called Christopher Robin. - -"Come on!" called Pooh and Piglet - -"Come on!" called Owl. - -"We're starting," said Rabbit. "I must go." And he hurried off to the -front of the Expotition with Christopher Robin. - -"All right," said Eeyore. "We're going. Only Don't Blame Me." - -So off they all went to discover the Pole. And as they walked, they -chattered to each other of this and that, all except Pooh, who was -making up a song. - -"This is the first verse," he said to Piglet, when he was ready with it. - -"First verse of what?" - -"My song." - -"What song?" - -"This one." - -"Which one?" - -"Well, if you listen, Piglet, you'll hear it." - -"How do you know I'm not listening?" - -Pooh couldn't answer that one, so he began to sing. - - They all went off to discover the Pole, - Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all; - It's a Thing you Discover, as I've been tole - By Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all. - Eeyore, Christopher Robin and Pooh - And Rabbit's relations all went too-- - And where the Pole was none of them knew.... - Sing Hey! for Owl and Rabbit and all! - -"Hush!" said Christopher Robin turning round to Pooh, "we're just coming -to a Dangerous Place." - -"Hush!" said Pooh turning round quickly to Piglet. - -"Hush!" said Piglet to Kanga. - -"Hush!" said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said "Hush!" several times to -himself very quietly. - -"Hush!" said Owl to Eeyore. - -"_Hush!_" said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's -friends-and-relations, and "Hush!" they said hastily to each other all -down the line, until it got to the last one of all. And the last and -smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to find that the whole -Expotition was saying "Hush!" to _him_, that he buried himself head -downwards in a crack in the ground, and stayed there for two days until -the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived -quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle. - -They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky -banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was. - -"It's just the place," he explained, "for an Ambush." - -"What sort of bush?" whispered Pooh to Piglet. "A gorse-bush?" - -"My dear Pooh," said Owl in his superior way, "don't you know what an -Ambush is?" - -"Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely, "Pooh's whisper was a -perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----" - -"An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise." - -"So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh. - -"An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said Piglet, "is a sort -of Surprise." - -"If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush," said Owl. - -"It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained -Piglet. - -Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung -at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six -days to get all the prickles out of himself. - -"We are not _talking_ about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. - -"I am," said Pooh. - -They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to -rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where -the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water -there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. -As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all -sat down and rested. - -"I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our -Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry." - -"Eat all our what?" said Pooh. - -"All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work. - -"That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too. - -"Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth -full. - -"All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his -melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any -chance?" - -"I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. -"Yes, I was. I thought so." - -"Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to -Pooh's place, and began to eat. - -"It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as -he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that -another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for -Others, makes all the difference." - -As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to -Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little -way up the stream together. - -"I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. - -"Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. - -"It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What -does the North Pole _look_ like?" - -"Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." - -"I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin -carelessly. - -"It's a funny thing," said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, -although I did know _once_." - -"I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" - -"Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if -it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, -shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." - -"Yes, that's what I thought." - -"The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" - -"That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. - -They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping -peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga -explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever -washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting -Anecdote full of long words like Encyclopædia and Rhododendron to which -Kanga wasn't listening. - -"I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern -Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" - -"Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" - -But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden -squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. - -"So much for _washing_," said Eeyore. - -"Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher Robin came -rushing down to the rescue. - -"Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of his pool, and was -hurried down a waterfall into the next pool. - -"Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously. - -"Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw----" and down he went over the next -waterfall into another pool. - -Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide awake suddenly, was -jumping up and down and making "Oo, I say" noises; Owl was explaining -that in a case of Sudden and Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was -to keep the Head Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying -"Are you _sure_ you're all right, Roo dear?" to which Roo, from whatever -pool he was in at the moment, was answering "Look at me swimming!" -Eeyore had turned round and hung his tail over the first pool into which -Roo fell, and with his back to the accident was grumbling quietly to -himself, and saying, "All this washing; but catch on to my tail, little -Roo, and you'll be all right"; and, Christopher Robin and Rabbit came -hurrying past Eeyore, and were calling out to the others in front of -them. - -"All right, Roo, I'm coming," called Christopher Robin. - -"Get something across the stream lower down, some of you fellows," -called Rabbit. - -But Pooh was getting something. Two pools below Roo he was standing with -a long pole in his paws, and Kanga came up and took one end of it, and -between them they held it across the lower part of the pool; and Roo, -still bubbling proudly, "Look at me swimming," drifted up against it, -and climbed out. - -"Did you see me swimming?" squeaked Roo excitedly, while Kanga scolded -him and rubbed him down. "Pooh, did you see me swimming? That's called -swimming, what I was doing. Rabbit, did you see what I was doing? -Swimming. Hallo, Piglet! I say, Piglet! What do you think I was doing! -Swimming! Christopher Robin, did you see me----" - -But Christopher Robin wasn't listening. He was looking at Pooh. - -"Pooh," he said, "where did you find that pole?" - -Pooh looked at the pole in his hands. - -"I just found it," he said. "I thought it ought to be useful. I just -picked it up." - -"Pooh," said Christopher Robin solemnly, "the Expedition is over. You -have found the North Pole!" - -"Oh!" said Pooh. - -Eeyore was sitting with his tail in the water when they all got back to -him. - -"Tell Roo to be quick, somebody," he said. "My tail's getting cold. I -don't want to mention it, but I just mention it. I don't want to -complain but there it is. My tail's cold." - -"Here I am!" squeaked Roo. - -"Oh, there you are." - -"Did you see me swimming?" - -Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it from side to side. - -"As I expected," he said. "Lost all feeling. Numbed it. That's what it's -done. Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody minds, I suppose it's all -right." - -"Poor old Eeyore. I'll dry it for you," said Christopher Robin, and he -took out his handkerchief and rubbed it up. - -"Thank you, Christopher Robin. You're the only one who seems to -understand about tails. They don't think--that's what the matter with -some of these others. They've no imagination. A tail isn't a tail to -_them_, it's just a Little Bit Extra at the back." - -"Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. "Is -_that_ better?" - -"It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know -what I mean." - -"Hullo, Eeyore," said Pooh, coming up to them with his pole. - -"Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able to use it again -in a day or two." - -"Use what?" said Pooh. - -"What we are talking about." - -"I wasn't talking about anything," said Pooh, looking puzzled. - -"My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry you were about my -tail, being all numb, and could you do anything to help?" - -"No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought for a little and -then suggested helpfully, "Perhaps it was somebody else." - -"Well, thank him for me when you see him." - -Pooh looked anxiously at Christopher Robin. - -"Pooh's found the North Pole," said Christopher Robin. "Isn't that -lovely?" - -Pooh looked modestly down. - -"Is that it?" said Eeyore. - -"Yes," said Christopher Robin. - -"Is that what we were looking for?" - -"Yes," said Pooh. - -"Oh!" said Eeyore. "Well, anyhow--it didn't rain," he said. - -They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christopher Robin tied a message -on to it. - - NORTH POLE - - DISCOVERED BY POOH - - POOH FOUND IT. - -Then they all went home again. And I think, but I am not quite sure, -that Roo had a hot bath and went straight to bed. But Pooh went back to -his own house, and feeling very proud of what he had done, had a little -something to revive himself. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - IN WHICH PIGLET IS ENTIRELY - SURROUNDED BY WATER - - -It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never -in all his life, and _he_ was goodness knows _how_ old--three, was it, -or four?--never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days. - -"If only," he thought, as he looked out of the window, "I had been in -Pooh's house, or Christopher Robin's house, or Rabbit's house when it -began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of -being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will -stop." And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, "Did you ever see such -rain, Pooh?" and Pooh saying, "Isn't it _awful_, Piglet?" and Piglet -saying, "I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin's way" and Pooh -saying, "I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this -time." It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn't -much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn't share -them with somebody. - -For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had -nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which -he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks -they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was -taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder -whether it would be coming into _his_ bed soon. - -"It's a little Anxious," he said to himself, "to be a Very Small Animal -Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by -Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could -escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could -escape by--by Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, -surrounded by water and I can't do _anything_." - -It went on raining, and every day the water got a little higher, until -now it was nearly up to Piglet's window ... and still he hadn't done -anything. - -"There's Pooh," he thought to himself. "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he -never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. -There's Owl. Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would -know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He -hasn't Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. -There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be so -anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking -about It. And then there's Eeyore. And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow -that he wouldn't mind about this. But I wonder what Christopher Robin -would do?" - -Then suddenly he remembered a story which Christopher Robin had told him -about a man on a desert island who had written something in a bottle and -thrown it in the sea; and Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a -bottle and threw it in the water, perhaps somebody would come and rescue -_him_! - -He left the window and began to search his house, all of it that wasn't -under water, and at last he found a pencil and a small piece of dry -paper, and a bottle with a cork to it. And he wrote on one side of the -paper: - - HELP! - PIGLET (ME) - -and on the other side: - - IT'S ME PIGLET, HELP HELP. - -Then he put the paper in the bottle, and he corked the bottle up as -tightly as he could, and he leant out of his window as far as he could -lean without falling in, and he threw the bottle as far as he could -throw--_splash!_--and in a little while it bobbed up again on the water; -and he watched it floating slowly away in the distance, until his eyes -ached with looking, and sometimes he thought it was the bottle, and -sometimes he thought it was just a ripple on the water which he was -following, and then suddenly he knew that he would never see it again -and that he had done all that he could do to save himself. - -"So now," he thought, "somebody else will have to do something, and I -hope they will do it soon, because if they don't I shall have to swim, -which I can't, so I hope they do it soon." And then he gave a very long -sigh and said, "I wish Pooh were here. It's so much more friendly with -two." - - * * * * * - -When the rain began Pooh was asleep. It rained, and it rained, and it -rained, and he slept and he slept and he slept. He had had a tiring day. -You remember how he discovered the North Pole; well, he was so proud of -this that he asked Christopher Robin if there were any other Poles such -as a Bear of Little Brain might discover. - -"There's a South Pole," said Christopher Robin, "and I expect there's an -East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them." - -Pooh was very excited when he heard this, and suggested that they should -have an Expotition to discover the East Pole, but Christopher Robin had -thought of something else to do with Kanga; so Pooh went out to discover -the East Pole by himself. Whether he discovered it or not, I forget; but -he was so tired when he got home that, in the very middle of his supper, -after he had been eating for little more than half-an-hour, he fell fast -asleep in his chair, and slept and slept and slept. - -Then suddenly he was dreaming. He was at the East Pole, and it was a -very cold pole with the coldest sort of snow and ice all over it. He had -found a bee-hive to sleep in, but there wasn't room for his legs, so he -had left them outside. And Wild Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, -came and nibbled all the fur off his legs to make nests for their Young. -And the more they nibbled, the colder his legs got, until suddenly he -woke up with an _Ow!_--and there he was, sitting in his chair with his -feet in the water, and water all round him! - -He splashed to his door and looked out... - -"This is Serious," said Pooh. "I must have an Escape." - -So he took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it to a broad -branch of his tree, well above the water, and then he climbed down again -and escaped with another pot ... and when the whole Escape was -finished, there was Pooh sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and -there, beside him, were ten pots of honey.... - -Two days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his -legs, and there, beside him, were four pots of honey.... - -Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his -legs, and there beside him, was one pot of honey. - -Four days later, there was Pooh ... - -And it was on the morning of the fourth day that Piglet's bottle came -floating past him, and with one loud cry of "Honey!" Pooh plunged into -the water, seized the bottle, and struggled back to his tree again. - -"Bother!" said Pooh, as he opened it. "All that wet for nothing. What's -that bit of paper doing?" - -He took it out and looked at it. - -"It's a Missage," he said to himself, "that's what it is. And that -letter is a 'P,' and so is that, and so is that, and 'P' means 'Pooh,' -so it's a very important Missage to me, and I can't read it. I must find -Christopher Robin or Owl or Piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can -read things, and they will tell me what this missage means. Only I can't -swim. Bother!" - -Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of Very Little Brain, -it was a good idea. He said to himself: - -"If a bottle can float, then a jar can float, and if a jar floats, I can -sit on the top of it, if it's a very big jar." - -So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up. "All boats have to have a -name," he said, "so I shall call mine _The Floating Bear_." And with -these words he dropped his boat into the water and jumped in after it. - -For a little while Pooh and _The Floating Bear_ were uncertain as to -which of them was meant to be on the top, but after trying one or two -different positions, they settled down with _The Floating Bear_ -underneath and Pooh triumphantly astride it, paddling vigorously with -his feet. - - * * * * * - -Christopher Robin lived at the very top of the Forest. It rained, and it -rained, and it rained, but the water couldn't come up to _his_ house. It -was rather jolly to look down into the valleys and see the water all -round him, but it rained so hard that he stayed indoors most of the -time, and thought about things. Every morning he went out with his -umbrella and put a stick in the place where the water came up to, and -every next morning he went out and couldn't see his stick any more, so -he put another stick in the place where the water came up to, and then -he walked home again, and each morning he had a shorter way to walk than -he had had the morning before. On the morning of the fifth day he saw -the water all round him, and knew that for the first time in his life he -was on a real island. Which was very exciting. - -It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say "How -do you do," to his friend Christopher Robin. - -"I say, Owl," said Christopher Robin, "isn't this fun? I'm on an -island!" - -"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said -Owl. - -"The what?" - -"It has been raining," explained Owl. - -"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has." - -"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height." - -"The who?" - -"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl. - -"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is." - -"However, the prospects are rapidly becoming more favourable. At any -moment----" - -"Have you seen Pooh?" - -"No. At any moment----" - -"I hope he's all right," said Christopher Robin. "I've been wondering -about him. I expect Piglet's with him. Do you think they're all right, -Owl?" - -"I expect so. You see, at any moment----" - -"Do go and see, Owl. Because Pooh hasn't got very much brain, and he -might do something silly, and I do love him so, Owl. Do you see, Owl?" - -"That's all right," said Owl. "I'll go. Back directly." And he flew off. - -In a little while he was back again. - -"Pooh isn't there," he said. - -"Not there?" - -"Has _been_ there. He's been sitting on a branch of his tree outside his -house with nine pots of honey. But he isn't there now." - -"Oh, Pooh!" cried Christopher Robin. "Where _are_ you?" - -"Here I am," said a growly voice behind him. - -"Pooh!" - -They rushed into each other's arms. - -"How did you get here, Pooh?" asked Christopher Robin, when he was ready -to talk again. - -"On my boat," said Pooh proudly. "I had a Very Important Missage sent me -in a bottle, and owing to having got some water in my eyes, I couldn't -read it, so I brought it to you. On my boat." - -With these proud words he gave Christopher Robin the missage. - -"But it's from Piglet!" cried Christopher Robin when he had read it. - -"Isn't there anything about Pooh in it?" asked Bear, looking over his -shoulder. - -Christopher Robin read the message aloud. - -"Oh, are those 'P's' piglets? I thought they were poohs." - -"We must rescue him at once! I thought he was with _you_, Pooh. Owl, -could you rescue him on your back?" - -"I don't think so," said Owl, after grave thought. "It is doubtful if -the necessary dorsal muscles----" - -"Then would you fly to him at _once_ and say that Rescue is Coming? And -Pooh and I will think of a Rescue and come as quick as ever we can. Oh, -don't _talk_, Owl, go on quick!" And, still thinking of something to -say, Owl flew off. - -"Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?" - -"I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the -island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a -Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." - -"Depends on what?" - -"On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it." - -"Oh! Well, where is it?" - -"There!" said Pooh, pointing proudly to _The Floating Bear_. - -It wasn't what Christopher Robin expected, and the more he looked at it, -the more he thought what a Brave and Clever Bear Pooh was, and the more -Christopher Robin thought this, the more Pooh looked modestly down his -nose and tried to pretend he wasn't. - -"But it's too small for two of us," said Christopher Robin sadly. - -"Three of us with Piglet." - -"That makes it smaller still. Oh, Pooh Bear, what shall we do?" - -And then this Bear, Pooh Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, F.O.P. (Friend of -Piglet's), R.C. (Rabbit's Companion), P.D. (Pole Discoverer), E.C. and -T.F. (Eeyore's Comforter and Tail-finder)--in fact, Pooh himself--said -something so clever that Christopher Robin could only look at him with -mouth open and eyes staring, wondering if this was really the Bear of -Very Little Brain whom he had known and loved so long. - -"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. - -"?" - -"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. - -"? ?" - -"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh. - -"!!!!!!" - -For suddenly Christopher Robin saw that they might. He opened his -umbrella and put it point downwards in the water. It floated but -wobbled. Pooh got in. He was just beginning to say that it was all right -now, when he found that it wasn't, so after a short drink which he -didn't really want he waded back to Christopher Robin. Then they both -got in together, and it wobbled no longer. - -"I shall call this boat _The Brain of Pooh_," said Christopher Robin, -and _The Brain of Pooh_ set sail forthwith in a south-westerly -direction, revolving gracefully. - -You can imagine Piglet's joy when at last the ship came in sight of him. -In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger -during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was -in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown -up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long -story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and -the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who -was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly -and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until -he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden -loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his -aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself -back into safety and say, "How interesting, and did she?" when--well, -you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, _Brain of -Pooh_ (_Captain_, C. Robin; _1st Mate_, P. Bear) coming over the sea to -rescue him. Christopher Robin and Pooh again.... - -And that is really the end of the story, and I am very tired after that -last sentence, I think I shall stop there. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN GIVES - POOH A PARTY, AND WE SAY GOOD-BYE - - -One day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it -the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling -happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little -pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had -done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying -over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and -wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy -comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't -matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a -special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to -see what was wanted. - -"Owl," said Christopher Robin, "I am going to give a party." - -"You are, are you?" said Owl. - -"And it's to be a special sort of party, because it's because of what -Pooh did when he did what he did to save Piglet from the flood." - -"Oh, that's what it's for, is it?" said Owl. - -"Yes, so will you tell Pooh as quickly as you can, and all the others, -because it will be to-morrow." - -"Oh, it will, will it?" said Owl, still being as helpful as possible. - -"So will you go and tell them, Owl?" - -Owl tried to think of something very wise to say, but couldn't, so he -flew off to tell the others. And the first person he told was Pooh. - -"Pooh," he said, "Christopher Robin is giving a party." - -"Oh!" said Pooh. And then seeing that Owl expected him to say something -else, he said "Will there be those little cake things with pink sugar -icing?" - -Owl felt that it was rather beneath him to talk about little cake things -with pink sugar icing, so he told Pooh exactly what Christopher Robin -had said, and flew off to Eeyore. - -"A party for Me?" thought Pooh to himself. "How grand!" And he began to -wonder if all the other animals would know that it was a special Pooh -Party, and if Christopher Robin had told them about _The Floating Bear_ -and the _Brain of Pooh_ and all the wonderful ships he had invented and -sailed on, and he began to think how awful it would be if everybody had -forgotten about it, and nobody quite knew what the party was for; and -the more he thought like this, the more the party got muddled in his -mind, like a dream when nothing goes right. And the dream began to sing -itself over in his head until it became a sort of song. It was an - - ANXIOUS POOH SONG. - - 3 Cheers for Pooh! - (_For Who?_) - For Pooh-- - (_Why what did he do?_) - I thought you knew; - He saved his friend from a wetting! - 3 Cheers for Bear! - (_For where?_) - For Bear-- - He couldn't swim, - But he rescued him! - (_He rescued who?_) - Oh, listen, do! - I am talking of Pooh-- - (_Of who?_) - Of Pooh! - (_I'm sorry I keep forgetting_). - Well, Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain - (_Just say it again!_) - Of enormous brain-- - (_Of enormous what?_) - Well, he ate a lot, - And I don't know if he could swim or not, - But he managed to float - On a sort of boat - (_On a sort of what?_) - Well, a sort of pot-- - So now let's give him three hearty cheers - (_So now let's give him three hearty whiches?_) - And hope he'll be with us for years and years, - And grow in health and wisdom and riches! - 3 Cheers for Pooh! - (_For who?_) - For Pooh-- - 3 Cheers for Bear! - (_For where?_) - For Bear-- - 3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh! - (_Just tell me, somebody_--WHAT DID HE DO?) - -While this was going on inside him, Owl was talking to Eeyore. - -"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party." - -"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down -the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, -don't mention it." - -"There is an Invitation for you." - -"What's that like?" - -"An Invitation!" - -"Yes, I heard you. Who dropped it?" - -"This isn't anything to eat, it's asking you to the party. To-morrow." - -Eeyore shook his head slowly. - -"You mean Piglet. The little fellow with the excited ears. That's -Piglet. I'll tell him." - -"No, no!" said Owl, getting quite fussy. "It's you!" - -"Are you sure?" - -"Of course I'm sure. Christopher Robin said 'All of them! Tell all of -them.'" - -"All of them, except Eeyore?" - -"All of them," said Owl sulkily. - -"Ah!" said Eeyore. "A mistake, no doubt, but still, I shall come. Only -don't blame _me_ if it rains." - -But it didn't rain. Christopher Robin had made a long table out of some -long pieces of wood, and they all sat round it. Christopher Robin sat at -one end, and Pooh sat at the other, and between them on one side were -Owl and Eeyore and Piglet, and between them on the other side were -Rabbit, and Roo and Kanga. And all Rabbit's friends and relations spread -themselves about on the grass, and waited hopefully in case anybody -spoke to them, or dropped anything, or asked them the time. - -It was the first party to which Roo had ever been, and he was very -excited. As soon as ever they had sat down he began to talk. - -"Hallo, Pooh!" he squeaked. - -"Hallo, Roo!" said Pooh. - -Roo jumped up and down in his seat for a little while and then began -again. - -"Hallo, Piglet!" he squeaked. - -Piglet waved a paw at him, being too busy to say anything. - -"Hallo, Eeyore!" said Roo. - -Eeyore nodded gloomily at him. "It will rain soon, you see if it -doesn't," he said. - -Roo looked to see if it didn't, and it didn't, so he said "Hallo, -Owl!"--and Owl said "Hallo, my little fellow," in a kindly way, and went -on telling Christopher Robin about an accident which had nearly happened -to a friend of his whom Christopher Robin didn't know, and Kanga said to -Roo, "Drink up your milk first, dear, and talk afterwards." So Roo, who -was drinking his milk, tried to say that he could do both at once ... -and had to be patted on the back and dried for quite a long time -afterwards. - -When they had all nearly eaten enough, Christopher Robin banged on the -table with his spoon, and everybody stopped talking and was very silent, -except Roo who was just finishing a loud attack of hiccups and trying to -look as if it was one of Rabbit's relations. - -"This party," said Christopher Robin, "is a party because of what -someone did, and we all know who it was, and it's his party, because of -what he did, and I've got a present for him and here it is." Then he -felt about a little and whispered, "Where is it?" - -While he was looking, Eeyore coughed in an impressive way and began to -speak. - -"Friends," he said, "including oddments, it is a great pleasure, or -perhaps I had better say it has been a pleasure so far, to see you at my -party. What I did was nothing. Any of you--except Rabbit and Owl and -Kanga--would have done the same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of -course, apply to Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you -would have done the same. But it just happened to be Me. It was not, I -need hardly say, with an idea of getting what Christopher Robin is -looking for now"--and he put his front leg to his mouth and said in a -loud whisper, "Try under the table"--"that I did what I did--but because -I feel that we should all do what we can to help. I feel that we should -all----" - -"H--hup!" said Roo accidentally. - -"Roo, dear!" said Kanga reproachfully. - -"Was it me?" asked Roo, a little surprised. - -"What's Eeyore talking about?" Piglet whispered to Pooh. - -"I don't know," said Pooh rather dolefully. - -"I thought this was _your_ party." - -"I thought it was _once_. But I suppose it isn't." - -"I'd sooner it was yours than Eeyore's," said Piglet. - -"So would I," said Pooh. - -"H--hup!" said Roo again. - -"AS--I--WAS--SAYING," said Eeyore loudly and sternly, "as I was saying -when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that----" - -"Here it is!" cried Christopher Robin excitedly. "Pass it down to silly -old Pooh. It's for Pooh." - -"For Pooh?" said Eeyore. - -"Of course it is. The best bear in all the world." - -"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one can't complain. I -have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last -week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!' -The Social Round. Always something going on." - -Nobody was listening, for they were all saying "Open it, Pooh," "What is -it, Pooh?" "I know what it is," "No, you don't" and other helpful -remarks of this sort. And of course Pooh was opening it as quickly as -ever he could, but without cutting the string, because you never know -when a bit of string might be Useful. At last it was undone. - -When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was so pleased. It -was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in it marked "B" for Bear, -and pencils marked "HB" for Helping Bear, and pencils marked "BB" for -Brave Bear. There was a knife for sharpening the pencils, and -india-rubber for rubbing out anything which you had spelt wrong, and a -ruler for ruling lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on -the ruler in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and -Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying special things -in blue and red and green. And all these lovely things were in little -pockets of their own in a Special Case which shut with a click when you -clicked it. And they were all for Pooh. - -"Oh!" said Pooh. - -"Oh, Pooh!" said everybody else except Eeyore. - -"Thank-you," growled Pooh. - -But Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and -what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it." - -Later on, when they had all said "Good-bye" and "Thank-you" to -Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in -the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent. - -"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's -the first thing you say to yourself?" - -"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do _you_ say, Piglet?" - -"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting _to-day_?" said Piglet. - -Pooh nodded thoughtfully. - -"It's the same thing," he said. - - * * * * * - -"And what did happen?" asked Christopher Robin. - -"When?" - -"Next morning." - -"I don't know." - -"Could you think and tell me and Pooh some time?" - -"If you wanted it very much." - -"Pooh does," said Christopher Robin. - -He gave a deep sigh, picked his bear up by the leg and walked off to the -door, trailing Winnie-the-Pooh behind him. At the door he turned and -said "Coming to see me have my bath?" - -"I might," I said. - -"Was Pooh's pencil case any better than mine?" - -"It was just the same," I said. - -He nodded and went out ... and in a moment I heard -Winnie-the-Pooh--_bump, bump, bump_--going up the stairs behind him. - - -ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - -CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised - - -MRS. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down -into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and -traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the -old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook -in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool -and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, -well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. -Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it -probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, -keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children -up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never -rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. - -There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend -closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of neglecting their own; -but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage -their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a -notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the -Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop -of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all -this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen -window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts--she had knitted sixteen of them, -as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices--and keeping -a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up -the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular -peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two -sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that -hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing -eye. - -She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in -at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house -was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of -bees. Thomas Lynde--a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel -Lynde’s husband”--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field -beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on -the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew -that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening -before in William J. Blair’s store over at Carmody that he meant to sow -his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for -Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about -anything in his whole life. - -And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon -of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill; -moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was -plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy -and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable -distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going -there? - -Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this -and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both -questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be -something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest -man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where -he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and -driving in a buggy, was something that didn’t happen often. Mrs. Rachel, -ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon’s -enjoyment was spoiled. - -“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla -where he’s gone and why,” the worthy woman finally concluded. “He -doesn’t generally go to town this time of year and he _never_ visits; if -he’d run out of turnip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy to -go for more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. -Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off. I’m -clean puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind or -conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea -today.” - -Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the -big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a -scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow. To be sure, the -long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, as -shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly -could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods -when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest -edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible -from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so -sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place -_living_ at all. - -“It’s just _staying_, that’s what,” she said as she stepped along the -deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. “It’s no wonder -Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by -themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were -there’d be enough of them. I’d ruther look at people. To be sure, they -seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they’re used to it. A body -can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.” - -With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green -Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one -side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies. -Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have -seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla -Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could -have eaten a meal off the ground without over-brimming the proverbial -peck of dirt. - -Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in -when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful -apartment--or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully -clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its -windows looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on -the back yard, came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, -whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left -orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook, -was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when -she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to -her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to -be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table behind -her was laid for supper. - -Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental -note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates laid, -so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea; but -the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple preserves -and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any -particular company. Yet what of Matthew’s white collar and the sorrel -mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery -about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables. - -“Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. “This is a real fine -evening, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down? How are all your folks?” - -Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship -existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, -in spite of--or perhaps because of--their dissimilarity. - -Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark -hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little -knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it. She -looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she -was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had -been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative -of a sense of humor. - -“We’re all pretty well,” said Mrs. Rachel. “I was kind of afraid _you_ -weren’t, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe -he was going to the doctor’s.” - -Marilla’s lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs. -Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off so -unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor’s curiosity. - -“Oh, no, I’m quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday,” she -said. “Matthew went to Bright River. We’re getting a little boy from an -orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he’s coming on the train tonight.” - -If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a -kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished. -She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable -that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to -suppose it. - -“Are you in earnest, Marilla?” she demanded when voice returned to her. - -“Yes, of course,” said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums -in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any well-regulated -Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation. - -Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought -in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people -adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly -turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this! -Nothing! - -“What on earth put such a notion into your head?” she demanded -disapprovingly. - -This had been done without her advice being asked, and must perforce be -disapproved. - -“Well, we’ve been thinking about it for some time--all winter in fact,” - returned Marilla. “Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before -Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the -asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs. -Spencer has visited here and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have -talked it over off and on ever since. We thought we’d get a boy. Matthew -is getting up in years, you know--he’s sixty--and he isn’t so spry as he -once was. His heart troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate -hard it’s got to be to get hired help. There’s never anybody to be had -but those stupid, half-grown little French boys; and as soon as you do -get one broke into your ways and taught something he’s up and off to the -lobster canneries or the States. At first Matthew suggested getting a -Home boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that. ‘They may be all right--I’m not -saying they’re not--but no London street Arabs for me,’ I said. ‘Give -me a native born at least. There’ll be a risk, no matter who we get. But -I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born -Canadian.’ So in the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out -one when she went over to get her little girl. We heard last week she -was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer’s folks at Carmody -to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided that -would be the best age--old enough to be of some use in doing chores -right off and young enough to be trained up proper. We mean to give him -a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer -today--the mail-man brought it from the station--saying they were coming -on the five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew went to Bright River to -meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she goes on to -White Sands station herself.” - -Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to -speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece -of news. - -“Well, Marilla, I’ll just tell you plain that I think you’re doing a -mighty foolish thing--a risky thing, that’s what. You don’t know what -you’re getting. You’re bringing a strange child into your house and home -and you don’t know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is -like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he’s likely to turn out. -Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up -west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to -the house at night--set it _on purpose_, Marilla--and nearly burnt them to -a crisp in their beds. And I know another case where an adopted boy used -to suck the eggs--they couldn’t break him of it. If you had asked my -advice in the matter--which you didn’t do, Marilla--I’d have said for -mercy’s sake not to think of such a thing, that’s what.” - -This Job’s comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She -knitted steadily on. - -“I don’t deny there’s something in what you say, Rachel. I’ve had some -qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so -I gave in. It’s so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he -does I always feel it’s my duty to give in. And as for the risk, there’s -risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There’s risks -in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that--they don’t -always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island. -It isn’t as if we were getting him from England or the States. He can’t -be much different from ourselves.” - -“Well, I hope it will turn out all right,” said Mrs. Rachel in a tone -that plainly indicated her painful doubts. “Only don’t say I didn’t -warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well--I -heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did -that and the whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl -in that instance.” - -“Well, we’re not getting a girl,” said Marilla, as if poisoning wells -were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case -of a boy. “I’d never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at -Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, _she_ wouldn’t shrink -from adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head.” - -Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his -imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a good two hours at -least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert -Bell’s and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation second -to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took -herself away, somewhat to Marilla’s relief, for the latter felt -her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel’s -pessimism. - -“Well, of all things that ever were or will be!” ejaculated Mrs. Rachel -when she was safely out in the lane. “It does really seem as if I must -be dreaming. Well, I’m sorry for that poor young one and no mistake. -Matthew and Marilla don’t know anything about children and they’ll -expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be’s -he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to think -of a child at Green Gables somehow; there’s never been one there, for -Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built--if they -ever _were_ children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them. -I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes for anything. My, but I pity him, -that’s what.” - -So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her -heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently -at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been -still deeper and more profound. - - - - -CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised - - -MATTHEW Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight -miles to Bright River. It was a pretty road, running along between -snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive -through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air -was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped -away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while - - “The little birds sang as if it were - The one day of summer in all the year.” - -Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the -moments when he met women and had to nod to them--for in Prince Edward -island you are supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on the road -whether you know them or not. - -Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an -uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly -laughing at him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he -was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray -hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard -which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had looked -at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the -grayness. - -When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought -he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright -River hotel and went over to the station house. The long platform was -almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl who was -sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting -that it _was_ a girl, sidled past her as quickly as possible without -looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice the -tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She was -sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and -waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all -her might and main. - -Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office -preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty -train would soon be along. - -“The five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago,” answered -that brisk official. “But there was a passenger dropped off for you--a -little girl. She’s sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to -go into the ladies’ waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she -preferred to stay outside. ‘There was more scope for imagination,’ she -said. She’s a case, I should say.” - -“I’m not expecting a girl,” said Matthew blankly. “It’s a boy I’ve come -for. He should be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over -from Nova Scotia for me.” - -The stationmaster whistled. - -“Guess there’s some mistake,” he said. “Mrs. Spencer came off the train -with that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister -were adopting her from an orphan asylum and that you would be along for -her presently. That’s all I know about it--and I haven’t got any more -orphans concealed hereabouts.” - -“I don’t understand,” said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was -at hand to cope with the situation. - -“Well, you’d better question the girl,” said the station-master -carelessly. “I dare say she’ll be able to explain--she’s got a tongue -of her own, that’s certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you -wanted.” - -He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was -left to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its -den--walk up to a girl--a strange girl--an orphan girl--and demand of -her why she wasn’t a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about -and shuffled gently down the platform towards her. - -She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her -eyes on him now. Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen -what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would -have seen this: A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very -tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown -sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids -of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, -also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which -looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others. - -So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen -that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes -were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped -and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, -our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no -commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom -shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid. - -Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon -as she concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with -one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag; -the other she held out to him. - -“I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in -a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. “I’m very glad to see you. I was -beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming for me and I was imagining -all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up -my mind that if you didn’t come for me to-night I’d go down the track to -that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all -night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a -wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think? -You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn’t you? And -I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn’t -to-night.” - -Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and -there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the -glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take her home and -let Marilla do that. She couldn’t be left at Bright River anyhow, no -matter what mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations -might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables. - -“I’m sorry I was late,” he said shyly. “Come along. The horse is over in -the yard. Give me your bag.” - -“Oh, I can carry it,” the child responded cheerfully. “It isn’t heavy. -I’ve got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn’t heavy. And if it isn’t -carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out--so I’d better -keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It’s an extremely old -carpet-bag. Oh, I’m very glad you’ve come, even if it would have been -nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We’ve got to drive a long piece, -haven’t we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I’m glad because I -love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I’m going to live with you -and belong to you. I’ve never belonged to anybody--not really. But the -asylum was the worst. I’ve only been in it four months, but that was -enough. I don’t suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you -can’t possibly understand what it is like. It’s worse than anything you -could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like -that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without -knowing it, isn’t it? They were good, you know--the asylum people. But -there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylum--only just -in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about -them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really -the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents -in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I -used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because -I didn’t have time in the day. I guess that’s why I’m so thin--I _am_ -dreadful thin, ain’t I? There isn’t a pick on my bones. I do love to -imagine I’m nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.” - -With this Matthew’s companion stopped talking, partly because she was -out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another -word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down -a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into -the soft soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees -and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads. - -The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that -brushed against the side of the buggy. - -“Isn’t that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, -all white and lacy, make you think of?” she asked. - -“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. - -“Why, a bride, of course--a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. -I’ve never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don’t -ever expect to be a bride myself. I’m so homely nobody will ever want to -marry me--unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign -missionary mightn’t be very particular. But I do hope that some day I -shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I -just love pretty clothes. And I’ve never had a pretty dress in my life -that I can remember--but of course it’s all the more to look forward -to, isn’t it? And then I can imagine that I’m dressed gorgeously. This -morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear -this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you -know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of -wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn’t sell -it, but I’d rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, -wouldn’t you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be -looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that -I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress--because when you _are_ -imagining you might as well imagine something worth while--and a big -hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and -boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island -with all my might. I wasn’t a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither -was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadn’t time -to get sick, watching to see that I didn’t fall overboard. She said she -never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her from -being seasick it’s a mercy I did prowl, isn’t it? And I wanted to see -everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn’t know -whether I’d ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more -cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just -love it already, and I’m so glad I’m going to live here. I’ve always -heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, -and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I -would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it? -But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at -Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer -what made them red and she said she didn’t know and for pity’s sake not -to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand -already. I suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about -things if you don’t ask questions? And what _does_ make the roads red?” - -“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. - -“Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn’t it splendid -to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes -me feel glad to be alive--it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be -half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d -be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too -much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t -talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can _stop_ when I make up my mind to it, -although it’s difficult.” - -Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet -folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking -themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had -never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad -enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the -way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if -they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to -say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But -this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather -difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental -processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.” So he said as -shyly as usual: - -“Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don’t mind.” - -“Oh, I’m so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together -fine. It’s such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told -that children should be seen and not heard. I’ve had that said to me a -million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big -words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express -them, haven’t you?” - -“Well now, that seems reasonable,” said Matthew. - -“Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it -isn’t--it’s firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was -named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were -trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And -there weren’t any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny -things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them. -They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to -make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, ‘Oh, you -_poor_ little things! If you were out in a great big woods with other -trees all around you and little mosses and June bells growing over your -roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you -could grow, couldn’t you? But you can’t where you are. I know just -exactly how you feel, little trees.’ I felt sorry to leave them behind -this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don’t you? Is -there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer -that.” - -“Well now, yes, there’s one right below the house.” - -“Fancy. It’s always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I -never expected I would, though. Dreams don’t often come true, do they? -Wouldn’t it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty nearly -perfectly happy. I can’t feel exactly perfectly happy because--well, -what color would you call this?” - -She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and -held it up before Matthew’s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on -the tints of ladies’ tresses, but in this case there couldn’t be much -doubt. - -“It’s red, ain’t it?” he said. - -The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from -her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages. - -“Yes, it’s red,” she said resignedly. “Now you see why I can’t be -perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don’t mind the other -things so much--the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I -can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf -complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I _cannot_ imagine that -red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, ‘Now my hair is a -glorious black, black as the raven’s wing.’ But all the time I _know_ it -is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. -I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn’t -red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. -What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?” - -“Well now, I’m afraid I can’t,” said Matthew, who was getting a little -dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy -had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic. - -“Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was -divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be -divinely beautiful?” - -“Well now, no, I haven’t,” confessed Matthew ingenuously. - -“I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the -choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?” - -“Well now, I--I don’t know exactly.” - -“Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn’t make much real -difference for it isn’t likely I’ll ever be either. It’s certain I’ll -never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says--oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. -Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!” - -That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled -out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had -simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the “Avenue.” - -The “Avenue,” so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road -four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, -wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old -farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the -boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse -of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a -cathedral aisle. - -Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the -buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to -the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving -down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with -rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw -visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through -Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small -boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still -in silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child -had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically -as she could talk. - -“I guess you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Matthew ventured to -say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the -only reason he could think of. “But we haven’t very far to go now--only -another mile.” - -She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the -dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led. - -“Oh, Mr. Cuthbert,” she whispered, “that place we came through--that -white place--what was it?” - -“Well now, you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’ -profound reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.” - -“Pretty? Oh, _pretty_ doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, -either. They don’t go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful--wonderful. -It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by -imagination. It just satisfies me here”--she put one hand on her -breast--“it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did -you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?” - -“Well now, I just can’t recollect that I ever had.” - -“I have it lots of time--whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But -they shouldn’t call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning -in a name like that. They should call it--let me see--the White Way of -Delight. Isn’t that a nice imaginative name? When I don’t like the name -of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of -them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, -but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that -place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. -Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I’m glad and -I’m sorry. I’m sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I’m -always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may -come after, but you can never be sure. And it’s so often the case that -it isn’t pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I’m glad to -think of getting home. You see, I’ve never had a real home since I can -remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming -to a really truly home. Oh, isn’t that pretty!” - -They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking -almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it -midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of -sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a -glory of many shifting hues--the most spiritual shadings of crocus and -rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name -has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing -groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering -shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a -white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the -head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. -There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on -a slope beyond and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was -shining from one of its windows. - -“That’s Barry’s pond,” said Matthew. - -“Oh, I don’t like that name, either. I shall call it--let me see--the -Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know -because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives -me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?” - -Matthew ruminated. - -“Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly -white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of -them.” - -“Oh, I don’t think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you -think it can? There doesn’t seem to be much connection between grubs -and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it -Barry’s pond?” - -“I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard -Slope’s the name of his place. If it wasn’t for that big bush behind it -you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge -and round by the road, so it’s near half a mile further.” - -“Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about -my size.” - -“He’s got one about eleven. Her name is Diana.” - -“Oh!” with a long indrawing of breath. “What a perfectly lovely name!” - -“Well now, I dunno. There’s something dreadful heathenish about it, -seems to me. I’d ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. -But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they -gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana.” - -“I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, -then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. -I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that -perhaps just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a -jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them -for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if -the bridge _did_ crumple up I’d want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly -rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid -there are so many things to like in this world? There we’re over. Now -I’ll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say -good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they -like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.” - -When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew -said: - -“We’re pretty near home now. That’s Green Gables over--” - -“Oh, don’t tell me,” she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his -partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his -gesture. “Let me guess. I’m sure I’ll guess right.” - -She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a -hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still -clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose -up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, -gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one -to another the child’s eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they -lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white -with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, -in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining -like a lamp of guidance and promise. - -“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing. - -Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel’s back delightedly. - -“Well now, you’ve guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it -so’s you could tell.” - -“No, she didn’t--really she didn’t. All she said might just as well have -been about most of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it -looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it -seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and -blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched myself so many times today. -Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and -I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch myself to see if it -was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only -a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped -pinching. But it _is_ real and we’re nearly home.” - -With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred -uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would -have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was -not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde’s Hollow, where it was -already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them -from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green -Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from -the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was -not of Marilla or himself he was thinking or of the trouble this mistake -was probably going to make for them, but of the child’s disappointment. -When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had -an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering -something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill -a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature. - -The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves -were rustling silkily all round it. - -“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he -lifted her to the ground. “What nice dreams they must have!” - -Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained “all her worldly -goods,” she followed him into the house. - - - - -CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised - - -MARILLA came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her -eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the -long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short -in amazement. - -“Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she ejaculated. “Where is the boy?” - -“There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew wretchedly. “There was only _her_.” - -He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her -name. - -“No boy! But there _must_ have been a boy,” insisted Marilla. “We sent -word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy.” - -“Well, she didn’t. She brought _her_. I asked the station-master. And I -had to bring her home. She couldn’t be left there, no matter where the -mistake had come in.” - -“Well, this is a pretty piece of business!” ejaculated Marilla. - -During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from -one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly -she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her -precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands. - -“You don’t want me!” she cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a -boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have -known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really -did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!” - -Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging -her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry -stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly across -the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla -stepped lamely into the breach. - -“Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.” - -“Yes, there _is_ need!” The child raised her head quickly, revealing a -tear-stained face and trembling lips. “_You_ would cry, too, if you were -an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and -found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is -the most _tragical_ thing that ever happened to me!” - -Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, -mellowed Marilla’s grim expression. - -“Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to turn you out-of-doors -to-night. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. -What’s your name?” - -The child hesitated for a moment. - -“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly. - -“_Call_ you Cordelia? Is that your name?” - -“No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called -Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.” - -“I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what -is?” - -“Anne Shirley,” reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, “but, -oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can’t matter much to you what you -call me if I’m only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is -such an unromantic name.” - -“Unromantic fiddlesticks!” said the unsympathetic Marilla. “Anne is a -real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.” - -“Oh, I’m not ashamed of it,” explained Anne, “only I like Cordelia -better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia--at least, I -always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was -Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne -please call me Anne spelled with an E.” - -“What difference does it make how it’s spelled?” asked Marilla with -another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot. - -“Oh, it makes _such_ a difference. It _looks_ so much nicer. When you hear -a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it -was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so -much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I -shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.” - -“Very well, then, Anne spelled with an E, can you tell us how this -mistake came to be made? We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring us a boy. -Were there no boys at the asylum?” - -“Oh, yes, there was an abundance of them. But Mrs. Spencer said -_distinctly_ that you wanted a girl about eleven years old. And the -matron said she thought I would do. You don’t know how delighted I was. -I couldn’t sleep all last night for joy. Oh,” she added reproachfully, -turning to Matthew, “why didn’t you tell me at the station that you -didn’t want me and leave me there? If I hadn’t seen the White Way of -Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters it wouldn’t be so hard.” - -“What on earth does she mean?” demanded Marilla, staring at Matthew. - -“She--she’s just referring to some conversation we had on the road,” - said Matthew hastily. “I’m going out to put the mare in, Marilla. Have -tea ready when I come back.” - -“Did Mrs. Spencer bring anybody over besides you?” continued Marilla -when Matthew had gone out. - -“She brought Lily Jones for herself. Lily is only five years old and she -is very beautiful and had nut-brown hair. If I was very beautiful and -had nut-brown hair would you keep me?” - -“No. We want a boy to help Matthew on the farm. A girl would be of -no use to us. Take off your hat. I’ll lay it and your bag on the hall -table.” - -Anne took off her hat meekly. Matthew came back presently and they sat -down to supper. But Anne could not eat. In vain she nibbled at the -bread and butter and pecked at the crab-apple preserve out of the little -scalloped glass dish by her plate. She did not really make any headway -at all. - -“You’re not eating anything,” said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it -were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. - -“I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the -depths of despair?” - -“I’ve never been in the depths of despair, so I can’t say,” responded -Marilla. - -“Weren’t you? Well, did you ever try to _imagine_ you were in the depths -of despair?” - -“No, I didn’t.” - -“Then I don’t think you can understand what it’s like. It’s a very -uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right -up in your throat and you can’t swallow anything, not even if it was a -chocolate caramel. I had one chocolate caramel once two years ago and it -was simply delicious. I’ve often dreamed since then that I had a lot -of chocolate caramels, but I always wake up just when I’m going to eat -them. I do hope you won’t be offended because I can’t eat. Everything is -extremely nice, but still I cannot eat.” - -“I guess she’s tired,” said Matthew, who hadn’t spoken since his return -from the barn. “Best put her to bed, Marilla.” - -Marilla had been wondering where Anne should be put to bed. She had -prepared a couch in the kitchen chamber for the desired and expected -boy. But, although it was neat and clean, it did not seem quite the -thing to put a girl there somehow. But the spare room was out of the -question for such a stray waif, so there remained only the east gable -room. Marilla lighted a candle and told Anne to follow her, which Anne -spiritlessly did, taking her hat and carpet-bag from the hall table as -she passed. The hall was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in -which she presently found herself seemed still cleaner. - -Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and -turned down the bedclothes. - -“I suppose you have a nightgown?” she questioned. - -Anne nodded. - -“Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for me. They’re -fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so -things are always skimpy--at least in a poor asylum like ours. I hate -skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as -in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that’s one -consolation.” - -“Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I’ll come back in a -few minutes for the candle. I daren’t trust you to put it out yourself. -You’d likely set the place on fire.” - -When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed -walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache -over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round -braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In -one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, -low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-corner -table adorned with a fat, red velvet pin-cushion hard enough to turn the -point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six-by-eight -mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white -muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the wash-stand. The whole -apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which -sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne’s bones. With a sob she hastily -discarded her garments, put on the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed -where she burrowed face downward into the pillow and pulled the clothes -over her head. When Marilla came up for the light various skimpy -articles of raiment scattered most untidily over the floor and a certain -tempestuous appearance of the bed were the only indications of any -presence save her own. - -She deliberately picked up Anne’s clothes, placed them neatly on a prim -yellow chair, and then, taking up the candle, went over to the bed. - -“Good night,” she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly. - -Anne’s white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a -startling suddenness. - -“How can you call it a _good_ night when you know it must be the very -worst night I’ve ever had?” she said reproachfully. - -Then she dived down into invisibility again. - -Marilla went slowly down to the kitchen and proceeded to wash the supper -dishes. Matthew was smoking--a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He -seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against it as a filthy habit; -but at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla -winked at the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent -for his emotions. - -“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish,” she said wrathfully. “This is -what comes of sending word instead of going ourselves. Richard Spencer’s -folks have twisted that message somehow. One of us will have to drive -over and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow, that’s certain. This girl will have -to be sent back to the asylum.” - -“Yes, I suppose so,” said Matthew reluctantly. - -“You _suppose_ so! Don’t you know it?” - -“Well now, she’s a real nice little thing, Marilla. It’s kind of a pity -to send her back when she’s so set on staying here.” - -“Matthew Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say you think we ought to keep -her!” - -Marilla’s astonishment could not have been greater if Matthew had -expressed a predilection for standing on his head. - -“Well, now, no, I suppose not--not exactly,” stammered Matthew, -uncomfortably driven into a corner for his precise meaning. “I -suppose--we could hardly be expected to keep her.” - -“I should say not. What good would she be to us?” - -“We might be some good to her,” said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly. - -“Matthew Cuthbert, I believe that child has bewitched you! I can see as -plain as plain that you want to keep her.” - -“Well now, she’s a real interesting little thing,” persisted Matthew. -“You should have heard her talk coming from the station.” - -“Oh, she can talk fast enough. I saw that at once. It’s nothing in her -favour, either. I don’t like children who have so much to say. I don’t -want an orphan girl and if I did she isn’t the style I’d pick out. -There’s something I don’t understand about her. No, she’s got to be -despatched straight-way back to where she came from.” - -“I could hire a French boy to help me,” said Matthew, “and she’d be -company for you.” - -“I’m not suffering for company,” said Marilla shortly. “And I’m not -going to keep her.” - -“Well now, it’s just as you say, of course, Marilla,” said Matthew -rising and putting his pipe away. “I’m going to bed.” - -To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away, went -Marilla, frowning most resolutely. And up-stairs, in the east gable, a -lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself to sleep. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables - - -IT was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring -confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was -pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across -glimpses of blue sky. - -For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a -delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible -remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn’t want her because she -wasn’t a boy! - -But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside -of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor. -She pushed up the sash--it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn’t -been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight -that nothing was needed to hold it up. - -Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes -glistening with delight. Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? Wasn’t it a lovely -place? Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here! She would imagine -she was. There was scope for imagination here. - -A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against -the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf -was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of -apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; -and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below -were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance -drifted up to the window on the morning wind. - -Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the -hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, -upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful -possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it -was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in -it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the -other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible. - -Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over -green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea. - -Anne’s beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily -in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; -but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed. - -She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, until -she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheard -by the small dreamer. - -“It’s time you were dressed,” she said curtly. - -Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her -uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to -be. - -Anne stood up and drew a long breath. - -“Oh, isn’t it wonderful?” she said, waving her hand comprehensively at -the good world outside. - -“It’s a big tree,” said Marilla, “and it blooms great, but the fruit -don’t amount to much never--small and wormy.” - -“Oh, I don’t mean just the tree; of course it’s lovely--yes, it’s -_radiantly_ lovely--it blooms as if it meant it--but I meant everything, -the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big -dear world. Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning -like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. -Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They’re always -laughing. Even in winter-time I’ve heard them under the ice. I’m so glad -there’s a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn’t make any -difference to me when you’re not going to keep me, but it does. I shall -always like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if -I never see it again. If there wasn’t a brook I’d be _haunted_ by the -uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I’m not in the depths -of despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn’t it a -splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I’ve just -been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was -to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. -But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have -to stop and that hurts.” - -“You’d better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your -imaginings,” said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. -“Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the -window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as -smart as you can.” - -Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs -in ten minutes’ time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and -braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her -soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla’s requirements. As a matter of -fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes. - -“I’m pretty hungry this morning,” she announced as she slipped into the -chair Marilla placed for her. “The world doesn’t seem such a howling -wilderness as it did last night. I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning. -But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are -interesting, don’t you think? You don’t know what’s going to happen -through the day, and there’s so much scope for imagination. But I’m -glad it’s not rainy today because it’s easier to be cheerful and bear -up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal -to bear up under. It’s all very well to read about sorrows and imagine -yourself living through them heroically, but it’s not so nice when you -really come to have them, is it?” - -“For pity’s sake hold your tongue,” said Marilla. “You talk entirely too -much for a little girl.” - -Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her -continued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of -something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,--but this -was natural,--so that the meal was a very silent one. - -As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating -mechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the -sky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; she -had an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child’s body might -be there at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy -cloudland, borne aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want such -a child about the place? - -Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla -felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night -before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew’s way--take -a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent -persistency--a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its -very silence than if he had talked it out. - -When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to wash -the dishes. - -“Can you wash dishes right?” asked Marilla distrustfully. - -“Pretty well. I’m better at looking after children, though. I’ve had so -much experience at that. It’s such a pity you haven’t any here for me to -look after.” - -“I don’t feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I’ve -got at present. _You’re_ problem enough in all conscience. What’s to be -done with you I don’t know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man.” - -“I think he’s lovely,” said Anne reproachfully. “He is so very -sympathetic. He didn’t mind how much I talked--he seemed to like it. I -felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him.” - -“You’re both queer enough, if that’s what you mean by kindred spirits,” - said Marilla with a sniff. “Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take plenty of -hot water, and be sure you dry them well. I’ve got enough to attend to -this morning for I’ll have to drive over to White Sands in the afternoon -and see Mrs. Spencer. You’ll come with me and we’ll settle what’s to be -done with you. After you’ve finished the dishes go up-stairs and make -your bed.” - -Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye on -the process, discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully, for -she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick. But is -was done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to get rid of her, -told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time. - -Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very threshold -she stopped short, wheeled about, came back and sat down by the table, -light and glow as effectually blotted out as if some one had clapped an -extinguisher on her. - -“What’s the matter now?” demanded Marilla. - -“I don’t dare go out,” said Anne, in the tone of a martyr relinquishing -all earthly joys. “If I can’t stay here there is no use in my loving -Green Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all those -trees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I’ll not be able to help -loving it. It’s hard enough now, so I won’t make it any harder. I want -to go out so much--everything seems to be calling to me, ‘Anne, Anne, -come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate’--but it’s better not. -There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is -there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things, isn’t it? That was -why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought -I’d have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief -dream is over. I am resigned to my fate now, so I don’t think I’ll -go out for fear I’ll get unresigned again. What is the name of that -geranium on the window-sill, please?” - -“That’s the apple-scented geranium.” - -“Oh, I don’t mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it -yourself. Didn’t you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I call -it--let me see--Bonny would do--may I call it Bonny while I’m here? Oh, -do let me!” - -“Goodness, I don’t care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a -geranium?” - -“Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It -makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a -geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You -wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I -shall call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window -this morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course, -it won’t always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can’t -one?” - -“I never in all my life saw or heard anything to equal her,” muttered -Marilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes. “She -is kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I’m -wondering what on earth she’ll say next. She’ll be casting a spell over -me, too. She’s cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went -out said everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish he -was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back -then and argue him into reason. But what’s to be done with a man who -just _looks?_” - -Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyes -on the sky, when Marilla returned from her cellar pilgrimage. There -Marilla left her until the early dinner was on the table. - -“I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?” said -Marilla. - -Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted the -look and said grimly: - -“I’m going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I’ll take -Anne with me and Mrs. Spencer will probably make arrangements to send -her back to Nova Scotia at once. I’ll set your tea out for you and I’ll -be home in time to milk the cows.” - -Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wasted -words and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t -talk back--unless it is a woman who won’t. - -Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla and -Anne set off. Matthew opened the yard gate for them and as they drove -slowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as it seemed: - -“Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told him -I guessed I’d hire him for the summer.” - -Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious -clip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed -indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back once -as the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning over -the gate, looking wistfully after them. - - - - -CHAPTER V. Anne’s History - - -DO you know,” said Anne confidentially, “I’ve made up my mind to enjoy -this drive. It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy -things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you -must make it up _firmly_. I am not going to think about going back to -the asylum while we’re having our drive. I’m just going to think about -the drive. Oh, look, there’s one little early wild rose out! Isn’t it -lovely? Don’t you think it must be glad to be a rose? Wouldn’t it be -nice if roses could talk? I’m sure they could tell us such lovely -things. And isn’t pink the most bewitching color in the world? I love -it, but I can’t wear it. Redheaded people can’t wear pink, not even in -imagination. Did you ever know of anybody whose hair was red when she -was young, but got to be another color when she grew up?” - -“No, I don’t know as I ever did,” said Marilla mercilessly, “and I -shouldn’t think it likely to happen in your case either.” - -Anne sighed. - -“Well, that is another hope gone. ‘My life is a perfect graveyard of -buried hopes.’ That’s a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it -over to comfort myself whenever I’m disappointed in anything.” - -“I don’t see where the comforting comes in myself,” said Marilla. - -“Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were a -heroine in a book, you know. I am so fond of romantic things, and a -graveyard full of buried hopes is about as romantic a thing as one can -imagine isn’t it? I’m rather glad I have one. Are we going across the -Lake of Shining Waters today?” - -“We’re not going over Barry’s pond, if that’s what you mean by your Lake -of Shining Waters. We’re going by the shore road.” - -“Shore road sounds nice,” said Anne dreamily. “Is it as nice as it -sounds? Just when you said ‘shore road’ I saw it in a picture in my -mind, as quick as that! And White Sands is a pretty name, too; but I -don’t like it as well as Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It just -sounds like music. How far is it to White Sands?” - -“It’s five miles; and as you’re evidently bent on talking you might as -well talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about yourself.” - -“Oh, what I _know_ about myself isn’t really worth telling,” said Anne -eagerly. “If you’ll only let me tell you what I _imagine_ about myself -you’ll think it ever so much more interesting.” - -“No, I don’t want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald facts. -Begin at the beginning. Where were you born and how old are you?” - -“I was eleven last March,” said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts -with a little sigh. “And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. -My father’s name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher in the -Bolingbroke High School. My mother’s name was Bertha Shirley. Aren’t -Walter and Bertha lovely names? I’m so glad my parents had nice names. -It would be a real disgrace to have a father named--well, say Jedediah, -wouldn’t it?” - -“I guess it doesn’t matter what a person’s name is as long as he behaves -himself,” said Marilla, feeling herself called upon to inculcate a good -and useful moral. - -“Well, I don’t know.” Anne looked thoughtful. “I read in a book once -that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been -able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose _would_ be as nice if it was -called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. I suppose my father could have been -a good man even if he had been called Jedediah; but I’m sure it would -have been a cross. Well, my mother was a teacher in the High school, -too, but when she married father she gave up teaching, of course. A -husband was enough responsibility. Mrs. Thomas said that they were -a pair of babies and as poor as church mice. They went to live in a -weeny-teeny little yellow house in Bolingbroke. I’ve never seen that -house, but I’ve imagined it thousands of times. I think it must have -had honeysuckle over the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and -lilies of the valley just inside the gate. Yes, and muslin curtains in -all the windows. Muslin curtains give a house such an air. I was born -in that house. Mrs. Thomas said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw, I -was so scrawny and tiny and nothing but eyes, but that mother thought I -was perfectly beautiful. I should think a mother would be a better judge -than a poor woman who came in to scrub, wouldn’t you? I’m glad she -was satisfied with me anyhow, I would feel so sad if I thought I was a -disappointment to her--because she didn’t live very long after that, you -see. She died of fever when I was just three months old. I do wish she’d -lived long enough for me to remember calling her mother. I think it -would be so sweet to say ‘mother,’ don’t you? And father died four days -afterwards from fever too. That left me an orphan and folks were at -their wits’ end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You see, -nobody wanted me even then. It seems to be my fate. Father and mother -had both come from places far away and it was well known they hadn’t any -relatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she’d take me, though she was -poor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up by hand. Do you know -if there is anything in being brought up by hand that ought to make -people who are brought up that way better than other people? Because -whenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be such a -bad girl when she had brought me up by hand--reproachful-like. - -“Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville, and I -lived with them until I was eight years old. I helped look after the -Thomas children--there were four of them younger than me--and I can tell -you they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killed -falling under a train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the -children, but she didn’t want me. Mrs. Thomas was at _her_ wits’ end, so -she said, what to do with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river came -down and said she’d take me, seeing I was handy with children, and -I went up the river to live with her in a little clearing among the -stumps. It was a very lonesome place. I’m sure I could never have -lived there if I hadn’t had an imagination. Mr. Hammond worked a little -sawmill up there, and Mrs. Hammond had eight children. She had twins -three times. I like babies in moderation, but twins three times in -succession is _too much_. I told Mrs. Hammond so firmly, when the last -pair came. I used to get so dreadfully tired carrying them about. - -“I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr. Hammond -died and Mrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping. She divided her children -among her relatives and went to the States. I had to go to the asylum -at Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn’t want me at the -asylum, either; they said they were over-crowded as it was. But they had -to take me and I was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came.” - -Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidently -she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not -wanted her. - -“Did you ever go to school?” demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel mare -down the shore road. - -“Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs. -Thomas. When I went up river we were so far from a school that I -couldn’t walk it in winter and there was a vacation in summer, so I -could only go in the spring and fall. But of course I went while I was -at the asylum. I can read pretty well and I know ever so many pieces of -poetry off by heart--‘The Battle of Hohenlinden’ and ‘Edinburgh after -Flodden,’ and ‘Bingen of the Rhine,’ and most of the ‘Lady of the Lake’ -and most of ‘The Seasons’ by James Thompson. Don’t you just love poetry -that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back? There is a piece -in the Fifth Reader--‘The Downfall of Poland’--that is just full of -thrills. Of course, I wasn’t in the Fifth Reader--I was only in the -Fourth--but the big girls used to lend me theirs to read.” - -“Were those women--Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond--good to you?” asked -Marilla, looking at Anne out of the corner of her eye. - -“O-o-o-h,” faltered Anne. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed -scarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow. “Oh, they _meant_ to be--I know -they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people -mean to be good to you, you don’t mind very much when they’re not -quite--always. They had a good deal to worry them, you know. It’s a very -trying to have a drunken husband, you see; and it must be very trying to -have twins three times in succession, don’t you think? But I feel sure -they meant to be good to me.” - -Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up to a silent -rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly -while she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart for -the child. What a starved, unloved life she had had--a life of drudgery -and poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between -the lines of Anne’s history and divine the truth. No wonder she had been -so delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to be -sent back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew’s unaccountable -whim and let her stay? He was set on it; and the child seemed a nice, -teachable little thing. - -“She’s got too much to say,” thought Marilla, “but she might be trained -out of that. And there’s nothing rude or slangy in what she does say. -She’s ladylike. It’s likely her people were nice folks.” - -The shore road was “woodsy and wild and lonesome.” On the right hand, -scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle with -the gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstone -cliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness than -the sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down -at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy -coves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, -shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinions -flashing silvery in the sunlight. - -“Isn’t the sea wonderful?” said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyed -silence. “Once, when I lived in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an express -wagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten miles away. -I enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I had to look after the -children all the time. I lived it over in happy dreams for years. -But this shore is nicer than the Marysville shore. Aren’t those gulls -splendid? Would you like to be a gull? I think I would--that is, if I -couldn’t be a human girl. Don’t you think it would be nice to wake up at -sunrise and swoop down over the water and away out over that lovely blue -all day; and then at night to fly back to one’s nest? Oh, I can just -imagine myself doing it. What big house is that just ahead, please?” - -“That’s the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but the season hasn’t -begun yet. There are heaps of Americans come there for the summer. They -think this shore is just about right.” - -“I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer’s place,” said Anne mournfully. -“I don’t want to get there. Somehow, it will seem like the end of -everything.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind - - -GET there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a big -yellow house at White Sands Cove, and she came to the door with surprise -and welcome mingled on her benevolent face. - -“Dear, dear,” she exclaimed, “you’re the last folks I was looking for -today, but I’m real glad to see you. You’ll put your horse in? And how -are you, Anne?” - -“I’m as well as can be expected, thank you,” said Anne smilelessly. A -blight seemed to have descended on her. - -“I suppose we’ll stay a little while to rest the mare,” said Marilla, -“but I promised Matthew I’d be home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer, -there’s been a queer mistake somewhere, and I’ve come over to see where -it is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the -asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or -eleven years old.” - -“Marilla Cuthbert, you don’t say so!” said Mrs. Spencer in distress. -“Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said you -wanted a girl--didn’t she Flora Jane?” appealing to her daughter who had -come out to the steps. - -“She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert,” corroborated Flora Jane earnestly. - -“I’m dreadful sorry,” said Mrs. Spencer. “It’s too bad; but it certainly -wasn’t my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could and I -thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible flighty -thing. I’ve often had to scold her well for her heedlessness.” - -“It was our own fault,” said Marilla resignedly. “We should have come -to you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along by -word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the -only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the -asylum? I suppose they’ll take her back, won’t they?” - -“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, “but I don’t think -it will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here -yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she’d sent by me -for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know, -and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I -call it positively providential.” - -Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with -the matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome -orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it. - -She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced -woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had -heard of her. “A terrible worker and driver,” Mrs. Peter was said to -be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and -stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt -a qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her tender -mercies. - -“Well, I’ll go in and we’ll talk the matter over,” she said. - -“And if there isn’t Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!” - exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into the -parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had been -strained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had -lost every particle of warmth it had ever possessed. “That is real -lucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take the armchair, Miss -Cuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don’t wiggle. Let -me take your hats. Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Good -afternoon, Mrs. Blewett. We were just saying how fortunate it was you -happened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, Miss -Cuthbert. Please excuse me for just a moment. I forgot to tell Flora -Jane to take the buns out of the oven.” - -Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sitting -mutely on the ottoman, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stared -at Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given into the keeping -of this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in her -throat and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraid -she couldn’t keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushed -and beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty, physical, -mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand. - -“It seems there’s been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs. Blewett,” - she said. “I was under the impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanted -a little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it seems it was a -boy they wanted. So if you’re still of the same mind you were yesterday, -I think she’ll be just the thing for you.” - -Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot. - -“How old are you and what’s your name?” she demanded. - -“Anne Shirley,” faltered the shrinking child, not daring to make any -stipulations regarding the spelling thereof, “and I’m eleven years old.” - -“Humph! You don’t look as if there was much to you. But you’re wiry. I -don’t know but the wiry ones are the best after all. Well, if I take you -you’ll have to be a good girl, you know--good and smart and respectful. -I’ll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, I -suppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. The -baby’s awful fractious, and I’m clean worn out attending to him. If you -like I can take her right home now.” - -Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child’s pale face -with its look of mute misery--the misery of a helpless little creature -who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped. -Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal -of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. More-over, she did -not fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a sensitive, “highstrung” child over to -such a woman! No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that! - -“Well, I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I didn’t say that Matthew and I -had absolutely decided that we wouldn’t keep her. In fact I may say that -Matthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to find out how the -mistake had occurred. I think I’d better take her home again and talk it -over with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn’t to decide on anything without -consulting him. If we make up our mind not to keep her we’ll bring or -send her over to you tomorrow night. If we don’t you may know that she -is going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?” - -“I suppose it’ll have to,” said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously. - -During Marilla’s speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne’s face. First -the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; -her eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quite -transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett -went out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang -up and flew across the room to Marilla. - -“Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let me -stay at Green Gables?” she said, in a breathless whisper, as if speaking -aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. “Did you really say it? Or -did I only imagine that you did?” - -“I think you’d better learn to control that imagination of yours, Anne, -if you can’t distinguish between what is real and what isn’t,” said -Marilla crossly. “Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. It -isn’t decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take -you after all. She certainly needs you much more than I do.” - -“I’d rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her,” said Anne -passionately. “She looks exactly like a--like a gimlet.” - -Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be -reproved for such a speech. - -“A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and -a stranger,” she said severely. “Go back and sit down quietly and hold -your tongue and behave as a good girl should.” - -“I’ll try to do and be anything you want me, if you’ll only keep me,” - said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman. - -When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in -the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed -his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he -saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said -nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the -yard behind the barn milking the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne’s -history and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer. - -“I wouldn’t give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman,” said Matthew with -unusual vim. - -“I don’t fancy her style myself,” admitted Marilla, “but it’s that -or keeping her ourselves, Matthew. And since you seem to want her, I -suppose I’m willing--or have to be. I’ve been thinking over the idea -until I’ve got kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I’ve never -brought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I’ll make a -terrible mess of it. But I’ll do my best. So far as I’m concerned, -Matthew, she may stay.” - -Matthew’s shy face was a glow of delight. - -“Well now, I reckoned you’d come to see it in that light, Marilla,” he -said. “She’s such an interesting little thing.” - -“It’d be more to the point if you could say she was a useful little -thing,” retorted Marilla, “but I’ll make it my business to see she’s -trained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you’re not to go interfering with -my methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn’t know much about bringing up -a child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor. So you just -leave me to manage her. When I fail it’ll be time enough to put your oar -in.” - -“There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way,” said Matthew -reassuringly. “Only be as good and kind to her as you can without -spoiling her. I kind of think she’s one of the sort you can do anything -with if you only get her to love you.” - -Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew’s opinions -concerning anything feminine, and walked off to the dairy with the -pails. - -“I won’t tell her tonight that she can stay,” she reflected, as she -strained the milk into the creamers. “She’d be so excited that she -wouldn’t sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you’re fairly in for it. Did -you ever suppose you’d see the day when you’d be adopting an orphan -girl? It’s surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew -should be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a -mortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we’ve decided on the experiment -and goodness only knows what will come of it.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. Anne Says Her Prayers - - -WHEN Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly: - -“Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all about -the floor when you took them off. That is a very untidy habit, and I -can’t allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of clothing -fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven’t any use at all for -little girls who aren’t neat.” - -“I was so harrowed up in my mind last night that I didn’t think about my -clothes at all,” said Anne. “I’ll fold them nicely tonight. They always -made us do that at the asylum. Half the time, though, I’d forget, I’d be -in such a hurry to get into bed nice and quiet and imagine things.” - -“You’ll have to remember a little better if you stay here,” admonished -Marilla. “There, that looks something like. Say your prayers now and get -into bed.” - -“I never say any prayers,” announced Anne. - -Marilla looked horrified astonishment. - -“Why, Anne, what do you mean? Were you never taught to say your prayers? -God always wants little girls to say their prayers. Don’t you know who -God is, Anne?” - -“‘God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, -wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,’” responded Anne -promptly and glibly. - -Marilla looked rather relieved. - -“So you do know something then, thank goodness! You’re not quite a -heathen. Where did you learn that?” - -“Oh, at the asylum Sunday-school. They made us learn the whole -catechism. I liked it pretty well. There’s something splendid about some -of the words. ‘Infinite, eternal and unchangeable.’ Isn’t that grand? It -has such a roll to it--just like a big organ playing. You couldn’t quite -call it poetry, I suppose, but it sounds a lot like it, doesn’t it?” - -“We’re not talking about poetry, Anne--we are talking about saying your -prayers. Don’t you know it’s a terrible wicked thing not to say your -prayers every night? I’m afraid you are a very bad little girl.” - -“You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair,” said -Anne reproachfully. “People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble -is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red _on purpose_, and I’ve -never cared about Him since. And anyhow I’d always be too tired at night -to bother saying prayers. People who have to look after twins can’t be -expected to say their prayers. Now, do you honestly think they can?” - -Marilla decided that Anne’s religious training must be begun at once. -Plainly there was no time to be lost. - -“You must say your prayers while you are under my roof, Anne.” - -“Why, of course, if you want me to,” assented Anne cheerfully. “I’d do -anything to oblige you. But you’ll have to tell me what to say for this -once. After I get into bed I’ll imagine out a real nice prayer to say -always. I believe that it will be quite interesting, now that I come to -think of it.” - -“You must kneel down,” said Marilla in embarrassment. - -Anne knelt at Marilla’s knee and looked up gravely. - -“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll -tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone -or into the deep, deep, woods, and I’d look up into the -sky--up--up--up--into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no -end to its blueness. And then I’d just _feel_ a prayer. Well, I’m ready. -What am I to say?” - -Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne -the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as -I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor--which is simply -another name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred -to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood -lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch -of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God’s love, since she had -never had it translated to her through the medium of human love. - -“You’re old enough to pray for yourself, Anne,” she said finally. “Just -thank God for your blessings and ask Him humbly for the things you -want.” - -“Well, I’ll do my best,” promised Anne, burying her face in Marilla’s -lap. “Gracious heavenly Father--that’s the way the ministers say it in -church, so I suppose it’s all right in private prayer, isn’t it?” she -interjected, lifting her head for a moment. “Gracious heavenly Father, -I thank Thee for the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining -Waters and Bonny and the Snow Queen. I’m really extremely grateful for -them. And that’s all the blessings I can think of just now to thank -Thee for. As for the things I want, they’re so numerous that it would -take a great deal of time to name them all so I will only mention the -two most important. Please let me stay at Green Gables; and please let -me be good-looking when I grow up. I remain, - - “Yours respectfully, - Anne Shirley. - -“There, did I do all right?” she asked eagerly, getting up. “I could -have made it much more flowery if I’d had a little more time to think it -over.” - -Poor Marilla was only preserved from complete collapse by remembering -that it was not irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance on the part -of Anne that was responsible for this extraordinary petition. She tucked -the child up in bed, mentally vowing that she should be taught a prayer -the very next day, and was leaving the room with the light when Anne -called her back. - -“I’ve just thought of it now. I should have said, ‘Amen’ in place -of ‘yours respectfully,’ shouldn’t I?--the way the ministers do. I’d -forgotten it, but I felt a prayer should be finished off in some way, so -I put in the other. Do you suppose it will make any difference?” - -“I--I don’t suppose it will,” said Marilla. “Go to sleep now like a good -child. Good night.” - -“I can only say good night tonight with a clear conscience,” said Anne, -cuddling luxuriously down among her pillows. - -Marilla retreated to the kitchen, set the candle firmly on the table, -and glared at Matthew. - -“Matthew Cuthbert, it’s about time somebody adopted that child and -taught her something. She’s next door to a perfect heathen. Will you -believe that she never said a prayer in her life till tonight? I’ll send -her to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of the Day series, that’s -what I’ll do. And she shall go to Sunday-school just as soon as I can -get some suitable clothes made for her. I foresee that I shall have -my hands full. Well, well, we can’t get through this world without our -share of trouble. I’ve had a pretty easy life of it so far, but my time -has come at last and I suppose I’ll just have to make the best of it.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. Anne’s Bringing-up Is Begun - - -FOR reasons best known to herself, Marilla did not tell Anne that -she was to stay at Green Gables until the next afternoon. During the -forenoon she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched over her -with a keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that Anne -was smart and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most -serious shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into daydreams in -the middle of a task and forget all about it until such time as she was -sharply recalled to earth by a reprimand or a catastrophe. - -When Anne had finished washing the dinner dishes she suddenly confronted -Marilla with the air and expression of one desperately determined to -learn the worst. Her thin little body trembled from head to foot; her -face flushed and her eyes dilated until they were almost black; she -clasped her hands tightly and said in an imploring voice: - -“Oh, please, Miss Cuthbert, won’t you tell me if you are going to send -me away or not? I’ve tried to be patient all the morning, but I really -feel that I cannot bear not knowing any longer. It’s a dreadful feeling. -Please tell me.” - -“You haven’t scalded the dishcloth in clean hot water as I told you to -do,” said Marilla immovably. “Just go and do it before you ask any more -questions, Anne.” - -Anne went and attended to the dishcloth. Then she returned to Marilla -and fastened imploring eyes of the latter’s face. “Well,” said Marilla, -unable to find any excuse for deferring her explanation longer, “I -suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I have decided to keep -you--that is, if you will try to be a good little girl and show yourself -grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?” - -“I’m crying,” said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. “I can’t think why. -I’m glad as glad can be. Oh, _glad_ doesn’t seem the right word at all. I -was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms--but this! Oh, it’s -something more than glad. I’m so happy. I’ll try to be so good. It -will be uphill work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was -desperately wicked. However, I’ll do my very best. But can you tell me -why I’m crying?” - -“I suppose it’s because you’re all excited and worked up,” said Marilla -disapprovingly. “Sit down on that chair and try to calm yourself. I’m -afraid you both cry and laugh far too easily. Yes, you can stay here and -we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it’s only a -fortnight till vacation so it isn’t worth while for you to start before -it opens again in September.” - -“What am I to call you?” asked Anne. “Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert? -Can I call you Aunt Marilla?” - -“No; you’ll call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called -Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.” - -“It sounds awfully disrespectful to just say Marilla,” protested Anne. - -“I guess there’ll be nothing disrespectful in it if you’re careful -to speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me -Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert--when he thinks of -it.” - -“I’d love to call you Aunt Marilla,” said Anne wistfully. “I’ve never -had an aunt or any relation at all--not even a grandmother. It would -make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can’t I call you Aunt -Marilla?” - -“No. I’m not your aunt and I don’t believe in calling people names that -don’t belong to them.” - -“But we could imagine you were my aunt.” - -“I couldn’t,” said Marilla grimly. - -“Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?” asked -Anne wide-eyed. - -“No.” - -“Oh!” Anne drew a long breath. “Oh, Miss--Marilla, how much you miss!” - -“I don’t believe in imagining things different from what they really -are,” retorted Marilla. “When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances -He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away. And that reminds me. Go -into the sitting room, Anne--be sure your feet are clean and don’t -let any flies in--and bring me out the illustrated card that’s on the -mantelpiece. The Lord’s Prayer is on it and you’ll devote your spare -time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There’s to be no more -of such praying as I heard last night.” - -“I suppose I was very awkward,” said Anne apologetically, “but then, you -see, I’d never had any practice. You couldn’t really expect a person -to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I thought out a -splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. -It was nearly as long as a minister’s and so poetical. But would you -believe it? I couldn’t remember one word when I woke up this morning. -And I’m afraid I’ll never be able to think out another one as good. -Somehow, things never are so good when they’re thought out a second -time. Have you ever noticed that?” - -“Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do -a thing I want you to obey me at once and not stand stock-still and -discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you.” - -Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she failed -to return; after waiting ten minutes Marilla laid down her knitting -and marched after her with a grim expression. She found Anne standing -motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two windows, -with her eyes a-star with dreams. The white and green light strained -through apple trees and clustering vines outside fell over the rapt -little figure with a half-unearthly radiance. - -“Anne, whatever are you thinking of?” demanded Marilla sharply. - -Anne came back to earth with a start. - -“That,” she said, pointing to the picture--a rather vivid chromo -entitled, “Christ Blessing Little Children”--“and I was just imagining I -was one of them--that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing -off by herself in the corner as if she didn’t belong to anybody, like -me. She looks lonely and sad, don’t you think? I guess she hadn’t any -father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she -just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would -notice her--except Him. I’m sure I know just how she felt. Her heart -must have beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I -asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn’t notice her. But -it’s likely He did, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to imagine it all -out--her edging a little nearer all the time until she was quite close -to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her hair and -oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist -hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, -if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have looked so -sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.” - -“Anne,” said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this speech -long before, “you shouldn’t talk that way. It’s irreverent--positively -irreverent.” - -Anne’s eyes marveled. - -“Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I’m sure I didn’t mean to be -irreverent.” - -“Well I don’t suppose you did--but it doesn’t sound right to talk so -familiarly about such things. And another thing, Anne, when I send you -after something you’re to bring it at once and not fall into mooning and -imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come right -to the kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer off by -heart.” - -Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had -brought in to decorate the dinner-table--Marilla had eyed that -decoration askance, but had said nothing--propped her chin on her hands, -and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes. - -“I like this,” she announced at length. “It’s beautiful. I’ve heard it -before--I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday school say it -over once. But I didn’t like it then. He had such a cracked voice and -he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a -disagreeable duty. This isn’t poetry, but it makes me feel just the same -way poetry does. ‘Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.’ -That is just like a line of music. Oh, I’m so glad you thought of making -me learn this, Miss--Marilla.” - -“Well, learn it and hold your tongue,” said Marilla shortly. - -Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft -kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments -longer. - -“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have -a bosom friend in Avonlea?” - -“A--a what kind of friend?” - -“A bosom friend--an intimate friend, you know--a really kindred spirit -to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all -my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest -dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do -you think it’s possible?” - -“Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she’s about your age. She’s -a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for you when -she comes home. She’s visiting her aunt over at Carmody just now. You’ll -have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a -very particular woman. She won’t let Diana play with any little girl who -isn’t nice and good.” - -Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with -interest. - -“What is Diana like? Her hair isn’t red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It’s bad -enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it in a -bosom friend.” - -“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and -rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being -pretty.” - -Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was -firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a -child who was being brought up. - -But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the -delightful possibilities before it. - -“Oh, I’m so glad she’s pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself--and -that’s impossible in my case--it would be best to have a beautiful bosom -friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting -room with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept -her best china and her preserves there--when she had any preserves to -keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night -when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to -pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in -it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to -talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her everything. -Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend -that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I -could open the door and step right into the room where Katie Maurice -lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas’ shelves of preserves and china. And -then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a -wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have -lived there happy for ever after. When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond -it just broke my heart to leave Katie Maurice. She felt it dreadfully, -too, I know she did, for she was crying when she kissed me good-bye -through the bookcase door. There was no bookcase at Mrs. Hammond’s. But -just up the river a little way from the house there was a long green -little valley, and the loveliest echo lived there. It echoed back every -word you said, even if you didn’t talk a bit loud. So I imagined that it -was a little girl called Violetta and we were great friends and I loved -her almost as well as I loved Katie Maurice--not quite, but almost, you -know. The night before I went to the asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, -and oh, her good-bye came back to me in such sad, sad tones. I had -become so attached to her that I hadn’t the heart to imagine a bosom -friend at the asylum, even if there had been any scope for imagination -there.” - -“I think it’s just as well there wasn’t,” said Marilla drily. “I -don’t approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe your own -imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to -put such nonsense out of your head. But don’t let Mrs. Barry hear you -talking about your Katie Maurices and your Violettas or she’ll think you -tell stories.” - -“Oh, I won’t. I couldn’t talk of them to everybody--their memories are -too sacred for that. But I thought I’d like to have you know about them. -Oh, look, here’s a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just -think what a lovely place to live--in an apple blossom! Fancy going to -sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn’t a human girl I -think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.” - -“Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull,” sniffed Marilla. “I think you -are very fickle minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk. -But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you’ve got anybody -that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it.” - -“Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now--all but just the last line.” - -“Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish learning -it well, and stay there until I call you down to help me get tea.” - -“Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?” pleaded Anne. - -“No; you don’t want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should have -left them on the tree in the first place.” - -“I did feel a little that way, too,” said Anne. “I kind of felt I -shouldn’t shorten their lovely lives by picking them--I wouldn’t want -to be picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was -_irresistible_. What do you do when you meet with an irresistible -temptation?” - -“Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?” - -Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by the -window. - -“There--I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming -upstairs. Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll -always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet -with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the -windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The -furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound _so_ -luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, -pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. -I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall. -I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing white lace, with a -pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair. My hair is of midnight -darkness and my skin is a clear ivory pallor. My name is the Lady -Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it isn’t--I can’t make _that_ seem real.” - -She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her -pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her. - -“You’re only Anne of Green Gables,” she said earnestly, “and I see you, -just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady -Cordelia. But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than -Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?” - -She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook -herself to the open window. - - -“Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon dear birches down -in the hollow. And good afternoon, dear gray house up on the hill. I -wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall -love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice -and Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I’d hate to hurt -anybody’s feelings, even a little bookcase girl’s or a little echo -girl’s. I must be careful to remember them and send them a kiss every -day.” - -Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips past the cherry -blossoms and then, with her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out -on a sea of daydreams. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified - - -ANNE had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived to -inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. -A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady -to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. -Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for -people who were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on -earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations -of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot -out-of-doors she hurried up to Green Gables, bursting with curiosity to -see Matthew and Marilla’s orphan, concerning whom all sorts of stories -and suppositions had gone abroad in Avonlea. - -Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight. Already -she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the place. She had -discovered that a lane opened out below the apple orchard and ran up -through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end -in all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild -cherry arch, corners thick with fern, and branching byways of maple and -mountain ash. - -She had made friends with the spring down in the hollow--that wonderful -deep, clear icy-cold spring; it was set about with smooth red sandstones -and rimmed in by great palm-like clumps of water fern; and beyond it was -a log bridge over the brook. - -That bridge led Anne’s dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond, where -perpetual twilight reigned under the straight, thick-growing firs and -spruces; the only flowers there were myriads of delicate “June bells,” - those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial -starflowers, like the spirits of last year’s blossoms. Gossamers -glimmered like threads of silver among the trees and the fir boughs and -tassels seemed to utter friendly speech. - -All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half -hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and -Marilla half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that Matthew complained, to -be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his -face; Marilla permitted the “chatter” until she found herself becoming -too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a -curt command to hold her tongue. - -Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her -own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy -evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk -her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with -such evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its -compensations. When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the -real reason of her call. - -“I’ve been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew.” - -“I don’t suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself,” said -Marilla. “I’m getting over my surprise now.” - -“It was too bad there was such a mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel -sympathetically. “Couldn’t you have sent her back?” - -“I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. -And I must say I like her myself--although I admit she has her faults. -The house seems a different place already. She’s a real bright little -thing.” - -Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she -read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel’s expression. - -“It’s a great responsibility you’ve taken on yourself,” said that -lady gloomily, “especially when you’ve never had any experience with -children. You don’t know much about her or her real disposition, I -suppose, and there’s no guessing how a child like that will turn out. -But I don’t want to discourage you I’m sure, Marilla.” - -“I’m not feeling discouraged,” was Marilla’s dry response, “when I make -up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you’d like to see -Anne. I’ll call her in.” - -Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of -her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in -the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside -the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short -tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin -legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and -obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into -over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. - -“Well, they didn’t pick you for your looks, that’s sure and certain,” - was Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those -delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their -mind without fear or favor. “She’s terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. -Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did -any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, -child, I say.” - -Anne “came there,” but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one -bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her -face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form -trembling from head to foot. - -“I hate you,” she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the -floor. “I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--” a louder stamp with each -assertion of hatred. “How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare -you say I’m freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling -woman!” - -“Anne!” exclaimed Marilla in consternation. - -But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes -blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like -an atmosphere. - -“How dare you say such things about me?” she repeated vehemently. “How -would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like -to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn’t a spark of -imagination in you? I don’t care if I do hurt your feelings by saying -so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever -hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas’ intoxicated husband. And I’ll _never_ -forgive you for it, never, never!” - -Stamp! Stamp! - -“Did anybody ever see such a temper!” exclaimed the horrified Mrs. -Rachel. - -“Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up,” said Marilla, -recovering her powers of speech with difficulty. - -Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the -tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the -hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that -the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence. - -“Well, I don’t envy you your job bringing _that_ up, Marilla,” said Mrs. -Rachel with unspeakable solemnity. - -Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or -deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever -afterwards. - -“You shouldn’t have twitted her about her looks, Rachel.” - -“Marilla Cuthbert, you don’t mean to say that you are upholding her in -such a terrible display of temper as we’ve just seen?” demanded Mrs. -Rachel indignantly. - -“No,” said Marilla slowly, “I’m not trying to excuse her. She’s been -very naughty and I’ll have to give her a talking to about it. But we -must make allowances for her. She’s never been taught what is right. And -you _were_ too hard on her, Rachel.” - -Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she was -again surprised at herself for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an air -of offended dignity. - -“Well, I see that I’ll have to be very careful what I say after this, -Marilla, since the fine feelings of orphans, brought from goodness -knows where, have to be considered before anything else. Oh, no, I’m not -vexed--don’t worry yourself. I’m too sorry for you to leave any room for -anger in my mind. You’ll have your own troubles with that child. But -if you’ll take my advice--which I suppose you won’t do, although I’ve -brought up ten children and buried two--you’ll do that ‘talking to’ you -mention with a fair-sized birch switch. I should think _that_ would be the -most effective language for that kind of a child. Her temper matches her -hair I guess. Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you’ll come down to -see me often as usual. But you can’t expect me to visit here again in a -hurry, if I’m liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It’s -something new in _my_ experience.” - -Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away--if a fat woman who always -waddled _could_ be said to sweep away--and Marilla with a very solemn face -betook herself to the east gable. - -On the way upstairs she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do. -She felt no little dismay over the scene that had just been enacted. -How unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such temper before Mrs. -Rachel Lynde, of all people! Then Marilla suddenly became aware of an -uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more humiliation -over this than sorrow over the discovery of such a serious defect -in Anne’s disposition. And how was she to punish her? The amiable -suggestion of the birch switch--to the efficiency of which all of Mrs. -Rachel’s own children could have borne smarting testimony--did not -appeal to Marilla. She did not believe she could whip a child. No, -some other method of punishment must be found to bring Anne to a proper -realization of the enormity of her offense. - -Marilla found Anne face downward on her bed, crying bitterly, quite -oblivious of muddy boots on a clean counterpane. - -“Anne,” she said not ungently. - -No answer. - -“Anne,” with greater severity, “get off that bed this minute and listen -to what I have to say to you.” - -Anne squirmed off the bed and sat rigidly on a chair beside it, her face -swollen and tear-stained and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor. - -“This is a nice way for you to behave. Anne! Aren’t you ashamed of -yourself?” - -“She hadn’t any right to call me ugly and redheaded,” retorted Anne, -evasive and defiant. - -“You hadn’t any right to fly into such a fury and talk the way you did -to her, Anne. I was ashamed of you--thoroughly ashamed of you. I -wanted you to behave nicely to Mrs. Lynde, and instead of that you have -disgraced me. I’m sure I don’t know why you should lose your temper like -that just because Mrs. Lynde said you were red-haired and homely. You -say it yourself often enough.” - -“Oh, but there’s such a difference between saying a thing yourself and -hearing other people say it,” wailed Anne. “You may know a thing is -so, but you can’t help hoping other people don’t quite think it is. I -suppose you think I have an awful temper, but I couldn’t help it. When -she said those things something just rose right up in me and choked me. -I _had_ to fly out at her.” - -“Well, you made a fine exhibition of yourself I must say. Mrs. Lynde -will have a nice story to tell about you everywhere--and she’ll tell -it, too. It was a dreadful thing for you to lose your temper like that, -Anne.” - -“Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face that -you were skinny and ugly,” pleaded Anne tearfully. - -An old remembrance suddenly rose up before Marilla. She had been a very -small child when she had heard one aunt say of her to another, “What a -pity she is such a dark, homely little thing.” Marilla was every day of -fifty before the sting had gone out of that memory. - -“I don’t say that I think Mrs. Lynde was exactly right in saying what -she did to you, Anne,” she admitted in a softer tone. “Rachel is too -outspoken. But that is no excuse for such behavior on your part. She -was a stranger and an elderly person and my visitor--all three very good -reasons why you should have been respectful to her. You were rude and -saucy and”--Marilla had a saving inspiration of punishment--“you must go -to her and tell her you are very sorry for your bad temper and ask her -to forgive you.” - -“I can never do that,” said Anne determinedly and darkly. “You can -punish me in any way you like, Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, -damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and -water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Mrs. Lynde to forgive -me.” - -“We’re not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons,” - said Marilla drily, “especially as they’re rather scarce in Avonlea. But -apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and you’ll stay here in your -room until you can tell me you’re willing to do it.” - -“I shall have to stay here forever then,” said Anne mournfully, “because -I can’t tell Mrs. Lynde I’m sorry I said those things to her. How can -I? I’m _not_ sorry. I’m sorry I’ve vexed you; but I’m _glad_ I told her just -what I did. It was a great satisfaction. I can’t say I’m sorry when I’m -not, can I? I can’t even _imagine_ I’m sorry.” - -“Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the -morning,” said Marilla, rising to depart. “You’ll have the night to -think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You said -you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables, but -I must say it hasn’t seemed very much like it this evening.” - -Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne’s stormy bosom, Marilla -descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in -soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she -recalled Mrs. Rachel’s dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with -amusement and she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh. - - - - -CHAPTER X. Anne’s Apology - - -MARILLA said nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when -Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to be -made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told -Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of -the enormity of Anne’s behavior. - -“It’s a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she’s a meddlesome -old gossip,” was Matthew’s consolatory rejoinder. - -“Matthew Cuthbert, I’m astonished at you. You know that Anne’s behavior -was dreadful, and yet you take her part! I suppose you’ll be saying next -thing that she oughtn’t to be punished at all!” - -“Well now--no--not exactly,” said Matthew uneasily. “I reckon she -ought to be punished a little. But don’t be too hard on her, Marilla. -Recollect she hasn’t ever had anyone to teach her right. You’re--you’re -going to give her something to eat, aren’t you?” - -“When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?” - demanded Marilla indignantly. “She’ll have her meals regular, and -I’ll carry them up to her myself. But she’ll stay up there until she’s -willing to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that’s final, Matthew.” - -Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals--for Anne still -remained obdurate. After each meal Marilla carried a well-filled tray -to the east gable and brought it down later on not noticeably depleted. -Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne eaten -anything at all? - -When Marilla went out that evening to bring the cows from the back -pasture, Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns and watching, -slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs. As -a general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the little -bedroom off the hall where he slept; once in a while he ventured -uncomfortably into the parlor or sitting room when the minister came to -tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring he -helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years ago. - -He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the -door of the east gable before he summoned courage to tap on it with his -fingers and then open the door to peep in. - -Anne was sitting on the yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully out -into the garden. Very small and unhappy she looked, and Matthew’s heart -smote him. He softly closed the door and tiptoed over to her. - -“Anne,” he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, “how are you -making it, Anne?” - -Anne smiled wanly. - -“Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time. Of -course, it’s rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that.” - -Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary -imprisonment before her. - -Matthew recollected that he must say what he had come to say without -loss of time, lest Marilla return prematurely. “Well now, Anne, don’t -you think you’d better do it and have it over with?” he whispered. -“It’ll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for Marilla’s a -dreadful deter-mined woman--dreadful determined, Anne. Do it right off, -I say, and have it over.” - -“Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?” - -“Yes--apologize--that’s the very word,” said Matthew eagerly. “Just -smooth it over so to speak. That’s what I was trying to get at.” - -“I suppose I could do it to oblige you,” said Anne thoughtfully. “It -would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I _am_ sorry now. I wasn’t -a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all -night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just -furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn’t in a temper -anymore--and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed -of myself. But I just couldn’t think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde -so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I’d stay shut up here -forever rather than do that. But still--I’d do anything for you--if you -really want me to--” - -“Well now, of course I do. It’s terrible lonesome downstairs without -you. Just go and smooth things over--that’s a good girl.” - -“Very well,” said Anne resignedly. “I’ll tell Marilla as soon as she -comes in I’ve repented.” - -“That’s right--that’s right, Anne. But don’t tell Marilla I said -anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I -promised not to do that.” - -“Wild horses won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Anne solemnly. -“How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?” - -But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the -remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what -he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to the house, was -agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, “Marilla” over -the banisters. - -“Well?” she said, going into the hall. - -“I’m sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I’m willing to go -and tell Mrs. Lynde so.” - -“Very well.” Marilla’s crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had -been wondering what under the canopy she should do if Anne did not give -in. “I’ll take you down after milking.” - -Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the -lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected. -But halfway down Anne’s dejection vanished as if by enchantment. She -lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset -sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld the -change disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her -to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde. - -“What are you thinking of, Anne?” she asked sharply. - -“I’m imagining out what I must say to Mrs. Lynde,” answered Anne -dreamily. - -This was satisfactory--or should have been so. But Marilla could not -rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was -going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant. - -Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence -of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the -radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before -a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the -astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly. - -“Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry,” she said with a quiver in -her voice. “I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up -a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to -you--and I’ve disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have -let me stay at Green Gables although I’m not a boy. I’m a dreadfully -wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out -by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a -temper because you told me the truth. It _was_ the truth; every word you -said was true. My hair is red and I’m freckled and skinny and ugly. -What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn’t have said it. Oh, Mrs. -Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong -sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a -dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you forgive me, -Mrs. Lynde.” - -Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word -of judgment. - -There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her -voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. -But the former under-stood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying -her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her -abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, -had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive -pleasure. - -Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see -this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and -all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart. - -“There, there, get up, child,” she said heartily. “Of course I forgive -you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I’m such an -outspoken person. You just mustn’t mind me, that’s what. It can’t be -denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once--went to school -with her, in fact--whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she -was young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome auburn. I -wouldn’t be a mite surprised if yours did, too--not a mite.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Lynde!” Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. “You -have given me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh, -I could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome -auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one’s -hair was a handsome auburn, don’t you think? And now may I go out into -your garden and sit on that bench under the apple-trees while you and -Marilla are talking? There is so much more scope for imagination out -there.” - -“Laws, yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of them white -June lilies over in the corner if you like.” - -As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to light a -lamp. - -“She’s a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Marilla; it’s easier -than the one you’ve got; I just keep that for the hired boy to sit -on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of -taking about her after all. I don’t feel so surprised at you and Matthew -keeping her as I did--nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out all -right. Of course, she has a queer way of expressing herself--a little -too--well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she’ll likely get over -that now that she’s come to live among civilized folks. And then, her -temper’s pretty quick, I guess; but there’s one comfort, a child that -has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain’t never likely to -be sly or deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that’s what. On the -whole, Marilla, I kind of like her.” - -When Marilla went home Anne came out of the fragrant twilight of the -orchard with a sheaf of white narcissi in her hands. - -“I apologized pretty well, didn’t I?” she said proudly as they went -down the lane. “I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it -thoroughly.” - -“You did it thoroughly, all right enough,” was Marilla’s comment. -Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the -recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to scold -Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She -compromised with her conscience by saying severely: - -“I hope you won’t have occasion to make many more such apologies. I hope -you’ll try to control your temper now, Anne.” - -“That wouldn’t be so hard if people wouldn’t twit me about my looks,” - said Anne with a sigh. “I don’t get cross about other things; but I’m -_so_ tired of being twitted about my hair and it just makes me boil right -over. Do you suppose my hair will really be a handsome auburn when I -grow up?” - -“You shouldn’t think so much about your looks, Anne. I’m afraid you are -a very vain little girl.” - -“How can I be vain when I know I’m homely?” protested Anne. “I love -pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that -isn’t pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful--just as I feel when I look -at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn’t beautiful.” - -“Handsome is as handsome does,” quoted Marilla. “I’ve had that said -to me before, but I have my doubts about it,” remarked skeptical Anne, -sniffing at her narcissi. “Oh, aren’t these flowers sweet! It was lovely -of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against Mrs. -Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and -be forgiven, doesn’t it? Aren’t the stars bright tonight? If you could -live in a star, which one would you pick? I’d like that lovely clear big -one away over there above that dark hill.” - -“Anne, do hold your tongue,” said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying to -follow the gyrations of Anne’s thoughts. - -Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little gypsy -wind came down it to meet them, laden with the spicy perfume of young -dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light gleamed out -through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came -close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman’s hard palm. - -“It’s lovely to be going home and know it’s home,” she said. “I love -Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever -seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I’m so happy. I could pray right now and -not find it a bit hard.” - -Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla’s heart at touch of -that thin little hand in her own--a throb of the maternity she had -missed, perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness disturbed -her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by -inculcating a moral. - -“If you’ll be a good girl you’ll always be happy, Anne. And you should -never find it hard to say your prayers.” - -“Saying one’s prayers isn’t exactly the same thing as praying,” said -Anne meditatively. “But I’m going to imagine that I’m the wind that is -blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees I’ll -imagine I’m gently waving down here in the ferns--and then I’ll fly over -to Mrs. Lynde’s garden and set the flowers dancing--and then I’ll go -with one great swoop over the clover field--and then I’ll blow over the -Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves. -Oh, there’s so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I’ll not talk -any more just now, Marilla.” - -“Thanks be to goodness for that,” breathed Marilla in devout relief. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. Anne’s Impressions of Sunday-School - - -WELL, how do you like them?” said Marilla. - -Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three new -dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham which -Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer -because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checkered -sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and -one was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased that -week at a Carmody store. - -She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike--plain skirts -fulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt -and tight as sleeves could be. - -“I’ll imagine that I like them,” said Anne soberly. - -“I don’t want you to imagine it,” said Marilla, offended. “Oh, I can see -you don’t like the dresses! What is the matter with them? Aren’t they -neat and clean and new?” - -“Yes.” - -“Then why don’t you like them?” - -“They’re--they’re not--pretty,” said Anne reluctantly. - -“Pretty!” Marilla sniffed. “I didn’t trouble my head about getting -pretty dresses for you. I don’t believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I’ll -tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable -dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they’re all -you’ll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will do -you for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and Sunday -school. I’ll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tear -them. I should think you’d be grateful to get most anything after those -skimpy wincey things you’ve been wearing.” - -“Oh, I _am_ grateful,” protested Anne. “But I’d be ever so much -gratefuller if--if you’d made just one of them with puffed sleeves. -Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, -Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves.” - -“Well, you’ll have to do without your thrill. I hadn’t any material -to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking things -anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones.” - -“But I’d rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and -sensible all by myself,” persisted Anne mournfully. - -“Trust you for that! Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your -closet, and then sit down and learn the Sunday school lesson. I got -a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you’ll go to Sunday school -tomorrow,” said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon. - -Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses. - -“I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves,” she -whispered disconsolately. “I prayed for one, but I didn’t much expect it -on that account. I didn’t suppose God would have time to bother about -a little orphan girl’s dress. I knew I’d just have to depend on -Marilla for it. Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of -snow-white muslin with lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves.” - -The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from -going to Sunday-school with Anne. - -“You’ll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne,” she said. -“She’ll see that you get into the right class. Now, mind you behave -yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde to -show you our pew. Here’s a cent for collection. Don’t stare at people -and don’t fidget. I shall expect you to tell me the text when you come -home.” - -Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white -sateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open to -the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle -of her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the -extreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who -had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter, -however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being -confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred -buttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberally -garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them. Whatever other people -might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she tripped -gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink -and yellow very proudly. - -When she had reached Mrs. Lynde’s house she found that lady gone. -Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the church alone. In the porch -she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired in -whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this -stranger in their midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. Avonlea -little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde said -she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables, -said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers -like a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other behind -their quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later -on when the opening exercises were over and Anne found herself in Miss -Rogerson’s class. - -Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-school -class for twenty years. Her method of teaching was to ask the printed -questions from the quarterly and look sternly over its edge at the -particular little girl she thought ought to answer the question. She -looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla’s drilling, -answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much -about either question or answer. - -She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; -every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves. Anne felt that -life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves. - -“Well, how did you like Sunday school?” Marilla wanted to know when Anne -came home. Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane, -so Marilla was spared the knowledge of that for a time. - -“I didn’t like it a bit. It was horrid.” - -“Anne Shirley!” said Marilla rebukingly. - -Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonny’s -leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia. - -“They might have been lonesome while I was away,” she explained. “And -now about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs. -Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went into the church, with -a lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the -window while the opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully -long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through -if I hadn’t been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the -Lake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts -of splendid things.” - -“You shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. You should have listened -to Mr. Bell.” - -“But he wasn’t talking to me,” protested Anne. “He was talking to God -and he didn’t seem to be very much inter-ested in it, either. I think -he thought God was too far off though. There was a long row of white -birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through -them, ‘way, ‘way down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like a -beautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just said, ‘Thank you for it, -God,’ two or three times.” - -“Not out loud, I hope,” said Marilla anxiously. - -“Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through at last -and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Rogerson’s class. -There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed sleeves. I tried -to imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I? It was -as easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone in -the east gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who had -really truly puffs.” - -“You shouldn’t have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday school. -You should have been attending to the lesson. I hope you knew it.” - -“Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss Rogerson asked ever so -many. I don’t think it was fair for her to do all the asking. There were -lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t like to because I didn’t think -she was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited a -paraphrase. She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn’t, but I could -recite, ‘The Dog at His Master’s Grave’ if she liked. That’s in the -Third Royal Reader. It isn’t a really truly religious piece of poetry, -but it’s so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. She said it -wouldn’t do and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for next -Sunday. I read it over in church afterwards and it’s splendid. There are -two lines in particular that just thrill me. - - “‘Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell - In Midian’s evil day.’ - -“I don’t know what ‘squadrons’ means nor ‘Midian,’ either, but it sounds -_so_ tragical. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to recite it. -I’ll practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked Miss -Rogerson--because Mrs. Lynde was too far away--to show me your pew. -I sat just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, third -chapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text. If I was a -minister I’d pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully long, -too. I suppose the minister had to match it to the text. I didn’t think -he was a bit interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that he -hasn’t enough imagination. I didn’t listen to him very much. I just let -my thoughts run and I thought of the most surprising things.” - -Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but -she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had -said, especially about the minister’s sermons and Mr. Bell’s prayers, -were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for -years, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that -those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible -and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of -neglected humanity. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise - - -IT was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the -flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde’s and called Anne to -account. - -“Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat -rigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put you -up to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have been!” - -“Oh. I know pink and yellow aren’t becoming to me,” began Anne. - -“Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all, -no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the most -aggravating child!” - -“I don’t see why it’s any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat -than on your dress,” protested Anne. “Lots of little girls there had -bouquets pinned on their dresses. What’s the difference?” - -Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths of -the abstract. - -“Don’t answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to do -such a thing. Never let me catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachel -says she thought she would sink through the floor when she saw you come -in all rigged out like that. She couldn’t get near enough to tell you -to take them off till it was too late. She says people talked about it -something dreadful. Of course they would think I had no better sense -than to let you go decked out like that.” - -“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. “I never -thought you’d mind. The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty -I thought they’d look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls had -artificial flowers on their hats. I’m afraid I’m going to be a dreadful -trial to you. Maybe you’d better send me back to the asylum. That would -be terrible; I don’t think I could endure it; most likely I would go -into consumption; I’m so thin as it is, you see. But that would be -better than being a trial to you.” - -“Nonsense,” said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child -cry. “I don’t want to send you back to the asylum, I’m sure. All I want -is that you should behave like other little girls and not make yourself -ridiculous. Don’t cry any more. I’ve got some news for you. Diana Barry -came home this afternoon. I’m going up to see if I can borrow a skirt -pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like you can come with me and get -acquainted with Diana.” - -Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening on -her cheeks; the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the -floor. - -“Oh, Marilla, I’m frightened--now that it has come I’m actually -frightened. What if she shouldn’t like me! It would be the most tragical -disappointment of my life.” - -“Now, don’t get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn’t use such long -words. It sounds so funny in a little girl. I guess Diana ‘ll like you -well enough. It’s her mother you’ve got to reckon with. If she doesn’t -like you it won’t matter how much Diana does. If she has heard about -your outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with buttercups round -your hat I don’t know what she’ll think of you. You must be polite and -well behaved, and don’t make any of your startling speeches. For pity’s -sake, if the child isn’t actually trembling!” - -Anne _was_ trembling. Her face was pale and tense. - -“Oh, Marilla, you’d be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little -girl you hoped to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn’t like -you,” she said as she hastened to get her hat. - -They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and up -the firry hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in answer to -Marilla’s knock. She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with a -very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict with -her children. - -“How do you do, Marilla?” she said cordially. “Come in. And this is the -little girl you have adopted, I suppose?” - -“Yes, this is Anne Shirley,” said Marilla. - -“Spelled with an E,” gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she was, -was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that important -point. - -Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and -said kindly: - -“How are you?” - -“I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank you -ma’am,” said Anne gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper, -“There wasn’t anything startling in that, was there, Marilla?” - -Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when the -callers entered. She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother’s -black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry expression which was -her inheritance from her father. - -“This is my little girl Diana,” said Mrs. Barry. “Diana, you might take -Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be better -for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirely -too much--” this to Marilla as the little girls went out--“and I can’t -prevent her, for her father aids and abets her. She’s always poring over -a book. I’m glad she has the prospect of a playmate--perhaps it will -take her more out-of-doors.” - -Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streaming -through the dark old firs to the west of it, stood Anne and Diana, -gazing bashfully at each other over a clump of gorgeous tiger lilies. - -The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have -delighted Anne’s heart at any time less fraught with destiny. It was -encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourished -flowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths neatly bordered -with clamshells, intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the beds -between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There were rosy bleeding-hearts -and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny, -sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted -Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple -Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with its -delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot -its fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where -sunshine lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering, -purred and rustled. - -“Oh, Diana,” said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost -in a whisper, “oh, do you think you can like me a little--enough to be -my bosom friend?” - -Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke. - -“Why, I guess so,” she said frankly. “I’m awfully glad you’ve come to -live at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play with. -There isn’t any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I’ve -no sisters big enough.” - -“Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?” demanded Anne -eagerly. - -Diana looked shocked. - -“Why it’s dreadfully wicked to swear,” she said rebukingly. - -“Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know.” - -“I never heard of but one kind,” said Diana doubtfully. - -“There really is another. Oh, it isn’t wicked at all. It just means -vowing and promising solemnly.” - -“Well, I don’t mind doing that,” agreed Diana, relieved. “How do you do -it?” - -“We must join hands--so,” said Anne gravely. “It ought to be over -running water. We’ll just imagine this path is running water. I’ll -repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom -friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you -say it and put my name in.” - -Diana repeated the “oath” with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said: - -“You’re a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I -believe I’m going to like you real well.” - -When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as far as the log -bridge. The two little girls walked with their arms about each other. -At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoon -together. - -“Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?” asked Marilla as they went -up through the garden of Green Gables. - -“Oh yes,” sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on -Marilla’s part. “Oh Marilla, I’m the happiest girl on Prince Edward -Island this very moment. I assure you I’ll say my prayers with a right -good-will tonight. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. -William Bell’s birch grove tomorrow. Can I have those broken pieces of -china that are out in the woodshed? Diana’s birthday is in February and -mine is in March. Don’t you think that is a very strange coincidence? -Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it’s perfectly -splendid and tremendously exciting. She’s going to show me a place back -in the woods where rice lilies grow. Don’t you think Diana has got very -soulful eyes? I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to -sing a song called ‘Nelly in the Hazel Dell.’ She’s going to give me a -picture to put up in my room; it’s a perfectly beautiful picture, she -says--a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress. A sewing-machine agent -gave it to her. I wish I had something to give Diana. I’m an inch taller -than Diana, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she’d like to be -thin because it’s so much more graceful, but I’m afraid she only said -it to soothe my feelings. We’re going to the shore some day to gather -shells. We have agreed to call the spring down by the log bridge the -Dryad’s Bubble. Isn’t that a perfectly elegant name? I read a story -once about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy, I -think.” - -“Well, all I hope is you won’t talk Diana to death,” said Marilla. “But -remember this in all your planning, Anne. You’re not going to play all -the time nor most of it. You’ll have your work to do and it’ll have to -be done first.” - -Anne’s cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow. He -had just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishly -produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne, with a -deprecatory look at Marilla. - -“I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some,” he -said. - -“Humph,” sniffed Marilla. “It’ll ruin her teeth and stomach. There, -there, child, don’t look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew -has gone and got them. He’d better have brought you peppermints. They’re -wholesomer. Don’t sicken yourself eating all them at once now.” - -“Oh, no, indeed, I won’t,” said Anne eagerly. “I’ll just eat one -tonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana half of them, can’t I? The -other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It’s -delightful to think I have something to give her.” - -“I will say it for the child,” said Marilla when Anne had gone to -her gable, “she isn’t stingy. I’m glad, for of all faults I detest -stinginess in a child. Dear me, it’s only three weeks since she came, -and it seems as if she’d been here always. I can’t imagine the place -without her. Now, don’t be looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That’s bad -enough in a woman, but it isn’t to be endured in a man. I’m perfectly -willing to own up that I’m glad I consented to keep the child and that -I’m getting fond of her, but don’t you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert.” - - - -CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of Anticipation - - -IT’S time Anne was in to do her sewing,” said Marilla, glancing at the -clock and then out into the yellow August afternoon where everything -drowsed in the heat. “She stayed playing with Diana more than half an -hour more ‘n I gave her leave to; and now she’s perched out there on -the woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to the dozen, when she knows -perfectly well she ought to be at her work. And of course he’s listening -to her like a perfect ninny. I never saw such an infatuated man. -The more she talks and the odder the things she says, the more he’s -delighted evidently. Anne Shirley, you come right in here this minute, -do you hear me!” - -A series of staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from -the yard, eyes shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair -streaming behind her in a torrent of brightness. - -“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “there’s going to be a -Sunday-school picnic next week--in Mr. Harmon Andrews’s field, right -near the lake of Shining Waters. And Mrs. Superintendent Bell and Mrs. -Rachel Lynde are going to make ice cream--think of it, Marilla--_ice -cream!_ And, oh, Marilla, can I go to it?” - -“Just look at the clock, if you please, Anne. What time did I tell you -to come in?” - -“Two o’clock--but isn’t it splendid about the picnic, Marilla? Please -can I go? Oh, I’ve never been to a picnic--I’ve dreamed of picnics, but -I’ve never--” - -“Yes, I told you to come at two o’clock. And it’s a quarter to three. -I’d like to know why you didn’t obey me, Anne.” - -“Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no idea -how fascinating Idlewild is. And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew -about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener. Please can I -go?” - -“You’ll have to learn to resist the fascination of -Idle-whatever-you-call-it. When I tell you to come in at a certain time -I mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn’t stop to -discourse with sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for the -picnic, of course you can go. You’re a Sunday-school scholar, and it’s -not likely I’d refuse to let you go when all the other little girls are -going.” - -“But--but,” faltered Anne, “Diana says that everybody must take a basket -of things to eat. I can’t cook, as you know, Marilla, and--and--I don’t -mind going to a picnic without puffed sleeves so much, but I’d feel -terribly humiliated if I had to go without a basket. It’s been preying -on my mind ever since Diana told me.” - -“Well, it needn’t prey any longer. I’ll bake you a basket.” - -“Oh, you dear good Marilla. Oh, you are so kind to me. Oh, I’m so much -obliged to you.” - -Getting through with her “ohs” Anne cast herself into Marilla’s arms and -rapturously kissed her sallow cheek. It was the first time in her whole -life that childish lips had voluntarily touched Marilla’s face. Again -that sudden sensation of startling sweetness thrilled her. She was -secretly vastly pleased at Anne’s impulsive caress, which was probably -the reason why she said brusquely: - -“There, there, never mind your kissing nonsense. I’d sooner see you -doing strictly as you’re told. As for cooking, I mean to begin giving -you lessons in that some of these days. But you’re so featherbrained, -Anne, I’ve been waiting to see if you’d sober down a little and learn -to be steady before I begin. You’ve got to keep your wits about you in -cooking and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove -all over creation. Now, get out your patchwork and have your square done -before teatime.” - -“I do _not_ like patchwork,” said Anne dolefully, hunting out her -workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white -diamonds with a sigh. “I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but -there’s no scope for imagination in patchwork. It’s just one little seam -after another and you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course -I’d rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any -other place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick -sewing patches as it does when I’m playing with Diana, though. Oh, we -do have such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the -imagination, but I’m well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in -every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook -that runs up between our farm and Mr. Barry’s. It belongs to Mr. William -Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of white birch -trees--the most romantic spot, Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse -there. We call it Idlewild. Isn’t that a poetical name? I assure you it -took me some time to think it out. I stayed awake nearly a whole night -before I invented it. Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came -like an inspiration. Diana was _enraptured_ when she heard it. We have got -our house fixed up elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla--won’t -you? We have great big stones, all covered with moss, for seats, and -boards from tree to tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on -them. Of course, they’re all broken but it’s the easiest thing in the -world to imagine that they are whole. There’s a piece of a plate with a -spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We keep -it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass -is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their -chicken house. It’s all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows -that haven’t grown big yet--and Diana’s mother told her it was broken -off a hanging lamp they once had. But it’s nice to imagine the fairies -lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it the fairy glass. -Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named that little round -pool over in Mr. Barry’s field Willowmere. I got that name out of the -book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla. The heroine -had five lovers. I’d be satisfied with one, wouldn’t you? She was very -handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as -easy as anything. I’d love to be able to faint, wouldn’t you, Marilla? -It’s so romantic. But I’m really very healthy for all I’m so thin. I -believe I’m getting fatter, though. Don’t you think I am? I look at my -elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming. -Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She is going to -wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I -don’t feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened -to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I’d live through it, -but I’m certain it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn’t matter if -I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn’t make up for -missing this one. They’re going to have boats on the Lake of Shining -Waters--and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream. -Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of -those things that are beyond imagination.” - -“Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock,” said -Marilla. “Now, just for curiosity’s sake, see if you can hold your -tongue for the same length of time.” - -Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she talked -picnic and thought picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained and -she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest it should keep -on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra -patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves. - -On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she -grew actually cold all over with excitement when the minister announced -the picnic from the pulpit. - -“Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don’t think I’d -ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to be -a picnic. I couldn’t help fearing I’d only imagined it. But when a -minister says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it.” - -“You set your heart too much on things, Anne,” said Marilla, with a -sigh. “I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for -you through life.” - -“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” - exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can -prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. -Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be -disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to -be disappointed.” - -Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual. Marilla -always wore her amethyst brooch to church. She would have thought it -rather sacrilegious to leave it off--as bad as forgetting her Bible or -her collection dime. That amethyst brooch was Marilla’s most treasured -possession. A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn -had bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-fashioned oval, containing -a braid of her mother’s hair, surrounded by a border of very fine -amethysts. Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how -fine the amethysts actually were; but she thought them very beautiful -and was always pleasantly conscious of their violet shimmer at her -throat, above her good brown satin dress, even although she could not -see it. - -Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw that -brooch. - -“Oh, Marilla, it’s a perfectly elegant brooch. I don’t know how you -can pay attention to the sermon or the prayers when you have it on. I -couldn’t, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what I used -to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, -I read about them and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I -thought they would be lovely glimmering purple stones. When I saw a -real diamond in a lady’s ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of -course, it was very lovely but it wasn’t my idea of a diamond. Will you -let me hold the brooch for one minute, Marilla? Do you think amethysts -can be the souls of good violets?” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. Anne’s Confession - - -ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room -with a troubled face. - -“Anne,” she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the -spotless table and singing, “Nelly of the Hazel Dell” with a vigor and -expression that did credit to Diana’s teaching, “did you see anything -of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came -home from church yesterday evening, but I can’t find it anywhere.” - -“I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society,” said -Anne, a little slowly. “I was passing your door when I saw it on the -cushion, so I went in to look at it.” - -“Did you touch it?” said Marilla sternly. - -“Y-e-e-s,” admitted Anne, “I took it up and I pinned it on my breast -just to see how it would look.” - -“You had no business to do anything of the sort. It’s very wrong in a -little girl to meddle. You shouldn’t have gone into my room in the first -place and you shouldn’t have touched a brooch that didn’t belong to you -in the second. Where did you put it?” - -“Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn’t it on a minute. Truly, I -didn’t mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn’t think about its being wrong to -go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I’ll never -do it again. That’s one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty -thing twice.” - -“You didn’t put it back,” said Marilla. “That brooch isn’t anywhere on -the bureau. You’ve taken it out or something, Anne.” - -“I did put it back,” said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. “I -don’t just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in -the china tray. But I’m perfectly certain I put it back.” - -“I’ll go and have another look,” said Marilla, determining to be just. -“If you put that brooch back it’s there still. If it isn’t I’ll know you -didn’t, that’s all!” - -Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the -bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly -be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen. - -“Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last -person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth -at once. Did you take it out and lose it?” - -“No, I didn’t,” said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla’s angry gaze -squarely. “I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the -truth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I’m not very -certain what a block is. So there, Marilla.” - -Anne’s “so there” was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but -Marilla took it as a display of defiance. - -“I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne,” she said sharply. “I -know you are. There now, don’t say anything more unless you are prepared -to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you are -ready to confess.” - -“Will I take the peas with me?” said Anne meekly. - -“No, I’ll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you.” - -When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very -disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What -if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken -it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face, -too! - -“I don’t know what I wouldn’t sooner have had happen,” thought Marilla, -as she nervously shelled the peas. “Of course, I don’t suppose she meant -to steal it or anything like that. She’s just taken it to play with -or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that’s -clear, for there hasn’t been a soul in that room since she was in it, by -her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there’s -nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for -fear she’ll be punished. It’s a dreadful thing to think she tells -falsehoods. It’s a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It’s a -fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can’t trust. -Slyness and untruthfulness--that’s what she has displayed. I declare I -feel worse about that than about the brooch. If she’d only have told the -truth about it I wouldn’t mind so much.” - -Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and -searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the -east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew -anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced -that she did. - -She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and -puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit -that circumstances were against her. - -“You’re sure it hasn’t fell down behind the bureau?” was the only -suggestion he could offer. - -“I’ve moved the bureau and I’ve taken out the drawers and I’ve looked -in every crack and cranny” was Marilla’s positive answer. “The brooch -is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That’s the plain, -ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face.” - -“Well now, what are you going to do about it?” Matthew asked forlornly, -feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with the -situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time. - -“She’ll stay in her room until she confesses,” said Marilla grimly, -remembering the success of this method in the former case. “Then we’ll -see. Perhaps we’ll be able to find the brooch if she’ll only tell -where she took it; but in any case she’ll have to be severely punished, -Matthew.” - -“Well now, you’ll have to punish her,” said Matthew, reaching for his -hat. “I’ve nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself.” - -Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde -for advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and -left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to -confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch. -The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity -which she sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it, -“beat out.” - -“You’ll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your -mind to that,” she said firmly. - -“But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla,” cried Anne. “You won’t keep me -from going to that, will you? You’ll just let me out for the afternoon, -won’t you? Then I’ll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_ -cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic.” - -“You’ll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you’ve confessed, -Anne.” - -“Oh, Marilla,” gasped Anne. - -But Marilla had gone out and shut the door. - -Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to -order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies -in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless -winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms -like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful -hands as if watching for Anne’s usual morning greeting from the east -gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast -up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and -resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes. - -“Marilla, I’m ready to confess.” - -“Ah!” Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded; -but her success was very bitter to her. “Let me hear what you have to -say then, Anne.” - -“I took the amethyst brooch,” said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she -had learned. “I took it just as you said. I didn’t mean to take it when -I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my -breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how -perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was -the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I -was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and -I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to -amethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before -you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the -time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters -I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine -in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it -just slipped through my fingers--so--and went down--down--down, all -purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining -Waters. And that’s the best I can do at confessing, Marilla.” - -Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had -taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly -reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or -repentance. - -“Anne, this is terrible,” she said, trying to speak calmly. “You are the -very wickedest girl I ever heard of.” - -“Yes, I suppose I am,” agreed Anne tranquilly. “And I know I’ll have to -be punished. It’ll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won’t you please -get it over right off because I’d like to go to the picnic with nothing -on my mind.” - -“Picnic, indeed! You’ll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall -be your punishment. And it isn’t half severe enough either for what -you’ve done!” - -“Not go to the picnic!” Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla’s -hand. “But you _promised_ me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the -picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that. -Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice -cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice -cream again.” - -Marilla disengaged Anne’s clinging hands stonily. - -“You needn’t plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that’s -final. No, not a word.” - -Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands -together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face -downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of -disappointment and despair. - -“For the land’s sake!” gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. “I -believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she -does. If she isn’t she’s utterly bad. Oh dear, I’m afraid Rachel was -right from the first. But I’ve put my hand to the plow and I won’t look -back.” - -That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the -porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to -do. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Then -she went out and raked the yard. - -When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A -tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters. - -“Come down to your dinner, Anne.” - -“I don’t want any dinner, Marilla,” said Anne, sobbingly. “I couldn’t -eat anything. My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience -someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember -when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don’t ask me to eat -anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are -so unromantic when one is in affliction.” - -Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale -of woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful -sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man. - -“Well now, she shouldn’t have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories -about it,” he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic -pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited to -crises of feeling, “but she’s such a little thing--such an interesting -little thing. Don’t you think it’s pretty rough not to let her go to the -picnic when she’s so set on it?” - -“Matthew Cuthbert, I’m amazed at you. I think I’ve let her off entirely -too easy. And she doesn’t appear to realize how wicked she’s been at -all--that’s what worries me most. If she’d really felt sorry it wouldn’t -be so bad. And you don’t seem to realize it, neither; you’re making -excuses for her all the time to yourself--I can see that.” - -“Well now, she’s such a little thing,” feebly reiterated Matthew. “And -there should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she’s never had any -bringing up.” - -“Well, she’s having it now” retorted Marilla. - -The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was -a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, -the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personal -insult. - -When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed -Marilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black -lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning -from the Ladies’ Aid. - -She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As -Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that -clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the -shawl--something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light. -Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging -to a thread of the lace by its catch! - -“Dear life and heart,” said Marilla blankly, “what does this mean? -Here’s my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of -Barry’s pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost -it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that -when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a -minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!” - -Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had cried -herself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window. - -“Anne Shirley,” said Marilla solemnly, “I’ve just found my brooch -hanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole -you told me this morning meant.” - -“Why, you said you’d keep me here until I confessed,” returned Anne -wearily, “and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the -picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and -made it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I -wouldn’t forget it. But you wouldn’t let me go to the picnic after all, -so all my trouble was wasted.” - -Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked -her. - -“Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn’t -have doubted your word when I’d never known you to tell a story. -Of course, it wasn’t right for you to confess to a thing you hadn’t -done--it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you’ll -forgive me, Anne, I’ll forgive you and we’ll start square again. And now -get yourself ready for the picnic.” - -Anne flew up like a rocket. - -“Oh, Marilla, isn’t it too late?” - -“No, it’s only two o’clock. They won’t be more than well gathered yet -and it’ll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your -hair and put on your gingham. I’ll fill a basket for you. There’s plenty -of stuff baked in the house. And I’ll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel -and drive you down to the picnic ground.” - -“Oh, Marilla,” exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. “Five minutes -ago I was so miserable I was wishing I’d never been born and now I -wouldn’t change places with an angel!” - -That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to -Green Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe. - -“Oh, Marilla, I’ve had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a -new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn’t it very -expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr. -Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--six -of us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning -out to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn’t caught her by her -sash just in the nick of time she’d fallen in and prob’ly been drowned. -I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to -have been nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And -we had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla, -I assure you it was sublime.” - -That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stocking -basket. - -“I’m willing to own up that I made a mistake,” she concluded candidly, -“but I’ve learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of Anne’s -‘confession,’ although I suppose I shouldn’t for it really was a -falsehood. But it doesn’t seem as bad as the other would have been, -somehow, and anyhow I’m responsible for it. That child is hard to -understand in some respects. But I believe she’ll turn out all right -yet. And there’s one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that -she’s in.” - - - - -CHAPTER XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot - - -WHAT a splendid day!” said Anne, drawing a long breath. “Isn’t it good -just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born -yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can -never have this one. And it’s splendider still to have such a lovely way -to go to school by, isn’t it?” - -“It’s a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty -and hot,” said Diana practically, peeping into her dinner basket and -mentally calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts -reposing there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl -would have. - -The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and -to eat three raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with -one’s best chum would have forever and ever branded as “awful mean” the -girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls -you just got enough to tantalize you. - -The way Anne and Diana went to school _was_ a pretty one. Anne thought -those walks to and from school with Diana couldn’t be improved upon -even by imagination. Going around by the main road would have been so -unromantic; but to go by Lover’s Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and -the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was. - -Lover’s Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched -far up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was the way by -which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled home -in winter. Anne had named it Lover’s Lane before she had been a month at -Green Gables. - -“Not that lovers ever really walk there,” she explained to Marilla, -“but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there’s a -Lover’s Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it’s a very pretty -name, don’t you think? So romantic! We can’t imagine the lovers into it, -you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without -people calling you crazy.” - -Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover’s Lane as far -as the brook. Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on -up the lane under the leafy arch of maples--“maples are such sociable -trees,” said Anne; “they’re always rustling and whispering to -you”--until they came to a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane -and walked through Mr. Barry’s back field and past Willowmere. Beyond -Willowmere came Violet Vale--a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr. -Andrew Bell’s big woods. “Of course there are no violets there now,” - Anne told Marilla, “but Diana says there are millions of them in spring. -Oh, Marilla, can’t you just imagine you see them? It actually takes away -my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw the beat -of me for hitting on fancy names for places. It’s nice to be clever at -something, isn’t it? But Diana named the Birch Path. She wanted to, so -I let her; but I’m sure I could have found something more poetical than -plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that. But the Birch -Path is one of the prettiest places in the world, Marilla.” - -It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on it. -It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill -straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted -through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart -of a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, -white stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild -lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly -along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and -music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees -overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road -if you were quiet--which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in -a blue moon. Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and -then it was just up the spruce hill to the school. - -The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and -wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial -old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their -lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school -children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was -a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of -milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour. - -Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September -with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she -get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever manage -to hold her tongue during school hours? - -Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that -evening in high spirits. - -“I think I’m going to like school here,” she announced. “I don’t think -much of the master, through. He’s all the time curling his mustache -and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you know. She’s -sixteen and she’s studying for the entrance examination into Queen’s -Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is -_dead gone_ on her. She’s got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair -and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the back -and he sits there, too, most of the time--to explain her lessons, he -says. But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate -and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and -Ruby Gillis says she doesn’t believe it had anything to do with the -lesson.” - -“Anne Shirley, don’t let me hear you talking about your teacher in that -way again,” said Marilla sharply. “You don’t go to school to criticize -the master. I guess he can teach _you_ something, and it’s your business -to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to -come home telling tales about him. That is something I won’t encourage. -I hope you were a good girl.” - -“Indeed I was,” said Anne comfortably. “It wasn’t so hard as you might -imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and -we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice -girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It’s -so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like -Diana best and always will. I _adore_ Diana. I’m dreadfully far behind the -others. They’re all in the fifth book and I’m only in the fourth. I feel -that it’s kind of a disgrace. But there’s not one of them has such an -imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and -geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my -spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could -see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have -been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and -Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with ‘May I see you home?’ on -it. I’m to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear -her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads -off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh, -Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she -heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. -Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you -can’t imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really -a pretty nose? I know you’ll tell me the truth.” - -“Your nose is well enough,” said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought -Anne’s nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention of -telling her so. - -That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now, this -crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the -Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea. - -“I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today,” said Diana. “He’s been -visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came -home Saturday night. He’s _aw’fly_ handsome, Anne. And he teases the -girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.” - -Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented -out than not. - -“Gilbert Blythe?” said Anne. “Isn’t his name that’s written up on the -porch wall with Julia Bell’s and a big ‘Take Notice’ over them?” - -“Yes,” said Diana, tossing her head, “but I’m sure he doesn’t like Julia -Bell so very much. I’ve heard him say he studied the multiplication -table by her freckles.” - -“Oh, don’t speak about freckles to me,” implored Anne. “It isn’t -delicate when I’ve got so many. But I do think that writing take-notices -up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I should -just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy’s. Not, of -course,” she hastened to add, “that anybody would.” - -Anne sighed. She didn’t want her name written up. But it was a little -humiliating to know that there was no danger of it. - -“Nonsense,” said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played -such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured -on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. “It’s only meant as -a joke. And don’t you be too sure your name won’t ever be written up. -Charlie Sloane is _dead gone_ on you. He told his mother--his _mother_, -mind you--that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than -being good looking.” - -“No, it isn’t,” said Anne, feminine to the core. “I’d rather be pretty -than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane, I can’t bear a boy with goggle -eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I’d never _get_ over it, Diana -Barry. But it _is_ nice to keep head of your class.” - -“You’ll have Gilbert in your class after this,” said Diana, “and he’s -used to being head of his class, I can tell you. He’s only in the fourth -book although he’s nearly fourteen. Four years ago his father was sick -and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him. -They were there three years and Gil didn’t go to school hardly any -until they came back. You won’t find it so easy to keep head after this, -Anne.” - -“I’m glad,” said Anne quickly. “I couldn’t really feel proud of keeping -head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday -spelling ‘ebullition.’ Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped -in her book. Mr. Phillips didn’t see her--he was looking at Prissy -Andrews--but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she -got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.” - -“Those Pye girls are cheats all round,” said Diana indignantly, as they -climbed the fence of the main road. “Gertie Pye actually went and put -her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I -don’t speak to her now.” - -When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews’s -Latin, Diana whispered to Anne, “That’s Gilbert Blythe sitting right -across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you don’t -think he’s handsome.” - -Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said -Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid -of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He -was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth -twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take -a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, -believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at -her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert -had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the -soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at -Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery. - -“I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome,” confided Anne to Diana, -“but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange -girl.” - -But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen. - -Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to -Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as -they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their -slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle. -Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing -utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only -to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in -Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes -fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west -window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and -seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions. - -Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look -at him and meeting with failure. She _should_ look at him, that red-haired -Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t -like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school. - -Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red -braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper: - -“Carrots! Carrots!” - -Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance! - -She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies -fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert -from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry -tears. - -“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!” - -And then--thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and -cracked it--slate not head--clear across. - -Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable -one. Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby -Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy -Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared -open-mouthed at the tableau. - -Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne’s -shoulder. - -“Anne Shirley, what does this mean?” he said angrily. Anne returned no -answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell -before the whole school that she had been called “carrots.” Gilbert it -was who spoke up stoutly. - -“It was my fault Mr. Phillips. I teased her.” - -Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert. - -“I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such -a vindictive spirit,” he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of -being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts -of small imperfect mortals. “Anne, go and stand on the platform in front -of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon.” - -Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment under -which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a white, -set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on the -blackboard above her head. - -“Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control -her temper,” and then read it out loud so that even the primer class, -who couldn’t read writing, should understand it. - -Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her. -She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart -for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With -resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana’s -sympathetic gaze and Charlie Sloane’s indignant nods and Josie Pye’s -malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him. -She would _never_ look at him again! She would never speak to him!! - -When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high. -Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door. - -“I’m awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne,” he whispered -contritely. “Honest I am. Don’t be mad for keeps, now.” - -Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. “Oh -how could you, Anne?” breathed Diana as they went down the road half -reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that _she_ could never have -resisted Gilbert’s plea. - -“I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne firmly. “And Mr. -Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my -soul, Diana.” - -Diana hadn’t the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was -something terrible. - -“You mustn’t mind Gilbert making fun of your hair,” she said soothingly. -“Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine because it’s -so black. He’s called me a crow a dozen times; and I never heard him -apologize for anything before, either.” - -“There’s a great deal of difference between being called a crow and -being called carrots,” said Anne with dignity. “Gilbert Blythe has hurt -my feelings _excruciatingly_, Diana.” - -It is possible the matter might have blown over without more -excruciation if nothing else had happened. But when things begin to -happen they are apt to keep on. - -Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell’s spruce -grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they -could keep an eye on Eben Wright’s house, where the master boarded. When -they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse; -but the distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright’s lane -they were very apt to arrive there, breathless and gasping, some three -minutes too late. - -On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic -fits of reform and announced before going home to dinner, that he should -expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned. Anyone -who came in late would be punished. - -All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell’s spruce grove as -usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to “pick a chew.” But -spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they -picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that -recalled them to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting -from the top of a patriarchal old spruce “Master’s coming.” - -The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the -schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to -wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not -been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the -grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a -wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity -of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer, -however; run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys -at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. -Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat. - -Mr. Phillips’s brief reforming energy was over; he didn’t want the -bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something -to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it -in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a -forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a -particularly rakish and disheveled appearance. - -“Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys’ company we -shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon,” he said sarcastically. -“Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe.” - -The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the -wreath from Anne’s hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master -as if turned to stone. - -“Did you hear what I said, Anne?” queried Mr. Phillips sternly. - -“Yes, sir,” said Anne slowly “but I didn’t suppose you really meant it.” - -“I assure you I did”--still with the sarcastic inflection which all the -children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. “Obey me at -once.” - -For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing -that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the -aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms -on the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, -told the others going home from school that she’d “acksually never seen -anything like it--it was so white, with awful little red spots in it.” - -To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be -singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it -was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should -be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly -unbearable. Anne felt that she could not bear it and it would be of -no use to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and -humiliation. - -At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged. -But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if -his whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon returned -to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips called the -history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move, and -Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses “To Priscilla” before he -called the class, was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never -missed her. Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk -a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, “You are sweet,” and -slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the -pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the -floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position -without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert. - -When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out -everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and -arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate. - -“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to -know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the -question before. - -“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne. Diana gasped and -stared at Anne to see if she meant it. - -“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked. - -“She’ll have to,” said Anne. “I’ll _never_ go to school to that man -again.” - -“Oh, Anne!” Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. “I do think you’re -mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid -Gertie Pye--I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come back, -Anne.” - -“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly. -“I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But -I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it. You harrow up my very soul.” - -“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana. “We are going -to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we’ll be playing -ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne. It’s tremendously -exciting. And we’re going to learn a new song--Jane Andrews is -practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy -book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, -down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, -Anne.” - -Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not go -to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home. - -“Nonsense,” said Marilla. - -“It isn’t nonsense at all,” said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn, -reproachful eyes. “Don’t you understand, Marilla? I’ve been insulted.” - -“Insulted fiddlesticks! You’ll go to school tomorrow as usual.” - -“Oh, no.” Anne shook her head gently. “I’m not going back, Marilla. I’ll -learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold my -tongue all the time if it’s possible at all. But I will not go back to -school, I assure you.” - -Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking -out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in -overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then. -“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought. -“There’s no use reasoning with Anne now. She’s too worked up and I’ve -an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can -make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a -rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I’ll just talk -it over with Rachel. She’s sent ten children to school and she ought to -know something about it. She’ll have heard the whole story, too, by this -time.” - -Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully -as usual. - -“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little -shamefacedly. - -Mrs. Rachel nodded. - -“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said. “Tillie Boulter was -in on her way home from school and told me about it.” - -“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Marilla. “She declares she -won’t go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I’ve been -expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were -going too smooth to last. She’s so high strung. What would you advise, -Rachel?” - -“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde -amiably--Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice--“I’d just -humor her a little at first, that’s what I’d do. It’s my belief that -Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn’t do to say so to the -children, you know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday -for giving way to temper. But today it was different. The others who -were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that’s what. And I -don’t believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It -isn’t modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne’s part -right through and said all the scholars did too. Anne seems real popular -among them, somehow. I never thought she’d take with them so well.” - -“Then you really think I’d better let her stay home,” said Marilla in -amazement. - -“Yes. That is I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it -herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and -be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if -you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum -she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the -better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to school, as -far as _that_ goes. Mr. Phillips isn’t any good at all as a teacher. The -order he keeps is scandalous, that’s what, and he neglects the young -fry and puts all his time on those big scholars he’s getting ready for -Queen’s. He’d never have got the school for another year if his uncle -hadn’t been a trustee--_the_ trustee, for he just leads the other two -around by the nose, that’s what. I declare, I don’t know what education -in this Island is coming to.” - -Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the -head of the educational system of the Province things would be much -better managed. - -Marilla took Mrs. Rachel’s advice and not another word was said to Anne -about going back to school. She learned her lessons at home, did her -chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights; -but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in Sunday -school she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit thawed by -his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana’s efforts as a peacemaker -were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert -Blythe to the end of life. - -As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the -love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and -dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket -of apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight, -crying bitterly. - -“Whatever’s the matter now, Anne?” she asked. - -“It’s about Diana,” sobbed Anne luxuriously. “I love Diana so, Marilla. -I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up -that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall -I do? I hate her husband--I just hate him furiously. I’ve been imagining -it all out--the wedding and everything--Diana dressed in snowy garments, -with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the -bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a -breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana -goodbye-e-e--” Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing -bitterness. - -Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no -use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and -unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside, halted -in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before? - -“Well, Anne Shirley,” said Marilla as soon as she could speak, “if you -must borrow trouble, for pity’s sake borrow it handier home. I should -think you had an imagination, sure enough.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results - - -OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the -hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard -were royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the -loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned -themselves in aftermaths. - -Anne reveled in the world of color about her. - -“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in -with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world -where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from -September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t -they give you a thrill--several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room -with them.” - -“Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably -developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors -stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.” - -“Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much -better in a room where there are pretty things. I’m going to put these -boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table.” - -“Mind you don’t drop leaves all over the stairs then. I’m going on a -meeting of the Aid Society at Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I won’t -likely be home before dark. You’ll have to get Matthew and Jerry their -supper, so mind you don’t forget to put the tea to draw until you sit -down at the table as you did last time.” - -“It was dreadful of me to forget,” said Anne apologetically, “but that -was the afternoon I was trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and it -crowded other things out. Matthew was so good. He never scolded a bit. -He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well as -not. And I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so -he didn’t find the time long at all. It was a beautiful fairy story, -Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and -Matthew said he couldn’t tell where the join came in.” - -“Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up -and have dinner in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits about -you this time. And--I don’t really know if I’m doing right--it may make -you more addlepated than ever--but you can ask Diana to come over and -spend the afternoon with you and have tea here.” - -“Oh, Marilla!” Anne clasped her hands. “How perfectly lovely! You _are_ -able to imagine things after all or else you’d never have understood how -I’ve longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish. -No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company. Oh, -Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?” - -“No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never use -that except for the minister or the Aids. You’ll put down the old brown -tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. -It’s time it was being used anyhow--I believe it’s beginning to work. -And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps.” - -“I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and -pouring out the tea,” said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. “And -asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn’t but of course I’ll -ask her just as if I didn’t know. And then pressing her to take another -piece of fruit cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it’s -a wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can I take her into the spare -room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlor to -sit?” - -“No. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there’s a -bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church -social the other night. It’s on the second shelf of the sitting-room -closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a cooky to eat -with it along in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew ‘ll be late coming -in to tea since he’s hauling potatoes to the vessel.” - -Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad’s Bubble and up the spruce -path to Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea. As a result just after -Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in _her_ -second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked -out to tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without -knocking; but now she knocked primly at the front door. And when Anne, -dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little girls -shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before. This unnatural -solemnity lasted until after Diana had been taken to the east gable to -lay off her hat and then had sat for ten minutes in the sitting room, -toes in position. - -“How is your mother?” inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not -seen Mrs. Barry picking apples that morning in excellent health and -spirits. - -“She is very well, thank you. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling potatoes -to the _lily sands_ this afternoon, is he?” said Diana, who had ridden -down to Mr. Harmon Andrews’s that morning in Matthew’s cart. - -“Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father’s crop -is good too.” - -“It is fairly good, thank you. Have you picked many of your apples yet?” - -“Oh, ever so many,” said Anne forgetting to be dignified and jumping up -quickly. “Let’s go out to the orchard and get some of the Red Sweetings, -Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left on the tree. Marilla -is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and cherry -preserves for tea. But it isn’t good manners to tell your company what -you are going to give them to eat, so I won’t tell you what she said we -could have to drink. Only it begins with an R and a C and it’s bright -red color. I love bright red drinks, don’t you? They taste twice as good -as any other color.” - -The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground -with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girls spent most of the -afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the frost had spared -the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples -and talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what -went on in school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated -it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made -her--Diana’s--blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts -away, true’s you live, with a magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the -Creek gave her. You had to rub the warts with the pebble and then throw -it away over your left shoulder at the time of the new moon and the -warts would all go. Charlie Sloane’s name was written up with Em White’s -on the porch wall and Em White was _awful mad_ about it; Sam Boulter had -“sassed” Mr. Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped him and Sam’s -father came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on -one of his children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a -blue crossover with tassels on it and the airs she put on about it were -perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn’t speak to Mamie Wilson -because Mamie Wilson’s grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright’s -grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody missed Anne so and wished -she’s come to school again; and Gilbert Blythe-- - -But Anne didn’t want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up -hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial. - -Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no -bottle of raspberry cordial there. Search revealed it away back on the -top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler. - -“Now, please help yourself, Diana,” she said politely. “I don’t believe -I’ll have any just now. I don’t feel as if I wanted any after all those -apples.” - -Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue -admiringly, and then sipped it daintily. - -“That’s awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne,” she said. “I didn’t know -raspberry cordial was so nice.” - -“I’m real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I’m going to -run out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a -person’s mind when they’re keeping house, isn’t there?” - -When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second -glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered -no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls were -generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice. - -“The nicest I ever drank,” said Diana. “It’s ever so much nicer than -Mrs. Lynde’s, although she brags of hers so much. It doesn’t taste a bit -like hers.” - -“I should think Marilla’s raspberry cordial would prob’ly be much nicer -than Mrs. Lynde’s,” said Anne loyally. “Marilla is a famous cook. She is -trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work. -There’s so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go -by rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I -was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I thought you -were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I -went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took -the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the -graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with -your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who -sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. -The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But -I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so -essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don’t wonder. -I’m a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified about the pudding -sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there -was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said -there was enough for another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry -shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Diana, -but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun--of course I’m a -Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic--taking the veil to bury a -broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering -the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry. -Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in -that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out -in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three waters. Marilla was out -milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I’d give the -sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was -a frost fairy going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow, -whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the pudding sauce -again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester -Ross from Spencervale came here that morning. You know they are very -stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in -dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I tried to be as -polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to -think I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn’t pretty. Everything -went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand -and the pitcher of pudding sauce _warmed up_, in the other. Diana, that -was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in -my place and shrieked out ‘Marilla, you mustn’t use that pudding sauce. -There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.’ Oh, -Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred. -Mrs. Chester Ross just _looked_ at me and I thought I would sink through -the floor with mortification. She is such a perfect housekeeper and -fancy what she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but -she never said a word--then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out -and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but -I couldn’t swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on -my head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful -scolding. Why, Diana, what is the matter?” - -Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her -hands to her head. - -“I’m--I’m awful sick,” she said, a little thickly. “I--I--must go right -home.” - -“Oh, you mustn’t dream of going home without your tea,” cried Anne in -distress. “I’ll get it right off--I’ll go and put the tea down this very -minute.” - -“I must go home,” repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly. - -“Let me get you a lunch anyhow,” implored Anne. “Let me give you a bit -of fruit cake and some of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa for -a little while and you’ll be better. Where do you feel bad?” - -“I must go home,” said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain -Anne pleaded. - -“I never heard of company going home without tea,” she mourned. “Oh, -Diana, do you suppose that it’s possible you’re really taking the -smallpox? If you are I’ll go and nurse you, you can depend on that. I’ll -never forsake you. But I do wish you’d stay till after tea. Where do you -feel bad?” - -“I’m awful dizzy,” said Diana. - -And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of disappointment -in her eyes, got Diana’s hat and went with her as far as the Barry -yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables, where she -sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the -pantry and got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone -out of the performance. - -The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from -dawn till dusk Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday -afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand. In a very -short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling -down her cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face -downward on the sofa in an agony. - -“Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?” queried Marilla in doubt and -dismay. “I do hope you haven’t gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again.” - -No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs! - -“Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Sit -right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying about.” - -Anne sat up, tragedy personified. - -“Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an -awful state,” she wailed. “She says that I set Diana _drunk_ Saturday -and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she says I must be a -thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she’s never, never going to let -Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I’m just overcome with woe.” - -Marilla stared in blank amazement. - -“Set Diana drunk!” she said when she found her voice. “Anne are you or -Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?” - -“Not a thing but raspberry cordial,” sobbed Anne. “I never thought -raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla--not even if they -drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so--so--like -Mrs. Thomas’s husband! But I didn’t mean to set her drunk.” - -“Drunk fiddlesticks!” said Marilla, marching to the sitting room pantry. -There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as one -containing some of her three-year-old homemade currant wine for which -she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, -Mrs. Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the same time -Marilla recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry cordial -down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told Anne. - -She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her face -was twitching in spite of herself. - -“Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went -and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Didn’t you -know the difference yourself?” - -“I never tasted it,” said Anne. “I thought it was the cordial. I meant -to be so--so--hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home. -Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk. She just laughed -silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to -sleep and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she -was drunk. She had a fearful headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is -so indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on purpose.” - -“I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to -drink three glassfuls of anything,” said Marilla shortly. “Why, three -of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it had only been -cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are -so down on me for making currant wine, although I haven’t made any for -three years ever since I found out that the minister didn’t approve. I -just kept that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don’t cry. I -can’t see as you were to blame although I’m sorry it happened so.” - -“I must cry,” said Anne. “My heart is broken. The stars in their courses -fight against me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever. Oh, Marilla, -I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of friendship.” - -“Don’t be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she -finds you’re not to blame. I suppose she thinks you’ve done it for a -silly joke or something of that sort. You’d best go up this evening and -tell her how it was.” - -“My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana’s injured mother,” - sighed Anne. “I wish you’d go, Marilla. You’re so much more dignified -than I am. Likely she’d listen to you quicker than to me.” - -“Well, I will,” said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be the -wiser course. “Don’t cry any more, Anne. It will be all right.” - -Marilla had changed her mind about it being all right by the time she -got back from Orchard Slope. Anne was watching for her coming and flew -to the porch door to meet her. - -“Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it’s been no use,” she said -sorrowfully. “Mrs. Barry won’t forgive me?” - -“Mrs. Barry indeed!” snapped Marilla. “Of all the unreasonable women -I ever saw she’s the worst. I told her it was all a mistake and you -weren’t to blame, but she just simply didn’t believe me. And she rubbed -it well in about my currant wine and how I’d always said it couldn’t -have the least effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that currant -wine wasn’t meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls at a time and that if a -child I had to do with was so greedy I’d sober her up with a right good -spanking.” - -Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a very -much distracted little soul in the porch behind her. Presently Anne -stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly and -steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the -log bridge and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale little -moon hanging low over the western woods. Mrs. Barry, coming to the door -in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped eager-eyed suppliant on -the doorstep. - -Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices and -dislikes, and her anger was of the cold, sullen sort which is always -hardest to overcome. To do her justice, she really believed Anne had -made Diana drunk out of sheer malice prepense, and she was honestly -anxious to preserve her little daughter from the contamination of -further intimacy with such a child. - -“What do you want?” she said stiffly. - -Anne clasped her hands. - -“Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to--to--intoxicate -Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl -that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all -the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought -it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry -cordial. Oh, please don’t say that you won’t let Diana play with me any -more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe.” - -This speech which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde’s heart in a -twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still -more. She was suspicious of Anne’s big words and dramatic gestures and -imagined that the child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and -cruelly: - -“I don’t think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with. -You’d better go home and behave yourself.” - -Anne’s lips quivered. - -“Won’t you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?” she implored. - -“Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father,” said Mrs. Barry, going -in and shutting the door. - -Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair. - -“My last hope is gone,” she told Marilla. “I went up and saw Mrs. Barry -myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do _not_ think she -is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray and I -haven’t much hope that that’ll do much good because, Marilla, I do not -believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person -as Mrs. Barry.” - -“Anne, you shouldn’t say such things” rebuked Marilla, striving to -overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find -growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew -that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne’s tribulations. - -But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found -that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into -her face. - -“Poor little soul,” she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the -child’s tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed -cheek on the pillow. - - - -CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life - - -THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen -window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad’s -Bubble beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne was out of the house -and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in -her expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana’s dejected -countenance. - -“Your mother hasn’t relented?” she gasped. - -Diana shook her head mournfully. - -“No; and oh, Anne, she says I’m never to play with you again. I’ve cried -and cried and I told her it wasn’t your fault, but it wasn’t any use. I -had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye to -you. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she’s timing me by the -clock.” - -“Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell in,” said Anne -tearfully. “Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget -me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress -thee?” - -“Indeed I will,” sobbed Diana, “and I’ll never have another bosom -friend--I don’t want to have. I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.” - -“Oh, Diana,” cried Anne, clasping her hands, “do you _love_ me?” - -“Why, of course I do. Didn’t you know that?” - -“No.” Anne drew a long breath. “I thought you _liked_ me of course but I -never hoped you _loved_ me. Why, Diana, I didn’t think anybody could -love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is -wonderful! It’s a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness -of a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again.” - -“I love you devotedly, Anne,” said Diana stanchly, “and I always will, -you may be sure of that.” - -“And I will always love thee, Diana,” said Anne, solemnly extending her -hand. “In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my -lonely life, as that last story we read together says. Diana, wilt -thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure -forevermore?” - -“Have you got anything to cut it with?” queried Diana, wiping away the -tears which Anne’s affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and -returning to practicalities. - -“Yes. I’ve got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately,” - said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana’s curls. “Fare thee well, -my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side -by side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.” - -Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand -to the latter whenever she turned to look back. Then she returned to -the house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic -parting. - -“It is all over,” she informed Marilla. “I shall never have another -friend. I’m really worse off than ever before, for I haven’t Katie -Maurice and Violetta now. And even if I had it wouldn’t be the same. -Somehow, little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend. -Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring. It will -be sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I -could think of and said ‘thou’ and ‘thee.’ ‘Thou’ and ‘thee’ seem so -much more romantic than ‘you.’ Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I’m -going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my -life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don’t believe I’ll -live very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her -Mrs. Barry may feel remorse for what she has done and will let Diana -come to my funeral.” - -“I don’t think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as you -can talk, Anne,” said Marilla unsympathetically. - -The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room -with her basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into -a line of determination. - -“I’m going back to school,” she announced. “That is all there is left -in life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In -school I can look at her and muse over days departed.” - -“You’d better muse over your lessons and sums,” said Marilla, concealing -her delight at this development of the situation. “If you’re going back -to school I hope we’ll hear no more of breaking slates over people’s -heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what your -teacher tells you.” - -“I’ll try to be a model pupil,” agreed Anne dolefully. “There won’t be -much fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model -pupil and there isn’t a spark of imagination or life in her. She is -just dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel so -depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now. I’m going round by -the road. I couldn’t bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should -weep bitter tears if I did.” - -Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination had -been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her dramatic -ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour. Ruby Gillis -smuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May -MacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a -floral catalogue--a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea -school. Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new -pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave -her a perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied -carefully on a piece of pale pink paper scalloped on the edges the -following effusion: - - “TO ANNE - - “When twilight drops her curtain down - And pins it with a star - Remember that you have a friend - Though she may wander far.” - - -“It’s so nice to be appreciated,” sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla -that night. - -The girls were not the only scholars who “appreciated” her. When Anne -went to her seat after dinner hour--she had been told by Mr. Phillips to -sit with the model Minnie Andrews--she found on her desk a big luscious -“strawberry apple.” Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she -remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew -was in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining -Waters. Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red-hot coal and -ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple lay -untouched on her desk until the next morning, when little Timothy -Andrews, who swept the school and kindled the fire, annexed it as one -of his perquisites. Charlie Sloane’s slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened -with striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary -pencils cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner hour, met -with a more favorable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to accept -it and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuated -youth straightway into the seventh heaven of delight and caused him to -make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in -after school to rewrite it. - -But as, - - The Cæsar’s pageant shorn of Brutus’ bust - Did but of Rome’s best son remind her more, - -so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry who -was sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne’s little triumph. - -“Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think,” she mourned to -Marilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully and -wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across to -Anne. - - “Dear Anne, ran the former, “Mother says I’m not to play with you or - talk to you even in school. It isn’t my fault and don’t be cross at - me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell - all my secrets to and I don’t like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you - one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They are awfully - fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make - them. When you look at it remember - - Your true friend, - Diana Barry. - - -Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply -back to the other side of the school. - - -My own darling Diana:-- - -Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother. -Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever. -Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl--although she has no -imagination--but after having been Diana’s busum friend I cannot be -Minnie’s. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn’t very good -yet, although much improoved. - -Yours until death us do part - -Anne or Cordelia Shirley. - - -P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight. A. _or_ C.S. - - -Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begun -to go to school. But none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something of -the “model” spirit from Minnie Andrews; at least she got on very well -with Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heart -and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe. -The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good natured -on Gilbert’s side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing -cannot be said of Anne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for -holding grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. She -would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork, -because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne -persistently ignored; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated -between them. Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with -a toss of her long red braids, spelled him down. One morning Gilbert had -all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the blackboard -on the roll of honor; the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly with -decimals the entire evening before, would be first. One awful day they -were ties and their names were written up together. It was almost as bad -as a take-notice and Anne’s mortification was as evident as Gilbert’s -satisfaction. When the written examinations at the end of each month -were held the suspense was terrible. The first month Gilbert came out -three marks ahead. The second Anne beat him by five. But her triumph was -marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the -whole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had -felt the sting of his defeat. - -Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly -determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress -under any kind of teacher. By the end of the term Anne and Gilbert were -both promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin studying the -elements of “the branches”--by which Latin, geometry, French, and -algebra were meant. In geometry Anne met her Waterloo. - -“It’s perfectly awful stuff, Marilla,” she groaned. “I’m sure I’ll never -be able to make head or tail of it. There is no scope for imagination in -it at all. Mr. Phillips says I’m the worst dunce he ever saw at it. -And Gil--I mean some of the others are so smart at it. It is extremely -mortifying, Marilla. - -“Even Diana gets along better than I do. But I don’t mind being beaten -by Diana. Even although we meet as strangers now I still love her with -an _inextinguishable_ love. It makes me very sad at times to think about -her. But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an -interesting world, can one?” - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. Anne to the Rescue - - -ALL things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance -it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to -include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or -anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables. -But it had. - -It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and -such of his nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass -meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of the Avonlea people were on -Premier’s side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly -all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty -miles away. Mrs. Rachel Lynde had gone too. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a -red-hot politician and couldn’t have believed that the political rally -could be carried through without her, although she was on the opposite -side of politics. So she went to town and took her husband--Thomas would -be useful in looking after the horse--and Marilla Cuthbert with her. -Marilla had a sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she thought -it might be her only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly -took it, leaving Anne and Matthew to keep house until her return the -following day. - -Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely -at the mass meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green -Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned -Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the -windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a _Farmers’ Advocate_ on the sofa and -Anne at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite -sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf, where lay a new book that -Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was -warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and -Anne’s fingers tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert -Blythe’s triumph on the morrow. Anne turned her back on the clock shelf -and tried to imagine it wasn’t there. - -“Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?” - -“Well now, no, I didn’t,” said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a -start. - -“I wish you had,” sighed Anne, “because then you’d be able to sympathize -with me. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is -casting a cloud over my whole life. I’m such a dunce at it, Matthew.” - -“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew soothingly. “I guess you’re all right -at anything. Mr. Phillips told me last week in Blair’s store at Carmody -that you was the smartest scholar in school and was making rapid -progress. ‘Rapid progress’ was his very words. There’s them as runs down -Teddy Phillips and says he ain’t much of a teacher, but I guess he’s all -right.” - -Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was “all right.” - -“I’m sure I’d get on better with geometry if only he wouldn’t change -the letters,” complained Anne. “I learn the proposition off by heart and -then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what -are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don’t think a teacher should -take such a mean advantage, do you? We’re studying agriculture now and -I’ve found out at last what makes the roads red. It’s a great comfort. -I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde -says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa -and that it’s an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were -allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change. What way do you -vote, Matthew?” - -“Conservative,” said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part of -Matthew’s religion. - -“Then I’m Conservative too,” said Anne decidedly. “I’m glad because -Gil--because some of the boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips -is a Grit too because Prissy Andrews’s father is one, and Ruby Gillis -says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl’s -mother in religion and her father in politics. Is that true, Matthew?” - -“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew. - -“Did you ever go courting, Matthew?” - -“Well now, no, I dunno’s I ever did,” said Matthew, who had certainly -never thought of such a thing in his whole existence. - -Anne reflected with her chin in her hands. - -“It must be rather interesting, don’t you think, Matthew? Ruby Gillis -says when she grows up she’s going to have ever so many beaus on the -string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too -exciting. I’d rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis -knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big -sisters, and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hot -cakes. Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening. -He says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is -studying for Queen’s too, and I should think she needed help a lot more -than Prissy because she’s ever so much stupider, but he never goes to -help her in the evenings at all. There are a great many things in this -world that I can’t understand very well, Matthew.” - -“Well now, I dunno as I comprehend them all myself,” acknowledged -Matthew. - -“Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons. I won’t allow myself to -open that new book Jane lent me until I’m through. But it’s a terrible -temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there -just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book -that makes me cry. But I think I’ll carry that book into the sitting -room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And you must -_not_ give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if -I implore you on my bended knees. It’s all very well to say resist -temptation, but it’s ever so much easier to resist it if you can’t get -the key. And then shall I run down the cellar and get some russets, -Matthew? Wouldn’t you like some russets?” - -“Well now, I dunno but what I would,” said Matthew, who never ate -russets but knew Anne’s weakness for them. - -Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of -russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside -and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed Diana -Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around -her head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, -and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder -and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next day, -by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn’t been -set on fire. - -“Whatever is the matter, Diana?” cried Anne. “Has your mother relented -at last?” - -“Oh, Anne, do come quick,” implored Diana nervously. “Minnie May is -awful sick--she’s got croup. Young Mary Joe says--and Father and Mother -are away to town and there’s nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is -awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn’t know what to do--and oh, Anne, I’m -so scared!” - -Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past -Diana and away into the darkness of the yard. - -“He’s gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor,” - said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket. “I know it as well as -if he’d said so. Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his -thoughts without words at all.” - -“I don’t believe he’ll find the doctor at Carmody,” sobbed Diana. “I -know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too. -Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh, -Anne!” - -“Don’t cry, Di,” said Anne cheerily. “I know exactly what to do for -croup. You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times. When you look -after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience. They -all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle--you -mayn’t have any at your house. Come on now.” - -The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through -Lover’s Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too -deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although sincerely sorry -for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the -situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a -kindred spirit. - -The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy -slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the -dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the -wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go -skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend -who had been so long estranged. - -Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen -sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard -all over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl -from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children -during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of -thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it. - -Anne went to work with skill and promptness. - -“Minnie May has croup all right; she’s pretty bad, but I’ve seen them -worse. First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there -isn’t more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I’ve filled it up, and, -Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove. I don’t want to hurt your -feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this before if -you’d any imagination. Now, I’ll undress Minnie May and put her to bed -and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I’m going to give -her a dose of ipecac first of all.” - -Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up -three pairs of twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once, -but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls -worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe, -honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated -more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies. - -It was three o’clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been -obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need -for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping -soundly. - -“I was awfully near giving up in despair,” explained Anne. “She got -worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were, -even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke to death. -I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose -went down I said to myself--not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I -didn’t want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had -to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings--‘This is the last -lingering hope and I fear, tis a vain one.’ But in about three minutes -she coughed up the phlegm and began to get better right away. You must -just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can’t express it in words. You -know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words.” - -“Yes, I know,” nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were -thinking some things about her that couldn’t be expressed in words. -Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs. Barry. - -“That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert’s is as smart as -they make ‘em. I tell you she saved that baby’s life, for it would have -been too late by the time I got there. She seems to have a skill and -presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw -anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me.” - -Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, heavy -eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as -they crossed the long white field and walked under the glittering fairy -arch of the Lover’s Lane maples. - -“Oh, Matthew, isn’t it a wonderful morning? The world looks like -something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn’t it? Those -trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath--pouf! I’m so glad -I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you? And I’m so -glad Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn’t I -mightn’t have known what to do for Minnie May. I’m real sorry I was -ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins. But, oh, Matthew, I’m so -sleepy. I can’t go to school. I just know I couldn’t keep my eyes open -and I’d be so stupid. But I hate to stay home, for Gil--some of -the others will get head of the class, and it’s so hard to get up -again--although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you -have when you do get up, haven’t you?” - -“Well now, I guess you’ll manage all right,” said Matthew, looking at -Anne’s white little face and the dark shadows under her eyes. “You just -go right to bed and have a good sleep. I’ll do all the chores.” - -Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it -was well on in the white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and -descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the -meantime, was sitting knitting. - -“Oh, did you see the Premier?” exclaimed Anne at once. “What did he look -like Marilla?” - -“Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks,” said -Marilla. “Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of -being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no -use for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself -some blue plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you’re hungry. -Matthew has been telling me about last night. I must say it was -fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn’t have had any idea myself, for -I never saw a case of croup. There now, never mind talking till you’ve -had your dinner. I can tell by the look of you that you’re just full up -with speeches, but they’ll keep.” - -Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then -for she knew if she did Anne’s consequent excitement would lift her -clear out of the region of such material matters as appetite or dinner. -Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say: - -“Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I -wouldn’t wake you up. She says you saved Minnie May’s life, and she is -very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of the currant wine. She -says she knows now you didn’t mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes -you’ll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You’re to go -over this evening if you like for Diana can’t stir outside the door -on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for -pity’s sake don’t fly up into the air.” - -The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne’s -expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated -with the flame of her spirit. - -“Oh, Marilla, can I go right now--without washing my dishes? I’ll wash -them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so -unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment.” - -“Yes, yes, run along,” said Marilla indulgently. “Anne Shirley--are you -crazy? Come back this instant and put something on you. I might as well -call to the wind. She’s gone without a cap or wrap. Look at her tearing -through the orchard with her hair streaming. It’ll be a mercy if she -doesn’t catch her death of cold.” - -Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy -places. Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like -sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal -rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles -of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through -the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s -heart and on her lips. - -“You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla,” she announced. -“I’m perfectly happy--yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I -have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she -was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed, -Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, ‘I have no hard -feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not -mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the -mantle of oblivion.’ That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn’t -it, Marilla?” - -“I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry’s head. And Diana -and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch -her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but -us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else. Diana -gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of -poetry:” - - “If you love me as I love you - Nothing but death can part us two.” - -“And that is true, Marilla. We’re going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us -sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews. -We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out, -Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can’t tell you what a thrill -it gave me. Nobody ever used their very best china on my account before. -And we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of -preserves, Marilla. And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said ‘Pa, -why don’t you pass the biscuits to Anne?’ It must be lovely to be grown -up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice.” - -“I don’t know about that,” said Marilla, with a brief sigh. - -“Well, anyway, when I am grown up,” said Anne decidedly, “I’m always -going to talk to little girls as if they were too, and I’ll never laugh -when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts -one’s feelings. After tea Diana and I made taffy. The taffy wasn’t very -good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before. -Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and -let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat -walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of -it was splendid fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come -over as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses -to me all the way down to Lover’s Lane. I assure you, Marilla, that I -feel like praying tonight and I’m going to think out a special brand-new -prayer in honor of the occasion.” - - - -CHAPTER XIX. A Concert a Catastrophe and a Confession - - -MARILLA, can I go over to see Diana just for a minute?” asked Anne, -running breathlessly down from the east gable one February evening. - -“I don’t see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for,” said -Marilla shortly. “You and Diana walked home from school together and -then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more, your tongues -going the whole blessed time, clickety-clack. So I don’t think you’re -very badly off to see her again.” - -“But she wants to see me,” pleaded Anne. “She has something very -important to tell me.” - -“How do you know she has?” - -“Because she just signaled to me from her window. We have arranged a -way to signal with our candles and cardboard. We set the candle on the -window sill and make flashes by passing the cardboard back and forth. So -many flashes mean a certain thing. It was my idea, Marilla.” - -“I’ll warrant you it was,” said Marilla emphatically. “And the next -thing you’ll be setting fire to the curtains with your signaling -nonsense.” - -“Oh, we’re very careful, Marilla. And it’s so interesting. Two flashes -mean, ‘Are you there?’ Three mean ‘yes’ and four ‘no.’ Five mean, ‘Come -over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal.’ -Diana has just signaled five flashes, and I’m really suffering to know -what it is.” - -“Well, you needn’t suffer any longer,” said Marilla sarcastically. “You -can go, but you’re to be back here in just ten minutes, remember that.” - -Anne did remember it and was back in the stipulated time, although -probably no mortal will ever know just what it cost her to confine the -discussion of Diana’s important communication within the limits of ten -minutes. But at least she had made good use of them. - -“Oh, Marilla, what do you think? You know tomorrow is Diana’s birthday. -Well, her mother told her she could ask me to go home with her from -school and stay all night with her. And her cousins are coming over from -Newbridge in a big pung sleigh to go to the Debating Club concert at -the hall tomorrow night. And they are going to take Diana and me to the -concert--if you’ll let me go, that is. You will, won’t you, Marilla? Oh, -I feel so excited.” - -“You can calm down then, because you’re not going. You’re better at home -in your own bed, and as for that club concert, it’s all nonsense, and -little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all.” - -“I’m sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair,” pleaded Anne. - -“I’m not saying it isn’t. But you’re not going to begin gadding about -to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for -children. I’m surprised at Mrs. Barry’s letting Diana go.” - -“But it’s such a very special occasion,” mourned Anne, on the verge of -tears. “Diana has only one birthday in a year. It isn’t as if birthdays -were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going to recite ‘Curfew -Must Not Ring Tonight.’ That is such a good moral piece, Marilla, I’m -sure it would do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going to -sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns. -And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is; -he’s going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as -a sermon. Please, mayn’t I go, Marilla?” - -“You heard what I said, Anne, didn’t you? Take off your boots now and go -to bed. It’s past eight.” - -“There’s just one more thing, Marilla,” said Anne, with the air of -producing the last shot in her locker. “Mrs. Barry told Diana that we -might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of your little -Anne being put in the spare-room bed.” - -“It’s an honor you’ll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and -don’t let me hear another word out of you.” - -When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully -upstairs, Matthew, who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge -during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said decidedly: - -“Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go.” - -“I don’t then,” retorted Marilla. “Who’s bringing this child up, -Matthew, you or me?” - -“Well now, you,” admitted Matthew. - -“Don’t interfere then.” - -“Well now, I ain’t interfering. It ain’t interfering to have your own -opinion. And my opinion is that you ought to let Anne go.” - -“You’d think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the notion, -I’ve no doubt,” was Marilla’s amiable rejoinder. “I might have let her -spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don’t approve of this -concert plan. She’d go there and catch cold like as not, and have her -head filled up with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for -a week. I understand that child’s disposition and what’s good for it -better than you, Matthew.” - -“I think you ought to let Anne go,” repeated Matthew firmly. Argument -was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was. -Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence. The -next morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry, -Matthew paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again: - -“I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla.” - -For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she -yielded to the inevitable and said tartly: - -“Very well, she can go, since nothing else ‘ll please you.” - -Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand. - -“Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again.” - -“I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew’s doings and I -wash my hands of it. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or -coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don’t blame me, -blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you’re dripping greasy water all over the -floor. I never saw such a careless child.” - -“Oh, I know I’m a great trial to you, Marilla,” said Anne repentantly. -“I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I -don’t make, although I might. I’ll get some sand and scrub up the spots -before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to -that concert. I never was to a concert in my life, and when the other -girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You didn’t know -just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands -me, and it’s so nice to be understood, Marilla.” - -Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in -school. Gilbert Blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out -of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne’s consequent humiliation was -less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the -spare-room bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that -with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably -have been their portion. - -Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going -to the concert, for nothing else was discussed that day in school. The -Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter, had had several -smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission -ten cents, in aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been -practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in -it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part. -Everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie -Sloane, whose father shared Marilla’s opinions about small girls going -out to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried into her grammar all the -afternoon and felt that life was not worth living. - -For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and -increased therefrom in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive -ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a “perfectly elegant tea;” and -then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana’s little room -upstairs. Diana did Anne’s front hair in the new pompadour style and -Anne tied Diana’s bows with the especial knack she possessed; and they -experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging -their back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes -glowing with excitement. - -True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain -black tam and shapeless, tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with -Diana’s jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she remembered in -time that she had an imagination and could use it. - -Then Diana’s cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all crowded -into the big pung sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne reveled in -the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth roads with -the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent sunset, and -the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to -rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with -wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant laughter, that seemed -like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter. - -“Oh, Diana,” breathed Anne, squeezing Diana’s mittened hand under the -fur robe, “isn’t it all like a beautiful dream? Do I really look the -same as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must show in -my looks.” - -“You look awfully nice,” said Diana, who having just received a -compliment from one of her cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on. -“You’ve got the loveliest color.” - -The program that night was a series of “thrills” for at least one -listener in the audience, and, as Anne assured Diana, every succeeding -thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews, attired in -a new pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white -throat and real carnations in her hair--rumor whispered that the master -had sent all the way to town for them for her--“climbed the slimy -ladder, dark without one ray of light,” Anne shivered in luxurious -sympathy; when the choir sang “Far Above the Gentle Daisies” Anne gazed -at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane -proceeded to explain and illustrate “How Sockery Set a Hen” Anne laughed -until people sitting near her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her -than with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in -Avonlea; and when Mr. Phillips gave Mark Antony’s oration over the -dead body of Cæsar in the most heart-stirring tones--looking at Prissy -Andrews at the end of every sentence--Anne felt that she could rise and -mutiny on the spot if but one Roman citizen led the way. - -Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert -Blythe recited “Bingen on the Rhine” Anne picked up Rhoda Murray’s -library book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly -stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled. - -It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with the -exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come. Everybody -seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent. Anne and Diana tiptoed -into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened. -It was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the -grate. - -“Let’s undress here,” said Diana. “It’s so nice and warm.” - -“Hasn’t it been a delightful time?” sighed Anne rapturously. “It must -be splendid to get up and recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be -asked to do it, Diana?” - -“Yes, of course, someday. They’re always wanting the big scholars to -recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he’s only two years older than us. -Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to -the line, - - ‘There’s Another, _not_ a sister,’ - -he looked right down at you.” - -“Diana,” said Anne with dignity, “you are my bosom friend, but I cannot -allow even you to speak to me of that person. Are you ready for bed? -Let’s run a race and see who’ll get to the bed first.” - -The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew -down the long room, through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed -at the same moment. And then--something--moved beneath them, there was a -gasp and a cry--and somebody said in muffled accents: - -“Merciful goodness!” - -Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed -and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they -found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs. - -“Oh, who was it--_what_ was it?” whispered Anne, her teeth chattering with -cold and fright. - -“It was Aunt Josephine,” said Diana, gasping with laughter. “Oh, Anne, -it was Aunt Josephine, however she came to be there. Oh, and I know she -will be furious. It’s dreadful--it’s really dreadful--but did you ever -know anything so funny, Anne?” - -“Who is your Aunt Josephine?” - -“She’s father’s aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She’s awfully -old--seventy anyhow--and I don’t believe she was _ever_ a little girl. We -were expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon. She’s awfully prim -and proper and she’ll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we’ll -have to sleep with Minnie May--and you can’t think how she kicks.” - -Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next -morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two little girls. - -“Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you -came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you -would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I -hope you didn’t disturb your aunt, Diana.” - -Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged furtive -smiles of guilty amusement across the table. Anne hurried home after -breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which -presently resulted in the Barry household until the late afternoon, when -she went down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand for Marilla. - -“So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last -night?” said Mrs. Lynde severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Mrs. -Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to Carmody. She’s feeling -real worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she -got up this morning--and Josephine Barry’s temper is no joke, I can tell -you that. She wouldn’t speak to Diana at all.” - -“It wasn’t Diana’s fault,” said Anne contritely. “It was mine. I -suggested racing to see who would get into bed first.” - -“I knew it!” said Mrs. Lynde, with the exultation of a correct guesser. -“I knew that idea came out of your head. Well, it’s made a nice lot of -trouble, that’s what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a month, but -she declares she won’t stay another day and is going right back to town -tomorrow, Sunday and all as it is. She’d have gone today if they could -have taken her. She had promised to pay for a quarter’s music lessons -for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such a -tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The -Barrys must feel cut up. Old Miss Barry is rich and they’d like to keep -on the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn’t say just that to -me, but I’m a pretty good judge of human nature, that’s what.” - -“I’m such an unlucky girl,” mourned Anne. “I’m always getting into -scrapes myself and getting my best friends--people I’d shed my heart’s -blood for--into them too. Can you tell me why it is so, Mrs. Lynde?” - -“It’s because you’re too heedless and impulsive, child, that’s what. You -never stop to think--whatever comes into your head to say or do you say -or do it without a moment’s reflection.” - -“Oh, but that’s the best of it,” protested Anne. “Something just flashes -into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to -think it over you spoil it all. Haven’t you never felt that yourself, -Mrs. Lynde?” - -No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely. - -“You must learn to think a little, Anne, that’s what. The proverb you -need to go by is ‘Look before you leap’--especially into spare-room -beds.” - -Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained -pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her -eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde’s she took her way -across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen -door. - -“Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn’t she?” whispered -Anne. - -“Yes,” answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance -over her shoulder at the closed sitting-room door. “She was fairly -dancing with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I was the -worst-behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed -of the way they had brought me up. She says she won’t stay and I’m sure -I don’t care. But Father and Mother do.” - -“Why didn’t you tell them it was my fault?” demanded Anne. - -“It’s likely I’d do such a thing, isn’t it?” said Diana with just scorn. -“I’m no telltale, Anne Shirley, and anyhow I was just as much to blame -as you.” - -“Well, I’m going in to tell her myself,” said Anne resolutely. - -Diana stared. - -“Anne Shirley, you’d never! why--she’ll eat you alive!” - -“Don’t frighten me any more than I am frightened,” implored Anne. “I’d -rather walk up to a cannon’s mouth. But I’ve got to do it, Diana. It -was my fault and I’ve got to confess. I’ve had practice in confessing, -fortunately.” - -“Well, she’s in the room,” said Diana. “You can go in if you want to. I -wouldn’t dare. And I don’t believe you’ll do a bit of good.” - -With this encouragement Anne bearded the lion in its den--that is to -say, walked resolutely up to the sitting-room door and knocked faintly. -A sharp “Come in” followed. - -Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by -the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her -gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her chair, expecting to see -Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up -with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror. - -“Who are you?” demanded Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony. - -“I’m Anne of Green Gables,” said the small visitor tremulously, clasping -her hands with her characteristic gesture, “and I’ve come to confess, if -you please.” - -“Confess what?” - -“That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I -suggested it. Diana would never have thought of such a thing, I am sure. -Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry. So you must see how unjust it -is to blame her.” - -“Oh, I must, hey? I rather think Diana did her share of the jumping at -least. Such carryings on in a respectable house!” - -“But we were only in fun,” persisted Anne. “I think you ought to forgive -us, Miss Barry, now that we’ve apologized. And anyhow, please forgive -Diana and let her have her music lessons. Diana’s heart is set on her -music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too well what it is to set your -heart on a thing and not get it. If you must be cross with anyone, be -cross with me. I’ve been so used in my early days to having people cross -at me that I can endure it much better than Diana can.” - -Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady’s eyes by this time -and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest. But she still said -severely: - -“I don’t think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun. -Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young. You -don’t know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after a long -and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you.” - -“I don’t _know_, but I can _imagine_,” said Anne eagerly. “I’m sure it must -have been very disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too. Have -you any imagination, Miss Barry? If you have, just put yourself in -our place. We didn’t know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly -scared us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. And then we -couldn’t sleep in the spare room after being promised. I suppose you are -used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine what you would feel -like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor.” - -All the snap had gone by this time. Miss Barry actually laughed--a -sound which caused Diana, waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen -outside, to give a great gasp of relief. - -“I’m afraid my imagination is a little rusty--it’s so long since I used -it,” she said. “I dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong as -mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here and tell me -about yourself.” - -“I am very sorry I can’t,” said Anne firmly. “I would like to, because -you seem like an interesting lady, and you might even be a kindred -spirit although you don’t look very much like it. But it is my duty to -go home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind -lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but -it is very discouraging work. You must not blame her because I jumped on -the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive -Diana and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea.” - -“I think perhaps I will if you will come over and talk to me -occasionally,” said Miss Barry. - -That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a silver bangle bracelet and told the -senior members of the household that she had unpacked her valise. - -“I’ve made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better -acquainted with that Anne-girl,” she said frankly. “She amuses me, and -at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity.” - -Marilla’s only comment when she heard the story was, “I told you so.” - This was for Matthew’s benefit. - -Miss Barry stayed her month out and over. She was a more agreeable guest -than usual, for Anne kept her in good humor. They became firm friends. - -When Miss Barry went away she said: - -“Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you’re to visit me and -I’ll put you in my very sparest spare-room bed to sleep.” - -“Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all,” Anne confided to Marilla. -“You wouldn’t think so to look at her, but she is. You don’t find it -right out at first, as in Matthew’s case, but after a while you come -to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s -splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” - - - - -CHAPTER XX. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong - - -SPRING had come once more to Green Gables--the beautiful capricious, -reluctant Canadian spring, lingering along through April and May in a -succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles -of resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover’s Lane were red budded -and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad’s Bubble. Away up in -the barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane’s place, the Mayflowers blossomed -out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the -school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming -home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of -flowery spoil. - -“I’m so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no -Mayflowers,” said Anne. “Diana says perhaps they have something better, -but there couldn’t be anything better than Mayflowers, could there, -Marilla? And Diana says if they don’t know what they are like they don’t -miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it -would be _tragic_, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and _not_ -to miss them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think -they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this -is their heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our -lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well--such a _romantic_ spot. -Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because -he wouldn’t take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very _fashionable_ -to dare. Mr. Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews -and I heard him to say ‘sweets to the sweet.’ He got that out of a -book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some -Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can’t tell you the -person’s name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips. We -made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats; and when the -time came to go home we marched in procession down the road, two by two, -with our bouquets and wreaths, singing ‘My Home on the Hill.’ Oh, it was -so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas Sloane’s folks rushed out to see us -and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after us. We made a -real sensation.” - -“Not much wonder! Such silly doings!” was Marilla’s response. - -After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled -with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent -steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground. - -“Somehow,” she told Diana, “when I’m going through here I don’t really -care whether Gil--whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But -when I’m up in school it’s all different and I care as much as ever. -There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is -why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would -be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so -interesting.” - -One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when the -frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the -Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover -fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. -She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the -book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the -boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom. - -In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The -walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly -and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was -altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to -pervade it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses -and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms -on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its -vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had -tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and -moonshine. Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of Anne’s freshly -ironed school aprons. She hung them over a chair and sat down with -a short sigh. She had had one of her headaches that afternoon, and -although the pain had gone she felt weak and “tuckered out,” as she -expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid with sympathy. - -“I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place, Marilla. I -would have endured it joyfully for your sake.” - -“I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me -rest,” said Marilla. “You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer -mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn’t exactly necessary to starch -Matthew’s handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven -to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of -leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn’t seem to be your way -evidently.” - -Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic. - -“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anne penitently. “I never thought about that -pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt -_instinctively_ that there was something missing on the dinner table. I -was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to -imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until -I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to -imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a -handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that -is how I came to forget the pie. I didn’t know I starched the -handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a -name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It’s the -most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple trees on it and the -brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be -splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen’s -birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I’m sorry about that pie -and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today because it’s an -anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?” - -“No, I can’t think of anything special.” - -“Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never -forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn’t -seem so important to you. I’ve been here for a year and I’ve been so -happy. Of course, I’ve had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. -Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?” - -“No, I can’t say I’m sorry,” said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how -she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, “no, not exactly -sorry. If you’ve finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and -ask Mrs. Barry if she’ll lend me Diana’s apron pattern.” - -“Oh--it’s--it’s too dark,” cried Anne. - -“Too dark? Why, it’s only twilight. And goodness knows you’ve gone over -often enough after dark.” - -“I’ll go over early in the morning,” said Anne eagerly. “I’ll get up at -sunrise and go over, Marilla.” - -“What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to -cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too.” - -“I’ll have to go around by the road, then,” said Anne, taking up her hat -reluctantly. - -“Go by the road and waste half an hour! I’d like to catch you!” - -“I can’t go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla,” cried Anne desperately. - -Marilla stared. - -“The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the Haunted -Wood?” - -“The spruce wood over the brook,” said Anne in a whisper. - -“Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who -has been telling you such stuff?” - -“Nobody,” confessed Anne. “Diana and I just imagined the wood was -haunted. All the places around here are so--so--_commonplace_. We just got -this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is -so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it’s so -gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There’s a white -lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings -her hands and utters wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a -death in the family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the -corner up by Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers -on your hand--so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder to think of it. And -there’s a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower -at you between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn’t go through the -Haunted Wood after dark now for anything. I’d be sure that white things -would reach out from behind the trees and grab me.” - -“Did ever anyone hear the like!” ejaculated Marilla, who had -listened in dumb amazement. “Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you -believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?” - -“Not believe _exactly_,” faltered Anne. “At least, I don’t believe it in -daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it’s different. That is when ghosts -walk.” - -“There are no such things as ghosts, Anne.” - -“Oh, but there are, Marilla,” cried Anne eagerly. “I know people who -have seen them. And they are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says -that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night -after he’d been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane’s grandmother -wouldn’t tell a story for anything. She’s a very religious woman. And -Mrs. Thomas’s father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with -its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the -spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine -days. He didn’t, but he died two years after, so you see it was really -true. And Ruby Gillis says--” - -“Anne Shirley,” interrupted Marilla firmly, “I never want to hear you -talking in this fashion again. I’ve had my doubts about that imagination -of yours right along, and if this is going to be the outcome of it, I -won’t countenance any such doings. You’ll go right over to Barry’s, and -you’ll go through that spruce grove, just for a lesson and a warning to -you. And never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods -again.” - -Anne might plead and cry as she liked--and did, for her terror was very -real. Her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce -grove in mortal dread after nightfall. But Marilla was inexorable. She -marched the shrinking ghost-seer down to the spring and ordered her -to proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of -wailing ladies and headless specters beyond. - -“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed Anne. “What would you -feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?” - -“I’ll risk it,” said Marilla unfeelingly. “You know I always mean what I -say. I’ll cure you of imagining ghosts into places. March, now.” - -Anne marched. That is, she stumbled over the bridge and went shuddering -up the horrible dim path beyond. Anne never forgot that walk. Bitterly -did she repent the license she had given to her imagination. The goblins -of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her, reaching out their cold, -fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them -into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over -the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn -wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the -perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness -over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she reached Mr. -William Bell’s field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of -white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of breath -that she could hardly gasp out her request for the apron pattern. -Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The dreadful -return journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes, -preferring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs -to that of seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log -bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief. - -“Well, so nothing caught you?” said Marilla unsympathetically. - -“Oh, Mar--Marilla,” chattered Anne, “I’ll b-b-be contt-tented with -c-c-commonplace places after this.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings - - -DEAR ME, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as -Mrs. Lynde says,” remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and books -down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her red -eyes with a very damp handkerchief. “Wasn’t it fortunate, Marilla, that -I took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that -it would be needed.” - -“I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you’d require two -handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away,” said -Marilla. - -“I don’t think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,” - reflected Anne. “I just cried because all the others did. It was -Ruby Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr. -Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she -burst into tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other. -I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips -made me sit with Gil--with a boy; and the time he spelled my name -without an ‘e’ on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce -he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he -had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn’t, Marilla, and I -just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how -glad she’d be when Mr. Phillips went away and she declared she’d never -shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a -handkerchief from her brother--of course the boys didn’t cry--because -she hadn’t brought one of her own, not expecting to need it. Oh, -Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a beautiful -farewell speech beginning, ‘The time has come for us to part.’ It was -very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla. Oh, I felt -dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times I’d talked in school -and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and Prissy. -I can tell you I wished I’d been a model pupil like Minnie Andrews. She -hadn’t anything on her conscience. The girls cried all the way home from -school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few minutes, ‘The time has come -for us to part,’ and that would start us off again whenever we were in -any danger of cheering up. I do feel dreadfully sad, Marilla. But one -can’t feel quite in the depths of despair with two months’ vacation -before them, can they, Marilla? And besides, we met the new minister and -his wife coming from the station. For all I was feeling so bad about Mr. -Phillips going away I couldn’t help taking a little interest in a new -minister, could I? His wife is very pretty. Not exactly regally lovely, -of course--it wouldn’t do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally -lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says the -minister’s wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she -dresses so fashionably. Our new minister’s wife was dressed in blue -muslin with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses. -Jane Andrews said she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for -a minister’s wife, but I didn’t make any such uncharitable remark, -Marilla, because I know what it is to long for puffed sleeves. Besides, -she’s only been a minister’s wife for a little while, so one should -make allowances, shouldn’t they? They are going to board with Mrs. Lynde -until the manse is ready.” - -If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde’s that evening, was actuated by -any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had -borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most -of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes -never expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the -borrowers thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife, -was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement -where sensations were few and far between. - -Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in -imagination, had been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a -widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the fact that -gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one, every year -of his sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and -departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection -born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his -shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a -variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and various -candidates and “supplies” who came Sunday after Sunday to preach on -trial. These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers -in Israel; but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the -corner of the old Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and -discussed the same in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining from -principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form. - -“I don’t think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew” was Anne’s final -summing up. “Mrs. Lynde says his delivery was so poor, but I think his -worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley’s--he had no imagination. And Mr. -Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in -the matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology -wasn’t sound. Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man, -but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church; -he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister, -mustn’t you, Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; -but Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t married, or even engaged, because she made -special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to have -a young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the -congregation and that would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very farseeing -woman, isn’t she, Matthew? I’m very glad they’ve called Mr. Allan. I -liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he -meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it. -Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t perfect, but she says she supposes we couldn’t -expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars a year, -and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly -on all the points of doctrine. And she knows his wife’s people and they -are most respectable and the women are all good housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde -says that sound doctrine in the man and good housekeeping in the woman -make an ideal combination for a minister’s family.” - -The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple, still -on their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for -their chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to them from the start. -Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high ideals, -and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship of the -manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and wholeheartedly in love. -She had discovered another kindred spirit. - -“Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely,” she announced one Sunday afternoon. -“She’s taken our class and she’s a splendid teacher. She said right away -she didn’t think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions, -and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I’ve always thought. She -said we could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many. -I’m good at asking questions, Marilla.” - -“I believe you,” was Marilla’s emphatic comment. - -“Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was -to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn’t think that was a -very proper question to ask because it hadn’t any connection with the -lesson--the lesson was about Daniel in the lions’ den--but Mrs. Allan -just smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a -lovely smile; she has such _exquisite_ dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had -dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I’m not half so skinny as I was when I -came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence -people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence -other people for good. She talked so nice about everything. I never knew -before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it -was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan’s isn’t, and I’d like to be a -Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn’t want to be one like Mr. -Superintendent Bell.” - -“It’s very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell,” said Marilla -severely. “Mr. Bell is a real good man.” - -“Oh, of course he’s good,” agreed Anne, “but he doesn’t seem to get any -comfort out of it. If I could be good I’d dance and sing all day because -I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and -of course it wouldn’t be dignified in a minister’s wife. But I can just -feel she’s glad she’s a Christian and that she’d be one even if she -could get to heaven without it.” - -“I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon,” said -Marilla reflectively. “They’ve been most everywhere but here. Let me -see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don’t say a -word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he’d find some -excuse to be away that day. He’d got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn’t -mind him, but he’s going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new -minister, and a new minister’s wife will frighten him to death.” - -“I’ll be as secret as the dead,” assured Anne. “But oh, Marilla, will -you let me make a cake for the occasion? I’d love to do something for -Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time.” - -“You can make a layer cake,” promised Marilla. - -Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. -Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important -undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of -the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She -talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they -sat on the big red stones by the Dryad’s Bubble and made rainbows in the -water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam. - -“Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I’m to make in the -morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just -before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy -two days of it. It’s such a responsibility having a minister’s family to -tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see -our pantry. It’s a sight to behold. We’re going to have jellied chicken -and cold tongue. We’re to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and -whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, -and fruit cake, and Marilla’s famous yellow plum preserves that she -keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and -biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister -is dyspeptic and can’t eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, -but I don’t think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to -have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer -cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn’t be good! I dreamed last night that -I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a -head.” - -“It’ll be good, all right,” assured Diana, who was a very comfortable -sort of friend. “I’m sure that piece of the one you made that we had for -lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant.” - -“Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just -when you especially want them to be good,” sighed Anne, setting a -particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. “However, I suppose I shall -just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, -look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come -out after we go away and take it for a scarf?” - -“You know there is no such thing as a dryad,” said Diana. Diana’s mother -had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over -it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights -of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of -belief even in harmless dryads. - -“But it’s so easy to imagine there is,” said Anne. “Every night before -I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really -sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes -I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don’t -give up your faith in the dryad!” - -Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too -excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of -her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short -of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary -matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. -When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath. - -“I’m sure I haven’t forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you -think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn’t good? I -used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of -getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. -Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says -we’ll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what -if that cake doesn’t rise?” - -“We’ll have plenty without it” was Marilla’s unimpassioned way of -looking at the subject. - -The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and -feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together -with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan eating it -and possibly asking for another piece! - -“You’ll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla,” she said. “Can I -fix the table with ferns and wild roses?” - -“I think that’s all nonsense,” sniffed Marilla. “In my opinion it’s the -eatables that matter and not flummery decorations.” - -“Mrs. Barry had _her_ table decorated,” said Anne, who was not entirely -guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, “and the minister paid her an -elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the -palate.” - -“Well, do as you like,” said Marilla, who was quite determined not to -be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. “Only mind you leave enough -room for the dishes and the food.” - -Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that -should leave Mrs. Barry’s nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns -and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea table such a -thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they -exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness. - -“It’s Anne’s doings,” said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs. -Allan’s approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world. - -Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness -and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and -nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him -in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes -and white collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly. -He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be -expected. - -All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne’s layer cake was passed. -Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety, -declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne’s face, said -smilingly: - -“Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose -for you.” - -“In that case I must sample it,” laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to -a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla. - -Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression -crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away -at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake. - -“Anne Shirley!” she exclaimed, “what on earth did you put into that -cake?” - -“Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla,” cried Anne with a look of -anguish. “Oh, isn’t it all right?” - -“All right! It’s simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don’t try to eat it. Anne, -taste it yourself. What flavoring did you use?” - -“Vanilla,” said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting -the cake. “Only vanilla. Oh, Marilla, it must have been the baking -powder. I had my suspicions of that bak--” - -“Baking powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you -used.” - -Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially -filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly, “Best Vanilla.” - -Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it. - -“Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavored that cake with _Anodyne Liniment_. I -broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an -old empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it’s partly my fault--I should have -warned you--but for pity’s sake why couldn’t you have smelled it?” - -Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace. - -“I couldn’t--I had such a cold!” and with this she fairly fled to the -gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who -refuses to be comforted. - -Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the -room. - -“Oh, Marilla,” sobbed Anne, without looking up, “I’m disgraced forever. -I shall never be able to live this down. It will get out--things always -do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I -shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the -girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment. Gil--the boys in school -will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark -of Christian pity don’t tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes -after this. I’ll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but -I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again. Perhaps she’ll think I -tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried -to poison her benefactor. But the liniment isn’t poisonous. It’s meant -to be taken internally--although not in cakes. Won’t you tell Mrs. Allan -so, Marilla?” - -“Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself,” said a merry voice. - -Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with -laughing eyes. - -“My dear little girl, you mustn’t cry like this,” she said, genuinely -disturbed by Anne’s tragic face. “Why, it’s all just a funny mistake -that anybody might make.” - -“Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake,” said Anne forlornly. “And -I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan.” - -“Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and -thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now, -you mustn’t cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower -garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I -want to see it, for I’m very much interested in flowers.” - -Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it -was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing -more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests went away -Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been -expected, considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless, she sighed -deeply. - -“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no -mistakes in it yet?” - -“I’ll warrant you’ll make plenty in it,” said Marilla. “I never saw your -beat for making mistakes, Anne.” - -“Yes, and well I know it,” admitted Anne mournfully. “But have you ever -noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same -mistake twice.” - -“I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new -ones.” - -“Oh, don’t you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one -person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I’ll be through -with them. That’s a very comforting thought.” - -“Well, you’d better go and give that cake to the pigs,” said Marilla. -“It isn’t fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Boute.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. Anne is Invited Out to Tea - - -AND what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?” asked -Marilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. “Have -you discovered another kindred spirit?” Excitement hung around Anne like -a garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had come -dancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow -sunshine and lazy shadows of the August evening. - -“No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the -manse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs. Allan left the letter for me at the post -office. Just look at it, Marilla. ‘Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables.’ -That is the first time I was ever called ‘Miss.’ Such a thrill as it -gave me! I shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures.” - -“Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of her -Sunday-school class to tea in turn,” said Marilla, regarding the -wonderful event very coolly. “You needn’t get in such a fever over it. -Do learn to take things calmly, child.” - -For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All -“spirit and fire and dew,” as she was, the pleasures and pains of life -came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely -troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would -probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently -understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more -than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill -Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien -to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not -make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall -of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into “deeps of affliction.” The -fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had -almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into -her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither -would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she -was. - -Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew had -said the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy day -tomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her, -it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of -the gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its -strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm -and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Anne -thought that the morning would never come. - -But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are -invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew’s -predictions, was fine and Anne’s spirits soared to their highest. -“Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love -everybody I see,” she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes. -“You don’t know how good I feel! Wouldn’t it be nice if it could last? I -believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every -day. But oh, Marilla, it’s a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious. -What if I shouldn’t behave properly? You know I never had tea at a -manse before, and I’m not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette, -although I’ve been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department -of the Family Herald ever since I came here. I’m so afraid I’ll do -something silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it be -good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to _very_ -much?” - -“The trouble with you, Anne, is that you’re thinking too much about -yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest -and most agreeable to her,” said Marilla, hitting for once in her life -on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this. - -“You are right, Marilla. I’ll try not to think about myself at all.” - -Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of -“etiquette,” for she came home through the twilight, under a great, -high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, in -a beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sitting -on the big red-sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly -head in Marilla’s gingham lap. - -A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rims -of firry western hills and whistling through the poplars. One clear star -hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in Lover’s -Lane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched them -as she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were -all tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting. - -“Oh, Marilla, I’ve had a most _fascinating_ time. I feel that I have not -lived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should never -be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met me -at the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy, -with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a -seraph. I really think I’d like to be a minister’s wife when I grow up, -Marilla. A minister mightn’t mind my red hair because he wouldn’t be -thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to -be naturally good and I’ll never be that, so I suppose there’s no use in -thinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you know, and others -are not. I’m one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I’m full of original -sin. No matter how hard I try to be good I can never make such a success -of it as those who are naturally good. It’s a good deal like geometry, -I expect. But don’t you think the trying so hard ought to count for -something? Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love her -passionately. You know there are some people, like Matthew and Mrs. -Allan that you can love right off without any trouble. And there are -others, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have to try very hard to love. You -know you _ought_ to love them because they know so much and are such -active workers in the church, but you have to keep reminding yourself of -it all the time or else you forget. There was another little girl at the -manse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday school. Her name was Laurette -Bradley, and she was a very nice little girl. Not exactly a kindred -spirit, you know, but still very nice. We had an elegant tea, and I -think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After tea Mrs. -Allan played and sang and she got Lauretta and me to sing too. -Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing in the -Sunday-school choir after this. You can’t think how I was thrilled at -the mere thought. I’ve longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir, -as Diana does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to. -Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the -White Sands Hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta -says that the Americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight in -aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the White -Sands people to recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herself -someday. I just gazed at her in awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I -had a heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything--about Mrs. Thomas and -the twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and -my troubles over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs. -Allan told me she was a dunce at geometry too. You don’t know how that -encouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before I left, and what -do you think, Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it’s -a lady. Her name is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn’t that a romantic name? Mrs. -Lynde says they’ve never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and she -thinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid -to have a lady teacher, and I really don’t see how I’m going to live -through the two weeks before school begins. I’m so impatient to see -her.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor - - -ANNE had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost a -month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode, it was high time -for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as -absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls -in the pantry instead of into the pigs’ bucket, and walking clean over -the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative -reverie, not really being worth counting. - -A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party. - -“Small and select,” Anne assured Marilla. “Just the girls in our class.” - -They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, -when they found themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all -their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might -present itself. This presently took the form of “daring.” - -Daring was the fashionable amusement among the Avonlea small fry just -then. It had begun among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all -the silly things that were done in Avonlea that summer because the doers -thereof were “dared” to do them would fill a book by themselves. - -First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point -in the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby Gillis, -albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said -tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she -should tear her new muslin dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of the -aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop on her -left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her right -foot to the ground; which Jane Andrews gamely tried to do, but gave out -at the third corner and had to confess herself defeated. - -Josie’s triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted, -Anne Shirley dared her to walk along the top of the board fence which -bounded the garden to the east. Now, to “walk” board fences requires -more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who -has never tried it. But Josie Pye, if deficient in some qualities -that make for popularity, had at least a natural and inborn gift, duly -cultivated, for walking board fences. Josie walked the Barry fence with -an airy unconcern which seemed to imply that a little thing like that -wasn’t worth a “dare.” Reluctant admiration greeted her exploit, for -most of the other girls could appreciate it, having suffered many things -themselves in their efforts to walk fences. Josie descended from her -perch, flushed with victory, and darted a defiant glance at Anne. - -Anne tossed her red braids. - -“I don’t think it’s such a very wonderful thing to walk a little, low, -board fence,” she said. “I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the -ridgepole of a roof.” - -“I don’t believe it,” said Josie flatly. “I don’t believe anybody could -walk a ridgepole. _You_ couldn’t, anyhow.” - -“Couldn’t I?” cried Anne rashly. - -“Then I dare you to do it,” said Josie defiantly. “I dare you to climb -up there and walk the ridgepole of Mr. Barry’s kitchen roof.” - -Anne turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done. She -walked toward the house, where a ladder was leaning against the kitchen -roof. All the fifth-class girls said, “Oh!” partly in excitement, partly -in dismay. - -“Don’t you do it, Anne,” entreated Diana. “You’ll fall off and be -killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It isn’t fair to dare anybody to do -anything so dangerous.” - -“I must do it. My honor is at stake,” said Anne solemnly. “I shall walk -that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are -to have my pearl bead ring.” - -Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the ridgepole, -balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to -walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up -in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your -imagination helped you out much. Nevertheless, she managed to take -several steps before the catastrophe came. Then she swayed, lost her -balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down over the sun-baked -roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia creeper -beneath--all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, -terrified shriek. - -If Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended -Diana would probably have fallen heir to the pearl bead ring then and -there. Fortunately she fell on the other side, where the roof extended -down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was -a much less serious thing. Nevertheless, when Diana and the other -girls had rushed frantically around the house--except Ruby Gillis, who -remained as if rooted to the ground and went into hysterics--they found -Anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the Virginia -creeper. - -“Anne, are you killed?” shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees -beside her friend. “Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and -tell me if you’re killed.” - -To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, -who, in spite of lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible -visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne -Shirley’s early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered -uncertainly: - -“No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious.” - -“Where?” sobbed Carrie Sloane. “Oh, where, Anne?” Before Anne could -answer Mrs. Barry appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne tried to -scramble to her feet, but sank back again with a sharp little cry of -pain. - -“What’s the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?” demanded Mrs. Barry. - -“My ankle,” gasped Anne. “Oh, Diana, please find your father and ask him -to take me home. I know I can never walk there. And I’m sure I couldn’t -hop so far on one foot when Jane couldn’t even hop around the garden.” - -Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when -she saw Mr. Barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs. -Barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after -him. In his arms he carried Anne, whose head lay limply against his -shoulder. - -At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that -pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. -She would have admitted that she liked Anne--nay, that she was very fond -of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne -was dearer to her than anything else on earth. - -“Mr. Barry, what has happened to her?” she gasped, more white and shaken -than the self-contained, sensible Marilla had been for many years. - -Anne herself answered, lifting her head. - -“Don’t be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole and I -fell off. I expect I have sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have -broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of things.” - -“I might have known you’d go and do something of the sort when I let you -go to that party,” said Marilla, sharp and shrewish in her very relief. -“Bring her in here, Mr. Barry, and lay her on the sofa. Mercy me, the -child has gone and fainted!” - -It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Anne had one more -of her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away. - -Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway -dispatched for the doctor, who in due time came, to discover that the -injury was more serious than they had supposed. Anne’s ankle was broken. - -That night, when Marilla went up to the east gable, where a white-faced -girl was lying, a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed. - -“Aren’t you very sorry for me, Marilla?” - -“It was your own fault,” said Marilla, twitching down the blind and -lighting a lamp. - -“And that is just why you should be sorry for me,” said Anne, “because -the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard. If I -could blame it on anybody I would feel so much better. But what would -you have done, Marilla, if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole?” - -“I’d have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such -absurdity!” said Marilla. - -Anne sighed. - -“But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven’t. I just felt -that I couldn’t bear Josie Pye’s scorn. She would have crowed over me -all my life. And I think I have been punished so much that you needn’t -be very cross with me, Marilla. It’s not a bit nice to faint, after all. -And the doctor hurt me dreadfully when he was setting my ankle. I won’t -be able to go around for six or seven weeks and I’ll miss the new lady -teacher. She won’t be new any more by the time I’m able to go to school. -And Gil--everybody will get ahead of me in class. Oh, I am an afflicted -mortal. But I’ll try to bear it all bravely if only you won’t be cross -with me, Marilla.” - -“There, there, I’m not cross,” said Marilla. “You’re an unlucky child, -there’s no doubt about that; but as you say, you’ll have the suffering -of it. Here now, try and eat some supper.” - -“Isn’t it fortunate I’ve got such an imagination?” said Anne. “It will -help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven’t any -imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?” - -Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during -the tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not solely dependent -on it. She had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of -the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her -all the happenings in the juvenile world of Avonlea. - -“Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla,” sighed Anne happily, -on the day when she could first limp across the floor. “It isn’t very -pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side to it, Marilla. You -find out how many friends you have. Why, even Superintendent Bell came -to see me, and he’s really a very fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of -course; but still I like him and I’m awfully sorry I ever criticized his -prayers. I believe now he really does mean them, only he has got into -the habit of saying them as if he didn’t. He could get over that if he’d -take a little trouble. I gave him a good broad hint. I told him how hard -I tried to make my own little private prayers interesting. He told me -all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy. It does seem -so strange to think of Superintendent Bell ever being a boy. Even my -imagination has its limits, for I can’t imagine _that_. When I try to -imagine him as a boy I see him with gray whiskers and spectacles, just -as he looks in Sunday school, only small. Now, it’s so easy to imagine -Mrs. Allan as a little girl. Mrs. Allan has been to see me fourteen -times. Isn’t that something to be proud of, Marilla? When a minister’s -wife has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful person to -have visit you, too. She never tells you it’s your own fault and she -hopes you’ll be a better girl on account of it. Mrs. Lynde always told -me that when she came to see me; and she said it in a kind of way that -made me feel she might hope I’d be a better girl but didn’t really -believe I would. Even Josie Pye came to see me. I received her as -politely as I could, because I think she was sorry she dared me to walk -a ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had to carry a dark burden -of remorse all her life. Diana has been a faithful friend. She’s been -over every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be so glad -when I can go to school for I’ve heard such exciting things about the -new teacher. The girls all think she is perfectly sweet. Diana says she -has the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes. She dresses -beautifully, and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else’s in -Avonlea. Every other Friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody -has to say a piece or take part in a dialogue. Oh, it’s just glorious to -think of it. Josie Pye says she hates it but that is just because Josie -has so little imagination. Diana and Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are -preparing a dialogue, called ‘A Morning Visit,’ for next Friday. And the -Friday afternoons they don’t have recitations Miss Stacy takes them -all to the woods for a ‘field’ day and they study ferns and flowers -and birds. And they have physical culture exercises every morning and -evening. Mrs. Lynde says she never heard of such goings on and it all -comes of having a lady teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I -believe I shall find that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit.” - -“There’s one thing plain to be seen, Anne,” said Marilla, “and that is -that your fall off the Barry roof hasn’t injured your tongue at all.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert - - -IT was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school--a -glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the -valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had -poured them in for the sun to drain--amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and -smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth -of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of -many-stemmed woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a canopy -of yellow and the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a -tang in the very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping, -unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it _was_ jolly to -be back again at the little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby Gillis -nodding across the aisle and Carrie Sloane sending up notes and Julia -Bell passing a “chew” of gum down from the back seat. Anne drew a long -breath of happiness as she sharpened her pencil and arranged her picture -cards in her desk. Life was certainly very interesting. - -In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy -was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and -holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was -in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under this -wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the -critical Marilla glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims. - -“I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so ladylike -and she has such a sweet voice. When she pronounces my name I feel -_instinctively_ that she’s spelling it with an E. We had recitations -this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite -‘Mary, Queen of Scots.’ I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis -told me coming home that the way I said the line, ‘Now for my father’s -arm,’ she said, ‘my woman’s heart farewell,’ just made her blood run -cold.” - -“Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the -barn,” suggested Matthew. - -“Of course I will,” said Anne meditatively, “but I won’t be able to do -it so well, I know. It won’t be so exciting as it is when you have a -whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I -won’t be able to make your blood run cold.” - -“Mrs. Lynde says it made _her_ blood run cold to see the boys climbing to -the very tops of those big trees on Bell’s hill after crows’ nests last -Friday,” said Marilla. “I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it.” - -“But we wanted a crow’s nest for nature study,” explained Anne. “That -was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla. -And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have to write -compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones.” - -“It’s very vain of you to say so then. You’d better let your teacher say -it.” - -“But she _did_ say it, Marilla. And indeed I’m not vain about it. How can -I be, when I’m such a dunce at geometry? Although I’m really beginning -to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it so clear. Still, -I’ll never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection. -But I love writing compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose -our own subjects; but next week we are to write a composition on some -remarkable person. It’s hard to choose among so many remarkable people -who have lived. Mustn’t it be splendid to be remarkable and have -compositions written about you after you’re dead? Oh, I would dearly -love to be remarkable. I think when I grow up I’ll be a trained nurse -and go with the Red Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of -mercy. That is, if I don’t go out as a foreign missionary. That would -be very romantic, but one would have to be very good to be a missionary, -and that would be a stumbling block. We have physical culture exercises -every day, too. They make you graceful and promote digestion.” - -“Promote fiddlesticks!” said Marilla, who honestly thought it was all -nonsense. - -But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical culture -contortions paled before a project which Miss Stacy brought forward in -November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea school should get up -a concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas Night, for the laudable -purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one and -all taking graciously to this plan, the preparations for a program -were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was so -excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart -and soul, hampered as she was by Marilla’s disapproval. Marilla thought -it all rank foolishness. - -“It’s just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that -ought to be put on your lessons,” she grumbled. “I don’t approve of -children’s getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes -them vain and forward and fond of gadding.” - -“But think of the worthy object,” pleaded Anne. “A flag will cultivate a -spirit of patriotism, Marilla.” - -“Fudge! There’s precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of -you. All you want is a good time.” - -“Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn’t it all right? Of -course it’s real nice to be getting up a concert. We’re going to have -six choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I’m in two dialogues--‘The -Society for the Suppression of Gossip’ and ‘The Fairy Queen.’ The boys -are going to have a dialogue too. And I’m to have two recitations, -Marilla. I just tremble when I think of it, but it’s a nice thrilly kind -of tremble. And we’re to have a tableau at the last--‘Faith, Hope and -Charity.’ Diana and Ruby and I are to be in it, all draped in white with -flowing hair. I’m to be Hope, with my hands clasped--so--and my eyes -uplifted. I’m going to practice my recitations in the garret. Don’t be -alarmed if you hear me groaning. I have to groan heartrendingly in one -of them, and it’s really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla. -Josie Pye is sulky because she didn’t get the part she wanted in -the dialogue. She wanted to be the fairy queen. That would have been -ridiculous, for who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy -queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is to be the queen and I am to be -one of her maids of honor. Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy is -just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie -says. I’m to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis -is going to lend me her slippers because I haven’t any of my own. It’s -necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You couldn’t imagine -a fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are -going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with -pink tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march in two by two -after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the -organ. Oh, Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, -but don’t you hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?” - -“All I hope is that you’ll behave yourself. I’ll be heartily glad when -all this fuss is over and you’ll be able to settle down. You are simply -good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues and -groans and tableaus. As for your tongue, it’s a marvel it’s not clean -worn out.” - -Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new -moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green -western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood. Anne perched herself -on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an appreciative -and sympathetic listener in this instance at least. - -“Well now, I reckon it’s going to be a pretty good concert. And I -expect you’ll do your part fine,” he said, smiling down into her eager, -vivacious little face. Anne smiled back at him. Those two were the best -of friends and Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had -nothing to do with bringing her up. That was Marilla’s exclusive duty; -if it had been his he would have been worried over frequent conflicts -between inclination and said duty. As it was, he was free to, “spoil -Anne”--Marilla’s phrasing--as much as he liked. But it was not such a -bad arrangement after all; a little “appreciation” sometimes does quite -as much good as all the conscientious “bringing up” in the world. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves - - -MATTHEW was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the -kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and had sat -down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious of -the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice -of “The Fairy Queen” in the sitting room. Presently they came trooping -through the hall and out into the kitchen, laughing and chattering -gaily. They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the -shadows beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the -other, and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they -put on caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue and the concert. -Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as they; but Matthew -suddenly became conscious that there was something about her different -from her mates. And what worried Matthew was that the difference -impressed him as being something that should not exist. Anne had a -brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features -than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note -of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist -in any of these respects. Then in what did it consist? - -Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone, arm -in arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken herself -to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who, he felt, would be -quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only difference she -saw between Anne and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their -tongues quiet while Anne never did. This, Matthew felt, would be no -great help. - -He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out, much -to Marilla’s disgust. After two hours of smoking and hard reflection -Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was not dressed like -the other girls! - -The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced that -Anne never had been dressed like the other girls--never since she had -come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, -all made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there was -such a thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was -quite sure that Anne’s sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the -other girls wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls he had seen -around her that evening--all gay in waists of red and blue and pink -and white--and he wondered why Marilla always kept her so plainly and -soberly gowned. - -Of course, it must be all right. Marilla knew best and Marilla was -bringing her up. Probably some wise, inscrutable motive was to be served -thereby. But surely it would do no harm to let the child have one pretty -dress--something like Diana Barry always wore. Matthew decided that -he would give her one; that surely could not be objected to as an -unwarranted putting in of his oar. Christmas was only a fortnight off. -A nice new dress would be the very thing for a present. Matthew, with a -sigh of satisfaction, put away his pipe and went to bed, while Marilla -opened all the doors and aired the house. - -The very next evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the -dress, determined to get the worst over and have done with it. It would -be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were some things Matthew -could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be -at the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl’s dress. - -After much cogitation Matthew resolved to go to Samuel Lawson’s store -instead of William Blair’s. To be sure, the Cuthberts always had gone to -William Blair’s; it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them -as to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative. But William -Blair’s two daughters frequently waited on customers there and Matthew -held them in absolute dread. He could contrive to deal with them when he -knew exactly what he wanted and could point it out; but in such a matter -as this, requiring explanation and consultation, Matthew felt that he -must be sure of a man behind the counter. So he would go to Lawson’s, -where Samuel or his son would wait on him. - -Alas! Matthew did not know that Samuel, in the recent expansion of his -business, had set up a lady clerk also; she was a niece of his wife’s -and a very dashing young person indeed, with a huge, drooping pompadour, -big, rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile. She -was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets -that glittered and rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands. -Matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all; and -those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop. - -“What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Cuthbert?” Miss Lucilla Harris -inquired, briskly and ingratiatingly, tapping the counter with both -hands. - -“Have you any--any--any--well now, say any garden rakes?” stammered -Matthew. - -Miss Harris looked somewhat surprised, as well she might, to hear a man -inquiring for garden rakes in the middle of December. - -“I believe we have one or two left over,” she said, “but they’re -upstairs in the lumber room. I’ll go and see.” During her absence -Matthew collected his scattered senses for another effort. - -When Miss Harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired: -“Anything else tonight, Mr. Cuthbert?” Matthew took his courage in -both hands and replied: “Well now, since you suggest it, I might as -well--take--that is--look at--buy some--some hayseed.” - -Miss Harris had heard Matthew Cuthbert called odd. She now concluded -that he was entirely crazy. - -“We only keep hayseed in the spring,” she explained loftily. “We’ve none -on hand just now.” - -“Oh, certainly--certainly--just as you say,” stammered unhappy -Matthew, seizing the rake and making for the door. At the threshold he -recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back. -While Miss Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for -a final desperate attempt. - -“Well now--if it isn’t too much trouble--I might as well--that is--I’d -like to look at--at--some sugar.” - -“White or brown?” queried Miss Harris patiently. - -“Oh--well now--brown,” said Matthew feebly. - -“There’s a barrel of it over there,” said Miss Harris, shaking her -bangles at it. “It’s the only kind we have.” - -“I’ll--I’ll take twenty pounds of it,” said Matthew, with beads of -perspiration standing on his forehead. - -Matthew had driven halfway home before he was his own man again. It had -been a gruesome experience, but it served him right, he thought, for -committing the heresy of going to a strange store. When he reached -home he hid the rake in the tool house, but the sugar he carried in to -Marilla. - -“Brown sugar!” exclaimed Marilla. “Whatever possessed you to get so -much? You know I never use it except for the hired man’s porridge or -black fruit cake. Jerry’s gone and I’ve made my cake long ago. It’s not -good sugar, either--it’s coarse and dark--William Blair doesn’t usually -keep sugar like that.” - -“I--I thought it might come in handy sometime,” said Matthew, making -good his escape. - -When Matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman was -required to cope with the situation. Marilla was out of the question. -Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once. -Remained only Mrs. Lynde; for of no other woman in Avonlea would Matthew -have dared to ask advice. To Mrs. Lynde he went accordingly, and that -good lady promptly took the matter out of the harassed man’s hands. - -“Pick out a dress for you to give Anne? To be sure I will. I’m going to -Carmody tomorrow and I’ll attend to it. Have you something particular in -mind? No? Well, I’ll just go by my own judgment then. I believe a nice -rich brown would just suit Anne, and William Blair has some new gloria -in that’s real pretty. Perhaps you’d like me to make it up for her, too, -seeing that if Marilla was to make it Anne would probably get wind of it -before the time and spoil the surprise? Well, I’ll do it. No, it isn’t -a mite of trouble. I like sewing. I’ll make it to fit my niece, Jenny -Gillis, for she and Anne are as like as two peas as far as figure goes.” - -“Well now, I’m much obliged,” said Matthew, “and--and--I dunno--but I’d -like--I think they make the sleeves different nowadays to what they used -to be. If it wouldn’t be asking too much I--I’d like them made in the -new way.” - -“Puffs? Of course. You needn’t worry a speck more about it, Matthew. -I’ll make it up in the very latest fashion,” said Mrs. Lynde. To herself -she added when Matthew had gone: - -“It’ll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing something -decent for once. The way Marilla dresses her is positively ridiculous, -that’s what, and I’ve ached to tell her so plainly a dozen times. I’ve -held my tongue though, for I can see Marilla doesn’t want advice and she -thinks she knows more about bringing children up than I do for all -she’s an old maid. But that’s always the way. Folks that has brought up -children know that there’s no hard and fast method in the world that’ll -suit every child. But them as never have think it’s all as plain and -easy as Rule of Three--just set your three terms down so fashion, and -the sum ‘ll work out correct. But flesh and blood don’t come under the -head of arithmetic and that’s where Marilla Cuthbert makes her mistake. -I suppose she’s trying to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by -dressing her as she does; but it’s more likely to cultivate envy and -discontent. I’m sure the child must feel the difference between her -clothes and the other girls’. But to think of Matthew taking notice of -it! That man is waking up after being asleep for over sixty years.” - -Marilla knew all the following fortnight that Matthew had something on -his mind, but what it was she could not guess, until Christmas Eve, when -Mrs. Lynde brought up the new dress. Marilla behaved pretty well on the -whole, although it is very likely she distrusted Mrs. Lynde’s diplomatic -explanation that she had made the dress because Matthew was afraid Anne -would find out about it too soon if Marilla made it. - -“So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and -grinning about to himself for two weeks, is it?” she said a little -stiffly but tolerantly. “I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I -must say I don’t think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three -good, warm, serviceable ones this fall, and anything more is sheer -extravagance. There’s enough material in those sleeves alone to make a -waist, I declare there is. You’ll just pamper Anne’s vanity, Matthew, -and she’s as vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she’ll be satisfied -at last, for I know she’s been hankering after those silly sleeves ever -since they came in, although she never said a word after the first. The -puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they’re -as big as balloons now. Next year anybody who wears them will have to go -through a door sideways.” - -Christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a very -mild December and people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but -just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure Avonlea. Anne -peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes. The firs -in the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches -and wild cherry trees were outlined in pearl; the plowed fields were -stretches of snowy dimples; and there was a crisp tang in the air that -was glorious. Anne ran downstairs singing until her voice reechoed -through Green Gables. - -“Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn’t it a lovely -Christmas? I’m so glad it’s white. Any other kind of Christmas doesn’t -seem real, does it? I don’t like green Christmases. They’re not -green--they’re just nasty faded browns and grays. What makes people call -them green? Why--why--Matthew, is that for me? Oh, Matthew!” - -Matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swathings and -held it out with a deprecatory glance at Marilla, who feigned to be -contemptuously filling the teapot, but nevertheless watched the scene -out of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air. - -Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty -it was--a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt -with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the -most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. -But the sleeves--they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and -above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of -brown-silk ribbon. - -“That’s a Christmas present for you, Anne,” said Matthew shyly. -“Why--why--Anne, don’t you like it? Well now--well now.” - -For Anne’s eyes had suddenly filled with tears. - -“Like it! Oh, Matthew!” Anne laid the dress over a chair and clasped -her hands. “Matthew, it’s perfectly exquisite. Oh, I can never thank you -enough. Look at those sleeves! Oh, it seems to me this must be a happy -dream.” - -“Well, well, let us have breakfast,” interrupted Marilla. “I must say, -Anne, I don’t think you needed the dress; but since Matthew has got it -for you, see that you take good care of it. There’s a hair ribbon Mrs. -Lynde left for you. It’s brown, to match the dress. Come now, sit in.” - -“I don’t see how I’m going to eat breakfast,” said Anne rapturously. -“Breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment. I’d rather -feast my eyes on that dress. I’m so glad that puffed sleeves are still -fashionable. It did seem to me that I’d never get over it if they went -out before I had a dress with them. I’d never have felt quite satisfied, -you see. It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give me the ribbon too. I feel -that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It’s at times like this I’m -sorry I’m not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will -be in future. But somehow it’s hard to carry out your resolutions when -irresistible temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra effort -after this.” - -When the commonplace breakfast was over Diana appeared, crossing the -white log bridge in the hollow, a gay little figure in her crimson -ulster. Anne flew down the slope to meet her. - -“Merry Christmas, Diana! And oh, it’s a wonderful Christmas. I’ve -something splendid to show you. Matthew has given me the loveliest -dress, with _such_ sleeves. I couldn’t even imagine any nicer.” - -“I’ve got something more for you,” said Diana breathlessly. “Here--this -box. Aunt Josephine sent us out a big box with ever so many things in -it--and this is for you. I’d have brought it over last night, but it -didn’t come until after dark, and I never feel very comfortable coming -through the Haunted Wood in the dark now.” - -Anne opened the box and peeped in. First a card with “For the Anne-girl -and Merry Christmas,” written on it; and then, a pair of the daintiest -little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows and glistening -buckles. - -“Oh,” said Anne, “Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming.” - -“I call it providential,” said Diana. “You won’t have to borrow Ruby’s -slippers now, and that’s a blessing, for they’re two sizes too big for -you, and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling. Josie Pye would -be delighted. Mind you, Rob Wright went home with Gertie Pye from the -practice night before last. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?” - -All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for the -hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held. - -The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The -little hall was crowded; all the performers did excellently well, but -Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in -the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny. - -“Oh, hasn’t it been a brilliant evening?” sighed Anne, when it was all -over and she and Diana were walking home together under a dark, starry -sky. - -“Everything went off very well,” said Diana practically. “I guess we -must have made as much as ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to -send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers.” - -“Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill to -think of it. Your solo was perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder than -you did when it was encored. I just said to myself, ‘It is my dear bosom -friend who is so honored.’” - -“Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one -was simply splendid.” - -“Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really -cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a million -eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I -was sure I couldn’t begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed -sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, -Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so -far away. I just felt like a parrot. It’s providential that I practiced -those recitations so often up in the garret, or I’d never have been able -to get through. Did I groan all right?” - -“Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely,” assured Diana. - -“I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was -splendid to think I had touched somebody’s heart. It’s so romantic -to take part in a concert, isn’t it? Oh, it’s been a very memorable -occasion indeed.” - -“Wasn’t the boys’ dialogue fine?” said Diana. “Gilbert Blythe was just -splendid. Anne, I do think it’s awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait -till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue -one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put -it in his breast pocket. There now. You’re so romantic that I’m sure you -ought to be pleased at that.” - -“It’s nothing to me what that person does,” said Anne loftily. “I simply -never waste a thought on him, Diana.” - -That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the -first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after -Anne had gone to bed. - -“Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them,” said Matthew -proudly. - -“Yes, she did,” admitted Marilla. “She’s a bright child, Matthew. And -she looked real nice too. I’ve been kind of opposed to this concert -scheme, but I suppose there’s no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I -was proud of Anne tonight, although I’m not going to tell her so.” - -“Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ‘fore she went -upstairs,” said Matthew. “We must see what we can do for her some of -these days, Marilla. I guess she’ll need something more than Avonlea -school by and by.” - -“There’s time enough to think of that,” said Marilla. “She’s only -thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a -big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne -look so tall. She’s quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do -for her will be to send her to Queen’s after a spell. But nothing need -be said about that for a year or two yet.” - -“Well now, it’ll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on,” said -Matthew. “Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking -over.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed - - -JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence -again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and -unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for -weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway -days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really -think she could. - -“I’m positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the -same again as it was in those olden days,” she said mournfully, as if -referring to a period of at least fifty years back. “Perhaps after a -while I’ll get used to it, but I’m afraid concerts spoil people for -everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. -Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be -sensible; but still, I don’t believe I’d really want to be a sensible -person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no -danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now -that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because -I’m tired. I simply couldn’t sleep last night for ever so long. I just -lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That’s one -splendid thing about such affairs--it’s so lovely to look back to them.” - -Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove -and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby -Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in -their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising -friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did -not “speak” for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright -that Julia Bell’s bow when she got up to recite made her think of a -chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes -would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared -that the Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had -retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to -do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, -because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about -her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was “licked”; consequently Moody -Spurgeon’s sister, Ella May, would not “speak” to Anne Shirley all the -rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work -in Miss Stacy’s little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness. - -The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so -little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by -way of the Birch Path. On Anne’s birthday they were tripping lightly -down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss -Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on “A -Winter’s Walk in the Woods,” and it behooved them to be observant. - -“Just think, Diana, I’m thirteen years old today,” remarked Anne in an -awed voice. “I can scarcely realize that I’m in my teens. When I woke -this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You’ve -been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn’t seem such a novelty -to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. -In two more years I’ll be really grown up. It’s a great comfort to think -that I’ll be able to use big words then without being laughed at.” - -“Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she’s fifteen,” - said Diana. - -“Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus,” said Anne disdainfully. -“She’s actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a -take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. But I’m afraid that is an -uncharitable speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable -speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think, don’t they? I -simply can’t talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech, -so I never mention her at all. You may have noticed that. I’m trying to -be as much like Mrs. Allan as I possibly can, for I think she’s perfect. -Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde says he just worships the ground she -treads on and she doesn’t really think it right for a minister to -set his affections so much on a mortal being. But then, Diana, even -ministers are human and have their besetting sins just like everybody -else. I had such an interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about besetting -sins last Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it’s proper -to talk about on Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is -imagining too much and forgetting my duties. I’m striving very hard -to overcome it and now that I’m really thirteen perhaps I’ll get on -better.” - -“In four more years we’ll be able to put our hair up,” said Diana. -“Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think -that’s ridiculous. I shall wait until I’m seventeen.” - -“If I had Alice Bell’s crooked nose,” said Anne decidedly, “I -wouldn’t--but there! I won’t say what I was going to because it was -extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose and -that’s vanity. I’m afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I -heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to -me. Oh, Diana, look, there’s a rabbit. That’s something to remember for -our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in -winter as in summer. They’re so white and still, as if they were asleep -and dreaming pretty dreams.” - -“I won’t mind writing that composition when its time comes,” sighed -Diana. “I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we’re to -hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a -story out of our own heads!” - -“Why, it’s as easy as wink,” said Anne. - -“It’s easy for you because you have an imagination,” retorted Diana, -“but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you -have your composition all done?” - -Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing -miserably. - -“I wrote it last Monday evening. It’s called ‘The Jealous Rival; or In -Death Not Divided.’ I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and -nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is -the kind of critic I like. It’s a sad, sweet story. I just cried like -a child while I was writing it. It’s about two beautiful maidens called -Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village -and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette -with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was -a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes.” - -“I never saw anybody with purple eyes,” said Diana dubiously. - -“Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the -common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I’ve found out what an -alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You -know so much more than you did when you were only twelve.” - -“Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?” asked Diana, who was -beginning to feel rather interested in their fate. - -“They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram -DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair -Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a -carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three -miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found -it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to -go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed -because I thought she’d likely be an authority on the subject, having so -many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when -Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan -that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, ‘What -do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?’ And Susan said, -‘Yes--no--I don’t know--let me see’--and there they were, engaged as -quick as that. But I didn’t think that sort of a proposal was a very -romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. -I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees, -although Ruby Gillis says it isn’t done nowadays. Geraldine accepted -him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a lot of trouble -with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look upon it as my -masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby necklace -and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for he was -immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over their -path. Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when -Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious, -especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her -affection for Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she -should never marry Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine’s friend -the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the bridge over a -rushing turbulent stream and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed -Geraldine over the brink with a wild, mocking, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ But Bertram -saw it all and he at once plunged into the current, exclaiming, ‘I -will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.’ But alas, he had forgotten he -couldn’t swim, and they were both drowned, clasped in each other’s arms. -Their bodies were washed ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the -one grave and their funeral was most imposing, Diana. It’s so much -more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for -Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic -asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime.” - -“How perfectly lovely!” sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew’s school -of critics. “I don’t see how you can make up such thrilling things out -of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was as good as yours.” - -“It would be if you’d only cultivate it,” said Anne cheeringly. “I’ve -just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and me have a story club all our -own and write stories for practice. I’ll help you along until you can -do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know. -Miss Stacy says so. Only we must take the right way. I told her about -the Haunted Wood, but she said we went the wrong way about it in that.” - -This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to Diana -and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include Jane Andrews -and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that their imaginations -needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it--although Ruby Gillis -opined that their admission would make it more exciting--and each member -had to produce one story a week. - -“It’s extremely interesting,” Anne told Marilla. “Each girl has to read -her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going to keep them -all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants. We each write -under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls -do pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much -lovemaking into her stories and you know too much is worse than too -little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly -when she had to read it out loud. Jane’s stories are extremely sensible. -Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time -she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get -rid of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but -that isn’t hard for I’ve millions of ideas.” - -“I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,” scoffed -Marilla. “You’ll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time -that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but -writing them is worse.” - -“But we’re so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla,” explained -Anne. “I insist upon that. All the good people are rewarded and all -the bad ones are suitably punished. I’m sure that must have a wholesome -effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read one of -my stories to him and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the moral was -excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong places. I like it better when -people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the pathetic -parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt -Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories. So -we copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine Barry -wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That -kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost -everybody died. But I’m glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club -is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that ought to be our -object in everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget -so often when I’m having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan -when I grow up. Do you think there is any prospect of it, Marilla?” - -“I shouldn’t say there was a great deal” was Marilla’s encouraging -answer. “I’m sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little -girl as you are.” - -“No; but she wasn’t always so good as she is now either,” said Anne -seriously. “She told me so herself--that is, she said she was a dreadful -mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I felt -so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla, -to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and -mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels -shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how -small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that -when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt’s pantry -and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn’t -have felt that way. I’d have thought that it was real noble of him to -confess it, and I’d have thought what an encouraging thing it would be -for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them -to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it. -That’s how I’d feel, Marilla.” - -“The way I feel at present, Anne,” said Marilla, “is that it’s high time -you had those dishes washed. You’ve taken half an hour longer than -you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk -afterwards.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit - - -MARILLA, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting, -realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight -that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to -the youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis -of her thoughts and feelings. She probably imagined that she was -thinking about the Aids and their missionary box and the new carpet -for the vestry room, but under these reflections was a harmonious -consciousness of red fields smoking into pale-purply mists in the -declining sun, of long, sharp-pointed fir shadows falling over the -meadow beyond the brook, of still, crimson-budded maples around a -mirrorlike wood pool, of a wakening in the world and a stir of hidden -pulses under the gray sod. The spring was abroad in the land and -Marilla’s sober, middle-aged step was lighter and swifter because of its -deep, primal gladness. - -Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its -network of trees and reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in -several little coruscations of glory. Marilla, as she picked her steps -along the damp lane, thought that it was really a satisfaction to know -that she was going home to a briskly snapping wood fire and a table -nicely spread for tea, instead of to the cold comfort of old Aid meeting -evenings before Anne had come to Green Gables. - -Consequently, when Marilla entered her kitchen and found the fire black -out, with no sign of Anne anywhere, she felt justly disappointed and -irritated. She had told Anne to be sure and have tea ready at five -o’clock, but now she must hurry to take off her second-best dress and -prepare the meal herself against Matthew’s return from plowing. - -“I’ll settle Miss Anne when she comes home,” said Marilla grimly, as -she shaved up kindlings with a carving knife and with more vim than was -strictly necessary. Matthew had come in and was waiting patiently for -his tea in his corner. “She’s gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing -stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never -thinking once about the time or her duties. She’s just got to be pulled -up short and sudden on this sort of thing. I don’t care if Mrs. Allan -does say she’s the brightest and sweetest child she ever knew. She may -be bright and sweet enough, but her head is full of nonsense and there’s -never any knowing what shape it’ll break out in next. Just as soon as -she grows out of one freak she takes up with another. But there! Here I -am saying the very thing I was so riled with Rachel Lynde for saying at -the Aid today. I was real glad when Mrs. Allan spoke up for Anne, for -if she hadn’t I know I’d have said something too sharp to Rachel before -everybody. Anne’s got plenty of faults, goodness knows, and far be it -from me to deny it. But I’m bringing her up and not Rachel Lynde, who’d -pick faults in the Angel Gabriel himself if he lived in Avonlea. Just -the same, Anne has no business to leave the house like this when I told -her she was to stay home this afternoon and look after things. I must -say, with all her faults, I never found her disobedient or untrustworthy -before and I’m real sorry to find her so now.” - -“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew, who, being patient and wise and, -above all, hungry, had deemed it best to let Marilla talk her wrath -out unhindered, having learned by experience that she got through -with whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely -argument. “Perhaps you’re judging her too hasty, Marilla. Don’t call her -untrustworthy until you’re sure she has disobeyed you. Mebbe it can all -be explained--Anne’s a great hand at explaining.” - -“She’s not here when I told her to stay,” retorted Marilla. “I reckon -she’ll find it hard to explain _that_ to my satisfaction. Of course I knew -you’d take her part, Matthew. But I’m bringing her up, not you.” - -It was dark when supper was ready, and still no sign of Anne, coming -hurriedly over the log bridge or up Lover’s Lane, breathless and -repentant with a sense of neglected duties. Marilla washed and put away -the dishes grimly. Then, wanting a candle to light her way down the -cellar, she went up to the east gable for the one that generally stood -on Anne’s table. Lighting it, she turned around to see Anne herself -lying on the bed, face downward among the pillows. - -“Mercy on us,” said astonished Marilla, “have you been asleep, Anne?” - -“No,” was the muffled reply. - -“Are you sick then?” demanded Marilla anxiously, going over to the bed. - -Anne cowered deeper into her pillows as if desirous of hiding herself -forever from mortal eyes. - -“No. But please, Marilla, go away and don’t look at me. I’m in the -depths of despair and I don’t care who gets head in class or writes the -best composition or sings in the Sunday-school choir any more. Little -things like that are of no importance now because I don’t suppose I’ll -ever be able to go anywhere again. My career is closed. Please, Marilla, -go away and don’t look at me.” - -“Did anyone ever hear the like?” the mystified Marilla wanted to know. -“Anne Shirley, whatever is the matter with you? What have you done? Get -right up this minute and tell me. This minute, I say. There now, what is -it?” - -Anne had slid to the floor in despairing obedience. - -“Look at my hair, Marilla,” she whispered. - -Accordingly, Marilla lifted her candle and looked scrutinizingly at -Anne’s hair, flowing in heavy masses down her back. It certainly had a -very strange appearance. - -“Anne Shirley, what have you done to your hair? Why, it’s _green!_” - -Green it might be called, if it were any earthly color--a queer, -dull, bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red -to heighten the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen -anything so grotesque as Anne’s hair at that moment. - -“Yes, it’s green,” moaned Anne. “I thought nothing could be as bad as -red hair. But now I know it’s ten times worse to have green hair. Oh, -Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am.” - -“I little know how you got into this fix, but I mean to find out,” said -Marilla. “Come right down to the kitchen--it’s too cold up here--and -tell me just what you’ve done. I’ve been expecting something queer for -some time. You haven’t got into any scrape for over two months, and I -was sure another one was due. Now, then, what did you do to your hair?” - -“I dyed it.” - -“Dyed it! Dyed your hair! Anne Shirley, didn’t you know it was a wicked -thing to do?” - -“Yes, I knew it was a little wicked,” admitted Anne. “But I thought it -was worth while to be a little wicked to get rid of red hair. I counted -the cost, Marilla. Besides, I meant to be extra good in other ways to -make up for it.” - -“Well,” said Marilla sarcastically, “if I’d decided it was worth while -to dye my hair I’d have dyed it a decent color at least. I wouldn’t have -dyed it green.” - -“But I didn’t mean to dye it green, Marilla,” protested Anne dejectedly. -“If I was wicked I meant to be wicked to some purpose. He said it would -turn my hair a beautiful raven black--he positively assured me that it -would. How could I doubt his word, Marilla? I know what it feels like -to have your word doubted. And Mrs. Allan says we should never suspect -anyone of not telling us the truth unless we have proof that they’re -not. I have proof now--green hair is proof enough for anybody. But I -hadn’t then and I believed every word he said _implicitly_.” - -“Who said? Who are you talking about?” - -“The peddler that was here this afternoon. I bought the dye from him.” - -“Anne Shirley, how often have I told you never to let one of those -Italians in the house! I don’t believe in encouraging them to come -around at all.” - -“Oh, I didn’t let him in the house. I remembered what you told me, and I -went out, carefully shut the door, and looked at his things on the step. -Besides, he wasn’t an Italian--he was a German Jew. He had a big box -full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to -make enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany. He -spoke so feelingly about them that it touched my heart. I wanted to buy -something from him to help him in such a worthy object. Then all at once -I saw the bottle of hair dye. The peddler said it was warranted to dye -any hair a beautiful raven black and wouldn’t wash off. In a trice I -saw myself with beautiful raven-black hair and the temptation was -irresistible. But the price of the bottle was seventy-five cents and I -had only fifty cents left out of my chicken money. I think the peddler -had a very kind heart, for he said that, seeing it was me, he’d sell it -for fifty cents and that was just giving it away. So I bought it, and as -soon as he had gone I came up here and applied it with an old hairbrush -as the directions said. I used up the whole bottle, and oh, Marilla, -when I saw the dreadful color it turned my hair I repented of being -wicked, I can tell you. And I’ve been repenting ever since.” - -“Well, I hope you’ll repent to good purpose,” said Marilla severely, -“and that you’ve got your eyes opened to where your vanity has led you, -Anne. Goodness knows what’s to be done. I suppose the first thing is to -give your hair a good washing and see if that will do any good.” - -Accordingly, Anne washed her hair, scrubbing it vigorously with soap and -water, but for all the difference it made she might as well have been -scouring its original red. The peddler had certainly spoken the truth -when he declared that the dye wouldn’t wash off, however his veracity -might be impeached in other respects. - -“Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?” questioned Anne in tears. “I can never -live this down. People have pretty well forgotten my other mistakes--the -liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a temper with -Mrs. Lynde. But they’ll never forget this. They will think I am not -respectable. Oh, Marilla, ‘what a tangled web we weave when first we -practice to deceive.’ That is poetry, but it is true. And oh, how Josie -Pye will laugh! Marilla, I _cannot_ face Josie Pye. I am the unhappiest -girl in Prince Edward Island.” - -Anne’s unhappiness continued for a week. During that time she went -nowhere and shampooed her hair every day. Diana alone of outsiders knew -the fatal secret, but she promised solemnly never to tell, and it may -be stated here and now that she kept her word. At the end of the week -Marilla said decidedly: - -“It’s no use, Anne. That is fast dye if ever there was any. Your hair -must be cut off; there is no other way. You can’t go out with it looking -like that.” - -Anne’s lips quivered, but she realized the bitter truth of Marilla’s -remarks. With a dismal sigh she went for the scissors. - -“Please cut it off at once, Marilla, and have it over. Oh, I feel that -my heart is broken. This is such an unromantic affliction. The girls in -books lose their hair in fevers or sell it to get money for some good -deed, and I’m sure I wouldn’t mind losing my hair in some such fashion -half so much. But there is nothing comforting in having your hair cut -off because you’ve dyed it a dreadful color, is there? I’m going to weep -all the time you’re cutting it off, if it won’t interfere. It seems such -a tragic thing.” - -Anne wept then, but later on, when she went upstairs and looked in the -glass, she was calm with despair. Marilla had done her work thoroughly -and it had been necessary to shingle the hair as closely as possible. -The result was not becoming, to state the case as mildly as may be. Anne -promptly turned her glass to the wall. - -“I’ll never, never look at myself again until my hair grows,” she -exclaimed passionately. - -Then she suddenly righted the glass. - -“Yes, I will, too. I’d do penance for being wicked that way. I’ll look -at myself every time I come to my room and see how ugly I am. And I -won’t try to imagine it away, either. I never thought I was vain about -my hair, of all things, but now I know I was, in spite of its being -red, because it was so long and thick and curly. I expect something will -happen to my nose next.” - -Anne’s clipped head made a sensation in school on the following Monday, -but to her relief nobody guessed the real reason for it, not even Josie -Pye, who, however, did not fail to inform Anne that she looked like a -perfect scarecrow. - -“I didn’t say anything when Josie said that to me,” Anne confided -that evening to Marilla, who was lying on the sofa after one of her -headaches, “because I thought it was part of my punishment and I ought -to bear it patiently. It’s hard to be told you look like a scarecrow -and I wanted to say something back. But I didn’t. I just swept her one -scornful look and then I forgave her. It makes you feel very virtuous -when you forgive people, doesn’t it? I mean to devote all my energies -to being good after this and I shall never try to be beautiful again. Of -course it’s better to be good. I know it is, but it’s sometimes so hard -to believe a thing even when you know it. I do really want to be good, -Marilla, like you and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy, and grow up to be a -credit to you. Diana says when my hair begins to grow to tie a black -velvet ribbon around my head with a bow at one side. She says she -thinks it will be very becoming. I will call it a snood--that sounds so -romantic. But am I talking too much, Marilla? Does it hurt your head?” - -“My head is better now. It was terrible bad this afternoon, though. -These headaches of mine are getting worse and worse. I’ll have to see -a doctor about them. As for your chatter, I don’t know that I mind -it--I’ve got so used to it.” - -Which was Marilla’s way of saying that she liked to hear it. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. An Unfortunate Lily Maid - - -OF course you must be Elaine, Anne,” said Diana. “I could never have -the courage to float down there.” - -“Nor I,” said Ruby Gillis, with a shiver. “I don’t mind floating down -when there’s two or three of us in the flat and we can sit up. It’s fun -then. But to lie down and pretend I was dead--I just couldn’t. I’d die -really of fright.” - -“Of course it would be romantic,” conceded Jane Andrews, “but I know I -couldn’t keep still. I’d be popping up every minute or so to see where I -was and if I wasn’t drifting too far out. And you know, Anne, that would -spoil the effect.” - -“But it’s so ridiculous to have a redheaded Elaine,” mourned Anne. “I’m -not afraid to float down and I’d love to be Elaine. But it’s ridiculous -just the same. Ruby ought to be Elaine because she is so fair and has -such lovely long golden hair--Elaine had ‘all her bright hair streaming -down,’ you know. And Elaine was the lily maid. Now, a red-haired person -cannot be a lily maid.” - -“Your complexion is just as fair as Ruby’s,” said Diana earnestly, “and -your hair is ever so much darker than it used to be before you cut it.” - -“Oh, do you really think so?” exclaimed Anne, flushing sensitively with -delight. “I’ve sometimes thought it was myself--but I never dared to ask -anyone for fear she would tell me it wasn’t. Do you think it could be -called auburn now, Diana?” - -“Yes, and I think it is real pretty,” said Diana, looking admiringly at -the short, silky curls that clustered over Anne’s head and were held in -place by a very jaunty black velvet ribbon and bow. - -They were standing on the bank of the pond, below Orchard Slope, where -a little headland fringed with birches ran out from the bank; at its tip -was a small wooden platform built out into the water for the convenience -of fishermen and duck hunters. Ruby and Jane were spending the midsummer -afternoon with Diana, and Anne had come over to play with them. - -Anne and Diana had spent most of their playtime that summer on and about -the pond. Idlewild was a thing of the past, Mr. Bell having ruthlessly -cut down the little circle of trees in his back pasture in the spring. -Anne had sat among the stumps and wept, not without an eye to the -romance of it; but she was speedily consoled, for, after all, as she and -Diana said, big girls of thirteen, going on fourteen, were too old for -such childish amusements as playhouses, and there were more fascinating -sports to be found about the pond. It was splendid to fish for trout -over the bridge and the two girls learned to row themselves about in the -little flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for duck shooting. - -It was Anne’s idea that they dramatize Elaine. They had studied -Tennyson’s poem in school the preceding winter, the Superintendent of -Education having prescribed it in the English course for the Prince -Edward Island schools. They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to -pieces in general until it was a wonder there was any meaning at all -left in it for them, but at least the fair lily maid and Lancelot and -Guinevere and King Arthur had become very real people to them, and Anne -was devoured by secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot. -Those days, she said, were so much more romantic than the present. - -Anne’s plan was hailed with enthusiasm. The girls had discovered that if -the flat were pushed off from the landing place it would drift down -with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another -headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond. They had often -gone down like this and nothing could be more convenient for playing -Elaine. - -“Well, I’ll be Elaine,” said Anne, yielding reluctantly, for, although -she would have been delighted to play the principal character, yet -her artistic sense demanded fitness for it and this, she felt, her -limitations made impossible. “Ruby, you must be King Arthur and Jane -will be Guinevere and Diana must be Lancelot. But first you must be the -brothers and the father. We can’t have the old dumb servitor because -there isn’t room for two in the flat when one is lying down. We must -pall the barge all its length in blackest samite. That old black shawl -of your mother’s will be just the thing, Diana.” - -The black shawl having been procured, Anne spread it over the flat and -then lay down on the bottom, with closed eyes and hands folded over her -breast. - -“Oh, she does look really dead,” whispered Ruby Gillis nervously, -watching the still, white little face under the flickering shadows of -the birches. “It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you suppose it’s -really right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is -abominably wicked.” - -“Ruby, you shouldn’t talk about Mrs. Lynde,” said Anne severely. “It -spoils the effect because this is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde -was born. Jane, you arrange this. It’s silly for Elaine to be talking -when she’s dead.” - -Jane rose to the occasion. Cloth of gold for coverlet there was none, -but an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe was an excellent -substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the effect of -a tall blue iris placed in one of Anne’s folded hands was all that could -be desired. - -“Now, she’s all ready,” said Jane. “We must kiss her quiet brows -and, Diana, you say, ‘Sister, farewell forever,’ and Ruby, you say, -‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly -can. Anne, for goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine ‘lay as -though she smiled.’ That’s better. Now push the flat off.” - -The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old -embedded stake in the process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long -enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before -scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the lower -headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be -in readiness to receive the lily maid. - -For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her -situation to the full. Then something happened not at all romantic. The -flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine -to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall -of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her -barge through which the water was literally pouring. That sharp stake at -the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat. Anne -did not know this, but it did not take her long to realize that she was -in a dangerous plight. At this rate the flat would fill and sink long -before it could drift to the lower headland. Where were the oars? Left -behind at the landing! - -Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she was -white to the lips, but she did not lose her self-possession. There was -one chance--just one. - -“I was horribly frightened,” she told Mrs. Allan the next day, “and it -seemed like years while the flat was drifting down to the bridge and the -water rising in it every moment. I prayed, Mrs. Allan, most earnestly, -but I didn’t shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could -save me was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge -piles for me to climb up on it. You know the piles are just old tree -trunks and there are lots of knots and old branch stubs on them. It was -proper to pray, but I had to do my part by watching out and right well -I knew it. I just said, ‘Dear God, please take the flat close to a pile -and I’ll do the rest,’ over and over again. Under such circumstances you -don’t think much about making a flowery prayer. But mine was answered, -for the flat bumped right into a pile for a minute and I flung the scarf -and the shawl over my shoulder and scrambled up on a big providential -stub. And there I was, Mrs. Allan, clinging to that slippery old pile -with no way of getting up or down. It was a very unromantic position, -but I didn’t think about that at the time. You don’t think much about -romance when you have just escaped from a watery grave. I said a -grateful prayer at once and then I gave all my attention to holding on -tight, for I knew I should probably have to depend on human aid to get -back to dry land.” - -The flat drifted under the bridge and then promptly sank in midstream. -Ruby, Jane, and Diana, already awaiting it on the lower headland, saw it -disappear before their very eyes and had not a doubt but that Anne -had gone down with it. For a moment they stood still, white as sheets, -frozen with horror at the tragedy; then, shrieking at the tops of -their voices, they started on a frantic run up through the woods, never -pausing as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge. -Anne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw their flying -forms and heard their shrieks. Help would soon come, but meanwhile her -position was a very uncomfortable one. - -The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate lily -maid. Why didn’t somebody come? Where had the girls gone? Suppose they -had fainted, one and all! Suppose nobody ever came! Suppose she grew so -tired and cramped that she could hold on no longer! Anne looked at the -wicked green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and -shivered. Her imagination began to suggest all manner of gruesome -possibilities to her. - -Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her -arms and wrists another moment, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the -bridge in Harmon Andrews’s dory! - -Gilbert glanced up and, much to his amazement, beheld a little white -scornful face looking down upon him with big, frightened but also -scornful gray eyes. - -“Anne Shirley! How on earth did you get there?” he exclaimed. - -Without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and extended -his hand. There was no help for it; Anne, clinging to Gilbert Blythe’s -hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and furious, -in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe. It was -certainly extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances! - -“What has happened, Anne?” asked Gilbert, taking up his oars. - -“We were playing Elaine,” explained Anne frigidly, without even looking -at her rescuer, “and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge--I -mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. -The girls went for help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the -landing?” - -Gilbert obligingly rowed to the landing and Anne, disdaining assistance, -sprang nimbly on shore. - -“I’m very much obliged to you,” she said haughtily as she turned away. -But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand -on her arm. - -“Anne,” he said hurriedly, “look here. Can’t we be good friends? I’m -awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn’t mean to vex -you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it’s so long ago. I think -your hair is awfully pretty now--honest I do. Let’s be friends.” - -For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened -consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, -half-eager expression in Gilbert’s hazel eyes was something that was -very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the -bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering -determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her -recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had -called her “carrots” and had brought about her disgrace before the whole -school. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as -laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened by time -seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She would never forgive him! - -“No,” she said coldly, “I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert -Blythe; and I don’t want to be!” - -“All right!” Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his -cheeks. “I’ll never ask you to be friends again, Anne Shirley. And I -don’t care either!” - -He pulled away with swift defiant strokes, and Anne went up the steep, -ferny little path under the maples. She held her head very high, but -she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret. She almost wished she had -answered Gilbert differently. Of course, he had insulted her terribly, -but still--! Altogether, Anne rather thought it would be a relief to -sit down and have a good cry. She was really quite unstrung, for the -reaction from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt. - -Halfway up the path she met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond in -a state narrowly removed from positive frenzy. They had found nobody at -Orchard Slope, both Mr. and Mrs. Barry being away. Here Ruby Gillis had -succumbed to hysterics, and was left to recover from them as best she -might, while Jane and Diana flew through the Haunted Wood and across the -brook to Green Gables. There they had found nobody either, for Marilla -had gone to Carmody and Matthew was making hay in the back field. - -“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana, fairly falling on the former’s neck -and weeping with relief and delight, “oh, Anne--we thought--you -were--drowned--and we felt like murderers--because we had made--you -be--Elaine. And Ruby is in hysterics--oh, Anne, how did you escape?” - -“I climbed up on one of the piles,” explained Anne wearily, “and Gilbert -Blythe came along in Mr. Andrews’s dory and brought me to land.” - -“Oh, Anne, how splendid of him! Why, it’s so romantic!” said Jane, -finding breath enough for utterance at last. “Of course you’ll speak to -him after this.” - -“Of course I won’t,” flashed Anne, with a momentary return of her old -spirit. “And I don’t want ever to hear the word ‘romantic’ again, Jane -Andrews. I’m awfully sorry you were so frightened, girls. It is all my -fault. I feel sure I was born under an unlucky star. Everything I do -gets me or my dearest friends into a scrape. We’ve gone and lost your -father’s flat, Diana, and I have a presentiment that we’ll not be -allowed to row on the pond any more.” - -Anne’s presentiment proved more trustworthy than presentiments are apt -to do. Great was the consternation in the Barry and Cuthbert households -when the events of the afternoon became known. - -“Will you ever have any sense, Anne?” groaned Marilla. - -“Oh, yes, I think I will, Marilla,” returned Anne optimistically. A good -cry, indulged in the grateful solitude of the east gable, had soothed -her nerves and restored her to her wonted cheerfulness. “I think my -prospects of becoming sensible are brighter now than ever.” - -“I don’t see how,” said Marilla. - -“Well,” explained Anne, “I’ve learned a new and valuable lesson today. -Ever since I came to Green Gables I’ve been making mistakes, and each -mistake has helped to cure me of some great shortcoming. The affair of -the amethyst brooch cured me of meddling with things that didn’t belong -to me. The Haunted Wood mistake cured me of letting my imagination run -away with me. The liniment cake mistake cured me of carelessness in -cooking. Dyeing my hair cured me of vanity. I never think about my hair -and nose now--at least, very seldom. And today’s mistake is going to -cure me of being too romantic. I have come to the conclusion that it is -no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in -towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated -now. I feel quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me -in this respect, Marilla.” - -“I’m sure I hope so,” said Marilla skeptically. - -But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand on -Anne’s shoulder when Marilla had gone out. - -“Don’t give up all your romance, Anne,” he whispered shyly, “a little -of it is a good thing--not too much, of course--but keep a little of it, -Anne, keep a little of it.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. An Epoch in Anne’s Life - - -ANNE was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover’s -Lane. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the -woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane -was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy -beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a -clear violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and -there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the -fir trees at evening. - -The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily, -repeating aloud the battle canto from _Marmion_--which had also been part -of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had -made them learn off by heart--and exulting in its rushing lines and the -clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines - - The stubborn spearsmen still made good - Their dark impenetrable wood, - -she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy -herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was to -behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and -looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be -told. But betray too eager curiosity she would not. - -“Isn’t this evening just like a purple dream, Diana? It makes me so glad -to be alive. In the mornings I always think the mornings are best; but -when evening comes I think it’s lovelier still.” - -“It’s a very fine evening,” said Diana, “but oh, I have such news, Anne. -Guess. You can have three guesses.” - -“Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and -Mrs. Allan wants us to decorate it,” cried Anne. - -“No. Charlotte’s beau won’t agree to that, because nobody ever has been -married in the church yet, and he thinks it would seem too much like a -funeral. It’s too mean, because it would be such fun. Guess again.” - -“Jane’s mother is going to let her have a birthday party?” - -Diana shook her head, her black eyes dancing with merriment. - -“I can’t think what it can be,” said Anne in despair, “unless it’s that -Moody Spurgeon MacPherson saw you home from prayer meeting last night. -Did he?” - -“I should think not,” exclaimed Diana indignantly. “I wouldn’t be likely -to boast of it if he did, the horrid creature! I knew you couldn’t guess -it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and Aunt Josephine -wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her for the -Exhibition. There!” - -“Oh, Diana,” whispered Anne, finding it necessary to lean up against a -maple tree for support, “do you really mean it? But I’m afraid Marilla -won’t let me go. She will say that she can’t encourage gadding about. -That was what she said last week when Jane invited me to go with them -in their double-seated buggy to the American concert at the White Sands -Hotel. I wanted to go, but Marilla said I’d be better at home learning -my lessons and so would Jane. I was bitterly disappointed, Diana. I felt -so heartbroken that I wouldn’t say my prayers when I went to bed. But I -repented of that and got up in the middle of the night and said them.” - -“I’ll tell you,” said Diana, “we’ll get Mother to ask Marilla. She’ll be -more likely to let you go then; and if she does we’ll have the time -of our lives, Anne. I’ve never been to an Exhibition, and it’s so -aggravating to hear the other girls talking about their trips. Jane and -Ruby have been twice, and they’re going this year again.” - -“I’m not going to think about it at all until I know whether I can go -or not,” said Anne resolutely. “If I did and then was disappointed, it -would be more than I could bear. But in case I do go I’m very glad my -new coat will be ready by that time. Marilla didn’t think I needed a new -coat. She said my old one would do very well for another winter and -that I ought to be satisfied with having a new dress. The dress is very -pretty, Diana--navy blue and made so fashionably. Marilla always makes -my dresses fashionably now, because she says she doesn’t intend to have -Matthew going to Mrs. Lynde to make them. I’m so glad. It is ever so -much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable. At least, it is -easier for me. I suppose it doesn’t make such a difference to naturally -good people. But Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla -bought a lovely piece of blue broadcloth, and it’s being made by a real -dressmaker over at Carmody. It’s to be done Saturday night, and I’m -trying not to imagine myself walking up the church aisle on Sunday in -my new suit and cap, because I’m afraid it isn’t right to imagine such -things. But it just slips into my mind in spite of me. My cap is so -pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day we were over at Carmody. It is -one of those little blue velvet ones that are all the rage, with gold -cord and tassels. Your new hat is elegant, Diana, and so becoming. When -I saw you come into church last Sunday my heart swelled with pride to -think you were my dearest friend. Do you suppose it’s wrong for us to -think so much about our clothes? Marilla says it is very sinful. But it -is such an interesting subject, isn’t it?” - -Marilla agreed to let Anne go to town, and it was arranged that -Mr. Barry should take the girls in on the following Tuesday. As -Charlottetown was thirty miles away and Mr. Barry wished to go and -return the same day, it was necessary to make a very early start. But -Anne counted it all joy, and was up before sunrise on Tuesday morning. -A glance from her window assured her that the day would be fine, for -the eastern sky behind the firs of the Haunted Wood was all silvery -and cloudless. Through the gap in the trees a light was shining in the -western gable of Orchard Slope, a token that Diana was also up. - -Anne was dressed by the time Matthew had the fire on and had the -breakfast ready when Marilla came down, but for her own part was much -too excited to eat. After breakfast the jaunty new cap and jacket were -donned, and Anne hastened over the brook and up through the firs to -Orchard Slope. Mr. Barry and Diana were waiting for her, and they were -soon on the road. - -It was a long drive, but Anne and Diana enjoyed every minute of it. It -was delightful to rattle along over the moist roads in the early red -sunlight that was creeping across the shorn harvest fields. The air was -fresh and crisp, and little smoke-blue mists curled through the valleys -and floated off from the hills. Sometimes the road went through woods -where maples were beginning to hang out scarlet banners; sometimes it -crossed rivers on bridges that made Anne’s flesh cringe with the old, -half-delightful fear; sometimes it wound along a harbor shore and passed -by a little cluster of weather-gray fishing huts; again it mounted to -hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty-blue sky could be -seen; but wherever it went there was much of interest to discuss. It was -almost noon when they reached town and found their way to “Beechwood.” - It was quite a fine old mansion, set back from the street in a seclusion -of green elms and branching beeches. Miss Barry met them at the door -with a twinkle in her sharp black eyes. - -“So you’ve come to see me at last, you Anne-girl,” she said. “Mercy, -child, how you have grown! You’re taller than I am, I declare. And -you’re ever so much better looking than you used to be, too. But I dare -say you know that without being told.” - -“Indeed I didn’t,” said Anne radiantly. “I know I’m not so freckled as -I used to be, so I’ve much to be thankful for, but I really hadn’t dared -to hope there was any other improvement. I’m so glad you think there is, -Miss Barry.” Miss Barry’s house was furnished with “great magnificence,” - as Anne told Marilla afterward. The two little country girls were rather -abashed by the splendor of the parlor where Miss Barry left them when -she went to see about dinner. - -“Isn’t it just like a palace?” whispered Diana. “I never was in Aunt -Josephine’s house before, and I’d no idea it was so grand. I just wish -Julia Bell could see this--she puts on such airs about her mother’s -parlor.” - -“Velvet carpet,” sighed Anne luxuriously, “and silk curtains! I’ve -dreamed of such things, Diana. But do you know I don’t believe I feel -very comfortable with them after all. There are so many things in this -room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is -one consolation when you are poor--there are so many more things you can -imagine about.” - -Their sojourn in town was something that Anne and Diana dated from for -years. From first to last it was crowded with delights. - -On Wednesday Miss Barry took them to the Exhibition grounds and kept -them there all day. - -“It was splendid,” Anne related to Marilla later on. “I never imagined -anything so interesting. I don’t really know which department was the -most interesting. I think I liked the horses and the flowers and the -fancywork best. Josie Pye took first prize for knitted lace. I was -real glad she did. And I was glad that I felt glad, for it shows I’m -improving, don’t you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice in Josie’s -success? Mr. Harmon Andrews took second prize for Gravenstein apples -and Mr. Bell took first prize for a pig. Diana said she thought it was -ridiculous for a Sunday-school superintendent to take a prize in pigs, -but I don’t see why. Do you? She said she would always think of it after -this when he was praying so solemnly. Clara Louise MacPherson took a -prize for painting, and Mrs. Lynde got first prize for homemade butter -and cheese. So Avonlea was pretty well represented, wasn’t it? Mrs. -Lynde was there that day, and I never knew how much I really liked her -until I saw her familiar face among all those strangers. There -were thousands of people there, Marilla. It made me feel dreadfully -insignificant. And Miss Barry took us up to the grandstand to see -the horse races. Mrs. Lynde wouldn’t go; she said horse racing was an -abomination and, she being a church member, thought it her bounden duty -to set a good example by staying away. But there were so many there I -don’t believe Mrs. Lynde’s absence would ever be noticed. I don’t think, -though, that I ought to go very often to horse races, because they _are_ -awfully fascinating. Diana got so excited that she offered to bet me -ten cents that the red horse would win. I didn’t believe he would, but -I refused to bet, because I wanted to tell Mrs. Allan all about -everything, and I felt sure it wouldn’t do to tell her that. It’s always -wrong to do anything you can’t tell the minister’s wife. It’s as good as -an extra conscience to have a minister’s wife for your friend. And I was -very glad I didn’t bet, because the red horse _did_ win, and I would have -lost ten cents. So you see that virtue was its own reward. We saw a man -go up in a balloon. I’d love to go up in a balloon, Marilla; it would -be simply thrilling; and we saw a man selling fortunes. You paid him ten -cents and a little bird picked out your fortune for you. Miss Barry gave -Diana and me ten cents each to have our fortunes told. Mine was that I -would marry a dark-complected man who was very wealthy, and I would go -across water to live. I looked carefully at all the dark men I saw after -that, but I didn’t care much for any of them, and anyhow I suppose -it’s too early to be looking out for him yet. Oh, it was a -never-to-be-forgotten day, Marilla. I was so tired I couldn’t sleep at -night. Miss Barry put us in the spare room, according to promise. It -was an elegant room, Marilla, but somehow sleeping in a spare room isn’t -what I used to think it was. That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m -beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a -child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.” - -Thursday the girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss -Barry took them to a concert in the Academy of Music, where a noted -prima donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a glittering vision of -delight. - -“Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn’t -even talk, so you may know what it was like. I just sat in enraptured -silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore white satin -and diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything -else. Oh, I can’t tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could -never be hard to be good any more. I felt like I do when I look up to -the stars. Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears. -I was so sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn’t see -how I was ever to return to common life again. She said she thought if -we went over to the restaurant across the street and had an ice cream -it might help me. That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found -it true. The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and -dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o’clock at night. -Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked -me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very -seriously before I could tell her what I really thought. So I thought it -over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And -I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn’t born for city life and -that I was glad of it. It’s nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant -restaurants at eleven o’clock at night once in a while; but as a regular -thing I’d rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind -of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that -the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook. I told Miss Barry -so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally -laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I -don’t think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn’t trying to be funny. -But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally.” - -Friday brought going-home time, and Mr. Barry drove in for the girls. - -“Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves,” said Miss Barry, as she bade -them good-bye. - -“Indeed we have,” said Diana. - -“And you, Anne-girl?” - -“I’ve enjoyed every minute of the time,” said Anne, throwing her arms -impulsively about the old woman’s neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek. -Diana would never have dared to do such a thing and felt rather aghast -at Anne’s freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and she stood on her -veranda and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back into her -big house with a sigh. It seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh young -lives. Miss Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the truth must -be told, and had never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued -people only as they were of service to her or amused her. Anne had -amused her, and consequently stood high in the old lady’s good graces. -But Miss Barry found herself thinking less about Anne’s quaint speeches -than of her fresh enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little -winning ways, and the sweetness of her eyes and lips. - -“I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she’d adopted -a girl out of an orphan asylum,” she said to herself, “but I guess she -didn’t make much of a mistake after all. If I’d a child like Anne in the -house all the time I’d be a better and happier woman.” - -Anne and Diana found the drive home as pleasant as the drive -in--pleasanter, indeed, since there was the delightful consciousness of -home waiting at the end of it. It was sunset when they passed through -White Sands and turned into the shore road. Beyond, the Avonlea hills -came out darkly against the saffron sky. Behind them the moon was rising -out of the sea that grew all radiant and transfigured in her light. -Every little cove along the curving road was a marvel of dancing -ripples. The waves broke with a soft swish on the rocks below them, and -the tang of the sea was in the strong, fresh air. - -“Oh, but it’s good to be alive and to be going home,” breathed Anne. - -When she crossed the log bridge over the brook the kitchen light of -Green Gables winked her a friendly welcome back, and through the open -door shone the hearth fire, sending out its warm red glow athwart the -chilly autumn night. Anne ran blithely up the hill and into the kitchen, -where a hot supper was waiting on the table. - -“So you’ve got back?” said Marilla, folding up her knitting. - -“Yes, and oh, it’s so good to be back,” said Anne joyously. “I could -kiss everything, even to the clock. Marilla, a broiled chicken! You -don’t mean to say you cooked that for me!” - -“Yes, I did,” said Marilla. “I thought you’d be hungry after such -a drive and need something real appetizing. Hurry and take off your -things, and we’ll have supper as soon as Matthew comes in. I’m glad -you’ve got back, I must say. It’s been fearful lonesome here without -you, and I never put in four longer days.” - -After supper Anne sat before the fire between Matthew and Marilla, and -gave them a full account of her visit. - -“I’ve had a splendid time,” she concluded happily, “and I feel that it -marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home.” - - - -CHAPTER XXX. The Queens Class Is Organized - - -MARILLA laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her -eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having -her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had -grown tired very often of late. - -It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around -Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing -red flames in the stove. - -Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that -joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled -from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped -to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. -Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and -rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling -were happening to her in cloudland--adventures that always turned out -triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual -life. - -Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been -suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling -of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself -easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn. -But she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection -all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love -made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy -feeling that it was rather sinful to set one’s heart so intensely on any -human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a -sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical -than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had -no idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that -Marilla was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy -and understanding. But she always checked the thought reproachfully, -remembering what she owed to Marilla. - -“Anne,” said Marilla abruptly, “Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when -you were out with Diana.” - -Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh. - -“Was she? Oh, I’m so sorry I wasn’t in. Why didn’t you call me, Marilla? -Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It’s lovely in the woods -now. All the little wood things--the ferns and the satin leaves and the -crackerberries--have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them -away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little -gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last -moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn’t say much about that, though. -Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about -imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on -Diana’s imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a -blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby -said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby -Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse -she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn’t do to -drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously -of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids -and live together forever. Diana hasn’t quite made up her mind though, -because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, -dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal -about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older -than we used to be that it isn’t becoming to talk of childish matters. -It’s such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took -all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and -talked to us about it. She said we couldn’t be too careful what habits -we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time -we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid -for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we -could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked -the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn, -Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and -form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as -possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be -properly developed. It’s perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, -Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy -here this afternoon?” - -“That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you’ll ever give me a chance -to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you.” - -“About me?” Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed: - -“Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly -I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school -yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian -history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour, -and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply -wild to know how it turned out--although I felt sure Ben Hur must win, -because it wouldn’t be poetical justice if he didn’t--so I spread the -history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and -my knee. I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, -while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it -that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at -once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so -reproachful-like. I can’t tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla, -especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur -away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and -talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I -was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly, -I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a -history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that -moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I -cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I’d never do such -a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking -at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned -out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn’t require that, and she forgave me -freely. So I think it wasn’t very kind of her to come up here to you -about it after all.” - -“Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your -guilty conscience that’s the matter with you. You have no business to be -taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was -a girl I wasn’t so much as allowed to look at a novel.” - -“Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it’s really such a religious -book?” protested Anne. “Of course it’s a little too exciting to be -proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never -read _any_ book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a -proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy -made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The -Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me, -and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the -blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome -book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I -didn’t mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was _agonizing_ -to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love -for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It’s really wonderful, Marilla, -what you can do when you’re truly anxious to please a certain person.” - -“Well, I guess I’ll light the lamp and get to work,” said Marilla. “I -see plainly that you don’t want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say. -You’re more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything -else.” - -“Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it,” cried Anne contritely. “I -won’t say another word--not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really -trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only -knew how many things I want to say and don’t, you’d give me some credit -for it. Please tell me, Marilla.” - -“Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students -who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s. She intends -to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came to ask -Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think -about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen’s and pass for a -teacher?” - -“Oh, Marilla!” Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. -“It’s been the dream of my life--that is, for the last six months, ever -since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance. But I -didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly -useless. I’d love to be a teacher. But won’t it be dreadfully expensive? -Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy -through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.” - -“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I -took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you -and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn -her own living whether she ever has to or not. You’ll always have a home -at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what -is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it’s just as well to be -prepared. So you can join the Queen’s class if you like, Anne.” - -“Oh, Marilla, thank you.” Anne flung her arms about Marilla’s waist and -looked up earnestly into her face. “I’m extremely grateful to you and -Matthew. And I’ll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a -credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I -can hold my own in anything else if I work hard.” - -“I dare say you’ll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright -and diligent.” Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what -Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity. -“You needn’t rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. -There is no hurry. You won’t be ready to try the Entrance for a year and -a half yet. But it’s well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, -Miss Stacy says.” - -“I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,” said Anne -blissfully, “because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody -should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says -we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a -worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you, -Marilla? I think it’s a very noble profession.” - -The Queen’s class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne -Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody -Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents -did not intend to send her to Queen’s. This seemed nothing short of a -calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the -croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when -the Queen’s class first remained in school for the extra lessons and -Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through -the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep -her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump -came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her -uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds -would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears. - -“But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of -death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go -out alone,” she said mournfully that night. “I thought how splendid it -would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, -too. But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. -Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but -there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the -Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby -are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their -ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets -through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote -her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid -a salary for teaching, but a husband won’t pay you anything, and growls -if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks -from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a -perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she -is just going to college for education’s sake, because she won’t have to -earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who -are living on charity--_they_ have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to -be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn’t be anything else with a name -like that to live up to. I hope it isn’t wicked of me, Marilla, but -really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. -He’s such a funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little -blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will -be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he’s -going to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde -says he’ll never succeed at that, because the Sloanes are all honest -people, and it’s only rascals that get on in politics nowadays.” - -“What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?” queried Marilla, seeing that Anne -was opening her Cæsar. - -“I don’t happen to know what Gilbert Blythe’s ambition in life is--if he -has any,” said Anne scornfully. - -There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the -rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt -that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was -a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly -acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete -with them. - -Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea -for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, -had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He -talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with -them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the -other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley -he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be -ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head -that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart -she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Lake -of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All at -once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old -resentment she had cherished against him was gone--gone just when she -most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every -incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel -the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last -spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten -without knowing it. But it was too late. - -And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should -ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn’t been -so proud and horrid! She determined to “shroud her feelings in deepest -oblivion,” and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so -successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as -he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his -retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed -Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly. - -Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and -studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace -of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be -learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be -practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at -the manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it, -spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once -more. - -Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen’s class, left behind in -school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and -meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that -Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they -had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged -and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term -was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them. - -“But you’ve done good work this past year,” Miss Stacy told them on the -last evening, “and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best -time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health -and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the -tug of war, you know--the last year before the Entrance.” - -“Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?” asked Josie Pye. - -Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of -the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask -it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors -running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was -not coming back the next year--that she had been offered a position -in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept. The -Queen’s class listened in breathless suspense for her answer. - -“Yes, I think I will,” said Miss Stacy. “I thought of taking another -school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth, -I’ve grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn’t leave -them. So I’ll stay and see you through.” - -“Hurrah!” said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried -away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he -thought about it for a week. - -“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Anne, with shining eyes. “Dear Stacy, it would -be perfectly dreadful if you didn’t come back. I don’t believe I could -have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came -here.” - -When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an -old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket -box. - -“I’m not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation,” she told -Marilla. “I’ve studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I’ve -pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first -book off by heart, even when the letters _are_ changed. I just feel tired -of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination run riot for -the summer. Oh, you needn’t be alarmed, Marilla. I’ll only let it run -riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time -this summer, for maybe it’s the last summer I’ll be a little girl. Mrs. -Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as I’ve done this -I’ll have to put on longer skirts. She says I’m all running to legs and -eyes. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live -up to them and be very dignified. It won’t even do to believe in fairies -then, I’m afraid; so I’m going to believe in them with all my whole -heart this summer. I think we’re going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby -Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there’s the Sunday -school picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr. Barry says -that some evening he’ll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel -and have dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. -Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling -sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests -in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high -life and she’ll never forget it to her dying day.” - -Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not -been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting -people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables. - -“Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday,” Marilla explained, -“and I didn’t feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he’s all right again now, -but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I’m anxious about -him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That’s easy -enough, for Matthew doesn’t go about looking for excitement by any means -and never did, but he’s not to do any very heavy work either and you -might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay -off your things, Rachel. You’ll stay to tea?” - -“Well, seeing you’re so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay” said -Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else. - -Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the -tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even -Mrs. Rachel’s criticism. - -“I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl,” admitted Mrs. -Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset. -“She must be a great help to you.” - -“She is,” said Marilla, “and she’s real steady and reliable now. I used -to be afraid she’d never get over her featherbrained ways, but she has -and I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her in anything now.” - -“I never would have thought she’d have turned out so well that first day -I was here three years ago,” said Mrs. Rachel. “Lawful heart, shall I -ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says to -Thomas, says I, ‘Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert ‘ll live to -rue the step she’s took.’ But I was mistaken and I’m real glad of it. I -ain’t one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to -own up that they’ve made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank -goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren’t no -wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in -this world, that’s what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules -that worked with other children. It’s nothing short of wonderful how -she’s improved these three years, but especially in looks. She’s a real -pretty girl got to be, though I can’t say I’m overly partial to that -pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana -Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis’s looks are real showy. But -somehow--I don’t know how it is but when Anne and them are together, -though she ain’t half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common -and overdone--something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus -alongside of the big, red peonies, that’s what.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. Where the Brook and River Meet - - -ANNE had her “good” summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana -fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover’s Lane -and the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded. -Marilla offered no objections to Anne’s gypsyings. The Spencervale -doctor who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the -house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over -sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to -Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was: - -“Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don’t -let her read books until she gets more spring into her step.” - -This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne’s death -warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a -result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and -frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart’s -content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a -step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full -of ambition and zest once more. - -“I feel just like studying with might and main,” she declared as she -brought her books down from the attic. “Oh, you good old friends, I’m -glad to see your honest faces once more--yes, even you, geometry. I’ve -had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I’m rejoicing as a -strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn’t Mr. -Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every -day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up -and then we’ll be left and have to turn to and break in another green -preacher. But I don’t see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, -Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we -have him. If I were a man I think I’d be a minister. They can have -such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be -thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers’ hearts. Why -can’t women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was -shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might -be female ministers in the States and she believed there was, but thank -goodness we hadn’t got to that stage in Canada yet and she hoped we -never would. But I don’t see why. I think women would make splendid -ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or -anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work. -I’m sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell -and I’ve no doubt she could preach too with a little practice.” - -“Yes, I believe she could,” said Marilla dryly. “She does plenty of -unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong -in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them.” - -“Marilla,” said Anne in a burst of confidence, “I want to tell you -something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me -terribly--on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about -such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I’m with you or Mrs. -Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what -would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I’m with -Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the -very thing she tells me I oughtn’t to do. I feel irresistibly tempted -to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you -think it’s because I’m really bad and unregenerate?” - -Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed. - -“If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very -effect on me. I sometimes think she’d have more of an influence for -good, as you say yourself, if she didn’t keep nagging people to do -right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging. -But there, I shouldn’t talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she -means well. There isn’t a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks -her share of work.” - -“I’m very glad you feel the same,” said Anne decidedly. “It’s so -encouraging. I shan’t worry so much over that after this. But I dare say -there’ll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the -time--things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and -there’s another right after. There are so many things to be thought over -and decided when you’re beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the -time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It’s a serious thing -to grow up, isn’t it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as -you and Matthew and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy I ought to grow up -successfully, and I’m sure it will be my own fault if I don’t. I feel -it’s a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I -don’t grow up right I can’t go back and begin over again. I’ve grown two -inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby’s party. I’m -so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty -and it was sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it -wasn’t really necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie -Pye has flounces on all her dresses. I know I’ll be able to study better -because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my -mind about that flounce.” - -“It’s worth something to have that,” admitted Marilla. - -Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager -for work once more. Especially did the Queen’s class gird up their loins -for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their -pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as “the Entrance,” - at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their -very shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to -haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoons -inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological -problems. When Anne had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably -at pass lists of the Entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe’s name was -blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all. - -But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was -as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of -thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored -knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne’s eager eyes. - - - “Hills peeped o’er hill and Alps on Alps arose.” - - -Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy’s tactful, careful, broadminded -guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for -themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree -that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed all -innovations on established methods rather dubiously. - -Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of -the Spencervale doctor’s dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. -The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one -or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh -drives and skating frolics galore. - -Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was -astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the -girl was taller than herself. - -“Why, Anne, how you’ve grown!” she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh -followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne’s inches. -The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this -tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the -proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much -as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful -sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting -with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the -weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it -and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through -her tears. - -“I was thinking about Anne,” she explained. “She’s got to be such a big -girl--and she’ll probably be away from us next winter. I’ll miss her -terrible.” - -“She’ll be able to come home often,” comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was -as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home -from Bright River on that June evening four years before. “The branch -railroad will be built to Carmody by that time.” - -“It won’t be the same thing as having her here all the time,” sighed -Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted. -“But there--men can’t understand these things!” - -There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change. -For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the -more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla -noticed and commented on this also. - -“You don’t chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as -many big words. What has come over you?” - -Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked -dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on -the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. - -“I don’t know--I don’t want to talk as much,” she said, denting her -chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. “It’s nicer to think dear, pretty -thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to -have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don’t want to use -big words any more. It’s almost a pity, isn’t it, now that I’m really -growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It’s fun to be almost -grown up in some ways, but it’s not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. -There’s so much to learn and do and think that there isn’t time for big -words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and -better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was -hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I -could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I’ve got used -to it now and I see it’s so much better.” - -“What has become of your story club? I haven’t heard you speak of it for -a long time.” - -“The story club isn’t in existence any longer. We hadn’t time for -it--and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be -writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy -sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she -won’t let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own -lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own -too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to -look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, -but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself -to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to.” - -“You’ve only two more months before the Entrance,” said Marilla. “Do you -think you’ll be able to get through?” - -Anne shivered. - -“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’ll be all right--and then I get -horribly afraid. We’ve studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us -thoroughly, but we mayn’t get through for all that. We’ve each got a -stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane’s is Latin, and -Ruby and Charlie’s is algebra, and Josie’s is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon -says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English -history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as -hard as we’ll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so -we’ll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me. -Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I’ll do if I don’t -pass.” - -“Why, go to school next year and try again,” said Marilla unconcernedly. - -“Oh, I don’t believe I’d have the heart for it. It would be such a -disgrace to fail, especially if Gil--if the others passed. And I get so -nervous in an examination that I’m likely to make a mess of it. I wish I -had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her.” - -Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring -world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things -upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. -There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the -Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently -to enjoy them. - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out - - -WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss -Stacy’s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that -evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore -convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy’s farewell words must -have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips’s had been under similar -circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse -from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply. - -“It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn’t it?” she said -dismally. - -“You oughtn’t to feel half as badly as I do,” said Anne, hunting vainly -for a dry spot on her handkerchief. “You’ll be back again next winter, -but I suppose I’ve left the dear old school forever--if I have good -luck, that is.” - -“It won’t be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won’t be there, nor you nor Jane -nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn’t bear -to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven’t -we, Anne? It’s dreadful to think they’re all over.” - -Two big tears rolled down by Diana’s nose. - -“If you would stop crying I could,” said Anne imploringly. “Just as -soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off -again. As Mrs. Lynde says, ‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as -you can.’ After all, I dare say I’ll be back next year. This is one -of the times I _know_ I’m not going to pass. They’re getting alarmingly -frequent.” - -“Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave.” - -“Yes, but those exams didn’t make me nervous. When I think of the real -thing you can’t imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round -my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it’s so -unlucky. I am _not_ superstitious and I know it can make no difference. -But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.” - -“I do wish I was going in with you,” said Diana. “Wouldn’t we have -a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you’ll have to cram in the -evenings.” - -“No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says -it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not -think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It’s good advice, but -I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think. -Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her -Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up -_at least_ as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to -ask me to stay at Beechwood while I’m in town.” - -“You’ll write to me while you’re in, won’t you?” - -“I’ll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,” promised -Anne. - -“I’ll be haunting the post office Wednesday,” vowed Diana. - -Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted -the post office, as agreed, and got her letter. - - -“Dearest Diana” [wrote Anne], - -“Here it is Tuesday night and I’m writing this in the library at -Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and -wished so much you were with me. I couldn’t ‘cram’ because I’d promised -Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history -as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were -learned. - -“This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling -for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands -and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn’t slept -a wink and she didn’t believe I was strong enough to stand the grind -of the teacher’s course even if I did get through. There are times and -seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in -learning to like Josie Pye! - -“When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from -all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting -on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth -he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over -and over to steady his nerves and for pity’s sake not to interrupt -him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot -everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts -firmly in their proper place! - -“When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and -I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of -the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered if -I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear -across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English -examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled -around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment--Diana, I felt exactly -as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green -Gables--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began -beating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for I -knew I could do something with _that_ paper anyhow. - -“At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in -the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully -mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh, -Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it -it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my -Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would -recite it from now till tomorrow morning. - -“I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody -Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in -history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he -was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a -carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to -stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn’t. -Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon -I’m always glad I’m a girl and not his sister. - -“Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just -discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When -she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had -been with us. - -“Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as -Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I -fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I -think I’d rather it didn’t go on if I failed! - -“Yours devotedly, - -“Anne” - - -The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and -Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of -chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she -arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years. - -“You old darling, it’s perfectly splendid to see you back again. It -seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get -along?” - -“Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don’t know -whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment -that I didn’t. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the -dearest, loveliest spot in the world.” - -“How did the others do?” - -“The girls say they know they didn’t pass, but I think they did pretty -well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it! -Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he -failed in algebra. But we don’t really know anything about it and won’t -until the pass list is out. That won’t be for a fortnight. Fancy living -a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake -up until it is over.” - -Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so -she merely said: - -“Oh, you’ll pass all right. Don’t worry.” - -“I’d rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the -list,” flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that -success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of -Gilbert Blythe. - -With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the -examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the -street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne -had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly -that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a -little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew -that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she -even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question -and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert -would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if -she failed. - -But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted -to “pass high” for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew. -Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she “would beat the -whole Island.” That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to -hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she -would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew’s -kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she -felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient -grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations. - -At the end of the fortnight Anne took to “haunting” the post office -also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the -Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings -as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert -were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely -away. - -“I haven’t got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,” - he told Anne. “I’m just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me -suddenly whether I’ve passed or not.” - -When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began -to feel that she really couldn’t stand the strain much longer. Her -appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. -Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory -superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting -Anne’s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her -home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if -he hadn’t better vote Grit at the next election. - -But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, -for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the -world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with -flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the -stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink -from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the -spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying -down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a -fluttering newspaper in her hand. - -Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The -pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt -her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana -came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even -knocking, so great was her excitement. - -“Anne, you’ve passed,” she cried, “passed the _very first_--you and -Gilbert both--you’re ties--but your name is first. Oh, I’m so proud!” - -Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne’s bed, utterly -breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, -oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her -shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. -Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two -hundred! That moment was worth living for. - -“You did just splendidly, Anne,” puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently -to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a -word. “Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes -ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won’t be here -till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over -like a wild thing. You’ve all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon -and all, although he’s conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty -well--they’re halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through -with three marks to spare, but you’ll see she’ll put on as many airs as -if she’d led. Won’t Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel -like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were -me I know I’d go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but -you’re as calm and cool as a spring evening.” - -“I’m just dazzled inside,” said Anne. “I want to say a hundred things, -and I can’t find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I -did too, just once! I let myself think _once_, ‘What if I should come out -first?’ quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to -think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run -right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we’ll go up the road and -tell the good news to the others.” - -They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling -hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at -the lane fence. - -“Oh, Matthew,” exclaimed Anne, “I’ve passed and I’m first--or one of the -first! I’m not vain, but I’m thankful.” - -“Well now, I always said it,” said Matthew, gazing at the pass list -delightedly. “I knew you could beat them all easy.” - -“You’ve done pretty well, I must say, Anne,” said Marilla, trying to -hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel’s critical eye. But that -good soul said heartily: - -“I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in -saying it. You’re a credit to your friends, Anne, that’s what, and we’re -all proud of you.” - -That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious -little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open -window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude -and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it -thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when -she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and -beautiful as maidenhood might desire. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII. The Hotel Concert - - -PUT on your white organdy, by all means, Anne,” advised Diana -decidedly. - -They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only -twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless -sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into -burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet -summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway -voices and laughter. But in Anne’s room the blind was drawn and the lamp -lighted, for an important toilet was being made. - -The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that -night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to -the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept -in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and -dainty a nest as a young girl could desire. - -The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of -Anne’s early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams -had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented -them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that -softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of -pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade -tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few -good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy’s photograph occupied -the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh -flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly -perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no “mahogany -furniture,” but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a -cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, -a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes -painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a -low white bed. - -Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had -got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all -the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it -along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir -had been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a -violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; -and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to -recite. - -As Anne would have said at one time, it was “an epoch in her life,” and -she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in -the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his -Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather -than admit it, and said she didn’t think it was very proper for a lot -of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible -person with them. - -Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother -Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and -boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from -town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers. - -“Do you really think the organdy will be best?” queried Anne anxiously. -“I don’t think it’s as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it -certainly isn’t so fashionable.” - -“But it suits you ever so much better,” said Diana. “It’s so soft -and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too -dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you.” - -Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for -notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much -sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular -night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was -forever debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so -her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon -Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and -combed and adorned to the Queen’s taste. - -“Pull out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your sash; now -for your slippers. I’m going to braid your hair in two thick braids, -and tie them halfway up with big white bows--no, don’t pull out a single -curl over your forehead--just have the soft part. There is no way you do -your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a -Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose -just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for -you.” - -“Shall I put my pearl beads on?” asked Anne. “Matthew brought me a -string from town last week, and I know he’d like to see them on me.” - -Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically, -and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied -around Anne’s slim milk-white throat. - -“There’s something so stylish about you, Anne,” said Diana, with -unenvious admiration. “You hold your head with such an air. I suppose -it’s your figure. I am just a dumpling. I’ve always been afraid of it, -and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign -myself to it.” - -“But you have such dimples,” said Anne, smiling affectionately into the -pretty, vivacious face so near her own. “Lovely dimples, like little -dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream -will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn’t -complain. Am I all ready now?” - -“All ready,” assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt -figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a -much softer face. “Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla. -Doesn’t she look lovely?” - -Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt. - -“She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I -expect she’ll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew -with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy’s the -most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when -he got it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays. -Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for -Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything -off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable, -and Matthew plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear -of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on.” - -Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked, -with that - - “One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown” - -and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her -girl recite. - -“I wonder if it _is_ too damp for my dress,” said Anne anxiously. - -“Not a bit of it,” said Diana, pulling up the window blind. “It’s a -perfect night, and there won’t be any dew. Look at the moonlight.” - -“I’m so glad my window looks east into the sun rising,” said Anne, going -over to Diana. “It’s so splendid to see the morning coming up over those -long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It’s new every -morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest -sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don’t know how -I’ll get along without it when I go to town next month.” - -“Don’t speak of your going away tonight,” begged Diana. “I don’t want to -think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good time -this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you nervous?” - -“Not a bit. I’ve recited so often in public I don’t mind at all now. -I’ve decided to give ‘The Maiden’s Vow.’ It’s so pathetic. Laura Spencer -is going to give a comic recitation, but I’d rather make people cry than -laugh.” - -“What will you recite if they encore you?” - -“They won’t dream of encoring me,” scoffed Anne, who was not without her -own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling -Matthew all about it at the next morning’s breakfast table. “There are -Billy and Jane now--I hear the wheels. Come on.” - -Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him, -so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit -back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her -heart’s content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter -in Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round, -expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he -admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect -of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him. - -Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally -passing a sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and chuckled and never -could think of any reply until it was too late--contrived to enjoy the -drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full -of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed -and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of -light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert -committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performers’ dressing room -which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club, -among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified. Her -dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now -seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she thought, among all -the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her -pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her? -And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse -flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank -miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at -Green Gables. - -It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, -where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes, -the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down -in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid -time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink -silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout -lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne -through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so -scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl -kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the “country bumpkins” - and “rustic belles” in the audience, languidly anticipating “such fun” - from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she -would hate that white-lace girl to the end of life. - -Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the -hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a -wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems -on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice -and wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her -selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the -time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended -she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and -recite after that--never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if -she were only back at Green Gables! - -At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne--who did -not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace -girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied -therein if she had--got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. -She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each -other’s hands in nervous sympathy. - -Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as -she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience -as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely. -Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering--the rows of -ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of -wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches -at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of -friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless -critics. Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement -from her “rustic” efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and -miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness -came over her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would -have fled from the platform despite the humiliation which, she felt, -must ever after be her portion if she did so. - -But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the -audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending -forward with a smile on his face--a smile which seemed to Anne at once -triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert -was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and -of the effect produced by Anne’s slender white form and spiritual face -against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had -driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant -and taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if -she had. She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage -and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She _would -not_ fail before Gilbert Blythe--he should never be able to laugh at her, -never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her -recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of -the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored -to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness -she recited as she had never done before. When she finished there were -bursts of honest applause. Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing -with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken -by the stout lady in pink silk. - -“My dear, you did splendidly,” she puffed. “I’ve been crying like a -baby, actually I have. There, they’re encoring you--they’re bound to -have you back!” - -“Oh, I can’t go,” said Anne confusedly. “But yet--I must, or Matthew -will be disappointed. He said they would encore me.” - -“Then don’t disappoint Matthew,” said the pink lady, laughing. - -Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint, -funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The -rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her. - -When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady--who was the wife of -an American millionaire--took her under her wing, and introduced her -to everybody; and everybody was very nice to her. The professional -elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that -she had a charming voice and “interpreted” her selections beautifully. -Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had -supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and Jane -were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne, -but Billy was nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear -of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them, with the team, -however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into -the calm, white moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked -into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the firs. - -Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! -How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the -sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants -guarding enchanted coasts. - -“Hasn’t it been a perfectly splendid time?” sighed Jane, as they drove -away. “I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at -a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and -chicken salad every blessed day. I’m sure it would be ever so much -more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, -although I thought at first you were never going to begin. I think it -was better than Mrs. Evans’s.” - -“Oh, no, don’t say things like that, Jane,” said Anne quickly, “because -it sounds silly. It couldn’t be better than Mrs. Evans’s, you know, for -she is a professional, and I’m only a schoolgirl, with a little knack -of reciting. I’m quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty -well.” - -“I’ve a compliment for you, Anne,” said Diana. “At least I think it -must be a compliment because of the tone he said it in. Part of it -was anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me--such a -romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he -is a distinguished artist, and that her mother’s cousin in Boston is -married to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard -him say--didn’t we, Jane?--‘Who is that girl on the platform with the -splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.’ There now, -Anne. But what does Titian hair mean?” - -“Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess,” laughed Anne. “Titian -was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women.” - -“_Did_ you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They -were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?” - -“We _are_ rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why, we have sixteen years to our -credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more -or less. Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of -things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had -millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn’t change into any -of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl -and wear a sour look all your life, as if you’d been born turning up -your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so -stout and short that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, -with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully -unhappy sometime to have such a look. You _know_ you wouldn’t, Jane -Andrews!” - -“I _don’t_ know--exactly,” said Jane unconvinced. “I think diamonds would -comfort a person for a good deal.” - -“Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by -diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of -Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as -much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady’s jewels.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV. A Queen’s Girl - - -THE next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was -getting ready to go to Queen’s, and there was much sewing to be done, -and many things to be talked over and arranged. Anne’s outfit was -ample and pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made -no objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More--one -evening she went up to the east gable with her arms full of a delicate -pale green material. - -“Anne, here’s something for a nice light dress for you. I don’t suppose -you really need it; you’ve plenty of pretty waists; but I thought maybe -you’d like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere -of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that -Jane and Ruby and Josie have got ‘evening dresses,’ as they call them, -and I don’t mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allan to help me -pick it in town last week, and we’ll get Emily Gillis to make it for -you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren’t to be equaled.” - -“Oh, Marilla, it’s just lovely,” said Anne. “Thank you so much. I don’t -believe you ought to be so kind to me--it’s making it harder every day -for me to go away.” - -The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings -as Emily’s taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthew’s -and Marilla’s benefit, and recited “The Maiden’s Vow” for them in the -kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful -motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green -Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child -in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking -out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to -Marilla’s own eyes. - -“I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla,” said Anne gaily -stooping over Marilla’s chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady’s -cheek. “Now, I call that a positive triumph.” - -“No, I wasn’t crying over your piece,” said Marilla, who would have -scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. “I just -couldn’t help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And -I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your -queer ways. You’ve grown up now and you’re going away; and you look so -tall and stylish and so--so--different altogether in that dress--as if -you didn’t belong in Avonlea at all--and I just got lonesome thinking it -all over.” - -“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined -face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s -eyes. “I’m not a bit changed--not really. I’m only just pruned down and -branched out. The real _me_--back here--is just the same. It won’t make a -bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I -shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear -Green Gables more and better every day of her life.” - -Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla’s faded one, and reached -out a hand to pat Matthew’s shoulder. Marilla would have given much just -then to have possessed Anne’s power of putting her feelings into words; -but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only put her -arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing -that she need never let her go. - -Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went -out-of-doors. Under the stars of the blue summer night he walked -agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars. - -“Well now, I guess she ain’t been much spoiled,” he muttered, proudly. -“I guess my putting in my oar occasional never did much harm after all. -She’s smart and pretty, and loving, too, which is better than all the -rest. She’s been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier mistake -than what Mrs. Spencer made--if it _was_ luck. I don’t believe it was any -such thing. It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I -reckon.” - -The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove -in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an -untearful practical one--on Marilla’s side at least--with Marilla. But -when Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at -White Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived -to enjoy herself tolerably well; while Marilla plunged fiercely into -unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of -heartache--the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away -in ready tears. But that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and -miserably conscious that the little gable room at the end of the -hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft -breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in -a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect -how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature. - -Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to -hurry off to the Academy. That first day passed pleasantly enough in a -whirl of excitement, meeting all the new students, learning to know the -professors by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne -intended taking up the Second Year work being advised to do so by Miss -Stacy; Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same. This meant getting a -First Class teacher’s license in one year instead of two, if they were -successful; but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, -Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the -stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work. -Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in -a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the -tall, brown-haired boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion -she did, did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. -Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old -rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what -to do if it had been lacking. - -“I wouldn’t feel comfortable without it,” she thought. “Gilbert looks -awfully determined. I suppose he’s making up his mind, here and now, to -win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never noticed it before. -I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for First Class, too. I suppose I -won’t feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, -though. I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. -It’s really an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Diana that -no Queen’s girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear -to me as she is; but I’ve lots of second-best affections to bestow. I -like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist. -She looks vivid and red-rosy; there’s that pale, fair one gazing out of -the window. She has lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two -about dreams. I’d like to know them both--know them well--well enough to -walk with my arm about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just -now I don’t know them and they don’t know me, and probably don’t want to -know me particularly. Oh, it’s lonesome!” - -It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom -that night at twilight. She was not to board with the other girls, who -all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss Josephine Barry -would have liked to board her, but Beechwood was so far from the -Academy that it was out of the question; so Miss Barry hunted up a -boarding-house, assuring Matthew and Marilla that it was the very place -for Anne. - -“The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman,” explained Miss Barry. -“Her husband was a British officer, and she is very careful what sort -of boarders she takes. Anne will not meet with any objectionable persons -under her roof. The table is good, and the house is near the Academy, in -a quiet neighborhood.” - -All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did -not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized -upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its -dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty -book-case; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of -her own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant -consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing in -the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the -slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a -vast starry sky, and the light from Diana’s window shining out through -the gap in the trees. Here there was nothing of this; Anne knew that -outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone -wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand -lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry, -and fought against it. - -“I _won’t_ cry. It’s silly--and weak--there’s the third tear splashing -down by my nose. There are more coming! I must think of something funny -to stop them. But there’s nothing funny except what is connected with -Avonlea, and that only makes things worse--four--five--I’m going home -next Friday, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew is nearly -home by now--and Marilla is at the gate, looking down the lane for -him--six--seven--eight--oh, there’s no use in counting them! They’re -coming in a flood presently. I can’t cheer up--I don’t _want_ to cheer up. -It’s nicer to be miserable!” - -The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye appeared -at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that -there had never been much love lost between her and Josie. As a part of -Avonlea life even a Pye was welcome. - -“I’m so glad you came up,” Anne said sincerely. - -“You’ve been crying,” remarked Josie, with aggravating pity. “I suppose -you’re homesick--some people have so little self-control in that -respect. I’ve no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Town’s too -jolly after that poky old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so -long. You shouldn’t cry, Anne; it isn’t becoming, for your nose and eyes -get red, and then you seem _all_ red. I’d a perfectly scrumptious time in -the Academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His moustache -would give you kerwollowps of the heart. Have you anything eatable -around, Anne? I’m literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely Marilla ‘d -load you up with cake. That’s why I called round. Otherwise I’d have -gone to the park to hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He boards -same place as I do, and he’s a sport. He noticed you in class today, and -asked me who the red-headed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that -the Cuthberts had adopted, and nobody knew very much about what you’d -been before that.” - -Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more -satisfactory than Josie Pye’s companionship when Jane and Ruby appeared, -each with an inch of Queen’s color ribbon--purple and scarlet--pinned -proudly to her coat. As Josie was not “speaking” to Jane just then she -had to subside into comparative harmlessness. - -“Well,” said Jane with a sigh, “I feel as if I’d lived many moons since -the morning. I ought to be home studying my Virgil--that horrid old -professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow. But I simply -couldn’t settle down to study tonight. Anne, methinks I see the -traces of tears. If you’ve been crying _do_ own up. It will restore my -self-respect, for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along. I -don’t mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey, too. Cake? -You’ll give me a teeny piece, won’t you? Thank you. It has the real -Avonlea flavor.” - -Ruby, perceiving the Queen’s calendar lying on the table, wanted to know -if Anne meant to try for the gold medal. - -Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it. - -“Oh, that reminds me,” said Josie, “Queen’s is to get one of the Avery -scholarships after all. The word came today. Frank Stockley told me--his -uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It will be announced -in the Academy tomorrow.” - -An Avery scholarship! Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the -horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before -Josie had told the news Anne’s highest pinnacle of aspiration had been -a teacher’s provincial license, First Class, at the end of the year, and -perhaps the medal! But now in one moment Anne saw herself winning -the Avery scholarship, taking an Arts course at Redmond College, and -graduating in a gown and mortar board, before the echo of Josie’s words -had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt -that here her foot was on native heath. - -A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his -fortune to endow a large number of scholarships to be distributed -among the various high schools and academies of the Maritime Provinces, -according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt -whether one would be allotted to Queen’s, but the matter was settled at -last, and at the end of the year the graduate who made the highest mark -in English and English Literature would win the scholarship--two hundred -and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder -that Anne went to bed that night with tingling cheeks! - -“I’ll win that scholarship if hard work can do it,” she resolved. -“Wouldn’t Matthew be proud if I got to be a B.A.? Oh, it’s delightful to -have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to -be any end to them--that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain -to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does -make life so interesting.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen’s - - -ANNE’S homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her -weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea -students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday -night. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on -hand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. -Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in -the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, -were the best and dearest hours in the whole week. - -Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her -satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinking -herself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as long -as her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had -to take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, -a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great -deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of -life frankly. - -“But I shouldn’t think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,” - whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would not -have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking, -too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert -to jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies and -ambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem -the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed. - -There was no silly sentiment in Anne’s ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys -were to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible good -comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have cared -how many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a genius -for friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague -consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing -to round out one’s conceptions of companionship and furnish broader -standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her -feelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thought -that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over the -crisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many and -merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening -around them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever -young fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination to -get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane -Andrews that she didn’t understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said; -he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit on -and for her part she didn’t think it any fun to be bothering about books -and that sort of thing when you didn’t have to. Frank Stockley had lots -more dash and go, but then he wasn’t half as good-looking as Gilbert and -she really couldn’t decide which she liked best! - -In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about -her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the -“rose-red” girl, Stella Maynard, and the “dream girl,” Priscilla Grant, -she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking -maiden to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the -vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies, -as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne’s own. - -After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home -on Fridays and settled down to hard work. By this time all the Queen’s -scholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks and -the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of -individuality. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was -admitted that the medal contestants had practically narrowed down -to three--Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Avery -scholarship was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possible -winner. The bronze medal for mathematics was considered as good as -won by a fat, funny little up-country boy with a bumpy forehead and a -patched coat. - -Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in the -Second Year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty, with -small but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Marr was -admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes -of hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews--plain, plodding, conscientious -Jane--carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even Josie -Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady in -attendance at Queen’s. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy’s old -pupils held their own in the wider arena of the academical course. - -Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense -as it had ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known in the -class at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no -longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the -proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It -would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would be -insupportable if she did not. - -In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. -Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her -Sunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, -as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the -vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the -latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical -old lady. - -“That Anne-girl improves all the time,” she said. “I get tired of other -girls--there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne -has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while -it lasts. I don’t know that she is as amusing as she was when she was -a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love -them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.” - -Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in -Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where -snow-wreaths lingered; and the “mist of green” was on the woods and in -the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen’s students thought and -talked only of examinations. - -“It doesn’t seem possible that the term is nearly over,” said Anne. -“Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to--a whole winter -of studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up next -week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but -when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and -the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don’t seem half so -important.” - -Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view -of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important -indeed--far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was -all very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her -moments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on -them--as the girls truly thought theirs did--you could not regard them -philosophically. - -“I’ve lost seven pounds in the last two weeks,” sighed Jane. “It’s no -use to say don’t worry. I _will_ worry. Worrying helps you some--it -seems as if you were doing something when you’re worrying. It would be -dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen’s all winter -and spending so much money.” - -“_I_ don’t care,” said Josie Pye. “If I don’t pass this year I’m coming -back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says -that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal -and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship.” - -“That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie,” laughed Anne, “but just -now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out -all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little ferns -are poking their heads up in Lovers’ Lane, it’s not a great deal of -difference whether I win the Avery or not. I’ve done my best and I begin -to understand what is meant by the ‘joy of the strife.’ Next to trying -and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don’t talk -about exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses -and picture to yourself what it must look like over the purply-dark -beech-woods back of Avonlea.” - -“What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?” asked Ruby -practically. - -Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a side -eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her soft -cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, -looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome -of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden -tissue of youth’s own optimism. All the Beyond was hers with its -possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years--each year a rose of -promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream - - -ON the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be -posted on the bulletin board at Queen’s, Anne and Jane walked down the -street together. Jane was smiling and happy; examinations were over -and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further -considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions -and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For -we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although -ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but -exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. -Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had -won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not -seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time. - -“Of course you’ll win one of them anyhow,” said Jane, who couldn’t -understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise. - -“I have not hope of the Avery,” said Anne. “Everybody says Emily Clay -will win it. And I’m not going to march up to that bulletin board and -look at it before everybody. I haven’t the moral courage. I’m going -straight to the girls’ dressing room. You must read the announcements -and then come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name of our -old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just -say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do _don’t_ -sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane.” - -Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for -such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen’s they -found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on -their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, “Hurrah for -Blythe, Medalist!” - -For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. -So she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry--he -had been so sure she would win. - -And then! - -Somebody called out: - -“Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!” - -“Oh, Anne,” gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls’ dressing room amid -hearty cheers. “Oh, Anne I’m so proud! Isn’t it splendid?” - -And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a -laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands -shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all -she managed to whisper to Jane: - -“Oh, won’t Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home -right away.” - -Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held -in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays -read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made. - -Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student -on the platform--a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed -cheeks and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and -whispered about as the Avery winner. - -“Reckon you’re glad we kept her, Marilla?” whispered Matthew, speaking -for the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished -her essay. - -“It’s not the first time I’ve been glad,” retorted Marilla. “You do like -to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert.” - -Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked -Marilla in the back with her parasol. - -“Aren’t you proud of that Anne-girl? I am,” she said. - -Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had -not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another -day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. -Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where -Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked -about her and drew a long breath of happiness. - -“Oh, Diana, it’s so good to be back again. It’s so good to see those -pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--and that white orchard and -the old Snow Queen. Isn’t the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea -rose--why, it’s a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it’s _good_ -to see you again, Diana!” - -“I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me,” said -Diana reproachfully. “Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were -_infatuated_ with her.” - -Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded “June lilies” of her -bouquet. - -“Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are -that one, Diana,” she said. “I love you more than ever--and I’ve so many -things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit -here and look at you. I’m tired, I think--tired of being studious and -ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the -orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing.” - -“You’ve done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won’t be teaching now that -you’ve won the Avery?” - -“No. I’m going to Redmond in September. Doesn’t it seem wonderful? I’ll -have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three -glorious, golden months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. -Isn’t it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and -Josie Pye?” - -“The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,” said -Diana. “Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father -can’t afford to send him to college next year, after all, so he means -to earn his own way through. I expect he’ll get the school here if Miss -Ames decides to leave.” - -Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not -known this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond -also. What would she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not -work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be -rather flat without her friend the enemy? - -The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was -not looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year -before. - -“Marilla,” she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, “is Matthew quite -well?” - -“No, he isn’t,” said Marilla in a troubled tone. “He’s had some real -bad spells with his heart this spring and he won’t spare himself a mite. -I’ve been real worried about him, but he’s some better this while back -and we’ve got a good hired man, so I’m hoping he’ll kind of rest and -pick up. Maybe he will now you’re home. You always cheer him up.” - -Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla’s face in her hands. - -“You are not looking as well yourself as I’d like to see you, Marilla. -You look tired. I’m afraid you’ve been working too hard. You must take -a rest, now that I’m home. I’m just going to take this one day off to -visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will -be your turn to be lazy while I do the work.” - -Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl. - -“It’s not the work--it’s my head. I’ve got a pain so often now--behind -my eyes. Doctor Spencer’s been fussing with glasses, but they don’t do -me any good. There is a distinguished oculist coming to the Island the -last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I’ll have to. -I can’t read or sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you’ve done real -well at Queen’s I must say. To take First Class License in one year and -win the Avery scholarship--well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before -a fall and she doesn’t believe in the higher education of women at all; -she says it unfits them for woman’s true sphere. I don’t believe a word -of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me--did you hear anything about the -Abbey Bank lately, Anne?” - -“I heard it was shaky,” answered Anne. “Why?” - -“That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said -there was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have -saved is in that bank--every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the -Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of -father’s and he’d always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him -at the head of it was good enough for anybody.” - -“I think he has only been its nominal head for many years,” said -Anne. “He is a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the -institution.” - -“Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money -right out and he said he’d think of it. But Mr. Russell told him -yesterday that the bank was all right.” - -Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She -never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free -from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours -in the orchard; she went to the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Violet -Vale; she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; -and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through -Lovers’ Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through -with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill -gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and -erect, suited her springing step to his. - -“You’ve been working too hard today, Matthew,” she said reproachfully. -“Why won’t you take things easier?” - -“Well now, I can’t seem to,” said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate -to let the cows through. “It’s only that I’m getting old, Anne, and keep -forgetting it. Well, well, I’ve always worked pretty hard and I’d rather -drop in harness.” - -“If I had been the boy you sent for,” said Anne wistfully, “I’d be able -to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it -in my heart to wish I had been, just for that.” - -“Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,” said Matthew -patting her hand. “Just mind you that--rather than a dozen boys. Well -now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It -was a girl--my girl--my girl that I’m proud of.” - -He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the -memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a -long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the -future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; -the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always -remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. -It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is -ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has -been laid upon it. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death - - -MATTHEW--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?” - -It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through -the hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it was long before Anne -could love the sight or odor of white narcissus again,--in time to hear -her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper -in his hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her -flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as -Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him Matthew -had fallen across the threshold. - -“He’s fainted,” gasped Marilla. “Anne, run for Martin--quick, quick! -He’s at the barn.” - -Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office, -started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to -send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand, -came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore -Matthew to consciousness. - -Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her -ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and -the tears came into her eyes. - -“Oh, Marilla,” she said gravely. “I don’t think--we can do anything for -him.” - -“Mrs. Lynde, you don’t think--you can’t think Matthew is--is--” Anne -could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid. - -“Child, yes, I’m afraid of it. Look at his face. When you’ve seen that -look as often as I have you’ll know what it means.” - -Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great -Presence. - -When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and -probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The -secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held -and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained -an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank. - -The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and -neighbors thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness -for the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert -was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had -fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned. - -When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house was -hushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin, -his long gray hair framing his placid face on which there was a little -kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were -flowers about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had -planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew -had always had a secret, wordless love. Anne had gathered them and -brought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white -face. It was the last thing she could do for him. - -The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going to -the east gable, where Anne was standing at her window, said gently: - -“Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?” - -“Thank you, Diana.” Anne looked earnestly into her friend’s face. “I -think you won’t misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I’m not -afraid. I haven’t been alone one minute since it happened--and I want to -be. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can’t -realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can’t be dead; and -the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and -I’ve had this horrible dull ache ever since.” - -Diana did not quite understand. Marilla’s impassioned grief, breaking -all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush, -she could comprehend better than Anne’s tearless agony. But she went -away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow. - -Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her a -terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she had -loved so much and who had been so kind to her, Matthew who had walked -with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below -with that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when -she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed, looking up to the -stars beyond the hills--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of -misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the -day’s pain and excitement. - -In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about -her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of -sorrow. She could see Matthew’s face smiling at her as he had smiled -when they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voice -saying, “My girl--my girl that I’m proud of.” Then the tears came and -Anne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her. - -“There--there--don’t cry so, dearie. It can’t bring him back. -It--it--isn’t right to cry so. I knew that today, but I couldn’t help -it then. He’d always been such a good, kind brother to me--but God knows -best.” - -“Oh, just let me cry, Marilla,” sobbed Anne. “The tears don’t hurt me -like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your -arm round me--so. I couldn’t have Diana stay, she’s good and kind and -sweet--but it’s not her sorrow--she’s outside of it and she couldn’t -come close enough to my heart to help me. It’s our sorrow--yours and -mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?” - -“We’ve got each other, Anne. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t -here--if you’d never come. Oh, Anne, I know I’ve been kind of strict and -harsh with you maybe--but you mustn’t think I didn’t love you as well as -Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It’s never -been easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this -it’s easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood -and you’ve been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables.” - -Two days afterwards they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead -threshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had -loved and the trees he had planted; and then Avonlea settled back to its -usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old -groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, -although always with the aching sense of “loss in all familiar things.” - Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so--that -they _could_ go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like -shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs -and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of -gladness when she saw them--that Diana’s visits were pleasant to her -and that Diana’s merry words and ways moved her to laughter and -smiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and -friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her -heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices. - -“It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in -these things now that he has gone,” she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan -one evening when they were together in the manse garden. “I miss him so -much--all the time--and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very -beautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something -funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could -never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn’t to.” - -“When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know -that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you,” said Mrs. -Allan gently. “He is just away now; and he likes to know it just the -same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing -influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. -I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that -anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share -the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our -sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.” - -“I was down to the graveyard to plant a rosebush on Matthew’s grave -this afternoon,” said Anne dreamily. “I took a slip of the little white -Scotch rosebush his mother brought out from Scotland long ago; Matthew -always liked those roses the best--they were so small and sweet on -their thorny stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by his -grave--as if I were doing something that must please him in taking it -there to be near him. I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhaps -the souls of all those little white roses that he has loved so many -summers were all there to meet him. I must go home now. Marilla is all -alone and she gets lonely at twilight.” - -“She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college,” - said Mrs. Allan. - -Anne did not reply; she said good night and went slowly back to green -Gables. Marilla was sitting on the front door-steps and Anne sat down -beside her. The door was open behind them, held back by a big pink conch -shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions. - -Anne gathered some sprays of pale-yellow honeysuckle and put them in -her hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerial -benediction, above her every time she moved. - -“Doctor Spencer was here while you were away,” Marilla said. “He says -that the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists that I must -go in and have my eyes examined. I suppose I’d better go and have it -over. I’ll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kind -of glasses to suit my eyes. You won’t mind staying here alone while I’m -away, will you? Martin will have to drive me in and there’s ironing and -baking to do.” - -“I shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shall -attend to the ironing and baking beautifully--you needn’t fear that I’ll -starch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with liniment.” - -Marilla laughed. - -“What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You were -always getting into scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Do -you mind the time you dyed your hair?” - -“Yes, indeed. I shall never forget it,” smiled Anne, touching the heavy -braid of hair that was wound about her shapely head. “I laugh a little -now sometimes when I think what a worry my hair used to be to me--but I -don’t laugh _much_, because it was a very real trouble then. I did suffer -terribly over my hair and my freckles. My freckles are really gone; and -people are nice enough to tell me my hair is auburn now--all but Josie -Pye. She informed me yesterday that she really thought it was redder -than ever, or at least my black dress made it look redder, and she asked -me if people who had red hair ever got used to having it. Marilla, I’ve -almost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pye. I’ve made what I -would once have called a heroic effort to like her, but Josie Pye won’t -_be_ liked.” - -“Josie is a Pye,” said Marilla sharply, “so she can’t help being -disagreeable. I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in -society, but I must say I don’t know what it is any more than I know the -use of thistles. Is Josie going to teach?” - -“No, she is going back to Queen’s next year. So are Moody Spurgeon and -Charlie Sloane. Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they have both got -schools--Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at some place up west.” - -“Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too, isn’t he?” - -“Yes”--briefly. - -“What a nice-looking fellow he is,” said Marilla absently. “I saw him in -church last Sunday and he seemed so tall and manly. He looks a lot like -his father did at the same age. John Blythe was a nice boy. We used to -be real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau.” - -Anne looked up with swift interest. - -“Oh, Marilla--and what happened?--why didn’t you--” - -“We had a quarrel. I wouldn’t forgive him when he asked me to. I meant -to, after awhile--but I was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish him -first. He never came back--the Blythes were all mighty independent. But -I always felt--rather sorry. I’ve always kind of wished I’d forgiven him -when I had the chance.” - -“So you’ve had a bit of romance in your life, too,” said Anne softly. - -“Yes, I suppose you might call it that. You wouldn’t think so to look at -me, would you? But you never can tell about people from their outsides. -Everybody has forgot about me and John. I’d forgotten myself. But it all -came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday.” - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road - - -MARILLA went to town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne had -gone over to Orchard Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla in -the kitchen, sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand. -Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne’s heart. She -had never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that. - -“Are you very tired, Marilla?” - -“Yes--no--I don’t know,” said Marilla wearily, looking up. “I suppose I -am tired but I haven’t thought about it. It’s not that.” - -“Did you see the oculist? What did he say?” asked Anne anxiously. - -“Yes, I saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up all -reading and sewing entirely and any kind of work that strains the eyes, -and if I’m careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he’s given me -he thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. -But if I don’t he says I’ll certainly be stone-blind in six months. -Blind! Anne, just think of it!” - -For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was -silent. It seemed to her that she could _not_ speak. Then she said -bravely, but with a catch in her voice: - -“Marilla, _don’t_ think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you are -careful you won’t lose your sight altogether; and if his glasses cure -your headaches it will be a great thing.” - -“I don’t call it much hope,” said Marilla bitterly. “What am I to live -for if I can’t read or sew or do anything like that? I might as well -be blind--or dead. And as for crying, I can’t help that when I get -lonesome. But there, it’s no good talking about it. If you’ll get me -a cup of tea I’ll be thankful. I’m about done out. Don’t say anything -about this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can’t bear that folks -should come here to question and sympathize and talk about it.” - -When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then -Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the -darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly -things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! -Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy -with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before -she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. -She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a -friend--as duty ever is when we meet it frankly. - -One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the front -yard where she had been talking to a caller--a man whom Anne knew by -sight as Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have been -saying to bring that look to Marilla’s face. - -“What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?” - -Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in -her eyes in defiance of the oculist’s prohibition and her voice broke as -she said: - -“He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it.” - -“Buy it! Buy Green Gables?” Anne wondered if she had heard aright. “Oh, -Marilla, you don’t mean to sell Green Gables!” - -“Anne, I don’t know what else is to be done. I’ve thought it all over. -If my eyes were strong I could stay here and make out to look after -things and manage, with a good hired man. But as it is I can’t. I may -lose my sight altogether; and anyway I’ll not be fit to run things. Oh, -I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to sell my home. -But things would only go behind worse and worse all the time, till -nobody would want to buy it. Every cent of our money went in that bank; -and there’s some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde advises -me to sell the farm and board somewhere--with her I suppose. It won’t -bring much--it’s small and the buildings are old. But it’ll be enough -for me to live on I reckon. I’m thankful you’re provided for with that -scholarship, Anne. I’m sorry you won’t have a home to come to in your -vacations, that’s all, but I suppose you’ll manage somehow.” - -Marilla broke down and wept bitterly. - -“You mustn’t sell Green Gables,” said Anne resolutely. - -“Oh, Anne, I wish I didn’t have to. But you can see for yourself. I -can’t stay here alone. I’d go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my -sight would go--I know it would.” - -“You won’t have to stay here alone, Marilla. I’ll be with you. I’m not -going to Redmond.” - -“Not going to Redmond!” Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands and -looked at Anne. “Why, what do you mean?” - -“Just what I say. I’m not going to take the scholarship. I decided so -the night after you came home from town. You surely don’t think I could -leave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all you’ve done for me. -I’ve been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barry -wants to rent the farm for next year. So you won’t have any bother over -that. And I’m going to teach. I’ve applied for the school here--but I -don’t expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised it to -Gilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school--Mr. Blair told me -so last night at the store. Of course that won’t be quite as nice or -convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home and -drive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least. And -even in winter I can come home Fridays. We’ll keep a horse for that. Oh, -I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I’ll read to you and keep you -cheered up. You sha’n’t be dull or lonesome. And we’ll be real cozy and -happy here together, you and I.” - -Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream. - -“Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I -can’t let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible.” - -“Nonsense!” Anne laughed merrily. “There is no sacrifice. Nothing could -be worse than giving up Green Gables--nothing could hurt me more. We -must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I’m _not_ -going to Redmond; and I _am_ going to stay here and teach. Don’t you worry -about me a bit.” - -“But your ambitions--and--” - -“I’m just as ambitious as ever. Only, I’ve changed the object of my -ambitions. I’m going to be a good teacher--and I’m going to save your -eyesight. Besides, I mean to study at home here and take a little -college course all by myself. Oh, I’ve dozens of plans, Marilla. I’ve -been thinking them out for a week. I shall give life here my best, and -I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my -future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought -I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I -don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the -best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder -how the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and -soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new -beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on.” - -“I don’t feel as if I ought to let you give it up,” said Marilla, -referring to the scholarship. - -“But you can’t prevent me. I’m sixteen and a half, ‘obstinate as a -mule,’ as Mrs. Lynde once told me,” laughed Anne. “Oh, Marilla, don’t -you go pitying me. I don’t like to be pitied, and there is no need -for it. I’m heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green -Gables. Nobody could love it as you and I do--so we must keep it.” - -“You blessed girl!” said Marilla, yielding. “I feel as if you’d given me -new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college--but -I know I can’t, so I ain’t going to try. I’ll make it up to you though, -Anne.” - -When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up -the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there -was a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, not -knowing about Marilla’s eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did -not. She told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure -to the girl’s eyes. Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one evening -and found Anne and Marilla sitting at the front door in the warm, -scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came down -and the white moths flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filled -the dewy air. - -Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by the -door, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with a -long breath of mingled weariness and relief. - -“I declare I’m getting glad to sit down. I’ve been on my feet all day, -and two hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It’s -a great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well, -Anne, I hear you’ve given up your notion of going to college. I was -real glad to hear it. You’ve got as much education now as a woman can be -comfortable with. I don’t believe in girls going to college with the men -and cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense.” - -“But I’m going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde,” said -Anne laughing. “I’m going to take my Arts course right here at Green -Gables, and study everything that I would at college.” - -Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror. - -“Anne Shirley, you’ll kill yourself.” - -“Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I’m not going to overdo -things. As ‘Josiah Allen’s wife,’ says, I shall be ‘mejum’. But I’ll -have lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I’ve no -vocation for fancy work. I’m going to teach over at Carmody, you know.” - -“I don’t know it. I guess you’re going to teach right here in Avonlea. -The trustees have decided to give you the school.” - -“Mrs. Lynde!” cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. “Why, I -thought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!” - -“So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it -he went to them--they had a business meeting at the school last night, -you know--and told them that he withdrew his application, and suggested -that they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands. Of -course he knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must -say I think it was real kind and thoughtful in him, that’s what. Real -self-sacrificing, too, for he’ll have his board to pay at White Sands, -and everybody knows he’s got to earn his own way through college. So the -trustees decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came -home and told me.” - -“I don’t feel that I ought to take it,” murmured Anne. “I mean--I don’t -think I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for--for me.” - -“I guess you can’t prevent him now. He’s signed papers with the White -Sands trustees. So it wouldn’t do him any good now if you were to -refuse. Of course you’ll take the school. You’ll get along all right, -now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a -good thing she was, that’s what. There’s been some Pye or other going to -Avonlea school for the last twenty years, and I guess their mission in -life was to keep school teachers reminded that earth isn’t their home. -Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barry -gable mean?” - -“Diana is signaling for me to go over,” laughed Anne. “You know we keep -up the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants.” - -Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firry -shadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently. - -“There’s a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways.” - -“There’s a good deal more of the woman about her in others,” retorted -Marilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness. - -But crispness was no longer Marilla’s distinguishing characteristic. As -Mrs. Lynde told her Thomas that night. - -“Marilla Cuthbert has got _mellow_. That’s what.” - -Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh -flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered -there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, -with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its -whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally -left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining -Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike -afterlight--“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the -air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home -lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay -the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west -was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in -still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and -she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it. - -“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to -be alive in you.” - -Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the -Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he -recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have passed -on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand. - -“Gilbert,” she said, with scarlet cheeks, “I want to thank you for -giving up the school for me. It was very good of you--and I want you to -know that I appreciate it.” - -Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly. - -“It wasn’t particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be -able to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after -this? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?” - -Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand. - -“I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn’t know -it. What a stubborn little goose I was. I’ve been--I may as well make a -complete confession--I’ve been sorry ever since.” - -“We are going to be the best of friends,” said Gilbert, jubilantly. “We -were born to be good friends, Anne. You’ve thwarted destiny enough. I -know we can help each other in many ways. You are going to keep up your -studies, aren’t you? So am I. Come, I’m going to walk home with you.” - -Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen. - -“Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?” - -“Gilbert Blythe,” answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. “I met -him on Barry’s hill.” - -“I didn’t think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that you’d -stand for half an hour at the gate talking to him,” said Marilla with a -dry smile. - -“We haven’t been--we’ve been good enemies. But we have decided that it -will be much more sensible to be good friends in the future. Were we -really there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, -we have five years’ lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla.” - -Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. -The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came -up to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow and -Diana’s light gleamed through the old gap. - -Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after -coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be -narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. -The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship -were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her -ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road! - -“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’” whispered Anne -softly. - - -Andersen's Fairy Tales - -THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - -Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of -new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble -himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to -the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him -for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of -the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, -“he is sitting in council,” it was always said of him, “The Emperor is -sitting in his wardrobe.” - -Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers -arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves -weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to -weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the -clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of -remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or -who was extraordinarily simple in character. - -“These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!” thought the Emperor. “Had I -such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit -for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the -foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately.” And he caused -large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they -might begin their work directly. - -So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very -busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the -most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own -knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms -until late at night. - -“I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth,” - said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, -however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or -one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be -sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he -would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the -weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All -the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the -cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how -ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be. - -“I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers,” said the Emperor -at last, after some deliberation, “he will be best able to see how the -cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable -for his office than he is.” - -So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were -working with all their might, at their empty looms. “What can be the -meaning of this?” thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. “I -cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms.” However, he did -not express his thoughts aloud. - -The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come -nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased -him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time -pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, -he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, -viz: there was nothing there. “What!” thought he again. “Is it possible -that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must -know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, -that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see -the stuff.” - -“Well, Sir Minister!” said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. -“You do not say whether the stuff pleases you.” - -“Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom -through his spectacles. “This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell -the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them.” - -“We shall be much obliged to you,” said the impostors, and then they -named the different colors and described the pattern of the pretended -stuff. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order -that he might repeat them to the Emperor; and then the knaves asked for -more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what -they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their -knapsacks; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as -before at their empty looms. - -The Emperor now sent another officer of his court to see how the men -were getting on, and to ascertain whether the cloth would soon be -ready. It was just the same with this gentleman as with the minister; -he surveyed the looms on all sides, but could see nothing at all but the -empty frames. - -“Does not the stuff appear as beautiful to you, as it did to my lord the -minister?” asked the impostors of the Emperor's second ambassador; at -the same time making the same gestures as before, and talking of the -design and colors which were not there. - -“I certainly am not stupid!” thought the messenger. “It must be, that I -am not fit for my good, profitable office! That is very odd; however, no -one shall know anything about it.” And accordingly he praised the stuff -he could not see, and declared that he was delighted with both colors -and patterns. “Indeed, please your Imperial Majesty,” said he to his -sovereign when he returned, “the cloth which the weavers are preparing -is extraordinarily magnificent.” - -The whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had -ordered to be woven at his own expense. - -And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while -it was still in the loom. Accompanied by a select number of officers of -the court, among whom were the two honest men who had already admired -the cloth, he went to the crafty impostors, who, as soon as they were -aware of the Emperor's approach, went on working more diligently than -ever; although they still did not pass a single thread through the -looms. - -“Is not the work absolutely magnificent?” said the two officers of the -crown, already mentioned. “If your Majesty will only be pleased to look -at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!” and at the same -time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone -else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship. - -“How is this?” said the Emperor to himself. “I can see nothing! This -is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an -Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! the cloth -is charming,” said he, aloud. “It has my complete approbation.” And he -smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no -account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of -his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, -hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more -than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, “Oh, how beautiful!” - and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid -material, for the approaching procession. “Magnificent! Charming! -Excellent!” resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The -Emperor shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the impostors -with the riband of an order of knighthood, to be worn in their -button-holes, and the title of “Gentlemen Weavers.” - -The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the -procession was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that -everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the Emperor's new -suit. They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with -their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. -“See!” cried they, at last. “The Emperor's new clothes are ready!” - -And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the -weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding -something up, saying, “Here are your Majesty's trousers! Here is the -scarf! Here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; -one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, -however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth.” - -“Yes indeed!” said all the courtiers, although not one of them could see -anything of this exquisite manufacture. - -“If your Imperial Majesty will be graciously pleased to take off your -clothes, we will fit on the new suit, in front of the looking glass.” - -The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to -array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, -before the looking glass. - -“How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they -fit!” everyone cried out. “What a design! What colors! These are indeed -royal robes!” - -“The canopy which is to be borne over your Majesty, in the procession, -is waiting,” announced the chief master of the ceremonies. - -“I am quite ready,” answered the Emperor. “Do my new clothes fit well?” - asked he, turning himself round again before the looking glass, in order -that he might appear to be examining his handsome suit. - -The lords of the bedchamber, who were to carry his Majesty's train felt -about on the ground, as if they were lifting up the ends of the mantle; -and pretended to be carrying something; for they would by no means -betray anything like simplicity, or unfitness for their office. - -So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the -procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people -standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, “Oh! How beautiful -are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to -the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!” in short, no one would -allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in -doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit -for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's various suits, had ever -made so great an impression, as these invisible ones. - -“But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” said a little child. - -“Listen to the voice of innocence!” exclaimed his father; and what the -child had said was whispered from one to another. - -“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. -The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he -thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber -took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in -reality, there was no train to hold. - - - - -THE SWINEHERD - -There was once a poor Prince, who had a kingdom. His kingdom was very -small, but still quite large enough to marry upon; and he wished to -marry. - -It was certainly rather cool of him to say to the Emperor's daughter, -“Will you have me?” But so he did; for his name was renowned far and -wide; and there were a hundred princesses who would have answered, -“Yes!” and “Thank you kindly.” We shall see what this princess said. - -Listen! - -It happened that where the Prince's father lay buried, there grew a rose -tree--a most beautiful rose tree, which blossomed only once in every -five years, and even then bore only one flower, but that was a rose! -It smelt so sweet that all cares and sorrows were forgotten by him who -inhaled its fragrance. - -And furthermore, the Prince had a nightingale, who could sing in such a -manner that it seemed as though all sweet melodies dwelt in her little -throat. So the Princess was to have the rose, and the nightingale; and -they were accordingly put into large silver caskets, and sent to her. - -The Emperor had them brought into a large hall, where the Princess was -playing at “Visiting,” with the ladies of the court; and when she saw -the caskets with the presents, she clapped her hands for joy. - -“Ah, if it were but a little pussy-cat!” said she; but the rose tree, -with its beautiful rose came to view. - -“Oh, how prettily it is made!” said all the court ladies. - -“It is more than pretty,” said the Emperor, “it is charming!” - -But the Princess touched it, and was almost ready to cry. - -“Fie, papa!” said she. “It is not made at all, it is natural!” - -“Let us see what is in the other casket, before we get into a bad -humor,” said the Emperor. So the nightingale came forth and sang so -delightfully that at first no one could say anything ill-humored of her. - -“Superbe! Charmant!” exclaimed the ladies; for they all used to chatter -French, each one worse than her neighbor. - -“How much the bird reminds me of the musical box that belonged to our -blessed Empress,” said an old knight. “Oh yes! These are the same tones, -the same execution.” - -“Yes! yes!” said the Emperor, and he wept like a child at the -remembrance. - -“I will still hope that it is not a real bird,” said the Princess. - -“Yes, it is a real bird,” said those who had brought it. “Well then let -the bird fly,” said the Princess; and she positively refused to see the -Prince. - -However, he was not to be discouraged; he daubed his face over brown and -black; pulled his cap over his ears, and knocked at the door. - -“Good day to my lord, the Emperor!” said he. “Can I have employment at -the palace?” - -“Why, yes,” said the Emperor. “I want some one to take care of the pigs, -for we have a great many of them.” - -So the Prince was appointed “Imperial Swineherd.” He had a dirty little -room close by the pigsty; and there he sat the whole day, and worked. By -the evening he had made a pretty little kitchen-pot. Little bells were -hung all round it; and when the pot was boiling, these bells tinkled in -the most charming manner, and played the old melody, - - “Ach! du lieber Augustin, - Alles ist weg, weg, weg!”* - - * “Ah! dear Augustine! - All is gone, gone, gone!” - - -But what was still more curious, whoever held his finger in the smoke of -the kitchen-pot, immediately smelt all the dishes that were cooking on -every hearth in the city--this, you see, was something quite different -from the rose. - -Now the Princess happened to walk that way; and when she heard the tune, -she stood quite still, and seemed pleased; for she could play “Lieber -Augustine”; it was the only piece she knew; and she played it with one -finger. - -“Why there is my piece,” said the Princess. “That swineherd must -certainly have been well educated! Go in and ask him the price of the -instrument.” - -So one of the court-ladies must run in; however, she drew on wooden -slippers first. - -“What will you take for the kitchen-pot?” said the lady. - -“I will have ten kisses from the Princess,” said the swineherd. - -“Yes, indeed!” said the lady. - -“I cannot sell it for less,” rejoined the swineherd. - -“He is an impudent fellow!” said the Princess, and she walked on; but -when she had gone a little way, the bells tinkled so prettily - - “Ach! du lieber Augustin, - Alles ist weg, weg, weg!” - -“Stay,” said the Princess. “Ask him if he will have ten kisses from the -ladies of my court.” - -“No, thank you!” said the swineherd. “Ten kisses from the Princess, or I -keep the kitchen-pot myself.” - -“That must not be, either!” said the Princess. “But do you all stand -before me that no one may see us.” - -And the court-ladies placed themselves in front of her, and spread -out their dresses--the swineherd got ten kisses, and the Princess--the -kitchen-pot. - -That was delightful! The pot was boiling the whole evening, and the -whole of the following day. They knew perfectly well what was cooking at -every fire throughout the city, from the chamberlain's to the cobbler's; -the court-ladies danced and clapped their hands. - -“We know who has soup, and who has pancakes for dinner to-day, who has -cutlets, and who has eggs. How interesting!” - -“Yes, but keep my secret, for I am an Emperor's daughter.” - -The swineherd--that is to say--the Prince, for no one knew that he was -other than an ill-favored swineherd, let not a day pass without working -at something; he at last constructed a rattle, which, when it was swung -round, played all the waltzes and jig tunes, which have ever been heard -since the creation of the world. - -“Ah, that is superbe!” said the Princess when she passed by. “I have -never heard prettier compositions! Go in and ask him the price of the -instrument; but mind, he shall have no more kisses!” - -“He will have a hundred kisses from the Princess!” said the lady who had -been to ask. - -“I think he is not in his right senses!” said the Princess, and walked -on, but when she had gone a little way, she stopped again. “One must -encourage art,” said she, “I am the Emperor's daughter. Tell him he -shall, as on yesterday, have ten kisses from me, and may take the rest -from the ladies of the court.” - -“Oh--but we should not like that at all!” said they. “What are you -muttering?” asked the Princess. “If I can kiss him, surely you can. -Remember that you owe everything to me.” So the ladies were obliged to -go to him again. - -“A hundred kisses from the Princess,” said he, “or else let everyone -keep his own!” - -“Stand round!” said she; and all the ladies stood round her whilst the -kissing was going on. - -“What can be the reason for such a crowd close by the pigsty?” said the -Emperor, who happened just then to step out on the balcony; he rubbed -his eyes, and put on his spectacles. “They are the ladies of the -court; I must go down and see what they are about!” So he pulled up his -slippers at the heel, for he had trodden them down. - -As soon as he had got into the court-yard, he moved very softly, and the -ladies were so much engrossed with counting the kisses, that all might -go on fairly, that they did not perceive the Emperor. He rose on his -tiptoes. - -“What is all this?” said he, when he saw what was going on, and he boxed -the Princess's ears with his slipper, just as the swineherd was taking -the eighty-sixth kiss. - -“March out!” said the Emperor, for he was very angry; and both Princess -and swineherd were thrust out of the city. - -The Princess now stood and wept, the swineherd scolded, and the rain -poured down. - -“Alas! Unhappy creature that I am!” said the Princess. “If I had but -married the handsome young Prince! Ah! how unfortunate I am!” - -And the swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown color -from his face, threw off his dirty clothes, and stepped forth in his -princely robes; he looked so noble that the Princess could not help -bowing before him. - -“I am come to despise thee,” said he. “Thou would'st not have an -honorable Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, -but thou wast ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery -plaything. Thou art rightly served.” - -He then went back to his own little kingdom, and shut the door of his -palace in her face. Now she might well sing, - - “Ach! du lieber Augustin, - Alles ist weg, weg, weg!” - - - - -THE REAL PRINCESS - -There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she -must be a real Princess. He travelled all over the world in hopes of -finding such a lady; but there was always something wrong. Princesses he -found in plenty; but whether they were real Princesses it was impossible -for him to decide, for now one thing, now another, seemed to him not -quite right about the ladies. At last he returned to his palace quite -cast down, because he wished so much to have a real Princess for his -wife. - -One evening a fearful tempest arose, it thundered and lightened, and the -rain poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was as dark as -pitch. All at once there was heard a violent knocking at the door, and -the old King, the Prince's father, went out himself to open it. - -It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain -and the wind, she was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from -her hair, and her clothes clung to her body. She said she was a real -Princess. - -“Ah! we shall soon see that!” thought the old Queen-mother; however, she -said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the -bedroom, took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas -on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over -the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses. - -Upon this bed the Princess was to pass the night. - -The next morning she was asked how she had slept. “Oh, very badly -indeed!” she replied. “I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night -through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard -under me, and am all over black and blue. It has hurt me so much!” - -Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had -been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses -and twenty feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a -delicate sense of feeling. - -The Prince accordingly made her his wife; being now convinced that he -had found a real Princess. The three peas were however put into the -cabinet of curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they -are not lost. - -Wasn't this a lady of real delicacy? - - - - -THE SHOES OF FORTUNE - -I. A Beginning - -Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style -of writing. Those who do not like him, magnify it, shrug up their -shoulders, and exclaim--there he is again! I, for my part, know very -well how I can bring about this movement and this exclamation. It would -happen immediately if I were to begin here, as I intended to do, with: -“Rome has its Corso, Naples its Toledo”--“Ah! that Andersen; there he is -again!” they would cry; yet I must, to please my fancy, continue quite -quietly, and add: “But Copenhagen has its East Street.” - -Here, then, we will stay for the present. In one of the houses not far -from the new market a party was invited--a very large party, in order, -as is often the case, to get a return invitation from the others. One -half of the company was already seated at the card-table, the other half -awaited the result of the stereotype preliminary observation of the lady -of the house: - -“Now let us see what we can do to amuse ourselves.” - -They had got just so far, and the conversation began to crystallise, -as it could but do with the scanty stream which the commonplace world -supplied. Amongst other things they spoke of the middle ages: some -praised that period as far more interesting, far more poetical than our -own too sober present; indeed Councillor Knap defended this opinion -so warmly, that the hostess declared immediately on his side, and both -exerted themselves with unwearied eloquence. The Councillor boldly -declared the time of King Hans to be the noblest and the most happy -period.* - -* A.D. 1482-1513 - - -While the conversation turned on this subject, and was only for a moment -interrupted by the arrival of a journal that contained nothing worth -reading, we will just step out into the antechamber, where cloaks, -mackintoshes, sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two -female figures, a young and an old one. One might have thought at first -they were servants come to accompany their mistresses home; but on -looking nearer, one soon saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their -forms were too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their -dress too striking. Two fairies were they; the younger, it is true, -was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the waiting-maids of her -handmaidens who carry about the lesser good things that she distributes; -the other looked extremely gloomy--it was Care. She always attends to -her own serious business herself, as then she is sure of having it done -properly. - -They were telling each other, with a confidential interchange of ideas, -where they had been during the day. The messenger of Fortune had only -executed a few unimportant commissions, such as saving a new bonnet from -a shower of rain, etc.; but what she had yet to perform was something -quite unusual. - -“I must tell you,” said she, “that to-day is my birthday; and in honor -of it, a pair of walking-shoes or galoshes has been entrusted to me, -which I am to carry to mankind. These shoes possess the property of -instantly transporting him who has them on to the place or the period -in which he most wishes to be; every wish, as regards time or place, or -state of being, will be immediately fulfilled, and so at last man will -be happy, here below.” - -“Do you seriously believe it?” replied Care, in a severe tone of -reproach. “No; he will be very unhappy, and will assuredly bless the -moment when he feels that he has freed himself from the fatal shoes.” - -“Stupid nonsense!” said the other angrily. “I will put them here by -the door. Some one will make a mistake for certain and take the wrong -ones--he will be a happy man.” - -Such was their conversation. - - -II. What Happened to the Councillor - -It was late; Councillor Knap, deeply occupied with the times of King -Hans, intended to go home, and malicious Fate managed matters so that -his feet, instead of finding their way to his own galoshes, slipped -into those of Fortune. Thus caparisoned the good man walked out of the -well-lighted rooms into East Street. By the magic power of the shoes he -was carried back to the times of King Hans; on which account his foot -very naturally sank in the mud and puddles of the street, there having -been in those days no pavement in Copenhagen. - -“Well! This is too bad! How dirty it is here!” sighed the Councillor. -“As to a pavement, I can find no traces of one, and all the lamps, it -seems, have gone to sleep.” - -The moon was not yet very high; it was besides rather foggy, so that -in the darkness all objects seemed mingled in chaotic confusion. At the -next corner hung a votive lamp before a Madonna, but the light it gave -was little better than none at all; indeed, he did not observe it before -he was exactly under it, and his eyes fell upon the bright colors of the -pictures which represented the well-known group of the Virgin and the -infant Jesus. - -“That is probably a wax-work show,” thought he; “and the people delay -taking down their sign in hopes of a late visitor or two.” - -A few persons in the costume of the time of King Hans passed quickly by -him. - -“How strange they look! The good folks come probably from a masquerade!” - -Suddenly was heard the sound of drums and fifes; the bright blaze of a -fire shot up from time to time, and its ruddy gleams seemed to contend -with the bluish light of the torches. The Councillor stood still, and -watched a most strange procession pass by. First came a dozen drummers, -who understood pretty well how to handle their instruments; then came -halberdiers, and some armed with cross-bows. The principal person in the -procession was a priest. Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked -what was the meaning of all this mummery, and who that man was. - -“That's the Bishop of Zealand,” was the answer. - -“Good Heavens! What has taken possession of the Bishop?” sighed the -Councillor, shaking his head. It certainly could not be the Bishop; even -though he was considered the most absent man in the whole kingdom, and -people told the drollest anecdotes about him. Reflecting on the matter, -and without looking right or left, the Councillor went through East -Street and across the Habro-Platz. The bridge leading to Palace Square -was not to be found; scarcely trusting his senses, the nocturnal -wanderer discovered a shallow piece of water, and here fell in with two -men who very comfortably were rocking to and fro in a boat. - -“Does your honor want to cross the ferry to the Holme?” asked they. - -“Across to the Holme!” said the Councillor, who knew nothing of the age -in which he at that moment was. “No, I am going to Christianshafen, to -Little Market Street.” - -Both men stared at him in astonishment. - -“Only just tell me where the bridge is,” said he. “It is really -unpardonable that there are no lamps here; and it is as dirty as if one -had to wade through a morass.” - -The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their -language become to him. - -“I don't understand your Bornholmish dialect,” said he at last, angrily, -and turning his back upon them. He was unable to find the bridge: there -was no railway either. “It is really disgraceful what a state this place -is in,” muttered he to himself. Never had his age, with which, however, -he was always grumbling, seemed so miserable as on this evening. “I'll -take a hackney-coach!” thought he. But where were the hackney-coaches? -Not one was to be seen. - -“I must go back to the New Market; there, it is to be hoped, I -shall find some coaches; for if I don't, I shall never get safe to -Christianshafen.” - -So off he went in the direction of East Street, and had nearly got to -the end of it when the moon shone forth. - -“God bless me! What wooden scaffolding is that which they have set up -there?” cried he involuntarily, as he looked at East Gate, which, in -those days, was at the end of East Street. - -He found, however, a little side-door open, and through this he went, -and stepped into our New Market of the present time. It was a huge -desolate plain; some wild bushes stood up here and there, while across -the field flowed a broad canal or river. Some wretched hovels for the -Dutch sailors, resembling great boxes, and after which the place was -named, lay about in confused disorder on the opposite bank. - -“I either behold a fata morgana, or I am regularly tipsy,” whimpered out -the Councillor. “But what's this?” - -He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was seriously ill. He -gazed at the street formerly so well known to him, and now so strange in -appearance, and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them were -of wood, slightly put together; and many had a thatched roof. - -“No--I am far from well,” sighed he; “and yet I drank only one glass of -punch; but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong to give -us punch and hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first -opportunity. I have half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer. -But no, that would be too silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up -still.” - -He looked for the house, but it had vanished. - -“It is really dreadful,” groaned he with increasing anxiety; “I cannot -recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent shop from one -end to the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere; just -as if I were at Ringstead. Oh! I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any -longer. Where the deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very -spot; yet there is not the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a -degree has everything changed this night! At all events here are some -people up and stirring. Oh! oh! I am certainly very ill.” - -He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of which a faint light -shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of public-house. -The room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in Holstein; a -pretty numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen burghers, and -a few scholars, sat here in deep converse over their pewter cans, and -gave little heed to the person who entered. - -“By your leave!” said the Councillor to the Hostess, who came bustling -towards him. “I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have the -goodness to send for a hackney-coach to take me to Christianshafen?” - -The woman examined him with eyes of astonishment, and shook her head; -she then addressed him in German. The Councillor thought she did not -understand Danish, and therefore repeated his wish in German. This, in -connection with his costume, strengthened the good woman in the belief -that he was a foreigner. That he was ill, she comprehended directly; so -she brought him a pitcher of water, which tasted certainly pretty strong -of the sea, although it had been fetched from the well. - -The Councillor supported his head on his hand, drew a long breath, and -thought over all the wondrous things he saw around him. - -“Is this the Daily News of this evening?” he asked mechanically, as he -saw the Hostess push aside a large sheet of paper. - -The meaning of this councillorship query remained, of course, a riddle -to her, yet she handed him the paper without replying. It was a coarse -wood-cut, representing a splendid meteor “as seen in the town of -Cologne,” which was to be read below in bright letters. - -“That is very old!” said the Councillor, whom this piece of antiquity -began to make considerably more cheerful. “Pray how did you come into -possession of this rare print? It is extremely interesting, although the -whole is a mere fable. Such meteorous appearances are to be explained in -this way--that they are the reflections of the Aurora Borealis, and it -is highly probable they are caused principally by electricity.” - -Those persons who were sitting nearest him and heard his speech, -stared at him in wonderment; and one of them rose, took off his hat -respectfully, and said with a serious countenance, “You are no doubt a -very learned man, Monsieur.” - -“Oh no,” answered the Councillor, “I can only join in conversation on -this topic and on that, as indeed one must do according to the demands -of the world at present.” - -“Modestia is a fine virtue,” continued the gentleman; “however, as to -your speech, I must say mihi secus videtur: yet I am willing to suspend -my judicium.” - -“May I ask with whom I have the pleasure of speaking?” asked the -Councillor. - -“I am a Bachelor in Theologia,” answered the gentleman with a stiff -reverence. - -This reply fully satisfied the Councillor; the title suited the dress. -“He is certainly,” thought he, “some village schoolmaster--some queer -old fellow, such as one still often meets with in Jutland.” - -“This is no locus docendi, it is true,” began the clerical gentleman; -“yet I beg you earnestly to let us profit by your learning. Your reading -in the ancients is, sine dubio, of vast extent?” - -“Oh yes, I've read something, to be sure,” replied the Councillor. “I -like reading all useful works; but I do not on that account despise the -modern ones; 'tis only the unfortunate 'Tales of Every-day Life' that I -cannot bear--we have enough and more than enough such in reality.” - -“'Tales of Every-day Life?'” said our Bachelor inquiringly. - -“I mean those new fangled novels, twisting and writhing themselves in -the dust of commonplace, which also expect to find a reading public.” - -“Oh,” exclaimed the clerical gentleman smiling, “there is much wit in -them; besides they are read at court. The King likes the history of Sir -Iffven and Sir Gaudian particularly, which treats of King Arthur, and -his Knights of the Round Table; he has more than once joked about it -with his high vassals.” - -“I have not read that novel,” said the Councillor; “it must be quite a -new one, that Heiberg has published lately.” - -“No,” answered the theologian of the time of King Hans: “that book is -not written by a Heiberg, but was imprinted by Godfrey von Gehmen.” - -“Oh, is that the author's name?” said the Councillor. “It is a very -old name, and, as well as I recollect, he was the first printer that -appeared in Denmark.” - -“Yes, he is our first printer,” replied the clerical gentleman hastily. - -So far all went on well. Some one of the worthy burghers now spoke of -the dreadful pestilence that had raged in the country a few years back, -meaning that of 1484. The Councillor imagined it was the cholera that -was meant, which people made so much fuss about; and the discourse -passed off satisfactorily enough. The war of the buccaneers of 1490 was -so recent that it could not fail being alluded to; the English -pirates had, they said, most shamefully taken their ships while in the -roadstead; and the Councillor, before whose eyes the Herostratic [*] -event of 1801 still floated vividly, agreed entirely with the others in -abusing the rascally English. With other topics he was not so fortunate; -every moment brought about some new confusion, and threatened to become -a perfect Babel; for the worthy Bachelor was really too ignorant, and -the simplest observations of the Councillor sounded to him too daring -and phantastical. They looked at one another from the crown of the head -to the soles of the feet; and when matters grew to too high a -pitch, then the Bachelor talked Latin, in the hope of being better -understood--but it was of no use after all. - - * Herostratus, or Eratostratus--an Ephesian, who wantonly - set fire to the famous temple of Diana, in order to - commemorate his name by so uncommon an action. - -“What's the matter?” asked the Hostess, plucking the Councillor by the -sleeve; and now his recollection returned, for in the course of the -conversation he had entirely forgotten all that had preceded it. - -“Merciful God, where am I!” exclaimed he in agony; and while he so -thought, all his ideas and feelings of overpowering dizziness, against -which he struggled with the utmost power of desperation, encompassed -him with renewed force. “Let us drink claret and mead, and Bremen beer,” - shouted one of the guests--“and you shall drink with us!” - -Two maidens approached. One wore a cap of two staring colors, denoting -the class of persons to which she belonged. They poured out the liquor, -and made the most friendly gesticulations; while a cold perspiration -trickled down the back of the poor Councillor. - -“What's to be the end of this! What's to become of me!” groaned he; but -he was forced, in spite of his opposition, to drink with the rest. They -took hold of the worthy man; who, hearing on every side that he was -intoxicated, did not in the least doubt the truth of this certainly -not very polite assertion; but on the contrary, implored the ladies -and gentlemen present to procure him a hackney-coach: they, however, -imagined he was talking Russian. - -Never before, he thought, had he been in such a coarse and ignorant -company; one might almost fancy the people had turned heathens again. -“It is the most dreadful moment of my life: the whole world is leagued -against me!” But suddenly it occurred to him that he might stoop down -under the table, and then creep unobserved out of the door. He did so; -but just as he was going, the others remarked what he was about; they -laid hold of him by the legs; and now, happily for him, off fell his -fatal shoes--and with them the charm was at an end. - -The Councillor saw quite distinctly before him a lantern burning, and -behind this a large handsome house. All seemed to him in proper order as -usual; it was East Street, splendid and elegant as we now see it. He lay -with his feet towards a doorway, and exactly opposite sat the watchman -asleep. - -“Gracious Heaven!” said he. “Have I lain here in the street and dreamed? -Yes; 'tis East Street! How splendid and light it is! But really it is -terrible what an effect that one glass of punch must have had on me!” - -Two minutes later, he was sitting in a hackney-coach and driving to -Frederickshafen. He thought of the distress and agony he had endured, -and praised from the very bottom of his heart the happy reality--our own -time--which, with all its deficiencies, is yet much better than that in -which, so much against his inclination, he had lately been. - - -III. The Watchman's Adventure - -“Why, there is a pair of galoshes, as sure as I'm alive!” said the -watchman, awaking from a gentle slumber. “They belong no doubt to the -lieutenant who lives over the way. They lie close to the door.” - -The worthy man was inclined to ring and deliver them at the house, for -there was still a light in the window; but he did not like disturbing -the other people in their beds, and so very considerately he left the -matter alone. - -“Such a pair of shoes must be very warm and comfortable,” said he; “the -leather is so soft and supple.” They fitted his feet as though they -had been made for him. “'Tis a curious world we live in,” continued he, -soliloquizing. “There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to -bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease; -but does he do it? No; he saunters up and down his room, because, -probably, he has enjoyed too many of the good things of this world at -his dinner. That's a happy fellow! He has neither an infirm mother, nor -a whole troop of everlastingly hungry children to torment him. Every -evening he goes to a party, where his nice supper costs him nothing: -would to Heaven I could but change with him! How happy should I be!” - -While expressing his wish, the charm of the shoes, which he had put on, -began to work; the watchman entered into the being and nature of the -lieutenant. He stood in the handsomely furnished apartment, and held -between his fingers a small sheet of rose-colored paper, on which some -verses were written--written indeed by the officer himself; for who has -not, at least once in his life, had a lyrical moment? And if one then -marks down one's thoughts, poetry is produced. But here was written: - - OH, WERE I RICH! - - “Oh, were I rich! Such was my wish, yea such - When hardly three feet high, I longed for much. - Oh, were I rich! an officer were I, - With sword, and uniform, and plume so high. - And the time came, and officer was I! - But yet I grew not rich. Alas, poor me! - Have pity, Thou, who all man's wants dost see. - - “I sat one evening sunk in dreams of bliss, - A maid of seven years old gave me a kiss, - I at that time was rich in poesy - And tales of old, though poor as poor could be; - But all she asked for was this poesy. - Then was I rich, but not in gold, poor me! - As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see. - - “Oh, were I rich! Oft asked I for this boon. - The child grew up to womanhood full soon. - She is so pretty, clever, and so kind - Oh, did she know what's hidden in my mind-- - A tale of old. Would she to me were kind! - But I'm condemned to silence! oh, poor me! - As Thou dost know, who all men's hearts canst see. - - “Oh, were I rich in calm and peace of mind, - My grief you then would not here written find! - O thou, to whom I do my heart devote, - Oh read this page of glad days now remote, - A dark, dark tale, which I tonight devote! - Dark is the future now. Alas, poor me! - Have pity Thou, who all men's pains dost see.” - -Such verses as these people write when they are in love! But no man -in his senses ever thinks of printing them. Here one of the sorrows of -life, in which there is real poetry, gave itself vent; not that -barren grief which the poet may only hint at, but never depict in its -detail--misery and want: that animal necessity, in short, to snatch -at least at a fallen leaf of the bread-fruit tree, if not at the fruit -itself. The higher the position in which one finds oneself transplanted, -the greater is the suffering. Everyday necessity is the stagnant pool of -life--no lovely picture reflects itself therein. Lieutenant, love, and -lack of money--that is a symbolic triangle, or much the same as the -half of the shattered die of Fortune. This the lieutenant felt most -poignantly, and this was the reason he leant his head against the -window, and sighed so deeply. - -“The poor watchman out there in the street is far happier than I. He -knows not what I term privation. He has a home, a wife, and children, -who weep with him over his sorrows, who rejoice with him when he is -glad. Oh, far happier were I, could I exchange with him my being--with -his desires and with his hopes perform the weary pilgrimage of life! Oh, -he is a hundred times happier than I!” - -In the same moment the watchman was again watchman. It was the shoes -that caused the metamorphosis by means of which, unknown to himself, he -took upon him the thoughts and feelings of the officer; but, as we have -just seen, he felt himself in his new situation much less contented, -and now preferred the very thing which but some minutes before he had -rejected. So then the watchman was again watchman. - -“That was an unpleasant dream,” said he; “but 'twas droll enough -altogether. I fancied that I was the lieutenant over there: and yet -the thing was not very much to my taste after all. I missed my good old -mother and the dear little ones; who almost tear me to pieces for sheer -love.” - -He seated himself once more and nodded: the dream continued to haunt -him, for he still had the shoes on his feet. A falling star shone in the -dark firmament. - -“There falls another star,” said he: “but what does it matter; there -are always enough left. I should not much mind examining the little -glimmering things somewhat nearer, especially the moon; for that would -not slip so easily through a man's fingers. When we die--so at least -says the student, for whom my wife does the washing--we shall fly about -as light as a feather from one such a star to the other. That's, of -course, not true: but 'twould be pretty enough if it were so. If I could -but once take a leap up there, my body might stay here on the steps for -what I care.” - -Behold--there are certain things in the world to which one ought never -to give utterance except with the greatest caution; but doubly careful -must one be when we have the Shoes of Fortune on our feet. Now just -listen to what happened to the watchman. - -As to ourselves, we all know the speed produced by the employment of -steam; we have experienced it either on railroads, or in boats when -crossing the sea; but such a flight is like the travelling of a sloth in -comparison with the velocity with which light moves. It flies nineteen -million times faster than the best race-horse; and yet electricity is -quicker still. Death is an electric shock which our heart receives; the -freed soul soars upwards on the wings of electricity. The sun's light -wants eight minutes and some seconds to perform a journey of more than -twenty million of our Danish [*] miles; borne by electricity, the soul -wants even some minutes less to accomplish the same flight. To it the -space between the heavenly bodies is not greater than the distance -between the homes of our friends in town is for us, even if they live a -short way from each other; such an electric shock in the heart, however, -costs us the use of the body here below; unless, like the watchman of -East Street, we happen to have on the Shoes of Fortune. - - * A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English. - - -In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our -miles up to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of -matter much lighter than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft -as newly-fallen snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent -mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's -“Map of the Moon.” Within, down it sunk perpendicularly into a caldron, -about a Danish mile in depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance -we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white of -an egg in a glass of water. The matter of which it was built was just as -soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars, transparent and -rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was rolling like -a large fiery ball. - -He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what -we call “men”; yet they looked different to us. A far more correct -imagination than that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and -if they had been placed in rank and file, and copied by some skilful -painter's hand, one would, without doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily, -“What a beautiful arabesque!” - -*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said -to be by Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its -inhabitants, written with such a semblance of truth that many were -deceived by the imposture. - -Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard -A. Locke, and originally published in New York. - - -They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of -the watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend -it; for in our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor -mortals, despite all our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she -not show us--she the queen in the land of enchantment--her astounding -dramatic talent in all our dreams? There every acquaintance appears and -speaks upon the stage, so entirely in character, and with the same tone -of voice, that none of us, when awake, were able to imitate it. How -well can she recall persons to our mind, of whom we have not thought for -years; when suddenly they step forth “every inch a man,” resembling the -real personages, even to the finest features, and become the heroes -or heroines of our world of dreams. In reality, such remembrances are -rather unpleasant: every sin, every evil thought, may, like a clock with -alarm or chimes, be repeated at pleasure; then the question is if we can -trust ourselves to give an account of every unbecoming word in our heart -and on our lips. - -The watchman's spirit understood the language of the inhabitants of the -moon pretty well. The Selenites* disputed variously about our earth, -and expressed their doubts if it could be inhabited: the air, they said, -must certainly be too dense to allow any rational dweller in the moon -the necessary free respiration. They considered the moon alone to -be inhabited: they imagined it was the real heart of the universe or -planetary system, on which the genuine Cosmopolites, or citizens of the -world, dwelt. What strange things men--no, what strange things Selenites -sometimes take into their heads! - -* Dwellers in the moon. - - -About politics they had a good deal to say. But little Denmark must -take care what it is about, and not run counter to the moon; that -great realm, that might in an ill-humor bestir itself, and dash down a -hail-storm in our faces, or force the Baltic to overflow the sides of -its gigantic basin. - -We will, therefore, not listen to what was spoken, and on no condition -run in the possibility of telling tales out of school; but we will -rather proceed, like good quiet citizens, to East Street, and observe -what happened meanwhile to the body of the watchman. - -He sat lifeless on the steps: the morning-star,* that is to say, the -heavy wooden staff, headed with iron spikes, and which had nothing else -in common with its sparkling brother in the sky, had glided from his -hand; while his eyes were fixed with glassy stare on the moon, looking -for the good old fellow of a spirit which still haunted it. - -*The watchmen in Germany, had formerly, and in some places they still -carry with them, on their rounds at night, a sort of mace or club, known -in ancient times by the above denomination. - - -“What's the hour, watchman?” asked a passer-by. But when the watchman -gave no reply, the merry roysterer, who was now returning home from a -noisy drinking bout, took it into his head to try what a tweak of the -nose would do, on which the supposed sleeper lost his balance, the body -lay motionless, stretched out on the pavement: the man was dead. When -the patrol came up, all his comrades, who comprehended nothing of the -whole affair, were seized with a dreadful fright, for dead he was, -and he remained so. The proper authorities were informed of the -circumstance, people talked a good deal about it, and in the morning the -body was carried to the hospital. - -Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back -and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. No doubt -it would, in its anxiety, run off to the police, and then to the -“Hue and Cry” office, to announce that “the finder will be handsomely -rewarded,” and at last away to the hospital; yet we may boldly assert -that the soul is shrewdest when it shakes off every fetter, and every -sort of leading-string--the body only makes it stupid. - -The seemingly dead body of the watchman wandered, as we have said, to -the hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room: -and the first thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the -galoshes--when the spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must -have returned with the quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement. -It took its direction towards the body in a straight line; and a few -seconds after, life began to show itself in the man. He asserted that -the preceding night had been the worst that ever the malice of fate had -allotted him; he would not for two silver marks again go through what he -had endured while moon-stricken; but now, however, it was over. - -The same day he was discharged from the hospital as perfectly cured; but -the Shoes meanwhile remained behind. - - -IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's “Dramatic Readings”--A -Most Strange Journey - -Every inhabitant of Copenhagen knows, from personal inspection, how -the entrance to Frederick's Hospital looks; but as it is possible that -others, who are not Copenhagen people, may also read this little work, -we will beforehand give a short description of it. - -The extensive building is separated from the street by a pretty high -railing, the thick iron bars of which are so far apart, that in -all seriousness, it is said, some very thin fellow had of a night -occasionally squeezed himself through to go and pay his little visits -in the town. The part of the body most difficult to manage on such -occasions was, no doubt, the head; here, as is so often the case in -the world, long-headed people get through best. So much, then, for the -introduction. - -One of the young men, whose head, in a physical sense only, might be -said to be of the thickest, had the watch that evening. The rain poured -down in torrents; yet despite these two obstacles, the young man was -obliged to go out, if it were but for a quarter of an hour; and as -to telling the door-keeper about it, that, he thought, was quite -unnecessary, if, with a whole skin, he were able to slip through the -railings. There, on the floor lay the galoshes, which the watchman -had forgotten; he never dreamed for a moment that they were those of -Fortune; and they promised to do him good service in the wet; so he put -them on. The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the -grating, for he had never tried before. Well, there he stood. - -“Would to Heaven I had got my head through!” said he, involuntarily; and -instantly through it slipped, easily and without pain, notwithstanding -it was pretty large and thick. But now the rest of the body was to be -got through! - -“Ah! I am much too stout,” groaned he aloud, while fixed as in a vice. -“I had thought the head was the most difficult part of the matter--oh! -oh! I really cannot squeeze myself through!” - -He now wanted to pull his over-hasty head back again, but he could not. -For his neck there was room enough, but for nothing more. His first -feeling was of anger; his next that his temper fell to zero. The -Shoes of Fortune had placed him in the most dreadful situation; and, -unfortunately, it never occurred to him to wish himself free. The -pitch-black clouds poured down their contents in still heavier torrents; -not a creature was to be seen in the streets. To reach up to the bell -was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help would have availed him -little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be found caught in a -trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself through! He saw -clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner till -dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith must be -fetched to file away the bars; but all that would not be done so quickly -as he could think about it. The whole Charity School, just opposite, -would be in motion; all the new booths, with their not very -courtier-like swarm of seamen, would join them out of curiosity, and -would greet him with a wild “hurrah!” while he was standing in his -pillory: there would be a mob, a hissing, and rejoicing, and jeering, -ten times worse than in the rows about the Jews some years ago--“Oh, my -blood is mounting to my brain; 'tis enough to drive one mad! I shall go -wild! I know not what to do. Oh! were I but loose; my dizziness would -then cease; oh, were my head but loose!” - -You see he ought to have said that sooner; for the moment he expressed -the wish his head was free; and cured of all his paroxysms of love, he -hastened off to his room, where the pains consequent on the fright the -Shoes had prepared for him, did not so soon take their leave. - -But you must not think that the affair is over now; it grows much worse. - -The night passed, the next day also; but nobody came to fetch the Shoes. - -In the evening “Dramatic Readings” were to be given at the little -theatre in King Street. The house was filled to suffocation; and among -other pieces to be recited was a new poem by H. C. Andersen, called, My -Aunt's Spectacles; the contents of which were pretty nearly as follows: - -“A certain person had an aunt, who boasted of particular skill in -fortune-telling with cards, and who was constantly being stormed by -persons that wanted to have a peep into futurity. But she was full of -mystery about her art, in which a certain pair of magic spectacles -did her essential service. Her nephew, a merry boy, who was his aunt's -darling, begged so long for these spectacles, that, at last, she lent -him the treasure, after having informed him, with many exhortations, -that in order to execute the interesting trick, he need only repair to -some place where a great many persons were assembled; and then, from a -higher position, whence he could overlook the crowd, pass the company in -review before him through his spectacles. Immediately 'the inner man' of -each individual would be displayed before him, like a game of cards, in -which he unerringly might read what the future of every person presented -was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the -powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more -fitted for such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience, -and set his spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents -itself before him, which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet -without expressing his opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set -them all thinking and guessing; but in order to hurt nobody, he wraps -his witty oracular judgments in a transparent veil, or rather in a lurid -thundercloud, shooting forth bright sparks of wit, that they may fall in -the powder-magazine of the expectant audience.” - -The humorous poem was admirably recited, and the speaker much applauded. -Among the audience was the young man of the hospital, who seemed to have -forgotten his adventure of the preceding night. He had on the Shoes; for -as yet no lawful owner had appeared to claim them; and besides it was so -very dirty out-of-doors, they were just the thing for him, he thought. - -The beginning of the poem he praised with great generosity: he even -found the idea original and effective. But that the end of it, like the -Rhine, was very insignificant, proved, in his opinion, the author's -want of invention; he was without genius, etc. This was an excellent -opportunity to have said something clever. - -Meanwhile he was haunted by the idea--he should like to possess such a -pair of spectacles himself; then, perhaps, by using them circumspectly, -one would be able to look into people's hearts, which, he thought, would -be far more interesting than merely to see what was to happen next year; -for that we should all know in proper time, but the other never. - -“I can now,” said he to himself, “fancy the whole row of ladies and -gentlemen sitting there in the front row; if one could but see into -their hearts--yes, that would be a revelation--a sort of bazar. In that -lady yonder, so strangely dressed, I should find for certain a large -milliner's shop; in that one the shop is empty, but it wants cleaning -plain enough. But there would also be some good stately shops among -them. Alas!” sighed he, “I know one in which all is stately; but there -sits already a spruce young shopman, which is the only thing that's -amiss in the whole shop. All would be splendidly decked out, and we -should hear, 'Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in; here you will find all -you please to want.' Ah! I wish to Heaven I could walk in and take a -trip right through the hearts of those present!” - -And behold! to the Shoes of Fortune this was the cue; the whole man -shrunk together and a most uncommon journey through the hearts of the -front row of spectators, now began. The first heart through which he -came, was that of a middle-aged lady, but he instantly fancied himself -in the room of the “Institution for the cure of the crooked and -deformed,” where casts of mis-shapen limbs are displayed in naked -reality on the wall. Yet there was this difference, in the institution -the casts were taken at the entry of the patient; but here they were -retained and guarded in the heart while the sound persons went away. -They were, namely, casts of female friends, whose bodily or mental -deformities were here most faithfully preserved. - -With the snake-like writhings of an idea he glided into another female -heart; but this seemed to him like a large holy fane. [*] The white dove of -innocence fluttered over the altar. How gladly would he have sunk upon -his knees; but he must away to the next heart; yet he still heard the -pealing tones of the organ, and he himself seemed to have become a newer -and a better man; he felt unworthy to tread the neighboring sanctuary -which a poor garret, with a sick bed-rid mother, revealed. But God's -warm sun streamed through the open window; lovely roses nodded from -the wooden flower-boxes on the roof, and two sky-blue birds sang -rejoicingly, while the sick mother implored God's richest blessings on -her pious daughter. - - * temple - - -He now crept on hands and feet through a butcher's shop; at least on -every side, and above and below, there was nought but flesh. It was the -heart of a most respectable rich man, whose name is certain to be found -in the Directory. - -He was now in the heart of the wife of this worthy gentleman. It was an -old, dilapidated, mouldering dovecot. The husband's portrait was used as -a weather-cock, which was connected in some way or other with the doors, -and so they opened and shut of their own accord, whenever the stern old -husband turned round. - -Hereupon he wandered into a boudoir formed entirely of mirrors, like -the one in Castle Rosenburg; but here the glasses magnified to an -astonishing degree. On the floor, in the middle of the room, sat, like a -Dalai-Lama, the insignificant “Self” of the person, quite confounded at -his own greatness. He then imagined he had got into a needle-case full -of pointed needles of every size. - -“This is certainly the heart of an old maid,” thought he. But he was -mistaken. It was the heart of a young military man; a man, as people -said, of talent and feeling. - -In the greatest perplexity, he now came out of the last heart in the -row; he was unable to put his thoughts in order, and fancied that his -too lively imagination had run away with him. - -“Good Heavens!” sighed he. “I have surely a disposition to madness--'tis -dreadfully hot here; my blood boils in my veins and my head is burning -like a coal.” And he now remembered the important event of the evening -before, how his head had got jammed in between the iron railings of the -hospital. “That's what it is, no doubt,” said he. “I must do something -in time: under such circumstances a Russian bath might do me good. I -only wish I were already on the upper bank.” [*] - - *In these Russian (vapor) baths the person extends himself - on a bank or form, and as he gets accustomed to the heat, - moves to another higher up towards the ceiling, where, of - course, the vapor is warmest. In this manner he ascends - gradually to the highest. - -And so there he lay on the uppermost bank in the vapor-bath; but with -all his clothes on, in his boots and galoshes, while the hot drops fell -scalding from the ceiling on his face. - -“Holloa!” cried he, leaping down. The bathing attendant, on his side, -uttered a loud cry of astonishment when he beheld in the bath, a man -completely dressed. - -The other, however, retained sufficient presence of mind to whisper to -him, “'Tis a bet, and I have won it!” But the first thing he did as soon -as he got home, was to have a large blister put on his chest and back to -draw out his madness. - -The next morning he had a sore chest and a bleeding back; and, excepting -the fright, that was all that he had gained by the Shoes of Fortune. - - -V. Metamorphosis of the Copying-Clerk - -The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile -of the galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now -went to fetch them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in -the street, claimed them as his property, they were delivered over to -the police-office.* - -*As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal, -but any circumstance, however trifling, is reduced to writing, the -labor, as well as the number of papers that thus accumulate, is -enormous. In a police-office, consequently, we find copying-clerks among -many other scribes of various denominations, of which, it seems, our -hero was one. - - -“Why, I declare the Shoes look just like my own,” said one of the -clerks, eying the newly-found treasure, whose hidden powers, even he, -sharp as he was, was not able to discover. “One must have more than -the eye of a shoemaker to know one pair from the other,” said he, -soliloquizing; and putting, at the same time, the galoshes in search of -an owner, beside his own in the corner. - -“Here, sir!” said one of the men, who panting brought him a tremendous -pile of papers. - -The copying-clerk turned round and spoke awhile with the man about the -reports and legal documents in question; but when he had finished, and -his eye fell again on the Shoes, he was unable to say whether those to -the left or those to the right belonged to him. “At all events it must -be those which are wet,” thought he; but this time, in spite of his -cleverness, he guessed quite wrong, for it was just those of Fortune -which played as it were into his hands, or rather on his feet. And why, -I should like to know, are the police never to be wrong? So he put them -on quickly, stuck his papers in his pocket, and took besides a few under -his arm, intending to look them through at home to make the necessary -notes. It was noon; and the weather, that had threatened rain, began -to clear up, while gaily dressed holiday folks filled the streets. “A -little trip to Fredericksburg would do me no great harm,” thought he; -“for I, poor beast of burden that I am, have so much to annoy me, that I -don't know what a good appetite is. 'Tis a bitter crust, alas! at which -I am condemned to gnaw!” - -Nobody could be more steady or quiet than this young man; we therefore -wish him joy of the excursion with all our heart; and it will certainly -be beneficial for a person who leads so sedentary a life. In the park -he met a friend, one of our young poets, who told him that the following -day he should set out on his long-intended tour. - -“So you are going away again!” said the clerk. “You are a very free -and happy being; we others are chained by the leg and held fast to our -desk.” - -“Yes; but it is a chain, friend, which ensures you the blessed bread -of existence,” answered the poet. “You need feel no care for the coming -morrow: when you are old, you receive a pension.” - -“True,” said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders; “and yet you are -the better off. To sit at one's ease and poetise--that is a pleasure; -everybody has something agreeable to say to you, and you are always your -own master. No, friend, you should but try what it is to sit from one -year's end to the other occupied with and judging the most trivial -matters.” - -The poet shook his head, the copying-clerk did the same. Each one kept -to his own opinion, and so they separated. - -“It's a strange race, those poets!” said the clerk, who was very fond of -soliloquizing. “I should like some day, just for a trial, to take such -nature upon me, and be a poet myself; I am very sure I should make -no such miserable verses as the others. Today, methinks, is a most -delicious day for a poet. Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening -into life. The air is so unusually clear, the clouds sail on so -buoyantly, and from the green herbage a fragrance is exhaled that fills -me with delight. For many a year have I not felt as at this moment.” - -We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is become a poet; to -give further proof of it, however, would in most cases be insipid, for -it is a most foolish notion to fancy a poet different from other men. -Among the latter there may be far more poetical natures than many an -acknowledged poet, when examined more closely, could boast of; the -difference only is, that the poet possesses a better mental memory, on -which account he is able to retain the feeling and the thought till they -can be embodied by means of words; a faculty which the others do not -possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature to one that is -richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap over a -certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden -change with the clerk strike the reader. - -“The sweet air!” continued he of the police-office, in his dreamy -imaginings; “how it reminds me of the violets in the garden of my aunt -Magdalena! Yes, then I was a little wild boy, who did not go to school -very regularly. O heavens! 'tis a long time since I have thought on -those times. The good old soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She -always had a few twigs or green shoots in water--let the winter rage -without as it might. The violets exhaled their sweet breath, whilst I -pressed against the windowpanes covered with fantastic frost-work the -copper coin I had heated on the stove, and so made peep-holes. -What splendid vistas were then opened to my view! What change--what -magnificence! Yonder in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted -by their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole occupant. But -when the spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival, -a new and busy life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn -asunder, the ships were fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail -away to distant lands. But I have remained here--must always remain -here, sitting at my desk in the office, and patiently see other people -fetch their passports to go abroad. Such is my fate! Alas!”--sighed he, -and was again silent. “Great Heaven! What is come to me! Never have I -thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air that affects -me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing.” - -He felt in his pocket for the papers. “These police-reports will soon -stem the torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious -overflowing of the time-worn banks of official duties”; he said to -himself consolingly, while his eye ran over the first page. “DAME -TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts.” “What is that? And yet it is undeniably -my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy? Wonderful, very -wonderful!--And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE RAMPARTS; or -THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with new songs to the most favorite -airs.' The deuce! Where did I get all this rubbish? Some one must have -slipped it slyly into my pocket for a joke. There is too a letter to me; -a crumpled letter and the seal broken.” - -Yes; it was not a very polite epistle from the manager of a theatre, in -which both pieces were flatly refused. - -“Hem! hem!” said the clerk breathlessly, and quite exhausted he seated -himself on a bank. His thoughts were so elastic, his heart so tender; -and involuntarily he picked one of the nearest flowers. It is a simple -daisy, just bursting out of the bud. What the botanist tells us after -a number of imperfect lectures, the flower proclaimed in a minute. It -related the mythus of its birth, told of the power of the sun-light that -spread out its delicate leaves, and forced them to impregnate the air -with their incense--and then he thought of the manifold struggles of -life, which in like manner awaken the budding flowers of feeling in our -bosom. Light and air contend with chivalric emulation for the love of -the fair flower that bestowed her chief favors on the latter; full of -longing she turned towards the light, and as soon as it vanished, rolled -her tender leaves together and slept in the embraces of the air. “It is -the light which adorns me,” said the flower. - -“But 'tis the air which enables thee to breathe,” said the poet's voice. - -Close by stood a boy who dashed his stick into a wet ditch. The drops of -water splashed up to the green leafy roof, and the clerk thought of the -million of ephemera which in a single drop were thrown up to a height, -that was as great doubtless for their size, as for us if we were to -be hurled above the clouds. While he thought of this and of the whole -metamorphosis he had undergone, he smiled and said, “I sleep and dream; -but it is wonderful how one can dream so naturally, and know besides so -exactly that it is but a dream. If only to-morrow on awaking, I could -again call all to mind so vividly! I seem in unusually good spirits; my -perception of things is clear, I feel as light and cheerful as though -I were in heaven; but I know for a certainty, that if to-morrow a dim -remembrance of it should swim before my mind, it will then seem nothing -but stupid nonsense, as I have often experienced already--especially -before I enlisted under the banner of the police, for that dispels like -a whirlwind all the visions of an unfettered imagination. All we hear -or say in a dream that is fair and beautiful is like the gold of the -subterranean spirits; it is rich and splendid when it is given us, but -viewed by daylight we find only withered leaves. Alas!” he sighed quite -sorrowful, and gazed at the chirping birds that hopped contentedly from -branch to branch, “they are much better off than I! To fly must be a -heavenly art; and happy do I prize that creature in which it is innate. -Yes! Could I exchange my nature with any other creature, I fain would be -such a happy little lark!” - -He had hardly uttered these hasty words when the skirts and sleeves -of his coat folded themselves together into wings; the clothes became -feathers, and the galoshes claws. He observed it perfectly, and laughed -in his heart. “Now then, there is no doubt that I am dreaming; but I -never before was aware of such mad freaks as these.” And up he flew into -the green roof and sang; but in the song there was no poetry, for the -spirit of the poet was gone. The Shoes, as is the case with anybody who -does what he has to do properly, could only attend to one thing at a -time. He wanted to be a poet, and he was one; he now wished to be a -merry chirping bird: but when he was metamorphosed into one, the former -peculiarities ceased immediately. “It is really pleasant enough,” said -he: “the whole day long I sit in the office amid the driest -law-papers, and at night I fly in my dream as a lark in the gardens of -Fredericksburg; one might really write a very pretty comedy upon it.” He -now fluttered down into the grass, turned his head gracefully on every -side, and with his bill pecked the pliant blades of grass, which, in -comparison to his present size, seemed as majestic as the palm-branches -of northern Africa. - -Unfortunately the pleasure lasted but a moment. Presently black night -overshadowed our enthusiast, who had so entirely missed his part of -copying-clerk at a police-office; some vast object seemed to be thrown -over him. It was a large oil-skin cap, which a sailor-boy of the quay -had thrown over the struggling bird; a coarse hand sought its way -carefully in under the broad rim, and seized the clerk over the back -and wings. In the first moment of fear, he called, indeed, as loud as -he could--“You impudent little blackguard! I am a copying-clerk at -the police-office; and you know you cannot insult any belonging to the -constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you good-for-nothing -rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch birds in the royal gardens of -Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where you come from.” - This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere -“Pippi-pi.” He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak, and walked on. - -He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper class--that is to say as -individuals, for with regard to learning they were in the lowest class -in the school; and they bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk -came to Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family living in -Gother Street. - -“'Tis well that I'm dreaming,” said the clerk, “or I really should get -angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few pence as a lark; no doubt -it was that accursed poetical nature which has metamorphosed me -into such a poor harmless little creature. It is really pitiable, -particularly when one gets into the hands of a little blackguard, -perfect in all sorts of cruelty to animals: all I should like to know -is, how the story will end.” - -The two schoolboys, the proprietors now of the transformed clerk, -carried him into an elegant room. A stout stately dame received them -with a smile; but she expressed much dissatisfaction that a common -field-bird, as she called the lark, should appear in such high society. -For to-day, however, she would allow it; and they must shut him in the -empty cage that was standing in the window. “Perhaps he will amuse my -good Polly,” added the lady, looking with a benignant smile at a large -green parrot that swung himself backwards and forwards most comfortably -in his ring, inside a magnificent brass-wired cage. “To-day is Polly's -birthday,” said she with stupid simplicity: “and the little brown -field-bird must wish him joy.” - -Mr. Polly uttered not a syllable in reply, but swung to and fro with -dignified condescension; while a pretty canary, as yellow as gold, that -had lately been brought from his sunny fragrant home, began to sing -aloud. - -“Noisy creature! Will you be quiet!” screamed the lady of the house, -covering the cage with an embroidered white pocket handkerchief. - -“Chirp, chirp!” sighed he. “That was a dreadful snowstorm”; and he -sighed again, and was silent. - -The copying-clerk, or, as the lady said, the brown field-bird, was -put into a small cage, close to the Canary, and not far from “my good -Polly.” The only human sounds that the Parrot could bawl out -were, “Come, let us be men!” Everything else that he said was as -unintelligible to everybody as the chirping of the Canary, except to the -clerk, who was now a bird too: he understood his companion perfectly. - -“I flew about beneath the green palms and the blossoming almond-trees,” - sang the Canary; “I flew around, with my brothers and sisters, over -the beautiful flowers, and over the glassy lakes, where the bright -water-plants nodded to me from below. There, too, I saw many -splendidly-dressed paroquets, that told the drollest stories, and the -wildest fairy tales without end.” - -“Oh! those were uncouth birds,” answered the Parrot. “They had no -education, and talked of whatever came into their head. - -“If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you -too, I should think. It is a great fault to have no taste for what is -witty or amusing--come, let us be men.” - -“Ah, you have no remembrance of love for the charming maidens that -danced beneath the outspread tents beside the bright fragrant flowers? -Do you no longer remember the sweet fruits, and the cooling juice in -the wild plants of our never-to-be-forgotten home?” said the former -inhabitant of the Canary Isles, continuing his dithyrambic. - -“Oh, yes,” said the Parrot; “but I am far better off here. I am well -fed, and get friendly treatment. I know I am a clever fellow; and that -is all I care about. Come, let us be men. You are of a poetical nature, -as it is called--I, on the contrary, possess profound knowledge and -inexhaustible wit. You have genius; but clear-sighted, calm discretion -does not take such lofty flights, and utter such high natural tones. -For this they have covered you over--they never do the like to me; for -I cost more. Besides, they are afraid of my beak; and I have always a -witty answer at hand. Come, let us be men!” - -“O warm spicy land of my birth,” sang the Canary bird; “I will sing of -thy dark-green bowers, of the calm bays where the pendent boughs -kiss the surface of the water; I will sing of the rejoicing of all my -brothers and sisters where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance.” - -“Spare us your elegiac tones,” said the Parrot giggling. “Rather speak -of something at which one may laugh heartily. Laughing is an infallible -sign of the highest degree of mental development. Can a dog, or a horse -laugh? No, but they can cry. The gift of laughing was given to man -alone. Ha! ha! ha!” screamed Polly, and added his stereotype witticism. -“Come, let us be men!” - -“Poor little Danish grey-bird,” said the Canary; “you have been caught -too. It is, no doubt, cold enough in your woods, but there at least -is the breath of liberty; therefore fly away. In the hurry they have -forgotten to shut your cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, my -friend; fly away. Farewell!” - -Instinctively the Clerk obeyed; with a few strokes of his wings he was -out of the cage; but at the same moment the door, which was only ajar, -and which led to the next room, began to creak, and supple and creeping -came the large tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The -frightened Canary fluttered about in his cage; the Parrot flapped his -wings, and cried, “Come, let us be men!” The Clerk felt a mortal fright, -and flew through the window, far away over the houses and streets. At -last he was forced to rest a little. - -The neighboring house had a something familiar about it; a window stood -open; he flew in; it was his own room. He perched upon the table. - -“Come, let us be men!” said he, involuntarily imitating the chatter of -the Parrot, and at the same moment he was again a copying-clerk; but he -was sitting in the middle of the table. - -“Heaven help me!” cried he. “How did I get up here--and so buried in -sleep, too? After all, that was a very unpleasant, disagreeable dream -that haunted me! The whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!” - - -VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave - -The following day, early in the morning, while the Clerk was still in -bed, someone knocked at his door. It was his neighbor, a young Divine, -who lived on the same floor. He walked in. - -“Lend me your Galoshes,” said he; “it is so wet in the garden, though -the sun is shining most invitingly. I should like to go out a little.” - -He got the Galoshes, and he was soon below in a little duodecimo garden, -where between two immense walls a plumtree and an apple-tree were -standing. Even such a little garden as this was considered in the -metropolis of Copenhagen as a great luxury. - -The young man wandered up and down the narrow paths, as well as the -prescribed limits would allow; the clock struck six; without was heard -the horn of a post-boy. - -“To travel! to travel!” exclaimed he, overcome by most painful and -passionate remembrances. “That is the happiest thing in the world! That -is the highest aim of all my wishes! Then at last would the agonizing -restlessness be allayed, which destroys my existence! But it must be -far, far away! I would behold magnificent Switzerland; I would travel to -Italy, and--” - -It was a good thing that the power of the Galoshes worked as -instantaneously as lightning in a powder-magazine would do, otherwise -the poor man with his overstrained wishes would have travelled about -the world too much for himself as well as for us. In short, he was -travelling. He was in the middle of Switzerland, but packed up with -eight other passengers in the inside of an eternally-creaking diligence; -his head ached till it almost split, his weary neck could hardly bear -the heavy load, and his feet, pinched by his torturing boots, were -terribly swollen. He was in an intermediate state between sleeping and -waking; at variance with himself, with his company, with the country, -and with the government. In his right pocket he had his letter of -credit, in the left, his passport, and in a small leathern purse some -double louis d'or, carefully sewn up in the bosom of his waistcoat. -Every dream proclaimed that one or the other of these valuables was -lost; wherefore he started up as in a fever; and the first movement -which his hand made, described a magic triangle from the right pocket to -the left, and then up towards the bosom, to feel if he had them all safe -or not. From the roof inside the carriage, umbrellas, walking-sticks, -hats, and sundry other articles were depending, and hindered the view, -which was particularly imposing. He now endeavored as well as he -was able to dispel his gloom, which was caused by outward chance -circumstances merely, and on the bosom of nature imbibe the milk of -purest human enjoyment. - -Grand, solemn, and dark was the whole landscape around. The gigantic -pine-forests, on the pointed crags, seemed almost like little tufts of -heather, colored by the surrounding clouds. It began to snow, a cold -wind blew and roared as though it were seeking a bride. - -“Augh!” sighed he, “were we only on the other side the Alps, then we -should have summer, and I could get my letters of credit cashed. The -anxiety I feel about them prevents me enjoying Switzerland. Were I but -on the other side!” - -And so saying he was on the other side in Italy, between Florence and -Rome. Lake Thracymene, illumined by the evening sun, lay like flaming -gold between the dark-blue mountain-ridges; here, where Hannibal -defeated Flaminius, the rivers now held each other in their green -embraces; lovely, half-naked children tended a herd of black swine, -beneath a group of fragrant laurel-trees, hard by the road-side. -Could we render this inimitable picture properly, then would everybody -exclaim, “Beautiful, unparalleled Italy!” But neither the young Divine -said so, nor anyone of his grumbling companions in the coach of the -vetturino. - -The poisonous flies and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one -waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population -did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the -well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their -ravenous bites. The poor horses, tortured almost to death, suffered most -from this truly Egyptian plague; the flies alighted upon them in large -disgusting swarms; and if the coachman got down and scraped them off, -hardly a minute elapsed before they were there again. The sun now set: a -freezing cold, though of short duration pervaded the whole creation; -it was like a horrid gust coming from a burial-vault on a warm summer's -day--but all around the mountains retained that wonderful green tone -which we see in some old pictures, and which, should we not have seen a -similar play of color in the South, we declare at once to be unnatural. -It was a glorious prospect; but the stomach was empty, the body tired; -all that the heart cared and longed for was good night-quarters; yet -how would they be? For these one looked much more anxiously than for the -charms of nature, which every where were so profusely displayed. - -The road led through an olive-grove, and here the solitary inn was -situated. Ten or twelve crippled-beggars had encamped outside. The -healthiest of them resembled, to use an expression of Marryat's, -“Hunger's eldest son when he had come of age”; the others were either -blind, had withered legs and crept about on their hands, or withered -arms and fingerless hands. It was the most wretched misery, dragged -from among the filthiest rags. “Excellenza, miserabili!” sighed they, -thrusting forth their deformed limbs to view. Even the hostess, with -bare feet, uncombed hair, and dressed in a garment of doubtful color, -received the guests grumblingly. The doors were fastened with a loop of -string; the floor of the rooms presented a stone paving half torn -up; bats fluttered wildly about the ceiling; and as to the smell -therein--no--that was beyond description. - -“You had better lay the cloth below in the stable,” said one of the -travellers; “there, at all events, one knows what one is breathing.” - -The windows were quickly opened, to let in a little fresh air. Quicker, -however, than the breeze, the withered, sallow arms of the beggars were -thrust in, accompanied by the eternal whine of “Miserabili, miserabili, -excellenza!” On the walls were displayed innumerable inscriptions, -written in nearly every language of Europe, some in verse, some in -prose, most of them not very laudatory of “bella Italia.” - -The meal was served. It consisted of a soup of salted water, seasoned -with pepper and rancid oil. The last ingredient played a very prominent -part in the salad; stale eggs and roasted cocks'-combs furnished the -grand dish of the repast; the wine even was not without a disgusting -taste--it was like a medicinal draught. - -At night the boxes and other effects of the passengers were placed -against the rickety doors. One of the travellers kept watch while the -others slept. The sentry was our young Divine. How close it was in the -chamber! The heat oppressive to suffocation--the gnats hummed and stung -unceasingly--the “miserabili” without whined and moaned in their sleep. - -“Travelling would be agreeable enough,” said he groaning, “if one only -had no body, or could send it to rest while the spirit went on its -pilgrimage unhindered, whither the voice within might call it. Wherever -I go, I am pursued by a longing that is insatiable--that I cannot -explain to myself, and that tears my very heart. I want something better -than what is but what is fled in an instant. But what is it, and where -is it to be found? Yet, I know in reality what it is I wish for. Oh! -most happy were I, could I but reach one aim--could but reach the -happiest of all!” - -And as he spoke the word he was again in his home; the long white -curtains hung down from the windows, and in the middle of the floor -stood the black coffin; in it he lay in the sleep of death. His wish -was fulfilled--the body rested, while the spirit went unhindered on its -pilgrimage. “Let no one deem himself happy before his end,” were the -words of Solon; and here was a new and brilliant proof of the wisdom of -the old apothegm. - -Every corpse is a sphynx of immortality; here too on the black coffin -the sphynx gave us no answer to what he who lay within had written two -days before: - - “O mighty Death! thy silence teaches nought, - Thou leadest only to the near grave's brink; - Is broken now the ladder of my thoughts? - Do I instead of mounting only sink? - - Our heaviest grief the world oft seeth not, - Our sorest pain we hide from stranger eyes: - And for the sufferer there is nothing left - But the green mound that o'er the coffin lies.” - -Two figures were moving in the chamber. We knew them both; it was the -fairy of Care, and the emissary of Fortune. They both bent over the -corpse. - -“Do you now see,” said Care, “what happiness your Galoshes have brought -to mankind?” - -“To him, at least, who slumbers here, they have brought an imperishable -blessing,” answered the other. - -“Ah no!” replied Care. “He took his departure himself; he was not called -away. His mental powers here below were not strong enough to reach the -treasures lying beyond this life, and which his destiny ordained he -should obtain. I will now confer a benefit on him.” - -And she took the Galoshes from his feet; his sleep of death was ended; -and he who had been thus called back again to life arose from his -dread couch in all the vigor of youth. Care vanished, and with her the -Galoshes. She has no doubt taken them for herself, to keep them to all -eternity. - - - - -THE FIR TREE - -Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir Tree. The place he had was a -very good one: the sun shone on him: as to fresh air, there was enough -of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as -firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree. - -He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care -for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they -were in the woods looking for wild-strawberries. The children often came -with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on -a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, “Oh, how pretty he -is! What a nice little fir!” But this was what the Tree could not bear -to hear. - -At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year -he was another long bit taller; for with fir trees one can always tell -by the shoots how many years old they are. - -“Oh! Were I but such a high tree as the others are,” sighed he. “Then I -should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into -the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches: and -when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the -others!” - -Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds which morning -and evening sailed above him, gave the little Tree any pleasure. - -In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would -often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that -made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the Tree -was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. “To grow and -grow, to get older and be tall,” thought the Tree--“that, after all, is -the most delightful thing in the world!” - -In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled some of the largest -trees. This happened every year; and the young Fir Tree, that had now -grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent -great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were -lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be -recognised; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged -them out of the wood. - -Where did they go to? What became of them? - -In spring, when the swallows and the storks came, the Tree asked them, -“Don't you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them -anywhere?” - -The swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked -musing, nodded his head, and said, “Yes; I think I know; I met many -ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent -masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. -I may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most -majestically!” - -“Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea -look in reality? What is it like?” - -“That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with these -words off he went. - -“Rejoice in thy growth!” said the Sunbeams. “Rejoice in thy vigorous -growth, and in the fresh life that moveth within thee!” - -And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him; but the -Fir understood it not. - -When Christmas came, quite young trees were cut down: trees which often -were not even as large or of the same age as this Fir Tree, who could -never rest, but always wanted to be off. These young trees, and they -were always the finest looking, retained their branches; they were laid -on carts, and the horses drew them out of the wood. - -“Where are they going to?” asked the Fir. “They are not taller than -I; there was one indeed that was considerably shorter; and why do they -retain all their branches? Whither are they taken?” - -“We know! We know!” chirped the Sparrows. “We have peeped in at the -windows in the town below! We know whither they are taken! The greatest -splendor and the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them. We -peeped through the windows, and saw them planted in the middle of the -warm room and ornamented with the most splendid things, with gilded -apples, with gingerbread, with toys, and many hundred lights!” - -“And then?” asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough. “And then? -What happens then?” - -“We did not see anything more: it was incomparably beautiful.” - -“I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a career,” cried -the Tree, rejoicing. “That is still better than to cross the sea! What -a longing do I suffer! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my -branches spread like the others that were carried off last year! Oh! -were I but already on the cart! Were I in the warm room with all the -splendor and magnificence! Yes; then something better, something still -grander, will surely follow, or wherefore should they thus ornament me? -Something better, something still grander must follow--but what? Oh, how -I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with me!” - -“Rejoice in our presence!” said the Air and the Sunlight. “Rejoice in -thy own fresh youth!” - -But the Tree did not rejoice at all; he grew and grew, and was green -both winter and summer. People that saw him said, “What a fine tree!” - and towards Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe -struck deep into the very pith; the Tree fell to the earth with a sigh; -he felt a pang--it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness, -for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place -where he had sprung up. He well knew that he should never see his dear -old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him, anymore; perhaps -not even the birds! The departure was not at all agreeable. - -The Tree only came to himself when he was unloaded in a court-yard with -the other trees, and heard a man say, “That one is splendid! We don't -want the others.” Then two servants came in rich livery and carried the -Fir Tree into a large and splendid drawing-room. Portraits were hanging -on the walls, and near the white porcelain stove stood two large Chinese -vases with lions on the covers. There, too, were large easy-chairs, -silken sofas, large tables full of picture-books and full of toys, worth -hundreds and hundreds of crowns--at least the children said so. And the -Fir Tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with sand; but no -one could see that it was a cask, for green cloth was hung all round it, -and it stood on a large gaily-colored carpet. Oh! how the Tree quivered! -What was to happen? The servants, as well as the young ladies, decorated -it. On one branch there hung little nets cut out of colored paper, and -each net was filled with sugarplums; and among the other boughs gilded -apples and walnuts were suspended, looking as though they had grown -there, and little blue and white tapers were placed among the leaves. -Dolls that looked for all the world like men--the Tree had never beheld -such before--were seen among the foliage, and at the very top a -large star of gold tinsel was fixed. It was really splendid--beyond -description splendid. - -“This evening!” they all said. “How it will shine this evening!” - -“Oh!” thought the Tree. “If the evening were but come! If the tapers -were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other -trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will -beat against the windowpanes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and -winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!” - -He knew very much about the matter--but he was so impatient that for -sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the same -thing as a headache with us. - -The candles were now lighted--what brightness! What splendor! The -Tree trembled so in every bough that one of the tapers set fire to the -foliage. It blazed up famously. - -“Help! Help!” cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire. - -Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state he was in! He was -so uneasy lest he should lose something of his splendor, that he was -quite bewildered amidst the glare and brightness; when suddenly both -folding-doors opened and a troop of children rushed in as if they would -upset the Tree. The older persons followed quietly; the little ones -stood quite still. But it was only for a moment; then they shouted that -the whole place re-echoed with their rejoicing; they danced round the -Tree, and one present after the other was pulled off. - -“What are they about?” thought the Tree. “What is to happen now!” And -the lights burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down -they were put out one after the other, and then the children had -permission to plunder the Tree. So they fell upon it with such violence -that all its branches cracked; if it had not been fixed firmly in the -ground, it would certainly have tumbled down. - -The children danced about with their beautiful playthings; no one looked -at the Tree except the old nurse, who peeped between the branches; but -it was only to see if there was a fig or an apple left that had been -forgotten. - -“A story! A story!” cried the children, drawing a little fat man towards -the Tree. He seated himself under it and said, “Now we are in the shade, -and the Tree can listen too. But I shall tell only one story. Now which -will you have; that about Ivedy-Avedy, or about Humpy-Dumpy, who -tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne and married the -princess?” - -“Ivedy-Avedy,” cried some; “Humpy-Dumpy,” cried the others. There was -such a bawling and screaming--the Fir Tree alone was silent, and he -thought to himself, “Am I not to bawl with the rest? Am I to do nothing -whatever?” for he was one of the company, and had done what he had to -do. - -And the man told about Humpy-Dumpy that tumbled down, who -notwithstanding came to the throne, and at last married the princess. -And the children clapped their hands, and cried. “Oh, go on! Do go on!” - They wanted to hear about Ivedy-Avedy too, but the little man only told -them about Humpy-Dumpy. The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed -in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this. -“Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes! -That's the way of the world!” thought the Fir Tree, and believed it all, -because the man who told the story was so good-looking. “Well, well! who -knows, perhaps I may fall downstairs, too, and get a princess as wife!” - And he looked forward with joy to the morrow, when he hoped to be decked -out again with lights, playthings, fruits, and tinsel. - -“I won't tremble to-morrow!” thought the Fir Tree. “I will enjoy to -the full all my splendor! To-morrow I shall hear again the story of -Humpy-Dumpy, and perhaps that of Ivedy-Avedy too.” And the whole night -the Tree stood still and in deep thought. - -In the morning the servant and the housemaid came in. - -“Now then the splendor will begin again,” thought the Fir. But they -dragged him out of the room, and up the stairs into the loft: and here, -in a dark corner, where no daylight could enter, they left him. “What's -the meaning of this?” thought the Tree. “What am I to do here? What -shall I hear now, I wonder?” And he leaned against the wall lost in -reverie. Time enough had he too for his reflections; for days and nights -passed on, and nobody came up; and when at last somebody did come, it -was only to put some great trunks in a corner, out of the way. There -stood the Tree quite hidden; it seemed as if he had been entirely -forgotten. - -“'Tis now winter out-of-doors!” thought the Tree. “The earth is hard and -covered with snow; men cannot plant me now, and therefore I have been -put up here under shelter till the spring-time comes! How thoughtful -that is! How kind man is, after all! If it only were not so dark here, -and so terribly lonely! Not even a hare! And out in the woods it was -so pleasant, when the snow was on the ground, and the hare leaped by; -yes--even when he jumped over me; but I did not like it then! It is -really terribly lonely here!” - -“Squeak! Squeak!” said a little Mouse, at the same moment, peeping out -of his hole. And then another little one came. They snuffed about the -Fir Tree, and rustled among the branches. - -“It is dreadfully cold,” said the Mouse. “But for that, it would be -delightful here, old Fir, wouldn't it?” - -“I am by no means old,” said the Fir Tree. “There's many a one -considerably older than I am.” - -“Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?” They -were so extremely curious. “Tell us about the most beautiful spot on the -earth. Have you never been there? Were you never in the larder, where -cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above; where one dances -about on tallow candles: that place where one enters lean, and comes out -again fat and portly?” - -“I know no such place,” said the Tree. “But I know the wood, where the -sun shines and where the little birds sing.” And then he told all about -his youth; and the little Mice had never heard the like before; and they -listened and said, - -“Well, to be sure! How much you have seen! How happy you must have -been!” - -“I!” said the Fir Tree, thinking over what he had himself related. -“Yes, in reality those were happy times.” And then he told about -Christmas-eve, when he was decked out with cakes and candles. - -“Oh,” said the little Mice, “how fortunate you have been, old Fir Tree!” - -“I am by no means old,” said he. “I came from the wood this winter; I am -in my prime, and am only rather short for my age.” - -“What delightful stories you know,” said the Mice: and the next night -they came with four other little Mice, who were to hear what the Tree -recounted: and the more he related, the more he remembered himself; and -it appeared as if those times had really been happy times. “But they may -still come--they may still come! Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet -he got a princess!” and he thought at the moment of a nice little Birch -Tree growing out in the woods: to the Fir, that would be a real charming -princess. - -“Who is Humpy-Dumpy?” asked the Mice. So then the Fir Tree told the -whole fairy tale, for he could remember every single word of it; and the -little Mice jumped for joy up to the very top of the Tree. Next night -two more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even; but they said the -stories were not interesting, which vexed the little Mice; and they, -too, now began to think them not so very amusing either. - -“Do you know only one story?” asked the Rats. - -“Only that one,” answered the Tree. “I heard it on my happiest evening; -but I did not then know how happy I was.” - -“It is a very stupid story! Don't you know one about bacon and tallow -candles? Can't you tell any larder stories?” - -“No,” said the Tree. - -“Then good-bye,” said the Rats; and they went home. - -At last the little Mice stayed away also; and the Tree sighed: “After -all, it was very pleasant when the sleek little Mice sat round me, and -listened to what I told them. Now that too is over. But I will take good -care to enjoy myself when I am brought out again.” - -But when was that to be? Why, one morning there came a quantity of -people and set to work in the loft. The trunks were moved, the tree was -pulled out and thrown--rather hard, it is true--down on the floor, but a -man drew him towards the stairs, where the daylight shone. - -“Now a merry life will begin again,” thought the Tree. He felt the fresh -air, the first sunbeam--and now he was out in the courtyard. All passed -so quickly, there was so much going on around him, the Tree quite forgot -to look to himself. The court adjoined a garden, and all was in flower; -the roses hung so fresh and odorous over the balustrade, the lindens -were in blossom, the Swallows flew by, and said, “Quirre-vit! My husband -is come!” but it was not the Fir Tree that they meant. - -“Now, then, I shall really enjoy life,” said he exultingly, and spread -out his branches; but, alas, they were all withered and yellow! It was -in a corner that he lay, among weeds and nettles. The golden star of -tinsel was still on the top of the Tree, and glittered in the sunshine. - -In the court-yard some of the merry children were playing who had danced -at Christmas round the Fir Tree, and were so glad at the sight of him. -One of the youngest ran and tore off the golden star. - -“Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, -trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet. - -And the Tree beheld all the beauty of the flowers, and the freshness in -the garden; he beheld himself, and wished he had remained in his dark -corner in the loft; he thought of his first youth in the wood, of the -merry Christmas-eve, and of the little Mice who had listened with so -much pleasure to the story of Humpy-Dumpy. - -“'Tis over--'tis past!” said the poor Tree. “Had I but rejoiced when I -had reason to do so! But now 'tis past, 'tis past!” - -And the gardener's boy chopped the Tree into small pieces; there was a -whole heap lying there. The wood flamed up splendidly under the large -brewing copper, and it sighed so deeply! Each sigh was like a shot. - -The boys played about in the court, and the youngest wore the gold star -on his breast which the Tree had had on the happiest evening of his -life. However, that was over now--the Tree gone, the story at an end. -All, all was over--every tale must end at last. - - - - -THE SNOW QUEEN - -FIRST STORY. Which Treats of a Mirror and of the Splinters - -Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall -know more than we know now: but to begin. - -Once upon a time there was a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most -mischievous of all sprites. One day he was in a very good humor, for -he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and -beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but -that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified -and increased in ugliness. In this mirror the most beautiful landscapes -looked like boiled spinach, and the best persons were turned into -frights, or appeared to stand on their heads; their faces were so -distorted that they were not to be recognised; and if anyone had a mole, -you might be sure that it would be magnified and spread over both nose -and mouth. - -“That's glorious fun!” said the sprite. If a good thought passed through -a man's mind, then a grin was seen in the mirror, and the sprite laughed -heartily at his clever discovery. All the little sprites who went to his -school--for he kept a sprite school--told each other that a miracle had -happened; and that now only, as they thought, it would be possible to -see how the world really looked. They ran about with the mirror; and at -last there was not a land or a person who was not represented distorted -in the mirror. So then they thought they would fly up to the sky, -and have a joke there. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more -terribly it grinned: they could hardly hold it fast. Higher and higher -still they flew, nearer and nearer to the stars, when suddenly the -mirror shook so terribly with grinning, that it flew out of their hands -and fell to the earth, where it was dashed in a hundred million and more -pieces. And now it worked much more evil than before; for some of these -pieces were hardly so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about in -the wide world, and when they got into people's eyes, there they stayed; -and then people saw everything perverted, or only had an eye for that -which was evil. This happened because the very smallest bit had the -same power which the whole mirror had possessed. Some persons even got -a splinter in their heart, and then it made one shudder, for their heart -became like a lump of ice. Some of the broken pieces were so large that -they were used for windowpanes, through which one could not see one's -friends. Other pieces were put in spectacles; and that was a sad affair -when people put on their glasses to see well and rightly. Then the -wicked sprite laughed till he almost choked, for all this tickled his -fancy. The fine splinters still flew about in the air: and now we shall -hear what happened next. - - -SECOND STORY. A Little Boy and a Little Girl - -In a large town, where there are so many houses, and so many people, -that there is no roof left for everybody to have a little garden; and -where, on this account, most persons are obliged to content themselves -with flowers in pots; there lived two little children, who had a garden -somewhat larger than a flower-pot. They were not brother and sister; but -they cared for each other as much as if they were. Their parents lived -exactly opposite. They inhabited two garrets; and where the roof of the -one house joined that of the other, and the gutter ran along the extreme -end of it, there was to each house a small window: one needed only to -step over the gutter to get from one window to the other. - -The children's parents had large wooden boxes there, in which vegetables -for the kitchen were planted, and little rosetrees besides: there was a -rose in each box, and they grew splendidly. They now thought of placing -the boxes across the gutter, so that they nearly reached from one window -to the other, and looked just like two walls of flowers. The tendrils -of the peas hung down over the boxes; and the rose-trees shot up long -branches, twined round the windows, and then bent towards each other: it -was almost like a triumphant arch of foliage and flowers. The boxes were -very high, and the children knew that they must not creep over them; so -they often obtained permission to get out of the windows to each other, -and to sit on their little stools among the roses, where they could play -delightfully. In winter there was an end of this pleasure. The windows -were often frozen over; but then they heated copper farthings on the -stove, and laid the hot farthing on the windowpane, and then they had a -capital peep-hole, quite nicely rounded; and out of each peeped a gentle -friendly eye--it was the little boy and the little girl who were looking -out. His name was Kay, hers was Gerda. In summer, with one jump, they -could get to each other; but in winter they were obliged first to -go down the long stairs, and then up the long stairs again: and -out-of-doors there was quite a snow-storm. - -“It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother. - -“Do the white bees choose a queen?” asked the little boy; for he knew -that the honey-bees always have one. - -“Yes,” said the grandmother, “she flies where the swarm hangs in the -thickest clusters. She is the largest of all; and she can never remain -quietly on the earth, but goes up again into the black clouds. Many a -winter's night she flies through the streets of the town, and peeps in -at the windows; and they then freeze in so wondrous a manner that they -look like flowers.” - -“Yes, I have seen it,” said both the children; and so they knew that it -was true. - -“Can the Snow Queen come in?” said the little girl. - -“Only let her come in!” said the little boy. “Then I'd put her on the -stove, and she'd melt.” - -And then his grandmother patted his head and told him other stories. - -In the evening, when little Kay was at home, and half undressed, he -climbed up on the chair by the window, and peeped out of the little -hole. A few snow-flakes were falling, and one, the largest of all, -remained lying on the edge of a flower-pot. - -The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a -young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little -flakes like stars. She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of -ice, of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, -like two stars; but there was neither quiet nor repose in them. She -nodded towards the window, and beckoned with her hand. The little boy -was frightened, and jumped down from the chair; it seemed to him as if, -at the same moment, a large bird flew past the window. - -The next day it was a sharp frost--and then the spring came; the sun -shone, the green leaves appeared, the swallows built their nests, the -windows were opened, and the little children again sat in their pretty -garden, high up on the leads at the top of the house. - -That summer the roses flowered in unwonted beauty. The little girl had -learned a hymn, in which there was something about roses; and then she -thought of her own flowers; and she sang the verse to the little boy, -who then sang it with her: - - “The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, - And angels descend there the children to greet.” - -And the children held each other by the hand, kissed the roses, looked -up at the clear sunshine, and spoke as though they really saw angels -there. What lovely summer-days those were! How delightful to be out in -the air, near the fresh rose-bushes, that seem as if they would never -finish blossoming! - -Kay and Gerda looked at the picture-book full of beasts and of birds; -and it was then--the clock in the church-tower was just striking -five--that Kay said, “Oh! I feel such a sharp pain in my heart; and now -something has got into my eye!” - -The little girl put her arms around his neck. He winked his eyes; now -there was nothing to be seen. - -“I think it is out now,” said he; but it was not. It was just one of -those pieces of glass from the magic mirror that had got into his eye; -and poor Kay had got another piece right in his heart. It will soon -become like ice. It did not hurt any longer, but there it was. - -“What are you crying for?” asked he. “You look so ugly! There's nothing -the matter with me. Ah,” said he at once, “that rose is cankered! And -look, this one is quite crooked! After all, these roses are very ugly! -They are just like the box they are planted in!” And then he gave the -box a good kick with his foot, and pulled both the roses up. - -“What are you doing?” cried the little girl; and as he perceived her -fright, he pulled up another rose, got in at the window, and hastened -off from dear little Gerda. - -Afterwards, when she brought her picture-book, he asked, “What horrid -beasts have you there?” And if his grandmother told them stories, he -always interrupted her; besides, if he could manage it, he would get -behind her, put on her spectacles, and imitate her way of speaking; he -copied all her ways, and then everybody laughed at him. He was soon able -to imitate the gait and manner of everyone in the street. Everything -that was peculiar and displeasing in them--that Kay knew how to imitate: -and at such times all the people said, “The boy is certainly very -clever!” But it was the glass he had got in his eye; the glass that was -sticking in his heart, which made him tease even little Gerda, whose -whole soul was devoted to him. - -His games now were quite different to what they had formerly been, they -were so very knowing. One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were -flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the snow -as it fell. - -“Look through this glass, Gerda,” said he. And every flake seemed -larger, and appeared like a magnificent flower, or beautiful star; it -was splendid to look at! - -“Look, how clever!” said Kay. “That's much more interesting than real -flowers! They are as exact as possible; there is not a fault in them, if -they did not melt!” - -It was not long after this, that Kay came one day with large gloves on, -and his little sledge at his back, and bawled right into Gerda's ears, -“I have permission to go out into the square where the others are -playing”; and off he was in a moment. - -There, in the market-place, some of the boldest of the boys used to tie -their sledges to the carts as they passed by, and so they were pulled -along, and got a good ride. It was so capital! Just as they were in the -very height of their amusement, a large sledge passed by: it was painted -quite white, and there was someone in it wrapped up in a rough white -mantle of fur, with a rough white fur cap on his head. The sledge drove -round the square twice, and Kay tied on his sledge as quickly as he -could, and off he drove with it. On they went quicker and quicker into -the next street; and the person who drove turned round to Kay, and -nodded to him in a friendly manner, just as if they knew each other. -Every time he was going to untie his sledge, the person nodded to him, -and then Kay sat quiet; and so on they went till they came outside -the gates of the town. Then the snow began to fall so thickly that the -little boy could not see an arm's length before him, but still on he -went: when suddenly he let go the string he held in his hand in order -to get loose from the sledge, but it was of no use; still the little -vehicle rushed on with the quickness of the wind. He then cried as loud -as he could, but no one heard him; the snow drifted and the sledge flew -on, and sometimes it gave a jerk as though they were driving over hedges -and ditches. He was quite frightened, and he tried to repeat the -Lord's Prayer; but all he could do, he was only able to remember the -multiplication table. - -The snow-flakes grew larger and larger, till at last they looked just -like great white fowls. Suddenly they flew on one side; the large sledge -stopped, and the person who drove rose up. It was a lady; her cloak and -cap were of snow. She was tall and of slender figure, and of a dazzling -whiteness. It was the Snow Queen. - -“We have travelled fast,” said she; “but it is freezingly cold. Come -under my bearskin.” And she put him in the sledge beside her, -wrapped the fur round him, and he felt as though he were sinking in a -snow-wreath. - -“Are you still cold?” asked she; and then she kissed his forehead. -Ah! it was colder than ice; it penetrated to his very heart, which was -already almost a frozen lump; it seemed to him as if he were about to -die--but a moment more and it was quite congenial to him, and he did not -remark the cold that was around him. - -“My sledge! Do not forget my sledge!” It was the first thing he thought -of. It was there tied to one of the white chickens, who flew along with -it on his back behind the large sledge. The Snow Queen kissed Kay once -more, and then he forgot little Gerda, grandmother, and all whom he had -left at his home. - -“Now you will have no more kisses,” said she, “or else I should kiss you -to death!” - -Kay looked at her. She was very beautiful; a more clever, or a more -lovely countenance he could not fancy to himself; and she no longer -appeared of ice as before, when she sat outside the window, and beckoned -to him; in his eyes she was perfect, he did not fear her at all, and -told her that he could calculate in his head and with fractions, even; -that he knew the number of square miles there were in the different -countries, and how many inhabitants they contained; and she smiled while -he spoke. It then seemed to him as if what he knew was not enough, and -he looked upwards in the large huge empty space above him, and on she -flew with him; flew high over the black clouds, while the storm moaned -and whistled as though it were singing some old tune. On they flew -over woods and lakes, over seas, and many lands; and beneath them the -chilling storm rushed fast, the wolves howled, the snow crackled; above -them flew large screaming crows, but higher up appeared the moon, quite -large and bright; and it was on it that Kay gazed during the long long -winter's night; while by day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen. - - -THIRD STORY. Of the Flower-Garden At the Old Woman's Who Understood -Witchcraft - -But what became of little Gerda when Kay did not return? Where could he -be? Nobody knew; nobody could give any intelligence. All the boys knew -was, that they had seen him tie his sledge to another large and splendid -one, which drove down the street and out of the town. Nobody knew -where he was; many sad tears were shed, and little Gerda wept long and -bitterly; at last she said he must be dead; that he had been drowned in -the river which flowed close to the town. Oh! those were very long and -dismal winter evenings! - -At last spring came, with its warm sunshine. - -“Kay is dead and gone!” said little Gerda. - -“That I don't believe,” said the Sunshine. - -“Kay is dead and gone!” said she to the Swallows. - -“That I don't believe,” said they: and at last little Gerda did not -think so any longer either. - -“I'll put on my red shoes,” said she, one morning; “Kay has never seen -them, and then I'll go down to the river and ask there.” - -It was quite early; she kissed her old grandmother, who was still -asleep, put on her red shoes, and went alone to the river. - -“Is it true that you have taken my little playfellow? I will make you a -present of my red shoes, if you will give him back to me.” - -And, as it seemed to her, the blue waves nodded in a strange manner; -then she took off her red shoes, the most precious things she possessed, -and threw them both into the river. But they fell close to the bank, and -the little waves bore them immediately to land; it was as if the stream -would not take what was dearest to her; for in reality it had not got -little Kay; but Gerda thought that she had not thrown the shoes out far -enough, so she clambered into a boat which lay among the rushes, went -to the farthest end, and threw out the shoes. But the boat was not -fastened, and the motion which she occasioned, made it drift from the -shore. She observed this, and hastened to get back; but before she could -do so, the boat was more than a yard from the land, and was gliding -quickly onward. - -Little Gerda was very frightened, and began to cry; but no one heard her -except the sparrows, and they could not carry her to land; but they flew -along the bank, and sang as if to comfort her, “Here we are! Here we -are!” The boat drifted with the stream, little Gerda sat quite still -without shoes, for they were swimming behind the boat, but she could not -reach them, because the boat went much faster than they did. - -The banks on both sides were beautiful; lovely flowers, venerable trees, -and slopes with sheep and cows, but not a human being was to be seen. - -“Perhaps the river will carry me to little Kay,” said she; and then -she grew less sad. She rose, and looked for many hours at the beautiful -green banks. Presently she sailed by a large cherry-orchard, where was -a little cottage with curious red and blue windows; it was thatched, -and before it two wooden soldiers stood sentry, and presented arms when -anyone went past. - -Gerda called to them, for she thought they were alive; but they, of -course, did not answer. She came close to them, for the stream drifted -the boat quite near the land. - -Gerda called still louder, and an old woman then came out of the -cottage, leaning upon a crooked stick. She had a large broad-brimmed hat -on, painted with the most splendid flowers. - -“Poor little child!” said the old woman. “How did you get upon the large -rapid river, to be driven about so in the wide world!” And then the -old woman went into the water, caught hold of the boat with her crooked -stick, drew it to the bank, and lifted little Gerda out. - -And Gerda was so glad to be on dry land again; but she was rather afraid -of the strange old woman. - -“But come and tell me who you are, and how you came here,” said she. - -And Gerda told her all; and the old woman shook her head and said, -“A-hem! a-hem!” and when Gerda had told her everything, and asked her if -she had not seen little Kay, the woman answered that he had not passed -there, but he no doubt would come; and she told her not to be cast down, -but taste her cherries, and look at her flowers, which were finer than -any in a picture-book, each of which could tell a whole story. She then -took Gerda by the hand, led her into the little cottage, and locked the -door. - -The windows were very high up; the glass was red, blue, and green, and -the sunlight shone through quite wondrously in all sorts of colors. On -the table stood the most exquisite cherries, and Gerda ate as many as -she chose, for she had permission to do so. While she was eating, the -old woman combed her hair with a golden comb, and her hair curled and -shone with a lovely golden color around that sweet little face, which -was so round and so like a rose. - -“I have often longed for such a dear little girl,” said the old woman. -“Now you shall see how well we agree together”; and while she combed -little Gerda's hair, the child forgot her foster-brother Kay more and -more, for the old woman understood magic; but she was no evil being, she -only practised witchcraft a little for her own private amusement, and -now she wanted very much to keep little Gerda. She therefore went out -in the garden, stretched out her crooked stick towards the rose-bushes, -which, beautifully as they were blowing, all sank into the earth and no -one could tell where they had stood. The old woman feared that if Gerda -should see the roses, she would then think of her own, would remember -little Kay, and run away from her. - -She now led Gerda into the flower-garden. Oh, what odour and what -loveliness was there! Every flower that one could think of, and of every -season, stood there in fullest bloom; no picture-book could be gayer or -more beautiful. Gerda jumped for joy, and played till the sun set behind -the tall cherry-tree; she then had a pretty bed, with a red silken -coverlet filled with blue violets. She fell asleep, and had as pleasant -dreams as ever a queen on her wedding-day. - -The next morning she went to play with the flowers in the warm sunshine, -and thus passed away a day. Gerda knew every flower; and, numerous as -they were, it still seemed to Gerda that one was wanting, though she -did not know which. One day while she was looking at the hat of the old -woman painted with flowers, the most beautiful of them all seemed to her -to be a rose. The old woman had forgotten to take it from her hat -when she made the others vanish in the earth. But so it is when one's -thoughts are not collected. “What!” said Gerda. “Are there no roses -here?” and she ran about amongst the flowerbeds, and looked, and looked, -but there was not one to be found. She then sat down and wept; but her -hot tears fell just where a rose-bush had sunk; and when her warm tears -watered the ground, the tree shot up suddenly as fresh and blooming as -when it had been swallowed up. Gerda kissed the roses, thought of her -own dear roses at home, and with them of little Kay. - -“Oh, how long I have stayed!” said the little girl. “I intended to look -for Kay! Don't you know where he is?” she asked of the roses. “Do you -think he is dead and gone?” - -“Dead he certainly is not,” said the Roses. “We have been in the earth -where all the dead are, but Kay was not there.” - -“Many thanks!” said little Gerda; and she went to the other flowers, -looked into their cups, and asked, “Don't you know where little Kay is?” - -But every flower stood in the sunshine, and dreamed its own fairy tale -or its own story: and they all told her very many things, but not one -knew anything of Kay. - -Well, what did the Tiger-Lily say? - -“Hearest thou not the drum? Bum! Bum! Those are the only two tones. -Always bum! Bum! Hark to the plaintive song of the old woman, to the -call of the priests! The Hindoo woman in her long robe stands upon the -funeral pile; the flames rise around her and her dead husband, but the -Hindoo woman thinks on the living one in the surrounding circle; on him -whose eyes burn hotter than the flames--on him, the fire of whose eyes -pierces her heart more than the flames which soon will burn her body to -ashes. Can the heart's flame die in the flame of the funeral pile?” - -“I don't understand that at all,” said little Gerda. - -“That is my story,” said the Lily. - -What did the Convolvulus say? - -“Projecting over a narrow mountain-path there hangs an old feudal -castle. Thick evergreens grow on the dilapidated walls, and around the -altar, where a lovely maiden is standing: she bends over the railing and -looks out upon the rose. No fresher rose hangs on the branches than she; -no appleblossom carried away by the wind is more buoyant! How her silken -robe is rustling! - -“'Is he not yet come?'” - -“Is it Kay that you mean?” asked little Gerda. - -“I am speaking about my story--about my dream,” answered the -Convolvulus. - -What did the Snowdrops say? - -“Between the trees a long board is hanging--it is a swing. Two little -girls are sitting in it, and swing themselves backwards and forwards; -their frocks are as white as snow, and long green silk ribands flutter -from their bonnets. Their brother, who is older than they are, stands up -in the swing; he twines his arms round the cords to hold himself fast, -for in one hand he has a little cup, and in the other a clay-pipe. He is -blowing soap-bubbles. The swing moves, and the bubbles float in charming -changing colors: the last is still hanging to the end of the pipe, and -rocks in the breeze. The swing moves. The little black dog, as light as -a soap-bubble, jumps up on his hind legs to try to get into the swing. -It moves, the dog falls down, barks, and is angry. They tease him; the -bubble bursts! A swing, a bursting bubble--such is my song!” - -“What you relate may be very pretty, but you tell it in so melancholy a -manner, and do not mention Kay.” - -What do the Hyacinths say? - -“There were once upon a time three sisters, quite transparent, and very -beautiful. The robe of the one was red, that of the second blue, and -that of the third white. They danced hand in hand beside the calm -lake in the clear moonshine. They were not elfin maidens, but mortal -children. A sweet fragrance was smelt, and the maidens vanished in the -wood; the fragrance grew stronger--three coffins, and in them three -lovely maidens, glided out of the forest and across the lake: the -shining glow-worms flew around like little floating lights. Do the -dancing maidens sleep, or are they dead? The odour of the flowers says -they are corpses; the evening bell tolls for the dead!” - -“You make me quite sad,” said little Gerda. “I cannot help thinking of -the dead maidens. Oh! is little Kay really dead? The Roses have been in -the earth, and they say no.” - -“Ding, dong!” sounded the Hyacinth bells. “We do not toll for little -Kay; we do not know him. That is our way of singing, the only one we -have.” - -And Gerda went to the Ranunculuses, that looked forth from among the -shining green leaves. - -“You are a little bright sun!” said Gerda. “Tell me if you know where I -can find my playfellow.” - -And the Ranunculus shone brightly, and looked again at Gerda. What -song could the Ranunculus sing? It was one that said nothing about Kay -either. - -“In a small court the bright sun was shining in the first days of -spring. The beams glided down the white walls of a neighbor's house, and -close by the fresh yellow flowers were growing, shining like gold in -the warm sun-rays. An old grandmother was sitting in the air; her -grand-daughter, the poor and lovely servant just come for a short visit. -She knows her grandmother. There was gold, pure virgin gold in that -blessed kiss. There, that is my little story,” said the Ranunculus. - -“My poor old grandmother!” sighed Gerda. “Yes, she is longing for me, -no doubt: she is sorrowing for me, as she did for little Kay. But I -will soon come home, and then I will bring Kay with me. It is of no use -asking the flowers; they only know their own old rhymes, and can tell me -nothing.” And she tucked up her frock, to enable her to run quicker; but -the Narcissus gave her a knock on the leg, just as she was going to -jump over it. So she stood still, looked at the long yellow flower, and -asked, “You perhaps know something?” and she bent down to the Narcissus. -And what did it say? - -“I can see myself--I can see myself! Oh, how odorous I am! Up in the -little garret there stands, half-dressed, a little Dancer. She stands -now on one leg, now on both; she despises the whole world; yet she lives -only in imagination. She pours water out of the teapot over a piece of -stuff which she holds in her hand; it is the bodice; cleanliness is a -fine thing. The white dress is hanging on the hook; it was washed in the -teapot, and dried on the roof. She puts it on, ties a saffron-colored -kerchief round her neck, and then the gown looks whiter. I can see -myself--I can see myself!” - -“That's nothing to me,” said little Gerda. “That does not concern me.” - And then off she ran to the further end of the garden. - -The gate was locked, but she shook the rusted bolt till it was loosened, -and the gate opened; and little Gerda ran off barefooted into the wide -world. She looked round her thrice, but no one followed her. At last she -could run no longer; she sat down on a large stone, and when she looked -about her, she saw that the summer had passed; it was late in the -autumn, but that one could not remark in the beautiful garden, where -there was always sunshine, and where there were flowers the whole year -round. - -“Dear me, how long I have staid!” said Gerda. “Autumn is come. I must -not rest any longer.” And she got up to go further. - -Oh, how tender and wearied her little feet were! All around it looked -so cold and raw: the long willow-leaves were quite yellow, and the fog -dripped from them like water; one leaf fell after the other: the sloes -only stood full of fruit, which set one's teeth on edge. Oh, how dark -and comfortless it was in the dreary world! - - -FOURTH STORY. The Prince and Princess - -Gerda was obliged to rest herself again, when, exactly opposite to her, -a large Raven came hopping over the white snow. He had long been looking -at Gerda and shaking his head; and now he said, “Caw! Caw!” Good day! -Good day! He could not say it better; but he felt a sympathy for the -little girl, and asked her where she was going all alone. The word -“alone” Gerda understood quite well, and felt how much was expressed -by it; so she told the Raven her whole history, and asked if he had not -seen Kay. - -The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!” - -“What, do you really think so?” cried the little girl; and she nearly -squeezed the Raven to death, so much did she kiss him. - -“Gently, gently,” said the Raven. “I think I know; I think that it may -be little Kay. But now he has forgotten you for the Princess.” - -“Does he live with a Princess?” asked Gerda. - -“Yes--listen,” said the Raven; “but it will be difficult for me to -speak your language. If you understand the Raven language I can tell you -better.” - -“No, I have not learnt it,” said Gerda; “but my grandmother understands -it, and she can speak gibberish too. I wish I had learnt it.” - -“No matter,” said the Raven; “I will tell you as well as I can; however, -it will be bad enough.” And then he told all he knew. - -“In the kingdom where we now are there lives a Princess, who is -extraordinarily clever; for she has read all the newspapers in the whole -world, and has forgotten them again--so clever is she. She was lately, -it is said, sitting on her throne--which is not very amusing after -all--when she began humming an old tune, and it was just, 'Oh, why -should I not be married?' 'That song is not without its meaning,' said -she, and so then she was determined to marry; but she would have a -husband who knew how to give an answer when he was spoken to--not -one who looked only as if he were a great personage, for that is so -tiresome. She then had all the ladies of the court drummed together; and -when they heard her intention, all were very pleased, and said, 'We are -very glad to hear it; it is the very thing we were thinking of.' You may -believe every word I say,” said the Raven; “for I have a tame sweetheart -that hops about in the palace quite free, and it was she who told me all -this. - -“The newspapers appeared forthwith with a border of hearts and the -initials of the Princess; and therein you might read that every -good-looking young man was at liberty to come to the palace and speak to -the Princess; and he who spoke in such wise as showed he felt himself at -home there, that one the Princess would choose for her husband. - -“Yes, Yes,” said the Raven, “you may believe it; it is as true as I am -sitting here. People came in crowds; there was a crush and a hurry, but -no one was successful either on the first or second day. They could all -talk well enough when they were out in the street; but as soon as -they came inside the palace gates, and saw the guard richly dressed -in silver, and the lackeys in gold on the staircase, and the large -illuminated saloons, then they were abashed; and when they stood before -the throne on which the Princess was sitting, all they could do was -to repeat the last word they had uttered, and to hear it again did not -interest her very much. It was just as if the people within were under -a charm, and had fallen into a trance till they came out again into the -street; for then--oh, then--they could chatter enough. There was a whole -row of them standing from the town-gates to the palace. I was there -myself to look,” said the Raven. “They grew hungry and thirsty; but from -the palace they got nothing whatever, not even a glass of water. Some -of the cleverest, it is true, had taken bread and butter with them: -but none shared it with his neighbor, for each thought, 'Let him look -hungry, and then the Princess won't have him.'” - -“But Kay--little Kay,” said Gerda, “when did he come? Was he among the -number?” - -“Patience, patience; we are just come to him. It was on the third day -when a little personage without horse or equipage, came marching right -boldly up to the palace; his eyes shone like yours, he had beautiful -long hair, but his clothes were very shabby.” - -“That was Kay,” cried Gerda, with a voice of delight. “Oh, now I've -found him!” and she clapped her hands for joy. - -“He had a little knapsack at his back,” said the Raven. - -“No, that was certainly his sledge,” said Gerda; “for when he went away -he took his sledge with him.” - -“That may be,” said the Raven; “I did not examine him so minutely; but -I know from my tame sweetheart, that when he came into the court-yard -of the palace, and saw the body-guard in silver, the lackeys on the -staircase, he was not the least abashed; he nodded, and said to them, -'It must be very tiresome to stand on the stairs; for my part, I shall -go in.' The saloons were gleaming with lustres--privy councillors and -excellencies were walking about barefooted, and wore gold keys; it was -enough to make any one feel uncomfortable. His boots creaked, too, so -loudly, but still he was not at all afraid.” - -“That's Kay for certain,” said Gerda. “I know he had on new boots; I -have heard them creaking in grandmama's room.” - -“Yes, they creaked,” said the Raven. “And on he went boldly up to the -Princess, who was sitting on a pearl as large as a spinning-wheel. -All the ladies of the court, with their attendants and attendants' -attendants, and all the cavaliers, with their gentlemen and gentlemen's -gentlemen, stood round; and the nearer they stood to the door, the -prouder they looked. It was hardly possible to look at the gentleman's -gentleman, so very haughtily did he stand in the doorway.” - -“It must have been terrible,” said little Gerda. “And did Kay get the -Princess?” - -“Were I not a Raven, I should have taken the Princess myself, although -I am promised. It is said he spoke as well as I speak when I talk Raven -language; this I learned from my tame sweetheart. He was bold and nicely -behaved; he had not come to woo the Princess, but only to hear her -wisdom. She pleased him, and he pleased her.” - -“Yes, yes; for certain that was Kay,” said Gerda. “He was so clever; -he could reckon fractions in his head. Oh, won't you take me to the -palace?” - -“That is very easily said,” answered the Raven. “But how are we to -manage it? I'll speak to my tame sweetheart about it: she must advise -us; for so much I must tell you, such a little girl as you are will -never get permission to enter.” - -“Oh, yes I shall,” said Gerda; “when Kay hears that I am here, he will -come out directly to fetch me.” - -“Wait for me here on these steps,” said the Raven. He moved his head -backwards and forwards and flew away. - -The evening was closing in when the Raven returned. “Caw--caw!” said he. -“She sends you her compliments; and here is a roll for you. She took -it out of the kitchen, where there is bread enough. You are hungry, -no doubt. It is not possible for you to enter the palace, for you are -barefooted: the guards in silver, and the lackeys in gold, would not -allow it; but do not cry, you shall come in still. My sweetheart knows a -little back stair that leads to the bedchamber, and she knows where she -can get the key of it.” - -And they went into the garden in the large avenue, where one leaf was -falling after the other; and when the lights in the palace had all -gradually disappeared, the Raven led little Gerda to the back door, -which stood half open. - -Oh, how Gerda's heart beat with anxiety and longing! It was just as if -she had been about to do something wrong; and yet she only wanted to -know if little Kay was there. Yes, he must be there. She called to mind -his intelligent eyes, and his long hair, so vividly, she could quite see -him as he used to laugh when they were sitting under the roses at home. -“He will, no doubt, be glad to see you--to hear what a long way you have -come for his sake; to know how unhappy all at home were when he did not -come back.” - -Oh, what a fright and a joy it was! - -They were now on the stairs. A single lamp was burning there; and on the -floor stood the tame Raven, turning her head on every side and looking -at Gerda, who bowed as her grandmother had taught her to do. - -“My intended has told me so much good of you, my dear young lady,” said -the tame Raven. “Your tale is very affecting. If you will take the lamp, -I will go before. We will go straight on, for we shall meet no one.” - -“I think there is somebody just behind us,” said Gerda; and something -rushed past: it was like shadowy figures on the wall; horses with -flowing manes and thin legs, huntsmen, ladies and gentlemen on -horseback. - -“They are only dreams,” said the Raven. “They come to fetch the thoughts -of the high personages to the chase; 'tis well, for now you can observe -them in bed all the better. But let me find, when you enjoy honor and -distinction, that you possess a grateful heart.” - -“Tut! That's not worth talking about,” said the Raven of the woods. - -They now entered the first saloon, which was of rose-colored satin, with -artificial flowers on the wall. Here the dreams were rushing past, -but they hastened by so quickly that Gerda could not see the high -personages. One hall was more magnificent than the other; one might -indeed well be abashed; and at last they came into the bedchamber. The -ceiling of the room resembled a large palm-tree with leaves of glass, -of costly glass; and in the middle, from a thick golden stem, hung two -beds, each of which resembled a lily. One was white, and in this lay the -Princess; the other was red, and it was here that Gerda was to look for -little Kay. She bent back one of the red leaves, and saw a brown neck. -Oh! that was Kay! She called him quite loud by name, held the lamp -towards him--the dreams rushed back again into the chamber--he awoke, -turned his head, and--it was not little Kay! - -The Prince was only like him about the neck; but he was young and -handsome. And out of the white lily leaves the Princess peeped, too, -and asked what was the matter. Then little Gerda cried, and told her her -whole history, and all that the Ravens had done for her. - -“Poor little thing!” said the Prince and the Princess. They praised the -Ravens very much, and told them they were not at all angry with them, -but they were not to do so again. However, they should have a reward. -“Will you fly about here at liberty,” asked the Princess; “or would you -like to have a fixed appointment as court ravens, with all the broken -bits from the kitchen?” - -And both the Ravens nodded, and begged for a fixed appointment; for -they thought of their old age, and said, “It is a good thing to have a -provision for our old days.” - -And the Prince got up and let Gerda sleep in his bed, and more than this -he could not do. She folded her little hands and thought, “How good men -and animals are!” and she then fell asleep and slept soundly. All the -dreams flew in again, and they now looked like the angels; they drew -a little sledge, in which little Kay sat and nodded his head; but the -whole was only a dream, and therefore it all vanished as soon as she -awoke. - -The next day she was dressed from head to foot in silk and velvet. They -offered to let her stay at the palace, and lead a happy life; but she -begged to have a little carriage with a horse in front, and for a small -pair of shoes; then, she said, she would again go forth in the wide -world and look for Kay. - -Shoes and a muff were given her; she was, too, dressed very nicely; and -when she was about to set off, a new carriage stopped before the door. -It was of pure gold, and the arms of the Prince and Princess shone -like a star upon it; the coachman, the footmen, and the outriders, for -outriders were there, too, all wore golden crowns. The Prince and the -Princess assisted her into the carriage themselves, and wished her all -success. The Raven of the woods, who was now married, accompanied her -for the first three miles. He sat beside Gerda, for he could not bear -riding backwards; the other Raven stood in the doorway, and flapped her -wings; she could not accompany Gerda, because she suffered from headache -since she had had a fixed appointment and ate so much. The carriage -was lined inside with sugar-plums, and in the seats were fruits and -gingerbread. - -“Farewell! Farewell!” cried Prince and Princess; and Gerda wept, and -the Raven wept. Thus passed the first miles; and then the Raven bade her -farewell, and this was the most painful separation of all. He flew into -a tree, and beat his black wings as long as he could see the carriage, -that shone from afar like a sunbeam. - - -FIFTH STORY. The Little Robber Maiden - -They drove through the dark wood; but the carriage shone like a torch, -and it dazzled the eyes of the robbers, so that they could not bear to -look at it. - -“'Tis gold! 'Tis gold!” they cried; and they rushed forward, seized -the horses, knocked down the little postilion, the coachman, and the -servants, and pulled little Gerda out of the carriage. - -“How plump, how beautiful she is! She must have been fed on -nut-kernels,” said the old female robber, who had a long, scrubby beard, -and bushy eyebrows that hung down over her eyes. “She is as good as a -fatted lamb! How nice she will be!” And then she drew out a knife, the -blade of which shone so that it was quite dreadful to behold. - -“Oh!” cried the woman at the same moment. She had been bitten in the ear -by her own little daughter, who hung at her back; and who was so wild -and unmanageable, that it was quite amusing to see her. “You naughty -child!” said the mother: and now she had not time to kill Gerda. - -“She shall play with me,” said the little robber child. “She shall give -me her muff, and her pretty frock; she shall sleep in my bed!” And then -she gave her mother another bite, so that she jumped, and ran round with -the pain; and the Robbers laughed, and said, “Look, how she is dancing -with the little one!” - -“I will go into the carriage,” said the little robber maiden; and she -would have her will, for she was very spoiled and very headstrong. She -and Gerda got in; and then away they drove over the stumps of felled -trees, deeper and deeper into the woods. The little robber maiden was as -tall as Gerda, but stronger, broader-shouldered, and of dark complexion; -her eyes were quite black; they looked almost melancholy. She embraced -little Gerda, and said, “They shall not kill you as long as I am not -displeased with you. You are, doubtless, a Princess?” - -“No,” said little Gerda; who then related all that had happened to her, -and how much she cared about little Kay. - -The little robber maiden looked at her with a serious air, nodded her -head slightly, and said, “They shall not kill you, even if I am angry -with you: then I will do it myself”; and she dried Gerda's eyes, and put -both her hands in the handsome muff, which was so soft and warm. - -At length the carriage stopped. They were in the midst of the court-yard -of a robber's castle. It was full of cracks from top to bottom; and out -of the openings magpies and rooks were flying; and the great bull-dogs, -each of which looked as if he could swallow a man, jumped up, but they -did not bark, for that was forbidden. - -In the midst of the large, old, smoking hall burnt a great fire on the -stone floor. The smoke disappeared under the stones, and had to seek -its own egress. In an immense caldron soup was boiling; and rabbits and -hares were being roasted on a spit. - -“You shall sleep with me to-night, with all my animals,” said the little -robber maiden. They had something to eat and drink; and then went into -a corner, where straw and carpets were lying. Beside them, on laths and -perches, sat nearly a hundred pigeons, all asleep, seemingly; but yet -they moved a little when the robber maiden came. “They are all mine,” - said she, at the same time seizing one that was next to her by the legs -and shaking it so that its wings fluttered. “Kiss it,” cried the little -girl, and flung the pigeon in Gerda's face. “Up there is the rabble of -the wood,” continued she, pointing to several laths which were fastened -before a hole high up in the wall; “that's the rabble; they would all -fly away immediately, if they were not well fastened in. And here is my -dear old Bac”; and she laid hold of the horns of a reindeer, that had a -bright copper ring round its neck, and was tethered to the spot. “We are -obliged to lock this fellow in too, or he would make his escape. Every -evening I tickle his neck with my sharp knife; he is so frightened at -it!” and the little girl drew forth a long knife, from a crack in the -wall, and let it glide over the Reindeer's neck. The poor animal kicked; -the girl laughed, and pulled Gerda into bed with her. - -“Do you intend to keep your knife while you sleep?” asked Gerda; looking -at it rather fearfully. - -“I always sleep with the knife,” said the little robber maiden. “There -is no knowing what may happen. But tell me now, once more, all about -little Kay; and why you have started off in the wide world alone.” And -Gerda related all, from the very beginning: the Wood-pigeons cooed above -in their cage, and the others slept. The little robber maiden wound her -arm round Gerda's neck, held the knife in the other hand, and snored so -loud that everybody could hear her; but Gerda could not close her eyes, -for she did not know whether she was to live or die. The robbers sat -round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female robber jumped about -so, that it was quite dreadful for Gerda to see her. - -Then the Wood-pigeons said, “Coo! Coo! We have seen little Kay! A white -hen carries his sledge; he himself sat in the carriage of the Snow -Queen, who passed here, down just over the wood, as we lay in our nest. -She blew upon us young ones; and all died except we two. Coo! Coo!” - -“What is that you say up there?” cried little Gerda. “Where did the Snow -Queen go to? Do you know anything about it?” - -“She is no doubt gone to Lapland; for there is always snow and ice -there. Only ask the Reindeer, who is tethered there.” - -“Ice and snow is there! There it is, glorious and beautiful!” said the -Reindeer. “One can spring about in the large shining valleys! The Snow -Queen has her summer-tent there; but her fixed abode is high up towards -the North Pole, on the Island called Spitzbergen.” - -“Oh, Kay! Poor little Kay!” sighed Gerda. - -“Do you choose to be quiet?” said the robber maiden. “If you don't, I -shall make you.” - -In the morning Gerda told her all that the Wood-pigeons had said; and -the little maiden looked very serious, but she nodded her head, and -said, “That's no matter--that's no matter. Do you know where Lapland -lies!” she asked of the Reindeer. - -“Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolled in -his head. “I was born and bred there--there I leapt about on the fields -of snow.” - -“Listen,” said the robber maiden to Gerda. “You see that the men are -gone; but my mother is still here, and will remain. However, towards -morning she takes a draught out of the large flask, and then she sleeps -a little: then I will do something for you.” She now jumped out of bed, -flew to her mother; with her arms round her neck, and pulling her by the -beard, said, “Good morrow, my own sweet nanny-goat of a mother.” And her -mother took hold of her nose, and pinched it till it was red and blue; -but this was all done out of pure love. - -When the mother had taken a sup at her flask, and was having a nap, the -little robber maiden went to the Reindeer, and said, “I should very much -like to give you still many a tickling with the sharp knife, for then -you are so amusing; however, I will untether you, and help you out, -so that you may go back to Lapland. But you must make good use of your -legs; and take this little girl for me to the palace of the Snow Queen, -where her playfellow is. You have heard, I suppose, all she said; for -she spoke loud enough, and you were listening.” - -The Reindeer gave a bound for joy. The robber maiden lifted up little -Gerda, and took the precaution to bind her fast on the Reindeer's back; -she even gave her a small cushion to sit on. “Here are your worsted -leggins, for it will be cold; but the muff I shall keep for myself, for -it is so very pretty. But I do not wish you to be cold. Here is a pair -of lined gloves of my mother's; they just reach up to your elbow. On -with them! Now you look about the hands just like my ugly old mother!” - -And Gerda wept for joy. - -“I can't bear to see you fretting,” said the little robber maiden. “This -is just the time when you ought to look pleased. Here are two loaves and -a ham for you, so that you won't starve.” The bread and the meat were -fastened to the Reindeer's back; the little maiden opened the door, -called in all the dogs, and then with her knife cut the rope that -fastened the animal, and said to him, “Now, off with you; but take good -care of the little girl!” - -And Gerda stretched out her hands with the large wadded gloves towards -the robber maiden, and said, “Farewell!” and the Reindeer flew on over -bush and bramble through the great wood, over moor and heath, as fast as -he could go. - -“Ddsa! Ddsa!” was heard in the sky. It was just as if somebody was -sneezing. - -“These are my old northern-lights,” said the Reindeer, “look how they -gleam!” And on he now sped still quicker--day and night on he went: the -loaves were consumed, and the ham too; and now they were in Lapland. - - -SIXTH STORY. The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman - -Suddenly they stopped before a little house, which looked very -miserable. The roof reached to the ground; and the door was so low, that -the family were obliged to creep upon their stomachs when they went in -or out. Nobody was at home except an old Lapland woman, who was dressing -fish by the light of an oil lamp. And the Reindeer told her the whole -of Gerda's history, but first of all his own; for that seemed to him of -much greater importance. Gerda was so chilled that she could not speak. - -“Poor thing,” said the Lapland woman, “you have far to run still. You -have more than a hundred miles to go before you get to Finland; there -the Snow Queen has her country-house, and burns blue lights every -evening. I will give you a few words from me, which I will write on a -dried haberdine, for paper I have none; this you can take with you to -the Finland woman, and she will be able to give you more information -than I can.” - -When Gerda had warmed herself, and had eaten and drunk, the Lapland -woman wrote a few words on a dried haberdine, begged Gerda to take care -of them, put her on the Reindeer, bound her fast, and away sprang the -animal. “Ddsa! Ddsa!” was again heard in the air; the most charming -blue lights burned the whole night in the sky, and at last they came to -Finland. They knocked at the chimney of the Finland woman; for as to a -door, she had none. - -There was such a heat inside that the Finland woman herself went about -almost naked. She was diminutive and dirty. She immediately loosened -little Gerda's clothes, pulled off her thick gloves and boots; for -otherwise the heat would have been too great--and after laying a piece -of ice on the Reindeer's head, read what was written on the fish-skin. -She read it three times: she then knew it by heart; so she put the fish -into the cupboard--for it might very well be eaten, and she never threw -anything away. - -Then the Reindeer related his own story first, and afterwards that of -little Gerda; and the Finland woman winked her eyes, but said nothing. - -“You are so clever,” said the Reindeer; “you can, I know, twist all the -winds of the world together in a knot. If the seaman loosens one knot, -then he has a good wind; if a second, then it blows pretty stiffly; if -he undoes the third and fourth, then it rages so that the forests are -upturned. Will you give the little maiden a potion, that she may possess -the strength of twelve men, and vanquish the Snow Queen?” - -“The strength of twelve men!” said the Finland woman. “Much good that -would be!” Then she went to a cupboard, and drew out a large skin rolled -up. When she had unrolled it, strange characters were to be seen written -thereon; and the Finland woman read at such a rate that the perspiration -trickled down her forehead. - -But the Reindeer begged so hard for little Gerda, and Gerda looked so -imploringly with tearful eyes at the Finland woman, that she winked, and -drew the Reindeer aside into a corner, where they whispered together, -while the animal got some fresh ice put on his head. - -“'Tis true little Kay is at the Snow Queen's, and finds everything there -quite to his taste; and he thinks it the very best place in the world; -but the reason of that is, he has a splinter of glass in his eye, and in -his heart. These must be got out first; otherwise he will never go back -to mankind, and the Snow Queen will retain her power over him.” - -“But can you give little Gerda nothing to take which will endue her with -power over the whole?” - -“I can give her no more power than what she has already. Don't you see -how great it is? Don't you see how men and animals are forced to serve -her; how well she gets through the world barefooted? She must not hear -of her power from us; that power lies in her heart, because she is -a sweet and innocent child! If she cannot get to the Snow Queen by -herself, and rid little Kay of the glass, we cannot help her. Two miles -hence the garden of the Snow Queen begins; thither you may carry the -little girl. Set her down by the large bush with red berries, standing -in the snow; don't stay talking, but hasten back as fast as possible.” - And now the Finland woman placed little Gerda on the Reindeer's back, -and off he ran with all imaginable speed. - -“Oh! I have not got my boots! I have not brought my gloves!” cried -little Gerda. She remarked she was without them from the cutting frost; -but the Reindeer dared not stand still; on he ran till he came to the -great bush with the red berries, and there he set Gerda down, kissed her -mouth, while large bright tears flowed from the animal's eyes, and then -back he went as fast as possible. There stood poor Gerda now, without -shoes or gloves, in the very middle of dreadful icy Finland. - -She ran on as fast as she could. There then came a whole regiment of -snow-flakes, but they did not fall from above, and they were quite -bright and shining from the Aurora Borealis. The flakes ran along -the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew. Gerda well -remembered how large and strange the snow-flakes appeared when she -once saw them through a magnifying-glass; but now they were large and -terrific in another manner--they were all alive. They were the outposts -of the Snow Queen. They had the most wondrous shapes; some looked like -large ugly porcupines; others like snakes knotted together, with their -heads sticking out; and others, again, like small fat bears, with the -hair standing on end: all were of dazzling whiteness--all were living -snow-flakes. - -Little Gerda repeated the Lord's Prayer. The cold was so intense that -she could see her own breath, which came like smoke out of her mouth. It -grew thicker and thicker, and took the form of little angels, that grew -more and more when they touched the earth. All had helms on their heads, -and lances and shields in their hands; they increased in numbers; and -when Gerda had finished the Lord's Prayer, she was surrounded by a whole -legion. They thrust at the horrid snow-flakes with their spears, so that -they flew into a thousand pieces; and little Gerda walked on bravely and -in security. The angels patted her hands and feet; and then she felt the -cold less, and went on quickly towards the palace of the Snow Queen. - -But now we shall see how Kay fared. He never thought of Gerda, and least -of all that she was standing before the palace. - - -SEVENTH STORY. What Took Place in the Palace of the Snow Queen, and what -Happened Afterward. - -The walls of the palace were of driving snow, and the windows and doors -of cutting winds. There were more than a hundred halls there, according -as the snow was driven by the winds. The largest was many miles in -extent; all were lighted up by the powerful Aurora Borealis, and all -were so large, so empty, so icy cold, and so resplendent! Mirth never -reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball, with the storm -for music, while the polar bears went on their hind legs and showed off -their steps. Never a little tea-party of white young lady foxes; vast, -cold, and empty were the halls of the Snow Queen. The northern-lights -shone with such precision that one could tell exactly when they were -at their highest or lowest degree of brightness. In the middle of the -empty, endless hall of snow, was a frozen lake; it was cracked in a -thousand pieces, but each piece was so like the other, that it seemed -the work of a cunning artificer. In the middle of this lake sat the Snow -Queen when she was at home; and then she said she was sitting in the -Mirror of Understanding, and that this was the only one and the best -thing in the world. - -Little Kay was quite blue, yes nearly black with cold; but he did not -observe it, for she had kissed away all feeling of cold from his body, -and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed -flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he -wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces -of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. -Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was -an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were -extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit -of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures which -represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just -the word he wanted--that word was “eternity”; and the Snow Queen had -said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, -and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new -skates.” But he could not find it out. - -“I am going now to warm lands,” said the Snow Queen. “I must have a look -down into the black caldrons.” It was the volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna -that she meant. “I will just give them a coating of white, for that is -as it ought to be; besides, it is good for the oranges and the grapes.” - And then away she flew, and Kay sat quite alone in the empty halls of -ice that were miles long, and looked at the blocks of ice, and thought -and thought till his skull was almost cracked. There he sat quite -benumbed and motionless; one would have imagined he was frozen to death. - -Suddenly little Gerda stepped through the great portal into the palace. -The gate was formed of cutting winds; but Gerda repeated her evening -prayer, and the winds were laid as though they slept; and the little -maiden entered the vast, empty, cold halls. There she beheld Kay: she -recognised him, flew to embrace him, and cried out, her arms firmly -holding him the while, “Kay, sweet little Kay! Have I then found you at -last?” - -But he sat quite still, benumbed and cold. Then little Gerda shed -burning tears; and they fell on his bosom, they penetrated to his -heart, they thawed the lumps of ice, and consumed the splinters of the -looking-glass; he looked at her, and she sang the hymn: - -“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there -the children to greet.” - -Hereupon Kay burst into tears; he wept so much that the splinter rolled -out of his eye, and he recognised her, and shouted, “Gerda, sweet little -Gerda! Where have you been so long? And where have I been?” He looked -round him. “How cold it is here!” said he. “How empty and cold!” And he -held fast by Gerda, who laughed and wept for joy. It was so beautiful, -that even the blocks of ice danced about for joy; and when they were -tired and laid themselves down, they formed exactly the letters which -the Snow Queen had told him to find out; so now he was his own master, -and he would have the whole world and a pair of new skates into the -bargain. - -Gerda kissed his cheeks, and they grew quite blooming; she kissed his -eyes, and they shone like her own; she kissed his hands and feet, and he -was again well and merry. The Snow Queen might come back as soon as she -liked; there stood his discharge written in resplendent masses of ice. - -They took each other by the hand, and wandered forth out of the large -hall; they talked of their old grandmother, and of the roses upon the -roof; and wherever they went, the winds ceased raging, and the sun burst -forth. And when they reached the bush with the red berries, they found -the Reindeer waiting for them. He had brought another, a young one, with -him, whose udder was filled with milk, which he gave to the little ones, -and kissed their lips. They then carried Kay and Gerda--first to the -Finland woman, where they warmed themselves in the warm room, and -learned what they were to do on their journey home; and they went to -the Lapland woman, who made some new clothes for them and repaired their -sledges. - -The Reindeer and the young hind leaped along beside them, and -accompanied them to the boundary of the country. Here the first -vegetation peeped forth; here Kay and Gerda took leave of the Lapland -woman. “Farewell! Farewell!” they all said. And the first green buds -appeared, the first little birds began to chirrup; and out of the wood -came, riding on a magnificent horse, which Gerda knew (it was one of the -leaders in the golden carriage), a young damsel with a bright-red cap on -her head, and armed with pistols. It was the little robber maiden, who, -tired of being at home, had determined to make a journey to the north; -and afterwards in another direction, if that did not please her. She -recognised Gerda immediately, and Gerda knew her too. It was a joyful -meeting. - -“You are a fine fellow for tramping about,” said she to little Kay; “I -should like to know, faith, if you deserve that one should run from one -end of the world to the other for your sake?” - -But Gerda patted her cheeks, and inquired for the Prince and Princess. - -“They are gone abroad,” said the other. - -“But the Raven?” asked little Gerda. - -“Oh! The Raven is dead,” she answered. “His tame sweetheart is a -widow, and wears a bit of black worsted round her leg; she laments most -piteously, but it's all mere talk and stuff! Now tell me what you've -been doing and how you managed to catch him.” - -And Gerda and Kay both told their story. - -And “Schnipp-schnapp-schnurre-basselurre,” said the robber maiden; and -she took the hands of each, and promised that if she should some day -pass through the town where they lived, she would come and visit them; -and then away she rode. Kay and Gerda took each other's hand: it was -lovely spring weather, with abundance of flowers and of verdure. The -church-bells rang, and the children recognised the high towers, and the -large town; it was that in which they dwelt. They entered and hastened -up to their grandmother's room, where everything was standing as -formerly. The clock said “tick! tack!” and the finger moved round; but -as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. The roses -on the leads hung blooming in at the open window; there stood the little -children's chairs, and Kay and Gerda sat down on them, holding each -other by the hand; they both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of -the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in -the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: “Unless ye become as -little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” - -And Kay and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they -understood the old hymn: - -“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there -the children to greet.” - -There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children -at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer! - - - - -THE LEAP-FROG - -A Flea, a Grasshopper, and a Leap-frog once wanted to see which could -jump highest; and they invited the whole world, and everybody else -besides who chose to come to see the festival. Three famous jumpers were -they, as everyone would say, when they all met together in the room. - -“I will give my daughter to him who jumps highest,” exclaimed the King; -“for it is not so amusing where there is no prize to jump for.” - -The Flea was the first to step forward. He had exquisite manners, and -bowed to the company on all sides; for he had noble blood, and was, -moreover, accustomed to the society of man alone; and that makes a great -difference. - -Then came the Grasshopper. He was considerably heavier, but he was -well-mannered, and wore a green uniform, which he had by right of birth; -he said, moreover, that he belonged to a very ancient Egyptian family, -and that in the house where he then was, he was thought much of. The -fact was, he had been just brought out of the fields, and put in a -pasteboard house, three stories high, all made of court-cards, with the -colored side inwards; and doors and windows cut out of the body of -the Queen of Hearts. “I sing so well,” said he, “that sixteen native -grasshoppers who have chirped from infancy, and yet got no house built -of cards to live in, grew thinner than they were before for sheer -vexation when they heard me.” - -It was thus that the Flea and the Grasshopper gave an account of -themselves, and thought they were quite good enough to marry a Princess. - -The Leap-frog said nothing; but people gave it as their opinion, that -he therefore thought the more; and when the housedog snuffed at him -with his nose, he confessed the Leap-frog was of good family. The old -councillor, who had had three orders given him to make him hold his -tongue, asserted that the Leap-frog was a prophet; for that one could -see on his back, if there would be a severe or mild winter, and that -was what one could not see even on the back of the man who writes the -almanac. - -“I say nothing, it is true,” exclaimed the King; “but I have my own -opinion, notwithstanding.” - -Now the trial was to take place. The Flea jumped so high that nobody -could see where he went to; so they all asserted he had not jumped at -all; and that was dishonorable. - -The Grasshopper jumped only half as high; but he leaped into the King's -face, who said that was ill-mannered. - -The Leap-frog stood still for a long time lost in thought; it was -believed at last he would not jump at all. - -“I only hope he is not unwell,” said the house-dog; when, pop! he made a -jump all on one side into the lap of the Princess, who was sitting on a -little golden stool close by. - -Hereupon the King said, “There is nothing above my daughter; therefore -to bound up to her is the highest jump that can be made; but for this, -one must possess understanding, and the Leap-frog has shown that he has -understanding. He is brave and intellectual.” - -And so he won the Princess. - -“It's all the same to me,” said the Flea. “She may have the old -Leap-frog, for all I care. I jumped the highest; but in this world -merit seldom meets its reward. A fine exterior is what people look at -now-a-days.” - -The Flea then went into foreign service, where, it is said, he was -killed. - -The Grasshopper sat without on a green bank, and reflected on worldly -things; and he said too, “Yes, a fine exterior is everything--a fine -exterior is what people care about.” And then he began chirping his -peculiar melancholy song, from which we have taken this history; and -which may, very possibly, be all untrue, although it does stand here -printed in black and white. - - - - -THE ELDERBUSH - -Once upon a time there was a little boy who had taken cold. He had -gone out and got his feet wet; though nobody could imagine how it had -happened, for it was quite dry weather. So his mother undressed him, put -him to bed, and had the tea-pot brought in, to make him a good cup of -Elderflower tea. Just at that moment the merry old man came in who -lived up a-top of the house all alone; for he had neither wife nor -children--but he liked children very much, and knew so many fairy tales, -that it was quite delightful. - -“Now drink your tea,” said the boy's mother; “then, perhaps, you may -hear a fairy tale.” - -“If I had but something new to tell,” said the old man. “But how did the -child get his feet wet?” - -“That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother. - -“Am I to hear a fairy tale?” asked the little boy. - -“Yes, if you can tell me exactly--for I must know that first--how deep -the gutter is in the little street opposite, that you pass through in -going to school.” - -“Just up to the middle of my boot,” said the child; “but then I must go -into the deep hole.” - -“Ah, ah! That's where the wet feet came from,” said the old man. “I -ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.” - -“You can make one in a moment,” said the little boy. “My mother says -that all you look at can be turned into a fairy tale: and that you can -find a story in everything.” - -“Yes, but such tales and stories are good for nothing. The right sort -come of themselves; they tap at my forehead and say, 'Here we are.'” - -“Won't there be a tap soon?” asked the little boy. And his mother -laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and poured boiling water -upon them. - -“Do tell me something! Pray do!” - -“Yes, if a fairy tale would come of its own accord; but they are proud -and haughty, and come only when they choose. Stop!” said he, all on a -sudden. “I have it! Pay attention! There is one in the tea-pot!” - -And the little boy looked at the tea-pot. The cover rose more and more; -and the Elder-flowers came forth so fresh and white, and shot up long -branches. Out of the spout even did they spread themselves on all sides, -and grew larger and larger; it was a splendid Elderbush, a whole tree; -and it reached into the very bed, and pushed the curtains aside. How -it bloomed! And what an odour! In the middle of the bush sat a -friendly-looking old woman in a most strange dress. It was quite -green, like the leaves of the elder, and was trimmed with large white -Elder-flowers; so that at first one could not tell whether it was a -stuff, or a natural green and real flowers. - -“What's that woman's name?” asked the little boy. - -“The Greeks and Romans,” said the old man, “called her a Dryad; but that -we do not understand. The people who live in the New Booths [*] have a much -better name for her; they call her 'old Granny'--and she it is to -whom you are to pay attention. Now listen, and look at the beautiful -Elderbush. - - * A row of buildings for seamen in Copenhagen. - -“Just such another large blooming Elder Tree stands near the New Booths. -It grew there in the corner of a little miserable court-yard; and under -it sat, of an afternoon, in the most splendid sunshine, two old -people; an old, old seaman, and his old, old wife. They had -great-grand-children, and were soon to celebrate the fiftieth -anniversary of their marriage; but they could not exactly recollect the -date: and old Granny sat in the tree, and looked as pleased as now. 'I -know the date,' said she; but those below did not hear her, for they -were talking about old times. - -“'Yes, can't you remember when we were very little,' said the old -seaman, 'and ran and played about? It was the very same court-yard where -we now are, and we stuck slips in the ground, and made a garden.' - -“'I remember it well,' said the old woman; 'I remember it quite well. We -watered the slips, and one of them was an Elderbush. It took root, put -forth green shoots, and grew up to be the large tree under which we old -folks are now sitting.' - -“'To be sure,' said he. 'And there in the corner stood a waterpail, -where I used to swim my boats.' - -“'True; but first we went to school to learn somewhat,' said she; 'and -then we were confirmed. We both cried; but in the afternoon we went up -the Round Tower, and looked down on Copenhagen, and far, far away over -the water; then we went to Friedericksberg, where the King and the Queen -were sailing about in their splendid barges.' - -“'But I had a different sort of sailing to that, later; and that, too, -for many a year; a long way off, on great voyages.' - -“'Yes, many a time have I wept for your sake,' said she. 'I thought you -were dead and gone, and lying down in the deep waters. Many a night have -I got up to see if the wind had not changed: and changed it had, sure -enough; but you never came. I remember so well one day, when the rain -was pouring down in torrents, the scavengers were before the house where -I was in service, and I had come up with the dust, and remained standing -at the door--it was dreadful weather--when just as I was there, the -postman came and gave me a letter. It was from you! What a tour that -letter had made! I opened it instantly and read: I laughed and wept. -I was so happy. In it I read that you were in warm lands where the -coffee-tree grows. What a blessed land that must be! You related so -much, and I saw it all the while the rain was pouring down, and I -standing there with the dust-box. At the same moment came someone who -embraced me.' - -“'Yes; but you gave him a good box on his ear that made it tingle!' - -“'But I did not know it was you. You arrived as soon as your letter, -and you were so handsome--that you still are--and had a long yellow silk -handkerchief round your neck, and a bran new hat on; oh, you were so -dashing! Good heavens! What weather it was, and what a state the street -was in!' - -“'And then we married,' said he. 'Don't you remember? And then we -had our first little boy, and then Mary, and Nicholas, and Peter, and -Christian.' - -“'Yes, and how they all grew up to be honest people, and were beloved by -everybody.' - -“'And their children also have children,' said the old sailor; 'yes, -those are our grand-children, full of strength and vigor. It was, -methinks about this season that we had our wedding.' - -“'Yes, this very day is the fiftieth anniversary of the marriage,' said -old Granny, sticking her head between the two old people; who thought -it was their neighbor who nodded to them. They looked at each other and -held one another by the hand. Soon after came their children, and their -grand-children; for they knew well enough that it was the day of the -fiftieth anniversary, and had come with their gratulations that very -morning; but the old people had forgotten it, although they were able -to remember all that had happened many years ago. And the Elderbush sent -forth a strong odour in the sun, that was just about to set, and shone -right in the old people's faces. They both looked so rosy-cheeked; and -the youngest of the grandchildren danced around them, and called out -quite delighted, that there was to be something very splendid that -evening--they were all to have hot potatoes. And old Nanny nodded in the -bush, and shouted 'hurrah!' with the rest.” - -“But that is no fairy tale,” said the little boy, who was listening to -the story. - -“The thing is, you must understand it,” said the narrator; “let us ask -old Nanny.” - -“That was no fairy tale, 'tis true,” said old Nanny; “but now it's -coming. The most wonderful fairy tales grow out of that which is -reality; were that not the case, you know, my magnificent Elderbush -could not have grown out of the tea-pot.” And then she took the little -boy out of bed, laid him on her bosom, and the branches of the Elder -Tree, full of flowers, closed around her. They sat in an aerial -dwelling, and it flew with them through the air. Oh, it was wondrous -beautiful! Old Nanny had grown all of a sudden a young and pretty -maiden; but her robe was still the same green stuff with white flowers, -which she had worn before. On her bosom she had a real Elderflower, -and in her yellow waving hair a wreath of the flowers; her eyes were so -large and blue that it was a pleasure to look at them; she kissed the -boy, and now they were of the same age and felt alike. - -Hand in hand they went out of the bower, and they were standing in the -beautiful garden of their home. Near the green lawn papa's walking-stick -was tied, and for the little ones it seemed to be endowed with life; for -as soon as they got astride it, the round polished knob was turned into -a magnificent neighing head, a long black mane fluttered in the breeze, -and four slender yet strong legs shot out. The animal was strong and -handsome, and away they went at full gallop round the lawn. - -“Huzza! Now we are riding miles off,” said the boy. “We are riding away -to the castle where we were last year!” - -And on they rode round the grass-plot; and the little maiden, who, we -know, was no one else but old Nanny, kept on crying out, “Now we are in -the country! Don't you see the farm-house yonder? And there is an Elder -Tree standing beside it; and the cock is scraping away the earth for the -hens, look, how he struts! And now we are close to the church. It lies -high upon the hill, between the large oak-trees, one of which is half -decayed. And now we are by the smithy, where the fire is blazing, and -where the half-naked men are banging with their hammers till the sparks -fly about. Away! away! To the beautiful country-seat!” - -And all that the little maiden, who sat behind on the stick, spoke of, -flew by in reality. The boy saw it all, and yet they were only going -round the grass-plot. Then they played in a side avenue, and marked out -a little garden on the earth; and they took Elder-blossoms from their -hair, planted them, and they grew just like those the old people planted -when they were children, as related before. They went hand in hand, as -the old people had done when they were children; but not to the Round -Tower, or to Friedericksberg; no, the little damsel wound her arms round -the boy, and then they flew far away through all Denmark. And spring -came, and summer; and then it was autumn, and then winter; and a -thousand pictures were reflected in the eye and in the heart of the boy; -and the little girl always sang to him, “This you will never forget.” - And during their whole flight the Elder Tree smelt so sweet and odorous; -he remarked the roses and the fresh beeches, but the Elder Tree had -a more wondrous fragrance, for its flowers hung on the breast of the -little maiden; and there, too, did he often lay his head during the -flight. - -“It is lovely here in spring!” said the young maiden. And they stood in -a beech-wood that had just put on its first green, where the woodroof [*] -at their feet sent forth its fragrance, and the pale-red anemony looked -so pretty among the verdure. “Oh, would it were always spring in the -sweetly-smelling Danish beech-forests!” - - * Asperula odorata. - -“It is lovely here in summer!” said she. And she flew past old castles -of by-gone days of chivalry, where the red walls and the embattled -gables were mirrored in the canal, where the swans were swimming, and -peered up into the old cool avenues. In the fields the corn was waving -like the sea; in the ditches red and yellow flowers were growing; while -wild-drone flowers, and blooming convolvuluses were creeping in the -hedges; and towards evening the moon rose round and large, and the -haycocks in the meadows smelt so sweetly. “This one never forgets!” - -“It is lovely here in autumn!” said the little maiden. And suddenly the -atmosphere grew as blue again as before; the forest grew red, and green, -and yellow-colored. The dogs came leaping along, and whole flocks of -wild-fowl flew over the cairn, where blackberry-bushes were hanging -round the old stones. The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full -of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were -sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the -old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers. Nothing could -be more charming. - -“It is delightful here in winter!” said the little maiden. And all the -trees were covered with hoar-frost; they looked like white corals; the -snow crackled under foot, as if one had new boots on; and one falling -star after the other was seen in the sky. The Christmas-tree was lighted -in the room; presents were there, and good-humor reigned. In the country -the violin sounded in the room of the peasant; the newly-baked cakes -were attacked; even the poorest child said, “It is really delightful -here in winter!” - -Yes, it was delightful; and the little maiden showed the boy everything; -and the Elder Tree still was fragrant, and the red flag, with the white -cross, was still waving: the flag under which the old seaman in the New -Booths had sailed. And the boy grew up to be a lad, and was to go forth -in the wide world-far, far away to warm lands, where the coffee-tree -grows; but at his departure the little maiden took an Elder-blossom from -her bosom, and gave it him to keep; and it was placed between the leaves -of his Prayer-Book; and when in foreign lands he opened the book, it -was always at the place where the keepsake-flower lay; and the more he -looked at it, the fresher it became; he felt as it were, the fragrance -of the Danish groves; and from among the leaves of the flowers he could -distinctly see the little maiden, peeping forth with her bright blue -eyes--and then she whispered, “It is delightful here in Spring, Summer, -Autumn, and Winter”; and a hundred visions glided before his mind. - -Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old -wife under the blooming tree. They held each other by the hand, as the -old grand-father and grand-mother yonder in the New Booths did, and they -talked exactly like them of old times, and of the fiftieth anniversary -of their wedding. The little maiden, with the blue eyes, and with -Elder-blossoms in her hair, sat in the tree, nodded to both of them, -and said, “To-day is the fiftieth anniversary!” And then she took two -flowers out of her hair, and kissed them. First, they shone like silver, -then like gold; and when they laid them on the heads of the old people, -each flower became a golden crown. So there they both sat, like a king -and a queen, under the fragrant tree, that looked exactly like an elder: -the old man told his wife the story of “Old Nanny,” as it had been told -him when a boy. And it seemed to both of them it contained much that -resembled their own history; and those parts that were like it pleased -them best. - -“Thus it is,” said the little maiden in the tree, “some call me 'Old -Nanny,' others a 'Dryad,' but, in reality, my name is 'Remembrance'; -'tis I who sit in the tree that grows and grows! I can remember; I can -tell things! Let me see if you have my flower still?” - -And the old man opened his Prayer-Book. There lay the Elder-blossom, -as fresh as if it had been placed there but a short time before; and -Remembrance nodded, and the old people, decked with crowns of gold, sat -in the flush of the evening sun. They closed their eyes, and--and--! -Yes, that's the end of the story! - -The little boy lay in his bed; he did not know if he had dreamed or -not, or if he had been listening while someone told him the story. The -tea-pot was standing on the table, but no Elder Tree was growing out -of it! And the old man, who had been talking, was just on the point of -going out at the door, and he did go. - -“How splendid that was!” said the little boy. “Mother, I have been to -warm countries.” - -“So I should think,” said his mother. “When one has drunk two good -cupfuls of Elder-flower tea, 'tis likely enough one goes into warm -climates”; and she tucked him up nicely, least he should take cold. “You -have had a good sleep while I have been sitting here, and arguing with -him whether it was a story or a fairy tale.” - -“And where is old Nanny?” asked the little boy. - -“In the tea-pot,” said his mother; “and there she may remain.” - - - - -THE BELL - -People said “The Evening Bell is sounding, the sun is setting.” For a -strange wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town. -It was like the sound of a church-bell: but it was only heard for a -moment, for the rolling of the carriages and the voices of the multitude -made too great a noise. - -Those persons who were walking outside the town, where the houses were -farther apart, with gardens or little fields between them, could see -the evening sky still better, and heard the sound of the bell much -more distinctly. It was as if the tones came from a church in the still -forest; people looked thitherward, and felt their minds attuned most -solemnly. - -A long time passed, and people said to each other--“I wonder if there -is a church out in the wood? The bell has a tone that is wondrous sweet; -let us stroll thither, and examine the matter nearer.” And the rich -people drove out, and the poor walked, but the way seemed strangely -long to them; and when they came to a clump of willows which grew on the -skirts of the forest, they sat down, and looked up at the long -branches, and fancied they were now in the depth of the green wood. The -confectioner of the town came out, and set up his booth there; and soon -after came another confectioner, who hung a bell over his stand, as -a sign or ornament, but it had no clapper, and it was tarred over to -preserve it from the rain. When all the people returned home, they said -it had been very romantic, and that it was quite a different sort of -thing to a pic-nic or tea-party. There were three persons who asserted -they had penetrated to the end of the forest, and that they had always -heard the wonderful sounds of the bell, but it had seemed to them as if -it had come from the town. One wrote a whole poem about it, and said the -bell sounded like the voice of a mother to a good dear child, and -that no melody was sweeter than the tones of the bell. The king of the -country was also observant of it, and vowed that he who could discover -whence the sounds proceeded, should have the title of “Universal -Bell-ringer,” even if it were not really a bell. - -Many persons now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place, -but one only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far -enough, that one not further than the others. However, he said that -the sound proceeded from a very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of -learned owl, that continually knocked its head against the branches. But -whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no -one could say with certainty. So now he got the place of “Universal -Bell-ringer,” and wrote yearly a short treatise “On the Owl”; but -everybody was just as wise as before. - -It was the day of confirmation. The clergyman had spoken so touchingly, -the children who were confirmed had been greatly moved; it was -an eventful day for them; from children they become all at once -grown-up-persons; it was as if their infant souls were now to fly all -at once into persons with more understanding. The sun was shining -gloriously; the children that had been confirmed went out of the town; -and from the wood was borne towards them the sounds of the unknown bell -with wonderful distinctness. They all immediately felt a wish to go -thither; all except three. One of them had to go home to try on a -ball-dress; for it was just the dress and the ball which had caused her -to be confirmed this time, for otherwise she would not have come; -the other was a poor boy, who had borrowed his coat and boots to be -confirmed in from the innkeeper's son, and he was to give them back by -a certain hour; the third said that he never went to a strange place -if his parents were not with him--that he had always been a good boy -hitherto, and would still be so now that he was confirmed, and that one -ought not to laugh at him for it: the others, however, did make fun of -him, after all. - -There were three, therefore, that did not go; the others hastened on. -The sun shone, the birds sang, and the children sang too, and each held -the other by the hand; for as yet they had none of them any high office, -and were all of equal rank in the eye of God. - -But two of the youngest soon grew tired, and both returned to town; two -little girls sat down, and twined garlands, so they did not go either; -and when the others reached the willow-tree, where the confectioner was, -they said, “Now we are there! In reality the bell does not exist; it is -only a fancy that people have taken into their heads!” - -At the same moment the bell sounded deep in the wood, so clear and -solemnly that five or six determined to penetrate somewhat further. It -was so thick, and the foliage so dense, that it was quite fatiguing -to proceed. Woodroof and anemonies grew almost too high; blooming -convolvuluses and blackberry-bushes hung in long garlands from tree to -tree, where the nightingale sang and the sunbeams were playing: it was -very beautiful, but it was no place for girls to go; their clothes would -get so torn. Large blocks of stone lay there, overgrown with moss of -every color; the fresh spring bubbled forth, and made a strange gurgling -sound. - -“That surely cannot be the bell,” said one of the children, lying down -and listening. “This must be looked to.” So he remained, and let the -others go on without him. - -They afterwards came to a little house, made of branches and the bark of -trees; a large wild apple-tree bent over it, as if it would shower down -all its blessings on the roof, where roses were blooming. The long stems -twined round the gable, on which there hung a small bell. - -Was it that which people had heard? Yes, everybody was unanimous on the -subject, except one, who said that the bell was too small and too fine -to be heard at so great a distance, and besides it was very different -tones to those that could move a human heart in such a manner. It was a -king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want -to be wiser than everybody else.” - -They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more -and more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell -with which the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the -wind blew, he could also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea -where the confectioner had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose -louder; it was almost as if an organ were accompanying it, and the tones -came from the left hand, the side where the heart is placed. A rustling -was heard in the bushes, and a little boy stood before the King's Son, a -boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a jacket that one could see what -long wrists he had. Both knew each other: the boy was that one among -the children who could not come because he had to go home and return his -jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son. This he had done, and was now -going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress, for the bell sounded -with so deep a tone, and with such strange power, that proceed he must. - -“Why, then, we can go together,” said the King's Son. But the poor -child that had been confirmed was quite ashamed; he looked at his wooden -shoes, pulled at the short sleeves of his jacket, and said that he was -afraid he could not walk so fast; besides, he thought that the bell must -be looked for to the right; for that was the place where all sorts of -beautiful things were to be found. - -“But there we shall not meet,” said the King's Son, nodding at the same -time to the poor boy, who went into the darkest, thickest part of the -wood, where thorns tore his humble dress, and scratched his face and -hands and feet till they bled. The King's Son got some scratches too; -but the sun shone on his path, and it is him that we will follow, for he -was an excellent and resolute youth. - -“I must and will find the bell,” said he, “even if I am obliged to go to -the end of the world.” - -The ugly apes sat upon the trees, and grinned. “Shall we thrash him?” - said they. “Shall we thrash him? He is the son of a king!” - -But on he went, without being disheartened, deeper and deeper into the -wood, where the most wonderful flowers were growing. There stood white -lilies with blood-red stamina, skyblue tulips, which shone as they waved -in the winds, and apple-trees, the apples of which looked exactly like -large soapbubbles: so only think how the trees must have sparkled in the -sunshine! Around the nicest green meads, where the deer were playing in -the grass, grew magnificent oaks and beeches; and if the bark of one of -the trees was cracked, there grass and long creeping plants grew in -the crevices. And there were large calm lakes there too, in which white -swans were swimming, and beat the air with their wings. The King's Son -often stood still and listened. He thought the bell sounded from the -depths of these still lakes; but then he remarked again that the tone -proceeded not from there, but farther off, from out the depths of the -forest. - -The sun now set: the atmosphere glowed like fire. It was still in the -woods, so very still; and he fell on his knees, sung his evening hymn, -and said: “I cannot find what I seek; the sun is going down, and night -is coming--the dark, dark night. Yet perhaps I may be able once more -to see the round red sun before he entirely disappears. I will climb up -yonder rock.” - -And he seized hold of the creeping-plants, and the roots of -trees--climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing -and the toads were croaking--and he gained the summit before the sun -had quite gone down. How magnificent was the sight from this height! The -sea--the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves against the -coast--was stretched out before him. And yonder, where sea and sky meet, -stood the sun, like a large shining altar, all melted together in the -most glowing colors. And the wood and the sea sang a song of rejoicing, -and his heart sang with the rest: all nature was a vast holy church, -in which the trees and the buoyant clouds were the pillars, flowers and -grass the velvet carpeting, and heaven itself the large cupola. The red -colors above faded away as the sun vanished, but a million stars were -lighted, a million lamps shone; and the King's Son spread out his arms -towards heaven, and wood, and sea; when at the same moment, coming by -a path to the right, appeared, in his wooden shoes and jacket, the poor -boy who had been confirmed with him. He had followed his own path, and -had reached the spot just as soon as the son of the king had done. They -ran towards each other, and stood together hand in hand in the vast -church of nature and of poetry, while over them sounded the invisible -holy bell: blessed spirits floated around them, and lifted up their -voices in a rejoicing hallelujah! - - - - -THE OLD HOUSE - -In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house--it was almost -three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great -beam on which the date of the year was carved: together with tulips and -hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and over -every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam. The one story -stood forward a great way over the other; and directly under the eaves -was a leaden spout with a dragon's head; the rain-water should have run -out of the mouth, but it ran out of the belly, for there was a hole in -the spout. - -All the other houses in the street were so new and so neat, with large -window panes and smooth walls, one could easily see that they would have -nothing to do with the old house: they certainly thought, “How long is -that old decayed thing to stand here as a spectacle in the street? And -then the projecting windows stand so far out, that no one can see from -our windows what happens in that direction! The steps are as broad as -those of a palace, and as high as to a church tower. The iron railings -look just like the door to an old family vault, and then they have brass -tops--that's so stupid!” - -On the other side of the street were also new and neat houses, and they -thought just as the others did; but at the window opposite the old house -there sat a little boy with fresh rosy cheeks and bright beaming eyes: -he certainly liked the old house best, and that both in sunshine and -moonshine. And when he looked across at the wall where the mortar -had fallen out, he could sit and find out there the strangest figures -imaginable; exactly as the street had appeared before, with steps, -projecting windows, and pointed gables; he could see soldiers with -halberds, and spouts where the water ran, like dragons and serpents. -That was a house to look at; and there lived an old man, who wore plush -breeches; and he had a coat with large brass buttons, and a wig that one -could see was a real wig. Every morning there came an old fellow to him -who put his rooms in order, and went on errands; otherwise, the old man -in the plush breeches was quite alone in the old house. Now and then he -came to the window and looked out, and the little boy nodded to him, -and the old man nodded again, and so they became acquaintances, and then -they were friends, although they had never spoken to each other--but -that made no difference. The little boy heard his parents say, “The old -man opposite is very well off, but he is so very, very lonely!” - -The Sunday following, the little boy took something, and wrapped it up -in a piece of paper, went downstairs, and stood in the doorway; and when -the man who went on errands came past, he said to him-- - -“I say, master! will you give this to the old man over the way from me? -I have two pewter soldiers--this is one of them, and he shall have it, -for I know he is so very, very lonely.” - -And the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded, and took the pewter -soldier over to the old house. Afterwards there came a message; it was -to ask if the little boy himself had not a wish to come over and pay a -visit; and so he got permission of his parents, and then went over to -the old house. - -And the brass balls on the iron railings shone much brighter than ever; -one would have thought they were polished on account of the visit; and -it was as if the carved-out trumpeters--for there were trumpeters, who -stood in tulips, carved out on the door--blew with all their -might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than before. Yes, they -blew--“Trateratra! The little boy comes! Trateratra!”--and then the door -opened. - -The whole passage was hung with portraits of knights in armor, and -ladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled, and the silken gowns -rustled! And then there was a flight of stairs which went a good way -upwards, and a little way downwards, and then one came on a balcony -which was in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes and -long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of them altogether, -for the whole balcony outside, the yard, and the walls, were overgrown -with so much green stuff, that it looked like a garden; only a balcony. -Here stood old flower-pots with faces and asses' ears, and the flowers -grew just as they liked. One of the pots was quite overrun on all sides -with pinks, that is to say, with the green part; shoot stood by shoot, -and it said quite distinctly, “The air has cherished me, the sun has -kissed me, and promised me a little flower on Sunday! a little flower on -Sunday!” - -And then they entered a chamber where the walls were covered with hog's -leather, and printed with gold flowers. - - “The gilding decays, - But hog's leather stays!” - -said the walls. - -And there stood easy-chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out, -and with arms on both sides. “Sit down! sit down!” said they. “Ugh! how -I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old clothespress, -ugh!” - -And then the little boy came into the room where the projecting windows -were, and where the old man sat. - -“I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!” said the old -man. “And I thank you because you come over to me.” - -“Thankee! thankee!” or “cranky! cranky!” sounded from all the furniture; -there was so much of it, that each article stood in the other's way, to -get a look at the little boy. - -In the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a beautiful lady, -so young, so glad, but dressed quite as in former times, with clothes -that stood quite stiff, and with powder in her hair; she neither said -“thankee, thankee!” nor “cranky, cranky!” but looked with her mild eyes -at the little boy, who directly asked the old man, “Where did you get -her?” - -“Yonder, at the broker's,” said the old man, “where there are so many -pictures hanging. No one knows or cares about them, for they are all of -them buried; but I knew her in by-gone days, and now she has been dead -and gone these fifty years!” - -Under the picture, in a glazed frame, there hung a bouquet of withered -flowers; they were almost fifty years old; they looked so very old! - -The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned, -and everything in the room became still older; but they did not observe -it. - -“They say at home,” said the little boy, “that you are so very, very -lonely!” - -“Oh!” said he. “The old thoughts, with what they may bring with them, -come and visit me, and now you also come! I am very well off!” - -Then he took a book with pictures in it down from the shelf; there were -whole long processions and pageants, with the strangest characters, -which one never sees now-a-days; soldiers like the knave of clubs, -and citizens with waving flags: the tailors had theirs, with a pair of -shears held by two lions--and the shoemakers theirs, without boots, -but with an eagle that had two heads, for the shoemakers must have -everything so that they can say, it is a pair! Yes, that was a picture -book! - -The old man now went into the other room to fetch preserves, apples, and -nuts--yes, it was delightful over there in the old house. - -“I cannot bear it any longer!” said the pewter soldier, who sat on the -drawers. “It is so lonely and melancholy here! But when one has been in -a family circle one cannot accustom oneself to this life! I cannot bear -it any longer! The whole day is so long, and the evenings are still -longer! Here it is not at all as it is over the way at your home, where -your father and mother spoke so pleasantly, and where you and all your -sweet children made such a delightful noise. Nay, how lonely the old man -is--do you think that he gets kisses? Do you think he gets mild eyes, -or a Christmas tree? He will get nothing but a grave! I can bear it no -longer!” - -“You must not let it grieve you so much,” said the little boy. “I find -it so very delightful here, and then all the old thoughts, with what -they may bring with them, they come and visit here.” - -“Yes, it's all very well, but I see nothing of them, and I don't know -them!” said the pewter soldier. “I cannot bear it!” - -“But you must!” said the little boy. - -Then in came the old man with the most pleased and happy face, the most -delicious preserves, apples, and nuts, and so the little boy thought no -more about the pewter soldier. - -The little boy returned home happy and pleased, and weeks and days -passed away, and nods were made to the old house, and from the old -house, and then the little boy went over there again. - -The carved trumpeters blew, “Trateratra! There is the little boy! -Trateratra!” and the swords and armor on the knights' portraits rattled, -and the silk gowns rustled; the hog's leather spoke, and the old chairs -had the gout in their legs and rheumatism in their backs: Ugh! it was -exactly like the first time, for over there one day and hour was just -like another. - -“I cannot bear it!” said the pewter soldier. “I have shed pewter tears! -It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and lose arms and -legs! It would at least be a change. I cannot bear it longer! Now, I -know what it is to have a visit from one's old thoughts, with what they -may bring with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be sure -it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down -from the drawers. - -“I saw you all over there at home so distinctly, as if you really were -here; it was again that Sunday morning; all you children stood before -the table and sung your Psalms, as you do every morning. You stood -devoutly with folded hands; and father and mother were just as pious; -and then the door was opened, and little sister Mary, who is not two -years old yet, and who always dances when she hears music or singing, of -whatever kind it may be, was put into the room--though she ought not to -have been there--and then she began to dance, but could not keep time, -because the tones were so long; and then she stood, first on the one -leg, and bent her head forwards, and then on the other leg, and bent -her head forwards--but all would not do. You stood very seriously all -together, although it was difficult enough; but I laughed to myself, and -then I fell off the table, and got a bump, which I have still--for it -was not right of me to laugh. But the whole now passes before me again -in thought, and everything that I have lived to see; and these are the -old thoughts, with what they may bring with them. - -“Tell me if you still sing on Sundays? Tell me something about little -Mary! And how my comrade, the other pewter soldier, lives! Yes, he is -happy enough, that's sure! I cannot bear it any longer!” - -“You are given away as a present!” said the little boy. “You must -remain. Can you not understand that?” - -The old man now came with a drawer, in which there was much to be seen, -both “tin boxes” and “balsam boxes,” old cards, so large and so gilded, -such as one never sees them now. And several drawers were opened, and -the piano was opened; it had landscapes on the inside of the lid, and it -was so hoarse when the old man played on it! and then he hummed a song. - -“Yes, she could sing that!” said he, and nodded to the portrait, which -he had bought at the broker's, and the old man's eyes shone so bright! - -“I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!” shouted the pewter -soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself off the drawers right -down on the floor. What became of him? The old man sought, and the -little boy sought; he was away, and he stayed away. - -“I shall find him!” said the old man; but he never found him. The floor -was too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice, and there -he lay as in an open tomb. - -That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed, -and several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy was -obliged to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the old -house, and there the snow had been blown into all the carved work and -inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if there was no -one at home--nor was there any one at home--the old man was dead! - -In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was borne -into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to lie in -his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all his friends -were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it was -driven away. - -Some days afterwards there was an auction at the old house, and the -little boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and the -old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old chairs, and -the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and something came there; -the portrait of her who had been found at the broker's came to the -broker's again; and there it hung, for no one knew her more--no one -cared about the old picture. - -In the spring they pulled the house down, for, as people said, it was -a ruin. One could see from the street right into the room with the -hog's-leather hanging, which was slashed and torn; and the green grass -and leaves about the balcony hung quite wild about the falling beams. -And then it was put to rights. - -“That was a relief,” said the neighboring houses. - -A fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white -walls; but before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a -little garden laid out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the -neighboring house. Before the garden there was a large iron railing -with an iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still and -peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the vine, and chattered -away at each other as well as they could, but it was not about the old -house, for they could not remember it, so many years had passed--so many -that the little boy had grown up to a whole man, yes, a clever man, and -a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been married, and, together -with his little wife, had come to live in the house here, where the -garden was; and he stood by her there whilst she planted a field-flower -that she found so pretty; she planted it with her little hand, and -pressed the earth around it with her fingers. Oh! what was that? She -had stuck herself. There sat something pointed, straight out of the soft -mould. - -It was--yes, guess! It was the pewter soldier, he that was lost up at -the old man's, and had tumbled and turned about amongst the timber and -the rubbish, and had at last laid for many years in the ground. - -The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with a green leaf, -and then with her fine handkerchief--it had such a delightful smell, -that it was to the pewter soldier just as if he had awaked from a -trance. - -“Let me see him,” said the young man. He laughed, and then shook his -head. “Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter -soldier which I had when I was a little boy!” And then he told his wife -about the old house, and the old man, and about the pewter soldier that -he sent over to him because he was so very, very lonely; and he told it -as correctly as it had really been, so that the tears came into the eyes -of his young wife, on account of the old house and the old man. - -“It may possibly be, however, that it is the same pewter soldier!” said -she. “I will take care of it, and remember all that you have told me; -but you must show me the old man's grave!” - -“But I do not know it,” said he, “and no one knows it! All his friends -were dead, no one took care of it, and I was then a little boy!” - -“How very, very lonely he must have been!” said she. - -“Very, very lonely!” said the pewter soldier. “But it is delightful not -to be forgotten!” - -“Delightful!” shouted something close by; but no one, except the pewter -soldier, saw that it was a piece of the hog's-leather hangings; it had -lost all its gilding, it looked like a piece of wet clay, but it had an -opinion, and it gave it: - - “The gilding decays, - But hog's leather stays!” - -This the pewter soldier did not believe. - - - - -THE HAPPY FAMILY - -Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one -holds it before one, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it over -one's head in rainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, for -it is so immensely large. The burdock never grows alone, but where there -grows one there always grow several: it is a great delight, and all this -delightfulness is snails' food. The great white snails which persons of -quality in former times made fricassees of, ate, and said, “Hem, -hem! how delicious!” for they thought it tasted so delicate--lived on -dock-leaves, and therefore burdock seeds were sown. - -Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails, they -were quite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew and -grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get the mastery -over them--it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an -apple and a plum-tree, or else one never would have thought that it was -a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the two last venerable old -snails. - -They themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember -very well that there had been many more; that they were of a family -from foreign lands, and that for them and theirs the whole forest was -planted. They had never been outside it, but they knew that there was -still something more in the world, which was called the manor-house, and -that there they were boiled, and then they became black, and were then -placed on a silver dish; but what happened further they knew not; or, in -fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish, they could -not possibly imagine; but it was said to be delightful, and particularly -genteel. Neither the chafers, the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they -asked about it could give them any information--none of them had been -boiled or laid on a silver dish. - -The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the -world, that they knew; the forest was planted for their sake, and the -manor-house was there that they might be boiled and laid on a silver -dish. - -Now they lived a very lonely and happy life; and as they had no children -themselves, they had adopted a little common snail, which they brought -up as their own; but the little one would not grow, for he was of a -common family; but the old ones, especially Dame Mother Snail, thought -they could observe how he increased in size, and she begged father, -if he could not see it, that he would at least feel the little snail's -shell; and then he felt it, and found the good dame was right. - -One day there was a heavy storm of rain. - -“Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail. - -“There are also rain-drops!” said Mother Snail. “And now the rain pours -right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I am very -happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has -his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures, sure -enough; but can you not see that we are folks of quality in the world? -We are provided with a house from our birth, and the burdock forest is -planted for our sakes! I should like to know how far it extends, and -what there is outside!” - -“There is nothing at all,” said Father Snail. “No place can be better -than ours, and I have nothing to wish for!” - -“Yes,” said the dame. “I would willingly go to the manorhouse, be -boiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our forefathers have been treated -so; there is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!” - -“The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!” said Father Snail. “Or -the burdocks have grown up over it, so that they cannot come out. There -need not, however, be any haste about that; but you are always in such a -tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same. Has he -not been creeping up that stalk these three days? It gives me a headache -when I look up to him!” - -“You must not scold him,” said Mother Snail. “He creeps so carefully; he -will afford us much pleasure--and we have nothing but him to live for! -But have you not thought of it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do -you not think that there are some of our species at a great distance in -the interior of the burdock forest?” - -“Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of,” said the old one. -“Black snails without a house--but they are so common, and so conceited. -But we might give the ants a commission to look out for us; they run -to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a -wife for our little snail!” - -“I know one, sure enough--the most charming one!” said one of the ants. -“But I am afraid we shall hardly succeed, for she is a queen!” - -“That is nothing!” said the old folks. “Has she a house?” - -“She has a palace!” said the ant. “The finest ant's palace, with seven -hundred passages!” - -“I thank you!” said Mother Snail. “Our son shall not go into an -ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the -commission to the white gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and -sunshine; they know the whole forest here, both within and without.” - -“We have a wife for him,” said the gnats. “At a hundred human paces from -here there sits a little snail in her house, on a gooseberry bush; she -is quite lonely, and old enough to be married. It is only a hundred -human paces!” - -“Well, then, let her come to him!” said the old ones. “He has a whole -forest of burdocks, she has only a bush!” - -And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a whole week -before she arrived; but therein was just the very best of it, for one -could thus see that she was of the same species. - -And then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms shone as well as -they could. In other respects the whole went off very quietly, for the -old folks could not bear noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made -a brilliant speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much -affected; and so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole -forest of burdocks, and said--what they had always said--that it was -the best in the world; and if they lived honestly and decently, and -increased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the -course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on -silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their -shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple governed -in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled, -and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that -the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world -were extinct; and as no one contradicted them, so, of course it was so. -And the rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their sake, -and the sun shone in order to give the burdock forest a color for their -sakes; and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy; for -they, indeed were so. - - - - -THE STORY OF A MOTHER - -A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so -afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed -themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a -deep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more -sorrowfully on the little creature. - -Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man -wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed -it, as it was the cold winter season! Everything out-of-doors was -covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face. - -As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment, -the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove, -that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, -and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at her -little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and raised its little -hand. - -“Do you not think that I shall save him?” said she. “Our Lord will not -take him from me!” - -And the old man--it was Death himself--he nodded so strangely, it could -just as well signify yes as no. And the mother looked down in her lap, -and the tears ran down over her cheeks; her head became so heavy--she -had not closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now she slept, -but only for a minute, when she started up and trembled with cold. - -“What is that?” said she, and looked on all sides; but the old man was -gone, and her little child was gone--he had taken it with him; and the -old clock in the corner burred, and burred, the great leaden weight ran -down to the floor, bump! and then the clock also stood still. - -But the poor mother ran out of the house and cried aloud for her child. - -Out there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman in long, black -clothes; and she said, “Death has been in thy chamber, and I saw him -hasten away with thy little child; he goes faster than the wind, and he -never brings back what he takes!” - -“Oh, only tell me which way he went!” said the mother. “Tell me the way, -and I shall find him!” - -“I know it!” said the woman in the black clothes. “But before I tell it, -thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy child! -I am fond of them. I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears -whilst thou sang'st them!” - -“I will sing them all, all!” said the mother. “But do not stop me now--I -may overtake him--I may find my child!” - -But Night stood still and mute. Then the mother wrung her hands, sang -and wept, and there were many songs, but yet many more tears; and then -Night said, “Go to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw -Death take his way with thy little child!” - -The roads crossed each other in the depths of the forest, and she no -longer knew whither she should go! then there stood a thorn-bush; -there was neither leaf nor flower on it, it was also in the cold winter -season, and ice-flakes hung on the branches. - -“Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?” said the -mother. - -“Yes,” said the thorn-bush; “but I will not tell thee which way he took, -unless thou wilt first warm me up at thy heart. I am freezing to death; -I shall become a lump of ice!” - -And she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly, that it might -be thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went right into her flesh, and her -blood flowed in large drops, but the thornbush shot forth fresh green -leaves, and there came flowers on it in the cold winter night, the heart -of the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told her the way -she should go. - -She then came to a large lake, where there was neither ship nor boat. -The lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear her; neither was it open, -nor low enough that she could wade through it; and across it she must go -if she would find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the lake, and -that was an impossibility for a human being, but the afflicted mother -thought that a miracle might happen nevertheless. - -“Oh, what would I not give to come to my child!” said the weeping -mother; and she wept still more, and her eyes sunk down in the depths of -the waters, and became two precious pearls; but the water bore her up, -as if she sat in a swing, and she flew in the rocking waves to the shore -on the opposite side, where there stood a mile-broad, strange house, one -knew not if it were a mountain with forests and caverns, or if it were -built up; but the poor mother could not see it; she had wept her eyes -out. - -“Where shall I find Death, who took away my little child?” said she. - -“He has not come here yet!” said the old grave woman, who was appointed -to look after Death's great greenhouse! “How have you been able to find -the way hither? And who has helped you?” - -“OUR LORD has helped me,” said she. “He is merciful, and you will also -be so! Where shall I find my little child?” - -“Nay, I know not,” said the woman, “and you cannot see! Many flowers and -trees have withered this night; Death will soon come and plant them over -again! You certainly know that every person has his or her life's tree -or flower, just as everyone happens to be settled; they look like other -plants, but they have pulsations of the heart. Children's hearts can -also beat; go after yours, perhaps you may know your child's; but what -will you give me if I tell you what you shall do more?” - -“I have nothing to give,” said the afflicted mother, “but I will go to -the world's end for you!” - -“Nay, I have nothing to do there!” said the woman. “But you can give -me your long black hair; you know yourself that it is fine, and that -I like! You shall have my white hair instead, and that's always -something!” - -“Do you demand nothing else?” said she. “That I will gladly give you!” - And she gave her her fine black hair, and got the old woman's snow-white -hair instead. - -So they went into Death's great greenhouse, where flowers and trees -grew strangely into one another. There stood fine hyacinths under glass -bells, and there stood strong-stemmed peonies; there grew water plants, -some so fresh, others half sick, the water-snakes lay down on them, -and black crabs pinched their stalks. There stood beautiful palm-trees, -oaks, and plantains; there stood parsley and flowering thyme: every tree -and every flower had its name; each of them was a human life, the human -frame still lived--one in China, and another in Greenland--round about -in the world. There were large trees in small pots, so that they stood -so stunted in growth, and ready to burst the pots; in other places, -there was a little dull flower in rich mould, with moss round about it, -and it was so petted and nursed. But the distressed mother bent down -over all the smallest plants, and heard within them how the human heart -beat; and amongst millions she knew her child's. - -“There it is!” cried she, and stretched her hands out over a little blue -crocus, that hung quite sickly on one side. - -“Don't touch the flower!” said the old woman. “But place yourself here, -and when Death comes--I expect him every moment--do not let him pluck -the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the -others. Then he will be afraid! He is responsible for them to OUR LORD, -and no one dares to pluck them up before HE gives leave.” - -All at once an icy cold rushed through the great hall, and the blind -mother could feel that it was Death that came. - -“How hast thou been able to find thy way hither?” he asked. “How couldst -thou come quicker than I?” - -“I am a mother,” said she. - -And Death stretched out his long hand towards the fine little flower, -but she held her hands fast around his, so tight, and yet afraid that -she should touch one of the leaves. Then Death blew on her hands, and -she felt that it was colder than the cold wind, and her hands fell down -powerless. - -“Thou canst not do anything against me!” said Death. - -“But OUR LORD can!” said she. - -“I only do His bidding!” said Death. “I am His gardener, I take all His -flowers and trees, and plant them out in the great garden of Paradise, -in the unknown land; but how they grow there, and how it is there I dare -not tell thee.” - -“Give me back my child!” said the mother, and she wept and prayed. At -once she seized hold of two beautiful flowers close by, with each hand, -and cried out to Death, “I will tear all thy flowers off, for I am in -despair.” - -“Touch them not!” said Death. “Thou say'st that thou art so unhappy, and -now thou wilt make another mother equally unhappy.” - -“Another mother!” said the poor woman, and directly let go her hold of -both the flowers. - -“There, thou hast thine eyes,” said Death; “I fished them up from the -lake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them again, -they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep well -close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou wouldst -have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life--their whole -human existence: and see what thou wast about to disturb and destroy.” - -And she looked down into the well; and it was a happiness to see how the -one became a blessing to the world, to see how much happiness and joy -were felt everywhere. And she saw the other's life, and it was sorrow -and distress, horror, and wretchedness. - -“Both of them are God's will!” said Death. - -“Which of them is Misfortune's flower and which is that of Happiness?” - asked she. - -“That I will not tell thee,” said Death; “but this thou shalt know from -me, that the one flower was thy own child! it was thy child's fate thou -saw'st--thy own child's future life!” - -Then the mother screamed with terror, “Which of them was my child? Tell -it me! Save the innocent! Save my child from all that misery! Rather -take it away! Take it into God's kingdom! Forget my tears, forget my -prayers, and all that I have done!” - -“I do not understand thee!” said Death. “Wilt thou have thy child again, -or shall I go with it there, where thou dost not know!” - -Then the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to our -Lord: “Oh, hear me not when I pray against Thy will, which is the best! -hear me not! hear me not!” - -And she bowed her head down in her lap, and Death took her child and -went with it into the unknown land. - - - - -THE FALSE COLLAR - -There was once a fine gentleman, all of whose moveables were a boot-jack -and a hair-comb: but he had the finest false collars in the world; and -it is about one of these collars that we are now to hear a story. - -It was so old, that it began to think of marriage; and it happened that -it came to be washed in company with a garter. - -“Nay!” said the collar. “I never did see anything so slender and so -fine, so soft and so neat. May I not ask your name?” - -“That I shall not tell you!” said the garter. - -“Where do you live?” asked the collar. - -But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange -question to answer. - -“You are certainly a girdle,” said the collar; “that is to say an inside -girdle. I see well that you are both for use and ornament, my dear young -lady.” - -“I will thank you not to speak to me,” said the garter. “I think I have -not given the least occasion for it.” - -“Yes! When one is as handsome as you,” said the collar, “that is -occasion enough.” - -“Don't come so near me, I beg of you!” said the garter. “You look so -much like those men-folks.” - -“I am also a fine gentleman,” said the collar. “I have a bootjack and a -hair-comb.” - -But that was not true, for it was his master who had them: but he -boasted. - -“Don't come so near me,” said the garter: “I am not accustomed to it.” - -“Prude!” exclaimed the collar; and then it was taken out of the -washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the -sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm -box-iron. “Dear lady!” said the collar. “Dear widow-lady! I feel quite -hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a hole -in me. Oh! I offer you my hand.” - -“Rag!” said the box-iron; and went proudly over the collar: for she -fancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw -the waggons. “Rag!” said the box-iron. - -The collar was a little jagged at the edge, and so came the long -scissors to cut off the jagged part. “Oh!” said the collar. “You are -certainly the first opera dancer. How well you can stretch your legs -out! It is the most graceful performance I have ever seen. No one can -imitate you.” - -“I know it,” said the scissors. - -“You deserve to be a baroness,” said the collar. “All that I have is a -fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a hair-comb. If I only had the barony!” - -“Do you seek my hand?” said the scissors; for she was angry; and without -more ado, she CUT HIM, and then he was condemned. - -“I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. It is surprising how well -you preserve your teeth, Miss,” said the collar. “Have you never thought -of being betrothed?” - -“Yes, of course! you may be sure of that,” said the hair-comb. “I AM -betrothed--to the boot-jack!” - -“Betrothed!” exclaimed the collar. Now there was no other to court, and -so he despised it. - -A long time passed away, then the collar came into the rag chest at the -paper mill; there was a large company of rags, the fine by themselves, -and the coarse by themselves, just as it should be. They all had much to -say, but the collar the most; for he was a real boaster. - -“I have had such an immense number of sweethearts!” said the collar. -“I could not be in peace! It is true, I was always a fine starched-up -gentleman! I had both a boot-jack and a hair-comb, which I never used! -You should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay down! -I shall never forget MY FIRST LOVE--she was a girdle, so fine, so soft, -and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! -There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing -till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she -gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! My -own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the -heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort of thing; but I -am extremely sorry for the garter--I mean the girdle--that went into the -water-tub. I have much on my conscience, I want to become white paper!” - -And it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the -collar came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, -and on which the story is printed; and that was because it boasted so -terribly afterwards of what had never happened to it. It would be well -for us to beware, that we may not act in a similar manner, for we can -never know if we may not, in the course of time, also come into the -rag chest, and be made into white paper, and then have our whole life's -history printed on it, even the most secret, and be obliged to run about -and tell it ourselves, just like this collar. - - - - -THE SHADOW - -It is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough! there the people -become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the HOTTEST lands they are -burnt to Negroes. But now it was only to the HOT lands that a learned -man had come from the cold; there he thought that he could run about -just as when at home, but he soon found out his mistake. - -He, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors--the -window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the -whole house slept, or there was no one at home. - -The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine -must fall there from morning till evening--it was really not to be -borne. - -The learned man from the cold lands--he was a young man, and seemed to -be a clever man--sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became -quite meagre--even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect -on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they -began to freshen up again. - -In the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out on -all the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one be -accustomed to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the -street. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the -street--chairs and tables were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes, -above a thousand lights were burning--and the one talked and the other -sung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along with -a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys were -screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and -detonating balls--and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers--for -there were funerals with psalm and hymn--and then the din of carriages -driving and company arriving: yes, it was, in truth, lively enough down -in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in -which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one -lived there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so -well in the sun's heat! and that they could not do unless they were -watered--and some one must water them--there must be somebody there. -The door opposite was also opened late in the evening, but it was dark -within, at least in the front room; further in there was heard the sound -of music. The learned foreigner thought it quite marvellous, but now--it -might be that he only imagined it--for he found everything marvellous -out there, in the warm lands, if there had only been no sun. The -stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house -opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared -to him to be extremely tiresome. “It is as if some one sat there, and -practised a piece that he could not master--always the same piece. 'I -shall master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he -plays.” - -* The word mahogany can be understood, in Danish, as having two -meanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in -jest, it signifies “excessively fine,” which arose from an anecdote of -Nyboder, in Copenhagen, (the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was -always proud and fine, in her way, came to her neighbor, and complained -that she had got a splinter in her finger. “What of?” asked the -neighbor's wife. “It is a mahogany splinter,” said the other. “Mahogany! -It cannot be less with you!” exclaimed the woman--and thence the -proverb, “It is so mahogany!”--(that is, so excessively fine)--is -derived. - - -One night the stranger awoke--he slept with the doors of the balcony -open--the curtain before it was raised by the wind, and he thought -that a strange lustre came from the opposite neighbor's house; all the -flowers shone like flames, in the most beautiful colors, and in the -midst of the flowers stood a slender, graceful maiden--it was as if she -also shone; the light really hurt his eyes. He now opened them quite -wide--yes, he was quite awake; with one spring he was on the floor; he -crept gently behind the curtain, but the maiden was gone; the flowers -shone no longer, but there they stood, fresh and blooming as ever; -the door was ajar, and, far within, the music sounded so soft and -delightful, one could really melt away in sweet thoughts from it. Yet -it was like a piece of enchantment. And who lived there? Where was the -actual entrance? The whole of the ground-floor was a row of shops, and -there people could not always be running through. - -One evening the stranger sat out on the balcony. The light burnt in the -room behind him; and thus it was quite natural that his shadow should -fall on his opposite neighbor's wall. Yes! there it sat, directly -opposite, between the flowers on the balcony; and when the stranger -moved, the shadow also moved: for that it always does. - -“I think my shadow is the only living thing one sees over there,” said -the learned man. “See, how nicely it sits between the flowers. The door -stands half-open: now the shadow should be cunning, and go into the -room, look about, and then come and tell me what it had seen. Come, now! -Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest. “Have the kindness to -step in. Now! Art thou going?” and then he nodded to the shadow, and the -shadow nodded again. “Well then, go! But don't stay away.” - -The stranger rose, and his shadow on the opposite neighbor's balcony -rose also; the stranger turned round and the shadow also turned round. -Yes! if anyone had paid particular attention to it, they would have -seen, quite distinctly, that the shadow went in through the half-open -balcony-door of their opposite neighbor, just as the stranger went into -his own room, and let the long curtain fall down after him. - -Next morning, the learned man went out to drink coffee and read the -newspapers. - -“What is that?” said he, as he came out into the sunshine. “I have no -shadow! So then, it has actually gone last night, and not come again. It -is really tiresome!” - -This annoyed him: not so much because the shadow was gone, but because -he knew there was a story about a man without a shadow.* It was known -to everybody at home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now came -there and told his story, they would say that he was imitating it, and -that he had no need to do. He would, therefore, not talk about it at -all; and that was wisely thought. - -*Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man. - - -In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the light -directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always have its -master for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made himself little; -he made himself great: but no shadow came again. He said, “Hem! hem!” - but it was of no use. - -It was vexatious; but in the warm lands everything grows so quickly; and -after the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that a new -shadow came in the sunshine. In the course of three weeks he had a very -fair shadow, which, when he set out for his home in the northern lands, -grew more and more in the journey, so that at last it was so long and so -large, that it was more than sufficient. - -The learned man then came home, and he wrote books about what was true -in the world, and about what was good and what was beautiful; and there -passed days and years--yes! many years passed away. - -One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knocking -at the door. - -“Come in!” said he; but no one came in; so he opened the door, and there -stood before him such an extremely lean man, that he felt quite strange. -As to the rest, the man was very finely dressed--he must be a gentleman. - -“Whom have I the honor of speaking?” asked the learned man. - -“Yes! I thought as much,” said the fine man. “I thought you would not -know me. I have got so much body. I have even got flesh and clothes. You -certainly never thought of seeing me so well off. Do you not know your -old shadow? You certainly thought I should never more return. Things -have gone on well with me since I was last with you. I have, in all -respects, become very well off. Shall I purchase my freedom from -service? If so, I can do it”; and then he rattled a whole bunch of -valuable seals that hung to his watch, and he stuck his hand in the -thick gold chain he wore around his neck--nay! how all his fingers -glittered with diamond rings; and then all were pure gems. - -“Nay; I cannot recover from my surprise!” said the learned man. “What is -the meaning of all this?” - -“Something common, is it not,” said the shadow. “But you yourself do not -belong to the common order; and I, as you know well, have from a child -followed in your footsteps. As soon as you found I was capable to go -out alone in the world, I went my own way. I am in the most brilliant -circumstances, but there came a sort of desire over me to see you once -more before you die; you will die, I suppose? I also wished to see this -land again--for you know we always love our native land. I know you have -got another shadow again; have I anything to pay to it or you? If so, -you will oblige me by saying what it is.” - -“Nay, is it really thou?” said the learned man. “It is most remarkable: -I never imagined that one's old shadow could come again as a man.” - -“Tell me what I have to pay,” said the shadow; “for I don't like to be -in any sort of debt.” - -“How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man. “What debt is there to -talk about? Make thyself as free as anyone else. I am extremely glad to -hear of thy good fortune: sit down, old friend, and tell me a little -how it has gone with thee, and what thou hast seen at our opposite -neighbor's there--in the warm lands.” - -“Yes, I will tell you all about it,” said the shadow, and sat down: “but -then you must also promise me, that, wherever you may meet me, you will -never say to anyone here in the town that I have been your shadow. I -intend to get betrothed, for I can provide for more than one family.” - -“Be quite at thy ease about that,” said the learned man; “I shall not -say to anyone who thou actually art: here is my hand--I promise it, and -a man's bond is his word.” - -“A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.” - -It was really quite astonishing how much of a man it was. It was dressed -entirely in black, and of the very finest cloth; it had patent leather -boots, and a hat that could be folded together, so that it was bare -crown and brim; not to speak of what we already know it had--seals, gold -neck-chain, and diamond rings; yes, the shadow was well-dressed, and it -was just that which made it quite a man. - -“Now I shall tell you my adventures,” said the shadow; and then he -sat, with the polished boots, as heavily as he could, on the arm of the -learned man's new shadow, which lay like a poodle-dog at his feet. -Now this was perhaps from arrogance; and the shadow on the ground kept -itself so still and quiet, that it might hear all that passed: it wished -to know how it could get free, and work its way up, so as to become its -own master. - -“Do you know who lived in our opposite neighbor's house?” said the -shadow. “It was the most charming of all beings, it was Poesy! I was -there for three weeks, and that has as much effect as if one had lived -three thousand years, and read all that was composed and written; -that is what I say, and it is right. I have seen everything and I know -everything!” - -“Poesy!” cried the learned man. “Yes, yes, she often dwells a recluse -in large cities! Poesy! Yes, I have seen her--a single short moment, -but sleep came into my eyes! She stood on the balcony and shone as the -Aurora Borealis shines. Go on, go on--thou wert on the balcony, and went -through the doorway, and then--” - -“Then I was in the antechamber,” said the shadow. “You always sat and -looked over to the antechamber. There was no light; there was a sort -of twilight, but the one door stood open directly opposite the other -through a long row of rooms and saloons, and there it was lighted up. I -should have been completely killed if I had gone over to the maiden; but -I was circumspect, I took time to think, and that one must always do.” - -“And what didst thou then see?” asked the learned man. - -“I saw everything, and I shall tell all to you: but--it is no pride on -my part--as a free man, and with the knowledge I have, not to speak of -my position in life, my excellent circumstances--I certainly wish that -you would say YOU* to me!” - -* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate acquaintances to use the -second person singular, “Du,” (thou) when speaking to each other. When -a friendship is formed between men, they generally affirm it, when -occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to each other -and exclaiming, “thy health,” at the same time striking their glasses -together. This is called drinking “Duus”: they are then, “Duus Brodre,” - (thou brothers) and ever afterwards use the pronoun “thou,” to each -other, it being regarded as more familiar than “De,” (you). Father and -mother, sister and brother say thou to one another--without regard to -age or rank. Master and mistress say thou to their servants the superior -to the inferior. But servants and inferiors do not use the same term -to their masters, or superiors--nor is it ever used when speaking to a -stranger, or anyone with whom they are but slightly acquainted--they -then say as in English--you. - - -“I beg your pardon,” said the learned man; “it is an old habit with me. -YOU are perfectly right, and I shall remember it; but now you must tell -me all YOU saw!” - -“Everything!” said the shadow. “For I saw everything, and I know -everything!” - -“How did it look in the furthest saloon?” asked the learned man. “Was it -there as in the fresh woods? Was it there as in a holy church? Were the -saloons like the starlit firmament when we stand on the high mountains?” - -“Everything was there!” said the shadow. “I did not go quite in, I -remained in the foremost room, in the twilight, but I stood there -quite well; I saw everything, and I know everything! I have been in the -antechamber at the court of Poesy.” - -“But WHAT DID you see? Did all the gods of the olden times pass through -the large saloons? Did the old heroes combat there? Did sweet children -play there, and relate their dreams?” - -“I tell you I was there, and you can conceive that I saw everything -there was to be seen. Had you come over there, you would not have been -a man; but I became so! And besides, I learned to know my inward nature, -my innate qualities, the relationship I had with Poesy. At the time I -was with you, I thought not of that, but always--you know it well--when -the sun rose, and when the sun went down, I became so strangely great; -in the moonlight I was very near being more distinct than yourself; at -that time I did not understand my nature; it was revealed to me in the -antechamber! I became a man! I came out matured; but you were no longer -in the warm lands; as a man I was ashamed to go as I did. I was in -want of boots, of clothes, of the whole human varnish that makes a man -perceptible. I took my way--I tell it to you, but you will not put it in -any book--I took my way to the cake woman--I hid myself behind her; -the woman didn't think how much she concealed. I went out first in the -evening; I ran about the streets in the moonlight; I made myself long up -the walls--it tickles the back so delightfully! I ran up, and ran down, -peeped into the highest windows, into the saloons, and on the roofs, I -peeped in where no one could peep, and I saw what no one else saw, what -no one else should see! This is, in fact, a base world! I would not be a -man if it were not now once accepted and regarded as something to be so! -I saw the most unimaginable things with the women, with the men, with -parents, and with the sweet, matchless children; I saw,” said the -shadow, “what no human being must know, but what they would all -so willingly know--what is bad in their neighbor. Had I written a -newspaper, it would have been read! But I wrote direct to the persons -themselves, and there was consternation in all the towns where I came. -They were so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of -me. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors gave me new -clothes--I am well furnished; the master of the mint struck new coin for -me, and the women said I was so handsome! And so I became the man I am. -And I now bid you farewell. Here is my card--I live on the sunny side -of the street, and am always at home in rainy weather!” And so away went -the shadow. “That was most extraordinary!” said the learned man. Years -and days passed away, then the shadow came again. “How goes it?” said -the shadow. - -“Alas!” said the learned man. “I write about the true, and the good, -and the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such things; I am quite -desperate, for I take it so much to heart!” - -“But I don't!” said the shadow. “I become fat, and it is that one wants -to become! You do not understand the world. You will become ill by it. -You must travel! I shall make a tour this summer; will you go with me? -I should like to have a travelling companion! Will you go with me, as -shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you with me; I shall -pay the travelling expenses!” - -“Nay, this is too much!” said the learned man. - -“It is just as one takes it!” said the shadow. “It will do you much good -to travel! Will you be my shadow? You shall have everything free on the -journey!” - -“Nay, that is too bad!” said the learned man. - -“But it is just so with the world!” said the shadow, “and so it will -be!” and away it went again. - -The learned man was not at all in the most enviable state; grief and -torment followed him, and what he said about the true, and the good, and -the beautiful, was, to most persons, like roses for a cow! He was quite -ill at last. - -“You really look like a shadow!” said his friends to him; and the -learned man trembled, for he thought of it. - -“You must go to a watering-place!” said the shadow, who came and visited -him. “There is nothing else for it! I will take you with me for old -acquaintance' sake; I will pay the travelling expenses, and you write -the descriptions--and if they are a little amusing for me on the way! -I will go to a watering-place--my beard does not grow out as it -ought--that is also a sickness--and one must have a beard! Now you be -wise and accept the offer; we shall travel as comrades!” - -And so they travelled; the shadow was master, and the master was the -shadow; they drove with each other, they rode and walked together, side -by side, before and behind, just as the sun was; the shadow always took -care to keep itself in the master's place. Now the learned man didn't -think much about that; he was a very kind-hearted man, and particularly -mild and friendly, and so he said one day to the shadow: “As we have -now become companions, and in this way have grown up together from -childhood, shall we not drink 'thou' together, it is more familiar?” - -“You are right,” said the shadow, who was now the proper master. “It is -said in a very straight-forward and well-meant manner. You, as a learned -man, certainly know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot bear to -touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in every limb if one -rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just such a feeling on hearing -you say thou to me; I feel myself as if pressed to the earth in my first -situation with you. You see that it is a feeling; that it is not pride: -I cannot allow you to say THOU to me, but I will willingly say THOU to -you, so it is half done!” - -So the shadow said THOU to its former master. - -“This is rather too bad,” thought he, “that I must say YOU and he say -THOU,” but he was now obliged to put up with it. - -So they came to a watering-place where there were many strangers, and -amongst them was a princess, who was troubled with seeing too well; and -that was so alarming! - -She directly observed that the stranger who had just come was quite a -different sort of person to all the others; “He has come here in order -to get his beard to grow, they say, but I see the real cause, he cannot -cast a shadow.” - -She had become inquisitive; and so she entered into conversation -directly with the strange gentleman, on their promenades. As the -daughter of a king, she needed not to stand upon trifles, so she said, -“Your complaint is, that you cannot cast a shadow?” - -“Your Royal Highness must be improving considerably,” said the shadow, -“I know your complaint is, that you see too clearly, but it has -decreased, you are cured. I just happen to have a very unusual shadow! -Do you not see that person who always goes with me? Other persons have -a common shadow, but I do not like what is common to all. We give our -servants finer cloth for their livery than we ourselves use, and so I -had my shadow trimmed up into a man: yes, you see I have even given him -a shadow. It is somewhat expensive, but I like to have something for -myself!” - -“What!” thought the princess. “Should I really be cured! These baths are -the first in the world! In our time water has wonderful powers. But I -shall not leave the place, for it now begins to be amusing here. I am -extremely fond of that stranger: would that his beard should not grow, -for in that case he will leave us!” - -In the evening, the princess and the shadow danced together in the large -ball-room. She was light, but he was still lighter; she had never had -such a partner in the dance. She told him from what land she came, and -he knew that land; he had been there, but then she was not at home; he -had peeped in at the window, above and below--he had seen both the -one and the other, and so he could answer the princess, and make -insinuations, so that she was quite astonished; he must be the wisest -man in the whole world! She felt such respect for what he knew! So that -when they again danced together she fell in love with him; and that the -shadow could remark, for she almost pierced him through with her eyes. -So they danced once more together; and she was about to declare herself, -but she was discreet; she thought of her country and kingdom, and of the -many persons she would have to reign over. - -“He is a wise man,” said she to herself--“It is well; and he dances -delightfully--that is also good; but has he solid knowledge? That is -just as important! He must be examined.” - -So she began, by degrees, to question him about the most difficult -things she could think of, and which she herself could not have -answered; so that the shadow made a strange face. - -“You cannot answer these questions?” said the princess. - -“They belong to my childhood's learning,” said the shadow. “I really -believe my shadow, by the door there, can answer them!” - -“Your shadow!” said the princess. “That would indeed be marvellous!” - -“I will not say for a certainty that he can,” said the shadow, “but I -think so; he has now followed me for so many years, and listened to my -conversation--I should think it possible. But your royal highness will -permit me to observe, that he is so proud of passing himself off for -a man, that when he is to be in a proper humor--and he must be so to -answer well--he must be treated quite like a man.” - -“Oh! I like that!” said the princess. - -So she went to the learned man by the door, and she spoke to him about -the sun and the moon, and about persons out of and in the world, and he -answered with wisdom and prudence. - -“What a man that must be who has so wise a shadow!” thought she. “It -will be a real blessing to my people and kingdom if I choose him for my -consort--I will do it!” - -They were soon agreed, both the princess and the shadow; but no one was -to know about it before she arrived in her own kingdom. - -“No one--not even my shadow!” said the shadow, and he had his own -thoughts about it! - -Now they were in the country where the princess reigned when she was at -home. - -“Listen, my good friend,” said the shadow to the learned man. “I have -now become as happy and mighty as anyone can be; I will, therefore, do -something particular for thee! Thou shalt always live with me in the -palace, drive with me in my royal carriage, and have ten thousand -pounds a year; but then thou must submit to be called SHADOW by all and -everyone; thou must not say that thou hast ever been a man; and once -a year, when I sit on the balcony in the sunshine, thou must lie at my -feet, as a shadow shall do! I must tell thee: I am going to marry the -king's daughter, and the nuptials are to take place this evening!” - -“Nay, this is going too far!” said the learned man. “I will not have it; -I will not do it! It is to deceive the whole country and the princess -too! I will tell everything! That I am a man, and that thou art a -shadow--thou art only dressed up!” - -“There is no one who will believe it!” said the shadow. “Be reasonable, -or I will call the guard!” - -“I will go directly to the princess!” said the learned man. - -“But I will go first!” said the shadow. “And thou wilt go to prison!” - and that he was obliged to do--for the sentinels obeyed him whom they -knew the king's daughter was to marry. - -“You tremble!” said the princess, as the shadow came into her chamber. -“Has anything happened? You must not be unwell this evening, now that we -are to have our nuptials celebrated.” - -“I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to -see!” said the shadow. “Only imagine--yes, it is true, such a poor -shadow-skull cannot bear much--only think, my shadow has become mad; -he thinks that he is a man, and that I--now only think--that I am his -shadow!” - -“It is terrible!” said the princess; “but he is confined, is he not?” - -“That he is. I am afraid that he will never recover.” - -“Poor shadow!” said the princess. “He is very unfortunate; it would be -a real work of charity to deliver him from the little life he has, and, -when I think properly over the matter, I am of opinion that it will be -necessary to do away with him in all stillness!” - -“It is certainly hard,” said the shadow, “for he was a faithful -servant!” and then he gave a sort of sigh. - -“You are a noble character!” said the princess. - -The whole city was illuminated in the evening, and the cannons went off -with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a marriage! -The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, -and get another hurrah! - -The learned man heard nothing of all this--for they had deprived him of -life. - - - - -THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL - -Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and -evening--the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there -went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked -feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was -the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had -hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them -as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that -rolled by dreadfully fast. - -One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by -an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for -a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the -little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red -and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, -and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of -her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing. - -She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of -sorrow, the poor little thing! - -The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful -curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now -thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so -deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of -that she thought. - -In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the -other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet -she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go -home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could -not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would certainly get -blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof, -through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were -stopped up with straw and rags. - -Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford -her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the -bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew -one out. “Rischt!” how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright -flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful -light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting -before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass -ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed -so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to -warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she -had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand. - -She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the -light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a -veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a -snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the -roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried -plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped -down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its -breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the match went -out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. -She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most -magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than -the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant's -house. - -Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and -gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked -down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them -when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher -and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and -formed a long trail of fire. - -“Someone is just dead!” said the little girl; for her old grandmother, -the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told -her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God. - -She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the -lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, -and with such an expression of love. - -“Grandmother!” cried the little one. “Oh, take me with you! You go -away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the -delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!” And -she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for -she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her. And -the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at -noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and -so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in -brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither -cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God. - -But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with -rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen -to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the -child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. “She -wanted to warm herself,” people said. No one had the slightest suspicion -of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the -splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a -new year. - - - - -THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK - -Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but that -was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant it for -Charles, and it is all well enough if one does but know it. He had now -to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much younger than -himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same time; but -these two things would not do together at all. There sat the poor little -fellow, with his sister on his lap, and he sang to her all the songs he -knew; and he glanced the while from time to time into the geography-book -that lay open before him. By the next morning he was to have learnt -all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know about them all that is -possible to be known. - -His mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little Augusta -on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly that he -pretty nearly read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker, but his -mother had no money to buy a candle. - -“There goes the old washerwoman over the way,” said his mother, as she -looked out of the window. “The poor woman can hardly drag herself along, -and she must now drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy, -Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won't you?” - -So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again into -the room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no thought of -such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead; -in it he lay and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand, and -of all that his master had told him. He ought, to be sure, to have read -over his lesson again, but that, you know, he could not do. He therefore -put his geography-book under his pillow, because he had heard that was -a very good thing to do when one wants to learn one's lesson; but one -cannot, however, rely upon it entirely. Well, there he lay, and thought -and thought, and all at once it was just as if someone kissed his eyes -and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not sleep; it was as though the old -washerwoman gazed on him with her mild eyes and said, “It were a great -sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided -me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at all -times.” And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping -and scratching. - -“Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!”--that was an old hen who came creeping -along, and she was from Kjoge. “I am a Kjoger hen,” [*] said she, and then -she related how many inhabitants there were there, and about the battle -that had taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth talking -about. - - * Kjoge, a town in the bay of Kjoge. “To see the Kjoge - hens,” is an expression similar to “showing a child London,” - which is said to be done by taking his head in both bands, - and so lifting him off the ground. At the invasion of the - English in 1807, an encounter of a no very glorious nature - took place between the British troops and the undisciplined - Danish militia. - -“Kribledy, krabledy--plump!” down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird, -the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that -there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he -was very proud. “Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* Plump! Here -I lie capitally.” - -* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some hundred paces from -it lies the manor-house Ny Soe, where Thorwaldsen, the famed sculptor, -generally sojourned during his stay in Denmark, and where he called many -of his immortal works into existence. - - -But little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he was on -horseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping on and on. A -knight with a gleaming plume, and most magnificently dressed, held him -before him on the horse, and thus they rode through the wood to the old -town of Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town. High -towers rose from the castle of the king, and the brightness of many -candles streamed from all the windows; within was dance and song, -and King Waldemar and the young, richly-attired maids of honor danced -together. The morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the whole -town and the king's palace crumbled together, and one tower after the -other; and at last only a single one remained standing where the castle -had been before,* and the town was so small and poor, and the school -boys came along with their books under their arms, and said, “2000 -inhabitants!” but that was not true, for there were not so many. - -*Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar, a considerable place, now -an unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains of -a wall, show where the castle once stood. - - -And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed, and -yet as if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside him. - -“Little Tukey! Little Tukey!” cried someone near. It was a seaman, -quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a -midshipman it was not. - -“Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising -into importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches: -formerly people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on -the sea,” said Corsor; “I have high roads and gardens, and I have given -birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all poets are not. I -once intended to equip a ship that was to sail all round the earth; but -I did not do it, although I could have done so: and then, too, I smell -so deliciously, for close before the gate bloom the most beautiful -roses.” - -*Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction -of steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time -for a favorable wind, “the most tiresome of towns.” The poet Baggesen -was born here. - - -Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as -soon as the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden there -appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above stood a -magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out the -hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that there -was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king with -a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the -fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up -the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of Denmark, -hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ played and -the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. “Do not forget the -diet,” said King Hroar.* - -*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from -King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the beautiful -cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are -interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble. - - -Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him -just as if one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an -old peasant-woman, who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the -market-place. She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and -back: it was so wet, it certainly must have been raining. “Yes, that it -has,” said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's -comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered -together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she -looked as she were going to make a spring. “Croak! croak!” said she. -“It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in -Sorbe!” She was now suddenly a frog, “Croak”; and now she was an old -woman. “One must dress according to the weather,” said she. “It is wet; -it is wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, -and by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the -finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the -bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek--Croak!” - -* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by -woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy -for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed -professors here. The latter lives there still. - - -When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one -walked with great boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform -and so tiring that little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by -the bye, could not do him any harm. - -But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his -little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair, -was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings was yet -able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green woods and the -blue lakes. - -“Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are -flying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very -large! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the -world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt itself -like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with marble -statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your name -shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the ship that -was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde--” - -“Do not forget the diet!” said King Hroar. - -“Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last you -sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly--” - -“As if I lay in Soroe,” said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he was -now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not at -all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring. - -And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he -knew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at the -door, nodded to him friendly, and said, “Thanks, many thanks, my good -child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your loveliest -dream!” - -Little Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving God -knew it. - - - - -THE NAUGHTY BOY - -Along time ago, there lived an old poet, a thoroughly kind old poet. As -he was sitting one evening in his room, a dreadful storm arose without, -and the rain streamed down from heaven; but the old poet sat warm -and comfortable in his chimney-corner, where the fire blazed and the -roasting apple hissed. - -“Those who have not a roof over their heads will be wetted to the skin,” - said the good old poet. - -“Oh let me in! Let me in! I am cold, and I'm so wet!” exclaimed suddenly -a child that stood crying at the door and knocking for admittance, while -the rain poured down, and the wind made all the windows rattle. - -“Poor thing!” said the old poet, as he went to open the door. There -stood a little boy, quite naked, and the water ran down from his long -golden hair; he trembled with cold, and had he not come into a warm room -he would most certainly have perished in the frightful tempest. - -“Poor child!” said the old poet, as he took the boy by the hand. “Come -in, come in, and I will soon restore thee! Thou shalt have wine and -roasted apples, for thou art verily a charming child!” And the boy was -so really. His eyes were like two bright stars; and although the water -trickled down his hair, it waved in beautiful curls. He looked exactly -like a little angel, but he was so pale, and his whole body trembled -with cold. He had a nice little bow in his hand, but it was quite -spoiled by the rain, and the tints of his many-colored arrows ran one -into the other. - -The old poet seated himself beside his hearth, and took the little -fellow on his lap; he squeezed the water out of his dripping hair, -warmed his hands between his own, and boiled for him some sweet wine. -Then the boy recovered, his cheeks again grew rosy, he jumped down from -the lap where he was sitting, and danced round the kind old poet. - -“You are a merry fellow,” said the old man. “What's your name?” - -“My name is Cupid,” answered the boy. “Don't you know me? There lies my -bow; it shoots well, I can assure you! Look, the weather is now clearing -up, and the moon is shining clear again through the window.” - -“Why, your bow is quite spoiled,” said the old poet. - -“That were sad indeed,” said the boy, and he took the bow in his hand -and examined it on every side. “Oh, it is dry again, and is not hurt at -all; the string is quite tight. I will try it directly.” And he bent his -bow, took aim, and shot an arrow at the old poet, right into his heart. -“You see now that my bow was not spoiled,” said he laughing; and away he -ran. - -The naughty boy, to shoot the old poet in that way; he who had taken him -into his warm room, who had treated him so kindly, and who had given him -warm wine and the very best apples! - -The poor poet lay on the earth and wept, for the arrow had really flown -into his heart. - -“Fie!” said he. “How naughty a boy Cupid is! I will tell all children -about him, that they may take care and not play with him, for he will -only cause them sorrow and many a heartache.” - -And all good children to whom he related this story, took great heed -of this naughty Cupid; but he made fools of them still, for he is -astonishingly cunning. When the university students come from the -lectures, he runs beside them in a black coat, and with a book under his -arm. It is quite impossible for them to know him, and they walk along -with him arm in arm, as if he, too, were a student like themselves; and -then, unperceived, he thrusts an arrow to their bosom. When the young -maidens come from being examined by the clergyman, or go to church to -be confirmed, there he is again close behind them. Yes, he is forever -following people. At the play, he sits in the great chandelier and burns -in bright flames, so that people think it is really a flame, but they -soon discover it is something else. He roves about in the garden of the -palace and upon the ramparts: yes, once he even shot your father and -mother right in the heart. Ask them only and you will hear what they'll -tell you. Oh, he is a naughty boy, that Cupid; you must never have -anything to do with him. He is forever running after everybody. Only -think, he shot an arrow once at your old grandmother! But that is a -long time ago, and it is all past now; however, a thing of that sort she -never forgets. Fie, naughty Cupid! But now you know him, and you know, -too, how ill-behaved he is! - - - - -THE RED SHOES - -There was once a little girl who was very pretty and delicate, but in -summer she was forced to run about with bare feet, she was so poor, and -in winter wear very large wooden shoes, which made her little insteps -quite red, and that looked so dangerous! - -In the middle of the village lived old Dame Shoemaker; she sat and sewed -together, as well as she could, a little pair of shoes out of old red -strips of cloth; they were very clumsy, but it was a kind thought. They -were meant for the little girl. The little girl was called Karen. - -On the very day her mother was buried, Karen received the red shoes, -and wore them for the first time. They were certainly not intended for -mourning, but she had no others, and with stockingless feet she followed -the poor straw coffin in them. - -Suddenly a large old carriage drove up, and a large old lady sat in it: -she looked at the little girl, felt compassion for her, and then said to -the clergyman: - -“Here, give me the little girl. I will adopt her!” - -And Karen believed all this happened on account of the red shoes, but -the old lady thought they were horrible, and they were burnt. But Karen -herself was cleanly and nicely dressed; she must learn to read and sew; -and people said she was a nice little thing, but the looking-glass said: -“Thou art more than nice, thou art beautiful!” - -Now the queen once travelled through the land, and she had her little -daughter with her. And this little daughter was a princess, and people -streamed to the castle, and Karen was there also, and the little -princess stood in her fine white dress, in a window, and let herself be -stared at; she had neither a train nor a golden crown, but splendid -red morocco shoes. They were certainly far handsomer than those Dame -Shoemaker had made for little Karen. Nothing in the world can be -compared with red shoes. - -Now Karen was old enough to be confirmed; she had new clothes and was to -have new shoes also. The rich shoemaker in the city took the measure of -her little foot. This took place at his house, in his room; where stood -large glass-cases, filled with elegant shoes and brilliant boots. All -this looked charming, but the old lady could not see well, and so had -no pleasure in them. In the midst of the shoes stood a pair of red ones, -just like those the princess had worn. How beautiful they were! The -shoemaker said also they had been made for the child of a count, but had -not fitted. - -“That must be patent leather!” said the old lady. “They shine so!” - -“Yes, they shine!” said Karen, and they fitted, and were bought, but the -old lady knew nothing about their being red, else she would never have -allowed Karen to have gone in red shoes to be confirmed. Yet such was -the case. - -Everybody looked at her feet; and when she stepped through the chancel -door on the church pavement, it seemed to her as if the old figures on -the tombs, those portraits of old preachers and preachers' wives, with -stiff ruffs, and long black dresses, fixed their eyes on her red shoes. -And she thought only of them as the clergyman laid his hand upon her -head, and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with God, and how -she should be now a matured Christian; and the organ pealed so solemnly; -the sweet children's voices sang, and the old music-directors sang, but -Karen only thought of her red shoes. - -In the afternoon, the old lady heard from everyone that the shoes had -been red, and she said that it was very wrong of Karen, that it was not -at all becoming, and that in future Karen should only go in black shoes -to church, even when she should be older. - -The next Sunday there was the sacrament, and Karen looked at the black -shoes, looked at the red ones--looked at them again, and put on the red -shoes. - -The sun shone gloriously; Karen and the old lady walked along the path -through the corn; it was rather dusty there. - -At the church door stood an old soldier with a crutch, and with a -wonderfully long beard, which was more red than white, and he bowed to -the ground, and asked the old lady whether he might dust her shoes. And -Karen stretched out her little foot. - -“See, what beautiful dancing shoes!” said the soldier. “Sit firm when -you dance”; and he put his hand out towards the soles. - -And the old lady gave the old soldier alms, and went into the church -with Karen. - -And all the people in the church looked at Karen's red shoes, and all -the pictures, and as Karen knelt before the altar, and raised the cup to -her lips, she only thought of the red shoes, and they seemed to swim -in it; and she forgot to sing her psalm, and she forgot to pray, “Our -Father in Heaven!” - -Now all the people went out of church, and the old lady got into her -carriage. Karen raised her foot to get in after her, when the old -soldier said, - -“Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!” - -And Karen could not help dancing a step or two, and when she began her -feet continued to dance; it was just as though the shoes had power over -them. She danced round the church corner, she could not leave off; the -coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her, and he lifted -her in the carriage, but her feet continued to dance so that she trod on -the old lady dreadfully. At length she took the shoes off, and then her -legs had peace. - -The shoes were placed in a closet at home, but Karen could not avoid -looking at them. - -Now the old lady was sick, and it was said she could not recover. She -must be nursed and waited upon, and there was no one whose duty it was -so much as Karen's. But there was a great ball in the city, to which -Karen was invited. She looked at the old lady, who could not recover, -she looked at the red shoes, and she thought there could be no sin in -it; she put on the red shoes, she might do that also, she thought. But -then she went to the ball and began to dance. - -When she wanted to dance to the right, the shoes would dance to the -left, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced back -again, down the steps, into the street, and out of the city gate. She -danced, and was forced to dance straight out into the gloomy wood. - -Then it was suddenly light up among the trees, and she fancied it must -be the moon, for there was a face; but it was the old soldier with -the red beard; he sat there, nodded his head, and said, “Look, what -beautiful dancing shoes!” - -Then she was terrified, and wanted to fling off the red shoes, but they -clung fast; and she pulled down her stockings, but the shoes seemed to -have grown to her feet. And she danced, and must dance, over fields and -meadows, in rain and sunshine, by night and day; but at night it was the -most fearful. - -She danced over the churchyard, but the dead did not dance--they had -something better to do than to dance. She wished to seat herself on a -poor man's grave, where the bitter tansy grew; but for her there was -neither peace nor rest; and when she danced towards the open church -door, she saw an angel standing there. He wore long, white garments; he -had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth; his countenance -was severe and grave; and in his hand he held a sword, broad and -glittering. - -“Dance shalt thou!” said he. “Dance in thy red shoes till thou art pale -and cold! Till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton! Dance shalt -thou from door to door, and where proud, vain children dwell, thou shalt -knock, that they may hear thee and tremble! Dance shalt thou--!” - -“Mercy!” cried Karen. But she did not hear the angel's reply, for the -shoes carried her through the gate into the fields, across roads and -bridges, and she must keep ever dancing. - -One morning she danced past a door which she well knew. Within sounded -a psalm; a coffin, decked with flowers, was borne forth. Then she knew -that the old lady was dead, and felt that she was abandoned by all, and -condemned by the angel of God. - -She danced, and she was forced to dance through the gloomy night. The -shoes carried her over stack and stone; she was torn till she bled; she -danced over the heath till she came to a little house. Here, she knew, -dwelt the executioner; and she tapped with her fingers at the window, -and said, “Come out! Come out! I cannot come in, for I am forced to -dance!” - -And the executioner said, “Thou dost not know who I am, I fancy? I -strike bad people's heads off; and I hear that my axe rings!” - -“Don't strike my head off!” said Karen. “Then I can't repent of my sins! -But strike off my feet in the red shoes!” - -And then she confessed her entire sin, and the executioner struck off -her feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced away with the little -feet across the field into the deep wood. - -And he carved out little wooden feet for her, and crutches, taught -her the psalm criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand which had -wielded the axe, and went over the heath. - -“Now I have suffered enough for the red shoes!” said she. “Now I will -go into the church that people may see me!” And she hastened towards the -church door: but when she was near it, the red shoes danced before her, -and she was terrified, and turned round. The whole week she was unhappy, -and wept many bitter tears; but when Sunday returned, she said, “Well, -now I have suffered and struggled enough! I really believe I am as good -as many a one who sits in the church, and holds her head so high!” - -And away she went boldly; but she had not got farther than the -churchyard gate before she saw the red shoes dancing before her; and she -was frightened, and turned back, and repented of her sin from her heart. - -And she went to the parsonage, and begged that they would take her -into service; she would be very industrious, she said, and would do -everything she could; she did not care about the wages, only she wished -to have a home, and be with good people. And the clergyman's wife was -sorry for her and took her into service; and she was industrious and -thoughtful. She sat still and listened when the clergyman read the Bible -in the evenings. All the children thought a great deal of her; but when -they spoke of dress, and grandeur, and beauty, she shook her head. - -The following Sunday, when the family was going to church, they asked -her whether she would not go with them; but she glanced sorrowfully, -with tears in her eyes, at her crutches. The family went to hear the -word of God; but she went alone into her little chamber; there was only -room for a bed and chair to stand in it; and here she sat down with her -Prayer-Book; and whilst she read with a pious mind, the wind bore -the strains of the organ towards her, and she raised her tearful -countenance, and said, “O God, help me!” - -And the sun shone so clearly, and straight before her stood the angel -of God in white garments, the same she had seen that night at the church -door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its stead a -splendid green spray, full of roses. And he touched the ceiling with the -spray, and the ceiling rose so high, and where he had touched it there -gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls, and they widened out, -and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the -preachers and the preachers' wives. The congregation sat in cushioned -seats, and sang out of their Prayer-Books. For the church itself had -come to the poor girl in her narrow chamber, or else she had come into -the church. She sat in the pew with the clergyman's family, and when -they had ended the psalm and looked up, they nodded and said, “It is -right that thou art come!” - -“It was through mercy!” she said. - -And the organ pealed, and the children's voices in the choir sounded so -sweet and soft! The clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the window -into the pew where Karen sat! Her heart was so full of sunshine, peace, -and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine to God, and there -no one asked after the RED SHOES. - - -The Happy Prince. - -HIGH above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy -Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes -he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his -sword-hilt. - -He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” -remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for -having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing -lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not. - -“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her -little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams -of crying for anything.” - -“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a -disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue. - -“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they came out -of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white -pinafores. - -“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master, “you have never seen -one.” - -“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children; and the -Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not -approve of children dreaming. - -One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had -gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was -in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring -as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so -attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her. - -“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at -once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, -touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was -his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer. - -“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows; “she has -no money, and far too many relations”; and indeed the river was quite -full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away. - -After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. -“She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that she is a -coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And certainly, -whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. “I -admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love travelling, and my -wife, consequently, should love travelling also.” - -“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the Reed shook -her head, she was so attached to her home. - -“You have been trifling with me,” he cried. “I am off to the Pyramids. -Good-bye!” and he flew away. - -All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. “Where -shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made preparations.” - -Then he saw the statue on the tall column. - -“I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position, with plenty of -fresh air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince. - -“I have a golden bedroom,” he said softly to himself as he looked round, -and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under -his wing a large drop of water fell on him. “What a curious thing!” he -cried; “there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear -and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is -really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her -selfishness.” - -Then another drop fell. - -“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he said; “I -must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away. - -But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, -and saw—Ah! what did he see? - -The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were -running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the -moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity. - -“Who are you?” he said. - -“I am the Happy Prince.” - -“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow; “you have quite drenched -me.” - -“When I was alive and had a human heart,” answered the statue, “I did not -know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci, where -sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my -companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great -Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask -what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers -called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be -happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have -set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery -of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but -weep.” - -“What! is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He was too -polite to make any personal remarks out loud. - -“Far away,” continued the statue in a low musical voice, “far away in a -little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and -through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and -worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she -is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for -the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next -Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying -ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing -to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little -Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet -are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.” - -“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My friends are flying up -and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they -will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there -himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and -embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and -his hands are like withered leaves.” - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay -with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and -the mother so sad.” - -“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the Swallow. “Last summer, when I -was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, -who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we -swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family -famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.” - -But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. -“It is very cold here,” he said; “but I will stay with you for one night, -and be your messenger.” - -“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince. - -So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and -flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town. - -He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were -sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A -beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. “How wonderful -the stars are,” he said to her, “and how wonderful is the power of love!” - -“I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,” she answered; -“I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the -seamstresses are so lazy.” - -He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of -the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining -with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he -came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on -his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he -hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. -Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his -wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting better”; and -he sank into a delicious slumber. - -Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had -done. “It is curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm now, although -it is so cold.” - -“That is because you have done a good action,” said the Prince. And the -little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always -made him sleepy. - -When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. “What a -remarkable phenomenon,” said the Professor of Ornithology as he was -passing over the bridge. “A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a long -letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full -of so many words that they could not understand. - -“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at -the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time -on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, -and said to each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed -himself very much. - -When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. “Have you any -commissions for Egypt?” he cried; “I am just starting.” - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay -with me one night longer?” - -“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends -will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among -the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All -night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he -utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions -come down to the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green -beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.” - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the -city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered -with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered -violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a -pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a -play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any -more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” - -“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who really had -a good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?” - -“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I -have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of -India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. -He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish -his play.” - -“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that”; and he began to -weep. - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command -you.” - -So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the -student’s garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in -the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man -had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the -bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying -on the withered violets. - -“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some great -admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite happy. - -The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of -a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold -with ropes. “Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up. “I am -going to Egypt”! cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon -rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. - -“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried. - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay -with me one night longer?” - -“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be -here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the -crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are -building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves -are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave -you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back -two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby -shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the -great sea.” - -“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a little -match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all -spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, -and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is -bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will -not beat her.” - -“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot -pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.” - -“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command -you.” - -So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He -swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her -hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran -home, laughing. - -Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind now,” he said, -“so I will stay with you always.” - -“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.” - -“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept at the -Prince’s feet. - -All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of -what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who -stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their -beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the -desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the -side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King -of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a -large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and -has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who -sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the -butterflies. - -“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvellous -things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of -women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little -Swallow, and tell me what you see there.” - -So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in -their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He -flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children -looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a -bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s arms to try and keep -themselves warm. “How hungry we are!” they said. “You must not lie -here,” shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain. - -Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen. - -“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it off, -leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold -can make them happy.” - -Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy -Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he -brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they -laughed and played games in the street. “We have bread now!” they cried. - -Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets -looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and -glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of -the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore -scarlet caps and skated on the ice. - -The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave -the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the -baker’s door when the baker was not looking and tried to keep himself -warm by flapping his wings. - -But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to -fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he -murmured, “will you let me kiss your hand?” - -“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the -Prince, “you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, -for I love you.” - -“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to -the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?” - -And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his -feet. - -At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something -had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. -It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost. - -Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in -company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked -up at the statue: “Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said. - -“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with -the Mayor; and they went up to look at it. - -“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is -golden no longer,” said the Mayor in fact, “he is little better than a -beggar!” - -“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors. - -“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the Mayor. “We -must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die -here.” And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion. - -So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is no longer -beautiful he is no longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the -University. - -Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of -the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. “We must -have another statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of -myself.” - -“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. -When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still. - -“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. -“This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it -away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also -lying. - -“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of -His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird. - -“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this -little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy -Prince shall praise me.” - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of two birds] - - - - -The Nightingale and the Rose. - - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of young man lying on grass] - -“SHE said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,” cried -the young Student; “but in all my garden there is no red rose.” - -From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she -looked out through the leaves, and wondered. - -“No red rose in all my garden!” he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled -with tears. “Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have -read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of -philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made -wretched.” - -“Here at last is a true lover,” said the Nightingale. “Night after night -have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night have I told -his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is dark as the -hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but -passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal -upon his brow.” - -“The Prince gives a ball to-morrow night,” murmured the young Student, -“and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red rose she will -dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in -my arms, and she will lean her head upon my shoulder, and her hand will -be clasped in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall -sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my -heart will break.” - -“Here indeed is the true lover,” said the Nightingale. “What I sing of, -he suffers—what is joy to me, to him is pain. Surely Love is a wonderful -thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. -Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the -marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be -weighed out in the balance for gold.” - -“The musicians will sit in their gallery,” said the young Student, “and -play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to the sound -of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her feet will -not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their gay dresses will throng -round her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose to -give her”; and he flung himself down on the grass, and buried his face in -his hands, and wept. - -“Why is he weeping?” asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran past him with -his tail in the air. - -“Why, indeed?” said a Butterfly, who was fluttering about after a -sunbeam. - -“Why, indeed?” whispered a Daisy to his neighbour, in a soft, low voice. - -“He is weeping for a red rose,” said the Nightingale. - -“For a red rose?” they cried; “how very ridiculous!” and the little -Lizard, who was something of a cynic, laughed outright. - -But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student’s sorrow, and -she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery of Love. - -Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. -She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed -across the garden. - -In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful Rose-tree, and -when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray. - -“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” - -But the Tree shook its head. - -“My roses are white,” it answered; “as white as the foam of the sea, and -whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who grows -round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want.” - -So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing round the -old sun-dial. - -“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” - -But the Tree shook its head. - -“My roses are yellow,” it answered; “as yellow as the hair of the -mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil -that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe. But go -to my brother who grows beneath the Student’s window, and perhaps he will -give you what you want.” - -So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing beneath -the Student’s window. - -“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest song.” - -But the Tree shook its head. - -“My roses are red,” it answered, “as red as the feet of the dove, and -redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the -ocean-cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has -nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no -roses at all this year.” - -“One red rose is all I want,” cried the Nightingale, “only one red rose! -Is there no way by which I can get it?” - -“There is a way,” answered the Tree; “but it is so terrible that I dare -not tell it to you.” - -“Tell it to me,” said the Nightingale, “I am not afraid.” - -“If you want a red rose,” said the Tree, “you must build it out of music -by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s-blood. You must sing to -me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, -and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into -my veins, and become mine.” - -“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, -“and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, -and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot -of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the -bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the -hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird -compared to the heart of a man?” - -So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She -swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through -the grove. - -The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left him, -and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes. - -“Be happy,” cried the Nightingale, “be happy; you shall have your red -rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my -own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a -true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and -mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, -and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and -his breath is like frankincense.” - -The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not -understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the -things that are written down in books. - -But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the -little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches. - -“Sing me one last song,” he whispered; “I shall feel very lonely when you -are gone.” - -So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like water -bubbling from a silver jar. - -When she had finished her song the Student got up, and pulled a note-book -and a lead-pencil out of his pocket. - -“She has form,” he said to himself, as he walked away through the -grove—“that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am -afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without -any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks -merely of music, and everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, -it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What -a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.” -And he went into his room, and lay down on his little pallet-bed, and -began to think of his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep. - -And when the Moon shone in the heavens the Nightingale flew to the -Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang -with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned down -and listened. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and -deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her. - -She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. -And on the top-most spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous -rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at -first, as the mist that hangs over the river—pale as the feet of the -morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in -a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the -rose that blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree. - -But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. -“Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will come -before the rose is finished.” - -So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder and -louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of -a man and a maid. - -And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like the -flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the bride. -But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the rose’s heart remained -white, for only a Nightingale’s heart’s-blood can crimson the heart of a -rose. - -And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. -“Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will come -before the rose is finished.” - -So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn -touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, -bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of -the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the -tomb. - -And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. -Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart. - -But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter, and her little wings began to -beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, -and she felt something choking her in her throat. - -Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she -forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and -it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold -morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke -the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds -of the river, and they carried its message to the sea. - -“Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now”; but the -Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, -with the thorn in her heart. - -And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out. - -“Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!” he cried; “here is a red rose! I -have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that -I am sure it has a long Latin name”; and he leaned down and plucked it. - -Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor’s house with the rose -in his hand. - -The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway winding blue -silk on a reel, and her little dog was lying at her feet. - -“You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose,” -cried the Student. “Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will -wear it to-night next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell -you how I love you.” - -But the girl frowned. - -“I am afraid it will not go with my dress,” she answered; “and, besides, -the Chamberlain’s nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody -knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.” - -“Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful,” said the Student angrily; -and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and -a cart-wheel went over it. - -“Ungrateful!” said the girl. “I tell you what, you are very rude; and, -after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don’t believe you have -even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain’s nephew has”; -and she got up from her chair and went into the house. - -“What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away. “It -is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is -always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one -believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, -as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to -Philosophy and study Metaphysics.” - -So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began -to read. - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of nightingale and rose] - - - - -The Selfish Giant. - - - [Picture: The Selfish Giant] - -EVERY afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go -and play in the Giant’s garden. - -It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over -the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve -peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of -pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the -trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in -order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each -other. - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of children in garden] - -One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish -ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years -were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was -limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived -he saw the children playing in the garden. - -“What are you doing here?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the -children ran away. - -“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand -that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a -high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board. - - TRESPASSERS - - WILL BE - - PROSECUTED - -He was a very selfish Giant. - -The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the -road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did -not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons -were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we -were there,” they said to each other. - -Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms -and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still -winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, -and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head -out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for -the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to -sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. -“Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all -the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white -cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the -North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and -he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. -“This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” -So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of -the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and -round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his -breath was like ice. - -“I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the -Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white -garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.” - -But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit -to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too -selfish,” she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, -and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees. - -One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely -music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the -King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing -outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in -his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the -world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind -ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open -casement. “I believe the Spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and -he jumped out of bed and looked out. - -What did he see? - -He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the -children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the -trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And -the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had -covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above -the children’s heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with -delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and -laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. -It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little -boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the -tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree -was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was -blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and -it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny. - -And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have -been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will -put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock -down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever -and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done. - -So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went -out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so -frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. -Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that -he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and -took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree -broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the -little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant’s -neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the -Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came -the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, -and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people -were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with -the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen. - -All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to -bid him good-bye. - -“But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the -tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him. - -“We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.” - -“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. -But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had -never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad. - -Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with -the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. -The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first -little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he -used to say. - -Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not -play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the -children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful -flowers,” he said; “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of -all.” - -One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He -did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring -asleep, and that the flowers were resting. - -Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It -certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden -was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were -all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood -the little boy he had loved. - -Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He -hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came -quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to -wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of -two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet. - -“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may -take my big sword and slay him.” - -“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.” - -“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he -knelt before the little child. - -And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once -in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is -Paradise.” - -And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying -dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms. - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of wreath] - - - - -The Devoted Friend. - - - [Picture: Hans and the Miller] - -ONE morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole. He had -bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long -bit of black india-rubber. The little ducks were swimming about in the -pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother, who -was pure white with real red legs, was trying to teach them how to stand -on their heads in the water. - -“You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your -heads,” she kept saying to them; and every now and then she showed them -how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention to her. They -were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in -society at all. - -“What disobedient children!” cried the old Water-rat; “they really -deserve to be drowned.” - -“Nothing of the kind,” answered the Duck, “every one must make a -beginning, and parents cannot be too patient.” - -“Ah! I know nothing about the feelings of parents,” said the Water-rat; -“I am not a family man. In fact, I have never been married, and I never -intend to be. Love is all very well in its way, but friendship is much -higher. Indeed, I know of nothing in the world that is either nobler or -rarer than a devoted friendship.” - -“And what, pray, is your idea of the duties of a devoted friend?” asked a -Green Linnet, who was sitting in a willow-tree hard by, and had overheard -the conversation. - -“Yes, that is just what I want to know,” said the Duck; and she swam away -to the end of the pond, and stood upon her head, in order to give her -children a good example. - -“What a silly question!” cried the Water-rat. “I should expect my -devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.” - -“And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a -silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings. - -“I don’t understand you,” answered the Water-rat. - -“Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet. - -“Is the story about me?” asked the Water-rat. “If so, I will listen to -it, for I am extremely fond of fiction.” - -“It is applicable to you,” answered the Linnet; and he flew down, and -alighting upon the bank, he told the story of The Devoted Friend. - -“Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow -named Hans.” - -“Was he very distinguished?” asked the Water-rat. - -“No,” answered the Linnet, “I don’t think he was distinguished at all, -except for his kind heart, and his funny round good-humoured face. He -lived in a tiny cottage all by himself, and every day he worked in his -garden. In all the country-side there was no garden so lovely as his. -Sweet-william grew there, and Gilly-flowers, and Shepherds’-purses, and -Fair-maids of France. There were damask Roses, and yellow Roses, lilac -Crocuses, and gold, purple Violets and white. Columbine and Ladysmock, -Marjoram and Wild Basil, the Cowslip and the Flower-de-luce, the Daffodil -and the Clove-Pink bloomed or blossomed in their proper order as the -months went by, one flower taking another flower’s place, so that there -were always beautiful things to look at, and pleasant odours to smell. - -“Little Hans had a great many friends, but the most devoted friend of all -was big Hugh the Miller. Indeed, so devoted was the rich Miller to -little Hans, that he would never go by his garden without leaning over -the wall and plucking a large nosegay, or a handful of sweet herbs, or -filling his pockets with plums and cherries if it was the fruit season. - -“‘Real friends should have everything in common,’ the Miller used to say, -and little Hans nodded and smiled, and felt very proud of having a friend -with such noble ideas. - -“Sometimes, indeed, the neighbours thought it strange that the rich -Miller never gave little Hans anything in return, though he had a hundred -sacks of flour stored away in his mill, and six milch cows, and a large -flock of woolly sheep; but Hans never troubled his head about these -things, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to listen to all the -wonderful things the Miller used to say about the unselfishness of true -friendship. - -“So little Hans worked away in his garden. During the spring, the -summer, and the autumn he was very happy, but when the winter came, and -he had no fruit or flowers to bring to the market, he suffered a good -deal from cold and hunger, and often had to go to bed without any supper -but a few dried pears or some hard nuts. In the winter, also, he was -extremely lonely, as the Miller never came to see him then. - -“‘There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow -lasts,’ the Miller used to say to his wife, ‘for when people are in -trouble they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors. That -at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I -shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and -he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses and that will make -him so happy.’ - -“‘You are certainly very thoughtful about others,’ answered the Wife, as -she sat in her comfortable armchair by the big pinewood fire; ‘very -thoughtful indeed. It is quite a treat to hear you talk about -friendship. I am sure the clergyman himself could not say such beautiful -things as you do, though he does live in a three-storied house, and wear -a gold ring on his little finger.’ - -“‘But could we not ask little Hans up here?’ said the Miller’s youngest -son. ‘If poor Hans is in trouble I will give him half my porridge, and -show him my white rabbits.’ - -“‘What a silly boy you are!’ cried the Miller; ‘I really don’t know what -is the use of sending you to school. You seem not to learn anything. -Why, if little Hans came up here, and saw our warm fire, and our good -supper, and our great cask of red wine, he might get envious, and envy is -a most terrible thing, and would spoil anybody’s nature. I certainly -will not allow Hans’ nature to be spoiled. I am his best friend, and I -will always watch over him, and see that he is not led into any -temptations. Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have -some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing, and -friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words -are spelt differently, and mean quite different things. Everybody can -see that.’ - -“‘How well you talk!’ said the Miller’s Wife, pouring herself out a large -glass of warm ale; ‘really I feel quite drowsy. It is just like being in -church.’ - -“‘Lots of people act well,’ answered the Miller; ‘but very few people -talk well, which shows that talking is much the more difficult thing of -the two, and much the finer thing also’; and he looked sternly across the -table at his little son, who felt so ashamed of himself that he hung his -head down, and grew quite scarlet, and began to cry into his tea. -However, he was so young that you must excuse him.” - -“Is that the end of the story?” asked the Water-rat. - -“Certainly not,” answered the Linnet, “that is the beginning.” - -“Then you are quite behind the age,” said the Water-rat. “Every good -story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the -beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I -heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the -pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am -sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, -and whenever the young man made any remark, he always answered ‘Pooh!’ -But pray go on with your story. I like the Miller immensely. I have all -kinds of beautiful sentiments myself, so there is a great sympathy -between us.” - -“Well,” said the Linnet, hopping now on one leg and now on the other, “as -soon as the winter was over, and the primroses began to open their pale -yellow stars, the Miller said to his wife that he would go down and see -little Hans. - -“‘Why, what a good heart you have!’ cried his Wife; ‘you are always -thinking of others. And mind you take the big basket with you for the -flowers.’ - -“So the Miller tied the sails of the windmill together with a strong iron -chain, and went down the hill with the basket on his arm. - -“‘Good morning, little Hans,’ said the Miller. - -“‘Good morning,’ said Hans, leaning on his spade, and smiling from ear to -ear. - -“‘And how have you been all the winter?’ said the Miller. - -“‘Well, really,’ cried Hans, ‘it is very good of you to ask, very good -indeed. I am afraid I had rather a hard time of it, but now the spring -has come, and I am quite happy, and all my flowers are doing well.’ - -“‘We often talked of you during the winter, Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘and -wondered how you were getting on.’ - -“‘That was kind of you,’ said Hans; ‘I was half afraid you had forgotten -me.’ - -“‘Hans, I am surprised at you,’ said the Miller; ‘friendship never -forgets. That is the wonderful thing about it, but I am afraid you don’t -understand the poetry of life. How lovely your primroses are looking, -by-the-bye!” - -“‘They are certainly very lovely,’ said Hans, ‘and it is a most lucky -thing for me that I have so many. I am going to bring them into the -market and sell them to the Burgomaster’s daughter, and buy back my -wheelbarrow with the money.’ - -“‘Buy back your wheelbarrow? You don’t mean to say you have sold it? -What a very stupid thing to do!’ - -“‘Well, the fact is,’ said Hans, ‘that I was obliged to. You see the -winter was a very bad time for me, and I really had no money at all to -buy bread with. So I first sold the silver buttons off my Sunday coat, -and then I sold my silver chain, and then I sold my big pipe, and at last -I sold my wheelbarrow. But I am going to buy them all back again now.’ - -“‘Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘I will give you my wheelbarrow. It is not in -very good repair; indeed, one side is gone, and there is something wrong -with the wheel-spokes; but in spite of that I will give it to you. I -know it is very generous of me, and a great many people would think me -extremely foolish for parting with it, but I am not like the rest of the -world. I think that generosity is the essence of friendship, and, -besides, I have got a new wheelbarrow for myself. Yes, you may set your -mind at ease, I will give you my wheelbarrow.’ - -“‘Well, really, that is generous of you,’ said little Hans, and his funny -round face glowed all over with pleasure. ‘I can easily put it in -repair, as I have a plank of wood in the house.’ - -“‘A plank of wood!’ said the Miller; ‘why, that is just what I want for -the roof of my barn. There is a very large hole in it, and the corn will -all get damp if I don’t stop it up. How lucky you mentioned it! It is -quite remarkable how one good action always breeds another. I have given -you my wheelbarrow, and now you are going to give me your plank. Of -course, the wheelbarrow is worth far more than the plank, but true, -friendship never notices things like that. Pray get it at once, and I -will set to work at my barn this very day.’ - -“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, and he ran into the shed and dragged the -plank out. - -“‘It is not a very big plank,’ said the Miller, looking at it, ‘and I am -afraid that after I have mended my barn-roof there won’t be any left for -you to mend the wheelbarrow with; but, of course, that is not my fault. -And now, as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I am sure you would like to -give me some flowers in return. Here is the basket, and mind you fill it -quite full.’ - -“‘Quite full?’ said little Hans, rather sorrowfully, for it was really a -very big basket, and he knew that if he filled it he would have no -flowers left for the market and he was very anxious to get his silver -buttons back. - -“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘as I have given you my -wheelbarrow, I don’t think that it is much to ask you for a few flowers. -I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true -friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’ - -“‘My dear friend, my best friend,’ cried little Hans, ‘you are welcome to -all the flowers in my garden. I would much sooner have your good opinion -than my silver buttons, any day’; and he ran and plucked all his pretty -primroses, and filled the Miller’s basket. - -“‘Good-bye, little Hans,’ said the Miller, as he went up the hill with -the plank on his shoulder, and the big basket in his hand. - -“‘Good-bye,’ said little Hans, and he began to dig away quite merrily, he -was so pleased about the wheelbarrow. - -“The next day he was nailing up some honeysuckle against the porch, when -he heard the Miller’s voice calling to him from the road. So he jumped -off the ladder, and ran down the garden, and looked over the wall. - -“There was the Miller with a large sack of flour on his back. - -“‘Dear little Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘would you mind carrying this sack -of flour for me to market?’ - -“‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said Hans, ‘but I am really very busy to-day. I -have got all my creepers to nail up, and all my flowers to water, and all -my grass to roll.’ - -“‘Well, really,’ said the Miller, ‘I think that, considering that I am -going to give you my wheelbarrow, it is rather unfriendly of you to -refuse.’ - -“‘Oh, don’t say that,’ cried little Hans, ‘I wouldn’t be unfriendly for -the whole world’; and he ran in for his cap, and trudged off with the big -sack on his shoulders. - -“It was a very hot day, and the road was terribly dusty, and before Hans -had reached the sixth milestone he was so tired that he had to sit down -and rest. However, he went on bravely, and as last he reached the -market. After he had waited there some time, he sold the sack of flour -for a very good price, and then he returned home at once, for he was -afraid that if he stopped too late he might meet some robbers on the way. - -“‘It has certainly been a hard day,’ said little Hans to himself as he -was going to bed, ‘but I am glad I did not refuse the Miller, for he is -my best friend, and, besides, he is going to give me his wheelbarrow.’ - -“Early the next morning the Miller came down to get the money for his -sack of flour, but little Hans was so tired that he was still in bed. - -“‘Upon my word,’ said the Miller, ‘you are very lazy. Really, -considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, I think you might -work harder. Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of -my friends to be idle or sluggish. You must not mind my speaking quite -plainly to you. Of course I should not dream of doing so if I were not -your friend. But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say -exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to -please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, -and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he -prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.’ - -“‘I am very sorry,’ said little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off -his night-cap, ‘but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for -a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I -always work better after hearing the birds sing?’ - -“‘Well, I am glad of that,’ said the Miller, clapping little Hans on the -back, ‘for I want you to come up to the mill as soon as you are dressed, -and mend my barn-roof for me.’ - -“Poor little Hans was very anxious to go and work in his garden, for his -flowers had not been watered for two days, but he did not like to refuse -the Miller, as he was such a good friend to him. - -“‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he -inquired in a shy and timid voice. - -“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘I do not think it is much to ask -of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of -course if you refuse I will go and do it myself.’ - -“‘Oh! on no account,’ cried little Hans and he jumped out of bed, and -dressed himself, and went up to the barn. - -“He worked there all day long, till sunset, and at sunset the Miller came -to see how he was getting on. - -“‘Have you mended the hole in the roof yet, little Hans?’ cried the -Miller in a cheery voice. - -“‘It is quite mended,’ answered little Hans, coming down the ladder. - -“‘Ah!’ said the Miller, ‘there is no work so delightful as the work one -does for others.’ - -“‘It is certainly a great privilege to hear you talk,’ answered little -Hans, sitting down, and wiping his forehead, ‘a very great privilege. -But I am afraid I shall never have such beautiful ideas as you have.’ - -“‘Oh! they will come to you,’ said the Miller, ‘but you must take more -pains. At present you have only the practice of friendship; some day you -will have the theory also.’ - -“‘Do you really think I shall?’ asked little Hans. - -“‘I have no doubt of it,’ answered the Miller, ‘but now that you have -mended the roof, you had better go home and rest, for I want you to drive -my sheep to the mountain to-morrow.’ - -“Poor little Hans was afraid to say anything to this, and early the next -morning the Miller brought his sheep round to the cottage, and Hans -started off with them to the mountain. It took him the whole day to get -there and back; and when he returned he was so tired that he went off to -sleep in his chair, and did not wake up till it was broad daylight. - -“‘What a delightful time I shall have in my garden,’ he said, and he went -to work at once. - -“But somehow he was never able to look after his flowers at all, for his -friend the Miller was always coming round and sending him off on long -errands, or getting him to help at the mill. Little Hans was very much -distressed at times, as he was afraid his flowers would think he had -forgotten them, but he consoled himself by the reflection that the Miller -was his best friend. ‘Besides,’ he used to say, ‘he is going to give me -his wheelbarrow, and that is an act of pure generosity.’ - -“So little Hans worked away for the Miller, and the Miller said all kinds -of beautiful things about friendship, which Hans took down in a -note-book, and used to read over at night, for he was a very good -scholar. - -“Now it happened that one evening little Hans was sitting by his fireside -when a loud rap came at the door. It was a very wild night, and the wind -was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he -thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a -third, louder than any of the others. - -“‘It is some poor traveller,’ said little Hans to himself, and he ran to -the door. - -“There stood the Miller with a lantern in one hand and a big stick in the -other. - -“‘Dear little Hans,’ cried the Miller, ‘I am in great trouble. My little -boy has fallen off a ladder and hurt himself, and I am going for the -Doctor. But he lives so far away, and it is such a bad night, that it -has just occurred to me that it would be much better if you went instead -of me. You know I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, and so, it is -only fair that you should do something for me in return.’ - -“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, ‘I take it quite as a compliment your -coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your -lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the -ditch.’ - -“‘I am very sorry,’ answered the Miller, ‘but it is my new lantern, and -it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it.’ - -“‘Well, never mind, I will do without it,’ cried little Hans, and he took -down his great fur coat, and his warm scarlet cap, and tied a muffler -round his throat, and started off. - -“What a dreadful storm it was! The night was so black that little Hans -could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely -stand. However, he was very courageous, and after he had been walking -about three hours, he arrived at the Doctor’s house, and knocked at the -door. - -“‘Who is there?’ cried the Doctor, putting his head out of his bedroom -window. - -“‘Little Hans, Doctor.’ - -“’What do you want, little Hans?’ - -“‘The Miller’s son has fallen from a ladder, and has hurt himself, and -the Miller wants you to come at once.’ - -“‘All right!’ said the Doctor; and he ordered his horse, and his big -boots, and his lantern, and came downstairs, and rode off in the -direction of the Miller’s house, little Hans trudging behind him. - -“But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and -little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse. -At last he lost his way, and wandered off on the moor, which was a very -dangerous place, as it was full of deep holes, and there poor little Hans -was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating -in a great pool of water, and was brought back by them to the cottage. - -“Everybody went to little Hans’ funeral, as he was so popular, and the -Miller was the chief mourner. - -“‘As I was his best friend,’ said the Miller, ‘it is only fair that I -should have the best place’; so he walked at the head of the procession -in a long black cloak, and every now and then he wiped his eyes with a -big pocket-handkerchief. - -“‘Little Hans is certainly a great loss to every one,’ said the -Blacksmith, when the funeral was over, and they were all seated -comfortably in the inn, drinking spiced wine and eating sweet cakes. - -“‘A great loss to me at any rate,’ answered the Miller; ‘why, I had as -good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don’t know what to do -with it. It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair -that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take -care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being -generous.’” - -“Well?” said the Water-rat, after a long pause. - -“Well, that is the end,” said the Linnet. - -“But what became of the Miller?” asked the Water-rat. - -“Oh! I really don’t know,” replied the Linnet; “and I am sure that I -don’t care.” - -“It is quite evident then that you have no sympathy in your nature,” said -the Water-rat. - -“I am afraid you don’t quite see the moral of the story,” remarked the -Linnet. - -“The what?” screamed the Water-rat. - -“The moral.” - -“Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?” - -“Certainly,” said the Linnet. - -“Well, really,” said the Water-rat, in a very angry manner, “I think you -should have told me that before you began. If you had done so, I -certainly would not have listened to you; in fact, I should have said -‘Pooh,’ like the critic. However, I can say it now”; so he shouted out -“Pooh” at the top of his voice, gave a whisk with his tail, and went back -into his hole. - -“And how do you like the Water-rat?” asked the Duck, who came paddling up -some minutes afterwards. “He has a great many good points, but for my -own part I have a mother’s feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed -bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes.” - -“I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,” answered the Linnet. “The -fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.” - -“Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,” said the Duck. - -And I quite agree with her. - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of windmill and overturned barrow] - - - - -The Remarkable Rocket. - - - [Picture: The Remarkable Rocket] - -THE King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. -He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. -She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a -sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great golden -swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess herself. Her -long ermine-cloak reached right down to her feet, on her head was a tiny -cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she -had always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the streets -all the people wondered. “She is like a white rose!” they cried, and -they threw down flowers on her from the balconies. - - [Picture: Decorative graphic of young man kissing the princess’ hand] - -At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had -dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he -sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand. - -“Your picture was beautiful,” he murmured, “but you are more beautiful -than your picture”; and the little Princess blushed. - -“She was like a white rose before,” said a young Page to his neighbour, -“but she is like a red rose now”; and the whole Court was delighted. - -For the next three days everybody went about saying, “White rose, Red -rose, Red rose, White rose”; and the King gave orders that the Page’s -salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not -of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly -published in the Court Gazette. - -When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was a -magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in hand -under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little pearls. Then -there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five hours. The Prince and -Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear -crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips -touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy. - -“It’s quite clear that they love each other,” said the little Page, “as -clear as crystal!” and the King doubled his salary a second time. “What -an honour!” cried all the courtiers. - -After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom were -to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to play the -flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, -because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two airs, and was never -quite certain which one he was playing; but it made no matter, for, -whatever he did, everybody cried out, “Charming! charming!” - -The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to be -let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen a -firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal -Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage. - -“What are fireworks like?” she had asked the Prince, one morning, as she -was walking on the terrace. - -“They are like the Aurora Borealis,” said the King, who always answered -questions that were addressed to other people, “only much more natural. -I prefer them to stars myself, as you always know when they are going to -appear, and they are as delightful as my own flute-playing. You must -certainly see them.” - -So at the end of the King’s garden a great stand had been set up, and as -soon as the Royal Pyrotechnist had put everything in its proper place, -the fireworks began to talk to each other. - -“The world is certainly very beautiful,” cried a little Squib. “Just -look at those yellow tulips. Why! if they were real crackers they could -not be lovelier. I am very glad I have travelled. Travel improves the -mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.” - -“The King’s garden is not the world, you foolish squib,” said a big Roman -Candle; “the world is an enormous place, and it would take you three days -to see it thoroughly.” - -“Any place you love is the world to you,” exclaimed a pensive Catherine -Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided -herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the -poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed -them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I -remember myself once—But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the -past.” - -“Nonsense!” said the Roman Candle, “Romance never dies. It is like the -moon, and lives for ever. The bride and bridegroom, for instance, love -each other very dearly. I heard all about them this morning from a -brown-paper cartridge, who happened to be staying in the same drawer as -myself, and knew the latest Court news.” - -But the Catherine Wheel shook her head. “Romance is dead, Romance is -dead, Romance is dead,” she murmured. She was one of those people who -think that, if you say the same thing over and over a great many times, -it becomes true in the end. - -Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round. - -It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end -of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so as -to attract attention. - -“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine -Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.” - -“Order! order!” cried out a Cracker. He was something of a politician, -and had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, so he knew -the proper Parliamentary expressions to use. - -“Quite dead,” whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to sleep. - -As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third time and -began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was dictating -his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he -was talking. In fact, he had a most distinguished manner. - -“How fortunate it is for the King’s son,” he remarked, “that he is to be -married on the very day on which I am to be let off. Really, if it had -been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out better for him; -but, Princes are always lucky.” - -“Dear me!” said the little Squib, “I thought it was quite the other way, -and that we were to be let off in the Prince’s honour.” - -“It may be so with you,” he answered; “indeed, I have no doubt that it -is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come -of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel -of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing. When she made her -great public appearance she spun round nineteen times before she went -out, and each time that she did so she threw into the air seven pink -stars. She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very -best gunpowder. My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French -extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would -never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly -disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden -rain. The newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering -terms. Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic -art.” - -“Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean,” said a Bengal Light; “I know it is -Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister.” - -“Well, I said Pylotechnic,” answered the Rocket, in a severe tone of -voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at once to -bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still a person of -some importance. - -“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying—What was I saying?” - -“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle. - -“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was -so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of every kind, -for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole world is so sensitive -as I am, I am quite sure of that.” - -“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle. - -“A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other -people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the -Cracker nearly exploded with laughter. - -“Pray, what are you laughing at?” inquired the Rocket; “I am not -laughing.” - -“I am laughing because I am happy,” replied the Cracker. - -“That is a very selfish reason,” said the Rocket angrily. “What right -have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others. In fact, you -should be thinking about me. I am always thinking about myself, and I -expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. -It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess it in a high degree. Suppose, -for instance, anything happened to me to-night, what a misfortune that -would be for every one! The Prince and Princess would never be happy -again, their whole married life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I -know he would not get over it. Really, when I begin to reflect on the -importance of my position, I am almost moved to tears.” - -“If you want to give pleasure to others,” cried the Roman Candle, “you -had better keep yourself dry.” - -“Certainly,” exclaimed the Bengal Light, who was now in better spirits; -“that is only common sense.” - -“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget that I -am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can have common -sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I have imagination, -for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as -being quite different. As for keeping myself dry, there is evidently no -one here who can at all appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for -myself, I don’t care. The only thing that sustains one through life is -the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this -is a feeling that I have always cultivated. But none of you have any -hearts. Here you are laughing and making merry just as if the Prince and -Princess had not just been married.” - -“Well, really,” exclaimed a small Fire-balloon, “why not? It is a most -joyful occasion, and when I soar up into the air I intend to tell the -stars all about it. You will see them twinkle when I talk to them about -the pretty bride.” - -“Ah! what a trivial view of life!” said the Rocket; “but it is only what -I expected. There is nothing in you; you are hollow and empty. Why, -perhaps the Prince and Princess may go to live in a country where there -is a deep river, and perhaps they may have one only son, a little -fair-haired boy with violet eyes like the Prince himself; and perhaps -some day he may go out to walk with his nurse; and perhaps the nurse may -go to sleep under a great elder-tree; and perhaps the little boy may fall -into the deep river and be drowned. What a terrible misfortune! Poor -people, to lose their only son! It is really too dreadful! I shall -never get over it.” - -“But they have not lost their only son,” said the Roman Candle; “no -misfortune has happened to them at all.” - -“I never said that they had,” replied the Rocket; “I said that they -might. If they had lost their only son there would be no use in saying -anything more about the matter. I hate people who cry over spilt milk. -But when I think that they might lose their only son, I certainly am very -much affected.” - -“You certainly are!” cried the Bengal Light. “In fact, you are the most -affected person I ever met.” - -“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you cannot -understand my friendship for the Prince.” - -“Why, you don’t even know him,” growled the Roman Candle. - -“I never said I knew him,” answered the Rocket. “I dare say that if I -knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very dangerous thing -to know one’s friends.” - -“You had really better keep yourself dry,” said the Fire-balloon. “That -is the important thing.” - -“Very important for you, I have no doubt,” answered the Rocket, “but I -shall weep if I choose”; and he actually burst into real tears, which -flowed down his stick like rain-drops, and nearly drowned two little -beetles, who were just thinking of setting up house together, and were -looking for a nice dry spot to live in. - -“He must have a truly romantic nature,” said the Catherine Wheel, “for he -weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about”; and she heaved a deep -sigh, and thought about the deal box. - -But the Roman Candle and the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and kept -saying, “Humbug! humbug!” at the top of their voices. They were -extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called -it humbug. - -Then the moon rose like a wonderful silver shield; and the stars began to -shine, and a sound of music came from the palace. - -The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so -beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and -watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat time. - -Then ten o’clock struck, and then eleven, and then twelve, and at the -last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and the King -sent for the Royal Pyrotechnist. - -“Let the fireworks begin,” said the King; and the Royal Pyrotechnist made -a low bow, and marched down to the end of the garden. He had six -attendants with him, each of whom carried a lighted torch at the end of a -long pole. - -It was certainly a magnificent display. - -Whizz! Whizz! went the Catherine Wheel, as she spun round and round. -Boom! Boom! went the Roman Candle. Then the Squibs danced all over the -place, and the Bengal Lights made everything look scarlet. “Good-bye,” -cried the Fire-balloon, as he soared away, dropping tiny blue sparks. -Bang! Bang! answered the Crackers, who were enjoying themselves -immensely. Every one was a great success except the Remarkable Rocket. -He was so damp with crying that he could not go off at all. The best -thing in him was the gunpowder, and that was so wet with tears that it -was of no use. All his poor relations, to whom he would never speak, -except with a sneer, shot up into the sky like wonderful golden flowers -with blossoms of fire. Huzza! Huzza! cried the Court; and the little -Princess laughed with pleasure. - -“I suppose they are reserving me for some grand occasion,” said the -Rocket; “no doubt that is what it means,” and he looked more supercilious -than ever. - -The next day the workmen came to put everything tidy. “This is evidently -a deputation,” said the Rocket; “I will receive them with becoming -dignity” so he put his nose in the air, and began to frown severely as if -he were thinking about some very important subject. But they took no -notice of him at all till they were just going away. Then one of them -caught sight of him. “Hallo!” he cried, “what a bad rocket!” and he -threw him over the wall into the ditch. - -“BAD Rocket? BAD Rocket?” he said, as he whirled through the air; -“impossible! GRAND Rocket, that is what the man said. BAD and GRAND -sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same”; and he fell -into the mud. - -“It is not comfortable here,” he remarked, “but no doubt it is some -fashionable watering-place, and they have sent me away to recruit my -health. My nerves are certainly very much shattered, and I require -rest.” - -Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled coat, -swam up to him. - -“A new arrival, I see!” said the Frog. “Well, after all there is nothing -like mud. Give me rainy weather and a ditch, and I am quite happy. Do -you think it will be a wet afternoon? I am sure I hope so, but the sky -is quite blue and cloudless. What a pity!” - -“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket, and he began to cough. - -“What a delightful voice you have!” cried the Frog. “Really it is quite -like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical sound in the -world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We sit in the old duck -pond close by the farmer’s house, and as soon as the moon rises we begin. -It is so entrancing that everybody lies awake to listen to us. In fact, -it was only yesterday that I heard the farmer’s wife say to her mother -that she could not get a wink of sleep at night on account of us. It is -most gratifying to find oneself so popular.” - -“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket angrily. He was very much annoyed that he -could not get a word in. - -“A delightful voice, certainly,” continued the Frog; “I hope you will -come over to the duck-pond. I am off to look for my daughters. I have -six beautiful daughters, and I am so afraid the Pike may meet them. He -is a perfect monster, and would have no hesitation in breakfasting off -them. Well, good-bye: I have enjoyed our conversation very much, I -assure you.” - -“Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. “You have talked the whole time -yourself. That is not conversation.” - -“Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog, “and I like to do all the -talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.” - -“But I like arguments,” said the Rocket. - -“I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. “Arguments are extremely -vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. -Good-bye a second time; I see my daughters in the distance:” and the -little Frog swam away. - -“You are a very irritating person,” said the Rocket, “and very ill-bred. -I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to -talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call selfishness, and -selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially to any one of my -temperament, for I am well known for my sympathetic nature. In fact, you -should take example by me; you could not possibly have a better model. -Now that you have the chance you had better avail yourself of it, for I -am going back to Court almost immediately. I am a great favourite at -Court; in fact, the Prince and Princess were married yesterday in my -honour. Of course you know nothing of these matters, for you are a -provincial.” - -“There is no good talking to him,” said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on -the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for he has gone away.” - -“Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket. “I am not going -to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like -hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have -long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I -don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” - -“Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-fly; -and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky. - -“How very silly of him not to stay here!” said the Rocket. “I am sure -that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, -I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some -day”; and he sank down a little deeper into the mud. - -After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow legs, -and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account of her -waddle. - -“Quack, quack, quack,” she said. “What a curious shape you are! May I -ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?” - -“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,” answered -the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your -ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable -as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up -into the sky, and come down in a shower of golden rain.” - -“I don’t think much of that,” said the Duck, “as I cannot see what use it -is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the ox, or draw -a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the collie-dog, that -would be something.” - -“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, “I -see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my position is -never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than -sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least -of all with such industries as you seem to recommend. Indeed, I have -always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who -have nothing whatever to do.” - -“Well, well,” said the Duck, who was of a very peaceable disposition, and -never quarrelled with any one, “everybody has different tastes. I hope, -at any rate, that you are going to take up your residence here.” - -“Oh! dear no,” cried the Rocket. “I am merely a visitor, a distinguished -visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather tedious. There is -neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it is essentially suburban. -I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that I am destined to make -a sensation in the world.” - -“I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,” remarked the Duck; -“there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I took the chair -at a meeting some time ago, and we passed resolutions condemning -everything that we did not like. However, they did not seem to have much -effect. Now I go in for domesticity, and look after my family.” - -“I am made for public life,” said the Rocket, “and so are all my -relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite great -attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I do so it will -be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and -distracts one’s mind from higher things.” - -“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck; “and -that reminds me how hungry I feel”: and she swam away down the stream, -saying, “Quack, quack, quack.” - -“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal to say -to you”; but the Duck paid no attention to him. “I am glad that she has -gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly middle-class mind”; and -he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the -loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came -running down the bank, with a kettle and some faggots. - -“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very -dignified. - -“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick! I wonder how it -came here”; and he picked the rocket out of the ditch. - -“OLD Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible! GOLD Stick, that is what he -said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he mistakes me for one -of the Court dignitaries!” - -“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to boil -the kettle.” - -So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit -the fire. - -“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me off in -broad day-light, so that every one can see me.” - -“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the kettle -will be boiled”; and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes. - -The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last, -however, the fire caught him. - -“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and -straight. “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher -than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall go so high -that—” - -Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air. - -“Delightful!” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever. What a -success I am!” - -But nobody saw him. - -Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him. - -“Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole world on -fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for -a whole year.” And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the -gunpowder. There was no doubt about it. - -But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound -asleep. - -Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the -back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch. - -“Good heavens!” cried the Goose. “It is going to rain sticks”; and she -rushed into the water. - -“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and he -went out. - - -Through the Looking-Glass, - -CHAPTER I. -Looking-Glass house - -One thing was certain, that the _white_ kitten had had nothing to do -with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten -had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of -an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it -_couldn’t_ have had any hand in the mischief. - -The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she held the -poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw -she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and -just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which -was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was -all meant for its good. - -But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, -and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great -arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been -having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been -trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all -come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all -knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the -middle. - -“Oh, you wicked little thing!” cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and -giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. -“Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You _ought_, -Dinah, you know you ought!” she added, looking reproachfully at the old -cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she -scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted -with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on -very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, -and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, -pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then -putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be -glad to help, if it might. - -“Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?” Alice began. “You’d have -guessed if you’d been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making -you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys getting in sticks -for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so -cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll -go and see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here Alice wound two or three turns -of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look: -this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, -and yards and yards of it got unwound again. - -“Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice went on as soon as they -were comfortably settled again, “when I saw all the mischief you had -been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out -into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous -darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt -me!” she went on, holding up one finger. “I’m going to tell you all -your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing -your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! -What’s that you say?” (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) “Her -paw went into your eye? Well, that’s _your_ fault, for keeping your -eyes open—if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now -don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled -Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk -before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she -wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the -worsted while I wasn’t looking! - -“That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for any of -them yet. You know I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday -week—Suppose they had saved up all _my_ punishments!” she went on, -talking more to herself than the kitten. “What _would_ they do at the -end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day -came. Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going without a -dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without -fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind _that_ much! I’d far -rather go without them than eat them! - -“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and -soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over -outside. I wonder if the snow _loves_ the trees and fields, that it -kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with -a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the -summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they -dress themselves all in green, and dance about—whenever the wind -blows—oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of -worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so _wish_ it was true! I’m sure -the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown. - -“Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking it -seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as -if you understood it: and when I said ‘Check!’ you purred! Well, it -_was_ a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn’t -been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces. -Kitty, dear, let’s pretend—” And here I wish I could tell you half the -things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase “Let’s -pretend.” She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the -day before—all because Alice had begun with “Let’s pretend we’re kings -and queens;” and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued -that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them, and Alice had -been reduced at last to say, “Well, _you_ can be one of them then, and -_I’ll_ be all the rest.” And once she had really frightened her old -nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, “Nurse! Do let’s pretend that -I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.” - -But this is taking us away from Alice’s speech to the kitten. “Let’s -pretend that you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you -sat up and folded your arms, you’d look exactly like her. Now do try, -there’s a dear!” And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it -up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing -didn’t succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn’t -fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the -Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was—“and if you’re not -good directly,” she added, “I’ll put you through into Looking-glass -House. How would you like _that_?” - -“Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I’ll tell you -all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there’s the room you can -see through the glass—that’s just the same as our drawing room, only -the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a -chair—all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could -see _that_ bit! I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the -winter: you never _can_ tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and -then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence, -just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are -something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, -because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold -up one in the other room. - -“How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if -they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good to -drink—But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a -little _peep_ of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the -door of our drawing-room wide open: and it’s very like our passage as -far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. -Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into -Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in -it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, -Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we -can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! -It’ll be easy enough to get through—” She was up on the chimney-piece -while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And -certainly the glass _was_ beginning to melt away, just like a bright -silvery mist. - -In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly -down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to -look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite -pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as -the one she had left behind. “So I shall be as warm here as I was in -the old room,” thought Alice: “warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no -one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when -they see me through the glass in here, and can’t get at me!” - -Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from -the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest -was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall -next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the -chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the -Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at -her. - -“They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,” Alice thought to -herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth -among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little “Oh!” of -surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The -chessmen were walking about, two and two! - -“Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,” Alice said (in a whisper, -for fear of frightening them), “and there are the White King and the -White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel—and here are two castles -walking arm in arm—I don’t think they can hear me,” she went on, as she -put her head closer down, “and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. I -feel somehow as if I were invisible—” - -Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her -turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and -begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would -happen next. - -“It is the voice of my child!” the White Queen cried out as she rushed -past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the -cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!” and she began -scrambling wildly up the side of the fender. - -“Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rubbing his nose, which had been -hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a _little_ annoyed with the -Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot. - -Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily was -nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen -and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter. - -The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air had -quite taken away her breath and for a minute or two she could do -nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had -recovered her breath a little, she called out to the White King, who -was sitting sulkily among the ashes, “Mind the volcano!” - -“What volcano?” said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as -if he thought that was the most likely place to find one. - -“Blew—me—up,” panted the Queen, who was still a little out of breath. -“Mind you come up—the regular way—don’t get blown up!” - -Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar, -till at last she said, “Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting to the -table, at that rate. I’d far better help you, hadn’t I?” But the King -took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could -neither hear her nor see her. - -So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more slowly -than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his breath away: -but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well -dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes. - -She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face -as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible -hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but -his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder -and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let -him drop upon the floor. - -“Oh! _please_ don’t make such faces, my dear!” she cried out, quite -forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. “You make me laugh so that -I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your mouth so wide open! All the -ashes will get into it—there, now I think you’re tidy enough!” she -added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the -Queen. - -The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly still: -and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the -room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she -could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it -she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together -in a frightened whisper—so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they -said. - -The King was saying, “I assure, you my dear, I turned cold to the very -ends of my whiskers!” - -To which the Queen replied, “You haven’t got any whiskers.” - -“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, _never_ -forget!” - -“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of -it.” - -Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous -memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought -struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some -way over his shoulder, and began writing for him. - -The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the pencil -for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong for -him, and at last he panted out, “My dear! I really _must_ get a thinner -pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit; it writes all manner of things -that I don’t intend—” - -“What manner of things?” said the Queen, looking over the book (in -which Alice had put “_The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He -balances very badly_”) “That’s not a memorandum of _your_ feelings!” - -There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat -watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him, -and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again), -she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read, -“—for it’s all in some language I don’t know,” she said to herself. - -It was like this. - -.YKCOWREBBAJ - -sevot yhtils eht dna, gillirb sawT’ -ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD - ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA -.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA - - - -She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought -struck her. “Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold -it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.” - -This was the poem that Alice read. - -JABBERWOCKY. - -’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves - Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; -All mimsy were the borogoves, - And the mome raths outgrabe. - -“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! - The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! -Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun - The frumious Bandersnatch!” - -He took his vorpal sword in hand: - Long time the manxome foe he sought— -So rested he by the Tumtum tree, - And stood awhile in thought. - -And as in uffish thought he stood, - The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, -Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, - And burbled as it came! - -One, two! One, two! And through and through - The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! -He left it dead, and with its head - He went galumphing back. - -“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? - Come to my arms, my beamish boy! -O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” - He chortled in his joy. - -’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves - Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; -All mimsy were the borogoves, - And the mome raths outgrabe. - - -“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s -_rather_ hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even -to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to -fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are! -However, _somebody_ killed _something_: that’s clear, at any rate—” - -“But oh!” thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, “if I don’t make haste I -shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I’ve seen what -the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!” -She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs—or, at least, -it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention of hers for getting down -stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the -tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without -even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the -hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if -she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a little giddy -with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself -walking again in the natural way. - - - - -CHAPTER II. -The Garden of Live Flowers - - -“I should see the garden far better,” said Alice to herself, “if I -could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads -straight to it—at least, no, it doesn’t do that—” (after going a few -yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), “but I -suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more like a -corkscrew than a path! Well, _this_ turn goes to the hill, I -suppose—no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the house! Well -then, I’ll try it the other way.” - -And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn after turn, but -always coming back to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once, when -she turned a corner rather more quickly than usual, she ran against it -before she could stop herself. - -“It’s no use talking about it,” Alice said, looking up at the house and -pretending it was arguing with her. “I’m _not_ going in again yet. I -know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again—back into the -old room—and there’d be an end of all my adventures!” - -So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once more -down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill. -For a few minutes all went on well, and she was just saying, “I really -_shall_ do it this time—” when the path gave a sudden twist and shook -itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found -herself actually walking in at the door. - -“Oh, it’s too bad!” she cried. “I never saw such a house for getting in -the way! Never!” - -However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to be -done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with -a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle. - -“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving -gracefully about in the wind, “I _wish_ you could talk!” - -“We _can_ talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “when there’s anybody worth -talking to.” - -Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite -seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went -on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice—almost in a whisper. -“And can _all_ the flowers talk?” - -“As well as _you_ can,” said the Tiger-lily. “And a great deal louder.” - -“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” said the Rose, “and I -really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘Her face has -got _some_ sense in it, though it’s not a clever one!’ Still, you’re -the right colour, and that goes a long way.” - -“I don’t care about the colour,” the Tiger-lily remarked. “If only her -petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.” - -Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions. -“Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody -to take care of you?” - -“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose: “what else is it good -for?” - -“But what could it do, if any danger came?” Alice asked. - -“It says ‘Bough-wough!’” cried a Daisy: “that’s why its branches are -called boughs!” - -“Didn’t you know _that_?” cried another Daisy, and here they all began -shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill -voices. “Silence, every one of you!” cried the Tiger-lily, waving -itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement. -“They know I can’t get at them!” it panted, bending its quivering head -towards Alice, “or they wouldn’t dare to do it!” - -“Never mind!” Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the -daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, “If you don’t -hold your tongues, I’ll pick you!” - -There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned -white. - -“That’s right!” said the Tiger-lily. “The daisies are worst of all. -When one speaks, they all begin together, and it’s enough to make one -wither to hear the way they go on!” - -“How is it you can all talk so nicely?” Alice said, hoping to get it -into a better temper by a compliment. “I’ve been in many gardens -before, but none of the flowers could talk.” - -“Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” said the Tiger-lily. “Then -you’ll know why.” - -Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said, “but I don’t see what that -has to do with it.” - -“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “they make the beds too soft—so -that the flowers are always asleep.” - -This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know -it. “I never thought of that before!” she said. - -“It’s _my_ opinion that you never think _at all_,” the Rose said in a -rather severe tone. - -“I never saw anybody that looked stupider,” a Violet said, so suddenly, -that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn’t spoken before. - -“Hold _your_ tongue!” cried the Tiger-lily. “As if _you_ ever saw -anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there, -till you know no more what’s going on in the world, than if you were a -bud!” - -“Are there any more people in the garden besides me?” Alice said, not -choosing to notice the Rose’s last remark. - -“There’s one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,” -said the Rose. “I wonder how you do it—” (“You’re always wondering,” -said the Tiger-lily), “but she’s more bushy than you are.” - -“Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her -mind, “There’s another little girl in the garden, somewhere!” - -“Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,” the Rose said, “but -she’s redder—and her petals are shorter, I think.” - -“Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,” the Tiger-lily -interrupted: “not tumbled about anyhow, like yours.” - -“But that’s not _your_ fault,” the Rose added kindly: “you’re beginning -to fade, you know—and then one can’t help one’s petals getting a little -untidy.” - -Alice didn’t like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she -asked “Does she ever come out here?” - -“I daresay you’ll see her soon,” said the Rose. “She’s one of the -thorny kind.” - -“Where does she wear the thorns?” Alice asked with some curiosity. - -“Why all round her head, of course,” the Rose replied. “I was wondering -_you_ hadn’t got some too. I thought it was the regular rule.” - -“She’s coming!” cried the Larkspur. “I hear her footstep, thump, thump, -thump, along the gravel-walk!” - -Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. “She’s -grown a good deal!” was her first remark. She had indeed: when Alice -first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high—and -here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself! - -“It’s the fresh air that does it,” said the Rose: “wonderfully fine air -it is, out here.” - -“I think I’ll go and meet her,” said Alice, for, though the flowers -were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have -a talk with a real Queen. - -“You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose: “_I_ should advise you to -walk the other way.” - -This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at -once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a -moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again. - -A little provoked, she drew back, and after looking everywhere for the -queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she -would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction. - -It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she -found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the -hill she had been so long aiming at. - -“Where do you come from?” said the Red Queen. “And where are you going? -Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all the time.” - -Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she -could, that she had lost her way. - -“I don’t know what you mean by _your_ way,” said the Queen: “all the -ways about here belong to _me_—but why did you come out here at all?” -she added in a kinder tone. “Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say, -it saves time.” - -Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the -Queen to disbelieve it. “I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to -herself, “the next time I’m a little late for dinner.” - -“It’s time for you to answer now,” the Queen said, looking at her -watch: “open your mouth a _little_ wider when you speak, and always say -‘your Majesty.’” - -“I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty—” - -“That’s right,” said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice -didn’t like at all, “though, when you say ‘garden,’—_I’ve_ seen -gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.” - -Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but went on: “—and I thought I’d -try and find my way to the top of that hill—” - -“When you say ‘hill,’” the Queen interrupted, “_I_ could show you -hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.” - -“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at -last: “a hill _can’t_ be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—” - -The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” -she said, “but _I’ve_ heard nonsense, compared with which that would be -as sensible as a dictionary!” - -Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen’s tone that she -was a _little_ offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to -the top of the little hill. - -For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all -directions over the country—and a most curious country it was. There -were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from -side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a -number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook. - -“I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!” Alice said at -last. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there -are!” She added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick -with excitement as she went on. “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s -being played—all over the world—if this _is_ the world at all, you -know. Oh, what fun it is! How I _wish_ I was one of them! I wouldn’t -mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should -_like_ to be a Queen, best.” - -She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her -companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. You -can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like, as Lily’s too young to -play; and you’re in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to -the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen—” Just at this moment, somehow or -other, they began to run. - -Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how -it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running -hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do -to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying “Faster! Faster!” -but Alice felt she _could not_ go faster, though she had not breath -left to say so. - -The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other -things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they -went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things -move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed -to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!” - -Not that Alice had any idea of doing _that_. She felt as if she would -never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and -still the Queen cried “Faster! Faster!” and dragged her along. “Are we -nearly there?” Alice managed to pant out at last. - -“Nearly there!” the Queen repeated. “Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! -Faster!” And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling -in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied. - -“Now! Now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! Faster!” And they went so fast -that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the -ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite -exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, -breathless and giddy. - -The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest -a little now.” - -Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been -under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!” - -“Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?” - -“Well, in _our_ country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d -generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, -as we’ve been doing.” - -“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, _here_, you see, it -takes all the running _you_ can do, to keep in the same place. If you -want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as -that!” - -“I’d rather not try, please!” said Alice. “I’m quite content to stay -here—only I _am_ so hot and thirsty!” - -“I know what _you’d_ like!” the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a -little box out of her pocket. “Have a biscuit?” - -Alice thought it would not be civil to say “No,” though it wasn’t at -all what she wanted. So she took it, and ate it as well as she could: -and it was _very_ dry; and she thought she had never been so nearly -choked in all her life. - -“While you’re refreshing yourself,” said the Queen, “I’ll just take the -measurements.” And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in -inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in -here and there. - -“At the end of two yards,” she said, putting in a peg to mark the -distance, “I shall give you your directions—have another biscuit?” - -“No, thank you,” said Alice: “one’s _quite_ enough!” - -“Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Queen. - -Alice did not know what to say to this, but luckily the Queen did not -wait for an answer, but went on. “At the end of _three_ yards I shall -repeat them—for fear of your forgetting them. At the end of _four_, I -shall say good-bye. And at the end of _five_, I shall go!” - -She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with -great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly -walking down the row. - -At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said, “A pawn goes two squares -in its first move, you know. So you’ll go _very_ quickly through the -Third Square—by railway, I should think—and you’ll find yourself in the -Fourth Square in no time. Well, _that_ square belongs to Tweedledum and -Tweedledee—the Fifth is mostly water—the Sixth belongs to Humpty -Dumpty—But you make no remark?” - -“I—I didn’t know I had to make one—just then,” Alice faltered out. - -“You _should_ have said, ‘It’s extremely kind of you to tell me all -this’—however, we’ll suppose it said—the Seventh Square is all -forest—however, one of the Knights will show you the way—and in the -Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it’s all feasting and -fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again. - -At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said, “Speak -in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing—turn out your -toes as you walk—and remember who you are!” She did not wait for Alice -to curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg, where she -turned for a moment to say “good-bye,” and then hurried on to the last. - -How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the last -peg, she was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether she -ran quickly into the wood (“and she _can_ run very fast!” thought -Alice), there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and Alice began -to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her -to move. - - - - -CHAPTER III. -Looking-Glass Insects - - -Of course the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the -country she was going to travel through. “It’s something very like -learning geography,” thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of -being able to see a little further. “Principal rivers—there _are_ none. -Principal mountains—I’m on the only one, but I don’t think it’s got any -name. Principal towns—why, what _are_ those creatures, making honey -down there? They can’t be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you -know—” and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that -was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, -“just as if it was a regular bee,” thought Alice. - -However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an -elephant—as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath -away at first. “And what enormous flowers they must be!” was her next -idea. “Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put -to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I’ll go -down and—no, I won’t _just_ yet,” she went on, checking herself just as -she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse -for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll never do to go down among them -without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it’ll be -when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—‘Oh, I like it well -enough—’” (here came the favourite little toss of the head), “‘only it -was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!’” - -“I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said after a pause: “and -perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to -get into the Third Square!” - -So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of -the six little brooks. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“Tickets, please!” said the Guard, putting his head in at the window. -In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the -same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage. - -“Now then! Show your ticket, child!” the Guard went on, looking angrily -at Alice. And a great many voices all said together (“like the chorus -of a song,” thought Alice), “Don’t keep him waiting, child! Why, his -time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!” - -“I’m afraid I haven’t got one,” Alice said in a frightened tone: “there -wasn’t a ticket-office where I came from.” And again the chorus of -voices went on. “There wasn’t room for one where she came from. The -land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!” - -“Don’t make excuses,” said the Guard: “you should have bought one from -the engine-driver.” And once more the chorus of voices went on with -“The man that drives the engine. Why, the smoke alone is worth a -thousand pounds a puff!” - -Alice thought to herself, “Then there’s no use in speaking.” The voices -didn’t join in this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but to her great -surprise, they all _thought_ in chorus (I hope you understand what -_thinking in chorus_ means—for I must confess that _I_ don’t), “Better -say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!” - -“I shall dream about a thousand pounds tonight, I know I shall!” -thought Alice. - -All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, -then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he -said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,” and shut up the window and -went away. - -“So young a child,” said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was -dressed in white paper), “ought to know which way she’s going, even if -she doesn’t know her own name!” - -A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes -and said in a loud voice, “She ought to know her way to the -ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her alphabet!” - -There was a Beetle sitting next to the Goat (it was a very queer -carriage-full of passengers altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be -that they should all speak in turn, _he_ went on with “She’ll have to -go back from here as luggage!” - -Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse -voice spoke next. “Change engines—” it said, and was obliged to leave -off. - -“It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to herself. And an extremely -small voice, close to her ear, said, “You might make a joke on -that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.” - -Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, “She must be labelled -‘Lass, with care,’ you know—” - -And after that other voices went on (“What a number of people there are -in the carriage!” thought Alice), saying, “She must go by post, as -she’s got a head on her—” “She must be sent as a message by the -telegraph—” “She must draw the train herself the rest of the way—” and -so on. - -But the gentleman dressed in white paper leaned forwards and whispered -in her ear, “Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a -return-ticket every time the train stops.” - -“Indeed I shan’t!” Alice said rather impatiently. “I don’t belong to -this railway journey at all—I was in a wood just now—and I wish I could -get back there.” - -“You might make a joke on _that_,” said the little voice close to her -ear: “something about ‘you _would_ if you could,’ you know.” - -“Don’t tease so,” said Alice, looking about in vain to see where the -voice came from; “if you’re so anxious to have a joke made, why don’t -you make one yourself?” - -The little voice sighed deeply: it was _very_ unhappy, evidently, and -Alice would have said something pitying to comfort it, “If it would -only sigh like other people!” she thought. But this was such a -wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn’t have heard it at all, if it -hadn’t come _quite_ close to her ear. The consequence of this was that -it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts from the -unhappiness of the poor little creature. - -“I know you are a friend,” the little voice went on; “a dear friend, -and an old friend. And you won’t hurt me, though I _am_ an insect.” - -“What kind of insect?” Alice inquired a little anxiously. What she -really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she -thought this wouldn’t be quite a civil question to ask. - -“What, then you don’t—” the little voice began, when it was drowned by -a shrill scream from the engine, and everybody jumped up in alarm, -Alice among the rest. - -The Horse, who had put his head out of the window, quietly drew it in -and said, “It’s only a brook we have to jump over.” Everybody seemed -satisfied with this, though Alice felt a little nervous at the idea of -trains jumping at all. “However, it’ll take us into the Fourth Square, -that’s some comfort!” she said to herself. In another moment she felt -the carriage rise straight up into the air, and in her fright she -caught at the thing nearest to her hand, which happened to be the -Goat’s beard. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -But the beard seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she found -herself sitting quietly under a tree—while the Gnat (for that was the -insect she had been talking to) was balancing itself on a twig just -over her head, and fanning her with its wings. - -It certainly was a _very_ large Gnat: “about the size of a chicken,” -Alice thought. Still, she couldn’t feel nervous with it, after they had -been talking together so long. - -“—then you don’t like all insects?” the Gnat went on, as quietly as if -nothing had happened. - -“I like them when they can talk,” Alice said. “None of them ever talk, -where _I_ come from.” - -“What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where _you_ come from?” the -Gnat inquired. - -“I don’t _rejoice_ in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m -rather afraid of them—at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the -names of some of them.” - -“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly. - -“I never knew them to do it.” - -“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they won’t -answer to them?” - -“No use to _them_,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people who name -them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?” - -“I can’t say,” the Gnat replied. “Further on, in the wood down there, -they’ve got no names—however, go on with your list of insects: you’re -wasting time.” - -“Well, there’s the Horse-fly,” Alice began, counting off the names on -her fingers. - -“All right,” said the Gnat: “half way up that bush, you’ll see a -Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It’s made entirely of wood, and gets -about by swinging itself from branch to branch.” - -“What does it live on?” Alice asked, with great curiosity. - -“Sap and sawdust,” said the Gnat. “Go on with the list.” - -Alice looked up at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, and made -up her mind that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright -and sticky; and then she went on. - -“And there’s the Dragon-fly.” - -“Look on the branch above your head,” said the Gnat, “and there you’ll -find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of -holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.” - -“And what does it live on?” - -“Frumenty and mince pie,” the Gnat replied; “and it makes its nest in a -Christmas box.” - -“And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went on, after she had taken a -good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to -herself, “I wonder if that’s the reason insects are so fond of flying -into candles—because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!” - -“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in -some alarm), “you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin -slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump -of sugar.” - -“And what does _it_ live on?” - -“Weak tea with cream in it.” - -A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. “Supposing it couldn’t find -any?” she suggested. - -“Then it would die, of course.” - -“But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully. - -“It always happens,” said the Gnat. - -After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two, pondering. The Gnat -amused itself meanwhile by humming round and round her head: at last it -settled again and remarked, “I suppose you don’t want to lose your -name?” - -“No, indeed,” Alice said, a little anxiously. - -“And yet I don’t know,” the Gnat went on in a careless tone: “only -think how convenient it would be if you could manage to go home without -it! For instance, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, -she would call out ‘come here—,’ and there she would have to leave off, -because there wouldn’t be any name for her to call, and of course you -wouldn’t have to go, you know.” - -“That would never do, I’m sure,” said Alice: “the governess would never -think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn’t remember my -name, she’d call me ‘Miss!’ as the servants do.” - -“Well, if she said ‘Miss,’ and didn’t say anything more,” the Gnat -remarked, “of course you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke. I wish -_you_ had made it.” - -“Why do you wish _I_ had made it?” Alice asked. “It’s a very bad one.” - -But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling -down its cheeks. - -“You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if it makes you so unhappy.” - -Then came another of those melancholy little sighs, and this time the -poor Gnat really seemed to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice -looked up, there was nothing whatever to be seen on the twig, and, as -she was getting quite chilly with sitting still so long, she got up and -walked on. - -She very soon came to an open field, with a wood on the other side of -it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a _little_ -timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her -mind to go on: “for I certainly won’t go _back_,” she thought to -herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square. - -“This must be the wood,” she said thoughtfully to herself, “where -things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of _my_ name when I go -in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all—because they’d have to give me -another, and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the -fun would be trying to find the creature that had got my old name! -That’s just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose -dogs—‘_answers to the name of “Dash:” had on a brass collar_’—just -fancy calling everything you met ‘Alice,’ till one of them answered! -Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise.” - -She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked -very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said -as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into -the—into _what_?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to -think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under _this_, you -know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What _does_ it call -itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it -hasn’t!” - -She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. -“Then it really _has_ happened, after all! And now, who am I? I _will_ -remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined -didn’t help much, and all she could say, after a great deal of -puzzling, was, “L, I _know_ it begins with L!” - -Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large -gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” -Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it -only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again. - -“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet -voice it had! - -“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, -“Nothing, just now.” - -“Think again,” it said: “that won’t do.” - -Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what -_you_ call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a -little.” - -“I’ll tell you, if you’ll move a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I -can’t remember here.” - -So they walked on together though the wood, Alice with her arms clasped -lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into -another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, -and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in -a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look -of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it -had darted away at full speed. - -Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at -having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. “However, I -know my name now.” she said, “that’s _some_ comfort. Alice—Alice—I -won’t forget it again. And now, which of these finger-posts ought I to -follow, I wonder?” - -It was not a very difficult question to answer, as there was only one -road through the wood, and the two finger-posts both pointed along it. -“I’ll settle it,” Alice said to herself, “when the road divides and -they point different ways.” - -But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long way, -but wherever the road divided there were sure to be two finger-posts -pointing the same way, one marked “TO TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE” and the other -“TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.” - -“I do believe,” said Alice at last, “that they live in the same house! -I wonder I never thought of that before—But I can’t stay there long. -I’ll just call and say ‘how d’you do?’ and ask them the way out of the -wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!” So -she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a -sharp corner, she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she -could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered -herself, feeling sure that they must be. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. -Tweedledum And Tweedledee - - -They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other’s -neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them -had “DUM” embroidered on his collar, and the other “DEE.” “I suppose -they’ve each got ‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of the collar,” she said -to herself. - -They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was -just looking round to see if the word ‘TWEEDLE’ was written at the back -of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one -marked “DUM.” - -“If you think we’re wax-works,” he said, “you ought to pay, you know. -Wax-works weren’t made to be looked at for nothing, nohow!” - -“Contrariwise,” added the one marked “DEE,” “if you think we’re alive, -you ought to speak.” - -“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” was all Alice could say; for the words of -the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, -and she could hardly help saying them out loud:— - -“Tweedledum and Tweedledee - Agreed to have a battle; -For Tweedledum said Tweedledee - Had spoiled his nice new rattle. - -Just then flew down a monstrous crow, - As black as a tar-barrel; -Which frightened both the heroes so, - They quite forgot their quarrel.” - - -“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum: “but it isn’t so, -nohow.” - -“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and -if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” - -“I was thinking,” Alice said very politely, “which is the best way out -of this wood: it’s getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?” - -But the little men only looked at each other and grinned. - -They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice -couldn’t help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying “First -Boy!” - -“Nohow!” Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again with -a snap. - -“Next Boy!” said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt quite -certain he would only shout out “Contrariwise!” and so he did. - -“You’ve been wrong!” cried Tweedledum. “The first thing in a visit is -to say ‘How d’ye do?’ and shake hands!” And here the two brothers gave -each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were free, -to shake hands with her. - -Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of -hurting the other one’s feelings; so, as the best way out of the -difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they -were dancing round in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered -afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it -seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was -done (as well as she could make it out) by the branches rubbing one -across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks. - -“But it certainly _was_ funny,” (Alice said afterwards, when she was -telling her sister the history of all this,) “to find myself singing -‘_Here we go round the mulberry bush_.’ I don’t know when I began it, -but somehow I felt as if I’d been singing it a long long time!” - -The other two dancers were fat, and very soon out of breath. “Four -times round is enough for one dance,” Tweedledum panted out, and they -left off dancing as suddenly as they had begun: the music stopped at -the same moment. - -Then they let go of Alice’s hands, and stood looking at her for a -minute: there was a rather awkward pause, as Alice didn’t know how to -begin a conversation with people she had just been dancing with. “It -would never do to say ‘How d’ye do?’ _now_,” she said to herself: “we -seem to have got beyond that, somehow!” - -“I hope you’re not much tired?” she said at last. - -“Nohow. And thank you _very_ much for asking,” said Tweedledum. - -“So _much_ obliged!” added Tweedledee. “You like poetry?” - -“Ye-es, pretty well—_some_ poetry,” Alice said doubtfully. “Would you -tell me which road leads out of the wood?” - -“What shall I repeat to her?” said Tweedledee, looking round at -Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question. - -“‘_The Walrus and the Carpenter_’ is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, -giving his brother an affectionate hug. - -Tweedledee began instantly: - -“The sun was shining—” - - -Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. “If it’s _very_ long,” she said, -as politely as she could, “would you please tell me first which road—” - -Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again: - -“The sun was shining on the sea, - Shining with all his might: -He did his very best to make - The billows smooth and bright— -And this was odd, because it was - The middle of the night. - -The moon was shining sulkily, - Because she thought the sun -Had got no business to be there - After the day was done— -‘It’s very rude of him,’ she said, - ‘To come and spoil the fun!’ - -The sea was wet as wet could be, - The sands were dry as dry. -You could not see a cloud, because - No cloud was in the sky: -No birds were flying over head— - There were no birds to fly. - -The Walrus and the Carpenter - Were walking close at hand; -They wept like anything to see - Such quantities of sand: -‘If this were only cleared away,’ - They said, ‘it _would_ be grand!’ - -‘If seven maids with seven mops - Swept it for half a year, -Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, - ‘That they could get it clear?’ -‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter, - And shed a bitter tear. - -‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ - The Walrus did beseech. -‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, - Along the briny beach: -We cannot do with more than four, - To give a hand to each.’ - -The eldest Oyster looked at him. - But never a word he said: -The eldest Oyster winked his eye, - And shook his heavy head— -Meaning to say he did not choose - To leave the oyster-bed. - -But four young oysters hurried up, - All eager for the treat: -Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, - Their shoes were clean and neat— -And this was odd, because, you know, - They hadn’t any feet. - -Four other Oysters followed them, - And yet another four; -And thick and fast they came at last, - And more, and more, and more— -All hopping through the frothy waves, - And scrambling to the shore. - -The Walrus and the Carpenter - Walked on a mile or so, -And then they rested on a rock - Conveniently low: -And all the little Oysters stood - And waited in a row. - -‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, - ‘To talk of many things: -Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— - Of cabbages—and kings— -And why the sea is boiling hot— - And whether pigs have wings.’ - -‘But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried, - ‘Before we have our chat; -For some of us are out of breath, - And all of us are fat!’ -‘No hurry!’ said the Carpenter. - They thanked him much for that. - -‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, - ‘Is what we chiefly need: -Pepper and vinegar besides - Are very good indeed— -Now if you’re ready Oysters dear, - We can begin to feed.’ - -‘But not on us!’ the Oysters cried, - Turning a little blue, -‘After such kindness, that would be - A dismal thing to do!’ -‘The night is fine,’ the Walrus said - ‘Do you admire the view? - -‘It was so kind of you to come! - And you are very nice!’ -The Carpenter said nothing but - ‘Cut us another slice: -I wish you were not quite so deaf— - I’ve had to ask you twice!’ - -‘It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said, - ‘To play them such a trick, -After we’ve brought them out so far, - And made them trot so quick!’ -The Carpenter said nothing but - ‘The butter’s spread too thick!’ - -‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said. - ‘I deeply sympathize.’ -With sobs and tears he sorted out - Those of the largest size. -Holding his pocket handkerchief - Before his streaming eyes. - -‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter. - ‘You’ve had a pleasant run! -Shall we be trotting home again?’ - But answer came there none— -And that was scarcely odd, because - They’d eaten every one.” - - -“I like the Walrus best,” said Alice: “because you see he was a -_little_ sorry for the poor oysters.” - -“He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee. “You see he -held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count -how many he took: contrariwise.” - -“That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. “Then I like the Carpenter -best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.” - -“But he ate as many as he could get,” said Tweedledum. - -This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, “Well! They were _both_ -very unpleasant characters—” Here she checked herself in some alarm, at -hearing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large -steam-engine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more -likely to be a wild beast. “Are there any lions or tigers about here?” -she asked timidly. - -“It’s only the Red King snoring,” said Tweedledee. - -“Come and look at him!” the brothers cried, and they each took one of -Alice’s hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping. - -“Isn’t he a _lovely_ sight?” said Tweedledum. - -Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap -on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy -heap, and snoring loud—“fit to snore his head off!” as Tweedledum -remarked. - -“I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,” said Alice, -who was a very thoughtful little girl. - -“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s -dreaming about?” - -Alice said “Nobody can guess that.” - -“Why, about _you_!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands -triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you -suppose you’d be?” - -“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. - -“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, -you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!” - -“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go -out—bang!—just like a candle!” - -“I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. “Besides, if _I’m_ only a -sort of thing in his dream, what are _you_, I should like to know?” - -“Ditto” said Tweedledum. - -“Ditto, ditto” cried Tweedledee. - -He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying, “Hush! You’ll -be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” - -“Well, it no use _your_ talking about waking him,” said Tweedledum, -“when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well -you’re not real.” - -“I _am_ real!” said Alice and began to cry. - -“You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,” Tweedledee remarked: -“there’s nothing to cry about.” - -“If I wasn’t real,” Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all -seemed so ridiculous—“I shouldn’t be able to cry.” - -“I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?” Tweedledum interrupted -in a tone of great contempt. - -“I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice thought to herself: “and it’s -foolish to cry about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and went on as -cheerfully as she could. “At any rate I’d better be getting out of the -wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to -rain?” - -Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and -looked up into it. “No, I don’t think it is,” he said: “at least—not -under _here_. Nohow.” - -“But it may rain _outside_?” - -“It may—if it chooses,” said Tweedledee: “we’ve no objection. -Contrariwise.” - -“Selfish things!” thought Alice, and she was just going to say -“Good-night” and leave them, when Tweedledum sprang out from under the -umbrella and seized her by the wrist. - -“Do you see _that_?” he said, in a voice choking with passion, and his -eyes grew large and yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a -trembling finger at a small white thing lying under the tree. - -“It’s only a rattle,” Alice said, after a careful examination of the -little white thing. “Not a rattle-_snake_, you know,” she added -hastily, thinking that he was frightened: “only an old rattle—quite old -and broken.” - -“I knew it was!” cried Tweedledum, beginning to stamp about wildly and -tear his hair. “It’s spoilt, of course!” Here he looked at Tweedledee, -who immediately sat down on the ground, and tried to hide himself under -the umbrella. - -Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said in a soothing tone, “You -needn’t be so angry about an old rattle.” - -“But it isn’t old!” Tweedledum cried, in a greater fury than ever. -“It’s new, I tell you—I bought it yesterday—my nice new RATTLE!” and -his voice rose to a perfect scream. - -All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the umbrella, -with himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to do, that -it quite took off Alice’s attention from the angry brother. But he -couldn’t quite succeed, and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in -the umbrella, with only his head out: and there he lay, opening and -shutting his mouth and his large eyes—“looking more like a fish than -anything else,” Alice thought. - -“Of course you agree to have a battle?” Tweedledum said in a calmer -tone. - -“I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the -umbrella: “only _she_ must help us to dress up, you know.” - -So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned -in a minute with their arms full of things—such as bolsters, blankets, -hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. “I hope -you’re a good hand at pinning and tying strings?” Tweedledum remarked. -“Every one of these things has got to go on, somehow or other.” - -Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about -anything in all her life—the way those two bustled about—and the -quantity of things they put on—and the trouble they gave her in tying -strings and fastening buttons—“Really they’ll be more like bundles of -old clothes than anything else, by the time they’re ready!” she said to -herself, as she arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, “to -keep his head from being cut off,” as he said. - -“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s one of the most serious things -that can possibly happen to one in a battle—to get one’s head cut off.” - -Alice laughed aloud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear -of hurting his feelings. - -“Do I look very pale?” said Tweedledum, coming up to have his helmet -tied on. (He _called_ it a helmet, though it certainly looked much more -like a saucepan.) - -“Well—yes—a _little_,” Alice replied gently. - -“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only to-day I -happen to have a headache.” - -“And _I’ve_ got a toothache!” said Tweedledee, who had overheard the -remark. “I’m far worse off than you!” - -“Then you’d better not fight to-day,” said Alice, thinking it a good -opportunity to make peace. - -“We _must_ have a bit of a fight, but I don’t care about going on -long,” said Tweedledum. “What’s the time now?” - -Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said “Half-past four.” - -“Let’s fight till six, and then have dinner,” said Tweedledum. - -“Very well,” the other said, rather sadly: “and _she_ can watch us—only -you’d better not come _very_ close,” he added: “I generally hit -everything I can see—when I get really excited.” - -“And _I_ hit everything within reach,” cried Tweedledum, “whether I can -see it or not!” - -Alice laughed. “You must hit the _trees_ pretty often, I should think,” -she said. - -Tweedledum looked round him with a satisfied smile. “I don’t suppose,” -he said, “there’ll be a tree left standing, for ever so far round, by -the time we’ve finished!” - -“And all about a rattle!” said Alice, still hoping to make them a -_little_ ashamed of fighting for such a trifle. - -“I shouldn’t have minded it so much,” said Tweedledum, “if it hadn’t -been a new one.” - -“I wish the monstrous crow would come!” thought Alice. - -“There’s only one sword, you know,” Tweedledum said to his brother: -“but you can have the umbrella—it’s quite as sharp. Only we must begin -quick. It’s getting as dark as it can.” - -“And darker,” said Tweedledee. - -It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a -thunderstorm coming on. “What a thick black cloud that is!” she said. -“And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it’s got wings!” - -“It’s the crow!” Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm: and -the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a moment. - -Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree. -“It can never get at me _here_,” she thought: “it’s far too large to -squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn’t flap its -wings so—it makes quite a hurricane in the wood—here’s somebody’s shawl -being blown away!” - - - - -CHAPTER V. -Wool and Water - - -She caught the shawl as she spoke, and looked about for the owner: in -another moment the White Queen came running wildly through the wood, -with both arms stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and Alice -very civilly went to meet her with the shawl. - -“I’m very glad I happened to be in the way,” Alice said, as she helped -her to put on her shawl again. - -The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of -way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded -like “bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter,” and Alice felt that if there -was to be any conversation at all, she must manage it herself. So she -began rather timidly: “Am I addressing the White Queen?” - -“Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing,” The Queen said. “It isn’t -_my_ notion of the thing, at all.” - -Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very -beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said, “If your -Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, I’ll do it as well as -I can.” - -“But I don’t want it done at all!” groaned the poor Queen. “I’ve been -a-dressing myself for the last two hours.” - -It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had -got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. “Every -single thing’s crooked,” Alice thought to herself, “and she’s all over -pins!—may I put your shawl straight for you?” she added aloud. - -“I don’t know what’s the matter with it!” the Queen said, in a -melancholy voice. “It’s out of temper, I think. I’ve pinned it here, -and I’ve pinned it there, but there’s no pleasing it!” - -“It _can’t_ go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one side,” -Alice said, as she gently put it right for her; “and, dear me, what a -state your hair is in!” - -“The brush has got entangled in it!” the Queen said with a sigh. “And I -lost the comb yesterday.” - -Alice carefully released the brush, and did her best to get the hair -into order. “Come, you look rather better now!” she said, after -altering most of the pins. “But really you should have a lady’s maid!” - -“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the Queen said. “Twopence a -week, and jam every other day.” - -Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I don’t want you to hire -_me_—and I don’t care for jam.” - -“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen. - -“Well, I don’t want any _to-day_, at any rate.” - -“You couldn’t have it if you _did_ want it,” the Queen said. “The rule -is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.” - -“It _must_ come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected. - -“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every _other_ day: to-day -isn’t any _other_ day, you know.” - -“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!” - -“That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it -always makes one a little giddy at first—” - -“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never -heard of such a thing!” - -“—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both -ways.” - -“I’m sure _mine_ only works one way,” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember -things before they happen.” - -“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen -remarked. - -“What sort of things do _you_ remember best?” Alice ventured to ask. - -“Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a -careless tone. “For instance, now,” she went on, sticking a large piece -of plaster on her finger as she spoke, “there’s the King’s Messenger. -He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin -till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.” - -“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice. - -“That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?” the Queen said, as she -bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon. - -Alice felt there was no denying _that_. “Of course it would be all the -better,” she said: “but it wouldn’t be all the better his being -punished.” - -“You’re wrong _there_, at any rate,” said the Queen: “were _you_ ever -punished?” - -“Only for faults,” said Alice. - -“And you were all the better for it, I know!” the Queen said -triumphantly. - -“Yes, but then I _had_ done the things I was punished for,” said Alice: -“that makes all the difference.” - -“But if you _hadn’t_ done them,” the Queen said, “that would have been -better still; better, and better, and better!” Her voice went higher -with each “better,” till it got quite to a squeak at last. - -Alice was just beginning to say “There’s a mistake somewhere—,” when -the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence -unfinished. “Oh, oh, oh!” shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as -if she wanted to shake it off. “My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!” - -Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that -Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears. - -“What _is_ the matter?” she said, as soon as there was a chance of -making herself heard. “Have you pricked your finger?” - -“I haven’t pricked it _yet_,” the Queen said, “but I soon shall—oh, oh, -oh!” - -“When do you expect to do it?” Alice asked, feeling very much inclined -to laugh. - -“When I fasten my shawl again,” the poor Queen groaned out: “the brooch -will come undone directly. Oh, oh!” As she said the words the brooch -flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it -again. - -“Take care!” cried Alice. “You’re holding it all crooked!” And she -caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the -Queen had pricked her finger. - -“That accounts for the bleeding, you see,” she said to Alice with a -smile. “Now you understand the way things happen here.” - -“But why don’t you scream now?” Alice asked, holding her hands ready to -put over her ears again. - -“Why, I’ve done all the screaming already,” said the Queen. “What would -be the good of having it all over again?” - -By this time it was getting light. “The crow must have flown away, I -think,” said Alice: “I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was the night -coming on.” - -“I wish _I_ could manage to be glad!” the Queen said. “Only I never can -remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood, and -being glad whenever you like!” - -“Only it is so _very_ lonely here!” Alice said in a melancholy voice; -and at the thought of her loneliness two large tears came rolling down -her cheeks. - -“Oh, don’t go on like that!” cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands -in despair. “Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long -way you’ve come to-day. Consider what o’clock it is. Consider anything, -only don’t cry!” - -Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears. -“Can _you_ keep from crying by considering things?” she asked. - -“That’s the way it’s done,” the Queen said with great decision: “nobody -can do two things at once, you know. Let’s consider your age to begin -with—how old are you?” - -“I’m seven and a half exactly.” - -“You needn’t say ‘exactually,’” the Queen remarked: “I can believe it -without that. Now I’ll give _you_ something to believe. I’m just one -hundred and one, five months and a day.” - -“I can’t believe _that_!” said Alice. - -“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long -breath, and shut your eyes.” - -Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one _can’t_ believe -impossible things.” - -“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was -your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve -believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes -the shawl again!” - -The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind blew -the Queen’s shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her arms -again, and went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in -catching it for herself. “I’ve got it!” she cried in a triumphant tone. -“Now you shall see me pin it on again, all by myself!” - -“Then I hope your finger is better now?” Alice said very politely, as -she crossed the little brook after the Queen. - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -“Oh, much better!” cried the Queen, her voice rising to a squeak as she -went on. “Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!” The last -word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite started. - -She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up -in wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She couldn’t make out -what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really—was it -really a _sheep_ that was sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub -as she could, she could make nothing more of it: she was in a little -dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her -was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and -then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles. - -“What is it you want to buy?” the Sheep said at last, looking up for a -moment from her knitting. - -“I don’t _quite_ know yet,” Alice said, very gently. “I should like to -look all round me first, if I might.” - -“You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,” said -the Sheep: “but you can’t look _all_ round you—unless you’ve got eyes -at the back of your head.” - -But these, as it happened, Alice had _not_ got: so she contented -herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to them. - -The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things—but the -oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, -to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always -quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they -could hold. - -“Things flow about so here!” she said at last in a plaintive tone, -after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright -thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, -and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. “And -this one is the most provoking of all—but I’ll tell you what—” she -added, as a sudden thought struck her, “I’ll follow it up to the very -top shelf of all. It’ll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect!” - -But even this plan failed: the “thing” went through the ceiling as -quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it. - -“Are you a child or a teetotum?” the Sheep said, as she took up another -pair of needles. “You’ll make me giddy soon, if you go on turning round -like that.” She was now working with fourteen pairs at once, and Alice -couldn’t help looking at her in great astonishment. - -“How _can_ she knit with so many?” the puzzled child thought to -herself. “She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!” - -“Can you row?” the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles -as she spoke. - -“Yes, a little—but not on land—and not with needles—” Alice was -beginning to say, when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her -hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between -banks: so there was nothing for it but to do her best. - -“Feather!” cried the Sheep, as she took up another pair of needles. - -This didn’t sound like a remark that needed any answer, so Alice said -nothing, but pulled away. There was something very queer about the -water, she thought, as every now and then the oars got fast in it, and -would hardly come out again. - -“Feather! Feather!” the Sheep cried again, taking more needles. “You’ll -be catching a crab directly.” - -“A dear little crab!” thought Alice. “I should like that.” - -“Didn’t you hear me say ‘Feather’?” the Sheep cried angrily, taking up -quite a bunch of needles. - -“Indeed I did,” said Alice: “you’ve said it very often—and very loud. -Please, where _are_ the crabs?” - -“In the water, of course!” said the Sheep, sticking some of the needles -into her hair, as her hands were full. “Feather, I say!” - -“_Why_ do you say ‘feather’ so often?” Alice asked at last, rather -vexed. “I’m not a bird!” - -“You are,” said the Sheep: “you’re a little goose.” - -This offended Alice a little, so there was no more conversation for a -minute or two, while the boat glided gently on, sometimes among beds of -weeds (which made the oars stick fast in the water, worse then ever), -and sometimes under trees, but always with the same tall river-banks -frowning over their heads. - -“Oh, please! There are some scented rushes!” Alice cried in a sudden -transport of delight. “There really are—and _such_ beauties!” - -“You needn’t say ‘please’ to _me_ about “em,” the Sheep said, without -looking up from her knitting: “I didn’t put “em there, and I’m not -going to take “em away.” - -“No, but I meant—please, may we wait and pick some?” Alice pleaded. “If -you don’t mind stopping the boat for a minute.” - -“How am _I_ to stop it?” said the Sheep. “If you leave off rowing, -it’ll stop of itself.” - -So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it -glided gently in among the waving rushes. And then the little sleeves -were carefully rolled up, and the little arms were plunged in -elbow-deep to get the rushes a good long way down before breaking them -off—and for a while Alice forgot all about the Sheep and the knitting, -as she bent over the side of the boat, with just the ends of her -tangled hair dipping into the water—while with bright eager eyes she -caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented rushes. - -“I only hope the boat won’t tipple over!” she said to herself. “Oh, -_what_ a lovely one! Only I couldn’t quite reach it.” “And it certainly -_did_ seem a little provoking (“almost as if it happened on purpose,” -she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful -rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that -she couldn’t reach. - -“The prettiest are always further!” she said at last, with a sigh at -the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed -cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, -and began to arrange her new-found treasures. - -What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade, -and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she -picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very -little while—and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like -snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet—but Alice hardly noticed this, -there were so many other curious things to think about. - -They hadn’t gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars got -fast in the water and _wouldn’t_ come out again (so Alice explained it -afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle of it caught her -under the chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks of “Oh, oh, -oh!” from poor Alice, it swept her straight off the seat, and down -among the heap of rushes. - -However, she wasn’t hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep went on with -her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had happened. “That was -a nice crab you caught!” she remarked, as Alice got back into her -place, very much relieved to find herself still in the boat. - -“Was it? I didn’t see it,” Said Alice, peeping cautiously over the side -of the boat into the dark water. “I wish it hadn’t let go—I should so -like to see a little crab to take home with me!” But the Sheep only -laughed scornfully, and went on with her knitting. - -“Are there many crabs here?” said Alice. - -“Crabs, and all sorts of things,” said the Sheep: “plenty of choice, -only make up your mind. Now, what _do_ you want to buy?” - -“To buy!” Alice echoed in a tone that was half astonished and half -frightened—for the oars, and the boat, and the river, had vanished all -in a moment, and she was back again in the little dark shop. - -“I should like to buy an egg, please,” she said timidly. “How do you -sell them?” - -“Fivepence farthing for one—Twopence for two,” the Sheep replied. - -“Then two are cheaper than one?” Alice said in a surprised tone, taking -out her purse. - -“Only you _must_ eat them both, if you buy two,” said the Sheep. - -“Then I’ll have _one_, please,” said Alice, as she put the money down -on the counter. For she thought to herself, “They mightn’t be at all -nice, you know.” - -The Sheep took the money, and put it away in a box: then she said “I -never put things into people’s hands—that would never do—you must get -it for yourself.” And so saying, she went off to the other end of the -shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf. - -“I wonder _why_ it wouldn’t do?” thought Alice, as she groped her way -among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards the -end. “The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let -me see, is this a chair? Why, it’s got branches, I declare! How very -odd to find trees growing here! And actually here’s a little brook! -Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!” - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -So she went on, wondering more and more at every step, as everything -turned into a tree the moment she came up to it, and she quite expected -the egg to do the same. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. -Humpty Dumpty - - -However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: -when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes -and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw -clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. “It can’t be anybody else!” -she said to herself. “I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written -all over his face.” - -It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous -face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on -the top of a high wall—such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how -he could keep his balance—and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the -opposite direction, and he didn’t take the least notice of her, she -thought he must be a stuffed figure after all. - -“And how exactly like an egg he is!” she said aloud, standing with her -hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to -fall. - -“It’s _very_ provoking,” Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, -looking away from Alice as he spoke, “to be called an egg—_Very!_” - -“I said you _looked_ like an egg, Sir,” Alice gently explained. “And -some eggs are very pretty, you know” she added, hoping to turn her -remark into a sort of a compliment. - -“Some people,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual, -“have no more sense than a baby!” - -Alice didn’t know what to say to this: it wasn’t at all like -conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to _her_; in fact, -his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree—so she stood and -softly repeated to herself:— - -“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: -Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. -All the King’s horses and all the King’s men -Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.” - - -“That last line is much too long for the poetry,” she added, almost out -loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her. - -“Don’t stand there chattering to yourself like that,” Humpty Dumpty -said, looking at her for the first time, “but tell me your name and -your business.” - -“My _name_ is Alice, but—” - -“It’s a stupid enough name!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. -“What does it mean?” - -“_Must_ a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully. - -“Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “_my_ name -means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name -like yours, you might be any shape, almost.” - -“Why do you sit out here all alone?” said Alice, not wishing to begin -an argument. - -“Why, because there’s nobody with me!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “Did you -think I didn’t know the answer to _that_? Ask another.” - -“Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground?” Alice went on, not -with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured -anxiety for the queer creature. “That wall is so _very_ narrow!” - -“What tremendously easy riddles you ask!” Humpty Dumpty growled out. -“Of course I don’t think so! Why, if ever I _did_ fall off—which -there’s no chance of—but _if_ I did—” Here he pursed his lips and -looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. “_If_ -I did fall,” he went on, “_The King has promised me—with his very own -mouth_—to—to—” - -“To send all his horses and all his men,” Alice interrupted, rather -unwisely. - -“Now I declare that’s too bad!” Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a -sudden passion. “You’ve been listening at doors—and behind trees—and -down chimneys—or you couldn’t have known it!” - -“I haven’t, indeed!” Alice said very gently. “It’s in a book.” - -“Ah, well! They may write such things in a _book_,” Humpty Dumpty said -in a calmer tone. “That’s what you call a History of England, that is. -Now, take a good look at me! I’m one that has spoken to a King, _I_ am: -mayhap you’ll never see such another: and to show you I’m not proud, -you may shake hands with me!” And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as -he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing -so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched him a little anxiously as -she took it. “If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet -behind,” she thought: “and then I don’t know what would happen to his -head! I’m afraid it would come off!” - -“Yes, all his horses and all his men,” Humpty Dumpty went on. “They’d -pick me up again in a minute, _they_ would! However, this conversation -is going on a little too fast: let’s go back to the last remark but -one.” - -“I’m afraid I can’t quite remember it,” Alice said very politely. - -“In that case we start fresh,” said Humpty Dumpty, “and it’s my turn to -choose a subject—” (“He talks about it just as if it was a game!” -thought Alice.) “So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you -were?” - -Alice made a short calculation, and said “Seven years and six months.” - -“Wrong!” Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. “You never said a word -like it!” - -“I though you meant ‘How old _are_ you?’” Alice explained. - -“If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,” said Humpty Dumpty. - -Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, so she said nothing. - -“Seven years and six months!” Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. “An -uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked _my_ advice, I’d have -said ‘Leave off at seven’—but it’s too late now.” - -“I never ask advice about growing,” Alice said indignantly. - -“Too proud?” the other inquired. - -Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. “I mean,” she said, -“that one can’t help growing older.” - -“_One_ can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty Dumpty, “but _two_ can. With proper -assistance, you might have left off at seven.” - -“What a beautiful belt you’ve got on!” Alice suddenly remarked. - -(They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and if -they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her turn -now.) “At least,” she corrected herself on second thoughts, “a -beautiful cravat, I should have said—no, a belt, I mean—I beg your -pardon!” she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly -offended, and she began to wish she hadn’t chosen that subject. “If I -only knew,” she thought to herself, “which was neck and which was -waist!” - -Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, though he said nothing for a -minute or two. When he _did_ speak again, it was in a deep growl. - -“It is a—_most—provoking_—thing,” he said at last, “when a person -doesn’t know a cravat from a belt!” - -“I know it’s very ignorant of me,” Alice said, in so humble a tone that -Humpty Dumpty relented. - -“It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It’s a present -from the White King and Queen. There now!” - -“Is it really?” said Alice, quite pleased to find that she _had_ chosen -a good subject, after all. - -“They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed -one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, “they gave it -me—for an un-birthday present.” - -“I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air. - -“I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. - -“I mean, what _is_ an un-birthday present?” - -“A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.” - -Alice considered a little. “I like birthday presents best,” she said at -last. - -“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “How -many days are there in a year?” - -“Three hundred and sixty-five,” said Alice. - -“And how many birthdays have you?” - -“One.” - -“And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?” - -“Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.” - -Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. “I’d rather see that done on paper,” he -said. - -Alice couldn’t help smiling as she took out her memorandum-book, and -worked the sum for him: - - 365 - 1 -____ -364 -___ - - -Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked at it carefully. “That seems to -be done right—” he began. - -“You’re holding it upside down!” Alice interrupted. - -“To be sure I was!” Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round -for him. “I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that -_seems_ to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over -thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and -sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—” - -“Certainly,” said Alice. - -“And only _one_ for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for -you!” - -“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said. - -Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell -you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” - -“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice -objected. - -“When _I_ use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, -“it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” - -“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you _can_ make words mean so -many different things.” - -“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s -all.” - -Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty -Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, -they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not -verbs—however, _I_ can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! -That’s what _I_ say!” - -“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?” - -“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking -very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough -of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you -mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest -of your life.” - -“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful -tone. - -“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I -always pay it extra.” - -“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark. - -“Ah, you should see “em come round me of a Saturday night,” Humpty -Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: “for to get -their wages, you know.” - -(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I -can’t tell _you_.) - -“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you -kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?” - -“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that -were ever invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just -yet.” - -This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse: - -’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves - Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; -All mimsy were the borogoves, - And the mome raths outgrabe. - - -“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted: “there are -plenty of hard words there. ‘_Brillig_’ means four o’clock in the -afternoon—the time when you begin _broiling_ things for dinner.” - -“That’ll do very well,” said Alice: “and ‘_slithy_’?” - -“Well, ‘_slithy_’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as -‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed -up into one word.” - -“I see it now,” Alice remarked thoughtfully: “and what are ‘_toves_’?” - -“Well, ‘_toves_’ are something like badgers—they’re something like -lizards—and they’re something like corkscrews.” - -“They must be very curious looking creatures.” - -“They are that,” said Humpty Dumpty: “also they make their nests under -sun-dials—also they live on cheese.” - -“And what’s the ‘_gyre_’ and to ‘_gimble_’?” - -“To ‘_gyre_’ is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To ‘_gimble_’ -is to make holes like a gimlet.” - -“And ‘_the wabe_’ is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?” said -Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity. - -“Of course it is. It’s called ‘_wabe_,’ you know, because it goes a -long way before it, and a long way behind it—” - -“And a long way beyond it on each side,” Alice added. - -“Exactly so. Well, then, ‘_mimsy_’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s -another portmanteau for you). And a ‘_borogove_’ is a thin -shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something -like a live mop.” - -“And then ‘_mome raths_’?” said Alice. “I’m afraid I’m giving you a -great deal of trouble.” - -“Well, a ‘_rath_’ is a sort of green pig: but ‘_mome_’ I’m not certain -about. I think it’s short for ‘from home’—meaning that they’d lost -their way, you know.” - -“And what does ‘_outgrabe_’ mean?” - -“Well, ‘_outgrabing_’ is something between bellowing and whistling, -with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you’ll hear it done, -maybe—down in the wood yonder—and when you’ve once heard it you’ll be -_quite_ content. Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to you?” - -“I read it in a book,” said Alice. “But I had some poetry repeated to -me, much easier than that, by—Tweedledee, I think it was.” - -“As to poetry, you know,” said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his -great hands, “_I_ can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes -to that—” - -“Oh, it needn’t come to that!” Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him -from beginning. - -“The piece I’m going to repeat,” he went on without noticing her -remark, “was written entirely for your amusement.” - -Alice felt that in that case she really _ought_ to listen to it, so she -sat down, and said “Thank you” rather sadly. - -“In winter, when the fields are white, -I sing this song for your delight— - - -only I don’t sing it,” he added, as an explanation. - -“I see you don’t,” said Alice. - -“If you can _see_ whether I’m singing or not, you’ve sharper eyes than -most.” Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent. - -“In spring, when woods are getting green, -I’ll try and tell you what I mean.” - - -“Thank you very much,” said Alice. - -“In summer, when the days are long, -Perhaps you’ll understand the song: - -In autumn, when the leaves are brown, -Take pen and ink, and write it down.” - - -“I will, if I can remember it so long,” said Alice. - -“You needn’t go on making remarks like that,” Humpty Dumpty said: -“they’re not sensible, and they put me out.” - -“I sent a message to the fish: -I told them ‘This is what I wish.’ - -The little fishes of the sea, -They sent an answer back to me. - -The little fishes’ answer was -‘We cannot do it, Sir, because—‘” - - -“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said Alice. - -“It gets easier further on,” Humpty Dumpty replied. - -“I sent to them again to say -‘It will be better to obey.’ - -The fishes answered with a grin, -‘Why, what a temper you are in!’ - -I told them once, I told them twice: -They would not listen to advice. - -I took a kettle large and new, -Fit for the deed I had to do. - -My heart went hop, my heart went thump; -I filled the kettle at the pump. - -Then some one came to me and said, -‘The little fishes are in bed.’ - -I said to him, I said it plain, -‘Then you must wake them up again.’ - -I said it very loud and clear; -I went and shouted in his ear.” - - -Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this -verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, “I wouldn’t have been the -messenger for _anything_!” - -“But he was very stiff and proud; -He said ‘You needn’t shout so loud!’ - -And he was very proud and stiff; -He said ‘I’d go and wake them, if—’ - -I took a corkscrew from the shelf: -I went to wake them up myself. - -And when I found the door was locked, -I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked. - -And when I found the door was shut, -I tried to turn the handle, but—” - - -There was a long pause. - -“Is that all?” Alice timidly asked. - -“That’s all,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Good-bye.” - -This was rather sudden, Alice thought: but, after such a _very_ strong -hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil -to stay. So she got up, and held out her hand. “Good-bye, till we meet -again!” she said as cheerfully as she could. - -“I shouldn’t know you again if we _did_ meet,” Humpty Dumpty replied in -a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; “you’re so -exactly like other people.” - -“The face is what one goes by, generally,” Alice remarked in a -thoughtful tone. - -“That’s just what I complain of,” said Humpty Dumpty. “Your face is the -same as everybody has—the two eyes, so—” (marking their places in the -air with this thumb) “nose in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the -same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for -instance—or the mouth at the top—that would be _some_ help.” - -“It wouldn’t look nice,” Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut -his eyes and said “Wait till you’ve tried.” - -Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never -opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said “Good-bye!” -once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but -she couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, “Of all the -unsatisfactory—” (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to -have such a long word to say) “of all the unsatisfactory people I -_ever_ met—” She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a -heavy crash shook the forest from end to end. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. -The Lion and the Unicorn - - -The next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at first in -twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such -crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice got behind a -tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by. - -She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so -uncertain on their feet: they were always tripping over something or -other, and whenever one went down, several more always fell over him, -so that the ground was soon covered with little heaps of men. - -Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed rather better -than the foot-soldiers: but even _they_ stumbled now and then; and it -seemed to be a regular rule that, whenever a horse stumbled the rider -fell off instantly. The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was -very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she found -the White King seated on the ground, busily writing in his -memorandum-book. - -“I’ve sent them all!” the King cried in a tone of delight, on seeing -Alice. “Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came -through the wood?” - -“Yes, I did,” said Alice: “several thousand, I should think.” - -“Four thousand two hundred and seven, that’s the exact number,” the -King said, referring to his book. “I couldn’t send all the horses, you -know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven’t sent -the two Messengers, either. They’re both gone to the town. Just look -along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.” - -“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. - -“I only wish _I_ had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. -“To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much -as _I_ can do to see real people, by this light!” - -All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the -road, shading her eyes with one hand. “I see somebody now!” she -exclaimed at last. “But he’s coming very slowly—and what curious -attitudes he goes into!” (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, -and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands -spread out like fans on each side.) - -“Not at all,” said the King. “He’s an Anglo-Saxon Messenger—and those -are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he’s happy. His name -is Haigha.” (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with “mayor.”) - -“I love my love with an H,” Alice couldn’t help beginning, “because he -is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him -with—with—with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he -lives—” - -“He lives on the Hill,” the King remarked simply, without the least -idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating -for the name of a town beginning with H. “The other Messenger’s called -Hatta. I must have _two_, you know—to come and go. One to come, and one -to go.” - -“I beg your pardon?” said Alice. - -“It isn’t respectable to beg,” said the King. - -“I only meant that I didn’t understand,” said Alice. “Why one to come -and one to go?” - -“Didn’t I tell you?” the King repeated impatiently. “I must have -_two_—to fetch and carry. One to fetch, and one to carry.” - -At this moment the Messenger arrived: he was far too much out of breath -to say a word, and could only wave his hands about, and make the most -fearful faces at the poor King. - -“This young lady loves you with an H,” the King said, introducing Alice -in the hope of turning off the Messenger’s attention from himself—but -it was no use—the Anglo-Saxon attitudes only got more extraordinary -every moment, while the great eyes rolled wildly from side to side. - -“You alarm me!” said the King. “I feel faint—Give me a ham sandwich!” - -On which the Messenger, to Alice’s great amusement, opened a bag that -hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who devoured it -greedily. - -“Another sandwich!” said the King. - -“There’s nothing but hay left now,” the Messenger said, peeping into -the bag. - -“Hay, then,” the King murmured in a faint whisper. - -Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal. “There’s nothing -like eating hay when you’re faint,” he remarked to her, as he munched -away. - -“I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,” Alice -suggested: “or some sal-volatile.” - -“I didn’t say there was nothing _better_,” the King replied. “I said -there was nothing _like_ it.” Which Alice did not venture to deny. - -“Who did you pass on the road?” the King went on, holding out his hand -to the Messenger for some more hay. - -“Nobody,” said the Messenger. - -“Quite right,” said the King: “this young lady saw him too. So of -course Nobody walks slower than you.” - -“I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sulky tone. “I’m sure nobody -walks much faster than I do!” - -“He can’t do that,” said the King, “or else he’d have been here first. -However, now you’ve got your breath, you may tell us what’s happened in -the town.” - -“I’ll whisper it,” said the Messenger, putting his hands to his mouth -in the shape of a trumpet, and stooping so as to get close to the -King’s ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she wanted to hear the news -too. However, instead of whispering, he simply shouted at the top of -his voice “They’re at it again!” - -“Do you call _that_ a whisper?” cried the poor King, jumping up and -shaking himself. “If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you buttered! -It went through and through my head like an earthquake!” - -“It would have to be a very tiny earthquake!” thought Alice. “Who are -at it again?” she ventured to ask. - -“Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,” said the King. - -“Fighting for the crown?” - -“Yes, to be sure,” said the King: “and the best of the joke is, that -it’s _my_ crown all the while! Let’s run and see them.” And they -trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the -old song:— - -“The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: -The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. -Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown; -Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.” - - -“Does—the one—that wins—get the crown?” she asked, as well as she -could, for the run was putting her quite out of breath. - -“Dear me, no!” said the King. “What an idea!” - -“Would you—be good enough,” Alice panted out, after running a little -further, “to stop a minute—just to get—one’s breath again?” - -“I’m _good_ enough,” the King said, “only I’m not strong enough. You -see, a minute goes by so fearfully quick. You might as well try to stop -a Bandersnatch!” - -Alice had no more breath for talking, so they trotted on in silence, -till they came in sight of a great crowd, in the middle of which the -Lion and Unicorn were fighting. They were in such a cloud of dust, that -at first Alice could not make out which was which: but she soon managed -to distinguish the Unicorn by his horn. - -They placed themselves close to where Hatta, the other messenger, was -standing watching the fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece -of bread-and-butter in the other. - -“He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t finished his tea when he -was sent in,” Haigha whispered to Alice: “and they only give them -oyster-shells in there—so you see he’s very hungry and thirsty. How are -you, dear child?” he went on, putting his arm affectionately round -Hatta’s neck. - -Hatta looked round and nodded, and went on with his bread and butter. - -“Were you happy in prison, dear child?” said Haigha. - -Hatta looked round once more, and this time a tear or two trickled down -his cheek: but not a word would he say. - -“Speak, can’t you!” Haigha cried impatiently. But Hatta only munched -away, and drank some more tea. - -“Speak, won’t you!” cried the King. “How are they getting on with the -fight?” - -Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of -bread-and-butter. “They’re getting on very well,” he said in a choking -voice: “each of them has been down about eighty-seven times.” - -“Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white bread and the brown?” -Alice ventured to remark. - -“It’s waiting for “em now,” said Hatta: “this is a bit of it as I’m -eating.” - -There was a pause in the fight just then, and the Lion and the Unicorn -sat down, panting, while the King called out “Ten minutes allowed for -refreshments!” Haigha and Hatta set to work at once, carrying rough -trays of white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but it was -_very_ dry. - -“I don’t think they’ll fight any more to-day,” the King said to Hatta: -“go and order the drums to begin.” And Hatta went bounding away like a -grasshopper. - -For a minute or two Alice stood silent, watching him. Suddenly she -brightened up. “Look, look!” she cried, pointing eagerly. “There’s the -White Queen running across the country! She came flying out of the wood -over yonder—How fast those Queens _can_ run!” - -“There’s some enemy after her, no doubt,” the King said, without even -looking round. “That wood’s full of them.” - -“But aren’t you going to run and help her?” Alice asked, very much -surprised at his taking it so quietly. - -“No use, no use!” said the King. “She runs so fearfully quick. You -might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a memorandum -about her, if you like—She’s a dear good creature,” he repeated softly -to himself, as he opened his memorandum-book. “Do you spell ‘creature’ -with a double ‘e’?” - -At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his -pockets. “I had the best of it this time?” he said to the King, just -glancing at him as he passed. - -“A little—a little,” the King replied, rather nervously. “You shouldn’t -have run him through with your horn, you know.” - -“It didn’t hurt him,” the Unicorn said carelessly, and he was going on, -when his eye happened to fall upon Alice: he turned round rather -instantly, and stood for some time looking at her with an air of the -deepest disgust. - -“What—is—this?” he said at last. - -“This is a child!” Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to -introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an -Anglo-Saxon attitude. “We only found it to-day. It’s as large as life, -and twice as natural!” - -“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn. “Is -it alive?” - -“It can talk,” said Haigha, solemnly. - -The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said “Talk, child.” - -Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do -you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I -never saw one alive before!” - -“Well, now that we _have_ seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if -you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?” - -“Yes, if you like,” said Alice. - -“Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!” the Unicorn went on, turning -from her to the King. “None of your brown bread for me!” - -“Certainly—certainly!” the King muttered, and beckoned to Haigha. “Open -the bag!” he whispered. “Quick! Not that one—that’s full of hay!” - -Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and gave it to Alice to hold, -while he got out a dish and carving-knife. How they all came out of it -Alice couldn’t guess. It was just like a conjuring-trick, she thought. - -The Lion had joined them while this was going on: he looked very tired -and sleepy, and his eyes were half shut. “What’s this!” he said, -blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in a deep hollow tone that -sounded like the tolling of a great bell. - -“Ah, what _is_ it, now?” the Unicorn cried eagerly. “You’ll never -guess! _I_ couldn’t.” - -The Lion looked at Alice wearily. “Are you animal—vegetable—or -mineral?” he said, yawning at every other word. - -“It’s a fabulous monster!” the Unicorn cried out, before Alice could -reply. - -“Then hand round the plum-cake, Monster,” the Lion said, lying down and -putting his chin on his paws. “And sit down, both of you,” (to the King -and the Unicorn): “fair play with the cake, you know!” - -The King was evidently very uncomfortable at having to sit down between -the two great creatures; but there was no other place for him. - -“What a fight we might have for the crown, _now_!” the Unicorn said, -looking slyly up at the crown, which the poor King was nearly shaking -off his head, he trembled so much. - -“I should win easy,” said the Lion. - -“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Unicorn. - -“Why, I beat you all round the town, you chicken!” the Lion replied -angrily, half getting up as he spoke. - -Here the King interrupted, to prevent the quarrel going on: he was very -nervous, and his voice quite quivered. “All round the town?” he said. -“That’s a good long way. Did you go by the old bridge, or the -market-place? You get the best view by the old bridge.” - -“I’m sure I don’t know,” the Lion growled out as he lay down again. -“There was too much dust to see anything. What a time the Monster is, -cutting up that cake!” - -Alice had seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great -dish on her knees, and was sawing away diligently with the knife. “It’s -very provoking!” she said, in reply to the Lion (she was getting quite -used to being called “the Monster”). “I’ve cut several slices already, -but they always join on again!” - -“You don’t know how to manage Looking-glass cakes,” the Unicorn -remarked. “Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards.” - -This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obediently got up, and carried -the dish round, and the cake divided itself into three pieces as she -did so. “_Now_ cut it up,” said the Lion, as she returned to her place -with the empty dish. - -“I say, this isn’t fair!” cried the Unicorn, as Alice sat with the -knife in her hand, very much puzzled how to begin. “The Monster has -given the Lion twice as much as me!” - -“She’s kept none for herself, anyhow,” said the Lion. “Do you like -plum-cake, Monster?” - -But before Alice could answer him, the drums began. - -Where the noise came from, she couldn’t make out: the air seemed full -of it, and it rang through and through her head till she felt quite -deafened. She started to her feet and sprang across the little brook in -her terror, - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -and had just time to see the Lion and the Unicorn rise to their feet, -with angry looks at being interrupted in their feast, before she -dropped to her knees, and put her hands over her ears, vainly trying to -shut out the dreadful uproar. - -“If _that_ doesn’t ‘drum them out of town,’” she thought to herself, -“nothing ever will!” - - - -CHAPTER VIII. -“It’s my own Invention” - - -After a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead -silence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one -to be seen, and her first thought was that she must have been dreaming -about the Lion and the Unicorn and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers. -However, there was the great dish still lying at her feet, on which she -had tried to cut the plum-cake, “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” she -said to herself, “unless—unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only -I do hope it’s _my_ dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like -belonging to another person’s dream,” she went on in a rather -complaining tone: “I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what -happens!” - -At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of -“Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and a Knight dressed in crimson armour came -galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club. Just as he reached -her, the horse stopped suddenly: “You’re my prisoner!” the Knight -cried, as he tumbled off his horse. - -Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself -at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again. -As soon as he was comfortably in the saddle, he began once more “You’re -my—” but here another voice broke in “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and Alice -looked round in some surprise for the new enemy. - -This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice’s side, and -tumbled off his horse just as the Red Knight had done: then he got on -again, and the two Knights sat and looked at each other for some time -without speaking. Alice looked from one to the other in some -bewilderment. - -“She’s _my_ prisoner, you know!” the Red Knight said at last. - -“Yes, but then _I_ came and rescued her!” the White Knight replied. - -“Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the Red Knight, as he took up -his helmet (which hung from the saddle, and was something the shape of -a horse’s head), and put it on. - -“You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?” the White Knight -remarked, putting on his helmet too. - -“I always do,” said the Red Knight, and they began banging away at each -other with such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out of the way -of the blows. - -“I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,” she said to herself, as -she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place: “one -Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off -his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles off himself—and another Rule -seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were -Punch and Judy—What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a -whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the -horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were -tables!” - -Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to be that -they always fell on their heads, and the battle ended with their both -falling off in this way, side by side: when they got up again, they -shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted and galloped off. - -“It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?” said the White Knight, as he -came up panting. - -“I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “I don’t want to be anybody’s -prisoner. I want to be a Queen.” - -“So you will, when you’ve crossed the next brook,” said the White -Knight. “I’ll see you safe to the end of the wood—and then I must go -back, you know. That’s the end of my move.” - -“Thank you very much,” said Alice. “May I help you off with your -helmet?” It was evidently more than he could manage by himself; -however, she managed to shake him out of it at last. - -“Now one can breathe more easily,” said the Knight, putting back his -shaggy hair with both hands, and turning his gentle face and large mild -eyes to Alice. She thought she had never seen such a strange-looking -soldier in all her life. - -He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and -he had a queer-shaped little deal box fastened across his shoulder, -upside-down, and with the lid hanging open. Alice looked at it with -great curiosity. - -“I see you’re admiring my little box.” the Knight said in a friendly -tone. “It’s my own invention—to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You see -I carry it upside-down, so that the rain can’t get in.” - -“But the things can get _out_,” Alice gently remarked. “Do you know the -lid’s open?” - -“I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade of vexation passing over -his face. “Then all the things must have fallen out! And the box is no -use without them.” He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to -throw it into the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, -and he hung it carefully on a tree. “Can you guess why I did that?” he -said to Alice. - -Alice shook her head. - -“In hopes some bees may make a nest in it—then I should get the honey.” - -“But you’ve got a bee-hive—or something like one—fastened to the -saddle,” said Alice. - -“Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight said in a discontented -tone, “one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. -And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees -out—or the bees keep the mice out, I don’t know which.” - -“I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,” said Alice. “It isn’t -very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.” - -“Not very likely, perhaps,” said the Knight: “but if they _do_ come, I -don’t choose to have them running all about.” - -“You see,” he went on after a pause, “it’s as well to be provided for -_everything_. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets round -his feet.” - -“But what are they for?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. - -“To guard against the bites of sharks,” the Knight replied. “It’s an -invention of my own. And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the end of -the wood—What’s the dish for?” - -“It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice. - -“We’d better take it with us,” the Knight said. “It’ll come in handy if -we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.” - -This took a very long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open -very carefully, because the Knight was so _very_ awkward in putting in -the dish: the first two or three times that he tried he fell in himself -instead. “It’s rather a tight fit, you see,” he said, as they got it in -a last; “There are so many candlesticks in the bag.” And he hung it to -the saddle, which was already loaded with bunches of carrots, and -fire-irons, and many other things. - -“I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened on?” he continued, as they -set off. - -“Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling. - -“That’s hardly enough,” he said, anxiously. “You see the wind is so -_very_ strong here. It’s as strong as soup.” - -“Have you invented a plan for keeping the hair from being blown off?” -Alice enquired. - -“Not yet,” said the Knight. “But I’ve got a plan for keeping it from -_falling_ off.” - -“I should like to hear it, very much.” - -“First you take an upright stick,” said the Knight. “Then you make your -hair creep up it, like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is -because it hangs _down_—things never fall _upwards_, you know. It’s a -plan of my own invention. You may try it if you like.” - -It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few -minutes she walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now -and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who certainly was _not_ a -good rider. - -Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in -front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather -suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except -that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he -generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon -found that it was the best plan not to walk _quite_ close to the horse. - -“I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice in riding,” she ventured to -say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble. - -The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the -remark. “What makes you say that?” he asked, as he scrambled back into -the saddle, keeping hold of Alice’s hair with one hand, to save himself -from falling over on the other side. - -“Because people don’t fall off quite so often, when they’ve had much -practice.” - -“I’ve had plenty of practice,” the Knight said very gravely: “plenty of -practice!” - -Alice could think of nothing better to say than “Indeed?” but she said -it as heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after -this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice -watching anxiously for the next tumble. - -“The great art of riding,” the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, -waving his right arm as he spoke, “is to keep—” Here the sentence ended -as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of -his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking. She was quite -frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him -up, “I hope no bones are broken?” - -“None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if he didn’t mind breaking two -or three of them. “The great art of riding, as I was saying, is—to keep -your balance properly. Like this, you know—” - -He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice -what he meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the -horse’s feet. - -“Plenty of practice!” he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was -getting him on his feet again. “Plenty of practice!” - -“It’s too ridiculous!” cried Alice, losing all her patience this time. -“You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!” - -“Does that kind go smoothly?” the Knight asked in a tone of great -interest, clasping his arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just in -time to save himself from tumbling off again. - -“Much more smoothly than a live horse,” Alice said, with a little -scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it. - -“I’ll get one,” the Knight said thoughtfully to himself. “One or -two—several.” - -There was a short silence after this, and then the Knight went on -again. “I’m a great hand at inventing things. Now, I daresay you -noticed, that last time you picked me up, that I was looking rather -thoughtful?” - -“You _were_ a little grave,” said Alice. - -“Well, just then I was inventing a new way of getting over a gate—would -you like to hear it?” - -“Very much indeed,” Alice said politely. - -“I’ll tell you how I came to think of it,” said the Knight. “You see, I -said to myself, ‘The only difficulty is with the feet: the _head_ is -high enough already.’ Now, first I put my head on the top of the -gate—then I stand on my head—then the feet are high enough, you -see—then I’m over, you see.” - -“Yes, I suppose you’d be over when that was done,” Alice said -thoughtfully: “but don’t you think it would be rather hard?” - -“I haven’t tried it yet,” the Knight said, gravely: “so I can’t tell -for certain—but I’m afraid it _would_ be a little hard.” - -He looked so vexed at the idea, that Alice changed the subject hastily. -“What a curious helmet you’ve got!” she said cheerfully. “Is that your -invention too?” - -The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet, which hung from the -saddle. “Yes,” he said, “but I’ve invented a better one than that—like -a sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it -always touched the ground directly. So I had a _very_ little way to -fall, you see—But there _was_ the danger of falling _into_ it, to be -sure. That happened to me once—and the worst of it was, before I could -get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on. He thought it -was his own helmet.” - -The knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh. -“I’m afraid you must have hurt him,” she said in a trembling voice, -“being on the top of his head.” - -“I had to kick him, of course,” the Knight said, very seriously. “And -then he took the helmet off again—but it took hours and hours to get me -out. I was as fast as—as lightning, you know.” - -“But that’s a different kind of fastness,” Alice objected. - -The Knight shook his head. “It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can -assure you!” he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as he said -this, and instantly rolled out of the saddle, and fell headlong into a -deep ditch. - -Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him. She was rather -startled by the fall, as for some time he had kept on very well, and -she was afraid that he really _was_ hurt this time. However, though she -could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was much relieved to -hear that he was talking on in his usual tone. “All kinds of fastness,” -he repeated: “but it was careless of him to put another man’s helmet -on—with the man in it, too.” - -“How _can_ you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked, -as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank. - -The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where -my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. -In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new -things.” - -“Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,” he went on after -a pause, “was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course.” - -“In time to have it cooked for the next course?” said Alice. “Well, not -the _next_ course,” the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone: “no, -certainly not the next _course_.” - -“Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn’t have two -pudding-courses in one dinner?” - -“Well, not the _next_ day,” the Knight repeated as before: “not the -next _day_. In fact,” he went on, holding his head down, and his voice -getting lower and lower, “I don’t believe that pudding ever _was_ -cooked! In fact, I don’t believe that pudding ever _will_ be cooked! -And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.” - -“What did you mean it to be made of?” Alice asked, hoping to cheer him -up, for the poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it. - -“It began with blotting paper,” the Knight answered with a groan. - -“That wouldn’t be very nice, I’m afraid—” - -“Not very nice _alone_,” he interrupted, quite eagerly: “but you’ve no -idea what a difference it makes mixing it with other things—such as -gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must leave you.” They had just -come to the end of the wood. - -Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding. - -“You are sad,” the Knight said in an anxious tone: “let me sing you a -song to comfort you.” - -“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry -that day. - -“It’s long,” said the Knight, “but very, _very_ beautiful. Everybody -that hears me sing it—either it brings the _tears_ into their eyes, or -else—” - -“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. - -“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called -‘_Haddocks’ Eyes_.’” - -“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to feel -interested. - -“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. -“That’s what the name is _called_. The name really _is_ ‘_The Aged Aged -Man_.’” - -“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the _song_ is called’?” Alice -corrected herself. - -“No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The _song_ is called -‘_Ways and Means_’: but that’s only what it’s _called_, you know!” - -“Well, what _is_ the song, then?” said Alice, who was by this time -completely bewildered. - -“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really _is_ -‘_A-sitting On A Gate_’: and the tune’s my own invention.” - -So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: -then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile -lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of his -song, he began. - -Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The -Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most -clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, -as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of -the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on -his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly -moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the -grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this -she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she -leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a -half dream, to the melancholy music of the song. - -“But the tune _isn’t_ his own invention,” she said to herself: “it’s -‘_I give thee all, I can no more_.’” She stood and listened very -attentively, but no tears came into her eyes. - -“I’ll tell thee everything I can; - There’s little to relate. -I saw an aged aged man, - A-sitting on a gate. -‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said, - ‘and how is it you live?’ -And his answer trickled through my head - Like water through a sieve. - -He said ‘I look for butterflies - That sleep among the wheat: -I make them into mutton-pies, - And sell them in the street. -I sell them unto men,’ he said, - ‘Who sail on stormy seas; -And that’s the way I get my bread— - A trifle, if you please.’ - -But I was thinking of a plan - To dye one’s whiskers green, -And always use so large a fan - That they could not be seen. -So, having no reply to give - To what the old man said, -I cried, ‘Come, tell me how you live!’ - And thumped him on the head. - -His accents mild took up the tale: - He said ‘I go my ways, -And when I find a mountain-rill, - I set it in a blaze; -And thence they make a stuff they call - Rolands’ Macassar Oil— -Yet twopence-halfpenny is all - They give me for my toil.’ - -But I was thinking of a way - To feed oneself on batter, -And so go on from day to day - Getting a little fatter. -I shook him well from side to side, - Until his face was blue: -‘Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried, - ‘And what it is you do!’ - -He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes - Among the heather bright, -And work them into waistcoat-buttons - In the silent night. -And these I do not sell for gold - Or coin of silvery shine -But for a copper halfpenny, - And that will purchase nine. - -‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, - Or set limed twigs for crabs; -I sometimes search the grassy knolls - For wheels of Hansom-cabs. -And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink) - ‘By which I get my wealth— -And very gladly will I drink - Your Honour’s noble health.’ - -I heard him then, for I had just - Completed my design -To keep the Menai bridge from rust - By boiling it in wine. -I thanked him much for telling me - The way he got his wealth, -But chiefly for his wish that he - Might drink my noble health. - -And now, if e’er by chance I put - My fingers into glue -Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot - Into a left-hand shoe, -Or if I drop upon my toe - A very heavy weight, -I weep, for it reminds me so, -Of that old man I used to know— -Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow, -Whose hair was whiter than the snow, -Whose face was very like a crow, -With eyes, like cinders, all aglow, -Who seemed distracted with his woe, -Who rocked his body to and fro, -And muttered mumblingly and low, -As if his mouth were full of dough, -Who snorted like a buffalo— -That summer evening, long ago, - A-sitting on a gate.” - - -As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the -reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road by which they had -come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” he said, “down the hill and over -that little brook, and then you’ll be a Queen—But you’ll stay and see -me off first?” he added as Alice turned with an eager look in the -direction to which he pointed. “I shan’t be long. You’ll wait and wave -your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll -encourage me, you see.” - -“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice: “and thank you very much for coming -so far—and for the song—I liked it very much.” - -“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully: “but you didn’t cry so much as -I thought you would.” - -So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the -forest. “It won’t take long to see him _off_, I expect,” Alice said to -herself, as she stood watching him. “There he goes! Right on his head -as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily—that comes of having -so many things hung round the horse—” So she went on talking to -herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and -the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After -the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her -handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight. - -“I hope it encouraged him,” she said, as she turned to run down the -hill: “and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it -sounds!” A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. “The -Eighth Square at last!” she cried as she bounded across, - -* * * * * * * - - * * * * * * - -* * * * * * * - - -and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with little -flower-beds dotted about it here and there. “Oh, how glad I am to get -here! And what _is_ this on my head?” she exclaimed in a tone of -dismay, as she put her hands up to something very heavy, and fitted -tight all round her head. - -“But how _can_ it have got there without my knowing it?” she said to -herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what -it could possibly be. - -It was a golden crown. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. -Queen Alice - - -“Well, this _is_ grand!” said Alice. “I never expected I should be a -Queen so soon—and I’ll tell you what it is, your majesty,” she went on -in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), -“it’ll never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that! -Queens have to be dignified, you know!” - -So she got up and walked about—rather stiffly just at first, as she was -afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with -the thought that there was nobody to see her, “and if I really am a -Queen,” she said as she sat down again, “I shall be able to manage it -quite well in time.” - -Everything was happening so oddly that she didn’t feel a bit surprised -at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one -on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came -there, but she feared it would not be quite civil. However, there would -be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. “Please, would -you tell me—” she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen. - -“Speak when you’re spoken to!” The Queen sharply interrupted her. - -“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready -for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, -and the other person always waited for _you_ to begin, you see nobody -would ever say anything, so that—” - -“Ridiculous!” cried the Queen. “Why, don’t you see, child—” here she -broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly -changed the subject of the conversation. “What do you mean by ‘If you -really are a Queen’? What right have you to call yourself so? You can’t -be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination. And -the sooner we begin it, the better.” - -“I only said ‘if’!” poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone. - -The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a -little shudder, “She _says_ she only said ‘if’—” - -“But she said a great deal more than that!” the White Queen moaned, -wringing her hands. “Oh, ever so much more than that!” - -“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen said to Alice. “Always speak the -truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards.” - -“I’m sure I didn’t mean—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen -interrupted her impatiently. - -“That’s just what I complain of! You _should_ have meant! What do you -suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should -have some meaning—and a child’s more important than a joke, I hope. You -couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with both hands.” - -“I don’t deny things with my _hands_,” Alice objected. - -“Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. “I said you couldn’t if you -tried.” - -“She’s in that state of mind,” said the White Queen, “that she wants to -deny _something_—only she doesn’t know what to deny!” - -“A nasty, vicious temper,” the Red Queen remarked; and then there was -an uncomfortable silence for a minute or two. - -The Red Queen broke the silence by saying to the White Queen, “I invite -you to Alice’s dinner-party this afternoon.” - -The White Queen smiled feebly, and said “And I invite _you_.” - -“I didn’t know I was to have a party at all,” said Alice; “but if there -is to be one, I think _I_ ought to invite the guests.” - -“We gave you the opportunity of doing it,” the Red Queen remarked: “but -I daresay you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet?” - -“Manners are not taught in lessons,” said Alice. “Lessons teach you to -do sums, and things of that sort.” - -“And you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and -one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?” - -“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” - -“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can you do -Subtraction? Take nine from eight.” - -“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very readily: “but—” - -“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can you do Division? -Divide a loaf by a knife—what’s the answer to that?” - -“I suppose—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. -“Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone -from a dog: what remains?” - -Alice considered. “The bone wouldn’t remain, of course, if I took -it—and the dog wouldn’t remain; it would come to bite me—and I’m sure -_I_ shouldn’t remain!” - -“Then you think nothing would remain?” said the Red Queen. - -“I think that’s the answer.” - -“Wrong, as usual,” said the Red Queen: “the dog’s temper would remain.” - -“But I don’t see how—” - -“Why, look here!” the Red Queen cried. “The dog would lose its temper, -wouldn’t it?” - -“Perhaps it would,” Alice replied cautiously. - -“Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!” the Queen -exclaimed triumphantly. - -Alice said, as gravely as she could, “They might go different ways.” -But she couldn’t help thinking to herself, “What dreadful nonsense we -_are_ talking!” - -“She can’t do sums a _bit_!” the Queens said together, with great -emphasis. - -“Can _you_ do sums?” Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, -for she didn’t like being found fault with so much. - -The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. “I can do Addition, if you give me -time—but I can’t do Subtraction, under _any_ circumstances!” - -“Of course you know your A B C?” said the Red Queen. - -“To be sure I do.” said Alice. - -“So do I,” the White Queen whispered: “we’ll often say it over -together, dear. And I’ll tell you a secret—I can read words of one -letter! Isn’t _that_ grand! However, don’t be discouraged. You’ll come -to it in time.” - -Here the Red Queen began again. “Can you answer useful questions?” she -said. “How is bread made?” - -“I know _that_!” Alice cried eagerly. “You take some flour—” - -“Where do you pick the flower?” the White Queen asked. “In a garden, or -in the hedges?” - -“Well, it isn’t _picked_ at all,” Alice explained: “it’s _ground_—” - -“How many acres of ground?” said the White Queen. “You mustn’t leave -out so many things.” - -“Fan her head!” the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. “She’ll be -feverish after so much thinking.” So they set to work and fanned her -with bunches of leaves, till she had to beg them to leave off, it blew -her hair about so. - -“She’s all right again now,” said the Red Queen. “Do you know -Languages? What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?” - -“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English,” Alice replied gravely. - -“Who ever said it was?” said the Red Queen. - -Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time. “If you’ll -tell me what language ‘fiddle-de-dee’ is, I’ll tell you the French for -it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. - -But the Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said “Queens -never make bargains.” - -“I wish Queens never asked questions,” Alice thought to herself. - -“Don’t let us quarrel,” the White Queen said in an anxious tone. “What -is the cause of lightning?” - -“The cause of lightning,” Alice said very decidedly, for she felt quite -certain about this, “is the thunder—no, no!” she hastily corrected -herself. “I meant the other way.” - -“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once -said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.” - -“Which reminds me—” the White Queen said, looking down and nervously -clasping and unclasping her hands, “we had _such_ a thunderstorm last -Tuesday—I mean one of the last set of Tuesdays, you know.” - -Alice was puzzled. “In _our_ country,” she remarked, “there’s only one -day at a time.” - -The Red Queen said, “That’s a poor thin way of doing things. Now -_here_, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and -sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together—for -warmth, you know.” - -“Are five nights warmer than one night, then?” Alice ventured to ask. - -“Five times as warm, of course.” - -“But they should be five times as _cold_, by the same rule—” - -“Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five times as warm, _and_ five times -as cold—just as I’m five times as rich as you are, _and_ five times as -clever!” - -Alice sighed and gave it up. “It’s exactly like a riddle with no -answer!” she thought. - -“Humpty Dumpty saw it too,” the White Queen went on in a low voice, -more as if she were talking to herself. “He came to the door with a -corkscrew in his hand—” - -“What did he want?” said the Red Queen. - -“He said he _would_ come in,” the White Queen went on, “because he was -looking for a hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there wasn’t such a -thing in the house, that morning.” - -“Is there generally?” Alice asked in an astonished tone. - -“Well, only on Thursdays,” said the Queen. - -“I know what he came for,” said Alice: “he wanted to punish the fish, -because—” - -Here the White Queen began again. “It was _such_ a thunderstorm, you -can’t think!” (“She _never_ could, you know,” said the Red Queen.) “And -part of the roof came off, and ever so much thunder got in—and it went -rolling round the room in great lumps—and knocking over the tables and -things—till I was so frightened, I couldn’t remember my own name!” - -Alice thought to herself, “I never should _try_ to remember my name in -the middle of an accident! Where would be the use of it?” but she did -not say this aloud, for fear of hurting the poor Queen’s feeling. - -“Your Majesty must excuse her,” the Red Queen said to Alice, taking one -of the White Queen’s hands in her own, and gently stroking it: “she -means well, but she can’t help saying foolish things, as a general -rule.” - -The White Queen looked timidly at Alice, who felt she _ought_ to say -something kind, but really couldn’t think of anything at the moment. - -“She never was really well brought up,” the Red Queen went on: “but -it’s amazing how good-tempered she is! Pat her on the head, and see how -pleased she’ll be!” But this was more than Alice had courage to do. - -“A little kindness—and putting her hair in papers—would do wonders with -her—” - -The White Queen gave a deep sigh, and laid her head on Alice’s -shoulder. “I _am_ so sleepy?” she moaned. - -“She’s tired, poor thing!” said the Red Queen. “Smooth her hair—lend -her your nightcap—and sing her a soothing lullaby.” - -“I haven’t got a nightcap with me,” said Alice, as she tried to obey -the first direction: “and I don’t know any soothing lullabies.” - -“I must do it myself, then,” said the Red Queen, and she began: - -“Hush-a-by lady, in Alice’s lap! -Till the feast’s ready, we’ve time for a nap: -When the feast’s over, we’ll go to the ball— -Red Queen, and White Queen, and Alice, and all! - - -“And now you know the words,” she added, as she put her head down on -Alice’s other shoulder, “just sing it through to _me_. I’m getting -sleepy, too.” In another moment both Queens were fast asleep, and -snoring loud. - -“What _am_ I to do?” exclaimed Alice, looking about in great -perplexity, as first one round head, and then the other, rolled down -from her shoulder, and lay like a heavy lump in her lap. “I don’t think -it _ever_ happened before, that any one had to take care of two Queens -asleep at once! No, not in all the History of England—it couldn’t, you -know, because there never was more than one Queen at a time. Do wake -up, you heavy things!” she went on in an impatient tone; but there was -no answer but a gentle snoring. - -The snoring got more distinct every minute, and sounded more like a -tune: at last she could even make out the words, and she listened so -eagerly that, when the two great heads vanished from her lap, she -hardly missed them. - -She was standing before an arched doorway over which were the words -QUEEN ALICE in large letters, and on each side of the arch there was a -bell-handle; one was marked “Visitors’ Bell,” and the other “Servants’ -Bell.” - -“I’ll wait till the song’s over,” thought Alice, “and then I’ll -ring—the—_which_ bell must I ring?” she went on, very much puzzled by -the names. “I’m not a visitor, and I’m not a servant. There _ought_ to -be one marked ‘Queen,’ you know—” - -Just then the door opened a little way, and a creature with a long beak -put its head out for a moment and said “No admittance till the week -after next!” and shut the door again with a bang. - -Alice knocked and rang in vain for a long time, but at last, a very old -Frog, who was sitting under a tree, got up and hobbled slowly towards -her: he was dressed in bright yellow, and had enormous boots on. - -“What is it, now?” the Frog said in a deep hoarse whisper. - -Alice turned round, ready to find fault with anybody. “Where’s the -servant whose business it is to answer the door?” she began angrily. - -“Which door?” said the Frog. - -Alice almost stamped with irritation at the slow drawl in which he -spoke. “_This_ door, of course!” - -The Frog looked at the door with his large dull eyes for a minute: then -he went nearer and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying -whether the paint would come off; then he looked at Alice. - -“To answer the door?” he said. “What’s it been asking of?” He was so -hoarse that Alice could scarcely hear him. - -“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. - -“I talks English, doesn’t I?” the Frog went on. “Or are you deaf? What -did it ask you?” - -“Nothing!” Alice said impatiently. “I’ve been knocking at it!” - -“Shouldn’t do that—shouldn’t do that—” the Frog muttered. “Vexes it, -you know.” Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one of his -great feet. “You let _it_ alone,” he panted out, as he hobbled back to -his tree, “and it’ll let _you_ alone, you know.” - -At this moment the door was flung open, and a shrill voice was heard -singing: - -“To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said, -‘I’ve a sceptre in hand, I’ve a crown on my head; -Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be, -Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me.’” - - -And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus: - -“Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can, -And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran: -Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea— -And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!” - - -Then followed a confused noise of cheering, and Alice thought to -herself, “Thirty times three makes ninety. I wonder if any one’s -counting?” In a minute there was silence again, and the same shrill -voice sang another verse; - -“‘O Looking-Glass creatures,’ quoth Alice, ‘draw near! -“Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear: -“Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea -Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!’” - - -Then came the chorus again:— - -“Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink, -Or anything else that is pleasant to drink: -Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine— -And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!” - - -“Ninety times nine!” Alice repeated in despair, “Oh, that’ll never be -done! I’d better go in at once—” and there was a dead silence the -moment she appeared. - -Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large -hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: -some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among -them. “I’m glad they’ve come without waiting to be asked,” she thought: -“I should never have known who were the right people to invite!” - -There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White -Queens had already taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. -Alice sat down in it, rather uncomfortable in the silence, and longing -for some one to speak. - -At last the Red Queen began. “You’ve missed the soup and fish,” she -said. “Put on the joint!” And the waiters set a leg of mutton before -Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve -a joint before. - -“You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,” -said the Red Queen. “Alice—Mutton; Mutton—Alice.” The leg of mutton got -up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the -bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused. - -“May I give you a slice?” she said, taking up the knife and fork, and -looking from one Queen to the other. - -“Certainly not,” the Red Queen said, very decidedly: “it isn’t -etiquette to cut any one you’ve been introduced to. Remove the joint!” -And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its -place. - -“I won’t be introduced to the pudding, please,” Alice said rather -hastily, “or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?” - -But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled “Pudding—Alice; -Alice—Pudding. Remove the pudding!” and the waiters took it away so -quickly that Alice couldn’t return its bow. - -However, she didn’t see why the Red Queen should be the only one to -give orders, so, as an experiment, she called out “Waiter! Bring back -the pudding!” and there it was again in a moment like a -conjuring-trick. It was so large that she couldn’t help feeling a -_little_ shy with it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she -conquered her shyness by a great effort and cut a slice and handed it -to the Red Queen. - -“What impertinence!” said the Pudding. “I wonder how you’d like it, if -I were to cut a slice out of _you_, you creature!” - -It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn’t a word to -say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp. - -“Make a remark,” said the Red Queen: “it’s ridiculous to leave all the -conversation to the pudding!” - -“Do you know, I’ve had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me -to-day,” Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment -she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed -upon her; “and it’s a very curious thing, I think—every poem was about -fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re so fond of fishes, all -about here?” - -She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. -“As to fishes,” she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth -close to Alice’s ear, “her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in -poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?” - -“Her Red Majesty’s very kind to mention it,” the White Queen murmured -into Alice’s other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. “It -would be _such_ a treat! May I?” - -“Please do,” Alice said very politely. - -The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice’s cheek. Then -she began: - - “‘First, the fish must be caught.’ -That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it. - ‘Next, the fish must be bought.’ -That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it. - - ‘Now cook me the fish!’ -That is easy, and will not take more than a minute. - ‘Let it lie in a dish!’ -That is easy, because it already is in it. - - ‘Bring it here! Let me sup!’ -It is easy to set such a dish on the table. - ‘Take the dish-cover up!’ -Ah, that is so hard that I fear I’m unable! - - For it holds it like glue— -Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle: - Which is easiest to do, -Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle?” - - -“Take a minute to think about it, and then guess,” said the Red Queen. -“Meanwhile, we’ll drink your health—Queen Alice’s health!” she screamed -at the top of her voice, and all the guests began drinking it directly, -and very queerly they managed it: some of them put their glasses upon -their heads like extinguishers, and drank all that trickled down their -faces—others upset the decanters, and drank the wine as it ran off the -edges of the table—and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) -scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly lapping up -the gravy, “just like pigs in a trough!” thought Alice. - -“You ought to return thanks in a neat speech,” the Red Queen said, -frowning at Alice as she spoke. - -“We must support you, you know,” the White Queen whispered, as Alice -got up to do it, very obediently, but a little frightened. - -“Thank you very much,” she whispered in reply, “but I can do quite well -without.” - -“That wouldn’t be at all the thing,” the Red Queen said very decidedly: -so Alice tried to submit to it with a good grace. - -(“And they _did_ push so!” she said afterwards, when she was telling -her sister the history of the feast. “You would have thought they -wanted to squeeze me flat!”) - -In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep in her place while she -made her speech: the two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, that -they nearly lifted her up into the air: “I rise to return thanks—” -Alice began: and she really _did_ rise as she spoke, several inches; -but she got hold of the edge of the table, and managed to pull herself -down again. - -“Take care of yourself!” screamed the White Queen, seizing Alice’s hair -with both her hands. “Something’s going to happen!” - -And then (as Alice afterwards described it) all sorts of things -happened in a moment. The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking -something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top. As to the -bottles, they each took a pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on -as wings, and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about in all -directions: “and very like birds they look,” Alice thought to herself, -as well as she could in the dreadful confusion that was beginning. - -At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh at her side, and turned to see -what was the matter with the White Queen; but, instead of the Queen, -there was the leg of mutton sitting in the chair. “Here I am!” cried a -voice from the soup tureen, and Alice turned again, just in time to see -the Queen’s broad good-natured face grinning at her for a moment over -the edge of the tureen, before she disappeared into the soup. - -There was not a moment to be lost. Already several of the guests were -lying down in the dishes, and the soup ladle was walking up the table -towards Alice’s chair, and beckoning to her impatiently to get out of -its way. - -“I can’t stand this any longer!” she cried as she jumped up and seized -the table-cloth with both hands: one good pull, and plates, dishes, -guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the floor. - -“And as for _you_,” she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, -whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief—but the Queen was -no longer at her side—she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a -little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round -after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her. - -At any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was -far too much excited to be surprised at anything _now_. “As for _you_,” -she repeated, catching hold of the little creature in the very act of -jumping over a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, “I’ll -shake you into a kitten, that I will!” - - - - -CHAPTER X. -Shaking - - -She took her off the table as she spoke, and shook her backwards and -forwards with all her might. - -The Red Queen made no resistance whatever; only her face grew very -small, and her eyes got large and green: and still, as Alice went on -shaking her, she kept on growing shorter—and fatter—and softer—and -rounder—and— - - - - -CHAPTER XI. -Waking - - -—and it really _was_ a kitten, after all. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. -Which Dreamed it? - - -“Your majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,” Alice said, rubbing her eyes, -and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. “You -woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you’ve been along with me, -Kitty—all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?” - -It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the -remark) that, whatever you say to them, they _always_ purr. “If they -would only purr for ‘yes’ and mew for ‘no,’ or any rule of that sort,” -she had said, “so that one could keep up a conversation! But how _can_ -you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?” - -On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess -whether it meant “yes” or “no.” - -So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the -Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put -the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. “Now, Kitty!” she -cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. “Confess that was what you -turned into!” - -(“But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said, when she was explaining the -thing afterwards to her sister: “it turned away its head, and pretended -not to see it: but it looked a _little_ ashamed of itself, so I think -it _must_ have been the Red Queen.”) - -“Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice cried with a merry laugh. -“And curtsey while you’re thinking what to—what to purr. It saves time, -remember!” And she caught it up and gave it one little kiss, “just in -honour of having been a Red Queen.” - -“Snowdrop, my pet!” she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White -Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “when _will_ -Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the -reason you were so untidy in my dream—Dinah! do you know that you’re -scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it’s most disrespectful of you! - -“And what did _Dinah_ turn to, I wonder?” she prattled on, as she -settled comfortably down, with one elbow in the rug, and her chin in -her hand, to watch the kittens. “Tell me, Dinah, did you turn to Humpty -Dumpty? I _think_ you did—however, you’d better not mention it to your -friends just yet, for I’m not sure. - -“By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been really with me in my dream, -there was one thing you _would_ have enjoyed—I had such a quantity of -poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a -real treat. All the time you’re eating your breakfast, I’ll repeat ‘The -Walrus and the Carpenter’ to you; and then you can make believe it’s -oysters, dear! - -“Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a -serious question, my dear, and you should _not_ go on licking your paw -like that—as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, -it _must_ have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, -of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! _Was_ it the Red King, -Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, _do_ -help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking -kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the -question. - -Which do _you_ think it was? - - -A boat beneath a sunny sky, -Lingering onward dreamily -In an evening of July— - -Children three that nestle near, -Eager eye and willing ear, -Pleased a simple tale to hear— - -Long has paled that sunny sky: -Echoes fade and memories die. -Autumn frosts have slain July. - -Still she haunts me, phantomwise, -Alice moving under skies -Never seen by waking eyes. - -Children yet, the tale to hear, -Eager eye and willing ear, -Lovingly shall nestle near. - -In a Wonderland they lie, -Dreaming as the days go by, -Dreaming as the summers die: - -Ever drifting down the stream— -Lingering in the golden gleam— -Life, what is it but a dream? - - -THE SECRET GARDEN - -CHAPTER I - -THERE IS NO ONE LEFT - - -When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle -everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It -was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin -light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was -yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one -way or another. Her father had held a position under the English -Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had -been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself -with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary -was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to -understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the -child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, -fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she -became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way -also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces -of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her -and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be -angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years -old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The -young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked -her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other -governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter -time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to -know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all. - -One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she -awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw -that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah. - -"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you -stay. Send my Ayah to me." - -The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could -not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked -her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not -possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib. - -There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done -in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, -while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared -faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She -was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered -out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the -veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuck -big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time -growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she -would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned. - -"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig -is the worst insult of all. - -She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she -heard her mother come out on the veranda with some one. She was with a -fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. -Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that -he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child -stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this -when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib--Mary used to -call her that oftener than anything else--was such a tall, slim, pretty -person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and -she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and -she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and -Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever -this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and -scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face. - -"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say. - -"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. -Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago." - -The Mem Sahib wrung her hands. - -"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly -dinner party. What a fool I was!" - -At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the -servants' quarters that she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary stood -shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder. - -"What is it? What is it?" Mrs. Lennox gasped. - -"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You did not say it had -broken out among your servants." - -"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me! Come with me!" and -she turned and ran into the house. - -After that appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the -morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most -fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill -in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had -wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other servants were dead -and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and -dying people in all the bungalows. - -During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself -in the nursery and was forgotten by every one. Nobody thought of her, -nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew -nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only -knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and frightening -sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty, though a -partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as -if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners rose suddenly for -some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty -she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It was sweet, and -she did not know how strong it was. Very soon it made her intensely -drowsy, and she went back to her nursery and shut herself in again, -frightened by cries she heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of -feet. The wine made her so sleepy that she could scarcely keep her eyes -open and she lay down on her bed and knew nothing more for a long time. - -Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but -she was not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried -in and out of the bungalow. - -When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was -perfectly still. She had never known it to be so silent before. She -heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got -well of the cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who -would take care of her now her Ayah was dead. There would be a new Ayah, -and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired -of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not -an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one. The noise -and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and -she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. -Every one was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was -fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered -nothing but themselves. But if every one had got well again, surely some -one would remember and come to look for her. - -But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more -and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting and when -she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her -with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a harmless -little thing who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out -of the room. He slipped under the door as she watched him. - -"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there was no one -in the bungalow but me and the snake." - -Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on -the veranda. They were men's footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow -and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them and they -seemed to open doors and look into rooms. - -"What desolation!" she heard one voice say. "That pretty, pretty woman! -I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though no one ever -saw her." - -Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door -a few minutes later. She looked an ugly, cross little thing and was -frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully -neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer she had once -seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled, but when he -saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back. - -"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child alone! In a -place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!" - -"I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly. -She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow "A place -like this!" "I fell asleep when every one had the cholera and I have -only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?" - -"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his -companions. "She has actually been forgotten!" - -"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does nobody -come?" - -The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even -thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears away. - -"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come." - -It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that she had -neither father nor mother left; that they had died and been carried away -in the night, and that the few native servants who had not died also had -left the house as quickly as they could get out of it, none of them even -remembering that there was a Missie Sahib. That was why the place was so -quiet. It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and -the little rustling snake. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY - - -Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance and she had thought -her very pretty, but as she knew very little of her she could scarcely -have been expected to love her or to miss her very much when she was -gone. She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a -self-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself, as she had -always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very -anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as -she had always been taken care of, she supposed she always would be. -What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to -nice people, who would be polite to her and give her her own way as her -Ayah and the other native servants had done. - -She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman's house -where she was taken at first. She did not want to stay. The English -clergyman was poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and -they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys -from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was so -disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play -with her. By the second day they had given her a nickname which made her -furious. - -It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a little boy with -impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose and Mary hated him. She was -playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing the day -the cholera broke out. She was making heaps of earth and paths for a -garden and Basil came and stood near to watch her. Presently he got -rather interested and suddenly made a suggestion. - -"Why don't you put a heap of stones there and pretend it is a rockery?" -he said. "There in the middle," and he leaned over her to point. - -"Go away!" cried Mary. "I don't want boys. Go away!" - -For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was -always teasing his sisters. He danced round and round her and made faces -and sang and laughed. - - "Mistress Mary, quite contrary, - How does your garden grow? - With silver bells, and cockle shells, - And marigolds all in a row." - -He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too; and the -crosser Mary got, the more they sang "Mistress Mary, quite contrary"; -and after that as long as she stayed with them they called her "Mistress -Mary Quite Contrary" when they spoke of her to each other, and often -when they spoke to her. - -"You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her, "at the end of the -week. And we're glad of it." - -"I am glad of it, too," answered Mary. "Where is home?" - -"She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil, with seven-year-old scorn. -"It's England, of course. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel -was sent to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama. You have -none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr. Archibald Craven." - -"I don't know anything about him," snapped Mary. - -"I know you don't," Basil answered. "You don't know anything. Girls -never do. I heard father and mother talking about him. He lives in a -great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes near him. -He's so cross he won't let them, and they wouldn't come if he would let -them. He's a hunchback, and he's horrid." - -"I don't believe you," said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her -fingers in her ears, because she would not listen any more. - -But she thought over it a great deal afterward; and when Mrs. Crawford -told her that night that she was going to sail away to England in a few -days and go to her uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at -Misselthwaite Manor, she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested -that they did not know what to think about her. They tried to be kind to -her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs. Crawford attempted to -kiss her, and held herself stiffly when Mr. Crawford patted her -shoulder. - -"She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward. -"And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty -manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a -child. The children call her 'Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and though -it's naughty of them, one can't help understanding it." - -"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty -manners oftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty -ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to -remember that many people never even knew that she had a child at all." - -"I believe she scarcely ever looked at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford. -"When her Ayah was dead there was no one to give a thought to the little -thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in -that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his -skin when he opened the door and found her standing by herself in the -middle of the room." - -Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer's -wife, who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school. -She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was -rather glad to hand the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven -sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at -Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout -woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple -dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black bonnet with -purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled when she moved her -head. Mary did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked people -there was nothing remarkable in that; besides which it was very evident -Mrs. Medlock did not think much of her. - -"My word! she's a plain little piece of goods!" she said. "And we'd -heard that her mother was a beauty. She hasn't handed much of it down, -has she, ma'am?" - -"Perhaps she will improve as she grows older," the officer's wife said -good-naturedly. "If she were not so sallow and had a nicer expression, -her features are rather good. Children alter so much." - -"She'll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock. "And there's -nothing likely to improve children at Misselthwaite--if you ask me!" - -They thought Mary was not listening because she was standing a little -apart from them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She -was watching the passing buses and cabs, and people, but she heard quite -well and was made very curious about her uncle and the place he lived -in. What sort of a place was it, and what would he be like? What was a -hunchback? She had never seen one. Perhaps there were none in India. - -Since she had been living in other people's houses and had had no Ayah, -she had begun to feel lonely and to think queer thoughts which were new -to her. She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to -any one even when her father and mother had been alive. Other children -seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers, but she had never seemed -to really be any one's little girl. She had had servants, and food and -clothes, but no one had taken any notice of her. She did not know that -this was because she was a disagreeable child; but then, of course, she -did not know she was disagreeable. She often thought that other people -were, but she did not know that she was so herself. - -She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, -with her common, highly colored face and her common fine bonnet. When -the next day they set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked -through the station to the railway carriage with her head up and trying -to keep as far away from her as she could, because she did not want to -seem to belong to her. It would have made her very angry to think people -imagined she was her little girl. - -But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her and her thoughts. -She was the kind of woman who would "stand no nonsense from young ones." -At least, that is what she would have said if she had been asked. She -had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's daughter was -going to be married, but she had a comfortable, well paid place as -housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and the only way in which she could -keep it was to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. She -never dared even to ask a question. - -"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera," Mr. Craven had said -in his short, cold way. "Captain Lennox was my wife's brother and I am -their daughter's guardian. The child is to be brought here. You must go -to London and bring her yourself." - -So she packed her small trunk and made the journey. - -Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and -fretful. She had nothing to read or to look at, and she had folded her -thin little black-gloved hands in her lap. Her black dress made her look -yellower than ever, and her limp light hair straggled from under her -black crêpe hat. - -"A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock -thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She -had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at -last she got tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk, hard -voice. - -"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going -to," she said. "Do you know anything about your uncle?" - -"No," said Mary. - -"Never heard your father and mother talk about him?" - -"No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered that her -father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular. -Certainly they had never told her things. - -"Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive -little face. She did not say any more for a few moments and then she -began again. - -"I suppose you might as well be told something--to prepare you. You are -going to a queer place." - -Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by -her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on. - -"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven's -proud of it in his way--and that's gloomy enough, too. The house is six -hundred years old and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a -hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. And -there's pictures and fine old furniture and things that's been there for -ages, and there's a big park round it and gardens and trees with -branches trailing to the ground--some of them." She paused and took -another breath. "But there's nothing else," she ended suddenly. - -Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike -India, and anything new rather attracted her. But she did not intend to -look as if she were interested. That was one of her unhappy, -disagreeable ways. So she sat still. - -"Well," said Mrs. Medlock. "What do you think of it?" - -"Nothing," she answered. "I know nothing about such places." - -That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh. - -"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman. Don't you care?" - -"It doesn't matter," said Mary, "whether I care or not." - -"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock. "It doesn't. What -you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for I don't know, unless -because it's the easiest way. _He's_ not going to trouble himself about -you, that's sure and certain. He never troubles himself about no one." - -She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something in time. - -"He's got a crooked back," she said. "That set him wrong. He was a sour -young man and got no good of all his money and big place till he was -married." - -Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention not to seem to -care. She had never thought of the hunchback's being married and she was -a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative -woman she continued with more interest. This was one way of passing some -of the time, at any rate. - -"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to -get her a blade o' grass she wanted. Nobody thought she'd marry him, but -she did, and people said she married him for his money. But she -didn't--she didn't," positively. "When she died--" - -Mary gave a little involuntary jump. - -"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She had just -remembered a French fairy story she had once read called "Riquet à la -Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess and -it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven. - -"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And it made him queerer than -ever. He cares about nobody. He won't see people. Most of the time he -goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the -West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's an old -fellow, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows his -ways." - -It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel -cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with -their doors locked--a house on the edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor -was--sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! -She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it -seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in -gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the window-panes. If the -pretty wife had been alive she might have made things cheerful by being -something like her own mother and by running in and out and going to -parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace." But she was not there -any more. - -"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't," said Mrs. -Medlock. "And you mustn't expect that there will be people to talk to -you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself. You'll be told -what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. There's -gardens enough. But when you're in the house don't go wandering and -poking about. Mr. Craven won't have it." - -"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little Mary; and just -as suddenly as she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven -she began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to -deserve all that had happened to him. - -And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the -railway carriage and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which looked as if -it would go on forever and ever. She watched it so long and steadily -that the grayness grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell -asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ACROSS THE MOOR - - -She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought a -lunchbasket at one of the stations and they had some chicken and cold -beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain seemed to be -streaming down more heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore -wet and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps in the -carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over her tea and chicken -and beef. She ate a great deal and afterward fell asleep herself, and -Mary sat and stared at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side -until she herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage, -lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows. It was quite -dark when she awakened again. The train had stopped at a station and -Mrs. Medlock was shaking her. - -"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open your eyes! We're at -Thwaite Station and we've got a long drive before us." - -Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while Mrs. Medlock -collected her parcels. The little girl did not offer to help her, -because in India native servants always picked up or carried things and -it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one. - -The station was a small one and nobody but themselves seemed to be -getting out of the train. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a -rough, good-natured way, pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion -which Mary found out afterward was Yorkshire. - -"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th' young 'un with -thee." - -"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with a Yorkshire -accent herself and jerking her head over her shoulder toward Mary. -"How's thy Missus?" - -"Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee." - -A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform. Mary -saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman who -helped her in. His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of -his hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was, the burly -station-master included. - -When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove -off, the little girl found herself seated in a comfortably cushioned -corner, but she was not inclined to go to sleep again. She sat and -looked out of the window, curious to see something of the road over -which she was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken -of. She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened, -but she felt that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with -a hundred rooms nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a -moor. - -"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock. - -"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see," the woman -answered. "We've got to drive five miles across Missel Moor before we -get to the Manor. You won't see much because it's a dark night, but you -can see something." - -Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness of her corner, -keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage lamps cast rays of light a -little distance ahead of them and she caught glimpses of the things they -passed. After they had left the station they had driven through a tiny -village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the lights of a public -house. Then they had passed a church and a vicarage and a little -shop-window or so in a cottage with toys and sweets and odd things set -out for sale. Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and -trees. After that there seemed nothing different for a long time--or at -least it seemed a long time to her. - -At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they were climbing -up-hill, and presently there seemed to be no more hedges and no more -trees. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either -side. She leaned forward and pressed her face against the window just as -the carriage gave a big jolt. - -"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock. - -The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which -seemed to be cut through bushes and low growing things which ended in -the great expanse of dark apparently spread out before and around them. -A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound. - -"It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round at her -companion. - -"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields nor mountains, -it's just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on -but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies -and sheep." - -"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it," said -Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now." - -"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said. "It's a -wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's plenty that likes -it--particularly when the heather's in bloom." - -On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, -the wind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went -up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge -beneath which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary -felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak -moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on -a strip of dry land. - -"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it," and she -pinched her thin lips more tightly together. - -The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road when she first caught -sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and drew a long -sigh of relief. - -"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling," she exclaimed. "It's -the light in the lodge window. We shall get a good cup of tea after a -bit, at all events." - -It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage passed through -the park gates there was still two miles of avenue to drive through and -the trees (which nearly met overhead) made it seem as if they were -driving through a long dark vault. - -They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an -immensely long but low-built house which seemed to ramble round a stone -court. At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all in the -windows, but as she got out of the carriage she saw that one room in a -corner up-stairs showed a dull glow. - -The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped -panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound with great iron -bars. It opened into an enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that -the faces in the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of -armor made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them. As she stood -on the stone floor she looked a very small, odd little black figure, and -she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked. - -A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for -them. - -"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice. "He doesn't -want to see her. He's going to London in the morning." - -"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered. "So long as I know -what's expected of me, I can manage." - -"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said, "is that you -make sure that he's not disturbed and that he doesn't see what he -doesn't want to see." - -And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long -corridor and up a short flight of steps and through another corridor and -another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a room -with a fire in it and a supper on a table. - -Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously: - -"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll live--and -you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!" - -It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she -had perhaps never felt quite so contrary in all her life. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -MARTHA - - -When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid -had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on the -hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for -a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never seen -a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy. The walls were -covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were -fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there -was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were hunters and horses -and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them. -Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land -which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look rather like an endless, -dull, purplish sea. - -"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window. - -Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and -pointed also. - -"That there?" she said. - -"Yes." - -"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?" - -"No," answered Mary. "I hate it." - -"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her -hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will like it." - -"Do you?" inquired Mary. - -"Aye, that I do," answered Martha, cheerfully polishing away at the -grate. "I just love it. It's none bare. It's covered wi' growin' things -as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse -an' broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a -lot o' fresh air--an' th' sky looks so high an' th' bees an' skylarks -makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away -from th' moor for anythin'." - -Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native -servants she had been used to in India were not in the least like this. -They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their -masters as if they were their equals. They made salaams and called them -"protector of the poor" and names of that sort. Indian servants were -commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say -"please" and "thank you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the -face when she was angry. She wondered a little what this girl would do -if one slapped her in the face. She was a round, rosy, good-natured -looking creature, but she had a sturdy way which made Mistress Mary -wonder if she might not even slap back--if the person who slapped her -was only a little girl. - -"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather -haughtily. - -Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and -laughed, without seeming the least out of temper. - -"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at -Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under housemaids. -I might have been let to be scullery-maid but I'd never have been let -up-stairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a -funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor -Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, he won't be -troubled about anythin' when he's here, an' he's nearly always away. -Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. She told me she could -never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses." - -"Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her imperious -little Indian way. - -Martha began to rub her grate again. - -"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr. -Craven's--but I'm to do the housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a -bit. But you won't need much waitin' on." - -"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary. - -Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad -Yorkshire in her amazement. - -"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said. - -"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary. - -"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be -careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put on -your own clothes?" - -"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah -dressed me, of course." - -"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she was -impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll -do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't -see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair fools--what with -nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was -puppies!" - -"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could -scarcely stand this. - -But Martha was not at all crushed. - -"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I -dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' -respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I -thought you was a black too." - -Mary sat up in bed furious. - -"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You--you daughter -of a pig!" - -Martha stared and looked hot. - -"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's -not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. -When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You -always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black -an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close. When I -come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' -pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An' there you was," -disappointedly, "no more black than me--for all you're so yeller." - -Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. - -"You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know anything about -natives! They are not people--they're servants who must salaam to you. -You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!" - -She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl's simple -stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away -from everything she understood and which understood her, that she threw -herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. -She sobbed so unrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a -little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent -over her. - -"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for -sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about -anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'." - -There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer -Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She -gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved. - -"It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was -to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. -It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy -clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' -cannot button them up tha'self." - -When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the -wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night -before with Mrs. Medlock. - -"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black." - -She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool -approval: - -"Those are nicer than mine." - -"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven -ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London. He said 'I won't have a child -dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. 'It'd make -the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew -what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn't hold -with black hersel'." - -"I hate black things," said Mary. - -The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha -had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen -a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for -her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own. - -"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly -held out her foot. - -"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom." - -She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native servants were -always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not -done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not -the custom" and one knew that was the end of the matter. - -It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but -stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was -ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite -Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to -her--things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking -up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young -lady's maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and -would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button -boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an -untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage -with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of -doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who -were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about and tumble -over things. - -If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused she would -perhaps have laughed at Martha's readiness to talk, but Mary only -listened to her coldly and wondered at her freedom of manner. At first -she was not at all interested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in -her good-tempered, homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying. - -"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve of us an' my -father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's put -to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an' -play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She -says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do. Our -Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls his -own." - -"Where did he get it?" asked Mary. - -"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he -began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young -grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it -lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him." - -Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought -she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, -and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it -was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room -which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it was rather -like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up -person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak -chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast. -But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with -something more than indifference at the first plate Martha set before -her. - -"I don't want it," she said. - -"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously. - -"No." - -"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit -o' sugar." - -"I don't want it," repeated Mary. - -"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If -our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes." - -"Why?" said Mary coldly. - -"Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full -in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes." - -"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference -of ignorance. - -Martha looked indignant. - -"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," -she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just -stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an' -Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores." - -"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary. - -"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I -get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean -up for mother an' give her a day's rest." - -Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade. - -"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you -good and give you some stomach for your meat." - -Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but -everything looked dull and wintry. - -"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" - -"Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' -got to do?" - -Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had -prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would -be better to go and see what the gardens were like. - -"Who will go with me?" she inquired. - -Martha stared. - -"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to learn to play -like other children does when they haven't got sisters and brothers. Our -Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how -he made friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that knows -him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand. However little there -is to eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to coax his pets." - -It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out, -though she was not aware of it. There would be birds outside though -there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the -birds in India and it might amuse her to look at them. - -Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots -and she showed her her way down-stairs. - -"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," she said, -pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. "There's lots o' flowers in -summer-time, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a -second before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has -been in it for ten years." - -"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door -added to the hundred in the strange house. - -"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no -one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th' door an' dug a hole and -buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run." - -After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in -the shrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no one -had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like and -whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed -through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide -lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were trees, and -flower-beds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and a large -pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were -bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not the -garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You could -always walk into a garden. - -She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end of the path she -was following, there seemed to be a long wall, with ivy growing over it. -She was not familiar enough with England to know that she was coming -upon the kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing. -She went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the -ivy, and that it stood open. This was not the closed garden, evidently, -and she could go into it. - -She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all -round it and that it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed -to open into one another. She saw another open green door, revealing -bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables. -Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall, and over some of the -beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary -thought, as she stood and stared about her. It might be nicer in summer -when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about it now. - -Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the -door leading from the second garden. He looked startled when he saw -Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not -seem at all pleased to see her--but then she was displeased with his -garden and wore her "quite contrary" expression, and certainly did not -seem at all pleased to see him. - -"What is this place?" she asked. - -"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," he answered. - -"What is that?" said Mary, pointing through the other green door. - -"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall -an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that." - -"Can I go in them?" asked Mary. - -"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see." - -Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second -green door. There she found more walls and winter vegetables and glass -frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was -not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for ten -years. As she was not at all a timid child and always did what she -wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. She -hoped the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had -found the mysterious garden--but it did open quite easily and she walked -through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls all round -it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-trees -growing in the winter-browned grass--but there was no green door to be -seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the -upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to -end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place -at the other side. She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and -when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on -the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter -song--almost as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to her. - -She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly -little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little -girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big -bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the -world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been -used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though -she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the -bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face -which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was -not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should -ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew -all about it. - -Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought -so much of the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to -see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If he -had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered if -she should ever see him, but she knew that if she did she should not -like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and -stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully to -ask him why he had done such a queer thing. - -"People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I -never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking -and laughing and making noises." - -She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at -her, and as she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped rather -suddenly on the path. - -"I believe that tree was in the secret garden--I feel sure it was," she -said. "There was a wall round the place and there was no door." - -She walked back into the first kitchen-garden she had entered and found -the old man digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched -him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and -so at last she spoke to him. - -"I have been into the other gardens," she said. - -"There was nothin' to prevent thee," he answered crustily. - -"I went into the orchard." - -"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," he answered. - -"There was no door there into the other garden," said Mary. - -"What garden?" he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a -moment. - -"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Mistress Mary. "There -are trees there--I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red breast was -sitting on one of them and he sang." - -To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed its -expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite -different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person -looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before. - -He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to -whistle--a low soft whistle. She could not understand how such a surly -man could make such a coaxing sound. - -Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. She heard a soft -little rushing flight through the air--and it was the bird with the red -breast flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth -quite near to the gardener's foot. - -"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if -he were speaking to a child. - -"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not -seen thee before to-day. Has tha' begun tha' courtin' this early in th' -season? Tha'rt too forrad." - -The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his -soft bright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar -and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly, -looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Mary a queer feeling in -her heart, because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a -person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and slender -delicate legs. - -"Will he always come when you call him?" she asked almost in a whisper. - -"Aye, that he will. I've knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He -come out of th' nest in th' other garden an' when first he flew over -th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got -friendly. When he went over th' wall again th' rest of th' brood was -gone an' he was lonely an' he come back to me." - -"What kind of a bird is he?" Mary asked. - -"Doesn't tha' know? He's a robin redbreast an' they're th' friendliest, -curiousest birds alive. They're almost as friendly as dogs--if you know -how to get on with 'em. Watch him peckin' about there an' lookin' round -at us now an' again. He knows we're talkin' about him." - -It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked -at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both proud -and fond of him. - -"He's a conceited one," he chuckled. "He likes to hear folk talk about -him. An' curious--bless me, there never was his like for curiosity an' -meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what I'm plantin'. He knows all th' -things Mester Craven never troubles hissel' to find out. He's th' head -gardener, he is." - -The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped -and looked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed -at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out -all about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased. - -"Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" she asked. - -"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make -'em fly an' they're scattered before you know it. This one was a knowin' -one an' he knew he was lonely." - -Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very -hard. - -"I'm lonely," she said. - -She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her -feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at -her and she looked at the robin. - -The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her -a minute. - -"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he asked. - -Mary nodded. - -"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonelier before tha's done," he -said. - -He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden -soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed. - -"What is your name?" Mary inquired. - -He stood up to answer her. - -"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, -"I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked his thumb -toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got." - -"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like -me and I never played with any one." - -It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and -old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man. - -"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said. "We was wove out of th' -same cloth. We're neither of us good lookin' an' we're both of us as -sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll -warrant." - -This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about -herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to -you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but -she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also -wondered if she looked as sour as he had looked before the robin came. -She actually began to wonder also if she was "nasty tempered." She felt -uncomfortable. - -Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near her and she turned -round. She was standing a few feet from a young apple-tree and the robin -had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a -song. Ben Weatherstaff laughed outright. - -"What did he do that for?" asked Mary. - -"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang me -if he hasn't took a fancy to thee." - -"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly and -looked up. - -"Would you make friends with me?" she said to the robin just as if she -was speaking to a person. "Would you?" And she did not say it either in -her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so -soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she -had been when she heard him whistle. - -"Why," he cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a -real child instead of a sharp old woman. Tha' said it almost like Dickon -talks to his wild things on th' moor." - -"Do you know Dickon?" Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry. - -"Everybody knows him. Dickon's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very -blackberries an' heather-bells knows him. I warrant th' foxes shows him -where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from -him." - -Mary would have liked to ask some more questions. She was almost as -curious about Dickon as she was about the deserted garden. But just that -moment the robin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his -wings, spread them and flew away. He had made his visit and had other -things to do. - -"He has flown over the wall!" Mary cried out, watching him. "He has -flown into the orchard--he has flown across the other wall--into the -garden where there is no door!" - -"He lives there," said old Ben. "He came out o' th' egg there. If he's -courtin', he's makin' up to some young madam of a robin that lives among -th' old rose-trees there." - -"Rose-trees," said Mary. "Are there rose-trees?" - -Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig. - -"There was ten year' ago," he mumbled. - -"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door? There -must be a door somewhere." - -Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked -when she first saw him. - -"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," he said. - -"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be." - -"None as any one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't you -be a meddlesome wench an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go. -Here, I must go on with my work. Get you gone an' play you. I've no more -time." - -And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and -walked off, without even glancing at her or saying good-by. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR - - -At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the -others. Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha -kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her -breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each -breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor which -seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after she -had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would -have to stay in and do nothing--and so she went out. She did not know -that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know -that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and -down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself -stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor. She -ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at -her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could -not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather -filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body -and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes -when she did not know anything about it. - -But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one -morning knowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her -breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it -away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it -until her bowl was empty. - -"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?" said -Martha. - -"It tastes nice to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself. - -"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals," -answered Martha. "It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals as well as -appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an' -nothin' to put in it. You go on playin' you out o' doors every day an' -you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't be so yeller." - -"I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing to play with." - -"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha. "Our children plays with -sticks and stones. They just runs about an' shouts an' looks at things." - -Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There was nothing else to -do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths -in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but though -several times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was -too surly. Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade -and turned away as if he did it on purpose. - -One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk -outside the gardens with the walls round them. There were bare -flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly. -There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were -more bushy than elsewhere. It seemed as if for a long time that part had -been neglected. The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat, -but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all. - -A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff Mary stopped to -notice this and wondered why it was so. She had just paused and was -looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a -gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of -the wall, perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward -to look at her with his small head on one side. - -"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you?" And it did not seem at all -queer to her that she spoke to him as if she was sure that he would -understand and answer her. - -He did answer. He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as if -he were telling her all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress Mary as -if she understood him, too, though he was not speaking in words. It was -as if he said: - -"Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice? Isn't everything -nice? Let us both chirp and hop and twitter. Come on! Come on!" - -Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the -wall she ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary--she -actually looked almost pretty for a moment. - -"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk; and -she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do -in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and -whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting -flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly. - -That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him. He had been -swinging on a tree-top then and she had been standing in the orchard. -Now she was on the other side of the orchard and standing in the path -outside a wall--much lower down--and there was the same tree inside. - -"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself. "It's the -garden without a door. He lives in there. How I wish I could see what it -is like!" - -She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning. -Then she ran down the path through the other door and then into the -orchard, and when she stood and looked up there was the tree on the -other side of the wall, and there was the robin just finishing his song -and beginning to preen his feathers with his beak. - -"It is the garden," she said. "I am sure it is." - -She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall, -but she only found what she had found before--that there was no door in -it. Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walk -outside the long ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end of it and -looked at it, but there was no door; and then she walked to the other -end, looking again, but there was no door. - -"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door -and there is no door. But there must have been one ten years ago, -because Mr. Craven buried the key." - -This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested -and feel that she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite -Manor. In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much -about anything. The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun -to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a little. - -She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her -supper at night she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable. She did not -feel cross when Martha chattered away. She felt as if she rather liked -to hear her, and at last she thought she would ask her a question. She -asked it after she had finished her supper and had sat down on the -hearth-rug before the fire. - -"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said. - -She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all. -She was very young, and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and -sisters, and she found it dull in the great servants' hall down-stairs -where the footman and upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech -and looked upon her as a common little thing, and sat and whispered -among themselves. Martha liked to talk, and the strange child who had -lived in India, and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enough to -attract her. - -She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked. - -"Art tha' thinkin' about that garden yet?" she said. "I knew tha' would. -That was just the way with me when I first heard about it." - -"Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted. - -Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable. - -"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said. "You could -bare stand up on the moor if you was out on it to-night." - -Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened, and then -she understood. It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which -rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were -buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in. -But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very safe -and warm inside a room with a red coal fire. - -"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after she had listened. She -intended to know if Martha did. - -Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge. - -"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to be talked about. -There's lots o' things in this place that's not to be talked over. -That's Mr. Craven's orders. His troubles are none servants' business, he -says. But for th' garden he wouldn't be like he is. It was Mrs. Craven's -garden that she had made when first they were married an' she just loved -it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves. An' none o' th' -gardeners was ever let to go in. Him an' her used to go in an' shut th' -door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin' an' talkin'. An' she was -just a bit of a girl an' there was an old tree with a branch bent like a -seat on it. An' she made roses grow over it an' she used to sit there. -But one day when she was sittin' there th' branch broke an' she fell on -th' ground an' was hurt so bad that next day she died. Th' doctors -thought he'd go out o' his mind an' die, too. That's why he hates it. No -one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one talk about it." - -Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and -listened to the wind "wutherin'." It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder -than ever. - -At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things -had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She -had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood -her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had -been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found -out what it was to be sorry for some one. She was getting on. - -But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something -else. She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely -distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed -almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded -rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure -that this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, -but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha. - -"Do you hear any one crying?" she said. - -Martha suddenly looked confused. - -"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some -one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds." - -"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down one of those long -corridors." - -And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere -down-stairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the -door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they -both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound -was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly -than ever. - -"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it isn't a -grown-up person." - -Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it -they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a -bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased -"wutherin'" for a few moments. - -"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was -little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all -day." - -But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary -stare very hard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!" - - -The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary -looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and -cloud. There could be no going out to-day. - -"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked -Martha. - -"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! -there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she -gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed and plays -there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if -th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't -show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned -in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it -warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole was swum out an' -th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home now. He found a -half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it home, too, an' -tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it hops an' flies -about with him everywhere." - -The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar -talk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when she -stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when she -lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the -moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little -rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble -about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured collie -puppies. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon. When Martha -told stories of what "mother" said or did they always sounded -comfortable. - -"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I -have nothing." - -Martha looked perplexed. - -"Can tha' knit?" she asked. - -"No," answered Mary. - -"Can tha' sew?" - -"No." - -"Can tha' read?" - -"Yes." - -"Then why doesn't tha' read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'? -Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now." - -"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India." - -"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' -library, there's thousands o' books there." - -Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly -inspired by a new idea. She made up her mind to go and find it herself. -She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to -be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room down-stairs. In this -queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no -one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a -luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about -with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there -were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal -of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out of the way. - -Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one -troubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked -at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her -what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of -treating children. In India she had always been attended by her Ayah, -who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had -often been tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody and was -learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she thought -she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her -and put on. - -"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood waiting -for her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp -as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks fair soft in -th' head." - -Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her -think several entirely new things. - -She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha -had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone down-stairs. She was -thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the -library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because -she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind -the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all -really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them. -Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors -she could count? It would be something to do on this morning when she -could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission to do -things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not -have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk about -the house, even if she had seen her. - -She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she -began her wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into other -corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to -others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the -walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but -oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes -made of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose -walls were covered with these portraits. She had never thought there -could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and -stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if -they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their -house. Some were pictures of children--little girls in thick satin -frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys -with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs -around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and -wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore -such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like -herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her -finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look. - -"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here." - -Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed -as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small -self, wandering about up-stairs and down, through narrow passages and -wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever -walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in -them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it -true. - -It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of -turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock -had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of -them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt -that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door -itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened -into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and -inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room. A -broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the -mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed -to stare at her more curiously than ever. - -"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she -makes me feel queer." - -After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that -she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, -though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures -or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious -pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them. - -In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were -all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little -elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had -their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than -the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had -seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened -the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these -for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants in -order and shut the door of the cabinet. - -In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, -she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just -after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. -It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from -which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion, -and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole -peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it. - -Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a -little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and -made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near -her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were -seven mice who did not look lonely at all. - -"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me," said -Mary. - -She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any -farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by -turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down -until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor -again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know -exactly where she was. - -"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing still -at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall. "I -don't know which way to go. How still everything is!" - -It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that -the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite -like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a -fretful, childish whine muffled by passing through walls. - -"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. -"And it _is_ crying." - -She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then -sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a -door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the -corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of -keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face. - -"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and -pulled her away. "What did I tell you?" - -"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which -way to go and I heard some one crying." - -She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the -next. - -"You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You come -along back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears." - -And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one -passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own -room. - -"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find -yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as -he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after -you. I've got enough to do." - -She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went -and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground -her teeth. - -"There _was_ some one crying--there _was_--there _was_!" she said to -herself. - -She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had -found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a -long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the -time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray -mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE KEY OF THE GARDEN - - -Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed -immediately, and called to Martha. - -"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!" - -The rain-storm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept -away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a -brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never had -Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and blazing; this -was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters -of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the -arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The -far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of -gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray. - -"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin. "Th' storm's over for a bit. It -does like this at this time o' th' year. It goes off in a night like it -was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come again. -That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way off yet, but -it's comin'." - -"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary -said. - -"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead -brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!" - -"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously. In India the natives spoke -different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was not -surprised when Martha used words she did not know. - -Martha laughed as she had done the first morning. - -"There now," she said. "I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock -said I mustn't. 'Nowt o' th' soart' means 'nothin'-of-the-sort,'" slowly -and carefully, "but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshire's th' sunniest -place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a -bit. Just you wait till you see th' gold-colored gorse blossoms an' th' -blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather flowerin', all purple bells, an' -hundreds o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin' -up an' singin'. You'll want to get out on it at sunrise an' live out on -it all day like Dickon does." - -"Could I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully, looking through her -window at the far-off blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such -a heavenly color. - -"I don't know," answered Martha. "Tha's never used tha' legs since tha' -was born, it seems to me. Tha' couldn't walk five mile. It's five mile -to our cottage." - -"I should like to see your cottage." - -Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing -brush and began to rub the grate again. She was thinking that the small -plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the -first morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan -Ann's when she wanted something very much. - -"I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "She's one o' them that nearly -always sees a way to do things. It's my day out to-day an' I'm goin' -home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother. Perhaps she -could talk to her." - -"I like your mother," said Mary. - -"I should think tha' did," agreed Martha, polishing away. - -"I've never seen her," said Mary. - -"No, tha' hasn't," replied Martha. - -She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the -back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite -positively. - -"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' good-natured an' clean -that no one could help likin' her whether they'd seen her or not. When -I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm -crossin' th' moor." - -"I like Dickon," added Mary. "And I've never seen him." - -"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee that th' very birds likes -him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an' ponies, an' th' foxes themselves. -I wonder," staring at her reflectively, "what Dickon would think of -thee?" - -"He wouldn't like me," said Mary in her stiff, cold little way. "No one -does." - -Martha looked reflective again. - -"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired, really quite as if she were -curious to know. - -Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over. - -"Not at all--really," she answered. "But I never thought of that -before." - -Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection. - -"Mother said that to me once," she said. "She was at her wash-tub an' I -was in a bad temper an' talkin' ill of folk, an' she turns round on me -an' says: 'Tha' young vixon, tha'! There tha' stands sayin' tha' -doesn't like this one an' tha' doesn't like that one. How does tha' like -thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it brought me to my senses in a minute." - -She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her -breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the -cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do -the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly. - -Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the -house. She went out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the -first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower -garden ten times. She counted the times carefully and when she had -finished she felt in better spirits. The sunshine made the whole place -look different. The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as -well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up into -it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of the -little snow-white clouds and float about. She went into the first -kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other -gardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him good. He -spoke to her of his own accord. - -"Springtime's comin'," he said. "Cannot tha' smell it?" - -Mary sniffed and thought she could. - -"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said. - -"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away. "It's in a good -humor makin' ready to grow things. It's glad when plantin' time comes. -It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens -out there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's -warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin' out o' th' black -earth after a bit." - -"What will they be?" asked Mary. - -"Crocuses an' snowdrops an' daffydowndillys. Has tha' never seen them?" - -"No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India," -said Mary. "And I think things grow up in a night." - -"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff. "Tha'll have to -wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher here, an' push out a spike -more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that. You watch 'em." - -"I am going to," answered Mary. - -Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew -at once that the robin had come again. He was very pert and lively, and -hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and -looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question. - -"Do you think he remembers me?" she said. - -"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every cabbage -stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people. He's never seen a little -wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee. Tha's no -need to try to hide anything from _him_." - -"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he -lives?" Mary inquired. - -"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again. - -"The one where the old rose-trees are." She could not help asking, -because she wanted so much to know. "Are all the flowers dead, or do -some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?" - -"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the -robin. "He's the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside it for -ten year'." - -Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years -ago. - -She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just -as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother. She -was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to -like--when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one -of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall -over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked -up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and -it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin. - -She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare -flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to -peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed -her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her -with delight that she almost trembled a little. - -"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than -anything else in the world!" - -She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail -and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like -satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and -so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and -like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had -ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and -closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like -robin sounds. - -Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as -that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand -toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because -he was a real person--only nicer than any other person in the world. She -was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe. - -The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the -perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were -tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and -as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile -of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The -earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole -and he had scratched quite a deep hole. - -Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she -looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was -something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up -into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was -more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had -been buried a long time. - -Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face -as it hung from her finger. - -"Perhaps it has been buried for ten years," she said in a whisper. -"Perhaps it is the key to the garden!" - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY - - -She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, -and thought about it. As I have said before, she was not a child who had -been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All -she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed -garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps -open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the -old rose-trees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she -wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must be different from other places -and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years. -Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every day and shut -the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own and play -it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would -think the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The -thought of that pleased her very much. - -Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred -mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse -herself, had set her inactive brain to working and was actually -awakening her imagination. There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, -pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it. Just as it had -given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood, -so the same things had stirred her mind. In India she had always been -too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but in this -place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things. Already -she felt less "contrary," though she did not know why. - -She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk. No one -but herself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and look -at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it. The ivy was the -baffling thing. Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but -thickly-growing, glossy, dark green leaves. She was very much -disappointed. Something of her contrariness came back to her as she -paced the walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside. It seemed so -silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be able to get in. She -took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house, and she made -up her mind that she would always carry it with her when she went out, -so that if she ever should find the hidden door she would be ready. - -Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but -she was back at her work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever and -in the best of spirits. - -"I got up at four o'clock," she said. "Eh! it was pretty on th' moor -with th' birds gettin' up an' th' rabbits scamperin' about an' th' sun -risin'. I didn't walk all th' way. A man gave me a ride in his cart an' -I can tell you I did enjoy myself." - -She was full of stories of the delights of her day out. Her mother had -been glad to see her and they had got the baking and washing all out of -the way. She had even made each of the children a dough-cake with a bit -of brown sugar in it. - -"I had 'em all pipin' hot when they came in from playin' on th' moor. -An' th' cottage all smelt o' nice, clean hot bakin' an' there was a good -fire, an' they just shouted for joy. Our Dickon he said our cottage was -good enough for a king to live in." - -In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her -mother had sewed patches on torn clothes and mended stockings and Martha -had told them about the little girl who had come from India and who had -been waited on all her life by what Martha called "blacks" until she -didn't know how to put on her own stockings. - -"Eh! they did like to hear about you," said Martha. "They wanted to know -all about th' blacks an' about th' ship you came in. I couldn't tell 'em -enough." - -Mary reflected a little. - -"I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out," she said, -"so that you will have more to talk about. I dare say they would like to -hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officers going -to hunt tigers." - -"My word!" cried delighted Martha. "It would set 'em clean off their -heads. Would tha' really do that, Miss? It would be same as a wild beast -show like we heard they had in York once." - -"India is quite different from Yorkshire," Mary said slowly, as she -thought the matter over. "I never thought of that. Did Dickon and your -mother like to hear you talk about me?" - -"Why, our Dickon's eyes nearly started out o' his head, they got that -round," answered Martha. "But mother, she was put out about your seemin' -to be all by yourself like. She said, 'Hasn't Mr. Craven got no -governess for her, nor no nurse?' and I said, 'No, he hasn't, though -Mrs. Medlock says he will when he thinks of it, but she says he mayn't -think of it for two or three years.'" - -"I don't want a governess," said Mary sharply. - -"But mother says you ought to be learnin' your book by this time an' you -ought to have a woman to look after you, an' she says: 'Now, Martha, you -just think how you'd feel yourself, in a big place like that, wanderin' -about all alone, an' no mother. You do your best to cheer her up,' she -says, an' I said I would." - -Mary gave her a long, steady look. - -"You do cheer me up," she said. "I like to hear you talk." - -Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held -in her hands under her apron. - -"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I've brought -thee a present." - -"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of -fourteen hungry people give any one a present! - -"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin'," Martha explained. "An' he -stopped his cart at our door. He had pots an' pans an' odds an' ends, -but mother had no money to buy anythin'. Just as he was goin' away our -'Lizabeth Ellen called out, 'Mother, he's got skippin'-ropes with red -an' blue handles.' An' mother she calls out quite sudden, 'Here, stop, -mister! How much are they?' An' he says 'Tuppence,' an' mother she -began fumblin' in her pocket an' she says to me, 'Martha, tha's brought -me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places to put every -penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that child a -skippin'-rope,' an' she bought one an' here it is." - -She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. -It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each -end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping-rope before. She gazed at -it with a mystified expression. - -"What is it for?" she asked curiously. - -"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that they've not got -skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and -camels! No wonder most of 'em's black. This is what it's for; just watch -me." - -And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each -hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair -to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to -stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager -had the impudence to be doing under their very noses. But Martha did not -even see them. The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face -delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped -until she had reached a hundred. - -"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped. "I've -skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but I wasn't as fat -then as I am now, an' I was in practice." - -Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself. - -"It looks nice," she said. "Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think I -could ever skip like that?" - -"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. "You -can't skip a hundred at first, but if you practise you'll mount up. -That's what mother said. She says, 'Nothin' will do her more good than -skippin' rope. It's th' sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play -out in th' fresh air skippin' an' it'll stretch her legs an' arms an' -give her some strength in 'em.'" - -It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress -Mary's arms and legs when she first began to skip. She was not very -clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop. - -"Put on tha' things and run an' skip out o' doors," said Martha. "Mother -said I must tell you to keep out o' doors as much as you could, even -when it rains a bit, so as tha' wrap up warm." - -Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping-rope over her arm. -She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something -and turned back rather slowly. - -"Martha," she said, "they were your wages. It was your twopence really. -Thank you." She said it stiffly because she was not used to thanking -people or noticing that they did things for her. "Thank you," she said, -and held out her hand because she did not know what else to do. - -Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed -to this sort of thing either. Then she laughed. - -"Eh! tha' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our -'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have give me a kiss." - -Mary looked stiffer than ever. - -"Do you want me to kiss you?" - -Martha laughed again. - -"Nay, not me," she answered. "If tha' was different, p'raps tha'd want -to thysel'. But tha' isn't. Run off outside an' play with thy rope." - -Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room. -Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle -to her. At first she had disliked her very much, but now she did not. - -The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and -skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red, and she was more -interested than she had ever been since she was born. The sun was -shining and a little wind was blowing--not a rough wind, but one which -came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly -turned earth with it. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one -walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden and -saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping -about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head -and looked at her with a curious expression. She had wondered if he -would notice her. She really wanted him to see her skip. - -"Well!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word! P'raps tha' art a young 'un, after -all, an' p'raps tha's got child's blood in thy veins instead of sour -buttermilk. Tha's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben -Weatherstaff. I wouldn't have believed tha' could do it." - -"I never skipped before," Mary said. "I'm just beginning. I can only go -up to twenty." - -"Tha' keep on," said Ben. "Tha' shapes well enough at it for a young 'un -that's lived with heathen. Just see how he's watchin' thee," jerking his -head toward the robin. "He followed after thee yesterday. He'll be at -it again to-day. He'll be bound to find out what th' skippin'-rope is. -He's never seen one. Eh!" shaking his head at the bird, "tha' curosity -will be th' death of thee sometime if tha' doesn't look sharp." - -Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every -few minutes. At length she went to her own special walk and made up her -mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it. It was a good long -skip and she began slowly, but before she had gone half-way down the -path she was so hot and breathless that she was obliged to stop. She did -not mind much, because she had already counted up to thirty. She stopped -with a little laugh of pleasure, and there, lo and behold, was the robin -swaying on a long branch of ivy. He had followed her and he greeted her -with a chirp. As Mary had skipped toward him she felt something heavy in -her pocket strike against her at each jump, and when she saw the robin -she laughed again. - -"You showed me where the key was yesterday," she said. "You ought to -show me the door to-day; but I don't believe you know!" - -The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall -and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show -off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when -he shows off--and they are nearly always doing it. - -Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah's stories, -and she always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic. - -One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was a -stronger one than the rest. It was strong enough to wave the branches of -the trees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing -sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall. Mary had stepped close to -the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy -trails, and more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in -her hand. This she did because she had seen something under it--a round -knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it. It was the -knob of a door. - -She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them -aside. Thick as the ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging -curtain, though some had crept over wood and iron. Mary's heart began to -thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. The -robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one side, -as if he were as excited as she was. What was this under her hands which -was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a hole in? - -It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put -her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the -keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, -but it did turn. - -And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk -to see if any one was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, -it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help -it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the -door which opened slowly--slowly. - -Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her -back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with -excitement, and wonder, and delight. - -She was standing _inside_ the secret garden. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN - - -It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could -imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless -stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted -together. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great -many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry -brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rose-bushes -if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so -spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other -trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look -strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them -and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here -and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and -had crept from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of -themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did -not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin gray or brown -branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over -everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass, where they had -fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy -tangle from tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious. Mary had -thought it must be different from other gardens which had not been left -all by themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other -place she had ever seen in her life. - -"How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!" - -Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who -had flown to his tree-top, was still as all the rest. He did not even -flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary. - -"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person who -has spoken in here for ten years." - -She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid -of awakening some one. She was glad that there was grass under her feet -and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the -fairy-like gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays and -tendrils which formed them. - -"I wonder if they are all quite dead," she said. "Is it all a quite dead -garden? I wish it wasn't." - -If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood -was alive by looking at it, but she could only see that there were only -gray or brown sprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a -tiny leaf-bud anywhere. - -But she was _inside_ the wonderful garden and she could come through the -door under the ivy any time and she felt as if she had found a world all -her own. - -The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky -over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant -and soft than it was over the moor. The robin flew down from his -tree-top and hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another. He -chirped a good deal and had a very busy air, as if he were showing her -things. Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds -of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all. -All that troubled her was her wish that she knew whether all the roses -were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived and might put out leaves -and buds as the weather got warmer. She did not want it to be a quite -dead garden. If it were a quite alive garden, how wonderful it would -be, and what thousands of roses would grow on every side! - -Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she came in and after she -had walked about for a while she thought she would skip round the whole -garden, stopping when she wanted to look at things. There seemed to have -been grass paths here and there, and in one or two corners there were -alcoves of evergreen with stone seats or tall moss-covered flower urns -in them. - -As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There -had once been a flower-bed in it, and she thought she saw something -sticking out of the black earth--some sharp little pale green points. -She remembered what Ben Weatherstaff had said and she knelt down to look -at them. - -"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they _might_ be crocuses or -snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered. - -She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp -earth. She liked it very much. - -"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places," she said. -"I will go all over the garden and look." - -She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and kept her eyes on the -ground. She looked in the old border beds and among the grass, and after -she had gone round, trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so many -more sharp, pale green points, and she had become quite excited again. - -"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself. "Even -if the roses are dead, there are other things alive." - -She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick -in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way -through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow. -She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood and -knelt down and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made -nice little clear places around them. - -"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said, after she had -finished with the first ones. "I am going to do ever so many more. I'll -do all I can see. If I haven't time to-day I can come to-morrow." - -She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so -immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under -the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat -off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to -the grass and the pale green points all the time. - -The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see -gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben -Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to -eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature -who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come into his -garden and begin at once. - -Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday -dinner. In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when she put on -her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could not believe -that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually -happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points -were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had -looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them. - -"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking all round at her -new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they -heard her. - -Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door and -slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such -bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted. - -"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said. "Eh! -mother will be pleased when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done -for thee." - -In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had -found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion. She -had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it -and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was. - -"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that look like onions?" - -"They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o' spring flowers grow from 'em. -Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones are -narcissusis an' jonquils an' daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is -lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot of -'em planted in our bit o' garden." - -"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking -possession of her. - -"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says he -just whispers things out o' th' ground." - -"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one -helped them?" inquired Mary anxiously. - -"They're things as helps themselves," said Martha. "That's why poor folk -can afford to have 'em. If you don't trouble 'em, most of 'em'll work -away underground for a lifetime an' spread out an' have little 'uns. -There's a place in th' park woods here where there's snowdrops by -thousands. They're the prettiest sight in Yorkshire when th' spring -comes. No one knows when they was first planted." - -"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary. "I want to see all the -things that grow in England." - -She had finished her dinner and gone to her favorite seat on the -hearth-rug. - -"I wish--I wish I had a little spade," she said. - -"Whatever does tha' want a spade for?" asked Martha, laughing. "Art tha' -goin' to take to diggin'? I must tell mother that, too." - -Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She must be careful if -she meant to keep her secret kingdom. She wasn't doing any harm, but if -Mr. Craven found out about the open door he would be fearfully angry and -get a new key and lock it up forevermore. She really could not bear -that. - -"This is such a big lonely place," she said slowly, as if she were -turning matters over in her mind. "The house is lonely, and the park is -lonely, and the gardens are lonely. So many places seem shut up. I never -did many things in India, but there were more people to look at--natives -and soldiers marching by--and sometimes bands playing, and my Ayah told -me stories. There is no one to talk to here except you and Ben -Weatherstaff. And you have to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff won't -speak to me often. I thought if I had a little spade I could dig -somewhere as he does, and I might make a little garden if he would give -me some seeds." - -Martha's face quite lighted up. - -"There now!" she exclaimed, "if that wasn't one of th' things mother -said. She says, 'There's such a lot o' room in that big place, why don't -they give her a bit for herself, even if she doesn't plant nothin' but -parsley an' radishes? She'd dig an' rake away an' be right down happy -over it.' Them was the very words she said." - -"Were they?" said Mary. "How many things she knows, doesn't she?" - -"Eh!" said Martha. "It's like she says: 'A woman as brings up twelve -children learns something besides her A B C. Children's as good as -'rithmetic to set you findin' out things.'" - -"How much would a spade cost--a little one?" Mary asked. - -"Well," was Martha's reflective answer, "at Thwaite village there's a -shop or so an' I saw little garden sets with a spade an' a rake an' a -fork all tied together for two shillings. An' they was stout enough to -work with, too." - -"I've got more than that in my purse," said Mary. "Mrs. Morrison gave -me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr. Craven." - -"Did he remember thee that much?" exclaimed Martha. - -"Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week to spend. She gives -me one every Saturday. I didn't know what to spend it on." - -"My word! that's riches," said Martha. "Tha' can buy anything in th' -world tha' wants. Th' rent of our cottage is only one an' threepence an' -it's like pullin' eye-teeth to get it. Now I've just thought of -somethin'," putting her hands on her hips. - -"What?" said Mary eagerly. - -"In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o' flower-seeds for a penny -each, and our Dickon he knows which is th' prettiest ones an' how to -make 'em grow. He walks over to Thwaite many a day just for th' fun of -it. Does tha' know how to print letters?" suddenly. - -"I know how to write," Mary answered. - -Martha shook her head. - -"Our Dickon can only read printin'. If tha' could print we could write a -letter to him an' ask him to go an' buy th' garden tools an' th' seeds -at th' same time." - -"Oh! you're a good girl!" Mary cried. "You are, really! I didn't know -you were so nice. I know I can print letters if I try. Let's ask Mrs. -Medlock for a pen and ink and some paper." - -"I've got some of my own," said Martha. "I bought 'em so I could print a -bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday. I'll go and get it." - -She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin -little hands together with sheer pleasure. - -"If I have a spade," she whispered, "I can make the earth nice and soft -and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and can make flowers grow the garden -won't be dead at all--it will come alive." - -She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned -with her pen and ink and paper she was obliged to clear the table and -carry the plates and dishes down-stairs and when she got into the -kitchen Mrs. Medlock was there and told her to do something, so Mary -waited for what seemed to her a long time before she came back. Then it -was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon. Mary had been taught -very little because her governesses had disliked her too much to stay -with her. She could not spell particularly well but she found that she -could print letters when she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated -to her: - - "_My Dear Dickon:_ - - This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me - at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money and will - you go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds - and a set of garden tools to make a flower-bed. - Pick the prettiest ones and easy to grow because - she has never done it before and lived in India - which is different. Give my love to mother and - every one of you. Miss Mary is going to tell me a - lot more so that on my next day out you can hear - about elephants and camels and gentlemen going - hunting lions and tigers. - - "Your loving sister, - "MARTHA PHOEBE SOWERBY." - -"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher's boy to -take it in his cart. He's a great friend o' Dickon's," said Martha. - -"How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?" asked Mary. - -"He'll bring 'em to you himself. He'll like to walk over this way." - -"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should -see Dickon." - -"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, she had looked so -pleased. - -"Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him -very much." - -Martha gave a little start, as if she suddenly remembered something. - -"Now to think," she broke out, "to think o' me forgettin' that there; -an' I thought I was goin' to tell you first thing this mornin'. I asked -mother--and she said she'd ask Mrs. Medlock her own self." - -"Do you mean--" Mary began. - -"What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottage -some day and have a bit o' mother's hot oat cake, an' butter, an' a -glass o' milk." - -It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To -think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue! -To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children! - -"Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?" she asked, quite -anxiously. - -"Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and -how clean she keeps the cottage." - -"If I went I should see your mother as well as Dickon," said Mary, -thinking it over and liking the idea very much. "She doesn't seem to be -like the mothers in India." - -Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon ended by -making her feel quiet and thoughtful. Martha stayed with her until -tea-time, but they sat in comfortable quiet and talked very little. But -just before Martha went down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a -question. - -"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again -to-day?" - -Martha certainly started slightly. - -"What makes thee ask that?" she said. - -"Because when I waited so long for you to come back I opened the door -and walked down the corridor to see if you were coming. And I heard that -far-off crying again, just as we heard it the other night. There isn't a -wind to-day, so you see it couldn't have been the wind." - -"Eh!" said Martha restlessly. "Tha' mustn't go walkin' about in -corridors an' listenin'. Mr. Craven would be that there angry there's no -knowin' what he'd do." - -"I wasn't listening," said Mary. "I was just waiting for you--and I -heard it. That's three times." - -"My word! There's Mrs. Medlock's bell," said Martha, and she almost ran -out of the room. - -"It's the strangest house any one ever lived in," said Mary drowsily, as -she dropped her head on the cushioned seat of the armchair near her. -Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope had made her feel so -comfortably tired that she fell asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -DICKON - - -The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret -Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked -the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful -old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like -being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had -read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret -gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them -for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She -had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider -awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was beginning to like -to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She -could run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The -bulbs in the secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice -clear places were made round them that they had all the breathing space -they wanted, and really, if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to -cheer up under the dark earth and work tremendously. The sun could get -at them and warm them, and when the rain came down it could reach them -at once, so they began to feel very much alive. - -Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now she had something -interesting to be determined about, she was very much absorbed, indeed. -She worked and dug and pulled up weeds steadily, only becoming more -pleased with her work every hour instead of tiring of it. It seemed to -her like a fascinating sort of play. She found many more of the -sprouting pale green points than she had ever hoped to find. They seemed -to be starting up everywhere and each day she was sure she found tiny -new ones, some so tiny that they barely peeped above the earth. There -were so many that she remembered what Martha had said about the -"snowdrops by the thousands," and about bulbs spreading and making new -ones. These had been left to themselves for ten years and perhaps they -had spread, like the snowdrops, into thousands. She wondered how long it -would be before they showed that they were flowers. Sometimes she -stopped digging to look at the garden and try to imagine what it would -be like when it was covered with thousands of lovely things in bloom. - -During that week of sunshine, she became more intimate with Ben -Weatherstaff. She surprised him several times by seeming to start up -beside him as if she sprang out of the earth. The truth was that she was -afraid that he would pick up his tools and go away if he saw her coming, -so she always walked toward him as silently as possible. But, in fact, -he did not object to her as strongly as he had at first. Perhaps he was -secretly rather flattered by her evident desire for his elderly company. -Then, also, she was more civil than she had been. He did not know that -when she first saw him she spoke to him as she would have spoken to a -native, and had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire man was not -accustomed to salaam to his masters, and be merely commanded by them to -do things. - -"Tha'rt like th' robin," he said to her one morning when he lifted his -head and saw her standing by him. "I never knows when I shall see thee -or which side tha'll come from." - -"He's friends with me now," said Mary. - -"That's like him," snapped Ben Weatherstaff. "Makin' up to th' women -folk just for vanity an' flightiness. There's nothin' he wouldn't do for -th' sake o' showin' off an' flirtin' his tail-feathers. He's as full o' -pride as an egg's full o' meat." - -He very seldom talked much and sometimes did not even answer Mary's -questions except by a grunt, but this morning he said more than usual. -He stood up and rested one hobnailed boot on the top of his spade while -he looked her over. - -"How long has tha' been here?" he jerked out. - -"I think it's about a month," she answered. - -"Tha's beginnin' to do Misselthwaite credit," he said. "Tha's a bit -fatter than tha' was an' tha's not quite so yeller. Tha' looked like a -young plucked crow when tha' first came into this garden. Thinks I to -myself I never set eyes on an uglier, sourer faced young 'un." - -Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much of her looks she was -not greatly disturbed. - -"I know I'm fatter," she said. "My stockings are getting tighter. They -used to make wrinkles. There's the robin, Ben Weatherstaff." - -There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever. -His red waistcoat was as glossy as satin and he flirted his wings and -tail and tilted his head and hopped about with all sorts of lively -graces. He seemed determined to make Ben Weatherstaff admire him. But -Ben was sarcastic. - -"Aye, there tha' art!" he said. "Tha' can put up with me for a bit -sometimes when tha's got no one better. Tha's been reddinin' up thy -waistcoat an' polishin' thy feathers this two weeks. I know what tha's -up to. Tha's courtin' some bold young madam somewhere, tellin' thy lies -to her about bein' th' finest cock robin on Missel Moor an' ready to -fight all th' rest of 'em." - -"Oh! look at him!" exclaimed Mary. - -The robin was evidently in a fascinating, bold mood. He hopped closer -and closer and looked at Ben Weatherstaff more and more engagingly. He -flew on to the nearest currant bush and tilted his head and sang a -little song right at him. - -"Tha' thinks tha'll get over me by doin' that," said Ben, wrinkling his -face up in such a way that Mary felt sure he was trying not to look -pleased. "Tha' thinks no one can stand out against thee--that's what -tha' thinks." - -The robin spread his wings--Mary could scarcely believe her eyes. He -flew right up to the handle of Ben Weatherstaff's spade and alighted on -the top of it. Then the old man's face wrinkled itself slowly into a new -expression. He stood still as if he were afraid to breathe--as if he -would not have stirred for the world, lest his robin should start away. -He spoke quite in a whisper. - -"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if he were saying something -quite different. "Tha' does know how to get at a chap--tha' does! Tha's -fair unearthly, tha's so knowin'." - -And he stood without stirring--almost without drawing his breath--until -the robin gave another flirt to his wings and flew away. Then he stood -looking at the handle of the spade as if there might be Magic in it, and -then he began to dig again and said nothing for several minutes. - -But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was not -afraid to talk to him. - -"Have you a garden of your own?" she asked. - -"No. I'm bachelder an' lodge with Martin at th' gate." - -"If you had one," said Mary, "what would you plant?" - -"Cabbages an' 'taters an' onions." - -"But if you wanted to make a flower garden," persisted Mary, "what would -you plant?" - -"Bulbs an' sweet-smellin' things--but mostly roses." - -Mary's face lighted up. - -"Do you like roses?" she said. - -Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it aside before he answered. - -"Well, yes, I do. I was learned that by a young lady I was gardener to. -She had a lot in a place she was fond of, an' she loved 'em like they -was children--or robins. I've seen her bend over an' kiss 'em." He -dragged out another weed and scowled at it. "That were as much as ten -year' ago." - -"Where is she now?" asked Mary, much interested. - -"Heaven," he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil, "'cording -to what parson says." - -"What happened to the roses?" Mary asked again, more interested than -ever. - -"They was left to themselves." - -Mary was becoming quite excited. - -"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left to -themselves?" she ventured. - -"Well, I'd got to like 'em--an' I liked her--an' she liked 'em," Ben -Weatherstaff admitted reluctantly. "Once or twice a year I'd go an' work -at 'em a bit--prune 'em an' dig about th' roots. They run wild, but they -was in rich soil, so some of 'em lived." - -"When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can you -tell whether they are dead or alive?" inquired Mary. - -"Wait till th' spring gets at 'em--wait till th' sun shines on th' rain -an' th' rain falls on th' sunshine an' then tha'll find out." - -"How--how?" cried Mary, forgetting to be careful. - -"Look along th' twigs an' branches an' if tha' sees a bit of a brown -lump swelling here an' there, watch it after th' warm rain an' see what -happens." He stopped suddenly and looked curiously at her eager face. -"Why does tha' care so much about roses an' such, all of a sudden?" he -demanded. - -Mistress Mary felt her face grow red. She was almost afraid to answer. - -"I--I want to play that--that I have a garden of my own," she stammered. -"I--there is nothing for me to do. I have nothing--and no one." - -"Well," said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her, "that's true. -Tha' hasn't." - -He said it in such an odd way that Mary wondered if he was actually a -little sorry for her. She had never felt sorry for herself; she had only -felt tired and cross, because she disliked people and things so much. -But now the world seemed to be changing and getting nicer. If no one -found out about the secret garden, she should enjoy herself always. - -She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes longer and asked him as -many questions as she dared. He answered every one of them in his queer -grunting way and he did not seem really cross and did not pick up his -spade and leave her. He said something about roses just as she was -going away and it reminded her of the ones he had said he had been fond -of. - -"Do you go and see those other roses now?" she asked. - -"Not been this year. My rheumatics has made me too stiff in th' joints." - -He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite suddenly he seemed to -get angry with her, though she did not see why he should. - -"Now look here!" he said sharply. "Don't tha' ask so many questions. -Tha'rt th' worst wench for askin' questions I've ever come across. Get -thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for to-day." - -And he said it so crossly that she knew there was not the least use in -staying another minute. She went skipping slowly down the outside walk, -thinking him over and saying to herself that, queer as it was, here was -another person whom she liked in spite of his crossness. She liked old -Ben Weatherstaff. Yes, she did like him. She always wanted to try to -make him talk to her. Also she began to believe that he knew everything -in the world about flowers. - -There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round the secret garden and -ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she -would skip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were -any rabbits hopping about. She enjoyed the skipping very much and when -she reached the little gate she opened it and went through because she -heard a low, peculiar whistling sound and wanted to find out what it -was. - -It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite caught her breath as she -stopped to look at it. A boy was sitting under a tree, with his back -against it, playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny looking boy -about twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks -were as red as poppies and never had Mistress Mary seen such round and -such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned -against, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind -a bush nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep -out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with -tremulous noses--and actually it appeared as if they were all drawing -near to watch him and listen to the strange low little call his pipe -seemed to make. - -When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost -as low as and rather like his piping. - -"Don't tha' move," he said. "It'd flight 'em." - -Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and began to rise -from the ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he -were moving at all, but at last he stood on his feet and then the -squirrel scampered back up into the branches of his tree, the pheasant -withdrew his head and the rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop -away, though not at all as if they were frightened. - -"I'm Dickon," the boy said. "I know tha'rt Miss Mary." - -Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at first that he was -Dickon. Who else could have been charming rabbits and pheasants as the -natives charm snakes in India? He had a wide, red, curving mouth and his -smile spread all over his face. - -"I got up slow," he explained, "because if tha' makes a quick move it -startles 'em. A body 'as to move gentle an' speak low when wild things -is about." - -He did not speak to her as if they had never seen each other before but -as if he knew her quite well. Mary knew nothing about boys and she spoke -to him a little stiffly because she felt rather shy. - -"Did you get Martha's letter?" she asked. - -He nodded his curly, rust-colored head. - -"That's why I come." - -He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground -beside him when he piped. - -"I've got th' garden tools. There's a little spade an' rake an' a fork -an' hoe. Eh! they are good 'uns. There's a trowel, too. An' th' woman in -th' shop threw in a packet o' white poppy an' one o' blue larkspur when -I bought th' other seeds." - -"Will you show the seeds to me?" Mary said. - -She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. -It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not -like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and -with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. As she came closer to him -she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and -leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very -much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and -round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy. - -"Let us sit down on this log and look at them," she said. - -They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of his -coat pocket. He untied the string and inside there were ever so many -neater and smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one. - -"There's a lot o' mignonette an' poppies," he said. "Mignonette's th' -sweetest smellin' thing as grows, an' it'll grow wherever you cast it, -same as poppies will. Them as'll come up an' bloom if you just whistle -to 'em, them's th' nicest of all." - -He stopped and turned his head quickly, his poppy-cheeked face lighting -up. - -"Where's that robin as is callin' us?" he said. - -The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries, and -Mary thought she knew whose it was. - -"Is it really calling us?" she asked. - -"Aye," said Dickon, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, -"he's callin' some one he's friends with. That's same as sayin' 'Here I -am. Look at me. I wants a bit of a chat.' There he is in the bush. Whose -is he?" - -"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows me a little," answered -Mary. - -"Aye, he knows thee," said Dickon in his low voice again. "An' he likes -thee. He's took thee on. He'll tell me all about thee in a minute." - -He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement Mary had noticed -before, and then he made a sound almost like the robin's own twitter. -The robin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered quite as -if he were replying to a question. - -"Aye, he's a friend o' yours," chuckled Dickon. - -"Do you think he is?" cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know. "Do -you think he really likes me?" - -"He wouldn't come near thee if he didn't," answered Dickon. "Birds is -rare choosers an' a robin can flout a body worse than a man. See, he's -making up to thee now. 'Cannot tha' see a chap?' he's sayin'." - -And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered -and tilted as he hopped on his bush. - -"Do you understand everything birds say?" said Mary. - -Dickon's grin spread until he seemed all wide, red, curving mouth, and -he rubbed his rough head. - -"I think I do, and they think I do," he said. "I've lived on th' moor -with 'em so long. I've watched 'em break shell an' come out an' fledge -an' learn to fly an' begin to sing, till I think I'm one of 'em. -Sometimes I think p'raps I'm a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit, or a -squirrel, or even a beetle, an' I don't know it." - -He laughed and came back to the log and began to talk about the flower -seeds again. He told her what they looked like when they were flowers; -he told her how to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them. - -"See here," he said suddenly, turning round to look at her. "I'll plant -them for thee myself. Where is tha' garden?" - -Mary's thin hands clutched each other as they lay on her lap. She did -not know what to say, so for a whole minute she said nothing. She had -never thought of this. She felt miserable. And she felt as if she went -red and then pale. - -"Tha's got a bit o' garden, hasn't tha'?" Dickon said. - -It was true that she had turned red and then pale. Dickon saw her do it, -and as she still said nothing, he began to be puzzled. - -"Wouldn't they give thee a bit?" he asked. "Hasn't tha' got any yet?" - -She held her hands even tighter and turned her eyes toward him. - -"I don't know anything about boys," she said slowly. "Could you keep a -secret, if I told you one? It's a great secret. I don't know what I -should do if any one found it out. I believe I should die!" She said the -last sentence quite fiercely. - -Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his -rough head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly. - -"I'm keepin' secrets all th' time," he said. "If I couldn't keep secrets -from th' other lads, secrets about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests, an' -wild things' holes, there'd be naught safe on th' moor. Aye, I can keep -secrets." - -Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve but -she did it. - -"I've stolen a garden," she said very fast. "It isn't mine. It isn't -anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into -it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know." - -She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life. - -"I don't care, I don't care! Nobody has any right to take it from me -when I care about it and they don't. They're letting it die, all shut in -by itself," she ended passionately, and she threw her arms over her face -and burst out crying--poor little Mistress Mary. - -Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder. - -"Eh-h-h!" he said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the way he -did it meant both wonder and sympathy. - -"I've nothing to do," said Mary. "Nothing belongs to me. I found it -myself and I got into it myself. I was only just like the robin, and -they wouldn't take it from the robin." - -"Where is it?" asked Dickon in a dropped voice. - -Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew she felt contrary -again, and obstinate, and she did not care at all. She was imperious and -Indian, and at the same time hot and sorrowful. - -"Come with me and I'll show you," she said. - -She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew so -thickly. Dickon followed her with a queer, almost pitying, look on his -face. He felt as if he were being led to look at some strange bird's -nest and must move softly. When she stepped to the wall and lifted the -hanging ivy he started. There was a door and Mary pushed it slowly open -and they passed in together, and then Mary stood and waved her hand -round defiantly. - -"It's this," she said. "It's a secret garden, and I'm the only one in -the world who wants it to be alive." - -Dickon looked round and round about it, and round and round again. - -"Eh!" he almost whispered, "it is a queer, pretty place! It's like as if -a body was in a dream." - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH - - -For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched -him, and then he began to walk about softly, even more lightly than Mary -had walked the first time she had found herself inside the four walls. -His eyes seemed to be taking in everything--the gray trees with the gray -creepers climbing over them and hanging from their branches, the tangle -on the walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the stone -seats and tall flower urns standing in them. - -"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper. - -"Did you know about it?" asked Mary. - -She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her. - -"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's -to do in here." - -"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand -quickly against her mouth. "Did you know about the garden?" she asked -again when she had recovered herself. - -Dickon nodded. - -"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered. -"Us used to wonder what it was like." - -He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his -round eyes looked queerly happy. - -"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th' -safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles o' -trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't -build here." - -Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it. - -"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps -they were all dead." - -"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!" - -He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen -all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and -branches. He took a thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its -blades. - -"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An' -there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's a -new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of -hard, dry gray. - -Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way. - -"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive--quite?" - -Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth. - -"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha -had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively." - -"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to -be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there -are." - -She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. -They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his -knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful. - -"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on -it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an' -growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he -pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might think this -was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut it -low down an' see." - -He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not -far above the earth. - -"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee so. There's green in that -wood yet. Look at it." - -Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might. - -"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he -explained. "When th' inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here piece -I've cut off, it's done for. There's a big root here as all this live -wood sprung out of, an' if th' old wood's cut off an' it's dug round, -an' took care of there'll be--" he stopped and lifted his face to look -up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him--"there'll be a fountain -o' roses here this summer." - -They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong -and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood -away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green -life in it. In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell -too, and when he cut through a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out -joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade of -moist green. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed -her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and -stirred the earth and let the air in. - -They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses -when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of -surprise. - -"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. "Who did that -there?" - -It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points. - -"I did it," said Mary. - -"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed. - -"I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so -thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe. So -I made a place for them. I don't even know what they are." - -Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile. - -"Tha' was right," he said. "A gardener couldn't have told thee better. -They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops, -an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch, "an' here's -daffydowndillys. Eh! they will be a sight." - -He ran from one clearing to another. - -"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking -her over. - -"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger. I used -always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell -the earth when it's turned up." - -"It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely. "There's -naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' -fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em. I get out on th' moor -many a day when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush an' listen to th' -soft swish o' drops on th' heather an' I just sniff an' sniff. My nose -end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says." - -"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly. She -had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one. - -"Not me," he said, grinning. "I never ketched cold since I was born. I -wasn't brought up nesh enough. I've chased about th' moor in all -weathers same as th' rabbits does. Mother says I've sniffed up too much -fresh air for twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with cold. I'm as -tough as a white-thorn knobstick." - -He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him -and helping him with her fork or the trowel. - -"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite -exultantly. - -"Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged. "I'm sure I can -help, too. I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me. -Oh! do come, Dickon!" - -"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered -stoutly. "It's th' best fun I ever had in my life--shut in here an' -wakenin' up a garden." - -"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive -I'll--I don't know what I'll do," she ended helplessly. What could you -do for a boy like that? - -"I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon, with his happy grin. -"Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll learn -how to talk to th' robin same as I do. Eh! we'll have a lot o' fun." - -He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and -bushes with a thoughtful expression. - -"I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped -an' spick an' span, would you?" he said. "It's nicer like this with -things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other." - -"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like -a secret garden if it was tidy." - -Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look. - -"It's a secret garden sure enough," he said, "but seems like some one -besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' -ago." - -"But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary. "No one -could get in." - -"That's true," he answered. "It's a queer place. Seems to me as if -there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an' there, later than ten year' -ago." - -"But how could it have been done?" said Mary. - -He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head. - -"Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th' door locked an' th' key -buried." - -Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should -never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Of -course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon -began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung -at her when he wanted to tease her. - -"Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired. - -"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, -"an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas." - -"Let us plant some," said Mary. - -"There's lilies o' th' valley here already; I saw 'em. They'll have -growed too close an' we'll have to separate 'em, but there's plenty. Th' -other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring you some -bits o' plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha' want 'em?" - -Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and -of how she had hated them and of their calling her "Mistress Mary Quite -Contrary." - -"They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang-- - - 'Mistress Mary, quite contrary, - How does your garden grow? - With silver bells, and cockle shells, - And marigolds all in a row.' - -I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers -like silver bells." - -She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the -earth. - -"I wasn't as contrary as they were." - -But Dickon laughed. - -"Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was -sniffing up the scent of it, "there doesn't seem to be no need for no -one to be contrary when there's flowers an' such like, an' such lots o' -friendly wild things runnin' about makin' homes for themselves, or -buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?" - -Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped -frowning. - -"Dickon," she said. "You are as nice as Martha said you were. I like -you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like five -people." - -Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the -grate. He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round -blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose. - -"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said. "Who is th' other four?" - -"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the -robin and Ben Weatherstaff." - -Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his -arm over his mouth. - -"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art th' -queerest little lass I ever saw." - -Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a -question she had never dreamed of asking any one before. And she tried -to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India a -native was always pleased if you knew his speech. - -"Does tha' like me?" she said. - -"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an' so -does th' robin, I do believe!" - -"That's two, then," said Mary. "That's two for me." - -And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary was -startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard strike -the hour of her midday dinner. - -"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And you will have to go too, -won't you?" - -Dickon grinned. - -"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said. "Mother always lets -me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket." - -He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy -little bundle tied up in a quiet clean, coarse, blue and white -handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of -something laid between them. - -"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice o' -fat bacon with it to-day." - -Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it. - -"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be done with mine first. -I'll get some more work done before I start back home." - -He sat down with his back against a tree. - -"I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and give him th' rind o' th' bacon -to peck at. They likes a bit o' fat wonderful." - -Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly it seemed as if he might -be a sort of wood fairy who might be gone when she came into the garden -again. He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-way to the -door in the wall and then she stopped and went back. - -"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said. - -His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread -and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly. - -"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does tha' -think I'd tell any one? Not me," he said. "Tha' art as safe as a missel -thrush." - -And she was quite sure she was. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -"MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" - - -Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her -room. Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright -pink. Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near -it. - -"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?" - -"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!" - -"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha' like him?" - -"I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice. - -Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too. - -"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never -thought he was handsome. His nose turns up too much." - -"I like it to turn up," said Mary. - -"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful. "Though -they're a nice color." - -"I like them round," said Mary. "And they are exactly the color of the -sky over the moor." - -Martha beamed with satisfaction. - -"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds -an' th' clouds. But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?" - -"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately. "I wish mine were just -like it." - -Martha chuckled delightedly. - -"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said. "But I knowed -it would be that way when tha' saw him. How did tha' like th' seeds an' -th' garden tools?" - -"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary. - -"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em. He'd be sure to bring 'em -if they was in Yorkshire. He's such a trusty lad." - -Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but she -did not. She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening tools, -and there was only one moment when Mary was frightened. This was when -she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted. - -"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired. - -"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating. - -"Well, I wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is." - -"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen under-gardeners and -Ben Weatherstaff." - -"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha. "He's not half -as bad as he looks, for all he's so crabbed. Mr. Craven lets him do what -he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he used to -make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he'd find you a corner somewhere -out o' the way." - -"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one _could_ mind my -having it, could they?" Mary said anxiously. - -"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha. "You wouldn't do no -harm." - -Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the -table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but -Martha stopped her. - -"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said. "I thought I'd let you eat -your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he -wants to see you." - -Mary turned quite pale. - -"Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I came. I heard -Pitcher say he didn't." - -"Well," explained Martha, "Mrs. Medlock says it's because o' mother. She -was walkin' to Thwaite village an' she met him. She'd never spoke to him -before, but Mrs. Craven had been to our cottage two or three times. He'd -forgot, but mother hadn't an' she made bold to stop him. I don't know -what she said to him about you but she said somethin' as put him in th' -mind to see you before he goes away again, to-morrow." - -"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away to-morrow? I am so glad!" - -"He's goin' for a long time. He mayn't come back till autumn or winter. -He's goin' to travel in foreign places. He's always doin' it." - -"Oh! I'm so glad--so glad!" said Mary thankfully. - -If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be -time to watch the secret garden come alive. Even if he found out then -and took it away from her she would have had that much at least. - -"When do you think he will want to see--" - -She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. -Medlock walked in. She had on her best black dress and cap, and her -collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man's face -on it. It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years -ago, and she always wore it when she was dressed up. She looked nervous -and excited. - -"Your hair's rough," she said quickly. "Go and brush it. Martha, help -her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him in -his study." - -All the pink left Mary's cheeks. Her heart began to thump and she felt -herself changing into a stiff, plain, silent child again. She did not -even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom, -followed by Martha. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and -her hair brushed, and after she was quite tidy she followed Mrs. Medlock -down the corridors, in silence. What was there for her to say? She was -obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and she -would not like him. She knew what he would think of her. - -She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At -last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door, and when some one said, "Come in," -they entered the room together. A man was sitting in an armchair before -the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him. - -"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said. - -"You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to -take her away," said Mr. Craven. - -When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a -plain little thing, twisting her thin hands together. She could see that -the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with high, -rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white. He -turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her. - -"Come here!" he said. - -Mary went to him. - -He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been so -miserable. He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him and -as if he did not know what in the world to do with her. - -"Are you well?" he asked. - -"Yes," answered Mary. - -"Do they take good care of you?" - -"Yes." - -He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over. - -"You are very thin," he said. - -"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest -way. - -What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely -saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly keep -his thoughts upon her. - -"I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember you? I intended to send -you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot." - -"Please," began Mary. "Please--" and then the lump in her throat choked -her. - -"What do you want to say?" he inquired. - -"I am--I am too big for a nurse," said Mary. "And please--please don't -make me have a governess yet." - -He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her. - -"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absent-mindedly. - -Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage. - -"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered. - -"Yes, I think so," he replied. - -"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. She knows." - -He seemed to rouse himself. - -"What do you want to do?" - -"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did -not tremble. "I never liked it in India. It makes me hungry here, and I -am getting fatter." - -He was watching her. - -"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will," he said. "She -thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess." - -"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor," -argued Mary. - -"Where do you play?" he asked next. - -"Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope. I -skip and run--and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick -up out of the earth. I don't do any harm." - -"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice. "You could not -do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like." - -Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see -the excited lump which she felt jump into it. She came a step nearer to -him. - -"May I?" she said tremulously. - -Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever. - -"Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed. "Of course you may. I am your -guardian, though I am a poor one for any child. I cannot give you time -or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I wish you -to be happy and comfortable. I don't know anything about children, but -Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need. I sent for you to-day -because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked -about you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and running -about." - -"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself. - -"She ought to," said Mr. Craven. "I thought her rather bold to stop me -on the moor, but she said--Mrs. Craven had been kind to her." It seemed -hard for him to speak his dead wife's name. "She is a respectable woman. -Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things. Play out of doors -as much as you like. It's a big place and you may go where you like and -amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?" as if a sudden -thought had struck him. "Do you want toys, books, dolls?" - -"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?" - -In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and -that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked -quite startled. - -"Earth!" he repeated. "What do you mean?" - -"To plant seeds in--to make things grow--to see them come alive," Mary -faltered. - -He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his -eyes. - -"Do you--care about gardens so much," he said slowly. - -"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary. "I was always ill and -tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and -stuck flowers in them. But here it is different." - -Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room. - -"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she -must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her -his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind. - -"You can have as much earth as you want," he said. "You remind me of -some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a -bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, "take it, child, -and make it come alive." - -"May I take it from anywhere--if it's not wanted?" - -"Anywhere," he answered. "There! You must go now, I am tired." He -touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. "Good-by. I shall be away all -summer." - -Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been -waiting in the corridor. - -"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I -understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before she -begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in the -garden. Don't look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh air -and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now and then and -she may sometimes go to the cottage." - -Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved to hear that she need not -"look after" Mary too much. She had felt her a tiresome charge and had -indeed seen as little of her as she dared. In addition to this she was -fond of Martha's mother. - -"Thank you, sir," she said. "Susan Sowerby and me went to school -together and she's as sensible and good-hearted a woman as you'd find in -a day's walk. I never had any children myself and she's had twelve, and -there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can get no harm from -them. I'd always take Susan Sowerby's advice about children myself. -She's what you might call healthy-minded--if you understand me." - -"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take Miss Mary away now and send -Pitcher to me." - -When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back -to her room. She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact, -hurried back after she had removed the dinner service. - -"I can have my garden!" cried Mary. "I may have it where I like! I am -not going to have a governess for a long time! Your mother is coming to -see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me could -not do any harm and I may do what I like--anywhere!" - -"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?" - -"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face is -so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together." - -She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so much -longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would have to -set out early on his five-mile walk. When she slipped through the door -under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left him. The -gardening tools were laid together under a tree. She ran to them, -looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen. He had -gone away and the secret garden was empty--except for the robin who had -just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush watching -her. - -"He's gone," she said wofully. "Oh! was he--was he--was he only a wood -fairy?" - -Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye. It -was a piece of paper--in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had -printed for Martha to send to Dickon. It was fastened on the bush with a -long thorn, and in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there. There -were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of picture. At first -she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest -with a bird sitting on it. Underneath were the printed letters and they -said: - -"I will cum bak." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -"I AM COLIN" - - -Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and -she showed it to Martha. - -"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never knew our Dickon was as -clever as that. That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest, -as large as life an' twice as natural." - -Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had -meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was -her nest and she was like a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that -queer, common boy! - -She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep -looking forward to the morning. - -But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly -in the springtime. She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain -beating with heavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in -torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and in the -chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable -and angry. - -"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it -knew I did not want it." - -She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not -cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she -hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again. The -mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she -had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it -"wuthered" and how the big rain-drops poured down and beat against the -pane! - -"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on -crying," she said. - - * * * * * - -She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour, -when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward -the door listening. She listened and she listened. - -"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper. "That isn't the -wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before." - -The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a -far-off faint sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes -and each minute she became more and more sure. She felt as if she must -find out what it was. It seemed even stranger than the secret garden and -the buried key. Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood made -her bold. She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor. - -"I am going to find out what it is," she said. "Everybody is in bed and -I don't care about Mrs. Medlock--I don't care!" - -There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out -of the room. The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was too -excited to mind that. She thought she remembered the corners she must -turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with tapestry--the -one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she lost herself. The sound -had come up that passage. So she went on with her dim light, almost -feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she fancied she could -hear it. The far-off faint crying went on and led her. Sometimes it -stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was this the right -corner to turn? She stopped and thought. Yes it was. Down this passage -and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to the right -again. Yes, there was the tapestry door. - -She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood -in the corridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was -not loud. It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few -yards farther on there was a door. She could see a glimmer of light -coming from beneath it. The Someone was crying in that room, and it was -quite a young Someone. - -So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing -in the room! - -It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. There was a -low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the -side of a carved four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was -lying a boy, crying fretfully. - -Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep -again and was dreaming without knowing it. - -The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to -have eyes too big for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over -his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He -looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were -tired and cross than as if he were in pain. - -Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her -breath. Then she crept across the room, and as she drew nearer the -light attracted the boy's attention and he turned his head on his pillow -and stared at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed -immense. - -[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU?--ARE YOU A GHOST?'"--_Page 157_] - -"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. "Are you a -ghost?" - -"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened. -"Are you one?" - -He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what -strange eyes he had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for -his face because they had black lashes all round them. - -"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so. "I am Colin." - -"Who is Colin?" she faltered. - -"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?" - -"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle." - -"He is my father," said the boy. - -"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why -didn't they?" - -"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with -an anxious expression. - -She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her. - -"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very -often. You might be one of them." - -Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she -put a piece of it between his fingers. - -"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said. "I will pinch you -a little if you like, to show you how real I am. For a minute I thought -you might be a dream too." - -"Where did you come from?" he asked. - -"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I -heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you -crying for?" - -"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your -name again." - -"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?" - -He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a -little more as if he believed in her reality. - -"No," he answered. "They daren't." - -"Why?" asked Mary. - -"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let people -see me and talk me over." - -"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment. - -"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father -won't let people talk me over either. The servants are not allowed to -speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live. My -father hates to think I may be like him." - -"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. "What a queer house! -Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are -locked up--and you! Have you been locked up?" - -"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it. It -tires me too much." - -"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured. - -"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn't want to see me." - -"Why?" Mary could not help asking again. - -A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face. - -"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me. -He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking. He almost hates -me." - -"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to -herself. - -"What garden?" the boy asked. - -"Oh! just--just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you -been here always?" - -"Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside, -but I won't stay because people stare at me. I used to wear an iron -thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from London to -see me and said it was stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me -out in the fresh air. I hate fresh air and I don't want to go out." - -"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking -at me like that?" - -"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully. -"Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake." - -"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced round the room with its high -ceiling and shadowy corners and dim firelight. "It looks quite like a -dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the house is -asleep--everybody but us. We are wide awake." - -"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly. - -Mary thought of something all at once. - -"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go -away?" - -He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull. - -"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you -are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk. I want to hear about -you." - -Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the -cushioned stool. She did not want to go away at all. She wanted to stay -in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy. - -"What do you want me to tell you?" she said. - -He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to -know which corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had been -doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had lived -before she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these questions and many -more and he lay back on his pillow and listened. He made her tell him a -great deal about India and about her voyage across the ocean. She found -out that because he had been an invalid he had not learned things as -other children had. One of his nurses had taught him to read when he was -quite little and he was always reading and looking at pictures in -splendid books. - -Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all -sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have -been amused, however. He could have anything he asked for and was never -made to do anything he did not like to do. - -"Every one is obliged to do what pleases me," he said indifferently. "It -makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to grow up." - -He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to -matter to him at all. He seemed to like the sound of Mary's voice. As -she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way. Once or -twice she wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze. But at -last he asked a question which opened up a new subject. - -"How old are you?" he asked. - -"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so -are you." - -"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice. - -"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was -buried. And it has been locked for ten years." - -Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows. - -"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he -exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested. - -"It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously. "He -locked the door. No one--no one knew where he buried the key." - -"What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly. - -"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's -careful answer. - -But it was too late to be careful. He was too much like herself. He too -had had nothing to think about and the idea of a hidden garden attracted -him as it had attracted her. He asked question after question. Where was -it? Had she never looked for the door? Had she never asked the -gardeners? - -"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told not -to answer questions." - -"I would make them," said Colin. - -"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could -make people answer questions, who knew what might happen! - -"Every one is obliged to please me. I told you that," he said. "If I -were to live, this place would sometime belong to me. They all know -that. I would make them tell me." - -Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see -quite plainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the -whole world belonged to him. How peculiar he was and how coolly he spoke -of not living. - -"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was -curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden. - -"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had spoken -before. "Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say I -shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now -they think I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin. He -is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my father -is dead. I should think he wouldn't want me to live." - -"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary. - -"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to die. -When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and cry." - -"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know -who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget -the garden. - -"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about -that garden. Don't you want to see it?" - -"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice. - -"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted to -see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want the key dug -up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in my -chair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them open -the door." - -He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like -stars and looked more immense than ever. - -"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I -will let you go, too." - -Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be -spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again -feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest. - -"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out. - -He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy! - -"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it." - -"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make -them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret -again." - -He leaned still farther forward. - -"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me." - -Mary's words almost tumbled over one another. - -"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if there -was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could -find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind -us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and -pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if -we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it -all come alive--" - -"Is it dead?" he interrupted her. - -"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will -live but the roses--" - -He stopped her again as excited as she was herself. - -"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly. - -"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the -earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming." - -"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in -rooms if you are ill." - -"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, -and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary. "If the -garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things -grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don't you see? -Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?" - -He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on -his face. - -"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to -grow up. They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret. But I -like this kind better." - -"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary, -"perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime. And -then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can -always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some boy -who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a -secret garden." - -"I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy. "I -should like that. I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden." - -Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of -keeping the secret seemed to please him. She felt almost sure that if -she kept on talking and could make him see the garden in his mind as she -had seen it he would like it so much that he could not bear to think -that everybody might tramp into it when they chose. - -"I'll tell you what I _think_ it would be like, if we could go into it," -she said. "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle -perhaps." - -He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the -roses which _might_ have clambered from tree to tree and hung -down--about the many birds which _might_ have built their nests there -because it was so safe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben -Weatherstaff, and there was so much to tell about the robin and it was -so easy and safe to talk about it that she ceased to feel afraid. The -robin pleased him so much that he smiled until he looked almost -beautiful, and at first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than -herself, with his big eyes and heavy locks of hair. - -"I did not know birds could be like that," he said. "But if you stay in -a room you never see things. What a lot of things you know. I feel as if -you had been inside that garden." - -She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He evidently -did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a surprise. - -"I am going to let you look at something," he said. "Do you see that -rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?" - -Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a -curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture. - -"Yes," she answered. - -"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin. "Go and pull it." - -Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the -silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a -picture. It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had -bright hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were -exactly like Colin's unhappy ones, agate gray and looking twice as big -as they really were because of the black lashes all round them. - -"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she died. -Sometimes I hate her for doing it." - -"How queer!" said Mary. - -"If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always," he -grumbled. "I dare say I should have lived, too. And my father would not -have hated to look at me. I dare say I should have had a strong back. -Draw the curtain again." - -Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool. - -"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like -yours--at least they are the same shape and color. Why is the curtain -drawn over her?" - -He moved uncomfortably. - -"I made them do it," he said. "Sometimes I don't like to see her looking -at me. She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable. Besides, she is -mine and I don't want every one to see her." - -There were a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke. - -"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she -inquired. - -"She would do as I told her to do," he answered. "And I should tell her -that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I am glad you -came." - -"So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often as I can, but"--she -hesitated--"I shall have to look every day for the garden door." - -"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward." - -He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke -again. - -"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said. "I will not tell them -until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room and say -that I want to be by myself. Do you know Martha?" - -"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary. "She waits on me." - -He nodded his head toward the outer corridor. - -"She is the one who is asleep in the other room. The nurse went away -yesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes Martha -attend to me when she wants to go out. Martha shall tell you when to -come here." - -Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked -questions about the crying. - -"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said. - -"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and -then Martha comes." - -"I have been here a long time," said Mary. "Shall I go away now? Your -eyes look sleepy." - -"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly. - -"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will -do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it -and sing something quite low." - -"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily. - -Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she -leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a -very low little chanting song in Hindustani. - -"That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting -and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were -lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast -asleep. So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without -making a sound. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -A YOUNG RAJAH - - -The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came and the rain had not -stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was -so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the -afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She -came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing -nothing else. - -"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' -looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." - -"I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary. - -Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled -eyes. - -"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!" - -"I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see -where it came from. It was Colin. I found him." - -Martha's face became red with fright. - -"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done -it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin' -about him--but tha'll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and -what'll mother do!" - -"You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We talked -and talked and he said he was glad I came." - -"Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's like -when anything vexes him. He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but when -he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us -daren't call our souls our own." - -"He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he -made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and -talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't -let me go. He let me see his mother's picture. Before I left him I sang -him to sleep." - -Martha fairly gasped with amazement. - -"I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested. "It's as if tha'd walked -straight into a lion's den. If he'd been like he is most times he'd have -throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th' house. He won't -let strangers look at him." - -"He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at -me. We stared!" said Mary. - -"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock finds -out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be packed -back to mother." - -"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It's to be -a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly. "And he says -everybody is obliged to do as he pleases." - -"Aye, that's true enough--th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her -forehead with her apron. - -"He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him -every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me." - -"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place--I shall for sure!" - -"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is -ordered to obey him," Mary argued. - -"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was -nice to thee!" - -"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered. - -"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long -breath. - -"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India, -but I can't make it. I just went into his room and I was so surprised -to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and stared at -me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he -was. And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of the -night and not knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other -questions. And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must not." - -"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha. - -"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary. - -"Nobody knows for sure and certain," said Martha. "Mr. Craven went off -his head like when he was born. Th' doctors thought he'd have to be put -in a 'sylum. It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you. He -wouldn't set eyes on th' baby. He just raved and said it'd be another -hunchback like him and it'd better die." - -"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked. "He didn't look like one." - -"He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began all wrong. Mother said that -there was enough trouble and raging in th' house to set any child wrong. -They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been takin' care of -it--keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk. Once they made him -wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill. Then a big doctor -came to see him an' made them take it off. He talked to th' other doctor -quite rough--in a polite way. He said there'd been too much medicine and -too much lettin' him have his own way." - -"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary. - -"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha. "I won't say as he -hasn't been ill a good bit. He's had coughs an' colds that's nearly -killed him two or three times. Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he -had typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He'd been out of -his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't know -nothin', an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing -for him an' for everybody.' An' she looked at him an' there he was with -his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible as she was herself. She -didn't know what'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give -me some water an' stop talkin'.'" - -"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary. - -"Mother says there's no reason why any child should live that gets no -fresh air an' doesn't do nothin' but lie on his back an' read -picture-books an' take medicine. He's weak and hates th' trouble o' -bein' taken out o' doors, an' he gets cold so easy he says it makes him -ill." - -Mary sat and looked at the fire. - -"I wonder," she said slowly, "if it would not do him good to go out into -a garden and watch things growing. It did me good." - -"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they -took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He'd been readin' in a -paper about people gettin' somethin' he called 'rose cold' an' he began -to sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't know -th' rules passed by an' looked at him curious. He threw himself into a -passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to be a -hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an' was ill all night." - -"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said -Mary. - -"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha. "Tha' may as well know -that at th' start." - -Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting. - -"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said. "I -hope he's in a good temper." - -She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a -puzzled expression. - -"Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said. "He's up on his sofa with his -picture-books. He's told the nurse to stay away until six o'clock. I'm -to wait in the next room. Th' minute she was gone he called me to him -an' says, 'I want Mary Lennox to come and talk to me, and remember -you're not to tell any one.' You'd better go as quick as you can." - -Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as -much as she wanted to see Dickon, but she wanted to see him very much. - -There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in -the daylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed. There were -rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the walls -which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky -and falling rain. Colin looked rather like a picture himself. He was -wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded -cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek. - -"Come in," he said. "I've been thinking about you all morning." - -"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary. "You don't know how -frightened Martha is. She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me about -you and then she will be sent away." - -He frowned. - -"Go and tell her to come here," he said. "She is in the next room." - -Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. -Colin was still frowning. - -"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded. - -"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red. - -"Has Medlock to do what I please?" - -"Everybody has, sir," said Martha. - -"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock -send you away if she finds it out?" - -"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha. - -"I'll send _her_ away if she dares to say a word about such a thing," -said Master Craven grandly. "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you." - -"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir." - -"What I want is your duty," said Colin more grandly still. "I'll take -care of you. Now go away." - -When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at -him as if he had set her wondering. - -"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her. "What are you thinking -about?" - -"I am thinking about two things." - -"What are they? Sit down and tell me." - -"This is the first one," said Mary, seating herself on the big stool. -"Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds -and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you -spoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them--in a -minute. I think they would have been killed if they hadn't." - -"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first -tell me what the second thing was." - -"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon." - -"Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!" - -She might as well tell him, she thought. She could talk about Dickon -without mentioning the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha talk -about him. Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring -him nearer. - -"He is Martha's brother. He is twelve years old," she explained. "He is -not like any one else in the world. He can charm foxes and squirrels and -birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft -tune on a pipe and they come and listen." - -There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one -suddenly toward him. - -"There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this," he exclaimed. "Come and -look at it." - -The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he -turned to one of them. - -"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly. - -"He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained. "But he -doesn't call it Magic. He says it's because he lives on the moor so much -and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird -or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin -questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps." - -Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and -the spots on his cheeks burned. - -"Tell me some more about him," he said. - -"He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on. "And he knows where -foxes and badgers and otters live. He keeps them secret so that other -boys won't find their holes and frighten them. He knows about everything -that grows or lives on the moor." - -"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a great, -bare, dreary place?" - -"It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary. "Thousands of lovely -things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy -building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing -or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under -the earth or in the trees or heather. It's their world." - -"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at -her. - -"I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering. -"I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous. Martha told -me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel -as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the -heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey--and all -full of bees and butterflies." - -"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He -looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and -wondering what it was. - -"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary. - -"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone. - -Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold. - -"You might--sometime." - -He moved as if he were startled. - -"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die." - -"How do you know?" said Mary unsympathetically. She didn't like the way -he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic. She -felt rather as if he almost boasted about it. - -"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly. "They -are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice. They wish I -would, too." - -Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together. - -"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?" - -"The servants--and of course Dr. Craven because he would get -Misselthwaite and be rich instead of poor. He daren't say so, but he -always looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had typhoid fever his face -got quite fat. I think my father wishes it, too." - -"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately. - -That made Colin turn and look at her again. - -"Don't you?" he said. - -And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were -thinking. And there was quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both of -them thinking strange things children do not usually think of. - -"I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron -thing off," said Mary at last. "Did he say you were going to die?" - -"No." - -"What did he say?" - -"He didn't whisper," Colin answered. "Perhaps he knew I hated -whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud. He said, 'The lad -might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.' It -sounded as if he was in a temper." - -"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary -reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one -way or the other. "I believe Dickon would. He's always talking about -live things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill. -He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying--or looking down -at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and -they are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh -with his wide mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as red as cherries." - -She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed -at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes. - -"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it. -Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then we -will look at your pictures." - -It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to -talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people who -lived in it on sixteen shillings a week--and the children who got fat on -the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon's mother--and the -skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on it--and about pale green -points sticking up out of the black sod. And it was all so alive that -Mary talked more than she had ever talked before--and Colin both talked -and listened as he had never done either before. And they both began to -laugh over nothings as children will when they are happy together. And -they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if -they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old -creatures--instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who -believed that he was going to die. - -They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they -forgot about the time. They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben -Weatherstaff and his robin and Colin was actually sitting up as if he -had forgotten about his weak back when he suddenly remembered -something. - -"Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of," he said. -"We are cousins." - -It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered -this simple thing that they laughed more than ever, because they had got -into the humor to laugh at anything. And in the midst of the fun the -door opened and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock. - -Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back -because he had accidentally bumped against her. - -"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock, with her eyes almost starting -out of her head. "Good Lord!" - -"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward. "What does it mean?" - -Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again. Colin answered as if -neither the doctor's alarm nor Mrs. Medlock's terror were of the -slightest consequence. He was as little disturbed or frightened as if an -elderly cat and dog had walked into the room. - -"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said. "I asked her to come and talk -to me. I like her. She must come and talk to me whenever I send for -her." - -Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock. - -"Oh, sir," she panted. "I don't know how it's happened. There's not a -servant on the place that'd dare to talk--they all have their orders." - -"Nobody told her anything," said Colin, "she heard me crying and found -me herself. I am glad she came. Don't be silly, Medlock." - -Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain -that he dare not oppose his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt his -pulse. - -"I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not good -for you, my boy," he said. - -"I should be excited if she kept away," answered Colin, his eyes -beginning to look dangerously sparkling. "I am better. She makes me -better. The nurse must bring up her tea with mine. We will have tea -together." - -Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but -there was evidently nothing to be done. - -"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock. -"But"--thinking the matter over--"he looked better this morning before -she came into the room." - -"She came into the room last night. She stayed with me a long time. She -sang a Hindustani song to me and it made me go to sleep," said Colin. "I -was better when I wakened up. I wanted my breakfast. I want my tea now. -Tell nurse, Medlock." - -Dr. Craven did not stay very long. He talked to the nurse for a few -minutes when she came into the room and said a few words of warning to -Colin. He must not talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill; he -must not forget that he was very easily tired. Mary thought that there -seemed to be a number of uncomfortable things he was not to forget. - -Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on Dr. -Craven's face. - -"I _want_ to forget it," he said at last. "She makes me forget it. That -is why I want her." - -Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left the room. He gave a puzzled -glance at the little girl sitting on the large stool. She had become a -stiff, silent child again as soon as he entered and he could not see -what the attraction was. The boy actually did look brighter, -however--and he sighed rather heavily as he went down the corridor. - -"They are always wanting me to eat things when I don't want to," said -Colin, as the nurse brought in the tea and put it on the table by the -sofa. "Now, if you'll eat I will. Those muffins look so nice and hot. -Tell me about Rajahs." - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -NEST BUILDING - - -After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and -the sun which poured down was quite hot. Though there had been no chance -to see either the secret garden or Dickon, Mistress Mary had enjoyed -herself very much. The week had not seemed long. She had spent hours of -every day with Colin in his room, talking about Rajahs or gardens or -Dickon and the cottage on the moor. They had looked at the splendid -books and pictures and sometimes Mary had read things to Colin, and -sometimes he had read a little to her. When he was amused and interested -she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid at all, except that his -face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa. - -"You are a sly young one to listen and get out of your bed to go -following things up like you did that night," Mrs. Medlock said once. -"But there's no saying it's not been a sort of blessing to the lot of -us. He's not had a tantrum or a whining fit since you made friends. The -nurse was just going to give up the case because she was so sick of -him, but she says she doesn't mind staying now you've gone on duty with -her," laughing a little. - -In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the -secret garden. There were certain things she wanted to find out from -him, but she felt that she must find them out without asking him direct -questions. In the first place, as she began to like to be with him, she -wanted to discover whether he was the kind of boy you could tell a -secret to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently so -pleased with the idea of a garden no one knew anything about that she -thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had not known him long -enough to be sure. The second thing she wanted to find out was this: If -he could be trusted--if he really could--wouldn't it be possible to take -him to the garden without having any one find it out? The grand doctor -had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had said that he would -not mind fresh air in a secret garden. Perhaps if he had a great deal of -fresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw things growing he might -not think so much about dying. Mary had seen herself in the glass -sometimes lately when she had realized that she looked quite a different -creature from the child she had seen when she arrived from India. This -child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen a change in her. - -"Th' air from th' moor has done thee good already," she had said. -"Tha'rt not nigh so yeller and tha'rt not nigh so scrawny. Even tha' -hair doesn't slamp down on tha' head so flat. It's got some life in it -so as it sticks out a bit." - -"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter. I'm sure -there's more of it." - -"It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling it up a little round her -face. "Tha'rt not half so ugly when it's that way an' there's a bit o' -red in tha' cheeks." - -If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be -good for Colin. But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps he -would not like to see Dickon. - -"Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one -day. - -"I always hated it," he answered, "even when I was very little. Then -when they took me to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriage -everybody used to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and -then they would begin to whisper and I knew then they were saying I -shouldn't live to grow up. Then sometimes the ladies would pat my -cheeks and say 'Poor child!' Once when a lady did that I screamed out -loud and bit her hand. She was so frightened she ran away." - -"She thought you had gone mad like a dog," said Mary, not at all -admiringly. - -"I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning. - -"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your room?" -said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly. - -"I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he said. "You can't bite a -ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don't care." - -"Would you hate it if--if a boy looked at you?" Mary asked uncertainly. - -He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully. - -"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over -every word, "there's one boy I believe I shouldn't mind. It's that boy -who knows where the foxes live--Dickon." - -"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary. - -"The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over, -"perhaps that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer and I am -a boy animal." - -Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both -laughing a great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in -his hole very funny indeed. - -What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon. - - * * * * * - -On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very -early. The sun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and there -was something so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed -and ran to the window. She drew up the blinds and opened the window -itself and a great waft of fresh, scented air blew in upon her. The moor -was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had happened -to it. There were tender little fluting sounds here and there and -everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to tune up for a -concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun. - -"It's warm--warm!" she said. "It will make the green points push up and -up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle with -all their might under the earth." - -She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, -breathing big breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because she -remembered what Dickon's mother had said about the end of his nose -quivering like a rabbit's. - -"It must be very early," she said. "The little clouds are all pink and -I've never seen the sky look like this. No one is up. I don't even hear -the stable boys." - -A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet. - -"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!" - -She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her clothes -in five minutes. She knew a small side door which she could unbolt -herself and she flew down-stairs in her stocking feet and put on her -shoes in the hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the -door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she -was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with -the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the -fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree. She -clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so -blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light -that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that -thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran -around the shrubs and paths toward the secret garden. - -"It is all different already," she said. "The grass is greener and -things are sticking up everywhere and things are uncurling and green -buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come." - -The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which -bordered the walk by the lower wall. There were things sprouting and -pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually -here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the -stems of crocuses. Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen -how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing. - -When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, -she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw--caw of a crow -and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat -a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely -indeed. She had never seen a crow so close before and he made her a -little nervous, but the next moment he spread his wings and flapped away -across the garden. She hoped he was not going to stay inside and she -pushed the door open wondering if he would. When she got fairly into the -garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay because he had -alighted on a dwarf apple-tree, and under the apple-tree was lying a -little reddish animal with a bushy tail, and both of them were watching -the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was kneeling on the -grass working hard. - -Mary flew across the grass to him. - -"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early! -How could you! The sun has only just got up!" - -He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a -bit of the sky. - -"Eh!" he said. "I was up long before him. How could I have stayed abed! -Th' world's all fair begun again this mornin', it has. An' it's workin' -an' hummin' an' scratchin' an' pipin' an' nest-buildin' an' breathin' -out scents, till you've got to be out on it 'stead o' lyin' on your -back. When th' sun did jump up, th' moor went mad for joy, an' I was in -the midst of th' heather, an' I run like mad myself, shoutin' an' -singin'. An' I come straight here. I couldn't have stayed away. Why, th' -garden was lyin' here waitin'!" - -Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running -herself. - -"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!" - -Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed animal rose -from its place under the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing -once, flew down from its branch and settled quietly on his shoulder. - -"This is th' little fox cub," he said, rubbing the little reddish -animal's head. "It's named Captain. An' this here's Soot. Soot he flew -across th' moor with me an' Captain he run same as if th' hounds had -been after him. They both felt same as I did." - -Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary. -When Dickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and Captain -trotted quietly close to his side. - -"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an' -these! An' Eh! look at these here!" - -He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They had -come upon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange and -gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them. - -"You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her -head. "Flowers are so different." - -He looked puzzled but smiled. - -"Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a time that way when I come in -from th' moor after a day's roamin' an' she stood there at th' door in -th' sun, lookin' so glad an' comfortable." - -They ran from one part of the garden to another and found so many -wonders that they were obliged to remind themselves that they must -whisper or speak low. He showed her swelling leaf-buds on rose branches -which had seemed dead. He showed her ten thousand new green points -pushing through the mould. They put their eager young noses close to the -earth and sniffed its warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled -and laughed low with rapture until Mistress Mary's hair was as tumbled -as Dickon's and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his. - -There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in -the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it -was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted -through the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of -red-breasted bird with something hanging from its beak. Dickon stood -quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly -found themselves laughing in a church. - -"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire. "We munnot scarce -breathe. I knowed he was mate-huntin' when I seed him last. It's Ben -Weatherstaff's robin. He's buildin' his nest. He'll stay here if us -don't flight him." - -They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving. - -"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon. -"He'd be out with us for good if he got th' notion us was interferin' -now. He'll be a good bit different till all this is over. He's settin' -up housekeepin'. He'll be shyer an' readier to take things ill. He's got -no time for visitin' an' gossipin'. Us must keep still a bit an' try to -look as if us was grass an' trees an' bushes. Then when he's got used to -seein' us I'll chirp a bit an' he'll know us'll not be in his way." - -Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, -how to try to look like grass and trees and bushes. But he had said the -queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the -world, and she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched -him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it was possible for him to -quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat -wonderfully still, and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a -softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she could. - -"It's part o' th' springtime, this nest-buildin' is," he said. "I -warrant it's been goin' on in th' same way every year since th' world -was begun. They've got their way o' thinkin' and doin' things an' a -body had better not meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easier -than any other season if you're too curious." - -"If we talk about him I can't help looking at him," Mary said as softly -as possible. "We must talk of something else. There is something I want -to tell you." - -"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon. "What -is it tha's got to tell me?" - -"Well--do you know about Colin?" she whispered. - -He turned his head to look at her. - -"What does tha' know about him?" he asked. - -"I've seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. He wants -me to come. He says I'm making him forget about being ill and dying," -answered Mary. - -Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from -his round face. - -"I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right down glad. It makes me -easier. I knowed I must say nothin' about him an' I don't like havin' to -hide things." - -"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary. - -"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But I says to mother, -'Mother,' I says, 'I got a secret to keep. It's not a bad 'un, tha' -knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where a bird's nest is. Tha' -doesn't mind it, does tha'?'" - -Mary always wanted to hear about mother. - -"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear. - -Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly. - -"It was just like her, what she said," he answered. "She give my head a -bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can have all th' -secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'" - -"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary. - -"Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad -as was like to be a cripple, an' they knowed Mester Craven didn't like -him to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs. -Craven was such a pretty young lady an' they was so fond of each other. -Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she -doesn't mind talkin' to mother before us children, because she knows us -has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha' find out about him? -Martha was in fine trouble th' last time she came home. She said tha'd -heard him frettin' an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't know -what to say." - -Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which -had wakened her and about the faint far-off sounds of the complaining -voice which had led her down the dark corridors with her candle and had -ended with her opening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the -carven four-posted bed in the corner. When she described the small -ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed eyes Dickon shook his -head. - -"Them's just like his mother's eyes, only hers was always laughin', they -say," he said. "They say as Mr. Craven can't bear to see him when he's -awake an' it's because his eyes is so like his mother's an' yet looks so -different in his miserable bit of a face." - -"Do you think he wants him to die?" whispered Mary. - -"No, but he wishes he'd never been born. Mother she says that's th' -worst thing on earth for a child. Them as is not wanted scarce ever -thrives. Mester Craven he'd buy anythin' as money could buy for th' poor -lad but he'd like to forget as he's on earth. For one thing, he's afraid -he'll look at him some day and find he's growed hunchback." - -"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't sit up," said Mary. "He -says he's always thinking that if he should feel a lump coming he -should go crazy and scream himself to death." - -"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon. -"No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things." - -The fox was lying on the grass close by him looking up to ask for a pat -now and then, and Dickon bent down and rubbed his neck softly and -thought a few minutes in silence. Presently he lifted his head and -looked round the garden. - -"When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was -gray. Look round now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference." - -Mary looked and caught her breath a little. - -"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing. It is as if a green mist -were creeping over it. It's almost like a green gauze veil." - -"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's -all gone. Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?" - -"I know it was something nice," said Mary eagerly. "I believe it was -something about Colin." - -"I was thinkin' that if he was out here he wouldn't be watchin' for -lumps to grow on his back; he'd be watchin' for buds to break on th' -rose-bushes, an' he'd likely be healthier," explained Dickon. "I was -wonderin' if us could ever get him in th' humor to come out here an' -lie under th' trees in his carriage." - -"I've been wondering that myself. I've thought of it almost every time -I've talked to him," said Mary. "I've wondered if he could keep a secret -and I've wondered if we could bring him here without any one seeing us. -I thought perhaps you could push his carriage. The doctor said he must -have fresh air and if he wants us to take him out no one dare disobey -him. He won't go out for other people and perhaps they will be glad if -he will go out with us. He could order the gardeners to keep away so -they wouldn't find out." - -Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back. - -"It'd be good for him, I'll warrant," he said. "Us'd not be thinkin' -he'd better never been born. Us'd be just two children watchin' a garden -grow, an' he'd be another. Two lads an' a little lass just lookin' on at -th' springtime. I warrant it'd be better than doctor's stuff." - -"He's been lying in his room so long and he's always been so afraid of -his back that it has made him queer," said Mary. "He knows a good many -things out of books but he doesn't know anything else. He says he has -been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doors and hates -gardens and gardeners. But he likes to hear about this garden because -it is a secret. I daren't tell him much but he said he wanted to see -it." - -"Us'll have him out here sometime for sure," said Dickon. "I could push -his carriage well enough. Has tha' noticed how th' robin an' his mate -has been workin' while we've been sittin' here? Look at him perched on -that branch wonderin' where it'd be best to put that twig he's got in -his beak." - -He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and -looked at him inquiringly, still holding his twig. Dickon spoke to him -as Ben Weatherstaff did, but Dickon's tone was one of friendly advice. - -"Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll be all right. Tha' knew how -to build tha' nest before tha' came out o' th' egg. Get on with thee, -lad. Tha'st got no time to lose." - -"Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!" Mary said, laughing -delightedly. "Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and makes fun of him, and he -hops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he likes -it. Ben Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones -thrown at him than not be noticed." - -Dickon laughed too and went on talking. - -"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin. "Us is near -bein' wild things ourselves. Us is nest-buildin' too, bless thee. Look -out tha' doesn't tell on us." - -And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary -knew that when he flew away with his twig to his own corner of the -garden the darkness of his dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell -their secret for the world. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -"I WON'T!" SAID MARY - - -They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in -returning to the house and was also in such a hurry to get back to her -work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment. - -"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha. "I'm -very busy in the garden." - -Martha looked rather frightened. - -"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell -him that." - -But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a -self-sacrificing person. - -"I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting for me;" and she ran -away. - -The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. -Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of -the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon had brought a -spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that -by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild place was not -likely to become a "gardener's garden" it would be a wilderness of -growing things before the springtime was over. - -"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead," Dickon said, -working away with all his might. "An' there'll be peach an' plum trees -in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll be a carpet o' flowers." - -The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the -robin and his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of -lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away -over the tree-tops in the park. Each time he came back and perched near -Dickon and cawed several times as if he were relating his adventures, -and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the robin. Once when -Dickon was so busy that he did not answer him at first, Soot flew on to -his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with his large beak. When Mary -wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once -he took his pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strange little -notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened. - -"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking at her -as she was digging. "Tha's beginning to look different, for sure." - -Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits. - -"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite exultantly. -"Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses. Martha says my -hair is growing thicker. It isn't so flat and stringy." - -The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays slanting -under the trees when they parted. - -"It'll be fine to-morrow," said Dickon. "I'll be at work by sunrise." - -"So will I," said Mary. - - * * * * * - -She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her. She -wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox cub and the rook and about what -the springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear. So -it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see -Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful face. - -"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did Colin say when you told him I -couldn't come?" - -"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He was nigh goin' into one o' -his tantrums. There's been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him quiet. -He would watch the clock all th' time." - -Mary's lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used to -considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why an -ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She -knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and -nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers and -need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had a -headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else also -had a headache or something quite as bad. And she felt she was quite -right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong. - -He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying flat on -his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she came in. -This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff -manner. - -"Why didn't you get up?" she said. - -"I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming," he answered, -without looking at her. "I made them put me back in bed this afternoon. -My back ached and my head ached and I was tired. Why didn't you come?" - -"I was working in the garden with Dickon," said Mary. - -Colin frowned and condescended to look at her. - -"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of -coming to talk to me," he said. - -Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion without -making a noise. She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what -happened. - -"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!" she -retorted. - -"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin. - -"I won't!" said Mary. - -"I'll make you," said Colin, "They shall drag you in." - -"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely. "They may drag me in but -they can't make me talk when they get me here. I'll sit and clench my -teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't even look at you. I'll stare -at the floor!" - -They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other. If they -had been two little street boys they would have sprung at each other and -had a rough-and-tumble fight. As it was, they did the next thing to it. - -"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin. - -"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people always say that. Any one is -selfish who doesn't do what they want. You're more selfish than I am. -You're the most selfish boy I ever saw." - -"I'm not!" snapped Colin. "I'm not as selfish as your fine Dickon is! He -keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all by myself. He's -selfish, if you like!" - -Mary's eyes flashed fire. - -"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said. "He's--he's -like an angel!" It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not -care. - -"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously. "He's a common cottage boy -off the moor!" - -"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary. "He's a thousand times -better!" - -Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get the -better of him. The truth was that he had never had a fight with any one -like himself in his life and, upon the whole, it was rather good for -him, though neither he nor Mary knew anything about that. He turned his -head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big tear was squeezed out and -ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel pathetic and sorry for -himself--not for any one else. - -"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there -is a lump coming on my back," he said. "And I am going to die besides." - -"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically. - -He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never heard such -a thing said before. He was at once furious and slightly pleased, if a -person could be both at the same time. - -"I'm not?" he cried. "I am! You know I am! Everybody says so." - -"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly. "You just say that to make -people sorry. I believe you're proud of it. I don't believe it! If you -were a nice boy it might be true--but you're too nasty!" - -In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy -rage. - -"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his pillow and -threw it at her. He was not strong enough to throw it far and it only -fell at her feet, but Mary's face looked as pinched as a nutcracker. - -"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!" - -She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned round and -spoke again. - -"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said. "Dickon -brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you all about -them. Now I won't tell you a single thing!" - -She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her -great astonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if she had -been listening and, more amazing still--she was laughing. She was a big -handsome young woman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at all, -as she could not bear invalids and she was always making excuses to -leave Colin to Martha or any one else who would take her place. Mary had -never liked her, and she simply stood and gazed up at her as she stood -giggling into her handkerchief. - -"What are you laughing at?" she asked her. - -"At you two young ones," said the nurse. "It's the best thing that could -happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one to stand up to him -that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into her handkerchief -again. "If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight with it would -have been the saving of him." - -"Is he going to die?" - -"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse. "Hysterics and temper -are half what ails him." - -"What are hysterics?" asked Mary. - -"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this--but at any -rate you've given him something to have hysterics about, and I'm glad -of it." - -Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she -had come in from the garden. She was cross and disappointed but not at -all sorry for Colin. She had looked forward to telling him a great many -things and she had meant to try to make up her mind whether it would be -safe to trust him with the great secret. She had been beginning to think -it would be, but now she had changed her mind entirely. She would never -tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and -die if he liked! It would serve him right! She felt so sour and -unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost forgot about Dickon and -the green veil creeping over the world and the soft wind blowing down -from the moor. - -Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been -temporarily replaced by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden box -on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it was -full of neat packages. - -"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha. "It looks as if it had -picture-books in it." - -Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room. -"Do you want anything--dolls--toys--books?" She opened the package -wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what she should do -with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were several beautiful -books such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens and were -full of pictures. There were two or three games and there was a -beautiful little writing-case with a gold monogram on it and a gold pen -and inkstand. - -Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out of -her mind. She had not expected him to remember her at all and her hard -little heart grew quite warm. - -"I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first thing I -shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am much -obliged." - -If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her -presents at once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read -some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he -would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he -was going to die or have put his hand on his spine to see if there was a -lump coming. He had a way of doing that which she could not bear. It -gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always looked so -frightened himself. He said that if he felt even quite a little lump -some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow. Something he had -heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him the idea and he -had thought over it in secret until it was quite firmly fixed in his -mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his father's back had begun to show its -crookedness in that way when he was a child. He had never told any one -but Mary that most of his "tantrums" as they called them grew out of his -hysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had told -her. - -"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she said -to herself. "And he has been cross to-day. Perhaps--perhaps he has been -thinking about it all afternoon." - -She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking. - -"I said I would never go back again--" she hesitated, knitting her -brows--"but perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see--if he wants me--in -the morning. Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me again, but--I -think--I'll go." - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -A TANTRUM - - -She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the -garden and she was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought -her supper and she had eaten it, she was glad to go to bed. As she laid -her head on the pillow she murmured to herself: - -"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterward--I -believe--I'll go to see him." - -She thought it was the middle of the night when she was wakened by such -dreadful sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant. What was -it--what was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors -were opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and -some one was crying and screaming at the same time, screaming and crying -in a horrible way. - -"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse -called hysterics. How awful it sounds." - -As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people -were so frightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather -than hear them. She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and -shivering. - -"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," she kept saying. "I -can't bear it." - -Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she -remembered how he had driven her out of the room and thought that -perhaps the sight of her might make him worse. Even when she pressed her -hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep the awful sounds -out. She hated them so and was so terrified by them that suddenly they -began to make her angry and she felt as if she should like to fly into a -tantrum herself and frighten him as he was frightening her. She was not -used to any one's tempers but her own. She took her hands from her ears -and sprang up and stamped her foot. - -"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody ought -to beat him!" she cried out. - -Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door -opened and the nurse came in. She was not laughing now by any means. She -even looked rather pale. - -"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry. "He'll -do himself harm. No one can do anything with him. You come and try, -like a good child. He likes you." - -"He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her -foot with excitement. - -The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth was that she had been -afraid she might find Mary crying and hiding her head under the -bed-clothes. - -"That's right," she said. "You're in the right humor. You go and scold -him. Give him something new to think of. Do go, child, as quick as ever -you can." - -It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been -funny as well as dreadful--that it was funny that all the grown-up -people were so frightened that they came to a little girl just because -they guessed she was almost as bad as Colin himself. - -She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the -higher her temper mounted. She felt quite wicked by the time she reached -the door. She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to -the four-posted bed. - -"You stop!" she almost shouted. "You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates -you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you scream -yourself to death! You _will_ scream yourself to death in a minute, and -I wish you would!" - -A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought nor said such -things, but it just happened that the shock of hearing them was the best -possible thing for this hysterical boy whom no one had ever dared to -restrain or contradict. - -He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he -actually almost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the -furious little voice. His face looked dreadful, white and red and -swollen, and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary did not -care an atom. - -"If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll scream too--and I can -scream louder than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten you!" - -He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so. The -scream which had been coming almost choked him. The tears were streaming -down his face and he shook all over. - -"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed. "I can't--I can't!" - -"You can!" shouted Mary. "Half that ails you is hysterics and -temper--just hysterics--hysterics--hysterics!" and she stamped each time -she said it. - -"I felt the lump--I felt it," choked out Colin. "I knew I should. I -shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die," and he began to -writhe again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't -scream. - -"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely. "If you did it was -only a hysterical lump. Hysterics makes lumps. There's nothing the -matter with your horrid back--nothing but hysterics! Turn over and let -me look at it!" - -She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow as if it had an effect -on him. He was probably like herself and had never heard it before. - -"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his back this minute!" - -The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together -near the door staring at her, their mouths half open. All three had -gasped with fright more than once. The nurse came forward as if she were -half afraid. Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs. - -"Perhaps he--he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice. - -Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs: - -"Sh--show her! She--she'll see then!" - -It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could be -counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not count -them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little -face. She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her -head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth. There was just a minute's -silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while Mary looked up -and down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if she had been the -great doctor from London. - -"There's not a single lump there!" she said at last. "There's not a lump -as big as a pin--except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them -because you're thin. I've got backbone lumps myself, and they used to -stick out as much as yours do, until I began to get fatter, and I am not -fat enough yet to hide them. There's not a lump as big as a pin! If you -ever say there is again, I shall laugh!" - -No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish -words had on him. If he had ever had any one to talk to about his secret -terrors--if he had ever dared to let himself ask questions--if he had -had childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge closed -house, breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people who were -most of them ignorant and tired of him, he would have found out that -most of his fright and illness was created by himself. But he had lain -and thought of himself and his aches and weariness for hours and days -and months and years. And now that an angry unsympathetic little girl -insisted obstinately that he was not as ill as he thought he was he -actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth. - -"I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that he thought he had a lump on -his spine. His back is weak because he won't try to sit up. I could have -told him there was no lump there." - -Colin gulped and turned his face a little to look at her. - -"C-could you?" he said pathetically. - -"Yes, sir." - -"There!" said Mary, and she gulped too. - -Colin turned on his face again and but for his long-drawn broken -breaths, which were the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he lay still -for a minute, though great tears streamed down his face and wet the -pillow. Actually the tears meant that a curious great relief had come to -him. Presently he turned and looked at the nurse again and strangely -enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he spoke to her. - -"Do you think--I could--live to grow up?" he said. - -The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some -of the London doctor's words. - -"You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give -way to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air." - -Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying and -this perhaps made him feel gentle. He put out his hand a little toward -Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantrum having passed, she was -softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort -of making up. - -"I'll--I'll go out with you, Mary," he said. "I shan't hate fresh air if -we can find--" He remembered just in time to stop himself from saying -"if we can find the secret garden" and he ended, "I shall like to go out -with you if Dickon will come and push my chair. I do so want to see -Dickon and the fox and the crow." - -The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the pillows. -Then she made Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to Mary, who really -was very glad to get it after her excitement. Mrs. Medlock and Martha -gladly slipped away, and after everything was neat and calm and in order -the nurse looked as if she would very gladly slip away also. She was a -healthy young woman who resented being robbed of her sleep and she -yawned quite openly as she looked at Mary, who had pushed her big -footstool close to the four-posted bed and was holding Colin's hand. - -"You must go back and get your sleep out," she said. "He'll drop off -after a while--if he's not too upset. Then I'll lie down myself in the -next room." - -"Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?" Mary -whispered to Colin. - -His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her -appealingly. - -"Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft song. I shall go to sleep in a -minute." - -"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse. "You can go -if you like." - -"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. "If he doesn't go -to sleep in half an hour you must call me." - -"Very well," answered Mary. - -The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone -Colin pulled Mary's hand again. - -"I almost told," he said; "but I stopped myself in time. I won't talk -and I'll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lot of nice things to -tell me. Have you--do you think you have found out anything at all about -the way into the secret garden?" - -Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heart -relented. - -"Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have. And if you will go to sleep I -will tell you to-morrow." - -His hand quite trembled. - -"Oh, Mary!" he said. "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should -live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah -song--you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you -imagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep." - -"Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes." - -He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began -to speak very slowly and in a very low voice. - -"I think it has been left alone so long--that it has grown all into a -lovely tangle. I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed -until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the -ground--almost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but -many--are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and -fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and -snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. Now the -spring has begun--perhaps--perhaps--" - -The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she -saw it and went on. - -"Perhaps they are coming up through the grass--perhaps there are -clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones--even now. Perhaps the leaves -are beginning to break out and uncurl--and perhaps--the gray is changing -and a green gauze veil is creeping--and creeping over--everything. And -the birds are coming to look at it--because it is--so safe and still. -And perhaps--perhaps--perhaps--" very softly and slowly indeed, "the -robin has found a mate--and is building a nest." - -And Colin was asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -"THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME" - - -Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning. She slept late -because she was tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told -her that though Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he -always was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate -her breakfast slowly as she listened. - -"He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon as tha' -can," Martha said. "It's queer what a fancy he's took to thee. Tha' did -give it him last night for sure--didn't tha'? Nobody else would have -dared to do it. Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save -him. Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is -never to have his own way--or always to have it. She doesn't know which -is th' worst. Tha' was in a fine temper tha'self, too. But he says to me -when I went into his room, 'Please ask Miss Mary if she'll please come -an' talk to me?' Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" - -"I'll run and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin -first and tell him--I know what I'll tell him," with a sudden -inspiration. - -She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room and for a second he -looked disappointed. He was in bed and his face was pitifully white and -there were dark circles round his eyes. - -"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache all over because -I'm so tired. Are you going somewhere?" - -Mary went and leaned against his bed. - -"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon, but I'll come back. -Colin, it's--it's something about the secret garden." - -His whole face brightened and a little color came into it. - -"Oh! is it!" he cried out. "I dreamed about it all night. I heard you -say something about gray changing into green, and I dreamed I was -standing in a place all filled with trembling little green leaves--and -there were birds on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still. -I'll lie and think about it until you come back." - -In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden. The fox and the -crow were with him again and this time he had brought two tame -squirrels. - -"I came over on the pony this mornin'," he said. "Eh! he is a good -little chap--Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets. This here one -he's called Nut an' this here other one's called Shell." - -When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right shoulder and when -he said "Shell" the other one leaped on to his left shoulder. - -When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at their feet, Soot -solemnly listening on a tree and Nut and Shell nosing about close to -them, it seemed to Mary that it would be scarcely bearable to leave such -delightfulness, but when she began to tell her story somehow the look in -Dickon's funny face gradually changed her mind. She could see he felt -sorrier for Colin than she did. He looked up at the sky and all about -him. - -"Just listen to them birds--th' world seems full of 'em--all whistlin' -an' pipin'," he said. "Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken at 'em -callin' to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th' world's -callin'. The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see 'em--an', my word, th' -nice smells there is about!" sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. -"An' that poor lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets to -thinkin' o' things as sets him screamin'. Eh! my! we mun get him out -here--we mun get him watchin' an' listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an' -get him just soaked through wi' sunshine. An' we munnot lose no time -about it." - -When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire -though at other times he tried to modify his dialect so that Mary could -better understand. But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact -been trying to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke a little now. - -"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed, we must"). "I'll -tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded, and Dickon grinned, -because when the little wench tried to twist her tongue into speaking -Yorkshire it amused him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee. -He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain. When I go -back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see -him to-morrow mornin'--an' bring tha' creatures wi' thee--an' then--in a -bit, when there's more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two, we'll get -him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll bring him -here an' show him everything." - -When she stopped she was quite proud of herself. She had never made a -long speech in Yorkshire before and she had remembered very well. - -"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin," Dickon -chuckled. "Tha'll make him laugh an' there's nowt as good for ill folk -as laughin' is. Mother says she believes as half a hour's good laugh -every mornin' 'ud cure a chap as was makin' ready for typhus fever." - -"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day," said Mary, chuckling -herself. - -The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it seemed -as if Magicians were passing through it drawing loveliness out of the -earth and the boughs with wands. It was hard to go away and leave it -all, particularly as Nut had actually crept on to her dress and Shell -had scrambled down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under and stayed -there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back to the house -and when she sat down close to Colin's bed he began to sniff as Dickon -did though not in such an experienced way. - -"You smell like flowers and--and fresh things," he cried out quite -joyously. "What is it you smell of? It's cool and warm and sweet all at -the same time." - -"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin' on th' -grass under a tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an' Soot an' Nut an' -Shell. It's th' springtime an' out o' doors an' sunshine as smells so -graidely." - -She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know how broadly -Yorkshire sounds until you have heard some one speak it. Colin began to -laugh. - -"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk like that before. -How funny it sounds." - -"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered Mary triumphantly. "I -canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an' Martha can but tha' sees I can -shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit o' Yorkshire when tha' hears -it? An' tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel' bred an' born! Eh! I wonder tha'rt -not ashamed o' thy face." - -And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could -not stop themselves and they laughed until the room echoed and Mrs. -Medlock opening the door to come in drew back into the corridor and -stood listening amazed. - -"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshire herself -because there was no one to hear her and she was so astonished. "Whoever -heard th' like! Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!" - -There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin could never hear -enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot and Nut and Shell and the pony -whose name was Jump. Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see -Jump. He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging -over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling velvet nose. He was -rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough and wiry as if -the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel springs. He had -lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment he saw Dickon and he had -trotted up to him and put his head across his shoulder and then Dickon -had talked into his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies -and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him give Mary his small front hoof -and kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle. - -"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?" Colin asked. - -"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says anything will -understand if you're friends with it for sure, but you have to be -friends for sure." - -Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be -staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was thinking. - -"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last, "but I'm not. I -never had anything to be friends with, and I can't bear people." - -"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary. - -"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's very funny but I even like you." - -"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary. "He said he'd warrant -we'd both got the same nasty tempers. I think you are like him too. We -are all three alike--you and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we were -neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked. But I -don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin and Dickon." - -"Did you feel as if you hated people?" - -"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation. "I should have detested -you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon." - -Colin put out his thin hand and touched her. - -"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about sending Dickon -away. I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at -you but--but perhaps he is." - -"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly, "because -his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have -patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but--but if an angel -did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor--if there was a Yorkshire -angel--I believe he'd understand the green things and know how to make -them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon -does and they'd know he was friends for sure." - -"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin; "I want to see -him." - -"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because--because--" - -Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell -him. Colin knew something new was coming. - -"Because what?" he cried eagerly. - -Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and -caught hold of both his hands. - -"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I -trust you--for sure--_for sure_?" she implored. - -Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer. - -"Yes--yes!" - -"Well, Dickon will come to see you to-morrow morning, and he'll bring -his creatures with him." - -"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight. - -"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with solemn excitement. -"The rest is better. There is a door into the garden. I found it. It is -under the ivy on the wall." - -If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted -"Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he was weak and rather hysterical; his -eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped for breath. - -"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see it? Shall I get -into it? Shall I _live_ to get into it?" and he clutched her hands and -dragged her toward him. - -"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly. "Of course you'll -live to get into it! Don't be silly!" - -And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish that she brought -him to his senses and he began to laugh at himself and a few minutes -afterward she was sitting on her stool again telling him not what she -imagined the secret garden to be like but what it really was, and -Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten and he was listening -enraptured. - -"It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last. "It sounds -just as if you had really seen it. You know I said that when you told me -first." - -Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth. - -"I had seen it--and I had been in," she said. "I found the key and got -in weeks ago. But I daren't tell you--I daren't because I was so afraid -I couldn't trust you--_for sure_!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -"IT HAS COME!" - - -Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had -his tantrum. He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred -and he always found, when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his -bed, sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break into fresh -sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the -difficulties of these visits. On this occasion he was away from -Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon. - -"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived. "He -will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day. The boy is half -insane with hysteria and self-indulgence." - -"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes -when you see him. That plain sour-faced child that's almost as bad as -himself has just bewitched him. How she's done it there's no telling. -The Lord knows she's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear her -speak, but she did what none of us dare do. She just flew at him like a -little cat last night, and stamped her feet and ordered him to stop -screaming, and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop, -and this afternoon--well just come up and see, sir. It's past -crediting." - -The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his patient's room was -indeed rather astonishing to him. As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he -heard laughing and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his -dressing-gown and he was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture -in one of the garden books and talking to the plain child who at that -moment could scarcely be called plain at all because her face was so -glowing with enjoyment. - -"Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those," Colin was -announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums." - -"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Mistress Mary. -"There are clumps there already." - -Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite still and Colin -looked fretful. - -"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy," Dr. Craven said a -trifle nervously. He was rather a nervous man. - -"I'm better now--much better," Colin answered, rather like a Rajah. -"I'm going out in my chair in a day or two if it is fine. I want some -fresh air." - -Dr. Craven sat down by him and felt his pulse and looked at him -curiously. - -"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not -to tire yourself." - -"Fresh air won't tire me," said the young Rajah. - -As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman had shrieked -aloud with rage and had insisted that fresh air would give him cold and -kill him, it is not to be wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat -startled. - -"I thought you did not like fresh air," he said. - -"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah; "but my cousin is -going out with me." - -"And the nurse, of course?" suggested Dr. Craven. - -"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Mary could not -help remembering how the young native Prince had looked with his -diamonds and emeralds and pearls stuck all over him and the great rubies -on the small dark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach -with salaams and receive his orders. - -"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when she is -with me. She made me better last night. A very strong boy I know will -push my carriage." - -Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome hysterical boy should -chance to get well he himself would lose all chance of inheriting -Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak -one, and he did not intend to let him run into actual danger. - -"He must be a strong boy and a steady boy," he said. "And I must know -something about him. Who is he? What is his name?" - -"It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow that everybody -who knew the moor must know Dickon. And she was right, too. She saw that -in a moment Dr. Craven's serious face relaxed into a relieved smile. - -"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you will be safe enough. He's as -strong as a moor pony, is Dickon." - -"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest lad i' Yorkshire." She -had been talking Yorkshire to Colin and she forgot herself. - -"Did Dickon teach you that?" asked Dr. Craven, laughing outright. - -"I'm learning it as if it was French," said Mary rather coldly. "It's -like a native dialect in India. Very clever people try to learn them. I -like it and so does Colin." - -"Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't do you any -harm. Did you take your bromide last night, Colin?" - -"No," Colin answered. "I wouldn't take it at first and after Mary made -me quiet she talked me to sleep--in a low voice--about the spring -creeping into a garden." - -"That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more perplexed than ever and -glancing sideways at Mistress Mary sitting on her stool and looking down -silently at the carpet. "You are evidently better, but you must -remember--" - -"I don't want to remember," interrupted the Rajah, appearing again. -"When I lie by myself and remember I begin to have pains everywhere and -I think of things that make me begin to scream because I hate them so. -If there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget you were ill -instead of remembering it I would have him brought here." And he waved a -thin hand which ought really to have been covered with royal signet -rings made of rubies. "It is because my cousin makes me forget that she -makes me better." - -Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a "tantrum"; usually -he was obliged to remain a very long time and do a great many things. -This afternoon he did not give any medicine or leave any new orders and -he was spared any disagreeable scenes. When he went down-stairs he -looked very thoughtful and when he talked to Mrs. Medlock in the library -she felt that he was a much puzzled man. - -"Well, sir," she ventured, "could you have believed it?" - -"It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor. "And there's -no denying it is better than the old one." - -"I believe Susan Sowerby's right--I do that," said Mrs. Medlock. "I -stopped in her cottage on my way to Thwaite yesterday and had a bit of -talk with her. And she says to me, 'Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a -good child, an' she mayn't be a pretty one, but she's a child, an' -children needs children.' We went to school together, Susan Sowerby and -me." - -"She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr. Craven. "When I find her in -a cottage I know the chances are that I shall save my patient." - -Mrs. Medlock smiled. She was fond of Susan Sowerby. - -"She's got a way with her, has Susan," she went on quite volubly. "I've -been thinking all morning of one thing she said yesterday. She says, -'Once when I was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd been -fightin' I ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my jography told as -th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out before I was ten -that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than -his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow -quarters to go round. But don't you--none o' you--think as you own th' -whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it -out without hard knocks." What children learns from children,' she says, -'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th' whole orange--peel an' all. -If you do you'll likely not get even th' pips, an' them's too bitter to -eat.'" - -"She's a shrewd woman," said Dr. Craven, putting on his coat. - -"Well, she's got a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock, much -pleased. "Sometimes I've said to her, 'Eh! Susan, if you was a different -woman an' didn't talk such broad Yorkshire I've seen the times when I -should have said you was clever.'" - - * * * * * - -That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his -eyes in the morning he lay still and smiled without knowing it--smiled -because he felt so curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be -awake, and he turned over and stretched his limbs luxuriously. He felt -as if tight strings which had held him had loosened themselves and let -him go. He did not know that Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves -had relaxed and rested themselves. Instead of lying and staring at the -wall and wishing he had not awakened, his mind was full of the plans he -and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden and of Dickon and -his wild creatures. It was so nice to have things to think about. And he -had not been awake more than ten minutes when he heard feet running -along the corridor and Mary was at the door. The next minute she was in -the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of -fresh air full of the scent of the morning. - -"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!" -he cried. - -She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright -with the air and pink-cheeked, though he could not see it. - -"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed. "You -never saw anything so beautiful! It has _come_! I thought it had come -that other morning, but it was only coming. It is here now! It has come, -the Spring! Dickon says so!" - -"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he -felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in bed. - -"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and -half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!" - -And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a -moment more it was opened wide and freshness and softness and scents and -birds' songs were pouring through. - -"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw in long breaths -of it. That's what Dickon does when he's lying on the moor. He says he -feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and he feels as if he -could live forever and ever. Breathe it and breathe it." - -She was only repeating what Dickon had told her, but she caught Colin's -fancy. - -"'Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel like that?" he said, and he -did as she told him, drawing in long deep breaths over and over again -until he felt that something quite new and delightful was happening to -him. - -Mary was at his bedside again. - -"Things are crowding up out of the earth," she ran on in a hurry. "And -there are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and the green veil -has covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about -their nests for fear they may be too late that some of them are even -fighting for places in the secret garden. And the rose-bushes look as -wick as wick can be, and there are primroses in the lanes and woods, and -the seeds we planted are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and the crow -and the squirrels and a new-born lamb." - -And then she paused for breath. The new-born lamb Dickon had found three -days before lying by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the moor. -It was not the first motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do -with it. He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had -let it lie near the fire and had fed it with warm milk. It was a soft -thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its body. -Dickon had carried it over the moor in his arms and its feeding bottle -was in his pocket with a squirrel, and when Mary had sat under a tree -with its limp warmness huddled on her lap she had felt as if she were -too full of strange joy to speak. A lamb--a lamb! A living lamb who lay -on your lap like a baby! - -She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening and drawing -in long breaths of air when the nurse entered. She started a little at -the sight of the open window. She had sat stifling in the room many a -warm day because her patient was sure that open windows gave people -cold. - -"Are you sure you are not chilly, Master Colin?" she inquired. - -"No," was the answer. "I am breathing long breaths of fresh air. It -makes you strong. I am going to get up to the sofa for breakfast and my -cousin will have breakfast with me." - -The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give the order for two -breakfasts. She found the servants' hall a more amusing place than the -invalid's chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news from -up-stairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young -recluse who, as the cook said, "had found his master, and good for him." -The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler, -who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion -that the invalid would be all the better "for a good hiding." - -When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was put upon the -table he made an announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like -manner. - -"A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb, -are coming to see me this morning. I want them brought up-stairs as soon -as they come," he said. "You are not to begin playing with the animals -in the servants' hall and keep them there. I want them here." - -The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough. - -"Yes, sir," she answered. - -"I'll tell you what you can do," added Colin, waving his hand. "You can -tell Martha to bring them here. The boy is Martha's brother. His name is -Dickon and he is an animal charmer." - -"I hope the animals won't bite, Master Colin," said the nurse. - -"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely. "Charmers' animals -never bite." - -"There are snake-charmers in India," said Mary; "and they can put their -snakes' heads in their mouths." - -"Goodness!" shuddered the nurse. - -They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring in upon them. -Colin's breakfast was a very good one and Mary watched him with serious -interest. - -"You will begin to get fatter just as I did," she said. "I never wanted -my breakfast when I was in India and now I always want it." - -"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin. "Perhaps it was the fresh air. -When do you think Dickon will come?" - -He was not long in coming. In about ten minutes Mary held up her hand. - -"Listen!" she said. "Did you hear a caw?" - -Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world to hear -inside a house, a hoarse "caw-caw." - -"Yes," he answered. - -"That's Soot," said Mary. "Listen again! Do you hear a bleat--a tiny -one?" - -"Oh, yes!" cried Colin, quite flushing. - -"That's the new-born lamb," said Mary. "He's coming." - -Dickon's moorland boots were thick and clumsy and though he tried to -walk quietly they made a clumping sound as he walked through the long -corridors. Mary and Colin heard him marching--marching, until he passed -through the tapestry door on to the soft carpet of Colin's own passage. - -"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you -please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures." - -[Illustration: "DICKON CAME IN SMILING HIS NICEST WIDE SMILE."--_Page -251_] - -Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile. The new-born lamb was in -his arms and the little red fox trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left -shoulder and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped out of -his coat pocket. - -Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared--as he had stared when he -first saw Mary; but this was a stare of wonder and delight. The truth -was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood -what this boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his -squirrels and his lamb were so near to him and his friendliness that -they seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin had never talked to a -boy in his life and he was so overwhelmed by his own pleasure and -curiosity that he did not even think of speaking. - -But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt -embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had only -stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were -always like that until they found out about you. He walked over to -Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and -immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown -and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled -head with soft impatience against his side. Of course no boy could have -helped speaking then. - -"What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does it want?" - -"It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling more and more. "I brought it -to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha'd like to see it feed." - -He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket. - -"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with -a gentle brown hand. "This is what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' -this than tha' will out o' silk velvet coats. There now," and he pushed -the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began -to suck it with ravenous ecstasy. - -After that there was no wondering what to say. By the time the lamb fell -asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all. He told them -how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago. -He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him -swing higher and higher into the sky until he was only a speck in the -heights of blue. - -"I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin' how a chap -could hear it when it seemed as if he'd get out o' th' world in a -minute--an' just then I heard somethin' else far off among th' gorse -bushes. It was a weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new lamb as was -hungry an' I knowed it wouldn't be hungry if it hadn't lost its mother -somehow, so I set off searchin'. Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in -an' out among th' gorse bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed -to take th' wrong turnin'. But at last I seed a bit o' white by a rock -on top o' th' moor an' I climbed up an' found th' little 'un half dead -wi' cold an' clemmin'." - -While he talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and -cawed remarks about the scenery while Nut and Shell made excursions into -the big trees outside and ran up and down trunks and explored branches. -Captain curled up near Dickon, who sat on the hearth-rug from -preference. - -They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all -the flowers by their country names and knew exactly which ones were -already growing in the secret garden. - -"I couldna' say that there name," he said, pointing to one under which -was written "Aquilegia," "but us calls that a columbine, an' that there -one it's a snapdragon and they both grow wild in hedges, but these is -garden ones an' they're bigger an' grander. There's some big clumps o' -columbine in th' garden. They'll look like a bed o' blue an' white -butterflies flutterin' when they're out." - -"I'm going to see them," cried Colin. "I am going to see them!" - -"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously. "An tha' munnot lose no -time about it." - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -"I SHALL LIVE FOREVER--AND EVER--AND EVER!" - - -But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came -some very windy days and then Colin was threatened with a cold, which -two things happening one after the other would no doubt have thrown him -into a rage but that there was so much careful and mysterious planning -to do and almost every day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to -talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes and hedges -and on the borders of streams. The things he had to tell about otters' -and badgers' and water-rats' houses, not to mention birds' nests and -field-mice and their burrows, were enough to make you almost tremble -with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from an animal -charmer and realized with what thrilling eagerness and anxiety the whole -busy underworld was working. - -"They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they have to build their homes -every year. An' it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to get 'em -done." - -The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made -before Colin could be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden. -No one must see the chair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned -a certain corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the -ivied walls. As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in -his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its -greatest charms. Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever suspect that -they had a secret. People must think that he was simply going out with -Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not object to their -looking at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about their -route. They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other -and go round among the fountain flower-beds as if they were looking at -the "bedding-out plants" the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having -arranged. That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would -think it at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks and -lose themselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as -serious and elaborately thought out as the plans of march made by great -generals in time of war. - -Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the -invalid's apartments had of course filtered through the servants' hall -into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding -this, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders from Master -Colin's room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartment -no outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to -him. - -"Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, -"what's to do now? His Royal Highness that wasn't to be looked at -calling up a man he's never set eyes on." - -Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had never caught even a glimpse -of the boy and had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about his uncanny -looks and ways and his insane tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest -was that he might die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful -descriptions of a humped back and helpless limbs, given by people who -had never seen him. - -"Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach," said Mrs. Medlock, as -she led him up the back staircase to the corridor on to which opened the -hitherto mysterious chamber. - -"Let's hope they're changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock," he -answered. - -"They couldn't well change for the worse," she continued; "and queer as -it all is there's them as finds their duties made a lot easier to stand -up under. Don't you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the -middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby's Dickon more at home than you -or me could ever be." - -There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately -believed. When Mr. Roach heard his name he smiled quite leniently. - -"He'd be at home in Buckingham Palace or at the bottom of a coal mine," -he said. "And yet it's not impudence, either. He's just fine, is that -lad." - -It was perhaps well he had been prepared or he might have been startled. -When the bedroom door was opened a large crow, which seemed quite at -home perched on the high back of a carven chair, announced the entrance -of a visitor by saying "Caw--Caw" quite loudly. In spite of Mrs. -Medlock's warning, Mr. Roach only just escaped being sufficiently -undignified to jump backward. - -The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on his sofa. He was sitting in an -armchair and a young lamb was standing by him shaking its tail in -feeding-lamb fashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle. A -squirrel was perched on Dickon's bent back attentively nibbling a nut. -The little girl from India was sitting on a big footstool looking on. - -"Here is Mr. Roach, Master Colin," said Mrs. Medlock. - -The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor over--at least that was -what the head gardener felt happened. - -"Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I sent for you to give you some -very important orders." - -"Very good, sir," answered Roach, wondering if he was to receive -instructions to fell all the oaks in the park or to transform the -orchards into water-gardens. - -"I am going out in my chair this afternoon," said Colin. "If the fresh -air agrees with me I may go out every day. When I go, none of the -gardeners are to be anywhere near the Long Walk by the garden walls. No -one is to be there. I shall go out about two o'clock and every one must -keep away until I send word that they may go back to their work." - -"Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that the oaks -might remain and that the orchards were safe. - -"Mary," said Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing you say in India -when you have finished talking and want people to go?" - -"You say, 'You have my permission to go,'" answered Mary. - -The Rajah waved his hand. - -"You have my permission to go, Roach," he said. "But, remember, this is -very important." - -"Caw--Caw!" remarked the crow hoarsely but not impolitely. - -"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took -him out of the room. - -Outside in the corridor, being a rather good-natured man, he smiled -until he almost laughed. - -"My word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordly way with him, hasn't he? -You'd think he was a whole Royal Family rolled into one--Prince Consort -and all." - -"Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to let him trample all over -every one of us ever since he had feet and he thinks that's what folks -was born for." - -"Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives," suggested Mr. Roach. - -"Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said Mrs. Medlock. "If he does -live and that Indian child stays here I'll warrant she teaches him that -the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says. And -he'll be likely to find out the size of his own quarter." - -Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions. - -"It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon I shall see it--this -afternoon I shall be in it!" - -Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with -Colin. She did not think he looked tired but he was very quiet before -their lunch came and he was quiet while they were eating it. She -wondered why and asked him about it. - -"What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said. "When you are thinking they -get as big as saucers. What are you thinking about now?" - -"I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered. - -"The garden?" asked Mary. - -"The springtime," he said. "I was thinking that I've really never seen -it before. I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at -it. I didn't even think about it." - -"I never saw it in India because there wasn't any," said Mary. - -Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than -she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at -wonderful books and pictures. - -"That morning when you ran in and said 'It's come! It's come!' you made -me feel quite queer. It sounded as if things were coming with a great -procession and big bursts and wafts of music. I've a picture like it in -one of my books--crowds of lovely people and children with garlands and -branches with blossoms on them, every one laughing and dancing and -crowding and playing on pipes. That was why I said, 'Perhaps we shall -hear golden trumpets' and told you to throw open the window." - -"How funny!" said Mary. "That's really just what it feels like. And if -all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds and wild creatures -danced past at once, what a crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and -sing and flute and that would be the wafts of music." - -They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but -because they both so liked it. - -A little later the nurse made Colin ready. She noticed that instead of -lying like a log while his clothes were put on he sat up and made some -efforts to help himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the -time. - -"This is one of his good days, sir," she said to Dr. Craven, who -dropped in to inspect him. "He's in such good spirits that it makes him -stronger." - -"I'll call in again later in the afternoon, after he has come in," said -Dr. Craven. "I must see how the going out agrees with him. I wish," in a -very low voice, "that he would let you go with him." - -"I'd rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay here while -it's suggested," answered the nurse with sudden firmness. - -"I hadn't really decided to suggest it," said the doctor, with his -slight nervousness. "We'll try the experiment. Dickon's a lad I'd trust -with a new-born child." - -The strongest footman in the house carried Colin down-stairs and put him -in his wheeled chair near which Dickon waited outside. After the -manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand -to him and to the nurse. - -"You have my permission to go," he said, and they both disappeared -quickly and it must be confessed giggled when they were safely inside -the house. - -Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily. Mistress -Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the -sky. The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed -like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. -The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange -with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin kept lifting his thin chest -to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they which were -listening--listening, instead of his ears. - -"There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he -said. "What is that scent the puffs of wind bring?" - -"It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon. "Eh! th' -bees are at it wonderful to-day." - -Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took. -In fact every gardener or gardener's lad had been witched away. But they -wound in and out among the shrubbery and out and round the fountain -beds, following their carefully planned route for the mere mysterious -pleasure of it. But when at last they turned into the Long Walk by the -ivied walls the excited sense of an approaching thrill made them, for -some curious reason they could not have explained, begin to speak in -whispers. - -"This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where I used to walk up and down -and wonder and wonder." - -"Is it?" cried Colin, and his eyes began to search the ivy with eager -curiousness. "But I can see nothing," he whispered. "There is no door." - -"That's what I thought," said Mary. - -Then there was a lovely breathless silence and the chair wheeled on. - -"That is the garden where Ben Weatherstaff works," said Mary. - -"Is it?" said Colin. - -A few yards more and Mary whispered again. - -"This is where the robin flew over the wall," she said. - -"Is it?" cried Colin. "Oh! I wish he'd come again!" - -"And that," said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a big lilac -bush, "is where he perched on the little heap of earth and showed me the -key." - -Then Colin sat up. - -"Where? Where? There?" he cried, and his eyes were as big as the wolf's -in Red Riding-Hood, when Red Riding-Hood felt called upon to remark on -them. Dickon stood still and the wheeled chair stopped. - -"And this," said Mary, stepping on to the bed close to the ivy, "is -where I went to talk to him when he chirped at me from the top of the -wall. And this is the ivy the wind blew back," and she took hold of the -hanging green curtain. - -"Oh! is it--is it!" gasped Colin. - -"And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push him in--push -him in quickly!" - -And Dickon did it with one strong, steady, splendid push. - -But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he -gasped with delight, and he had covered his eyes with his hands and held -them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the chair -stopped as if by magic and the door was closed. Not till then did he -take them away and look round and round and round as Dickon and Mary had -done. And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and -tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in -the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and -there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white -and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were -fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and -scents. And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely -touch. And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him. He looked -so strange and different because a pink glow of color had actually -crept all over him--ivory face and neck and hands and all. - -"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary! Dickon! I -shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!" - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -BEN WEATHERSTAFF - - -One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only -now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and -ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn -dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back -and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and -flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost -makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging -majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning -for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then -for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by -oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness -slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again -and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then -sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of -stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of -far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes. - -And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the -Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon -the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly -beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the -spring came and crowded everything it possibly could into that one -place. More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and stood still -with a sort of growing wonder in his eyes, shaking his head softly. - -"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen an' there's -a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but seems to me like I never seed -one as graidely as this 'ere." - -"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy. -"I'll warrant it's th' graidelest one as ever was in this world." - -"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it was -made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for me?" - -"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good -Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' first-rate--that tha' art." - -And delight reigned. - -They drew the chair under the plum-tree, which was snow-white with -blossoms and musical with bees. It was like a king's canopy, a fairy -king's. There were flowering cherry-trees near and apple-trees whose -buds were pink and white, and here and there one had burst open wide. -Between the blossoming branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked -down like wonderful eyes. - -Mary and Dickon worked a little here and there and Colin watched them. -They brought him things to look at--buds which were opening, buds which -were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green, -the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty -shell of some bird early hatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round -and round the garden, stopping every other moment to let him look at -wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from trees. It was -like being taken in state round the country of a magic king and queen -and shown all the mysterious riches it contained. - -"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said Colin. - -"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th' eggs -hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head -swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as -big as himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he gets -there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which big mouth to drop -th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks on every side. Mother -says as when she sees th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks -filled, she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do. She says she's -seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be droppin' off -'em, though folk can't see it." - -This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to cover -their mouths with their hands, remembering that they must not be heard. -Colin had been instructed as to the law of whispers and low voices -several days before. He liked the mysteriousness of it and did his best, -but in the midst of excited enjoyment it is rather difficult never to -laugh above a whisper. - -Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour the -sunshine grew more golden. The wheeled chair had been drawn back under -the canopy and Dickon had sat down on the grass and had just drawn out -his pipe when Colin saw something he had not had time to notice before. - -"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said. - -Dickon looked across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was -a brief moment of stillness. - -"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very gentle -sound. - -Mary gazed at the tree and thought. - -"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf anywhere," -Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?" - -"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as has climbed all over it will -near hide every bit o' th' dead wood when they're full o' leaves an' -flowers. It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest of all." - -Mary still gazed at the tree and thought. - -"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin. "I wonder -how it was done." - -"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon. "Eh!" with a sudden -relieved start and laying his hand on Colin. "Look at that robin! There -he is! He's been foragin' for his mate." - -Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the flash of -red-breasted bird with something in his beak. He darted through the -greenness and into the close-grown corner and was out of sight. Colin -leaned back on his cushion again, laughing a little. - -"He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock. I think I'd like -some tea myself." - -And so they were safe. - -"It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to Dickon -afterward. "I know it was Magic." For both she and Dickon had been -afraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had broken -off ten years ago and they had talked it over together and Dickon had -stood and rubbed his head in a troubled way. - -"We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees," he had -said. "We couldn't never tell him how it broke, poor lad. If he says -anything about it we mun--we mun try to look cheerful." - -"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary. - -But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the -tree. She wondered and wondered in those few moments if there was any -reality in that other thing Dickon had said. He had gone on rubbing his -rust-red hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look had begun to -grow in his blue eyes. - -"Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady," he had gone on rather -hesitatingly. "An' mother she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite -many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when -they're took out o' th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees. Happen -she's been in the garden an' happen it was her set us to work, an' told -us to bring him here." - -Mary had thought he meant something about Magic. She was a great -believer in Magic. Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked Magic, -of course good Magic, on everything near him and that was why people -liked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend. She -wondered, indeed, if it were not possible that his gift had brought the -robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that dangerous question. -She felt that his Magic was working all the afternoon and making Colin -look like an entirely different boy. It did not seem possible that he -could be the crazy creature who had screamed and beaten and bitten his -pillow. Even his ivory whiteness seemed to change. The faint glow of -color which had shown on his face and neck and hands when he first got -inside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were -made of flesh instead of ivory or wax. - -They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was -so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some. - -"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the -rhododendron walk," he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring it -here." - -It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth -was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, -a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic -errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into -investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked up trees -with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet -into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and made -hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all joyfully in -one gulp. - -The afternoon was dragging toward its mellow hour. The sun was deepening -the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were -flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the -tea-basket was re-packed ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin -was lying against his cushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his -forehead and his face looking quite a natural color. - -"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back -to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after." - -"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary. - -"I'm going to get nothing else," he answered. "I've seen the spring now -and I'm going to see the summer. I'm going to see everything grow here. -I'm going to grow here myself." - -"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an' -diggin' same as other folk afore long." - -Colin flushed tremendously. - -"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?" - -Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary had -ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs. - -"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha'--tha's got legs o' thine -own, same as other folks!" - -Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer. - -"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and weak. -They shake so that I'm afraid to try to stand on them." - -Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath. - -"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with -renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit." - -"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering about -things. - -They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping -lower. It was that hour when everything stills itself, and they really -had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were -resting luxuriously. Even the creatures had ceased moving about and had -drawn together and were resting near them. Soot had perched on a low -branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film drowsily over his -eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if he might snore in a minute. - -In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half -lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper: - -"Who is that man?" - -Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet. - -"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices. - -Colin pointed to the high wall. - -"Look!" he whispered excitedly. "Just look!" - -Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben Weatherstaff's -indignant face glaring at them over the wall from the top of a ladder! -He actually shook his fist at Mary. - -"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd -give thee a hidin'!" - -He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his energetic -intention to jump down and deal with her; but as she came toward him he -evidently thought better of it and stood on the top step of his ladder -shaking his fist down at her. - -"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th' -first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced young besom, -allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it wasna' wanted. I -never knowed how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it hadna' been for th' -robin--Drat him--" - -"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood below -him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff, it was -the robin who showed me the way!" - -Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of the -wall, he was so outraged. - -"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha' badness on a -robin,--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him showin' thee -th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt,"--she could see his next words burst -out because he was overpowered by curiosity--"however i' this world did -tha' get in?" - -"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately. "He -didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell you from here -while you're shaking your fist at me." - -He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his -jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw -coming over the grass toward him. - -At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised -that he had only sat up and listened as if he were spellbound. But in -the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to -Dickon. - -"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop -right in front of him!" - -And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which -made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes -which came toward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach -because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal command in his great -black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended haughtily toward him. -And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose. It was really no -wonder his mouth dropped open. - -"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah. - -How Ben Weatherstaff stared! His red old eyes fixed themselves on what -was before him as if he were seeing a ghost. He gazed and gazed and -gulped a lump down his throat and did not say a word. - -"Do you know who I am?" demanded Colin still more imperiously. "Answer!" - -Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes and -over his forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice. - -"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I do--wi' tha' mother's eyes starin' -at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how tha' come here. But tha'rt th' -poor cripple." - -Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and -he sat bolt upright. - -"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!" - -"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce -indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there -was none there--not one!" - -Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if -he could never gaze enough. His hand shook and his mouth shook and his -voice shook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and he -could only remember the things he had heard. - -"Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely. - -"No!" shouted Colin. - -"Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet. - -It was too much. The strength which Colin usually threw into his -tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been -accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly simple -belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff's voice -was more than Rajah flesh and blood could endure. His anger and insulted -pride made him forget everything but this one moment and filled him with -a power he had never known before, an almost unnatural strength. - -"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the -coverings off his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come here! Come -here! This minute!" - -Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short -gasp and felt herself turn pale. - -"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled over to -herself under her breath as fast as ever she could. - -There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on to the -ground, Dickon held Colin's arm, the thin legs were out, the thin feet -were on the grass. Colin was standing upright--upright--as straight as -an arrow and looking strangely tall--his head thrown back and his -strange eyes flashing lightning. - -"Look at me!" he flung up at Ben Weatherstaff. "Just look at me--you! -Just look at me!" - -"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad -i' Yorkshire!" - -What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He choked -and gulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as he -struck his old hands together. - -"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' -as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee. Tha'lt make a mon -yet. God bless thee!" - -Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter. He -stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff in the face. - -"I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are to obey -me. This is my garden. Don't dare to say a word about it! You get down -from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet you -and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We did not want you, but now -you will have to be in the secret. Be quick!" - -Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer -rush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin -straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back. - -"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then remembering -himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes, -sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN - - -When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary. - -"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door -under the ivy. - -Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his -cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling. - -"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it -quite grandly. - -"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered -Dickon. "An' tha's stopped." - -"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin. - -Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said. - -"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply. - -Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin. - -"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these -'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump -of crocuses in the grass. - -Colin looked down at them. - -"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic then that -there--there couldna' be." - -He drew himself up straighter than ever. - -"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet -away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I -can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit -down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair." - -He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully -steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that -he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight -that he looked tall. - -When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him -standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath. - -"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his -attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud -face. - -But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this: - -"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You -can do it! You _can_!" - -She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him -on his feet looking like that. She could not bear that he should give in -before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a -sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. -He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way. - -"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have -I got crooked legs?" - -Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had -recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way. - -"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with -thysel'--? hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple -an' half-witted?" - -"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?" - -"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an' -they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?" - -"Every one thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm not!" - -And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up -and down, down and up. - -"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort! Tha's got -too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on th' ground in -such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee down on th' rug a bit -young Mester an' give me thy orders." - -There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding -in his manner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as she could as -they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to be remembered, she -had told him, was that Colin was getting well--getting well. The garden -was doing it. No one must let him remember about having humps and dying. - -The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree. - -"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired. - -"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by -favor--because she liked me." - -"She?" said Colin. - -"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff. - -"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was her -garden, wasn't it?" - -"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She were -main fond of it." - -"It is my garden now, I am fond of it. I shall come here every day," -announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that no one is -to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and made it -come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help--but you must come -when no one can see you." - -Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile. - -"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said. - -"What!" exclaimed Colin. "When?" - -"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was -about two year' ago." - -"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin. "There was no -door!" - -"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through th' door. I -come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'." - -"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make out -how it had been done." - -"She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly. "An' she -was such a pretty young thing. She says to me once, 'Ben,' says she -laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take care of my -roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one was ever to come -nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th' wall I come--until -th' rheumatics stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work once a year. She'd -gave her order first." - -"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said -Dickon. "I did wonder." - -"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to -keep the secret." - -"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An' it'll be easier for a man wi' -rheumatics to come in at th' door." - -On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin stretched -out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his face and he -began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but -presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless interest--he -drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some over. - -"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you -can!" - -Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a -word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face. - -Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke -exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire. - -"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an' -tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please -me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an' here I am diggin'." - -Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended -by chuckling. - -"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a -Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to -plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot." - -"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!" - -It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way -forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and -wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary -slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had -deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and over. He -looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new -exercise, slight as it was. - -"I want to do it before the sun goes quite--quite down," he said. - -Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on -purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the -greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun -to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from the -mould. - -"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the earth -thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place." - -The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he -set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. -It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning -forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward -to see what was being done. Nut and Shell chattered about it from a -cherry-tree. - -"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only slipping over -the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes. That's -part of the Magic." - -And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so gave him -strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange -lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two -feet--laughing. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -MAGIC - - -Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to -it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some -one out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his -room the poor man looked him over seriously. - -"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert -yourself." - -"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. To-morrow I -am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon." - -"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid -it would not be wise." - -"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I -am going." - -Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities was that -he did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his -way of ordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island -all his life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own -manners and had had no one to compare himself with. Mary had indeed -been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had -gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which -is usual or popular. Having made this discovery she naturally thought it -of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him -curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to -make him ask her why she was doing it and of course she did. - -"What are you looking at me for?" he said. - -"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven." - -"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some -satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to -die." - -"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary, "but I was -thinking just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be -polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never have -done it." - -"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly. - -"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man," -said Mary, "he would have slapped you." - -"But he daren't," said Colin. - -"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite -without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't -like--because you were going to die and things like that. You were such -a poor thing." - -"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing. I -won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon." - -"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went -on, thinking aloud. - -Colin turned his head, frowning. - -"Am I queer?" he demanded. - -"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross," she added -impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is Ben Weatherstaff. But I -am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I -found the garden." - -"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he -frowned again with determination. - -He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw -his beautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face. - -"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every day to the garden. -There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Mary. I am sure there -is." - -"So am I," said Mary. - -"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is. -_Something_ is there--_something_!" - -"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow." - -They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months -that followed--the wonderful months--the radiant months--the amazing -ones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have never -had a garden, you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you -will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to -pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease -pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in -the crevices of the walls. Then the green things began to show buds and -the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every -shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days -flowers had been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner. Ben -Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from -between the bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely -clinging things to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass -in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies -of the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines -or campanulas. - -"She was main fond o' them--she was," Ben Weatherstaff said. "She liked -them things as was allus pointin' up to th' blue sky, she used to tell. -Not as she was one o' them as looked down on th' earth--not her. She -just loved it but she said as th' blue sky allus looked so joyful." - -The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended -them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced in the breeze by the score, -gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years and which -it might be confessed seemed rather to wonder how such new people had -got there. And the roses--the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled -round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their -branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long -garlands falling in cascades--they came alive day by day, hour by hour. -Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first but swelling and -working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent -delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden -air. - -Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning -he was brought out and every hour of each day when it didn't rain he -spent in the garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the -grass "watching things growing," he said. If you watched long enough, he -declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Also you could make -the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on various -unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of -straw or feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if they were -trees from whose tops one could look out to explore the country. A mole -throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and making its way out at -last with the long-nailed paws which looked so like elfish hands, had -absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees' ways, -frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to explore -and when Dickon revealed them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, -ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout's and water-rats' and badgers' -ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over. - -And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really once -stood on his feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and when Mary told -him of the spell she had worked he was excited and approved of it -greatly. He talked of it constantly. - -"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely -one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. -Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen -until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment." - -The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for -Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah -standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also very -beautifully smiling. - -"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and -Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell -you something very important." - -"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One -of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood -he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like -a sailor.) - -"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah. "When -I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going -to begin now with this experiment." - -"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the -first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries. - -It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this -stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read -about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing -sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you -it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though he -was only ten years old--going on eleven. At this moment he was -especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of -actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person. - -"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will -be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows -anything about it except a few people in old books--and Mary a little, -because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon -knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms -animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had -not been an animal charmer--which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy -is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not -sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us--like -electricity and horses and steam." - -This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and -really could not keep still. - -"Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight. - -"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator -proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and -making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another -they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very -curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be -scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's -something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it -Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from -what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up -and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up -through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being -happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me -breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out -of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers -and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all -around us. In this garden--in all the places. The Magic in this garden -has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going -to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in -myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how -to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it -perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When -I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself -as fast as she could, 'You can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had -to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and -so did Dickon's. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime -as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me -well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And -you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben -Weatherstaff?" - -"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!" - -"If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through -drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment -succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking -about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be -the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you -it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things." - -"I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs -who said words over and over thousands of times," said Mary. - -"I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th' same thing over thousands o' -times--callin' Jem a drunken brute," said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. -"Summat allus come o' that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidin' an' -went to th' Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord." - -Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered -up. - -"Well," he said, "you see something did come of it. She used the wrong -Magic until she made him beat her. If she'd used the right Magic and had -said something nice perhaps he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and -perhaps--perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet." - -Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little -old eyes. - -"Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, Mester Colin," he -said. "Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of a hint o' -what Magic will do for her. She'd be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik -'speriment worked--an' so 'ud Jem." - -Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with -curious delight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a -long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly -while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself. - -"Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin asked him, wondering what -he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he -saw him looking at him or at one of his "creatures" with his happy wide -smile. - -He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual. - -"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when th' -sun shines on 'em. It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?" - -Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs -and devotees in illustrations Colin suggested that they should all sit -cross-legged under the tree which made a canopy. - -"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather -tired and I want to sit down." - -"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' musn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might -spoil th' Magic." - -Colin turned and looked at him--into his innocent round eyes. - -"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic." - -It all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their -circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into -appearing at a prayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being -what he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this being the Rajah's affair -he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified at being -called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon -held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's signal no -one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the crow, -the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of -the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own -desire. - -"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely. "They want to help us." - -Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head high -as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful -look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy. - -"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, -as if we were dervishes?" - -"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff. -"I've got th' rheumatics." - -"The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but -we won't sway until it has done it. We will only chant." - -"I canna' do no chantin'," said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. "They -turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it." - -No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not -even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic. - -"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy -spirit. "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The -flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being -alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me--the -Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me. It's in every one of us. It's -in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!" - -He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly -number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer -and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began -to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The -humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and -drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit -asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot had -pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder, the -gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped. - -"Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced. - -Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a -jerk. - -"You have been asleep," said Colin. - -"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm -bound to get out afore th' collection." - -He was not quite awake yet. - -"You're not in church," said Colin. - -"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard -every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor calls it -rheumatics." - -The Rajah waved his hand. - -"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my -permission to go to your work. But come back to-morrow." - -"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben. - -It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a -stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up -his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look -over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any -stumbling. - -The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was -formed. It really did look like a procession. Colin was at its head with -Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked -behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub -keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to -nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt -himself in charge. - -It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards -it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately Ben -Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand -from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all -the time and he looked very grand. - -"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I -can feel it! I can feel it!" - -It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him. -He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the -grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but -he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When he -returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked -triumphant. - -"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific -discovery." - -"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary. - -"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because he will not be told. -This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to know anything -about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any -other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken -back in it. I won't have people whispering and asking questions and I -won't let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite -succeeded. Then sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall -just walk into his study and say 'Here I am; I am like any other boy. I -am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a -scientific experiment.'" - -"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary. "He won't believe his -eyes." - -Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was -going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had -been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any -other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw -that he had a son who was as straight and strong as other fathers' -sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had -been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was -afraid to look at him. - -"He'll be obliged to believe them," he said. "One of the things I am -going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific -discoveries, is to be an athlete." - -"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben -Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion -prize-fighter of all England." - -Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly. - -"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful. You must not take -liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works I -shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer." - -"Ax pardon--ax pardon, sir," answered Ben, touching his forehead in -salute. "I ought to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," but his eyes -twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind -being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength -and spirit. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -"LET THEM LAUGH" - - -The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the -cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall -of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight -and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there -planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs -for his mother. In the company of his "creatures" he did wonders there -and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded he -whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or -Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him. - -"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it -wasn't for Dickon's garden. Anything'll grow for him. His 'taters and -cabbages is twice th' size of any one else's an' they've got a flavor -with 'em as nobody's has." - -When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. -After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that -was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on -and hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only -vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower -seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among gooseberry -bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and -pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year or whose -roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. The -low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had -tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers -into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were -to be seen. - -"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is -to be friends with 'em for sure. They're just like th' 'creatures.' If -they're thirsty give 'em a drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o' -food. They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if -I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless." - -It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that -happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only told that -"Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with -Miss Mary and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it -was agreed between the two children that Dickon's mother might "come -into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for -sure." - -So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the -thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze -which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned -never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, -the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his introduction to the -hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff's angry -face peering over the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant strength, -made Mrs. Sowerby's nice-looking face quite change color several times. - -"My word!" she said. "It was a good thing that little lass came to th' -Manor. It's been th' makin' o' her an' th' savin' o' him. Standin' on -his feet! An' us all thinkin' he was a poor half-witted lad with not a -straight bone in him." - -She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep -thinking. - -"What do they make of it at th' Manor--him being so well an' cheerful -an' never complainin'?" she inquired. - -"They don't know what to make of it," answered Dickon. "Every day as -comes round his face looks different. It's fillin' out and doesn't look -so sharp an' th' waxy color is goin'. But he has to do his bit o' -complainin'," with a highly entertained grin. - -"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby. - -Dickon chuckled. - -"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened. If the doctor -knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and -tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself. -He's goin' to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father -comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his room an' show him he's -as straight as other lads. But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan -to do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off th' -scent." - -Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had -finished his last sentence. - -"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' theirselves, I'll warrant. They'll -get a good bit o' play actin' out of it an' there's nothin' children -likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad." - -Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes -were twinkling with fun. - -"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out," he -explained. "An' he flies out at John, th' footman, for not carryin' him -careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an' never -lifts his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house. An' he grunts an' -frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his chair. Him an' Miss -Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an' complains she'll -say, 'Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that, -poor Colin?'--but th' trouble is that sometimes they can scarce keep -from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the garden they laugh -till they've no breath left to laugh with. An' they have to stuff their -faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the gardeners from hearin', -if any of 'em's about." - -"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still -laughing herself. "Good healthy child laughin's better than pills any -day o' th' year. That pair'll plump up for sure." - -"They are plumpin' up," said Dickon. "They're that hungry they don't -know how to get enough to eat without makin' talk. Mester Colin says if -he keeps sendin' for more food they won't believe he's an invalid at -all. Miss Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if -she goes hungry she'll get thin an' they mun both get fat at once." - -Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty, -that she quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and Dickon -laughed with her. - -"I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said when she could speak. -"I've thought of a way to help 'em. When tha' goes to 'em in th' -mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new milk an' I'll bake 'em a -crusty cottage loaf or some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as you -children like. Nothin's so good as fresh milk an' bread. Then they could -take off th' edge o' their hunger while they were in their garden an' -th' fine food they get indoors 'ud polish off th' corners." - -"Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what a wonder tha' art! Tha' -always sees a way out o' things. They was quite in a pother yesterday. -They didn't see how they was to manage without orderin' up more -food--they felt that empty inside." - -"They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an' health's comin' back to both of -'em. Children like that feels like young wolves an' food's flesh an' -blood to 'em," said Mrs. Sowerby. Then she smiled Dickon's own curving -smile. "Eh! but they're enjoyin' theirselves for sure," she said. - -She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creature--and she -had never been more so than when she said their "play actin'" would be -their joy. Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources -of entertainment. The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had -been unconsciously suggested to them first by the puzzled nurse and then -by Dr. Craven himself. - -"Your appetite is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had said -one day. "You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed with -you." - -"Nothing disagrees with me now," replied Colin, and then seeing the -nurse looking at him curiously he suddenly remembered that perhaps he -ought not to appear too well just yet. "At least things don't so often -disagree with me. It's the fresh air." - -"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified -expression. "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it." - -"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away. "As if she -thought there must be something to find out." - -"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin. "No one must begin to -find out yet." When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled, -also. He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance. - -"You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested. "Where do you -go?" - -Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion. - -"I will not let any one know where I go," he answered. "I go to a place -I like. Every one has orders to keep out of the way. I won't be watched -and stared at. You know that!" - -"You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harm--I -do not think so. The nurse says that you eat much more than you have -ever done before." - -"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is -an unnatural appetite." - -"I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you," said Dr. -Craven. "You are gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better." - -"Perhaps--perhaps I am bloated and feverish," said Colin, assuming a -discouraging air of gloom. "People who are not going to live are -often--different." - -Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist and he pushed up -his sleeve and felt his arm. - -"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully, "and such flesh as you -have gained is healthy. If we can keep this up, my boy, we need not talk -of dying. Your father will be very happy to hear of this remarkable -improvement." - -"I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth fiercely. "It will only -disappoint him if I get worse again--and I may get worse this very -night. I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might be beginning to -have one now. I won't have letters written to my father--I won't--I -won't! You are making me angry and you know that is bad for me. I feel -hot already. I hate being written about and being talked over as much as -I hate being stared at!" - -"Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him. "Nothing shall be written -without your permission. You are too sensitive about things. You must -not undo the good which has been done." - -He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse he -privately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned to -the patient. - -"The boy is extraordinarily better," he said. "His advance seems almost -abnormal. But of course he is doing now of his own free will what we -could not make him do before. Still, he excites himself very easily and -nothing must be said to irritate him." - -Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously. From -this time dated their plan of "play actin'." - -"I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said Colin regretfully. "I don't -want to have one and I'm not miserable enough now to work myself into a -big one. Perhaps I couldn't have one at all. That lump doesn't come in -my throat now and I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible -ones. But if they talk about writing to my father I shall have to do -something." - -He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible -to carry out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an -amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of -home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and -clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found -themselves at the table--particularly if there were delicate slices of -sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver -cover--they would look into each other's eyes in desperation. - -"I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always -ended by saying. "We can send away some of the lunch and a great deal of -the dinner." - -But they never found they could send away anything and the highly -polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened -much comment. - -"I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish the slices of ham were -thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for any one." - -"It's enough for a person who is going to die," answered Mary when first -she heard this, "but it's not enough for a person who is going to live. -I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh heather -and gorse smells from the moor come pouring in at the open window." - -The morning that Dickon--after they had been enjoying themselves in the -garden for about two hours--went behind a big rose-bush and brought -forth two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with -cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made currant -buns folded in a clean blue and white napkin, buns so carefully tucked -in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprised joyfulness. -What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of! What a kind, clever -woman she must be! How good the buns were! And what delicious fresh -milk! - -"Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin. "It makes her -think of ways to do things--nice things. She is a Magic person. Tell her -we are grateful, Dickon--extremely grateful." - -He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed them. -He liked this so much that he improved upon it. - -"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme." - -And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with -buns and drank milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner of -any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing -in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours behind him. - -This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind. -They actually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people -to provide food for she might not have enough to satisfy two extra -appetites every day. So they asked her to let them send some of their -shillings to buy things. - -Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park -outside the garden where Mary had first found him piping to the wild -creatures there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort of -tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs -were a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes with salt and -fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king--besides being -deliciously satisfying. You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as -many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the -mouths of fourteen people. - -Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under -the plum-tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after -its brief blossom-time was ended. After the ceremony Colin always took -his walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found -power at intervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more -steadily and cover more ground. And each day his belief in the Magic -grew stronger--as well it might. He tried one experiment after another -as he felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon who showed him the -best things of all. - -"Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite -for mother an' near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth. He's the -strongest chap on th' moor. He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump -higher than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther. He's gone all -th' way to Scotland for th' sports some years. He's knowed me ever since -I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him some -questions. Th' gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee, Mester -Colin, and I says, 'How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out that way, -Bob? Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?' An' he says -'Well, yes, lad, I did. A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite once -showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every muscle in my body.' -An' I says, 'Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with 'em, Bob?' -an' he laughed an' says, 'Art tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, 'No, -but I knows a young gentleman that's gettin' well of a long illness an' -I wish I knowed some o' them tricks to tell him about.' I didn't say no -names an' he didn't ask none. He's friendly same as I said an' he stood -up an' showed me good-natured like, an' I imitated what he did till I -knowed it by heart." - -Colin had been listening excitedly. - -"Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?" - -"Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up. "But he says tha' mun do -'em gentle at first an' be careful not to tire thysel'. Rest in between -times an' take deep breaths an' don't overdo." - -"I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the -most Magic boy in the world!" - -Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully -practical but simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with -widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down. Presently he -did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary -began to do them also. Soot, who was watching the performance, became -much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about restlessly because -he could not do them too. - -From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as -the Magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of -them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but -for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he -arrived they would have been lost. But the little oven in the hollow and -Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and the -nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again. You can trifle with your -breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the brim -with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oat-cakes -and buns and heather honey and clotted cream. - -"They are eating next to nothing," said the nurse. "They'll die of -starvation if they can't be persuaded to take some nourishment. And yet -see how they look." - -"Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. "Eh! I'm moithered to death -with them. They're a pair of young Satans. Bursting their jackets one -day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals Cook can -tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and bread -sauce did they set a fork into yesterday--and the poor woman fair -_invented_ a pudding for them--and back it's sent. She almost cried. -She's afraid she'll be blamed if they starve themselves into their -graves." - -Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully. He wore an -extremely worried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed -him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look -at--but it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa and -examined him. He had been called to London on business and had not seen -the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things begin to gain health -they gain it rapidly. The waxen tinge had left Colin's skin and a warm -rose showed through it; his beautiful eyes were clear and the hollows -under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out. His once dark, -heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily from his -forehead and were soft and warm with life. His lips were fuller and of a -normal color. In fact as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed -invalid he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in his hand -and thought him over. - -"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything," he said. "That will -not do. You will lose all you have gained--and you have gained -amazingly. You ate so well a short time ago." - -"I told you it was an unnatural appetite," answered Colin. - -Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer -sound which she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost -choking. - -"What is the matter?" said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her. - -Mary became quite severe in her manner. - -"It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with -reproachful dignity, "and it got into my throat." - -"But" she said afterward to Colin, "I couldn't stop myself. It just -burst out because all at once I couldn't help remembering that last big -potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through -that thick lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it." - -"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr. -Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock. - -"There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the -trees," Mrs. Medlock answered. "They stay out in the grounds all day and -see no one but each other. And if they want anything different to eat -from what's sent up to them they need only ask for it." - -"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with them -we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature." - -"So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock. "She's begun to be downright pretty -since she's filled out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her hair's -grown thick and healthy looking and she's got a bright color. The -glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and Master -Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhaps they're -growing fat on that." - -"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let them laugh." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -THE CURTAIN - - -And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed -new miracles. In the robin's nest there were Eggs and the robin's -mate sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast -and careful wings. At first she was very nervous and the robin himself -was indignantly watchful. Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown -corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some -mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little -pair that in the garden there was nothing which was not quite like -themselves--nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what -was happening to them--the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking -beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that -garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if -an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and -crash through space and come to an end--if there had been even one who -did not feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness -even in that golden springtime air. But they all knew it and felt it and -the robin and his mate knew they knew it. - -At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For some -mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first moment he -set his dew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger but -a sort of robin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin (which is -a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for any other). To speak -robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman. Dickon always -spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he used when he -spoke to humans did not matter in the least. The robin thought he spoke -this gibberish to them because they were not intelligent enough to -understand feathered speech. His movements also were robin. They never -startled one by being sudden enough to seem dangerous or threatening. -Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not even -disturbing. - -But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other -two. In the first place the boy creature did not come into the garden on -his legs. He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild -animals were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful. Then when he -began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer unaccustomed way -and the others seemed to have to help him. The robin used to secrete -himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head tilted first on one -side and then on the other. He thought that the slow movements might -mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When cats are -preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very slowly. The robin -talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days but after -that he decided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so -great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the Eggs. - -When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it -was an immense relief. But for a long time--or it seemed a long time to -the robin--he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other -humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting -or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner -to begin again. - -One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn -to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing. He had -taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So -it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or rather to -walk. He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her that the Eggs -would probably conduct themselves in the same way after they were -fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly interested and -derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the edge of her -nest--though she always thought that the Eggs would be much cleverer and -learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans were -always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them never seemed -really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the air or on -tree-tops. - -After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all -three of the children at times did unusual things. They would stand -under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way -which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went -through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never -able to explain to his mate what they were doing or trying to do. He -could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in -such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was -doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions -were not of a dangerous nature. Of course neither the robin nor his mate -had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his exercises -for making the muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not like human -beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first and so they -develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly about to find -every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied -means wasted away through want of use). - -When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like -the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace and -content. Fears for the Eggs became things of the past. Knowing that your -Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the fact -that you could watch so many curious things going on made setting a most -entertaining occupation. On wet days the Eggs' mother sometimes felt -even a little dull because the children did not come into the garden. - -But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. -One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was -beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his -sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an -inspiration. - -"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my -body are so full of Magic that I can't keep them still. They want to be -doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in the -morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting -outside and everything seems just shouting for joy--even the trees and -things we can't really hear--I feel as if I must jump out of bed and -shout myself. And if I did it, just think what would happen!" - -Mary giggled inordinately. - -"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and -they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor," -she said. - -Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look--how -horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright. - -"I wish my father would come home," he said. "I want to tell him myself. -I'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this much -longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too -different. I wish it wasn't raining to-day." - -It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration. - -"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are -in this house?" - -"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered. - -"There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary. "And one -rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them. No one ever -knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was -coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the -second time I heard you crying." - -Colin started up on his sofa. - -"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a -secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. You could wheel me in my -chair and nobody would know where we went." - -"That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No one would dare to follow -us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do our exercises. -There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivory -elephants. There are all sorts of rooms." - -"Ring the bell," said Colin. - -When the nurse came in he gave his orders. - -"I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the -part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as the -picture-gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and -leave us alone until I send for him again." - -Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had wheeled -the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in -obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As -soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his -own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair. - -"I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, -"and then I am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's -exercises." - -And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the -portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and -holding the parrot on her finger. - -"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations. They lived a long time -ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great, great -aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but as you -looked when you came here. Now you are a great deal fatter and better -looking." - -"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed. - -They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory -elephants. They found the rose-colored brocade boudoir and the hole in -the cushion the mouse had left but the mice had grown up and run away -and the hole was empty. They saw more rooms and made more discoveries -than Mary had made on her first pilgrimage. They found new corridors -and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and -weird old things they did not know the use of. It was a curiously -entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same -house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were -miles away from them was a fascinating thing. - -"I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew I lived in such a big -queer old place. I like it. We will ramble about every rainy day. We -shall always be finding new queer corners and things." - -That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that -when they returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the -luncheon away untouched. - -When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs she slapped it down on the -kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly -polished dishes and plates. - -"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house of mystery, and those two -children are the greatest mysteries in it." - -"If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John, -"there'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day as he did a -month ago. I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of doing -my muscles an injury." - -That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's -room. She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because she -thought the change might have been made by chance. She said nothing -to-day but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantel. -She could look at it because the curtain had been drawn aside. That was -the change she noticed. - -"I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared -a few minutes. "I always know when you want me to tell you something. -You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keep it -like that." - -"Why?" asked Mary. - -"Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing. I -wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the -Magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I -couldn't lie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was -quite light and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and -somehow that made me go and pull the cord. She looked right down at me -as if she were laughing because she was glad I was standing there. It -made me like to look at her. I want to see her laughing like that all -the time. I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps." - -"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps -you are her ghost made into a boy." - -That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered -her slowly. - -"If I were her ghost--my father would be fond of me," he said. - -"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary. - -"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me -I think I should tell him about the Magic. It might make him more -cheerful." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -"IT'S MOTHER!" - - -Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's -incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures. - -"I like to do it," he explained, "because when I grow up and make great -scientific discoveries I shall be obliged to lecture about them and so -this is practise. I can only give short lectures now because I am very -young, and besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he was in church -and he would go to sleep." - -"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up -an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap can answer him back. I -wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel' sometimes." - -But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes on -him and kept them there. He looked him over with critical affection. It -was not so much the lecture which interested him as the legs which -looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head which held -itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks which had -filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold the light he -remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze -meant that he was much impressed he wondered what he was reflecting on -and once when he had seemed quite entranced he questioned him. - -"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked. - -"I was thinkin'," answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's gone up three or -four pound this week. I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders. -I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales." - -"It's the Magic and--and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said -Colin. "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded." - -That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he -was ruddy with running and his funny face looked more twinkling than -usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains they -fell to work. They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking -rain. The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for the -weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves which -must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. Colin was as -good at weeding as any one in these days and he could lecture while he -was doing it. - -"The Magic works best when you work yourself," he said this morning. -"You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I am going to read books -about bones and muscles, but I am going to write a book about Magic. I -am making it up now. I keep finding out things." - -It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his trowel -and stood up on his feet. He had been silent for several minutes and -they had seen that he was thinking out lectures, as he often did. When -he dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to Mary and Dickon as -if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. He stretched himself out -to his tallest height and he threw out his arms exultantly. Color glowed -in his face and his strange eyes widened with joyfulness. All at once he -had realized something to the full. - -"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!" - -They stopped their weeding and looked at him. - -"Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he -demanded. - -Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could -see more things than most people could and many of them were things he -never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy. - -"Aye, that we do," he answered. - -Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing. - -"Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once I remembered it -myself--when I looked at my hand digging with the trowel--and I had to -stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it _is_ real! I'm -_well_--I'm _well_!" - -"Aye, that tha' art!" said Dickon. - -"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all -over. - -He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought -about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all through -him--a sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been so -strong that he could not help calling out. - -"I shall live forever and ever and ever!" he cried grandly. "I shall -find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about -people and creatures and everything that grows--like Dickon--and I shall -never stop making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feel--I feel as if I want -to shout out something--something thankful, joyful!" - -Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round -at him. - -"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He had -no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with any -particular reverence. - -But Colin was of an exploring mind and he knew nothing about the -Doxology. - -"What is that?" he inquired. - -"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff. - -Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer's smile. - -"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th' -skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'." - -"If she says that, it must be a nice song," Colin answered. "I've never -been in a church myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon. I want -to hear it." - -Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it. He understood what -Colin felt better than Colin did himself. He understood by a sort of -instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding. He pulled -off his cap and looked round still smiling. - -"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha', -Ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows." - -Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as -he watched Dickon intently. Ben Weatherstaff scrambled up from his -knees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled half-resentful look -on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this -remarkable thing. - -Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes and began to sing in -quite a simple matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice: - - "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, - Praise Him all creatures here below, - Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host, - Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. - Amen." - -When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with his -jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on -Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative. - -"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it. Perhaps it means just -what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic." -He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. "Perhaps they are both the same -thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it again, -Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It's my song. How does -it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?" - -[Illustration: "'PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW'"--_Page 344_] - -And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as -musically as they could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and -beautiful--and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his -throat and at the third he joined in with such vigor that it seemed -almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed that the -very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he found out -that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he was staring -and winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet. - -"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I -may change my mind i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound this -week, Mester Colin--five on 'em!" - -Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his -attention and his expression had become a startled one. - -"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?" - -The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had -entered. She had come in with the last line of their song and she had -stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the -sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, -and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was rather like -a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful -affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in--all of them, even -Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower that was in bloom. -Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that she was an -intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps. - -"It's Mother--that's who it is!" he cried and he went across the grass -at a run. - -Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both -felt their pulses beat faster. - -"It's Mother!" Dickon said again when they met half-way. "I knowed tha' -wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid." - -Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his -eyes quite devoured her face. - -"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and -the secret garden. I'd never wanted to see any one or anything before." - -The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own. -She flushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed to -sweep over her eyes. - -"Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously. "Eh! dear lad!" as if she had -not known she were going to say it. She did not say, "Mester Colin," -but just "dear lad" quite suddenly. She might have said it to Dickon in -the same way if she had seen something in his face which touched her. -Colin liked it. - -"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked. - -She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes. - -"Aye, that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my -heart jump." - -"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my father -like me?" - -"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a soft -quick pat. "He mun come home--he mun come home." - -"Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff, getting close to her. "Look at -th' lad's legs, wilt tha'? They was like drumsticks i' stockin' two -month' ago--an' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knock-kneed both -at th' same time. Look at 'em now!" - -Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh. - -"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said. "Let -him go on playin' an' workin' in th' garden an' eatin' hearty an' -drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i' -Yorkshire, thank God for it." - -She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little -face over in a motherly fashion. - -"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our 'Lizabeth -Ellen. I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too. Our Martha told me as -Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty woman. Tha'lt be like a blush rose -when tha' grows up, my little lass, bless thee." - -She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and -described the plain sallow child she had said that she had no confidence -whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. "It doesn't stand to reason -that a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou' little lass," she -had added obstinately. - -Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face. She -had only known that she looked "different" and seemed to have a great -deal more hair and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her -pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear -that she might some day look like her. - -Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole -story of it and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin -walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept -looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the -delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling. It -seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his "creatures." -She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if they were -children. Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her and flew upon -her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her about the robin -and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a motherly little -mellow laugh in her throat. - -"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but -I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o' -legs," she said. - -It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland -cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic. - -"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about -Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do." - -"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it by that name but what -does th' name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i' France -an' a different one i' Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' -an' th' sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good Thing. It -isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called out of our -names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless thee. It goes -on makin' worlds by th' million--worlds like us. Never thee stop -believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it--an' -call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into th' -garden." - -"I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at -her. "Suddenly I felt how different I was--how strong my arms and legs -were, you know--and how I could dig and stand--and I jumped up and -wanted to shout out something to anything that would listen." - -"Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology. It would ha' listened -to anything tha'd sung. It was th' joy that mattered. Eh! lad, -lad--what's names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick -soft pat again. - -She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and -when the hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding -place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour -their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She was -full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things. She told -them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words. She laughed -as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing -difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful -invalid. - -"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are -together," explained Colin. "And it doesn't sound ill at all. We try to -choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever." - -"There's one thing that comes into my mind so often," said Mary, "and I -can scarcely ever hold in when I think of it suddenly. I keep thinking -suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon. It isn't like -one yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every day--and suppose some -morning it should look like one--what should we do!" - -"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do," said -Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keep it up much longer. Mester -Craven'll come home." - -"Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?" - -Susan Sowerby chuckled softly. - -"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told -him in tha' own way," she said. "Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it." - -"I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin. "I think about -different ways every day. I think now I just want to run into his -room." - -"That'd be a fine start for him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to see -his face, lad. I would that! He mun come back--that he mun." - -One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her -cottage. They planned it all. They were to drive over the moor and lunch -out of doors among the heather. They would see all the twelve children -and Dickon's garden and would not come back until they were tired. - -Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to the house and Mrs. Medlock. It -was time for Colin to be wheeled back also. But before he got into his -chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a -kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of -her blue cloak and held it fast. - -"You are just what I--what I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my -mother--as well as Dickon's!" - -All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms -close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been Dickon's -brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes. - -"Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden, I -do believe. She couldna' keep out of it. Thy father mun come back to -thee--he mun!" - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -IN THE GARDEN - - -In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have -been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out -than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still -more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to -believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it -can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the -world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things -people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just -mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as -sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad -one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ -get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may -never get over it as long as you live. - -So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about -her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to -be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, -bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, -though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for -her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and -moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old -gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and -with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy -and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable -thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow -and tired. - -So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his -fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and -reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical -half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the -spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon -his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push -out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran -healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. -His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was -nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to -any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his -mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting -in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one -place. - - "Where you tend a rose, my lad, - A thistle cannot grow." - -While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming -alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away -beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains -of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind -filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous; -he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark -ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on -mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming all about him -and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought them. A -terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had -let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to -allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted -his home and his duties. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded -over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to other people because -it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers -thought he must be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on -his soul. He was a tall man with a drawn face and crooked shoulders and -the name he always entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald Craven, -Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England." - -He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his -study and told her she might have her "bit of earth." He had been in the -most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more -than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had -been on the tops of mountains whose heads were in the clouds and had -looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with -such light as made it seem as if the world were just being born. - -But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he -realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had -happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had -been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted any man's -soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not lifted his. -But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a -carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran quite -merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious damp greenness. -Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled -over and round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in -it and then flick their wings and fly away. It seemed like a thing alive -and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valley was -very, very still. - -As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven -gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the valley -itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat -and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing -at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots growing so -close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he found -himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago. -He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of -blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just -that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--filling and filling it -until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet clear -spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen -until at last it swept the dark water away. But of course he did not -think of this himself. He only knew that the valley seemed to grow -quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate -blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to -him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly -and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and -wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released -in him, very quietly. - -"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over -his forehead. "I almost feel as if--I were alive!" - -I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to -be able to explain how this had happened to him. Neither does any one -else yet. He did not understand at all himself--but he remembered this -strange hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he -found out quite by accident that on this very day Colin had cried out as -he went into the secret garden: - -"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!" - -The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he -slept a new reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did -not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the -doors wide to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping and rushing -back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But, -strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes--sometimes -half-hours--when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to -lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. -Slowly--slowly--for no reason that he knew of--he was "coming alive" -with the garden. - -As the golden summer changed into the deeper golden autumn he went to -the Lake of Como. There he found the loveliness of a dream. He spent his -days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the -soft thick verdure of the hills and tramped until he was tired so that -he might sleep. But by this time he had begun to sleep better, he knew, -and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him. - -"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger." - -It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when his -thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too. He -began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home. Now -and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he -should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed again -and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it slept -and the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes. He -shrank from it. - -One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon -was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The -stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go -into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace -at the water's edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the heavenly -scents of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and -it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep. - -He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his -dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He -remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought -he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late -roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he heard a -voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed -very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very -side. - -"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer -than before, "Archie! Archie!" - -He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real -voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it. - -"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?" - -"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In the -garden!" - -And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and -sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was -brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an -Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa -were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign master -might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or where he -would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the -boat on the lake all night. The man held a salver with some letters on -it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he had gone -away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and looking -at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him and something more--a -lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happened as -he thought--as if something had changed. He was remembering the -dream--the real--real dream. - -"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But the -door is locked and the key is buried deep." - -When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one -lying at the top of the rest was an English letter and came from -Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a hand -he knew. He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first -words attracted his attention at once. - - "_Dear Sir:_ - - "I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you - once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary I spoke. - I will make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I - would come home if I was you. I think you would be - glad to come and--if you will excuse me, sir--I - think your lady would ask you to come if she was - here. - - "Your obedient servant, - "SUSAN SOWERBY." - -Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope. -He kept thinking about the dream. - -"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said. "Yes, I'll go at once." - -And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to -prepare for his return to England. - - * * * * * - -In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad -journey he found himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in -all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to forget -him. Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him -constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days when he -had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was -dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at -last it had been such a weak wretched thing that every one had been sure -it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took care -of it the days passed and it lived and then every one believed it would -be a deformed and crippled creature. - -He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father -at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had -shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his -own misery. The first time after a year's absence he returned to -Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly and -indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes -round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had -adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as -death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, -and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a -vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from -furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail. - -All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled -him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming -alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and -deeply. - -"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself. "Ten -years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything--quite too late. -What have I been thinking of!" - -Of course this was the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even -Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either -black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby -had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature -had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill. If he had not -been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession -of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had -brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to -thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in -better things. - -"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good -and control him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to -Misselthwaite." - -But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the -cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a -group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him -that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the -morning to help a woman who had a new baby. "Our Dickon," they -volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where -he went several days each week. - -Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round -red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he -awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at -their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and -gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest. - -"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each -of you," he said. - -Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, -leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind. - -The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. -Why did it seem to give him a sense of home-coming which he had been -sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky -and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing -nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six -hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering -to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed -with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find -him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his -shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and -clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the -garden!" - -"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I -must--though I don't know why." - -When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the -usual ceremony noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to -the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went -into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat -excited and curious and flustered. - -"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired. - -"Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner -of speaking." - -"Worse?" he suggested. - -Mrs. Medlock really was flushed. - -"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the -nurse, nor me can exactly make him out." - -"Why is that?" - -"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be -changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and -his ways--" - -"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master asked, knitting his -brows anxiously. - -"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with -what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began to -eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and the -meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir, -perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The -things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave -a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that -Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. Well, sir, -just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he -suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan -Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to both -Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if -you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until -night." - -"How does he look?" was the next question. - -"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on -flesh--but we're afraid it may be a sort of bloat. He laughs sometimes -in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary. He never used to laugh at -all. Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him. He -never was as puzzled in his life." - -"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked. - -"In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden--though not a human -creature is allowed to go near for fear they'll look at him." - -Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words. - -"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he -stood and repeated it again and again. "In the garden!" - -He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was -standing in and when he felt he was on earth again he turned and went -out of the room. He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door in -the shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds. The fountain -was playing now and was encircled by beds of brilliant autumn flowers. -He crossed the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls. He -did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path. He felt -as if he were being drawn back to the place he had so long forsaken, and -he did not know why. As he drew near to it his step became still more -slow. He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick over -it--but he did not know exactly where it lay--that buried key. - -So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment -after he had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were -walking in a dream. - -The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, -no human being had passed that portal for ten lonely years--and yet -inside the garden there were sounds. They were the sounds of running -scuffling feet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they -were strange sounds of lowered suppressed voices--exclamations and -smothered joyous cries. It seemed actually like the laughter of young -things, the uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to -be heard but who in a moment or so--as their excitement mounted--would -burst forth. What in heaven's name was he dreaming of--what in heaven's -name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things -which were not for human ears? Was it that the far clear voice had -meant? - -And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds -forgot to hush themselves. The feet ran faster and faster--they were -nearing the garden door--there was quick strong young breathing and a -wild outbreak of laughing shouts which could not be contained--and the -door in the wall was flung wide open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, -and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the -outsider, dashed almost into his arms. - -Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a -result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to -look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath. - -He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his -running had sent splendid color leaping to his face. He threw the thick -hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray eyes--eyes -full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It -was the eyes which made Mr. Craven gasp for breath. - -"Who--What? Who!" he stammered. - -This was not what Colin had expected--this was not what he had planned. -He had never thought of such a meeting. And yet to come dashing -out--winning a race--perhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to -his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed -through the door too, believed that he managed to make himself look -taller than he had ever looked before--inches taller. - -"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can -myself. I'm Colin." - -Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he -said hurriedly: - -"In the garden! In the garden!" - -"Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden that did it--and Mary and -Dickon and the creatures--and the Magic. No one knows. We kept it to -tell you when you came. I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going -to be an athlete." - -He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words -tumbling over each other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook -with unbelieving joy. - -Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm. - -"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. - -"Aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!" - -Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still. -He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment. - -"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last. "And tell me all -about it." - -And so they led him in. - -The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and -flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing -together--lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered well -when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the -year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climbed and -hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing -trees made one feel that one stood in an embowered temple of gold. The -newcomer stood silent just as the children had done when they came into -its grayness. He looked round and round. - -"I thought it would be dead," he said. - -"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive." - -Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand -while he told the story. - -It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, -as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and -wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting--the coming of the -spring--the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah -to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face. The odd -companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The -listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came -into his eyes when he was not laughing. The Athlete, the Lecturer, the -Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human -thing. - -"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it need not be a secret any -more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly into fits when they see -me--but I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back -with you, Father--to the house." - - * * * * * - -Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on -this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen -and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a -glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most -dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present -generation actually took place. - -One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave also a glimpse of the -lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he -might have caught sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting -with Master Colin. - -"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked. - -Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of -his hand. - -"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air. - -"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock. - -"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I -could sup up another mug of it." - -"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her -excitement. - -"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp. - -"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each -other?" - -"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' step-ladder -lookin' over th' wall. But I'll tell thee this. There's been things -goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about. An' what tha'll -find out tha'll find out soon." - -And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and -waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the -shrubbery a piece of the lawn. - -"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across th' -grass." - -When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek -and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the -servants' hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes -almost starting out of their heads. - -Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many -of them had never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air -and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy -in Yorkshire--Master Colin! - - -THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO - -CHAPTER 1 - -How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood -that wept and laughed like a child. - - -Centuries ago there lived-- - -“A king!” my little readers will say immediately. - -No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time there was a piece of -wood. It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common -block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the -fire in winter to make cold rooms cozy and warm. - -I do not know how this really happened, yet the fact remains that -one fine day this piece of wood found itself in the shop of an old -carpenter. His real name was Mastro Antonio, but everyone called him -Mastro Cherry, for the tip of his nose was so round and red and shiny -that it looked like a ripe cherry. - -As soon as he saw that piece of wood, Mastro Cherry was filled with joy. -Rubbing his hands together happily, he mumbled half to himself: - -“This has come in the nick of time. I shall use it to make the leg of a -table.” - -He grasped the hatchet quickly to peel off the bark and shape the wood. -But as he was about to give it the first blow, he stood still with arm -uplifted, for he had heard a wee, little voice say in a beseeching tone: -“Please be careful! Do not hit me so hard!” - -What a look of surprise shone on Mastro Cherry’s face! His funny face -became still funnier. - -He turned frightened eyes about the room to find out where that wee, -little voice had come from and he saw no one! He looked under the -bench--no one! He peeped inside the closet--no one! He searched among -the shavings--no one! He opened the door to look up and down the -street--and still no one! - -“Oh, I see!” he then said, laughing and scratching his Wig. “It can -easily be seen that I only thought I heard the tiny voice say the words! -Well, well--to work once more.” - -He struck a most solemn blow upon the piece of wood. - -“Oh, oh! You hurt!” cried the same far-away little voice. - -Mastro Cherry grew dumb, his eyes popped out of his head, his mouth -opened wide, and his tongue hung down on his chin. - -As soon as he regained the use of his senses, he said, trembling and -stuttering from fright: - -“Where did that voice come from, when there is no one around? Might it -be that this piece of wood has learned to weep and cry like a child? I -can hardly believe it. Here it is--a piece of common firewood, good -only to burn in the stove, the same as any other. Yet--might someone be -hidden in it? If so, the worse for him. I’ll fix him!” - -With these words, he grabbed the log with both hands and started to -knock it about unmercifully. He threw it to the floor, against the walls -of the room, and even up to the ceiling. - -He listened for the tiny voice to moan and cry. He waited two -minutes--nothing; five minutes--nothing; ten minutes--nothing. - -“Oh, I see,” he said, trying bravely to laugh and ruffling up his wig -with his hand. “It can easily be seen I only imagined I heard the tiny -voice! Well, well--to work once more!” - -The poor fellow was scared half to death, so he tried to sing a gay song -in order to gain courage. - -He set aside the hatchet and picked up the plane to make the wood smooth -and even, but as he drew it to and fro, he heard the same tiny voice. -This time it giggled as it spoke: - -“Stop it! Oh, stop it! Ha, ha, ha! You tickle my stomach.” - -This time poor Mastro Cherry fell as if shot. When he opened his eyes, -he found himself sitting on the floor. - -His face had changed; fright had turned even the tip of his nose from -red to deepest purple. - - - - -CHAPTER 2 - -Mastro Cherry gives the piece of wood to his friend Geppetto, who -takes it to make himself a Marionette that will dance, fence, and turn -somersaults. - - -In that very instant, a loud knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” said -the carpenter, not having an atom of strength left with which to stand -up. - -At the words, the door opened and a dapper little old man came in. -His name was Geppetto, but to the boys of the neighborhood he was -Polendina,* on account of the wig he always wore which was just the -color of yellow corn. - - * Cornmeal mush - -Geppetto had a very bad temper. Woe to the one who called him Polendina! -He became as wild as a beast and no one could soothe him. - -“Good day, Mastro Antonio,” said Geppetto. “What are you doing on the -floor?” - -“I am teaching the ants their A B C’s.” - -“Good luck to you!” - -“What brought you here, friend Geppetto?” - -“My legs. And it may flatter you to know, Mastro Antonio, that I have -come to you to beg for a favor.” - -“Here I am, at your service,” answered the carpenter, raising himself on -to his knees. - -“This morning a fine idea came to me.” - -“Let’s hear it.” - -“I thought of making myself a beautiful wooden Marionette. It must be -wonderful, one that will be able to dance, fence, and turn somersaults. -With it I intend to go around the world, to earn my crust of bread and -cup of wine. What do you think of it?” - -“Bravo, Polendina!” cried the same tiny voice which came from no one -knew where. - -On hearing himself called Polendina, Mastro Geppetto turned the color of -a red pepper and, facing the carpenter, said to him angrily: - -“Why do you insult me?” - -“Who is insulting you?” - -“You called me Polendina.” - -“I did not.” - -“I suppose you think _I_ did! Yet I KNOW it was you.” - -“No!” - -“Yes!” - -“No!” - -“Yes!” - -And growing angrier each moment, they went from words to blows, and -finally began to scratch and bite and slap each other. - -When the fight was over, Mastro Antonio had Geppetto’s yellow wig in his -hands and Geppetto found the carpenter’s curly wig in his mouth. - -“Give me back my wig!” shouted Mastro Antonio in a surly voice. - -“You return mine and we’ll be friends.” - -The two little old men, each with his own wig back on his own head, -shook hands and swore to be good friends for the rest of their lives. - -“Well then, Mastro Geppetto,” said the carpenter, to show he bore him no -ill will, “what is it you want?” - -“I want a piece of wood to make a Marionette. Will you give it to me?” - -Mastro Antonio, very glad indeed, went immediately to his bench to get -the piece of wood which had frightened him so much. But as he was about -to give it to his friend, with a violent jerk it slipped out of his -hands and hit against poor Geppetto’s thin legs. - -“Ah! Is this the gentle way, Mastro Antonio, in which you make your -gifts? You have made me almost lame!” - -“I swear to you I did not do it!” - -“It was _I_, of course!” - -“It’s the fault of this piece of wood.” - -“You’re right; but remember you were the one to throw it at my legs.” - -“I did not throw it!” - -“Liar!” - -“Geppetto, do not insult me or I shall call you Polendina.” - -“Idiot.” - -“Polendina!” - -“Donkey!” - -“Polendina!” - -“Ugly monkey!” - -“Polendina!” - -On hearing himself called Polendina for the third time, Geppetto lost -his head with rage and threw himself upon the carpenter. Then and there -they gave each other a sound thrashing. - -After this fight, Mastro Antonio had two more scratches on his nose, -and Geppetto had two buttons missing from his coat. Thus having settled -their accounts, they shook hands and swore to be good friends for the -rest of their lives. - -Then Geppetto took the fine piece of wood, thanked Mastro Antonio, and -limped away toward home. - - - - -CHAPTER 3 - -As soon as he gets home, Geppetto fashions the Marionette and calls it -Pinocchio. The first pranks of the Marionette. - - -Little as Geppetto’s house was, it was neat and comfortable. It was a -small room on the ground floor, with a tiny window under the stairway. -The furniture could not have been much simpler: a very old chair, a -rickety old bed, and a tumble-down table. A fireplace full of burning -logs was painted on the wall opposite the door. Over the fire, there -was painted a pot full of something which kept boiling happily away and -sending up clouds of what looked like real steam. - -As soon as he reached home, Geppetto took his tools and began to cut and -shape the wood into a Marionette. - -“What shall I call him?” he said to himself. “I think I’ll call him -PINOCCHIO. This name will make his fortune. I knew a whole family of -Pinocchi once--Pinocchio the father, Pinocchia the mother, and Pinocchi -the children--and they were all lucky. The richest of them begged for -his living.” - -After choosing the name for his Marionette, Geppetto set seriously to -work to make the hair, the forehead, the eyes. Fancy his surprise -when he noticed that these eyes moved and then stared fixedly at him. -Geppetto, seeing this, felt insulted and said in a grieved tone: - -“Ugly wooden eyes, why do you stare so?” - -There was no answer. - -After the eyes, Geppetto made the nose, which began to stretch as soon -as finished. It stretched and stretched and stretched till it became so -long, it seemed endless. - -Poor Geppetto kept cutting it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the -longer grew that impertinent nose. In despair he let it alone. - -Next he made the mouth. - -No sooner was it finished than it began to laugh and poke fun at him. - -“Stop laughing!” said Geppetto angrily; but he might as well have spoken -to the wall. - -“Stop laughing, I say!” he roared in a voice of thunder. - -The mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue. - -Not wishing to start an argument, Geppetto made believe he saw nothing -and went on with his work. After the mouth, he made the chin, then the -neck, the shoulders, the stomach, the arms, and the hands. - -As he was about to put the last touches on the finger tips, Geppetto -felt his wig being pulled off. He glanced up and what did he see? His -yellow wig was in the Marionette’s hand. “Pinocchio, give me my wig!” - -But instead of giving it back, Pinocchio put it on his own head, which -was half swallowed up in it. - -At that unexpected trick, Geppetto became very sad and downcast, more so -than he had ever been before. - -“Pinocchio, you wicked boy!” he cried out. “You are not yet finished, -and you start out by being impudent to your poor old father. Very bad, -my son, very bad!” - -And he wiped away a tear. - -The legs and feet still had to be made. As soon as they were done, -Geppetto felt a sharp kick on the tip of his nose. - -“I deserve it!” he said to himself. “I should have thought of this -before I made him. Now it’s too late!” - -He took hold of the Marionette under the arms and put him on the floor -to teach him to walk. - -Pinocchio’s legs were so stiff that he could not move them, and Geppetto -held his hand and showed him how to put out one foot after the other. - -When his legs were limbered up, Pinocchio started walking by himself and -ran all around the room. He came to the open door, and with one leap he -was out into the street. Away he flew! - -Poor Geppetto ran after him but was unable to catch him, for Pinocchio -ran in leaps and bounds, his two wooden feet, as they beat on the stones -of the street, making as much noise as twenty peasants in wooden shoes. - -“Catch him! Catch him!” Geppetto kept shouting. But the people in the -street, seeing a wooden Marionette running like the wind, stood still to -stare and to laugh until they cried. - -At last, by sheer luck, a Carabineer* happened along, who, hearing all -that noise, thought that it might be a runaway colt, and stood bravely -in the middle of the street, with legs wide apart, firmly resolved to -stop it and prevent any trouble. - - * A military policeman - -Pinocchio saw the Carabineer from afar and tried his best to escape -between the legs of the big fellow, but without success. - -The Carabineer grabbed him by the nose (it was an extremely long one and -seemed made on purpose for that very thing) and returned him to Mastro -Geppetto. - -The little old man wanted to pull Pinocchio’s ears. Think how he felt -when, upon searching for them, he discovered that he had forgotten to -make them! - -All he could do was to seize Pinocchio by the back of the neck and take -him home. As he was doing so, he shook him two or three times and said -to him angrily: - -“We’re going home now. When we get home, then we’ll settle this matter!” - -Pinocchio, on hearing this, threw himself on the ground and refused to -take another step. One person after another gathered around the two. - -Some said one thing, some another. - -“Poor Marionette,” called out a man. “I am not surprised he doesn’t want -to go home. Geppetto, no doubt, will beat him unmercifully, he is so -mean and cruel!” - -“Geppetto looks like a good man,” added another, “but with boys he’s a -real tyrant. If we leave that poor Marionette in his hands he may tear -him to pieces!” - -They said so much that, finally, the Carabineer ended matters by setting -Pinocchio at liberty and dragging Geppetto to prison. The poor old -fellow did not know how to defend himself, but wept and wailed like a -child and said between his sobs: - -“Ungrateful boy! To think I tried so hard to make you a well-behaved -Marionette! I deserve it, however! I should have given the matter more -thought.” - -What happened after this is an almost unbelievable story, but you may -read it, dear children, in the chapters that follow. - - - - -CHAPTER 4 - -The story of Pinocchio and the Talking Cricket, in which one sees that -bad children do not like to be corrected by those who know more than -they do. - - -Very little time did it take to get poor old Geppetto to prison. In -the meantime that rascal, Pinocchio, free now from the clutches of the -Carabineer, was running wildly across fields and meadows, taking one -short cut after another toward home. In his wild flight, he leaped over -brambles and bushes, and across brooks and ponds, as if he were a goat -or a hare chased by hounds. - -On reaching home, he found the house door half open. He slipped into -the room, locked the door, and threw himself on the floor, happy at his -escape. - -But his happiness lasted only a short time, for just then he heard -someone saying: - -“Cri-cri-cri!” - -“Who is calling me?” asked Pinocchio, greatly frightened. - -“I am!” - -Pinocchio turned and saw a large cricket crawling slowly up the wall. - -“Tell me, Cricket, who are you?” - -“I am the Talking Cricket and I have been living in this room for more -than one hundred years.” - -“Today, however, this room is mine,” said the Marionette, “and if you -wish to do me a favor, get out now, and don’t turn around even once.” - -“I refuse to leave this spot,” answered the Cricket, “until I have told -you a great truth.” - -“Tell it, then, and hurry.” - -“Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home! -They will never be happy in this world, and when they are older they -will be very sorry for it.” - -“Sing on, Cricket mine, as you please. What I know is, that tomorrow, -at dawn, I leave this place forever. If I stay here the same thing will -happen to me which happens to all other boys and girls. They are sent to -school, and whether they want to or not, they must study. As for me, -let me tell you, I hate to study! It’s much more fun, I think, to chase -after butterflies, climb trees, and steal birds’ nests.” - -“Poor little silly! Don’t you know that if you go on like that, you -will grow into a perfect donkey and that you’ll be the laughingstock of -everyone?” - -“Keep still, you ugly Cricket!” cried Pinocchio. - -But the Cricket, who was a wise old philosopher, instead of being -offended at Pinocchio’s impudence, continued in the same tone: - -“If you do not like going to school, why don’t you at least learn a -trade, so that you can earn an honest living?” - -“Shall I tell you something?” asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to lose -patience. “Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really -suits me.” - -“And what can that be?” - -“That of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and wandering around from -morning till night.” - -“Let me tell you, for your own good, Pinocchio,” said the Talking -Cricket in his calm voice, “that those who follow that trade always end -up in the hospital or in prison.” - -“Careful, ugly Cricket! If you make me angry, you’ll be sorry!” - -“Poor Pinocchio, I am sorry for you.” - -“Why?” - -“Because you are a Marionette and, what is much worse, you have a wooden -head.” - -At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from -the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket. - -Perhaps he did not think he would strike it. But, sad to relate, my dear -children, he did hit the Cricket, straight on its head. - -With a last weak “cri-cri-cri” the poor Cricket fell from the wall, -dead! - - - - -CHAPTER 5 - -Pinocchio is hungry and looks for an egg to cook himself an omelet; but, -to his surprise, the omelet flies out of the window. - - -If the Cricket’s death scared Pinocchio at all, it was only for a very -few moments. For, as night came on, a queer, empty feeling at the pit of -his stomach reminded the Marionette that he had eaten nothing as yet. - -A boy’s appetite grows very fast, and in a few moments the queer, empty -feeling had become hunger, and the hunger grew bigger and bigger, until -soon he was as ravenous as a bear. - -Poor Pinocchio ran to the fireplace where the pot was boiling and -stretched out his hand to take the cover off, but to his amazement the -pot was only painted! Think how he felt! His long nose became at least -two inches longer. - -He ran about the room, dug in all the boxes and drawers, and even looked -under the bed in search of a piece of bread, hard though it might be, -or a cookie, or perhaps a bit of fish. A bone left by a dog would have -tasted good to him! But he found nothing. - -And meanwhile his hunger grew and grew. The only relief poor Pinocchio -had was to yawn; and he certainly did yawn, such a big yawn that his -mouth stretched out to the tips of his ears. Soon he became dizzy and -faint. He wept and wailed to himself: “The Talking Cricket was right. It -was wrong of me to disobey Father and to run away from home. If he were -here now, I wouldn’t be so hungry! Oh, how horrible it is to be hungry!” - -Suddenly, he saw, among the sweepings in a corner, something round and -white that looked very much like a hen’s egg. In a jiffy he pounced upon -it. It was an egg. - -The Marionette’s joy knew no bounds. It is impossible to describe it, -you must picture it to yourself. Certain that he was dreaming, he turned -the egg over and over in his hands, fondled it, kissed it, and talked to -it: - -“And now, how shall I cook you? Shall I make an omelet? No, it is better -to fry you in a pan! Or shall I drink you? No, the best way is to fry -you in the pan. You will taste better.” - -No sooner said than done. He placed a little pan over a foot warmer full -of hot coals. In the pan, instead of oil or butter, he poured a -little water. As soon as the water started to boil--tac!--he broke the -eggshell. But in place of the white and the yolk of the egg, a little -yellow Chick, fluffy and gay and smiling, escaped from it. Bowing -politely to Pinocchio, he said to him: - -“Many, many thanks, indeed, Mr. Pinocchio, for having saved me the -trouble of breaking my shell! Good-by and good luck to you and remember -me to the family!” - -With these words he spread out his wings and, darting to the open -window, he flew away into space till he was out of sight. - -The poor Marionette stood as if turned to stone, with wide eyes, open -mouth, and the empty halves of the egg-shell in his hands. When he came -to himself, he began to cry and shriek at the top of his lungs, stamping -his feet on the ground and wailing all the while: - -“The Talking Cricket was right! If I had not run away from home and if -Father were here now, I should not be dying of hunger. Oh, how horrible -it is to be hungry!” - -And as his stomach kept grumbling more than ever and he had nothing -to quiet it with, he thought of going out for a walk to the near-by -village, in the hope of finding some charitable person who might give -him a bit of bread. - - - - -CHAPTER 6 - -Pinocchio falls asleep with his feet on a foot warmer, and awakens the -next day with his feet all burned off. - - -Pinocchio hated the dark street, but he was so hungry that, in spite of -it, he ran out of the house. The night was pitch black. It thundered, -and bright flashes of lightning now and again shot across the sky, -turning it into a sea of fire. An angry wind blew cold and raised dense -clouds of dust, while the trees shook and moaned in a weird way. - -Pinocchio was greatly afraid of thunder and lightning, but the hunger he -felt was far greater than his fear. In a dozen leaps and bounds, he -came to the village, tired out, puffing like a whale, and with tongue -hanging. - -The whole village was dark and deserted. The stores were closed, the -doors, the windows. In the streets, not even a dog could be seen. It -seemed the Village of the Dead. - -Pinocchio, in desperation, ran up to a doorway, threw himself upon the -bell, and pulled it wildly, saying to himself: “Someone will surely -answer that!” - -He was right. An old man in a nightcap opened the window and looked out. -He called down angrily: - -“What do you want at this hour of night?” - -“Will you be good enough to give me a bit of bread? I am hungry.” - -“Wait a minute and I’ll come right back,” answered the old fellow, -thinking he had to deal with one of those boys who love to roam around -at night ringing people’s bells while they are peacefully asleep. - -After a minute or two, the same voice cried: - -“Get under the window and hold out your hat!” - -Pinocchio had no hat, but he managed to get under the window just in -time to feel a shower of ice-cold water pour down on his poor wooden -head, his shoulders, and over his whole body. - -He returned home as wet as a rag, and tired out from weariness and -hunger. - -As he no longer had any strength left with which to stand, he sat down -on a little stool and put his two feet on the stove to dry them. - -There he fell asleep, and while he slept, his wooden feet began to burn. -Slowly, very slowly, they blackened and turned to ashes. - -Pinocchio snored away happily as if his feet were not his own. At dawn -he opened his eyes just as a loud knocking sounded at the door. - -“Who is it?” he called, yawning and rubbing his eyes. - -“It is I,” answered a voice. - -It was the voice of Geppetto. - - - - -CHAPTER 7 - -Geppetto returns home and gives his own breakfast to the Marionette - - -The poor Marionette, who was still half asleep, had not yet found out -that his two feet were burned and gone. As soon as he heard his Father’s -voice, he jumped up from his seat to open the door, but, as he did so, -he staggered and fell headlong to the floor. - -In falling, he made as much noise as a sack of wood falling from the -fifth story of a house. - -“Open the door for me!” Geppetto shouted from the street. - -“Father, dear Father, I can’t,” answered the Marionette in despair, -crying and rolling on the floor. - -“Why can’t you?” - -“Because someone has eaten my feet.” - -“And who has eaten them?” - -“The cat,” answered Pinocchio, seeing that little animal busily playing -with some shavings in the corner of the room. - -“Open! I say,” repeated Geppetto, “or I’ll give you a sound whipping -when I get in.” - -“Father, believe me, I can’t stand up. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall have -to walk on my knees all my life.” - -Geppetto, thinking that all these tears and cries were only other pranks -of the Marionette, climbed up the side of the house and went in through -the window. - -At first he was very angry, but on seeing Pinocchio stretched out on the -floor and really without feet, he felt very sad and sorrowful. Picking -him up from the floor, he fondled and caressed him, talking to him while -the tears ran down his cheeks: - -“My little Pinocchio, my dear little Pinocchio! How did you burn your -feet?” - -“I don’t know, Father, but believe me, the night has been a terrible one -and I shall remember it as long as I live. The thunder was so noisy and -the lightning so bright--and I was hungry. And then the Talking Cricket -said to me, ‘You deserve it; you were bad;’ and I said to him, ‘Careful, -Cricket;’ and he said to me, ‘You are a Marionette and you have a wooden -head;’ and I threw the hammer at him and killed him. It was his own -fault, for I didn’t want to kill him. And I put the pan on the coals, -but the Chick flew away and said, ‘I’ll see you again! Remember me to -the family.’ And my hunger grew, and I went out, and the old man with a -nightcap looked out of the window and threw water on me, and I came home -and put my feet on the stove to dry them because I was still hungry, -and I fell asleep and now my feet are gone but my hunger isn’t! -Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” And poor Pinocchio began to scream and cry so loudly that -he could be heard for miles around. - -Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that jumbled talk, except -that the Marionette was hungry, felt sorry for him, and pulling three -pears out of his pocket, offered them to him, saying: - -“These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly. -Eat them and stop weeping.” - -“If you want me to eat them, please peel them for me.” - -“Peel them?” asked Geppetto, very much surprised. “I should never have -thought, dear boy of mine, that you were so dainty and fussy about your -food. Bad, very bad! In this world, even as children, we must accustom -ourselves to eat of everything, for we never know what life may hold in -store for us!” - -“You may be right,” answered Pinocchio, “but I will not eat the pears if -they are not peeled. I don’t like them.” - -And good old Geppetto took out a knife, peeled the three pears, and put -the skins in a row on the table. - -Pinocchio ate one pear in a twinkling and started to throw the core -away, but Geppetto held his arm. - -“Oh, no, don’t throw it away! Everything in this world may be of some -use!” - -“But the core I will not eat!” cried Pinocchio in an angry tone. - -“Who knows?” repeated Geppetto calmly. - -And later the three cores were placed on the table next to the skins. - -Pinocchio had eaten the three pears, or rather devoured them. Then he -yawned deeply, and wailed: - -“I’m still hungry.” - -“But I have no more to give you.” - -“Really, nothing--nothing?” - -“I have only these three cores and these skins.” - -“Very well, then,” said Pinocchio, “if there is nothing else I’ll eat -them.” - -At first he made a wry face, but, one after another, the skins and the -cores disappeared. - -“Ah! Now I feel fine!” he said after eating the last one. - -“You see,” observed Geppetto, “that I was right when I told you that one -must not be too fussy and too dainty about food. My dear, we never know -what life may have in store for us!” - - - - -CHAPTER 8 - -Geppetto makes Pinocchio a new pair of feet, and sells his coat to buy -him an A-B-C book. - - -The Marionette, as soon as his hunger was appeased, started to grumble -and cry that he wanted a new pair of feet. - -But Mastro Geppetto, in order to punish him for his mischief, let him -alone the whole morning. After dinner he said to him: - -“Why should I make your feet over again? To see you run away from home -once more?” - -“I promise you,” answered the Marionette, sobbing, “that from now on -I’ll be good--” - -“Boys always promise that when they want something,” said Geppetto. - -“I promise to go to school every day, to study, and to succeed--” - -“Boys always sing that song when they want their own will.” - -“But I am not like other boys! I am better than all of them and I always -tell the truth. I promise you, Father, that I’ll learn a trade, and I’ll -be the comfort and staff of your old age.” - -Geppetto, though trying to look very stern, felt his eyes fill with -tears and his heart soften when he saw Pinocchio so unhappy. He said -no more, but taking his tools and two pieces of wood, he set to work -diligently. - -In less than an hour the feet were finished, two slender, nimble little -feet, strong and quick, modeled as if by an artist’s hands. - -“Close your eyes and sleep!” Geppetto then said to the Marionette. - -Pinocchio closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, while Geppetto -stuck on the two feet with a bit of glue melted in an eggshell, doing -his work so well that the joint could hardly be seen. - -As soon as the Marionette felt his new feet, he gave one leap from the -table and started to skip and jump around, as if he had lost his head -from very joy. - -“To show you how grateful I am to you, Father, I’ll go to school now. -But to go to school I need a suit of clothes.” - -Geppetto did not have a penny in his pocket, so he made his son a little -suit of flowered paper, a pair of shoes from the bark of a tree, and a -tiny cap from a bit of dough. - -Pinocchio ran to look at himself in a bowl of water, and he felt so -happy that he said proudly: - -“Now I look like a gentleman.” - -“Truly,” answered Geppetto. “But remember that fine clothes do not make -the man unless they be neat and clean.” - -“Very true,” answered Pinocchio, “but, in order to go to school, I still -need something very important.” - -“What is it?” - -“An A-B-C book.” - -“To be sure! But how shall we get it?” - -“That’s easy. We’ll go to a bookstore and buy it.” - -“And the money?” - -“I have none.” - -“Neither have I,” said the old man sadly. - -Pinocchio, although a happy boy always, became sad and downcast at these -words. When poverty shows itself, even mischievous boys understand what -it means. - -“What does it matter, after all?” cried Geppetto all at once, as he -jumped up from his chair. Putting on his old coat, full of darns and -patches, he ran out of the house without another word. - -After a while he returned. In his hands he had the A-B-C book for his -son, but the old coat was gone. The poor fellow was in his shirt sleeves -and the day was cold. - -“Where’s your coat, Father?” - -“I have sold it.” - -“Why did you sell your coat?” - -“It was too warm.” - -Pinocchio understood the answer in a twinkling, and, unable to restrain -his tears, he jumped on his father’s neck and kissed him over and over. - - - - -CHAPTER 9 - -Pinocchio sells his A-B-C book to pay his way into the Marionette -Theater. - - -See Pinocchio hurrying off to school with his new A-B-C book under -his arm! As he walked along, his brain was busy planning hundreds of -wonderful things, building hundreds of castles in the air. Talking to -himself, he said: - -“In school today, I’ll learn to read, tomorrow to write, and the day -after tomorrow I’ll do arithmetic. Then, clever as I am, I can earn a -lot of money. With the very first pennies I make, I’ll buy Father a new -cloth coat. Cloth, did I say? No, it shall be of gold and silver with -diamond buttons. That poor man certainly deserves it; for, after all, -isn’t he in his shirt sleeves because he was good enough to buy a -book for me? On this cold day, too! Fathers are indeed good to their -children!” - -As he talked to himself, he thought he heard sounds of pipes and drums -coming from a distance: pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi. . .zum, zum, zum, zum. - -He stopped to listen. Those sounds came from a little street that led to -a small village along the shore. - -“What can that noise be? What a nuisance that I have to go to school! -Otherwise. . .” - -There he stopped, very much puzzled. He felt he had to make up his mind -for either one thing or another. Should he go to school, or should he -follow the pipes? - -“Today I’ll follow the pipes, and tomorrow I’ll go to school. There’s -always plenty of time to go to school,” decided the little rascal at -last, shrugging his shoulders. - -No sooner said than done. He started down the street, going like the -wind. On he ran, and louder grew the sounds of pipe and drum: pi-pi-pi, -pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi . . .zum, zum, zum, zum. - -Suddenly, he found himself in a large square, full of people standing in -front of a little wooden building painted in brilliant colors. - -“What is that house?” Pinocchio asked a little boy near him. - -“Read the sign and you’ll know.” - -“I’d like to read, but somehow I can’t today.” - -“Oh, really? Then I’ll read it to you. Know, then, that written in -letters of fire I see the words: GREAT MARIONETTE THEATER. - -“When did the show start?” - -“It is starting now.” - -“And how much does one pay to get in?” - -“Four pennies.” - -Pinocchio, who was wild with curiosity to know what was going on inside, -lost all his pride and said to the boy shamelessly: - -“Will you give me four pennies until tomorrow?” - -“I’d give them to you gladly,” answered the other, poking fun at him, -“but just now I can’t give them to you.” - -“For the price of four pennies, I’ll sell you my coat.” - -“If it rains, what shall I do with a coat of flowered paper? I could not -take it off again.” - -“Do you want to buy my shoes?” - -“They are only good enough to light a fire with.” - -“What about my hat?” - -“Fine bargain, indeed! A cap of dough! The mice might come and eat it -from my head!” - -Pinocchio was almost in tears. He was just about to make one last offer, -but he lacked the courage to do so. He hesitated, he wondered, he could -not make up his mind. At last he said: - -“Will you give me four pennies for the book?” - -“I am a boy and I buy nothing from boys,” said the little fellow with -far more common sense than the Marionette. - -“I’ll give you four pennies for your A-B-C book,” said a ragpicker who -stood by. - -Then and there, the book changed hands. And to think that poor old -Geppetto sat at home in his shirt sleeves, shivering with cold, having -sold his coat to buy that little book for his son! - - - - -CHAPTER 10 - -The Marionettes recognize their brother Pinocchio, and greet him with -loud cheers; but the Director, Fire Eater, happens along and poor -Pinocchio almost loses his life. - - -Quick as a flash, Pinocchio disappeared into the Marionette Theater. And -then something happened which almost caused a riot. - -The curtain was up and the performance had started. - -Harlequin and Pulcinella were reciting on the stage and, as usual, they -were threatening each other with sticks and blows. - -The theater was full of people, enjoying the spectacle and laughing till -they cried at the antics of the two Marionettes. - -The play continued for a few minutes, and then suddenly, without any -warning, Harlequin stopped talking. Turning toward the audience, he -pointed to the rear of the orchestra, yelling wildly at the same time: - -“Look, look! Am I asleep or awake? Or do I really see Pinocchio there?” - -“Yes, yes! It is Pinocchio!” screamed Pulcinella. - -“It is! It is!” shrieked Signora Rosaura, peeking in from the side of -the stage. - -“It is Pinocchio! It is Pinocchio!” yelled all the Marionettes, pouring -out of the wings. “It is Pinocchio. It is our brother Pinocchio! Hurrah -for Pinocchio!” - -“Pinocchio, come up to me!” shouted Harlequin. “Come to the arms of your -wooden brothers!” - -At such a loving invitation, Pinocchio, with one leap from the back of -the orchestra, found himself in the front rows. With another leap, -he was on the orchestra leader’s head. With a third, he landed on the -stage. - -It is impossible to describe the shrieks of joy, the warm embraces, the -knocks, and the friendly greetings with which that strange company of -dramatic actors and actresses received Pinocchio. - -It was a heart-rending spectacle, but the audience, seeing that the play -had stopped, became angry and began to yell: - -“The play, the play, we want the play!” - -The yelling was of no use, for the Marionettes, instead of going on -with their act, made twice as much racket as before, and, lifting up -Pinocchio on their shoulders, carried him around the stage in triumph. - -At that very moment, the Director came out of his room. He had such a -fearful appearance that one look at him would fill you with horror. His -beard was as black as pitch, and so long that it reached from his chin -down to his feet. His mouth was as wide as an oven, his teeth like -yellow fangs, and his eyes, two glowing red coals. In his huge, hairy -hands, a long whip, made of green snakes and black cats’ tails twisted -together, swished through the air in a dangerous way. - -At the unexpected apparition, no one dared even to breathe. One could -almost hear a fly go by. Those poor Marionettes, one and all, trembled -like leaves in a storm. - -“Why have you brought such excitement into my theater;” the huge fellow -asked Pinocchio with the voice of an ogre suffering with a cold. - -“Believe me, your Honor, the fault was not mine.” - -“Enough! Be quiet! I’ll take care of you later.” - -As soon as the play was over, the Director went to the kitchen, where -a fine big lamb was slowly turning on the spit. More wood was needed to -finish cooking it. He called Harlequin and Pulcinella and said to them: - -“Bring that Marionette to me! He looks as if he were made of -well-seasoned wood. He’ll make a fine fire for this spit.” - -Harlequin and Pulcinella hesitated a bit. Then, frightened by a look -from their master, they left the kitchen to obey him. A few minutes -later they returned, carrying poor Pinocchio, who was wriggling and -squirming like an eel and crying pitifully: - -“Father, save me! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” - - - - -CHAPTER 11 - -Fire Eater sneezes and forgives Pinocchio, who saves his friend, -Harlequin, from death. - - -In the theater, great excitement reigned. - -Fire Eater (this was really his name) was very ugly, but he was far from -being as bad as he looked. Proof of this is that, when he saw the poor -Marionette being brought in to him, struggling with fear and crying, “I -don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” he felt sorry for him and began -first to waver and then to weaken. Finally, he could control himself no -longer and gave a loud sneeze. - -At that sneeze, Harlequin, who until then had been as sad as a weeping -willow, smiled happily and leaning toward the Marionette, whispered to -him: - -“Good news, brother mine! Fire Eater has sneezed and this is a sign that -he feels sorry for you. You are saved!” - -For be it known, that, while other people, when sad and sorrowful, weep -and wipe their eyes, Fire Eater, on the other hand, had the strange -habit of sneezing each time he felt unhappy. The way was just as good as -any other to show the kindness of his heart. - -After sneezing, Fire Eater, ugly as ever, cried to Pinocchio: - -“Stop crying! Your wails give me a funny feeling down here in my stomach -and--E--tchee!--E--tchee!” Two loud sneezes finished his speech. - -“God bless you!” said Pinocchio. - -“Thanks! Are your father and mother still living?” demanded Fire Eater. - -“My father, yes. My mother I have never known.” - -“Your poor father would suffer terribly if I were to use you as -firewood. Poor old man! I feel sorry for him! E--tchee! E--tchee! -E--tchee!” Three more sneezes sounded, louder than ever. - -“God bless you!” said Pinocchio. - -“Thanks! However, I ought to be sorry for myself, too, just now. My good -dinner is spoiled. I have no more wood for the fire, and the lamb -is only half cooked. Never mind! In your place I’ll burn some other -Marionette. Hey there! Officers!” - -At the call, two wooden officers appeared, long and thin as a yard of -rope, with queer hats on their heads and swords in their hands. - -Fire Eater yelled at them in a hoarse voice: - -“Take Harlequin, tie him, and throw him on the fire. I want my lamb well -done!” - -Think how poor Harlequin felt! He was so scared that his legs doubled up -under him and he fell to the floor. - -Pinocchio, at that heartbreaking sight, threw himself at the feet of -Fire Eater and, weeping bitterly, asked in a pitiful voice which could -scarcely be heard: - -“Have pity, I beg of you, signore!” - -“There are no signori here!” - -“Have pity, kind sir!” - -“There are no sirs here!” - -“Have pity, your Excellency!” - -On hearing himself addressed as your Excellency, the Director of the -Marionette Theater sat up very straight in his chair, stroked his long -beard, and becoming suddenly kind and compassionate, smiled proudly as -he said to Pinocchio: - -“Well, what do you want from me now, Marionette?” - -“I beg for mercy for my poor friend, Harlequin, who has never done the -least harm in his life.” - -“There is no mercy here, Pinocchio. I have spared you. Harlequin must -burn in your place. I am hungry and my dinner must be cooked.” - -“In that case,” said Pinocchio proudly, as he stood up and flung away -his cap of dough, “in that case, my duty is clear. Come, officers! -Tie me up and throw me on those flames. No, it is not fair for poor -Harlequin, the best friend that I have in the world, to die in my -place!” - -These brave words, said in a piercing voice, made all the other -Marionettes cry. Even the officers, who were made of wood also, cried -like two babies. - -Fire Eater at first remained hard and cold as a piece of ice; but then, -little by little, he softened and began to sneeze. And after four or -five sneezes, he opened wide his arms and said to Pinocchio: - -“You are a brave boy! Come to my arms and kiss me!” - -Pinocchio ran to him and scurrying like a squirrel up the long black -beard, he gave Fire Eater a loving kiss on the tip of his nose. - -“Has pardon been granted to me?” asked poor Harlequin with a voice that -was hardly a breath. - -“Pardon is yours!” answered Fire Eater; and sighing and wagging his -head, he added: “Well, tonight I shall have to eat my lamb only half -cooked, but beware the next time, Marionettes.” - -At the news that pardon had been given, the Marionettes ran to the stage -and, turning on all the lights, they danced and sang till dawn. - - - - -CHAPTER 12 - -Fire Eater gives Pinocchio five gold pieces for his father, Geppetto; -but the Marionette meets a Fox and a Cat and follows them. - - -The next day Fire Eater called Pinocchio aside and asked him: - -“What is your father’s name?” - -“Geppetto.” - -“And what is his trade?” - -“He’s a wood carver.” - -“Does he earn much?” - -“He earns so much that he never has a penny in his pockets. Just think -that, in order to buy me an A-B-C book for school, he had to sell the -only coat he owned, a coat so full of darns and patches that it was a -pity.” - -“Poor fellow! I feel sorry for him. Here, take these five gold pieces. -Go, give them to him with my kindest regards.” - -Pinocchio, as may easily be imagined, thanked him a thousand times. He -kissed each Marionette in turn, even the officers, and, beside himself -with joy, set out on his homeward journey. - -He had gone barely half a mile when he met a lame Fox and a blind Cat, -walking together like two good friends. The lame Fox leaned on the Cat, -and the blind Cat let the Fox lead him along. - -“Good morning, Pinocchio,” said the Fox, greeting him courteously. - -“How do you know my name?” asked the Marionette. - -“I know your father well.” - -“Where have you seen him?” - -“I saw him yesterday standing at the door of his house.” - -“And what was he doing?” - -“He was in his shirt sleeves trembling with cold.” - -“Poor Father! But, after today, God willing, he will suffer no longer.” - -“Why?” - -“Because I have become a rich man.” - -“You, a rich man?” said the Fox, and he began to laugh out loud. The Cat -was laughing also, but tried to hide it by stroking his long whiskers. - -“There is nothing to laugh at,” cried Pinocchio angrily. “I am very -sorry to make your mouth water, but these, as you know, are five new -gold pieces.” - -And he pulled out the gold pieces which Fire Eater had given him. - -At the cheerful tinkle of the gold, the Fox unconsciously held out his -paw that was supposed to be lame, and the Cat opened wide his two eyes -till they looked like live coals, but he closed them again so quickly -that Pinocchio did not notice. - -“And may I ask,” inquired the Fox, “what you are going to do with all -that money?” - -“First of all,” answered the Marionette, “I want to buy a fine new coat -for my father, a coat of gold and silver with diamond buttons; after -that, I’ll buy an A-B-C book for myself.” - -“For yourself?” - -“For myself. I want to go to school and study hard.” - -“Look at me,” said the Fox. “For the silly reason of wanting to study, I -have lost a paw.” - -“Look at me,” said the Cat. “For the same foolish reason, I have lost -the sight of both eyes.” - -At that moment, a Blackbird, perched on the fence along the road, called -out sharp and clear: - -“Pinocchio, do not listen to bad advice. If you do, you’ll be sorry!” - -Poor little Blackbird! If he had only kept his words to himself! In the -twinkling of an eyelid, the Cat leaped on him, and ate him, feathers and -all. - -After eating the bird, he cleaned his whiskers, closed his eyes, and -became blind once more. - -“Poor Blackbird!” said Pinocchio to the Cat. “Why did you kill him?” - -“I killed him to teach him a lesson. He talks too much. Next time he -will keep his words to himself.” - -By this time the three companions had walked a long distance. Suddenly, -the Fox stopped in his tracks and, turning to the Marionette, said to -him: - -“Do you want to double your gold pieces?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Do you want one hundred, a thousand, two thousand gold pieces for your -miserable five?” - -“Yes, but how?” - -“The way is very easy. Instead of returning home, come with us.” - -“And where will you take me?” - -“To the City of Simple Simons.” - -Pinocchio thought a while and then said firmly: - -“No, I don’t want to go. Home is near, and I’m going where Father is -waiting for me. How unhappy he must be that I have not yet returned! I -have been a bad son, and the Talking Cricket was right when he said that -a disobedient boy cannot be happy in this world. I have learned this -at my own expense. Even last night in the theater, when Fire Eater. . . -Brrrr!!!!! . . . The shivers run up and down my back at the mere thought -of it.” - -“Well, then,” said the Fox, “if you really want to go home, go ahead, -but you’ll be sorry.” - -“You’ll be sorry,” repeated the Cat. - -“Think well, Pinocchio, you are turning your back on Dame Fortune.” - -“On Dame Fortune,” repeated the Cat. - -“Tomorrow your five gold pieces will be two thousand!” - -“Two thousand!” repeated the Cat. - -“But how can they possibly become so many?” asked Pinocchio wonderingly. - -“I’ll explain,” said the Fox. “You must know that, just outside the City -of Simple Simons, there is a blessed field called the Field of Wonders. -In this field you dig a hole and in the hole you bury a gold piece. -After covering up the hole with earth you water it well, sprinkle a bit -of salt on it, and go to bed. During the night, the gold piece sprouts, -grows, blossoms, and next morning you find a beautiful tree, that is -loaded with gold pieces.” - -“So that if I were to bury my five gold pieces,” cried Pinocchio with -growing wonder, “next morning I should find--how many?” - -“It is very simple to figure out,” answered the Fox. “Why, you can -figure it on your fingers! Granted that each piece gives you five -hundred, multiply five hundred by five. Next morning you will find -twenty-five hundred new, sparkling gold pieces.” - -“Fine! Fine!” cried Pinocchio, dancing about with joy. “And as soon as -I have them, I shall keep two thousand for myself and the other five -hundred I’ll give to you two.” - -“A gift for us?” cried the Fox, pretending to be insulted. “Why, of -course not!” - -“Of course not!” repeated the Cat. - -“We do not work for gain,” answered the Fox. “We work only to enrich -others.” - -“To enrich others!” repeated the Cat. - -“What good people,” thought Pinocchio to himself. And forgetting his -father, the new coat, the A-B-C book, and all his good resolutions, he -said to the Fox and to the Cat: - -“Let us go. I am with you.” - - - - -CHAPTER 13 - -The Inn of the Red Lobster - - -Cat and Fox and Marionette walked and walked and walked. At last, toward -evening, dead tired, they came to the Inn of the Red Lobster. - -“Let us stop here a while,” said the Fox, “to eat a bite and rest for -a few hours. At midnight we’ll start out again, for at dawn tomorrow we -must be at the Field of Wonders.” - -They went into the Inn and all three sat down at the same table. -However, not one of them was very hungry. - -The poor Cat felt very weak, and he was able to eat only thirty-five -mullets with tomato sauce and four portions of tripe with cheese. -Moreover, as he was so in need of strength, he had to have four more -helpings of butter and cheese. - -The Fox, after a great deal of coaxing, tried his best to eat a little. -The doctor had put him on a diet, and he had to be satisfied with a -small hare dressed with a dozen young and tender spring chickens. After -the hare, he ordered some partridges, a few pheasants, a couple of -rabbits, and a dozen frogs and lizards. That was all. He felt ill, he -said, and could not eat another bite. - -Pinocchio ate least of all. He asked for a bite of bread and a few nuts -and then hardly touched them. The poor fellow, with his mind on the -Field of Wonders, was suffering from a gold-piece indigestion. - -Supper over, the Fox said to the Innkeeper: - -“Give us two good rooms, one for Mr. Pinocchio and the other for me and -my friend. Before starting out, we’ll take a little nap. Remember to -call us at midnight sharp, for we must continue on our journey.” - -“Yes, sir,” answered the Innkeeper, winking in a knowing way at the Fox -and the Cat, as if to say, “I understand.” - -As soon as Pinocchio was in bed, he fell fast asleep and began to dream. -He dreamed he was in the middle of a field. The field was full of -vines heavy with grapes. The grapes were no other than gold coins which -tinkled merrily as they swayed in the wind. They seemed to say, “Let him -who wants us take us!” - -Just as Pinocchio stretched out his hand to take a handful of them, he -was awakened by three loud knocks at the door. It was the Innkeeper who -had come to tell him that midnight had struck. - -“Are my friends ready?” the Marionette asked him. - -“Indeed, yes! They went two hours ago.” - -“Why in such a hurry?” - -“Unfortunately the Cat received a telegram which said that his -first-born was suffering from chilblains and was on the point of death. -He could not even wait to say good-by to you.” - -“Did they pay for the supper?” - -“How could they do such a thing? Being people of great refinement, they -did not want to offend you so deeply as not to allow you the honor of -paying the bill.” - -“Too bad! That offense would have been more than pleasing to me,” said -Pinocchio, scratching his head. - -“Where did my good friends say they would wait for me?” he added. - -“At the Field of Wonders, at sunrise tomorrow morning.” - -Pinocchio paid a gold piece for the three suppers and started on his way -toward the field that was to make him a rich man. - -He walked on, not knowing where he was going, for it was dark, so dark -that not a thing was visible. Round about him, not a leaf stirred. A few -bats skimmed his nose now and again and scared him half to death. Once -or twice he shouted, “Who goes there?” and the far-away hills echoed -back to him, “Who goes there? Who goes there? Who goes. . . ?” - -As he walked, Pinocchio noticed a tiny insect glimmering on the trunk of -a tree, a small being that glowed with a pale, soft light. - -“Who are you?” he asked. - -“I am the ghost of the Talking Cricket,” answered the little being in a -faint voice that sounded as if it came from a far-away world. - -“What do you want?” asked the Marionette. - -“I want to give you a few words of good advice. Return home and give the -four gold pieces you have left to your poor old father who is weeping -because he has not seen you for many a day.” - -“Tomorrow my father will be a rich man, for these four gold pieces will -become two thousand.” - -“Don’t listen to those who promise you wealth overnight, my boy. As a -rule they are either fools or swindlers! Listen to me and go home.” - -“But I want to go on!” - -“The hour is late!” - -“I want to go on.” - -“The night is very dark.” - -“I want to go on.” - -“The road is dangerous.” - -“I want to go on.” - -“Remember that boys who insist on having their own way, sooner or later -come to grief.” - -“The same nonsense. Good-by, Cricket.” - -“Good night, Pinocchio, and may Heaven preserve you from the Assassins.” - -There was silence for a minute and the light of the Talking Cricket -disappeared suddenly, just as if someone had snuffed it out. Once again -the road was plunged in darkness. - - - - -CHAPTER 14 - -Pinocchio, not having listened to the good advice of the Talking -Cricket, falls into the hands of the Assassins. - - -“Dear, oh, dear! When I come to think of it,” said the Marionette to -himself, as he once more set out on his journey, “we boys are really -very unlucky. Everybody scolds us, everybody gives us advice, everybody -warns us. If we were to allow it, everyone would try to be father and -mother to us; everyone, even the Talking Cricket. Take me, for example. -Just because I would not listen to that bothersome Cricket, who knows -how many misfortunes may be awaiting me! Assassins indeed! At least I -have never believed in them, nor ever will. To speak sensibly, I think -assassins have been invented by fathers and mothers to frighten children -who want to run away at night. And then, even if I were to meet them -on the road, what matter? I’ll just run up to them, and say, ‘Well, -signori, what do you want? Remember that you can’t fool with me! Run -along and mind your business.’ At such a speech, I can almost see those -poor fellows running like the wind. But in case they don’t run away, I -can always run myself. . .” - -Pinocchio was not given time to argue any longer, for he thought he -heard a slight rustle among the leaves behind him. - -He turned to look and behold, there in the darkness stood two big black -shadows, wrapped from head to foot in black sacks. The two figures -leaped toward him as softly as if they were ghosts. - -“Here they come!” Pinocchio said to himself, and, not knowing where to -hide the gold pieces, he stuck all four of them under his tongue. - -He tried to run away, but hardly had he taken a step, when he felt his -arms grasped and heard two horrible, deep voices say to him: “Your money -or your life!” - -On account of the gold pieces in his mouth, Pinocchio could not say -a word, so he tried with head and hands and body to show, as best he -could, that he was only a poor Marionette without a penny in his pocket. - -“Come, come, less nonsense, and out with your money!” cried the two -thieves in threatening voices. - -Once more, Pinocchio’s head and hands said, “I haven’t a penny.” - -“Out with that money or you’re a dead man,” said the taller of the two -Assassins. - -“Dead man,” repeated the other. - -“And after having killed you, we will kill your father also.” - -“Your father also!” - -“No, no, no, not my Father!” cried Pinocchio, wild with terror; but as -he screamed, the gold pieces tinkled together in his mouth. - -“Ah, you rascal! So that’s the game! You have the money hidden under -your tongue. Out with it!” - -But Pinocchio was as stubborn as ever. - -“Are you deaf? Wait, young man, we’ll get it from you in a twinkling!” - -One of them grabbed the Marionette by the nose and the other by the -chin, and they pulled him unmercifully from side to side in order to -make him open his mouth. - -All was of no use. The Marionette’s lips might have been nailed -together. They would not open. - -In desperation the smaller of the two Assassins pulled out a long knife -from his pocket, and tried to pry Pinocchio’s mouth open with it. - -Quick as a flash, the Marionette sank his teeth deep into the Assassin’s -hand, bit it off and spat it out. Fancy his surprise when he saw that it -was not a hand, but a cat’s paw. - -Encouraged by this first victory, he freed himself from the claws of -his assailers and, leaping over the bushes along the road, ran swiftly -across the fields. His pursuers were after him at once, like two dogs -chasing a hare. - -After running seven miles or so, Pinocchio was well-nigh exhausted. -Seeing himself lost, he climbed up a giant pine tree and sat there -to see what he could see. The Assassins tried to climb also, but they -slipped and fell. - -Far from giving up the chase, this only spurred them on. They gathered a -bundle of wood, piled it up at the foot of the pine, and set fire to it. -In a twinkling the tree began to sputter and burn like a candle blown by -the wind. Pinocchio saw the flames climb higher and higher. Not wishing -to end his days as a roasted Marionette, he jumped quickly to the ground -and off he went, the Assassins close to him, as before. - -Dawn was breaking when, without any warning whatsoever, Pinocchio found -his path barred by a deep pool full of water the color of muddy coffee. - -What was there to do? With a “One, two, three!” he jumped clear across -it. The Assassins jumped also, but not having measured their distance -well--splash!!!--they fell right into the middle of the pool. Pinocchio -who heard the splash and felt it, too, cried out, laughing, but never -stopping in his race: - -“A pleasant bath to you, signori!” - -He thought they must surely be drowned and turned his head to see. But -there were the two somber figures still following him, though their -black sacks were drenched and dripping with water. - - - - -CHAPTER 15 - -The Assassins chase Pinocchio, catch him, and hang him to the branch of -a giant oak tree. - - -As he ran, the Marionette felt more and more certain that he would have -to give himself up into the hands of his pursuers. Suddenly he saw a -little cottage gleaming white as the snow among the trees of the forest. - -“If I have enough breath left with which to reach that little house, I -may be saved,” he said to himself. - -Not waiting another moment, he darted swiftly through the woods, the -Assassins still after him. - -After a hard race of almost an hour, tired and out of breath, Pinocchio -finally reached the door of the cottage and knocked. No one answered. - -He knocked again, harder than before, for behind him he heard the steps -and the labored breathing of his persecutors. The same silence followed. - -As knocking was of no use, Pinocchio, in despair, began to kick and bang -against the door, as if he wanted to break it. At the noise, a window -opened and a lovely maiden looked out. She had azure hair and a face -white as wax. Her eyes were closed and her hands crossed on her breast. -With a voice so weak that it hardly could be heard, she whispered: - -“No one lives in this house. Everyone is dead.” - -“Won’t you, at least, open the door for me?” cried Pinocchio in a -beseeching voice. - -“I also am dead.” - -“Dead? What are you doing at the window, then?” - -“I am waiting for the coffin to take me away.” - -After these words, the little girl disappeared and the window closed -without a sound. - -“Oh, Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair,” cried Pinocchio, “open, I beg of -you. Take pity on a poor boy who is being chased by two Assass--” - -He did not finish, for two powerful hands grasped him by the neck and -the same two horrible voices growled threateningly: “Now we have you!” - -The Marionette, seeing death dancing before him, trembled so hard that -the joints of his legs rattled and the coins tinkled under his tongue. - -“Well,” the Assassins asked, “will you open your mouth now or not? Ah! -You do not answer? Very well, this time you shall open it.” - -Taking out two long, sharp knives, they struck two heavy blows on the -Marionette’s back. - -Happily for him, Pinocchio was made of very hard wood and the knives -broke into a thousand pieces. The Assassins looked at each other in -dismay, holding the handles of the knives in their hands. - -“I understand,” said one of them to the other, “there is nothing left to -do now but to hang him.” - -“To hang him,” repeated the other. - -They tied Pinocchio’s hands behind his shoulders and slipped the noose -around his neck. Throwing the rope over the high limb of a giant oak -tree, they pulled till the poor Marionette hung far up in space. - -Satisfied with their work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio -to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette’s eyes were -still open, his mouth still shut and his legs kicked harder than ever. - -Tired of waiting, the Assassins called to him mockingly: “Good-by till -tomorrow. When we return in the morning, we hope you’ll be polite enough -to let us find you dead and gone and with your mouth wide open.” With -these words they went. - -A few minutes went by and then a wild wind started to blow. As it -shrieked and moaned, the poor little sufferer was blown to and fro -like the hammer of a bell. The rocking made him seasick and the noose, -becoming tighter and tighter, choked him. Little by little a film -covered his eyes. - -Death was creeping nearer and nearer, and the Marionette still hoped -for some good soul to come to his rescue, but no one appeared. As he was -about to die, he thought of his poor old father, and hardly conscious of -what he was saying, murmured to himself: - -“Oh, Father, dear Father! If you were only here!” - -These were his last words. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, -stretched out his legs, and hung there, as if he were dead. - - - - -CHAPTER 16 - -The Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair sends for the poor Marionette, puts -him to bed, and calls three Doctors to tell her if Pinocchio is dead or -alive. - - -If the poor Marionette had dangled there much longer, all hope would -have been lost. Luckily for him, the Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair once -again looked out of her window. Filled with pity at the sight of the -poor little fellow being knocked helplessly about by the wind, she -clapped her hands sharply together three times. - -At the signal, a loud whirr of wings in quick flight was heard and a -large Falcon came and settled itself on the window ledge. - -“What do you command, my charming Fairy?” asked the Falcon, bending his -beak in deep reverence (for it must be known that, after all, the Lovely -Maiden with Azure Hair was none other than a very kind Fairy who had -lived, for more than a thousand years, in the vicinity of the forest). - -“Do you see that Marionette hanging from the limb of that giant oak -tree?” - -“I see him.” - -“Very well. Fly immediately to him. With your strong beak, break the -knot which holds him tied, take him down, and lay him softly on the -grass at the foot of the oak.” - -The Falcon flew away and after two minutes returned, saying, “I have -done what you have commanded.” - -“How did you find him? Alive or dead?” - -“At first glance, I thought he was dead. But I found I was wrong, for -as soon as I loosened the knot around his neck, he gave a long sigh and -mumbled with a faint voice, ‘Now I feel better!’” - -The Fairy clapped her hands twice. A magnificent Poodle appeared, -walking on his hind legs just like a man. He was dressed in court -livery. A tricorn trimmed with gold lace was set at a rakish angle over -a wig of white curls that dropped down to his waist. He wore a jaunty -coat of chocolate-colored velvet, with diamond buttons, and with two -huge pockets which were always filled with bones, dropped there -at dinner by his loving mistress. Breeches of crimson velvet, silk -stockings, and low, silver-buckled slippers completed his costume. His -tail was encased in a blue silk covering, which was to protect it from -the rain. - -“Come, Medoro,” said the Fairy to him. “Get my best coach ready and set -out toward the forest. On reaching the oak tree, you will find a poor, -half-dead Marionette stretched out on the grass. Lift him up tenderly, -place him on the silken cushions of the coach, and bring him here to -me.” - -The Poodle, to show that he understood, wagged his silk-covered tail two -or three times and set off at a quick pace. - -In a few minutes, a lovely little coach, made of glass, with lining as -soft as whipped cream and chocolate pudding, and stuffed with canary -feathers, pulled out of the stable. It was drawn by one hundred pairs -of white mice, and the Poodle sat on the coachman’s seat and snapped his -whip gayly in the air, as if he were a real coachman in a hurry to get -to his destination. - -In a quarter of an hour the coach was back. The Fairy, who was waiting -at the door of the house, lifted the poor little Marionette in her arms, -took him to a dainty room with mother-of-pearl walls, put him to bed, -and sent immediately for the most famous doctors of the neighborhood to -come to her. - -One after another the doctors came, a Crow, and Owl, and a Talking -Cricket. - -“I should like to know, signori,” said the Fairy, turning to the three -doctors gathered about Pinocchio’s bed, “I should like to know if this -poor Marionette is dead or alive.” - -At this invitation, the Crow stepped out and felt Pinocchio’s pulse, his -nose, his little toe. Then he solemnly pronounced the following words: - -“To my mind this Marionette is dead and gone; but if, by any evil -chance, he were not, then that would be a sure sign that he is still -alive!” - -“I am sorry,” said the Owl, “to have to contradict the Crow, my famous -friend and colleague. To my mind this Marionette is alive; but if, by -any evil chance, he were not, then that would be a sure sign that he is -wholly dead!” - -“And do you hold any opinion?” the Fairy asked the Talking Cricket. - -“I say that a wise doctor, when he does not know what he is talking -about, should know enough to keep his mouth shut. However, that -Marionette is not a stranger to me. I have known him a long time!” - -Pinocchio, who until then had been very quiet, shuddered so hard that -the bed shook. - -“That Marionette,” continued the Talking Cricket, “is a rascal of the -worst kind.” - -Pinocchio opened his eyes and closed them again. - -“He is rude, lazy, a runaway.” - -Pinocchio hid his face under the sheets. - -“That Marionette is a disobedient son who is breaking his father’s -heart!” - -Long shuddering sobs were heard, cries, and deep sighs. Think how -surprised everyone was when, on raising the sheets, they discovered -Pinocchio half melted in tears! - -“When the dead weep, they are beginning to recover,” said the Crow -solemnly. - -“I am sorry to contradict my famous friend and colleague,” said the Owl, -“but as far as I’m concerned, I think that when the dead weep, it means -they do not want to die.” - - - - -CHAPTER 17 - -Pinocchio eats sugar, but refuses to take medicine. When the undertakers -come for him, he drinks the medicine and feels better. Afterwards he -tells a lie and, in punishment, his nose grows longer and longer. - - -As soon as the three doctors had left the room, the Fairy went to -Pinocchio’s bed and, touching him on the forehead, noticed that he was -burning with fever. - -She took a glass of water, put a white powder into it, and, handing it -to the Marionette, said lovingly to him: - -“Drink this, and in a few days you’ll be up and well.” - -Pinocchio looked at the glass, made a wry face, and asked in a whining -voice: “Is it sweet or bitter?” - -“It is bitter, but it is good for you.” - -“If it is bitter, I don’t want it.” - -“Drink it!” - -“I don’t like anything bitter.” - -“Drink it and I’ll give you a lump of sugar to take the bitter taste -from your mouth.” - -“Where’s the sugar?” - -“Here it is,” said the Fairy, taking a lump from a golden sugar bowl. - -“I want the sugar first, then I’ll drink the bitter water.” - -“Do you promise?” - -“Yes.” - -The Fairy gave him the sugar and Pinocchio, after chewing and swallowing -it in a twinkling, said, smacking his lips: - -“If only sugar were medicine! I should take it every day.” - -“Now keep your promise and drink these few drops of water. They’ll be -good for you.” - -Pinocchio took the glass in both hands and stuck his nose into it. He -lifted it to his mouth and once more stuck his nose into it. - -“It is too bitter, much too bitter! I can’t drink it.” - -“How do you know, when you haven’t even tasted it?” - -“I can imagine it. I smell it. I want another lump of sugar, then I’ll -drink it.” - -The Fairy, with all the patience of a good mother, gave him more sugar -and again handed him the glass. - -“I can’t drink it like that,” the Marionette said, making more wry -faces. - -“Why?” - -“Because that feather pillow on my feet bothers me.” - -The Fairy took away the pillow. - -“It’s no use. I can’t drink it even now.” - -“What’s the matter now?” - -“I don’t like the way that door looks. It’s half open.” - -The Fairy closed the door. - -“I won’t drink it,” cried Pinocchio, bursting out crying. “I won’t drink -this awful water. I won’t. I won’t! No, no, no, no!” - -“My boy, you’ll be sorry.” - -“I don’t care.” - -“You are very sick.” - -“I don’t care.” - -“In a few hours the fever will take you far away to another world.” - -“I don’t care.” - -“Aren’t you afraid of death?” - -“Not a bit. I’d rather die than drink that awful medicine.” - -At that moment, the door of the room flew open and in came four Rabbits -as black as ink, carrying a small black coffin on their shoulders. - -“What do you want from me?” asked Pinocchio. - -“We have come for you,” said the largest Rabbit. - -“For me? But I’m not dead yet!” - -“No, not dead yet; but you will be in a few moments since you have -refused to take the medicine which would have made you well.” - -“Oh, Fairy, my Fairy,” the Marionette cried out, “give me that glass! -Quick, please! I don’t want to die! No, no, not yet--not yet!” - -And holding the glass with his two hands, he swallowed the medicine at -one gulp. - -“Well,” said the four Rabbits, “this time we have made the trip for -nothing.” - -And turning on their heels, they marched solemnly out of the room, -carrying their little black coffin and muttering and grumbling between -their teeth. - -In a twinkling, Pinocchio felt fine. With one leap he was out of bed and -into his clothes. - -The Fairy, seeing him run and jump around the room gay as a bird on -wing, said to him: - -“My medicine was good for you, after all, wasn’t it?” - -“Good indeed! It has given me new life.” - -“Why, then, did I have to beg you so hard to make you drink it?” - -“I’m a boy, you see, and all boys hate medicine more than they do -sickness.” - -“What a shame! Boys ought to know, after all, that medicine, taken in -time, can save them from much pain and even from death.” - -“Next time I won’t have to be begged so hard. I’ll remember those black -Rabbits with the black coffin on their shoulders and I’ll take the glass -and pouf!--down it will go!” - -“Come here now and tell me how it came about that you found yourself in -the hands of the Assassins.” - -“It happened that Fire Eater gave me five gold pieces to give to my -Father, but on the way, I met a Fox and a Cat, who asked me, ‘Do you -want the five pieces to become two thousand?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And -they said, ‘Come with us to the Field of Wonders.’ And I said, ‘Let’s -go.’ Then they said, ‘Let us stop at the Inn of the Red Lobster for -dinner and after midnight we’ll set out again.’ We ate and went to -sleep. When I awoke they were gone and I started out in the darkness all -alone. On the road I met two Assassins dressed in black coal sacks, -who said to me, ‘Your money or your life!’ and I said, ‘I haven’t any -money’; for, you see, I had put the money under my tongue. One of them -tried to put his hand in my mouth and I bit it off and spat it out; but -it wasn’t a hand, it was a cat’s paw. And they ran after me and I ran -and ran, till at last they caught me and tied my neck with a rope and -hanged me to a tree, saying, ‘Tomorrow we’ll come back for you and -you’ll be dead and your mouth will be open, and then we’ll take the gold -pieces that you have hidden under your tongue.’” - -“Where are the gold pieces now?” the Fairy asked. - -“I lost them,” answered Pinocchio, but he told a lie, for he had them in -his pocket. - -As he spoke, his nose, long though it was, became at least two inches -longer. - -“And where did you lose them?” - -“In the wood near by.” - -At this second lie, his nose grew a few more inches. - -“If you lost them in the near-by wood,” said the Fairy, “we’ll look for -them and find them, for everything that is lost there is always found.” - -“Ah, now I remember,” replied the Marionette, becoming more and more -confused. “I did not lose the gold pieces, but I swallowed them when I -drank the medicine.” - -At this third lie, his nose became longer than ever, so long that he -could not even turn around. If he turned to the right, he knocked it -against the bed or into the windowpanes; if he turned to the left, he -struck the walls or the door; if he raised it a bit, he almost put the -Fairy’s eyes out. - -The Fairy sat looking at him and laughing. - -“Why do you laugh?” the Marionette asked her, worried now at the sight -of his growing nose. - -“I am laughing at your lies.” - -“How do you know I am lying?” - -“Lies, my boy, are known in a moment. There are two kinds of lies, lies -with short legs and lies with long noses. Yours, just now, happen to -have long noses.” - -Pinocchio, not knowing where to hide his shame, tried to escape from the -room, but his nose had become so long that he could not get it out of -the door. - - - - -CHAPTER 18 - -Pinocchio finds the Fox and the Cat again, and goes with them to sow the -gold pieces in the Field of Wonders. - - -Crying as if his heart would break, the Marionette mourned for hours -over the length of his nose. No matter how he tried, it would not go -through the door. The Fairy showed no pity toward him, as she was trying -to teach him a good lesson, so that he would stop telling lies, the -worst habit any boy may acquire. But when she saw him, pale with fright -and with his eyes half out of his head from terror, she began to feel -sorry for him and clapped her hands together. A thousand woodpeckers -flew in through the window and settled themselves on Pinocchio’s nose. -They pecked and pecked so hard at that enormous nose that in a few -moments, it was the same size as before. - -“How good you are, my Fairy,” said Pinocchio, drying his eyes, “and how -much I love you!” - -“I love you, too,” answered the Fairy, “and if you wish to stay with me, -you may be my little brother and I’ll be your good little sister.” - -“I should like to stay--but what about my poor father?” - -“I have thought of everything. Your father has been sent for and before -night he will be here.” - -“Really?” cried Pinocchio joyfully. “Then, my good Fairy, if you are -willing, I should like to go to meet him. I cannot wait to kiss that -dear old man, who has suffered so much for my sake.” - -“Surely; go ahead, but be careful not to lose your way. Take the wood -path and you’ll surely meet him.” - -Pinocchio set out, and as soon as he found himself in the wood, he -ran like a hare. When he reached the giant oak tree he stopped, for he -thought he heard a rustle in the brush. He was right. There stood the -Fox and the Cat, the two traveling companions with whom he had eaten at -the Inn of the Red Lobster. - -“Here comes our dear Pinocchio!” cried the Fox, hugging and kissing him. -“How did you happen here?” - -“How did you happen here?” repeated the Cat. - -“It is a long story,” said the Marionette. “Let me tell it to you. The -other night, when you left me alone at the Inn, I met the Assassins on -the road--” - -“The Assassins? Oh, my poor friend! And what did they want?” - -“They wanted my gold pieces.” - -“Rascals!” said the Fox. - -“The worst sort of rascals!” added the Cat. - -“But I began to run,” continued the Marionette, “and they after me, -until they overtook me and hanged me to the limb of that oak.” - -Pinocchio pointed to the giant oak near by. - -“Could anything be worse?” said the Fox. - -“What an awful world to live in! Where shall we find a safe place for -gentlemen like ourselves?” - -As the Fox talked thus, Pinocchio noticed that the Cat carried his right -paw in a sling. - -“What happened to your paw?” he asked. - -The Cat tried to answer, but he became so terribly twisted in his speech -that the Fox had to help him out. - -“My friend is too modest to answer. I’ll answer for him. About an hour -ago, we met an old wolf on the road. He was half starved and begged for -help. Having nothing to give him, what do you think my friend did out -of the kindness of his heart? With his teeth, he bit off the paw of -his front foot and threw it at that poor beast, so that he might have -something to eat.” - -As he spoke, the Fox wiped off a tear. - -Pinocchio, almost in tears himself, whispered in the Cat’s ear: - -“If all the cats were like you, how lucky the mice would be!” - -“And what are you doing here?” the Fox asked the Marionette. - -“I am waiting for my father, who will be here at any moment now.” - -“And your gold pieces?” - -“I still have them in my pocket, except one which I spent at the Inn of -the Red Lobster.” - -“To think that those four gold pieces might become two thousand -tomorrow. Why don’t you listen to me? Why don’t you sow them in the -Field of Wonders?” - -“Today it is impossible. I’ll go with you some other time.” - -“Another day will be too late,” said the Fox. - -“Why?” - -“Because that field has been bought by a very rich man, and today is the -last day that it will be open to the public.” - -“How far is this Field of Wonders?” - -“Only two miles away. Will you come with us? We’ll be there in half an -hour. You can sow the money, and, after a few minutes, you will gather -your two thousand coins and return home rich. Are you coming?” - -Pinocchio hesitated a moment before answering, for he remembered the -good Fairy, old Geppetto, and the advice of the Talking Cricket. Then -he ended by doing what all boys do, when they have no heart and little -brain. He shrugged his shoulders and said to the Fox and the Cat: - -“Let us go! I am with you.” - -And they went. - -They walked and walked for a half a day at least and at last they came -to the town called the City of Simple Simons. As soon as they entered -the town, Pinocchio noticed that all the streets were filled with -hairless dogs, yawning from hunger; with sheared sheep, trembling with -cold; with combless chickens, begging for a grain of wheat; with large -butterflies, unable to use their wings because they had sold all their -lovely colors; with tailless peacocks, ashamed to show themselves; and -with bedraggled pheasants, scuttling away hurriedly, grieving for their -bright feathers of gold and silver, lost to them forever. - -Through this crowd of paupers and beggars, a beautiful coach passed now -and again. Within it sat either a Fox, a Hawk, or a Vulture. - -“Where is the Field of Wonders?” asked Pinocchio, growing tired of -waiting. - -“Be patient. It is only a few more steps away.” - -They passed through the city and, just outside the walls, they stepped -into a lonely field, which looked more or less like any other field. - -“Here we are,” said the Fox to the Marionette. “Dig a hole here and put -the gold pieces into it.” - -The Marionette obeyed. He dug the hole, put the four gold pieces into -it, and covered them up very carefully. “Now,” said the Fox, “go to that -near-by brook, bring back a pail full of water, and sprinkle it over the -spot.” - -Pinocchio followed the directions closely, but, as he had no pail, he -pulled off his shoe, filled it with water, and sprinkled the earth which -covered the gold. Then he asked: - -“Anything else?” - -“Nothing else,” answered the Fox. “Now we can go. Return here within -twenty minutes and you will find the vine grown and the branches filled -with gold pieces.” - -Pinocchio, beside himself with joy, thanked the Fox and the Cat many -times and promised them each a beautiful gift. - -“We don’t want any of your gifts,” answered the two rogues. “It is -enough for us that we have helped you to become rich with little or no -trouble. For this we are as happy as kings.” - -They said good-by to Pinocchio and, wishing him good luck, went on their -way. - - - - -CHAPTER 19 - -Pinocchio is robbed of his gold pieces and, in punishment, is sentenced -to four months in prison. - - -If the Marionette had been told to wait a day instead of twenty minutes, -the time could not have seemed longer to him. He walked impatiently to -and fro and finally turned his nose toward the Field of Wonders. - -And as he walked with hurried steps, his heart beat with an excited tic, -tac, tic, tac, just as if it were a wall clock, and his busy brain kept -thinking: - -“What if, instead of a thousand, I should find two thousand? Or if, -instead of two thousand, I should find five thousand--or one hundred -thousand? I’ll build myself a beautiful palace, with a thousand stables -filled with a thousand wooden horses to play with, a cellar overflowing -with lemonade and ice cream soda, and a library of candies and fruits, -cakes and cookies.” - -Thus amusing himself with fancies, he came to the field. There he -stopped to see if, by any chance, a vine filled with gold coins was -in sight. But he saw nothing! He took a few steps forward, and still -nothing! He stepped into the field. He went up to the place where he had -dug the hole and buried the gold pieces. Again nothing! Pinocchio became -very thoughtful and, forgetting his good manners altogether, he pulled a -hand out of his pocket and gave his head a thorough scratching. - -As he did so, he heard a hearty burst of laughter close to his head. He -turned sharply, and there, just above him on the branch of a tree, sat a -large Parrot, busily preening his feathers. - -“What are you laughing at?” Pinocchio asked peevishly. - -“I am laughing because, in preening my feathers, I tickled myself under -the wings.” - -The Marionette did not answer. He walked to the brook, filled his shoe -with water, and once more sprinkled the ground which covered the gold -pieces. - -Another burst of laughter, even more impertinent than the first, was -heard in the quiet field. - -“Well,” cried the Marionette, angrily this time, “may I know, Mr. -Parrot, what amuses you so?” - -“I am laughing at those simpletons who believe everything they hear and -who allow themselves to be caught so easily in the traps set for them.” - -“Do you, perhaps, mean me?” - -“I certainly do mean you, poor Pinocchio--you who are such a little -silly as to believe that gold can be sown in a field just like beans -or squash. I, too, believed that once and today I am very sorry for it. -Today (but too late!) I have reached the conclusion that, in order to -come by money honestly, one must work and know how to earn it with hand -or brain.” - -“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the Marionette, who was -beginning to tremble with fear. - -“Too bad! I’ll explain myself better,” said the Parrot. “While you were -away in the city the Fox and the Cat returned here in a great hurry. -They took the four gold pieces which you have buried and ran away as -fast as the wind. If you can catch them, you’re a brave one!” - -Pinocchio’s mouth opened wide. He would not believe the Parrot’s words -and began to dig away furiously at the earth. He dug and he dug till -the hole was as big as himself, but no money was there. Every penny was -gone. - -In desperation, he ran to the city and went straight to the courthouse -to report the robbery to the magistrate. The Judge was a Monkey, a large -Gorilla venerable with age. A flowing white beard covered his chest and -he wore gold-rimmed spectacles from which the glasses had dropped -out. The reason for wearing these, he said, was that his eyes had been -weakened by the work of many years. - -Pinocchio, standing before him, told his pitiful tale, word by word. -He gave the names and the descriptions of the robbers and begged for -justice. - -The Judge listened to him with great patience. A kind look shone in his -eyes. He became very much interested in the story; he felt moved; he -almost wept. When the Marionette had no more to say, the Judge put out -his hand and rang a bell. - -At the sound, two large Mastiffs appeared, dressed in Carabineers’ -uniforms. - -Then the magistrate, pointing to Pinocchio, said in a very solemn voice: - -“This poor simpleton has been robbed of four gold pieces. Take him, -therefore, and throw him into prison.” The Marionette, on hearing this -sentence passed upon him, was thoroughly stunned. He tried to protest, -but the two officers clapped their paws on his mouth and hustled him -away to jail. - -There he had to remain for four long, weary months. And if it had not -been for a very lucky chance, he probably would have had to stay there -longer. For, my dear children, you must know that it happened just then -that the young emperor who ruled over the City of Simple Simons had -gained a great victory over his enemy, and in celebration thereof, he -had ordered illuminations, fireworks, shows of all kinds, and, best of -all, the opening of all prison doors. - -“If the others go, I go, too,” said Pinocchio to the Jailer. - -“Not you,” answered the Jailer. “You are one of those--” - -“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Pinocchio, “I, too, am a thief.” - -“In that case you also are free,” said the Jailer. Taking off his cap, -he bowed low and opened the door of the prison, and Pinocchio ran out -and away, with never a look backward. - - - - -CHAPTER 20 - -Freed from prison, Pinocchio sets out to return to the Fairy; but on the -way he meets a Serpent and later is caught in a trap. - - -Fancy the happiness of Pinocchio on finding himself free! Without saying -yes or no, he fled from the city and set out on the road that was to -take him back to the house of the lovely Fairy. - -It had rained for many days, and the road was so muddy that, at times, -Pinocchio sank down almost to his knees. - -But he kept on bravely. - -Tormented by the wish to see his father and his fairy sister with azure -hair, he raced like a greyhound. As he ran, he was splashed with mud -even up to his cap. - -“How unhappy I have been,” he said to himself. “And yet I deserve -everything, for I am certainly very stubborn and stupid! I will always -have my own way. I won’t listen to those who love me and who have more -brains than I. But from now on, I’ll be different and I’ll try to become -a most obedient boy. I have found out, beyond any doubt whatever, that -disobedient boys are certainly far from happy, and that, in the long -run, they always lose out. I wonder if Father is waiting for me. Will -I find him at the Fairy’s house? It is so long, poor man, since I have -seen him, and I do so want his love and his kisses. And will the Fairy -ever forgive me for all I have done? She who has been so good to me and -to whom I owe my life! Can there be a worse or more heartless boy than I -am anywhere?” - -As he spoke, he stopped suddenly, frozen with terror. - -What was the matter? An immense Serpent lay stretched across the road--a -Serpent with a bright green skin, fiery eyes which glowed and burned, -and a pointed tail that smoked like a chimney. - -How frightened was poor Pinocchio! He ran back wildly for half a mile, -and at last settled himself atop a heap of stones to wait for the -Serpent to go on his way and leave the road clear for him. - -He waited an hour; two hours; three hours; but the Serpent was always -there, and even from afar one could see the flash of his red eyes and -the column of smoke which rose from his long, pointed tail. - -Pinocchio, trying to feel very brave, walked straight up to him and said -in a sweet, soothing voice: - -“I beg your pardon, Mr. Serpent, would you be so kind as to step aside -to let me pass?” - -He might as well have talked to a wall. The Serpent never moved. - -Once more, in the same sweet voice, he spoke: - -“You must know, Mr. Serpent, that I am going home where my father is -waiting for me. It is so long since I have seen him! Would you mind very -much if I passed?” - -He waited for some sign of an answer to his questions, but the answer -did not come. On the contrary, the green Serpent, who had seemed, until -then, wide awake and full of life, became suddenly very quiet and still. -His eyes closed and his tail stopped smoking. - -“Is he dead, I wonder?” said Pinocchio, rubbing his hands together -happily. Without a moment’s hesitation, he started to step over him, but -he had just raised one leg when the Serpent shot up like a spring and -the Marionette fell head over heels backward. He fell so awkwardly that -his head stuck in the mud, and there he stood with his legs straight up -in the air. - -At the sight of the Marionette kicking and squirming like a young -whirlwind, the Serpent laughed so heartily and so long that at last he -burst an artery and died on the spot. - -Pinocchio freed himself from his awkward position and once more began -to run in order to reach the Fairy’s house before dark. As he went, the -pangs of hunger grew so strong that, unable to withstand them, he jumped -into a field to pick a few grapes that tempted him. Woe to him! - -No sooner had he reached the grapevine than--crack! went his legs. - -The poor Marionette was caught in a trap set there by a Farmer for some -Weasels which came every night to steal his chickens. - - - - -CHAPTER 21 - -Pinocchio is caught by a Farmer, who uses him as a watchdog for his -chicken coop. - - -Pinocchio, as you may well imagine, began to scream and weep and beg; -but all was of no use, for no houses were to be seen and not a soul -passed by on the road. - -Night came on. - -A little because of the sharp pain in his legs, a little because of -fright at finding himself alone in the darkness of the field, the -Marionette was about to faint, when he saw a tiny Glowworm flickering -by. He called to her and said: - -“Dear little Glowworm, will you set me free?” - -“Poor little fellow!” replied the Glowworm, stopping to look at him with -pity. “How came you to be caught in this trap?” - -“I stepped into this lonely field to take a few grapes and--” - -“Are the grapes yours?” - -“No.” - -“Who has taught you to take things that do not belong to you?” - -“I was hungry.” - -“Hunger, my boy, is no reason for taking something which belongs to -another.” - -“It’s true, it’s true!” cried Pinocchio in tears. “I won’t do it again.” - -Just then, the conversation was interrupted by approaching footsteps. -It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if, by -chance, he had caught the Weasels which had been eating his chickens. - -Great was his surprise when, on holding up his lantern, he saw that, -instead of a Weasel, he had caught a boy! - -“Ah, you little thief!” said the Farmer in an angry voice. “So you are -the one who steals my chickens!” - -“Not I! No, no!” cried Pinocchio, sobbing bitterly. “I came here only to -take a very few grapes.” - -“He who steals grapes may very easily steal chickens also. Take my word -for it, I’ll give you a lesson that you’ll remember for a long while.” - -He opened the trap, grabbed the Marionette by the collar, and carried -him to the house as if he were a puppy. When he reached the yard in -front of the house, he flung him to the ground, put a foot on his neck, -and said to him roughly: “It is late now and it’s time for bed. Tomorrow -we’ll settle matters. In the meantime, since my watchdog died today, you -may take his place and guard my henhouse.” - -No sooner said than done. He slipped a dog collar around Pinocchio’s -neck and tightened it so that it would not come off. A long iron chain -was tied to the collar. The other end of the chain was nailed to the -wall. - -“If tonight it should happen to rain,” said the Farmer, “you can sleep -in that little doghouse near-by, where you will find plenty of straw for -a soft bed. It has been Melampo’s bed for three years, and it will be -good enough for you. And if, by any chance, any thieves should come, be -sure to bark!” - -After this last warning, the Farmer went into the house and closed the -door and barred it. - -Poor Pinocchio huddled close to the doghouse more dead than alive from -cold, hunger, and fright. Now and again he pulled and tugged at the -collar which nearly choked him and cried out in a weak voice: - -“I deserve it! Yes, I deserve it! I have been nothing but a truant and -a vagabond. I have never obeyed anyone and I have always done as I -pleased. If I were only like so many others and had studied and worked -and stayed with my poor old father, I should not find myself here -now, in this field and in the darkness, taking the place of a farmer’s -watchdog. Oh, if I could start all over again! But what is done can’t be -undone, and I must be patient!” - -After this little sermon to himself, which came from the very depths of -his heart, Pinocchio went into the doghouse and fell asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER 22 - -Pinocchio discovers the thieves and, as a reward for faithfulness, he -regains his liberty. - - -Even though a boy may be very unhappy, he very seldom loses sleep over -his worries. The Marionette, being no exception to this rule, slept on -peacefully for a few hours till well along toward midnight, when he -was awakened by strange whisperings and stealthy sounds coming from the -yard. He stuck his nose out of the doghouse and saw four slender, hairy -animals. They were Weasels, small animals very fond of both eggs and -chickens. One of them left her companions and, going to the door of the -doghouse, said in a sweet voice: - -“Good evening, Melampo.” - -“My name is not Melampo,” answered Pinocchio. - -“Who are you, then?” - -“I am Pinocchio.” - -“What are you doing here?” - -“I’m the watchdog.” - -“But where is Melampo? Where is the old dog who used to live in this -house?” - -“He died this morning.” - -“Died? Poor beast! He was so good! Still, judging by your face, I think -you, too, are a good-natured dog.” - -“I beg your pardon, I am not a dog!” - -“What are you, then?” - -“I am a Marionette.” - -“Are you taking the place of the watchdog?” - -“I’m sorry to say that I am. I’m being punished.” - -“Well, I shall make the same terms with you that we had with the dead -Melampo. I am sure you will be glad to hear them.” - -“And what are the terms?” - -“This is our plan: We’ll come once in a while, as in the past, to pay -a visit to this henhouse, and we’ll take away eight chickens. Of these, -seven are for us, and one for you, provided, of course, that you will -make believe you are sleeping and will not bark for the Farmer.” - -“Did Melampo really do that?” asked Pinocchio. - -“Indeed he did, and because of that we were the best of friends. Sleep -away peacefully, and remember that before we go we shall leave you a -nice fat chicken all ready for your breakfast in the morning. Is that -understood?” - -“Even too well,” answered Pinocchio. And shaking his head in a -threatening manner, he seemed to say, “We’ll talk this over in a few -minutes, my friends.” - -As soon as the four Weasels had talked things over, they went straight -to the chicken coop which stood close to the doghouse. Digging busily -with teeth and claws, they opened the little door and slipped in. But -they were no sooner in than they heard the door close with a sharp bang. - -The one who had done the trick was Pinocchio, who, not satisfied with -that, dragged a heavy stone in front of it. That done, he started to -bark. And he barked as if he were a real watchdog: “Bow, wow, wow! Bow, -wow!” - -The Farmer heard the loud barks and jumped out of bed. Taking his gun, -he leaped to the window and shouted: “What’s the matter?” - -“The thieves are here,” answered Pinocchio. - -“Where are they?” - -“In the chicken coop.” - -“I’ll come down in a second.” - -And, in fact, he was down in the yard in a twinkling and running toward -the chicken coop. - -He opened the door, pulled out the Weasels one by one, and, after tying -them in a bag, said to them in a happy voice: “You’re in my hands at -last! I could punish you now, but I’ll wait! In the morning you may come -with me to the inn and there you’ll make a fine dinner for some hungry -mortal. It is really too great an honor for you, one you do not deserve; -but, as you see, I am really a very kind and generous man and I am going -to do this for you!” - -Then he went up to Pinocchio and began to pet and caress him. - -“How did you ever find them out so quickly? And to think that Melampo, -my faithful Melampo, never saw them in all these years!” - -The Marionette could have told, then and there, all he knew about the -shameful contract between the dog and the Weasels, but thinking of -the dead dog, he said to himself: “Melampo is dead. What is the use of -accusing him? The dead are gone and they cannot defend themselves. The -best thing to do is to leave them in peace!” - -“Were you awake or asleep when they came?” continued the Farmer. - -“I was asleep,” answered Pinocchio, “but they awakened me with their -whisperings. One of them even came to the door of the doghouse and said -to me, ‘If you promise not to bark, we will make you a present of one -of the chickens for your breakfast.’ Did you hear that? They had the -audacity to make such a proposition as that to me! For you must know -that, though I am a very wicked Marionette full of faults, still I never -have been, nor ever shall be, bribed.” - -“Fine boy!” cried the Farmer, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly -way. “You ought to be proud of yourself. And to show you what I think of -you, you are free from this instant!” - -And he slipped the dog collar from his neck. - - - - -CHAPTER 23 - -Pinocchio weeps upon learning that the Lovely Maiden with Azure Hair -is dead. He meets a Pigeon, who carries him to the seashore. He throws -himself into the sea to go to the aid of his father. - - -As soon as Pinocchio no longer felt the shameful weight of the dog -collar around his neck, he started to run across the fields and meadows, -and never stopped till he came to the main road that was to take him to -the Fairy’s house. - -When he reached it, he looked into the valley far below him and there -he saw the wood where unluckily he had met the Fox and the Cat, and the -tall oak tree where he had been hanged; but though he searched far and -near, he could not see the house where the Fairy with the Azure Hair -lived. - -He became terribly frightened and, running as fast as he could, he -finally came to the spot where it had once stood. The little house was -no longer there. In its place lay a small marble slab, which bore this -sad inscription: - - HERE LIES - THE LOVELY FAIRY WITH AZURE HAIR - WHO DIED OF GRIEF - WHEN ABANDONED BY - HER LITTLE BROTHER PINOCCHIO - -The poor Marionette was heartbroken at reading these words. He fell to -the ground and, covering the cold marble with kisses, burst into bitter -tears. He cried all night, and dawn found him still there, though his -tears had dried and only hard, dry sobs shook his wooden frame. But -these were so loud that they could be heard by the faraway hills. - -As he sobbed he said to himself: - -“Oh, my Fairy, my dear, dear Fairy, why did you die? Why did I not die, -who am so bad, instead of you, who are so good? And my father--where can -he be? Please dear Fairy, tell me where he is and I shall never, never -leave him again! You are not really dead, are you? If you love me, you -will come back, alive as before. Don’t you feel sorry for me? I’m so -lonely. If the two Assassins come, they’ll hang me again from the giant -oak tree and I will really die, this time. What shall I do alone in the -world? Now that you are dead and my father is lost, where shall I eat? -Where shall I sleep? Who will make my new clothes? Oh, I want to die! -Yes, I want to die! Oh, oh, oh!” - -Poor Pinocchio! He even tried to tear his hair, but as it was only -painted on his wooden head, he could not even pull it. - -Just then a large Pigeon flew far above him. Seeing the Marionette, he -cried to him: - -“Tell me, little boy, what are you doing there?” - -“Can’t you see? I’m crying,” cried Pinocchio, lifting his head toward -the voice and rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. - -“Tell me,” asked the Pigeon, “do you by chance know of a Marionette, -Pinocchio by name?” - -“Pinocchio! Did you say Pinocchio?” replied the Marionette, jumping to -his feet. “Why, I am Pinocchio!” - -At this answer, the Pigeon flew swiftly down to the earth. He was much -larger than a turkey. - -“Then you know Geppetto also?” - -“Do I know him? He’s my father, my poor, dear father! Has he, perhaps, -spoken to you of me? Will you take me to him? Is he still alive? Answer -me, please! Is he still alive?” - -“I left him three days ago on the shore of a large sea.” - -“What was he doing?” - -“He was building a little boat with which to cross the ocean. For -the last four months, that poor man has been wandering around Europe, -looking for you. Not having found you yet, he has made up his mind to -look for you in the New World, far across the ocean.” - -“How far is it from here to the shore?” asked Pinocchio anxiously. - -“More than fifty miles.” - -“Fifty miles? Oh, dear Pigeon, how I wish I had your wings!” - -“If you want to come, I’ll take you with me.” - -“How?” - -“Astride my back. Are you very heavy?” - -“Heavy? Not at all. I’m only a feather.” - -“Very well.” - -Saying nothing more, Pinocchio jumped on the Pigeon’s back and, as he -settled himself, he cried out gayly: - -“Gallop on, gallop on, my pretty steed! I’m in a great hurry.” - -The Pigeon flew away, and in a few minutes he had reached the clouds. -The Marionette looked to see what was below them. His head swam and he -was so frightened that he clutched wildly at the Pigeon’s neck to keep -himself from falling. - -They flew all day. Toward evening the Pigeon said: - -“I’m very thirsty!” - -“And I’m very hungry!” said Pinocchio. - -“Let us stop a few minutes at that pigeon coop down there. Then we can -go on and be at the seashore in the morning.” - -They went into the empty coop and there they found nothing but a bowl of -water and a small basket filled with chick-peas. - -The Marionette had always hated chick-peas. According to him, they had -always made him sick; but that night he ate them with a relish. As he -finished them, he turned to the Pigeon and said: - -“I never should have thought that chick-peas could be so good!” - -“You must remember, my boy,” answered the Pigeon, “that hunger is the -best sauce!” - -After resting a few minutes longer, they set out again. The next morning -they were at the seashore. - -Pinocchio jumped off the Pigeon’s back, and the Pigeon, not wanting any -thanks for a kind deed, flew away swiftly and disappeared. - -The shore was full of people, shrieking and tearing their hair as they -looked toward the sea. - -“What has happened?” asked Pinocchio of a little old woman. - -“A poor old father lost his only son some time ago and today he built a -tiny boat for himself in order to go in search of him across the ocean. -The water is very rough and we’re afraid he will be drowned.” - -“Where is the little boat?” - -“There. Straight down there,” answered the little old woman, pointing to -a tiny shadow, no bigger than a nutshell, floating on the sea. - -Pinocchio looked closely for a few minutes and then gave a sharp cry: - -“It’s my father! It’s my father!” - -Meanwhile, the little boat, tossed about by the angry waters, appeared -and disappeared in the waves. And Pinocchio, standing on a high rock, -tired out with searching, waved to him with hand and cap and even with -his nose. - -It looked as if Geppetto, though far away from the shore, recognized his -son, for he took off his cap and waved also. He seemed to be trying to -make everyone understand that he would come back if he were able, but -the sea was so heavy that he could do nothing with his oars. Suddenly a -huge wave came and the boat disappeared. - -They waited and waited for it, but it was gone. - -“Poor man!” said the fisher folk on the shore, whispering a prayer as -they turned to go home. - -Just then a desperate cry was heard. Turning around, the fisher folk saw -Pinocchio dive into the sea and heard him cry out: - -“I’ll save him! I’ll save my father!” - -The Marionette, being made of wood, floated easily along and swam like -a fish in the rough water. Now and again he disappeared only to reappear -once more. In a twinkling, he was far away from land. At last he was -completely lost to view. - -“Poor boy!” cried the fisher folk on the shore, and again they mumbled a -few prayers, as they returned home. - - - - -CHAPTER 24 - -Pinocchio reaches the Island of the Busy Bees and finds the Fairy once -more. - - -Pinocchio, spurred on by the hope of finding his father and of being in -time to save him, swam all night long. - -And what a horrible night it was! It poured rain, it hailed, it -thundered, and the lightning was so bright that it turned the night into -day. - -At dawn, he saw, not far away from him, a long stretch of sand. It was -an island in the middle of the sea. - -Pinocchio tried his best to get there, but he couldn’t. The waves played -with him and tossed him about as if he were a twig or a bit of straw. At -last, and luckily for him, a tremendous wave tossed him to the very spot -where he wanted to be. The blow from the wave was so strong that, as he -fell to the ground, his joints cracked and almost broke. But, nothing -daunted, he jumped to his feet and cried: - -“Once more I have escaped with my life!” - -Little by little the sky cleared. The sun came out in full splendor and -the sea became as calm as a lake. - -Then the Marionette took off his clothes and laid them on the sand to -dry. He looked over the waters to see whether he might catch sight of -a boat with a little man in it. He searched and he searched, but he saw -nothing except sea and sky and far away a few sails, so small that they -might have been birds. - -“If only I knew the name of this island!” he said to himself. “If I even -knew what kind of people I would find here! But whom shall I ask? There -is no one here.” - -The idea of finding himself in so lonesome a spot made him so sad that -he was about to cry, but just then he saw a big Fish swimming near-by, -with his head far out of the water. - -Not knowing what to call him, the Marionette said to him: - -“Hey there, Mr. Fish, may I have a word with you?” - -“Even two, if you want,” answered the fish, who happened to be a very -polite Dolphin. - -“Will you please tell me if, on this island, there are places where one -may eat without necessarily being eaten?” - -“Surely, there are,” answered the Dolphin. “In fact you’ll find one not -far from this spot.” - -“And how shall I get there?” - -“Take that path on your left and follow your nose. You can’t go wrong.” - -“Tell me another thing. You who travel day and night through the sea, -did you not perhaps meet a little boat with my father in it?” - -“And who is you father?” - -“He is the best father in the world, even as I am the worst son that can -be found.” - -“In the storm of last night,” answered the Dolphin, “the little boat -must have been swamped.” - -“And my father?” - -“By this time, he must have been swallowed by the Terrible Shark, which, -for the last few days, has been bringing terror to these waters.” - -“Is this Shark very big?” asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to tremble -with fright. - -“Is he big?” replied the Dolphin. “Just to give you an idea of his size, -let me tell you that he is larger than a five story building and that -he has a mouth so big and so deep, that a whole train and engine could -easily get into it.” - -“Mother mine!” cried the Marionette, scared to death; and dressing -himself as fast as he could, he turned to the Dolphin and said: - -“Farewell, Mr. Fish. Pardon the bother, and many thanks for your -kindness.” - -This said, he took the path at so swift a gait that he seemed to fly, -and at every small sound he heard, he turned in fear to see whether the -Terrible Shark, five stories high and with a train in his mouth, was -following him. - -After walking a half hour, he came to a small country called the Land -of the Busy Bees. The streets were filled with people running to and fro -about their tasks. Everyone worked, everyone had something to do. Even -if one were to search with a lantern, not one idle man or one tramp -could have been found. - -“I understand,” said Pinocchio at once wearily, “this is no place for -me! I was not born for work.” - -But in the meantime, he began to feel hungry, for it was twenty-four -hours since he had eaten. - -What was to be done? - -There were only two means left to him in order to get a bite to eat. He -had either to work or to beg. - -He was ashamed to beg, because his father had always preached to him -that begging should be done only by the sick or the old. He had said -that the real poor in this world, deserving of our pity and help, were -only those who, either through age or sickness, had lost the means of -earning their bread with their own hands. All others should work, and if -they didn’t, and went hungry, so much the worse for them. - -Just then a man passed by, worn out and wet with perspiration, pulling, -with difficulty, two heavy carts filled with coal. - -Pinocchio looked at him and, judging him by his looks to be a kind man, -said to him with eyes downcast in shame: - -“Will you be so good as to give me a penny, for I am faint with hunger?” - -“Not only one penny,” answered the Coal Man. “I’ll give you four if you -will help me pull these two wagons.” - -“I am surprised!” answered the Marionette, very much offended. “I wish -you to know that I never have been a donkey, nor have I ever pulled a -wagon.” - -“So much the better for you!” answered the Coal Man. “Then, my boy, if -you are really faint with hunger, eat two slices of your pride; and I -hope they don’t give you indigestion.” - -A few minutes after, a Bricklayer passed by, carrying a pail full of -plaster on his shoulder. - -“Good man, will you be kind enough to give a penny to a poor boy who is -yawning from hunger?” - -“Gladly,” answered the Bricklayer. “Come with me and carry some plaster, -and instead of one penny, I’ll give you five.” - -“But the plaster is heavy,” answered Pinocchio, “and the work too hard -for me.” - -“If the work is too hard for you, my boy, enjoy your yawns and may they -bring you luck!” - -In less than a half hour, at least twenty people passed and Pinocchio -begged of each one, but they all answered: - -“Aren’t you ashamed? Instead of being a beggar in the streets, why don’t -you look for work and earn your own bread?” - -Finally a little woman went by carrying two water jugs. - -“Good woman, will you allow me to have a drink from one of your jugs?” - asked Pinocchio, who was burning up with thirst. - -“With pleasure, my boy!” she answered, setting the two jugs on the -ground before him. - -When Pinocchio had had his fill, he grumbled, as he wiped his mouth: - -“My thirst is gone. If I could only as easily get rid of my hunger!” - -On hearing these words, the good little woman immediately said: - -“If you help me to carry these jugs home, I’ll give you a slice of -bread.” - -Pinocchio looked at the jug and said neither yes nor no. - -“And with the bread, I’ll give you a nice dish of cauliflower with white -sauce on it.” - -Pinocchio gave the jug another look and said neither yes nor no. - -“And after the cauliflower, some cake and jam.” - -At this last bribery, Pinocchio could no longer resist and said firmly: - -“Very well. I’ll take the jug home for you.” - -The jug was very heavy, and the Marionette, not being strong enough to -carry it with his hands, had to put it on his head. - -When they arrived home, the little woman made Pinocchio sit down at a -small table and placed before him the bread, the cauliflower, and -the cake. Pinocchio did not eat; he devoured. His stomach seemed a -bottomless pit. - -His hunger finally appeased, he raised his head to thank his kind -benefactress. But he had not looked at her long when he gave a cry of -surprise and sat there with his eyes wide open, his fork in the air, and -his mouth filled with bread and cauliflower. - -“Why all this surprise?” asked the good woman, laughing. - -“Because--” answered Pinocchio, stammering and stuttering, “because--you -look like--you remind me of--yes, yes, the same voice, the same eyes, -the same hair--yes, yes, yes, you also have the same azure hair she -had--Oh, my little Fairy, my little Fairy! Tell me that it is you! Don’t -make me cry any longer! If you only knew! I have cried so much, I have -suffered so!” - -And Pinocchio threw himself on the floor and clasped the knees of the -mysterious little woman. - - - - -CHAPTER 25 - -Pinocchio promises the Fairy to be good and to study, as he is growing -tired of being a Marionette, and wishes to become a real boy. - - -If Pinocchio cried much longer, the little woman thought he would melt -away, so she finally admitted that she was the little Fairy with Azure -Hair. - -“You rascal of a Marionette! How did you know it was I?” she asked, -laughing. - -“My love for you told me who you were.” - -“Do you remember? You left me when I was a little girl and now you find -me a grown woman. I am so old, I could almost be your mother!” - -“I am very glad of that, for then I can call you mother instead of -sister. For a long time I have wanted a mother, just like other boys. -But how did you grow so quickly?” - -“That’s a secret!” - -“Tell it to me. I also want to grow a little. Look at me! I have never -grown higher than a penny’s worth of cheese.” - -“But you can’t grow,” answered the Fairy. - -“Why not?” - -“Because Marionettes never grow. They are born Marionettes, they live -Marionettes, and they die Marionettes.” - -“Oh, I’m tired of always being a Marionette!” cried Pinocchio -disgustedly. “It’s about time for me to grow into a man as everyone else -does.” - -“And you will if you deserve it--” - -“Really? What can I do to deserve it?” - -“It’s a very simple matter. Try to act like a well-behaved child.” - -“Don’t you think I do?” - -“Far from it! Good boys are obedient, and you, on the contrary--” - -“And I never obey.” - -“Good boys love study and work, but you--” - -“And I, on the contrary, am a lazy fellow and a tramp all year round.” - -“Good boys always tell the truth.” - -“And I always tell lies.” - -“Good boys go gladly to school.” - -“And I get sick if I go to school. From now on I’ll be different.” - -“Do you promise?” - -“I promise. I want to become a good boy and be a comfort to my father. -Where is my poor father now?” - -“I do not know.” - -“Will I ever be lucky enough to find him and embrace him once more?” - -“I think so. Indeed, I am sure of it.” - -At this answer, Pinocchio’s happiness was very great. He grasped the -Fairy’s hands and kissed them so hard that it looked as if he had lost -his head. Then lifting his face, he looked at her lovingly and asked: -“Tell me, little Mother, it isn’t true that you are dead, is it?” - -“It doesn’t seem so,” answered the Fairy, smiling. - -“If you only knew how I suffered and how I wept when I read ‘Here -lies--’” - -“I know it, and for that I have forgiven you. The depth of your sorrow -made me see that you have a kind heart. There is always hope for boys -with hearts such as yours, though they may often be very mischievous. -This is the reason why I have come so far to look for you. From now on, -I’ll be your own little mother.” - -“Oh! How lovely!” cried Pinocchio, jumping with joy. - -“You will obey me always and do as I wish?” - -“Gladly, very gladly, more than gladly!” - -“Beginning tomorrow,” said the Fairy, “you’ll go to school every day.” - -Pinocchio’s face fell a little. - -“Then you will choose the trade you like best.” - -Pinocchio became more serious. - -“What are you mumbling to yourself?” asked the Fairy. - -“I was just saying,” whined the Marionette in a whisper, “that it seems -too late for me to go to school now.” - -“No, indeed. Remember it is never too late to learn.” - -“But I don’t want either trade or profession.” - -“Why?” - -“Because work wearies me!” - -“My dear boy,” said the Fairy, “people who speak as you do usually end -their days either in a prison or in a hospital. A man, remember, -whether rich or poor, should do something in this world. No one can -find happiness without work. Woe betide the lazy fellow! Laziness is a -serious illness and one must cure it immediately; yes, even from early -childhood. If not, it will kill you in the end.” - -These words touched Pinocchio’s heart. He lifted his eyes to his Fairy -and said seriously: “I’ll work; I’ll study; I’ll do all you tell me. -After all, the life of a Marionette has grown very tiresome to me and I -want to become a boy, no matter how hard it is. You promise that, do you -not?” - -“Yes, I promise, and now it is up to you.” - - - - -CHAPTER 26 - -Pinocchio goes to the seashore with his friends to see the Terrible -Shark. - - -In the morning, bright and early, Pinocchio started for school. - -Imagine what the boys said when they saw a Marionette enter the -classroom! They laughed until they cried. Everyone played tricks on him. -One pulled his hat off, another tugged at his coat, a third tried to -paint a mustache under his nose. One even attempted to tie strings to -his feet and his hands to make him dance. - -For a while Pinocchio was very calm and quiet. Finally, however, he -lost all patience and turning to his tormentors, he said to them -threateningly: - -“Careful, boys, I haven’t come here to be made fun of. I’ll respect you -and I want you to respect me.” - -“Hurrah for Dr. Know-all! You have spoken like a printed book!” howled -the boys, bursting with laughter. One of them, more impudent than the -rest, put out his hand to pull the Marionette’s nose. - -But he was not quick enough, for Pinocchio stretched his leg under the -table and kicked him hard on the shin. - -“Oh, what hard feet!” cried the boy, rubbing the spot where the -Marionette had kicked him. - -“And what elbows! They are even harder than the feet!” shouted another -one, who, because of some other trick, had received a blow in the -stomach. - -With that kick and that blow Pinocchio gained everybody’s favor. -Everyone admired him, danced attendance upon him, petted and caressed -him. - -As the days passed into weeks, even the teacher praised him, for he saw -him attentive, hard working, and wide awake, always the first to come in -the morning, and the last to leave when school was over. - -Pinocchio’s only fault was that he had too many friends. Among these -were many well-known rascals, who cared not a jot for study or for -success. - -The teacher warned him each day, and even the good Fairy repeated to him -many times: - -“Take care, Pinocchio! Those bad companions will sooner or later make -you lose your love for study. Some day they will lead you astray.” - -“There’s no such danger,” answered the Marionette, shrugging his -shoulders and pointing to his forehead as if to say, “I’m too wise.” - -So it happened that one day, as he was walking to school, he met some -boys who ran up to him and said: - -“Have you heard the news?” - -“No!” - -“A Shark as big as a mountain has been seen near the shore.” - -“Really? I wonder if it could be the same one I heard of when my father -was drowned?” - -“We are going to see it. Are you coming?” - -“No, not I. I must go to school.” - -“What do you care about school? You can go there tomorrow. With a lesson -more or less, we are always the same donkeys.” - -“And what will the teacher say?” - -“Let him talk. He is paid to grumble all day long.” - -“And my mother?” - -“Mothers don’t know anything,” answered those scamps. - -“Do you know what I’ll do?” said Pinocchio. “For certain reasons of -mine, I, too, want to see that Shark; but I’ll go after school. I can -see him then as well as now.” - -“Poor simpleton!” cried one of the boys. “Do you think that a fish of -that size will stand there waiting for you? He turns and off he goes, -and no one will ever be the wiser.” - -“How long does it take from here to the shore?” asked the Marionette. -“One hour there and back.” - - -“Very well, then. Let’s see who gets there first!” cried Pinocchio. - -At the signal, the little troop, with books under their arms, dashed -across the fields. Pinocchio led the way, running as if on wings, the -others following as fast as they could. - -Now and again, he looked back and, seeing his followers hot and tired, -and with tongues hanging out, he laughed out heartily. Unhappy boy! If -he had only known then the dreadful things that were to happen to him on -account of his disobedience! - - - - -CHAPTER 27 - -The great battle between Pinocchio and his playmates. One is wounded. -Pinocchio is arrested. - - -Going like the wind, Pinocchio took but a very short time to reach the -shore. He glanced all about him, but there was no sign of a Shark. The -sea was as smooth as glass. - -“Hey there, boys! Where’s that Shark?” he asked, turning to his -playmates. - -“He may have gone for his breakfast,” said one of them, laughing. - -“Or, perhaps, he went to bed for a little nap,” said another, laughing -also. - -From the answers and the laughter which followed them, Pinocchio -understood that the boys had played a trick on him. - -“What now?” he said angrily to them. “What’s the joke?” - -“Oh, the joke’s on you!” cried his tormentors, laughing more heartily -than ever, and dancing gayly around the Marionette. - -“And that is--?” - -“That we have made you stay out of school to come with us. Aren’t you -ashamed of being such a goody-goody, and of studying so hard? You never -have a bit of enjoyment.” - -“And what is it to you, if I do study?” - -“What does the teacher think of us, you mean?” - -“Why?” - -“Don’t you see? If you study and we don’t, we pay for it. After all, -it’s only fair to look out for ourselves.” - -“What do you want me to do?” - -“Hate school and books and teachers, as we all do. They are your worst -enemies, you know, and they like to make you as unhappy as they can.” - -“And if I go on studying, what will you do to me?” - -“You’ll pay for it!” - -“Really, you amuse me,” answered the Marionette, nodding his head. - -“Hey, Pinocchio,” cried the tallest of them all, “that will do. We are -tired of hearing you bragging about yourself, you little turkey cock! -You may not be afraid of us, but remember we are not afraid of you, -either! You are alone, you know, and we are seven.” - -“Like the seven sins,” said Pinocchio, still laughing. - -“Did you hear that? He has insulted us all. He has called us sins.” - -“Pinocchio, apologize for that, or look out!” - -“Cuck--oo!” said the Marionette, mocking them with his thumb to his -nose. - -“You’ll be sorry!” - -“Cuck--oo!” - -“We’ll whip you soundly!” - -“Cuck--oo!” - -“You’ll go home with a broken nose!” - -“Cuck--oo!” - -“Very well, then! Take that, and keep it for your supper,” called out -the boldest of his tormentors. - -And with the words, he gave Pinocchio a terrible blow on the head. - -Pinocchio answered with another blow, and that was the signal for the -beginning of the fray. In a few moments, the fight raged hot and heavy -on both sides. - -Pinocchio, although alone, defended himself bravely. With those two -wooden feet of his, he worked so fast that his opponents kept at a -respectful distance. Wherever they landed, they left their painful mark -and the boys could only run away and howl. - -Enraged at not being able to fight the Marionette at close quarters, -they started to throw all kinds of books at him. Readers, geographies, -histories, grammars flew in all directions. But Pinocchio was keen of -eye and swift of movement, and the books only passed over his head, -landed in the sea, and disappeared. - -The fish, thinking they might be good to eat, came to the top of the -water in great numbers. Some took a nibble, some took a bite, but no -sooner had they tasted a page or two, than they spat them out with a wry -face, as if to say: - -“What a horrid taste! Our own food is so much better!” - -Meanwhile, the battle waxed more and more furious. At the noise, a large -Crab crawled slowly out of the water and, with a voice that sounded like -a trombone suffering from a cold, he cried out: - -“Stop fighting, you rascals! These battles between boys rarely end well. -Trouble is sure to come to you!” - -Poor Crab! He might as well have spoken to the wind. Instead of -listening to his good advice, Pinocchio turned to him and said as -roughly as he knew how: - -“Keep quiet, ugly Gab! It would be better for you to chew a few cough -drops to get rid of that cold you have. Go to bed and sleep! You will -feel better in the morning.” - -In the meantime, the boys, having used all their books, looked around -for new ammunition. Seeing Pinocchio’s bundle lying idle near-by, they -somehow managed to get hold of it. - -One of the books was a very large volume, an arithmetic text, heavily -bound in leather. It was Pinocchio’s pride. Among all his books, he -liked that one the best. - -Thinking it would make a fine missile, one of the boys took hold of it -and threw it with all his strength at Pinocchio’s head. But instead of -hitting the Marionette, the book struck one of the other boys, who, as -pale as a ghost, cried out faintly: “Oh, Mother, help! I’m dying!” and -fell senseless to the ground. - -At the sight of that pale little corpse, the boys were so frightened -that they turned tail and ran. In a few moments, all had disappeared. - -All except Pinocchio. Although scared to death by the horror of what -had been done, he ran to the sea and soaked his handkerchief in the cool -water and with it bathed the head of his poor little schoolmate. Sobbing -bitterly, he called to him, saying: - -“Eugene! My poor Eugene! Open your eyes and look at me! Why don’t you -answer? I was not the one who hit you, you know. Believe me, I didn’t -do it. Open your eyes, Eugene? If you keep them shut, I’ll die, too. -Oh, dear me, how shall I ever go home now? How shall I ever look at my -little mother again? What will happen to me? Where shall I go? Where -shall I hide? Oh, how much better it would have been, a thousand times -better, if only I had gone to school! Why did I listen to those boys? -They always were a bad influence! And to think that the teacher had told -me--and my mother, too!--‘Beware of bad company!’ That’s what she said. -But I’m stubborn and proud. I listen, but always I do as I wish. And -then I pay. I’ve never had a moment’s peace since I’ve been born! Oh, -dear! What will become of me? What will become of me?” - -Pinocchio went on crying and moaning and beating his head. Again and -again he called to his little friend, when suddenly he heard heavy steps -approaching. - -He looked up and saw two tall Carabineers near him. - -“What are you doing stretched out on the ground?” they asked Pinocchio. - -“I’m helping this schoolfellow of mine.” - -“Has he fainted?” - -“I should say so,” said one of the Carabineers, bending to look at -Eugene. “This boy has been wounded on the temple. Who has hurt him?” - -“Not I,” stammered the Marionette, who had hardly a breath left in his -whole body. - -“If it wasn’t you, who was it, then?” - -“Not I,” repeated Pinocchio. - -“And with what was he wounded?” - -“With this book,” and the Marionette picked up the arithmetic text to -show it to the officer. - -“And whose book is this?” - -“Mine.” - -“Enough.” - -“Not another word! Get up as quickly as you can and come along with us.” - -“But I--” - -“Come with us!” - -“But I am innocent.” - -“Come with us!” - -Before starting out, the officers called out to several fishermen -passing by in a boat and said to them: - -“Take care of this little fellow who has been hurt. Take him home and -bind his wounds. Tomorrow we’ll come after him.” - -They then took hold of Pinocchio and, putting him between them, said to -him in a rough voice: “March! And go quickly, or it will be the worse -for you!” - -They did not have to repeat their words. The Marionette walked swiftly -along the road to the village. But the poor fellow hardly knew what -he was about. He thought he had a nightmare. He felt ill. His eyes saw -everything double, his legs trembled, his tongue was dry, and, try as he -might, he could not utter a single word. Yet, in spite of this numbness -of feeling, he suffered keenly at the thought of passing under the -windows of his good little Fairy’s house. What would she say on seeing -him between two Carabineers? - -They had just reached the village, when a sudden gust of wind blew off -Pinocchio’s cap and made it go sailing far down the street. - -“Would you allow me,” the Marionette asked the Carabineers, “to run -after my cap?” - -“Very well, go; but hurry.” - -The Marionette went, picked up his cap--but instead of putting it on his -head, he stuck it between his teeth and then raced toward the sea. - -He went like a bullet out of a gun. - -The Carabineers, judging that it would be very difficult to catch him, -sent a large Mastiff after him, one that had won first prize in all the -dog races. Pinocchio ran fast and the Dog ran faster. At so much noise, -the people hung out of the windows or gathered in the street, anxious to -see the end of the contest. But they were disappointed, for the Dog and -Pinocchio raised so much dust on the road that, after a few moments, it -was impossible to see them. - - - - -CHAPTER 28 - -Pinocchio runs the danger of being fried in a pan like a fish - - -During that wild chase, Pinocchio lived through a terrible moment when -he almost gave himself up as lost. This was when Alidoro (that was the -Mastiff’s name), in a frenzy of running, came so near that he was on the -very point of reaching him. - -The Marionette heard, close behind him, the labored breathing of the -beast who was fast on his trail, and now and again even felt his hot -breath blow over him. - -Luckily, by this time, he was very near the shore, and the sea was in -sight; in fact, only a few short steps away. - -As soon as he set foot on the beach, Pinocchio gave a leap and fell into -the water. Alidoro tried to stop, but as he was running very fast, he -couldn’t, and he, too, landed far out in the sea. Strange though it may -seem, the Dog could not swim. He beat the water with his paws to hold -himself up, but the harder he tried, the deeper he sank. As he stuck his -head out once more, the poor fellow’s eyes were bulging and he barked -out wildly, “I drown! I drown!” - -“Drown!” answered Pinocchio from afar, happy at his escape. - -“Help, Pinocchio, dear little Pinocchio! Save me from death!” - -At those cries of suffering, the Marionette, who after all had a very -kind heart, was moved to compassion. He turned toward the poor animal -and said to him: - -“But if I help you, will you promise not to bother me again by running -after me?” - -“I promise! I promise! Only hurry, for if you wait another second, I’ll -be dead and gone!” - -Pinocchio hesitated still another minute. Then, remembering how his -father had often told him that a kind deed is never lost, he swam to -Alidoro and, catching hold of his tail, dragged him to the shore. - -The poor Dog was so weak he could not stand. He had swallowed so much -salt water that he was swollen like a balloon. However, Pinocchio, not -wishing to trust him too much, threw himself once again into the sea. As -he swam away, he called out: - -“Good-by, Alidoro, good luck and remember me to the family!” - -“Good-by, little Pinocchio,” answered the Dog. “A thousand thanks for -having saved me from death. You did me a good turn, and, in this world, -what is given is always returned. If the chance comes, I shall be -there.” - -Pinocchio went on swimming close to shore. At last he thought he had -reached a safe place. Glancing up and down the beach, he saw the opening -of a cave out of which rose a spiral of smoke. - -“In that cave,” he said to himself, “there must be a fire. So much the -better. I’ll dry my clothes and warm myself, and then--well--” - -His mind made up, Pinocchio swam to the rocks, but as he started to -climb, he felt something under him lifting him up higher and higher. He -tried to escape, but he was too late. To his great surprise, he found -himself in a huge net, amid a crowd of fish of all kinds and sizes, who -were fighting and struggling desperately to free themselves. - -At the same time, he saw a Fisherman come out of the cave, a Fisherman -so ugly that Pinocchio thought he was a sea monster. In place of hair, -his head was covered by a thick bush of green grass. Green was the skin -of his body, green were his eyes, green was the long, long beard that -reached down to his feet. He looked like a giant lizard with legs and -arms. - -When the Fisherman pulled the net out of the sea, he cried out joyfully: - -“Blessed Providence! Once more I’ll have a fine meal of fish!” - -“Thank Heaven, I’m not a fish!” said Pinocchio to himself, trying with -these words to find a little courage. - -The Fisherman took the net and the fish to the cave, a dark, gloomy, -smoky place. In the middle of it, a pan full of oil sizzled over a -smoky fire, sending out a repelling odor of tallow that took away one’s -breath. - -“Now, let’s see what kind of fish we have caught today,” said the Green -Fisherman. He put a hand as big as a spade into the net and pulled out a -handful of mullets. - -“Fine mullets, these!” he said, after looking at them and smelling them -with pleasure. After that, he threw them into a large, empty tub. - -Many times he repeated this performance. As he pulled each fish out of -the net, his mouth watered with the thought of the good dinner coming, -and he said: - -“Fine fish, these bass!” - -“Very tasty, these whitefish!” - -“Delicious flounders, these!” - -“What splendid crabs!” - -“And these dear little anchovies, with their heads still on!” - -As you can well imagine, the bass, the flounders, the whitefish, and -even the little anchovies all went together into the tub to keep the -mullets company. The last to come out of the net was Pinocchio. - -As soon as the Fisherman pulled him out, his green eyes opened wide with -surprise, and he cried out in fear: - -“What kind of fish is this? I don’t remember ever eating anything like -it.” - -He looked at him closely and after turning him over and over, he said at -last: - -“I understand. He must be a crab!” - -Pinocchio, mortified at being taken for a crab, said resentfully: - -“What nonsense! A crab indeed! I am no such thing. Beware how you deal -with me! I am a Marionette, I want you to know.” - -“A Marionette?” asked the Fisherman. “I must admit that a Marionette -fish is, for me, an entirely new kind of fish. So much the better. I’ll -eat you with greater relish.” - -“Eat me? But can’t you understand that I’m not a fish? Can’t you hear -that I speak and think as you do?” - -“It’s true,” answered the Fisherman; “but since I see that you are a -fish, well able to talk and think as I do, I’ll treat you with all due -respect.” - -“And that is--” - -“That, as a sign of my particular esteem, I’ll leave to you the choice -of the manner in which you are to be cooked. Do you wish to be fried in -a pan, or do you prefer to be cooked with tomato sauce?” - -“To tell you the truth,” answered Pinocchio, “if I must choose, I should -much rather go free so I may return home!” - -“Are you fooling? Do you think that I want to lose the opportunity to -taste such a rare fish? A Marionette fish does not come very often to -these seas. Leave it to me. I’ll fry you in the pan with the others. -I know you’ll like it. It’s always a comfort to find oneself in good -company.” - -The unlucky Marionette, hearing this, began to cry and wail and beg. -With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said: - -“How much better it would have been for me to go to school! I did listen -to my playmates and now I am paying for it! Oh! Oh! Oh!” - -And as he struggled and squirmed like an eel to escape from him, the -Green Fisherman took a stout cord and tied him hand and foot, and threw -him into the bottom of the tub with the others. - -Then he pulled a wooden bowl full of flour out of a cupboard and started -to roll the fish into it, one by one. When they were white with it, -he threw them into the pan. The first to dance in the hot oil were the -mullets, the bass followed, then the whitefish, the flounders, and the -anchovies. Pinocchio’s turn came last. Seeing himself so near to death -(and such a horrible death!) he began to tremble so with fright that he -had no voice left with which to beg for his life. - -The poor boy beseeched only with his eyes. But the Green Fisherman, -not even noticing that it was he, turned him over and over in the flour -until he looked like a Marionette made of chalk. - -Then he took him by the head and . . . - - - - -CHAPTER 29 - -Pinocchio returns to the Fairy’s house and she promises him that, on the -morrow, he will cease to be a Marionette and become a boy. A wonderful -party of coffee-and-milk to celebrate the great event. - - -Mindful of what the Fisherman had said, Pinocchio knew that all hope -of being saved had gone. He closed his eyes and waited for the final -moment. - -Suddenly, a large Dog, attracted by the odor of the boiling oil, came -running into the cave. - -“Get out!” cried the Fisherman threateningly and still holding onto the -Marionette, who was all covered with flour. - -But the poor Dog was very hungry, and whining and wagging his tail, he -tried to say: - -“Give me a bite of the fish and I’ll go in peace.” - -“Get out, I say!” repeated the Fisherman. - -And he drew back his foot to give the Dog a kick. - -Then the Dog, who, being really hungry, would take no refusal, turned -in a rage toward the Fisherman and bared his terrible fangs. And at that -moment, a pitiful little voice was heard saying: “Save me, Alidoro; if -you don’t, I fry!” - -The Dog immediately recognized Pinocchio’s voice. Great was his surprise -to find that the voice came from the little flour-covered bundle that -the Fisherman held in his hand. - -Then what did he do? With one great leap, he grasped that bundle in his -mouth and, holding it lightly between his teeth, ran through the door -and disappeared like a flash! - -The Fisherman, angry at seeing his meal snatched from under his nose, -ran after the Dog, but a bad fit of coughing made him stop and turn -back. - -Meanwhile, Alidoro, as soon as he had found the road which led to the -village, stopped and dropped Pinocchio softly to the ground. - -“How much I do thank you!” said the Marionette. - -“It is not necessary,” answered the Dog. “You saved me once, and what is -given is always returned. We are in this world to help one another.” - -“But how did you get in that cave?” - -“I was lying here on the sand more dead than alive, when an appetizing -odor of fried fish came to me. That odor tickled my hunger and I -followed it. Oh, if I had come a moment later!” - -“Don’t speak about it,” wailed Pinocchio, still trembling with fright. -“Don’t say a word. If you had come a moment later, I would be fried, -eaten, and digested by this time. Brrrrrr! I shiver at the mere thought -of it.” - -Alidoro laughingly held out his paw to the Marionette, who shook it -heartily, feeling that now he and the Dog were good friends. Then they -bid each other good-by and the Dog went home. - -Pinocchio, left alone, walked toward a little hut near by, where an old -man sat at the door sunning himself, and asked: - -“Tell me, good man, have you heard anything of a poor boy with a wounded -head, whose name was Eugene?” - -“The boy was brought to this hut and now--” - -“Now he is dead?” Pinocchio interrupted sorrowfully. - -“No, he is now alive and he has already returned home.” - -“Really? Really?” cried the Marionette, jumping around with joy. “Then -the wound was not serious?” - -“But it might have been--and even mortal,” answered the old man, “for a -heavy book was thrown at his head.” - -“And who threw it?” - -“A schoolmate of his, a certain Pinocchio.” - -“And who is this Pinocchio?” asked the Marionette, feigning ignorance. - -“They say he is a mischief-maker, a tramp, a street urchin--” - -“Calumnies! All calumnies!” - -“Do you know this Pinocchio?” - -“By sight!” answered the Marionette. - -“And what do you think of him?” asked the old man. - -“I think he’s a very good boy, fond of study, obedient, kind to his -Father, and to his whole family--” - -As he was telling all these enormous lies about himself, Pinocchio -touched his nose and found it twice as long as it should be. Scared out -of his wits, he cried out: - -“Don’t listen to me, good man! All the wonderful things I have said are -not true at all. I know Pinocchio well and he is indeed a very wicked -fellow, lazy and disobedient, who instead of going to school, runs away -with his playmates to have a good time.” - -At this speech, his nose returned to its natural size. - -“Why are you so pale?” the old man asked suddenly. - -“Let me tell you. Without knowing it, I rubbed myself against a newly -painted wall,” he lied, ashamed to say that he had been made ready for -the frying pan. - -“What have you done with your coat and your hat and your breeches?” - -“I met thieves and they robbed me. Tell me, my good man, have you not, -perhaps, a little suit to give me, so that I may go home?” - -“My boy, as for clothes, I have only a bag in which I keep hops. If you -want it, take it. There it is.” - -Pinocchio did not wait for him to repeat his words. He took the bag, -which happened to be empty, and after cutting a big hole at the top and -two at the sides, he slipped into it as if it were a shirt. Lightly clad -as he was, he started out toward the village. - -Along the way he felt very uneasy. In fact he was so unhappy that he -went along taking two steps forward and one back, and as he went he said -to himself: - -“How shall I ever face my good little Fairy? What will she say when she -sees me? Will she forgive this last trick of mine? I am sure she won’t. -Oh, no, she won’t. And I deserve it, as usual! For I am a rascal, fine -on promises which I never keep!” - -He came to the village late at night. It was so dark he could see -nothing and it was raining pitchforks. - -Pinocchio went straight to the Fairy’s house, firmly resolved to knock -at the door. - -When he found himself there, he lost courage and ran back a few steps. -A second time he came to the door and again he ran back. A third time -he repeated his performance. The fourth time, before he had time to lose -his courage, he grasped the knocker and made a faint sound with it. - -He waited and waited and waited. Finally, after a full half hour, a -top-floor window (the house had four stories) opened and Pinocchio saw -a large Snail look out. A tiny light glowed on top of her head. “Who -knocks at this late hour?” she called. - -“Is the Fairy home?” asked the Marionette. - -“The Fairy is asleep and does not wish to be disturbed. Who are you?” - -“It is I.” - -“Who’s I?” - -“Pinocchio.” - -“Who is Pinocchio?” - -“The Marionette; the one who lives in the Fairy’s house.” - -“Oh, I understand,” said the Snail. “Wait for me there. I’ll come down -to open the door for you.” - -“Hurry, I beg of you, for I am dying of cold.” - -“My boy, I am a snail and snails are never in a hurry.” - -An hour passed, two hours; and the door was still closed. Pinocchio, who -was trembling with fear and shivering from the cold rain on his back, -knocked a second time, this time louder than before. - -At that second knock, a window on the third floor opened and the same -Snail looked out. - -“Dear little Snail,” cried Pinocchio from the street. “I have been -waiting two hours for you! And two hours on a dreadful night like this -are as long as two years. Hurry, please!” - -“My boy,” answered the Snail in a calm, peaceful voice, “my dear boy, I -am a snail and snails are never in a hurry.” And the window closed. - -A few minutes later midnight struck; then one o’clock--two o’clock. And -the door still remained closed! - -Then Pinocchio, losing all patience, grabbed the knocker with both -hands, fully determined to awaken the whole house and street with it. -As soon as he touched the knocker, however, it became an eel and wiggled -away into the darkness. - -“Really?” cried Pinocchio, blind with rage. “If the knocker is gone, I -can still use my feet.” - -He stepped back and gave the door a most solemn kick. He kicked so hard -that his foot went straight through the door and his leg followed almost -to the knee. No matter how he pulled and tugged, he could not pull it -out. There he stayed as if nailed to the door. - -Poor Pinocchio! The rest of the night he had to spend with one foot -through the door and the other one in the air. - -As dawn was breaking, the door finally opened. That brave little animal, -the Snail, had taken exactly nine hours to go from the fourth floor to -the street. How she must have raced! - -“What are you doing with your foot through the door?” she asked the -Marionette, laughing. - -“It was a misfortune. Won’t you try, pretty little Snail, to free me -from this terrible torture?” - -“My boy, we need a carpenter here and I have never been one.” - -“Ask the Fairy to help me!” - -“The Fairy is asleep and does not want to be disturbed.” - -“But what do you want me to do, nailed to the door like this?” - -“Enjoy yourself counting the ants which are passing by.” - -“Bring me something to eat, at least, for I am faint with hunger.” - -“Immediately!” - -In fact, after three hours and a half, Pinocchio saw her return with -a silver tray on her head. On the tray there was bread, roast chicken, -fruit. - -“Here is the breakfast the Fairy sends to you,” said the Snail. - -At the sight of all these good things, the Marionette felt much better. - -What was his disgust, however, when on tasting the food, he found the -bread to be made of chalk, the chicken of cardboard, and the brilliant -fruit of colored alabaster! - -He wanted to cry, he wanted to give himself up to despair, he wanted to -throw away the tray and all that was on it. Instead, either from pain or -weakness, he fell to the floor in a dead faint. - -When he regained his senses, he found himself stretched out on a sofa -and the Fairy was seated near him. - -“This time also I forgive you,” said the Fairy to him. “But be careful -not to get into mischief again.” - -Pinocchio promised to study and to behave himself. And he kept his word -for the remainder of the year. At the end of it, he passed first in all -his examinations, and his report was so good that the Fairy said to him -happily: - -“Tomorrow your wish will come true.” - -“And what is it?” - -“Tomorrow you will cease to be a Marionette and will become a real boy.” - -Pinocchio was beside himself with joy. All his friends and schoolmates -must be invited to celebrate the great event! The Fairy promised to -prepare two hundred cups of coffee-and-milk and four hundred slices of -toast buttered on both sides. - -The day promised to be a very gay and happy one, but-- - -Unluckily, in a Marionette’s life there’s always a BUT which is apt to -spoil everything. - - - - -CHAPTER 30 - -Pinocchio, instead of becoming a boy, runs away to the Land of Toys with -his friend, Lamp-Wick. - - -Coming at last out of the surprise into which the Fairy’s words had -thrown him, Pinocchio asked for permission to give out the invitations. - -“Indeed, you may invite your friends to tomorrow’s party. Only remember -to return home before dark. Do you understand?” - -“I’ll be back in one hour without fail,” answered the Marionette. - -“Take care, Pinocchio! Boys give promises very easily, but they as -easily forget them.” - -“But I am not like those others. When I give my word I keep it.” - -“We shall see. In case you do disobey, you will be the one to suffer, -not anyone else.” - -“Why?” - -“Because boys who do not listen to their elders always come to grief.” - -“I certainly have,” said Pinocchio, “but from now on, I obey.” - -“We shall see if you are telling the truth.” - -Without adding another word, the Marionette bade the good Fairy good-by, -and singing and dancing, he left the house. - -In a little more than an hour, all his friends were invited. Some -accepted quickly and gladly. Others had to be coaxed, but when they -heard that the toast was to be buttered on both sides, they all ended by -accepting the invitation with the words, “We’ll come to please you.” - -Now it must be known that, among all his friends, Pinocchio had one whom -he loved most of all. The boy’s real name was Romeo, but everyone called -him Lamp-Wick, for he was long and thin and had a woebegone look about -him. - -Lamp-Wick was the laziest boy in the school and the biggest -mischief-maker, but Pinocchio loved him dearly. - -That day, he went straight to his friend’s house to invite him to the -party, but Lamp-Wick was not at home. He went a second time, and again a -third, but still without success. - -Where could he be? Pinocchio searched here and there and everywhere, and -finally discovered him hiding near a farmer’s wagon. - -“What are you doing there?” asked Pinocchio, running up to him. - -“I am waiting for midnight to strike to go--” - -“Where?” - -“Far, far away!” - -“And I have gone to your house three times to look for you!” - -“What did you want from me?” - -“Haven’t you heard the news? Don’t you know what good luck is mine?” - -“What is it?” - -“Tomorrow I end my days as a Marionette and become a boy, like you and -all my other friends.” - -“May it bring you luck!” - -“Shall I see you at my party tomorrow?” - -“But I’m telling you that I go tonight.” - -“At what time?” - -“At midnight.” - -“And where are you going?” - -“To a real country--the best in the world--a wonderful place!” - -“What is it called?” - -“It is called the Land of Toys. Why don’t you come, too?” - -“I? Oh, no!” - -“You are making a big mistake, Pinocchio. Believe me, if you don’t come, -you’ll be sorry. Where can you find a place that will agree better with -you and me? No schools, no teachers, no books! In that blessed place -there is no such thing as study. Here, it is only on Saturdays that -we have no school. In the Land of Toys, every day, except Sunday, is a -Saturday. Vacation begins on the first of January and ends on the last -day of December. That is the place for me! All countries should be like -it! How happy we should all be!” - -“But how does one spend the day in the Land of Toys?” - -“Days are spent in play and enjoyment from morn till night. At night one -goes to bed, and next morning, the good times begin all over again. What -do you think of it?” - -“H’m--!” said Pinocchio, nodding his wooden head, as if to say, “It’s -the kind of life which would agree with me perfectly.” - -“Do you want to go with me, then? Yes or no? You must make up your -mind.” - -“No, no, and again no! I have promised my kind Fairy to become a good -boy, and I want to keep my word. Just see: The sun is setting and I must -leave you and run. Good-by and good luck to you!” - -“Where are you going in such a hurry?” - -“Home. My good Fairy wants me to return home before night.” - -“Wait two minutes more.” - -“It’s too late!” - -“Only two minutes.” - -“And if the Fairy scolds me?” - -“Let her scold. After she gets tired, she will stop,” said Lamp-Wick. - -“Are you going alone or with others?” - -“Alone? There will be more than a hundred of us!” - -“Will you walk?” - -“At midnight the wagon passes here that is to take us within the -boundaries of that marvelous country.” - -“How I wish midnight would strike!” - -“Why?” - -“To see you all set out together.” - -“Stay here a while longer and you will see us!” - -“No, no. I want to return home.” - -“Wait two more minutes.” - -“I have waited too long as it is. The Fairy will be worried.” - -“Poor Fairy! Is she afraid the bats will eat you up?” - -“Listen, Lamp-Wick,” said the Marionette, “are you really sure that -there are no schools in the Land of Toys?” “Not even the shadow of one.” - -“Not even one teacher?” - -“Not one.” - -“And one does not have to study?” - -“Never, never, never!” - -“What a great land!” said Pinocchio, feeling his mouth water. “What a -beautiful land! I have never been there, but I can well imagine it.” - -“Why don’t you come, too?” - -“It is useless for you to tempt me! I told you I promised my good Fairy -to behave myself, and I am going to keep my word.” - -“Good-by, then, and remember me to the grammar schools, to the high -schools, and even to the colleges if you meet them on the way.” - -“Good-by, Lamp-Wick. Have a pleasant trip, enjoy yourself, and remember -your friends once in a while.” - -With these words, the Marionette started on his way home. Turning once -more to his friend, he asked him: - -“But are you sure that, in that country, each week is composed of six -Saturdays and one Sunday?” - -“Very sure!” - -“And that vacation begins on the first of January and ends on the -thirty-first of December?” - -“Very, very sure!” - -“What a great country!” repeated Pinocchio, puzzled as to what to do. - -Then, in sudden determination, he said hurriedly: - -“Good-by for the last time, and good luck.” - -“Good-by.” - -“How soon will you go?” - -“Within two hours.” - -“What a pity! If it were only one hour, I might wait for you.” - -“And the Fairy?” - -“By this time I’m late, and one hour more or less makes very little -difference.” - -“Poor Pinocchio! And if the Fairy scolds you?” - -“Oh, I’ll let her scold. After she gets tired, she will stop.” - -In the meantime, the night became darker and darker. All at once in the -distance a small light flickered. A queer sound could be heard, soft -as a little bell, and faint and muffled like the buzz of a far-away -mosquito. - -“There it is!” cried Lamp-Wick, jumping to his feet. - -“What?” whispered Pinocchio. - -“The wagon which is coming to get me. For the last time, are you coming -or not?” - -“But is it really true that in that country boys never have to study?” - -“Never, never, never!” - -“What a wonderful, beautiful, marvelous country! Oh--h--h!!” - - - - -CHAPTER 31 - -After five months of play, Pinocchio wakes up one fine morning and finds -a great surprise awaiting him. - - -Finally the wagon arrived. It made no noise, for its wheels were bound -with straw and rags. - -It was drawn by twelve pair of donkeys, all of the same size, but all -of different color. Some were gray, others white, and still others a -mixture of brown and black. Here and there were a few with large yellow -and blue stripes. - -The strangest thing of all was that those twenty-four donkeys, instead -of being iron-shod like any other beast of burden, had on their feet -laced shoes made of leather, just like the ones boys wear. - -And the driver of the wagon? - -Imagine to yourselves a little, fat man, much wider than he was long, -round and shiny as a ball of butter, with a face beaming like an apple, -a little mouth that always smiled, and a voice small and wheedling like -that of a cat begging for food. - -No sooner did any boy see him than he fell in love with him, and nothing -satisfied him but to be allowed to ride in his wagon to that lovely -place called the Land of Toys. - -In fact the wagon was so closely packed with boys of all ages that it -looked like a box of sardines. They were uncomfortable, they were piled -one on top of the other, they could hardly breathe; yet not one word of -complaint was heard. The thought that in a few hours they would reach a -country where there were no schools, no books, no teachers, made these -boys so happy that they felt neither hunger, nor thirst, nor sleep, nor -discomfort. - -No sooner had the wagon stopped than the little fat man turned to -Lamp-Wick. With bows and smiles, he asked in a wheedling tone: - -“Tell me, my fine boy, do you also want to come to my wonderful -country?” - -“Indeed I do.” - -“But I warn you, my little dear, there’s no more room in the wagon. It -is full.” - -“Never mind,” answered Lamp-Wick. “If there’s no room inside, I can sit -on the top of the coach.” - -And with one leap, he perched himself there. - -“What about you, my love?” asked the Little Man, turning politely to -Pinocchio. “What are you going to do? Will you come with us, or do you -stay here?” - -“I stay here,” answered Pinocchio. “I want to return home, as I prefer -to study and to succeed in life.” - -“May that bring you luck!” - -“Pinocchio!” Lamp-Wick called out. “Listen to me. Come with us and we’ll -always be happy.” - -“No, no, no!” - -“Come with us and we’ll always be happy,” cried four other voices from -the wagon. - -“Come with us and we’ll always be happy,” shouted the one hundred and -more boys in the wagon, all together. “And if I go with you, what will -my good Fairy say?” asked the Marionette, who was beginning to waver and -weaken in his good resolutions. - -“Don’t worry so much. Only think that we are going to a land where -we shall be allowed to make all the racket we like from morning till -night.” - -Pinocchio did not answer, but sighed deeply once--twice--a third time. -Finally, he said: - -“Make room for me. I want to go, too!” - -“The seats are all filled,” answered the Little Man, “but to show you -how much I think of you, take my place as coachman.” - -“And you?” - -“I’ll walk.” - -“No, indeed. I could not permit such a thing. I much prefer riding one -of these donkeys,” cried Pinocchio. - -No sooner said than done. He approached the first donkey and tried to -mount it. But the little animal turned suddenly and gave him such a -terrible kick in the stomach that Pinocchio was thrown to the ground and -fell with his legs in the air. - -At this unlooked-for entertainment, the whole company of runaways -laughed uproariously. - -The little fat man did not laugh. He went up to the rebellious animal, -and, still smiling, bent over him lovingly and bit off half of his right -ear. - -In the meantime, Pinocchio lifted himself up from the ground, and with -one leap landed on the donkey’s back. The leap was so well taken that -all the boys shouted, - -“Hurrah for Pinocchio!” and clapped their hands in hearty applause. - -Suddenly the little donkey gave a kick with his two hind feet and, -at this unexpected move, the poor Marionette found himself once again -sprawling right in the middle of the road. - -Again the boys shouted with laughter. But the Little Man, instead of -laughing, became so loving toward the little animal that, with another -kiss, he bit off half of his left ear. - -“You can mount now, my boy,” he then said to Pinocchio. “Have no fear. -That donkey was worried about something, but I have spoken to him and -now he seems quiet and reasonable.” - -Pinocchio mounted and the wagon started on its way. While the donkeys -galloped along the stony road, the Marionette fancied he heard a very -quiet voice whispering to him: - -“Poor silly! You have done as you wished. But you are going to be a -sorry boy before very long.” - -Pinocchio, greatly frightened, looked about him to see whence the words -had come, but he saw no one. The donkeys galloped, the wagon rolled -on smoothly, the boys slept (Lamp-Wick snored like a dormouse) and the -little, fat driver sang sleepily between his teeth. - -After a mile or so, Pinocchio again heard the same faint voice -whispering: “Remember, little simpleton! Boys who stop studying and turn -their backs upon books and schools and teachers in order to give all -their time to nonsense and pleasure, sooner or later come to grief. Oh, -how well I know this! How well I can prove it to you! A day will come -when you will weep bitterly, even as I am weeping now--but it will be -too late!” - -At these whispered words, the Marionette grew more and more frightened. -He jumped to the ground, ran up to the donkey on whose back he had been -riding, and taking his nose in his hands, looked at him. Think how great -was his surprise when he saw that the donkey was weeping--weeping just -like a boy! - -“Hey, Mr. Driver!” cried the Marionette. “Do you know what strange thing -is happening here! This donkey weeps.” - -“Let him weep. When he gets married, he will have time to laugh.” - -“Have you perhaps taught him to speak?” - -“No, he learned to mumble a few words when he lived for three years with -a band of trained dogs.” - -“Poor beast!” - -“Come, come,” said the Little Man, “do not lose time over a donkey that -can weep. Mount quickly and let us go. The night is cool and the road is -long.” - -Pinocchio obeyed without another word. The wagon started again. Toward -dawn the next morning they finally reached that much-longed-for country, -the Land of Toys. - -This great land was entirely different from any other place in the -world. Its population, large though it was, was composed wholly of boys. -The oldest were about fourteen years of age, the youngest, eight. In -the street, there was such a racket, such shouting, such blowing of -trumpets, that it was deafening. Everywhere groups of boys were gathered -together. Some played at marbles, at hopscotch, at ball. Others rode on -bicycles or on wooden horses. Some played at blindman’s buff, others at -tag. Here a group played circus, there another sang and recited. A few -turned somersaults, others walked on their hands with their feet in the -air. Generals in full uniform leading regiments of cardboard soldiers -passed by. Laughter, shrieks, howls, catcalls, hand-clapping followed -this parade. One boy made a noise like a hen, another like a rooster, -and a third imitated a lion in his den. All together they created such -a pandemonium that it would have been necessary for you to put cotton -in your ears. The squares were filled with small wooden theaters, -overflowing with boys from morning till night, and on the walls of the -houses, written with charcoal, were words like these: HURRAH FOR THE -LAND OF TOYS! DOWN WITH ARITHMETIC! NO MORE SCHOOL! - -As soon as they had set foot in that land, Pinocchio, Lamp-Wick, and -all the other boys who had traveled with them started out on a tour of -investigation. They wandered everywhere, they looked into every nook and -corner, house and theater. They became everybody’s friend. Who could be -happier than they? - -What with entertainments and parties, the hours, the days, the weeks -passed like lightning. - -“Oh, what a beautiful life this is!” said Pinocchio each time that, by -chance, he met his friend Lamp-Wick. - -“Was I right or wrong?” answered Lamp-Wick. “And to think you did not -want to come! To think that even yesterday the idea came into your head -to return home to see your Fairy and to start studying again! If today -you are free from pencils and books and school, you owe it to me, to -my advice, to my care. Do you admit it? Only true friends count, after -all.” - -“It’s true, Lamp-Wick, it’s true. If today I am a really happy boy, it -is all because of you. And to think that the teacher, when speaking of -you, used to say, ‘Do not go with that Lamp-Wick! He is a bad companion -and some day he will lead you astray.’” - -“Poor teacher!” answered the other, nodding his head. “Indeed I know how -much he disliked me and how he enjoyed speaking ill of me. But I am of a -generous nature, and I gladly forgive him.” - -“Great soul!” said Pinocchio, fondly embracing his friend. - -Five months passed and the boys continued playing and enjoying -themselves from morn till night, without ever seeing a book, or a desk, -or a school. But, my children, there came a morning when Pinocchio awoke -and found a great surprise awaiting him, a surprise which made him feel -very unhappy, as you shall see. - - - - -CHAPTER 32 - -Pinocchio’s ears become like those of a Donkey. In a little while he -changes into a real Donkey and begins to bray. - - -Everyone, at one time or another, has found some surprise awaiting him. -Of the kind which Pinocchio had on that eventful morning of his life, -there are but few. - -What was it? I will tell you, my dear little readers. On awakening, -Pinocchio put his hand up to his head and there he found-- - -Guess! - -He found that, during the night, his ears had grown at least ten full -inches! - -You must know that the Marionette, even from his birth, had very small -ears, so small indeed that to the naked eye they could hardly be seen. -Fancy how he felt when he noticed that overnight those two dainty organs -had become as long as shoe brushes! - -He went in search of a mirror, but not finding any, he just filled a -basin with water and looked at himself. There he saw what he never -could have wished to see. His manly figure was adorned and enriched by a -beautiful pair of donkey’s ears. - -I leave you to think of the terrible grief, the shame, the despair of -the poor Marionette. - -He began to cry, to scream, to knock his head against the wall, but the -more he shrieked, the longer and the more hairy grew his ears. - -At those piercing shrieks, a Dormouse came into the room, a fat little -Dormouse, who lived upstairs. Seeing Pinocchio so grief-stricken, she -asked him anxiously: - -“What is the matter, dear little neighbor?” - -“I am sick, my little Dormouse, very, very sick--and from an illness -which frightens me! Do you understand how to feel the pulse?” - -“A little.” - -“Feel mine then and tell me if I have a fever.” - -The Dormouse took Pinocchio’s wrist between her paws and, after a few -minutes, looked up at him sorrowfully and said: “My friend, I am sorry, -but I must give you some very sad news.” - -“What is it?” - -“You have a very bad fever.” - -“But what fever is it?” - -“The donkey fever.” - -“I don’t know anything about that fever,” answered the Marionette, -beginning to understand even too well what was happening to him. - -“Then I will tell you all about it,” said the Dormouse. “Know then that, -within two or three hours, you will no longer be a Marionette, nor a -boy.” - -“What shall I be?” - -“Within two or three hours you will become a real donkey, just like the -ones that pull the fruit carts to market.” - -“Oh, what have I done? What have I done?” cried Pinocchio, grasping his -two long ears in his hands and pulling and tugging at them angrily, just -as if they belonged to another. - -“My dear boy,” answered the Dormouse to cheer him up a bit, “why worry -now? What is done cannot be undone, you know. Fate has decreed that all -lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all -their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys.” - -“But is it really so?” asked the Marionette, sobbing bitterly. - -“I am sorry to say it is. And tears now are useless. You should have -thought of all this before.” - -“But the fault is not mine. Believe me, little Dormouse, the fault is -all Lamp-Wick’s.” - -“And who is this Lamp-Wick?” - -“A classmate of mine. I wanted to return home. I wanted to be obedient. -I wanted to study and to succeed in school, but Lamp-Wick said to me, -‘Why do you want to waste your time studying? Why do you want to go to -school? Come with me to the Land of Toys. There we’ll never study again. -There we can enjoy ourselves and be happy from morn till night.’” - -“And why did you follow the advice of that false friend?” - -“Why? Because, my dear little Dormouse, I am a heedless -Marionette--heedless and heartless. Oh! If I had only had a bit of -heart, I should never have abandoned that good Fairy, who loved me -so well and who has been so kind to me! And by this time, I should no -longer be a Marionette. I should have become a real boy, like all these -friends of mine! Oh, if I meet Lamp-Wick I am going to tell him what I -think of him--and more, too!” - -After this long speech, Pinocchio walked to the door of the room. But -when he reached it, remembering his donkey ears, he felt ashamed to show -them to the public and turned back. He took a large cotton bag from a -shelf, put it on his head, and pulled it far down to his very nose. - -Thus adorned, he went out. He looked for Lamp-Wick everywhere, along the -streets, in the squares, inside the theatres, everywhere; but he was -not to be found. He asked everyone whom he met about him, but no one had -seen him. In desperation, he returned home and knocked at the door. - -“Who is it?” asked Lamp-Wick from within. - -“It is I!” answered the Marionette. - -“Wait a minute.” - -After a full half hour the door opened. Another surprise awaited -Pinocchio! There in the room stood his friend, with a large cotton bag -on his head, pulled far down to his very nose. - -At the sight of that bag, Pinocchio felt slightly happier and thought to -himself: - -“My friend must be suffering from the same sickness that I am! I wonder -if he, too, has donkey fever?” - -But pretending he had seen nothing, he asked with a smile: - -“How are you, my dear Lamp-Wick?” - -“Very well. Like a mouse in a Parmesan cheese.” - -“Is that really true?” - -“Why should I lie to you?” - -“I beg your pardon, my friend, but why then are you wearing that cotton -bag over your ears?” - -“The doctor has ordered it because one of my knees hurts. And you, dear -Marionette, why are you wearing that cotton bag down to your nose?” - -“The doctor has ordered it because I have bruised my foot.” - -“Oh, my poor Pinocchio!” - -“Oh, my poor Lamp-Wick!” - -An embarrassingly long silence followed these words, during which time -the two friends looked at each other in a mocking way. - -Finally the Marionette, in a voice sweet as honey and soft as a flute, -said to his companion: - -“Tell me, Lamp-Wick, dear friend, have you ever suffered from an -earache?” - -“Never! And you?” - -“Never! Still, since this morning my ear has been torturing me.” - -“So has mine.” - -“Yours, too? And which ear is it?” - -“Both of them. And yours?” - -“Both of them, too. I wonder if it could be the same sickness.” - -“I’m afraid it is.” - -“Will you do me a favor, Lamp-Wick?” - -“Gladly! With my whole heart.” - -“Will you let me see your ears?” - -“Why not? But before I show you mine, I want to see yours, dear -Pinocchio.” - -“No. You must show yours first.” - -“No, my dear! Yours first, then mine.” - -“Well, then,” said the Marionette, “let us make a contract.” - -“Let’s hear the contract!” - -“Let us take off our caps together. All right?” - -“All right.” - -“Ready then!” - -Pinocchio began to count, “One! Two! Three!” - -At the word “Three!” the two boys pulled off their caps and threw them -high in air. - -And then a scene took place which is hard to believe, but it is all too -true. The Marionette and his friend, Lamp-Wick, when they saw each other -both stricken by the same misfortune, instead of feeling sorrowful and -ashamed, began to poke fun at each other, and after much nonsense, they -ended by bursting out into hearty laughter. - -They laughed and laughed, and laughed again--laughed till they -ached--laughed till they cried. - -But all of a sudden Lamp-Wick stopped laughing. He tottered and almost -fell. Pale as a ghost, he turned to Pinocchio and said: - -“Help, help, Pinocchio!” - -“What is the matter?” - -“Oh, help me! I can no longer stand up.” - -“I can’t either,” cried Pinocchio; and his laughter turned to tears as -he stumbled about helplessly. - -They had hardly finished speaking, when both of them fell on all fours -and began running and jumping around the room. As they ran, their arms -turned into legs, their faces lengthened into snouts and their backs -became covered with long gray hairs. - -This was humiliation enough, but the most horrible moment was the one -in which the two poor creatures felt their tails appear. Overcome with -shame and grief, they tried to cry and bemoan their fate. - -But what is done can’t be undone! Instead of moans and cries, they burst -forth into loud donkey brays, which sounded very much like, “Haw! Haw! -Haw!” - -At that moment, a loud knocking was heard at the door and a voice called -to them: - -“Open! I am the Little Man, the driver of the wagon which brought you -here. Open, I say, or beware!” - - - - -CHAPTER 33 - -Pinocchio, having become a Donkey, is bought by the owner of a Circus, -who wants to teach him to do tricks. The Donkey becomes lame and is sold -to a man who wants to use his skin for a drumhead. - - -Very sad and downcast were the two poor little fellows as they stood -and looked at each other. Outside the room, the Little Man grew more and -more impatient, and finally gave the door such a violent kick that -it flew open. With his usual sweet smile on his lips, he looked at -Pinocchio and Lamp-Wick and said to them: - -“Fine work, boys! You have brayed well, so well that I recognized your -voices immediately, and here I am.” - -On hearing this, the two Donkeys bowed their heads in shame, dropped -their ears, and put their tails between their legs. - -At first, the Little Man petted and caressed them and smoothed down -their hairy coats. Then he took out a currycomb and worked over them -till they shone like glass. Satisfied with the looks of the two little -animals, he bridled them and took them to a market place far away from -the Land of Toys, in the hope of selling them at a good price. - -In fact, he did not have to wait very long for an offer. Lamp-Wick was -bought by a farmer whose donkey had died the day before. Pinocchio went -to the owner of a circus, who wanted to teach him to do tricks for his -audiences. - -And now do you understand what the Little Man’s profession was? This -horrid little being, whose face shone with kindness, went about the -world looking for boys. Lazy boys, boys who hated books, boys who wanted -to run away from home, boys who were tired of school--all these were his -joy and his fortune. He took them with him to the Land of Toys and let -them enjoy themselves to their heart’s content. When, after months of -all play and no work, they became little donkeys, he sold them on the -market place. In a few years, he had become a millionaire. - -What happened to Lamp-Wick? My dear children, I do not know. Pinocchio, -I can tell you, met with great hardships even from the first day. - -After putting him in a stable, his new master filled his manger with -straw, but Pinocchio, after tasting a mouthful, spat it out. - -Then the man filled the manger with hay. But Pinocchio did not like that -any better. - -“Ah, you don’t like hay either?” he cried angrily. “Wait, my pretty -Donkey, I’ll teach you not to be so particular.” - -Without more ado, he took a whip and gave the Donkey a hearty blow -across the legs. - -Pinocchio screamed with pain and as he screamed he brayed: - -“Haw! Haw! Haw! I can’t digest straw!” - -“Then eat the hay!” answered his master, who understood the Donkey -perfectly. - -“Haw! Haw! Haw! Hay gives me a headache!” - -“Do you pretend, by any chance, that I should feed you duck or chicken?” - asked the man again, and, angrier than ever, he gave poor Pinocchio -another lashing. - -At that second beating, Pinocchio became very quiet and said no more. - -After that, the door of the stable was closed and he was left alone. It -was many hours since he had eaten anything and he started to yawn from -hunger. As he yawned, he opened a mouth as big as an oven. - -Finally, not finding anything else in the manger, he tasted the hay. -After tasting it, he chewed it well, closed his eyes, and swallowed it. - -“This hay is not bad,” he said to himself. “But how much happier I -should be if I had studied! Just now, instead of hay, I should be eating -some good bread and butter. Patience!” - -Next morning, when he awoke, Pinocchio looked in the manger for more -hay, but it was all gone. He had eaten it all during the night. - -He tried the straw, but, as he chewed away at it, he noticed to his -great disappointment that it tasted neither like rice nor like macaroni. - -“Patience!” he repeated as he chewed. “If only my misfortune might serve -as a lesson to disobedient boys who refuse to study! Patience! Have -patience!” - -“Patience indeed!” shouted his master just then, as he came into the -stable. “Do you think, perhaps, my little Donkey, that I have brought -you here only to give you food and drink? Oh, no! You are to help me -earn some fine gold pieces, do you hear? Come along, now. I am going -to teach you to jump and bow, to dance a waltz and a polka, and even to -stand on your head.” - -Poor Pinocchio, whether he liked it or not, had to learn all these -wonderful things; but it took him three long months and cost him many, -many lashings before he was pronounced perfect. - -The day came at last when Pinocchio’s master was able to announce an -extraordinary performance. The announcements, posted all around the -town, and written in large letters, read thus: - - GREAT SPECTACLE TONIGHT - LEAPS AND EXERCISES BY THE GREAT ARTISTS - AND THE FAMOUS HORSES - of the - COMPANY - - First Public Appearance - - of the - - FAMOUS DONKEY - - called - - PINOCCHIO - - THE STAR OF THE DANCE - ---- - The Theater will be as Light as Day - -That night, as you can well imagine, the theater was filled to -overflowing one hour before the show was scheduled to start. - -Not an orchestra chair could be had, not a balcony seat, nor a gallery -seat; not even for their weight in gold. - -The place swarmed with boys and girls of all ages and sizes, wriggling -and dancing about in a fever of impatience to see the famous Donkey -dance. - -When the first part of the performance was over, the Owner and Manager -of the circus, in a black coat, white knee breeches, and patent leather -boots, presented himself to the public and in a loud, pompous voice made -the following announcement: - -“Most honored friends, Gentlemen and Ladies! - -“Your humble servant, the Manager of this theater, presents himself -before you tonight in order to introduce to you the greatest, the most -famous Donkey in the world, a Donkey that has had the great honor in his -short life of performing before the kings and queens and emperors of all -the great courts of Europe. - -“We thank you for your attention!” - -This speech was greeted by much laughter and applause. And the applause -grew to a roar when Pinocchio, the famous Donkey, appeared in the circus -ring. He was handsomely arrayed. A new bridle of shining leather with -buckles of polished brass was on his back; two white camellias were tied -to his ears; ribbons and tassels of red silk adorned his mane, which was -divided into many curls. A great sash of gold and silver was fastened -around his waist and his tail was decorated with ribbons of many -brilliant colors. He was a handsome Donkey indeed! - -The Manager, when introducing him to the public, added these words: - -“Most honored audience! I shall not take your time tonight to tell you -of the great difficulties which I have encountered while trying to tame -this animal, since I found him in the wilds of Africa. Observe, I beg -of you, the savage look of his eye. All the means used by centuries of -civilization in subduing wild beasts failed in this case. I had finally -to resort to the gentle language of the whip in order to bring him to -my will. With all my kindness, however, I never succeeded in gaining my -Donkey’s love. He is still today as savage as the day I found him. He -still fears and hates me. But I have found in him one great redeeming -feature. Do you see this little bump on his forehead? It is this bump -which gives him his great talent of dancing and using his feet as nimbly -as a human being. Admire him, O signori, and enjoy yourselves. I let -you, now, be the judges of my success as a teacher of animals. Before -I leave you, I wish to state that there will be another performance -tomorrow night. If the weather threatens rain, the great spectacle will -take place at eleven o’clock in the morning.” - -The Manager bowed and then turned to Pinocchio and said: “Ready, -Pinocchio! Before starting your performance, salute your audience!” - -Pinocchio obediently bent his two knees to the ground and remained -kneeling until the Manager, with the crack of the whip, cried sharply: -“Walk!” - -The Donkey lifted himself on his four feet and walked around the ring. A -few minutes passed and again the voice of the Manager called: - -“Quickstep!” and Pinocchio obediently changed his step. - -“Gallop!” and Pinocchio galloped. - -“Full speed!” and Pinocchio ran as fast as he could. As he ran the -master raised his arm and a pistol shot rang in the air. - -At the shot, the little Donkey fell to the ground as if he were really -dead. - -A shower of applause greeted the Donkey as he arose to his feet. Cries -and shouts and handclappings were heard on all sides. - -At all that noise, Pinocchio lifted his head and raised his eyes. There, -in front of him, in a box sat a beautiful woman. Around her neck she -wore a long gold chain, from which hung a large medallion. On the -medallion was painted the picture of a Marionette. - -“That picture is of me! That beautiful lady is my Fairy!” said Pinocchio -to himself, recognizing her. He felt so happy that he tried his best to -cry out: - -“Oh, my Fairy! My own Fairy!” - -But instead of words, a loud braying was heard in the theater, so loud -and so long that all the spectators--men, women, and children, but -especially the children--burst out laughing. - -Then, in order to teach the Donkey that it was not good manners to bray -before the public, the Manager hit him on the nose with the handle of -the whip. - -The poor little Donkey stuck out a long tongue and licked his nose for a -long time in an effort to take away the pain. - -And what was his grief when on looking up toward the boxes, he saw that -the Fairy had disappeared! - -He felt himself fainting, his eyes filled with tears, and he wept -bitterly. No one knew it, however, least of all the Manager, who, -cracking his whip, cried out: - -“Bravo, Pinocchio! Now show us how gracefully you can jump through the -rings.” - -Pinocchio tried two or three times, but each time he came near the ring, -he found it more to his taste to go under it. The fourth time, at a look -from his master he leaped through it, but as he did so his hind legs -caught in the ring and he fell to the floor in a heap. - -When he got up, he was lame and could hardly limp as far as the stable. - -“Pinocchio! We want Pinocchio! We want the little Donkey!” cried the -boys from the orchestra, saddened by the accident. - -No one saw Pinocchio again that evening. - -The next morning the veterinary--that is, the animal doctor--declared -that he would be lame for the rest of his life. - -“What do I want with a lame donkey?” said the Manager to the stableboy. -“Take him to the market and sell him.” - -When they reached the square, a buyer was soon found. - -“How much do you ask for that little lame Donkey?” he asked. - -“Four dollars.” - -“I’ll give you four cents. Don’t think I’m buying him for work. I want -only his skin. It looks very tough and I can use it to make myself a -drumhead. I belong to a musical band in my village and I need a drum.” - -I leave it to you, my dear children, to picture to yourself the great -pleasure with which Pinocchio heard that he was to become a drumhead! - -As soon as the buyer had paid the four cents, the Donkey changed hands. -His new owner took him to a high cliff overlooking the sea, put a stone -around his neck, tied a rope to one of his hind feet, gave him a push, -and threw him into the water. - -Pinocchio sank immediately. And his new master sat on the cliff waiting -for him to drown, so as to skin him and make himself a drumhead. - - - - -CHAPTER 34 - -Pinocchio is thrown into the sea, eaten by fishes, and becomes a -Marionette once more. As he swims to land, he is swallowed by the -Terrible Shark. - - -Down into the sea, deeper and deeper, sank Pinocchio, and finally, after -fifty minutes of waiting, the man on the cliff said to himself: - -“By this time my poor little lame Donkey must be drowned. Up with him -and then I can get to work on my beautiful drum.” - -He pulled the rope which he had tied to Pinocchio’s leg--pulled and -pulled and pulled and, at last, he saw appear on the surface of the -water--Can you guess what? Instead of a dead donkey, he saw a very much -alive Marionette, wriggling and squirming like an eel. - -Seeing that wooden Marionette, the poor man thought he was dreaming and -sat there with his mouth wide open and his eyes popping out of his head. - -Gathering his wits together, he said: - -“And the Donkey I threw into the sea?” - -“I am that Donkey,” answered the Marionette laughing. - -“You?” - -“I.” - -“Ah, you little cheat! Are you poking fun at me?” - -“Poking fun at you? Not at all, dear Master. I am talking seriously.” - -“But, then, how is it that you, who a few minutes ago were a donkey, are -now standing before me a wooden Marionette?” - -“It may be the effect of salt water. The sea is fond of playing these -tricks.” - -“Be careful, Marionette, be careful! Don’t laugh at me! Woe be to you, -if I lose my patience!” - -“Well, then, my Master, do you want to know my whole story? Untie my leg -and I can tell it to you better.” - -The old fellow, curious to know the true story of the Marionette’s life, -immediately untied the rope which held his foot. Pinocchio, feeling free -as a bird of the air, began his tale: - -“Know, then, that, once upon a time, I was a wooden Marionette, just -as I am today. One day I was about to become a boy, a real boy, but on -account of my laziness and my hatred of books, and because I listened to -bad companions, I ran away from home. One beautiful morning, I awoke to -find myself changed into a donkey--long ears, gray coat, even a tail! -What a shameful day for me! I hope you will never experience one like -it, dear Master. I was taken to the fair and sold to a Circus Owner, who -tried to make me dance and jump through the rings. One night, during a -performance, I had a bad fall and became lame. Not knowing what to do -with a lame donkey, the Circus Owner sent me to the market place and you -bought me.” - -“Indeed I did! And I paid four cents for you. Now who will return my -money to me?” - -“But why did you buy me? You bought me to do me harm--to kill me--to -make a drumhead out of me!” - -“Indeed I did! And now where shall I find another skin?” - -“Never mind, dear Master. There are so many donkeys in this world.” - -“Tell me, impudent little rogue, does your story end here?” - -“One more word,” answered the Marionette, “and I am through. After -buying me, you brought me here to kill me. But feeling sorry for me, you -tied a stone to my neck and threw me to the bottom of the sea. That was -very good and kind of you to want me to suffer as little as possible and -I shall remember you always. And now my Fairy will take care of me, even -if you--” - -“Your Fairy? Who is she?” - -“She is my mother, and, like all other mothers who love their children, -she never loses sight of me, even though I do not deserve it. And today -this good Fairy of mine, as soon as she saw me in danger of drowning, -sent a thousand fishes to the spot where I lay. They thought I was -really a dead donkey and began to eat me. What great bites they took! -One ate my ears, another my nose, a third my neck and my mane. Some went -at my legs and some at my back, and among the others, there was one tiny -fish so gentle and polite that he did me the great favor of eating even -my tail.” - -“From now on,” said the man, horrified, “I swear I shall never again -taste fish. How I should enjoy opening a mullet or a whitefish just to -find there the tail of a dead donkey!” - -“I think as you do,” answered the Marionette, laughing. “Still, you must -know that when the fish finished eating my donkey coat, which covered -me from head to foot, they naturally came to the bones--or rather, in my -case, to the wood, for as you know, I am made of very hard wood. After -the first few bites, those greedy fish found out that the wood was not -good for their teeth, and, afraid of indigestion, they turned and ran -here and there without saying good-by or even as much as thank you to -me. Here, dear Master, you have my story. You know now why you found a -Marionette and not a dead donkey when you pulled me out of the water.” - -“I laugh at your story!” cried the man angrily. “I know that I spent -four cents to get you and I want my money back. Do you know what I can -do; I am going to take you to the market once more and sell you as dry -firewood.” - -“Very well, sell me. I am satisfied,” said Pinocchio. But as he spoke, -he gave a quick leap and dived into the sea. Swimming away as fast as he -could, he cried out, laughing: - -“Good-by, Master. If you ever need a skin for your drum, remember me.” - -He swam on and on. After a while, he turned around again and called -louder than before: - -“Good-by, Master. If you ever need a piece of good dry firewood, -remember me.” - -In a few seconds he had gone so far he could hardly be seen. All that -could be seen of him was a very small black dot moving swiftly on the -blue surface of the water, a little black dot which now and then lifted -a leg or an arm in the air. One would have thought that Pinocchio had -turned into a porpoise playing in the sun. - -After swimming for a long time, Pinocchio saw a large rock in the middle -of the sea, a rock as white as marble. High on the rock stood a little -Goat bleating and calling and beckoning to the Marionette to come to -her. - -There was something very strange about that little Goat. Her coat was -not white or black or brown as that of any other goat, but azure, a deep -brilliant color that reminded one of the hair of the lovely maiden. - -Pinocchio’s heart beat fast, and then faster and faster. He redoubled -his efforts and swam as hard as he could toward the white rock. He was -almost halfway over, when suddenly a horrible sea monster stuck its head -out of the water, an enormous head with a huge mouth, wide open, showing -three rows of gleaming teeth, the mere sight of which would have filled -you with fear. - -Do you know what it was? - -That sea monster was no other than the enormous Shark, which has often -been mentioned in this story and which, on account of its cruelty, had -been nicknamed “The Attila of the Sea” by both fish and fishermen. - -Poor Pinocchio! The sight of that monster frightened him almost to -death! He tried to swim away from him, to change his path, to escape, -but that immense mouth kept coming nearer and nearer. - -“Hasten, Pinocchio, I beg you!” bleated the little Goat on the high -rock. - -And Pinocchio swam desperately with his arms, his body, his legs, his -feet. - -“Quick, Pinocchio, the monster is coming nearer!” - -Pinocchio swam faster and faster, and harder and harder. - -“Faster, Pinocchio! The monster will get you! There he is! There he is! -Quick, quick, or you are lost!” - -Pinocchio went through the water like a shot--swifter and swifter. He -came close to the rock. The Goat leaned over and gave him one of her -hoofs to help him up out of the water. - -Alas! It was too late. The monster overtook him and the Marionette found -himself in between the rows of gleaming white teeth. Only for a moment, -however, for the Shark took a deep breath and, as he breathed, he drank -in the Marionette as easily as he would have sucked an egg. Then he -swallowed him so fast that Pinocchio, falling down into the body of the -fish, lay stunned for a half hour. - -When he recovered his senses the Marionette could not remember where he -was. Around him all was darkness, a darkness so deep and so black that -for a moment he thought he had put his head into an inkwell. He listened -for a few moments and heard nothing. Once in a while a cold wind blew -on his face. At first he could not understand where that wind was coming -from, but after a while he understood that it came from the lungs of the -monster. I forgot to tell you that the Shark was suffering from asthma, -so that whenever he breathed a storm seemed to blow. - -Pinocchio at first tried to be brave, but as soon as he became convinced -that he was really and truly in the Shark’s stomach, he burst into sobs -and tears. “Help! Help!” he cried. “Oh, poor me! Won’t someone come to -save me?” - -“Who is there to help you, unhappy boy?” said a rough voice, like a -guitar out of tune. - -“Who is talking?” asked Pinocchio, frozen with terror. - -“It is I, a poor Tunny swallowed by the Shark at the same time as you. -And what kind of a fish are you?” - -“I have nothing to do with fishes. I am a Marionette.” - -“If you are not a fish, why did you let this monster swallow you?” - -“I didn’t let him. He chased me and swallowed me without even a ‘by your -leave’! And now what are we to do here in the dark?” - -“Wait until the Shark has digested us both, I suppose.” - -“But I don’t want to be digested,” shouted Pinocchio, starting to sob. - -“Neither do I,” said the Tunny, “but I am wise enough to think that if -one is born a fish, it is more dignified to die under the water than in -the frying pan.” - -“What nonsense!” cried Pinocchio. - -“Mine is an opinion,” replied the Tunny, “and opinions should be -respected.” - -“But I want to get out of this place. I want to escape.” - -“Go, if you can!” - -“Is this Shark that has swallowed us very long?” asked the Marionette. - -“His body, not counting the tail, is almost a mile long.” - -While talking in the darkness, Pinocchio thought he saw a faint light in -the distance. - -“What can that be?” he said to the Tunny. - -“Some other poor fish, waiting as patiently as we to be digested by the -Shark.” - -“I want to see him. He may be an old fish and may know some way of -escape.” - -“I wish you all good luck, dear Marionette.” - -“Good-by, Tunny.” - -“Good-by, Marionette, and good luck.” - -“When shall I see you again?” - -“Who knows? It is better not to think about it.” - - - - -CHAPTER 35 - -In the Shark’s body Pinocchio finds whom? Read this chapter, my -children, and you will know. - - -Pinocchio, as soon as he had said good-by to his good friend, the Tunny, -tottered away in the darkness and began to walk as well as he could -toward the faint light which glowed in the distance. - -As he walked his feet splashed in a pool of greasy and slippery water, -which had such a heavy smell of fish fried in oil that Pinocchio thought -it was Lent. - -The farther on he went, the brighter and clearer grew the tiny light. On -and on he walked till finally he found--I give you a thousand guesses, -my dear children! He found a little table set for dinner and lighted by -a candle stuck in a glass bottle; and near the table sat a little old -man, white as the snow, eating live fish. They wriggled so that, now and -again, one of them slipped out of the old man’s mouth and escaped into -the darkness under the table. - -At this sight, the poor Marionette was filled with such great and sudden -happiness that he almost dropped in a faint. He wanted to laugh, he -wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand and one things, but all he -could do was to stand still, stuttering and stammering brokenly. At -last, with a great effort, he was able to let out a scream of joy and, -opening wide his arms he threw them around the old man’s neck. - -“Oh, Father, dear Father! Have I found you at last? Now I shall never, -never leave you again!” - -“Are my eyes really telling me the truth?” answered the old man, rubbing -his eyes. “Are you really my own dear Pinocchio?” - -“Yes, yes, yes! It is I! Look at me! And you have forgiven me, haven’t -you? Oh, my dear Father, how good you are! And to think that I--Oh, but -if you only knew how many misfortunes have fallen on my head and how -many troubles I have had! Just think that on the day you sold your old -coat to buy me my A-B-C book so that I could go to school, I ran away to -the Marionette Theater and the proprietor caught me and wanted to burn -me to cook his roast lamb! He was the one who gave me the five gold -pieces for you, but I met the Fox and the Cat, who took me to the Inn of -the Red Lobster. There they ate like wolves and I left the Inn alone -and I met the Assassins in the wood. I ran and they ran after me, always -after me, till they hanged me to the branch of a giant oak tree. Then -the Fairy of the Azure Hair sent the coach to rescue me and the doctors, -after looking at me, said, ‘If he is not dead, then he is surely alive,’ -and then I told a lie and my nose began to grow. It grew and it grew, -till I couldn’t get it through the door of the room. And then I went -with the Fox and the Cat to the Field of Wonders to bury the gold -pieces. The Parrot laughed at me and, instead of two thousand gold -pieces, I found none. When the Judge heard I had been robbed, he sent -me to jail to make the thieves happy; and when I came away I saw a fine -bunch of grapes hanging on a vine. The trap caught me and the Farmer put -a collar on me and made me a watchdog. He found out I was innocent when -I caught the Weasels and he let me go. The Serpent with the tail that -smoked started to laugh and a vein in his chest broke and so I went back -to the Fairy’s house. She was dead, and the Pigeon, seeing me crying, -said to me, ‘I have seen your father building a boat to look for you in -America,’ and I said to him, ‘Oh, if I only had wings!’ and he said to -me, ‘Do you want to go to your father?’ and I said, ‘Perhaps, but how?’ -and he said, ‘Get on my back. I’ll take you there.’ We flew all night -long, and next morning the fishermen were looking toward the sea, -crying, ‘There is a poor little man drowning,’ and I knew it was you, -because my heart told me so and I waved to you from the shore--” - -“I knew you also,” put in Geppetto, “and I wanted to go to you; but how -could I? The sea was rough and the whitecaps overturned the boat. Then -a Terrible Shark came up out of the sea and, as soon as he saw me in the -water, swam quickly toward me, put out his tongue, and swallowed me as -easily as if I had been a chocolate peppermint.” - -“And how long have you been shut away in here?” - -“From that day to this, two long weary years--two years, my Pinocchio, -which have been like two centuries.” - -“And how have you lived? Where did you find the candle? And the matches -with which to light it--where did you get them?” - -“You must know that, in the storm which swamped my boat, a large ship -also suffered the same fate. The sailors were all saved, but the ship -went right to the bottom of the sea, and the same Terrible Shark that -swallowed me, swallowed most of it.” - -“What! Swallowed a ship?” asked Pinocchio in astonishment. - -“At one gulp. The only thing he spat out was the main-mast, for it -stuck in his teeth. To my own good luck, that ship was loaded with meat, -preserved foods, crackers, bread, bottles of wine, raisins, cheese, -coffee, sugar, wax candles, and boxes of matches. With all these -blessings, I have been able to live happily on for two whole years, but -now I am at the very last crumbs. Today there is nothing left in the -cupboard, and this candle you see here is the last one I have.” - -“And then?” - -“And then, my dear, we’ll find ourselves in darkness.” - -“Then, my dear Father,” said Pinocchio, “there is no time to lose. We -must try to escape.” - -“Escape! How?” - -“We can run out of the Shark’s mouth and dive into the sea.” - -“You speak well, but I cannot swim, my dear Pinocchio.” - -“Why should that matter? You can climb on my shoulders and I, who am a -fine swimmer, will carry you safely to the shore.” - -“Dreams, my boy!” answered Geppetto, shaking his head and smiling sadly. -“Do you think it possible for a Marionette, a yard high, to have the -strength to carry me on his shoulders and swim?” - -“Try it and see! And in any case, if it is written that we must die, we -shall at least die together.” - -Not adding another word, Pinocchio took the candle in his hand and going -ahead to light the way, he said to his father: - -“Follow me and have no fear.” - -They walked a long distance through the stomach and the whole body of -the Shark. When they reached the throat of the monster, they stopped for -a while to wait for the right moment in which to make their escape. - -I want you to know that the Shark, being very old and suffering from -asthma and heart trouble, was obliged to sleep with his mouth open. -Because of this, Pinocchio was able to catch a glimpse of the sky filled -with stars, as he looked up through the open jaws of his new home. - -“The time has come for us to escape,” he whispered, turning to his -father. “The Shark is fast asleep. The sea is calm and the night is -as bright as day. Follow me closely, dear Father, and we shall soon be -saved.” - -No sooner said than done. They climbed up the throat of the monster till -they came to that immense open mouth. There they had to walk on tiptoes, -for if they tickled the Shark’s long tongue he might awaken--and where -would they be then? The tongue was so wide and so long that it looked -like a country road. The two fugitives were just about to dive into the -sea when the Shark sneezed very suddenly and, as he sneezed, he gave -Pinocchio and Geppetto such a jolt that they found themselves thrown -on their backs and dashed once more and very unceremoniously into the -stomach of the monster. - -To make matters worse, the candle went out and father and son were left -in the dark. - -“And now?” asked Pinocchio with a serious face. - -“Now we are lost.” - -“Why lost? Give me your hand, dear Father, and be careful not to slip!” - -“Where will you take me?” - -“We must try again. Come with me and don’t be afraid.” - -With these words Pinocchio took his father by the hand and, always -walking on tiptoes, they climbed up the monster’s throat for a second -time. They then crossed the whole tongue and jumped over three rows of -teeth. But before they took the last great leap, the Marionette said to -his father: - -“Climb on my back and hold on tightly to my neck. I’ll take care of -everything else.” - -As soon as Geppetto was comfortably seated on his shoulders, Pinocchio, -very sure of what he was doing, dived into the water and started to -swim. The sea was like oil, the moon shone in all splendor, and the -Shark continued to sleep so soundly that not even a cannon shot would -have awakened him. - - - - -CHAPTER 36 - -Pinocchio finally ceases to be a Marionette and becomes a boy - - -“My dear Father, we are saved!” cried the Marionette. “All we have to do -now is to get to the shore, and that is easy.” - -Without another word, he swam swiftly away in an effort to reach land as -soon as possible. All at once he noticed that Geppetto was shivering and -shaking as if with a high fever. - -Was he shivering from fear or from cold? Who knows? Perhaps a little -of both. But Pinocchio, thinking his father was frightened, tried to -comfort him by saying: - -“Courage, Father! In a few moments we shall be safe on land.” - -“But where is that blessed shore?” asked the little old man, more and -more worried as he tried to pierce the faraway shadows. “Here I am -searching on all sides and I see nothing but sea and sky.” - -“I see the shore,” said the Marionette. “Remember, Father, that I am -like a cat. I see better at night than by day.” - -Poor Pinocchio pretended to be peaceful and contented, but he was -far from that. He was beginning to feel discouraged, his strength was -leaving him, and his breathing was becoming more and more labored. He -felt he could not go on much longer, and the shore was still far away. - -He swam a few more strokes. Then he turned to Geppetto and cried out -weakly: - -“Help me, Father! Help, for I am dying!” - -Father and son were really about to drown when they heard a voice like a -guitar out of tune call from the sea: - -“What is the trouble?” - -“It is I and my poor father.” - -“I know the voice. You are Pinocchio.” - -“Exactly. And you?” - -“I am the Tunny, your companion in the Shark’s stomach.” - -“And how did you escape?” - -“I imitated your example. You are the one who showed me the way and -after you went, I followed.” - -“Tunny, you arrived at the right moment! I implore you, for the love you -bear your children, the little Tunnies, to help us, or we are lost!” - -“With great pleasure indeed. Hang onto my tail, both of you, and let me -lead you. In a twinkling you will be safe on land.” - -Geppetto and Pinocchio, as you can easily imagine, did not refuse the -invitation; indeed, instead of hanging onto the tail, they thought it -better to climb on the Tunny’s back. - -“Are we too heavy?” asked Pinocchio. - -“Heavy? Not in the least. You are as light as sea-shells,” answered the -Tunny, who was as large as a two-year-old horse. - -As soon as they reached the shore, Pinocchio was the first to jump to -the ground to help his old father. Then he turned to the fish and said -to him: - -“Dear friend, you have saved my father, and I have not enough words -with which to thank you! Allow me to embrace you as a sign of my eternal -gratitude.” - -The Tunny stuck his nose out of the water and Pinocchio knelt on the -sand and kissed him most affectionately on his cheek. At this warm -greeting, the poor Tunny, who was not used to such tenderness, wept -like a child. He felt so embarrassed and ashamed that he turned quickly, -plunged into the sea, and disappeared. - -In the meantime day had dawned. - -Pinocchio offered his arm to Geppetto, who was so weak he could hardly -stand, and said to him: - -“Lean on my arm, dear Father, and let us go. We will walk very, very -slowly, and if we feel tired we can rest by the wayside.” - -“And where are we going?” asked Geppetto. - -“To look for a house or a hut, where they will be kind enough to give us -a bite of bread and a bit of straw to sleep on.” - -They had not taken a hundred steps when they saw two rough-looking -individuals sitting on a stone begging for alms. - -It was the Fox and the Cat, but one could hardly recognize them, they -looked so miserable. The Cat, after pretending to be blind for so many -years had really lost the sight of both eyes. And the Fox, old, thin, -and almost hairless, had even lost his tail. That sly thief had fallen -into deepest poverty, and one day he had been forced to sell his -beautiful tail for a bite to eat. - -“Oh, Pinocchio,” he cried in a tearful voice. “Give us some alms, we beg -of you! We are old, tired, and sick.” - -“Sick!” repeated the Cat. - -“Addio, false friends!” answered the Marionette. “You cheated me once, -but you will never catch me again.” - -“Believe us! Today we are truly poor and starving.” - -“Starving!” repeated the Cat. - -“If you are poor; you deserve it! Remember the old proverb which says: -‘Stolen money never bears fruit.’ Addio, false friends.” - -“Have mercy on us!” - -“On us.” - -“Addio, false friends. Remember the old proverb which says: ‘Bad wheat -always makes poor bread!’” - -“Do not abandon us.” - -“Abandon us,” repeated the Cat. - -“Addio, false friends. Remember the old proverb: ‘Whoever steals his -neighbor’s shirt, usually dies without his own.’” - -Waving good-by to them, Pinocchio and Geppetto calmly went on their way. -After a few more steps, they saw, at the end of a long road near a clump -of trees, a tiny cottage built of straw. - -“Someone must live in that little hut,” said Pinocchio. “Let us see for -ourselves.” - -They went and knocked at the door. - -“Who is it?” said a little voice from within. - -“A poor father and a poorer son, without food and with no roof to cover -them,” answered the Marionette. - -“Turn the key and the door will open,” said the same little voice. - -Pinocchio turned the key and the door opened. As soon as they went in, -they looked here and there and everywhere but saw no one. - -“Oh--ho, where is the owner of the hut?” cried Pinocchio, very much -surprised. - -“Here I am, up here!” - -Father and son looked up to the ceiling, and there on a beam sat the -Talking Cricket. - -“Oh, my dear Cricket,” said Pinocchio, bowing politely. - -“Oh, now you call me your dear Cricket, but do you remember when you -threw your hammer at me to kill me?” - -“You are right, dear Cricket. Throw a hammer at me now. I deserve it! -But spare my poor old father.” - -“I am going to spare both the father and the son. I have only wanted to -remind you of the trick you long ago played upon me, to teach you that -in this world of ours we must be kind and courteous to others, if we -want to find kindness and courtesy in our own days of trouble.” - -“You are right, little Cricket, you are more than right, and I shall -remember the lesson you have taught me. But will you tell how you -succeeded in buying this pretty little cottage?” - -“This cottage was given to me yesterday by a little Goat with blue -hair.” - -“And where did the Goat go?” asked Pinocchio. - -“I don’t know.” - -“And when will she come back?” - -“She will never come back. Yesterday she went away bleating sadly, and -it seemed to me she said: ‘Poor Pinocchio, I shall never see him again. -. .the Shark must have eaten him by this time.’” - -“Were those her real words? Then it was she--it was--my dear little -Fairy,” cried out Pinocchio, sobbing bitterly. After he had cried a -long time, he wiped his eyes and then he made a bed of straw for old -Geppetto. He laid him on it and said to the Talking Cricket: - -“Tell me, little Cricket, where shall I find a glass of milk for my poor -Father?” - -“Three fields away from here lives Farmer John. He has some cows. Go -there and he will give you what you want.” - -Pinocchio ran all the way to Farmer John’s house. The Farmer said to -him: - -“How much milk do you want?” - -“I want a full glass.” - -“A full glass costs a penny. First give me the penny.” - -“I have no penny,” answered Pinocchio, sad and ashamed. - -“Very bad, my Marionette,” answered the Farmer, “very bad. If you have -no penny, I have no milk.” - -“Too bad,” said Pinocchio and started to go. - -“Wait a moment,” said Farmer John. “Perhaps we can come to terms. Do you -know how to draw water from a well?” - -“I can try.” - -“Then go to that well you see yonder and draw one hundred bucketfuls of -water.” - -“Very well.” - -“After you have finished, I shall give you a glass of warm sweet milk.” - -“I am satisfied.” - -Farmer John took the Marionette to the well and showed him how to draw -the water. Pinocchio set to work as well as he knew how, but long before -he had pulled up the one hundred buckets, he was tired out and dripping -with perspiration. He had never worked so hard in his life. - -“Until today,” said the Farmer, “my donkey has drawn the water for me, -but now that poor animal is dying.” - -“Will you take me to see him?” said Pinocchio. - -“Gladly.” - -As soon as Pinocchio went into the stable, he spied a little Donkey -lying on a bed of straw in the corner of the stable. He was worn out -from hunger and too much work. After looking at him a long time, he said -to himself: “I know that Donkey! I have seen him before.” - -And bending low over him, he asked: “Who are you?” - -At this question, the Donkey opened weary, dying eyes and answered in -the same tongue: “I am Lamp-Wick.” - -Then he closed his eyes and died. - -“Oh, my poor Lamp-Wick,” said Pinocchio in a faint voice, as he wiped -his eyes with some straw he had picked up from the ground. - -“Do you feel so sorry for a little donkey that has cost you nothing?” - said the Farmer. “What should I do--I, who have paid my good money for -him?” - -“But, you see, he was my friend.” - -“Your friend?” - -“A classmate of mine.” - -“What,” shouted Farmer John, bursting out laughing. “What! You had -donkeys in your school? How you must have studied!” - -The Marionette, ashamed and hurt by those words, did not answer, but -taking his glass of milk returned to his father. - -From that day on, for more than five months, Pinocchio got up every -morning just as dawn was breaking and went to the farm to draw water. -And every day he was given a glass of warm milk for his poor old father, -who grew stronger and better day by day. But he was not satisfied with -this. He learned to make baskets of reeds and sold them. With the money -he received, he and his father were able to keep from starving. - -Among other things, he built a rolling chair, strong and comfortable, to -take his old father out for an airing on bright, sunny days. - -In the evening the Marionette studied by lamplight. With some of the -money he had earned, he bought himself a secondhand volume that had -a few pages missing, and with that he learned to read in a very short -time. As far as writing was concerned, he used a long stick at one end -of which he had whittled a long, fine point. Ink he had none, so he used -the juice of blackberries or cherries. Little by little his diligence -was rewarded. He succeeded, not only in his studies, but also in his -work, and a day came when he put enough money together to keep his old -father comfortable and happy. Besides this, he was able to save the -great amount of fifty pennies. With it he wanted to buy himself a new -suit. - -One day he said to his father: - -“I am going to the market place to buy myself a coat, a cap, and a pair -of shoes. When I come back I’ll be so dressed up, you will think I am a -rich man.” - -He ran out of the house and up the road to the village, laughing and -singing. Suddenly he heard his name called, and looking around to see -whence the voice came, he noticed a large snail crawling out of some -bushes. - -“Don’t you recognize me?” said the Snail. - -“Yes and no.” - -“Do you remember the Snail that lived with the Fairy with Azure Hair? Do -you not remember how she opened the door for you one night and gave you -something to eat?” - -“I remember everything,” cried Pinocchio. “Answer me quickly, pretty -Snail, where have you left my Fairy? What is she doing? Has she forgiven -me? Does she remember me? Does she still love me? Is she very far away -from here? May I see her?” - -At all these questions, tumbling out one after another, the Snail -answered, calm as ever: - -“My dear Pinocchio, the Fairy is lying ill in a hospital.” - -“In a hospital?” - -“Yes, indeed. She has been stricken with trouble and illness, and she -hasn’t a penny left with which to buy a bite of bread.” - -“Really? Oh, how sorry I am! My poor, dear little Fairy! If I had a -million I should run to her with it! But I have only fifty pennies. Here -they are. I was just going to buy some clothes. Here, take them, little -Snail, and give them to my good Fairy.” - -“What about the new clothes?” - -“What does that matter? I should like to sell these rags I have on to -help her more. Go, and hurry. Come back here within a couple of days -and I hope to have more money for you! Until today I have worked for my -father. Now I shall have to work for my mother also. Good-by, and I hope -to see you soon.” - -The Snail, much against her usual habit, began to run like a lizard -under a summer sun. - -When Pinocchio returned home, his father asked him: - -“And where is the new suit?” - -“I couldn’t find one to fit me. I shall have to look again some other -day.” - -That night, Pinocchio, instead of going to bed at ten o’clock waited -until midnight, and instead of making eight baskets, he made sixteen. - -After that he went to bed and fell asleep. As he slept, he dreamed of -his Fairy, beautiful, smiling, and happy, who kissed him and said to -him, “Bravo, Pinocchio! In reward for your kind heart, I forgive you for -all your old mischief. Boys who love and take good care of their parents -when they are old and sick, deserve praise even though they may not be -held up as models of obedience and good behavior. Keep on doing so well, -and you will be happy.” - -At that very moment, Pinocchio awoke and opened wide his eyes. - -What was his surprise and his joy when, on looking himself over, he saw -that he was no longer a Marionette, but that he had become a real live -boy! He looked all about him and instead of the usual walls of straw, he -found himself in a beautifully furnished little room, the prettiest he -had ever seen. In a twinkling, he jumped down from his bed to look on -the chair standing near. There, he found a new suit, a new hat, and a -pair of shoes. - -As soon as he was dressed, he put his hands in his pockets and pulled -out a little leather purse on which were written the following words: - - The Fairy with Azure Hair returns - fifty pennies to her dear Pinocchio - with many thanks for his kind heart. - -The Marionette opened the purse to find the money, and behold--there -were fifty gold coins! - -Pinocchio ran to the mirror. He hardly recognized himself. The bright -face of a tall boy looked at him with wide-awake blue eyes, dark brown -hair and happy, smiling lips. - -Surrounded by so much splendor, the Marionette hardly knew what he was -doing. He rubbed his eyes two or three times, wondering if he were still -asleep or awake and decided he must be awake. - -“And where is Father?” he cried suddenly. He ran into the next room, and -there stood Geppetto, grown years younger overnight, spick and span -in his new clothes and gay as a lark in the morning. He was once more -Mastro Geppetto, the wood carver, hard at work on a lovely picture -frame, decorating it with flowers and leaves, and heads of animals. - -“Father, Father, what has happened? Tell me if you can,” cried -Pinocchio, as he ran and jumped on his Father’s neck. - -“This sudden change in our house is all your doing, my dear Pinocchio,” - answered Geppetto. - -“What have I to do with it?” - -“Just this. When bad boys become good and kind, they have the power of -making their homes gay and new with happiness.” - -“I wonder where the old Pinocchio of wood has hidden himself?” - -“There he is,” answered Geppetto. And he pointed to a large Marionette -leaning against a chair, head turned to one side, arms hanging limp, and -legs twisted under him. - -After a long, long look, Pinocchio said to himself with great content: - -“How ridiculous I was as a Marionette! And how happy I am, now that I -have become a real boy!” From 9eb1d276a522b33d4fc12c40625e3b49413fd277 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: napomj Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 20:30:28 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 83/83] ignoring training text --- gpt-2/.gitignore | 3 +++ 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) diff --git a/gpt-2/.gitignore b/gpt-2/.gitignore index 5b1531ee0..4d27c958f 100644 --- a/gpt-2/.gitignore +++ b/gpt-2/.gitignore @@ -5,3 +5,6 @@ checkpoint samples dist-newstyle bin +bees.txt +alice.txt +train.txt \ No newline at end of file